JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images(MANDAN, N.D.) -- The Department of the Army will not approve an easement that would allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, the Army's Assistant Secretary for Civil Works announced Sunday in a statement.



The Army claimed in a statement that Assistant Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy based her decision on a need to explore "alternate routes for the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing."



Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell released a statement in support of the decision, saying that the "thoughtful approach established by the Army Sunday ensures that there will be an in-depth evaluation of alternative routes for the pipeline and a closer look at potential impacts."



The Standing Rock Sioux tribe also praised the decision, and thanked both the Obama administration and the many people who supported the effort to stop the pipeline from being built across Lake Oahe.



"We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and to do the right thing," Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement. "The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and all of Indian Country will be forever grateful to the Obama Administration for this historic decision."



The news comes on a day when at least 2,000 U.S. military veterans have arrived at Standing Rock amid frigid cold to help battle against the construction of the pipeline.



The vets, led by Wesley Clark Jr., son of retired general and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark, began arriving in force Sunday to help protest against the controversial crude oil pipeline project in North Dakota.

They joined the months-long demonstration at what felt like a moment of heightened drama: The North Dakota governor had issued an emergency evacuation order for protesters around the site, which follows a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deadline for demonstrators to leave the area by Monday, Dec. 5.

Today's @usarmy announcement underscores that tribal rights are essential components to analysis of #DAPL going forward.SJ pic.twitter.com/2VAiubBTLL  Sally Jewell (@SecretaryJewell) December 4, 2016

But the evacuation order, which could have come with mass arrests, was made prior to Sunday's statement by the Army.



Protesters and their supporters showed little inclination to back down, prior to the announcement this afternoon.



Donations to a GoFundMe account launched by Clark in support of Veterans for Standing Rock, a group he claimed would "assemble as a peaceful, unarmed militia at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation," passed the $1 million dollar mark this morning, coming from more than 24,000 individual donors, according to a page promoting the cause.



Standing Rock protesters described the veterans' mission as serving as a kind of "human shield" between peaceful demonstrators and police.



In addition to Clark's "peaceful militia," the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights told ABC News on Friday that it would send commissioners to North Dakota to monitor for any possible civil rights violations, as clashes between protesters and law enforcement have at times turned violent.



Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based company behind the Dakota Pipeline, has argued that concerns about its potential to pollute water are unfounded.



He also wrote in an internal memo to staff in September that "multiple archaeological studies conducted with state historic preservation offices found no sacred items along the route," suggesting that the construction of the pipeline would not affect Native Americans who live in the area where it is being built.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
A Crow tribal members assertion that tribal treaty hunting rights protect him from charges of illegally shooting a bull elk in Wyoming will face its second test Dec. 9.

Thats when his case goes before Sheridan, Wyo., District Judge John Fenn.

Crow member Clayvin Herrera was found guilty by a Sheridan Circuit jury in April of illegally killing an elk on the Bighorn National Forest out of season in January 2014. He was fined and ordered to pay costs of $8,080, received a suspended jail sentence and had his hunting privileges suspended for three years.

Herreras attorney is petitioning the District Court to reverse the conviction. Should the District Court deny the appeal, Herrera can still take his case to the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Maybe more importantly, the judge is being asked to reverse the Circuit Courts ruling that denied Herrera the opportunity to argue that his hunting in Wyoming is protected by the Crow Tribes 1868 treaty with the United States government.

Treaty rights

Instead, the Circuit Court ruled the treaty immunity issue had already been settled by a similar 1995 10th Circuit Court case: Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis. Consequently, Herreras attorney couldnt introduce any treaty evidence to support the argument.

Repsis has not been overruled and is federal precedent, wrote Sheridan Deputy County and Prosecuting Attorney Christopher LaRosa in his brief to the District Court judge.

LaRosa claimed the Repsis case correctly recognized the Crow Tribes treaty hunting rights in Wyoming were intended to be temporary. Those rights were "extinguished" when Wyoming became a state, according to the 1896 case Ward v. Race Horse, he further stated.

LaRosa goes on to argue that the Bighorn National Forest are occupied lands and that treaty rights only extended to unoccupied lands.

In addition, LaRosa said the elk on the forest are not the product of nature, but rather only exist because the state transplanted elk there. Under that argument, LaRosa suggested Wyoming has the right to regulate Indian and non-Indian hunting for conservation purposes.

The Indians do not get a free ride on the accomplishments and creations of the State, LaRosa wrote.

Counterpoint

Herreras Billings attorney, Kyle Anne Gray, refuted all of LaRosas arguments in her brief, pointing to a more recent 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision  Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians  that rejected the extinguishment by statehood argument.

Gray also called the assertion that Wyoming is somehow occupying a federal national forest simply wrong and that the states new 'conservation necessity arguments cannot withstand scrutiny since there is no shortage of elk in Wyoming and therefore no threat to the animals existence if Crow treaty rights are recognized.

There is no support at all for the States thoroughly debunked and discredited state-created resource argument, and this Court must reject it, Gray wrote.

She pointed to a 1975 case regarding tribal treaty fishing rights in Washington as the basis for case law that says the state must pursue its goals as best it can by regulation of its own non-treaty citizens rather than by enforcing limits on tribal members.

Joining in

Three Indian law professors  Debra Donohue from the University of Wyoming and University of Montana professors Maylinn Smith and Monte Mills  have asked the District Court for leave to file a brief in support of Herrera.

The issues raised in this appeal have impact well beyond the confines of this case, as the interpretation of Indian treaties, and the rights reserved therein, are matters of constitutional import central to federal Indian law, the motion stated.

The motion further argued that no court has established that Congress intended to repeal the treaty hunting right.

Likewise, the Crow Tribe submitted a motion asking the District Court to grant Herreras appeal and overturn the lower courts ruling.

The Tribe stands ready to work with the State of Wyoming to protect and preserve elk and any other shared resources on the (Bighorn National Forest), the motion stated. Wyoming need only ask.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held bilateral talks with Afghanistan President Mohm Ashraf Ghani, with focus of the discussion revolving around the menace of terrorism, specially cross-border attacks originating from their common neighbour Pakistan. The two leaders met on the sidelines of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process in Amritsar. "Both leaders exchanged views on the common threat of terrorism, especially the cross border nature of the scourge, which had caused immense suffering to the people of India and Afghanistan. In this context, the two leaders agreed to strengthen counter terror cooperation between the two countries, and enhance coordination at the UN and other relevant fora," MEA Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. The two leaders discussed several aspects of the close and friendly relations between the two countries. They also reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries. The leaders noted with satisfaction the prospects for bilateral relations and agreed that both countries would continue to work ever harder for further strengthening them. They agreed to operationalise the additional amount of one billion dollar for bilateral cooperation, especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including through a possible air corridor between India and Afghanistan to overcome obstacles to promotion of bilateral trade. Mr Ghani noted the convergence of values and interests as exemplified in the strategic partnership. Recalling his visit to Golden Temple yesterday with Mr Modi, the Afghan leader said it was a moving experience. UNI MK RJ 1354 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-1050836.Xml
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said mere condemning terrorism is not enough and there's need for "resolute actions" against both the terror elements and also those who support and sponsor terrorism, even as he gave a clarion call for making Afghanistan a "geography of peace""Let us make Afghanistan a geography of peace," Modi said delivering his address while inaugurating the 'Heart of Asia, Istanbul Process Ministerial Conference' here along with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani."We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror network that cause bloodshed and spread fear....Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters," Prime Minister said. He said on India's part, the commitment to "our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering" and added: "We should all work to build stronger positive connectivity between Afghanistan and other countries of the region". In his inaugural address, Afghanistan President Ghani made a veiled attack on Pakistan and said, while his country would not try to indulge in any "blame game", at the same time, "without peace any amt of assistance will not meet the needs of our people". He also referred to "undeclared war" - an indirect hint to support to terror elements in Pakistan - and said there were still "sanctuaries" supporting extremism.In this context, President Ghani said, "if they did not have sanctuary in Pakistan, they would not last one month".The union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is substituting for ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the conference, in his welcome address said India is "ready" to help Afghanistan in its endeavour to emerge as a peaceful sovereign nation.Afghan foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani said despite achievements in developments in Afghanistan, there still remains a few challenges.The union Minister for External Affairs Gen (Retd) V.K.Singh said the inaugural speeches of both Indian Prime Minister Modi and Afghan President Ghani has set the tone right for the conference. Issues like enhancing Afghanistan's connectivity with South and Central Asian countries to boost trade are at the top of the agenda of the conference. The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was floated in 2011 to work for encourage strategic, security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours. Among others the participating countries include Pakistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates besides Afghanistan.Being attended by nearly 40 countries and leading groupings like the European Union, the conference also sought to explore new ways to effectively deal with threat of terrorism and other conflicts in the region and help the war-ravaged Afghanistan. UNI DEVN CJ RJ 1333 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1050832.Xml
Trouble started when security forces raided a number of houses during the night at Palhallan Pattan to arrest the stone pelters, who were evading arrest. However, locals, including women and youth, hit the streets raising 'pro-freedom' slogans.

Locals alleged that security forces arrested some youth during the raids.

As the demonstrators were heading towards the main Srinagar-Baramulla road in a procession early this morning, security forces resorted to lathi charge, which had no impact on the demonstrators, who continued pelting stones.

Later, security forces burst teargas shells to disperse the protestors, who were again regrouping and pelting stones till this morning.

Additional security forces and state police personnel were rushed to maintain law and order and prevent any stone pelting on vehicles plying on main road.UNI BAS CJ RJ 1306

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A special meeting has been called by him on December 7 at Raj Bhawan to discuss the implementation of this system.

The Vice Chancellors of Universities, heads of the leading banks and senior officers of the Reserve Bank of India would also attend this meeting.

In order to impart training to the students for making use of cashless system, another meeting has been also fixed for 17 December in which topper students of the universities would participate along with Vice Chancellors.

The representatives of leading banks like State Bank of India, UCO Bank, Punjab National Bank and Cooperative Bank would guide the students to adopt the cashless system.

These students would further train other students of their respective universities and also in the rural areas during the vacation time.

Later on the exercise would be carried out at college level so that Himachal Pradesh could become the leading state in implementation of cashless system in the country. (ANI)
Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav has dubbed BJP a "party of goondas", bringing bad name to grand alliance government and Bihar. Reacting sharply to hooliganism perpetrated by BJP workers at local Jai Prakash Narain International airport to welcome newly elected state party president Nitiyanand Rai two days back, Mr Yadav tweeted in Hindi, "Gundo ki party BJP Bihar mein gundagardi karti hain aur badnam Mahagathbandhan evam Bihar hota hain. Besharm, Bejamir ---Jungle Raj kaun la rahan hain" (BJP, a party of criminals indulges in unlawful activities and brings bad name to grand alliance and Bihar. Shameless, immoral who is bringing Jungle Raj). Mr Yadav also shared visual of a news channel report showing BJP workers displaying their horse-riding skills at the airport. As it is, some BJP workers with party flags had virtually converted the airport premises into a race course of sorts by riding their colts, much to the dismay of passengers and their relatives who had gone there to receive them. UNI DH-IS AKM 1410 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-1050902.Xml
Back from hospital as she was admitted for viral fever a few days back, Congress President Sonia Gandhi today chaired a key meeting of the Congress Election Committee wherein the leaders took stock of the ensuing elections in Punjab. The meeting was also attended by former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, party sources said. Congress is out of power in Punjab since 2007. It had won the 2002 assembly polls by winning 62 seats but the Congress strength in the 117-member assembly came down to 44 in 2007 and it was 46 in 2012. For the next year's polls, Congress has to face a stiff challenge from the Akali Dal-BJP combine and also a new entrant, Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party, has put up a good show in 2014 parliamentary polls winning four seats. The preliminary reports of the Congress Screening Committee Punjab headed by former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was also discussed at the meeting, sources said. Among other issues related to poll management in Punjab, the Election Committee discussed matters concerning entries of Pargat Singh and Navjot Kaur Siddhu into the party recently. Congress sources said the election panel will again meet on December 8.UNI DEVN CJ 1409 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1050840.Xml
Almost four months after a lull after the entire world was rocked by the seizure of over Rs. 2,000-crore worth Ephedrine by the Thane Crime branch officials, the Thane Nagar Police yesterday seized Ephedrine again from Nigerian nationals, the police said today. The probe team also raided the premises of the Avon Life Sciences at Solapur and seized a large stock of around 18 tonnes of Ephedrine and what followed was a history with the directors, managers and others being arrested in that case. The main player in the entire case Vicky Goswami and Mamta Kulkarni, who are wanted in the case, are still at large. The mega raid was sparked off after the police arrested two people from the city in mid-August last and seized a small quantity of Ephedrine and the probe led to the big catch. The Senior Police Inspector of the Thane Nagar Ptation Mandar Dharmadhikari, who has earlier working in the Anti Narcotic Cell told UNI that it was around 23.45pm last night when the team of Thane Police spotted three Nigerians moving around the Shivaji Path near Thane Station's Gaondevi Maidan area. The police accosted them and a search on them revealed they were carrying MD and Epiderine with them.The police seized both the contraband drugs 260 gms of MD and 320 gms of the Epiderine which are presently valued at around Rs. 12 lakhs said Mr. Dharmadhikari. He gave the names of the Nigerians as Justin Imbonako Joy, 28 , Yugo Chukua Ajaha, 32, and Sulemon Okik Ikinochokoho, 26 the police said and added that they were recently residing in Nalla Sopara. The police have charged them under sections 8,22,9(a), 25 and 29 of the NDPS Act the police said and added that the case has been since transferred to the Anti Narcotic Cell of Thane police for further probe he said.UNI XR NP CJ PS SNU 1434 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1050916.Xml
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today sought greater international cooperation in the fight against terror in the region and targeted Pakistan by stating that "terrorism and externally induced instability" pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity. For his part, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, much to the chagrin of Pakistan's advisor to PM Nawaz Sharif, said the aid amount offered by Islamabad to Kabul for welfare works should be rather used to fight terror elements in Pakistan. "The growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough... Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters," Mr Modi said delivering his address while inaugurating the 'Heart of Asia, Istanbul Process Ministerial Conference' here along with Mr Ghani. The Prime Minister gave a clarion call for making Afghanistan a "geography of peace" and strongly advocated for "resolute action" -- not just against the forces of terrorism, "but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them". "Let us also reflect with urgency on what more must be done and what we must avoid in Afghanistan so that its citizens can self-sustain peace and economic growth. The answers are all there," he said in obvious reference to Pakistan. "The question is of resolve and action," the Prime Minister underlined. Earlier in his address, the Afghanistan President virtually mocked at Pakistan for its offer of US $500-million aid for Afghanistan development. ''We need to identify cross-border terrorism and a fund to combat terrorism. Pakistan has pledged 500 million dollars for Afghanistan's development, but we don't need it. Use the amount Mr Sartaj Aziz to contain terrorism in your country,'' he said. "Without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people," Mr Ghani said. About 30 terrorist groups, as named by the UN, are trying to establish a base in Afghanistan. "The country suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable," said Mr Ghani. He also highlighted the role of the projects and agreements signed among India, Iran and Afghanistan and said such endeavours will help in "transforming Afghanistan from land-lock country to a land-bridge state". The project of Chabahar Port between the three countries is very important to us for connectivity, Mr Ghani said. Endorsing the views, the Prime Minister speaking after Mr Ghani said, "Because, at stake is not just the future of Afghanistan that has invested in a vision of development, democracy, and pluralism. But, the peace and stability of this entire region, and beyond". Mr Modi said, Afghanistan should be at the centre of "our connectivity networks and not peripheral to them". On India's part, he said, New Delhi sees Afghanistan as the "hub" for strengthening links of connectivity between South Asia and Central Asia. "We cannot deny that the more connected Afghanistan is with the regional arteries of trade, capital and markets, the more assured would be its economic growth and progress. President Ghani and I have converged on the priority of strengthening trade and transport linkages with other partners in the region," the Prime Minister said. "Our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering. The welfare of Afghanistan and its people is close to our hearts and minds," Modi said. "Let us re-dedicate ourselves to making Afghanistan a Geography of Peace. A place where reason and peace succeeds; progress and prosperity prevails and democracy and plurality wins," the Prime Minister said. Mr Ghani also used strong words and accused Pakistan of providing 'sanctuary' to terrorists. He also referred to "undeclared war" -- an indirect hint to support to terror elements in Pakistan -- and said, "if they did not have sanctuary in Pakistan, they would not last one month". Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is substituting for ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the conference, in his welcome address said India is "ready" to help Afghanistan in its endeavour to emerge as a peaceful sovereign nation. Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani thanked India, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other countries for contributing in stabilising and developing Afghanistan. Issues like enhancing Afghanistan's connectivity with South and Central Asian countries to boost trade are at the top of the agenda of the conference. The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was floated in 2011 to work for encourage strategic, security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours. Among others the participating countries include Pakistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates besides Afghanistan. The conference also being attended by groupings like the European Union, seeks to explore new ways and means to effectively deal with threat of terrorism and other conflicts in the region and help the war-ravaged Afghanistan. UNI DEVN AE SNU 1548 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0445-1050949.Xml
Police said the deceased identified as Dhananjaya, Jayadeva andManjuath all hails from Mudalapallya in Bengaluru. The injured havebeen admitted to Shivamogga hospital.

The incident occurred the car was coming from Bengaluru toSigandur on their trip and try to avoid a hitting pit dashed against a road side tree. Shivamogga rural police registered a case.UNI BSP RS RSS1440

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Speaking to mediapersons here, the Yamakanamaradi MLA said hewould never quit Congress party.

''I had quit the Siddaramaiah cabinet voluntarily and even ifJD(S) makes me the next Chief Minister, I will not joint thatparty'', he said.

Mr Satish had been dropped and his brother Ramesh Jarkiholiinducted into the Congress government Cabinet recently as the formerremained in acting being a Minister and disgruntled with his portfolio.

The Jarkinoli siblings are powerful in Belagavi districtcommanding large patronage and businesses in sugar and liquor industry.

Satish reiterated that he will continue to be a social workerworking for downtrodden communities in the district and other partsof the state and remain in Congress party.

He said since he was not invited to the Congress workersconvention held in Gokak on Saturday following which he did notattend the convention and noting more should be read out of it.

Satish said he always supported Congress and after being out ofthe cabinet tried to build the party in the District despite'rumors' of his strained relation with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. ''The Chief Minister himself has clarified how good friends weare,'' he said.

Speaking on the film 'High Command' that he is funding as aproducer, Mr Jarkiholi said auditions was underway and the shootingwould begin in the month of January next year. The picture willfocus on the political scenario and social life, he informed. UNI HVN RS CS 1747

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Anyone looking for interesting details about the Custer Gallatin National Forest can find a wealth of knowledge in its newly released  although bureaucratically titled  Assessment of Existing Conditions.

For example, the Lee Metcalf and Absaroka-Beartooth wilderness areas account for more than one third of the forests total acreage. The wilderness areas include about 840 miles of trails, mostly in the Absaroka-Beartooth.

Its a much more condensed and easier to read document, said Mariah Leuschen-Lonergan, information officer for the forest. Its actually a pilot project to look at making them more accessible and easy to read for the public.

The 130-page assessment was produced as the first part of the agencys Forest Plan Revision, which a news release described as an overarching document that guides the Custer Gallatin National Forest for the upcoming 15 or more years.

The planning process will take the next three years, with numerous opportunities for public comment. A final forest plan is expected to be signed in 2019. The plans are never a done deed, though. The current Gallatin plan has been amended about 50 times since it was drafted in 1987, Leuschen-Lonergan said, while the Custer plan was been modified 34 times.

Newer forest

The Custer Gallatin National Forest was officially created in 2014, a move that took several years and was meant to reduce staff in the agencys Billings and Bozeman offices in the face of tighter federal budgets.

By uniting the two long-separate forests the agency created a national forest that sprawls across more than 3 million acres and seven ranger districts, spanning the southern width of Montana and into South Dakota. In the process the Forest Service created one of the most diverse landscapes of any national forest in the continental United States, a management area that extends from the 11,000-foot tundra found in the Beartooth Mountains to the ponderosa pine savanna and badlands of South Dakotas Sioux Ranger District.

Even if the text doesnt intrigue readers, the diversity of snapshots is worth a glance.

We worked hard to try and find a variety of photos, Leuschen-Lonergan said.

Some facts

Government documents arent known for their readability, but this assessment seems an exception, especially for those who thrive on interesting facts and numbers. Heres a sampling of what the report contains:

Nearly 60 percent of the Ashland District landscape has been affected by large fires since 1995. In 2012 alone, about one-third of this landscape burned in the Ash Creek and Taylor Creek fires, which reduced the percent of land covered by forest from about 50 percent in 1995 to about 25 percent today.

More than 4,300 cultural resources were listed in the Forest Services database, 48 of which are listed on the National Register, 541 are eligible for nomination and another 3,595 sites, or 83 percent of the sites in the database, have not been evaluated for National Register eligibility.

Roughly 36,200 head of cattle, 550 horses and 400 domestic bison are permitted to graze at various times throughout the year on Custer Gallatin lands and associated private lands.

More than 5,400 private agricultural and residential water rights are held on aquatic diversion points on the national forest.

Long view

Such details may not be eye-arching for some folks, but consider this: because of its location and land management policies, the Custer Gallatin may become a refugia  a habitat for native species, such as cutthroat trout, that become scarce or extinct elsewhere due to climate change and other factors.

When considered in such a dramatic context, maybe forest visitors will be more likely to take care of their forest neighborhood. Or maybe not.

Either way, folks can get involved now by adding their comments to the document and its partner Need to Change publication by Jan. 6, 2017. To do that, the public can use the Comment Analysis Response Application, an electronic commenting tool. A Reviewers Guide to Review and Feedback is available online.

The public can also email cgplanrevision@fs.fed.us or write to: Attn: Forest Plan Revision, Custer Gallatin National Forest, 10 E Babcock, P.O. Box 130, Bozeman, MT 59771. The subject line should be: Assessment of Existing Conditions/Need to Change Feedback.

The two documents are available for download online at: www.fs.usda.gov/custergallatin, by clicking on Forest Plan Revision (upper right-hand corner quicklink), public involvement and assessment links. Hard copy versions are also available at district offices, 12 community libraries, the Cooke City chamber desk or by calling 406-587-6735.
A large number of Dalits including women staged a rasta roko paralysing the traffic in P.Thimmapuram village of Pithapuram mandal today in protest against the desecration of Dr Ambedkar statue in the village by some hooligans last night. The dalits raised slogans demanding action against the miscreants who broke the pointed finger of Dr Ambedkar statue and pasted dung on it. However, the police and revenue authorities who rushed to the spot have pacified the protesters assuring of stern action against the culprits, there by restoring normalcy. DSP Suryadevara Venkateswerarao who visited the place has pressed into service police dogs to track the clues about the miscreants. A police picket was posted in the village as a precautionary measure, police said.UNI XC-DP CS 1829 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1051195.Xml
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, known for his plain speaking against Pakistan, today snubbed Islamabad yet again at an international global meet here when in an unambiguous term he rejected Islamabad's offer of 500-million-dollar assistance for developmental funds and counseled Islamabad to use the amount to fight terror. Mr Ghani also laid emphasis for setting up of an Asian or international regime to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations along the borders in his country. "This fund, Mr Aziz, could very well be used to contain extremists because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people," Mr Ghani told the inaugural session of the 6th Hearth of Asia Ministerial conference here in the presence of Sartaz Aziz, Foreign Affairs Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several key participants of the diplomatic corps, including representatives of European Union were also present. This is not the first time, Mr Ghani has slammed Pakistan. During his visit to New Delhi in September this year, addressing a session at IDSA, the Afghan President had described Pakistan as a country that "celebrates every single episode of its own defeat" as victory and "every single intelligence failure as a confirmation of conspiracy theory". In a veiled reference to Pakistan, Mr Ghani had also said, "Terrorism will bite, like a snake, who feeds it". At the Heart of Asia meet today, President Ghani said despite Afghanistan's ties with Pakistan, the "undeclared war" that started in winter of 2014, has "intensified" after the Brussels conference on Afghanistan's transition. In contrast to Islamabad's policy towards its western neighbour, Ghani said India's assistance has been "transparent" and with "no hidden deals" or strings attached. In strongly worded speech, Mr Ghani said the Taliban insurgency -- that afflicts his country -- would not survive a month if there was no "sanctuary" in neighbouring Pakistan. The Afghan President also laid emphasis for a Asian or international regime -- "whatever is acceptable to Pakistan" saying such a mechanism should be put in place to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations. "We do not want blame game, we want verification," Mr Ghani said. Ironically, Pakistan PM's trusted aide Sartaz Aziz had called on the Afghanistan President on the sidelines of the conference in the morning here. Pakistani diplomatic sources have said that both the leaders "discussed prospects of peace, development and stability" in Afghanistan. Mr Ghani's strong remarks almost mocking at Pakistan's offer of financial aid clearly suggested that tensions were growing with Pakistan after Mr Ghani attempted to improve relations when he took office in 2014. Afghanistan has also lately called terror emanating from Pakistan as the "greatest threat" to the regional peace and stability. Kabul has been pressing for a regional counter-terror framework at the Heart of Asia conference to effectively deal with terrorism. Significantly enough, Indian Prime Minister speaking after Ghani said, "an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled process is key and the only guarantor of durability of solutions". "We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear," Modi said even as he said, "terrorism and externally induced instability" pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity. Admitting that violence has increased manifold, Mr Ghani told the meet, that last year, Afghanistan suffered the highest number of civilian casualties and military related deaths in the world. "This is unacceptable... Some still provide sanctuary for terrorists. As a Taliban figure said recently, if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," Mr Ghani remarked. Mr Aziz, however, later said, "We need to have an objective and holistic view rather to blame one country".There has been significant improvement in India-Afghanistan ties in recent months. UNI DEVN AE SNU 1900 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0445-1051186.Xml
The Minister after his return from the North Karnataka citycomplained of temperature and was admitted to government hospitaland doctors said his condition was under control and there was nocause for concern.

Mr Kumar took part in the two-week long session actively.He returned to the city this morning and complained of stress and temperature. Later he was taken to the government hospital.

He is now recovering in the VVIP ward of the hospital in theteeming Sivajinagar in Cantonment area in the city.

However, his gesture to take treatment in a government hospitalwas welcomed. He had been advocating that all sections of thepeople, not only poor, should avail services of the public hospitals.

The Minister who is known for his simplicity drew appreciationfor his stance on getting admitted in a government hospital. UNI RS CS 1856

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As Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee yesterday dubbed Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi's outburst as "a voice of the Centre", the Governor on Sunday hits back at her saying he is the voice of his conscience. "I am the voice of my conscience," Tripathi told reporters here. The Governor on Saturday urged everyone not to make "defamatory" allegations against a responsible organisation like the Indian Army. "Every person should take care in making allegation against a responsible organisation like army. Don't let down the army. Don't defame the army," the Governor said. However, Mamata hits back at the Governor for his outburst against her with regard to the controversy surrounding the deployment of army, and alleged that he was speaking in the voice of Central Government, even as the army withdrew deployment from Palhit toll plaza and other areas after the completion of a 72-hour exercise. Notwithstanding Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's allegations that army was deployed at two toll plazas on National Highway 2 in West Bengal without informing the state government "which is unprecedented and serious matter", General Officer Commanding (GOC), (Headquarters), Bengal Area, Major General Sunil Yadav said army formations in Eastern Command at local levels are carrying out routine annual data collection exercises on availability of load carriers at all major entry points in various states in coordination with local police authorities. Terming the allegations of money collection from commuters at the toll counters at at Dankuni toll plaza in Hooghly district and Palhit toll plaza in Burdwan district "baseless", the GoC said, "You must be aware that we have specific targets, specific information and data to be collected. On the completion of data collection at Nabanno, the Bengal State Secretariat, the team was withdrawn last night around 12 o'clock. We were there for almost for 36 hours." "Since it is a major point, we achieved our data and we withdrew. In the entire northeast, 80 search points have been established, and as I said the exercise continuing most of the places including the toll plazas here and Nabanno," he added. (ANI)
Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Issac was attacked on Sunday by the opposition over the way he handled the post-demonetisation situation in the state, causing difficulties to both salaried class and pensioners. The Congress-led United Democratic Front and the state BJP severely criticised Professor of Economics-turned-Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Issac for the sufferings of virtually every section of the society since the central government's demonetisation move. Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the assembly Ramesh Chennithala told reporters that it pained him when Issac went personal against him as he (Chennithala) talked about the minister's callous attitude and the manner in which he handled staff payments. "While the Finance Ministers in other states chalked out plans to mitigate the sufferings of people, Issac did not come out with any crisis management measures and conducted a meeting of banking officials only at the eleventh hour, which compounded the crisis," Chennithala said. "Hence, there was a heavy burden on the state treasuries and banks that disburse the salaries and pensions," said Chennithala, challenging the minister to publish the minutes of the meeting that he held with the bank officials. Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and state unit spokesperson P.K. Krishnadas said that going by his statements, Issac appears to be a bundle of contradictions. "For 22 days, he kept speaking about the cooperative banks' issue and the CPI-M held a hartal and spread panic among the people. The state cabinet could have taken the decision to toe the line of the Centre within 24 hours..." "After creating a panic-like situation, the state finally agreed to go the the central government way. In Tripura, where also the CPI-M rules, there appears no panic at all. Now Issac has started saying that the salary in the next month could be a problem," said Krishnadas. Issac is again and again asking why there is no untoward incident in Kerala on account of demonetisation, which is nothing but instigating the people to turn against the central government, Krishnadas added. "It's time Issac is divested of the finance portfolio," he said. However, dismissing all charges with his characteristic smile, Issac said the root cause of all the problems is a huge shortage of currency notes. "It will take six months for the things to settle down, as there is a huge shortage of currency notes and only the central government can resolve the issues. Next month, the state will again have a shortage of money, as there is going to be a drop in the revenues," said the minister. --IANS sg/nir/vt ( 435 Words) 2016-12-04-19:22:12 (IANS)
The Amritsar Declaration adopted at the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process Conference here recognised terrorism as the "biggest threat" to peace and stability and called for immediate end to all forms of terrorism and support, financing and providing safe havens to it. The three big issues of the conference, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said were: countering terrorism to create stability and security in Afghanistan, secondly, providing Afghanistan connectivity to strengthen economic activities and thirdly, development, which is essential for the progress of Afghanistan. "For the first time, a Heart of Asia Declaration expressed concern at the violence caused in Afghanistan and the region by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Daesh, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad," he told a press conference here along with Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Hekmat Khalil Karzai. Apart from calling for concerted international cooperation to fight the terror menace, the Declaration also calls for early finalisation of the "draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism and early meeting of experts to discuss a draft Regional Counter-Terrorism Framework Strategy, recently prepared by Afghanistan, for its early finalisation". The discussions and the Declaration reiterated the strong support from the Heart of Asia countries for Afghanistan's efforts to use its geographic location to enhance wider regional economic cooperation. Specific initiatives in this regard including the India-Iran-Afghanistan Trilateral Agreement on developing Chabahar were acknowledged, said Jaitley, who is substituting ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the meet. He said during the conference various delegations expressed appreciation for the "constructive role that India has been playing in supporting Afghanistan and its people in the past decade and a half". "You would also have noticed that the choice of Amritsar as the venue for the conference was a deliberate one intended to highlight the immense potential for regional connectivity and the benefits that it can bring to land-locked Afghanistan, provided concerned countries show the required sincerity and political determination," he said. During the deliberations the delegations welcomed the offer of the Republic of Azerbaijan to host the next Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process as Co-Chair in 2017, he said.UNI DEVN AE SNU 1913 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0445-1051258.Xml
At the receiving end of unprecedented attack by India and Afghanistan for its alleged complicity in aiding and supporting to terror elements, Pakistan today said it has "unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region". "It is simplistic to blame only one country (Pakistan) for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view," Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz said at the Heart of Asia conference, which was convened here strictly to evolve mechanism to combat terrorism and establish peace and prosperity in Afghanistan. Mr Aziz also chose to avoid any reference to Jammu and Kashmir but sought to counter "baseless allegations" from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who earlier snubbed Pakistan and declined to accept its offer of 500-million-US dollars assistance. "This fund, Mr Aziz, could very well be used to contain extremists because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people," Mr Ghani had said in his inaugural address in the morning.Ghani also accused Islamabad of launching an "undeclared war" and said the civilian casualties related to militant activities was highest in Afghanistan in 2016. In his speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also had made veiled attack on Pakistan and said,"Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity". Mr Aziz, however, said, "Pakistan is ready to extend every kind of cooperation for lasting peace in Afghanistan". The peaceful resolution to all the longstanding issues is the "only way forward" for regional cooperation and connectivity, he said. Underlining that his country has been sincere towards peace process in the region, Mr Aziz, however, raked up the SAARC bogey as the regional grouping's summit in November was put off after India campaigned intensively against Pakistan for the Uri terror strike that led to the martyrdom of 18 Indian Army personnel. ''SAARC is an important forum, not only for promoting regional cooperation but also for the improvement of relations,'' he said, adding the postponement of the Summit scheduled in Islamabad in November was a setback "to the spirit of regional cooperation''. ''My participation in the event, despite escalation on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary with India, is testimony to Pakistan's unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region," Mr Aziz said. Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif's trusted aide on foreign affairs - Aziz - also said Pakistan was making serious efforts to facilitate peace talks between Taliban and Afghan government through the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG). "In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned process," he said. Talking to reporters in Amritsar earlier, Aziz pressed for reviving Indo-Pak talks and said, "If we do not have structured dialogue, then the dialogue through media increases hostility". The two-day long Heart of Asia meet also had its share of media frenzy after a handshake between Sartaj Aziz and Indian Prime Minister Modi yesterday. Mr Aziz had arrived "early" triggering speculation that he could try for a 'chance' breakthrough in the bilateral meeting. Mr Aziz also met Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani separately on the sidelines of the ministerial conference that adopted Amritsar Declaration identifying terrorism as the "biggest threat" to peace and stability. The Heart of Asia initiative was launched in 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey for encouraging economic and security cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours. Disaster management, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, trade and investment, infrastructures and education are some of the key areas in which 14 countries are pursuing with confidence-building measures to help war-ravaged Afghanistan. UNI DEVN AE SHK 1952 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0445-1051353.Xml
Chhattisgarh Janata Congress (Jogi) President and former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi today accused two ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leaders one of them "close" to Premier Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of doling out a large amount of demonetised currency of both Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations in the garb of blanket distribution in Chirmiri yesterday. ''Saffron party Legislator Shyam Bihari Jaiswal and Overseas Friends' office-bearer Chandrakant Patel did so. Mr Patel the paternal cousin of ex-MLA Deepak Patel is close to the Prime Minister and Mr Jaitley. The names and addresses of villagers who attended the event were written down, they were told that more money would be provided and the same may be deposited in their Jan-Dhan Yojana accounts,'' he said at a press conference here. He issued photographs and showed a video of the incident. Mr Jogi claimed to have informed Mr Modi online and demanded an inquiry besides immediate action against the BJP duo.UNI AS-AC AE SNU 1930 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-1051135.Xml
Lalram and Kailash Verma, who hail from neighbouring Sehore District's Dubadia, besides other villagers and students at a training event here today vis--vis public welfare schemes.

Salaries of all Madhya Pradesh government officials were transferred to their bank accounts; scholarships and labour remuneration paid online. Over 76 lakh Kisan Credit cards were issued to peasants, an official release said.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan distributed certificates worth Rs 2,000 each to five girls of the sixth standard under the Ladli Laxmi Yojana. The amounts were conveyed in their bank accounts.

Mr Chouhan launched the Lalima Abhiyan to eliminate anemia among women.

In order to expand the Digital India Programme and provide information to students online, a Smartphone scheme was also launched. The Chief Minister distributed such mobile instruments to few beneficiaries.UNI AC PS SHK 2020

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Haryana Director General of Prisons,Yashpal Singal, said that following the recent security lapse at Nabha prison in Punjab, concrete steps were being taken to step up the security of the prisons in Haryana. The steps include deployment of additional security personnel and strengthening of internal security management, DGP informed. He said that with a view to prevent security lapses that occurred in Nabha, one PCR van had been deployed in every jail 24x7, and nakas had been set up. DGP Singal said that new jails were being constructed in Panipat and Rewari with a capacity to hold 2,000 inmates, and likely to be completed by March, 2018. Apart from this, land has been acquired in Mewat for a new jail, the construction of which would soon begin, he added.UNI JS PS SHK 2024 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1051168.Xml
Downtown continues to experience some good problems.

Yes, we mean that. There is such a thing as a good problem.

Take parking, for example. A little more than a decade ago, parking in downtown Billings was not much of an issue because there simply wasn't as much to do. Parking was easier because there were fewer stores, restaurants and venues downtown.

So when people grouse about having to find a parking spot, it's not all bad. In fact, it's an indicator that people are using our vibrant downtown.

Another problem is emerging in downtown. As the renaissance of the heart of the city continues, the action along Montana Avenue spills onto almost any street near it. But, Montana Avenue is a heavily used, greatly revitalized place. It is and has experienced a renaissance because local business owners have invested there, and believed in it.

However, fixing one problem has appeared to create another one.

The speed along Montana Avenue is bordering on out-of-control. And, it's not just about the speed limit, either. Because there is more pedestrian traffic and more demand for parking along Montana Avenue, there's also greater risk because on average, the traffic is going faster than it should.

In fact, 85 percent of the traffic that moves through the Montana Avenue corridor is posting between four and seven miles per hour above the speed limit, according to a traffic study.

Speeding commuters

It's not surprising that Montana Avenue is used as one of the major thoroughfares in the city, and it's east-west orientation allow for plenty of commuting.

However, the problem is that increased development along Montana Avenue means more pedestrians, coupled with more cars going faster than the speed limit.

As downtown business owners along Montana Avenue recently point out: It shouldn't take a fatality or serious injury to fix a problem.

One of the other challenges with Montana Avenue is many of the pedestrian crosswalks are obstructed by on-street parking. Pedestrians who want to walk to the other side of the street cannot be seen easily because they're hidden by parked cars and on the periphery of a driver's view.

Because Montana Avenue is a state highway and thoroughfare, new traffic signals cannot be placed there.

Speed humps

However, a group of concerned Montana Avenue and downtown businesses have met with officials from the Montana Department of Transportation which manages the road to discuss options. So far, they've pushed for lighted crosswalks with LED lights, better signs and slightly raised crosswalks which would provide slight bumps. These crosswalks and speed humps would have the benefit of slowing traffic, or in the words of the experts, "calming" it.

When the original idea was pitched, we were concerned that further delays would just snarl the morning and afternoon rush. We were also concerned that snow plowing equipment would struggle with snow removal. However, Jennifer Mercer of the Billings Depot, who has been part of the effort to calm traffic, said that the incline on the speed humps would be slight enough to not damage equipment.

A traffic study that was commissioned nearly six years ago also suggested "thru traffic" may opt for different downtown routes if such measures were taken. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

On the whole, we are supportive of the concept of calming traffic on Montana because it does several key things. First, it addresses a safety concern before it becomes a lethal problem. Moreover, we have to accept this is a good problem, so to speak. We need to rejigger the traffic there because there is more to do and see in downtown.

We believe that calming traffic may make downtown more safe. And, we believe business owners and MDOT can work together to make sure plowing snow is still feasible.

We applaud these local leaders for speaking up, articulating a problem most of them see every day when they look out their windows and watch pedestrians shuffle across Montana Avenue, watching the near-misses.

We hope other local leaders can get behind this project, which is fairly simple in scope. We have the opportunity to improve the downtown and make it more safe.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest here on Sunday evening. She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and the critical care specialists, said Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, in a statement issued here. The Chief Minister was admitted to Apollo Hospital on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration. She has been kept under the close observation of a specialist from London, besides a three-member team of doctors from All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) on November 19 tweeted Jayalalithaa was shifted from the ICU to the normal ward in the hospital. This is the first time that that Jayalalaithaa has been moved out of the ICU since she was admitted on September 22 with complaints of fever and dehydration. On November 13, she said she had taken "rebirth" and she is waiting to resume her duties after her complete recovery. According to reports, the normal ward will have all requisite facilities to attend to the medical needs of Jayalalithaa. On November 17, AIADMK spokesperson C. Ponnaiyan said that "Amma", as she is popularly referred to by her party cadre, was healthy and absolutely fit to attend to all political and government activities. "Our honourable Chief Minister Amma was admitted to the Apollo Hospital for a lung infection and she is absolutely alright and has totally recovered. She is very cheerful and healthy, she is eating, talking, she is absolutely fit for all activities. The physiotherapy to a certain extent still continues. Anytime Amma may get discharged and she will come out to attend her normal political activities as well as government activities," C. Ponnaiyan told ANI. "The best of healthcare was provided for Amma by Apollo Hospital, the London Richard team, the AIIMS hospital team and the Elizabeth Hospital team from Singapore. The physiotherapy team has also shown excellent results," he added. (ANI)
Assuring that the arhtiya system in the state would not be abolished, Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh, on Sunday promised a delegation of Punjab arhtiyas that the next Congress government would not take any policy decision affecting them without seeking the opinion from them and others concerned with the trade. A delegation led by Vijay Kalra, President of the Federation of Arhatiya Association, Punjab, along with Vijay Inder Singla (Ex-MP, Sangrur), met Capt Singh at his residence in New Delhi. The delegation apprised the PPCC president of the problems being faced by the trading community (arhatiyas) since the last 10 years in the state under the SAD-BJP regime. Capt Singh assured the delegation that the interests of the arhatiya community will be protected after Congress forms the next government in Punjab. He said the relationship between the arhatiyas, the farmers and labourers shall be further strengthened. The Congress government will not take any decision or formulate any new policy without getting mandate from the arhtiyas and other communities connected with the trade, said Capt Singh. The arhtiyas along with the farmers have played a big role in bringing the Green Revolution to the country, helping make itself reliant for its food security, and have been majorly instrumental in promoting micro financing too, said Capt Singh.UNI JS AKC SHK 2152 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1051380.Xml
BCCI President and Hamirpur MP Anurag Thakur has appealed youth to come forward and contribute towards making India an economic leader in the world. Addressing BJP youth wing activists at Faizabad & Basti in Lucknow today, Mr Thakur said that Modi regime following pro-people initiatives. Mr Thakur said that Mr Modi has a dream to make India the super power and achieve the position of an economic leader in the coming years. "However, to lead this change, the support and contribution of youth is of utmost importance. All initiatives taken under the aegis Mr Modi are pro-people aiming at removing all economic, social and cultural barriers. I would urge each one of you to come forward and lead this positive change and contribute towards a new India." he said. Mr Thakur accepted that scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes forced people to face problem which might prolong a month more however he appealed the people to consider this decision farsighted initiative. To make sure that people adopt digital means, Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha has launched #DigitalPaisa- campaign to encourage the youth towards making digital Payment, he said appealing youths BJYM activists to visit every towns and villages to educate masses about cash less and digital transactions. He criticized that opposition was raise people's emotions after opposing the initiatives taken by the government. In press released issued here by BJP state unit, Mr Thakur alleged that opposition leaders who are opposing demonetization drive exposed them as their true face and real intentions has been revealed. Mr Thakur, who is son of former Himahcal Pradesh Chief Minister, blamed that Opposition bother for sake of power, money and politics and have least care for human values and life. BJP leader said that time has come for people to support positivity and development paying the way for party to form a government in Uttar Pradesh. UNI ML JS AKC SHK 2114 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1051397.Xml
Marking a major diplomatic victory for India in isolating Pakistan, the Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference here today stopped short of naming Islamabad but blamed it for supporting and aiding terrorism even as the meet unequivocally called for actions against terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. The meet of 14 major countries and global groupings including European Union floated for working on peace process and combating terror menace in Afghanistan, expressed concern at the "gravity" of the situation in that country. "Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region, we demand an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism," the Amritsar Declaration said making obvious reference to Pakistan. "We remain concerned by the gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan in particular and the region and the high level of violence caused by the Taliban, terrorist groups including ISIL / DAISHand its affiliates, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Islamic Movement, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TTP, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah and other foreign terrorist fighters," the Declaration said. Earlier in the day Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, known for his plain speaking against Pakistan, snubbed it when in an unambiguous term he rejected Islamabad's offer of 500-million-dollar assistance for developmental funds. Pakistan should instead use the amount to fight terror, Ghani said. Mr Ghani also laid emphasis for setting up of an Asian or international regime to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations along the borders in his country. "This fund, Mr Aziz, could very well be used to contain extremists because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people," Mr Ghani told the inaugural session of the 6th Hearth of Asia Ministerial conference here in the presence of Sartaj Aziz, Foreign Affairs Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In his speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also had made veiled attack on Pakistan and said, "Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity". "Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters," the Prime Minister said. "We recognize that terrorism is the biggest threat to peace, stability and cooperation in our region. We encourage the international community to continue to assist the Government of Afghanistan," the Declaration said. "We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism," it said. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Amritsar Declaration had first time terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Daesh, LeT and Jaishe-e-Mohammad. Notably, Heart of Asia's Islamabad declaration last year had mentioned Al Qaeda and Daesh but not groups like Lashkar-e Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). India had blamed Jaish-e-Mohammad for the Uri attack wherein 18 army personnel were killed. The Declaration, however, "commended countries in the region and beyond, particularly Iran and Pakistan, for their hospitality in hosting millions of Afghan refugees for over three decades. We call on all these countries to continue hosting the Afghan refugees until their sustainable repatriation". Under attack by India and Afghanistan for its alleged complicity in aiding and supporting to terror elements, Pakistan said it has "unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region". "It is simplistic to blame only one country (Pakistan) for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view," Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz said at the meet. Mr Aziz also chose to avoid any reference to Jammu and Kashmir and lamented that the SAARC Summit slated for Islamabad in November was postponed after India campaigned against Pakistan for the Uri terror attack.UNI DEVN SHK 2248 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0445-1051512.Xml
The Centre is keeping a close watch on the situation in Tamil Nadu in the wake of cardiac arrest suffered by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Vidayasagara Rao, who has rushed to Chennai from Maharashtra where he had gone to attend a Navy Day event. According to sources, the Centre has assured the state of all help to meet any kind of situation, keeping in view the fact that the health of Ms jayalalitha was a very emotive issue for the people of the state. The state authorities took immediate stock of the situation after the sudden news that she had suffered a cardiac arrests, which came as a shock as the last health bulletin said that she had recovered well and will decided herself for her discharge. Meanwhile, President Pranab Mukherjee has also expressed concern over the health of the Chief Minister. ''Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalitha suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery,'' he tweeted tonight. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Venkaiah Naidu also tweeted,''Feeling bad to know abt da critical condition of TN CM Selvi Jayalalitha. Praying for her speedy recovery and quick response 2 the treatment.''UNI NAZ AKC 1117 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1051531.Xml
President Pranab Mukhrrjee today wished a speedy recovery to Tamil Nadu Chief minister Jayalalithaa, who suffered a cardiac arrest this evening. ''Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery,'' the President said in a tweet. UNI AR AKC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1051537.Xml
Austria will provide a new gauge of the populist wave sweeping Western democracies today, as the divided country holds a vote that could deliver the first freely-elected far-right head of state in Europe since World War Two.The knife-edge presidential run-off is all the more dramatic for being a re-run of an election held six months ago - before Britain chose to leave the European Union and Americans elected Donald Trump as president - offering an indication of whether popular anger at the political establishment has grown.When Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPO) narrowly lost the original run-off in May with 49.65 percent of the vote, European governments breathed a sigh of relief. Far-right parties like France's National Front, however, cheered the record performance.Opinion polls suggest the race remains too close to call and could again come down to postal ballots, meaning the final result might come as late as Tuesday. The first projections are due shortly after polling stations close at 5 p.m.What influence Trump and Brexit have had on Austria is unclear, but the fault lines are similar - blue-collar workers have largely backed Hofer, the highly educated favour his opponent, former Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen.Van der Bellen, 72, has put Brexit at the heart of his campaign, arguing that Hofer wants Austria to hold its own "Oexit" referendum, putting jobs at risk in the small, trade-dependent country."Let us not play with this fire. Let us not play with Oexit," Van der Bellen said in their last televised debate, referring to the fact Hofer initially said Austria could hold its own referendum within a year before backing down.A Hofer win would raise the prospect of two near-simultaneous blows to Europe's political establishment. Italy is holding a referendum today on constitutional reform that polls suggest Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will lose.Austria's president traditionally has a largely ceremonial role, but Hofer has made clear he wants to be an interventionist head of state, threatening to dismiss a government if it raises taxes and calling for referendums on a range of issues, even though referendums are beyond the job's remit."You will be amazed at what will be possible," Hofer, 45, said in April when asked about the president's powers.The president also plays an important part in forming coalitions. Van der Bellen has said he would try to prevent an FPO-led government even if it won an election. The FPO is running first in polls with support of roughly a third of voters, with parliamentary elections due in 2018.Austria has for decades been dominated by two centrist parties that are once again in coalition, and anger at that entrenched duopoly has fuelled support for the far-right FPO, which says it wants to end the two parties' grip on power.The country, which stretches from Slovakia to Switzerland and borders Germany, was swept up in Europe's migration crisis last year, stoking unease among many voters already concerned about globalisation and rising unemployment, playing into the FPO's hands.Whatever the outcome, weary Austrian voters hope it will at least bring to an end an election that has dragged on for almost a year after a comedy of errors that prompted some Austrian media to call the country a "banana republic".The result of the May 22 run-off was overturned because of irregularities in the count of postal ballots, mostly due to election officials cutting corners as they raced to complete the count. The re-run was then postponed because the glue on the envelopes for some postal ballots did not stick.Officials are this time aiming to do everything by the book, in the hope that a small delay to the result prevents bigger problems down the line. REUTERS SDR 0432 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1050634.Xml
The International Union for Conservation of Nature has included the bird on its 'red list' of threatened species, estimating there are fewer than 97,000 left globally.

Hitting out against the development, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) spokesman Fawad Chaudhry lamented that Pakistan was being treated like a banana republic by the ruling family, reports Pakistan Today.

However, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Talal Chaudhry defended the hunting expedition, saying "The hunting of Houbara Bustard is in practice in Pakistan for decades."

According to reports, the federal government issued a number of special hunting permits to several interested parties during the hunting season 2016-17.

The Houbara Bustard is not only protected under various international conventions and agreements signed by the country but its hunting is also banned under the local wildlife protection laws.

Also, the visit of the royal delegation comes in the wake of the counsel for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's sons presenting a letter from Prince Jassim before the Supreme Court pertaining to the Panamagate probe.

On November 15, submitting documentary evidence on the 'legitimacy' of their assets before the Supreme Court Prime Minister Sharif and his daughter, Maryam Nawaz, claimed their London apartment was bought through Qatari investments.

Along with a 397-page document consisting details of transactions as well as receipts of payments since 2011, the Sharif family submitted a letter from a Qatari prince claiming the flats were purchased through the settlement of accounts between his family's company and the Sharif family. (ANI)
Of the nine major tech giants, including Facebook, Apple and Google, only Twitter has declined to help if US President-elect Donald Trump seeks to create a national Muslim registry, a media report said. US-based news website the Intercept said it contacted nine of the most prominent firms to ask if they would sell their services to help create a national Muslim registry -- an idea recently refloated by President-elect Donald Trump's transition team -- and only Twitter said no. "We contacted nine different firms in the business of technology, broadly defined, with the following question: 'Would [name of company], if solicited by the Trump administration, sell any goods, services, information, or consulting of any kind to help facilitate the creation of a national Muslim registry, a project which has been floated tentatively by the President-elect's transition team?'," the report said. After two weeks of calls and e-mails, only three companies provided an answer and only one said it would not participate in such a project. Google, Facebook, Apple, IBM, IT giant SRA International and Canada-based Information technology consulting company CGI did not provide any answer to the query. Management consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton declined to comment. Twitter said "No", and a link, which states as company policy a prohibition against the use, was shared on the website. The link read: "To be clear: We prohibit developers using the Public APIs and Gnip data products from allowing law enforcement -- or any other entity -- to use Twitter data for surveillance purposes. Period." Microsoft returned with an answer saying, "We're not going to talk about hypotheticals at this point." A link to a company blog post states that "we're committed to promoting not just diversity among all the men and women who work here, but...inclusive culture" and that "it will remain important for those in government and the tech sector to continue to work together to strike a balance that protects privacy and public safety in what remains a dangerous time". The Intercept cleared that the story was not written to say that the companies which did not reply to the request for a comment or declined to comment, were tacitly endorsing the Trump agenda in general or a Muslim registry in particular. "Still, it is asking very little of today's tech companies to prompt them to go on record as unwilling to help create a federal list of Muslims -- or so one would very much hope," the report noted. --IANS sku/lok/vt ( 421 Words) 2016-12-04-17:50:17 (IANS)
Disabled Americans have good reason to feel dread over the prospect of a Trump administration working to advance the health care agenda of the Republican-controlled Congress.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has a long history of trying to mutilate Medicaid by changing the way federal Medicaid funds are allocated to states. The innocuous-sounding system, called block granting, is just a backdoor way of achieving the Republican dream of drastically cutting Medicaid spending, reducing Medicaid eligibility and placing new limits on the services it funds.

As it now stands, the federal government reimburses state governments a percentage of what they spend on Medicaid in a given year. Thus, the amount of reimbursement goes up or down as state spending goes up or down. But under block granting, states would receive a fixed amount each year.

The block granting scam would cut federal Medicaid spending by $1 trillion over 10 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This would put extreme pressure on state governments to cut their own Medicaid spending. Since people with disabilities and seniors have the most complex and expensive medical needs, they would be most likely to feel the pain.

Currently, Medicaid provides health coverage for 16 million low-income seniors and people with disabilities. Although that represents only about 20 percent of Medicaid enrollees, about half of all Medicaid spending went to serving seniors and the disabled.

Under current Medicaid rules, states must serve people with disabilities who qualify for Medicaid. But if block granting gives states the power to determine who will be served, disabled people could be left out in the cold.

I wouldnt put it past Ryan to create a culture where that could happen. Fortunately, previous block-granting schemes proposed by Republicans and Ryan havent gained traction because of opposition from President Barack Obama and others. But President-elect Donald Trumps health care policy platform expresses strong support for block granting.

People with disabilities receiving Medicaid rely on it for much more than paying medical bills. It pays for indispensable equipment like wheelchairs and for state programs that enable disabled people to receive the assistance they need to live in their homes and communities, rather than in nursing homes.

So access to Medicaid literally is a matter of life and death for millions of disabled Americans. Block granting must be vigorously opposed.
As the Syrian government and its allies prepared to ramp up their attack on Aleppo in November, one of the rebel groups defending the opposition-held part of the city took up arms against another, seizing its stores of ammunition, fuel and food.The incident near an Aleppo frontline underlined the rebel rivalries that only worsened in the face of an unprecedented onslaught by Russian-backed government forces, supported by Shi'ite militias from across the region.Rebel infighting has plagued the Syrian opposition since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, helping to put him on the verge of the biggest victory yet.The unexpectedly rapid retreat in Aleppo is provoking recriminations among an opposition divided by local rivalries as well as ideological differences between jihadists and more nationalist groups.With Aleppo long seen as a stronghold of mainstream groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) banner, jihadist influence will only grow if Assad and his allies win there, leaving the West with even fewer partners on the ground.In the November incident, an FSA group, Fastaqim, came under attack from the Nour al-Din al-Zinki movement, a faction that also counts itself part of the FSA but has recently moved closer to jihadist groups.This damaged morale. "Unfortunately it had a very negative impact on the factions and on the internal situation," said an official in another Aleppo rebel group, the Jabha Shamiya, speaking from Turkey."It affected the psychological condition of the fighters, and the internal situation for the civilians."The struggle amounted to a turf war, as so often among the myriad rebel groups.Zinki sources said the background to the incident was a Fastaqim plot against one of its allies. Fastaqim said Zinki was trying to crush mainstream groups in Aleppo in collaboration with the jihadists of the Fateh al-Sham group."In some ways, the relations among the Aleppo factions deteriorated even as the pro-regime offensive was ramping up," said Noah Bonsey, senior analyst with International Crisis Group. "That may have played a role in the opposition's limited ability to defend against the opening stages of the offensives."JIHADIST INFLUENCE TO EXPANDThe rebels have been on the back foot since the Russian air force intervened on Assad's behalf in September, 2015. Rebels say their internal divisions are a marginal factor in their setbacks when compared with the firepower unleashed by the Russian bombers, Shi'ite militias, and the army.But splits have nevertheless played a part. Conflict among rebels this year helped Assad and his allies to make significant gains near his seat of power in Damascus.The newly-appointed leader of one of the biggest rebel groups, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham, blamed "destructive divisions" this week for the opposition's setbacks, and urged a new effort towards unity.But Ahrar al-Sham also faces divisions in its own ranks between one camp that is close to the FSA groups, and another that wants closer ties with al Qaeda-inspired insurgents.The rebels are making what may be a final attempt to organise themselves into a more effective "Aleppo Army". But after losing more than a third of their territory in the city, it may be too late.The loss of Aleppo would still leave the rebels in control of large areas to the west and southwest of the city, including all of Idlib province and large parts of Hama province.But these are areas where jihadist factions dominate, including Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which has crushed numerous Western-backed rebel factions during the conflict.Jihadist influence discouraged the United States from supplying rebels with the more powerful weaponry they sought. US President-elect Donald Trump has indicated he may stop supporting the opposition altogether.A rebel commander in a town north of Aleppo said that instead of protesting against Assad, people in his area had put up posters criticising rebel commanders."They are all demanding unity," he said.REUTERS VS BL1821 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1051194.Xml
Three women including a local politician and two journalists were shot dead with a rifle in front of a restaurant in the small Finnish town of Imatra around midnight, police said today.A 23-year-old local man with a criminal record was detained at the scene, the Southeastern Finland Police Department said.It said the motive for the killings remained unclear."At the moment, it looks like the victims were chosen at random," Detective Inspector Saku Tielinen told a news conference.Victim Tiina Wilen-Jappinen was chairwoman of Imatra City Council while the other two women were journalists, the police said. REUTERS VS BL1834 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1051218.Xml
A 23-year-old local man was detained by police following the incident.

The Independent quoted police spokesperson Heli Jamsen-Turkki as saying that the victims, who were all women, were gunned down late on Saturday at around midnight.

She added that the gunman did not resist arrest.

City council head Tiina Wilen-Jappinen was among the victims, who were shot in the head and torso.

A crisis centre has been opened by the authorities to deal with the repercussions following the attack. (ANI)
Speaking in Iran's Parliament on Sunday, Hasan Rohani said the extension of the sanctions approved by the US Senate on Thursday violated the nuclear agreement and should they be extended into law, Iran would deliver a prompt response, Efe news agency reported.

"We are committed to an acceptable implementation of the deal but in response to non-commitment, violation or hesitation in its implementation, we will act promptly," Rohani said.

Although the Senate voted to extend the Iran Sanctions Act by 10 years, President Barack Obama still needs to sign his approval for it to become law.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani also called on lawmakers to adopt reciprocal measures should the sanctions go through into law.

--IANS vgu/

( 160 Words)

2016-12-05-03:56:11 (IANS)
RAMALLAH/GAZA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party congress, held in the West Bank city of Ramallah, voted on Saturday to elect new leadership, and the results will be declared on Sunday, officials said.

Mahmoud Abu al-Heija, the congress spokesman, said that after the ballots were closed, the elections committee started counting the votes and will declare who are the new members of the central committee and the revolutionary council on Sunday.

"After declaring the final results, President Abbas will meet with the new elected members," said Abu al-Heija.

On Saturday, Abbas, who was re-elected as Fatah chairman, said Fatah Party elections went smoothly.

"I believe this is a national festival and I hope those who win will do their duties towards their people and their Palestinian cause," Abbas told reporters in Ramallah.

Abu al-Heija earlier said that 64 Fatah members are racing for 18 central committee membership, and 423 Fatah members for 85 revolutionary council membership.

The five-day Fatah congress kicked of on Tuesday, where 1,320 members out of 1,411 were able to attend the congress that was held at Abbas headquarters in the city.

It is the second congress for the party that is held in the Palestinian territories since the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in 1994.

The first congress was held in 2009 in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
LONDON, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- The number of small businesses in Britain has reached six million, a million more than in 2010, the government's Department for Business said Saturday.

Politicians were asked to visit independent business people in their constituencies to celebrate Small Business Saturday.

The special day, now in its fourth year, is aimed at encouraging people to support local businesses.

Last year more than 794 million U.S. dollars was spent on the special day in small, independent shops and firms across the country, said a spokesman for the department.

Business minister Margot James hosted a reception at 10 Downing Street with a group of independent business people to kick-start the event.

The department spokesman added: "At the start of 2016 there were a record 5.5 million small businesses in Britain, an increase of more than 1 million since the start of 2010. The latest Business Population Estimates show that these businesses are responsible for 60 percent of private sector employment and contribute 1.8 trillion pounds (2.29 trillion U.S. dollars) in turnover."

In towns and cities, events ranged from free car parking for the day to special promotions. In some town centers, visitors and shoppers were offered small Christmas gifts.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday called for "full inclusion and effective participation of persons with disabilities in society and development" as UN members states are carrying out the Sustainable Development Goals.

In his message to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the secretary-general said that "With its 17 interdependent Sustainable Development Goals, the 2030 Agenda is based on a pledge to leave no one behind. Achieving this requires the full inclusion and effective participation of persons with disabilities in society and development."

"Much remains to be accomplished before persons with disabilities can realize their full potential as equal and valued members of society," Ban said. "We must eliminate the stereotypes and discrimination that perpetuate their exclusion and build an accessible, enabling and inclusive environment for all."

"For the 2030 Agenda to succeed, we must include persons with disabilities in implementation and monitoring and use the Convention as a guide," he said.

The secretary-general described the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as the "blueprint for peace, prosperity, dignity and opportunity for all on a healthy planet."

On this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, "I urge national and local governments, businesses and all actors in society to intensify efforts to end discrimination and remove the environmental and attitudinal obstacles that prevent persons with disabilities from enjoying their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights," he said.

"Let us work together for the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities in an inclusive and sustainable world that embraces humanity in all its diversity," Ban added.

The International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which falls on Dec. 3, is an international observance promoted by the United Nations since 1992. It has been celebrated with varying degrees of success around the planet. The observance of the Day aims to promote an understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities.
LONDON, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- World media will converge on London's Supreme Court Monday for the start of one of the most important cases in British legal history.

At stake is who has the power to trigger the process of Britain leaving the European Union, British parliament or Theresa May's government.

As the start date for a four-day hearing before the 11 highest law judges in Britain moved closer, various sides have weighed in the case.

Prime Minister May has already indicated she plans to stick to her timetable to trigger Article 50 to start the leave process by the end of next March, even if the judges rule against her. Her supporters say this could be achieved by fast-tracking a Brexit law through parliament.

The veteran Daily Telegraph commentator Charles Moore gave his view Saturday on the implications of the case.

He wrote: "It will be a great shame if this battle is not properly fought. We shall have reached a dangerous moment in our constitutional history. Our decisions about our collective future, made at the ballot box, will have been unpicked by judges."

Even so Moore is predicting the government will lose its appeal in the Supreme Court.

Supporters of Brexit say that a margin of six to one, MPs in the House of Commons, handed the decision about continued membership of the EU to the British people by way of a referendum. In that historic June 23 vote more than 17 million people voted leave, a margin of 52 percent.

The legal challenge was launched when pro-remain supporters maintained that parliament was the body that must debate and trigger article 50 and also have a say in the departure terms.

One argument is that the referendum was only advisory. The Telegraph's Moore points to the public referendums that created devolved parliaments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The results were accepted by parliament and devolution happened.

Moore says of the EU referendum: "It was not an opinion poll, but a ballot conducted according to law, paid for by the taxpayer. All those framing the legislation, from David Cameron downwards, said its result would be final, and that a Leave vote would be effected immediately."

The Daily Mail reports Saturday that government ministers have accused judges of ignoring the will of voters by relegating the outcome of the Brexit referendum to a "footnote".

The newspaper says that in a submission to the Supreme Court, the government has attacked the High Court for "dismissing" the historic June 23 poll as merely a "political event", of little significance in law.

In the documents the highest government legal officer, the Attorney General Jeremy Wright, said the High Court had been "wrong to relegate, almost to a footnote, the outcome of the referendum".

The case was originally brought at the High Court by businesswoman Gina Miller after the referendum result was announced. Her argument was that Prime Minister May should not be able to invoke Article 50 without parliament's agreement. Her claim was that by leaving the EU, Britons would lose out on rights that had been passed by parliament, so it should be them and not May who decide what happens. The High Court agreed, leading to May's government lodging an appeal.

Over 80 journalists from around the world have asked for accreditation to cover the landmark hearing. The court's system has been boosted to allow up to 300,000 people at any one time to follow the hearing on line.

Once both sides in the battle of Brexit have been heard, the 11 judges will decide their verdict, but result is not expected to be announced before early January.
BAGHDAD, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces on Saturday fought Islamic State (IS) militants near the city of Mosul and liberated four villages, while the troops repelled two IS attacks in south and west of the city, security sources said.

The army's 16th infantry Division fought the IS militants in north of Mosul and freed the villages of Qara-Tappa, Kori Ghriban, Darawish and Abu Jarbou'a after driving out the extremist militants, Lieutenant General Abdul-Amir Yarallah from the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi army repelled another attack by dozens of IS militants who stormed in the early hours of the day the military positions in the eastern side of the Tigris River at Shirqat area, some 120 km south of Mosul, killing many IS militants and destroying two suicide car bombs, Yarallah said in another statement.

Separately, dozens of IS militants carried out an attack on the positions of the paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units in Tal al-Zalat area in west of the city of Mosul, but were repelled by the units, destroying two suicide truck bombs before reaching their targets and seizing a third, while many IS militants were killed, a Hashd Shaabi statement said.

The presence of the Hashd Shaabi units near Tal Afar enabled them to cut off IS supply routes from the west side of Mosul, and allowed both the paramilitary units and other Iraqi and Kurdish security forces to entirely isolate and surround Mosul.

The units' presence in the whole area in west of Mosul would also enable them to secure the border areas between Iraq and neighboring Syria and would cut off the IS supply routes between Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of IS self-declared caliphate.

On Friday, a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that the operations to dislodge IS group from its stronghold of Mosul, have pushed some 77,826 civilians to flee their homes in the city and its adjacent districts and the number went up every day.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Oct. 17 announced a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Since then, the Iraqi security forces have inched to the eastern fringes of Mosul and made progress on other routes around the city.

Mosul, some 400 km north of Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under the IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
TIRANA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of Albania has sent to parliament a bill which stipulates ways for the central bank to intervene in second-tier banks in emergency situations, local media reported Saturday.

One purpose of this bill is to avoid as much as possible the need for intervention by state funds, media reported, citing national bank experts.

The bill also aims to make available to the Bank of Albania a set of legal instruments to intervene in an early stage in case a bank runs into trouble or about to collapse, sources from the central bank said.

According to the draft, the Bank of Albania may have the right to dismiss and replace administrators and its governing bodies in second-tier banks.

The Albanian central bank will also be allowed to appoint a special administrator, transfer shares, assets and liabilities of second-tier banks to third parties without the approval of their shareholders or creditors, according to the bill.
Some legislators had been expressing dissatisfaction with the leadership at the University of Montana in the months leading up to Thursdays announcement that President Royce Engstrom would resign Dec. 31.

What I have heard from other legislators is that UM has dropped the ball in that they have not kept up with recruitment and retention of students, and that theyve fallen behind MSU because of that, said Rep. Tom Woods, a Democrat who also teaches biology at Montana State University and will serve on the joint education appropriations committee in the 2017 Legislature.

Woods called the change analogous to a corporation changing CEOs after tough times.

I understand, but its tempered by the fact that Ive met Royce Engstrom, he said. I like him and think hes a bright guy. Theres some sadness involved.

Rep. Tom Burnett, a Bozeman Republican who serves on the joint education appropriations committee, said that although he did not call for Engstrom's departure, he does support the decision.

"Any time an institution that's seen its brand slip that much, (it) has to look for new leadership, no matter how much of the responsibility can be laid directly at his doorstep," he said. "The leader is charged with that responsibility, rightly or wrongly."

Hiring and firing of university presidents is done by the Board of Regents, which consists of seven members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, to seven-year overlapping terms.

Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City, said UM's next president should be ready to make the tough choices that come with the states tight budget situation. Moore serves as vice chairman of the joint education appropriations committee.

I think the entire University System is going to share in the challenges of the budget this session. Find someone whos sharp with a pencil and is good at managing expenses, he said. Theyre going to have to  like everybody else  do more with less.

Rep. Bradley Hamlett, a Cascade Democrat who also serves on the joint education appropriations committee, said it is less clear to him why Engstrom is leaving. He called for the regents to give a more forthright explanation.

Lets face facts, he said. Royce went through a very difficult time for the institution and for the community and then, yeah, theres been some declining enrollment, but I dont think you can lay that at his feet.

Hamlett said he suspected that Engstrom and the regents might have had different plans for how to reverse declining enrollment at UM. He cautioned against the idea that a new president will be a magic fix.

If you think just changing somebody at the head is going to totally turn something around, youre fooling yourself, he said, pointing to broader economic forces at play. There wasnt any incompetency that I saw.

Sen. Jeff Welborn, R-Dillon, likewise questioned how much Engstrom could be blamed for the universitys current challenges.

From a policymakers perspective, whats happening in Missoula is the fault of no one, he said. Its not that MSU or UM are managed better than the other; its just the timing of it. Some fields are less marketable. I dont feel thats a reflection of the current administration. Its just a sign of the times.

Gov. Steve Bullocks Spokesman Tim Crowe said the governor had not received any letters, calls or emails from the public about Engstrom, positive or negative, in the last 90 days. He said the governor was unavailable Thursday to comment on whether legislators had spoken to him about concerns with Engstroms leadership.
BERLIN, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reiterated her support for globalization as Germany assumes Group of 20 presidency, saying that there will be no return to a pre-globalization world.

Merkel, who has announced her candidacy for a new term in the general election next year, made the remarks in a regular weekend video message posted on the official website of the chancellory.

But she also admitted that there are concerns about the globalization process which needs to be addressed.

"Our economies and countries are interconnected as never before. Globalization brings enormous benefits, but it is also a cause of concern to people," she said.

"There will be no return to a pre-globalization world. But we can influence the path globalization takes, establish rules for it and put people at its center," she added.

The chancellor cautioned against isolationism, new forms of nationalism and protectionism, saying that none of them will be helpful.

Talking about Gemany's G20 presidency beginning on Dec. 1, Merkel said one issue in particular always tops the G20 agenda -- the stability of the international financial system and the global economy.

"We want to look in depth at how we can bring about stronger growth that is also sustainable and of benefit to as many people as possible," she said.

"I firmly believe that the G20's talks and cohesion in the group are of particular importance these days," Meckel said.

The chancellor listed some other issues which will also top the agenda of G20 during Germany's presidency: fostering responsible global climate policy, helping African countries expand their economic potential and strengthening global health crisis management.

"Shaping the interconnected world" is the motto of German presidency, she said, noting that she and the German Federal Government will do their utmost to live up to the motto.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf (C) addresses a news conference near the site of a fire in Oakland, east of San Francisco, the United States, on Dec. 3, 2016. An overnight fire killed at least 9 people while another 25 people were unaccounted for in Oakland, as of Saturday morning. (Xinhua/Xu Yong)

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- An overnight fire killed at least 9 people while another 25 people were unaccounted for in Oakland, east of San Francisco, as of Saturday morning.

The blaze, one of the deadliest structure fires in Oakland's history, began at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday during an electronic music party in a two-story warehouse in the San Francisco Bay Area city.

While citing the number of casualties as the result of "a preliminary search," Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed initially told KTVU, a local affiliate of Fox News network, that 13 people were unaccounted for.

"There's still a lot of the building that needs to be searched," she said.

Most of the nine dead were found on the second floor of the building, known as "The Oakland Ghost Ship," in an industrial neighborhood.

The party was reportedly scheduled from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., and dozens of people were inside at the time of the fire. The roof collapsed as people fled the second floor by a "makeshift stairwell" leading to the first floor.

Deloach-Reed noted that there was no sprinkler system in the structure.

Oakland Fire Department posted several messages throughout the night on its Twitter social media network account, including the latest one in the morning saying that fire crews would remain on the scene for several more hours to extinguish hot spots.
TEHRAN, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said here on Saturday that Iran and Russia will continue cooperation in fighting terrorism until it is eradicated in the region, Tehran Times daily reported.

"There is good cooperation between Tehran and Moscow in this respect which will continue until the eradication of terrorism and establishment of peace and stability in the region," Rouhani said during a meeting with Alexander Lavrentiev, the Russian president's special envoy for the Middle East.

Terrorism is a "serious threat" to the world, he said, adding that Iran-Russia cooperation is necessary to tackle this issue.

He also said that the crisis in Syria can be settled only through holding "political negotiation, respecting the people's will and protecting the country's territorial integrity."

For his part, Lavrentiev called for further cooperation between Iran and Russia on regional issues and said that Russian President Vladimir Putin attaches value to "trust" between the two countries.

The Islamic republic, along with Russia, have emerged as the major allies of the Syrian government in its struggle against the militant groups who are seeking the overthrow of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.
BANGKOK, Dec.4 (Xinhua)-- Thailand's Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongorn formally ascended the throne on Thursday and made his first royal decree to reappoint Prem Tinsulanonda as head of Privy Council within 24 hours after the ascension, both of which reassured those who worry that the country would be thrown into uncertainties and instability.

Vajiralongorn accepted invitation from parliament president to ascend the throne, a constitutional formality, and was thus formally proclaimed King Rama X, or 10th king of the 234-year-old Chakri Dynasty in a televised ceremony late Thursday, followed by a televised statement of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, saying "Thailand has a new king now".

The 64-year-old new king finally succeeded his father, revered late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest- reigning monarch.

The succession took place seven weeks after the late king's death on Oct.13. Thai Prime Minister Prayut said the then crown prince declined to start the royal succession immediately because he asked for time to grieve his father with the country first.

During the interregnum, Prem Tinsulanonda, 96, a former prime minister and chief of the powerful Privy Council, stood in as regent and his regence ended when Vajiralongorn accepted to ascend the throne.

Prem resigned as Privy Council head for late King Bhumibol on Friday, while the new king appointed him as head of his Privy Council simultaneously, which was announced on TV Pool.

Observers say the reappointment of Prem indicates the new king's reluctance to make political changes and his determination to maintain the late king's legacy to stablize the country and to keep everything normal.

Reappoint privy council chief to continue late king's legacy

The 96-year old Prem is one of the most experienced, canny and influential political figures in modern Thai history.

He was also the closest confidant of late king during the last four decades of his reign.

Prem came up through the ranks of the powerful military and has been the monarchy's front man since 1980, first as prime minister and then as a top royal advisor. He served as prime minister for eight years, while guiding the country through economic problems and a series of military challenges, including two coup attempts.

Prem has been the head of the Privy Council since 1998. He enjoyed a reputation for clean governance and for favoring compromise over confrontation.

As the regent, Prem once served as the "acting" monarch and in this capacity can exert enormous influence over the armed forces, since the ruling monarch must endorse all military reshuffles.

Some said that the appointment of a new Privy Council will give observers a better indication of how actively King Vajiralongkorn intends to reign as well as to reshuffle the country's political center.

In his royal decree to reappoint Prem as privy council chairman, King Vajiralongorn said Prem is "qualified to remain in the position".

Paul Chambers, director of research at Chiang Mai's Institute of Southeast Asian Affairs said the new king would likely continue his father's legacy of calculated involvement in Thailand's political landscape.

Observers believe that the new king would like to seek close partnership with the military veteran to maintain the kingdom's stability.

Join hands with military to ensure stability

The military has long been loyal to the king, sticking with the crown through six decades and eight putsches. The alliance between military and monarchy dates back to 1957-1958, when twin coups eviscerated the country's young democracy, and they have since dominated the nation together.

The current ruling junta has taken security of the kingdom as the top priority. The 2014 interim constitution grants the junta leader a legal carte blanche for any deed necessary to ensure "reform in any field and ... national peace and harmony" and to suppress anything harmful to security, the monarchy, the economy, or the government.

After ascending the throne, the new king will sign the junta-backed draft constitution to promulgate it, according to Wissanu Krea-ngam, Thai deputy prime minister.

Key elements of the new constitution will entrench military control. The new charter, which passed a referendum on August 7, contains provisions that will make it extremely difficult for a single party to win a majority in the 500-member lower house.

This will allow the 250 junta-selected senators to play a critical role in the Thai parliament. A new prime minister must be elected by both members of the lower house and the senate and there is a way for some outsider, or someone who is not an elected member of the lower house, to take the position.

"The military is putting in mechanism to be empowered for some time, certainly, there will be military supervision over Thai politics", said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn Universityaid, adding that Thai people know military should stay for the transitional period as majority of them voted yes to the new constitution which bestowed power upon the military.

For the time-being, Thitinan said Prayut and his government has done well, the junta is not violent, the corruption level is low and they appointed technocrats led by deputy prime minister Somkid Jatusripitak to boost the economy.

"If they can keep peace and stability, lower corruption to a minimum level and the economy grows, they will maintain some legitimacy", He said.
RABAT, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Morocco announced on Saturday the arrest of an Islamic State (IS) suspect with links to a recently busted terror cell in France.

Following the French security service's dismantling of an IS linked cell on Nov. 19, and on the basis of a detailed information from intelligence services, Moroccan security services arrested a dangerous IS member, who served as an intermediary between IS commanders and the cell, the Moroccan interior minister said in a statement.

France said late last month it had foiled a possible attack after detaining seven people, including some who had been in the ranks of IS in Syria.

The arrested man met IS emissaries at the border between Turkey and Syria to receive IS instructions, which were to be transmitted to one of the IS members arrested in France in November.

The suspect was supposed to travel to France via Germany using a forged passport, the ministry added.

According to the same source, the case will be moved to the prosecutor's office after authorities complete the investigation.
Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal addresses the African Investment and Business Forum in Algiers, capital of Algeria, on Dec. 3, 2016. Some 40 African countries are taking part in the African Investment and Business Forum which kicked off on Saturday evening in Algiers. (Xinhua)

ALGIERS, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Some 40 African countries are taking part in the African Investment and Business Forum which kicked off on Saturday evening in the Algerian capital of Algiers.

The three-day meeting is attended by some 1,000 African businessmen, politicians and financial officials to discuss ways of boosting the continent's economy.

In the opening remarks, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said Africa should invest on its own potential skills and entrepreneurship in a bid to achieve qualitative development.

"It is time for Africa to raise as an international power and essential block on both political and economical fronts," Sellal said. "It is time to tell the world that Africa is no more a mere reservoir of raw materials; but rather a continent for the future."

He further urged Africans to work harder to fight the weaknesses hindering the continent's economy, saying "it is imperative to tackle these weakness factors and make the economy more resilient to maintain vigorous growth, to sustain progress in the fight against poverty and to reach development objectives."

The Algerian official also recommended addressing the factors of terrorism, illegal migration, crime and poverty, through real socio-economic development programs all over the continent.

The forum aims at boosting industrial partnership among African countries, given that some nations have made tremendous progress in the field of new technologies, energy and mining industry.

The participants are due to discuss six main topics, namely strategic economic visions of African countries, energy and investments financing, infrastructures, agriculture and agri-food.
DUBLIN, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ireland on Saturday welcomed a U.S. decision which will allow Cork-Boston flights.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) on Saturday issued a foreign air carrier permit to Norwegian Air International (NAI) to operate services between Ireland and the United States.

NAI, which is an Irish-registered company and wholly owned by the Norwegian Air Group, applied to the DoT for a permit in December 2013. Under the permit, NAI can start operating the new routes from Cork to the U.S. that it announced last year.

The Norwegian Air Group is the third largest low-cost airline in Europe, behind Ryanair and Easyjet, and the ninth largest European airline overall. In 2013, the group applied for an Irish airline license and certificate for a subsidiary Irish airline, called NAI.

Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said his country strongly supports this new travel option for travellers.

"This new route will strengthen Ireland's links with Boston and New England, and represents a further significant boost to Cork Airport and the southern region," Flanagan said.

Meanwhile, Irish Transport Minister Shane Ross said this is good news for consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.
PRAGUE, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Czech General Staff spokesman Jan Sulc said on Saturday that about 110 Czech soldiers will be sent to take part in the Training Bridge 2017 exercise set to be held in Lithuania at the beginning of next year.

From Jan. 10 to March 20, the Czech soldiers will train along with their Lithuanian colleagues near the Klaipeda port city, in the Pabrade and Kairiai military training grounds.

The joint exercise was agreed on by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the countries of the Visegrad Group (V4) before the NATO summit in Warsaw earlier in 2016.

The Czech troops will launch the series of exercises and Slovakia, Poland and Hungary will send their troops to the Baltic states later on.

Sulc said the exercise was held in reaction to the Baltic concerns over the conflict in Ukraine. The exercise will focus on cooperation of the Czech and Lithuanian soldiers.

The Czech soldiers were from the 74th lightweight Motorized Battalion in Bucovice, south Moravia.
by Xinhua writer Yan Feng

BERLIN, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Growing inequality has cost Germany about 40 billion euros (42.66 billion U.S. dollars) over the past 25 years but the inequality comes with pros and cons and can still be fixed, a latest study here shows.

According to the study conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), income is more unequally distributed in Germany in recent years.

The researchers come to the conclusion after examining the changes in German gross domestic product (GDP), or the sum of all goods and services manufactured in Germany, with a simulation model.

The Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, has risen significantly from 0.25 to 0.29 in Germany since its reunification in 1991, German news website Focus Online reported, citing the study.

The Gini coefficient measures inequality on a scale from 0 to 1. A value of 0 would mean that every household has exactly the same income; at the value of 1, a household would get the entire income and all the others nothing.

IN UPPER MID-RANGE

According to the research, Germans are actually complaining a high level of inequality as far as the distribution of the net income of household is concerned.

In terms of the Gini coefficient, Germany is about 0.29 or in the upper mid-range of the same distributions of net income within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

In other major countries, the coefficient is much higher than in Germany. For example, Canada and Italy have a value of 0.32 each. In Britain, it is 0.36, and in the United States, it is even 0.4.

The leading figure in the OECD is Chile with a value of 0.47. At the other end is Iceland with 0.24, which is not so far from Germany.

However, this is only part of the truth.

PROS AND CONS ON GROWTH

The research believes the Gini coefficient has actually risen significantly in Germany since German reunification. An increase from around 0.25 to now 0.29 within 25 years does not sound very much, but it has a big impact, researchers say.

As a result, Germany has lost some 40 billion euros in the past 25 years. Although the exact sum is roughly estimated, the magnitude of the cost is probably correct. Each year, the growing inequality costs the country about 0.05 percent of its economic growth. This may sound relatively little, but has already had a impact in absolute numbers as far as long-term growth is concerned.

The study also shows that growing disparities in income have both positive and negative effects.

The negative are initially the more obvious: if the inequality grows, the wages sink at the lower end of the scale and the people there have less money to spend -- hence the consumption decreases, thus the demand.

However, the inequality has a positive effect at the other end of the scale: whoever has more money also saves more, which is why the saving rate increases in Germany as the inequality grows.

This in turn leads to more investment and thus even to more productivity and higher exports. Moreover, because consumption is declining, less imports are needed, which means that foreign trade surplus is increasing.

HUMAN CAPITAL AT STAKE

In the end, the positive effects can not compensate for the disadvantages because of the so-called "human capital factor" which usually has a delayed effect, says the DIW research.

People with low wages have little money to invest in their education and training. This results in a vicious cycle: those who do not receive good education and training have fewer chances to find well-paid jobs and thus move into higher income classes. This will lead to more inequality.

In the worst-case scenario, it results in what sociologists call the "culture of poverty": children from low-income earners are leaving the school and starting a job earlier than expected instead of taking a baccalaureate and studying further -- because they have to earn money for a living. In this way, only a few people from low-income families can rise into high income classes.

HOW TO FIX IT

This is precisely where the DIW research believes there is necessity to take actions.

"Against this background, policy measures are all the more important, which are appropriate to improve the equality of opportunity and permeability in the education system," said the Focus Online report, citing the research.

This would include free or at least very cost-effective day-care services, German courses for migrant children, remedial classes and universities, the research suggests.

But even if actions were to be taken to improve the situation, inequality in Germany would continue to grow for a few more years before the negative consequences of previous years are fully addressed.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Firefighters on Saturday are battling 10-alarm blaze which quickly ignited several buildings in Cambridge in the northeastern state of Massachusetts.

Cambridge police say four buildings were involved in the fast-moving fire, including one totally collapsed. Dozens of residents were evacuated. At least two had minor injures.

"It went up in a heartbeat. It was just raging... it was just going so fast. I've never seen anything like that," a resident, named Michael Workman, told the Boston Globe newspaper.
Spotted owls dont fly in Montana.

But like the proverbial butterfly wingflap in New Mexico stirring up a hurricane in China, spotted owls in Oregon blew down the timber industry in Montana. A quarter-century later, people see the spotted owl storm in one of two very different ways.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, points to the 1990 Endangered Species Act listing of spotted owls as the start of the industrys troubles.

This listing and resulting litigation was a watershed development that encouraged and gave like-minded obstructionist groups a blueprint for more litigation and greatly contributed to the fall of the timber supply from federal lands, Daines states in a timeline review of national forest policy provided to the Missoulian.

There have been hundreds of lawsuits against vegetation management projects over the past decade, and this litigation  and fear of litigation  has slowed or altogether blocked timber sales and helped bring about what former Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth called excessive and inefficient process, or analysis paralysis. Moreover, federal timber supply has been far below pre-1990 averages even during strong housing markets and economic conditions. Thus it is simplistic and false to suggest that the persistent decline of federal timber is the result of diminishing demand or the ebbs and flows of prices.

But is the problem protecting endangered species or the way we fight over that protection? In Montana, the Endangered Species Act struggle focuses on a different threatened animal  the Canadian lynx.

In whats known as the Cottonwood decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling ordering the Forest Service to re-consult with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about lynx on its top-level forest plans.

The judges found the Forest Service had developed its own guidelines based on consultations with FWS using old, discredited rules from 2006. FWS changed its lynx guidelines in 2009 after acknowledging that previous agency leaders improperly left out 12 million acres of lynx critical habitat, including about 700,000 acres of national forest timberland.

Sen. Daines argues that top-level, agency-to-agency consultation will greatly increase needless paperwork on the Forest Service and further delay much-needed restorative management work. He believes the Forest Service should be allowed to impose the new FWS lynx guidelines on a project-by project basis  the same position the Obama Justice Department lawyers argued for the Forest Service. The Ninth Circuit judges said no  endangered species protection takes place at the top of the planning process.

A 10th Circuit Court decision from 10 years ago agrees with Daines position. But the Supreme Courts refusal to take on the 9th Circuit ruling gives it law-of-the-land weight.

Daines is drafting an amendment overturn the 9th Circuit ruling by codifying that Endangered Species Act agency consultations should happen at the project level, not the forest plan. The change would not hurt the ESAs power to protect animals and plants, he claims.

Not so, counters John Meyer of the namesake Cottonwood Environmental Law Center in Bozeman.

The single reason that Canada lynx were listed as a threatened species is because of the lack of management standards in forest plans, Meyer wrote in a recent op-ed letter. He suggested Daines use his position to secure funding for Canada lynx research instead of second-guessing three levels of federal court judges.

Nullifying the Cottonwood decision is just one of many legislative moves to change how we harvest timber on public lands. Daines and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, have introduced the Environmental and Economic Benefits Restoration Act of 2016.

It gives state foresters more ability to do fuels-reduction projects that cross over federal lands, among other things. He teamed with Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-California, on a letter proposing ways to limit legal challenges to Forest Service timber sales, including requiring courts to give substantial deference to Interior Department analyses when reviewing Forest Service actions and piloting a new required arbitration program for public challenges to agency projects.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, and Daines have joined numerous colleagues asking for a better way to pay for wildfire expenses on national forests, which often consume more than 50 percent of the Forest Services annual budget. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock last summer got the Western Governors Association to push a National Forest and Rangeland Management Initiative aimed at increasing the number of collaborative projects involving state and federal land.

The Montana Woods Products Association has sent a 13-item wish list to Congressional leaders. It includes allowing the Forest Service to offer long-term contracts on timber projects, expand categorical exclusions that allow some projects to move with limited environmental or public review, and require the courts to balance short- and long-term ecological and economic impacts of timber projects. It also supports Daines call for nullifying the Cottonwood decision.

The current approach frustrates Tom France, regional director for the National Wildlife Foundation in Missoula.

What were seeing now are bills offering more of the same, France said. I regret that Congress hasnt come back to performance standards for the Forest Service. I wouldnt recommend it for every forest, but we do have some Montana solutions that are ready for a test drive.

France was deeply involved in Sen. Jon Testers Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, which included a plan developed by the collaborative group Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership. That proposal tied together a bunch of existing wilderness and recreation area recommendations with a requirement that the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest deliver 10 years worth of forest management activity. France said the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act critics attacked the proposal as a quid pro quo, acquiring wilderness acres with timber harvest and vice versa.

This was a way to build more support for timber harvest, and more support for conservation lands, France said. It was a way to build broader support for all of that. Weve kind of fallen away from all that. I felt comfortable looking at the B-Ds 700,000 acres of working landscape amidst 3 million acres of forest and saying we should be doing 7,000 acres of active management a year.

Many of the congressional proposals aimed at Decembers lame-duck session aim to return national forest harvest to pre-1990 levels. But that reflects an era when overuse of national forests was so blatant, it fueled an opposite legislative revolution.

Degradation of the environment was an inescapable issue in the early 1970s. The recently deceased Leon Billings of Helena was the congressional staff architect who drafted the federal Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972.

In 1972, Montanans at their state Constitutional Convention declared the right to a clean and healthful environment first among the enumerated inalienable rights of Article II. Republican President Richard Nixon asked Congress to send him legislation protecting threatened wild animals and plants. Congress responded with the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

First nominated for Endangered Species Act protection in 1982, the spotted owl depends on Pacific Coast old-growth forests for its habitat. After the elusive bird made the list in 1990, Jack Ward Thomas, the recently deceased former chief of the Forest Service and University of Montana professor, drafted the North West Forest Plan in 1994. Based largely on Thomas research on spotted owls and their threatened forests, the plan drove down coastal West Side timber harvest by a factor of five.

Ecosystem management is not just a timber sale, Thomas wrote. Its putting the timber sale into a bigger picture, including watersheds, wildlife, roads and peoples needs and values  . Wood production will continue to be a significant part of our program, but we will look more at multiple variables, not just production.

At the same time, the Forest Service was rocked by revelations of excessive mismanagement of national forests. Phantom Forest reports exaggerated how many trees could be cut without damaging the surrounding ecology. The General Accounting Office found the agency was losing hundreds of millions of dollars with below-cost timber sales in the early 1990s.

The end of the road was in sight  the spotted owl crisis just accelerated it by 10 years or so, retired UM forestry ecologist Alan McQuillan said. The Forest Service timber program was in the black when they were cutting 5 or 6 billion board-feet of Douglas fir and pine in Washington, Oregon and California. Everywhere else was in the red  they were all subsidized by the West Side cut. So when the West Side fell, the whole program was in the red.

Where one picks a starting point says a lot about how one tells the timber industrys story. In 2002, McQuillan recounted his version to a Governors Conference on Montana Forests. He started with Montana historian K. Ross Tooles account of illegal logging in the mid-1800s. Lots of other incidents compete for the title.

The Bitterroot controversy broke open (in 1969) apparently because someone on a field trip convinced the bus driver to go round one more bend than the Forest Service had intended, McQuillan noted. The revelation that massive clearcuts extended just beyond cozy shelterwood groves stoked public outrage.

Today, massive wildfires attract an equal amount of public concern. The current rationale for rewriting timber policy is that our public forests need to be managed for public safety. Montana adds about 730 million cubic feet of timber a year in its regular national forest land (excluding wilderness areas, parks and other protected places). Another 660 million cubic feet of timber dies each year. Montana loggers have been harvesting between 90 million to 140 million board-feet a year over the past decade.

The remaining 500-odd million board-feet attracts all the attention. All that may become fuel for wildfire if it isn't harvested through either commercial logging or hazardous fuels reduction. Or it may become wildlife habitat, contributing to a multi-age mosaic of forest types.

Most "forest health" projects don't provide enough commercial lumber or pulp to pay for themselves without government subsidy. Advocates counter that the subsidy is worthwhile if it keeps a logging infrastructure in Montana. With a corps of skilled woodsworkers and a network of viable mills, we can approach breaking even on those public-safety efforts. States that have lost their timber industry, such as Colorado and Arizona, must pay far greater costs per acre with no commercially offsetting benefit.

Environmentalists challenge the industry to prove it really intends to farm timber rather than mine it. According to Fish and Wildlife Service studies, northern spotted owls lost another 8 percent to 12 percent of their remaining habitat on privately owned timberlands due to logging between adoption of the Northwest Forest Plan and 2004. Loss on federal lands was about 0.3 percent in the same period, with three-quarters of that due to forest fire.

In Montana, judges have applied the Cottonwood decision to halt major timber projects in the Kootenai, Gallatin and Custer national forests this fall. The rulings find that the presence of lynx in the woods doesnt stop logging  the lack of a complete lynx management policy does. The Forest Service either needs to do the paperwork or Congress needs to relieve the agency of the Endangered Species Act burden.

Meanwhile, Montanas remaining mills have the capacity to process 600 million board-feet of lumber. In 2000, that figure was a billion board-feet, and in 1989, it was 1.6 billion board-feet.

Its not like were supporting the same mills or capacity we had 25 years ago, said Todd Morgan, timber analyst for the University of Montanas Bureau of Business and Economic Research But from an economic and financial standpoint, the sustainable level has got to be somewhere higher than were at right now.
PRAGUE, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) is "under threat of populists and neoliberals," says a resolution unveiled Saturday upon the conclusion of the three-day meeting of the Party of European Socialists (PES) Council here.

"Years of misguided austerity, of increasing inequality, of insecurity have provided fertile ground for despair, and this is the result of years of neoliberal and conservative policies across Europe," declares the PES resolution entitled "Saving Europe: for Youth and Progress".

"Citizens are expressing their worries and they are seeking more stability and protection. Populists are taking advantage of this situation to spread their lies, hatred and division," the resolution says.

It says EU is under threat because people do not have fulfilling and secure jobs and because they do not believe that their children will have a better life than they have.

According to the resolution, neither basic economic freedoms nor competition rules take precedence over fundamental social rights.

In the event of conflict, fundamental social rights must have priority, says the resolution, calling for the establishment of a European social protection floor that guarantees universal access to quality health services, including sexual and reproductive health rights and basic income security, with minimum wages guaranteeing a basic decent income for all citizens.

The resolution also says it is an absolute priority for the EU to work towards preventing radicalisation in societies.

Moreover, the PES resolution calls for 20 billion euros (about 21.6 billion U.S. dollars) to be made available for the Youth Guarantee until 2020.

It says that PES sees young people as a fundamental asset for European societies, for European democracies, and for the economic recovery of Europe.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf (C) addresses a news conference near the site of a fire in Oakland, east of San Francisco, the United States, on Dec. 3, 2016. An overnight fire killed at least 9 people while another 25 people were unaccounted for in Oakland, as of Saturday morning. (Xinhua/Xu Yong)

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf pledged on Saturday full investigations into an overnight fire which killed at least 9 people while another 25 were still unaccounted for in Oakland, east of San Francisco.

The mayor said at a press conference after the fire that the building was only permitted as a warehouse.

The police will be active at the scene for the next 48 hours, while the unstable structure made the searching process very slow, said Alameda County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly.

The blaze, one of the deadliest structure fires in Oakland's history, began at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday during an electronic music party in a two-story warehouse in the San Francisco Bay Area city.

While citing the number of casualties as the result of "a preliminary search," Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed initially told KTVU, a local affiliate of Fox News network, that 13 people were unaccounted for.

"There's still a lot of the building that needs to be searched," she said.

Most of the nine dead were found on the second floor of the building, known as "The Oakland Ghost Ship," in an industrial neighborhood.

The party was reportedly scheduled from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., and dozens of people were inside at the time of the fire. The roof collapsed as people fled the second floor by a "makeshift stairwell" leading to the first floor.

Deloach-Reed noted that there was no sprinkler system in the structure.

Oakland Fire Department posted several messages throughout the night on its Twitter social media network account, including the latest one in the morning saying that fire crews would remain on the scene for several more hours to extinguish hot spots.
JINAN, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Three people were killed and another two remain trapped under debris after a factory building collapsed on the outskirts of eastern Chinese city of Jinan Saturday afternoon.

Four others were rescued and sent to hospital, and the search for the trapped two is still going on, according to local authorities on Sunday.

The building was part of a privately-run factory under renovation. The collapse occurred at about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday in Baigudui Village of Jinan City, capital of Shandong Province.

Police have detained those involved in the accident for questioning. Investigation is underway for the cause of the accident.
HELSINKI, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Three people were killed in a shooting incident that occurred at midnight Saturday in Imatra, southeastern Finland, reported Finland's national broadcaster Yle.

Police confirmed the incident without specifying the number of casualties.

The incident took place in or around a local restaurant. The shooter was arrested.

Yle quoted the police as saying that further details would be available on Sunday.
Sugar art master Li Fengyan shows a little girl how to make an edible handicraft in the Liaoning Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop in the Te Papa, kiwi's national museum in Wellington, New Zealand, Dec. 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Su Liang)

WELLINGTON, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- How to make sugar into an art masterpiece? Artists from Liaoning, China gave New Zealanders a unique opportunity to get a closer experience of Chinese intangible cultural heritage in the Te Papa, kiwi's national museum in Wellington on Saturday.

Susan, a 63-year old Wellington resident, found a new teacher in the Liaoning Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop. Although they could not communicate by a same language, Susan and Zhang Bin, the master of Jinzhou Dough Modeling, successfully made a rose by a small piece of dough.

Dough modeling is done by kneading, squeezing and cutting a glutinous rice-based material into different lifelike shapes such as animals, flowers and birds. It is a folk art that has roots in the worship customs of China's ancient agricultural society.

On the other side of the room, girls gathered around the sugar art master Li Fengyan, attracted by an edible handicraft. Li used a spoon as a "brush" and malt sugar as "ink" to make colorful patterns such as flowers, birds, fishes and insects. That is a magic skill to cast boiled syrup on a stone into art pieces by back-and-forth motions.

The traditional Chinese sugar art quickly became the new modern fashion for kiwi kids. They ran across the room, holding beautiful and delicious new toys, showing to their parents.

Visitors admire China's Jinzhou Dough Modeling in the Liaoning Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop in the Te Papa, kiwi's national museum in Wellington, New Zealand, Dec. 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Su Liang)

The workshop also invited other three masters of Liaoning intangible cultural heritage. During the interactive exhibition, they showed local people some unforgettable skills, such as Yiwulushan Manchu paper-cutting, Manchu Knots of Western Liaoning and Amber Carving.

Qu Guangzhou, the Charge d'affaires of Chinese embassy to New Zealand, said in the workshop launching ceremony that the artists may not as popular as the pop stars in China, but they are real masters and heroes. The strong and dynamic relation between China and New Zealand is supported by people-to-people relations and cultural links of the two countries, said Qu.

The workshop is co-organized by the China Cultural Centre in New Zealand and the Department of Culture in Liaoning province. The organizers aimed to give New Zealanders a great insight of the culture diversity of China and how the heritage in art forms passed down from old to young.

Xu Hongying the deputy director general of Liaoning province department of culture, said in the launching ceremony that Liaoning province has cooperation with New Zealand in a wide range of areas and the workshop is about to give people in Aotearoa an experience with great Liaoning local characteristics.

Guo Zongguang, the director of the China Cultural Center in New Zealand, told the audience in Te Papa that China is a country with rich resources of intangible cultural heritage, with 39 items in the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage.

Apart from Te Papa, the Liaoning Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop scheduled to have several activities in schools and libraries in Wellington in the following week.
People greet the caravan carrying the ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro upon its arrival in Santiago de Cuba, southeastern Cuba, on Dec. 3, 2016. As the caravan carrying the ashes of Fidel Castro reached its final destination in Santiago De Cuba, hundreds of thousands of Cubans had come together over the last four days to bid farewell to the revolution leader. Fidel Castro passed away on Nov. 25 at the age of 90. (Xinhua/David de la Paz)

by Xinhua writer Ma Guihua

HAVANA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- It is impossible to witness Cuba on Saturday without hearing the resounding chorus: "Yo soy Fidel!" (I Am Fidel!) by people who mourned the Caribbean island country's revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro.

Ever since the news of Fidel's passing on the night of Nov. 25 came, Cuba has been plunged in disbelief and sadness, and also an unusual calm and determination in the people who turned out in tens of thousands, to pay homage to their beloved leader and a man they dearly and proudly called "Fidel."

THE REVOLUTIONARY LEADER

In a way, the Cubans have been prepared for this day as Fidel himself bid farewell in his last official appearance at the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party on April 19, saying: "I'll be 90 years old soon...Soon I'll be like all the others."

In a husky voice, the veteran revolutionary, who turned 90 on Aug. 13 and had been renowned for his eloquence and passion in delivering speeches for hours on end at every critical moment of the Cuban nation, said: "The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without truce to obtain them."

For Cubans, Fidel is a symbol who led them in a hard-fought resistance against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, against its next-door Cold War power, the United States, which, upon Fidel's declaring of Cuba as a socialist state in 1961, deemed the island "a red monster" and tried every possible scheme to smother the Cuban government.

Fidel was a survivor. He survived more than 600 assassination attempts, outlived eight successive U.S. presidents, and 11 U.S. governments, and emerged triumphant and revered by millions in the world.

Fidel was a believer. He believed in independence, sovereignty, social justice, equality, and solidarity.

It was under him that Cuba sent troops at the end of 1970s to African countries to help people there fight for their independence. It was under him that Cuba became a social welfare state with free education and free health care, with a Human Development Index ranking 67th of the 188 countries assessed by the United Nations Development Program in 2015, putting many developed countries to shame. It was also under him that Cuba, despite its own economic difficulty, dispatched doctors and teachers to African and Latin American countries to support the local people to overcome medical and educational shortages.

Fidel was also an idealist and thinker of humanity. Encroached on all sides by the roaring waves of capitalism and consumerism, he never wavered about the ideals of socialism, insisting that the country built "of the humble, by the humble, for the humble" should remain like that.

Even after his retirement from politics, he never ceased pondering how to curb poverty through food production, studying the threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, and wondering how much money squandered in launching wars could be invested in science to relieve people from the scourge of cancer, diabetes and other pains, or to promote arts and culture.

CUBA, A MIRACLE

For those who wish Fidel's passing would mark a bygone era and that Cuba would soon forsake his ideals to embrace capitalism have no evidence to support their pure naivety.

The high-level delegations from the world's 55 countries, including 13 heads of states and government, were not just one show of solidarity, not to mention the thousands of Cubans signing their oaths, pledging loyalty to the revolution at the Jose Marti Memorial and the iconic Revolution Sq Equally impressive were the millions of sleep-deprived Cubans lining the streets of Havana and the "road to freedom", bidding farewell to their commander-in-chief as the caravan carrying Fidel's ashes coursed through the country to the destination where he would rest with Cuba's national hero Jose Marti.

For people in the world, Cuba is a miracle. It has survived 55 years of U.S. blockade, the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the nuclear crisis in 1962, the special period from 1991 to 1995 and emerged triumphantly as a proud and dignified nation.

Despite its various difficulties due to the U.S. embargo, Cuba stands with a high spirit. The spirit, which is also largely the spirit of Fidel Castro, will last.
BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to an international symposium that opened Sunday in Beijing on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations' "Declaration on the Right to Development."

In the letter, Xi said that development is an eternal theme for humans, and the international society should, taking the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a new starting point, seek common development through "fair, open, comprehensive and innovative" paths.

He noted that the symposium is significant to international human rights cooperation and improving human rights development in all countries.

For China, the world's largest developing country of over 1.3 billion people, development is key to solving all problems and is the primary task for the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi said, adding that China insists that the rights to live and development are primary basic human rights.

China has always put the people first during its development story and has effectively safeguarded their right to development, he said. China has also actively participated in global governance and promoted inclusive development, creating conditions and opportunities for all countries, especially developing countries, to share the fruits of development.

While the Chinese people work toward the nation's great rejuvenation, their lives will become happier and their rights better protected, Xi said.

China will contribute more to human development and progress, he said.

More than 150 officials and scholars from 40 countries, regions and international organizations attended the symposium.

Related:

Full Text: Xi's congratulatory letter to symposium on UN development right declaration

BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to an international symposium that opened Sunday in Beijing on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations' "Declaration on the Right to Development." Full story

UN experts highlight right to development

GENEVA, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- A group of United Nations experts on Friday urged governments worldwide to take actions so as to remove obstacles to the right to development.

Extreme poverty and growing inequality had fuelled crises and conflicts with far-reaching consequences, according to a joint statement marking the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development by the UN General Assembly, which falls on Dec. 4. Full story

Full text: The Right to Development: China's Philosophy, Practice and Contribution
CANBERRA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- A project aimed at bringing an iconic Australian wallaby species back from the brink of extinction has been deemed a success.

The black-flanked rock wallaby was thought to be extinct for decades until a group of rock climbers in Western Australia (WA) spotted a pair of the marsupials with their young in 2015.

The sighting of the wallabies prompted an immediate response by conservationists to save the species.

With funding from the World Wildlife Foundation, Australian scientists were able to breed 23 wallabies and release them back into WA's Kalbarri National Park.

Anthony Desmond, the nature conservation leader at the Department of Parks and Wildlife said that the animals appeared to have assimilated well into their new habitats with all but one surviving.

"So to have 22 animals that we suspect are still alive - and we definitely know 10 of them are still alive - that's a good outcome after this time period," Desmond said.

The research team set up a network of motion sensing cameras in the gorge to capture rare footage of the typically shy wallabies.

"To be able to go through a camera and see a rock wallaby and see a joey coming out of a pouch ... that's a real reward," Desmond told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday.

The gorges in the Kalbarri National Park was once home to the largest population of the wallabies in the world.

"I'd be hoping in the next five years it wouldn't be unusual for people to see a rock wallaby ... I'd expect people would be able to see them just as they're going out having a look at the park," Desmond said.

Corin Desmond, Anthony's son and a fellow member of the research team, said he hopes the public would one day be able to see the wallabies as he has.

"I really hope that they get back to the original numbers and that people can just come down and see a rock wallaby hanging around at the bottom of a lookout," he said. Enditem
HOUSTON, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- A photo exhibition showing the exchange of visits by top Chinese and U.S. leaders with an aim to help people know the importance of such ties was unveiled on Saturday in Houston, the largest city in the U.S. state of Texas.

The seven-day exhibition, entitled The Sino-U.S. Friendship and Culture, is being held by China's state-run Xinhua News Agency and supported by the Houston Confucian Culture Center, a non-profit organization in the Lone Star state.

During a grand opening ceremony held at the center, U.S. Congressman Al Green spoke highly of the exhibition and the importance of Sino-U.S. relations.

"The photos on display here today let us know that we (the United States and China) always have a great friendship," he said.

"As the two most important countries in the world, U.S. and China have been working together over the past decades and what is important now is that we should continue such relationship when our two great countries are trying to resolve some problems and difficulties," he said.

Chinese Consul General in Houston Li Qiangmin told Xinhua that these photos were very important and impressive as they told the development of Sino-U.S. ties.

"These photos are in fact a review and prospect of the friendship and cooperation between China and the United States. The relations between our two countries are the most important in the world today as a steady, healthy and good relationship between the two great countries will not only benefit ourselves, but also benefit the whole world," he said.

James Chen, a representative from the Texas Governor's office, said at the ceremony that U.S.-China relations were very important for the two countries, including the state of Texas which has important trade ties with China.

"Such ties will not only be good for our two countries, but also for the world as a whole. We should appreciate such good ties," he said.

A total of 29 Xinhua photos are on display at the exhibition, and all of them witness the friendship and cooperation between China and the United States, and the development of the bilateral ties.
BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will pay an official visit to China from Monday to Tuesday at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang announced Sunday.

Wang and Zarif will co-chair the first annual foreign ministers' meeting, according to Geng.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Iran in January, both countries agreed to set up an annual meeting mechanism as a part of efforts to deepen mutual strategic trust.
A new coding program in Montana is giving students an intense, 12-week training in fundamentals so they're ready for their first entry-level technology job.

It's called Apprentice Hive, created by local technology company ikuw Solutions (pronounced IQ).

"Employers are struggling finding talent to fill these jobs," said ikuw chief technology officer Kevin McManus. "And with technology, everything changes so quick."

Universities are not producing computer science graduates fast enough to replace the Baby Boomer generation retiring from the industry, he said.

"Montana's aging workforce is expected to result in high retirement and replacement needs in the upcoming years, leading to a predicted 1,350 replacement STEM openings every year," according to Montana Department of Labor and Industry's October report on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) jobs.

"It doesn't matter what industry you're in, technology has a role," McManus said.

When people think of Montana, their first impression likely isn't technology.

"That's exactly the issue we're struggling with," McManus said. "The fact of the matter is, you'll find a lot of people with an internet connection who can do software development anywhere in the world. You don't have to be in Silicon Valley.

"You can earn a high wage in this industry, and live in this beautiful area."

On average, Montana's computer user support specialists ($43,426), computer programmers ($63,606) and software developers ($74,784) make more annually than Montanans in non-STEM careers ($36,643), according to DLI.

STEM jobs make up 12 percent of the state's payroll employment.

The workforce shortage spans all industries, McManus said, but with how rapidly technology changes and the drag of waiting four to six years for students to graduate college, there's a gap.

"Doctors, I want them to get as much schooling as possible, but technology is different," he said. "We need people to get into the industry much quicker."

Logan Betts, McManus' son, graduated from the program this week.

Betts graduated from Hellgate High in 2015, and took a year off. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do  and watching so many of his peers enter and then drop out of college wasn't exactly an incentive to go that route.

"My initial thoughts were I don't know much about this stuff but I'll give it a shot," he said. "Tom, my instructor, was very thorough. There's so much, so step by step is not practical. You have to pick apart what you don't understand and ask questions."

Betts and five other students  one from Bozeman and four from Alaska  completed the program. Three of the Alaska students moved to Helena to complete the course in the training center. They came to the program following McManus' recruiting trip to Alaska last spring.

They learned the fundamentals of web, software and database development, networking and Agile product delivery. The 12 weeks wrap up with a capstone project, where students draw on the skills they've learned, including soft skills, to create a web-based application.

In the first five weeks, they learned five different Microsoft programs.

"Here, it's accelerated. It's not general studies or humanities," McManus said. "The best learning environment is on-the-job training."

Programs like Apprentice Hive, Montana Code School and Big Sky Code Academy are not necessarily intended to replace college, he said. But they get people into the workforce faster, at entry-level jobs. McManus said those people can then build up their savings, and if they want, attend college later and hopefully not rack up as much student loan debt.

"There are a lot of different ways you can go about education," McManus said.

"I thought I wanted to be an architect when I first went to college. I wasted a lot of money and time."

Instead, he graduated Montana Tech with a computer science degree. Nine years ago, ikuw was launched in the Belgrade area. In 2010, they expanded to Helena and in 2013, to Missoula.

Betts isn't sure he'll stay here, though. He loves Arizona, and is considering going to Arizona State University at some point.

"I feel like with the coding aspect, I could go in any direction," he said. "Every aspect of our lives is technology."
HEFEI, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- A couple who ran a restaurant in east China's Anhui Province will serve prison terms for their role in a fatal blast that killed 17 people in October 2015, a local court said Sunday.

Zhang Baoping and Diao Shancui, husband and wife, were found guilty of causing an accident with dangerous substances, and sentenced to seven years, and three years, respectively. Both lodged an appeal after the verdict.

The explosion occurred at noon on Oct. 10, 2015 in the restaurant on Yangjia Alley, a popular snack street in Jinghu District of Wuhu City, about 350 kilometers west of Shanghai.

Due to negligence, liquefied gas leaked through a disconnected valve from a cylinder, which came into contact with fire and caused the explosion, according to the court.

An official investigation report said Zhang was to blame as he used worn-out cylinders and did not properly handle the situation when the leak occurred.

Even though the couple turned themselves in, Zhang was not given a lighter punishment, his wife, however, was given a lesser punishment.

Thirty-three officials from Jinghu District and related departments in Wuhu City, including the director of the district, were given party or administrative punishments ranging from warnings to removal from posts in April.
by Fuad Rajeh

SANAA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- China has expressed strong concern over the formation of a government by the Houthi group and its allies, hoping any move raised should serve peace in the war-torn Yemen.

China has been among the ten countries sponsoring the post-2011 political transition in Yemen. It is playing growing role since the war erupted in the country following the Houthi seizure of power in late 2014.

Observers said China's concern over the Houthi-GPC government and reiteration of its support to the internationally recognized government signaled its intention to play a greater role in bringing peace back to the country.

"Yemen is a promising country either with natural resources that China needs or infrastructure projects that China will seek contracts for," said Ahmed Noman, an expert at the Red Sea and East Africa Research Center.

"And the most important point is that Yemen is a key gate to Africa where China is expanding its presence and investments, he added.

Adil Al-Shuja'a, a politics professor at Sanaa University, said the Houthi-Saleh alliance has failed to introduce itself to the international community as a capable and legitimate authority.

"The Houthis are facing the world, and simply China will not accept to back them," Al-Shuja'a said.

"Moreover, China might seek to take advantage of failures of other foreign players in order that it plays a key role toward the situation in the country," he added.

Some experts said China is a key business partner of Saudi Arabia and the logical reaction to the latest developments in Yemen is support the Saudi-backed government.

Yaseen Al-Tamimi, a political writer and analyst, said China still looks into global issues from an economic perspective -- its attitudes over global issues can't be against key trade partners.

"However, the clear Chinese reaction to the Houthi-GPC government apparently came in response to a Houthi attempt to show their government is not facing international isolation.

A Houthi delegation has paid a visit to Beijing recently after the formation of the government, Al-Tamimi said, adding that "in the context of global peace issues, China is very wise and acts as a well-trusted and balanced player".

The Houthi-GPC government of 42 ministers, the largest ever in Yemen's history, has been rejected by the international community as a unilateral move within the escalation affecting the peace process.

Lately, both the legitimate government and the Houthi-Saleh alliance rejected the U.S. and UN peace initiatives as war continued in key parts of the country.

Observers argued that the government of the Houthis and the former ruling party, the GPC, was not in line with this alliance's obligations toward the peace process.

"Regrettably, the Houthi-Saleh alliance is taking advantage of lax international attitudes and unfair peace initiatives. But definitely the move was toward hell, not peace," he said.

Faud Alsalahi, a political sociology professor at Sanaa University, said the Sanaa government comes within attempts to mix cards amidst political and military failures.

"Yemen is dominated by political chaos primarily because Yemeni factions are being controlled by foreign players. We have two governments that can't even think of a dialogue in order to end the war and form a unity government away from foreign meddling," Alsalahi said.

Yemen has been suffering from a civil war and a Saudi-led military intervention for around two years. The civil war began after the Houthi militants with support from forces loyal to the former president ousted the UN-backed transitional government.

The legitimate government controls the south and some eastern parts, while the alliance controls the other parts including the capital Sanaa.

The UN has sponsored peace talks between the warring factions several times, but the factions failed to reach common ground.
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Gun battle between government forces and Taliban has left nine insurgents dead and injured seven others on Saturday, army spokesman in the restive province Mohammad Hanif Rezai said.

"Taliban rebels attacked some security checkpoints in Andar district early Saturday triggering gun battle during which nine armed enemies have been killed and seven others injured," Rezai told Xinhua.

Security forces have also discovered a number of arms and ammunitions including 16 anti-vehicle mines, the official added.

Operations against militants to ensure security have been continuing, according to the official.

Taliban militants have not commented.
BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- With some Japanese media hyping an assertive China and missile threat from Pyongyang, the Japanese government led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is maneuvering to pass a record-high defense budget in fiscal 2017 to prop up their patriarch's militarism dream.

However, the 5.1 trillion yen (44.64 billion U.S. dollar) defense budget runs counter to the Japanese people's desire for peace and security, as the fundamental and righteous path to tranquillity lies not in a lust for military force, but in a good-neighborly relationship built upon mutual trust and understanding.

Given the dark role Japan had played during the Second World War and beyond, Tokyo's fifth consecutive year increase of the military budget does nothing at all in trust-building with its neighbors. On the contrary, it serves as the cap lifter of a nightmare of Japanese militarism revival.

The envisaged increase of the defense budget, together with a planned establishment of a panel on installing a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in Japan, is part of the efforts made by the Japanese government towards a "normal country."

However, such measures, along with the revision of Japan's pacifist Constitution, have further drifted Japan away from the path towards a normal country, making it a mission impossible.

Meanwhile, the upcoming increase of the military budget comes against Japan's efforts to cut back its spending on social welfare and education.

According to local media's estimation, to encounter a fast aging society, Japan needs to add 64 billion yen ( 560 million dollars) into its social welfare budget, but the Abe administration plans to condense the increase to 50 billion yen (440 million dollars).

In addition, were it settled, the deployment of THAAD system will cost hundreds of billions of yen (billions of dollars), adding a new burden on the already austere budget system.

Protests inside Japan and from its neighbors have raised red signals to Abe and his right-leaning government. If the prime minister and his colleagues really want to make contributions to world peace and stability, as they have pledged repeatedly, they need to walk their talk.

If history offers any guide, a militarized and belligerent Japan is detrimental to the peace and stability in East Asia and the whole world at large. It's high time for the Japanese government to heed those red signals, bid farewell to its history revisionism and stop muddying the waters in the region.
BERLIN, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Germany will not be affected by the latest decision of U.S. President Barack Obama to block a Chinese company's purchase of the U.S. business of German chip equipment maker Aixtron, said a government spokesperson on Saturday.

"Although the U.S. procedure should have been concluded, this will have no effect on the German procedure," said Korbinian Wagner, spokesperson for the Germany Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

"The process is running, the result is now open, and we have to wait for the process," Wagner was cited by German news media as saying.

The U.S. Department of Treasury said in a latest statement that Obama issued an order directing China's Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund (FGC) to "fully and permanently abandon" the proposed acquisition of Aixtron's U.S. business.

In October, BMWi suddenly withdrew the clearance certificate for Grand Chip. The ministry then reopened the review of the 670-million-euro (715-million-U.S. dollar) deal after it was initially approved on Sept. 8.
by Gale Julius

JUBA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Three years of insecurity, a biting economic crisis and widespread discrimination have taken the toll on people with disabilities in South Sudan.

Alfred Nimeri, 35, got paralyzed with polio at the age of six. The disease deformed Nimeri's's legs making him unable to walk. The father of three children now crawls on his knees to fend for his extended family.

Nimeri operates a phone charging business in a busy market in Juba. He crawls daily in the morning and evening to his shop located 10 kms from his home due to lack of a wheelchair.

He said since the outbreak of the December 2013 conflict, he has recounted several incidences of neglect, stigma and denial by his relatives and business partners.

"When I enter any office, people automatically think I'm coming to beg. They just begin to give out something that I don't deserve. Sometimes they deny me access to people I do business with thinking that I'm coming to ask for money from their bosses, Nimeri told Xinhua during an event to commemorate the World Disability Day in Juba on Saturday.

"My business can't bring enough money to satisfy the needs of my family because everything has increased in the market yet I don't have legs to move around to get extra money or do another business," he added.

Nimeri said the environment has become more hostile for people with disabilities especially in Juba as many persons with disabilities have resorted to begging as means of survival.

"One day I asked someone to show me direction to a bank in Juba. He just replied that sorry I don't have money. But after realizing that I was not a beggar, he apologized and moved way. So I was left without any help. So discrimination is a major challenge in this country," he said.

Julius Wani, a blind high school teacher in Juba blamed the authorities for not doing enough to improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities.

Wani said that disabled persons have suffered many years of discrimination and exclusion by the government due to lack of policies and resources to support those with special needs.

"Discrimination is everywhere. If there is an event or opportunity in the community, we are always the last to be given the chance to participate," Wani told Xinhua.

"In the office even people don't want me do other things just because I'm blind. I want to work like my colleagues who are normal but I'm not given the chance. I feel bad about that because I know I'm capable," he lamented.

"We struggle to get money, employment and to access public transport and infrastructure," Augustino Longule Elario, Chairperson of the South Sudan Network of People with Disabilities told Xinhua.

According to the disability assessment report of 2011, at least 424,000 people live with disabilities in South Sudan, with the majority of them getting disabilities from eye diseases, polio and physical injuries during war and violent conflicts.

The report says 85 percent of persons with disabilities live in rural areas with limited access to basic services.

The report further notes that people with disabilities face enormous challenges such as access to health services, education and mobility as most of the country's public infrastructure does not have special access zones for people with physical and visual impairment.

Esther Ikere, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Gender and Social Welfare, said the government and development partners have scaled up efforts to address challenges facing people living with disabilities in the African country.

With help from the International Community of the Red Cross (ICRC), over 2,000 disable persons have been rehabilitated with artificial limbs and assistive devices this year, she said.

She however said negative attitudes towards people with disabilities, poverty and insecurity in some areas has slowed down efforts to improve the environment for the disabled.

"We have a lot to do to turn this legal right into a revolution where we have a society where people embrace diversity in all its form and shape to take us to another stage," Ikere said.
HANGZHOU, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- China Industrial Design Association (CIDA) has reached strategic partnerships with 16 international organizations at the first World Industrial Design Conference, which closed in east Chinese city of Hangzhou on Saturday.

The CIDA signed a package of industrial design MOUs with organizations including International Council of Design, the Bureau of European Design Associations, Turkish Patent Institute and Italian Association for Industrial Design.

Martin Foessleitner, board member of Design Austria, said he was impressed by the initiative of China to host a conference of this level of dimension, and expected more cooperation on industrial design between Austria and China.

Official data show that China has over 5,000 manufacturing enterprises with an industrial design department, and over 6,000 independent industrial design companies. Nearly 300,000 people work in the area.

More than 500 industrial leaders from 43 global design organizations attended the conference.
ROME, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Italians were going to the polls on Sunday to vote on a crucial constitutional referendum that might deeply reshape the country's profile and legislature, or pose a government crisis for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

In Pontassieve polling station near Florence where Renzi used to be the mayor, many voters cast their ballots with Yes. But 26-year Davide said he would choose No because the proposed constitutional changes already confused many ordinary people and possible changes might lead to worse situation that had worried many voters.

Besides the proposed changes to the constitution, the event might have a broader political impact, since the future of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's cabinet much depends on its outcome.

Renzi has in fact staked his own political future on the approval of the reform, and a defeat of the referendum might trigger his resignation, and the fall of the government.

Some 46.7 million citizens were eligible to vote on Sunday. Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time, and would be closed at 11 p.m. Some 3.9 million Italian voters living abroad could also take part in the poll earlier this month.

The constitutional reform has already been passed by the parliament, but did not obtain qualified majorities for it to become laws. Therefore the citizens' final response, through a referendum, will be definitive according to the rule of constitution. They will have two options: to confirm it, or repel it, as a whole.

Most significant changes would concern the law-making process, the parliament composition, and the balance of power between central state and regions in topics like public health, infrastructures and major transports, environment, and energy.

If the reform is confirmed, the Italian senate will be demoted into a smaller assembly in charge of regional affairs, and its seats will be cut from 315 to 100 -- of which 95 elected, and five nominated by the president of the Republic.
MANILA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo said Sunday she is quitting from the Cabinet of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Robredo, who is the concurrent head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), cited several reasons for resigning, but according to her the "last straw," which prompted her to quit was the directive for her not to attend anymore the Cabinet meetings.

"We received a text message last Saturday from Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco Jr., relaying the President's instruction through (Special Assistant to the President Christopher) Bong Go for me 'to desist from attending all Cabinet meetings starting this Monday, December 5,'" she said in a statement.

"This is the last straw, because it makes it impossible for me to perform my duties. Hence, I am tendering my resignation from the Cabinet on Monday, December 5, 2016," said Robredo, who belongs to the opposition Liberal Party, the political party of former President Benigno Aquino III.

She admitted that from the very beginning, she and Duterte had "major differences in principles and values."

Since she assumed office, Robredo said she has been consistent in her opposition to issues such as the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, extra-judicial killings, reinstating death penalty, lowering the age of criminal liability, and sexual attacks against women.

Despite her resignation, she said the Filipinos could expect she would continue to support the positive initiatives of the Duterte administration and oppose those that are inimical to the people's interest.

"However, as your duly elected Vice President, I will not allow the Vice Presidency to be stolen. I will not allow the will of the people to be thwarted. I will continue to serve the Filipino family and fulfill their dream for a better life," she said.
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Two militants loyal to the hardliner Islamic State (IS) group were killed as unmanned plane targeted their hideout in east Afghanistan, a local official said Sunday.

The official who declined to be named said that acting upon intelligence report, the security forces launched drone attack on Sunday morning, killing two IS fighters on the spot in Achin district of the eastern Nangarhar province with Jalalabad as its capital 120 km east of Kabul.

Meanwhile, the government forces after days of heavy fighting evicted IS militants from Pachiragam district of Nangarhar province.

Nangarhar's provincial governor Gulab Mangal visited Pachiragam district on Saturday and after inspecting the situation promised to assist the families whose houses had been destroyed by IS militants, spokesman for provincial administration Attaullah Khogiani told media outlets here.

IS militants who are active in Achin, Batikot and Pachiragam districts are yet to make comment.
LARAMIE, Wyo.  The University of Wyoming would have a non-voting position on the board that establishes public education policy in the state, under a legislative proposal.

The Legislature's Joint Education Interim Committee is sponsoring a bill in the next legislative session to add an ex-officio member from UW to the Wyoming State Board of Education. The position would be similar to current board ex-officio members, such as Jim Rose, executive director of the Wyoming Community College Commission.

Public education policies, such as science standards, affect how students perform when they enter higher education institutions, so it's important to look at how they're taught in Wyoming's public schools, Board of Education chairman Pete Gosar said.

"Those seniors go somewhere, and hopefully, it will be to the community colleges or to the university, so it does matter what's taught in K-12, and it's important what's taught in pre-K for kindergarten teachers and getting kids ready," he told the Laramie Boomerang.

Because many of the teachers in Wyoming schools graduate from UW, Gosar said effective communication between public schools and the university could return better results that last through students' entire educational careers.

Rep. David Northrup, co-chairman of the Joint Education Committee, said he thinks the bill has many positive attributes that would make a strong case to state lawmakers. "I think the bill will really increase the education quality in Wyoming by getting everybody to talk and communicate, and therefore we can get everyone on the same page," said Northrup, R-Powell.
ANKARA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- A Turkish court on Sunday ordered the arrest of four suspects over a deadly fire at a private girls' dormitory in southern Turkish province of Adana, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The court ordered the arrest of two unidentified suspects, along with the dormitory manager and the head of the Aladag Aid Association to Course and School Students.

Another suspect was released under judicial control, and security proceedings of the rest three suspects were ongoing at the police headquarters.

The police had detained 14 suspects before releasing six of them on probation.

The four-year-old daughter of Genc was among those killed in the fire.

A total of 12 people including 10 students were killed and another 24 were injured after a fire broke out at the private girls' dormitory in Aladag district of Adana.

Inspections and investigations have been continuing over the deadly incident.

The four political parties at parliament agreed on Thursday to establish a committee over the incident in a bid to investigate potential negligence in the case.
People try to open the way for funeral cars containing the coffins of the victims along a rocky road, taking their bodies to their village for burial, in Adana, Turkey, on December 1, 2016.

Turkey detained six people suspected of negligence after 12 victims, most of them young schoolgirls, were killed in a fire that ravaged a dormitory. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

ANKARA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- A Turkish court on Sunday ordered the arrest of four suspects over a deadly fire at a private girls' dormitory in southern Turkish province of Adana, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The court ordered the arrest of two unidentified suspects, along with the dormitory manager and the head of the Aladag Aid Association to Course and School Students.

Another suspect was released under judicial control, and security proceedings of the rest three suspects were ongoing at the police headquarters.

The police had detained 14 suspects before releasing six of them on probation.

The four-year-old daughter of Genc was among those killed in the fire.

A total of 12 people including 10 students were killed and another 24 were injured after a fire broke out at the private girls' dormitory in Aladag district of Adana.

Inspections and investigations have been continuing over the deadly incident.

The four political parties at parliament agreed on Thursday to establish a committee over the incident in a bid to investigate potential negligence in the case.
Somali military vechiles take part in the 56th anniversary ceremony of the establishment of the National Army in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, April 12, 2016. (Xinhua/Faisal Isse)

MOGADISHU, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Somalia's Puntland state forces killed seven militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) militant group and injured several others in a fierce fighting on Saturday, a local official said Sunday.

The forces launched an offensive aimed at flushing out pro-IS militants in an area near the coastal town of Qandala in Bari region.

"We have killed seven ISIS (IS) militants at Bashashin area and after fighting, three of our soldiers sustained light injuries in a landmine blast in the area. Our forces pushed the ISIS militants back," Yusuf Mohamed, governor of Bari region, told reporters Sunday.

Mohamed said some of the militants were captured during the offensive.

Other militants retreated into a hill outside the village after the fighting, he said, adding: "We shall keep on pursuing the fighters until we get rid off them from Qandala."

The pro-IS militants, which split from Al-Shabaab Islamist group in 2015, took over Qandala from the Puntland administration in October.

Residents reported sporadic gunfire ongoing near Bashashin and Karin villages.

"Puntland forces -- both security and maritime police forces -- are in the operation to eliminate terrorists and restore Qandala location back to our control in 24 hours," said Mohamed.

There was no immediate comment from the pro-IS fighters led by Sheikh Abdulkadir Mumin, a former leader of the Al-Shabaab, which has been battling the Somali government for years.
SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The caravan carrying the ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro Sunday reached the Santa Ifigenia cemetery for burial in a historic ceremony after touring Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city in southeastern Cuba.

The caravan passed through the "Patria" avenue before the ashes reaching the cemetery, where lies the hero of Cuba's national independence, Jose Marti.

Thousand of inhabitants of the Santiago de Cuba province and other provinces bade farewell to the man who built a socialist revolution in the Caribbean island.

"I am Fidel!" "Fidel come back!" and "Raul, friend, the people is with you!" chanted the people, mostly dressed in black as a mourning sign. They lined up along the street during the passage of the funeral cortege.

The final leg of Castro's funeral procession travelled the last 120 km between the city of Bayamo to Santiago de Cuba, the place known as the Heroic City for "its decisive contributions to the complete and definitive independence of the Cuban nation."

Castro died on Nov. 25 at the age of 90 after a decade of retirement from his political positions due to a serious intestinal illness.
A woman casts her ballot for the constitutional referendum at a polling station in Florence, Italy, on Dec. 4, 2016. Italians on Sunday were voting in a constitutional referendum seen as a key test for both Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's cabinet and the European Union (EU). (Xinhua/Jin Yu)

ROME, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Italians on Sunday were voting in a constitutional referendum seen as a key test for both Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's cabinet and the European Union (EU).

Polls opened at 7 a.m., and some 46.7 million Italians were eligible to cast their ballot. Over 3.9 million Italians living abroad had their chance to vote earlier this month.

The turnout was at 20.14 percent soon after midday, the Interior Ministry data showed.

The reform amending the constitution has been already approved by the parliament, and, if passed on Sunday, would deeply reshape the country's profile and legislature. Most significant changes would concern the law-making process, the parliament composition, and the balance of power between central state and regions.

With the reform, the senate would lose its current law-making equal status with the chamber of deputies, its power to bring down the cabinet, and vote on budget laws and other major national legislation. As such, draft bills would not have to shuttle anymore from one chamber to the other until both of them agree on an identical text. In addition, the cabinet will depend on the confidence of the lower house only.

The number of senators will be cut to 100 from 315. Among other major changes, the central government would retake exclusive prerogatives in key sectors such as public health, infrastructure, environment, and energy.

The rules to elect the president of the Republic, and the judges to Italy's highest court, would also change.

The constitutional reform was strongly advocated by the cabinet, and by center-left Prime Minister Renzi's Democratic Party (PD).

According to the "Yes" side, the amendments would allow Italy to streamline its law-making process, and make the cabinets more stable.

While the opponents believe the reform would weaken the parliament, and concentrate too much power in the cabinet.

The "No" front has been dominated by the country's second opposition force Five Star Movement (M5S) led by comedian Beppe Grillo, yet it included center-right parties, and a minority of Renzi's own PD.
LAGOS, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hailed Nigeria for launching a new plan that would speed up HIV treatment and prevention in the country.

The documents would help quickly put 500,000 more people living with HIV on treatment and get Nigeria back on track to achieve the 90-90-90 treatment target, Charles-Martin Jjuuko, Communications and Global Outreach Officer of UNAIDS Nigeria, said in a statement to Xinhua on Sunday.

Two documents were launched in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, to commemorate the 2016 World AIDS Day. They aim to boost national response to HIV/AIDS, improvement of related care and services, and halting its spread in Nigeria by 2030.

The documents are the National HIV Guidelines, Prevention, Treatment and Care 2016, and Fast tracking HIV and Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) Treatment in Nigeria.

The UNAIDS official added that the plan would also support the HIV testing of 3 million more pregnant women, and treat 75,000 newly diagnosed.

According to Jjuuko, UNAIDS welcomes the move to fast track treatment and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

More than 3.5 million people are currently living with HIV in Nigeria, among whom 250,000 are new infections, with only 24 percent of the total figure of people with the disease having access to public health treatment.

Nigeria is yet to implement the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a new HIV prevention approach in which HIV-negative individuals use anti-HIV medications to reduce their risk of becoming infected.
TEHRAN, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that recent U.S. vote for the extension of Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) is a clear violation of an international deal on Iran's nuclear issue, official IRNA news agency reported.

Rouhani called the vote "a blatant infringement" of the nuclear deal, saying that the U.S. president should not endorse it and "should use his authority to block it from being enforced."

He said that Iran will not tolerate the infringement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal, by any party involved in the contract, and will respond decisively.

Iranian senior officials have been voicing their criticism and concerns about the violation of the nuclear deal following the U.S. vote to extend the ISA for another 10 years.

The vote by the U.S. House of Representatives is endorsed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday, still has to be signed by the U.S. president to become a law.

The ISA was first adopted in 1996 to sanction Iran over its controversial nuclear program.

Rouhani stressed Sunday Iran's commitments to the deal, which put an end to Iran's disputable nuclear issue last year, calling it "an international document."

Iran and six world major countries, namely the U.S., Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany, reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue in July, 2015 that puts Iran on the path of sanctions relief but more strict limits on its nuclear program.

The deal sets limits on Iran's nuclear activities as it will take Tehran at least one year to produce enough fissile materials for producing a nuclear weapon, and allows regular inspections of the facilities inside Iran.

In return, the U.S. and the European Union will suspend nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran.

Many members of the U.S. Congress had expressed deep concern over the deal, warning that Tehran could evade inspections and use the money from sanction relief to destabilize the region.
GAZA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Four Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip were found dead in a tunnel underneath the borderline with Egypt used for smuggling goods from Egypt into Gaza, medics said Sunday.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the Gaza Health Ministry, told reporters that rescue teams and civil defense pulled out the bodies of four local workers from a tunnel under the borders with Egypt.

He said that a fifth one is still missing and rescue teams are still searching for him, adding that the four bodies were taken to a hospital in southern Gaza.

After Israel imposed a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007, in the wake of Hamas movement's violent takeover of the enclave, the Palestinians dug hundreds of tunnels to defy the Israeli blockade and bring their needs.

However, in 2013, the Egyptian army carried out a large campaign that aimed at around 1,400 tunnels used for smuggling goods from Egypt to Gaza. Egypt said that it destroyed more than 95 percent of the tunnels.

Residents of Rafah town close to the borders with Egypt said that very few tunnels are still operating and used for smuggling goods, mainly cigarettes.

Gaza rights groups said that since the start of the Egyptian army campaign against tunnels and pumping sewage waters into it, around 23 Palestinians died in various incidents in tunnels.
GAZA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- A militant of the Islamic Hamas movement was killed on Sunday in a military accident in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, medics and the group's armed wing said.

Medical sources at Khan Younis Hospital said that Abdul Rahman Arafat, 24, a resident of the city, was dead on arrival at the hospital. No other injuries were reported.

Hamas's armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, said in a short news text message sent to reporters that confirmed the militant's death, without elaborating.

When militants in the Gaza Strip are killed, armed groups, mostly Hamas and Islamic Jihad, usually say they get accidentally killed during military missions.

Hamas's armed wing is the largest armed military wing in the Gaza Strip and leads armed attacks against Israel, and has previously confronted the Israeli army in three large-scale military offensives waged on Gaza since 2008.
HELSINKI, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The chairman of local city council and two local journalists were shot dead in eastern Finland's town of Imatra by a man with a rifle Saturday night, the police said on Sunday.

The killing appeared to have no political motive, the police said in a televised press conference.

A 23-year-old man arrived at the front of the well-known local restaurant Vuoksenvahti at midnight Saturday and opened fire. He used a licensed long-pipe rifle authorized for someone else, said the police.

One of the deceased was Tiina Wilen-Jappinen, chairman of the Imatra City Council, who according to the police was not an intended target. The two other victims were local journalists of whom identities were not unveiled. The three women had been out in the town together.

The alleged shooter had a background of violent crime, the police said, adding they had no knowledge of extremist thought or links associated with the killer.

The names of the two killed journalists were not published by the police.

The police dismissed social media reports claiming the victims were Russians. Imatra is located close to the Russian border.

Long pipe rifles are commonly licensed in Finland for hunting purposes.
On behalf of The Bismarck Tribune employees and independent paper carriers, I want to thank our readers for their patience and understanding over the past week.

With more than 18 inches of snow along with wind and ice conditions, we were unable to deliver your paper in a timely manner in some areas. Many newspaper carriers were able to deliver papers every day, but, in other areas, where roads were impassable or even closed, The Tribune could not be delivered on time. Drivers and carriers were exposed to high winds and drifting snow while attempting delivery before dawn.
GAZA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Israeli naval forces arrested early on Sunday two Palestinian fishermen in the waters of northern the Gaza Strip, a senior Palestinian official said.

"The Israeli army also confiscated their fishing boat and took them to the seaport of Ashdod for questioning," Nizar Ayyash, chairman of Gaza Fishermen Association, said in a statement.

Israel says that the arrest of the two fishermen were made due to violation of the area allowed for fishing.

Ayyash noted that since the beginning of this year, the Israeli army arrested 105 fishermen.

"Most of them were released after few hours of questioning by the Israeli security officers," he said.

Four Palestinian fishermen were arrested eight months ago and have not been released, he added.

The Israeli army says that the arrests of fishermen in the waters of the Gaza Strip are aimed at stopping the smuggling of weapons and drugs into the coastal enclave, which has been ruled by the Islamic Hamas movement since 2007.

On June 5, the Israeli army decided to reduce the allowed area of fishing from nine miles to six miles.

However, last month, Israel decided to expand the fishing area in the Gaza Strip to nine miles. But the move was postponed three times for security reasons, said Ayyash.
by Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Germany stands by Greece's side in recent years, as the country faces the dual crisis of the debt load and the migrant influx, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an interview published on Sunday shortly before the start of his two-day visit to Greece.

"We have proved several times that we do not leave Greece alone. We were the first European country to offer support to assist the refugees," the German official told Greek newspaper "Kathimerini" (Daily) before his meetings with Greek leaders on Sunday and Monday.

Amid concerns over the fate of the European Union (EU)-Turkey deal on the refugee flows launched in March, Steinmeier stressed that so far all sides are honoring their commitments.

"Both Turkey and the EU benefit from the agreement," he stressed when asked to comment on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent warnings that a new wave of migrants towards Europe may be unleashed should European partners freeze talks on Turkey's accession into the EU.

Regarding escalating tensions between Athens and Ankara lately over sovereignty issues in the Aegean Sea, the German official said that the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne, which set out the modern borders between Greece and Turkey in the early 20th century, are indisputable.

On the Cyprus talks, he expressed hope that all sides will contribute to a solution for the reunification of the island.
MOGADISHU, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Somalia's Somaliland region, which has been seeking independence, said Sunday it is not party to the ongoing elections in Somalia.

Somaliland Information Minister Osman Abdullahi Sahardid told reporters in the region's capital Hargeisa that Somaliland was keen on pursuing its independence and was therefore not party to the elections.

Sahardid said Somaliland does not recognize those who are participating in Somalia's ongoing parliamentary elections on behalf of the region, adding those people betrayed Somaliland's quest for independence.

"We do not have anyone representing us in the government of Somalia. Those who purport to do so are job seekers advancing personal interests," Sahardid said.

Elections to choose members of both lower and upper houses have not started in Somaliland.

The announcement is likely to deal a major blow to presidential elections in Somalia which have been delayed again and again.

Somali officials recently said newly-elected lawmakers would choose a new president in December.

Somaliland has been pursuing self-determination in the past 25 years but is yet to get any international recognition.
Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski speaks at the closing press conference for the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Ming)

LIMA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Peruvians from various walks of life have felt new winds blowing through the country thanks to the economic and social reforms carried out by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who has been in power a little under five months.

This week, one well-received measure was that healthcare and education workers will get a substantial pay raise to improve their quality of life.

For example, 90,000 teachers will see their salaries rise from 459 U.S. dollars a month to 502 dollars, and 45,000 doctors will see theirs increase from 907 U.S. dollars a month to 1,351 dollars.

Earlier this week, Kuczynski also got a standing ovation at the Annual Executives Conference (CADE 2016), where the country's business community expressed their support for his policies, such as the fiscal reform and the red tape reduction.

During his speech at the conference, the president reiterated that his government was working for the prosperity of the Peruvian economy as well as for social justice.

"We want a buoyant market economy with social justice," he told the gathered executives who expressed their support for his crackdown on corruption.

Since Kuczynski came to office in July, the government has also experienced his firm hand, as he immediately dismissed collaborators involved in corruption, which has been well received by the population.

Former Presidential Advisor Carlos Moreno was dismissed for having allegedly carried out suspicious business transactions in the health sector, and former Defense Minister Mariano Gonzalez was fired after he was found having placed his girlfriend in a highly-paid position in the ministry.

Photo taken on Nov. 21, 2016 shows a worker preparing for the first direct-cargo flight between China and Peru. (Xinhua/Luis Camacho)

Kuczynski has also sought to curb the rampant informal economy -- which is neither taxed, nor monitored by any form of government -- in Peru by helping to formalize micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

His vision of a Peruvian society with higher levels of social inclusion and less economic disparity has led his government to attend with priority to inhabitants of the southern Andes, one of the poorest and remote regions in the country.

Many of Peru's 7 million poor people live there and the government has focused on job creation.

According to the national statistics office INEI, 73.2 percent of Peru's 15.9 million working people have an informal job, leading Kuczynski to see this as an emergency.

While this creates a tough task for the 78-year-old economist to face, the president has vowed to put Peru on a track of sustainable development by taking socio-economic measures.

For this year, the government has set a target for the economy to grow by 4 percent and for private investment to top 17.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

To achieve this, Promperu, the country's export and tourism bureau, has designed a portfolio of investment projects worth over 15 billion U.S. dollars.
Seven children and six women were among those killed in at least 40 air raids on areas in the countryside of Idlib. (AFP photo)

DAMASCUS, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- At least 34 people were killed on Sunday by intensified airstrikes on rebel-held areas in Syria's northern province of Idlib, a monitor group reported.

Seven children and six women were among those killed in at least 40 air raids on areas in the countryside of Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog said the airstrikes targeted the towns of Sarmin, Jisr al-Shughour, Marat al-Numan, Kafr Nubol, Khan Shaikoun and other areas in Idlib's countryside.

The death toll is likely to rise due to a large number of critically wounded people, it added.

The Observatory, which says it relies on a network of activists on ground, made no mention of the identity of the warplanes striking Idlib.

Meanwhile, Idlib-based activists said that at least 55 people were killed in the airstrikes, posting online some photos of what they said was the aftermath of an airstrike on a vegetable marketplace in Marat Numan area.

Much of Idlib has fallen to the rebels over the past year, except two Shiite towns loyal to the government.

The rebels who are fleeing or evacuating areas under their control in the capital Damascus or the northern city of Aleppo were all headed toward Idlib, making the province increasingly heavy with armed militants.
The Flag of Mercosur (Xinhua/File Pic)

CARACAS, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro stated Saturday that he would take his country's suspension from the Mercosur bloc, which he called "illegal and disproportionate," to international authorities.

"We have not been found guilty or given a right to defense... this is an illegal action and we will appeal at all international levels," vowed the head of states at an economic summit in the Miraflores presidential palace.

For Maduro, the decision by the other Mercosur founders (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) was a "coup d'etat". However, he focused his anger on the first three, saying "this was a coup by the triple alliance".

When Uruguay finished the rotating presidency of Mercosur in July, it was the only one of the four to support Caracas' right to take the position, while the other three cited opposition due to a burgeoning political crisis and Venezuela not meeting Mercosur norms.

Maduro said he had asked for a personal meeting with Uruguay's President Tabare Vazquez on the expulsion.

He also vowed that he would attend any upcoming Mercosur meetings to defend Venezuela's right.

Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay notified Venezuela of its suspension on Friday, for not having complied with Mercosur norms on trade and human rights.
KABUL, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan special forces have captured 11 militants in three provinces, the command of Afghan Special Forces said on Sunday.

"The Afghan Special Operations Forces carried out operations in Kabul, Wardak and Nangarhar provinces, capturing two local commanders of al-Qaida network, five planners and bomb-making experts of Haqqani network and four suicide attack facilitators of Islamic States (IS) group within the last 24 hours," it said in a statement.

The Afghan security forces had beefed up security operations recently as militants were attempting to take territory and consolidate their positions ahead of winter in the mountainous country.

The militant groups have yet to make comments.
Students wait to bid farewell to the motorcade escorting the ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in Santa Clara, Cuba, on Nov. 30, 2016. (Xinhua/David de la Paz)

by Xinhua writer Ma Guihua

HAVANA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- It is impossible to witness Cuba on Saturday without hearing the resounding chorus: "Yo soy Fidel!" (I Am Fidel!) by people who mourned the Caribbean island country's revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro.

Ever since the news of Fidel's passing on the night of Nov. 25 came, Cuba has been plunged in disbelief and sadness, and also an unusual calm and determination in the people who turned out in tens of thousands, to pay homage to their beloved leader and a man they dearly and proudly called "Fidel."

Students wait to bid farewell to the motorcade escorting the ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in Santa Clara, Cuba, on Nov. 30, 2016. (Xinhua/David de la Paz)

THE REVOLUTIONARY LEADER

In a way, the Cubans have been prepared for this day as Fidel himself bid farewell in his last official appearance at the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party on April 19, saying: "I'll be 90 years old soon...Soon I'll be like all the others."

In a husky voice, the veteran revolutionary, who turned 90 on Aug. 13 and had been renowned for his eloquence and passion in delivering speeches for hours on end at every critical moment of the Cuban nation, said: "The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without truce to obtain them."

For Cubans, Fidel is a symbol who led them in a hard-fought resistance against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, against its next-door Cold War power, the United States, which, upon Fidel's declaring of Cuba as a socialist state in 1961, deemed the island "a red monster" and tried every possible scheme to smother the Cuban government.

Fidel was a survivor. He survived more than 600 assassination attempts, outlived eight successive U.S. presidents, and 11 U.S. governments, and emerged triumphant and revered by millions in the world.

Fidel was a believer. He believed in independence, sovereignty, social justice, equality, and solidarity.

It was under him that Cuba sent troops at the end of 1970s to African countries to help people there fight for their independence. It was under him that Cuba became a social welfare state with free education and free health care, with a Human Development Index ranking 67th of the 188 countries assessed by the United Nations Development Program in 2015, putting many developed countries to shame. It was also under him that Cuba, despite its own economic difficulty, dispatched doctors and teachers to African and Latin American countries to support the local people to overcome medical and educational shortages.

Fidel was also an idealist and thinker of humanity. Encroached on all sides by the roaring waves of capitalism and consumerism, he never wavered about the ideals of socialism, insisting that the country built "of the humble, by the humble, for the humble" should remain like that.

Even after his retirement from politics, he never ceased pondering how to curb poverty through food production, studying the threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, and wondering how much money squandered in launching wars could be invested in science to relieve people from the scourge of cancer, diabetes and other pains, or to promote arts and culture.

Honor guards take care of the urn holding the ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, in Havana, capital of Cuba, on Nov. 30, 2016. (Xinhua/PRENSA LATINA/Vladimir Molina)

CUBA, A MIRACLE

For those who wish Fidel's passing would mark a bygone era and that Cuba would soon forsake his ideals to embrace capitalism have no evidence to support their pure naivety.

The high-level delegations from the world's 55 countries, including 13 heads of states and government, were not just one show of solidarity, not to mention the thousands of Cubans signing their oaths, pledging loyalty to the revolution at the Jose Marti Memorial and the iconic Revolution Sq Equally impressive were the millions of sleep-deprived Cubans lining the streets of Havana and the "road to freedom", bidding farewell to their commander-in-chief as the caravan carrying Fidel's ashes coursed through the country to the destination where he would rest with Cuba's national hero Jose Marti.

For people in the world, Cuba is a miracle. It has survived 55 years of U.S. blockade, the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the nuclear crisis in 1962, the special period from 1991 to 1995 and emerged triumphantly as a proud and dignified nation.

Despite its various difficulties due to the U.S. embargo, Cuba stands with a high spirit. The spirit, which is also largely the spirit of Fidel Castro, will last.
LONDON, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Motorists who cause deaths by their dangerous driving are to face the same life prison sentence for people convicted of murder, Britain's Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said Sunday.

Courts in Britain have currently handed out lengthy sentences for drivers causing deaths while using cellphones while driving their vehicles.

But the maximum term they can currently set is 14 years behind bars.

Government ministers have put forward the plan to give judges the power to jail people for life, the highest punishment available in British courts.

Drivers face life sentences for causing death by dangerous driving, matching sentences for manslaughter. It targeted motorists using cellphones while they are driving, as well as motorists involved in street racing or driving at high speeds.

Drivers who cause death by less serious charge of careless driving, will also face life sentences if they cause accidents while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Currently the maximum sentence is also 14 years behind bars.

A new 3 year jail term will be introduced for careless drivers causing serious injury.

The courts will also have the power to impose longer driving disqualifications against convicted motorists.

The MoJ said the new plan comes as ministers seek to deter dangerous, criminal behaviour on Britain's roads, and make sure killer drivers face the toughest penalties.

In one of the most recent cases lorry driver Tomasz Kroker who killed a mother and three children while distracted by his cellphone was jailed for ten years.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi casts his vote for the referendum on constitutional reform, in Pontassieve, Italy, Dec. 4, 2016.(Xinhua/Jin Yu)

ROME, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Italians on Sunday were voting in a constitutional referendum seen as a key test for both Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's cabinet and the European Union (EU).

Polls opened at 7 a.m., and some 46.7 million Italians were eligible to cast their ballot. Over 3.9 million Italians living abroad had their chance to vote earlier this month.

The turnout was at 20.14 percent soon after midday, the Interior Ministry data showed.

The reform amending the constitution has been already approved by the parliament, and, if passed on Sunday, would deeply reshape the country's profile and legislature. Most significant changes would concern the law-making process, the parliament composition, and the balance of power between central state and regions.

With the reform, the senate would lose its current law-making equal status with the chamber of deputies, its power to bring down the cabinet, and vote on budget laws and other major national legislation. As such, draft bills would not have to shuttle anymore from one chamber to the other until both of them agree on an identical text. In addition, the cabinet will depend on the confidence of the lower house only.

The number of senators will be cut to 100 from 315. Among other major changes, the central government would retake exclusive prerogatives in key sectors such as public health, infrastructure, environment, and energy.

The rules to elect the president of the Republic, and the judges to Italy's highest court, would also change.

The constitutional reform was strongly advocated by the cabinet, and by center-left Prime Minister Renzi's Democratic Party (PD).

According to the "Yes" side, the amendments would allow Italy to streamline its law-making process, and make the cabinets more stable.

While the opponents believe the reform would weaken the parliament, and concentrate too much power in the cabinet.

The "No" front has been dominated by the country's second opposition force Five Star Movement (M5S) led by comedian Beppe Grillo, yet it included center-right parties, and a minority of Renzi's own PD.
A sheriff who is leading operations for law enforcement at the protest camps in southern Morton County said at a news conference Saturday that officials are considering withdrawing from Backwater Bridge on N.D. Highway 1806.

Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said there was a discussion held on the bridge Friday between law enforcement and camp organizers. He was asked whether police would consider leaving the bridge, which is reinforced with cement jersey barriers and wire.

The bridge has been closed since Oct. 27, when pipeline protesters were pushed from a northern "front line" camp that had been established atop the pipeline route and back to the main camps near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Multiple vehicles burned there that night, and authorities have said the bridge may be structurally unsafe for traffic due to the fires.

"Weve discussed this, and this is what we would consider. We will pull back to an area that gives us separation between law enforcement and the protest groups. We will not permanently staff the north side of the bridge, and we will do this no later than 4 p.m. (Sunday) afternoon," Laney said.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said Saturday that the bridge will not be re-opened, yet, and the barricades will remain until it has been inspected.

Laney said in order for police to leave the bridge, pipeline protesters must agree to remain in the camps and stay off the bridge unless a "pre-arranged meeting" with law enforcement is approved. He said protesters cannot attempt to remove any barriers or wire from the bridge, nor "move north of the bridge by walking, riding or flying their drone."

He said compliance with these requests will "assist in de-escalating any further confrontations," and show "good faith by the protest movement."

Violation of these agreements will result in the arrests of anyone moving to the area north of the bridge or the waterlines north of Army Corps of Engineers' property, Laney said.

And I can tell you were not moving on that camp, nor are we planning on doing that any time in the near future, Laney said in reference to a Monday eviction notice issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Maj. Gen. Al Dohrmann, adjutant general of the North Dakota National Guard, said he, Laney, state Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Lonnie Wangen and a representative of the pipeline security team met with Wesley Clark Jr., one of the organizers of a group of veterans arriving in support of the pipeline protesters, and others.

We had a good discussion and walked away with a mutual commitment to maintaining peace, showing mutual respect for one another and assuring adequate space between law enforcement and protesters who peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights, Dohrmann said. Mr. Clark assured us that there was no intent to engage law enforcement or move past the south side of the Backwater Bridge.

Kirchmeier also briefed reporters on a phone call he had with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. He said he reiterated that the federal government needs to reach a decision on the pipeline easement.

While she concurred for the safety of everybody involved  there was not much offered in terms of direct action from the federal government, Kirchmeier said. This is not going to get solved in the current condition that its in.

The Tribune's efforts to get comment on the proposal from protest leaders were unsuccessful.
Driver (L) of an Olympics shuttle bus carrying media workers stands at the door after his bus was hit by a car (R) at a street in London, Britain, on July 24, 2012. (Xinhua/Liu Dawei)

LONDON, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Motorists who cause deaths by their dangerous driving are to face the same life prison sentence for people convicted of murder, Britain's Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said Sunday.

Courts in Britain have currently handed out lengthy sentences for drivers causing deaths while using cellphones while driving their vehicles.

But the maximum term they can currently set is 14 years behind bars.

Government ministers have put forward the plan to give judges the power to jail people for life, the highest punishment available in British courts.

Drivers face life sentences for causing death by dangerous driving, matching sentences for manslaughter. It targeted motorists using cellphones while they are driving, as well as motorists involved in street racing or driving at high speeds.

Drivers who cause death by less serious charge of careless driving, will also face life sentences if they cause accidents while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Currently the maximum sentence is also 14 years behind bars.

A new 3 year jail term will be introduced for careless drivers causing serious injury.

The courts will also have the power to impose longer driving disqualifications against convicted motorists.

The MoJ said the new plan comes as ministers seek to deter dangerous, criminal behaviour on Britain's roads, and make sure killer drivers face the toughest penalties.

In one of the most recent cases lorry driver Tomasz Kroker who killed a mother and three children while distracted by his cellphone was jailed for ten years.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far right party National Front, attends a May Day rally in Paris, France, May 1, 2014. (Xinhua/Elienne Laurent)

PRAGUE, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) is "under threat of populists and neoliberals," says a resolution unveiled Saturday upon the conclusion of the three-day meeting of the Party of European Socialists (PES) Council here.

"Years of misguided austerity, of increasing inequality, of insecurity have provided fertile ground for despair, and this is the result of years of neoliberal and conservative policies across Europe," declares the PES resolution entitled "Saving Europe: for Youth and Progress".

"Citizens are expressing their worries and they are seeking more stability and protection. Populists are taking advantage of this situation to spread their lies, hatred and division," the resolution says.

It says EU is under threat because people do not have fulfilling and secure jobs and because they do not believe that their children will have a better life than they have.

According to the resolution, neither basic economic freedoms nor competition rules take precedence over fundamental social rights.

In the event of conflict, fundamental social rights must have priority, says the resolution, calling for the establishment of a European social protection floor that guarantees universal access to quality health services, including sexual and reproductive health rights and basic income security, with minimum wages guaranteeing a basic decent income for all citizens.

The resolution also says it is an absolute priority for the EU to work towards preventing radicalisation in societies.

Moreover, the PES resolution calls for 20 billion euros (about 21.6 billion U.S. dollars) to be made available for the Youth Guarantee until 2020.

It says that PES sees young people as a fundamental asset for European societies, for European democracies, and for the economic recovery of Europe.
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- A spokesman of Alameda County Sheriff's Office said more bodies were recovered on Sunday as searchers entered two more areas of a warehouse burnt out 36 hours ago.

However, Sergeant Ray Kelly, at the second press conference of the day, declined to give a number.

More than two hours before, at the first briefing on Sunday, officials increased the death toll of an overnight fire that started at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday from 9 to 24. Unconfirmed reports said the total fatalities stood at 30.

The worst fire in the history of Oakland, east of San Francisco, took place during an electronic music party in a two-story warehouse converted into a party venue and probably a residence in an industrial neighborhood.

Officials said there was no sign of fire alarms and no evidence of a sprinkler system in the structure.

Kelly said on Saturday searching in the debris for victims could take at least 48 hours. He reiterated the time frame needed on Sunday.

Heavy machinery was brought in to the site on Saturday to help with cleaning up the debris and shore up the building, which is now a crime scene. Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf pledged on Saturday a thorough investigation into the disaster.
iStock/Thinkstock(ALEPPO, Syria) -- Half of the rebel-held areas in east Aleppo have been re-taken by Syrian government troops, a military spokesperson tells BBC News. Gen. Samir Sulaiman said he hoped all of Aleppo would be under government control within the next few weeks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a humanitarian monitoring group in the region, said the district of Tariq al-Bab was seized by government troops after being under rebel control for four years.

The group said dozens of soldiers on both sides of the conflict were left injured or killed in the fighting, and at least 300 civilians have been killed in rebel-held districts since the government intensified its push to retake the city in November.

Stephen O'Brien, humanitarian affairs chief at the United Nations, said food was running extremely low in rebel-held areas under government siege, and UN officials on the ground told BBC News they were preparing for a wave of civilians fleeing the violence.

On Thursday, Russia (an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) said it was ready to discuss opening corridors into the city for humanitarian access. Approximately 250,000 people remain trapped in parts of the city that are under government siege, according to BBC News.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
For the last three Christmas seasons, Jim Brent has handed out candy canes and smiles while manning a Salvation Army red kettle.

Its just a matter of being there with a smile on your face and thanking people for their donations, he said. Its fun to see people give.

Brent wants more people to experience the fun he has in bell ringing.

The Salvation Armys annual Kettle Campaign is the organizations main fundraiser for the year, said Maj. John Flanagan. He said the money, collected at a number of sites throughout Bismarck-Mandan, stays in the community and is used for year-round operations, as well as the Christmas Joy Shop and the food pantry.

The Salvation Army could use a few more people like Brent who are willing to stand outside and ring their bells to spread some Christmas cheer and alert shoppers to the presence of the kettles.

We definitely could use some more volunteers, especially during the weekdays, Flanagan said.

The kettles can hang outside stores without a bell ringer, but Flanagan said people are more likely to give if there is someone there to greet them.

It just seems like people like to interact more with another person and talk to them, wish them a merry Christmas, he said. When you just leave the kettle hanging there, its so much easier for people to just walk by and ignore it.

Flanagan said fundraising is running a bit behind last year, in part because of the snowstorm to start this week.

Brent is retired and has a roof over his head, and he finds joy in knowing that the Salvation Army will get resources to people who need it because of his bell ringing.

Every nickel goes to help the needy in the community, he said. I have a need to give back.

Anyone interested in ringing a bell can contact Anna Leet, volunteer coordinator for Salvation Army, at 701-223-1889. They also can sign up at https://www.registertoring.com/WebPages/LocationSearch.aspx.

The Salvation Army isnt the only organization with Christmas programs in need of volunteers. United Way marketing manager Nicole Peske said volunteers are needed to help gift wrap presents for the United Way Backpack Program on Dec. 14. People with large vehicles also are needed to play Santa and deliver gifts to schools on Dec. 15.

Were so thankful for the individuals and businesses who have come forward already to help with these projects, Peske said. There is so much need in our community  more than people even realize. For example, one in five children in our area do not have enough food to eat. This is why these programs are so vital. Our whole community is stronger when were all working together to raise each other up.

For more information on volunteer opportunities with United Way, visit www.volunteerbisman.com.

The United Way has numerous holiday-related programs and events ongoing. Donors and volunteers will fill 450 gift tags to provide for families served by United Way. The organization also provided Thanksgiving baskets for 16 families.

The Backpack Program has received 692 presents through Hess and Toys for Tots to go to low-income children in the program. The United Way Women United will wrap gifts on Monday and will decorate 50 trees for low-income families in the area. A food drive on Dec. 10-11 at Wal-Mart also will collect items for backpacks.

The United Way also is giving businesses and families the chance to honor people in their lives by purchasing things like United Way Backpacks, emergency sheltering for youth and other charitable efforts. People can select items at www.msaunitedway.org/gift, and the United Way will mail them a card representing the purchase for them to personalize and give to the honoree.
Cops hunt for female shooter

Police sources told Newsday the woman has a dreadlock hairstyle, and lives in Champs Fleurs.

The men are reported to be stable while under guard at Port-of-Spain General Hospital.

According to reports an unidentified man was standing near a fruit stall on Henry Street at about 3.30 pm, when another man approached and grabbed him.

The two men got into a scuffle, then without warning a woman approached with a firearm in hand, and opened fire on the two men.

Both men were injured, however one of the men ran across the street in a bid to escape, before collapsing on the pavement. The woman ran off. Police believe the man who grabbed the other man knew the woman and suspect they are accomplices.
Plan to ease recession woes

In a statement issued to the media on Friday, the ministry said the plan will utilise a structured approach to mitigating the effects of the economic downturn.

Progressively, the National Social Mitigation Plan will seek to strengthen existing social protection mechanisms, by developing a way forward through evidence-based policy and implementation, to effectively and efficiently mitigate the impact of the economic downturn, the ministry said.

It was also revealed that several of the ministrys staff attended a seminar conducted by the Centre for Human Development in November.

The seminar, which brought together professionals from a number of sectors across society, was titled Protecting Families, Building Resiliency within Challenging Economic Times - Our Roles and Responsibilities, presented attendees with the opportunity to discuss ideas for positive solutions towards building resiliency and empowering the Trinidad and Tobago population. A number of critical areas were explored by panellists in areas which include: crime, education, religion, society, the economy and health.
Modi greets Indian Navy on its annual day

Delhi,National,Defence/Security, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 4 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday greeted Indian Navy personnel on the occasion of Navy Day.

"Navy Day greetings to all navy personnel & their families. We cherish the vital role of the navy & salute the bravery of our navy personnel," Modi said in a tweet.

Navy Day is celebrated on December 4 every year to celebrate the Indian Navy's achievements and commemorate the sacrifices made by their personnel.

--IANS

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Indian support for Afghan development is unconditional: President Ghani

Punjab,National,Indo-Pak/Pakistan,Politics,Diplomacy, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Amritsar, Dec 4 (IANS) Appreciating India's unconditional support for the economic development of war-ravaged Afghanistan, President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday said the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and his country was very important for regional trade and connectivity.

Ghani particularly spoke about India's assistance in the construction of Salma dam -- officially called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam -- that was inaugurated on June 4, 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Ghani in Herat province of that country.

"India's support to Afghanistan to improve people's life is transparent with no strings attached," the Afghan President said.

He was addressing the inaugural function of the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in this Punjab city being attended by leaders from south and central Asia and several western countries.

Ghani said the Chabahar port development project "is very important for connectivity and commerce". India and Iran signed a bilateral agreement in May 2016 to refurbish the port on the Gulf of Oman that is expected to provide an alternative route for trade between India and Afghanistan.

--IANS

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About time to reunite with Gautham Menon: Suriya

Tamil Nadu,Cinema/Showbiz,Southern Cinema, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Chennai, Dec 4 (IANS) Actor Suriya, who awaits the release of "S3", says talks have been initiated with filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon for a yet-untitled Tamil film. If everything goes as planned, they might team up next year.

"It's about time we reunite. We have been in talks and something should materialise next year," Suriya told IANS.

Suriya and Gautham had previously worked in hit Tamil films "Kaakha Kaakha" and "Vaaranam Aayiram".

A few years ago, the duo was to join hands for Tamil spy thriller "Dhruva Natchathiram". However, the project never took off.

"Dhruva Natchathiram" is finally being revived with actor Vikram, and the project is most likely to happen next year.

--IANS

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For most of this past week, a winter storm has lashed at the North Dakota prairie camp where the Standing Rock Sioux are making a stand to keep an oil pipeline away from water that is a source of life for them.

The sight of native people shivering while government authorities threaten to starve them out or forcefully remove them, is a living diorama of so much awful history between the First Americans and those who took everything from them.

The authorities have brought water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, helicopters and dogs against what has become one of the largest gatherings of tribes, from all nations, in a century. Theyve given the protesters until Dec. 5 to disperse.

Now flash back a few years to another Western standoff, the Nevada siege of Cliven Bundy, the deadbeat rancher who drew heavily armed white militia members to defend a man who stiffed the government while grazing his cattle on public land. There, the feds backed off.

Bundy's two sons later took over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

At the heart of these cases is land  who owns it, and the narrative justification for a way of life. The Bundy brothers are comic-book cowboys. One of them runs a valet service in Phoenix. The other has a construction company in Utah.

For the Indians, the Dakota Access Pipeline is an existential threat. Water is life is the protest name. As planned, the pipeline would pump an artery of oil under the Missouri River  the source of the tribes water. The Indians want the pipeline rerouted.

The new administration of Donald J. Trump will be heavy with people who see public land, and Indian Country, as just one thing  a place to drill for oil, move it along, or get out of the way.

The story behind the policy is all-important here  what Sen. Al Franken called the complex burden of historical trauma.

Now consider what the Bundy brothers said they were fighting for when they took over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge by armed force earlier this year. They wanted the government to give up turf owned by every American and let a handful of white ranchers come back and reclaim their land.

This prompted collective whiplash from the Paiute Tribe, whose people have lived in the high desert of Oregon for centuries. For them to say they want to give the land back to the rightful owners  well, I just had to laugh at that, the tribal chairwoman, Charlotte Rodrique, said at the time.

The Indian view is much more than P.C. revisionism, if you believe in the rule of law. A huge swath of the northern Plains was promised to bands of the Sioux in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, one of the few times when Native Americans forced the government to terms after defeating it in war.

The tribes lost much of that treaty land to intruders, backed by the Army. A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all possibility, be found in our history, the Supreme Court concluded in 1980. One of the legacies of the great Sioux tactician, Red Cloud, was an apt description of how the big emerging nation treated the diminished ones. They made many promises, he said. But they kept but one: They promised to take our land, and they took it.

The complex burden of trauma that Franken referred to includes images of frozen Indian bodies in the snow after the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. And yet, even with that history haunting the present protest, many of the natives at Standing Rock are not bitter, and see this stand in spiritual terms.

In the face of this we pray, Lyla June Johnston, a young Native leader, told me the day after the storms blew in. In the face of this we love. In the face of this we forgive. Because the vast majority of water protectors know this is the greatest battle of all: to keep our hearts intact.
50% Indian contribution in design of Kudankulam units 5-6

Russian Federation,Business/Economy, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Moscow, Dec 4 (IANS) The Indian contribution to the design of units 5 and 6 of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) in Tamil Nadu will equal that of its Russian makers, a senior Russian official has said.

According to Vladimir Angelov, director for projects in India, ASE Group (the engineering division of Rosatom), localisation at KNPP is aimed in three spheres: design, hardware equipment and transfer of know-how.

"From the viewpoint of the design work of the units 3 and 4, in comparison with units 1 and 2, the contribution of the Indian side in the design process is twice as high than for units 1 and 2. I can't say the exact percentage of the contribution, but this would be some 30-40 per cent in the design of the buildings and structures," Angelov told IANS here.

For units 5 and 6, Russia envisages a spike in Indian contribution by an additional 10 per cent.

"We formulate the list of specifications of the requirements for the Indian side to find the suppliers; nevertheless, we have to coordinate. The Indian side should get the approval of the Russian side for the supply. As for units number 5 and 6, we are looking to increasing Indian contribution by an additional 10 per cent," he said.

"In accordance with our plans, it would be a 50:50 contribution for units 5 and 6," he added.

In terms of hardware equipment for units 3 and 4, India's contribution has also shot up. "In relation to the hardware equipment for units 3 and 4 in comparison with units 1 and 2 the contribution of the Indian side in the supply of the equipment has also grown. As far as units 3 and 4 are concerned, there are new experiences which both sides are gaining. For example, we are supplying some parts of the hardware which is designed by the Indian side. The buildings and structures will be designed by the Russian side, but the supplies will be made by the Indian side," Angelov said.

Construction of Kudankulam NPP is the largest joint Russian-Indian project in the energy sector. The first two 1,000 MW units are currently operational at Kudankulam. Four more are in the pipeline.

The Power Unit 1 of the Kudankulam NPP was connected to the grid on October 22, 2013, and began commercial production a year later. The second unit was connected to the grid on August 29, 2016.

India and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement in December 2008 for Kudankulam's units 3 to 6. The ground-breaking ceremony for construction of units 3 and 4 was performed earlier this year.

The third direction for localisation revolves around transformation of know-how of production experience to the Indian manufacturers.

"We are just taking the first steps in this direction. There are several items of the equipment of the reactor island (reactor installation itself) and we work in involvement of Russian manufacturers to transform the know-how of the production experience to the Indian manufacturers, including the supervision of such transformation. Up to now, the list of such equipment is not approved, but I can say for sure that they would be equipment of pretty high class of safety, up to the class of safety," he added.

(Sahana Ghosh was in Moscow at the invitation of Rosatom to cover the 11th International Public Forum-Dialogue "Nuclear Energy, Environment, Safety - 2016")

--IANS

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Now Apple working on self-driving car

United States,Technology, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

New York, Dec 4 (IANS) A month after Volvo got an order of 100 self-driving cars from Uber, Apple has hinted that it will enter the driverless cars market where bigwigs like Tesla and Google have already made deep inroads, a media report said.

According to a report in The Verge, the Cupertino-based tech giant -- under its so-called Project Titan -- has submitted a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, stating that it is "investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation".

The letter is Apple's official comment on the federal government's automated vehicle guidelines, released last September.

Interestingly, Apple's letter is signed by Steven Kenner -- the company's head of product integrity who up until recently was the global director of automotive safety at Ford.

"Apple agrees that companies should share de-identified scenario and dynamics data from crashes and near-misses. By sharing data, the industry will build a more comprehensive dataset than any one company could create alone," Kenner's letter was quoted as saying.

Recently reports surfaced suggesting that the company is not attempting to build its own electric car but is focused on developing self-driving software it can deploy in partnership with existing carmakers.

"This letter comes amid news that hundreds of members of Apple's 1,000-employee-strong car team have been reassigned, let go, or have left of their own volition," the report pointed out.

In October, Uber ordered 100 self-driving vehicles from the Swedish company Volvo.

The news came after an 18-wheeler self-driving Volvo trailer drove from Fort Collins, Colorado, to Colorado Springs, bearing 50,000 cans of Budweiser beer.

The Volvo truck, equipped with cameras and sensors, was owned by Otto, a self-driving truck company acquired by Uber earlier this year.

--IANS

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Sharif likely to visit US early next year

Pakistan,Indo-Pak/Pakistan,Politics,Diplomacy, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Islamabad, Dec 4 (IANS) Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is likely to visit the US in the first quarter of next year when a meeting with incoming President Donald Trump would be included in his Washington engagements, media reports here said on Sunday.

The arrangement would be worked out through diplomatic channels soon after Trump assumes office on January 20, The News International reported.

Pakistan has decided to maintain its ties with the US on the cardinal principle of mutual respect while addressing each other's concerns in a dignified manner once the Donald Trump administration is at the helm of affairs in Washington, the report said.

The Pakistan standpoint in this regard would be conveyed to think-tanks in the US later this week during Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi's visit to Washington, it said.

Fatemi will also have extensive interaction with those likely to be part of Trump's team in various departments, particularly in the State Department.

A significant meeting with one of the top officials of the US with Sharif will take place next month in Davos (Switzerland) on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the report noted.

The Foreign Office, however, was tight-lipped about Tariq Fatemi's mission and Sharif's visit to the US.

Fatemi, who served in Washington for a long period of time in various capacities including as ambassador, had a detailed meeting with Sharif during the past week to seek guidance for the upcoming mission.

--IANS

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ATMs easy target for hackers, say experts

Delhi,National,Technology,Business/Economy, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 4 (IANS) At a time when serpentine queues continue to grow outside ATMs across the country following the demonetisation move, a top executive of Intel Security has warned that ATMs in India are susceptible to security breaches.

Intel Security, with its McAfee product line, is the world's largest dedicated security technology company.

In banks, a breach can happen at multiple levels -- like at an ATM, data centre, network or through mobile banking. "The ATM today is an easy target for hackers to hit a network," Anand Ramamoorthy, Managing Director, Intel Security, South Asia, told IANS in an interview.

ATM attacks have affected several countries in the recent past. A hacker group called Cobalt targeted ATMs across Europe last month and remotely attacked the machines using malicious software that manipulated the systems which led the machines to automatically dispense huge amounts of cash.

Banks in India will have to make efforts to ensure that ATMs are protected with multiple levels of authentication and industry-standard encryption, ensuring data security at all points of a transaction.

According to experts, banks need to work towards gradually enabling EMV chip and PIN-enabled card acceptance and processing at ATMs to enhance the safety and security of transactions.

"It is time that magnetic-stripe cards issued by banks for ATM transactions are replaced at the earliest. While the affected banks are blocking debit cards to minimise the impact, the already ongoing replacement of mag-stripe cards with EMV chip cards will help the banks and consumers," Atul Singh, Regional Director-Banking and Transport (India Subcontinent) at the digital security giant Gemalto, told IANS earlier.

EMV -- which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa -- is a global standard for credit cards that uses computer chips to authenticate (and secure) chip-card transactions.

"We have seen a big focus on ATM attacks in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, including India. ATMs in underdeveloped countries are particularly vulnerable as those countries still have old ATM software and are running Windows XP. This makes them the perfect target for an easier score," US-based cyber security company FireEye said recently.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently urged people to "embrace e-banking, mobile banking and more such technology", but Ramamoorthy warned that as mobile banking becomes popular, it will involve greater risks.

"You have to become aware as you become more digitised," noted Ramamoorthy, adding that mobile has become more of a financial gateway and its implications are huge for the country.

Earlier this year, following a malware-related security breach, the State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and YES Bank blocked millions of debit cards that were compromised in one of the biggest data breaches in the financial sector.

"To protect ATMs from cyber attacks in the future, Intel Security has deployed an 'Embedded App' control which not only protects ATMs at the site but also the network which it is connected to," Ramamoorthy said, adding that the app is set for an update in 2017.

(Qadri Inzamam can be contacted at inzamam.a@ians.in)

--IANS

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Demonetisation is akin to demolishing mountain to catch a rat: Ramadoss

Tamil Nadu,National,Politics,Business/Economy, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Chennai, Dec 4 (IANS) PMK founder S. Ramadoss on Sunday said the BJP-led government's demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes to eradicate black money is akin to demolishing a mountain to catch a rat.

Citing an earlier IANS report, Ramadoss said the report quoting data from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows the ground level picture of the demonetisation decision.

Ramadoss said that while the central government contends demonetisation of high denomination notes would result in capture of black money, the news that emanates gives a contrary picture.

He said that on the day (November 8, 2016) when the central government announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the cash with RBI and other commercial banks was around Rs 4.57 lakh crore.

After that, till November 28, the total amount of demonetised currencies deposited with the banks was Rs 8.44 lakh crore.

In other words, a total of around Rs 13.50 lakh crore worth of currency was taken out of circulation, said Ramadoss.

Ramadoss said that by the end of this month, another Rs 94,000 crore worth of demonetised notes are expected to be deposited with the banks, thereby leaving outside around Rs 100,000 crore worth of old notes.

Compared to the size of the Indian economy, this Rs 100,000 crore is not a big amount.

While under the voluntary disclosure scheme, a sum of Rs 65,000 crore of unaccounted money was declared with ease, to recover a sum slightly higher than that (Rs 100,000 crore) is it necessary to create a vortex in the lives of poor and middle class by demonetising the two currency notes. "The government should ponder," Ramadoss said.

He said the amount is low when compared to the economic impact the central government's decision had on trade and manufacturing sectors.

Ramadoss urged the government to put into circulation more currency notes so that the people are not put to hardship any longer.

--IANS

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Rs 49.7 lakh recovered from car in MP

Madhya Pradesh,National,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Neemuch (Madhya Pradesh), Dec 4 (IANS) Cash amounting to Rs 49,70,000 was recovered from a car here in which four persons were travelling, police said on Sunday.

Neemuch Cantt Police Station Incharge Yogesh Singh Sisodia told IANS: "During a routine search of vehicles, a box containing the cash was recovered from a car. Four youths hailing from Indore, Ujjain and Mandsaur were travelling in the car."

According to Sisodia, even though over-the-counter exchange of demonetised notes in banks has been discontinued, the illegal trade of converting black money into white goes on unabated.

When the cash was counted, Rs 32 lakh was found in Rs 2,000 denomination notes, he said. The remaining amount was in bundles of 100, 50, 20 and 10- rupee denomination notes.

Police cited the youths as saying that they were going to a local trader to exchange his old notes. They would have made a profit of 21 per cent in the deal.

--IANS

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Kejriwal demands probe against Amit Shah over hidden wealth

Delhi,National,Politics, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 4 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday demanded a probe against BJP President Amit Shah following allegations that he may have used a Gujarat property dealer as a front to disclose unaccounted Rs 13,860 crore under a tax amnesty scheme.

"Amit shah should respond to Hardik Patel's allegations. Very serious! It should be investigated," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader tweeted.

The tweet came after Patel, a Patidar leader, alleged on Saturday that the main face behind Mahesh Shah, the man who disclosed the record amount under the government's income disclosure scheme, is "General Dyer" referring to the BJP President.

Mahesh Shah, a businessman from Gujarat had made a surprising disclosure of Rs 13,860 crore two months ago. He went absconding on November 29, a day before he was supposed to pay the first installment of tax levied on the hidden money.

The Gujarat businessman appeared at the ETV studio in Ahmedabad on Saturday and said he was used as a front by some businessmen and politicians to declare the money. But he didn't name any.

Posters calling the BJP chief as "General Dyer" appeared in September hours before Amit Shah was felicitated at a function in Surat.

Patel, the founder of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) who is leading an agitation for reservation in education and government jobs for his community, usually addresses Amit Shah as 'General Dyer'.

--IANS

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20 injured in MP bus-truck collision

Karnataka,National,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Sagar (Madhya Pradesh), Dec 4 (IANS) At least 20 persons were injured when the bus they were travelling in collided with a truck in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar town, police said on Sunday.

The bus passengers were heading towards Bhopal for training in state government welfare schemes.

"The bus was heading to Bhopal when it collided with a truck near Sihori. Over 20 persons were injured in the accident. They have been sent to the government dispensary. None was seriously injured," M.S Jagat, Inspector at Sihori Police Station told IANS.

The Madhya Pradesh government had estimated that seven lakh people from all over the state would come to the training programme organised in Bhopal's Jamburi ground. Buses to bring them to Bhopal and refreshments were also arranged by the state government.

--IANS

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'Moana': Interesting but no Disney classic (Review)

Delhi,Cinema/Showbiz,Hollywood, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Film: "Moana"; Directors: John Musker, Ron Clements; Rating: ** 

"Moana" radiates a kind of infectious warmth that only an animation film can and that too one with the optimum faith in the power of love to heal and restore our broken humanism.

"Moana" is masterly in mustering sunshine and optimism. But it scores less resoundingly in making us believe that the ocean is actually filled with friendly creatures. We saw what the ocean can do to a young girl in "The Shallows".

In a giddying swirl of oceanic ecstasy, "Moana" goes the other way. It is the story of a bright spunky pretty and pert young Polynesian girl Moana who must set off on a voyage to find a demi-god who can save her island and people.

The film's deeply swanky production design, capturing the azure grace of the ocean and the quaint captivating bustle of a Polynesian island, thrives on stereotypical homages to the spirit of untarnished innocence. The film populates its precocity with characters who are so noble and kind-hearted that they make nature look unnaturally bleached and natural.

The Polynesian populace is constantly singing, dancing and breaking coconuts. Beyond a point, you could break some too on these vacuously blissful character's heads. The sassy Moana's kin seem to believe in the power of innocence to the extent that the film obliterates all signs of mean-spiritedness from the oceanic universe.

As Moana journeys into the sea, she has for company the "demi-god" Maui. The obese giant's character, though powered by Dwayne Johnson's swaggering self-deprecating machismo, is defeated by its lack of dignity.

No, you really can't have a 'demi-god' who behaves like a dummy God, cracking awful jokes, talking to his multi-tattoos (yes, Maui has an ongoing conversation with his body imprints -- try that for self-obsession) getting into unheroic situations with enemies in the water who surge forth with the fury of high-powered animation effects, and banters with Moana.

The quip-controlled conversations between the two unlikely co-voyagers as they sail to Tahiti brims with dime-store wisdom and a designer gusto that would impress those who believe Disney is the domain of fortune-cookie wisdom and electioneering humour.

Some sections of the global viewership would probably love Moana's domineering attitude towards the godly hulk as they sail together. She treats the bulky Maui with a mixture of childlike infection and a collateral contempt. This barrage of at-sea banter is engaging for starters. But soon gets tiresome as you realise that the co-directors are merely holding back the inevitable finale where family values and ecological equilibrium are magically restored.

This is a film that is constantly looking for approval.

We can all applaud the film's dazzling display of oceanic spectacle, and the voiced lucidity of Dwayne Johnson and Auli'i Cravalho (who speaks for Moana). But we have seen it all too many times in Hindi films -- the singing, dancing, family partings and reunions, even the bonding with the grandmother -- to be impressed beyond a point.

Yes, the one thing that I was truly impressed by was the frequent bursts into lip-sync songs. There is some spirited singing by Louise Bush. It's a Bollywood tradition tragically on the wane in Hindi cinema. Funny, how we love bouts of Bollywood in American cinema even as our own cinema rejects all Bollywood tradition for a more European and American approach to singing and other dramatic devices.

"Moana" is a well-intended captivatingly crafted animation film with impeccable spatial harmony. What it lacks is a darker edge to underpin the eye-blazing sunshine that sweeps across the film.

--IANS

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Giriraj Singh advocates 'nasbandi' after 'notebandi' (Lead, correcting name)

Bihar,National,Politics, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Patna, Dec 4 (IANS) Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Sunday said after 'notebandi' (demonetisation), there is an urgent need to make laws for 'nasbandi' (sterilisation) in the country.

Singh, who is the Minister of State for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, is the second senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader who has advocated sterilisation after demonetisation.

Last week, former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Sanjay Paswan said sterilisation will help control population of the country.

Singh said all sections of society should adopt this practice to control population in the country.

Singh said India has 16 per cent of world's population and adds population equal to Australia every year. "The country is facing population explosion, it has to be controlled soon."

In October this year, Singh had said Hindus should seriously think of increasing their population in the country by producing more children.

"There is a need to increase population of Hindus in the country. They should take this issue seriously as their population has been decreasing in eight states in the country," Singh said.

He then recalled that none other than RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had advised Hindus in August last year to produce more children and said no laws can prevent them from reproducing more children.

Singh is the BJP's Lok Sabha member from Nawada constituency in Bihar. He is known as a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and champion of Hinduvta politics.

--IANS

ik/lok/vt
After months of protests near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the U.S. Army announced Sunday it would not approve an easement to allow the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under the Lake Oahe section of the Missouri River.

U.S. Army Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy wrote in a memorandum to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the decision "merits additional analysis, more rigorous exploration and evaluation of reasonable siting alternatives and greater public and tribal participation and comments. Accordingly, the Army will not grant an easement to cross Lake Oahe at the proposed location based on the current record."

Darcy recommended the corps conduct an environmental impact statement with "broad public input and analysis" before determining any appropriate route. Among the considerations would be more information on the alternative routes, including the one crossing north of Bismarck, details on potential spills and impact on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's water intake and the extent of the tribe's treaty rights in Lake Oahe.

Darcy indicated the corps' prior reviews and actions had complied with legal requirements, but this case required more analysis.

"My decision acknowledges and addresses that a more robust analysis of alternatives can and should be done, under these circumstances," she wrote.

The corps' decision followed several months of protests by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, along with members of Native American tribes from across the country and supporters from the environmental movement. Since August, people have camped along the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and staged protests at pipeline construction sites and in the Bismarck-Mandan area. The tribe is concerned a pipeline leak would contaminate its water supply and that construction has desecrated sacred sites and asked for the full environmental impact statement.

Construction of the $3.8 billion oil pipeline, which is designed to carry Bakken crude from North Dakota to Illinois is nearly complete outside of the Lake Oahe segment. The company has said the pipeline is a safer and more efficient method of moving oil from the Bakken than trucks and trains used now.

In a statement Sunday afternoon, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II thanked the Obama administration and all of the groups that have supported the months-long protest.

"In a system that has continuously been stacked against us from every angle, it took tremendous courage to take a new approach to our nation-to-nation relationship, and we will be forever grateful," Archambault said of the administration.

"With this decision we look forward to being able to return home and spend the winter with our families and loved ones," he said.

Archambault said he hoped Kelcy Warren, CEO of pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners, Gov. Jack Dalrymple and the incoming Trump administration would respect the corps' decision.

However, in a statement released late Sunday night, Energy Transfer Partners called the decision a "purely political action" and said they "fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe. Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way."

Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with Indigenous Environmental Network, could hardly contain his smile in a video posted to his Facebook page Sunday afternoon.

I cannot describe how good I feel right now," he said. "It is a tremendous victory for Standing Rock, for the Oceti Sakowin, for the countless tribal nations, indigenous communities and the millions of Americans and people across the world who hit the streets in support of Standing Rock, in support of protecting water."

Reaction from state politicians was swift and critical.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple called the decision a "serious mistake."

"It does nothing to resolve the issue, and worst of all it prolongs the serious problems faced by North Dakota law enforcement as they try to maintain public safety," Dalrymple said in a statement. "Its unfortunate that this project has become a political issue rather than one based on engineering science."

The state politicians also quickly noted that the Trump administration could put any decision on the easement in question.

"The pipeline still remains in limbo," said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. "The incoming administration already stated its support for the project and, the courts have already stated twice that it appeared the corps followed the required process in considering the permit. For the next month and a half, nothing about this project will change."

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., criticized the decision and said it could jeopardize future infrastructure projects.

"Refusing the easement has ramifications over the long term," Hoeven said in a statement. "If companies and individuals cannot rely on a system that follows the rule of law, nobody will risk making future investments in our countrys vital infrastructure. That will make our nation vulnerable and less secure."

Hoeven also renewed his call to the federal government to provide additional funding and law enforcement to back up local efforts.

Morton County law enforcement took steps to de-escalate tensions Sunday afternoon by relocating farther away from protesters north of the Backwater Bridge, a move announced before the corps decision became public. The move requires protesters to follow certain conditions, including staying off the bridge.

Forum News Service contributed to this report.
'Befikre' has more than just kissing scenes, says Ranveer

Maharashtra,Cinema/Showbiz,Bollywood, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Mumbai, Dec 4 (IANS) Actor Ranveer Singh says that his forthcoming film "Befikre" has a nice story apart from the much talked about kissing scenes.

"Yes, there is a story. When Adi sir (the film's director Aditya Chopra) showed the trailer to me before releasing it, I asked him why he is releasing a promo that has so much more to it? The promo does not give you anything about the world of the film," Ranveer told IANS here.

"I had an argument with him regarding that, but I think he wants the audience to discover the characters of the film while watching and that is why he deliberately cut a very surface level promo. It's a very conscious choice that he made to 'under promise and over deliver' to his audience," he added.

The actor, who is paired with actress Vaani Kapoor in the film, said the audience will start discovering the two characters from the first scene of the film once people watch it.

"Though it is light-hearted, it is not a frivolous film," said Ranveer, who has shown his romantic side in films like "Band Baaja Baaraat", "Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela", "Lootera" and "Bajirao Mastani".

The audience will get to see more of it in "Befikre", which is the celebration of carefree love and a romantic relationship.

How are love stories in Hindi cinema changing and is the audience receptive towards it?

He said: "I think we have room for both -- 'Befikre' and 'Bajirao Mastani'. Yes, there is a generational shift when it comes to the outlook of a romantic relationship. The young generation communicates through social media more. That was not accessible during my formative years like when I was 17-18 years old."

"Now, judging people based on their choices of romantic relationship is not cool. The young generation is open-minded. However, there is room for classic romantic love stories as well."

"Befikre" is his first film in which he is being directed by Chopra, head honcho of Yash Raj Films.

Talking about his equation with with the filmmaker, Ranveer said: "You see the director-actor equation is more substantial and dynamic than a producer-actor. We have interacted more during the shooting of the film."

"So, I got to know a different side of him...whether he has a wicked sense of humour or has a bindass carefree attitude. He is a private person and as an actor, I feel fortunate to know him closely."

In the past, Ranveer has acted in Chopra-produced films, including the actor's debut movie "Band Baaja Baaraat".

What makes it so special to be part of any Yash Raj Films project?

He said: "I think there is a certain amount of assurance with which the production will be executed. The film will be mounted and you know there will be no stone unturned from the producer's end to do the best for the film. And there is a certain amount of prestige value to it."

"Befikre" is all set to release on December 9.

--IANS

aru/nn/vt
Kerala opposition blames minister for cash hassles

Kerala,National,Politics, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 4 (IANS) Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Issac was attacked on Sunday by the opposition over the way he handled the post-demonetisation situation in the state, causing difficulties to both salaried class and pensioners.

The Congress-led United Democratic Front and the state BJP severely criticised Professor of Economics-turned-Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Issac for the sufferings of virtually every section of the society since the central government's demonetisation move.

Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the assembly Ramesh Chennithala told reporters that it pained him when Issac went personal against him as he (Chennithala) talked about the minister's callous attitude and the manner in which he handled staff payments.

"While the Finance Ministers in other states chalked out plans to mitigate the sufferings of people, Issac did not come out with any crisis management measures and conducted a meeting of banking officials only at the eleventh hour, which compounded the crisis," Chennithala said.

"Hence, there was a heavy burden on the state treasuries and banks that disburse the salaries and pensions," said Chennithala, challenging the minister to publish the minutes of the meeting that he held with the bank officials.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and state unit spokesperson P.K. Krishnadas said that going by his statements, Issac appears to be a bundle of contradictions.

"For 22 days, he kept speaking about the cooperative banks' issue and the CPI-M held a hartal and spread panic among the people. The state cabinet could have taken the decision to toe the line of the Centre within 24 hours..."

"After creating a panic-like situation, the state finally agreed to go the the central government way. In Tripura, where also the CPI-M rules, there appears no panic at all. Now Issac has started saying that the salary in the next month could be a problem," said Krishnadas.

Issac is again and again asking why there is no untoward incident in Kerala on account of demonetisation, which is nothing but instigating the people to turn against the central government, Krishnadas added.

"It's time Issac is divested of the finance portfolio," he said.

However, dismissing all charges with his characteristic smile, Issac said the root cause of all the problems is a huge shortage of currency notes.

"It will take six months for the things to settle down, as there is a huge shortage of currency notes and only the central government can resolve the issues. Next month, the state will again have a shortage of money, as there is going to be a drop in the revenues," said the minister.

--IANS

sg/nir/vt
'Central regulations for ayurvedic industry soon' (Lead, correcting name in para four)

West Bengal,National,Health/Medicine,Business/Economy, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Kolkata, Dec 4 (IANS) The AYUSH Ministry is planning to draw up a central regulatory framework for ayurvedic industry, an official said on Sunday.

"Presently, the total enforcement is on the hands of state licensing authorities. We are going to have some regulatory framework in the centre so that many issues related to regulations, quality control can be taken up with state level authorities," said Ministry's Adviser (ayurved) D.C. Katoch.

"If a licence is to be taken for the first time, the proposal should come to centre. The central technical committee will review the proposal and accordingly, the license should be cleared," he added.

The ministry is also mulling to take steps to stop false claims through advertisements, Katoch said on the sidelines of the AROGYA Expo and the seventh World Ayurvedic Congress here.

The ministry is looking to set up more clusters to facilitate small and medium enterprises in ayurvedic industry.

"The scheme for setting up clusters was started earlier. About 5-6 clusters across states are functional. The ministry has been considering proposals for setting up new clusters," said Katoch.

The government supports 60 per cent of the project cost while the industry players need to take care of 40 per cent of the cost, he said.

The ministry has also taken initiatives to standardise terminology used in the ayurvedic practices.

"There are many books in the ayurveda literature and there are many terms being used for a particular practice. These practices are not interpreted uniformly by the stakeholders. The meaning of these terms has to be standardised to globalise the understanding of ayurveda," said Katoch.

The ministry has entered into an agreement with World Healh Organisation (WHO) to develop some document for global positioning of ayurveda.

He further said that raw materials and medicinal plants are being sourced directly from the growers. The government has been planning to facilitate the setting up of mandis (marketplace) to strengthen buyers-growers interface.

"The ministry has been drawing up plans to facilitate the setting up mandis," he added.

--IANS

bdc/vd
Kejriwal wants Amit Shah probed over 'hidden wealth'

Delhi,National,Politics, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 4 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday demanded a probe against BJP President Amit Shah following allegations that he may have used a Gujarat property dealer as a front to disclose unaccounted Rs 13,860 crore.

The property dealer, Mahesh Shah, disclosed the unaccounted money under a tax amnesty scheme.

"Amit shah should respond to Hardik Patel's allegations. Very serious! It should be investigated," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader tweeted.

Mahesh Shah, a businessman from Gujarat, had made a surprising disclosure of Rs 13,860 crore two months ago.

However, the Finance Ministry on Sunday said that the amount declared by Mahesh Shah is most likely a "false" figure, and the I-T Department has already initiated an inquiry into the matter.

"There were two sets of declarations of high value, which were not taken on record, because these declarations were found to be suspicious in nature being filed by persons of small means," the Finance Ministry said in a release on Sunday.

"The department has since commenced inquiries against these declarants (Mahesh Shah and four others) to determine the intention behind these false declarations," it said.

Interestingly, Shah went missing on November 29, a day before he was supposed to pay the first instalment of tax levied on the hidden money.

He surfaced about a week later on Saturday at the ETV studio in Ahmedabad to claim that he was used as a front by some businessmen and politicians to declare the money.

Kejriwal's tweet came after Patel, a Patidar leader, alleged on Saturday that the main face behind Mahesh Shah, the man who disclosed the record amount under the government's income disclosure scheme, is "General Dyer" referring to the BJP President.

Patel, the founder of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), who is leading an agitation for reservation in education and government jobs for his community, usually addresses Amit Shah as 'General Dyer'.

--IANS

mak/nir/vt
Fragment of lost Russian spacecraft found

Russian Federation,International, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Moscow, Dec 4 (IANS) The Russian Emergencies Ministry announced that a fragment of the Russian Progress MS-04 cargo spacecraft, which was lost during launch on Thursday, was found in the territory of the Russian republic of Tuva on Mongolia's border.

Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that the fragment is .

The fragment -- a metal object with a 90-cm diameter -- was found on the side of a mountain, about 15 km from the town of Eilig-Jem by an inhabitant from the area, who notified the authorities, Efe news agency reported.

The freighter lost contact just minutes after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as it flew at a height of 190 km, while most of the vehicle disintegrated after coming into contact with the atmosphere.

The spaceship was supposed to provide the International Space Station crew with 2.6 tons of water, food and various technical equipment.

--IANS

vgu/
Not expecting immediate progress on Russia-Japan peace treaty: Russia

Russian Federation,Politics,Diplomacy, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

Moscow, Dec 4 (IANS) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there should be no high expectations for any immediate progress on the signing of a peace treaty between Russia and Japan.

Lavrov made the remarks after meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, who is here to prepare for Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Japan on December 15.

"We have touched upon the issue of the peace treaty in detail. It is not easy to bring together our stances as we still have difficulties in ironing out differences," Xinhua news agency quoted Lavrov as telling reporters on Saturday.

But he promised to continue working on it, saying Moscow is interested in solving the issue.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Russia in May and met with President Vladimir Putin at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September.

Russia and Japan have not signed a peace treaty formalising the end of World War II due to a territory row over four small islands in the Pacific.

Russia claims sovereignty over the four islands, which have great economic and military significance.

The long held territorial spats are considered to be the main stumbling block and tipping point for their bilateral ties, in addition to Tokyo's sanctions against Moscow over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.

--IANS

vgu/
Solving crime and murder the Scotland Yard way (Column: Bookends)

Delhi,National,Opinion/Commentary,Art/Culture/Books, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 IANS

The London policeman, a member of the modern world's first professional law and order enforcement force, has long been a model for his counterparts and a subject for crime novelists. However, the crime-solving skills of Scotland Yard's finest were initially not very high and amateur sleuths -- Sherlock Holmes, for example -- easily upstaged them, though not for very long.

But while Holmes and his biographer didn't have much regard for their official colleagues' acumen, they acknowledged their bravery. "Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard..." wrote Dr Watson in "The Adventure of the Red Circle".

Less than two decades later, in another set of tales, their capability is beyond reproach. The British Ambassador in Paris seeks Scotland Yard detectives when a subordinate is found murdered. Two are dispatched, who solve the case, arresting the murderer and securing a confession in 10 days flat, and are ready to go home. They are taken to meet the envoy who, informed they are leaving, splutters: "You've had to give the case up?" Told of their success, he says: "Thank heavens I sent for you."

This could be because these tales -- among the first police procedurals -- were written by a policeman himself, and a remarkable one. Sir Basil Home Thomson (1861-1939) was also a colonial administrator, prison governor, intelligence officer, writer -- and one of the first victims of an alleged sting.

After Eton, he went to Oxford, but left after two terms due to "depression" and spent the next two years farming in the US. Joining the Colonial Service, he spent about a decade in Fiji and Tonga. Back in Britain, he was called to the Bar, but chose to become Deputy Governor of Liverpool prison and spent a decade in prison administration.

In 1913, Thomson became Assistant Commissioner "C" (Crime) of Metropolitan Police, or head of the CID at New Scotland Yard. When World War I broke out, the CID was MI5's enforcement arm, and Thomson led its fights against spies (he personally interrogated Mata Hari) and Irish and Indian revolutionaries. In 1919, he was also made overall charge of all intelligence agencies, but two years later, removed without explanation. Thomson, writing for nearly a quarter century now -- about his experiences in South Pacific ("South Sea Yarns") in policing and counter-intelligence ("Queer People", re-titled "Odd People" in modern reprint), now turned to crime fiction.

In 1925, came a volume of stories -- and he was arrested for "public indecency" in a London park. His defence was not helped by his vague explanations about why he met the woman and he was fined five pounds (however, there are many questions about the case -- the woman was a prostitute and her fine was paid by a journalist). But, two years hence, Thomson was back in action, advising on Siamese police reforms.

It is crime fiction that accounts for most of his two-dozen-odd books and the most engaging are the eight-installment Richardson series (all appearing within four years) with their varied premises, unique characters, and maintaining suspense with plenty of red herrings, twists and turns, but all in a brisk, sparkling style.

The crimes are mostly murder, usually with robbery and later drugs, around England, as well as France, solved through collecting clues and evidence, interrogating suspects, and checking alibis.

The focus is on hard work -- as a team. "Real life is quite unlike detective fiction; in fact, in detective work fiction is stranger than truth. Mr Sherlock Holmes, to whom I take off my hat with a silent prayer that he may never appear in the flesh, worked by induction, but not, so far as I am able to judge, by the only method which gets home, namely organisation and team work," he wrote in "Odd People".

The series features a remarkable career progression for the hero, who begins as a beat constable in "Richardson's First Case" (1933) but impresses superiors with his quick thinking to be taken into the CID, is soon an inspector and ends up Chief Constable. However, not much is told about his background, save that he is Scottish, and finds his wife in his sixth outing ("Who Killed Stella Pomeroy?").

And he is not always in the thick of things. In "The Case of the Dead Diplomat", it is his better French-speaking sergeant who plays a bigger role, while in his last two outings -- "The Milliner's Hat Mystery" and "A Murder is Arranged" -- Richardson only guides his subordinates. In quite a few, young publisher Jim Milsom also lends a hand.

A classic of "Golden Age Crime", the series is a treat for those fond of mental puzzles in bygone eras and after long unavailability, easily and reasonably obtainable online (less than Rs 50 each).

(Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in <mailto:vikas.d@ians.in> )

--IANS

vd/sac/ky
Jayalalithaa critical after cardiac arrest, huge crowds around hospital

Tamil Nadu,National,Politics,Health/Medicine, Mon, 05 Dec 2016 IANS

Chennai, Dec 5 (IANS) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa was in a critical condition after suffering a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and is being treated by a team of specialists at Apollo Hospitals where she has been admitted since late September.

Crowds thronged the hospital while top leaders and common people across India prayed for her well-being and recovery.

"The Apollo TN CM #Jayalalita is critical.multi speciality team @hospitalsapollo trying everything including ecmo.praying for her recovery," tweeted Apollo Hospitals Managing Director Sangita Reddy.

Earlier, the hospital said, in a statement: "The Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, Greams Road, Chennai, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening. She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts including cardiologists, pulmonologist and the critical care specialists."

It later said in a tweet that she "is on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and is being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists".

"Dr Richard Beale from London has also been consulted and he has concurred with the line of treatment by our cardiologists & pulmonologists," it said in another tweet.

In a later tweet, the hospital said: "The Hon'ble CM is the beloved leader of the masses. Please join us in praying for her speedy recovery. #GodblessAmma #Jayalalithaa."

Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao, who has additional charge of the state, returned from Mumbai and visited the hospital to enquire about her condition.

While a large police contingent was deployed at the hospital, reports said that security was being stepped up across the state.

State ministers, senior officials and others gathered at the hospital, as did a huge crowd of AIADMK cadre, many of whom broke down while others fervently prayed for her recovery. Some tried to enter the hospital premises but were restrained.

President Pranab Mukherjee wished Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," said a post on the President's official Twitter account.

DMK chief M. Karunanidhi and his son and party leader M.K. Stalin also took to Twitter to convey their wishes for her speedy recovery.

"Wishing #jayalalithaa Hon CM of TN a speedy recovery, Let her be healthy soon," tweeted Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

"Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon," said Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on his official Twitter handle.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern over the health of her Tamil Nadu counterpart, and wished her a speedy recovery.

"Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her," tweeted Banerjee.

"Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health. Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!" posted Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, while his Rajasthan counterpart Vasundhara Raje tweeted: "Prayers for the speedy recovery of Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji. May she get recover soon."

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad tweeted: "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Let's all pray for her."

The 68-year-old Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital for treatment of fever and dehydration on September 22. The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection, and put her on respiratory support.

Recently Apollo Hospitals Chairman Pratap C. Reddy told media that Jayalalithaa is returning to normalcy, and had been shifted out of Intensive Care Unit as there were no health complications. She could go home whenever she decides to do so, he had said.

--IANS

vj-vd
Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest, under observation: Apollo Hospitals (Third Lead)

Tamil Nadu,National,Politics,Health/Medicine, Mon, 05 Dec 2016 IANS

Chennai, Dec 5 (IANS) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and is being treated by a team of specialists at Apollo Hospitals, the hospital said.

"She is on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and is being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists," the hospital said in a tweet.

Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao, who has additional charge of the state, returned from Mumbai and was visited the hospital to enquire about her condition.

The evening saw hectic activity at Apollo Hospitals with state ministers, senior officials and others assembling there, even as a huge crowd of AIADMK cadre gathered, many of whom broke down on hearing about the news while others were fervently praying for her well-being.

Leaders across the country extended their best wishes to the 68-year-old AIADMK supremo, who has been in hospital since late Spetember.

President Pranab Mukherjee wished Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," said a post on the President's official account.

"Wishing #jayalalithaa Hon CM of TN a speedy recovery, Let her be healthy soon," tweeted Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern over the health of her Tamil Nadu counterpart, and wished her a speedy recovery.

"Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her," tweeted Banerjee.

"Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health. Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!" posted Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad tweeted: "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Let's all pray for her."

Thousands of other Twitter users also prayed for her health.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital for treatment of fever and dehydration on September 22. The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection, and put her on respiratory support.

According to Apollo Hospitals, a team of specialist doctors -- cardiologists, respiratory physicians, consultants for infectious diseases, diabetologist and endocrinologist -- treated her.

Recently Apollo Hospitals Chairman Pratap C. Reddy told media that Jayalalithaa is returning to normalcy and all her vital organs are functioning well.

She was shifted out of Intensive Care Unit as there were no health complications, he had said.

Reddy also said Jayalalithaa can go home whenever she decides to do so.

--IANS

vj-vd
Airstrikes kill 34 in Syria

Syrian Arab Republic,Religion,Defence/Security,Terrorism, Mon, 05 Dec 2016 IANS

Damascus, Dec 5 (IANS) At least 34 people were killed on Sunday by intensified airstrikes on rebel-held areas in Syria's northern province of Idlib, a monitor group reported.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, seven children and six women were among those killed in at least 40 air raids on areas in the countryside of Idlib, Xinhua news agency reported.

The UK-based watchdog said the airstrikes targeted the towns of Sarmin, Jisr al-Shughour, etc. and other areas in Idlib's countryside.

The death toll is likely to rise due to a large number of critically wounded people, the organisation added.

Much of Idlib has fallen to the rebels over the past year, except two Shiite towns loyal to the government.

The rebels who are fleeing or evacuating areas under their control in the capital Damascus or in the city of Aleppo were all headed toward Idlib, making the province increasingly heavy with armed militants.

--IANS

vgu/
Evan Whiteford says all the pressure surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline should make it fail proof for decades.

While Whiteford speaks for 357 miles of land route, a pipeline investigator hired by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe maintains the very small portion that would cross the Missouri River/Lake Oahe was poorly assessed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Whiteford is a marketing representative for the Laborers International Union of North Dakota, which had 600 welders, truck drivers, equipment operators and laborers on the project. What started as a small protest by members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has swelled into the longest, most entrenched anti-pipeline protest ever staged in this country and Whiteford said that feeling of all eyes watching had an upside.

Everybody had their A-game on. If anybody was to screw up anything on this pipeline, it would not be good, Whiteford said. There was a lot of oversight. PHMSA (Pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration) had their eyes on it, the Public Service Commission had their eyes on it, the company had their eyes on it  an inspector for every crew. There was a lot of focus and national attention.

His is a reassuring perspective, though it doesnt cover the most contested piece of the pipeline  the one still not built and the one where a break would be potentially most catastrophic.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, with a rated capacity of 600,000 barrels per day, would carry more than twice the next largest pipeline leaving North Dakotas Bakken oil fields. The construction spread west of the Missouri River/Lake Oahe to terminals in the oil patch is done. The spread east from the river toward South Dakota and Illinois is nearly so, with the exception of the critical river crossing that will plumb the oil transport line from one side of the water to the other.

That 7,500 feet remains in limbo. It is the hot zone contested by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which fears a pipeline break at the river will pollute water for tribal members and millions of others downstream. The tribes stand against the crossing has been joined by thousands of protesters, climate change activists, celebrities and now veterans, who have occupied protest encampments on and near the reservation for four months.

The corps is withholding an easement for that river crossing based on intervention by the tribe, with no indication when or if it will be provided.

River crossing safety

Even though the company lacks an easement to use corps land to get there, it did obtain all other necessary permits to horizontally drill the pipeline beneath the river.

One of those was issued by the State Water Commission. The commission has authority for river land under the sovereign lands premise, granted at statehood for designated navigable waterways.

John Paczkowski, assistant state engineer, said the agency required documentation that the river-crossing pipeline would meet federal PMHSA standards, be properly designed with X-ray weld inspection of pipeline joints, hydrostatic testing with water to ensure it withstands the oil load pressure and sound monitoring, valves and safety controls.

In addition to block valves on either side to shut off flow, the company will bore pipe with extra thickness, .62 of an inch, instead of .42 of an inch, records show.

Scouring issues

The State Water Commission also required the company to study whether its initial plan to horizontally drill the pipe 64 feet below the bed of the river would be deep enough. Paczkowski said the historic gush of 150,000 feet per cubic second during the 2011 emergency release from a bulging Garrison Dam reservoir left scours almost twice that deep 40 miles upstream in the Bismarck-Mandan reach.

A scour analysis was not a big deal until recent history. We needed to verify that that was a safe number, said Paczkowki, adding the companys engineers found the potential scour in the river bed during historic flows would be 20 feet deep, an effect mitigated by the distance from the dam and the physics of fast water meeting the standing pool of Lake Oahe.

He said the agency would have required another 4 feet to 24 feet, but, instead, the company came back with a plan to drill the pipe 92 feet below the river bed. Based on bore maps in the agencys file, the pipeline will pass through zones of silty sand and a clay sand mix at that depth. The bore drill would be staged on private land starting on the Emmons County side, pass through corps land before reaching the states sovereign lands jurisdiction and exit west on private land near the reservation.

Inspecting the bore

The Water Commission retained the right to inspect the pipeline under its permit, but Paczkowski said the agency has not discussed whether it would inspect the boring process.

If we dont, I dont know who will, he said.

According to Public Service Commission chairwoman Julie Fedorchak, the PSC regularly inspects the pipeline route for reclamation and cultural aspects, but pipeline safety, including the boring, falls under PHMSAs jurisdiction.

Questions remain

Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., is a pipeline consultant to PHMSA and spill investigator with more than 40 years in the pipeline industry. He examined the corps Dakota Access Pipeline environmental assessment, the document it used to approve the water crossing under its Nationwide Permit 12 in July, while still withholding the actual easement.

Kuprewicz was hired by Standing Rock as part of its ongoing lawsuit in federal court alleging that the corps should have subjected the pipeline to a full blown, much more rigorous environmental impact statement.

He said he went into the examination objectively, because hes built a career on such investigations, and wasnt looking for deficiencies in the environmental assessment. But he said he found them and documented them in a report issued in October.

He raised concerns that the companys worst-case scenario for a spill is unrelated to the water crossing, so the corps doesnt know how much oil would flow into the river should it rupture there, he said.

Thus, there is an emergency response plan that is not based on information about a river spill, he said. The worst-case spill scenario provided by the company and detailed in the PSCs docket is at a location in Mercer County about 80 miles northwest of the river crossing and well outside the corps jurisdiction. Its based on where lowest pipeline gravity and maximum flow coincide and estimates a spill of about 20,000 barrels in a full and, the company says, very unlikely guillotine breach.

This is incomplete; that the corps didnt go into more detail or challenge that is very troubling, he said.

According to information filed in its application, the company says its remote pressure monitoring system with multiple, real-time meter flow verification points would allow it to respond to a spill within three minutes.

Thats interesting, because I dont know of any system that can do that. Thats extremely optimistic, and theres no information in the environmental assessment that defends the companys actual ability to do that. In all other cases, the detection and response takes at least one-half hour to an hour, he said.

If pressurized oil is released under the river, even at 92 feet below the bed, it will find the surface, according to Kuprewicz.

It may take an hour, but it will blow a hole somewhere. The soil wont be able to hold the pressure, Kuprewicz said.

The pipeline will be pressurized at the rate of 1,400 pounds per square inch, according to filings.

He also expressed concern that, because the North Dakota Geological Survey says the pipeline route passes through areas prone to landslides, the corps didnt assess if oil spilled in a landslide breach would reach federal waters.

Kuprewicz doesnt have an issue with the companys plans to horizontally drill a pipeline under the river. He said the technology is well understood and unless the bore route is rocky, there shouldnt be issues with placing sound, aligned pipe.

He does think the corps approved the permit without enough information.

The environmental assessment is insupportable, he said.

This is what I call `space shuttle syndrome, when youre committed to the launch instead of to the policy and procedures that would have stopped the launch, he said.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault says, in addition to the full environmental impact statement to more fully address the pipeline impact at the water crossing, he believes the water crossing should be rerouted away from the reservation and the tribes treaty lands.

We told Dakota Access we dont want the pipeline here and told them to put it somewhere else. From day one, theyve known that, he said.
Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest, crowds throng Apollo

Tamil Nadu,National,Politics,Health/Medicine, Mon, 05 Dec 2016 IANS

Chennai, Dec 5 (IANS) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and is being treated by a team of specialists at Apollo Hospitals where she has been admitted since late September.

"The Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, Greams Road, Chennai, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening. She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts including cardiologists, pulmonologist and the critical care specialists," the hospital said in a statememt.

"She is on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and is being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists.

"Dr Richard Beale from London has also been consulted and he has concurred with the line of treatment by our cardiologists & pulmonologists," the hospital said in a series of tweets.

"The Hon'ble CM is the beloved leader of the masses. Please join us in praying for her speedy recovery. #GodblessAmma #Jayalalithaa," it tweeted later.

Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao, who has additional charge of the state, returned from Mumbai and visited the hospital to enquire about her condition.

While a sizeable police contingent was deployed at the hospital, reports said that security was being stepped up across the state.

State ministers, senior officials and others assembled at the hospital, even as a huge crowd of AIADMK cadre gathered, many of whom broke down while others fervently prayed for her well-being. Some allegedly tried to enter the premises but were stopped.

Leaders across the country extended their best wishes to the 68-year-old AIADMK supremo.

President Pranab Mukherjee wished Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," said a post on the President's official account.

DMK chief M. Karunanidhi and his son and party leader M.K. Stalin also also took to Twitter to convey their wishes for her speedy recovery.

"Wishing #jayalalithaa Hon CM of TN a speedy recovery, Let her be healthy soon," tweeted Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

"Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon," said Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on his official Twitter handle.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern over the health of her Tamil Nadu counterpart, and wished her a speedy recovery.

"Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her," tweeted Banerjee.

"Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health. Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!" posted Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, while his Rajasthan counterpart Vasundhara Raje tweeted: Prayers for the speedy recovery of Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji. May she get recover soon."

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad tweeted: "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Let's all pray for her."

Thousands of other Twitter users also prayed for her health.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital for treatment of fever and dehydration on September 22. The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection, and put her on respiratory support.

Recently Apollo Hospitals Chairman Pratap C. Reddy told media that Jayalalithaa is returning to normalcy and all her vital organs are functioning well.

She was shifted out of Intensive Care Unit as there were no health complications, he had said, adding that she could go home whenever she decides to do so.

--IANS

vj-vd
Two Assam Rifles Jawans killed in militant attacks

Guwahati, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 NI Wire

Militants ambushly attacked on the convoy of Assam Rifles in Arunachal Pradesh. In this attack two army men were killed and eight were injured. It may be believed that this attack done by militants of opposition group of NSCN-K.

It is believed that this attack was done by the militants of banned organisation NSCN-K. This attack was happened on the border of India and Myanmar.

According to the sources of Defence, a spokesperson of Assam Rifles said, this attack was happened in Jinu village of Tirap district. It is located 20 Km away from the border line.

According to the spokesperson, when 16 army men of Assam Rifles and one army men were returning from the post then suddenly heavily armed militants attacked and opened fire.

He further said, in this attack two army men were killed including a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) and eight army men got injured in which two are seriously injured.

According to him, more security forces were sent against the militants to do further military proceedings.

The spokesperson said, we believe that this incident was done by the militants of opposition group Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-khaplang (NSCN-K) who are presently in less numbers in Tirap District.

Earlier on November 19, NSCN-K and United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) attacked on army men in Tinsukia District of Assam.

In this attack three army men sacrificed their lives and four army men were injured.

--with agency inputs
Heart of Asia summit: Ghani says Indias support for Afghanistan is unconditional

Amritsar, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 NI Wire

The President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani said that the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and his country was very important for regional trade and connectivity in the Heart of Asia summit. Ghani appreciated the unconditional support from India for the economic development of war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Ashraf Ghani also spoke about Indias assistance in the construction of Afghan-India Friendship Dam which is also called as Salma dam, that was inaugurated on June 4, 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with him in Heart province of that country.

The Afghan President said, Indias support to Afghanistan to improve peoples life is transparent with no strings attached.

Ghani was addressing the inaugural funciton of the 6th ministerial Heart of Asia ocnference- Istanbul Process on Afghanistan.

This time the Punjab city is hosting the 6th ministerial Heart of Asia conference and is attended by leaders from South and Central Asia and several Western countries.

The President of Ashraf Ghani said the Chabahar port development project is very important for connectivity and commerce.

Ghani arrived on Wednesday in India to attend the Heart of Asia summit in Punjab. The President and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Golden temple in Amritsar on Saturday .

Before the summit India and Afghanistan talked over some political issues in which India confirmed Afghanistan for its support.

In May 2016 India and Iran signed a bilateral agreement to refurbish the port on the Gulf of Oman that is expected to provide an alternative route for trade between India and Afghanistan.

--with agency inputs
PM Modi become first to serve Langar at Golden Temple

Amritsar, Sun, 04 Dec 2016 NI Wire

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited to the Golden Temple and was accompanied by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani. The Prime Minister served food here to the devotees and became the first Prime Minister to serve the langar at the temple in Amritsar.

The Prime Minister Modis this visit is the first visit to the Golden Temple. He reached at Amritsar on Sunday to attend the 6th ministerial Heart of Asia-Istanbul conference on Afghanistan.

According to the Chief Information Officer, Gurbachan Singh at the Golden Temple said, Modi is the first Prime Minister who served the devotees in the Golden Temple.

The officer said, no other Prime Minister had so far participated in the distribution of food in the Langar whereas almost every Indian Prime Minister has visited the Harmandar Sahib, to pay respect and obeisance and offer prayers.

He further said, when Modi visited the Temple then after entering into the dinig hall he suddenly started serving the devotees.

Over 100,000 devotees are fed traditional meals on peak days in the community kitchen or Langar in the dining hall of the Golden Temple.

The officer said, almost all former Prime Ministers visited the temple. He named as Indira Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, H.D. Dev Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Manmohan Singh. He said, Manmohan Singh visited the Golden Temple many times as Prime Minister.

According to the official sources, Modi was wearing a woollen cap and spent more than 40 minutes in the Golden Temple.

According to the sources, a volunteer force inside the temple was provided by the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) during Modi visit.

--with agency inputs
Morocco and Nigeria signed a partnership agreement to conduct feasibility studies and build a gas pipeline that will stretch along the coast connecting Nigerian gas wells with West African countries all the way up until reaching the Kingdom.

The signing ceremony of the agreement was chaired in Abuja by Nigerias President Muhammdo Buhari and King Mohammed VI, who is on an official visit to Nigeria as part of an African tour, meant to boost Moroccos standing and economic and political ties with African countries ahead of joining Africas institutional family.

During the signing ceremony, a joint statement on this mega African project was read out stating that the pipeline was discussed by the two Heads of state during the UN Climate Summit (COP22) in Marrakech in November.

The pipeline will add momentum to economic integration in West Africa and will help promote efforts to boost electrification in the region. The project is also meant to help Nigerian gas reach Europe.

The two countries signed 14 other agreements providing for developing industrial clusters in the sub-region in sectors such as manufacturing, Agro-business and fertilizers to help attract foreign capital and improve export competitiveness.

King Mohammed VIs historic visit to Nigeria, the first ever by a Moroccan Monarch is viewed as a milestone in Moroccan-Nigerian relations that will usher a new diplomatic era marked by economic cooperation and political consultation.
Supporters of new Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen celebrate his win on Sunday. Thank God, the sign says. Photo: Roland Schlager/AFP/Getty Images

Alexander Van der Bellen, a left-leaning pro-Europe former leader of Austrias Green Party, has soundly defeated Norbert Hofer, a far-right populist, in the countrys presidential election. The anti-immigrant and nationalist Hofer conceded to Van der Bellen shortly after the polls closed on Sunday, and his loss halts  at least temporarily  a right-wing populist wave that has been threatening to overtake Europe. Furthermore, if Hofer had won, he would have become the first far-right head of state to be democratically elected in Europe since 1945. Speaking after his win on Sunday, Van der Bellen celebrated the result as a victory for freedom, equality, and solidarity, and said it proves that pro-EU candidates can still be successful.

Sundays vote was a rerun of a May election, which Hofer also lost, albeit by a much narrower margin; that result was eventually overturned due to counting irregularities. The 72-year-old Van der Bellen, a former economics professor who once led Austrias Green Party, appears to have won Sundays contest by a significant margin despite pre-election polls having indicated the race was extremely close.

During his campaign, Van der Bellen advocated for a liberal and cosmopolitan Austria, and sought to frame Hofer and his anti-immigration Freedom Party as against Austrias membership in the European Union. That strategy appears to have worked, as Van der Bellen emerged with an insurmountable lead on Sunday, obtaining 53 percent of the vote according to preliminary results. As The Economist explains, though the role of president in Austria is a mostly ceremonial one, the position is not without power, and should Hofer and the Freedom Party have won, it could have given them an important foothold toward obtaining the real power of the Austrian chancellorship.

What had been a very tight race broke decisively left for a change, and Alexander Van der Bellen, seen above, will now be Austrias new president. Photo: Alex Halada/AFP/Getty Images

Hofer campaigned on an anti-immigrant, anti-Islam platform, sought improved relations with Russia, and had suggested Austria follow the U.K. in leaving the EU, though he later attempted to walk that position back. According to The Guardian, Hofers campaign manager, while conceding defeat on Sunday, blamed the loss on Austrias establishment, which he said pitched in once again to block, to stonewall and to prevent renewal. In fact, it seems that Austrias women were the deciding factor:

Austrian women voted 62% for pro-EU, son of refugees to be president, saving the nation from its men, who gave "Austria First" racist 56% https://t.co/Y2Yjpav8Cr  Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) December 4, 2016

Beyond Austria, political parties from across the spectrum in Europe have been watching the race for indications of how upcoming elections in France, the Netherlands, and Germany might play out over the next year. Now, the hope among moderate and liberal political forces throughout the continent is that the result in Austria will help, symbolically, to reverse the far-rights momentum.
On a sweltering July afternoon a couple of years ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio relocated one of his normally staid bill-signing ceremonies from City Halls blue room to the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library. Surrounded by cheering activists and elected officials, de Blasio marked one of the early triumphs of his soon-to-be tumultuous tenure: bringing a municipal identification-card program to New York City. Undocumented immigrants would finally have access to bank accounts and various city services. Urban liberalism was on the march.

If there were questions about the future of the program, known as IDNYC, they were quickly shooed away. I do understand the theoretical argument about what some downsides might be, but I am much more focused on the here-and-now reality that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are suffering for lack of ID  thats the problem we have to solve, de Blasio said that day.

Two years later, theory is reality. Something that would have sounded like a fever dream on that bright summer morning is happening next month: Donald Trump will be sworn in as president of the United States after running a campaign rooted in promises to crack down on immigration and deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. This raises the very real possibility of one of those downsides that de Blasio vaguely gestured at: If Trump chooses to pursue deportations in New York City, data from the IDNYC program will offer federal agents a very convenient list of names and addresses of unauthorized immigrants.

After the election, everything is up for grabs, said Van Tran, a Columbia University sociology professor who studies New Yorks immigrants. I do think that we have to be extremely vigilant because it is possible. Some might say, Well, you know were being paranoid in imagining the worst case scenarios but my sense is actually, no, we arent.

Some elected officials are worried. IDNYC and DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] could conceivably have the same fate: Two programs intended to protect undocumented immigrants could have the ultimate effect of exposing them, said Councilman Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat. Its a cruel irony.

The law creating New Yorks identity card was not written totally without awareness of such a possibility  it contains a provision that would allow the city, at the end of this year, to destroy all the personal data collected under the program.

Right now though, there is a lot of uncertainty and anxiety about how City Hall will handle the situation. In the weeks following the presidential election, the de Blasio administration has appeared somewhat oblivious to the implications of a Trump presidency. Last month, during an address aimed at comforting his city, de Blasio urged New Yorkers to keep signing up for municipal IDs and promised to fight any federal attempt to seize documentation  perhaps indicating he doesnt want to operate a program without any record-keeping.

Why not just destroy the records, as the law allows? Storing data in the first place was a concession to the NYPD because of fears over fraud. Its unlikely de Blasio would have signed off on an IDNYC program without the police departments consent. Were de Blasio to purge the records, in accordance with the wishes of many progressives and local officials, he would be setting up a clash with a police department. The mayor has been generally deferential to the cops, and destroying the records would perhaps upset the delicately balanced relationship.

Conservatives in particular worry that operating IDNYC without proper record-keeping will create a grave security risk. Two Republican Assembly members, Nicole Malliotakis and Ron Castorina Jr., are threatening to sue the city if de Blasio decides to purge the records.

On the other hand, running an ID program without retaining documents wouldnt be unprecedented. San Francisco does it now, and de Blasio isnt ruling out that approach. When it comes to keeping cardholder information secure and private, all options are on the table, said Rosemary Boeglin, a de Blasio spokeswoman.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the 2014 legislation, has not sounded the alarm yet. In a statement, NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said she believes the records will be destroyed as the bill originally intended.

The IDNYC database does not specify immigration status. More than 900,000 people have signed up for the cards, which provide benefits like discounts at museums and zoos, and many of them arent immigrants. The Trump administration would have to sue for the information it wants, and the citys corporation counsel, as de Blasio noted last week, would fight the federal government in court.

Trump has said nothing publicly about the ID program, though hes savaged de Blasio on many occasions. After the two met at Trump Tower last month, de Blasio didnt explicitly say they discussed IDNYC. Its unlikely, given Trumps numerous priorities over the first few months  repealing Obamacare, building a border wall, overhauling the tax system  that his administration would attempt to obtain IDNYC data immediately. As with anything else pertaining to the most erratic president-elect in modern times, what Trump ultimately has planned is anyones guess.

Do any of us know what President-elect Trump is really going to do? No, said Jennifer Gordon, an immigration expert at Fordham Law School. I would say in terms of his stated goals in the immigration arena, IDNYC is very low on the list.
SNL can keep it acting like they didn't allow that human trash box to be on the show

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Normalizing him before or after the election is all the same to me.

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isn't this still normalizing him, though? people are laughing and having a good time while watching this portrayal, most not realizing that it's more realistic than parody.

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Some CNN anchor said Trump forgetting about the promises he made to do the carrier deal was "refreshing". Bitch what?

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I don't know, i think letting him host helped normalize him and get him elected

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yeah not to mention his free publicity on other NBC shows. gurlbye

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Ha

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Basically

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ding ding

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ikr

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I ask myself that every time I watch the news.

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I don't know if you're American or not, but, look around. The movies and TV series, racism, the fact that America still spends more money on wars/the army, no free health care, the "greatest country in the world" nationalistic rethoric.



Trump is the manifestation of everything America is nowadays. I just hope people take a long look at this orange mirror and decide it is time for a change.

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I mean I agree with most of what is being said in this thread, but I'm also wondering if we're ever going to discuss the fact that Hil never should have run and the fact that she ran a pretty shit campaign. I'm still surprised (but like not really) that the Dems put their full weight behind her to the point of undermining potential candidates and asking strong candidates not to run at all. Maybe I need to log onto ONTD-political for that...

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the united states has been creating a culture of anti-intellectualism for DECADES.

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I love that liberals get called ~special snowflakes~ when their president whines about SNL while they boycott Hamilton, Starbucks and Kelloggs. Trump could not handle 1% of what President Obama and his family has had said about them for 8 years. I wish Trump would die but even then we're stuck with Pence. I better out live Trump tho I wanna live that death announcement.



Things Trump has time for:



1. Costume parties



2. Watching SNL



3. Dinner w/Fabio



Things Trump doesn't have time for



1. Intel briefings  Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 4, 2016





Hey remember when Bush ignored 9/11 intel briefings months before it happened?



Edited at 2016-12-04 06:10 pm (UTC) It still blows my mind that the president-elect is an IRL twitter egg. And that dumbfuck Kellyanne has no common sense so it's not like his account will be taken away and tweets vetted first.I love that liberals get called ~special snowflakes~ when their president whines about SNL while they boycott Hamilton, Starbucks and Kelloggs. Trump could not handle 1% of what President Obama and his family has had said about them for 8 years. I wish Trump would die but even then we're stuck with Pence. I better out live Trump tho I wanna live that death announcement.Hey remember when Bush ignored 9/11 intel briefings months before it happened?

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I read a theory on ONTD that if Trump, Pence and a couple of other ppl bite it, Mittens could become President?

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if Romney becomes Sec of State, he's 4th in line after the VP, Speaker of the House, and President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

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It's not clear if Romney is even getting Sec of State. Rohrabacher and Bolton look like they've moved ahead in that race while Romney got played.



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I honestly think he's meeting with Romney just to fuck around with him.

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If the republican electors go rogue and write down Mittens instead of Trump

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Is there a damn line for them in a suicide booth so this shit be preventable?! They need to do themselves a favor and walk in the damn booth so they can be put out of misery.



Who's next after Mittens? Cmon. 

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Bush was such an awful president. Saying you would rather have bush is saying you would rather be poisoned to death than stabbed to death. You're still dead either way.

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But that's what Trump wants! And excuse to put those orange little hands on a nuclear bomb switch.

Wars have been good business to America since WWII.

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I wish Trump would die but even then we're stuck with Pence.



Then lets hope really hard that they are in the same car when it happens, sis.

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She tore him several new ones, and I love her for it. She's right--this is embarrassing. It's getting more embarrassing every day.

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That was so damn powerful.

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How is this real life

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i've been asking myself this question since election day, seriously. a big part of me still hasn't processed the reality of trump becoming president b/c i'm not sure that i can? avoidance in the extreme.

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cheeto's tweets are so pathetic. like.......i can't believe this is reality.

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I am enjoying Alec Baldwin lately, both on screen and off screen



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he won't even make a year imo

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I honestly don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets impeached but Republicans are already acting as if he's normal and there's nothing wrong so I also wouldn't be surprised if they just ignore him and act like everything is fine (his conflicts of interest should worry everyone, Democrats/Republicans/annoying people that call themselves Independents but are really just Republicans, everyone)

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With the way he's going, he'll be impeached. The republicans don't want him, they want Pence.

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This. He's already been normalized.

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i wouldn't be surprised if he makes it 8.

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Between him looking like he's on the verge of a heart attack when I saw him in DC and obviously not wanting the job, I'm sure they're looking for a way to get him out without him looking like a ~loser~. He'll probably feign some "vaccination injury" at 70 to get out since he's all about supporting that nonsense.

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No. I mean, clearly I was wrong the last time I was super-confident about a political thing, but I'm doubling down on this one.

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6 US Presidents have lived to age 90. Four served in the last forty years.  Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 4, 2016





I do wonder about his health though. Look at how 8 years aged President Obama and surely he was in better health than Trump. Trump looks like death though and he's 70. With our luck he will live until 95 or some shit. I worry about who will even hold him accountable to be impeached. Republicans don't give a shit about anything else as long as they're in power. Most of them don't see to care about his conflicts of interest and zero understanding of the constitution.I do wonder about his health though. Look at how 8 years aged President Obama and surely he was in better health than Trump. Trump looks like death though and he's 70. With our luck he will live until 95 or some shit.

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This is my nightmare scenario:



They won't want Trump to be impeached because Pence is essentially the president right now

More voter suppression will make Trump win again in 2020

Pence will be eligible to run in 2024

More voter suppression will make Pence win again 2028



16 years of Pence

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How could republicans impeach him without looking bad themselves? He's in their party and their leader.



Edited at 2016-12-04 06:59 pm (UTC)

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he will definitely do something that should get him impeached (probably many things) but I'm not sure it'll actually happen

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He won't. Someone on here said it best. Pence is his key to not getting impeached. Republicans have a better grasp of what the people are saying (this is how they got Congress too) and they know the people see him as a low key Darth Vader.

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if despite the race, rape etc. issues he still got elected...there's nothing bad enough he can do to get impeached lbr

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even if he gets impeached, then what? we get blessed with fucking pence?? hard pass on both.

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he'll resign like Nixon over the WH chef cooking his steak wrong.

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Honestly, it's pointless to speculate now because everything about this election was unprecedented. Also, that leaves Pence...who doesn't back down from things as often, so that would probably be worse.

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What is Trump trying to cover up now?



We're so fucked.

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Nice. But really, SNL helped make this happen. Mocking or no, Drumpf should be thanking them.

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I'm scared for our country with this dumbass in charge.

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If this Taiwan fiasco has shown us anything it's that he has no clue what he's doing and we should be scared.

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Very scared.

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I'm scared for the whole world tbh.

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Kim Jung Un threatened nuclear war over The Interview. Sadly, they're both volatile leaders that like to attack and take things way too personally. Maybe they'll pull a russia and hack republican emails like they did with sony, or maybe something much worse. If he mishandled Taiwan, you bet he's is going to mishandle NK.



fuck i can't write today



Edited at 2016-12-04 08:31 pm (UTC)

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I thought it was the same tweet from weeks go but I see Tramp is still at it. I particularly enjoyed the "Ha".

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Same!! I was like this must've been last week. I had to look up the date and see it was a new one. My god....

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They really need to stop acting like KellyAnne isn't a true believer. She's just as batshit as everyone else that works for Trump.

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She will bat for whoever throws money at her. She was shilling for Ted Cruz before this. That is like marginally if at all better than Trump.

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I think she truly believes in the Mercers and Bannon but idk if she personally likes Trump. I read that she basically compared him to a young child lmao.

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I don't know about "true believer." Check out her level-headed take-downs of Trump before she became his campaign manager:







I guess money/power talks, smh.

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lmao Tr*mp is so bothered by SNL

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He wants people to like him so badly. It's the reason he wants to keep holding his rallies for his deranged fans to cheer him on and the reason he was talking about how much he liked Obama after Obama was nice to him when they actually met. It's equal parts embarrassing because of how desperate he is and terrifying because of how easily he can be provoked or convinced to do things.

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It's equal parts embarrassing because of how desperate he is and terrifying because of how easily he can be provoked or convinced to do things.



mte!

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Yep. He looked so validated sitting next to Obama. Like he finally felt like a cool kid, it was sad. I think he likes President Obama even though he ran the totally disgusting and racist birther movement he wants to be admired the way Obama is

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The Nice Guys

: Action, Comedy, Crime: Set against the backdrop of 1977 Los Angeles, The Nice Guys opens when single father and licensed PI Holland March is hired to investigate the apparent suicide of famous porn star Misty Mountains. As the trail leads him to track down a girl named Amelia, he encounters less licensed and less hands-off private eye Jackson Healey and his brass knuckles, both hired by the young hippie. However, the situation takes a turn for the worse when Amelia vanishes and it becomes apparent that March wasn't the only party interested. As both men are forced to team up, they'll have to take on a world filled with eccentric goons, strippers dressed as mermaids and even a possible government conspiracy.





Blue Jay

: Drama: Meeting by chance when they return to their tiny California hometown, two former high-school sweethearts reflect on their shared past.





Sing Street

: Comedy, Drama, Music: This is the beginning of the eighties and everybody is moving to the beat of Pop music, as the brand-new concept of the music video appears on television for the first time. On the other hand, in Dublin, Conor, a teenager with a sensitive heart, is trying to deal with a tense family relationship, reconnect with his older brother, while dealing with the hostile environment of his new public school... But then one day, he saw her. Tall, with long chestnut hair, a buttery complexion and big, dark eyes, an enigmatically beautiful girl was standing in front of the gate of his school, indolently observing people passing by. Who is she and how could a boy ever get noticed by such a distant girl? Easy... he would form a band! With every lyric Conor writes, the gap narrows and with every song he plays, her heart fills with affection. In a sea of opportunities ahead of them, what does the future hold for a love like this?





Tickled

: Documentary: Journalist David Farrier stumbles upon a mysterious tickling competition online. As he delves deeper he comes up against fierce resistance, but that doesn't stop him getting to the bottom of a story stranger than fiction.





The Shallows

: Drama, Horror, Thriller: In the taut thriller The Shallows, when Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing on a secluded beach, she finds herself on the feeding ground of a great white shark. Though she is stranded only 200 yards from shore, survival proves to be the ultimate test of wills, requiring all of Nancy's ingenuity, resourcefulness, and fortitude What's your favorite movie from 2016??
Today marks the end of what has been one of the best weeks in two years for positive news for Canadas battered upstream oil and gas industry.

Obviously, the OPEC meeting November 30, which concluded with the commitment to meaningful production restraint resulting in an immediate jump in crude prices, has every oil producer, investor and employee (E&P and oilfield service) in the world starting to believe the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a train. Canada is no exception.

WTI at US$51 a barrel is US$24.81 higher than the recent multiyear low of US$26.19 on February 11, 2016. Canada produces about 4 million barrels per day of light oil, synthetic crude, bitumen and natural gas liquids. Using the current Canadian dollar exchange rate of US$0.75, Canadian petroleum liquids are fetching over C$30 a barrel more than nine months ago. This equates to C$120 million a day in additional revenue or nearly a C$44 billion annualized improvement from the low water mark.

Of course the math isnt that simple. The February 11 number was the low and todays price could be the high. Regardless, C$30 a barrel is a huge amount of money when it comes to spending in the field. Earlier this year when a well or facility went down with mechanical problems the operator was hard pressed to justify the investment to fix it. But starting last summer after WTI returned to the right side of US$40, the increase in operating expenditures (OPEX) was measurable. Service rigs and field crews went back to work putting dormant production back on stream. Production repair spending typically pays out in 90 days or less so even producers with the most stressed balance sheets can talk to their bankers and justify OPEX to put proven production back on stream because of the low risk and short payout.

In late September when OPEC met in Algiers and agreed to the concept of the November 30 production cuts, WTI busted through US$50 and looked like it might stay there. It gave producers the opportunity to hedge a year out at what could be $C65 a barrel (depending upon exchange rates), a number at which pretty well everything in Canada works with the exception of a new multi-billion-dollar greenfield oil sands mine.

Thats when the phone started ringing for drilling contractors. E&P companies must drill eventually to replace reserves or they go out of business. Higher oil prices combined with lower drilling and service prices started to make the math work for an increasing number of prospects. On December 2, it was reported by JuneWarren Nickles there were 234 rigs drilling in Canada, the highest figure since the normally active winter drilling season when it reached 241 on January 19, 2016. Before that the last time there were this many rigs active in the field was March of 2015.

On November 22, the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors released its 2017 drilling forecast which predicted a 31 percent increase next year at 4,665 wells. This looks like a nice bump until you note the figure was over 10,000 in 2014 and every prior year in recent memory. However, this projection was done before the OPEC meeting. There is no doubt if current oil prices hold or rise this number will increase.

The trickle-down effect on employment has been measurable. Service companies are scrambling to find staff again. They phone their former employees who have found work doing something else and discover they dont necessarily want to go back to the patch unless there is evidence the recovery is long term. This is something their prospective employers cannot yet provide. Oil companies are again waiting for frac crews. If youre on the service side of the customer/vendor relationship, this is a fantastic development compared to what has transpired in the past two years. The outlook for the winter drilling season is materially improved and this weeks OPEC meeting was the icing on the cake. Related: Why The Oil Industry Shouldnt Fear Peak Demand

The other piece of really good news this week was the federal government announcing the approved of Kinder Morgans Trans Mountain pipeline expansion which runs for 715 miles from the refining hub on the east side of Edmonton, Alberta to Pacific tidewater in Vancouver. Originally built in 1953 and in safe and reliable service for 53 years carrying about 300,000 b/d, Kinder Morgan formally applied in 2013 to expand the line to 890,000 b/d at an estimated cost of C$6.8 billion. An additional 580,000 b/d of pipeline export capacity is a huge boost to the industry particularly when it is to tidewater, not Canadas historic major crude buyer the United States. Kinder Morgan hopes to start construction next year.

Albertas oil producers have endured crude prices below world levels because of restricted access to tankers which could move oil to markets paying the highest price. While nobody will admit it publicly, the significant investment reduction in greenfield oil sands projects is due in part to the lack of low cost access to market via pipeline. No major oil producer is going to commit to investing billions in a new bitumen mine or thermal recovery project with a 30 to 40-year life if rail is the only means by which to export the product.

At the same time the federal government approved the replacement of the Canadian segment of Enbridge Line 3 which runs from Hardisty, Alberta (the closest thing Canada has to Cushing, Oklahoma) to Superior, Wisconsin. The U.S. section is still waiting approval but because it is an existing line crossing the Canada/U.S. border this project doesnt not require White House approval, the withheld permission that killed TransCanadas Keystone XL project.

This 1,031-mile line dates back to the 1950s and when the work is completed in 2019 it will transport 760,000 b/d with future capacity of 915,000 b/d. Because of its age and Enbridges concern for safety and integrity Line 3 is currently carrying under 400,000 b/d. At C$7.5 billion this project will be the most expensive in Enbridges history.

The same day Ottawa officially put the nail in the coffin of Enbridge Northern Gateway which was intended to run from Edmonton to the Pacific Ocean seaport of Kitimat, B.C. This was approved by the National Energy Board in 2012 and the federal government shortly thereafter but was challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada. Based on a failure to adequately consult aboriginals, earlier this year the court overturned government approval. Related: Winners And Losers Of The OPEC Deal

While the possible addition of over 1 million b/d of pipeline takeaway capacity from Alberta is great news, the reality is these are only government approvals, not buried pipe. Northern Gateway was approved twice before it was cancelled. Opponents to Kinder Morgan have promised fierce opposition through the courts and civil disobedience. Energy Minister James Carr this week hinted opponents involved in anything but peaceful and legal protests will be dealt with appropriately. We cant let the pipeline get held up by people that will never agree to any standard. The law of the jungle cannot prevail. The suggestion was they could be arrested but in Canada senior politicians like Carr invariably choose their words very carefully.

Of interest is the major battleground for oil pipelines in North America today is in North Dakota, not Canada. News reports indicate some 2,000 more people are going to appear at the site prior to the promised December 5 date to shut down the protesters base camp. How this unfolds will either embolden Canadian protestors if the North Dakota Access pipeline is allowed to continue, or send the message that governments will stand behind legally sanctioned energy infrastructure projects if the demonstrators are physically forced out.

It might be a bit easier for Canada because the two lines approved are expansions of legacy infrastructure using existing right-of-ways. But the increase in tanker traffic in the Port of Vancouver because of Kinder Morgan is flash point on Canadas west coast that a great number of people who live in this region will never accept even if the project is economically advantageous to the country. They simply dont care what the unemployment rate is in the oilfields of Alberta.

Regardless, the price of oil went up this week and the plumbing to develop and sell more took a material step forward. After two years of nothing but bad news its about time.

By David Yager for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Amid all the headlines about Donald Trump and OPEC, very few news outlets noticed the remarkable increase in natural gas prices in November. Gas futures for front month delivery gained more than 34 percent over the past month, rising to their highest level in two years.

Bouncing around at roughly $3.50 per MMBtu, natural gas prices are also up more than 100 percent since hitting a low point earlier this year. There are several reasons and trends underlying the price gains, so lets go through a few of them.

(Click to enlarge)

First, natural gas production hit a peak earlier this year and fell back roughly 5 percent. Gas producers posted impressive gains without much of an interruption for the better part of the past decade, even as spot prices dropped below $3/MMBtu and at times below $2/MMBtu.

But the gains in output really came to a halt when the rig count across the country began to plunge in 2014 as oil prices melted down. The gas rig count had been falling for years, but as companies stopped drilling for oil, the gas that is found in association with oil stopped flowing. Gross withdrawals of gas peaked earlier this year at just over 90 billion cubic feet per day, and have posted consistent monthly declines until recently.

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At the same time that supply ground to a halt and began to fall back, demand continues to rise. Demand is highly seasonal, spiking in winter months and dropping during spring and fall, with smaller spikes in the summer. The winter high points have been getting higher, and the summer lows have also been getting higher. Much of that has to do with the sharp rise in the consumption of gas for electric power. As coal plants shut down, utilities are leaning on their existing gas-fired power plants more, and also construction new ones. Related: $3 Billion In 3 Hours: Energy Mogul Hamm Cashes In On OPEC Deal

(Click to enlarge)

Natural gas is expected to make up a larger share of total U.S. electricity generation than coal for the first time ever. The shuttering of coal plants and the construction of new natural gas plants will lock in gas demand for years  and likely, decades  to come.

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In recent years, rising gas production was more than enough to meet the stronger demand from power plants. As recently as 2015 the market became flooded with too much gas, which led to record levels of storage. In the summer of 2015, storage levels were running at about average, but the mild winter last year caused demand to drop unusually low, allowing storage levels to fill up. Prices as a result, crashed. Exiting the winter months, everyone expected the record high inventory levels to keep prices low for years. But, as mentioned above, production from drillers suddenly stopped rising. As a result, storage levels are converging right back towards the five-year average much quicker than many expected. It is not a coincidence that prices have climbed over the same time period. Related: U.S. Oil Rig Count Climbs To A 10-Month High

(Click to enlarge)

The recent OPEC deal complicates this picture. Before the deal to cut output, oil prices were expected to remain more or less where they are  the EIA projected WTI to average just under $50 per barrel through 2017. But the sharp increases in prices in recent days, and the prospect of further gains for crude in the months ahead, likely means that shale drillers will rush back to work. That will probably lead to a rebound in oil production sooner rather than later  and a likely side effect of that will be a rise in natural gas production.

These guys will drill more, and you are going to get that extra gas at an inconvenient time, Jason Schenker, president of Prestige Economics LLC, told Bloomberg in an interview. Its bearish for U.S. gas for the next three- to nine-month window.

That remains to be seen. In the short run, due to a tightening of supply and demand, we could see natural gas prices consistently trading north of $3/MMBtu for the first time in more than two years.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
From Consortium News

When the Clinton campaign said it would join the recount in three Rust Belt states narrowly lost to Donald Trump, it didn't say its motive was overcoming the vote totals but instead to find out if there was "foreign interference" in the election.

"This election cycle was unique in the degree of foreign interference witnessed throughout the campaign," wrote Clinton campaign counsel Marc Elias. "The U.S. government concluded that Russian state actors were behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the personal email accounts of Hillary for America campaign officials."

During the campaign Hillary Clinton made no secret of where she thought that foreign interference might be coming from. She repeatedly blamed Russia for trying to sway the election.

When the Green Party's Jill Stein launched her recount campaign in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (the three states that gave Trump the victory), Stein's announcement quoted her on her website as saying that because "foreign agents" had "hacked into party databases, private email servers, and voter databases in certain states, many Americans are wondering if our election results are reliable." Stein's page was then updated to eliminate reference to "foreign agents" in her quote.

But her recount petition filed in Wisconsin begins by saying "it was widely reported that foreign operators breached voter registration databases in at least two states and stole hundreds of thousands of voter records." The petition then says the U.S. intelligence community is "confident" Russia was behind the hacks. There is "well-documented and conclusive evidence of foreign interference in the presidential race before the election ... [that] call[s] into question the results and indicate the possibility that (a) widespread breach occurred," Stein's lawyers wrote.

In fact the intelligence community has never made public its evidence for independent computer experts to weigh in on. After the election, the Obama administration said it had no proof of Russian interference in the election tallies and that the results "accurately reflect the will of the American people."

Citing Press Articles

Nevertheless, Exhibit A in Stein's petition is an affidavit from Professor J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, who alleges that Russia hacked the election. Halderman took part in a conference call with the Clinton campaign last month trying to convince the campaign to seek a recount, which it only did after Stein launched her effort.

Exhibit B from Stein's petition is an article from Wired Magazine about Russia's alleged role in the hack. Exhibit C is a New York Times article quoting DellSecureWorks, a private security firm, saying Russia was behind the hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The company says Podesta clicked on a phishing link to gain access to his account. The Times relied on the company's word that Russian spies were behind the phishing expedition, without also offering any proof that could be analyzed by other computer security experts.

Exhibits D through G -- meaning all of Stein's exhibits -- are on alleged Russian hacking. One article is about an alleged attempted Russian hack of the 2014, post-coup Ukrainian election.

In her many media appearances since launching the recount campaign, Stein has carefully avoided mentioning Russia, or foreign agents, as she inadvertently did in her initial web posting. But her petition is about nothing else but Russia's alleged hacking of the election.

Scott McLarty, the Green Party national media coordinator, told me in an email last week that the Green Party has "not taken a position on meddling by foreign agents." Since then, top Green Party officials have distanced themselves from Stein, including her running mate, Ajamu Baraka.

"I'm not in favor of the recount," Baraka told CNN. He said he told Stein "it was a potentially dangerous move" because it "would be seen as carrying the water for the Democrats."

Margaret Flowers, the Green's Senate candidate in Maryland, posted an open letter signed by several prominent party members saying, "While we support electoral reforms, including how the vote is counted, we do not support the current recount being undertaken by Jill Stein."

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Here is the full statement issued today at 3:00PM.



(Image by Georgianne Nienaber) Details DMCA



Washington, D.C. -- Today, the Army informed the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Energy Transfer Partners, and Dakota Access, LLC, that it has completed the review that it launched on September 9, 2016.

It remains to be seen how all of this will play out, but today is a day for celebration at Oceti Sakowin and on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.

The Department of the Army announced it will not approve an easement that would allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, the Army's Assistant Secretary for Civil Works announced today.

The following statement was released by Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II.

"Today, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not be granting the easement to cross Lake Oahe for the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline. Instead, the Corps will be undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes. We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and to do the right thing."

Jo-Ellen Darcy said she based her decision on a "need to explore alternate routes for the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing." Her office had announced on November 14, 2016 that it was delaying the decision on the easement to allow for discussions with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose reservation lies 0.5 miles south of the proposed crossing. Tribal officials have expressed repeated concerns over the risk that a pipeline rupture or spill could pose to its water supply and treaty rights.

"The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing, Darcy said."

Darcy said that the consideration of alternative routes would be best accomplished through an Environmental Impact Statement with full public input and analysis.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is an approximately 1,172 mile pipeline that would connect the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas in North Dakota to an existing crude oil terminal near Pakota, Illinois.

(Article changed on December 4, 2016 at 16:03)

(Article changed on December 4, 2016 at 17:40)
From Consortium News

The Clinton machine -- running on fumes after Hillary Clinton's failed presidential bid -- is pulling out all remaining stops to block Donald Trump's inauguration, even sinking into a new McCarthyism.

In joining a recount effort with slim hopes of reversing the election results, Clinton campaign counsel Marc Elias cited a scurrilous Washington Post article that relied on a shadowy anonymous group, called PropOrNot, that issued a "black list" against 200 or so Internet sites, including some of the most respected sources of independent journalism, claiming they are part of some Russian propaganda network.

In classic McCarthyistic fashion, no evidence was supplied, simply an anonymous smear. But The Washington Post, which itself has devolved into a neoconservative propaganda conveyor belt, published the attack apparently without contacting any of the targeted groups.

Despite the obvious journalistic problems with this article, the desperate Clinton campaign treated it like a lifeline to its drowning hopes for reversing the outcome of the Nov. 8 election.

Announcing that the Clinton campaign would join the recount started by Green presidential nominee Jill Stein aimed at three key Trump states -- Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania -- Clinton's campaign counsel Elias mentioned the Post story as one of the reasons.

"The Washington Post reported that the Russian government was behind much of the 'fake news' propaganda that circulated online in the closing weeks of the election," Elias wrote.

Pro-Clinton media outlets piled on. Daily Kos wrote that "Even if they never touched a voting machine, there's absolutely no doubt: Russia hacked the election."

Besides the three recounts, the Clinton campaign's last-ditch scheme to blame Russia for Hillary Clinton's failure also involves lobbying the electors to the Electoral College to flip their votes from Trump to Clinton. The argument is that Trump must be part of some grand Russian conspiracy along with those 200 Web sites.

As bizarre as this conspiracy mongering has become, it is quickly emerging as a new Washington "group think." All the "smart people" at the major networks and newspapers -- as well as many Democratic insiders -- are just sure that it's all true.

They have conflated the hysteria over some "fake news" sites -- apparently run by some entrepreneurs who realized that pro-Trump "news" got lots of clicks whether the stories were real or not -- with the reality that some independent news sites have questioned the U.S. government's extreme anti-Russian propaganda.

Plus, there was the claim by James Clapper, the Obama administration's Director of National Intelligence, that the U.S. intelligence community believes that Russian hackers were responsible for giving Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks. There, too, however, Clapper has provided no evidence to support his claim, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied receiving the leaked emails from the Russian government.

The Russians Did It!

Nevertheless, the Russians have become the latest scapegoats for why Hillary Clinton lost. It wasn't that she had severe problems as a candidate, carrying heavy baggage from a long line of controversies and recording extremely high negatives from voters. It couldn't have been that lots of Americans didn't like or trust her or that she offered no inspirational message or coherent narrative of how she would govern.



Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Secretary of State John Kerry before meetings at the Kremlin on Dec. 15, 2015.

(Image by (State Department photo)) Details DMCA



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From Common Dreams

It's quite possible that we've lost our best chance to combat climate change, but we must try to contain the damage.



'It's very likely that by the time Trump is done we'll have missed whatever opening still remains for slowing down the trajectory of global warming,' writes Bill McKibben. 'It's very likely that by the time Trump is done we'll have missed whatever opening

(Image by (Photo: Laurel L. Russwurm/flickr/cc)) Details DMCA



We're going to be dealing with an onslaught of daily emergencies during the Trump years. Already it's begun -- if there's nothing going on (or in some cases when there is), our leader often begins the day with a tweet to stir the pot, and suddenly we're debating whether burning the flag should lose you your citizenship.

These crises will get worse once he has power -- from day to day we'll have to try and protect vulnerable immigrants, or deal with the latest outrage from the white supremacist "alt-reich," or confront the latest self-dealing scandal in the upper reaches of the Tower. It will be a game (though not a fun one), for 48 months, of trying to preserve as many people and as much of the Constitution as possible.

And if we're very lucky, at the end of those four years, we might be able to go back to something that resembles normal life. Much damage will have been done in the meantime, but perhaps not irreparable damage. Obamacare will be gone, but something like it -- maybe even something better -- will be resurrectable. The suffering in the meantime will be real, but it won't make the problem harder to solve, assuming reason someday returns. That's, I guess, the good news: that someday normal life may resume.

The first is the most obvious: The adversary here is ultimately physics, which plays by its own rules. As we continue to heat the planet, we see that planet changing in ways that turn into feedback loops. If you make it hot enough to melt Arctic ice (and so far we've lost about half of our supply) then one of the side effects is removing a nice white mirror from the top of the planet. Instead of that mirror reflecting 80 percent of the sun's rays out to space, you've now got blue water that absorbs most of the incoming rays of the sun, amping up the heat. Oh, and as that water warms, the methane frozen in its depths eventually begins to melt -- and methane is a potent greenhouse gas.

Even if, someday, we get a president back in power who's willing to try and turn down the coal, gas and oil burning, there will be nothing we can do about that melting methane. Some things are forever, or at least for geologic time. But even that slight good news doesn't apply to the question of climate change. It's very likely that by the time Trump is done we'll have missed whatever opening still remains for slowing down the trajectory of global warming -- we'll have crossed thresholds from which there's no return. In this case, the damage he's promising will be permanent, for two reasons.

There's another reason too, however, and that's that the international political mechanisms Trump wants to smash can't easily be assembled again, even with lots of future good will. It took immense diplomatic efforts to reach the Paris climate accords -- 25 years of negotiating with endless setbacks. The agreement itself is a jury-rigged kludge, but at least it provides a mechanism for action. It depends on each country voluntarily doing its part, though, and if the biggest historic source of the planet's carbon decides not to play, it's easy to guess that an awful lot of other leaders will decide that they'd just as soon give in to their fossil fuel interests too.

So Trump is preparing to make a massive bet: a bet that the scientific consensus about climate change is wrong, and that the other 191 nations of the world are wrong as well. It's a bet based on literally nothing -- when The New York Timesasked him about global warming, he started mumbling about a physicist uncle of his who died in 1985. The job -- and it may not be a possible job -- is for the rest of us to figure out how to make the inevitable loss of this bet as painless as possible.

It demands fierce resistance to his silliness -- clearly his people are going to kill Obama's Clean Power Plan, but perhaps they can be shamed into simply ignoring but not formally abrogating the Paris accords. This is work not just for activists, but for the elites that Trump actually listens to. Here's where we need what's left of the establishment to be weighing in: Fortune 500 executives, Wall Streeters -- anyone who knows how stupid a bet this is.

We also have to work at state and local levels to support what we want. The last election, terrible as it was, showed that renewable energy is popular even in red states -- Florida utilities lost their bid to sideline solar energy, for instance. The hope is that we can keep the build-out of sun and wind, which is beginning to acquire real momentum, on track; if so, costs will keep falling to the point where simple economics may overrule even Trumpish ideology. But we also need to be working hard on other levels. The fossil fuel industry is celebrating Trump's election, and rightly so -- but we can continue to make their lives at least a little difficult, through campaigns like fossil fuel divestment and through fighting every pipeline and every coal port. The federal battles will obviously be harder, and we may lose even victories like Keystone. But there are many levers of power, and the ones closer to home are often easier to pull.

None of these efforts will prevent massive, and perhaps fatal, damage to the effort to constrain climate change. It's quite possible, as many scientists said the day after the election, that we've lost our best chance. But we don't know precisely how the physics will play out, and every ton of carbon we keep out of the atmosphere will help. And of course we have to keep communicating, all the time, about the crisis -- using the constant stream of signals from the natural world to help people understand the folly of our stance. As I write this, the Smoky Mountain town of Gatlinburg is on fire, with big hotels turned to ash at the end of a devastating drought. Mother Nature will provide us an endless string of teachable moments, and some of them will break through -- it's worth remembering that the Bush administration fell from favor as much because of Katrina as Iraq.

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The western mainstream media continues to attack, demonize, and smear one of the most accomplished political and revolutionary leaders of the 20th Century. Fidel Castro Ruiz, the former President of Cuba, recently died at the ripe old age of 90 years much to the elation of crude peasant-minded Cuban e'migre's in Florida's "Little Havana," and other like-minded peons in Europe and elsewhere. In a rush to embellish history, mouthpieces for these most backward and subjective elements and sections of the "Cuban opposition" continued the unrelenting characterization of the Cuban revolutionary leader alternatively as "a tyrant and as dictator." The flimsy offered "proofs" points to a self-sustaining, self-reassuring, process that is more designed to convince themselves that they are right than the validity or credence of their spurious claims and assumptions

Permit me therefore to use only TWO things that happened under Fidel Castro's watch and juxtapose them with the so-called "free and enlightened" west, in the context of social progress. So let me first start with the ticklish and oftentimes rancid issue of gay rights. Here in America the struggle for gay rights was and still is an exceedingly contentious one. Only recently, under America's first Black president, that gay rights were recognized and embraced, much to the chagrin of the religious community. Indeed, there is some credence to the fact that Bible Belt, born-again Christians, in the Deep Red South bolted into the arms of Donald Trump because of Hillary Clinton's support for gay rights equating her stance with that of Barack Obamas.

Now let us look at Cuba where a so-called "tyrant" ruled and who was born into a staunch Roman Catholic Church family.

The United States and its western allies have long accused the Castro regime of persecuting gays after the triumph of Cuban Revolution at a time when Roman Catholicism was dominant at ALL levels of Caribbean and Latin American society, and when homosexuality was equated with ungodliness, "devilish" activities. So at that time gays were persecuted in Cuba. There is also no doubt that LGBT rights were non-existent in Cuba in the sixties and for most of the seventies, just as they were throughout much of the world, including the United States.

However, homosexuality was decriminalized in Cuba in 1979. In the United States, presumably more enlightened and not a dictatorship, same-sex sexual activity was only made legal in 2003 after a bitter and still protracted struggle. But let me take this further: It is also worth noting that today homosexuality is criminalized in Saudi Arabia - where it is punishable by death -- a close ally of both the United Kingdom and the United States. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is a society in which women are devalued, are treated as disposable chattel, and people are routinely beheaded for relatively simple infarctions.

The simple truth is that the existence of homophobia in Cuba, Latin America and the Caribbean, predated Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution by about five centuries. It was entrenched as part of the cultural values of Cuban society, indeed the cultural values throughout the region courtesy of the Catholic Church. Fidel Castro grew up with that as some of his cultural and religious values, but to his credit he later renounced them, awakening to the justice of gay and lesbian rights. Today, as Cubans still mourn his death, his own niece, Mariela Castro, plays an active role in the Cuban LGBT community, leading the country's annual gay pride parade in Havana last year.

Now let's talk torture. The Cuban government is always accused of torturing its people for one reason or the other. But such quixotic outbursts again are attempts to obfuscate where the real torture and violation of human rights takes place in Cuba -- Guantanamo Bay. It is here at a United States detention facility that Habeas Corpus does not exist, prisoners have been held without charge for over 15 years now, where torture has been used as a method of interrogation, something substantiated by statements from released prisoners, and where people are held in a facility without access to legal representation. The United States has therefore lost the moral right to accuse Cuba or ANY other nation of the very things of which it's guilty.

Indeed, the valid point to keep in mind when it comes to Cuba and its state of development is that countries and societies do not exist on blank pieces of paper. In so-called emerging nations (Third World) development cannot be separated from the real life struggles against huge obstacles placed in their way by long and sustained histories of rabid colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism, responsible for retarding and deforming their growth and progress in service to the exploitation of their human and natural resources.

For me the legitimacy of the Cuban Revolution lies in its survival in the face of a most petty, punitive, brutal and unjust US blockade, designed solely to starve the country to its knees for daring to refuse to be slaves of global capital. The countries in Cuba's orbit that succumbed and bowed down to the American "Big Stick" model have little to show for it -- look at Haiti and the Dominican Republic and the indictment of social and economic failures wrought by United States intervention and control are evident and present in stark reality.

Fidel Castro was no dictator. Part of this legacy is that he dedicated his entire life to resisting Washington's dictatorship of the Third World. Moreover, as a result of the Cuban Revolution the "right" to be homeless, illiterate, and to go without healthcare no longer exists in Cuba as it does in America today. Fidel Castro was no angel or paradigm of correctness. He was fallible. But I will challenge anyone who can name me just one, only one, 20th century leader who instituted, defended and promoted the most fundamental human rights of all -- the right to be educated, to healthcare that is free at the point of need, and the right to live with dignity and pride in being the citizen of a small island that has stood over decades as a beacon of justice in an ocean of injustice.

This then, is the truth, it is the reason 'they' despise him. Fidel Castro was a towering historical figure that subscribed to the notion that "Cubans must go forward on their feet and not their knees." So to those attempting to rewrite history by creating a cavalier, nonchalant carnival atmosphere over the death of a hero -- with clowns and all -- I'll say this for Fidel: "History Will Absolve Him." The Cuban people have already exposed the lie of the "dictator" by coming out in the millions, not only to pay their last respects, but also to show the world that they will forever remember, love and respect 'El Comandante'.
From Paul Craig Roberts Website



McCarthyism

(Image by ushistory.org) Details DMCA



Seasoned journalist, White House official, and historian Pat Buchanan has responded to the Washington Post's fake news about the independent journalists on the 200 List being Russian agents by reminding us that the US government has always been a major disseminator of fake news.

No one knows who is behind the newly created PropOrNot website that came up with the list of 200 "Russian agents," but it is as likely as not the State Department funded National Endowment for Democracy, which has been peddling propaganda as fake news since its inception. Indeed, it was created for the purpose of destabilizing the Soviet Union. Of course the CIA could be involved, or Israel, or George Soros, or some neoconservative group, or some new government funded organization as a tool of the propaganda war that the Obama regime has vowed to fight.

By publicizing the fake list in the Washington Post, the presstitute newspaper has brought buckets of shame and condemnation upon its head, destroying in the process the thin shred of credibility that the Main Stream media still possessed.

As Pam Martens reports, another imbecile has now composed a list of 200 suspect professors who also dissent from the official bullshit fed to the American people.

The official government purveyors of fake news in the US and their presstitute agents are concerned that they are losing control over the explanations given to the American people.



In an effort to regain control over Americans' minds, they are attempting to define dissenters and truth-tellers as "Russian agents." Why "Russian agents"? Because they hope that their fake news portrait of Russia as America's deadly enemy has taken hold and will result in the public turning away from those of us labeled "Russian agents."

I don't think it is working.


Donald Trump in Reno, Nevada

(Image by Darron Birgenheier) Details DMCA



This article was first published in Counterpunch

It should be, for any literate person, essentially a truism that Barack Obama and even Hillary Clinton are preferable to Donald Trump, and are also probably preferable to any of the other Republicans who ran for office in 2016. But not by much. Under Obama, we did see some cosmetic reforms to a society in rapid tailspin: The Iran Nuclear Deal, the Paris climate agreements, the pardoning of some nonviolent prisoners from our repulsive penal colonies, are all better to have than not. But all of these concessions -- with the exception of the legalization of gay marriage -- are not only flawed, but they are just that: concessions. Here is the only substantial difference between Democrats and Republicans: Republicans speak for evil and commit evil, while Democrats speak for good but also commit evil.

There has, since Trump's victory, been a great deal of speculation in the mainstream networks about Obama's "legacy" in the hands of Trump. Though I understand that Obama's legacy will have a much different place in history than his record, it may be useful to spend some time analyzing six of the largest, most important tools -- the tools with the clearest implications for our future -- that the Obama administration is handing over to president-elect Donald Trump. These tools are not just inherited, but largely created, by the Obama administration. I'll simply list these tools off as food for thought. The list will, I believe, illustrate that the transition from what the Obama administration has achieved to what the Trump administration says it hopes to achieve will not be much of a transition at all. Indeed, in the most crucial instances, the Obama administration is handing the Trump administration all of the tools it will need to construct what is the most terrifying future we can possibly imagine. If we are willing to accept the realities of climate change and nuclear weapons, then that statement -- the possibility of the most terrifying future we can imagine -- is simply an irrefutable fact. If we are not willing to accept those realities, all the world is an illusion, and any lie can be the same as any truth.

1. The speculation about Trump's foolish unpredictability has been most repeated in something like the following phrase: "Imagine what it will mean if Trump has access to the nuclear codes." The Obama administration, after beginning its time in office promoting an eventual nuclear weapons-free world, is ending with a one trillion-dollar upgrade to America's nuclear arsenal, including a kind of nuclear weapon more tempting to use because it can be scaled to battlefield size, a result that could quickly result in escalation. The Obama administration has, according to the New York Times, "reduced the nuclear stockpile less than any other post-Cold War presidency."

2. Trump has, in his rhetoric, stood behind the mess of the global war of terror, which, largely through the work of investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, has been exposed committing acts of war in approximately seventy-five countries under the Obama administration, after operating in approximately only twenty-five countries under Bush. This is done largely through the organization JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command). No one killed in the targeted-assassination campaign, including American citizens-- one of whom was a sixteen-year-old boy in Yemen -- has the right to due process. If we think the targeted-assassination campaign was lawless and tyrannical under the racism of the Obama administration, we can only imagine how bad it will be under the racism of Trump.

3. In keeping with Trump's calls for increased law and order, militarization of the police has skyrocketed under Obama, after a brief reform for 2015 and then repeal of that reform in 2016. Obama has also long stood behind the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act), which, buried within it, has the infamous "indefinite detention" clause, capable of stripping American citizens of due process and holding them indefinitely for "substantial support" for terrorist groups or "associated forces," both nebulous terms, and also asserts that Americans indefinitely detained will be held by the military. This bill could have serious implications in a Trump administration that is frightened by free speech and bound to confront cataclysm and unrest. We can only imagine how Obama's expansions of wholesale surveillance on most of the entire country, along with much of the world, will be used under Trump.

4. Trump has a great deal of rhetoric about unleashing the fossil-fuel industry like never before. But let us compare this to Obama's words on the fossil-fuel industry: "We're not going to transition out of oil anytime soon. And that's why under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. That's why we have a record number of oil rigs operating right now -- more working oil and gas rigs than the rest of the world combined." Comments like this are quite typical of Obama. (Read the rest of the cited speech; it gets worse.) Obama has shown no solidarity with the Standing Rock water protectors as they are brutalized by militarized police forces. He, along with much of the Democratic party beyond its rhetoric, is one of their elite enemies. Hillary Clinton took $775,759 from the oil and gas companies in 2015-16, about $200,000 more than her opponent Donald Trump, and Clinton also, as Secretary of State under Obama, played as much of a role as any American politician of recent history in spreading fracking all over the world.

The Democrats and Republicans are both almost equally ecocidal -- on paper the Obama administration is no better than the Bush administration (it is worse) -- but the difference is that the Democrats talk as if they are not ecocidal. That is the only substantial difference between Democrats and Republicans generally: they do the same things and talk about them differently. Abortion, gay rights, and some other issues on the margins are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but none of those exceptions can be tied to corporate power. On corporate involvement there is complete continuity. The tyrannical free reign of the fossil-fuel industry illustrates this blatantly.

5. Finally, despite Trump's claim that Obama has been "horrible to Israel," and that his own administration would better "support" Israel than Obama's, one of the Obama administration's late, bold moves in office was to throw away $38 billion toward Israel's military arsenal, as professor Sandy Tolen writes: "With its latest promise of military aid [$38 billion] the United States has essentially sanctioned Israel's impunity, its endless colonization of Palestinian land, its military occupation of the West Bank, and its periodic attacks by F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters using Hellfire missiles on the civilians of Gaza."

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Readings for Second Sunday of Advent: IS 11: 1-10; PS 72: 1-2, 7-8, 12-13; ROM 15: 4-9; MT 3: 1-12

"The meaning of the Incarnation is this: In Jesus Christ, God hits the streets. And preparing for that is the meaning of Advent." (Jim Wallis. "Advent in 2016: Not Normal, Not Now, Not to Come.")

__________

A few days ago I published a review of James Patterson's novel, Woman of God. It's the story of Brigid Fitzgerald, a medical doctor who though female, becomes a priest and candidate for the papacy.

Brigid and her husband (also a dissident priest) decide to form their own Catholic parish. They do so because of the studied irrelevance of the Catholic Church to pressing problems of the real world. The two call their congregation the "Jesus, Mary and Joseph (JMJ) Church." They insist on remaining Catholics not allowing their opponents to drum them out of the church as just another break-away Protestant sect.

The JMJ Church spreads rapidly, largely because it connects Jesus' Gospel with issues of peace and social justice. And though vilified by her local bishop and physically threatened by right wing Catholics, Brigid eventually becomes widely celebrated and is summoned to Rome not for condemnation, but papal approval.

I couldn't help thinking of Woman of God as I read today's liturgy of the word this Second Sunday of Advent. Like the JMJ Church, the first two readings along with the responsorial psalm emphasize the connection between faith and social justice.

Then in today's Gospel, the prophet, John the Baptist, like Brigid Fitzgerald, initiates an alternative community of faith far from the temple in the desert wilderness. John's credibility leads "all Jerusalem and Judea" to see him as a prophet. In fact, (as John Dominic Crossan has pointed out) John becomes for the Jewish grassroots their de facto alternative "High Priest."

To see what I mean, consider that first selection from the prophet Isaiah. It directly links faith with justice for the poor, oppressed and marginalized. In Isaiah's day (like our own) they were typically ignored. By way of contrast, Isaiah's concept of justice consists precisely in judging the poor and oppressed fairly and not according to anti-poor prejudice -- in Isaiah's words, not by "appearance or hearsay." (A clearer statement against contemporary police and/or government profiling can hardly be imagined.)

Not only that, but according to the prophet, treating the poor justly is the key to peace between humans and with nature. Centralizing their needs rather than those of the rich produces a utopian wonderland where all of us live in complete harmony with nature and with other human beings. In Isaiah's poetic reality, lions, lambs, and calves play together. Leopards and goats, cows and bears, little babies and deadly snakes experience no threat from each other. (This is the prophetic vision of the relationship between humans and nature -- not exploitation and destruction, but harmony and mutual respect.)

Most surprising of all, even believers (Jews) and non-believers (gentiles) are at peace. Today's excerpt from Paul's Letter to the Romans seconds this point. He tells his correspondents to "welcome one another" -- including gentiles -- i.e. those the Jewish community normally considered enemies. (That would be like telling us today to welcome Muslims as brothers and sisters whom God loves as much as any of us.)

Today's responsorial psalm reinforces the idea of peace flowing from justice meted out to the "least." As Psalm 72 was sung, we all responded, "Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever." And again, the justice in question has the poor as its object. The psalmist praises a God and a government (king) who "rescue the poor and afflicted when they cry out" -- who "save the lives of the poor."

In his own time, the lack of the justice celebrated in today's first three readings infuriates Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist. His disgust forces him out of the temple and into the desert. It has him excoriating the religious leaders of his day as a "brood of vipers."

Unmistakably clothed as a prophet -- in garments that absolutely repudiate the "sacred garb" of his effete opponents -- John lambasts the Scribal Establishment which had normalized relationships with the brutal occupation forces of Rome. As opposition high priest, John promises a religious renewal that will lead to a new Exodus -- this time from the power of Rome and its religious collaborators.

I hope you can see as I do the parallels between the context of John's preaching and our own. We live in a culture where those in charge contravene our faith by openly slandering the poor and marginalized celebrated in today's readings as especially dear to God. I mean since November 8th, all the levers of power (the presidency, the Supreme Court, the House and Senate) find themselves in the hands of billionaires and their friends -- the 1% that the Occupy Movement identified so accurately five years ago. Ironically that richest 1% has succeeded in scapegoating the country's poorest 1% (immigrants) as a major cause of our country's problems. Moreover, they equally vilify other poor and marginalized people: the impoverished in general, brown and black-skinned people, women, the LGBTQ community, environmentalists, protestors and anyone who exposes the crimes of the billionaire class.

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Sartaj Aziz reached India 04 December, 2016



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Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry

Woke Bingo NEW DELHI: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz arrived in Amritsar a day ahead of schedule on Saturday evening for the Heart of Asia conference, which begins in the Sikhdoms most sacred city on Sunday morning.



Mr Azizs rejigged schedule has enabled him to dodge the fog that plays havoc with flights in winters, but political weather watchers were scouring for hints, if any, of how he would negotiate the chill in ties with India.



Reports speculated whether Mr Azizs early arrival presaged a chance bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hosts the multilateral conference on Afghanistan.



In the evening, Mr Aziz attended a dinner hosted for the visiting dignitaries at a heritage village Sadda Pind on the outskirts of Amritsar, according to APP.



Handshake between Aziz and Modi; a bouquet of flowers sent to ailing Swaraj

Prime Minister Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani also attended the dinner hosted by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.



Sartaj Aziz shook hands with Mr Modi.



We advised Mr Aziz to come early given the fog factor in the morning, a Pakistani diplomat told The Hindu, referring to visibility issues that have delayed dozens of flights to north Indian cities, including Amritsar. The forecast for Sunday morning was a visibility of 600M, far below the stipulated 1,000M clearance VIP flight controllers normally insist on, another official told The Hindu.



The latest militant strike on Nagrota base as well as the earlier Uri attack would be an obvious impediment to any thoughts of a surprise breakthrough.



There is no meeting, a senior official told The Hindu, when asked about the chance of a pull-aside meeting between Mr Modi and Mr Aziz in Amritsar, indicating only a joint call-on was scheduled.



It is being speculated that India and Afghanistan will seek to pin Pakistan on terrorism, with a possible draft declaration at the conference, which will include hard reference to cross-border terrorism, and sanctuaries for terror groups.



The conference will be jointly inaugurated by President Ghani and Mr Modi, who will also hold a bilateral meeting, their fourth such meeting this year.



At a press conference ahead of the conference, Indias Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) made it clear that no talks with Mr Aziz would be possible in the current circumstances, calling terrorism a calculated strategy of Pakistan.



Pakistan is a country which has a long record of carrying out cross-border terrorism which it regards as an instrument of state policy. India has always been open to talks, but obviously it cannot be that talks take place in an atmosphere of continued terrorism. The sooner Pakistan stops cross-border terrorism, the sooner bilateral relations can come back on track, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.



However, speaking to The Hindu, Pakistans High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit said that Pakistan was ready to wait. If India is not ready, we can always wait. We will continue to work to break the impasse, but we are very clear that dialogue is the only way our countries can move forward and they cannot live in a state of perpetual hostility, Mr Basit said.



Baqir Sajjad Syed adds from Islamabad: Journalists following the Pakistani and Indian delegations at the Heart of Asia meeting quickly linked Mr Azizs early arrival to change in the schedule of a meeting between Mr Modi and the Afghan president, which was moved at the last minute from Saturday to Sunday.



Soon after his arrival in Amritsar, Mr Aziz sent a bouquet to ailing Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and wished her speedy recovery.



Ties between Pakistan and India have been in deep freeze since the start of uprising in India-held Kashmir in July this year, but they hit rock bottom following the militant attack on Uri military camp after which Delhi claimed to have conducted a surgical strike across the Line of Control (LoC) and intensified shelling of targets on Pakistani side in some of the worst violations of 2003 ceasefire accord.



The senior officials meeting of the Heart of Asia process was held on Saturday and their deliberations would feed into the ministerial session on Sunday.



Fourteen regional countries  Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the UAE  are part of this initiative that was launched in 2011 for encouraging economic and security cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours for dealing with the common problems of terrorism, extremism and poverty.



The process is supported by 17 other countries, predominantly Western states, and 12 international organisations.



Afghanistan, which is confronted with resurgent Taliban militancy at home, is pushing for a regional counterterrorism mechanism at the Amritsar meeting.



The conference will also deliberate on regional connectivity projects, including TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline project and a five-nation railway project linking Iranian port Chabahar to Afghanistan and beyond.
Temple Tutwiler & Dixon Brooke

Temple Tutwiler, III and Dixon Brooke

(c/o David Sher)

ComebackTown is published by David Sher to begin a discussion on a better Birmingham.

David Sher is Co-Founder of AmSher Compassionate Collections and past Chairman of Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, ONB, and CAP.

Let's turn Birmingham around. Click here to sign up for our newsletter. There's power in numbers. (Opt out at any time)

Today's guest blog was written by Temple Tutwiler, III, and Dixon Brooke.

If you'd like to be a guest blogger, please click here.

We are disappointed in Judge Ott's recent ruling in favor of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) regarding the rebuilding of I20/59.

While the plaintiffs lose this round, it's the citizens of Birmingham who are the true losers. It is a sad day for our community to have such a huge missed opportunity to make our community better for everyone.

I20/59 racially divides Birmingham

The city of Birmingham has dealt with numerous divisions over the years. But one that is often overlooked is actually the most obvious, because it is a physical division that tens of thousands of residents see every day.

For nearly a half-century, Birmingham has been severed by the 1.3-mile-long elevated section of Interstate 20/59 that cuts through the northern edge of downtown and effectively separates the city center from the predominantly African-American northern neighborhoods of Druid Hills, Fountain Heights, and Norwood. The differences between the two sides of the interstate are stark. Downtown and the areas immediately to the south and east have experienced an economic revival in recent years, while much of historic north Birmingham continues to struggle with poverty, structural decay and an overall lack of business activity.

"We're being totally blocked from the rest of Birmingham," Fountain Heights resident Dorothy Calhoun said. "We never have any improvements around here. No one wants to come into this area. No one wants to invest anything here."

An economic development disaster

In addition, there are nearly 100 acres of space in the immediate area of the I-20/59 viaduct that currently is basically being wasted. An economic impact report developed by nationally respected W-ZHA, LLC and in collaboration with Goody Clancy, was presented in September to the Birmingham Public Safety & Transportation Committee concluded that the area has the potential to hold 4 million to 6 million square feet of new commercial and residential development, land with appraised value of $519 million to $753 million, the creation of 2,500 to 3,600 housing units, 420,000 to 607,000 square feet of retail space, and 1 million to 1.5 million square feet of office space that could result in 4,300 to 6,300 new jobs. These improvements could generate anywhere from $138 million to $216 million in tax revenue over a 10-year period.

So when ADOT announced a few years ago that it planned to replace the elevated section of I-20/59 because of safety and capacity concerns (that stretch of highway currently handles twice the amount of daily vehicle traffic as originally intended), we and a number of other Birmingham business leaders and citizens groups saw an opportunity. We felt this was an ideal time to eliminate this structure entirely from the city landscape - either by rerouting it or lowering it below ground level - and usher in a new wave of economic growth for both the area around the Civic Center Complex and Uptown, as well as for the long-neglected northern neighborhoods.

There is nothing in Birmingham that could be as transformative as this. Nothing. It's a chance to sew the city back together.

ALDOT has gotten it all wrong

ALDOT, however, apparently does not see things that way. Not only does the agency plan to replace the current structure with another elevated highway, but it will be even larger, expanding from six lanes to 10. ALDOT originally estimated that the project - which has already started and will be conducted in three phases - will take four years to complete and cost approximately $450 million, though local groups contend the final total will likely exceed $600 million.

ALDOT director John Cooper has insisted numerous times that replacing the structure with another elevated highway is the only feasible plan. ALDOT ran a full-page ad in several publications earlier this year stating that the agency "does not believe it is possible to re-route or bury the interstate." And in an editorial for al.com in January, Cooper wrote that he is "convinced that the plan to replace and improve the bridges is not only the best option, it is the only viable solution from among many that have been considered."

Several local groups insist that is not the case. They point out that lowering the roadway has been seen as a legitimate possibility for more than a decade, beginning with the Urban Design Associates' 2004 update of the Birmingham City master plan. Under that plan, which was endorsed by Operation New Birmingham (now REV Birmingham) and the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham, the interstate would dip slightly below ground level and parts of it would be topped with pedestrian walkways, commercial buildings, greenspaces and downtown roadways. Similar projects have been completed in recent years in downtown Dallas, near the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, and along the Cincinnati waterfront.

In 2009, engineering and design firm Parsons Brinckerhoff - which was founded in 1885 and has offices in nearly 40 countries - was commissioned to conduct a study on whether lowering the roadway was feasible from an engineering and design perspective. The company concluded that such a project was indeed possible, putting the cost at a little less than $700 million. The report estimated that the project would take approximately three years to complete, during which time the corridor could remain open to traffic. Additionally, the company stated that such a project would result in long-term economic benefits for the city.

"In ALDOT's eyes, the project is largely just about building roads and bridges and moving vehicles. It's not about utilizing that infrastructure to improve the city," said Darrell O'Quinn, Executive Director of the Move I-20/59 organization that is advocating for a different approach to ALDOT's replacement proposal. "It's going to reinforce for the next few generations the barrier-effect problem of that highway, which has been an issue in the city ever since it was put there. What our group is saying is if you're going to make that sort of huge investment, it needs to be done in a way that reaps the most possible reward for Birmingham."

A great opportunity for Birmingham

Led by the millennial generation, downtowns across the United States have experienced a resurgence in activity in recent years beyond the 9-to-5 work week, as an increasing number of young professionals are choosing to live and play in the city center rather than in the surrounding suburbs. This change already is evident in many parts of Birmingham, highlighted by all the development that has taken place near Railroad Park and in the Avondale neighborhood. Many local leaders believe the removal of the elevated stretch of I-20/59 would provide an even greater opportunity for development that would continue to entice young professionals to Birmingham.

"Cities that are growing and attracting that younger generation are concentrating on place-making. They're redesigning and building their cities as great places to live and play, and not just to work," O'Quinn said. "What we're saying is, this is not just about a highway and moving vehicles. We should be viewing this as an opportunity to accomplish that goal of place-making and investing in our future."

ALDOT'S heavy handed tactics

Perhaps this experience will serve to further expose ALDOT's heavy handed tactics in pursuit of its own agenda without appropriate regard to the harmful impact their actions have on the very communities it is serving. It is most unfortunate that ALDOT refused to engage with our community in good faith with a genuine dialog on alternatives, and by pushing forward with this project they dismiss viable options as unworkable even though the facts show otherwise.

Birmingham is the economic engine of the State, so one can only wonder why ALDOT refuses to even consider the significant economic impact and consequences this project has on our community for the next 50 years. How ironic and sad for our community to miss on all the advantages offered by lowering this roadway when the estimated cost to lower it is reportedly very similar to ALDOTs vastly expanded plan.

Temple Tutwiler, III, serves as President of Shades Creek Real-Estate & Investment Co., as a general partner in Tutwiler Properties, Ltd., and as an officer of or partner in several other family-controlled entities.

Dixon Brooke is a longtime businessman and community leader who served as President and CEO of EBSCO Industries, Inc., Alabama's largest privately held corporation, from 2005 until his retirement in 2014.
The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher,
The military in Kumasi have impounded large cache of weapons allegedly from a known member of the National Democratic Congress in the Ashanti Region, the New Patriotic Party claims.



The weapons, according to the party, were seized from the said NDC man, Cobson of Asuoyeboah SSNIT Flats with house number AH 2015S Thursday night following a tip-off by some agents of New Patriotic Party.



The Ashanti Regional Police were said to have been first called in but they had to invite the military from the 4BN Brigade in Kumasi in view of the magnitude of the weapons which were concealed in a Jeep with Nigerian licence plate 468-13D. It was labelled as Peace MOWAC, the NPP claimed.



Three other vehicles, which were part of the jeep, have also been impounded while Cobson, who was arrested, is also in custody. Details of the weapons that are currently under the supervision of W/O1 Amoah, have not been disclosed as the security agencies are said to be investigating the matter.



The seizure of the weapons comes on the back of an earlier warning issued by the NPP Regional Chairman, Mr. Bernard Antwi Boasiako that the ruling party was planning to stockpile arms with the aim of causing violence in the region on December 7.



Addressing a news conference Thursday, Mr Antwi- Boasiako, popularly referred to as Chairman Wontumi called on the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to save his people from destruction. He urged the Asantehene to intervene by calling the President John Mahama and his NDC members to order over their intention to cause mayhem in next weeks general elections.



Well defend Ghana, Asante Kingdom



According to him, they are ready to fight to defend the country, the Asante Kingdom and its people, warning that nothing will stop the NPP from protecting the integrity of the polls. We were born here and we are ready to die here for our country, our Kingdom and our King He said. The NPP regional chairman also charged the Police and the Military to live above reproach, by executing their duties in a manner devoid of bias and discrimination.



He pointed out that the current incident is a test case of the integrity of the security agencies, stressing the NPP is following with key interest and anxiety, how the security agencies will handle the matter. We have seen clearly the evil intentions of the NDC and how they intend to cause violence in the region; we want to know how the security will deal with this case, he noted.



Voters register discrepancies



The Ashanti Regional Chairman has meanwhile cautioned the Electoral Commission to also come clean on the number of discrepancies in the voters register as well as the widespread cases of infractions that occurred during yesterdays Special Voting. Chairman Wontumi questioned why there are inconsistencies in the figures presented to the NPP and the one available on the ECs own website.

Source: 3news









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According to the database of manufacturers, most of the fuel pellet manufacturing companies are located in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Rivne regions.

Pellet Manufacturers Prices and Delivery Terms

Depending on the type of packaging and supply terms the prices for wood pellets vary. However, the manufacturers practice giving such terms of supply as EXW and FCA, though some of them are ready to deliver pellets to the required destination. See infographic block "Ukrainian manufacturers of wood pellets 2015 - 2016 (III)"

Types of Pellet Manufacturers Packaging

Basically, wood pellet manufacturers offer customers such types of packages as big bags (1 ton) and plastic bags (15-30 kg.) The most common type is big bag, which is used by the vast majority of manufacturers.

Manufactured Pellets Quality

Wood pellets of Ukrainian manufacturers are mainly exported to the EU countries, where the requirements to the quality of pellets is much tougher than domestic. The main parameter that determines the quality of fuel is ash. The maximum value of parameter for the first class of pellets is 0.5% if softwoods serve as a raw material and 0.7 if the hardwoods are used as the raw material. Class II can be made of mixed breeds and in this case, the ash content may be up to 1%. According to the statistics, about 90% pellets, manufactured in Ukraine, have ash content less than 1%.

Why it's helpful? We already know manufacturers anyway?

The database allows the manufacturers to assess the state of the market, pricing, depending on the region and to adjust marketing plans as well as production development plans.

The database contains current and accurate data on the Ukrainian market for the production of wood pellets, which gives customers the opportunity to quickly get in touch, choose the optimal price offer and form a plan of purchases.

The most comprehensive pool of offers with an indication of the current price.

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Charcoal Export Prices Matrix 2015-2016 (2)

Wood Briquette Producers Database: Ukraine 2016-2017
Credit: University of Nottingham

Concealed inside a key building in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, researchers from The University of Nottingham have used the latest scanning technology to reveal in 3-D a hiding-hole used by 17th-Century Catholic priests escaping religious persecution.

Following the English Reformation, Catholics were forced to make difficult choices between their loyalty to the Crown and to their faith. As a result, many wealthy Catholics cleverly redesigned their country homes to include secret spaces known as 'priest holes.'

Ingeniously concealed in walls and under floors, these secreted chambers were built to hide Catholic clergymen to prevent them being found by Protestant Royal search parties and executed as traitors.

Coughton Court in Warwickshire sits at the heart of this group of Catholic country houses with a priest hole. First discovered in the 1850s, still with a rope ladder, some bedding and a portable altar, the Coughton priest-hole was hidden in a turret of the main gatehouse, concealed between the floor levels.

Researchers first visited the house in 2015 to make a laser scan of the double-level priest hole with the aim of digitally reproducing its location in a computer model.

Just a few weeks ago, the team returned, thanks to generous funding from The National Trust, to complete a scan of the entire mansion, inside and out, in situ in its grounds.

On completion, the comprehensive 3-D model aims to help experts visualise more clearly how the priest-hole has been hidden within the structure, and to allow visitors to explore this hidden space online even if they cannot physically access it.

The building survey and laser scanning was completed by University of Nottingham archaeologist, Dr Chris King together with Dr Lukasz Bonenberg and Dr Sean Ince (Nottingham Geospatial Institute) with the help of BA Archaeology students at the University.

"At Coughton, the priest-hole is hidden away out of sight and the 3-D model will really help visitors to understand where it fits inside the building. Many visitors can't access the tower room where the secret space is located, so this digital model allows them to experience the building and its story in a whole new way," said Dr King.

Dr Bonenberg said: "Terrestrial laser scanning is an important new technology for recording ancient monuments as they capture a huge amount of data very quickly and this is the first time that TLS has been used for the purpose of visualising hidden spaces inside Tudor houses. Digital visualisations of historic buildings are vital tools for helping the public to picture the past."

Now in the care of The National Trust, since the 15th Century, Coughton Court has been the home of the Throckmortons, one of England's oldest Catholic families.

"In 1605 the house was leased to Sir Everard Digby, one of the leading conspirators of the plot to blow up the House of Lords and kill King James I," explains Dr King.

"Sir Everard's wife was waiting anxiously for news at Coughton alongside Father Henry Garnet, the head of the Jesuit mission in England, and Nicholas Owen, the celebrated priest-hole maker. When news arrived that Guy Fawkes had been captured and the plot discovered, the conspirators fled in all directions, most coming to meet a bloody end."

Rebecca Farr, Conservation and Engagement Manager for Coughton Court, National Trust, said: "It's very exciting for us to have the research team back at Coughton Court after the success of their first visit to scan the priest hole. The full site scan will present a whole new way of sharing the mansion's architecture with our visitors, allowing them to visualise inaccessible spaces, and highlight the changing use of the Throckmorton's family home in line with the country's shifting political and religious landscape."

The researchers, who are now looking to secure new funding to support further research, hope the scanning process they are working on may help find undiscovered priest holes at other historic locations.
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BALLSTON SPA  A Moreau man was sentenced Friday to 2 years in state prison in connection with a narcotics sale earlier this year.

Alfred J. Hall, 34, of Redmond Road, pleaded guilty in October to attempted third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance in connection with an April drug sale in Northumberland.

Hall sold an unspecified narcotic during a State Police investigation, authorities said.

Saratoga County Judge James Murphy imposed a two-year prison term to be followed by 2 years on parole.
QUEENSBURY  People can support the Tri-County United Way by owning a unique piece of art created by Queensbury students.

Fifteen chair sculptures, which were created by students at William H. Barton Intermediate School, are up for a bid as part of the #ChairsSpeak online auction that will continue through Dec. 16. All proceeds will benefit the charity.

Art teacher Jenifer Farley developed the project, which was part of a lesson on how to repurpose and recycle old furniture.

Farley said she got the idea two years ago when she was cleaning out her family farm and found chairs that her mother and father had acquired from her ancestors over the years. Some of the chairs are 150 years old, according to Farley.

In the process of cleaning those up, I said, Lets turn this into art and make a difference, she said.

When students come to the Barton school in fourth grade, she tries to make them realize that there are great opportunities for the students to do things to help make the world a better place.

Six chairs were created in 2014 and nine in 2016. When students completed the 2016 chairs, she decided to put them up for auction. She wanted to select a charity, such as the United Way, that has programs to benefit children.

This is an opportunity where childrens creativity and collaboration can work together with an element of kindness to show how they can make the world a better place by creating beautiful pieces of art, she said.

More than 500 children had a role in creating the chair art pieces. Eleven classes helped paint the 2014 chairs and 10 classes in 2016, according to Farley.

About 40 students worked on each chair  about three or four at a time, according to Farley. They had 40 minutes to paint collaboratively. Some of the chairs have no seats in them because they are so old, so Farley said they put in fabric and painted it.

I think that they enjoyed the process of being able to have fun with whatever colors they wanted, to design something that was old and turn it into something that was new again, she said.

They also enjoyed helping other children, Farley added.

The chairs had been displayed in the halls at WHBI. Eight of the chairs are currently on display in the WHBI Superintendents Art Show, which is located in the lobby of the district office at 429 Aviation Road.

The names for the chairs created in 2014 are: Ballroom, Cello, Desk, Dining Room, Kitchen, Office and Rocking. The 2016 collection includes other Desk, Dining Room, Kitchen and Office chairs, as well as ones named Arm, Childs Beach, Childs Rocking Chair and Parlor.

To bid on the chairs, visit https://www.32auctions.com/chairsspeak. The opening bid is $10 and the auction closes at 7 p.m. Dec. 16. Winning bidders will be notified and receive a certificate that they can enclose as a gift.

The chairs can be picked up during an event from 10 to 11 a.m. Jan. 7 at WHBI at 425 Aviation Road. People can also request that they be delivered. A $25 donation is suggested.
GLENS FALLS  About 40 residents and community leaders gathered Saturday morning at the Civic Center to express their wishes and dreams for the citys future.

And in a room just off the ice from the practicing Adirondack Thunder, residents and business owners were brainstorming, idea mapping and drawing on aerial maps of the city in multiple colors.

In what was billed as a design charrette, the fourth public meeting of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative gave those attending a hands-on opportunity to express what they see as important to the citys growth and improvement. Perhaps more importantly, it allowed them to communicate how they think the city should spend the $10 million in revitalization grant money awarded to Glens Falls by Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this year.

A design charrette is commonly used in urban planning and architectural projects to give all interested parties an opportunity to express their desires, concerns and objections.

And just like the traditional model, Saturdays three-hour charrette had various work stations  streetscape enhancements, farmers market and wellness uses, among others  so those attending could rotate through for round-table discussion and input.

I really think we need a safer crosswalk at the Childrens Museum, said Kate Austin-Avon, who owns Advokate, a marketing and design firm on Exchange Street, after planners prompted a discussion about crosswalks. There is a crosswalk there, but nobody stops.

Several participants assigned to the Streetscapes table then tried to pinpoint  on a nearly 5-foot map of streets, buildings, trees and parking lots  exactly where the crosswalk was located so it could be noted on the planning pages.

When crosswalks are in the middle of the street, no one stops, someone chimed in.

There were red slash marks to depict crosswalk problems or danger zones, blue lines for sidewalk conditions and orange circles for poorly lit areas.

The grant is part of a $100 million state effort to improve the urban vitality of city centers across New York. According to Edward Bartholomew, president of Warren County EDC, Glens Falls was one of 10 regional councils awarded city revitalization dollars.

Nonetheless, only $9.7 million is actually available for projects and improvements. The remaining $300,000 is set aside for planning and private-sector experts who will work with the 12-member local planning committee in drafting the strategic plan for the use of funds.

We want your ideas and concepts, Bartholomew said Saturday. Put them down for our view and discussion.

But before getting to the work stations, Sarah Yackel, an urban planner with BFJ Planning in Manhattan, gave a brief overview of the Glens Falls planning to date.

This is our fourth public event, she said. We had 450 responses to the online survey and we are in the process of tabulating it right now.

BFJ was hired by the state as the lead consultant to the local committee along with Elan Planning, Design & Landscape Architecture of Saratoga Springs. Elan has worked on city projects in the past.

Additionally, Yackel talked about the initiatives goals, the citys mission and how the planning process will move forward toward a Feb. 28, 2017 deadline to get recommendations back to the state.

We are ramping up to get to a February completion date, she said. We are really hashing out the details. It is critically important to hear from you.

Part of the purpose of Saturdays session was to get at the nitty-gritty details of streets, buildings and sidewalks, and to let those participating earmark favored projects.

As participants moved from one station to another, they examined such things as dangerous crosswalks, missing sidewalks, parking areas, opening streets, closing streets, tearing down buildings, keeping buildings, where the farmers market should go, where they could put in an arts space, how to improve neglected segments of the city and adding more green spaces.

Local engineer Tom Jarrett said closing Glen Street between the monuments would be a positive thing. And when someone said that would be a problem for traffic, he said, It is not our long-term goal to facilitate cars.

The way Jarrett sees it, closing a section of a downtown street opens a space for festivals and events and creates a place to develop.

The projects most people were interested in were a year-round farmers market; working with SUNY Adirondack to bring the culinary school downtown; removing zoning code barriers to sustainability; art district improvements and a public art trail; and a residential renovation assistance program.

On the idea map, someone wrote that they wanted public, citywide Wi-Fi and public restrooms.

Bartholomew said that as they move closer to submitting a plan to the state, they want to hear from the community again. There will be another public meeting scheduled in January.
OK, follow along:

William VanNess is the chairman of the Queensbury Republican Committee and sits on the Queensbury Town Board as councilman from the 4th Ward.

John Aspland is a lawyer, managing partner of the FitzGerald Morris Baker Firth firm and vice chairman of the Queensbury Republican Committee.

Doug Irish is a Republican and a town councilman from Queensburys 3rd Ward.

Last week, Irish, VanNess and 2nd Ward Councilman Brian Clements, also a Republican, voted to replace the towns longtime law firm  Miller, Mannix, Schachner & Hafner  with Asplands firm.

So the chairman of the town Republican Committee helped to decide that the law firm run by the vice chairman of the committee should be hired as the towns firm.

How did Mr. VanNess reach that conclusion, we wonder?

In fairness, Aspland and his lawyers were offering a lower rate than the Miller, Mannix crew.

Asplands firm bid to represent the town at $160 an hour, with a maximum annual charge of $120,000.

Miller, Mannix bid an hourly rate of $190, with a maximum annual charge of $190,000.

So it is possible that, as Mr. VanNess argued, the new firm will save the town money.

Its also possible that wont be the case, because you cant think of legal costs only in terms of billing.

You have to consider also how much a firm can save a client by doing its job well  by preventing lawsuits, for example.

That other aspect of legal costs  how much a firms expertise is worth in work done well  is much harder to measure than billable hours. But John Strough, the town supervisor, who voted against making the switch, was right when he argued there is more to hiring a law firm than comparing rates.

Strough, a Democrat, said the towns department heads gave Miller, Mannix good reviews. Strough was joined by the 1st Ward councilman, Anthony Metivier, a Republican, in opposing the switch.

Strough pointed out that not only Aspland but at least two other lawyers at FitzGerald Morris Baker Firth serve on the Warren County Republican Committee, and the firm has contributed to Republican political candidates and committees.

Strough also mentioned that Aspland represented Irish last year in an election dispute.

FitzGerald Morris Baker Firth has contributed $900 to the Warren County Republican Committee since 2007 and also to several local Republican candidates. Miller, Mannix, Schachner & Hafner has a policy of not allowing its lawyers to serve on political committees or make political contributions.

The problem is one of appearance, if nothing else. Its impossible for Asplands firm to avoid the appearance its benefiting from political connections, because it allows its lawyers to hold political positions and make political contributions.

Since the firm has chosen to allow these apparent conflicts, the town would be justified in rejecting its bid. That didnt happen.

This decision should give town residents pause. The interwoven connections among the firm, the Republican Party and the Town Board suggest there was more pushing this change than a difference in hourly rates.

Local editorials represent the opinion of The Post-Star editorial board, which consists of Publisher Terry Coomes, Editor Ken Tingley, Projects Editor Will Doolittle, Controller/Operations Director Brian Corcoran and citizen representative Tim Robinson.
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iStock/Thinkstock(HAVANA) -- With the death of Fidel Castro, the father of the Cuban revolution, many questions hang over the future of Cuba. President Raul Castro, Fidel's 85-year-old brother, has been leading the country since 2008 when Fidel stepped down. With the assistance of the Vatican and Canada, Raul Castro and President Obama announced negotiations toward thawing relations between the U.S. and Cuba in 2014.



But with only a year left in Raul Castro's presidency, what happens next for the island only 90 miles from the U.S.?



Immediately



Not much is expected to change immediately for Cuba.



"Raul has been a reformist, pushing pragmatically for slow but steady change -- 'without haste, but without pause,' as he likes to say," Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive and expert on Cuba, told ABC News. "There are others in the Communist Party politburo who oppose the range of his efforts to privatize and modernize the economy."



President-elect Donald Trump looms over whatever the future will look like. Whether he shuts down the island to business again, or allows more openings can play into the hands of Cuba's reformists or hardliners.



"If Trump pursues an arrogant imperial and threatening policy toward Cuba, the leadership will gravitate toward hardline security officials who will focus on national security," Kornbluh explains.



John Kavulich, president of the U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a private, not-for-profit, membership-based corporation, said it is "delusional thinking" that everything will immediately change with the death of Fidel Castro.



"The next months will be focused upon confirming for the 11.3 million citizens of Cuba that the 'Revolution' was not because of one man or only endured with that one man," he said. "It is the fabric that wraps the country and there will be no holes in that fabric."



Possible Election



The real change is expected come February 24, 2018 -- the day a Castro will no longer be running Cuba.



Raul Castro announced in 2013 that it would be his last five-year term as president. Come February 2018, it will be the first time since the revolution that a Castro will not be in power.



"President-elect Trump is focusing upon the requirements of the Libertad Act of 1996, which created conditions for the resumption of full commercial, economic and political relations with Cuba," Kavulich said. "President-elect Trump is sharing that he desires a 'better deal.' He may get one -- on 24 February 2018 when President Raul Castro retires and he will be the first United States president in 59 years to welcome a 'post-Castro Cuba' and preside during a 'post-Castro Cuba.' A provision of the Libertad Act requires that neither Fidel Castro nor Raul Castro be in government.



The Libertad Act is also known as Helms-Burton Act, which states the embargo can be removed when Cuba holds "free and fair" elections and a Castro is not in power.



The expected successor is current vice-president Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, 56, appointed by Raul Castro in 2013. He is the highest ranking Cuban politician born after the revolution. Diaz-Canel is an engineer by training and according to Americas Quarterly has spoken for an open press and more Internet access.



"Today, news from all sides - good or bad, manipulated and true - gets to people. They know [what's going on]," Diaz-Canel told a higher education conference, according to Americas Quarterly. "And what is worse, then? Silence?"



He would become the first civilian leader of Cuba since the revolution, but how he will come to power is still a question.



"Leadership has never been put to the people in Cuba. I'd be very surprised if that were to change," Ted Piccone, a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy and Latin America Initiative in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings Institute told ABC News. "We'd certainly not see elections as anything we would recognize. There would be a formal appointment coming out of the national assembly."



The Cuban government has taken steps toward more open elections, such as allowing two independents to run in the last election, and promises to decentralize the government and has an electoral law reform pending, Piccone said.



"Key question is his legitimacy and his platform. We've had the Castro regime had the revolution to empower them all these years," he said. "When the Castros are gone that generation is gone. What is their legitimacy? He'd have to deliver of economic quality of life reforms. Thats what they are going to be judged on by the Cuban people because they werent fighting in the mountains for the revolution ... he was born after the revolution.



Future



What the future will hold for Cuba is dependent on whether Trump allows the relaxation and easing of relations to continue, according to Piccone.



"Whether or not you like the Castros or not, the Cubans are very proud, nationalist people and they will survive," Piccone said. "Trump is taking a completely backward approach. Hed just provoke them and hardliners in Cuba to repress people rather than open up."



It will also depend on whether Raul Castro will fully remove himself from power.



While he will step down as president, the question remains if he will exit entirely from government.



"They've talked about separating the roles of party leader and government leader so would have Raul in theory, as head of the party and Diaz-Canal as head of government for the more day to day activities of running the government," Piccone explained. "With Fidel gone and Raul in the background I think you have much more burden on the new generation to move ahead with reforms because the current status quo program is not going to lead them to economic growth.



"If they position Diaz-Canal as the face of the Cuban government to the world and the people and if Raul has been playing the role Fidel has the past eight years (a monthly column or photo opp with a visiting dignitary), if Raul steps back as far as Fidel has stepped back then I would say it's the end of the Castro era."

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
GAUTIER, Mississippi -- After hosting a Christmas parade and city tree lighting for a number of years, the City of Gautier decided to turn those two events into a day-long holiday celebration.

If attendance and smiles were any indication, the first-ever "Lights and Lagniappe on the Bayou" was well received.

The festival, held on the ground of Gautier City Hall, opened at 9 a.m. and featured various food and arts & crafts vendors, along with a children's play area and other attractions.

The annual Gautier Rotary Club Christmas Parade rolled at 11 a.m. in front of hundreds of spectators, despite cloudy skies and brisk winds (the sun would come out shortly after the parade ended).

"This is the first year we've done this," said Gautier Mayor Gordon Gollott, dressed as the Mayor of Whoville of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" fame, shortly after the parade ended. "I think we've had a great turnout and the weather is finally turning out fantastic.

"We had one of the biggest Christmas parades we've ever had and it was very well organized by the Rotary Club. We're going to enjoy the day and we hope everyone comes out."

Santa Claus made his traditional appearance at the end of the parade and was scheduled to return to help light the city Christmas tree Saturday evening.

"I think this is just a great idea, making a day of it," said David Richton, attending the parade and festival with his family. "We should do more family-type events like this in Gautier. Hats off to the people who put this together."
The picture capturing them doing the three sign with their fingers, the actor explained, was in solidarity with the June 3 disaster victims, accusing the party of fraudulently using his image.

In an Instagram post, the Van Vicker said: The use of my image in connection with the support of NDC is unauthorized.

"Please do not view this photo as my endorsement of the NDC party.
Old Westminster Winery

This shot on Facebook put the Old Westminster Winery tasting room in a positive light. The winery is located in Westminster, Md.

(Breanna Kuhlmann Lifestyle Photography )

This time last year, Old Westminster Winery was showing customers its new tasting room, putting an exclamation point on a four-year rise to prominence that started with its appearance at the Drink Local Wine tasting at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

A year later, the winery is looking back on more recognition, from this Washington Post story on the best Maryland wineries to visit to a Best of Show and first-place finish in the state's Comptroller's Competition in May for its 2014 Malbec.

It's also beginning to use video as a platform for publicity. Click on this link to watch one that touts the winery in general. This one captures the thoughts of the three siblings who run the place, and this newest one centers on the work in the vineyard of Drew Baker, one of those siblings. Drew said two others will soon be released that frame the efforts of his sisters, Lisa in the cellar and Ashli in the tasting room. Here's a page off the website that provides background on the family's story.

As for what's ahead in 2017, Drew noted that he's particularly looking forward to a planting of Ribolla Gialla, an Italian grape that the Long Island winery Channing Daughters does such a good job with.

Drew Baker: "This is a grape I fell in love with last spring when my wife and I spent time in Friuli, Italy and Brda, Slovenia. Ribolla makes beautiful wines in many styles -- bright, aromatic wines fermented in steel, some age it in oak [small and large format] to produce fatter/richer wines and many producers harvest a portion of the crop early to make bubbly. We'll be the first to plant it in Maryland, and one of the first to plant it in the mid-Atlantic. The variety produces large, loose clusters and maintains natural acidity. According to the numerous producers I spent time with, it is quite hardy. I have reason to believe it will make beautiful wines here in our greenstone soils and we're happy to lead the experiment."

While bottles of that white wine are four or five years off, Drew noted that they are gearing up for a release of a new wine called pet-nat Barbara Rose, what he calls an all-but-forgotte style of sparkling wine. "It's absolutely delicious! Here's a couple of pieces I wrote [on our blog] about our pet-nat program this year: The New Vogue in Sparkling Wines and A New Identity for East Coast Wine?"

For more background, here a piece that Jon Bonne wrote in Punch back in August that featured Old Westminster's pet-nat Albarino.

Old Westminster wine is available at the winery and on its website: The winery has its license now to ship to Pennsylvania.

As demand increases along with the winery's profile, Drew was asked about inventory. "Producing enough wine to meet demand is a big challenge for us," he responded in an email. "We are quite careful not to over extend our inventory. We are actively expanding our vineyard holdings and working hard to increase production without sacrificing quality, or our commitment to Maryland-grown grapes."
"It's because we've put Ghana first before everything," said Martin Quarpong, a Rastafarian in his late 30s wearing a green and orange tie-dye shirt with his hair in a black head-wrap.

"We see ourselves as one people and we think about our future."

Despite their dreadlocks and love of tie-dye, in many ways the ubiquitous Rastafarian community in Ghana embodies the country's commitment to peace.

Their message of one love isn't so different from that of ordinary Ghanians on the street who pride themselves on respecting each other -- and the democratic process.

"Rastafarians contribute a lot during and after election time. Everything we do is peace, peace, peace," Quarpong told AFP in Ghana's coastal capital of Accra.

"We should accept the winner in good faith, and let them know they should put Ghana first."

Quarpong sells clothing at the beachside Rising Phoenix hotel, where a reggae rendition of White Christmas is softly playing in the background.

A black and white portrait of the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, a Rastafarian idol, is painted on the wall beside posters advertising a "Peace in Ghana" concert featuring local reggae stars Ras Kuuku and Jah Wyz.

Just because Quarpong believes in peace over politics doesn't mean he won't vote.

In fact, peace is why he'll be casting a ballot next Wednesday.

"Yes, of course I will vote. I have to as a patriot," Quarpong said.

"It's not compulsory, but it's necessary."

'Perfect harmony'

As the heated campaign enters its final stretch, there is an increasing call for peace in Ghana, where its reputation for stability has made it an attractive destination in Africa for investors.

Ghana's presidential candidates -- including front runners Nana Akufo-Addo and incumbent John Mahama -- last week signed a declaration "against electoral violence, impunity and injustice."

After signing the accord, Mahama said "our democracy and progress is too precious to be gambled away on a quest to attain or hold onto power."

Unlike fellow West African nation Nigeria, plagued by ethnic rivalry and suspicion, Ghana at independence emphasised unity.

In his 2012 autobiography, My First Coup d'Etat, Mahama wrote that even the motto of his illustrious Accra boarding school, Ut Omnes Unum Sint (That All May Be One), reflected that principal.

"You can play a tune of sorts on the black keys only; and you can play a tune of sorts on the white keys only; but for perfect harmony, you must use both the black and the white keys," said one of the school's founders James Aggrey, who Mahama quotes in the book.

Rastafarians give credit to the "Big six", Ghana's founding fathers, for entrenching peace.

"If you know Nkrumah, you know everything, Ghana is a motherland," said Kwaku Akupleca, a 32-year-old wearing a silver ring shaped as a marijuana leaf.

Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana's liberation movement from British colonialists, becoming the country's first democratic head in 1957 and a hero of the Pan-African movement that championed black unity.

"We've seen the light," Akupleca said, speaking at Labadi beach in Accra.

"We are very humble and peaceful. We feel like protecting humanity."

'Rasta wonderland'

This inclusive attitude has allowed Rastafari to carve out a space for themselves in Ghana, home today to many different branches, including the Bobo Shanti and The Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Some 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Accra lies Kokrobite, a town described as a "Rasta wonderland" that is a magnet for Rastas in the region and across the Atlantic from the United States and Jamaica.

This year, local media reported that the Rastafari Council of Ghana held its first-ever national conference, with a focus on repatriating "brothers and sisters."

In 2013, Bob Marley's widow Rita was named an honorary citizen of Ghana.

Jamaican reggae legend Marley himself is regarded as a prophet in the Rasta community.

Not everyone sees eye-to-eye with the Rastafarians, but most can agree that a peaceful Ghana is better for all.

"When you have peace it's better than riches, you can be rich without peace of mind," Akupleca's friend Kwaku Francis said.
The US State Department in a statement revealed that the fake embassy was run by figures from both Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings and a Ghanaian attorney practicing immigration and criminal law.

READ MORE: Ghana and US partner on Epic Guardian exercise

The sham embassy flew an American flag outside the building three days a week and hung a photo of President Barack Obama in side the building, and signs indicated that you were in the U.S. Embassy in Ghana.

The fake embassy has operated for decade unhindered in Accra where the US Embassy is also located.

US State Department said the criminals running the operation were able to pay off corrupt officials to look the other way, as well as obtain legitimate blank documents to be doctored.

The US Embassy shut down sham embassy in cooperation with the Ghana Police Force, Ghana Detectives Bureau, and other international partners.

The sham embassy advertised their services through flyers and billboards to cultivate customers from Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, and Togo.

Some of the services the embassy provided for these customers included issuance of fraudulently obtained, legitimate U.S. visas, counterfeit visas, false identification documents (including bank records, education records, birth certificates, and others) for a cost of $6,000, the US State Department said.

In addition to visas, fake bank records, education records and birth certificates were also issued by the "consular officers," who were English- and Dutch-speaking Turkish citizens.

About 150 passports from 10 countries, legitimate and counterfeit visas from the US, the Schengen zone, India, and South Africa, and counterfeit IDs were seized, along with a laptop and smartphones.
Barrow's shock election victory ended the iron-fisted 22-year rule of Yahya Jammeh on Friday, and the scenes of jubilation on the streets after the results were released have given way to a calm but buoyant mood in the capital Banjul.

Jammeh's rule over the tiny ex-British colony -- which began with a coup in 1994 -- was marked by frequent allegations of rights abuses and the regular arrests of politicians, journalists and activists, often on spurious charges.

Barrow, a businessman and political novice, met with the eight leaders who make up the coalition that sealed his remarkable rise to power in Thursday's vote, with the talks focusing on the challenges facing the administration.

The talks went "very well, we are reflecting on the way forward," said Isatou Touray, one of the leaders.

Touray said the release of political prisoners was the "most urgent" issue facing the new government, with expectations this could happen very soon.

"We are looking at next week," she said.

The leader of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), of which Barrow is a former member, is appealing a three-year jail sentence he received with several other UDP officials for holding a peaceful protest in April.

UN support sought

Touray added the team expected the United Nations to play a key role in smoothing the transition that will see Barrow, a businessman who once worked as a security guard as an economic migrant in Britain, take office in mid-January.

"We will try to get the UN to give us support," Touray told AFP by phone. "It is urgent, we need to have it as soon as possible."

Ibn Chambas, the UN's west Africa representative, said meetings with the opposition had been fruitful, raising expectations of a government that would reverse some of Jammeh's policies that have isolated The Gambia internationally.

Barrow has pledged to rejoin the International Criminal Court and the Commonwealth, both institutions which Jammeh railed against and withdrew from, to the dismay of many.

The UN envoy also said he was "willing to work with the Gambians to establish a truth and reconciliation commission", but would not be drawn on whether Jammeh could face prosecution.

Allegations of rape, torture and execution at the hand of the National Intelligence Agency, which reports directly to Jammeh, have long tarred The Gambia's image.

Barrow told French media Saturday that "we are not witch-hunting anybody, nothing is personal" when asked whether Jammeh would be prosecuted.

Due process would be followed, Barrow said, adding he had "no problem" with the outgoing president remaining in The Gambia.

The strongman's whereabouts are currently unknown after Gambian television broadcast an unexpected statement to the nation in which he promised he would step down in line with voters' wishes.

Jammeh congratulated Barrow late Friday for his "clear victory" in a jovial conversation that saw him joking about becoming a farmer in his hometown, with the exchange caught on film and broadcast.

It was a shock for many to see Jammeh, who had promised to bury critics "nine feet deep" and whose regime has prosecuted peaceful protesters, calmly accept defeat.

'22 years is enough'

After late-night victory parties held by many Gambians to celebrate Jammeh's departure after Barrow swept 45 percent of the vote, life was returning to normal.

Sulayman Drammeh, a dock worker, summed up the mood: "We are very happy. Twenty-two years is enough," he told AFP at a Banjul market.

"That's why Africa has a problem -- if you come to power, you don't want to move. We are all Gambians, so let's come together to work," Drammeh added.

The coalition will govern for three years with Barrow as its figurehead, after which elections will be held and he will step down in line with a memorandum signed by all the parties involved.

jpegMpeg4-1280x720"My party will continue but I'm not part of the process," Barrow pledged to media Saturday when asked about the three-year commitment. "I'm a businessman, I'll continue my business," he added.
He boasted that the NPP has the men to lead the country from a stagnant economy to one that offers an opportunity to all.

Akufo-Addo said Ghana is in a sorry state despite being abounded with natural resources. We are sitting on resources yet we are miserable, he said, promising to fix it with sound policies that will enhance the country.

Addressing thousands of party supporters clad in the partys red, blue and white colour, Akufo-Addo said he, unlike the Mahama-led administration, he will not steal from Ghanaians.

The power I seek from is not to steal from you. We want to bring sound policies for the enhancement of Ghana, he said in Twi.

He also blasted the president for saying he should stop begging for power, wondering if the president truly understands democracy.

Speaking on policy specifics, the NPP leader promised to revamp the countrys health sector.

I am coming to restore and put new life into the NHIS scheme, he said.

He also promised to restore the nursing and teacher trainee allowance and revamp the adult education.

He also stressed on his one-district-one factory policy, one-village-one-dam policy and one million dollars to all 275 constituencies.

He further reiterated his committee to providing free secondary school education.

My government will absorb the cost of education in Ghana, he said.

He urged the electorate to reject President Mahama at the polls because he is a threat to the future of the country.

According to him, he has mismanaged the country, causing untold hardship.

Akufo-Addo said the wind of change is blowing all over Ghana, saying the NPP is destined for victory.

The NPP leader also slammed the president for tribal incitement, saying it is the politics of yesterday.

He also warned party supporters against propaganda plot against him and other leading figures in the party from the NDC.
Addressing a mammoth rally Sunday at the Trade Fair, La, Dr Bawumia defined 'Woyomenomics' as "create, loot, and share," a term the Supreme Court used to described the scandal.

He promised Ghanaians proper economics under the leadership of Nana Akufo-Addo.

He said the NPP will usher in a golden age of rural development through its one-district-one-factory policy.

Dr Bawumia also blasted the president for raking in more revenues than any other government yet has done little to improve the economic conditions of Ghanaians.

He said the NPP with 20 billion under former president Kufuor managed to roll out several pro-poor policies such as the National Health Insurance Scheme, School Feeding Programme, Metro Mass Transit, MASLOC, LEAP, etc.

And the NDC, he said, with over 230 billion has mismanaged the country and it is riddled with corruption and incompetence.

He said Ghana is facing a defining moment in its history, describing Akufo-Addo as competent, incorruptible and visionary while describing President Mahama as corrupt, incompetent and visionless.
Speaking in a media broadcast Saturday, the NPP leader said since the fourth Republic, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has been organising debates in Ghana.

According to him, he has been debating all his life because of his profession as a lawyer, wondering why anybody will assume he is afraid to debate the president.

Speaking in Twi, Akufo-Addo said: "Since we started debating, it is the IEA that organise debates in Ghana. You (President Mahama) said youll not go.

"You said you'll choose a platform suitable for you. And because you chose a suitable platform I should follow you? That is not how it should be."

In addition, the NPP leader said telling the Ghanaian people what you can do for them is equally a form of debate, wondering why the president is obsessed with a one-on-one debate with him after the president skipped the IEA debate.

"I don't know why he is obsessed with a debate. He is telling Ghanaians what he can do, I am also telling them what I can do, isn't it a form of debate?

Akufo-Addo's comments follow criticism from president Mahama for skipping the NCCE/GBC presidential debate.

The decision not to appear at the debate, president Mahama said, is the greatest disrespect to Ghanaian people.

At a campaign rally in Ho, the president said: He says so many things that are wrong. So I said come and sit down and lets have a debate so that Ghanaians will know the truth; he runs away.

"So after running away from the one-on-one, the NCCE gave the opportunity to all of us who want to be president to come and tell Ghanaians why we want to be president, that one was not one-on-one; so at least show respect to the Ghanaian people and come; that one too he run away.

And that is the greatest disrespect you can show to the Ghanaian people.

"I am the President; I should be the one reluctant to come to the debate because all of them will be attacking you because they want your post.

"But I am the first sitting president to take part in a debate, in 2012 I did it, and this year too, I engaged in the debate.

"But the leader of the opposition is rather running away, which is very strange. Even Trump with all his wild ideas had the boldness to attend the debate. This morning he (Nana Addo) rather went on Peace FM and spoke slangs there.
This has been a difficult year in Nigeria, but despite the adversity, the youth have risen to the challenge. A new cohort of extraordinary people are defying the odds and paving the way for generations to come. They are the people who will serve as inspiration to the nation. The theme for this years awards Shaping the Future captures the driving energy of these very accomplished nominees.

Whether it is through expression in arts and culture, or knowledge in science and technology, these are young women and men who have stretched our collective boundaries and made us better as a nation.

We ask ourselves is Nigeria producing a new breed of heroes? Delivering key players who will shape our future? We are particularly excited about this edition because will be showcasing impressive young people from across Nigeria, who will reflect the breakthroughs the youth have made in different fields, said Bukonla Adebakin, Project Lead, The Future Project.

We want to remind everyone of the power of young Nigerian women and men, recognising their efforts. We want to take the time to recognise their hunger, their ability to take the ball in pursuit of purpose and their passion to see a better country, and we hope to get them assembled in formation at the awards, said Bukunyi Olateru Olagbegi, Head of the CWC.

On the 4 of December, 2016 at 3:00 pm on Channels TV, these key players shaping Nigeria's future and Africas destiny will be unveiled in a live broadcast of a Rubbin' Minds television show special, he continued.

The 11th edition of The Future Awards Africa will hold on Sunday 18 December 2016 in Lagos, Nigeria. Tell us how you are shaping the future and share your contribution as a key player in Nigeria's future and Africa's destiny. Tweet at us with your messages or videos using these hashtags #ShapingTheFuture #KeyPlayerTFAA2016
The accused identified as Ms Uduak reportedly carried out the dastardly act on Thursday, November 24 at about 5:30 am, Cross River Watch reports.

The 29-year-old reportedly poured boiling water on the victim, Daniel Okon Nse, causing severe burns and injuries to childs face and arm. The accused claimed to have been trying to wake the child from sleep.

A neighbour of the accused, Mr Emmanuel Agan reportedly noticed the injuries on the child on Friday, November 25, and immediately reported the case to the Basic Rights Counsel Initiative, a front line child rights organisation in Calabar.

The organisation, in turn, reported the case to the police who immediately arrested Ms Uduak.

Daniel who is from Uruan in Akwa Ibom State revealed that his father is late and that he was a student of PCN Primary School, Akim, Calabar up until last September, when he was asked to repeat primary 3.

The victim's mother revealed to be a crayfish seller, reportedly gave him out to live as house boy to one Madam Ime.

Cross River Watch reports that Madam Ime is a food vendor located at No. 7C, Etta Agbor Road, Calabar.

On the fateful day of the shocking incident, Nse was not waking up to wash the dishes which angered the accused who is Madam Ime's eldest daughter, causing her to pour boiling water on him.

According to the reports, the Basic Rights Counsel Initiative provided medical care to Nse and have written to the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Social Welfare seeking temporary accommodation for the Nse.

ALSO READ: Pregnant woman bathed with hot water by neighbour in Lagos

The Ministry responded promptly and has placed the child in a government facility where he will be cared for pending the location of his biological parents/relatives.
Mallam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, stated this in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday night, December 3.

The Presidential aide was reacting to the Emir of Kano Lamido Sanusis position on the borrowing plans.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in October requested the National Assembly to approve a foreign loan of 29.9 billion Dollars to fund developmental projects across the country between 2016 and 2018.

However, the Emir was quoted on Friday as expressing his disapprovalof the borrowing plans by the Buhari-led administration.

Sanusi, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was speaking at a policy dialogue forum organised by Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development in Abuja.

He said: "I can tell you for free, if the Senate today approves that we can borrow $30 billion, honestly, no one will lend us.

"It should be approved and I will like to see how you will go to the international market with an economy that has five exchange rates," Sanusi was quoted as saying.

ALSO READ: Emir of Kano says forex policy is making 'easy' billionaires through round tripping

The Presidential spokesman, however, said: "With every respect to the Emir, you know he is my ruler because I come from Kano.

"He does not have his facts as far as those issues are concerned."

According to him, the issue in CBN, that government has overdrawn its Central Consolidated Account is true, but it is within limits.

He said: "The overdraw does not exceed N1.5 trillion. It is incorrect to say, as he did that the account was overdrawn by N4.5 trillion."

On the Emirs opposition to the loan, Shehu said the Minister of Finance would response appropriately.
PLCB

The Chairman's Selection Advantage sign stands over a selection of products at the shop inside the shop at the Queensgate shopping center, in York County.

(Paul Vigna | pvigna@pennlive.com)

Steve Pollack remembers being 23 years old and being offered a job at a state store in Clarks Summit, in Lackawanna County.

His resume at that time was built on running a small shop in northeastern Pennsylvania, he said on the phone Thursday. "They liked the selection I did with

Steve Pollack has been running the PLCB's Chairman's Selection program since 2008.

just regular stock stuff. The girl had left Clarks Summit, which is probably a little smaller than the Lemoyne store. They said, 'Steve we'd like you to go up there and be the wine specialist." I was 23 years old. [I'm thinking], I don't know if this is going to work. At that time it was the bow-tie wearing, French-talking wine geek, and I really wasn't anything near that," he said.

Ten years there, another three years handling California luxury wines out of Pa. Liquor Control Board headquarters and then eight years running the Fine Wine & Good Spirits' Chairman's Selection program and while his French might not be any better, his command of the wine business has increased markedly.

Pollack said Thursday he saw the move to directing what was then a rudderless Chairman program as a great opportunity. "It really worked out for me where it just blew up," he said. What's it, 2016? We'll be doing about $77 million this year. When I took it over it was a $20 million program back in 2006."

We covered a lot of territory in a 30-minute chat, so much so that it made more sense to break these posts into single topics over the next week or two. This first one will concentrate on the two-year-old Chairman's Advantage program, which features wines under $10.

It's a branch of the Chairman's Selection program that began in 2015 with four wines at a time in 100 stores, and this year increased to eight wines at a time on the floor in 300 stores. "We tripled the locations and doubled the selection and right now [the program] is averaging $300,000/week in sales," he said.

These are wines that are coming from wine regions such as Toro and La Mancha in Spain, destinations for "high-flying winemakers graduating from UC-Davis here and there's really no place to go . . . California is back to $300,000 an acre of land, it's kind of locked up tight there. So they running down into some of these lesser-known countries, specifically Spain, southern France, Argentina, Chile, and they are bringing their California or domestic palate kind of processes down there like some new oak and heat fermentation. They're softening up the Tempranillo grape and you are

One of the Advantage wines, at the shop in the Queensgate Shipping Center.

getting this very vanilla bean, cola, blackberry kind of saucy reds out of there that are very appealing to the American palate because it gives you all of that flavor of that fruit and it gives you that little bit of structure with oak instead those old tired Rioja wines that they made back in the '70s and '80s.

"So there's a lot happening in Spain. Prosecco is very hot right now, Pinot Grigio," he added. "We do some Merlot. But, normally, lesser-known varietals and lesser-known regions. When we can find a Merlot like that Entwine from the Wente property in Livermore [Calif.], I mean, that was $7.99, it sold like water. But again, they are few and far between."

Wines in the Advantage program sell for less than $10, although Pollack pointed out that none have sold for more than $8.99 and most are a dollar or two cheaper. "That wine has to be uncomplicated," he said of what the program offers, "but it's got to make you want to go back and get a case of that wine. That's the quality I'm looking for, and you don't find that in everyday wine."

There are 26 wines in the program, another five to be added shortly and nine more that have just been ordered. You can see the full list at the bottom of this post. Any individual store will have up to eight Chairman's Advantage wines available for sale at a time. As each sells out of one Advantage product, it is replaced with another in this constantly evolving product portfolio, Pollack said.

While Chairman's Advantage wines can be found in about 300 non-premium stores, the PLCB did place its two-for-$10 Covey Run Riesling in 450 stores in advance of the holidays, including some Premium Collection stores. Ninety of the state system's 608 stores are Premium Collection stores, and Director of Communications Elizabeth Brassell said in an email that the PLCB "is looking to expand our overall store network in coming months, evaluating opportunities for Premium Collection and non-premium stores as sites become available."

Meanwhile, Chairman's Selection wines are in just over 200 stores, including both Premium Collection and non-premium ones. Both Advantage and Selection can be found in 80 tom 100 stores, depending on available supply. Within the last couple of months the PLCB enhanced the store locator on its website so that consumers can search stores by Chairman's Advantage and Chairman's Selection brands, Brassell said.



As for the Advantage portfoilio, Brassell wrote that it's "constantly evolving as new opportunities present themselves, so more wines will be added to the portfolio in 2017. We regularly evaluate sales data to determine where to place both Chairman's Advantage and Chairman's Selection wines, but it's unknown at this point how store counts for each product may change in 2017.

If there's a question you have about the Chairman's series, the wines the system now carries or a specific wine area or grape, email me at pvigna@pennlive.com and I'll pass along the question.

Copy of Chairman's Advantage by PennLive on Scribd
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It was gathered that the police submitted a fresh report of investigation to the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice through the National Prosecution Coordination Committee.

The police reportedly indicted Saraki and Ekweremadu in the reports.

On October 7, 2016, the Federal Government withdrew the charges of criminal conspiracy before a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Jabi, Abuja.

The AGF reportedly received fresh police investigation some days after the charges were withdrawn.

But according to the newspaper, Secretary of the NPCC and a Special Adviser to the AGF, Sylvester Imhanobe, confirmed that the AGF office received the report but said it will not change the earlier decision to withdraw the charges.

A source at the Federal Ministry of Justice was quoted as saying the government partly resolved to stop pursuing the case in order to "bolster the rapport" with the Senate, which the President "desperately needs to push through a number of its policies."

Saraki and Ekweremadu, alongside a former Clerk to the National Assembly, Salisu Maikasuwa, and a former deputy clerk, Mr. Ben Efeturi, were earlier charged for allegedly forging the Senate Standing Orders, which were used for the inauguration of the Eight Senate.
Larry Jefferson, a retired U.S. Army veteran from Irving, Texas, has joined the roster of Santa's for the mall in Bloomington, Minnesota, for four days this week and is officially the first black Santa in the mall's history.

ALSO READ: 11 countries that banned Christmas in the past

Landon Luther, co-owner of the Santa Experience, who has run the photo studio at the mall for 10 years, told Minneapolis Star-Tribune, We want Santa to be for everyone, period.

Jefferson was only found at a Santa convention in Branson, Missouri, after a year-long search Luther began in 2015, and he was the only black Santa there.

Luther said, It was like finding a needle in a haystack. He considers himself a Santa for all.

Jefferson reportedly began his Santa career at the age of 12 when his father injured his back and he stepped into his father's shoes, passing out presents to his brothers and sisters.

After he returned from service in the Gulf War, Jefferson dressed up as Santa for his nephews, who were sick and unable to visit Santa at their local mall.

Jefferson went on to matriculate through a leading Santa school before going on to join the Texas Lone Star Santas, a nonprofit organisation with over 350 Santas, Mrs Clauses and elves who visit disaster-affected areas to donate toys to children in need.

Shanene Herbert, director of Project SPIRIT, an after-school program for black children in St. Paul public schools, told the Star-Tribune.

Kids only see one image of Santa. Even though hes a fictional character, he could be any colour, any race, any gender. This is an image of him too.

ALSO READ: This might be the worst family Christmas card photo you ever saw

Herbert is currently working to fit a meet-and-greet between Santa Larry and her students into his busy schedule as hes booked solid over the weekend.
"Earlier today I met with the leaders of all parties and asked their opinion on who should lead those talks. After that I summoned Birgitta Jonsdottir and handed her the mandate," he told reporters.

Iceland held snap legislative elections on October 29, in which none of the seven parties or alliances obtained a clear majority.

The conservative Independence Party, which performed best at the polls, initially tried to form a government with the liberal, centre-right Reform Party and the centrist Bright Future.

But they failed to find common ground on a range of divisive issues including relations with the European Union, institutional reform and fishing.

The president then called on the Left-Green Movement, the second-biggest party, to form a government.

Despite holding talks to build a broad, five-party coalition ranging from the centre-right to the far-left, disagreements over taxes and other issues led the negotiations to collapse in late November.

The president then allowed the parties to hold informal talks among themselves, which led the Independence Party and the Left-Green Movement to discuss terms for sharing power. But the diametrically opposed parties could not find enough common ground.

Giving the Pirate Party, which came third in the election, the chance to build a government has been seen as a bold move that is not guaranteed to be a success.

"I am optimistic that we will find a way to work together," Jonsdottir said.

The scandal over the Panama Papers, released in April, ensnared several Icelandic officials and led to the resignation of former prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, prompting the snap October 29 vote.

With voters keen to see political change, the small and controversial Pirate Party had vowed during the election campaign to implement radical institutional reforms for more direct democracy and greater transparency in public life.
With tens of thousands of civilians still living in the rebels' shrinking, besieged enclave, the U.N. envoy for Syria suggested eastern Aleppo could fall by the end of the year and hoped a way could be found to avoid a "terrible battle".

Responding to the Russian proposal, an official with an Aleppo rebel group said commanders in the city had vowed to fight on. They would support the opening of corridors for civilians to leave the city, but would not surrender it.

The government advances in Aleppo have brought President Bashar al-Assad to the brink of his biggest victory yet in a civil war that grew out of protests against his rule in 2011.

Backed by the Russian air force and Shi'ite militias from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, the government has gradually closed in on eastern Aleppo this year, encircling the eastern parts of the city before launching a major assault in September.

The United Nations estimates that close to 30,000 people have been displaced by the latest fighting, 18,000 of them leaving to government-held areas and a further 8,500 going to the Kurdish-controlled neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud.
Sirleaf spoke to newsmen during her two-day official visit to the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja on Sunday.

She said that information sharing among member states had contributed immensely to the peace and security being enjoyed by member states.

"A lot of effort has been made to contain terrorist acts.

"The ECOWAS Commission has a very effective work in terms of the peace and security commission that has early warning signals.

"We all are still vulnerable to terrorist acts, but by the exchange of information and the effective work of the commission, we have been able to keep the peace, access where threats are and formulate proper measures to address them."

Sirleaf stated that her visit to the commission was aimed at familiarising herself with the structure, operations and staffing of the commission.

According to her, the sub-region has also moved in the direction of achieving the ECOWAS Vision 2020.

Sirleaf noted that the inclusion of Civil Society Organisations in ECOWAS programmes had contributed to development in the sub-region.

Speaking on the Economic Partnership Agreement, the ECOWAS Chairperson reiterated that the signing of the agreement would enhance sub-regional integration and trade.

She said efforts were being made to ensure the agreement was signed by all member states together.

She said: "Two member states still have concerns with signing of the EPA.

"We believe opening of markets, the preferential access that African countries will have (to European markets) will enable us broaden our economies and grow more.

"We will continue through the commission that has written a very good dossier on why we would affect our effort as trying to increase inter ECOWAS trade if we do not proceed with the agreement.

"A couple of our members states have already been granted access to the European markets.

"If we have our member states begin to open up their markets, this will take away from the efforts we have made as a union and from the harmonisation we have been able to achieve among ourselves."

She added that member states that had signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the European Union on the EPA had delayed implementation to allow all member states sign the agreement.

"Until the rest of our countries sign on, so we can all move together as one sub-region, she said.

On her visit to Ghana, Sirleaf said that a code of conduct was signed by presidential candidates vying for elections on Dec. 7.

"They signed to maintain peace, ensure they work together, have their supporters commit to no violence and accept the results of the elections which reflects the wishes of the Ghanaian people," she said.
Finding Peace of Mind: Discover These Five Places in Europe to Unwind
ZACK SABRE JR, RICOCHET, TEDDY LONG, RUDE BOY RILEY, ANTHONY GANGONE, MARQ QUEEN & MORE: HOUSE OF GLORY COVERAGE FROM NYC

Welcome to PWInsider.com's House of Glory Wrestling "Student Showcase 2" coverage from the Queensborough Elks Lodge!

Hank came out first and cut a promo saying it was his 26th birthday. He said he wasn't originally booked for the show, but a friend of his got hurt throwing out illegal aliens. They knocked the crowd and challenged Smiley, Caveman and Mantequillas to come face them. The trio came out.

Smiley & The Caveman & Mantequillas vs. Nick Heat & Hank Flanders & Adam Falcon

They announced the winning team will get to determine the stipulation for Heat vs. Smiley at their 12/17 Anniversary event in Jamaica, NY.

Caveman and Heat started out. The teams fought back and forth. Falcon went for a Torture Rack but Mantequillas slipped out and nailed a kick. Flanders and Caveman tagged in. Caveman cleaned house. He's awesome at his gimmick. Caveman went to the top but Flanders' manager tried to distract him. Smiley charged with a big forearm to the manager. Falcon tried to suplex Smiley and Caveman at the same time but they reversed it. Lots of back and forth action. It closed out with the babyfaces hitting a pair of top rope splashes followed by Smiley hitting a 450 splash off the top for the pin. Entertaining tag match.

Your winners, Smiley & The Caveman & Mantequillas!

The Juggernaut vs. Really Big Deal Brian Burgundy.

Burgundy (who I will call RBD here) got this massive introduction as if he was going to be the modern day King Kong Bundy and then a smaller, thin guy came out. That was funny. Juggernaut is a masked guy, much larger. RBD tried to out-muscle Juggernaut but it didn't work out so well. So, he called for a test of strength. Of course he did. He pulled out a step ladder to read Juggernaut's arms. That was funny. He sent Juggernaut out of the ring and went for a tope but was caught as if he was going up for sit-down powerbomb and just thrown back first against the apron the most evil way possible. It's a miracle he wasn't hurt.

Juggernaut slammed him into the apron and the ringpost, then brought RBD back in, where the beatings continued. RBD's back looked all bruised up. Juggernaut just pummeled the living crap out of him. I can't think of a better way to describe it. Just evil. RBD came back to grab a German suplex out of nowhere and scored the pin. The place went NUTS!

Your winner, Really Big Deal!

Sasha Jenkins vs Sonya Strong

Sasha was trying to come on to Sonya and he got slapped for it. They went to lock up and he shoved her down on the mat. They traded drop toeholds. She nailed a rana. Sasha maneuvered her into an embrace, kissed her and shoved her down. The crowd chanted, "A**hole" at him. She went nuts and unloaded with stiff roundhouse kicks and chased him from the ring.

Jenkins tried to run to the back but was grabbed by his ear and pulled back. He shoved her into the ringpost and brought her back into the ring. He mocked her but he grabbed him in a testicular claw. He was able to get out and nailed a bicycle kick. Jenkins stepped on her throat until the referee finally forced him off. He then choked her against the ropes.

Jenkins continued to wear down Strong, locking her in a side chinlock. She fought her way out and nailed a big clothesline. She came back with several kicks. He sent her up and over but was kicked. He nailed a flying bodypress for a two count. She peppered him with forearms but was caught with a head and arms Tazplex for a two count. She came back to hit a release Dragon suplex. It looked nasty. Jenkins rolled to the outside. Strong followed him to the floor and brought him back into the ring.

When Strong returned, he smashed her down and covered her in a lewd way. She turned it into a sunset flip and scored the pin.

Your winner, Sonya Strong!

Pretty damn hard fought match. Jenkins has a nice look and was a great, ruthless heel. Strong has that hometown babyface feel to her and worked really hard. She's improved a lot since the last time I saw her work.

After the match, Violet attacked Strong from behind and beat her down. Strong fought her off. Security forced Violet out of the building.

They announced Violet vs. Strong for the 12/17 return to Jamaica, NY.

Bones & ? vs. Herbal Affair with Toasty Todd

Bones was painted up like a voodoo master and spent a lot of time biting people in a funny way. There was a lot of back and forth action. There was a comedy spot where the referee had "smoke" blown in his face and he acted like he was stoned. Bones kicked Todd, who was on the top rope and the guy took a back bump off the top backwards to the floor. It was nutty. Everyone started whipping out all sorts of high spots. Herbal Affairs captured the win.

The lights went out and when they returned, The Juggernaut was in the ring with some minions. They attacked Bones and put him in a bodybag.

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

Dont look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the Comply with Kyoto model. The scientists in this group express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.

The authors of the survey report, however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models, each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.

The survey finds that 24 percent of the scientist respondents fit the Nature Is Overwhelming model. "In their diagnostic framing, they believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth. Moreover, they strongly disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal lives.

Another group of scientists fit the Fatalists model. These scientists, comprising 17 percent of the respondents, diagnose climate change as both human- and naturally caused. Fatalists consider climate change to be a smaller public risk with little impact on their personal life. They are skeptical that the scientific debate is settled regarding the IPCC modeling. These scientists are likely to ask, How can anyone take action if research is biased?

The next largest group of scientists, comprising 10 percent of respondents, fit the Economic Responsibility model. These scientists diagnose climate change as being natural or human caused. More than any other group, they underscore that the real cause of climate change is unknown as nature is forever changing and uncontrollable. Similar to the nature is overwhelming adherents, they disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal life. They are also less likely to believe that the scientific debate is settled and that the IPCC modeling is accurate. In their prognostic framing, they point to the harm the Kyoto Protocol and all regulation will do to the economy.

The final group of scientists, comprising 5 percent of the respondents, fit the Regulation Activists model. These scientists diagnose climate change as being both human- and naturally caused, posing a moderate public risk, with only slight impact on their personal life. Moreover, They are also skeptical with regard to the scientific debate being settled and are the most indecisive whether IPCC modeling is accurate.

Taken together, these four skeptical groups numerically blow away the 36 percent of scientists who believe global warming is human caused and a serious concern.

One interesting aspect of this new survey is the unmistakably alarmist bent of the survey takers. They frequently use terms such as denier to describe scientists who are skeptical of an asserted global warming crisis, and they refer to skeptical scientists as speaking against climate science rather than speaking against asserted climate projections. Accordingly, alarmists will have a hard time arguing the survey is biased or somehow connected to the vast right-wing climate denial machine.

Another interesting aspect of this new survey is that it reports on the beliefs of scientists themselves rather than bureaucrats who often publish alarmist statements without polling their member scientists. We now have meteorologists, geoscientists and engineers all reporting that they are skeptics of an asserted global warming crisis, yet the bureaucrats of these organizations frequently suck up to the media and suck up to government grant providers by trying to tell us the opposite of what their scientist members actually believe.

People who look behind the self-serving statements by global warming alarmists about an alleged consensus have always known that no such alarmist consensus exists among scientists. Now that we have access to hard surveys of scientists themselves, it is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.
Before Fred Applegate hit the Broadway stage and before he appeared on big and small screens, he remembers scrambling for a job.

In 1977, Applegate, who had recently graduated from Northwestern University, set out to start the acting career he had dreamed about since he was 7.

But he needed a job. His needed his first job.

So, he drove to Rock Island for an audition at Circa 21 Dinner Playhouse, which, at that time, had been open for about six months.

The show was Fiddler on the Roof, and Applegate had never seen it. While driving, he listened to the soundtrack and tried to memorize the words to each song.

I was learning it on the spot, he said. I didnt know how good my chances were, but I had to go for it.

He got the job. From October 1977 to February 1978, he took on the lead role of Tevye.

Denny Hitchcock, Circa 21 producer, remembers "seeing something special" in Applegate.

"He was too young for the role, but he was incredible," Hitchcock said. "There are a lot of talented people out there; there aren't a lot of stars. He had that X-factor you look for but can never explain."

Hitchcock was impressed enough to increase Applegate's pay  around $200 per week  and offer him a year-long contract.

"That's one of the only times I've done that," Hitchcock said. "Here he is, 40 years later, still acting full time, and we had a small part in that."

"Fiddler on the Roof" was Circas third show; it followed productions of I Do, I Do and Butterflies are Free.

It was a lot of new things. It was the first time anyone hired me to act, Applegate said. When I think about Circa, I think about how special that was.

It was special for personal reasons, too.

During the shows run, Applegate fell in love with Cherie Sprosty, who played his daughter, Hodel. The couple, married 37 years now, stayed in Rock Island for three years, performing in Circa shows such as The Odd Couple and My Fair Lady.

Applegate is thankful for lessons learned during those early years at Circa 21, which he refers to as a sort of graduate school experience.

When youre no longer in school, you learn to shake some habits and some things you should stop doing, he said. You do that by being on stage with an audience and performing eight times a week. You learn quickly.

As Circa 21 recently kicked off its 40th anniversary season, Applegate says hes thankful, and a little surprised, that the place he started out in is still in business.

It can only be something of a miracle, he said. Its hard to keep a dinner theater going anywhere, and the Quad-Cities is a small market. I think theyve been incredibly inventive to keep it alive and so successful.

Hitchcock, 75, credits much of the venue's success to its staff and performers.

"We feel fortunate we've been able to sustain business in a smaller area and through some tough times," he said. "And we're still kicking."

It helps, he said, that Circa 21 has become a landmark.

Its housed in the historic Fort Armstrong Theatre, which opened in 1921 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, Circa 21 is one of two dinner theaters in the country with a performing waitstaff.

Its so beautiful and important, Applegate said. Its hard to define a community without the arts.

Over the past 40 years, the stages have gotten bigger for Applegate.

He was in the original Broadway casts of "Tuck Everlasting" and Sting's musical, "The Last Ship." He's also performed in Broadway productions of The Producers and The Sound of Music. Hes currently on the national Broadway tour of Wicked, in which he plays the Wizard.

He also had recurring roles in The Cosby Show, Night Court and Growing Pains and has appeared in guest roles on a few dozen shows, including Malcolm in the Middle, Will and Grace and Seinfeld.

The old standard is if you can think of something else you'd rather do, do it, he said. But if you cant imagine anything else, dont wait and don't stop. I started out in Rock Island and made it out to Broadway."

Hitchcock said there are dozens of talented people who have moved on from Circa 21 to bigger things.

Sean McDermott, who played Joseph in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," went on to perform in Broadway productions of "Miss Saigon," "Chicago" and "Grease." Robert Gallagher, who played Circa's first Phantom in "Phantom of the Opera," performed in "Les Miserables" on Broadway. Others have reached Hollywood, won Tony awards and worked behind-the-scenes on shows such as "American Idol" or "The Sopranos."

"It's rewarding and exciting to know there are such talented people who we worked with," Hitchcock said. "There's a sense of pride because not a lot of people get to continue on in the arts."

Applegate and his wife, who live in New York, returned to Circa 21 about five years ago to see the 2001 renovation that cost $225,000. It was different, but it was the same place they performed in Fiddler on the Roof and the same place that brought them together.

You look at it, and youre just thankful, he said. Youll always think of the place you started. And it was a good start.
On Friday, thousands of Quad-Citizens woke up to the news that the Exelons Quad Cities Generating Station will continue to provide power for the foreseeable future. Their careers are safe in and our community will continue to be blessed with this extraordinary regional business. The Illinois General Assembly reached agreement on the Future Energy Jobs Bill (FEJB). This legislation will expand energy efficiency programs, commit more funding for low-income programs, and ensure stable and predictable funding for the development of renewable energies, including new wind and solar. Additionally, the bill will provide for job training, create thousands of clean energy jobs, and preserve the competitive electric rates which are a direct benefit to businesses and residents alike. Illinois will likely become a national leader in predictable clean energy as a result of this transformative legislation.

Lesser outcomes might have cost the Quad-Cities and Illinois thousands of good-paying jobs, stripped our local schools and governments of precious tax revenues and impacted our economy at every level. Instead, we are the beneficiaries of hard work and exceptional leadership. Our Illinois legislators, labor unions, the private sector, and our community, worked together for the common good to mold a legislative package that does much more than save Exelon. This legislation protects 4,200 jobs and $1.2 billion in economic activity generated annually by Exelon. It levels the playing field and eliminates nuclear energys competitive disadvantage, hardly a bailout. While other forms of clean energy such as wind and solar receive production incentives, nuclear is the only clean energy which doesnt receive any, despite the fact that over 90 percent of Illinois clean energy and half of all energy production is nuclear.

Exelon Quad Cities bright future will ripple through our communities, industry, and the environment. We are a manufacturing center; its 20 percent of our economy. Manufacturers spend 15-25 percent of their production costs on energy. Securing Exelon directly helps local manufacturers to keep energy costs stable and predictable.

Just as important, Rock Island County governments and the school systems in the Illinois Quad-Cities have been saved from a crushing loss in operating funds. Exelon is the largest property taxpayer in Rock Island County, paying about $8 million each year. Their tax dollars support essential services for residents and provide much needed funding for our school districts in Rock Island County. At a time when the Rock Island County Board and our school boards are wrestling with budgetary challenges, it is hard to imagine the devastating impact the loss of this revenue would have on taxpayers and students alike had the bill not passed.

As a regional organization committed to growing jobs, increasing corporate investments, and advocating for responsible regulations and policies, the Quad Cities Chamber has been laser focused on this legislation since the start. We organized local businesses and members of the community to show lawmakers that the Quad-Cities was committed to Exelon. We helped rally support for the bill by working with organizations not only in the region, but throughout Illinois.

We thank our Illinois elected officials for standing up to support a major employer and the hundreds of employees who strive every day to make our Quad Cities a great place to live and work. Thanks specifically to Senator Neil Anderson, and Reps. Pat Verschoore, Mike Smiddy and Don Moffitt for their leadership and tenacity. And thank you to our labor unions, mayors, county board members and others who advocated on behalf of the Quad-Cities economy.
In the most important "change" election since 1932, 97 percent of the Democratic super-delegates placed a bet to win on the most unpopular presidential candidate in modern history. With the confidence of a preacher holding four aces, they bet on voters selecting a Clinton third term -- and promised hell-and-damnation if voters didnt agree.

It didnt work.

Forcing voters to choose between Trump and Clinton didnt payoff. CNN exit polling reported, among voters who held unfavorable opinions about both candidates, the lesser of two evils choice, Trump, won by 20 points. Trump also won the independent vote by 6 percent.

Thomas Frank, the author of Whats the matter with Kansas, a book explaining why voters sometimes vote Republican and against their economic interests, was concerned last spring about the coming 2016 election. In an interview with In These Times, he expressed bewilderment about Hillary-style Democrats: They really think that theyve got this thing in the bag. And I dont just mean her versus Bernie. I mean the Democratic Party winning the presidency for the rest of our lives. From here to eternity.  They could nominate anybody and they would win.

Franks new book, Listen Liberal pins their exuberant expectations on decisions made in the 1980s when party insiders switched from the Peoples Party to the party of rich professional elites. The Democratic Leadership Council was an operator turning that switch.

Bill Clinton, serving as DLC chairman, used his position to power to up his corporate fund-raising efforts and agenda, which led to his 1992 presidential victory. After his election, Clinton rammed NAFTA through the Democratic Party majority congress in 1993 and gave communist China most-favored nation trading status upon leaving office in 2000. The result was Americans lost three million manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2004, 5.8 million more by 2010. And today, median household income is less than 1999.

How did switching from the Peoples Party base play out for Democratic candidates other than Clinton?

Not so good.

Starting with President Clintons first off-year election in 1994 through 2016, Democrats have lost 69 House seats and find themselves at the lowest membership since 1929. Before 1994, Democrats held House majorities in 60 of the previous 64 years  and after 1994  in only four of the next 24 years. In the U.S. Senate, Democrats are at 48 seats, down 8 seats from 1992.

After the 2016 Election, Republicans hold 32 governorships, 984 more state legislators, and control 32 state legislatures, which results in 26 states completely in GOP hands.

In other words, since Democrats switched from the Peoples Party to the Elite Professionals more than 20 years ago, the Republicans have won the Political Quinfecta  Congress, White House, state legislatures, governorships and the Supreme Court.

This years super-delegates presidential candidate won newspaper editorial boards, by a 57-to-2 margin; even Republican ex-presidents refused their partys candidate while conservative columnist, George Will, disgusted with his choices, resigned from the Republican Party.

Obviously, voters didnt get the elites message. Trump won.

Which leaves this question: Will the Democratic Partys politically elite get the message and return to the Peoples Party, or will they continue their losing streak by making bad bets on elite professional voters, while stiffing the working class?
Don't blink.

For a few days, Illinois touted a functioning government, and the sudden bit of 11th-hour bipartisanship salvaged nuclear plants in Cordova and Clinton, Illinois.

It all started just before Thanksgiving, when nuclear operator Exelon made its final bid to the General Assembly for sweeping legislation to keep the cash-bleeding plants on-line and save 800 high-paying jobs at the station in Rock Island County. But it was this past week that featured the real wheeling and dealing that forms a fully functional governmental body.

No fewer than 10 amendments were inserted. Some stayed. Some went. Gov. Bruce Rauner, who long remained silent on his position on the massive overhaul of state energy policy, voiced short-lived support. At the last minute, he momentarily walked back his approval when one of those doomed amendments, credited to Speaker Michael Madigan, inserted prevailing wage requirements for non-union employees. Madigan relented. The 10-year, $235 million subsidy headed to the floor Thursday night. And Madigan's House, the wild card in the whole matter, went first.

Lawmakers didn't break along the usual partisan lines. No, dissenters -- Democrat and Republican, alike -- griped about the rushed "process." They questioned the fecundity of Rauner's caps on rate hikes. They railed against requiring ratepayers to subsidize Exelon Corporation, which last year posted $2 billion in profits, and an alleged state policy of "picking winners and losers."

Coal-country lawmakers raged because the final draft stripped subsidies for downstate coal plants. Legislators from Chicago worried about the effects on inner-city jobs.

Strange bedfellows, too, constituted the bill's proponents. Quad-Cities lawmakers, Rep. Mike Smiddy, a Democrat, and Sen. Neil Anderson, a Republican, made a parochial case based on jobs and millions in taxes schools and local governments collect from the Quad-Cities Nuclear Generating Station. The likes of House Green Caucus Chairwoman Ann Williams and Republican Minority Leader Michael Tryon built complementary arguments about the importance of zero-emissions electricity production.

The bipartisanship continued through the Senate. It wasn't about party in either house. For once, it was about policy.

This time, Gov. Bruce Rauner showed real leadership. For months, his administration was oddly silent on the Exelon bill. Only when it really mattered did Rauner and his staff speak up, leveraging its full political muscle to shape something palatable to Rauner, pro-business Republicans and environmentally minded Democrats. Rauner's administration said late Thursday that the Exelon bill is expected to be signed into law.

Madigan, too, backed off on his "poison pill." Finally, Illinois' dominant speaker freed his members to speak for themselves.

And, on Thursday night, Quad-Cities consumed the fruits of deliberative politicians, liberated from partisan mandates, making deals to solve complex issues.

The veto session ended Thursday night without a budget deal, as the state faces yet another funding crisis on Jan. 1. The incessant budget standoff is, in large part, due to a chest-beating contest between Rauner and Madigan. Rank-and-file lawmakers have been little but pawns.

The oddity of the sudden burst of effectiveness wasn't lost Thursday on House members hashing out the Exelon bill.

"This is incredible," said Rep. Jaime Andrade, D-Chicago, a supporter of the bill. "We have Democrats upset. We have Republicans upset. ... Maybe we should send the budget through the Energy Committee."

There's no sign that last week's bipartisan detente will become a day-to-day reality in Springfield. Rauner and Madigan don't hide their mutual disdain. But the urgency of Exelon's pending closure propelled them both to actually engage in the act of governing.

Maybe, someday soon, such urgency will be directed toward the state budget, too.
NATION

Plane landing gear collapses

Authorities say the passengers have been safely evacuated from a United Express plane after its nose gear collapsed when it landed at San Antonio International Airport.

San Antonio Fire Department spokesman Woody Woodward says that when the plane landed Sunday afternoon, its nose gear collapsed. He says 55 people were then safely evacuated from the plane via emergency slides. He says there was no fire.

Woodward says there was only one minor ankle injury reported but the person refused treatment because she was concerned about making her connecting flight.

The airport said in a statement that it had received notice from United flight 494 that it had landing gear issues.

Fire officials investigate Boston-area blaze

Fire investigators are trying to determine what caused the huge blaze that ripped through a Boston-area neighborhood, displacing about 60 to 80 people but "miraculously" resulting in no serious injuries or deaths.

The 10-alarm fire Saturday in Cambridge destroyed or damaged 15 structures. Some first responders suffered minor injuries. Cambridge Assistant Fire Chief Gerard Mahoney says it's "nothing short of a miracle" no one was killed. He credits the fact the blaze started shortly before 3 p.m.

Mahoney says fire crews on Sunday were assessing the structural integrity of the buildings and hosing down hot spots. The 33-year-veteran says it was the biggest fire he's seen in Cambridge.

WORLD

Gunman kills 3 in Finland

A gunman in Finland killed a local town councilor and two journalists in an apparent random shooting in a small town's nightlife district, police said Sunday. A local man was detained on suspicion of murder.

The chairwoman of the Imatra town council and two female reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant around midnight Saturday, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said. Police said two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her mid-30s.

Police detained a 23-year-old suspect who didn't resist arrest. He had allegedly fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle, authorities said.

Detective Superintendent Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the suspect had a criminal record that included violent incidents and theft, but declined to identify him.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."

Syrian army to rebels: Leave or die

The Syrian army on Sunday ordered rebels in Aleppo to leave the city or face "inevitable death," as a series of airstrikes on the neighboring Idlib province killed at least 50 people, including several children.

Aleppo shook from the sound of explosions throughout the day as pro-government forces, including foreign fighters dispatched from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, pounded the city's opposition neighborhoods in the east.

Rebel defenses have buckled after months of siege and waves of devastating airstrikes, and the opposition could soon be driven from Syria's largest city.

It would mark their biggest defeat since 2011, when a government crackdown against dissent sparked a civil war. Rebels swept into Aleppo in 2012. The government's fortunes changed after the Russian air force intervened in September 2015, allowing the government to begin to reconquer it.

Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Samir Suleiman told The Associated Press in Aleppo that government forces would "continue fighting until they restore stability and security to all neighborhoods." He said the army has already retaken more than half the neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo, and that special forces would lead the battle in the narrow streets of the city's historic district.

On Sunday, the government captured large swathes of the Qaterji, Maysar, and Karm al-Turab neighborhoods, bringing their eastern flank to within less than a kilometer from the citadel that anchors the center of the city. The citadel has remained under government control throughout the conflict.
Genres : Action, Drama, Romance

Starring : Bruce Lee, Nora Miao, James Tien

Director : Wei Lo

Plot Synopsis

Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee) returns to Shanghai to attend the funeral of his teacher. He vows to uncover what happened to his mentor and all signs point to the local Japanese Marital Arts school who have been taunting and insulting the students of the Ching Wu School. The local police won't do anything about the death, so Chen decides to restore honor to his school and his teacher by bringing down some furious vengeance on the Japanese school.
In 2008, an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times cited information gleaned from federal indictments to describe Henry T. Nicholas III as a drug-fueled, power-crazed rock star of the tech world who stocked a secret cavern under one of his homes with prostitutes and spiked the drinks of clients and employees with ecstasy.

The charges were later dropped, but there are numerous other reports of unusual behavior intertwined with vast financial success and significant philanthropy in the colorful life story of Nicholas, the 57-year-old California tech billionaire who is the man and money behind Marsys Law.

The law, a crime-victim bill of rights, was approved by voters Nov. 8 in South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana after similar versions were adopted in prior years in California and Illinois. Efforts are underway to push the law in several more states.

Inspiration for the law arose from tragedy when Nicholas sister, Marsalee Marsy Nicholas, was fatally shot in 1983. One week afterward, the suspect was free on bail and crossed paths with Nicholas mother in a grocery store.

His mothers emotional pain from that encounter led Nicholas to seek expanded rights for crime victims and their families, including the right to have their safety and welfare considered in bail decisions and the right to be notified when a suspect is released.

This past election cycle, Nicholas personally contributed a total of $7.6 million toward the pro-Marsys Law campaigns in the three states where it was on the ballot. His contributions were virtually the only money contributed to the campaigns, and less than $20,000 was raised in opposition in the three states combined.

The Journal sought an interview this week with Nicholas through Jason Glodt, the longtime South Dakota Republican political operative who was hired to direct the Marsys Law for South Dakota campaign, but Glodt said he has never met nor spoken with Nicholas. An inquiry to the press office requesting comment from the national Marsys Law for All organization was not answered by news deadline.

The political contributions from Nicholas flow from a net worth estimated by Forbes magazine to be $2.4 billion. He co-founded Broadcom Corp. in 1991 to make components for the tech industry, and he helped build it into a behemoth. The company went public in 1998 and he stepped down as chief executive in 2003, but when the company was sold for $37 billion in May 2015, he still owned a significant amount of its stock.

The sale of the company came just two months after the death of Nicholas mother, Marcella Leach. In the months following Leachs death, petition drives funded by her son led to Marsys Law making the ballot in the Dakotas and Montana.

The passage of the ballot measures was one of many high points in Nicholas' life. Besides his business success, hes been a philanthropist since forming the Henry T. Nicholas III Foundation in 2006. His charitable work has included the founding of the Nicholas Academic Centers to provide after-school tutoring and mentoring for high school students in Santa Ana, Calif. Nicholas and his charitable associate, retired Judge Jack Mandel, were given ceremonial keys to the city of Santa Ana in 2012 to honor their work.

But, as many writers have noted over the years, there is an apparent dichotomy in the person of Henry Nicholas. The headline on a 2008 L.A. Times piece by editorial writer Robert Greene called that dichotomy The two Henry T. Nicholases," and Vanity Fair called it Dr. Nicholas and Mr. Hyde in the headline above a lengthy 2008 profile.

Nicholas' alleged darker side includes the 2008 federal indictments for stock fraud, options backdating and distributing illegal drugs, plus a 2007 lawsuit by a former employee that included revelations of a secret lair Nicholas allegedly built so he could have sex with prostitutes and use illegal drugs. Nicholas denied the criminal allegations, which were dropped, and also the accusations in the lawsuit, which was settled out of court.

More recently, a woman identifying herself as Nicholas former girlfriend filed a lawsuit in January seeking $70 million from Nicholas for his alleged abuse and failure to honor financial promises. That lawsuit is pending in Orange County Superior Court in California.
CANNON BALL, N.D. | Evan Whiteford says all the pressure surrounding the Dakota Access pipeline should make it failproof for decades.

While Whiteford speaks for 357 miles of land route, a pipeline investigator hired by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe maintains the very small portion of the oil pipeline that would cross the Missouri River/Lake Oahe was poorly assessed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Whiteford is a marketing representative for the Laborers International Union of North Dakota, which had 600 welders, truck drivers, equipment operators and laborers on the project. What started as a small protest by tribal members has swelled into the nation's longest, most entrenched anti-pipeline protest, and Whiteford said the feeling of all eyes watching had an upside.

Everybody had their A-game on. If anybody was to screw up anything on this pipeline, it would not be good, Whiteford said. There was a lot of oversight. PHMSA (Pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration) had their eyes on it, the Public Service Commission had their eyes on it, the company had their eyes on it  an inspector for every crew. There was a lot of focus and national attention.

His is a reassuring perspective, though it doesnt cover the most contested piece of the pipeline  the one still not built and where a break would potentially be most catastrophic.

The Dakota Access pipeline, with a rated capacity of 600,000 barrels per day, will, if completed, carry more than twice as much crude as the next largest pipeline leaving North Dakotas Bakken oil fields. The construction spread west of the Missouri River/Lake Oahe to terminals in the oil patch is done. The spread east from the river toward South Dakota and Illinois is nearly so, with the exception of the critical river crossing that would plumb the oil transport line from one side of the water to the other.

That 7,500-foot section remains in limbo. It is the hot zone contested by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which fears a pipeline break at the river would pollute water for tribal members and millions of others downstream. The tribes stand against the crossing has been joined by thousands of protesters, climate change activists, celebrities and now veterans, who have occupied protest and prayer encampments on and near the reservation for four months.

The corps is withholding an easement for that river crossing based on intervention by the tribe, with no indication when or if it will be provided.

River crossing safety

Even though the company lacks an easement to use corps land to get there, it did obtain all other necessary permits to horizontally drill the pipeline beneath the river.

One of those was issued by the state Water Commission. The commission has authority for river land under the sovereign lands premise, granted at statehood for designated navigable waterways.

John Paczkowski, assistant state engineer, said the agency required documentation that the river-crossing pipeline would meet federal PMHSA standards, be properly designed with X-ray weld inspection of pipeline joints, hydrostatic testing with water to ensure it withstands the oil load pressure and sound monitoring, valves and safety controls.

In addition to block valves on either side to shut off flow, the company would bore pipe with extra thickness, 0.62 of an inch, instead of 0.42 of an inch, records show.

Scouring issues

The state Water Commission also required the company to study whether its initial plan to horizontally drill the pipe 64 feet below the riverbed would be deep enough. Paczkowski said the historic gush of 150,000 cubic feet per second during the 2011 emergency release from a bulging Garrison Dam reservoir left scours almost twice that deep 40 miles upstream in the Bismarck-Mandan reach.

A scour analysis was not a big deal until recent history. We needed to verify that that was a safe number, said Paczkowki, adding the companys engineers found the potential scour in the riverbed during historic flows would be 20 feet deep, an effect mitigated by the distance from the dam and the physics of fast water meeting the standing pool of Lake Oahe.

He said the agency would have required another 4 feet to 24 feet, but, instead, the company came back with a plan to drill the pipe 92 feet below the riverbed. Based on bore maps in the agencys file, the pipeline would pass through zones of silty sand and a clay sand mix at that depth. The bore drill would be staged on private land starting on the Emmons County side, pass through corps land before reaching the states sovereign lands jurisdiction and exit west on private land near the reservation.

Inspecting the bore

The water commission retained the right to inspect the pipeline under its permit, but Paczkowski said the agency has not discussed whether it would inspect the boring process.

If we dont, I dont know who will, he said.

According to Public Service Commission Chairwoman Julie Fedorchak, the PSC regularly inspects the pipeline route for reclamation and cultural aspects, but pipeline safety, including the boring, falls under PHMSAs jurisdiction.

Questions remain

Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., is a pipeline consultant to PHMSA and a spill investigator with more than 40 years in the pipeline industry. He examined the corps Dakota Access pipeline environmental assessment, the document it used to approve the water crossing under its Nationwide Permit 12 in July, while still withholding the actual easement.

Kuprewicz was hired by Standing Rock as part of its ongoing lawsuit in federal court alleging that the corps should have subjected the pipeline to a full-blown, much more rigorous environmental impact statement.

He said he went into the examination objectively, because hes built a career on such investigations, and wasnt looking for deficiencies in the environmental assessment. But he said he found them and documented them in a report issued in October.

He raised concerns that the companys worst-case scenario for a spill is unrelated to the water crossing, so the corps doesnt know how much oil would flow into the river should it rupture there, he said.

Thus, there is an emergency response plan that is not based on information about a river spill, he said. The worst-case spill scenario provided by the company and detailed in the PSCs docket is at a location in Mercer County about 80 miles northwest of the river crossing and well outside the corps jurisdiction. Its based on where lowest pipeline gravity and maximum flow coincide and estimates a spill of about 20,000 barrels in a full and, the company says, very unlikely guillotine breach.

This is incomplete; that the corps didnt go into more detail or challenge that is very troubling, he said.

According to information filed in its application, the company says its remote pressure monitoring system with multiple, real-time meter flow verification points would allow it to respond to a spill within three minutes.

Thats interesting, because I dont know of any system that can do that. Thats extremely optimistic, and theres no information in the environmental assessment that defends the companys actual ability to do that. In all other cases, the detection and response takes at least one-half hour to an hour, he said.

If pressurized oil is released under the river, even at 92 feet below the bed, it will find the surface, according to Kuprewicz.

It may take an hour, but it will blow a hole somewhere. The soil wont be able to hold the pressure, Kuprewicz said.

The pipeline would be pressurized at the rate of 1,400 pounds per square inch, according to filings.

He also expressed concern that, because the North Dakota Geological Survey says the pipeline route passes through areas prone to landslides, the corps didnt assess whether oil spilled in a landslide breach would reach federal waters.

Kuprewicz doesnt have an issue with the companys plans to horizontally drill a pipeline under the river. He said the technology is well understood, and unless the bore route is rocky, there shouldnt be issues with placing sound, aligned pipe.

He does think the corps approved the permit without enough information.

The environmental assessment is insupportable, he said.

This is what I call 'space shuttle syndrome,' when youre committed to the launch instead of to the policy and procedures that would have stopped the launch, he said.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault said, in addition to the full environmental impact statement to more fully address the pipeline impact at the water crossing, he believes the water crossing should be rerouted away from the reservation and the tribes treaty lands.

We told Dakota Access we dont want the pipeline here and told them to put it somewhere else. From day one, theyve known that, he said.
PIERRE | The boom in South Dakotas agricultural economy ended in 2014. Tough times became the story last year and again this year too.

And in South Dakota, as the agricultural economy goes, so goes the state economy as a whole.

According to data from the state Bureau of Finance and Management, farm and ranch income plummeted from $3.8 billion in 2011 to $2.6 billion in 2014, a 31 percent decrease in just three years.

Then it kept falling to $1.1 billion in 2015. The 2016 estimate is lower yet at $900 million, which is a drop of 76 percent from 2011.

Its scary times, Jerry Vogeler of Fort Pierre, a lobbyist for the South Dakota livestock auction markets, told the state Animal Industry Board during a meeting Tuesday.

Mike Held from the South Dakota Farm Bureau said farm income is the biggest reason why state and city governments lately have received less sales tax revenue than expected, a fact that could lead to program and position cuts at the state and local levels in the coming year.

Im not sure anyone was predicting another $200 million, an 18 percent decrease in farm income for 2016, Held said. The decrease in livestock income has turned out to be greater than any projections that I saw."

Nationally, domestic beef supplies have been building up, and prices for cattle producers have been dropping too, while live cattle imports have been going down.

Imports fell 16 percent in 2015 from the prior year. For January through September of 2016, they were 18 percent below the 2015 numbers for the similar period.

Meanwhile, U.S. beef exports rose 8 percent for the first nine months of this year, but the value increased just 5 percent, undercut by a weaker U.S. dollar.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects U.S. beef production to rise about 5 percent in 2016 and climb 3 percent in 2017.

Cattle prices this autumn were off about 25 percent from a year ago. Hog prices were down considerably too. Poultry prices remain low after disease outbreaks in the past year scared some foreign buyers.

The conditions reduced demand for farm ground, hay land and pastures in South Dakota this year.

Selling prices for cropland showed their first retreat in at least four years, while range and hay ground saw a smaller rate of increase, according to Extension Service farm and ranch specialists at South Dakota State University.

In a July newsletter, Jack Davis and Shannon Sand wrote that the corn price was down 52 percent from the previous year while wheat and soybeans at that point had fallen about 40 percent (soybeans have since shown a recovery.)

The sharp decreases in crop prices and slower decrease in crop input prices have continued to pressure crop production margins and farm profitability, Davis and Sand wrote.

South Dakota crop farmers and ranchers have experienced declines in net farm income. The reduction in crop production margins and livestock profitability is reflected in this years demand for land, they continued.

In another newsletter, Davis and Sand reported that working capital  current assets minus current liabilities  climbed $346 per acre in South Dakota from 2009 through 2012, peaking at $505, for farms enrolled in the South Dakota Center for Farm and Ranch Management program.

From 2013 through 2015, it has hovered around $230, they said.

They warned: If 2016 losses are large, farmers could see working capital move to a marginal level. Vulnerable farms may see operating credit severely restricted such that 2017 production will not be possible without substantial cuts in direct costs and in cash rents.

The latest economic roundup issued by the state Bureau of Finance and Management showed what happened to crop prices as of July: Soybean prices were $9.66 or $0.34 higher compared to a year ago. Corn prices were $3.40 or $0.13 lower, while wheat prices received were $3.82 or $1.30 lower than the same month a year ago.

Many South Dakota farmers have several seasons of corn and wheat harvests sitting in bins and bags waiting for a time when prices are stronger, while some soybeans have been moving in recent weeks.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard delivers his budget recommendations to a joint assembly of the Legislature on Tuesday. His budget office reported state tax revenues in total were $20 million below forecast at this point, running behind more and more each month from July through October.

The rural slowdown has found its way into the cities too, according to state Department of Revenue reports.

For the past fiscal year, which ended June 30, none of the 10 largest cities reached 5 percent growth in municipal sales tax revenue. Watertown declined by 0.52 percent. Mitchell grew just 0.82 percent. Aberdeen edged up 1.10 percent. Yankton, Sioux Falls, Brookings and Rapid City managed to break past 4 percent.

The sluggishness persisted into this fall. Pierre, Mitchell and Huron showed less municipal sales tax revenue in October than one year before. Rapid City was up 1.45 percent. Aberdeen rose 1.77 percent. Best were Watertown, up 5.81 percent, and Brookings, up 5.14.
Judge Marya Tellinghuisen sat on the hotseat Monday in the Pennington County Courthouse, trying her best to interpret the new Marsys Law on the fly.

In a case involving domestic violence and drunken driving, prosecutors had not been able to reach the victim to discuss the suspects bail, as apparently required by the constitutional amendment. Tellinghuisen decided to set bail anyway, because the female defendant had already been incarcerated for 13 days.

At some point, her rights trump Marsys Law, Tellinghuisen said.

In another case, Tellinghuisen sentenced a homeless man after he spent the previous six days in jail for a misdemeanor charge of trespassing in a parking garage. Prior to the passage of Marsys Law, the man might have been sentenced the morning after his arrest, but his jail stay was lengthened as prosecutors pondered the need to discuss sentencing with the victim  in this case, either the Rapid City Main Street Square organization or city government, which owns the parking garage.

Tellinghuisen made several more snap decisions during the hourlong court session about the application of Marsys Law, a victims rights bill that South Dakota voters approved Nov. 8. Across the state, other judges as well as lawyers and law enforcement officials are engaged in a similar struggle to interpret and obey the law.

Besides the slowdown of criminal court proceedings to accommodate communications with victims, some law enforcement agencies have begun withholding previously public information about crimes and traffic crashes, and some state and county officials are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire extra employees and make technological upgrades.

And yet, according to the man who directed the campaign to pass the ballot measure, many early compliance efforts have been overreactions based on misinterpretations of legal language.

Such contradictory responses were perhaps inevitable from a ballot measure that won 215,000 "yes" votes from South Dakotans but received all of its $2 million in campaign contributions from California billionaire Henry Nicholas. Campaign finance reports show he also contributed money in two additional states where voters approved Marsy's Law on Nov. 8. He gave $2.2 million to the campaign in Montana and $3.4 million in North Dakota, for a grand total of $7.6 million in the three states.

On the other side, some opponents spoke out against Marsys Law, but campaign finance reports indicate opposition fundraising in the three states totaled less than $20,000.

One of those who campaigned against Marsys Law was Pennington County States Attorney Mark Vargo of Rapid City. He said the opposition might have been doomed even with better organization and fundraising.

There really wasnt any organized fundraising on the pro-Marsys Law side, either, Vargo said. There was just one guy who wrote a check, and we didnt have one guy ready to write a check.

Governments get the bill

In the wake of the election, the check-writing has shifted from Nicholas to county and state officials across the state.

Vargo recently sought and received approval from the Pennington County Commission to hire four new employees at a combined annual cost of about $160,000, to comply with Marsys Law. According to news reports, officials in Brown, Minnehaha and Lincoln counties also have approved or considered adding employees to comply with the law.

Vargo said much of the new employees time in Pennington County will be consumed by victim notifications. Some of Vargos existing employees are already coming in earlier than normal, at 7 a.m., and attempting to contact the victims of the previous nights crimes before the suspects appear in morning court.

Vargo said those contacts are necessary under Marsys Law, which says in part that victims have the right to reasonable, accurate and timely notice of, and to be present at, all proceedings involving criminal or delinquent conduct.

Another provision of Marsys Law grants victims the right to full and timely restitution, which Vargo has interpreted as a duty on behalf of prosecutors to get more aggressively involved in the calculation of restitution payments to victims.

Now, its our burden to make contact with them instead of the other way around, Vargo said.

The man who was hired to direct the Marsys Law for South Dakota campaign, longtime South Dakota Republican political operative Jason Glodt, disagrees with that assessment and said victims must "opt in" to assert their rights under Marsy's Law. Yet Glodt also argues that prosecutors have an obligation under Marsy's Law to make reasonable attempts to advise victims of their rights.

The confusion surrounding the victim-notification requirements is compounded by the expansive definition of a victim in Marsys Law. The definition includes not only the victim of a crime, but also others who have a legal relationship with the victim, including spouses, parents, grandparents, children, siblings, grandchildren and guardians.

Vargo said his office was already proactively communicating with victims in perhaps 2,500 cases annually, but Marsys Law could increase that number nearly threefold.

Glodt contends that counties should not have to hire additional personnel to comply with the law. He said much of the notification work can be handled automatically by the Statewide Automated Victim Information & Notification system, known as SAVIN, which was launched several months before voters approved Marsys Law. The internet-based system allows victims to fill out a form and receive automated notifications about criminal-case proceedings.

Vargo thinks Glodt's estimation of SAVINs potential is overly optimistic. For example, Vargo said, there is a virtual firewall between juvenile criminal proceedings, which are confidential, and adult criminal proceedings, which are conducted in public. Vargo does not think SAVIN will be effective for notifications in juvenile cases, even though Glodt said SAVIN should be capable of that.

Whatever the long-term future holds for SAVIN, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has already said that in the immediate future, the state will need to spend up to $400,000 on SAVIN upgrades to comply with Marsys Law. Another expense already incurred by the state is $32,000 to print 100,000 copies of a Marsys Law victim-rights card at 32 cents apiece, to be distributed to crime victims.

Jackley has also appointed a task force to work on interpreting and implementing Marsys Law. The task force includes Glodt, who was not only the director of the Marsy's Law campaign but is also the treasurer of Jackleys 2018 gubernatorial campaign committee.

Public records at risk

Perhaps the most surprising and unforeseen impact of Marsys Law has been the quick move by some South Dakota law enforcement agencies to discontinue the release of certain public information. The crackdown is a reaction to language in Marsys Law that gives victims the right to prevent the disclosure of information or records that could be used to locate or harass the victim or the victims family, or which could disclose confidential or privileged information about the victim, and to be notified of any request for such information or records.

Because of that language, the state Department of Public Safety has discontinued the release of traffic-crash reports and suspended the Office of Highway Safetys Accident Records Reporting website. Additionally, neither the department nor the state Highway Patrol will release the names of people involved in fatal or injury-related vehicle crashes, which was previously standard procedure.

Some local law enforcement agencies are taking similar approaches. Sioux Falls police, for example, have declared they will no longer disclose the exact addresses where crimes occur. Rapid City police have been more measured in their approach, telling the Journal this week that they are interpreting Marsys Law on a case-by-case basis rather than applying any blanket policies to the disclosure of information.

Glodt, the director of Marsys Law for South Dakota, said backers of the law do not support the crackdown on public records. He said a correct interpretation of the law would not prevent the release of traffic-crash reports, but might only require the redaction of victim names and personal victim information in crashes that include a criminal allegation such as drunken driving.

Theres no reason why crash reports should not continue to be released, Glodt said.

Glodt said other states with Marsys Law on the books have not carried out similar crackdowns on the release of public records. The Journal found support for that statement when it contacted officials in the two states  California and Illinois  where voters adopted Marsys Law prior to this year.

In California, Chris Cochran, of the Office of Traffic Safety, said that state does not have such tight restrictions.

In Illinois, Matt Boerwinkle, the chief public information officer for the Illinois State Police, responded by email to Journal questions with this statement: Unless adopted by the Illinois Legislature and passed into law, Marsys law would not apply to Illinois. The Journal sent Boerwinkle a weblink to the Illinois attorney generals explanation of the 2014 passage and 2015 implementation of Marsys Law in Illinois, and then asked for another reply. Boerwinkle had not responded by Friday afternoon.

In the two other states where Marsys Law was adopted last month, Montana and North Dakota, there has been little action on the interpretation or implementation of the law, at least in comparison to South Dakota. That could be attributed to the delayed effective date of the law in those states  Marsys Law took effect Nov. 16 in South Dakota, but it will not take effect in North Dakota until Dec. 8 and will not take effect in Montana until sometime after the election result is certified by that states canvassing board, which is scheduled to meet Monday.

In Montana, Eric Sell, director of communications for the states Department of Justice, said there had been no discussions within that agency as of last week about limiting the release of public information as a result of the passage of Marsys Law.

Were still trying to figure out what the implementation of Marsys Law will look like here, Sell said.

In North Dakota, Highway Patrol Lt. Tom Iverson said there had been a similar lack of conversations but he expects those conversations to happen. Meanwhile, Joe Anderson, deputy chief of the Fargo Police Department, told the Forum newspaper for a story published Wednesday that he interprets the Marsys Law restrictions on the release of information much like South Dakota has.

Another factor that could account for the varied responses to Marsys Law is that no states version of Marsys Law is exactly identical to any others. When asked why, Glodt said each law is based on the same model language and differences from state to state are not significant.

Others disagree, citing examples such as the clause in the California law that allows victims to prevent the disclosure of confidential information. The word confidential was dropped from before the word information in the corresponding section of the South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana laws, leading to a potentially broader right to prevent the release of all victim information rather than just confidential information, according to some critics of the law.

The Illinois law, meanwhile, does not grant victims a right to prevent the disclosure of information. Instead, it grants victims the related but narrower-sounding right to notice and to a hearing before any court issues a ruling on the release of victim information that is privileged or confidential by law.

Future scenarios

Media outlets have been the lead critics of the public-records crackdown resulting from Marsys Law in South Dakota, but they could be joined in their critiques by the insurance industry.

Jim Davidson, president of the South Dakota Insurance Alliance, said his members are concerned about the availability of crash reports.

If there is an auto accident, typically what adjusters are relying on is the information they get in those reports, the opinion in there about whos at fault, the descriptions and the circumstances of the accident, Davidson said. If the Highway Patrol and various police departments arent willing to release those because of privacy, its potentially problematic.

Some critics of Marsys Law in South Dakota are calling for it to be repealed or amended. That would require the Legislature or public petitioners to place it on the ballot in 2018, or sooner if the Legislature decided to schedule a special election.

Vargo thinks such an effort would be futile because of the likelihood of Henry Nicholas contributing additional millions toward a campaign to keep Marsys Law intact.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard is open to discussing Marsys Law changes, according to his chief of staff, Tony Venhuizen.

At this point, the governor is very concerned about the unintended consequences of Marsys Law and would be interested in discussing ways to resolve those problems, Venhuizen said.

Glodt said Marsys Law needs only to be interpreted correctly, not amended or repealed, and he said fiddling with a law supported by 60 percent of the electorate would be politically foolish.

Im confident well be able to work these issues out, Glodt said.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | Sitting at a desk in Afghanistan, a young Airman awaits a call from the most powerful man in the free world.

Airman 1st Class Steven McRavin, 738th Air Expeditionary Advisory Group guardian angel, was chosen to receive a phone call from President Barack Obama on Thanksgiving.

He thanked me for being here and doing good things, said McRavin, who is at Kandahar Airfield on his first deployment from his home unit, the 28th Security Forces Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base. He said that he knows that being gone is tough and that everyone out here is doing a good job.

As a guardian angel, McRavin works to ensure the safety of more than 50 Air Force members as they perform their daily task of advising members of the Afghan Air Force.

It is the dedication and enthusiasm with which he does this job that allowed him to be chosen to receive the call.

As a young defender he has really been into this job and is a positive influence to the others out there with him, said Chief Master Sgt. Tim Ross, 738th AEAG superintendent.

Every year Obama has taken the time to continue the tradition of calling military members who are deployed for the holidays.

Sir, we had a pretty good spread for dinner tonight, said McRavin when asked about the Thanksgiving dinner he had at the dining facility.

McRavin smiled during the two-minute conversation, but his smile widened when the president asked about his family.

Yes, sir, I talk to them every chance I get, said McRavin. My step-son is four-years old and a little ball of fire. I miss him a lot.

McRavin has been in the Air Force for 15 months and can already say hes done something that very few have been, or will be able to do.
A South Dakota National Guard unit has been selected to deploy to Washington, D.C., to assist in the presidential inauguration in January.

The 235th Military Police Company, stationed in Rapid City and Sioux Falls, will travel to the U.S. Capitol ready to direct traffic, control crowds and, if needed, provide medical assistance to civilians.

On Saturday, the unit took part in basic medical training provided by Black Hills Life Flight.

These soldiers do receive combat medical training, however, they are not so used to dealing with a civilian population, and at Black Hills Life Flight this is something that we do daily, said Life Flight nurse Douglas Belton, who led the training. Cardiac issues, pulmonary issues, pregnant patients and children  these are things the soldiers are not exposed to on a regular basis, and we are very happy and very proud to support our National Guard in their mission for this country.

Sgt. Nicholas Allen, who organized the training, wanted to make sure his unit was as prepared as possible for such an important mission.

Were a multi-functional unit, he said. We can do traffic control and be ready to do riot control in a second if its needed. And now with the medical stuff, were pretty well faceted in doing whatever is needed. We want our guys to be as well-trained and equipped as possible and serve as best they can.
Man's best friend is an even more loyal partner to a police officer, and one South Dakota police pooch will be honored with a potential life-saver for his service.

South Dakota Highway Patrol Officer Brian Swets and dog Rocko will be honored at the Black Hills Dog Training Club's meeting today at Happy Tails Dog Training Center. The club held a community service project to raise funds for a life vest for Rocko and will present Trooper Swets and Rocko with a check.

"We raised $1,000 for the vest," said BHDTC President Heather Schuller. "Trooper Swets did the research on what canine vest was appropriate, and we provided the funds."

The BHDTC raised the money with the help of a 50/50 raffle and a number of other donations, according to Schuller. The club president said the organization reached out to the Rapid City Police Department (who had protective vests for all K-9 units) and South Dakota Highway Patrol to find a dog that might need the protection.

"We've wanted to do a fundraiser for a while to let the public know there's a dog group that supports our community," Schuller said.

Schuller said that the club respected the high-risk job that Rocko and other RCPD and Highway Patrol dogs took.

"We know the importance of good care, and safety is important," Schuller said. "This is part of watching out for them."

City recognizes second 'Extra Mile Hero'

Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender declared Nov. 19 as Brandi Tonkel Day in Rapid City. The proclamation recognized Tonkel's exemplary work as a forensic interviewer for the Children's Home Child Advocacy Center for the past five years.

The proclamation says Tonkel "has given voice to over 1,100 children, most referred for possible sexual assault. With grace and tenacity, Brandi works with community partners toward the most successful outcome for the child."

A news release from the city says Tonkel has been trained to interview children to gather all of the necessary information with the goal of reducing a child's trauma from repeated interviews.

In his proclamation, Allender praised Tonkel for challenging herself and strengthening the program. She interviews for the FBI and advocated to provide direct services to families. The city says Tonkel travels to the Four Directions Clinic in Kyle twice a month to conduct interviews and also provides training on recognizing and responding to child sexual abuse.

Tanya Fritz of the Children's Home Society said in the release that Tonkel "stands up for all the children in our community."

Earlier last month, the mayor and council recognized Priscilla Noble, a longtime worker at the Career Learning Center, as part of the nationwide "Extra Mile Day" observance.

Boy Scout troops hold annual food drive

On Dec. 10, local Boy Scout troops and Cub Scout packs will collect non-perishable goods throughout the Black Hills area as part of their Scouting for Food drive.

A news release from Feeding South Dakota said households received a white bag Dec. 3 that residents can fill with nonperishable food items such as soup, vegetables, tuna, peanut butter, pasta, rice and cereal to help feed hungry neighbors in need.

The food collected in each community will be distributed through each communitys food pantry. Rapid City donations will be distributed through Feeding South Dakotas Rapid City food pantry.

This year the Scouts hope to match or exceed the success of last years food drive. With one in six children facing hunger our help is desperately needed, Bryan Combs said in the release. Feeding South Dakota received more than 10,000 pounds from the drive last year.

According to the release, the Feeding South Dakota Food Pantry has seen a 15 percent increase in the number of individuals assisted so far in 2016 compared with the previous year. Last year, the pantry provided food to more than 50,000 individuals; nearly 50 percent of those assisted were infants and children.

With more people utilizing our food pantry, the need for additional food is great. Food drives like this one help make sure we can keep our shelves full throughout the year. On average, we distribute over 120,000 pounds of food per month through our Rapid City pantry, which would not be possible without the help of local organizations like the Boy Scouts. We live in a very caring community, and we are grateful for all the support, Shawna Gray, Rapid City Food Pantry manager, said in the release.
Three of at least five people taken to a hospital after a multivehicle crash in Rapid City last month were passengers of the driver charged with causing the wreck, according to police reports.

Andrew Chipps, 25, of Wanblee, has been charged in 7th Circuit Court with three counts of vehicular battery, as well as aggravated eluding and driving under the influence. According to the reports, obtained Thursday, Chipps was fleeing a state Highway Patrol trooper around 3 p.m. Nov. 21 when he ran a red light at the intersection of Anamosa and Lacrosse streets and hit an SUV. The impact resulted in a chain-reaction crash involving three other vehicles.

No one died, but five people injured in the crash were immediately taken to Rapid City Regional Hospital for treatment, the reports said.

Those injured included three men between the ages of 26 and 39, all passengers in the 2001 Chevrolet Monte Carlo that police said Chipps was driving. Two of the men were intubated at the hospital, the reports said. Also hospitalized was the driver of the SUV that Chipps hit, who had been scheduled for surgery the day after the crash.

The Rapid City Police Department declined to comment on the status of the injured people. Police spokesperson Brendyn Medina said once the injured are removed from the crime scene, the department will issue updates only if a death is involved.

Chipps suffered a cut to the forehead and was also taken to the hospital before being booked at the Pennington County Jail, in accordance with police procedure. He is being held on a $150,000 cash-only bond and is scheduled to appear in court this month.

Each count of vehicular battery, his most serious charge, is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Police said Chipps fled from the trooper after he was seen speeding along Interstate 90.
When I was a teen and saw The Exorcist, I was young and way too immature to assess what makes that film so great. There are twenty minute intervals between the occurrences that happen to little Regan that honestly had me bored as a child. Fast forward to today, and I totally disagree with teenage me and find those character moments to be the real reason why the movie is so great. You get to know Regan, and care about her and her plight because of the amount of time you spend with her. The Devils Dolls is teenage me coming back to haunt me like the voodoo dolls that haunt the cast of the film. It never slows down to let us get to know the characters before the next gore-filled kill. As a result, I felt like the movie was keeping me at a distance.

This is the kind of movie you can judge by the first scene. Amber (Ashlynn Ross) is being tortured in an abandoned warehouse by a serial killer known as Big Al (Eliezer Ortiz). She gets loose while he is praying to an Egyptian voodoo doll, and runs outside where she hops into a cop car passing by. Big Al comes up to the cop car and runs a drill straight through the cops head while a cartoonish amount of blood squirts out and dousis Amber. This happens to set the plot in motion but it doesn't follow the MO of any of the other killings in the movie. It's just there to start us off with a gory kill and that is it. Some Gore Hounds can enjoy this kind of thing. Me, I usually look to sympathize with the victim. And since we don't know anything about this woman, I can't relate to her and I become disengaged. This same problem will happen throughout the movie where I felt distanced from all of its main characters.

Matt (Christopher Wiehl) and Darcy (Kym Jackson) have been on the case to catch Big Al for a long time, and because of the incident with Amber, Matt has his chance to shoot him and does. Among the evidence retrieved, there is a series of voodoo dolls that are seemingly cursed. For some bugnuts reason, Matt takes that evidence and gives it to his 11-year-old daughter Chloe (Kennedy Brice), so she can sell it at her mother Amys (Samantha Smith) knickknack store. Immediately, Chloe and everyone who buys the dolls devolve into rabid animals fueled by the worst part of themselves.

The problem is, we don't get a chance to have any sympathy for these characters because we only know them at a basic level. Matt is divorced from Amy, but he still will do anything for his daughter; that is all the character development we get for Matt and Amy. Chloe likes handmade jewelry and misses her dad when he's not around. If these characters were any thinner, you could blow in their general direction and knock them over like a deck of cards. And that's a shame because the actual kills in this movie are surprising and memorable. When that drill does through the cops head like I mentioned earlier, it was one of those Daaaaaamn that was brutal moments that people like in their horror flicks. In fact, almost all the kills in The Devils Dolls are creative and seem to be the main focus of the filmmakers. It's just a shame that there is no drama behind it.

I actually don't hate The Devils Dolls. So many horror flicks these days feel like they have enough padding to fill the couch I'm sitting on. The Devils Dolls is nothing but expedient. It does whatever it needs to do to get to the next well thought out kill, and then it's on to setting up the next one fifteen minutes later. It also is unpredictable with its carnage. I never knew who was the new meat for the slaughter. But I also didn't care who it was going to be either. If you tend to sympathize with the victim in your horror, you will have a big problem here because it wasn't on the page and is not in the film.

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

'The Devils Dolls' comes to Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory, with some standard packaging with a little something extra that we have come to expect from their releases. We get a traditional slipcover to hardcover case, but inside lies the special sauce in this particular release. We are given a BD-50 Blu-ray, but behind that is an awesome alternate cover for the case that you can flip around and have a cool new cover that I would picture being the actual poster for the film. Once we hit play, we get the traditional trailers that lead to our still image main menu that lets us navigate from there. The alternate cover isn't a huge thing to do for a release, but it shows that Shout! Factor does care about their releases and that has become something I admire about the company.
PIERRE | When it comes to occupations, Sen. Phyllis Heineman is the only member of the South Dakota Legislature who lists homemaker.

Homemaker seems so retro, when modern times place so much emphasis on professional attainment and gender equality and political correctness.

So call her rebel.

Heineman, R-Sioux Falls, leaves the Legislature as this year ends. The former teachers first piece of legislation was to appropriate $4 million for a school voucher program.

That was back in 2000. It didnt pass.

She didnt give up. During the 2015 session, she tried legislation establishing a scholarship program to help students attend private schools. It didnt pass.

Once again she didnt give up. During the 2016, her scholarship plan passed and the governor signed it into law.

Insurance companies fund the scholarships through donations. The companies get deductions from their state insurance premium taxes, for up to 80 percent of the donation amounts.

Last month, she reported the programs progress during her final meeting as a member of the Legislatures Government Operations and Audit Committee.

She said Sammons Financial Group gave $150,000 and Avera Health later gave $100,000.

The money provided 280 scholarships that averaged about $750 to students at 38 schools.

The legislation capped the program at $2 million annually in a calendar year. As Heineman left the meeting that November afternoon, she talked about trying to get more money in the weeks remaining in 2016.

Were thrilled where were at, she said.

One of the private board members overseeing the new programs administration is Rep. Brian Gosch, R-Rapid City.

As the House Republican leader the past two years, and the lead House sponsor both years, Gosch was key to getting the legislation through the House on its second try.

He too is leaving the Legislature when this year ends.

Heineman focused session after session on school innovation, student achievement and government accountability during the 15 years she served in the Legislature.

She received an appointment in 1999 from then-Gov. Bill Janklow to a vacant seat in the House of Representatives. She replaced Rep. Dana Windhorst, R-Sioux Falls.

Heineman won election to four consecutive terms in the House. Up against the constitutions term limits for legislators, she ran for the Senate in 2008 and lost to Democrat Scott Heidepriem.

It was her only defeat. In 2010, as Heidepriem ran for governor, Heineman won the Senate seat for their district. She posted victories again in 2012 and 2014.

Now, shes at the end of a very good run. The Legislative Planning Committee has adopted her emphasis on better tracking the performance of state agencies and departments.

She was an impassioned believer in the Teach for America program that brought novices from across the United States to work in needy schools especially in Indian Country.

Just as she wanted to keep fundraising for the scholarship program, she drilled down at that last GOAC meeting, probing why the states massage therapy board hasnt deterred more illegal activity since its creation in 2005.

What are we missing? she asked.

Phyllis Heineman didnt fear raising questions or speaking her beliefs.

Or listing homemaker.

Rebel, indeed.
Donald Trump got it right upon Fidel Castro's death, even if the president-elect was simply stating the obvious: "The world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades," Mr. Trump said in a statement hours after Castro's death was announced.

"Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights."

Since then, Mr. Trump has reiterated his harsh and hard line vowing to rescind President Obama's normalization of relations with the still-oppressed island nation.

But Miami U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo got it "righter" when he said at a weekend press conference: "Only the Cuban people can free Cuba."

After more than 50 years, the United States' hardline policies did little to effect change in Cuba under Fidel Castro. Human rights remained an unrealized dream for Cubans. And, unfortunately, after almost two years of this country's normalized relations with Cuba, they still are elusive.

Again, Mr. Trump is right to criticize the lack of concessions made by the Cuban regime since Mr. Obama announced the stunning diplomatic thaw in December 2014. The Board, too, has repeatedly stated its disappointment.

However, for the United States, the overarching realization should remain this: Change is coming in Cuba. It is inevitable.

Raul Castro has said publicly that he will step down in 2018. And though the U.S. embargo should remain in place until there is movement toward freedoms, isolation  a pragmatic policy, perhaps, for the mid-20th century  is not the smart path for the 21st.

Our advice as the new administration takes over: Let the Cubans do it. A new generation that has seen their parents, and their grandparents, survive the oppressive regime damaged, but with dignity, will not be denied control of their lives.

History's arc has bent toward freedom. The Cuban people should take the lead, with U.S. encouragement, rather than a heavy hand.
The World Health Organization and the United Nations Childrens Fund honored Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital with an official Baby-Friendly designation recently.

The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative recognizes hospitals and birthing centers that meet the standards for care and support of breastfeeding mothers and their babies.

The award came after five years of commitment, trainings, improvements and hard work. The hospital is the first in western Montana to achieve this status and is one of six hospitals in the state selected.

Supporters of the effort had a Baby-Friendly award celebration on Thursday.

The hospitals nursing director, Kathy Padilla, nursing credited the efforts of Obstetrics Department head nurse Heidi Etters, along with other medical staff, for the recognition.

Heidi worked with every department in the hospital to achieve this, Padilla said.

Etter said the Baby-Friendly Designation shows the staff is continuing to meet the best practices for moms and babies.

We have a family-like environment here. It is very family centered, and we love taking care of our patients, Etter said.

Dr. James Zubernis said his patients are encouraged to learn the hospital is Baby-Friendly.

There is a significant effort to encourage breastfeeding and maintain breastfeeding and the majority of our patients breastfeed and continue to breastfeed, Zubernis said. Our efforts are rewarded with success.

Dr. Mary Camden said the hospital is committed to this for the long-term.

We all know breast milk is the best thing we can give to babies after they are born, she said. Our nurses do a great job. Many are certified in lactation, and they pour out their hearts to these patients to help them be as successful as they can.

Camden said the benefits for the baby are less obesity as they mature and moms get a sense of well being when they are successful at breastfeeding.

I think this shows we have a commitment to patients while they are pregnant and continuing through the post partum period, Camden said. The support doesnt stop when patients leave the hospital. It is ongoing for months afterwards.

Camden said one big difference with Baby-Friendly is to have breastfeeding in the operating room and getting baby skin-to-skin immediately following a cesarean section.

As long as mom is able, the babies go right to skin-to-skin with mom while were still finishing up our c-section, which is a big deal for them, she said. I have to commend our anesthesia department because they got somewhat invaded because now theres a baby and another nurse in there. They have been wholeheartedly with us.

Dr. April Weinberger shared that she had her first child at the hospital during the implementation of changes and appreciated the great improvements when her second child was born.

I got to see the transformation for Baby-Friendly, she said. It was a big difference. There was a lot more early bonding that we got to do which was very special. This is an important thing for families; you get to have your baby with you as quickly as possible.

Weinberger said she noticed the change in the culture of the hospital, which is important for her patients. She said she could usually get same-day appointments for her patients if they are having issues.

Thats important from a pediatric perspective, Weinberger said.

Dr. Ann Kimmel is new to the hospital but sees the patient support.

Before, during and after delivery I have patients that need to be seen and everyone helps them out, she said. Support is critical and Ive witnessed it firsthand.

Camden said the nurses are available for patients needing support beyond the usual office hours.

Ive seen patients come in on weekends and evenings, the nurses are very flexible in helping, she said.

Its a team effort, Etter said. We couldnt do it on our own. Its a team.

Its quite an achievement, Padilla said.

Its no small thing, Zubernis said. We have hospitals nearby that havent been designated. Its definitely a jewel in our crown.

Cara Bushmaker had her daughter, Isla, in MDMH in August. She said that the hospital staff support was essential.

Baby-Friendly is about the ease of being able to walk anywhere in the hospital knowing that you can find a place to pump or breastfeed, if you need to, Bushmaker said. The staff makes it easy to ask questions and they provide so much support in this very open environment.

CEO John Bartos said the process to achieve Baby-Friendly status was good for the hospital.

The process of attaining Baby-Friendly designation compelled our facility to examine, challenge and modify longstanding policies and procedures, Bartos said. The process also strengthened our organization by enhancing leadership skills, increasing staff competence and improving patient satisfaction.
Cora Marie (Marie) Hensleigh, 86 passed away on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016 in Anthem, Arizona, where she was residing with her constant companion dog Charlie in an assisted living facility. She was born on Dec. 4, 1929 in Miles City, Montana to Ishmael Weeding and Cora Elizabeth (Trotter) Weeding.

Marie mostly grew up on her parents farming homestead in Jordan, Montana. Several early school years were spent in Eastern Washington with her grandparents but she eventually returned to Jordan. She graduated from Garfield County High School in 1946 and received the Danforth Award for leadership for her accomplishments. At the mere age of 16 she attended Rocky Mountain College in Billings where she was President of Campus Women, a member of student council, and was the first woman to be admitted to the academic honor society Alpha Chi Sigma. She later took classes at Carroll College and Great Falls Business College, and though she wasnt able to finish her degree, Marie always valued education and encouraged everyone around her to strive to achieve their highest potential.

She married William (Bill) Hensleigh in 1949 in Jordan, Montana where they ran the Jordan Locker Plant until 1957, at which point they moved the family to Miles City. They were later divorced in 1964. Marie and Bill had three children: Kathryn (Kathy), Francis (Frank), and Theresa (Terry).

Throughout her entire life Marie had many varied interests and hobbies. As an intellectual with a curious mind she was an avid reader and crossword aficionado. In fact Marie was frequently reading three or more books at any one time. Her lively conversations discussing and analyzing many issues will be missed by her family and friends. Her various creative artistic talents included design, sewing, quilting, knitting and custom jewelry. In her younger years she was an active square dancer and up to the end of her life Marie was always eager to play card games especially pinochle, garbage rummy and cribbage.

Her livelihood was earned through various teaching and political positions. Maries first teaching job was in 1948 at the Butte Creek School, a country school near Jordan. She was a substitute teacher in Miles City at Sacred Heart School from 1958 until 1963. Marie and her children moved to Helena in 1963 where she taught for two years at the Bishop Gilmore School.

Maries interest and active participation in politics was reflected in her numerous employment positions within the Republican Party. She began her political career in 1969, serving as Committee Secretary for three committees in the Montana House of Representatives, a position which she held for two yearly sessions. Marie went on to work for the gubernatorial campaign of Ed Smith, serve as Secretary for House Minority Leader Oscar Kvaalen, and Administrative Assistant to the Republican State Chairman. The opportunity she was most proud of came in 1976, when she was the Campaign Coordinator for Ronald C. Marlenees Congressional campaign. Upon his election, she served as an Administrative Assistant in his Great Falls office for seven years.

Over the course of her life, Marie lived in a number of Montana communities including Jordan, Miles City, Helena, Great Falls, Billings, and Hamilton. She moved to Ephrata, WA in 1984 to be near her daughter Kathy after the death of her son Frank. In 1992 she moved to Hamilton to be near her other daughter, Terry, and her husband Mike and their young children. In 2007 she began wintering in Arizona but continued to spend summers with her daughter Terry and family in Hamilton.

From 2000 to 2003 Terrys husband, Mike, worked as an army physician stationed in Belgium at S.H.A.P.E (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe). During this time Marie travelled to Belgium on two separate occasions where she spent three months living with her daughter Terry and family. Marie had the opportunity to travel to France, Holland, Germany and England and she thoroughly enjoyed meeting people from varied ethnic backgrounds and cultures. She marveled at how these experiences changed her life.

As a result, Marie began to see the world in a different manner. She frequently reflected that these experiences afforded her the opportunity for personal growth in understanding differences in culture. With compassion and respect, Marie strove to accept all peoples regardless of their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, race, or political views. In fact, she became an outspoken personal champion for people of diversity.

Rooting her life in love and a trust in God, she expressed gratitude to the Roman Catholic Church for her faith foundation. She was a past President of the Deanery of Miles City Catholic Women, taught Confirmation classes, and assisted with lay-sponsored retreats. One of her favorite scripture verses was Matthew 25: 40, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Marie was a deeply spiritual person and always strove to show compassion to those who struggled in life.

Marie will be remembered by her family and friends as a complex intellectual who was creative, not only in the items she designed, but in how she approached life and problem solving. Her dry, quick wit was a source of amusement to those who knew her. She was an innate loyal leader with perseverance who knew her mind but who was also open to new ideas. Most of all Marie was caring at heart and an outspoken advocate for the underdog.

Marie was preceded in death by her parents Ishmael and Cora Elizabeth Weeding, ex-husband Bill Hensleigh, son Frank Hensleigh, siblings Joseph Weeding, Harry Weeding, Cecil Weeding, brother-in-law Gustav Schmidt, and granddaughter Cora Elizabeth Dawson.

Marie is survived by her daughters Kathryn Bertram and husband Bruce Bertram of Spokane, Washington, Terry Moran and husband Michael Moran of Hamilton, sister Ruby Schmidt of Missoula, sister-in-law Ada Weeding, brother Donald Weeding and wife Betty Lou Weeding all from Jordan.

Surviving grandchildren are Jeffrey Dawson, Kristine (Kris) Fannin, Alison Moran, Laura Moran, and Helen (Nellie) Moran. Surviving great-grandchildren are Karter Proszek, Justice Fannin and Faith Fannin.

Maries surviving nieces and nephews are Gail Compton, Elaine Tobel, Donna Dailey, Steven Weeding, Douglas Weeding, Rodney Weeding, Mark Weeding and David Weeding.

A memorial service was officiated by The Very Reverend Troy Mendez at Black Canyon RV Resort on Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 11 a.m. For an online obituary, and to leave the family condolence messages see www.bestfuneralservices.com/obituary/cora-marie-marie-hensleigh/

In lieu of flowers the family requests memorial donations be made to the Jordan Library, PO Box 81 Jordan, MT 59337, the Bitterroot Public Library Foundation, 306 State St. Hamilton, MT 59840 or to the donors community library.
America must return to conservative principles of less government,reduced taxes, less spending and a balanced budget! Cut,cap and balance!
James Lewis

With Trump's excellent team, such as USMC (Ret) General James Mattis in charge, the U.S. government has all the battlefield expertise it needs to win the Jihad War. We can start by keeping in mind that the U.S. military won every engagement it wanted to win in Iraq -- the ones we lost are due to our dreadful civilian bumblers. Nevertheless, losing naval control of the Gulf, for example, still puts us in a damned awkward position. Vladimir Putin has put on an almighty show of military fireworks, most obviously when Assad invited Putin into Syria to fight against American-backed jihadis on behalf of Assad's jihadis -- a complete madhouse morally, strategically, tactically and in every other way. If you can't even define who is on which side, you can only lose.

It's not the least of Donald Trump's accomplishments so far that he has finally pinpointed the enemy, both morally and strategically.

Liberals have not been able to defined a strategic and moral U.S. enemy since Joseph Stalin, so they are the last to find any sense of clarity in the current mess. They still get their strategic nuggets of wisdom from old newspaper cartoons: "We have found the enemy, and he is us." No wonder they spread nothing but defeatism.

Well, Donald Trump has now defined the enemy, and he has done so very cleverly. ISIS is the most atrocious wolf pack since the Totenkopf SS and Khmer Rouge, and destroying them is morally unambiguous: Or do you have any doubts about defeating the newest Nazis?

Declaring ISIS as the face of evil is a good move, morally, historically, and strategically. Even the Saudis and Qataris (who sponsored ISIS in the first place) are unwilling to take their side in public.

Then Trump also makes his definition of the enemy practical: Any "enemy combatants... or who pledge allegiance to ISIS."

Vladimir Putin can wholeheartedly agree with that one, because it allows him to shore up Assad of Syria, his own ally, and makes it okay for Russia to send cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea to bomb the most truly evil monsters, including his own Chechen jihadists. Having associated our joint enemy with the moral atrocities of ISIS, we can now count on support from Egypt (which has been asking Obama to do just that), and (slyly) from the Saudis, the Europeans, and sane, modernist Muslims, who can be found in every country.

Americans forget that Muslim modernism has been on the rise in the Middle East ever since the end of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, so that Lebanese Arabs speak French, the Saudi military speak American English, and all of Israel's neighbors have explicitly called for a final peace settlement in the Middle East.

The Obama administration inexplicably took the side of global Jihad against civilization, supporting the Nazi-era Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example, and then acted surprised when anarchy spread everywhere in the Middle East. Hillary was personally responsible for the criminal invasion of Libya, overthrowing a neutral Muslim power instead of an enemy, and it seems that the Clinton Foundation is still trying to make nice with the forces of antediluvian radicalism. The word "stupid" doesn't come even close for the Democrats and their foreign policy.

Simply by giving the right signals Trump and his team have already outlined the shape of the new modernist alliance in the Jihad War: Egypt's president El Sisi has openly called for a religious reformation in the reactionary war theology of Islam, an act of great personal bravery. The new alliance for civilization will include NATO, Russia, Jordan, Israel, the Arab League, India (and probably Pakistan), China (which has its own jihad problem), and even Turkey (even though Erdogan claims to celebrate the Ottoman Caliphate, complete with massacres of competitors of the victorious sultans). Trump has just defined the strong horse, just as Bin Laden said, and guess what? The strong horse is us!

The rise of Jihad has set back the progress of modernism everywhere in the Muslim world, a plain fact that no American leader has called attention to. Literally every Muslim country in the world has passionate modernists who hate Jihadist oppression and backwardness. We know they exist, because for half a century modernist Muslims ruled Turkey, bringing education, peace, and prosperity to that corner of the world.

As soon as the new alliance for civilization becomes clear to all, fence-sitters like Libya and even Yemen will jump to the right side. That will only leave a shrunken Wahhabi war sect pursuing Jihad from the Gulf States, and in time, it may even bring down the Mad Mullahs of Qum.

Since the history of modern Jihad has been one pack of lies from beginning to end in the West, we may as well set the record straight.

The Saudi attack on Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11/01 was planned, funded, guided, and lied about for fifteen years by the Royal House of Saudi Arabia, which is identical to the Wahhabi war cult. Chances are that the Saudis have also funded, planned, collected blackmail money, and otherwise colluded in so-called "lone wolf" terror attacks, which are considered just hunky-dory in Jihad warfare. They are approved and blessed by almost every imam and mullah in the world. The first Saudi attack on us was an act of suicidal madness, just as the Bushido War Cult attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was an act of suicidal madness. The simple fact is that suicidal war theologies commit acts of suicidal madness, both individually and collectively.

All American presidents since Clinton and Bush have colluded in the massive media lie of some mysterious hidden "terror sponsors" in the radical Muslim world, but now the news is finally out: it was the Saudis. (Yes, with the full cooperation of the Iranians, whenever they could hide behind the Saudis). The media oligopoly from New York to Tokyo unanimously lied and covered up the perps for one reason: Oil, which is truly the blood supply of the modern world. Had we retaliated against Riyadh, as they amply deserve, they would have cut out national blood supply. That little bit of Realpolitik has dictated the Regime of Lies followed by Democrats and Republicans, by Left and Right around the industrialized world. We might as well 'fess it all up by now.

Naturally the Democrats were even more sociopathic about the Greatest Lie of the Third Millennium than the Republicans, since the Left took gobs of oil money through the Clinton Foundation and the Center for American Progress, George Washington University and many other U.S. universities, and enthusiastically joined the murderous enemy in the Jihad War. Post-Soviet Leftists took money from Jihad, and managed to launch what Tony Blair called "Third Way Socialism" as the new Hope for Global Government by Liberals. American Democrats secretly betrayed their country to its Communist enemy (and yes, Blairite Globalism is nothing but post-Soviet Communism). But the Democrats abandoned any moral pretenses so long ago that they now think Stalin and Mao were on the side of peace and love.

Nobody is more cynical than Hillary, who idiotically greeted the murder of Muammar Ghadafi with the words, "We came, we saw, he died." That little PR release was supposed to show us all how tough Hillary really is.

So -- other than putting our A Team into power, how do we deal with the Jihad War? How about starting with telling the truth about Saudi guilt for 9/11/01 and any number of other Jihad attacks on innocent people since that event? How about promising tit-for-tat retaliation against Riyadh for every single "lone wolf" attack demanded by Jihadist war doctrine? How about demanding confiscatory compensation, following Qur'anic Law, for every single act of evil committed by the Wahhabi chain of command?

The last time a few Western news outlets threatened to tell the truth about Saudi guilt for 9/11, they threatened us right back to sell all their American investments... and somehow those trial-balloon stories disappeared from the headlines. But fracking is inevitably going to win the day, the price of hydrocarbons will drop to a permanent floor (because exploiting shale is inherently cheap and there are no strategic bottlenecks like the Gulf), and the Jihad Nazi monsters will be gently moved out of positions of power in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar.

Deprived of Saudi money and Obama's secret support, ISIS will wither on the vine, and those of its maniac killers who try to go back to Belorussia to kill some more innocents will be put away somewhere in Chamkatka. The media will close its eyes, the way they generally do.

For the sake of poetic justice I would hope we could tell the Saudis they will personally be held accountable for any -- meaning any -- "lone wolf" terror attacks. The Law of the Claw (Lex Talionis) proclaims "head for head in retaliation", and Islamic Law sometimes allows for financial compensation. Hopefully they will carry out their own internal justice by the sword.

Economic projections today show that Saudi Arabia cannot survive long without its oil monopoly, so they will need us soon to defend the Arabian Peninsula against the Iranians. Perhaps the Saudis can be quietly forced to build permanent refugee camps for all the jihadis they sent to the civilized world and train them to dig sand.

Jihad never really stops, not according to the Qur'an. It only transmogrifies, like some great beast, into either bloodier or less bloody forms. But in Turkey, Jihad war preaching was suppressed for fifty years, before the European Union stupidly allowed Erdogan to be elected to bring in the new Caliphate. Let the Turks deal with their own radicals in their own way.

Jihad makes war on the world. That is a simple fact, and it is cast in concrete as long as the Qur'an is read. But other scriptures have changed their interpretations when time and necessity overwhelmed the written word. The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita is also a story of war, but we do not think of most Hindus as warriors. The Mormon Church is also committed to convert the world to its particular beliefs, and Islam can (in principle) become as peaceful as the Ahmaddiya sect claims to be. People do change, especially when the alternative is death and destruction. It happened in Imperial Japan not so long ago. It's all a matter of incentives.
Voices From Standing RockStanding Firm in the Face of Threats

December 3, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The Army of Corps of Engineers, and the governor of North Dakota, have issued threats to arrest anyone who remains in the camp with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe after Monday, December 5. Revolution correspondents at Standing Rock shared these responses from people they talked to about those threats.

If you are at Standing Rock, write to us. Tell us why you are there, your thoughts on what is happening and why, and what needs to happen. Write to revolution.reports@yahoo.com.

Dawne, Shawnee Delaware Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux, Oklahoma

The Army Corps of Engineers told DAPL they do not have a permit to this land. Then they give us an eviction order, supposedly for our safety. Its really a slap in the face... Were standing up for the rights of the people, and that goes across the globe, worldwide. Were leading by example. If theres an eviction notice, well stand our ground, and do what we have to do. Were here in a prayerful, ceremonial way, but at the same time, everyone has their boundaries. We are clearly on our land, unceded land from the Fort Laramie Treaty. So we have a right to be here and they do not. And thats how I feel about it, and its not going to change.

Rafael, Art Monk

Im here with the Art Monastery Project. Im an Art Monk. Its inspiring to see people here pulling together. I dont see people going anywhere and I intend to be here well past the 5th.

Dan, Nez Perce Umatilla, Washington State

Ive been here since September. Around us here, you see the river warriors, who came down the river, canoeing for eight days. Back home we have a canoeing crew and we are related to coastal tribes, so were camped all here togetherriver warriors. Its been a really hard time. We worked really hard to fortify ourselves for the winter. We understand the weather can reach minus 40 to minus 70 with windchill. The winds are really brutal here. We worked from when the sun comes up on the morning till you drag your butt to bed... And all of a sudden we heard about the evacuation. How could we pack all of this up and move? So we talked in our camp, with one another. There are so many people here, people are happy to be here. But in our mind we were really stressing, are we gonna move? Or stay? But then a blizzard is coming, so maybe the creator made the choice for us. Were gonna stay here. Its been quite an emotional journey but were gonna stay here.

Mikkel, a solar technician from Washington.

I see this group of people banding together in unity and taking care of each other. Its hardship. But this is a really strong group. I have not seen these people give up. The reason I came here is because this nation, Standing Rock nation, sent out the word universally that they need help. The land were standing on right now is unceded land of the Laramie 1851 Treaty. Thats why were standing ground here, over that... This is the seventh generation, it has been spoken about that this would happen, because we are preparing for the eighth generation.

Photos: revcom.us

For full coverage and the current issue of REVOLUTION click here
Kathmandu, Nepal: The government has registered a seven-point constitution amendment bill at the parliament secretariat on Tuesday evening.

The proposed constitution amendment bill has incorporated much more things that the agitating Madhes based parties had demanded including the delineation of the provinces and proportional representation in the state mechanism.

The constitution amendment bill has proposed to spilt six Terai districts namely some parts of Nawalparasi (west of Susta Bardaghat), Rupandehi, Kapilbastu, Dang, Banke and Bardiya are kept in the province number five taking out the six hill districts of Palpa, Arghakhanchi, Gulmi, Rukum, Rolpa and Pyuthan. The separated hill districts are proposed to include in the province number four.

The government has registered the constitution amendment proposal notwithstanding the objections from the political parties and the people in general regarding the issue of separating Terai from Hills.

Not only the main opposition party, CPN-UML, but also leaders and member of the parliament represent from the province number five have strongly objected the governments decision to separate Terail from Hills.

Though the Nepali Congress has not taken any official decision over the issue of delineation of provinces particularly the issue of separating Teria districts from Hills in number five province, the ministers represent to the Nepali Congress in the government have not objected the amendment bill.

A cabinet meeting held on Tuesday evening made the decision to register the constitution amendment proposal in the parliament. Earlier on Tuesday, a meeting of the government head, CPN Maoist Center, had made a decision in line with the constitution amendment proposal.

The Supreme Court had also issued a so cause notice against the governments attempt to change the provinces.

The cabinet meeting has also decided to form a High-Level Delineation Commission on the name of settling all issues related to the delineation of provinces.

Besides the changes in the provincial delineation, the constitution amendment bill has proposed to revise the basis of representation in the upper house or national assembly.

In the bill, it is proposed that 35 of the total 56 members of the upper house will be elected on the basis of population and three members each will be assured from all provinces.

The amendment proposal has stated over the issue of naturalized citizenship that if foreign woman married to a Nepali national initiates a process to renounce her citizenship of her country of origin, that she will be granted naturalized citizenship. However, it is provisioned that federal law will be effective on the issue of naturalized citizenship.

Over the issue of language, the amendment bill has proposed to keep all languages to be languages of official business after determination from the Language Commission.
Kathmandu, Nepal: President Biddha Devi Bhandari has summoned all party meeting today at her office Sitalniwas on Sunday.

The meeting called for 4 pm is believed to urge the parties to forge consensus over the constitution amendment bill registered in the parliament.

Political parties have divided over the constitution amendment bill registered in the parliament. Not only the main opposition party CPN UML but also the agitating Madhes based parties have also opposed the amendment bill.
Genres : Cult, Crime, Drama, Horror, Thriller

Starring : Maria Schell, Herbert Lom, Mercedes McCambridge, Luciana Paluzzi, and Maria Rohm

Director : Jess Franco

Plot Synopsis

The Mother Of All Women-In-Prison Movies!



For his epic shocker of women gone wild, legendary director Jess Franco (JUSTINE) brought together a once-in-a-lifetime cast of International beauties including Maria Schell (THE ODESSA FILE), Luciana Paluzzi (THUNDERBALL), Rosalba Neri (LADY FRANKENSTEIN) and Maria Rohm (VENUS IN FURS). Oscar winner Mercedes McCambridge (JOHNNY GUITAR) and Herbert Lom (THE DEAD ZONE) co-star as the wardens of an island prison where luscious young lovelies surrender to their own desires. Behind bars... without men... experience the unchained passion of 99 WOMEN!



Blue Underground is proud to present the Unrated Director's Cut of 99 WOMEN in a brand new 4K restoration, along with startling Extras including an eye-popping interview with Jess Franco himself! This Limited Edition also includes a new 4K scan of the French Version (LES BRULANTES) on a bonus Blu-ray Disc!
Shirley Contreras lives in Orcutt and writes for the Santa Maria Valley Historical Society. She can be contacted at 623-8193 or at shirleycontreras2@yahoo.com. Her book, The Good Years, a selection of stories shes written for the Santa Maria Times since 1991, is on sale at the Santa Maria Valley Historical Society, 616 S. Broadway.
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If I have another son, I'm going to name him Daigoro.

In 1972, producer Katsu Shintaro (Zatoichi, Hanzo the Razor), director Misumi Kenji (also a veteran of the Zatoichi and Hanzo series), manga artist Koike Kazuo, and lead actor Wakayama Tomisaburo (brother of Katsu and period drama veteran) began a journey that would last six films, but have an impact on Japanese and international filmmakers for decades to come. Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance is the first in a series of incredibly violent, almost unbearably stylish, and unexpectedly tender films about a boy and his father on the run from a clan of assassins intent upon their demise.

The Lone Wolf and Cub series is the story of Ogami Itto (Wakayama), the former shogun's second for all state hara-kiri executions. For those unfamiliar with some of the more gruesome details of hara-kiri, the second is a swordsman who stands behind the person sentenced to commit ritual suicide by stomach cutting (seppuku). In cases where the person was deserving of a formal ceremony, the second would swiftly decapitate the victim so as not to prolong his agony. When Itto's wife is murdered by ninjas as part of a complicated plot to remove him from his post, he takes his toddler son, Daigoro, and runs, hoping to keep him safe from harm.

Now a disgraced ronin, Itto roams the countryside with Daigoro in a babycart, carrying a sign that says he, his son, and his sword are for hire to make ends meet. Over the course of six films and two years, Itto and his son cut a swath through feudal Japan as both swords for hire and occasionally soldiers of righteousness. Usually Itto is the sole vessel of violence, but Daigoro gets in on the action from time to time, as his father utilizes the dutiful and quick-witted boy's talents to their mutual advantage. This is one of many unique elements of this series that sets it apart from other similar swordplay films of the time, and it was these elements that kept Lone Wolf and Cub relevant as Japanese audiences turned more and more frequently to stories of youth gone wild in contemporary '70s Japan.

The series was one of the most expressively violent and artistically audacious mainstream series of the time, with its arterial sprays of day-glo blood painting the screen red at every opportunity. As many studios were turning toward sex and violence, with the rise of Nikkatsu's Roman Porno line, the Stray Cat Rock series, the Female Prisoner Scorpion films, the increasing number of so-called Pinky Violence films that flooded cinemas in the early '70s, it took a special kind of production to keep chanbara swordplay films in the running, and the Lone Wolf and Cub team were up for the challenge.

Only four of the six films in the series were directed by Misumi Kenji, but even the other two feel like part of the greater whole that has become the Lone Wolf and Cub series. Stylistically, Misumi was adventurous in the way he framed and shot action. From early films utilizing mesmerizing kimonos as an attempt to throw Itto off guard with their dizzying psychedelic patterns, to later films that borrowed more from the destitute wastelands of the great spaghetti westerns, Lone Wolf and Cub may have been violent, but it was first and foremost, beautiful.

Even after forty-two years, Lone Wolf and Cub remains a tremendously entertaining piece of art. Any attempt to separate these films into individual pieces would almost certainly fail to grasp the enormity and true unity of the series as an intentional whole. With four films released in 1972 alone, it is clear that the films were meant to be a single work, divided only by the pragmatic need to make them marketable.

Before receiving this set, I had only watched the first two films, and now having watched them all, one after another, I can say that I didn't truly understand the experience until now. The best way to view Lone Wolf and Cub is all at once. I let the beauty of the cinematography wash over me, I absorbed the powerful serenity that guided Itto's blade, I understood his need to keep his son safe from harm. Even though they are largely remembered as some of the goriest chanbara ever filmed (which they are), the Lone Wolf and Cub films have tremendous heart and that's what sticks with me when the final blade is returned to its scabbard.

The Discs:

The Criterion Collection has released the Lone Wolf and Cub series of six films on two Blu-ray discs. While this might seem troubling, the films look astoundingly good. I previously owned the Animeigo Blu-ray release, which infamously put the first film on its own disc and the other five on a separate disc. While neither is ideal, technically speaking, I find Criterion's releases to be vastly superior. The color balance and fine detail are exceptional in this release, which will be a relief to fans. Even though the six films are housed on only two discs, they don't share space with any of the extras, allowing the bitrate to go as high as possible within those modest constraints. The point is that the films look marvelous, and there's no reason whatsoever to be trepidatious about this set.

There is a third Blu-ray disc in this set that houses all of the bonus materials. The most striking of these is the retooled American cut, Shogun Assassin, which is the version of the film that came to US cinemas in the early '80s. I couldn't find any information about where this transfer came from, but it looks almost as good as the original film, though there is more damage present. This film is a recut of the first two Lone Wolf and Cub movies with an added voiceover to help bridge cultural gaps. The voiceover is from the perspective of Daigoro, the titular Cub, and it creates a very interesting vibe for the film, beyond a simple redubbing of the original actors. I really enjoy Shogun Assassin, and while it would never take the place of the original series in my heart, it's certainly a satisfying experience on its own.

Also included on the third disc are a host of interviews and specials, all of which help to contextualize the films and their place in Japanese cinema history. First up is a feature length making-of talking head documentary ported over from Wild Side's French editions of the series. At nearly an hour in length, it's a very interesting look at the people who made this film and their views on it all these years later.

There are also a series of new interviews shot exclusively for this Criterion release. There are interviews with Koike Kazuo, the writer and creator of the manga and screenwriter of five of the films, there is an interview with Nozawa Kazuma, an assocaite of director Misumi Kenji about Misumi's work and innovative style, and last there is an interview with Sensei Katsuse Yoshimitsu, in which he talks about the signature Suio-ryu sword techniques that Wakayama Tomisaburo uses in the film. This last interview is very interesting as the Sensei describes his life in the martial arts and demonstrates some of the tenets and movements associated with the art.

The set finishes up with a wonderful booklet (thank heavens it isn't another foldout) that features writing from Japanese culture critic Patrick Macias, who provides an overview of the series and its creators, as well as individual notes for all six films. It makes for fascinating reading for those of us - like me - who can't get enough of this series.

If you haven't bought this set by the time you've finished reading my review, you must not have been paying much attention. Lone Wolf and Cub is a stellar release from The Criterion Collection that deserves a place on every movie fan's shelf. Grab it!
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Framed up as an ostensibly responsible thing for "maintenance" and "community improvement," the proposed City bond doesn...
Tony Flannery (born 1947) is a member of the

Redemptorist congregation, a native of Attymon,

near Athenry in County Galway, Ireland.

He is the youngest of five children,

the eldest of whom died at three years of age.

His mother, Maisie, who died in 1995,

was a teacher in her early life, and

after marriage she worked as a seamstress.

His father, Paddy, worked in the local Bord na Mona bog,

and they also worked a small farm.

Tony joined the Redemptorists at the age of seventeen

in 1964, and was ordained a priest ten years later,

in 1974. He spent his priestly life as a

preacher of missions, novenas and retreats, mostly

around Ireland. He has written a number of books, and

numerous articles in a variety of publications, both

religious and secular. For about fourteen years he

contributed a regular column for the Redemptorist

magazine,

Reality. Three years ago Tony was part of the group

that

founded the Association of Catholic Priests, and

he continues to act as one of the Leadership Team.

In 2012 it was brought to his attention that the

Vatican objected to some of his articles in Reality

magazine.

He was summoned to Rome by the Superior

General of the Redemptorists, and this began

a long process which

culminated in him being forbidden to minister as a

priest, a situation that continues to this day.

He has written a full account of his dealings with the

Vatican in his latest book, A Question of Conscience.

He is under instruction from his religious authorities to

remain silent, but in early 2013 he decided to ignore

that stricture and go public. Since then he has been

a ctive in the reform movement around the world,

and is currently giving a series of talks around the

country entitled Repairing a Damaged Church.






Details are still emerging and the names of the dead have yet to be confirmed in a deadly warehouse fire that broke out Friday night in a bohemian space operated by an Oakland artists' collective called Satya Yuga. The space appears to have also been nicknamed the Ghost Ship, and a Tumblr page with that name shows flyers from past events and photos of the eclectically decorated interior of the second floor, stuffed with furniture, musical instruments, rugs, and hand-crafted wood structures, nooks, and sculptures. As the group described it on their Facebook page, "An unprecedented fusion of earth home bomb bunker helter skelter spelunker shelters and Indonesian straw huts rolling into valleys and down alleys."

Satya Yuga takes its name from a Hindu term for the first of four eras of humanity, when the human race is ruled by gods.

The group, which was said to include some 18 full-time residents of the Fruitvale District live-work space, further described themselves as "a collective of musicians, painters, woodworkers, hot dog vendors, scrappers, boutique designers and lingerie models." A friend of a couple of the DJ's at Friday's event, which was billed as the 100% Silk tour with headliner Golden Donna, told the East Bay Times that the collective was known to have parties like this to help pay rent on the 9,900-square-foot space. 100% Silk is an LA-based dance music label, as the LA Times reports, founded by couple Amanda and Britt Brown, and it "has played a crucial role in the development of independent electronic dance music in Los Angeles."

The East Bay Express is reporting that the building at 1305 31st Avenue had been flagged by city building inspectors following habitability complaints as recently as November 14, and building inspectors were on the property at that date. They noted an "illegal interior building structure," however they could not confirm specific code violations. Reportedly, however, the only way in and out of the second-floor event space, where the fire reportedly broke out, was a narrow, makeshift staircase made out of stacked wooden pallets.

The building owner is listed as Chor N. Ng of Oakland. Oakland City Council member Noel Gallo told the East Bay Times that he's received numerous complaints about the parties at the building, as well as complaints about illegal dumping around it.

Photos show the labyrinthine and highly flammable looking second-floor gathering space, which featured a drum kit, multiple pianos and organs, speakers, and other musical instruments. The density of stuff in the space has clearly hindered efforts to investigate the scene and recover bodies, because of the instability of the wooden roof and floors following the fire.

A Google spreadsheet has cropped up with various people offering lodging to anyone displaced in the fire.

Update: The Chronicle spoke with some surviving attendees of the party, who describe the intimate, maze-like space. Says one, "The building itself was an art piece. The walls were completely covered with makeshift pieces of wood, so finding the staircase if youd never been there before was difficult because they had built it into the wall in a certain way... Theres so much happening all over the building, so its hard to tell where the path is to anything. It all felt very cramped. The second floor was very much right on top of the first... I cant imagine how long itd take 40 people to get out, even in a calm situation."

Update 2: Yet another attendee tells the East Bay Express that the stairs were "poorly built" and he even twisted his ankle a bit coming down them. By most accounts, it appears that most anyone who was in the upstairs space, which was nicknamed the "rave cave," likely did not make it out. However a DJ who was spinning as the fire broke out, Golden Donna, has survived.

Below, a video of a party in the space from June.

Previously: Nine Dead, At Least 25 More Missing For After Fire Rips Through Oakland Warehouse During Party
Please scroll down for updates

With 80 percent of the burned-out building left to search, the Alameda County Sheriffs Office announced in an early morning press conference Sunday that a total of 24 bodies had been recovered from the Ghost Ship warehouse fire. A task force of fire department, police, sheriff's office personnel and others spent all of last night painstakingly sifting through debris at the site, a two-story live-work and event space in Oakland's Fruitvale district that first caught fire at 11:30 p.m. Friday and proceeded to burn wildly for four hours, trapping dozens of people inside. And in the 36 hours since, blame has been pointed multiple directions before the final tally of victims has been made, including toward the primary leaseholder and operator of the artist's collective who is said to have ignored warnings about the safety of the labyrinthine interior space.

As the New York Times reports, while only 20 percent of the building has been searched following delays Saturday due to fears of structural collapse, an unofficial list of names of the missing compiled by friends and family now stands at 35. The Alameda County Coroner has yet to officially identify any of the deceased, with the official count of nine on Saturday morning rising to 24 as of Sunday. Oakland Fire Department battalion chief Melinda Drayton described the scene of the search as, "It was quiet, it was heartbreaking." Officials expect the search to last several more days.

It remains unclear where in the building the fire began, but what is becoming clear from the accounts of survivors is that this was an extremely confusing space to navigate even in non-smoky conditions, and that the fire seemed to move very quickly, filling both floors with thick black smoke and quickly engulfing them in flames. Many described it in the immediate aftermath as a "tinderbox," and photos from before the fire showed an intricately and eclectically decorated bohemian space with many custom wood structures and sculptural details. The space apparently had two stairways down from a mezzanine level, though only one was known to most partygoers and it consisted of a wooden ramp and an irregular set of steps down made from stacked wooden pallets.

The Ghost Ship space, also known as the Satya Yuga artists' collective, was apparently home to 14 people at the time of the fire, and as CBS 5 reports, none of those 14 are among the dead. Whether they were in attendance at the party or not, the residents of the collective occupied a "maze of small workspaces" on the ground level, and were obviously all familiar with the path to the exit door.

The Associated Press and others have identified the operators of Ghost Ship as Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison, saying that they were able to cover the rent on the building by charging other artists for these spaces, and they covered their own living expenses by throwing underground parties like the one on Friday night. Posts on social media in the wake of the fire suggested that Almena had brushed off many warnings from friends about safety issues in the building, and had daisy-chained stolen electricity from a neighbor that ran throughout the building.

The landlord has been identified as Chor N. Ng of Oakland, who owns multiple buildings in the city, and as the East Bay Express first reported on Saturday, the building at 1305 31st Avenue had been under investigation by the Department of Building Inspection for several weeks at the time of Friday's fire, and it appears they had tried to inspect the premises on at least one occasion but got no answer at the front door, as the East Bay Times reported.

Former resident Shelley Mack, who lived in the space for five months in 2014, told the East Bay Times that she had personally witnessed generator fires in the space, as well as artists employing butane torches, and there were showers on the second level that had hot water heated with propane. Another former resident described a place "strewn with electrical wires that sometimes sparked" and said it "often smelled like burning wires and wood."

Many are already discussing how the dead in this blaze are, indirectly, casualties of the Bay Area's intense and expensive housing market, which has driven artists to seek alternative and often illegal housing solutions like this over the last two decades.

And the tradition of warehouse parties, though not unique to Oakland, has been something that has thrived here in large part because of both the lively music community and the plethora of vacant and semi-vacant warehouse spaces in the East Bay. 24-year-old blogger and guitarist Diego Aguilar-Canabal tells the New York Times he had been to a party at Ghost Ship about a year ago, and estimates he's been to about three dozen underground parties like this, in warehouses, over the last two years. "The basic idea is people want to do loud things late at night, and industrial space is really good for that because there arent many neighbors to complain, he tells the paper. Theres a lot of anxiety about income inequality and class warfare, and a lot of these artists are trying to do the best they can to have a community.

As the death toll rises, this fire has easily become one of the deadliest structure fires in state history, if not the deadliest, and one of the deadliest fires in the last decade across the country  with many on Saturday drawing comparisons to the 2003 Station nightclub fire in Warwick, Rhode Island, which claimed the lives of 100 people largely because of the narrowness of an exit passageway.

A crowd-funding campaign to help victims of the fire has raised over $48,000 of a $60,000 goal, with the Oakland A's and Raiders matching donations up to $30,000. The Golden State Warriors, meanwhile, have pledge $50,000 to Unity Council, which resides in the same neighborhood of the fire, in order to aid victims.

Update 3:58 p.m.: In a Sunday afternoon press conference, Oakland city officials announced that 33 bodies have now been recovered from the site of the blaze, 40 percent of which had been searched as of 3:15 p.m.

The East Bay Times quotes Alameda County Sheriffs Office spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly as saying 'We have no idea' how many victims are still inside," at the press event.

Victims include the son of an Alameda County Sheriffs Office deputy and "foreign citizens," Kelly said, but declined to publicly name the victims, saying they would do so later on Sunday.

That is an astronomical number. Were still not done. they are working and pulling this building apart and dissecting it so we are really starting to get deeper into the building as we do that we continue to find more victims, Kelly says.

The Alameda County Sheriffs Officers Coroners Bureau is asking that family and friends of those missing retain DNA from the possible victims. That could be hairbrushes, combs, or toothbrushes, Coroners Bureau Cpt. Melanie Ditzenberger. said. We ask those items be placed in a secure, clean paper sack. Do not send them to Coroners Bureau. We will ask for them as we need them.

Its a terrible thing to have to say that and to have to come out here and do that, Kelly said. "But thats what we are left to deal with here."

According to officials, the Alameda County District Attorneys Office has launched a criminal investigation into the fire. The East Bay Times reports that "Oakland Mayor Libby Schaff confirmed that a team of investigators from the city is at the scene and interviewing witnesses, but would not confirm whether criminal charges will be filed."

Previously: Pre-Fire Photos From Inside Oakland's 'Ghost Ship' Collective, Which Was Cited Two Weeks Ago By Building Inspectors


125 YEARS AGO

Ladies clothes: Pearl Street was lined with bustles last night. Several boxes of the now unfashionable articles of feminine apparel were left standing in front of the Davis store near Fourth Street. Some sportive party kicked them all over the street.

Around town: Mrs. J. M. Brown read a paper at the Womens Mission Society at First M. E. Church on Where we go. Why we go. To whom we go. And, for what we go. The Kennel Club is getting together a fine collection of dogs for breeding purposes. The Cycle Club is preparing to make a run in the country on New Years Eve, returning after midnight when it will be served a banquet at a restaurant.

No shoes, either: Early Sunday morning Officer Campbell found a man partially clothed and in his bare feet roaming the city. Campbell took the man, who is apparently a hopeless maniac, to the station and locked him up. He claimed he is Thomas Edison.

100 YEARS AGO

Needs clothes: Bernard Koyne, of Oto, Iowa, a 19-year-old farmer, weighing 275 pounds and measuring 7 feet 8 1/2 inches in height, was in Sioux City this week. He is obliged to have his clothes made to special order and he was in town to order a supply for the winter.

Jimmies back: Jimmie Monahan, a leader of a number of foraging expeditions and several times reformer, was charged with the robbery of the cottage of Councilman Rudoph Beerends at Riverside Park. When confronted with the evidence, Jimmie again confessed, but was unable to give the names of his two companions.

Food news: Gus Guianas, the Greek proprietor of a restaurant at 826 1/2 Fourth Street, was fined $25 for serving colored oleomargarine without displaying signs as provided by statute.  The city food inspector condemned more food  150 pounds of fish shipped from Omaha to a Fourth Street butcher.

50 YEARS AGO

Safe cracker: A safe was peeled at the Pheasant Bar in North Sioux City early Monday morning and $180 in coins were taken, in addition to another $30 from pinball machines and a jukebox. Owner Ray Christiansen said a case of whiskey and 15 cartons of cigarettes also were stolen.

Grand winner: The grand prize winner of the Salvation Armys and First National Banks annual doll dressing contest is Mrs. Frances Krommenhoek, 3021 Chambers St. Her Little Bo Peep doll included a hand-made woolly lamb. Residents dressed 142 dolls, which the Salvation Army will distribute to needy families with young girls.

Day of infamy: The 25th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was observed Wednesday in flag-raising ceremonies at Peters Park in Sioux City. Mike Murray, 2001 George St., a leader of the Iowa Veterans of Pearl Harbor, is attending ceremonies in Hawaii where he was stationed on Dec. 7, 1941.

25 YEARS AGO

Too many trotters: More than 100 semi-wild turkeys have taken up residence in the Forest View Drive neighborhood in Sioux City, annoying many of the homeowners. Some residents like to feed them. Sioux City Animal Control will work with state officials to capture and relocate them. That could take years.

In the news: Mark Stuck, an investment executive with the Sioux City office of Piper, Jaffray & Hopwood, Inc., has been elected an assistant vice president. Lester Sadoff, of Sadoffs Mens Clothing Store, was presented with the Pride of Siouxland Award by the Sioux City Chambers Small Business Committee. David and Julie Hofland of Sanborn have been selected as Iowa Master Lamb Producers by Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Dale Cochran.

Holiday programs: The fifth annual Festival of Trees display will be available for viewing Saturday through Dec. 15 in Spencer, Iowa. ...A Christmas Tour of eight homes in Ponca, Neb., will be held this weekend beginning at the museum. The 21st annual Akron, Iowa, Community Christmas Program will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday at Trinity Lutheran Church.

These items were published in the Journal Dec. 4-10, 1891, 1916, 1966 and 1991.
SIOUX CITY -- Gleeson Constructors & Engineers of Sioux City has expanded its staff.

The firm recently added Sally Williams and Peter Hoelsema to its project engineering team.

Williams is a Sioux City native who previously worked for Wexler Associates Structural Engineers of New York. She earned a masters degree in structural engineering from the University of Notre Dame, where she also completed her undergraduate studies.

Hoelsema is a 2016 graduate of Dordt College in Sioux Center, where he earned a bachelors degree in civil engineering. The Michigan native was one of four Dordt engineering students who donated their time and skill to build a bridge for an impoverished community in Liberia, a country located on the west coast of Africa, in December 2015.

Gleeson specializes in the design and construction of food processing facilities r
La Jolla, CALIF. -- Gateway co-founder and Sioux City native Ted Waitt has been named chairman of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies Board of Trustees.

Waitt, chairman of the Waitt Foundation and one of America's most generous philanthropists, will succeed Irwin Jacobs, philanthropist and founder of San Diego-based QUALCOMM, who has led the Salk Board since November 2006.

Jacobs, who will remain on the board, said the trustees unanimously agreed Waitt was the "right successor" to lead the board.

He is wholly enthusiastic and committed to Salks basic biological research and has the enterprising leadership and vision to expand the reach of the Institutes science even further, Jacobs said in a statement.

Waitt, who started Gateway with a friend on his family's cattle farm in Sioux City in 1985, grew the personal computer maker into a Fortune 500 firm before retiring in 2004. The same year he joined the Salk board of Trustees in 2004, and has served as a vice chair, as well as chair of governance committee and currently sits on Salks executive committee.

In 2008, the Waitt Foundation gave a $20 million grant that funded the creation of the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center at Salk. The center employs next-generation imaging and visualization tools that enable investigators from across many biological disciplines to take advantage of the latest technology for advancement in such research areas as aging, cancer, neuroscience, metabolism, vision, infectious diseases and genetic disorders.

The Salk Institute, based in La Jolla, not far from one of Waitt's homes in southern California, was founded in 1960 by Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the first safe and effective polio vaccine.

Waitt expressed his gratitude to Jacobs for shepherding the high-risk, high-reward biomedical science that has long been his passion.

"I look forward to working closely with Dr. Blackburn, the faculty and the trustees to implement Dr. Blackburns vision for bold, transformative science while ushering in an era of unprecedented financial success at Salk," Waitt said in a statement.

Waitt says he intends to dedicate the majority of his professional time to Salk and related scientific areas while the Waitt Foundation will continue to remain focused on ocean conservation.

In the past decade, the Waitt Foundation has invested over $70 million in global ocean initiatives and has been involved with a number of partners in the creation of over 12 million square kilometers of protected ocean around the planet.

While I continue to view overfishing as the single biggest fixable problem facing our planet and its inhabitants in the near term, I see biological research as the biggest opportunity for humanity over the next decade. Im humbled to play a role alongside the incredible Salk scientists who will undoubtedly continue to deliver incredible breakthroughs for the benefit of mankind, Waitt said.

Waitt attended the universities of Colorado and Iowa and received an honorary doctorate of science from the University of South Dakota. He has earned a number of honors, among them the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the U.S. Small Business Association.

Waitt has four grown children and resides in Southern California with his wife, Michele.
CHEROKEE, Iowa | Jezzika McKee's cell phone illuminates.

"Give it to Mummy. It's the hospital. Mummy needs to talk to them," McKee pleads with her daughter Neveya, who is clutching the device in her small hands and standing among a sea of stuffed animals scattered across the wood floor in their living room. A lighted Christmas tree sits in a corner.

McKee struggles to retrieve the phone from the soon-to-be 3-year-old while balancing her baby son, Samyuel, on her hip.

"Hello. ... Hi," she says, now sitting at the edge of a vintage gray and beige sofa with Samyuel in her lap. Neveya shrieks with laughter as a musical toy plays the Alphabet Song.

Neveya arrived a week after her due date. Samyuel was born more than 3 1/2 months early.

Now 15 months old, the 19-pound boy's weight continues to seesaw. He sees a pediatrician more than 50 miles away in Sioux City every other week. A nurse visits his family's apartment three times a week to weigh him and check his lungs.

"He's thrown up pretty much everything his whole life," McKee says of her son, who suffers from severe reflux and receives nourishment through a feeding tube inserted into his stomach.

Being born too early, before the 37th week of pregnancy, can cause short-term problems involving the lungs, heart, brain and immune system. But it may also lead to long-term complications impacting vision, hearing and learning. Preemies are also more likely than full-term infants to have chronic health issues such as infections, asthma and feeding problems.

In spite of these risks, the United States trails less developed countries at preventing preterm birth. The United States ranks 131st out of 184 countries behind Somalia, Turkey and Thailand, according to the March of Dimes.

For the first time in eight years, the nonprofit organization that works to improve the health of mothers and babies reports that preterm birth is on the rise in the United States, increasing from 9.57 to 9.63 percent of births. An additional 2,000 babies were born prematurely in the country in 2015. The March of Dimes gave the United States a "C" based on its preterm birth rate.

The state of Iowa received a "B," after improving its preterm birth rate from 9.3 percent to 9 percent over a year's time. Grades are assigned by comparing the 2015 preterm birth rate of a state or locality to the March of Dimes' goal of 8.1 percent by 2020.

Woodbury County maintained a "C," after seeing its preterm birth rate slightly increase from 9.7 percent to 9.8 percent in a year's time. Woodbury County and Polk County tied for the highest preterm birth rate among the state's six counties with the greatest number of births.

Al Fleming, a perinatologist at UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's, says any increase in the preterm birth rate isn't good, but he thinks the current rates at the local, state and national level are "pretty reasonable" given the national preterm birth rate hovered around 12 percent in 2013.

"If you look at the groups that are delivering preterm, the rates of prematurity are in a higher gestational age group relative to what it was before. That preterm group previously was less than 28 weeks," he says. "Now we're seeing the higher rates of prematurity are actually above 32 weeks, which is better than it was."

Who's at risk?

At the beginning of her pregnancy, McKee experienced mild spotting.

She says her doctor told her it wasn't anything to worry about, initially. When the spotting got worse, she was referred to Fleming, who detected a blood clot.

There are several risk factors -- maternal, fetal or a combination of both -- that lead to preterm birth.

Fleming says decidual hemorrhage, or bleeding, which is "very common," can change the environment inside the uterus and stimulate labor. Extra water in the uterus, carrying twins and fibroids -- abnormal growths that develop in the uterus -- can cause early labor.

"If you have continued bleeding like in the first 12 weeks and then into the second part of the pregnancy and that bleeding continues, then those patients are at very high risk for early labor and delivery," he says.

Women who smoke, use drugs or are overweight or underweight are at increased risk for preterm labor. When modifiable risk factors exist, physicians can intervene early on in the pregnancy to try to prevent preterm birth, but Fleming says the vast majority of women -- up to two-thirds -- don't have identifiable risk factors because they've never been pregnant before.

Preterm births are also more likely among teen moms and women over 40.

"We know there are many causes, but pinpointing who's at risk is the hard part," Fleming says. "The largest group of women who are at risk are those who've had a prior preterm delivery."

Patients at high risk for subsequent preterm labor can receive weekly injections of hydroxyprogesterone caproate or 17P to prevent it. The synthetic form of progesterone, a hormone vital to maintaining a pregnancy, gained FDA approval for prevention of preterm delivery in women with a history of it in 2011 under the brand name Makena.

A Christmas miracle

At 23 weeks gestation, McKee went into labor.

Paramedics drove her by ambulance to Methodist Women's Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. There, doctors were able to delay her labor.

A week later, on July 25, while McKee was having lunch with Neveya and her husband, Ryley, at the hospital, she went into labor again. At 7 centimeters, Samyuel got stuck in the birth canal and McKee had to undergo a C-section. Samyuel weighed just 1 pound, 12 ounces at birth.

"He actually ended up getting really sick. He would drop down to 1 pound, 3 ounces," says McKee, who made the more than two-hour trip to Omaha with friends to visit Samyuel whenever she could. "I just kept that in my head, 'He's in a good place.'"

The Institute of Medicine reported in 2007 that premature birth in the United States costs $26.2 billion each year -- $1.9 billion in labor and delivery costs and $16.9 billion in medical and health care costs for the baby. Government assistance programs such as Medicaid and Supplemental Social Security Income can help cover the costs of a premature birth.

McKee says it was difficult caring for her daughter, working as a cashier at Fareway and then traveling to see her tiny son lying in an incubator hooked up to tubes and monitors. Samyuel spent 150 days in the neonatal intensive care unit.

"I was working to make ends meet, so we were able to pay bills. We couldn't afford rent, so we actually ended up moving," she says. "Back then we didn't have a working car."

On Dec. 21, McKee got her "Christmas miracle" -- Samyuel was finally released from the hospital. But caring for him was a big challenge. She had to feed her son every three hours and set an alarm to remind herself. She said there were many nights when she didn't get a wink of sleep.

"He was on a bottle for a while, but he ended up losing his sucking reflex, so he wouldn't take the bottle. We are just now getting him to eat food," she says. "Yesterday he weighed 19.1 (pounds), which is less than what he weighed the day before."

A couple months after Samyuel came home from the hospital, McKee, who was emotionally drained, quit her job. Disability benefits that Samyuel receives through Social Security help supplement the family's income.

"(Samyuel) kept going back into the hospital for things. It just got overwhelming. I just couldn't do it anymore," McKee says as Samyuel lets out a loud cry and kicks his stocking-clad feet.

Now, McKee is a full-time stay-at-home mom while her husband works as a subcontractor. This Christmas she's looking forward to putting presents underneath the tree for her children, something she couldn't afford to do last year.

"I strongly dislike it when people say they're ready for this baby to come and they're only like 30 weeks pregnant. Don't say that cause it could happen," she says.
News / National

by Staff reporter

British multinational banking and financial services group Standard Chartered Bank Plc previously embroiled in controversial sanctions investigations in the United States and freezing of capital investment in Zimbabwe has unexpectedly agreed to shell out US$262 million to bail out President Robert Mugabe's bankrupt regime.Documents show the British bank, which operates a network of over 1 200 branches and outlets across more than 70 countries around the world, including Zimbabwe will pay half of the US$524 million which Harare has to settle to the AfDB.Mugabe's government is pulling out all the stops to rescue and revive its Lima Plan arrears clearance strategy ahead of the African Development Bank (AfDB) board meetings slated for December 7 as the debt-ridden country seeks to settle outstanding obligations in order to secure US$2 billion in fresh funding.With just over a month before the window for accessing the AfDB bridge facility closes, Zimbabwe is frantically scrambling to secure US$600 million from the regional bank to clear its arrears and avert a catastrophic setback in efforts to bail out the sinking economy.Before successfully clearing its arrears to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently, Zimbabwe owed three international financial institutions (IFIs), who enjoy preferred creditor status, US$1,8 billion. The country had been in arrears since the turn of the millennium, disqualifying it from accessing cheap funding.However, the issue of economic, institutional and policy reforms remains a stumbling block for Zimbabwe which is badly in need of funding to halt economic implosion.Information gathered by the Zimbabwe Independent shows that the government is making frantic efforts to convince the World Bank and AfDB that it is still committed to paying the arrears. Initially, the country wanted to settle the arrears by June this year, but the deadline was later shifted to December.Sources close to the developments said government is now expected to pay AfDB arrears by January 2017 and World Bank arrears by March.Zimbabwe has already tabled an unusual proposal to have the US$600 million AfDB facility rolled over to next year so that it can first put its house in order by meeting the reform benchmarks which are a pre-requisite for any funding from the regional bank.Against this backdrop, Harare wants the AfDB board meeting slated for December 7 to extend the window for it to access the bridge finance. It reportedly has the support of the British government and its Harare embassy which is now pushing for regime retention, not regime change, as London desperately tried to do previously.Documents gleaned by the Independent also show that Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya last week wrote to Paolo Belli, the World Bank's acting country director for South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana and Zimbabwe, recommitting to the Lima Plan despite earlier indications that the programme had been sabotaged due to a strong lobby against it.Sources said Zimbabwe is now waiting for a comfort letter from the World Bank, which is expected to be delivered to the AfDB by November 30 ahead of its board meetings. The southern African nation is also expected to furnish the World Bank Group (WBG) with its reform progress report and economic development strategy."The clearance has been pushed to January 2017 to ensure that the arrears clearance to the remaining IFIs, the World Bank and the AfDB are settled as closely as possible whilst at the same time giving sufficient time to the World Bank to provide a comfort letter required by the AfDB to proceed with their board approval," reads part of a letter written to Belli dated November 17.Mangudya could not be reached for comment as his phone went unanswered.This comes after Belli wrote to Zimbabwe seeking clarity and progress on the arrears clearance plan. The country has already cleared arrears with the IMF after paying US$108 million using its holdings of the fund's Special Drawing Rights. Should the debt-ridden Zimbabwe access the bridge facility, it would require an additional US$1,2 billion to clear World Bank arrears."A significant portion due to AfDB and Africa Development Fund totalling about US$627 million will be refinanced through a bridge facility, whereby the AfDB's Pillar II Fund under the Transition Support Facility of about US$548,8 million will be utilised to repay the bridge facility almost simultaneously to the lenders' approval and disbursement of facility proceeds on behalf of Zimbabwe."In this regard, Standard Chartered shall co-finance the bridge facility with Afreximbank," reads the confidential document from the RBZ.Zimbabwe was expected to have submitted a Commitment Letter of Arrears Clearance to the WBG (World Bank Group) by October 31."On the basis of the Commitment Letter acceptable to the WBG, the WBG will proceed to issue a letter of no objection to AfDB by the 15th of November 2016. The residual gap of US$80 million, which will not be covered by Pillar II funds will be paid by Zimbabwe using its own resources," the document says.Sources said while it appears as though the Lima Plan has been revived, delays in implementing reforms proposed to the IFIs ahead of full engagement with the international community could scuttle Zimbabwe's access to concessionary funding.Zimbabwe requires a raft of reforms, which include reducing the fiscal deficit to sustainable levels through the alignment and re-organisation of the public service, to secure funding.Currently, the government wage bill gobbles up 96% of total revenue. Chinamasa's bid to reduce the wage bill announced in his mid-term fiscal policy review statement in September was blocked by cabinet.Government is also expected to strengthen financial sector stability and confidence as well as accelerate the ease of doing business reforms and reduce the cost of doing business under the Rapid Results Approach to enhance investor confidence. Overhauling state-owned enterprises and parastatals is also critical for Zimbabwe's re-engagement process.
SIOUX CITY | FBI agents seized computer data from the city of Sioux City Thursday in connection with an ongoing federal investigation into management of the city's wastewater treatment plant, officials familiar with the case said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations served a search warrant on the joint city-county Information Technology Department housed in the Woodbury County Courthouse.

Woodbury County Sheriff Dave Drew confirmed Saturday the warrant was filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Iowa, but said he could not comment on the reason for the unannounced search.

Sandra Breault, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Omaha office, in an email Saturday, referred all inquiries into the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Iowa.

Kevin Techau, U.S. attorney for Iowa's Northern District, did not immediately return a call to the Journal Saturday.

The city's wastewater treatment practices have been under state and federal scrutiny since April 2015 when the Iowa Department of Natural Resources learned two plant supervisors were manipulating chemical levels used to treat sewage, which resulted in legally permitted discharges into the Missouri River to contain high levels of E.coli bacteria, potentially endangering public health.

In June, the state Environmental Protection Commission referred the case to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller for consideration of civil penalties higher than the DNR, whose penalties are capped by state law at $10,000.

State officials also confirmed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was looking into possible violations of federal environmental laws.

Last Thursday's search of the city's IT department appears to be the first public indication that the U.S. Attorney is considering criminal charges related to the case.

Guy Cook, a Des Moines attorney retained to represent the city, mayor, city council and city staff in the wastewater-related litigation, said Saturday the city is fully cooperating with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI.

"We have taken steps to work collaboratively with them to provide what they are seeking," he said.

Cook declined to specifically comment on Thursday's search warrant, including what data federal agents were looking for and what was removed from the courthouse.

City Attorney Nicole DuBois and Mayor Bob Scott also declined comment Saturday.

Prior to the state Environmental Protection Commission taking action, Cook had argued the city should be given credit for immediately taking remedial action after the environmental violations were revealed. He said the city is in compliance with all wastewater regulations.

The Iowa DNR began its investigation into the city's operations after receiving a tip in April 2015 that plant supervisors Jay Niday and Pat Schwarte had dramatically raised chlorine and bisulfate doses on days that E. coli samples were taken and then reduced the levels. A statement said that at least four other city employees took part in the manipulation of test results on directions from Niday and Schwarte, and the practice dated back as far as 2011, when the city took over operation of the plant from a private contractor. The report did not identify the other workers.

Niday, the former wastewater operator in charge, told state investigators the city saved at least $100,000 in one year when workers administered the smaller levels of chlorine.

Schwarte and Niday were both dismissed by the city, and they agreed to surrender their state wastewater licenses.

Journal reporter Nick Hytrek also contributed to this story.
SIOUX CITY | The quest that started in Moville will end in Lawton.

It will take 1 1/2 years, but the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 12 will meet the goal of holding meetings in each of the 14 towns outside the county seat of Sioux City.

From towns with a few hundred people to Sergeant Bluff with 4,300 residents, the five supervisors and some key county officials have gone to each locale to hear concerns of residents.

"People appreciate bringing their government to them where they are at," county board chairman Jeremy Taylor said.

The endeavor started off with the goal to hold full board meetings with agenda items addressed in those towns, but eventually that was scratched. Some meetings have tied in with city council meetings in the respective towns.

The aim all along is to reach county residents where they live, since few journey to the weekly Tuesday county supervisor meetings in the Woodbury County Courthouse in downtown Sioux City. The supervisors see it as necessary outreach to make sure people are heard.

Taylor said the meetings were a follow-through on a promise two years ago to increase accessibility to rural residents.

"Not only does this give us a chance as supervisors to discuss the direction of Woodbury County, but more importantly it's a listening post to hear concerns, questions and comments. In doing so, we have gotten to know our rural communities and the folks out there in an important way that staying in Sioux City would not allow us to do," Taylor said.

Lawton City Clerk Carla Eidenshink said the Dec. 12 meeting will be held at city hall from 7 to 8 p.m. Eidenshink said the council members were glad to set a meeting with the supervisors. One event that could crimp attendance is that the Lawton-Bronson School District has a holiday music concert the same evening.

When the first meeting occurred in Moville in June 2015, more than 50 people participated. Those on hand included the five supervisors, nine county employees, Moville Mayor Jim Fisher and three Moville City Council members. Another 35 people also turned out, with most of those from Moville and Sioux City, along with others from Correctionville, Bronson and Anthon.

Supervisor Larry Clausen said turnout in the towns has been wide-ranging. Clausen said that in some towns no one beyond the mayor and city council members attended. Taylor said the attendance average was about 20 to 30 people.

Clausen said the primary theme on questions has involved the quality of roads and bridges, so having County Engineer Mark Nahra along has been beneficial in the meetings. People wonder when a bridge might be replaced or ask about the quality of gravel roads.

"They are all legitimate questions. It is just a good thing for people to have that opportunity," Clausen said.

Clausen and Taylor said they expect outreach to rural residents will continue, but maybe more regionally and not in all towns.

"I do see the endeavor continuing but perhaps quarterly in several locations feasible for all rural residents to get to," Taylor said.
CANNON BALL, N.D.  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday that it won't grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota.

The decision is a victory for the several thousand camped near the construction site, who've said for months that the four-state, $3.8 billion project would threaten a water source and cultural sites.

The pipeline is largely complete except for the now-blocked segment underneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. According to a news release, Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said her decision was based on the need to "explore alternate routes" for the pipeline's crossing.

"Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it's clear that there's more work to do," Darcy said. "The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing."

The company constructing the pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, had said it was unwilling to reroute the project. It and the Morton County Sheriff's Office, which has done much of the policing of the protests, didn't have immediate comment.

U.S. Secretary for the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement that the Corps' "thoughtful approach ... ensures that there will be an in-depth evaluation of alternative routes for the pipeline and a closer look at potential impacts" and "underscores that tribal rights reserved in treaties and federal law, as well as Nation-to-Nation consultation with tribal leaders, are essential components of the analysis to be undertaken in the environmental impact statement going forward."

The federal government has ordered people to leave the main encampment, which is on Army Corps of Engineers' land, by Monday. But demonstrators say they're prepared to stay, and authorities say they won't forcibly remove them.

Earlier Sunday, an organizer with Veterans Stand for Standing Rock said tribal elders had asked the military veterans not to have confrontations with law enforcement officials, adding the group is there to help out those who've dug in against the project.

About 250 veterans gathered about a mile from the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, camp in southern North Dakota for a meeting with organizer Wes Clark Jr., the son of former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark. The group had said about 2,000 veterans were coming, but it wasn't clear how many actually arrived.

"We have been asked by the elders not to do direct action," Wes Clark Jr. said. He then talked about North Dakota authorities' decision to move away from a key bridge north of the encampment by 4 p.m. Sunday if demonstrators agree to certain conditions, saying the National Guard and law enforcement have armored vehicles and are armed.

"If we come forward, they will attack us," Clark said. Instead, he told the veterans, "If you see someone who needs help, help them out."

Authorities said they'll move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge if protesters stay south of it and come to the bridge only if there is a prearranged meeting. Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in the late October conflict that led to several people being hurt, including a serious arm injury.

"The question was asked if we would consider pulling back from the Backwater Bridge," Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said in a Saturday news release after a conversation between law enforcement and the group's organizers, "and the answer is yes! We want this to de-escalate."

Protesters also are not supposed to walk, ride or fly drones north of the bridge, Laney said. Any violation will "will result in their arrest," the statement said.

The bridge blockade is something that Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault has been asking to be removed, the Bismarck Tribune reports , and something he said he would to talk to Gov. Jack Dalrymple about when they meet in person. A date for that meeting hasn't been set.

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock's GoFundMe.com page had raised more than $1 million of its $1.2 million goal by Sunday  money due to go toward food, transportation and supplies. Cars waiting to get into the camp Sunday afternoon were backed up for more than a half-mile.

"People are fighting for something, and I thought they could use my help," said Navy veteran and Harvard graduate student Art Grayson. The 29-year-old from Cambridge, Massachusetts, flew the first leg of the journey, then rode from Bismarck in the back of a pickup truck. He has finals this week, but told professors, "I'll see you when I get back."

Steven Perry, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran who's a member of the Little Traverse Bay band of Odawa Indians in Michigan, spoke of one of the protesters' main concerns: that the pipeline could pollute drinking water. "This is not just a native issue," he said, "This is an issue for everyone."

Art Woodson and two other veterans drove 17 hours straight from Flint, Michigan, a city whose lead-tainted water crisis parallels with the tribe's fight over water, he said.

"We know in Flint that water is in dire need," the 49-year-old disabled Gulf War Army veteran said. "In North Dakota, they're trying to force pipes on people. We're trying to get pipes in Flint for safe water."

On Monday, some veterans will take part in a prayer ceremony in which they'll apologize for historical detrimental conduct by the military toward Native Americans and ask for forgiveness, Clark said. He also called the veterans' presence "about right and wrong and peace and love."
What in the name of freedom and human rights is up with the warm tributes we have read from some Western leaders, including Barack Obama, about late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro?

We know that this moment fills Cubans - in Cuba and in the United States - with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation, Obama said following Castro's Nov. 25 death. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.

This, from an American leader whose country severed diplomatic relations with a Castro-led (Fidel Castro stepped down as president of Cuba in 2008, replaced by his brother, Raul) communist Cuba for 54 years, until July 2015.

Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister, gets our trophy for most puzzling, if not troubling eulogy of Castro, however. In expressing "deep sorrow," Trudeau said, "Fidel Castro was a larger-than-life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and health care of his island nation."

Meanwhile, jubilant Cuban exiles partied in the streets of Miami's Little Havana neighborhood in the wake of news about Castro's death.

Castro leaves a legacy in Cuba, all right, but it's a brutal legacy in which iron-fisted oppression and suppression obscured whatever advancements in education or health care may have been made.

"During his nearly five decades of rule in Cuba, Fidel Castro built a repressive system that punished virtually all forms of dissent, a dark legacy that lives on even after his death," according to Human Rights Watch. "During Castros rule, thousands of Cubans were incarcerated in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated, and entire generations were denied basic political freedoms."

In offering a view of the past based in reality, President-elect Donald Trump said he believes a future minus Castro holds promise for Cuba.

"Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights," Trump said in a statement. "While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve."

We share this vision.

As we have said before, we agree with President Obama on this: It's time for a thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba. The visit by Obama to Cuba earlier this year struck us as premature and ill-advised, but we supported the Obama administration's restoration of relations with Cuba because we believe a new course of improved dialogue with the Caribbean nation located only about 100 miles from our shores is in U.S. national security and economic interests.

Certainly, the issue of human rights in Cuba is and should remain a U.S. concern and we understand a Castro remains the leader of what is a largely freedomless nation, but we believe America's prospects for affecting positive change in this area will improve if slow, but sure communication between our countries continues.

Minus the looming shadow of Fidel Castro, whose life we do not praise or celebrate, better days between America and Cuba and within Cuba itself may be ahead.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party leader Morgan Tsvangirai has called on President Robert Mugabe's administration to adopt the South African rand as its major trading currency amid cash shortages in the country.Zimbabwe introduced bond notes on Monday to avert a cash crisis that has resulted in the majority of Zimbabweans failing to access their cash from local banks.The former prime minister slammed the country's central bank for introducing the bond notes saying they were not the solution to the country's liquidity problems.The country's central bank governor John Mangudya said the bond notes were backed by a $200m Africa Export Import Bank loan facility.The bond notes have failed to ease bank queues amid reports that the surrogate currency is in short supply.Tsvangirai urged the government to open negotiations with Pretoria and adopt the Rand as a major currency ahead of the US dollar because Zimbabwe trades more with South Africa compared to the USA."We can all be proud to be Zimbabweans with our own dollar but it does not mean anything if it's worth nothing. Time has now come to bring to the attention of the Zanu-PF government that all its policies are short-lived and bringing these bond notes that I equate to bond paper is suicidal; this is the last nail on the country's economy," added the former PM.However, Zimbabwe's finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, told News24 that Harare would maintain the status quo."We adopted the multi-currency regime and the rand is part of the currencies that we are using and people have a choice to use the rand or the US dollar or any other currency," said the finance chief.
News / National

by Simbarashe Sithole

Mvurwi police are hunting for a thug who is said to be armed with a machete, and an axe and living in the bush, stealing people's food and other valuables in their absence.The police dog section unit has been searching for the man who is also said to have attacked one villager in the bush on Sunday in Forester B, Mashonaland Central province.Villagers who spoke to Bulawayo24.com said they were in fear as he threatens to kills those who come close to him."We are now living in fear because of this thug, but we suspect he is new in our area and he is stealing our valuables in this harsh economic era.We hope police will soon apprehend him, currently they are chasing shadows with their dogs," said the source.A woman identified as Amai Admire vowed to poison him if he continues to steal prepared meals again."I want to assure you if this thug continues to steal our prepared food he is a dead man because we will poison him."How can someone steal our little food? We are just farm workers struggling to put food on the table, surely we will deal with him," fumed the woman.Cases of robbery are on the increase in Zimbabwe as the liquidity crunch continues.
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Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, and markets biopharmaceutical products worldwide. It offers products for hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, immunology, fibrotic, neuroscience, and covid-19 diseases. The company's products include Revlimid, an oral immunomodulatory drug for the treatment of multiple myeloma; Eliquis, an oral inhibitor for reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in NVAF, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; Opdivo for anti-cancer indications; Pomalyst/Imnovid indicated for patients with multiple myeloma; and Orencia for adult patients with active RA and psoriatic arthritis. It also provides Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia; Yervoy for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma; Abraxane, a protein-bound chemotherapy product; Reblozyl for the treatment of anemia in adult patients with beta thalassemia; and Empliciti for the treatment of multiple myeloma. In addition, the company offers Zeposia to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; Breyanzi, a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma; Inrebic, an oral kinase inhibitor indicated for the treatment of adult patients with myelofibrosis; and Onureg for the treatment of adult patients with AML. It sells products to wholesalers, distributors, pharmacies, retailers, hospitals, clinics, and government agencies. The company was formerly known as Bristol-Myers Company. The company was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
CNO Financial Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops, markets, and administers health insurance, annuity, individual life insurance, and other insurance products for senior and middle-income markets in the United States. It offers Medicare supplement, supplemental health, and long-term care insurance policies; life insurance; and annuities, as well as Medicare advantage plans to individuals through phone, online, mail, and face-to-face. The company also focuses on worksite and group sales for businesses, associations, and other membership groups by interacting with customers at their place of employment. In addition, it provides fixed index annuities; fixed interest annuities, including fixed rate single and flexible premium deferred annuities; single premium immediate annuities; supplemental health products, such as specified disease, accident, and hospital indemnity products; and long-term care plans primarily to retirees and older self-employed individuals in the middle-income market. Further, the company offers universal life and other interest-sensitive life products; and traditional life policies that include whole life, graded benefit life, term life, and single premium whole life products, as well as graded benefit life insurance products. CNO Financial Group, Inc. markets its products under the Bankers Life, Washington National, and Colonial Penn brand names. The company sells its products through agents, independent producers, and direct marketing. CNO Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana.
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blog spot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

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..Carolineglick.com..02 December '16..Israels coalition crisis over the settlements regulation bill is not a normal power struggle between overweening politicians. It is not popularity contest between Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and his Kulanu Party and Education Minister Naftali Bennett and his Bayit Yehudi Party.It is also not about contenders to the helm challenging Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahus political primacy.The settlement regulations bill proposes to extend the authority of the Military Government in Judea and Samaria to seize privately owned lands. That authority is now limited to seizure for military purposes. The bill would allow the Military Government to seize lands for the purpose of private construction as well.The political fight over the bill is not merely a fight over the community of Amona, which will be destroyed by order of the High Court if the law isnt passed before December 25.The fight over the law is a fight about the character of Israel.Opponents of the bill argue that the law undermines the power of the Supreme Court and endangers Israels international standing. Proponents of the bill argue that Israel needs to ensure the primacy of the Knesset. They further argue that there is no point in bowing to the will of an international community that is constitutionally incapable of ever standing with Israel.In case you were wondering, proponents of the bill have it right.The settlement regulation bill is not a radical bill. It is a liberal reform of a legal regime that harms the civil rights of both Palestinians and Israelis.Palestinians today are denied their full property rights. Shortly after its establishment in 2004, the Palestinian Authority made selling land to Jews and Christians a capital offense. Dozens of Palestinians have been murdered over the past two decades in extrajudicial executions by both Palestinian security forces and by terrorist militias working hand in glove with Palestinian security forces for the crime of selling their land to Jews.Earlier this year, the Israeli group Ad Kan documented employees of the European financed far left groups Taayush and Btselem conspiring to hand over to Palestinian forces a Palestinian land owner who expressed interest in selling his lands to Jews. During surreptitiously recorded exchanges, they acknowledged that PA would likely execute him.The settlement regulation bill empowers the military commander to seize privately owned lands and compensate the owners. In other words, it provides a means for willing Palestinian sellers to sell their property to willing Jewish purchasers without risking the lives of the owners.As I noted in a column on the subject of the bill last week, the legal opinion published by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit opposing the settlement regulation bill included four arguments. Prof. Avi Bell from Bar Ilan University School of Law rebutted all of Mandelblits claims in an article published two weeks ago inAs Bell showed, Mandelblits claim that the proposed law breaches international law is both irrelevant  since Knesset laws supersede international law, and at best arguable.Mandelblit further argued that the Knesset has no right to pass laws that supersede international laws pertaining to the belligerent occupation of lands seized in war. But Bell demonstrated that the opposite is true. For instance, Israels Golan Heights law from 1981 cancelled the military government in the Golan Heights and applied Israeli law to the area.Mandelblit claimed that eminent domain cannot be used to seize land for private construction projects. But as Bell showed, there are dozens of decisions by US courts permitting eminent domain to be used in just such cases.Finally, Mandelblit argued that the Knesset doesnt have the authority to pass laws that contradict High Court decisions. Here too, Bell showed that the opposite is the case.Israels constitutional order is based on its Basic Laws. Basic Law: Knesset, defines the Knesset as the highest legislative authority. In line with this, the Knesset has passed numerous laws over the years that have overturned High Court decisions.On the basis of Mandelblits last argument, on Monday, Kahlon announced that Kulanu would not support the settlement regulations law. Kahlon insisted that his party would not support any law that undermines the Courts authority and since the Court ruled that Amona must be destroyed and its residents rendered homeless by December 25, Kahlon will take no action to save the community.Kahlon insists that he is motivated by a desire to protect the Courts prerogatives. But when assessed in the context of actual laws, it is clear that his position doesnt primarily defend the Court. Rather it undermines the Knesset, and through it, Israeli democracy.If the Knesset doesnt have the right to pass laws that run counter to Supreme Court decisions, then the public that elected the Knesset is effectively disenfranchised. Far from securing Israels democracy and constitutional order, opposition to the settlement regulation bill undermines both.Then there is the issue of Israels international standing.Monday the security cabinet convened to discuss the settlement regulation bill. According to leaked accounts of the six-hour meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned Bennett that passage of the bill is liable to cause the International Criminal Courts (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to indict Netanyahu as a war criminal. He also warned that passage of the bill is liable to induce US President Barack Obama to enable an anti-Israel resolution to be adopted by the UN Security Council.Netanyahus claims are deeply problematic.Insofar as the ICC is concerned, three points counter Netanyahus argument. First, Bensouda is already conducting an investigation of Israel. She opened her investigation shortly after she wrongly admitted Palestine as a state member of the ICC.The ICC will continue to investigate Israel whether or not the Knesset passes the settlement regulation law. And the merits of the bill will have no impact on the ICCs decision to prosecute or close the investigation.The second problem with Netanyahus claim is that just by making it  and leaking it to the media  he empowered the ICC.The ICC is becoming weaker by the day. Angry over the political nature of its prosecutions, African states are abandoning it. Russia also has announced it is walking away.Israel should welcome this development.The Treaty of Rome which established the ICC made clear that one of the courts purposes is to criminalize Israel.By arguing that the ICC will respond to the passage of the regulations bill by indicting Israel, Netanyahu is lending credence to the false claims that there is something unlawful about the bill on the one hand, and that the ICCs politically-motivated investigation of Israel is legally defensible on the other hand. Indeed, by claiming wrongly that passing the bill will expose Israel to ICC investigation, Netanyahu is effectively inviting the ICC to persecute him.The ICC, like its comrades in the lawfare campaigns worldwide always target those perceived as vulnerable to pressure. This is why leftists like former justice minister Tzipi Livni are targeted for war crimes complaints while current Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked are left alone.The most extraordinary example of this sort of political targeting came Monday. The same day Netanyahu was making the case for the ICC and Obama in the cabinet, word came that Palestinian immigrants in Chile have filed a war crimes claim against three High Court justices. Former Palestinians from Beit Jala, south of Jerusalem filed war crimes charges against retired Supreme Court president, Asher Grunis and sitting justices Uzi Fogelman and Neal Hendel are all being accused of committed war crimes for their decision last year regarding the route of the security barrier around Jerusalem.There is no governing institution in Israel more sensitive to war crimes accusations that the Supreme Court. To avoid just such charges, justices routinely second military commanders and the government and deny them the right to use their best professional judgment to defend the country.In the decision for which they are accused of war crimes, the three justices gave qualified approval to the IDF to complete the security barrier around Jerusalem on lands owned by the petitioners in Beit Jala. In their ruling, the justices actually sided with the petitioners claim that the proposed routes harmed their rights and insisted that the IDF prove that it had no means of defending the capital without building the barrier along the proposed routes.And for their efforts, the justices are now being accused of war crimes.The same flawed premise at the heart of Netanyahus claim that approving the bill will cause Israel to be prosecuted for war crimes stands at the heart of his claim that passing the law will increase the possibility that Obama will allow an anti-Israel resolution to pass in the UN Security Council.The problem with this argument is that it ignores the basic fact that Obamas desire to stick it to Israel at the UN Security Council has been a consistent feature of his presidency for eight years. Obama has wielded this threat against Israel without regard for its actual policies.He has threatened us when the government froze Jewish building rights. He has threatened us when the government respected Jewish building rights. If Obama decides to enable an anti-Israel resolution to pass through the UN Security Council during his remaining seven weeks in office, he will do so regardless of whether the Knesset passes or scuppers the settlement regulations bill.The only thing likely to prevent Obama from harming Israel at the Security Council at this point is a clear message to the UN from the incoming Trump administration.For instance, if President-elect Donald Trump announces directly or through an intermediary that Security Council action against Israel over the next seven weeks will induce the Trump administration to withhold US funding from the UN, UN officials will likely stuff draft resolutions to this effect into a drawer.Netanyahus actions do more to harm his future relations with Trump than advance his current relations with Obama. If Netanyahu blocks passage of the settlement regulations bill, he is likely to enter the Trump era as the head of a government on the verge of collapse.Rather than be in a position to reshape and rebuild Israels alliance with the US after eight years of Obamas hostility, Netanyahu may limp to his first meeting with the new president, the head of dysfunctional government beyond his control, and at the mercy of a legal fraternity and international judicial lynch mob that he will have just empowered.
Eli Lilly and Company discovers, develops, and markets human pharmaceuticals worldwide. It offers Basaglar, Humalog, Humalog Mix 75/25, Humalog U-100, Humalog U-200, Humalog Mix 50/50, insulin lispro, insulin lispro protamine, insulin lispro mix 75/25, Humulin, Humulin 70/30, Humulin N, Humulin R, and Humulin U-500 for diabetes; and Jardiance, Trajenta, and Trulicity for type 2 diabetes. The company provides Alimta for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and malignant pleural mesothelioma; Cyramza for metastatic gastric cancer, gastro-esophageal junction adenocarcinoma, metastatic NSCLC, metastatic colorectal cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma; Erbitux for colorectal cancers, and various head and neck cancers; Retevmo for metastatic NSCLC, medullary thyroid cancer, and thyroid cancer; Tyvyt for relapsed or refractory classic Hodgkin's lymph and non-squamous NSCLC; and Verzenio for HR+, HER2- metastatic breast cancer, node positive, and early breast cancer. It offers Olumiant for rheumatoid arthritis; and Taltz for plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and non-radiographic axial spondylarthritis. The company offers Cymbalta for depressive disorder, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, generalized anxiety disorder, fibromyalgia, and chronic musculoskeletal pain; Emgality for migraine prevention and episodic cluster headache; and Zyprexa for schizophrenia, bipolar I disorder, and bipolar maintenance. Its Bamlanivimab and etesevimab, and Bebtelovimab for COVID-19; Cialis for erectile dysfunction and benign prostatic hyperplasia; and Forteo for osteoporosis. The company has collaborations with Incyte Corporation; Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; AbCellera Biologics Inc.; Junshi Biosciences; Regor Therapeutics Group; Lycia Therapeutics, Inc.; Kumquat Biosciences Inc.; Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. Eli Lilly and Company was founded in 1876 and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The following companies are subsidiares of Lloyds Banking Group: A G Finance Ltd, A.C.L. Ltd, ACL Autolease Holdings Ltd, ADF No.1 Pty Ltd, Addison Social Housing Holdings Ltd, Alex Lawrie Factors Ltd, Alex. Lawrie Receivables Financing Ltd, Amberdate Ltd, Anglo Scottish Utilities Partnership 1, Aquilus Ltd, Automobile Association Personal Finance Ltd, BOS (Ireland) Property Services 2 Ltd, BOS (Ireland) Property Services Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland) No. 2) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland) No. 3) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland)) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 1 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 2 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 3 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 4 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 5 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 6 plc, BOS (USA) Fund Investments Inc., BOS (USA) Inc., BOS Edinburgh No 1 Ltd, BOS Mistral Ltd, BOS Personal Lending Ltd, BOSSAF Rail Ltd, Bank of Scotland (B G S) Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland (Stanlife) London Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Branch Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Central Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Edinburgh Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Equipment Finance Ltd, Bank of Scotland Foundation, Bank of Scotland LNG Leasing (No 1) Ltd, Bank of Scotland London Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Nominees (Unit Trusts) Ltd, Bank of Scotland P.E.P. Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Structured Asset Finance Ltd, Bank of Scotland Transport Finance 1 Ltd, Bank of Scotland plc, Bank of Wales Ltd, Barents Leasing Ltd, Barnwood Mortgages Ltd, Birchcrown Finance Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Financial Services Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Land Development Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Mortgage Services Ltd, Black Horse (TRF) Ltd, Black Horse Executive Mortgages Ltd, Black Horse Finance Holdings Ltd, Black Horse Finance Management Ltd, Black Horse Group Ltd, Black Horse Ltd, Black Horse Offshore Ltd, Black Horse Property Services Ltd, Boltro Nominees Ltd, British Linen Leasing (London) Ltd, British Linen Leasing Ltd, British Linen Shipping Ltd, C.T.S.B. Leasing Ltd, CBRail S.A.R.L., CF Asset Finance Ltd, CF1 Ltd, CM Venture Investments Ltd, Cancara Asset Securitisation Ltd, Capital 1945 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 12 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 3 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 5 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 9 Ltd, Capital Bank Property Investments (3) Ltd, Capital Personal Finance Ltd, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation 2018-1 Plc, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation 2019-1 Plc, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Cardnet Merchant Services Ltd, Cashfriday Ltd, Cashpoint Ltd, Caveminster Ltd, Cedar Holdings Ltd, Celsius European Lux 2 S.A.R.L., Central Mortgage Finance Ltd, Chariot Finance Ltd, Cheltenham & Gloucester plc, Cheltenham II Securities 2020 DAC, Cheltenham Securities 2017 Ltd, Chepstow Blue Holdings Ltd, Chepstow Blue plc, Chester Asset Options No.2 Ltd, Chester Asset Options No.3 Ltd, Chester Asset Receivables Dealings Issuer Ltd, Chester Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Chester Asset Securitisation Holdings No.2 Ltd, Chiswell Stockbrokers Ltd, Clerical Medical Finance plc, Clerical Medical Financial Services Ltd, Clerical Medical International Holdings B.V., Clerical Medical Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Clerical Medical Managed Funds Ltd, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Guadalix Hold Co BV, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Guadalix Spanish Prop Co SL, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Megapark Hold Co BV, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Megapark Prop Co SA, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Property Company S.A.R.L., Cloak Lane Funding S.A.R.L., Cloak Lane Investments S.A.R.L., Conquest Securities Ltd, Corbiere Asset Investments Ltd, Create Services Ltd, Credit Card Securitisation Europe Ltd, Dalkeith Corporation, Deva Financing Holdings Ltd, Deva Financing plc, Deva One Ltd, Deva Three Ltd, Deva Two Ltd, Dunstan Investments (UK) Ltd, Edgbaston RMBS 2010-1 plc, Edgbaston RMBS Holdings Ltd, Elland RMBS 2018 plc, Elland RMBS Holdings Ltd, Eurolead Services Holdings Ltd, First Retail Finance (Chester) Ltd, Fontwell Securities 2016 Ltd, Forthright Finance Ltd, France Industrial Premises Holding Company, General Leasing (No. 12) Ltd, General Reversionary and Investment Company, Gresham Nominee 1 Ltd, Gresham Nominee 2 Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 1) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 10) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 11) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 12) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 13) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 14) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 15) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 16) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 19) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 20) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 21) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 22) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 23) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 24) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 25) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 26) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 27) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 28) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 29) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 3) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 30) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 31) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 32) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 33) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 34) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 35) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 36) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 37) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 38) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 39) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 40) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 41) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 44) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 45) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 46) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 47) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 48) UK Ltd, Guildhall Asset Purchasing Company (No 3) Ltd, Guildhall Asset Purchasing Company (No.11) UK Ltd, HBOS Covered Bonds LLP, HBOS Final Salary Trust Ltd, HBOS Financial Services Ltd, HBOS Insurance & Investment Group Ltd, HBOS International Financial Services Holdings Ltd, HBOS Investment Fund Managers Ltd, HBOS Social Housing Covered Bonds LLP, HBOS UK Ltd, HBOS plc, HSDL Nominees Ltd, HVF Ltd, Halifax Credit Card Ltd, Halifax Financial Brokers Ltd, Halifax Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Halifax Financial Services Ltd, Halifax General Insurance Services Ltd, Halifax Group Ltd, Halifax Investment Services Ltd, Halifax Leasing (June) Ltd, Halifax Leasing (March No.2) Ltd, Halifax Leasing (September) Ltd, Halifax Life Ltd, Halifax Loans Ltd, Halifax Ltd, Halifax Mortgage Services Ltd, Halifax Nominees Ltd, Halifax Pension Nominees Ltd, Halifax Premises Ltd, Halifax Share Dealing Ltd, Halifax Vehicle Leasing (1998) Ltd, Heidi Finance Holdings (UK) Ltd, Hill Samuel Bank Ltd, Hill Samuel Finance Ltd, Hill Samuel Leasing Co. Ltd, Home Shopping Personal Finance Ltd, Horizon Capital 2000 Ltd, Housing Association Risk Transfer 2019 DAC, Housing Growth Partnership GP LLP, Housing Growth Partnership LP, Housing Growth Partnership Ltd, Housing Growth Partnership Manager Ltd, Hyundai Car Finance Ltd, IBOS Finance Ltd, ICC Enterprise Partners Ltd, ICC Equity Partners Ltd, ICC Holdings Unlimited Company, Inchcape Financial Services Ltd, Intelligent Finance Financial Services Ltd, Intelligent Finance Software Ltd, International Motors Finance Ltd, Kanaalstraat Funding C.V., Katrine Leasing Ltd, LB Healthcare Trustee Ltd, LB Motorent Ltd, LB Quest Ltd, LB Share Schemes Trustees Ltd, LBCF Ltd, LBG Brasil Administracao LTDA, LBG Capital Holdings Ltd, LBG Equity Investments Ltd, LBI Leasing Ltd, LDC (General Partner) Ltd, LDC (Managers) Ltd, LDC (Nominees) Ltd, LDC GP LLP, LDC I LP, LDC II LP, LDC III LP, LDC IV LP, LDC Parallel (Nominees) Ltd, LDC V LP, LDC VI LP, LDC VII LP, LDC VIII LP, LTGP Limited Partnership Incorporated, Legacy Renewal Company Ltd, Leicester Securities 2014 Ltd, Lex Autolease (CH) Ltd, Lex Autolease (VC) Ltd, Lex Autolease Carselect Ltd, Lex Autolease Ltd, Lex Vehicle Finance 2 Ltd, Lex Vehicle Leasing (Holdings) Ltd, Lex Vehicle Leasing Ltd, Lime Street (Funding) Ltd, Lingfield 2014 I Holdings Ltd, Lingfield 2014 I plc, Lloyds (Gresham) Ltd, Lloyds (Gresham) No. 1 Ltd, Lloyds (Nimrod) Specialist Finance Ltd, Lloyds America Securities Corporation1, Lloyds Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Branches) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Colonial & Foreign) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Fountainbridge 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Fountainbridge 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (I.D.) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (International Services) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Stock Exchange Branch) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Asset Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Scotland Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (HP) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.4) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (LM) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds LLP, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 7) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 9) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Foundation for England & Wales, Lloyds Bank Foundation for the Channel Islands, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Holdings Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 11) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 20) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 5) Ltd, Lloyds Bank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Hill Samuel Holding Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank Insurance Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank International Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 6) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 8) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank MTCH Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 10) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 13) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No.16) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Offshore Pension Trust Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 1) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 2) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pensions Property (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Properties Ltd, Lloyds Bank Property Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank S.F. Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Subsidiaries Ltd, Lloyds Bank Trustee Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank plc, Lloyds Banking Group Pensions Trustees Ltd, Lloyds Capital GP Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Properties Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Property Investments Ltd, Lloyds Corporate Services (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Development Capital (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Engine Capital (No.1) U.S LLC, Lloyds Far East S.A.R.L., Lloyds General Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Group Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Hypotheken B.V., Lloyds Industrial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds International Pty Ltd, Lloyds Investment Bonds Ltd, Lloyds Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Lloyds Investment Securities No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Leasing (North Sea Transport) Ltd1, Lloyds Leasing Developments Ltd, Lloyds Nominees (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Offshore Global Services Private Ltd, Lloyds Plant Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Portfolio Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Premises Investments Ltd, Lloyds Project Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 3 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 4 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Secretaries Ltd, Lloyds Securities Inc., Lloyds TSB Pacific Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Rentals Ltd, Lloyds UDT Hiring Ltd, Lloyds UDT Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Ltd, Lloyds Your Tomorrow Trustee Ltd, Loans.co.uk Ltd, London Taxi Finance Ltd, London Uberior (L.A.S. Group) Nominees Ltd, Lotus Finance Ltd, MBNA, MBNA Direct Ltd, MBNA Europe Finance Ltd, MBNA Europe Holdings Ltd, MBNA General Foundation, MBNA Global Services Ltd, MBNA Indian Services Private Ltd, MBNA Ltd, MBNA R & L S.A.R.L., MBNA Receivables Ltd, Mainsearch Company Ltd, Maritime Leasing (No. 19) Ltd, Membership Services Finance Ltd, Mitre Street Funding S.A.R.L., Molineux RMBS 2016-1 plc, Molineux RMBS Holdings Ltd, Moor Lane Holdings Ltd, NFU Mutual Finance Ltd, NWS Trust Ltd, Nominees (Jersey) Ltd, Nordic Leasing Ltd, Ocean Leasing (July) Ltd, Oystercatcher Nominees Ltd, Oystercatcher Residential Ltd, PIPS Asset Investments Ltd, Pacific Leasing Ltd, Penarth Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Penarth Funding 1 Ltd, Penarth Funding 2 Ltd, Penarth Master Issuer plc, Penarth Receivables Trustee Ltd, Pensions Management (S.W.F.) Ltd, Peony Eastern Leasing Ltd, Peony Leasing Ltd, Peony Western Leasing Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 1) Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 2) Ltd, Permanent Holdings Ltd, Permanent Master Issuer plc, Permanent Mortgages Trustee Ltd, Permanent PECOH Holdings Ltd, Permanent PECOH Ltd, Perry Nominees Ltd, Prestonfield Investments Ltd, Proton Finance Ltd, R.F. Spencer And Company Ltd, Ranelagh Nominees Ltd, Retail Revival (Burgess Hill) Investments Ltd, SARL Coliseum, SARL Hiram, SAS Compagnie Fonciere De France, SCI Astoria Invest, SCI De LHorloge, SCI Equinoxe, SCI Rambuteau CFF, SW Funding plc, SW No.1 Ltd, SWAMF (GP) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (1) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (2) Ltd, Saint Michel Holding Company No1, Saint Michel Investment Property, Saint Witz 2 Holding Company No1, Saint Witz 2 Investment Property, Salisbury II Securities 2016 Ltd, Salisbury II-A Securities 2017 Ltd, Salisbury III Securities 2019 DAC, Salisbury Securities 2015 Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 Holdings Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 plc, Sandown Gold 2012-1 Holdings Ltd, Sandown Gold 2012-1 plc, Savban Leasing Ltd, Scotland International Finance B.V., Scottish Widows Administration Services (Nominees) Ltd, Scottish Widows Administration Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Annuities Ltd, Scottish Widows Auto Enrolment Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Europe, Scottish Widows Financial Services Holdings, Scottish Widows Group Ltd, Scottish Widows Industrial Properties Europe B.V., Scottish Widows Ltd, Scottish Widows Pension Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Property Management Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth (ACD) Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Wealth Holdings Ltd, Scottish Widows Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Funds Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Trust Managers Ltd, Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society, Seabreeze Leasing Ltd, Seaspirit Leasing Ltd, Share Dealing Nominees Ltd, Shogun Finance Ltd, Silentdale Ltd, St Andrews Group Ltd, St Andrews Insurance plc, St Andrews Life Assurance plc, St. Marys Court Investments, Standard Property Investment (1987) Ltd, Standard Property Investment Ltd, Sussex County Homes Ltd, Suzuki Financial Services Ltd, Swan Funding 2 Ltd, Syon Securities 2019 DAC, The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Plc, The British Linen Company Ltd, The Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland, The Mortgage Business plc, Thistle Financing Holdings Ltd, Thistle Investments (AMC) Ltd, Thistle Investments (ERM) Ltd, Thistle Leasing, Three Copthall Avenue Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (10) Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (7) Ltd, Tranquility Leasing Ltd, Trinity Financing plc, UDT Budget Leasing Ltd, UDT Sales Finance Ltd, Uberior (Moorfield) Ltd, Uberior Co-Investments Ltd, Uberior ENA Ltd, Uberior Equity Ltd, Uberior Europe Ltd, Uberior Fund Investments Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments (No.2) Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments Ltd, Uberior Investments Ltd, Uberior Nominees Ltd, Uberior Trading Ltd, Uberior Trustees Ltd, Uberior Ventures Australia Pty Ltd, Uberior Ventures Ltd, United Dominions Leasing Ltd, United Dominions Trust Ltd, Universe The CMI Global Network Fund, Upsaala Ltd, Vine Street IX LP, WCS Ltd, Ward Nominees (Abingdon) Ltd, Ward Nominees (Birmingham) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees (Bristol) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees Ltd 1, Waverley  Fund II Investor LLC, Waverley  Fund III Investor LLC, Waymark Asset Investments Ltd, West Craigs Ltd, Wetherby II Securities 2018 DAC, Wetherby III Securities 2019 DAC, Wetherby Securities 2017 Ltd, Wood Street Leasing Ltd, and Zurich Insurance Group - UK Workplace Pensions and Savings Business.

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The following companies are subsidiares of NOV: APL France SAS, APL Norway AS, APL do Brasil Ltda., ASEP Otomotiv Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Acker Holdings LLC, Ackerman Holdings C.V., Ackerman Holdings GP LLC, Advanced Production and Loading, Advanced Wirecloth S. de R.L. de C.V., American Pipe and Construction International, Ameron B.V., Ameron International, Ameron International Corporation, Ameron Pole Products LLC, Ameron Polyplaster Industria E Comercio de Tubos Ltda., Ameron Singapore Holding LLC, Andergauge Limited, Andergauge Redback LLC, Arabian Rig Manufacturing Company, Big Red Tubulars Limited, Bondstrand Ltd., Brandt Oilfield Services (M) Sdn. Bhd., C.M.A. Canavera S.R.L., CJSC Fidmash, CJSC Novmash, Chemineer Inc., Coil Services Middle East LLC, Cooperatie Intelliserv Holding U.A., Cooperatie NOV NL U.A., Danco AS, Elmar Far East Pty Ltd, Enerflow Industries, Environmental Procedures LLC, Fiber Glass Systems (Qingdao) Composite Piping Co. Ltd., Fiber Glass Systems L.P., Fiber Glass Systems Oman L.L.C., Fiberspar, Fiberspar Australia Pty. Ltd., Fibra Ingenieria y Construccion S.A., FidService LLC, Fjords Processing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fjords Processing AS, Fjords Processing Australia Pty Ltd, Fjords Processing France SAS, Fjords Processing Korea Co. Ltd., Fjords Processing Limited, Fjords Processing Middle East DMCC, Fjords Processing UK Ltd., Fryma S.a.r.l., GPEX L.P., Grant Prideco (Jiangsu) Drilling Products Co. Ltd, Grant Prideco (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Grant Prideco III C. V., Grant Prideco Inc., Grant Prideco Jersey Limited, Grant Prideco Mauritius Limited, Grant Prideco Netherlands B.V., Grant Prideco PC Composites Holdings LLC, Grant Prideco S. de R.L. de C.V., Grant Prideco de Venezuela S.A., GustoMSC B.V., Hebei Huayouyiji Tuboscope Coating Co. Ltd., Hydralift AmClyde Inc., Hydralift France SAS, Inspecciones y Pruebas No Destructivas S. de R.L. de C.V., IntelliServ Norway AS, Intelliserv GP Holdings LLC, Intelliserv Inc., Intelliserv International Holding Ltd, Intelliserv LLC, JiangYin Tuboscope Tubular Development Co. Ltd, Keystone Tower Systems Inc., MSI Pipe Protection Technologies UK Limited, Merpro Group Limited, Midsund Bruk AS, Mono Group Pension Trustees Limited, Mono Pumps New Zealand Company, Monoflo NOV S.A.I.C., Moyno Inc., NKT Flexibles I/S, NOV (Asia) Inc., NOV (Barbados) Holding SRL, NOV (Barbados) SRL, NOV (Caymans) Ltd., NOV (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., NOV - Oil Services Angola LDA., NOV APL Limited, NOV Africa Pty Ltd, NOV Australia Pty Ltd, NOV Azerbaijan LLC, NOV Brandt Europe France, NOV Brandt Oilfield Services Middle East LLC, NOV CAPS Pte. Ltd., NOV CV1 GP LLC, NOV CV2 GP LLC, NOV Canada ULC, NOV Completion Tools LLC, NOV Completion and Production Solutions Korea Ltd., NOV Denmark Cooperatief U.A., NOV Downhole Argentina LLC, NOV Downhole Bolivia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Colombia LLC, NOV Downhole Comercializacao de Equipamentos para Petroleo Ltda., NOV Downhole Congo LLC, NOV Downhole Eurasia Limited, NOV Downhole Italia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Kazakhstan LLC, NOV Downhole Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Downhole Pty Ltd, NOV Downhole Thailand LLC, NOV EU Acquisition SNC, NOV Elmar (Middle East) Limited, NOV Eurasia Holding LLC, NOV Expatriate Services Inc., NOV FGS Malaysia Sdn Bhd, NOV FGS Singapore (Pte.) Ltd, NOV Flexibles Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Flexibles Holding ApS, NOV Fluid Control B.V., NOV GEO GP LLC, NOV GEO LP1 C.V., NOV GEO LP1 LLC, NOV GEO LP2 C.V., NOV GEO LP2 LLC, NOV Gabon SARL, NOV Germany GmbH, NOV Germany Holding GmbH, NOV Ghana Limited, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Equipment Manufacturing LLC, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Products Middle East FZE, NOV Grant Prideco L.L.C., NOV Holding Danmark ApS, NOV Holding Sub UK 1 Limited, NOV Holding UK 1 Limited, NOV Holding UK 2 Limited, NOV Holdings B.V., NOV India Private Limited, NOV Intelliserv UK Limited, NOV International Holdings C.V., NOV International Holdings GP LLC, NOV International Holdings LLC, NOV Intervention & Stimulation Equipment US LLC, NOV Intervention and Stimulation Equipment  Aftermarket Comercio de Equipamentos e Servicos Ltda., NOV Kenya Limited, NOV Kostroma LLC, NOV Kuwait Light & Heavy Equipment Repairing & Maintenance Co., NOV LP (Trading) LLC, NOV MFG India Private Limited, NOV Mexico Holding LLC, NOV Middle East FZCO, NOV Mozambique Limitada, NOV NL Mexico Holding B.V., NOV Oil & Gas Services Egypt (S.A.E), NOV Oil & Gas Services Senegal S.A.R.L., NOV Oil & Gas Services Uganda Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Ghana Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Namibia (Proprietary) Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Nigeria Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Tanzania Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Vostok LLC, NOV Oilfield Solutions Ltd., NOV Park II B.V., NOV Process & Flow Technologies AS, NOV Process & Flow Technologies Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies Pte. Ltd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies UK Limited, NOV QFZ LLC, NOV Rig Solutions Pte. Ltd., NOV Romania LLC, NOV Saudi Arabia Co. Ltd., NOV Saudi Arabia Trading Co., NOV Services Ltd., NOV Servicios de Personal Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., NOV Tanajib Kuwait for Services and Maintenance of Oil Rigs Refineries and Petrochemicals W.L.L., NOV Tuboscope Italia S.R.L., NOV Tuboscope Middle East LLC, NOV Tuboscope NL B.V., NOV Tubulars and Connectors Ltd., NOV UK (Angola Acquisitions) Limited, NOV UK Finance Limited, NOV UK Holdings LLC, NOV UK Holdings Limited, NOV UK Korea LP, NOV Wellbore Technologies Norway LLC, NOV Wellbore Technologies do Brasil Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Wellsite Services Germany GmbH, NOV Worldwide B.V., NOV-BLM SAS, NOVM Holding LLC, NOW International LLC, NOW Nova Scotia Holdings LLC, NOW Oilfield Services LLC, NQL Holland B.V., National Oilwell (U.K.) Limited, National Oilwell Algerie, National Oilwell Varco (Beijing) Investment Management Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco (Thailand) Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Algeria, National Oilwell Varco Almansoori Services, National Oilwell Varco Bahrain WLL, National Oilwell Varco Belgium SA, National Oilwell Varco Denmark I/S, National Oilwell Varco Egypt LLC, National Oilwell Varco Eurasia LLC, National Oilwell Varco Guatemala Limitada, National Oilwell Varco Guyana Inc., National Oilwell Varco Hungary Limited Liability Company, National Oilwell Varco Korea Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco L.P., National Oilwell Varco MSW S.A., National Oilwell Varco Mexico S.A. de C.V., National Oilwell Varco Muscat L.L.C., National Oilwell Varco Norway AS, National Oilwell Varco Peru S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Petroleum Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Poland Sp.z.o.o., National Oilwell Varco Pte. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Rig Equipment Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Romania S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Solutions S.A. de C.V., National Oilwell Varco UK Limited, National Oilwell Varco Ukraine LLC, National Oilwell Varco de Bolivia S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco de Chile - Servicios Limitada, National Oilwell Varco do Brasil Ltda., National Oilwell de Venezuela C.A., National-Oilwell Pte. Ltd., National-Oilwell Pty. Ltd., PT Fjords Processing Indonesia, PT H-Tech Oilfield Equipment, PT NOV Oilfield Services, PT National Oilwell Varco, PT PROFAB INDONESIA, Pesaka Inspection Services SDN.BHD., Pipex Limited, Pipex PX Limited, Pridecomex Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., R&M Energy Systems Australia Pty Ltd, R&M Energy Systems de Argentina S.A., R&M Energy Systems de Venezuela C.A., R&M Singapore Holding LLC, RE.MAC.UT. S.r.l., RHI Holding LLC, ReedHycalog International Holding LLC, ReedHycalog L.P., ReedHycalog LLC, ReedHycalog UK Limited, Robannic Overseas Finance A.V.V., Robbins & Myers B.V., Robbins & Myers Foundation, Robbins & Myers GP LLC, Robbins & Myers Holdings LLC, Robbins & Myers Holdings UK Limited, Robbins & Myers Inc, Robbins & Myers Inc., Robbins & Myers Italia S.R.L., Robbins & Myers N.V., Rodic S.A. de C.V., Romaco S.a.r.l., STAR Sudamtex Tubulares S.A., STSA, Screen Manufacturing Company Unlimited, Slip Clutch Systems Limited, South Seas Inspection, Subseaflex Holding ApS, T-3 Energy Preferred Industries Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., T-3 Energy Services Cayman Holdings Ltd., T-3 Energy Services Cayman Ltd., T-3 Energy Services LLC, T-3 Energy Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., T-3 Investment Corporation IV, T-3 Mexican Holdings Inc., Telluride Insurance Limited, Tianjin Grant TPCO Drilling Tools Company Limited, Tuboscope & Co. LLC, Tuboscope (Holding U.S.) LLC, Tuboscope Brandt de Venezuela S.A., Tuboscope Norge AS, Tuboscope Vetco (France) SAS, Tuboscope Vetco (Osterreich) GmbH, Tuboscope Vetco Capital Limited, Tuboscope Vetco Moscow CJSC, Tuboscope Vetco de Argentina S.A., Tubular Coatings Solutions Ltd., Tucom Composites Polyester Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Urban WLY LP, Varco BJ B.V., Varco CIS LLC, Varco International de Venezuela C.A., Varco L.P., Varco US Holdings LLC, Vetco Enterprise GmbH, Vetco Saudi Arabia Ltd., Visible Assets Inc., Wilson International, Woolley Inc., XL Systems Antilles N.V., XL Systems Europe B.V., XL Systems International Inc., voestalpine Tubulars Corporation, voestalpine Tubulars GmbH, and voestalpine Tubulars GmbH & Co KG.

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"Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing." Sylvia Plath


The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.




Kingofthejungle moved smartly first-over for Aaron Merriman and went on to capture Saturdays $20,000 Preferred Pace at The Meadows. It was one of five wins on the card for Merriman, including a pair for trainer Mike Dowdall.

Kingofthejungle was third near the three-quarters when Merriman sent him after the leader, Atta Boy Dan. The five-year-old Well Said-Allamerican Calico gelding overtook Atta Boy Dan around the final turn and held off the rallying Doctor RJ by a neck to prevail in 1:52.2. Atta Boy Dan saved show.

Jack Smith trains Kingofthejungle, who extended his career bankroll to $359,316, for Fox Racing Inc. and Darius Oshidar.

Rags To Riches Of PA enjoyed an ownership triple on the 13-race card.

(The Meadows)
As the 2016 harness racing season winds down, driver David Miller discussed some of the participants and planning that made the campaign such a success.

Miller, who sits second among North American drivers in purse earnings, didn't even start driving full-time this year until mid-March as he took a solid chunk of time away for some well-deserved R&R to recharge the proverbial batteries in Florida.

"It was a good move on my part. Things worked out," Miller told Meadowlands' Sam McKee. "We ended up getting a place down there and the way the racing is now I wasn't going to miss a whole lot of anything up here so I had the opportunity and I took it."

One thing that surprised him is that he didn't really miss the daily grind and driving double digits of horses daily.

"Surprisingly I didn't miss it. I know years before that I would have but I've been doing this quite a long time and it was a well-needed break for me," noted Miller. "It did help to get away and, like you said, recharge."

The 2015 U.S. Driver of the Year admitted that he got himself into a nice and quiet routine, exactly what he was looking for. However, he might have taken it a little too easy as it look him longer to get back into 'game shape' than he anticipated.

"I'd say it probably took me a good month to really where I felt good again. It's more strenuous than what you think," said Miller of driving. "I kinda let myself go there really bad there last year but I'm going to try to stay in check and hopefully stay on top of it."

While he made his return to the Meadowlands' driving colony in mid-March this past season, don't expect to see those familiar purple and white silks at the Big M until Spring 2017.

"I'll probably go down around the first of the year with everything and I'm planning on staying longer this year," stated Miller. "I came up the middle of March last year, I think I'm going to stay one more month and come up the middle of April."

Miller's 2016 campaign was loaded with highlights, including a number of major stakes wins behind two of the sport's most talented pacers -- Always B Miki and Betting Line. He was the sole driver of Always B Miki with the exception of one start -- the 2016 Ewart Memorial at Scioto Downs -- and helped engineer that thrilling 1:46 world record effort this past October at The Red Mile.

"He definitely had a lot of endurance, a lot of speed and he was great in that aspect," said Miller of Always B Miki. "He was great in so many other aspects: his manners and was never a tough horse to get along with. I truly believe it will be a while before I ever drive one like that again."

Miller admitted that, leading up to Always B Miki's world record mile, the chances of him setting that record that day didn't look especially favourable going into the Allerage Farm Open Pace that Sunday.

"Jimmy warmed him up, didn't like him at all, they added the shadow roll. The track there is so fast anyways but they actually had told me not to have him on the lead or even try for the world record.

"I scored him down with the shadow roll on and he was just fine and I went ahead and pressed on with him. The fractions were good, I still didn't think he was within range to go a 1:46 mile but he's an incredible horse."

When Miller saw the timer with lights displaying 1:46, he felt a sense of not just accomplishment but validation for the highly-touted pacer.

"It was quite a thrill, really. I mean, it felt like he did it. There had been so much hype all all year -- on all of us -- for him to break the world record...at times I thought he would do it no problem but, like I said, that day there wasn't for sure still and he did it."

McKee and Miller also discussed Ontario Sires Stakes graduate Betting Line, who never lost a race for Miller. The son of Bettors Delight reeled off 14 straight wins before retiring prematurely due to a strange infection believed to come from a spider bite. McKee felt that Betting Line was head and shoulders above the other three-year-olds this year.

"I totally agree with you there," stated Miller. "He was a good horse; he had a lot of grit and a lot of try to him. He wasn't the handiest on certain tracks but his willingness to win overcame it."

Betting Line gave Miller his fourth Little Brown Jug title but admitted the controversy created before the race took something away from the day for him.

"It put a black cloud over it, making him score down by himself and all. To me, it was uncalled for, honestly. I'm not sure what all happened...I know the horse got tested all that day, all that night. It just kind of tainted and [put] a black cloud over the whole thing...the horse was as good that day as he's been all year and, you know what, it aggravated me."

Miller also discussed trotting filly Broadway Donna, freshman pacer Downbytheseaside and reaching 12,000 wins as part of the 2016 season. To watch the full interview, click the play button below.
Welcome to my Vampire blog

Here you will find views and reviews of vampire genre media, from literature, the web, TV and the movies.







Please note that, by the very nature of the subject matter, my blogs are designed for the mature reader







Also note: on the occasion of a Guest Blog the views of the guest are their own and not necessarily the view of Taliesin_ttlg or Taliesin meets the Vampires. Features about crowd-sourcing projects are for awareness purposes and not an endorsement of the product, support is given at the reader's own risk. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases when you follow a link to Amazon from this blog.







Theme Tune copyright C. Esquivel, Vid P. Wakefield. A. Boylan asserts his moral right to be recognised as author of all articles bar guest blogs.












Brian William Robinson, 46, passed away Nov. 17, 2016, in Longview, after struggling with a long illness.

Brian is survived by his wife, Sonseearay; his mother, Jeanette Koth (Dale); a sister, Cindy Robins (Chad); his grandmothers, Dorothy Robinson and Mary Slattum; and numerous nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

He was preceded in death by his father, Robert Robinson; his grandfathers, Howard Robinson and Maynard Slattum; and an aunt, Michelle Slattum.

Brian was born May 22, 1971, in Longview, to Robert Bob Robinson and Jeanette Koth.

He enjoyed business and worked for many years as a broker and co-owner of Pacific Property Services, Inc., until it closed in 2011. He then opened Cirrus Real Estate Services, another property management company.

Before his illness, Brian was socially active and enjoyed taking trips with his family. Throughout his years Brian traveled to Mexico, Alaska, Italy, China, and France. He brought home many souvenirs and loved telling stories of his adventures abroad. He loved fishing, camping, and spending time outdoors. Like his father, Brian loved animals, especially his dogs. He was a man with a giving heart who helped many, who loved his family and friends dearly.

A celebration of Brians life is planned for 11 a.m. Wednesday at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 2218 E. Kessler Blvd., in Longview. A reception will follow in the fellowship hall. Everyone is welcome to attend.

The family is grateful to everyone for their sympathy and condolences.
Castle Rock residents might have seen lots of flames and activity at 145 B Street SW on Saturday, but they didnt have anything to worry about.

The structure at the address was part of a previously scheduled training burn for Cowlitz County Fire District 6 fire fighters. The house that was burned was across the street from Castle Rock United Methodist and Castle Rock City Hall.

This opportunity allows the necessary training to keep our firefighters safe and up to date on the current fire standards, said a Facebook post from the districts website.

At least 50 responders were on scene. The training burn lasted several hours.
Three years ago, challengers C.J. Nickerson and J.D. Rossetti won Longview School Board seats as a result of voter enmity toward a proposal to merge R.A. Long and Mark Morris high schools.

Although the merger was not on the ballot, Nickersons and Rossettis lopsided victories were widely considered a referendum on the merger proposal.

But despite the decisive smackdown the idea got, merging the high schools is now once again on the table.

In September, the citizen facilities committee presented seven options to the school board to address all of the districts facilities into mid-century. Five of the seven options would push back the high school decision for about a decade.

But voters may be asking: Why is the option for merging the high schools even on the table if it was so soundly defeated in 2013? School officials believe that right now, despite holding a bunch of studies and public meetings, the majority of the community is not decidedly for or against one high school or two.

Sticking with two high schools would likely mean modernizing Mark Morris for a price tag of $55 million. Additions to R.A.L. would include a music room, improved parking, more vocational facilities, and an auxiliary gym for a total of about $6.5 million.

Hard numbers for one high school have been scarce this time around, but when the idea was raised in 2013, estimates for one brand new high school were in the $90 million range.

What administrators are thinking

In discussions that I have (with community members) and the information that weve gathered, theres no clarity from the community right now on which way to go, Superintendent Dan Zorn said last week.

Nickerson, who is school board president, agrees with Zorns assessment of community attitudes.

Theres research and data on both sides, larger schools versus smaller schools, said Nickerson, who opposed the merger idea three years ago but who for now is neutral.

Voters have been vocal about their preference for smaller schools before. In 2003, they approved a $30 million bond to build Mount Solo while keeping Cascade and Monticello, bringing the capacity of each school down.

That tells me that at the time the community felt that they were in favor of smaller schools, Nickerson said. Thats a decade or more in the past. We need to determine what the community feels today.

Superintendent Zorn has also seen what happens when a school board doesnt listen to its community. In Zorns previous position as assistant superintendent of Kalispell Public Schools in northwest Montana, the district went from one high school to two. But it was a painful process.

In the 16 years that he was in the district, Zorn said, enrollment grew by almost 1,000 students.

The community that first time around came out pretty strongly in favor of moving to two high schools, Zorn said. It was actually pretty overwhelming.

But the district board was concerned with the costs of operating two high schools: the additional teachers that would need to be hired, land purchased, utilities paid.

Because of that, the board took action to build one big honking high school, Zorn said. And it hit the fan. It was a tough few months with a lot of real angry people in the community. So the board backed off its decision and let it rest for a couple of years. In the meantime, a new superintendent came to the district.

Its really not that different (from Longview), Zorn said. We revisited the process and then came to the decision to go with the second high school. The biggest lesson he learned from watching the process, Zorn said, was that administrators need to listen to the community.

And weve tried to do that through the forums that we had, through the survey that we had and trying to get a gauge for that, Zorn said of the process in Longview.

Zorn also serves on the facilities committee and said that the school board explicitly asked to keep the high-school merger on the table.

In terms of that whole two-school, one-school kind of a piece though, what I have not seen is a clear preference from the community, Zorn said. In our time in Kalispell, there was a clear preference.

What does the district have to work with?

In a 2015 study and assessment of both of the high school buildings functionality, Mark Morris was given a fair rating. Main complaints about the school are its multiple exterior entrances (a supervision and safety problem), lack of adequate storage, shortage of natural light in classrooms and absence of an auditorium.

R.A. Longs functionality received a rating of poor, largely because of inadequate parking, a small main office, tiny nurses office, absence of student restrooms in the science building, lack of music rooms, undersized gym and shortage of storage space for records and teaching materials.

To cap it all off, students are shuttled between schools to access courses unavailable at their respective high schools, whether its an advanced placement class at R.A. Long or a ceramics class at Mark Morris. To make that work, students leave several minutes before class ends, and often arrive at their class on the other campus a couple of minutes late.

Thats the trade-off.. . Every (teacher) approaches it differently by their subject matter, how theyre going to do it, said Mark Morris Principal Phil Suek. If theres a space where theres cleanup required, that kid might have somebody else clean up or clean up a little earlier. If its instructional stuff theyre missing, like tests  they might have to make it up later.

The arguments

The list of pros and cons for either idea seem to go on forever, and the list of academic studies advocating for either large or small schools is even longer.

An often-cited 1997 study titled High School Size: Which Works Best and For Whom? suggests that the ideal high school has 600 to 900 students, a conclusion reached through analysis of student reading and mathematics performance. Both M.M. and R.A.L. enroll slightly more than 900 students each.

Learning and advancement in the two subject areas studies dropped off in both larger and smaller schools, according to the study.

The study also made another finding relevant to Longviews population: learning is distributed more equitably and broadly in smaller schools, the study said. This matters for poor students (about half of R.A. Longs students receive free and reduced lunch, while about 40 percent of Mark Morriss students are enrolled in the program). Learning for these students, as well as minorities, falls off sharply as the schools become larger or smaller than the studys ideal size.

The study also points out that larger schools can deliver supplies and materials more economically by buying in bulk or spreading relatively low per-person cost over a larger base (reducing) overall spending on core costs. The rebutting argument is that larger schools usually expand support and administrative staffs to handle greater bureaucratic demands created by a larger organization, offsetting any savings on utilities or supplies.

Facilities committee member and Longview Fire Chief Phil Jurmu is in favor of one large high school.

The reason I go with the one high school concept is that we dont have to shuttle students back and forth  they can be in one location, Jurmu said.

I would imagine if a student is leaving five or ten minutes early or getting there late, its disruptive to the class, Jurmu said. Not only is it a disservice to the student, but also to the educator.

In addition, Jurmu feels that one larger high school could present more academic opportunities for students.

The are opportunities for more languages, more science, expansion of math and English all come from being in the larger campus where everybody is together, Jurmu said. You can do it all at one location.

Jurmu recognized that there would be challenges convincing holdout community members that one high school is a good idea.

I see often times people saying We want our children to have the same experiences I had, Jurmu said. We dont always have to live vicariously through our children and grandchildren.

On the other hand, Mark Morris junior Spencer Boudreau said he believes that the northward creep of people looking for cheap housing close to Portland will drive enrollment up in Longview, making the construction of one high school seem myopic.

I very much think Longview is going to grow, Boudreau said. In 10 years, its going to be here.

Boudreau and his mother were a part of the Save Our Schools foundation in 2012 and 2013 when Boudreau was in the seventh and eighth grades. He was against the idea of merging the schools then, and still is now. He calls Mark Morris prime for remodeling.

I think theres a lot that could be done to make it modern, Boudreau said. Its got good bones.

Boudreau is also afraid that if the community moves to one high school, it will outgrow the new facility in the next decade and have to either add on or build a new one.

I dont think the voters would authorize that, say 20 years down the road when we have more people and need to build a new high school, Boudreau said.

I thought we did (stop the merger idea) in 2013, Boudreau said. But then it came back. Its like a cancer.

Principals weigh in

Both Mark Morriss and R.A. Longs principals have been at their respective high schools for a long time.

Phil Suek, principal at Mark Morris, has worked in the district for the good part of three decades, while R.A. Long principal Rich Reeves was born and raised in Longview and graduated from R.A. Long himself.

Neither Reeves or Suek has a preference for one or two high schools, and neither feel as if a cross-town rivalry would be an impediment for one large school.

The kids get along very well, Suek said. When we walked into the photo class, the shop classes, the art classes, the kids you were looking at were Mark Morris and R.A. Long kids mixed together. You dont know one from the other.

Suek sees that every day. So in terms of our instructional space and sharing, theres no rivalry in that space.

While at one point there may have been a higher concentration of minorities or poor students at R.A. Long, stoking an already natural rivalry, demographics have changed in recent years.

According to the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, both Mark Morriss and R.A. Longs student populations are largely white, at 74 percent and 70 percent respectively. Their Hispanic/Latino populations have evened out, with 168 at R.A.L. and 146 at M.M. Students who identify as being two or more races make up between 6 percent and 7 percent at the two high schools.

I think its way more amicable than its been, Reeves said of relations between the two student bodies. Weve worked hard with our kids  our focus at our school is us.

Instead, Reeves values the historic character of the R.A. Long building itself.

I think it would be a shame if this building didnt continue to be what it was designed for, which was a high school, he said. I dont think it was intended to be a middle school or an elementary school I would hate for it to lose its intended purpose.

But no matter what happens, Reeves said life will go on in the district.

Were going to teach with what we have and who walks in the door, Reeves said. You can have all the bells and whistles and fancy new stuff but if youre not utilizing it or providing kids with good instruction, its just stuff.
Memories of Cuba

After a two-year conversion, the carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt was recommissioned at Bremerton in April 1956. I was pointer on Director No. 6, meaning I aimed the guns on the port quarter (left side, back end). We stopped at San Francisco, Panama, Valparaiso and saw Cape Horn off the port bow on July 17th. In the dead of winter, we sailed south until we saw ice floating on the South Atlantic so we could test our steam catapults in cold weather, stopped at Rio de Janeiro and proceeded to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for two months of training.

Two weeks after the FDR left Cuban waters, Fidel Castro invaded Cuba to start his revolution. Any one of the FDRs 32 guns could have sunk his entire force. In 1993, Rush Limbaugh called me an imbecile and the Daily News in 2006 said I was one of the most notorious people in the history of Cowlitz County. Is there any chance, do you think, that Limbaugh and TDN would have said some nice things about me if I had blown Fidel out of the water?

L. S. Wagle

Seattle

Viable choices

Longview citizens strongly urged the city go back to the Cowlitz River for its water supply. Instead, city officials drilled some more holes along the Cowlitz River, Barlow Point, as well as several other sites. However, these areas are not practical because prior eruptions of Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens have impacted these areas over the centuries. Consequently, the holes are being drilled in volcanic ash, silica and rotting vegetation. Again, we request that the city use the Cowlitz River rather than the ground as its source of water supply for the citizens of Longview.

I believe we have four viable choices:

1. Go back to the Cowlitz River and pump to our new filter plant;

2. Buy water from Weyerhaeuser Company;

3. Relocate our new filter plant to Fishers Lane;or

4. Take our water out of Lake Sacajawea.

The city has suggested that it will need to increase water rates to improve the quality of the existing water supply. My costs have already been increased because I refuse to drink city water. So like a lot of other citizens, I am buying bottled water for drinking, and only using city water for general household purposes.

Clyde West

Longview

Significance of Christmas

Historically, it is a well-established fact that Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem in the days of King Herod. Matthew and Luke record the arrival of Jesus Christ in their Gospels as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem. The Apostle Paul explains the significance of Christs incarnat1on in his epistles, which I paraphrase:

When Christ left heavens glory, he as God, emptied himself of the outward manifestation of his attributes (Philippians 2:6,7).

While the conception of Christ was miraculous, his entrance into the world was through natural means when he was born of a woman for the purpose of the great work of redemption that he carne to accomplish (Galatians 4:4,5).

Christ humbled himself by stepping into a sinless human form so that he might experience the reality of humanity (Philippians 2:7,8).

Into this pure, sinless vessel was poured our sins. Consequently, Christ was made sin for us so that we might receive the righteousness of odin him (2 Corinthians 5:21 ).

In short, God was born of humans so that humans might be born of God. Thats what Christmas is really all about.

Jack Malone

Longview
After the crash of Schiaparelli lander, the European Space Agency (ESA) has raised another 450 million euros for the ExoMars mission which will send the rover to the Red Planet even though the first test lander crashed on the Martian surface last month due to false readings.

The 22 countries that are members of ESA and the Canadian government has funded 450 million euros for the project. The reports of support to the mission came after a meeting held in Lucerne, Switzerland. The mission aims to put European rover on Mars by 2021.

Schiaparelli that crashed on mars was one component of the European Space Agencys ExoMars 2016 project, which placed the Trace Gas Orbiter into orbit around Mars on the same arrival date. The ExoMars project received data from Schiaparelli during its descent through the atmosphere. ESA reports that the heat shield separated as planned, the parachute deployed as planned but was released (with back shell) prematurely, and the lander hit the ground at a velocity of more than 180 miles per hour (more than 300 kilometers per hour).

The ExoMars mission sent the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli test lander to Mars earlier this year. The Trace Gas Orbiter is orbiting the planet, looking for gases such as methane that may indicate the possibility for life on the planet. The Schiaparelli lander, meanwhile, crashed in October: a software glitch caused the lander to detach its parachute more than 2 miles above the planets surface, thinking it was already on the ground.

Mars mission is a daunting task and crashing of Schiaparelli lander has given a setback to ESA. Now, meeting the deadline of sending mars lander before 2021 has become very tough. Also, lack of funds might have forced the ESA to shut down the mission, but now several nations have stood up and contributed $469 million to continue to the mission and explore the mars in search of life and water.

Its not an easy thing, but we are confident we will succeed, said ESA Director General Jan Woerner. The Agency is encouraged to strive to reap the benefits expected from the significant investments made through the ExoMars program, including those earmarked for the successful completion of the second ExoMars mission.

Moreover, the ExoMars mission is part of 10.3 billion euros ESA project.
A Bengaluru-based startup TeamIndus has aimed to launch Indias first ever private mission to the moon. The point to ponder here is that the startup has no aerospace background. It is said that the startup will use ISROs PSLV to lift up the rover on December 28, 2017, which will land on the lunar surface and explore the site. It is the first such type of achievement of India in space after Chandrayaan mission.

According to the reports, the aim of the mission is to successfully land the rover on the moon which will travel at least 500m on the lunar surface and beam back high-definition video and images back to the earth. The mission will lay the path for the bigger Chandrayaan-2 mission.

If the mission is successful then ISRO scientists will the use the technology and develop the Chandrayaan-2 lander for exploration of Moon. It will be ISROs second mission to the moon after the success of Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008. However, the Chandrayaan-2 mission is still in early stages and no mission update and launch dates have been announced by the officials yet.

While taking the private moon mission, every part of the mission is being completed by the TeamIndus except the launching which is being assisted by ISRO. As per the estimates, the mission will cost around $60 million. So far, the team has raised $15 million and they aim to raise remaining funds by September-October next year.

The total expense of the project is about USD 60 million and we have raised USD 15 million so far. We will have to raise the remaining amount by September-October next year, TeamIndus co-founder and Director Julius Amrit said.

Renowned personalities like Ratan Tata of the Tata Group; Sachin and Binny Bansal, co-founders of Flipkart and Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys Ltd, have invested in the project.

In addition, the TeamIndus which is backed by a team of hundred engineers is aiming to win $25 million Google Lunar XPRIZE competition.

The Moon is not only our nearest planetary neighbour, but it is also the gateway to the rest of the universe, Googles website describing the Lunar XPRIZE states. The Moon provides exciting opportunities for discovery in the fields of science, technology, resource detection and utilisation, and human habitation.

Googles Lunar XPRIZE was started back in 2007 with a goal to involve private organisations in space missions and revisit landing site of Apollo 17. Google believes that space agencies like NASA and SpaceX are planning for Journey to Mars but studying Moon can help us in developing a better understanding of our universe.

The US space agency NASA started sending astronauts to the moon with Apollo missions starting in 1969. While Apollo 17 was the last manned mission to the moon and Google wants to examine the site. In addition, Google has also announced an additional $5 million prize for the mission that makes further scientific discoveries after exploring the site.

Moreover, ISROs PSLV rocket will be used to lift the spacecraft. If successful, it will mark another milestone in Indian space history which will also motivate other private firms towards space mission. The satellite is scheduled to launch on December 28, 2017. The PSLV will inject the spacecraft into an orbit 880 km x 70,000 km around the Earth. From there, the spacecraft will take another 21 days to land on Moon.

India as a country is underestimated when it comes down to having a technology led firm  it is time, India is seen from a different perspective on the global platform, said Dhruv Batra who manages product delivery for the startup.

We can be profitable in this mission. We are making a fair amount of money but investing more than what we are making right now, said Julius Amrit, director, Team Indus.
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Former U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, posted photos on Saturday of his recovery in a New Zealand hospital after he was evacuated from the South Pole due to illness. Aldrin, 86, who was visiting the pole as part of a tourist group, was flown to Christchurch, New Zealand, early on Friday local time when his condition deteriorated.

He has fluid in his lungs but is responding well to antibiotics and is in a stable condition, according to his official website. Aldrin appeared in good spirits on Saturday after receiving a visit from NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman at Christchurch Hospital.

"I had a surprise visitor this morning. My longtime friend," he wrote on Twitter. In the photos, Aldrin can be seen giving a thumbs-up sign and sitting in front of a tray of food and juice.

His manager Christina Korp, who travelled with him to Antarctica, posted photos on Thursday of the former astronaut walking over snow at the South Pole. Aldrin was a fighter pilot during the Korean War before joining the U.S. astronaut program. On July 20, 1969, he stepped on the moon about 20 minutes after Neil Armstrong had taken the historic first step.Their moonwalk was part of the Apollo 11 lunar landing was watched by a then-record television audience of 600 million people.

Reuters
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At a time when serpentine queues continue to grow outside ATMs across the country following the demonetisation move, a top executive of Intel Security has warned that ATMs in India are susceptible to security breaches.

Intel Security, with its McAfee product line, is the world's largest dedicated security technology company.

In banks, a breach can happen at multiple levels -- like at an ATM, data centre, network or through mobile banking. "The ATM today is an easy target for hackers to hit a network," Anand Ramamoorthy, Managing Director, Intel Security, South Asia, told IANS in an interview.

ATM attacks have affected several countries in the recent past. A hacker group called Cobalt targeted ATMs across Europe last month and remotely attacked the machines using malicious software that manipulated the systems which led the machines to automatically dispense huge amounts of cash.

Banks in India will have to make efforts to ensure that ATMs are protected with multiple levels of authentication and industry-standard encryption, ensuring data security at all points of a transaction.

According to experts, banks need to work towards gradually enabling EMV chip and PIN-enabled card acceptance and processing at ATMs to enhance the safety and security of transactions.

"It is time that magnetic-stripe cards issued by banks for ATM transactions are replaced at the earliest. While the affected banks are blocking debit cards to minimise the impact, the already ongoing replacement of mag-stripe cards with EMV chip cards will help the banks and consumers," Atul Singh, Regional Director-Banking and Transport (India Subcontinent) at the digital security giant Gemalto, told IANS earlier.

EMV -- which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa -- is a global standard for credit cards that uses computer chips to authenticate (and secure) chip-card transactions.

"We have seen a big focus on ATM attacks in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, including India. ATMs in underdeveloped countries are particularly vulnerable as those countries still have old ATM software and are running Windows XP. This makes them the perfect target for an easier score," US-based cyber security company FireEye said recently.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently urged people to "embrace e-banking, mobile banking and more such technology", but Ramamoorthy warned that as mobile banking becomes popular, it will involve greater risks.

"You have to become aware as you become more digitised," noted Ramamoorthy, adding that mobile has become more of a financial gateway and its implications are huge for the country.

Earlier this year, following a malware-related security breach, the State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and YES Bank blocked millions of debit cards that were compromised in one of the biggest data breaches in the financial sector.

"To protect ATMs from cyber attacks in the future, Intel Security has deployed an 'Embedded App' control which not only protects ATMs at the site but also the network which it is connected to," Ramamoorthy said, adding that the app is set for an update in 2017.

IANS
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European space agency (ESA) member states have approved another 450 million euros ($479 million) in funding for the ExoMars mission to the Red Planet, even after a test lander that was part of the program crashed in October, ESA said on Friday.

The European-Russian ExoMars program sent a gas-sniffing orbiter and the test lander to Mars this year to search for signs of past or present life on the Red Planet and to lay the groundwork for a rover that is due to follow in 2020.

The Schiaparelli lander crashed after a sensor failure caused it to cast away its parachute and turn off braking thrusters more than two miles (3.7 km) above the surface of the planet, as though it had already landed.

ESA Director General Jan Woerner said ESA scientists needed to work hard now to meet the schedule for the Mars rover, especially as a delay to the mission beyond 2020 was not an option. "It's not an easy thing, but we are confident we will succeed," Woerner said.

The money for ExoMars is part of an overall 10.3 billion euros - close to the 11 billion ESA has requested - for European space programs that the ESA's 22 member states approved at a two-day meeting in Lucerne which ended on Friday.

That funding includes just over 800 million euros for Europe's role in the International Space Station (ISS), plus another 153 million for science projects that involve the ISS.

The member states also approved a commitment to extend European participation in the space station to 2024, which will allow ESA to send further astronauts to the ISS.

European astronaut Thomas Pesquet arrived at the ISS last month, around five months after the return of Britain's first official astronaut, Tim Peake.

Among programs that were not fully backed by ESA members was the Asteroid Impact Mission, which was meant to be part of a mission to explore how to deflect an asteroid heading for Earth.

"The program AIM could not get the full subscription we needed to ensure this program runs smoothly," Woerner said, adding that asteroid-defense study would continue in other venues within the agency."These asteroid activities, looking at how we can really defend our planet in case something is happening and Bruce Willis is not ready to do it a second time... will be continued," he said, in reference to the 1998 film Armageddon, in which actor Bruce Willis plays a member of a team sent to destroy an asteroid to save planet Earth.

Reuters
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The Philippine government wants Bangladesh to share the findings of its investigation into how unknown hackers pulled off one of the world's largest cyber bank heists, to help speed up recovery of the stolen funds.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, who last week met with a Bangladesh delegation, said Manila "strongly recommended" Dhaka share the results of its investigation. He assured the visitors the government was doing it everything it could to find Bangladesh's missing money.

Cyber criminals tried to steal nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Bank in February and made off with $81 million via an account at the New York Federal Reserve. That money was transferred to four accounts with false names at one RCBC branch in Manila before vanishing.

"We are pursuing the lawsuits on your behalf as vigorously as we can," Dominguez was quoted in a statement as telling the delegation.

Bangladesh Bank has declined to disclose the findings of its own inquiry, saying it wanted to deny perpetrators knowledge of the investigation.

Most of the money was laundered through Philippine casinos. About $15 million recovered from a gaming junket operator has been returned to Bangladesh, with a further $2.7 million frozen.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who had earlier pledged the stolen money would be returned, cancelled a meeting with the Bangladesh team because of "pressing matters".

Asked if the findings of the probe would be shared with the Philippines government, Bangladesh's ambassador in Manila, John Gomes, said: "No one asked us anything yet."

But Philippine central bank deputy governor Nestor Espenilla said Manila had received an assurance from Bangladesh it would provide an "initial update" since the investigation was not yet finished.

Bangladesh has said it wanted RCBC, or the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC), to compensate it for its losses, but RCBC refuses to pay and has said the Bangladesh central bank was "negligent".

Bangladesh's Law Minister Anisul Huq last week said RCBC should shoulder the burden for accepting stolen funds.RCBC was fined a record one billion pesos ($20 million) by the Philippine central bank for its failure to prevent the movement of the stolen Bangladesh money through its bank. Huq said paying that fine was tantamount to accepting culpability.

An anti-money laundering body last month filed charges against five RCBC officials in connection with the theft.

No arrests have been made despite investigations by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Interpol, Bangladesh police and authorities in the Philippines.

Reuters
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Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), the economic wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), on Friday demanded a probe into the alleged "China connection" of the country's top mobile wallet provider Paytm. "There are reports that Paytm has connection with Chinese firm Alibaba. This is a matter of concern and needs to be probed," Ashwani Mahajan, co-convener of the SJM, told IANS.

Ever since the demonetisation drive, millions of consumers and merchants across the country have been opting for mobile payments via Paytm. The company has added over five million new users since the demonetisation was implemented.

Mahajan said the SJM welcomes the government's initiative towards creating a cashless society, but expressed concern about a few things. Giving reasons for his concern, Mahajan said, "We strongly suspect that Chinese firms may steal our banking data through such channels and may misuse it."

The users have to furnish their debit/credit card and bank account numbers while using apps like Paytm. "What is the percentage of foreign investment in Paytm? To what extent the firm's management is controlled by foreign players? These are a few questions we should have answers of," he added.

He said that no Indian company should be sharing data with foreign companies and the investment routes should be made very transparent. "We would take up the matter with the finance and commerce ministries," Mahajan said.

He also raised objection over Paytm using Prime Minister Narendra Modi's picture in its advertisements.

IANS
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal by printer cartridge reseller Impression Products Inc of a lower court ruling finding it liable for infringing patent rights of Lexmark International Inc when it imported Lexmark's toner products back to the United States after they were sold abroad.

If upheld by the justices, the February ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit favouring Kentucky-based Lexmark would reinforce U.S. patent owners' ability to control the use of their products even after they are sold. Lexmark was acquired on Wednesday by a group of investors led by Chinese company Apex Technology Co Ltd.

At issue is whether foreign sales restrict a patent owner's ability to sue for infringement if a buyer sells those products back in the United States, sometimes at a lower price.

The dispute is closely watched by the tech and pharmaceutical industries because of its potential impact on how they engage in international trade. Several companies, including Intel Corp and Vizio Inc, asked the court to hear the case, as did the U.S. Justice Department.

"For more than 150 years, this court has held that, once a particular patented article has been sold in the United States by the patentee ... the patent laws do not constrain the subsequent use or resale of that article," U.S. Solicitor General Ian Gershengorn wrote in the Obama administration's brief to the justices.

Lexmark sued several companies in 2010 for infringing its patented toner products by selling aftermarket cartridges that had been refurbished by third parties. All of the defendants settled except for West Virginia-based Impression Products.

The federal appeals court in February upheld a 2014 ruling by a lower federal court in Cincinnati, Ohio that found Impression Products liable for reselling Lexmark's cartridges that were first sold abroad.

It also overturned a ruling that cleared Impression Products from liability over the sale of Lexmark's single-use cartridges in the United States. Consumer groups had argued that patent law should not restrict customers from reselling or altering products they lawfully purchased.The Supreme Court will hear arguments and issue a ruling by the end of June.

Reuters
Muslim teen verbally attacked on NYC subway

PTI, New York :

A Muslim student was allegedly assaulted aboard a US subway train by three drunk white men who repeatedly screamed "Donald Trump!" and hurled anti-Islam slurs before trying to rip her hijab off, the latest in a slew of incidents in which headscarf-clad women have been targeted.

Three men attempted to rip off Yasmin Seweid's hijab, calling the 18-year-old student a "terrorist" and shouting President-elect Trump's name as she rode the subway through Manhattan.

Straphangers stood by and watched as the three drunk white men repeatedly screamed "Donald Trump!" and hurled anti-Islam slurs at the Muslim Baruch College student before trying to rip her hijab off on an East Side subway, the woman told the New York Daily News.

The incident that took place on Thursday is being investigated by the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force. Police are reviewing surveillance video to identify the men involved.

Ms Seweid said she was stunned by the assault and the fact that no one in the subway car came to her aid.

"I heard them say something very loudly, something about Donald Trump...I also heard them say the word terrorist and I sort of got a little scared," Ms Seweid was quoted as saying.

They kept screaming Mr Trump's name at her, and then said, "Oh look, a (expletive) terrorist," according to Ms Seweid.

"Get the hell out of the country!" they yelled during the train ride. "You don't belong here!"

Ms Seweid, who was born in the US to Egyptian parents, was shocked. "I born and raised in this country. I'm an American, you know?" she said.

When Ms Seweid ignored them, they pulled on her bag to get her attention and the strap broke.

"That's when I turned around and said 'can you please leave me alone', and they started laughing," Ms Seweid said.

She walked to the other end of the train, and they followed her and tried to pull off her hijab.

"I put my hand on top of my head to hold it. Then I turned around and screamed," she said. Ms Seweid got off the train and reported the terrifying incident to police.

The incident comes amid a slew of intimidation and assault cases that have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women following Mr Trump's win.

Earlier this month, a Hijab-clad Muslim student was allegedly struck in the face with a glass bottle in broad daylight at the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

In another incident, a hijab-clad woman was allegedly accosted at a US store by another customer who called her a "terrorist" and told her to "get out" of the country.

Also, a Muslim student's hijab was allegedly ripped off and her hair pulled down by a classmate at a school in Minnesota.




Europe holds its breath as Italy votes for change

AFP, Rome :

Italians went to the polls Sunday in a constitutional referendum on which reformist Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has staked his future.

Whatever the outcome of a vote being anxiously watched in capitals across Europe and carefully scrutinised on trading floors around the world, it will lead to change. If the centre-left Renzi's proposals to streamline a 68-year-old parliamentary system are voted down, he has vowed to resign.

That would usher in a period of political uncertainty and potential economic turmoil for the country and its European Union allies.

The most apocalyptic scenarios involve a crisis of investor confidence causing the failure of a rescue scheme for Italy's most indebted banks, triggering a broader crisis across the eurozone.

But markets last week, while jittery, appeared to have discounted that risk.

If Renzi wins, the country's youngest ever prime minister will be energised in his bid to transform Italy.

Critics say Italy will have been deprived of democratic checks and balances put in place in the aftermath of World War II following the disastrous rule of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Victory for Renzi will mean a new mandate to pursue reforms he sees as key to unshackling Italy's creativity from the influence of a self-serving political caste that has exploited institutional weakness to stymie change.

"If we miss this chance it won't come back for 20 years," he warned voters before campaigning was suspended at midnight on Friday.. Italians appear to realise how much is at stake.

Voters, who have been known to head to the beach rather than the ballot box when less important referendums have fallen on a sunny day, have spent weeks passionately embracing the pros and cons of the proposed reforms.

A bumper turnout looks like the only prediction anyone can make with any certainty, as polls have been banned since November 18.

Up until then the "No" camp was leading comfortably-but with a quarter of the electorate undecided, Renzi is counting on a silent majority of shy reformers to pull off a surprise turnaround. After the Brexit and Donald Trump victories, populism has been a factor, and the Five Star Movement led by comic Beppe Grillo would see a "No" vote as its stepping stone to government.

But the campaign has also sent many voters back to their high school textbooks to reconsider the merits of a much-loved constitution, producing an invigorating national discussion that has recalled Scotland's 2014 independence referendum more than the rhetorically-charged Brexit or US presidential debates.

Renzi wants to drastically scale back the size and powers of the parliamentary second chamber, the Senate.

Under his proposed reform, a body of 315 directly-elected and five lifetime lawmakers will become one with only 100 members, mostly nominated by the regions.

The body would also be stripped of most of its powers to block and revise legislation, and to unseat governments.

Other envisioned changes involve transferring some regional powers to the national government, making it easier to get major infrastructural works approved, and abolition of a costly policy agency in Rome.




Remembering Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque and Dr. M Abul Kashem Mozumder :

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, (1892-1963) was born in a respectable Muslim family at Medinipur in West Bengal. He was educated with B.Sc (honors) and BCL from Oxford University. Returned to India in 1920 he became actively involved in politics "During his political career, Suhrawardy held various important offices including the Deputy Mayoralty of the Calcutta Corporation in 1924, Labour and Commerce Minister in AK Fazlul Huq's Praja-League coalition government formed following the 1937 elections, Civil Supplies Minister in the Khwaja Nazimuddin Ministry during 1943-1945, the Prime Minister (chief minister) of undivided Bengal during 1946-1947, Law Minister in Mohammad Ali's Cabinet in Pakistan during 1954-1955 and the Prime Minister of Pakistan during 1956-1957. Suhrawardy was an able political organiser. He proved his ability while he had been the General Secretary of the Calcutta Khilafat Committee in the 1920s. Starting his practical life as a labour leader in Calcutta, within a short period of time he succeeded in organising as many as 36 trade unions among seamen, railway employees, jute and cotton mills workers, rickshaw pullers, cart drivers, etc. On the eve of the 1926 Council elections he founded the Independent Muslim Party. At the time of the next Council elections held in 1929, Suhrawardy organised a new body, namely the Bengal Muslim Election Board. He founded the United Muslim Party in Kolkata preceding the 1937 elections with himself as its secretary." (Harun-or-Rashid' B'Pedia)

Suhrawardy joined the Swaraj Party of Desbanbhu Chittaranjan Das in 1921. 'He became the Mayor of Calcutta, the largest city in British India, during the 1930s, and later, as a member of the All-India Muslim League, assumed the premiership of Bengal in the mid-1940s. Along with Sarat Chandr Bose, Suhrawardy mooted the United Bengal proposal, in an attempt to prevent the Partition of Bengal (Wikipedia)

Suhrawardy was also concerned with the interests of the Muslim, joined the movement in the pursuit of a separate homeland for the Muslims. . 'In 1932 he attended the Third Round Table Conference in London as a representative of his community. He was an ardent supporter of the Separate Electorate System for the Muslims. Suhrawardy was the mover of official resolution of the Delhi Muslim Legislators' Convention held on 7-9 April 1946 by the initiative of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. During his Chief Ministership there occurred the 'Great Calcutta Killings' on the occasion of the Direct Action Day called by the Muslim League in 16 August 1946 in support of the demand for Pakistan.'

During the British period he fought for establishing the rights of the Muslim in Bengal and thus joined Pakistan movement, yet he was non communal even saving the lives of the both Hindus and Muslims in the event of communal disturbance. It is generally accepted that the Calcutta riots on and after Direct Action Day on August 16, 1946, called by Jinnah. . Both Suhrawardy and his discipile Mujib had regard for Desbandhu . He believed that had Desbanbhu lived longer he would have eliminated the causes of Hindu-Muslim conflict" Bangladeshi friends told me in Dhaka in the 1970s that if Das had lived and been able to guide Congress politics, there may not have been a partition of India. (S.A. Karim)

He did not come to Pakistan immediately after its birth on 14 August 1947. For, he was busy in peace mission. Also his relation with Muslim League was not cordial. So he stayed in Calcutta for sometime. Going to Pakistan ' he became 'a leading populist statesman of East Pakistan, leaving the Muslim League to join the newly formed centre-left Awami League in 1952. Along with A. K. Fazlul Huq and Maulana Bhashani, and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman he led the 'pan-Bengali United Front alliance' to a resounding victory in the 1954 East Bengal elections and defeated the Muslim League.' Being the mentor of Bangabandhu he advocated parity formula as central government from the very beginning discriminated against East Pakistan . He was advocating the path of addressing the problem of disparity through constitutional means. His contribution to the framing of 1956 constitution deserves mention.

The four leaders like Suhrawardy, Bangabandhu, Sher-e-Bangla and Maulana Bhasani witnessed seminal events during colonial and post-colonial periods sometime with volcanic eruption of mass sentiment. They put their heads together in the spirit of co-operation in the struggle for democracy. Sheikh Mujib impressed his compatriots all with his organizational dexterity, charisma and uncompromising mindset with tremendous courage.. Suhrawardy from the very beginning of his rapport with Mujib noted 'young Mujib's name and address and was later to write to him to stay in touch. Thus began an association between mentor and pupil that was to last till the former's death.' Mujib's understanding with Bhasani and Sher-e-Bangla deepened in the midst of resistance against palace politics in Pakistan. Mujib did not see eye to eye with Sher-e-Bangla Fazlul Haque in the movement for a separate homeland for the Muslims especially the role Muslim League. It does not mean that there was no love lost between these two great leaders. Both were progressive in mindset-feeling for the ordinary masses. Mujib joined Jukto Front government with Suhrawardy and Sher-e-Bangla in 1954. Nevertheless, Mujib used to rub shoulders with Suhawardy keeping in touch with him at regular intervals.

'In 1956, the Awami League formed an alliance with the Republican Party to lead a coalition government in Pakistan. Suhrawardy became prime minister and pledged to resolve the energy crises, address economic disparities between East and West Pakistan, and strengthen the armed forces. His initiatives included supply side economic policies planning nuclear power and energy and reorganizing and reforming the Pakistani military.

In foreign policy, he pioneered a strategic partnership with the United States. Faced with pressure from the bureaucracy and business community over his policies in aid distribution, nationalization and opposition to the One Unit scheme, he was forced to resign on 10 October 1957, under threat of dismissal by President Iskandar Mirza . He was banned from public life by the military junta of General Ayub Khan. Suhrawardy died in 1963 in Beirut, Lebanon after suffering a massive heart attack.'

May his departed soul rest in eternal peace. Ameen.



(Dr. Mashreque is professor, Public Administration, Chittagong University and Dr. Kashem is a Member, PSC)
To Suhrawardy, politics is a way of life

Muhammad Shahbaz :

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was born in Medinipore in the West Bengal on September 8, 1892. After finishing his education at Calcutta Alia Madrasa, he attended St. Xavier's College, wherefrom he received a Bachelor of Science degree with Honours in Sciences. To fulfill his mother's earnest request, he did another M.A., in Arabic Language and Literature from Calcutta University before his departure for England in 1913. He studied Sciences at Oxford University and received a Bachelor degree with Honours in Science. He also studied Law and Jurisprudence at Oxford University. He completed his Bar-at-Law from Gray's Inn in 1918. He started his law practice at Calcutta High Court immediately after his return from England.

Mr. Suhrawardy started his political career in 1920, with Khilafat Movement. In 1924, he was elected as the Deputy Mayor of Calcutta Municipal Corporation (along with C.R. Das as the Mayor), and held that position until 1927. He worked tirelessly during the late spring and early summer months of 1926 to put an end to Hindu-Muslim riots in Calcutta. The leaders and newspapers of the Hindu community in Calcutta targeted him for his defense in the Courts of law for the falsely accused Muslim rioters. By the year 1927, he emerged as the most vocal and articulate defender of Muslim rights in the city of Calcutta; Organized numerous associations, labor unions, and trade unions in Calcutta. He was instrumental in organising the All-India Khilafat Conference and All-Bengal Muslim Conference in 1928. As one of the emerging Muslim leaders of India, H.S. Suhrawardy was very critical about the lopsided recommendations of the Simon Commission Report. He was ardent critic of the Nehru (Motilal) Commission Report. He was actively involved in holding of the Conferences of the All-India Muslim Volunteers in 1931-32. With prominent Muslim leaders of Bengal, he formed Independent Muslim Party (IMP) in early 1936, and was elected its first General Secretary. However, on the insistence of the provincial and All-India Muslim League leaders, he merged (IMP) in the later part of 1936 with the Bengal Provincial Muslim League (BPML). H.S. Suhrawardy became the first general secretary of the BPML in 1936. From the end of 1936 through the end of 1943, he performed a yeoman's task in the process of popularising the moribund Muslim League party and the concept of Pakistan among the Muslim masses throughout the nooks and corners of the then Bengal. He played a dominant role in the process of recruiting a group of dedicated and capable party workers and later in the formation of the Muslim National Guards under the sponsorship of the BPML.

He remained elected member of the Bengal Legislative Council ever since 1921. During the 1937 and 1946 elections, he won from two constituencies. He got Khawaja Nazimuddin elected from the second seat, which he vacated after the 1937 elections.

He was a seasoned Parliamentarian in the true sense of the term. His speeches in the legislative assemblies both before and after the partition are considered as classics in legislative debates. His relentless fight throughout his post-partition political life for establishing a federally anchored Parliamentary form of government in Pakistan owed much to the robust legislative training and experience that he had gained during his pre-partition political years from 1921 to 1947 in the Bengal Legislative Council and the Bengal Legislative Assembly.

After the formation of the Muslim League and Proja Party coalition ministry in Bengal under the leadership A.K. Fazlul Haq, H.S. Suhrawardy became Minister for Labor. He was the most active member in Khawaja Nazimuddin Cabinet, which was formed after the collapse of Sher-e-Bangla Cabinet in 1943. H.S. Suhrawardy personally enlisted the support of industrial workers of Bengal in favour of the Pakistan movement. His popularity among the students and younger generation had motivated many to be the most vocal supporters of the movement. He was personally requested by Mohammad Ali Jinnah to move the controversial Amendment to the original version of the historic 1940 Lahore Resolution at the Delhi Convention of the Muslim League Legislators in 1946. H.S. Suhrawardy proposal for 'Sovereign Bengal' did not gain much ground with the Hindus because his reputation as a staunch defender of the Muslim rights in Bengal. His role before, during, and after the 1946 riots in Calcutta to safeguard the interest and welfare of common Muslims, had seriously eroded his credibility among the leaders and masses of the Hindu community and Congress. With the exception of S. C. Bose, his idea of 'Sovereign United Bengal' as a last minute effort to stop the partition of Bengal in 1947 was not well received by the religiously imbued Congress leaders. By that time, the Hindu Mahashabha leaders and the Congress leadership in Bengal were already committed to the division of Bengal on communal lines. Therefore, there is little wonder that the Congress-led champions of 'Akhanda Bharat' and Hindu Mahashabha-led exponents of the 'divided' Bengal were not at all willing to lend any support to his proposal for sovereign Bengal. Unfortunately, the concept of a separate sovereign Bengal, which was aimed to save the lives of thousands of Muslims in Calcutta, was not appreciated by both the top leadership of Congress and Muslim league, who were bent upon Partition of Bengal. Few realise that at the risk of his political career he took the bold decision to leave the Muslim League meeting in Karachi on 8 August 1947 to rush to Calcutta, as he was still the CM of united Bengal to the call of Gandhi to save the lives of Muslims. As against the Punjab leaders, who failed to come forward and save millions of valuable lives lost. Instead of recognising his popularity, political stature, commitment, and organisational skills, and his contribution to the Pakistan movement at a critical juncture, The Muslim League leadership consciously patronised unpopular leader Khawaja Nazimuddin. Kh Nazimuddin was nominated the Parliamentary leader of the Muslim League legislators in East Bengal on August 5, 1947 (only 9 days before Pakistan was born!). H.S. Suhrawardy was still popular CM of United Bengal. The Muslim League leadership feared his popularity with the masses.

With the selection of a conservative and discredited leader of the BPML for assuming the role of the Chief Minister of East Bengal (East Pakistan) over a progressive and dynamic leader of H.S. Suhrawardy caliber and stature, the leadership of the new nation of Pakistan had tacitly sealed the political fate of the last Prime Minister of undivided Bengal. Once Pakistan was a reality on August 14, 1947, the goal of Khawaja Nazimuddin and his coterie in the provincial Muslim League was to keep the doors of the party closed to the most progressive and dynamic members of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League. The followers of both H.S. Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim were singled out to be excluded even from the primary membership of the Muslim League. H.S. Suhrawardy was literally banished from the political scene of Pakistan by the leadership both at the center in Karachi and in the province of East Bengal. As the Chief Minister of East Bengal, Khawaja Nazimuddin lost no time in characterizing him as an 'Indian agent' and an 'enemy of Pakistan.'

He was quickly removed from the membership of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The East Bengal government had also prohibited him from entering or addressing public meetings in any place of East Bengal. Despite persistent attacks from the reactionary forces of the ruling Muslim League, H.S. Suhrawardy re-emerged in Pakistan's political scene as a champion of liberal democracy. He was one of the builders of opposition politics in the early years of Pakistan. Many of his followers took an active role in the formation of both the East Pakistan Student League (EPSL) in early 1948 and East Pakistan Awami Muslim League (EPAML) in mid-June-1949. These pro-democracy organizations were in the vanguard of all of the phases (1948-52) of the Bengali Language Movement. In 1953, H.S. Suhrawardy, in collaboration with A.K. Fazlul Haq and Maulana Bhashani, was responsible for forming Jukto Front (United Front). His organisational skills and personal charisma significantly contributed to the landslide victory of the United Front over the ruling Muslim League in the 1954 general election in East Bengal. The Ruling Muslim League was wiped out and got only 9 seats. Gen Islander Mirza an ICS officer was appointed Governor, East Bengal to undo this Election Victory.

In spite of all these high handed tactics by the ruling Muslim League, H. S. Suhrawardy emerged as the most credible voice in support of framing a Constitution with the provisions for civil liberties and a full-blown Parliamentary model of liberal democracy in Pakistan. He managed to get a foothold in the Punjabi and Mohajir dominated decision-making process of the central government, when he became the Law Minister in Mohammad Ali Bogra's Cabinet, and he held that position from December 20, 1954, through August, 1955. He was the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly of Pakistan from August 11, 1955 through September 1, 1956. His contribution to the making of the 1956 Constitution of Pakistan was substantial. He is the one who convinced the people and leaders of East Pakistan for the Parity Formula. He became Prime Minister of Pakistan from September 12, 1956 through October 11, 1957. The 1956 Constitution of Pakistan was suspended and Martial Law was promulgated by President Iskander Mirza (a descendent of Mir Jafar Ali Khan) on October 7,1958.

The newly installed dictator of Pakistan knew well that H.S. Suhrawardy was an obstacle in the design and implementation of his tailor-made Constitution. Ayub Khan quietly approached him to cooperate with the Constitution making process of the military regime. Although the Constitution making and democracy building were his chief concerns during his political career in Pakistan, he bluntly refused to lend any stamp of legitimacy to the illegitimate dictatorial regime of Ayub Khan. As a dedicated champion of genuine Parliamentary Democracy in Pakistan, he refused to endorse Ayub Khan's illegal seizure of state power. This was H.S Suhrawardy, a true democrat.

H.S. Suhrawardy was banned from politics through the imposition of the infamous Elective Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO) on August 7, 1959. He was arrested in January 1962 and put in a solitary confinement in the Central jail of Karachi without any trial on concocted charges of 'anti-state activities' under the 1952 Security of Pakistan Act. Instead of bowing down to Ayub Khan's smearing and torturing tactics, he decided to challenge the legality of the patently false and baseless allegations. H.S. Suhrawardy was thus released from jail on August 19,1962. After his release from jail, he launched an anti-Ayub movement in both wings of Pakistan for the restoration of democracy. To him, Ayub Khan's Basic Democracy was nothing but a mockery in the name of democracy. Instead of becoming a collaborator of a military dictator, he decided to be the most authentic dissenting voice against the then diabolical regime. He successfully enlisted support from all prodemocratic forces of Pakistan, and he formed the National Democratic Front (NDF) in October 1962 to dislodge the undemocratic regime of a military dictator. His immediate goal was to re-establish Parliamentary Democracy and Democratic institutions in Pakistan through the restoration of the 1956 Constitution.

He worked round the clock, which adversely affected his health, suffered a severe Heart Attack for which had to go abroad for treatment. While recovering from his heart ailment, he died on December 5, 1963 in a hotel room in Beirut under mysterious circumstances. He was buried in Dhaka on December 8, 1963 beside Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq's grave, adjacent to the then Race Course Maidan (Dhaka Race Course has been named after him as Suhrawardy Uddyan after Independence of Bangladesh). At his funeral in the grounds of Dhaka high court, there was literally a sea of humanity present to pay their homage. Many glowing tributes were paid for his qualities as a person and a political leader, but what his famous and trusted colleague Abul Hashim said about him was the most striking. "He died a magnificent pauper, receiving the burial of an emperor."

He died at a time when the dissenting political forces in Pakistan were gaining ground toward building-up an effective opposition against the military dictatorship of Ayub Khan. The passing away of this political doyen at that critical moment created a void in the core leadership of the resistance movement against the autocratic dictatorship in Pakistan. He was the most articulate voice for introduction of adult franchise and restoration of Parliamentary democracy in Pakistan in an era when a military dictator was in the process of consolidating his grip over the political process through the introduction of the so-called Basic Democracy. (Abridged)

-Internet
RMG employee killed in road crash

A Correspondent :

An employee of a garment factory was killed as a human hauler ran him over while he was crossing a road at Chandgaon in Chittagong city on Saturday.

Miltan Barua, 42, of Raozan upazila in Chittagong, was the shift in-charge at Nine to Nine at Chandgaon. Police is trying to identify the bus.
Ex-SP Babul now at pvt hospital job

Staff Reporter :

Former Superintendent of Police (SP) Babul Akter joined city's Ad-din Medical College and Hospital (AMCH) as an Assistant Director, sources said.

He (Babul Akter) has been working with the AMCH since November 1, hospital sources said. However, the hospital authority is maintaining secrecy about his (Babul) activity to avert any untoward incident.

On September 6, ending

all speculations about the police officer's fate, the government, relieved him of duties by accepting his resignation, triggering a huge controversy.

Mosharaf Hossain, Babul's father-in-law, said Babul is now in a private job. He, however, refused to give details about the former police officer's new employment."

After his resignation from Bangladesh Police, Babul said, "Right now, I'm out of my house with my two kids." His phone was found switched off when efforts were made to contact him later."

The home ministry earlier issued a circular in this regard, saying it took effect immediately.

"Babul Akter, additional deputy police commissioner CMP, appointed through 24th BCS (Police) (BP-7505109029), Chittagong, (Now superintendent of police and attached to the police headquarters), has been relieved of the job (police cadre) on the basis of his application," reads the circular.

On June 5, three unidentified assailants had stabbed and shot dead Mahmuda Khanam Mitu, wife of Babul Akter, at the GEC intersection in Chittagong city.


Arrest warrant against two BCL leaders

Court Correspondent :

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Court of Dhaka on Sunday issued warrant of arrest against two BCL leaders, who earlier, secured bail in a case filed in connection with brandishing guns during an eviction drive against hawkers in Gulistan area in the city.

Magistrate Khurshid Alam passed the order in their absence, after Sub-Inspector of Shahbagh Police Station and Investigation Officer of the case, Emranul Islam made a plea to place them on a 10-day remand to interrogate them, canceling their bail.

On October 27, there was a clash in Gulistan area when a Dhaka South City Corporation team launched campaign to evict illegal makeshift shops from the pavements and underpass market area. Ten people, including two city corporation employees were injured in the incident.

The picture of two BCL leaders- Dhaka City South Unit general secretary Md Sabbir Hossain and Wari Unit general secretary Ashiqur Rahman Sabbir were seen brandishing guns appeared in the media the next day. Following the incident, BCL, the student front of Awami League expelled the duo from the organization for violating organizational discipline.

Shahbagh Police Station SI Md Abdul Mannan filed a case accusing the two and 50 to 60 unnamed persons of 'attempt to murder' on October 31.

The law enforcers, however, could not arrest them. On November 17, the accused surrendered to a Dhaka court and secured bail.
Thousands bid farewell to Castro

Schoolchildren salute as the urn with the ashes of Cuban leader Fidel Castro enters Santiago, Cuba.

Al Jazeera News :

President Raul Castro has led tens of thousands of Cubans in a pledge to defend the socialist legacy of his brother Fidel Castro, who died last week aged 90 and will be interred in the city where the Cuban Revolution was launched.

"This is the unconquered Fidel who calls us with his example," the president, dressed in his four-star general's uniform, told a crowd that had burst into chants of "I am Fidel" on Saturday night.

"Yes, we will overcome any obstacle, turmoil or threat in the building of socialism in Cuba," Raul Castro, 85, said in a speech before Santiago's packed central plaza. Castro's ashes will be entombed near the remains of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti, in a private ceremony beginning on Sunday at 7am (12:00 GMT), concluding nine days of national mourning.

Raul Castro was joined on the stage by leftist foreign dignitaries and the Cuban political leadership to bid farewell to the man known to most Cubans as "El Comandante" - the commander - or simply "Fidel".

After two days of events in Havana, Castro's funeral cortege departed on a three-day,

800km journey east, retracing the route that the triumphant rebels took upon overthrowing US-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Raul Castro said "millions" had come out to pay tribute. Crowds have greeted the caravan along the whole route, with volunteers sprucing up bridges and houses with fresh paint in Castro's honour.

Although billboards with Castro quotes stand throughout the country and his portrait hangs from numerous government buildings and in private homes, Fidel Castro's image will not be immortalised with statues and public places will not be named after him, Raul Castro said.

"The most interesting thing that he [Raul Castro] announced was that Fidel Castro before dying had specifically asked that there will be no statues built of him," said Al Jazeera's Lucia Newman, reporting from the ceremony in Santiago. "Raul Castro said that his brother did not believe in the cult of the personality. So, he says that he will send legislation to the national assembly to make Fidel Castro's wishes law." With his brother at his side, Castro began his revolution on July 26, 1953, with a failed assault on the Moncada barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. He went on to build a Soviet-sponsored communist state 145km from the United States and survived a half century of US attempts to topple or kill him.

"He defeated the empire and defended his country," Alvin Bailey, a social activist who lived in Cuba and met Castro many times, told Al Jazeera.

"Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Chili... humble people of all shades knew he stood for the common man, wherever on the planet." Castro's socialist government survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, but at the cost of more than a decade of great economic hardship that was relieved by the largesse of his political disciple, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. "In the unipolar world, the one of transnationals that arose after the fall of the socialist bloc, the permanent lesson of Fidel is that, yes, it can done, man is capable of overcoming the most difficult conditions," Raul Castro said.

Over the past two decades, a clutch of leftist governments rose to power in Latin America inspired by his ideas and fierce opposition to the US. Several have now been defeated at the ballot box.

High-profile friends of Castro, including Bolivian President Evo Morales and former Brazilian Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, arrived for the evening sendoff. Lula was a close ally of Cuba when he was president from 2003 to 2010, as was his successor Dilma Rousseff, until she was impeached this year.




HC grants bail to 3 prisoners without trial

Staff Reporter :

The High Court (HC) on Sunday imposed sanction on gambling in 13 renowned clubs of the country.

The HC bench of Justice Quamrul Islam Siddique and Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif passed the order after primary hearing of a writ petition filed by two Supreme Court lawyers -- Samiul Huq and Barrister Rokonuddin Md Faruq -- seeking necessary directives from the High Court.

Twelve defendants, including Home Secretary, Inspector General of Police, DMP and CMP Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners of Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Khulna and Narayanganj were asked to carry out this order immediately.

The court also issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain in four weeks as to why they should not be directed to take necessary actions against the unlawful business and indoor games of cards, dice and housie in exchange of money.

The 13 clubs are: Dhaka Club, Uttara Club, Gulshan Club, Dhanmondi Club, Banani Club, Officers Club, Dhaka Ladies Club, Cadet College Club, Chittagong Club, Chittagong Seniors Club, Narayanganj Club, Sylhet Club and Khulna Club.

The two lawyers filed the petition last Wednesday challenging the legality of unlawful business and indoor games of cards, dice and housie in exchange of money in those clubs.

Advocate Redwan Ahmed took part in the hearing on behalf of the petitioners while Deputy Attorney General Mokhlesur Rahman stood for the State.

Redwan Ahmed said that these games in exchange of money are illegal according to law and also contradictory to our Constitution.

After the hearing, the HC imposed sanctions on gambling in these 13 prominent clubs of the country.


Suhrawardy`s 53rd death anniv today

AL, other orgns chalked out progs

Staff Reporter :

The 53rd death anniversary of one of the greatest leaders of undivided Indian subcontinent Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy will be observed in the country today [Monday] with due respect and honour through different programmes.

On this day in 1963, the unparallel leader who had dedicated his entire life to ensure the welfare of the people by upholding democracy died at a Beirut hotel in Lebanon in a mysterious circumstance. Nobody was beside him at that time.

Suhrawardy, the Premier of Bengal in British India and fifth Prime Minister of Pakistan, was a Bengali politician and statesman in the first half of the 20th Century.

Meanwhile, President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid deep tributes to the memory of Suhrawardy on the occasion of his death anniversary.

In his message, President Abdul Hamid said Suhrawardy's life and work will inspire the future generations in democratic thinking and welfare of the people.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her message, said the life and work of the great leader will inspire the nation in resolving political crisis and in the advancement of democracy.

To mark the day, different political and socio-cultural organizations, including ruling Awami League, have chalked out various programmes, including placing wreaths at the grave of the great leader in the morning, discussion meetings, Quran khwani, milad and Doa Mahfil in the capital and elsewhere across the country.

The AL will pay tribute to the late leader by placing wreaths at his grave adjacent to the High Court at 8:00am today where Fateha and Doa will be offered.

In a statement, AL General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said that Suhrawardy had made immense contributions to the struggle to establish democracy, justice and rule of law.

Quader urged the party leaders and workers and its associate bodies and other like-minded organizations to observe the death anniversary.

Jatiya Party [Manju] will also observe his death anniversary today. A team of Jatiya Party leaders and activists will place wreaths at the Suhrawardy's mazar in the morning. A milad and munajat will be offered there.

Besides, a discussion meeting will be held at Engineers Institution, Bangladesh at 3:00pm where Jatiya Party Chairman and Environment and Forest Minister Anwar Hossain Manju will be present.

Jatiya Ganotantrik League will place wreaths at the mazar of the late leader in the morning.

Shaheed Suhrawardy Smriti Parishad and Bishwa Bangali Sammelan will also hold a discussion and Quran khwani at Suhrawardy's mazar at 8:00am. Food Minister Advocate Quamrul Islam will attend the programme as the chief guest.


500 shanties gutted in Korail slum fire

Over 500 shanties were gutted as fire broke out at Korail Boubazar in city\'s Mohakhali area on Sunday.

Staff Reporter :

At least 500 shanties were gutted in a fire that broke out in Korail Boubazar slum in the city's Mohakhali area on Sunday afternoon.

However, no causalities were reported in the devastating fire which allegedly originated from a bedding store beside the slum, Fire Service sources said.

Fire Service and Civil Defence (FSCD) Headquarters Deputy Assistant Director Abdul Halim said, "The fire broke out in a bedding store around 2:45pm and 14 firefighting units doused the fire with the help of the local around 4:20pm."

The FSCD Assistant Director Masudur Rahman Akand said, "A fire broke out at Korail slum, located beside the Gulshan-Banani Lake. About 500 shanties were gutted in the fire. We have not heard any news of casualties."

Abdus Samad Sheikh, proprietor of a bedding store in Korail slum, claimed the fire broke out from a two-storied shanty beside his store in the afternoon. He said that BRAC provided first aid including the food and water.

The children were first relocated to the BRAC Center Inn premises but they appealed to be close to their houses.

Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Annisul Huq assured assistance for the affected people after preparing a list of them."

Earlier on March 14, at least 50 shanties were gutted in the Karhail slum fire.


Kidnapped BD worker rescued in KL: 6 held

Staff Reporter :

A kidnapped Bangladeshi migrant worker was rescued from Malaysia on Thursday after five days of the abduction.

The victim has been identified as Mahbub Alam, 36, son of Late Abul Kashem from Bhola district.

A joint team of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Malaysia Police in separate drives detained six persons for their alleged involvement with the kidnapping.

The three arrested men by RAB are Dulal, 40, Rupchad Ali, 25, from Tangail, and Ali Ahmed Rifat, 29, from Comilla, RAB official said.

But Malaysian Police did not disclose names of the three other arrested Bangladeshi nationals in Kuala Lumpur, MSK Shaheen, first secretary (consular wing) at Bangladesh High Commission to Kuala Lumpur, told the media on Sunday afternoon. Mufti Mahmud Khan, Director of Legal and Media Wing of the RAB, told the reporters in press briefing in the city's Kawranbazar area on Sunday morning.

In a drive, a team of RAB-3 arrested the three alleged kidnappers in Malibagh of Dhaka on November 28 and 29, the elite force official said.

Earlier, the victim's brother Nazmul Haq Sabuj filed a complaint to RAB-3 mentioning that some Bangladeshis based in Malaysia kidnapped his brother from the country's Pahang district on November 26.

The alleged kidnappers demanded Tk 3 lakh from Mahbub for his release, the RAB official said.

"We detained local agents of the kidnappers when they came to receive the ransom money at Malibagh in the capital. We were also able to rescue Mahbub from the kidnappers with the help of Bangladesh High Commission and Malaysian police on December 1," he said.

The victim was brought back home from Malaysia on Saturday night, he said. Mahbub Alam alleged that the kidnappers along with two Malaysian nationals picked him up from his residence in Pahang at night. "Two Malaysians introduced themselves as members of Malaysian police and asked me to go with them to a local police station," he said.

He claimed that the kidnappers tortured him inhumanly for realizing the ransom.
Many pvt varsities still violating the Act

M M Jasim :

Many private universities in the country are running their academic activities violating the 'Private University Act- 2010'.

According to the 42nd Annual Report published by the University Grants Commission (UGC), authorities of a good number of private universities are running their institutions whimsically.

"In some private universities, academic activities are satisfactory. Some of them are also trying to ensure quality higher education. But a good number of universities failed to ensure standard education as they are beset with many problems, including absence of Vice-Chancellors and other top officials," the report observed. The UGC also asked the private university authorities to follow the 17-point suggestions to make their students knowledgeable and their institutions prestigious and popular.

"Some private universities do not hold Syndicate and Academic meetings. Many universities don't have Chancellor's appointed VC, pro-VC and Treasurer. They do not submit their annual income and expenditure reports at the UGC. These are the direct violation of 'Private University Act- 2010'. It should be stopped," the report mentioned.

The UGC report suggests that it is mandatory to get approval of the Chancellor before finalization of all expenditures, including expenses of Board of Trustees, Academic Council, sitting allowance and excursion abroad.

A person nominated by the UGC from its member or from a recognized university who has at least 20 years experience in teaching and research can be appointed as supervisor with a view to bringing balance of power of Board of Trustees. The University Act must be amended before applying it, the report suggests. A university can select three audit firms for analyzing their financial expenditure. The Education Ministry selects one of the firms. It is not proper process. The ministry must select a firm for audit without taking any list from any university, it observed. A student can take two courses only in a semester. As a result, they get huge extra times for involving many activities both good and evil. A good number of the students were involved in militancy last year. So, the scope to involve in militancy should be reduced. The universities should take decision that a student must take three courses instead of two in a semester, the UGC recommends.

The University Authorities must also take initiative to check any anti-constitutional activities on the campuses by its teachers, students and employees.

Campaigning can be launched to inspire the affluent people for establishing new private universities in different parts of the country, it further suggests.

A specific policy can be taken with a view to creating scope for the senior teachers of public universities to teach in private universities.

Proper steps should be taken to attract the teachers to join in any private university. And quality schools, colleges and hospitals must be established for the family members of teachers and employees. Every private university must appoint permanent teachers in its top posts.

The retried teachers of public universities can be appointed in the private universities to explore their knowledge among the students. The teacher-student ratio has to bring in a logical form. The scope for research can be extended and modern laboratory can also be established.

Accreditation Council is a must to ensure quality education in private universities. Different Salary structures must be formed to attract the talents in the teaching profession, the report said. UGC Chairman Professor Abdul Mannan told The New Nation yesterday that every private university must follow the Private University Act-2010.

"We just give them some suggestions to improve their education standard. Stern action will be taken if any university violates the Act," the UGC Chairman said.


Probe report won`t be shared with anyone: Muhith

Staff Reporter :

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said Bangladesh would not share the findings of Bangladesh Bank's cyber heist probe report with any one as it is an internal matter.



"The probe report cannot be shared with Philippines Rizal Commercial Bank Corporation (RCBC) or anyone because it is an internal matter of Bangladesh" Muhith said.



He made the statement while briefing to journalists after a meeting with Law Minister Anisul Haq at his secretariat office on Sunday.



Haq briefed the Finance Minister three days after he arrived to the country following a visit to Manila to speed up the process of retrieving the remaining $65 million of stolen $81 million from Bangladesh Bank (BB) account.

BB has already recovered $15.25 million from the Philippines' anti-money laundering council, nine months after hackers stole the $81 million from its account.



"Even though media is reporting about the matter but we haven't received an official request for sharing the probe report with RCBC or the authorities of Philippines," said Muhith.



The Minister also expressed the hope to bring back the $29 million more heist fund which remains frozen in Philippine following a court directive.



"I don't know how RCBC can consider the stolen money as its asset," he commented. Earlier, Reuters reported Philippines government wants Bangladesh to share the findings of its investigation into the heist to help speed up recovery of the stolen funds.



RCBC's external counsel Thea Daep last week urged BB to be transparent and produce the results of its own investigation to shed light on who was behind the heist, saying it was the least Bangladesh Bank could do.



Philippines anti-money laundering body last month filed charges against five RCBC officials in connection with the theft.



Law Minister last week said RCBC should shoulder the burden for accepting stolen funds. RCBC was fined a record one billion pesos ($20 million) by the Philippine central bank for its failure to prevent the movement of the stolen Bangladesh money through its bank.



Huq said paying that fine was tantamount to accepting culpability. Unknown cyber criminals tried to steal nearly $1billion from the Bangladesh Bank's reserve account with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York in February.

They succeeded in transferring some $81million from the account and funneled into four accounts at the RCBC Jupiter branch in Manila. The funds were then transferred into casinos and junket operators through remittance firm PhilRem Service Corp. Following the incident, the government formed a high-powered committee to probe into the cyber heist.



The three-member probe panel, led by former BB governor Mohammed Farashuddin, earlier submitted the report to the Finance Minister AMA Muhith.


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.
Country

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If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs.
The Health & Wellness Foundation, in support of Sparta Community Hospital, recently presented the hospital with a final donation of $25,000 from its Vantage Titan MRI Campaign.

"Built to increase patient comfort, the Vantage Titan ultra-short, open bore MRI provides ample room for patients to feel more comfortable during exams," according to a news release from the Sparta Community Hospital.

"Accommodating big and small patients, the combination of a larger bore and a table that can support patients up to 440 lbs. over the entire range of motion, provides patients plenty of shoulder room and more breathing room from nose to magnet," the hospital stated in a news release. Additionally, patients no longer have to leave the building due to the new MRI suite built adjacent to the radiology department.
Shawnee Community College's Sherrie Malone, a business instructor, has been awarded the North Central Business Education Association Outstanding Contributions to Business Education by a Postsecondary Business Teacher for 2016, according to a news release from Shawnee Community College.

The North Central Business Education Association is an affiliate of the National Business Education Association, the nations largest professional organization devoted to serving individuals and groups engaged in instruction, administration, research and dissemination of information for and about business.

In addition to her most recent achievement, Malone was named Shawnee Community College Full-time Faculty Member of the Year in 2016, Illinois Business Education Association Post-Secondary Teacher of the Year in 2015, and Southern Illinois Business Education Association Teacher of the Year in 2014, according to Shawnee Community College.

Malone and her husband, David, have been married 25 years and have three children, Jenna, Tayler, and Aryn. Jenna and Tayler are currently Shawnee Community College students pursing degrees in nursing and business.

 The Southern
Construction will soon be under way for Marion's Fire Station parking lots and drive.

Marion Mayor Bob Butler said the project, which has been discussed at City Council meetings for the past three months, has been long overdue.

"Its been an ongoing subject and so we decided that we need to remove and replace some of the area in the parking lot," he said. "It's one of those things that has gradually deteriorated to the point that it has become necessary to do the project."

As a result, the City Council called for a special meeting on Thursday to approve the lowest bid to repave the damaged areas. The bid was from Marion Concrete in the amount of $76,000.

The project is set to begin as soon as possible with a deadline set for March 17, weather permitting, Butler said.

"Unless we run into a stretch of unseasonably warm weather, we think the March date is probably the best," he said.

The project will be funded through the HUB TIF fund.

 Nefeteria Brewster
Illinois State Police on Monday said the Mount Vernon man killed in a crash Friday on Interstate 64 is Jon Lair, 45.

Police said in a news release that Lair was killed about 11:57 p.m. Friday, when the vehicle he was driving left the roadway and crashed into a guardrail and sideswiped a concrete bridge before it was struck by semitrailer.

The driver of the semitrailer, 62-year-old Santiago A. Reyes, of Yelm, Washington, was not injured.

Police said Lair was driving a Toyota Tundra pickup truck eastbound on I-64 near mile post 51.5, when his vehicle left the roadway on the left and crashed into a guardrail, then came back onto the highway and crossed over both eastbound lanes of traffic, sideswiping a concrete bridge.

The vehicle then came to rest in the center of the eastbound lanes, where the semi-trailer driver told police he saw the vehicle too late and was unable to avoid the collision, according to the news release. The semitrailer struck the driver's side of the Toyota.

The crash is still under investigation.

There are no charges pending at this time, according to the news release.

 The Southern
CARBONDALE  The bottom is not falling out at the Department of Anthropology on the Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus, but the working conditions have worsened, said Professor Janet Fuller.

Even without changes in teaching loads, fewer faculty means more work for those remaining, she said.

There were three linguistic anthropologists to share the course load up until 2013, but Fuller is the only one who remains today. One retired, and one left for another position. The budget situation didnt necessarily drive them from campus, but it is the reason that the vacant positions remain unfilled. The same is true for dozens of other faculty openings across campus.

Though the department is able to fulfill its mission, she said the squeeze also has severely limited the funds available for the travel and equipment essential to the study of humankind.

I guess I would say that morale is not high, she said. Fuller echoed a sentiment that has been shared countless times in recent months by faculty and staff in departments across campus.

In the face of an epic, months-long budget battle in Springfield that has resulted in slashed budgets for universities, SIU has been treading water  avoiding major layoffs by attrition while administrators warn more significant reductions and reorganizations could lie ahead.

These sorts of conversations and anecdotal stories about how the budget impasse is playing out on campus paint an image of a higher education system heading for a crisis in Illinois.

Yet, state taxpayer support for higher education in recent years has reached all-time highs.

Its just that the new money isnt going into classrooms.

This is the lesser-told story of the financial predicament facing SIU and other public colleges and universities. SIUs plight is not unique; it is used as a case example in this article to illustrate the elephant in the halls of higher learning.

In the past decade, between fiscal years 2005 and 2015, the taxpayer funds provided on behalf of SIU System retirees, present and future, increased five-fold.

Heres how the payments to the State Universities Retirement System (SURS) on behalf of the SIU System break down in raw numbers for the years that bookend that span of time. (SURS provided this data to the newspaper in response to a public records request. The totals combine contributions on behalf of SIU Edwardsville and SIU Carbondale, the latter of which includes the SIU School of Medicine).

2005: $27 million

2015: $149 million

Thats a 452 percent increase.

The total taxpayer contributions to the retirement system for public universities and community colleges breaks down as follows:

2005: $270 million

2015: $1.5 billion

Thats a 472 percent increase. (Note: A portion of the contribution to SURS annually is from the sale of abandoned property via the State Pensions Fund.)

A challenging picture

Leading an institution through uncertain financial times, SIU President Randy Dunn has worked to strike a balance between optimism and honesty, but hes leveling with employees and the greater Southern Illinois community about the road ahead. The picture going from here will continue to be very challenging, he said in a recent interview.

Dunn said that one of the things he hears in the national discussions around higher education is that Illinois looks to be a well-funded state generally when the pension payments made on behalf of the universities by the state are considered in the summation of state support.

But theres more to that story, Dunn said. The state is having to make such large payments to the retirement systems because lawmakers for decades skipped or underfunded the states share, leading to a $130 billion unfunded liability. That number, revised as of this past month, sets a new undesirable record for Illinois, and solidifies the state's last place national ranking in its funding ratio of its five pension systems, at 37.6 percent. Illinois was previously tied for last place with Kentucky.

The huge and growing sums of money being funneled into the retirement system are intended to pay down legacy debt.

We certainly dont take those contributions for granted. We understand the pension costs in many states are directly charged to the institutions. And we realize the benefit of this contribution thats made on our behalf, Dunn said. At the same time, this funding model is not something any of us invented.

The 'Edgar ramp'

The increases are largely attributable to the pension payment ramp plan that originated with Republican Gov. Jim Edgar. In 1994, Edgar pitched and the General Assembly agreed to a plan intended to get the state back on track with regards to its pension obligations during a 50-year period, by 2045.

In the face of criticism, Edgar has defended the plan as an important step of that political era for policymakers to begin taking responsibility for Illinois long-ignored pension obligations. Further, lawmakers had the ability to tweak the plan along the way, Edgar said, according an April 2016 article in Crain's Chicago Business titled, "The Illinois Pension Disaster: What went wrong?"

The trouble with Edgars ramp plan is that it called for paying a little at first and then a lot more in later years  and those later years are the present.

Other factors also have played a role in creating the gaping pension hole facing Illinois, such as early retirement programs intended to reduce salary costs but that added additional liability to the state's pension systems. Also included in that mix are market forces outside the control of policymakers such as the dot-com market crash in 2000 and the Great Recession of 2008.

Regardless of the reasons, Dunn said that the system of public universities in Illinois cannot function or continue at the level it has with regards to degree production, research and regional support, without the state being a partner in that.

And that partnership cannot include the state only paying retiree obligations, Dunn said.

For additional context, heres a comparative breakdown of the amount of taxpayer funds contributed for SIU's operating budget and on behalf of SIU to the retirement system. These numbers do not represent SIU's total operating budget as money also comes from tuition and fees and smaller amounts from other areas.

2005:

Total state contribution: $244 million

SURS contribution: $27 million

Operating budget contribution: $217 million

2015:

Total state contribution: $349 million

SURS contribution: $149 million

Operating budget contribution: $200 million

The numbers represent about a 43 percent increase to the SIU System when the retirement and operating budget contributions are combined. But SIU saw its operating funds shrink by 8 percent during that same time.

In fiscal year 2016 and the present fiscal year, SIU received drastically less funding in two partial year budget plans. The only line item to receive a full year's funding for fiscal year 2017, the current one, was that for K-12 schools. All other areas of government have been funded by stopgap budget measures and court orders since Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner was seated in January 2015.

Part of the uncertainty facing higher education leaders is that it is difficult to say whether the financial decisions out of Springfield during the past 18 months represent a shorter-term consequence of a budget war between Democratic legislative leaders and the governor that will eventually level out, or a longer term reshaping of the relationship between the state and public institutions.

But there are signs pointing to the latter.

Four-year universities have taken the brunt of the cuts in the arena of education. Community colleges have fared much better, even though their employees ' retirements also are paid by the State Universities Retirement System. And lawmakers have continued to fund K-12 schools, and increased funding this fiscal year, even though increased payments to the Teachers Retirement System are similarly eating into general revenue resources.

Dunn also noted that four-year universities are the only educational institutions that cannot seek additional funds through property taxes as K-12 schools and community colleges have the ability to do. Tuition rates are the only major area where universities can look to raise additional operating dollars, but there is a point of diminishing return. Tuition and fees for SIU Carbondale undergraduate students increased 92 percent from the 2005/2006 school year to the 2015/2016 school year, to about $13,136 annually.

A call for ownership

Ted Dabrowski, vice president of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute, said university leaders need to take more ownership of their role in driving up pension costs, given that actuarial projections are affected by current salary loads. Legacy debt, though a substantial contributing factor, is not entirely to blame for the growing shortfall. But thats become a popular excuse for administrators to deflect responsibility, he said.

Dabrowski, who co-authored a six-part report titled Pensions vs. Higher Education, in his role at the conservative think tank based in Chicago argues that there are too many administrators in public higher education and that their salaries and benefits are excessive.

The problem isnt revenue; its how the universities are spending it, Dabrowski said. Most people dont know that most of their higher education money is now being sucked up by pensions. They dont understand that spending for higher education is at the highest level its ever been.

'Everyone is at the table'

Dunn agreed that the growing pension obligations play a role in the discussion. And Dunn said he anticipates reforms to the higher education system to accompany any revenue solution that dedicates additional dollars to post-secondary institutions.

That could include talks about limiting universities degree granting authority and creating a specific menu of offerings allowed at each institution. It also could mean discussions about shifting future pension obligations away from the state and onto universities.

But while those ideas are floating around Springfield, there has not been a serious and comprehensive reform proposal to surface in recent years as it relates to the higher education system in Illinois. That has left university leaders in somewhat of a holding pattern.

Everyone is at the table trying to figure out how to deal with the pension issue, Dunn said. Weve obviously been going now for an 18-month period without the level of state support that weve had in the past. And at some point, theres going to have to be a reconciling of these pressures because they are coming to the fore right now, particularly in the community colleges and universities.

While without a clear picture from the state, Dunn said he and his team of SIU administrators have been meeting for months to determine the best way to move SIU forward. They have had to create plans that account for various scenarios, depending on what happens with state financing, Dunn said. He said it would be premature to share those plans publicly at this stage.

Cost shift proposal floated

Dabrowski said one of the top reform priorities pushed by the Illinois Policy Institute as it relates to higher education is to overhaul the way pensions are paid, shifting the cost responsibility from the state to the institutions.

In Illinois, the employer portion of an individuals pension contribution is paid by the state for workers at K-12 schools, with the exception of Chicago Public Schools, and the public universities and community colleges, even though these employees are not technically state workers.

The shifting of responsibility would increase transparency and should go a long way in curtailing the overly generous salaries and bonuses, end-of-career pay spikes and buyouts that have left a black eye on higher education, he said. Its a broken system and its a system thats become very unfair, Dabrowski said.

Such a cost shift proposal passed the House and Senate in 2013, but died because the two chambers failed to sign off on identical language. House Speaker Michael Madigan was a proponent, arguing it was not fair that universities could set whatever salary and benefit packages they wanted while the state was forced to pick up the long-term tab in retirement, according to an article in the State Journal-Register that year. University and community college administrators also had agreed to the plan that would gradually shift responsibility; The Illinois Education Associated opposed it.

IEA: Raise revenue, support higher ed

Michael McDermott, the Illinois Education Associations higher education and UniServ director, agreed that more money should be directed toward university operations and the faculty and staff that are critical to the operations. But he has an opposing opinion on how it should happen.

McDermott said that the shifting of pension responsibility does not make any sense, because universities are barely surviving as it is and payments would still have to come from the state. Further, he said, its not fair to make university employees pay for the failures of policymakers past. Looked at objectively and in historical context, the numbers do not indicate that more money is being paid in support of higher education, he said.

Were not spending more on higher education. Were spending less on higher education, McDermott said. Its not the pensions that did it. The employees, the annuitants, theyve made their contributions into those retirement plans.

McDermott said he believes additional revenue  whether generated from an income tax, an expansion of the sales tax, or by other means  is the only way to save critical state functions that include higher education. McDermott is the IEA representative for four unions on the SIU Edwardsville campus.

He also is a founding member of the Coalition to Invest in Higher Education that was formed in early 2015 to spread the word about the importance of the states investment in colleges in universities, both in educating students and economically. The coalition consists of university and community college administrators and union representatives, he said.

When you start losing students, and losing programs and staff you have fewer in the community and buying power goes down, he said.

Its a snowball effect. There are lots of communities that rely upon the students and staff who work at universities. They provide, in some cases, as much as 80 percent of the revenue in those areas.
To the Editor:

In North Dakota, protesters at Standing Rock attempted to clear a barricade of burnt vehicles from the road that has been blocking their demonstration's movement north on highway 1806, toward a drill site of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The police there responded with firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and a water cannon at the protesters in 25-degree weather. If this isn't a human rights violation, then I don't know what is.

We are supposed to have the right to peacefully protest in this country, and our government is supposed to uphold the treaty it has with the Sioux tribe and other Native Americans to respect their sacred land and water resources, but that is not happening. It's easy to become detached from events like this when it's not taking place right in our back yards, but this pipeline's proposed ending point is less than two hours away from Carbondale. Oil pipelines break, spill, and leak all of the time, as they recently have in Oklahoma and Alabama.

These water protectors, as they call themselves, are fighting for their clean water as well as ours. It is essential that this issue receive more media attention, as well as involvement and support from citizens. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has a Paypal account set up to accept donations if you wish to help support them and their cause.

Ben Woolard

Herrin
Jakie Walters, pastor of the Edisto Baptist Church, and more than 80 members of his congregation are preparing for their annual Drive-Thru Bethlehem experience.

The event will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 8, 9 and 10 at 4831 Edisto River Road (Hwy. 61) in Branchville.

More than 500 luminaries light the entrance for visitors into the city of Bethlehem to be part of this living Christmas story.

We hope when they drive through, it reminds them of the real meaning of Christmas, Walters said. It reflects about the birth of Christ and the love that he presented for us.

From music rehearsals to sets and costumes, the group has been preparing since August to get everything ready.

We like for folks to go back in time, Walters said. Everybody thats out there has a costume on.

Twenty-seven different scenes depict life as it was 2,000 years ago including the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, the Last Supper and a traditional manger re-enactment.

The cast dresses in traditional clothing, playing several roles and are even joined by live animal cast-mates.

Walters said the number of visitors has grown each year, which gives them the motivation to continue and add a little something new each time.

It reaches out to people that normally wouldnt come out to church and worship, he said.

He noted that the drive-thru makes it easy for visitors to watch as they dont have to get dressed up to see it. They dont have to leave their cars, and the performers wont interact with them, Walters said.

Everyone from young children to those in their 80s come to visit and drive through Bethlehem, he said.

Putting on the event is an opportunity for the church to work together, and Walters said seeing the children getting ready to help out is a joy for him.

The excitement in our church family that we can put this on and the excitement I see  makes me proud that we put it on, he said.

Ive been in it for five years now, Jamie Bryant said. I look forward to it every year.

This year, Bryant is playing the role of the evil King Herod, who sought to kill Jesus by murdering all of the infant males.

He was the one who sent the soldiers out to kill newborn kids, Bryant said.

He said he has enjoyed being part of the cast and sees it as a way for him to give back to the community.

Jesus told us to go out and tell the world, Bryant said. Its part of our mission to get out and try to tell the world the story of Jesus Christ.

He said he's been grateful to see the joy on the faces of people who go through and for those who have written letters to the church thanking it for putting on the event.

I absolutely love it, Bryant said.

We get letters from people that come through that havent been saved, Travis Thomas added. They became saved and followed Christ.

Thomas is playing the role of Jesus at the Last Supper.

I will be the only one at the scene  sitting still playing the part, he said.

Thomas has been participating in the drive-thru for 10 years now and says he enjoys it each year.

It does my heart good to actually be a part of it, he said.

Thomas likes seeing the entire church coming together to put on a good show for the visitors.

Everybody enjoys it and loves putting it on, he said.

Thomas said there's not a specific part that he enjoys most, adding, The whole thing is my favorite."

I just like to be a part of the whole thing, he said.

Tara Stokes has participated in every Drive-Thru Bethlehem since the first year.

Its a great experience for anyone who hasnt been through it and even for those who have, Stokes said.

She said it's an opportunity for the community to see some of the most important parts of the story of Jesus.

Although the church provides many services, Stokes believes this is one of the best because it involves the whole church. She said it shows the church familys strength that we as a church can come together and do something this extraordinary.

Stokes will be lifted 15 feet into the air as she plays the angel over the nativity scene.

She laughed, saying she gets the best view from there as she is able to see the entire production.

Stokes' entire family is getting into the spirit along with her. Her husband is playing a blacksmith and their three children will be a soldier, a shepherd and another blacksmith.

They love it; they enjoy it, Stokes said.

The best part of the drive-thru is that it doesnt cost a thing, she added.
A group of Confederate flag supporters positioned themselves on the sidewalks around the Edisto River Creamery on Saturday.

Were here to voice our opinion too, S.C. Secessionist Party leader James Bessenger of Charleston said.

It was brought to our attention that the owner of the Edisto Creamery wanted to take down the battle flag, Bessenger said.

About 15 supporters of the Confederate flag were holding flags of their own as they stood on the sidewalk along John C. Calhoun Drive in front of the restaurant.

Tommy Daras, owner of the Edisto River Creamery, attempted to remove the Confederate flag from a flagpole in front of his restaurant about three weeks ago.

However, that effort was stopped by members of Rivers Bridge Camp #842 Sons of Confederate Veterans, who say the small parcel of land where the flagpole sits belongs to the organization.

Bessenger said the Edisto River Creamery makes a point to celebrate veterans and their service but doesnt give the same support to descendants of those whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

If their main point is veterans, how can you turn your back on 25,000 South Carolinians who died (during the Civil War)? Bessenger asked.

Bessenger said more than 250,000 Southerners died during the war from 1861-65.

Those people deserve respect and honor, he said.

Bessenger said the Confederate flag represents sacrifice, courage and selflessness, because those who fought for its causes were veterans.

We are just as proud of that flag as most people are of the Revolution flag, he said, referring to the early U.S. flag created around the time when America fought for its independence from Great Britain in the late 1700s.

Patrick Kitchens of Swansea also stood by with a Confederate flag.

Kitchens said he teaches his children, We had ancestors who took up arms, stood up for what they believed in, fought and died for what they believed in, and when the situation arises, we do the same.

Every one of my kids can shoot. Every one of em can read the Bible. Every one of em can hold a flagpole, Kitchens said.

And I told them, If somebody comes in the house and asks for your flag, Bible or gun, you hand them your Bible first, tell them theyve got 30 seconds to get right, you unload it, then you hand them your flag, Kitchens said.

Kitchens said hes not a member of the S.C. Secessionist Party but he may become one.

I dont like a government pushing all their rules and regulations on whats supposed to be a free nation. Were supposed to be free, Kitchens said.

He said that he decided to join the group of Confederate flag supporters on Saturday because hes doing what his ancestors would have done.

Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg -- the attorney representing the Edisto River Creamery in the property dispute about who owns the small section of land where the flagpole and granite marker to Confederate veterans is located -- said Saturdays demonstration by Confederate flag supporters is protected by the First Amendment.

We respect every citizens First Amendment right to free speech, Bamberg said.

My clients understand there is a balance between the heritage of this particular flag and the hate of it, Bamberg said.

I think that given what happened at Mother Emanuel, given the fact that Dylann Roofs trial has commenced, this is a very touchy time for individuals to do things like this and to take this type of stand and to parade a symbol around that is hurtful to a lot of people, Bamberg said.

Roof, who is accused of shooting and killing nine parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015, has several photos online showing his affinity with the Confederate flag. The church massacre became the impetus for South Carolina removing of the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse grounds in 2015.

I dont think it was the best thing for them to make that statement, but its a statement theyre entitled to make. We have no control over that, said Bamberg of the Confederate flag supporters on Saturday.

But I want to make it extremely clear to the citizens of Orangeburg County and in the State of South Carolina that if it were up to the Edisto River Creamery, that flag that sits there would be down. And unfortunately were tied up in a property dispute and were not able to take it down and replace it, Bamberg said.

We do not support the concept of hatred this flag symbolizes to a lot of people, he said.

We want to move South Carolina forward. We want to help unify South Carolina and unify Orangeburg County and that is what were going to be working to do as we move forward, Bamberg said.
Researching an article about the Keniston brothers for last years 74th anniversary of Pearl Harbor brought other stories about brothers on the Arizona to my attention. An editors request for a list of Minnesotans who perished on the Arizona led to the story of John and Jake Anderson. Another was that of the Miller brothers of Marysville, Ohio, the only other set of brothers from Ohio to die that day besides the Keniston boys of my native Cincinnati.

One of the sad ironies of the Miller family story is that the parents were celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary when word of the attack came crackling over their radio on Sunday afternoon. Their worst fears were soon confirmed, Jesse and George Miller also perishing on the Arizona. Every Memorial Day thereafter, Mrs. Miller would take a bouquet of flowers down to a small stream on their farm and place the flowers in the water. She later told a neighbor maybe the flowers will float into a bigger creek and then to a river and maybe to the ocean and finally float to the place where my two boys lay.

I became even more aware of that need to feel connected to Pearl Harbor when I received responses to my article last year. Relatives of other sailors who served in the Pacific understandably felt a tight connection to Pearl Harbor. But the cathartic links were often less direct, one woman writing that her father also died because of that day. He worked in the Brooklyn Ship Yard where new ships were rapidly being built for the war effort triggered by Pearl Harbor. He inhaled asbestos fibers at the shipyard and later died of mesothelioma.

But this was the most touching letter I received. On Christmas eve day, 1953, my Navy destroyer entered Pearl Harbor, and, as we passed the wreckage site of the Arizona, an announcement came from the bridge: Attention to port. Hand salute.

At that time there was no memorial, just a portion of the Arizonas hull and leaking oil rising to the surface. The salute lasted nearly three full minutes and not one sailor on that ship brought his hand down until the word two was passed from the bridge. What an honor it was to salute the Arizona.

May we do no less today on Wednesdays 75th anniversary of the day that shall truly live in infamy.

 James F. Burns is a retired professor at the University of Florida.
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By Azertac









The April battles are our glorious history, said President Ilham Aliyev as he met with representatives of general public as part of his visit to Tartar. The head of state praised heroism of the Azerbaijani Army and Azerbaijani citizens during the April battles. The President noted that the Azerbaijani Army gained military victory as they repulsed the attack of the enemy. By conducting counterattack operation from unfavorable positions, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces liberated the territory of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region - present Aghdere region, as well as large territories in the direction of Jabrayil, Fuzuli from the occupation.





For many years Armenia has been spreading lies and myths about its army, suggesting that it allegedly has an invincible army. The April fighting showed which army is actually invincible. The Azerbaijani army is invincible.





The President said that Azerbaijan showed its strength in these battles not only the enemy, and once again proved to the enemy and world that, we will never reconcile with the current situation. Nagorno-Karabakh is our historic land. So are Shusha, Khankendi and other lands, which remained under the occupation.





Our historical geography was very wide, President Ilham Aliyev said. The head of state added that Yerevan, Goyche and Zangazur are the historical lands of Azerbaijan.
By Azertac





Azerbaijan`s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has met with Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, who is on a working visit in Azerbaijan. The ministers had a tete-a-tete meeting, and continued the discussions with the participation of delegations.





The sides hailed the development of fraternal and allied relations at the strategic level between the two countries.





FM Elmar Mammadyarov once again strongly condemned an attempt of coup perpetrated in Turkey and reiterated that the people and the State of Azerbaijan stands as always by the people and State of Turkey.





Mevlut Cavusoglu noted that they highly appreciate brotherly Azerbaijans solidarity with Turkey and thanked the people and Government of Azerbaijan. He added that the two countries` cooperation is getting further strengthened and improved by the projects like Baku-Tbilisi-Kars and TANAP.





The ministers stressed that Azerbaijan-Turkey successful cooperation in bilateral and multilateral format contributes to the regional development. In this sense, they added that as an important segment of the East-West transportation corridor Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line will be operational very soon. They also noted the continuation of TANAP project's construction works.





At the meeting it was mentioned that the two countries continue the mutual support and joint efforts in the framework of international and regional organizations such as the United Nations, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Economic Cooperation Organization, Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States, Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization and others.





The importance of development of the bilateral cooperation between the countries in trilateral Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey, Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey, Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan-Turkey formats was highlighted. They reviewed the ways of further expansion of this format.





Minister Elmar Mammadyarov informed his counterpart about the negotiations process on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.





Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated that this conflict must be resolved through negotiations based on the relevant UN Security Council resolutions which demand withdrawal of Armenian forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan and within the territorial integrity, sovereignty and internationally recognized borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan.





During the meeting, the two also discussed the prospects of bilateral cooperation, increasing of trade turnover, as well as the regional and international issues of mutual interest.
By Trend





OPECs recent decision on curbing the level of its output may have a positive impact on Irans plans to lure foreign investment in order to develop its strategic oil industry.



However the US Senates recent vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 more years as well as doubts over the OPEC members intention to honor their commitments regarding the production cut have cast shadow on the Islamic Republics capabilities to seize the created opportunity with both hands.

"If OPEC succeeds in implementing its decision to reduce its total production by 1.2 million barrels per day (b/d) and maintain the ceiling of 32.5 million b/d, the oil price will remain above 50 dollars per barrel and international oil companies will be encouraged to increase their capital expenditure for developing new oil resources," Parviz Mina, a former member of OPEC Long-Term Strategy Committee, told Trend.

"Iran being a low cost area($12 per barrel) should benefit from it and attract foreign investment," he added.

According to Iranian officials, the country plans to lure $130 billion in investment to develop its upstream oil sector by 2021.



Wood Mackenzie, a global energy, metals and mining research and consultancy group, earlier in June suggested that the volume of global upstream development spending from 2015 to 2020 declined 22 percent, or $740 billion, since fourth-quarter 2014.



According to the Iranian expert, OPEC's success depends on whether its members will commit themselves to reduce the output.

"If all of OPEC members do not adhere fully to their quotas, we might see another price decline," Mina noted.

Although the OPEC decision was received in a positive way in Iran giving renewed hopes for an economic recovery in the sanctions-hit Islamic Republic, the extension of the existing US imposed sanctions against Tehran may kill off any lingering hopes for rebuilding the oil producing countrys stagnant economy.
By Trend





The Turkmen-German political consultations were held in Ashgabat, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message.

The delegation of the German Foreign Ministry was headed by Commissioner for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia Andreas Peschke, the message said.

"The issues of international and regional agenda were discussed during the talks," the message said.

According to the message, the issues of cooperation in political, trade-economic, energy and humanitarian spheres were also discussed during the consultations.

"Turkmenistan and Germany expressed gratification with the results of political consultations and expressed the need to further continue the negotiations at various levels," the message said.
The UAE government has approved Dh290.4 million ($79 million) in housing loans besides grants for 490 eligible Emirati citizens under its Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme, said a report.



The amount covers 352 residential housing grants and 79 housing loans, reported the state news agency Wam citing Dr Abdullah bin Mohammed Belhaif Al Nuaimi, Minister of Infrastructure Development.



The move reflects the government's keen efforts to promote happiness, provide modern housing units, and decent living conditions and welfare for all citizens, said Dr Al Nuaimi, who is also the chairman of the board of directors of the national housing scheme.



This is in keeping with the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces



In another development, the Abu Dhabi Housing Authority (ADHA) has announced plans to distribute 365 houses and 5,463 plots of land to citizens in the emirate.



Some 4,065 plots will be distributed in Abu Dhabi, 1,215 in Al Ain, and 183 in the Western Region, stated the Wam report.



On the housing units, ADHA said 115 of these homes will be handed over to citizens in Abu Dhabi,129 in Al Ain, and 121 in the Western Region.



All the housing units have been designed and built to the Estidama Two Pearl design rating, which confirms that construction meets the highest innovative green standards, it added.
UAE-based Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), a leading aluminium producer in the Middle East, said that it was recently honoured with four awards at the 2016 Quality Group Continual Improvement and Innovation Symposium, held in Dubai, UAE.



The annual awards recognise the use of innovative, scientific, structured and data-driven methodologies for the continual and breakthrough improvements of an organisations processes.



EGA swept the Kaizen category  named after the Japanese practice of continual improvement in business  by winning gold, silver and bronze awards for its unique process innovations and contributions to the aluminium industry, said a statement from the company.



The companys winning entries at the event included:

1. Kaizen Category

Gold Award  Reducing the process time of crust breaker overhauling, Jebel Ali plant.

Silver Award  Reducing coke pre-heater screw assembling time and cost by 50 per cent, Jebel Ali plant.

Bronze Award  Recovering energy from Phase II heat recovery steam generators, Al Taweelah plant.



2. Innovation Category

Bronze Award  Steam Turbine 14 auxiliaries standby feeder from substation 426, during transformer and motor control centre replacement (without shutdown), Jebel Ali plant.



EGA has focused on technology development for decades, continuously improving its core aluminium smelting process, it said.



The company has applied its own in-house developed technology for each of its expansions since the 1990s. Earlier this year, EGA also became the first UAE industrial company to licence its own large-scale industrial technology internationally, in a deal with Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), it added.



EGAs smelting innovations have enabled the company to reach global top quartile performance in cost, efficiency and environmental responsibility according to independent industry benchmarks.



For example, EGAs latest technology, DX+ Ultra, has more than double the pot productivity of the companys original D18 technology and the energy consumed in its smelting process is amongst the lowest in the industry, said a statement.



Abdulla Kalban, managing director and CEO of EGA, said: Innovation is part of our companys DNA  we continually improve our technology stay ahead of our competition in the global aluminium industry.



The results of innovation are customer orders and financial success, but it is great to also be recognised by Dubai Quality Group in this way, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Bahrain-based Batelco, a leading telecom provider, has expanded its Enterprise Help Desk services to support mobile services including fault reporting, aimed at providing a major boost for business sector customers.



The centre, which was launched early in 2016, is dedicated to the needs of business customers to support them with any issues that may arise with their Batelco services, said a statement from the company.



The help desk may be contacted by calling 81888 to reach a team of certified experts who can address all business communications issues and resolve them without delay, it said.



The availability of dedicated support services for the business sector is central to Batelcos commitment to provide world-class communications solutions to maintain Bahrains strong standing as a key business hub in the region, it added.



Batelco Bahrain CEO Muna Al Hashemi said the company has introduced a single point of contact, 81888, to enhance and simplify the process of supporting business customers.



Al Hashemi said: This help desk has been developed to effectively boost customer experience and add satisfaction for the enterprise sector.



Having one effective point of contact for all business customers on any service really boosts the strong relationship we enjoy with our business customers, she added.-TradeArabia News Service
ZonesCorp, a top developer of purpose-built industrial zones in the UAE, will unveil its dedicated new Food & Beverage Zones in the Industrial city of Abu Dhabi (ICAD) and Al Ain during the upcoming food expo Sial ME in Abu Dhabi, UAE.



Interest in the land has been high with nearly a third of the available acreage already earmarked for development, a statement said.



ZonesCorp is currently housing 24 food production facilities that produce a wide range of products in its dedicated Food Zones. The enlarged Food Zone encompasses a total area of 2,287,434 sq m and features a wide range of plot sizes in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain designed to accommodate businesses of all sizes from SMEs upwards.



There are a large number of F&B companies located in the Food Zones that demonstrate how the food sector in Abu Dhabi has diversified and flourished in recent years. The food zone supports a number of large international companies such as Nestle Waters which is building a Dh100 million($27.2million), 43,000 sq m bottling plant and Ittihad International Investment which operates a sizable Feed & Flour Production & Marketing facility.



Saeed Eisa Mohammed Al Khyeli, director General of ZonesCorp said: Our Food Zone accommodates an excellent mix of international household names such as Nestle Waters and quality local companies such as Emirates AquaTech. Both companies highlight how the F&B manufacturing and processing industry is developing in Abu Dhabi through a combination of advanced technology and sustainable production techniques. The further expansion of our current food zones in ICAD and Al Ain is part of a continuing drive to support SMEs and to contribute to the thriving food production and processing sector in the Emirate.



Walid Zamamiri, managing director at Nestle Waters for the Lower Gulf, said: Abu Dhabi is the perfect location to establish a new water plant, as it offers many advantages for the smooth running of the facility, and a strategic location for distribution within the UAE and lower gulf countries,



Amer Kakish, chief executive officer of Ittihad International Investment said: I take this opportunity to thank ZonesCorp for their valuable business partnership with Ittihad. This collaboration has paved the way and facilitated the growth of our subsidiaries. Their contribution to our success is remarkable. With their continued commitment and support, we are certain that our expansion ventures will be equally successful. We at Ittihad, are proud to be associated with ZonesCorp and we hope to continue this esteemed affiliation and look forward for mutual success.



The Food Zone also supports numerous local food producers such as Emirates AquaTech. Although at first glance Abu Dhabi may appear to be an unlikely location for a caviar farm, the company is the largest and most advanced aquaculture farm in the world with the capacity to produce 35 tons of premium caviar and 700 tons of sturgeon per year.  TradeArabia News Service
Saudi Arabia has launched five mega oil and gas projects - Wasit Gas Plant, Manifa oilfield, Shaybah natural gas liquids, Shaybah oil increment, and Khurais oil increment - in line with the kingdoms development objectives outlined by Vision 2030.



The projects were inaugurated by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud during his official visit to Saudi Aramco headquarters along with the new King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture.



The five energy projects, launched at Saudi Aramcos Oil Supply Planning and Scheduling (OSPAS) facility, will enhance the kingdoms crude production and processing capability and make more gas available for power and manufacturing.



The projects are also an integral step toward meeting the increasing domestic demand for energy and chemicals, and building gas production that increases the use of efficient, cleaner-burning fuel.



King Salman was received by Khalid Al-Falih, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources and chairman of Saudi Aramco, and Amin Nasser, the president and chief executive of Saudi Aramco, who also presented an overview of recent company projects supporting Vision 2030.



Speaking at the launch, Al Falih said: "With these initiatives, we continue to deliver on the kingdoms promise for a better tomorrow with new energy capabilities, new value creation opportunities, and a platform to reach new knowledge frontiers."



"Saudi Vision 2030 focuses on promoting the Kingdoms leadership not only in the fields of energy, industry, and economy, but also in science, technology and culture. This will be a major breakthrough in knowledge and development, with a core objective to promote creativity in the Kingdom and build bridges with other cultures," he noted.



Nasser said these new projects and the King Abdulaziz Center represent Vision 2030 in action.



A first institution of its kind in the Kingdom, the Center brings together multiple offerings under one roof to make a positive and tangible impact by building local talent in the knowledge, cultural and creative industries.



Blending iconic architectural design with advanced technology, and unique learning methods with enriching programs, the Center is an infinitely inspiring platform for explorers, learners, creators, and leaders.



As a thriving hub of knowledge, creativity, and cross-cultural engagement, it will help support a nation rapidly transforming into a knowledge economy. The King Abdulaziz Center is due to open in the second half of 2017 to the public.



"Saudi Aramco will continue to play a leading role in harnessing new opportunities to create jobs, attract investment, and promote diversification and growth," he noted.



Prior to the visit to Dhahran, King Salman visited Jubail to officially inaugurate projects initiated by the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Sabic, the Sadara Chemical Company, the Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical (Satorp) company, and the King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries & Services. -TradeArabia News Service
Inspired by the positive regional potential of Expo 2020 and despite low oil revenues, increased numbers of travel professionals from across the Middle East participated in this years World Travel Market London 2016.



This event received a joint-record attendance of 51,500 and the highest number of exhibitor invitees and buyers in the 37-year history of the event.



There were a number of new exhibitors from the Middle East this year, including Saudia, the national flag carrier of Saudi Arabia and travel organization - Alraqi from Oman. Other key exhibitors included the tourism boards and associated partners from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Fujairah, Dubai Parks & Resorts, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran Doostan, Kuwait Airways and Oman Air.



Overall, the number of Middle East exhibitors showed a steady growth of 2.26 per cent compared to 2015 as regional governments look to diversify their economies away from falling hydrocarbon receipts. Those from the UAE occupied the lions share of floor space devoted to the region, which was to be expected with Expo 2020 Dubai on the horizon, but the indirect boost to regional travel and destinations, was not being underestimated, by other regional tourism boards.



The new-look three-day World Travel Market London enjoyed extended opening hours from 10am  7pm, which was phenomenally well received by the global travel industry with 51,444 senior industry executives in attendance  a 4 per cent increase on last year, according to unaudited figures. The increase takes total participant numbers back to the level of 2014  a record for the event, which launched in 1980.



Furthermore, the key benchmark of exhibitor invitees and WTM Buyers Club members in attendance were also at record levels.



Exhibitor invitees  senior industry executives invited by exhibitors on the first day of WTM London to discuss business deals  were up 9 per cent to 14,140.



WTM Buyers Club is the leading business club for senior travel industry decision makers with direct purchasing responsibility. The number of pre-qualified buyers from the WTM Buyers Club that attended the event stood at 9,714 - a 6 per cent increase on WTM London 2015.



Total visitor numbers (excluding press, ministers, ministers aides and students) stood at 31,951  a 5 per cent increase on WTM London 2015.



More than 865,500 on-stand connections took place over the three days of WTM London 2016 (November 7 - 9) leading to more than 2.5 billion ($3.1 billion) in industry deals being negotiated and signed.



Furthermore, over 3,000 (3,034) of the worlds media were in attendance  the highest number for more than 10 years  making the WTM International Press Centre the largest recurring press operation in the UK. The WTM International Press Centre was moved to the exhibitor floor for the first time to put the media at the heart of the event.



World Travel Market London senior director Simon Press said: WTM London has grown at an unprecedented rate in recent years making it the event where the industry conducts its business.



More than 2.5 billion in industry contracts were agreed at WTM London 2016 with more than 9,700 buyers conducting 865,500 meetings with 5,000 exhibitors.



The record number of participants, exhibitor invitees and WTM Buyers Club members is testament to the success of the new-look three-day WTM London and demonstrates all the key decision-makers and those with purchasing responsibility attend WTM London.



Audited figures of WTM London 2016 will be available in the New Year.



The travel trade industry is now preparing for Arabian Travel Market 2017, the Middle East installment of the World Travel Market portfolio, which is taking place from April 24 to 27 at Dubai World Trade Centre. Considered by many industry professionals as a barometer for the Middle East and North Africa tourism sector, Arabian Travel Market witnessed a year-on-year visitor attendance increase of 8 per cent to over 39,800 in 2016, with 2,520 exhibiting companies signing business deals worth more than $2.5 billion over four days.



Arabian Travel Market 2017 will build on the success of this years edition with the announcement of an additional hall as Reed Travel Exhibitions looks to add to its record-breaking achievements earlier this year. - TradeArabia News Service


Dubai will receive 157 cruise ships during the current cruise tourism season 2016-17, which started in October and will continue until next April, reflecting a 16 per cent increase over the last season which received 134 cruise ships.



It is expected that Rashid Port will receive 650,000 cruise tourists which means a 30 per cent increase over the same period of last year.



Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Group chairman and chief executive officer of DP World said: The strategic plan to attract a million cruise tourists by 2020 is on track following a clear road map. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai is closely following up on this to make sure Dubai and the UAE become a regional and international hub for cruise tourism.



Thanks to His Highnesss vision, Dubai goes the extra mile to be a top tourist destination. Next year, work will start to connect cruise terminal 2 and 3 with a 465-metre bridge and the number of quays will be increased. The current quays will be expanded and an additional terminal will be built for more capacity to accommodate the increasing number of cruise ships.



Mohammed Al Mannaei, director, Mina (port) Rashid said: The UAE has all potentials to be the top cruise destination, and this is our target in the next few years. The port can receive seven cruise ships simultaneously on a 1,900-metre quay and capacity of 18,000 tourists through terminals 2 and 3. Cruise Terminal 3 is the biggest of its type worldwide with a capacity of 14,000 passengers and 125,000 sq m of area. - TradeArabia News Service
More than 800 aviation industry specialists from the Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Asia region took part in a key event held at Dubai, UAE.



The Aviation Festival, held last month at The Address Dubai Marina, is a major platform for airlines, airports and partners to learn how to grow their business through technology, customer experience and new revenue streams.



Representatives from around 120 airlines and 60 airports from the region took part in the conference.



The two-day event covered all aspects of the aviation industry and brought together the most brilliant leaders and executives to discuss new trends and opportunities.



Dr Jassim Haji, a Bahraini executive and technological expert and chief information officer of national carrier Gulf Air, was one of the key note speakers at the event.



He presented a detailed session on the critical role of information security in the aviation field, and how airlines can protect passengers data and privacy in the lights of the numerous threats and risks in the industry.



Dr Haji also participated recently in the prestigious event Cyber Security for Critical Assets Menat Summit that was held in Dubai as well.



It was attended by the major corporations in the region from all sectors and industries where Dr Haji presented a session how to protect the most valuable assets that every company has which is their data and information.-TradeArabia News Service
Four Points by Sheraton, Bur Dubai, will welcome its first Italian restaurant, Ricetta, in mid-December 2016, where Chef Alex Sebastianutti will please guests with home-cooked fine dining.



Ricetta features the authentic ambience of an Italian trattoria with mustard yellow walls, endearing red and white checkered tablecloths and black and white posters featuring scenes from Italy. Bread baskets display the bread specialty of the day along with accompaniments including olive oil, balsamic vinegar, marinara and sun-dried tomatoes. Even raw pasta is on display.



Ricettas dishes are made with bona fide Italian ingredients to enhance the flavors of home-cooked Italian meals. Guests are offered such classics as Gamberi Piccanti or Ossobucco alla Milanese, in addition to numerous vegetarian options. Guests may also experience a number of homemade dishes including homemade ravioli featuring pumpkin and cheese (Provola Affumicata) or lamb and broccoli (Agnello e Broccoli).



Multilingual head chef Sebastianutti hails from a 13-year career and extensive expertise in the realms of Italian cuisine and fine dining. The Italian chefs professional culinary journey includes positions as chef de partie and chef de cuisine in Italy, Germany, Abu Dhabi and now Dubai.



Italian cooking calls for great recipes, high quality, authentic ingredients and a good dose of passion. You can be sure youll find the heartiest homemade meals at Ricetta the kind of meals that intrigue, satisfy and keep guests returning for more. High end comfort food at its finest, said chef Sebastianutti.



Four Points by Sheraton, Bur Dubais sixth dining venue will be home to a daily aperitif time and the option to order for take away or delivery. - TradeArabia News Service
To celebrate a successful year, Oman Air is offering its passengers 50 per centt off on all international flights.



The global sale will run from today (December 4) to December 10, 2016 and travel will be valid from January 1  September 30, 2017.



The airline currently flies to multiple destinations in Asia, Europe, Middle East, also North and East Africa. From December 9, it will launch its inaugural flight to Guangzhou, highlighting the continued expansion of the airline into thriving markets.



Another new flight route to be launched will be the daily service between Manchester and Muscat on May 1, 2017, which follows up the recently introduced double daily flight between Muscat and London.



Abdulrahman Al Busaidy, chief commercial officer of Oman Air, said: The launch of the global sale is one way of rewarding our loyal customers. Oman Air is committed to continuing to provide an award winning service, which is prevalent through every aspect of flying with us. With that in mind, we are delighted to offer our customers great discounts to travel to destinations throughout our expanding network; we always put the customer at the heart of its decision-making and we hope this global sale will offer even more incentive to travel with us.



Oman Air has also made strides in enhancing the passenger experience pre-flight with its own premium lounges in both Muscat International Airport and Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok where the guests can enjoy a great range of complimentary food and beverages, wi-fi, computer access and even a 15 minute massage in the premium lounge in Muscat.



The global sale is the latest example of Oman Airs commitment to its loyal customers; other customer initiatives include its loyalty programme Sindbad. The membership programme earns flyers Sindbad miles both in the air and on the ground. Customers who fly with Oman Air or its partner airlines or indeed transact with any of its global partners earn Sindbad miles, which can be used for free flights, flight upgrades, exciting raffles and promotions. - TradeArabia News Service
BuSineSS Office ManageR Job Summary: The Business Office Manager is accountable and responsible for implementing, monitoring and maintaining the business office operations of the Surgery Center. The scope of responsibility includes but is not limited to: supervision of coding, insurance and patient billings, collections, cash management, Accounts Payable management, Accounts Receivable management, Payroll, Patient Registration, maintenance of medical records and management of the business office staff. The Business Office Manager may be required to participate in special projects and committees at the direction of the Administrator and/or the Chief Executive Officer. The Business Office Manager reports directly to the Administrator and works closely with the Operating Room Supervisor and staff. This is a working supervisor position. Qualifications:  Two years of completed college level Business Management or Accounting course work and high school diploma required. Bachelors degree in Business Management with a concentration in Accounting or Finance preferred.  Minimum of three years business experience in a medical officer or ambulatory healthcare setting required.  Working knowledge of medical records systems.  Must have extensive experience using industry standard word processing and spreadsheet software.  Experience in medical office or ambulatory surgery billing and collection procedures required. Requires extensive knowledge of Medicare, Medicaid, Workers Compensation and local payer coding and collection guidelines as they pertain to a medical office or ambulatory surgery center environment.  Experience in Accounts Payable and Payroll required.  Experience in Accreditation with Federal programs and a third party organization is preferred. Responsibilities:  Supervises business office personnel and delegates duties to ensure the efficient operation of the business office.  Monitors cases scheduled so as to ensure compliance with the approved procedure list for all carriers.  Establishes links of communication to the Director of Nursing regarding procedural, clinical staffing, equipment and ancillary service issues.  Enforces systems which facilitate the timely and accurate registration of patients to the facility, and which ensure efficient patient flow from the waiting area to the pre-operative area.  Monitors the coding of procedures performed in the surgery center and ensures that the coding practices of the surgery center are in compliance with HCFA/Medicare and other third party payor regulations. Conducts quarterly chart audits to ensure correct coding and billing practices.  Oversees the proper and accurate posting of payments and adjustments to patient accounts. Conducts monthly EOB audits to ensure proper and accurate postings.  Management of the medical records such as ensuring proper storage, retrieval and release of medical records, ensuring that the Centers procedures regarding the management of the medical records are in compliance with HCFA, AAHC/JCAHO guidelines, as well as State and Federal regulations. Conducts quarterly chart audits to ensure completeness of the medical records.  Timely and accurate processing of Accounts Payable items according to the policies and procedures.  Processes payments for Accounts Payable items as directed by the Administrator in an accurate and timely manner. Ensures the entry process of Accounts Payable data into the accounting software.  Oversees the verification/preauthorization of medical benefits for all patients scheduled at the surgery center. Ensures the timely and accurate verification of patients medical benefits to ensure quality patient care.  Oversees the collection of patient payments at the time of service determined at the time of verification of benefits and is responsible for ensuring maximum realization of revenue at the time of service.  Manages the Accounts Receivable by overseeing the timely payment of claims and patient due balances.  Ensures the proper methods of receiving, recording and deposit of patient and other receipts and enforces the internal controls required for cash management.  Ensures that the proper methods for management of bad debt accounts are followed.  Transmits payroll information to the payroll company and ensures the security of all employee payroll information. Works with the CEO to process the payroll.  Maintains the petty cash is the custodian of the petty cash; and, is responsible for its proper use.  Processes and reconciles the month-end reports, ensures the completeness of billings, payments, clinical logs and patient cost sheets.  Ensure security of the computer and medical software system and is responsible for ensuring the daily data backup and auditing the backup log. Assigns User IDs and passwords at the network and medical software systems level.  Performs annual evaluation of business office staff.  Oversees the efficient operations of outsourced billing operations.  Responsible for Quality Indicator studies as assigned by the CEO and Medical Director.  Participates in the Medical Advisory Committee.  The Business Office Manager is responsible for the other functions as assigned by the CEO.  Fosters an environment which promotes staff growth and development.  Maintains services in accordance with written policies and in compliance with various regulatory and accrediting agencies.  Maintains current BLS.  Maintains all licensures and certifications as required for job description.  Ensure that the center is in compliance with all privacy, confidentiality and HIPPA regulations. Send Resume To: Wyoming Surgical center Attn: Human Resources Manager 4140 Centennial Hills Blvd Suite C, Casper WY 82609
Help Yourself

Latin Club meets

Wish you had taken Latin in school or had paid better attention when you did? You are welcome to join the Latin Study Club at Mount Hope Lutheran School, 2300 Hickory. This friendly group of language enthusiasts meets on Tuesday nights at 7 p.m., to study Latin, free of charge. We will pick up where we left off last year, Chapter 4 of Wheelocks Latin, 7th edition. Noli timere!

Mount Hope Lutheran School admits students of any race, color, and national or ethnic origin.

Wednesday Writers

Would you like to leave a legacy by sharing your memories with the world? Practice writing, share your work and receive constructive feedback from fellow writers at 10 a.m., Wednesday, Dec. 7, on the main floor of the Natrona County Library. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information.

Learn Tumblr

The Natrona County Library will offer a Tumblr class at 2 p.m., on Thursday, Dec. 8. Learn the basics of Tumblr including the dashboard, comments, posting and liking posts. Well also explain how to re-blog from other Tumblr feeds, create your own content, interact with other like-minded individuals and follow your interests. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information.

Chronic pain/illness group starting

Highland Park Community Church and The Healing Place are starting HopeKeepers. HopeKeepers is a support group designed to meet the emotional and spiritual needs of the person who lives with chronic illness or pain. Through the support group setting you will have the opportunity to grow spiritually surrounded by others who share similar circumstances, unrevealed answers, and even joys, living with chronic pain or physical pain.

The group will meet Mondays from noon to 1:30 p.m., Highland Park Community Church, Rm #1327-The Prayer Room. This is an ongoing group. Call The Healing Place at 265-3977 to enroll.

Learn Mac OS X Photos

The Natrona County Library will offer a Mac OS X Photos class at 3 p.m., on Saturday, Dec. 10. Learn how to view, organize, edit, and share photos on your Mac with the Photos app. We'll also explain how to use the Photos app to import photos from your iPhone or iPad. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information.

Flu vaccination clinic

The Casper-Natrona County Health Department has added a flu vaccination clinic Monday, Dec. 12, from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. We are accepting walk-ins on first come first serve basis. $25 per person. We can bill insurance.

Compassionate Friends lights candles

The Central Wyoming Chapter of the Compassionate Friends, a non-profit, self-help support organization for parents who are grieving the death of a child of any age, from any cause will have its annual December Candle Lighting Ceremony meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016 from 7 to 9 pm. We will meet at the Natrona County Public Library in the Crawford Room in the library's basement. You may bring a picture of your loved one. Also, if you would like, please bring a treat to share after the ceremony.

Another Compassionate Friends event is The Worldwide Candle Lighting on Sunday, Dec. 11, 2016. Join in this event by lighting a candle in your home at 7 p.m. and letting it burn for an hour until the next time zone lights candles. You will be helping to honor the memories of children who have died, but who will never be forgotten.

For more information please call Gail: 235-0702 or Sheila: 237-0735.

Veterans get help with employment

Attention veterans! Are you having a hard time finding employment? Need help with a resume? Considering a new career? If so, stop by any Wyoming Department of Workforce Services Office. All of our services are free. In Casper, the office is located at 851 Werner Court. Call 234-4591 for more information.

Parkinson's support Dec. 13

Rocky Mountain Therapy is offering a Parkinson's Support Group. Join us on the second Tuesday of each month at Rocky Mountain Therapy, 2546 East 2nd Street, Building 500 at 5:30 p.m.

This support group is open to anyone with Parkinson's or caring for someone with Parkinson's. Our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 13, our guest speaker will be Dr. Cozier, with Wyoming Neurologic Assoc. To RSVP call 577-5204 and ask for Jerri or Shannon. To find out more about Rocky Mountain Therapy please visit our website at www.rockymountaintherapy.org. We're looking forward to seeing you at our next meeting.

Joshua's needs help from hunters

Attention hunters, meat is needed to help the hungry in Casper and your donation of wild game will help feed the many hundreds of families in need. Please donate your game to the food pantry. Your donation is tax deductible. Please advise your meat processors where you want this important product to go. Thank you from Joshua's Storehouse.

Saturday morning watercolor classes

ART321/Casper Artists Guild announces the schedule for the Saturday Morning Watercolor Sessions for the months of September and October 2016. We hope to see you then to begin or continue your learning experience with us. All levels are welcome. Saturday mornings, 10 a.m. to noon, $10 per session. If you have questions, please contact Ellen Black at 265-6783.

Dec. 10, Holly Bryson, a painting from start to finish; Dec. 17, painting snow; Dec. 24, no session, Christmas Eve; Dec. 31, no session, New Years Eve.

ART321/Casper Artists Guild, 321 W. Midwest Ave, Casper, WY, 82601, gallery hours Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., phone 265-2655, www.art321.org

Teen Challenge offers fall classes

Teen Challenge Wyoming offers classes this fall at local churches, True Care and the Link (Youth for Christ). For more information on these groups or on other Teen Challenge programs, please call 258-5397.

Peacemaking: Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. In this world of division and conflict, it is important for Christians to stay grounded in what the Bible teaches about resolving our differences with orders in a God-honoring way. For more information, call Pat at 258-5397.

Save One: A group for post-abortion healing. For more information, call Judy at 251-5644.

Single & Parenting: Sundays at 6:30 p.m. Covers major challenges single parents face in raising their children, and offers tools to help them meet these challenges. Enter anytime, each lesson stands alone. Call Cathie at 258-6119.

Professionals in Recovery: An ongoing Christian recovery group. For more information, call Gary at 267-7777.

Insight: Discovering the path to Christian character, especially in the midst of stress. Time to be announced. For more information, call Teen Challenge Wyoming at 258-5397.

Possible offering: Committed Couples and/or the Smart Stepfamily (groups designed to strengthen marriages for both married couples and those anticipating marriage) may be offered later this year. For more information on these possibilities, please call Teen Challenge Wyoming at 258-5397.

Shop at Art 321

Did you know ART 321 has a gift shop? Come and shop from our fine selection of original artwork, jewelry, ceramics, prints, and apparel. Perfect for any gift occasion and any budget. ART321/Casper Artists Guild, 321 W. Midwest Ave., hours Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 265-2655.

Caregiver support meets monthly

Are you caring for a loved one with a debilitating condition? Confusing and conflicting feelings are likely to come up-anger, sadness, hopelessness, resentment and guilt for having those feelings. Please join us on the second Thursday of the each month to talk about your feelings and learn effective ways to release difficult emotions by joining a support group. Meetings will be held at Rocky Mountain Therapy, 2546 East 2nd Street #500, at 5:30 p.m. Different topics will be discussed each month. Coffee and lemonade will be served. We will be meeting on Dec. 15. To RSVP please call 577-5204 and ask for Jerri or Shannon.

Casper Charla

Would you like to practice conversational Spanish or help others learn? Come and join the Casper Charla! Te gustaria platicar en espanol? Ven y charla con nosotros! Todos son bienvenidos!

Come and join us on the third Wednesday of each month this fall. We meet at a different restaurant and partake in food, drink and conversation. All levels of Spanish are welcome, from beginning to native-speakers.

Nos reunimos los miercoles en varios restaurantes en Casper. Ven por una copa, un antojito o simplemente una charlita.

Wednesday, December 14, 5-7 p.m., place to be determined for the Fiesta de Navidad.

Caregiver support

Wyoming Dementia Care offers five Alzheimers Caregiver Support groups each month. Caregivers of those with dementia-related illnesses and the loved ones they care for are welcome at any of the group sessions. Professional staff from Intermountain Home Companions will be on hand to offer separate activities and snacks for those who need care. There is no charge for Wyoming Dementia Cares support groups or for the respite care provided during the approximately one hour long sessions.

The morning support group sessions meet on the first and third Thursday of each month at 10 a.m. at Central Wyoming Senior Services, 1831 E. 4th St. The afternoon support groups meet at 1 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at Life Care Center of Casper, 4041 S. Poplar. The evening groups meet on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. at Meadow Wind Assisted Living, 3955 E. 12th St.

For information, email wyodementia@casperseniorcenter.com or call Dani Guerttman at 265-4678.

Family continues suicide support

Good Grief, Support will continue at 5:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at the 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott, by request of attendees. The family of J.R. Hunter, who died from suicide in June 2015 began the support before the especially tough holiday season. Anyone who is grieving a suicide, death, or considering suicide is encouraged to attend. Attendance at the meeting, as well as the content, will be strictly confidential. The Fresh Start Cafe will be open, and you can eat during the meetings. This meeting place was offered by Dan Cantine of the 12-24 Club. You need not be a member to attend.

New depression group begins

J.R.s Hunt for Life is offering See it Clearly, a free peer support group for persons suffering from depression and other mental conditions that lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. We are not professionals but rather a group of like-minded peers wishing to support each other in these struggles. We offer anonymity and confidentiality to all attending. Our meetings are at 6:45 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 500 South Wolcott in the conference room on the second floor, (12-24 Club). If you have ever considered or attempted taking your life or are struggling, please come. You are important to us.

Family offers faith-based groups

The family of J.R. Hunter, who committed suicide, is going to begin two more support groups, these faith-based, in addition to the groups they run on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at the 12-24 Club. Those continue.

"J.R.s Hunt; for life" presents faith-based grief and depression peer to peer support groups at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. at Restoration Church, 411 S. Walsh.

Grief Support Group, "Good Grief:" A faith-based grief support group that our family hosts on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 5:30 p.m. at Restoration Church. Our loss has moved us to offer this to anyone grieving. You'll experience comfort and understanding. We get it.

Depression Support Group, "See It Clearly:" A faith-based free peer to peer support group for persons suffering from depression and other mental conditions that may lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. We are not professionals but rather a group of like-minded peers wishing to support each other in these struggles. We offer anonymity and confidentiality to all attending. Our meetings are at 6:30 p.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at the Restoration Church. If you have ever considered or attempted taking your life or are struggling, please come. You are important to us.

Parkinson's exercise

Rocky Mountain Therapy is offering a Parkinson's exercise program. Join us from noon to 1 p.m. Thursdays at Rocky Mountain Therapy, 2546 E. Second St., Building 500. These classes are open to anyone with Parkinson's or caring for someone with Parkinson's.

Thursday's class is tailored for the individual with more advanced Parkinson's and focuses on improving endurance, safety and managing symptoms. We are open to all ages and can tailor the class to meet varying exercise needs. The cost of the class is $5. To RSVP, call 577-5204 and ask for Jerri or Shannon.

Celebrate Recovery every Friday

Celebrate Recovery meets at 5:30 p.m. every Friday at Highland Park Community Church, just south of Elkhorn Valley Rehabilitation Hospital on East Second Street. We start with a family meal, followed by praise and worship. At 7 p.m., there's either a lesson from Celebrate Recovery's planned curriculum or a testimony by a person who has found recovery through Christ. Then, people go to gender-specific small groups until 8:30 p.m., when dessert and fellowship conclude the evening. Child care is available at no cost. For more information, contact Chris at 265-4073.

Here and Now: Dementia-focused monthly art class

Classes are every third Tuesday of the month from 1 to 3 p.m. There is no charge. Here and Now is a program made possible through a collaboration between Wyoming Dementia Care and the Nicolaysen Art Museum. It is designed to provide a supportive environment for people with dementia and Alzheimers and their loved ones.

To register, contact Dani with Wyoming Dementia Care 265-4678, ext. 106, or at wyodementia@casperseniorcenter.com or Zhanna Gallegos at 235-5247 or at zgallegos@thenic.org.
Mondays support meetings

Alcoholics Anonymous: 6:30 a.m., 917 N. Beech; 8:30 a.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 10 a.m., 328 E. A St.; noon, 500 S. Wolcott; 2 p.m, 917 N. Beech; 5:30 p.m., 1124 Elma, Imitate the Image Church; 5:30 p.m., 328 E. A; 6 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 7 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 8 p.m., 328 E. A. Douglas: 7:30 p.m., 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back). Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688.

Al-Anon: Noon, 701 S. Wolcott, St. Marks Church.

Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 7 p.m., 302 E. 2nd, Methodist Church; 8 p.m., 4700 S. Poplar (church basement). Web site: http://www.urmrna.org.

NAMI: 7 p.m., 133 W. Sixth St. Info: 234-0440.

Teen Addiction Anonymous: 3:30-4:30 p.m., Boys & Girls Club Teen Center. Info: 258-7439.

Adult Children of Alcoholics: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott St., Suite 200.

TOPS Weight Loss: 5:30 p.m., Weight Loss Support Group TOPS #246, Wyoming Oil & Gas Building, 2211 King Blvd. Use NE door entry. Info: 265-1486.

Tween Monday

The Natrona County Library will host An Hour of Code for students in grades 4-6 at 4 p.m. An Hour of Code is a global movement that believes the students of today are ready to learn critical skills for 21st century success. Come learn basic coding skills by playing video games like Frozen, Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, and more! No coding or computer experience needed. Call 577-READ ext. 5 for more information.

Christmas light show open

The light show at 3148 Whispering Springs is up and will run nightly from 6 to 10 p.m. and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. We are collecting items for Joshuas Storehouse at the display. There are a total of approximately 50,000 lights all choreographed to popular Christmas music, and free to view and listen to. Just tune your radio to 98.1 FM and enjoy. Thank you and merry Christmas from the Wagners.

CC music presents A Christmas Tapestry

Casper College Department of Music presents its third annual A Christmas Tapestry  Refining the Mystery, at 7 p.m., in the Wheeler Concert Hall. Tickets are $5 adults, children 12 and under $3, CC students are free but a ticket is required. Seating is limited. Performance includes brass ensemble, chamber orchestra, collegiate chorale, mens chorus, Triple-C, womens chorus and guest faculty performers. A great holiday tradition for the whole family, includes a sing-along, cocoa and cookies. Proceeds benefit the Fine Arts Endowment at Casper College.

Pastel artist opens at CC gallery

Impressionistic pastel artist Karen Hennecks works will be on display at the Mildred Zahradnicek Gallery beginning Monday and running through Feb. 27, 2017. In addition to the show, the artist will give an artists talk on Feb. 24 at 12:30 p.m. as part of Casper Colleges 2017 Humanities Festival and RedStone Concert and Recital Series.

A signature member of the Pastel Society of America, Henneck is also a member of the Pastel Society of Colorado, the Pastel Society of New Mexico, and Casper Artists Guild. Currently, galleries in Wyoming and Colorado represent her.

Henneck is also co-owner of Pirate Moon Press, which publishes books for children. Recently the company published two new childrens books, This Skin Im In and Ben and Pirate Moon, both of which she illustrated.

The Zahradnicek Gallery is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday and is free to the public. The gallery is in the Music Building on the Casper College campus.
Chronic wasting disease is spreading west. Wildlife officials find new cases each season of the deadly illness in deer and elk moving closer and closer to the states feedgrounds.

And recent research shows it could be a bigger deal than biologists originally thought.

CWD is a significant concern for Wyomings wildlife  particularly for our deer populations, said Dr. Mary Wood, state wildlife veterinarian for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. As prevalence increases in southeastern Wyoming, we are now seeing negative impacts in some of our deer herds from CWD.

Because many experts fear the diseases arrival on the feedgrounds could cripple western Wyomings elk herds, the National Elk Refuge is hosting a forum explaining the illness. The talks, scheduled for Wednesday, will explore the science behind the disease with information from experts like Wood.

The purpose of this forum is to provide the public with the latest information on chronic wasting disease, said refuge manager Steve Kallin. Its not to come and influence public policy, theres no proposal for comments, its strictly scientific presentations.

***

Chronic wasting disease, often simply referred to as CWD, attacks the brains of elk, deer and moose. Its not a bacteria or virus or parasite like many wildlife diseases in the state, but is a protein that wreaks havoc on brains.

Its a protein that all of us have in all of ourselves, but for some reason this protein changes its shape and that shape difference causes changes in the brain matter, said Hank Edwards, a Game and Fish wildlife disease specialist. It actually causes microscopic sponge-like holes to form.

Animals contract it from the environment or each other. It can take about 18 months for a creature to die, only showing signs in the last couple months, he added. Those signs include droopy ears, emaciation, excessive drooling and a blank stare.

Infected animals often end up dying not from the actual disease but from pneumonia. It is always fatal once contracted, Edwards said.

There is a ton of things we dont know about this disease, he said. Its very difficult to study. It takes so long to manifest itself in a host. Its not an easy disease to study in the wild.

The signs are also similar to many other diseases, which means diagnoses cant be made without tissue samples.

What researchers do know, is that it was first found in a northern Colorado research facility in 1967, and has since spread to 21 states and Canada, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is related to, but not the same as, mad-cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

Biologists dont believe it is a health risk to humans, but the Centers for Disease Control and Game and Fish advise against eating an animal that is infected.

***

Among the many things wildlife experts dont know about CWD is what can be done.

Game and Fish worked on a vaccine recently for the illness without success, Edwards said.

A study by retired state wildlife veterinarian Terry Kreeger appeared to show some elk had CWD-resistant genetics. One of the elk infected with CWD at the states wildlife research facility is more than a decade old and still alive, showing some may not ultimately die of the disease.

Edwards cautions too much optimism from the study. Even if it means some elk are resistant, it could take a century for those genes to spread enough to maintain a vibrant population.

And during that time, the population will drop quite a ways but will start to rebound as those genetics become more common, he added.

While the disease appears to hit deer harder than elk and spreads more quickly in deer than elk, the National Elk Refuge is concerned about the impacts if and when it reaches the feedground.

Refuge officials hope to come up with a plan for dealing with the disease, said Kallin, the superintendent. He does not have a timeline yet but said it will be a public process.

Game and Fish officials are also researching ways to manage the disease.

In the meantime, Kallin hopes to educate more of the public on CWD, its impacts and what is being done in other parts of the country.

We pulled together a planning team for the forum who came up with a list of questions people generally ask, Kallin said. We hope anyone interested in learning more about CWD will attend.
Casper City Councils emphasis on unity over open disagreement may be coming to an end as four new members prepare to take their seats in January.

Mayor Daniel Sandoval has emphasized civil discourse during his year-long term as mayor. It was an appeal that council members seemed eager to embrace after a period of open headbutting between former city councilman Craig Hedquist and then-city manager John Patterson that led to both mens resignations last year and litigation that appears likely to continue into 2017.

But the four city council members newly elected in November have more distance from the Hedquist-Patterson feud and emphasized change, rather than smooth council relations, during their campaigns.

Councils high turnover  nearly half of the nine members are new  may also alter the strong system of trust that has developed between City Manager V.H. McDonald and the current council. Even in a year when the city had to cut nearly 40 percent of its budget due to the economic downturn, current council members have been effusive in their praise for McDonald, and his recommendations are generally widely endorsed.

We do have to have a certain level of trust in the work of the city manager and department heads, said Charlie Powell, one of two incumbents to be reelected to council this year.

While the incoming council members understand the city managers role in running Caspers day-to-day operations, both Chris Walsh and Amanda Huckabay said they want council to take a more hands-on approach.

The people elected to council are responsible for the operations of government, Walsh said.

Walsh, a former Casper police chief who is also being sued by Hedquist, said that council should not work directly with department heads but that members should be knowledgeable about what each department is doing.

Thats why you have a manager, he said. But you hold them accountable.

In recent months council has remained silent or passed responsibility for various controversies to McDonald or city staff that he supervises:

Council took no public action after a municipal court ruled in October that Caspers city attorneys office had been successfully seeking illegal sentences for minors convicted of alcohol possession, a practice that had apparently been going on for over a decade.

The Star-Tribune published an email in October from Casper fire chief Ken King telling a subordinate to erase evidence related to the Cole Creek Fire investigation. Several council members said they were not bothered to have learned about the email from the newspaper article, despite McDonald and other city officials being aware of it months earlier.

Council members deferred to McDonald and city staff after several women, beginning in September, spoke at council meetings about what they perceived as the police departments inaction on their rape or sexual assault cases.

For the last couple of years the council has very much focused on trying to maintain order, Huckabay said, citing the Hedquist-Patterson feud as an impetus for this working style.

She said reducing conflict on council was a good thing but shouldnt be done at the expense of productive debate.

That doesnt mean you dont rock the boat, she said. Our job is not to sit there and agree blindly with everything that is presented to us.

Jesse Morgan, another newly elected council member, said he respects the current councils efforts to reach consensus in directing the city manager. But he also wants to be kept in the loop on issues like the King email.

If it involves public safety and it involves a department head ... it would be great to know about that, Morgan said.

The final council newcomer, Todd Murphy, did not respond to requests for comment.

Role of the manager

The city manager form of municipal government was developed about 100 years ago and modeled after corporate boards, with the manager meant to serve as a chief executive and the city council as a board of directors.

Professional city management is intended to take the politics out of day-to-day operations for delivery of services, McDonald said.

The model contrasts with the executive mayor system used in other cities, where the mayor is elected directly by voters and appoints department heads and oversees city staff personally.

McDonald noted that council sets broad goals for the city every two years and that he used those goals to generate policy recommendations for issues as they arise. But he said that council members are welcome to become as involved in specific policies as they wish to be.

Thats at their discretion, he said.

Casper does not have a full-time mayor and council members are expected to work only part-time, about 20 hours per week. McDonald meets with council for twice-monthly work sessions, where city staff and community groups make presentations on issue facing council. During the other two weeks, council holds formal meetings where they publicly debate and vote on resolutions.

On an irregular basis, McDonald and city attorney Bill Luben will also convene executive council sessions, which are closed to the public, to discuss a limited number of issues such as personnel and litigation.

James Svara, editor of More Than Mayor or Manager, an anthology about the city manager form of government, said a less contentious city council is one goal of the system.

In (executive mayor) cities, there can be tension that develops between the mayor and the council, Svara said.

Svara said another advantage of using a city manager is that the council can select a manager whose expertise aligns with the needs of the city. If voters elect a mayor to run the city, their options are limited to the handful of politicians who choose to run in a given election.

McDonald, who was selected as city manager just over a year ago, has worked for Casper since 1999, when he was hired as assistant services director. He was later promoted to assistant city manager. He previously worked as finance director in Douglas.

Who is accountable?

While council and the manager are intended to work hand-in-glove, the manager can serve to insulate council members from public scrutiny on hot-button issues.

Kimberly Nelson, a University of North Carolina professor specializing in public administration, said this can be positive in cases where council makes an unpopular but necessary decision such as spending on a long-term development goal.

The city manager may actually take the fall for a controversial decision or event if it means maintaining public faith in the council because that faith is necessary to continue the smooth operation of the city.

They would prefer that the council allow them to take the blame if it means they continue to have a positive working relationship and that the community has trust in council, Nelson, who trains local government officials, said.

Im not suggesting that the manager take the fall for a big mistake; what Im suggesting is in situations where the public doesnt see that the decision was actually good for the community, she added.

But Svara suggested that in some cases, elected council members deferring to the manager can represent a breakdown of the system.

Thats an example of a council thats not doing what its supposed to do, Svara said.

While there is no expectation that council members oversee details of, for example, park maintenance schedules, they are meant to be involved in setting policy direction.

If it breaks down into some kind of controversy that has policy consequences, the council needs to look at that carefully and take responsibility, Svara said.

The perils of a weak mayor

When voters unseated both Sandoval, the current mayor, and Vice Mayor Steve Cathey, they threw off the standard mayoral succession process in Casper. While some councils that rely on the city manager system still have a directly elected mayor, Caspers council chooses the mayor from its own ranks.

The vice mayor shadows the mayor during his or her one-year term and takes over the following year.

Thats a weaker way to handle the selection of the mayor, Svara said.

And, with Cathey no longer on council, the new council will have to elect a new mayor and vice mayor.

This choice matters, Svara said, because even in cities run by managers, the mayor serves an important role in managing the council-manager relationship.

McDonald said that he implements only policies backed by a majority of council, which Svara said highlights a peril of not having voters directly elect a mayor: No council member has the individual authority to take a more assertive position with the manager.

Having the mayor be able to go all the voters and have some kind of broad mandate is useful, Svara said.

With council members all on equal footing, there is a strong tendency to focus on consensus and unity. That becomes more complicated when the city manager is responsible for presenting reports to council, issuing recommendations and implementing policy.

Given that the manager is more familiar with the operations of the city government, members of council operate at an inherent information deficiency. Nelson said that means, primarily, that trust in the manager  believing she or he is presenting correct and complete information  is especially important.

The second way the council addresses that is, theyll say, We need your staff to present us with three options, with all the data and pros and cons, Nelson said.

The current council has typically asked McDonald or his staff to look into an issue and report back with information and a recommendation rather than ask for several alternative proposals.

In fact, sometimes it is McDonald, acting independently, who brings alternate proposals to council. That was the case in October, when he asked the streets department to present three options for cutting snow routes in the event of worsening budget conditions.

Future unknown

While Walsh and Huckabay both said they had seen council abdicate some of its responsibility to McDonald  and Morgan said he would like to be more informed than current council members in at least some respects  it is difficult to predict the new council members relationships with one another or with McDonald.

At a minimum, Walsh was clear that he wants to stay apprised of city affairs so he can respond to the kind of controversies that have come up at council during the last term.

You cant be caught off guard and say its not your responsibility, Walsh said. You cant pass that off to the city manager.
A bill sponsored by the Wyoming Joint Education Interim Committee would add an ex officio, non-voting representative from the University of Wyoming to the State Board of Education.

The move would streamline the different education lanes in the state, education officials said. The board already has Jim Rose, the executive director of the Wyoming Community College Commission, and state Superintendent Jillian Balow as ex officio members.

Ex officio members are people added to the state board through the Legislature, state board chairman Pete Gosar said. In addition to a representative from UW, Gosar said he would also like to add a pre-kindergarten expert to the board.

With everybody working together, youll get better policy and better things done, he said.

The addition of Rose highlighted for Gosar how important it is to have different voices brought into state education discussions, he said.

Much of this conversation is stemmed from Dr. Roses involvement on the board, he said. Hes been invaluable to us to understand the community college perspective of things  I think you cant talk K-12 policy without talking about the 12th-graders next step.

UW spokesman Chad Baldwin said the proposal, which will now be considered by the Legislature, is an outgrowth of a similar desire from UW President Laurie Nichols to connect with the rest of the states education system.

Baldwin said part of that is to make more seamless the process of students transferring from community colleges to UW. Nichols has placed an emphasis on that process, and the university intertwining more with the larger education system would help.

Community college students transferring is not entirely a seamless process, and were trying to make it so, Baldwin said. That includes everything from making sure students know whether their community college classes matter for UW and offering better advisement so students know from the start about what classes they need to take.

The original proposal was to make the dean of UWs College of Education the new member, but Baldwin said the school wants the ex officio addition to be a designee from Nichols. Whom that would be remains to be seen.

Gosar said the boards original recommendation was for someone from the college of education. If Nichols designee isnt from that school, Gosar said it would be helpful to have someone with a familiarity with it.

We think that the university college of ed makes a strategic policy because theyre the one university in this entire state, he said. They could add to (conversations on education standards), and once that conversation was concluded, they could begin training teachers.

But more than anything, Gosar wants as many people involved in the conversation as possible.

I know Dr. Rose has brought many points to the board and he was the only one to have those ideas, he said. I would expect the same from the university.
When legislators gather in Cheyenne next month, theyll be facing an unprecedented education funding crisis created by an economic downturn and fueled by years of generous spending.

The funding model thats educated a generation of Wyoming students while largely keeping the state and its education system out of the courtroom for the past decade has hit a crisis point. State superintendent Jillian Balow said that historic spending levels are untenable. The funding shortfall could hit $1.8 billion by the 2022 fiscal year, according to a recent report.

The truth of the matter is that were going to need to think about funding education as a Chevy rather than a Cadillac in the future, Balow said.

The energy downturn, which is stretching into its second year, has struck school funding on a local and statewide level, education officials said. On Tuesday, Gov. Matt Mead said public school funding faces a real crisis, one Wyoming couldnt cut its way out of. Instead, the state would likely have to find new revenue streams.

We dont have enough money to fund education at the levels that we have been funding, Balow said. And we dont have the cuts to education to balance that sheet.

The model

It starts with a landmark court case. In Campbell County v. the State of Wyoming, the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled that the state is constitutionally required to provide the best education possible. The court also held that not being able to pay for that education was not a reasonable excuse because education is one of the states most important functions.

The court ruled that a new funding model for education had to be cost-based and equitable, meaning that a fourth-grader in Teton County must receive the same quality education as a fourth-grader in Natrona County, state Sen. Hank Coe said.

What followed were several years of lawmakers hammering out a model to satisfy the courts ruling. Eventually, the Legislature settled on what is known as the evidence-based model to finance schools.

Every five years, the model is recalibrated to adjust funding levels where needed and determine how much money each district needs. Consultants are brought in as part of that process, and they examine all aspects of education funding in Wyoming before making recommendations.

The primary factor in determining how much a school receives is attendance, though factors like location also come into play. Districts generally obtain their funding in block grants to use as they please, with a few parameters, Balow said.

Atop that model is whats known as the legislative model. Coe described it as a decorated Christmas tree: The evidence-based model is the tree. The ornaments are the legislative model, and they represent programs like summer school.

Those ornaments can help augment the tree in between recalibration cycles, Coe said.

In the past, recalibration has meant more money for schools, as the Legislature funds above what may have been recommended, Balow said.

Essentially the evidence-based model is the Chevy, she said. And until recently, we as the state have been able to provide the Cadillac.

The double whammy

Natrona County School District Superintendent Steve Hopkins described the circumstances that led state education into this crisis as a double whammy: Because of intertwined revenue streams, schools started to lose funding on the local level as state sources of revenue that normally top off districts also dropped.

The statewide model for education funding is paid for through a series of levies:

A 12 mills foundation tax levied in every county in the state. That money goes to Cheyenne to be distributed to districts that need it.

Theres a 25 mills tax thats collected within the boundaries of each school district, like Natrona County. That tax goes to the district.

Finally, theres a six-mills, countywide tax thats divided among the districts based on enrollment.

Thats the cycle of education funding in Wyoming, Hopkins said. Districts are funded on the local level while chipping in statewide, and each district is guaranteed a certain amount. For instance, if a school district is guaranteed $50 million, and local taxes generate $40 million, then the state kicks in the $10 million to meet the threshold.

How much a district is guaranteed is determined by a number of factors, but the largest is enrollment, officials said. The problem with that model, Balow said, is it relies on a three-year average.

Were paying three years from now based on students this year, she said.

Most of Wyomings school districts, including Natrona County, take money from the state to meet their guaranteed funding threshold. These districts are called entitlement districts.

But districts whose local taxes exceed what theyre guaranteed, like Campbell County School District No. 1, send the excess to Cheyenne to be redistributed to entitlement districts, Hopkins said.

This model has worked to educate students on an equitable level and satisfy the courts.

But it started to go wrong two years ago, when the economy took a negative turn. Thats because as the money from local taxes dried up, so did the money that went back to the state. Roughly 70 percent of the states tax base is based in minerals. When oil, gas and coal prices dropped, local and state education funding pools fell with them. Those mill levies dont fill coffers when the tax base shrinks.

Despite the decline in available funding, the school districts are all still guaranteed a certain amount. So the district that was guaranteed $50 million in 2013, before the downturn, is still guaranteed $50 million now, even as there is less money to meet that threshold.

On top of that, Balow said, the cuts made during the last recalibration process didnt go far enough. That may have something to do with Wyomings history of finding a way to pay for education.

I think the culture in our state has been Find the money to pay for our schools, she said. And we historically have been able to do that.

But not anymore, she said. We dont have the money to find.

For Natrona County, the double whammy has meant a 1.4 percent funding hit, which Hopkins said translates to about $2 million. How much funding the district loses in the future, after the Legislature meets, remains to be seen.

At this point, he said, the shortfall is so massive, how do I even tag a number to it?

Balow said that the court cases dictate equitable education for all students, but that doesnt mean the funding has to hit a high price tag. This is a unique moment, she said, and looking back at past sources of funding wont work now.

Its not there, she said.
Gene Geno Bernard

Casper, Wyoming

December 7, 1936 - November 27, 2016

Gene Geno Bernard died the morning of Sunday, November 27, 2016, in Casper, Wyoming at Central Wyoming Hospice surrounded by his family  he was a few days short of 80 years old. Born Wilmer Eugene Bernard on December 7, 1936 to William and Elsie Bernard in the living room of his grandparents' farmhouse in Oakland, Maryland. He and his late brother Lyall grew up in Glassport and McKeesport, Pennsylvania and attended McKeesport High School where Gene was warmly known as froggy' in reference to his stature and the eyeglasses he wore at the time. After graduating high school in 1955, Gene trained and worked as a carpenter with his father in the Pittsburgh area. In September 1956 he joined the Army and later served in Korea as a medic. After returning home Gene continued to work as a carpenter and met his future wife Doreen (May) in January 1962 at a going-away party for a mutual friend.

Gene and Doreen were married in September 1963 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and welcomed the birth of their first son, Ray Eugene, in February 1967 and their second son, Jeffrey Alan, in December 1969. In 1974 Gene moved his family to Loveland, Colorado where he continued his successful career as a custom finish-trim carpenter and enjoyed his lifelong passions of hunting and fishing. In 1978 they relocated to Casper, Wyoming, the town he would eventually call home'. In the years following his divorce in 1985, Gene also spent time in Las Vegas, Nevada and Boise, Idaho with his longtime companion Nancy Branson.

Gene enjoyed spending time with friends and family, cooking and eating great home cooked food (the spicier the better), camping, hunting, fishing, and custom reloading rifle ammunition. While working as a carpenter and remodeling family homes, one of his delights was to befriend and collect cherished recipes from the family cook. He was often known to bring his own fresh jalapenos to a restaurant to spice up his meal.

Gene is survived by his sons, Ray and Jeffrey; five grandchildren, Chelsea, Liz, Spencer, Pierce and Alastair; and two great-grandchildren, Ashton and Cameron.

He was preceded in death by his father, William Lyall Bernard, Sr.; mother, Elsie Madeline Bernard; and brother, William Lyall Bernard, Jr.

A memorial service will be held at Newcomer Funeral Home in Casper at 710 East 2nd Street on Monday, December 12, 2016 at 1:00 pm with a reception following at the VFW of Casper at 1800 Bryan Stock Trail.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the VFW and Central Wyoming Hospice.
Jeanne Sissman

Casper, Wyoming

March 1, 1926 - November 28, 2016

Jeanne Sissman died at Central Wyoming Hospice Home on November 28, 2016 at the age of 90. Jeanne was born in Salt Lake City on March 1, 1926 to Grace (Jones) Bauman and George Bauman. Jeanne and her brother Reed lived there until the family moved to Denver, CO. It was in Denver that Jeanne met her husband-to-be in junior high school. Clyde Sissman knew Jeanne was the one he would marry the day he rode her home on his bicycle handlebars. She was not of the same mind initially. It took him a few years to convince her, but convince her he did. Jeanne left her studies at the University of Denver to marry Clyde in August of 1946. A few years later, they moved to Casper, which became their permanent home.

Jeanne was active in social clubs and service organizations, including Ladies of the Petroleum Club, Alumnae Club of Pi Beta Phi, PEO, and the Hospital Auxiliary to name a few. Jeanne was a president of the Casper Service League. She volunteered at the Glass House, delivered meals for Meals on Wheels, and was a charter member of the Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church.

Jeanne and Clyde loved traveling. The family always took summer vacations; the most memorable were the jeeping trips to the old mining ghost towns high in the Colorado Mountains. Jeanne loved digging in the town dumps for old glass bottles. It was Jeanne's better instincts that probably saved the family from tragedy when she told Clyde and the kids to put the sticks of crystallized dynamite back in the old mine shaft where they'd found them.

Once their children were out of the house, Jeanne and Clyde traveled the world. Along their travels they amassed a collection of Chinese art. When Clyde died in 1989, Jeanne continued her travels with her female friends and enjoyed spending time at her condo in Jackson Hole.

Jeanne expressed herself through oil painting, ceramic painting and stained glass. Her artistic pursues set an example for her children Rob and Terri who each chose a creative path.

Her children remember her as a loving, supportive, involved mother and good friend who could always make them laugh. In fact, she retained her quick wit throughout the last year and a half of her life, living in nursing homes and hospice. Jeanne truly enjoyed life. No matter what life threw at her she had a positive outlook.

Jeanne Sissman is survived by her brother, Reed Bauman of Newport Beach, CA; her sons, Scott Sissman of Casper, WY and Rob Sissman of Santa Fe, NM; her daughter, Terri Sissman of Arcadia, CA; grandson, Matt Sissman of Casper; granddaughters, Ellen Bechtel of Lander, WY and Katherine Patterson of Leawood, KS; and five great-grandchildren.

No memorial services are planned at this time.

Jeanne received such loving care at hospice that the family requests memorials in Jeanne's name be made to Central Wyoming Hospice and Transitions.
A man charged with killing his former girlfriend and shooting her boyfriend in Cheyenne in April 2015 has pleaded guilty to two reduced charges as part of a plea agreement.

Daniel Guajardo, 28, faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison for killing 26-year-old Janessa Spencer and injuring 24-year-old Samuel Cook. Guajardo pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. His trial had been scheduled to start on Monday.

District Judge Catherine Rogers made sure Guajardo understood that the plea agreement did not put a limit on the prosecution's sentencing recommendations.

Guajardo also pleaded guilty Friday to three counts that alleged he helped a fellow jail inmate assault another inmate in July 2015.

Rogers ordered a pre-sentence investigation. A sentencing date has not been set.
Officials have monitored shifting floors and walls at Wyoming State Penitentiary since 2013, but the legislative task force commissioned to examine the problem is divided over the governors recommendation for funding necessary repairs to the states only maximum security facility.

Gov. Matt Mead recommended Tuesday that the Legislature authorize $83.5 million in bonds to fix serious structural problems at the state penitentiary in Rawlins, but lawmakers on the Task Force on State Penal Facilities are divided as to whether bonding is the correct way to fund repairs.

Bonding is a very solid option, said Rep. James Byrd, D-Cheyenne. We dont like to bond. But weve been spoiled by having cash on hand.

A study commissioned by the task force found that the Rawlins prison needed at least $3.5 million in immediate repairs and $80 million in repairs over time  about the same amount the prison cost to build in 2001. The prison was expected to last at least 50 years. The task force recommended repairing the facility, but the Legislature could still decide to build a new facility at a cost upward of $160 million, though some lawmakers expect the final price tag could be closer to $250 million.

Byrd said there is no other palatable option to fund the repairs. The Legislature could vote to raise property taxes, but Byrd said that would be unfair to residents.

If those complainers are challenged with finding an alternative, I dont think theres a better option, Brown said. If there were, Id be the first one to listen.

But Byrd was concerned about finding up to $8.5 million within the budget for immediate repairs.

The bonding process takes too long to get that money (for immediate fixes), he said. That money needs to hit the ground, like, tomorrow.

Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, said taking on the bond debt would be reasonable for Wyoming. The state continues to enjoy a good credit rating and would be able to pay off the accrued interest as the economy picks back up, he said.

If were going to bond, then $85 million looks like a sum we could bond for and we could spread over a reasonable amount of time, he said. We could work our way out of it.

At least one legislator thinks bonding isnt an appropriate way to fund the repairs. Sen. Eli Bebout, R-Riverton, said he wants to make sure the conditions at the prison will continue to deteriorate before he makes a decision. He said the soil conditions could stabilize and the facility could stop shifting.

If it continues to worsen, then lets look at a plan and move forward, he said.

Bebout said authorizing bonds would be one of the last options (hed) pick because it would stick the state with long-term debt. Instead, if the prison needs money for repairs he would prefer to take money from other capitol projects and use it to fund the repairs.

When you have revenue shortfalls, you have to make decisions about what your priorities are, he said.

Sen. Stephan Pappas, R-Cheyenne, was hesitant to endorse bonding as a funding option without further information. While he thinks it could be a viable solution, he said he wanted to explore other options.

Before I could make a decision, Id want all the experts to tell me the pros and cons of all the options so I could make an educated decision, Pappas said.

He said he recognizes that an extensive analysis of funding options would take more time while the situation at the prison continues to deteriorate. But he thinks the emergency repairs could keep the facility safe for up to five years while the Legislature makes a decision, finds money and hires a construction company.

The decision needs to be made fairly quickly, and Id like to see it made this legislative session, he said. We cant have a catastrophic failure because we waited too long.

Slab and foundation movement caused by unstable soils beneath the prison is causing inch-wide gaps in walls and fault lines in the floors. Workers at the facility are constantly filling gaps and cracks and using stopgap measures  like propping up a ceiling with temporary columns  to keep prisoners safe and prevent them from using the breaks to store contraband.

The prison houses about 650 inmates and has a staff of about 320, according to a 2012 count by the Department of Corrections.

Its got serious problems, like some of the doors dont close, Brown said. In a prison, you really want the doors to close.

Mead also recommended earmarking $19.2 million from the states rainy day fund to care for inmates should the Rawlins prison fail. The money would pay to relocate the prisons population for a year. All the lawmakers who spoke to the Star-Tribune agreed that his recommendation was prudent.

The larger problem has been poor management of state money for years that has forced the state into this position, Byrd said.

Weve had a majority party that has mismanaged the budget for years  thats the problem, he said.

Other legislators agreed that the way the state spends and saves money needs to change in face of an economic downtown and a $400 million operations budget shortfall.

Weve had so darn much money that weve become fairly lazy about managing some of our large capital expenditures because if we needed to do something wed just pay for it, Brown said. Now we need to be more clever.
The Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution in Torrington will have a new deputy warden beginning Monday.

As deputy warden, Curtis Moffat will oversee daily operations of the institution and perform necessary duties of the warden position.

Moffat will succeed Ruby Ziegler, who became warden of the Wyoming Honor Farm in Riverton last year.

Moffat has worked for the prison in Torrington since 2009 as a unit supervisor. He managed security operations as a correctional major beginning in 2014.

Before joining the staff at the second-largest prison facility in Wyoming, Moffat worked at the Nebraska State Penitentiary for more than 12 years. He was a case worker and unit manager while working everywhere from a minimum security form to death row.

In a statement, Moffat says that in his new position, he will be able to provide a consistent positive role model for others.

Moffat graduated in 1995 from Chadron State College in Nebraska with a bachelors degree in criminal justice.
This is the time of year when many make charitable contributions. Gifts of cash, goods and services are popular throughout the holiday season. Although no one wants to think about taxes during the happiest time of the year, there can be substantial tax benefits hidden within your donations.

Taxpayers who itemize deductions on Form 1040 Schedule A are able to claim deductions for charitable contributions. Your tax software or preparer should alert you to potential savings related to your donations. If your tax preparer does not mention it, make sure you bring up the topic yourself. Have documents and receipts available so the preparer can maximize your deduction.

To take advantage of charitable deductions, taxpayers must be able to produce verification of the donation when requested by the IRS. Only donations to qualified organizations are eligible and different types of donations require different types of verification.

For monetary donations: The required verification is a bank record or written statement from the charity. If the donation occurs by payroll deduction, a copy of a pay stub or W-2 will be required.

For donated property: Donors must obtain written acknowledgement from the charity for all gifts worth over $250. The acknowledgement must include a description of the items. Special rules apply to cars, boats and other types of property.

For services: The value of services is not deductible. You may be able to deduct out-of-pocket expenses incurred in providing services. Deduction of out-of-pocket expenses requires proof of expense. The best proof is receipts specific to each expense.

You cannot deduct for donations made to non-qualified organizations, contributions from which you benefit, contributions to individuals and appraisal fees. Other types of donations may have restrictions or limits on what and how much is deductible. For a thorough discussion, read IRS publication 526.

Remember, donations of clothing and household items are limited to their fair market value and must be in good or better condition to be deductible. Most charities will not provide an itemized receipt for your donation. For that reason, it is important that you create your own itemized list and attach it to the proof of donation provided by the charity. Donation lists should include the fair market value of each item. IRS publication 561 contains information about determining the value of donated property.

Gather the necessary documentation now, as you are giving. Having those documents available while you are preparing your taxes ensures that donations wont be forgotten and will maximize your deduction. If you are not sure your donation is deductible, check with your tax preparer, read IRS publication 526 (Charitable Contributions) or watch the IRS YouTube video on Charitable Contributions. Further information on this and other topics can be found at irs.gov.

Keep in mind that there are many resources available for Wyoming taxpayers. The VITA (volunteer income tax assistance) program provides volunteer tax preparers throughout the state. For more information, visit irs.gov and type VITA into the search box. Legal Aid of Wyomings Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic provides advice and legal representation on tax matters to those who qualify. They can be reached at 1-877-432-9955 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Help may also be available from the National Taxpayer Advocate Service through their website at taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov.

Finally, just a few reminders as we prepare to enter the tax filing season. If you cannot pay your tax in full, file your return and pay as much as you can. If you dont file, you will be assessed a failure to file penalty in addition to the failure to pay penalty. Filing on time eliminates one penalty completely. The IRS will work with you to get the remaining balance paid. If you get a letter from the IRS about your taxes, do not ignore the letter. Respond promptly and politely and make sure you meet any deadline you are given. The IRS is generally very reasonable with taxpayers who are trying to resolve the issue. Staying on top of your tax problem will save you a lot of heartache down the road. If you are in over your head, contact Legal Aid or the Taxpayer Advocate Service to see if they can guide you through the process.
President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering seriously at least two men for the critical position of secretary of state. One, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has divided the Trump team between those who think it is a good idea and those who think Romneys severe criticism of Trump during the campaign disqualifies him.

The other is retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus. A major problem for Petraeus is his mishandling of classified documents, which he reportedly leaked to his biographer-mistress, Paula Broadwell. After Trump hammered Hillary Clinton for her extremely careless handling of classified material when she was secretary of state, it would be hypocritical of Trump to name Petraeus.

Though also in the running, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is thought to be running a distant third, if the number of visits in and out of Trump Tower are any indication.

So, of the top two contenders, who? How about someone with experience as a diplomat, including within the State Department and as a former U.N. ambassador?

John Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a regular commentator on cable news, does not engage in wishful thinking, or project American morals on those who dont share them in the vain hope they might be contagious. Here is Bolton on the threat of radical Islamic terrorism: When you have a regime that would be happier in the afterlife than in this life, this is not a regime that is subject to classic theories of deterrence.

In his book Surrendering is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations, Bolton is unrelenting in his criticism of the toothless U.N. and of many U.S. policies that have not produced results in Americas best interests  precisely the attitude of President-elect Trump, who wants to look out for America and its interests first. In this pursuit he is not unlike one of his predecessors, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, who said, What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving. It is a mugging, and too often it is the United States and Israel who get mugged.

Heres another Bolton quote: Negotiation is not a policy. Its a technique. Its something you use when its to your advantage, and something that you dont use when its not to your advantage. That is the opposite of wishful thinking.

In a July 2015 column for the Dallas Morning News, Bolton wrote that it is a fiction to believe Iran wont violate terms of the nuclear weapons deal it made with the Obama administration. He argues that snapback sanctions wont work because sanctions failed before. He thinks the only option for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of the ayatollahs is Israel.

However, Iran may well retaliate, Bolton acknowledges. At that point, Washington must be ready to immediately resupply Israel for losses incurred by its armed forces in the initial attack, so that Israel will still be able to effectively counter Tehrans proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, which will be its vehicles for retaliation. The United States must also provide muscular political support, explaining that Israel legitimately exercised its inherent right of self-defense. Whatever Obamas view, public and congressional support for Israel will be overwhelming.

Who is to blame for this situation? Bolton writes: American weakness has brought us to this difficult moment. While we obsessed about its economic discomfort, Iran wore its duress with pride. It was never an even match. We now have to rely on a tiny ally to do the job for us. But unless we are ready to accept a nuclear Iran (and, in relatively short order, several other nuclear Middle Eastern states), get ready. The easy ways out disappeared long ago.

This is sober reality and precisely the worldview that is needed at the Department of State.
SANTIAGO, Cuba  A wooden box containing Fidel Castros ashes was placed by his brother and successor on Sunday into the side of a granite boulder that has become Cubas only official monument to the charismatic bearded rebel who seized control of a U.S.-allied Caribbean island and transformed it into a western outpost of Soviet-style communism that he ruled with absolute power for nearly half a century.

The private, early-morning ceremony was attended by members of Fidel Castros family, the ruling Politburo of the single-party system he founded, and Latin American leaders who installed closely allied leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Brazil.

After nine days of fervent national mourning and wall-to-wall homages to Castro on state-run media, the government barred independent coverage of the funeral, releasing a handful of photos and brief descriptions of the ceremony later in the day.

The ceremony began at 6:39 a.m. when the military caravan bearing Castros remains in a flag-draped cedar coffin left the Plaza of the Revolution in the eastern city of Santiago. Thousands of people lined the two-mile route to Santa Ifigenia cemetery, waving Cuban flags and shouting Long live Fidel!

The ashes were delivered to Castros younger brother and successor, President Raul Castro, who wore his olive generals uniform as he placed the remains into a niche in the enormous grey boulder that will serve as his tomb. The niche was sealed with a green marble plaque emblazed with the name Fidel in gold letters.

The tomb stands to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiagos Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.

As the funeral ended, martial music could be heard outside the cemetery, where Ines de la Rosa was among the mourners gathered. She said she would have liked to watch the interment on television, but we understand how they as a family also need a bit of privacy.

The decision to keep the final farewell private came the morning after Raul Castro announced that Cuba would prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after his brother, and bar the construction of statues of the former leader and revolutionary icon, in keeping with his desire to avoid a cult of personality.

The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality and was consistent in that through the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected, Raul Castro told a massive crowd gathered in the eastern city of Santiago.

He said that Cubas National Assembly would vote in its next session on the law fulfilling the wishes of his brother, who died last week at 90. The legislature generally holds a meeting in December and under Cubas single-party system, parliament unanimously or near-unanimously approves every government proposal.

Fidel Castro, who stepped down in 2006 after falling ill, kept his name off public sites during his near half-century in power because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a personality cult. In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto Che Guevara became common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths.

Mourning for Castro has been fervent and intense across the country since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba, where huge crowds have been shouting Castros name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes.

All of us would like to put Fidels name on everything but in the end, Fidel is all of Cuba, said Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a 70-year-old retired economist. It was a decision of Fidels, not Rauls, and I think he has to be respected.
Dude Ranching in Arizona by Russell True

Circle Z Guest Ranch by Gail Waechter Corkill

Tighten your stampede string and ride back to the glamorous, gritty life of yesteryear with these two Images of America offerings from Arcadia Publishing.

Filled with archived photos and facts, Dude Ranching in Arizona ($21.99) by Russell True is a loving tribute to Arizonas historic guest ranches. Lured by two of Arizonas five Cs, climate and cattle, and seduced by the romanticized West, dudes experienced a taste of the cowboy way and drove the states early tourism industry. At one time, there were over 100 ranches in the Tucson area alone. For decades Wickenburg and Tucson competed for Dude Ranch Capital of the World until fluctuating economies and invasive urban growth forced many ranches to close. But, anytime you get a hankering for a taste of life on the range, the West still lives at two remaining ranches flanking Tucson  the Tanque Verde Ranch to the east and White Stallion Ranch  co-owned by True  on the Northwest side

Just 15 miles from the border, the West endures at the Circle Z, which Gail Waechter Corkill chronicles in Circle Z Guest Ranch ($24.99). Located near the town of Patagonia, this venerable institution boasts of being the longest continuing guest ranch in Arizona and, since the mid-1920s, guests have enjoyed its old-time hospitality in the beautiful Sonoita Valley. In addition, the Circle Z is renowned for its horse program. Corkill devotes a section of the book to the ranches foundation stallion, EL Sultan  the only purebred Spanish Carthusian in the United States at the time. The stud, possessing the ideal combination of brawn and brains, was exhibited throughout Southern Arizona. On occasion, he even packed a dude out on the trail. In addition to trail rides, guests participated in rodeos, gymkhanas, cattle drives and branding, and (gasp) polo.

Corkill gathered extensive resources from the ranchs owners and area locals, including a photo of guests relaxing at the Wagon Wheel Saloon, still a popular watering hole after a day in the saddle. Corkill is the co-author of Empire Ranch, another in the Images of America series.

 Vicki Ann Duraine

The Clay Endures by Sharon K. Miller (Sharon K. Miller, $14.99)

Sharon K. Miller sets this second-in-the-Clay Series novel in 1860s Southern Arizona  most of it in whats now Catalina State Park. She imagines the life of a young couple homesteading where real-life Francisco and Victoriana Romero lived (now the Romero Ruin). In The Clay Endures, Armando Ramirez defies his Spanish parents to follow his dream to marry Papago Esperanza Ocoboa and start his own ranch. Although reluctant to go so far from her Tubac-area family, Esperanza agrees to what will become an isolated, dangerous existence: Apaches are harassing ranchers and stealing cattle, and they are far from help. Often alone, Esperanza takes comfort in her dog, an ancient pot (into which Miller weaves a spiritual connection), and a mysterious, watchful Apache.

 Christine Wald-Hopkins

The Crossleaf Blades by John Wallace (Page Publishing, $26.95)

Tucsonan John Wallace has issued himself no mean challenge with his first novel: set the powers of good against the powers of evil and array the forces of the fantasy world to join in. Reminiscent of another series were familiar with, one of the kingdoms of men allies with the land of the dwarves to oppose an ominous threat from malevolent, supernatural beings. In The Crossleaf Blades, the Brotherhood of the Eternal Light taps Nolvanian Captain Erik Steiner and Dwarven Aleed Ravenwing  both bearers of special crossleaf weapons  to accompany a small girl they call Hope to confront the evil Lord Nakaret. Meanwhile, Nakarets armies of the Undead are marching on the Nolvarians and Dwarves, and they scramble to recruit nearby kingdoms to save them all. Against the stinking Undead army  constantly replenishing its numbers from any dead  assisted by legions of ogres and scorpion-tailed skeletons, the kingdoms of the coalition, led by young Fenlander Aldric, have their work cut out for them. A satisfactory conclusion is reached, but Wallace has presented imaginatively and elaborately constructed settings and mythologies in this 600-plus page work, and he clearly has at least one sequel in mind.

 Christine Wald-Hopkins

Cracks in the Wall by Duke Southard (Duke Southard, $13.95)

On the Friday afternoon before Mothers Day, a woman reluctantly packs up her three children to spend the weekend with her abusive, soon-to-be ex-, husband. She wont make it alive to miss the pancakes in bed. In Cracks in the Wall, Tucsonan Duke Southard sets a murder investigation in quiet Hampton Village, Connecticut, and reprises retired Philadelphia police detective Parker Havenot to pick at cracks in what other investigators see as a clear-cut indictment.

 Christine Wald-Hopkins

Of This New World by Allegra Hyde (University of Iowa Press, $16)

When Bennett Sims awarded this story collection the 2016 University of Iowa John Simmons Short Fiction Awards, he called it smart, stylish, and surprising  an innovative compendium of paradise lost. Id add to that lyrical, poignant, and imaginative; of paradise never quite attained. Central to Of This New World, is the notion of utopia, which author Allegra Hyde reminds us can be translated as both as good place and no place  possibly existing only in ones mind. Written when Hyde was doing her MFA at Arizona State, the book plays with situations and characters as disparate and different as Adam and Eve out of Eden and fraudulent colonizers on Mars. Its a short fiction-lovers delight.

 Christine Wald-Hopkins

The Other Side of Courage: The Saga of Elizabeth Blackwell By Robert Nordmeyer (CyPress Publications. $17.95 paper; Kindle edition $4.99)

As a young woman Elizabeth Blackwells gentle, caring ways were appreciated by an ailing friend who despaired of the indifferent treatment she was receiving from the exclusively male medical profession. Blackwells compassion, combined with her keen intellect, would make her the perfect physician her friend observed, and she owed it to the fair sex to become a doctor. It was Blackwells sex, however, that made this aspiration a non-starter in mid-19th century America. Women had no place in surgeries and operating theaters and Blackwells interest in medicine was considered scandalous immoral and aberrant. She was determined and fearless, though, and ultimately prevailed. In 1847 she entered the Medical College of Geneva, NY (on the current site of Hobart & William Smith Colleges). It was the only institution that would accept her. She graduated at the head of her class.

Blackwell may have scandalized her neighbors and classmates, but she is clearly much admired by author Robert Nordmeyer. He offers a well-researched, fictionalized account of Americas first female doctor, beginning with the business reverses that prompted her familys move from England and following her through her ground-breaking career. His deft portrayal provides insight into the indomitable spirit of a woman who bore endless ill-treatment and ostracism and ultimately triumphed with the establishment of a clinic for poor women and children. Nordmeyer, who is retired from a career working in broadcast and for nonprofits, lives in Tucson.

 Helene Woodhams

The Family That Wasnt By Gene Twaronite (iUniverse. $11.95)

The much-hyphenated John Boggle (an acronym for his actual, multiple names) cant deal with his extended, dysfunctional family any longer  each relative is crazier and more oppressive than the next, beginning with his grandmother who was devoured by warthogs. To find some relief he literally edits them out of his personal narrative, and writes himself a new, perfect family with whom he can live happily in ideal surroundings of his own invention. But wait, maybe hes not that happyset adrift in his narrative, John discovers he has lost track of who he is. In an attempt to recover himself he embarks on an improbable journey where he encounters many fantastical characters. Tucson author Gene Twaronites satirical look at the ties that bind is intended for middle- grade readers, but as the author observes, it can be appreciated by anyone.

 Helene Woodhams
TUMACACORI MISSION  Its made out of mud and hasnt been an active church since 1848, but this magnificent mission 45 miles south of Tucson endures as a shrine of peaceful contemplation and cultural celebration.

Founded by Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino in 1691 and drawing together a diverse mix of peoples, the site is now preserved as Tumacacori National Historical Park.

Tumacacori sits at a cultural crossroads in the Santa Cruz River valley, says the National Park Service, which oversees the site. Here Oodham, Yaqui, and Apache people met and mingled with European Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, settlers, and soldiers, sometimes in conflict and sometimes in cooperation.

AN ENDURING EDIFICE

The church that serves as a centerpiece of the historical park was built between 1800 and the early 1820s  replacing an earlier church built in the 1750s that was subsequently dismantled, says Anita Badertscher, chief of interpretation and education for Tumacacori.

The newer church is an amazing structure built out of mud, Badertscher says. Its primarily sun-dried adobe, so it is mud. Our job is to try to maintain the original structure as much as we possibly can without totally redoing it.

She said the church remained in use until 1848 although some parts of the building, including the bell tower dome, were never completed.

After 1848, people picked up the saint statues and other things at Tumacacori and took them to San Xavier Mission near Tucson, Badertscher said.

President Theodore Roosevelt established what was then called Tumacacori National Monument by executive order in 1908. The National Park Service took over management of the site from the U.S Forest Service in 1916, and the name was changed to Tumacacori National Historical Park in 1990.

Ruins of the nearby missions of Guevavi and Calabazas are open to the public only during special tours in the winter months.

A PLACE OF PEACE

People are often impressed by the peacefulness of the place and the feeling of the presence of history, Badertscher said. Thats something we hear often from visitors.

One of the main things we do here is celebrate the mixing of the cultures, she said. Its the whole flavor of the Southwest we know today that developed from places like Tumacacori. Its a feeling of respect for what these people accomplished.

TOURING TUMACaCORI

To reach the site from Tucson, take Interstate 19 south, past Green Valley, and get off at Exit 29 for Tumacacori.

The park is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Admission is $5 per person, with those 15 or younger admitted free.

A museum with dioramas, illustrations and artifacts provides an introduction to the history of the area. Visitors are invited to take a self-guided tour leading around the site. Among some of the tour stops:

Garden  Vegetation growing in the garden includes native and introduced plants that would have been used by missionaries and others. They include herbs such as thyme,arosemary and myrtle, and fruit trees such as apricot, olive and pomegranate.

Mission grounds  A walk around the grounds outside the church gives a sense of what life might have been like for those who lived and worked here.

Front of the church  Walls, columns, niches, arches and the bell tower are visible.

Nave  The remains of the nave still project a sort of grandeur long after it was a place of regular worship.

Baptistery  a room where the sacred ceremony of baptism was performed.

Sanctuary  A visitors guide suggests: As you stand near the altar in the sanctuary, try to visualize the priest singing here and the choir responding from the loft at the far end of the nave. Imagine the melodious strains of the Gregorian chant reverberating above the heads of the kneeling parishioners like music from heaven.

Cemetery  The site includes a mortuary chapel, circular in design, and graves.

For more photos and video of National Park Service properties in Southern Arizona, go to tucson.com/parks

Tumacacoris website  www.nps.gov/tuma  offers additional information.
A Cochise County jail inmate who ran away from his work crew early Saturday morning was apprehended 12 hours later near the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities said.

Pedro Sandoval Duarte, of Sonora, Mexico, was being held on felony charges related to transportation of marijuana and possession of marijuana for sale, when he fled from his work crew just after 1 a.m., said Cochise County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman, Carol Capas.

Sheriff's employees, along with members of the U.S. Border Patrol, Bisbee Police Department, Tombstone Marshal's Office and Arizona Department of Corrections K-9 Chase Team responded to the detention center to continue the search, Capas said.

Later in the morning, Duarte was spotted by border patrol cameras heading south towards the border, and all units were sent to the area to stop him from crossing into Mexico, Capas said.

Duarte was located and taken back into custody at about 1 p.m., and is being returned to the Cochise County jail, where he will be booked with new charges, Capas said.

"This was an unfortunate incident for all who were involved," said Cochise County Sheriff Mark J. Dannels. "This man was so desperate to be free that he fled with a detention officer on his heels."

Dannels also addressed critics who said the Sheriff's office used too many resources in attempting to apprehend someone who was "only here for marijuana charges," saying that Duarte could have been so desperate for freedom, that he might have been willing to harm others "or worse."

Duarte had been an inmate in the jail since his August 1 arrest on felony charges of possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of marijuana, Capas said in an earlier media release.
Canyon del Oro senior pitcher Max Smith helped lead the Dorados past Sunnyside 11-2 on Thursday, April 9. Smith (5-0) tossed four scoreless innings, surrendered two singles and fanned four batters. He also went 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI in the second inning.
PHOENIX  Some fired state employees who appealed to get their jobs back may get some holiday cheer.

Henry Darwin, the governors chief operating officer, told The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com he will be meeting this week with state Department of Administration officials to determine the outcome of at least 210 case-review requests from involuntarily separated employees.

Gov. Doug Ducey, responding to reports about questionable firings within the Department of Economic Security, created a hot line in late October for state employees to call if they believed they were wrongly fired. More than two-thirds of the appeals came from the DES, which had the most at 144. The Department of Revenue had the second-highest number at 14.

Fired workers can call 602-542-5482.

Darwin, who also was put in charge of the DES following the Nov. 23 ouster of Director Tim Jeffries, said there is no guarantee any of those employees will get their jobs back.

He said state officials will use the same criteria used this fall, when seven Department of Juvenile Corrections employees  including one with breast cancer  had their jobs restored after being improperly fired.

Darwin said key factors in any reinstatement will be whether employees were fired illegally or without justification, even though nearly all state workers are at-will employees who can be fired without cause.

At DES, The Republic found that about half of the workers fired had received merit raises for outstanding work.

Fired employees said Jeffries targeted women, minorities, gays and those with disabilities. Jeffries denied those accusations.

A 2012 personnel-reform law made it easier for the state to fire employees without cause.

Duceys agencies have fired more than 1,700 people, but public backlash led to the administration to re-examine some of those terminations.

The Republic found the majority of those terminated under the Ducey administration were 40 or older.

The Governors Office said no group of workers was targeted.

Ducey has forced out three of his appointed agency directors following questionable decisions.

Two of them were forced to resign, in part, because of personnel practices.

Darwin said the Ducey administration within the past two weeks also created an additional layer of protection for employees as agency directors now must have all firings reviewed by a state human-resources officer.

If that officer does not agree with the firing, the agency director must then meet with the officer and justify the firing.

Agency directors, however, still have the final say in firing, Darwin said.

But, all firings must be personally approved by an agency director, and assistant directors or managers no longer can fire staff.

The 2012 personnel-reform law required the Department of Administration to review all firings, but that agency had little influence in whether employees were fired.

Darwin said some of the 35 agency directors are not happy with recent personnel changes.

This should be unnecessary. They should know when its appropriate or inappropriate to fire someone, Darwin said.
On its face, the ascension of Donald Trump to the White House should be a boon for the long-delayed $1.5 billion Rosemont Mine, which would be this countrys third-largest copper mine.

But its not that simple, say three outside experts who have worked for federal environmental agencies under both major political parties. With a final federal decision on Rosemont approaching soon, a pro-business Trump administration would undoubtedly be more favorably inclined than some Obama administration officials have been. But that doesnt make Rosemont a done deal, say the experts  two law professors and a top official for a nonprofit water group.

Hudbay Minerals Inc. of Toronto and its predecessor, Augusta Resource Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia, have sought federal permits for the proposed mine in the Santa Rita Mountains since 2007. But their efforts have not yet produced all needed permits, due to opposition from environmentalists, Indian tribes and neighbors of the mine, and severe skepticism among some agency officials who have reviewed it. Disputes over endangered and threatened species, concerns about the mine potentially drying up neighboring wells and streams, and worries about air- and water-quality impacts have delayed decisions year after year.

Trump never publicly mentioned Rosemont in his campaign. But the Republican repeatedly promised to lighten the hand of what he called overburdensome environmental regulations on industry. He railed against the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promised to put the ailing coal mining industry back on its feet and vowed to overturn President Obamas Waters of the United States rule that ensures federal protection of waterways.

However, the Rosemont outcome will depend not just on the party in power, the outside experts said. It will depend on whom Trump appoints to key posts and on how effectively those appointees can marshal legal arguments in favor of the mine if Obama officials kill it before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

If the Trump administration wanted to overturn an unfavorable decision, it would have to reopen a very detailed record and develop additional facts or analysis, said Tracy Mehan, an assistant Environmental Protection Agency administrator under President George W. Bush and now head of government affairs for the nonprofit American Water Works Association.

Agreeing, University of Colorado law professor Mark Squillace noted that if the Army Corps of Engineers left behind a strong record backing denial, it would include everything that suggested the agency thought approving the permit was a bad idea.

Elections do matter and reasonable people can disagree over an issue. But the outcome depends on how the record is developed. It comes down to whether a court determines if an agency decision passes the laugh test, Mehan said.

Plus, there is Trumps penchant for changing his views on issues.

No one knows what Trump will do on anything. ... But the people he puts in charge of EPA, the Department of Interior, etc., will be able to do a lot to reverse Obama policies and exercise a different kind of discretion on regulatory decisions like Rosemont, said Patrick Parenteau, a Vermont Law School professor. The key appointee will be the assistant secretary of the Army, who will oversee the Army Corps, said Parenteau.

While Parenteau is certain Trump will appoint lower-level officials more sympathetic to the mining industry than Obama did, Who knows how high this project will get on the Trump administration hit list? It may not get there. If it was oil and gas, yeah, tar sands, yeah, but a copper mine by a foreign company? I dont know.

In fact, while Parenteau and Squillace agreed the odds in Rosemonts favor are higher under Trump than if Democrat Hillary Clinton had won, Parenteau said theyre only slightly higher.

I think Clinton is not an environmentalist. She would pick some environmental battles like climate change and would be more strong on those issues, said Parenteau, who was an Environmental Protection Agency regional counsel under President Ronald Reagan and a special counsel on an endangered species issue under President George H.W. Bush.

But when it gets down to trade-offs between economic development and impacts on wildlife and water quality, I dont know you could immediately conclude that she was always going to come down on the side of the environment, said Parenteau, who also was an attorney and executive in the 1970s and 80s for the National Wildlife Federation and in spring 2014 gave the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity some legal advice on Rosemont.

Its always a function of time and what else is happening and where else would an administration have to spend its political capital on something, he said.

Army Corps official

to visit mine site Tuesday

During Obamas tenure, the Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District Office has been critical of the Rosemont Mines mitigation plans and last summer recommended denial. The Corps San Francisco-based Pacific Southwest Division now has to make a final decision.

The divisions new commander, Col. Pete Helmlinger, will visit the Rosemont site southeast of Tucson on Tuesday.

The office has no timetable for making a decision on the mine, said Corps spokeswoman Heather Babb, and its not publicly known if the agency will decide before Obama leaves office. The U.S. Forest Service, which has been much friendlier to the Rosemont proposal, is expected to decide after the Corps does. Then, the EPA has veto power over a Corps permit.

But if Helminlinger says no, Hudbay could appeal to higher-ranking agency officials, which would drag the issue into the new administration.

Advocates on both sides of the debate say theyre hopeful of winning now. Rick Grinnell, president of the Southern Arizona Business Coalition, said he thinks the Trump team will have a more realistic approach toward environmental issues. He hopes that attitude will extend to several other pending Arizona mines, including Arizona Mining Inc.s proposed silver mine in the Patagonia Mountains and Curis Resources proposed underground copper mine near Florence.

I think a lot of these issues hanging will be resolved much more efficiently, he said.

Gayle Hartmann, president of the Rosemont opposition group Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, said she remains optimistic even under Trump.

The various federal agencies have put together an excellent record that makes clear the devastating impacts of the mine. What the Trump administration tries to do down the line is unknown, but we expect the Corps will stand firm and that in reviewing the record the administrator will act in accord with the law, Hartmann said.

Hudbays community relations manager for Rosemont, Jerry Bustamante, speaking at a local event in mid-November, said, We have a very strong project with good science. We feel very strongly it can stand on its own, regardless of whatever political climate were in.

Projects have been reversed before

There is a precedent for one administration quickly overturning another on a crucial but local environmental issue, in New Mexico.

In early 1980, President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, canceled plans to build an underground geologic repository to dispose of medium-level radioactive wastes from defense plants in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Even though Congress appropriated $20 million for the project later that year, Carter refused to start construction on it.

A few days after Republican Ronald Reagan took over in January 1981, his administration approved construction of what became the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and drilling of the first underground shaft for the nuclear dump began six months later. The project was eventually finished and opened, although its now shut down due to a 2014 radioactive leak.

But today, if the Obama administration decides against the Rosemont Mine, with a new administration coming, There are so many unknowables  who will be at EPA, who will run the water offices, who will be the (Armys) assistant secretary for civil works. Personnel is policy, Mehan said. My guess is while the president-elect probably has some strong views on the Waters of the U.S. issue and the Clean Power Plan, when you get into this level of detail, and drill down to the operations of statutes and regulatory programs, its all to be determined.

Low copper prices

may slow action

But the new administration may not push too hard now in any case because copper and other commodity prices are not high, said Squillace, a special assistant to the Interior Department solicitor under President Bill Clinton. Hudbay has said it wont open any new mine until copper prices return to $3.50. Theyre in the $2.60 range now, although the price in November had its biggest monthly increase in 10 years.

Why not wait? If a company is not in position to open the mine due to market prices ... whats all the fuss? Squillace said.

But if the Corps does decide while Obama is president to approve the mine, its unlikely the EPA will intervene before Trump takes office, Squillace said.

I would think that they dont want to weigh in, he said. The way the government works, Id be surprised if we get a decision before January 20.

At the end of an administration, EPAs got a million things theyre trying to get done, he said.
Michael Hunt is pacing the room, looking at the walls, talking agitated nonsense.

Some mother f---ers who we killed in Afghanistan are here, he says, listening to voices nobody else can hear. I keep telling em it was just war.

Hes just acting, playing the role of a Marine returned home from war, suffering from PTSD-induced psychosis. Hunt really is a Marine veteran and member of the Tucson Police Departments mental-health team. He doesnt let up on the police officer and dispatcher who are there to learn how to de-escalate a crisis like this.

He wont talk to the officer, accusing the officer of calling him crazy, and he disrespects the dispatcher by calling her mouse due to her high voice. They never succeed in talking him down before TPD colleague Ryder Schlage calls time on the exercise.

Acknowledge their beliefs, but dont play along with their delusions, Schlage instructs them afterward.

Forty-two officers from eight agencies around the Tucson area spent all last week training to talk people down, avoiding the blow-ups that sometimes get civilians and officers hurt or killed.

And then, right in the middle of their exercises, Tucson Officers Jorge Tequida and Doug Wilfert were shot Thursday by an aggravated assault suspect, Jose Barron Gomez, whom they killed. It presented a paradox to Sgt. Jason Winsky, head of TPDs Mental Health Support Team.

Officers are being taught, he said, to maintain safety while doing everything you can not to use force. At the same time, he said, civilians around the country are attacking officers in alarming numbers and for horrifying reasons.

Thursdays attack was just the latest in a string around Tucson. The night of Oct. 24, a suspect being chased by Tucson police officers turned and fired on them near East 34th Street and South Park Avenue. One bullet grazed the head of an officer. Marcus de la Torre, 33, was arrested and charged with attempted murder.

And on Oct. 28, U.S. Marshals Service deputies went to arrest a man at a motel near East Benson Highway and South Palo Verde Road. The man opened fire on the deputies and barricaded himself in a room before surrendering to Pima County sheriffs deputies hours later. Jack Voris, 45, was charged with seven counts of attempted murder.

And on Nov. 12, Sahuarita police were following a domestic-violence suspect in a car and stopped him with spike strips after about five miles, the department said. When the man, Richard Herrera, 29, stopped, he fired a handgun at least once and pointed it at officers. They shot and killed him.

And early in the morning on Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving, a man behaving erratically left the Gospel Rescue Mission shelter and was confronted by South Tucson police who tried to arrest him. As the police explained it, the man struggled with officers, who pepper-sprayed and Tased him, but he freed himself and then charged at them, prompting an officer to shoot. Carlos Valencia, 26, was killed.

The Tucson officer shot in October, Robert Miranda, and Tequida narrowly escaped being killed, Tequida with a nicked artery, and Miranda with a grazed head.

These local incidents occurred amid a national wave of attacks on officers. So far this year, 72 officers have been shot to death nationwide, compared to 43 in all of 2015, according to data compiled by the Officer Down Memorial Page.

I asked Donald De Lucca, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, what explains the increase, and he said we dont know the reasons yet.

What does shock the conscience is the ambush shootings, said De Lucca, chief of the Doral, Florida, police. There have been 20 of them this year.

These are the cases in which an attacker shot a police officer just because he or she was wearing the uniform, not because officers were called to deal with the person. Think of the Nov. 20 case in San Antonio, in which a man angry over child-custody issues shot an officer sitting in his patrol car. Or the slayings of five officers in Dallas in July by a man angry about police killings of black men.

Heres how Winsky, who is also a spokesman for the Tucson Police Officers Association, explained the shock of those incidents:

If an officer goes to a domestic-violence call or a bar fight, theres an assumed risk, he said. Whats really difficult about the ambush-style attacks is that, when an officer is pumping gas, eating pizza or writing a traffic ticket, theres not that awareness that Im engaging in an activity thats life-threatening to me.

Now, to be clear, American police kill a lot of people every year  more than 1,000 so far this year. Although most are clearly justified, it feels like too many. And some of the killings of police stem from the perceived injustice of those killings by police  sick retribution like the Dallas killings. In July, a Kansas City man ambushed and killed three Baton Rouge, Louisiana, officers because he was angry over a killing by police there.

So, police officers find themselves in a paradoxical situation, represented by what happened this week in Tucson. They need to find better ways of avoiding violence, and theyre working on it, but theyre being put under increasing threat by people who not only fight back when contacted by officers but attack officers randomly.

The expectation is that well still respond to people in a compassionate way, do everything we can to help people and not use force unless its necessary, Winsky said.

And that was the approach he, the trainers and the trainees took last week at the sessions prepared by Tucson police, the Pima County Sheriffs Department, the Pima County Attorneys Office and Cenpatico, the regional behavioral-health authority.

In the second PTSD scenario I observed, two sheriffs deputies walked into the training room, where Hunt had strewn chairs and was pounding on walls, hearing the voices of the terrorists from Afghanistan again.

Deputies Morgan Zerbe and Marissa Hernandez entered the room, and Zerbe quickly handed off communication to Hernandez, who is a former Marine and made an immediate connection with Hunt.

Theyve never worked together as partners before, but they did so well in talking him down that Hunt eventually agreed to go with them to the Crisis Response Center. After the scenario was done, Schlage had just one critique: That they let Hunt walk behind a temporary barricade in the room where they couldnt see him  he could have come out shooting.

Even though its a mental-health call, dont jeopardize your officer safety just to keep de-escalating, Schlage says.

Its a tough balance to strike in a time when just wearing the uniform can get you shot.
Flyover, guests at memorial dedication

The dedication ceremony for the USS Arizona memorial will begin around 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 4, with a flyover by the 47th Fighter Squadron from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, a group with a momentous connection to the attack on Pearl Harbor, according to Jane Prescott-Smith, special assistant to the UA dean of libraries.

In 1941, the then U.S. Army Air Forces squadron was stationed in Oahu, Hawaii and was the first squadron to get its planes in the air. It was also credited with the most kills during the battle with eight confirmed and three probable enemy airplanes downed, according to Prescott-Smith.

The dedication, which will take place at the monument on the mall in front of the Student Union, will also feature military guest speakers, music, and the unveiling of the memorial medallions. Many UA students and ROTC members are scheduled to participate.

I think its so cool that I got so many emails from relatives of the men who lost their lives that day who are traveling here for the event, Prescott Smith said. Weve got somebody coming from Texas, somebody from California and I think it will be a very special day for them as we honor their fathers, uncles and older brothers.
Help India!

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter

Swarajya magazine, one of the leading Hindu right-wing publications, recently lauded a move to stop madrassas in Assam from taking an off on Friday, as has been the case for several years. In the article published yesterday, the magazine believed that the proposed action to be taken against madrassas had a lot of support. From whom? From BJP, of course, and a couple of nameless student leaders. The rest? We do not know.

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(for representation only)



The article, written in a typical right-wing language, calls Himanta Biswa Sarma as a no-nonsense leader and congratulates him for his supposed actions to be taken in this regard. However, as is often the case with these publications, it conveniently overlooks the fact that the same person, Sarma, was a part of the Congress party which ruled the state for 15 years and jumped ships months before the state elections. The fact that he never spoke even once against this rule during his time in Congress is clearly not a problem because according to Swarajya, he is absolved of all his mistakes since he now works for BJP.

But beyond that, there are a few facts that need to be pointed out to rubbish the claims that the madrassas are doing everything of their own accord and are not allowed to be off on Friday.

For one, it is the Assam government which allows them to do, as pointed out by noted Guwahati lawyer Aman Wadud. Speaking on the matter, he said in a Facebook post: Kindly have a look at Sec 20(5) of Assam Education Rules and Orders 1955-1956. It says madrassas will observe holiday on Friday. How is it illegal and arbitrary? This rule is not made by madrassas but by government of Assam in 1955-1956, he says, making it clear that contrary to the reports, it is a decision validated by the government.

Then what is the ruckus about? Nothing much, but the right-wingers do not like to shut up.

Sarma said that a circular would be issued soon to all institutions and establishments notifying that they can remain shut only on Sundays. He said that the practice of keeping madrassas closed on Fridays is most widespread in Lakhimpur, Nagaon and Morigaon districts, where Muslims, most of them of Bangladeshi-origin and whose citizenship status is suspect, have a large presence, said the report by Swarajya.

But how did it arrive at the point that Muslims of Lakhimpur, Nagaon and Morigaon are mostly from Bangladesh and their citizenship is suspect? Isnt that to be determined by the legal apparatus of the country? Wadud says that the current statement made by Sarma follows his attempts to divide the society on religious lines. In his previous remarks, he said that citizenship would only be given Bangladeshi Hindus to prevent Hindus from becoming a minority. If this is not dividing the society on religious lines, then what is? asked Wadud.

Wadud, who has actively worked with numerous Assamese citizens wrongfully labelled as Bangladeshis, also hit out at Swarajya magazine for naming Muslims of three districts: Lakhimpur, Nagaon and Morigaon as mostly Bangladesh-origin. Where did the reporter get this information? It is an issue that impacts people across Assam, both Hindus and Muslims.

Take the example of people categorised as Doubtful voters, or D-voters. Our studies have shown that there are nearly 1.37 lakh people listed as D-voters, of which nearly half are Bengali Hindus. Then how did most of the Muslims in these regions become suspect? he asks.

As expected, this move has come under criticism from Badruddin Ajmal and his party the All India United Democratic Front, along with Muslims leaders of Congress. Speaking with the Assamese media, Ajmal said, The practice of madrassas being closed on Friday dates back to the pre-independence era. What is Sarma trying to achieve by questioning this practice now? Sundays were historically a day off in Western countries so that people would attend Church that day. If Sarma is truly not anti-Muslim, then he should also keep schools and colleges open on Sunday.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the Muslims in Assam are in for a tough period, given the ruling partys desperate attempts to make their lives even more uncomfortable.
Help India!

By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net

After Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadavs statements regarding forging an alliance with Congress in upcoming polls, politics has stepped up in Lucknow.

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People are seeing it as an effort by Mulayam Singh Yadav to stop division of secular votes and prevent the BJP from coming to power. On the contrary, it is now Mulayams strategy to prevent BSP from assuming power. A win for the BSP will push the Mulayam clan into oblivion, while a strong BJP will always benefit the Yadavs.

Earlier, when a round of meetings was held between Congress poll strategists Prashant Kishore with SPs Shivpal Yadav and even Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mulayam nipped the alliance in its bud, stating that there is no need for tie-up but parties willing can merge themselves with Samajwadi Party.

Now after the dust has settled over the political squabble in Yadav family, Mulayam has reassessed the situation. On ground, the BSP seems to have gained a lot with its supremo Mayawati becoming vocal on every issue. She has also earned sympathy by addressing all issues related to Muslims ranging from minority status to AMU and Jamia, Triple Talaq issue, Uniform Civil Code etc. SP has read the writing the on the wallits core vote bank Muslims are getting eroded towards BSP which is now advocating a formidable alliance of Dalit-Muslims.

Already the series of communal riots are being discussed among Muslim community.

If Muslims desert SP, it will be confined to few districts only and the era of Mulayam clan will come to an end.

On the contrary, if BJP becomes stronger and gets power, Mulayam and his party will remain relevant with its stand of being only party which can claim Muslim votes. It will be a good position for SP in future even if it loses power.

So, to derail BSP, SP has once again signaled about possible tie up with Congress. A pre poll alliance with Congress may not give any advantage for transfer of votes but it will only result in a psychological advantage with Muslims getting assured that the alliance is the sole option to defeat BJP. Congress which is now redundant in UP will get a new lease of life as it hardly has any community left with it in the state.

Mulayam is weighing heavily among his options and all his strategies are based not on countering BJP but stopping BSP from assuming power in the state.
Help India!

By Shiba Aamir for TwoCircles.net

Kolkata: Now 18, Nitin Gupta decided to write a novel in 2014 when he was only 16 years old. Inspired by legends such as Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he has created an Anglo-Indian sleuth Henry Lyons in Aberration Murder Awaits (2015), the first book in the Vengeance is a Bliss trilogy, which sold more than a thousand copies on the Kindle Store.

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Gupta lives in Kolkata and is currently pursuing Computer Science degree from citys St. Xaviers College.

He was in class eight when, being inspired by The Blue Light by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, he wrote his first short story A Mysterious Telephone Call. His friends and teachers praised him and (as he says) the story began

Every writer is a reader at heart, says the young writer, pointing that he wrote something which he, as a reader, would have liked, hoping that the people out there would like it as well.

His love for Agatha Christie is evident when he says that Peril at End House , the first whodunit he ever read, was the book that influenced him the most.

My parents are fairly supportive and wants me to continue writing as a hobby but arent ready to allow me to take it up as a mainstream profession yet, he says.

Besides writing, he also has interest in technology, which explains his decision to take up Computer Science for higher studies and not English Literature. There was also a tone of pragmatism of middle class when he said that considering how unstable the writing industry he could get a steady income in future by pursuing technology. Once he has enough means, he says, he would love to devote his full time in writing.

Gupta believes that researching is a very critical phase of writing a book. Describing this, he says, I have read two books on Handwriting Analysis and one on the judicial/police system in London to make sure that there were as few factual errors as possible in my book.

He adds, I devoted two weeks of time researching the roads of London using Google Maps. Upon being asked why he chose London as the location for his book, he said that that was his way to offer his tribute to Agatha Christie who was born in London, the person who inspired him to write this book.

Gupta is next working on the sequel to Aberration Murder Awaits called Benefaction Murder Betrays, and a solo crime thriller The Insomniac which will be set in Kolkata.

(The author is currently pursuing her MA in Journalism and Mass Communication at Aliah University, Kolkata)
Help India!

Patna : Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Sunday said after notebandi (demonetisation), there is an urgent need to make laws for nasbandi (sterilisation) in the country.

Singh, who is the Minister of State for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, is the second senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader who has advocated sterilisation after demonetisation.

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Last week, former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Sanjay Paswan said sterilisation will help control population of the country.

Singh said all sections of society should adopt this practice to control population in the country.

Singh said India has 16 per cent of worlds population and adds population equal to Australia every year. The country is facing population explosion, it has to be controlled soon.

In October this year, Singh had said Hindus should seriously think of increasing their population in the country by producing more children.

There is a need to increase population of Hindus in the country. They should take this issue seriously as their population has been decreasing in eight states in the country, Singh said.

He then recalled that none other than RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had advised Hindus in August last year to produce more children and said no laws can prevent them from reproducing more children.

Singh is the BJPs Lok Sabha member from Nawada constituency in Bihar. He is known as a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and champion of Hinduvta politics.
Help India!

By A Mirsab, TwoCircles.net,

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Mumbai: All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader and member of the legislative Assembly Waris Pathan has written to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, seeking a statewide ban on sale of alcohol on December 12-13 on the occasion of Eid-e-Milad, a day when section of Muslim community celebrate Prophet Muhammads (pbuh) birthday.

The same demand by AIMIM and Congress MLAs for liquor ban on December 23-24, 2015 was not considered by the BJP led government and it prompted Muslim leaders to accuse state government of disregarding the sentiments of Muslims over demand for liquor ban on that day.

However, MIM has again raised same demand for liquor ban on December 12-13. Pathan sent a memorandum on Thursday and demanded government to declare the liquor ban across the state for two days to mark Prophet Muhammads (pbuh) birth anniversary.

He cited example of meat ban in Mumbai on the orders of state government during Paryushan Parab, the rituals of the Jain community and asked Fadnavis to consider feelings of Muslims on the same lines and issue ban sale of alcohol on Eid-e-Milad.

The Prophet Muhammads lifes work and his teachings are remembered on these days. The Muslim community takes out peaceful processions to celebrate it in the Muslim-dominated areas of the state and they go to the masjid to read prayers and pay their respects. Considering the sentiment of the Muslim community, the state government must declare a statewide ban on sale of alcohol, the letter reads.

Both MIM MLA from Maharashtra  Imtiyaz Jalil and Waris Pathan  had written similar letter to Fadnavis last year but the state government turned down their demand. A circular issued last year by the state home department did not ban selling of liquor altogether but granted relaxation in timings to shops, beer bars and other establishments selling liquor, alcohol, beer, wine and country liquor on December 24 (Eid-e-Milad), December 25 (Christmas) and December 31 (New Years Eve).


"MasterChef India 5" an Indian television drama, influenced by Master Chef Australia, based on extracting best cooking talent from the selected is aired on Star Plus over the weekends i.e. Saturday and Sunday on primetime.

Having bestowed India with hidden cooking skills in the previous seasons, it is one of the most top rated reality shows, popular among women and men interested in cookery.

Final six contestants in the race

The six contestants holding the forte in the previous episode were Kirti, Ashima, Siddharth, Dinesh, Anagha, and Jatin. The world famous chef, Chef Nooror was the invited guest judge who challenged the participants to prepare a dish with Thai ingredients, facsimile to her dish Blue Treasure, to be prepared and presented within the two hours stipulated time.

Whereas Dinesh and Anagha were given the safe badge, Jatin, Siddharth and Kirti had to face the elimination round with Ashima being announced as the winner and rewarded Rs1 lakh for the same.

Siddharth who had been facing the elimination was marked safe whereas Jatin, had to step back and leave his dreams behind for he was eliminated.

Vikas Khanna from MasterChef India wears his mothers name with pride! Click on the video to know more. #NayiSoch pic.twitter.com/wxP4P4hut1  STAR Plus (@StarPlus) November 27, 2016

Vidya Balan, the famous Bollywood actress, was seen dazzling the sets of Master Chef as a special guest to promote her film Kahaani 2, and her equally charming off-screen charisma, evoked peals of laughter and applause on the sets.

A quick recap of the episode on 3rd December:

For viewers who love the show, keep attuned for more nerve-wracking and scrumptious dishes from the contestants to stay in the competition a little longer and for viewers who are not that passionate about cookery but are piqued by Ranveer Singh, the handsome Bollywood actor.

Keep yourself glued as his co-star, the beautiful Vaani Kapoor will join him as a special guest in the episode on the 3rd to mark their presence and instigate the audience for their forthcoming Hindi movie "Befikre."

Vidya Balan on 'MasterChef'

The winner of the fourth edition was Nikita Gandhi and Neha Deepak Shah was the first runner-up. The winner of this edition will also get a cash prize of Rs 1 crore.
The Richmond Park by-election may be the start of the rot for the Conservatives. The fact the Liberal Democrats won by campaigning on their refusal to consider the Brexit referendum vote as conclusive, has sent a shiver of fear through members of the Conservative Party.

Suprise Lib-Dem win

The fact that the Liberal Democrats managed to pull off such an electoral shock against the de-facto Conservative candidate. A huge 21.75% swing in their favour against Zac Goldsmith. This now has the Lib Dems looking at other Tory seats, where their constituents voted to Remain.

This could mean the Lib Dems take seats away from tories in the south-east.

Theresa May under pressure

The Conservative party needs to be alert that there is a moderate core of Conservative voters, who voted Remain, and who want to hear the Conservative government speaking above the noise of the Brexiters,they do not want the Conservative party to be Ukip-lite, nor to hear that their desire for a negotiated Brexit is an attempt to delay." wrote a collection of Conservative current and ex-MPs today.

As such they want Theresa May to give parliament a guideline on what she hopes to aim and gain from the EU after article 50 is activated and how this will be achieved. They state they do not want to be left out of discussions on Brexit, effectively being over-shadowed by some of the louder members, who want Brexit.

They also do not want the party to carry on trying to emulate Ukip. They feel if voters want Ukip, they will vote Ukip and not a watered down version of the same ideas. A model Labour tried to emulate of the Conservative party and as such suffered a huge electoral defeat.

Supreme Court judgement due

Despite this argument from her own party, Theresa May is wanting to table a bill in parliament to stop what she sees as an attack on the Brexit camp from the Remain camp.

As such this bill will be a few lines long, but this is all contingent on the outcome of the forthcoming Supreme Court judgement.

Corbyn has used a speech in Prague to say that the Labour party respects the referendum result but if the Supreme Court rules in favour of MPs having a say on article 50, then Labour will seek to get amendments on the article.
Many view trumps demand that a rich South korea pay the entire cost of keeping U.S. troops in the country (as a buffer against North Korean aggression) as mere posturing, a negotiating tactic. In 1950 South Korea was poor and War torn but no longer. But Trump (6 luxury condos in Seoul) might see another possible outcome.

What might happen

Theres been no progress in 65 years but the threat of annihilation has a wonderful way of making people focus on compromise. War is the worst case scenario, although this it isnt likely to trigger a world war, or another U.S.

invasion. Trump could be thinking that without a U.S. troop presence South Korea may discover that they really can negotiate a peace agreement. What about the North? Kim Jong-Un is dangerous and unpredictable (as is Trump) but if he isn't clinically insane then he knows that his generals probably dont want to face nuclear annihilation and he too might feel pressure to compromise.

If the U.S. withdraws

In 2014 South Korea paid about $866.6 million or 40% of the cost of keeping 28,500 U.S. troops there. The argument for keeping U.S. troops there is the North Korean nuclear and missile threat. But does that make sense? North Korea threatens the U.S. because we have 28 thousand armed troops on their southern border and impose sanctions.

What if we weren't there?

South Korea won't let U.S. troops leave over a mere billion dollars when the alternative might be another invasion from North Korea and resulting chaos. The prospect of going from rich to third-world status should be enough to get them to cough up another billion or so for our protection.

What's the chance of nuclear war if Trump did pull out all but the troops providing security for the Embassy?

There are scary scenarios about North Korea raining nuclear weapons on the South, but is that realistic or mere fantasy?

Armed strength

There are only 28 thousand U.S. troops. South Korea has about 630,000 active troops and about 6.6 million total armed forces when you include reserves and 3 million "paramilitary" about 6.6 million total.

North Korea (the DMZ) is only 30 miles from Seoul, the capital of South Korea. North Korea has about 1.6 million active military and more reserves than the South. South Korea is on a constant war warning footing with underground shelters for about 20 million.

Some, perhaps many experts feel North Korea cant mount a nuclear attack on the U.S. although it could transport devices on a truck, ship, or airplane. The question is, would even a paranoid brutal sociopath who executes a general with an anti aircraft gun for falling asleep really want the nuclear retaliation a Trump administration might feel necessary. China might get upset but the fallout would be unlikely to move over China and the leadership might feel getting rid of Kim was a good tradeoff.

President Elect Trump has reportedly suggested he negotiate directly with North Koreas celebrity crazy Kim Jong Un, perhaps over fast food which both leaders are thought to love.

How about Japan

We also have a lot of troops in Japan and Mr. Trump wants them to pay up too. Japan has said it is working to convince him that having troops in Japan is in the U.S. interest. But is it? The U.S. nuclear threat is mostly submarine based and aircraft carriers are the force majeure of U.S. conventional forces. Do we really need boots on the ground all the time? We were there in the first place as an occupying force and stayed to prevent the domino effect which proved a myth. Vietnam, Cuba, and China have little interest in military expansion despite the isolated horrible situation in Tibet.

The U.S.S.R. is another story - but Russia suffered horrible, massive destruction and civilian deaths in several wars because of invasions through the Polish Corridor.

This may all be wrong, but it shows that the world is complex and Trump needs to give it some serious thought. Media pundits - remember, Trump is an isolationist!
Sony is updating Sony Xperia ZX and X performance to the Android 7.0 Nougat system

The update comes about a month away from the date of issuance of the Nougat Beta Program for the same device.

But let's find out what improvements are in the update, firmware build identified by 39.2.A.0.327 code, which will introduce the Sony devices. It will be introduced to support multi-window or the ability to run two applications simultaneously dividing into two parts in the main screen. The batteries will enjoy greater autonomy, and will update the app of Sony messaging which allow you to share audio and video in a few clicks.

Finally it will be integrated into the home screen Google Now feature.

New selfie phone from ZTE

New smartphone with Android system Nougat 7.0 and 12 Megapixel cameras

The Chinese company based in Shenzhen, should release a new Selfie Phone in the coming month.

To be specific, this mysterious new device will have already installed on your new operating system Android 7.0 Google Nougat home. Its technical characteristics provide for a 5.2-inch display with full HD resolution (1920  1080), a 1.4 GHz), 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor (Octa core of internal memory, expandable through a micro SD. The most outstanding feature is undoubtedly in the photographic sector: in fact, the rear camera is the front one, which will have a 12-megapixel resolution.

The new ZTE, code-named BVo800 seems to be a smartphone that has nothing to envy to the medium-high end of the mobile market devices; rather it will be an indispensable tool for all those users who can not help but take well executed selfies .

Meizu notes M5 will debut on December 6

This is the new Meizu home mid-range device with a specific well above average

The new M5 smartphone will be presented on December 6.

The Meizu M5 Notes will certainly not be a first-end smartphones, but reading the specifications we can see that this is a great mid-range device. It will be equipped with a 13 Megapixel rear camera and a 5 megapixel front and powered by a 4,000 mAh battery. To run the whole will be an Android 6.0 operating system.
Fidel Castro died just over one week ago and in a speech that marked the end of a nine-day period of mourning, President Raul of Cuba revealed the surprising request of Fidel that after his death he did not wish to be worshiped.

Addressing thousands of people who gathered in Santiago to pay their last respects, the Cuban President pointed out that Fidel Castro had motivated the whole nation to overcome any obstacles to building socialism in Cuba. He also assured them that Cuba would continue along the path of building their social revolution, saying that Cuba must remain loyal to the vision of Fidel who died aged 90 just over a week ago.

Surprise wishes of Fidel revealed in speech by president of Cuba

The tens of thousands of people were surprised to find out during the gathering in the square where the ashes were conveyed to the mausoleum, that Fidel Castro had specifically requested that his people do not turn him into an object of worship.

This means that Castro requested that post-death the Cuban people did not build lifelike statues of him or name roads and avenues after him. The people of Cuba will not be allowed to turn Fidel into some kind of a cult figure. In fact, the National Assembly will be tasked with ensuring that these wishes of the deceased revolutionary leader are complied with.

Cuba's leading family planned ahead before Fidel's death

This is was not a last minute decision by Fidels surviving family. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Castro's son said that they have been preparing for this moment for a long time now, not just the fact that they want to honour their fathers wishes, and keep on the same path of the revolution, but had even already discussed what will happen and the path the leadership of the country will take when Raul steps down  possibly as soon as February next year.

Vigil by students at the mausoleum

On this the last day of the official mourning period, tens of thousands of mourners were surprised by the announcement, which set Fidel apart from many socialist and communist leaders across the world. In a few hours, they know that the ashes will be taken to a private cemetery and will be interred at an intimate and exclusive family funeral ceremony.

In the meantime, while many people left the square after their last farewells to their leader, students remained, keeping vigil over the ashes until they will be removed to Castros final resting place.

Fidel Castro governed Cuba as Prime Minister between the years of 1956 and 1976 and then as President until 2006. He was a dedicated and self-declared MarxistLeninist.
China's diplomacy has overcome hardships in 2016, a year marked with "changes" and "chaos", Foreign Minister Wang Yi said when addressing a symposium on Saturday.

At the opening ceremony of the Symposium on International Developments and China's Diplomacy in 2016, Wang said China's diplomacy has become more proactive, confident and mature.

Among major achievements over the past year, the country has led the change of international governance system, maintained stable and cooperative ties with its neighbors and safeguarded its rights in the South China Sea, Wang said.

Looking into 2017, the foreign minister said among the important tasks for the ministry is to support the 19th CPC National Congress, and prepare for a summit forum on the Belt and Road Initiative as well as the ninth BRICS summit.

Also, China will strengthen communication with the new government of the United States and push forward the strategic collaboration it has with Russia, Wang added.

After the opening ceremony, experts shared their ideas on major issues concerning global security and governance, including China-US relations.

Chu Shulong, director of Tsinghua University's Institute of International Strategic and Development Studies, said even though Donald Trump may bring big swings to China-US ties within the first year after taking office, he will not be able to change the framework of the ties.

Yuan Peng, vice-president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said one should not assess Trump with traditional thinking.

He said Trump may attach more geostrategic importance to issues of the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits than to the South and East China Seas.

Chen Qiqi contributed to this story.
A handout image provided by the Royal Household Bureau shows Thailand's new King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun (R) listening to the invitation to ascend the throne by National Legislative Assembly President Pornpetch Wichitcholchai (C), Regent pro tempore General Prem Tinsulanonda (back L), Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (back C) and Supreme Court president Veerapol Tungsuwan (back R) during the ascension to the throne proclamation ceremony at the Ambara Villa of the Dusit Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, December 1, 2016. [Photo/IC]

BANGKOK - Thailand's Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn formally ascended the throne on Thursday and made his first royal decree to reappoint Prem Tinsulanonda as head of Privy Council within 24 hours after the ascension, both of which reassured those who worry that the country would be thrown into uncertainties and instability.

Vajiralongkorn accepted invitation from parliament president to ascend the throne, a constitutional formality, and was thus formally proclaimed King Rama X, or 10th king of the 234-year-old Chakri Dynasty in a televised ceremony late Thursday, followed by a televised statement of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, saying "Thailand has a new king now".

The 64-year-old new king finally succeeded his father, revered late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch.

The succession took place seven weeks after the late king's death on Oct 13. Thai Prime Minister Prayut said the then crown prince declined to start the royal succession immediately because he asked for time to grieve his father with the country first.

During the interregnum, Prem Tinsulanonda, 96, a former prime minister and chief of the powerful Privy Council, stood in as regent and his regence ended when Vajiralongkorn accepted to ascend the throne.

Prem resigned as Privy Council head for late King Bhumibol on Friday, while the new king appointed him as head of his Privy Council simultaneously, which was announced on TV Pool.

Observers say the reappointment of Prem indicates the new king's reluctance to make political changes and his determination to maintain the late king's legacy to stablize the country and to keep everything normal.

Reappoint privy council chief to continue late king's legacy

The 96-year old Prem is one of the most experienced, canny and influential political figures in modern Thai history.

He was also the closest confidant of late king during the last four decades of his reign.

Prem came up through the ranks of the powerful military and has been the monarchy's front man since 1980, first as prime minister and then as a top royal advisor. He served as prime minister for eight years, while guiding the country through economic problems and a series of military challenges, including two coup attempts.

Prem has been the head of the Privy Council since 1998. He enjoyed a reputation for clean governance and for favoring compromise over confrontation.

As the regent, Prem once served as the "acting" monarch and in this capacity can exert enormous influence over the armed forces, since the ruling monarch must endorse all military reshuffles.

Some said that the appointment of a new Privy Council will give observers a better indication of how actively King Vajiralongkorn intends to reign as well as to reshuffle the country's political center.

In his royal decree to reappoint Prem as privy council chairman, King Vajiralongkorn said Prem is "qualified to remain in the position".

Paul Chambers, director of research at Chiang Mai's Institute of Southeast Asian Affairs said the new king would likely continue his father's legacy of calculated involvement in Thailand's political landscape.

Observers believe that the new king would like to seek close partnership with the military veteran to maintain the kingdom's stability.
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HA NOI  In an unprecedented show of love, gratitude and grief, thousands of Vietnamese citizens, expatriates and even tourists visited the Cuban embassy in Ha Noi to pay their last respects to Fidel Castro (1926-2016).

Floral tributes in the form of wreaths and bouquets from businesses, institutions and people from all walks of life adorned the embassy premises.

Viet Nam yesterday observed a day of national mourning for Fidel Castro, expressing condolences and gratitude to the revolutionary leader of Cuba, who passed away on November 25.

Vietnamese citizens offered their traditional gesture of kowtowing to the departed soul with folded hands before a bronze bust of the revolutionary leader who fired the imagination of millions as they protested all manner of oppression.

All visitors were welcomed by the embassy staff, including the ambassador, who thanked each mourner in person.

They have not stopped coming today, Ariadne Feo Labrada, head of the embassys Consular Office, said yesterday.

Thousands of Vietnamese citizens, expatriates and even tourists visited the Cuban embassy in Ha Noi to pay their last respects to Fidel Castro.  VNS Photo Hari Chathrattil

Cuban Ambassador to Viet Nam Herminio Lopez Diaz said the embassy was surprised and moved by the Vietnamese peoples sentiments towards Fidel.

Hundreds of delegations, including Party, State and Government leaders, representatives of ministries, agencies, localities and foreign embassies, and Vietnamese of all social strata, have paid homage to the late leader since November 28, he said.

Vietnamese sentiments towards Fidel demonstrate that the late leader is the symbol of fraternal solidarity and friendship between Viet Nam and Cuba, the ambassador said.

Photographs displayed at the embassy underscored the special relationship between the peoples of both countries.

They showed Fidel Castro meeting with former President Le uc Anh, former Party General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh, and even demonstrating the use of a gun with former Prime Minister Pham Van ong. Meetings with current Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and President Tran ai Quang were also on display.

A photograph showing the Cuban leaders visit to heavily mined Quang Tri Province in 1973, even as the American War raged, drew a lot of attention and comments.

Fidel Castro, who was Commander-in-chief of the Cuban revolution, former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee (CPC), and former President of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, died on November 25 night (Havana time) at the age of 90.

Cuba announced nine days of national mourning (November 26 to December 4). Fidel will be interred in a cemetery in Santiago City on December 4 (local time).  VNS




I have learnt a lot about Cam Ranh in the central province of Khanh Hoa, which is the most beautiful bay in Viet Nam.

It is one of the worlds three most natural bays after San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro, and recently my family and I had a chance to visit the bay.
by Nguyen Bich Huong

The flute is the soul mate of Pham Anh Tuan who won third prize at last years national contest for young talents.

The first-year student at the Viet Nam Academy of Music (VNAM) came to academic music training much later than other students who usually start music classes at secondary school age or earlier.

After graduating high school, Tuan went to vocational school under VNAM, learning to play the flute. His talent and efforts helped him complete the programme within four years instead of six years, as usual. Now he is a freshman at VNAMs Vietnamese traditional instrument faculty. He has been receiving instruction from musician Tien Vuong who has 40 years of experience studying, performing and teaching flute.

Vuong is the person to whom I would like to express my deep gratitude for what he teaches me, not only music lessons but also about life, and for inspiring in me a love for the flute, Tuan said.

The work New Countryside that Tuan played at the talent music contest in Hue was composed by Vuong.

I spent almost one month practising the work for the contest, he said.

At a rehearsal several days before the contest, he played it for Vuong.

I played the work with my flute almost perfectly, very smoothly, orderly, no technical faults, no wrong notes, Tuan said, adding that after playing, he expected to get a compliment and encouragement from the teacher he respects so much.

But I was astonished. Vuong said it was not OK, he recalled. Tuan remembered every word Vuong told him at that moment: Its too perfect to be you.

You and your flute embody for me the plain, the natural, the simplicity that is typical of northern rural areas, northern people. I prefer you with those traits than with great skills.

Vuongs words reminded me to stay in touch with my original love and feelings whenever playing flute, he said.

Childhood memory

Tuans love for the flute dates back to his childhood. On the annual festival held on the third day of the Lunar New Year in his hometown in the northern province of Phu Tho he would watch a procession that included drum, flute and other musical instruments.

At the age of four or five, Tuan was already listening to 30-minute radio programme on folk songs and traditional music with his grandfather.

Such programmes nurtured the love for flute of a poor boy who did not have enough money to buy one.

My father made my first flute and taught me to play, even though he could only make random sounds with it, he said.

Tuan said that he taught himself to play the flute. He put it in his mouth, adjusted his breath and moved his fingers on the holes until he found the right notes to play of a few folk tunes. He had no idea about musical notes, but played according to what he heard, Tuan said.

Seeing Tuans passion for the flute and folk tunes, Tien Vuong was determined to teach him, helping the young man combine his talent, passion and academic technique to produce beautiful sounds.

Soul mate: Flutist Pham Anh Tuan.  Photos courtesy of Pham Anh Tuan

Enthusiastic audience

Like many music students, Tuan usually spends most of his day time learning and practising at university. In the evenings, he plays flute at cafes, restaurants or on other stages to improve his performance skills and earn some money.

He has been welcomed by audiences, particularly those who love traditional music or those seeking a peaceful interlude after a busy day.

Some have even asked him to teach them - both old and young, students, office workers and businessmen.

As long as they love flute, I dont hesitate to teach them, Tuan said. I want to bring the flute closer to people, particularly young people, he said.

Nguyen uc Huy, 29, a software engineer, said he attended Tuans flute class for two years, hoping to master some simple pieces. The longer he learned, the more he loved the instrument.

Playing flute helps me relax, reduces stress, and more importantly, I find in the music the beauty of folk songs and country life. I love my country and my hometown ever more thanks to the flute, Huy said.

The bamboo flute is a stem of fine bamboo with 10 holes. It could be said that the bamboo flute contains the musical essence of the Vietnamese countryside together with its four seasons.

By the lake

With the streets closed recently to traffic around Hoan Kiem (Sword) Lake, the iconic landmark of the capital city of Ha Noi, Tuan and his friends also perform there, attracting many pedestrians.

But the crowds dont distract him because those who stop to listen like flute music and traditional music and are generally quiet.

When I play flute, I forget the outside world, forget musical technique. I feel Im part of the work and I play it naturally, Tuan said.

He wants to play as much as possible to introduce pieces for flute composed by experienced Vietnamese composers, including his teacher Vuong.

Tuans wife, Ngoc Anh, said that she fell in love with him as soon as she heard Tuan play flute for the first time.

He does not often come home in Phu Tho, being busy with his studies in Ha Noi, but their two-year-old daughter is already smitten. The toddler can already hold a flute and expresses an interest in making sound with it, the young mother said.

She likes to imitate her father, especially when he plays flute. I think she will love the flute as much as Tuan does, she smiled.  VNS
By Nhat Minh and Mai Phuong

HA NOI  Viet Nams sea tourism industry has immense potential for development, yet the sector faces a number of challenges due to increasing environmental pollution.

The Viet Nam Tourism Administrations Institute for Tourism Development Research (ITDR) recently reported that Viet Nams coastal areas annually welcome around 80 per cent of international visitors and 50 per cent of domestic tourists, bringing in 70 per cent of revenue for the national tourism industry.

The countrys more than 1 million square kilometres of sea surface, over 2,770 islands, and a range of beaches from north to south with different characteristics promise vast benefits for the maritime economy.

Among the large number of beauty spots are some world-famous beaches and bays that attract foreign visitors every year. Sites such as Ha Long Bay in the northern province of Quang Ninh - a World Natural Heritage recognised by United Nations cultural agency UNESCO since 1994 and one of New Seven Natural Wonders of the world since 2012, Nha Trang Bay in the central province of Khanh Hoa, and a Nang Beach in Quang Nam Province, are all consistent hotspots for tourists.

However, the ITDR report warned that a rapid increase in marine pollution was hindering the development of the vastly lucrative industry.

The report said the situation could get worse if there were not intensive and immediate solutions put forward.

Sources of pollution

Professor Phan Trung Luong, an ITDR expert on sea tourism development told Viet Nam News that it was extremely important to identify the sources of pollution before taking any measures to cope with them.

Luong stressed the seas natural function of self-cleaning, saying that if pollution stood at a certain level, the sea itself could clean it up.

However, the professor added, such a function only worked on a limited level, and if the pollution becomes too much, the sea would be unable to solve it.

Luong said sea pollution may have taken place for many years in Viet Nam, until the case of mass fish death was revealed in April stirring public angers. Caused by a toxic spill from Taiwanese Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Co. Ltd, the pollution became a hot topic of debate at many government and scientific meetings and workshops.

Coastal attraction: A view of Son Tra Peninsula in central a Nang City - a Vietnamese beauty spot that has attracted a large number of visitors over the years. VNA/VNS Photo Quoc Khanh

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE), the main reasons for the increased marine pollution are unsustainable industrial development and uncontrolled aquaculture production.

Consistent increases in population, along with inadequate education and shortcomings in legal system and policies were also added to the sea pollution.

The ministry revealed in its recent investigation that between 70 and 80 per cent of waste at sea was derived from land-based sources, while untreated wastewater and solid waste from factories, industrial parks, and residential areas were discharged into rivers near coastal areas or directly into the sea.

The use of explosives or toxic chemicals in offshore fishing was quickly depleting fishery resources, leading to severe consequences for the marine eco-system.

Moreover, the MoNRE blamed the spontaneous spread of tourism for impacting the ecological environment and natural landscapes of the sea.

The ministry presented an example by citing what happened to Cat Ba National Park in Cat Ba Island off Quang Ninh Province.

The island, with a total of 5,400ha of water surface, had turned from a very clean and clear environment into a heavily polluted island since it opened the national park for tourism activities and planned to boost aquaculture breeding there.

Thousands of tonnes of waste from the islands tourist resorts, hotels, and motels were directly discharged into the sea every day, the MoNRE investigators said.

One more major cause of marine pollution, last but not least, was oil spills resulting from incidents of wrecked ships sailing offshore, or those in exploratory drilling activities of oil and gas at sea.

Notably, the ministry said, serious oil spills in recent years tended to be increasing, causing serious damage to the marine environment, especially fisheries.

While the operation of hundreds of oil and gas wells was releasing a large amount of waste water with oil, it was also generating 5,600 tonnes of waste oil, of which about 20 to 30 per cent was hazardous solid waste.

Every year, more than 100 rivers across the country not only bring about 880 cubic kilometres of water, and some 270-300 million tonnes of alluvia to the sea, but also brought huge amounts of heavy metals and toxic chemical substances discharged from industrial zones and urban areas that can pollute the marine environment and damage aquaculture and agricultural production.

As the sea tourism industry depends entirely on the environment, any changes directly impact the quality of tourism products and the efficiency of the tourism economy.

According to the Institute of Fisheries Economics and Planning, untreated waste continuously discharged into the river basin and sea would harm the sea environment and negatively influence the development of the tourism sector.

The institute revealed an estimated increase of nitrogen and ammonia respectively, from 26 tonnes at present to 52 tonnes, and 15 to 30 tonnes daily accumulating at sea by 2020.

This was very dangerous for the sea environment, it said.

Local potential

Nguyen Tuan Dung, an expert from the Military Academy of Logistics, under the Ministry of Defence, said marine tourism had brought opportunities to localities, improving the lives of people in coastal areas and helping to implement hunger elimination and poverty reduction programmes.

Statistics from the Viet Nam Tourism Administration recently showed a total of 1,400 guest houses and three-star hotels located near the coastline, creating jobs for nearly 60,000 local labourers.

Viet Nams sea tourism can be divided into two parts: the first from Sam Son beach in the northern province of Thanh Hoa to Thua Thien-Hue, and the second from a Nang City in central Quang Nam Province to southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.

Each part has its own characteristics, and thus needs distinct priorities to develop local tourism products based on its local natural geological potential and resources.

Based on the overall orientation of tourism development from now to 2020, Viet Nam targets to develop five key areas with high regional competitiveness. The five areas are Ha Long - Cat Ba in Quang Ninh Province; Lang Co-Son Tra-Hoi An in Thua Thien-Hue Province, a Nang City and Quang Nam Province; Nha Trang - Cam Ranh in Khanh Hoa Province; Phan Thiet - Mui Ne in Binh Thuan Province and Phu Quoc Resort Island in Kien Giang Province.

The country will also focus investment on other high potential sea tourism areas, including Van on  Co To in Quang Ninh Province and the Truong Sa (Spratly) Archipelago in the East Sea.

Adventure spot: Beaches in a Nang City welcomed more than 45,000 foreign tourists on Labour Day alone, an increase of 2 per cent compared to the same period last year. VNA/VNS Photo Tran Le Lam

Urgent solutions

According to Dung, to achieve sustainable development for the tourism industry, Viet Nam needs to immediately solve the issue of pollution, both in coastal areas and at sea.

Only by doing that will the country be able to improve the attractiveness of its sea tourism products, he said.

Dung said the immediate targets should include a focus on market research to set up relevant market-orientated plans for the development of sea tourism products.

Ministries, departments and authorised agencies should intensify a close collaboration with provincial authorities, take effective and timely measures to cope with any pollution emergencies such as the mass fish deaths, oil spills, and discharge of untreated industrial waste so that the impact on sea tourism is limited.

Authorities and local residents along coastal areas should collaborate in organising regular activities to clean the beach, and collect and treat waste on shore.

They should mobilise all forces in supervising the sea environment and preventing all violations of the law on sea protection, including the dumping of solid waste, and use of explosives in fishing.

A boost to develop all types of local eco-tourism should also be among the key targets of local socio-economic development as a way to improve awareness on the importance of sea environment protection, the expert said.

Day at the beach: A crowded day on Quy Nhon beach, central Binh inh Province. The tourist spot was among the most popular places for visitors from Ha Noi, HCM City and the Central Highlands region this summer. VNA/VNS Photo Viet Y

More surveys should be conducted in the north central region, with the aim to promote local tourism products including spiritual, discovery, and adventure tourism, and to replace sea tourism as a way to limit the impact of tourism on the sea environment.

Financial aid including credit loans and debt freezing should be offered to local people who suffer because of environmental damage, to help them stabilise their livelihoods and production.

This is considered the basis for the maintenance of local security and political stability to help attract more tourists, said Dung

Meanwhile, Prof. Luong said resolving sea pollution in Viet Nam completely depended on the determination of the authorities at all levels particularly local people.

"We should not just say, but act immediately," said Luong.

The expert suggested authorities of all sectors should "sit down together" and clarify which were the priorities and key tasks in solving environmental pollution.

"Task forces should be set up for each sector to confront sea pollution, and they should keep in close contact with each other in any emergency cases," said Luong.  VNS
HA NOI  As thousands of Cubans gathered to say a final goodbye to Fidel Castro, the islands former leader and national hero, another country half way across the world also shared their sorrow at the passing of one of the modern worlds most distinguished revolutionary icons.

The Cuban liberation fighter had a special place in the heart of Vietnamese people, especially those who devoted their life for the countrys struggle for independence and reunification. In Fidel, we found a comrade who not only shared our ideals and beliefs but also fully understood our determination and sacrifices as someone who experienced it firsthand through his own struggle to liberate his people and country.

In Fidel, Viet Nam found a true friend. A friend that came to our aid during time of dire need as our young nation stood up to the power of the US  the worlds biggest superpower  as our country was ravaged by artillery fire and B52s bombs, and our people shed blood in the fight. It was then that Fidel came to our country.

He was the first and the only head of state to ever visit the frontline provinces of Quang Tri and Quang Binh, arguably the most bombarded and heavily contested regions in Viet Nam during the American War.

Viet Nams former ambassador to Cuba, Pham Tien Tu, said that despite the apparent danger and Vietnamese leaders advice against it, Fidel decided to visit the provinces anyway during his stay in Viet Nam in September 1973.

Tu, who used to be Fidels Vietnamese translator, said the Cuban revolutionary wanted to go because he considered Viet Nam as the outpost in the fight against imperialism. It made it then, for him, a duty to visit the very frontline of the Vietnamese peoples struggle.

It was there that he witnessed the struggle of the people of Viet Nam and the extraordinary sacrifices that ordinary people made to continue fighting. Fidel was so deeply moved he decided that Cuba was to lend a helping hand by building a general hospital in ong Hoi Town, Quang Binh Province.

Former deputy chairman of Quang Binh, Lai Van Ly, recalled that day as Fidel moved towards the frontline when he spotted several local volunteers being patched up next to the road, after a bomb exploded during a bomb clearance mission.

He stopped and asked the then Cuban ambassador to Viet Nam, Valdes Vivo, to help bring the wounded to the nearest hospital. He was very moved by the bravery of the local volunteers, Ly said.

Nguyen inh Bin, former deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, who was among a thousand Vietnamese students studying in Cuba, and had the honour of meeting Fidel on many occasions, said his impression of the Cuban leader was that he was warm, friendly and extremely knowledgeable.

My best memory of him was when he personally drove the then Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Nghi to a farm in Picadura, La Habana, during Nghis visit to Cuba in 1967, Bin said.

He asked about livestock farming in Viet Nam. At the end of the day, he offered to provide Viet Nam with a healthy supply of chickens and cows for animal husbandry. It was a simple yet very practical and caring gesture.

In May 19, 1974 construction of the hospital that Fidel generously pledged to the cause of the Vietnamese peoples fight for freedom was begun. Hundreds of Cuban engineers and workers were sent to help.

The General Hospital ong Hoi now stands as a symbol of Viet Nam-Cuba friendship. The hospital has been taking on several initiatives in recent years to expand and develop, in order to become one of the leading medical institutions in the region.

Besides his visit in 1973, Fidel came back to Viet Nam in 1995 and 2003, during which the friendship and cooperation between the two countries witnessed new milestones.

Under his leadership, Cuba was the pioneer in the world movement supporting Vietnams struggle for independence as well as national construction in the post-war era.

Fidel was presented with the Vietnamese States Golden Star Order in 1982 and Ho Chi Minh Order in 1989.

Unlikely as it may seem at first glance for two countries that are separated by vast oceans and distances, weve found in each other a friend that could be counted on in the hour of truth.

Fidel Castro is to remain, for a long time, a symbol of the struggle for freedom of oppressed people everywhere and to Vietnamese people a great faithful friend, close comrade and brother of Viet Nam, as Vietnamese Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan wrote of him in her note of condolence to the people of Cuba.  VNS
by Vu Thanh Lich

When the ashes of Mrs Thungs elder sister-in- law reached ong Mo commune it was already two in the morning. The night wind blew violently. The fog thickened with each passing hour. Although the headlights of dozens of cars illuminated a corner of the graveyard, she could not see the village fields clearly.

Having heard that her elder sister-in-law was dying in her native village, Mrs Thung planned to return to Viet Nam from the USA only to find that her sister had died a few days before.

Now, her ashes were being cleansed, washed in balmy water and re-arranged to be placed in a small terracotta coffin laid with red paper before they were buried, Mrs Thung made up her mind to come back to her homeland together with all her kin living abroad.

When her car door opened, she got out. Two of her grandsons went to help her, but she refused. Thanks but I can manage. I can walk on my native land, she said.

Trying to keep her balance, she rested herself on a walking stick and inhaled a deep breath. How wonderful! Its the beloved homeland of our forefathers, the sweet memories of my childhood and the beautiful scenery of the village that give me strength, she told them in a soft voice.

* * *

Soon straw was strewn across the floor of the visitors large pavilion in the cemetery. The little coffin was in the middle of the building. Two hours were left for the coffin-lowering rites. The fire in the room made the place fairly warm, driving away the cold and darkness of the open field.

My esteemed Auntie, take a brief rest in our house. Before the burial service well wake you up and lead you back here, said Me, her elder sister-in-laws first-born son.

Oh no, let me stay here beside the soul of my elder sister. Ouch, my aching knees! Theyve gone stiff like logs, she moaned.

If you wish to keep young, how could I grow up? remarked Nui, Mes eldest son sarcastically.

You naughty kid! she scolded him. She turned aside, closer to her elder sisters coffin full of ashes.

The kids are all here today to pay homage to your soul, she whispered to her dead sister. If only my husband had been faithful to me, I together with my children wouldnt have come to you and my fate would have been much better! she added out of self-pity.

While living abroad, you often said a straw litter, a straw litter, and now your dream has come true, Grannie, said Nui. She just smiled. So far she hadnt slept on any straw litter, nor enjoyed the acrid smell of burning straw as she did when she was a little girl.

While her kids were chatting, she talked softly to the dead woman, My dear elder sister, together with our kids, Im now beside you. I still remember when you arrived at my house with your little girls Chao and Chat to ask to stay for a few days to keep them from cold and hunger.

Your mother died when you were fifteen. You lived on frugal meals from our relatives. My parents passed away when I was nine and my elder brother, seventeen. Thanks to your affection to us orphaned kids, you let us share meals. You took home the big jar left by our grandparents to contain rainwater for common use. Whats more, our dilapidated house was used by both little families. So a fairly big family was formed.

* * *

At the age of thirteen, under your pressure I married Tam, on the grounds that I wouldnt be hungry any more thanks to his wealth. However, only one year later, you came to my husbands house to make trouble. The reason was simple. The previous day, meeting me on the way home and finding my arm bandaged, you asked me why. I lied, telling you that my arm had been wounded in an accident. However, my maid Hom told you that her landladys dog had attacked and bitten me while I was holding a bone in hand. In the late evening, you arrived at Tams place to find out the truth.

My younger sister is a human being, not an animal, you said angrily. How could you treat her that way?

After that, you dragged me home. At home, you can eat sweet potato and drink boiled water rather than fight for food with dogs, you said.

* * *

Several days later you gave birth to a baby boy on the surface of the dyke. You named him Me. You took off your blouse, using it as a nappy, and then placed him between two large tree roots. Wearing nothing, you walked to the field. Finding a few small sweet potatoes left after the harvest, you ate them raw to stay your hunger before carrying him home.

Because of my squabble at Tams place that day, they would not leave me in peace, especially when they realised that my elder brother was a revolutionary. Knowing that I was unable to stay safe in our village, I made up my mind to leave it for good together with Me to settle down in the woodland called Tho. This area was a good place to live because of the fertility of its soil.

When we left, it was icy cold. Walking across the field, you showed me the graves of our ancestors, of our parents and your own father and mothers as well for fear that I might forget them all. How can I forget them? I asked myself. When my mother passed away, my elder brother and I took her body, wrapped in a sedge mat, to the village graveyard to bury. I remembered that hearing our bad news you, still a single girl, stopped working to help us bury my mother.

* * *

While Mrs Thung was telling the story about the sad days that she had undergone, she sobbed. We led a miserable life, like animals, she concluded.

In the meantime, the children and grandchildren were all falling asleep, except for Me, who was trying to keep the flame burning by adding more and more straw to the fire.

Auntie, it seems that youve been unable to sleep, right? Me asked. Come what may, this is a good occasion for us kids to be with you, he went on.

Im too old and weak to help you, she said to him.

We really respect your determination to return home to attend the funeral, he praised his old auntie.

Its all thanks to your mothers blessing, dear nephew, she told him.

* * *

In her free moments, Mrs Thung pictured what had happened to her in the past.

Those days, the jungle around here was covered with high trees and dense bushes. There were a lot of wild animals too. Woodland spread as far as the eye could see. For hard-working people like me and my elder sister, leading an ample life did not matter. Time and again, my elder brother came home to visit his wife for a few days. When returning to his unit, he took a large package of local nuts and corns. You can do your military service without worrying about our living conditions, I told him. I thought that, by saying so, my sister would let me stay beside her to care for my two sons, Me and Mam. However, she forced me to get married once again. My new husband was Kham, a minor coal dealer in an adjacent area. He isnt rich. Yet hes a charitable working man. He has a younger brother, a revolutionary too, like our elder brother, she said to me. Days later she introduced me to him.

Im afraid of marriage, sister, for I was unhappy with my ex-husband Tam, I blurted out.

You must marry Kham at any cost. At the age of sixteen, without a husband, youll soon turn a spinster wholl be in the kitchen all day long, she persuaded me.

However, everything we had been duped. My husband had no revolutionary brother at all. Moreover, his old wife was infertile. What he wanted from me was to bear him a lot of children.

Eventually, I gave birth to two baby girls: Chao and Chat.

Unexpectedly, Kham soon forced us to live in the cowshed because he could not stand my childrens cries. It was there that my little ones cried all the more as they couldnt bear the cold and hadnt got enough breast milk. Sometimes, I thought of death. If I died, my kids would die of starvation shortly. I couldnt do that to them.

In the daytime, I worked the field with my first-born daughter on my back, at night her younger sister clung to my blouse to ask for milk. One night, I heard Chao shrieking terribly out of fear. It turned out that the ox, while chewing dry straw, touched her with its nose. I could not stay there any longer, I fled with the kids, the bigger one my back and the other in my arms.

Thanks to Gods blessing I managed to run across two valleys and several maize fields to reach home at four in the morning. At that moment, I found my sister cooking corn. Putting little Chat into her arms, I collapsed. I regained consciousness three days after, I was told later.

Sister, let the kids and me stay here for a few days, I proposed.

This is also your home. Stay here as long as you need, replied my elder sister.

Later I came to know that while I was sleeping; my sister took a stick to Khams house. She attacked him before setting his house on fire.

* * *

In 1954, there was a mass exodus of people from North to South Viet Nam. I craved to leave too. But I was hesitant because I did not dare ask for my elder sisters permission, said Mrs Thung.

How can you abandon me and my children, while our elder brother is away? reproached my elder sister. I knew that he was now an officer in a military unit fairly close to our home.

Eventually, I made up my mind to go away. As my little children, Chao and Chat, were suffering from scabies, I had to take them to the district health centre. The three of us secretly got on a small southbound boat.

Our life in the South was full of difficulties at first. But thanks to our great efforts and partly to my new husband, a widowed officer of the Saigon army, I could soon tide them over. My brother in the North and my husband in the South were opposite each other on the battlefield. In those days our country was divided into two zones and the two clans also lived under different regimes.

When Saigon was liberated, my husband saw us off as far as the airport. Afraid of fleeing the country, I cried my eyes out. Chat assuaged me, Mum, do as our step-father has decided. Theres nothing to worry about.

When we reached the USA, my youngest son died of cholera a few days later. So, there were now only four children left to me in this strange land. We led an unstable life for years with a faint hope that some day I might see my elder sister, elder brother-in-law and my nephews Me and Cam in my hometown.

One day I received a call from the North, saying, Good morning, my beloved Auntie. Im Me, your nephew, I burst out crying.

I remember that during my first trip back to North Viet Nam to see my kin, my elder sister was as calm as if we had stayed side by side for years.

No matter where youve been living and whatever youve done, you remain my younger sister, said my elder sister when we first saw each other after years of separation. Before your elder brother-in-law died, we asked us to meet you at any cost, weve tried our best to contact you by phone. Luckily, my dream has come true, she went on.

Dear elder sister, Im afraid that this is the last time I will come back to our native land because Im too old and weak, I said in a sad voice. My eyes filled with tears.

Oh no, youre still very well, my paternal Grannie, Nui encouraged me.

Please burn these joss-paper things in memory of my mother-in-law. Its time for us to start our memorial service, Mes wife said, handing her old aunt a packet of votive money for her to burn in memory of the woman in the underworld.

While I was burning the sham money, my kids took the little terracotta coffin to the hole, close to the grave of my elder brother-in-law.

My respectful brother and sister, Im glad that from now on you both are lying close to each other for ever, I said, sobbing.

After that I picked up a handful of earth and cast it into my sisters grave. I did the same for a second lump of earth. Then I took a third fistful of dry and fine earth and secretly put it into a small pouch of cloth in my hand. I fastened that little bag with a safety-pin before keeping it tightly in my skirt pocket.

I pointed at a far-away mountain and told Chao and Chat, Previously, your fathers grave was lying at the foot of that hill over there. Our relatives transferred it to this cemetery so that it lay near our native village. Now that both of your parents are resting in peace side by side here, you must pay homage to them frequently and appropriately.

* * *

When Mrs Thung made her re-entry into the USA, her weird pouch was discovered by the TSA agents. They demanded she throw it into the rubbish bin.

Silently, she poured the small amount of earth into her mouth. She chewed and chewed it. After that she swallowed it calmly to the surprise of the security agents and passengers standing around.

Translated by Van Minh
Deliberating juror reported missing

WACO, Texas (AP)  One juror in a Texas robbery trial apparently forgot to tell her family shed be working late deliberating in the case, prompting relatives to file a missing person report.

The juror was working late Thursday with fellow jurors in the McLennan County Courthouse when police interrupted their deliberations.

Judge Ralph Strother said in his 21 years in the criminal justice system, it was the first time someone had filed a missing person report for someone on jury duty.

Jurors continued deliberating until early Friday morning when the defendant in the case pleaded guilty.

Huge fire rages in Boston suburb

BOSTON (AP)  Firefighters were struggling to put down a large fire that jumped from one building to another across a densely-populated neighborhood in Cambridge, Mass., on Saturday.

A large plume of smoke was visible for miles as heavy flames engulfed multi-family residential buildings, including a former church converted to condos, and several automobiles.

Cambridge police spokesman Jeremy Warnick said seven buildings were on fire. He said some injuries were reported but none of them seemed serious.

Fire crews were called in from surrounding cities and towns to help after the first calls came about 2 p.m. Saturday. They were still fighting the blaze long after the sun went down.

Fake news used in police sting

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Police investigating a notorious gang in a city on Californias central coast issued a fake press release the chief credited with saving two men by deceiving gang members who wanted to kill them, but the ruse was criticized by news organizations who reported it as fact.

The phony announcement issued in February was discovered in court documents and only reported this week by the Santa Maria Sun, a weekly newspaper in the city 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The daily newspaper and local television stations were unaware the information in the release was false when they reported two men, Jose Santos Melendez, 22, and Jose Marino Melendez, 23, had been picked up for identity theft and handed over to immigration authorities.

In fact, detectives eavesdropping on the deadly MS-13 gang had raced to the home of the two cousins in nearby Guadalupe and took them into protective custody after learning hit men were on their way there.

Officials: We wont let protesters freeze

FARGO, N.D. (AP)  The head of North Dakotas emergency management services says the state is prepared to respond to Dakota Access pipeline protesters who may need help during a winter storm or some other crisis.

State Homeland Security Director Greg Wilz said it would be a huge challenge, especially during a mass evacuation, but his office has winter shelter plans in place and various agencies are ready to respond.

The bottom line here is, if we are in a situation of life and limb, we are going to be humane in anything and everything we do, Wilz said. We arent going to let somebody out there freeze."

The government has ordered hundreds of protesters to leave the camp on federal land in southern North Dakota by Monday, although demonstrators say theyre prepared to stay until changes are made to the route of the four-state, $3.8-billlion pipeline.
Businesses

receive grants

WATERLOO  Veridian Credit Union awarded 18 organizations across Iowa and eastern Nebraska a total of $80,000 for its 2016 grant funding cycle. Recipients demonstrated a commitment to one of Veridians two areas of focus  financial literacy and community inclusion.

Area winners were: Family Management Financial Solutions, Waterloo, $5,000; Operation Threshold Inc., Waterloo, $5,000; The Job Foundation, Cedar Falls, $4,000; Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Iowa, Waterloo, $5,000; Boys & Girls Clubs of the Cedar Valley, Waterloo, $4,000; Family YMCA of Black Hawk County, Waterloo, $5,000; Inclusion Connection, Waverly, $5,000; and North Star Community Services, Waterloo, $2,000.

Farm pub calls for poetry

CEDAR RAPIDS  means something to anyone who has put pen to paper (or fingertips to a keyboard) and tried to express their thoughts.

For some, a poem conveys a mood. For others, it is an expression of feelings.

It could be used to describe something scenic or the love of a child.

Iowa Farmer Today, owned by Lee Enterprises, The Couriers owner, is having a poetry contest, with submitted poems to be considered for a future publication.

The rules are simple and are as follows:

Subject matter should relate to rural life or life on the farm.

The poem should not have been published in another publication, but poems included in a self-published book are eligible.

Submit your work by Dec. 16. Poems may be emailed to news@iowafarmertoday.com (with Poetry Contest in the subject line) or mailed to News Department, Iowa Farmer Today, 1065 Sierra Court NE, Suite B, Cedar Rapids IA 52402.

Include your name, mailing address and phone number with your poem.

The contest is open to readers of all ages.

Local law clerk gets scholarship

WATERLOO  The Iowa Taxpayers Association in conjunction with the family of Linda S. Weindruch has announced Mary Rose Shelley, law student and Juris Doctor candidate at Drake University, was chosen as recipient of the 2016 Linda S. Weindruch Scholarship.

Shelley, a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, is a third-year law student at Drake University in Des Moines. She is clerk for the law firm of Dutton, Braun, Staack & Hellman in Waterloo.

While at UNI, she was president of Orchesis Dance Co. Shelley grew up in Jefferson. Following graduation from Drake Law, Shelley will work as an associate at Dutton, Braun, Staack & Hellman.
NAPA, Calif.  Barbara Pope of Napa likes Costco. Really, really likes Costco.

So much so Pope decided to pack up her 2010 Honda Odyssey minivan and drive solo across the country to visit Costcos in every state that has one.

I love it, Pope said of shopping at Costco warehouse clubs.

Unlike what most people think, each Costco is different, Pope said. Im panning for gold, she said. I see all kinds of interesting things in the pan, but Im looking for that nugget or two thats different from anything else.

Drew Sakuma, a Costco regional vice president, said this is the first time hes heard of such a Costco odyssey. However, hes not too surprised. People that have the Costco craze tend to visit Costcos wherever they are, he said.

Shes just one of many members that feel excited about shopping at Costco, he said. If I had the time I would love to do the same thing.

This was a good time to hit the road, said Pope, age 47. She and her husband were nearing the end of a home remodel project, and she was at a crossroads in her event planning business. Her husband, who works in appliance sales in St. Helena, supported the idea, as did her friends, she said.

There was this excitement that I didnt expect at all, she said.

Pope said a higher power also motivated her.

Im a woman of faith, said Pope. While at first even she thought her idea was a bit ridiculous, I believe God was telling me to do this cross-country Costco road trip. Over time, this trip started taking on a life of its own.

Calling her journey My Costco Odyssey, Pope is documenting her trip on a new blog, Facebook page and other social media.

Because Napa doesnt yet have its own Costco, Pope said she always has made it a point to stop at other Costcos when shes out of town to see what each one offers. I could be missing out on something really interesting.

Depending on an areas demographics, Costco sells different kinds of ethnic foods, which brings back memories of her childhood growing up in a multicultural area on the south side of Chicago. These ethnic selections remind her a little bit of home, she said.

She left Napa on Sept. 28. As of last week Pope had traveled more than 6,000 miles and visited more than 36 Costco stores in 19 states. This is just the tip of the Costco iceberg. As of Nov. 14, there are 499 Costcos in 44 states in the United States.

There have been so many cool things that have happened along the way, said Pope from a stop in Ohio.

Pope said the biggest surprise from her trip is just how cool people are. Shes been invited to stay in locals homes and to join them on other outings.

The kindness and support of strangers has been unexpected, said Pope.

The random people that Ive been meeting along the way (outside of Costco) who encourage me by laughing with me at the seeming absurdity of a venture like this and embrace my excitement about it by taking it as their own  Im amazed by this camaraderie.
Iota Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International celebrated its 75th birthday with a luncheon and program at the Snowden House in Waterloo in November.

Iota President Cinde Haskins, welcomed guests including Upsilon State President Pam Wittkamp and First Vice President Karen Dole.

Members then enjoyed a lunch reminiscent of the 1940s and '50s. A short walk down memory lane, Iota through the Decades, a taste of world events, teaching practices, and Iota memories was presented by the event committee, complete with a slide show of major Iota events and notable members.

Linda Harris designed and created a ceramic ornament for each person in attendance.

Iota was organized at an Upsilon State meeting at Hotel Fort Des Moines in 1941. Nina Goltry, a state founder, was the organizer.

The mission statement is Delta Kappa Gamma Society International promotes personal and professional growth of women educators and excellence.
WATERLOO  A third person has been arrested in connection with an early morning burglary spree that targeted businesses Friday.

Brady Joe Garrison, 21, and Derek Michael Brown, 20, were arrested for five counts of third-degree burglary after Waterloo police caught them near a burglarized auto shop on West 18th Street around 3 a.m. Friday.

On Sunday, police arrested Shiri Arielle Bensasson, 30, of 3350 University Ave., for third-degree burglary. She was released from the Black Hawk County Jail that same day.

Authorities allege Bensasson drove Garrison and Brown to commit the burglaries.

Court records show Garrison, Brown and Bensasson were arrested in connection with burglaries at 1st Call Lawn Care on Black Hawk Road, Cedar Valley Auto Detailing on University Ave., Express Oil and Lube on Fletcher Ave., Latino Auto Repair on Dubuque Road and Auto Pros on 18th St.

Police also are investigating a burglary at an auto shop in the 1900 Independence Avenue discovered latewr Friday morning.
PARKERSBURG  Two people died in a crash on Iowa Highway 14 near Parkersburg on Friday evening.

The Iowa State Patrol identified the deceased at Dennis Bartels, 75, the driver of a van, and Sharon Bartels, 73, both of Parkersburg. They died at the scene.

The crash was reported about 6:30 p.m. at 31508 Highway 14.

The reports states Bartels was stopped on Highway 14 in the southbound lane shoulder to retrieve mail. A northbound semi being driven by Gaylen Mulder, 51, also of Parkersburg, approached. Bartels pulled out onto the roadway into the path of the semi, the trooper said, resulting in a broadside collision which killed the two.

The crash remains under investigation.

2 charged in burglaries

WATERLOO  Police have arrested two men in a string of overnight business break-ins.

Officers were sent to a burglar alarm at an auto shop on Dubuque Road around 1:35 a.m. Friday. Then a witness called police after spotting people attempting to force their way in to another auto shop on West 18th Street shortly after 3 a.m., and authorities detained Brady Joe Garrison and Derek Michael Brown in the area.

During the investigation, police discovered other break-ins, and by sunrise, Garrison, 21, and Brown, 20, both of 3350 University Ave., were arrested for five counts of third-degree burglary. They were taken to the Black Hawk County Jail.

Business that were hit include:

1st Call Lawn Care, 122 Black Hawk Road.

Cedar Valley Auto Detailing, 1612 University Ave.

Express Oil and Lube, 357 Fletcher Ave.

Latino Auto Repair, 2009 Dubuque Road.

Auto Pros, 179 W. 18th St.

Waterloo police are also investigating two other business burglaries in which arrests havent been made.

Around 9 a.m. Thursday, workers at Dixon Auto Repair, 1202 Lafayette St., reported a break-in. Someone had used a rock to smash a glass door and take the cash register.

Also Thursday morning, staff at Walnut Ridge Baptist Church, 1307 W. Ridgeway Ave., discovered a burglary. The suspect entered the building after breaking a window and then forced open the door to the pastors office and took a laptop computer and rifled through desks, according to police.

Police probe pet shooting

McINTIRE  A Mitchell County family is without a pet after their dog was shot Nov. 27.

The familys terrier had to be put down shortly after it was found suffering from a gunshot wound by a high-powered rifle, according to Mitchell County Sheriff Greg Beaver.

Beaver said the dog struggled to get home and was found there.

The family, who have not been identified, live in the 3000 block of 465th Street, west of McIntire. Beaver said he believes the dog was shot not too far from the familys home.

Beaver described the dog as a target of opportunity.

At this time, there is no explanation as to why the dog was shot, Beaver said.

Anyone who has information about the shooting should call the sheriffs office at (641) 732-4750.
WATERLOO -- At-large City Council members Steve Schmitt, Tom Lind and Ward 2 Councilman Bruce Jacobs have scheduled another in their series of town hall budget meetings.

The next meeting will be Dec. 11 at Waterloo Center for the Arts, 225 Commercial St., from 1 to 3 p.m. One of the purposes of the forum will be to encourage public ideas and feedback regarding the budget of specific city of Waterloo departments.

The departments up for discussion at the next meeting will be the Engineering Department and the Planning and Zoning Department. Department heads from the aforementioned areas will be invited to attend as well.

There will also be a discussion of the goal setting session the city held several months ago.

Schmitt, Lind and Jacobs welcome and encourage any and all Waterloo residents to attend this meeting.
WATERLOO  The Cedar Bend Humane Society will host a holiday open house from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Dec. 11 in the Adoption Center at 1166 W. Airline Highway.

There will be reduced price adoptions, food and refreshments, and people can register to win a holiday gift baskets.

Photographer Amy E. Clark will be in the Adoption Center to offer pet photo sessions for one pet with every $20 donation to the Cedar Bend Humane Society from noon to 4:30 p.m.

The holiday giving tree will be on display. The community is encouraged to take an ornament from the tree; each ornament lists an item from the humane society wish list. Needed items include kitty litter, dry dog and cat food, rawhide treats, dog and cat toys, Clorox wipes, laundry soap, 55-gallon heavy duty garbage bags, soft-soap and Ziploc one-gallon storage bags.
Truth, civility and honesty took a hard beating in the brutal 2016 election season but global trade, the campaigns daily whipping boy, actually grew in the July-September quarter.

Moreover, reports the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, an international group that tracks trade, the late summer surge means global trade may rise over the year as a whole.

That rise, of course, could end during a Trump administration if the president-elect honors any of the anti-China, anti-NAFTA, anti-TPP and anti-T-TIP promises that became the bedrock of his Make America Great Again stump speech. Since his win, Trumps anti-trade tone has moderated, but no one believes it has completely faded.

Farmers and ranchers, who pollsters say voted overwhelmingly for Trump, remain wary because 20 percent of all U.S. farm production is sold overseas. In 2015, U.S. agriculture exported $133 billion of bulk commodities and food to over 100 countries around the world. (American ag exports topped $150 billion in 2014, a record.)

Even more worrisome is Trumps toughest trade talk is aimed at deals that involve our very best food buyers  Canada and Mexico (the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA), China (that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, isolates), and the European Union, or EU, (through the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or T-TIP).

These four customers  Canada, China, Mexico, and the EU  bought, respectively, $21 billion, $20 billion, $18 billion and $12 billion of U.S. ag exports in 2015. Thats a staggering 53 percent of all American farm and ranch goods sold abroad.

That fact bears repeating: 53 percent of all 2015 U.S. ag exports went to just four buyers now in the crosshairs of the incoming Trump White House because of what he calls the worst trade deal ever, NAFTA, and two other, all-but-dead regional deals, T-TIP and TPP, he says are terrible.

Trump isnt alone in condemning current or pending trade deals. Not long ago, one presidential candidate openly complained NAFTAs shortcomings were evident when signed and we must now amend the agreement to fix them.

That candidate was Barack Obama in 2008, recalls Timothy Wise of the Small Planet Institute, in a Nov. 22 blog post on BillMoyers.com. Obamas failure to amend or fix NAFTA, Wise adds, helped Trumps anti-trade message gain traction on his opponent, Hillary Clinton, an Obama acolyte.

NAFTA does have shortcomings, says Wise: weak environmental and labor standards, outdated regulations for immigration, and rules that empower corporations to sue nations over actions that impede profits to name but a few. Will a President Trump fix those problems?

No, believes Wise, because Trumps trade view, as he often said throughout the campaign, is America first. In NAFTA that means a nationalist version of anti-worker, pro-corporation trade deal which will be a disaster for the working class Americans who gave him their votes.

If that NAFTA stance becomes the Trumps template for other trade negotiations, disaster awaits American farmers and ranchers who export 75 percent of all the cotton they grow, 50 percent of all their rice and wheat, over 40 percent of all soybeans and nearly 25 percent of all pork.

In short, we have an ag policy  for better or worse  built on trade. As such, trade isnt just a big deal to most farmers and ranchers; its the whole deal. Anti-trade rhetoric might be red meat to blue-collar voters, but it wont go down well with cash-paying foreign food buyers the U.S. ag sector has grown absolutely dependent on.

Still, it would be a serious mistake to sell this president-elect short. Sixteen Republican challengers and one cant-lose Democratic opponent made that mistake in just the last year. All were vanquished; most easily.

So, when Donald Trump says hes going to renegotiate Americas rotten trade deals, expect him to try. Then pray he quickly learns that American ag exports arent rotten and theyre not broken.

Not yet, anyway.
Theres one important position in this community no one gets to vote on except members of the Iowa Board of Regents.

That job is president of the University of Northern Iowa. It is a premier educational institution, a major local employer that cultivates young talent in many fields. It is a steward of the future of this community and this state.

Public forums were held last week with finalists for the position. Since the regents are seeking public input we feel its entirely appropriate to, respectfully, offer some views on the subject.

UNIs presidents have considerable impact in the Cedar Valley. We recall the community-university efforts that resulted in the construction of the UNI-Dome in the 1970s under president John Kamerick; the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center in the 1980s and 1990s under presidents Constantine Deno Curris and Robert Koob; the formation of the greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber and the conception of the Cedar Valley TechWorks in the 2000s under the leadership of Koob and former John Deere Waterloo operations general managers Barry Schaffter and Pat Pinkston.

The community, the school and the state benefit from stability of leadership at UNI. However, the presidency has become an increasingly short-tenured job. Consider the terms of the past five UNI presidents: J.W. Maucker, 20 years; Kamerick, 13 years; Curris, 12 years; Koob, 10 years; Ben Allen, six years; and Bill Ruud, just three years.

This concerns us. It could hurt UNIs status and efforts to secure adequate funding from the Legislature; fundraising for scholarships and building and program initiatives; and attracting and retaining students and faculty to maintain the standards and reputation of the institution.

The University of Northern Iowa, like its sister institutions, deserves continuity in its leadership and a commitment to its long-term mission.

We believe UNI has such a leader already on campus.

Jim Wohlpart is a relative newcomer to UNI. Hes been on campus since May 2015 after 21 years at Florida Gulf Coast University, where he served since that school was established. He became interim UNI president July 1 after Ruud took a job as president of Marietta College in Ohio.

Wohlpart is a relatively fresh face with a different perspective. But hes been here long enough to know the campus, its strengths, weaknesses and objectives.

Weve liked what hes said from the day he set foot on campus.

I want to do some serious listening to hear what morale is, what the issues are, what the challenges are, what things we need to celebrate, so that I can help do that work and serve this community, he said in a July 2015 Courier article. Listening is a trait of leadership.

He also said the right things after taking over as interim president, when things were a bit unsettled after Ruuds seemingly abrupt departure.

Wohlpart said his job is to assure everybody that the direction were going in is the direction were going to continue to go in, and that were not going to slow down.

Wohlpart also has done the right thing.

We gave Wohlpart and Ruud high marks a year ago for their response when Ethnic Student Promoters, a group of multicultural students who guide prospective students and parents on campus tours, boycotted a UNI multicultural student recruiting day. They objected to how some minority students were treated on campus.

It was a sensitive situation. It led to a pair of forums. Students laid out concerns. The provost did an important thing by admitting to shortcomings, not circling the wagons.

You are absolutely right, Wohlpart told students. We have not done enough on our campus to be very, very clear about the behavior that is not acceptable. We have not done that.

An action plan was developed that included hiring a chief diversity officer, renovating the Center for Multicultural Education in Maucker Union, a review of residence hall polices and other measures.

This situation could have damaged the university. It didnt. Jim Wohlpart was the right person at the right time.

One of Wohlparts perceived shortcomings, in comparison to other candidates, is he only has roughly 18 months experience as a provost and interim president. We would, however, emphasize his experience is at this institution, in this economic and political climate. We believe he has been a quick study. And he came to UNI from a similar-sized institution.

Another unknown is his fundraising abilities. We believe a big part of fundraising involves safeguarding and developing the universitys core product  its ability to preserve and enhance its educational programs.

That may be hard to quantify, except in the hearts of alumni and friends. They are grateful for what UNI has done for them. They have fond memories of revered faculty and staff. They want to see that carried on. They want someone at the top who is a conscientious ally of the institution they love and its best goodwill ambassador.

We suggest Wohlpart is that person.

We commend the regents for their thorough selection process. The choice of UNIs next president is theirs Tuesday. We respect whatever decision they make and wish that person every success.

But from what weve seen, we believe after weighing all the information of a fine field of candidates, Jim Wohlpart should be UNIs next president.

He is, to quote UNIs marketing slogan, Right Fit. Right School. Right Here.
In the turbulent aftermath of Donald Trumps resounding victory, failed prognosticators on both sides of the aisle are trying to justify themselves. But few seem to be aware of the missing piece in their predictions. Im not implying professional pollsters, reporters, academicians and members of the political establishment did not do their homework. They were doing their best to engineer their hoped-for election outcome.

However, most failed to take to heart the kind of counsel Benjamin Franklin gave to the U.S. Constitutional Convention on June 28, 1787. He spoke at a time when the assembly was torn by disagreements and was on the verge of breaking up. He reminded the assembly of statesmen, war heroes, theologians and thinkers something was missing in their deliberations. Franklins words are apropos for Americans at this critical time as well:

I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that, Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. (Psalm 127:1) I believe this; and I also believe that, without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.

The missing piece in most of the postmortem evaluations of Trumps and the Republican Partys unexpected victory in the polls is the humble acknowledgement God, who has ordained government and political authority (Romans 13:1,2), governs in the affairs of men.

It seems most prognosticators in our culture are blind to the larger picture because they assume the only valid knowledge must be based on human reason and empirical science. They seem to assume understanding is achieved only by the human minds search for rational answers. As a former research scientist, I value empirical knowledge as well as the knowledge derived from other academic disciplines. Nevertheless there is an entire realm of knowledge that lies beyond the ken of scientific thinking. This is the knowledge gained by faith in God.

To grasp the dimensions of the recent political tsunami, one must remember by faith we know God governs in the affairs of men. Throughout history God has used sinful people to carry out his purposes. We should not be surprised he can still use fallen people as his instruments.

To grasp the deeper meaning of this election, as well as the election of Kennedy, Reagan or Obama, requires faith in the promises of God. As we read in Galatians 3:5, faith in Gods promises is critical for our understanding:

Does God give you his spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law (you deserve it), or because you believe what you heard (from Gods word)?

Of course, faith does not negate reason. Rather, it enhances this knowledge by connecting the dots  giving meaning and purpose to the events in history and human experience.

The blindness of many, especially in the media and academia, is rooted in the assumption the only valid knowledge is gained by human reason. We need to have our eyes open by faith to see the larger picture.

It is this faith dimension of knowledge that Benjamin Franklin spoke of when he reminded the U.S. Constitutional Convention that God governs in the affairs of men. As proof of his assertion, Franklin reminded his peers of the prayers for Gods protection which were offered at the time of the Declaration of Independence from Britain.

Our prayers, Sir, were heard  and they were graciously answered.

Our country needs this reminder at this critical time, lest by human intellect alone the private and public understandings of recent events will promote suspicion, blame, witch hunting, name-calling, apocalyptic fears and violence.

Let us reclaim the missing piece of knowledge, namely, faith in the God who has revealed himself in history, which alone can put the broken pieces of our society together again.
Recently, I was a guest at the Middle East Institutes Washington conference on Middle East Policy Challenges for the Next Administration. There was not a lot of agreement in the room about Syria, Israel, Palestine, Yemen and Turkey.

Nonetheless, there was an undercurrent of consensus the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is a good deal for America, Iran, Europe and the Middle East. Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, former head of the Saudi Internal Security Service and former ambassador to the United States, affirmed support of JCPOA. Nabil Fahmy, former ambassador of Egypt to the U.S., termed the agreements a step forward for stability in the Middle East.

Conferees generally agreed the plan curtails nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, where there is now only one nuclear power, Israel.

The agreement is our best bet to keep it at one power. But, there is a fly in the soup. Republican legislative actions may be forcing Iran to get on the nuclear bomb fast track and eliminate any prospect of normal ties with Iran.

House Republicans passed legislation last month to reinstate economic sanctions against Iran and to ban the sale of passenger planes to Iran. In September, Iowas Steve King introduced legislation to forbid the use of any funds in 2017 for Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. If we back out of the agreement, what could be the consequences?

The parties to the agreement reached in July last year are Iran, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States), Germany and the European Union. What happens if we do not hold up our end of the agreement? Maybe all other parties hold to the agreement and Iran does not build a bomb for at least 15 years; all other parties conduct trade, cultural, educational and other exchange with Iran. The U.S. is the loser.

Is it possible for the U.S. to convince China, France, Russia, the UK and Germany to reinstate trade sanctions that brought Iran to agreement? Probably not. Then, the U.S. is odd man out, and hostilities between the U.S. and Iran continue. Iran wants to purchase up to 200 Boeing passenger planes from the U.S. When we invoke sanctions and nobody else does, Iran will likely buy Airbus planes. The U.S. is the loser.

President-elect Donald Trump talks about some kind of detente with Russia. Russia and Iran are allies in Syria. Cessation of hostilities in Syria requires joint action by Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. If the U.S. cancels its part of the Iran nuclear deal, is it likely joint action will occur? Probably not.

Several participants at the Middle East Institute conference characterized the war in Yemen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the U.S. the active partner of Saudi Arabia. Putting the cold war between the U.S. and Iran on the back burner via the JCPOA increases the chances for a peaceful settlement to this devastating war.

Republicans need to act with due consideration of consequences and of balance of powers. Mohsen Milani, consultant and analyst of Iranian policy said: As long as Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in a cold war, there is no hope for the Middle East. The Iran nuclear deal offers a new middle ground. Legislation to cancel or deter U.S. participation in the JCPOA risks putting Iran back on the nuclear bomb fast track, delays resolution of conflicts in Syria and Yemen and cedes to other countries the market for passenger airplanes and other American products.

It was not always like this. It was a Republican administration that opened up cooperation with China, one of Iowas best markets for agricultural exports now. We do not need another hot war in the Middle East. We need to engage Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China and our European allies in cooperative effort to bring peace to Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The JCPOA is the foundation. Republicans need to be part of the solution.
Dear Mr. Berko: Whats wrong with America when the drug company and my health insurer conspired with my doctor to deny a procedure and offer an alternative medication? Why has my car been recalled? Why did my mortgage company overcharge me by $3,692 and force me to resort to a lawsuit to get it back? Why were unauthorized fees added to my bank account? Why do defense contractors, such as the company I work for, get away with bid rigging? Why are stockbrokers ruining my pension plan? Why is the federal bureaucracy choking Americas job creation? Why are corporate America and big government evil? Why are drug companies such as Mylan and Turing Pharmaceuticals screwing the public? Why does Pfizer charge $12 for a Celebrex pill that costs the company 8 cents, and why does GlaxoSmithKline sell Paxil pills, which cost the company 7 cents, at $2.20? How can Merck sell Vasotec pills for $1.03 each when they cost 2 cents to produce, and why does Eli Lilly sell Prozac for $1.04 a pill when it costs under a penny? This is just the small stuff my family uses. Ive a friend who gets his DUIs fixed, a dermatologist acquaintance who charges Medicare for facials, a lawyer who cheats for his clients and a vet selling medication for three times the online price, and I know two members of Congress who (for cash contributions) granted profitable government contracts to our competitor. Im disgusted. I just wanted to get this off my chest; I dont expect an answer because there isnt one.

 JS, Wilmington, N.C.

Dear JS: Thanks for expressing the anger and frustration most Americans feel but cant put into words. Your cleanly typed three-page letter was heartfelt and well-written. Though the buck should stop at the top, thats where our national greed begins.

We pine for the days when the world was flat, when doctors were like Marcus Welby, when General Motors ads said come away with me, Lucille, in my merry Oldsmobile, when Folgers was good to the last drop, when you could trust your car to the man who wears the star and when Friendly Bob Adams made loans at Springleaf Finance. We also walked to school.

Recognize politics is defined by two words: poly, a Latin adjective meaning many, and ticks, an English noun denoting bloodsucking parasites. The Roman Catholic Church believes in concept of original sin, and Im becoming a believer, too. In Robert Penn Warrens All the Kings Men, a character says, Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. This clearly refers to most members of Congress and 90 percent of the 19,100 professional lobbyists who give advice to Congress. And a Catholic priest with whom I used to play a monthly chess game offered the following passage from the book of Jeremiah: They have held fast to deceit, they have refused to return. ... They do not speak honestly; no one repents of wickedness, saying, What have I done! They are the cretins in Congress, the 14,800 registered lobbyists and the 4,300 nonregistered lobbyists.

On Jan. 21, 2010, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that reshaped the business of politics. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates to campaign spending. The justices ruled political spending (limitless contributions by corporations) is protected as free speech under the First Amendment. So we have the best government money can buy.

Some call this phenomenon in social economics trickle-down evil. It reminds us evil begins at the top (the administration and Congress), filters down by imitation and gravity to the corporate world and then goes lower. The Citizens United decision offers enormous latitude while setting the tone for the future. Thats why Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine of MF Global and Heather Bresch of Mylan will never spend a day in jail; they just smirk and give us the finger. If these CEOs fail to grow revenues, earnings and dividends, then the evil they do and encourage will keep them employed till they get caught.
UNITED KINGDOM  On Oct. 6 this year, the British Government granted fracking company Cuadrilla permission to begin operations at two sites in Lancashire (north-west England). This decision, taken by Business Secretary Sajid Javid, overturned a previous decision made by the Lancashire County Council to grant permission at just one of the two proposed sites.

Under the banner of Frack Free Lancashire, a coalition of local anti-fracking groups has formed. Included in the coalition is the inimitable mothers and grandmothers group The Nanas. Nana is a British colloquialism for grandmother and frequently used in the north-west of England.The Nanas used this term because they wanted to invoke the spirit of the typical Lancastrian matriarch synonymous with the county.

Among the many anti-fracking groups involved, there is the Pagan-focused group The Warriors Call (TWC), who has campaigned hard to get local voices against the fracking sites heard. We spoke to Alan from TWC to discuss the groups involvement with the Lancashire campaign, and how they intend to move forward.

TWC was set up by someone, who isnt me, to be a focus for Pagans on the topic of fracking, says Alan. What the originator found was that a lot of Pagans dont take a lot of notice of the papers or the BBC but listen to what other Pagans are saying, so the group was set up as a way of saying this matters and being able to give it a voice to talk to other Pagans.

It wasnt ever intended to be a separate group. Its for whoever feels the call to step up and defend their land in a magical or physical way. Theyre answering the warriors call, so anyone who connects with that kind of protection.

Frack Free Lancashire (FFL) ran a successful campaign uniting lots of different local anti-fracking groups against the granted permission to frack at one of the two proposed sites. The decision to overturn that ruling was disappointing, but not a surprise, according to Alan.

He says, Its expected that the industry is going to challenge. This happened in Wrexham in 2014. There was a site, just outside Wrexham in North East Wales on the border with England, which had been outlined for exploratory drilling. Local people put up a big campaign. The council turned it down.

The company put in an appeal and the Government overruled the local council. That overruling sparked a massive local interest, because not only was it Government overturning the local council but the English deciding what is happening on Welsh soil.

Alan thinks it is too early to say if these over-rulings from Westminster are a pattern or not. But he did say that the watershed Balcombe fracking protests of 2013 in West Sussex, Southern England, have ensured that campaigners are much more clued up and found out whats really going on regarding the fracking industry.

One way the anti-frack movement tracks information is to identify where seismic testing is being carried out, and where Petroleum Exploration and Development Licences are being issued. PEDL licences are issued for a specific parcel of land where a company thinks gas or shale may be found. Seismic testing, which involves drilling shot holes about 30 feet deep and then filling the holes with dynamite, offers the data needed to build up a picture of where optimal places to extract might be located. According to Alan, this is also a big clue for anti-frackers as it involves a serious financial commitment on the part of the company and shows they intend to drill there.

Education is a big part of TWC message. Ensuring that people are properly informed about the effects of fracking is key. Much of the UK Governments rhetoric in support of fracking has been to stress the number of jobs the industry will create.

However, as Alan explains, Fracking is a specialised job, and [the companies] have to keep moving on. So there are no permanent jobs to come out of it. Once the initial set up is complete it runs on computer. One person can control about four sites. Its not as if theyll need more people to work in the sandwich or chip shop. Once the gas has gone, they move on.

Australia, which has a much longer history of fracking than the UK, has already come to this conclusion. In New South Wales, they banned fracking.They showed that for every 10 jobs created by the industry, 19 were lost from tourism or agriculture.

In the UK, one fracking company has already come unstuck due to its own claims. Alan says, Somewhere in the South East, one company sent out a promotional leaflet about the benefits of fracking, which got pulled up by the Advertising Standards Agency. According to Alan, the leaflet had based its information on then-Prime Minister David Camerons rhetoric about fracking.

So basically the policy had been rubbished by the Advertising Standards Agency, Alan chuckles.

Since the overruling in Lancashire, FFL has been intent on keeping the story in the public eye. The formidable Lancashire Nanas went down to London and camped outside Buckingham Palace. Alan got one of his local councillors to visit the Lancashire site with him, which led to an interview with Russia Today, as well as an increase in local coverage.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the anti-fracking campaign is the cross-pollination of ideas between different groups. Alan says, [Anti-fracking campaigning] is a gateway into other things. People that are getting involved in opposing fracking are from ordinary life, as [they get involved] they realise the system doesnt work like they think it does, and once theyve goten over that they see injustices in other things.

He continues, What Im seeing is that people come and get involved with fracking and move toward a Pagan way of thinking. Ive seen a lot of people come through the camp, and they say theyre almost Pagan and feel a good connection to the Earth, and loving trees, and loving water and loving air. And, although theyre not joining a coven or an order, or training or learning anything they are becoming genuinely Earth-loving, so there can be a massive boost to British Paganism in general.

Alan compares this process to Gweirs prison, referenced in the poem Preiddu Annfwn/The Spoils of Annwn. He explains, Once your eyes are open though, and you see through the fallacy of what you thought life was, I dont know if you can go back and close your eyes again. The first line of The Mabinogion is that Pwll feels the call to go hunting, and he responds to that call. He doesnt decide to go hunting. He responds to the call, He takes it into his heart and his head to go hunting that day.

Its touched on in The Spoils of Annwn. The initiate is held in a prison of their own making, thinking that I have to go work, I have to have a car. Once you have engaged with this, and youve seen what the world is like then youve broken out of the prison and youve shattered that wall.

Alan believes that the anti-fracking campaigning community also has much to teach Paganism  especially regarding group structure. He says, Were encouraging people through the Warriors Call to learn about what fracking is and to get involved with their local communities. Were also encouraging people to look at consensus decision-making and horizontal structure to groups rather than hierarchies.

All the groups Im a member of now operate in that way. Theres no one in charge, theres no leader and we decide by majority. This goes against how most groves and covens are structured as they are hierarchical and I dont know if that could feed into Paganism. There is a lot of opportunity for crossover and for new ideas to come in now. If they work people can take them into other areas.

Although the FFL campaign will now change its focus in terms of campaigning, the fight goes on. A fracking approval has recently gone through in Nottinghamshirem in central England, which TWC will be campaigning against.

The movement has produced a network of very committed people. As Alan explains, One of the things we say, whether fracking goes ahead or doesnt go ahead, is we can have this structure to campaign on why the local hospital is closing, or the local playground, and these structures are ready to go.

Its about driving power into the community again, rather than the people who you voted for three years ago deciding for you. Its about setting up these groups that can do other things, so even if fracking goes, the network is still there. Part of the nine aims of the Warriors Call.

Alan stresses the importance of getting involved with local activism. Pagans that I know of tend to turn up for the rituals but dont get involved in the campaigning. Ritual is action, action is ritual. You have to give the help you requested from your spirits or your gods, you have to give that away to come through. You have to physically go and make this come about.

He continues, Once Pagans move in Pagan circles, in my experience, they tend to remove themselves from the contemporary world. Pagans tend to remove themselves and form their own society, and I think the warriors call is pulling people back into the community and saying, Youve got training and knowledge and spirits, come back into this world and use your skills for the benefit of this world and the land youre on. 

Alan adds that there is so much people can do. The stereotypical thing is that you go and chain yourself to a lorry, and some people will want to do that, but there are so many other areas that need help as well, such as becoming a legal observer. They cannot be arrested and its vitally important role.

There is quite a bit of social change involved with the Warriors Call. Its not just about doing a ritual and then going home, or even doing a ritual and then chaining yourself to a lorry, there are different angles to it.

This interaction between Paganism and activism can make for magical results. Alan says, At the Upton Protection Camp [the base camp in Chester] we did a massive ritual. There werent that many Pagans there, it was mostly local people and we were going around and beating the bounds and I led everyone round the camp

As I turned the first quarter, I turned around and saw a massive line of people behind me beating drums as if their lives depended upon it! We asked people to write a letter to state how far they were prepared to go to protect the land, and obviously, some are prepared to go further than others, it was secret and there was no disclosure, its not a competition or to compare.

Then we burnt all the letters in a bonfire. After that ritual, when local people turned up to the camp to confront the people doing the seismic testing, there was a bit of a stand-off and a bit of arguing going on, and we got covered in ladybirds, they werent on the contractors they were on us, and they were swarming around us for about 15 minutes and then they just all went. This was at the end of September.

Alan says, If youve learnt stuff from being a Pagan bring that back, use it to boost. Theres a crossover of people coming in being more sympathetic as well. As we come into mainstream society more, mainstream society moves toward us.

Authors Note Some names have been changed to protect identity
There is something special about being a polytheist. Belief and practice with multiple gods necessitates an understanding that all gods are real. Certainly, polytheists argue over a hard or soft approach, debating whether the gods are actual individual entities or exist in a more archetypal manner, but either way a polytheist is able to accept another persons religious experience with another deity as valid. We are comfortable with experiences that differ from our own. This is much more difficult in monotheistic faiths.

But what about when a polytheist is confronted with the miraculous claims of a monotheist? Can two seemingly opposing cosmologies live together? Can one overcome skepticism of the other religion while still validating their own cosmology?

This was the question in my mind as I entered an exhibit at the Bower Museums new exhibit. Entitled The Virgin of Guadalupe: Images in Colonial Mexico, the installation documents the origins of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an apparition revered by Mexican Catholics as symbol of religious favor and national pride, yet often derided as a hoax meant to convert and oppress the native, pagan population.

As told in the exhibit, the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe enfolds though the experience of an illiterate, converted Aztec man named Juan Diego. While Diego was out walking on the hill of Tepeyac on the morning of December 9, 1531, he was called to a spot on the hill. There, a unique manifestation of the Virgin Mary appeared to him in all her glory and spoke to him, giving him a message for the local Catholic bishop. Diego tried to take the miraculous message to Bishop Zumarraga, the highest religious authority of the colonial government, but he was sent away.

The virgin appeared to Diego three more times, however, and finally instructed him to gather special roses into his tilma (cloak) and carry them to the Zumarraga. He did so, and when he unfurled his tilma to reveal the flowers to the bishop, the famous image of the Virgin of Guadalupe shone out, imprinted forever on Diegos tilma. A church in honor of the virgin was constructed at the manifestation site. The original image, emblazoned on a poor peasants cloak, became a source of religious worship, Mexican pride, and large-scale conversion of the native population by its colonizers. Her feast day is December 12.

The image on the tilma, and now on countless canvases, candles, and items of jewelry, contains icons that brilliantly combine the competing Catholic and native Aztec spiritualities, including symbols that many modern Pagans would recognize today. A young, dark-skinned woman in a pose of prayer stands or kneels in the center, rays of light streaming out from her body. She wears a 12-pointed crown and a cloak covered in stars, and stands on a crescent moon held by a youthful angel. The icon combines power with reverence, but it gives that power to a woman. The entire shape is quite clearly yonic in nature.

Catholic and native symbols combine seamlessly. The Virgin Mary is easily suggested, and her pose is one of Catholic prayer. She is held by an cherub and in a pose of submission, and her unbound hair is a sign of maidenhood. Yet the ribbon around her waist was an Aztec signifier of pregnancy. The flowers inscribed on her lower half, particularly a four-petaled one on the lower right, hold native meaning. The crescent moon would appeal to the locals, but the fact that it is held up by an angel suggests the dominance of the invading culture. Her cloak of stars could likely be seen through either cultures eyes: is she descending from the heavens above or is she Queen of the Earth covered by the sky? The exhibit relates the star patterns on her cloak to the constellations of the zodiac. Is her 12-pointed crown significant of the zodiac signs, or of the apostles?

Many within the Pagan and Polytheist communities have had direct contact with spirits or deities. It is a relatively noncontroversial belief that entities can and do present themselves through visions into the physical world. Since polytheists admit the existence of multiple gods, it is intellectually honest to admit that the Hebrew god may have communicated and manifested himself through Diego and this image. If Zeus can speak to you in meditation, why cant another god speak to a young Aztec? Therefore, those who practice a polytheistic faith must accept the possibility that the virgin is a true message from a deity.

Believers in the miracle of Guadalupe point to many facets of the original work to prove its divine origin. They say that Diegos

tilma

is made of agave fiber, which is not durable enough to have lasted as long as it has. They note the lack of a preparation, an undercoating that painters use to even out the surface, and they claim that no identifiable brush strokes can be seen as they would be seen on a human painting. The

tilma

has survived two attacks and was not very well taken care of for 100 years after it was created, and yet it remains vibrant. Artwork that depicts the Christian god as an artist painting the virgins image tell the story of divine inspiration.

Through a form of sacred geometry and the law of contagion, official copies of the image are reputed to have magical powers. Reproductions that preserve the same proportions and colors as the original, especially if they have physically touched the

tilma

or a faithful copy, are used as talismans and are said to grant wishes for health, prosperity, love, and safety. Thankful petitioners create e

x-votos

, images of worshipers thankful for the boons bestowed upon them by the virgin, and display them as offerings to the virgin.

Brian Dunning at skeptoid.com points out the other side of these arguments. He notes that Bishop Zumarraga, to whom the miraculous image was first revealed, never wrote a word about it. It seems strange, to say the least, that a Catholic bishop who wrote prolifically during his career would never say a word about a miracle that manifested before his own eyes. Dunning also notes that the major recounting of the story comes from a text written after both Diego and Zumarraga had died. How did the writer hear about the story?

Dunning adds to his argument the fact that the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, who conquered the Aztecs, was from a region of Spain known to worship an image of the Virgin Mary with dark skin, and that he carried a statue of her with him to Mexico. The natives, he argues, would identify with the dark-skinned statue. Plus, Cortes knew a monk who was both an accomplished painter and familiar with Aztec language and customs.

A representation of the conquering faith that incorporated symbolism of the subjugated, Cortes would have reasoned, would be a powerful weapon in subduing the locals, and it was. There is no question that the conquered citizens of what is now Mexico were successfully converted to the faith of the invaders. In fact, Latin America is now one of most staunchly Catholic corners of the world.

But, as magicians know, one must be careful with the energy they send out. The Virgin of Guadalupe also figures prominently in the expulsion of Spain from Mexican lands. The Mexican revolution against Spain began on Sept. 16, 1810 as Miguel Hidalgo invoked the Virgin of Guadalupe as a symbol of Mexican patriotism and pride in his famous scream for independence:

Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once. Will you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines!

While the miracle led to the spiritual takeover of the native Mexican population, it also led to the Spains loss of its conquered lands and the return of freedom to the people of Mexico. The new energy of independence placed into the image on a humble peasants cloak forever changed a countrys future. That is magic in action.

Is the Virgin of Guadalupe a piece of magic or a deliberate hoax meant to subvert a colonized population? The answer may lie at the crossroads of these two questions. Magic is performed in the in-between spaces: crossroads, circles, mountaintops. It manifests in strange ways, and it is sometimes said to return to its creator in ways he or she cannot predict. Is it at least possible that this image of the divine feminine was placed by deity for its own purposes, beginning at the hands of a conqueror but finally turning against its creators and ending in the hands of a free people who constantly strive to overcome lingering effects of colonization? Whatever ones belief, it is undeniable that this image of the divine feminine has powerfully constructed and reconstructed an entire corner of the globe. She may indeed have become, as the exhibit ad banners name her, the most powerful woman in the world.

* * *

The views and opinions expressed by our diverse panel of columnists and guest writers represent the many diverging perspectives held within the global Pagan, Heathen and polytheist communities, but do not necessarily reflect the views of The Wild Hunt Inc. or its management.
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Christina Beck in The Christian Science Monitor:

One hundred and eighty-four years ago today, a literary giant was born to a small, struggling family in Pennsylvania. Yet within just a few decades, Louisa May Alcott won herself both a reputation and the hearts and minds of generations with her prose. Google Doodle creator Sophia Diao decided to depict Ms. Alcott with her three sisters in commemoration of her birthday and her most beloved work, Little Women. Alcott was born in 1832, the daughter of prominent (but impecunious) Transcendentalist intellectual Amos Bronson Alcott. Mr. Alcott moved his family around frequently, finally settling in Concord, Mass., in 1840 when Louisa was eight years old. In Concord, the Alcotts found, if not earthly wealth, then a bounty of friends and intellectual sparring partners. Prominent Transcendentalists and New England intellectuals Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau also lived in town, as did Margaret Fuller and Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the midst of this intellectual bounty, however, the Alcotts continued to struggle financially, forcing Louisa to take jobs as a school teacher and a seamstress. As abolitionists and New Englanders, the Alcotts supported the North during the American Civil War, and Louisa took her commitment to the cause a step further when she served as a nurse in Union hospitals.

Her experiences during the Civil War inspired her first book, Hospital Sketches, which won her some small notice in the literary world. Hospital Sketches, although rarely read today, served to highlight Louisas writing talent, and attracted the notice of a publisher. That publisher met with her father, and the two men struck a deal, urging Louisa to write a book for young girls. Contingent on Louisas writing was a book contract for her father. At first, Louisa was reluctant to write the book, saying that it was not her preferred type of writing. Yet her manuscript, called Little Women, which drew on her own experiences with her three sisters, quickly became a massive success, finally lifting the Alcotts out of their longstanding poverty.

More here.
Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic:

In the Western world, the percentage of people who say that it is essential to live in a democracy is in precipitous decline. In the United States, only 19 percent of millennials agree that it would be illegitimate for the military to take control of government. The president-elect routinely speculates about authoritarian policies, like stripping citizenship from those who burn the American flag in protest.

During a bygone crisis in global politics, when the liberal order was under sustained attack, Friedrich Hayek published this diagnosis of the challenge before liberals:

If old truths are to retain their hold on mens minds, they must be restated in the language and concepts of successive generations. What at one time are their most effective expressions gradually become so worn with use that they cease to carry a definite meaning. The underlying ideas may be as valid as ever, but the words, even when they refer to problems that are still with us, no longer convey the same conviction; the arguments do not move in a context familiar to us; and they rarely give us direct answers to the questions we are asking. This may be inevitable because no statement of an ideal that is likely to sway mens minds can be complete: it must be adapted to a given climate of opinion, presuppose much that is accepted by all men of the time, and illustrate general principles in terms of issues with which they are concerned.

The passage resurfaced this week when Will Wilkinson, in-house philosopher at the Niskanen Center, cited it to suggest that the Sisyphean task of saving liberalism is now ours, the boulder at our feet, the struggle of the hill looming once again.

If the old truths are not updated for each new age, they will slip from our grasp and lose our allegiance, he wrote. The terms in which those truths have been couched will become hollow, potted mottoes, will fail to galvanize, inspire, and move us. The old truths will remain truths, but theyll be dismissed and neglected as mere dogma, noise. And the liberal, open society will again face a crisis of faith.

Across the Western world, liberals are grappling with how to execute that project. And while I have no pat answer, I do see an obstacle to success thats worth understanding.

More here.
How to watch, what to know about South Dakota State at Northern Iowa
In a clear message to Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called for resolute action not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, saying silence and inaction will only embolden terrorists and their masters. In his address at the 6th conference of Heart of Asia, a platform to help Afghanistan in its transition, Modi said the growing arc of terrorist violence is posing the gravest threat to the region.

Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough, said PM Modi.

Since the turn of this century, the international community has extensively engaged in Afghanistan. Our words and actions remain focused on building, strengthening and securing Afghans territory and its citizens from external threats, he continued.

Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters, warned Modi.

It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, the PM said in an obvious reference to Pakistan.

He was speaking after jointly inaugurating the annual Ministerial conference here along with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani which is being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz along with representatives of around 30 countries.

With Pakistan being represented at the two-day conference by its de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz, Mr. Modi said mere action against forces of terrorism was not enough and the world also needed to act against those who support, shelter and finance them.

Pakistans Sartaj Aziz also arrived in India, but ahead of the schedule creating buzz around the reason for it. Earlier, a top diplomat from Pakistan was scheduled to arrive in Amritsar on Sunday.

There wouldnt be any formal bilateral talks between India and Pakistan at the conference.
Introducing Dimitri Portwood Kutcher!

Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher announced the name of their second child, a baby boy, who arrived earlier this week.

E! News exclusively broke the news that the Bad Moms star gave birth to her second bundle of joy in Los Angeles on Nov. 30 and that both baby and mama were doing well.

In a message posted on Kutchers website, the couple released a statement after the arrival of their son.

Wed like to allow our kids to make their own choices on whether to have a life in the public eye or not. We dont want to make the choice for them.
Amid complaints about non- acceptance of old Rs 500 notes for mobile recharges at some places, cellular operators body COAI has said the companies have given strict guidelines to accept these notes from customers but retailers and distributors cannot be forced.

COAI Director General Rajan Mathews said that operators have provided strict guidelines to their distributors and retailers for accepting and processing Rs 500 demonetised notes so that no inappropriate activity, contrary to the objectives of the government, takes place.

However, these retailers and distributors cannot be forced to do something they do not want to do, if they believe the process is tedious.

This is unfortunate for customers who wish to use these distributor and retailer points of sale and companies are disappointed with this companies can only encourage their distributors and retailers to follow the guidelines and assist customers who are facing difficulties obtaining currency from banks, Mathews said.

He said that company-owned points of sale are accepting these notes and hopefully this will help reduce some of these problems for customers.

Government allowed use of old Rs 500 for pre-paid recharges to a limit of Rs 500 per recharge till December 15 after telecom operators requested it that dealers and distributors should be permitted to accept withdrawn notes till adequate replacement currency is available for the daily needs of ordinary citizens.

However, retailers said that company distributors and agents are not accepting old Rs 500 notes from them even as they are accepting them from customers along with ID proofs for recharges.

None of the companies is accepting old notes from us. So we are unable to entertain any customer if he comes with old Rs 500 note, Jai Prakash, who runs mobile recharge shop in Nadesar area of Varanasi said.

Another retailer Nand Kumar Rai from Ghazipur said that telecom companies are accepting Rs 500 notes at their offices but not from retailers.

Collection agents are saying that they dont have time to fill up forms required for accepting Rs 500 notes. I am accepting every currency note number with ID card and mobile number details but agents are not ready for it, Vinay Popli, a retailer in Basti district of Uttar Pradesh, said.

Anjeev Thakur, who runs a mobile recharge shop at Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, said, Retailers here are accepting old Rs 500 notes along with valid IDs preferably for high value recharges due to shortage of change. Distributors are accepting new currency notes only, and we are depositing old notes in our own accounts.
The common man has to bear the brunt of Modi governments unplanned note ban drive says Sharad Pawar.

NCP President Sharad Pawar has criticised the manner in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had gone ahead with the demonetisation campaign which is causing huge inconvenience to the common man. Pawar himself visited a bank in Baramati, Pune and interacted with people who were standing in queue to deposit or withdraw their hard earned money. He said that the common man has to bear the brunt of Modi governments unplanned note ban drive. Pawar met bank officials to take stock of the situation and urged them to address the grievance of customers who are finding it difficult to withdraw their own money from bank. Pawar himself had faced problems to withdraw Rs 25,000 from his account. He had sent a demand draft to bank based near Parliament in New Delhi but bank officials allowed him to withdraw only Rs 10,000.

Taking a jibe at the Modi governments note ban issue Pawar said, Even though doctor had conducted the operation he failed to take care of the patient which may prove fatal. Our party supports the demonetisation drive but many political parties are opposing it. The government had taken the right decision but it failed to do its homework properly which is causing economic instability.

The nation is not yet ready for cash less economy and lot of work needs to be done before that, said Pawar.

He said, The Modi government has urged citizens to move towards cashless method of payment. However, 55 per cent of transactions still continue to be done through cash in an advanced economy like US and in India 92 per cent transactions are cash based.. Debit cards are widely used for buying movie tickets and for shopping at malls but people residing in rural areas are unaware about card payments. First the government will have to educate people living in villages about how to use debit cards.

The RBI has kept cooperative banks out of the demonetisation process and didnt allow them to exchange old currency. As a result of this, the rural economy has come to a standstill. Farmers are unable to withdraw money for purchasing seeds due to shortage of money. District cooperative banks require Rs 45 crores daily but they are receiving only Rs 50 lakhs, he added.

Pawar lauded the centres decision to impose a cap on withdrawing money from Jan Dhan Yojana accounts but liquidity crisis persists in the economy. He said, The number of trips made by trucks transporting foodgrains has reduced to 50 per cent. Transporters are unable to pay money to truck drivers as most of the transactions are being done in cash. Initially people had supported the demonetisation campaign in the interest of the nation but now their opinion has changed due to the hardships faced by them on account of currency shortage. The government must address this issue at the earliest.
In honor of Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

I am a forgotten Jew

My roots are nearly 2,600 years old, my ancestors made landmark contributions to world civilization, and my presence was felt from North Africa to the Fertile Crescent  but I barely exist today. You see, I am a Jew from the Arab world. No, thats not entirely accurate. Ive fallen into a semantic trap. I predated the Arab conquest in just about every country in which I lived. When Arab invaders conquered North Africa, for example, I had already been present there for more than six centuries.

Today, you cannot find a trace of me in most of this vast region.

Try seeking me out in Iraq.

Remember the Babylonian exile from ancient Judea, following the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE? Remember the vibrant Jewish community that emerged there and produced the Babylonian Talmud?

Do you know that in the ninth century, under Muslim rule, we Jews in Iraq were forced to wear a distinctive yellow patch on our clothing  a precursor of the infamous Nazi yellow badge  and faced other discriminatory measures? Or that in the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, we faced onerous taxes, the destruction of several synagogues, and severe repression?

And I wonder if you have ever heard of the Farhud, the breakdown of law and order, in Baghdad in June 1941. As an AJC specialist, George Gruen, reported:

In a spasm of uncontrolled violence, between 170 and 180 Jews were killed, more than 900 were wounded, and 14,500 Jews sustained material losses through the looting or destruction of their stores and homes. Although the government eventually restored order... Jews were squeezed out of government employment, limited in schools, and subjected to imprisonment, heavy fines, or sequestration of their property on the flimsiest of charges of being connected to either or both of the two banned movements. Indeed, Communism and Zionism were frequently equated in the statutes. In Iraq the mere receipt of a letter from a Jew in Palestine [pre-1948] was sufficient to bring about arrest and loss of property.

At our peak, we were 135,000 Jews in 1948, and we were a vitally important factor in virtually every aspect of Iraqi society. To illustrate our role, here is what the Encyclopedia Judaica wrote about Iraqi Jewry: During the 20th century, Jewish intellectuals, authors, and poets made an important contribution to the Arabic language and literature by writing books and numerous essays.

By 1950 other Iraqi Jews and I were faced with the revocation of citizenship, seizure of assets, and, most ominously, public hangings. A year earlier, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said had told the British ambassador in Amman of a plan to expel the entire Jewish community and place us at Jordans doorstep. The ambassador later recounted the episode in a memoir entitled From the Wings: Amman Memoirs, 1947-1951.

Miraculously, in 1951 about 100,000 of us got out, thanks to the extraordinary help of Israel, but with little more than the clothes on our backs. The Israelis dubbed the rescue Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.

Those of us who stayed lived in perpetual fear  fear of violence and more public hangings.

Those of us who stayed lived in perpetual fear  fear of violence and more public hangings, as occurred on January 27, 1969, when nine Jews were hanged in the center of Baghdad on trumped-up charges, while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis wildly cheered the executions. The rest of us got out one way or another, including friends of mine who found safety in Iran when it was ruled by the Shah.

Now there are no Jews left to speak of, nor are there monuments, museums, or other reminders of our presence on Iraqi soil for twenty-six centuries.

Do the textbooks used in Iraqi schools today refer to our one-time presence, to our positive contribution to the evolution of Iraqi society and culture? Not a chance. 2,600 years are erased, wiped out, as if they never happened. Can you put yourself in my shoes and feel the excruciating pain of loss and invisibility?

I am a forgotten Jew.

I was first settled in what is present-day Libya by the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy Lagos (323-282 BCE), according to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus. My forefathers and foremothers lived continuously on this soil for more than two millennia, our numbers bolstered by Berbers who converted to Judaism, Spanish and Portuguese Jews fleeing the Inquisition, and Italian Jews crossing the Mediterranean.

I was confronted with the anti-Jewish legislation of the occupying Italian Fascists. I endured the incarceration of 2,600 fellow Jews in an Axis-run camp in 1942. I survived the deportation of 200 fellow Jews to Italy the same year. I coped with forced labor in Libya during the war. I witnessed Muslim rioting in 1945 and 1948 that left nearly 150 Libyan Jews dead, hundreds injured, and thousands homeless.

I watched with uncertainty as Libya became an independent country in 1951. I wondered what would happen to those 6,000 of us still there, the remnant of the 39,000 Jews who had formed this once-proud community  that is, until the rioting sent people packing, many headed for the newly established State of Israel.

The good news was that there were constitutional protections for minority groups in the newly established Libyan nation. The bad news was that they were completely ignored.

Within ten years of my native countrys independence, I could not vote, hold public office, serve in the army, obtain a passport, purchase new property, acquire majority ownership in any new business, or participate in the supervision of our communitys affairs.

By June 1967 the die was cast. Those of us who had remained, hoping against hope that things would improve in a land to which we were deeply attached and which, at times, had been good to us, had no choice but to flee. The Six-Day War created an explosive atmosphere in the streets. Eighteen Jews were killed, and Jewish-owned homes and shops were burned to the ground.

I and 4,000 other Jews left however we could, most of us with no more than a suitcase and the equivalent of a few dollars.

I was never allowed to return. I never recovered the assets I had left behind in Libya, despite promises by the government. In effect, it was all stolen  the homes, furniture, shops, communal institutions, you name it. Still worse, I was never able to visit the grave sites of my relatives. That hurt especially deeply. In fact, I was told that, under Colonel Qaddhafi, who seized power in 1969, the Jewish cemeteries were bulldozed and the headstones used for road building.

I am a forgotten Jew.

My experience  the good and the bad  lives on in my memory, and Ill do my best to transmit it to my children and grandchildren, but how much can they absorb? How much can they identify with a culture that seems like a relic of a distant past that appears increasingly remote and intangible? True, a few books and articles on my history have been written, but  and here Im being generous  they are far from best-sellers.

In any case, can these books compete with the systematic attempt by Libyan leaders to expunge any trace of my presence over two millennia? Can these books compete with a world that paid virtually no attention to the end of my existence?

Take a look at The New York Times index for 1967, and youll see for yourself how the newspaper of record covered the tragic demise of an ancient community. I can save you the trouble of looking  just a few paltry lines were all the story got.

I am a forgotten Jew.

I am one of hundreds of thousands of Jews who once lived in countries like Iraq and Libya. All told, we numbered close to 900,000 in 1948. Today we are fewer than 5,000, mostly concentrated in two moderate countries  Morocco and Tunisia.

We were once vibrant communities in Aden, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and other nations, with roots dating back literally 2,000 years and more. Now we are next to none.

Why does no one speak of us and our story? Why does the world relentlessly, obsessively speak of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars in the Middle East  who, not unimportantly, were displaced by wars launched by their own Arab brethren  but totally ignore the Jewish refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars?

Why is the world left with the impression that theres only one refugee population from the Arab-Israeli conflict, or, more precisely, the Arab conflict with Israel, when, in fact, there are two refugee populations, and our numbers were somewhat larger than the Palestinians?

Ive spent many sleepless nights trying to understand this injustice.

Should I blame myself?

Perhaps we Jews from Arab countries accepted our fate too passively. Perhaps we failed to seize the opportunity to tell our story. Look at the Jews of Europe. They turned to articles, books, poems, plays, paintings, and film to recount their story. They depicted the periods of joy and the periods of tragedy, and they did it in a way that captured the imagination of many non-Jews. Perhaps I was too fatalistic, too shell-shocked, too uncertain of my artistic or literary talents.

The truth is, our story has pretty much fallen on deaf ears.

But that cant be the only reason for my unsought status as a forgotten Jew. Its not that I havent tried to make at least some noise; I have. Ive organized gatherings and petitions, arranged exhibitions, appealed to the United Nations, and met with officials from just about every Western government. But somehow it all seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts. No, thats still being too kind. The truth is, it has pretty much fallen on deaf ears.

You know that acronym  MEGO? It means My eyes glazed over. Thats the impression I often have when Ive tried raising the subject of the Jews from Arab lands with diplomats, elected officials, and journalists  their eyes glaze over (TEGO).

No, I shouldnt be blaming myself, though I could always be doing more for the sake of history and justice.

Theres actually a far more important explanatory factor.

We Jews from the Arab world picked up the pieces of our shattered lives after our hurried departures  in the wake of intimidation, violence, and discrimination  and moved on.

Most of us went to Israel, where we were welcomed. The years following our arrival werent always easy  we started at the bottom and had to work our way up. We came with varying levels of education and little in the way of tangible assets. But we had something more to sustain us through the difficult process of adjustment and acculturation: our immeasurable pride as Jews, our deeply rooted faith, our cherished rabbis and customs, and our commitment to Israels survival and well-being.

Some of us  somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of the total  chose to go elsewhere.

Jews from the French-speaking Arab countries gravitated toward France and Quebec. Jews from Libya created communities in Rome and Milan. Egyptian and Lebanese Jews were sprinkled throughout Europe and North America, and a few resettled in Brazil. Syrian Jews immigrated to the United States, especially New York, as well as to Mexico City and Panama City. And on it went.

Wherever we settled, we put our shoulder to the wheel and created new lives. We learned the local language if we didnt already know it, found jobs, sent our children to school, and, as soon as we could, built our own congregations to preserve the rites and rituals that were distinctive to our tradition.

I may be a forgotten Jew, but my voice will not remain silent.

I would never underestimate the difficulties or overlook those who, for reasons of age or ill health or poverty, couldnt make it, but, by and large, in a short time we have taken giant steps, whether in Israel or elsewhere.

I may be a forgotten Jew, but my voice will not remain silent. It cannot, for if it does, it becomes an accomplice to historical denial and revisionism.

I will speak out because I will not allow the Arab conflict with Israel to be defined unfairly through the prism of one refugee population only, the Palestinian.

I will speak out because what happened to me is now being done, with eerie familiarity, to another minority group in the region, the Christians and Yazidis, and once again I see the world averting its eyes, as if denial ever solved anything.

I will speak out because I refuse to be a forgotten Jew.
December 2, 2016

While controlling her marionette puppets from above, Rania Refaat not only entertains the public, but also helps to change her society for the better.

Originally a lawyer, Refaat combines law with art to explain Egyptian law and raise awareness of various issues, including human rights and women's rights. She uses marionettes as her tool by which she can express her own views.

Every artist has his ideas, and he searches for the best tools by which he can deliver these ideas. I chose puppets as my tool because they are popular and many people  of different ages  like them," Refaat told Al-Monitor.

The young artist said, "Young children love to watch the puppets and like the music in the play, while older people understand the deep meaning and receive the message Im delivering.

Puppetry is an ancient art that once was widely practiced in Egypt. The most famous puppet in Egypt is the aragouz (a wooden puppet with red clothes), which was used in street shows that tackled political or social issues in a comedic way. The Egyptian aragouz dates back several centuries. Many scholars argue that the contemporary Egyptian aragouz is the same as the Turkish karagoz shadow puppet play that was first introduced to Egypt with Sultan Selim I, the conqueror of Egypt, and of the Mamluks, who ruled Egypt in 1517. However, practicing the art of puppetry notably decreased and became less popular in Egypt in the 1970s-1990s due to a sharp decline in the number of skilled and experienced puppeteers.

With her mobile theater and a number of colorful marionettes, Refaat revives this dying art with a modern twist. She founded El Pergola Puppet Theater in 2011. Since then, she tours Egypt's streets and cities, mainly poor areas, to present different shows that feature current political and social problems.

I started El Pergola Puppet Theater after I became proficient with all the tools of a puppet theater like writing the plays, directing and even designing and making the puppets," she said.

El Pergola Puppet Theater is divided into three sections: social or political shows, which are about 50 minutes long and tackle current issues in a dramatic way; the legal shows, which explain Egyptian law in a simple way for the public; and the interactive theater, which allows people from poor areas to use puppets themselves and create their own show. Refaats shows are free, and she tries to produce about four shows every month in different places.

In the interactive theater, we make a workshop with residents of a poor area. The workshop includes writing, controlling puppets and acting, and we let the ordinary people perform their own play, which reflects their own problems. Like what we did in the settlement of garbage collectors [located in Manshiyat Naser, a slum in Cairo]. We let them create a puppet show titled Zabal Laken mn Haki [A Garbage Collector, But I Have Rights, too], explained the artist.

Refaats first show was titled Fatah Einak Takol Malban (colloquial Arabic that can be translated to Open Your Eyes to theTruth). It was performed in June 2011 at a bus stop in Shubra, one of Cairos districts, just a few months after the revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. The show was a political one celebrating the revolution but at the same time urging people to continue working on their targets.

My message through this performance was that after cutting the head of the snake or removing the president, we have to cut also the 'tail' or remove the regime. It was a comedy show and it gained great success, which pushed me to continue, she said.

Refaat said that she loves being a lawyer, but what is most important for her is that ordinary people understand the law that governs them.

Law should govern the nation, and because of this, we must understand it. We must understand what is the meaning of remand or pre-trial detention, what is the flagrante delicto [being caught in the act of a crime] and to also understand if it is legal for any policeman to ask a citizen any time to show his ID. We must be aware of all these because it really affects our security and makes people feel uncomfortable, she said.

Refaat cannot perform whenever or wherever she wants without prior permission from the government, which is not easily obtained.

Sometimes it is hard to get permission to perform in the street, especially when your shows are political or may criticize the government. I started to arrange with the people residing in different areas and we  me and my troupe  perform to them in backstreets," said the artist, whose troupe consists of 15 members who she trained.

Refaat said that she is not keen on getting a permit because she believes that arts should not be controlled by governments. However, sometimes if she is performing as part of big campaigns organized by initiatives like HarassMap (a volunteer-based initiative founded in late 2010), they get permission for her. According to Refaat, the government only asks about the topic in general but it doesnt require a copy of her transcript.

In her recent show titled Ana mosh Ayza Atgawez ("I Dont Want to Get Married"), which was performed in Cairo during the Children's Day celebrations on Nov. 20, Refaat discussed child marriage, a major issue in Egypt.

The play is set in what seems to be a village. A teenage girl cries after her father insists that she marry a 60-year-old man with an illegal contract because the girl is underage.

Egypt is an inspiring country for any artist, and there are many topics that Id like to raise awareness about through my art, like violence against women, corruption, the relation between people and the government, relation between people and the environment and even the way people raise their children, she said.

Refaat started El Pergola Puppet Theater as a self-funded project. Today, after many successful performances in different places, some international institutions began to support it.

"Our work is 80% voluntary. Only recently we succeeded in getting some grants from the British Council, Goethe Institute and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture," she said.

Last year, Refaat received the Sitat Award, which is an award for the most influential woman in Egypt given by the Cairo Center for Development.
December 4, 2016

Cengiz Candar writes, The fate of Aleppo has the potential to seal the fate of [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan's regime in Turkey. Too many of Erdogan's eggs are placed in the basket of northern Syrian geopolitics, and most of them are likely to crack.

In other words, Turkeys Syria policy, which since 2011 has facilitated the rise of jihadi groups allied with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaedas largest affiliate ever, may be on the brink of collapse, along with those remaining Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists in Aleppo who are holding the besieged citizens of the city hostage under brutal bombardment by the Syrian military and its allies.

On Dec. 1, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura again called for Jabhat al-Nusra fighters to leave the city, saying that their departure will contribute to avoiding bloodshed and increase our leverage on insisting for an urgent pause.

A series of quick victories by Syrian military and pro-government forces against Turkish-backed armed groups in Aleppo last week compelled Erdogan to declare on Nov. 29 that his countrys military had entered Syria to put an end to state terror and to [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assads rule, upsetting, for the moment, fragile negotiations over Aleppo, according to the Financial Times.

Erdogans outburst, which appeared to be a mix of frustration and fantasy, necessitated a call the following day with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which the Turkish president clarified his earlier remarks when he publicly declared that the target of the Turkish-led Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria was 'not a particular country or individual' but 'solely terrorist organizations,'" allowing the Aleppo talks to resume, as Amberin Zaman reports.

Fehim Tastekin explains that what makes Erdogans anger understandable is the reality that armed groups losing ground in Aleppo will retreat to the Turkish border. What these tens of thousands of heavily armed, combat-trained militants will be doing at the Turkish border is the most vital question of the scary scenario. Looking at the Syrian regimes game plan, this is what one sees: The Syrian army is facilitating the armed rebel groups to withdraw to the Turkish border by providing bus transport to carry the militants northward from areas they gave up.

Erdogan, anticipating the Syrian governments victory in Aleppo, had already backed off its support of armed groups there in return for acquiescence, especially by Russia, of Turkeys objectives in Operation Euphrates Shield, which was launched in August to defeat the Islamic State (IS), push the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) east of the Euphrates River and establish a safe zone on its border.

Turkey nonetheless continues to lose in Syria. Semih Idiz writes, Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) militias, Ankaras main proxy in Syria, have been unable to muster a serious attack against al-Bab. The situation grew militarily complicated for Turkey after its jets began striking YPG targets in the area  resulting in the United States withdrawing air support for FSA and Turkish forces  and after Russia and Syrian regime forces made serious headway against the FSA in Aleppo, to which al-Bab provides access.

Candar writes, With the impending fall of Aleppo, taking al-Bab seems more difficult than ever. Moreover, the Turkish military around al-Bab suffered casualties from an air attack, for the first time ever, presumably by the Syrian air force. Some claim that it might have come from Iranian drones. But many observers noted the attack coincided with the first anniversary of Turkey's downing a Russian jet, therefore giving way to speculation that the Russians are behind the Turkish casualties around al-Bab. Whatever the truth, Turkish military activity seems to be restricted in the area stretching from the eastern approaches of Aleppo to al-Bab, and from there farther east to Manbij and Raqqa.

Metin Gurcan adds that Erdogans plans may be further complicated by the abduction of two Turkish soldiers by IS fighters on Nov. 29.

Idlib is the likely next target of the Syrian offensive, which will deepen Turkeys Syrian quagmire. Tastekin adds, Local sources think it is very likely that Hezbollah and [Hezbollah al-] Nujaba will launch an offensive from the south while the Syrian army and its allied militias simultaneously mount a major operation from the north. That will be the onset of Turkeys nightmare scenario. Ankara will either hold on firmly to the de facto buffer zone it created from the Kilis border to north of al-Bab and turn the rural terrain around Idlib into a safe zone for its allied groups, or they will allow the Syrian army to reach the Turkish border. In both cases, the Turkish border will heat up and Turkey will also have to deal with the jihadi heritage that could spill over the border.

Idiz observes that Turkeys flailing Syria policy has put it at odds with both the United States and Russia. The bottom line, Idiz writes, is that Turkey not only faces IS and the YPG in Syria, but Russia and the United States as well. Given this, many argue that Erdogan is unaware of what he is up against as he tries to please his supporters with promises he will most likely not be able to keep.

Candar adds, When it comes to Syria, Erdogan might be more at the mercy of Russia than ever. Turkey's ambitious objectives to deprive Syrian Kurds of autonomy could equally depend on how Putin recalibrates his new relations with Erdogan, and on the Americans.

In a related development, the final version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, passed by Congress, will provide the Trump administration with the authority to provide man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) to Syrian armed groups, with restrictions, as Julian Pecquet reports. The weapons can only be provided if requested by the president, and even then they would only be provided subject to fairly restrictive technical and vetting conditions. The provision is a victory for US Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who had consistently argued for an increased militarization of the Syria war by backing armed groups opposed to Assad.
December 2, 2016

Citing security problems, economic challenges and other serious issues confronted by the region, Bahrains Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa recently announced that the transformation of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to a union is an inevitable goal of this months Manama Dialogue (Dec. 9-11).

In 2013, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain called for a union at that years summit in Manama. Yet Omans Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah said that Muscat would not support such plans. Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined Oman in not backing Riyadhs dream. With absolutely no illusions that Oman  historically the most independent member of the GCC  has changed its position, last month Ghanem al-Buainain, Bahrains minister of Parliament Affairs, stated that he sensed great enthusiasm for the union from the other Gulf members.

Yet is Buainain realistic in expecting Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE to support a union this month? Some skepticism is justified. Many non-Saudis in the GCC view Saudi Arabia as an important ally, yet they also see the oil-rich kingdom as an overbearing neighbor who does not always respect the smaller Arab Gulf states sovereignty. Due to a host of domestic issues in the GCC and regional developments, which the Arab Gulf families see through different lenses, Riyadh and Manama officials may see their plan for a union falling on deaf ears.

The argument that Saudi and Bahraini officials are making to their counterparts in the other Arab Gulf states is that the Middle Easts growing instability and exacerbated security crises have given all in the GCC reason to benefit from a more collective approach to fending off external threats. Yet to convince the Kuwaitis, Qataris and Emiratis that it is time for a union, these smaller monarchies rulers would need to calculate that compromising political liberalism, accepting less independence from Riyadh and giving up on plans to rival Saudi Arabia for regional influence are worth the benefits of tighter security cooperation.

Kuwait is the GCC state with the most vibrant political life and democratic institutions. Opposition to a union from Kuwait is largely attributable to concerns about collective security actions that Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states could pursue to silence dissent and activism in Kuwait. Last months snap elections in Kuwait will bring in parliamentarians to the National Assembly from an opposition made up of liberals and Islamists whom other GCC states would not permit to hold any position of power in their own political systems. As many Kuwaitis take pride in their half-democracy and relative transparency and openness, the concept of a union has met its share of resistance in the country from voices across its political spectrum.

Qatar, the worlds top liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, has the highest gross domestic product per capita in the GCC (and the world). The likelihood of a union redistributing wealth from the wealthier Arab Gulf states to the GCCs poorer areas is a key Qatari concern. Furthermore, over the years, Doha has established ties with Islamist factions throughout the region and hosted many Muslim Brotherhood members  often done so at the expense of healthy relations with other GCC states. If other Arab Gulf countries such as the UAE, which designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, and Qatar belong to a union, what will be the future of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and other prominent Islamist figures who live in Doha?

The UAE has also opposed plans for transforming the GCC into a union. Because Emiratis view themselves as a rival of Saudi Arabia for a dominant role in the regions financial landscape, Abu Dhabi would not lend its support to a Riyadh-based Gulf central bank. In the UAE, where the authorities are waging a crackdown on Islamists, there has long been a belief that the Muslim Brotherhood operates in the Emirates on behalf of Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the purpose of undermining the UAEs national sovereignty and independence.

The 800-pound gorilla is Iran. Omans interest in deepening ties with Iran in commercial, diplomatic, energy and security spheres is a major factor driving Omani opposition to a union, which would inevitably bear negative implications for the sultanates relationship with Tehran. For Kuwait and Qatar, which have relatively normal relations with Iran, their leaders have a different outlook on the Islamic Republic than Bahraini and Saudi officials. Given the Kuwaiti and Qatari royal families cordial relationship with their countries Shiites who are loyal to the Al Sabah (Kuwait) and Al Thani (Qatar) rulers, threats of an Iranian-inspired Shiite revolution or rebellion have not provoked substantial sectarian tension in Kuwait since the end of the first Gulf war, nor has it ever done so in Qatar at any point following Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinis rise to power in 1979. This outlook fundamentally contrasts with Saudi Arabias and Bahrains outlook, which is based on an understanding of Iran being a predatory state committed to toppling the Al Sauds and Al Khalifas through a violent revolution. Manama and Riyadhs shared view of the Islamic Republic as an existential threat has closely aligned the two kingdoms and led Bahrain to maintain its strong support for a de facto Saudi-led union.

To various extents, the smaller GCC members have taken stock of Irans rising influence in the Middle East and hedged their bets by maintaining their alliances with Riyadh and good standing in the council while also exploring a more normalized relationship with Tehran. Although none of these countries have gone as far as Oman in terms of looking to Iran as a seller of natural gas, the option of perhaps one day importing Iranian gas may receive greater consideration if they remain relatively independent from Saudi Arabia in the framework of a council (not union) and their economic ills increase their interest in importing more natural gas. Yet a union would erase any realistic Kuwaiti or Emirati plans for signing gas contracts with Iran.

Unquestionably, since 2013, new threats to GCC security have surfaced. The meteoric rise of the Islamic State, a more assertive Iran following the nuclear deals watershed passage and the war in Yemen have led more in the GCC to argue that if the Arab Gulf states become more unified, they could strengthen collective security. Furthermore, in light of Donald Trumps win, there are grave concerns in the GCC about the US long-term commitment as the councils security guarantor. Within this context, it seems likely that members of the GCC will seek stronger unity and cohesion in the face of regional threats and unknown variables surrounding the future of Washingtons foreign policy.

Yet the six GCC states different political landscapes, regional foreign policies and aspirations, a common concern about Saudi Arabias overbearing influence over the smaller Arab Gulf sheikhdoms and differing positions vis-a-vis Iran will undermine Riyadh and Manamas vision of a union in the immediate future. Nevertheless, even if the Saudis and Bahrainis fail to garner support in Kuwait City, Doha and Abu Dhabi for transformation of the council into a union, the argument for doing so is likely to remain popular among certain Arab Gulf voices given the Middle Easts set of security crises and Irans ascendancy.
December 2, 2016

BAGHDAD  Iraq faces many threats to its environment, not the least of which are apathy, a lack of education and a need for cooperation from other countries.

Iraq is in dire need of environmental awareness. Environmental education is absent among the Iraqi people, whose dangerous behaviors are majorly affecting the environment," Nader Abdallah, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Babylon, told Al-Monitor.

Iraqi environmentalist Ibrahim Ramzi also noted how the bad behavior of citizens and businesses adds to the problem of pollution. He referred Al-Monitor to an article he wrote in January in which he noted "the disastrous levels of pollution in Iraqs rivers, resulting from the deadly sewage flowing into the water and waste piling up on their banks.

Al-Monitor took a tour around the banks of Shatt al-Hilla in Babil province, only to find that the river had been turned into a landfill for household and industrial waste.

A lack of water is at the center of many of Iraq's problems. Iraqi Minister of Health and Environment Adila Hammoud headed a meeting Nov. 30 with a group of environmentalists and academics to address the serious dangers that threaten Iraqs marshes, which could lead to the death of their aquatic ecosystems.

Another effect of climate change is the drought of water bodies in southern Iraq, an area of over 16,000 square kilometers (6,177 square miles). The province of Basra, which had become known as the Venice of the Middle East, suffers from drought in its water channels.

Ahmed Abd, a biology professor at the University of Qadisiyah, told Al-Monitor that while drought contributes to the problem, as does global warming, there is only so much Iraq can do about either. The country signed the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015, pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% between 2020 and 2035, the equivalent of 90 million tons of carbon dioxide.

However, "The country does not have such a large number of industrial facilities or power plants, as is the case in industrialized countries, and the rates of fuel combustion in Iraq are much less than those of said countries, he said.

Still, Abd added, "Iraq needs to focus on reducing the high temperatures, because of the drought that hit many regions, and it should demand foreign countries to pressure Turkey and Syria into amending their unfair policies toward Iraqs water.

The policies Abd is referring to are the dozens of dams set up by Turkey on the Euphrates River and its tributaries, which led to a clear water scarcity in the river, threatening agriculture as well as fisheries, and resulted in an Iraqi water deficit of about 23 billion cubic meters (6 trillion gallons) annually. In addition, Syria has established dams on the Euphrates River, reducing Iraqs share of the water.

Amer Habib, a professor and researcher in agricultural sciences working for the Ministry of Agriculture, spoke with Al-Monitor about another serious problem: silt and sediment buildup in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and their main tributaries. Habib said a lack of regular dredging has also increased the sediment in Shatt al-Arab (River of the Arabs) in southern Iraq, formed by the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Habib also pointed to a deadly, but less-often-cited, environmental danger. The most important climate change factors in Iraq are the wars, which Iraq should address at climate conferences and urge the countries that took part in those wars, particularly the United States and United Kingdom, to help Iraq in terms of experience and techniques, and even financially, to save it from the devastating environmental effects caused by military vehicles, battles and the remnants of destructive weapons.

A British inquiry revealed by The Guardian on Aug. 22, 2015, corroborates Habibs point of view, noting that some of the climatic change taking place in Iraq has been caused by more than three decades of war, starting with the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the war to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Siham Moussa, a member of the Health Committee in the Iraqi parliament, encouraged educational events that stress the importance of a clean environment, such as one held April 24 in Baghdad by the Green Climate Organization.

Iraq's participation in the climate conferences in Paris and Marrakech allows us to learn from the experiences of developed countries with environment-friendly economic and industrial systems, she said. "Oil refineries, power and telephones towers, as well as industrial waste and the remnants of war are all negative factors that contribute to climate change in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Iraq's government and citizens seem barely concerned with climate change. This makes it imperative for the government to include the cost for climate change solutions in government spending, particularly since it has not made financial allocations in its budgets to solve environmental issues since 2003.
December 1, 2016

Cairo greeted Donald Trumps election relatively positively, mainly as a reaction to President Barack Obamas criticism against Egypts alleged human rights violations, the Iran deal and to Cairos perceived US weakness on battling Islamic fundamentalist terror.

A senior Egyptian Foreign Ministry official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the Egyptian ambassador to Washington is in contact with president-elect Donald Trump. The official said, The content of our messages to the new administration is that Egypt looks to improve relations with Washington in regard to the fight against the Islamic State and to increased security assistance to Egypt. The official added that Cairo made clear to Trumps team the importance of the Palestinian issue and the necessity of strengthening Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on account of Hamas.

Yet in this context, one sole condition was discreetly raised by the Egyptians: Cairo cannot commit to an improved relationship if the US Embassy to Israel is moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Given the sentiments in Egyptian public opinion toward the Palestinians and the city, which is holy to Islam, Cairo considers this issue as a red line.

The Palestinian Authority leadership is even more alarmed by this eventuality. A senior PLO official talking to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity said that in view of Trumps unpredictability, such a move cannot be ruled out. He argued that there are influential people within the president-elects entourage who espouse extremely right-wing views on Israel, on the settlements and on Jerusalem, and that these people could advance such a decision.

The official explained that for the Palestinians, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem is a casus belli (a provocation of war), thus they are planning a series of measures in case this will indeed take place. Ramallah is coordinating these measures with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the Arab League. The official cited five measures: abolishing of the Oslo Accord (and all elements of security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians); severing diplomatic relations between Egypt and Israel and also between Jordan and Israel; canceling the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as a relevant document; calling upon the international community to sever diplomatic ties with Israel; and planning an armed Al-Quds intifada.

Trump promised in his speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in March to move the embassy to Jerusalem, yet he was by no means the first presidential candidate to make such a campaign promise. Nevertheless, it could be argued that past promises of this kind were considered to be hollow promises, and even Jerusalem didnt really expect these promises to be fulfilled. This may be the case this time as well, yet Trumps erratic behavior and temperament could bring about surprises, with unconventional diplomatic moves. Anything between an effort to broker a two-state solution process and a move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem could be in the cards.

A senior adviser to Trumps foreign policy team, who has spent many years in the Middle East, told Al-Monitor that Trump has not decided yet how to deal concretely with the Israeli-Palestinian issue, adding that the president-elect is well-aware of the importance accorded by the media and the public to this. On the embassy issue, he said, most opinions within the transition team do not consider such a move to be politically and diplomatically wise. Yet there are strong pro-Israeli voices in Trumps entourage who favor a dramatic and historic move of the embassy by the new president, thus clearly recognizing Jerusalem as Israels eternal capital. One such voice is former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee (rumored to be Trumps pick for ambassador to Israel). According to this adviser, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has already communicated with president-elect Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner on the issue.

The adviser said that the somewhat cold opinions within the team on the issue have sparked another idea, of moving just one department of the US Embassy (perhaps the media department) from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Be that as it may, it is clear that such a move would create havoc in the Arab world.

A senior Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Netanyahu naturally favors such a move and will definitely emphasize the centrality of a united Jerusalem as Israels eternal capital to Trump at their first meeting in the White House in the months to come. Yet according to the senior official, the embassy issue is not the primary topic on Netanyahus list for his first official encounter with the new US president. Netanyahus main concern, to be expressed at that meeting, is Israels wish to continue its settlement construction in the West Bank, mainly within the settlement blocs, and including in the Jerusalem area.

Construction in the Jerusalem area is highly important to Netanyahu, as it could block any eventuality of a future shared capital. Thus, with or without the issue of relocating the US Embassy, the Jerusalem topic will be on the presidents agenda sooner rather than later.
December 2, 2016

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  Egypt is trying to break the deadlock over the Fatah and Hamas reconciliation. Daoud Shihab, the spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, told Felesteen newspaper Nov. 22 that during a Nov. 14 meeting in Cairo with a senior Islamic Jihad delegation headed by the movements Secretary-General Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, Egypt expressed its readiness to host a Palestinian national comprehensive dialogue to discuss the possibility of achieving reconciliation based on the initiative put forward by Shalah Oct. 21. According to Shihab, Egypt has yet to set the date of the dialogue.

The Egyptian desire to revive Palestinian reconciliation raised important questions on the Palestinian street. Chief among these are the following: Why is Egypt insisting on its sponsorship of the reconciliation? Following the failure of all previous agreements, most recently the Beach Refugee Camp Agreement in April 2014, why is a new dialogue being considered between Fatah and Hamas? Does Egypt really have the key to solving the reconciliation obstacles?

It should be noted that Qatar previously tried to revive the reconciliation process by hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Oct. 28 and having him meet with the head of Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, and his deputy, Ismail Haniyeh, to start a new dialogue about reconciliation. However, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper Nov. 16 that this dialogue, which only lasted for one day, stopped due to Abbas insistence on certain conditions.

Abu Marzouk said, There are four points that Abu Mazen [Abbas] wants to achieve through reconciliation: First, a national unity government that abides by the PLO, and this was not agreed upon by Hamas and Fatah at any step of the way and is, in fact, the essence of the problem. Second, Abbas refuses to convene the Palestinian Legislative Council and wants immediate legislative and presidential elections to be held. Third, he did not mention elections at the Palestinian National Council level, and this is contrary to what we agreed upon under the Beach Refugee Camp Agreement in April 2014. Fourth, Abbas did not mention the PLOs Temporary Leadership Framework. Thus, all efforts to achieve reconciliation have stopped.

He added, There is no longer room for any meeting unless Fatah changes its position and returns to discussing what was previously agreed upon.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qasem stressed that his movement is completely in line with Egypts desire of having the Palestinians address their issues and achieve reconciliation, but he told Al-Monitor, No new meeting should take the form of bilateral dialogues between Hamas and Fatah, and all the Palestinian factions should take part in such meetings.

Qasem added, Bilateral dialogues are no longer viable because Fatah always ends up dictating new conditions that do not go in line with the previous reconciliation agreements. Therefore, we want new meetings to be held with the participation of all of the Palestinian factions so that these can witness the achieved results and see for themselves which party is seeking to sabotage the reconciliation.

He explained that in order for any future dialogue to succeed, it must be based on important foundations and principles, including the commitment of all parties to implement the reconciliation agreement and refrain from imposing on any party any additional conditions that do not go in line with this agreement.

For his part, Amin Maqboul, the secretary-general of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, stressed that his movement welcomes the return of the Egyptian efforts to end the Palestinian division. He told Al-Monitor, We hope that this time around there will be a clear vision of reconciliation. We must not start a dialogue for the sake of dialogues. We have to implement what has been previously agreed upon.

It should be noted that Hamas and Fatah concluded several agreements to put an end to the Palestinian division. Chief among these are the Cairo Agreement in 2011, the Doha Agreement in 2012 and the Beach Refugee Camp Agreement in 2014. However, major differences prevented the implementation of these agreements. These include Hamas not handing over the Gaza crossings management to the Palestinian Authority (PA), the consensus government refusing to pay the salaries of Gaza employees and Abbas failing to set a date for the establishment of a Temporary Leadership Framework for the PLO.

Maqboul noted that Egypts deteriorating role over the past months as far as reconciliation is concerned was the result of the deteriorating relations between Egypt and Hamas, given the latters ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Add to this Hamas procrastination in implementing the reconciliation agreement, especially in relation to handing over the Gaza crossings to the PA and enabling the consensus government to rule over the Gaza Strip.

Egypt is the Arab country most worthy of sponsoring the Palestinian reconciliation given its historical and geographical links to the Palestinian territories. Therefore, we are committed to Egypts sponsorship of this reconciliation, Maqboul said.

Writer and political analyst Mustafa Sawaf told Al-Monitor that Egypts efforts to revive reconciliation come in the context of attempts to restore the Egyptian regional and international role, which cannot be achieved without the Palestinian card.

The Palestinian cause needs an international solution. Therefore, Egypt is trying to have a role in this solution by taking over the issue of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah and proving that it is a heavyweight state in the world. This is why it is showing its willingness to bring together the Palestinian parties to carry out this reconciliation, Sawaf said.

He said that there should be no competition between Egypt and Qatar over the acquisition of this role. I do not think that Qatar is seeking to acquire the Egyptian role as far as reconciliation is concerned. Qatars role is to help overcome the obstacles, but in order for Egypt to succeed in achieving reconciliation, it should be standing at the same distance from all parties.

Political analyst Adel Samara said that to ensure the success of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, Egypt must be able to solve all the problems related to reconciliation, including the financial problems, such as Gazas salaries problem. However, he said that Egypt would not be able to overcome all of these problems.

This is why Qatar could play an important role of assistance, especially in providing solutions to the financial problems. I think that as long as this problem remains unresolved, Hamas would keep ruling Gaza and would not hand over the crossings to the PA.

He pointed out that Qatar is able to solve this problem, especially considering that it took the initiative to pay the Gaza employees salaries for the month of July in the framework of its economic and development projects in Gaza.

Yet Samara said that Egypt is greatly interested in having a role in the Palestinian issue, especially as far as the Gaza Strip is concerned. This has been made clear with Egypts opening up to Gaza through invitations extended to Gaza to visit the Egyptian territory and participate, for example, in the Ain Sokhna 2 Conference, which was held in Egypt Nov. 7-9 and which called for the need to strengthen and develop relations between Egypt and Gaza.

Palestinians hope that Egypts openness to Gaza would reap serious and real steps that would put an end to the Palestinian division and arrange the Palestinian internal problems so that they can devote themselves to facing the ongoing Israeli occupation.
December 2, 2016

A fire at a private all-girls dormitory in the Aladag district in the southern province of Adana broke out on Nov. 29. Twelve people, including the 4-year-old daughter of the dorm manager, 10 female students, the oldest of whom was 13 years old, and a 20-year-old female educator were killed. There are 24 wounded students, mostly from jumping out of the windows to escape the fire and smoke.

An obsolete electrical fuse panel and a fault in the old electricity switches were cited as causes of the fire in a preliminary report prepared by the Aladag attorney generals office. The fire spread quickly from the lower to upper floors, ultimately resulting in the wood roof collapsing. The carpet in the dorm was made out of a material that is derived from petroleum, adding to the speed in which the fire spread. Moreover, the buildings fire exit was made of plastic and did not have handles. There is a dispute over whether the fire escape door was locked. Adana Mayor Huseyin Sozlu said the doors were locked, but Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak, who along with several other ministers and officials visited the site, quoted the prosecutors initial examinations and stated there was no lock on the fire escape door.

Our firefighters are experts in this job. Students went to upper floors toward the fire escape doors, but they couldnt open them, Sozlu said. This could be either because the doors were locked or the plastic door handles melted. Four bodies were found in one room and eight bodies in the second room of the upper floor. Firefighter Unit Department head Fatih Durukan shared with Haberturk heartbreaking news that the girls stuck in the fire were in the middle of each room and waited their painful deaths while holding each others hands.

Numerous irregularities about the tragedy have been revealed. First, children younger than 15 years are not supposed to stay in private dorms, except in cases of sanctioned protection. So the students were staying in the dorm against the law. The Education Ministry authorized the dormitory after an inspection was conducted in June, and Minister of Education Ismet Yilmaz stated there were no problems and that lessons will be learned from this event. Yet questions remain over the accuracy of the report.

Sadly, the families of the victims, a majority of them poor and jobless, had no other choice but to place their daughters in the dorm. Elif Dogan Turkmen, a Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy, blamed the ruling Justice and Development Partys (AKP) education policies, pointing to the closing of village schools. Education Trade Union Chair Mehmet Balik explained that the state dorm in town was demolished for expansion, forcing the girls to go to private dorms owned and funded by specific religious communities. Mehmet Karatas, the father of one of the victims, confirmed that his daughter, who was in fifth grade, was staying in the dorm for free and that no one responded to parents demands to the mayors office for free transportation service so the kids could come home. This was the only dorm. We had no chance to criticize. We had no choice.

The dorm fire spurred debates about dorms founded and funded by specific religious communities. The problem with such residences is that they are often built according to questionable standards and offer religious education, the content of which the state is unfamiliar with, so students get indoctrinated according to particular beliefs. This issue is hard to understand without understanding the power of religious communities over local politicians, wrote Ibrahim Kiras, Karar dailys columnist.

The dorm that caught fire belongs to the Aid Association to Students owned by the religious group known as Suleymancilar. They are followers of Islamic scholar Suleyman Hilmi Tunahan, who died in the mid-20th century and was a Sufi master in the tradition of the Naqshbandi order. Today, Suleymancilar are known for dorms in which they offer religious education, though students in their residences usually attend state schools. There are around 100 similar dorms in Adana, 80 of which belong to the same group, according to Sozlu. But no clear information exists about the number of existing dorms that pertain to a specific community elsewhere in the country.

The now notorious Gulenist religious community, the ones blamed for the failed military coup on July 15, was known for its vast number of dorms  close to 150 of which were closed in the last few months. So now the state has taken it upon itself to deal with the problem of dorms or to build new ones to be put under its control. The question that remains, according to Kiras, is the functioning of these religious groups as business holdings, especially as owners of banks, companies or dorms. It should be expected that religious communities deal with their designated services and leave school and dorm management to state or adequate civil societies. Some columnists like Ozlem Albayrak disagree, saying even if these dorms were closed, nothing would change as religious communities would operate more secretly. Additionally, she claimed, in a democracy, every family has the right to raise their children as they see fit, including through religious communities of their choice. As it is impossible to close religious dorms, inspections by the state are the solution, Albayrak argued.

Notwithstanding, systemic problems in Turkey are obvious, as dormitory fires are not uncommon in Turkey. In 2008, a gas leak caused an explosion in a religious preparatory school in Konya city in central Anatolia, where 17 girls and one educator died and 29 were wounded. No family complained, and the court case has continued for eight years. The dormitory manager and several officials were charged, but the case is still ongoing. Additionally, on Nov. 30, 2015, six students were killed in a fire in a Quran course in Diyarbakir. After the latest fire in Aladag, dozens of students from different dorms in other parts of the country posted photos of fire escape doors from their residences, signaling widespread irregularities.

While the fire at the Aladag dorm brought reactions of lament and condemnation from all sides of Turkey, unfortunately the political bickering soon replaced solidarity. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, Where there are humans, there must be mistakes.  We havent developed a machine that can stop human mistakes. He announced that a commission to investigate the Aladag fire would be formed in parliament, jointly set up by the AKP, CHP, Peoples' Democratic Party and Nationalist Action Party deputies. Meanwhile, Fatma Barbarosoglu, a columnist from the pro-government Yeni Safak daily, rightly summarized the situation in Turkey: Secularists register deaths, negligence and lack of inspection only to the side of religious conservatives, while they develop a defensive reflex for incoming questions rather than reckon with their conscience.

Similar tragedies in Turkey will continue until the mindset that causes them changes. It is the mindset that believes that fire escape doors need to be shut for safety reasons so the girls cant escape or boys cant come in. It is also the wrong fatalist religiosity, which assumes that accidental deaths are part of ones destiny or that tolerance of irregularities wouldnt result in a calamity. The only way forward, as Barbarosoglu explained, is a culture of justice, meritocracy and awareness of responsibility.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Firefighters struggled to get to bodies in the rubble Saturday after a fire tore through a converted Oakland warehouse during a late-night electronic music party, killing at least 9 people and making the charred structure unsafe for emergency crews to enter. Officials said at least two dozen more were missing in the rubble of the building.



Officials described the scene inside the warehouse, which had been illegally converted into artist studios, as a death trap that made it impossible for many partygoers to escape the Friday night fire. And a day later, the maze of debris and devastation was complicating efforts to extract the bodies.



"It was just a labyrinth of little areas. We knew people were in there, and we were trying to get them out. But it was just a labyrinth," Oakland deputy fire chief Mark Hoffmann told reporters Saturday afternoon.



He said that firefighters had to stop their search and rescue operation Saturday afternoon for safety reasons and shore up the structure, but they expected to resume later in the day. The building's roof had collapsed into the second floor, which in places fell to the bottom floor.



Oakland officials said they had opened an investigation just last month into the warehouse after numerous complaints filed by neighbors who said trash was piling up outside the property and people were illegally living in the building, which was zoned as a warehouse.



Darin Ranelletti, of the Oakland Planning Department, said the city opened an investigation Nov. 13 and an investigator went to the premises on Nov. 17 but could not get inside the building. The city has not confirmed people were living inside.

So that's what this was pic.twitter.com/KGLNYCIHS3  Tomasz Finc (@flyingclimber) December 3, 2016

One survivor, however, said that 18 artists lived inside the warehouse.



Bob Mule said he was one of the artists living in the collective space. He told KGO-TV that he and another person smelled smoke and spotted the fire in a back corner and started yelling.



"The fire went up really, really, really quickly," he said.



Mule said he tried to help someone who had an injured ankle but couldn't. "There was a lot of stuff in the way, the flames were too much," Mule said, trailing off. "I hope, I hope he's OK."



Online records listed the building's owner as Nar Siu Chor. The Associated Press could not locate a telephone number for her Saturday and efforts to reach her at other Oakland addresses associated with her were not successful.



The warehouse was known as the "Oakland Ghost Ship." Its website showed pictures of a bohemian, loft-like interior made of wood and cluttered with rugs, old sofas and a garage-sale like collection of pianos, paintings, turntables, statues and other items.



The website included advertisements for various electronic music parties. Friday night's event featured musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour. A message on the group's website said "Joel is safe but like many people he is heartbroken."



It's unclear what sparked the fire. But officials said the clutter served as a tinderbox and there were no sprinklers inside.



"Something as simple as a cigarette could have started this," Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly said, adding that people either escaped from the building or died inside, where the only way down from the second story was via a stairwell constructed entirely of wooden pallets. "It appears that either you got out or you got trapped inside."



By nightfall Saturday, rescue crews had recovered nine bodies from the building and said about two dozen were still unaccounted for. None of the nine dead have been identified.



About 50 to 100 people were believed to have been at the party when the fire started around 11:30 p.m. Friday, officials said.

Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said at least 25 people were unaccounted for. The victims were believed to be people in their 20s, Kelly said. He said as many as 40 may have perished and that the coroner is preparing for a "mass casualty event" that could include victims from other countries.



Searchers brought in cranes and heavy equipment to search through the night.



"We know there are bodies in there that we can't get to -- that have been seen but not recovered," Kelly said. "There's bodies that are trapped in there, that need to be cut from the wreckage."



Monica Kat, a paralegal, feared four of her friends perished in the fire.



"I texted one of my friends immediately and you know, people were checking in on Facebook, we were all checking in looking for them and they're still not accounted for and I can only think the worst at this point," she said.



Panicked friends and family posted messages on the group's Facebook page trying to find out if their loved ones were among the dead. Those searching for the missing were sent to a local sheriff's office, where Dan Vega was anxiously awaiting news. He had been unable to find his younger brother or his brother's girlfriend.



Vega said he was not sure if the two were at the party Friday night but that his brother likes to go to raves and he had not been able to reach him Saturday. His girlfriend's car was still parked at a transit station in San Bruno, south of San Francisco.



Fighting tears, Dan Vega said he's frustrated authorities hadn't been able to tell him anything about his 22-year-old brother.



"I just want to go over there. I have my work boots on. I'm ready to go," Dan Vega said. "Just give me some gloves. I'll help out any way, shape or form, I don't care. This is infuriating. I don't know where my brother's at. I just want to find him."



Oakland police urged those concerned about missing people to call the Alameda County Sheriff's Coroner's Bureau at 510-382-3000.
ATLANTA -- A judge is set to sentence a Georgia man Monday after a jury last month found that he intentionally left his toddler son in a hot SUV to die.

A jury convicted Justin Ross Harris, 36, in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper.

Police were suspicious from the start and took Harris into custody in the strip mall parking lot where he had pulled over and removed his son's lifeless body from the SUV. Harris' defense attorneys argued that he was a loving father and that while he was responsible for the boy's death, it was a tragic accident.

Harris' defense team vowed after the trial to appeal the verdict and to seek a new trial.

Here are some things to know before his sentencing:

THE DEATH

Cooper died after sitting for about seven hours in the back seat of his father's vehicle outside the office where Harris worked in suburban Atlanta on a day when temperatures reached at least into the high 80s.

Harris said he forgot to drop his son off at day care that morning, driving straight to his job as a web developer for Home Depot, not remembering that Cooper was still in his car seat.

Investigators found evidence that Harris was engaging in online flirting and in-person affairs with numerous women other than his wife, including a prostitute and an underage teenager. They concluded that Harris intentionally killed his son to escape the responsibilities of family life.

Harris had moved from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Georgia for work in 2012.

THE TRIAL

Harris' case received an enormous amount of media attention from the very beginning. The Atlanta media market was saturated with coverage, and it also made national headlines and was fodder for online discussions and cable news shows.

After determining during nearly three weeks of jury selection in April that pretrial publicity had made it too difficult to find a fair jury in Cobb County, where the boy died, Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark granted a defense request to relocate the trial.

A jury in Glynn County, located on the Georgia coast about 60 miles south of Savannah, spent about a month listening to evidence in the case and deliberated for four days before finding him guilty last month of all eight counts against him. In addition to malice murder and felony murder charges, Harris also was found guilty of sending sexual text messages to a teenage girl and sending her nude photos.

LIFE WITH OR WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE

Jurors found Harris guilty of malice murder, which means they believed not only that he should be held criminally responsible for his son's death, but that he left the young boy to die on purpose. Malice murder carries a sentence of life in prison, which means the main question at sentencing will be whether or not he will ever have the opportunity to seek parole.

THE SENTENCING

Staley Clark, the judge, is alone responsible for determining Harris' sentence at a hearing Monday in Cobb County. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will both be given the opportunity to present evidence at the hearing. Harris, who did not testify at trial, will also be given the chance to address the judge.
Tabatha McDaniel

Tabatha McDaniel, Matthew Weston Carden, and Alex Maurice Brown are charged with murder in the Jan. 6, 2015 slaying of Beverly Carole Doran.

A woman who pleaded guilty to killing a Tarrant woman in 2015 was sentenced last week to life in prison.

Tabatha McDaniel, 39, was sentenced on November 29 to spend the rest of her life in a state prison by Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd.

Two other men were also charged with murder in the death of 48-year-old Beverly Carole Doran.

Alex Maurice Brown, 27, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in September after pleading guilty. According to Deputy District Attorney Joe Roberts, Brown was present at the scene, but "did not injure the victim like McDaniel and Carden."

Earlier this year defense attorney Scott Brower, who is representing Matthew Weston Carden, said Todd granted the defense motion to suppress Carden's statement (to police). "The state informed the court that suppression of his statement was a fatal blow to their prosecution," he continued.

Roberts said while the confession was suppressed, the prosecution intends to try and prosecute the case without his statement.

Carden had fled to Gulf Shores in April after lawmen said he cut off his electronic monitoring device. He was arrested in June at Gulf State Park campground.

His trial has been set for March 6, 2017.

Doran was stabbed to death in her home over a drug debt. Her common-law husband returned home in the early-morning hours of Jan. 6, 2015 after being out of town, and discovered his wife's body on the floor of their Birmingham Street home. Police said he was covered in blood from hugging Doran's body.

The killing was "brutal," Tarrant police Chief Dennis Reno said. He described McDaniel as a drug dealer, and Brown and Carden as her henchmen. Carden was allegedly McDaniel's boyfriend at the time of the slaying.

The trio fled to a north Birmingham apartment after the killing, Reno said, where they disposed of their clothing. Weapons and drugs were also found at that apartment.

At the time of the shooting, police said Doran was killed over a drug debt. According to court records, McDaniel later told detectives that she was raped in December, 2014, by her ex-husband and another man at Doran's home. In January, McDaniel returned to Doran's home "looking for answers" about the alleged rape. McDaniel claimed Doran was present during the rape, but never offered McDaniel help or tried to stop the two men.

Records state when Doran told McDaniel that she was not home at the time of the rape, McDaniel shot Doran. Carden then stabbed the victim in her back and slit her throat multiple times, court records show.
APTOPIX Oil Pipeline

A group of veterans attend a briefing at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D., Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

(David Goldman)

A showdown looms as thousands of veterans from around the country head to North Dakota to be shield Dakota Access Pipeline protesters from police.

The plan by an unarmed citizens' militia, called Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, coincides with North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple's order to evacuate a protesters' camp near the pipeline construction site in Cannon Ball, N.D., south of Bismarck.

Marine Corps veteran Allan Newman, of Crestone, Colo., enters his tent at a camp for veterans within the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D., Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which leases the lands for grazing, has also ordered the camp closed to all public access as of Monday. Both said the threat of approaching winter weather to public safety required their action.

The Corps of Engineers has said it won't forcibly roust the camp, which has grown to an estimated 10,000 people. However, if campers stay, it is at their own risk, officials said. Temperatures can fall to the single digits during the day and below zero at night in winter. Snow and strong winds also arrived this past week.

Emergency services to the camp will not be guaranteed under the Dalrymple's evacuation unless approved case by case by the state Highway Patrol or the Morton County sheriff.

Protesters say they will and about 2,000 veterans are expected to arrive Sunday to join the fight by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its allies against the pipeline.

The $3.8 billion oil pipeline through four states is finished except for the last portion, where it would cross under the Missouri River, less than a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Developer Energy Transfer Partners of Houston has yet to obtain the easement it needs from the Corps of Engineers to cross under the river and finish the project.

A fight over the easement is tied up in federal court, and the company has said in federal court documents that it can't finish the project on schedule by Jan. 1 as it promised in long-term contracts to shippers. The company says it is losing about $2.7 million a day as the project is delayed, and its shippers may cancel their contracts.

No construction or drilling work has begun on either side of the river, said Gary Sanders, the sheriff of Emmons County, across the river from the protest camp. The only people on site at the drilling pads are security personnel, as Energy Transfer Partners waits for the easement to allow drilling under the river, Sanders said. "It's a waiting game."

In a Facebook post, the veterans group outlined one possible tactic: to walk in an unbroken line shoulder to shoulder through police to reach the drill pad for the pipeline's crossing under the river, and encircle it.

Some fear more violence as confrontations have escalated, most recently Nov. 20 when police clashed with demonstrators, sending 26 people to the hospital.

"I have always considered the police to be friends, but to be on the front lines that Sunday night was the closest I have ever been to war," said Victory Lonnquist of Seattle, who has been working as a volunteer medic at Standing Rock since summer.

About 300 people were treated for chemical contamination and hypothermia after being tear-gassed, hit with pepper spray and rubber bullets, and sprayed with fire hoses in freezing weather.

Lonnquist said she fears worse to come.

"I am worried someone's going to die," Lonnquist said. "I wouldn't have said that two weeks ago. But being on that bridge and watching them purposely give us hypothermia not once but for six hours, I would grab a patient by the jacket and just crunch through a sheet of ice. ... It scares me, what could come."

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock will take its direction from tribal elders, said Marshal Hunter of Seattle, who coordinated veterans leaving for North Dakota. "We are there to be peaceful, and there to be nonviolent," Hunter said.

Police have said demonstrators have been "aggressive," "militant," broken the law by trespassing, vandalism, arson and thrown rocks, and damaged a bridge when they burned vehicles.

"I think most people would agree with the ideology of trying to protect the water," said Sanders, the sheriff. "But trying to enforce your ideology with committing acts of crime, trespassing, arson, vandalism is not acceptable. There is not an issue with peaceful protest. Because someone doesn't agree with your ideology, it doesn't give you the right to commit crimes."

But Hunter said the show of force against demonstrators is way out of line.

"It's morally wrong and a terrible repetition of things that have happened in the past to Native Americans by people under the color of government," he said.

Veterans participating are instructed to bring no weapons or ammunition and to remain nonviolent no matter what happens.

The Morton County Sheriff's Office won't discuss its tactics or the equipment it intends to deploy if there is a clash. In the past, it has called in reinforcements from Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming in addition to cities and counties throughout North Dakota to defend the pipeline project.

The state borrowed $7 million this past for policing demonstrations against the pipeline, on top of the $10 million it has already spent.

However, the county sheriff is unlikely to use any more officers from outside the state, according to Cecily Fong in the Sheriff's Department, in part because of "political pushback in some of the states that have provided law enforcement," she wrote in an email to The Seattle Times.

This report was written by The Seattle Times writer Lynda V. Mapes.
Reality of Immigration In Alabama Jail

A prisoner looks out over the common area in an Alabama jail. Jails and prisons now hold more people receiving psychiatric treatment than state hospitals. (Eric Schultz / eschultz@al.com)

(Eric Schultz)

St. Clair Correctional Facility inmate Joshua Dunn slashed his arm with a razor in August 2013 after his call for mental health went unanswered.

Dunn, who said he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, said he was in crisis. It was the first time he cut himself, but not the last.

Dunn cut himself five more times to obtain mental health treatment he couldn't get by asking, according to the inmate's declaration - filed as part of a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections and its mental health provider, MHM Services, Inc.

On Monday, a non-jury trial will begin in a lawsuit alleging inadequate mental health care in the state prison system - and it could last for almost two months. The outcome of the trial could affect not just 25,000 inmates in Alabama, but also those across the country, housed in prisons that are absorbing an increasing number of people with schizophrenia and other illnesses. More people with serious mental illness receive treatment in U.S. prisons and jails than state psychiatric hospitals, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center.

In Alabama, the number of prisoners on the mental health caseload has increased even as the overall number of inmates declined last year. Still, the number of inmates on the mental health caseload is far below estimates of mental illness occurring in the state's prisons, according to the lawsuit.

Officials from the Alabama Department of Corrections and MHM Services, Inc. declined to comment. In a response to the complaint, attorneys for the state have denied the allegations.

The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Corrections has not funded an adequate number of psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses - and often relies on unlicensed mental health workers to provide care. As a result, inmates receive little more than prescription drugs.

Although Dunn is one of the lead plaintiffs, attorneys said the case is not about whether any particular inmate received decent treatment.

"What the prison system has to do is maintain an adequate system for anyone who needs it," said Lisa Borden, an attorney for the firm Baker Donelson who is working on behalf of the inmates. "The state needs qualified mental health professionals to handle the mental health caseload."

After Dunn cut himself, prison officials took away his good time credits and assigned him to segregation, according to his declaration. He slashed himself with razors four more times while he sat in solitary confinement. He said he spent two-and-a-half weeks on suicide watch without ever seeing a mental health worker. When he returned to his cell after the first incident, Dunn's blood and the used razor still sat on the floor.

The last time he cut himself, Dunn contends that guards waited more than three hours to remove him from his cell. Then they handcuffed him, hit him and said they would "let [his] bitch-ass die," according to the document.

In its response, the state said Dunn's calls for mental health care were not ignored, and that he was placed on the mental health caseload.

The number of attempted suicides jumped from six in fiscal year 2010 to 54 just five years later. In fiscal year 2015, six inmates died from suicide - the highest toll available from records dating back to 2007.

The number of patients subjected to involuntary treatment with medication has also increased during that time, according to the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program have said that dozens of inmates could testify over the course of the trial.

"Inadequate mental health care is a violation of the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment," said Maria Morris, senior supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Patients exhibiting symptoms of mental illness often end up in solitary confinement, Morris said, which limits treatment even more.

"They are locked in a small cell," she said. "To the extent that they get any counseling at all, it is a few minutes through their cell door."

Violence in Alabama prisons has spiked in recent months, fueled by overcrowding and understaffing, according to prison officials. A recent study from European researchers found that Swedish prisoners who received mental health treatment in prison committed less violence than untreated counterparts.

As a solution to the violence and staffing issues, Gov. Robert Bentley has proposed a plan to build new prisons and close down the existing facilities. The $800 million proposal died in special session, but the governor has said he might try to revive it next year.

In a series of town hall meetings earlier this year, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Mental Health Jim Perdue proposed a plan to take over the mental health contract for the state prisons. That way, prisoners identified as mentally ill could continue treatment in the community after release, he said. MHM Services, Inc. received a three-year contract in 2013 worth $36 million a year.

The mental health lawsuit is the latest in a long line of cases focusing on conditions inside Alabama's prisons. Many of the allegations contained in the mental health lawsuit echo those from a 1972 case also filed in the federal courthouse in Montgomery. U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered the state to make changes to its healthcare system in order to better serve inmates with mental illness. Another lawsuit related to mental health treatment followed in 1992.

"Basically, the prison system in Alabama has been almost continually on trial since the 1970s," Borden said.

Attorneys filed the lawsuit in 2014. Along with claims of inadequate mental health care, the original complaint alleged that poor healthcare had contributed to inmate deaths and injuries. Those claims will be heard in a spring trial.
A missing woman and her two young daughters and a beloved minister are among the victims of the Gatlinburg fire, local officials confirmed Saturday.

The bodies of Constance Reed, 34, and her daughters, Chloe, 12, and Lily, 9, were discovered at their home on Wiley Oakley Drive. The three been missing since Monday when high winds brought embers down from a wildfire on the Great Smoky Mountains, burning more than 17,000 acres in Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevier County.

There are 13 confirmed fatalities to date.

Michael Reed, Constance's husband and father of the two girls, had appealed to the public for its assistance in finding his family. On Saturday, his father, Grant Reed, confirmed the three were deceased.

"With profound sadness that is now a part of my soul I am sorry to share the passing of Constance, Chloe and Lily. Please continue to pray for my son Michael and his son Nichols," Grant Reed said.

The mother and her daughters were at home when the fire struck. Michael Reed and his son were in Gatlinburg and unable to return to their home after the blaze began. The Reed's home was destroyed in the fire.

The family's church has established the "Reed Family Relief Fund" on its website.

Also among the fatalities was Rev. Dr. Ed Taylor, 85. Taylor was a well-known fixture in the Gatlinburg community, establishing one of the first wedding chapels in the city. Since 1979, Taylor married more than 85,000 couples.

Fatalities Jon and Janet Summers of Memphis, both 61, and Alice Hagler, 70, were identified earlier in the week. All three died in the Chalet Village cabin areas on the westside of town.

The name of one other victim, Bradley Phillips, age 59, was also released.

More than 100 people were injured in the blaze, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

Widespread damage

TEMA said 1,413 structures have been damaged or destroyed by the fire, including Westgate Resort and Spa and the iconic "Smoky Mountain Castle" which overlooked the city.

"It's a little numbing, to be honest with you, to see the extent of the damage," Gov. Bill Haslam said.

More than 600 firefighters, Tennessee National Guard and others are in the area responding to the disaster. An evacuation order remains in place for Gatlinburg, though home and business owners are being allowed in each day from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. A 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew remains in effect.

The city is also under a water boil advisory.

A GIS map showing areas affected by the fire and specific addresses with levels of damage can be found at www.seviercountytn.org or at http://www.facebook.com/ChimneyTops2Fire.

Businesses in Pigeon Forge, including Dollywood amusement park, are open.

Most facilities on the Tennessee side of Great Smoky Mountain National Park remain closed.

Aquarium closed but reaching out to animals

Employees with the Ripley's Aquarium were forced to evacuate Gatlinburg Monday, leaving as many as 11,000 animals behind. Marine biologists were allowed back in Tuesday and all the animals are fine. The aquarium itself won't reopen until the evacuation order if lifted, however, employees are working in the community to help displaced animals.

"The Ripley's Aquarium Animal Rescue Team is out an about looking for animals in Gatlinburg. We are feeding stranded animals and giving basic immediate care," General Manager Ryan DeSear said.

You can see video of the Aquarium's activities below.
Susan Watson.png

Susan Watson (The Daily Show)

Susan Watson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, died on Friday after a brief illness.

The ACLU of Alabama confirmed Watson's death in a Facebook post.

"Words are not enough under these circumstances to express our grief," the post stated. "We are thankful for your support during this difficult time. We remain committed to Susan's vision of the advancement of civil liberties in Alabama."

Watson was appointed executive director in April 2013. She previously served as the regional director of the ACLU of Florida.

Mia Raven, who volunteers for the Montgomery Area Reproductive Justice Coalition, said she is "in shock over the loss of Susan Watson.

"Alabama has lost a tireless and fearless advocate for civil rights, and the ACLU of Alabama has lost their director," she said.

Under the direction of Watson, the ACLU fought against "unconstitutional" abortion laws passed by the Alabama Legislature and won in federal court, Raven said. She was also an advocate for the LGBT community, she said.

Watson appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in January 2015 to speak about an Alabama law that provides an attorney for fetuses.

Funeral arrangements weren't immediately available.
TrumpCarrier.jpg

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence visit to a Carrier facility Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, in Indianapolis. Evan Vucci/AP

President-elect Donald Trump's deal to keep a major heating and air conditioning manufacturer operating in Indiana was hailed by the incoming administration as a victory, saving about 1,000 jobs.

The incentive-laced deal also involved awarding tax credits and wielding possible threats of federal action to keep the company from leaving the United States. In the aftermath, many other states, counties and cities - all of which engage in developer agreements, Alabama included -- are watching closely.

"It kind of sets a trend," said Amad Ijaz, executive director of economic forecasting with the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama. "You cannot do it for every manufacturer. It depends on what industry it is."

Countered Greg Jones, director of the Center of International Business and Economic Development at Troy University: "I doubt we'll see similar deals like the Carrier deal. I think the Carrier deal is more of an anomaly than a trend."

The deal to keep Carrier Corp. in Indiana supposedly hinged on giving the company $700,000 a year in state incentives. But media reports wondered at the effect of Trump's campaign threats of retaliating against companies fleeing the country. Carrier was set to save a whopping $65 million a year in labor and other costs by shifting production to Mexico.

Specifics of the package remain unknown. Trump has promised to work with the corporate community to improve the nation's business environment.

Alabama, like many states, dangles a laundry-list of income, property and sales tax credits and abatements to lure companies to the state. Rarely, though, is a package put together to keep a company from departing.

Said Jones: "I'm pleased that (hundreds) of people got to save their job in Indiana and that will have a great economic impact in that region. I just see that states won't be able to afford to belly up and provide incentives for every company threatening to leave. That's kind of problematic."

'A lot of frogs'

According to Good Jobs First - a grass-roots organization that tracks state and local incentive deals nationwide - Alabama has offered $3.4 billion in subsidies a host of companies. The largest packages have gone to automobile manufacturers and a Mobile County steel operator.

Experts view some of the deals favorably. For instance, Airbus' $600 million investment in its first North American aircraft assembly plant in Mobile is often cited as a good deal for its $158.5 million in tax incentives largely because of its potential to attract Airbus suppliers to Alabama.

Billionaires Club - largest subsidies State Total subsidy Company Washington $12.3 billion Boeing New York $5.7 billion Alcoa Michigan $3.2 billion General Motors Michigan $3.2 billion Ford Motor Oregon $3.1 billion Intel New Mexico $2.7 billion Intel Nevada $2.4 billion Tesla Motors Louisiana $2.3 billion Sempra Energy Louisiana $2.1 billion Cheniere Energy Oregon $2 billion Nike Louisiana $1.8 billion Energy Transfer Michigan $1.7 billion Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Pennsylvania $1.7 billion Royal Dutch Shell Missouri $1.7 billion Cerner Mississippi $1.3 billion Nissan New York $1.3 billion Advanced Technology Alabama $1.1 billion ArcelorMittal South Carolina $1 billion Boeing

Others have been panned, such as the more than $1 billion package in 2007 that brought German-based ThyssenKrupp to Calvert near the Mobile and Washington county line. The recession drove down steel prices and demand, and the company sold the $5 billion plant for $1.55 billion in 2014 in a joint deal with ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp.

"That hasn't worked out well but you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince," said Jones, who was active with the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and other organizations in pursuing ThyssenKrupp. Alabama's large incentive package pushed the state ahead of competitors like Mississippi and Louisiana.

Now, Jones said the state is more focused on leveraging economic benefits to companies that promise a large number of jobs. He said economic arrangements to bring automakers like Hyundai Motor ($234.6 million in incentives) and Daimler-Benz ($460 million in incentives) have created a host of good-paying jobs, while further boosting the state by luring suppliers.

"It's all these suppliers coming to support these big companies and the ripple effect of apartment complexes that are being built in these areas and new retail to support the folks working at the plants," Jones said. "I think job creation, yes, that's a very top priority to Alabama."

Carol Gundlach, a policy analyst with Montgomery-based Alabama Arise Citizens' Policy Project - a non-profit that promotes policies benefitting low-income residents -- said there has been very little transparency on the state's mega deals in recent years.

But she said she is encouraged by relatively new state laws that require more sunshine on how these deals are proceeding.

She said that that public reports are expected in the coming years, including published audits that will come from the Alabama Comptroller's Office.

"It will give us lots and lots of information," Gundlach said, adding that aside from media reports on tax incentive deals, Alabama Arise had no way of knowing how the deals were playing out.

'Values loyalty'

Trump, meanwhile, is expected to visit Mobile again as part of a "thank you" tour to cities and states around the country that helped support his successful presidential campaign.

Trump visited Mobile's Ladd-Peebles Stadium on Aug. 21, 2015. It was among the first stadium-sized rallies that would become a hallmark of the Trump campaign.

During his speech in Mobile, Trump singled out U.S. Steel's Fairfield Works mill, which was permanently shut down last year and led to 1,100 layoffs. Trump blamed the plant's closure to poor international trade policy that allowed China to out gain an unfair economic advantage.

Fairfield, since then, has had a tumultuous year. Its city voted in March to disband its police department and its city leaders claimed that bankruptcy was the only way out of its financial predicaments.

Jones said that since Trump "values loyalty," it could bode well for future Carrier-like deals in Alabama whenever a company might consider leaving the state for greener pastures elsewhere.

Also of note is that Trump's closest ally in the U.S. Senate, Jeff Sessions, was recently picked to be the country's next U.S. attorney general. In addition, the state's voters overwhelmingly support Trump's presidential candidacy during the March 1 GOP primary and, again, during the Nov. 8 presidential election.

"I question whether Alabama can afford these kinds of incentives, but I do think Alabama will get a sympathetic ear from Mr. Trump," said Jones.
Barack Obama

President Barack Obama answers questions during a joint news conference with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)

By President Barack Obama

In the final weeks of my administration, we are as focused as ever on a promise I made in my inaugural address: putting American ingenuity to work to help Americans live healthier lives. In honoring this promise I remain committed to addressing the prescription opioid and heroin epidemic, a crisis that is taking a devastating toll on far too many families. I've seen it in the faces of families I've met who've lost loved ones, and the countless letters I've received from Americans who are trying to find treatment. This week, Congress has an important role to play in the fight.

Since 1999, the number of deaths attributed to opioid overdoses has nearly quadrupled. In several states, drug overdoses have become a leading cause of injury-related death. From Ohio and New Hampshire to New Mexico and West Virginia, the disease of addiction is affecting communities big and small, urban and rural; it doesn't discriminate. Instead, it strains families as well as the capacity of law enforcement and our health care systems in ways that hurt all of us.

Those on the front lines of this fight have made it clear they need more resources. I heard them, and in February I proposed $1 billion in new investments to address the crisis. Through my proposal, Alabama could be eligible for up to $14 million over two years to help individuals with heroin or prescription opioid addiction seeking treatment get the help they need. It will build upon steps we have already taken to expand overdose prevention strategies, improve opioid prescription practices, and ensure more Americans seeking addiction treatment can get the help they so desperately need. Those devastated by the heroin and prescription opioid epidemic cannot wait any longer. They need help now, and we need to help turn the tide of this epidemic.

In the many months since I called on Congress to act, my administration has continued to use every tool at our disposal to make a difference. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, all health care plans sold in the Marketplace have to cover treatment. We've also made it easier for health care providers to treat more patients with opioid addiction, made sure more providers are trained in appropriate opioid prescribing practices, expanded community health centers' capacity to provide treatment, and supported efforts to get the overdose reversal drug -- naloxone -- into the hands of first responders. We have empowered federal agencies to provide local communities the support they need, doing what we can to help where it is needed most. And we have made sure everyone has a seat at the table where the solutions are being developed, holding roundtables and town halls with law enforcement, health professionals, family members, individuals in recovery and local leaders.

This week, Congress can do its part.

The House of Representatives just voted overwhelmingly - and in a bipartisan fashion - to pass the 21st Century Cures Act, and now it's the Senate's turn. In addition to funding the fight against the opioid epidemic, this bill can improve our nation's long-term health with its support of Joe Biden's Cancer Moonshot, funding for important research through our BRAIN and Precision Medicine Initiatives, and important mental health reforms.

I hope the Senate will pass it without delay. 78 Americans die every day from opioid-related overdoses. So every day that passes without Congress's action is a missed opportunity to save and improve lives, and to spare families pain and heartache. Even in this season of transition, the American people expect us to act in their best interests.

We all know someone who has been affected by these diseases and disorders. The time to act is now.
Supporters call on Trump to not pick Romney as list of possible picks for the important post gets longer.

At Trump Tower, the Manhattan headquarters of the next president of the United States, Kellyanne Conway emerges from the gold lift doors with some news.

US President-elect Donald Trump is no longer considering only four people for secretary of state, the crown jewel in cabinet-level appointments at the White House. The list is growing, according to Conway.

Its a big decision and nobody should rush through it, says Trumps former campaign manager and senior adviser.

Up until Sunday, the talk focused largely on two contenders: former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.





Trump has paraded the two men in front of the media like contestants on his hit reality-TV series, The Apprentice. But Conways remarks open the possibility that Trump is now backing off those picks in favour of other people.

Still, many Trump supporters know who they want.

I like Rudy, says Julie Pickering, 51, a retired registered nurse from Mississippi, hanging out in the busy lobby of Trump Tower. He stood by Trump and deserves that position.

You want people who will be with you through the good times and the bad times, says Angela Bounds, 53, a retired financial adviser.

You never saw Rudy Giuliani turn his back on Donald, no matter how many times the media reported negative and fake news about Donald.

Thats not the case, they say, with Romney, who ran for president in 2012. Both women campaigned for him during his bid for the White House but they were shocked when he came out in March and denounced Trump.

If we, the Republicans, choose Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished, Romney told an audience in Salt Lake City.

Trump tells us that he is very, very smart. Im afraid that when it comes to foreign policy, he is very, very not smart.

OPINION: Whos conning whom in Donald Trumps America

It was a brutal takedown of the man who would win the election and led to a mea culpa of sorts from Romney himself last week in New York.

The Republican, who lost to US President Barack Obama in 2012, dined with the man who will replace President Obama and emerged from dinner with a completely different tone.

I happen to think that Americas best days are ahead of us, he told reporters at Trump Tower. He said the meeting filled him with increasing hope that President-elect Trump is the very man who can lead us to that better future.

Indeed, the choice of secretary of state will be key in this administration and anyone seeking the position got a taste recently of how challenging it truly will be under Trump.

Taiwan phone call

On Friday, Trump broke decades of protocol and took a call from the Taiwan president, sparking a diplomatic firestorm that upset the Chinese government which lodged a formal protest.

China considers neighbouring Taiwan a province and the US has abided by its wishes for 37 years, by having no formal direct government-to-government relations with Taipei in an effort to maintain good ties with communist China.

No US president or president-elect has spoken to or had direct talks with any Taiwanese president during that time.

Anthony Arend, a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University, calls the Taiwan exchange troubling. He also believes Giuliani would be a disastrous pick.





He seems to bring the shoot-from-the-hip approach that Trump himself has, argues Arend. If anything, we need a secretary who comes across as thoughtful, consistent, trustworthy and predictable.

Romney, in Arends opinion, is that person.

Having lived abroad for over two years when he was younger, he also knows the importances of understanding different cultures and the role culture plays in international politics.

He would also likely be able to bring into the state department many of the traditional Republican foreign policy experts that had previously indicated that they would not support Trump.

Other names that are reportedly in the mix include former CIA director General David Petraeus, California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who served as ambassador to China.

Both Bounds and Pickering believe Trump will make the right choice in the end. Still, Bounds adds, I just wouldnt trust Mitt Romney.
Teachers and aid organisations believe the attacks on schools are deliberate.

Beirut  Wafa Mohammed Ali Zeidan, 35, was in the third-grade classroom when she heard the planes first, terrifying rumble. Without a second thought, Zeidan, an English teacher, rushed to the door, panicking some of the girls in her class.

Other pupils laughed, shouting: Miss, are you scared of the aeroplane!

She went back to her desk, ashamed of frightening the children, and disrupting her own lesson.

And then they heard the first explosion.

A girl grabbed hold of my clothes, trembling and crying, said Zeidan. Then we heard the awful sound of the second aeroplane. We lost control of the students as they started to panic and run.

Zeidan lost four of her colleagues in a brutal aerial bombardment on the main Kamal school complex in the northern Syrian town of Haas in late October.

Seventeen schoolchildren and 15 town residents were also killed, a White Helmets civil defence force spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

The childrens charity UNICEF said the attack, on rebel-held Idlib province, was among the worst on education establishments since the beginning of the Syrian conflict. If deliberate, it was a war crime, it added.

Our children hate to hear the word 'school'. Even I have become afraid of going to school. I hate the sight of books or bags - they have become frightening memories. by Wafa Mohammed Ali Zeidan, Syrian teacher

A teacher for 13 years, Zeidan had witnessed previous aerial bombardments in the course of Syrias five-year war. But never had she seen anything like the destruction wrought that October morning. It was a calculated assault to strike fear in the hearts of the children and the parents, she told Al Jazeera.

Haas would not be the last attack on schools in Syria. The next day, on October 27, three children were killed by rebel shells that hit a school in government-held west Aleppo.

Throughout the war in Syria, education has come under repeated fire from both rebel forces and government forces. More than two million school-age children still inside the country are not attending classes. There are no comprehensive figures for attacks on schools countrywide, although UN agencies are attempting to collate information on both government and opposition-controlled areas.

According to UNICEF, there were 60 attacks on schools in 2015, killing a total of 591 children. This year, the UN has documented 84 attacks on schools across Syria, with at least 69 children losing their lives and many others injured.

Last year, Save the Children said that half of the 8,500 global attacks on education between 2011 and 2014 had taken place in Syria. In 2016 alone, the charity added, three-quarters of the 60 schools it supports in Idlib and Aleppo provinces have been affected by bombing.





Teachers and aid organisations believe the attacks on schools are deliberate.

Abdul Hammami, director of the US-based Swasia Charity Foundation, which runs 14 schools in Syrias Ghouta region, believes that the Syrian government and its allies target schools to impair education and create images of chaos. They want to give the impression they are fighting extremists, when of course they are the ones that are creating this, he told Al Jazeera.

Zeidan believes the motive lies in destroying Syrian identity: The small dreams of our future teachers and doctors have been killed by criminals who do not know the meaning of compassion.

They [Russia and the regime] know that no one will be punished for those crimes. They are war criminals, because they killed children in the holy place  school.

Russian officials were sceptical about the Haas attack. A spokesperson claimed that photos of the aftermath were computer graphics. On the same day as the Haas attack, Syrian state media reported killing terrorists in Idlib province but did not report any dead or wounded children.

That was a far cry from Zeidans experience.

The street [outside the school] was filled with corpses. I felt like I could not move  especially when I looked to my left and saw my husbands nephew. He was dead.

The story of one of the parents, Khaled Daef, also differed from the Russian and Syrian official media version of events. His 13-year-old daughter Renad, a top-of-the-class pupil, was killed in the Haas attack. On the morning of the massacre, I took her to school and gave her her daily allowance. I did not expect that it would be the last goodbye.

READ MORE: Syrias Civil War Explained

Syria previously had a well-developed education system. Literacy rates were more than 90 percent for both sexes; enrolment was near 100 percent. The curriculum was thorough, although tightly controlled and wrought with glorification of the ruling Baath Party.

But as the Syrian conflict has worsened, attendance rates have dropped to less than 50 percent as schools have been bombed, while some others were turned into military bases and torture centres, according to Human Rights Watch, which documented specific examples of schools used as detention centres in Homs.

Other out-of-use schools in Aleppo and Homs provinces, and rural Damascus, have been turned into shelters for internally displaced people.

In regime-held areas, including Tartous and Latakia provinces and central Damascus, education services continue. However a 2015 UNICEF report analysing the effect of the conflict across Syria found that parents living in such regions still feared sending their children to school, owing to perceived dangers en route or around the buildings themselves, trauma and poverty.

With schools coming under attack, it is often difficult to persuade parents to send their children to those that remain in use. Even the children now associate school with negative connotations.

Our children hate to hear the word school, Zeidan said. Even I have become afraid of going to school. I hate the sight of books or bags  they have become frightening memories.





The problem is exacerbated by extreme poverty: Swasia has resorted to providing food packages for the worst-affected families in Ghouta, so that children are not forced into work to buy basic supplies.

Zeidan and her two children escaped the school unharmed. She and her colleagues are now clubbing together to give lessons to their pupils wherever and whenever possible. We will not leave them in ignorance. They have the right to education, like all the worlds children.

In eastern Aleppo, where up to 100,000 children remain under siege, teachers have replaced conventional classrooms with basements, for fear of strikes on schools and open spaces such as playgrounds. Other safety measures include replacing glass classroom windows with plastic.

In opposition-controlled Idlib province, schools have gone underground to protect children from aerial bombardments while they take lessons, and as schools have been destroyed.

For now, teachers like Zeidan on the ground in Syria bear the weight of the violence, and witness the mental strain on her countrys youngest generation.

I loved my work at the school; it was a good school. I loved the pupils,said Zeidan.

A chasm full of great sorrow and fear has been left in the hearts of the students, parents and rest of the townspeople. What remains will not be erased from their hearts easily.
Private prison stocks sky-rocketed following the victory of Donald Trump, who has promised mass deportations.

Austin, Texas, United States  When Sulma Franco fled her native Guatemala in 2009, she planned to reach the United States and apply for asylum on humanitarian grounds.





But things did not turn out as Franco, a 32-year-old member of the LGBT community, had imagined.

I left Guatemala for many different reasons, she said, explaining that she was a victim of violence because of her LGBT rights activism. Due to legal reasons, she cannot elaborate on the events that led to her departure.

The journey was long and brutal.

I had to cross through Mexico, and there are many dangers through that route, like being kidnapped, raped or assaulted.

Like the millions of people who have fled Central America for the US in the past, Franco felt afraid when her life was in the hands of human traffickers.

Ive also seen women being sexually assaulted; kidnapped, she recalled. You want to believe that there are good people who will help you, but in reality, there are people on this journey to the US that are also part of trafficking networks.

Eventually making it to the US, Franco was arrested by immigration authorities within a few hours of crossing the border from Mexico into Texas. She was promptly placed in a for-profit immigrant detention centre, a facility where, she says, abuse and mistreatment are rampant.

A large portion of the more than 180 immigrant detention centres in the US are operated by private contractors.

READ MORE: US urged to free immigrant female hunger strikers

The Department of Homeland Security cast doubt on the future of the private detention facilities in August, when the agencys security secretary said President Barack Obamas administration may stop using the facilities to effectively incarcerate immigrants.

While Obama deported a record 2.5 million immigrants between 2009 and 2015, Donald Trump has vowed to deport up to three million.

The president-elect has been widely criticised for his anti-immigrant positions and has vowed to bulk up border, immigration and police authorities  possibly preventing for-profit detention centres from closing.

Abuses

After being arrested by immigration authorities, Franco was first put in T Don Hutto, a notorious for-profit detention centre in Taylor, Texas.

As part of an agreement with US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the detention centre is operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The federal government pays CCA $150 a day for each detainee, according to the Austin-based Grassroots Leadership NGO, which campaigns against for-profit detention.

Franco said the detainees were treated harshly by the guards and administration, accusing them of blocking their access to communication, providing them with poor food and limiting their access to adequate medical care.

They deprive you of your freedom; you cant really have much contact with other people. The food is terrible. And there is abuse of power by so-called caretakers, who should really be called janitors because they lack proper training, she said.

READ MORE: Is this the end of prison for profit in the US?

They were always threatening us that they were going to kill us, that they were going to put us in isolation  if we committed any infractions. Or if we did something they simply didnt like.

Franco was released from T Don Hutto under a supervision order after four months. As part of the conditions, she was required to meet an immigration officer every four-to-six months while her asylum case was being processed.

For a few years, life was good for Franco, and she was even able to get a permit and open a business  a food truck  in Austin, Texas, where she started to build a new life.

Then, one day in 2014, immigration authorities detained her again when she showed up to an appointment with her case officer. They told me they were going to arrest me and deport me because my lawyer lost some documents, she recalled.

Before she knew it, she was in another for-profit detention centre, this time in Laredo, Texas. She was there for two months before being transferred to another facility in Arizona.

With the help of activist groups and rights organisations, her deportation was stalled and she was eventually released.

If anyone spoke out and said, You cant treat us like this, the [guards] always punished us, she recalled. So, we always had to live by the rules of the guards.

Last year, T Don Hutto and several other for-profit detention centres were rocked by mass hunger strikes in protest against the poor conditions.

Shadow prisons

The abuses that Franco describes are not rare. A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC)  Shadow Prisons: Immigrant Detention in the South (PDF)  concludes that government-run and private immigrant detention centres are already rife with civil rights violations and poor conditions.

In the LaSalle detention centre in Louisiana, the SPLC report documented the deaths of three immigrants in the first six months of 2016.

Other detainees worry the deaths could have been prevented if the detention centre had provided better medical care, and fear what will happen to them if they get sick, the report notes.

READ MORE: US guards taunt hunger-striking asylum seekers

Based on 300 interviews, the report goes on to describe detained immigrants being beaten, threatened with pepper spray and stun guns and placed in solitary confinement when they complained about the difficult living conditions.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, the SPLCs deputy legal director Lisa Graybill said the government should come to its senses and stop detaining so many people.

But, in fact, things look like theyre moving in the opposite direction, she lamented.

Were particularly concerned about [the] privatisation of county facilities, about federal government contracting out [detention], Graybill said, adding that these concerns are compounded by what Trump has said he and his administration would do.

ICE did not reply to Al Jazeeras email requests for a comment.

Stocks soaring

Although the exact number of immigrants in for-profit detention varies from day-to-day, a 2009 congressional mandate requires ICE to keep at least 34,000 beds maintained a day.

Despite speculation that the US government may phase out its use of the facilities, private prison stocks soared following the election of President-elect Donald Trump on November 8, according to the financial news site Bloomberg.

What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, Trump told the 60 Minutes television programme, following his electoral victory.

Bethany Carson, an immigration researcher at Grassroots Leadership, referred to the need for immigrant detention as a manufactured one in a recent statement.

[Department of Homeland Security] has created these astronomical detention numbers by rejecting common-sense reforms that would allow immigrants to live with their families and communities while their legal cases are in process, Carson said.

Back in Austin, Sulma Franco recalled receiving yet another deportation order, just two months after she moved back to the city.

In June 2015, on the day she was supposed to surrender herself for deportation, Franco was given refuge at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Austin, Texas.

With community activists rallying around her for two-and-a-half months, she was eventually awarded a stay of deportation. But she still fears a deportation order may arrive again, one day.

It was particularly difficult because I spent months of my life in sanctuary and [more than a year] in detention, deprived of liberty, she concluded. It was humiliating and frustrating not to be able to live like other people live.

Follow Patrick Strickland on Twitter: @P_Strickland_

Follow Shaghayegh Tajvidi on Twitter: @S_Tajvidi
Deemed fertile ground for the far right, many wonder if the former East German state is failing.

Dresden, Germany  For three days in early October, Jaber al-Bakr was prisoner number one in Germany. The 22-year-old Syrian had been plotting a major suicide bomb attack on a Berlin airport, according to German investigators. He had entered the country as a refugee in February 2015 and travelled to Syria later in the autumn. He was living in the eastern state of Saxony when he was caught.

Although police bungled their initial attempt to arrest Bakr, they managed to secure the nearly two tonnes of explosives found in his apartment and defuse the threat. When the authorities took Bakr in, they were hoping they would gain information on his network, his accomplices, even the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levants (ISIL, also known as ISIS) plans for Germany.

They never got the chance. Bakr was found hanging in his cell in a Leipzig jail on October 12. Officials at the jail had deemed it sufficient to check in on the inmate every 30 minutes, after concluding there was no serious threat of suicide. Thirty minutes was all the time Bakr needed to take his own life .

Reactions came swift and furious. Politicians and the media criticised Saxonys minister-president, Stanislaw Tillich, and the justice minister, Sebastian Gemkow, blaming them for lapses in law and order . National newspapers debated whether Saxony could be classified as a failed state. The Saechsische Zeitung, the states leading daily, lamented a  history of failure  in an article titled Saxony. Its always Saxony.

Saxony is indeed treated as a pariah in Germany. It is considered by other states to be an intolerant bastion of xenophobic and neo-Nazi sentiment.

It was the birthplace of the anti-Islam Pegida movement (the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) that spurred tens of thousands of Germans onto the streets at the end of 2014 and early 2015 across the country. Two years later, large counter-demonstrations and in-fighting among Pegidas leadership have weakened the group significantly, and the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has usurped some of its followers.

READ MORE: Germany failing to deal with surge in hate crimes

But in Saxonys largest city, Dresden, up to 3,000 Pegida supporters still march every Monday. They staged a large rally on the movements two-year anniversary last month. As for the AfD, a recent poll conducted by the survey institute, Infratest dimap, shows that one in every four voters in Saxony would cast their ballots for the populist party.

The state government carried out its own survey on democracy and the far right, polling more than a thousand Saxons between August and September. According to the results, nearly 40 percent said they would stop Muslims from immigrating to Germany and more than half believe Germany is being overrun by foreigners to a dangerous degree.





Pushing back

Despite the numbers, Saxony is not a glaring exception. It has provided fertile ground for far-right and anti-establishment movements, but it also has a strong civil society that has pushed back.

The toxic political discourse that characterised the US elections has taken root across Germany, not just in Saxony. With the spectre of the AfD making big gains in federal elections after success in two key regional elections this year, the state will be a crucial battleground that could determine the fate of Chancellor Angela Merkels government.

Saxony has always been an important state, and its suffering from that, said Frank Richter, a theologian and long-time director of the Agency for Civic Education in Saxony. People like to focus in on it. And when you zoom in, you dont just see light, you see the shadows, too.

For many Germans, the Bakr case was the nadir in a series of embarrassing breakdowns. When Dresden hosted Chancellor Angela Merkel and other high-ranking dignitaries on October 3 to mark the 26th anniversary of German reunification, hundreds of right-wing protesters  many from Pegida  disrupted celebrations and chanted Merkel must go and Traitor at the chancellor.

One week earlier, on September 26, a bomb attack struck a mosque in central Dresden. No one was hurt but, according to German weekly, Die Zeit, police failed to properly secure the scene and bystanders were able to walk through the blast site, possibly compromising evidence.

In smaller Saxon towns and communities, tensions between asylum seekers and locals have boiled over into violence.

In Bautzen, a group of 20 refugees clashed with some 80 right-wingers in an alcohol-fuelled brawl in September. Early this year, an angry group of residents blocked a bus transporting refugees to a home in Clausnitz. And more than a year ago, neo-Nazis rioted against the arrival of asylum seekers in Heidenau, near Dresden, injuring dozens of police in clashes.

Across Germany, there has been an upswing in violence against refugee facilities and refugees themselves; according to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the spike in attacks in 2015 was highest in Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Im ashamed of my Saxony, said Simone Heilmann, director of the Dr Christoph Hufeland School in the city of Plauen. The UNESCO-associated school serves both German students from the region and newly arrived children tasked with learning the language. Heilmann has witnessed not just a surge of young refugees in her school, but also a rise in anti-foreigner sentiment in the community. It is a trend she neither tolerates nor understands.

This right-wing path just seems all too familiar, she said. I have to wonder, did they study history at all in school?

Lessons from history

History never lies far beneath the surface in Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the rapid reunification of former communist East Germany with West Germany brought with it the heady promise of a new, stronger Germany, with boundless potential.

But in reality, one country absorbed another, with its institutions and infrastructure, and its people. It was jarring for many East Germans, who were expected to adopt a new way of life and culture overnight. By the mid-1990s, the young were moving westward, towns and villages were emptying out, and privatisation and deindustrialisation were crippling the former-East German economic heartlands. East and West were miles apart.

Now, more than half-a-century later, Germany has undeniably made impressive strides; its economic successes over the last decade, in particular, have helped.

Saxony is the top performer among states in the former East, with the highest gross domestic product per capita, according to the Munich-based Institute for Economic Research. Research and development have flourished in a number of universities and higher education institutes, in cities like Leipzig, Chemnitz and Dresden.

Yet a significant cleft remains. In 2014, the German labour agency reported that unemployment in the former West was 5.8 percent, while in the East it hovered above nine percent. According to a study by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, Germans living in the former East have around 80 percent of the disposable income of Germans in the West.

Reunification was an incredible effort, [East Germans] really had to work to change. And at the end of it all, they still feel like second-class citizens, said Frank Richter, the theologian.

Richter, born and raised in Saxony, says a significant majority of the states elite, in the arts, media and education, are transplants from former West Germany. That, he believes, only exacerbated a deep-seated sense of inferiority.

No one will really say that out loud, he said. But now, with the refugees, [East Germans] feel theres a new foreign infiltration, they fear that they are being forgotten  that their lives have no meaning any more.

Those sentiments have resonated particularly deeply in a region that was isolated for decades. Hundreds of thousands of guest workers from Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain had poured into West Germany to support the countrys booming economy, and many put down roots.

In the East, the socialist government invited contract workers and students, primarily from Vietnam, but they were strictly discouraged from integrating or even making contact with Germans.

These days, only about two percent of Germanys more than four million Muslims live in the East, a small fraction of them in Saxony, yet fear of Islam is widespread, says Richter.

Werner Patzelt, a professor of political science and comparative politics at Dresdens Technical University, believes the current upheaval is a backlash against the liberal, left-leaning politics that have dominated German politics since the late 1960s.

For a long time, multiculturalism was the embodiment of modernity, and if you were against, it was you who was backwards  but now its different, said Patzelt.

Not the whole picture

At its climax in early 2015, the Pegida movement swept up to 20,000 protesters onto the streets across the country, mobilising a broad cross-section of supporters. Massive counter-demonstrations ensued.

Werner Patzelt came under intense criticism for attending a series of Pegida demonstrations and writing a weekly column explaining the phenomenon. He was accused of getting too close, and giving Pegida a platform on which to express their views. The professor argues he was merely doing his job as a political scientist and neutral observer.

Just like the Protestants versus the Catholics, today people see this as a crucial question of faith  is Pegida and AfD the beginning of the end of a free Germany, or is it giving a voice to members of the community who havent been able to speak until now?

Pegidas numbers have waned significantly to a few thousand, but the movement has now found a new platform in the AfD. The party has scored well in two recent regional elections, with next years federal elections squarely in their sights. Saxony, and Dresden in particular, the only large German city that is staunchly conservative, is a stronghold of support.

Christian Hartmann, a member of Saxonys Christian Democrats (CDU), says the state does need to take action against right-wing extremist and populist groups. But, he also believes the bad press is exaggerated and unwarranted.

The blanket criticism and the focus on just Saxony is wrong, and it isnt fair to the people of this state, he told Al Jazeera. When you cast general suspicion, you neglect all the people here who are active and engaged.

Like the thousands of helpers who assisted refugees arriving in Dresden and Chemnitz and beyond in 2015. Volunteers translated, handed out food and water and helped migrants navigate the complex asylum system.

Stefan Mertenskoetter remembers that time well. The 65-year-old retiree witnessed asylum seekers being set up in a sprawling tent camp in the summer of 2015, right across from a former graveyard his company owned. They opened the leafy plot to allow some shade and respite, particularly for children living in the camp.

When the weather turned cold, they turned to Dresdens Albertinum modern art museum, where they set up language exchanges in the hall next to the museum cafe. Mertenskoetter, who has lived in Dresden since 1991, said there was strong support from volunteers and locals. The needs and focus of the asylum seekers have shifted, but the effort is still going strong.

I think the state has been overwhelmed, he said. But the civil society is strong. It has taken on a lot  a lot more than I ever thought was possible.

The state, too, has been working to stem the negative headlines and create a culture of tolerance. Victor Vincze serves as the personal aide to Saxonys Commissioner for Foreign Nationals. The office was created in 1992, after a week of anti-foreigner riots rocked the city of Hoyerswerda.

WATCH: Germanys Refugee Crisis

Vincze says the state has an active, engaged public that has worked hard to help asylum seekers feel at home. But that work is often overshadowed.

There are a few idiots here who seem to guarantee that Saxony is always in the headlines, he said. When Angela Merkel comes here and is harassed, every newspaper picks it up. When someone starts a new refugee initiative or offers a language course, though, that doesnt show up in the media.

His office works to ensure that there are sufficient legislation and resources to help immigrants arriving in Saxony and provides individual consultations for newcomers. Still, Vincze acknowledges that Saxonys right-wing elements exist and need to be addressed, particularly with the rise of populism.

Anti-establishment

Tim Lochner, 46, has been a member of the city council in Pirna outside of Dresden since 2010, but he broke away from the CDU in 2014 to form an independent parliamentary group. When Lochner said in an interview that he would vote for the AfD, the CDU turned against him  and he left the party out of protest.

Lochner is a master carpenter with a successful business and deep ties within the Pirna community. He says it was the chancellors refugee policy that turned him sour, and much of the community agrees.

The current migration policy, as its being handled, wont work because the infrastructure simply isnt built for it. In Pirna were having massive problems with guaranteeing enough capacity in schools, he said. Where are we supposed to find enough teachers?

Whats more, Lochner believes leading members of the government are lying to the public when they claim to have the refugee crisis under control.

When the head of the refugee agency says in front of the camera that the list of asylum seekers has been compared with terrorist lists, its a bald-faced lie, he said. That is why, if the situation remains as it is, I would vote for AfD next year.

When prodded about the partys far-right elements, Lochner brushed them aside as part of a young partys growing pains.

He reflects a growing trend among disillusioned voters, particularly those who have traditionally backed the chancellors party.

Saxon politicians have recognised there is much work to do before next years elections. Hartmann, of the CDU, believes his party must truly reach out to the angry and the frustrated, who feel ignored and lied to, and they must actually listen to what they have to say.

You cant prescribe democracy with a pill. You have to convince people to come along, he said. The responsibility is ours in politics, but also the people to talk to each other, to discuss what the rules of our society are. It can only work with dialogue and discussion.
Will I die, miss? Will I die? asks a Syrian boy in panic. The recent video shot in a wrecked hospital in Aleppo in the aftermath of a chlorine gas attack went viral on social media. Just a few months earlier, Aleppo hit the newsfeeds with another shocking image of an injured child: five-year-old Omran Daqneesh sitting in an orange ambulance chair.

Aleppo has been one of the highest trending news on social media in the United States for a while now. People express anger, sadness, disappointment; they like and share; they tweet. And what of it? Nothing changes in Aleppo.

At the same time, across the ocean, in the US, there has been a heated discussion about the major role social media played in the recent elections. Some have argued that Donald Trumps tweets got him more media coverage and attracted voters attention while fake news, which spread on social media, helped him seal his victory.





So why is it that social media can help win an election in one country and cannot stop a month-long massacre in another?

Erica Chenoweth, a professor at the School of International Studies at the University of Denver, has argued that social media is helping dictators, while giving the masses an illusion of empowerment and political worthiness.

At a recent lecture at Columbia University, when asked for an example where social media played a negative role in a social movement, Chenoweth paused a little to finally say, what comes to my mind now is Syria.

Indeed, social media hurt the Syrian uprising. It gave the Syrian people the hope that the old dictatorship can be toppled just by uploading videos of protests and publishing critical posts. Many were convinced that if social media helped Egyptians get rid of Hosni Mubarak, it would help them overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

It created the false illusion that toppling him would be easy and doable.

The limits of social media activism

Social media didnt highlight the differences in the political structures of Egypt, Tunisia and Syria. The absence of a developed political opposition in Syria didnt come to the mind of those young protesters eagerly posting on Facebook and Twitter. Egypt had decades of experience with political opposition to the regime and Syria didnt.

But with a society under constant and pervasive surveillance, how could the Syrians develop a mature political opposition? The brief period of political relaxation following the death of Bashars father, Hafez al-Assad, in June 2000, couldve been an opportunity to start this process.

But the Damascus Spring, as this period of intense political and social debate was later called, ended in the autumn of 2001 with serious government repressions.

In March 2011, it looked easy to be in opposition on Facebook; it was a great platform for those who wanted to protest. The Facebook page Syrian Revolution was just a click away and its followers quickly grew above 100,000. What few people knew in Syria was that the administrator was actually a Syrian living in the safety of Sweden and that only 35 percent of those liking the page were Syrians actually living in Syria.

READ MORE: #Hacked  Syrias Electronic Armies

It is not surprising, therefore, that the numbers turning up sometimes at scheduled protests were low. Many were waiting for a huge sit-in to be in Umayyad Square in the heart of Damascus, or at least in Abaseen Square near the big stadium. It never happened.

Instead, the regime was able to organise major counter-marches in the same squares. The difference is that Assad wasnt relying on Facebook to gather the crowds. He had some loyal supporters who would volunteer to turn up and the rest of the crowd would get volunteered  that is to say, various state institutions would force its workers to rally  or else.

Social media also limited social movements to only one tactic: street demonstrations. Crowds of protesters were easy targets for killing (live ammunition was widely used) and mass arrests, quickly shrinking the numbers of those willing to come out.

People react virtually while not much is changing on the ground. The number of actual protests on the ground for Syria had declined by 2013. The feeling that social media gives you that you've done your bit by posting online is one reason for this demobilisation. by

The few attempted boycotts would also fail for the same reason. In December 2011, activists tried to organise a trade boycott, encouraging shops to close down; many refused to do it after they saw all the shops that were burned in Deraa after a similar initiative.

The use of social media also made activists and regular protesters highly vulnerable. When the regime allowed direct access to Facebook (which had been only accessible through VPN until then) in February 2011, it was clear that it is doing so to facilitate surveillance and the targeting of the protest movement.

Many were arrested for just sharing a photo, commenting or uploading a video. Facebook-organised protests also allowed the regime to know in advance the location and prepare its crack-down accordingly.

Virtual protests stay virtual

More importantly, social media created the illusion that one can change and challenge the events on ground by being active online. Aleppo has been severely bombed since September 2015 with the Russian intervention. This year, when news erupts that the situation is catastrophic, thousands of Syrians around the world protest  by changing their Facebook profile picture.





People react virtually while not much is changing on the ground. The number of actual protests on the ground for Syria had declined by 2013. The feeling that social media gives you that youve done your bit by posting online is one reason for this demobilisation.

In this regard, Syria is like Palestine, where calls for a third Intifada have not materialised into actions, despite the growing number of Israeli violations.

In fact, this trend is obvious, not just in the Middle East, but globally. In the 1990s, before the advent of social media, around 70 percent of nonviolent social movements succeeded while this number plummeted to only 30 percent in the Facebook and Twitter era.

Social media, of course, is not the only reason why the Syrian uprising failed. But it is something that Syrian revolutionaries should think about when thinking about the future of their movement.

Facebook posts cannot defeat an unscrupulous dictator armed with a brutal repressive apparatus and resolved to use it at will.

Riham Alkousaa is a Syrian journalist covering refugees in Europe and conflict in Syria. She is currently a masters student of Politics and Global Affairs at Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Once in office, Trump could veto deal for US to take 1,200 refugees from Australias offshore prison facilities.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he is confident a refugee resettlement deal with the United States will go ahead, despite White House comments which seemed to cast doubt about its future under a Trump administration.

White House deputy spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters the deal to resettle in the US refugees currently held at Australian-funded offshore detention centres was reached with President Barack Obama, and it was the prerogative of each president to set policies.



Australia and the US reach refugee deal

We have one president at a time, Schultz said on Friday. The president-elect, Donald Trump, will set the policies once he takes the oath of office.

Turnbull downplayed the comments when questioned by reporters in Sydney on Sunday.

Its a very good arrangement and we are confident that well continue through the change of administration, the Australian Associated Press quoted him saying.

Australia announced last month that the Obama administration had agreed to take a substantial number of the 1,200 refugees held on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

Hasty deal

The resettlement deal with the US came after Turnbull agreed in September to take part in a US-led programme to resettle refugees from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador as part of Australias annual intake of 18,750 asylum seekers.



UN blasts Australia over treatment of asylum seekers

Whether Trump, who has advocated a ban on people from nations that had been compromised by terrorism, honours the agreement is uncertain.

US homeland security officials were scheduled to begin assessing asylum seekers on Nauru this week.

Many asylum seekers at the camps are Muslims who have fled conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition, said it was very clear the deal Australia struck with the US was not airtight.

The announcement was very hastily put together because they werent expecting Trump to win and then it came very clear the whole deal could roll over, he said.
Alexander Van der Bellen defeats far-right candidate Hofer in a re-run of the May presidential runoff.

Austrias far-right party has conceded defeat in a bitterly fought presidential race, after projections indicated its candidate was beaten by Green Party-backed independent, Alexander Van der Bellen.

The official result of the election is not expected before Monday, but the Freedom Party (FPOe) conceded defeat within minutes of the poll projections being released, shortly after voting ended on Sunday.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Van der Bellen, FPOes chief strategist Herbert Kickl told Austrian media.

The projections had put Van der Bellen at 53.6 percent ahead of the FPOes Norbert Hofer at 46.4 percent.

READ MORE: Turkeys FM brands Austria capital of radical racism

I am infinitely sad that it didnt work out, Hofer said in a posting on his Facebook page less than an hour after polls closed.

Al Jazeeras Laurence Lee, reporting from Vienna, said Hofers attempt to follow the campaign-winning strategy of US President-elect Donald Trump backfired.

Hofer, who had been campaigning on an anti-immigrant platform, successfully challenged the May presidential election result that was narrowly won by Van der Bellen.

The EU nations Constitutional Court ordered a repeat election after the Freedom Party alleged that ballots were counted without proper oversight in many towns.

The election, which was planned for October, had to be pushed back to December.

Anti-immigration stance

Hofer, one of the deputy presidents of Austrias parliament, has won support from nearly half of the voters by criticising the government for allowing 90,000 refugees and migrants to enter the country last year.

Van der Bellen had warned that Hofers recent soft EU stance only masks his wish to destroy the bloc, in line with like-minded populist movements in France and Germany.

On the migration issue, Van der Bellen stands by the many Austrians who have spontaneously formed grassroots projects to help arriving refugees and migrants.

Do we want to see Austria as a friendly, open, bright country? the economic scholar said in a speech.

Or do we want to see it as a country that is threatened by conspiracies, where fears take over, where everything is terrible? he said, challenging the Freedom Partys world view.

While the presidents role is traditionally largely ceremonial, Hofer had made clear he wanted to be an interventionist head of state, threatening to dismiss a government if it raises taxes, and calling for referendums on a range of issues, even though referendums are beyond the jobs remit.
Eyeing Trumps policies, several universities take on sanctuary status to shield immigrant students from deportation.

Universities and colleges in several US states are considering labelling themselves sanctuary campuses amid fears from immigrant students and pressure from activists following the election of Donald Trump.

College administrators in New Mexico  the state with the highest percentage of Latino residents  are looking into proposals that would grant immigrant students living in the country illegally protections while they pursue their studies.

Meanwhile, advocates in California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota and Texas are pressing their state and private universities to provide sanctuary to these immigrant students, known as DREAMers, after the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors).



US sanctuary cities offer support for undocumented immigrants

We urge you to declare the University of San Diego a sanctuary campus for students, faculty, staff and community members now facing, among other things: the threat of deportation under President-elect Donald J Trumps policy proposals, and the specter of hate speech and bigoted violence in our campus community, read a letter from alumni to administrators of the private Roman Catholic university.

Trumps alma mater  the University of Pennsylvania  even renewed its pledge on Wednesday to block federal agents without a warrant from removing students in the country illegally.

Students and professors at University of Illinois campuses are circulating petitions to make their schools sanctuary campuses. One such group in Chicago gathered more than 1,700 signatures and turned them over to school leaders.

A Nevada education philanthropist also is pushing for universities in his state to declare themselves sanctuary campuses.

Trumps deportation force

The movement comes after Trump promised to end an executive order that granted temporary status to immigrant students living in the country illegally. During his campaign, he also promised to launch a deportation force and withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities.

Trump has not said anything about sanctuary campuses.

Still, New Yorks Columbia University recently announced plans to offer sanctuary and financial support to immigrant students.

And last month, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth said that the Connecticut school would be a sanctuary campus and would not voluntarily help the federal government deport students.



Undocumented migrants fear deportation under Trump

University of New Mexico President Bob Frank said university lawyers were looking into sanctuary status after a group of professors came to his office last month to deliver a letter with more than 900 signatures. The Santa Fe Community College board of regents declared itself a sanctuary campus this week.

University of Illinois leaders have tackled the issue at the flagship Urbana-Champaign location, about 240km from Chicago, saying a working group will review the legal ramifications of making the roughly 44,000-student campus a sanctuary.

Not all schools are considering sanctuary campus status despite letters, petitions or even protests.

New Mexico State University President Garrey Carruthers said in a Friday memo to employees and students that while NMSU will not declare itself a sanctuary campus, the school will not discriminate on the basis of immigration status or require proof of citizenship for admission.

The California State University system announced recently that it would not use the sanctuary term at any of its 23 campuses, but it would also not cooperate with any new federal policy that targets immigrant students living in the country illegally.

This week, the University of California announced steps to protect students in the country illegally, saying it would not assist federal immigration agents or turn over confidential records without court orders. It also said it would not provide information for any national registry based on race, religion or national origin.

If Trump ends the programme launched by President Barack Obama called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the status of immigrant students will vary by state. Some states do not allow students living in the country illegally to attend college at in-state tuition rates.
Cuban leaders ashes interred in a private ceremony in the city of Santiago, ending nine days of mourning.

Fidel Castros ashes were interred on Sunday at a cemetery in the southeastern city of Santiago  the cradle of the Cuban revolution  with the military firing a 21-gun salute for their fallen leader.

Initially the act at the cemetery was due to be carried live on television, but hours before official media announced it would be solemn and private.

An urn containing Castros ashes was brought by soldiers to the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia in Santiago, 800km southeast of Havana. Thousands of people lined the road, waving Cuban flags and shouting Long live Fidel!.

REPORTERS NOTEBOOK: The Fidel Castro that I knew

The remains of the man who ruled Cuba for a half-century left the Plaza of the Revolution in the eastern city at 6:39am local time, more than 20 minutes ahead of their scheduled departure.





Al Jazeeras Lucia Newman, reporting from Santiago, said members of Castros family and top government officials close to the former leader attended the private ceremony.

This is very much a state affair, but the funeral itself is not a state funeral, Newman said.

Castro died on November 25 aged 90. His final resting place is near the mausoleum of 19th century independence icon Jose Marti and other national heroes.

After two days of events in Havana, Castros funeral cortege departed on a three-day journey east, retracing the route that the triumphant rebels took upon overthrowing US-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

On Saturday evening, President Raul Castro, his brother and successor, said millions had come out to pay tribute.

OPINION: Fidel Castro in context

In keeping with his wishes, Castros image will not be immortalised with statues, nor will public places be named after him, his brother said on Saturday.

Crowds have greeted the caravan along the whole route, with volunteers sprucing up bridges and houses

With his brother at his side, Castro began his revolution on July 26, 1953, with a failed assault on the Moncada barracks in Santiago.

He went on to build a Soviet-sponsored communist state 145km from the United States and survived a half century of US attempts to topple or kill him.
Oakland warehouse gutted by blaze during rave party, as rescue officials say search on to retrieve those still missing.

The death toll from a blaze that gutted a California warehouse during a rave party has climbed to 30 and is expected to rise, officials said.

The fire erupted at about 2330 local time on Friday (0730 GMT on Saturday) during the party featuring electronic dance music that dozens of people attended.

We have confirmed that the count of the deceased at 30. That is an astronomical number by Sergeant Ray Kelly, Alameda County Sheriff's Department

Authorities said they did not suspect arson, but investigators want to find out if the building, which was partitioned into artists studios, had a history of code violations.

The party was taking place on the second floor of the building, which had only two exits, officials said. There was no evidence of any smoke detectors or sprinklers, officials said.

We have confirmed that the count of the deceased at 30. That is an astronomical number, Sergeant Ray Kelly, of the Alameda County Sheriffs Department, told reporters.

Authorities had only searched a small part of the two-story building.

We are still not done  they are working and pulling this building apart and dissecting it. And so were really starting to get deeper into the building. As we do that, we continue to find more victims. In regards to the amount of people that are still missing, yes, its a significant number.

The recovery operation had been delayed for hours until workers could enter safely. The roof had collapsed on to the second floor and in some spots, the second storey had fallen on to the first.

Firefighters have gone through the building searching through the debris, bucket by bucket, according to battalion chief at the Oakland Fire Department Melinda Drayton.

It was quiet, it was heartbreaking, she said, referring to the search. This will be a long and arduous process.

READ MORE: Forty feared dead after fire at California rave

The warehouse, which served as a base for the Ghost Ship Artists Collective, was one of many converted lofts in the citys Fruitvale district, a mostly Latino area where rents are generally lower than in the rest of Oakland.

It was too hot, too much smoke, I had to get out of there, Bob Mule, a photographer and artist who lives in the building and suffered minor burns, told the East Bay Times.

I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke. I couldnt get the fire extinguisher to work.

Many of the victims were believed to be in their 20s and 30s, and the fire sent ripples of anxiety through the Bay Areas large art and music community.

I am still in disbelief, but I hope my friends who were in the Oakland Ghost Ship fire and are still unaccounted for are OK, Joanna Blanche Lioce, a bartender at Bottom of the Hill, a popular music venue in San Francisco, wrote on Facebook.
Italian PM says he will step down after voters rejected his constitutional reform plan.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced his resignation hours after learning he had suffered a crushing defeat in a referendum on constitutional reform.

Italian voters rejected a constitutional reform plan, according to exit polls which showed that the No campaign had prevailed following Sundays referendum.

My experience of government finishes here, Renzi told a press conference, acknowledging that the No campaign had won an extraordinarily clear victory in a vote on which he had staked his political future.

Interior ministry projections suggested the No camp, led by the populist Five Star Movement, had been backed by 59.5 percent of those who voted.

Besides the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, the outcome energised another anti party, the anti-immigrant Northern League, an ally of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a candidate in Frances presidential race.

In voting No, Italians also delivered a rebuke to Italys industrialists, banks and other establishment institutions, which had staunchly backed the referendum.

The prime minister will likely have seen this coming, and to a large extent, the country will have seen this coming, that the polls and the people were moving against Matteo Renzi and his constitutional reforms, Al Jazeeras Jonah Hull said, reporting from Rome.

The anti-reform victory, which could spook investors, comes just as the government had made some inroads in cutting the staggering rate of youth employment and while Italys banks have urgent need for recapitalisation.

High turnout

Nearly 70 percent of Italians entitled to vote on Sunday cast their ballots, an exceptionally high turnout that reflected the high stakes and the intensity of the various issues involved.

Renzi said he would be visiting President Sergio Mattarella on Monday to hand in his resignation following a final meeting of his cabinet.

Five Star founder and leader Beppe Grillo called for an election to be called within a week on the basis of a recently adopted electoral law which is designed to ensure the leading party has a parliamentary majority  a position Five Star could well find themselves in at the next election.

Democracy was the winner, Grillo wrote in a post-vote blog that marked a significant change in the partys position on the electoral law. Before the referendum, Five Star had been arguing for it to be revised.

Most analysts see early elections as unlikely with the most probable scenario involving Renzis administration being replaced by a caretaker one dominated by his Democratic Party which will carry on until an election expected to take place by the spring of 2018.

Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan is the favourite to succeed Renzi as prime minister and the outgoing leader may stay on as head of his party  which would leave him well-placed for a potential comeback to frontline politics at the next election, whenever it is.

Characteristically confident  detractors say arrogant  Renzi, 41, and Italys youngest prime minister, had bet his political future  or at least his current premiership  on a Yes vote win, and campaigned hard for a victory in recent weeks to confound opinion polls indicating that it would likely go down to defeat.

Anti-establishment sentiment

Renzi had been hoping to beat off the rising populist forces that have gained traction across Europe, as well as with the US presidential victory last month by billionaire political outsider Donald Trump.

Italy has just done something very interesting. After all, Italy is one of the founding nations of the EU but I dont think its mistaken to look at the results of this vote alongside the Brexit vote earlier this year, as well as, frankly, the Trump vote in the United States, Patrick Rumble, Italian professor at the University of Wisconsin, told Al Jazeera.

I think it is the expression of an anti-establishment sentiment, and anti-globalisation sentiment. It is the expression of a great deal of resentment towards the political establishment in Italy.

Renzi is widely expected to be asked to stay on at least until a budget bill can be passed later this month. Then he or some other figure, perhaps from his Democrats, parliaments largest party, could be asked to lead a government focused on electoral reform.

The current electoral law would grant the party with the most votes a generous bonus of seats in parliament.

Renzis Democrats and the centre-right opposition of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi want the law changed to avoid risking that the bonus would go to the Five Star Movement should it lead in the polls.
Emergency workers have recovered the bodies of three of four men who went missing in a collapsed smuggling tunnel.

Four men who had gone missing after a smuggling tunnel connecting the Gaza Strip with Egypt collapsed on them have been confirmed dead by a Palestinian official.

Emergency workers have recovered the bodies of three men but the body of the fourth is still missing, Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman of the Gaza-based health ministry, told DPA news agency on Sunday.

Search crews had been looking for the bodies since last week, when the tunnel collapsed after being flooded.

Al-Aqsa Radio, run by Gazas Hamas, said the men drowned in the tunnel were Palestinians, but the identities of the deceased have not been confirmed by officials.

INFOGRAPHIC: Anatomy of a Gaza smuggling tunnel

The tunnel collapse is the latest in a series of cave-ins to claim Palestinian lives. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in collapses since the beginning of the year.





Egypt has used waste water and sea water to flood the tunnels over the past three years in an effort to fight the spread of cross-border routes.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has cracked down on the smuggling tunnels since assuming office in 2014.

Before him, there were an estimated 1,800 tunnels under the border, used to smuggle goods into Gaza, from

food and medicine to cigarettes, diesel, clothing and disassembled cars.

In the same year, an Israeli assault on Gaza killed more than 2,200 Palestinians and more than 70 Israelis.

Thousands of houses were damaged or entirely destroyed by Israeli bombs, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians with nowhere to live.

The Gaza Strip, an area comprising 360 square kilometres, has been under a tight Israeli blockade since the Hamas movements takeover of the coastal enclave in June 2007.








Green Party-backed voters who filed the case say they cannot afford the $1m bond ordered by the court.

The Green Party says it is switching strategy in its bid to force a statewide recount of Pennsylvanias presidential election, won by Republican Donald Trump.

Hours after dropping a state court case, it said late Saturday night that it will go to federal court instead.

A statement from the lead lawyer for the recount campaign said that it will seek an emergency federal court order for the recount. It said barriers to a recount in Pennsylvania are pervasive and the state court system is not equipped to address the problem.

Green Party leader Jill Stein later tweeted that The Stein campaign will fight for a statewide recount in PA. We are committed to protecting the civil and voting rights of all Americans.

On Monday, I will escalate #Recount2016 in PA and file to demand a statewide recount on constitutional grounds. The people deserve answers.  Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) December 4, 2016

Steins lawyer Lawrence M Otter had earlier said the party withdrew the lawsuit filed with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, due to the cost associated with the recount request.

Petitioners are regular citizens of ordinary means. They cannot afford to post the $1m bond required by the Court, read the filing.

Stein plans to hold a rally on Monday, across the street from Trump Tower in New York vowing to fight tooth and nail to verify the accuracy, security and fairness of the vote, a statement read.

On Twitter, Stein said How odd is it that we must jump through bureaucratic hoops and raise millions of dollars so we can trust our election results?

#Recount2016 is so expensive because of elected leaders who have refused to invest in a 21st-century voting system.  Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) December 4, 2016

State election officials said on Friday that Trump now leads Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton by 49,000 votes in Pennsylvania, down from 71,000 as provisional and absentee ballots from overseas are recorded.

Stein, who won about one percent of the presidential vote nationally, has sought recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The left-wing candidates fundraising efforts for recounts in these states have obtained nearly $7m so far, according to her website.

READ MORE: Trump backers ask courts to halt or prevent recounts

Her recount request in Pennsylvania was complicated by opposition from Trump. Michigans attorney general filed suit to halt Steins recounts efforts in the state. In Wisconsin, Trump supporters have tried to stop the recount there, as well.





Stein has claimed that voting machines used in some parts of Wisconsin and other states are vulnerable to hacking and could have been manipulated.

Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan are all industrial heartland states where Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had been expected to win, but lost to Trump, the nominee of the Republican Party.

Clinton led the national popular vote by more than 2.5 million votes, but lost in the decisive electoral vote, in which states are weighted by population.

Stein has sought a recount in Michigan and filed a lawsuit to force a recount in Pennsylvania. Recounting started across Wisconsin on Thursday, following payment this week of $3.5m in recount costs by Steins presidential campaign.

The Green Party scam to fill up their coffers by asking for impossible recounts is now being joined by the badly defeated & demoralized Dems  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

Trump has denounced Steins effort as a fundraising scam for the Green Party. But Clintons campaign said last week that they would participate in the recounts initiated by the Green Party .

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/802529071020339200

Marc Elias, the Clinton campaign counsel, said the campaign had not planned to seek a recount, since its own investigation had failed to turn up any sign of hacking of voting systems.

But now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides, Elias said in a post on the website, Medium.
Crowds gather in Jakarta in response to protests against citys Christian governor who is accused of blasphemy.

Tens of thousands of Indonesians have rallied in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, calling for tolerance and unity after massive protests were held against the citys Christian governor.

The crowds on Sunday filled a major traffic circle in Jakarta and sprawled into its main thoroughfares, waving We Are Indonesia signs and a giant red-and-white national flag was held aloft.

The rally was held in response to protests against Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who is being prosecuted for alleged blasphemy.





Jakarta has been rocked in the past months by major protests against Purnama, who is accused of insulting Islam by criticising opponents who used Quranic references to attack him ahead of an election in February.

Protesters took to the streets on Friday in the latest rally targeting him, demanding Punama be jailed on blasphemy charges. A similar rally was held on November 4, both attracting tens of thousands of people.

Purnama is a long-term ally of President Joko Widodo. He denies wrongdoing, but has apologised for the remarks.

Detention not necessary

Conservative Muslim groups are demanding his immediate arrest. Police say his detention is not necessary and have called for the respect of the legal process.

Sundays counter-rally for tolerance and unity coincided with a weekly car-free morning in Jakarta when a central artery of the city is handed over to pedestrians for a few hours.

Organisers called it the Parade of Indonesian Culture and it featured traditional dances from Sabang in westernmost Aceh to Merauke in easternmost Papua.

The Jakarta government has also put up signboards on major roads calling for national unity and displaying pictures of independence heroes who fought against colonial rule.

Purnama is popular with many for pushing through tough reforms to modernise the traffic-plagued capital.

However, opinion polls have shown him slipping into second place in the race for re-election as governor.

Indonesia is home to the worlds largest Muslim population, and less than nine percent of Indonesians are Christians.
Interior Ministry reports very high turnout on referendum to reduce Senates role and cut back on provincial powers.

Italians are voting in a referendum on constitutional reform that will decide the political future of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has promised to resign if voters fail to back his reform plans.

About 51 million Italians are eligible to vote on Renzis plan to drastically reduce the role of the upper house Senate and reduce powers of provincial governments.

Turnout was very high by Italian standards, with 57.24 percent of voters having cast their ballots by 18:00 GMT, according to the Interior Ministry.

Nearly two thirds of the electorate had voted in some parts of prosperous northern Italy but the turnout was much lower in the south  a pattern which was seen as a potential boost to the premiers survival hopes.





Italians living abroad have voted by post over the past days and the ballots flown to a hangar on the outskirts of Rome.

If the reform moves forward, the Senate would lose much of its power. Instead of the current 315 senators, there would be 100, and rather than being directly elected, they would be selected by regional assemblies.

The reform would dissolve Italys 110 provinces, Italys second-level administrative divisions  considered expensive and redundant  while municipalities, metropolitan cities and regions would remain.

The populist Five Star Movement, the biggest political rival to Renzis Democratic party, has been backing the No campaign in the referendum.

The Five Star Movement has also sought to capitalise on Renzis declining popularity, a sluggish economy and the problems caused by tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Italy.

God willing its over. A new era starts tomorrow I hope, said Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Northern League, after voting in Milan.

With all the opposition parties lined up against the reform, a victory for Renzi would be a surprise and represent an enormous personal triumph for Italys youngest prime minister who often appeared to be fighting the campaign single-handed.

Renzi, 41, voted mid-morning in his Tuscan home town of Pontassieve, but made no comment.

READ MORE: Italy votes for new constitution amid political turmoil

In the final days of frenetic campaigning, he insisted that the public mood was changing, focusing his attention on the millions of Italians who said they were undecided.

Turnout, expected to be 50-60 percent, could be crucial. Pollsters say lower participation could favour Renzi, as hostility to his reform is strongest among young voters and those in the poor south, segments of the population that often dont bother to vote. The referendum does not require a quorum to be valid.

A turnout above 60 percent could also make the result more unpredictable as it would suggest many voters who said they planned to abstain ended up going to the polls.

Financial markets and Europes politicians fear victory for the opposition No camp could cause political instability and renewed turmoil for Italys battered banks, pushing the eurozone towards a fresh crisis.

Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan sought to calm nervous markets on Friday, saying there was no risk of a financial earthquake if No wins, though there may be 48 hours of turbulence.
President Raul Castro pledges to defend the socialist legacy of his brother Fidel Castro, who died last week aged 90.

President Raul Castro has led tens of thousands of Cubans in a pledge to defend the socialist legacy of his brother Fidel Castro, who died last week aged 90 and will be interred in the city where the Cuban Revolution was launched.

This is the unconquered Fidel who calls us with his example, the president, dressed in his four-star generals uniform, told a crowd that had burst into chants of I am Fidel on Saturday night.

Yes, we will overcome any obstacle, turmoil or threat in the building of socialism in Cuba, Raul Castro, 85, said in a speech before Santiagos packed central plaza.

READ MORE: Cuba allies join thousands to honour Castro in Havana

Castros ashes will be entombed near the remains of Cubas independence hero Jose Marti, in a private ceremony beginning on Sunday at 7am (12:00 GMT), concluding nine days of national mourning.





Raul Castro was joined on the stage by leftist foreign dignitaries and the Cuban political leadership to bid farewell to the man known to most Cubans as El Comandante  the commander  or simply Fidel.

After two days of events in Havana, Castros funeral cortege departed on a three-day, 800km journey east, retracing the route that the triumphant rebels took upon overthrowing US-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Rejecting the cult of personality

Raul Castro said millions had come out to pay tribute. Crowds have greeted the caravan along the whole route, with volunteers sprucing up bridges and houses with fresh paint in Castros honour.

Although billboards with Castro quotes stand throughout the country and his portrait hangs from numerous government buildings and in private homes, Fidel Castros image will not be immortalised with statues and public places will not be named after him, Raul Castro said.

The most interesting thing that he [Raul Castro] announced was that Fidel Castro before dying had specifically asked that there will be no statues built of him, said Al Jazeeras Lucia Newman, reporting from the ceremony in Santiago.

Raul Castro said that his brother did not believe in the cult of the personality. So, he says that he will send legislation to the national assembly to make Fidel Castros wishes law.

REPORTERS NOTEBOOK: Farewell to Fidel Castro  It is hard, so hard

With his brother at his side, Castro began his revolution on July 26, 1953, with a failed assault on the Moncada barracks in the eastern city of Santiago.

He went on to build a Soviet-sponsored communist state 145km from the United States and survived a half century of US attempts to topple or kill him.





He defeated the empire and defended his country, Alvin Bailey, a social activist who lived in Cuba and met Castro many times, told Al Jazeera.

Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Chili humble people of all shades knew he stood for the common man, wherever on the planet.

Castros socialist government survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, but at the cost of more than a decade of great economic hardship that was relieved by the largesse of his political disciple, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In the unipolar world, the one of transnationals that arose after the fall of the socialist bloc, the permanent lesson of Fidel is that, yes, it can done, man is capable of overcoming the most difficult conditions, Raul Castro said.

Over the past two decades, a clutch of leftist governments rose to power in Latin America inspired by his ideas and fierce opposition to the US. Several have now been defeated at the ballot box.

High-profile friends of Castro, including Bolivian President Evo Morales and former Brazilian Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, arrived for the evening sendoff.

Lula was a close ally of Cuba when he was president from 2003 to 2010, as was his successor Dilma Rousseff, until she was impeached this year.
Interim leader Shavkat Mirziyoyev is expected to succeed Islam Karimov, who ruled the country for 27 years.

Polls have closed in Uzbekistans presidential election, with long-serving Prime Minister and Interim President Shavkat Mirziyoyev expected to score a comfortable victory in the former-Soviet state.

Polling stations in the country closed at 8 pm local time (15:00 GMT) and 87.8 percent of Uzbekistans more than 20 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, the Central Election Commission said on Sunday.

The commission will announce the results of the vote at 4pm local time (11:00 GMT) on Monday, it said.

Our people have shown high political activity, commission chairman Mirzo-Ulugbek Abdusalomov told reporters.

Voting at over 9,300 polling stations throughout the Muslim-majority Central Asian country with no tradition of competitive elections began at 01:00 GMT.

We are seeing many positive changes in our life, we hope for even more positive changes in our country, said Temur Samiev, a pensioner, as he voted in Tashkent.

Mirziyoyev did not speak to reporters when he went to cast his vote with his family at a polling station in Tashkent.

Despite pledging continuity, Mirziyoyev has announced plans for economic reforms, including a liberalisation of the tightly controlled foreign exchange market, and has acted to ease strains in relations with neighbouring countries.

He was appointed prime minister in 2003 and became interim president following Karimovs death at the age of 78 in September from a stroke. If elected, Mirziyoyev will become the second leader of Central Asias most populous nation since independence.





Representing the same Liberal-Democratic Party that Karimov stood for in the last presidential vote in 2015, Mirziyoyev is facing three other challengers in a bid to secure a five-year term.

But analysts noted that the candidates are not critical of Mirziyoyev or the regime, in the country bordering Afghanistan where Beijing, Moscow, and Washington all vie for influence.

The format for Uzbek elections has not changed since Karimovs death because the regime has not had time to think of anything different, the AFP news agency quoted Kamoliddin Rabbimov, an Uzbek political analyst who lives in France, as saying.

If anything, efforts have been made to ensure other candidates are even more obscure, because Mirziyoyevs stature among the population is not yet what Karimovs was.

Two of the candidates challenged Karimov in past elections, each receiving about three percent of the vote.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which deployed an observer team to monitor the election, has described the campaign as strictly regulated and moderately visible.

Karimovs 27-year reign began in 1989 at the tail-end of the Soviet era, and was often criticised for extreme abuses of human rights.

Few expect 59-year-old Mirziyoyev to make serious political changes if elected, after serving at the top of his predecessors state for so long.

But since coming to power Mirziyoyev has offered clemency to at least one prominent political prisoner, while indicating his government will prioritise reforms to the heavily regulated state economy.

Almost all Western media long have been barred from reporting inside Uzbekistan, and the countrys independent journalists and activists have faced sustained harassment.
Monitoring group says air strikes hit several places across Syrian province, killing at least 73 people.

At least 73 people have been killed in suspected Russian air strikes on several areas of Idlib province in northwest Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.

The Britain-based monitor said on Sunday at least three locations were bombed in the northwestern province and most of the casualties were civilians.

At least 26 people, including three children, were killed in the town of Kafr Nabl, and another 38 people were killed in the town of Maarat al-Numan.





A witness told AFP news agency six strikes hit houses and a crowded local market in the village of Kafr Nabl.

In Maarat al-Numan, an AFP photographer saw local residents and White Helmets rescue workers trying to reach survivors in the rubble at a vegetable market hit in the strike.

The monitor also reported two additional deaths, one in an earlier strike on Maarat al-Numan and another in al-Naqir, also in Idlib.

And it said six civilians, five of them children, had been killed in a government barrel bomb attack on the town of al-Tamanah in the south of Idlib.

Russia began a military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad in September last year, saying it was carrying out strikes against terrorists.

In November, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian forces had begun a major operation targeting Idlib and Homs provinces.

The northern Idlib province is mostly controlled by a powerful rebel alliance known as the Army of Conquest.

Most of Homs province is controlled by the Syrian government, but small parts of the countryside are controlled by a range of rebel groups.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests before spiralling into a bloody civil war.

Meanwhile, government forces advanced against rebels in east Aleppo, taking two small neighbourhoods and pushing into a third, state media said.

The army and allied forces are nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of Syrias second city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syrias opposition its worst defeat of the countrys five-year civil war.

State television said on Sunday evening that the army had captured the districts of Karm al-Tahan and Myessar and advanced into the Qadi Askar neighbourhood.

State news agency SANA said the air force was dropping leaflets over rebel-held areas urging militants to abandon their weapons and allow civilians and the sick and wounded to leave.

At least 311 civilians, including 42 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the government began its assault, according to the Observatory.

Syrian army spokesman Brigadier General Samir Suleiman said the military had regained control of 45 to 50 percent of east Aleppo, and he accused rebels of hiding among civilians.
Medical researchers from the Middle East and North Africa region are meeting in Cairo on December 5-7 to study Implementation Science, which is a field that brings evidence from biomedical and healthcare research into public health practice and policy. Their goal is to improve public health by bridging the gap between optimal health practices and []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric...
I am not one given to prognostication; I have seen too many predictions fall flat on their face. But next year, 2017, will be the anniversary of a number of major historical events concerning religion and the Mideast. That these would all converge on year is surely cause for speculation and remembrance, even if nothing comes of it.

Anyone who ever took higher math knows that when waveforms are added together the result can be something altogether unexpected. For example: the addition of certain harmonic sine waves can produce a square wave. From smooth curves one can create catastrophic change.

Of course, the concept of cycles in history is suspect; but some cycles are accepted: the classic boom/bust cycles of economics or the cycle of tyranny to liberty to prosperity to dependence and thence again to tyranny.

While history is progressing -- something the West asserts, but which is not so accepted in Eastern philosophy -- there are those who would assert that even this progression is the result of regular cycles or patterns.

Maybe so! Maybe not!

But next year 2017 will be the anniversary of some major world events, which give pause for thought.

500 years ago, in 1517, Martin Luther started the Reformation with his nailing of the 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Church Door. Luther was not the first Western Christian to break from Rome, but he was the first to get whole nations involved. Within a few decades, almost half of Europe was on board.

North Germany, the Netherlands, England, Scandinavia -- all would all join. For a while, it looked like Poland, Austria, and France might join. Hungary would retain an elite Reformed minority.

What saved Catholicism was the Counter-Reformation. While not accepting core Reformation doctrine, the Catholic Church was forced to make some radical changes under fire, lest the whole institution collapse from rot. Modern Catholics may not fully appreciate how deteriorated Catholicism had become. Even to those who remained Roman Catholic, the Reformation forced the Vatican to clean up a lot of its act. Of course, there were vicious religious wars, and no one can diminish the crimes of the various Inquisitions; but let us not exaggerate them either. Nor should one forget that that the Reformed side was also capable of crimes. Still this is a signature event in history.

2017 will also be the 500th anniversary of the Ottoman Turkic victory over the Egyptian Mamluks, which gave the Turks -- a non-Arab people -- control over the Middle East for 400 years.

2017 will also be the 120th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress in Basel Switzerland in 1917.

Of course, there had started to be a noticeable Jewish return to Israel even before the First Zionist Congress. Jews had started returning since the 1880s; but the First Zionist Congress sought to establish Zionism under International Law; to formalize it. Whether or not Israel can be defended under International Law is regularly debated in the world press; but no one can deny that 1897 is when Zionism made its first formal declaration to the world; and when Zionism started to become a force.

2017 will be the 100th anniversary of America's entrance into World War I, when America first became a true world power. Prior to that, America was the envy of the world for her prosperity, but considered mostly a side player, not a central actor.

However, 1917 would not close before the Balfour Declaration was issued, when Britain recognized the setting up of a Jewish Homeland as a war aim.

There are some who conflate the two. Some have averred that the British placed enormous belief in the power of Jewish bankers to persuade America to enter the war, and save Britain from defeat. These historians see the Balfour Declaration as payback for America's involvement.

The single motive uniting all of the makers of the Declaration was the desire to harness Jewish support for the war effort, particularly in Russia and the USA. ... Jewish influence in these countries was thought to have been important for the British cause. (snip) Behind this policy were two erroneous assumptions. The first was the misconception that Jews held a powerful influence in Russia, the USA and elsewhere. (snip) The idea that world Jewry wielded tremendous influence, as believed by Balfour, Lloyd George and others in the Government, derived from widespread antisemitic prejudice within the British Establishment. -- Jewish Quarterly

What is clear is that the dating of the Balfour Declaration was intended to persuade a war weary Russia to remain in the war.

Britains leaders hoped that a formal declaration in favor of Zionism would help gain Jewish support for the Allies in neutral countries, in the United States and especially in Russia, where the powerfully anti-Semitic czarist government had just been overthrown with the help of Russias significant Jewish population. -- History.com

It did not work! Within a week, the Bolsheviks overthrew the pro-Allied Provisional government; and the Bolsheviks would release the secret details of the Sykes-Picot agreement and other arrangements -- which had promised Constantinople to Russia -- to the world.



If the British had assumed the Jewish leadership among the Bolsheviks would get on board the Allied team because of the Balfour Declaration, they were soon disabused. Though the Bolshevik leadership was disproportionally Jewish, they were not Frum Jews.

The revelations were a scandal, which the Arabs soon picked up to accuse the Jews of a dark conspiracy. How much of the Balfour Declaration came from genuine Zionist influence, British Evangelical Millennial religious sensibilities, and general antisemitic prejudice that ascribed too much power to Jewish influence is still up to debate.

2017 will be the 100th anniversary of Allenby's December 1917 entrance into Jerusalem, ending Turkish rule over the area after 400 years of Ottoman tyranny.

2017 will be the 70th anniversary of the UN General Assembly Partition vote on Palestine. While not fully legal (it never went to the Security Council for ratification), the vote carried the veneer of moral authority that the Jews had a right to a homeland.

Ironically, while Israel holds the 1947 partition vote as a definitive statement (it was a start, but again was never ratified by the Security Council), Israel subsequently has been careful to insist on Security Council affirmations when the UN General Assembly votes against Israel. In the Security Council, Israel has depended on the US veto to sink such resolutions. Ironically, like the Arabs states of 1947, Israel regularly rejects UN Resolutions as not binding. Ironically, the Arabs now say they are.

Still, irony notwithstanding, 2017 will be a notable 70th anniversary.

2017 will also be the 70th anniversary of the Benelux Agreement, from which the Common Market and later the European Union would emerge. It was ratified in 1947, became came into force in 1948. Oddly, just like Israel, which was voted on by the UN in 1947; but did not come into being until 1948.

2017 will be the 50th anniversary of Israel's re-conquest of Jerusalem. The Arabs are already making hay about that, albeit in a negative way. Still it is a Jubilee Anniversary, which has to have religious significance to the Jewish people.

2017 will be the 40th anniversary (a biblical generation) of the first Likud victory. For the first time in Israeli history, a right wing government was elected.

500, 120, 100, 70, 50, and 40. An odd occurrence of anniversaries, top-heavy with either religious, historical, and/or Zionist implications. Of course, this could all be mental fluff; and come to nothing; but it is interesting. It will be interesting to see if the cycles produce a smooth wave and nothing happens, or a square wave with catastrophic consequences.

Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who wishes he had availed himself more fully of the opportunity to learn Spanish in high school, lo those many decades ago.
Americas Apollo astronauts -- 24 of whom travelled to the moon, 16 of whom walked on the moon, all of whom made mankinds moon steps possible -- are a sobering lesson in patriotism and risk-taking, not to mention lifetime stamina. The topic arises  a teaching moment, as they say -- because Buzz Aldrin was recently evacuated to New Zealand from a South Pole expedition. First word is, he is okay -- if still intrepid.

Aldrin, one of the first two humans to walk on the moon, Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 11, is now 86. You would not know it to see him. Over the years, opportunities have presented themselves for working together -- and he is always the same. He bounds up the stairs, two bags in hand; answers every technical question to a depth that freezes keyboards and fills whiteboards. He is sharp as they come, still the PhD in astronautic engineering, still the moon walker. He is Americas most outspoken ambassador for getting to Mars, and back to the moon.

Nor is it just talk. Buzz walks the walk, did on the moon and does now. He has authored half a dozen books on when, how, why, and with what second- and third-order effects America should get back to space exploration. He is cogent, eloquent, and fervent in conviction that America must regain, maintain and press dominance in space -- maximizing the advantage of being first. And of course, he is right.

Today, our grip on space is weakening, with implications for national security, big science, human and robotic space exploration, satellites, and international leadership. Unclear for many, but crystal clear to Buzz and the Apollo astronauts, history does not stand still. What we do in space matters here on Earth. In a phrase, Americas leadership in space matters.

We are blessed still to have among us heroes from the spacefaring days. John Glenn (95), first American to orbit the Earth (three times). Of moon walkers, we have seven -- Buzz, Alan Bean (83, Apollo 12), Dave Scott (83, Apollo 9 and 15), John Young (85, Apollo 16), Charlie Duke (80, Apollo 16), Gene Cernan (81, Apollo 17) and Harrison Schmitt (80, Apollo 17).

Of other Apollo crews, we have ten still, Ken Mattingly (80, Apollo 16), Al Worden (84, Apollo 15), Fred Haise (83, Apollo 13), Jim Lovell (88, Apollo 13), Dick Gordon (87, Apollo 12), Mike Collins (86, Apollo 11), Tom Stafford (86, Apollo 10), Bill Anders (83, Apollo 8), Frank Borman (88, Apollo 8), and Walt Cunningham (84, Apollo 7).

But it is what these men did, how they did it, and what they stand for -- even now -- that should inspire us, not just their longevity or willingness to continue outsized projects, like the South Pole mission. These Americans were not just patriots, fighter and test pilots, supremely fit, willing to risk all for America -- although they were that.

They were men of enormous resolve. They were men distinguished by a willingness and ability to concentrate intently on life-or-death missions, in service of their country -- us and our ideals. They knew the odds -- and knew other things. Chiefly, they knew what was worth dying for. They risked all to block the advance of totalitarian communism, and preserve our freedom. To be clear: the space race was a surrogate for war.

When John Glenn climbed aboard his Mercury-Atlas 6 spacecraft, propelled to space on the Atlas LV-3B engine, the rocket had exploded one in three times. When the Mercury astronauts were chosen in 1959, they were taken to witness a launch. The rocket exploded before their eyes. Still, Glenn was eager and up, buckled in.

Same thing for Apollo 7s crew, Walt Cunningham, Wally Schirra, and Don Eisele flew after a fire that killed three colleagues. Same thing for Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins, who pioneered Americas first trip to the surface of the moon, Apollo 11, not really knowing what they would find. Privately, they put the odds of safe return at two in three. Similar courage can be found in all the Apollo missions.

Why did they do this? Why take these chances? Why risk everything for the people and ideals? Asked if they thought about risk, you would probably get a -- no. More accurately, they made that choice early, and never looked back. For Americas ideals and their countrymen, risk was it.

Why, for America? Because they knew a secret: what was good for America was good for the world. America was the beacon, exceptional place, exceptional people, and exceptional idea -- well worth preserving. Nowhere else did there exist such promise, or the balance of freedom and equality, prosperity and adversity. If preserved by America, all the world would benefit.

For all our systems imperfections, the Apollo astronauts understood the uniqueness -- of the moment and America. Embedded in our system is a promise that all may one day find it possible to prosper. Any wonder that the plaque Buzz and Neil left behind says simply: We Came in Peace, for All Mankind.

No wonder at all. At the time, most Americans knew what the astronauts knew: This our victory, but also a victory for all mankind. It was a moment of cohesion, shared promise, and oneness of species. What America had done, the world knew, would resound to the benefit of all -- and it has.

So, as Buzz recovers from his latest adventure, and Apollo pioneers look about, they likely wonder if we are up the task. Whether we will carry forward what they began, make good on their historic down payment, assure that freedom and democracy have no end -- and that human space exploration continues. My hope is yes; more, my belief is yes.

Why? Because America did not just go to the moon in peace for all Mankind, but returned with that mission. We remain unique, the greatest guarantor of individual liberty and mankinds destiny. That burden still requires daring, worthy goals in space and on Earth, taking risks for stretch goals, but -- on our game -- there is no stopping us.

If Buzz can still explore the South Pole at 86, we can assume some risk ourselves. That is the spirit that got us to the moon, and the spirit we need again -- now. With such spirit, nothing should be out of reach -- and nothing is, from peace to footsteps on Mars. So, Buzz, thanks for reminding us to keep setting stretch goals. And get better, friend.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State, who served in the Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses. He led congressional oversight into NASA and Defense, is a former litigator, and writes widely on national security and legal issues.
At first I dismissed the Democrats' subsidized street riots and vandalism, moronic election recount demands, and perfervid attacks on Trump and his supporters in the press as a demonstration of their juvenile, narcissistic refusal to accept defeat. Then I read the brilliant essay by Angelo Codevilla

Its a bit long and I know your Sundays are busy but if you cant read it all at once, Ill summarize what I think are the most significant points in the hope that if the topic is of interest youll read it all. He traces the notion of political correctness from the 1930 Communist movement through Antonio Gramscis cultural hegemony configuration to the modern Democratic Party and finds in them a familiar strain:

[A]ll progressives, Communists included, claim to be about creating new human realities, they are perpetually at war against natures laws and limits. But since reality does not yield, progressives end up pretending that they themselves embody those new realities. Hence, any progressive movements nominal goal eventually ends up being subordinated to the urgent, all-important question of the movements own power. Because that power is insecure as long as others are able to question the truth of what the progressives say about themselves and the world, progressive movements end up struggling not so much to create the promised new realities as to force people to speak and act as if these were real: as if what is correct politically -- i.e., what thoughts serve the partys interest -- were correct factually. Communist states furnish only the most prominent examples of such attempted groupthink. Progressive parties everywhere have sought to monopolize educational and cultural institutions in order to force those under their thumbs to sing their tunes or to shut up. But having brought about the opposite of the prosperity, health, wisdom, or happiness that their ideology advertised, they have been unable to force folks to ignore the gap between political correctness and reality.

He argues that this effort is bound to fail and progressives everywhere have had the same reaction to this failure by becoming their own reason for being. Their movements are never about what they say they are. They are about gaining power for themselves and destroying any who stand in their way. Those who refuse to comply with their ever-changing and ever more ridiculously unreal versions of nature and humanity must be the objects of never-ending warfare.

Unlike the Machiavellian Gramscian model of attaining power through cultural hegemony and coopting the institutions which might oppose them, the American left has chosen to go even further and pick fights with the common sense of people it cannot wholly control. American schools of education taught a version of America in which this country was born tainted by Western original sins -- racism, sexism, greed and genocide against natives and the environment all wrapped in religious obscurantism and on the basis of hypocritical promises of freedom and equality. These teachers created a uniform class which now presides over nearly all federal and state, government bureaucracies, over the media, the educational establishment, and major corporations.

Why does the American Left demand ever-new P.C. obeisances? In 2012 no one would have thought that defining marriage between one man and one woman, as enshrined in U.S. law, would brand those who do so as motivated by a culpable psychopathology called homophobia, subject to fines and near-outlaw status. Not until 2015-16 did it occur to anyone that requiring persons with male personal plumbing to use public bathrooms reserved for men was a sign of the same pathology. Why had not these become part of the P.C. demands previously? Why is there no canon of P.C. that, once filled, would require no further additions? Because the point of P.C. is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself. Much less is it about creating a definable common culture or achieving some definable good. On the retail level, it is about the Americans ruling classs felt need to squeeze the last drops of voter participation out of the Democratic Partys habitual constituencies. On the wholesale level, it is a war on civilization waged to indulge identity politics.

Hurting dissenters has become, he argues, an addictive pleasure because they really have no priorities beyond aggrandizing their own power.

The end result of this insult to voters was the election of Trump and the rejection, almost entirely, of the Democratic Party.

As if to underscore that the flailing left hasnt got the message and insists it has the right to silence those who hold different opinions we have three examples this week: Kelloggs attack on Breitbart, BuzzFeeds attack on the Gaineses and the boycott of Goldbergs Bagels in Baltimore. They are all on a different scale of course, but all reflect the common leftist conceit that they are the fonts of all that is good and true and the rest of us must comply with whatever is this days fashions -- from global warming to men in girls bathrooms, to ignoring Planned Parenthoods sale of fetal body parts.

Kelloggs

To most of us, Kellogg's Cereal is breakfast fare (cereal, Pop-Tarts). What is less well-known is that its non-profit arm, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, funds and supports a dogs breakfast of unsavory leftwing operations -- from Soros Open Society to the odious foundation money-laundering outfit, the Tides Center.

This week, it flounced its skirts and announced it was pulling its advertising from the highly effective Breitbart site: We regularly work with our media-buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that are not aligned with our values as a company, said Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kelloggs. We recently reviewed the list of sites where our ads can be placed and decided to discontinue advertising on Breitbart.com. We are working to remove our ads from that site.

Breitbart regularly having challenged the orthodoxy of the mainstream media and the uniparty, every good leftist -- and I count Kelloggs management in that category -- must do all it can to demonize it, despite the unrealistic and untrue charges against the site and Steve Bannon who was its former executive chair and now is chief strategist for president-elect Trump. (In the same manner, at a Harvard Symposium this week, the losing Clinton advisors attacked the Trump campaign for racist dog whistles to win the election. I suppose thats easier than conceding they ran a dreadful campaign for a candidate who called those who opposed her deplorables and offered no policy reasons -- only her sex and time [poorly] served in elective office. They ought to read Codevilla for a clue.)

Chip and Joanna Gaines

Democratic candidates pay election-year homage to religious beliefs (Clinton, for example, talked about her Methodist beliefs forming her views). They are coopting religious organizations, inter alia, Mussolini-style by means of lavishly funding the faith-based NGOs which are paid per head to place unskilled, unvetted Moslem refugees on the U.S. welfare rolls in exchange for which they lobby for more such immigration. At the same it is no secret that the ruling elites make every effort to undermine Judeo-Christian beliefs and attack believers.

This weeks designated target is HGTVs Fixer Upper couple Chip and Joanna Gaines. In a particularly odious witch-hunting move, BuzzFeed posted that they attended a church whose pastor believes the Bible -- that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman.

Why anyone, other than the author of this piece, cares was a mystery to even the Washington Post, but if so, its because the Posts writers havent been paying attention to the earlier successful anti-religious PC campaigns forcing wedding cake bakers and florists to serve at gay weddings or nuns to provide contraceptive coverage for their employees.

Ace of Spades Headquarters could not resist a response:

HGTV has a remodeling show "Fixer Upper" featuring Chip & Joanna Gaines. I've seen it a few times. They appear to be nice couple and seem to do a good job. No religious overtones that I've seen. One problem, the Gaines belong to a church where SSM is not accepted. The Gaines' have kept their mouths shut but are under pressure to state their beliefs. So Christians who stay true to their beliefs are fair game? Right? Well, if Christians are to be held accountable for their beliefs. What about Muslims? So if the Gaines' church and pastor can lead to their suspension and/or termination. (Stay tuned) What about a Muslim congressman? Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) hasn't come out publicly for the exclusion of SSM. But it appears that his Imam has. Its not within our paradigm, really, to change the word of God, said Imam Makram El-Amin, leader of Masjid Al-Nur in Minneapolis. Our religion is clear about this matter. Its not a lifestyle that we accept as being part of the natural way of things for human beings. When it comes to that, thats my position, and thats Islams position. And this incident as tragic and terrible as it is that does not change that, he said. Until Congressman Ellison comes forth and denounces his Imam, his mosque and anti-homosexuality Keith Ellison is not in a position to run the DNC. Hell, he shouldn't even be a congressman. We won't even get into his Anti-Semitism and his ties to the Nation of Islam. If we can't have a Christian couple star in a 30 minute cable show about home fixer uppers, certainly we can't have an anti-homosexual bigot run the DNC. But when it comes to the hypocrites left we know which religion is acceptable, don't we?

Goldbergs Bagels

Goldbergs Bagels is a small kosher bakery in Baltimore,

When a customer attacked pro-Trump supporters outside his store, claiming Trump was a rapist and racist, the shop owner tried to quell the disturbance by asking the woman to leave. She further insulted Trump and then his supporters. This prompted Mr. Drebin, the shop owner, to express his own support for Trump, after which his Facebook page was filled with insults suggesting Drebin approved of anti-Semitism, misogyny, xenophobia and alt-right leanings. The entire PC shtick.

His business dropped by 15%.

Keep this stuff up and someday there wont be a Democratic Party. In the meantime, I note that Goldbergs Bagels has a website, and you can order by mail. Theyre very delicious, (So is Chik-fil-A, by the way.)

Let the left play the P.C. card all they want, I will fight to trump them every time.
The American left elected Donald Trump. They've been voting for him for decades, and at last they've succeeded. If the left's post-election behavior is any indication, they intend to keep doing so.

I write metaphorically, of course. Few leftists actually voted for Trump, but as sure as the sunrise, they elected him. The fact is hardly debatable, as principled leftists like Noam Chomsky, Joan Williams, and Chris Hedges have said.

Here's one example of the process in action: shortly before Election Day in 2000, polls had Green Party candidate Ralph Nader garnering 5%-9% of the popular vote. He got 2.7%. Where did all those votes go? They went to Democratic nominee Al Gore. Liberals who said they were voting Green succumbed to the "lesser of two evils" argument. They didn't like Gore, but they voted for him because, in that year's timeless phrase, "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush."

Democratic strategists knew they would. The idea that blacks and liberals can be counted on to vote Democratic, irrespective of the actual candidate, has made up the core of the party's strategy since its takeover by the Democratic Leadership Council in 1985.

Back then, Democrats were taking a beating by the GOP because the party was seen to be too liberal, too soft on crime, and insufficiently bellicose. So the DLC moved the party to the right on those issues, secure in the belief that liberal (and black) voters had no choice but to vote Democratic. Bill Clinton's election in 1992 proved the DLC right. Even as Clinton signed NAFTA and the most draconian crime bill in recent memory, and slashed welfare benefits for the poor, leftists marched zombie-like to the polls, pulled the Democratic lever, and celebrated the resulting "victory."

Tea Party Republicans know better. They built a conservative base within the GOP to oppose mainstream candidates who said the right words about lower taxes and smaller government but voted for budget-busting expansions like Medicare Part D. The Tea Party has demonstrated the power that adhering to one's principles can have. Its members don't go along to get along and will attack a mainstream GOP candidate even if it means a Democrat is elected. In so doing, they've amassed power far beyond their numbers in society.

Liberal Democrats haven't a clue. Indeed, their embrace of neo-liberal policies of increasing military budgets, free trade agreements, stagnating wages, lower taxes, and the largest prison population in the world legitimately raises the question of whether there is an American left at all. If so, it certainly wouldn't be recognizable to FDR or LBJ. It is precisely the failure of Americans who call themselves liberals to act on liberal principles that elected Bill Clinton and Barack Obama but defeated Hillary Clinton.

This year, Democratic constituencies since the 1930s  unions, blue-collar workers, the "little man"  had finally had enough. More importantly, they had someone to vote for who at least seemed to care about their many problems. Neo-liberal policies have dealt a body blow to the standard of living of blue-collar Americans, but Democratic Party strategists, in keeping with DLC doctrine, figured it wouldn't matter. Bernie Sanders told them it did, but the party didn't listen.

Apparently, they also figured the swelling chorus of liberal voices calling those once core Democratic constituencies "racists," "sexists," "bigots," or just plain stupid wouldn't matter, either. Democrats' disdain for their own voters was never supposed to reach the public, but, thanks to WikiLeaks, it did. Email dumps revealed a shocking level of contempt by Clinton campaign operatives for Democratic voters. Liberals were "self-righteous whiners," and Latinos were "needy." Catholics were so disdained that they called on campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri to resign.

That contempt was a direct result of the original DLC strategy. It's a short route from taking voters for granted to looking down on them.

Following the dramatic repudiation of the Democratic electoral strategy, we might expect the party to be reassessing same. Maybe it is, but I doubt it. Here's why:

Leftists greeted the election results by rioting in the streets, outraged that traditional Democratic voters would dare to spurn their chosen candidate, a person whose every word and deed shouted "more of the same"  more war, more wage stagnation, more disdain for ordinary Americans.

Far from learning a lesson, the American left are doubling down. They're essentially promising to back the party's next neo-liberal candidate even though neo-liberal policies have done such damage to the standard of living of countless Americans. Surely Democratic Party strategists are taking note.

For over two decades, they've taken the left for granted. Liberals are now saying loudly and clearly that they were right to do so and may continue.

High in Trump Tower, our next president is smiling.

Robert Franklin, a Texas attorney since 1980, also writes for the National Parents Organization on the subject of family court reform.
No sooner had president-elect Trump announced a deal had been reached with air conditioner manufacturer Carrier to keep 1,100 manufacturing jobs in Indiana rather than being shipped to Mexico, the usual suspects began chattering about corporate welfare, crony capitalism, and the hypocritical picking of winners and losers.

Carrier is an established business, not a pipe dream like the green energy failures President Obama subsidized like Solyndra. It is one of many U.S. businesses struggling to survive in the Obama era of high taxes and oppressive regulation. Trump has promised to cut corporate taxes and eliminate oppressive and job-killing regulations, but he is not president just yet. The Carrier package of tax incentives he helped negotiate is but a down payment on this promise. All companies will soon be freed from the shackles of job-killing taxes and regulations. They will not have to game the system by threatening to go to Mexico. Trumps tax and regulation cuts will create the fertile business environment that will allow them to stay and grow profitably.

The deal puts money in the hands of a U.S. business which will use it to grow, and in the hands of 1,100 employees who will give their families a Merry Christmas. They will get paychecks instead of unemployment checks and food stamps. The $7 million over a decade is dwarfed by the economic and human costs of not making the deal.

States and cities offer tax breaks and incentives all the time to lure businesses all the time from other states. In Illinois in 2011 Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn gave such breaks to keep Sears and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in Obamas home state. Letting profitable businesses keep more of the money they earned rather than turn it over to the feds to be wasted in money pits like Solyndra or to subsidize green energy companies tilting at windmills is not corporate welfare but merely good common and business sense. Trump isnt picking winners and losers. He is trying to help a winner continue to thrive and grow.

As far as Carrier goes, the score is Trump 1100, Obama zero. In June, Obama mocked Trumps desire to keep employers like Carrier from leaving the country. Obama called them the jobs of the past and in effect said good riddance to them:

In June, President Obama participated in a PBS townhall and was asked about Trump's promise to keep Carrier's Indiana plant in the U.S. The townhall participant -- Eric Cottonham, a member of the Steelworkers Union employed by Carrier -- asked Obama if anything could be done to stem the tide of jobs flowing out of the country, as Trump had recently promised to do. "I see here youre doing a lot of things, but in Indianapolis, theres nothing there for us," he asked. "I mean, whats next? I mean, what can we look forward to in the future as far as jobs, employment, whatever? Because all of our jobs has left or in the process of leaving, sir. "Those jobs of the past are just not going to come back," Obama told Cottonham. Instead, Obama advised workers losing their jobs to learn how to adapt their skills to "some of these new technologies," in particular, the "clean energy sector." "Let's focus on those," he suggested. "The days when you just being able to -- you just being willing to work hard and you can now walk into a plant and suddenly theres going to be a job for you for 30 years or 40 years, thats just not going to be there for our kids because more and more, that stuffs going to be automated."

Funny, he doesnt hold the threat of automation over fast food workers striking to get $15 per hour to ask people if they would like fries with that burger. They may very well be replaced with automated kiosks. Why doesnt he call their jobs jobs of the past? In fact, Carrier jobs are good-paying jobs and Trumps deal will lead to jobs of the future -- jobs to be generated in Indianapolis rather than Monterrey, Mexico.

In his Carrier speech, Trump announced the promise by Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies, to spend upwards of $16 million to renovate its Indiana plant in a firm commitment to next-generation manufacturing. Trump said in his speech:

So, United Technologies has stepped up. And I have to say this, they did it in such a nice and such a professional way. And theyre going to spend so much money on renovating this plant. And I said, Greg, say that number. You know, he said $16 million. Well, the minimum number is 16. Its going to be, in my opinion, a lot more than that.

Whatever the number, it will surely bear more fruit than Obamas failed investments in the clean energy sector. It is Solyndra, not Carrier, that is the poster child for crony capitalism, an investment if failure to reward an Obama donor. As Investors Business Daily editorialized:

The Secretary of Energy takes responsibility for and defends the granting of a half-billion-dollar-loan guarantee to an imploding solar panel maker. But that's not where the campaign donor buck stopped In point of fact, newly disclosed emails show Democratic fundraiser and Solyndra investor George Kaiser talked directly with White House officials about the now-bankrupt solar company's $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. Kaiser, a major Obama bundler and backer who raised $50,000 to $100,000 for the president's election campaign, was one of Solyndra's primary investors. Kaiser himself donated $53,500 to Obama's 2008 election campaign, split between the DSCC and Obama for America There was no due diligence done in the awarding of taxpayer dollars to a firm everybody knew had an unsustainable business model in an industry largely kept afloat by taxpayer subsidies. Political considerations and donor cash had everything to do with the loan.

Crony capitalism is blowing $500 million of the taxpayer dollars on an industry that cant survive without federal subsidies. Carrier is not Solyndra. Trump picked a winner. Obama was the one who picked losers.

Daniel John Sobieski is a free lance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investors Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
The mills of democratic politics in Palestinian organizations grind slowly, if they ever grind at all. This was borne out once again at the 7th General Congress of the Fatah section of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) held in Ramallah, the capital of the West Bank, on November 29, 2016, the anniversary of the day in 1947 when the UN General Assembly approved the Partition of Palestine. This was the first such conference since 2009. It was attended by 1400 delegates compared with 2355 in 2009.

The main function of the Congress was to elect the leader of Fatah, the Fatah Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council. The main event was the reelection of 81-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, said to be suffering from a heart problem, and having undergone cardiac catheterization, as chairman of Fatah. The stated term of office is five years, but it is unpredictable when it will actually end. The lack of adherence to rules and time restraints by Palestinian leaders is familiar. Mr. Abbas is presently in the twelfth year of his four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority, and appears ready to hold the post until destiny calls.

In the Congress in Ramallah, Abbas, not unexpectedly, was elected unanimously despite a possible challenge from his long-time rival, the 55-year-old Mohammed Dahlan, former leader of Fatah in the Gaza Strip, who is in exile in Abu Dhabi. Dahlan had been minister for Palestinian security for a short time in 2003 and had organized a paramilitary force in 2007.

However, no challenge took place. Abbas has been wary of a threat to his leadership and acted ruthlessly. He thus suspended key Dahlan supporters from Fatah, reduced the PA salaries of many others, and prevented many other Dahlan supporters from attending the Fatah conference.

At the Congress, there was pointless talk about the successor to Abbas when he retires. Interestingly, that retirement will not be in Palestine or Jordan, but in Qatar, where Abbas has citizenship and where his two sons, who through connections have acquired considerable wealth, have investment firms.

Abbas's bitter rival Dahlan has had a checkered career, personal and political. In the Karni scandal of 1997, he was accused of diverting 40% of taxes levied in Gaza to his own personal bank. Dahan fled the West Bank in 2014 after accusing Abbas of corruption. As a result he was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison.

The bitter power struggle continues. In a ceremony on November 10, 2016, the 12th anniversary of Arafat's death, Abbas in his remarks implied that Dahlan was behind Arafat's death in Paris. Two days later Dahlan replied. In his version, it was Abbas who was a suspect, because Abbas was the only one who benefited from Arafat's death.

The power struggles in Palestinian politics make the contest between presidential candidates in American politics look likely a friendly game of chess. The organizers of the Ramallah Congress, using political muscle, could have given Debbie Wasserman Schultz valuable lessons in her attempts to distort the Democratic party primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton.

The bitter rivalry between Abbas and the ambitious Dahlan is highly personal, rather than based on issues on which their opinions are largely similar. This rivalry is only part of the other divisions among Palestinians: the bitter fight between Fatah and Hamas; the rival groups with Fatah; and the feud between the PLO and other groups, the Popular Front (PFLP) and the Democratic Front (DFLP).

Abbas has tried to reach agreement with Hamas, partly through the agreement signed in Cairo in 2011 for a joint government in the West Bank and Gaza. But this has been postponed, even though Abbas met Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar in October 2016.

Supporters of all sides in Palestinian politics claim they are following the path of Yasser Arafat. That path was a devious one, but it bears some similarity with the road taken by Abbas concerning Russia. Arafat had emerged as a leader of Fatah (Movement for the Liberation of Palestine), formed in Kuwait in 1959, and then as chairman in 1964 of the PLO created by the Arab League aided by the Soviet Union in 1964.

There is controversy over the origin of the PLO. The most dramatic, if exaggerated, explanation comes from Ion Pacepa, a former adviser to Nicolae Ceausescu, dictator of Communist Romania, and a general in the secret police of that country, who defected to the U.S. in July 1978. Pacepa's argument is that the Soviet Union proposed the creation of the PLO and decided on the main point of appeal, the liberation struggle of the "Palestinian people."

Indeed. around this time the Soviet Union was creating "liberation fronts" throughout the Third World, especially in Bolivia and Columbia. The Soviet influence is shown in the PLO Charter created on May 28, 1964, with a preamble, "We, the Palestinian Arab people," and Article 25, which calls for the liberation of its homeland in "liberational, organizational, political, and financial matters."

The first PLO Council with 422 representatives, in which the KGB had an influence, approved the document. The first chair, Ahmad Shukeiry, only held the position for a few months after which he was replaced by Arafat, who was dependent on the Soviet Union for military and economic assistance.

It is unclear the exact nature of Soviet influence in the creation of the PLO, but it is more than coincidental that Abbas studied in Moscow in the early 1980s, that he got his doctorate from Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, and published in 1984 his dissertation, "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship between Nazism and Zionism". Abbas told the world that the Holocaust had been exaggerated, and that "Zionism" had fabricated the myth of six million killed.

According to some documents, revealed by another Soviet defector Vasili Mitrokhin, Abbas was a KGB agent in 1983.

The Obama administration has persisted in seeing Abbas and Fatah as a possible negotiating partner for peace with Israel. President Trump can benefit from the true nature of Fatah as illustrated by the rhetoric and ruthless power politics at the Ramallah Congress. The most devastating comments were that Abbas is a political corpse, corrupt, tyrannical, who has lost political direction. The incoming secretary of state in the Trump administration should act accordingly.
With Trump's excellent team, such as USMC (Ret) General James Mattis in charge, the U.S. government has all the battlefield expertise it needs to win the Jihad War. We can start by keeping in mind that the U.S. military won every engagement it wanted to win in Iraq -- the ones we lost are due to our dreadful civilian bumblers. Nevertheless, losing naval control of the Gulf, for example, still puts us in a damned awkward position. Vladimir Putin has put on an almighty show of military fireworks, most obviously when Assad invited Putin into Syria to fight against American-backed jihadis on behalf of Assad's jihadis -- a complete madhouse morally, strategically, tactically and in every other way. If you can't even define who is on which side, you can only lose.

It's not the least of Donald Trump's accomplishments so far that he has finally pinpointed the enemy, both morally and strategically.

Liberals have not been able to defined a strategic and moral U.S. enemy since Joseph Stalin, so they are the last to find any sense of clarity in the current mess. They still get their strategic nuggets of wisdom from old newspaper cartoons: "We have found the enemy, and he is us." No wonder they spread nothing but defeatism.

Well, Donald Trump has now defined the enemy, and he has done so very cleverly. ISIS is the most atrocious wolf pack since the Totenkopf SS and Khmer Rouge, and destroying them is morally unambiguous: Or do you have any doubts about defeating the newest Nazis?

Declaring ISIS as the face of evil is a good move, morally, historically, and strategically. Even the Saudis and Qataris (who sponsored ISIS in the first place) are unwilling to take their side in public.

Then Trump also makes his definition of the enemy practical: Any "enemy combatants... or who pledge allegiance to ISIS."

Vladimir Putin can wholeheartedly agree with that one, because it allows him to shore up Assad of Syria, his own ally, and makes it okay for Russia to send cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea to bomb the most truly evil monsters, including his own Chechen jihadists. Having associated our joint enemy with the moral atrocities of ISIS, we can now count on support from Egypt (which has been asking Obama to do just that), and (slyly) from the Saudis, the Europeans, and sane, modernist Muslims, who can be found in every country.

Americans forget that Muslim modernism has been on the rise in the Middle East ever since the end of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, so that Lebanese Arabs speak French, the Saudi military speak American English, and all of Israel's neighbors have explicitly called for a final peace settlement in the Middle East.

The Obama administration inexplicably took the side of global Jihad against civilization, supporting the Nazi-era Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example, and then acted surprised when anarchy spread everywhere in the Middle East. Hillary was personally responsible for the criminal invasion of Libya, overthrowing a neutral Muslim power instead of an enemy, and it seems that the Clinton Foundation is still trying to make nice with the forces of antediluvian radicalism. The word "stupid" doesn't come even close for the Democrats and their foreign policy.

Simply by giving the right signals Trump and his team have already outlined the shape of the new modernist alliance in the Jihad War: Egypt's president El Sisi has openly called for a religious reformation in the reactionary war theology of Islam, an act of great personal bravery. The new alliance for civilization will include NATO, Russia, Jordan, Israel, the Arab League, India (and probably Pakistan), China (which has its own jihad problem), and even Turkey (even though Erdogan claims to celebrate the Ottoman Caliphate, complete with massacres of competitors of the victorious sultans). Trump has just defined the strong horse, just as Bin Laden said, and guess what? The strong horse is us!

The rise of Jihad has set back the progress of modernism everywhere in the Muslim world, a plain fact that no American leader has called attention to. Literally every Muslim country in the world has passionate modernists who hate Jihadist oppression and backwardness. We know they exist, because for half a century modernist Muslims ruled Turkey, bringing education, peace, and prosperity to that corner of the world.

As soon as the new alliance for civilization becomes clear to all, fence-sitters like Libya and even Yemen will jump to the right side. That will only leave a shrunken Wahhabi war sect pursuing Jihad from the Gulf States, and in time, it may even bring down the Mad Mullahs of Qum.

Since the history of modern Jihad has been one pack of lies from beginning to end in the West, we may as well set the record straight.

The Saudi attack on Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11/01 was planned, funded, guided, and lied about for fifteen years by the Royal House of Saudi Arabia, which is identical to the Wahhabi war cult. Chances are that the Saudis have also funded, planned, collected blackmail money, and otherwise colluded in so-called "lone wolf" terror attacks, which are considered just hunky-dory in Jihad warfare. They are approved and blessed by almost every imam and mullah in the world. The first Saudi attack on us was an act of suicidal madness, just as the Bushido War Cult attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was an act of suicidal madness. The simple fact is that suicidal war theologies commit acts of suicidal madness, both individually and collectively.

All American presidents since Clinton and Bush have colluded in the massive media lie of some mysterious hidden "terror sponsors" in the radical Muslim world, but now the news is finally out: it was the Saudis. (Yes, with the full cooperation of the Iranians, whenever they could hide behind the Saudis). The media oligopoly from New York to Tokyo unanimously lied and covered up the perps for one reason: Oil, which is truly the blood supply of the modern world. Had we retaliated against Riyadh, as they amply deserve, they would have cut out national blood supply. That little bit of Realpolitik has dictated the Regime of Lies followed by Democrats and Republicans, by Left and Right around the industrialized world. We might as well 'fess it all up by now.

Naturally the Democrats were even more sociopathic about the Greatest Lie of the Third Millennium than the Republicans, since the Left took gobs of oil money through the Clinton Foundation and the Center for American Progress, George Washington University and many other U.S. universities, and enthusiastically joined the murderous enemy in the Jihad War. Post-Soviet Leftists took money from Jihad, and managed to launch what Tony Blair called "Third Way Socialism" as the new Hope for Global Government by Liberals. American Democrats secretly betrayed their country to its Communist enemy (and yes, Blairite Globalism is nothing but post-Soviet Communism). But the Democrats abandoned any moral pretenses so long ago that they now think Stalin and Mao were on the side of peace and love.

Nobody is more cynical than Hillary, who idiotically greeted the murder of Muammar Ghadafi with the words, "We came, we saw, he died." That little PR release was supposed to show us all how tough Hillary really is.

So -- other than putting our A Team into power, how do we deal with the Jihad War? How about starting with telling the truth about Saudi guilt for 9/11/01 and any number of other Jihad attacks on innocent people since that event? How about promising tit-for-tat retaliation against Riyadh for every single "lone wolf" attack demanded by Jihadist war doctrine? How about demanding confiscatory compensation, following Qur'anic Law, for every single act of evil committed by the Wahhabi chain of command?

The last time a few Western news outlets threatened to tell the truth about Saudi guilt for 9/11, they threatened us right back to sell all their American investments... and somehow those trial-balloon stories disappeared from the headlines. But fracking is inevitably going to win the day, the price of hydrocarbons will drop to a permanent floor (because exploiting shale is inherently cheap and there are no strategic bottlenecks like the Gulf), and the Jihad Nazi monsters will be gently moved out of positions of power in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar.

Deprived of Saudi money and Obama's secret support, ISIS will wither on the vine, and those of its maniac killers who try to go back to Belorussia to kill some more innocents will be put away somewhere in Chamkatka. The media will close its eyes, the way they generally do.

For the sake of poetic justice I would hope we could tell the Saudis they will personally be held accountable for any -- meaning any -- "lone wolf" terror attacks. The Law of the Claw (Lex Talionis) proclaims "head for head in retaliation, and Islamic Law sometimes allows for financial compensation. Hopefully they will carry out their own internal justice by the sword.

Economic projections today show that Saudi Arabia cannot survive long without its oil monopoly, so they will need us soon to defend the Arabian Peninsula against the Iranians. Perhaps the Saudis can be quietly forced to build permanent refugee camps for all the jihadis they sent to the civilized world and train them to dig sand.

Jihad never really stops, not according to the Qur'an. It only transmogrifies, like some great beast, into either bloodier or less bloody forms. But in Turkey, Jihad war preaching was suppressed for fifty years, before the European Union stupidly allowed Erdogan to be elected to bring in the new Caliphate. Let the Turks deal with their own radicals in their own way.

Jihad makes war on the world. That is a simple fact, and it is cast in concrete as long as the Qur'an is read. But other scriptures have changed their interpretations when time and necessity overwhelmed the written word. The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita is also a story of war, but we do not think of most Hindus as warriors. The Mormon Church is also committed to convert the world to its particular beliefs, and Islam can (in principle) become as peaceful as the Ahmaddiya sect claims to be. People do change, especially when the alternative is death and destruction. It happened in Imperial Japan not so long ago. It's all a matter of incentives.
Ford Motor company CEO, Mark Fields, a staunch Trump opponent during the presidential campaign, now wants the President Elect to help with EPAs surprise decision to keep long term fuel economy targets in place.

A mid-term review of corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) targets set in 2012 kicked off earlier this year, but the timing of the agencys recent decision to maintain the 54.5 mile-per-gallon goal reeks of politics, Fields claims. For automakers, reaching 54.5 mpg means extra costs. To avoid this, Ford is prepared to turn to its election campaign sparring partner  President-elect Donald Trump  for help.

Meeting federally mandated CAFE (Corporate Annual Fuel Economy) standards has become one of the huge cost factors to automakers not only in R&D costs and technology improvements, but in managing the fleet average. If the new line high performance muscle cars are huge sellers, then this must be balanced with production of smaller, higher efficiency cars which may not be attractive to buyers in certain markets. For example, the manufacture and sale of electric vehicles may allow an automaker to achieve the fleet standard, but will also likely result in a financial loss for the manufacturer.

The extra mileage mandated by the EPA means automakers will likely fill the gap with money-losing electric cars and pricey hybrids. General Motors expects to lose $9,000 on every Chevrolet Bolt, so its not a recipe for profit. While Ford has plans to expand its EV offerings, it does so tentatively.

To return auto worker jobs to the US, Trump and the automakers must take a combined approach to mitigate the higher costs associated with American labor. Repealing Obamacare, dealing with union demands, corporate tax breaks and finally reeling in the EPAs CAFE standards would be among the keys to returning manufacturing to the US.

Trump has already selected Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as his EPA transition chief. Ebell, referred to as a climate skeptic in the MSM, is no doubt on board with Trumps longstanding charge that the EPA does more harm to business and American interests than can possibly be gained by arbitrary environmental regulations. For the auto industry, I think that we have long since reached the point of diminishing returns on cost vs. benefit on fuel efficiency and emissions. Ebell, and the appointment of Elaine Chao as Transportation Secretary with the obvious link to the legislative branch through her husband Mitch McConnell, gives Trump a one-two punch to boost US auto manufacturing.

John Smith is the pen name of a retired US intelligence officer

Thomas Lifson adds:

The CAFE standards have driven small car manufacturing investments into Mexico. I know for a fact from my consulting work that it is virtually impossible to make money manufacturing small cars in the United States. Ford invested in a massive factory in Hermosillo, Mexico to manufacture Ford Escorts. This model is essential to Fords ability to sell much more profitable large cars and SUVs.
Founded in 1985, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) has grown from a visionary handful to over 40,000 dedicated members. While predominantly Jewish, the RJC also has many illustrious Christian members. Headquartered in D.C., with regional offices in N.Y., Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, and California, the RJC is a grassroots and lobbying organization with two core missions: providing a bridge and unparalleled access between the Jewish community and Republican political leaders and unequivocally, unabashedly supporting Conservative Israeli governments.

Throughout the presidential campaign, it was bruited about that the RJC had "dumped Trump." It was also asserted that Jews would vote against Trump in record numbers. Both predictions proved false.

Acclaimed RJC leaders Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, owners of the Sands, Venetian, and other business enterprises, donated mightily to Donald Trump's campaign. In June, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced a major collaborative fundraising effort between the Republican Party and Trump: the Trump Victory Fund. Led by investment manager and RJC Board member Lew Eisenberg, it included vice chairs who were all current and past RJC Board members, giants in their respective industries and renowned philanthropists: Elliot Broidy, former ambassador to Belgium Sam Fox, former ambassador to Italy and Australia Mel Sembler, former ambassador to Slovakia Ronald Weiser, Larry Mizel, Dr. Jeffrey Gunter, and Fred Karlinsky.

Meanwhile, vast RJC grassroots efforts were mounted "below the radar" by staff and Trump Victory Team volunteers. Across the United States, and especially in the key swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, over 1,000 RJC members went door to door distributing literature, mounted phone banks, and hosted and participated in rallies and fundraisers for Trump and other Republican candidates. Through personal contact and social media, RJC-extended family members and friends who were Democrats but anti-Hillary were brought in as well.

In addition to volunteering through the RJC, many members contributed countless volunteer hours at Republican and Trump field offices. Some even traveled at a moment's notice, and at their own expense, to areas requiring extra volunteer assistance.

It is important to recognize that not only these efforts helped push not only Trump to victory in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, but also the targeted senators in those states, Rubio, Toomey, and Portman. RJC ads were targeted to highlight the weaknesses of Obama and Hillary's foreign policy deals. They also highlighted Hillary's weakness on Iran, Benghazi, the email server, and Clinton Foundation scandals, as well as her silence on the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish proliferation of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement on college campuses.

On another front, RJC members waged an aggressive campaign against J Street, the liberal Jewish group founded in 2007. J Street, largely funded by ex-Kapo George Soros, has the express purpose of establishing a two-state solution in Israel. J Street supported the Iran nuclear deal and has also been silent regarding the anti-Semitic BDS movement in the United States. During the Democrat Convention in Philadelphia, J Street hosted a day-long event heralding its support of the Democrat platform toward Israel, and Obama, Kerry, and Hillary's rude and antagonistic pushback to Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu. RJC members staged an assertive rally outside the restaurant where the forum was being held. J Street falsely asserted that the rally members chanted "you suck" as Democrat politicians and pundits entered the event. Fortunately, the RJC demonstration garnered much press coverage, and not a single "you suck" was reported. Rather, the chants were about Hillary being pro-Arab and anti-Israel and about her having supported the Iran deal. The successful goal of the RJC was to broadcast the true nature of J Street's intent: anti-Israel sentiment.

Once the election had been won, RJC support for Trump didn't cease. On the day after the election, RJC executive director Matt Brooks blasted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for exaggerating anti-Semitic behavior associated with the Trump campaign. Less than a week later, RJC board member and co-founder of Home Depot Bernie Marcus issued a strong statement of support for Stephen Bannon, President-Elect Trump's appointee of chief strategist. Marcus blasted false accusations of Bannon's purported anti-Semitism:

I have been shocked and saddened to see the recent personal attacks on Steve. Nothing could be further from the truth. The person that is being demonized in the media is not the person I know. These attacks on Steve are nothing more than an attempt to undermine the incoming Trump Administration.

Regarding the Jewish vote  it didn't crash. Admittedly, it didn't reach the 31% vote for Mitt Romney in 2012, but it came close, with approximately 28-29% going for Trump.

So while others are heralding the demise of Jews in American politics, look us up. As Trump would say, "What do you have to lose?"

Lynne Lechter serves on the President's Council of the RJC and on the Executive Board of the Philadelphia Chapter.
Soon to be former President Obama once famously boasted that he had a pen and a phone, and if Congress didn't do what he wanted to, he would act unilaterally. Liberals didn't have a problem with that. But now that Trump is using a phone, liberals are outraged. Imagine what color they will turn when he whips out his pen!

The left is outraged that Trump spoke to foreign leaders without the sage counsel of the State Department. Look at the New York Times' inflammatory, and untrue headline: "How Trump's Calls to World Leaders Are Upsetting Decades of Diplomacy."

Decades of diplomacy! Among Trump's alleged missteps is that he spoke to the leader of Taiwan. Evidently, no president has spoken to the leader of Taiwan since 1979 for fear of upsetting China. But Trump did, and now China is upset. It is almost as if we are considering our own national interests before China's. Taiwan is a democracy; China is a communist country with expansionist ambitions. I'm sure the State Department would not have advised Trump to do this, and I am glad he didn't consult with them first.

Trump also spoke to Rodrigo Duterte, the leader of the Philippines, who had terrible relations with Obama, calling him a "son of a b----." After the conversation, Duterte immediately signaled better relations with the United States. I would call that a foreign policy success. Liberals are enraged by this call because Duterte has been executing drug dealers instead of releasing them from prison, as Obama has done. It seems in one immediate stroke that Trump has improved relations with a nation in a strategic location near the disputed South China Sea.

Trump also called Theresa May, the prime minister of Great Britain, but did not call her first before other nations. That is supposed to be offensive. He also asked that Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, be named ambassador to the U.S. That is supposed to offend the British, too. But it is hard to find British government officials who are offended.

Another shocking event: Trump called Pakistan a "wonderful country" and accepted an invitation to visit. There I agree with critics. Pakistan, which developed nuclear weapons and has aided the Taliban for years, protected Osama bin Laden, and allows radical schools to flourish, is not a wonderful country. But again, those are just words.

I think it is clear that the media, which has been slumbering in bed with Obama for eight years, only waking long enough to bestow wet kisses, will be critical of every act of the Trump administration. And so far, Trump has only a phone. What do you think the media will say when he starts using his pen?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
Until we stand naked before the Living God, we shall not have assumed the proper perspective for building the foundations of an everlasting relationship. It ultimately comes down to a question of how vividly and honestly we perceive our need in Him. God is bound by no necessity. He, by nature, neither needs nor seeks completion through any externality that exists apart from His triune being. We, on the other hand, are veritable oceans of desire and need. Having evicted our rightful Master, our unregenerate natures, in their relentless longing for completion (and if they were able to) would absorb His entire creation to fill that boundless aching vacuum that resides within us. Both parties occupy asymmetrical states of being -- and a humanity divorced from its ultimate fountain of satisfaction is restless beyond all comprehension.

Because humanity will reflexively seek to offer its Creator the scraps of its earthly virtue as evidence that a self-directed life possesses an inherent worthiness, it will not be possible for Natural Man, by reason of his carnality, to allow the proper approach of God in his life. The default religiosity in fallen humanity requires an auto-generated goodness: a fig leaf to hide its nakedness. And yet, Christianity informs us that only by dispensing with the faith man has invested in his own works, can Gods true work commence. It is a marvelous, but threatening paradox that shatters our conception of the religious. We would offer Cains justification, but God desires Abels response.

And so, in transferring that faith to the only Object that can forever salve this neediness, God can then begin His great reclamation project within us. By admitting to ourselves the scope of our nakedness (a need that the Living God is well aware of), our feet can then be anchored on solid rock and the Creator can begin an "addition by subtraction": leveling our ramshackle edifice by dismantling the misconceptions, vanities, and self-interest that have cloaked themselves as bragging rights before the Most High.

In Christian doctrine at its most succinct, we are then effectively relinquishing the directorship over our own sovereignty and admitting to an utter futility in circumventing our need for the Cross. Whether our lives look healthy from the outside or whether we have dashed ourselves on the rocks of calamity, Calvary is our only option. We can offer no good thing of our own merit, and so our state of impoverished need then becomes the naked frontier where Christ meets us. Most truly, it will only be in our humble condition of repentance that we begin the process of laying down our rebel arms. Only then, naked in the poverty of our own necessity, can God finally have the opportunity to lovingly, but thoroughly, cleanse us and offer us His raiment of light -- and a ring of fine gold.

Glenn Fairman writes from Highland, Ca. He can be contacted at arete5000@dslextreme.com and followed at www.stubbornthings.org.
We read and write every day about Hillary Clinton's never-ending corruption, with the latest being the recount to stall the electoral votes and delegitimize the Trump presidency. Or the dishonest MSM that are constantly attacking and criticizing Trump while failing to hold Hillary accountable.

For a change, let us remember that on November 28, 2016, Michael "Jim" Delligatti, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at age 98, passed away. Mr. Delligatti is the inventor of the "Big Mac" sandwich, an American icon. He opened one of the first McDonald's franchises in 1957 in Pittsburgh and at one time owned 47 franchised McDonald's restaurants. In 1967 he invented the Big Mac and tried it out in his McDonald's in Uniontown, Penn., about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh, and the home of General George C. Marshall. The rest is history.

Mr. Delligatti was a philanthropist.Top of Form In 1979, he co-founded Pittsburgh's Ronald McDonald House, a home for families to stay who travel to Pittsburgh seeking medical care at Pittsburgh hospitals, such as Children's Hospital, for their sick children. He served on the House's board and contributed to the House for several decades.

Jim served as Sergeant, Army 26th Infantry Division, also known as the Yankee Division, in Europe during World War II.

Mr. Delligatti is an American success story: a WWII vet who built a multi-billion-dollar business employing thousands. He gave back with his contributions to charity. It's all a welcome change from Hillary, Obama, Pelosi, Harry Reid, Jill Stein, and their small, parasitical ilk.

RIP.
Jill Stein announced Saturday night, December 3, 2016 that she would drop her Court petition requesting a state recount in Pennsylvania, stating she could not afford the million-dollar bond she had to file by Monday, the date of the Court hearing on its Petition. The Pennsylvania secretary of state, Pedro Cortes, a Democrat, said there was no evidence of voter fraud.

Stein's petition did not allege any evidence of fraud. It relied only on the possibility that the voting machines were hacked because the DNC and John Podesta emails were hacked. It was the same petition used in Wisconsin.

Stein has the one million dollars to post bond, but she does not have any evidence that there was voter fraud. If she went through with the court hearing, she ran the certain risk of having the petition dismissed by the court. And with no evidence of fraud, she also ran the risk of having the court sanction her for filing a frivolous petition with no evidence, and order her to pay the counsel fees and costs of Trump, who opposed the petition.

Since there will be no statewide recount in Pennsylvania, there is no possibility to flip Pennsylvania for Hillary, which means that it does not matter even if Wisconsin and Michigan were to flip their votes to Hillary, which will not happen. Hillary needs Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to win. She should do the honorable act and tell Stein to drop the nonsense recount in Wisconsin and Michigan. She, Hillary should withdraw from the recount.

Stein is proceeding with recounts in various voting districts in Pennsylvania, but there will be no statewide recount.

At this point, there is absolutely no reason to proceed with the recount in Wisconsin and Michigan except to delegitimize the Trump presidency.
The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has wreaked havoc among the regime in Iran. Irans lobbying groups in Washington are going the distance to influence Trumps foreign policy vis-a-vis the mullahs in Tehran.

This is an effort to have the appeasement policy of current U.S. president Barack Obama continue under a new administration. This campaign is bent on convincing Trump and his cabinet that an Iran regime-change policy will strengthen the hardliners and weaken the moderates.

"If Trump adopts a hostile policy towards Iran or scraps the deal, hard-liners and particularly the IRGC will benefit from it," Reuters posted,citing a former Iranian reformist official.

This is the core argument put forward by the Tehran lobby to deceive Washington and fashion U.S. foreign policy based on rapprochement with Iran. Eight years of engagement by the Obama administration not only rendered no change in Iran and its meddling policies, in fact, the mullahs were encouraged to further continue inflaming the region and increase domestic crackdown.

Iran has continuously engulfed the entire region in blaze through establishing Shiite militias in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon. Repressing the Iranian people actually increased more than ever before under the so-called reformists. Iran executed more than 966 people in 2015 alone, as emphasized by a United Nations report.

Nearly 38 years after the February 1979 revolution in Iran, the entire mullahs regime establishment is based on two pillars of exporting terrorism and war outside of its borders; and second, the crackdown against dissidents inside the country. Hardliners and reformists alike have continuously agreed on these two main ideas of this regime.

Eight years of war with Iraq, meddling in the internal affairs of regional countries and establishing Shiite militias in these countries are all various dimensions of this policy. Inside Iran this regime has focused on the ruthless crackdown on opposition members, parallel to daily and public executions, to impose a climate of fear throughout society.

Iran neither is willing nor capable of shifting from such a perspective, knowing even the slightest change can mean the destruction of the main pillar discussed above, and eventually lead to the complete downfall of the entire regime establishment.

This is exactly why the mullahs lobby resorts to any and all means to prevent the West from trekking anywhere close to such foundations. These lobbies continue to portray an image of Iran to the international community as if so-called moderates opposing such a policy do actually exist inside the regime. This viewpoint calls on the West to back these moderates and continue pursuing the appeasement policy to encourage Tehran to change its global perspective.

From day one of this regimes existence back in 1979, it has been proven time and again that a policy of engagement with Iran will not render any change. In fact, this will only encourage and embolden the mullahs.

Most recently, Obama is continuing its incentives to the mullahs by attempting to fortify the nuclear agreement and even granting permission for Airbus to deliver more planes to Iran.

By blowing the whistle on Irans nuclear program the Iranian opposition (PMOI/MEK) which enjoys bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, has paid the price and provided immense support for all nations, especially in the Middle East. If not for such revelations, Iran would most definitely have obtained, or at least be on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons.

A firm policy against Iran, and standing with Iranian people and their organized Resistance for a regime change in Iran, will bring stability and security in the region and the whole world. Eight years of appeasement and concessions to Iran by Obama resulted in encouraging the mullahs to further pursue their Middle East meddling and domestic crackdown.
There is a reasonable chance that two more Democrat Senate seats could be lost to the GOP when the next Congress convenes. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has got to be watching the deftness of the Trump transition and the chaos in his party, which looks about to throw its lot in with Representative Keith Ellison as head of the DNC. He is well enough known to West Virginians that he might survive his next election as a Democrat, but where is the fun in being in a minority? And he is a minority within the Democrats anyway.

The other Senate seat that could go Republic is that of North Dakota Democrat Senator Heidi Heitkamp, who met with President-elect Trump last Friday. CNN reported:

News of the meeting set off a panic among top Democrats, some of whom began to privately make the case that Heitkamp should stay in the Senate rather than give up a seat that would likely be a GOP pickup. The incoming chairman of the Senate Democrats' campaign committee told CNN he had spoken with Heitkamp about the issue Thursday. A transition source said Heitkamp could be a possibility for energy secretary. "I think it's absolutely critical to have a conversation," Heitkamp said when asked if she would be open to being in the Trump administration. "It's good for my state. It's good for the work that I do here, to understand and share some priorities for the country and for the state of North Dakota and I look forward to having that discussion." In a statement about the meeting, Heitkamp said she would work with both sides of the aisle -- whatever her role. "Whatever job I do, I hope to work with the President-elect and all of my colleagues in Congress on both sides of the aisle to best support my state," she said.

I suspect that Heirkamp would have a hard time turning down Secretary of Energy, as her state is one of the primary beneficiaries of the policies Trump will implement. She barely won office in 2012, and sicne then North Dakotas oil boom seems to have added GOP voters. Trump won North Dakota with 62.96% of the vote, and Republican Senator John Hoeven  who defeated Heitkamp when both ran for governor -- got 78.48% of the vote.

Presiding over a boom in her home state has got to be attractive to her.

A special election would be required in thirty days, and there is no Democrat on the scene who could win.

Just more downward spiraling for the Democratic Party.
In his latest series of tweets, Donald Trump addresses companies that might be considering shipping jobs to Mexico or other low wage bases. He starts with incentives, but invokes a contingency:

The U.S. is going to substantialy reduce taxes and regulations on businesses, but any business that leaves our country for another country,  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

He then delivers both the offense and hints where the retaliation will come:

fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the U.S. ......  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

He then actually uses the word retribution.

This going to set off his critics on crony capitalism rants, with the more fevered conjuring up Mussolini.

without retribution or consequence, is WRONG! There will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies ......  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

He fills out the details of the threat:

wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units etc., back across the border. This tax will make leaving financially difficult, but.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

these companies are able to move between all 50 states, with no tax or tariff being charged. Please be forewarned prior to making a very ...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

And in closing reiterates the stick, but finishes with the carrot, in all-caps:

expensive mistake! THE UNITED STATES IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

As long as the new administration relies on categorical tax and regulation relief, I dont worry so much about crony capitalism or a tariff wall with Trump. He does specifically want to use tariffs to prevent factories from abandoning production facilities in the United States. There will be a lot of problems in defining what qualifies for those tariffs. What if a company abandons entirely the manufacture of a product when its American production facilities are uncompetitive and it cant afford to invest in new technology manufacturing approaches? Would that company be subject to a tariff if it then used its marketing resources to buy similar products overseas  called OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing) -- and sell them here? Lots of companies have done that over the years.

What about Vizio, an American company that does a lot of headquarters functions in this country -- engineering, marketing, distribution, and the like  but never even built a factory in the US? It relies on OEM suppliers, as does Apple for its iPhone and many other products. Would companies following this strategy not face a tariff, but their American competitors that hypothetically shut down a US factory for similar products would face a tariff?

This could send that message that opening a factory in the United States carries a huge future obligation to keep investing money in the factory, even if better alternatives exist. That risk could be avoided by following the Vizio model and keeping manufacturing out of the US. It woulod be a perverse incentive.

There are a lot of problems in defining who and who isnt covered. I am not certain they can be solved in a way that makes sense and avoids unintended consequences. In fact, my guess is that this is a bargaining stance of the PEOTUS, a stick that he wont have to use. His final words are the real point. Hes going to make it attractive to manufacture in the US again.

So let the ranting begin. It makes for a more powerful imaginary stick that will never be used.
I try not to pay much attention to the antics happening on so-called progressive colleges, but last month president Jonathan Lash at liberal arts Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts stated the U.S. Flag is "a disruptive symbol." This got my attention.

It turns out the children attending this college led by the adolescents parading as college administrators got pretty upset over their presidential candidate losing the election. Some of the students had an outright hissy fit (even worse than having a broken cell phone!) and decided to lower the campus Flag to half-staff the day after the election.

Then, someone on campus took the next step by taking the flag down and burning it. To add further insult, the remnants of the burned Flag were found on campus on the morning of Veterans' Day. Lash decided then to remove The Flag altogether while the college would have further "discussions."

I was not surprised to see the Amherst VFW quickly organize a protest on Nov. 27 in front of Hampshire College.

The college that encourages protests curiously prohibited the veterans from protesting on their campus. News reports said more than a thousand participated in the peaceful protest. Online pictures and videos show a sea of flags of every size. A chorus of chants of "Raise our flag!" and "U.S.A.!" were heard. God Bless America was sung and veterans gave impassioned speeches.

Ron Chimelis, a local newspaper journalist at The Republican sharply wrote, "To people across the nation, Hampshire College stands as an example of detached, elitist and pompous left-wing radicalism gone too far." Never mind that Harvard-educated Lash thumbed his nose at the U.S. Flag Code.--- the federal law that details etiquette, protocol and respect for The Flag.

How is the U.S. flag described in the statutes of the U.S. Flag Code? U.S.C. Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8 states,

"The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing."

Anyone so inclined to set alight our sacred Flag should remember that hundreds of thousands of our citizens have sacrificed their lives to protect and preserve this "living thing" called the United States of America.

Lash claimed the college had received "thousands and thousands" of angry emails and phone calls and finally returned The Flag at Hampshire College to full staff on December 2.

An unknown author once said, The flag does not fly because of the wind that blows it. The flag flies because each soldiers last breath blows by it.

The writer is a U.S. Air Force veteran and resides in Portsmouth, NH
Madeleine McCann: the important lead, unnamed sources and sexual exploitation

Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child.

The Sun (front page):  MADDIE GANG PROBE Cops given cash to probe important new lead that Maddie was snatched by people trafficking gang.

Important enough for the papers front page  but not important enough to avoid those inverted commas.

The rest of the Press follow the Suns lead.

The Mirror: Madeleine McCann cops chasing important new lead as investigation reaches last roll of the dice.

The Indy: Scotland Yard set to investigate important new lead in disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Daily Mail: Scotland Yard given extra funding to probe important new lead over theory that Madeleine McCann was kidnapped by trafficking gang.

Its important. Maybe.

Over pages 4 and 5, readers are told more.

The development is being taken so seriously that senior Whitehall officials have been briefed by the Met on its progress.

Well, the hunt for the missing child has cost a lot of public money. Maybe the bean counters are worried about a lack of value for their investment?

And what of the breakthrough?

Detectives are following a tip that a gang of European traffickers snatched the tot after taking pictures of her. It could end up proving that she is still alive, nearly ten years after she vanished.

Everyone sane would like this story to have a happy ending. But how can anything prove the child is alive other than her being found?

As with so much to do with this story, an unnamed source is quoted:

A source said: This is an important new line of inquiry which could provide an explanation on whether Madeleine was abducted and transported away. It raises hope that she could still be alive.

Surely we only know if the new tip is important if it comes up with evidence that explains what happened to Madeleine McCann.

Retired Yard detective Colin Sutton said the extra money for the last line of inquiry means there must be something worthwhile.

Who needs evidence when youre a retired detective?

The Sun adds: Reports following Madeleines disappearance suggested she could have been taken to Belgium or Morocco in North Africa.

But we have seen no evidence that she was.

But this is interesting:

The Mets clubs and vice unit received a tip that the ring had placed an order for a young girl just three days before Madeleine went missing. Leicestershire Police, who at that point led the Operation Task effort to help find Madeleine, were also informed.

Is there any evidence to support the story?

In 2011, police in Portugal smashed a trafficking ring snatching young women and underage girls in the Algarve and Aveiro, in the north of the country.

The Portugal Resident has more:

An operation to crack down on human trafficking has led to the arrests of 12 men identified as being part of a criminal network in the Algarve and Aveiro, in the north of Portugal.The ring is believed to be responsible for the sexual exploitation of many young women in the Algarve, some of them underage, who were being coerced into acting as prostitutes in the region

Go on:

During the operation, 30 Romanian women were identified as possible victims of human trafficking.

The SEF, Portugals immigration and border service, added:

The movement of the prostitutes between different networks hindered the police and judicial authorities in being able to conduct a criminal investigation but authorities in Spain, Italy, the UK and Germany cooperated with us with the assistance of Europol in this case.

Algarve Social Democrat (PSD) MP Mendes Bota was unimpressed with the suspects treatment:

Speaking to Lusa News Agency on Monday this week, Mendes Bota claimed that, a few days after they were arrested, the majority of the individuals detained by SEF Immigration Officers during the February bust were released by a judge who decided that they should await their trial, who knows when [the trial will commence], unrestrained.

We cant find any news on any trail.

Such are the facts.

Anorak

Posted: 4th, December 2016 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
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Following the recent addition of Seychelles, Turkish Airlines is now adding Zanzibar to its flight network from December 13, 2016. This brings the total number of destinations that Europes best airline serves worldwide, to 293. The new addition will also raise the total to 50 destinations within 31 countries across Africa.
Putin met with non-jailed filmmakers and claimed he was a supporter of artistic freedom. But: Meddling in the arts by government officials and the Russian Orthodox Church is raising worries over a return of censorship not only to political news, but also to plays, movies and art exhibitions.
New Delhi: RBI Governor Urjit Patel gets a little over Rs 2 lakh as salary and has not been provided with any supporting staff at his residence, the central bank has said.

Patel, who took over as RBI Governor in September, is presently in possession of the bank's flat (Deputy Governor's flat) at Mumbai, it said. "No supporting staff has been provided to the present Governor, Urjit Patel at his residence.

Two cars and two drivers have been provided to the present Governor," RBI said in reply to an RTI query. The bank was asked to provide details of remuneration given to former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and incumbent Patel. For the month of October -- the first full month Patel was in office as Governor -- Patel got Rs 2.09 lakh as his salary, the same amount drawn by Rajan as his August's salary.

Rajan demitted office on September 4, and was given Rs 27,933 as remuneration for four days. Rajan assumed the charge of RBI Governor from September 5, 2013 at a monthly salary of Rs 1.69 lakh.

His salary was revised to Rs 1.78 lakh and Rs 1.87 lakh respectively during 2014 and March 2015. His salary was hiked to Rs 2.09 lakh from Rs 2.04 lakh in January this year, the RTI reply said.

Rajan was provided with three cars and four drivers. "One caretaker and nine maintenance attendants were posted as supporting staff in the bungalow provided by the bank to the former Governor Raghuram Rajan at Mumbai," RBI said.

The Centre has recently declined to share details on appointment of Patel and other candidates shortlisted for the top post in the central bank saying these are "cabinet papers" and cannot be made public. Patel was on August 20 named as RBI's Governor to succeed Rajan.
Modi is promoting criminal activities by asking Jan Dhan account holders to usurp money deposited by the rich, said Congress.

New Delhi: Congress on Saturday termed as "shocking and shameful" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to Jan Dhan account holders to usurp the black money deposited in their accounts, saying he was encouraging criminals to prosper while honest Indians suffer.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, "PM Modi's call today in a public rally to those misusing Jan Dhan accounts to usurp black money is shocking and shameful and is nothing short of the Prime Minister encouraging criminals to prosper as honest Indians suffer."

He said, "The Prime Minister exhorts those misusing Jan Dhan accounts to usurp money. Honest account holders are penniless, criminals prosper, honest suffer under Modi."

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also took a dig at Modi saying, "A prisoner of his own image!", after the Prime Minister said the corrupt are now calling his name all the time.

"Earlier people would say 'money, money, money', now they say 'Modi, Modi, Modi' all day," the Prime Minister had said at a public rally in Moradabad earlier in the day.

"All those who are Jan Dhan account holders, you should not return the money that others have put in your accounts. If you promise to do so, I am working hard on to devise a formula to send all those who deposited their money illegally into your accounts to jail and to ensure the money goes to the poor households," Modi said.

Surjewala said prior to November 8 demonetisation announcement, 76 per cent of 22.5 crore Jan Dhan accounts had less than Rs five but overnight in last 25 days, Rs 75,000 crore were deposited in these accounts.

"The truth is that 26 per cent of the Jan Dhan accounts still have under Rs five. Tragically instead of acting against those who are converting black money, Modi is promoting illegal criminal activities. Bank accounts of 26 per cent honest Jan Dhan account holders are empty.

"130 crore Indians are awaiting deposit of Rs 15 lakh in their accounts. Modi is shoddily covering up his abject failure to bring back Rs 80 lakh crore of black money stashed abroad and sharing it with ordinary people by diversionary tactics of multiple 'fair and lovely schemes' to convert black money and a series of 'Jumlas'," he said.

The Congress leader said, the PM needs to understand that "India can't be run by 'headlines management' nor is governance an 'event management'".

"Time to deliver, PM Modi, for patience of India is running out with everyday theatrics," he said.
'About 30 terrorist groups, as named by the United Nations, are trying to establish a base in Afghanistan,' the Afghan President said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Afghanistans President Ashraf Ghani and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at the inauguration of the 6th Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference, in Amritsar on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday reiterated Indias stand on terrorism and those who support it, in a veiled message to Pakistan, while speaking at the Heart of Asia of conference in Amritsar.

"Not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter and finance them," Modi said.

Earlier on Sunday, Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani jointly inaugurated the sixth Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference and later held bilateral talks for about an hour, discussing issues of terrorism and development.

Speaking at the Heart of Asia summit later, both the leaders raised concern about terrorism, which poses grave threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity.

Modi sought a resolute action to end the sufferings of the people in the Asian country. Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat too Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity. Support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by a resolute action, he said.

Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters, the prime minister said. On Indias part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering, he added.

Speaking on the need to increase the bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistans development, Modi said, We plan to connect Afghanistan with India through an air transport corridor.

India, Afghanistan are looking at the option of establishing an air corridor after Pakistan has refused permission to Kabul to trade with New Delhi using road and rail routes through its territory.

Herat India-Afghanistan dam aka Salma dam that was launched a few months ago will help revive economic activity for the people there, he added.

At the summit, Ghani also addressed Indias support to his country and said, India's support to Afghanistan is aimed at improving people's life. It is transparent with no strings attached.

Ghani raised the issue of terrorism in Afghanistan and said that about 30 terrorist groups, as named by the United Nations, are trying to establish a base in the country.

A key Taliban leader has himself admitted to getting sanctuary in Pakistan. Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable, the Afghan President said.

Senior officials of all 14 countries and representatives of 17 supporting nations attended the conference and deliberated on a vast range of issues including strategies for eliminating terrorism and enhancing Afghanistan's connectivity and trade.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley led the Indian delegation in place of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who is unwell.
BJP was attacking Singh for slamming Modi over notes ban, saying he 'lacks credibility' to criticise demonetisation.

Bengaluru: BJP on Sunday hit out at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over his criticism of demonetisation, saying he "lacks credibility" for such an attack as he himself headed the most "corrupt regime ever".

"Manmohan Singh attacking this government for fight against black money lacks credibility. He himself in his 10 years' regime, had not only failed in tackling black money, but is seen as heading the (most) corrupt regime ever in this country. He was responsible for accumulation of black money," BJP General Secretary Muralidhar Rao told reporters here.

Attacking the government over demonetisation in the Rajya Sabha, Singh had on November 24 said the step was "a case of organised loot and legalised plunder" and reflected a "monumental management failure".

Rao said, "I don't value (Singh's criticism) because he is a failed leader, who is attacking a government and a leader who is performing and taking fight against black money to its logical end."

Responding to a question, Rao said the long queues at ATMs and banks besides currency crunch would disappear by December 30.

"That's what Honourable Prime Minister has said. It may take some more time for the economy to become normal," he said.

Rao also said people, including farmers, who have been affected by demonetisation, would be "rewarded" in the next year's budget.

He said: "You will have a new budget in which all the suffering sections will get rewarded..."
His statement came in the wake of Narendra Modi and Afghans Ashraf Ghani accusing Pak of supporting and financing terrorist forces.

Amritsar: Warding off allegations that "Pakistan is promoting and sheltering terrorism", Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz on Sunday said there is a "need to have a holistic and objective view of terrorism instead of pinning the blame on one country".

"The first and foremost in our view is continuing violence and acts of terrorism claiming scores of human lives. This needs to be addressed urgently and effectively through collective efforts. The security situation in Afghanistan is very complex. It is simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view," Aziz said during the sixth Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar.

"My participation in the event, despite escalation on the Line of Control (LoC) and the working boundary with India is a testimony to Pakistan's unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region. I look forward to meaningful deliberations today towards this objective," he added.

His statement came in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani accusing Pakistan of supporting and financing terrorist forces.

Applauding the leadership of Ghani and his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah for making progress in attaining peace and stability in Afghanistan, Aziz said the Pakistan government stands in solidarity with the Afghani government to further its objective.

"Afghan security forces have firmly and bravely stood their ground in repulsing militant and terrorist attacks. The international community has reiterated its commitment of support to Afghanistan in the areas of security and economic development up to 2020. The Government and people of Pakistan stand in complete solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development in Afghanistan. We would do whatever we can to help achieve this objective," he said.

Aziz, however, pointed out that the peace process for talks between the Afghan government and Taliban has not yet produced positive results through the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) framework.

"Pakistan has been making serious efforts for facilitating the peace talks through the QCG. We believe that all members of the QCG should continue their respective efforts for talks between Afghan Government and Taliban. In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led Afghan-owned process," he said.

Aziz also highlighted the importance of regional cooperation in ensuring political stability and expressed disappointment over the postponement of the SAARC Summit after India and other Asian member refused to participate.

"Regional cooperation plays an important role in ensuring political stability and promoting and deepening mutually beneficial economic interaction. In this context, SAARC is an important forum, not only for promoting regional cooperation but also for the improvement of relations. The postponement of the SAARC Summit scheduled in Islamabad was a setback to these efforts and undermined the spirit of regional cooperation," he said.

Aziz said that Pakistan is committed to enhancing facilitation for transit of Afghan goods through Pakistan under the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA).

"We believe the two sides need to work together for extension of and improvements in the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA). In this context, let me emphasize that peaceful resolution of outstanding disputes will further improve prospects of regional cooperation and connectivity," he said.
Afghan President rejects Islamabads aid, asks Pak to use it to fight extremism.

New Delhi/Amritsar: In a humiliation for Pakistan on Indian soil, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused it of backing terror by launching an undeclared war against his country. Speaking at the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference in Amritsar, not far from the Indo-Pak border, on Sunday, Mr Ghani rejected the Pakistani offer of financial assistance. He told Pakistan PMs advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz that Islamabads offer of $500 million could instead be used by Pakistan to containing extremism.

In what was music to Indias ears, President Ghani also lavished praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Indias support is impressive, both in its scale and delivery. Indias assistance is aimed at improving peoples lives. It is transparent and without strings attached. It is a convergence of interests and values of two states inspired by the belief in cooperative advantage, he said.

A stunned Pakistan put up a week defence later, with Mr Aziz saying that it was simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence (in Afghanistan). The conference happened amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan following a string of terror attacks and border skirmishes.

The HoA is an annual meet of regional and global powers to explore ways to fight terrorism and rebuild the war-ravaged Afghanistan. Forty-five countries and international organisations attended two days of deliberations with a call for a war on terror taking the centre stage.

Launching an all-out attack on Pakistan in his speech, Mr Ghani said, Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan on bilateral and multilateral basis, the undeclared war  the name that I gave to the phenomenon in the winter 2014  not only has not abated but also intensified during 2016, with special intensity right after the Brussels Conference.

He said that a key Afghan Taliban leader had admitted that the Taliban would not last even for a month if it did not have sanctuaries in Pakistan. Analysts say Pakistan has historically backed the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against the influence of arch rival India, with whom Pakistan has fought three wars, in its backyard.

We must confront the elephant in the room... At the heart of the problem are the nature, scale and scope of the fifth wave of political violence and terrorism Last year we suffered the highest number of civilian casualties and military-related deaths in the world. This is unacceptable, he said.

Kabul is furious at Pakistan for backing the Afghan Taliban and encouraging it to launch terror attacks on Afghan soil. Afghanistan had also joined India in boycotting the proposed SAARC summit  planned to have been held in Islamabad last month and was eventually cancelled  in protest against Pakistan-backed terror.

Referring to PM Modi, President Ghani said, You honoured us by visiting Afghanistan twice this year to inaugurate two important iconic projects. The Afghan Parliament will stand as an enduing testament of the enduring relationship between the worlds largest democracy and a people and government committed to the realisation of democratic rights and obligations of a free citizenry enshrined in our Constitution.

Your words, assuring the Afghan people of the support of 1.4 billion strong Indian people, have been quickly matched by deeds, as demonstrated by your pledge of $1 billion of new developmental assistanceThe agreed cargo air corridor to be soon launched will give Indian and Afghan consumers and producers unimpeded access to each others products and services.

In its reaction, Pakistan delegation head Sartaj Aziz said, We need to have an objective and holistic view. The peace process for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban has not yet produced positive results. Pakistan has been making serious efforts for facilitating the peace talk.
Swacch Bharat Abhiyan is one of the key national campaigns launched by the Modi government.

New Delhi: The BJP has issued a list of dos and donts to its state units for Prime Minister Narendra Modis events including in election-bound states.

From number of people sharing the dais with the PM to talking points that could be used by him in his speeches to special Swacchta Abhiyans 10 days ahead of the event, the BJP headquarters has sent guidelines to its state units, which also incudes checking the microphone so that there are no awkward moments when the event kicks off.

Swacch Bharat Abhiyan is one of the key national campaigns launched by the Modi government. The PM had said that the campaign would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019.

BJP has asked its state units that daily photographs and reports of the campaign be e-mailed to the central office. The list, sent earlier this week, also includes the number of people who would be sharing the dais with the Prime Minister, also keeping in mind the security aspect. The guideline says not more than 7-11 people should be allowed on the dais.

The central leadership has said that the list of people to be on the dais as well as of those at the helipad or airport to receive Mr Modi should also reach the Prime Ministers Office one week in advance. Governments welfare schemes should also be prominently displayed in hoardings.

The PM as well as BJP president Amit Shah had on various occasions asked party leaders to highlight governments schemes and its decision, including the recent demonetisation, in their respective areas and constituencies. The dos and donts were sent by partys national general secretary Arun Singh to state unit chiefs and organisational secretaries.
Big boost for India as LeT, JeM named in Amritsar Declaration.

New Delhi: Strong action against terror groups, including the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) involved in high-level of violence in the region, was demanded by the Amritsar Declaration that was adopted by the 6th Heart of Asia (HoA) conference on Sunday in Amritsar with the declaration acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region. Though combating terrorism was at the core of discussions at the annual HoA conference, which is meant to focus on efforts to reconstruct and stabilise war-torn Afghanistan, it could not firm up an Afghanistan-initiated proposal to set up a regional framework to counter the menace as many countries had not given their inputs.

Attended by some 40 countries, the two-day conference concluded with a strong declaration calling for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism as well as dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in region as also disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terror networks. The naming of LeT and JeM in the Amritsar Declaration is a boost for India, considering these Pakistan-based terror groups were not named in the recent Brics Goa Declaration. In his statement, finance minister Arun Jaitley  who led the Indian delegation in the absence of ailing external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj  said, For the first time, a Heart of Asia Declaration expressed concern at the violence caused in Afghanistan and the region by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Daesh, LeT and JeM, etc. Observers feel the declaration is a clear message to Pakistan  without naming it  that it should dismantle the safe havens of terrorism on its soil.

The Amritsar Declaration said, We remain concerned by the gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan in particular and the region and the high level of violence caused by the Taliban, terrorist groups including ISIL/ DAISH and its affiliates, the Haq-qani Network, Al Qaeda, Islamic Movement of Uzb-ekistan, East Turkistan Islamic Movement, LeT, JeM, TTP, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah and other foreign terrorist fighters. Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region, we demand an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism. We recognise that terrorism is the biggest threat to peace, stability and cooperation in our region. We encourage the international community to continue to assist the Government of Afghanistan. We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism.

We welcome and support Afghanistans initiative in taking the lead in exploring a regional counter-terror strategy, in accordance with the established principles of the UN charter, which we agreed was necessary when we last met in Islamabad in December 2015. We note the progress that has been made since the last Ministerial with an Ambassadorial meeting of the CT-CBM participating countries at which a draft framework strategy was shared by Afghanistan for further consideration and development. We call for convening an early meeting of experts to discuss the draft framework strategy with the view to its finalisation for consideration by senior security officials, it said.

We are concerned about the increase in production and cultivation of opium in Afghanistan, the volume of drug trafficking and demand in the HoA Region and beyond. This requires further eradication efforts and poses a threat to the socio-economic development, security and stability not only in Afghanistan, but also in the surrounding region and the world as a whole. We understand that acuteness and global scale of the drug threat requires appropriate international efforts aimed at intensifying measures to fight drugs production and trafficking in Afghanistan and the region of HoA, the Declaration said.

Mr. Jaitley said, The three big issues of the conference were-Countering terrorism to create stability and security in Afghanistan, Providing Afghanistan connectivity to strengthen economic activities, and Development, which is essential for the progress of Afghanistan.

He added, The Conference was attended by delegations from practically every participating country, supporting countries and international organisations  45 in all.

The participating countries of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process at the two-day Amritsar HoA conference on Afghanistan that concluded on Sunday includedapart from Afghanistan and host IndiaAzerbaijan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations. The Conference also saw the presence and participation of guest countries Austria, Bulgaria, Latvia and Uzbekistan. The other supporting countries and international and regional organisations included Australia, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Poland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Collective Security Treaty Organisations (CSTO), Economic Cooperation Organisations (ECO), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
Official sources also concede that there has been an accelerated capacity addition in the thermal sector to meet the growing energy demand.

Official data available with this newspaper reveals that currently 44 hydel projects with an aggregate capacity of 13,182 MW are under construction, out of which 42 such projects with a capacity of 12,966 MW have been delayed.

New Delhi: Lack of focus of successive governments and greater emphasis on capacity addition in the thermal and renewable sector has led to a sharp decline in the percentage of hydropower installation in the country, which from a high of 51 per cent in 1962-63 has come down to an abysmal 14 per cent in 2016-17.

Official data available with this newspaper reveals that currently 44 hydel projects with an aggregate capacity of 13,182 MW are under construction, out of which 42 such projects with a capacity of 12,966 MW have been delayed.

In addition to this, 39 hydel projects with an aggregate capacity of 22,319 MW have been concurred by the Central Electricity Authority, which are yet to be taken up for construction.

According to official estimates, till June 2015, more than 21 hydel projects, both public and private, were facing time and cost overruns, and the situation remains more or less the same with hardly any movement in pushing them.

Figures further reveal that while in 1962-63, hydel projects consisted of 51 per cent of the countrys total installed capacity (2,936 MW out of a total of 5,801 MW), till October 31, 2016, their share had slid to around 14 per cent. In the current financial year, out of the total installed capacity of 3,07,278 MW, hydel projects consist of only 43,112 MW.

Official sources also concede that there has been an accelerated capacity addition in the thermal sector to meet the growing energy demand. They have listed reasons apart from long gestation period, like geological surprises, rehabilitation and resettlement issues and lack of interest by private investors, behind the slide in hydel projects.

Considered as temples of Modern India during the Nehruvian era, hydel projects have gradually lost out to thermal and nuclear projects, because of issues like land acquisition, tough terrain and lack of investor interest. Though the Narendra Modi dispensation is bullish on renewable energy, its focus seems to be solely on solar projects.

Also the government seems to be more keen on pushing ahead thermal projects, which had got delayed in the last few years due to lack of environmental clearances to coal mines.

Owing to their longer gestation period, the Centre has given hydel power projects a short shrift over thermal power projects installation, despite the fact that the latter require complex environmental clearances.

Hydel projects dont require any such clearances and have even lesser carbon emissions, compared to even solar installations. Also, hydel projects ensure greater availability of power.
The two sides are likely to exchange notes about investigations into the July 1 terror attack at a cafe in Dhaka.

New Delhi: Increased cooperation on anti-terror activities, sharing of intelligence and increased patrolling along the border are some of the key issues on the agenda during the Indo-Bangladesh home secretary level talks that start here on Monday.

The delegation would be led by Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and his Bangladesh counterpart, Mozammel Haque Khan, and the two sides teams will have detailed discussions on other issues like increasing influence of terror group ISIS in the Indian subcontinent, increased presence of jihadi groups in Bangladesh and some Indian states and how this threat can be tackled jointly.

In addition, the increasing menace of smuggling of cattle, narcotics and arms through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border will also be taken up and find a strategy to deal with it. Sources said Bangladesh could press for Indian co-operation in nabbing its most wanted criminals, specially the ones involved in war crimes and assassination of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The two sides are likely to exchange notes about investigations into the July 1 terror attack at a cafe in Dhaka. Following this incident India had initiated action against controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik as one those involved in the Dhaka attack, Rohan Imtiaz, had claimed he was influenced by the preacher.

Recently Zakir Naiks NGO, Islamic Research Foundation, was banned by the Centre for a period of five years under the Unla-wful Activities Prevention Act.
Chest-beating women of the AIADMK started wailing and praying that the chief minister would emerge soon stronger from the hospital.

Chennai: With prayers on their lips, AIADMK leaders and cadre waited anxiously outside the Apollo Hospitals since Sunday evening after the news came out that their leader J. Jayalalithaa had suffered a cardiac arrest.

The Chennai police had a tough time controlling the crowd outside the hospital on the busy Greams Road as hundreds of people kept thronging the institution. Chest-beating women of the AIADMK started wailing and praying that the chief minister would emerge soon stronger from the hospital.

As the crowd swelled outside the main gate of the Apollo Hospitals, where Ms Jayalalithaa was admitted on September 22, the police had to resort to mild force to quell the people who, at one point, tried to break into the gate and enter the hospital.

The police presence at the Apollo Hospitals was beefed up since Sunday evening and it was further strengthened late in the night after the official bulletin was put out by the hospital that confirmed the Chief Minister had suffered a cardiac arrest.

DGP T.K. Rajendran and Chennai police commissioner George rushed to the hospital and were monitoring the situation.

As ministers and party leaders rushed inside the hospital, cadres waited outside. I only want my Amma to come back. I am sure she will come back much stronger, said a woman cadre.

Amma is everything for the people of Tamil Nadu and for the AIADMK, said a woman cadre, with tears rolling down her cheeks.

Another cadre, who had come all the way from Ayanavaram after hearing the news that Ms Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest, said he would leave the hospital premises only after hearing the news that she is well. I dont want to hear anything other than the news that she has recovered. I only want that, he said.
AIADMK bigwigs like finance minister O. Pannerselvam, health minister C. Vijayabhaskar and senior bureaucrats rushed to the hospital.

Chennai: Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest Sunday evening and was being treated and monitored by a team of doctors, the Apollo Hospitals said Sunday night. The chief minister of Tamil Nadu, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening, a medical bulletin said. She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists, it added. Informed sources said the CM was shifted back to the intensive care unit Sunday evening. As soon as the news of Ms Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest spread, acting governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao headed back from Mumbai by a special flight, signalling the gravity of the situation.

AIADMK bigwigs like finance minister O. Pannerselvam, health minister C. Vijayabhaskar and senior bureaucrats rushed to the hospital, as hundreds of AIADMK cadres also gathered outside the hospital.

Earlier, a team of AIIMS doctors had examined the CM on Saturday after a gap of nearly a month. British expert Dr Richard Beale and AIIMS doctors  Dr G. Khilnani, professor, department of pulmonology medicine, Dr Anjan Trikha, professor of anaesthesiology and critical care, and Dr Nitish Nayak, professor, department of cardiology  have been examining her since she was admitted to the hospital.
Writer and teacher Michael Burns talks about hosting storytelling workshops and how the storytelling scene in the country needs to evolve.

Michael Burns regularly conducts storytelling workshops. When he asks the audience if they know what a story is, he is met with furrowed eyebrows and a confused look. The audience thinks they know what a story is, but the truth is, they dont, explains Michael.

He finds it both funny and interesting how a lot of people today want to learn more about the art that storytelling is. Have you noticed how storytelling is all over the place? he questions us casually. Without waiting for an answer, he continues, We have grown up, but our concept of what a story is, hasnt. When we were young, we used to read simple stories and they made sense to us.

He is currently preparing to host a workshop called Develop a Nose for Storytelling.

In the masterclass, Bombay Perfumerys eight signature scents will form an intrinsic part of this writing session with him. Michael will walk the audience through the dynamics of a story, and how you can find inspiration and creativity from your senses. There is a lot of enthusiasm for storytelling, but the tools are missing. Through the fragrances, the writers will tell their stories  what makes the environment come alive, what makes their characters come alive, he smiles.

Michael started Tall Tales Storytelling roughly four and a half year ago, to tell stories written by strangers to strangers. The project showcases first person, non-fiction stories from anywhere across the country. Aspiring writers send their stories to Tall Tales Storytelling and they edit it (just enough that it still belongs to the writer) and then host events around the city where they are narrated live. These stories are presented with raw honesty, and vulnerability  you cant imagine how true these stories are because people write them from their hearts, Michael passionately explains. In the past couple of years, we received a lot of entries. People were enthusiastic about receiving feedback for their stories but we simply couldnt do that. And hence, live shows gave birth to workshops, he recalls.

A regular workshop with Tall Tales Storytelling lasts about 15 hours, where Michael sets to teach the audience about telling tales. When asked about whats the most difficult part of writing a story, he says it is getting the reader to imagine your characters world. If you can get your reader to step into your characters shoes, you have achieved a lot, he admits.

Michael had visited India for a short period of time, but stayed on longer for the love of the country. For the last six years, hes also done volunteer work at a shelter for former street children at Juhu Beach. I came here to do volunteer work, but stayed on because I love it here. I love the enthusiasm for writing and storytelling. Its a good fit for a person like me who enjoys helping other people find and nurture the stories inside them, he says.

The writer believes there are quite a few things wrong with todays storytelling scene. He adds that to create a story, patience is key. We want to be able to do something in ten seconds or not at all. And if we cant do it in ten seconds than we come to the wild conclusion that its taking too much time, or that he or she isnt very good at it. Both of these assumptions are totally erroneous and should immediately be thrown out. Stories require digging. Digging takes time. Talent evaluation requires digging and also practice. Practice also takes time. There are no shortcuts, he concludes decidedly.

On December 10, 10.30 am to 1 pm, At G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture, Laxmi Mills Compound, Lower Parel.

Contact: 24909393.

Tickets: Rs 900.
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Banerjee learnt that about the governors remarks, she hit back terming his statement unfortunate.

Kolkata: After targeting the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee crossed swords with the states governor Keshari Nath Tripathi on Saturday after he disapproved of her remarks on the deployment of the Army at toll plazas, saying one should exercise caution while levelling allegations against a responsible organisation like the Army.

Every person should be extremely careful while making allegation against a responsible organisation like the Army, Mr Tripathi said.

As soon as Ms Banerjee learnt that about the governors remarks, she hit back terming his statement unfortunate.

The governor is speaking in the voice of the Central government! He was not in the city for about 8 days, she tweeted.

Before making statements, all details should have been checked. It is very unfortunate, she said in a statement.

Hours later, a delegation of Trinamul Congress ministers called on Mr Tripathi to register their strong protest against the presence of Army personnel on highways in Bengal without the permission of the state government.
Shiv Sena chief, while insisting it was courtesy call, said demonetisation, political scenario was discussed.

Nagpur: In a first, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur in a move that has raised eyebrows in political circles. It was the first meeting between the two at RSS headquarters.

Mr Thackeray expressed his concern about the demonetisation decision by the Narendra Modi government to Bhagwat. The Sena has remained critical about demonetisation since the beginning and even led a protest to the Presidents Raj Bhavan along with Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee.

Mr Thackeray who arrived in Nagpur this morning went straight to the RSS headquarters where he met Mr Bhagwat. Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray was also present during the meeting. The meeting lasted for an hour. After the meeting Mr Thackeray said, It was a courtesy visit. We wanted to meet for a long time. I met him this morning at Nitin Gadkaris daughters wedding and expressed a wish to meet him. He agreed to meet me and invited me to the RSS headquarters, Mr Thackeray briefly told the media while refusing to divulge more details. When asked if he talked about demonetisation, Mr Thackeray said, All are suffering due to it. We also spoke about the political scenario. Later, Union home minister Rajnath Singh also met Mr Bhagwat at the RSS headquarters.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in the evening said that the Sena was critical about the implementation of the demonetisation and not the actual decision. Uddhav Thackeray has said people should not be affected. We (BJP and Sena) are working together on the issue so that people do not suffer, Mr Fadnavis said. However, a BJP leader said on condition of anonymity that the party was not aware about the Sena chiefs meeting with Mr Bhagwat. The meeting between the two also assumes significance as the Winter Session of the state legislature is beginning Monday at Nagpur. The Opposition has decided to attack the government on demonetisation. It would be interesting to see if Sena joins the Opposition in criticising the move.

Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil has criticised Mr Thackeray for the meeting. Uddhav is known to take U-turns on issues whether it is demonetisation or something else. People do not trust him anymore, Mr Vikhe-Patil said.
She coyly said shed been in Donald Trumps bed, but later revealed it was for a magazine photo shoot.

Miami Beach, Florida: Madonna kissed Ariana Grande, repeatedly criticised President elect Donald Trump and said she was ashamed to be an American in a magnetic performance in Miami on Friday night where she raised more than $7.5 million for the African nation of Malawi.

The Material Girl dug deep into her personal treasures, auctioning off pieces from her own art collection, a costume from her tour modeled by Grande and black and white photos from her 1985 wedding to ex-husband Sean Penn shot by the late photographer Herb Ritts. The trio of wedding photos sold for $230,000.

Penn, who attended the fundraiser and bid on several pricey items when the auction stalled, handcuffed Madonna and crawled through her legs as the two tried to coerce the audience to bid higher. For once, hes not the one being arrested, she joked.

The party lasted until early Saturday morning when Madonna took the stage for an hour-long performance before a star studded crowd that included Leonardo DiCaprio, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, James Corden, ex-boyfriend A-Rod and Courtney Love. The fundraiser was just one of the many parties during Art Basel Miami Beach, a contemporary art fair.

Madonna, who performed in a pink sequined clown top and fishnet stockings, seemed to hold nothing back, especially her opinions on the election, joking with the audience that she had promised to perform sexual favors for those who voted for Hillary. She coyly said shed been in Donald Trumps bed, but later revealed it was for a magazine photo shoot and that Trump wasnt even there  and she criticised his cheap sheets.

They wont be Egyptian cotton because we all know how he feels about Muslims dont we, she said as some audience members gasped.

She gyrated to a slowed-down version of Britney Spears Toxic and seductively sang, You know that youre toxic, as images of Trump appeared on a large screen behind her.

At one point, she walked into the audience, climbing on tables and giving one man a lap dance. She abruptly stood up at another point, grabbed the chair, on which she had performed and said she also wanted to auction it, noting $600 could send a girl in Malawi to secondary school and $2,000 would cover her university expenses. The chair sold for $10,000.
He confirmed plans to write a book in his first year out of office.

President Barack Obama waves after speaking during the lighting ceremony for the 2016 National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse near the White House. (Photo: AP)

Washington: US President Barack Obamas frequent remarks on the spread of information in the social media age have fueled rumors about his life after the White House.

But his team quashed speculation Friday that he is going to launch a career in the media business.

@POTUS is interested in the changing ways people consume info, but he has no plans to get into the media business after he leaves office, White House Communications Director Jen Psaki said in a tweet, referring to Mr Obama by his Twitter handle.

It was apparently in response to an article on Friday on the Mic news site that the soon-to-be ex-president was considering working in digital media and launching his own media company.

Numerous times during the bitter campaign to pick his successor, Mr Obama expressed concern about how information is distributed and digested.

The current media ecosystem means everything is true and nothing is true, he told The New Yorker.

The capacity to disseminate misinformation, wild conspiracy theories, to paint the opposition in wildly negative light without any rebuttal  that has accelerated in ways that much more sharply polarize the electorate and make it very difficult to have a common conversation.

Asked by Rolling Stone about his transition out of the Oval Office, Mr Obama explained that he wanted to set up his presidential center to focus on training and empowering up and coming leaders. How do we rethink our storytelling, the messaging and the use of technology and digital media, so that we can make a persuasive case across the country? he asked rhetorically.

He confirmed plans to write a book in his first year out of office.
Does the current structure and formulation of the HoS conference serve a purpose?

As the 6th Heart of Asia (HoA) Conference on Afghanistan begins in Amritsar today, during the winter lull in fighting, the contrast between the 2015 conference in Islamabad, which took place bang at the height of the Afghan President Ashraf Ghanis rapprochement to Pakistan and the present, could not be more obvious. Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan have hit a new low while Afghanistans relations with India have improved significantly. Globally, there is a rising crescendo over Pakistans sponsorship of terror and even some talk of isolating that country.

The run up to this years HoA has seen the inauguration of the Salma Dam and Indias announcement to stay committed to the Afghan cause, the drone attack of Talibans handpicked chief Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor in Baluchistan that killed him and further fragmented the Taliban, a reconfirmation of the wests commitment to Afghanistan at the Brussels Conference, the first Chinese train full of goods reaching Afghanistan via Central Asia, the progress made on the Chabahar port and the inauguration of the Turkmenistan Afghanistan rail track. Afghanistan, at the crossroads of Asia, has been trying to break the shackles of being landlocked to become land-linked. To a great extent, it has succeeded in finding alternative transit routes to replace the ones to Pakistan.

Outweighing these positives, however, are a string of negatives. Taliban has not only been flexing its muscles in its traditional strongholds, but elsewhere in the country, while building cordial relations with Russia and with Iran, with reports indicating that both weapons and finances continue to be routed to the Taliban by Pakistan, as publicly admitted by its special envoy, all of which strikes at the heart of Afghanistans interests.

Add to this, the nurturing of the so-called Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) that mirrors the grooming of the Taliban during 1994-96 by the very same patron, the growing levels of violence as a result of Taliban and ISKP related terror activities in urban and rural areas ranging from hit-and run to holding-out for maximum exposure and propaganda, only drives home the point that Afghanistans immediate neighbour is not working in tandem with Kabul.

The sum of Internal Displacements due to violence, as well as the forced repatriation of refugees from across the Durand Line has now touched almost a million. Aside from the colossal losses in men and machinery, during the past year, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) has to deal, not just with desertions from its ranks but the political elite questioning the legitimacy and achievements of the Ghani government, rocked as it is, by corruption, nepotism, and lack of coordination among top Afghan officials.

President Mohammad Ashraf Ghanis one year long unilateral concessions to Pakistan, without any tangible reciprocity, showed him that Pakistan will never willingly embrace the idea of Afghanistan as an independent, sovereign, stable and developed state. Trusting Pakistan or waiting for it to change is futile. President Ghanis tone towards Pakistan may have changed from strategic silence to trust and verify, but this has had little effect on Islamabad.

Taking all the above into consideration, and in the absence of any tangible achievements of the HoS previous sessions, the question about the purpose of the Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference remains. Does the current structure and formulation of the HoS conference serve a purpose?

Pakistan remains committed to disrupting any positive development in Afghanistan. Irrespective, the promises Pakistan makes or the events its attends, it has never been a reliable partner in anything constructive concerning Afghanistan, be it bilateral, trilateral, quadrilateral or any other setup or talk. Most recently, Pakistans special envoy on Kashmir, Mushahid Husain Syed during a talk in Washington said Road to peace in Kabul lies in Kashmir  , demonstrating Pakistans stubborn refusal to put an end to the mayhem it has imposed on Afghanistan for decades, while trying to keep the focus on Kashmir. Pakistan will not compromise on its strategic depth, or stop using proxy forces to keep challenging the legitimate Afghan government, ruining every other nations efforts to develop Afghanistan.

The Good Terrorist- Bad Terrorist dichotomy is there to stay for as long as Pakistan is permitted to do so. In short, Pakistan will remain a spoiler in Afghanistan and the region. While Afghanistans decreasing dependency on Pakistan for transit and goods gives Kabul some leverage, Kabuls options of pushing the world community to take a firm stance against Pakistans imposed war on Afghanistan are limited.

During the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, the revised commitment from the global community particularly the western community was made but it lacks the means to bring about sustainable peace in Afghanistan. Equally up in the air, is the new U.S. President-elect Donald Trump administrations policy regarding Afghanistan, Taliban and Pakistan. Despite Pakistan being clearly linked to the killing of hundreds of US and ISAF troops, the world community has been unwilling to pressurize Pakistan. Its either held back by U.S.NATO-European Union indifference that permits Pakistan to continue playing its game and gives it no incentive to stop sponsoring terror in Afghanistan. That said, Kabuls institutional and diplomatic outreach has been shallow at best.

None of the previous sessions of the Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference have brought forth any tangible results. Unless and until it holds its members accountable to what they agree upon at the end of each conference, the HoA Conference in its current setup will remain effete. It lacks the necessary mechanism, the monitoring tools to hold nations up to its promises and implement its agenda. For it to be more than a formality conducted each year, its core initiators need to go back to the drawing board, devise and formulate proper mechanisms to make it work.

Else, the Heart of Asia will keep bleeding.
Fidel Castro had claimed he was the target of some 600 assassination plots.

Havana: Mobsters, poisoned cigars, exploding seashells, a contaminated diving suit: The CIA's imagination ran wild in its plots to assassinate Fidel Castro.

As the late Cuban leader's ashes are laid to rest in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba on Sunday, his cause of death remains a closely-guarded state secret.

Castro claimed he was the target of some 600 assassination plots, but it appears likely that it was simply old age that finally felled the death-defying communist leader. He was 90 and no longer president when he died on November 25.

CIA documents and a report by the US Senate's Church Committee in 1975 reveal plots that were cooked up by spooks, including some that never left "the laboratory phase."

Depilate 'The Beard'

Some early schemes didn't even involve murdering Castro and seemed more like elaborate high school pranks.

The Church Committee said that from March to August 1960, "the CIA considered plans to undermine Castro's charismatic appeal by sabotaging his speeches."

One idea involved spraying Castro's broadcasting studio with an LSD-like chemical, but it was rejected because the drug was "unreliable."

The agency's Technical Services Division (TSD) treated a box of cigars with a chemical that produced temporary disorientation, hoping Castro would light up a stogie before a speech and make a fool of himself.

The committee also found a scheme "to destroy Castro's image as 'The Beard' by dusting his shoes with thallium salts" -- a strong depilatory that would cause his famous facial hair to fall out.

The plan was to put the substance in Castro's shoe in case he put them outside his hotel room's door to be shined while in another country, but the Cuban leader cancelled the trip.

Lethal cigar

The Church Committee's report found "concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965."

A box of Castro's favourite cigars was treated with "a lethal botulinum toxin so potent that a person would die after putting one in his mouth," the Church Committee said.

The cigars were delivered to an unidentified person in February 1961, but "the record does not disclose whether an attempt was made to pass the cigars to Castro."

Mobsters

In 1960, the CIA recruited mafia figures to kill Castro and offered $150,000 if they succeeded.

The agency considered gunning down Castro in a "gangland-style killing," but the mobsters suggested a more discreet method: Slipping a poison pill in Castro's food or drink.

The TSD made a pill containing botulinum toxin, which was given to a Cuban official, Juan Orta.

But after several weeks of attempts, Orta apparently got "cold feet" and abandoned "the assignment," according to a CIA memo.

The poison pill plot was revived after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, but it was abandoned again in 1963.

Explosive mollusk

In 1963, the chief of Task Force W, the CIA section handling covert Cuban operations, asked his assistant to see if "an exotic seashell, rigged to explode" could be placed in a location where Castro went skin diving, according to the committee.

The TSD explored the idea but determined it was "impractical."

Contaminated diving gear

The CIA considered having James Donovan, a US lawyer who was negotiating with Castro the release of Bay of Pigs prisoners, deliver a "contaminated" diving suit to Castro.

The TSD dusted the inside of a suit with a fungus that would cause a chronic skin disease known as Madura foot. The lab also contaminated the breathing apparatus with tubercle bacillus. But the poisoned gear never left the lab.

Poison Pen

A CIA official gave a high-ranking Cuban official codenamed AM/LASH, who wanted to "eliminate" Castro, a poisonous ballpoint pen rigged with a hypodermic needle "so fine that the victim would not notice its insertion," the committee said.

AM/LASH, later identified as Major Rolando Cubela, was unimpressed, saying the CIA could have "come up with something more sophisticated than that."

A CIA official said he could not remember whether the Cuban threw away the pen or kept it, but AM/LASH stated that he would not take it to Cuba.

In a historical coincidence, the pen was delivered on November 22, 1963 -- the day US President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas.
The Pakistani embassy in Washington DC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen.

Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will visit the United States by March 2017 to meet the new US President Donald Trump, officials said.

According to media reports, the Pakistan foreign office has been trying to arrange a visit of Mr Sharif to Washington where Mr Trump will assume charge of the office of the President of the United States on January 20. Sources say that Mr Sharif has expressed his desire to attend Mr Trumps oath-taking ceremony.

The Pakistani embassy in Washington DC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen. It was reported that Mr Sharif might leave for the US on the January 18 or 19.

A meeting with one of the top officials of the US with Prime Minister Sharif will take place next month in Davos, Switzerland, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

Officials said Pakistan would maintain its ties with the US on the cardinal principle of mutual respect while addressing each others concerns in a dignified manner.

The standpoint of Pakistan will be conveyed to think-tanks in the United States this week when special assistant to Prime Minister on foreign affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi visits the US capital. He will also have an extensive interaction with those likely be part of the new US team in various departments, particularly in the state department.
Special Assistant to Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi is leaving for the US on Sunday to finalise the schedule of the visit.

Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, keen to meet Donald Trump, may visit Washington next month for the oath-taking ceremony of the US President-elect, media reports said on Sunday.

Speculation about the visit comes after telephonic conversation between Sharif and Trump last week.

Sources in Islamabad said Special Assistant to Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi is leaving for the US today to finalise the schedule of the visit.

Prime Minister House sources said a proposal regarding the Sharif's participation in the oath-taking ceremony of the new US president is also on the cards but nothing has been finalised so far.

"Invitations are usually issued to the heads of states and governments on such occasions. The option to respond positively to any such invitation once received is under consideration," a source close to the Prime Minister was quoted by Express Tribune as saying.

Fatemi would stay in Washington for 10 days and would meet the Trump team as well and discuss the ways to strengthen the bilateral ties between Pakistan and US. He would brief the team about the role Pakistan played in the war on terror and Pakistan's policy towards Afghanistan and India.

According to media reports, Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) has been trying to arrange a possible visit of Sharif to Washington where Trump will assume charge of the Office of the President of the United States on January 20.

Sharif has expressed his desire to attend Trump's oath -taking ceremony, another media report said.

The Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen. It was reported that the Sharif may leave for the US on the January 18 or 19.

The decision of Sharifs US visit hinges on the possibility of a meeting with Trump. Analysts say that it will be a major breakthrough if a meeting is actually realised, the reports said.

Trump has already set up a provisional team, encouraging foreign leaders and officials to visit his headquarters in New York for familiarisation meetings.

Sharif is said to have given special instructions to Fatemi who would meet the US Congress members and Senate and seek their support and cooperation for better ties with the new US administration.

The adviser would also meet the US think tank members and would brief them on Pakistans efforts for peace in the region. Fatemi would also highlight the "Indian atrocities" in Kashmir and "ceasefire violations" by Indian security forces on Line of Control and Working Boundary, sources said.

Meanwhile, The News International reported that Sharif could undertake the important visit of the US in the first quarter of the next year.

"The arrangement would be worked out through diplomatic channels soon after assuming the office by President Trump," it reported.

It further said that Pakistan has decided to maintain its ties with the United States on the cardinal principle of mutual respect while addressing each others concerns in a dignified manner once the new administration of Donald Trump is at the helm of affairs in Washington, it said.

The Foreign Office is tight-lipped about the mission of Fatemi and chances of the visit of Prime Minister Sharif to the US.

During their conversation last week, Trump had described Sharif as a "terrific guy" and offered to play "any role" in helping Pakistan address its problems.
The completion of the merger between global law firm Dentons and part of Australias Gadens; officially completes today (5Dec.).The Sydney and Perth offices of Gadens, together with Papua New Guinea will now be integrated into the global firm while those in Adelaide and Brisbane will be associated with it but not change branding. Melbourne will remain as a standalone business.Its reported that the management of King & Wood Mallesons in Europe have been in talks with the Chinese partnership about a possible buyout.According to a report in UK publication The Lawyer, partners from China have been to London to discuss options which could include the former SJ Berwin business joining KWMs China partnership, rather than being a separate part of the verein. No confirmation has been given by either party.Chinese and Australian partners were previously planning to match EUME partners recapitalization of the firm but there was not enough support from the EUME partnership.Yang Lui has been appointed as a partner at Clyde & Co Westlink, a joint legal venture in China.Lui was previously a partner at HaoLiWen Partners and he has solid experience in corporate and M&A practices along with many other areas including shipping, international trade and logistic matters.The use of Sharia law has relatively high support among Muslims but in practice most of the support is soft according to a new report.British think tank Policy Exchange surveyed 3,000 Muslims and found that when asked whether they would support the introduction of Sharia Law  broadly defined, to include civil law on questions of financial disputes  43 per cent said yes (16 per cent expressed strong support), 22 per cent said no, 23 per cent had no strong opinion and 12 per cent did not know.Among younger British Muslims, just 11 per cent were strongly in favour among the 35 per cent that expressed support for the introduction of Sharia law. The report suggests that this may be due to the concept being linked with ISIS.
i am on an 820 Visa and waiting for the final decision. I have been in Australia now for a year and i want to drive but the information on the RTA site is confusing.

I have a current Chinese licence and I am not a visitor so the visitor rules do not apply to me nor does the permanent residence rules so I am confused as to whether my licence is valid because I want to learn to drive my husbands car but don't know if I legally can and I don't want to void his insurance in case of an accident.

Can anyone help me with the correct advise?

Do I need to get an Australian learners permit and then p plates etc or can I drive with my Chinese licence?

is it still valid ?
Dear All,

I am 53 years old and have a decent job Offer in Australia.



I would like to migrate to Australia with my Family. I have three kids 16,13,7



Is it possible to apply for PR if I accept this offer, or I am too old?



Many thanks in advance for your advice



Kind regards
Hello, I want to apply for Student visa after getting admission in a master degree for Australia. I only consider a possible hurdle in my visa application. I was diagnosed a "hole in heart" of mid range, but till today, I don't have any physical or illness symptoms. So I wanna know if any other member had gone through this or know any such case? Will I be able to have accepted visa approval?

Please share me some info before I could apply.

Thanks in advance
We know this since January 2016 , yet no further details have been revealed by the Italian-American company that owns the two brands. The only other thing about the two ranges that will get hybrid options was that the resulting vehicles would be mild hybrids , without any other details.FCA already has a plug-in hybrid model in its lineup, which made some people wonder why its powertrain will not motivate the 2018 Jeep Wrangler, along with a few Ram models.Well, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has not specified anything regarding a potential parts-sharing strategy between the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid and the 2018 Jeep Wrangler , but it might not happen because the off-roading legend might be too small to fit the batteries of the system under its passenger compartment.While it may seem peculiar to call a Wrangler "small," it is an entirely different breed of an automobile when compared to the Chrysler Pacifica. Because the Wrangler will have to handle off-roading, FCAs engineers cannot risk placing a set of Lithium-Ion batteries at the belly of the Wrangler, which might get damaged by rocks or other objects when leaving paved trails.Another reason why the potential for parts sharing between the Wrangler and Pacifica is not discussed is the fact that the off-roader and its pickup truck siblings from the Ram range might feature an entirely different setup. After all, the owners of these vehicles are not that interested in going green, but they will appreciate an increase in fuel economy.Instead of a plug-in hybrid setup like the one on the Pacifica, the 2020 Jeep Wrangler hybrid could get a 48-Volt setup like Mercedes-Benz plans to implement on its future range of inline-six engines.Evidently, there will be no parts sharing with Chryslers former owners, but Jeep and Ram models could benefit from a similar concept promised for the next range of engines from Mercedes-Benz.We are referring to a mild-hybrid setup that replaces the alternator and starter motor for an e-motor, which can offer a small power and torque boost when needed, but cannot power the vehicle alone. The first hybrid models from Jeep and Ram are expected to come in 2019 or 2020, so theres plenty of time for FCA insiders to share their intel with others.
Instead of delivering an answer, we're here to give you a video, one that sees supercar collector Rob Ferretti talking about the things that bother him about the 488.As those of you following our supercar stories know, Rob grabbed a 488 Spider earlier this year. Once the initial thoughts, which were comprised of the overflowing joy such a supercar inevitably brings one and the need to explain to people how he managed to skip the long queue that awaits many Ferrari buyers, were left behind, the collector got the time to notice the bits that will chop the smile off one's Ferrari face.Most of the issues Rob mentions here are exclusive to Ferraris, while others can also be found in tons of other supercars. Heck, some of the latter are not even limited to lighting-quick two-seaters.However, the Italian automaker is far from being in any real danger. Let's take out Ferrari 458 reviews for instance. We found a lot of issues with the Italia and the Spider , while after spending a day with the Speciale we dared conclude that we'd take the "normal" 458 instead.However, if asked to choose a supercar from that "era", we'd probably go for the Fezza. Sure, the Lamborghini Gallardo and the Audi R8 have all-wheel-drive, while the McLaren 12C is quicker, but the Maranello animal has that charm that simply makes it impossible to resist.So now that Ferrari has added a pair of turbos to the 458, we don't see too many customers refusing the offer because the thing has a stereo you can probably also find in a Jeep Wrangler.
The YouTuber hits us with one of the all-popular "5 Things I Hate about the insert you favorite supercar here," targeting the Aventador SV Roadster that recently gave him a giggle overload.Do keep in mind that this might just be the world's highest-spec Aventador Superveloce Roadster, with the Sant'Agata Bolognese machine having set its owner back $720,000 - this didn't stop the man from also buying waht could be the highest-spec McLaren 675 Longtail Spider, though.As for the details in the video, using the "we don't want to be those guys" attitude, we'll mention that the 30-pin iPhone cable Parker mentions was last featured on the iPhone 4, not the iPhone 3. And yes, some supercar drivers might still have those lying around, especially since they make nearly-decent brake pads and the bulky Aventador likes to go through such consumables as if they weren't even there.Also, some of the things mentioned here could be considered features, not bugs, by certain Lambo fans, which is why we don't think the Italian automaker is ready to switch to a dual-clutch setup for the upcoming Aventador facelift.Then again, having experienced similar issues in our Aventador and Aventador Roadster adventures, it's not difficult for us to relate to issues such as the ones mentioned here.P.S.: Having discussed the problems that currently sit at the top of the Lamborghini line-up, perhaps we should also remind you that, as highlighted in the story we brought you earlier today, Ferraris also have their fair share of annoying bits.
VSS Unity, Virgin Galactics replacement for the original SpaceShipTwo, which crashed in October of 2014, glided to a landing for the first time Saturday after three months of captive testing slung below WhiteKnightTwo. The 2014 crash killed copilot Michael Alsbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold. Unity separated from the mothership at 10:40 a.m. PST and glided back to the Mojave Air and Space Port about 10 minutes later. The next milestone will be powered flight but there has been no timeline announced for that.

Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic says the test moves its space tourism forward and the pre-crash goals remain the same: to democratize space flight and to open space to change the world for good. VSS Unity is the first vehicle built in-house by Virgin Galactic. The new spacecraft incorporates safety features that will prevent the premature release of the vehicles feathering mechanism, which resulted in the 2014 crash. The feathering was actuated by Alsbury as the spacecraft accelerated through Mach 1 and it was pulled apart. The feathering mechanism is used for deceleration from re-entry.Virgin Galactic hasnt released video of the flight yet but heres one on the first captive flight.
Its not often that a bad case of high winds aloft puts you on the beach for the day. But not often is not the same as never.
4 December 2016 11:00 (UTC+04:00)

YARAT Contemporary Art Space hosted the group show of local and international YARAT residents HOW DOES IT FEEL? at the ARTIM Project Space on December 2.

YARAT Contemporary Art Space in frame of Artim Project featured the group show How does it feel? of the local YARAT residents Vusala Agaraziyeva and Erkin Alekberli and the international residents Gokcen Dilek Acay, Timo Herbst and Merzedes Sturm-Lie.

How does it feel? describes the perspective of an observer, someone who is interested in his surrounding and tries to feel his way into the different subjects. It is an observer, who is eventually overwhelmed of the different stimuli that are enclosing him and failures to find simple explanation. What happens if the foreign suddenly turns out to be the familiar or the familiar suddenly appears strange, if clear ideas evolve to be empty or the other way if the unknown takes clear shape? The exhibition combining works of three international and two local YARAT residents is a journey through the artists eyes constructed and at the same time each other penetrating perspectives.

Gokcen Dilek Acays video Anatomical Positions and the installation Shaping DNA tames parts of the human body in geometrical forms, which seems disconcerting at first. The installation shows a hair installation and kaleidoscopic records of the interior of the artists body commenting on the change of the body awareness in the 21st century, the fear of foreignness of the own body as well as exposure to exterior control through genetic modification. Using circles and holes as the connection point between the two works the artist plays with the tension between the body as the axis of perception and as object of voyeurism.

The focus of the installation Absurd by Vusala Agarazyieva is an air balloon that symbolizes pseudo-values and empty ideas and goals. The artist questions the peoples absurd behavior, the attitude to each other and to life while trying to reach the imaginary goals and what they call their truth. I think we, the people, have turned blind and do not see that the only thing a man has is his path - the path from the beginning to the end of life, which bears no lie, envy, hypocrisy, as the nature does. Only the path built on love brings love, respect and recognition.

With the work Lost Generation Erkin Alekberli aims to name the countless children lives lost in terrors of war, forgotten and stayed in the dark. The installation stands for the vanished hopes and unfinished dreams affected by the injustice of war. However, it not only accuses the unlearned lessons from bloody conflicts worldwide in which children as defenseless victims suffer the most but also tries to create a symbolic protective fence with the barbered wire forming the central part of the installation.

Timo Herbsts drawings and video works that he started during the residency attempt to capture the choreography of Baku everyday life. In the film Baku/Baki  Ana Dili the artist steps into the shoes of a silent observer tracing the different living realities he was faced with allowing contradictory and complex moments to evolve. Thus, he creates a differentiated and sensitive image of the society that is more complicated than just a conflict between tradition and modernization, economical prosperity and crisis. The strategy of overlapping multiple realities he also applies in his drawings Same procedure that depict the bodily conflicts of political disputes around the world as well as the text works from the series How does it feel that play with the different alphabets used in the last two centuries in Azerbaijan.

Merzedes Sturm-Lie researched during her residency the first Azeri movie In the Kingdom of Oil and Millions of the year 1916 directed by Boris Svetlov, which vanished during the Bolshevik occupation in 1920. The exhibition features a documentation of her four-day workshop with young art and film students related to the movie and a video with the movie sites and an interview of the film historian Aydn Kazmzad. The works explore the artists interest in the stories and the personal relationships of people related to oil and millions as well as the broader geopolitical impact that these concepts have on everyday life in Azerbaijan. The project is an extension concerns on the topic of oil that she started in Belgium with the work Black Gold. It consists of an oil barrel with oil at the bottom and the upper edge covered with gold leaf. Looking into the barrel it creates the feeling of looking into the dark well. The work is inspired by Friedrich Nietzsches quote: And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

Born in Istanbul, in 1983, Gokcen Dilek Acay, studied music major violin at the Yldz Technical University Istanbul (2009) and attended master program in fine arts, at the Bauhaus University Weimar (2012). She worked with the dancers, musicians, visual artists and participated several group exhibitions and has had solo and group exhibitions in Turkey, Europe, Asia and US. She is selected artist who represents Turkey for 17th International Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean in Milan 2015. She was represented at 'Art Fair Brussels' and 'Contemporary Istanbul' by NEV Gallery Istanbul.

Vusala Agaraziyeva was born in 1990 in Baku. She has obtained her bachelors and masters degrees in Fine Arts from The Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts. She has participated in Sirga olsun (MOMA, Baku), Sirga olsun (MIM gallery), Duyme (Kichik Qala gallery, Baku), Khojaly Genocid (Galerie Berlin-Baku, Berlin), Germany seen by Azerbaijani artists (Art Academy, Baku), Half Truths (ARTIM, Baku), History (Etnographical Museum, Tibilisi). She is a Young Member of the Azerbaijan Union of Artists from 2013.

Erkin Alekberli was born in 1992 in Baku. He obtained his Masters degree in fine arts from the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts. Alekberli has participated in the exhibitions Contract of century, R.Mustafayev National Museum of Arts, Baku, Art Festival Semeni HeydarAliyev Cultural Center, Baku, Xojaly, Berlin Gallery, Berlin, Memory/Retrospective project in frame of Aluminium Biennale of Contemporary Art, Absheron Gallery, Baku. He is the Second place winner of International Art Competition ARTWEEK, Moscow. Alekberli is a Young Member of the Azerbaijan Union of Artists.

Merzedes Sturm-Lie, born 1991, is a SWEDISH/BELGIAN/NORWEGIAN multimedia artist and curator who lives and works in Stockholm and Brussels. She holds a Master of Fine Art from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (SE). Her work has been shown in Sweden, Belgium, Poland, Japan, Russia, Brazil and the US.

Timo Herbst received his diploma at the University of Arts in Bremen and Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig (Germany) 2013. His work was shown at Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz Berlin, Museum for Visual Arts Leipzig, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Haus der Kunst Munich and Centre d`Art Passerelle Brest (France). He was fellow of Artist Quarter Budapest (Hungary), Goethe Institut Villa Kamogawa Kyoto (Japan) and is currently comissioned of the interdisciplinary project and research group Arts and Science in Motion of Volkswagen Foundation connected to FU Berlin and HBK Braunschweik.

About ARTIM

ARTIM is directed at young Azerbaijani artists with an intention to support and encourage emergent talent to grow. The programme has a designated exhibition space in Icheri Sheher that was conceived as a platform for experimenting and professionally showcasing art. Artworks resulting from the programme are exhibited at the ARTIM Project Space, Baku.

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3 December 2016 19:02 (UTC+04:00)

Armenia must immediately withdraw its troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at a joint press conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov in Baku.

He also called on the OSCE Minsk Group to speed up efforts towards the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Addressing the press conference, Elmar Mammadyarov noted that they discussed the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and regional issues.

We touched upon the economic issues. We believe that Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will launch its operation very soon. This is an important project. This railway will connect Azerbaijan with Georgia, Turkey, Central Asia and China. We believe that this project will create opportunities for economic growth. We talked about energy issues. The construction of TANAP is going at full swing. More than fifty percent of construction work has been completed. The natural gas via TANAP will be transported to the Turkish markets in time, the Azerbaijani FM said.

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3 December 2016 16:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and his spouse Mehriban Aliyeva have today attended the opening of a 100-seat orphanage-kindergarten constructed on the initiative of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in Tartar district.

The head of state cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the orphanage-kindergarten.

The head of state and his spouse were informed that the construction work started in July, 2014. The building occupies a total area of 1200 square metres. There are photo stands reflecting the life and activities of national leader Heydar Aliyev, President Ilham Aliyev and President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva.

The two-storey building has a kitchen, medical point, assembly hall, bedrooms, game, computer and other rooms.

The orphanage-kindergarten will create 31 jobs.

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3 December 2016 13:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and his spouse Mehriban Aliyeva have attended the inauguration of a new building of Children`s and Youth Chess School, which was constructed at the initiative of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in Tartar.

The head of state cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the building.

There are photo stands in the foyer of the school reflecting national leader Heydar Aliyev`s and President Ilham Aliyev`s visits to Tartar, as well as their meetings with the district public. There is also "Brave Azerbaijani Army" photo stand reflecting Armenia's shelling Tartar district this April, Azerbaijani Armed Force's respond to the enemy, as well as President Ilham Aliyev's and his spouse Mehriban Aliyeva's viewing the damage to the region and their meetings with residents and the wounded in frontier villages.

The three-storey building, which occupies a total area of 1300 square meters, has administrative rooms, offices, conference and game halls. Classrooms in the school were supplied with necessary equipment. A monitor for watching live competitions was also installed here. The school employs 15 people.

The head of state and his wife wished young chess players success and posed for photographs with them.

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4 December 2016 13:31 (UTC+04:00)

We do not eye present day territory of the Republic of Armenia. We have no intention to return either Iravan or Mehri or Gorus through militarily. But I am confident that the time will come and we, Azerbaijanis, will return to all our historical lands, said President Ilham Aliyev as he met with representatives of the general public as part of his visit to the frontline district of Tartar.

We will achieve this through conducting a consistent policy, peacefully. All objective factors demonstrate that this day will come. We should just work to hasten that day. How should we do it? We should be stronger.

The President said international law has almost been a fiasco. Power is the main factor now. This is the reality, and we live in this real world. So we must be more powerful, we must build a stronger army. Our economy must grow stronger. Our economy must develop at a more rapid pace. Our development must speed up. Our population has increased and will continue to increase even in the years of crisis. In a year or two Azerbaijan`s population will reach 10 million. This is a stable tendency, and the growth will be even bigger in the years ahead, said the head of state.

President Ilham Aliyev also said that the Armenian population is decreasing, which, he added, is caused by both natural reasons, migration, hopelessness, despair, arbitrariness. He said that in fact the incumbent fascist regime in Armenia created unbearable conditions in the country. Therefore population in this country will continue to decrease, people will leave the country as they are doing now, he added.

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4 December 2016 15:39 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Uzbek citizens are actively voting in the presidential election at a polling station in Baku, the embassy of Uzbekistan in Azerbaijan told Trend on December 4.

Some 60 percent of 300 registered voters have already voted.

Some voters have specially arrived from remote regions of the country to take part in the election.

Voting started at 6:00 (GMT+5) and will last until 20.00 (GMT+5).

The polling station is located in the embassy of Uzbekistan situated in 437, the ninth lane, the first highway, Badamdar settlement, Baku.

According to the Uzbek legislation, the Uzbek citizens temporarily residing in Baku, for example tourists, can vote at the polling station in Baku.

Uzbek citizens must have passport to vote in the election.

The snap election in Uzbekistan was announced after the death of first Uzbek President Islam Karimov September 2, 2016.

Candidates from four political parties of Uzbekistan participate in the presidential election - Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP), People's Democratic Party (PDPU), Milly Tiklanish (National Revival) Party, and Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party.

Among the presidential candidates are the countrys Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev from UzLiDeP, Sarvar Otamuratov from Milly Tiklanish Party, Nariman Umarov from Adolat Party, and Hotamzhon Ketmonov from PDPU.

The new head of state will be elected for a period of five years.

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4 December 2016 10:48 (UTC+04:00)

SOCAR exported 159,712 tons of crude oil from the Novorossiysk Port, 91,616 tons of crude oil from the Supsa Port, and 1,501,807 tons of crude oil from the Ceyhan Port in November, 2016, Azertac reported.

In general, 1,137,953 tons of crude oil was exported from the Novorossiysk port, 2,212,888 tons of crude oil from the Supsa port, 15,494,20 tons of crude oil from the Ceyhan port and 14,946 tons of crude oil from Kulevi terminal during January-November 2016. The indices of crude oil exported by SOCAR reflect the volumes of crude oil belonging to both State of Azerbaijan and SOCAR.

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The New York Times reports:

Pennsylvania will apparently not have a statewide recount of its votes, removing the last long-shot hope by opponents of Donald J. Trump that a review of the ballots could overturn his election as president. In a filing on Saturday, a lawyer for Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate, who began the recount bids in Pennsylvania  as well as in Michigan and Wisconsin  said petitioners are regular citizens of ordinary means and could not afford a $1 million bond payment that was ordered by Pennsylvania courts. Lawyers for Pennsylvania Republicans and Mr. Trump had asked a judge on Thursday to dismiss Ms. Steins request, saying she had not identified any fraud or illegal activity during the Nov. 8 election. Lawrence J. Tabas, the general counsel of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, said on Saturday that the withdrawal served as recognition that the Stein-led effort was completely without merit, and that the decision to drop the case assures that President-elect Trump will be declared the winner by the Electoral College, which meets on Dec. 19. In a statement, Ms. Stein left open the possibility that she had further plans in Pennsylvania, and promised a major announcement on Monday morning. She criticized the $1 million bond needed to proceed with a recount. This is yet another sign that Pennsylvanias antiquated election law is stacked against voters, Ms. Stein said. We will pursue every available remedy to ensure Pennsylvanians can trust what happened in this election.

Now before everyone out there jumps on Jill Stein. We must remember that the Democrats and Hillary herself have done NOTHING. Even Al Gore fought harder. Hillary conceded way too early and is now somewhere licking her wounds and putting up no fight. The election was theirs to lose and the DNC and Hillary did lose it. And it was NOT Steins fault. They alienated progressive votes, and took for granted that they would vote for her. They did not reach out to African Americans and the Latino population enough opting to believe that it would be a given that they would not vote for Trump when in reality more minority voters swung Republican this year than in the past two Presidential races. Also Hill and the DNC did not run a race on issues instead of opting instead for the campaign of whos better qualified And Hillarys baggage did not help.

So before you blame Jill Stein and progressives take a step back and blame the real culprits who are responsible for losing this election. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee themselves. Because without blaming them it will never get any better.

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Via Mediaite:

While this announcement is good news for many, we recognize it is not good news for everyone, says a letter sent by Carrier to its employees in the wake of the deal set up by Donald Trump that will prevent them from outsourcing some 800 jobs to Mexico. About 1300 Indiana-based jobs are still heading south of the border, which is a detail that has been lost in the commotion. It is the loss of these jobs that has infuriated some, while the fact that any business will be able to threaten to leave and be rewarded financially by the Trump administration that has angered others. The Wall Street Journal has now joined in, calling what Trump did in Indiana a shakedown. Their anger stems from how it was Trumps threats, not his incentives, that got Carrier to retain a portion of its American jobs.

So in the end Indiana will actually lose 1300 jobs and 7 million dollars in revenue, and Carrier has created a a blueprint for the rest of corporate America to use Trump against american workers.

Also lets look at the the tax abatements mathematically. At $7,000,000.00, and there are 6.597 million people in Indiana, meaning to save 800 jobs, it is cost each man, woman and child $1, Now, assuming that 1/2 the population is employed, and the other half are either old enough to be retired or too young to work, if the same amount, $8,700.00 per job were applied to all the employed people in the state, it would cost the state taxpayers over $28,696,950,000.00

Thats suppose to be reasonable in Trumps mind.

#WeAreDoomed

#BoycottCarrier

#MakeThemPay

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Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry. Her column runs Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at http://www.bakersfield.com, call her at 395-7373 or email lhenry@bakersfield.com

LOIS HENRY ONLINE Read archived columns by Lois Henry at Bakersfield.com/henry.
Though Tejon Ranch Co.'s revenues were up in the third quarter of 2016, they were down over all this year, as reported in the company's quarte
The death toll due to the wildfire in the Smoky Mountains continues to grow, and at last check around 1,000 buildings have been destroyed, according to the Associated Press.

While officials search for who may have started the wildfire, relief workers are scrambling to help the 14,000 people who fled their homes.

Lakeland woman organizes donation drive for Tennessee wildfire victims

Jamie Cardin's family lives in the Gatlinburg area

Hundreds of items have been collected for the wildfire victims

Lakeland mom Jamie Cardin is just one woman in the Bay area doing what she can to help. Her grandmother, best friend, and the rest of her family live in the Gatlinburg area.

We were just there six months ago. A lot of memories are there, said Cardin.

When the stay-at-home mother of six heard about the wildfire on Nov. 29, she immediately created a Facebook page called, Help Gatlinburg, and invited several hundred friends to donate clothes and household items to the people in need.

I only invited about 500 of my friends, and now its up to about 3,000, said Cardin.

Within four days, her home was full of donations, as well as ten drop off business locations.

I think its amazing. I think its wonderful. Its what we should do, Cardin said.

By Friday, kid-friendly business Jumpin Jax offered to let her use its space to organize the donations. Its owner also offered to watch her kids, while Cardin and her friends packed the donations.

Cardin, who has also done missionary work in Haiti, said having the donations sorted by age, size, and gender was one of the things her family in Tennessee recommended.

Even though relief efforts are there, its not getting to everybody, you know, as quickly as it can. And so, thats when everybody should come together and all do our own part and do what we can, said Cardin.



So thats what were hoping that we can do and bring a little hope to people, she said.

Coming up at 5, the story of a woman who organized a massive donation drive for the wildfire evacuees in Tennessee @BN9 #helpgatlinburg pic.twitter.com/zAUHppJUxu  Stephanie Claytor (@ClaytorReports) December 3, 2016

While the women organized and packed the clothes, Jamies uncle Will Dunn went live on Facebook, helping to publicize what they were doing.

I went to southside Wal-Mart and while they were giving me crates, the young lady that was wheeling the cart out, that works there, told me to hold on. She had change for me from her Red Bull. She gave me over $80 in cash. Its just amazing how this community pulls together for this type of stuff, Dunn told his Facebook friends.

Jamie said they received several cash donations, which will help them pay for the fuel needed to get to Gatlinburg. Theyre taking two moving trucks, two trailers, and two SUVs to get all of the donations to the people in need. One of the trailers already left and the other trailer and trucks will head out Monday.
In Rhode Island 20-year-old Onasi Olio-Rojas went a little crazy Wednesday behind the wheel right up until he drove into the back of a garbage truck Apparently he will survive. Authorities have released the video in the hope that it will act as a caution to others. But this brings us to the field of psychiatry and the conclusions of Charles Darwin. There is a body of thought that young men will do anything that they are able to do no matter how stupid. Darwin chimes in with the dreadful news that while parents may care whether kids kill themselves (and others) Mother Nature not so much.

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Beaumont police are continuing their investigation into a double homicide that occurred late Saturday or early today at a home in the 2700 block of Avenue A.

Police were called at 12:41 a.m. today to check the residence and found two people who had been shot to death.
Donald Trump's military focus may create opportunities for MAST to work with US security companies, the firm's boss said

Donald Trump's plans to ramp up military spending are expected to provide a boost for British maritime security firm MAST, its chief executive has said.

MAST - which provides services like armed security, training, counter-privacy, and system installations - could see demand for private security rise if the US president-elect follows through with plans to increase military investment.

Chief executive Phil Cable told the Press Association that it is an "interesting time" for his company.

"I suspect Donald Trump will be strong on defence and support the military spending ...

"So I think for us, as a security business, in that sort of sector, and in areas of concern, there may be some opportunities for us to work with US security companies."

In a speech to the Union League of Philadelphia in September, Mr Trump said he would reverse cuts to military spending that took place as part of the 2013 budget sequester, and submit a new budget to "rebuild" the military once he takes office.

MAST said the US government had historically been one of the largest employers of private security, and that the company had supported the US State Department as a sub-prime contractor for projects including a diver training programme in the past.

The company, which launched in 2005, has struggled to match peak revenues of 50 million US dollars (40 million) which it reached back in 2012.

Since then, it has had to contend with a sharp downturn in the shipping industry, which it also services.

"We went through a period like our particular sector of some quite rapid changes in market conditions, and consolidation ... massive price corrections and pressures and so for about a period of about a year, it was a very difficult trade."

MAST "sustained a certain level of losses," and was forced to restructure, Mr Cable explained.

Revenue projections for 2016 are around 15 million US dollars (12 million), with gross profit margins of around 10%. That is up from turnover of 14.6 million US dollars (11.7 million) a year earlier.

But MAST's super-yacht business has been relatively resilient, compared to the rest of its portfolio.

"For super-yachts, there was a degree of downturn in the new build market, but inevitably with those that have extreme wealth ... I wouldn't say they're immune to global downturns but they're less affected."

Mr Cable does not believe Brexit will present similar challenges for the business, given the company's international model.

The firm, which has its headquarters in the UK, has actually benefited from income in stronger currencies like the US dollar, following sterling's collapse in the wake of the referendum.

"Regardless of any political view, I don't think we've really seen the effects of it yet," he said.

"It's quite speculative. Obviously markets are in turmoil but that's often short-term speculation."

He stressed that MAST was committed to having its headquarters in the UK, though very little of its business originated in Britain.

The company located its headquarters temporarily in Malta, partly for tax purposes, but returned to the UK in 2014.

"Even though we're now headquartered in the UK and paying more tax, it's actually not the right way to focus," he said.

"It's much more efficient, it works better."

Mr Cable added: "From a business perspective, UK incorporated is still a solid place to do business."
The two sides in a dispute at the Post Office have clashed over the impact of a strike, with management saying most of the network was operating but unions reporting solid support.

Members of the Communication Workers Union and Unite staged a 24-hour walkout in protest at job losses, franchising of Crown offices and the closure of a final salary pension scheme.

Picket lines were mounted outside Post Offices and unions have not ruled out further industrial action.

The Post Office said it was "business as usual" in all but a handful of branches in its 11,600 strong network.

Kevin Gilliland, Post Office network and sales djirector, said: "We want to reassure people that over 99% of our network is operating its usual Saturday schedule today.

"Of the 279 branches where action was called, 190 are open for business, in addition to many thousands more around the country. Customers can visit our website for help planning visits today.

"The Post Office plays an important role in communities all over the UK, and has done for centuries.

"We want to safeguard that level of service, and the changes we are making support our commitment to keeping Post Office services widely available into the future.

"Over the last four years, nearly 7,000 post offices have been modernised, adding more than 200,000 extra opening hours each week, and we are now the largest UK retailer open on a Sunday.

"We want the unions to join us in talks to discuss our strategy and find a constructive way forward. Their members work very hard to give our customers the best possible service in the run up to Christmas, and this action can only cause concern."

CWU General Secretary Dave Ward said: "The Post Office is now at crisis point - it needs a new strategy as a matter of urgency. No-one is thinking of the future.

"This isn't good for workers, it isn't good for customers and it isn't good for the future of the business. The CWU will not simply stand by and see another British Industry destroyed.

"We have a simple demand - that the Government pauses the cuts and brings stakeholders together for a structured period of talks to develop a plan that is about more than managing the decline of the service - our members and the public deserve nothing less."
Rupert Everett has hailed the works of Oscar Wilde, who was imprisoned for homosexual acts, as resonant in a world where some people are still punished for being gay.

The actor, who has just finished filming his directorial debut The Happy Prince chronicling the final years of Wilde's life, spoke of the emotion he felt as he stood in front of the playwright's cell door to give a reading of his final poem.

Wilde wrote The Ballad Of Reading Gaol after leaving the prison, where he spent two years in near-solitude after being convicted of gross indecency with men, a criminal offence in Britain in the late 19th century.

Everett, who is gay, said it was "extraordinary" to give the reading from the former prison chapel.

He said: "It's amazing to be here. When you're trying to do a performance I think you just have to concentrate on doing the performance. The end is, I felt, very emotional but you know it's a practical job trying to read a very long poem so you have to just keep your energy up really."

He described Wilde's life and experience as a catalyst for the modern-day LGBT movement. He said: "I think he is very relevant, particularly in countries like America where the only politics that really still exists are politics like LGBT politics and really Wilde is the beginning of that journey.

"Certainly I think his death was one of the great punctuation points between the 19th century and the 20th century and the whole sum of his life raised one of the big debates, that is still being debated now.

"In many parts of the world homosexuality is still a capital offence so we're now in a global village where some people are put to death for being gay. So I think he is just as resonant, if not more resonant with the years."

Wilde, who wrote of the devastating effect his time in prison had on him, could be one of thousands of gay and bisexual people convicted of acts no longer considered criminal to be pardoned under a new ruling which has been described as righting a historic wrong.

After his death witness statements, which had been prepared for the writer's libel case, emerged suggesting he may have had liaisons with under-age boys. H e was never convicted of such an offence and he is understood to be eligible for a pardon.

Everett dismissed any such suggestion as "fantasy" and, despite having previously welcomed pardons as something of a victory, described the idea as "pathetic".

He said: "I think to be pardoned is pathetic. It's just society trying to ease its own sense of guilt. I think he should either be remunerated - his family - or apologised to. But pardoned? There was no offence in the first place."

Everett's performance brought to a close an exhibition by Artangel, during which Reading prison, having closed in 2013, was opened to the public for the first time.
Actor Tony Gardner has told how he contracted the Zika virus while filming in the Caribbean.

The 52-year-old said he felt "pretty rough" for a week after being bitten by a mosquito carrying the disease .

Gardner was filming the hit BBC crime series Death In Paradise on the island of Guadeloupe when he became infected.

"At the time there was about 100 cases in the country that had come into our country from outside ... There are now about 200 Brits who have had Zika, but quite a lot of them, possibly, come from the group of people that go out to Guadeloupe for six months a year to film," he said on comedian Sean Hughes's podcast.

"About a couple of hours before I flew out I got a rash. And then for a week I wasn't particularly well with joint pain and swelling and a bit of sort of ... didn't like the light ... I just felt pretty rough actually for about a week."

But the father and qualified doctor said that the virus was not a "problem" for him because he has no plans to have more children.

"It's quite dangerous for people getting pregnant or men starting families. That's why it can be serious in people who are about to have families."

The production company behind the drama, Red Planet Pictures, said in a statement: "We take the safety of all of our cast and crew seriously and made all actors aware of the potential medical issues that may arise when filming in the Caribbean, including the risk of the Zika virus.

"Information was provided on avoiding all mosquito born viruses and insect repellent was available on set at all times. Despite these precautions, a small number of the team were unwell after having been bitten."
The Government goes to the Supreme Court on Monday in the latest stage of the legal battle over Brexit.

The highest court in the land is being asked to overturn a High Court ruling that the Prime Minister must seek MPs' approval to trigger the process of taking Britain out of the European Union.

In a decision that infuriated Brexiteers, three senior judges said Theresa May lacked power to use the royal prerogative to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and start the two-year process of negotiating Brexit without the prior authority of Parliament.

Now 11 Supreme Court justices - a record number to sit on an appeal - will have their say regarding one of the most important constitutional cases in generations.

If the appeal is unsuccessful, and any potential further appeal to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also fails, the Government's plans for Brexit could be thrown into disarray.

But Mrs May has made it clear she still intends to give an Article 50 notification by the end of next March to start the leave negotiations with 27 other EU countries.

Brexit Secretary David Davis is leading the Government's historic legal action. His team of lawyers, headed by Attorney General Jeremy Wright, will argue in the four-day Supreme Court hearing that the three High Court judges erred over Article 50 and its use was legally justified by the June 23 referendum vote in favour of quitting the EU.

Lord Thomas, the Lord Chief Justice, gave the ruling blocking the use of Article 50. Two other top judges - Master of the Rolls Sir Terence Etherton and Lord Justice Sales - agreed.

Even though it was emphasised to a packed court in London that they were deciding "a pure question of law" and not expressing any view about the merits of leaving the European Union, they faced fierce criticism from Leave campaigners and an accusation that they were "enemies of the people".

Against that background, the Supreme Court has already stressed that its judges will only be concerned with questions of law and not making political decisions.

The Scottish and Welsh governments and the Attorney General for Northern Ireland are all intervening in the case.

Scotland's Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC is to argue that it would be unlawful for the Article 50 process to start without a legislative consent motion (LCM) from Holyrood.

The High Court ruling was won by Gina Miller, 51, an investment fund manager and philanthropist who was selected to bring the lead case.

She reported that her high-profile role had led to death threats and she had spent 60,000 on security, but she is returning to the battle represented once more by Lord Pannick QC.

Her case is being supported by "concerned citizens" drawn from all walks of life, including London hairdresser Deir Dos Santos, 37, who helped start the legal battle over Brexit but, say his lawyers, has been forced underground after receiving "vile" hate mail.

The Attorney General said: " The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum provided for by an Act of Parliament.

"The Government is determined to respect the result of the referendum. The Government's case is that it does have legal power to trigger Article 50 on the timetable set out by the Prime Minister. We do not believe another Act of Parliament is necessary."

Counsel General for Wales Mick Antoniw said: " The people of the UK voted to leave the European Union. I respect that decision and we will not work against the referendum result."

He said: "Leaving the EU will lead to significant changes to the devolution settlement in Wales - only the UK Parliament can make those changes, which should be with the agreement of the National Assembly for Wales."

The Welsh Government's legal team "will argue that the judgment of the High Court should be upheld, and that an Act of Parliament is required for the UK Government to give notice under Article 50".
Justice Minister Claire Sugden pictured with twins Georgia and Sam Hanna from Greenland Primary School, The very Reverend John Mann, Dean of St. Annes and Ian Simpson, Chairman, Prison Service Benevolent Fund. Picture: Michael Cooper

Justice Minister Claire Sugden pictured with (left-right) Anne Beattie, Prison Service Benevolent Fund, Ian Simpson, Chairman, Prison Service Benevolent Fund, The very Reverend John Mann, Dean of St. Annes, Phil Wragg, Acting Director General, NIPS and Isabel Millar MBE, Prison Service Benevolent Fund. Picture: Michael Cooper

Justice Minister Claire Sugden joined with families of Prison Service staff on Sunday at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast for their annual Christmas service.

The Christmas Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols service has been hosted annually for 20 years by the NIPS Central Benevolent Fund (CBF) which provides support for widows and families of deceased officers and also gives help to injured and ill officers.

The Very Reverend John Mann, Dean of St. Annes, conducted the service which is based on the Nine Lessons of Christmas. Ms Sugden read the first lesson.

Lord Lieutenant of Belfast, Fionnuala OBoyle, was also among the guests to join the many members of the Prison Service staff and their families at the festive event.

"This is a truly wonderful occasion and it has been my pleasure to celebrate the beginning of Christmas with the Prison Service family," Ms Sugden said.

"The musicians from Murley Silver Band and choristers from Greenisland Primary School have been outstanding. I was also very impressed by soloist Sophie Shiels.

"The annual carol service is a key date in the Prison Service calendar and I thank the organisers and all who participated in todays ceremony. I would commend the Prison Service Benevolent Fund for not only organising the event but also for the valuable work they have done throughout the year.

I would also take this opportunity to wish the staff of the Prison Service and their families a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
A prominent TV priest who has publicly claimed never to have molested a child has been questioned by police about sexual assault.

Sunday Life can reveal that Fr Hugh Kennedy  the former Administrator of St Peters Cathedral in west Belfast and star of BBC television documentary Choirboys  was quizzed by detectives last month.

The 59-year-old has been suspended from clerical duties until the investigation is concluded.

PSNI Detective Inspector Zoe McKee said: Police investigating a report of a sexual assault allegation interviewed a male on November 7, 2016.

Inquiries into this matter are ongoing.

A spokesman for the Down and Connor Diocese of the Catholic Church confirmed Fr Kennedy has been withdrawn from ministry.

He said: We have been informed that the PSNI has initiated an investigation into an alleged incident of an historical adult nature involving a priest of the Diocese of Down and Connor.

Expand Close Fr Hugh Kennedy celebrating mass in the BBC documentary. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Fr Hugh Kennedy celebrating mass in the BBC documentary.

Bishop Noel Treanor has suspended the clerics ministry pending a full and complete investigation.

As with every person in such circumstances the clerics innocence is presumed until the contrary is proven and he retains the right to his good name. The Diocese cannot provide any further information whilst the investigation is ongoing.

Until recently Fr Kennedy, whose family are from the Portstewart area, had been based in London at More House in the Archdiocese of Westminster.

The priest moved to England earlier this year having previously been Administrator of St Peters Cathedral.

During this time in the west Belfast parish publicly said: I can categorically state I have never violated or molested a child placed in my trust, either in a private or priestly capacity.

While at St Peters, music-loving Fr Kennedy established the hugely successful Schola Cantorum boys choir which featured in a three-part BBC documentary.

In relation to the issue of child protection, Fr Kennedy previously stated: In order to reassure the parents of the children associated with Schola Cantorum, I am personally willing to engage with as many of them as possible, to satisfy them of my bona fides.

Fr Kennedy was ordained a priest in 1981 after studying at the Irish College in Rome.

He was appointed Administrator at St Peters Cathedral in 2006 after a spell as parish priest at Sacred Heart in the Oldpark area of north Belfast.

cbarnes@sundaylife.co.uk
A Northern Ireland teaching union is set to ballot its members on Monday on strike action.

The vote by members of the Ulster Teachers' Union tomorrow (Monday) comes just days after the largest teaching union locally staged a one day strike.

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The NASUWT calls its members in the Belfast and Newtownabbey areas out on strike last Wednesday. The disruption caused several schools to close.

The action affected 77 schools in Northern Ireland, the Education Authority has said.

The union has threatened more strikes across other areas of Northern Ireland unless employers offer teachers more money.

In October, all five main teaching unions in Northern Ireland rejected an offer which saw their pay frozen in 2015/16 and a rise of 1% in 2016/17.

INTO has indicated it will be balloting its members on strike action.

Tomorrow (Monday) the UTU will ballot its 6,500-plus members.

The move follows their school-gate pickets last month (November) to highlight the "crisis situation" facing the education system.

There exists among teachers a strength of feeling about this that has been seldom seen before. I cannot stress enough the crisis situation our system faces, said Avril Hall Callaghan, General Secretary of the Ulster Teachers Union.

It is imperative that we get that message across, not just to the Minister, but to parents and the wider community.

Unlike the employers, parents know and largely appreciate the dedication of their childrens teachers but theres a sense that itll all be ok in the end. But this cannot end well and parents need to know.

Unless something is done to address teachers plummeting morale over pay and to address the future funding issues to allow schools to carry on providing the education our children deserve, then we must resolve this situation.

Parents will appreciate that this ballot on strike action comes as a very last resort and its something we as a profession are loathe to do. However, having tried to appeal to the employers via other routes and been treated with contempt we feel we have no other option."

She added: The Minister needs to take teachers seriously  they are slow to anger but he needs to realise that it is teachers that keep education deliverable. If they are no longer prepared to go the extra mile then the whole system will fall down around him."

Education Minister Peter Weir has urged teachers not to strike, warning: "it will cause major disruption to parents, and put further pressure on other teachers and leaders that are already struggling to cope in addition to damaging the reputation of teachers".
The crash occurred on the N72 north of Dungarvan

Three people have died in a road crash in Co Waterford.

Six others have been taken to hospital after the two-vehicle collision on the N72 north of Dungarvan.

It is understood the crash involved a car and a people carrier. The car burst into flames on impact and it is believed the three people killed were occupants of that vehicle.

The injured, among them a number of children, were taken to hospitals in Cork and Waterford by air.

The collision happened at around 10am on the N72 between the junctions with the N25 and the R672.

The stretch of road, known as Military Road, was closed throughout the day as emergency services attended the scene.

The fire in the car hampered gardai efforts to conduct a full examination.

Gardai have appealed for witnesses who may have travelled on the stretch of road where the crash happened at the time to come forward.

Gardai said all three victims were male. A spokesman said their bodies had been removed to University Hospital Waterford for post-mortem examinations.

The road is due to remain closed until Monday as forensic examinations continue.
Attorney General Dominic Grieve is among a group of Conservatives warning Theresa May that she risks losing the next general election if she alienates moderate Conservative voters by pushing through a "hard Brexit".

Boris Johnson has stoked Cabinet tensions over Brexit after he dismissed the idea the UK could pay "large" amounts into Brussels for continued access to the single market after it had left the European Union.

The Foreign Secretary insisted Britain's withdrawal from the bloc would mean the return of "very large sums of money" to be spent by the Government on UK priorities such as the NHS.

He described a suggestion by Brexit Secretary David Davis that the Government would consider paying to maintain access to the single market for British exporters as "a speculation".

Mr Davis angered some pro-Brexit Conservatives MPs when the told the Commons on Thursday that the "major criterion" in such a decision would be obtaining "the best possible access for goods and services" to the European market.

His comments fuelled suspicisons among some on the right that Theresa May is aiming for a so-called "soft Brexit" rather than the clean break with the EU which they have been demanding.

However, appearing on BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show, Mr Johnson said nothing had been decided.

"That is something that obviously David Davis is considering. It doesn't mean that a decision has been taken," he said.

He indicated any continuing payments to Brussels should be limited to relatively small scale projects such as the Erasmus student exchange scheme or the Horizon research and innovation programme.

"I see no reason why those payments should be large," he said.

His comments came as The Sunday Times reported Mr Davis had formed a "small clique" with Chancellor Philip Hammond and No 10 aimed at achieving a "grey Brexit" avoiding the extremes of either a "hard" or a "soft" break with the EU.

The Foreign Secretary - who led the Leave campaign with a controversial pledge to return 350 million a week to spend on priorities like the NHS - insisted however that withdrawal would mean large sums being returned to the UK Exchequer.

"I do believe that as a result of Brexit we will be able to take back control of the money that we currently give to Brussels," he said.

"Very large sums of money will be coming back to this country which will be capable of being spent on priorities such as the NHS. That will be one of the outcomes of Brexit."

He did however back Mr Davis over his promise to business leaders that the Government would not apply its post-Brexit immigration controls in a way that disadvantaged business.

While he said that immigration was currently too high, he declined to repeat the Government's pledge - first made by David Cameron - to get net migration down below 100,000-a-year.

"I would be in favour of a reduction but you can still have a very open and dynamic economy with immigration running at a reasonable level. That's what we want to see," he said.

He later risked further antagonising Theresa May by calling for student numbers to be dropped from the official migration figures - something the Prime Minister - has specifically ruled out saying they contributed billions in fees.

"I do take that view and I think it's of massive benefit to this country," he told ITV 's Peston On Sunday.
The Duke of Windsor - who abdicated as Edward VIII - and his wife the Duchess, formerly Wallis Simpson.

Edward VIII would have been a "useless king" had he stayed on the throne and his abdication saved the monarchy, a historian has said.

As the 80th anniversary of the constitutional crisis of 1936 approaches, Professor Richard Toye of Exeter University suggested that Edward, later the Duke of Windsor, has become a romanticised figure over his devotion to American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

But the academic argued that, rather than giving up the throne for love, Edward VIII was actually looking for a way out from a role he "fundamentally couldn't stomach".

Next weekend marks 80 years since the abdication - one of the most difficult periods in the history of the British monarchy.

The Queen's uncle renounced the throne in December 1936, after just 11 months as sovereign, in order to marry Mrs Simpson, leaving his brother the Duke of York - the Queen's father - to take over as George VI.

Prof Toye told the Press Association: "You can argue that it saved the monarchy and it was an important assertion of the primacy of the elected government over the monarchy, which was established, but Edward was trying to push the limits of that."

He added: "He had been frankly not very interested in doing the job. You have to ask yourself whether this whole episode was really about his most incredible, profound love for Mrs Simpson or whether he was perhaps subconsciously looking for a get-out.

"He was a very egotistical person who always wanted what he wanted."

The womanising Prince of Wales, as he was styled before he became monarch, met Mrs Simpson when she was still married to her second husband Ernest, at a house party given by his then mistress, Lady Thelma Furness, in 1931.

He acceded to the throne in January 1936 after George V died and seven months later Wallis Simpson filed for divorce from her husband. Neither the royal court, the government nor the church would accept a twice-divorced American as Queen.

Edward pushed for a morganatic marriage where his wife would have no claim on his rights, but the government would not accept this and the king decided to abdicate.

"I'm sure he did love (Mrs Simpson), but he was, to a degree, looking for a way out from a role he didn't find very congenial," Prof Toye said.

"He liked all the trappings and the luxury but actually being king is reasonably hard work and not very interesting work either and that was fundamentally what he couldn't stomach and couldn't stick to."

He added: "Obviously it's a great story: The king who gave up his throne for love. There's been TV series and dramas over the years. Probably the romanticisation started pretty soon after he'd given up because he could be presented as having done the honourable thing for love. That was a way of glossing over some of the more reprehensible parts of his character."

The historian said Edward VIII would have proved to be a terrible monarch in the long term, and his brother, the shy, stammering George VI, was much better.

"I think he would have been completely useless. George VI fitted the bill very nicely. He didn't particularly want to do it.... George VI lacked the charismatic personality of the kind that Edward undoubtedly did have, but in the circumstance that was really pretty perfect for what was required," he said.

Edward VIII signed the Instrument of Abdication on the morning of December 10 1936 in front of his three brothers and his lawyers, and the news was announced to the Commons by the Prime Minister.

The next day on December 11, the Act of Abdication came into effect when it was passed by Parliament and given royal assent in Edward's last act as king. He addressed the nation in a radio broadcast.

Unsurprisingly, the royals are not expected to mark the anniversary of this turbulent time.

The Queen is likely to be at Windsor Castle next weekend - from where the former king gave his historic address, declaring: "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love."

Princess Elizabeth, who was just 10 at the time, became the heiress presumptive. Her mother Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother never forgave Edward and Wallis Simpson for their actions.

If Edward VIII had remained king and fathered children, it is unlikely Elizabeth II would ever have become monarch.

Had her uncle - who was always known to his family as David - stayed on the throne until his death in 1972 and not had children, then the Queen - whose father died in 1952- would not have spent the formative years of her children's lives as head of state.

She would only have reigned so far for 44 years and be still some way off her record as the country's longest reigning monarch.
The controversial human rights record of Gulf states should not be a bar to increased post-Brexit trade with them, Theresa May has said ahead of a high-profile visit to the Middle East.

Mrs May will be the first British Prime Minister, and first woman, to attend the Gulf Co-operation Council summit during a two-day trip to Bahrain.

With her hosts having been sharply criticised for the way they suppressed protests during the Arab Spring, Mrs May insisted closer ties will allow the UK greater influence in pushing its values.

Speaking ahead of the visit, the Prime Minister said she wants to open a new post-Brexit chapter in relations with the Gulf.

"No doubt there will be some people in the UK who say we shouldn't seek stronger trade and security ties with these countries because of their record on human rights.

"But we don't uphold our values and human rights by turning our back on this issue. We achieve far more by stepping up, engaging with these countries and working with them to encourage and support their plans for reform.

"That is how Britain can be a force for good in the world as well as helping to keep our people safe and create new opportunities for business.

"This year marks 200 years of relations between Bahrain and the United Kingdom and a century of ties with Saudi Arabia, but in recent years our relationship hasn't felt as close as it is old. I want to change that.

"There is so much we can do together - whether it is helping one another to prevent terrorist attacks, Gulf investment regenerating cities across the UK, or British businesses helping Gulf countries to achieve their long term vision of reform."

Mrs May will attend a dinner with the six leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman on Tuesday, before addressing the plenary session of the summit on Wednesday.

Trade, security and the civil wars in Syria and Yemen will feature in Mrs May's talks on the margins of the gathering, and an annual summit between the UK and the regional grouping is to be launched.
At least nine people are dead after fire tore through a warehouse in California hosting a late-night dance party, and officials fear the death toll could rise as high as 40.

They said people either escaped from the cluttered building in Oakland or died inside, where the only way down from the second storey was via a stairwell constructed entirely of wooden pallets.

"It appears that either you got out or you got trapped inside," said Alameda County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt Ray Kelly.

Firefighters used chain saws and axes on Saturday to cut through the debris of the building in a gritty area of the San Francisco Bay Area city, where the fire broke out at about 11.30pm Friday.

Oakland fire chief Teresa Deloche-Reed said at least another 25 people were unaccounted for in what authorities were calling the most deadly building fire in the city in recent memory.

The victims were believed to be young people in their 20s, Mr Kelly said. He said as many as 40 may have perished and that the coroner is preparing for a "mass casualty event" that could include victims from other countries.

The warehouse was known as the Oakland Ghost Ship. Its website showed pictures of a bohemian, loft-like interior made of wood and cluttered with rugs, old sofas and a garage-sale like collection of pianos, paintings, turntables, statues and other items.

The website included advertisements for various electronic music parties. On Friday night there was an event featuring musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour.

Panicked friends and family posted messages on the group's Facebook page trying to find out if their loved ones were among the dead.

Those searching for the missing were sent to a local sheriff's office, where Dan Vega was anxiously awaiting news.

He had been unable to find his younger brother or his brother's girlfriend. Mr Vega said he was not sure if the two were at the party Friday night but that his brother liked to go to raves and he had not been able to reach him Saturday. His girlfriend's car was still parked at a transit station in San Bruno, south of San Francisco.

Fighting tears, Mr Vega said he was frustrated authorities had not been able to tell him anything about his 22-year-old brother.

"I just want to go over there. I have my work boots on, I'm ready to go," Mr Vega said. "Just give me some gloves. I'll help out any way, shape or form, I don't care. This is infuriating. I don't know where my brother's at. I just want to find him."

It was not immediately clear what started the fire, but there did not appear to be sprinklers in the building, Ms Deloche-Reed said. She said 50 to 100 people were believed to have been at the party when the fire started and that clutter "made it difficult for people to escape".

The warehouse was partitioned into artist studios and was packed with furniture, mannequins, statues, lamps, and other objects and did not have a clear entry or exit path, the fire chief said.

"There is still a large portion of the building that needs to be searched," she said. "There is large timber and debris that will need to be removed and it's going to have to be removed in a slow and methodical way."

The fire caused the building's roof to collapse and investigators were having trouble entering parts of the warehouse to search for any remaining bodies because the structure was deemed unsafe, Ms Deloche-Reed said.

One survivor said he struggled to find a working fire extinguisher.

"It was too hot, too much smoke, I had to get out of there," Bob Mule, a photographer and artist who lives at the building and suffered minor burns, told the East Bay Times. "I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke. I couldn't get the fire extinguisher to work."

AP
A gunman killed a town councillor and two journalists - all female - in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in Finland, police said.

The chairwoman of Imatra Town Council and two female reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant in the town just before a police patrol car arrived at the scene around midnight on Saturday, said police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki.

Two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her mid-30s.

Police said the gunman fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle, authorities said.

Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the 23-year-old suspect had been detained on suspicion of murder. He had a criminal record, including for violent incidents and theft.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."

Investigators will question him later on Sunday.

The suspect arrived outside the restaurant in his car and shot the three women as they stepped out of the restaurant. He then waited in the car until police arrived and accompanied officers silently and peacefully, police said.

Imatra, which has 28,000 inhabitants, is about 140 miles (230km) east of the capital, Helsinki.

"We decided to open a crisis center after the shooting occurred right in the middle of the town near restaurants and nightclubs," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. "There were people there when it happened. In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident and many people were shocked."

AP
Milltown Massacre gunman Michael Stone has expressed his sorrow in a statement issued to Sunday Life the day after Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan ordered he stay in jail until at least December 2024.

But even then his release isnt guaranteed as he will have to convince a parole board that he should be freed.

Last Monday 58-year-old Stone was told he would have to serve the remainder of a minimum 30-year term given for six sectarian killings committed in the 1980s.

The ex-UDA man, who was freed under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in 2000 but returned to jail in 2006 for trying to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at Stormont, said the judgment wasn't unexpected.

He added: I'm annoyed at the judge stating that I had shown no remorse for my actions when I stated in my autobiography that I expressed remorse and regret for the lives lost.

Taking the law into my own hands was wrong, but I see myself as a political prisoner and I'm glad the judge acknowledged my actions were politically motivated.

Recently Martin McGuinness said the republican cause was just.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Belfast's Milltown Cemetery comes under attack by UDA man Michael Stone, during the funerals of three Provisional IRA members. Picture by Bobby Ingram Michael Stone Mourners panicking at Milltown Cemetery, Belfast, after a gun and bomb attack by Michael Stone which left three people dead and four seriously injured during the funerals of three IRA membes shot dead in Gibraltar. 1988 Loyalist murderer Michael stone storms Stormont / Facebook

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Whatsapp Belfast's Milltown Cemetery comes under attack by UDA man Michael Stone, during the funerals of three Provisional IRA members. Picture by Bobby Ingram

I see the loyalist cause as just but see Troubles related deaths as regrettable.

Hours after Stone was told he would spend at least the next five years behind bars in Maghaberry Prison the brother of one of his six Catholic victims branded the loyalist a publicity seeker.

Roddy Hackett  whose brother Dermot Hackett was shot 16 times by the UFF in Co Tyrone in 1987  said: In my opinion he simply craves the limelight.

He wants notoriety in whatever form he can get it. He doesnt seem to be able to exist outside of prison so thats the best place for him.

He is better locked up, for his own safety as much as anyones.

Roddy met Stone in 2006 during the filming of the BBC's Face the Truth documentary in which paramilitaries came face to face with the families of their victims.

The multiple killer told Sunday Life the encounter had a major effect on him and that he was upset afterwards.

Stone also insists that he will not be contesting the decision to keep him in prison and has ordered his family not to campaign for his release.

He said: I am making no challenge to my sentence, and I refused to recognise the court as I had done in 1988.

I had no representation as I wanted to save taxpayers' money.

Stone hit the headlines in March 1988 when he launched a bloody gun and bomb attack on the Milltown Cemetery funerals of three IRA members shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.

Another three people, Thomas McErlane, John Murray and Kevin Brady, died in the slaughter at the west Belfast graveyard.

Stone was pursued onto the M1 motorway and captured by an angry crowd who avoided his bullets and hand grenades.

The cold-blooded killer was rescued by an RUC patrol after being pummelled to the ground.

The Milltown Massacre was filmed by a multitude of TV cameras and made Stone notorious across the world.

But by that stage he was already well-known in loyalists circles as a gun for hire.

In 1984 Stone gunned down Catholic milkman Patrick Brady in south Belfast.

A year later the hitman shot dead joiner Kevin McPolin in Lisburn.

His third murder occurred in 1987 when he murdered Dermot Hackett as

the bread delivery man drove his work van along the road from Omagh to Drumquin. The UFF claimed the murder.

Stone admitted the three sectarian killings after being arrested for the Milltown Massacre.

While in prison he turned to art and sold a number of paintings for thousands of pounds.

In 1998 when the peace process hit the rocks after the murder of LVF leader Billy Wright, pony-tailed Stone was part of a loyalist delegation that met then Secretary of State Mo Mowlam.

In his statement to Sunday Life last week Stone expressed disappointment that this and his support for the peace process was not referred to in court last Monday.

He said: Throughout the whole court case there was no mention of my role in the peace process with Mo Mowlam. That all seems to have been blanked.

I'm not single-minded, I was prepared to move with the process.

I have felt for years that I have been used as a whipping-boy and still feel I am being used as an example.

Whatever happened to parity and justice?

Stone, who suffers from crippling Motor Neurone disease and a heart condition, was also damning of unionist politicians who he says have abandoned him.

They were among those who witnessed his high profile arrest at the doors of Parliament Buildings at Stormont in November 2006.

He was armed with knives, an axe, garrotte and a flight bag containing explosive fireworks, flammable liquids, a butane gas canister and fuses. But the killer has always maintained he was only planning to stage a performance art protest.

The six time murderer said in his statement: There has been no comment from any unionist politician. Are they afraid of me?

The silence is deafening, is it a case there is no justice for old loyalists?

I acknowledge the hurt and upset caused to all the families by my past actions, added Stone.

I'm still somebody's father, grandfather and great-grandfather. I'm a human being not a monster.
Von: By Hossam Sadek

Rebels in Aleppo agreed to unite under a military alliance to defend parts of the strategic city they control, against an assault by Bashar al-Assad's forces and their allies, but this new alliance named Aleppo Army has no chance to achieve its goal, experts say.

In the last days, rebels lost more than one-third of the territory they held in besieged eastern Aleppo; the most important urban stronghold for the opposition, to the government, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the UK-based war monitor.

Meanwhile, the rebels announced that the Aleppo Army would be led by Abu Abdelrahman Nour, the commander of the Jabha Shamiya rebel faction, which is one of the major groups fighting in northern Syria under the Free Syrian Army banner.

Rivalries among rebel groups have been seen for a long time as one of their major flaws, that pushed Syrian journalist Saleh Abd Allah to say that the new alliance would help in overcoming this problem and therefore confronting the government offensive assault.

Field sources in Aleppo told the Aljazeera website that the announcement of the new army would take the war to a new phase, and it would give the rebels a huge push in the fight against Assad's troops.

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But experts in Middle Eastern issues said that there is not the slightest chance that Aleppo Army would achieve its goals.

There is virtually no way that the latest rebel grouping can succeed said Rodger Shanahan, a research fellow at Lowy Institute for International Policy, located in Sydney, before adding to Bild The Syrian regime has made Aleppo the main effort and this is reflected in the weight of assets deployed there.

Shanahan also said there is virtually no way that the forces inside East Aleppo will receive additional personnel or logistic support, so their fate has already been determined, it is just the timing and way in which Aleppo is reoccupied, that needs to be determined. The research fellow insisted that the announcement of that army came too late.

Gunter Meyer, Director of the Centre for Research on the Arab World in University of Mainz, told Bild There is not the slightest chance that this Army will be able to prevent the troops of the Syrian regime and its allies from capturing the parts of Eastern Aleppo which are still under the control of the opposition.

Joshua M. Landis, Director of the center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, agreed with the other two experts, and told Bild I do not think This army can hang on. Syrian government has amassed over 50,000 troops in Aleppo. Fighters are less than 8,000, and they are cut off from resupply. He summed up It is a hopeless situation.

The loss of east Aleppo would be the biggest blow to Syria's rebels in more than five years.

Recently, a senior official in the pro-Damascus military alliance, who declined to be identified in order to speak freely, told Reuters that Syria and its allies aim to drive rebels from Aleppo before Donald Trump takes office as U.S. President, repeating a previous timetable which pro-Damascus sources had said was drawn up to mitigate the risks of any shift in U.S. policy towards the war in Syria.

The United Nations announced in the past days that indiscriminate shelling of western Aleppo had continued killing and injuring civilians, destroying infrastructure, and had forced about 20,000 people from their homes.

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It can be tough to be a vegetarian. You have to work harder than everyone else to make sure youre getting all the nutrients your body needs. So, when its time to take a
In 2011 Kweku Adoboli lost 2.25 billion Dollars of the money of UBS. With SonntagsBlick Adoboli talks about the change the finance industry needs to go through, about his fight against deportation and about not seeing himself as a criminal.

Kweku Adoboli: I'm not a criminal.

Vinzenz Greiner

Anmerkung der Redaktion: Lesen Sie hier die deutsche Version des Artikels. Dies ist das Original-SonntagsBlick-Interview mit Kweku Adoboli auf English.

Mr Adoboli, you have been a trader for the UBS. What does your daily routine look like today?

One great part of my life is that I help look after my friends kids. At the moment I am not allowed to live on my own because of the restrictions of the immigration bail process. So my friends look after me and put a roof over my head. One way to repay them is to help look after their kids.

Does the kid work fill up a day?

No. I spend a lot of time doing legal work. We applied for a permission to appeal at the Court of Appeal two months ago. We hope we will get a decision soon telling us whether we can bring that appeal. If that permission is not given, we will have to appeal at the European Court of Human Rights.

Did you have any success yet in your legal battle?

Yes. For example: during the first 16 months after I left prison, I was incorrectly advised by multiple lawyers and the Home Office that I wasnt allowed to work. It was only after reading through legal cases and immigration rules going back to 1971, that I was eventually able to make the argument that I am allowed to work. The hard part of actually trying to find paid work has now been underway since mid-October. But it has been an honour to be asked by many different institutions to speak about my experiences through conferences, seminars and discussion forums. I am also preparing to begin study for a PHD at Edinburgh university.

What sort of PhD?

I hope my PhD will focus on the history of the financial industry and the effect of financialisation on our societies. I have the luxury of spending the rest of my days thinking about what needs to change in the finance industry. When you consider at the Brexit vote and the recent US presidential elections it seems both have been driven by a deep sense of disenfranchisement.

Do you really think that the financial industry is responsible for Trump being elected and the Brexit?

Much of the disenfranchisement that led to Brexit has to do with the lack of access to fair capital, it has to do with austerity policy versus quantitative easing, a lack of equality of outcomes. For example quantitative easing has been used to prop up the financial system. Trillions of dollars have been taken from our future generations to prop up the asset base. On the other hand weve had austerity policies that make poor people poorer. The finance industry is central to that. And so we come full circle, the finance industry is right in the middle of all this  it has to reconsider its purpose.

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Former trader Adoboli: The finance industry has to reconsider its purpose.

What is, in your opinion, the purpose of the financial industry today?

Its purpose now is to extract as much value as possible for those who own the assets. Out of all profits made, 60 percent goes to capital and 40 percent to labour. We should all be asking the finance industry to do more to fairly distribute the proceeds of human endeavour.

Sounds a bit anti-capitalist to me.

It does not have to be anti-capitalist. It is about capitalism that has become simply too extractive. The system just needs to be fairer and must work to actively correct the balance and address the inequality. What I just told you about getting the profit ratios back into balance is not left-wing or Marxist. With the situation were in now, social inequality is growing and instability is growing  and that, ultimately, cannot be in the interest of the few who own the capital either. If 40 percent goes to capital instead of 60, thats still a pretty good return. We have to stop trying to achieve growth at all cost.

A strong opinion for someone who had been working at the ETF and index desk of a bank  responsible for $50 billion of stocks...

It gave me a huge sense of responsibility to be part of UBS  an organisation with a common purpose, with everyone pulling in the same direction. The feeling of young Kweku: I can really learn and contribute something here. And the older senior management people always told us that we had a special role to play in the world.

What role?

That the finance industry his helping the world to grow, to bring important efficiencies, bringing wealth and equality to all the corners of the globe. But after some years, youre like: Hang on a minute, thats not what we are really doing! Then there is the moment when it hits you: What is the purpose of what I am doing?

Werbung

When was this very moment?

Early 2011 was the tipping point. We were achieving everything we were being asked to achieve. I said to my girlfriend: We made $6 million of profits today. But I dont feel happy. I am more concerned what all this activity means for the world and who or what it really serves. After a long conversation I decided to leave the industry.

But you did not! You kept on trading above your risk limit of $100 million which in the end resulted in a total loss of $2.25 billion for UBS.

Until 2011, no-one actually talked about risk limits. Even when there were risk limits in place. Even in the summer of 2011 I sent an e-mail to my boss, in which in explaining wed made a $6 million of profit, by exceeding the supposed risk limits, I was congratulated. Then shortly afterwards he sent a second email: Next time, just let me know be before you go beyond your limits, not after. There was no sanction.

In a report the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) confirms such an exchange of e-mails. But it also states that you were covering up the actual scale of your trading positions and the risk they posed. Was it ethically a problem for you to trade like that?

Well, we had a target to meet. There were senior managers coming to us saying: You guys are not pushing the boundaries hard enough. What you are effectively taught as a trader was that the ability to embrace risk is what defines good traders. And, speaking in hindsight, if that makes you good at your job in the eyes of your institution, the ethical question falls away. The culture in the institution drove the behaviour.

Kweku Adoboli fights his deportation do Ghana and hopes to get a permission to appeal. If that permission is not given, we will have to appeal at the European Court of Human Rights.

Isn't a bit easy to blame the culture or the system for what you did?

First of all it is important to remember that I was found Not Guilty of four charges because my jury agreed that I did not do any of this for my own personal gain. This is important because, paradoxically, it shows that I was always working in pursuit of the needs of my colleagues and the institution. I took responsibility for the trading loss on the desk. But I didnt see myself as a criminal. We made mistakes, there was a loss, but Im not a criminal.

Werbung

So do you think it's unfair that you were sent to prison?

I dont think in terms of what is fair and unfair. It is not healthy for me to think that way or about the degree of punishment I took. Sadly, the whole narrative of blaming an individual serves to prevent people questioning what drove us. That makes it difficult to stop this happening again in the future.

What narrative?

It is easier for UBS to blame everything on one single bad apple  on a rogue trader as they prefer to call it. If one person can be seen to be the criminal, then its not a cultural and systemic problem in the bank anymore. The society wanted a bankers head. The newspapers needed to say: they are all gamblers, and he is the biggest one. But the reality is we were just trying to achieve what we were asked to achieve.

In the end the UBS faced consequences, too. CEO Oswald Grubel stepped down in the aftermath of the loss. Do you feel sorry for him?

For me, it's not a matter about feeling sorry for individuals, Ossie Grubel included. But I must note that Ossie Grubel asked us all to take more risk in trading. By 2008 Swiss tax payers had to pay $60 billion to bail out the bank. So there was this powerful sense of duty to rebuild. But we could only do so by doing what we know, which is taking risks!

But in the end you seem to have changed the culture of UBS. Sergio Ermotti as the new CEO has cut down investment banking.

Yes. UBS has chosen to reduce its footprint in the investment banking. Does that mean that it has reduced its activities in the investment banking field? I suspect not, it has just automated. A lot. UBS investment banking is still highly profitable by its activities. The real question we ought to ask is not how big a banks footprint in investment banking is, but whether the entire finance industry serves a purpose that is to the benefit of our global society.
It didn't take long for Minnesota Republicans to get comfortable with the things they'd scolded DFLers about in their campaign literature.

In the Star Tribune article, GOP senators move into building they fought to stop, Patrick Condon reported on Thursday:

Ive got it all. Ill never get any work done, Limmer joked Thursday, the day he and fellow GOP senators moved into the building they once bitterly opposed  and which many in his party brandished like a weapon against DFLers. Ill just sit up here and daydream.

And now there's this in Minnesota Public Radio's Tim PugmireRepublicans already eying 2018 governors race:

House Speaker Kurt Daudt spent the past year campaigning on the need for political balance in St. Paul. But with DFL Gov. Mark Dayton not seeking re-election in 2018 and the GOP in control of the House and Senate, Daudt stressed the importance of winning the open seat and creating a new power dynamic. We need to make sure we earn the trust and confidence that Minnesotans have put in us, and we do everything we can to work together, better that we ever have before, to make sure we win the governors office in two years, Daudt said. We will have complete control of state government for the first time ever in the state of Minnesota.

Insert your own cliche about change and hypocrisy here.

Photo: Senator Rosen's stuffed bull was moved into the new office building. Photo by Glenn Stubbe, Star Tribune.

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 33166 770th Ave, Ortonville, MN 56278) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.

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Secondary School teachers will be balloted in January on a new deal aimed at ending their dispute with the Government.

The ASTI's Central Executive Council has recommended that members reject the proposal put forward by the Department of Education.
Concerns are being raised that Padraig Pearse's final letter of surrender is set to leave Ireland.

The hand written document - which calls for the surrender of rebel forces during the Easter Rising - is currently on display at the GPO.
At least three children and 18 others have been killed in a series of air strikes on the opposition-controlled town of Kafranbel in north-western Syria, according to activists.

The activist-run Kafranbel Media Centre published a list of 22 dead from the Russian or Syrian government airstrikes.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group was able to confirm 21 dead, among them members of the local police force. It said the airstrikes hit the town's main marketplace.

Russia's military announced last month it was resuming its airstrikes on the north-western Idlib province and central Homs province in support of the government's efforts to suppress a years-long uprising against its national authority. Kafranbel is not on any front lines of the raging war.

Earlier Syria's army offered rebel fighters in besieged eastern Aleppo an opportunity to leave the city with their lives.

Army spokesman Brigadier Gen Samir Suleiman said those who choose to stay will face "inevitable death".

Government forces and allied militias are attempting to collapse an opposition pocket on the city's eastern side.

"We will continue fighting until we restore stability and security to all neighbourhoods" of Aleppo, the brigadier said.

He said the Syrian army had retaken more than 50% of the districts in eastern Aleppo.
Update: 1pm The victims of the gun attack in a town in south-eastern Finland have been identified as the chairperson of the Imatra Town Council and two local journalists.

Earlier: A gunman killed three women in an apparent random shooting in a bustling nightlife district in a town in south-eastern Finland, police said.
Italians are voting in a referendum which could have a big impact on the future of the Euro.

The vote, called by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, is on reforms giving greater powers to central government.
The Syrian army has ordered rebels in Aleppo to leave the city or face "inevitable death", as a series of air strikes on the neighbouring Idlib province killed at least 50 people, including several children.

Aleppo shook from the sound of explosions throughout the day as pro-government forces, including foreign fighters dispatched from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, pounded the city's opposition neighbourhoods in the east.

Rebel defences have buckled after months of siege and waves of devastating air strikes, and the opposition could soon be driven from Syria's largest city.

It would mark their biggest defeat since 2011, when a government crackdown against dissent sparked a civil war.

Rebels swept into Aleppo in 2012.

The government's fortunes changed after the Russian air force intervened in September 2015, allowing the government to begin to reconquer it.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Samir Suleiman said government forces would "continue fighting until they restore stability and security to all neighbourhoods".

He said the army has already retaken more than half the neighbourhoods in eastern Aleppo, and that special forces would lead the battle in the narrow streets of the city's historic district.

On Sunday, the government captured large swathes of the Qaterji, Maysar and Karm al-Turab neighbourhoods, bringing their eastern flank to within less than a kilometre (half a mile) of the citadel that anchors the centre of the city. The citadel has remained under government control throughout the conflict.

The advance also threatens to split the rebels' rump enclave in two and isolate the once densely populated al-Shaar neighbourhood.

Judy al-Halaby, an activist still in the city, said residents began evacuating the area five days ago, with thousands fleeing to government control and thousands of others deeper into rebel territory.

The UN estimates that more than 31,000 people have fled their homes since pro-government forces began advancing inside east Aleppo one week ago.

In the Hanano district, which was captured by government forces on November 26, hundreds of people were seen returning to their homes, as minivans passed through carrying troops and militiamen to the front lines.

For some of the residents, it was their first time seeing their homes in years.

Mohammed Qadra, 58, who left the district four years ago, returned from the government-held western part of the city on Sunday to discover that his home was so badly damaged that it is impossible for him to return.

"I have no money to renovate it now but I will do so step by step," said the man, who said he cried once he saw his home.

Russian or government jets, meanwhile, were thought to be behind several raids on Idlib province on Sunday, including two that struck rural markets and killed dozens of people, activists said.

The Syrian civil defence first responder group said 52 civilians were killed in raids across the province.

"The fear was clear on everyone's face. There were limbs and bodies all over the ground," said Ahmad al-Sheikho, of the civil defence, who said he arrived at the Maaret al-Nouman marketplace 10 minutes after it was struck.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said six members of the same family died in the attack.

The market at Kafranbel, a village 11 kilometres (seven miles) away, was also bombed a few hours earlier.

The observatory said 26 people, including members of the local religious police force, were killed.

Four children and two women were killed in Tamanaah when the village was attacked by government helicopters, the observatory and civil defence reported.

Russia's military said last month it was resuming air strikes on the north-western Idlib province, where Kafranbel is located, and in the central Homs province in support of government forces.

Kafranbel is at least 12 kilometres (seven miles) from the nearest front line, at Jabal Zawiyeh.
TOKYO: The Bank of Japan may tweak its yield curve control policy next year, such as by widening the band around its...
KUPIANSK: The head of Ukraine's railway vowed to keep trains running and to repair the damage done to the network by...
On another occasion, Cleese hit Sachs on his teeth with a dirty spoon, ignoring script instructions to hit him on the head. Sachs remembered hearing his teeth "swing on their hinges". Even more painful was the accident that occurred while filming for the episode The Germans, when Manuel is seen emerging from a kitchen fire with smoke billowing from his jacket. The mixture of salt and acid deemed necessary for the effect had burned through the material, scorching his skin. The chemical burns were so severe that his arms were in bandages for weeks. He received 700 compensation from the BBC. Andreas Siegfried Sachs was born on April 7, 1930, in Berlin, where he attended Zinnowald School. His German-Jewish father, an insurance broker who had been awarded the Iron Cross in the First World War, was arrested in a restaurant in 1938 while dining out with his family. "He had cut out a newspaper article, uncomplimentary to the Nazis  and put it in his wallet," explained Sachs. "The police said it was sedition. They took my dad away there and then told my mother [a half-Lutheran and half-Roman Catholic] she'd never see her husband again." Fortunately, his father had a business contact in the police who was able to secure his release within a few days. Sachs had painful memories of life as a half-Jewish pre-adolescent boy in Nazi Germany: "My best friend at school told me he wasn't allowed to play with me any more because my father was Jewish. We weren't allowed to go to certain restaurants. We were supposed to sit on special yellow benches. As I was only half-Jewish, I used to wonder how I should sit on the bench  maybe one buttock on and one off."

Aged eight, he saw the shattered shop windows of Berlin after Kristallnacht. "My mother went out and saw a huge fire," he recalled. "When she asked what was happening, people said: 'They're burning the synagogue, thank God ... It's about time they did'. She made a fuss, saying, 'How dare you? This is disgraceful'. People around her got heated, and finally a man grabbed her by the elbow and took her away to safety." The family fled to London later that year. Sachs had initial difficulty adapting to his new life in London: he had to learn another language from scratch and frequently moved schools. By the age of 10, he had developed a habit of truancy and had been called "a German-Jewish pig" by his English peers. The family struggled to make ends meet after Sachs's father died of cancer when Sachs was 13; in the same week, his 17-year-old brother lost a hand in an accident at the tool factory where he was an apprentice. Sachs began his acting career in the late 1940s, spending two terms at RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) and moving on to repertory, starting at the theatre in Bexhill-on-Sea, in the full expectation that someone would "discover me and whisk me off to Beverly Hills". But it was not until the late 1950s, when he was performing in various Brian Rix farces, that he finally began earning what was then a substantial wage. It was through such work that he perfected the split-second comic timing crucial to the role with which he would for ever be associated.

Over the decades he made many stage appearances including as a "frenzied hotel manager in pursuit of his eccentric guests" in Wallace Douglas' production of Let Sleeping Wives Lie (1967) and co-starring with Michael Crawford in No Sex Please, We're British (1975). He played Aguecheek in Keith Michell's production of Twelfth Night (1976) at the Chichester Festival Theatre and the detective in Tom Stoppard's Jumpers (1985). In later life he toured the country with his own show, Life After Fawlty (2001). His tally of television roles included the eponymous hero in The History of Mr Polly (1980), and he presented the how-to series, Assert Yourself (1987), with appearances from Cleese and his therapist, Robin Skynner. In 2009 he appeared in 27 episodes of Coronation Street, as Norris' brother, Ramsay. Sachs also wrote plays, including in 1975 the comedy Made in Heaven, described as "a crazy quadrille round the institution of the family" (the production starred Patricia Routledge) and, in 1978, a wordless radio play, a 30-minute sequence of noises called The Revenge. His role in Fawlty Towers typecast him for the rest of his life. One critic, commenting on a 1980 television performance, said: "However he may disguise himself he never quite escapes the incipient bald spot, shambolic gait and anxious stoop of the immortal Manuel."

Yet Sachs was happy to play up to the public image. He appeared as Manuel opening supermarkets and at corporate events and in 1995 made plans for a spin-off sitcom, but nothing came of them. In 2005, to mark the 30th anniversary of the series, he starred with Cleese in a "modern recreation" of Fawlty Towers, set in the Norwegian town of Stavanger, but it was not shown on mainstream television, having been made for a Norwegian oil company as a staff training film. Sachs was a diffident man, who always avoided re-runs of Fawlty Towers because "they make me cringe". He developed an aversion to stage work after 1995. "I feel under stress; that I might look a fool and forget my lines," he said in 2006. In 2001 he claimed to have rediscovered his Jewish roots and embarked on interviews with academics, rabbis, actors and experts on Jewish matters for the Radio 4 series The Jewish Journey, a personal look at 1000 years of Jewish life in Britain. In stark contrast with Manuel's stutterings, Sachs's own fluent speaking voice was ideal for voice-over work and he narrated such series as The Encircled Sea on Channel 4 (1990), and Egypt for the BBC (2005).
Amy Schumer may not be everyone's cuppa tea, but the thought of her starring as Barbie in Sony's upcoming live action movie about the doll is a sign that the creators probably intend to do something interesting with their subject.

Although a script already exists for the film, Schumer, who is expected to sign on as a co-writer, is set to rewrite it with her sister Kim Caramele. The story, about a doll who awakes in the land of "perfect Barbies" to the realisation she doesn't fit in, will address issues around body image and diversity that the toy brand has increasingly been forced to contend with in recent years.

Comedian Amy Schumer has been forced to pull out of the Barbie movie. Credit:AP

Of course, news that the comedian who once described her look as "strong and healthy and also like Miss Trunchbull from Matilda" is in talks with Sony for the role didn't go down particularly well in the corner of the internet inhabited by the kind of sour trolls whose biggest problem in life is having their childhoods "ruined" by women doing things differently in 2016 (see: Ghostbusters).

Let the body-shaming begin.
"When you find the person who suits you and complements you and is your partner in the adventure of life, it's often never who you'd expect, but it's the combination that works." For Pike, Uniacke's wit, intelligence and irreverence  not to mention their great chemistry ("That's always been the case and that continues")  makes him the one for her. "I want someone who pushes me to explore and try new things, and I think we do that for each other." All tousled blonde hair, wide blue eyes and peaches-and-cream complexion, Pike seems to personify the posh, remote English girl with her poise, clipped British tones and Oxford education. Yet it's clear she's a lot more fun  and far more human  than that stereotype. For Halloween, for instance, she wrapped older son Solo in toilet paper to be a mummy and took him trick-or-treating, while two-year-old Atom stayed at home with his dad. "We let the baby open the door [to the trick-or-treaters] and everyone was like, 'Sweet, it's just a little tiny boy" and then my husband would jump out dressed like a gorilla," she recalls with a peal of laughter. "We have a great time with our boys, we have real adventures, we have fun together as a family." An annual trip to China is their newest source of adventure, and they spent last Christmas in a camper-van out in the desert at Joshua Tree in southern California. This Christmas, Pike is filming Entebbe, about the 1976 hijacking of an Air France jet. (Preparing to play one of the German hijackers, Pike says she's so into the movie already that she's wearing flares and a Lurex top as we speak: "I've become a '70s stereotype!")

A family ski trip is also planned. Pike is disarmingly daunted by the prospect of kitting up for her alpine debut. "If I buy something nice, I'm going to look like a beginner wearing something fancy," she confesses. "I'm going to look like an idiot, and I just don't know how to do it, so it's always put me off." An only child, Pike spent the first seven years of her life moving around Europe as her parents' musical careers dictated before being sent to boarding school in Bristol at the age of 11. She enjoyed a lot of one-on-one creative time with her parents, which is why she thinks she'll stop at two children of her own. "I want to give that to my kids and I feel that with two, I can give them both that. With more, I maybe couldn't." Having children has taken her career to a new level, she says: being a mother has given her greater physical courage and made her acting more spontaneous. "Your emotions just sit closer to the surface  maybe because you're more tired, I don't know," she laughs. "I feel I can access my rawest self much more easily because there's no time to put up a mask any more, there's no time to think if you're a working mother. "The other thing I can't do: I can't ever over-analyse things at the end of a day's shooting. I walk into the house and I let it all go, because I have to get stuck back into whatever's going on."

However, she admits she struggles sometimes to transition out of roles in which she's been immersed for months. "I came back from doing this film in America [the western Hostiles, with Christian Bale] and I had to go straight into doing press [for A United Kingdom] and I was a mess because I thought, 'I don't know how to be myself any more'. I think acting is quite a dysfunctional thing  you're sorter happier being someone else." It was following the birth of Solo in 2012 that Pike's acting career soared. Although she'd been working solidly since university, making her film debut at 21 as a Bond girl in Die Another Day, and going on to play Jane Bennett in the 2005 movie version of Pride & Prejudice and opposite Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher, she was still relatively unknown before starring in Gone Girl. This was precisely the reason director David Fincher cast her as Gone Girl's woman in question, Amy Dunne, whose husband becomes the prime suspect when she disappears. The movie delivered Pike film-star fame she never envisaged when she was at university in Oxford. Rejected by every drama school she applied to, she ended up graduating with a degree in English literature but was still doggedly determined to be an actor. "I never thought I'd have a career in film  I knew nothing about film," says Pike, who grew up without a TV at home. "I knew theatre, and I'd thought that's where my life would be." She also never thought she'd be Hollywood-famous. "I think I can say I'm quite famous now," she says matterof-factly. "It sounds an odd thing to say, but I am. I realised I was when I was in the grocery store with my children in America and this woman came up to me and said, 'I just had to say you're one of my favourite actresses.'
For years, Republicans have put a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, at the top of their priority list. Trump has often referred to the program as a "disaster." But plans in the marketplace created by the ACA offer full coverage for a variety of contraceptive methods, and such coverage might not continue under an Obamacare replacement. Hillary Clinton was the first Democratic candidate to openly call for a repeal of the Hyde amendment, which is now likely to become law. Credit:Bloomberg That's why Miller, who calls contraceptive coverage one of the most important aspects of Obamacare, has been urging friends to consider getting IUDs. Right now, the cost is free for Medicaid users and those on the vast majority of insurance plans. But without insurance, the one-time cost for the procedure - including the doctor's appointment and the device itself - can be up to $900, according to Planned Parenthood. And although a full repeal of Obamacare would be a complicated process, the Department of Health and Human Services - which the president controls - is in charge of defining which procedures count as preventive health benefits for women. Even before Obamacare is repealed, Trump could direct the agency to drop birth control from the list of covered benefits.

Roe v. Wade won't be repealed. For now. As Inauguration Day draws closer, women's health activists across Texas are preparing for other policy changes a new administration might bring. Although the repeal of the Affordable Care Act might happen quickly, some of Trump's other stated priorities - like a repeal of Roe vs. Wade - would take years to come to fruition. In June, Miller and the Whole Woman's Health clinics successfully defeated tight regulations of abortion providers that had been passed by the Legislature in 2013. The Supreme Court ruled that the regulations placed an undue burden on women seeking abortions. "The victory we had is not going to be undone by this election," Miller said. "We've got a lot of ground to stand on now that we didn't have before." She and Kyleen Wright, president of the Texans for Life Coalition, don't agree on much, but they both acknowledge that a functional repeal of Roe v. Wade - the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established, with some limits, a constitutional right to abortion - won't happen anytime soon, simply because of the way the legal system works.

Although Trump has pledged to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by former Justice Antonin Scalia with a justice who is opposed to abortion, that would leave the balance of the court largely unchanged, with five justices who have generally ruled in favour of upholding Roe. "One vacancy on the court is not going to tip the balance a whole lot unless we have someone super brilliant and very persuasive," Wright said. Given the advanced age of several of the justices, Trump could have the opportunity to put more than one justice on the court. But even if he successfully appointed two justices, cases typically take several years to make their way up the court system, and justices can't simply call up cases regarding issues they want to address. The Hyde Amendment Even without a full repeal of Roe, Wright said she is optimistic about the possibility of further restrictions on abortion funding at the state and federal level.

"It's a very exciting time to be a pro-lifer," Wright said. "Especially to know that we're not going to have the feds working against us." One of the policy changes Wright said she hopes to see is for the Hyde Amendment to be put into law. The amendment bars women from using federal funds to pay for abortion in the overwhelming majority of cases and primarily affects low-income women who use Medicaid. Although the Hyde Amendment has been attached as a budget rider every year since 1976, it is not a law. "We hope and very much expect to see that 40-year-old long-standing tradition currently codified into law," Wright said. During her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton was the first Democratic candidate to openly call for a repeal of the amendment, arguing that its real-world impact was to make it "harder for low-income women to exercise their full rights."

"Clearly, it did not help her candidacy," Wright said. Beyond federal policies Because states hold significant power to regulate abortion access and reproductive health care, the status quo in Texas, where the Legislature remains solidly red, is unlikely to change. And the status quo isn't ideal, said Joseph Potter, a sociology professor at the University of Texas who studies women's health policy. Potter said the Legislature's severe funding cuts to family planning clinics in 2011 had a disproportionate effect on unauthorised female immigrants. Although the Legislature later restored most of the money, new state programs to help low-income women - including Healthy Texas Women, which was introduced last year - aren't enough to make up the coverage gap, he said.
A car has burst into flames after a serious collision with a truck north-west of Brisbane on Sunday morning.

A police spokeswoman said the crash happened about 11.30am on the D'Aguilar Highway at Nanango, about 175 kilometres west of the Sunshine Coast.

A car and a truck collided head-on just south of Nanango Tarong Road, with the truck driver taken to hospital as a precaution.

The condition of the car driver has not been confirmed.
A man has been charged with raping a woman in an inner-city hotel on Sunday afternoon.

Police allege a man, 18, asked for money and made sexual comments towards a woman, 27, on Wickham Terrace at Spring Hill about 3.30pm.

A woman was attacked at a Spring Hill hotel on Sunday afternoon. Credit:Glenn Hunt

The woman refused the man's requests and walked to a nearby hotel where police say the man sexually assaulted her.

The woman fought off the man as a member of the public called police.
Four teenagers have been charged after a string of robberies across Brisbane's south on Sunday.

Police say the group of two males, aged 15 and 17 and two females, both aged 16, were driving in a stolen white sedan when one of the girls got out and snatched a handbag from a woman on Compton Road at Sunnybank Hills about 10.45am.

Police have charged four teens after a number of women were robbed across Brisbane's south. Credit:Glenn Hunt

About 10 minutes later, a male passenger of the sedan jumped out at a bus stop at Algester Road, Algester and pushed a woman to the ground before grabbing her handbag, police said.

The woman was uninjured but was distressed by the incident.
Paramedics received several dozen calls from people with breathing conditions across Victoria overnight, as stormy weather combined with high pollen counts.

The blustery conditions had authorities worried there could be a repeat of last month's freak weather event that triggered a "thunderstorm asthma" epidemic and the deaths of eight people.

While calls to Ambulance Victoria were slightly above average on Sunday, very few people required treatment.

It comes as authorities say there may never be an official thunderstorm asthma warning in the same way alerts are issued for bushfires and other natural disasters.
Oakland: Recovery teams have so far found 33 bodies in the charred ruins of an Oakland, California warehouse after a fire broke out during a weekend dance party, and the death toll is expected to rise, authorities said.

"That is an astronomical number," Sergeant Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, told a news briefing. "We're still not done."

He said the bodies were located as authorities sifted through the debris-filled shell of the two-storey building, which was used by an artists' collective.

He told a press briefing that the toll would likely rise in what fire officials called the deadliest blaze in the city's history. He said the names of the victims would be released "in the coming hours" after their families were notified.
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Sick of being warned about anything and everything when it comes to the holiday season, especially all the warnings about dangerous toys?

Me too. Thats why Im ready to throw a lawn dart at a group called World Against Toys Causing Harm  W.A.T.C.H. Every year since 1973 it has published a hyperventilating 10 Most Dangerous toys list at Christmastime.

Now maybe back in 73, toymakers were still grinding out toy ovens that could smelt ore, and chemistry sets that could actually blow things (that is, people) up. But in the 40-plus years since W.A.T.C.H. was started  by a trial lawyer who wouldnt exactly suffer if he drummed up clients eager to sue toymakers for negligence  the regulations on toys and other kiddie products have multiplied to the point where if theres lead in the ink in the logo thats printed on the instep of a childs boot, the item is recalled. Because what if a kid somehow hacked the boot into pieces, peeled out the instep and ate it?

And speaking of shoes, another run of childrens footwear was recalled because The metal rivets surrounding the holes where the shoestring is secured on the shoes can have sharp edges, posing a laceration hazard. So wrote the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

What threat level are we talking about? The firm has received one report of an adult who scratched or cut his finger, the Commission wrote. No medical attention was required.

A miracle!

But it is just this zero tolerance for risk that W.A.T.C.H. exploits every Christmas. Among its Top 10 dangers this year is a large, plush elephant. What danger could a stuffed animal with no sharp edges, lead paint, or exploding parts possibly present?

Duh! Potential for suffocation! Not to be used unsupervised.

Also on this years list is a kind of wearable beachball called Bump n Bounce Body Bumpers. You put the bumper around your waist like an inner-tube and then proceed to bump into your friends. The manufacturers own warning label, already quaking at the thought of personal injury lawsuits, clearly states, To avoid risk of serious injury or death  protective equipment (for head, elbows, knees, hands, etc) should be worn (not included).

But somehow, even a warning about death was not enough. The company was shamed because its box shows kids using the toy without any head, elbow or knee guards whatsoever. Goodbye, St. Nicholas, hello St. Pete!

If they only worked a little harder, Ill bet lawyers could stop kids from ever moving their fragile little bodies again. But so far, W.A.T.C.H. has shied away from the biggest kahuna of them all, the toy that must be stopped. So I did it for them. I ran a contest online: Come up with a warning label for a ball!

Heres what folks came up with (some using their whole names, some not).

 Caution! Sharp edges. Neil S.

 Warning: This is a toy and not to be used as an actual ball. Matthew Trescher

 Warning: Ball carries germs. Wash after each use. Alanna

But wait! Theres more!

 Do not insert into urethra.

 For decorative purposes only. Christina

 Not to be used as a flotation device. Adam Kampia

 Do not operate without protective goggles. Shelly Stow

 Device does not provide a stable support. Do not attempt to sit or stand upon the ball. Scott

 Toy may change direction unpredictably when impacting an object. Jim C.

 Chasing this object could cause fatigue. John B.

 For educational purposes only. Not to be taken internally. Do not play ball while driving. Bob Magee

 For recreational purposes only. Do not use as a metaphor for having a great time. Do not use as a metaphor for masculinity or courage. Do not confuse with a formal dance. Kenny Felder

 Not to be used to exclude other children. Backroads

 To avoid risk of serious injury or death, always wear groin protection. Do not roll or throw ball near a street, drain, sewer, or body of water without adult supervision. Do not throw ball while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If you have high blood pressure or diabetes, consult your doctor before attempting to throw ball. Rick

 Warning, if you bounce this too high it might break through the ceiling causing the house to cave in on you. Alaina, age 12

 To be used on padded surfaces only. Use of a helmet is recommended. If any hole or tear develops discard immediately. Jessica

 Not to be used by children under 13. Sally

 Do not throw. Jack D.

 Warning: Balls may be bigger than brains. Lollipoplover

And finally, from my editor:

 Playing with ball could attract dogs

 Mothers: Warn children against playing with ball in house

 Warning: For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction

 If use of this item results in a broken window, drop everything and run.

Read Lenore Skenazys column every Sunday morning on Brook lynPa per.com
Warminster boy makes Phillies nation proud with viral video from Game 1

Carson Wallace, 5, of Warminster, starred as one of the Phillies most savage fans as his celebration and taunt of an Astros fan went viral.
Bordentown exhibit showcases items belonging to Napoleon's brother

The Bordentown Historical society is gaining international attention for its Joseph Bonaparte exhibit, former King of Spain and brother of Napoleon.
Chinas largest automaker (formerly Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) is finalising plans to invest about $1 billion in India by 2018. It would look to manufacture products that would suit local tastes and can also be exported.
A month after Volvo got an order of 100 self-driving cars from Uber, Apple has hinted that it will enter the market where bigwigs like Tesla and Google have already made deep inroads, a media report said.

According to a report in The Verge, the Cupertino-based tech giant -- under its so-called Project Titan -- has submitted a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, stating that it is "investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation".

The letter is Apple's official comment on the federal government's automated vehicle guidelines released last September.

Interestingly, Apple's letter is signed by Steven Kenner -- the company's head of product integrity who up until recently was the global director of automotive safety at Ford.

"Apple agrees that should share de-identified scenario and dynamics data from crashes and near-misses. By sharing data, the industry will build a more comprehensive dataset than any one company could create alone," Kenner's letter was quoted as saying.

Recently reports surfaced suggesting that the company is not attempting to build its own electric car, but is focused on developing self-driving software it can deploy in partnership with existing carmakers.

"This letter comes amid that hundreds of members of Apple's 1,000-employee-strong car team have been reassigned, let go, or have left of their own volition," the report pointed out.

In October, Uber ordered 100 self-driving vehicles from the Swedish company Volvo.

The came after an 18-wheeler self-driving Volvo trailer drove from Fort Collins, Colorado to Colorado Springs, bearing 50,000 cans of Budweiser beer.

The Volvo truck, equipped with cameras and sensors, was owned by Otto, a self-driving truck company acquired by Uber earlier this year.
Even as number crunching and investor road shows to ensure sufficient backing from shareholders have kept the Tata group executives busy for the past few weeks, the top team is now learnt to be focused on how to deal with some of the oral representations and speeches that could turn contentious and acrimonious at the extraordinary general meetings (EGMs) of the group companies.
on Saturday said a technical glitch in its booking system had led to the over-booking of a Mumbai-Bhopal flight.

According to the airline, the flight on Friday was delayed by around an hour and a half as the booking malfunction created a frenzy among a large number of passengers who had been offered a confirmed booking.

"A technical glitch resulted in flight 9W 7083 (S2 4621) BOM-BHO of December 02, 2016 being over-booked above the norm," a spokesperson said.

"This resulted in certain confirmed guests on the flight being denied boarding."

The statement said the offloaded guests had proceeded to hold the flight, refusing to accept the airline's offer of compensation or re-accommodation on alternative flights.

"This led to an unruly situation, necessitating the intervention of law enforcement officials, causing the flight to be delayed by 90 minutes and inconveniencing other guests who were already on board the aircraft," the spokesperson said.

"Subsequently, all the offloaded guests were duly compensated as per DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) guidelines and the technical glitch identified and corrected for subsequent bookings."
As West Bengal Chief Minister on Saturday dubbed Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi's outburst as "a voice of the Centre", the governor on Sunday hit back at her saying he is the voice of his conscience.

"I am the voice of my conscience," Tripathi told reporters here.

The governor on Saturday urged everyone not to make "defamatory" allegations against a responsible organisation like the Indian Army. "Every person should take care in making allegation against a responsible organisation like army. Don't let down the army. Don't defame the army," the governor said.

However, Mamata hit back at the governor for his outburst against her with regard to the controversy surrounding the deployment of army, and alleged that he was speaking in the voice of the Central government, even as the army withdrew deployment from Palhit toll plaza and other areas after the completion of a 72-hour exercise.

Notwithstanding Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's allegations that army was deployed at two toll plazas on Highway 2 in West Bengal without informing the state government "which is unprecedented and serious matter", General Officer Commanding (GOC), (Headquarters), Bengal Area, Major General Sunil Yadav said army formations in Eastern Command at local levels are carrying out routine annual data collection exercises on availability of load carriers at all major entry points in various states in coordination with local police authorities.

Terming the allegations of money collection from commuters at the counters in Dankuni toll plaza in Hooghly district and Palhit toll plaza in Burdwan district "baseless", the GoC said, "You must be aware that we have specific targets, specific information and data to be collected. On the completion of data collection at Nabanno, the Bengal State Secretariat, the team was withdrawn last night around 12 o'clock. We were there for almost for 36 hours."

"Since it is a major point, we achieved our data and we withdrew. In the entire northeast, 80 search points have been established, and as I said the exercise continuing most of the places including the toll plazas here and Nabanno," he added.
Hopes of an India-Pakistan rapprochement remained alive as the Pakistanis tweeted photographs of Indias Security Adviser Ajit Kumar Doval meeting Sartaj Aziz, the adviser on foreign affairs to the Pakistan PM, for nearly half an hour on Saturday midnight. The pictures suggested the two taking a walk at the venue and in an animated discussion. The Indians, until the time of filing of this report, neither confirmed nor denied these reports.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President of Afghanistan Mohammad Ashraf Ghani during the exchange of agreements between India and Afghanistan in New Delhi

Afghanistan President on Sunday unambiguously named Pakistan for promoting terrorism and said no amount of financial assistance can help stabilise the war-ravaged nation if "support to terrorists" from the neighbouring country continued.

Ghani, in his blunt remarks at the inaugural function of the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan', said military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists.

"The state-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. A Taliban figure said recently if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last for more than a month," Ghani said at the two-day event here on the development of Afghanistan, which is also being attended by Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz.

The Afghan President thanked Pakistan for its pledge to donate $500 million for reconstruction of the war-ravaged nation but, directly addressing Pakistan's top diplomat, said: "I hope, Mr. Aziz, that you use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan."

Ghani shared India's concern on cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan and said the world needed to fight the "menace".

"Afghanistan suffered the highest number number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable. Some (countries) still provide sanctuary for terrorists."

The President said he didn't want to engage in a blame game at the event in this Punjab city that was being attended by leaders from south and central Asia and several western countries.

He said he wanted clarification on what is being done to "prevent the export of terror".

Modi, in his address, all but named Pakistan for supporting and financing terrorism, and urged the world to act against the forces that endanger peace in the entire South Asian region.

"We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks. Support for peace alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action," Modi said.

"Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters...."

Modi said mere action against "forces of terrorism" was not enough and the world also needed to act against "those who support, shelter and finance them".

Ghani earlier appreciated India's unconditional support for the economic development of Afghanistan and said the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and his country was very important for regional trade and connectivity.

He spoke about India's assistance in the construction of Salma dam -- officially called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam -- that was inaugurated on June 4, 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Ghani in Herat province of that country.

The President said the Chabahar port development project "is very important for connectivity and commerce".

India and Iran signed a bilateral agreement in May 2016 to refurbish the port on the Gulf of Oman that is expected to provide an alternative route for trade between India and Afghanistan.

Thanking India for further assistance of $1 billion, the Aghan President said: "An air corridor will also be soon launched and will improve trade ties.

"Some 20,000 Afghan students are studying in India. These students go back and help transform and reconstruct Afghanistan."

He said India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached.

"There are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan. We thank India for that."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President of Afghanistan Mohammad Ashraf Ghani during the exchange of agreements between India and Afghanistan in New Delhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday held bilateral talks focusing on a range of key issues including boosting trade and investment, India's reconstruction activities in the war-ravaged country and ways to strengthen defence and security partnership.

The issue of firming up an air cargo service pact between the two countries is understood to have figured in the talks which will give India a leverage in Afghanistan as Pakistan continued to deny transit link through its territory.

Ghani reached Amritsar on Saturday evening to attend the - Istanbul Process conference.

In the meeting, Modi assured Ghani of India's continued support for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Also, Afghanistan is learnt to have sought enhanced supply of military hardware from India.

Afghanistan has been trying to revamp its military to fight the resurgent Talibans after drawdown of NATO forces began nearly two years back.

Sources said both India and Afghanistan were keen to finalise the air cargo agreement as soon as possible and that the broad contours of the pact were already finalised.

India and Afghanistan have been exploring various connectivity projects for greater two-way trade.

In May, India, Iran and Afghanistan had signed an agreement to set up a trade and transport corridor with Chabahar in Iran as the hub with an aim to develop a transit corridor.

The sea-land route of Chabahar Port was designed to bypass Pakistan and the project was seen as India's effort to counter China's plan to develop Gwadar port in Pakistan.

Afghanistan was very keen on deeper defence and security cooperation with India and there were indications that Ghani may press for ramping up supply of arms and military hardware from India though Pakistan would be unhappy if there was closer Indo-Afghan military cooperation.

Last week, India had given to Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters.

India has trained hundreds of Afghan security personnel but has been adopting a cautious approach in providing weapons as it did not want to antagonise Pakistan.

Afghanistan has also been seeking India's assistance in making functional Soviet-era helicopters and transport aircraft which were not in flying condition.

India has a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and is implementing projects worth USD 2 billion to help rebuild the country's infrastructure.

India has been supporting an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of peace and reconciliation, and advocating the need for a sustained and long-term commitment to Afghanistan by the international community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday held a bilateral meeting in Amritsar and discussed aspects of strengthening counter-terror cooperation.

"The two leaders discussed several aspects of the close and friendly relations between the two countries," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a tweet.

He said the leaders also reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

"The two leaders noted with satisfaction the prospects for bilateral relations and agreed that both countries would continue to work even harder for further strengthening them," Swarup said.

Later, Modi and Ghani jointly inaugurated the ministerial deliberations at the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process conference, which would see the participation of over eight foreign ministers and other dignitaries of 14 participating countries from South and Central Asia and several western countries.

Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz is also attending the two-day meet.

Swarup said both leaders exchanged views on the common threat of terrorism, especially the cross-border nature of the scourge which had caused immense suffering to the people of India and Afghanistan.

"In this context, the two leaders agreed to strengthen counter-terror cooperation between the two countries and enhance coordination at the UN and other relevant fora," Swarup said.

They also agreed to operationalise the additional amount of $1 billion for bilateral cooperation, especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including a possible air corridor between India and Afghanistan to overcome obstacles to promotion of bilateral trade, said the tweet.

Ghani noted the convergence of values and interests as exemplified in the strategic partnership.

Recalling his visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar on Saturday, along with Modi, Ghani said it was a moving experience.

The prime minister expressed the hope that the ministerial conference would be successful in promoting greater cooperation among all concerned for peace, stability and security and development of Afghanistan.
In the wee hours of December 1, 2016, Javed Khatri, a 22-year-old programmer (note: not a hacker) discovered a common security vulnerability/bug in the app. Khatri was able to access the personal information of every registered user of the application through this vulnerability.
Close on the heels of officials confiscating over Rs 5 crore in Bengaluru, another Rs 71 lakh has been seized from the possession of three persons, who had the amount in denominations of Rs 2,000, police said on Sunday.

"Rs 71 lakh was seized from three persons who were arrested for carrying new Rs 2,000 notes in their car without any documents at Bailoor village," the Udupi Superintendent of Police K T Balakrishna said, while adding the police recieved a tip-off related to the crackdown.

The three have been handed over to the Income Tax officials in Mangaluru for further investigation, he said.

Police intercepted the car on December 1 and found the currency notes of Rs 2,000 denomination totalling up to Rs 71 lakh in a bag.

The three occupants, Imran Hussain, Asif Umar and Deepak Shetty (driver), had failed to produce appropriate documents or provide explanation about the cash, Balakrishna said.

They were travelling from Mangaluru to Kudremukh for a business payment, he said.

Over 50 I-T sleuths and police personnel had searched several premises in Bengaluru, Chennai and Erode with the department saying the seizure of cash in new currency was over Rs 5 crore.

On December 2, IT officials said the cash found in possession of two engineers and two contractors following the December 1 searches, had totalled up to Rs 5.7 crore. The notes recovered were all in denominations of Rs 2,000.

"Total admission of unaccounted income by the group stands at Rs 152 crore. Investigations are on," they said in New Delhi.
Pakistani media today took note of the handshake and exchange of niceties between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan prime minister's advisor on foreign affairs at Amritsar amid deadly border skirmishes and rhetoric.

Aziz reached Amritsar last evening to attend the Heart of Asia conference, instead of this morning apparently to dodge early morning fog.

The change of schedule provided a subtle opportunity for a handshake and exchange of pleasantries with Modi who hosted a banquet for the delegates.

The Express Tribune under the front page headline - "Aziz-Modi handshake sets off media frenzy" - wrote that "After months of war rhetoric and deadly border skirmishes, Indian and Pakistani officials exchanged niceties and set the media abuzz on Saturday".

"With a broad smile on his face, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook hands with Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Adviser at a banquet he had hosted for the participants of the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar," it reported.

The paper reported that Modi also asked about the health of his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif who had recently undergone open heart surgery in a London hospital.

Aziz conveyed "good wishes" to the Indian leader on behalf of Sharif.

The Dawn reported that Aziz was received by Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit and the joint secretary of Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

" also sent a bouquet to Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at her residence, extending his sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery," it said.

The News International reported that Modi shook hands with Aziz and inquired after the well-being of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from him.

"Aziz said Nawaz Sharif is well and he has also expressed good wishes for him," it further reported.

It also reported that Aziz sent a bouquet to Swaraj at her residence extending good wishes for her speedy recovery.

Pakistan was unanimous that no meeting between Pakistani and Indian officials on the sidelines was expected due to the ongoing bilateral tension.

"Contrary to Indian media reports, no actual talks took place during the banquet. Nonetheless, the customary handshake after months of belligerence and hostilities set off media frenzy in both countries," according to the Express Tribune.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained following the Uri terror attack in September that killed 19 Indian soldiers.
Tamil film superstar has sustained a minor leg injury after he allegedly fell while shooting his upcoming magnum opus 2.0 in Chennai.

However, the 66-year-old actor resumed shooting after receiving treatment, sources said.

Rajinikanth, who was shooting for a particular scene at Kelambakkam, allegedly fell and injured his knee last night, sources said, adding after being administered first aid at a private hospital, the star resumed work for his film.

Meanwhile, his media manager said the actor was "fine" and has shared the video of on a social media site.

The Kabali star was seen casually dressed and waving at his fans from the shooting spot, in the video.

Recently, the first look of the movie 2.0, which also stars Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar and actress Amy Jackson, was released at a function held in Mumbai.

The movie, directed by Shankar is likely to be released next year during Diwali.
About Rs 30 lakh unaccounted cash was seized on Saturday at two places in the city and three persons were arrested for holding it without documentary proof, police said.

"In one case, Ishwarappa, 66, a farmer from Andhra Pradesh, was nabbed at Whitefield for illegally carrying Rs 12.10 lakh in Rs.2,000 notes in a car to exchange them for old notes at 20 per cent commission," said a police statement.

In a similar case, two persons were arrested from near a private hospital at Hebbal for illegally carrying Rs 18 lakh in cash.

A patrolling police team nabbed Ishwarappa and his friend after a hot chase from a petrol retail outlet.

"On interception, the farmer confessed that he was asked to go tp the city by his contact to hand over the cash in return for old currency with commission. As he did not have documentary proof for carrying so much cash, we called the Income Tax officials and asked to ascertain the source of the amount," said the official.

In the other case, Sridhar and his friend Mohan, were caught waiting for their contact to deliver Rs 10 lakh in Rs 2,000 and new Rs 500 notes and Rs 8 lakh in Rs 100 notes.

"The duo was taken into custody and the cash was recovered from a car in which they were waiting to hand over to their contact. They were also handed over to the tax officials for investigation as they did not have documents to prove the money's source," added the official.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani slammed Pakistan for its support to terrorism in the region at the concluding day of the Heart of Asia conference. Pakistani diplomats tried to steal the thunder as they circulated a photograph of Ajit Kumar Doval, Indias Security Advisor (NSA) in an animated chat with Sartaj Aziz, Pakistans advisor on foreign affairs to PM Nawaz Sharif, it sparked speculation that the two sides might be looking at a rapprochement after months of terrorist attacks and cross-Line of Control (LoC) shelling.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday that the Taliban insurgency would not survive a month if it lost its sanctuary in neighbouring Pakistan, urging its neighbour to take on militant groups on its soil instead of giving Kabul financial aid.
Nearly Rs 50,000 in cash were stolen from a man who was standing in a bank queue to deposit his old currency notes in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district, police said on Sunday.

The victim, Satish Kumar, had gone to the bank to deposit Rs 47,000 in old currency notes when the money was stolen, a police official said.

In another incident, Rs 10,000 in new currency notes were stolen from a man who was returning after exchanging old currency notes from a bank in Morna town, the official said.
A raid by Lokayukta Police at an engineer's residence here on Saturday led to the seizure of documents related to four houses, two plots and one kg gold jewellery, an official said.

Anand Prakash Rane, an executive engineer in the Public Works Department (PWD), was found in possession of four houses, two plots of land along with gold jewellery. The Lokayukta has initiated an investigation.

Dinesh Chand Patel, Lokayukta Police DSP, told IANS that during the raid at Rane's place, he was found in possession of two houses in Gwalior, one in Bhopal, a flat in Indore, land documents and gold jewellery.
The State Bank of India (SBI) has estimated that money worth Rs 2.5 lakh crore may not come back into the banking system post of high-value notes.

On November 8, the government banned banknotes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, worth over Rs 14 lakh crore.

In a report, the Economic Research Department of State Bank of India (SBI) said "around Rs 2.5 lakh crore on a conservative basis will not be coming back into the system".

As per the SBI analysis, the market estimate of Rs 14.18 lakh crore currency -- excluding cash with banks -- is based on March 2016 data, while in reality it should be based on data available as on November 9, a day after was announced.

The SBI noted that going by data as on November 9, the amount of high currency denomination notes was Rs 15.44 lakh crore (excluding cash in the banks), an increase of Rs 1.26 lakh crore compared to the March figure.

It stated that RBI has published twice the deposited and exchanged notes data with banks in November with a gap of 9 days. The SBI said: "If we closely look at the data, the daily working day average deposited/exchanged at banks has declined significantly from Rs 605 billion (November 10-18) to Rs 501 billion (November 19-27) -- a decline of 17 per cent."



In total, between November 10-27, Rs 8.44 lakh crore was deposited and exchanged in banks, the report said.

"All these estimates put together show that total money coming into the system in the form of high denomination will be around Rs 13 lakh crore (as against Rs 15.44 lakh crore high value notes as on November 9)," it added.
A delay in enforcing the proposed national goods and services tax (GST) from the target date of April 1, 2017, also the start of the next financial year, would cast a shadow on the Union Budget exercise for 2017-18.
Fiscal correction: Focus should be on reducing the fiscal deficit The got would do well to be cautious and resist the temptation of increasing expenditure in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections because the ...

Soluble and relevant: The focus of India's G20 agenda The government may be tempted to showcase its own achievements. But it must resist this temptation
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said he was working on a formula to send the corrupt, who deposited their money in Jan Dhan accounts of poor people after demonetisation, to jail and ensure that the money goes to poor households.
Governor Urjit Patel gets a little over Rs 2 lakh as salary and has not been provided with any supporting staff at his residence, the central bank has said.

Patel, who took over as Governor in September, is presently in possession of the bank's flat (Deputy Governor's flat) at Mumbai, it said.

"No supporting staff has been provided to the present Governor, Urjit Patel at his residence. Two cars and two drivers have been provided to the present Governor," said in reply to an RTI query.

The bank was asked to provide details of remuneration given to former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and incumbent Patel.

For the month of October -- the first full month Patel was in office as Governor -- Patel got Rs 2.09 lakh as his salary, the same amount drawn by Rajan as his August's salary. Rajan demitted office on September 4, and was given Rs 27,933 as remuneration for four days.

Rajan assumed the charge of RBI Governor from September 5, 2013 at a monthly salary of Rs 1.69 lakh. His salary was revised to Rs 1.78 lakh and Rs 1.87 lakh respectively during 2014 and March 2015. His salary was hiked to Rs 2.09 lakh from Rs 2.04 lakh in January this year, the RTI reply said.

Rajan was provided with three cars and four drivers. "One caretaker and nine maintenance attendants were posted as supporting staff in the bungalow provided by the bank to the former Governor Raghuram Rajan at Mumbai," RBI said.

The Centre has recently declined to share details on appointment of Patel and other candidates shortlisted for the top post in the central bank saying these are "cabinet papers" and cannot be made public.

Patel was on August 20 named as RBI's Governor to succeed Rajan.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel gets a little over Rs 2 lakh per month as salary and has not been provided with any supporting staff at his residence, the central bank has said.


Empathy has never been in more explicit demand from corporate leaders  particularly after a divisive US presidential election and amid continued economic uncertainty around the globe. As the newly released 2016 Empathy Index demonstrates, empathy, which is about understanding our emotional impact on others and making change as a result, is more important to a successful business than it has ever been, correlating to growth, productivity, and earnings per employee. Here are the top 15 companies on the index:



Charticle
As the founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party, an American group that aims to preserve the privileged place of whiteness in Western civilisation and
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Sunday criticised the government and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi over the "ethnic cleansing" of the minority Rohingya community in its Rakhine state.

Addressing a mass rally in solidarity with the ethnic Rohingya community at Titiwangsa Stadium, Najib signed a giant banner to protest what he called "ethnic cleansing" of the minority muslim race in Rakhine in .

He said, Malaysia would continue to pressure its Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) counterpart to settle the humanitarian crisis in .

He also called on Indonesia and its President Joko Widodo to stand with Malaysia against Myanmar on the issue.

Myanmar had warned Najib against attending the rally, saying that doing so would breach Asean's policy of non-intervention with neighbouring countries.

"I don't care!" declared Najib to the audience, consisting mostly of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party and opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, commonly known PAS members.

"Do you expect me, a leader of over 30 million people to close my eyes? To stay silent? I will not! "Someone tell Myanmar that the Asean Charter also protects human rights. They cannot just interpret whatever they like," he said.

Najib also criticised Suu Kyi, for not meeting with diplomats to discuss the Rohingya crisis.

The prime minister said he had sent Foreign Affairs Minister Anifah Aman to Nay Pyi Taw to meet Suu Kyi, only to be told she was only willing to meet to discuss bilateral affairs, but not the Rohingya. "What's the point of a Nobel Peace Prize?" he said to a riled-up crowd.

"We want to tell Aung San Suu Kyi enough is enough," he said.

Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as citizens, though some of them have resided in the country for several generations.

Using satellite imagery from Myanmar's western Rakhine state, rights group Human Rights Watch recently found mass destruction in ethnic Rohingya villages and called for an urgent UN investigation into alleged abuses.

Malaysia has over 56,000 Rohingya and Myanmar refugees registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, with thousands more undocumented.
Vladimir Putin wants to make Russia great again. For that, he may need a hand from .

For the Russian president, relief from crippling sanctions is a gateway to the ultimate goal of establishing Russia as the political and economic equivalent of the United States.

And the US president-elect, who extolled Putin's leadership during the campaign and called for a tempered approach to US-Russia relations, may be a conduit to achieving that.

Despite Russia's denials that it tampered in the US election or even took sides, Trump's victory has been greeted as a win of sorts for Moscow, too, by members of Putin's own United Russia party.

"It turns out that United Russia won the elections in America," Viktor Nazarov, the governor of Omsk, Russia, declared in a radio interview.

Long before Trump was on the radar of American voters, Russia had deep interests in the outcome of elections around the world.

But 2016 presented a unique window.

Motivated by years of sanctions and decades of post-Soviet setbacks, the Russians were keen to pounce; the race for the White House, plagued by party infighting and scandal, was easy bait.

Putin "was seriously impacted by the sanctions because it targeted his closest friends and now they think Trump is going to change that," said Robert Amsterdam, an international attorney with Russian clients.

US intelligence agencies said in October they are confident that the Russian government hacked the e-mails of US citizens and institutions, including political organizations, and handed them over to DCLeaks.Com and WikiLeaks for distribution.

Hacked Democratic National Committee emails in July, indicating that DNC leaders were favoring Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primaries, prompted the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

"Weaponizing information is really about who gets to write the truth, who gets to write the narrative and who benefits from that narrative -- and that is incredibly powerful," said Laura Galante, director of intelligence analysis at cybersecurity firm FireEye, Inc.

Russia has sought to put itself on an equal footing with the US since the collapse of the Soviet Union, extending its territory where it can, countering US military action and positioning itself as a rival to the world's biggest economy.
President-elect Donald Trump warned US companies that moving manufacturing to other countries would be a very expensive mistake as they will face heavy new taxes  an approach likely to face resistance from lawmakers in his own party. In an early-morning series of six Twitter posts, Trump summarised a plan outlining an integral part of his campaign position: that shifting production from the US to Mexico, China or other lower-cost countries would be discouraged by punitive tax policy. Any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its ...
Colin Farrell recently bonded with Hugh Grant during Season 5 of Variety and PBS' 'Actors on Actors' where they discussed their privacy and the roles they would prefer now.

"It all went mad so fast for me. I had a period of maybe five or six years of incredible fame and recognizability," Farrell told Grant over the fact that, as they've gotten older, they've been more left alone.

"I'm glad that period of madness is over for me and my life," he added.

Grant, 56, replied, "I'm in the same kind of boat. I'm more left alone which I was, which is absolutely delightful."

Then the duo moved on to have serious musing over what kind of projects they would be willing to take up at this point.

The 'Noting Hill' star put forward a question, "Do you think acting is a kind of god in itself.like therapy.you're trying to please your fellow actors. Or do you think it's just a tool for entertaining people?"

Saying that this can be a "different thing" for actors as it is for the audience, Colin said, "If there is an experiential symbiosis between what the actor is experiencing in their own lives and what the audience is experiencing in purveying the work that the actor presents, I think that's the state of grace."

Presented by 'The Venetian Las Vegas', the interview will debut in its entirety on PBS SoCal on January 3.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of devotees on Saturday attended the feast mass of Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552) in Goa state to commemorate his 466th death anniversary.

The nine-day feast started with mass prayers which began as early as 4 a.m.

Goans, irrespective of caste and faith, converged at Basilica of Bom Jesus, which houses St. Xavier's body, in Old Goa.

"For us Goans, it is very special day. (Es)Special(ly) because we, in a certain sense, celebrate the day of our faith as I said and faith is one of the most important things for any human being," said the Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops' Conference Of India, Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas.

Saint Francis Feast is celebrated every year on December 3. The saint was affectionately called Goincho Saib or the Lord of Goa.

Tourists too attended the Mass.

"It is very beautiful, it is very nice. It is very nice, I am enjoying (it)," said a US tourist, Archery. "First time in the church, yes, not the first time to India but the first time to Goa," Archery added when asked if it was her first visit to Basilica of Bom Jesus.

Saint Xavier was born in Spain in 1506 and devoted his life to religion and the service of the poor and the downtrodden. He first arrived in Goa, then a Portuguese colony, in 1542. He travelled throughout Asia, founding Christian communities in southern Japan and parts of what are now Indonesia and Malaysia.

Two years after Saint Xavier's death in 1552 near China, his body was brought back to Goa. It is believed that when his body was exhumed, it was remarkably intact. In 1614, one of his arms was severed and taken to Rome where it is preserved at the altar of the Church of Gesu. Priests say the body, which the faithful credit with many miracles, has never been embalmed. His efforts earned him the appellation "Apostle to the Indies", and he was canonised in 1622.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Backing West Bengal Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi who cautioned Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against making allegations on the army, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that while the Centre has been making efforts not use the army as a political instrument, Mamata has been politicising the issue for her own cause.

"We don't want army to be instruments of politics, but Mamata is bent on politicising the army issue, there is nothing more insulting than this. Insulting the army is like insulting nation. The governor has said the right thing. Speaking against those who sacrifice their lives for the nation, it does not behoove a chief minister," BJP secretary Rahul Sinha told ANI.

Yesterday, the governor urged Mamata not to make "defamatory" allegations against a "responsible organisation" like the Indian Army.

"Every person should take care in making allegation against a responsible organisation like army. Don't let down the army. Don't defame the army," Tripathi said.

However, the chief minister hit back at the governor, alleging that he was speaking in tune with the central government.

"Governor is speaking in the voice of Central Government!! He was not in the city for about eight days. Before making statements, all details should have been checked. It is very unfortunate," she posted in her official Twitter account.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had also criticised Mamata for dragging the army into controversy by projecting their routine exercise in the state as something sinister.

Mamata had earlier cried foul over the army deployment at two toll plazas in West Bengal and alleged that this was done without any prior information to the state government.

However, the army clarified on the issue by releasing a series of letters stating that it was very well in contact with the Kolkata Police and that it was nothing but a routine exercise which takes place every three to four years.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Muhammad Dakhlalla aka Mo is at the start of an eight-year prison sentence for trying to join and help the Islamic State (ISIS), which he says was because he was deeply in love with a girl.

In his senior year at Mississippi State (USA), he met and fell for Jaelyn Young, a sophomore studying chemistry and who was also interested in Islam, the religion in which Mo grew up as his father, Oda, is an imam and his mother, Lisa, a New Jersey-born woman who converted to Islam.

His parents helped found and build the Islamic Center of Mississippi in Starkville, reports CNN.

It was not long after they became a couple, Jaelyn converted to Islam and it was a complete surprise to Mo.

Then came another surprise, he said. Jaelyn was changing fast, he said, becoming stricter and more conservative in all parts of her life.

But, he said, he was deeply in love and his intelligence and reasoning was blinded. His words shed light on just how powerful ISIS' online propaganda can be for American youths.

Pursuing her conversion and new religion, Jaelyn went to the Internet and there, she found ISIS.

Jaelyn merely showed Mo the videos -- the clips did the rest.

"It started out with when ... she first became Muslim, you know, she wanted to learn more. ... I'm not sure how she came across some of the videos that she did at first, but I remember, like, some of them. Like, one of the first ones I remember seeing, a video that how ISIS came to be. And it was basically mentioning ... historical struggles in the Middle East. And then somehow it ties that back into, you know, everything is, like, the Western society's fault. You would see a lot of non-Muslims using like, vulgar language, and a whole lot of slander on top of that."

Mo followed Jaelyn's lead.

He said the goal was never to take part in jihad or commit violence -- but rather to help out as fellow Muslims in the newly forming Muslim state.

"When she first looked at these videos, she had ... a strong belief that, 'OK, this is the group to really help out, you know, the Muslims," he said.

The young lover said he did what his partner did.

They began communicating through the Internet with people they thought were in ISIS, in Syria.

According to the FBI, Jaelyn reached out to a contact she thought would help her and Mo travel to Turkey, cross the border into Syria and join ISIS. The two secretly married, began an intensive preparation period and bought one-way plane tickets to Istanbul.

And on August 8, 2015, Mo and Jaelyn packed their bags and went to the airport near Columbus, Mississippi. They got as far as the boarding gate, and then they were arrested.

This past spring they both pleaded guilty, and they were sentenced in August. Mo was given a lighter sentence, citing his cooperation with authorities.

Jaelyn, considered by authorities to be the mastermind, was sentenced to 12 years.

Mo now regrets that during this time of confusion, especially about religion, he failed to reach out to his dad, an imam who would have never taught his son to kill or hurt anyone.

Asked about homegrown terrorists, or those in ISIS who have viciously killed innocents across Europe and in Syria, Mo said he would never wish to be part of anything like that.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani will hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi today. The two countries are likely to finalise broad contours of a bilateral air cargo service pact to boost trade.

Ghani arrived in Amritsar yesterday evening to attend the Heart of Asia conference being held in the holy city.

Prime Minister Modi and the President visited the Golden Temple here yesterday.

During the meeting, Afghanistan is also likely to seek enhanced supply of military hardware from India to strengthen its armed forces.

Afghanistan has been trying to revamp its military to fight the Taliban after drawdown of NATO forces which began two years ago.

Last week, India had given Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters. India has trained hundreds of Afghan security personnel.

Afghanistan has also been seeking India's assistance in making functional Soviet-era Helicopters and transport aircraft which were not in flying condition.

India and Afghanistan have also been exploring various connectivity projects for better bilateral trade.

In May, India, Iran and Afghanistan signed an agreement to set-up a trade and transport corridore with Chabahar in Iran as the hub.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India's former Ambassador to Afghanistan Gautam Mukhopadhyay has said that one of the key takeaways for New Delhi from the Heart of Asia Conference would be unbridled market access to Central Asian and Afghanistan markets, and added that the conference will give a boost to regional cooperation between participating nations.

"A major takeaway would be firstly a continued focus on Afghanistan, terrorism and regional cooperation. And, the country that most stands to benefit if this artery leading to the heart of Asia is unblocked, is India, because, it would have access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and these would also benefit from Indian markets, and sharing of technology," Mukhopadhyay told ANI.

The former envoy also pointed out that the conference that is being held in Amritsar would also heavily focus on cross border terrorism which has been plaguing Afghanistan and India.

"The Heart of Asia process or the Istanbul declaration has two phrases in its heading. One is regional security and the second is regional cooperation." he said.

"Within regional security, the key issue that faces the region and Afghanistan is terrorism, and within terrorism, it is cross border terrorism. This terrorism depends on a whole eco system which begins with fundamentalism, violent fundamentalism and extremism, not only in Afghanistan, but in the entire region," he added.

The sixth 'Heart of Asia' conference will see the participation of representatives from over 30 countries, including China, United States, Russia, Iran and Pakistan to discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is the permanent chair of the HoA, while India, which is its co-chair, will host this year's conference.

The main ministerial conference will be inaugurated today jointly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Hindu temple was vandalised and three idols were smashed by a group of unidentified miscreants in northern Bangladesh's Netrokona district on Saturday night.

Locals said they found the temple doors open on Sunday morning. They found smashed bits and pieces of the temple architecture and idols upon entering the temple premises.

Two of the idols, one of Kali and another of Shiva, were found by the locals about 600 feet away from the temple, reports the Dhaka Tribune.

Police launched an investigation after being informed by the locals about the incident.

"We visited the site and have collected evidence of the vandalism," said a police official.

Visiting the side of the incident, Netrokona Additional District Magistrate Abdul said that those behind the incident will be punished.
Asserting that it was a positive development that Islamabad had not pulled out of the Heart of Asia conference despite the recent spree of cross-border attacks, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Sunday expressed hope to see some ice breaking between the hostile neighbours at the conference.

"The fact is that despite the current bitterness, Sartaj Aziz has not cancelled his visit and has come here, which is a good sign. Sometimes when leaders meet, even without agenda, it can bear fruit. It will be a welcome step if Sartaj's Indian counterpart speaks to him during the event, the ice can be broken," NCP leader Majid Memon told ANI here.

However, there has been no official confirmation of talks between India and Pakistan at the conference, which kicked off in Amritsar on Saturday.

Earlier, Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz arrived here on Saturday evening, ahead of his scheduled arrival for the Heart of Asia conference.

The conference will be jointly inaugurated by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will also hold a bilateral meeting, which is to be their fourth such meeting this year.

Ahead of the Conference, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) ruled out the possibility of any talks with Aziz, saying terrorism was a "calculated strategy" of Pakistan.

"Pakistan is a country which has a long record of carrying out cross-border terrorism which it regards as an instrument of state policy. India has always been open to talks, but obviously it cannot be that talks take place in an atmosphere of continued terrorism. The sooner Pakistan stops cross-border terrorism, the sooner bilateral relations can come back on track," MEA official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. JENNIFER KIRK, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Defendant-Appellee. No. 16-2469 Decided: December 02, 2016

Before EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Normally a district court may reduce a criminal sentence only within 14 days of its imposition. Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(a). But if a prisoner provides substantial assistance to prosecutors after being sentenced, a district court may reduce the sentence at any time on the prosecutor's motion. Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(b). Jennifer Kirk enjoyed one such reduction; the district judge cut her sentence (for mail and wire fraud) from 188 to 110 months. Kirk contends that she provided additional assistance after that reduction and is entitled to a further reward, but the United States Attorney has declined to file a second motion under Rule 35(b). Kirk then filed this suit under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C.  702, asking a district judge to set aside the prosecutor's decision not to file the motion that would permit the court to reduce her sentence further.

The district judge dismissed the complaint, giving two reasons. 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57323 (S.D. Ill. Apr. 29, 2016). First, the judge thought that whether to make a Rule 35(b) motion is committed to agency discretion by law, bringing Kirk's claim within the scope of the exclusion to APA review in 5 U.S.C.  701(a)(2). Second, the judge believed that the right way for a prisoner to obtain review of the prosecutor's decision is by a collateral attack under 28 U.S.C.  2255and the APA forecloses actions when another adequate remedy is available. 5 U.S.C.  704.

These two reasons are incompatible. If  2255 supplies a means of review, then the decision is not committed to agency discretion by law; but if the decision is committed to agency discretion, then by definition review under  2255 is impermissible. We think that both parts of the district judge's reasoning are mistaken but that the judgment is nonetheless correct.

The Supreme Court held in Wade v. United States, 504 U.S. 181 (1992), that a prosecutor's decision not to file a motion under 18 U.S.C.  3553(e) and U.S.S.G.  5K1.1 is reviewable. We cannot see any reason why a motion under Rule 35(b) would be treated differently; the rule,  3553(e), and  5K1.1 all authorize lower sentences to reward a defendant's assistance with other prosecutions. Wade stated that the permissible grounds of review are those that apply to all exercises of prosecutorial discretionas a practical matter, race discrimination or other constitutional transgressions. 504 U.S. at 185-86. See also, e.g., United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 463 (1996); United States v. Davis, 793 F.3d 712, 719-23 (7th Cir. 2015) (en banc). Because the decision whether to file a Rule 35(b) motion is reviewable on those grounds, it has not been committed to agency discretion by law, and  701(a)(2) therefore does not foreclose review under the APA.

Next up: Does  2255 provide an adequate remedy and so block APA review under  704? The district court said yes, citing two decisions that evaluated the absence of Rule 35(b) motions during collateral attacks under  2255. United States v. Obeid, 707 F.3d 898 (7th Cir. 2013); United States v. Richardson, 558 F.3d 680 (7th Cir. 2009). Yet neither opinion holds that  2255 is the right approach as a general matter. In Richardson the court thought  2255 an appropriate vehicle because the defendant contended that the prosecutor had conditioned the filing of a future Rule 35(b) motion on the defendant's waiver of his right to appeal from the judgment of conviction. We saw that as drawing into question the validity of the conviction itself, and  2255 is designed to allow defendants to contest the validity of their convictions. In Obeid, too, the defendant argued that his sentence was unconstitutional, made disproportionate and excessive by the grant of a Rule 35(b) motion in a different case. We held that  2255 was not available to make that argument, however, because the defendant had not sought relief until the year allowed by  2255(f) had expired.

For most situations  of which Kirk's is a good example 2255 does not provide an adequate way to contest the prosecutor's decision not to file a Rule 35(b) motion. Obeid illustrates the problem. According to  2255(f), motions must be filed within a year of the judgment's finality. Section 2255(f) has some exceptions, such as new and retroactive rules of law, but none applies when a prisoner contends that substantial assistance justifies a lower sentence. Yet Rule 35(b)(2) authorizes sentence reductions long after a year from the conviction's finality:

Upon the government's motion made more than one year after sentencing, the court may reduce a sentence if the defendant's substantial assistance involved:

(A) information not known to the defendant until one year or more after sentencing;

(B) information provided by the defendant to the government within one year of sentencing, but which did not become useful to the government until more than one year after sentencing; or

(C) information the usefulness of which could not reasonably have been anticipated by the defendant until more than one year after sentencing and which was promptly provided to the government after its usefulness was reasonably apparent to the defendant.

A motion under Rule 35(b)(2), more than a year after her sentencing, is exactly what Kirk wants the prosecutor to file. Section 2255(f) and Obeid show that  2255 does not afford her an adequate means of review.

Indeed, with rare exceptions of the sort illustrated by Richardson,  2255 does not address the propriety of withholding a motion under Rule 35(b). Section 2255(a) provides:

A prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack, may move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.

Kirk does not advance any of these grounds. She does not say that her sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws, that the district court lacked jurisdiction, that the sentence exceeds the lawful maximum, or that it is otherwise subject to collateral attack. Her argument, rather, is that post-sentence developments entitle her to a reward for assistance. Just as post-sentence retroactive changes in the Sentencing Guidelines are implemented under 18 U.S.C.  3582(c)(2) rather than  2255, post-sentence assistance to the prosecutor passes outside the scope of  2255. As United States v. Orozco, 160 F.3d 1309, 1313 n.6 (11th Cir. 1998), observed, Rule 35(b) provides a means to reduce a legally imposed sentence; when the conviction is proper and the sentence lawful,  2255 is unavailable.

But it hardly follows that review under the APA is appropriatereview that, given the venue provisions in 28 U.S.C.  1391(e)(1), could occur in multiple districts, including the district where the prisoner is confined and the District of Columbia. No matter what we make of  2255 as an adequate remedy for the purpose of  704, it would be an unhappy development to split a criminal case into fragments and have issues such as Rule 35(b) motions litigated in districts that did not host the criminal prosecution.

Although  2255 usually is a poor way to proceed, Kirk could have filed an ordinary motion in the criminal case asking the judge to compel the prosecutor to file a Rule 35(b) motion. See United States v. Wilson, 390 F.3d 1003 (7th Cir. 2004) (using this procedure to contest the prosecutor's decision not to file a motion). Given Rule 35(a) the judge lacks authority to reduce Kirk's sentence unless the prosecutor files a motion, but Wade shows that the court has the power to compel the filing of such a motion if the criteria for review of prosecutorial discretion have been satisfied. Thus there cannot be any doubt about the district court's power to entertain a motion asking the judge for that relief. And because this kind of motion is a complete remedy for someone in Kirk's position, 5 U.S.C.  704 forecloses resort to the APA, just as the district court held.

Kirk's lawyer told us at oral argument that she does not maintain that the prosecutor has engaged in race or sex discrimination, or otherwise violated the Constitution. Her argument is simply that she furnished substantial assistance and is entitled to a reward. Wade shows that such an argument is inadequate. [T]he Government [has] a power, not a duty, to file a motion when a defendant has substantially assisted. 504 U.S. at 185. But this proceeding is not the right forum for a decision on the merits. It is enough for now to say that the APA is not the right way to seek an order compelling the prosecutor to file a Rule 35(b) motion.

AFFIRMED

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.
Stating that the Army deployment in West Bengal was nothing more than a routine exercise, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday raised questions over Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's particularly aggressive stand on the matter, asserting that she was clearly hiding something.

BJP leader Chandra Kumar Bose told ANI that most of the funding of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is illegitimate as 99 percent of the party backing is unaccounted.

"Army was conducting a routine exercise which is done every year. The reaction of the Chief Minister of Bengal was alarming. I don't accept that her police personnel did not inform her of the Army conducting routine exercise," he said.

Bose further alleged that Mamata might be frightened by the fact that Army could unravel the hidden currency that TMC party operates with.

"TMC party accounts with 99 percent of unaccounted funds, we would establish it in due course. We have found that currency movement has taken place from West Bengal to other Northeastern states. These are probably conducted by the TMC party under the instruction of Mamata Banerjee," he added.

Bose suspected that Mamata has something to hide and people of country would like to know what she has in store.

Following his remarks on Mamata's observations about the Army deployment, the Governor of West Bengal Keshari Nath Tripathi was criticised by the Chief Minister on Saturday.

Taking to Twitter, Mamata said that the Governor's statement "is unfortunate" and that Tripathi "is speaking in the voice of the Central Government."

Earlier, Tripathi said that an institution like the Indian Army should not be "defamed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Emphasising that cross border terrorism remains a matter of concern for the countries in South Asia, the Communist Party of India (CPI) on Sunday called for a global consensus to fight terrorism.

Raja's statement comes on the backdrop of the sixth 'Heart of Asia' conference wherein Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani held bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Speaking to ANI, the CPI leader said, " Let us wait for the outcome and agenda of the conference before coming to any conclusion."

"Cross border terrorism remains to be matter of concern for the countries in South Asia that includes Pakistan along with India and Afghanistan," he added.

On the sidelines of 'Heart of Asia' conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

The two leaders discussed several aspects of the close and friendly relations between the two countries, said MEA official spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

"The two leaders reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries," said Swarup.

The leaders also exchanged views on the common threat of terrorism, especially the cross border nature of the scourge which had caused immense suffering to the people of India and Afghanistan.

"Talking about terrorism, the two leaders agreed to strengthen counter terror cooperation between the two countries, and enhance coordination at the UN and other relevant fora," said Swarup.

Ghani arrived in Amritsar yesterday evening to attend the conference being held in the holy city Amritsar. Prime Minister Modi and the President visited the Golden Temple here yesterday.

The conference witnessed participation of representatives from over 30 countries, including China, United States, Russia, Iran and Pakistan to discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is the permanent chair of the HoA, while India, which is its co-chair, has hosted the conference this year.

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Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja on Sunday said both India and Pakistan are responsible for turmoil in the Kashmir valley.

Raja also appeared to be in tune with former chief minister and Conference leader Omar Abdullah's assertion that Pakistan cannot be blamed for the unrest in Kashmir.

"I partially agree with Omar' statement as Pakistan cannot be absolved from the Kashmir crisis. And at the same time, there are also some lapses on our side," Raja told ANI.

Accusing the government of failing to safeguard Article 370 of the Constitution, the CPI leader further said the successive governments have failed to keep the promises made to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

"We should look at ourselves and analyze the lapses and mistakes on our part, but at the other end one cannot say that Pakistan has nothing to do with Kashmir clash," he said.

Earlier on Saturday, Omar lambasted the Centre for failing to take concrete measures to curb the unrest in Kashmir post the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani and said that it would be a "grave mistake" to always blame Pakistan and turn a blind eye to internal issues.

"Simply blaming Pakistan for the present situation, then it would mean that we don't have to do anything to prevent the unrest, which I think would be a grave mistake. We need to have talks internally, we need to solve this political crisis and until we are conscious of this reality, I don't think we can take any concrete action," he said.

The Conference leader, however, drew sharp flak from the ruling BJP, which stated that his statement was laced with double standards.

"He (Omar) is accusing himself, his father and grandfather, who have been at the helm of affairs for decades, which has led to this mess. So, we should also blame these wise worthies who left this mess. Present government is trying to clear the mess in the brief period of two years of power. He is trying to redeem what he and three generations of his party have done to Kashmir," Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has warned the incoming Donald Trump administration that Russia presented a real threat which only NATO could deter.

Speaking at a major defence forum in California that brought together senior members of the United States defence establishment, Fallon urged the Trump administration not to retreat into isolationism, reports the Guardian.

"First, it is important that America remains an outward-looking nation," he said.

He told the conference that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) countries are in a "strategic competition" with Russia.

"Dialogue with Russia is useful. But deterrence is essential. Our unity sends a powerful signal of collective strength to potential adversaries," he added.

"NATO is the world's most successful military alliance and it is as good for the US as it is for Europe. It was the alliance's collective commitment that invoked Article V after America was attacked on 9/11, said Fallon.

He, however, added: "I firmly agree with your president and your president-elect that many NATO nations still need to do more to pay their way. Nineteen NATO members spend less than 1.5 percent of GDP on defence. The US taxpayer can't be expected to shoulder a disproportionate burden."

Trump on the election campaign trail repeatedly spoke warmly about a need for increased dialogue with Russia while questioning the basic tenets of the NATO alliance in particular that an attack on one constitutes an attack on all.

Such comments created alarm among NATO members who fear Russia might seek to destabilise them.

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Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi has rejected former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah contention that Pakistan can't be blamed for the unrest in the Kashmir Valley, saying that state sponsored terrorism in the region has to be laid at Islamabad's doorstep.

"People from Pakistan who trespass the border, provoke the youth of Kashmir, who had faced atrocities in the past, are the same culprits who promote terrorism in the country," he said.

Azmi told ANI, "Pakistan is fully responsible for destroying peace in Kashmir, even though the government is unable to deliver justice to Muslims of Kashmir."

Azmi, who is the president of the Maharashtra unit of the Samajwadi Party, suggested that the Instrument of Accession agreement done at the time of independence should be followed properly by the Indian and Pakistan governments and Kashmiris should get their rights.

Azmi cautioned the regimes that there should not be any instance where wrong action takes place and the nation faces a negative reaction as a result.

He asserted that governments need to be soft on Kashmiris and then only it can help in solving the long standing issue.

Abdullah earlier in the day criticised the Centre for failing to take concrete measures to curb the unrest in Kashmir post the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani and said that it would be a "grave mistake" to always blame Pakistan and turning a blind eye to internal issues.

"Simply blaming Pakistan for the present situation, then, it would mean that we don't have to do anything to prevent the unrest, which I think would be a grave mistake. We need to have talks internally, we need to solve this political crisis and until we are conscious of this reality, I don't think we can take any concrete action," Omar told reporters here.

Omar's remarks came days after he reprimanded incumbent Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for the prolonged unrest in Kashmir and asked the latter to take responsibility for the same.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has said should stop delivering speeches on corruption and black money, and in instead offer solutions to end the inconvenience caused to the general public by demonetisation

"Enough of speeches have been made. Uttar Pradesh has made him the Member of Parliament. The Prime Minister should take responsibility and reveal how to end the adversities being faced by the people due to demonetisation. He should recreate a normal economy," Samajwadi Party leader Juhi Singh told ANI.

She said that he had asked for 30 days and does not have 50 days.

Earlier, In a veiled attack on opposition parties, especially the Congress, which has been vocal against his government for forcing people to stand in queues post the demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 currency notes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that earlier people were rotting away in queues because of the people who ruled for 60 years, but his decision has created a queue enough to end all other queues in the country.

"People had to stand in queues to buy sugar, to buy kerosene. They had to stand in queue to buy wheat. Thanks to those who ruled for 60 years, this country was rotting away in queues, but what I have done is that I have started a queue to end all queues," he said.

Addressing the people of Moradabad as his "high command", Prime Minister Modi said after his government scrapped old currency notes, the rich are queuing up outside poor people's house and asking for their help.

"The powerful, the honest are queuing outside banks, while the rich are secretly queuing up outside the houses of poor, requesting them to deposit their money in their Jan Dhan accounts. Whoever's money you have put in your accounts, don't withdraw a penny. See how they will make rounds of your houses and plead with you they may even fall at your feet, but don't withdraw money. Even if someone threatens you, say do not, or else I would write a letter to Modi," he said.

He said that his government is making the hoarders of black money accountable "who have been plundering the country over the years."

"I am surprised that in my own country a few people are accusing me, is it my fault that one is making people looting the country more accountable?, Shouldn't I fight corruption? Is fighting corruption a crime? Why are some people calling me a wrong doer for fighting corruption," he said.

"We don't have to only weed out black money, we not only have to force money out of the hands of the corrupt, but we have to make sure this problem does not come again," he added.

Pitching the development mantra in the poll bound Uttar Pradesh Prime Minister Modi said in order for states like UP, Bihar and Maharashtra to progress, poverty must be eradicated from the grass root level.

"If one has to eradicate poverty from the country, it is essential to develop big states like UP, Bihar, Maharashtra. I have not fought from Uttar Pradesh only to become a MP but wanted to initiate a fight against poverty from this huge state," he said.

He also thanked the people of Uttar Pradesh for voting his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the 2014 General Elections.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Thousands of Malaysians and Rohingya refugees gathered at Titiwangsa Stadium to protest against the alleged state-endorsed persecution of the Muslim minority group in Myanmar on Sunday.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak joined opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) president Abdul Hadi Awang at the rally, along with top leaders from both Malay Muslim-based parties, despite a warning from Myanmar that his presence would be seen as interference in its domestic affairs.

"They warned me, but I don't care, because I am here in my capacity as representative of the community and the people of Malaysia," The Straits Times quoted Najib as saying.

The Prime Minister while referring to the regional bloc's convention not to intervene in other members' internal issues, said, "ASEAN also protects basic human rights. Don't read the charter selectively."

Addressing the largely Muslim crowd, Najib said he will not keep his eyes closed and keep his mouth shut and added that they must defend Rohingyas, not just because they are of the same faith, but they are humans and their lives have value.

Najib also questioned Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi's credentials as a Nobel Peace laureate after she refused to meet him to discuss the alleged ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims.

Asserting that Rohingya issue is an insult to Islam, he said that their patience was being challenged.

The Prime Minister said he would ask Indonesian President Joko Widodo to also lead the world's largest Muslim country in protest against the treatment of the Rohingya.

Over 56,000 Rohingya and Myanmar refugees in Malaysia are registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The "Real Santa Claus" from Finland visited DLF Mall in Noida, where he met and greet people.

Overwhelmed by the love he received, Santa said, "I am so excited to visit India and meet Indian people of all ages. As an ambassador of goodwill and peace, I wish to spread the magic of love and happiness wherever I go. I hope to meet many people during my trip and hear their stories. It feels great to be out here with all these people and knowing that the spirit of Christmas is alive in everyone."

Santa's India visit became a reality with the help of The Embassy of Finland in New Delhi.

Pushpa Bector, executive vice president and Head, DLF Premium Malls, said, "It is one of the many first initiatives at DLF Mall of India, we wanted provide our customers an exceptional Christmas experience. We are happy to get The real Santa at Mall of India, it's a great way to bring in festive cheer and Yuletide spirits, we are glad that families got the opportunity to meet the special guest from Finland and enjoyed themselves thoroughly."

Christmas is that time of the year when everyone comes together to celebrate harmony, peace and unity with their friends, family and acquaintances. Everyone, all over the world join their loved ones to reignite the Christmas spirit by generously exchanging gifts and cherishing their relationships with each other. Every year, Santa, dressed in his signature red suit, with his unmistakable "Ho, Ho, Ho" gesture and sparkle in his eyes, leaves on a journey to another country to keep the spirit of Christmas alive.

'Real Santa Claus' India visit became a reality with the help of The Embassy of Finland.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Salman Khan's rumoured girlfriend Iulia Vantur has opened up regarding the bond she shares with him and said she is good friends with the 'Dabangg' Khan.

The Romanian beauty, who is back in the city, recently hit headlines for lending her voice to Himesh Reshammiya's latest music album 'Aap Se Mausiiquii'.

During the media interaction, Iulia could not avoid questions on Salman and their bond for long.

She said, "As I said, we are very good friends. More than that, what can I say?!"

Talking about the possibility of love seeping into this relationship she replied, "Every single story, I think you will make too much. There's a lot of respect there and because of him I could come to India and I love this place."

The 36-year-old Romanian TV presenter also talked about the 'false reports' of her discomfort with Indian culture as she has allegedly expressed during an interview with a magazine in Romania.

"Honestly when I left India I cried because I didn't want to leave this land. You see, life brought me here and so I am back and I am so grateful. There are a few reports that I am not comfortable with the Indian culture, but that is not correct," she said and added, "Let me clear that I love this place and all the people I have met here and I am grateful that Himesh gave me an opportunity, about which I never thought of earlier.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In order to give a boost to eco-tourism in Uttar Pradesh and to declare it a prominent bird watching destination, Chambal Safari in the Bah tehsil of Agra district is holding the world's largest bird festival. The festival began on December 2 and will end today.

It's for the second time that Bah has been selected as the host city for the bird festival. The festival not only concentrates on the discussion of state's extinct bird species, but also on their conservation. The festival also organised an exhibition with pictures of 350 birds.

About 40 experts from 26 countries and more than 100 Indian experts have been visiting not only the Chambal Safari, but also Sur Sarovar, Samaan, Patna Bird Sanctuary and Dudhva.

About 200 children from different schools of Agra, Etawah and Mainpuri are participating in the festival. The students will be encouraged to express their concern and views on the extinction of valuable species via an art show.

One of the visitors to the festival, Harsh, from Bharatpur said, "I feel elated after coming here. I will be taking part in all the activities that are going to be held. It also feels good to see children being encouraged to take part in the festival."

"The festival has been organised to encourage bird conservation and eco-tourism in a backward area of the state. We hope that something substantive will be produced out of this three-day festival, strengthening the idea of wildlife conservation and eco-tourism," said R.P. Singh, bird festival organiser.

Talking about the Chambal Safari, the organiser said, "It is one of the world's best birding areas and it holds same importance as Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary."

The festival also focuses on the importance of holding more such festivals in order to encourage bird conservation.

The organisers of the festival said that it is a commendable initiative taken by the state government and by looking at its success in 2015 and this year as well it will be celebrated every year in the same way.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United States Ambassador to India Richard Verma has expressed confidence in the U.S.-India relationship which he feels will gain much more significance under the incoming Trump administration.

Verma, who is on a six-day trip of Northeast India, arrived in Tripura capital Agartala on his maiden visit on Saturday.

Verma said he is very optimistic about the development and future of US-India relations.

"During the last few years, it has been wonderful as the U.S. President and the Indian Prime Minister wanted it (ties) to improve. It is important for peace, prosperity, and economic opportunity," he said.

His trip was focused on improving connectivity, economic connectivity, trade, investment, infrastructure, education and building connections between the people of India's northeastern states and the United States.

He said that the U.S. has arranged a two-day conference focusing on internal and regional connectivity at Kolkata to improve economic condition of people by providing opportunities of work.

Ambassador Verma during his visit went to the Sundari Temple, the Tripura State Museum and the Indo-Bangladesh border at the Akhaura integrated check post (ICP) to observe the beating retreat ceremony of the Indo-Bangladesh guards.

He also called on Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and met the business community to discuss ways to improve bilateral trade and connectivity through Tripura.

Representatives from all the northeastern states, the Union Government, U.S. consulate in India, Nepal and Bangladesh are likely to discuss ways to improve regional connectivity at a two-day conference on December 14 and 15 to be held at the U.S. Consulate in Kolkata.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has agreed with former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah view that Pakistan can't be blamed for the unrest in the Kashmir Valley, saying that people like him need to be listened to with bit more understanding.

"I think we need to listen to people like Omar Abdullah with little bit of understanding, setting aside some of the phrases which have been used by him. What is the essence of his statement; that we should not stop the conversation process in the valley and should continue engaging. And that was the mandate of the all party delegation," RJD leader Manoj Jha told ANI here.

Jha asserted that no major political party has ever deferred from the position of the security establishment and alleged that the Centre and the state government of blocking the dialogue process with the people of the Kashmir Valley.

"If you don't talk to the people in the valley, then how will you resolve this issue? Pakistan is a kind of menace we have been fighting and, I think, governments prior to the present regime have fought much more vehemently without making much noise," Jha said.

Abdullah on Saturday had criticised the Centre for failing to take concrete measures to curb the unrest in Kashmir post the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani and said that it would be a "grave mistake" to always blame Pakistan and turning a blind eye to internal issues.

"Simply blaming Pakistan for the present situation, then, it would mean that we don't have to do anything to prevent the unrest, which I think would be a grave mistake. We need to have talks internally, we need to solve this political crisis and until we are conscious of this reality, I don't think we can take any concrete action," Omar told reporters here.

Omar's remarks came days after he reprimanded incumbent Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for the prolonged unrest in Kashmir and asked the latter to take responsibility for the same.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India scored a major diplomatic victory over its rival neighbour after an international conference on Afghanistan here on Sunday named Pakistan-based terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, as grave threats to peace in the South Asian region.

The resolution, called Amritsar Declaration, adopted at the 6th ministerial ' conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in this Punjab city near India's border with Pakistan, said it was "concerned by the gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan, in particular, and the region".

The declaration said that among other terror groups propagating "high level of violence" were "the Taliban, Daesh (Islamic State) and its affiliates, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida ... Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan ... and other foreign terrorist fighters".

"Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region", the joint declaration demanded "an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism".

Citing the declaration, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who chaired the meeting in the absence of ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, said the document "strongly" called for "concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism".

Jaitly said terrorism was the "core" of deliberations and "at the centrestage" of the Afghan conference that was also attended by Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz.

The mention of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation is an Indian diplomatic victory over its western neighbour -- accused of using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy since decades.

Indian efforts to include names of the terrorist groups, the Lashkar and Jaish, in the Goa Declaration of the October Brics summit had failed after China allegedly scuttled the move.

New Delhi alleges that the Lashkar and Jaish have been enjoying financial and logistical support from the Pakistan government and its agencies and were being used as tools to disrupt peace in India. Pakistan denies this.

Jaitley said that for India the issue of connectivity for Afghanistan was also important. "The focus area for India is developing infrastructure in Afghanistan. Housing and skill development are also on our agenda."

The two-day ministerial conference, which concluded on Sunday, was attended by delegations from 14 participating countries, supporting countries and international organisations - 45 in all.
At a time when serpentine queues continue to grow outside ATMs across the country following the demonetisation move, a top executive of Intel Security has warned that ATMs in India are susceptible to security breaches.

Intel Security, with its McAfee product line, is the world's largest dedicated security technology company.

In banks, a breach can happen at multiple levels -- like at an ATM, data centre, network or through mobile banking. "The ATM today is an easy target for hackers to hit a network," Anand Ramamoorthy, Managing Director, Intel Security, South Asia, told IANS in an interview.

ATM attacks have affected several countries in the recent past. A hacker group called Cobalt targeted ATMs across Europe last month and remotely attacked the machines using malicious software that manipulated the systems which led the machines to automatically dispense huge amounts of cash.

Banks in India will have to make efforts to ensure that ATMs are protected with multiple levels of authentication and industry-standard encryption, ensuring data security at all points of a transaction.

According to experts, banks need to work towards gradually enabling EMV chip and PIN-enabled card acceptance and processing at ATMs to enhance the safety and security of transactions.

"It is time that magnetic-stripe cards issued by banks for ATM transactions are replaced at the earliest. While the affected banks are blocking debit cards to minimise the impact, the already ongoing replacement of mag-stripe cards with EMV chip cards will help the banks and consumers," Atul Singh, Regional Director-Banking and Transport (India Subcontinent) at the digital security giant Gemalto, told IANS earlier.

EMV -- which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa -- is a global standard for credit cards that uses computer chips to authenticate (and secure) chip-card transactions.

"We have seen a big focus on ATM attacks in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, including India. ATMs in underdeveloped countries are particularly vulnerable as those countries still have old ATM software and are running Windows XP. This makes them the perfect target for an easier score," US-based cyber security company FireEye said recently.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently urged people to "embrace e-banking, mobile banking and more such technology", but Ramamoorthy warned that as mobile banking becomes popular, it will involve greater risks.

"You have to become aware as you become more digitised," noted Ramamoorthy, adding that mobile has become more of a financial gateway and its implications are huge for the country.

Earlier this year, following a malware-related security breach, the State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and YES Bank blocked millions of debit cards that were compromised in one of the biggest data breaches in the financial sector.

"To protect ATMs from cyber attacks in the future, Intel Security has deployed an 'Embedded App' control which not only protects ATMs at the site but also the network which it is connected to," Ramamoorthy said, adding that the app is set for an update in 2017.

(Qadri Inzamam can be contacted at inzamam.a@ians.in)

--IANS

qd/na/sac/ky

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actor Dhanush confirmed on Sunday that his maiden Tamil directorial venture "Power Paandi" will release worldwide on April 14,next year, on the occasion of Dhanush's mother's birthday.

"'Power Paandi' will release on 14-4-2017. Happens to be my mother's birthday," Dhanush wrote on his Twitter page about the film, which features veteran star Raj Kiran in the title role.

Dhanush also shared a poster of the film with the release date.

The film, in which Dhanush plays a cameo, will revolve around the life of a few stuntmen.

Dhanush will be seen playing the younger version of Raj Kiran.

"Power Paandi", which is being bankrolled by Wunderbar Films, also stars Prasanna and Chaya, and has music by Sean Roldan.

Dhanush's brother Selvaraghavan guarantees that audiences will fall in love with the film.

"Saw almost the whole film. I can guarantee, you will fall in love with him, a power packed Raj Kiran sir," Selvaraghavan wrote on his Twitter page.

--IANS

hp/nn/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The first night of 'Van Heusen and GQ Fashion Nights 2016' was worth remembering at Taj Land's End here, as actors Sushant Singh Rajput and Prateik Babbar donned some master pieces by the who's who of fashion industry and dazzled the ramp with their high energy.

The show opened with an interesting collection titled "Kashmiriyat 1990" by the iconic fashion designer duo Shantanu and Nikhil which was inspired by the tribesmen of the valley. Staying true to their identity, the collection highlighted their sensibilities of layering and temporal details.

Interestingly the theme was presented with live performance of Kashmiri music that enhanced the beauty and idea of the collection. Moreover, when actor Sushant Singh Rajput walked the ramp for the designer duo as the showstopper, it amplified everything!

On the other hand, designer Abhishk Paatni brought a complete package, with interesting bold prints inspired by the ancient warrior clothing of Japan. The designer re-interpreted some Japanese classics like kimono, hakama into a modern avatar, which was quite relevant with time.

Talking about participating in the show the designer said: "It was a pleasure sharing the stage with some of the best names of the fashion industry. In addition, I think it is one of the best-curated menswear shows in the country. I am looking forward to coming back again."

Designer Sahil Aneja showcased his collection of hand painted leather jackets with some trendy and youthful detailing. To justify and convey the idea of such fashion, actor Prateik Babbar walked the ramp as shop stopper.

Talking about his collection Sahil said: "It is made for the modern Indian male who dares to step out of his comfort zone and has his own sense of style and love for fashion."

The closing show of day one was by a collaboration of Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna. They brought back the 70's fashion with a contemporary twist and subtly exaggerated details.

The duo said: "This time we showcased a very architectural and embellished contemporary collection that reflects the new modern gentlemen who are very fashion forward."

Many other fashion designers and people from business industry attended the show, along with Bollywood starts like Hritihk Roshan, Anushka Sharma and Yami Gautam.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government on Sunday revised upwards the amount of black money disclosed under Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) to Rs 67,382 crore, even as it did not take into account two high-value disclosures.

"After final reconciliation, the revised figure of actual declarations received and taken on record was Rs 67,382 crore which had been made by 71,726 declarants," the Finance Ministry said in a statement here on IDS 2016.

"On Oct 1, 2016, it was announced that declarations totalling Rs 65,250 crore were received from 64,275 declarants, subject to reconciliation," it said.

The Income Tax Department did not take into consideration the Rs 13,860 crore declaration made by Ahemdabad-based Maheshkumar Champaklal Shah, which was reported prominently, as well as another made from Mumbai.

"Among the declarations received, there were two sets of declarations of high value which were not taken on record in the above figure because they were found to be suspicious in nature being filed by persons of small means," the statement said.

It said a family of four headed by Abdul Razzaque Mohammed Sayed, resident of Bandra, Mumbai, made a total declaration of Rs 2 lakh crore which was rejected by the Department as three out of the four PAN numbers were originally in Ajmer which were migrated in September 2016 to Mumbai, the place of the declarations.

"After due enquiry it was found that these declarants were persons of suspicious nature and very small means, and the declarations could have been misused," the ministry said.

"Therefore, after due consideration, the Income Tax Department decided by November 30, to reject these two sets of declarations of Rs 2 lakh crore and Rs 13,860 crore respectively. The Department has commenced enquiries against these declarants to determine the intention behind these false declarations," it added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and is being treated by a team of specialists at Apollo Hospitals where she has been admitted since late September.

"The Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, Greams Road, Chennai, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening. She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts including cardiologists, pulmonologist and the critical care specialists," the hospital said in a statememt.

"She is on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and is being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists.

"Dr Richard Beale from London has also been consulted and he has concurred with the line of treatment by our cardiologists & pulmonologists," the hospital said in a series of tweets.

"The Hon'ble CM is the beloved leader of the masses. Please join us in praying for her speedy recovery. #GodblessAmma #Jayalalithaa," it tweeted later.

Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao, who has additional charge of the state, returned from Mumbai and visited the hospital to enquire about her condition.

While a sizeable police contingent was deployed at the hospital, reports said that security was being stepped up across the state.

State ministers, senior officials and others assembled at the hospital, even as a huge crowd of AIADMK cadre gathered, many of whom broke down while others fervently prayed for her well-being. Some allegedly tried to enter the premises but were stopped.

Leaders across the country extended their best wishes to the 68-year-old AIADMK supremo.

President Pranab Mukherjee wished Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," said a post on the President's official account.

DMK chief M. Karunanidhi and his son and party leader M.K. Stalin also also took to Twitter to convey their wishes for her speedy recovery.

"Wishing #jayalalithaa Hon CM of TN a speedy recovery, Let her be healthy soon," tweeted Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

"Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon," said Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on his official Twitter handle.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern over the health of her Tamil Nadu counterpart, and wished her a speedy recovery.

"Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her," tweeted Banerjee.

"Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health. Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!" posted Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, while his Rajasthan counterpart Vasundhara Raje tweeted: Prayers for the speedy recovery of Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji. May she get recover soon."

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad tweeted: "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Let's all pray for her."

Thousands of other Twitter users also prayed for her health.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital for treatment of fever and dehydration on September 22. The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection, and put her on respiratory support.

Recently Apollo Hospitals Chairman Pratap C. Reddy told media that Jayalalithaa is returning to normalcy and all her vital organs are functioning well.

She was shifted out of Intensive Care Unit as there were no health complications, he had said, adding that she could go home whenever she decides to do so.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and is being treated by a team of specialists at Apollo Hospitals, the hospital said.

"She is on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and is being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists," the hospital said in a tweet.

Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao, who has additional charge of the state, returned from Mumbai and was visited the hospital to enquire about her condition.

The evening saw hectic activity at Apollo Hospitals with state ministers, senior officials and others assembling there, even as a huge crowd of AIADMK cadre gathered, many of whom broke down on hearing about the news while others were fervently praying for her well-being.

Leaders across the country extended their best wishes to the 68-year-old AIADMK supremo, who has been in hospital since late Spetember.

President Pranab Mukherjee wished Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," said a post on the President's official account.

"Wishing #jayalalithaa Hon CM of TN a speedy recovery, Let her be healthy soon," tweeted Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern over the health of her Tamil Nadu counterpart, and wished her a speedy recovery.

"Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her," tweeted Banerjee.

"Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health. Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!" posted Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad tweeted: "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Let's all pray for her."

Thousands of other Twitter users also prayed for her health.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital for treatment of fever and dehydration on September 22. The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection, and put her on respiratory support.

According to Apollo Hospitals, a team of specialist doctors -- cardiologists, respiratory physicians, consultants for infectious diseases, diabetologist and endocrinologist -- treated her.

Recently Apollo Hospitals Chairman Pratap C. Reddy told media that Jayalalithaa is returning to normalcy and all her vital organs are functioning well.

She was shifted out of Intensive Care Unit as there were no health complications, he had said.

Reddy also said Jayalalithaa can go home whenever she decides to do so.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
DMK President M.Karunanidhi on Sunday wished Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

In a message on his Twitter account, Karunanidhi said he wishes Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

Similarly DMK Treasurer M.K.Stalin also tweeted his wishes for Jayalalithaa's fast recovery.

On Sunday evening Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest, said Apollo Hospitals where she is undergoing treatment since September 22.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Narendra Modi distributed food to devotees at the Golden Temple here on Saturday night thus becoming the first Prime Minister to serve the community kitchen, or langar, at the holiest of Sikh shrines in this Punjab city,

It was the Prime Minister's first visit to the shrine and he was accompanied by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani. The visit came on the sidelines of the 6th Heart Of Asia-Istanbul conference on Afghanistan.

"Modi is the first prime Minister who served the devotees in the Golden Temple," Gurbachan Singh, Chief Information Officer at the shrine, told IANS on Sunday.

Gurbachan Singh said though almost every Indian Prime Minister has visited the Harmandar Sahib, the sanctum sanctorum, to pay obeisance and offer prayers, none had so far participated in the distribution of food in the community kitchen.

On Saturday night, when Modi entered the dining hall, "he suddenly started serving the devotees", Gurbachan Singh said.

The shrine's main dining hall is the 24-hour community kitchen where an estimated 100,000 devotees are fed traditional meals on peak days.

The official remembered that almost all former Prime Ministers visited the temple. Indira Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, H.D. Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Manmohan Singh, to name a few, he recalled.

"In fact, Manmohan Singh visited the Golden Temple many times as Prime Minister," Gurbachan Singh said.

Official sources said Modi, donning a woollen cap, spent more than 40 minutes in the Golden Temple, which is spread over 15 acres.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) provided a volunteer force inside the shrine during Modi's visit while security officials in plain-clothes were accompanying the high-security VIP visitors.

Foreign leaders who have visited the shrine include then Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in November 2009. British monarch Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Phillip visited the Golden Temple in October 1997.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The streets of central Seoul were filled with protesters demanding the resignation of South Korea's President Park Geun-hye over a corruption scandal, media reports said.

On Saturday, thousands of people began a peaceful march on the Gwanghwamun avenue -- the main and largest gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace -- for the sixth consecutive day and raised signs and banners calling for the impeachment of Park, Efe news agency reported.

Protesters plan to end the march in the vicinity of the Presidential Blue House, where police have established a cordon within a radius of 100 m and the demonstrators will remain in the streets with candles until evening.

The three opposition parties filed an impeachment motion on Saturday, to be voted on by Parliament on December 9.

The vote requires support from at least 28 deputies from the ruling Saenuri party to be passed.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With reference to the Chinese Whispers item, Payday at Parliament House (December 2), it must have been unprecedented in the history of free India for members of Parliament to queue up at the State Bank of India (SBI) branch on Parliament premises to withdraw their salaries. The credit for this unsavoury development goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his decision of demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes on November 8.
After the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, Indian Railways (IR) came to the rescue of its employees by giving them Rs 10,000 in cash as salary advance. The IR did the job in its unique style. In an announcement reminiscent of railway platform announcements [Yatriyon kripya dhyan dijiye (Attention, passengers)...], a woman announced the relief to officials at the Railway Bhawan in Delhi: Railway karmchariyon, aap sabko ek mahine ki tankhva mein se Rs 10,000 advance cash mein milega....


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Neither caste, nor creed, nor money: Amid widespread inconvenience following demonetisation, agitation over caste and general disgruntlement, the Bharatiya Janata Party won big in municipal elections in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Business Standard analyses the victory:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Amritsar on Saturday evening and is scheduled to meet Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani for talks on bilateral issues before the Sunday inauguration of ministerial deliberations of a peace meet on Afghanistan, an official said.

Ghani also arrived in the holy city in Punjab later in the evening for participation in the international endeavour for peace and stability in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz also reached Amritsar on Saturday evening.

Modi and Ghani will on Sunday jointly inaugurate the ministerial deliberations at the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process conference, which will see participation of over eight foreign ministers and other dignitaries of 14 participating countries, a Ministry of External Affairs official told IANS.

Modi and Ghani will hold bilateral talks before the joint inauguration.

The Prime Minister was received on his arrival in the holy city by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, the Chief Minister's daughter-in-law and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur and Union Minister of State V.K. Singh.

Modi, Ghani and other world dignitaries attending the conference later paid obeisance at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple.

"This evening, I will have the honour of praying at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. It is always special to visit the Golden Temple," Modi said earlier in a tweet.

In a last minute change in schedule, Pakistan's Sartaj Aziz arrived in Amritsar on Saturday evening. An official in Islamabad earlier attributed the change in his travel schedule to "uncertain weather forecast for Sunday".

The Pakistan top diplomat was originally scheduled to arrive here on Sunday for the conference and was supposed to return home the same day.

Officials said any formal dialogue on the sidelines of the conference between India and Pakistan was unlikely.

The began in Amritsar on Saturday amid heightened tensions between Pakistan and India, triggering speculation on whether the two countries will engage in bilateral talks on the event's sidelines.

Aziz is leading the Pakistani delegation to the meeting that focuses on regional cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours to improve connectivity and tackle security threats in the war-torn country.

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates are part of the Heart of Asia initiative launched in 2011 for encouraging economic and security cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours for dealing with the common problems of terrorism, extremism and poverty.

Organisers of the summit, founded in Istanbul in November 2011, said the aim was to strengthen confidence-building measures and initiate steps to counter narcotics and terrorism and to expand trade, commerce and investment opportunities in Afghanistan.

India is hosting the Heart of Asia conference, sixth in the series, for the first time.

Modi and Ghani also attended the dinner hosted by Chief Minister Badal for visiting dignitaries at the state government's ambitious heritage village project 'Sadda Pind', or our village, on the outskirts of the holy city.

Afghanistan is the permanent chair for the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process, while the host country is the co-chair.

India says a basket of six confidence-building measures would be discussed during the conference.

With External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj indisposed, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will represent India at the ministerial conference.

(Vishal Gulati is covering Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process conference. He can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)

--IANS

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Two Indian and three Bangladeshi workers were killed while seven others injured today in a bus accident here.

The accident took place early this morning at Al Rabat road towards Al Garhoud after a company bus carrying 19 staff collided with a bus, the Khaleej Times reported.

Police rushed to the site of the accident and shifted four people, who sustained moderate to minor injuries.

"Dubai Police was informed about the accident around 5am (local time), after which the patrol and rescue teams rushed to the site. Four workers died on the spot while another seriously injured worker died in the hospital succumbing to his injuries," police said.

They did not provide the details of the victims.

Elaborating on the rescue operation, police said the rescuers lifted the workers, trapped in the bus at the back after the collision, used hydraulic cutters to make an opening in the bus, the report said.

According to some witnesses, the bus suddenly swerved and was hit by a truck.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four Palestinians have been found dead in a smuggling tunnel linking the Gaza Strip to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, local officials said today, accusing the Egyptian military of flooding it.

The four men aged 22 to 45 "were found dead after the tunnel they were working in was flooded nine days ago by the Egyptian army," local authorities in the Gazan city of Rafah near Egypt's border said in a statement.

Egypt had not confirmed the information, though it has destroyed hundreds of tunnels in the area, alleging they are used to transport arms and militants.

Gazans use such tunnels to smuggle goods into the Palestinian enclave run by Islamist movement Hamas and under an Israeli blockade for a decade.

The border between Egypt and Gaza has also remained largely closed since the 2013 overthrow of Egyptian Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

While the tunnels into Egypt have been used for smuggling, Gazan tunnels into Israel have been used for attacks, particularly in the 2014 war between the two sides.

Gazans allege Egypt has carried out work to flood the area along its border to destroy tunnels into the Sinai, where Egyptian security forces are also fighting Islamic State- linked jihadists.

In recent months, at least 20 Gazans have died in both militant and smuggling tunnels in the strip of some two million people. A number of militant tunnels have collapsed in recent months.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948. It represents the universal recognition that basic rights and fundamental freedoms are inherent to all human beings, inalienable and equally applicable to everyone, and that every one of us is born free and equal in dignity and rights.

The community is invited to come to the Eastdale Village Community Church, 1403 Tunnel Blvd, at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10, to celebrate International Human Rights Day 2016 ---- Stand Up For Someone's Rights Today.

These rights are internationally recognized and accepted norms and values which promote dignity, fairness, and opportunity for all people. It is a commitment to upholding dignity and justice for all - no matter the gender, nationality, race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status.

The 26 articles and its preamble frame the foundation and principle that all human beings have human rights that are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible. The UDHR defines how people should and should not act as they promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups. It states a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge. The declaration includes the right to decent housing, education, from gender, racial and other forms of discrimination, to have free thought and speech, to vote, to be free from violence, to have equal access to public service, and to have fair working conditions.

International Human Rights Day is celebrated every year on Dec. 10 to commemorate the adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. It is generally agreed to be the foundation of all human rights law.

Eleanor Roosevelt, the committee chair, noted that human rights is the world of the individual person the neighborhoods and communities where we live and we all have a role to play. She also said, Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

This year in Chattanooga officials said participants will come together to reflect on the UDHR, its meaning, the state of human rights in the city and join forces with other groups to commit to creating an even better future for Chattanooga and the state. It is a time to cultivate an environment of understanding, respect and equality of rights for the diverse cultural populations of Chattanooga. This is a time to encourage understanding and goodwill, promote justice, and work toward eliminating discriminatory practices, said officials. The theme in Chattanooga is Stand Up for Someones Rights Today.




A nine-month-old girl was killed and four others were injured when a private bus rammed into a vehicle in southwest Delhi's Dwarka area, police said today.

The accident took place at Dwarka Sector 10 late last night when the private bus rammed into the car carrying five members of a family including nine-month-old Jahanvi, police said.

"The family was returning from a wedding reception when a speeding bus hit their car. The accused driver has been identified and he will be arrested soon," a police officer said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) has demanded that criminal action be initiated against around 8,000 loan defaulters including beleaguered businessman Vijay Mallya.

"There should be criminal actionagainst 8,000 odd loan defaulters including liquor baron Vijay Mallya for failure to repay the loan amounts...Pegged at Rs 80,000 crore," AIBEA general secretary C V Venkatchalam told reporters here today.

He was in the coastal state to attendthe 18th conference of Goa Bank Employees Association (GBEA), a union affiliated to AIBEA.

"Black money cannot be weed out through demonetisation. For that you require stringent anti-corruption, anti-bribery and amendments to the existing recovery laws," he said.

Venkatchalam questioned why is government not disclosing the names of these black money holders and loan defaulters?



"Why no criminal action is initiated? Why just civil case against Mallya?" he sought to know.

The Association has resolved that the Centre should announce the names of loan defaulters.

The banking union has also decided to call for nationwide protest against demonetisation, if the Centre fails to make available the adequate currency in the banks and recalibrate the existing ATM machines.

"The demonetisation move has led to financial chaos. Government has failed completely in its move. Common man is suffering and bankers are feeling the heat. People have money but are not in position to withdraw. Chaotic situation is prevailing at the bank branches and this is unbearable for customers as well as bank employees and officers," he said.

Venkatchalam also claimed that as against the total requirement of the currency at national level, only 28 per cent has come to bank since November 8.

He stated that in a letter written to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, they have demanded that RBI should take immediate steps to supply adequate cash to all banks and daily announce the details of the notes it supplies.

"Failing which, we would be forced to hold massive agitations," he said.

Talking about the move to go cashless, Venkatchalam said the country cannot be cashless overnight considering that 90 per cent of its economic transactions are cash based.

"India is not developed to that level that we should go for cashless system. The move is basically to help the corporate sector and other business people involved in technological advances," he said.

Moving another resolution, the Association has raised strong objection to government attempt to privatise the public sector banks and further amalgamation of banks for global competition.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Despite being plagued by recurring technical glitches, the national carrier will complete acquisition of the 27 Dreamliners from Boeing before April, and will take delivery of the 23rd B-787 early January.



"We will be taking delivery of the 23rd Boeing 787 Dreamliner on January 9 and hope to have the last batch of four more Dreamliners by the end of this fiscal year. That will have us completing the process that started more than a decade ago in 2006," finance director Vinod Hejmadi told PTI. Hejmadi was in the city to deliver the keynote address at the 112th birthday celebrations of the airline founder JRD Tata over the weekend. He founded the airline as Tata Airlines on October 15, 1932 which was taken over the government later. In 2016, the American aviation giant delivered two Dreamliners to against the plan of three. It was supposed to deliver the 23rd plane in November/December. The national carrier had in January 2006 ordered as many as 68 Boeing aircraft, making one of the launch customers for what Boeing claimed as a game-changing plane.



The mega order included 27 Dreamliners or B787s and 41 B-777s and B-737-800s for a whopping Rs 64,000 crore. But the 2008 global financial crisis and the resultant recession worldwide delayed the delivery inordinately and the first batch of b787s reached the airline only in 2015. While the long delivery delays sank the airline into a cesspool of debt and poor revenues due to the lingering crisis in the global aviation market, what was more worrisome for it was the recurring technical glitches that had for months grounded the entire fleet which was sold by Boeing originally as a game-changer aircraft with high fuel efficiency and larger space.



At present Air India has 22 B-787s which are deployed in long-haul routes. In October, the airline set a world record by flying the Dreamliner over the Pacific for the first time (normally the airline has been crossing the Atlantic) at a record 14.5 hours between New Delhi and San Francisco.



The airline has applied to take into the Guinness Records, Hejmadi said, adding began as a tri-weekly flight using the Dreamliner, the airline is flying six days a week now to near full capacity.



He said, with the delivery of the remaining B787s, the national carrier will double the frequency of the Sydney flight to 6-days a week, apart from flying to Washington and from summer and also to Denmark, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv.



On December 1, it launched a direct flight to Madrid, which may also be doubled to six days a week, Hejmadi said.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued notice to two public sector oil asking them whether they use any diesel vehicle which is more than 10-years-old, while allowing registration of new BS-IV compliant ones for transporting petrol or petroleum products.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar sought the response from Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and asked for their reply by January 9.

The direction came while hearing a batch of petitions filed by various contractors seeking registration of new BS-IV compliant diesel vehicles purchased for transport of petrol from company depots to identified petrol pumps in Delhi-NCR.

The contractors had moved NGT after the tribunal had last year passed an order banning the registration of new diesel vehicles as well as re-registration after 10 years.

Later, the Supreme Court had also banned registration of diesel-run SUVs and cars having engine capacity beyond 2000cc in Delhi and National Capital Region.

Due to this, the transport department was not registering the newly procured vehicles, which conform to BS-IV norms and not re-registering the old vehicles, the plea had said.

The green panel had last week directed the applicants to file an affidavit stating that they do not own any diesel vehicle which is more than 10-years old and the new vehicles will not be used for "private purposes".

"All these vehicles will be fitted with GPS system and log book shall be maintained. It will be certified that these vehicles are BS-IV compliant before the registering authority.

"Upon being satisfied of the above, registering authority of transport department shall be permitted to register these vehicles in accordance with the law," the bench said.
Raising question over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's idea of a "cashless society", Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today said that the Centre has not taken any initiative to apprise the rural population of the concept.

"You (Modi) should tell what preparations were made for digital India? Who will teach cashless transaction? How will it reach villages? Youth might be able to do it but what about others?," Akhilesh said during an event here.

"We have given laptops in villages. Over one crore registration has been done so far for our smartphone scheme. You (PM) should tell what have you done? You should know that the government which gives pain to people does not survive," he said.

Comparing the performance of his government with that of the Centre, Akhilesh said, " They should compete with the UP government on development as tremendous work has been done in the state in the past four years."



Attacking the BJP government at the Centre, he said, "Yatras of BJP have failed due to demonetisation. The people had to line up in queue due to which it failed.

Quizzed as to why he removed Mulayam from party president



post despite assurances that he will have final say in ticket distribution, Akhilesh said, "If I had got support of only 10 MLAs, I could have lost all respect."



To a question on who was behind the family feud, the 43-year-old SP boss said, "(senior SP leader) Azam Khan sahab has clearly identified who created the rift in Samajwadi Party."



"This is not my party, this party is of an ideology. People who were conspiring against me, had gotten me out of the party. Now it is the responsibility of our generation to take this movement forward," he said.

Asked about BJP making "deteriorating law and order situation" in the state an election issue, he said, "People who are questioning law and order should tell how many sections (of the penal code) were slapped against them. Look at their national president and their state president. There were so many sections slapped against them."



On joining hands with the Congress, he said, "If this friendship works, '27 saal UP Behaal' will become '27 saal UP Khushaal'."



"This friendship will last long," Akhilesh said.

The chief minister, however, refused to acknowledge that SP has revived Congress.

"This can only be said after the results," he said, adding that even he wanted SP to go it alone but was forced into an alliance due to the prevailing conditions.

"I initially wanted we (SP) should go alone, everything was ready but there were people who wanted to stop us. This was an initiative taken by both the Samajwadi Party and the Congress," he said of the new alliance.

Lashing out at BJP for trying to gain political mileage over surgical strikes, he said, "This was not the first surgical strike, people from Army should tell us that it happened in the past as well.
Britain has so many all-Muslim enclaves that in some areas, people believe England is an Islamic country as they seldom leave their areas and have almost no idea of life outside, according to new report to be published later this week.

Dame Louise Casey has prepared the report as part of the UK government's review into community cohesion and integration in some of the UK's most isolated communities.

Her review team has found that in some areas Muslims are completely cut off from the rest of Britain with their own housing estates, schools and television channels.

People from all-Muslim enclaves in northern England cities such as Bradford, Dewsbury and Blackburn seldom leave their areas and have almost no idea of life outside, The Sunday Times reported.

A source who has read the report told the newspaper: "Certain Muslims, because they are in these communities and go to Muslim schools, think Britain is a Muslim country. They think 75 per cent of the country is Muslim."



The actual figure, according to the 2011 census, is 4.8 per cent of the population in England and Wales. Christians account for 59.3 per cent.

The report will criticise the UK Home Office, which current British Prime Minister Theresa May used to head as home secretary previously, and other departments for not doing enough to manage the pace and consequences of mass immigration.

It will also attack the police and other state bodies for pandering to false notions of what they think ethnic communities want - such as a police chief who said female officers could be allowed to wear the full veil.

The report comes as Sir Michael Wilshaw, the outgoing chief inspector of schools at Ofsted, warned that about 500 schools in England are either 100 per cent white or 100 per cent ethnic minority - and pupils in them are at risk of alienation and radicalisation.

Wilshaw told the newspaper that parallel communities were developing in Britain and children growing up in monocultural schools in these communities were in danger of being cut off from British values and vulnerable to either far-right or Islamist causes.

"We have to make sure these schools are good schools so youngsters in them feel they are part of British society and they have to respect other people's faiths and cultures," Wilshaw said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz today met Assistant Chinese Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou on sidelines of the Heart of Asia Conference here.

The two leaders deliberated on number of bilateral and regional issues.

Kong and Aziz are here to attend the 6th annual conference of Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process, a platform created to help Afghanistan in its transition.

The two leaders are understood to have discussed the current situation in Afghanistan as well as steps required to be taken to bring peace to the war-ravaged country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan today claimed that its Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz was not allowed to visit the Golden Temple and speak to Pakistani media persons at the hotel where he was staying, even as India said it was done due to security considerations.

Sources in the Pakistani High Commission said Aziz had planned to visit the Golden Temple but was not allowed citing security concerns.

Aziz, who arrived here last evening, wanted to interact with Pakistani mediapersons who accompanied him at the Radisson Blue hotel, the venue of the Heart of Asia conference, but was not given permission by security personnel, the sources said.

Indian government sources said the permission was not given considering his security.

"Security was very tight. Permission was not given due to security reasons. Security of our guests is paramount. India ensured no untoward incident took place," they said.

"Visits to the Golden Temple by VVIPs and VIPs attending the Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference in Amritsar today were initially envisaged for Sunday. However, in addition to being a Sunday, today on 4 Dec Guru Teg Bahadur's Martyrdom Day was also observed," sources said.

Apart from difficulties in ensuring security of VVIPs and VIPs, their visit to Golden Temple today would have caused inconvenience to a large number of devotees, they said.

"Hence two rounds of visits to Golden Temple by VVIPs and VIPs were organised yesterday. Pakistan delegation's request for visit to Golden Temple today was carefully looked into. Given the aforementioned factors, and it was not found feasible to organise adequate security for the delegation at a short notice," the sources added.

There was also a tiff between Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit and security personnel at the hotel after they denied Pakistani journalists entry to the venue.

After security personnel denied permission for Aziz's interaction with the Pakistani media at the conference venue, the Pakistani High Commission planned the interaction at another hotel but that too was not allowed, the Pakistani High Commission sources said.

Later, Basit spoke to the Pakistani media. Aziz left for Pakistan by a special aircraft around 8 PM.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had visited the Golden Temple yesterday, while Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visited it today.

Apparently, the parents of Hamid Ansari, who is at present lodged in a jail in Pakistan, were waiting for a meeting with Aziz at the Golden Temple.

Mumbai-based Fauzia Ansari and her husband Nihal had come here, hoping to request Aziz to release their son from prison, who has already completed his jail term.

Hamid, an IT engineer and MBA degree holder, had gone to Kabul on November 4, 2012 from where he reached Pakistan allegedly to meet a Pakistani girl he had been in touch with through e-mails.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Maharashtra Food and Drugs, Public Distribution Minister Girish Bapat would not be attending the the winter session of Maharashtra Assembly which starts tomorrow because of the upcoming municipal council elections in Pune district.

Bapat, a BJP veteran BJP, hails from Pune and is also the guardian minister of the district.

"Some ten municipal councils would go to polls on December 14. Being in charge of elections (for BJP), Bapat has decided to concentrate on elections," an official of the general administration department told PTI.

The municipal councils which would go to polls include Baramati, hometown and bastion of NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

In the recent years, some local opponents of Pawar, especially those who could not get along with his nephew and former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, have joined BJP.

A government resolution issued today handed over the charge of Bapat's ministries to Education Minister Vinod Tawde for the duration of the session.

Bapat did not have the charge of his ministries during the last winter session too as he had undergone a heart surgery.

When asked why he was giving priority to the local elections, Bapat said he had excellent relations with leaders across the parties and so he can manage.

"I have handed over the charge to (another) cabinet minister, hence there will be no issue with daily functioning of the session. BJP is set to make major inroads in these elections," he said.

"Earlier, we had to search for candidates in Pune district but now in every council we have candidates while in couple of cases we have supported the local ones. We are cornering Pawars in Baramati in a big way," Bapat claimed.

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Actor Benedict Cumberbatch saluted his "Sherlock" producer Beryl Vertue at the Women In Film and TV Awards.

The actor took the stage at the Park Lane Hilton Hotel to celebrate one of the people behind the popular detective series, calling her "a brilliant woman".

Vertue, who was also a producer of hit comedies "Up Pompeii", "Steptoe and Son", and "Men Behaving Badly", was handed a lifetime achievement prize at the gala, reported Contactmusic.

"We have known each other a long time and not only have I had the pleasure of working with her, but I'm very lucky to know her and call such a brilliant woman my friend," Cumberbatch said as he presented her with the accolade.

Other winners at the prizegiving included Sarah Gavron (Director Award) and actress Sarah Lancashire (Best Performance Award).

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"Utopia" written by Thomas More (file photo)

The island called Utopia created 500 years ago and the futuristic outer space, which seem far away from each other, came together at a conference on Saturday in Beijing.

The International Conference of Utopian and Science Fiction Studies, which runs on Saturday and Sunday, is held to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the publication of "Utopia."

In 1516, English philosopher and writer Thomas More published his famous book "Utopia," depicting an almost perfect fictional island society, and the term has been widely used and discussed since then.

Among various anniversary activities around the world this year, the conference in Beijing commemorates the well-known novel in a special way by discussing it together with sci-fi works, with the participation of experts and scholars from China, the United States and Japan.

While Utopia is always regarded as a political and philosophic concept, and science fiction normally focuses on technologies, Kim Stanley Robinson, an American sci-fi author famous for his "Mars trilogy," said at the conference that the two are connected naturally.

According to Robinson, Utopia was initially set on an isolated island, and such a background could not be used anymore after the world was completely explored, so the background had to be switched to the future.

"Utopia becomes a kind of sci-fi -- or you could say it always was," said Robinson.

Guo Changbao, dean of the School of Chinese Language and Literature of Beijing Normal University (BNU), said the vast space inspired by Utopia would bring meaningful perspectives for China's science fiction and its studies.

"We believe it is necessary to let the two fields of Utopia and sci-fi studies communicate and learn from each other," said Guo.

While decades ago science fiction was regarded as children's and juveniles' books by many in China, more academic studies on it began to appear in recent years, as Chinese science fiction has experienced a flourishing development.

"It is a trend that sci-fi is getting more serious in China," said Wu Yan, director of the Science Fiction Creativity Research Center of BNU and also a sci-fi expert.

During the conference, the last session on Sunday will be discussing "The Three-body Problem" written by Chinese author Liu Cixin. The first part of the trilogy won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the trilogy has become a hit in both China and overseas.

Established in 1953, the Hugo Awards acknowledge the best works of science fiction or fantasy and are seen as the top prizes in the genre along with the Nebula Awards.

After Liu became the first Asian to win the Hugo Award, this year, Hao Jingfang, another Chinese writer, won the award by her sci-fi "Folding Beijing," further raising the public's attention on science fiction in China.

Robinson said the rapid development of Chinese science fiction is due to the realistic scientific, economic and cultural development that has taken place in China and "because Chinese people feel like their nation is part of world history and is making the future."

"We are embracing the spring of Chinese sci-fi," Wu said, adding that Chinese sci-fi had both its audiences and authors growing evidently over the last five years, making it no more an indie genre enjoyed only by a few people.

Acting together with China Science Writers' Association as leading sponsors of the conference, the School of Chinese Language and Literature of BNU has been playing a leading role in China's sci-fi development.

It has set up doctoral degrees for sci-fi studies and been providing courses on sci-fi writing, and is planning for more writing courses for interested students.

"Now as a principle and study field, sci-fi is not well developed yet in China, but the space for development is huge," said Guo. "We hope to have more outstanding Chinese sci-fi writers appearing in the future."
A British government backed terrorism insurance company today warned businesses of chemical drone attacks by the Islamic State terrorists returning from the Middle East warzones.

Pool Re warns said ISIS fighters returning to Britain from warzones in Syria and Iraq will seek to carry out a mass- casualty chemical or radiological "dirty bomb" attack, possibly using a drone.

"Daesh (ISIS) has developed a significant chemical weapons capability in Syria and Iraq," the report quoted in The Sunday Times said.

"Reports also indicate that the group has been conducting research into radiological dispersion devices (RDDs or 'dirty bombs') in Mosul, Iraq. As more fighters return home, there is a growing risk of a technology transfer from current attack methods in the Middle East to future attack methods in the UK," the report said.

The assessment was compiled by a team headed by Brigadier Ed Butler, a former head of the UK's Special Air Service (SAS) who previously led British forces in Helmand, Afghanistan.

The company, set up with Treasury support in 1993 following the IRA bombing of the City's Baltic Exchange the previous year, is also working on a report assessing the risk and insurance costs of a drone-based terrorist attack on the UK.

The report warns that ISIS is "investing significant resources into enhancing this (chemical attack) capability".

"The psychological impact of these weapons systems have the potential to cause widespread panic and significant economic impact," it says.

Experts said the components needed for a chemical attack or dirty bomb have a dual commercial use and are therefore widely available.

They also fear such materials could be smuggled into smaller ports on the UK coast where security is less stringent.

On Friday, Europol, the EU-wide police agency, warned that ISIS would step up overseas attacks as it came under pressure in its self-declared "caliphate".

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A British Sikh family has written to UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson calling for a new investigation into the death of a woman who they claim was the victim of an honour killing in India.

The woman, who cannot be named due to legal reasons, was a mother of four who died in "highly suspicious circumstances" in March 2015 after allegedly refusing to allow one of her sons to be adopted by her childless brother-in-law, who was said to be desperate for a male heir to secure "ancestral wealth", 'The Sunday Times' reported.

In the letter to Johnson this week, representatives of the mother's family say she was "tricked" into going on a family trip to India, where she died after a heated argument with her husband about giving up their youngest son.

The family said they were told she had died of a "sudden heart attack", but found bruises on her body.

She was cremated without their knowledge before they could fly her back to Britain.

The relatives claim they have been "shunted from pillar to post" by the UK Foreign Office and Metropolitan police and have a meeting in the Parliament complex in London next week where they will call for a fresh investigation into the death.

The husband, a Hindu builder who lives with his family in north London, could not be contacted for a comment.

Scotland Yard said it was "aware of the tragic death" but was "unable to comment publicly".

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CBI and Enforcement Directorate have registered cases in connection with the Income Tax Department's seizure of over Rs 5.86 crore from four individuals, out of which Rs 5.63 crore were in new currency notes introduced post-demonetisation.

CBI sources said it is alleged in the FIR that bank managers of Karnataka Bank and Dhanlaxmi Bank, Suryanarayana Bairy and Umashankar Renuka, respectively, entered into a criminal conspiracy with four individuals, which included two state government officials, to "dishonestly and fraudulently" facilitated exchange of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, which ceased to be legal tender after November 8, with new notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500.

They said the managers had allegedly entered into the criminal conspiracy with Secure Value India Limited, Ibrahim Shereef, Jaychandra, Nazeer Ahmed and Chandrakanth Ramalingam to facilitate exchange of notes.

The agency has registered a case of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery among others and slapped provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Bairy, Renuka, Secure Value India, Shereef, Jaychandra, Ahmed and Ramalingma besides unknown others.

The sources also said the Enforcement Directorate has registered a separate case under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act on the basis of the CBI FIR to probe the flow of proceeds of crime.

In the biggest-ever seizure of cash in new currency on December 1, the Income Tax department had unearthed over Rs 5 crore even as it detected unaccounted income worth Rs 152 crore after it conducted searches in a dozen premises in Bengaluru and other locations.

The Income Tax department carried out searches and recovered Rs 5.17 crore from Shereef which included Rs 4.80 crore of new notes, Rs 25 lakh from Jaychandra with Rs five lakh in new currency, Rs 44 lakh from Ahmed with Rs 32.70 lakh in new notes and Rs 46 lakh of new currency from Ramalingam which were allegedly diverted by Bairy and Renuka on the basis of forged documents, the FIR alleged.

It is alleged that the bank managers diverted the new currency notes through agents by falsifying bank accounts on the basis of forged and fabricated documents of identity and address proofs in the name of several individuals to camouflage these exchanges as genuine transactions.

CBI has alleged in the FIR that that Renuka handed over Rs 1.30 crore to Secure Value India Limited between November 8 and November 29 which were meant to be deposited in 32 ATMs in Bengaluru, but the company wilfully diverted it to Sherif, Jaychandra,, Ahmed and Ramalingam, besides others.

It is alleged that Secure Value India used a network of agents and middlemen to help individuals convert their currency notes of individuals on a massive scale.

The FIR alleged that bank managers showed that the currency notes have been genuinely exchanged by people through ATMs and bank counters.

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Four years after registering a preliminary enquiry, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a fresh case in coal scam against Prakash Industries alleging cheating in the allocation of Chotia coal block during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's tenure in 2003.

Based on a complaint by former Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit and others in 2012, the Central Vigilance Commission had directed to register the case but it remained a preliminary enquiry till now.

In its FIR, has alleged its probe brought out facts against Prakash Industries which are offences punishable for criminal conspiracy and cheating under Indian Penal Code.

The FIR registered on Friday says Coal Ministry had issued allocation letter to Prakash Industries on September 4, 2003 for the allocation of Chotia Coal Block for expansion of its sponge iron plant in Champa, Madhya Pradesh (now in Chhattisgarh) with certain conditions.

The company did not respond to a query sent on email seeking reaction on the development.

The agency alleged the company made "false claims" about production figures of its sponge iron plant in several of its communications to the Coal Ministry while applying for the block. The company had first applied in 1993.

Later, on November 26, 2011 and January 22, 2012 it informed Coal Ministry that it was producing 4.25 lakh tonnes of sponge iron per annum, the FIR alleged.

However, in a letter on January 22, 2003, the company claimed it had acquired highest capacity in 2001-02 with 2.74 lakh tonne as compared to 1995-96 when the production was 1.59 lakh tonne.

It said the plant is expected to achieve figures of 2.9 lakh tonne in 2002-03, hence captive coal block be allotted to it, thus proving that claims made by it in 2001 and 2002 to be false, the FIR alleged.



The FIR also alleged that during 19th Screening Committee meeting held on May 26, 2003 the company claimed that existing sponge iron plant has a linkage from Coal India Limited and it seeks to add another 4 LTPA capacity after which the panel decided to allocate the block "exclusively for 4 LTPA capacity additions" in the plant.

"The block was allegedly allocated to the company to meet 1 MTPA (metric tonnes per annum) coal exclusively for expansion of existing sponge iron plant for addition of 4 LTPA (lakh tonne per annum) plant at Champa, Chhattisgarh," CBI said.

It was further mentioned that the coal mined from this block shall exclusively be used by the company to meet the requirement for 0.4 MT of expansion of the existing sponge iron plant.

"Enquiry further revealed that as per Coal Controller Organisation (CCO) reports dated October 8, 2009 and May 20, 2011, the production of sponge iron in the years 2006-07 to 2009-10 ranged between 2.05 LT (2006-07) to 3.35 LT (2009-10), respectively making it clear that the company even later did not attain capacity of even 4 LTPA," the FIR alleged.

It alleged that the facts prima facie disclosed that the company conspired with unknown persons and misrepresented before Ministry of Coal/Screening Committee with regard to existing capacity with a view to secure Chotia coal block.

The CBI had earlier lodged an FIR against Prakash Industries Ltd and various others in connection with alleged irregularities in allocation of Chhattisgarh's Fatehpur coal block but it was closed following lack of prosecutable evidence against it.

According to CBI, the Fatehpur coal block was allocated jointly to Prakash Industries Ltd and one other company by the 35th screening committee.
Actors Chris Evans, Jessica Chastain have lashed out at a recently resurfaced interview in which "Last Tango in Paris" director Bernardo Bertolucci admitted the rape scene in the movie was filmed without the consent of its lead actress Maria Schneider.

In a recently viral video interview from 2013, Bertolucci confirms that Schneider, who died in 2011, did not know about the rape scene which she shot with Marlon Brando, and that the graphic nature of the scene in the erotic drama was improvised on set, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"I'd been in a way horrible to Maria because I didn't tell her what was going on. Because I wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress," Bertulocci said in the clip.

Celebrities voiced their outrage of the resurfaced on Twitter.

Chastain said of the revelations, "To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick."



While, Evans tweeted that Bertolucci and Brando "should be in jail."



"Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage," he tweeted.

Actress Anna Kendrick acknowledged that Schneider's lack of knowledge of the scene prior to the shooting day was nothing new.

"Ms Schneider stated this several years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes)," she tweeted.

Actress Rachel Wood also reacted with disgust on the micro-blogging site.

"This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The two of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok," she tweeted.

"Last Tango in Paris" was critically lauded but surrounded in public controversy. The film's director was put on trial for obscenity in Italy after the release of the film.

Copies of the film were destroyed at the time and Bertolucci was served with a four-month suspended sentence in prison and denied his civil (including voting) rights for five years.

"Last Tango in Paris" earned Brando a best actor Oscar nomination and Bertolucci a best director nomination.

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Nations taking part in the Heart of Asia summit today acknowledged the "significant" step taken by India, Iran and Afghanistan by signing the trilateral Chabahar transport pact, saying the corridor will provide "dependable" access for Central Asia to global markets.

The nations also agreed to collaborate closely in removing non-tariff barriers to trade, establishing and implementing bilateral and multilateral regional transit-trade framework agreements while underlining the "urgent" need to integrate expansion of existing bilateral trade and transit through the land route.

Countries including India in the Amritsar Declaration also welcomed the pact on jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road between China and Afghanistan.

"We recognise the crucial significance of enhanced and assured sea-land access for Afghanistan to region's biggest markets. In this context, we note the significant step taken by Afghanistan, Iran and India by signing their trilateral transport and transit agreement based on sea access through Chabahar," the Declaration said.

"Once implemented, this corridor will provide additional and dependable access for Afghanistan and Central Asia to regional and global markets. We also welcome the progress made on the Lapis Lazuli corridor and believe that this will further increase the connectivity of Afghanistan," it said.

Noting Afghanistan's crucial role as a natural land bridge in promoting regional connectivity and economic integration in the Heart of Asia region, the nations also extended their support for Afghanistan's efforts to use its geographic location to enhance wider regional economic cooperation.

"We further stress that economic development will contribute to achieving lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan and the region, and enhance regional economic integration," the Declaration said.

The nations also welcomed the implementation of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline (TAPI) and completion of the first stage of the Asian International Railway Corridor between Imamnazar, Turkmenistan, and Aqina, Afghanistan.

"Further, we encourage the early implementation of the multinational energy and connectivity projects of CASA-1000, TUTAP, Chabahar Agreement, the Five Nation Railway, TAT linking Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan by rail, all of which would play a central role in strengthening regional cooperation between Central Asia and South Asia and further forge economic connectivity and growth in the region," the Declaration said.

Stressing the need to maximise the speed of movement of goods across the region, the countries also agreed to collaborate "more closely" in removing the non-tariff barriers to trade, establishing and implementing bilateral and multilateral regional transit-trade framework agreements.

"In this regard, we stress on the urgent need to integrate, through the land route, South Asia and Central Asia through the expansion of existing bilateral trade and transit agreement both northwards and southwards," the Declaration said.

The nations also recognised the importance of the role of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the economic growth of individual countries and the region as a whole.

"We commit to undertake measures to strengthen the growth of SMEs, including women entrepreneurship, and enable their expansion across borders into other countries of the region.

"To realise these objectives, we task the members of the Trade, Commerce and Investment Opportunities (CBM) to explore measures, such as simplifying customs procedures, exchanging information on regional markets and addressing tariff and non-tariff barriers, and submit a report to the Senior Officials Meetings, so as to take these ideas forward for implementation," they said in the declaration.
Chaos erupted in eastern Mosul today when hundreds of civilians overwhelmed aid trucks distributing food and water.

The Iraqi government sent truckloads of food, heating oil and drinking water to residents in areas retaken from the Islamic State group in and around Mosul after aid groups warned of shortages in Iraq's second largest city, which has been the target of a major offensive since October.

"There is no justice," said Abu Ahmed, who asked that his full name not be used out of security concerns. "Some people took so many bags of food and others got nothing."



While the trucks bore banners identifying them as distributing aid on behalf of the local government, there were no government or security officials present during the melee that ensued on the eastern edge of the city.

Men, women and children fought over bags of flour and baskets of apples.

"We are desperate, this is the first time I've seen aid trucks," Abu Ahmed said. He said the food and water residents had stockpiled before the start of the operation had run out.

Diaa Sallal, a senior Iraqi relief official, told The Associated Press that the supplies were being delivered to the towns of Bartella and Qayara, near Mosul, as well as two outlying Mosul neighborhoods.

Sallal, reached by telephone in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, gave no further details.

Iraq's government called on civilians to remain in their homes during the operation to retake Mosul, fearing a mass exodus from the city, which is still home to hundreds of thousands of people.

But as the battle has ground on, with Iraqi forces making slow progress in street by street battles, supplies of food and water have dwindled.

Heavy clashes flared in eastern Mosul today, with both sides exchanging heavy gunfire from rooftops in the Shaimaa neighborhood. IS militants shelled the district with a heavy barrage of mortar rounds, according to AP reporters at the scene.

Scores of families braved the fighting to flee IS-held districts for the relative safety of neighborhoods retaken by government troops or camps for the displaced outside the city.

Deeper inside Mosul, another aid distribution in the Bakr neighborhood was more organized. Hundreds of men and women lined up along a residential street as Iraqi special forces handed out boxes of aid.

But with the front line just over a hundred meters away, only a small number of aid trucks could reach the neighborhood.

Soldiers screened the civilians as gunfire echoed nearby.

Ambulances and armored vehicles carrying wounded soldiers came screaming past after an IS suicide car bomb struck a nearby army position.

Elsewhere in Iraq, security forces in the northern Kurdish region shot and killed two of four people who resisted arrest in a village near the Iranian border.

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China's top securities regulator has condemned some asset managers for their "barbaric" leveraged buy-outs by using illegal funds after some of the recent incidents of high-profile acquisitions were reported in the country.

"You have been barbarians and ultimately become robbers in the industry, and that is unacceptable," Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said yesterday during a meeting of the Asset Management Association of China, a self-regulatory body that oversees private funds.

Any attempt to acquire a majority stake in a listed firm using funds from questionable sources is crossing the line, Liu was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua agency.

Acquisition backed by insurance funds will inevitably affect the target company's share price, and could threaten the corporate governance structure, he said.

"Funneling public funds into leveraged acquisition means ordinary investors will ultimately bear the risks, underscoring this is absolutely not financial innovation," he said.

His criticism is seen as partly alluding to recent instances of high-profile A-shares acquisitions, including a bid by property developer China Evergrande Group to acquire 14.07 per cent shares of its peer China Vanke Co. Ltd. With 36.27 billion yuan (USD 5.26 billion), the report said.

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Chinese state media said today that US President-elect Donald Trump's "inexperience" led him to accept a phone call from Taiwan's leader but warned that any breach of the One China policy would "destroy" Sino-US relations.

The call "exposed nothing but (Trump's) and his transition team's inexperience in dealing with foreign affairs", said an editorial in the English-language China Daily newspaper, adding there was "no need to over-interpret" it.

But it hinted at the possible economic impact of any breakdown in ties, saying that China held $1.19 trillion in US treasury bonds and had bilateral trade worth $558 billion with the country last year.

"If Trump wants to overstep the One China principle, he will destroy Sino-US ties," it said.

Trump's call with Tsai Ing-wen Friday broke with decades of US foreign policy precedent, raising questions on whether it marked a deliberate pivot away from Washington's official "One China" stance.

Washington cut formal diplomatic relations with the island in 1979 and recognises Beijing as the sole government of "One China" -- while keeping friendly, non-official ties with Taipei.

China regards self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification under Beijing's rule, and any US move that would imply support for independence would likely trigger fury.

Trump congratulated Tsai on her election as president this year and discussed the "close economic, political and security ties" of the US and Taiwan, according to the president-elect's office.

Beijing said it made solemn representations to the US after the call, which was initiated by Taiwan.

But its response has largely been muted, with most criticism in state media directed at Tsai, who has enraged mainland authorities by taking a more independent stance than her Beijing-friendly predecessor.

The often nationalistic Global Times newspaper in an editorial Saturday threatened that Tsai would "pay the price" if Taiwan "crosses the red line", and said China would "use its power without hesitation" to punish any move toward independence.

It attributed the call to her administration's "tricks", noting that Trump "is not familiar with foreign relations".

Trump's advisers have signalled a friendlier stance toward the island of 23 million, which enjoys a democratic government and vibrant press unlike the communist-ruled mainland.

In a November article for Foreign Policy magazine, Trump advisors Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray wrote that the Obama administration's treatment of Taiwan had been "egregious" and called for more support of "this beacon of democracy in Asia (that) is perhaps the most militarily vulnerable US partner anywhere in the world".

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US' CNN television channel has apologised to after one of its producers was caught on a hot mic making a joke about the President-elect's plane crashing.

"An unfortunate and inappropriate remark was made by one of our producers off camera yesterday," a CNN spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement.

"We have apologised to the Trump transition team, and the producer has been disciplined," the spokesperson said.

As correspondent Suzanne Malveaux prepared for a live shot at Carrier's Indianapolis plant on Thursday, a producer was heard discussing various hand signals with her.

"That means his plane's crashed - just kidding," the producer said, prompting a stunned face from Malveaux.

Trump had strongly criticised CNN during the presidential campaign.

During the campaign he referred to the outlet as the "Clinton News Network" and, according to reports, criticised its president during a recent closed door meeting with top television executives.
The trophy of the Asian Television Awards' "Best Documentary Series" [Photo/163.com]

A documentary series "The Tokyo Trials" produced by Radio and Television Shanghai has been awarded the title "Best Documentary Series" by Asian Television Awards in Singapore on Friday.

The awarded series, produced by an all-female group who once was honored by the famous American Emmy Awards, aired last year.

The documentary has three parts covering the Tokyo Trials, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, which tried the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of war crimes in 1946.

"The Smokeless War" overall introduced the Tokyo trials, focusing on three well-known trials.

"The Judgment beyond Winners" put a positive spin on the controversial parts of the trials.

The last part entitled "Unforgettable Memories" showed the hard steps from the perspective of the Chinese delegation and their children and grandchildren.

Many video materials collected from the U.S. were seen in China for the first time, which are of high historical value.

He Qinhua, former principal of East China University of Political Science and Law, thought that the documentary showed Chinese research on the Tokyo trials having an international level.

The difficult process looking for evidences described by the documentary also strengthened that the trials focused on evidence, making the courts reasonable, he added.

2016 is the 70th memorial year of the Tokyo Trials' court open session. This year, a brand new series of the trials which has three parts has been finished and will be on air on International Channel Shanghai at 8 p.m. Beijing time.

The production group is considering to extend the documentary and to ten episodes by 2018.
A group of Congress workers today protested by removing their shirts in Bicholim town against BJP alleging the saffron party is resorting to "dictatorship".

The Congress workers led by Goa Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Manohar Shirodkar removed their shirts at the historic Shivaji Maidan in Bicholim this evening.

"BJP is resorting to dictatorship. They removed all the banners of Congress put up to welcome party's padayatra," Shirodkar told reporters.

He claimed the BJP had installed their banners on the eve of 'Vijay Sankalp' rally.

"Bjp workers are behaving like goons. They don't believe in democracy," alleged the Congress leader.

The Congress workers said they were protesting to attract attention towards the "attitude" of BJP in the run up to the state legislative assembly polls.

The coastal state is due for polls before March 2017.

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Opposition Congress in Kerala today demanded that the state government carry out an inquiry into the recent death of a tribal woman who gave birth to a still born child in a forest bordering Kerala and Karnataka.

The 20-year-old woman and her girl child have been died for want of medical attention inside Makoottam forest on December two.

Opposition leader in the assembly Ramesh Chennithala said it was shocking that though Kerala and Karnataka police were informed about the incident, nobody had provided them any help.

"The woman and child had died due to lack of medical aid and their bodies remained unattended in the forest for over 20 hours. This was an insult to Kerala," he said here in a release.

The tragedy occurred at a time when the government was claiming that it has been implementing various development initiatives worth crores of rupees, he said. "It is the responsibility of any civilised society to protect the weaker and marginalised sections like tribals by giving them special care. An inquiry should be carried out on how such an incident had happened in the state," he said.

He also urged the government to take action against police and forest officials who did not provide them help and sought the to give the family financial assistance.

According to police, the mother and child had died due to lack of timely medical care during delivery.

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A Chinese court today sentenced a couple who ran a restaurant in east China's Anhui Province for their role in a fatal blast that killed 17 people last year.

Zhang Baoping and Diao Shancui were found guilty of causing an accident with dangerous substances, and sentenced to seven years, and three years, respectively by a local court, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Both lodged an appeal after the verdict.

The explosion occurred in October last year in the restaurant on Yangjia Alley, a popular snack street in Jinghu District of Wuhu City, about 350 kilometres west of Shanghai.

Due to negligence, liquefied gas leaked through a disconnected valve from a cylinder, which came into contact with fire and caused the explosion, the judgement of the court said.

An official investigation report said Zhang was to blame as he used worn-out cylinders and did not properly handle the situation when the leak occurred.

Even though the couple turned themselves in, Zhang was not given a lighter punishment, his wife, however, was given a lesser punishment, the report said.

Thirty-three officials from Jinghu District and related departments in Wuhu City, including the director of the district, were given party or administrative punishments ranging from warnings to removal from posts in April.

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Cuba is nearing the end of its nine-day public mourning for Fidel Castro with a second massive rally in honour of the revolutionary leader.

The 90-year-old former president died Nov 25. His ashes arrived last afternoon in the eastern city of Santiago, ending a four-day journey across Cuba that began after a massive rally in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution.

Thousands of people welcomed the leader's remains in Santiago to shouts of "Fidel! I am Fidel!" Hundreds of thousands gathered in Santiago's Revolution Plaza last night, cheering speeches by the heads of state-run groups of small farmers, women, revolutionary veterans and neighbourhood watch committee members.

The event, expected to end with a speech by Cuban President Raul Castro, was attended by Bolivian President Evo Morales, Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, along with former Brazilian presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva.

Castro's ashes will be interred this morning in Santiago's Santa Ifigenia cemetery, ending the official mourning period.

Mourning for Castro has reached near-religious peaks of public adulation across Cuba since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba. Huge crowds have been shouting his name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes from Havana to Santiago.

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Fidel Castro's ashes were taken today to a cemetery in the cradle of his revolution as Cuba opens a new era without the communist leader who ruled the island for decades.

Capping a week of tributes and mass rallies, a jeep pulled the cedar urn into the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba as a crowd chanted "viva Fidel!"



Castro, who died on November 25 at age 90, will be laid to rest during a "simple" ceremony near the mausoleum of 19th century independence hero Jose Marti, said his brother and successor, President Raul Castro.

The funeral was closed to the public.

Last night, Raul Castro led a massive, final rally in his brother's honour at Santiago's Revolution Plaza, leading the crowd into pledge to uphold the socialist ideals.

"In front of Fidel's remains ... We swear to defend the fatherland and socialism," Raul Castro said.

"He demonstrated that, yes we could, yes we can, yes we will overcome any obstacle, threat, turbulence in our firm resolve to build socialism in Cuba," he said.

While Castro was sidelined by emergency intestinal surgery a decade ago, he remained a towering figure in Cuba.

He was revered by supporters for the free health care and education he spread across the island, and vilified by dissidents who saw him as a brutal dictator.

Although he was an omnipresent figure in the lives of Cubans, Castro's dying wish was that no statues be erected in his memory and no streets or building be named after him.

The national assembly, which meets later this month, will pass a law to follow Castro's order, his brother said.

"The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality," Raul Castro said.

His burial ends a nine-day period of mourning during which Cubans, often encouraged by the government, flooded the streets to pay tribute to Castro, chanting "I am Fidel!" as his ashes were taken across the Caribbean country this week.

"I am very sad because we have lost a father," said Marta Loida, a 36-year-old university professor sitting on the ground and holding a picture of after Raul's speech.

The government nurtured the religious-like fervour, with state media calling Castro the "eternal comandante."



In the past week, Cubans were urged to go to schools and other public buildings to sign an oath of loyalty to his revolution.

"I trust Raul because Raul is Fidel's brother. Fidel taught him everything," said Irina Hierro Rodriguez, a 23-year-old teacher at yesterday's rally.

Fidel and Raul Castro launched a failed attack on Santiago's Moncada military barracks in July 1953, but it was the seed of a revolution that triumphed in 1959.

After taking power, became a Soviet ally and was a constant thorn in the side of successive US presidents until illness forced him to hand power to Raul in 2006.

Since succeeding his brother, Raul Castro has implemented modest economic reforms in recent years, restored diplomatic relations with the United States and vowed to step down in 2018.

"No longer under the shadow of his older brother, Raul may now feel freer to pursue the modest economic reforms he initiated in the last decade," said Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida University.

While US President Barack Obama has chipped away at the US embargo's trade and travel restrictions, foreign companies still face obstacles to invest in Cuba.

Food supplies are tight and public services are being cut back while socialist ally Venezuela, which has been providing cheap oil to Cuba, is in the middle of a political and economic crisis, said Ted Piccone, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank.

Castro needs to pick up the pace of reforms to kickstart the economy and ensure a smooth transition to his successor in 2018, he said.

"The legitimacy of the post-Raul government will depend on a much better economic performance," said Piccone, a senior foreign policy adviser during Bill Clinton's presidency.

And while Castro has died, his legacy is not going to vanish overnight.

"Given his outsized impact on Cuba and the region, it's not really goodbye," Piccone said. "His memory will cast a shadow over Cuba for a long time.
A 48-year-old Dalit woman was stabbed to death today by unidentified persons after she resisted their bid to loot her house at Khwri Kurwsh village here, police said.

The incident occurred when Gharbhari was alone in the house after her husband K F Jaipal left for work, Circle Officer Hariram Yadav said, adding a case has been registered against unidentified persons at the Khatoli police station.

"She was killed because she resisted a loot attempt. During the incident, Jaipal was working at a local sugar mill," he said.

The body has been sent for postmortem and the matter in being probed, Yadav added.

Meanwhile, a man was arrested for raping and then murdering a 7-year-old girl at Shorem village here, the Circle Officer said.

"The accused, a cobbler, has confessed to his crime. He strangulated her to death after raping her," Yadav said, adding he has been sent to jail.

The victim's body was recovered yesterday, five days after she went missing, police said.

Security has been tightened in the village to thwart any untoward incident, he said.

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Drivers who cause death by dangerous or careless driving could get life in prison under new British government proposals, according to a media report today.

Ministers want to bring the offence, which has a maximum sentence of 14 years, in line with manslaughter.

Motorists who cause death by speeding, street racing or while on a mobile phone are among those who could face longer sentences, the BBC reported today.

Offenders convicted while under the influence of drink or drugs could also be given life sentences.

Justice Minister Sam Gyimah said it was "impossible to compensate for the death of a loved one", but he was determined to make sure the punishment fitted the crime.

"Killer drivers ruin lives. Their actions cause immeasurable pain to families, who must endure tragic, unnecessary losses," he added.

In 2015, the average custodial sentence for causing death by careless or dangerous driving was just under four years.

Dawn Brown-Lartey's son, Joseph, was killed instantly when a motorist who was racing crashed into him and split his car in two.

The driver, who had no insurance and only a provisional licence, was sentenced to six years.

"Our life is changed beyond recognition," she said.

Claiming he travelled from Leeds to Manchester in 11 minutes, the motorist posted pictures on Snapchat of his speedometer reaching 140mph on a motorway and running a red light at 82mph in a 30mph zone.

"The police were saying that this was the most severe crash that they'd gone to on an urban road and this boy, you know he's a boy, is only going to serve three years in a young offenders [institute]," she added.

Stephen Oldham, a solicitor who specialises in representing motorists accused of offences, said there should be different levels of culpability to fit different types of driving behaviour.

He said life sentences were generally reserved for people who have "gone out of their way" to commit these serious offences and have displayed intentional recklessness to kill or to cause serious injury.

"That's often the element that's missing with the driving case," he added.

Gary Rae, campaigns director for Brake, hailed the "vindication" of its efforts calling for change, but said the offence of careless driving should also be scrapped.

"Some of the strongest feedback we have received from the families we work with is that there is nothing careless about taking someone else's life," he said.

In 2015, 122 people were sentenced for causing death by dangerous driving, with a further 21 convicted of causing death by careless driving while under the influence, The Guardian reported.

Under separate plans announced earlier this year, the Department of Transport is set to double the punishment for using a mobile phone while driving. Fines will rise from 100 pounds to 200 pounds and penalty points will go up from three to six.

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The death toll from a fire at a California warehouse where a rave party had been taking place rose to 30 today, authorities said.

"We have confirmed that the count of the deceased at 30. That is an astronomical number," Sergeant Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department told reporters.

Authorities had only searched a small part of the two-story building, which was gutted and left unstable by the inferno late Friday night.

"We are still not done... They are working and pulling this building apart and dissecting it. And so we're really starting to get deeper into the building. As we do that, we continue to find more victims," Kelly said.

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Delhi government has signed an MoU with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) to provide specialised training to its Heads of Schools of the 1,024 schools run by the Directorate of Education.

Under the MoU, IIM-A will administer an intensive course for all principals on school leadership during the course of next 18 months, a Delhi government release said.

After a tie-up with the University of Cambridge, UK, and the Institute of Education, Singapore, this is another collaboration with premier institutions from around the world for upgrading Delhi's government school ecosystem, the release said.

Hailing the step, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said: "The Heads of Schools functioning in Directorate of Education schools have a rich wealth of experience in managing schools. Their capacities to run an academic institute should be supplemented by professional training in leadership, especially in the field of school education.

"The government is serious about building skills and capacities of all principals, teachers working in our schools, and I am confident this step will go a long way towards improving the way individual school managements function."



The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government said the transformation of Delhi's government schools has been its top priority and it "believes that investing in education is investing in the future of the country. Several steps are being taken to improve the quality of schools in terms of infrastructure, teaching-learning methodology, narrowing the learning deficits, etc".

"Principals are the pillars of every school and for a school to do well, it is important to strengthen school leaders. The IIM-A's Right to Education Resource Centre will conduct the sessions with Delhi Government school principals over a period of one and a half years," a release said.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today claimed that those involved in chit fund scams were now in trouble due to the Centre's demonetisation decision.

"Many people were thinking what will happen to BJP's plan to hold (Vijay Sankalp) rallies (in Goa) after demonetisation. But we don't gather people for rallies by paying money," Parrikar said at Siolim here.

Ruling BJP is holding 'Vijay Sankalp' rallies in Goa ahead of next year's Assembly polls.

"Mayawati, Mamata, Mulayam might have been in grief but not BJP. Those who have looted crores of rupees through chit funds are feeling the heat of demonetisation," Parrikar said, hitting out at former Uttar Pradesh chief ministers Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav, and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

"One Chief Minister was so much hurt by the demonetisation that she started accusing Army of taking over the state," he said, without naming West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Some members of Banerjee's Trinamool Congress have faced cases in a chit fund scam case.

"My sleep was disturbed (following her allegations). I enquired with Army, they told me that they have communicated with them (West Bengal government). They only recommended where they (Army) should be stationed. Only after that I slept in peace," Parrikar said.

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China's Central Military Commission (CMC) has issued a regulation on improving real combat abilities in military training.

The regulation provided criteria for implementing real-combat military training.

The regulation said that prominent problems in military training should be rectified and military training should be carried out based on battlefield situations.

The regulation also demanded intensified training through strict assessment and improved support resources for military training.

Discipline inspection departments should function well and punish violators in a timely manner, according to the regulation.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the armed police force should stipulate concrete measures to implement the criteria to raise combat ability in military training, the regulation said.
Hitting back at the Congress, which claimed demonetisation is the "biggest scam of India", on Sunday said that the main opposition party sees a scam everywhere after running a "government of scams and scandals" and alleged that the "historic" move has shaken its foundation as the party "runs on black money and corruption".

Secretary Shrikant Sharma said despite the opposition's attack, people were supporting the Narendra Modi government on demonetisation as it was an attack on black money and corruption. Sharma also asserted that the Congress has been "rattled" by the move.

"After committing scam in purchase of jeep to helicopter, Congress finds scam everywhere. From deals linked to under ground (coal) to sky (chopper), it did corruption. Demonetisation has shaken its foundation as this party runs on black money and corruption. It is rattled and levelling baseless charges," he said.

Sharma's remarks came after Congress on Sunday demanded a white paper from the Centre on the demonetisation move, which it claimed to be the "biggest scam of India" and demanded a probe into it by a joint Parliamentary Committee.

"We want to know with whom did the Central government hold discussion about demonetisation. The government should issue a white paper on this. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) should probe the entire issue of demonetisation which helped the and its men convert black money into assets," senior party leader Digvijay Singh told reporters.

Singh had further alleged that even the Prime Minister's Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian and other officials were in the dark about the impending demonetisation.

Sharma said that the Narendra Modi government has launched a war on black money and corruption, and will continue to take measures until they are "rooted out".

People may be facing difficulties but they are supporting the government in a big way, he said.
Rajya Sabha member and Congress leader Pratap Singh Bajwa today alleged that of impending demonetisation had been selectively leaked before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced it last month.

"Demonetisation was a big scam," he said, alleging that there had been improper financial dealings and purchase of immovable properties in West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.

"Select BJP leaders, some people of Sangh (RSS), a few big corporate houses of Gujarat" had information about the decision before November 8, Bajwa claimed.

"We demand that Income Tax Department investigate the bank accounts of BJP and RSS leaders to know about their financial dealings of the last one year," he said, speaking at Indore Press Club.

"I openly challenge the Prime Minister to get the bank accounts of BJP leaders and those of other political parties scrutinised. It will bring out the truth of demonetisation," he said.

There was no preparation before the decision, due to which common people were suffering a severe currency crunch, said Bajwa, a former Punjab Congress chief, referring to several instances of people dying while standing in queues at banks or ATMs.

Speaking about coming polls in Punjab, Bajwa claimed that AAP would not play any decisive role as it had lost people's trust due to Arvind Kejriwal government's poor performance in Delhi.

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A US doctor has been fired after calling First Lady Michelle Obama "monkey face" and saying she spoke in "poor ebonic English", weeks after a police officer was fired for posting her racist Facebook memes.

Michelle Herren, a pediatric anesthesiologist, was fired from from the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine where she held an unpaid faculty position.

She also quit her post as a pediatric anesthesiologist at Denver Health Medical Center, the facility confirmed.

Herren on a Facebook comment rant after she read a post praising the First Lady. She posted an unflattering photo of Obama and wrote, "Doesn't seem to be speaking too eloquently here, thank god we can't hear her!"



"Monkey face and poor ebonic English!!! There! I feel better and am still not racist!!! Just calling it like it is!" she wrote, New York Daily reported.

In the crass comment, she also claimed that Harvard - where Obama studied law - is for "entitled folks" and "all the liberals."



The Denver medical school announced it would terminate Herren after several students complained about the insensitive post.

The doctor, who had worked at the hospital for 10 years, was placed on administrative duty after of her aggressive Facebook comments surfaced. She was not allowed to treat patients or provide anesthesia services before she formally resigned on Friday.

Last month, a police officer in Alabama was fired for posting racist Facebook memes, including one about Obama.

In a separate incident, West Virginia mayor Pamela Ramsey Taylor lost her job for calling Obama "ape in heels".

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China has scuppered attempts by world trade heavyweights to eliminate or reduce tariffs on a list of environmentally friendly products, the European Union said today.

A list of around 300 "green" products had been prepared by the US and EU to be presented at WTO talks today in Geneva for the 18 participants -- including Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey -- to discuss.

But to the surprise of all present, China submitted its own list of products, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said, thus derailing talks.

"They took away many of our priorities," Malmstroem, who deplored the Chinese move, told journalists.

"The Chinese list had commonalities with the original list but there were lots of differences -- too many to absorb them.

"It would have been very helpful if they had engaged earlier in this sort of specifics because, of course, they came out with a list that surprised everybody."



Talks on the Environmental Goods Agreement began in July 2014, based on a proposal at the World Economic Forum in Davos six months earlier.

But Malmstroem insisted the participants at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks were determined to find a solution.

"Everybody said, all delegations said... This is a very important agreement. We are committed to conclude this and we will reinforce our efforts next year," she said.

The US-EU list included solar panels, wind turbines and air quality monitors while China's list contained electric bicycles, according to a WTO spokesperson.

Over USD 1,000 billion worth of "green" goods are traded every year, according to the WTO.

Asked by reporters if China's stance had been a reaction to US President-elect Donald Trump's controversial telephone conversation with Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen on Friday, Malmstroem declined to comment.

China reacted with fury at Trump's contact with Tsai and his referring to her as the Taiwan president in a tweet.

China regards self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification and no US president or president-elect had spoken to a Taiwanese leader since then-president Richard Nixon agreed in 1978 to Beijing's "One China" policy.

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Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje today appointed former transport minister Rohitash Sharma as chairman of a cell to review issues related to inter-state water sharing.

The cell will review and look into various issues and disputes pertaining to inter-state river water sharing, a release issued here said.

It will also submit its recommendations to the Chief Minister to resolve the issues, it said.

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The Indian Steel Association (ISA) has urged the government to extend the Minimum Import Price (MIP) imposed on certain steel products by six months to offset the expected dent in demand and production due to factors like demonetisation and anti-dumping duty on met coke.

"We have urged the government for continuation of the Minimum Import Price (MIP) regime for six months, pertaining to imports for 66 HS codes of iron and steel," ISA said in a statement here.

The complete material impact of MIP -- imposed for the first time on 173 HS codes in February 2016 -- has not yet trickled down to boost domestic demand for the said products, it added.

Recent developments, including liquidity crunch among consumers on account of currency demonetisation as well as imposition of anti-dumping duties on import of metallurgical coke into India are expected to further dent the demand and production situation respectively, ISA Secretary General Sanak Mishra said.

While domestic prices of hot rolled coils (HRC) did begin to recover from February 2016 onwards, they witnessed a drop from June 2016 to August 2016 on account of sluggish construction activity during the monsoon.

After subsequent extensions on a limited set of 66 HS codes in August 2016 and October 2016, the prices rose marginally, primarily on the back of a more than three-fold jump in international spot prices of coking coal from around USD 90 per tonne in July 2016 to around USD 300 per tonne in December 2016, while the demand for steel continued to remain weak.

The same can be substantiated from the fact that India's consumption of total finished steel grew by a meagre 2.8 per cent during April-October 2016-17 over the same period last year, as per figures published by Joint Plant Committee of the Union Steel Ministry.

Additionally, the rightful imposition of anti-dumping and safeguard duties by the government on various steel products over the past few months have come through after comprehensive investigations and stakeholder discussions by the designated authorities and their assessment of the injury caused to the domestic industry.

The same should not be construed as sops being doled out to the industry, majority of which continue to be financially distressed, ISA said.

These measures, being either product specific or country specific, also cannot be considered as adequate replacement to MIP for offering a level playing field, it added.

Indian Steel Association is the premier body of Indian steelmakers which represents 60 per cent of steel capacities in the country.

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Former Cuban president Fidel Castro was buried in a "simple" funeral in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba today, a French minister who attended the ceremony said.

"There were no speeches. It was very simple. There were just the ashes that were interred, the family, the government and officials," French Environment Minister Segolene Royal said after the hour-long funeral at Santa Ifigenia cemetery, which was closed to the public.

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About a year ago, trucks full of building materials began arriving at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in the eastern Cuban city of Santiago. Yesterday, a white cloth was draped over a new structure near the mausoleum for Cuban independence leader Jose Marti.

Beyond those few clues, the details of Fidel Castro's final resting place were one of the most tightly kept secrets in Cuba.

That ended this morning, when the revolutionary leader's ashes were interred in a private ceremony and shortly afterward the world got a glimpse of a tomb that will immediately become one of the most important sites on the island.

Once the ceremony ended shortly before 9 AM, journalists and Cuban mourners were allowed into the cemetery to see the tomb, a simple round stone about 15 feet high with an emerald-colored plaque bearing Castro's name.

The tomb stood to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiago's Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.

A dozen uniformed soldiers were standing in front of the stone.

Cuban officials have said nothing about future access to Castro's tomb, but its apparent location alongside Marti's, a grand site heavily visited by tourists and Cubans alike, indicates that there will be continuing of public access to the grave of the man who led Cuba for nearly 50 years and died on November 25 at 90.

"It's a privilege to have him here," said Cruz Maria Pardo, 64, who worked at the cemetery cleaning the mausoleums for more than 20 years and said she had seen trucks bringing in materials for a little over a year.

Thousands if not millions of Cubans have lined the central roadway connecting the island's two largest cities over the last four days, chanting and waving banners as the cedar coffin carrying his remains drove by.

In the country's vast, rural stretches, Cubans packed into buses and tractor trailers, many as part of work or school groups, to wait hours under a blistering sun to say goodbye.

Today, his remains reached Santiago, the city where Castro launched his revolution and where a final, mass gathering in the city's Revolution Plaza was held before his ashes are interred at Santa Ifigenia.

The cemetery is located in the northwestern part of Santiago, about a half-kilometer from the bay. It was founded in 1868 and is the final resting place of some of the most important figures in Cuban history.

Beyond a stately, white building at the entrance lies Marti's large mausoleum, a tower where there is a changing of the guard every half hour.

Nearby stands the memorial to rebels killed in or executed by Batista's forces after the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, Castro's initial, failed attempt to foment revolution.

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Fintech startups are proving to be the biggest beneficiaries of the government's demonetisation move and with the rise in business, recruitment plans of these are likely to see a significant uptrend in the coming months, experts say.

E-wallet like Paytm, PayU India, MobiKwik, and Freecharge have been seeing significant rise in GMV and the number of transactions since November 8 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, making these notes invalid.

Experts believe that this move is going to positively impact the workforce and hiring needs of these . Besides, technology roles will now open up as these companies rush to meet the surge in transactions and there is likely to be a huge opportunity in other functions such as sales and marketing as well.

"We have observed unprecedented growth. Our user base has grown to 40 million and we have added 1,50,000 merchants, which makes us directly available at 2,50,000 retailers now," Mrinal Sinha, Chief Operating Officer at MobiKwik, said.

"Paytm and Mobikwik have already been in the overdrive to reach out to small traders to commence transactions on their platform and we do see a large number of roles opening up in this space," Naresh Sharma, Managing Partner, Antal International, Jaipur, said adding that "a number of other e-wallet companies do see this as an opportunity to expand and surely, the requirement of hiring would increase".

Deals marketplace Little, funded by Paytm, Tiger Global, SAIF partners and GIC, Singapore, is witnessing significant surge in transactions, post demonetisation.

"Definitely, there will be increase in demand for talent, primarily for on-boarding and digitising the payment solutions for offline businesses," Little CEO and co-founder Manish Chopra said, adding that "we are looking forward to ramp up the team size aggressively in coming months".

Meanwhile, pre-paid solutions company Qwikcilver has seen significant traction in the pre-paid card segment.

"With the demonetisation drive, we have seen 3 times growth in gifting through gift cards on our Woohoo.In and Woohoo app," Kumar Sudarshan, Co-Founder and CEO, Qwikcilver, said adding that "we are very positive about the environment and we will continue to evolve our plans around further investments in newer products".

Ritesh Chopra, Country Manager, Norton by Symantec, has a piece of advice: "While e-wallets make financial transactions very easy, one must adopt best practices to avoid any phishing attacks. People should ensure websites with which they transact financial business are secure and they should create strong passwords and monitor bank statements regularly."

According to Chopra, while on-the-go tools such as mobile banking apps and digital wallets make managing financial tasks easy, one must also take necessary precautions and follow best practices while accessing sensitive financial information anytime and anywhere.
Five Palestinians have been killed in incidents in tunnels in the Gaza Strip, officials said today, including four found dead after the flooding of a passage linking the enclave to Egypt.

Four men aged 22 to 45 "were found dead after the tunnel they were working in was flooded nine days ago by the Egyptian army", local authorities in the city of Rafah near Egypt's border said in a statement.

Egypt had not confirmed the information, though it has destroyed hundreds of tunnels in the area, alleging they are used to transport arms and militants.

Gazans use such tunnels to smuggle goods into the Palestinian enclave, which is run by Islamist movement Hamas and has been under an Israeli blockade for a decade.

The border between Egypt and Gaza has also remained largely closed since the 2013 overthrow of Egypt's Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Separately, Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said today that one of its fighters was killed while working in a "resistance" tunnel.

It did not provide further details, including whether the tunnel had collapsed, though the term resistance tunnels is used to refer to those dug for military purposes.

While the tunnels into Egypt have been dug for smuggling, Gazan tunnels into Israel have been used for attacks, particularly in the 2014 war between the two sides.

Gazans allege Egypt has carried out work to flood the area along its border to destroy tunnels into its Sinai Peninsula, where Egyptian security forces are also fighting Islamic State-linked jihadists.

In recent months, at least 21 Gazans have died in both militant and smuggling tunnels and a number of tunnels have collapsed.

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The Eastern Naval Command (ENC) today paid homage to service personnel who made the supreme sacrifice in various actions, including the 1971 War, to mark the Navy Day.

A floral wreath was placed by ENC's Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Vice Admiral HCS Bisht at the Navy War Memorial on Beach Road here, a Defence release said.

Wreaths were also placed by President Navy Foundation Vice Admiral VK Namballa (Retd), District Collector Praveen Kumar, Visakhapatnam Commissioner of Police, T Yoganand.

They were joined by 100 NCC cadets who also paid their respects to the martyrs, it added.

A 50-man Guard of Honour was paraded on the occasion, and on arrival, the Commander-in-Chief proceeded to the War Memorial in slow march with the wreath bearers marching in front. The Guard performed the 'Salami Shastra' followed by 'Shok Shastra' and the Commander-in-Chief placed the floral wreath.

While the bugler sounded the 'Last Post' a two minute silence was observed.

In the evening a large number of people witnessed the naval operational display at RK Beach where Union Minister for Civil Aviation P Ashok Gajapathi Raju was the chief guest.

Sky diving, helicopters demonstrations, search and rescue operations by helicopters and illuminations of the warships and fireworks enthralled the citizens.

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Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today announced that foundation stone for 22 colleges for girls will be laid on January 22.

"The foundation stone for 22 colleges for girls in the state will be laid on January 22, 2017," he said at a public meeting in the district's newly-created Badli sub-division.

Khattar announced several development projects for Badli Assembly constituency, including a railway line from Farrukhnagar in Gurugram to Charkhi Dadri via Jhajjar, and a 20 km four-lane road from Delhi's IGI Airport to Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway.

Besides, the constituency will get a heli-pad near the National Cancer Institute at Badhsa and 5 MW solar power plants will be set up at Badhsa and Kaloi villages.

Union Steel Minister Birender Singh said the State had achieved a major milestone in the development of Badli constituency by according it status of sub-division, tehsil and block.

He said a Rs 2,000 crore scheme has been prepared to supply water from Yamuna River to southern parts of Haryana within the next two years.

The Chief Minister said he would soon call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on construction of Sutlej-Yamuna-Link (SYL) canal at the earliest.

An all-party delegation from the state has met President Pranab Mukherjee in this regard, he said.

Highlighting initiatives taken by the state government in its two years, he said special emphasis has been been laid on fruit, vegetable, flower and dairy production in the National Capital Region to increase income of farmers.

The sex-ratio in Haryana has improved under the 'Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao' programme and new development projects have been initiated in all regions, Khattar said.

Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Pal said the central and state governments have taken several initiatives in the interests of farmers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four precious idols of various deities were stolen by thieves from a temple in Gauraha Bishanpur panchayat under Narpatganj police station area in Bihar's Araria district, a police officer said today.

Some thieves entered the premises of Ram Janki Thakurbari by breaking its main door last night and took away four idols of Lord Rama, Goddess Sita and Lord Hanuman, Superintendent of Police (SP) Sudhir Porika said.

The theft was detected this morning by the priest who informed the local police about it, he said.

A probe was on in the matter and raids were being carried out to recover the stolen idols, Porika said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls today hailed the victory of a Greens-backed candidate over the far-right contender in Austria's presidential election as a blow for populism in Europe.

"Great win by Alexander Van der Bellen in Austria. Populism is not Europe's fate," Valls, who is expected to run for president in next year's election, tweeted after Van der Bellen's rival Norbert Hofer conceded defeat.

The outcome of the Austrian election is being closely watched in France, where far-right leader Marine Le Pen is riding high in polls five months before the French begin voting for Francois Hollande's successor.

Le Pen was among the first to react.

"Congratulations to the FPOe which fought bravely. The next elections will be theirs," she wrote on Twitter, referring to Hofer's anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe), an ally of her National Front.

Hollande last week announced he would not seek re-election, paving the way for Valls to throw his hat in the ring for the Socialist nomination.

Valls is expected to announce his candidacy early in the week.

Polls currently show the left being eliminated in the first round of the election, with the conservative candidate Francois Fillon and Le Pen duelling for the presidency in a second round.

The Socialists are hoping to prove the polls wrong and to wrest the run-off spot from Le Pen.

Today, they appeared heartened by the signs from Austria.

"The far right beaten in Austria. The nationalist-populist wave can be contained," party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis tweeted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a no-holds-barred attack on Pakistan, Afghan President on Sunday accused it of launching an "undeclared war" against his country by covertly supporting terror networks including the Taliban, and asked it to use its $500 million aid to check extremism on its soil.

In his address at the 6th annual conference of Heart of Asia, Ghani praised India's assistance in his country's reconstruction and noted that there were "no hidden deals" in New Delhi's growing engagement in the war-ravaged country.

Slamming Pakistan's habit of denying cross border terror attacks, he said an Asian or mechanism must be put in place, without "playing games",to find out who was benefiting from terror, extremism and other illicit activities.

He said time has come for concrete action against terror infrastructure and those supporting it, and quoted a top Taliban commander saying unless terror sanctuaries were allowed in Pakistan, the outfit will not last even a month.

Snubbing Islamabad, he said, "We thank Pakistan for their pledges of $500 million for reconstruction of Afghanistan. This fund, Mr Aziz, could very well be used to contain extremists because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people."

Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz was among 30 other representatives from various countries who attended the conference inaugurated jointly by Ghani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Ghani said despite Afghanistan's bilateral and multilateral ties with Pakistan, the "undeclared war" that started in the winter of 2014, has intensified after the recent Brussels conference on Afghanistan's transition.

The Afghan President called for setting up of mechanism to verify reality of such attacks which have increased in the last few months.

He also sought setting up of a global fund to contain terrorism.

"There should be an Asian or regime, whatever is acceptable to Pakistan, should be put in place to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations," said Ghani.

He added, "We do not want blame game, we want verification," besides saying, "we need to set up a fund to combat extremism."

Hailing India's role in Afghanistan's transition, he said "India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached", while adding that "there are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan."

Asserting that no amount of money can assist Afghanistan if there is support to terrorists by Pakistan, he said military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists.

Referring to Modi's visit to Afghanistan, he said there were spontaneous celebrations all over Afghanistan following the inauguration of Salma Dam.

He also thanked India for further assistance of $1 billion apartfrom $2 billion.

"India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached, " Ghani said, adding an air corridor between India and Afghanistan will be soon launched to deepen trade ties.
The widow of a freedom fighter has lost a legal battle to get back the money her husband had deposited in Shanghai while serving in Subhash Chandra Bose's Indian National Army, with Delhi High Court saying government cannot raise a dispute with another country on private claims.

"We are of the view that merely because the Government of India, on a representation being made, has forwarded the claim of the petitioner to the Embassy of India at China, would not create an obligation on the Government of India to take any further steps in the matter.

"The Government of India is under no obligation to raise a dispute with a foreign government qua the private claim of its citizens," a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said while dismissing her plea.

The order came on an appeal filed by Harbhajan Kaur, the widow of the INA officer who died in 1979, against a single judge's order dismissing her plea for direction to the government to take appropriate action to release the money deposited by her late husband in his accounts with Shanghai's General Post Office.

Her husband had served in the Indian National Army, which was formed by nationalist leaders like Subhash Bose and Rashbehari Bose in 1942 in Southeast Asia during the 2nd World War with an aim to secure India's freedom from British rule.

In her plea, Kaur said, on a representation made to the Chinese authorities, she was on October 9, 2003 informed that the claim for the money deposited in the accounts stood abandoned as per the policies of their government.

The Shanghai post office, in a letter to Kaur, had said that her claim stood abandoned for failing to register it within the assigned time after the issuance of the policy of the Chinese government.

The single judge was also not convinced with her contentions and dismissed her plea in December 2015 saying the "petition is also highly belated and suffers from delay, laches, acquiescence and waiver".

Concurring with the findings of the single judge's order, the bench headed by the Chief Justice said, "We find no infirmity with the order of the Single Judge under appeal.

"The petitioner was unable to provide us with any specific obligation under which the Government has to pursue private claims of petitioner against a foreign government."



Kaur had submitted that the government was under obligation to protect and ensure aid, advise and help to emigrants under the Emigration Act, 1983.

Her counsel had further submitted that it is an established principle of international law that any property, particularly belonging to aliens, cannot be confiscated without just compensation and the fact that they suffered confiscation only because they were in service of the Indian National Army.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A gunman shot dead three women, including a local council official, as they were leaving a restaurant in a small Finnish town, police said today.

Investigators cited by the SST agency today said the municipal council head and two local journalists were killed last night in the town of Imatra by a man who was swiftly arrested.

The 23-year-old suspect, who was armed with a shotgun, already had a record of violent crime, police said.

He was interrogated today but the motive for the attack remained unclear and the attacker could have picked his victims at random, investigators said.

No other suspect was being sought.

Finland enjoys relatively low crime rates compared to other European nations but, with many Finns keen hunters, it has one of the biggest gun ownership rates in the world.

The town mayor Pertti Lintunen confirmed that among the victims was social-democrat council leader Tiina Wilen-Jappinen, who was in her 50s.

The names of the slain journalists were not revealed.

Imatra is a small lakeside town of 17,000 people in southeastern Finland, just a few kilometres from the Russian border.

A "Small Arms Survey" carried out by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, found Finland fourth in the civilian gun-ownership ranks behind the United States, Yemen and Switzerland.

Imatra authorities said via the internet that psychological support was being made available to local residents.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Haryana Government has constituted a Traders Welfare Board to address their problems and issues besides working as a bridge between them and the state government.

The board has been constituted under the chairmanship of Gopal Sharan Garg (a former municipal councillor from Narnaul) an official spokesman said here today.

"It will address problems and issues of traders and take redressal measures, besides working as a bridge between the state government and them," he said.

The board will initiate social security and insurance schemes for traders, promote investments and employment in Haryana and analyse law and by-laws of departments related to them, the spokesman said.

Members will comprise additional chief secretaries of finance, food and supplies, excise and taxation and labour departments, and principal secretaries of industry, power, mines and geology, and environment departments, he said, adding the state government will nominate another 10 members from the trade and industry sector.

It will suggest simplifications in acts and rules applicable to traders and establish a Traders Welfare Fund.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Allahabad High Court is likely to pronounce its judgement tomorrow on a petition challenging the election of Prime Minister from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.

The petition has been filed by sitting Congress MLA Ajay Rai, who was the party's candidate against Modi from Varanasi in the 2014 general elections and was defeated.

Rai has challenged the election of Modi alleging that there were discrepancies in his nomination papers, that the expenses on campaign had exceeded permissible limits, voters were "bribed" through distribution of freebies and that religious sentiments were exploited through slogans like "Har Har Modi" whereby people were appealed to vote in favour of the BJP candidate in the name of Hindu pride.

The Congress candidate, who had finished third and forfeited his deposit in the one-sided electoral battle wherein Modi defeated his nearest rival Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party by a margin of 3. 71 lakh votes, had moved the court in June, 2014 - less than a month after results for the elections were announced.

Modi's team of counsels, led by senior BJP leader and Additional Solicitor General of India Satyapal Jain, has questioned the maintainability of the petition and prayed that it be "dismissed in limine, without being put in trial and with exemplary costs".

After hearing arguments on both sides, single judge bench of Justice Vikram Nath had on November 24 posted the matter for December 05 "for dictation of orders".
Adoption of healthier lifestyle by around 72 million people with diabetes in the country can prevent incidence of type-2 cases by 70 per cent in patients, experts said at a national conference here.

Terming diabetes as a leading cause of blindness, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure and lower limb amputation in many countries, they said screening of diabetes complication is an important part of effective management of the disease.

If complication of the disease is diagnosed at the primary stage, substantial disability and premature death can be checked, the speakers said.

Inaugurating the meet organised by city based Kanungo Institute of Diabetes Specialities (KIDS) and Cuttack Diabetes Research Foundation (CDRF) yesterday, Odisha's Industries minister Debi Prasad Mishra said lifestyle changes had caused diabetes in over ten per cent of population in the state which has over 40 lakh diabetes patients.

Emphasising on the need for concrete steps to deal with the disease, he said Odisha government is providing diabetic medicines free of cost under the Niramaya scheme.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Alok Kanungo, chairman of the organising committee said, apart from other objectives, the conference aims at educating treating physicians serving in rural and remote areas where health care facilities and infrastructure are either deficient or not available.

Prof Dr C B Sanjeevi, head of diabetes immunology group, Karolinska University, Stockholm, Sweden also addressed the conference attended by around 600 delegates from across the country.

Lifetime achievement award was presented to four noted diabetologists on the occasion for outstanding contribution to diabetes care, Research and Education.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The U.S. presidential election has finally come to an end, with business tycoon Donald Trump elected as the 58th president. This has been a shock to many people in the U.S. as well as the rest of the world. Throughout the election cycle, there have been a number of people who keep making fun of the election, instead of doing serious research. They even argue that the American democracy is near collapse. Is it indeed so?

Research on American democracy is not necessarily a strong suit of Americans. One of the classic books on American democracy is "Democracy in America" by French diplomat and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville. This book gained and has maintained popularity because it studied American politics, and argued that democracy is a way of life for Americans and that as long as Americans are there, this way of life will continue. Among the many monographs the Chinese have written on America, the most inspiring is is "America against America," which was written by Wang Huning, a political theorist-turned-official in China. In his book, Wang analyzes the internal conflicts within American society and politics. He wrote, "Wherever you find positive force, you can also find something negative."

We Chinese may be more interested in the drama that occurs on the political stage in the U.S., but we seldom care about the stage and the architecture behind it. But what really counts in American democracy is exactly the stage itself: No matter what drama is on, as long as the stage is there, it will not collapse.

"Reverse punishment"

Black swan events have happened from time to time in the history of American presidential election. Prominent figures may find themselves failing in the end, which is not unusual for American citizens. Why? Because they see American democracy as essentially something of "reverse punishment." In the eyes of Americans, veteran politicians are most of the time not virtuous and are something like a "necessary evil." Thus they try to prevent a worse candidate from being elected, and they are confident that even if a bad president gets elected, there are ways to put constraints on him or her.

Thus Trump's win is not necessarily due to the fact that he won the hearts of many Americans, but because many people do not want Hilary Clinton to be president. They thought that if Clinton made it to the White House, America would repeat itself. Trump, on the other hand, will inject tremendous uncertainties going forward. Americans believe that as intemperate as Trump is, he will be constrained by the American system and may bring unexpected, great changes to the country.

Proper way to study America

Winston Churchill famously said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." He basically means that despite the negative sides of democracy, it is still the best political system in the world. In the case of the United States, Americans reformed representative democracy, which propped up the country to be a super power.

Of course, there are flaws in American democracy, such as money in politics and democratic deficits. Criticisms abound in this regard, and can be found both inside and outside America. When Chinese try to study and critique it, we need to be aware of the trajectory of social systems and bear in mind the mainstay of Chinese systems.

We need to avoid groundless accusations and sentiment-based ridicule, because contempt for a powerful rival will backfire. America practices democracy in domestic politics and hegemony in foreign countries, and this duality may confuse us when studying the country. For us, it is one thing to resent its hegemony and another thing to critique its democracy: We can be emotive on the former, but we need to stick to rational academic critique when it comes to the latter. In other words, the study of America is not about researching American foreign policy or China-U.S. ties, much less the strange words of its political figure. We need to study from the perspective of American political ecosystem and learn about the logic and developmental trends of American politics.

The author is the deputy director of the Institute of International Studies of Tsinghua University. He is also a senior researcher with Charhar Institute.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
A Muslim student was allegedly assaulted aboard a US subway train by three drunk white men who repeatedly screamed "Donald Trump!" and hurled anti-Islam slurs before trying to rip her hijab off, the latest in a slew of incidents in which headscarf-clad women have been targeted.

Three men attempted to rip off Yasmin Seweid's hijab, calling the 18-year-old student a "terrorist" and shouting President-elect Trump's name as she rode the subway through Manhattan.

Straphangers stood by and watched as the three drunk white men repeatedly screamed "Donald Trump!" and hurled anti-Islam slurs at the Muslim Baruch College student before trying to rip her hijab off on an East Side subway, the woman told the New York Daily News.

The incident that took place on Thursday is being investigated by the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force. Police are reviewing surveillance video to identify the men involved.

Seweid said she was stunned by the assault and the fact that no one in the subway car came to her aid.

"I heard them say something very loudly, something about ...I also heard them say the word terrorist and I sort of got a little scared," Seweid was quoted as saying.

They kept screaming Trump's name at her, and then said, "Oh look, a (expletive) terrorist," according to Seweid.

"Get the hell out of the country!" they yelled during the train ride. "You don't belong here!"



Seweid, who was born in the US to Egyptian parents, was shocked. "I born and raised in this country. I'm an American, you know?" she said.

When Seweid ignored them, they pulled on her bag to get her attention and the strap broke.

"That's when I turned around and said 'can you please leave me alone', and they started laughing," Seweid said.

She walked to the other end of the train, and they followed her and tried to pull off her hijab.

"I put my hand on top of my head to hold it. Then I turned around and screamed," she said. Seweid got off the train and reported the terrifying incident to police.

The incident comes amid a slew of intimidation and assault cases that have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women following Trump's win.

Earlier this month, a Hijab-clad Muslim student was allegedly struck in the face with a glass bottle in broad daylight at the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

In another incident, a hijab-clad woman was allegedly accosted at a US store by another customer who called her a "terrorist" and told her to "get out" of the country.

Also, a Muslim student's hijab was allegedly ripped off and her hair pulled down by a classmate at a school in Minnesota.
A Hindu temple was vandalised and seven idols of goddess Kali were today destroyed by some miscreants in two separate incidents in Bangladesh, weeks after over 10 temples of the minority community were attacked in the Muslim- majority nation.

The first incident came to light after people of Mymensinghorohi village in Netrokona district found the doors of a temple open this morning.

Upon entering its premises, they noticed the temple was vandalised. Four broken idols of goddess Kali were also found lying close to the temple, a senior police officer told PTI.

Immediately, police launched an investigation.

"We have collected evidence of the vandalism and started a probe. It was learnt that the temple's doors were not locked. We are looking for those behind this heinous act," Netrokona sadar police Officer-in-Charge Shahnur-e-Alam said.

Netrokona Additional District Magistrate Abdul Matin said those responsible will be punished.

"We are treating the case with priority. A group with vested interests may have carried out the crime to disrupt communal harmony," Netrokona Superintendent of Police Joydeb Chowdhury.

In a separate incident, unidentified assailants vandalised three Kali statues in clandestine predawn attack on a Hindu temple in northwestern Pabna district.

"Three statues of Hindu goddess Kali were found broken at a temple at Bera (sub-district) of Pabna... The miscreants visibly entered the temple early in the morning and damaged the statues," a police officer told reporters in Pabna.

Badal Ghosh, secretary of the Sharifpur Kali Temple committee, demanded immediate arrest of the attackers.

There have been several incidents of attacks on Hindu temples in the past.

In October last week, miscreants set on fire at least six houses of Hindus in a predawn attack in Brahmanbarhia district's Nasirnagar, the place where at least 15 temples and more than 20 houses were vandalised after a Facebook post deemed offensive to Islam sparked outrage in the country.

A cyber cafe owner was arrested last month for allegedly masterminding attacks on Hindu temples and houses.

The attacks on several Hindu temples in Bangladesh were carried out under a well orchestrated plan aimed at grabbing lands of the minority community, National Human Rights Commission had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The declaration adopted at the 'Heart of Asia' conference, which named Pakistan-based terror outfits LeT and JeM, was unanimous, said Sartaj Aziz, advisor to the country's Prime Minister, who attended the meet in Amritsar.

On his return home, Aziz sought to play down its significance by highlighting that other groups were also mentioned in the declaration along with Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, the terror groups blamed for attacks in India.

Addressing a press conference, he said the emphasis of the conference was on tackling all regional outfits to stamp down militancy. HOA is a platform for discussing reconstruction of the trouble-torn Afghanistan.

The HoA declaration expressed serious concern over gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan and in many parts of the region, holding that united efforts are required to contain terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e- Mohammad, Taliban, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida, IS and its affiliates, TTP, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah and other foreign terrorist groups.

Aziz said the declaration was unanimous and not only Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad were mentioned but several groups were named.

"We are not under pressure to deal with militancy. It is not true as we are already doing it in our own interest," he said.

"I put forward the objective situation in my statement. I said that we need holistic approach, as there are different groups and foreign elements. Afghanistan is complex and needs careful handling," Aziz said.

He also defended the Pakistan government's decision to attend the HoA conference.

"It was good decision to attend HoA. It was good to attend multilateral forum...To show solidarity with Afghanistan. If we had boycotted, then India would say that first they expelled Pakistan from SAARC and now from HoA," he said.

Aziz also said that on the sidelines of the conclave he met Iranian foreign minister Jawad Zarif, foreign minister of Turkmenistan and Chinese assistant foreign minister.

To a question, he said India had restricted movements of the Pakistani delegation.

"Our interactions were not structured but overall there were constructive," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The department has rejected an astonishing Rs 2 lakh crore disclosure by a Mumbai family as well as the controversial Rs 13,860 crore by an Ahmedabad businessman under the Income Disclosure Scheme that closed in September and a probe is on against them to determine the intention behind their false claims.

Meanwhile, the government has revised upwards the total illicit wealth disclosed in the one-time window to Rs 67,382 crore as against Rs 65,250 crore estimated earlier.

"Among the declarations received, there were two sets of declarations of high value which were not taken on record in the above figure because these declarations were found to be suspicious in nature being filed by persons of small means," the Finance Ministry said in a statement today.

A family of four declarants namely, Abdul Razzaque Mohammed Sayed (self), Mohammed Aarif Abdul Razzaque Sayed (son), Rukhsana Abdul Razzaque Sayed (wife) and Noorjahan Mohammed Sayed (sister), who were shown as residents of Flat no. 4, Ground Floor, Jubilee Court, 269-B, T.P.S-III, Linking Road, Bandra (W), Mumbai, filed a total declaration of Rs 2 lakh crore, it said.

The other declaration was filed by one Mahesh Kumar Champaklal Shah resident of 206, MangalJyot Tower, Jodhpur Gram Satellite, Ahmedabad for Rs 13,860 crore.

"Therefore, after due consideration, the Department decided by 30th November, 2016, to reject these two sets of declarations of Rs 2 lakh crore and Rs 13,860 crore respectively. The Department has since commenced enquiries against these declarants to determine the intention behind these false declarations," it added.

On October 1, it was announced that declarations totalling Rs 65,250 crore were received from 64,275 declarants, subject to reconciliation. After final reconciliation the revised figure of actual declarations received and taken on record was Rs 67,382 crore which had been made by 71,726 declarants.

The revised figure will fetch government a little over Rs 30,000 crore direct tax revenue.

In case of the Mumbai family disclosure, the statement said, three out of the four PAN numbers were originally in Ajmer which were migrated to Mumbai in September 2016, where the declarations were filed.

Shah meanwhile has threatened to disclose the names of politicians and businessmen for whom he says he was acting as a front.

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram in a tweet said: "There is a Rs 13,860 crore hole in the Rs 65,000 crore IDS! How many more holes."



The statement said these declarations from Mumbai and Ahmedabad were kept pending for investigation about the genuineness of the same and were not included in the total value of declarations announced on October 1.

After due enquiry it was found that these declarants were persons of suspicious nature and very small means and the declarations could have been misused, it said.

The Department has commenced enquiries against these declarants, it said.

IDS was announced in the Budget under which declaration of



undisclosed income or asset could be made by agreeing to pay 45 per cent of the declared amount as tax, surcharge and penalty.

The declaration widow of four-month ended on September 30. Now on the final declarations, the government will get Rs 30,321.9 crore in tax and penalty.

Government had given the option of paying tax amount in two instalments up to September 30, 2017.

Half or Rs 15,160.9 crore is to be accrued in the current fiscal. The first installment of 25 per cent has already come as the last date for payment was November 30.

Last year, under a similar scheme for foreign black money holders, 644 declarations of undisclosed foreign income and assets were received, and just Rs 2,428 crore was collected in taxes.

A total tax of Rs 9,760 crore was collected under the Voluntary Income Disclosure Scheme (VIDS) amnesty scheme brought by Chidambaram in 1997.

While IDS is not an amnesty scheme, VDIS provided blanket amnesty, he said. Taxation under IDS is charged at the rate of 45 per cent while the effective rate of tax in the 1997 scheme was in single digit.
Once an employee of the powerful CIA, Jeffrey Sterling now sits behind bars at a federal prison in Colorado. He bides his time by reading and writing and working at the facility's recreational center.

Nearly two years after Sterling was found guilty of leaking government secrets to a reporter, the 49-year-old maintains that he is innocent.

Sterling is now pinning his hopes for an early release on a federal appeals court, which will soon consider whether to reverse his convictions.

"I continue to have hope that the truth will come out," said his wife Holly Sterling, who travels to the prison from their home in Missouri once a month to visit her husband.

Sterling is serving a three and half-year prison sentence at an all-male prison that also houses former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and ex-Subway spokesman Jared Fogle.

A jury convicted Sterling on all counts last year after he was charged under the Espionage Act for leaking details of a CIA mission to New York Times journalist James Risen. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in Sterling's case on Tuesday.

Prosecutors portrayed Sterling as a disgruntled former employee who exposed a plan to stall Iranian ambitions to build a nuclear weapon in an attempt to discredit the CIA.

That operation involved using a CIA agent nicknamed "Merlin" to deliver flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran in the hopes that they would spend years trying to develop a product that would never work.

Risen described the mission in his 2006 book "State of War." Citing anonymous sources, Risen suggested it was a reckless and botched operation that may have actually helped advance the Iranians' nuclear program.

The CIA has strongly disputed that idea.

"Sterling's actions destroyed the program, endangered the lives of a covert human asset and his family, and compromised the United States' ability to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons," prosecutors wrote in their appeals court brief.

US Attorney Dana Boente's office declined to comment ahead of the 4th Circuit hearing.

Sterling has maintained that he was not Risen's source, and Risen never testified during trial. His attorneys argued that the leak likely came from a Capitol Hill staffer after Sterling shared his concerns about the program with staffers at a Senate intelligence committee in 2003.

His attorneys and other advocates claim prosecutors only went after Sterling because Risen's story made the CIA look foolish.

"If Risen had written a story about how this was a superb operation that successfully set back the Iranian nuclear program, I don't think there is any chance whatsoever that Mr. Sterling would have been charged," said Barry Pollack, who represented Sterling at trial.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India and Afghanistan today hit out at an isolated Pakistan for sponsoring and supporting terrorism and called for "resolute action" against terrorists as well as their masters.

Short of naming Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his inaugural address at the Heart of Asia meet said, "The growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough."



"It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them," he said asserting that terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who jointly inaugurated the annual Ministerial conference here along with Modi, directly hit out at Pakistan for "launching an undeclared war" against his country and demanded an Asian or international regime to verify Pak-sponsor terror operations.

Time has come for concrete action against terror infrastructure and those support it, Ghani asserted and quoted a top Taliban commander saying unless terror sanctuaries were allowed in Pakistan, the outfit will not last even a month.

He said despite Afghanistan's bilateral and multilateral ties with Pakistan, the "undeclared war" that started in winter of 2014, has intensified after the recent Brussels conference on Afghanistan's transition.

Slamming Pakistan's habit of denying cross border terror attacks, Ghani called for setting up of international mechanism to verify reality of such attacks which have increased in the last few months as also pitched for a global fund to contain terrorism.

Asking the international community to "demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear", Modi said silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and in the region will "only embolden terrorists and their masters".

"Let us re-dedicate ourselves to making Afghanistan a geography of peace. A place where reason and peace succeeds; progress and prosperity prevails and democracy and plurality wins," Modi added.

The 6th Ministerial conference here is being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz along with representatives of around 30 countries.

Modi also called for sustained and sincere global efforts



to bring "durable peace and lasting political stability" to Afghanistan. He said securing its territory and citizens from external threats must be a focus area for the "critical unfinished mission of our time".

"We have no doubt about the scale of the challenge. But, we are equally determined to succeed," he said, adding the results of collective efforts thus far have been hard-won, but mixed.

The Prime Minister said there was a need to reflect with urgency on what more must be done and what must be avoided in Afghanistan so that its citizens can self-sustain peace and economic growth.

"The question is of resolve and action. And, of putting Afghanistan and its people first," Modi added.

In his hard-hitting speech, Ghani said,"There should be an Asian or international regime, whatever is acceptable to Pakistan, should be put in place to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations."



"We do not want blame game, we want verification," Ghani said, without mincing words.
Anti-terror cooperation, sharing of intelligence inputs and how to jointly check cross border smuggling will dominate the Indo-Bangladesh Home Secretary level talks beginning tomorrow.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and his Bangladesh counterpart Mozammel Haque Khan and their teams will engage in intense discussions for two days for strengthening the anti terrorism mechanism, sharing of information about terrorists and terror groups.

Growing activities of dreaded terror group ISIS in Indian subcontinent, increased presence of Jehadi groups in Bangladesh and some Indian states and how to jointly tackle them will be discussed threadbare, official sources said.

Both sides are expected to flag the menace of smuggling of cattle, narcotics and arms through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border and is expected to find out ways to check them.

Bangladesh may press for Indian cooperation in nabbing its most wanted criminals, especially those who were involved in war crimes and assassination of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Both sides are expected to exchange notes about developments and investigations following the July 1 terror attack at a cafe in Dhaka. Bangladesh has been on edge ever since the terror attack.

India started acting against controversial Mumbai-based Islamic preacher Zakir Naik after he came under the scanner of the security agencies when Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' reported that one of the perpetrators of the terror attack in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.

The Islamic orator is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.

Naik is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects. The Mumbai-based preacher who is abroad, has not returned to India ever since the controversy came to light.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India today pressed for collective efforts to ensure resurgent forces of terrorism and extremism do not find sanctuaries and safe havens in any name, form or manifestation.

Neighbours of Afghanistan have a particular responsibility in this regard, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at the 'Heart of Asia' conference here.

"There is also a need to neither differentiate between good and bad terrorists, nor to play one group against the other," said Jaitley, who is representing an ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Taliban, Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda, Daesh, Lashkar-e- Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, etc. Are all terror organisations and should be treated as such, he said.

"End to terrorism and extremism, and adherence to internationally-accepted redlines including renouncing of violence, severing ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits and commitment to democracy and human rights are essential for successful reconciliation and lasting peace in Afghanistan," said.

The theme for the Heart of Asia Process this year is 'Addressing Challenges, Achieving Prosperity'.

As Afghanistan faces the challenges related to its multiple transitions, focused and sustained support will be required from all friends of Afghanistan in the international community for overcoming these challenges and achieving durable peace and prosperity, he said.

Jaitley noted that Afghanistan has faced gruesome



violence for decades and in the last few months, terrorism there has grown in both intensity and scope.

"Terrorist groups have made concerted efforts to capture and hold territory. Taliban have tried to expand its influence to territories in North and North East along with South West where they traditionally were not so strong," he said.

"These developments only underline the fact that these groups have changed neither their ideology nor objectives. The evil of terrorism, which threatens not merely one or two countries but our entire region, has made the current year the worst in a very long time," the minister said.

For its part, India is happy to work with Afghanistan to strengthen its capabilities to fight terrorism and violence directed at it, he said.

A key focus during India's co-chairmanship of the 'Heart of Asia' process has been to centre-stage the importance of connectivity for Afghanistan, Jaitley said, adding promoting it remains at the very core of India's cooperation with that country and also in the region.

Afghanistan has the potential to be the land bridge between various parts of the vast and dynamic Eurasian landmass, he said, adding there are many promising projects like the TAPI gas pipeline, TAT railway line, CASA 1000 which will bring prosperity to Afghanistan besides bringing the Central Asian and South Asian regions closer together.

"For India, the issue of connectivity for Afghanistan is not a mere talking-point. We strongly believe that the lack of connectivity directly impacts the economic, security and political situation in Afghanistan," he said.

The Finance Minister said a well-connected Afghanistan will be economically vibrant and prosperous and also politically stable. "It will be able to engage the energies of its youth and attract its talents back from the foreign lands", he added.

"Earlier this year, we achieved a milestone by signing the trilateral Transit and Transport Agreement among India, Iran and Afghanistan for provision of year-round and reliable connectivity to Afghanistan via Chahbahar in Iran.

"This endeavour will overcome the lack of direct overland access for Afghanistan through Indian markets. Afghanistan will further benefit from the zero duty available to Afghanistan's exports to India," Jaitley said.

He said benefits to Afghanistan will accrue if Afghan trucks could carry Indian products to markets in Afghanistan, Central Asia and beyond and indeed visa-versa.

"In this regard, India is willing to receive Afghan trucks on its territory, at Attari. We will be happy to create necessary facilities for Afghan products at Attari," he said.

To fully achieve these benefits it is essential that trade and transit agreements that Afghanistan enters into need to be fully inclusive, comprehensive and are most importantly fully activated, Jaitley said.
Days ahead of his visit to India, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter today said that the defense ties between the world's two largest democracies has never been as close as it is now with their militaries exercising together by air, land and sea like never before.

"The US-India defense relationship is the closest it's ever been. Through our strategic handshake - with America reaching west in the re-balance, and India reaching east in what Prime Minister Modi calls his Act East policy - our two nations are exercising together by air, land and sea like never before," Carter said in his address to the Regan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.

Slated to be in India on December 8, Carter would travel to Japan, Bahrain, Israel, Italy and the UK. This is for the first time that an outgoing American Defence Secretary has included India in his itinerary for the final overseas trip.

"We also have a technological handshake - as the US- India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, grasps hands with Prime Minister Modi's Make in India campaign - that's helping our countries move toward more diverse co-development and co-production of weapons systems," Carter said.

Carter would meet Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and other leaders during his trip to New Delhi.

"He (Carter) will look to build on the strategic handshake between the two nations and to continue the momentum in the relationship over the past decade, including expanded defence cooperation during his time as Secretary," the Pentagon had said in a statement last week.

Carter said the US-Japan alliance remains the cornerstone of Asia-Pacific security. "And with our new Defense Guidelines, the US-Japan alliance has never been stronger, or more capable of contributing to security in the Asia-Pacific and beyond," he said.

Carter also reflected on the re-balance strategy of US President Barack Obama. "It will ensure DoD continues to help provide the security necessary for that consequential region - which is home to nearly half the global population and nearly half the global economy - to remain a place where everyone can rise and prosper for decades to come," he said.

"That's been American policy and practice since the end of World War II more than 70 years ago. Regardless of what else was going on at home or in other parts of the world - during Democratic and Republican administrations, in times of surplus and deficit, war and peace - the United States has remained economically, politically, and militarily engaged in the Asia-Pacific," he said.

The US, he said, has long taken a principled and inclusive approach, and collaborated with a network of regional allies and partners to enable security and uphold important principles like resolving disputes peacefully; ensuring countries can make choices free from external coercion and intimidation; and preserving the freedom of overflight and navigation guaranteed by international law.

"Because we did so, out of the rubble of World War II,



economic miracle after miracle has occurred. Think about it....First Japan, then Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia rose and prospered, and today, China and India are doing the same," Carter said.

That progress has produced incredible changes in the region: populations are growing, education has improved, freedom and self-determination have spread, economies have grown more interconnected, and military spending and cooperation are growing, he added.

"Amid all this remarkable change and progress, America's interests and objectives in the Asia-Pacific have endured: we still want peace, stability, and progress there. But as the region has changed, our approach to how we meet those interests and uphold those enduring principles has had to change along with it," he added.
Congress today demand a white paper from the Centre on the demonetisation move which it claimed to be the "biggest scam of India" and demanded a probe into it by a Joint Parliamentary Committee.

"We want to know with whom did the Central government hold discussion about demonetisation. The government should issue a white paper on this," senior party leader Digvijay Singh told reporters here.

"A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) should probe the entire issue of demonetisation which helped BJP and its men convert black money into assets," he said.

Singh alleged that even the Prime Minister's Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian and other officials were in the dark about the impending demonetisation.

"Some people had information in advance which is evident from the fact that Rs one crore were deposited in BJP's account in a Kolkata bank in addition to the party buying land in Bihar and Odisha," he claimed.

Singh, a Rajya Sabha member, was in the state capital as part of the party's strategy to get people acquainted with the Congress' view on demonetisation.

He was accompanied by Bihar Congress chief and Bihar Education Minister Ashok Choudhary, Sadanand Singh, Dilip Kumar Choudhary, H K Verma and others.

Terming demonetisation as the "biggest scam of India", Singh alleged that Punjab BJP's legal cell co-convenor Sanjeev Kamboj had put his photograph on social media with wads of new notes of Rs 2,000 that raises a question mark on the BJP leaders having free access to new currency notes when the common people are standing in lines to withdraw money.

He pointed out that the Modi government increased the "limit of foreign remittances from India" from 75,000 to 2.5 lakh US Dollars, and alleged that the decision led to an outflow of nearly Rs 30,000 crore from the country only in one year prior to demonetisation.

"Whose money was sent out is yet to be disclosed," Singh said.

Asserting that the demonetisation move was an utter



failure of governance, the Congress veteran said that the decision was taken in a haste which not only created "economic anarchy and chaos" but also made the entire nation stand in queues to withdraw their hard-earned money.

The decision also helped counterfeit currency getting "legalised" in the process, Singh said while explaining that out of Rs 14.50 lakh crore of scrapped notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, Rs 10 lakh crore has already been deposited in banks and this includes the counterfeit currency in huge volume.

The very objective of demonetisation which is to mop up of black money, counterfeit currency and terror funding was defeated, he said.

So far 80 people died across the country, Singh claimed adding that the government changed its guidelines vis-a-vis the implementation of demonetisation 105 times till date, which has caused immense hardship and inconvenience to the people.

On Nitish Kumar's support of the demonetisation move, Singh said, "both Congress and Nitish Kumar are supporting the demonetisation. My party is opposing the poor implementation of the scheme and Nitish Kumar also talked about the government's lack of preparedness to deal with the post-demonetisation situation. Where is the contradiction?".

He also demanded that the case of Mahesh Shah and two other cases in Hyderabad should be monitored by a Supreme Court-appointed SIT which is probing black money.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was said to be critical late tonight after she suffered cardiac arrest in the hospital where she was admitted over two months ago.

"The honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening," said a statement issued by Apollo Hospital where she was admitted on September 22.

"She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists," Chief Operating Officer and head of transformation of Apollo Hospital Dr Subbaiah Viswanathan said in the statement.

Late around midnight, Apollo Hospital's Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy tweeted: "The Apollo TN CM #Jayalalita is critical.Multi speciality team @hospitalsapollo trying everything including ecmo.Praying for her recovery."



Soon after the Apollo statement came, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and enquired about Jayalalithaa's health.

Rao, who is is also Governor of Maharashtra, rushed to Chennai from Mumbai and went to the hospital.

Ministers and top police officials also rushed to the hospital and informal consultations on the situation.

Heavy deployment of police was made at the hospital where thousands of supporters of 68-year-old 'Amma' and AIADMK cadre had gathered on hearing the .

Police force has been put on alert throughout the state and all personnel have reportedly been asked to report to tehir respective stations by the morning.

President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK leader M Karunanidhi, his son and opposition leader K Stalin, Union Ministers, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Chief Ministers and a host of leaders expressed concern over Jayalalithaa's health condition and wished her speedy recovery.

Earlier in the day, AIADMK spokesperson C Ponnaiyan told reporters, "The AIIMS doctors visited the hospital yesterday and after examining her (Jayalalithaa's) health, they shared the good with us that Amma (as Jayalalithaa is fondly called by AIADMK cadre, meaning mother) has completely recovered."



Ponnaiyan said the Chief Minister was doing physical exercises, undergoing physiotherapy, and was having food on her own besides advising officers on issues related to government and party activities.

Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration. The hospital, which had been issuing bulletins on her health status, had later said she was being treated for infection with respiratory support, among others.

Apollo Hospitals Chairman Dr C Prathap Reddy had recently said Jayalalithaa was in good health and was speaking using a valve attached to the tracheostomy tube.

Whole body physiotherapy was being done, he had said, adding that she was normally recuperating after being in bed for several weeks and would herself decide when to go home.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The condition of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who is hospitalised here since September 22, deteriorated today as she suffered cardiac arrest.

"The honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening," said a statement tonight by Apollo Hospital where she is admitted.

"She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists," Chief Operating Officer and head of transformation of Apollo Hospital Dr Subbaiah Viswanathan said in the statement.

about the 68-year-old leader suffering the cardiac arrest came hours after her party AIADMK said she will return home "soon" as an AIIMS expert team had confirmed that she has completely recovered after over two months of hospitalisation.

Soon after the Apollo statement came, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and enquired about Jayalalithaa's health.

Rao, who is the Governor of Maharashtra and holding the additional charge of Tamil Nadu, told Singh that he was rushing to Chennai from Mumbai where he was to attend a Navy Day event today.

During the 10-minute telephonic conversation, Rao briefed Singh about the health condition of the Chief Minister and conveyed that doctors attending to her were taking all necessary steps.

He told the Home Minister that he was reaching Chennai to personally monitor the situation in Tamil Nadu arising out of the sudden deterioration in the health of Jayalalithaa, official sources said.

Earlier in the day, AIADMK spokesperson C Ponnaiyan told reporters, "The AIIMS doctors visited the hospital yesterday and after examining her (Jayalalithaa's) health, they shared the good with us that Amma (as Jayalalithaa is fondly called by AIADMK cadre, meaning mother) has completely recovered."



Ponnaiyan said the Chief Minister was doing physical exercises, undergoing physiotherapy, and was having food on her own besides advising officers on issues related to government and party activities.

Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration. The hospital, which had been issuing bulletins on her health status, had later said she was being treated for infection with respiratory support, among others.

Apollo Hospitals Chairman Dr C Prathap Reddy had recently said Jayalalithaa was in good health and was speaking using a valve attached to the tracheostomy tube.

Whole body physiotherapy was being done, he had said, adding that she was normally recuperating after being in bed for several weeks and would herself decide when to go home.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kashmiri politicians can speak anything against India but they they had no courage to say a word against the separatists and Pakistan, Union minister Jitendra Singh today said.

Without naming former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, Singh criticised him for his remarks that Nagrota attack was a "result of statements" made by various union ministers against Pakistan.

"I don't think such type of a childish statement need any response, but unfortunately the people who say that statements from India or the ministers of India provoke Pakistan,... To launch terrorist attacks, I wish they had such courage to say a single word against Pakistan and its supporters living in India or the those who support terrorism", Singh told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

"The Kashmir centric politicians cannot do that because they know it is the vibrant democracy of India with its large heart that they can speak anything and if they utter a word against Pakistan or against separatists, the same can put them in distress", Singh said.

Speaking to party workers in Anantnag on December 1, Omar Abdullah had said, "The Nagrota attack is a result of statements made by various ministers against Pakistan".

Seven soldiers including two officers were killed and three terrorists were eliminated when terrorists' disguised in police uniform attacked an army camp in Nagrota area in the outskirts of Jammu on Tuesday.

Earlier, while speaking at a function, Singh said drive against black money will ultimately benefit the farmer andenrich the agricultural and rural economy of India.

The money added to state exchequer will eventually go to those sections of society which were so far being held to ransom as a result of black money hoarded by a few.

He said, "Narendra Modi is the only Prime Minister, who could have taken this decision (demonetisation) because of his impeccable honesty, sincerity and courage of conviction, with no vested interest whatsoever or nothing to hide.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government will install laser walls and other technologically advanced systems at the border to thwart any infiltration attempt from across the border, Union minister Kiren Rijiju said here today.

He said that the work in this regard will be completed in a year.

The minister of state for home affairs paid tributes to Saheed Ram Parkash on his 25th martyrdom anniversary, organized at Qadian town in the district.

The "laser walls" or fence are being monitored by Border Security Force (BSF) which guards the Indo-Pak IB in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

A dozen "laser walls" have been already made operational along the Indo-Pak International Border in Punjab to plug the porous riverine and treacherous terrain and keep an effective vigil against intruders and terrorists exploiting the frontier areas to cross over.

The decision to install these laser walls was taken by BSF two years ago keeping in mind the vulnerability of the border in these areas as barbed wire fencing could not be installed in many infiltration prone areas due to treacherous terrain or marshy riverine topography.

After the Pathankot terror attack in January, where it was suspected that terrorists crossed over from Pakistan by breaching the IB from Bamiyal area in Punjab, Union Home Ministry and BSF have sped up the deployment and activation of these walls along the long and winding border.

Use of scientific technology and heightened vigil on riverine frontiers while guarding the Indo-Pak border were among the suggestions given by the Home Ministry-appointed committee which also flagged gaps and vulnerability in border fencing.

The committee, headed by former Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta, was set up following the terror attack on Pathankot air base and it submitted its report to Home Minister Rajnath Singh in August last.

Of the 3,323 km long Indo-Pak border, 1,225 kms falls in Jammu and Kashmir (including Line of Control), 553 kms in Punjab, 1,037 kms in Rajasthan and 508 kms in Gujarat.
Acts like lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq show a mindset that is entirely comfortable with the death penalty, wholly exculpatory of torture as a means of extorting confessions, says Gopalkrishna Gandhi who is a known campaigner against capital punishment.

Gandhi has come out with a new book "Abolishing The Death Penalty: Why India Should Say No To Capital Punishment", published by Aleph Book Company, in which through in-depth analysis and marshalling of considered opinion of jurists, human rights activists, scholars and criminologists among others, he argues why the death penalty should be abolished with immediate effect in India.

According to Gandhi, death penalty asks to be questioned on grounds of the right to life, the right to self-defence against battery, assault, homicide and murder.

"States that keep the death penalty alive and do not realise the absurdity of that oxymoron may not be accused of a sadistic pleasure in dealing death. But they cannot be exempted from the accusation of deriving a sense of pleasure in the death penalty as a power, a perquisite, a prerogative that no one else enjoys," he writes.

The former West Bengal governor says the power to commute a death sentence to one of life imprisonment is part of the power of the death penalty.

"And even in the exercise of that pardoning prerogative, the state is using its exceptional privilege, its unique power. It is the exclusivity of this power, in its extreme nature, and indeed in its exceptionality that it is tantamount to a reserved 'pleasure'. And it is in that privileged uniqueness that it is so outrageously capricious and so flagrantly promiscuous," he argues.

Gandhi, currently distinguished professor of history and politics at Ashoka University, says public opinion in India has always been "death-penalty minded" and is now even more so.

"It is in fact more retribution-minded, vengeance-minded and geared to dealing death," he says.

He then cites the lynching of a prisoner detained on suspicion of rape in Dimapur in Nagaland last year which included him being dragged out of jail, stripped, paraded naked and then beaten to death, in mob adjudication.

"The mob-lynching and murder of Mohammad Akhlaq in a village in Uttar Pradesh on September 28, 2015 on the rumour that he had killed a cow and eaten its meat, is another grim instance of mob fury that stops at nothing less than killing. These acts show a mindset that is entirely comfortable with the death penalty, wholly exculpatory of torture as a means of extorting confessions," Gandhi writes.

Abolishing the death penalty, he says, is not about the final punishment from which there is no return but about the first principle of penology which is about return, a return to civility.

"The debate about the death penalty lies beyond 'to hang or not to hang' to a discussion on the criminal investigation system, on the law's transparency, the state's impartiality, a civilised penology," he says.

"We do not choose to be born. But once arrived, we do choose, through programmed genomes, instinct and will, to stay alive. In fact, we do more than choose. We resist anything that comes in the way of our staying alive. That resistance is built into the apparatus of staying alive," he says.

In the book, Gandhi asks fundamental questions about the ultimate legal punishment awarded to those accused of major crimes. Is taking another life a just punishment or an act as inhuman as the crime that triggered it? Does having capital punishment in the law books deter crime?



His conclusions are unequivocal: Cruel in its operation, ineffectual as deterrence, unequal in its application in an uneven society, liable like any punishment to be in error but incorrigibly so, these grievous flaws that are intrinsic to the death penalty are compounded by yet another - it leaves the need for retribution (cited as its primary 'good') unrequited and simply makes society more bloodthirsty.

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In a bid to eliminate open defecation from the national capital, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia today inaugurated 495 community toilets across the city and announced that DUSIB will achieve its target of setting-up 10,000 community toilets by March 31 next year.

Sisodia along with Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain, DUSIB CEO VK Jain and other senior officials visited community toilets at Z-Block, Loha Mandi, Naraina Industrial Area, Chander Shekhar Azad Colony and Wazirpur Industrial Area to inaugurate the toilets in Jhuggi Jhompri Bastis of these areas.

This will help people living in slums to ease out with dignity and make their bastis open defecation free zones, Sisodia said.

The community toilets are located in Wazirpur, Model Town, Moti Nagar, Jangpura, Kamla Nehru Camp, Kirti Nagar, Jeevan Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Matiala and Timarpur.

"To eradicate poverty, we have to ensure cleanliness. Contractors should ensure that the cleanliness of these toilets is maintained at all times. By March 2017, Delhi should be firmly on track to ensure it is free of open defecation," Jain said.

Jain said that the main aim is to provide the people with a good service and these toilets will be shown under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

DUSIB has also launched a drive to improve the quality of maintenance, repair and upgradation of the existing toilets in JJ Bastis by constructing new toilets at the rate 1 seat for 30 persons as per Swachh Bharat Mission norms.

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on Sunday hit out at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over his criticism of demonetisation, saying that he "lacks credibility" for such an attack as he himself headed the most "corrupt regime ever".

"Manmohan Singh attacking this government for fight against black money lacks credibility. He himself in his 10 years' regime, had not only failed in tackling black money, but is seen as heading the (most) corrupt regime ever in this country. He was responsible for accumulation of black money," General Secretary Muralidhar Rao told reporters.

Attacking the government over demonetisation in the Rajya Sabha, Singh had on November 24 said the step was "a case of organised loot and legalised plunder" and reflected a "monumental management failure".

Rao said, "I don't value (Singh's criticism) because he is a failed leader, who is attacking a government and a leader who is performing and taking the fight against black money to its logical end."

Responding to a question, Rao said the long queues at ATMs and banks besides currency crunch would disappear by December 30.

"That's what Honourable Prime Minister has said. It may take some more time for the economy to become normal," he said.

Rao also said people, including farmers, who have been affected by demonetisation, would be "rewarded" in the next year's budget.

He said: "You will have a new budget in which all suffering sections will be rewarded."
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today paid rich tributes to founder of opposition National Conference and former chief minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on the eve of his 111th birth anniversary.

In her message, Mehbooba said the National Conference founder was a visionary in his approach who would always be remembered for taking many revolutionary steps, including introduction of Single Line Administration in the state.

Mehbooba prayed for eternal peace for the late leader.

Son of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and National Conference (NC) president, Farooq Abdullah, while paying tributes to the "Sher-e-Kashmir" said his struggles and sacrifices for the dignity of this state and its people need to be emulated to take it out of the throes of divisive politics and sinister plans of political disempowerment.

"Sher-e-Kashmir's life was a valiant story of selfless leadership. He fought for the political rights and dignity of his people till his last breath. He chose prison over power for his people and it is this sense of sacrifice and courage that needs to be instilled in our youth for the future of our State," the NC president said.

"Sher-e-Kashmir's call for inclusiveness and secularism needs to be heard in every town and village in the State today at a time when political forces are trying their best to divide the people of the State on the basis of region and religion," he said.

In his message, NC working president Omar Abdullah said, "Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah's legacy denotes the State's high traits of pluralistic ethos and inclusiveness."



"He nurtured and strengthened this characteristic and cemented the bonds of love between various sections of the society and different regions of the State," Omar said.

He added that Sher-e-Kashmir's ultimate goal was the political and economic empowerment of the common man and the equitable development of the state.

"His vision of Naya Kashmir encompassed holistic and comprehensive development of all sections and all regions of the State without any favour or discrimination," Omar said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Public sector company will tie-up with the State Bank of India (SBI) to sell government-minted "Indian Gold Coin", its Chairman and Managing Director Ved Prakash said.

The state-run bullion trader, which has already tied up with over half a dozen banks, has so far sold one lakh pieces of "Indian Gold Coin" and has set a target of selling 5 lakhs units in the next few years. The coin is available in denominations of 5gm, 10gm and 20 gm bar.

"Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the coin on November 5, 2015, we have tied up with seven banks to sell it," Prakash told PTI.

These lenders are Indian Overseas Bank, Vijaya Bank, Federal Bank, Yes Bank, Andhra Bank, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank.

The coin is being sold to customers through their 400 designated branches across the country, he said.

will now enter into a similar agreement with the country's largest lender, Prakash said, adding the coin is also available at all the 383 outlets of the PSU.

Prakash was in the city yesterday to preside over an event at 10th global trade show organised by the Vadodara Chamber of Commerce and Industries (VCCI).

The coin is India's first-ever sovereign gold offering and the only one to be hallmarked by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for purity.

"The creation of a national-branded coin, of uniform price and quality, has addressed the trust deficit that exists around the buying and selling of gold. It aligns with the 'Make in India' priority of the government," he said.

The coin has the national emblem Ashoka Chakra engraved on one side and Mahatma Gandhi on the other. Its other unique features include 24 Karat 999 fineness purity, positive tolerance both in weight and purity, tamper proof packaging and advanced anti-counterfeit features.

also plans to upgrade its gold coin minting facility, Prakash said. "We will modernise our facility so that we can mint more pieces of the coin when its demand increases."



Balkrishna Shukla, a Director on board of MMTC, said through the coin, the government aims to reduce dependence on gold imports to meet the local demand.

The coin, manufactured by Security Printing and Minting Corp, is made from the yellow metal collected under Gold Monetisation Scheme of the Central government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani today held bilateral talks on a range of key issues including cross-border terrorism and decided to strengthen counter-terror cooperation between the two countries.

During their meeting, the two leaders agreed to operationalise the additional amount of US Dollar One Billion for bilateral cooperation especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including through a possible air corridor.

The corridor will give India a leverage in Afghanistan as Pakistan continues to deny transit link through its territory.

The two leaders discussed several aspects of the "close and friendly" relations between the two countries, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said, adding they also reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

"Both leaders exchanged views on the common threat of terrorism, especially the cross border nature of the scourge which had caused immense suffering to the people of India and Afghanistan.

"In this context, the two leaders agreed to strengthen counter terror cooperation between the two countries, and enhance coordination at the UN and other relevant fora," he said.

India had pulled out of SAARC Summit, to be held in Islamabad last month, citing cross-border terror strikes emanating from Pakistan. Afghanistan and other SAARC countries had also sought cancellation of the eight-nation meet on the grounds that there was incitement of terrorism in the region.

Noting with satisfaction the prospects for bilateral relations, Modi and Ghani agreed that both countries would continue to work ever harder for further strengthening them.

"Both leaders agreed to operationalise the additional amount of US Dollar One Billion for bilateral cooperation especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including through a possible air corridor between India and Afghanistan to overcome obstacles to promotion of bilateral trade," Swarup said.

Ghani, who arrived here last evening to attend the Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process conference, also recalled his visit to Golden Temple yesterday, describing it as "a moving experience".

In the meeting, Modi assured Ghani of India's continued support for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Also, Afghanistan is learnt to have sought enhanced supply of military hardware from India.

Afghanistan has been trying to revamp its military to fight the resurgent Taliban after drawdown of NATO forces began nearly two years back.

Sources said both India and Afghanistan were keen to finalise the air cargo agreement as soon as possible and that the broad contours of the pact were already finalised.

India and Afghanistan have been exploring various connectivity projects for greater two-way trade.

In May, India, Iran and Afghanistan had signed an



agreement to set up a trade and transport corridor with Chabahar in Iran as the hub.

The sea-land route of Chabahar Port was designed to bypass Pakistan and the project was seen as India's effort to counter China's plan to develop Gwadar port in Pakistan.

Afghanistan was very keen on deeper defence and security cooperation with India and there were indications that Ghani may press for ramping up supply of arms and military hardware from India though Pakistan would be unhappy if there was closer Indo-Afghan military cooperation.

Last week, India had given to Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters.

India has trained hundreds of Afghan security personnel but has been adopting a cautious approach in providing weapons.

Afghanistan has also been seeking India's assistance in making functional Soviet-era helicopters and transport aircraft which were not in flying condition.

India has a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and is implementing projects worth USD 2 billion to help rebuild the country's infrastructure.

India has been supporting an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of peace and reconciliation, and advocating the need for a sustained and long-term commitment to Afghanistan by the international community.
Concerned about the deadlock over amending Nepal's Constitution, President Bidya Devi Bhandari today called for an all-party meeting to discuss the current political situation.

The meeting with the political parties represented in Legislature-Parliament will take place later today.

"President Bhandari has been concerned with the latest political development," a source was quoted as saying by the Republica Online.

"She has called an all party meeting in a bid to seek a political solution to the current imbroglio," it said.

Rastriya Janamorcha Nepal Chairman Chitra Bahadur KC said the President called him to be present for the discussion.

The meeting has been called at a time when the political parties are sharply divided over the constitution amendment bill registered in Parliament.

Bhandari has been urging the top leaders of the major the parties to bail the country out of the current political deadlock through consensus.

The Madhesi Front last week refused to back the Constitution amendment bill, saying it was not acceptable in its current discriminatory form.

The Constitution promulgated last year could not be implemented due to the agitation by the Madhesis.

The Madhesi parties and ethnic groups have been demanding more rights and representation for the marginalised people.

Re-demarcation of the provincial boundaries and citizenship issue are the two major demands put forth by the Madhesis.

The Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, launched a six-month agitation from September last year to February this year in which more than 50 people were killed. The agitation had also crippled the landlocked country's economy as supplies from India were blocked.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's grandnephew and researcher Ashish Ray today claimed he has "irrefutable evidence" to prove that Bose died in an air crash in Taipei (Taiwan) on August 18, 1945.

Demanding that the ashes in the Renkoji temple should be brought back to India, Ray said, "There are three reports which clearly state that Bose had died in the air crash in 1945 and did not have the opportunity to enter Soviet Union."



Two reports by the Japanese government have clearly stated that he died in the air crash and another report which is lying with the Russian state archives unambiguously says that Netaji didn't have the opportunity to enter the erstwhile Soviet Union on 1945 or afterwards, Ray said.

"He was never held as prisoner in USSR," he said.

Ray said Netaji, however, might have plans to move to Russia as he had always believed that Russia, a Communist state, would support his cause to liberate India from the British rule.

"He felt Japan would not be able to protect him because it had surrendered. He felt although he might be detained in Soviet Union, he stood a better chance of convincing the Soviet authorities about his mission to liberate India," Ray added.

Coming to contrary views on the issue, Ray said though he understands the emotional attachment with Netaji but there is a need to confront the truth.

"For how long can we be in denial, irrespective of so much evidence which points towards his death in plane crash. We have accounts of six or seven persons, including Habibur Rehman. I think if possible a DNA test of the ashes in Renkiji temple should be done and the ashes should be brought back to India," Ray said.
Taking a major step towards rural sanitation, founder of Sulabh sanitation movement Bindeshwar Pathak today launched an intensive campaign to ensure toilet for every household in the country by 2019.

Launching the special campaign 'Sulabh towards villages', Pathak, who is also Brand Ambassador of 'Rail Swachch Mission' dedicated five toilets to poor families in Ithara village in Jaunpur district.

He said Sulabh has launched special campaign for Rural India and the special drive will continue across the country.

He urged villagers to support the ongoing Clean India Campaign to make India Open Defecation Free by 2019.

Pathak said big companies and corporate houses can provide assistance for toilet construction to show their love for the motherland.

He said nearly 12 crore toilets are required to be built by 2019.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US-based waterless bathing brand NoRinse, which entered India earlier this year, is eyeing a turnover of USD 2 million by March 2017.

"India is a pretty big market. We have an order pipeline of USD 2 million, which is expected to close by March 2017. We are targeting USD 20 million in next 5 years. India should contribute more than 20 per cent of global sales in next 5 years," NoRinse US-India Founder and CEO Puneet Gupta told PTI.

The company, which counts NASA, US Military, Lockheed Martin as its clients, is focusing on the healthcare segment, defence industry, homecare (post surgery) and the over the counter (OTC) space in India.

NoRinse partners with experts in each segment to market and distribute its products and the company is in talks with a leading pharma company to distribute its products in the OTC space.

The company has tied-up with Hinduja Hospital, Wockhardt Hospitals, Gangaram Hospital among others in India.

With a product portfolio includes waterless shampoo, waterless body wash, shampoo cap and body wipes, NoRinse is focusing on the tier I cities initially but plans to have a pan-India presence by 2018.

Currently the company manufactures all its products in the US and exports it to over 15 countries including India, but it plans to set-up a manufacturing unit in the country in the next three years.

"In the first phase we are bringing all the goods from US because we have a manufacturing set-up in US. In second phase we will repack in India and in third phase we will manufacture in India. Within three years we have plans to have our own manufacturing plant in India," he said.

NoRinse also has products for the pet care industry but Gupta said they would wait for at least a year before launching it in India.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Buoyed by the party's success in local body polls, the BJP-led government will enter the Winter session of Maharashtra Assembly with confidence but the opposition will seek to put it on mat over key issues like the problems being faced by common people, cooperative banks and farmers due to note ban, and the Maratha quota stir.

A relatively weak and divided opposition will have to carefully plan its floor strategy to corner the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition in the backdrop of BJP's good poll show, in the session beginning here from tomorrow.

The Congress-led opposition is likely to stridently raise the issue of demonetisation, deaths in bank and ATM queues, distress the exercise has caused to citizens, especially farmers, and cash crunch faced by cooperative banks (banned by RBI from exchanging old notes).

The widespread agitation on the issue of reservation for Marathas is likely to figure prominently in the House.

The role of Shiv Sena will be watched keenly as the BJP's ruling ally has severely criticised the implementation of the cash recall exercise announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 and hardships faced by the common man due to it.

The opposition is likely to grill the government over the alleged sexual assault on minor tribal girls in a state-aided residential school in Buldhana district.

It will highlight the problems being faced by farmers, particularly cotton and sugarcane growers who are unable to sell their produce in the market because of non-availability of new currency notes.

However, the mud-slinging and fights between key opposition parties--Congress and NCP--especially after their drubbing in the local body polls is likely to provide some breather to the government.

BJP emerged as a major gainer in the first phase of Municipal Council polls, winning 851 seats across 164 urban local bodies, making inroads into the traditional strongholds of Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP.

The second phase of elections to local-self government bodies will be held later this month and in January. As the Model Code of Conduct is in force for these polls, the government is unlikely to make any major announcement related to public welfare.

The poll results have made Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who has completed two years in office, as BJP's undisputed leader in the state. He termed the party's victory in the municipal body polls as not just a wave but a "tsunami".

Congress is facing a crisis within. A section of its leaders blamed MPCC chief Ashok Chavan for the party's dismal show in the Council polls. Another Congressman and former Minister Balasaheb Thorat targeted Opposition Leader in Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil for the loss.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a veiled reference to Pakistan, Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai today said the "nurturing" of terrorism by "a State" is counter- productive not only to itself but for the region as a whole.

Flagging the challenges posed by terrorism and extremism, he said, "We also see the problem of a State nurturing terrorism, which obviously is not only counter-productive for them but for the region as a whole."



Karzai began his media interaction at the 6th conference of Heart of Asia in Hindi with words of praise for Amritsar and India, besides Indo-Afghan ties.

He described the conference as "extremely useful", and said it was significant for several reasons.

Amritsar presented a corridor of transport and trade, and Afghanistan would like to act as a bridge connecting South Asia with Central Asia, and Central Asia to the Middle East, he said.

Karzai was making the joint Amritsar declaration with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after the end of the two-day ministerial conference.

"We had excellent deliberations at the conference," he said, adding that challenges and opportunities were aplenty in the region.

"We face similar problems. We face similar opportunities," he said, adding that Afghanistan would continue exploring opportunities in the region in future as well.

Expressing gratitude to India for its support, he stressed that relations between the two nations would continue to stay strong.

He said Afghanistan was a land bridge connecting the region particularly with India and had much to offer in trade and commerce. Afghanistan was rich in minerals and energy resources, he said.

"We send goods to India, but there are difficulties," he added.

During the conference discussions took place on issue of water, building dams besides providing vocational and skill training, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
State-run oil behemoth has crossed its daily production target of 16,200 tonnes per day and has accordingly revised its annual goal upward to 5.9 million tonnes for this fiscal.

"Production trend has reversed in recent months. We will produce more in this year compared to last year. All over India, production of onshore has increased," Director (Onshore) Ved Prakash Mahawar told PTI.

The daily production of the company has already touched 16,300 tonnes compared to 15,300 tonnes in August 2015, he added.

"We had set the target on higher side compared to last year and it was 16,200 tonnes per day. We have already achieved it. The last six month's average is 16,290 tonnes a day," Mahawar said.

He said the company gave a mission target for production to all its assets across the country for the current financial year and all will achieve it by the end of the fiscal. "Our whole year's target is 5.87 million tonnes. We will do more than our target. We are trying to reach 5.9 million tonnes in this fiscal and we are hopeful about it," Mahawar said.

When asked about Assam, the Director said the production this year will increase compared to last year in the state too.

"In last fiscal, our production in Assam was 0.9 million tonnes. This year, we will reach the figure of one million tonnes," he added.

The average production of Assam asset was 2,250 tonnes a day a year earlier.

"It has already crossed 2,350 tonnes per day. We gave the target of 2,400 tonnes a day to Assam asset. By January, this figure will also be achieved," Mahawar said. Talking about the Jorhat basin, he said the production was 350 tonnes a day.

"We have made it an asset to bring in more focus on production. As soon as it was made an asset, production has gone up to 400 tones every day. This will increase to 500 tonnes next year," Mahawar said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tightened his hold on Fatah and shut out a key rival, according to unofficial results today of leadership elections in the movement which has dominated West Bank politics for decades.

The election comes at a time of intense behind-the-scenes battles among senior Fatah members to succeed Abbas once the 81-year-old decides to step down. However, Abbas has given no sign that he plans to retire from the presidency or his top jobs in Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Yesterday, more than 1,300 Fatah delegates confirmed Abbas' continued Fatah leadership role by acclamation and elected 18 members of the movement's top decision-making Central Committee.

Unofficial results indicated that top vote getters were Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian uprising leader jailed by Israel, and Jibril Rajoub, a former West Bank security chief.

Both are seen as potential Abbas successors, and their strong showing could improve their eventual succession bids.

While Abbas cemented his control over the movement, the re-election of party stalwarts and Abbas loyalists is bound to affirm Fatah's public image as a stale, aging movement that has failed to deliver on Palestinian dreams of statehood and is out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Palestinians.

The elections took place on the last day of a Fatah conference that was also meant to block the return of Mohammed Dahlan, a former Abbas aide who fell out with his boss several years ago and went into exile.

Several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, have been pressing Abbas to allow Dahlan, a millionaire businessman, to reclaim a leadership position in the West Bank. In arranging the conference, Abbas effectively blocked Dahlan's return to the top ranks of Fatah.

During the conference, the delegates approved Abbas' long-standing political programme of setting up a Palestinian state through negotiations with Israel even though the strategy has hit a dead end. Gaps have been too wide between Abbas and Israeli hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu, in power since 2009, to allow for meaningful negotiations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An elderly Mumbai-based couple's effort to secure the release of their son lodged in a Pakistani prison, despite completing his jail term, today hit a roadblock after they failed to meet Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz.

They have been camping in this holy city bordering Pakistan, where Aziz participated in the ministerial deliberations of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process. Aziz is to fly back this evening.

"We were keen to meet Sartaj Aziz. But the tight security in place did not allow us to have an audience with him. Now we are in the Golden Temple praying for justice to our son who is lodged in a Peshawar jail," said Fauzia Ansari, the mother of 32-year-old Hamid Ansari.

"All our efforts to meet Sartaj went futile," she lamented.

Over 40 foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 participating countries attended the conference that also saw the attendance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani.

Hamid, an IT engineer and an MBA degree holder, had gone to Kabul on November 4, 2012 from where he wanted to reach Pakistan, allegedly to meet a Pakistani girl he had been in touch with over e-mail.

There were no reports of his whereabouts after November 10.

The deputy attorney general of Pakistan had informed the court that Hamid was in the custody of Pakistani army and had been awarded three years' imprisonment.

Fauzia and Nehal, who have two children, including Hamid, said he was sentenced to three years in prison and his term ended a year ago.

The elderly couple had been carrying placards to display outside the venue of two-day Heart of Asia conference.

Fauzia said she had earlier sent a letter to Aziz seeking an appointment to request for Hamid's release but in the absence of any reply from his office, she had no option but to stand near the venue of the conference with the placards.

She had filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court seeking release of her son after the completion of his jail term.

The petition was dismissed as the court had observed that the army would decide on his release since he was in its custody.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An elderly Mumbai-based couple's effort to secure the release of their son lodged in a Pakistani prison despite completing his jail term today hit a roadblock after they failed to meet Pakistani Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz.

They have been camping in this holy city, where Aziz participated in the ministerial deliberations of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process. Aziz left for Pakistan this evening.

"We were keen to meet Sartaj Aziz. But the tight security in place did not allow us to have an audience with him. Now we are in the Golden Temple praying for justice to our son who is lodged in a Peshawar jail," said Fauzia Ansari, the mother of 32-year-old Hamid Ansari.

"All our effort to meet Sartaj went futile," she lamented.

Over 40 foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 participating countries attended the conference that also saw the attendance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani.

Hamid, an IT engineer and an MBA degree holder, had gone to Kabul on November 4, 2012 from where he reached Pakistan, allegedly to meet a Pakistani girl he had been in touch with over e-mail.

There were no reports of his whereabouts after November 10.

The deputy attorney general of Pakistan had informed the court that Hamid was in the custody of Pakistani army and had been awarded three years' imprisonment.

Fauzia and Nehal, who have two children, including Hamid, said he was sentenced to three years in prison and his term ended a year ago.

The elderly couple had been carrying placards to display outside the venue of two-day Heart of Asia conference.

Fauzia said she had earlier sent a letter to Aziz seeking an appointment to request for Hamid's release but in the absence of any reply from his office, she had no option but to stand near the venue of the conference with the placards.

She had filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court seeking release of her son after the completion of his jail term.

The petition was dismissed as the court had observed that the army would decide on his release since he was in its custody.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said army was present in some toll plazas in West Bengal to study the carrying capacity of the roads in case of mass armed forces movement and accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of playing politics over the forces.

"The other day I was listening to the statement by a Chief Minister of one state. Army had gone (to that state) for routine survey. Every year once or twice, they visit the states to study the vehicle carrying capacity of the road. This is done considering the preparedness to move the armed forces," Parrikar said without naming Banerjee during the 'Vijay Sankalp' rally at Goa's Mayem constituency.

"These forces don't move in a group of 100-200, they are 10,000-15,000 in numbers and for such movement at-least 500 trucks are required. Therefore, the Army always check(s) the carrying capacity of the road," he said.

"Also they (Army) checks how many lorries (trucks) are available in the nearby villages. This is their annual exercise," said the Defence Minister.

Explaining Army's presence at the toll posts, Parrikar said, "they were standing at toll post because the vehicles stop there. If Army wants to ask any information, it can be sought there."



Parrikar also said, "I don't know what the Chief Minister felt. When I was about to go to sleep, the television started flashing (the statement) that Army has taken over."



"I inquired (with the Army), they informed me that the proper communication has been made with the state government. Originally the Army was supposed to conduct that exercise on November 28, 29 and 30, but since 'Bharat Bandh' was declared on November 28, we were requested to shift it to December 1 and 2," he added.

"I can understand the grief (she suffered) due to demonetisation but why should Army be involved in politics. You will never find Army involved in politics. That day I witnessed what is political frustration," the former Goa Chief Minister said.

Parrikar further accused that many politicians were in grief because "those who had stocked money as a preparedness towards election, their money has became useless overnight due to demonetisation".

On December 2, presence of army personnel at toll plazas in West Bengal triggered a row with Banerjee remaining at the state secretariat overnight in protest, asking was it an "army coup", drawing a stinging condemnation from the Centre which said the remark showed her "political frustration".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Passenger vehicle (PV) sales in India is likely to grow in the range of 7-9 per cent next year on the back of low fuel prices and an accommodative monetary policy stance by the Reserve Bank of India, according to global rating firm Fitch.

"We expect PV sales to increase by 7-9 per cent, after rising 12.3 per cent year on year in April-September 2016 due to improving consumer confidence, new model launches and the lifting of a ban on the sale of diesel cars in Delhi," the rating firm said in a report.

Besides, the demonetisation of high currency notes would only impact sale of luxury cars in the country, it noted.

"Undeclared income is less often used to buy small cars, and two-wheeler and commercial vehicles, so sales of these are likely to stabilise quickly once the liquidity situation in the economy is restored in the near future," it said.

The report said the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in its current form would be largely price neutral because the proposed rates are in line with the existing level of taxes.

According to Fitch, the auto sales in the country would also benefit from strong GDP growth, which the agency forecasts at 6.9 per cent in 2016-17 and 7.7 per cent in 2017-18.

"Furthermore, the government's focus on reviving infrastructure spending and structural reforms such as the GST Bill will boost investments, which will provide strong support to economic growth and consumer spending," it noted.

On the commercial vehicle segment, the rating agency said it expects medium and heavy commercial vehicles (MHCV) sales to improve with progress on stalled infrastructure projects and gradual recovery in mining activity after metal prices bottomed out in 2016.

"We also expect MHCV sales to benefit from buying ahead of an expected increase in prices when new emission standards are implemented from April 1, 2017," it added.

Besides, the light commercial vehicles sales are expected to continue its growth with a significant demand boost likely to acrrue from a timely rollout of GST in April next year.

Similarly, Fitch expects sales of two-wheelers to continue increasing after posting a strong 17.5 per cent year-on-year growth in the first half of 2016, being driven by a rise in public-sector wages and a healthy spending in the rural sector.

On the other hand, exports are likely to remain subdued due to macroeconomic weakness in Latin America, it predicted.
A group of physically-challenged persons protested near the Polytechnic square close to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister's official residence here demanding that they should be given jobs.

Their protest began last evening, braving the winter chill, and the venue was shifted this evening to another location.

"Later on, following police intervention and assurance that (MP) Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will meet us tomorrow, we shifted our protest to the community hall", opposite to TT Nagar police station, this evening, Savita Dwivedi, who is leading the protest told PTI.

"We squatted near the Polytechnic College square since last evening burning 'rotis' given to us for meals to make a bonfire to beat the extreme cold till this evening," she added.

Yesterday was the World Disability Day.

"We are demanding that people with disabilities should be provided job under 6 per cent reservation quota. A huge number of 52,000 job vacancies are lying vacant in the state", she claimed.

"Either provide us job or we should get Rs 6,000 monthly or pension of Rs 3,000 per month," she demanded.

"We won't lift our protest till Chouhan meets us and listen to our woes and demands," Dwivedi said.

"It is unfortunate that we sat just 100 metres away from Chief Minister's residence but he did not come to meet us and hear our grievances. We sat under the open sky in such a cold weather but this hasn't moved Chouhan," alleged Dwivedi.

"Yesterday, the officials told us the CM was unwell. Today we are being given a lame excuse that he is going to Nagpur whereas he has addressed people at the Jamboori Maiden here, " she claimed.

Meanwhile, S K Mishra, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister said he personally met the protesters last midnight to break the ice and had asked the district collector to talk to the department concerned to look into their concerns.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi Police is in touch with a US woman who was allegedly raped by a group of men at a five-star hotel here in April and she may come to India to join the probe.

The woman had alleged that she was raped by the men for two days. They also threatened her with dire consequences if she reported the matter to anybody.

"After the incident, the woman went back to the US without informing about the incident even to those accompanying her in the trip. Initially, she approached an NGO which sent an email about the incident to Delhi Police and yesterday she mailed her complaint to police.

"We are in touch with her and we are trying to convince her to come to India. She might come here but no date has been fixed for her visit," said an officer privy to the probe.

Police suspected that the accused had targeted a couple of other women tourists, a source said.

Teams have been formed to nab the accused, one of whom is a hotel employee and his relative, the source said, adding that the accused even shot a video of the act and threatened her with making the clip public if she filed a complaint.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK leader M Karunanidhi, Union Ministers, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and various Chief Ministers tonight expressed concern over Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's health condition and wished her speedy recovery.

"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," Mukherjee tweeted after the condition of Jayalalithaa, who has been undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai since September 22, deteriorated in the evening.

Karunanidhi, the arch rival of Jayalalithaa, also wished her a speedy recovery.

Tamil Nadu Opposition leader K Stalin also tweeted: "I desire that the intensive treatment being given to the Chief Minister yields fruit and that she recovers soon."

Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu tweeted, "Feeling bad to know abt da critical condition of TN CM Selvi Jayalalitha. Praying for her speedy recovery and quick response 2 the treatment (sic)."

Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman also tweeted: "Very upsetting news about Hon.CM of Tamil Nadu, Selvi.Jayalalitha suffering a cardiac arrest. Prayers for her speedy recovery."

In his tweet, Rahul Gandhi said: "Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon."

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, "Very concerned about the health of Jayalalithaa Ji. Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her."

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said "Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health. Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!"

Former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad said, "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Let's all pray for her.
users increased their use of wall posts and reduced sending private messages after the social networking site made changes to its privacy controls, a new study has found.

The study by the researchers at the Naveen Jindal School of Management in the United States of America (US) assessed the impact of Facebook's granular privacy controls and its effects on user disclosure behaviour.

"People have different views on the value of privacy controls in managing disclosures and therefore privacy dangers," said Huseyin Cavusoglu, associate professor at Naveen Jindal School of Management in the US.

"Some people argue that giving users more granular controls mitigates privacy issues because users can effectively limit the recipients of shared content, thereby increasing the secrecy of disclosures," said Cavusoglu.

"On the contrary, other people claim that users perceive privacy risks less severely when they have more controls to exercise, and as a result, share more content publicly, thereby increasing the openness of disclosures," Cavusoglu added.

The researchers used data obtained from to test the relationship between privacy controls and disclosure patterns of users based on two popular content-sharing activities: wall posts and private messages.

In December 2009, Facebook gave users additional options to manage privacy by introducing granular controls to set access permissions for wall posts on a per-post basis.

The researchers developed a model to characterise the impact of granular privacy controls on sharing behaviour.

They hypothesised that as users gain more control over sharing of wall posts, they will customise the audience for some wall posts and will consequently share more content through wall posts and less through private messages.

Results show that Facebook users, on average, increased their use of wall posts and decreased their use of private messages in periods after the change in privacy controls. These effects took place immediately and lasted over time.

The researchers also introduced a metric, called the disclosure index, that quantifies the openness of disclosure patterns based on the relative levels of wall posting and private messaging.

The study showed that user's disclosure patterns reflected increased openness in content sharing after the introduction of enhanced privacy controls.

However, different groups of users respond to the new policy in opposite ways, Cavusoglu said.

"What we found is that users who are more privacy conscious started to share more content via wall posts and less content via private messages after the change, possibly because they are the people who are likely to use the enhanced privacy controls and therefore benefit from them. As a result, the openness of their disclosure increased," he said.
A total of nine projects by students from schools in the district, including two by differently abled children have qualified for the National Children Science Congress to be held at Baramati in Pune district between December 27 and 31.

These children gave presentation at a function in the city this morning. A group of five students from a local school here have developed a gadget which will be useful for visually impaired persons and have termed it as 'Third Eye.'



The students from class 7 and 8 identified as Ahana Chatterjee, Rishikesh Odeyar, Shivani Shetty, Dhurv Maliwal, and Atharva Bhandale showcased the gadget at the function.

It took three-months for the students to develop the gadget and the students claimed that it would be handy for visually impaired persons who move around places.

Visually impaired students and physically challenged students Divya Sutar, Nikhil Kadam and Sumit Dingrya presented their projects which received appreciation from audience. Sumit who is blind in both the eyes presented two of his projects which have been selected.

The students of Samwad Karnabadhir Prabhodini from Dombivili made a presentation on the issues faced by physically challenged and the ways and means to overcome them.

In their presentation Pratiksha Gulwe, Abhishek Kadam and Fatima Pathan, said, they wanted the society to accept them as they are and allow them to speak their language.

This is for the very first time ISRO is making what it



calls "a precious national resource in PSLV" available albeit at a still undisclosed cost to a private Indian company.

As part of the Google Lunar X Prize competition which after an extension of two deadlines is likely to end by 2017 before which all the competing teams which number about three dozen have to kick off their moon shot.

As off now, one Israeli team and two American teams have procured launch contracts and are close contenders for the prize.

Towards what Team Indus calls 'Har Indian Ka Moonshot' in the next 12 months it has to build from scratch a satellite that will lift off from India's space port Sriharikota atop riding on the PSLV, the same then has to make a soft landing on the moon and then a rover will have to slip out.

To finally win the prize the rules stipulate that the rover has to move 500 m on the lunar surface and should be able to beam back high definition images back to earth.

Team Indus claims they are now among the top four contenders for the prize and they already bagged USD 1 million milestone prize from Google.

This has buoyed their spirits and today among the half a dozen other serious contenders only Team Indus has a "verified contract" to launch on a highly reliable globally acclaimed rocket.

Vivek Raghavan, lead for technology at Team Indus also called Jedi Master (Tech) - bringing an aura of a Star Wars like setting - says, "As part of the Google Lunar X Prize, there are obviously many teams in the beginning. There are still 16 teams in the competition. But the number of teams that actually have a launch contract are very few. We've been ranked among the top 3 teams in the world in the competition."



In contrast ISRO has been plodding along since 2008 with its much anticipated Chandrayaan-2 mission a massive exercise to indigenously make an orbiter, a soft lander and a rover that will be blasted into space according to Jitendra Singh, the Minister for Space Affairs in the Prime Minister's Office in the first quarter of 2018.

ISRO is hoping to deploy its heavy weight launcher the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) which has had a rather patchy record and was dubbed by ISRO as its 'naughty boy' for this prestigious mission.

Chandrayaan-2 is a heavy weight over 3000 kg satellite in comparison Team Indus's puny satellite weighing 600 kg baby, but with broadly similar goals.
Turkish students protested today outside the Russian consulate in Istanbul over Moscow's military support for President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

"Russia murderer, go away from Syria!" chanted several dozen students who called for an end to the siege on Syria's second city, Aleppo.

The protest came as Moscow and Damascus denied claims by Ankara that the regime was responsible for an air strike that killed four Turkish soldiers last month.

A similar demonstration against Russia's backing of Assad took place on Friday, outside Istanbul University in which demonstrators called for "imperialist Russia to leave Syria".

Russia is the chief ally of the Syrian president in the conflict that has claimed more than 300,000 lives since 2011.

Since September 2015, it has provided Assad with military support that Western observers say has killed civilians, not just jihadists and rebels.

"Thousands of people are losing their lives," said Mehmet Akif Olgun, vice president of the National Turkish Students' Association which organised the protest, denouncing the "daily attacks" on his Muslim brothers.

In recent days, Assad's troops have pressed a fierce assault aimed at retaking the whole of Aleppo which is currently divided between regime forces in the west and rebels in the east.

But Moscow says it is not involved in the current assault on Aleppo.

Ankara is also engaged in an unprecedented operation inside Syria in support of opposition rebels against the Islamic State group but it has made no secret of the fact it wants to see Assad removed leaving it at odds with Moscow.

Turkey and Russia have been working hard to improve ties after ending a bitter seven-month standoff after Turkish forces shot down a Russian jet over the Syrian border in November last year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Concerned over the spike in Afghan refugee returns and "challenges" due to the sudden influx to re-integration programmes, nations including India taking part in Heart of Asia summit today asked the global community to provide generous support and targeted assistance to them while lauding Pakistan and Iran for hosting millions for decades.

The nations asked the global community to support the Afghan returnees in the region, with emphasis on youth, education and livelihoods while terming tripartite commissions on voluntary repatriation under a UN programme, mandated to protect and support refugees as "vital" steps in the solution strategy.

"We commend countries in the region and beyond, particularly Iran and Pakistan, for their hospitality in hosting millions of Afghan refugees for over three decades.

"We call on all these countries to continue hosting the Afghan refugees until their sustainable repatriation and reintegration in Afghanistan can take place in a voluntary, safe, gradual and dignified fashion, in accordance with the solutions strategy for Afghan refugees to Support Voluntary Repatriation, sustainable reintegration and assistance to host communities," the Amritsar Declaration at the 6th Ministerial Conference of HOA said.

The nations in the declaration welcomed the Afghanistan-Pakistan-UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)) and Afghanistan-Iran-UNHCR Tripartite Commissions on voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan, as vital steps in the "Solutions Strategy".

"We are concerned by the recent spike of Afghan refugee returns and the challenges that this sudden influx presents for returnee re-integration programmes.

"We therefore urge the international community to provide generous support and targeted assistance for Afghan refugees, returnees and host communities in the region, with emphasis on youth, education and livelihoods," the declaration said.

The nations also supported the final statement of the UNHCR Executive Committee High Level Segment refocusing the international community's attention on the Afghan refugee situation in this "critical" period, the declaration said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi jointly inaugurated the annual Ministerial conference here along with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani which is being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz along with representatives of around 30 countries.

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Suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 46 people in opposition-held parts of Syria today, a monitor said, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.

Syria's government is waging an offensive to recapture all of second city Aleppo, and it has so far captured more than 60 per cent of eastern districts that fell to rebels in 2012.

In Idlib province, in northwest Syria, at least 26 civilians were killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Kafr Nabel, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

An eyewitness told AFP warplanes hit several places in the town, including a market.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

The group said 18 people were also killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Maaret al-Numan, where an AFP photographer saw rescue workers and residents trying to pull survivors from rubble at a market.

The monitor reported two additional deaths, one in an earlier strike on Maaret al-Numan and another in Al-Naqir, also in Idlib.

It said six civilians, four of them children, had been killed in a government barrel bomb attack on the town of Al-Tamanah in the same province.

Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad's government, began a military intervention in support of Damascus in September 2015.

Moscow says it is targeting "terrorists" and has dismissed reports of civilian casualties in its strikes.

In east Aleppo, government forces advanced against rebels, taking three neighbourhoods and pushing into a fourth, state media and the Russian defence ministry said.

The army and allied forces are nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of the city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syria's opposition its worst defeat in the five-year civil war.

State television said today the army had captured the districts of Karm al-Tahan and Myessar and advanced into the Qadi Askar neighbourhood.

The Russian defence ministry said regime forces had also taken the district of Karm al-Katurji.

Rebels are increasingly under pressure in the remaining southeastern districts they control.

State agency SANA said the air force was dropping leaflets over rebel-held areas urging "militants to abandon their weapons and... Allow civilians and the sick and wounded to leave".

Damascus says rebels are preventing civilians from leaving the east and trying to use them as human shields.

But tens of thousands of residents have fled the east as the army has advanced, with some heading south to remaining rebel territory and others going to areas under government or Kurdish control.

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Home Minister Rajnath Singh tonight spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and enquired about the health of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who suffered a cardiac arrest while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Chennai.

During the 10-minute telephonic conversation, Rao briefed Singh about the health condition of the Chief Minister and conveyed that doctors attending to her were taking all necessary steps.

Rao, who is the Governor of Maharashtra and holding the additional charge of Tamil Nadu, was in Mumbai to attend a Navy Day event today.

He told the Home Minister that he was rushing to Chennai to personally monitor the situation in Tamil Nadu arising out of the sudden deterioration in the health of Jayalalithaa, official sources said.

Meanwhile, Home Ministry officials are in constant touch with the officials of Tamil Nadu government and assessing the situation.

The sources said that law and order situation in Tamil Nadu was normal so far and adequate central forces were available in the state to assist the state administration.

The central government will provide all assistance to Tamil Nadu government if any help is required, the sources said.

68-year-old Jayalalithaa, who has been undergoing treatment at a hospital here, today suffered a cardiac arrest and is being treated by a team of experts, including cardiologists, Apollo Hospitals said.

(REOPENS DEL64)



Nine companies of Rapid Action Force (RAF) of CRPF have been put on stand-by to be immediately airlifted from various places in the country to Tamil Nadu, if needed, senior CRPF officials said.

A RAF company comprises around 100 personnel.
Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Minister K R Ramesh Kumar was admitted to a government hospital here today following complains of dehydration and loose motion.

"The honourable Minister Ramesh Kumar has been admitted. He came to our hospital following loose motion and dehydration in the morning after attending the assembly winter session at Belagavi," Bowring Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr R Manjunath told reporters here.

"The Minister's condition is stable and he is responding to treatment positively," he said.

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Two rare moose have been captured by an infrared camera in a national nature reserve in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

The moose or elk, which are the largest and tallest member of the deer family, were captured for the first time since the reserve was established in 2013.

The video showed a bull and a cow leisurely foraging for food, meaning they had enough to eat and felt safe, according to reserve staff.

Due to their shrinking population and limited habitat range as the result of human activities and climate change, moose have been on the the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) red list of threatened species since 2008, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

In China, there are no more than 3,000 moose, which mainly inhabit northeastern forests. It is a state second-grade protection animal.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today said that if demonetisation would "eliminate" corruption and black money, he would chant "Modi, Modi" while reiterating his demand that the Prime Minister withdraw it or else the country's "economy will be destroyed".

Kejriwal said the Prime Minister changes his clothes several times in a day but he preaches to people to sacrifice some time due to demonetisation.

"Due to demonetisation, labourers, farmers and traders have been ruined and people are losing their jobs, but PM is busy with changing dresses several times. Modi ji whatever you say, you should implement it first on you," he said.

Addressing a gathering of traders in Bawana, Kejriwal said he has differences with the Prime Minister on several fronts, but if he does good works like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Yoga Day, he will find us standing with him.

"If demonetisation would really eradicate corruption and black money, I will also chant 'Modi, Modi'. We had put our lives at risk during anti-corruption movement with Anna ji.

"We had welcomed the Prime Minister's move for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Yoga Day, surgical strikes, but Modi has done wrong by introducing demonetisation and we will oppose it," Kejriwal said when some section of traders chanted "Modi Modi".

They (BJP) will ruin the country's economy and there is no earliest solution being seen to the chaos created due to demonetisation, he also said.

Kejriwal alleged that PM has brought demonetisation to "benefit" his corporate friends who had taken huge loans.

Later in a video posted on a social networking website the Delhi Chief Minister reiterated his demand that PM withdraw demonetisation.

"PM has sought 50 days from the people to remove their problems arising out of the demonetisation, but the Finance Minister said that it needs six month to make all things in place. Even Modi ji and Jaitley don't know solution.. ," he said.

Taking a dig at PM for his remark over a WhatsApp video showing beggar using a swipe machine, Kejriwal said that BJP should stop "accepting" money in cash.

"80 per cent of donation of the BJP comes in cash. Prime Minister should first stop this. 92 per cent of Aam Aadmi Party comes from cheques and other methods...Modi has fixed a limit of Rs 2.5 lakh for wedding.

"I want to know from Modi ji whether his ministers and party MPs get marriages of their daughters and sons at an expenditure of Rs 2.5 lakh. Several shops and industry have been closed," he said.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi voted today in a constitutional referendum that has put his future on the line, divided Italy and raised fears of political and economic turmoil across Europe.

Renzi, who has vowed to quit if he loses, was counting on a last-minute turnaround in voter sentiment to win backing for his proposals to streamline parliament and centralise some powers currently held at regional level in the name of more effective and stable government.

"Have you decided how you are going to vote, prime minister?" a female voter cheekily asked Renzi as he turned up at a voting station in his home town of Pontassieve near Florence.

"Now I'm thinking about it!" Renzi quipped back before spending ten minutes standing in line to register his vote.

Opposition parties have denounced the proposed amendments to the 68-year-old constitution as ill-considered and dangerous for democracy because they remove important checks and balances on executive power.

Spearheaded by the populist Five Star Movement, the biggest rival to Renzi's Democratic party, the No campaign has also sought to capitalise on the Renzi's declining popularity, a sluggish economy and the problems caused by tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Italy.

"God willing it's over. A new era starts tomorrow I hope," said Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Northern League, after voting in Milan.

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who belatedly backed the No side, was also out early as the interior ministry reported brisk morning voting.

By midday nearly one in five of the 47 million Italians entitled to vote today had cast their ballot.

Polls close at 11.00 PM (local time) with the result, anxiously awaited across Europe, expected in the early hours of Monday.

If Renzi goes, some short-term market turbulence is inevitable. Some analysts fear a deeper crisis of investor confidence that could derail a rescue scheme for Italy's most indebted banks, triggering a wider financial crisis across the eurozone.

If he wins, Italy's youngest ever prime minister will take it as a mandate to accelerate reforms in areas such as public administration, the judicial system and education.

"If we miss this chance it won't come back for 20 years," Renzi warned voters before campaigning was suspended at midnight on Friday.

Voters have spent weeks passionately debating the pros and cons of the proposed reforms.

Polls have been banned since November 18. Up until then the "No" camp was leading comfortably -- but with a quarter of the electorate undecided.

After the Brexit vote and Donald Trump's victory, populism has been a factor, and Five Star, led by comic Beppe Grillo, would see a "No" vote as its stepping stone to government.

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In a clear message to Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called for "resolute action" not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, saying silence and inaction will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

In his address at the 6th conference of Heart of Asia, a platform to help Afghanistan in its transition, Modi said the growing arc of terrorist violence is posing the gravest threat to the region.

"Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough.

"It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them," the PM said in an obvious reference to Pakistan.

He was speaking after jointly inaugurating the annual Ministerial conference here along with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani which is being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz along with representatives of around 30 countries.

"Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Third, our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistan's development and humanitarian needs must continue and increase," the Prime Minister said.

The Prime Minister said there was a need to demonstrate strong and collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

Expressing India's strong commitment to Afghanistan's transition, Modi said, "On India's part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering. The welfare of Afghanistan and its people is close to our hearts and minds."



He also called for an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process to bring stability to the country.

Calling for sustained and sincere global efforts to bring



"durable peace and lasting political stability" to Afghanistan, Modi said securing its territory and citizens from external threats must be a focus area for the "critical unfinished mission of our time".

"We have no doubt about the scale of the challenge. But, we are equally determined to succeed," he said, adding the results of collective efforts thus far have been hard-won, but mixed.

The Prime Minister said there was a need to reflect with urgency on what more must be done and what must be avoided in Afghanistan so that its citizens can self-sustain peace and economic growth.

"The question is of resolve and action. And, of putting Afghanistan and its people first. For this, First, an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled process is key. It is the only guarantor of durability of solutions.

"Second, we must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear," he said.

Noting that all those involved in Afghanistan's transition must build on the gains of the last 15 years, he said what was at stake is not just the future of Afghanistan that has invested in a vision of development, democracy, and pluralism but the the peace and stability of the entire region, and beyond.

Pitching for improving connectivity between Afghanistan and countries of the region, the Prime Minister said Afghanistan should be at the centre of our connectivity networks, not peripheral to them.

"On our part, we see Afghanistan as the hub for strengthening links of connectivity between South Asia and Central Asia.

"We cannot deny that the more connected Afghanistan is with the regional arteries of trade, capital and markets, the more assured would be its economic growth and progress. President Ghani and I have converged on the priority of strengthening trade and transport linkages with other partners in the region," he said.

Talking about significance of hosting the Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar, Modi said the flow of trade, people and ideas through the region has often intersected in the holy city on one of Asia's oldest and longest surface arteries, the Grand Trunk Road.

"Amritsar reinforces the value of restoring connectivity which is so crucial for the overall growth, stability and economic prosperity of Afghanistan," he said, while describing the city as an embodiment of peace and humanism as well as a symbol of great valour and sacrifice.

Talking about Amritsar's link with Afghanistan, he said among the the earliest disciples of the first Guru of Sikhs, Baba Guru Nanak Dev ji, were Afghans he had preached in Kabul in the 15th century.

In his address, Modi also highlighted India's



infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, noting the main dimension of the cooperation has always been its people centric nature.

The PM cited the India-Afghan Friendship Dam, the Parliament Building in Kabul and the Zeranj-Deleram highway.

He also spoke about the India-Afghanistan-Iran cooperation on Chahbahar project, saying it would enable Afghanistan to link its economy with centres of strong economic growth in South Asia and beyond.

"Let us re-dedicate ourselves to making Afghanistan a Geography of Peace. A place where reason and peace succeeds, progress and prosperity prevails and democracy and plurality wins," he said.

The Prime Minister said India was planning to connect Afghanistan with India through an air transport corridor.

"President Ghani and I have discussed additional measures for deepening our bilateral cooperation. We are making progress in developing plans for utilization of the additional One billion US Dollar earmarked by India for capacity and capability building in Afghanistan.

"It will extend to areas like water management, health, infrastructure, energy and skill development. As India implements its additional commitments, we are open to work with other like-minded partners for the development of Afghanistan," he said.

The Prime Minister said India will continue efforts to scale up ambition and dedication to assist Afghanistan.

The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was launched in 2011 and the participating countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The platform was floated to encourage security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours.
Russia is certainly one of the "threats" to the US and its allies, a former CIA chief who is in consideration for the top diplomatic position in the incoming Trump Administration said today.

"Russia certainly is one of the threats, one of the challenges to our security and that of our allies and partners around the world," General (rtd) David Petraeus, former CIA Director and Commander of US Central Command, told ABC .

Petraeus is in consideration for the position of Secretary of State in the Donald Trump Administration.

"It is also a feature of the landscape. There are issues in which we do have convergences and I don't think you would rule out at all discussions at some point in time with Russia about issues such as the defeat of the Islamic State, such as the ultimate resolution in Syria, obviously about the challenges of the Russian-supported separatists in southeastern Ukraine," he said in response to a question.

Petraeus met Trump in New York last week.

"I think he's actually quite pragmatic. In our conversation what I enjoyed most frankly was the discussion of issues, or say campaign rhetoric, if you will, and then placing that in a strategic context. As an example, he is not anti-trade, he is anti-unfair trade," the former US commander said.

The wall along the Mexico-border, he said, would be an element in a comprehensive effort to shore up security on the southern border.

This as he discussed with Trump "would include more help to Mexico for the problems" that it has in the broader rule of law and perhaps with its southern border, which is so challenged.

"We talked about all of those kinds of issues. These are issues with which I had concern, needless to say, and it was good to discuss the strategic context in which each of those would be placed," said Petraeus, who maintained neutrality in the just concluded general elections.

The issue with Mexico, he said, would be to determine together how they could improve the status of the security, while certainly not impeding the flow of commerce back and forth that is so very important to both of the countries.

"Indeed, it's notable that the President-elect has already gained agreement from President Pena and I believe with the Canadian Prime Minister, as well, to sit down, to examine issues in NAFTA," he said.

Petraeus stressed on focusing on defeat of ISIS and then resolving the Syria issue.

"Let's first of all focus on the defeat of Daesh, of the Islamic State and, indeed, of the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. In some cases, that is going to be pursued in support of some of the opposition forces that are on the ground in Syria," Petraeus said.

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South African President Jacob Zuma has launched a court challenge to a watchdog probe that raised allegations of misconduct against him, an affidavit showed today, as he fights to hold on to power.

Zuma, who last week beat back an attempt within ruling ANC party to unseat him, has been under pressure since the probe uncovered possible criminal activity in his relationship with the Guptas, a wealthy business family.

The president, who came to power in 2009, has faced growing calls to resign over multiple graft scandals and the country's poor economic performance, with unemployment at a 13-year high.

The watchdog instructed Zuma to set up a judicial inquiry into the allegations that the Guptas had influence over ministerial appointments and lucrative government contracts.

"To accede to that instruction... Would be to abdicate my responsibility," he said in the affidavit quoted in South African papers today.

"(I) cannot be instructed by anyone as to when I should appoint a commission of inquiry."



The affidavit was lodged in Gauteng High Court on Friday.

"We look forward to opposing this application," the main opposition Democratic Alliance party said. "This is a desperate move by Jacob Zuma."



The ANC is due to elect a new leader at the end of next year, ahead of the 2019 general election when Zuma, 74, must stand down after serving two terms.

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Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz today met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during which they discussed ways to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference. Both Ghani and Aziz had arrived here last evening.

The bilateral meeting came amid Afghanistan expressing its anguish over Islamabad's not so cooperative approach towards the peace process in the war-ravaged country.

Afghan government has also been critical of Pakistan over rising terror attacks on Afghanistan by militant groups operating from Pakistani soil.

"They discussed prospects of peace, development and stability in Afghanistan," a Pakistani source said.

Ahead of the conference, Afghanistan had called terror emanating from Pakistan as the "greatest threat" to regional peace and stability and pressed for adopting a regional counter-terror framework at the Heart of Asia conference to effectively deal with terrorism.

The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was launched in 2011 and the participating countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The platform was floated to encourage security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours.

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Shiv Sena has always supported officials who are dedicated towards their duty and have worked for welfare of citizens, Thane guardian minister, Eknath Shinde, said today.

"Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray always supported officials who were true to their work. The same philosophy is being followed by party's working president Uddhav Thackeray and we too (Shiv Sena leaders) follow the same path," Shinde said at a function here.

The guardian minister felicitated municipal commissioner of Thane civic body, Sanjeev Jaiswal, who recently undertook a massive demolition drive against unauthorised constructions in the city.

Shinde drew parallels between Jaiswal's action on the 'shady' Satyam lodge where civic body personnel demolished as many as 290 rooms constructed underground to the famous story of Alibaba and 40 thieves.

"Like in Alibaba and Chalis Chor (40 thieves), in this case the commissioner has unearthed the ongoing racket and demolished the bar," the guardian minister said.

Shinde said, the city can develop only if administrating and the elected representatives work together for the well being of the city and citizens.

He also launched 'Paint the Wall' programme in city and tried his hands at painting a wall along with mayor Sanjay More.

Thane MP Rajan Vichare, MLA Pratap Sarnaik, leader of the house Anita Gouri, leader of opposition Sanjay Bhoir and chairman of the standing committee Sanjay Waghule were also present at the function.

In his welcome address, municipal commissioner Jaiswal, said wall painting has been taken up simultaneously in 20 locations in the city.

"A total of 50,000 square feet area, a record by itself will be painted during this drive," he said.

People from all walks of life including a large number of children are participating in the drive. The next move will be to protect these paintings. These will be chemically treated for preservation and efforts are on to covert them to walking art gallery, Jaiswal said.

It will be an annual affair and next year onwards around Diwali one week will be selected for wall painting in which renowned painters can participate, the commissioner said.

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Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is keen to meet Donald Trump, may visit Washington next month for the oath taking ceremony of the US President- elect, media reports said today.

Speculation about the visit comes after telephonic conversation between Sharif and Trump last week.

Sources here said Special Assistant to Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi is leaving for the US today to finalise the schedule of the visit.

Fatemi would stay in Washington for 10 days and would meet the Trump team as well and discuss the ways to strengthen the bilateral ties between Pakistan and US. He would brief the team about the role Pakistan played in the war on terror and Pakistan's policy towards Afghanistan and India.

According to media reports, Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) has been trying to arrange a possible visit of Sharif to Washington where Trump will assume charge of the Office of the President of the United States on January 20.

Sources say that Sharif has expressed his desire to attend Trump's oath taking ceremony.

The Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen. It was reported that the Sharif may leave for the US on the January 18th or 19th.

The decision of Sharif's US visit hinges on the possibility of a meeting with Donald Trump. Analysts say that it will be a major breakthrough if a meeting is actually realised, the reports said.

Trump has already set up a provisional team, encouraging foreign leaders and officials to visit his headquarters in New York for familiarisation meetings.

Sharif is said to have given him given special instructions to Fatemi who would meet the US Congress members and Senate and seek their support and cooperation for better ties with the new US administration.

The adviser would also meet the US think tank members and would brief them on Pakistan's efforts for peace in the region. Fatemi would also highlight the "Indian atrocities" in Kashmir and "ceasefire violations" by Indian security forces on Line of Control and Working Boundary, sources said.

Sharif had called Trump last week. During their conversation, the President-elect lavished praise on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and offered to play "any role" in helping Pakistan address its problems.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to visit the US next month for the oath taking ceremony of President-elect Donald Trump, media reports said today.

Speculation about the visit comes after telephonic conversation between Sharif and Trump last week.

Sources here said Special Assistant to Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi is leaving for the US today to finalise the schedule of the visit.

Fatemi would stay in Washington for 10 days and would meet the Trump team as well and discuss the ways to strengthen the bilateral ties between Pakistan and US. He would brief the team about the role Pakistan played in the war on terror and Pakistan's policy towards Afghanistan and India.

According to media reports, Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) has been trying to arrange a possible visit of Sharif to Washington where Trump will assume charge of the Office of the President of the United States on January 20.

Sources say that Sharif has expressed his desire to attend Trump's oath taking ceremony.

The Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen. It was reported that the Sharif may leave for the US on the January 18th or 19th.

The decision of Sharif's US visit hinges on the possibility of a meeting with Donald Trump. Analysts say that it will be a major breakthrough if a meeting is actually realised, the reports said.

Trump has already set up a provisional team, encouraging foreign leaders and officials to visit his headquarters in New York for familiarisation meetings.

Sharif is said to have given him given special instructions to Fatemi who would meet the US Congress members and Senate and seek their support and cooperation for better ties with the new US administration.

The adviser would also meet the US think tank members and would brief them on Pakistan's efforts for peace in the region. Fatemi would also highlight the "Indian atrocities" in Kashmir and "ceasefire violations" by Indian security forces on Line of Control and Working Boundary, sources said.

Sharif had called Trump last week. During their conversation, the President-elect lavished praise on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and offered to play "any role" in helping Pakistan address its problems.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NCP chief Sharad Pawar today apparently compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a doctor who has performed a "nice surgery" by demonetising high value notes, but said that "lack of proper post operation care for patients has raised fear about their survival now".

"Currently, a lot of people are opposing the move, however, I was the first person to issue a statement in support of the decision, which was taken against black money.

"People in Delhi ask me about my opinion on demonetisation. I say the doctor has done the operation nicely, however the post surgery care was not taken properly and now there is a fear that whether patients will die or survive sans good post surgery care," Pawar told a gathering of party workers here, without naming Modi.

The NCP chief was the first politician to back Modi's announcement on November 8 to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Pawar said the people from rural areas are affected by the decision as they are dependent on cooperative banks, which are not allowed to accept deposits in old notes or to exchange them with new legal tenders.

"Government is not accepting money from cooperative banks, because of which these banks in rural areas are suffering a lot. In the last few days, Rs 4,500 crore has been deposited in these banks by their customers, however, no big banks are ready to take these deposits," he said.

The Maratha strongman said the co-operative banks are in a "dilemma" on how to store these cash deposits and repay interest to their customers, bulk of them farmers.

"In initial days after the decision, people were lauding the move, however, now when people are facing issues in paying their bills, they have started cribbing," Pawar quipped, hinting that initial enthusiasm showed by people post the demonetisation move may be on the wane.

The former Union minister said it would take at least four to six months for the economy to recover.

Talking about the prospects of cashless transactions, Pawar said 92 per cent transactions in the country are done in cash and that "nobody in rural areas have cards."



The NCP chief visited a nationalised bank in Bhigwan town near his pocketborough Baramati yesterday and interacted with bank officials and customers over hardships they are facing due to cash crunch.

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today assured help to a PhD scholar in AIIMS, where the minister is undergoing treatment for kidney failure.

"Geeta - I am also in AIIMS. Pl come and see me here. I will do my best to help you," Swaraj tweeted.

Minister's response came as she was approached on twitter with a request,"@SushmaSwaraj I am PhD scholar in AIIMS.

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Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao tonight left for Chennai after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who is admitted to a hospital, suffered a cardiac arrest.

"The Governor, who attended a Navy Day event here this evening, left for Chennai at 8.25 PM after getting intimation of the developments," a senior Raj Bhawan official told PTI.

Jayalalithaa, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, today suffered a cardiac arrest.

She is being treated by a team of experts, including cardiologists.

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A teenager was arrested today for allegedly raping a six-year-old Dalit girl in a village in Rasda area here, police said.

Amit (19) took the girl, who was playing, to a secluded place and raped her there this morning, SP Vaibhav Krishna said.

The victim was later admitted to a hospital by her family members, who registered an FIR against the accused.

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As President-elect Donald Trump stood onstage during the debut night of his "Thank you" tour and teased that he was about to announce a surprise Cabinet pick, some in the Ohio crowd bellowed: "No Romney! No Romney!"



Trump's administration selections have largely been cheered by close allies and supporters. Many have deep ties to Washington and Wall Street that would seem contradictory to the populist, outsider campaign Trump ran with a promise to "drain the swamp" of corruption and elitism in government.

But the possible selection of Romney, who is on Trump's shortlist for Secretary of State despite being a forceful critic throughout the campaign, has been met with trepidation from many of the working-class voters that propelled the Republican to his astonishing victory.

Kim Doss loudly cheered Trump at the Cincinnati rally but will not forgive Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, for the "witch hunt" he held "to make sure Trump wasn't the nominee."



"I think he went out of his way to make that happen, which totally backfired on him," said Doss, a 46-year-old accountant from Hebron, Kentucky. "He obviously said some really ugly things about (Trump)."



Some of Trump's most prominent allies, including his campaign manager, have taken the unprecedented step of using national television interviews to bash Romney. And nearly a dozen Trump backers who attended the Ohio victory lap vehemently denounced Romney as a choice to be the nation's top diplomat.

Then there's the Russia twist: Russian politicians are concerned about reports that Trump would even consider Romney as the US top diplomat because of Romney's harsh stance on Russia. Trump has said he would like to improve US-Russian relations.

Putin said in an interview with the NTV channel to be broadcast later today that Trump's business accomplishments show him to be a "smart man."



He added that "if he is a smart man, that means that he will fairly soon become aware of a different level of responsibility. We expect that he act with these considerations in mind."



Rally-goer Josh Kanowitz said he was willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt for some of his establishment-friendly picks -- including former Goldman Sachs partner Steve Mnuchin for Secretary of the Treasury -- but he visibly recoiled at the suggestion that Romney would be a Team-of-Rivals-style selection from Trump.

Romney, the GOP's 2012 president nominee, eviscerated Trump in a March speech, delivering broadsides against the New York businessman who he deemed "a con man" and "a fake.

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With a 10-minute phone call and two tweets, inspired banner headlines and renewed hopes across Taiwan for a stronger partnership with the United States, while also inflaming the complex relationships between the US, mainland China, and the self-governing island China regards as a renegade province.

Whether the US president-elect meant to jump into the generational fight between China and Taiwan remains an open question.

But by speaking to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, Trump upended four decades of American foreign policy and engaged China directly on the issue of Taiwan, which Beijing has threatened to reclaim by force if necessary.

No American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to Taiwan's leader since the US ended their formal diplomatic relationship in 1979.

Four of his words drew particular attention in Taiwanese newspapers: Trump's reference, in a follow-up tweet, to Tsai being "the President of Taiwan."



The phrase is far from benign for China, which regards any reference to a Taiwanese president as an unacceptable acknowledgement of Taiwan's statehood. Official Chinese pronouncements typically refer to the Taiwanese president as "the Taiwan regional leader."



Chinese leaders have indicated they dislike Tsai, who was elected in January from a pro-Taiwan independence party and became the island's first female president.

Taiwanese are divided over whether they support independence, a formal unification, or the status quo, in which China and Taiwan maintain robust social and economic exchanges while the island retains its democracy and de facto independence.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, however, has warned that the issue of unification cannot be put off indefinitely. Yang Chih-kai, a 22-year-old university student at Taiwan's Tamkang University, said Saturday that the call raised Taiwanese hopes for a stronger relationship with the United States.

"People will think that the U.S. Will keep on helping Taiwan protect itself against China's threat," Yang said. Chen Chun-hao, a 43-year-old designer, said Trump might "bring more help" to Taiwan now that both sides had opened a dialogue.

"I believe that this could help Taiwan in its international status and its global situation," Chen said.
US President-elect Donald Trump's "extreme and unrelenting" campaign helped in turning the tide in his favour and trounce Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in what was the "nastiest" electioneering ever in America, former diplomat Strobe Talbott said today.

He said many US citizens are worried over Trump's assertion to change America's stance on various key issues, including walking out of the Paris agreement on climate change, said the foreign policy analyst.

The agreement brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so.

Talbott was speaking at a panel discussion on 'Trump's Triumph-What it means for the US and the rest of us' at the ongoing Times Litfest 2016 here.

The journalist-turned-analyst, who served as US Deputy Secretary of State in the administration of President Bill Clinton, said the world's oldest democracy just saw its nastiest election campaign which ended in victory for Trump.

"It was the nastiest election campaign ever in the US. It alienated some people from the election process and the campaign was marked by racism and anti-Semitism.

"The polarisation it created in society was deep and wide. Many Republican leaders, including John McCain and Mitt Romney, distanced themselves from Trump during the campaign," said Talbott, who engaged with India post-1998 Pokhran nuclear tests with a series of talks with then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh.

Commenting over Trump's victory, the former diplomat said his "extreme and unrelenting" campaign gave advantage to him. His appearance as a brash leader actually helped him to win over Hillary Clinton, he said.

US-based political science professor Uday Singh Mehta and Manjeet Kripalani, co-founder of Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations, also participated in the event.

"The change (victory for Trump) was brought by the US middle-class which was worried about its future," Mehta said.

"On the other hand, Clinton's experience in the mainstream politics was held against her," he said.

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US President-elect Donald Trump's telephonic conversation with the Taiwanese President which evoked a strong protest from China, was a "courtesy call", Vice President-elect Mike Pence said today as he assured them there will not be a change from the "One China Policy".

"Well, we'll deal with policy after January the 20th. This was a courtesy call," Pence told ABC in an interview when asked about a Trump Administration's "One China Policy" in view of the phone call between Trump and the Taiwanese President.

Trump's move to talk with Tsai Ing-wenz had infuriated China.

"That was nothing more than taking a courtesy call of congratulations from the democratically elected leader of Taiwan," Pence said.

He said after winning the November 8 general elections, Trump has talked to more than 50 world leaders and he himself has spoken to several dozen others.

He slammed those criticising Trump for this.

"It is a little mystifying to me that President Obama can reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba and be hailed as a hero for doing it," he said.

"President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from a democratically elected leader in Taiwan and it's become something of a controversy, because I think the American people appreciate the fact that our President-Elect is taking calls from and reaching out to the world and preparing on day one to lead America on the world stage," Pence said.

Responding to a question, Pence said Trump was very clear during the course of the campaign that the US has just been losing to China far too long economically.

"The time has come, the American people have elected a president who, not just with regard to China, but with other countries around the world, and even in our hemisphere, that we're going to put American workers and American jobs first and we're going to have a president that makes sure we have trade deals and we advance economic policies on the world stage that accomplish that," he said.

During the election campaign, Trump had said that he would declare China a currency manipulator on day one of his presidency.

"He said that over the course of the campaign. And the truth of the matter is a lot is going to change in America's economic policies to just with regard to China, but with regard to the North American Free Trade Agreement, (as well)," he said.

The US has been losing too much in jobs and economic growth on the world stage, he said.

China considers Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification under Beijing's rule.

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US President-elect Donald Trump railed against China in a series of tweets, accusing the Asian giant of currency manipulation and flexing its military might in the South China Sea.

"Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!"



It was not clear what prompted the last night's tweets, which came amid a controversy over a phone conversation Trump held with the leader of Taiwan, a self-ruled island Beijing considers part of its territory.

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Turkish authorities today charged four people today in connection with a deadly fire that killed 11 schoolgirls at a dormitory in the southern Adana region, state media reported.

Among those charged and placed under arrest pending trial was the dormitory manager and the head of a linked association, state-run agency Anadolu said.

An adult tutor was also killed in the fire on Tuesday, which officials said was likely caused by an electrical fault.

Some 24 people were injured, including eight adults, as they tried to escape the blaze in Aladag district which tore through the building's wooden interior.

The agency said a total of 14 people had been detained over the fire but six have been released into "judicial control", the equivalent of probation.

The dormitory is said to have belonged to a religious Sunni Muslim sect known as the Suleymanci.

After the fire, the government came under attack by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who accused it of failing to properly fund students' digs, forcing poor families to use accommodation run by religious communities.

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Two women died of hypothermia during an operation to rescue more than 730 migrants off the Libyan coast, the Italian coast guard and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said today.

The women were found unconscious in a large dinghy in the Mediterranean that was partly deflated and taking on water.

"Devastatingly..., two women died of hypothermia despite huge efforts from the #Aquarius team. We are heartbroken, again," said MSF on Twitter, referring to the Aquarius rescue boat chartered by themselves and another charity, SOS Mediterranee.

Five large inflatable dinghies and five smaller boats were rescued during the operation which took place over a 24-hour period yesterday to today.

Among those rescued were several families with young children from Aleppo, Syria's war-torn second city.

The rescued migrants were en route to Italy today.

Italy has already seen more than 173,000 migrants arrive on its shores this year, up 12 per cent on the 2015 total and outstripping the previous record of 170,000 from 2014.

The increasing risks of attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe during poor winter weather has in the past provoked a reduction in the number of boats setting sail at this time of year.

But while the number of rescue boats patrolling the seas reduces during winter, the number of boats making the crossing has abated little.

According to the United Nations, at least 4,700 people have died or disappeared this year while trying to cross the Mediterranean in boats that are often overcrowded and barely seaworthy.

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Isolated Uzbekistan today headed to the polls to elect a president to replace late strongman Islam Karimov, with all signs pointing towards a comfortable victory for his long-serving prime minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Voting at over 9,300 polling stations throughout the Muslim-majority Central Asian country with no tradition of competitive elections began at 0100 GMT and is expected to continue until 1500 GMT.

Mirziyoyev, who was appointed prime minister in 2003, became interim president following Karimov's death aged 78 in September after he suffered a reported stroke.

The heavy-handed autocrat's 27-year reign began in 1989 at the tail-end of the Soviet era, and was often criticised for abuses of human rights.

Representing the Liberal-Democratic Party that Karimov represented in the last presidential vote in 2015, Mirziyoyev is facing three other challengers in a bid to secure a five-year term.

But analysts note the other candidates are not critical of Mirziyoyev or the regime in the country bordering Afghanistan where Beijing, Moscow, and Washington all vie for influence.

"The format for Uzbek elections has not changed since Karimov's death because the regime has not had time to think of anything different," said Kamoliddin Rabbimov, an Uzbek political analyst who lives in France.

"If anything, efforts have been made to ensure other candidates are even more obscure because Mirziyoyev's stature among the population is not yet what Karimov's was," he told AFP.

"Uzbekistan has its own specific take on democracy. There will be no surprises here, unlike in America with Trump," he added.

An OSCE-led monitoring mission is expected to deliver its verdict on the vote at around 1000 GMT tomorrow.

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Curry-loving British people will now have the chance to dine on a Boeing 737, with a South Asian restaurant owner in north-east England set to open a new eatery that will offer an unusual dining experience.

Monsoon's owner Showkoth Choudhoury got the idea for the unusual venture when his current restaurant in South Shields was called upon to deliver food for UN troops in the Congo a few months ago.

The 42-year-old Bangladeshi-origin head chef and restauranteur is now inviting his locals to help test out his curries on a plane for free on Tuesday.

"The aeroplane restaurant debut will be free of cost as I need people to test and help in the development. I actually don't have all the answers and we have never catered on an aircraft before," Choudhoury said.

"We have run a few tests but I wanted to invite my locals so that they might help me put South Shields on the map and give me valuable feedback so that together we can make a success of my new venture. I can only invite 40 people as my total dinning space is only 100 covers," he said.

This is not the first time a Bangladeshi curry house owner in the UK has come up with this idea of serving aeroplane curries, with chef Mofuh Miah serving up similar meals in an old plane parked at an airfield in Leicestershire in the Midlands region of England a few years ago.

However, it will be the first such restaurant in the Newcastle area and bound to create lots of interest among the locals.

The free debut meal menu will include a starter of traditional Bangladeshi pakora, followed by a main course of medium strength chicken curry, akhni pilau - an authentic Bangladesh dish which Choudhoury cooks at home, and a vegetable side dish.

Choudhoury then hopes Monsoon Airlines will be available for bookings for special occasions like birthdays, wedding parties and other events.

The launch of the unusual restaurant comes just weeks after he hit the headlines for flying curries thousands of miles to feed hungry UN troops.

"I didn''t think it was real at first. It does sound very bizarre and it's obviously a very long way to send a curry. It's a massive honour," he said.

It was as he saw his dishes fly off in a helicopter that he realised he knew someone who owned a Boeing 737 and suggested the idea of transforming it into a diner.

"After seeing other restaurants offering different dining experiences such as the Passage to India Curry Train, I wanted to create something for Monsoon and I can't wait to welcome our first guests," Choudhoury said.

The plane is parked up in a secret location outside South Shields and the first diners will be driven up there by bus on Tuesday.

As a special treat, they will also get a chance to explore the grounded plane's cockpit.

In Britain, currydates back to 1810 when the first such restaurant opened up. It has since become a generic term for food originating in the Indian subcontinent and tailored to suit British palates.

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Tasmania-based Women's Legal Service in collaboration with TRS Law Offices (India) has launched a website for women in the country to educate them about their legal rights.

The website, www.Girlsgottaknow.In, has different heads such as relationship, employment, partying, renting, money and others.

"Women's Legal Service Tasmania is excited to be collaborating with TRS Law Offices and see this as a fantastic opportunity not only to see an innovative Tasmanian project adapted to Indian market, but to play a small but supportive role in the huge work being undertaken in delivering information to the young women of India," Susan Fahey, CEO of Women's Legal Service Tasmania, said.

She said the project has been supported by the Australian Government.

Talish Ray, a partner with TRS law offices, said it would be an opportunity to educate women in an accurate and focused manner.

"It is available on the Internet as a comprehensive resource in a format that would engage the audience," Ray said.

"Under every section a brief description about the situation, and legal options available are mentioned. Indian women have got least legal knowledge and this unawareness, often does them more harm than good," a press release issued by the law office said.

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is wading in to the debate over regulation of self-driving cars, declaring it is excited about the potential for automated transportation and calling on US regulators not to restrict testing of such vehicles.
As many as 11,592 cases of were reported across India in 2015, nearly 26 times more than a decade ago in 2006 when 453 cases were reported, according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau.
US-based handset maker will soon launch a new smartphone in India that will support Aadhaar authentication using the iris scanner on the device.

Priced at under Rs 12,000, the device will be made available early next year. has been awarded STQC (Standardization Testing and Quality Certification) from the Indian government and the company plans to launch more device supporting Aadhaar authentication in the future.

STQC certification authenticates the use of Iris- recognition devices, used for biometric authentication linked under the Aadhaar project.

" smartphone features IriTech's superior iris image quality assessment and on-board K7 generation algorithm to provide good quality images and avoid false positives while maximising true positive identification rates," InFocus India Country Head Sachin Thapar told PTI.

Apart from UIDAI, IriTech also works with government agencies in the US, Kenya and Columbia.

The smartphone with embedded algorithm can complete an image capture and K7 image generation in less than 2 seconds. It can capture the iris image under various environments, including under direct sunlight.

"Moreover, the biometric data from the InFocus device gets encrypted by a UIDAI key at the chip level in device, making it impossible for anyone but the Aadhaar server to see the information. Such encryption prevents information leakage of all kinds," he said.

Thapar said there is a great potential in the integration of iris recognition in a ubiquitous device like smartphone.

"While the M425 will be made available in the next 2-3 months, we will bring more devices with this as we have received the certification," he added.

Currently, Samsung is the only phone maker to have already embedded Delta ID's ActiveIRIS in its Galaxy Tab Iris.

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has held discussions with handset makers and operating system providers to embed the identification technology onto their devices. The availability of smart devices that are Aadhaar-enabled will help people authenticate their Aadhaar biometrics on the phone itself to avail of various government schemes, subsidies and services.

"The InFocus Aadhaar-enabled iris smartphone is a great example of the innovation possible on the Aadhaar platform. The phone is timely as it can be used for applications like opening instant bank accounts with eKYC and as a cashless microATM for merchant payments. This will accelerate JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) implementation," said Nandan Nilekani, former Chairman of UIDAI.

The M425 is a 4G-VoLTE enabled smartphone, powered by 1.5 GHz quad-core processor. The dual SIM phone features 4.5-inch display, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal memory (expandable up to 64GB) and 2,300mAh battery.

Stating that the device can be used as a secure and reliable biometric solution in various arenas like banking, E-PDS (Electronic Public Distribution System), MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act) payments, E-governance services such as passport, taxation, healthcare and education, Thapar said this also represents a huge leap towards facilitating biometric identification.

"It also eliminates use of any separate devices for biometric identification," he added.
Afghanistan was very keen on deeper defence and security cooperation with India and there were indications that Ghani may press for ramping up supply of arms and military hardware from India though Pakistan would be unhappy if there was closer Indo-Afghan military cooperation.



Last week, India had given to Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's plan to launch a new national sales tax next April got a jolt on Saturday after a two-day meeting with state officials ended without the resolution of a deadlock on who would administer the tax.

The long-awaited Goods and Services Tax (GST) would transform Asia's No.3 economy into a single market, could boost revenues through better compliance and make life simpler for businesses that now pay a host of federal and state levies.

But a council of federal and regional authorities has been struggling to forge a consensus on how to collect the new tax that will have federal and state elements.

Jaitley doesn't favour dual agencies auditing and scrutinising each taxpayer as he reckons multiple authorities could end up acting at cross-purposes. But states are reluctant to cede their turf.

While federal and state finance officials will meet again on Dec. 11-12 to discuss the issue, the possibility of a breakthrough at the meeting was not bright.

"I will keep my fingers crossed," Jaitley told reporters after meeting his state counterparts. "The day we resolve it, I would say it's a done deal."

For the GST to come into operation from April 1, Indian parliament as well as state legislatures, must pass, in all, four legislations before the end of this year.

Parliament's winter session is due to end on Dec. 16, but the bills can be brought before it only after the council approves them.

Adding to the uncertainty, some states in the council raked up the issue of compensation for revenues they fear losing following the GST launch as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's crackdown on the cash economy.

Modi's decision last month to scrap 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee banknotes at a stroke as part of a crackdown on tax dodgers and counterfeiters has left companies, farmers and households all suffering.

Jaitley has agreed to compensate loss-incurring states in the first five years of the new tax regime. But states are now equally worried about the economic fallout of the so-called "demonetisation" drive which could hurt their finances.

"All states are deeply concerned about their revenues falling," said West Bengal's finance minister Amit Mitra. "Compensation in future may become huge."

Under a constitutional amendment that enabled the GST, India needs to roll out the new sales tax by mid-September when the old system of indirect taxation is due to lapse.
Then I don't want to know what defeat would be. Even I am getting tired of writing about Gretchen Morgenson columns, but this one cries out for demystification. Anyone who wants to claim that any homeowner who stops foreclosure and keeps her home has necessarily "won" anything or received any particular financial benefit needs to read this post. This is a profoundly important issue: the whole "stop foreclosure" movement is based on the assumption that stopping a foreclosure is always and everywhere a "win" for homeowners. Morgenson appears to buy this idea so much that her reporting crosses the line from its typical tendentiousness to outright distortion in order to sustain the myth. I suggest that no actually useful and successful response to the "foreclosure crisis" will ever come about as long as this kind of distortion goes unchallenged.



*************



Here's Morgenson: MAMIE RUTH PALMER isnt a celebrity. People magazine doesnt chronicle her every move. The paparazzi dont wait for a photo op outside of the modest Atlanta home where she has lived since 1987.



But in some mortgage circles, Ms. Palmer, a 74-year-old former housekeeper, has earned her moment of fame. After enduring six years in foreclosure hell, almost losing her home twice, Ms. Palmer has escaped intact.



Last month she received a settlement from the Bank of New York, the trustee for a vast pool of mortgages that included hers. Under the terms of the deal, the bank reduced Ms. Palmers loan balance to $59,000 from about $100,000 and has agreed to accept the proceeds of a reverse mortgage in full satisfaction of her obligation.



The settlement also eliminated about $12,000 in foreclosure fees added to her debt and called for the installation of central air-conditioning in Ms. Palmers home.



Roughly $10,000 in legal fees billed over five years by Ms. Palmers lawyer, Howard D. Rothbloom, will be covered by payments she has made toward her mortgage while she was battling foreclosure.



I feel good, Ms. Palmer said last week. Its been a long time coming. To celebrate, she said, she is going to Florida to fish with her nephew.



Ms. Palmers case is hardly unique. Its just one of a swelling number that revolve around the thorny issue of who owns the note on a home when its forced into foreclosure proceedings. This case is not "about" who owns a note. It just isn't. Certainly, among the tens of thousands of dollars worth of objections and motions made by Palmer's attorneys over the course of six years, there was some question about the standing of the mortgage servicer. It appears that the servicer produced some pretty sloppy paperwork for the court. It appears that the Debtor's attorney also filed some pretty sloppy paperwork with the court, too, which dragged out the challenge to the servicer's standing for months. (If you want to read a first-rate judicial slapdown and you have a PACER account, don't miss Judge Massey's "Order Directing Debtor's Counsel to Withdraw Objection to Claim of HomeEq Servicing Corporation or To Litigate The Objection Properly," In re Palmer, Case No. 02-81333, docketed 3-31-03, US Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Georgia.)



At the end of it, the mortgage servicer withdrew its proof of claim and the trustee of the security owning this loan (Bank of New York) entered the case directly. I do not see from my review of the documents on PACER that there was ever any question that Bank of New York as trustee for the MBS had standing in bankruptcy or was owed money.



The final complaint that resulted in a settlement of this case alleged that Bank of New York charged inappropriate fees. There was no challenge at all to BNY as the creditor.



At no time, it seems, was there ever any question about the fact that Palmer had a mortgage loan and did not make payments either pre- or post-petition. Documents in this case indicate that the mortgage loan in question was originated in October of 1996, and that Palmer began making late payments by June of 1997. Palmer failed to pay taxes and insurance on the property. She filed prior bankruptcies in 1999, 2000, and 2002, each of which was dismissed. When this $52,000 loan was first originated on what was then a $78,000 property, the monthly payment exclusive of taxes and insurance was $554.97, and it became clear within a year that Palmer could not afford that.



By November of 2005, Palmer owed (according to her servicer) $50,611.70 in principal, $10,104.98 in escrow advances, $19,802.60 in accrued but unpaid interest, and $11,379.90 in legal fees, late charges, etc. During most of this period she does not appear to have made any mortgage payments, or any payments for taxes and insurance.



The final complaint made by Palmer's attorneys alleged that some fees were inappropriate. By this time there was no question that Bank of New York had a proof of claim; the argument was about how much the debtor owed. I have no idea whether the $10,000 Morgenson reports as being the cost of Palmer's own attorney's efforts is "appropriate" or not. It appears that BNY just got seriously tired of all of this and did, indeed, decide to settle. But Morgenson's description of that settlement leaves a lot to be desired. I quote from Judge James E. Massey's Interim Consent Order of May 5, 2008: The parties have reached a settlement of any and all claims that were or could have been raised in this case.



Plaintiff has been approved by Financial Freedom, a subsidiary of Indymac Bank, for a reverse mortgage to be secured by her residence. Plaintiff will receive approximately $79,530.00 in a principal limit. The lender will deduct approximately $6,436.00 for the cost of closing the loan and approximately $5,946.98 for servicing the loan. Approximately $7,300.00 must be set aside for repairs to be made as a condition of the loan. After all deductions, Plaintiff will receive approximately $59,847.02.



From the proceeds of the reverse mortgage, Plaintiff will pay the sum of $57,800.00 to Defendants and Defendants shall accept the sum of $57,800.00 in settlement and as full and final satisfaction of the entire debt owed by Plaintiff to Defendants. Upon receipt of these funds, Defendants shall cause the deed to secure debt on Plaintiffs residence to be released and will withdraw the proof of claim filed by them in this case.



The Trustee shall not disburse any additional funds whatsoever to Defendants for ongoing mortgage payments or for any proof of claim filed by Defendants in the case.



The parties shall bear their own respective costs incurred in this adversary proceeding. So this is how Mamie Palmer came out "intact": she began her case owing $51,000 in principal and around $76,500 in total, including interest, escrow, and legal fees. She now owes $79,530. She will also have to pay $10,000 to her attorney out of payments she made to the bankruptcy trustee. She gets $7300 worth of repairs to her home. Although her new mortgage, being a reverse mortgage, will not require her to make monthly payments, she will still have to pay taxes, insurance, and maintentance out of pocket, since the initial disbursement for this loan was equal to its full principal limit. If she does not make those payments, she can face foreclosure from IndyMac. Or, well, the FDIC. If the FDIC is willing ever to foreclose on any IndyMac loans.



I guess that punishes the investors in Palmer's mortgage loans and her mortgage servicer for having made an error on a mortgage assignment: they'll be writing off most of their accrued interest and all their legal expenses.



I suppose it's just more of the crashing irony of this story that Palmer's new loan now belongs to us taxpayers, unless the FDIC can find a buyer for IndyMac. That and the fact that a homeowner left the bankruptcy system owing more, not less, than she did when she started. One of our regular commenters likes to tell me this is called "rough justice," and I should "get used to it."



I'm not sure I'd call this "rough justice." I certainly will not call this a "victory" for a homeowner in "foreclosure hell." Whatever Morgenson is smoking, she needs to give it up.


CAMEROUN :: Cameroon, SCNC POSITION: THE GOOD AND THE BAD

The week of November 28 to 2nd December 2016 was indeed preoccupying and brought the British Southern Cameroons struggle for self-determination and independence to the forefront forcing those who before had pretended to brush it aside to come to terms with the concrete reality. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) declares, All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

The British Southern Cameroons struggle for self-determination, de-annexation and independence under the UN Charter led by the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) as a revolution has passed through first and second stages and has just entered the third and final. We heartily congratulate the Common Lawyers, the Teachers and all the Southern Cameroonian people. Through this massive support, what the SCNC has been working for through political education, we will end foreign domination and alien rule and all become masters of our destiny.

In Bamenda on Nov. 28, 2016 the SDF MPs, Senators and Mayors had a real standoff with la Republique du Cameroun Proconsul, Adolph Lele LAfrique. Determined to hold a public rally and make their position known to the population whom they represent, they were not ready to bow to a No Public Rally from the Proconsul of la Republique du Cameroun. The rally that held as the elected leaders arrived from the Proconsuls office protesting with placards carrying various messages condemning use of tear gas and brutalization of peaceful protesters making legitimate demands, was heavily attended by the politically conscious and no nonsense Bamenda population.

The population was not only anxious to hear, they had their own message to give their leaders thus any speaker who spoke in favour of federation, received shouts of NO! No!!. No!!! To demonstrate that they mean business, the youths rejected the use of French by any speaker, even the guests from la Republique, at the rally for you never discuss your imposed problem, in your enemys language. It was an interactive rally for the population had a firm message for the leaders and people of la Republique. Enough of la Republique barbaric domination and brutality! British Southern Cameroons INDEPENDENCE is not negotiable!

When the SDF National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi turned to the trigger-happy oppressors present and declared, There should be no drop of blood in Bamenda again. We will not take it! he received a thunderous applauds from the enlivened crowd.

While Fru Ndi and the elected leaders were giving hope to the subjugated people, the annexationist regime, once again transformed Buea University into a war zone. Without provocation the Vice Chancellor Dr Nalova Lyonga failing to force students into class for her personal glory invited the occupation forces into campus. And they in colonial aggression descended on the campus with tear gas, battons, guns and life bullets which they used recklessly. As mature, disciplined and law- abiding people, the unarmed students shocked to see armed troops swiftly brought in screamed, No violence! No Violence!! No Violence!!!. But the colonial repressive forces responded in style Nous y reviendron

The campus was covered with thick smoke of tear gas while the innocent were screaming as those who could make it scampered for safety as brutalisation by the invading troops got intensified.

Students residential areas in Molyko were invaded and rampant torture, looting and abuse of innocent girls took place as was in 2005 and 2006.

Why must our children in the University of Buea regularly suffer such impunities? Is the Buea University set aside to teach the anglofools the unforgettable lesson? In 2005 it was the lone university among all state universities that went on strike where students were murdered and others suffered despicable atrocities. For how long will we continue to watch our children maimed and murdered and institutions created to nurture future leaders visited with mayhem? It is the living and healthy create, invent and make the impossible happen for human progress.

NOT ISOLATED BUT THE PEOPLES WILL

The strikes called by the Common Law Lawyers and the Teachers Trade Unions have opened a new chapter in the struggle for self-determination and de-annexation of British Southern Cameroons from la Republique du Cameroun. These professional groups defend the core values and heritage that project the distinct identity of British Southern Cameroons as opposed to la Republique du Cameroun. It is in this light that the strike has been welcomed and defended by all the people of British Southern Cameroons irrespective of gender, religion, or political ideology.

Beginning concretely from 1993 in Buea when the Yaounde regime could not even allow Southern Cameroonians use their own facilities to hold the AAC1 to Bamenda in 1994 when under military siege AAC 11 could not hold under normal circumstances, the evidence of treating the people as a conquered people has been self-evident. On Oct.1, 2001 when we commemorated the 20th anniversary of the confiscation of our statehood and independence under military siege, four compatriots were murdered, many wounded and hundreds including leaders were arrested and detained in deferent parts of the country. Not giving up, in 2011 and 2012, the commemoration took place in Buea where SCNC leaders, lawyers and journalists suffered arrests, torture, and detention and finally more than four hundred and one hundred and fifty respectively were charged to the Buea Court.

This said, certain facts must be made abundantly clear to avoid confusion. Language is not only a vehicle expression it is equally the store house of the peoples belief and cherished values.

What do the people of British Southern Cameroons want?

Not a federation! Not even confederation! Why? To answer these questions we take introspection into the 55 years of co-existence, (just trying to be polite and nice), with la Republique du Cameroun. And to do this I will do justice by posing these questions for you to reflect upon and putting sentiments aside and from your inner man answer sincerely.

1. In 55 long years, what did we gain by being with la Republique du Cameroun? 2. To those campaigning for return to federal system, who killed the 1961-1972 lame legged federation and why? 3. To those campaigning for a four or ten state federal system, what will we gain by this if the lord of the manor were to grant it that we could not get in the defunct so- called two state federation of 1961-1972? 4. If by intrigues, divide, weaken and rule, corruption, constitutional manipulation and anti-constitutional acts, the lord of the manor by decree changed the name of the country to suite his whims and caprices yesterday, what are the guarantees that the disease that attacked coffee yesterday will not attack cacao tomorrow? 5. What have we lost consequent on our subjugation under la Republique du Cameroun? 6. Why must we on our knees beg for federation from a man and system that equates federation to secession? 7. Speaking realistically and from the depth of your inner man, what do we stand to lose if, like other nations, large and small, we stand on our own as a sovereign state?

The stand of the British Southern Cameroonian people has nothing to do with Mr. Paul Biyas determination to rule his country, la Republique du Cameroun, for life. That is his peoples cup of tea.

British Southern Cameroons was a democracy. And this we are determined to restore and improve upon. We do not hate the people of la Republique du Cameroun. We respect them and their full rights to rule themselves as they see fit and beneficial. But we in toto reject their system and determination to impose annexation and assimilation on us, make our country their footstool and us their slaves.

The British Southern Cameroons struggle is not calling for regime change in la Republique du Cameroun. It is not calling for Biya Must Go! To remain focused and consistent our message must be precise, clear and without ambiguity. An independent British Southern Cameroons promises good neighbourliness to all our neighbours as was the case before 1961. In African spirit we offered sanctuary to those who fled from terrorism and the civil war in French Cameroun. Goodness and hospitality done in African brotherhood should not be repaid with evil.

OUR RIGHT TO SOVEREIGNTY

British Southern Cameroons inherent right to sovereign independence is defined in UN Charter and international instruments. British Southern Cameroons is not to be granted independence by la Republique du Cameroun but by the UN and there is a process to be followed. The announcement is not to be made clandestinely or discretely through someones whatsApp. All of us will be involved in the process of de-annexation that will be umpired by the UN as was in Namibia and other territories that were annexed by neighbouring expansionist states.

British Southern Cameroonians are a disciplined, hardworking and intelligent people and proud of their indigenous cultural heritage inter-married with Anglo-Saxon cultural values should conduct themselves decently and honourably.

THE ONGOING STRIKE

We thus salute the Common Law Lawyers and Teachers Trade Unions for respecting nonviolence. The violence that led to deaths, injuries, maiming and destructions was engineered by the repressive forces. Peaceful protests should not attract the use of life bullets and tear gas. This is primitive behavior of an annexationist colonial regime. And to the perpetrators the doors of the ICC are wide open and they have no place to hide from the long hand of justice.

We take this unique opportunity to salute and heartily hail the social media and activists behind doing the marvelous job. We have only started and have to remain faithful and constant till the job, namely, INDEPENDENCE is got.

The enemies of British Southern Cameroons inherent right to self-determination and de-annexation have tried in vain to put a wedge in between the different interest and professional groups involved in the ongoing strike and the peoples legitimate struggle for independence anchored on legality. Every struggle manifests itself in different phases. When the dismissed workers of Ndu Tea Estate, Tole Tea Estate, MBOSCUDA protesting repressive tactics, Wum Women agitating against the seizure of their fertile farm land by the CPDM baron Alhaji Dan Polo Ndawara protected by the Yaounde regime in its application of divide and rule, the target is the same, namely, the annexationist regime.

Who is destroying the Common Law and raping the Anglo-Saxon Educational System? Why is it possible for such evil of decapitation to be visited on a people and nation? Is it not because British Southern Cameroons has become the footstool of la Republique du Cameroun? Are the Common Law Lawyers and the Teachers Trade Unionists not Southern Cameroonians? Are they as patriots not defending what is dear to them and all Southern Cameroonians, namely the true inherent core value that distinguishes a British Southern Cameroonian from le Camerounaise? How then are they doing what is contrary to what the SCNC and the people stand for? Who, all along, has been defending SCNC activists or the people once brutalized and detained? Is it not the Common Law Lawyers?

Ask a gendarme or Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Who is an SCNC and who is a Southern Cameroonian? His quick answer will be, No difference. Simply, two sides of a nasty coin.

That the lawyers and teachers are defending the will of the people is concretely demonstrated by the overwhelming support the strike has enjoyed both at home and abroad. At home both the parents and the children are ready to sacrifice even an academic year to have the problem solved permanently. From abroad Southern Cameroonians have gone out in peaceful demonstrations to call the UN and international community to intervene promptly and solve the problem by pressurizing la Republique du Cameroun to withdraw its occupation forces and respect its international boundary inherited at independence on January 1, 1960.

Based on these irrefutable facts it is thus not only wrong but the devils act of divide and rule to describe the ongoing strike as a lawyers and teachers strike. It is an effective manifestation of the British Southern Cameroons struggle self-determination, de-annexation and sovereign independence.

WE THUS DECLARE THAT

1. The PM, Phillemon Yang does not have the authority to solve the Common Law Lawyers and Teachers Trade Unions problems for it is inseparable from the British Southern Cameroons political conflict with la Republique du Cameroun. The solution lies in de-annexation and sovereign independence of British Southern Cameroons which lies within the competence of UK and UN.

2. The Press Conference organized by a group of la Republique du Cameroun ministers in Yaounde while the PM was in Bamenda dialoguing with various leaders was a clear show of force and authority meant not only to undermine the PM  a Southern Cameroonian, but to graphically demonstrate that the annexed have no legal and political right to be respected and to Mr. Yang, that opportunity to dine the masters table is a privilege, not a right. So no difference!

3. The Ad Hoc Committee is an empty basket of promises, a diversionist tactic of playing for time, to weigh you out and when you get hungry you come begging, this time for the crumbs of the crumbs.

4. The promised subvention to the lay private education is a bribe to tear this sector away from the rest and weaken Teachers Trade Unionism. To triumph we must guard against sweet talks, divide and rule tactics, bribery and corruption.

British Southern Cameroonians remain firm, steadfast and focused till the UK and UN step in to right the wrong of 1961 and we take our seat at the UN and other international fora. No retreat till victory!

NFOR, N. NFOR

National Chairman, (SCNC)

Cc;

Common Law Lawyers

Teachers Trade Unions

Religious Authorities

Diplomatic Missions in Yaounde,

ACHPR, Banjul, The Gambia

Pan African Parliament, Midrand 1685, Gauteng Province, South Africa

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, London

AU Commission Chairman, Addis Ababa

Commonwealth SG, London

UN SG, New York, USA

The Press

Archives
Do your homework, consider waiting until you get home to Australia where public health regulations are compelling, and know what to look for if you do decide to go ahead.

Equipment should be single-use and new, or sterilised.

Needles should be single-use and opened from their packet in front of the client.

Razors used to shave the skin should be new and single-use.

The artist should be wearing gloves  new and single-use for each client.

Ink should be in small dye pots new to each client, rather than using a common supply across multiple clients.

Practitioners should be happy to answer questions about their infection control strategies.

Safe and effective vaccines for hepatitis B and hepatitis A are available. These are recommended for travel to some countries. There is no vaccination for hepatitis C or HIV.
"I think it frees people's minds to say why not, and I think there needs to be more of that and more open-mindedness to try new things. You'll probably fail more often but you'll succeed sooner if you're allowed to do more. I think communities that have a 'don't build anything here ever'-type attitude will be the poorer for it.
Mrs Hoare said she was aware of body corporates for units around the lake putting in complaints to the ACT government about the behaviour of cyclists on the shared paths. There had also been calls for an extra path to be put in to separate cyclists from walkers.
Turnbull was experimenting with a line about Labor preferring the interests of rich white backpackers from Europe to the modern variation of indentured labour from the Pacific Islands and the coerced labour of Australians. It may work in some quarters but was far from convincing, given that the measures must be judged by the sum of tax collected, not the marginal rate at which the last dollar is earned. In any event, the government's anxiety to strike a deal  any deal really  was not primarily focused on protecting the revenue as on dealing with horticultural industry panic that these rich white European backpackers whom we ought, apparently, to despise, might stay away from Australia and its fruit farms. Honestly, is further abuse of them required?
The lack of snow cover always means it takes a little extra work to get into the Christmas spirit. Yes, the calendar tells us Dec. 25 is only three weeks away. But look outside ...

So for all those who, like us, need a little help getting in the holiday mood, heres a sure-fire method: Join us Saturday in Christmas Village (Irvine Park the other 11 months of the year) for the Heralds annual Christmas gift to the community.

We call it Walk Through the Park, because thats what it is. Instead of being confined inside vehicles as you wind your way through Christmas Village, for 90 minutes Saturday night you can get the full experience on your own two feet, without having to worry about dodging cars.

Vehicle traffic is restricted from 5-6:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, and through the 24 years we have been doing this, the family event has gotten more popular every year. So get there early and take your time enjoying the wonders of the holiday lights and displays that are unmatched in western Wisconsin.

The Marshall Park lot fills up fast, but wed encourage folks to seek out the Chippewa Valley Family YMCA parking lot. Overflow parking is also available in the Leinie Lodge parking lot (not to be confused with the brewery lot, which is off limits).

The ever-present Santa Claus will be there, and complimentary cookies and hot chocolate will be passed out by Herald employees. We will see you there!

Pearl Harbor edition Wednesday

You will want to be sure to pick up a copy of the Herald Wednesday for a couple of reasons.

We have been soliciting readers memories of Dec. 7, 1941, since this Wednesday will mark the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. We are looking for people who remember that day to share their memories in 150 words or less, but will also welcome contributions from readers whose parents or other family members shared their memory of that day.

We will be packaging them into a story to appear in Wednesdays Herald, and you still have time to get them in to us. The deadline is Monday.

Please send your remembrances by email to news@chippewa.com or by conventional mail to Ross Evavold, c/o the Chippewa Herald, P.O. Box 69, Chippewa Falls, WI 54729. Please include your name, the city you live in or near, and a phone number and/or email address in case we have a questions.

We are also publishing a 12-page broadsheet special section, titled A Day of Infamy: Do We Really Know What Happened?

The cover story will be an article written by Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Twomey, who recently published a book, Countdown to Pearl Harbor  The Twelve Days to the Attack. He will be identifying 12 answers every American should know about who, what, where, when, why and how Pearl Harbor was attacked.

The section also will include: a chronological, visual narrative of the Dec. 7 attacks, including historical photos, memorable quotes and short vignettes from survivors; and informative maps and graphics that will outline the attack as it unfolded, as well as identify the histories of the ships that were stationed at the naval base.

Additional pages will include tourism information so that you might plan a visit to Pearl Harbor and other locations that honor the legacies from that day.

And wait, theres even more. As a companion to that special section, chippewa.com will be where you go to see a dozen more features commemorating that 75-year anniversary. They will include:

Through an interactive guide and map, you can explore the day of the attack, hour by hour.

View six collections of historic photos and video from the attack, including rarely-seen photos of the USS Arizona that sunk Dec. 7, 1941 in Pearl Harbor.

Read the full address to Congress by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt the day after the attack  an address that is known for FDRs phrase, A date that will live in infamy.

Check out a list of 10 highly-rated Pearl Harbor books, and also 10 popular Pearl Harbor films, ranked from worst to best.

Take a quiz to see how well you remember Pearl Harbor.

Hey, driver, watch out for the house

Chippewa Falls residents know that if they park on city streets from 2-6 a.m. during the winter months that they will get a ticket from the city.

Fortunately, there was no snow on Lake Hallie streets on Nov. 30 when a house was parked on a village street.

Thats right. A house. Well, part of one.

Lake Hallie Police Chief Cal Smokowicz explained in this Chippewa County Sheriffs Office log item from 1:36 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30:

A house (technically half a house) will be parked overnight on 114th Street, north of 40th Avenue. I have spoken with the owner of the company and explained to him that he needs 15 feet of clearance around the house for other motorists to get through, visibility 500 feet in either direction and reflective traffic markers (cones) so vehicles do not strike the house.

Bet there were some second-takes by perplexed drivers that night.
Mustafa Abdul Wahid, acting executive president of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), told Daily News Egypt that operators face having their licences revoked in some circumstances.

Etisalat, Orange and Vodafone are the three operators that can now provide 4G services in Egypt  after a hard-fought negotiation with the NTRA  in competition with Telecom Egypt, which has had a licence for some time.

The 4G service licence obliges companies to provide good 3G service in the areas where 4G signals may be weak to ensure that all clients have access to decent communication services, Abdul Wahid told the newspaper.

He said the list of sanctions contained in the 4G licence agreement includes terms about the quality of service that companies are obliged to provide. They include deterrent penalties for companies if they go below a stipulated quality.

He said sanctions also include a fine of up to 25% of the insurance value paid by the company, amounting to 100 million Egyptian pounds ($5.6 million) each time. This fine will be payable if companies delay payment for the service or break any of the contract terms, reported the newspaper.

In theory the new licences are for unified services, allowing the three companies to provide fixed services in competition with Telecom Egypt. However, Abdul Wahid told the newspaper that the companies had not yet submitted requests to begin fixed services.

Etisalat and Orange each have 10MHz of spectrum for 4G services and Vodafone  which has a complex relationship with Telecom Egypt  has 5MHz. Not all of the spectrum is immediately available, as NTRA has to evict current users.
Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car

I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ...
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.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
The following editorial appeared Thursday in The Dallas Morning News:

The recent presidential election made one thing quite clear. Americans from all across the political spectrum struggle to separate reliable information and informed opinion from made-up facts and intentionally misleading perspectives.

Even so, it comes as a mild surprise to learn that even so-called digital natives  young people entirely at ease in the internets ocean of information  often have no idea that what they are reading or viewing is intentionally misleading, or produced by hyper-partisan proselytizers.

A new study by researchers at Stanford University has found that the confusion among middle school, high school and even college students is profound.

The study, which tested responses to various news items and photographs posted to the internet, involved thousands of students and was conducted over several months during the run-up to last months election.

Turns out, 80 percent of middle schoolers werent able to recognize sponsored content as advertising, rather than journalism. Four in 10 high school students shown a photo of wilted flowers posted to imgur.com  a photo-sharing site  was strong evidence of the truth of the otherwise unsupported claim contained in the caption, namely that one lingering impact of a 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan is that flowers in the area are deformed.

Teenagers and college students are among the heaviest internet users, and overwhelmingly prefer to get their news through a social media feed, rather than rely on trusted editors to sort through the good and the bad.

That makes it essential that they are taught to evaluate the reliability of news content themselves. Its a skill set that many adults could stand some practice on, too.

Part of the solution can start at home, where parents influence is strongest on younger children just starting out on the internet. Just as we warn our children about privacy and safety on the internet, perhaps a lesson or two on how to vet sources of news and opinion would be helpful.

Schools, too, can help. Some of these skills go hand-in-hand with basic library and research skills that can sometimes be harder to teach as traditional librarians and even libraries themselves are on the wane in many districts.

And there is room for publishers, too, to make certain that information that is opinion is clearly marked as such, that advertising is not confused with journalism, and that source material for stories that is available elsewhere on the net is both cited and made easy to find.

All of us, young or old, use social media to talk about our world, and if those conversations are ever to rise above the shouting matches they are, we are all going to have to get better at sorting truth from fiction, fact from opinion, and reliable sourcing from capricious assertions.
Remember Shuanghuan Automobiles Noble, the Chinese minicar that blatantly copies the design of the previous Smart Fortwo? Well, the Noble has made its appearance in several European countries including Greece where Smarts parent company, Daimler, naturally decided to take the importer, China Motors, to court in order to block the sale of the car in the Mediterranean country on the basis that infringes its design copyright for the ForTwo. Easy decision, right? Wrong

Believe it or not, according to China Motors, a Greek court in Piraeus has just dismissed Daimlers claim on the basis that an informed buyer would not confuse the Noble with the Smart Fortwo.

The judgment goes on to say that it is commonly acknowledged that a decision to buy a car should not depend solely on the vehicles exterior styling, but also on the technical features such as the automobiles engine.

In this aspect, China Motors said that the court took into consideration the fact that the Noble differs significantly in technical specifications from the Smart Fortwo as it is longer (3meters vs 2.5meters), it has two extra seats at the back and it incorporates a front-mounted engine sending power to the front wheels whereas the Fortwo has a rear-mounted engine that drives the rear wheels.

As for the styling similarities, the court ruled that they are the result of their common nature, referring to the fact they belong to the same category of vehicles (minicars)!

In other words, according to the Piraeus courts reason, Chinese automakers can sell any clone they want in Greece as long as the technical specifications differ from the original product. Yep, were pretty much convinced by now that for this particular judge, the MacPherson strut and Ellie MacPhersons butt are one in the same

According to China Motors, the Noble will go on sale in Greece sometime during the second half of the year.
An 8-month-old girl has survived being thrown 25 feet and landing in a storm drain after the car she was a passenger in was clipped by an 18-wheeler in Texarkana, Arkansas.



According to KSLA, the incident occurred after the car was side-swiped by a truck changing lanes.

Initially, first responders were unable to locate the young girl at the scene. However, while searching through the thick grass of the median, they heard a noise coming from a storm drain. After lifting up the hay covering the drain, they were astonished to find the child sitting upright and uninjured bar a scratch on her forehead.

Texarkana firefighter Josh Moore said: The baby  was sitting up and looking up at us waiting for us to pull her out. She wasnt screaming, she wasnt crying, she was just in their waiting for us.

Speaking with KSLA, authorities said the infants car seat was improperly installed and that she wasnt restrained properly either. The truck driver received a citation after making an improper and unsafe lane change.

H/T to Jalopnik!

VIDEO
Skoda is thriving under the VW Group and it wants to be a player in the SUVsegment. It very well achieve that goal, but exactly fifty years ago it started making another off-roader  and in a very unlikely place at that.



The Trekka commenced production on December 2, 1966, in Otahuhu, New Zealand, and six years later, the brand counted almost 3,000 examples made. Why on Earth would Skoda build cars in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Well, for customs and tax reasons, of course, and they were doing it since 1956, with the help of local importer Motor Industries International.

Skoda has always striven for solutions that are tailored for individual markets. The all-terrain Trekka, which was produced in collaboration with the New Zealand importer and local businesses, is a prime example of this philosophy, said Manager of the Skoda Museum in Mlada Boleslav, Andrea Frydlova.

Built as a robust, compact everyday car for the local farmers, tradespeople and merchants, as the automaker marketed it at the time, the Trekka was based on the Octavias chassis, which came from the European country to New Zealand, along with the rigid central tubular frame and independent suspension.

Modifications were made to the wheelbase, which was shortened from 2,389 mm to 2,165 mm (94.05-85.24 in), and the axle ratio was changed from 4.78 to 5.25. Contributing to its 190 mm (7.48 in) ground clearance were the large tires, and customers could also enhance the rear-wheel drive vehicles off-road capabilities with an optional differential lock.

The Trekka was powered by a 1,221 cc engine delivering 47 PS (46 HP) and 87 Nm (64 lb-ft) of torque, mated to a four-speed gearbox to help it achieve a top speed of 105-110 km/h (65-68 mph), while returning approximately 11 lt/100 km (21.38 mpg US).

To appeal to as many customers as possible, the Skoda Trekka was offered in several variants, including a 3-door pickup with 2 to 8 seats, a canvas soft-top, a fixed plastic hardtop, an estate, and even a beach version.

Sitting at 3,590 mm (141.34 in) long, 1,600 mm (62.99 in) wide and between 1,785 and 2,040 mm tall(70.28-80.31 in), tipping the scales at 920-980 kg (2,028-2,161 lbs) and able to carry loads of up to 500 kg (1,102 lbs), the SUV was eventually exported to markets such as Australia, Fiji, Samoa, and Vietnam. Additionally, the Czechs applied a similar concept in Pakistan, too, where assembly of the SkodaPak (Skoda Pakistan) began in May 1970.

PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: Contributed

A smile a day keeps the psychiatrist away

Smiling not only makes you look better, it also makes you feel better. Smiling is an intentional activity that can boost your level of happiness.

Intentional activities are those things we think about and make a conscious decision or choice to do. They dont have to be involved or complicated; often simple, deliberate actions can make a big difference to how you feel.

For example, deciding to smile more is an intentional activity that has the power to increase positive emotions. In fact, smiling has a double whammy when it comes to making you feel happier.

When your brain experiences a positive situation, it sends a message to your brain that instructs the relevant muscles in your face to contract.

You are now smiling.

I have always told my children to smile when they're in an uncomfortable or frustrating situation. Was I giving good advice?

Does a forced smile help you feel good, or does the smile need to start with signals being sent to your brain for you to enjoy a happiness boost?

Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman were interested in just that question, so they conducted a smile study using chopsticks.

Participants put chopsticks into their mouths to produce one of three different expressions: neutral, standard smile or big smile.

Half the participants were asked to consciously smile while their mouths were forced into one of the expressions; the other half werent given any instructions about smiling.

Once the chopsticks were positioned in their mouth, each person was given activities to perform. These tasks were designed to increase stress levels. To see how each participant reacted to and recovered from the stress, their hearts were monitored.

The results showed those who were instructed to smile, regardless of what facial expression the chopsticks forced their mouth into, had lower heart rate levels and recovered from the stress more quickly, compared with those subjects who werent asked to smile.

Those with chopsticks positioned to force the big smile had a slight advantage over less intense smiles, which suggests a forced smile can also reap the rewards that are associated with feeling happy.

When comparing those people, who were instructed to smile with those who werent, the results showed that participants who had forced smiles from the chopsticks, but who hadnt been asked to smile felt more confident and less stressed than those non-smiling subjects with neutral expressions.

It seems that smiling, regardless of whether it is genuine or not, tricks your brain into thinking you are happy.

Additional research into this chicken-and-egg situation shows that when your brain feels good it tells you to smile and when you smile, your brain feels good.

One British research scientist declared that smiling can be as stimulating as receiving up to 16,000 pounds sterling in cash.

Thats between $30,000 and $43,000, depending on which side of the 49th parallel you live.

I decided to try this after reading about the study. I waited for a moment in my life when I was feeling a slump in positivity.

It didnt take long.

I arranged my face into the biggest, most genuine smile I could muster and guess what? It worked. I could feel tension roll away from my neck and my whole body began to relax and feel less stressed.

If you arent good at smiling, or it makes you feel uncomfortable, stand in front of a mirror and practice.

Try to make your smile reach your eyes not just change your mouth; visualize yourself talking to someone who makes you smile, or try remembering a happy experience.

The more you practise smiling, the more comfortable you will feel doing it and the more natural it will feel.

Choose to turn that frown upside down next time you are under stress.

Your brain, your body and your mood will thank you for it.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: Contributed

Castanet is pleased to welcome Leanne Allen to the fold.

In a new partnership with Culture Vulture TV, we'll be bringing you a series of light-hearted and informative videos based on tourism and community events.

Allen is branching out from her Culture Vulture Victoria website, bringing the brand back to her old stomping grounds.

She's no stranger to the Okanagan, having owned her own media companies since 2000, when she and her sister launched Off-Centre Magazine.

Since then, shes worked with CBC, KVOS, APTN, Shaw TV, and others.

Allen started CultureVultureTV.com as an online magazine in 2010, changing with the shift of media to online.

We thought she'd be a perfect fit on Castanet. We hope you agree.
Photo: City of Kelowna

A development proposal set to come before city council will mark the final projects on what was the Conservatory site.

Council will be asked Monday to approve a master plan development permit, which will add nearly 500 housing units to the north of the current Conservatory buildings.

The development calls for six multi-family buildings totalling about 450 units and 48 townhouse units. The unit counts may change based on the approved building designs.

Staff say numbers proposed assumes the development will reach maximum build-out.

Recently, council approved a commercial development on the south west corner of the larger Conservatory site, which is well underway.

Council has also approved an 87-unit multiple-family building that will complete the original tower building, which will start construction in the near future.
Photo: Contributed

A unique development featuring a boat storage facility with townhouses above is being proposed for the McKinley Landing area.

City council will be asked to approve the development Monday.

The project consists of stacked townhouses located above a large boat storage facility.

According to a staff report, the four-level boat storage facility includes a boat ramp to facilitate direct launching into Okanagan Lake.

It will have the capacity to store up to 153 boats.

Built above the storage facility would be 18 stacked townhouse-style residential units.

The development is proposed in two phases. The first phase includes only the boat storage facility. The townhouses would come as part of a second development phase.

Development would take place within a comprehensive development zone approved by the council of the day in 2004.

The zone guaranteed 1,300 residential units.
Photo: Nicholas Johansen

Dozens of people, including many members of Kelowna's Chinese community, gathered in Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery Saturday morning for the unveiling of the first of 15 monuments in B.C. that recognize the contributions Chinese-Canadians have made to the province.

The ceremony involved a dragon dance performed by students at Mar Jok Elementary and an incense ceremony to show respect for the ancestors of many in attendance who have passed away.

The monument stems from a report on the province's Chinese historical wrongs consultation, which addressed past injustices the community faced, like the discriminatory working conditions and pay faced by many Chinese while building the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1881 and 1884.

Today's event is a reminder of that dark time and a celebration of how far we have come, said Teresa Wat, minister of international trade. Let's continue to work together to stamp out racism and discrimination and ensure this shameful chapter in B.C.'s vibrant multicultural history is never repeated.

The monument in Kelowna is the first of 15 different markers that will be built in different communities around B.C.

The provincial government provided $100,000 in Chinese legacy funding for the projects.
Photo: Skylar noe-vack

Naramata has recently agreed to expand its fire protection coverage area to include more than 90 properties.

In October the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen adopted a bylaw that incorporates all remaining properties located within the existing service area that were not included in the original service.

Additionally, the service has expanded to include several properties in the North Naramata Road, Glenfir Road, Chute Lake Road and Indian Rock Road areas.

The Naramata Volunteer Fire Department, along with RDOS staff, have worked diligently to make the expansion of fire protection and first response services available to all the residents of Indian Rock and Glenfir," said RDOS Naramata director Karla Kozakevich. "I feel it is extremely important that we offer these services to as many residents of the area as possible."

Firefighters are now servicing the area and plans are underway to construct a second fire station in the Chute Lake Road area.

The new facility will house firefighting vehicles and equipment better enabling crews to respond in a timely manner to incidents.

With the expanded fire protection service comes a medical first response program.

The department has a roster of trained and certified medical first responders who can provide care until an ambulance arrives.

Indian Rock resident Judi Harvey described it as good for two reasons.

"First of all to help fight fires and secondly it is good to have first responders coming out to our area," she said

On Saturday morning, the community was also invited to gather at the existing fire hall on Lower Debeck Road, for a blessing of the department's new engine, nicknamed Rosie.

Fire Chief Tony Trovao talked about the history of this fire department tradition and firefighter/chaplain Sharlene Hamilton did the blessing.

Firefighters and community members then pushed the engine into its bay.
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Photo: Ryan Barker

A highway washout is cutting off access to the west coast of Vancouver Island.

The washout has closed off traffic in both directions on Highway 4 about five kilometres from the Ucluelet Junction since Friday afternoon.

The highway is the main access road connecting Tofino and Ucluelet with the rest of the island, and no detour route has been made available.

Tofino Mayor Josie Osborne says the road closure has inconvenienced some people  particularly tourists who have either extended their stay or cancelled their trips  but is otherwise not a cause for concern.

She says having one main access road to the rest of the island has always posed a challenge and the community's emergency planning accounts for that.

Engineers are expected to be assessing the site on Saturday and Osborne says residents are waiting for updates on whether a detour route will be established and when the road will be repaired.

Osborne says she had driven past the site of the washout three times over the past week and could see the hole in the roadway expand.

The community has dealt with occasional road closures due to flooding or a slide in the past, but those usually only last a few hours.

Osborne says the washout is a reminder that big rain events and ongoing erosion can cause significant problems for the roadways in the region.

"Although we focus a lot on major events like earthquakes or big disasters, it's much more realistic to think of some kind of highway event that might close the road for several days or weeks, and so understanding what alternatives are out there and how prepared we are is something we have to accommodate here," she says.
Photo: Contributed

People are being invited to get into the holiday spirit at the annual Santa Rec Run, Dec. 10 in Penticton.

This year, the event, presented by Bears Den Restaurant and Hoodoo Adventures, will start and finish at the Outdoor Pursuits Centre at 131 Ellis Street, with 5km and 10 km courses following Lakeshore Drive and the Channel Parkway.

Adding to the fun, runners or walkers will receive a cheery Santa hat.



The run is open to participants of all ages including families, grandparents and children.

At the finish line, they will be treated to hot chocolate, cookies, festive music and prizes, including for creative holiday costumes.

In addition, Hoodoo will offer a full day of climb by donation at the centre's indoor climbing gym

Proceeds from the event will go to the Youth Outdoor Recreation Society, a newly founded not for profit subsidy program that funds outdoor recreation opportunities for schools in School District 67.

This includes kayaking, hiking, rappelling, group development and more.



Local schools are encouraged to get involved.

Classrooms that donate more than $200 in participation fees will be entered in a draw to win one free outdoor recreation program designed specifically for them.

For more information and to register for the run, go here.




Kelowna's downtown core was overrun by Christmas spirit Saturday, as the 28th annual Downtown Kelowna Light Up celebration took over.

Carolers were singing in the streets, families skated on the freshly opened outdoor rink, and the man in red even made an appearance at the Kelowna Community Theatre.

Stuart Park was filled with activities for the young ones, including a bouncy castle, and the Community Theatre featured several classic Christmas movies throughout the day.

The grown ups weren't left out of the days events though. Okanagan Spirits was offering free boozy hot chocolate, made with plum brandy, and Tree Brewing was offering free tastings of their beer.

Timbre Wolves and The Malarkeys took to the stage by the outdoor ice rink in the afternoon, and treated the skaters to some tunes.

Finally, at 5 p.m., the tree in Stuart Park was lit up for all to see.

Christmas is well on its way.
Photo: Contributed

RCMP and emergency officials in Manitoba say a school bus with more than two dozen students slid off a road and onto its side.

Police say the bus, from the Frontier School Division, was on its way north from Winnipeg to Berens River on Saturday afternoon when it went off the road near the community of Pine Dock.

Police say in a news release that one adult and one youth were transported to hospital by air ambulance with non-life threatening injuries, and that both were in stable condition.

They say all other students were transported to hospital by ground ambulance or private motor vehicles as a precaution.

Police say the students were between 12 and 15 years old and may have been attending a musical event.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
Photo: CTV Vancouver

A motorcyclist has died after crashing into a pickup truck in Abbotsford on Saturday morning.

The motorcycle was travelling east in the 33900 block of Old Yale Road near Essendene Avenue just before noon when it crossed the center line into the path of a westbound Dodge Ram truck, according to police.

Police officers, along with fire rescuers and ambulance staff, arrived on scene and the male driver was taken to hospital with very serious injuries, according to CTV.

He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The male driver and female passenger in the truck were not injured but were shaken up by the incident.

Anyone who witnessed the incident is asked to contact Abbotsford Police at 604-859-5225 or text 222973 (abbypd).
Santa parade 2016 Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed 1 2 3 4 5 6

Hundreds of people lined Penticton's Main Street Saturday afternoon for the annual Santa Claus Parade.

The excitement kicked off at 4 p.m. with the parade making its way down Main Street, from White Avenue to Front Street.

"I think this year was the best year yet," said Shawna Tinga, with the Downtown Penticton Association. "Just for all the community coming out and seeing everyone on Main Street in the chilly weather."

She added it was great to hold the event late in the day so people could see all the twinkling Christmas lights.

Highlights of the parade, held by the DPA and Royal LePage Locations West Realty, included festive floats, swirling dancers, RCMP, Penticton Fire and Crime Stoppers vehicles and search and rescue members.

Many local businesses, non-profits, schools and community groups were also featured in the annual Christmas event.

And of course there was Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus on a sleigh, with Murray GM donating a truck to pull the sleigh.

"They have been doing this as long as I can remember," said Lorea Whachell of Penticton. "And it's a great event because everybody in the community is out."

Resident Henri Longbottom said she just liked seeing the smiles on children's faces and all of the gorgeous floats.
Photo: Contributed

A travel advisory is in effect for the Coquihalla Highway tonight, with heavy snowfall expected from Hope to Merritt.

Total snowfall accumulations up to 25 cm can be expected by Sunday morning.

Travellers are advised to use caution and consider alternate plans.

Castanet will provide more details as they become available.
Photo: Contributed

Surrey RCMP is requesting the public's assistance after a pedestrian was struck by a pickup truck in the City Centre area on Saturday.

At approximately 5 p.m., officers responded to the report of the collision in the 9300 block of 140th Street.

The truck was travelling southbound on 140th Street when it struck a 69-year-old man.

The man died after being transported to a local hospital in critical condition.



The driver of the vehicle remained at the scene and is cooperating with police. Alcohol has been ruled out as a contributing factor.



The incident remains under investigation.



Anyone who witnessed it is asked to call the Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.




Photo: CTV

A 111-year-old house, one of the oldest in Vancouver, has been saved from the wrecking ball.

The grand old home moved from the city's West End and loaded on a barge in preparation for its restoration.

Real estate developer Sanjiv Sandhu says the 4,000-square-foot home will be moved to the Mount Pleasant area, where it will be turned into rental units.

Nickel Bros. house movers was responsible for the structure's $200,000 journey.

"Nickel Brothers does about 300 moves a year. This one is definitely one of the most complicated, Dennis Langendorff told CTV.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: The Canadian Press

A researcher has found a federal subsidy intended to reduce astronomical food prices for northern families has resulted in stale-dated, unreliable food on store shelves without making grocery bills more affordable.

Tracey Galloway of the University of Toronto, whose findings are to be published in a scientific journal later this month, says the Nutrition North program should be reformed with mandatory price caps on essential food.

"Without price caps and regulatory framework for pricing, the retailers have arbitrary control on how they set prices," she said from Iqaluit, where she was presenting her results. "We have not seen prices come down over the course of this subsidy."

Food in the North costs between two and three times what it does in the south. Grapes were recently selling in Nunavut for more than $28 a kilogram.

Such costs are a major cause of food insecurity. In 2014, Nunavut's territorial nutritionist found almost three-quarters of Inuit preschoolers live in food-insecure homes. Half of youths 11 to 15 years old sometimes go to bed hungry.

Nutrition North is a $77-million program that, since it replaced the Food Mail initiative in 2011, has sought to reduce costs by subsidizing shipping to 121 communities in the three territories and the northern regions of the provinces. The federal government is reviewing the program and has held public meetings across the North.

Ottawa says that between 2011 and 2015, the cost of a food basket for a family of four dropped about five per cent and the weight of eligible items shipped north increased by about 25 per cent.

Retailers say the full subsidy has been passed on to consumers and federal compliance checks back that up.

Galloway said Nutrition North only created a price drop because there was a gap between when it began and Food Mail ended. The drop reflects the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized prices during the gap  and not the two subsidy programs.

As well, because the program lacks Food Mail's quality checks, much of what winds up on northern shelves is past its best-before date  a complaint made repeatedly in the public meetings.

"Yesterday, I went to the grocery store to buy myself a can of soup and I turned it over and it had an expiry date of 2015 on it," said Galloway.

She also found prices varied significantly between communities. Igloolik and Hall Beach are only 70 kilometres apart and are serviced by the same flights, but food in Igloolik consistently costs 10 per cent more.

Nutrition North only subsidizes shipments and provides no incentives for consistency or affordability, she added.

"They get paid by the kilogram for what they ship, not for what they sell, and not for what they sell affordably. Many communities go weeks without fresh perishables in their store."

Galloway concluded the list of items should be reviewed. Prices on essential items should be capped.

"I think we need price ceilings on all subsidized food, below which retailers can price competitively."

A spokesperson from Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada was not available.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A gunman killed a local town councillor and two journalists in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in southeastern Finland, police said Sunday. A man has been detained on suspicion of murder.

The chairwoman of Imatra Town Council and two female reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant in the town just before a police patrol car arrived to the scene around midnight Saturday, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said. Police said two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her mid-30s.

Police detained a 23-year-old local man who didn't resist arrest. He fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle, authorities said.

Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the suspect had a criminal record, including for violent incidents and theft but declined to identify him or give more details.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."

Investigators will question him later Sunday. The suspect arrived outside the restaurant in his car and shot the three women as they stepped out of the restaurant. He then waited in the car until police arrived and accompanied officers silently and peacefully, police said.

Imatra, which has 28,000 inhabitants, is about 230 kilometres (140 miles) east of the capital, Helsinki.

"We decided to open a crisis centre after the shooting occurred right in the middle of the town near restaurants and nightclubs," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. "There were people there when it happened. In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident and many people were shocked."

In Finland, a country of 5.4 million people with strong hunting traditions, there are 650,000 officially recognized gun owners although homicides with guns are unusual. But after two fatal school shootings early this decade, gun laws have been tightened.
Photo: The Canadian Press Iraqi Army soldiers fight Islamic State militants at the front line in the Shaimaa neighbourhood of Mosul, Iraq, Sunday, Dec. 4.

Chaos erupted in eastern Mosul on Sunday when hundreds of civilians overwhelmed aid trucks distributing food and water.

The Iraqi government sent truckloads of food, heating oil and drinking water to residents in areas retaken from the Islamic State group in and around Mosul after aid groups warned of shortages in Iraq's second largest city, which has been the target of a major offensive since October.

"There is no justice," said Abu Ahmed, who asked that his full name not be used out of security concerns. "Some people took so many bags of food and others got nothing."

While the trucks bore banners identifying them as distributing aid on behalf of the local government, there were no government or security officials present during the melee that ensued on the eastern edge of the city.

Men, women and children fought over bags of flour and baskets of apples.

"We are desperate, this is the first time I've seen aid trucks," Abu Ahmed said. He said the food and water residents had stockpiled before the start of the operation had run out.

Diaa Sallal, a senior Iraqi relief official, told The Associated Press that the supplies were being delivered to the towns of Bartella and Qayara, near Mosul, as well as two outlying Mosul neighbourhoods. Sallal, reached by telephone in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, gave no further details.

Iraq's government called on civilians to remain in their homes during the operation to retake Mosul, fearing a mass exodus from the city, which is still home to hundreds of thousands of people.

But as the battle has ground on, with Iraqi forces making slow progress in street by street battles, supplies of food and water have dwindled.

Heavy clashes flared in eastern Mosul on Sunday, with both sides exchanging heavy gunfire from rooftops in the Shaimaa neighbourhood. IS militants shelled the district with a heavy barrage of mortar rounds, according to AP reporters at the scene.

Scores of families braved the fighting to flee IS-held districts for the relative safety of neighbourhoods retaken by government troops or camps for the displaced outside the city.

Deeper inside Mosul, another aid distribution in the Bakr neighbourhood was more organized. Hundreds of men and women lined up along a residential street as Iraqi special forces handed out boxes of aid.

But with the front line just over a hundred meters (yards) away, only a small number of aid trucks could reach the neighbourhood.

Soldiers screened the civilians as gunfire echoed nearby. Ambulances and armoured vehicles carrying wounded soldiers came screaming past after an IS suicide car bomb struck a nearby army position.

Elsewhere in Iraq, security forces in the northern Kurdish region shot and killed two of four people who resisted arrest in a village near the Iranian border. Nasah Mala Hassan, the mayor of a nearby town, said the other two blew themselves up, and that an armed Kurdish civilian was killed. It was not immediately clear whether the suspects were members of an armed group.
Photo: Contributed

Organizers of the Mummers Parade are hopeful that cultural education efforts will help the city's annual New Year's celebration be more respectful and inclusive following a string of racially and ethnically offensive displays.

The initiatives include sensitivity training sessions and online videos that explore issues such as cultural appropriation and privilege, sexual identity and the rules of satire. Mummers' leaders also published an open letter last week condemning "expressions of hate and bigotry."

"We want to make this open for more people," said George Badey, a veteran member of the Fralinger String Band and chairman of Love the Mummers. "The parade needs to evolve and represent the full spectrum of Philadelphians."

The Mummers Parade  a Philadelphia tradition since 1901  is often likened to New Orleans' Mardi Gras, or Carnival celebrations in the Caribbean and South America. It includes more than 10,000 performers divided into brigades; many wear ornate and expensive costumes, and some clubs create large props to accompany their musical performances. Spectators line the streets, and the parade is broadcast live on TV.

But the revelry has been tarnished in recent years. The 2013 parade included a minstrel theme and Delhi-based call centre routine. In 2015, a member of a brigade known as "wenches" carried a sign saying "Wench Lives Matter," a slight to the activist organization Black Lives Matter.

Then in January, one skit mocked transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner and another featured participants who painted their faces brown to portray Mexicans.

Mayor Jim Kenney, a city native and proud former Mummer, condemned the performances. In a recent statement, Kenney urged the Mummers to display a more respectful tone that celebrates the group's tradition of satire and pageantry as well as the city's diversity.

"Now, we need all Mummers, not just leadership, to honour that goal because, as we've seen in past years, one bad skit or one bad actor can ruin the reputation of the whole parade and hurt a lot of (Philadelphians)," the statement read.

Kenney has said that the free services the city provides to the Mummers, including sanitation and policing, could be at risk moving forward if there are further culturally offensive incidents.

The sensitivity training sessions are not mandatory, but a voluntary initiative between Mummers and the city. Nellie Fitzpatrick, Philadelphia's LGBT liaison, led the session on homophobia and transphobia, and said much of the response was positive.

"While they might think a skit making fun of Caitlyn Jenner is teasing a celebrity deserving of ridicule, for many people, by attacking her, it is sanctioning and approving a message that making fun of transgender people is an OK thing to do," Fitzpatrick explained. "Some Mummers have reached out and said, 'We didn't know. This was really informative.' That gives me hope that there can be a different experience."

For much of their history, Mummers groups included only white men. Women were allowed just a few decades ago. The tradition is also a family legacy, with many clubs based in south Philadelphia.

The Mummers have struggled to diversify, though the parade did create a division last year specifically for ethnic groups. Two new Hispanic performance groups, a black drill team and the LGBT Miss Fancy Brigade were among the participants.
Photo: Contributed

Air ambulance flights in B.C. have been given the OK for take off.

Air ambulance flights operated by BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) partner Helijet International have been permanently restored at all hospital helipads in B.C.

The resumption of flights is thanks to Transport Canada approval of a new flight manual supplement for the Sikorsky S76C+ helicopters used by Helijet. Approval of the new supplement follows months of intensive collaboration between BCEHS, Helijet, Maxcraft Avionics, Sikorsky Aircraft and Transport Canada to test and validate certain flight operating procedures for the aircraft.

Questions raised by Transport Canada last spring resulted in Helijet voluntarily stopping its Sikorsky 76C+ air ambulances from landing at up to seven BC hospital helipads, pending the go-ahead by the federal regulator. Exemptions were granted in some circumstances, while the questions were being addressed. As a result, Helijet flights had already been restored last August at five of the seven hospitals, but remained restricted until now at the Royal Columbian and Surrey Memorial Hospital helipads, where BCEHS was using an alternate service provider.

BCEHS primary concern is the safety of its patients and staff. Patient care was protected during this period, by ensuring air ambulance flights carrying patients to affected hospitals were diverted to nearby landing sites. Patients were then transported by ground ambulance, accompanied at all times by highly-skilled paramedics. In all, 37 flights were diverted to other sites.

The matter was eventually resolved when Helijet was able to work with Transport Canada and an independent aviation expert to conduct detailed aircraft testing, resulting in a new Supplemental Type Certificate or STC. This Certificate is being permanently added to the S76C+ flight manual documentation and allows Helijet to fully resume landings at the previously restricted helipads. This development may be of benefit to other operators using this aircraft in similar ways.
Photo: CTV

Fidel Castro's ashes were interred in a private ceremony Sunday morning, ending nine days of mourning for the man who ruled Cuba for nearly half a century.

The military caravan bearing his remains in a flag-draped cedar coffin left the Plaza of the Revolution in the eastern city of Santiago at 6:39 a.m. Thousands of people lined the two-mile route to Santa Ifigenia cemetery, waving Cuban flags and shouting "Long live Fidel!"

Photographs taken by Cuban state media showed that the ceremony was led by Castro's younger brother and successor, President Raul Castro, who wore his green military uniform as he placed the older man's ashes into what appeared to be a niche in his tomb, a simple, grey, round stone about 15 feet high. The niche was then covered by a plaque bearing the single name, "Fidel."

The ceremony was attended by Castro's wife, Dalia Soto del Valle, other members of his family and presidents Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, among others.

The ceremony appeared to last about 90 minutes and took place entirely out of the public eye after Cuban officials made a last-minute cancellation of plans to broadcast the start of events live on national and international television. International media were barred from the ceremony.

The tomb stood to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiago's Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.

Before the ceremony wrapped up, martial music could be heard outside the cemetery, where Ines de la Rosa was among the mourners gathered. She said she would have liked to watch the ceremony on television, but "we understand how they as a family also need a bit of privacy."

Fellow mourner Elena Vinales said she wasn't surprised that the images of the ceremony were not broadcast. "It seems to be a family moment," she said.

The decision to keep the ceremony private came the morning after Castro's brother, President Raul Castro, announced that Cuba would prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after the former leader, and bar the construction of statues of the former leader and revolutionary icon, in keeping with his desire to avoid a cult of personality.

"The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality and was consistent in that through the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected," Raul Castro told a massive crowd gathered in the eastern city of Santiago.

He said that Cuba's National Assembly would vote in its next session on the law fulfilling the wishes of his brother, who died last week at 90. The legislature generally holds a meeting in December and under Cuba's single-party system, parliament unanimously or near-unanimously approves every government proposal.
Photo: CTV

Rio is on the road to recovery.

The miniature therapy horse was viciously mauled by a cougar in November in Maple Ridge.

These were very deep puncture wounds and they're healing so well. And last week he wouldn't let me touch them and this week he is, said Rios owner Barb Tunshell. I finally a week ago stopped crying every time I looked at him.

But Rio's wounds are more than physical.

Tunshell said Rio trusts her, but is nervous when other people come near him.

Helping Rio recover is his friend Chaka, also a rescue horse, who stayed by his side during his 10-day long stay with a veterinarian.

Chaka and Rio work with Tunshells daughter who has special needs, and are also used for therapy in seniors homes.

These horses, for how little they are, have had so many hugs and so many tears cried on them and so many smiles, Tunshell said.

Rio has received financial support through a GoFundMe page from strangers across Canada and the United States.

Tunshell said Rio would not be where he is today had it not been for the caring and support of complete strangers.

- with files from CTV
Photo: The Canadian Press

Military veterans started to gather Sunday near the main Dakota Access pipeline protest camp, where they'll join the several hundred people who are against the four-state, $3.8 billion project that's largely complete.

Already, a few hundred of the group Veterans Stand for Standing Rock have arrived at the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, camp and the group's GoFundMe.com page had raised more than $1 million of its $1.2 million goal by Sunday  money due to go toward food, transportation and supplies.

Navy veteran and Harvard graduate student Art Grayson came to the camp because he "couldn't stand by and watch people being abused," a reference to contentious and debated clashes between protesters and law enforcement.

"People are fighting for something, and I thought they could use my help," said the 29-year-old from Cambridge, Massachusetts, who flew the first leg of the journey, then met up with other veterans and rode from Bismarck in the back of a pickup truck.

"For people to recognize we are here says a lot," Grayson said, adding that though he has finals this week, he told professors "I'll see you when I get back."

The government has ordered people to leave the main encampment, which is on federal land in southern North Dakota, by Monday. But demonstrators say they're prepared to stay, and federal, state and local authorities say they won't forcibly remove the protesters.

North Dakota authorities have said they'll move away from a key bridge near the by Sunday afternoon if demonstrators agree to certain conditions, which were outlined in a Morton County Sheriff's Office news release.

"The question was asked if we would consider pulling back from the Backwater Bridge," Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said in the Saturday release after a conversation between law enforcement and the organizers with Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, "and the answer is yes! We want this to de-escalate."

Authorities will move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge by 4 p.m. Sunday, they said, if protesters stay south of the bridge, and come to the bridge only if there is a prearranged meeting with law enforcement. Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in the late October conflict that led to several people being hurt, including a serious arm injury.

Protesters also are not supposed to walk, ride or fly drones north of the bridge, Laney said.

The bridge blockade is something that Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault has been asking to be removed, the Bismarck Tribune reports , and something he said he would to talk to Gov. Jack Dalrymple about when they meet in person. A date for that meeting hasn't been set.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and others say the pipeline north of the reservation could pollute drinking water and threatens sacred sites and want changes made to its route. The pipeline is largely complete except for a short segment that is planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir, and Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners says it is unwilling to reroute the project.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Alexander Van der Bellen, a left-leaning politician who preached moderation and tolerance, won Austria's presidential election Sunday over right-wing populist Norbert Hofer, according to preliminary results that showed Van der Bellen convincingly ahead.

His accomplishment was greeted with congratulations by mainstream politicians in neighbouring Germany. They and others in Europe had feared that Donald Trump's win in the United States and the Brexit vote in Britain heralded a resurgence of populist sentiment across the continent.

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who heads Germany's centre-left Social Democrats, told the Bild newspaper: "A load has been taken off the mind of all of Europe." He called the result "a clear victory for good sense against right-wing populism."

Partial results tallied shortly the polls closed Sunday showed Van der Bellen with 53.3 per cent of the vote and Hofer at 46.7 per cent. While the margin may change when final results are in, Austrian officials said the results gave Van der Bellen an unbeatable lead.

Noting the outsize attention the election in Austria was receiving, Van der Bellen declared that "what happens here today has relevance for all of Europe," as he cast his ballot.

Hofer conceded his loss in a Facebook posting.

Acknowledging that he was "endlessly sad" about his loss, Hofer added, "I would have been happy to take care of our Austria." He urged voters of both camps to bury their differences and work together for Austria

The Austrian president's functions are largely ceremonial and past elections have merited little attention outside the country because they were decided between mainstream candidates. This time the contest was watched across Europe because it was seen as an indicator of how well euroskeptic candidates will do elsewhere in the EU next year.

Van der Bellen is pro-European Union and represents liberal to left-of-centre views while Hofer is from the euroskeptic anti-migrant Freedom Party. Hofer moderated his hard-line campaign message when trying to woo undecided voters disenchanted with the political establishment.

Sunday's election was a court-ordered rerun from a vote in May that Van der Bellen won by less than 1 percentage point, a decision that came Hofer's Freedom Party claimed widespread irregularities.

The results Sunday will not please other populist politicians in the EU who want their countries out of the bloc. Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen of France and anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, who both face national elections next year. tweeted their support Sunday for Hofer as voting was still going on. Later, after he lost, they, congratulated him on his strong showing.

Traditional political figures in neighbouring Germany put aside their differences to welcome Van der Bellen's victory.

Manfred Weber, a conservative who heads the main centre-right group in the European Parliament, wrote on Twitter: "Austrians send clear pro-European signal. The European right-wing populists' party is off for now."
Photo: Contributed

In the epic, 16-year battle over a priceless painting looted by the Nazis, there is one point on which all sides agree: When Lilly Cassirer and her husband fled Germany ahead of the Holocaust, they surrendered their Camille Pissarro masterpiece in exchange for their lives.

The Jewish couple traded the work for the exit visas that allowed them to flee to the safety of England in 1939. When they did so, they set Pissarro's stunning 1897 oil-on-canvas Paris street scene on an incredible journey of its own.

It was an odyssey that would take "Rue St.-Honore, Apres-Midi, Effet de Pluie" from Germany to the United States, through the hands of several wealthy collectors and prominent art dealers and, finally, to Spain's Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, where it has resided since 1993.

Since 2000, Lilly Cassirer's heirs have been trying to get it back.

They may get one of their last best chances Monday when their lawyer, David Boies, argues before a federal appeals court that under state law and international treaties, the painting appraised at more than $30 million belongs to Cassirer's great-grandchildren.

"This is an issue that is critically important not only in terms of trying to right terrible wrongs that had their origin in the Nazi persecution of the Jews but also to establish principles that are very important to what's happening now in the world," Boies said earlier this week.

"Month after month, you see reports of ISIS looting art in Muslim countries and selling it to raise money," he continued. Allowing Spain to keep the painting, he said, would tell the world that buying looted art has no consequences.

The museum's attorney, Thaddeus J. Stauber, argues the issue is no longer about looted art but simply well-documented ownership rights to a painting purchased in good faith.

What's more, Stauber says, Cassirer forfeited her ownership rights when she accepted $13,000 from the German government in 1958 for the painting's loss.

"There's no dispute about the painting's complete history. The court examined all the evidence and determined that the museum is the rightful owner of the painting," Stauber said, referencing a federal judge's ruling in Los Angeles last year.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter determined that under Spanish law the artwork belongs to the museum, but he concluded that when Cassirer accepted payment for the painting in 1958 she had no idea it still existed.
Photo: The Canadian Press

UPDATED 12:49 P.M.

Officials in Oakland say the death toll has risen to 30 from a fire that tore through a warehouse that housed an artist collective.

Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly announced the new figure Sunday afternoon.

Kelly says crews are starting to get deeper into the building and that as they advance they expect to find more victims.

Authorities also say DNA will be needed to identify bodies. Officials have asked families of those feared dead to preserve any DNA evidence they may have, including hair or tooth brushes.

Authorities say they have recovered more bodies from the charred remains of a building where at least 24 people died after a fire erupted during a dance party.

Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly declined to say Sunday how many additional bodies have been found, but said the process has been slow. Crews are using shovels and buckets.

The death toll rose Sunday from 9 to 24.

Kelly said some of the victims are from out of the country. Authorities are trying to contact family members of the dead.

The fire ripped through a converted warehouse known as the "Ghost Ship" about 11:30 p.m. Friday during an electronic dance music party. Officials believe 50 to 100 people may have attended the event.
Photo: Trevor Rockliffe File photo from the Coquihalla taken 2010

Update 8 a.m. - The travel advisory due to heavy snow on the Coquihalla has been rescinded.

-----------------------------------

As much as 65cm (26 inches) of snow could fall on the Coquihalla Highway between Hope and Merritt by Wednesday morning.

A special weather advisory was issued by DriveBC Tuesday afternoon warning motorists of the potential for heavy accumulations of snow on the highway between Tuesday evening and Wednesday afternoon.

"Travellers are advised to consider alternate plans, but if travel is necessary then please exercise caution," states the DriveBC advisory.

According to a 'Special Weather Statement' issued by Environment Canada at noon Tuesday, indicated snow has already begun falling over higher mountain passes with accumulations in some regions of 5cm.

The Environment Canada statement goes on to say:

The snow will continue today through tonight with the heaviest accumulations expected to occur over the Coquihalla Highway, where up to 65 cm of total snowfall is possible by Wednesday morning.

Heavy snowfall is also expected over several other mountain passes, including:
According to state law, fines, penalties, and license money shall be appropriated exclusively to the use and support of the common schools ... . An exception is fines for overloaded vehicles. Seventy-five percent of those funds go to state highways; 25 percent go to the county general fund where the fine or penalty is paid. Fifty percent of money forfeited or seized in enforcing drug laws goes to counties for drug enforcement. Vehicles seized in drug law cases may be used by law enforcement agencies or sold with the proceeds going to schools.




1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
In a way, "the purge" was the best thing to ever happen to Gab. Suddenly, the small social network that was built by a conservative Christian Republican and promises "free speech" for all, became more active than it had ever been.

"The purge" is what the alt-right  a small, far-right movement that embraces racist, white nationalist and populist beliefs  called a sweeping series of permanent suspensions carried out by Twitter just after the election, beginning hours after the platform strengthened its policies on "hateful conduct" and made it much easier for users to report accounts in violation.

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The bans took out some of the most popular accounts in the various coalitions of the Trump-supporting internet: self-proclaimed white nationalist Richard Spencer, anonymous self-proclaimed white nationalist "Ricky Vaughn," Paul Town, Pax Dickinson and John Rivers.

With those figureheads banned from Twitter and suddenly much more active on Gab, the little-known network instantly became more popular. Also helping matters: Facebook's simultaneous crackdown on "fake news," which raised suspicions among some conservatives that the much larger platform was going to try to "censor" alt-right friendly sites like Breitbart. When the new users arrived to Gab, they found a whole lot of people who thought a whole lot like them.

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"In the last eight days alone, we've added 60,000 new accounts," Gab founder Andrew Torba said in an interview last week. "And that (growth) does coincide with a lot of the bans that we're seeing."

Gab behaves like a Twitter-Reddit hybrid. It has a limit of 300 characters, and users can upvote or downvote posts. You can make lists of people to follow, or browse posts by topic or trending hashtag. Gab has just a few rules: no child porn, no doxxing, no threats, no promotion of terrorist groups or agendas. It also has one suggestion: "try to be nice and kind to one another." It has no user block feature, only mute. Gab also allows people to mute their feeds by keyword, an anti-harassment feature that, Torba noted, predates Twitter's own rollout of the same idea.

The social network is still in closed beta and invitation-only. Anyone is free to join, Torba emphasized in our interview, not just the alt-right and conservatives.

"I didn't set out to build a 'conservative social network' by any means," he said, "but I felt that it was time for a conservative leader to step up and to provide a forum where anybody can come and speak freely without fear of censorship."

Torba decided to do this after leaving Silicon Valley, a place he describes as saturated with progressive agendas. In May, when Gizmodo reported that Facebook's trending topics might be unfairly biased against conservative topics, he got to work on Gab.

"Every major communication outlet, every major social network, is run, owned, controlled and operated by progressive leaders, progressive workers in Silicon Valley," he said.

That he is not any of those things has helped him build trust among Gab's core, who are deeply suspicious of Silicon Valley figures like Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and the platforms they run.

Right now, Trump supporters who have migrated to Gab seem to regard the space with some sense of ownership. Despite Torba's near daily reassurances on his own Gab account that his platform is intended for and open to everyone (and not just an alt-right safe space), it remains difficult at this point to picture a warm welcome for members of the online communities that Gab's current user base appears to despise.

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When I asked Torba about that, he agreed that Gab's current audience skewed heavily toward the right, but he argued that the growth of Gab was more of a reflection of an "establishment vs. normal everyday American people movement." Torba suggested his site might next become a welcome home for anti-establishment supporters of Bernie Sanders, who "felt that they were suppressed and censored during the primaries."

"The user base is still pretty small," he said. "If we get one influencer on the left to come on and bring even 20,000 from the left, instantly we get a diverse user base and a lot more diverse discourse going on."

The trending topics on Gab on one recent afternoon were, in order: #MAGA, #Trump, #GabFam, #PizzaGate, #SpeakFreely, #Gab, #PresidentTrump, #AltRight, #DrainTheSwamp and #News. Recent popular posts include warnings about journalists  specifically BuzzFeed  trying to "infiltrate" Gab, and some criticism of Spencer's Nazi salute in Washington. Was it an inside job meant to discredit the alt-right or just a really dumb idea? "Criticize it privately if you must but otherwise shut the f-- up," Dickinson advised his followers.

There are also rolling welcome parties for new Gab accounts. Infowars' Alex Jones joined to much fanfare; reality show star turned Hitler admirer Tila Tequila started posting a lot more on her verified Gab account after Twitter permanently banned her for violating its new safety policies.

Others have tested the limits of Gab's commitment to free speech. When hacker-troll Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer joined and decided to make his Gab bio a vile statement advocating violence against Jews, Gab initially censored it as against their guidelines, provoking a mini rebellion among some of the white supremacists on Gab. Gab and Weev eventually came to an understading about the matter, and his bio now says something else.

Ricky Vaughn welcomed his Twitter suspension by starting the #TwitterTerror hashtag on Gab, which basically appeared to be a harassment campaign designed to ruin Twitter for everyone else. "Create quick-hit, throwaway accounts that you can use to harass the critics of Trump," Vaughn instructed in one post.

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More broadly, Gab's members agree that Twitter is "over," and are hoping that Gab will take its place. There are plenty of debates over whether Gab's "echo chamber" will  or even should  ever lift for that to happen.

Gab is growing rapidly in India and Brazil, Gab spokesman Utsav Sanduja said over the course of our phone call, and has more plans to recruit internationally  including in France and other French-speaking countries, where Sanduja said they're seeing interest among "independent novelists and writers (who) are being suppressed for having politically incorrect views."

Torba and Sanduja asked, over the course of our phone call, for patience to prove that Gab can prove that it is designed to be something more than the alt-right version of Twitter. The platform is just a few months old, and they still have a lot to fix and to figure out.

The cautionary tale of what can go wrong with user trust  which is, right now, one of Torba's biggest assets with the site's growing right-wing base  is already there in Twitter, a platform it was designed to replace and oppose.

Twitter's infamously opaque and inconsistent enforcement of its own rules has quite a bit to do with its size, and the large team of moderators the platform employs to make split-second decisions on reported rule violations  an issue that Twitter has struggled to correct over time.

Torba has been personally involved in moderating many of the disputes that happen on the platform, something he admits he won't be able to do forever. It is barely sustainable with tens of thousands of users; and will soon become impossible in all but a few cases.

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The specifics of exactly how Gab will do better than Twitter on this front, Torba said, will be worked out as the site grows, with input from its users. But he is confident Gab will win, "as long as they (Twitter) keep on their strategic path of censorship and we keep on our strategic path of free speech."
Officers rushed in brandishing airsoft guns, secured the premises and quickly neutralized the threat. The nursing students promptly followed, aiding the injured students whose cries for help echoed throughout the building.

It was only a drill.

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The Indiana University Northwest Police Department coordinated an active-shooter exercise with the nursing department on Friday, as it continues to try to educate IUN students, faculty and staff about how to respond in case an active shooter is on campus.

"I pray a tragedy like that never comes to our campus," Chief Wayne James said. "But it's important for us to always be prepared to protect everyone on this campus."

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IUN's active-shooter drill comes in the aftermath of an incident at Ohio State University where a student struck pedestrians with a vehicle and began attacking students, faculty and staff with a butcher knife, injuring 11 people before he was fatally shot by a university police officer.

"It's important for us to be able to protect our students, faculty and staff," James said. "With the increase in the number of school shootings, I think it's raised our awareness levels that these incidents can occur anywhere."

If an active shooter or threat was on IUN's campus, James said, an IU alert would be sent to every student, faculty and staff email address and phone. James added that multiple police agencies throughout the region would immediately respond.

"If something happened, it would be a combined effort between us, Gary Police Department, Lake County Sheriff's Department, Indiana State Police and federal agencies," he said. "We work closely with other agencies so we have more resources and we're always prepared."

Brian Miller, Purdue Northwest's director of public safety, echoed James' words, saying it would be a collaborative effort between several police agencies to contain the threat of an active shooter.

"We take a threat of an active shooter seriously at all times. Of course we pay more attention, (and) there are more questions and concerns when this happens," he said, referring to the incident that occurred at OSU. "But with the number of school shootings, you can never let your guard down, so you're on alert at all times."

With an increasing number of school and university shootings in the past decade, including in 2014 when a Purdue University student was fatally shot by another student, both IUN and Purdue Northwest implemented a program  Run, Hide, Fight  that teaches people how to survive an active shooter.

People in an active-shooter situation are encouraged to first try to safely evacuate, then shelter in place or, lastly, fight, Miller said.

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"We're going to continue to be proactive and transparent with our active-shooter training," James said, adding that his officers conduct active-shooter training quarterly. "We're training regularly. Not just when tragedy strikes. We're doing these things over and over again until it becomes redundant."

jaanderson@tribpub.com

Twitter @JavonteA
An 18-year-old man has been charged with murder after he fatally shot a man in Park Forest Wednesday, prosecutors said.

Oshea Scott, of the 1900 block of Campbell Avenue in Chicago Heights, was held in lieu of $750,000 bond by Cook County Judge Laura Marie Sullivan in bond court Saturday. He is charged with fatally shooting Richard Savary in the 300 block of Allegheny Street in Park Forest, near Savarys home, according to court documents.

Savary was pronounced dead Thursday at 11:40 p.m. at Stroger Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiners office. An autopsy is scheduled for Sunday for Savary, of the first block of Allegheny Court in Park Forest



Scott's public defender, Jeffrey Walker, told the judge that Scott currently lives in Hazel Crest with his mother, and has a newborn child who is two days old. Scott is a high school graduate, Walker said.

"This was an accident. He was not intending to shoot this guy," Walker said.
Five goats and two chickens were found near a Chicago forest preserve, all with their heads cut off, a park official said Sunday.

The animals were discovered right off Lansing Avenue, west of the LaBagh and Forest Glen forest preserves, early Saturday morning by a passerby who notified authorities about 10:30 a.m., said Lambrini Lukidis, a spokeswoman for the Cook County Forest Preserve District. The incident isn't the first of its kind  she knows of about three similar discoveries in the past five or six years, Lukidis said.

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"It's difficult for us to make any kind of determination specifically why somebody would do this or why they would pick this location," Lukidis said. "I would not call it a common occurrence, but it has happened before."



The animals were found in Forest Glen, between Clifford and Lemont avenues and because of how close they were to the small paved road of Lansing Avenue, it could be debated whether the animals were on forest preserve land or city land. Regardless, Lukidis said, officials with the Forest Preserve District wanted to make sure no one else had to walk up and encounter the gruesome scene, so preserve employees removed the bodies.

She said it also was unclear whether the animals were attacked while they were on that property or if they were killed elsewhere and dumped at the park.

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"In the past there was no evidence that it took place there  And now there was no evidence that there was any type of slaughter that happened at that spot, just that the carcasses were found there," Lukidis said.

The forest preserve district makes up about 11 percent of the land in Cook County, she said, which is about 70,000 acres.

"The incidence of any type of violence or serious crime on that land is extremely low. Our goal is to make sure there's no perception of there being a safety issue," she said. "We want all of our visitors and people who live in surrounding areas to have a positive experience in the forest preserve."

She also explained that taking anything out of a forest preserve or leaving anything behind is against the law. Most often people leave construction debris, old appliances or garbage.

The parks are open from sunrise to sunset and anyone found visiting parks outside of those hours could be arrested for trespassing. It's an issue when people think they can release a raccoon, snake or household pet in the area because such animals can upset the delicate balance of that ecosystem.

Forest Preserve police will continue to investigate and check the grounds every day. Officials also ask for the community's help in reporting anything suspicious. Without any arrests, officials say it will be difficult to determine what may have happened to the animals.

"A ritual sacrifice? It would be pretty presumptuous of us to say that. We just don't know who would do this and what their reasons would be," Lukidis said.
A 41-year-old man was stabbed to death late Saturday inside a Jefferson Park home, police said.

He was stabbed in the chest by a man whom he had been arguing with just before 11:40 p.m. in the 5500 block of West Higgins Avenue, Chicago police said. He was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

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The man was identified as Bartiomiej R. Barczyk, 41, of the 1600 block of West Greenleaf Avenue, who was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. Sunday, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. Public records indicate Barczyk more recently had lived in the 5700 block of North Elston Avenue.

Barczyk died of a stab wound to the torso, the medical examiner's office determined Sunday.

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Police described the stabbing as domestic-related. A person of interest was in police custody early Sunday.
Morton Schapiro, President of Northwestern University, left. Robert Zimmer, President of the University of Chicago, right. (Photo courtesy Northwestern University, Brian Jackson for the Chicago Tribune)

The presidents of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago rank among the highest-paid private university presidents in the country, according to a report released Sunday by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Northwestern President Morton Schapiro, who made $2.35 million in 2014, ranked No. 6 for total compensation that year, the latest for which figures were available. U. of C. President Robert J. Zimmer had the eighth-highest compensation at $2.05 million.

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The Chronicle survey, conducted annually, is based on data from federal tax forms. The figures reflect what the presidents earned in 2014, including base pay, deferred compensation and benefits such as housing.

Both local presidents saw big increases in compensation compared with the prior year.

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Schapiro's 2014 compensation included $924,658 in base pay, $100,000 in bonuses and $188,842 in nontaxable benefits, which could include health-care and medical benefits, life insurance and university-provided housing. Another $1.14 million was classified as "other," and could include cashed-out vacation pay, travel, meals, spending accounts, debt forgiveness and other miscellaneous benefits, according to the report.

Zimmer, who took the helm at the Hyde Park campus a decade ago, had a compensation package that included $1.02 million in base pay  about half his total income  as well as $175,000 in bonuses, $137,806 in nontaxable income and $716,612 in other pay, according to the analysis.

Zimmer, however, was the highest-paid private university president in the country in 2011, when he made $3.4 million. His large salary boost that year  five years into the job  was due mostly to $1.3 million he received in deferred compensation that year.

U. of C. spokesman Jeremy Manier said a significant amount of Zimmer's 2014 income also was from deferred compensation.

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"The university board of trustees reviews presidential compensation annually and compares it to similar roles at peer institutions," U. of C. said in a statement. "President Zimmer's compensation is consistent with leaders of institutions of similar scale and caliber."

A Northwestern spokesman declined to comment.

Across the country, 39 presidents earned more than $1 million in total compensation in 2014, up from 32 a year earlier. Of the 377 presidents included in the analysis who served during all of 2013 and 2014, their average salary increase was 8.6 percent  to $531,817 a year.

The highest-paid president was Jack P. Varsalona of Wilmington University in Delaware. He earned $5.45 million in 2014.

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Also in the Top 10 were the presidents of Washington University in St. Louis, Southern Methodist University (Texas), the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University (N.Y.), Belmont University (Tenn.), Trinity College (Conn.) and Cornell University (N.Y.).

drhodes@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @rhodes_dawn
Democratic leaders on Sunday said they need more information to formulate a comprehensive budget plan, including the potential effects of an incoming Donald Trump administration, but Republicans called the request a stall tactic aimed at creating financial havoc with a short-term state spending plan due to expire at month's end.

Following a closed-door meeting at the Thompson Center in Chicago, Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno said Democrats have raised "a number of additional issues that they need answers for before they talk about the budget, some of which we will never know, such as what is the impact of the Trump administration on this budget."

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"I mean, if we're waiting on that, we are certainly not going to know it before Dec. 31. So I see the tactic here is to stall, stall, stall, create a crisis and then force the state into another stopgap budget," said Radogno, of Lemont.

But Democratic Rep. Greg Harris, who joined Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan at the meeting, said it was prudent to evaluate the impact of other factors on a new budget, including Trump-led changes to subsidized health care coverage for the elderly and indigent and adjusting the way the state funds public schools.

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"Should we come to some kind of budget agreement now and six months down the road look back and say, 'Gosh, we wish we had anticipated one of these changes and now we're sort of stuck'  that's not going to be a very good outcome for the people of Illinois. So we need to be very careful and deliberate," said Harris, a budget expert from the North Side.

In the end, the comments from the opposing sides indicated little if any progress was made during rare weekend talks aimed at trying to find an end to an impasse that has kept the state without a comprehensive spending plan for nearly two years. More talks are scheduled Tuesday afternoon in Chicago.

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has made approval of items that would affect Democratic allies in organized labor and trial law firms a key toward his support for increasing taxes  an ingredient that many on both sides of the aisle believe is needed to achieve a balanced budget and try to help close a deficit estimated at $13 billion by the end of the budget year June 30. Democrats, who control the legislature, have ardently opposed the first-term governor's agenda, with Madigan criticizing Rauner for adding what he called "nonbudget issues" to the budget discussion.

On Saturday, Madigan criticized that day's meeting by saying the budget was not discussed. Following Sunday's nearly 90-minute meeting, Madigan, looking from handwritten notes, told reporters the issue of a budget was discussed for 14 minutes  "from 10:16 (a.m.) to 10:20 (a.m.) and from 11:15 (a.m.) to 11:25 (a.m.)." The remainder dealt with Rauner's push to consolidate and eliminate some of the mandates faced by local governments, the speaker said.

Asked what was specifically discussed about the budget, Madigan replied, "obviously not too much over 14 minutes." Republicans countered by saying Madigan and Harris were offered time to speak about the budget, but Radogno said they were "unprepared."

Madigan, who has served as speaker for 31 of the last 33 years, was the target of a multimillion-dollar negative TV ad campaign in the fall legislative campaign that was largely funded by Rauner and wealthy Republican allies and aimed at tarnishing Democratic lawmakers seeking re-election. Republicans will pick up four House seats and two Senate seats, but Democrats will still hold majorities in both chambers next month.

Harris said the request for more information about future potential budget impacts was an attempt to allow lawmakers and the governor to become the best informed before striking a budget deal.

"These are things we want to make sure all four caucuses and the governor are updated and clear on as we move ahead in our discussions," Harris said. "There are prudent steps that we as budget makers and policymakers have to take given what may be coming down the road to prepare Illinois."

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But efforts to change the property tax-dependent way that Illinois has funded its public schools have failed for decades. With Illinois near the bottom of state support for elementary and secondary education, a task force is examining the issue. With Rauner and Republicans pushing a property-tax freeze, shifting funding for schools to the state would likely require a sizable tax increase.

Harris said to move ahead on a comprehensive budget, lawmakers and Rauner need to know "what that number is going to be and how it will impact our budget making." But there is no indication that the task force is close to issuing a recommendation  and unlikely to do so before a six-month temporary budget plan runs out at year's end.

That prompted House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs to say he was "alarmed by the sense of the lack of urgency by the Democrat leadership to bring this budget impasse to closure."

"We want to break the impasse, but to break the impasse, the Democrat leadership for the first time in many years is going to have to respect and recognize the priorities of the governor and also the Republican caucuses," he said.

Rauner has said he would support another temporary stopgap spending plan for the final six months of the budget year, but only if lawmakers adopted a property tax freeze and put a limit on the terms of themselves and other state elected officials.

"People of this state don't want more of the same," Radogno said. "We have time to do it. They're stalling. They're running out the clock, and we will continue to engage in every way we can and be ready to move with legislation as soon as they're willing to do that."

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This file photo taken on December 3, 2016 shows Donald Trump (L) in St. Louis, Missouri on October 9, 2016 and Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen in Panama City on June 27, 2016. (Staff / AFP/Getty Images)

Donald Trump's protocol-breaking telephone call with Taiwan's leader was an intentionally provocative move that establishes the incoming president as a break with the past, according to interviews with people involved in the planning.

The historic communication - the first between leaders of the United States and Taiwan since 1979 - was the product of months of quiet preparations and deliberations among Trump's advisers about a new strategy for engagement with Taiwan that began even before he became the GOP presidential nominee, according to people involved in or briefed on the talks.

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The call also reflects the views of hard-line advisers urging Trump to take a tough opening line with China, said others familiar with the months of discussion about Taiwan and China.

Trump and his advisers have sought to publicly portray the call the president-elect took from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen Friday as a routine congratulatory call. Trump noted on Twitter that she placed the call.

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"He took the call, accepted her congratulations and good wishes and it was precisely that," Vice President-elect Mike Pence said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

That glosses over the extensive and turbulent history of U.S. relations with Taiwan and the political importance the island and its democratic traditions hold for many Republican foreign policy specialists.

Some critics portrayed the move as the thoughtless blundering of a foreign policy novice, but other experts said it appeared calculated to signal a new, robust approach to relations with China.

China reacted sternly to the Taiwan call, suggesting that it shows Trump's inexperience.

Trump sent a pair of Twitter messages Sunday that echoed his campaign-stump blasts against China.

"Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?" he asked. "I don't think so!"

The United States does impose a tax on Chinese goods - 2.9 percent for non-farm goods and 2.5 percent for agricultural products.

Some of the Republican Party's most ardent Taiwan proponents are playing active roles in Trump's transition team, and others in the conservative foreign policy community see a historic opportunity to reset relations with Taiwan and reposition it as a more strategic ally in East Asia.

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Several leading members of Trump's transition team are considered hawkish on China and friendly toward Taiwan, including incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Indeed, advisers explicitly warned last month that relations with China were in for a shake-up.

In an article for Foreign Policy magazine titled "Donald Trump's Peace Through Strength Vision for the Asia-Pacific," Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray called Taiwan a "beacon of democracy in Asia" and complained that its treatment by the Obama administration was "egregious."

The article, flagged to China experts as a significant policy blueprint, described Taiwan as "the most militarily vulnerable U.S. partner anywhere in the world" and called for a comprehensive arms deal to help it defend itself against China.

Friday's phone call does not necessarily mean that will happen, but it does look like the first sign of a recalibration by a future Trump administration, experts say.

It was planned weeks ahead by staffers and Taiwan specialists on both sides, according to people familiar with the plans.

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Immediately after Trump won the Nov. 8 election, his staff compiled a list of foreign leaders with whom to arrange calls. "Very early on, Taiwan was on that list," said Stephen Yates, a national security official during the presidency of George W. Bush and an expert on China and Taiwan. "Once the call was scheduled, I was told that there was a briefing for President-elect Trump. They knew that there would be reaction and potential blowback."

Alex Huang, a spokesman for Tsai, told the Reuters news agency, "Of course both sides agreed ahead of time before making contact."

Tsai's office said she had told Trump during the phone call that she hoped the United States "would continue to support more opportunities for Taiwan to participate in international issues."

Tsai will have some sympathetic ears in the White House. Priebus is reported to have visited Taiwan with a Republican delegation in 2011 and in October 2015, meeting Tsai before she was elected president. Taiwan Foreign Minister David Lee called him a friend of Taiwan and said his appointment as Trump's chief of staff was "good news" for the island, according to local media.

Edward Feulner, a longtime former president of the Heritage Foundation, has for decades cultivated extensive ties with Taiwan and is now serving as an adviser to Trump's transition team.

At the Republican National Convention in July, Trump's allies inserted a little-noticed phrase into the party's platform reaffirming support for six key assurances to Taiwan made by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 - a priority for the Taiwanese government. Also written into the 2016 platform was tougher language about China than had been in the party's platform in its previous iteration four years ago.

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"We salute the people of Taiwan, with whom we share the values of democracy, human rights, a free market economy, and the rule of law," the platform said, adding that the current documents governing U.S.-Taiwan relations should stand but adding: "China's behavior has negated the optimistic language of our last platform concerning our future relations with China."

Yates, who helped write that portion of the platform, said Trump made clear at the time that he wanted to recalibrate relationships around the world and that the U.S. posture toward China was "a personal priority."

Around the same time, Navarro, one of Trump's top economic and Asia advisers, penned an op-ed saying that the United States must not "dump Taiwan" and needs a comprehensive strategy to bolster what he termed "a beacon of democracy."

The president-elect's advisers have said the communication does not signify any formal shift in long-standing U.S. relations with Taiwan or China, even as they acknowledge that the decision to break with nearly 40 years of U.S. diplomatic practice was a calculated choice.

"Of course all head-of-state calls are well planned," said Richard Grenell, a former State Department official who has advised the Trump transition effort.

Grenell and others noted that the call came about two weeks after Trump had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping and that it was not substantive.

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"There was no policy discussion, and everyone involved is well aware of the 'One China' policy," Grenell said, referring to the Nixon-era shift that established formal direct ties between Washington and Beijing.

The United States maintains a military relationship with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a province, but closed its embassy there in 1979. Republican administrations since then have emphasized Taiwan's democratic traditions and flirted with the idea of a shift in policy, but none have held public discussions with a Taiwanese leader.

"There are a lot of things that previous Republican presidents, and Democratic presidents, would do that Donald Trump won't do," Grenell said. "He's a man that understands that typical Washington rules are not always best for our foreign policy."

During the campaign, Trump's fiery rhetoric against China resonated with his supporters, especially those in the economically beleaguered Rust Belt states where he registered unexpected wins. Trump accused China of "raping" the United States by stealing trade secrets, manipulating its currency and subsidizing its industries. He vowed to institute tough new policies designed to crack down on the Chinese and extract concessions, such as by imposing higher tariffs on goods manufactured there.

By irritating if not angering the Chinese government with his talk with Tsai, Trump showed his core supporters in the United States that he would follow through with his promise to get tough on China, some observers said.

"He campaigned on an 'America first' platform," said GOP pollster Frank Luntz. "Calls like this may upset the diplomats, but they communicate to Americans that he's not going to play by the same rules and isn't just talking differently but will act differently."

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Walter Lohman, director of the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, said the call with Tsai "was deliberate. It was not an accident. Obviously he made a conscious decision to have the call arranged. She called him, but there was an agreement for it."

Gordon Chang, an Asia expert and author of "The Coming Collapse of China," said Trump's tweet Friday night that he had just accepted a call from Tsai was "not credible."

"This has all the hallmarks of a prearranged phone call," Chang said. "It doesn't make sense that Tsai out of the blue would call Donald Trump. She is not known for taking big leaps into the unknown, and it would be politically embarrassing when it was learned that she called Trump and he would not take her call."

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump's transition team, brushed aside questions about what the call signals about the incoming administration's priorities and policy on China.

"All he did was receive a phone call," Conway told reporters Sunday at Trump Tower in New York. "Everybody should just calm down. He's aware of what our nation's policy is."

Denyer reported from Beijing.
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced Friday in a videotaped statement that she was dispatching federal mediators to ensure the ongoing standoff between protesters and police over the Dakota Access Pipeline did not erupt into violence.

Lynch, on Friday called Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman David Archambault II, said that she had offered community policing resources to local officials and had sent "conciliators from the Community Relations Service to North Dakota."

Tensions between law enforcement and activists have escalated at the main protest site, Oceti Sakowin Camp, which Army Corps of Engineers officials have ordered evacuated by Monday. North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple, R, also ordered those encamped at the site to leave in the wake of a snowstorm earlier this week. Hundreds of veterans have now arrived and vowed to shield the protesters from being forcibly removed.

"Let me stress that violence is never the answer and that all of us have a responsibility to find common ground around a peaceful resolution where all voices are heard," Lynch said in the video. "Our first concern is the safety of everyone in the area - law enforcement officers, residents and protesters alike."

Given the administration's general reluctance to insert itself in the ongoing controversy surrounding the $3.7 billion pipeline, Lynch's decision to send agency representatives to the site was notable. While federal officials have convened meetings with tribal representatives to address their concerns over the route, which they argue could threaten their water supplies as well as sacred sites, President Obama has commented only sparingly on the project.

After White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked Monday whether the president would intervene given the pending federal evacuation order, he replied, "At this point, I'm not aware of any impending presidential actions" regarding the project.

At the Oceti Sakowin Camp, Lynch's remarks were met with a shrug. Several activists said that they were glad the Obama administration had weighed in on the ongoing standoff with law enforcement, but they expressed skepticism that the federal mediators would contain what they view as an overly militarized police presence.

William Good Bird, a Standing Rock native, read Lynch's statement on an iPhone while sipping a cup of coffee near a prayer fire at the center of camp.

"They say they're going to deploy? Well, I'm still going to be here. I live here," Good Bird, 32, said. "Why don't they sit down and talk with us?"

On the hilltops about a half-mile from the northern edge of the camp, more than a dozen spotlights erected by police shine down on the snow-covered fields below to deter people from advancing toward the pipeline's construction sites. Armored police vehicles patrol the hills daily, and helicopters periodically circle the camp. A bridge several hundred feet up the road is barricaded with concrete barriers and razor wire, and police stand guard on the opposite side.

Tribal leaders have urged activists to remain "peaceful and prayerful" and have even kicked out some protesters caught throwing rocks and bottles at police, organizers say.

Despite promises from the Army Corps and the governor's office that authorities will not forcibly clear the camp once Monday's evacuation deadline passes, many activists said recent clashes between protesters and law enforcement have left them worried. The Morton County Sheriff's Department has arrested hundreds of protesters so far, and many activists have criticized the police for employing tactics such as water cannons, pepper spray and rubber bullets.

"Last month it felt like a war zone. When you deploy all these militarized police, I have to wonder, will we go through Wounded Knee again?" said Good Bird, referring to the 1890 massacre of more than 150 Lakota by U.S. Army troops in South Dakota.

Camp organizer Dallas Goldtooth tweeted out Lynch's video, calling it a "good sign that we have the (administration's) attention." Her statement, he said, "is frustrating but demonstrates that they are being pushed to respond."
Military veterans are briefed on camps rules and their mission at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on Saturday outside Cannon Ball, N.D. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

An estimated 2,100 U.S. military veterans were bound for the frigid Northern Plains on Saturday in a mass show of support for Native Americans and their allies battling the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

The vets, organized under the banner "Veterans Stand for Standing Rock," include 219 vets from California, many of whom departed in seven charter buses on Friday.

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"Here's a chance to use my energy as a vet and as a Native American," said Robin Gage, 60, a former member of the California National Guard who organized transportation for the California veterans. Her grandmother was a member of the Choctaw Nation, from Louisiana.

"Quite frankly, I don't like bullies," said Gage, referring to North Dakota's deployment of militarized police against opponents of the 1,172-mile, $3.8-billion pipeline, which would transport up to 570,000 barrels of oil a day.

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The pipeline is nearly finished but for a section under the Missouri River. Native opponents say an oil spill could contaminate water sources that serve them and some 17 million other Americans.

The Seven Council Fires Camp at the edge of North Dakota's Cannonball River, just north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, has swelled to some 5,000 "water protectors" in recent weeks, and has received support from 300 tribes, along with many environmental organizations and climate change activists.

Gage predicted that far more than the estimated 2,100 veterans nationwide would come to Standing Rock.

"It's history in the making," said Kenny Nagy, a 64-year-old Vietnam veteran, dragging four duffel bags down a long corridor in Union Station before boarding the bus for North Dakota on Friday. "We're going to be actually helping out people of the United States instead of corporations. I am so ready. The whole world is watching."

Invoking the nonviolent protest tactics of Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the veterans group pledged to peacefully support the unarmed protesters.

"In the ultimate expression of alliance, we are there to put our bodies on the line, no matter the physical cost, in complete nonviolence," wrote the group's in its "operations order." The group added, "Our mission is to prevent progress on the Dakota Access Pipeline and draw national attention to the human rights warriors of the Sioux tribes."

The veterans will "muster" at noon on Sunday at a high school gymnasium on the Standing Rock reservation, then "quickly form into platoons and companies" for anticipated confrontations on the front lines with several hundred state police, county sheriff deputies the North Dakota National Guard, and military vehicles originally designed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We will likely be gassed, pepper sprayed, shot with rubber bullets, hit with batons," said the order, adding, "It is critical that we demonstrate discipline, resolve and bravery. This is not an action of violence."

Mark Boster at the Standing Rock protest in North Dakota pic.twitter.com/X0kVUC4al2  Mark Boster (@MarkBoster) December 4, 2016

The veterans' effort drew criticism from the North Dakota Veterans Coordinating Council, which urged local vets not to join the protest.

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The council doesn't have an opinion about the pipeline, and it supports anyone who wants to protest peacefully.

Council president Russ Stabler told the Associated Press that the group worried that the veterans' arrival could exacerbate an already tense situation. The group also accused the protesters of breaking laws, attacking law enforcement and destroying property, the AP reported.

Last week North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple urged pipeline opponents to leave the encampment, citing his concern for their welfare in the extreme cold. The protesters rejected his plea, saying that North Dakota authorities did not appear concerned about hypothermia when drenching protesters with water hoses in subfreezing temperatures during a confrontation in late November.

Dalrymple also said he would suspend emergency services to the areas near the Seven Council Fires camp, including snow removal.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered protesters to leave the camp by Monday, citing the building of unauthorized permanent structures on federal land. Protesters have insisted on their right to build the encampment on land covered by an 1851 treaty, in which the U.S. ceded the land to the Great Sioux Nation.

What will happen Monday is unclear. The protesters say they have no intention of leaving, and there appear to be no imminent plans to enforce evictions.

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On Friday, U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch placed calls to Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier and Standing Rock Tribal Chairman David Archambault, and later released a statement urging "everyone involved to exercise restraint, to refrain from violence and to express their views peacefully."

For the arriving veterans, though, their biggest foe may not be North Dakota's police, but its brutal cold.

Temperatures at the camp are expected to dip below zero in coming days. Despite admonitions that veterans come prepared with subzero sleeping bags and other winter gear, the risk of exposure and hypothermia remains high.

California veterans bound for Standing Rock expressed readiness for the cold, and whatever else awaits them.

"As a veteran we take an oath to defend the American people against enemies foreign and domestic," said Elizabeth Torrence, 30, an Army veteran who served in Iraq in 2007, as she prepared to board the bus in Union Station. "And the way they're treating American people, unarmed people, is unacceptable."

Tolan is a special correspondent.

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Robert Popek revived interest in windmills, which over the years had six companies to build them. (Family photo / Handout)

Robert Alan Popeck served as a firefighter in west suburban Batavia and then as the community's police chief before going on to become a key assistant to the city's mayor.

An avid history aficionado, Popeck also was nearly single-handedly responsible for restoring Batavians' interest in the suburb's role in windmill manufacturing, and he later helped bring two international windmill trade fairs to Batavia in 1996 and 2012.

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"He was all about Batavia," said retired City Administrator Ron Podschweit. "He was always glad to take on a project, and he enjoyed everything he got involved in. He was quite a collector of anything related to Batavia, especially antiques."

Popeck, 80, died of complications from cardiac arrhythmia Nov. 5 at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva after suddenly falling ill at home, said his wife of 23 years, Francine McGuire-Popeck.

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Born on Chicago's West Side at Loretto Hospital, Popeck grew up in Cicero and moved with his family to a small farm on Hart Road in Batavia when he was 12. After graduating from Batavia High School in 1954, Popeck served in the Navy.

After his discharge in 1958, Popeck had various jobs, including for Dictaphone and at Larson-Becker, a local company that distributes well pumps and supplies.

In 1960, Popeck joined the city of Batavia, working for the Fire Department as one of three firefighters on staff. Three years later, Popeck shifted to the city's Police Department, where he rose to become a sergeant and, around 1970, to the city's police chief.

Popeck served for the next decade as chief. He oversaw a growing force, which included future Batavia Police Chief Denny Anderson, whom Popeck promoted to sergeant. Years earlier, Popeck had mentored Anderson, encouraging him to get into law enforcement while Anderson was in high school and college.

"He was a good friend, and he never stopped helping and caring for Batavia and for the people who live there," Anderson said.

While chief, Popeck was very proud of setting up the Tri-Com Central Dispatch in 1976, which boosted the management of emergency calls in Batavia and the neighboring communities of Geneva and St. Charles. He also gave the city's police officers personal portable radios to carry with them on calls, instead of having to rely simply on radios in their squad cars.

"Bob initiated the radio system that the guys would put on their uniforms," his wife said. "Up to that point, the guys just had radios in the car, and if they left the car, they had no way of communicating with each other. Bob just loved technical gadgets and technology."

Mayor Jeff Schielke also recalled that Popeck's personal interest in photography spurred him to create a photographic unit in the Police Department. Eventually, he and some of the city's other police officers began taking photos of people and places in Batavia to record the city's history.

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"He had a talent for it, so he started taking people's pictures over the years of families he knew and old people in town," Schielke said. "At the end of the day, there's probably hundreds of people in Batavia who have a portrait or nice thing hanging on their wall that was taken by Bob Popeck. He was very instrumental in creating a lot of long-lasting memories that will be handed down from generation to generation."

In 1981, Popeck stepped down as police chief to become an assistant to the city's mayor and its administrators, overseeing a variety of tasks, including the city's telecommunications, facilities and grounds. Popeck worked closely with Schielke on a variety of endeavors, including assembling photos of Batavia for the city's sesquicentennial in 1983, using all color slides. The program, which subsequently has been converted to video, is called "Batavia  A Tribute to its Time."

Perhaps Popeck's biggest impact on Batavia started in the early 1990s when Texas historian T. Lindsay Baker came to Batavia's historical society to give a talk on the history of windmills. Windmill manufacturing had begun in Batavia in the mid-1850s, taking advantage of power generated by the Fox River. At its peak around 1900, there were six windmill manufacturers in Batavia, but as demand fell, the final plant closed in the 1940s.

"There were six windmill manufacturing companies in Batavia at one time, and Lindsay said, 'Why aren't you doing something about this?' Your (city's) windmills are all around the world,'" Popeck's wife recalled.

Popeck took that as a challenge, and as Batavia began developing its riverwalk, Popeck made sure the city set aside spaces for windmills. Popeck also began collecting windmills himself  he and his wife have three full-size windmills in their backyard, including one he built himself from parts that people had given him  and worked to raise Batavia's profile among windmillers. He eventually succeeded in attracting the annual International Windmillers' Trade Fair to Batavia, first in 1996 and again in 2012.

"We're putting ourselves on the map again," Popeck told the Tribune in 1995.

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To maintain the windmills on the riverwalk, Popeck formed a group of volunteers to maintain them, which he called the "Molinologists of Batavia," after the study of mills. Given that the group's initials were M.O.B., Popeck liked to joke that he was the group's "godfather," his wife said with a laugh. Windmills brought back to Batavia have been installed in other places around town, including at the Batavia Government Center, and now there are some 16 windmills erected around Batavia.

Popeck was awarded the Batavia Citizen of the Year Award by the Batavia Chamber of Commerce in 2007. He also advised the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in their process to name Batavia's windmill manufacturing industry as an engineering landmark due to many inventions that benefited farmers and industry.

Popeck retired from City Hall in 2008 at the age of 72.

"He just loved the work," his wife said. "When the mayor would get requests from residents, he would turn around and say, 'See Bob Popeck. Talk to Bob and he'll make it happen.'"

During retirement, Popeck spent his time traveling with his wife, and also enjoyed antiquing and collecting. He and his wife also went to the international windmillers trade event each year. And the couple loaned antiques to the DuPage County Historical Museum's "Early Illinois Folk Art 1825-1925" exhibit in 2013.

Two previous marriages ended in divorce. In addition to his wife, Popeck is survived by two sons, Bob Jr. and Kevin; two granddaughters; four stepgrandchildren; and two brothers, Charles and Terry.

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Services were held.

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
Volunteers including Scouts, veterans and family members place wreaths on the graves of military personnel and others being honored, thanks to Fallen Hero Wreaths & Planters, on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, at Fort Sheridan Post Cemetery in Lake County. (Mark Ukena / Pioneer Press)

It was a chilly gray Saturday morning at the Fort Sheridan Post Cemetery, established in 1889, where more than 2,500 veterans and their family members have been laid to rest on a bluff overlooking woods, ravines and Lake Michigan a short distance away.

The muted fall colors of the surrounding Lake County Forest Preserves helped set the somber scene at the cemetery, located between Lake Forest and Highwood, where cars backed up along the cemetery driveway almost to Sheridan Road, as close to 100 volunteers came out to adorn the veterans' grave markers with fresh green Christmas wreaths adorned with red bows.

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Eight hundred and eighty-eight wreaths in all.

"Take a knee and note their age," said Andy Barrie of Lake Forest, instructing the volunteers who included family members of veterans buried at the site, church members like those from the Church of St. Mary in Lake Forest, Boy Scout Troop 667 of Winthrop Harbor and other troops, and the Highland Park American Legion Auxiliary.

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"This is a very important person you are honoring," Barrie said. "Lay the wreath at an angle and straighten the bow ends."

He especially thanked the family of retired U.S. Army Maj. Daniel R. Trew, whose family was so impressed with seeing the wreaths laid out in years past that they wanted to help try and get wreaths for every veteran's gravesite. They tapped into friends and family and contributed 330 wreaths to what Barrie calls the "Holiday Commemoration" organized by his Fallen Hero Wreaths & Planters nonprofit.

On Memorial Day, they do the same thing only with colorful potted planters instead of wreaths, and before the planters dry out they are taken over to the Capt. James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago for veterans to enjoy through the growing season.

Barrie owns Northwoods Wreaths in Lake Forest. He said he got the idea from a woman in Wisconsin for the Fallen Heroes Wreath & Planters effort that not only does Fort Sheridan, but also the military cemetery on the Naval Station Great Lakes base in North Chicago, Woods National Cemetery in Milwaukee, and the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Union Grove, Wis.

In Union Grove he ran into a woman who was placing flowers on the grave of her husband, a Korean War veteran, and she remarked how nice it would be if all the veterans' gravesites could be decorated.

"I agreed, and she said who could do this and I told her, 'I will,'" Barrie said.

He annually works with more than 450 charitable organizations using wreaths as a fundraiser, and he has found that surplus wreaths spread a lot of joy at homeless shelters, schools, retirement homes and military cemeteries. His nonprofit's website is fallenherowreaths.com.

"A country identifies itself by the people they honor," said Barrie, who is not a veteran but whose father served in the Navy. "Their families will be eternally grateful."

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Marcia Trew, 71, of Buffalo Grove, was delighted her husband was honored this year.

"The first time I saw it, it just looked so beautiful, so we checked into volunteering for it," she said of the wreaths decorating the headstones.

She spent a lot of time at Fort Sheridan with her five daughters when her husband, Daniel Trew, came back from serving two tours of duty in Vietnam. He served as a public affairs officer at Fort Sheridan until it closed in 1993, when he retired with the rank of major after 28 years of service. He died in October 2013.

Trew and her other daughters credit daughter Cindy Tobin, 53, of Deerfield, with organizing the effort to get more wreaths.

"We wanted to see more wreaths on the graves," Trew said. "We wanted to have enough to do every one."

They were close. Barrie said it would have taken about 1,000 wreaths.

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Her other daughters, Amanda Trew, 33, Ruth Simpson, 55, and Becky Ugolini, 50, were there Saturday. along with sister Chris Betcher of Green Bay, Wis. Amanda Trew said her father dragged the family to many events at the fort over the years he worked there.

"We went to all of them: Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, you name it. We thought he would appreciate this," she said.

Her mother was touched by the volunteer turnout.

"I think it was very nice. It's nice everyone showed up to show respect for all the veterans," she said as she stood near her husband's headstone, which had a pink, heart-shaped rock on top of it along with some other decorations and the wreath.

Barbara Ziegenweide, 58, of Winthrop Harbor, was there with her grandsons Jared Hughes, 12, Patrick Hughes, 5, and Gavin Woodridge, 9. Jared said many in his family have fought in wars.

"Even the Civil War," he said. "We should be very respectful because they fought for our country. They protected us; we wouldn't be here without them."

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Sonja Martin, 50, of Highland Park, was there representing the American Legion Auxiliary. She and her husband, Christopher, are retired Army and this is her third year volunteering. Her daughter, Aekacia, 22, was there for the first time, but her son, Elijah, 16, had volunteered before.

"I feel like I make my parents proud when I do it," Elijah said, "and putting the wreath on the grave shows respect."

His sister agreed.

"There is a sense of pride; pride in the veterans, pride in my parents. There's also a sense of community when volunteering," Aekacia said.

After all the work was done and people were done mingling, the crowd started to disappear quickly except for a red vehicle with a Marine Corps League logo on the side. The car would drive a short distance and then taps would be sounded for a short time and the car would move again. The driver was Tom Mann with the Lake County Marine Corps League.

"My son, Thomas Jr., is buried here," said Mann, who said his family boasts four generations of Marines; the last was his son's daughter, Janice Lynn. His son was a Marine who was injured and disabled before he died.

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"I come out here every day for my son," he said.

"I think it's great what they did today," Mann said. "It's a very nice cemetery. Some people don't even know it's here."

The cemetery was built two years after the fort was built, according to the Lake County Forest Preserves' history of the site. The large white memorial at the entrance was built by Chaplain Edward Vatman, an Army major and close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt who ran a widows and orphans home after World War I. He is buried beneath the statues.

Nine German prisoners of war captured in North Africa in World War II are buried there, along with three soldiers who served in the 7th Cavalry with Lt. Col. George A. Custer at the time of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. It's not known if two of the soldiers were at the battle, but the third, 1st Sgt. John Hackett, appears to have been part of the support personnel and participated in Custer's burial.

One other interesting burial is Cyril H. Evans, a private with the British Royal Army Ordinance Corps who was liberated from a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He died at Camp Grant in Rockford and was buried at Fort Sheridan on Oct. 26, 1945.

fabderholden@tribpub.com

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Twitter @abderholden
Antoine King, who oversees receiving and inventory control for the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, counts the number of boxes per pallet to confirm the correct number has been received from the USDA. (Jim Karczewski / Post-Tribune)

Marshall Anderson, 71, had a plan for what he wanted to do in his retirement years.

"Once I retired in 2010, I knew I wanted to start giving back," he said.

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And he did, volunteering at the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana.

"I get a lot more out of it than I put into it," Anderson said. "I see the looks on people's faces as they receive food and how delighted they are they can feed their family."

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Anderson is one of the many volunteers helping the food bank as it ramps up its efforts to distribute food across Northwest Indiana during the holiday season.

"We understand finances can be a bit tighter for many folks during the holidays, especially our clients," said Emily Cutka, the food bank's director of communications. "They struggle with heating bills, unexpected medical bills because it's cold and flu season, on top of just trying to make the holidays enjoyable for themselves and their families. So we try to get extra food out into the community."

In addition to partnering with the Strack and Van Til grocery store, the organization conducts two food distribution programs in December to help circulate more food during the holidays.

The food bank is the only one serving Lake and Porter counties, and it partners with a network of food pantries, soup kitchens and local agencies to combat hunger and assist food-insecure residents across the region.

In 2015, 12.7 percent, or 15.8 million American households, were food insecure, meaning they lacked the resources to put enough quality food on the table for all household members, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"So basically it's people that might even have jobs, but at the end of the day they're running out of money to get nutritious, healthy food for themselves and their families," said Steve Beekman, deputy director of the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana. "And we're seeing a lot of that more and more."

At 14.8 percent, Indiana was higher than the national average on overall food insecurity, according to data available for 2013 to 2015.

More than 100,000 individuals and families in Lake and Porter counties are classified as food insecure, Beekman said.

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Despite having limited space and only 25 employees, the food bank is distributing more than 4 million pounds of food annually, Beekman said. More than half of the food it receives is donated by local grocery stores.

The food bank sends out a fleet of six trucks every morning to visit 40-plus retail and grocery stores throughout the week to pick up food, Beekman said. Once it's unloaded at the warehouse, the food is re-sorted and distributed across the region to food pantries and soup kitchens, he said.

"Everyone here works really hard to make the most of what we have here," Beekman said. "But most importantly, everyone here cares."

Anderson said he enjoys working with people who are benevolent and committed to helping others.

"It just always does my heart good to see the compassion and dedication of the people at the food bank and all the wonderful things that they do for the people of Northwest Indiana to make sure that they have enough food to feed their families," he said.

jaanderson@tribpub.com

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A Chinese city will share 200 million yuan (29 million U.S. dollars) among 37 Chinese and foreign aerial companies and a local airport to support the opening of new air routes.

According to the government of Haikou, capital city of south China's island province of Hainan, China Southern Airlines received about 26 million yuan, the largest amount awarded among the recipients.

The passenger throughput of Haikou Meilan International Airport has posted growth of 16 percent this year.

The local government hopes the rewards could help expedite development of new air routes connecting the city with the rest of the world and promote its tourism.
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Two people were killed and at least seven injured after a taxi plowed into a hospital on Saturday in the city of Fukuoka, southwestern Japan.

The taxi, which carried no passenger, broke into a glass window near the entrance of the hospital and hit people inside the hospital.

The driver, a 64-year-old man, was arrested on the spot and said later that he tried to slow down but brakes of the car did not work.

The hospital is located in downtown Fukuoka and has a total of 359 beds.
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The damage from the fire at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

The man who confessed to setting fire to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco was sentenced to 35 months' imprisonment, said U.S. federal prosecutors.

The arsonist was Feng Yanfeng, who held permanent resident status in the United States, but was of Chinese origin. He put three containers of gasoline by the consulate's front entrance and poured gas on the front door and steps almost three years ago. The fire did substantial damage, but no one was injured.

Feng has been in custody since he confessed to the arson just a few days after the incident in January 2014.

The 42-year-old was originally charged with arson and violence to a foreign official that prompted Chinese government officials to urge the U.S. to provide better protection for their diplomats across the country.

However, his lawyer argued that Feng suffered mental illness. An affidavit in the case also said Feng told federal agents that he was hearing voices that asked him to do so.

After two years' trail, Feng entered a guilty plea to only one felony count of "offering violence to a foreign official" on September 14 of this year.

Feng will also serve three years of supervised release after his prison term is up.
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Huangyan island. [Photo/China.org.cn]

The Philippine government expressed gratitude to China's coast guards for rescuing two Philippine fishermen around Huangyan island in the South China Sea.

Martin Andanar, secretary of the Philippine Presidential Communications Office, said on Friday that they were informed by China's coast guards on Thursday that they had successfully rescued two Philippine fishermen who were caught in strong winds from Typhoon Tokage.

Finally, the fishermen were able to be delivered to Philippine authorities on Friday with the help of China's maritime police.

The rescue from the Chinese side shows that the China-Philippines relationship has been put back on track after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's visit to China, said Martin Andanar.

He also hoped the bilateral ties between the two countries will witness further improvement in the future.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Typhoon Tokage has brought on strong winds and rough waters near Huangyan island. China's coast guard had tried several times to deliver the two fishermen who fell into water after their boat had run on the rocks to the Philippine side but failed due to the bad weather.

Geng added that the Chinese government will continue patrolling in waters around Huangyan island to keep peace and safety in the area.

The two countries once had territory disputes over Huangyan island in the South China Sea.
BEIJING - Standing at the entrance to the mine shaft, Feng Wenli bade farewell to the job he had done for decades.

"It's a little hard to say goodbye, but it is also good to retire early with compensation," said the 53-year-old.

Beijing's Changgouyu mine has been closed to reduce pollution. The municipal development and reform commission announced this week that the three remaining coal mines in the city will be closed in the next four years, completely eliminating coal mining in the capital.

In 2016, Beijing closed two coal mines ending production of 1.8 million tons each year, said Li Bin, deputy director of the commission's coal office.

Changgouyu, at the foot of the western mountains, produced 1 million tons of high quality coal each year before it closed in June.

Feng lives on the other side of the mountains. He became a miner at the age of 21. He used to get up at 4 am for the morning shift. After a quick breakfast, he would descend the shaft and work until noon.

"We were covered in coal dust by noon and took a bath straight after work," he said. "The mines now are less dusty and safer than before."

Feng still lives in the miner's cottage where he married and raised a son. His son is now a physical education teacher in a city high school. Even with the mine closed, the couple continue living there.

"We are not moving out. I have heard plans to develop tourism in the area," he said.

Accounts of coal mining in Beijing date from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the mountains of western Beijing became known for high-quality coal.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, coal from western Beijing has been a major energy source for the capital, said Geng Yangmou, chairman of Beijing Haohua Energy Resource.

Geng said the government had given more than 160 million yuan ($23 million) in subsidies to Beijing's redundant coal workers and miners in 2016.

Mining areas will be encouraged to develop new industries, and the city will provide support for infrastructure to attract investors, according to Geng.

"Look at the beautiful scenery. I believe it has great tourism potential. The area will be prosperous and live again with new industries," Feng said.

He is considering setting up a business with the 340,000 yuan he received when his contract was ended.

Lyu Fuyue, 51, has been working at Changgouyu mine since he was 24. After retiring in August, he gets 2,000 yuan every month. He has still not figured out what he will do in the future.

"Maybe I will just stay home. It would be good to rest, like the mountains, after years of mining," he said.
MEXICO CITY - Chinese company BYD on Thursday unveiled its innovative and cost-effective SkyRail mass transit solution at the 2016 C40 Mayors Summit in Mexico City.

The elevated monorail system has been specially designed to tackle the biggest challenges which today's bustling urban centers are facing: air pollution, traffic congestion and climate change.

Pollution and congestion "have become the world's two major ills," as residents of major cities across the planet can prove it, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said at a press conference.

What makes SkyRail particularly suitable to the world's major capitals and cities is "its adaptability to existing streets ... and building density," Wang said.

The rail system's "small footprint," or support structure, is made of columns that are only one meter in diameter, meaning they can be built on existing medians, and costly demolition will not be required, Wang stressed.

The monorail's "excellent topographic adaptability" also means it can be built to pass through buildings.

According to BYD, the SkyRail costs only a fifth of what it does to build a subway line, and it can save the construction time by one third.

Stella Li, BYD Vice President for the Americas, told Xinhua, "Any city with a population of more than 5 million to 7 million should consider the SkyRail" as a public transit alternative.

As one of the world's largest makers of rechargeable batteries, BYD has made it its mission to innovate more environment-friendly battery technologies.

The company's long-lasting and fully-recyclable iron-phosphate battery, known as the Fe Battery, "has become the core of its clean energy platform," and is expanding into more fields such as electric cars, buses, trucks, and utility vehicles.

Wang also officially kicked off BYD's "Cool the Earth by One Degree" program, an invitation to mayors and other officials around the world to reverse global warming by embracing clean technologies.

At the press conference, Wang also signed a purchase contract with the city of Cape Town, South Africa, making it the first African city to incorporate electric buses into its mass transit fleet.

"Today, we become the first city in Africa to buy our first 10 electric buses. Thank you for helping us to reduce carbon emissions and saving our planet," Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille said after the signing.

In Latin America, BYD's electric buses already form part of transit fleets in cities in Colombia and Brazil.

C40 brings megacities together to address their common problems, mainly climate change.
Photo taken on Oct 27, 2016 shows a smashed window of an armored cash truck, broken by a man wielding a brick in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong province. [Photo from Sina Weibo]

The police authority in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong province, announced on Friday, December 2 that there was no known prior incident between the armored cash truck and its escort guards and the man who was shot dead. At present, the case has been delivered to prosecution.

On October 27, a man surnamed Huang was shot dead with a riot gun containing rubber bullets by an escort guard who was driving an armored cash truck in Dongguan. It is claimed that Huang smashed the window of the armored truck, and despite getting several warnings to stop, he kept repeating his behavior and then finally was fatally shot.

The escort guard was detained for investigation. After watching the video camera footage, no prior incident was found to have occurred between the armored cash truck and Huang to prompt his attack with a brick.

According to the footage, the armored cash truck stopped five times. First, Huang smashed the window of the truck with a brick, breaking both the window and the rear-view mirror. As Huang repeatedly used the brick to further damage the vehicle, the escort guard reported it to the company and then proceeded to shoot the man using a riot gun on Huang's fifth attempt to damage the truck.

In regards to what prompted the attack, according to several witnesses nearby, no prior incident was seen to have occurred between Huang and the armored truck or its escort guards. Also, there was no clear scratch found on the armored truck apart from the scratches sustained from the brick.

The escort guard surnamed Liang fatally shot Huang on October 27. The next day, Liang was detained by the police. On November 9, the procuratorate approved arrest and informed Huang's family of the situation. The investigation was finished on December 1, and the case was delivered to prosecution.

On November 28, Huang's family received 1.8 million yuan ($261,500) as compensation for Huang's death. The family said that they will continue the legal proceedings for the final result from the court.
Two kindergarten teachers surnamed Zhou and Guo were detained for 14 and 12 days, respectively, and later fired for beating some 2 to 3-year-old kids in their class in Ruian, China's eastern Zhejiang province.

This incident went viral online when someone posted a news item on the Internet Thursday. Accurate and sufficient evidence was obtained before the administrative penalty was handed down to the two. It was reported that earlier, parents had found scars on their children's bodies, so they hid digital voice recorders in their schoolbags to collect audio evidence of corporal punishment.

After the beatings were exposed, the Ruian City Board of Education established a working group that cooperated with local police to launch an investigation. Sufficient evidence was obtained to carry out the administrative penalty.

All tuition, fees and other relevant charges have been refunded to the parents of the children involved and psychological experts have been engaged to carry out psychological intervention to the youngsters to ensure their mental health, the authority said.

The two teachers involved have been dismissed, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Wang Pengyuan contributed to this story.
Liu Qibao, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, reads a congratulatory letter of President Xi Jinping at an international seminar on the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development in Beijing, China, Dec 4, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping said on Sunday in a congratulatory letter to members of a seminar that the Chinese government deems the right to survive and development as a basic human right.

"As the world's largest developing country with a population of more than 1.3 billion, China's development is the key to solve all of the country's problems, and it is also the top priority of the governance of the Communist Party of China," he said in the letter.

The international seminar on the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development was held by the State Council Information Office in Beijing on Sunday.

The right to development was proclaimed by the United Nations in the 1986 "Declaration on the Right to Development," which was adopted by the UN General Assembly resolution 41/128.

Liu Qibao, head of the publicity department of the CPC Central Committee, said in his keynote speech that by lifting more than 700 million people out of poverty, China has achieved the largest scale of poverty reduction with the fastest speed in human history.

China's development has also benefited the world, with more than 400 billion yuan of assistance offered by the Chinese government to 166 foreign countries and international organizations, he said.

Tom Zwart, director of the Netherlands School of Human Rights Research, spoke highly of the Chinese government's efforts and achievements to eradicate poverty.

"The right to development is not about money, but about human dignity," he said.
Source: Ipsos; China National Tourism Administration Note: Survey results based on 11,173 responses to a 133-item questionnaire

After more than a decade of rapid growth, the Chinese outbound travel market is seeing more Chinese travelers who are independent, sophisticated and eager to seek out new experiences, industry experts say.

Previously, many inexperienced Chinese tourists stuck to well-known sites, and it didnt take a lot of expertise to win their business. But that, they said, is changing.

"The desire of seasoned Chinese travelers to experience authenticity and nature is getting bigger," said Wolfgang Arlt, director of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute.

"Consequently, for many service providers and destinations, the easy harvest of low hanging fruit seems to have come to an end."

The number of Chinese outbound tourists reached a record in 2015 of 117 million, according to the China National Tourism Administration.

More of those tourists are independent travelers who are looking to "travel and live like locals", a recent research report from COTRI said.

It is important that foreign tourism marketers do not stereotype the Chinese market, said Alastair Morrison, former president of the International Tourism Studies Association and CEO of Belle Tourism International Consulting, based in Shanghai.

Morrison said he thinks that there is a lot of labeling of Chinese tourists, such as pigeonholing a particular age group as all liking to shop and demanding to eat Chinese food all the time.

"It is important to avoid stereotypes, because the outbound Chinese market is becoming more sophisticated, more mature and more segmented. I do not think foreign marketers should use stereotypes to portray the Chinese market in their advertising and promotion," said Morrison.

A new tourism research report confirmed that the market is maturing as the motives for Chinese travelers change from sightseeing to lifestyle experiences.

A research report on 2015-2016 Chinese outbound tourist consumption by World Tourism Cities Federation and Ipsos, a market research firm, was presented at the World Travel Market in London recently.

Based on a survey of over 11,000 Chinese tourists, the report suggests that more than 76 percent consider travel an important way to improve their quality of life and happiness. It also found that the average Chinese tourist makes five foreign trips abroad during a lifetime.

"This shows that the Chinese outbound tourism market is developing in a way that is much more in line with Western markets," said James Kennell, principal lecturer in tourism at the University of Greenwich. "I suspect that as Chinese millennials (people who reached adulthood by the year 2000) move into the tourism market, we will see these trends continuing."

As the Chinese outbound market matures, there will be more independent travelers and fewer who opt for package tours, meaning foreign tourist destinations will need to develop new types of tourism products and new arrangements for Chinese tourists.

"It will be a good opportunity for special interest tourism, involving history, art, culture, cuisines, the natural environment and ecology," Morrison said.

Worldwide, international tourist arrivals have surged from 25 million globally in 1950 to 1.1 billion in 2015, and are expected to reach 1.8 billion by 2030, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

The increase of 700 million global travelers anticipated between 2015 and 2030 will mainly stem from China, said Arlt, who spoke at the 2016 World Tourism Market in London. For Europe, this is a good chance to lure the rising numbers of Chinese visitors to more places, so that big, popular cities do not become even more congested with tourists.

Given the evolving nature of more experienced Chinese visitors, the Italian tourism authorities are looking to offer more diverse travel itineraries.

In an attempt to attract experienced Chinese travelers known for seeking out new destinations, a new Italian tourism product  the Pilgrims Paths  is meant to appeal to the curiosity and desires of the target group. It consists of routes, once walked by religious pilgrims, that are packed with history.

Raffaella Rossi, director of Francescos Ways, a consortium of businesses aiming to promote the routes internationally, said such new tourism options respond to the needs of tourists, including Chinese travelers, because they offer a large variety of experiences in places that are not so well-known to the public.

"We must help tourists from China get to know our great food and wine, numerous crafts and shopping areas, as well as the small towns in different regions, and romantic places where they can experience slow tourism and come into contact with untouched nature. We need to enrich our offerings of special and thrilling experiences that can spark the interest of this clientele," she said. Slow tourism allows travelers to take their time to more fully enjoy the experience.

Almost every tourism board is talking about getting more Chinese visitors. However, Arlt said not all of them understand that it is not necessarily the number of arrivals, but the numbers of overnight stays and how much each visitor spends that is important.

"Having fewer visitors who stay longer, spend more, have more interest in the country they are visiting is actually better and more sustainable than bringing crowds of package-tour, short-time visitors who look for the cheapest offer and do not really care about what they are taking photos of," Arlt explained.
The incident is not expected to affect US backing for one-China consensus

US president-elect Donald Trump has caused an unexpected diplomatic incident with China by taking a phone call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, but the call itself is expected to have very limited influence and is not expected to affect the one-China policy, analysts in Washington and Beijing said over the weekend.

On Friday, after Trump took the call, the White House reaffirmed its long-standing support for the one-China policy and the three China-US joint communiques, issued between 1972 and 1982, that guide China-US relations.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Tsais call to Trump a little trick by Taiwan which would not change the international one-China consensus. Beijing also lodged a solemn representation with Washington, urging it to honor its commitments.

Trump has caused a major diplomatic incident with China, said Jon Taylor, professor of political science and a China specialist at the University of St Thomas in Houston.

Taylor said Trump had upset a consensus in place for decades. I sincerely hope that this does not signal the beginning of a significant shift in US-China relations.

For damage control, Trump needs to reassure Beijing, publicly or privately, that he will not change Americas long-standing policy and that US-Taiwan relations will stay unofficial, said Zhiqun Zhu, a professor of political science and international relations at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

The call was the starkest example yet of how Trump has flouted diplomatic conventions since he won the Nov 8 election, experts told the Associated Press. President-elect Trump is just shooting from the hip, trying to take phone calls of congratulatory messages from leaders around the world without consideration for the implications, said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the AP reported.

The call is a result of both Trumps lack of experience in diplomacy as well as his not having finished choosing his foreign policy team. Still, most of those he has chosen are right-wing and anti-China, said Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China.

But Jin added, It is highly likely that Trump, after he takes office, will continue the one-China policy that the US government has been adhering to over many years.

Wang Qingyun contributed to this story. Contact the writers at zhaohuanxin@chinadaily.com.cn

It is highly likely that Trump, after he takes office, will continue the one-China policy.
"China sees development as the key to solve all of the countrys problems, and it is also the top priority of the governance of the Communist Party of China. President Xi Jinping, in a congratulatory letter to an international seminar held to mark the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development

For rural resident Chang Ling, a 50,000 yuan ($7,300) loan from a local bank early this year is helping her fulfill her dream of entrepreneurship.

Chang, 31, said she has long wanted to begin trading in agricultural products common in her village in Wulian county, Shandong province, but she had lacked the capital. With the loan, she can start her own business, selling homemade dried sweet potatoes online.

Changs loan is just one among the 279.4 billion yuan in loans that the central government had provided to 5.38 million women, as of June this year, to start businesses or create jobs, according to the State Council Information Office. Many of the recipients were poor.

On Sunday, the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development, an international seminar was held to mark the occasion.

In a congratulatory letter to the seminar, President Xi Jinping said on Sunday that the Chinese government views the rights to survive and to development as basic human rights.

As the worlds largest developing country, with a population of more than 1.3 billion, China sees development as the key to solve all of the countrys problems, and it is also the top priority of the governance of the Communist Party of China, he wrote.

Liu Qibao, head of the publicity department of the CPC Central Committee, said in his keynote speech that by lifting more than 700 million people from poverty, China has achieved the largest scale of poverty reduction in the shortest time in history.

Chinas development has also benefited the world, with the Chinese government having provided more than 400 billion yuan in assistance to 166 countries and international organizations, he said.

Tom Zwart, director of the Netherlands School of Human Rights Research, spoke highly of the Chinas efforts and achievements to eradicate poverty.

The right to development is not about money, but about human dignity, he said.

On Friday, the State Council released a poverty alleviation plan for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20). By the end of 2015, China still had 55.75 million people living beneath the national poverty line of 2,800 yuan per year.

China plans to have lifted all of its poor from poverty by 2020, especially residents of the nations 128,000 needy villages and 832 counties, where poverty has become a regional issue, according to the document.
A poster of The Tokyo Trials [Photo/people.com.cn]

A documentary series "The Tokyo Trials" produced by Radio and Television Shanghai, has been awarded the title "Best Documentary Series" by Asian Television Awards in Singapore on Friday.

The awarded series, produced by an all-female group who once was honored by the famous American Emmy Awards, aired last year.

The documentary has three parts covering the Tokyo Trials, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, which tried the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of war crimes in 1946.

"The Smokeless War" overall introduced the Tokyo trials, focusing on three well-known trials.

"The Judgment beyond Winners" put a positive spin on the controversial parts of the trials.

The last part entitled "Unforgettable Memories" showed the hard steps from the perspective of the Chinese delegation and their children and grandchildren.

Many video materials collected from the US were seen in China for the first time, which are of high historical value.

He Qinhua, former principal of East China University of Political Science and Law, thought that the documentary showed Chinese research on the Tokyo trials having an international level.

The difficult process looking for evidences described by the documentary also strengthened that the trials focused on evidence, making the courts reasonable, he added.

2016 is the 70th memorial year of the Tokyo Trials' court open session. This year, a brand new series of the trials which has three parts has been finished and will be on air on International Channel Shanghai at 8 pm Beijing time.

The production group is considering to extend the documentary and to ten episodes by 2018.
People greet the caravan carrying the ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro upon its arrival in Santiago de Cuba, southeastern Cuba, on Dec 3, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

HAVANA - The ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, arrived Saturday in Santiago de Cuba, where he will be laid to rest in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery on Sunday.

The final leg of his funeral procession travelled the last 120 km between the city of Bayamo to Santiago de Cuba, the place known as the Heroic City for "its decisive contributions to the complete and definitive independence of the Cuban nation."

The caravan also crossed some of the city's key spots, including the former Moncada Barracks, now a school, on which Castro led a failed attack against the army of dictator Fulgencio Batista in July 1954.

Tonight, at 7:00 pm, a massive ceremony will be held in the city's Antonio Maceo Revolution Square, where President Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, will address a crowd of mourners and dignitaries.

On Sunday, concluding nine days of national mourning, Castro will be buried in the historic Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where lies the hero of Cuba's national independence, Jose Marti.
Britain must establish a relationship with China that goes beyond trade and commercial ties, Boris Johnson, British Foreign Secretary, said in his first major foreign policy speech on Friday.

"As regards China and East Asia, our approach in that region must go beyond the quest for exports or commercial contracts," he told the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London.

Johnson, who backed the successful campaign for Britains exit from the European Union, took office in July following the referendum vote.

He said what he called "Global Britain" should not confine its outlook to its immediate European neighbors at a time when new powers were rising. "It is right that we should make a distinctive approach to policy-making as regards China and East Asia," he said.

Post-Brexit, British ministers have raised the prospect of eventual free trade deals with countries outside Europe, specifically China.

Johnsons latest comments follow the election of Donald Trump as US president-elect after a campaign in which he castigated China for destroying US jobs and threatened to impose punitive tariffs on its exports.

The British minister noted that the UK was one of the first countries to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a China-led infrastructure initiative so far mainly financed by China. The British decision was criticized by the Obama administration.

Johnson said Britain was not just a link between Europe and the US. "We have our own distinctive identity and contribution," he said.

Underlining what Britain had to offer the rest of the world, he noted that Cambridge University alone had produced twice the Nobel Prize winners than every university in Russia and China combined.

Johnson said it would be unrealistic not to accept that the international order needed to change.

The writer is a senior media consultant for China Daily UK.

harveymorris@gmail.com
JAKARTA - A plane carrying 16 police personnel has crashed in waters off Batam, western Indonesia, and several bodies of the personnel and wreckage of the aircraft have been recovered, rescuers confirmed on Sunday.

The M28 Skytruck plane, owned by Indonesian police, lost contact on Saturday when it was flying over waters off the island, Marsudi, spokesman of the national search and rescue office said.

"The plane has crashed. Some rescuers have returned with three body bags containing bodies of the victims. Several parts of the plane have also been recovered," he told Xinhua by phone.

The crash site has been found. Over 300 soldiers, police, those from local search and rescue offices, and volunteers are searching for the major wreckage of the aircraft.

The plane was en route from Pangkal Pinang city to Batam island in Kepulauan Riau province, Marsudi said.
BEIJING - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will pay an official visit to China from Monday to Tuesday at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang announced Sunday.

Wang and Zarif will co-chair the first annual foreign ministers' meeting, according to Geng.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Iran in January, both countries agreed to set up an annual meeting mechanism as a part of efforts to deepen mutual strategic trust.
A staff member of a polling station checks information on the eve of the constitutional referendum in Rome, capital of Italy, on Dec 3, 2016. On Dec 4, voters will be called to have their say on a constitutional reform package, which the parliament had already approved with six consecutive readings in over two and a half years long debate. [Photo/Xinhua]

ROME - Italians started voting on Sunday in a referendum on constitutional reform, with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi promising to resign if he loses the ballot.

Polls opened at 7 am (0600 GMT) and are set to close at 11 pm (2200 GMT). Some 51 million Italians are eligible to vote and full results are expected in the early hours of Monday.

The reform reduces the role of the upper house Senate and claws back powers from regional authorities -- measures that the government says will bring political stability to Italy. However, almost all opinion polls over the past two months have suggested that Renzi will be defeated.
NAIROBI - In a densely planted campus with buildings painted joyful yellow in the east of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, there is a railway training institute sponsored by a large Chinese infrastructure construction company -- China Road and Bridge Corporation.

China Road and Bridge Corporation, which has been building a 471 km-long track linking Nairobi with the port city of Mombasa, established and funded the institute to train the rail's future operators. The company plans to transfer the operation to Kenyans five years after the project opens to business in 2017.

For the East African country, whose only railway was built during the British colonial rule a century ago, the institute, opened in April this year, was the first one of its kind.

"The object of the institute is to recruit ambitious young Kenyans and shape them into competent technicians and professionals," said Dai Ruoyu, team leader of the institute's Chinese trainers. "They are to work at different posts along and on the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway and will operate the railway independently on their own in the long run."

The institute, offering three programs within three to six months, has completed training the first patch of 102 Kenyans.

Erick Aberi Masenge, a middle-aged Kenyan man, saw an advertisement of the institute on a local newspaper while working as a manager for the Kenya Royal Road. A long-time fan of China's high-speed railroad, Erick quit the enviable job and applied for the institute's track maintenance program.

Five days a week, he wakes up as early as 6 o'clock in the morning and drives an hour from home to the institute to attend his 8 a.m. class. He believes the courses could give him better job prospects.

"I cherish the opportunity which I got through very fierce competition," Erick said, talking about the many people that applied for the program. I take two courses for my program, and I have to finish more than 10 topics for each course," he said, "It's a lot to learn, but I can manage it."

In one month's time, Erick will finish his study and begin internship with a Chinese technician on the construction site of the railroad.

Zheng Xiaoyan, teaching in Kunming Railway Technical College in southwest China for 28 years, spent half a year preparing teaching materials before arriving in Kenya in June. She downloaded 170 G of video and hundreds of pictures to make her lectures visualized for, she said, many Kenyans have never seen high-speed railway in real.

"The Kenyans have very different ways of thinking from my Chinese students," said Zheng, a very energetic woman. "The Kenyan students are not familiar with deduction, they always want to know the answer first."

"I adjust my teaching methods from time to time as I know more about them," Zheng said. She taught a lesson on locomotives and has 14 lessons for one week. "I want to teach them as much as possible. They are all earnest learners."

Once they had a lesson on identifying and evaluating cracks, she recalled, on the next day the students would find and fix every crack on campus.

"I enjoy teaching and communicating with them, and that when two cultures come together, they give birth to great things," Zheng said.

The 3.8-billion-U.S. dollar railway, expected to shorten travel time from Nairobi to Mombasa from more than 10 hours to four, is a vital project which will improve the country's transportation quality, according to locals.

"The Mombasa-Nairobi railway brings the Kenyans prosperity, as well as knowledge and technologies," said Erick.
SANTIAGO DE CUBA - The caravan carrying the ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro Sunday reached the Santa Ifigenia cemetery for burial in a historic ceremony after touring Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city in southeastern Cuba.

The caravan passed through the "Patria" avenue before the ashes reaching the cemetery, where lies the hero of Cuba's national independence, Jose Marti.

Thousand of inhabitants of the Santiago de Cuba province and other provinces bade farewell to the man who built a socialist revolution in the Caribbean island.

"I am Fidel!" "Fidel come back!" and "Raul, friend, the people is with you!" chanted the people, mostly dressed in black as a mourning sign. They lined up along the street during the passage of the funeral cortege.

The final leg of Castro's funeral procession travelled the last 120 km between the city of Bayamo to Santiago de Cuba, the place known as the Heroic City for "its decisive contributions to the complete and definitive independence of the Cuban nation."

Castro died on Nov 25 at the age of 90 after a decade of retirement from his political positions due to a serious intestinal illness.
The death toll in a fire that devastated an Oakland, California, loft building during a weekend dance party has climbed to 30 people and is expected to rise further as recovery teams push deeper into the charred ruin, authorities said on Sunday.

The remains of the 30 victims were found as authorities sifted through the debris-filled shell of the two-story converted warehouse being used by an artists' collective.

"That is an astronomical number," Sergeant Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, told a news briefing. "We're still not done."

Kelly warned earlier that the number of fatalities would likely rise in what fire officials called the deadliest blaze in the Bay Area city's history. He said names of the victims would be released "in the coming hours" after their families were notified.

"In regards to the amount of people that are still missing, yes, it's a significant number, Kelly said.

The fire erupted about 11:30 p.m. on Friday (0730 GMT on Saturday) during the party featuring electronic dance music that dozens of people attended.

Only 20 percent of the building had been searched in the past 12 hours, Melinda Drayton, battalion chief at the Oakland Fire Department, said on Sunday morning. She said the origin of the fire had yet to be determined and the cause was unknown.

The recovery operation had been delayed for hours until workers could enter safely. The roof had collapsed onto the second floor and in some spots, the second story had fallen onto the first.
(Photo : Getty Images) The controversial phone call was reportedly initiated by Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen. And this was confirmed by US President-elect Donald Trump himself on his official Twitter account.

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US President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Taiwan's President over the phone on Friday. The controversial call is an unprecedented move that overturned diplomatic protocol ever since Washington recognized the 'One China' policy in 1978.



The phone call was reportedly initiated by Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen. This was confirmed by Trump himself who tweeted on his official Twitter account: "The President of Taiwan called me today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!"



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Trump's official transition team also came forward to issue a statement and gave brief information about the details of their conversation.



"During the discussion, they noted the close economic, political, and security ties exists between Taiwan and the United States. President-elect Trump also congratulated President Tsai on becoming President of Taiwan earlier this year," the statement said.



Meanwhile, Taiwanese President recounted too the last 10 minutes of the phone conversation on an official website. She said that both of them discussed various ways to promote domestic economy and strengthen national defence and contemplated about the present situation in the Asian region.



China Says 'One China' Policy will Continue to Enjoy International Support



Reacting to Friday's phone call, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed that it would hardly have any impact on the international community's acceptance of 'One China' policy.



"This is just the Taiwan side engaging in a petty action, and cannot change the 'one China' structure already formed by the international community," China's Foreign Ministry quoted Wang saying at an academic forum in Beijing.



"I believe that it won't change the longstanding 'one China' policy of the United States government," he added.



Wang quickly reminded that President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump have also engaged in phone call diplomacy immediately after Trump's unexpected victory in the US presidential election. He claimed that the Republican presidential nominee showered lots of praises on China and that the phone call had set stage for positive future development of Sino-US relations.



China and Taiwan Relation at All Time Low



The Friday's phone could not have come at a worse time, given that cross relations are at all time low. China and Taiwan have barely seen eye-to-eye with each other, ever since the pro-independent leader 'Tsai' assumed office earlier this year.



Tsai and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) apparent challenge to 'One China' policy did not go too well with Chinese leadership. As a result, China soon began to pile up diplomatic pressure by trying to isolate Taiwan on various international forums and by poaching few of its key allies.



China considers Taiwan as a wayward province that is waiting for unification. Taiwan separated from mainland China in 1949, following a prolonged civil war.



The diplomatic relation between the two countries has been frayed ever since, with Washington playing a key role in boost self-ruled island's military defence and offering diplomatic relation to cope with China's aggression.



China considers the 'One China' policy as one of its cornerstone policies, which basically denotes that China and Taiwan are part of one nation. However, the ruling DPP does not agree with this policy and argue that China and Taiwan are two separate nations.



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Tagsdonald trump, Taiwan, China and Taiwan, Donald Trump and China, Cross-Strait relation
(Photo : Getty Images) Trump and Tsai.

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Whether by design or by accident, China's perception of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has changed -- likely for the worse -- after Trump broke 37 years of protocol by speaking to the President of the Republic of China (RoC).



No U.S. President has spoken personally to any Taiwanese president since the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979 after adopting the "One China" policy in 1972 that recognized Beijing as the sole Chinese state despite the existence of two governments.



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The avoidance of any personal communication between the presidents of both countries is because of the One China policy.



Trump's phone conversation with RoC President Tsai Ing-wen, which the White House said was made by Ms Tsai, is the first between a U.S. president or president-elect and a Taiwanese president in over three decades.



Trump administration officials confirmed the president-elect did speak with President Tsai. They said Trump "noted the close economic, political, and security ties" between Taiwan and the United States.



Trump later tweeted: "The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!



"Interesting how the US sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."



Trump said it was hypocritical for Washington to provide Taipei with weapons but prevent the U.S. and Taiwanese leaders from communicating.



Taiwanese officials said President Tsai did congratulate Trump on his election victory, and also shared her ideas on other matters such as Taiwan's domestic economy and national defense. The U.S. is legally bound by treaties to defend Taiwan in the event of war with China.



"The two briefly exchanged views on affairs in Asia," said the office of Presdident Tsai in a statement.



"President Tsai hopes to step up bilateral interactions and connections and to establish closer co-operative relations."



China reacted in measured steps to the affront, first by dismissing the phone conversation as a "petty action" and a "shenanigan from the Taiwan side," but hours later lodging an official complaint with the U.S.



China has always considered Taiwan a part of China and a renegade province it's promised to return to the mainland one way or the other.



"We have noticed relevant reports and lodged solemn representation with the relevant side in the United States," said a statement from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued Dec. 3.



"I must point out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of the Chinese territory ... The 'One China' principle is the political foundation of China-US relations.



"We urge the relevant side in the US to adhere to the 'One China' policy, abide by the pledges in the three joint China-US communiques, and handle issues related to Taiwan carefully and properly to avoid causing unnecessary interference to the overall China-U.S. relationship."



President Tsai is anathema to Beijing because of her insistence on Taiwan being a separate state and not a province of China, and her opposition to the "One China Principle" and the "1992 Consensus" agreed to by previous Taiwanese administrations.



The One China Principle means Taiwan and China agree to interpret the meaning of this principle according to their own individual definition. On the other hand, President Tsai disagrees with the 1992 Consensus as the basis for negotiations between Taiwan and mainland China.



She argues the consensus only serves to reinforce the "One China Principle." She is also adamant "no such consensus exists" because most Taiwanese don't agree with it.



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Tagsdonald trump, Tsai Ing-wen, Republic of China, Taiwan, china, One China policy
(Photo : JASDF) Japan's first F-35.

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The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) the other day received its first combat ready Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter at the U.S. Air Force's Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.



The F-35A is the first of four the JASDF will receive in December. The Japanese government signed a deal to buy 28 F-35As over the next five years and will buy 14 more of the fifth generations stealth fighters part of a plan to purchase 42 of the jets.



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Japan becomes the third international customer after South Korea and Israel to receive the jet, considered the most advanced in the world but one plagued with technical problems and serious cost overruns that have combined to delay delivery of the jet to the U.S. armed services and foreign customers.



"Today is a great day for the US Air Force Reserve Command, Luke AFB, the 944th Fighter Wing, and the Japanese Air Self-Defense Forces," said Col. Kurt Gallegos.



"We have a great team of airmen who have worked hard to set up an outstanding training program and are ready to train our FMS counterparts."



JASDF will use the F-35s to replace its four decade-old fleet of 70 F-4EJ Kai fighter bombers (famous as the Phantom in U.S. service), which is an upgraded version of the F-4EJ with improved avionics and the capability to attack both ground targets and enemy warships.



The acquisition of the F-35s is a key part of Japan's plan to re-arm the Japan Self-Defense Force (JASDF) with more modern weapons and equipment in the face of untrammeled Chinese aggression in Asia.



Japan's Ministry of Defense has requested a record budget of $51 billion for fiscal 2017 to cope with persistent military threats from China and North Korea amid growing tensions that might spin out of control.



The defense budget is the fifth successive annual increase and is 2.3 percent higher than the current budget. Of this amount, funds will be allotted to the F-35As. Japan has ordered 48 of the fifth generation stealth fighter and is one of eight countries jointly developing this aircraft.



Pilots of the JASDF will fly the F-35A fighter jet for the first time by year end. The first four F-35s earmarked for Japan rolled-off a production line in Fort Worth, Texas in November. The F-35s will be stationed at the Misawa Air Base alongside U.S. F-16s from the USAF 35th Fighter Wing.



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TagsJapan Air Self-Defense Force, JASDF, Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, U.S. Air Force Luke Air Force Base, Col. Kurt Gallegos
(Photo : Airbus/IHS) Spy satellite photo shows the six Sukhoi Su-33 multirole fighters from the Admiral Kuznetsov parked on a Russian airbase in Syria.

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Russia has called off naval air strikes against anti-Assad rebels in Syria launched from the dilapidated RFS Admiral Kuznetsov (063), apparently after a complete failure of the aircraft carrier's arrester landing system that couldn't be fixed.



Western intelligence sources reveal the Kuznetsov embarked at least eight Sukhoi Su-33S carrier based air superiority fighters and four of the new MiG-29KR multirole fighters for its deployment to the Eastern Mediterranean.



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On Nov. 14, one of the carrier's Cold War-era Mikoyan MiG-29KR naval multirole fighters crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off during the aging carrier's first bombing mission against anti-Assad rebels.



"An air accident involving a sea-based MIG-29K occurred as a result of an equipment fault during an approach for deck landing several kilometers away from the aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov," said the Russian defense ministry in a press release.



"The pilot ejected himself from the aircraft and was taken to the Admiral Kuznetsov by a crew of the search and rescue service."



Russian state-owned media a week later said the MiG-29KR that crashed was circling Kuznetsov due to a problem with one of the carrier's four arrestor cables when both its jet engines failed, forcing the pilot to eject.



Western defense analysts, however, say three MiG-29s took off from the Kuznetsov and flew in the direction of Syria. Shortly after take-off, one of the MiGs appeared to have mechanical difficulties and turned back towards the carrier.



The Russian jet didn't make it and crashed into the sea while attempting to land. A Russian rescue helicopter picked up the pilot.



The failure of Kuznetsov's arresting gear system has forced the Russian Navy to remove all its fighters from the carrier and station them at the Humaymim Air Base in Latakia province, Russia's largest air base in Syria a few days later.



Western reconnaissance photos show the carrier's Sukhoi and MiG jets parked alongside other jets belonging to the Russian Air Force. The carrier's jets have been launching air strikes from Humaymin for the past two weeks.



The Kuznetsov isn't a true aircraft carrier in the same category as U.S. Navy carriers but is classified by the Russian Navy as a heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser.



She's the largest ship ever built by Russia and is the flagship of the navy's Northern Fleet. She will be retired by the 2020s after being commissioned in the 1990s.



Western military analysts doubt her seaworthiness since this aircraft carrier's history has been marred by an unending series of engine failures and other technical mishaps. During her fourth deployment to the Mediterranean in 2011, she was shadowed by the United States Sixth Fleet that anticipated she would sink along the way given her poor condition.



The Admiral Kuznetsov caught fire during a previous deployment to the Mediterranean in 2009, an incident that killed one sailor. Her condition was so pitiful, Russian tugboats had to escort her in case her engines broke down.



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TagsRussia, RFS Admiral Kuznetsov, Aircraft carrier, Syria, Mediterranean Sea, Sukhoi Su-33, MiG-29KR
(Photo : Getty Images) China hopes that all the concerned parties in the current dispute will continue the dialogue process to sort out all the differences and reach an impartial settlement based on United Nations resolutions and Gulf Cooperation Council initiatives.

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China on Friday said that it disapproves the formation of a new government in Yemen by the Houthi 's rebel group. The disapproval in a way reaffirms Beijing's support to the exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has been backed by the Saudi royal family.



"We do not approve of any side in Yemen taking any unilateral actions that complicate the situation, and believe this is not beneficial to a political resolution of the Yemen issue," China's foreign ministry said in a brief statement.



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China hopes that all the concerned parties in the current dispute will continue the dialogue process to sort out all the differences and reach an impartial settlement based on United Nations resolutions and Gulf Cooperation Council initiatives, the statement added.



China Offers Support to Saudi-Backed Mansour Hadi Government



China's President Xi Jinping publicly offered support to Saudi-backed Mansour Hadi government during his historic Middle Eastern tour in January. Xi offered his support during his stopover at Saudi Arabia and before his scheduled visit to Iran.



Beijing's support was seen as a huge diplomatic victory for Saudi Arabia, which was busy fighting a proxy war against the Houthi rebel that was being openly backed by Iran.



The support marked China's rare interference in oil rich Middle Eastern region. Traditionally, China has shown minimal interest in the region, allowing US and other western forces to exert their influence in the Arab world.



Yemen Ravaged by Decades of Civil war



Yemen has been caught in an insurgency battle between minority Shia and majority Sunni communities for more than a decade now. The insurgency began in 2004 when Shia cleric Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi announced an uprising against the Yemeni government.



The Sunni majority Saudi Arabia and Shia majority Iran soon joined the civil war in support of their respective communities and also to protect their own regional interests.



Foreign experts say that both Riyadh and Tehran have entered the civil war with the aim to stake their influence in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation.



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(Photo : Getty Images) President Xi has called for Chinese troops to focus on improving their combat readiness through technological development.

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Citing the importance of technology rather than relying solely on sheer force of numbers, President Xi Jinping on Saturday announced a further reduction to China's 2.3 million-strong military and pushed for improvement to its combat readiness and capabilities.



Last year, President Xi ordered the downsizing of the world's largest military, cutting 300,000 troops. The move is expected to be implemented next year.



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Xi, in a speech he delivered at a conference on military reforms, said the Chinese military ought to be focusing on acquiring proficiency in information and technology-based new means of warfare and not rely solely on its massive number.



Military reforms



As chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), the overall command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), Xi said China's military needs further reforms to keep up with the modern times.



"This is a major, inevitable change. We must seize the opportunity and make breakthrough," the state-run news agency, Xinhua, quoted the president as saying.



Xi said the "unprecedented" troop reduction is part of Beijing's move to streamline the country's military forces and modernize their capabilities with new weapons and technology.



Ballistic missile tests



President Xi's message comes on the heels of China's ballistic missile tests launched last month which military analysts have called a "display of force."



The Chinese leader emphasized that the troop downsizing must happen in conjunction with improving the combat readiness of the military which means equipping them with the skills and proficiency to handle technology-based new methods of warfare.



"There have been new changes in terms of the military's size, structure and formation, which features smaller in size, more capable in strength, modularization, and multi-functionality, with scientific factors playing bigger roles," Xi said.



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TagsPresident Xi Jinping, People's Liberation Army, military reforms, Central Military Commission, military reduction, information and technology, china
(Photo : Getty Images) A coal mine gas explosion killed at least 32 people in the Inner Mongolia region on Saturday.

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A coal mine explosion in the autonomous region of the Inner Mongolia region in northern China has left 32 workers dead on Sunday, Chinese state media Xinhua reported, in a yet another grim reminder of the country's poor record in industrial safety.



Initial media reports on Saturday have put the death toll number to 17, but the figure is expected to rise as hordes of workers are still trapped inside the coal mine.



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Xinhua claimed that out of the 181 laborers initially trapped in the underground coal mine, at least 149 have so far been rescued.



The state media agency further claimed that the blast happened in the afternoon at a mine operated by Baoma Mining Co. Ltd and was caused by a huge gas explosion.



In another major coal mine accident, 21 miners in northeast China's Heilongjiang province have reportedly been found dead, after they were all trapped in the underground coal mine for four days. Four people have been so far arrested in connection with blast.



The coal mine accidents have come closely on the heels of major power plant accident in Fengcheng city in Northern China, which killed nearly 74 people. Following the accident, President Xi had urged authorities to take necessary precautions to avoid further industrial accidents across the country.



Industrial accidents are quite common in China, with poor safety facilities at workplaces often blamed for these disastrous accidents. Experts say that there is still a lot more work to do to improve workplace safety across industrial place despite stupendous economic progress made over the two decades.



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Photo credit: SammyTippet.org

"The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his" (Genesis 49:10).

Here is a little lesson in biblical genealogy.

God had promised Abraham all the world would be blessed through him. That promise passed down to Isaac and then to Jacob. But then a large question appeared. Jacob had 12 sons. Which one would be chosen to carry on the promise?

By rights it should have been Reuben, the firstborn. But he sinned and was passed over. The same is true of Simeon and Levi. When Jacob came to his fourth son Judah, he uttered one of the most amazing prophecies in all the Bible. For 2000 years Genesis 49:8-12 has been regarded as one of the greatest Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Although Jacob was old and dying, with eyes of faith he saw through the mist to a day when the tribe of Judah would take leadership in Israel. The people of Judah would be lion-like in courage and strength. Their tribe would lead the way; the other 11 tribes would follow.

The scepter (the sign of regal authority) would rest with Judah until "Shiloh" comes. "Shiloh" is either a proper name for the Messiah, or it is a Hebrew contraction meaning "he to whom it (the scepter) belongs." If it is a proper name, then "Shiloh" means "the one who brings peace." That may well be correct, since Isaiah 9:6-7 calls Messiah the "Prince of Peace. If it is a Hebrew contraction, Jacob is prophesying the Messiah will be the rightful ruler of the world. Both thoughts are true, and it is possible both thoughts are intended by the expression "Shiloh."

Here is a simple outline of Jacob's prophecy concerning Judah in Genesis 49:8-12:

Judah will be the dominant tribe in Israel (v. 8). Judah will be lion-like in courage and strength (v. 9). The Messiah will come from the tribe of Judah (v. 10) His coming brings peace, joy and prosperity (v. 11-12)

Although Jacob predicts dominance for Judah, this prophecy was not fulfilled for many centuries. Israel's earliest leaders came from other tribes:

Moses from Levi

Joshua from Ephraim

Gideon from Manasseh

Samson from Dan

Samuel from Ephraim

Saul from Benjamin

But after Saul was rejected, God chose a man from the tribe of Judah to be king. That man was David. Do you recall the first verse of the New Testament? The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1). You could just as well add son of Judah, son of Jacob.

When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce she had been chosen by God to give birth to the Messiah, these were the words used to describe what he (the Messiah) would accomplish: "And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever" (Luke 1:33).

One other note. When the Apostle John tried to describe Jesus Christ in Revelation 5:5, he called him "the Lion of the tribe of Judah." That picture of Christ goes all the way back to Genesis 49:10. When our Lord came the first time, he came as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). When he returns to the earth, he will come as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah." The story of redemption stretches from the first pages of the Bible to the last pages of the Bible.

When we celebrate Christmas, we don't start at Bethlehem. Since history is His Story, we remember God's plan started in Eden and continues to the end of history.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that your plan spans the centuries. Help us to believe in Jesus, the great Lamb of God who one day soon will return to earth as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Amen.

Musical bonus : Andrew Peterson recorded a musical version of Matthews genealogy. Enjoy this bluegrass version called Matthews Begats.

You can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to sign up for the free email sermon.
18 Islamists Arrested in Egypt for Burning Down Christian Homes

Egyptian authorities arrested at least 18 suspected radical Islamists following last week's mob attack on Christian homes and properties in the Sohag Governorate in Upper Egypt.

The attack injured at least four Christian Copts, destroyed a Christian-run guest house, burned down four Coptic-owned shops and badly damaged nine houses.

The attack was reportedly prompted by rumours that Christians were planning to build a new church in the village of Manshiet El-Naghamish, The Catholic Herald reported, citing the non-profit group International Christian Concern as its source.

The rumours turned out to be unfounded as what was being built in the community was just a four-story building to be used by residents as a community centre, nursery and retirement home, officials said.

The residents of the village were actually still securing a government permit to build an actual place of worship in the village, but have not been granted yet the necessary permits.

More than 2,000 Christians live in the village and the nearest church is more than three miles away. They reportedly wanted to build a church in their own village to make it easier for them to worship. It's not known whether they will still push through with their plan following the latest attack.

Samir Nashed, a Christian resident of El-Naghamish, said the attack appeared to be well organised as the attackers came to the village carrying weapons.

"Following the Muslim prayers, a great deal of fanatic Muslim young men [came]. Some of them were carrying gas canisters and rocks while others came armed with automatic rifles, clubs, machetes and knives. They attacked Copts and Coptic-owned houses," Mashed said.

He said the attackers appeared intent on causing maximum damage to the Christian neighbourhood since they "cut [off] the road so that the fire trucks could not enter the village" and that "they also cut off the water and power supply to the village."
Billy Graham Team assists California fire victims

A Billy Graham Rapid Response Team of crisis-trained chaplains was deployed this week to southern California where mega blazes of fire have destroyed more than 800 homes and thousands of acres of land in the last few days.



The Billy Graham response team will focus on bringing hope and comfort to the victims, while Samaritans Purse, which is being coordinately deployed, will be assisting people physically.



Samaritans Purse, an international relief organisation, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association both share Franklin Graham as their president and CEO.



Once again this year, our hearts and prayers go out to our friends in California who are facing the ravages of these fires, said Jack Munday, director of the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, in a statement Tuesday.



The pain and despair are only intensified by the fact that next week is Thanksgiving and this joyous time of year is filled with so much heartache for the victims.



California has experienced an increase in the number of fires this year compared to previous years.



Some 9,600 fires occurred this year compared to 5,961 in 2007, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection figures. The cost of fighting the fires in 2008 has cost at least $464.5 million.



We are in the mega-fire era, said Ken Frederick, a spokesman for the US Bureau of Land Management in Boise, Idaho, and a former firefighter with 13 years of experience, to Bloomberg news. California has definitely been the epicentre of wildfire activity this year.



More than 1.42 million acres have burned in California in 2008, up from 1.16 million in 2007, according to state and federal statistics.



Californias fire season is also lasting longer than before. Usually in the past the fire season began in August and ended by Christmas. Now the fire season lasts year round. Experts say the states severe two-year drought is among the factors contributing to the spike in wildfires.



The Billy Graham Rapid Response trip to California this week marks the ministrys third deployment to southern California in the past five years. Similar wildfire-related deployments occurred in 2003 and 2007.



During last years deployment, more than 170 chaplains travelled to California and prayed and comforted about 1,900 people over four weeks.



In addition to the Billy Graham team, The Salvation Army has mobile canteens stationed in Southern California to provide hot meals to fire victims as well as firefighters in emergency shelters. On Monday, The Salvation Army reported that its units remain on duty to provide food and water and will stay on as long as they are needed.



A separate Billy Graham Rapid Response Team is continuing its work with Hurricane Ike victims in Texas.




Christians commence California firestorm clean-up operation

News about the widespread California wildfire have faded from the headlines, but Christian organisations and churches remain behind to help clean up the overwhelming destruction left by the fires.



|PIC1|Christian relief groups and local churches were some of the first to respond to the wildfires that ravaged southern California last week. Workers prepared meals and drinks for firefighters and evacuated locals. They provided counseling and comfort to distressed victims who fled their homes leaving everything behind except the clothes they had on.



At one point up to a million people were estimated to have been evacuated.



Christian Reformed World Relief Committee's Disaster Response Services (CRWRC-DRS) said it was holding a house-to-house needs assessment and reconstruction response among 1,800 homes and businesses that were destroyed. The church relief group is in contact with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the American Red Cross and other agencies to plan to assist homeowners.



"With church groups from other parts of the country ready to assist, we are coordinating possible follow-up work with evacuees to help assess their losses, their eligibility for aid, and their available resources," said CRWRC-DRS director Bill Adams.



They plan to focus on the most vulnerable survivors - those without insurance, the elderly, handicapped, and those surviving below the poverty line.



CRWRC-DRS also rebuilt homes in low-income neighbourhoods in the East hills near San Diego after wildfires in 2003.



International Christian relief and development agency World Vision is also working among survivors. It is distributing household basics to area families including bottled water, face masks, bedding and blankets, clothing, personal hygiene products, diapers and baby food, ground coffee and cleaning supplies.



World Vision will distribute the goods to local churches and community organisations who will in turn distribute them to evacuees.



Corporations who have donated supplies to World Vision's California fire effort include Cardinal Health, Cypress Medical, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, KIDS and others to amount to an estimated $2 million worth in product.



"It will take time for life to return to normal here," said Jo Carcedo, World Vision's area director for Southern California.



"World Vision is especially concerned about families whose homes have been completely destroyed, who didn't have insurance, who may have lost their jobs or who were already struggling financially," Carcedo said. "We'll continue working closely with our church partners in affected communities to make sure these families receive the support they need to get back on their feet."



Saddleback Valley Community Church has also pitched in to help provide food, housing, comfort and counseling to victims.



"It's been a busy, busy week," Saddleback senior pastor Rick Warren said on CNN's "Larry King Live" show last week. The 128-acre campus served as an evacuation centre for refugees and as a "refreshment centre" for about 500 firefighters.



"We have been housing animals, pets, feeding people," noted Warren.



The megachurch pastor said more than 600 people from his church's college ministry went into the hardest-hit areas of San Diego to pray, clean up and offered help.



In total, there were 23 wildfires in Southern California which was blamed for at least 14 deaths, more than 508,000 scorched acres, and the destruction of over 1,600 homes.
Does the Bible Really Prohibit Women From Speaking in Church?

1 Corinthians 14:33-35 is one of those passages in the Bible that you sometimes wish wasn't there, but it is. The scripture, which gives specific commands to women to be silent in church gatherings, has been misinterpreted as a misogynistic appeal that only "proves that God doesn't value women as much as men."

This of course is not true. Galatians 3:28 affirms God's equal value for everyone. It says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

1 Corinthians 14:33-35 says, "As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church."

One might automatically think of this scripture as an absolute command with no need for context and background. But just like any given law, there is indeed a proper context and background that makes this command a scenario-based one. In this text, Paul speaks to an unorganised Corinthian church that has a circus for a church gathering. You have people speaking in tongues, prophesying, asking questions and preaching all simultaneously as one.

In response to this, Paul puts structure to the gatherings by ordering that tongues be ceased, prophecy be done one by one, and women asked to remain silent to give men the chance to preach. This of course does not mean that women are no longer allowed to preach, prophesy and teach. In fact, 1 Corinthians 11:5 urges that women prophesy in the right settings and conditions.

Another context we need to take into consideration was the cultural background of the time and proximity. The church of Corinth is not a congregation that was born two weeks ago. It was a church built by people of a different time and a different culture all together. What may mean something to us will mean something completely different to the people of that time.

What was ancient Corinth like? It existed in a day and age and in a culture where it was more beneficial and secure for women to refuse certain cultural and societal roles  and leadership was one of them.

But today, that's no longer the case. It's now safe and beneficial for women to lead. That gives all women just as much right to spiritually and strategically lead as men.

One thing that 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 can teach us, however, is that order matters to God and that one must submit before they are capable of leading. This is true for both men and women.
Firefighters hold line on two California wildfires

Exhausted California firefighters worked on Friday to contain two wildfires threatening homes along the coast before sundown, when shifting winds were expected to give the blazes more power.



Fire crews have been battling a siege of more than 1,000 blazes that have blackened nearly a half million acres across the state since lightning storms in early June ignited drought- and disease-plagued brush and trees.



The Basin Complex and Gap fires, burning about 170 miles (273 km) apart, are being fed by dense, tall grass and brush chaparral in steep, rocky terrain that has not burned in some places for more than half a century.



The Gap fire, considered the state's top priority because of its proximity to homes in Goleta, a town of about 30,000 about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles, burned within a few feet of dozens of homes overnight and still threatens some 2,600 homes.



The fire started on Tuesday evening along a ridge in the Los Padres National Forest, about 3 miles north of Goleta, and has since grown to 5,400 acres (2,185 hectares). The cause is still under investigation, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea.



Fire crews on the ground spent Friday afternoon building lines around the main blaze and clearing brush around homes and buildings, while air crews tried to smother flames with water and fire retardant in the fire's path.



"(The afternoon) is when the fire is most active," Florea said. "The humidity has come up a little today. That helped."



But during the night, moisture-laden coastal winds have been giving way to a dry, offshore flow known as a "sundowner" that has pushed the fire downhill toward Goleta, he said.



Evacuation orders remained in effect for 1,700 area homes, and residents likely would not be allowed back for several days, Florea said. "This fire siege has been going on since June 8," Florea said. "Cumulative fatigue becomes a factor."



Farther up the coast, firefighters worked on Friday to cut trees and brush away from homes and buildings in Big Sur ahead of the slow-moving Basin Complex Fire burning in the foothills above the scenic community.



The blaze, which started June 21 and has grown to more than 65,000-acres (26,000-hectares), sent a finger of flames downhill overnight toward the historic Ventana Inn before firefighters tamped it out with foam, fire information officer Rudy Evenson said on Friday.



The fire also crept up to the Pacific Coast Highway about five miles north of Big Sur on Friday but was easily doused before it crossed over, Evenson said. About 25 miles (40 kms) of the coastal highway remained shut down.



"We had a pretty good morning - it was pretty cool and quiet," Evenson said late on Friday afternoon. "It's kind of hard to say what's going to happen. The wind is definitely picking it up a little bit."



Fire crews have waged a house-to-house battle over the tree- and grass-fed Basin Complex fire, and so far have gained just 5 percent containment and did not expect to fully contain it until the end of the month.



The blaze has been burning along wind-whipped ridgetops, steadily progressing northwest toward Pico Colorado, a community of about 2,000 people who are under an evacuation advisory, Evenson said.



About 1,800 homes and businesses in Big Sur remained under a mandatory evacuation order, although Evenson said it was difficult to tell whether residents of the spread-out, remote homes had complied. The fire has destroyed about 20 homes.



Big Sur is about 140 miles (225 km) south of San Francisco.
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The Satanic Temple is striking out against the Lone Star State's new rules requiring burial or cremation of aborted fetal remains.

The controversial religious group boldly declared its members would not comply with the Texas Department of Health and Human Services's new enforcement plans, citing First Amendment concerns.

"The Satanic Temple believes burial rites are a well-established component of religious practice. This is undisputed in the entirety of US legal history," the group said in a statement published on its homepage, adding that the Temple's belief in the "inviolability of the body" stands in direct conflict with the new rules.

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"The First Amendment protects our right to practice our beliefs, and under the Religious Freedom Reform Act (RFRA), the State must present a compelling reason for why they want to enforce rules that inhibit adherence to our religious practices," the group continued in the release also posted on Instagram.

The new regulations are set to take effect Dec. 19 and would ban facilities from disposing fetal remains as biological medical waste.

Gov. Greg Abbott's office touted the changes as affirming "the value and dignity of all life" and expressed hope that the legislature would "enshrine" the rules into law during the 2017 session.

The Satanic Temple - like other pro-choice groups - slammed the rules as anti-choice.

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"Clearly, the State of Texas has no compelling reason because these rules were not enacted to promote health and safety, but rather to harass and burden women who terminate their pregnancies," the Temple's release said.

"For these reasons, members of The Satanic Temple are not required to comply with the Texas rule on fetal remains. Nevertheless, we will require legal support to protect the rights of our members."

The rule would not apply to women who have abortions or miscarriages at home.

A federal judge recently halted a similar requirement in Indiana, signed into law by Gov. Mike Pence in March. That broader legislation also nixed abortions due to genetic abnormalities, according to the Associated Press.
Texas Rangers are investigating the death of a man who was in police custody.

Robert Velasquez, 39, was found unresponsive about 8:15 a.m. Saturday in his cell at the Rosenberg jail. He was taken to the OakBend Medical Center in Richmond, where he died, authorities said.
A longtime agreement with a law firm is on hold after three members of the Pasadena City Council recently questioned if the contract should be awarded through competitive bidding.

"I'm not looking to rubber stamp a contract just because that's the way it's always been done," Councilman Cody Ray Wheeler said during a pre-council meeting discussion on Nov. 15.

At question is renewal of a contract involving collection services for delinquent property taxes and past-due court fees. The contract generates multimillion dollar revenues for the Pasadena-based law firm Roy D Mease and Associates LLC.

The contract provides for a commission to be paid each delinquent account for court fees. That amount equals 30 percent of the total debt including penalties and fees.

Regarding delinquent tax payments, the commission is 20 percent of outstanding debt collected, which is charged to the taxpayer as an additional penalty.

An open records request has been submitted to the city for information on the collection rate and the monthly collection revenues the city receives.

"When is the last time we went out for a (bid request) on this service?" Wheeler asked.

An agreement for collections of both delinquent property taxes and court fees was awarded via competitive bidding in 2004, when the council voted to award the contract to Mease's company. Since then, the agreement has been extended without any change to the fee structure several times with the council's approval.

"To me, it's concerning that we're re-upping this contract without actually looking into whether this is the best deal for the city," Wheeler said.

The firm's owner, Roy Mease, is a former council member who is president of the city's economic development corporation and a Port of Houston commissioner appointed by Mayor Johnny Isbell.

Wheeler questioned Mease's status as a "city hall insider" and to what extend his firm was involved in collecting overdue property taxes.

"Who is actually doing the work, because what appears to be going on is that Mr. Mease has this contract and then he subcontracts the work out to another law firm," Wheeler said. "So, he's just skimming off the top, and we're giving a contract to someone who is well-connected with the city so he can subcontract it out."

Councilwoman Pat Van Houte also had questions.

"There is the issue of what collection rate we're getting and would another firm do a better collection rate," she said."

"That is something worth looking at as far as checking on what some other firms have done for other cities."

Councilman Ornaldo Ybarra agreed with Van Houte and asked if Mayor Isbell would agree to defer the vote until more details about the collection rate could be researched by the city staff.

"I do think we need a little more information," Isbell said and agreed to delay the vote until a future meeting.

Mease was not present at the council meeting. However, he later said his firm is not subcontracting the property tax collections work but rather has partnered with another firm.

"They're my partners," Mease said. "What many people don't understand is the tremendous amount of work that does into these property tax collections. For example, I spend a lot of time to get with these people to see if there's a program to get them caught up so they don't lose their house."

Mease estimated the two contracts generate somewhere between $7 million and $9 million in revenue annually for the city.

Property tax accounts become delinquent on Feb. 1 on the year following the tax notice, and then homeowners are charged penalties and interests.

"Then, if the account is delinquent until July 1, the homeowner incurs an additional 20 percent penalty," City Attorney Foy Clark told the council.

Clark said he wasn't sure that the contract involved a subcontractor.

"But, the value is the same to us because the fees are the same," he said.
Once the weather improves, Holy Cross Anglican Church in Cleveland will begin pouring the concrete foundation of its new sanctuary. Church members, led by Father James Monroe, held a ground-breaking on Sunday, Nov. 27, where they blessed the church's future site.

The new sanctuary is located on the church's property on the 100 block of S. Fenner St. in Cleveland but will have a new address of 103 Taft because of how the building will be oriented.

The new building will be 1,750 square feet -- 35 X 50 -- and have a Hardyplank exterior. A portion of the building will be used for a small kitchen and office.

"When it's finished it will look like an old-fashioned clapboard church," Monroe said.

Once the new building is constructed, the church's current building will be sold and moved off-site. The area where the church currently stands will become parking for the new facility.

Replacing the old church became a necessity, Monroe said.

"When we bought that little church, we discovered it had major roof problems. We have been working on it and have now discovered that water has been dripping in behind the walls," he said. "Structurally it cannot be saved."

The new church will accommodate its 35 members and have room for modest growth of up to 75 members. Monroe defended the church's decision to erect a small building.

"I learned something long ago that you don't build a church based on future attendance. There is nothing more demoralizing than a half-empty church," he said.

Though they might be small in numbers, the members of Holy Cross Anglican Church do big things -- like operate a food bank that is open to the public on Fridays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

"Our congregation provides most of the food. Last year at this time I applied for a Walmart grant that got us a lot of stuff. I am sure they will do that again," Monroe said.

Though the Anglican Church is one of the oldest established religions, many people are unaware of its doctrines. Father Monroe explained that the Anglican Church is what the Episcopal Church was 50 years ago.

"It splintered off when the Episcopal Church changed theology. We come right out of the Church of England. We are very traditional, more formal, liturgical and more Catholic in some ways," he said.

Church times are 8:30 and 10 a.m. on Sunday with a healing service at noon on Wednesdays.
Two Liberty County sheriff's deputies are recovering from injuries they received around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30, during the arrest of a 29-year-old Dayton man, Frank Ellis Moss. The incident began after Moss allegedly evaded a traffic-controlled construction site and was stopped for making an unsafe lane change.

According to a statement from Liberty County Sheriff's Capt. Ken DeFoor, one deputy suffered a head injury and a broken jaw and tooth. The deputy was transported to a Houston area hospital for treatment. The second deputy was transported to Liberty-Dayton Regional Medical Center for treatment of a knee injury and was later released.

Moss, who was uninjured, was arrested and charged with Aggravated Assault of a Public Servant and Assault of a Public Servant.

The statement says that several deputies were working traffic control of a large construction site in the 13200 block of SH 146 south of Dayton where heavy equipment and workers' vehicular traffic enters and exits.

Moss reportedly approached the scene and went around a deputy's vehicle, almost striking another vehicle head-on.

"The deputy stopped Moss but before the deputy could confront Moss, [he] 'burned rubber' for approximately 98 feet further down the highway before the deputy stopped him again. Moss was advised he was under arrest but Moss became combative and resisted, yelling that 'Nobody is going to put me in jail,'" DeFoor said.

At that point, Moss reportedly punched the deputy, knocking him to the pavement, the captain said.

"A Second deputy ran up to assist, which resulted in the injury of this second deputy as well. While these two deputies continued to try and effect an arrest of Moss, a third deputy approached and was forced to taze Moss to bring him under control and accomplish the arrest without further injury to anyone else," DeFoor said.

Moss has a prior arrest in 2012 in the city of Dayton for Assault of a Public Servant. He is being held in the Liberty County Jail on two $100,000 bonds.
Submitted

Katie Dousay, a member of the Tarkington FFA chapter, performed on stage and in the spotlight Oct. 19-22 during the 2016 National FFA Convention & Expo in Indianapolis.

Dousay, a Senior at Tarkington High School was selected to play First chair with her Clarinet, and a solo in the National FFA Band.
A Liberty County jury on Oct. 27 rejected a man's assertion that he acted in self-defense and found him guilty of murder in the first degree.

Just 34 days later, following a sentencing hearing, Preston William Repman, 24, was sentenced by the Hon. Mark Morefield, presiding judge in the 75th Judicial District Court of Liberty County, to life in a Texas penal institution for the killing of his grandfather, 66-year-old Melvin James Linck on Nov. 1, 2015. Repman was also ordered to reimburse $4,500 to the Texas Crime Victim's Compensation Fund for funeral expenses.

Linck was stabbed to death by his grandson, Repman, in their home at 236 CR 430, just eight miles south of Dayton near FM 1409. Linck, and his wife Murl, had been allowing Repman to live with them while he was being supervised by Liberty County Adult Probation.

At 18 years old in August of 2008, Repman sexually molested an 8-year-old boy in Pasco County, Fla. In January 2012, he was convicted of one count of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child less than 12 years of age and two counts of lewd or lascivious exhibition with a child less than 16 years of age. He was placed on six years of probation and ordered to register as a sex offender. His probation was transferred to Liberty County in 2012.

The relationship between the grandson and his grandparents began to sour in the fall of 2015. On the night of Sunday, Nov. 1, Linck and his wife had just returned home from a trip to a casino in Louisiana.

When they returned home, an intoxicated Linck confronted his grandson telling him to find some other place to live and the verbal confrontation turned physical.

According to the District Attorney Logan Pickett's account during trial, Linck grabbed Repman by the shirt. Repman broke Linck's hold pushing Linck backward, causing them both to fall. The two exchanged punches at each other and, after being separated, Repman told his grandfather, "I'll kill you, you old bastard!"

Defense attorney Elizabeth Coker said Linck got up and proceeded to his bedroom followed by his wife to retrieve one of three guns in his bedroom. There was a struggle in the bedroom as the grandmother tried to retrieve the gun from the grandfather.

"In fact, the struggle was so violent, the grandmother bit the grandfather's arm in an effort for him to lose the grip on the gun. The bite mark and a bruise was found in the autopsy," Coker said. The autopsy also revealed the grandfather had Xanax in his blood.

A friend of Repman's, who was at the residence at the time helping repair his XBox, begged him to leave, but Repman refused to leave his grandmother, the defense attorney said. When Linck and his wife exited the bedroom, Linck was close behind his wife with his hands on her shoulders and, according to Repman's friend, yelled the grandfather had a gun.

The grandson walked into the kitchen, pulled open a utensil drawer, removed several utensils and a knife, replaced the utensils, turned and advanced toward his grandmother Murl.

When Murl observed Repman with the knife, she yelled, "No, Preston, no!"

Linck then moved Murl to his right, and leaned forward so he could see into the kitchen.

It was at that point that the grandson stabbed his grandfather, the DA said, slicing the left side of his face and then stabbing him in the chest. The wound to the chest cut the aorta to the grandfather's heart and he bled to death on his dining room floor.

Repman never fled the house, but made the call to 911 and waited for the authorities believing he was justified, Coker said.

"The defendant arguably committed the two worst acts one human could do to another -- molesting a child and killing another person," said Pickett.

"The terrible acts speak for themselves and the life sentence given by Judge Morefield aligns with the DA's office view of what those kind of people deserve," Pickett said.

Repman must serve a minimum of 30 years, day-for-day, before he becomes eligible for consideration for parole.

"The issue boiled down to the contention of self-defense," said Coker. "The law is that you put yourself in the shoes of that person at the time and determine if they have a reasonable fear and they had justification to use deadly force to protect themselves and or to protect a third party." Coker, a court-appointed attorney, said her client truly believed he was acting to save himself and his grandmother from the drunken grandfather.

"As an attorney, I respect the jury's decision when they reached the conclusion that it was murder. Unfortunately, due to a prior felony out-of-state conviction, we felt it was in our client's best interest not to testify in the trial," she said.

Despite the judge giving self-defense instructions to the jury, the defense attorney also believes because the jury didn't get to hear from her client, they were truly unable to put themselves in his shoes that night.

An appeal was filed the same day in the 9th District Court of Appeals in Beaumont.

The appeal is on the grounds of sufficiency of evidence for murder, Coker said. Mike Davis was co-counsel for the defense.

First Assistant District Attorney Steve Taylor was lead prosecutor and Assistant District Attorney Koby Hoffpauir sat second chair.
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The local branch of an Islamic organization called Sunday for a hate crime investigation after a Muslim-owned business in Galveston was targeted by vandals.

Asad Khan found the front of his Post Office Street restaurant covered in bacon last weekend, just days after discovering bacon grease smeared on the front door handles.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations-Houston fired back Sunday in a press release.

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"Bias is the only reasonable explanation for the use of bacon in vandalism targeting a Muslim-owned business, and law enforcement authorities should keep that possible hate motive in mind when investigating this case and in bringing charges against the alleged perpetrator," said CAIR-Houston Executive Director Mustafaa Carroll.

Khan, who immigrated from Pakistan in 1993, opened ZaZa Bar & Bites less than a year ago - but now he's worried about his employees' safety.

On top of the bacon incidents, Khan said he's received a slew of threatening phone calls telling him to leave the country.

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The new restaurant owner filed a police report, but it hasn't netted any arrests.

The Galveston vandalism is just the latest in a slew of anti-Muslim incidents since the Nov. 8 election.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented nearly 1,000 hate incidents targeting a wide swathe of minority groups, while CAIR has noted more than 100 targeting Muslims since Election Day.

In Houston, a flier found at a Galleria-area apartment complex sparked a police investigation last week.

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"Attention all Mexicans, Arabs and non-American 'people.' This is a warning to leave this alt-left proclaimed property immediately before we remove you," the note said.

"Leave our country now or you will be sent back where you came from like the animals you are."

It was not immediately clear whether the hateful posting at the upscale Avenue R apartment complex was a hoax, but management chose to take it seriously.

"We are cooperating fully with the police and join our residents in hoping that the party or parties responsible for posting this flier are apprehended. If the facts show that any of our Avenue R residents had anything to do with the flier, they will be asked to leave our community immediately and their lease will be terminated," spokeswoman Margie Fielder said in a statement.
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Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter this weekend to voice his support for President-elect Donald Trump's controversial call to Taiwan.

The Texas Republican called the conversation an "improvement" over talks with leaders in Iran and Cuba.

"I would much rather have Donald Trump talking to President Tsai than to Cuba's Raul Castro or Iran's Hasan Rouhani," Cruz tweeted Saturday.

STRAINED HISTORY: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz have habit of insulting each other

Trump's call with the island's leader, President Tsai Ing-Wen, broke with decades of tradition, a long-standing U.S. policy and sent ripples of concern through the diplomatic community.

Although Taiwan considers itself a sovereign nation, China claims the island as part of its country. Since the U.S. chose to honor a "one China" policy with Beijing in 1979, American presidents have not openly communicated with Taiwanese leaders.

While Democrats in Washington have warned that the move could spark a war, a number of GOP leaders - like Cruz - have come to Trump's defense.

ANGRY VOTERS: Ted Cruz promises torches, pitchforks in streets if Trump doesn't deliver

Last weekend, the junior Texas senator visited ABC's "This Week" to warn U.S. officials against attending former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's funeral.

"I very much hope that we don't see any U.S. government officials going to Fidel Castro's funeral. I hope we don't see Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton and Democrats lining up to lionize a murderous tyrant and thug," he told Martha Raddatz.

"If you wouldn't go to Pol Pot's funeral or Stalin's funeral or Mao's funeral because they were murderous communist dictators then you shouldn't be doing what Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau are doing, which is celebrating Fidel Castro, a murderous communist dictator."
The governor of a state in Mexico has called on residents to boycott the Texas town of McAllen for shopping for 15 days.

The reason: They want to get President-elect Donald Trump's attention after he moved to keep 800 jobs in Indiana at a $7 million price tag.
In a little more than a year, a self-proclaimed "millennial" has become the queen of the conservative commentator circuit, racking up the social media views and controversy along her route.

Tomi Lahren, 24, launched her blistering, speed-talking broadcast career in 2014 as an anchor for One America News Network, an independent cable news outlet. Her most talked-about screed came in July 2015 when she criticized Obama's response to the Chatanooga attack that killed five members of the U.S. military.
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Alaska is witnessing its coldest air in almost two years, and some of the biting chill is forecast to plunge into the western United States in about a week's time.

In Fairbanks on Tuesday morning, the temperature tanked to minus-31 degrees, ending a 624-day stretch in which it was warmer than that - the second longest on record. Tuesday afternoon, the mercury only recovered to minus-21, ending a record-long 658-day stretch with highs above minus-10.

It was even colder in Bettles, Alaska, on Tuesday, where the temperature dropped to minus-41 with a bone-chilling wind chill of minus-53.

Statewide, it was the first time Alaska's daily temperature index was significantly below normal in almost a year.

This morning, some locations in our 49th state plummeted as low as minus-40 to minus-45 degrees.

Although the weather in the Last Frontier is cold compared with the past two years, it has been much colder in the past. Alaska's coldest November temperature of minus-62 was set in 1970 at Prospect Creek.

Through October this year, Alaska was having its warmest year on record.

But it's cold now and expected to stay cold for at least another week or so. For the first time since February 2014, the National Weather Service predicts much of the state to be colder than normal in its six- to 10-day outlook.

As the cold continues to build over Alaska and western Canada over the next week, some of it will begin to bleed south.

Computer models are unanimous in bringing a significant blast of cold air to the western half of the United States in about six to eight days. On Wednesday afternoon next week, temperatures are forecast to be 20 to 30 degrees colder than normal in much of the Rockies and western Plains.

While the exact numbers are subject to shift, this would mean highs in the teens in Denver and Billings, Mont., and the 20s around Salt Lake City.

Some of this cold air is likely to shift toward the eastern half of the country in eight to 10 days, but models tend to suggest it will lose some of its intensity.

When the cold assaults the western United States this time next week and clashes with milder air to the east, a storm is likely to form, producing heavy snow west of its center and potentially strong thunderstorms to the east. It is far too early to pin down the specific storm track, but the central United States should start to monitor the situation in the coming days.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post
Carlton, Hofferkamp and Jenks Cares Program is partnering with the New Danville community during Christmas.

New Danville is a local nonprofit and a self-sustaining master-planned community where adults with intellectual and development disabilities can live, learn, work and grow. New Danville recently opened its first retail store at Market Street in The Woodlands.

The New Danville store will celebrate the "Twelve Days of Christmas" with a special BOGO 50 percent sale Dec. 12-24. Each day spotlights different items for this event, all lovingly handcrafted from the New Danville master planned community.

Carlton, Hofferkamp and Wealth Cares Program orchestrated the marketing campaign to help drive additional business into the New Danville store. Store workers are all volunteers, and 100 percent of proceeds from the store go d back to the master planned community.

Additionally, the Cares Program will bring Santa and Mrs. Claus to the New Danville master-planned community in Willis during their annual Christmas luncheon.

"This wonderful collaboration is an excellent and important example of why creating community partnerships matters and we believe this initiative will have a tremendous lasting impact in our community. This is truly the core of our Cares Program  helping our community thrive." said Jim Carlton, Managing Director of Carlton, Hofferkamp and Jenks Wealth Management.

Kathy Sanders, founder and CEO of New Danville said, "The New Danville community is proud and honored to have been selected by Carlton, Hofferkamp and Jenks Wealth Management as a partner in their Cares Program. The "Twelve Days of Christmas" initiative will bring much-needed awareness of New Danville and the special-needs population it serves while helping to generate product sales necessary to support our programs and services."

To learn more about New Danville, visit www.newdanville.org. To learn more about Carlton, Hofferkamp and Cares Program, visit www.chjwealthmanagement.com.
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The Conroe ISD JROTC Programs took a moment at the annual Salute to Veterans Parade Friday, Nov. 11, to recognize Cadet Seth Huskey, of The Woodlands, and present him with the Air Force Junior ROTC Gold Valor Award at the event.

In his introduction, Lt. Col. David C. "Chris" McMartin, AFJROTC teacher at The Woodlands High School, shared that on Saturday, May 14, 2016, Huskey was serving as a lifeguard for an annual Ironman triathlon. During the race, he noticed a man struggling in the open water of the lake and calling for help during the swimming portion of the event. Huskey took immediate action by jumping off his kayak and swimming to rescue the man who was roughly twice his own body weight. He risked his own life to grab the man, take him to a nearby kayak for assessment, and keep him safe and calm.
Two children are dead after a high-speed wreck that left four others in the hospital -- and car parts and glass scattered across the road Saturday night northeast of Houston.

Around 7 p.m., a man in a white SUV was weaving in and out of traffic on FM 1960 in Huffman when he lost control on the wet roads and spun out into oncoming traffic, authorities said.
Cheering crowds pressed in around the row of focused competitors as "The Eye of the Tiger" boomed from the speakers. The tension was palpable as the would-be champions powered through their annual face-off.

There was sweat. There was saliva. There were random food crumbs flung in every direction.

It was all in the name of the passion and glory that was the yearly tamale-eating contest at the 6th annual Tamale Festival on Navigation near downtown.

Houston's own John Anthony Gaitan, 46, turned up his tight tamale-eating technique and trashed 24 of the husked treats in just over 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

His soaked shirt speckled in tamale tidbits, the first-time competitor held up the gleaming trophy and grinned for the dozens of spectators enjoying Saturday's foodie-friendly festival.

Launched in 2011, the annual gathering has grown steadily over the years, according to founder Daniel Hinojosa.

"The first time we did just under 1,000. Today, we were preparing for well over 10,000," he said. Unfortunately, the weekend's cool and drizzly weather kept away some of the crowds - but hardcore tamale fans were undeterred.

"Houston is infatuated with tamales," the 42-year-old said. One festival-goer even sported a necklace honoring Tamalito, the event's tamale mascot.

Hinojosa, who also runs a catering company and has plans to launch a restaurant next year, got the idea for a tamale festival while he was enmeshed in the world of competition barbecue.

"I started brainstorming for a good festival," he said, so he combined Houston's tamale pride with his own love for the food - and a new Bayou City institution was born.

Although the rest of the year Hinojosa runs Harris County General Store Barbecue and Catering, launching the tamale-festival also eats up a good bit of time.

"This is a year-long labor of love," he said. But tamales themselves, he explained, are a mostly seasonal food.

"The traditional in Hispanic culture is that tamales are a Christmas season recipe where families get together and make them and present them to each other as gifts," he said.

That's why the festival is typically slated for the first week in December, at the start of "tamale season."

The festival features dozens of vendors, hawking everything from tamales to giant gourmet cupcakes to unexpected specialties like Vietnamese nachos.

"I pride myself on this having small mom and pop businesses," he said. "It's like the ultimate small business Saturday."

To honor Hinojosa's contributions the small business world and the local tamale scene, Councilman Robert Gallegos showed up to read an official proclamation honoring the husk-filled occasion.

"On behalf of Sylvester Turner, mayor of the City of Houston, and my colleagues on City Council we hereby proclaim December 3, 2016 as Tamale Festival Houston day in Houston, Texas," he said to a chorus of raucous cheers.

Among the handful of tamale vendors on scene Saturday was local favorite, Alamo Tamale & Taco. To gear up for their favorite annual event, the nearby eatery calls in around 10 staff to whip up a few hundred tamales in a three-hour cooking craze.

"This is the biggest event of the year because our specialty is tamales," said Alamo supervisor Lucrecia Garza.

For some of the festival's popular tamale-makers, it's just a once-a-year occasion, not a regular specialty.

Debra Mattix of Victoria, who took first place in the chef's choice category of the tamale-tasting contest, said this was her first time competing - but her pork and beef blend wowed the judges.

But for Hinojosa, it's not the contestants who are the real stars of the day.

"The real highlights are the tamales," he said. "They are the real heroes."
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The first shipment of heavy vests to protect Houston officers from high-powered rifle shots has arrived in the city and next week will be handed over to the Houston Police Department.

The 200 vests are part of a 600-unit gift from the Houston Police Foundation and the 100 Club. The super-tough exoskeletons will shield HPD front-line officers following this year's sniper attacks in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La., that killed several lawmen in both instances.

"These vests will stop just about anything," said Tilman J. Fertitta, the Houston Police Foundation chairman who is a billionaire businessman as well as chairman and CEO of Landry's Inc. "Remember, 95 percent of the budget of the Houston Police Department is labor. Only 5 percent is what they need to protect them in safety. ... We're able to give these police officers the right tools to do their job."

Built like a sandwich board with straps, each external vest will cover an officer's abdomen with a ceramic plate on the chest and another on the back to repel shots that could fatally damage organs. The 25-pound units will complement lighter, under-the-clothes vests that largely protect from handgun rounds.

Each heavy vest costs about $289, according to Houston Police Officers' Union vice president Joe Gamaldi.

The Houston Police Foundation - which exists to provides equipment and training HPD cannot afford - will purchase 400 vests, executive director Charlene Floyd said. The other 200 will be donated by the 100 Club, which mainly provides financial support to the families of fallen officers and firefighters in three dozen counties surrounding Houston. That organization, heralded by members with colorful car decals, also purchases life-protecting equipment for police.

With shipping, each vest will run about $300, Floyd said. Altogether, 600 vests will cost about $180,000.

Law enforcement agency leaders nationwide have been seeking ways to provide body-armor protection for officers through vests, helmets and other technology.

Mayor Sylvester Turner and HPOU members were among those at the union headquarters near downtown Friday for the announcement about the first shipment of vests.

"I am just delighted for what has been done by the foundation, and I cannot thank the foundation enough," Turner said. "These Level IV heavy vests definitely make our police officers a lot safer in doing the dangerous jobs that they do every single day ... and I want to thank those who have given money to the foundation to help make this gift, especially, possible for our police officers."

The next 200 vests will be delivered this month, Floyd said.

Each vest can be passed along during the three shifts of a day, potentially protecting three different officers in a 24-hour period. Stored in a backpack, a protective vest can be pulled out and placed over an officer's uniform in the event of an active shooter incident.

Gamaldi added that supporters hope to raise more money to buy additional vests. Interested donors can visit houstonpolicefoundation.org to contribute.
Armed officers guarded a closed-door committee meeting. Discriminatory comments surfaced at City Hall. Latino-backed council members were hustled from chambers by police.

The accounts of perceived intimidation and back-door dealings were detailed during testimony in a closely watched seven-day trial of a federal voting rights lawsuit that wrapped up Friday in a Houston courtroom.

Now, U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal will decide if Pasadena violated the federal Voting Rights Act by reconfiguring its city election system, a ruling that is expected in time for February filing deadlines for May elections in which city council seats and the mayor's job are up for grabs.

A group of Latino voters filed the federal lawsuit, saying city leaders changed the structure of council elections in a deliberate attempt to quell the Hispanic vote.

"The city moved to dilute voting strength just as Latinos were starting to exercise it," said Nina Perales, lead attorney in the suit for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in her closing arguments to the court.

City attorneys argued that leaders did not set out to diminish Hispanic representation by presenting an option to voters to change the city election systems. The growing Latino population has an equal chance to participate in the political process to elect their candidate of choice, said C. Robert Heath, a veteran attorney who specializes in voting rights and election law.

"No one said, 'Vote yes (on the ballot measure) to diminish Hispanic representation,' " he said.

Horrified by comment

The city's election system was changed to eliminate two of the eight single-member district seats and add two at-large council seats. The lawsuit says the change violates the Voting Rights Act by making it harder for Latino-backed candidates to get elected and leading to unfair allocation of resources.

The revisions came in the aftermath of Shelby v. Holder, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that eliminated the requirement for cities to get advance clearance from the Justice Department before they altered their method of holding elections.

Two days after the ruling, Pasadena's mayor, Johnny Isbell - who held the tiebreaking vote in all disputed matters - began drafting a proposal to reconfigure the election system, and it was approved by voters in 2013.

Witnesses testified that the mayor and his backers funneled money and resources to the mostly white, south side of town and tapped into those communities for support. The largely Hispanic north side, however, did not get similar resources.

A Hispanic Republican testified that she attended a meeting where a supporter of the charter change warned a restaurant full of white voters they should back the changes or city government might "turn blue." She said she was horrified by the comment because "blue" was code for Hispanic, since local Hispanics skew Democratic.

On the north side, however, residents faced battered sidewalks, pockmarked roads and backed-up toilets from flooding, Perales said.

Heath argued that the new election system did not dilute the Latino vote, offering expert testimony and copious demographic and election data to support the city's position.

Committee rejects

Under the old system with eight single-member districts, Latino voters had four preferred candidates on council and non-Latino voters had four.

But MALDEF argued that when one seat looked like it might tilt toward the Latinos' choice, the mayor feared he would lose control of the council.

Isbell then called for formation of a committee, which initially was billed as a bond committee but soon turned to revising the city charter.

The charter committee held a closed meeting with police at the door. One committee member, who testified under subpoena, said the committee voted 10-1 to reject the charter amendment, yet the mayor brought it before the city council anyway.

When the issue came up for a vote, one council member was removed from the council meeting after violating a new rule that limited members to two minutes of speaking time. Three of her colleagues marched out behind her and the remaining five votes put the charter proposal on the ballot. At another meeting, a council member was ejected for objecting to the mayor's position.

During the election, the measure passed by 79 votes.
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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Fundatia de Binefacere Caritas Moldova solicita oferte de pret de la companii /furnizori de cozonaci de Craciun
04DARCY-TWEETER2.jpg

Donald Trump picked retired Marine General James Mattis to become secretary of defense. Trump also suggested flag burners should face some sort of punishment.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Retired Marine general James 'Mad Dog' Mattis is Donald 'Mad Tweeter' Trump's pick to be secretary of defense.

Trump let the news of the Mattis pick slip during his 'Thank-you tour' stop in Cincinnati. A formal announcement is expected to be made Monday.

Senator John McCain, whose time as a POW was mocked by Trump, applauded the choice of Mattis. "Without a doubt one of the finest military officers of his generation and an extraordinary leader who inspires a rare and special admiration of his troops. General Mattis has a clear understanding of the many challenges facing the Department of Defense, the U.S. military, and our national security. America will be fortunate to have General Mattis in its service once again."

The confirmation of Mattis will require a waiver of a federal law requiring retired members of the military to have been out of the service for seven years. Mattis last was on active duty three years ago. An exception was granted only once before, when General George Marshall served as defense secretary. Mattis almost certainly will become the second exception.

Reasons for both Republicans and Democrats to like Mattis pick.

Both the Trump and Clinton campaigns had invited Mattis to speak at their conventions.

Mattis has said the U.S. must be forthright and resolute in dealing with "political Islam." "Is political Islam in the best interest of the United States? I suggest the answer is no, but we need to have the discussion. If we won't even ask the question, how do we even recognize which is our side in the fight?"

Mattis called the Iranian regime " the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East." But he also supports not backing out of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, "absent a clear and present violation."

While Trump has a man crush on Putin, Mattis is alarmed by Russia's incursions in Crimea and Ukraine.

Mattis opposes waterboarding. Trump shared that he asked Mattis what his opinion of waterboarding was. Mattis told him he didn't find it effective. He told Trump he thought a beer and a pack of cigarettes would be more useful. Trump came away impressed.

It was a good sign that Trump asked Mattis his opinion on waterboarding, and an even better sign that he listened and learned from the answer he got.

Mattis may also have to explain to Trump that waterboarding U.S. flag burners also is a bad idea, not to mention unconstitutional. When Trump suggested flag burners face some sort of punishment, he likely didn't realize flag burning, as deplorable as it may be, is a form of free speech and thus protected by the first amendment. Mattis might also inform Trump that the proper disposal of an old flag actually calls for burning it completely.

'Mad Dog" Mattis, who is also known as 'Warrior Monk', doesn't own a TV and is a big proponent of reading. Those two details alone should make Mattis a good counter balance to cable news addicted Tweeter-in-Chief Trump.
Screen Shot 2016-12-03 at 6.45.10 PM.png

From left, 9-year-old Aniyla, 8-year-old Shanice and 12-year-old Shaniya.

(Pastor Zach Prosser, special to cleveland.com)

AKRON, Ohio - The four people who died in Saturday morning's house fire were

The house boarded up on Tallmadge Avenue.

identified by their pastor as Omar Riley and Shirley Wallis, and the couple's daughters, 9-year-old Aniyla and 8-year-old Shanice.

The Rev. Zach Prosser, who spent much of Saturday at a hospital with Wallis' surviving 12-year-old daughter, Shaniya, said Shaniya was in critical condition after escaping the burning home.

Prosser told cleveland.com that Riley and Wallis were in a relationship for 12 years and that they and the children were at his Celebration Church in Akron on Wednesday for Night of Hope.

During Night of Hope, items such as hot meals, groceries, medical screenings, haircuts and more were offered to those who are in need.

"Great family, faithful in church," Prosser said. "They were the life of the party. They were a great family."

The Lebron Jame's Family Foundation wrote on Twitter that Aniyla and Shanice were in its Wheels for Education program.

Aniyla was a fourth grader at Forest Hill Community Learning Center. Shanice was a third grader at Seiberling Community Learning Center.

Shaniya is a sixth grader at Hyre Community Learning Center.

A vigil is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday at Celebration Church at 688 Dan Street, Prosser said.

Prosser described the family's three children as full of life.

"Every time they come to church, they would run right up and say, 'Hey pastor."

Prosser said he is accepting cards at the church.

Officials say the fire began around 1:30 a.m. at the home in the 200 block of East Tallmadge Avenue.

Glenn Parker, who also lived at the home, was not at home at the time of the fire. His fiancee, Jennifer Grubbs, jumped out of the attic and was injured.

As of Saturday evening, the Akron Fire Department had not determined the cause, but a spokesperson said there were no smoke detectors found in the home.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella asked Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Monday to delay his resignation until Parliament passes the budget, which is expected to be approved within days.

Renzi said on Sunday he would resign after suffering a humiliating defeat in a referendum over his plan to reform the constitution, throwing the country and the euro zone into confusion. He said voters had shown a "clear" rejection of legislative reform measures and that he would meet with his cabinet on Monday and then hand in his resignation to the President Mattarella, taking full responsibility for the defeat.

"The experience of my government ends here," Renzi said in a televised address to the nation as results showed his 'Yes' camp was well on track to lose the referendum.



What was originally a rather dry referendum on constitutional change has turned into a high-stakes game with the political and economic stability of Italyand ultimately the euro zoneat risk.

Sunday's vote was on whether the country's second chamber should be stripped of some of its powers. The country's government is hamstrung by procedure and delays to legislation. A "Yes" vote in the referendum would have meant that laws would only need the approval of the lower house to be passed.

Renzi had pinned his political future on the vote, saying he would resign if a "Yes" vote is rejected.

Populist parties such as the 5-Star Movement had campaigned for a "No" vote, saying the change to the constitution would lead to a concentration of power.
Not many high school students can say that they are the president of a start-up.

Matthew Lewis is the 17-year-old president and founder of PhishTrain, an education service that simulates phishing emails as a breach prevention measure, sending repeat-offender employees to online training. Now a senior at North Hunterdon High School, Lewis began this company at age 15, during his sophomore year with two of his friends, working behind the scenes as "of age" employees of a hired service sold their product for them. Lewis' clients include a few Fortune 500 companies. The company has four employees now, and Lewis hopes to expand.



Despite being one of the founding members, having contributed to the initial investment in the company's development and running the company during and even after the school day ends, Lewis has run into doubters.



He had a rocky experience when meeting in person with a client whose excited demeanor turned to skepticism once he realized that company president he had been speaking with over the phone was no more than a high schooler, so Lewis typically abstains from revealing his age unless asked. While that instance did end up with PhishTrain obtaining a new client, Lewis was not sure if all instances would. Thus, his LinkedIn account does not mention his title, and during phone conversations, he simply states that he is "with PhishTrain" unless asked specifically for his role.



During the two years that Lewis has been in this business, after that initial incident he has only once revealed his age to his clients up front. That too, was unanticipated. However, this client, despite knowing his age, hired him not long after their first encounter.



Fleetwash founder Vito DiGiovanni became a PhishTrain client soon after hearing Lewis' first place pitch at Seton Hall University's High School Pirate's Pitch venture fund competition. Having faced the same age discrimination when he was starting his now $100 million business at age 19, DiGiovanni sympathized with Lewis. DiGiovanni fondly remembers the start-up days when he used to sport a beard in order to make himself appear older. He commented on his decision to hire PhishTrain, "I had no problem with hiring Matt and his partners. The younger generation is comfortable with technology."



Lewis began his entrepreneurial endeavors in the first grade, buying toys on eBay and selling them at school. As a high schooler, his interest has shifted from toys to cybersecurity. After watching the movie "The Interview," Lewis recognized that some cybersecurity breaches were more simple than they appeared, and he had an easy fix. Thus, PhishTrain was born. While there are similar products on the market, Lewis claims that his company's product is much cheaper. PhishTrain provides clients with data security, attack simulations, an "educational lifeline," benchmarking and program analytics.



"Age should not be the only deciding factor in competency," Lewis said. "Great minds must share ideas to gain all new perspectives on logistical systems on our planet. Young and old alike should bond as a cohesive team and strive to solve puzzles and problems that trouble society."



Being both a high school student and start-up founder can force one into some amusing situations, like having to run to the school restroom to take urgent incoming business calls during the school day, Lewis said.

After school, he often heads directly to his office, which unlike those of many young entrepreneurs, is not at his home. Lewis runs his business out of a rented office space in the same building as one of his partner companies. For Lewis, running his company is a full time job  beginning prior to the school day, continuing throughout and ending hours after. If pressing matters come up throughout the day, even while at school, Lewis sets aside what he is doing to make sure that those matters are taken care of.



When asked if age matters, Lewis told CNBC, "With age comes experience; it's a simple matter of fact that we all know. However, young adults who take the initiative to gain knowledge through experiential learning may gain more understanding than a less motivated adult in the same time span. While age is definitely a factor, it is not the most critical portion of business interactions."



After finishing high school, Lewis plans on attending a top 100 U.S. university to pursue a degree in business or finance, minoring in either history or German, prior to pursuing an MBA. His top choice school is the University of Pennsylvania.



While at the moment an entrepreneurship major is not in his plans, when asked about future entrepreneurial endeavors, Lewis responded, "I don't want to stop. Hopefully through college and beyond I can be working on my own companies in industries that have not even been created yet. Starting my own industry is a dream of mine."



Lewis has been saving most of his share of the profits, some of which may be put toward helping him pay for college.
MCALLEN, Texas  Seconds after the radio crackled and the government SUVs sped into the darkness, Border Patrol agents sprinted through the brush and toward the border in an all-too-familiar pursuit of drug smugglers.

"They dropped their bundles of narcotics and went back into Mexico," said agent Marlene Castro, sounding disappointed after racing through a pitch-black clearing outside Rio Grande City. Still, on this recent night, agents would recover 66 pounds of marijuana with a street value of roughly $53,000.

But chasing drug smugglers wasn't the only thing keeping them busy.

During two days that NBC News spent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, it became clear that Castro and her colleagues were dealing with a sudden surge of families from Central America who are running toward those officials  not from them.

Many of the families are eager to be caught so they can apply for asylum or temporary protected status as they try to escape the violence back home.

Apprehensions on the Southwest border, along the Rio Grande, are rising. There were 46,195 in October  that was almost 20,000 more than the same month two years ago and the largest spike since the massive surge of unaccompanied minors during the summer of 2014.

Castro said the biggest difference this time around is that the Border Patrol is better equipped to deal with the influx. A new processing center has the capacity to hold 1,000 migrants at a time. In November, the federal government even sent 150 more border patrol agents to the McAllen area in the southern tip of Texas.

More from NBC News:



Man in Killing of Ex-NFL Player Admitted to Shooting:Sheriff

Texan with 'You Belong' Sign Outside Mosque Goes Viral

Vets Descend on Standing Rock: We'll Protect Protesters
What may be the most famous classic coin from China highlights Champion Coin Auctions Dec. 3 sale in Macau. The 1928 silver Auto dollar from Kweichow has a pre-sale estimate of $30,000 to $60,000 U.S.

The finest known Auto dollar of a specific variety highlights Champion Coin Auctions Dec. 3 sale in Macau.

The 1928 silver dollar from Chinas Kweichow Province was issued to honor Governor Chou His-cheng, who had just completed a motor road through his province. According to cataloger Bruce Smith, the road was actually built as part of a famine relief operation and was financed in part by the International Famine Relief Commission.

An American engineer, O.J. Todd, who was in charge of the project, wrote a book about his work in China that included photographs of Governor Chou and his car. The car, an American model, was purchased in Canton, taken apart and carried by foot to Kweichow, where it was reassembled. It was the only car in the province. The road went north and west from Kweiyang, but did not connect with any other road.

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Smith suggests that the coin was struck in Kweichow on machinery looted from the Chungking Mint by Chous soldiers.

The name of Hsi Chien is hidden below the car among the grass; the example in the auction is of the type to feature three blades of grass.

According to Smith: Though made in a remote province, this coin was eagerly sought by collectors shortly after it was issued. As a result, a large percentage of those struck survive today in collectors hands. Nearly all, however, circulated for a time, and today less than half a dozen Uncirculated examples are known to exist.

Champion offers an example graded Mint State 61 by Professional Coin Grading Service, the highest graded example of this coin by PCGS.

This coin has an estimate of $30,000 to $60,000 in U.S. funds.
Types of obituaries

The Missourian publishes two types of obituaries  family obituaries and life stories.

A family obituary is the version submitted by a funeral home or family. Please see the submission form for details on cost and deadlines. Family obituaries

A life story is a closer look at a person's life and involves a reporter contacting family and friends. Life stories are based on newsworthiness and consent of the family. Life stories.
Dennis Gates and new-look Mizzou basketball ready for introduction

It's been an offseason filled with change for Missouri basketball. Now, Dennis Gates and company are ready to get the games underway
The latest router security problem, that initially cropped up a week ago in Germany, has since been confirmed in other countries as well.

That its a new variant of Mirai, makes for sexy for headlines, but is not important. That five million devices may be vulnerable is also not important. And, It's pretty much irrelevant that the buggy routers were produced by Acadyan and Zyxel.

The most important issue in this latest router attack is that most of the blame falls on the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

The routers were attacked on TCP port 7547, which is used by the TR-069 protocol (also known as CWMP or CPE WAN Management Protocol). Leaving port 7547 open would have been a non-issue if the ISPs had made better decisions.

A TOTALLY OPEN PORT

For example, it is common knowledge that open TCP/IP ports are dangerous. When an ISP wants to access their customer devices on an open port, they should take steps to insure that only they can do so. Instead, we saw ISPs mis-configuring both the routers and their internal networks such that any bad guy, anywhere in the world, can get into the routers on port 7547.

Its the network equivalent of not wearing seat belts. No surprise then, that customers were eventually thrown through the front window.

Security expert Graham Cluley was also annoyed about this, writing

The attacks ... are exploiting functionality which allows ISPs to remotely manage their customers' broadband routers. I can fully understand why ISPs want that kind of ability to reduce the support burden, but surely it would be better if connections were only allowed from the ISP's own managed network rather than any Tom, Dick or Harry based anywhere in the world?

Tod Beardsley and Bob Rudis of Rapid7 also griped about this:

For ISPs, it is A Bad Idea to expose either TR-069 or TR-064 services to arbitrary sources on the Internet; while ISPs may need access to this port to perform routine configuration maintenance on customer equipment, it should be possible for local and edge firewall rules to restrict access to this port to only IP addresses that originate from the ISP's management network.

The router bug that is being exploited was first discovered in early November by someone who goes by "kenzo2017." He found the flaw on a D1000 modem from Irish ISP Eir and chastised them writing:

Back in the days when Eir were Eircom and they used Netopia modems, port 7547 was blocked to every IP address except those assigned to Eirs management servers. This meant even though the Netopia modems had bugs, they could not be exploited. Inexplicably, Eir do not do this for their newer modems. If they did, these bugs would not have been exploitable.

Seat belts.

Not to pick on Eir, the same is true of Deutsche Telekom. Let's parse a couple sentences in their public statement.

... routers of Deutsche Telekom costumers were affected by an attack from outside.

In other words, their default network configuration allowed anyone in the world to hack into the routers of their customers, via an open port, and that is on them.

Their fix?

We implemented a series of filter measures to our network.

Network filters that should have been there all along.

Ironically, Deutsche Telekom brags that their Cyber Defense Center emphasizes "good preventive strategies."

Another effected ISP, TalkTalk, said that it too has "... deployed additional network-level controls to further protect our customers." UK ISP KCOM, likewise "... put in place measures to block future attacks from impacting our customers."

None of the ISPs took the obvious defensive step until they were shamed into it.

And, sadly, there is nothing special about these four ISPs. Reports say that Shodan found 41 million devices on the Internet with port 7547 open. If ISPs were limiting access to this port to just their servers that need it, then Shodan would not be able to detect that the port was open.

MIS-CONFIGURED ROUTERS

Another common ISP security mistake is giving their customers sub-optimal routers.

The routers that were hacked this week were buggy, which is not all that unusual.

The issue here seems to have been with the very old TR-064 protocol. According to a 2004 document from the DSLHome-Technical Working Group, the protocol is also known as "LAN-Side DSL CPE Configuration" (CPE is Customer Premises Equipment). The important point being that the protocol was designed to work on a LAN, that is, on the inside of your home. It was not designed or intended to be used over the Internet.

Yet, that's what the vulnerable routers were doing, they were responding to TR-064 commands sent to port 7547.

It's somewhat akin to a doctor operating on the wrong leg of a patient. How much competence does it take to keep protocols designed for LAN side use away from the Internet? Too much, obviously.

According to Dan Goodin, the Shodan search engine reports that "about five million [devices] expose TR-064 services to the outside world."

The same thing happened in 2013 with UPnP, another protocol designed for LAN use only. Back then, Rapid7 found 80 million devices that responded to UPnP over the Internet.

BUGGY ROUTERS

By the time a TR-064 server is exposed to the Internet at large, two mistakes have already been made. On top of this, there was a bug in the implementation of the TR-064 protocol.

As "Kenzo" pointed out, in the write-up that that started all this in early November, a flaw in the SetNTPServers function can be exploited to run commands on the device. This lets an attacker turn off the firewall and remotely administer the router. An attacker can get full control of vulnerable devices.

In addition, there is also an information disclosure issue. Bad guys can learn assorted information about the router, without exploiting the flaw, just by issuing some TR-064 commands. The specific information "Kenzo" cited included the serial number, firmware version, the Wi-Fi password, the SSID and the MAC address.

BAD ROUTERS

The bad guys in this case, had no intention of knocking people off the Internet. The malware was supposed to compromise the routers so they could be later used for income producing purposes.

What went wrong? It turns out, some routers stop working when asked to do too much actual routing.

As the malware tries to infect other routers, it creates network traffic. So much traffic, that it caused some routers to lock-up.

Johannes Ullrich, of The SANS Technology Institute, told Brian Krebs that the excessive network traffic crashed some routers that were not even vulnerable to the malware. These other routers simply could not handle all the incoming connection attempts on port 7547 from infected routers.

Security company Comsecuris did their own hacking of an Arcadyan router and confirmed that an excessive amount of incoming connections caused the router to hang. They wrote

... simply flooding the router with the above requests (TCP/UDP) did show however that the device first becomes much slower in accepting TCP connections on the external IP. Finally, it stopped accepting TCP connections on that interface altogether. This aligns with DTAG [Deutsche Telekom AG] customer reports that indicate that the issue temporarily went away by restarting the device. Due to the ongoing heavy Mirai botnet activity, the faulty behavior quickly reoccurred in practice. We conclude that this phenomena is what caused the outage for some DTAG customers this weekend ... various news outlets definitely released reports based on preliminary investigation information that was wrong.

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai of Motherboard claimed to be in contact with one of the attackers in this case. The bad guy apologized for the impact the malware had on a British ISP, but followed that up with "... they should give their customers better hardware ... too many requests freeze the shitty routers."

That's telling it like it is.

DEFENSIVE COMPUTING

The Defensive Computing lesson here is clear. ISPs can not be trusted with security.

This case showed them mis-configuring their internal networks, mis-configuring the routers they give to customers and choosing routers that fail under stress. Three strikes, you're out.

A fourth strike comes from Comsecuris which, in the course of their investigation, found other router vulnerabilities. Putting this in perspective, they wrote

This is not surprising based on the general state of end user router equipment, which is an ongoing pain point since years.

Speaking as someone who follows router security, this is not surprising to me either.

Rather than using hardware provided by your ISP, I suggest buying your own.





UPDATE: December 5, 2016. Added quote from Rapid7. Also added information on the software flaw and the information disclosure.

FEEDBACK

Now that Computerworld, and all of parent company IDG's websites, have eliminated user comments, you can still provide me feedback two ways. Privately, email me at my full name at Gmail. Public comments can be directed to me on twitter at @defensivecomput.




The palaver about David Daviss remarks in the Commons last week about the Single Market and British payments is curious. The Government has ruled out a Soft Brexit: thats to say, membership of the Single Market, because it follows that we would have no effective control of immigration. But it has not ruled out a hard one: in other words, walking away from the negotiations with the EU institutions and countries if necessary, and relying on WTO terms. Obviously, it is is not seeking a deadlock: it wants a deal. And its outline has been clear since roughly the time ConservativeHome described it at the end of October.

Theresa May has conducted an EU negotiation before: the one on criminal justice measures, in which she opted out of 133 EU-wide measures and then opted back into 35 of them  including, to this sites disapproval, the European Arrest Warrant. This looks like the model she wants to adopt for the coming talks. Her intention is to leave the EU entirely: her Party Conference speech made that clear. We are going to be a fully-independent, sovereign country, a country that is no longer part of a political union with supranational institutions that can override national parliaments and courts, she said. That means an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

What she then wants to do is opt back in to parts of the Single Market, probably on a sectoral basis, as the Nissan deal suggested. Downing Street is dismissive of questions about whether we will be in the Single Market or out of the Single Market, in the Customs Union or out of the Customs Union, because the Prime Ministers intentions is to opt back in, so to speak, to bits of both. Being formally out of the latter should give Liam Fox the room to negotiate the new trade deals which his department was set up to do, and without which a Brexit Britain cannot fully realise its economic potential.

Migration from the EU will come down, under this vision of a settlement. The means of controlling it will probably be some sort of work permit system, as floated on this site by Andrew Green of MigrationWatch UK. As he pointed out, 80 per cent of EU immigrants who have come to Britain in the past ten years are in low-skilled work. Employers have become reliant on the contribution they make. So the door will not be slammed on all of them. But it will clearly be shut on some. If it isnt, May doesnt have a prayer of reducing net migration to tens of thousands (at least without severe measures elsewhere), her repeated aim during her six-year term as Home Secretary.

Paying for Single Market access has been floated for quite some time. Our columnist Nadhim Zahawi has suggested handing over part of the 8.5 billion net payment we make now. He did so in the Mail on Sunday in October, arguing that withdrawing the entire sum would, by damaging other European countries, damage us too  so we should help bridge some of the EUs funding gap, but only on the condition that the EU delivers our demand of providing British businesses with tariff-free access to the single market. The Stratford-Upon-Avon MP was not scragged by his co-Brexiteers, and is still alive and well, at least as far as we know.

Davis was not supporting Zahawis scheme last week. Indeed, he wasnt backing anything at all: he simply said that the Government will consider means of getting the best possible access for goods and services to the European market. That could mean a general payment of the kind Zahawi seems to envisage. It might mean more specific ones  for example, to fund the participation of British Univerisities in EU university programmes, as advanced by David Willetts. The taxpayer may not fork out for the whole of whatever sum is paid for whatever access; business might fund part of the costs.

The Sunday Times () today calls this outline a Grey Brexit. ConservativeHome has been doing a bit of ringing round Brexiteer MPs, and finds no great resistance to the principle of making payments. The bottom line for most of them is that we are no longer subject to the rule of the Court: that we becoming a self-governing country once again. The Prime Minister is right not to want to reveal her negotiating hand. But the rough sketch of some of it that we provide this morning is no secret. Nor is the Governments stress on the contribution we make to Europes collective security: Donald Trumps ambivalence towards NATO may concentrate the minds of our interlocutors on it.

They may of course reject such a pick-and-mix proposal entirely. We cannot know. What we do know is that the EU institutions and other EU countries are unwilling to open negotiations before Article 50 is moved  which is why the Prime Minister was unwise to seek an agreement with Angela Merkel last week on the respective rights of EU and British citizens in each others countries post-Brexit. But Merkel may be a weakened position by the end of the year, or even out of office altogether. Germany goes to the polls in the autumn. Italys referendum takes place today. Holland has elections next March; the French their presidential poll in May.

In short, we may face a different set of interlocutors by the end of next year  assuming that the Supreme Court does not dynamite Mays timetable altogether if, as expected, it rules against the Government in the appeal that kicks off this week. John Longworth has some stern words for the court on this site today. But amidst the swirling fog of these uncertainties, the Brexit Secretary is beginning to stand out. Davis is often lumped together with Boris Johnson and Liam Fox as one of The Three Brexiteers, but his role in the Governments planning for Brexit is more central than theirs.

The Foreign Secretary has had Brexit responsibility stripped from his department; the Trade Secretary cant motor in full throttle until we have departed the EU. Davis, by contrast, is a core figure. He reconciles in his person the recent history of Conservative views on Europe. He was for Brexit, laying out his pre-Government view of how it should work on this site. But he was also Europe Minister under John Major, and a whip at the time of the Maastricht Treaty. So while he doesnt exactly have a foot in both camps, he certainly has ears open to most comers. And he is also keeping his mouth firmly shut, at least when not required to open it in the Commons.

For there has been much less of him in the papers recently; most of the anti-Brexiteer briefing has been against Johnson and Fox (and very tiresome it is too). This is significant. The Brexit Secretary is quietly working away behind the scenes, co-operating not only with Downing Street but also with Philip Hammond, with whom he seems to have reached an understanding. He appreciates that May has raised him from the political dead. He was Davis the Grey; now he is Davis the White. He is 67. He at last has an opportunity to perform a major service for his Party and his country  which is why he, with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, is now at the heart of the action.
The smoked pork was also excellent. The portion included several large, thick slices of perfectly smoke pork. They were smoky, meaty and juicy. Of all the meats, the pork benefitted the most from the sauce as the rub was limited to the exterior of each thick cut. Adding the tangy and sweet sauce created a wonderful complementary balance to the rich pork.

The sides were equal to the challenge of accompanying the meats. The Brisket Beans was out of this world. The creamy beans were intermixed with chunks of brisket. The first bite took my palate in a different direction. While the other dishes focused on sweet and smoky, the beans brought in some spiciness, just enough to grab your attention. The house-made corn bread was moist, dense, with great texture. There was just a little touch of crunchiness throughout the piece, with sweetness kicking in from the thin layer of maple atop the cornbread. The carrot cherry salad was a little too sweet for my taste.

After my carnivorous extravaganza, Nestor stopped by the table. After he instructed the server to change the music to the Lynyrd Skynyrd station, I asked him what drove him in his BBQ passion. He slowly stroked his beard and told me food is an important part of lifeit brings people together. I saw the power of how a perfect piece of fried chicken could bring a group of teenagers together on a Sunday night. I then embraced the hardest parts of smoking, the rain, the cold, all to create the meats that would bring people together over a great meal. That is the power of food

Overall, Mason Dixon Smokehouse is one of the best, if not the best, BBQ I have eaten in years. Nestor Laracuente has mastered the art of smoking, yet constantly looks to improve his recipes and his technique that already create flawless meats. Each and every bite brought a smile to my face, and I highly recommend grabbing a table, a large appetite and make sure you have a handful of napkins to wipe the sauce from your smiles.

78 West Park Place  Stamford, CT 203-817-0392

http://www.masondixonstamford.com

Neither CTbites nor the author were compensated for this review; the meal was provided without charge. The opinions contained herein are solely those of the author.
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For more than 15 years, scholars at the University of Bridgeport have been conducting research on facial recognition algorithms. And for the last five, the Central Forensics Lab and FaceChecks.com have been investigating issues related to cybersecurity as part of UBs incubator program.

So it seemed like just a matter of time before the university created a concentration focused on cybersecurity issues. That time came this fall, when the UB School of Engineering began offering a masters degree concentration in Information and Cyber Security Management.

Were taking it step by step, said Tarek Sobh, a senior vice president and dean of the school of engineering at UB. This is a very much in-demand area. There is a demand and need for professionals in this area and the need is only going to increase.

UBs offering is one of several at universities in the state focused on issues related to cybersecurity, including the University of New Haven, University of Connecticut and Sacred Heart University. Sobh said its a response to the number of job opportunities in that field.

An analysis by Peninsula of March 2015 Bureau of Labor statistics found there were about 209,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. Technology company Cisco estimates globally there are more than 1 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs.

Another report published by Burning Glass Technologies cited professional services, finance and manufacturing or defense as the sectors with the highest demand for cybersecurity jobs, with the greatest demand in jobs that deal with consumer data  finance, health care and retail trade.

Sobh said this explains why UB sees cybersecurity as an interdisciplinary concentration that requires students to learn about a variety of topics before graduation.

Gad Selig, dean for industry research at UB, said a local FBI agent has said the agency is actively seeking professionals in this area. The FBI cant get enough people who can be a cyber research analyst, he said. Its a huge hole and its projected to get much larger.

UB has started out its offerings in two areas  a technical concentration in computer science called Systems, Applications and Data Security and a technology management concentration called Information and Cyber Security Management. Selig said roughly two dozen students signed up for courses within these concentrations this year, adding that the program would likely take some time to grow.

We have a lot of international students who are not quite as familiar with security issues, said Selig.

Sobh said interest in the courses will determine whether the university expands its offerings into a full-time masters degree program.

Sacred Heart University began offering a 36-credit cybersecurity program on a full- or part-time basis in 2013.

Its filling a need, said Domenick Pinto, associate professor and chair of SHUs Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, at the time. The job market in this discipline is phenomenal, but there are not a lot of cybersecurity specialists.

The universitys courses include cryptography, systems security, digital forensics, securing the cloud and ethical hacking.

SHU lists several job opportunities on its website, accompanied by salary ranges. A data security analysts salary can range from $89,000 to $122,000, a network security administrator can earn between $85,000 and $118,000 and a network architect salary can be between $95,000 and $137,000, according to the SHU site.

UConn also has the Connecticut Cybersecurity Center and recently launched a partnership with consumer financial-services firm Synchrony Financial for the launch of a Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity at the university, funded by Synchrony.

Alexander Schwarzmann, head of the UConn Department of Computer Science and Engineering, said he expects within the next few years a quarter of the students in that department will be part of the cybersecurity concentration.

He said hands-on learning is the only way to ensure students graduate with the knowledge necessary to excel in the field. You really need to get your hands dirty in cybersecurity to learn it, Schwarzmann said.

Al Dressler, who runs the Central Forensics Lab and FaceChecks.com at the University of Bridgeport incubator program and will be teaching courses in the new concentration, said its also important to incorporate what the real world is doing.

Schwarzmann said UConn is currently hiring cybersecurity professionals to keep up with the demand for course offerings and expects to hire nearly a dozen staff members in that field. We have to respond to the demand, he said.

UBs Sobh said there are many fields that now require expertise or knowledge of cybersecurity, but there is also a projection for new jobs to be created in this industry. Were preparing them for jobs that might not even exist now, he said.

ktorres@hearstmediact.com; 203-330-6227
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The hottest ticket in politics is in the eye of the beholder  just ask Connecticuts congressional delegation.

Its members, all of them Democrats, say theyve been flooded with constituent requests for tickets to the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

But many of them came from supporters of Hillary Clinton prior to last months upset by Donald Trump, they said. Theyre now being withdrawn, freeing up a limited quantity of tickets to a deluge of requests from the Trump faithful.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said his office has received about 1,000 ticket requests, 400 of which came from constituents who envisioned witnessing the first woman sworn-in as president.

Weve sort of eliminated those, said Blumenthal, a Yale Law School classmate of Clinton.

From holding ticket lotteries to greeting constituents in their Capitol Hill offices, the inaugural festivities still go on for Connecticuts two senators and five House members in spite of their Clinton allegiances.

But this time, lawmakers are pulling double-duty as they prepare to welcome a divergent group of constituents to the nations capital. The day after Trumps inauguration is the Womens March on Washington, which could draw up to 1 million women to the National Mall from across the nation, including many from Connecticut.

I certainly support the engagement and passion of folks from around the country who will be coming on the 21st, said U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn.

Esty said its possible she could march, but hasnt decided her schedule yet. She will attend Trumps inauguration.

In the 5th District, which extends from Danbury and Litchfield County to the Farmington Valley and New Britain, Esty noted that just 12,000 votes separated Clinton and Trump. In contrast, Esty won her re-election over Republican Clay Cope by 50,000 votes.

I know I have a lot of people who support me and voted for the president-elect, Esty said of Trump. I take that seriously. Its my job to figure out how to work with the president where I can.

Each House member is allotted 198 tickets to the inauguration, while each senator gets 391 tickets. In addition to members of Congress, where leaders get more tickets, Trumps transition team is also distributing tickets to the swearing-in. The ceremony takes place on the west front of the U.S. Capitol.

I wouldnt miss it. Its part of my job, Blumenthal said. We need to look forward to working together. Being at the inaugural is a way to start altogether moving forward to addressing some of the problems that require dramatic change and achievement. I look forward to shaking his hand and congratulating him.

In 2008, the inauguration of President Barack Obama drew 1.8 million spectators to the National Mall, where tickets are not required and the swearing-in is broadcast on Jumbotrons. Members of Congress distributed 240,000 tickets to the swearing-in.

Ben Proto, a Republican lawyer from Stratford who was state director of Trump's campaign, said many people dont realize that you dont need a ticket to stand on the National Mall.

Its a free event, said Proto, who is routing ticket requests to the Connecticut Republicans.

The state GOP estimated it has received 3,000 requests. It doesnt know how many it will receive, with the best seats traditionally going to individual and corporate underwriters of the inauguration.

Hotel rooms, many of which are going for $500 to $700 a night with a minimum three-night stay, could be much harder to come by, according to Proto.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., has received hundreds of ticket requests for the inauguration and has set up a website to handle them, said his spokeswoman, Laura Maloney. Lawmakers will hold ticket lotteries since they received more requests than their allotment.

Frank Salomone, 35, a registered Republican from Greenwich who works in financial services, put his name on Murphys list Friday.

Ive never been to one, Salomone said. This is our republic. This is a new president.

Salomone said he figured coming from a blue state that the demand for tickets wouldnt be as high. But now, hes just hoping to make the cut.

Im a big-time history and political buff, Salomone said. Once again, it only happens every four years.

To give her constituents enough time to plan travel, Esty said, her office plans to make ticket notifications by Dec. 20. As of Thursday, Esty said her office had received 212 ticket requests.

There were, of course, a flood that came in after the election, Esty said. Well do our best to accommodate everybody who requests.

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a top Clinton fundraiser who was just elected the head of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, plans on attending Trumps inaugural  albeit less enthusiastically.

Its obviously going to be less jubilant for me than the last two (inaugurals), Himes said.

Himes said the swearing-in is bigger than politics and is about country first, and the transfer of power.

Even though I remain appalled by the man himself, I will be there, Himes said. Himes characterized the interest level in inaugural tickets as high, but not historic.

Its not like 2008, but I know we've got a fair share of requests, he said.

The next day, Himes wife, Mary Himes, will be part of a group of women from Connecticut participating in the march on the Mall.

I'm certainly supporting it, he said of the demonstration.
WASHINGTON  The 2012 tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School spurred a major mental health overhaul now on the verge of congressional approval. But one of its chief sponsors, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, insists the bill is not about gun-violence prevention  at least not entirely.

This legislation certainly will have some effect on rates of gun violence, but it will be minuscule compared to stronger gun laws, said Murphy, Senate co-sponsor of the Mental Health Reform Act.

The bill will likely pass the Senate this week and head to President Barack Obamas desk.

Clearly the gun lobby and many Republicans want to blame the gun-violence epidemic on mental illness. I said (to Republicans at outset, if) you want to message this as an answer to gun violence, Im not interested, Murphy said.

And m ajority Republicans on Capitol Hill acquiesced, for the most part.

The mental health bill is part of the much larger, $6.3 billion 21st Century Cures Act, which offers a shot in the arm to research and cures for Alzheimers, cancer and other diseases.

The mental health measure, co-sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., authorizes up to $1 billion in grants to fight heroin and opioid abuse and addiction, and closes loopholes in the law requiring health-insurance parity between physical and mental health.

But in Connecticut, a state with an acute sense of loss since the Sandy Hook mass shooting that took 26 lives, the gun issue is never far from the surface of the mental health issue.

More Information 21st Century Cures Act Proposal encompasses the Mental Health Reform Act Proposed cost: $6.3 billion Funds research into cancer, Alzheimer's disease Authorizes up to $1 billion to fight heroin and opioid abuse See More Collapse

The individual who ... killed my little Daniel clearly was in a mental health crisis, said Sandy Hook Promise co-founder and Managing Director Mark Barden, whose son, Daniel, was among the 20 school children killed by shooter Adam Lanza. I spend a lot of time thinking about what led this individual to do what he did. His mother was at loss over what to do, and if shed had access to quality mental health care maybe this would never have happened.

Fixing a broken system

Sandy Hook Promise works with parents, schools and community organizations nationwide on identifying and intervening with troubled people who might turn violent if not treated, Barden said.

He has worked with Murphy and others on Capitol Hill and among advocates to win passage of the mental health law, which he calls the final piece of the solution.

Although there are no gun-violence specifics in it, the law covers the one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on: The U.S. mental health system is broken, as Murphy has put it, and improved mental health care certainly is a piece of the mass-shooting puzzle.

Murphy led the Senate filibuster earlier this year to force votes on expanded gun-purchase background checks and no-fly, no-buy gun prohibitions on individuals on the governments terrorism watch list.

Neither vote bore fruit, but momentum on Capitol Hill to pass mental health legislation nevertheless continued to gather steam.

In its earliest incarnations, the mental health bill was less the proving ground for Democratic interests in gun-violence prevention than Republican efforts to expand gun rights for former mental health patients.

Under current law, involuntary commitment to a mental hospital or being adjudicated as a mental defective bars individuals from purchasing guns and puts them in the FBIs National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

In most states, former mental health patients can appeal in court to get gun rights restored. Connecticut allows gun-rights restoration through official pardon.

But backed by the National Rifle Association, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, put forward a proposal that would have automatically restored gun rights to anyone who had a judges order expire and left a mental health treatment facility.

We had months and months of discussions on this, Murphy said. It would have been a very big change to our background check system.

Drugs, medical devices

Murphy said he made it clear Cornyns proposal was a deal breaker. Gradually, the Senates No. 2 Republican came around to dropping the idea after hearing from advocates, including Sandy Hook Promise families.

Guns and mental health are not the only issue in the overall bill that is likely to have an impact on Connecticut. The 21st Century Cures Act streamlines the process through which drug and medical-device companies get their products approved by the Food & Drug Administration.

Among those opposing this aspect of the bill was Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

In its attempt to speed up the drug and device approval process, this legislation neglects the very people who clinical trials are meant to help  that is the patients, DeLauro said on the House floor Wednesday, shortly before the House approved the measure.

Rather than protect those who rely on the health care system, it reduces the already weak regulations on medical devices allows drugs to be approved with only limited evidence of the drugs safety and efficacy, and rushes the use of new and unproven antibiotics.

But Murphy argued the proposal would prove beneficial to Connecticuts growing biotech sector.

This bill is going to help get lifesaving drugs to market faster, he said. We have a lot of small startups in places like Farmington, New Haven and Stamford, and those companies will have a better chance getting drugs to market at lower cost.

dan@hearstdc.com; Twitter: @danfreedman
Dont need the help

These are not companies that need our assistance and that kind of investment, or that kind of deal is not the kind of deal that creates both jobs for folks coming up out of Connecticut colleges and going into manufacturing.
In many ways, the story of Bountiful has remained the same for decades.A fundamentalist sect of Mormons settled in southeastern British Columbia during renowned ghost-consulter Mackenzie King's third stint as prime minister. Since then, the polygamist colony is known to have closed itself off from the world around it, arranged cross-border marriages for girls as young as 12, treated sisterwives like baby factories, and denied kids agency and educationall while refusing to update their personal style past the 19th century.Canadian journalists have gone so far as to compare the group to the Taliban, and on Monday, Crown prosecutors will deliver closing arguments in a high-profile child trafficking case against one Bountiful leader and two parents. James Oler, Brandon James Blackmore, and Emily Blackmore are accused of taking 13- and 15-year-old girls to Nevada in 2004 to be married and exploited for sexual purposes. The trial marks the first time parents have been held criminally responsible for the group's alleged long-running "child bride pipeline."No matter which way media attempt to tell this story, there is only one way we understand Bountiful women to be: quiet, obedient, uneducated, covered from head to toe in monochrome pioneer dresses, with hair laced in poofy French braids. Outsiders assume they submit to total brainwashing, control, and even abuse before they're old enough to drive.This may be how many women and girls continue to live in Bountiful and across dozens of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) settlements across North Americabut it isn't what caught the eye of photographer Jackie Dives. "I thought it would be more sombre, ritualistic, and dull," she told VICE. "But it was colourful and beautiful."Visiting on assignment earlier this year, Dives was surprised to meet a group of women who were pushing into leadership positions in the colony's school and land trust, working in offices and hospitals in nearby towns, and unafraid to down a glass of wine or five wearing skinny jeans and oversized sweaters. They were outspoken and educated, and claimed to be bolstering education opportunities and preaching democratic principles within the deeply religious compound."There was a time when our school was not a certified school," Mary Jayne Blackmore, daughter of charged polygamist leader Winston Blackmore, told VICE over drinks. Bountiful's independent school, where Mary Jayne pushed for provincial accreditation, will receive over a half-million in government funding this year. "That was one thing that weighed heavily on me at least, because if kids aren't having education and an opportunity, that is limiting them."The Bountiful women VICE spoke to were all excommunicated from the followers of now-convicted pedophile prophet Warren Jeffs more than a decade ago (a traumatic rift dubbed "the split"), and now follow a less fundamental path. In some cases that's meant divorcing their husbands and steering their own children away from the sect's marriage-centric culture. Though they married early, none of the half-dozen women VICE spoke to identify as victims.Depending on your perspective, these women are either reforming the reclusive community from the inside, or mounting a public relations front to deflect heat from their leader (and close relative) Winston Blackmore.With polygamists now on trial in Canada, Dives looked into the day-to-day lives of these Bountiful women who appear to defy stereotypes. But she's also careful not to excuse serious allegations. "Winston is charged with polygamy and there are three others charged with trafficking children," she told VICE. "That's in the courts right now.""With this photo series, I'm not trying to say that's not a thing. This is just my take on what I experienced while I was up there. It's just a different part of what's happening up thereit's multifaceted, it's not just one thing happening."Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter. Follow Jackie Dives on Instagram.
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Oliver, ten, was snuffling as he stared at the screen, where a daddy emperor penguin stood steadfast in the sub-zero blast.

In a voice like melted chocolate, Morgan Freeman explained how the mummy penguin had transferred a newly laid egg into his care and how he would stand there for two whole months, losing half his body weight, until she returned from the feeding grounds.

If he moved the egg from his special incubation man-pouch, it would roll on to the icy ground and split in the minus 60C temperatures and

Cherie Blair is back in the news because she thinks we should all be a bit more like emperor penguins when it comes to our chicks

Stop! my son sobbed, as an egg trundled out from between a penguins feet and cracked open, frozen solid, never to make a hatchling. I cant take it any more.

The March Of The Penguins DVD is still banned (too upsetting) in our house, but I thought of it when I read of Roger Clark, whose daughter Lisa had died of ovarian cancer. He travelled 8,000 miles to photograph penguins in her memory (twice, in fact: he photographed the wrong breed the first time).

Clark, like my son Oliver, was also overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of the birds who take it in turns to care for their chicks, which brings us to back from the frozen Pole all the way up to Cherie Blair.

Now, Mrs Blair is back in the news because she thinks we should all be a bit more like emperor penguins when it comes to our chicks.

We shouldnt be talking about mothering or fathering  we should be talking about parenting, she opined on Newsnight, and we should allow couples to be able to organise a way of bringing up their children that suits both of them.

Mmm. Much as it pains me to disagree with the learned QC and judge, I have something unfashionable to say on this subject.

I think mothering and fathering are still different; and  oh well, might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb  I think that mens and womens brains, as well as their bodies, are probably different too.

I bring this up because scientists in California, as was reported last week, are so terrified of being labelled sexist that they ignored in drug trials the varying responses to tests of male and female brains.

Emperor penquins, featured in the film March Of The Penguins, take it in turns to care for their chicks

Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, believed that deep within our psyches, long before we are born, exist certain fundamental preconceptions, pre-installed there like the calculator app on a new iPhone.

Fairy tales, most Disney movies, myths, all play on these persistent archetypes, that the woman is a saintly, nurturing, giving female; the male a brave champion, warrior, and so on. This, of course, annoys Cherie like mad. She says that we no longer live in a mythical world where all women stayed at home and men went to work.

Thank God, shes right on that score, we dont. But shes wrong to say, as a result of this very welcome progress towards gender equality, that women should no longer be mothers and men fathers, and apart from some minor biological details we are all the same.

Because were not. Never have been, never will be.

If we were, all the same, eh how come I get lost every time I leave the house and lose at chess? My husband explains, to my irritation, that men have a better sense of direction and spatial awareness because you women lurked in the cave, waiting for us menfolk to bring back sabre-toothed tigers for tea. Then I hit him.

Mrs Blair is right, however, when she says that the male does not give birth or suckle its progeny. But does she not see that this difference is exactly what makes the risks and sacrifices which the male, as opposed to the female, makes for his young (Roger Clark, 71, was warned by doctors not to do the trip to the Antarctic once, let alone twice) so much more affecting?

This is partly why Oliver found himself blubbing over March Of The Penguins. He saw, for the first time that, despite other peoples love and best efforts (as expressed by the heartbreaking fortitude of the daddy penguin, who had not even produced the precious egg), we are all born to die.

We are but a short time on Planet Earth, Cherie. To insist we must all simply be interchangeable, gender-neutral parents is against nature, dont you see? It also denies fathers the chance to be heroes, if only in their childrens eyes.

The Victorias Secret fashion show in Paris last week saw Angels such as Kendall Jenner (pictured) model the brand's underwear

The whole Victorias Secret shindy in Paris last week  modelled by Angels such as Kendall Jenner, who earn their wings and halos by dint of starving their smokin-hot bikini bodies into twanging shape for months before walking the catwalk  leaves me cold.

Victorias Secret isnt about fashion. Its not even about lingerie. Its a hugely successful marketing exercise.

But even though the actual pantie sets and thongs are nasty and scratchy (I honestly dont know anyone who can bear to wear VS intimates; give me nice cotton stretchy granny pants any day) and the models too skinny by half, that doesnt matter.

Even I have to acknowledge that its smart to make such big money out of smalls.

Am totally behind Kate Bush, who has been pilloried for saying: We have a female Prime Minister here in the UK. I actually really like her and think shes wonderful, and more.

Everything she said  to a foreign publication  was fair, kind, and supportive of another woman and her country. Kate Bush, in other words, acted like a patriot and a sister, not like a horrible Tory.

And who on earth pegged the peerless warbler for a revolutionary socialist anyway?

A nasty dose of vanishing illness

Ive had a sore throat for weeks so I did what I always do. I ignored it.

When it became too painful to ignore, I called my GP and was, to my shock, awarded a next-day appointment. The next day, of course, my symptoms had disappeared.

Weve all heard of white coat syndrome (hypertension in the presence of a doctor) but what is the technical term for when the very act of seeing a medical practitioner causes a persistent ailment to vanish?

As the nice lady doctor said as she peered over the tongue depressor and down my gullet: There should be a name for it  it happens all the time.
This week will see 11 of the most senior of our judges embark on a momentous legal case in terms of preserving our country as a true democracy.

Sitting at the heart of Westminster, the Supreme Court will debate the lawful process required for our Government to trigger Article 50.

Brexit is the most divisive issue of a generation, perhaps longer. The level of bitterness on both sides is extraordinary, as I have found to my personal cost.

Remain campaigner Gina Miller is spearheading the legal challenge to Theresa May triggering Article 50 without parliamentary approval

Last Thursdays Richmond by-election  with the defeat of a Conservative and victory for a LibDem candidate who, like me, believes a parliamentary vote is necessary  has served to throw more fuel on to the fire.

Yet I believe that defeat for Zac Goldsmith in Richmond is a distraction. Brexit itself is not the issue. The fact of the matter is that more people voted for Brexit than didnt  and as someone who believes with a passion in our democracy, I am the last one to argue with them.

British voters want Brexit and we must bring it about as successfully as we can.

So why, then, am I pressing ahead with a legal action which has been attacked  wrongly  as an attempt to subvert democracy and which reaches the Supreme Court this week? My answer is that the case goes to the very heart of how we are governed.

Last Thursday Brexit campaigner Zac Goldsmith (left) lost to Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney (right) in the Richmond Park by-election

We have spilled blood over many centuries to achieve parliamentary sovereignty and this has been upheld by respected, trusted institutions such as the courts and our judiciary which are the envy of the world and have a duty to decide on matters of law ir-respective of how politicians and press may react.

We are not governed by referendum, let alone mob rule. And we cannot now throw away what has been so hard fought. This is a crucial moment for all of us.

Let me, briefly, go back to how we reached a position of such antagonism. In the early hours of June 24, it became clear that the British public wanted out of the European Union and expected the big personalities they had seen on their television screens during the referendum debate to turn their rhetoric into reality.

It soon became just as clear, however, that the politicians did not have the first idea of how to go about it. Michael Gove and the others in his Brexit gang may feel they have got one over on their old head boy David Cameron, but when I met Mr Gove recently on a panel debate I wondered if he and the others werent all a little lost, terrified even.

How could they even contemplate triggering Article 50  the mechanism that gets us out of the EU  without the authority of Parliament?

These experienced, senior politicians do not appear to know what any first-year law student knows: only Parliament can grant people rights, and only Parliament can take them away.

They talked airily of using the Royal Prerogative  an ancient self-serving right that Kings and Queens once used to rid themselves of their enemies  as a way of circumventing Parliament. This struck me as the greatest of all ironies: Brexiteers claiming the Government behind closed doors could strip away peoples rights.

YET, to my grave concern, no one was willing to do anything about it. Now I am not a politician nor by any normal standards could I be described as a committed Europhile, but with a legal training, a job in investment management, and years of campaigning for transparency and accountability, I am prepared to stand up for what I believe is right. What is more, I am a mother who wants the best possible future for my children and the world they and their children will live in.

We spilled blood to achieve parliamentary sovereignty

So, to be clear, it is not the idea of Brexit that filled me with dread. It was the idea of an unchallenged, unanswerable Government taking us back to 1610 and ripping a hole through our democratic structures.

I started thinking about what my father would have done. He was a politician and a lawyer in Guyana, a very brave man who taught me that there is no point to having money or education or influence unless you try to use it to make the world a better place.

It has come at a cost. There has been a great deal of abuse, both political and personal. I am not exaggerating when I say that since the original High Court decision last month, I have felt frightened and find it difficult to leave the house.

I regard myself as a strong woman but the tsunami of vitriol almost succeeded in knocking even me down. It began with racist, misogynistic and obscene messages online, on the phone and in the post and then became even more sinister with threats of violence, rape and murder.

Yet so much was based on a complete misunderstanding of what I, my legal team and other parties to my case have been arguing. It is not about an attempt to ignore the popular will of the people. That will is settled. It is about how as a nation we conduct our affairs  and, ultimately, who we are.

Gina Miller: 'This is a crucial moment for all of us'

Even Michael Gove, an arch-Brexiteer, has accepted this, recently agreeing with me that it was a good thing I had fought in the High Court for two constitutional pillars: parliamentary sovereignty and clarification of the limits on the Governments use of prerogative powers (powers to make decisions without a parliamentary vote) in respect of exiting the European Union.

The former Justice Secretary also respected the independence of the High Court judges who ruled last month that only Parliament could take away rights that Parliament had itself granted  in this case, the 1972 act that took Britain into the European Union. It is the judges role to uphold the rule of law and yet they have been vilified by some politicians and commentators who dismiss their independence and objectivity, simply because they dont like the decision.

WHETHER it was Lord Dyson deciding a case about the release of six IRA members against the Home Secretary in 1996, or Mr Justice Collinss decision in 2003 about support for destitute asylum seekers, judges have acted with total independence.

Their professionalism protects Britain, rather than allowing us to descend into chaos. Our judges are not plotters or subversives  they are a repository of wisdom, independence and intellect.

My lead counsel, the brilliant David Pannick QC and his Mischon de Reya team, won against the Attorney General last month for the simple reason that the arguments were unanswerable: we live in a parliamentary sovereignty. This week, when the Government appeals the judgment in the Supreme Court, I believe we will almost certainly win again.

The High Court ruling does not block Brexit: the judgment created legal certainty where none existed. It clarifies the constitutional process the Government must follow to enable Brexit to be commenced in a lawful manner. It protects democratic government over dictatorship.
Far too many people end up doing well by seeming to do good. As soon as any activity is seen by the public as charitable or benevolent, everyone assumes it is entirely above board. Oversight is weak. Few dare to probe.

This was what happened for years in Britains foreign aid sector.

But The Mail on Sundays successful campaign against the foolish squandering of such aid has exposed astonishing levels of cynicism.

DFID spends nearly 80 million a year in Malawi as lead donor with high levels of political access

Most shocking of all is a deliberate attempt by a huge private sector aid contractor to orchestrate evidence in its favour, so influencing a parliamentary inquiry into its performance and ensuring that it continues to add to the hundreds of millions it has been handed by the Department for International Development (DFID) in the past few years.

Peter Young, of Adam Smith International

Adam Smith International (ASI) is officially a private undertaking, but is almost wholly dependent on taxpayers money, willingly handed to it by DFID, anxious to meet its spending targets.

Aid recipients were pressured to help. Staff involved in concocting testimonials were actually warned not to be too blatant. Such activities would not be acceptable in any normal business. They are especially shocking among people who make thumping profits and dividends, and pay themselves fat salaries, while posing as purveyors of mercy and human kindness.

This is not all. ASI also managed, by nefarious means, to obtain confidential Government documents which could have helped it bid for new business. And Mail on Sunday stories pointing out that British aid money often finds its way to terrorists and their sympathisers have now been graphically confirmed by official documents noting there is a certain risk of cash sent to Somalia being diverted to terror groups such as Islamic State.

The whole system is not just bloated but rotten. DFIDs Secretary of State, Priti Patel, must clean up this sordid mess once and for all. It is quite improper to spend public money on this scale, unless it is done honestly, fairly and openly.

The only way to cure leaks

Most governments are plagued by high-level ministerial leaks which  often inconveniently  reveal what they are doing.

Theresa May must be the first Prime Minister to launch a crackdown on leaks which reveal what her government is not doing. Incessant whispers speak of Cabinet paralysis over Brexit, with three competing Ministers unable to come up with a negotiating position and a Premier seemingly unwilling to force the pace.

Theresa May must be the first Prime Minister to launch a crackdown on leaks which reveal what her government is not doing

Things are so bad that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, is sending out stern warnings against leaking  which have been promptly leaked to The Mail on Sunday. The pursuit of leaks in politics is a thankless business. No amount of plumbing will ever stop them all. Far better to concentrate on getting the policies right, because then the leaks will not matter.

A strikingly bad idea

The strike weapon is a last resort, which frequently blows up in the faces of those who use it.

It is also sometimes so strong that it is too dangerous to use. Post Office staff who plan walkouts in the days before Christmas may think that, by threatening to hurt the maximum number of people at an especially important moment, they will get what they want. They are more likely to provoke anger and dislike, and permanently lose what remains of their business to rivals. Call off these strikes.
Please hesitate before condemning David Davis when he warns that we are not likely to get a clean break from the EU in the coming talks

Do you really think anyone in this deeply divided country has a mandate to go hell-for-leather for full immediate exit from the EU, regardless of costs and consequences?

I dont. I think we might be very wise to settle for a Norway-style arrangement, and leave the rest for some other time.

A mandate is a mandate, but only because of the strange, rather illogical magic which says that a majority of one vote decides the issue. So it does.

But it doesnt sweep away any duty to consider the defeated minority, our fellow countrymen and countrywomen, our neighbours, friends, colleagues, even relatives.

It may be that if the other side had won, they might have behaved badly towards us.

I have been in enough minorities in my time to have experienced that. But they would have been wrong to do so. And precisely because our cause is so good, we can afford to be generous in victory.

I get tired of the overblown shouting on both sides here. Anyone, even I, could see that a referendum was only the first step, and that lawyers, judges, civil servants, diplomats and the BBC would seek to frustrate a vote to leave.

Thats why I always wanted to take another, longer route out. I wasnt surprised by the High Court decision that Parliament must be consulted, and I will be even less shocked if the so-called Supreme Court takes the same view.

The facts are on their side. MPs were told, in the official briefing by the Commons Library, that the referendum they were voting for would be advisory, not binding.

So please hesitate before condemning David Davis when he warns that we are not likely to get a clean break from the EU in the coming talks.

Mr Davis understands the monster better than most, and would, I think, prefer to get us out completely. But if even he has begun to talk about a halfway deal, then that means it is the best we can realistically get.

Apart from anything else, he knows very well that the Tory Party is not to be trusted in the months ahead.

People are already beginning to forget Mr Cameron. They shouldnt. First, because so many who should have known better  Tory activists and then voters  fell for his marketing

He is really the only serious conservative figure in the Government. Unlike some who saw the Leave campaign as a vehicle for ambition a few months ago, he grasped the problem long before.

It is painful to recall how he was robbed of the Tory leadership by an alliance of media creeps and big money. They destroyed Mr Davis and saddled us for years with that empty vessel, David Cameron.

People are already beginning to forget Mr Cameron. They shouldnt. First, because so many who should have known better  Tory activists and then voters  fell for his marketing.

Second, because he is mainly responsible for the mess in which we now find ourselves. Try not to be fooled by this kind of person again.

And in the meantime, realise that, in these difficult times, we risk the sort of unforgiving, dangerous and destabilising divisions which are even now ripping through the USA. In such conditions, you may well get what you want, but only at a hard and bitter cost. Is that worth it?

Halfway out of the EU, which we can achieve now, may turn out to be a whole lot better than being halfway in.

I forced myself to watch part of one episode of Strictly Come Dancing and was strangely moved by the performance of Katya Jones.

As she capered lightly around the lumpish, slow moving form of Ed Balls, she resembled a chipmunk trying rather desperately to make friends with a grizzly bear.

But as I watched I also realised that Mr Balls is now a potential Prime Minister. Once, he would have ruined his hopes of high office by taking part in such a thing.

As I watched Strictly I realised that Mr Balls is now a potential Prime Minister

But in modern Britain, almost any kind of TV fame is an advantage.

Look at Al Boris Johnson, once a reasonably successful journalist and entertaining public speaker, now a wild superstar of politics.

It was his repeated appearances on Have I Got News For You which made him Foreign Secretary and may yet make him Premier.

They lifted him into that class of people who no longer need to explain who they are, a priceless status in politics. I know a bit about this because of my sole appearance on the same programme.

The editing wasnt especially kind to me (they cut out one of my jokes) and the whole thing was dominated by the insufferable celebrity cook Clarissa Dickson Wright, who swelled up like a human Zeppelin whenever a camera came near her. But even so, for a few days afterwards I experienced a tiny taste of true celebrity, being recognised as that man off the telly by an astonishing range of people.

And that was after just one appearance. Mr Balls is now permanently famous, and widely liked for having been ready to make a fool of himself for the pleasure of others. Even his silly name has become a sort of asset.

He has the wit to take full advantage of this. But is it proper or right that TV executives can make a political career? I dont think so.

Finally, a glimmer of hope from Syria

There may at last be good news out of Syria, which so many of my fellow journalists are too deluded to see. The defeat of the Islamist fanatics in eastern Aleppo now seems very close indeed.

These nasty, ruthless people, encouraged, armed and aided by the intolerant despots of Saudi Arabia and helped madly by us, have deliberately turned Syria into a desert. They have terrible things on their consciences.

If they are now beaten, the long task of rebuilding can at last begin and the refugees can start to return.

Yet intelligent people here continue to swallow the propaganda of the jihadis  the only source of news from eastern Aleppo because no independent journalist dares put himself in the power of these so-called rebels.

They never ask if the pictures from eastern Aleppo are posed or staged, or if the voices they hear are independent.

They believe, without evidence or hesitation, any slander levelled at Russia, seeming to think that Russians are child-hating savages who deliberately seek to kill civilians, whereas we, when we bomb Islamists in cities such as Mosul or Fallujah (which we do), only kill civilians by accident.

Good heavens, have we already forgotten? Russians of all people know what it is like to have your land and homes attacked by ruthless, indiscriminate killers. Why do we assume they care less than us, and are less human than we are?
They went to painstaking lengths so their little girl would not inherit the rare genetic disease that caused tumours to grow behind her mother's eyes.

But parents Bruno and Assunta Fogliaro were devastated to learn that, having dodged the condition, their daughter was instead struck down by a brain tumour.

Little Chloe Fogliaro, five, was otherwise happy and healthy when her parents noticed she was having a little trouble with her balance.

While they figured it was nothing to worry about, it was the first sign that something was seriously wrong.

Assunta (left) and Bruno (right) Fogliaro were devastated to learn of their daughter Chloe's (centre) diagnosis

The family are doing all they can to save little Chloe's life

Father Bruno, a police officer based in Melbourne, told Daily Mail Australia about his daughter's shock diagnosis and his family's desperate quest to save her.

'About two weeks before her diagnosis we noticed Chloe had been a bit unsteady on her feet. We thought nothing of it but went to the GP just to be sure,' Mr Fogliaro said.

'One minute she was fine and running around. The next they are telling you it's an inoperable tumour and it will claim her life.'

Chloe's mother Assunta is legally blind due to a rare genetic disorder that caused tumours to grow behind her eyes.

The couple went through a costly IVF procedure to ensure their child would not inherit the condition, which claimed Assunta's sight after she gave birth.

Although Chloe's tumour is not linked to her mother's disorder, it is still a stroke of horrible luck, Mr Fogliaro said.

Chloe was a happy and caring little girl, her parents said. She is pictured with father Bruno

With few options available in Australia to treat the tumour, the best doctors could do for the family was making the rest of Chloe's life as comfortable as possible.

But Mr Fogliario was not prepared to see his daughter die so easily.

'We were in shock. We were looking at all the options to treat her and save her life,' he said.

'We weren't going to settle for that and we ended up finding a doctor in Texas who seemed to be able to offer some hope.'

Earlier this year the couple travelled to Houston, Texas, where Chloe received 10 weeks of treatment at the controversial Burzynski Clinic.

Despite some sceptical claims surrounding the clinic's practices, Mr Fogliaro said the aggressive tumour had already shown signs it had stopped growing.

Father Bruno (left) said his daughter had shown signs of improvement since her first round of the treatment

The family said they had received an enormous amount of help in their quest to save Chloe (pictured)

The family had a brief scare following the treatment, when fluid began building up inside Chloe's skull.

Sydney neurosurgeon Dr Marc Coughlan helped relieve the pressure and Chloe is now showing small signs of improvement, her father said.

WHO IS DR STANISLAW BURZYNSKI? The controversial doctor set up The Burzynski Clinic in Texas in the 1970s. He offers a form of chemotherapy called antineoplaston therapy. His theory is that antineoplastons, chemical compounds found in the blood and urine, made up of amino acids and peptides, are part of the bodys natural defence mechanisms against cancer. His research findings claim that people with cancer don't have enough of these compounds. Because the compounds are not licensed as drugs, they're administered as part of clinical trials at the Burzynski Clinic and the Burzynski Research Institute. Advertisement

'In the past three weeks she's been fantastic. She has been lively and she's been talking better,' he said.

'With her treatment we've had three weeks more with her than we would've had if nothing else.'

The family are saving up to fund another trip to Texas as soon as they could afford it and are desperate to raise the $250,000 the trip would cost.

Mr Fogliaro thanked all those who had helped his family and donated to his daughter's cause so far, and was especially grateful for the support of the Victorian Police Association and the work of Dr Marc Coughlan.

'We need to move extremely quickly. It's been about eight weeks since her last round of treatment and we desperately need to get back.

'My wife is legally blind. We've got no support over there. It's just the three of us,' he said.

'We are not naive. And if it doesn't happen we get our last Christmas over here with our friends and family.'
An Australian schoolteacher quit her job and moved to the Middle East so she could cement her spot as the world's number one jouster.

Sarah Hay was the vice principal of a small school west of Sydney when decided she wanted to live closer to the European jousting circuit.

Already one of the best jousters on the planet, she moved almost 12,000 kilometres to live in Oman and follow her dream.

Charging ahead: Sarah Hay quit her teaching job in Australia and moved to Oman so she could chase her jousting dream

Fierce competitor: The former vice principal of Cecil Hills Public School is one of the best jousters in the world

Ms Hay - the former vice principal of Cecil Hills Public School in western Sydney - told Daily Mail Australia how she fell in love with the sport when she stumbled across it at a fair in 2007.

'I saw jousting at a festival in the Blue Mountains and I instantly knew that it was what I wanted to do,' she said.

'I never knew that jousting was a modern sport. This was a new way to compete, to dress up and to have adventure at the same time as re-enacting history.

'My attraction was instant from the moment I saw it. Someone in me was awoken and that passion has not dwindled since.'

Passionate: Ms Hay said she had been in love with jousting since stumbling across it at a fair in 2007

Calm: Charging headlong towards a competitor took a special mix of controlled aggression, Ms Hay (right) said

In the past nine years Ms Hay has taken on the sport with a vengeance, eventually charging into the number one spot in the International Jousting League.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SPORT OF JOUSTING The rise of jousting can be traced back to the advent of cavalry warfare in the middle ages. When knights weren't fighting on horseback for their kings, they practised jousting to prepare for battles. One of the first recorded references to jousting comes from the mid-11th Century, around the time of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. By the mid-12th Century, jousting tournaments were common in the United Kingdom and Europe. Today, jousting tournaments have again become popular across Europe and the United States. Sarah Hay currently sits atop the rankings made by the International Jousting League, which administers competitions in Europe. Source: History.co.uk Advertisement

'When I first saw an event I immediately went and talked to the organiser to enquire about how to get armour and lessons,' she said from her home in Muscat, Oman.

'Unfortunately, the first people I spoke to dismissed my interest.

'Not to be deterred, I attended another jousting show and I started talking with that organiser about getting lessons.

'This time I was more successful I did not have armour or any weapons experience, but I was able to organise that once I started learning to joust.'

Jousting is a combative sport which originated in medieval Europe, in which riders use lances to knock each other off their horses.

These days the majority of events still take place in Europe, where they often are staged inside old castles at medieval fairs, or fayres.

'At these sorts of events everyone wears authentic replicas of medieval costumes,' Ms Hay said.

'There is a medieval marketplace, often a big feast at night, medieval music and a plethora of other medieval re-enactment activities going on.'

Greener pastures: Sick of struggling to compete in Australia, Ms Hay moved to Oman so she could be closer to competition in Europe

Forging her path: Women found it harder to compete in Australia than they did in Europe, Ms Hay said

Although she wears a steel-plated suit of armour - or harness - for competition, Ms Hay said the sport did not come without its hazards.

'Competitions are usually quite tense before we get started,' she said.

'As jousting is quite a dangerous activity, we are all keen to be safe and accurate, but we also need to joust well right from the start.

'In many competitions the difference between placing and not placing can be just a few hits.'

Ms Hay said the key to jousting success was a brave horse and controlled aggression.

'I try to keep very calm and focused when I joust as this is one of the keys to being consistently accurate,' she said.

'A huge part of successful jousting is whether you are riding a willing and brave horse.

'I come from a strong riding background so feel confident that I can get on with almost any horse I ride.'

Determined: At first, Ms Hay struggled to break into jousting because no one took her seriously

Combative: Ms Hay said she thrived on the competition and theatre of the sport

Ms Hay took up a teaching role in the city of Muscat, Oman, after realising her progress as a jouster was stunted in Australia.

'Jousting in Australia has been increasingly exclusive to women. For some years now I have been jousting more regularly internationally than I have in my own country.

'I realised that this would not improve so if I wanted to have more jousting in my life, I needed to leave Australia.

'My first international education role was offered to me at a school in Muscat, Oman, and I said yes.

'Living in Oman, I am much closer to Europe. It just makes sense for me to be in the Northern Hemisphere.'

Having made the move to Oman without a hitch, there was just one thing Ms Hay was still missing.

'Now that I've been here for about six weeks I know that I made the right decision to leave Australia,' she said.

'I can still keep my profession in education, but achieve more in jousting too.

'[And] I plan to bring my horse over to Europe as soon as I have saved the airfare for her!'
Model and Victoria's Secret star Jacquelyn Jablonski has spoken out about her goal to help adults with autism.

Jablonski's younger brother, Tommy, has 'severe autism' and would often have 'outbursts' that would attract strange looks in public.

The stunning 24-year-old started the Autism Tomorrow charity to help adults such as her brother lead healthy and happy lives.

Inspirational: Stunning Victoria's Secret model Jacquelyn Jablonski has started her own charity to help those with autism. She is pictured at last year's show in New York

Down Under: Jablonski skipped this year's Victoria's Secret show to promote the MADE event in Sydney (pictured)

Sizzling: The 24-year-old is pictured soaking up the summer sun on her trip to Australia

'Tommy would have outbursts in restaurants because he couldn't use words to express himself,' Jablonski told Stellar magazine.

'As I got older, I got stronger and misunderstood looks from people no longer bothered me.'

The charity was particularly focused on helping those with autism transition into adulthood after leaving school.

'My brother is reaching the age of 21, and many schools end at that age. So it's kind of like, whats next?' the former Calvin Klein model told Glamour Fashion.

'The goal of the foundation is to create more opportunities for these adults when their schooling ends, because autism does not end when they reach adulthood.'

Driven: It was important to help those with autism as they transitioned into adult life, Jablonski said

Paying attention: The six-time Victoria's Secret model penned this note announcing the formation of her charity

Gorgeous: Jablonski (left) is pictured at last year's Victoria's Secret show alongside British model Lily Donaldson (right)

For the first time in seven years Jablonski did not appear in this year's Victoria's Secret show, instead opting to visit Australia to promote the MADE fashion event.

A far cry from the hustle and bustle of her hometown in New York, Jablonski told Stellar she could get used to the Sydney style of living.

'You walk into the food store here and it instantly smells like a farmers' market with all the fresh produce,' she said.
Coming up with a unique and original baby name can be a challenge.

But for those parents wishing to name their baby Admiral, King, Majesty or Messiah - there's some bad news.

The Victorian Government has released a list of 46 banned baby names - each of them deemed offensive or obscene enough to outlaw across the state.

The Victorian Government has released a list of 46 banned baby names - each of them deemed offensive or obscene enough to outlaw across the state

Titles were the most common - with names like Minister, Mister, Premier, President, Prime Minister, Princess, Queen, Sir and Sergeant all making the list.

As were names with ties to religion such as Jesus, God, Satan, Saint and Christ.

But some more controversial names also made the list - each of them listed after parents had attempted to register them for their children.

WHAT NAMES ARE BANNED IN VICTORIA? Admiral Anzac Australia Baron Bishop Brigadier Brother Cadet Captain Chief Christ Commodore Constable Corporal Dame Duke Emperor Father General God Honour Judge Justice King Lady Lieutenant Lord Madam Majesty Major Messiah Minister Mister Officer Premier President Prime Minister Prince Princess Queen Saint Satan Seaman Sergeant Sir Sister Advertisement

Sorry Saint! Kim and Kanye's son's name, Saint, was also on the banned list

These included names like Commodore, Australia, Anzac, Seaman and Brigadier.

While these are only banned in Victoria, a list of nation-wide banned names were also released in 2015.

The most shocking part? All of the names on the list were also baby names that parents had actually tried to use at some point in the year.

The most shocking part? Each of the names on the list were baby names that parents had attempted to use at some point in the year

WHAT NAMES ARE BANNED IN AUSTRALIA? Bonghead Chow Tow D***head G-Bang Ikea iMac Maryjuana Medicare Ned Kelly Panties Ranga Scrotum Sh*thead Smelly Snort Thong Virgin Advertisement

Some of the most concerning names included Bonghead, Chow Tow, iMac, Ikea, Maryjuana, Panties, Ranga, Smelly and Thong.

Virgin, Snort, Ned Kelly and Medicare also made the bizarre list.

Other reasons the Births, Deaths and Marriages department can refuse a baby name are if it is too long, cannot be established by repute, contains symbols or is contrary to public interest.
Advertisement

When high school sweethearts Ferris and Margaret Romaire married in a short 15 minute ceremony in 1946, nobody had a camera.

As a result the Louisiana-based duo, aged 90 and 89 respectively, were unable to capture any of their favourite wedding moments.

70 years on, the adoring couple has finally been able to pose for their dream wedding photoshoot - the pair proof that love really can last a lifetime.

When high school sweethearts Ferris, 90, and Margaret, 89, Romaire married in a short 15 minute ceremony in 1946, nobody had a camera

70 years on, the adoring couple has finally been able to pose for their dream wedding photoshoot - the pair proof that love really can last a lifetime

The couple's granddaughter, Amanda Kleckley, organised the photoshoot, and asked photogapher Lara Carter to help them reenact the wedding photos they had always wanted

The couple's granddaughter, Amanda Kleckley, organised the photoshoot, and asked photogapher Lara Carter to help them reenact the wedding photos they had always wanted.

'You can see the love between them in the way they interacted with each other and laughed together as we would go from the different poses,' Ms Carter told The Huffington Post.

'They are a beautiful example of what marriage is meant to be.'

'You can see the love between them in the way they interacted with each other and laughed together as we would go from the different poses,' Ms Carter said

One photograph sees Mr Romaire holding up an old black and white photograph of the pair from when they were first together

In the heartwarming photos, Mrs Romaire dons a beautiful lavender gown and a white veil while Mr Romaire wears a striking black tux.

The couple look completely smitten with each other as they pose for the camera while laughing, kissing and sharing a celebratory toast.

Standing in front of an idyllic Pearland backdrop, the couple also hold up a 'Forever in Love' banner and hold hands as they stare adoringly at one another and dance.

Since their wedding, the couple have built a large family and share four kids, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren

Another photograph sees Mr Romaire holding up an old black and white photograph of the pair from when they were first together.

During the shoot, Ms Carter also said the couple, who have lived in the same home for 65 years, shared some of their top tips for a healthy marriage.

These included 'giving each other space and respecting one another' and 'admitting when you are wrong.'
A South Sudanese model said she cried in front of the mirror on Australia's Next Top Model when she was forced to do her own cornrows.

Nyadak 'Duckie' Thot, the New York City based model originally from Melbourne, says she was 'extremely hurt and embarrassed' when the hairstylists on the reality show 'didn't know how' to cornrow her hair.

'I sat in front of the mirror silently crying before my shoot doing my own hair, cameras rolling while all the other girls had hairstylists, sh** scared I was going to get eliminated because a few "hair stylists" didn't know how to do their job,' Duckie wrote on Instagram in a post liked more than 17,800 times.

Duckie Thot says she was 'extremely hurt and embarrassed' when the hairstylists on Australia's Next Top Model 'didn't know how' to cornrow her hair

The 21-year-old's Instagram post has been liked more than 17,800 times

Duckie, who placed third in the show's eighth cycle in 2013, posted a photo from the campaign she did with Australian-based Dinosaur Designs before she moved to New York.

The 21-year-old said she was 'hesitant' to go with her natural hair because of her experiences.

'They called my agent at the time and asked if I was comfortable to shoot a campaign with my natural hair. She already knew what I was thinking but told me I needed to compromise sometimes,' Duckie wrote.

'I won't lie, I was extremely hesitant. I've never really had a good experience with my natural hair and modelling in Australia before.'

Duckie posted a photo from the campaign she did with Australian-based Dinosaur Designs and said she was 'hesitant' to wear her natural hair

'To have a top model woman of colour, who I thought encouraged acceptance and self-love, call me out for rocking my natural hair isn't cool at all,' Duckie wrote in the post

That photoshoot appeared to be mocked by fellow model Winnie Harlow in a Snapchat post.

'LMFAO [laugh my f***ing a** off] what are those. Cauliflower a** head.'

Winnie has since apologised and the pair have made up, but the Snapchat post was also addressed by Duckie in her viral Instagram post.

'To have a top model woman of colour, who I thought encouraged acceptance and self-love, call me out for rocking my natural hair isn't cool at all,' Duckie wrote in the post.

Winnie was a contestant on America's Next Top Model, widely-known for her skin condition vitiligo.

Duckie is pictured left getting her hair and makeup done for an unrelated photo shoot. She is believed to be wearing a weave or wig at right

Duckie is pictured getting her makeup done for the Dinosaur Designs photo shoot. She said she had been 'hesitant' to wear natural hair for the shoot because of her prior experiences

In her apology, also posted to Instagram, Winnie said her 'joke was about a short ponytail and had nothing to do with race, texture or skin'.

'I have a short ponytail too. I've worn my natural hair, braids, twists, et cetera. Because of this, the joke was meant to be light hearted. Wigs / weaves are just a protective style for us when we work.'

Winnie said she had spoken to Duckie on the phone and were 'together in unity and girl power'.

The social media posts followed the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which saw black models wear natural hair.

Winnie Harlow (pictured) has apologised about the Snapchat post regarding Dickie, and the pair have made up

Winnie said she had spoken to Duckie on the phone and were 'together in unity and girl power'

In an interview with Teen Vogue, Duckie said she often brings weaves and foundation to shoots, just in case.

'Believe it or not, a lot of the time makeup artists or even hair stylists, they've never worked with a girl with my complexion or hair texture.

'Being a black woman, we haven't really been taught how to take care of our natural hair  we've only been taught how to hide it.

'By constantly challenging and pushing at [these discrepancies] I hope we will eventually make a difference.'

Victoria's Secret model Leomi Anderson raised a similar concern earlier this year on Twitter.

'Why is it that the black makeup artists are busy with blonde white girls and slaying their makeup and I have to supply my own foundation,' she wrote in February.

Winnie was a contestant on America's Next Top Model, widely-known for her skin condition vitiligo
With a wedding on the cards for next year, they are practically family - and Carole Middleton and James Matthews looked delighted to be in each other's company as they stepped out for a carol concert in London.

Pippa, Carole and James were spotted leaving The Henry van Straubenzee Carol Concert at St Luke's Church in Sydney Street on Thursday - just yards from the couple's home.

While hedge fund manager James looked smart in a classic black suit and blue tie, his intended wrapped up warm in a blue tweed coat from Matthew Williamson with a zig-zag trim.

(L-R) James Matthews, Pippa and Carole Middleton appeared to be in high spirits after leaving the Henry van Straubenzee Carol Concert at St Luke's Church in London on Thursday

Pippa, 33, added a chic faux fur stole, tied with a simple black ribbon, and carried a small black box clutch.

Carole, who will turn 62 in January, looked equally elegant in a black wool cape and suede boots.

The trio appeared to be in high spirits after leaving the concert, with Pippa reaching for her fiance's hand before he shyly pulled away, according to onlookers.

Pippa's 200,000 engagement ring was clearly on show, five months after she agreed to marry the older brother of Made In Chelsea's Spencer Matthews.

Pippa, 33, wrapped up warm in a blue tweed coat from Matthew Williamson with pearl trimming. She added a chic black faux fur stole and a small black box clutch

The Duchess of Cambridge's sister was already installed in Jamess stucco-fronted house, where her beau has reportedly installed his-and-hers dressing rooms, at the time of their engagement in July.

Pippa's father, Mr Middleton, said in a statement at the time: 'Carole and I are absolutely thrilled with the news. They make a wonderful couple and we wish them every happiness together.'

Pippa's brother-in-law the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry have been joint Patrons of The Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund since January 2009, and while Harry has been soaking up the sun on his official tour of the Caribbean, William was nowhere to be seen on Thursday night.

Pippa's engagement ring was clearly on show (pictured), after she became betrothed to hedge fund manager James, who is the older brother of Made In Chelsea's Spencer, in July

The charity was set up with the aim of improving the quality of education in impoverished rural Ugandan schools, by investing in buildings and providing hygiene and educational resources.

Henry van Straubenzee, a 'very special friend' of the two princes, was killed in a car crash at the age of 18 and the pair are regulars at the annual memorial service.
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While most newlyweds enjoy a romantic honeymoon together after their wedding, one woman has ditched tradition and opted for something completely different.

Stephanie Allison, 31, from Sydney, married her partner of 13 years, Doug, on September 27th in Croatia - and just two weeks later she set off on a solo honeymoon.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia from Iceland ahead of her December 16 return, Mrs Allison said it was the best decision she has ever made and that her relationship is stronger than ever.

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While most newlyweds enjoy a romantic honeymoon together after their wedding, Stephanie Allison (pictured with her husband Doug on their wedding day), 31, has ditched tradition and opted for something completely different

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia from Iceland ahead of her December 16 return, Mrs Allison said it was the best decision she has ever made and that her relationship is stronger than ever

'Even if it caused anxiety attacks thinking about it, my intuition was telling me that this was something I really needed to do for myself,' she said

'I'm not the greatest planner, in fact Doug planned the whole wedding. So the solo honeymoon was more of a spontaneous thing after a conversation with my housemate who suggested that I travel a bit before and after the wedding by myself,' Mrs Allison said.

'I also chose to quit my job as a marketing manager as I'm currently going through an interesting transition in my life, so I knew I had the time to travel for a few months.

'When I spoke to Doug about my housemate's suggestion he said that he was actually going to suggest it himself as it just made sense. So I randomly picked some dates over a three month period and booked return tickets.'

We've both admitted that there were times that we didn't really miss each other that much and that we were enjoying our new found freedom,' Mrs Allison said

'We are very good at communicating any issues, fears or worries that we have with each other and coming up with solutions,' Mrs Allison said

Mrs Allison, a self-confessed 'scaredy cat' said deciding to go on the solo trip was one of the scariest decisions of her life as she had 'been hiding in a cocooned comfort zone for a few years.'

My intuition was telling me that this was something I really needed to do for myself.

'I knew that this was something that scared me and that I had been sitting in a comfort zone for too many years (it was starting to become uncomfortable) so I decided that in order to grow within myself I had to lean in to the fear, smash my comfort zone and just do it,' she explained.

'Even if it caused anxiety attacks thinking about it, my intuition was telling me that this was something I really needed to do for myself.'

Mrs Allison's husband encouraged the idea from the get go but admitted they did find it difficult to be apart for so long at times.

'By giving each other space to think and to miss the other person we have found a new appreciation/fresh perspective for the relationship and its nice to have a renewed realisation of how much we mean to each other,' Mrs Allison said

'Once I was already travelling he realised how long we were actually apart for and started to tease me that I left him for such a long time, which has been a bit of a running joke with us,' she said.

'I think he is very proud of me for conquering my fears and being spontaneous like this. It's very unlike me to do these sort of things.

'He was also a bit worried about money throughout this time, which is understandable considering I just left my job as well. The money has probably been the greatest source of friction at this time but so far everything has worked out well.

'We are very good at communicating any issues, fears or worries that we have with each other and coming up with solutions.'

WHAT ARE THE TOP THINGS MRS ALLISON HAS LEARNED ON HER SOLO TRIP? 1. Planning can actually be enjoyable and I'm actually good at it - this will come in handy with my business and will hopefully relieve Doug of some of his planning duties. 2. Listen to your intuition - I'm learning to strengthen my intuition and follow my feelings when it comes to making choices for my life. I now have a new direction that I'm very excited about pursuing and exploring further but coming to this point was not easy, I had to go through a huge, hard transition in order to get to where I am now. It's worth it though, the hard times make you stronger and then you end up following a path you can get really excited about. 3. Don't sweat the small things - as someone who used to burn myself out with stress at work I'm now learning to let things go and calmly work things out. There is so much more to life then the small things that sit on our minds and bother us from day to day, plus, life is too short to focus on the small stuff. I still have my stressy moments but I'm getting better. 4. I need to uplevel myself - I've been very wishy washy with my decisions and goals in the past few years. I also weakened my willpower by making promises to myself and then breaking them. Now, it's time for me to raise my standards for myself and do what I say I'm going to do so that I can reach the life I dream of and be fulfilled. It's not going to be easy, but it's better than always living in regret and thinking 'What if?' and beating myself down about it. 5. I need to do a solo travel every year for the rest of my life - I want to have more goals and trips with Doug moving forward, however as an independent person on my own journey in life I also feel the need to continue to pursue my individual dreams too. I don't want to lose myself again. Growing and nurturing myself will also benefit our relationship. I would also encourage Doug to go on solo trips if he wants to as well. You just learn so much about yourself! Advertisement

'Since I left Australia for the travels we have gotten married in Croatia, I've travelled around Europe (all up I've been to around nine countries), have eaten some delicious food and a cat gave birth to three kittens on my bed,' she said

Mrs Allison said the pair had spoken everyday at some stages and at other times, they didn't speak for a few days.

'I think that at the beginning it's always nice to get your freedom and spend some time without the other person. We've both admitted that there were times that we didn't really miss each other that much and that we were enjoying our new found freedom,' Mrs Allison said.

'However, as we are getting close to the end of my trip we are missing each other more and more and talk most days. I think this trip has been very healthy for our relationship as sometimes as a couple we can take each other for granted (especially after being together for 13 years).

'By giving each other space to think and to miss the other person we have found a new appreciation/fresh perspective for the relationship and its nice to have a renewed realisation of how much we mean to each other. It has made our relationship stronger and added a sense of independent togetherness.'

And when it came to packing?

'I tried to pack as lightly as possible but that was hard given that I had to bring summer and winter clothes, snow clothes and my wedding dress and accessories along with me too,' Mrs Allison said.

My personal growth has made me love and appreciate myself so much more.

Since she set off, Mrs Allison has travelled to Belgium, Austria, France, Czech Republic, Iceland, Switzerland, UK, Germany and Croatia.

'Since I left Australia for the travels we have gotten married in Croatia, I've travelled around Europe (all up I've been to around nine countries), have eaten some delicious food and a cat gave birth to three kittens on my bed,' she said.

'As much as I have loved the travel, sightseeing, being in nature and meeting new people, the highlight has got to be the personal insights that I have gotten about myself, the growth I'm experiencing within myself and the strength and confidence I have gained by conquering my fears. That is something that will last a lifetime.'

Mrs Allison has loved the travelling so much, that she has already booked another two month solo trip in South Africa for December 2017 and plans on doing a small solo trip every year - even if it's in Australia

'My personal growth has made me love and appreciate myself so much more and I know that will be a wonderful thing to bring back into my relationship with my wonderful husband, family and friendships,' Mrs Allison said

HOW DID MRS ALLISON AFFORD THE TRIP? Over the years I have learned how to respect and save money (thanks to my previous job which allowed me to be surrounded by incredible property investors). We have worked very hard over the past few years and bought two investment properties. Knowing that we had at least a little bit of security for our future made me feel a little better about spending my savings on this trip. I also was able to negotiate some contract work with my previous job and have an online business that I am working on too. Advertisement

Mrs Allison has loved the travelling so much, that she has already booked another two month solo trip in South Africa for December 2017 and plans on doing a small solo trip every year - even if it's in Australia.

And her advice for people who wish to do a similar trip?

'This might not be for everyone, personally I just felt that this was something that I needed to do for myself and I chose to listen to my intuition and take action,' Mrs Allison said.

'It was definitely the right decision for me. I think that if anyone feels an intuitive pull towards this or anything else they should find a way to pursue it as it is a wonderful way to get to know yourself, grow and experience a profound fulfillment.

'I know that I have challenges facing me moving forward with growing my business, making sure I don't fall into old habits that no longer serve me when I'm back and paying my bills.

'My personal growth has made me love and appreciate myself so much more and I know that will be a wonderful thing to bring back into my relationship with my wonderful husband, family and friendships.'
Ivanka Trump is getting right into the holiday spirit - with her family in tow.

The 35-year-old daughter of the President-elect has been keeping busy with festive fun since the month began, including attending an event on Sunday to watch 'Santa' being rescued off the roof of a fire station.

On Saturday, she was spotted with her two oldest children and husband Jared Kushner out and about in New York City.

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Out and about: Ivanka Trump was spotted on Saturday walking the streets of New York City with her husband Jared Kushner and their two oldest children

A fun day: Ivanka was carrying a plastic crown with 'Happy Birthday' on the front

The family were strolling down the street with Ivanka's hand clutching a 'Happy Birthday' crown and chasing after her mischievous daughter Arabella.

On Sunday, the mother-of-three headed down to the New York City Fire Museum with son Joseph to watch the firefighters put on a display for a gathered crowd, which she filmed and posted to Instagram.

'Santa being "rescued" by firefighters from the rooftop of the New York City Fire Museum this morning!' she wrote. 'Joseph, and the hundreds of kids gathered to watch this holiday tradition, absolutely loved it!'

Bit of fun: Arabella broke away from her parents at one point, causing Ivanka to call her back

Playing around: Ivanka eventually took off in a run to catch her mischievous daughter

All smiles: Ivanka also shared a clip of her 'shimmying my way into the weekend!'

She added: 'Thank you to the brave men and women who work every day at fire houses across this country risking their lives to keep us safe. We are grateful to you!'

The events of this weekend were a bit more low-key from Ivanka's busy schedule during the week.

The mom was looking extra glamorous as she left her apartment building early Wednesday morning, having donned a $158 black sheath dress featuring velvet trim and black and plaid heels, both from her eponymous lifestyle collection, as she stepped out of her Park Avenue home and headed to work at Trump Tower.

Ivanka was joined by her 35-year-old husband Jared Kushner, who was also looknig much more dressed up than usual.

Ready for a night on the town! Ivanka was all dressed up as she left her Park Avenue apartment on Wednesday morning

Walking billboard: The 35-year-old businesswoman donned a $158 black sheath dress featuring velvet trim and black and plaid heels, both from her eponymous lifestyle collection

The real estate developer was wearing a slate gray suit and a black tie as he headed off with his wife of seven years.

Jared was all smiles as he chatted on cell phone with his black messenger bag thrown over his shoulders.

With the weather in New York City being unseasonably warm, Ivanka had her blonde hair pulled in a chic bun and she held her black coat over one arm while carrying her black clutch in the other.

However, she wasn't outside for long. Ivanka was flanked by Secret Service agents who escorted her into the silver SUV that was waiting right outside of her building.

Ivanka's younger brother Eric, 32, was also photographed wearing a suit and tie as he arrived at Trump Tower on Wednesday.

Elegant ensemble: Ivanka had her blonde hair pulled in a chic bun and she held her black coat over one arm

On the go: The mother-of-three was flanked by Secret Service agents who escorted her into the silver SUV that was waiting right outside of her building

Donald and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet members and other high level positions for the new administration, and he announced on Wednesday morning that he is putting a plan in motion to detach from his real estate business when he enters the White House.

'I will be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15 to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' he wrote in a series of tweets.

'While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.'

Busy as can be: Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who was also dressed up in a suit and tie, were heading off to Trump Tower

Part of it all: The two are helping Donald's transition team, which is in the process of filling numerous high level positions for the new administration

'Hence, legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations,' he added. 'The Presidency is a far more important task!'

Donald promised to hold a press conference in 15 days to lay out the details

Meanwhile, Ivanka, who is the executive vice president of the Trump organization, has been busier than ever now that her father is the President-elect.

Since the election, many of Donald's critics have honed in on his eldest daughter.

Over the past week, the new Instagram page, Dear Ivanka, has been targeting her by sharing glamorous pictures of her alongside harrowing captions that address the fears associated with her father's impending presidency.

Taking a stand: More than 150 artists, curators, and gallery workers attended a protest against Ivanka's support of her father Donald on Monday night

Spreading the word: The candlelight vigil was organized by the Halt Action Group and held at the Puck Building, which is owned by the Kushner family

The Instagram page was started by numerous people involved in the art world, including art dealer Bill Powers, artist Jonathan Horowitz, and curator Alison Gingeras.

The Halt Action Group, as they are calling themselves, used the Instagram page and their growing number of followers to organize a protest at the Puck Building in downtown Manhattan, which is owned by the Kushner family.

More than 150 artists, curators, and gallery workers attended the candlelight vigil on Monday evening, including notable artists such as Cecily Brown and Marilyn Minter.

Participants carried signs criticizing Ivanka for her unwavering support for her father while begging her to stand up to the President-elect and denounce his controversial policy positions.
The new 'ethno-folk' collection from Italian knitwear supremo Benetton

Benetton had dropped off our radar in recent years, but a new collection by the Haitian-raised, Italian-based designer Stella Jean has caught our attention. Its the first designer collaboration for Benetton and, in keeping with the brand, it is a strictly multicultural affair described as ethno-folk. This is far more appealing than it sounds  Stella is pepping up gloomy winters with accessories made by Haitian and Ethiopian artisans, chunky jumpers with Navajo-inspired motifs, and an on-point technicoloured dreamcoat. aka long cardigan. From Tuesday; prices from 39.90, benetton.com.

WE LOVE: velvet jacket, 245, Ghost, ghost.co.uk

Pangolin Man photographs are available from patrickmavros.com

Front Row is newly obsessed by pangolins. By what? you may ask. The pangolin is a little-known, shy and quirky creature with distinctive scales  and the worlds most trafficked mammal. Now, thanks to a photographic project by renowned wildlife photographer Adrian Steirn and a pangolin-inspired collection by African jeweller Patrick Mavros, the plight of this endangered animal might change. Steirns extraordinary images of Zimbabwean pangolins and the men who help protect them have gone viral. Ten per cent of the proceeds from the sale of the photographs and the jewellery will be donated to the Tikki Hywood Trust, which works to rescue the pangolin and bring it to our attention. Pangolin Man photographs, price on application, and jewellery from 145, all from patrickmavros.com.

18ct yellow gold ring, 4,700 and sterling silver ring, 150, both from patrickmavros.com

Selfridges on London's Oxford Street

Shopaholics may need to give Selfridges new accessories hall a wide berth because, boy, is this place dangerous.

It is part of the 300 million refurbishment of the Oxford Street store, which is doubling the space for bags and taking in 100 brands and 21 stores within a store for top labels such as Dior, Prada, Vuitton et al.

Mr Selfridge is surely beaming down from on high.
In search of the unusual or off the beaten track this gifting season? Take inspiration from Ancient Greece, modern art and even outer space with our guide to the best museum shops

THE SCIENCE MUSEUM

The Science Museum has a lot to satisfy tech geeks, stargazers and the curious-minded of all ages. From chemistry and computer-coding kits to robots and smartphone gadgets  plus great stocking fillers  these gifts are guaranteed to amuse for hours. sciencemuseumshop.co.uk

1 Smartphone microscope, 15. 2 Spirograph Drawing Set, 5. 3 Talking microscope, 40. 4 chemistry set, 100. 5 3D Glow-In-The-Dark Planets, 7.50. 6 Rocket tent, 25. 7 Kinetic orbit mobile, 18. 8 Computer kit, 130. 9 Robot, 400. Allsciencemuseumshop.co.uk

TATE

The treats at the Tates Modern, Britain, St Ives and Liverpool galleries can all be found in its online shop, drawing on exhibitions old and new  and the legacy of global and British artists  for books, T-shirts, accessories and a custom-print service (unframed, from 25). shop.tate.org.uk

1 Ella Doran chopping board, 18. 2 Andy Tuohy childrens umbrella, 10. 3 Mug, 10. 4 Pens, 2.75 each. 5 Watercolour paint set, 55. 6 Kveta Pacovska Alphabet pop-up book, 24.99. 7 Wooden chopping board, 65. 8 Ally Capellino satchel, 50. 9 Limited-edition jeff Koons monkey skateboard, 1,500. Allshop.tate.org.uk

BRITISH MUSEUM

Perfect for history buffs, whether their interests lie in Ancient Egypt and Rome or contemporary periods extending to Africa and Australasia. There are ceramic sculptural replicas, cute keyrings, totes, writing sets, books and puzzles for budding great thinkers. britishmuseumshoponline.org

1 Nautilus shell sculpture, 275. 2 Wallace Sewell lambswool scarf, 55. 3 Ariadne replica bust, 225. 4 Zulu pots bag, 9.99. 5 Greek charms keyring, 3.99. 6 Stained-glass roundel, 9.50. 7 Earrings, 65. 8 Aristotle number puzzle, 9.99. 9 Calligraphy set, 165. All britishmuseumshoponline.org

DESIGN MUSEUM

A showcase for 20th-century and present-day creations, the Design Museum is the place to go to for investment pieces by the worlds best architects (including John Pawson, who has designed the new space in Londons Holland Park), to fun plates, stationery and foodie gift sets. designmuseumshop.com

1 Miffy lamp, 105. 2 Laptop blackboard, 40. 3 John Pawson copper bowl, 1,010. 4 Joe Colombo storage trolley, 400. 5 Issey Miyake plate, 21. 6 Paul Smith Anglepoise desk lamp, 160. 7 Grace: Thirty Years of Fashion by Grace Coddington (Phaidon), 125. 8 Micro cubeot, 10. 9 Barber & Osgerby jug, 50. All designmuseumshop.com

ROYAL ACADEMY

With a heritage of supporting all forms of art from painting to sculpture, the Royal Academy of Arts shop is a great place to find special pieces by past and present Royal Academicians  plus fabulous accessories from the current abstract expressionism exhibition. shop.royalacademy.org.uk

1 Coaster set, 14. 2 Jackson Pollock rucksack, 45, and 3 Reading glasses, 30. 4 Terry Frost scarf, 60. 5 Cecil Aldin felt dog, 35. 6 My Darcy cufflinks, 36. 7 spoon set (designed by eight architects, including Royal Academicians David Chipperfield and Will Alsop), 45. 8 Edward Bawden luggage tag, 10. 9 Horn necklace, 50. All shop.royalacademy.org.uk

V&A

The iconic Victoria & Albert Museums online shop is almost as big as the real thing, drawing design inspiration  often with an arts-and-crafts bent from its vast collections and exhibitions for printed textiles, jewellery and illustrated prints. Plus lots of dinky stocking fillers. vam.ac.uk

1 Fleece gloves, 16.50. 2 Retro radio, 25. 3 Wooden bird whistle, 6.50. 4 Robert Indiana poster, 195. 5 Homemade gin kit, 50. 6 Woven clutch, 175. 7 Voysey river tapestry kit, 70. 8 David Bowie tote bag, 7.50. 9 Miniature suitcases, 22.50 for a set of three. All vam.ac.uk

CULTURELABEL

One-stop shop CultureLabel is the place to find a thoughtfully curated collection of fashion, homeware, accessories, prints and books from fantastic museums and galleries across the country  from Londons Wallace Collection to the National Galleries of Scotland. culturelabel.com

1 Grayson Perry plate, 120 for four. 2 Porridge spurtle spoons, 14.50 each. 3 Peter Blake deckchair, 135. 4 Melanie Tomlinson Brooch, 39. 5 Tartan silk bow tie, 22.99. 6 Young & Battaglia lamp, 360. 7 Elise Compson silver and semiprecious stone necklace, 250. 8 Hello Geronimo penguin print, 35. All culturelabel.com

LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM

For intrepid travellers (and trainspotters), the London Transport Museum is the best place for old and new travel memorabilia, from model trains to vintage underground posters by leading artists of the time  and fun paraphernalia for bus- and train-mad youngsters. ltmuseumshop.co.uk
A new breed of preloved designer fashion websites is helping us turn unwanted clothes into cash. Amy E Williams explains how to buy wisely now and make your money back next season when youre lusting after something new



'Resale value is the new buzz-phrase among savvy fashion-lovers who no longer simply shop for clothes and accessories but trade in them,' says Amy

When it comes to shopping for new clothes there are a few rules I attempt to abide by to keep both my overcrowded wardrobe and overused credit card in check: does the item I am on the brink of buying  shirt, skirt, sweater, whatever  go with any clothes I currently own? Do I love it, need it, want it so much that I would choose to wear it tomorrow over anything else in my closet? And does it actually fit me, or only the version of me who is, say, three pounds slimmer? (As we all know, there are some shopping slip-ups that even Spanx cant solve.)

In the past year or so, though, a new consideration has come into play: what will the item be worth if, having broken my own rules, it turns out I never wear it or I have failed to shrink myself into it and want to sell it on? Resale value is the new buzz-phrase among savvy fashion-lovers who no longer simply shop for clothes and accessories but trade in them, always considering the preloved (second hand to you and me) value before they buy anything new. It is part financial brilliance, boosting your ability to buy what you want in the future, part get-out-of-jail-free card for the ill-thought-through purchases of your past. As such, the business of selling preloved fashion is booming.

Auction houses have been doing it for a while, with smaller ones such as Kerry Taylor and Chiswick Auctions regularly whipping up interest for both vintage and designer clothing sales. But it is specialist fashion websites that are now attracting huge volumes of customers  both those wanting to sell things on and those looking for bargains as buyers. The Paris-based Vestiaire Collective has more than five million users in 47 countries and its site is bursting with once loved clothes looking for new homes. Five thousand items a day are uploaded to the site, from 40 Zara bomber jackets to Hermes Birkin bags costing 40,000. Think of an item you covet and youre likely to find it.

Other smaller sites, including Rebelle and HEWI London (Hardly Ever Worn It), are equally awash with sartorial steals  not surprising given that the preloved market is estimated to be worth 13 billion. And though we could all predict that a Hermes might hold its value, there are plenty of high-street stars that will, too.

Items from French brands such as Sandro and Maje do very well, as do designer collaborations. Take the recent Kenzo for H&M collection; pieces are now selling for more on preloved websites than they cost in the store. And last year I sold a Stella McCartney for H&M knit for pretty much exactly what I paid for it an entire decade ago.

Far from being glorified Ebays or charity shops, these preloved fashion sites use sophisticated online tools and quality-checking procedures to ensure as seamless and risk-free an experience as possible for both buyers and sellers. Sites charge a commission to sellers  normally 20-30 per cent  and most offer concierge services that take care of the boring stuff (photographing, negotiating, posting) if you wish (at a price: typically commission increases to 40 per cent).

Pieces from Kenzo x H&M are selling for more online than they cost in store. This coat, RRP 113, was reportedly listed on Ebay for 737

There are even specialists who can visit your home and advise on what clothes and accessories you should and shouldnt get rid of, and how much your wardrobe would be worth should you choose to part with any of it. So popular are these sites that many sellers and buyers have become so-called fashion brokers who strategically trade in items that hold their value in order to make money, or to keep on top of the trends without breaking the bank.

Not that all such brokers are entirely budget-minded. According to Charlie Collins, VIP manager at Vestiaire, their top-tier clients can spend upwards of 1 million a year on the site. We do find increasingly that our top buyers are also our top sellers. They are very savvy when it comes to what they want and how to get it. They sell pieces to make physical room for others and for the thrill of the find, but also the thrill of the sale. Yes, they could walk down Bond Street and buy anything they wanted new, but on Vestiaire there is a chance of finding something more unusual.

For a short time, I attempted to operate a strict and willpower-reliant policy of one in, one out, never buying anything new unless I had sold something old. Its a policy theoretically made easy by these sites  but I have form when it comes to making and breaking self-imposed fashion rules, and it does take a lot of patience.

Photographing and loading items to these sites takes time (Id advise taking the short cut and using a concierge service), and though some pieces will sell within a few days  kerching!  others can remain there for months. And, trust me, you will forget about them and then, in carboot-sale style, practically give them away rather than have them returned to you (most sites offer a negotiating tool which allows prospective buyers to haggle the price down).

The ethos of these sites is honesty and transparency. Sellers are encouraged to describe items as accurately as possible: warts, tears, stains, scuffs and all. Buyers are reassured because every item is carefully checked in person to ensure that it is as described and also genuine. Vestiaire Collective employs a team of skilled counterfeit specialists who are trained by top fashion houses and can sniff out even the most sophisticated of fakes.

'Our top clients are very savvy when it comes to what they want and how to get it,' says Charlie Collins, VIP manager at Vestiaire

So you wont get a knock-off, but there is still a chance that you will end up with something you didnt quite expect, or that doesnt fit you, or that you just dont like. The one thing these sites do not do is returns, so if you are buying, ask the seller as many questions as possible.

While enjoying my one-in-one-out phase, and having sold a leather Longchamp bag I had long fallen out of lust with, I felt pretty smug to discover a mini Salvatore Ferragamo bag in black crocodile skin that I could newly afford. Mini in my world means room enough for a phone, a lipstick, house keys and a credit card. I didnt check the measurements  I mean, how mini could mini be?

When it arrived some two weeks later, it was indeed a vintage Salvatore Ferragamo bag in black crocodile skin, but one apparently designed for a Borrower: a perfectly formed miniature bag no bigger than my palm (a literal hand bag as my colleagues joked at the time). It now hangs on my wall and is an amusing, if expensive, cautionary tale to tell.

Kristy Wolf and Susie Travis, founders of the newly launched London resale site Couture Community, suggest trying on things in an actual store before taking the plunge on something second hand. If youre looking to invest in, say, a designer dress, theres no harm in popping in to the designers store first, trying things on so that you know your size, and then finding an equivalent for significantly less on our site, they told me. And it helps if you know exactly what you are looking for before you start trawling.

There is a community element to the concept of fashion-trading, of not throwing things away or allowing them to linger unused. By sharing them and selling them on, you are buying into an environmentally friendly addition to the fashion merry-go-round. And one that can prove lucrative for all involved.

Get resale savvy

Classic Gucci bags will always hold their value

BUYING

Set alerts

If there is something specific you are after, use the online tools available that will do the hard work for you and notify you as soon as an exact match is up for sale. According to Vestiaire, 40 per cent of new items sell within a week, so you need to be on it to win it.

Ready to ship means ready to wear

If you need something fast, only buy pieces that are labelled ready to ship, meaning they are being held by the respective site, have already been checked for flaws and fakery, and will be sent out to you within days rather than weeks.

Negotiate

You can talk to sellers via direct message. Try bartering, especially if the item you want has been lingering on the site for a while.

Try on for size

Have a mooch around designer stores to see what sizes and styles fit you, so that you will have a better idea when you see equivalent pieces for sale on the sites.

Ask questions

The communities on preloved sites tend to be honest and upfront, but dont assume the piece you have your eye on is exactly what you want. Contact the seller with any queries you may have.

SELLING

TLC time

Give your wardrobe regular attention. Treat all the clothes you buy as if you might one day sell them on. Keep original boxes for shoes and dust-bags for handbags, dry-clean clothes, replace lost buttons, etc.

Follow the trends

Gucci has been enjoying a renaissance recently, which means even a 15-year-old bag has increased in desirability. If you have one, now may be a good time to sell. When a designer leaves a fashion house, for example, Raf Simons at Dior or Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent, the pieces they designed may suddenly leap in popularity and value.

Honesty is the best policy

Be as detailed as possible. Measure your item. Notify potential buyers if the fit is small or large, or of any signs of wear and tear, and photograph all parts of the item, the good as well as the bad.

Use a resale calculator

Vestiaire Collective has a tool that helps you judge pricing and ensure you are selling at the best time.

Utilise the concierge services

It may seem like a lazy option, and it does mean you relinquish a larger percentage of the money you make, but concierge services not only shoot your items professionally and price them realistically, but they will store them so that they are ready to ship, making them more desirable and saving you the faff of postage.

Know your best investments

According to the sites we asked, including Vestiaire Collective and Rebelle, bags retain their value above any other items. Hermes Birkin bags and Chanel Timeless and 2.55 bags can in fact rise in value on the second-hand market, especially limited editions or those in unusual skins.

Left: Celine's Curved bag was achieving a resale value of 100 per cent. Right: Isabel Marant pieces are regularly big sellers

On Vestiaire Collective, Celine is one of the most consistent brands in terms of retaining resale value. You can expect to make back up to 85 per cent of the original price on most designs. Plus, last year the brands Curved bag (top right) was achieving a resale value of 100 per cent due to its limited availability

Big-name brands such as Burberry (left) and Louis Vuitton sell well

Clothing wise, Isabel Marant pieces are regularly big sellers, and by association her diffusion line Etoile is, too. Investing now may see you reap rewards when you resell 12 months down the line.

Lesser-known (though no less desirable) designers such as Christopher Kane don't retain their value so well, so as a buyer, you could bag a bargain

Big-name labels such as Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga and Burberry will always retain their value above lesser-known (though no less desirable) designers such as Christopher Kane and Roksanda. However, this does mean that as a buyer, you could bag a bargain from the latter on the preloved market.

Look for designer-influenced pieces, such as Zaras recent Ukrainian-style embroidered smock dresses

High-street sellout lines can also be sold at a potential profit on resale sites. Look for designer-influenced pieces, such as Zaras recent Ukrainian-style embroidered smock dresses, and, of course, designer collaborations such as Kenzo for H&M.

The higher end of the high street sells well, too. Invest in Sandro, Maje and Iro and keep them in good nick to recoup around 60 per cent of their value if you choose to sell them on.

The sites to sign-up to

These new season Isabel Marant trainers are a good investment buy

VESTIAIRECOLLECTIVE.COM

Based Paris

Launched 2009

Highest-value item ever sold A Hermes Birkin bag for 63,000.

High-street hit Balmain for H&M: 54 per cent of items sold within a week, with an average resale price 200 per cent higher than the original.

We love Its resale calculator, which allows you to estimate how much your wardrobe is worth and what you could resell something for before you buy. The site of choice for the fashion set  its good for current trends.

REBELLE.COM

Based Hamburg

Launched 2013

Most popular item The Louis Vuitton Speedy bag, which sells for 250-700 depending on condition.

We love Rebelle holds two-thirds of items for sale at its HQ, which means most are available to ship within 48 hours. And they come in beautiful boxes, which make everything feel like new.

COUTURECOMMUNITY.COM

Based London

Launched 2016

We love As well as individual sellers, Couture Community offers a platform for consignment stores that do not have snazzy websites, which means it gives buyers access to pieces  particularly vintage  that would otherwise not make it online.

HEWILONDON.COM

Based London

Launched 2011

Star sale An Hermes bag bought for 32,000 recently sold for 40,000.

We love HEWI (Hardly Ever Worn It) often runs charity sales, such as the recent sale of Tamara Ecclestones clothes in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital. It also hosts regular VIP sales from the likes of reality TV star and businesswoman Caroline Stanbury, so if you like a certain style you can shop someones entire wardrobe. The mens section is worth a look, too.

BUYMYWARDROBE.COM

Based London

Established 2012
Despite the Navy junking the aircraft carrier version of the home-grown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), the DRDO would continue working on the plane to develop it into a naval variant of the indigenous fifth-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).

In a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make in India programme in defence sector, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba announced that Naval LCA did not meet his force's requirements and it would look for a foreign-made plane.

DRDO officials told Mail Today: 'Despite the Navy junking our project, we would go ahead with developing the Naval LCA as a technology demonstrator. We will use the experience and learning for developing it into a fifth-generation fighter plane.'

F-35 LIGHTNING The aircraft is being developed by US defence major Lockheed Martin for both the Air Force and the Navy with an aircraft carrier variant. The programme also involves partnership with major US defence partner countries including the UK, Japan, South Korea and Australia

'The DRDO is already working on the proposed Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft which will have the capabilities and strength of a fifth generation fighter and we would develop a naval variant of the plane using the experience of working on Naval LCA, they said.

The Navy has been given permission by the Defence Ministry to scout global markets for an aircraft carrier-based fighter aircraft for its future requirements.

The Naval LCA made its maiden flight in April 2012, and two prototypes are currently undergoing flying as part of the development.

The DRDO and Navy have also created a 'Shore-based Test Facility' for the development of the Naval LCA at the INS Hansa naval air base in Goa, and the aircraft had been recently tested there.

'We will seek aircraft elsewhere which can operate on the aircraft carrier,' Lanba had announced on Friday.

The Navy currently operates Russian MiG-29K fighters from the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, which will also fly from the first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) Vikrant once it enters service.

India had procured MiG-29Ks along with the INS Vikramaditya, and it is the only country in the world to operate the aircraft.

Its maker Russia also does not use it in its Navy. A second IAC weighing 65,000 tonnes is currently in the design phase and the Navy Chief said that they would soon approach the government for approval.

The Navy has also promised to help DRDO in developing its fifth-generation AMCA aircraft.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram has suffered a cardiac arrest only days after she handed many of her responsibilities to a deputy because of her ongoing health problems.

'CM (Jayaram), who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening,' doctor Subbaiah Viswanathan from the hospital said in a statement to the Press Trust of India news agency.

'She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists,' the statement added.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram has suffered a cardiac arrest only days after she handed many of her responsibilities to a deputy because of her ongoing health problems

The hospital gave updates about the chief minister's health in a series of tweets, also asking all to pray for her 'good health and well being.'

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee too wished for her speedy recovery. 'Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recover,' he posted on Twitter.

The hugely popular chief minister of Tamil Nadu, a former movie star, was admitted to hospital on September 22 suffering from fever and dehydration and is on respiratory support.

Authorities have said little about the state of the 68-year-old's health after several of her supporters resorted to self-harm when she was briefly jailed in 2014 on charges of corruption.

Charismatic Jayalalithaa enjoys huge popularity in Tamil Nadu, where fans know her simply as 'Amma' (Mother) thanks to a series of highly populist schemes and election-time freebies including electric blenders, goats and small amounts of gold.

Indian Muslims hold a portrait of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayaram as they pray for her wellbeing as they stand in front of a hospital where she was being treated in Chennai

Over the last few weeks, her fans and ardent supporters have resorted to extreme steps while praying for her good health and speedy recovery.

Some have performed sacrifices to try to change her fate.

Recent images in the local media at the time showed scores of children with metal arrows piercing their cheeks holding her pictures as they prayed for her recovery.

Indian police try to stop members of the All India Anna Dravida Mennetra Kazhgam (AIADMK) organisation carrying burning pots during a ritual offered for the health of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram (picture from the 18th October)

Soon after reports of her cardiac arrest, local news channels showed images of her supporters, particularly women, crying publicly and gathering in their hundreds outside the hospital for an update on her health.

The minister's latest medical setback comes only days after her team of doctors and senior leaders from her regional party talked about her recovery and return to active political duties in the next few days.
Following instructions from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah sent a letter to party legislators individually

The letter sent by BJP president Amit Shah to all party legislators asking them to furnish details of bank transactions and account details also carries a form that appears remarkably similar to an 'income-tax declaration form'.

Mail Today has a copy of the letter and the 'form' with it which seeks financial details of legislators and their dependents.

The move is designed to show that proving financial transparency is not merely a stunt to silence the opposition after the demonetisation move, but rather a clear indicator that the BJP is serious on combating corruption within the party.

Following instructions from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah sent a letter to party legislators individually, in which he sought details of monetary transactions using old notes for the period between November 9, when demonetisation of high denomination notes took effect, and December 30, when the scheme for depositing old notes in bank accounts will end.

The details sought include exchange of old notes as well as the amounts deposited in banks in the old and now illegal tender.

The letter comes attached with a form that closely resembles an Income Tax declaration form titled: 'Declaration of Cash Deposited/Exchanged (of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes) By Members of Parliament/Legislative Assembly', and asks the members to submit the details and send it back to Shah in a sealed envelope by January 1.

BJP National President Amit Shah wants to silence the opposition after the demonetisation move and show that the BJP is serious on combating corruption within the party

After an initial set of general queries such as name and address along with the House to which the member might belong, the form continues to ask for the following: Amount of cash deposited in banks/post offices during the reference period. Name of the bank or post office, branch address, account number and description of the account. Sources from which the money was financed (personal savings or other sources).

In the same way, the form proceeds to ask for details of the currency exchanged. The form also notes that 'details may be provided in respect of member or his/her spouse or by any of his or her dependent children who have no separate means and are fully dependent on the member'.

'The honourable Prime Minister had on Tuesday requested all legislators to furnish details of their accounts to the party while talking of political probity.

'You too have to encourage electronic exchange,' Shah addressed the party law makers in the letter.

Earlier, in a move to silence critics and the Opposition, who have been protesting the Government's note ban move citing cash shortage affecting transactions across the country, the Prime Minister had asked all BJP MPs and MLAs to submit their bank transaction details to Shah on January 1.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said Modi too should disclose his account details to the nation

The Opposition voiced concerns over the sluggish implementation of the move, with thousands of ATMs across the country drying up and long queues in front of operational ones.

Modi had announced the move in the BJP parliamentary party meet which took place in the Parliament last Tuesday.

However, the move did not cut much ice with the Opposition, which alleged that if the PM is really serious about dispelling the allegation that some people were tipped off about demonetisation before it was announced, he should have asked his leaders to submit their account details from September onwards to examine the matter.
Buyers paid a total of over $60,000 for items linked to famed inventor Thomas Edison in Dallas on Saturday.

The Heritage Auctions announced that a number of items tied to Edison, including keys to his Menlo Park, New Jersey, lab and a number of the lightbulbs that he perfected, were sold for a total of $64,375.

'These bulbs were entered as evidence when Edison sued three different companies for allegedly infringing on his patent for the incandescent bulb,' said Don Ackerman, a consignment director for Historical Americana for Heritage Auctions.

'Edison's own keys were used to open the doors of his laboratory was where the genius earned his nickname as "The Wizard of Menlo Park".'

A Pittsburgh man acquired the items from his great aunt, who was married to one of the attorneys whose law firm represented Edison in patent lawsuits.

One buyer paid $10,625 for a set of keys to Thomas Edison's famous laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey

One of the bulbs sold on Saturday was created by a German inventor, Heinrich Gobel, who claimed to have invented the incandescent lightbulb in 1868, 11 years before Edison is credited with inventing it.

The bulb and accompanying documentation sold for $23,750.

Gobel did not apply for patent, but he did testify against Edison after Edison sued three manufacturers whom he accused of violating his patents.

Five bulbs used in the court case also sold at auction for $30,000.

'Both 'original' Goebel lamps and reproductions were offered as exhibits, but there was no proof that any of them were made prior to 1880,' said Ackerman. 'This tactic by defense attorneys became known as the 'Goebel Defense' and it has since been used in other similar cases.'

The keys to Edison's New Jersey lab sold for $10,625.

Another buyer paid $30,000 for a set of five lightbulbs that were presented as evidence in a lawsuit filed by Edison alleging patent infringement of his invention

Edison had applied for about 400 patents, including improvements to the incandescent bulb, before he left for New York City in 1882, said Kathleen Carlucci, director of the Thomas Edison Center in New Jersey.

The lab itself was built by Edison's father about 30 miles northeast of Trenton and was the world's largest in its day. Carlucci said it also was 'the first research and development facility.'

Edison (above), who was known as 'The Wizard of Menlo Park', developed the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long-lasting lightbulb

The bulbs up for auction were part of a collection used in patent infringement lawsuits. 'One bulb in particular was used in a case where he (Edison) was able to prove he had a patent,' Knudsen said.

After making lightbulbs commercially viable, the 'Wizard of Menlo Park' turned his attention to New York City where he worked to develop an electric utility.

Squatters took over the abandoned Menlo Park property, raising chickens and crops, Carlucci said. Local residents held dances in the lab.

Today, Menlo Park is a national historic site and a state park. None of the original buildings remain, but a museum and education center highlight Edison's accomplishments.

A 131-foot memorial tower to commemorate his work on the lightbulb stands on the site.

It was restored last year and its 14-foot tall replica bulb shines in the night.
While fake news stories have been widely criticized after the elections, one police chief credits a false press release with saving the lives of two men.

Police Chief Ralph Martin of Santa Maria, California, issued a false press release claiming two men had been arrested so authorities could shielding them from gang members while keeping their sting operation under wraps.

The ruse was criticized by news organizations that reported it as fact, but Martin said it bought investigators three weeks to gather evidence that led to the arrest of 17 gang members on charges of 10 murders and plots to kill eight others, including the two cousins, who remain under protection.

Police Chief Ralph Martin (pictured) issued a false press release claiming two men had been arrested so authorities could shielding them from gang members

The phony announcement issued in February was discovered in court documents and only reported this week by the Santa Maria Sun, a weekly newspaper in the city 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The daily newspaper and local television stations were unaware the information in the release was false when they reported that two men, Jose Santos Melendez, 22, and his cousin Jose Marino Melendez, 23, had been arrested for identity theft and handed over to immigration authorities.

Using wiretaps and surveillance, police learned the two men, members of a rival gang who lost another cousin to violence seven months earlier, were about to be killed, he said.

Police worried the hit men might harm family members instead if they thought the two men were in hiding. But they also did not want to expose their long-running sting operation by making arrests.

So they took the two men into protective custody and fabricated the news release.

After MS-13 gang members returned the next day looking for the two, police overheard a phone conversation among the MS-13 gang members discussing the news that their targets had been arrested.

Martin said he's taken some flak from news media, but he has also received about two dozen supportive calls. 'I think if they were in my shoes they would have done the same thing,' he said.

He added: 'It was a moral and ethical decision, and I stand by it. I am keenly aware and sensitive to the community and the media. I also had 21 bodies lying in the city in the last 15 months.'

Police worried the hit men might harm family members if they thought the two men were in hiding. They also did not want to expose their long-running sting operation by making arrests

Kendra Martinez, news director at KSBY-TV, said she was 'deeply troubled' that police misled the public and news organizations.

'While we strongly support the police department's efforts to protect citizens in harm's way, we are concerned this type of deception can erode the basic trust of our residents and viewers,' Martinez said.

The sting comes to light as news organizations try to set the record straight as truth and fiction blur amid a proliferation of 'fake news' spread by social media.

Jonathan Kotler, a professor at the USC Annenberg journalism school, said there was nothing illegal about what police did, but it could raise questions about the department's future credibility.

But he added that the public was unlikely to appreciate the importance of that issue, particularly when the police said it was matter of life and death.

So they took the two men into protective custody and fabricated the news release, a move that was criticized for eroding trust

Sending bogus information to the media to advance law enforcement goals is rare but not unheard of.

Police in Ottawa, Canada, were criticized for issuing a press release with false information about evidence connected to a 2014 murder case so they could see how the suspects reacted.

Sting operations routinely use ruses to lure deadbeat parents, traffic-fine scofflaws and people wanted for all kinds of outstanding warrants to collect prizes they think they've won.

But those stings, while reported as news, don't make the press a player in the operation and don't dupe law-abiding citizens.

'They used a public system paid for with public dollars to present false information to the public,' said Marga Cooley, managing editor of the Santa Maria Times.

Louis Dekmar, vice president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said he's only heard tactics like that used three times in his four decades on the force.

He would only try such subterfuge in the rarest cases without other reasonable options and only after weighing the long-term consequences.

'Any time you enter into a ruse that involves the media, it creates a real distrust between the police and the folks we rely on,' said Dekmar, who is police chief in LaGrange, Georgia.
What would possess a man described as a 'world-renowned neurosurgeon' to kill his wife, herself a respected family doctor and mother of his three children?

That is what investigators in Toronto are trying to piece together after the arrest of Mohammed Shamji, who is being charged with murdering his wife, Elana Fric-Shamji.

Shamji, 40, appeared in court Saturday to face a first-degree murder charge just 24 hours after coroners identified his 40-year-old wife's body that was first spotted a day before beside a river in suburban Toronto.

She was determined to have died from strangulation and blunt force trauma, according to police.

Mohammed Shamji (left), a renowned neurosurgeon, appeared in a Toronto court on Saturday. The body of his wife, Elana Fric-Shamji (right) was identified by coroners on Friday

Shamji has been ordered remanded in custody until December 20, local media reported.

News of the murder and Shamji's alleged complicity has been met with shock in the Toronto area, particularly within the medical community.

The Shamjis were highly regarded doctors whose 12-year marriage produced three children.

Fric-Shamji worked as a family doctor at the Scarborough and Rouge Hospital in Toronto.

Mohammed Shamji (seen left with his wife) was arrested and charged with first-degree murder

Shamji is a neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital and a faculty member at the University of Toronto.

They both had advanced degrees  Fric-Shamji a master's degree in public policy and Shamji a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering - from Duke University in the US.

Police took statements from witnesses who reported hearing the couple arguing at their home.

Law enforcement officials believe that after a loud argument, Fric-Shamji was strangled and struck with a blunt force object in the couple's garage.

Her body was then stuffed into a suitcase and driven to York Region, Ontario, where it was dumped on the side of a river near an underpass.

Coroners say that Elana Fric-Shamji died of strangulation and blunt force trauma. Police believe her husband killed her in the couple's garage after a heated argument

Neighbors told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Elana Fric-Shamji had filed for divorce from her husband and that she was in 'good spirits' in the days leading up to her death because she was 'looking toward her new life.'

The couple' children  Yasmin, 12; Faiza, 9; and Marius, 3  were placed in the care of her maternal grandparents, according to reports.

The reports of the grisly death are a far cry from images of the couple on their social media accounts, which show a husband and wife enjoying one another's company.

The couple had been married for 12 years and had three children together. Friends say that Elana Fric-Shamji was 'in good spirits' after filing for divorce recently

While the couple kept up an appearance in public of marital bliss, police sources said that they were called to their home on previous occasions

The Shamjis are seen above with two of their three young children. Authorities said that the children have been placed in the care of their maternal grandparents

But sources are also quoted as telling the Toronto Sun that the marriage was marred by previous incidents in which the police were called to the house.

People who knew the victim were shocked at the news. They remember a very popular doctor beloved in the community.
Advertisement

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's ashes have arrived in the eastern city of Santiago, ending a four-day journey across Cuba.

Thousands of people welcomed the leader's remains to shouts of 'Fidel! I am Fidel!'

The 90-year-old former president, who died on November 25, will be remembered in a nationally televised service led by his brother, President Raul Castro, Saturday evening.

His ashes will be interred Sunday morning, ending a nine-day mourning period.

Mourning for Castro has reached near-religious peaks of public adulation across Cuba since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba.

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's ashes (pictured) arrived in the eastern city of Santiago on Saturday, ending a four-day journey across Cuba

People chant 'Yo soy Fidel' meaning 'I am Fidel!' as the motorcade carrying the ashes of Castro pass the crowds in Santiago

The 90-year-old former president, who died on November 25, will be remembered in a nationally televised service led by his brother, President Raul Castro, Saturday evening

The Venezuelan Presidency press office released this image of the urn with the ashes of Cuban leader Fidel Castro upon its arrival in Santiago, Cuba

Castro's ashes rode on a green truck in a glass case with white flowers laid around it as thousands of people watched in the streets

Tens of thousands of Cubans packed into a public square in Santiago, joining dignitaries to bid farewell to former leader

Mourning for Castro has reached near-religious peaks of public adulation across Cuba since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba

Former combatant with the Revolutionary Army Paulina Ballard, 81, weeps after watching the funeral procession carrying the ashes of Castro

Huge crowds have been shouting his name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes from Havana to Santiago.

Tens of thousands of Cubans packed into a public square in Santiago, joining dignitaries to bid farewell to former leader, in the city where he gave one of his most iconic speeches.

After his arrest for leading an attack on military barracks in Santiago, he gave a four hour speech in court defending his actions.

He later recreated the speech as a part of the 26th of July Movement, which overthrew the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in 1959 and began Castro's dictatorship.

The speech ended with Castro saying: 'History will absolve me.'

Residents watch the funeral procession carrying the ashes of Fidel Castro on the last stage of the convoy arriving to Santiago

Thousands of people gather at Revolution Square Antonio Maceo before a public tribute to late Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Santiago

People stand on a building to get a better view of the funeral procession carrying Castro's ashes

A group of people return to their villages in tractor trailers after watching Fidel Castro's funeral procession in Melgarejo, Cuba

He later recreated the speech as a part of the 26th of July Movement, which overthrew the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in 1959 and began Castro's dictatorship. The speech ended with Castro saying: 'History will absolve me'

On Tuesday night, sitting presidents and prime ministers from around the world said goodbye to Castro in a four-hour ceremony in Havana attended by tens if not hundreds of thousands of Cubans

Drawn in a trailer behind an olive green army jeep, Castro's ashes have made a 600-mile journey in which hundreds of thousands of Cubans have lined up on roadsides and gathered in plazas for a final tribute.

'We have to be grateful for Fidel,' said Olbert Estrada, 53, a former soldier who now manages a gas station. 'We were five brothers, I was the only one who studied because I was born after the revolution.'

Castro's socialist government survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, but at the cost of more than a decade of great economic hardship that was relieved by the largesse of his political disciple, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Over the past two decades a clutch of leftist governments rose to power in Latin America inspired by his ideas and fierce opposition to the United States. Several have now been defeated at the ballot box.

Another notable mourner arriving in Cuba was soccer player Diego Armando Maradona (pictured, left, with Castro in 2013), who considered Castro to be a 'second father' to him

School children stand on the sidewalk with a portrait of the late cuban leader Fidel Castro siting next to a picture of Independence hero Jose Marti

The funeral cortege departed the capital the next day, retracing the route Castro and his bearded rebels took from Santiago to Havana in January 1959 after ousting U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista

A woman holds a portrait of Fidel Castro after his ashes passed through the eastern Cuba town of Baires on Saturday

A child stands next to a portrait of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro as she waits for the arrival of the motorcade carrying the ashes of Castro at the Cespedes park in Santiago

A portrait of Fidel Castro hangs from a crane as a man takes pictures with his cellphone while waiting for the convoy carrying the Cuban leader's ashes near Yarey, eastern Cuba

High-profile friends of Castro, including Bolivian President Evo Morales and former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, arrived for an evening sendoff in the city where he launched the Cuban revolution six decades ago.

Morales embraced da Silva and fellow former Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff as they arrived at Santiago airport.

'I will miss his affection, his recommendations, his education,' said Morales, who has been inspired by Castro's social ideas more than his economics.

Lula was a close ally of Cuba when he was president from 2003 to 2011, as was his successor Rousseff until she was impeached this year.

Another notable mourner arriving in Cuba was soccer player Diego Armando Maradona, who considered Castro to be a 'second father' to him.

'I wept uncontrollably. After my father, it's the deepest sorrow I know,' Maradona told reporters after Castro's death.

On Tuesday night, sitting presidents and prime ministers from around the world said goodbye to Castro in a four-hour ceremony in Havana attended by tens if not hundreds of thousands of Cubans.

People hold images of Cuba's late President Fidel Castro as they wait for the arrival of the caravan

A baby is raised in the air as people wait for the arrival of the caravan carrying the ashes of Castro

Santiago is where Castro gave one of his most iconic speeches. After his arrest for leading an attack on military barracks in Santiago, he gave a four hour speech in court defending his actions

Cuban President Raul Castro waves at a tribute to his brother on Saturday night. On Sunday, the ashes will be laid to rest

Cuban President Raul Castro delivers a speech during the last ceremony to pay homage to his brother Fidel

The funeral cortege departed the capital the next day, retracing the route Castro and his bearded rebels took from Santiago to Havana in January 1959 after ousting U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Castro went on to rule for 49 years until illness forced him to resign.

Crowds have greeted the caravan along the whole route, with volunteers sprucing up bridges and houses with fresh paint in Castro's honor.

Musicians have played at vigils by night, including one evening when his remains rested by the mausoleum containing the remains of his rebel friend Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.

Castro's critics have kept a low profile, during the official nine-day mourning period that ends Sunday, but supporters have turned out in droves, even under a blazing tropical sun.

'A little bit of sun is not going to stop us from honoring our commander the way he deserves,' said Alba Rodriguez, 29-year-old school teacher, from the city of Bayamo.
A massive blanket of fluffy white foam covered the whole of Center City, Philadelphia, block on Saturday after it burst from a PECO substation, according to local reports.

Deputy Fire Chief Gary Loesch says the wind Saturday afternoon whipped the foam into mountainous peaks in places.

Calls began coming into the police station around 1pm reporting that an explosion had happened inside a building on South Juniper Street, according ABC 6.

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A massive blanket of fluffy white foam covered the whole of Center City, Philadelphia, block on Saturday after it burst from a PECO substation

Deputy Fire Chief Gary Loesch says the wind Saturday afternoon whipped the foam into mountainous peaks in places

Calls began coming into the police station around 1pm reporting that an explosion had happened inside a building on South Juniper Street

When first responders arrived, they discovered the fire suppression system had released the foam.

A power outage occurred after an unknown problem, and shortly after the mountain of foam appeared.

It's not yet clear if a transformer exploded or something else caused the situation at the PECO Energy Co. site.

Loesch said no one was injured, but the Philadelphia Fire Department rescued eight to ten people stuck in elevators because of the resulting power outage in the neighborhood.

A power outage occurred after an unknown problem, and shortly after the mountain of foam appeared

It's not yet clear if a transformer exploded or something else caused the situation at the Peco Energy Co. site

He added that the fire-suppression foam is not toxic and is being washed into the sewer system.

The foam is intended to stop the spread of fire and is supposed to fill the entirety of the building within seconds, which is why the foam came pouring out of the doors when firefighters first arrived.

In some areas, when the doors were first opened, the foam was seven feet high.

Peco spokesman Greg Smore says power has been restored to nearly all of the 2,700 customers affected.

Loesch said no one was injured, but the Philadelphia Fire Department rescued eight to ten people stuck in elevators because of the resulting power outage

The foam is intended to stop the spread of fire and is supposed to fill the entirety of the building within seconds

The fire-suppression foam is not toxic and was being washed into the sewer system by firefighters

'There was a fire alarm going on and I didn't really think anything of it, and then I was just chillin' in my bed and I heard this huge explosion.

'There were just like two holes in the side of the building and (the foam) just kept spewing out,' witness Mark Deluca told ABC 6.

Another witness, Karen Saillant, told the station: 'Then all of a sudden what looked like giant soap bubbles started floating down in front of our house.'

A neighbor caught the explosion on a cell phone camera, and the impact is so loud it causes him to drop his phone.
A raging 10-alarm fire that engulfed about seven to eight buildings in Massachusetts has spread across the street, lighting up several cars and another home in its path, according to multiple reports.

The blaze was reported before 3pm in Cambridge less than one mile away from Kendall Square, and about 130 firefighters are still working tirelessly at the scene more than five hours later.

One home has collapsed, and two police officers, along with one firefighter have been injured, according to CBS.

A shelter has been set up for about 100 people who have been evacuated from the area near Berkshire and Vandine Streets, and electricity has been shut off for more than 1,000 people because of overhead wires, CBS reported.

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About 130 firefighters are still working tirelessly at the scene of a 10-alarm fire in Cambridge, Massachusetts more than five hours after it first erupted

The fire reportedly started in a three-family home that had been undergoing renovations for about a month. It eventually collapsed

The fire spread along the street to about seven or eight buildings with the help of 20mph winds. Three policemen and firefighters were injured

Michael Workman, an employee at the Boston Globe, told the newspaper he was in his living room when he saw a home across the street erupt into flames.

He called 911 and told the Globe: 'It went up in a heartbeat. It was just raging...It was just going so fast. Ive never seen anything like that.'

The three-family home had been undergoing renovations for about a month, and it eventually collapsed as the fire spread along the street with the help of 20mph winds.

The flames billowed out through the roofs of several buildings, engulfing an old church that had been converted into affordable housing apartments.

Plumes of smoke could also be seen several miles away as authorities at the scene warned people to stand back.

Firefighters from several neighboring towns helped battle the blaze, and at least one first responder was treated for smoke inhalation, according to NBC reporterPerry Russom.

No civilian injuries have been reported, and more than 100 residents in the area have been evacuated to a shelter at the War Memorial Recreation Center, WBZ reported.

Power has been shut off in the area, with Eversource showing more than 1,600 customers were affected.
Bosco Tjan (pictured), who ran an intensive lab that studies vision loss at the University of Southern California, was allegedly stabbed to death on campus byone of his students David Jonathan Brown on Friday

A graduate student arrested who allegedly stabbed to death a professor who oversaw his work at the University of Southern California is being held on $1 million bail Saturday.

David Jonathan Brown, a 28-year-old brain and cognitive science student, was arrested in the Friday afternoon attack.

He is accused of killing his mentor, Bosco Tjan, who ran an intensive lab that studies vision loss.

Brown, one of just five students who worked in the lab, was arrested without incident almost immediately afterward, police said.

Investigators believe the attack was not random and 'was the result of a personal dispute,' according to the USC Department of Public Safety.

In a biography page about the lab and the students involved in it, Brown's is the only one without a detailed description or photograph.

Nathaniel Kwok, who recently finished working 18 months in the lab, said graduate students like Brown work in the lab 40 to 60 hours a week and develop their own projects that are required in order to graduate.

Brown had been working in the lab since around 2013, but he took a leave of absence for personal reasons sometime last year that lasted roughly a semester, Kwok said.

Brown, who was described as 'nice but reserved' by his classmates, is being held on $1 million bail

Brown had been working in the lab since around 2013, but he took a leave of absence for personal reasons sometime last year that lasted roughly a semester (Seely G. Mudd building where the stabbing happened, pictured)

He added that he didn't know why Brown needed the time off or how close to graduation he was.

'He seemed normal for the most part. He was a little on the reserved side, but he was nice. He was friendly,' Kwok said.

'There was nothing that ever would have given me some kind of indicator that he would be harboring any kind of sentiment like this.'

Brown said Tjan treated him as a son and that he always loved the professor's frankness, sarcastic wit and sharp mind.

Kilho Shin, a brain and cognitive science graduate student who works in Tjan's lab, said Brown was a quiet student and seemed satisfied with Tjan's oversight.

'I don't know what exactly happened between them. But as far as I know, Bosco likes David's work and David also seemed to be satisfied with his supervising,' Shin said. 'Their conversation on research was healthy and constructive.'

Shin said he was shocked by Tjan's killing, adding that the professor was humorous, kind and warm, and a genius in his area of study.

'It is a big loss not only to me but also in this field and society. He has served his lab members as his family members, not just graduate students, including David Brown,' he said.

The stabbing happened just after 4.30pm inside the school's Seely G. Mudd building, the site of a lab that Tjan ran and in the heart of campus, police said.

Tjan, an expert in vision cognition and perception, was stabbed in the chest and was found dead with several stab wounds, officials said

Tjan was stabbed in the chest and was found dead with several stab wounds, officials said.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

He has been affiliated with the university since January 2001 and was a co-director of the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Minnesota, according to his LinkedIn.

The male student arrested in Tjan's killing was set to be interviewed on Friday night, Los Angeles Police Officer Meghan Aguilar said.

His name would be released after he was booked, Aguilar said.

Chris Purington, project manager at Tjan's lab, said he does not know of any problems Tjan was having with a student and was shocked by his mentor's killing.

He said Tjan was a married father of one son.

The university's Trojans Alert emergency texting service quickly put out a message urging students, faculty and employees to stay away from the Seely G. Mudd building, which houses science and medical classrooms.

The university's Trojans Alert emergency texting service quickly put out a message urging students, faculty and employees to stay away from the Seely G. Mudd building, which houses science and medical classrooms

Police believe the professor was specifically targeted. They tweeted that the campus was secure and the suspect was in custody

'Police-related incident in progress at Seely G. Mudd. No danger to USC or the community. Stay away from the area,' the text read.

The 10-story building is in the heart of campus near the school's running track.

No further details were immediately released.

Students on campus were shocked by Friday's slaying.

Yesenia Brasby, a freshman pre-med student, said she was rattled by the fatal stabbing.

'We feel safe in our little bubble, but that's just not the case. Anything can happen anywhere,' she told the Los Angeles Times.

'I feel like I always try to be aware of my surroundings now,' she added.

USC has 44,000 students enrolled, including more than 10,000 international students

'Just because there's a gate (on campus), doesn't mean something won't happen inside, on campus.'

USC was rocked last year by the beating death of a graduate student who was attacked by several people as he walked back to his off-campus apartment late at night after attending a study session.

Xinran Ji, a 24-year old engineering student, managed to return to his apartment, where his roommate found him.

In 2012 Chinese graduate students Ming Qu and Ying Wu were shot to death as they sat in their BMW about a mile from campus.

After Ji's murder USC officials sought to reassure parents of Chinese exchange students that the campus and its surrounding areas are safe.

On UCLA's campus last year, an engineering professor was shot dead by a former student in a murder-suicide.

Zhongtang Li, a fourth-year doctorate student from China and teaching assistant, said he was shocked by the killing and said he feels less safe now.

'I think I'm good with my students, but even so, I will be even more careful now on whether I'm going too hard on them,' he told the Los Angeles Times.

UCLA professor William Krug, 39, was shot in a campus office last year by former student Mainak Sarkar who then turned the gun on himself

'I'm worried. It seems like more and more people are losing self control...,' he continued.

'I've been here for so long; this is the worst thing to have happened on campus, the hardest to understand.'

Professor William Krug, 39, was shot in a campus office by former student Mainak Sarkar who then turned the gun on himself.

USC has 44,000 students enrolled, including more than 10,000 international students.
Thunderstorm asthma that killed eight people in Melbourne two weeks ago could strike again very soon.

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a Sunday night storm, with experts warning of breathing problems for asthma and hay fever sufferers in Melbourne.

The world's worst recorded thunderstorm asthma attack last month killed eight people and saw more than 8,500 patients hospitalised in Victoria.

The National Asthma Council Australia says high pollen counts could cause more chaos on Sunday night.

'As we have seen with the recent events in Melbourne any serious asthma attack can be life-threatening and have tragic consequences,' Dr Jonathan Burdon said.

'Act quickly if you start to have symptoms such as shortness of breath or wheezing.'

During November's horrific weather event, thousands of people suffering severe asthma attacks flooded hospitals at the same time.

Huge storms are set to hit Victoria and NSW on Sunday, with a thunderstorm late on Sunday night set to follow sweltering 34 degree Celsius temperatures in Melbourne.

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Hospitals declared a 'major disaster' after receiving more than 1,900 triple-0 calls and almost depleting their Ventolin supplies from 6pm

Hazy weather in Melbourne on Sunday ahead of predicted Sunday night storms

Cloud cover in Melbourne on Sunday as temperatures reached 34 degrees Celsius

Dr Burdon said asthma sufferers need to take preventative steps.

'As we have seen with the recent events in Melbourne any serious asthma attack can be life-threatening and have tragic consequences.

'Act quickly if you start to have symptoms such as shortness of breath or wheezing.

'Thunderstorm asthma is a potent mix of pollen and weather conditions that can trigger severe asthma symptoms. It occurs when a storm strikes on a hot and windy day during pollen season when there are high levels of pollen in the air.

'When the storm front hits, the pollen grains absorb the moisture and burst into tiny particles. The thunderstorm outflow winds blow these particles down to ground level, where they can then get inhaled deep inside the lungs and trigger a serious asthma attack.'

People with hay fever are also at risk during the weather events.

Storm clouds gather over Footscray in Melbourne's inner west on Sunday morning

Sam Lau (right), 49, a father-of-four who immigrated to Australia only a year ago is among eight people to lose their life after 'thunderstorm asthma'

Mr Lau died on Tuesday after being admitted to Austin Hospital in Melbourne on the 21st of November suffering from a 'sudden onset of asthma'

The warning follows the death of an eighth victim from Melbourne's storm.

Sam Lau, 49, died on Tuesday after being admitted to Austin Hospital in Melbourne on November 21 suffering from a 'sudden onset of asthma' and now experts predict further thunderstorms.

Health authorities are concerned an upcoming round of thunderstorms set to lash Melbourne late on Sunday afternoon when a cool change sweeps the state and Monday will likely see a repeat of the fatal condition.

The predicted storms have seen Ambulance Victoria roster on more staff to avoid a repeat of last months horrendous outbreak of thunderstorm asthma in which eight people have now lost their lives.

Omar Moujalled, 18, who had just finished his year 12 exams, was the second victim of the freak 'asthma thunderstorm'

Mr Lau who is originally from China, moved to Australia from New Zealand with his wife and two young children 'in search of a better life', leaving his two eldest children in Wellington.

The devastated daughter of Mr Lau, said that her father died after suffering complications with his brain and his heart .

'He was a genuine family man who always put his family first. He came from a poverty stricken area in China where he grew up, for a better life to support his family back home,' Sheila Lau told Stuff NZ .

'The doctors said he suffered a severe asthma attack due to the thunderstorm and that led to complications with his brain and his heart.'

Hope Carnevali, a 20-year-old law student, died as a result of a freak 'asthma thunderstorm'

The 25-year-old said that her father was the families sole money earner and the financial burden it now placed on her mother was tremendous.

A Give A Little page has now been set up to try and help with funeral costs in an attempt to fly Mr Lau back to New Zealand.

Hope Carnevali, 20 and Omar Moujalled, 18 also died when their asthma attacks were triggered by the intense storm system, which combined with a high pollen count and hot temperatures, proved to have a deadly effect.

The pair were lifelong asthma suffers that suddenly were faced with a freak condition caused by the extreme weather.

Four in 10 people experiencing thunderstorm asthma symptoms had not been diagnosed with asthma yet most had suffered hay fever prior to last week's freak event in Victoria, an Asthma Australia survey has found.

Early results from the online survey conducted following the deadly thunderstorm asthma event have highlighted a 'worrying' lack of awareness about the common disease of the airways.

Of the first 2000 respondents who did have an asthma diagnosis, 68 per cent had been prescribed preventer medication but only 29 per cent took it every day.

Preventer medications reduce the underlying inflammation of the airways, protecting people from symptoms and potentially serious asthma attacks when exposed to triggers like pollen.

A massive thunderstorm caused an outbreak of asthma so severe emergency services in Melbourne ran out of ambulances to help those in need

Asthma Australia CEO Michele Goldman says the early results are proof that more needs to be done to improve asthma awareness and management.

'Asthma is a common condition that can be life threatening. Not only is good management essential for people diagnosed with asthma, such as taking preventer medication as prescribed, it is also vital that everyone is aware of asthma - how to spot the symptoms and what to do in an asthma emergency,' Ms Goldman said in a statement on Friday.

Victoria's freak thunderstorm asthma event killed eight people and thousands were hospitalised.

Jo Foster was one of the 8500 Victorians who ended up in a hospital emergency department last Monday - unaware she had asthma.

A sand storm at St Kilda in Melbourne during the thunderstorm saw an unprecedented spike in asthma problems across the Victorian capital

She started suffering from shortness of breath and a persistent cough and says he felt like her body 'forgot how to breathe'.

'I have been to the GP twice. My lung capacity is still reduced so I'm now on steroids. Today is the first day since then I have not been coughing continually,' Ms Foster said.
Huma Abedin has been spotted shopping and taking her four-year-old son Jordan out around New York City just one day after reports surfaced her sexting addicted husband Anthony Weiner was to broke to continue his rehab.

First, Abedin browsed Lululemon where she tried on several coats with Jordan in tow.

Coats at Lululemon can range from $60 to $300, and Abedin was seen carrying a large black bag with the store's symbol out the door.

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Huma Abedin was spotted at Lululemon on Saturday getting some retail therapy with son Jordan, four

The outing took place just one day after reports surfaced that estranged husband Anthony Weiner is too broke to afford sexting rehab

Abedin was spotted trying on a black coat inside the Lululemon as an associate helped her

Coats at Lululemon can range from $60 to $300, and Abedin was seen carrying a large black bag with the store's symbol out the door

It's unclear what she purchased, though.

Then, while walking, Abedin and Jordan pause so the proud mom could snap a photo of her son with a giant lion statue outside an antique store.

Later, Abedin took Jordan to a park where the tot wore a blue jacket and red pants while his mother donned a smart grey coat and glasses.

Jordan appeared to play on rocks while Abedin chatted with another parent at the park.

The outting came just a day after reports surfaced that Weiner is allegedly so strapped financially he's unable to afford his sexting addiction rehabilitation at a Tennessee ranch, according to reports.

Then, while walking, Abedin and Jordan pause so the proud mom could snap a photo of her son with a giant lion statue outside an antique store

Abedin carried a large black shopping bag in New York City after shopping at Lululemon but it's unclear what she bought

Later, Abedin took Jordan to a park where the tot wore a blue jacket and red pants

Abedin donned a smart grey coat and glasses while she let four-year-old Jordan play in the park

Weiner had intended to stay for a 90-day stint, but left after he ran out of money, an unnamed source told Page Six.

The cost of the program Weiner was reportedly $25,000 for a 35-day treatment session at the ranch.

'His parents took out a mortgage on their house to pay for his rehab,' a source told Page Six.

As DailyMail.com exclusively reported, Weiner checked into the weeks-long program at The Ranch, a 2,000-acre facility an hour west of Nashville, in early October following our expose of his sexting relationship with a 15-year-old girl and ensuing FBI investigation.

Jordan and Abedin walked over rocks while at the park while other children played around them

Another parent came over to Abedin to chat with her while Jordan played around in the park

Abedin appeared to smile as she chatted with another parent as she hid her eyes behind sunglasses

The Ranch is recognized as one of the nation's top treatment centers for sex addiction.

There, 800 miles and a whole world removed from his home in Manhattan, the man whose sexting habits placed him at the center of the nation's most contentious presidential election, was learning to wean himself from the obsessions that led to his self-destruction.

Weiner, 52, was living in one of ten large buildings scattered throughout the property in tiny unincorporated Pinewood and neighboring Nunnelly. He and other male sex addicts are kept far away from women sufferers who are housed in separate buildings.

Just one day earlier, reports claimed serial sexter Anthony Weiner (pictured), who is Abedin's estranged husband, is allegedly no longer able to afford his sexting rehabilitation on a ranch in Tennessee

The Ranch (pictured) is recognized as one of the nation's top treatment centers for sex addiction and reportedly cost Weiner $25,000 for a 35-day treatment session

However, he was supposed to spend 90 days there but reports claim he can no longer afford the facility and has since returned to New York

All electronic devices, including cellphones and computers, are banned at The Ranch, where stays cost up to $30,000 a month.

Fishing on the picturesque Piney River, long hikes through the undulating countryside and horseback riding along trails in the leafy woods were among the activities offered to the man who has spent almost his entire life in bustling New York City and Washington, DC.

Weiner sought refuge at The Ranch as he is being investigated by the FBI following DailyMail.com's bombshell revelation that he had sent obscene sexts to a 15-year-old girl.

Despite knowing the girl's age, Weiner sent shirtless pictures of himself, called her 'baby' and asked her to dress up in schoolgirl outfits.

The relationship had started when the teen contacted Weiner via a Twitter private message. She told DailyMail.com she had become obsessed with him.

But despite all the worrying signs Weiner could not help himself and got caught up in an online relationship.

After his multiple notorious sexting scandals, the former congressman is out of work and is allegedly in debt.

Weiner was pictured back in his New York apartment last week. On Friday, he was fined $65,000 for improper use of campaign funds, which will likely add to any financial woes

Weiner shares the apartment with estranged wife Huma Abedin (pictured) and their four-year-old son Jordan

On Friday, the New York City Campaign Finance Board fined Weiner $65,000 for improper use of campaign funds from his failed 2013 mayoral run, which will likely add to any financial woes.

The board found that Weiner accepted contributions over the donation limit, failed to show that money he spent was in furtherance of his 2013 mayoral campaign and spent money after the election that was not related to the campaign.

The board is also ordering him to return $195,377 in matching campaign funds, DNA Info reported.

Money that Weiner spent for personal use included him paying his cell phone bill and another personal line he used for fundraising. For that violation, he was fined $2,308.

On Friday, the New York City Campaign Finance Board fined Weiner $65,000 for improper use of campaign funds from his failed 2013 mayoral run (pictured above in 2013)

The board is also ordering him to return $195,377 in matching campaign funds (pictured above in 2013)

After the election, Weiner spent $115,268 on expenditures that were not permitted including paying a consultant $46,169.

He also spent $1,500 on a dry cleaning bill, plus a $600 expenditure to someone for buying a television was unexplained, the board said.

Documents from the board show that Weiner paid the Esler Group $26,000 more than what had originally been described in their contract. He also failed to show how the spending was even related to the campaign.

In addition, he paid another $56,210 to people exceeding the amount that was described in their contracts or to people who did not have duties listed next to their names.

Last week, Weiner returned to his Manhattan apartment, which he shares with his estranged with, Huma Abedin, and their four-year-old son Jordan.

The couple announced their separation in August.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon delivered a strong message to Donald Trump yesterday, warning him not to go soft on Vladimir Putin.

Mr Fallon used the first visit to America by a Cabinet Minister since Mr Trumps victory to tell the US President-elect that deterrence is essential in dealings with the Russian president.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon (pictured) has warned Donald Trump not to go soft on Vladimir Putin

Officials have been alarmed by Trumps indication that he planned to join forces with Russia and comment that Nato was obsolete

His outspoken intervention reflects growing anxiety within the Government over Mr Trumps indication that he planned to join forces with Russia to combat Islamic State, saying it would be nice if the US and Russia could work together to knock the hell out of the fighters.

CHINA LODGES COMPLAINT WITH THE WHITE HOUSE China last night lodged a formal complaint with the White House after Mr Trumps phone call with Taiwans president Tsai Ing-wen, the first such talks since 1979. Chinas foreign minister, Wang Yi, said that he hoped the call would not damage US-China relations. Advertisement

Officials have also been alarmed by Trumps comment that Nato was obsolete and his suggestion that the US would think twice about coming to the aid of any Nato ally under attack if it had not paid its fair share.

The remarks led to fears that they could encourage Putin to test Europes resolve: just two weeks ago, the Russian leader vowed to move nuclear-capable missiles closer to Europe.

Mr Fallon said: You only have to visit Natos eastern flank to understand the acute sense of vulnerability that abounds. Theres no point pretending this is business as usual. Dialogue with Russia is useful. But deterrence is essential.
An Italian tourist has told how she instinctively refused a lift from a man, just hours before he allegedly stabbed to death a French backpacker.

Marilina Greco was hitchiking across the Northern Territory on Wednesday when she was approached by Pande Veleski, who has been charged with killing Phileppe Jegouzohe.

Ms Greco told Sky News Veleski offered to give her a ride, but only 'when the sun went down', which instantly triggered alarm bells.

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Italian backpacker Marilina Greco (pictured) has told how she instinctively refused a lift from Pande Veleski just hours before he allegedly stabbed to death a French backpacker

Veleski (pictured), from Melbourne, has been charged with murder over the stabbing of French tourist Phileppe Jegouzohe near a remote roadhouse in the Northern Territory

'We asked this guy and he said to us that he could (give us a ride) but only when the sun went down,' she said.

' At that point my intuition said to me that this is getting really weird and we decided to not take the ride.

'When I didn't take the ride I felt a bit sorry for him, I thought "this guy looks so awkward that he probably doesn't even have friends".

'I tried to trust humanity, I was feeling sorry (for him).'

Some five hours later it's alleged the 35-year-old fatally stabbed Mr Jegouzohe, 33, in the neck as his wife Aurelie Chorier watched on.

On Saturday Veleski was charged with murder by the Northern Territory Police , who described the alleged attack near the isolated Connors Well rest stop on the Stuart Highway as 'random' and 'unprovoked'.

Ms Greco was hitchhiking across Australia when she says Veleski, 35, offered her a lift but only 'when the sun went down'

Ms Greco described the alleged murderer as 'weird' and said her intuition stopped her from taking the ride. Despite admitting she felt sorry for refusing Veleski's offer her intuition later proved correct

Following his arrest the accused murderer was taken to Alice Springs hospital where he remains under police guard.

Veleski, from Melbourne, fled on foot into bushland after the alleged attack which prompted an overnight manhunt.

He was arrested naked at about 8.30am on Thursday, 60km from Ti Tree.

He has been remanded in custody and is due to appear in Alice Springs Local Court on Monday.

After an overnight manhunt Veleski was arrested naked at about 8.30am on Thursday, 60km from Ti Tree

On Saturday evening, Northern Territory police charged a 35-year-old with murder

The tourist and his 30-year-old wife had stopped at Connors Well, about 100km north of Alice Springs, when Veleski allegedly pulled up behind the couple

Police said they believed the two French tourists were at a rest stop 30km south of the Aileron Roadhouse (pictured) on the Stuart Highway when they were approached by an unknown man

Northern Territory police are continuing to search for information about the chain of events that lead to the French tourist's alleged murder.

'We would like to trace the last movements of the victim, and also track the movements of the alleged offender to try and piece together a timeline of events,' Superintendent Wurst said.

'We are particularly interested in speaking to a man who may have been at the Connors Well rest stop about 10 minutes before this incident occurred.'

The superintendent said the man they were looking for was possibly an Indigenous man.

'A description of the vehicle is unknown but we understand the driver may have been an indigenous male. He left the area prior to the silver Hyundai driving into the rest stop,' Superintendent Wurst said.

The getaway car: The alleged attacker fled the scene in a silver Hyundai hatchback (pictured) with a Victoria-registered number plate after he allegedly stabbed the French tourist on Wednesday

The French couple were at a rest stop 30km south of the Aileron Roadhouse (pictured)

Detectives set up a crime scene where the Frenchman was stabbed to death on Wednesday

The French tourist couple were travelling in a 1998 Toyota RAV4 (pictured)

In their attempts to piece together the day's events, police also released photos of the French tourists' red Toyota Rav4 and the alleged attacker's grey Hyundai i20 hatchback in the hope motorists may recognise them and report any helpful information.

Police also called for any motorists who may have captured either of the vehicles on their dash-cams, to share the footage.

'Police will continue to speak to a number of witnesses to establish the exact circumstances surrounding the death,' Det Supt Wurst said.

'We are extremely interested in speaking with anyone who may have sighted either vehicle, or had contact with any of the occupants of these cars in the days leading up to yesterdays incident.'

The brutal stabbing murder happened in Aileron, about 100 kilometre north of Alice Springs

The tourist and his wife had stopped at Connors Well, about 100km north of Alice Springs

NT Police believe the alleged attacker fled in a grey Hyundai i20 hatchback (pictured)

The foreigner was stabbed in the neck in Northern Territory's outback town Aileron
With their human-like expressions and comical mannerisms, meerkats seem adorable from a distance.

But get too close and you could be in for a painful surprise, as this photographer found out.

Pierre Poilloux spotted these two meerkats on a game ranch in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, southern Africa.

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Pierre Poilloux spotted these two meerkats on a game ranch in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, southern Africa

Poilloux welcomed it with a smile  as the animal began playfully pawing his camera strap

The cameramans grin took on a forced edge when the animal sank its teeth into his finger

As he lay down to snap them, one of the animals inquisitively approached.

Poilloux welcomed it with a smile  as it began playfully pawing his camera strap. But the cameramans grin took on a forced edge when the animal sank its teeth into his finger as he tried to stroke it.
This past February, the world was stunned to learn the remarkable story of a young, anonymous Mexican illegal immigrant who was identified after spending 16 years on life support in a San Diego hospital.

Now we are learning just how the man, who was unable to speak on account of the severe brain damage he suffered as a result of a car accident, was reunited with his family through the intense interest in the case generated by social media and the press.

The heart-wrenching saga, the details of which were reported by The California Sunday Magazine, began in June 1999, when a pickup truck carrying a group of undocumented Mexican nationals crossed the southern border into California and eventually crashed.

Garage 66 (above), a severely brain damaged man who was left unidentified for the last 16 years while on life support in a California hospital, was finally identified this past February

One of the victims, a young man believed to be between 18 and 20 years old who had no identification papers with him, suffered severe head trauma that left him without the ability to speak.

The accident left him in a persistent vegetative state and he had to be placed on life support by doctors at Villa Coronado Skilled Nursing Facility.

For 16 years, the man came to be known by the alias Garage 66, named after the auto body repair shop that the wrecked truck was taken to following the accident.

His medical care, which cost $700 a day, was subsidized by the state of California through its Medi-Cal program, which provides health care to its poorest citizens.

To staff at Villa Coronado Skilled Nursing Facility, the man has been known as Garage 66, after the auto-repair shop the van he was traveling in was taken after he was in a crash in June 1999. Unfortunately the man cannot speak and does not react to his environment

Thanks to the efforts of Paula Lemus, a good Samaritan who visited him in the hospital year after year, his identity would eventually be revealed.

Lemus posted a photograph of Garage 66 on her Facebook and asked her friends online to share it.

Its very important that we help him to reunite with his family, which may think that hes dead or that he forgot about them, when in reality hes the one who appears to be forgotten, she wrote.

Eventually, the photo was posted in a Facebook group dedicated to finding missing persons and Lemus was subsequently inundated with messages from people who were hopeful that the man in the hospital bed was their loved one.

Mexican officials announced in February that through a collaborative effort with medics, immigration authorities, politicians and educators, they finally discovered his true identity

She spent hours answering messages online as well as telephone calls from people, many of whom were disappointed since their stories did not match that of the man in the hospital.

The photo drew the interest of Liliana Lara, a Mexican immigrant who was living in McAllen, Texas, a small town that straddles the southern border.

Lara had moved to Houston when she was in her early twenties.

She hadnt seen her brother, Gilberto Lara Ceron, in over 14 years.

Knowing that her brother was keen on crossing the border, she reported him missing to the Mexican Consulate, who responded that her case was not unique to many families that were in the dark about what happened to their loved ones.

Hospital officials said they could not disclose the patient's name and details of his condition due to confidentiality laws protecting his information. Above the hospital is pictured

Mexican authorities believe that over 30,000 people have done missing while trying to make the harrowing journey through the deserts that straddle the southern border of the US.

The number of cases that end up with missing persons being identified is only in the dozens annually, with many would-be illegal immigrants falling victim to kidnapping or abandonment.

Lara was certain that the young man in the San Diego hospital bed was her brother, but when she visited him she began to have doubts since his facial features and skin color did not appear to match.

A DNA test would confirm to Lara that the man wasnt related, though she did share the photo on her Facebook page.

Laras post, which included a photograph of the man and a message in Spanish, eventually was shared 300,000 times.

Eventually, the case drew the attention of the media.

In 2014, the hospital began to work with local media to make the patient's story public in an attempt to locate his family.

inewsource, an investigative journalism nonprofit based in San Diego, California, was the first to report on the plight of 66 Garage in 2014 and its stories prompted the search for his family.

One journalist from San Diego got in touch with Enrique Morones of Border Angels, a non-government organization whose volunteers maintain water stations along migrant routes that traverse the US-Mexico border.

Morones then used his contacts with US authorities who maintain a database of illegal immigrants that includes fingerprints.

When Border Patrol ran the prints into their system, they saw a match with one man who was arrested for illegally entering the country just a few months before the car accident.

For the first time since the accident, authorities were able to attach a name to the anonymous patient.

His medical care was estimated to cost $700 per day and has been funded through Medi-Cal, the state's program for the disabled or impoverished

Mexican diplomatic authorities were notified and they eventually came into contact with the mans family in Oaxaca, a state in southern Mexico.

The mans sister, who for 16 years had assumed that her brother was dead, was astonished to hear that he may have been alive after all.

A DNA test taken before last Christmas confirmed that it was indeed him, and the emotional reunion took place in the same hospital room this past February.

There were tears, as you can imagine, the Mexican consul general in San Diego, Remedios Gomez Arnau, told California Sunday Magazine.

Not only was the mans family choked up, but so were hospital staff who did not know his name in the 16 years that they were treating him.
An alcoholic couple and their two young children have together cost the taxpayer more than 1 million because of the demand put on public services by their chaotic lifestyle.

The staggering bill is the largest ever revealed for a single family and includes the cost of hundreds of call-outs by the emergency services to deal with incidents related to the parents drunken behaviour.

The unnamed family of four, from Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, generated a monumental workload for 25 separate agencies, including police, NHS, fire services and social services.

The unnamed family of four, from Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, generated a monumental workload for 25 separate agencies. An inquiry heard police were regularly called to the home of the Stoke-on-Trent family because of complaints about their domestic disputes

The astonishing cost was uncovered in an inquiry by an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) into the impact that alcohol abuse is having on the emergency services. Its report said alcohol abuse costs the NHS 3.5 billion a year and the fire service 131 million annually.

The inquiry heard that police were regularly called to the home of the Stoke-on-Trent family because of complaints about their domestic disputes. The fire service and paramedics were also called out on numerous occasions when the parents accidentally started fires or fell over after drinking.

Their two young sons, aged between eight and ten, seldom attended school and received the attention of local education officers and social services.

An analysis by the police, NHS and fire service of exactly how much of a drain on public resources the family has been revealed they had cost in excess of 1 million in just three years.

Peter Dartford, chief fire officer in Staffordshire until the end of last year, worked with the family. He told the inquiry: They were living this chaotic lifestyle. The mum was alcoholic and the father was drinking heavily. The concern is, having spent all that money, the issues including alcohol dependency are still there.

Mr Dartford also revealed that the family were part of David Camerons troubled families scheme  set up in the wake of the 2011 riots.

Sir Bill Cash, Conservative MP for Stone in Staffordshire, said: Its outrageous that this money should be used in this way. Its perfectly clear that somebody is fleecing the system.

An MPs report is set to reveal how frontline emergency staff suffer physical and sexual abuse from drunken individuals  often on a daily basis

The MPs are now set to publish the report on their findings. It will also reveal how frontline emergency staff suffer physical and sexual abuse from drunken individuals  often on a daily basis.

One A&E consultant, who wished to remain anonymous, told the inquiry: I have been kicked in the face by a drunk.

MP Fiona Bruce, who chaired the inquiry, said: This shocking report reveals the highly damaging impact which excessive drinking in our society today has on the lives of the selfless men and women who serve the public at the front line of our emergency services.
One of Britains most senior police officers has been blamed for the bizarre breast-baring scandal that humiliated his force.

Ian Hopkins, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, admitted leaving his assistant chief Rebekah Sutcliffe at a bar despite knowing she was drunk.

He went to enjoy a free nights stay in a luxury hotel rather than ensuring she went to bed to be ready for duty a few hours later. Instead, he told Superintendent Sarah Jackson to keep an eye on ACC Sutcliffe, despite Jackson being her junior.

Ian Hopkins (left), the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, admitted leaving his assistant chief Rebekah Sutcliffe (right) at a bar despite knowing she was drunk

Chief constable Hopkins went to enjoy a free nights stay in a luxury hotel rather than ensuring she went to bed to be ready for duty a few hours later and told Superintendent Sarah Jackson (pictured) to keep an eye on ACC Sutcliffe

After Mr Hopkins left, a drunk AAC Sutcliffe (pictured), mocked Supt Jackson, calling her a laughing stock because shed had a boob job

After Mr Hopkins left, AAC Sutcliffe, mocked Supt Jackson, calling her a laughing stock because shed had a boob job. Baring her own chest, she said: These are the breasts of someone who has had three children. They are ugly but I dont feel the need to pump myself full of silicone to get self-esteem.

A disciplinary panel last week found ACC Sutcliffe guilty of gross misconduct, but she was allowed to keep her 109,000-a-year job.

Last night sources said that Mr Hopkinss failure to take charge of the situation was to blame for the incident.

One insider told The Mail on Sunday  which first revealed the extraordinary incident in May: Hopkins is at the very centre of this scandal. His failure to deal with Sutcliffe on the night created the mess.

Another source added: Without doubt Hopkins had a duty to challenge and address Sutcliffes behaviour as the most senior officer present. To leave this task to Sarah Jackson is unforgivable.

If Hopkins had unambiguously ordered Sutcliffe to leave, and made sure she did, the whole sordid mess wouldnt have happened. Quite simple.

Baring her own chest, ACC Sutcliffe (right) told Supt Jackson (left): These are the breasts of someone who has had three children'. They are ugly but I dont feel the need to pump myself full of silicone to get self-esteem

A disciplinary panel last week found ACC Sutcliffe (pictured during a drunken night out) guilty of gross misconduct, but she was allowed to keep her 109,000-a-year job

Mr Hopkinss little-noticed statement to last weeks humiliating disciplinary hearing revealed his central role in the drama.

He had hosted a drinks reception at the Sky Bar of the Hilton Hotel in Manchester early in the evening of May 5 for officers attending the Senior Women in Policing conference. Organisers paid for his 135 hotel room and 55 dinner as well as giving him a 12 box of chocolates and a 10 notebook and pen set.

It was apparent from speaking to Rebekah that she had been drinking, the Chief Constable said in his statement. I was slightly concerned she was walking back to the hotel on her own. I asked Supt Jackson to keep an eye on her. When I left to go to my room, ACC Sutcliffe was in the bar area. She was at this point preparing to walk to her hotel.

Last night sources said that Mr Hopkinss failure to take charge of the situation was to blame for the incident

According to Supt Jackson, 45, Mr Hopkins told her: Please dont leave me alone with Rebekah. She is drunk and she is driving me mad. She said the Chief Constable was irritated and told [Sutcliffe] to go to bed but the assistant chief ignored his request and said she was staying up and having some more to drink. The Chief Constable is also accused of trying to hush up the night that brought ridicule to Greater Manchester Police, Englands second biggest force.

He initially wanted to deal with the shocking incident as a welfare issue, the disciplinary panel was told, which would have meant no one outside the force would ever have known about it. It was only after discussing it with another senior officer that he agreed it had to be treated more seriously. ACC Sutcliffe, 47, was found guilty of gross misconduct by the panel which recommended she be given a final written warning rather than losing her job after hearing glowing testimonies from high- profile supporters.
A new lead suggests Maddie snatched after traffickers took photos of her

Scotland Yard is set to investigate an 'important' new lead in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Extra funding has been allocated to the Met to probe the information, which is said to strengthen the theory that the British girl was kidnapped by a trafficking gang.

Detectives will work on the assumption that Maddie was snatched by a gang of European traffickers after taking photographs of her.

The new development is said to be the 'last throw of the dice' into the investigation of the youngster's disappearance in Portugal in 2007, when she was three years old.

Scotland Yard is set to investigate an 'important' new lead in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

The Sun on Sunday reported that the latest lead has been treated with the utmost importance, with Whitehall officials kept in the loop on its progress.

A source told the newspaper: 'This is an important new line of inquiry which could provide an explanation on whether Madeleine was abducted and transported away.

'It raises hope that she could still be alive.'

It is understood that current funding for the investigation will enable it to run until April, when it is due to reviewed again.

Detectives will work on the assumption that Maddie (pictured) was snatched by a gang of European traffickers after taking photographs of her

Madeleine was three years old when she went missing from the holiday apartment at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.

Portuguese police, working in co-operation with Scotland Yard, reopened the investigation in 2013 amid talk of fresh leads but last year the Metropolitan Police announced it had reduced the number of officers it had working on the case from 29 to four.

Last year, the Government also revealed that the investigation, code-named Operation Grange, had cost more than 10million.

Forensic investigations into the disappearance were concluded in August after the final scientific tests carried out three months ago 'didn't take the police forward'.

Kate and Gerry McCann hold a news conference in 2012 to mark the 5th anniversary of the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine

Met Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe announced in May that the investigation would come to an end after one last line of inquiry was looked into.

At the time, then-Home Secretary Theresa May granted the team 95,000 to keep the investigation going.

Detectives have explored dozens of theories since she vanished, including allegations she was kidnapped by a paedophile gang, killed during a botched burglary or snatched and sold by child traffickers.

But despite 9,000 potential sightings all over Europe and even further afield the police are no closer to solving the mystery.
It is the terrible moment the world has long feared. An army of Russian tanks and troops rolls across the border of a Baltic state in an act of naked aggression by Vladimir Putins regime.

Britain, the US and other Western nations are obliged by treaty to come to the defence of a fellow Nato member.

Within hours, the escalating conflict is poised on the precipice of a nuclear conflict that will claim millions of lives.

Our dramatic pictures show the incredibly life-like exercise on Salisbury Plain, intended to simulate President Putins forces invading Estonia, according to Army sources

This is the chilling scenario simulated by the British Army in one of the most realistic war games ever staged, revealed in these exclusive photographs obtained by The Mail on Sunday.

Our dramatic pictures show the incredibly life-like exercise on Salisbury Plain, intended to simulate President Putins forces invading Estonia, according to Army sources.

Taking part were troops due to be deployed early next year to shore up Nato forces in the Baltic states.

Every detail was as close as possible to those British soldiers will experience if Putin goes into Estonia.

Taking part were troops due to be deployed early next year to shore up Nato forces in the Baltic states

This demonstration on Salisbury Plain is exactly what I expect the Army to be doing, writes General Sir Richard Shirreff, and obviously theyve thought it through

The enemy wore distinctive blue uniforms resembling Russian military police outfits and were equipped with AK-74 semi-automatic assault rifles issued to Russian troops.

Every detail was as close as possible to those British soldiers will experience if Putin goes into Estonia

The Russians launched a tank assault using the T-72, a model recently upgraded by the Kremlin at 20 million per tank.

As well as the Polish-built T-72 there were three other Soviet-design tanks, supplied by a private collector and the Tank Museum.

UK forces responded with missile strikes from Apache helicopter gunships and bursts of fire from Warrior armoured fighting vehicles.

Challenger tanks patrolled the battlefield and RAF Tornados performed mock bombing runs.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed some of the troops are expected to deploy to Estonia.

The 400 UK soldiers will be within range of thousands of Russian troops and nuclear-capable missiles at Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.

Due to Army cuts, the MoD used a recruitment agency to find civilians to play enemy troops for the exercise. Gurkhas also became enemies.

A defence source said: The idea was to simulate elements of Russias invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014, which included a rapid seizure of territory which led to the annexing of Crimea.

The UK troops will be part of the biggest Nato deployment in the Baltic region since the Cold War. It comes after Russian military manoeuvres in areas bordering Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Some fear that Putin wants to test the West after US President-elect Donald Trump questioned the Nato alliance.

Just a war game? No, the threat is terrifyingly real

By General Sir Richard Shirreff

Ex-Nato Deputy Supreme Commander Europe - and author of 'War with Russia'

The defence of Britain starts these days not at the White Cliffs of Dover, but in the forests of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania  to whose defence we are committed under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty of 1949 which created Nato.

This demonstration on Salisbury Plain is exactly what I expect the Army to be doing, and obviously theyve thought it through.

It also sends exactly the right message about the importance of an effective deterrent

It also sends exactly the right message about the importance of an effective deterrent.

Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are no backwater. Rather they are the new front line in a very dangerous world. The spotlight is on the Baltic states now as it was on Berlin and the Hanover Plain during the Cold War.

The Baltic is the most dangerous place from a British perspective, one of the reasons being that these states have such significant Russian-speaking populations  about 20 per cent in Estonia and 27 per cent in Latvia.

Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are no backwater. Rather they are the new front line in a very dangerous world

And we only need to go back to the Crimea and how President Putin claimed that Russia should look after the interests of all Russians, wherever they are, to realise how he might seek to justify any encroachment into the Baltic territories.

Any notion that he has a right to interfere with his neighbours on the basis that their populations include Russian speakers  in a process that has been called linguistic imperialism  is ridiculous and highly dangerous.

In Crimea, President Putin also went to great lengths to claim that his invasion was a civil war. He may do so again in the Baltic.

He may also seek to manipulate the Russian minorities in these countries using propaganda, cyber-warfare and other types of information warfare.

I have no doubt that what youre seeing on Salisbury Plain is a response to a very serious conventional warfare threat, because, dont forget, the Russians by their own admission have formed three divisions in their Western Military District, which is right on the doorstep of the Baltic states.

That is a really significant force, while Putin also continues to call snap exercises with immediate call-ups of as many as 40,000 troops at a time to demonstrate their readiness for war.
A star of the hit BBC series Death In Paradise has revealed he contracted the Zika virus while filming the show in the Caribbean.

Tony Gardner said he was bitten by an infected mosquito while shooting scenes for the crime comedy in the islands of Guadeloupe this summer.

He has also made the extraordinary claim that 'quite a lot' of the 265 Britons officially identified as having been infected since the outbreak may have come from the cast and crew of the popular show.

Real-life drama: Tony Gardner was bitten by a mosquito while filming Death In Paradise in the Caribbean

Last night Red Planet Pictures, which makes the drama for the BBC, confirmed that 'a small number [of cast and crew] were unwell after having been bitten' but did not provide further details.

Mr Gardner caught the virus during a two-week stint filming a guest role on the sixth series of the show, due to be released in the New Year, which chronicles the murder investigations of detectives on the fictional island of Saint Marie and is watched by more than eight million people.

The 52-year-old actor, who is a trained doctor and has starred in comedies The Thick Of It and Fresh Meat, discovered he had the virus after developing a rash shortly before flying home in September.

He said: 'There are now about 200 Brits who have had Zika, but quite a lot of them, possibly, come from the group of people that go out to Guadeloupe for six months a year to film.'

Mr Gardner added: 'About a couple of hours before I flew out I got a rash. And then for a week I wasn't particularly well with joint pain and swelling I just felt pretty rough actually. It's not a problem for me because I've finished my family. It's quite dangerous for people getting pregnant or men starting families.'

Mr Gardner, a star of the hit BBC series Death In Paradise, revealed he contracted the Zika virus while filming the show in the Caribbean

According to Public Health England, 265 British travellers have been identified as being infected by the virus.

Of those, 190 cases are associated with travel to the Caribbean. Mr Gardner, speaking on comedian Sean Hughes's latest podcast, conceded that he should have taken more precautions against catching the virus, adding: 'In retrospect, I probably should have been a bit more fierce with the anti-mosquito repellent.'

The Zika virus has been linked to a birth defect called microce-phaly, which causes children to be born with brain damage and abnormally small heads.

Last month officials revealed that a woman in the UK was thought to have been infected with the virus through sexual transmission.

A spokesman for Red Planet Pictures said: 'We take the safety of all of our cast and crew seriously and made all actors aware of the potential medical issues that may arise when filming in the Caribbean, including the risk of the Zika virus.'
Theresa May's plans to expand existing grammar schools have come under fire from her own backbenchers after officials revealed that up to a half of Englands biggest towns and cities will miss out.

The Prime Minister has pledged 240 million to 164 state grammars to take more pupils.

But new official data shows that more than half of the countrys 108 towns and cities with populations of over 75,000 have no existing grammar school within ten miles of their centres.

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Theresa May (left) has pledged 240 million to 164 state grammars to take more pupils. Conservative MP Ben Howlett, who represents Bath and whose nearest grammar is 26 miles away, said the injection of money will 'exacerbate' the existing postcode lottery

Ministers who represent such areas include Home Secretary Amber Rudd, whose constituency covers Hastings  17 miles from the nearest grammar.

Conservative MP Ben Howlett, who represents Bath and whose nearest grammar is 26 miles away, said: This injection of money will only exacerbate the existing postcode lottery in the educational system.

What we want is a one-size-fits-all, high-quality system across the country, not for some areas to benefit while other areas that are underprivileged miss out.
The DEA team is now seeking to hand two crucial memos directly to Marrian's defence team to

American agents investigating an international cocaine-smuggling operation for which British aristocrat Jack Marrian is standing trial in Kenya have called on the authorities to hand over documents believed to prove his innocence.

Mr Marrian faces up to 30 years in an African jail if found guilty after a criminal gang hid almost 100kg (220 lb) of drugs in a shipment of sugar belonging to his company without his knowledge, according to his lawyer.

The cocaine, worth 4.5 million, was stashed in a shipping container in Brazil before being loaded on to the MSC Positano. The vessel later docked in Valencia, Spain, before going on to Africa with the drugs still on board.

Mr Marrian faces up to 30 years in an African jail if found guilty

A criminal gang hid almost 100kg (220 lb) of drugs in a shipment of sugar belonging to his company without his knowledge, according to his lawyer. Pictured: MSC Positano

The Spanish authorities alerted a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) team in Nairobi, saying that the criminals had originally intended to offload the cocaine in Valencia, and that 'the recipient of the container in Mombasa would have no knowledge that it was being used to transport drugs' and that there was no connection to Kenya.

The drugs, hidden in Lacoste sportswear packaging, were found by police when the Positano docked in Mombasa on July 27. The DEA in Nairobi passed a detailed tip-off to Kenyan police in which the US agents made clear their belief there was no involvement by Jack Marrian and trading company Mshale Commodities, or any Kenyan connection.

Incensed that this vital information is being withheld from the defence in the trial of Marlborough-educated Mr Marrian  the son of renowned painter David Marrian and Lady Emma Campbell, daughter of the sixth Earl of Cawdor  the DEA team is now seeking to hand two crucial memos directly to Marrian's defence team and to petition the Kenyan director of public prosecutions.

A DEA spokesman in Washington told The Mail on Sunday: 'We strongly believe that documents drawn up by our investigator in Nairobi should urgently be made available to Jack Marrian and his defence.

'Spanish police had informed our investigator that there was no Kenyan connection to the shipment of cocaine which arrived in Mombasa docks on July 27.

'A second memo containing follow-up reports from Brazilian and Spanish police was also passed on. We expected the prosecution at Jack Marrian's trial to release these two documents to the defence but that has not happened.'

Once the drugs arrived in Mombasa, the DEA's intention was to await the arrival of Spanish drug-syndicate members hoping to recover their goods and then swoop.

US agents sent two memos to the Kenyans ruling out a link between Marrian and the drugs and want them to be given to his defence. They say the cocaine belongs to a Spanish crime syndicate

Instead, leaks to the Kenyan media led to pressure to make arrests, and Mr Marrian was taken into custody.

After being charged with clearing agent Roy Mwanthi, Marrian spent two weeks in prison before he was allowed out on 530,000 bail.

Two weeks ago Mr Marrian's lawyer, Andrew Wandabwa, asked a magistrate to order the prosecution to hand over relevant documents, yet, incredibly, the vital memos from the DEA were deemed 'not relevant to the prosecution's case'.

Last night, Mr Marrian  whose ancestral home, Cawdor Castle in Scotland, is the setting for Shakespeare's Macbeth  welcomed the intervention.

He said: 'A lot of evil has been done by some bad people in connection with this incident. When good people start to do the right thing, this nightmare will come to an end. I am pleased that finally some pressure has been brought to bear on those good people who have sat on the sidelines for so long.'
Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo performed its first free flight on Saturday, bringing the dream of space tourism one step closer after a fatal crash in 2014 stalled the company's plans.

The second SpaceShipTwo, named VSS Unity, and its carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo took off at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California around 9.50am.

The spaceship successfully detached from the carrier less than an hour later, with David McKay and Mark Stuky piloting VSS Unity to a safe landing after 10 minutes.

The pilots reported 'excellent flight qualities' after a 2014 test flight with the first SpaceShipTwo, VSS Enterprise, led to the death of co-pilot Mike Alsbury while pilot Pete Siebold suffered serious injuries.

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Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (left) performed its first free flight on Saturday, bringing the dream of space tourism one step closer

The spaceship successfully detached from the carrier with David McKay and Mark Stuky piloting VSS Unity to a safe landing after 10 minutes

Pictured, the VSS Unity attached to the carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo in September 2016. Saturday's flight was the first time the VSS Unity successfully detached

Pictured, Virgin boss Richard Branson smiling at the Mojave Air and Space Port

The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, reaching altitude of about 62 miles for the price of $250,000 a ticket.

Saturday's flight had been planned for November 1, but high winds meant the spaceplane remained attached to the carrier. Another attempt two days later was aborted due to a technical issue.

Virgin Galactic will enter a new phase of testing after the successful free flight, with several more planned to ensure the aircraft's aerodynamics before moving onto powered flights.

Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic president, said in an interview in October that it could take anywhere from eight to 15 free flights.

In 2014, the VSS Enterprise was on its fourth powered flight when it crashed, dashing the company's plans to start commercial operations as early as this year.

The vehicle broke up after the co-pilot unlocked the craft's tail wing breaking system early, which led to a sudden increase in aerodynamic forces as it passed through the sound barrier.

The official accident report found the resulting aerodynamic forces caused the brakes to be applied automatically without any further action by the crew, leading to it to break apart.

THE NEW SPACECRAFT The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, and will reach altitudes of about 62 miles. It replaces the craft Virgin lost following 2014's fatal crash, when Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident, which dashed Virgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as early as this year. With a hefty price tag of $250,000 (175,000) a ticket, it is aimed at super rich thrill-seekers and celebrities, as well as researchers and commercial customers. Advertisement

Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said no safeguards were built into system to overcome the error of the co-pilot.

The second SpaceShipTwo included a pin to prevent a pilot from unlocking the ship's rotating tail section too soon before descent, which is what triggered the breakup of the first spaceship, said Galactic Chief Executive George Whitesides.

Other changes include a device to prevent pilots from releasing the ship's landing gear too early and a variety of switch changes to make them more distinct.

'We learned a lot from the accident, and we made a lot of changes,' said Mike Moses, a former Nasa shuttle manager who oversees spaceflight operations for Galactic.

Virgin Galactic has several more free flights planned to ensure the aircraft's aerodynamics before moving onto powered flights. Pictured, the WhiteKnightTwo landing on Saturday

The pilots reported 'excellent flight qualities' (pictured, VSS Unity landing Saturday) after a 2014 test flight with the first SpaceShipTwo, led to the death of co-pilot Mike Alsbury

VIRGIN GALACTIC: THE CRASH In October 2014, SpaceShipTwo - a plane designed to run the first ever passenger flights into space - split into pieces as it fell to Earth over California's Mojave Desert. The vehicle broke up after the co-pilot unlocked the craft's tail wing breaking system early, which led to a sudden increase in aerodynamic forces as it passed through the sound barrier. The official accident report found the resulting aerodynamic forces caused the brakes to be applied automatically without any further action by the crew, leading to it breaking apart. Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said no safeguards were built into system to overcome the error of the co-pilot. Advertisement

Branson's rivals in the commercial space race include SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Branson's London-based Virgin Group and Aabar Investments, run by the Abu Dhabi government, combined have invested more than $500 million (350 million) in Virgin Galactic, said company Chief Executive George Whitesides.
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Just how wide has the income gap grown in recent decades?

A new data visualization shows in stark terms the discrepancies in income that are plaguing America's largest cities, where residents earning six figures live just a mile away from those who are barely making $20,000 a year.

The haunting black-and-white images show the contours of the cities' municipal boundaries with rows of tall buildings superimposed to represent areas whose residents earn varying salaries.

The relatively affluent parts of the cities are shown with taller buildings, while the poorer areas are represented by smaller structures.

This map of Chicago indicates the areas with the highest median income as represented by the taller buildings, while the poorer parts of the city are marked by far smaller buildings

The project is part of a book by Austrian designer Herwig Scherabon called The Atlas of Gentrification.

'It was really important to me to create the image of a city, and create this kind of post-apocalyptic ambiance,' Scherabon told Co.Exist.

'When you look at it, you start to explore. The street grid is still visible in the visualizations.'

Scherabon create visualizations which show income inequality in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, America's three most populous cities.

'Chicago is not just divided by income inequality,' Scherabon says. 'There's also a huge problem with racial segregation'

'It was really important to me to create the image of a city, and create this kind of post-apocalyptic ambiance,' Scherabon says

This map shows income inequality in Los Angeles, where the top one per cent earn 30 times more than the bottom 99 per cent

The map shows a close-up image of Los Angeles. One recent study found that the top 5 per cent of Los Angelinos earn over 12 times what the bottom 20 per cent make

The disappearance of the middle class is most evident in Scherabon's depiction of Chicago, where median income in one part of the city is $104,000 while just a mile away it shrinks to $20,000.

'Chicago is not just divided by income inequality,' he says. 'There's also a huge problem with racial segregation.'

'There are parts of South Chicago that are 99% black, and other parts that are almost completely white, and the same footprint correlates with income inequality.'

The above image shows the income disparity in New York, which is one of the highest in the United States

An aerial view of Venice Beach, California, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, is seen on the right. Once a middle class residential area, Venice Beach has undergone 'gentrification on steroids'. Another area that has seen skyrocketing demands in real estate prices is Bedford-Stuyvestant, Brooklyn, a part of which is seen on the right

Some parts of Chicago has a median income of six figures, while people who barely $20,000 live less than a mile away. Above is a view of the skyline of downtown Chicago

'These are the discussions I'm interested in, when people start to think what else is related to this kind of pattern.'

In Los Angeles, the top 1 per cent earn 30 times more than the bottom 99 per cent.

One recent study found that the top 5 per cent of Los Angelinos earn over 12 times what the bottom 20 per cent make, according to the Los Angeles Times.

One part of Los Angeles that was once home primarily to middle class residents is Venice Beach, which Next City said has undergone 'gentrification on steroids.'

The disparity in New York is even worse, according to Co.Exist.

Other large cities beset by gaps in income include Miami, Atlanta, and New Orleans.

Earlier this year, the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC-based think tank, published a report which said that income inequality was on the rise in major US cities and metropolitan areas.

Topping the list of metro areas with the greatest income disparity is Fairfield County, Connecticut, which encompasses Bridgeport, Stamford, and Norwalk.

The top five per cent of households in the most populous county in Connecticut reported an annual income in 2014 of $558,970, which is almost 18 times the salary of the bottom 20 per cent, which earned $31,333.

The metropolitan area with the second-highest income disparity is the swath of territory that stretches from Long Island, New York, westward through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.

The top five per cent in this area earned $282,359 in 2014, which is nearly 12 times the amount made by the bottom 20 percent - $23,853.

Rounding out the top five metro areas with the highest inequality are San Francisco-Oakland; New Orleans; and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas.
Cabinet enforcer: Jeremy Heywood

Theresa May has made an extraordinary threat to sack senior Ministers and mandarins caught leaking Cabinet secrets amid growing signs of Brexit panic in Downing Street.

The Prime Minister has ordered security chiefs to seize mobile phone and email records of anyone suspected of revealing Government splits or secrets.

All culprits will be sacked in the Big Brother-style crackdown  even if no threat to national security is involved.

The Prime Ministers draconian action was revealed in a letter from Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood which was, ironically, leaked to The Mail on Sunday.

Sir Jeremys reputation for Whitehall secrecy dates back to his role in the Iraq War, and has led to him being dubbed Sir Cover-Up.

He told mandarins about the crackdown in a written letter instead of an email in an attempt to keep it secret.

But enraged insiders, who called the crackdown quasi totalitarian, leaked the memo to this newspaper.

Significantly, Sir Jeremy also sent the letter to Paddy McGuinness, Deputy National Security Advisor at the Cabinet Office.

The diktat follows a series of Cabinet leaks, splits and rows over Brexit and other issues involving Mrs May, Chancellor Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Minister David Davis and International Trade Minister Liam Fox.

Sir Jeremy says the leaks crackdown comes on the orders of Mrs May, who has struggled to impose the same rigid control over No 10 than she previously did over the Home Office.

The Prime Minister has ordered security chiefs to seize mobile phone and email records of anyone suspected of revealing Government splits or secrets

Her stern tone can be clearly heard in the letter from Heywood  who adds she will reinforce the message in a personal missive to Ministers.

Sir Jeremys letter, headed OFFICIAL: SENSITIVE. Security of Information says the spate of corrosive leaks must end. It says:

Security teams  believed to be MI5 officers  will take charge of beefed-up leak inquiries with the power to demand immediate access to phone and email records and to interrogate suspects.

Anyone found to have leaked sensitive information will be dismissed, even where there is no compromise of national security.

From now on Ministers and officials must use officially supplied Whitehall mobile phones  which can be monitored by security officials  to stop them using private mobiles and emails to leak secrets.

An Orwellian-sounding cultural change will be demanded to keep the lid on secrets concerning Brexit and other vital issues.

Sir Jeremy says: The Prime Minister has directed that we urgently tighten security processes and improve our response to leaks.

'She has instructed that we begin this work immediately and expects to see rapid and visible improvement.

'Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and senior officials set the tone in an organisation and no amount of process will make up for an environment where leaks are accepted.

The Prime Ministers draconian action was revealed in a letter from Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood which was, ironically, leaked to The Mail on Sunday

If leaders think they are the necessary cost of open ways of working they are mistaken.

Sir Jeremy vows to impose tough disciplinary measures when a culprit has been identified to show leaking will never be tolerated.

He demands a strict ban on ministers and officials using their own mobiles and says he will take personal charge of mole witch-hunts led by the Cabinet Office Government Security team  Whitehall jargon for spooks.

Sir Jeremy adds: I have already strengthened the controls for sensitive Cabinet Committee papers. We will review areas most vulnerable to leaks and tighten up security in those departments. He said this will require cultural change.

DON'T CALL HIM BORIS, SAYS (LEAKED!) EDICT Ministers have been told to stop making jokes about Boris Johnson in a bid to banish his Cabinet clown reputation. The edict  leaked to the MoS  is understood to have been ordered by Foreign Office mandarins amid complaints that jokes about Johnson  including those by Theresa May herself  were making his job impossible. To boost Johnsons statesman credentials, MPs and officials have been told to stop calling him Boris and say Foreign Secretary instead. However it is often Johnsons own actions that cause offence. One Minister said: We all know Boris is a clever chap but he cannot stop playing the fool when he meets EU leaders. We think he is funny but to them he is disrespectful. Pro-Brexit former Minister Iain Duncan Smith said: European leaders are out to needle Boris because they blame him for Britain leaving the EU. We need to rally behind him. Advertisement

Underlining Mays influence, Sir Jeremy says it is vital to meet the Prime Ministers expectations as he clarified the ruthless new codes of conduct and threats of sackings.

The Government Security team will be in touch shortly to put tighter processes in place, says Sir Jeremy, adding: The PM will be writing in similar terms to Ministers.

Sir Jeremy suggests he has lost trust in our people to act properly and raises the spectre of mandarins having to return to the old days of hard copy letters, rather than emails, to beat the leakers.

But being a hard copy didnt prevent his letter from being leaked.

He is also gunning for unnamed Ministers and officials suspected of leaks, vowing to target weaknesses.

As well as McGuinness, responsible for intelligence, security and resilience, Sir Jeremy sent his letter to Sue Gray, Whitehalls head of ethics, and Simon Case, the PMs Principal Private Secretary.

The letter comes amid reports that Mrs May is edging towards a so-called soft Brexit rather than a hard one.

She faces mounting pressure to spell out her position but is reluctant to do so for fear of giving an advantage to the EU in the run-up to Brexit negotiations next spring.

Government nerves have been heightened ahead of this weeks Supreme Court hearing into whether Parliament must be given a say before Mrs May triggers Article 50 of the EU Treaty to set in motion Britains formal withdrawal from Brussels. She is due to start this process in March.

But last night, one Tory MP and Remain supporter said: Its all very well to make sure sensitive state secrets are kept secret. But when it comes to Brexit, the public is crying out for more, not less, information.

Downing Street declined to comment last night.

The march of Hard Brexit can be stopped

By Vince Cable, Former Lib Dem Business Secretary

I was delighted to play a small part in helping Sarah Olney defeat Zac Goldsmith in the Richmond Park by-election.

The result has implications far wider than this corner of South-West London. It was a great boost for the Liberal Democrats, bringing us back into play along with a resurgence of support around the country.

Mr Goldsmith intended this to be about him and about Heathrow expansion. But all the candidates opposed a new runway, so it became a vote on a much-bigger issue: the Governments handling of Brexit.

I was delighted to play a small part in helping Sarah Olney defeat Zac Goldsmith in the Richmond Park by-election, writes Vince Cable

By failing to field a pro-Heathrow candidate, the Tories and Ukip effectively endorsed Goldsmith and condemned him to be their Brexit candidate in a strongly pro-Remain seat. But what was striking was that the Lib Dems support came not just from Conservatives who voted Remain, but from many Brexiteers.

Growing numbers fear that the Government is confused about its priorities and may be drifting towards a damaging hard Brexit.

Moderate Brexiteers did not intend we should embark on the massive economic disruption involved in leaving the single market or the customs union, or breaking up collaborative research and university networks. The Richmond Park result does not mean a change of Government and it doesnt render the referendum result null and void. But it marks a change of mood in the country.

The hysteria around the referendum is over. Voters want to know what to expect when the Brexit talks are over.

At first sight, Theresa Mays position remains strong. She is popular. She still has a parliamentary majority. She faces an official Opposition of almost comical hopelessness, whose leader appears far more occupied with the passing of Fidel Castro than Britains future relationship with the EU.

Mrs May has the political nuclear weapon of an early General Election which, on present polls, would smash the Labour Party and give her a comfortable majority.

Mrs May has the political nuclear weapon of an early General Election which, on present polls, would smash the Labour Party and give her a comfortable majority

But after last weeks result, that option no longer looks quite as tempting. What happened in Richmond Park could happen to Tory MPs in dozens of similar seats.

If she still risked it, I would be among the Lib Dem candidates and would confidently expect to regain the Twickenham seat I lost in 2015.

The prospect of a new Commons with more Lib Dems, as well as Ukip MPs, will not a very alluring one for her, so she will almost certainly try to soldier on. But Mrs May will be increasingly reminded that, like Gordon Brown, she has no electoral mandate of her own.

Her current popularity will sag. The economy may well turn sour in coming years as devaluation of the pound feeds through into higher prices and reduced living standards.

Uncertainty in the business climate may gradually produce casualties in lost investment and jobs. And she will face sniping from her own side on the abysmal failure to meet immigration targets, partly a product of her refusal to remove overseas students  who are not immigrants  from immigration statistics.

Now our supporters have tasted an old-style Lib Dem by-election triumph, they will turn out in even bigger numbers in future contests.

After five years in coalition government, now increasingly seen as an era of stable and competent administration, we can longer be dismissed as a protest party.

But we didnt do it alone in Richmond. We were helped by the enlightened decision of the Greens to withdraw their candidate to present a common front.

Such collaboration could become more common and I hope it will, although sadly Labour did not follow suit in Richmond.

I have spent a lot of time over the last year talking with people about a progressive alliance against the Tories. Until Thursday, this seemed little more than well-intentioned rhetoric. Now there is proof that co-operation works, that the march of the far-Right and hard Brexiteers can be stopped.

Of course, there is much more to be done.

My partys recovery is just beginning. And the many moderate and electable Labour MPs still need to find way of escaping from their unelectable leadership. But there is a new political feeling out there. The seeds of a wider political movement may have been sown.

The nation voted to leave the EU on June 23  not to abdicate the right to have any say whatsoever over how we leave the EU. Make no mistake, they want that say. That is the message of Richmond Park.
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As the search continues for dozens of partygoers who went missing after an Oakland warehouse went up in flames, their loved ones are now having to deal with trolls on a Facebook group dedicated to finding information.

Up to 40 people are feared dead with nine confirmed after the fire ripped through the warehouse, known as the Oakland Ghost Ship, during an electronic music party early Saturday morning.

The Facebook event page where the missing once clicked that they were 'attending' musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour has since turned into a lifeline for relatives searching for any news or updates.

But peppered in between posts of heartfelt condolences and parents searching for their children, are others writing disparaging comments about raves and 'Oakland hipsters'.

This is too bad. Why hasnt anyone called this event for what it is. A RAVE. Drugsvery dangerous onessmokingIt shouldnt have been happening,' wrote a Facebook user named Scotty Harris.

'It was their choice to do something completely stupid. Oh wellif it had been a Gang gathering party, I still wouldnt care.'

Lisa Jensen, whose friend was at the event, replied: 'You aren't even worth talking to.'

'My friend was getting her PhD, gorgeous and kind,' Jensen wrote. 'She was amazing. My friend had a lovely heart.'

'Scotty Harris it doesn't matter what this was. Underground rave or whatnot. What matters is PEOPLE DIED. They didn't deserve to die,' shot back Stephanie Lizzy Ricketts.

'These were people with futures who took a night off to have fun. There's no fault in the people. We expect our venues to be safe and secure, the owners f****d up, NOT the people.'

Another troll by the name of Robert Paul called the people at the event 'retard ravers', writing that they 'put themselves into harm's way'.

'No excuse for adult idiots who behave as children,' he wrote, before a flood of comments demanded his horrifying remarks be deleted and reported for abuse.

A user named Latrice Boyington decided to advertise her music page - writing 'no such thing as bad publicity' - while another named John Adams thought it would be funny to post a link to songs Hot Stuff and Disco Inferno.

Another user named Tony Sammuit joked that a person named 'Bernie Ashe' was at the event, while one woman named June McAllister wrote: 'I suppose sprinklers and smoke detectors were not artistic enough.'

Vin D. Bacco has since tried to fill the page's main thread with disgusting comments celebrating the partygoers who had died, calling them 'f*****s' and 'hippies'.

A number of relatives asked people on the page to stop responding to the trolls and rather report them and move on, while one man named Joe Morgan Taylor was inspired to write an especially compassionate note.

'Normally, I wouldnt chime in, this not being my community, my state, or even the music or kind of party that I enjoy,' he began.

'But Ive seen so many trolls saying hurtful things that I felt that it was necessary to let you know that you have my best wishes, thoughts, and prayers for strength for everyone who lost someone, and hope for those who havent yet been found.'

'Signed, a grumpy old man in Colorado who believes in compassion, sympathy and kind words. My those who have passed rest in peace and may those who are left find strength in one another.'

Meanwhile, the Facebook page continues to allow concerned relatives and friends to find out news about those who are safe, as well as seek out resources for housing, food or just some comforting words.

Information still remains slim regarding the total death count.

Fire Chief Teresa Deloche-Reed said that at least another 25 people are still unaccounted for after the deadly blaze started around 11.30pm in the 1300 block of 31st Avenue just two hours into the event.

Officials said the building had no sprinkler system or working smoke detectors as the owner had been cited by the city just last month for other violations.

Musician Amanda Allen (left) and musician Joseph Matlock (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Nex Iuguolo (left) and musician Alana Kane (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

The post above from the Facebook page says 17-year-old Draven McGill is missing and asks for anyone who may have spotted him to let the family know

Ara Jo (left) and Chelsea Faith (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

'We still have to do a more thorough search of the building and we don't know the potential number of other victims,' Deloche-Reed said.

'In my career of 30 years, I haven't experienced something of this magnitude.'

She added that there was no sprinkler system and that firefighters saw no evidence that smoke detectors were activated during the blaze inside the two-story building.

Alameda County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ray Kelly said they fear up to 40 people could have possibly died.

Arson investigators have been on the scene since the morning to help with the investigation, as well as federal authorities.

Sgt. Kelly said that people inside during the rave either escaped unscathed or were trapped inside.

'Right now there's 25 names of people that have not been accounted for,' Deloach-Reed said.

Jennifer (Kiyomi) Tanouye (left) and Cash Askew (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Peter Wadsworth (above) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about his whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Denalda Nicole Renae is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Hanna Henriikka Ruax (left) and Alex Ghassan (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jalien Adrian (left) and Barrett Clark (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

'We're not sure if they have already self-transported to the hospital or they have gone to friend's home. We're not sure.

'This is a true loss for the city, for the firefighters who responded, and the people who lost family and friend. It's just tragic, a real tragedy.'

Dan Vega worried that his 22-year-old brother might be among the dead. Vega wasn't certain, but thought his brother and a girlfriend may have gone to the party.

Their car was still parked at a BART station near the home the brother shared with his mother, and the young man has given no sign yet.

'It is just not like him,' Vega said.

David Marks of San Francisco, who was searching for news of a friend, said: 'We are all just hoping people ditched their phones when they got to the party.'

Marks had planned to go to the party after working late, but checked Facebook before setting out and saw news of the deadly blaze.

Johnny Igaz (left) and Micah Danemayer (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Donna Kellogg (pictured) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Saya Tomioka posted on the event page for the party saying she was looking for Griffin Madden (above) who is believed to be missing as no one has heard from him

The fire is thought to be one of the deadliest single-structure fires in Oakland's history.

Kelly said that some 'foreign nationals' were believed to have been inside the building attending the party, which could make it difficult for authorities to locate some of the families.

Authorities have set up a family assistance center at the sheriff's substation at 2425 E. 12th Street in Oakland as a place for fire survivors and families to meet.

Deloach-Reed said that fire crews found a 'makeshift stairwell' between the first and second floor and that most people who died were on the second floor of the building.

She said that when fire crews first entered the building to fight the blaze, they were impeded by a massive amount of clutter that included furniture, art and several mannequins.

'It filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections,' Deloach-Reed said. 'It was like a maze almost.'

Just last month city officials cited the owner of the warehouse and had launched an investigation into whether the interior structure was illegal, records show.

According to The East Bay Times, records show on November 13 a neighbor filed a complaint over a 'a ton of garbage piling up on the property' at 1305 31st Ave.

David Cline (left) and Nick Gomez-Hall (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Naomi Riches (left) and Michela Gregory (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Caw Charleston (left) and Jessi Canz (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jonathan Bernbaum (left) and Feral Pines (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

'Also, a lot of items are left on the sidewalk near the property,' the complaint said.

'Some of trash was hazardous. This property is a storage but the owner turned it to become trash recycle site.

'The yard became a trash collection site and the main building was remodel for residential. The change causes our neighborhood looks very bad and creates health issue.'

The next day the city launched an investigation into an illegal interior building structure, but the status of that investigation is unknown.

Property records list the owner as Chor N. Ng and that he purchased the warehouse in 1997. He also owns other properties in the city.

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district and lives a block from where the fire occurred, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the building 'has been an issue for a number of years.'

'People have been living inside, and the neighbors have complained about it,' he said.

'Some of these young people that were in there were underage. They frequently had parties there.'

At least nine people died and 25 are still missing after a massive fire destroyed a northern California warehouse during a party early Saturday morning, officials said

The party located in the 1300 block of 31st Ave in the Fruitvale district of the city was reportedly part of musician Golden Donna's '100% Silk' West Coast tour

Firefighters examine the roof of the warehouse to check its stability after a portion of it collapsed in the fire

It's unclear what started the deadly blaze that has left at least 9 people killed and dozens more missing

Firefighters are still working at the aftermath of a warehouse fire in the Fruitavale district of Oakland at the corner of 31st Avenue and International Boulevard

Fire Chief Teresa Deloche-Reed (above) said that at least another 25 people are still unaccounted for after the deadly blaze started around 11:30pm in the 1300 block of 31st Avenue during an event featuring musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour

Alameda County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ray Kelly said they fear up to 40 people could have possibly died in the blaze that has destroyed the warehouse (above)

Firefighters assess the scene where a fire tore through a warehouse party early Saturday

Between 50 to 100 people were at the party which started at 9pm and was supposed to last until 4am, officials say.

The party featured numerous electronic musicians, performers and producers as well as visual projections, the Facebook page for the event states.

'SECRET EAST OAKLAND LOCATION ANNOUNCED DAY OF SHOW,' the page said.

More than 200 people had responded to say they would attend the event, but it's unclear if that many people were at the party.

In terms of efforts of party-goers trying to flee or firefighters trying to rescue people, Deloach-Reed said, 'We know it was going to be difficult if it started anywhere near that stairwell.'

A man who only gave his name as John said at the time of the blaze he was working at the door, since he was one of the organizers of the event, the Chronicle reported.

He said that the fire appeared to start on the ground floor and went up, and that he was able to escape the building because he was near the exit.

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district and lives a block from where the fire occurred, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the building 'has been an issue for a number of years.' Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

The next day the city launched an investigation into an illegal interior building structure, but the status of that investigation is unknown. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Records show on November 13 a neighbor filed a complaint over a 'a ton of garbage piling up on the property' at 1305 31st Ave. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Just last month city officials cited the owner of the warehouse and had launched an investigation into whether the interior structure was illegal. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

'I watched that building burn for five hours,' he said. 'And those people didn't walk out.'

Alameda County Sheriffs Office Sergeant J.D. Nelson told KTVU the coroner's office is preparing for 40 or more bodies, but no bodies had been removed from the building as of 5pm ET.

Deloach-Reed explained that a multiagency task force was created to investigate the fire and begin the task of recovering victims inside.

'The building is a huge building,' Deloach-Reed said. 'There's going to have to be a methodical way we go about body recovery, and then also trying to find out where the fire started and how the fire's spread took place. ... We have not done a complete search of the building.'

Fifty-five firefighters battled the blaze at the scene, as crews found flames on three sides of the building located in the Fruitvale district of the city, Battalion Chief Lisa Baker told the East Bay Times.

An aggressive attack on the fire was underway when conditions suddenly changed and firefighters had to go back outside.

Officials say it took an estimated four hours to bring the huge blaze under control.

Firefighters are still at the scene along with police who are investigating what happened. International Boulevard is closed between Derby and Fruitvale avenues.

Terry Lightfoot, a representative of Oakland's Highland Hospital, told CNN that 'the hospital received two patients and one of them has been discharged. Lightfoot did not know the condition of the patient who remained hospitalized.'

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a statement of condolences and said he and his wife, Anne, were saddened to hear about the deadly blaze.

In the statement Saturday he said: 'Our thoughts are with the entire city in this difficult time and we extend our condolences to the family and friends of those lost.'

The destroyed building is known as The Oakland Ghost Ship, as authorities say fire fighters had a difficult time getting inside due to massive amounts of clutter. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Deloach-Reed said that fire crews found a 'makeshift stairwell' between the first and second floor and that most people who died were on the second floor of the building. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Deloach-Reed said that when fire crews first entered the building to fight the blaze, they were impeded by a massive amount of clutter that included furniture, art and several mannequins. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

She said: 'It filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections,' Deloach-Reed said. 'It was like a maze almost.' The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Sabrina May Dolan told DailyMail.com that her sister, Chelsea Faith, was performing at the party under her stage name Cherushii when the fire started on the second floor of the building.

Dolan said she is standing by waiting for an update, as her sister still has not been located and cannot be reached.

Numerous people have been posting on the event page on Facebook about who they believe is missing, as others have posted on the event page to say they are safe and escaped the fire unharmed.

'It was too hot, too much smoke, I had to get out of there,' Bob Mule, a photographer and artist who lives at the building and suffered minor burns, told the Times.

'I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke. I couldn't get the fire extinguisher to work.'

Officials say between 50 to 100 people were in the building for the party when the fire started around 11:30pm PT

Fifty-five firefighters battled the blaze at the scene, as crews found flames on three sides of the building, Battalion Chief Lisa Baker told the East Bay Times

Numerous people have been posting on the event page on Facebook about who they believe is missing

Mule was able to make it out of the building that was engulfed in a matter of minutes.

It's unclear how the fire started, as it's believed an artists' collective that is adjacent to the warehouse was also engulfed in flames. No firefighters were injured.

Oakland police said those who were concerned about missing people in the fire should contact the Alameda County Sheriff's Coroner's Bureau 510-382-3000.

The electronic music label, 100% Silk, that hosted the party issued a statement offering up resources for friends and family of the victims.

'What happened in Oakland is an unbelievable tragedy, a nightmare scenario. Britt and I are beside ourselves, utterly devastated,' the statement shared to Facebook reads.

'We are a very tight community of artists and we are all praying, sending love and condolences to everyone involved and their families.

'Thank you for everyone who's been reaching out, we are hoping so hard for the best. We will be posting here on how you can help, and any information as it comes to us.'

The electronic music label, 100% Silk, that hosted the party issued a statement (above) offering up resources for friends and family of the victims

Other people have posted on the event page to say they are safe and escaped the horrific fire unharmed

As of 4:20am PT, the fire was not officially under control, as smoke was still coming from an upper floor in the building. It took firefighters four hours to put the blaze out

Some Facebook users commenting on a post about those who have been reported missing by family or friends have shared their experiences at The Oakland Ghost Ship and how it apparently was disorganized by the clutter

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf released a statement late Saturday morning: 'Last night's fire was an immense tragedy. I am grateful to our first responders for their efforts to deal with this deadly fire.

'Our focus right now is on the victims and their families and ensuring that we have a full accounting for everyone who was impacted by this tragedy.

'We are fully committed to sharing as much information as we can as quickly as possible.'

Oakland Vice Mayor Annie Campbell Washington said: 'This is a huge tragedy for Oakland, such a deep loss of life last night.

'This is being reported as the worst structure fire in Oakland and I'm here to express my deepest condolences.'

Some Facebook users commenting on a post about those who have been reported missing by family or friends have shared their experiences at The Oakland Ghost Ship and how it apparently was disorganized by the clutter.

George Goatmandan Weber said on Facebook: 'This was the nightmare I always had about hazmat. I spent alotta (sic) time planning escape routes from that sh******.'

Another user, Kristen Parks, replied back to him about how 'narrow' walkways were inside the building.

'yes (sic) true no windows too. I remember this (sic) place being super scary escape wise with wood everywhere and narrow walkways'.
Police have arrested an internet troll suspected of calling for the murder of anti-Brexit Tory MP Anna Soubry

Police have arrested an internet troll suspected of calling for the murder of anti-Brexit Tory MP Anna Soubry.

The Broxtowe MP was horrified when the Twitter user calling himself Michael wrote on Friday morning: Someone jo cox Anna sourby please.

The ungrammatical post was a reference to the horrific murder of Labours Ms Cox, also a Remain supporter, by extreme Right-wing terrorist Thomas Mair during the referendum campaign.

Ms Soubry, right, a former TV journalist, posted a screenshot of the offending tweet, calling Michael a sad cowardly troll and adding: This is what has happened to our politics. Tolerance & free speech must prevail.

After reporting it to Nottinghamshire police, she said she was very disturbed by the tweet and said it was the second death threat she had received in a week.

The force passed the case to the Metropolitan Police, which made the arrest yesterday.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: A 25-year-old man was arrested in Bethnal Green, East London, on suspicion of making malicious communications, and is being held in an East London police station.

Ms Soubry declined to comment on the arrest last night.
Kellyanne Conway dressed up as Superwoman on Saturday night as she attended a Heroes and Villains themed costume party with Donald Trump and Steve Bannon.

But she lauded the president-elect for being the 'ultimate hero', and the two posed for a photograph at the palatial family estate of hosts Robert and Diana Mercer, in Long Island, New York.

Conway flourished her red cape next to Trump, who stuck with a suit, and tweeted: 'Honoring the ultimate hero at the Mercer "Heroes and Villians" party on Long Island. Crowd thrilled w/ surprise!'

Hedge fund manager Robert and his wife Diana Mercer donated $2million to the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Number 1, which was later headed by their daughter Rebekah Mercer.

Donald Trump was called the 'ultimate hero' by campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who dressed as Superwoman at a lavish Heroes and Villains costume party (pictured)

Conway previously said she was planning to dress as Stephen Bannon, but opted for a more clear cut choice on Saturday, complete with a minidress and what appears to be a blonde wig

Conway is noted for being the first woman to run a successful presidential campaign

Trump, who stuck with a suit, took a break from mulling over Cabinet positions to attend the annual party, which has gained a reputation for being extravagant

Rebekah Mercer, daughter of hosts Robert and Diana Mercer, urged the Donald to bring both Conway and senior counselor Stephen Bannon (pictured) on board his campaign in August

Rebekah, who is on the transition team executive committee, urged the Donald to bring both Conway and senior counselor Stephen Bannon on board his campaign in August.

In total, the Mercer family has given more than $48million to campaigns, organizations or companies run by Trump's allies in recent years, according to Politico. The figures include a reported $10million investment in Breitbart News, where Bannon was a chairman.

Tickets to the annual event, hosted by the Mercers since 2009, are coveted in Republican circles, and this year's theme was not lost on Rebekah, who had previously dubbed the election between Trump and Hillary Clinton as an 'apocalyptic choice'.

While Trump and Bannon opted out not to wear costumes, staff and security were dressed as Hell's Angels and retro Salvation Army members.

The annual event is known for being a lavish affair, and the Mercer estate was guarded by a tank for last year's World War II-themed party.

Guests played blackjack and poker in previous years, with a free supply of chips that could be redeemed for gold Rolexes, Politico reported.

Conway told Bloomberg ahead of this year's party: 'I predict there will be an abundance of Hillary and Trump finery. We cant get enough of this victory.'

The party was hosted at the Mercer's palatial Long Island estate (pictured, Trump's motorcade en route to the party)

Conway previously said she was planning to dress as Stephen Bannon, but opted for a more clear cut choice on Saturday, complete with a minidress, knee-high boots, and what appeared to be a blonde wig.

Bannon, who was the chairman at Breitbart, was described by Conway as a villain to the press, but a hero to many others. He was also in attendance sporting his usual look.

Trump ventured out of his Manhattan skyscraper the first time on Saturday to attend the party, and he is expected to lay low for the remainder of the weekend.

Transition meetings will resume in New York on Monday before he hits the next stop of his 'thank you' tour in North Carolina on Tuesday.

Robert (center) and Diana Mercer (right) donated $2million to the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Number 1, which was later headed by their daughter Rebekah Mercer (left)

Trump is also still mulling his choice to lead the State Department, one of the most powerful and prominent Cabinet positions.

According to two people close to the transition, Trump is moving away from both Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, two of the front-runners for the job.

Trump is said to have been rankled by the former New York Mayor's international business ties and public campaigning for the job.

And while Trump has met twice with Romney, he's said to be aware of the risks of angering his supporters by tapping a Republican who was among his fiercest critics.

Former CIA director David Petraeus is still in the mix, though both people close to the transition said Trump's prolonged decision-making process has left the door open to other options.

One of the sources said Trump was open to expanding his short list of secretary of State prospects. Jon Huntsman, a former Republican Utah governor who also served as the ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin, may be a possibility.

The people close to the transition insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private process publicly.

Transition talks will resume Monday. According to two people close to the transition, Trump is moving away from both Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, front-runners for Secretary of State

Trump also made no mention Saturday of his decision to speak on the phone with Taiwan's leader, a breach of long-standing tradition that risks enmity from China.

Trump's conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen drew an irritated, although understated, response from China, as Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the contact was 'just a small trick by Taiwan' that he believed would not change U.S. policy toward China, according to Hong Kong's Phoenix TV.

Chinese officials said they lodged a complaint with the U.S. and reiterated a commitment to seeking 'reunification' with the island, which they consider a renegade province.
from alcohol or drugs, cuts and a spider bite

Paramedics are claimed to have treated people

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Bombastic tobacco tycoon Travers Beynon aka 'The Candyman' threw his lavish annual party on the weekend but it wasn't just partygoers that were kept busy.

Paramedics were claimed to have treated six people between 7.40pm and just after 11pm starting with two females, aged 23 and 19, and a 20-year-old male who were rushed to hospital suffering from drugs or alcohol, The Courier Mail reports.

One woman's head was hurting after she allegedly fell from a dance podium.

Paramedics also found a 19-year-old female wandering around outside the Seven Deadly Sins party on the Gold Coast.

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Candyman takes centre-stage on his balcony at his Gold Coast mansion, surrounded by leather bikini-clad woman wearing thigh-high boots

With the theme of the Seven Deadly Sins, no doubt lust was on Candyman's mind as bikini-clad women flocked to his side at the soiree. Pictured left is Beynon's wife Taesha and on the right is girlfriend Nisha

Keeping cool by the pool: This group of women enjoy the lavish amenities on offer at the wild bash

Finally a 27-year-old male and a 23-year-old female refused to go to hospital for treatment despite the male cutting his arm on window glass and the female believed to be suffering from a spider bite.

A Gold Coast ambulance spokesperson said the party was a 'drain on resources', despite the emergency services ensuring all calls were answered, according to the The Brisbane Times.

There is no suggestion the people in these images have taken illegal drugs or that drug taking was in any way condoned at the event.

The Candyman's luxurious celebration involved bikini-clad women flocking to his side at the soiree held at his palatial Gold Coast home, nicknamed 'The Candyshop Mansion'.

According to the Gold Coast Bulletin, the lavish celebration featured rooms dedicated to the vices  pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth.

And with his adoration of all things female, it will come as no surprise that the Lust room was reserved for the party's biggest VIPs.

The guest-list was rumored to include high-profile guests such as Imogen Anthony, girlfriend of radio host Kyle Sandilands.

Sandilands is also to believed to have been invited along with co-host Jackie O, but it's understood they didn't make it to the wild event, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.

Australian model and DJ Brooke Evers performed for the event.

In a photo posted on Instagram of Evers and Candyman she thanked the businessman for 'the greatest party to ever hit the Gold Coast'.

Many other guests received their invite through a promotion from Candyman's chain of tobacco stores.

Others may have answered a Facebook post from a Gold Coast agent, inviting 'sexy bikini models' to the party.

'GIRLS  looking for some sexy bikini models for Candyman Mansion party this Saturday for 'event production' 2 hour call,' it read.

The post raises some questions about the popularity of the Candyman's bashes - as the invite was posted on Friday, just one day before the event.

Scantily-clad girls dance with drinks in hand at the festivities which took place on Saturday night

Can you guess the Seven Deadly Sin? Bedazzled in red sequins with a leather vest and ripped leather trousers, it looks like the businessman took an abstract approach with his costume

Sat on top of a tank-like vehicle driven by a pirate, the businessman sits on a futuristic looking throne, flanked by a group of cloaked woman

Swapping the seven seas for Seven Deadly Sins? A pirate is seen captaining the futuristic looking tank as a cameraman gets Candyman's best angles

A party isn't complete without beautiful woman in corsets skiing in unison

The crowded party was was rumored to have a guest-list that included high-profile attendees such as Imogen Anthony, girlfriend of radio host Kyle Sandilands

Like previous years, Candyman entered the party in show stopping fashion.

Sat on top of a tank-like vehicle driven by a pirate, the businessman sits on a futuristic looking throne, flanked by a group of cloaked woman.

He's no stranger to extravagant stunts, at his outrageous 250,000 party thrown last year, Benyon made an impressive arrival suspended from a flying fox.

At this years party, the tobacco tycoon was accompanied by his wife, Taesha Beynon and 10 girlfriends.

'I've got 5 (girlfriends) at the moment and I've got another 5 coming in from overseas,' he told 1029 Hot Tomato's Flan & Emily Jade.

Did these bikini-wearing woman answer the call? A Facebook post from a Gold Coast agent, invited 'sexy bikini models' to the party just one day before the event

Carefully balanced on a golden swan these women needn't worry about going without a drink, thanks to the poolside bar

Wherever Candyman went, he was flanked by his security guard and his entourage of stunning, scantly-clad women not too far behind

A guest dressed as President-elect Donald Trump poses with Candyman , who's hurriedly being pulled away by a mysterious female companion

The tabaccoo tycoon attended the wild bash with his wife, Taesha Beynon and 10 girlfriends

From day: A view from above of the wild extravaganza, the waterside mansion features a massive pool, perfect for models in need of a swim

To night: Smoke billows from the stage as lasers light up the night sky. Party-goers frolic in the seating area set into the pool

Flames form every direction as the party continues into the night

Of course the party would have a beautiful, half-dressed woman as the DJ. The banner behind international DJ Brooke Evers advertises Candyman's FreeChoice tobacco franchise

DJ Brooke Evers throws a toothy grin to the dancing crowd. In a photo posted on Instagram of Evers and Candyman she thanks the businessman for 'the greatest party to ever hit the Gold Coast'

Electrifying! Sparks fly out of this guitarist's instrument as he's safely protected with some rockin' shades

The night sky lights up with dozens of fireworks and lasers at the Seven Deadly Sins party
Thousands of Post Office workers are planning to cause chaos at Christmas with a five-day strike.

Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) who work as counter staff plan to walk out for three days on December 19, 20 and 24. Their fellow members who are cash-handlers and deliver money to post office branches will call a 48-hour strike for December 22 and 23, according to the CWU.

The combined industrial action across the country will involve more than 4,000 workers and will result in 300 larger post offices closing entirely or operating a skeleton service during Christmas week.

Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) who work as counter staff plan to walk out for three days on December 19, 20, 22, 23 and 24

Hundreds more smaller branches, many in rural areas, will struggle to operate because they will not receive their usual cash delivery.

Union bosses have warned that the strikes, which are over branch closures, job losses and the ending of a final salary pension scheme, will disrupt deliveries.

Andrew Furey, assistant general secretary of the CWU, said: It will be absolute chaos in the lead-up to Christmas because its prime time for deliveries. The main impact will be on parcels and packages.

He warned that the walkout by the cash-handlers would be equally devastating. People will be taking out money, they will be paying for parcels and some of the post offices have got bureaux de change. People will turn up at the branches and they will be closed as they will have no cash.

The walkouts will be the fourth since the CWU balloted members in August and 85 per cent voted in favour of industrial action.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU Both the Post Office and Royal Mail insist that last posting dates for Christmas deliveries will not be affected by the strike action planned by the Communication Workers Union. To ensure items reach their destinations in time, second-class letters and parcels should be posted by Tuesday, December 20. First-class post must be sent by Wednesday, December 21. Royal Mail say they will be delivering up to and including Christmas Eve, which this year falls on a Saturday. Advertisement

Yesterday saw the third strike, with workers taking to picket lines across the country.

The CWU expects its strike plans to be rubber-stamped by its National Executive Committee on Tuesday. The union has defended its decision to strike at Christmas, saying it is trying to save jobs and branches, and that 6,000 post offices have closed since 2002. But Tory MP Grant Shapps, who has campaigned against closures, branded the CWUs five-day stoppage crazy.

He said: Given that this dispute is in part about post office closures, taking action which deliberately closes branches is a spectacular own goal at Christmas time, when people will be relying on the post office service.

The Government has previously defended its decision to restructure the Post Office to try to halt huge losses  which were running at 40 million a year up to 2013.

Kevin Gilliland, Post Office network and sales director, insisted that even if the Christmas strike went ahead, the majority of branches would remain open. He said: We have not received any formal notification of action from our unions and, should further action be taken, we can reassure our customers that at least 97 per cent of our network will be open for business as usual.
A mother-of-four who turned to a virtual farming game to escape the turmoils of her recent break-up fortuitously connected with her future partner - despite him being on the other side of the world.

New Zealander Alice Hall, 31, was going through a rough time following her break up with her partner in late 2014 when she happened to connect with Jon Kennedy, 30, living in a tiny Texas town in the U.S.

The two met through the virtual farming game Hay Day, before Mr Kennedy tracked down Ms Hall on Facebook.

Alice Hall connected with Jon Kennedy through a mobile game and after hitting it off, are now engaged two years later

Coming from a small town of 16,788 called Mineral Wells in Texas, Mr Kennedy flew half way around the world for a chance at love with Alice Hall

The two met through the virtual farming game Hay Day, before Mr Kennedy tracked down Ms Hall on Facebook

The conversation between Alice Hall and Jon Kennedy on Hay Day

'Jon and I started talking late November 2014 and then both of us really wanted to meet pretty fast,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'So December 2014 he booked his ticket for February next year in 2015. I was so excited, the days dragged on and we talked all day every day, both trying to imagine what it'd be like when we finally met.'

Mr Kennedy slowly won Ms Hall over after months of Skype calls and messages, but it was when she was waiting at the airport for him to arrive to meet for the first time that the nerves kicked in.

'Waiting for him at the Auckland Airport was the most nerve racking thing in my life,' the mother-of-four said.

Mr Kennedy slowly won Ms Hall over after months of Skype calls and messages, but it was when she was waiting at the airport for him to arrive to meet for the first time that the nerves kicked in

The mother-of-four turned to a virtual farming game to escape the turmoils of her recent break-up but ended up connecting with her future partner

'But the moment he walked out of the terminal it was like we were meant to be and we spent an amazing two weeks in New Zealand together.'

Coming from a small town of 16,788 called Mineral Wells in Texas, Mr Kennedy flew half way around the world for a chance at love.

After approval from the most important people in Ms Hall's life, her four children, the two sparked a modern day romance.

Since then the two have got engaged and Ms Hall has travelled to Texas to meet his parents. They are currently living in New Zealand.

'Now, nearly two years later, we kinda just laugh at it! My feelings are 1000 times stronger, he is everything and more that I could ever want in a guy,' Ms Hall said.

Despite meeting on Hay Day the couple have since stopped playing the popular game, according to Stuff NZ.

Jon Kennedy and Alice Hall are now engaged and living in New Zealand
The right conditions for another storm are forecast for Victoria on Sunday

A doctor has advised how to avoid a potentially deadly attack as experts warn another asthma thunderstorm could be brewing.

Eight people died in Melbourne last month in the world's worst thunderstorm asthma epidemic ever recorded, with concerns another could strike in both Victoria and new South Wales on Sunday evening.

Dr Michael Sutherland, a respiratory physician and allergist, has suggested ways to avoid a deadly attack, writing for The Age.

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The November storm that killed eight people who suffered asthma attacks is pictured

Dr Michael Sutherland, a respiratory physician and allergist, gave advice on how to avoid an asthma attack through storms

People with hay fever, even if they have never experienced asthma, are at risk.

To be safe, people should monitor pollen counts and storm warnings through the warmer months, Dr Sutherland said. Melbourne Pollen Count provides a daily forecast, with Sunday and Monday at high.

When there is a thunderstorm warning through the warmer months, Dr Sutherland also recommended staying indoors with windows closed - preferably in an air-conditioned area.

People with asthma should take their preventer regularly and have a reliever at hand. Do not hesitate to call triple-0 if you experience severe shortness of breath.

A woman is pictured using an asthma inhaler (stock image). Dr Sutherland said people with asthma should take their preventer regularly and have a reliever at hand

Dr Sutherland said he believes people with springtime hay fever may be more likely to be prescribed an asthma preventer during the pollen season following the deadly thunderstorm.

AVOIDING AN ATTACK Monitor pollen levels and storm warnings Stay indoors with windows shut People with asthma should use their preventer regularly and have a reliever at hand. Call triple-0 if you experience severe shortness of breath Seek medical attention if you have hay fever. Doctors may be more likely to prescribe an asthma preventer after the deadly storm, even if you have never experienced asthma Advertisement

Dr Sutherland works at Epworth Hospital and published a report on the 2010 thunderstorm asthma epidemic.

The advice comes as Victorians are warned to again prepare for more thunderstorm asthma attacks.

The National Asthma Council Australia says expected thunderstorm conditions combined with high pollen counts can lead to breathing problems.

Hazy weather in Melbourne on Sunday ahead of predicted Sunday night storms

Storm clouds gather over Footscray in Melbourne's inner west on Sunday morning

Just two weeks ago, eight people died and more than 8,500 were hospitalised in Victoria.

'As we have seen with the recent events in Melbourne any serious asthma attack can be life-threatening and have tragic consequences,' Dr Jonathan Burdon said on Saturday.

'Act quickly if you start to have symptoms such as shortness of breath or wheezing.'

Tim Cartwright, who was acting Victoria Police chief commissioner in 2015, will review Ambulance Victoria's response to the storm.

'We know there were a number of families who lost loved ones and it is essential we review every aspect of our response so we can learn lessons from events such as this,' Ambulance Victoria chief executive Tony Walker said on Saturday.

Sam Lau (right), 49, a father-of-four who immigrated to Australia only a year ago is among eight people to lose their life after 'thunderstorm asthma'

Mr Lau died on Tuesday after being admitted to Austin Hospital in Melbourne on the 21st of November suffering from a 'sudden onset of asthma'

The results of Mr Cartwright's review will be given to the Inspector General of Emergency Management, who is doing a review of the health system's response to the storm.

Huge storms are set to hit Victoria and NSW on Sunday, with a thunderstorm late on Sunday night set to follow sweltering 34 degree Celsius temperatures in Melbourne.

The warning follows the death of an eighth victim from Melbourne's storm.

Sam Lau, 49, died on Tuesday after being admitted to Austin Hospital in Melbourne on November 21 suffering from a 'sudden onset of asthma' and now experts predict further thunderstorms.

Omar Moujalled, 18, who had just finished his year 12 exams, was the second victim of the freak 'asthma thunderstorm'

Hope Carnevali, a 20-year-old law student, died as a result of a freak 'asthma thunderstorm'

Health authorities are concerned an upcoming round of thunderstorms set to lash Melbourne late on Sunday afternoon when a cool change sweeps the state and Monday will likely see a repeat of the fatal condition.

The predicted storms have seen Ambulance Victoria roster on more staff to avoid a repeat of last months horrendous outbreak of thunderstorm asthma in which eight people have now lost their lives.

Mr Lau who is originally from China, moved to Australia from New Zealand with his wife and two young children 'in search of a better life', leaving his two eldest children in Wellington.

The devastated daughter of Mr Lau, said that her father died after suffering complications with his brain and his heart .

'He was a genuine family man who always put his family first. He came from a poverty stricken area in China where he grew up, for a better life to support his family back home,' Sheila Lau told Stuff NZ .

A massive thunderstorm caused an outbreak of asthma so severe emergency services in Melbourne ran out of ambulances to help those in need

'The doctors said he suffered a severe asthma attack due to the thunderstorm and that led to complications with his brain and his heart.'

The 25-year-old said her father was the families sole money earner and the financial burden it now placed on her mother was tremendous.

A Give A Little page has now been set up to try and help with funeral costs in an attempt to fly Mr Lau back to New Zealand.

Hope Carnevali, 20 and Omar Moujalled, 18, also died when their asthma attacks were triggered by the intense storm system, which combined with a high pollen count and hot temperatures, proved to have a deadly effect.

Four in 10 people experiencing thunderstorm asthma symptoms had not been diagnosed with asthma yet most had suffered hay fever prior to last week's freak event in Victoria, an Asthma Australia survey has found.

Early results from the online survey conducted following the deadly thunderstorm asthma event have highlighted a 'worrying' lack of awareness about the common disease of the airways.

A sand storm at St Kilda in Melbourne during the thunderstorm saw an unprecedented spike in asthma problems across the Victorian capital

Of the first 2,000 respondents who did have an asthma diagnosis, 68 per cent had been prescribed preventer medication but only 29 per cent took it every day.

Preventer medications reduce the underlying inflammation of the airways, protecting people from symptoms and potentially serious asthma attacks when exposed to triggers like pollen.

Asthma Australia CEO Michele Goldman says the early results are proof that more needs to be done to improve asthma awareness and management.

'Asthma is a common condition that can be life threatening. Not only is good management essential for people diagnosed with asthma, such as taking preventer medication as prescribed, it is also vital that everyone is aware of asthma - how to spot the symptoms and what to do in an asthma emergency,' Ms Goldman said in a statement on Friday.
Jill Stein said she will seek help from the federal courts as she continues her push for a recount in Pennsylvania.

The Green Party candidate said she will ask for an emergency court order on Monday to spark the count, hours after she dropped the case in the state courts when a judge demanded she pay an extra $1million.

Campaign lawyer Jonathan Abady made a statement late on Saturday night saying the battle was far from over.

'Make no mistake  the Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania.

'We are committed to this fight to protect the civil and voting rights of all Americans.'

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein has dropped her bid for an election recount in Pennsylvania because her campaign cannot pay a $1m bond demanded by a judge

Stein blasted the expense of the recounts on Twitter as news broke of the dropped bid in Pennsylvania on Saturday night

They continued their legal tussle in The Keystone State, after a recount began Thursday in Wisconsin, while a recount could begin next week in Michigan.

In the statement, Abady said barriers to a recount in Pennsylvania are pervasive and the state court system is ill-equipped to address the problem.

Stein said the decision to drop the case in the state courts was made after a court ruling ordered that voters who requested the recount to pay a $1million bond.

'The judge's outrageous demand that voters pay such an exorbitant figure is a shameful, unacceptable barrier to democratic participation,' she said in statement.

'This is yet another sign that Pennsylvania's antiquated election law is stacked against voters.'

'By demanding a $1million bond from voters yesterday, the court made clear it has no interest in giving a fair hearing to these voters' legitimate concerns over the accuracy, security and fairness of an election tainted by suspicion.'

Stein's attorney wrote in court papers that the petitioners for the recount were 'regular citizens of ordinary means' who could not afford to post the bond.

Stein had tried to fund the recount after claims that voting machines had been hacked in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan where Donald Trump won.

The campaign of Republican President-elect Donald Trump had requested a $10 million bond, court papers showed.

Stein raised nearly $7million to fund statewide election recounts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

She blasted the expense of the recounts on Twitter, writing: 'How odd is it that we must jump through bureaucratic hoops and raise millions of dollars so we can trust our election results?'

'#Recount2016 is so expensive because of elected leaders who have refused to invest in a 21st-century voting system.'

Stein's campaign for a recount had been framed as an effort to explore whether voting machines and systems had been hacked and the election result manipulated.

The decision to drop the campaign in Pennsylvania came two days before a court hearing was scheduled in the case.

Green Party-backed efforts to analyze election software in scattered precincts are still continuing.

Stein also said she will make a 'major announcement' regarding her next steps in the recount process at a news conference Monday outside Trump Tower in New York.

Trump's victory in Pennsylvania was particularly stunning: the state's fifth-most electoral votes are a key stepping stone to the White House, and no Republican presidential candidate had captured the state since 1988.

Stein had said the purpose of Pennsylvania's recount was to ensure 'our votes are safe and secure,' considering hackers' probing of election targets in other states and hackers' accessing of the emails of the Democratic National Committee and several Clinton staffers.

US security officials have said they believe Russian hackers orchestrated the email hacks, something Russia has denied.

Stein's lawyers, however, had offered no evidence of hacking in Pennsylvania's election. They sought unsuccessfully in recent days to get various counties to allow a forensic examination of their election system software.

Green County Clerk Michael Doyle carries ballots to a secure location after being tabulated during the presidential recount at the Green County Courthouse in Monroe, Wisconsin

A recount is already underway in Wisconsin. Workers are pictured looking over absentee ballots in Milwaukee on Thursday, December 1

Lawyers for Trump and the state Republican Party argued there was no evidence, or even an allegation, that tampering with Pennsylvania's voting systems had occurred.

Further, Pennsylvania law does not allow a court-ordered recount, they argued, and a lawyer for the Green Party had acknowledged that the effort was without precedent in Pennsylvania.

The case also had threatened Pennsylvania's ability to certify its presidential electors by the Dec. 13 federal deadline, Republican lawyers argued.

On Saturday, GOP lawyer Lawrence Tabas, said the case had been meant 'solely for purposes to delay the Electoral College vote in Pennsylvania for President-Elect Trump.'

The state's top elections official, Secretary of State Pedro Cortes, a Democrat, has said there was no evidence of any sort of cyberattacks or irregularities in the election. Any recount would change few votes, Cortes predicted.

As of Friday, Trump's margin of victory in Pennsylvania was 49,000, or less than 1 percent, out of 6 million votes cast, according to state election officials.

Final counts were outstanding in some counties, including heavily populated Allegheny County, but state and county officials did not expect any outstanding uncounted votes to change the outcome of the presidential election in Pennsylvania.
Almost 1,000 investigations into allegations of rape and other serious sexual crimes were dropped by police within 24 hours, leaving them unsolved.

Critics seized on the figures last night and said victims had been denied justice.

However, police maintained that all the crimes were fully investigated despite being closed so quickly.

Since 2013, forces in England have shelved 894 investigations into sex offences  including child prostitution  within a day, without any charges being brought, according to figures unearthed by this newspaper using Freedom of Information laws.

Since 2013, forces in England have shelved 894 investigations into sex offences  including child prostitution  within a day, without any charges being brought

Astonishingly, this includes 68 rape investigations and two of attempted rape. There were also dozens of closed inquiries into sexual assault and sexual activity with children under 13, as well as incidents where youngsters were forced to watch adults perform sexual acts.

Home Affairs Select Committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper said: Rapes and sexual assaults are among the most serious crimes of all, often haunting victims for life.

These crimes need thorough investigation, not to be quickly dismissed, so that dangerous criminals can be caught and brought to justice.

Scotland Yard shut 119 probes into sexual offences within 24 hours without solving them. Greater Manchester Police closed 32 investigations into rape  including 19 where the victim was a child  two attempted rapes and 538 sexual offences.

Home Affairs Select Committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper said: Rapes and sexual assaults are among the most serious crimes of all, often haunting victims for life'

Lancashire shut 30 rape inquiries and 128 of sexual assault. Staffordshire ended investigations into five rapes and 17 other sexual crimes.

Essex Police shut 22 sexual offences inquiries and one into rape, but the victim did not want to report the crime.
When Stephanie Brennan was 15 she skipped school to go to work and make money.

At the age of 21 she'd already become a workaholic, having held more than 20 jobs from a taxi driver, to a house painter and even working at a pet crematorium.

Ms Brennan knew she wanted to be rich, but struggled to find a hobby or career that she enjoyed enough to make it happen - until she stumbled across real estate.

Today the 26-year-old works for herself and lays claim to a property portfolio spread across Sydney, Brisbane, the United States and Scotland worth a cool $3.15 million.

In fact Ms Brennan has done so well for herself she not only provides tips for tackling the property market, but soon plans to dig into her own pocket to financially kick start the dreams of first home buyers.

Stephanie Brennan (pictured) has amassed a property portfolio worth $3.15 million to become Australia's youngest property tycoon

The 26-year-old owns homes in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Scotland and the United States

'When I was 15 I knew I wanted to have a business, but I didn't know what I wanted,' Ms Brennan told Daily Mail Australia.

'One of my ideas was to be a hairdresser with a salon, but I did one day and hated it.

'When I was younger than that I worked at a retirement village, I also painted and cleaned houses - I was so keen to make money that I would take days off school to go and work.

'Later on I got into a marketing role, and then I did taxi driving to make as much as I could.'

After many ups and downs as she tried to amass wealth, Ms Brennan eventually discovered property and today is regarded as 'Australia's youngest property tycoon'.

In 2012 she bought her first home, a small apartment in Manly Vale, on Sydney's northern beaches, for $386,000.

From a young age Ms Brennan was determined to succeed and has worked more than 20 jobs

She purchased her first property at Manly Vale, on Sydney's northern beaches, for $386,000 in 2012

Ms Brennan's most recent investment was two commercial spaces in New York

HOW STEPHANIE BECAME A REAL ESTATE TYCOON: - Manly Vale, NSW - $386,000 (2012) - Collaroy, NSW - $346,000 (2013) - Scotland - $50,000 (2013) - Manly, NSW - $520,000 (2014) - Bowen Hills, Qld - $327,000 (2015) - Kelvin Grove, Qld - $329,000 (2015) - Phillip, ACT - $307,000 (2015) Advertisement

Today that same apartment is estimated to be worth more than $700,000.

She briefly moved back in with her parents, but only to help continue the growth of her portfolio.

Her second property was a $346,000 beachside apartment in Collaroy, just down the road from Manly Vale.

That was followed a year later by a $50,000 block of land in Scotland and then a $520,000 apartment in the popular Sydney suburb of Manly.

Next she bought a $372,000 pad in the Brisbane suburb of Bowen Hills, before a modern apartment in neighbouring Kelvin Grove for $329,000.

A $307,000 town house in the suburbs of Canberra was her latest Australian buy, before she recently purchased two commercial spaces in New York.

'Initially I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I tried everything once I found it I never looked back,' Ms Brennan said.

'A lot of the times it's about finding a passion you'll continue at any rate, even if you make a loss.'

While now with her first-hand experience and qualifications behind her she's an expert, Ms Brennan understands it's not easy for everyone.

And so, after her own successes, the young entrepreneur wants to help others.

'My strategy when I started was to have 22 properties, because that's the age that I started investing,' she said.

She briefly moved back in with her parents, but only to help her continue growing her portfolio

Ms Brennan now plans to purchase and renovate a block of flats and sell them at a reduced price to help first home buyers get a start in the market

Having started in real estate at the age of 22, she plans to one day own a total of 22 properties

'So I broke that down and was like well how do I get to 22? What are the targets I need to be reaching at work? What are the returns on investment I need?

'I think if youre going to build a property portfolio, whatever you need for a deposit, stamp duty and legal fees, have five per cent more so you're protected.

'You've got to look at it similar to a business, but keep in mind the expert in anything is always once a beginner.'

But not only does Ms Brennan plans to pass on advice, but also become a guarantor for first home buyers across the country.

Her next investment will be a block of flats on which she plans to complete a small scale development, allowing her to charge a reasonable price to allow battling generations to enter the market

'I want to reduce my profit and reduce the price of the property,' she said.

'I just think it's about how can we cooperate and all win, instead of just win person winning.

'A lot of people are really selfish, but I just want to work out how I can give back.'

Ms Brennan said that after trying everything from being a model to a taxi driver, she finally found something she loves in property
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has claimed that Donald Trump praised his country's brutal drug crackdown during their brief phone call on Friday.

Duterte, 71, said Trump told the controversial leader he was conducting his anti-drug campaign, which has resulted in the deaths of nearly 5,000 people, the 'right way'.

'I could sense a good rapport, an animated President-elect Trump,' Duterte said. ''And he was wishing me success in my campaign against the drug problem.'

'He said that, we are doing it as a sovereign nation, the right way.'

Duterte's anti-drug operation, dubbed Double Barrrel, has been condemned by the European Union, the United Nations and Obama's administration, among others.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has claimed that Donald Trump praised his country's brutal drug crackdown during a brief phone call (pictured) on Friday

Duterte, 71, said Trump told the controversial leader he was conducting his anti-drug campaign, which has resulted in the deaths of nearly 5,000 people, the 'right way'

While campaigning for the presidency, Duterte promised he would order the military and police to find drug traffickers and users and 'kill them' to stop the country from becoming a 'narco state'.

'The funeral parlors will be packed,' he added.

Duterte has called on both police and even civilians to kill drug users.

Since he took office in June, officers have killed 2,000 people while another 3,000 have lost their lives in extrajudicial killings by vigilantes, according to NPR.

The leader has also said he would be 'happy to slaughter' three million drug addicts, likening his campaign to Adolf Hitler's efforts to exterminate Jews in Europe.

Duterte said Trump told him he 'understood' the way the country was choosing to handle its drug problem.

'It was...very encouraging, in the sense that I supposed that what he really wanted to say was that we would be the last to interfere in the affairs of your own country,' Duterte added.

He said Trump also extended an invitation to New York and the White House and said he wanted to attend the summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year in the Philippines, according to the New York Times.

'I appreciate the response that I got from President-elect Trump, and I would like to wish him success,' Duterte said.

'He will be a good president for the United States of America.'

Duterte's kind words stand in stark contrast to his relationship with Obama, who the Philippines president recently called a 'son of a whore'.

Duterte's anti-drug operation, dubbed Double Barrrel, has been condemned by the European Union, the United Nations and Obama's administration, among others

He also said Obama could 'go to hell' and threatened to 'break up with America' after the president criticized his brutal tactics for handling the country's drug problem.

But on Saturday Duterte was singing a different tune, saying he had assured Trump 'of our ties with America'.

Trump's team released a brief statement about the Friday phone call between the two men - and said nothing about Trump's praise of Duterte's drug campaign.

'President Rodrigo Roa Duterte of the Philippines offered his congratulatory wishes to President-elect Trump,' the statement said.

'In their conversation, they noted the long history of friendship and cooperation between the two nations, and agreed that the two governments would continue to work together closely on matters of shared interest and concern.'

Duterte, who also ran on an anti-establishment and populist platform, has professed a kinship with Trump in the past.

The president said last month that he doesn't want to 'quarrel' with the United States anymore because Trump won.

'I would like to congratulate Mr. Donald Trump. Long live,' he said last month, according to CNBC.

'We are both making curses. Even with trivial matters we curse. I was supposed to stop because Trump is there. I don't want to quarrel anymore, because Trump has won.'

Some 4,800 people have been killed since June when President Rodrigo Duterte launched his unprecedented war on drugs, even calling on citizens to kill alleged drug users

Meanwhile two families (pictured) were left devastated after a couple, aged 21 and 17, were killed by two men who claimed they were drug pushers. No drugs were found in their system

Obama and Duterte were supposed to meet for talks in Laos in September.

The White House canceled the meeting after Duterte's derogatory remarks, which he apologized for a day later, saying through a spokesman that he regretted his words 'came across as a personal attack on the US President.'

The two leaders shared 'pleasantries' and had a 'brief discussion' later in the week at a conference but the angry outburst cost Duterte his sit-down with Obama.

'It was not a long interaction, and what I indicated to him is that my team should be meeting with his and determine how we can move forward on a range of issues,' Obama said at a news conference.
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A man who allegedly organized the illegal artist commune where up to 33 people died in a fire late Friday night is being heavily criticized for a Facebook post about his own material losses following the blaze.

Derick Ion Almena has been identified as the operator of the Ghost Ship venue and Satya Yuga Art Collective in Oakland where the fire broke out.

Shortly after the blaze erupted he wrote: 'Confirmed. Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound... it's as if I have awoken from a dream filled with opulence and hope.... to be standing now in poverty of self worth.'

On Saturday evening, authorities confirmed that at least nine people had died and another 24 dozen were still unaccounted for as investigators continued to recover bodies from the wreckage.

City officials also revealed that the warehouse had no permits that allowed for a party to be held or for residential occupation.

Those who were able to make it out to safety told of how they struggled to get through the cluttered warehouse while fire crews noted the were impeded by a massive amount of clutter, including furniture and art, as they tried to tackle the fire.

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Derick Ion Almena has been identified as the operator of the Ghost Ship venue and Satya Yuga Art Collective in Oakland where the fire broke out

He has been heavily criticized for a Facebook post (shown above) in which he wrote he was grateful his family was not there at the time but saddened at the loss of the collective

Almena had lived in the space with his wife, Micah Allison, and children who were staying at a hotel during the electronic music party held there on Friday night, SF Gate reported.

The event featured musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour.

Almena's Facebook post on Saturday was quickly hit with criticism over his concern of his 'material possessions' rather than mentioning the lives that were lost in the deadly blaze.

'ARE YOU SERIOUSLY POSTING ABOUT THE LOSS OF YOUR MATERIAL POSESSIONS (sic) WHEN YOUR DEATH TRAP MURRRRRRDERED OUR FRIENDS????? I WANT BARRETT AND JONATHAN AND JOEY BACK! F**K YO S**T,' Luna Xix wrote.

Trevor Shane added: 'Only someone who would be worried about their s**t burning in this kind of situation is the kind of person who would run an unkempt, unsafe space. So shocked that you are mad about your s**t burning.

However, others suggested Almena may not have been aware that people had lost their lives at the time of his post.

Flames rise from the top of a warehouse, which caught fire during a dance party in Oakland on Saturday

The destroyed building is known as The Oakland Ghost Ship, as authorities say firefighters had a difficult time getting inside due to massive amounts of clutter. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

'Derick Ion posted this 10 hours ago. I do not believe he realized in that moment that others had died. Please do not be so quick to judge him. This is a time for healing, prayers & hope for the survivors,' Shamana Ma wrote.

Several Facebook users also alleged that Almena had been warned by friends and city officials about how the building was dangerous.

'The stairs were made of pallets. The whole place was unsafe for anyone to live in much less throw big events. And Derick knew this,' Milena Hileman wrote.

Lionessa FireStorm added: 'I'm in total shock. I can't believe this happened in our community. Beautiful people are now not with us and many others still unaccounted for all due to this man's negligence.'

One user claimed that Almena 'brought this' on himself by not ensuring the space was safe.

Jennifer Loskamp wrote: 'You might want to not put posts like this up ...legally you will be responsible and this will certainly slant a jury towards a lengthy prison sentence for your blatant disregard for humanity and human life.'

The warehouse was home to musicians, painters, woodworkers, dancers and other artists who came together to make art and hold dance performances and parties.

Almena's Facebook post on Saturday was quickly hit with criticism over his concern of his 'material possessions' rather than mentioning the lives that were lost in the deadly blaze (shown above)

A Facebook page for the Satya Yuga collective, which also was housed at the 4,000-square-foot structure, described it as an unprecedented 'earth home bomb bunker helter skelter spelunker shelters and Indonesian straw huts rolling into valleys and down alleys.'

Photographer Bob Mule told reporters the warehouse was a 24-hour art collective where 18 artists, including him, often worked.

Steven Anguiano said he enjoyed spending time at the artist collective because of the people.

'It was always a welcoming environment, going there to enjoy a good time, meet new people and artists, talk to artists and have this real social network, inspiring artists and connective communities all around Oakland and San Francisco. Around the world, to be honest,' Anguiano said.

However, the warehouse was also a source of many complaints from neighbors.

Danielle Boudreaux, a former family friend who has known the Almenos for eight years, said she and others became more and more concerned over the last three years about the living conditions in the space, SF Gate reported.

Almena reportedly lived in the space with his wife, Micah Allison, and children who were staying at a hotel during the electronic music party held there on Friday night

Almena pictured with his wife Micah Allison (left). Several Facebook users also alleged that Almena (right) had been warned by friends and city officials about how the building was dangerous but claimed that he just 'laughed' it off

She said the building did not have hot water, central heating or a kitchen and recalled seeing pieces of wood with rusty nails jutting out.

Boudreaux, whose children attended school with the Almena children, said parents had also warned fire officials about the building not having sprinklers and exits, she told SF Gate.

'The police and Fire Department were there on more than one occasion,' she told the newspaper.

'Multiple people warned Derick that it was a death trap. He would laugh it off. This tragedy could have been avoided if it were not for his arrogance.'

Early last year, Boudreaux said she and other friends contacted Allison's parents and Child Protective Services during a staged intervention.

For about six months, the children were sent to live with relatives in southern California, Boudreaux told SF Gate.

The parents eventually regained custody of their children and returned to the warehouse, according to the newspaper.

The building, located in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood, was not zoned for people to live in, but neighbors had filed complaints saying the warehouse packed with pianos, paintings, turntables, statues, beds, couches and even a 'coffin,' apparently was being used as a party venue and living quarters.

Almena pictured above with his wife and other family members in a Facebook photo. One Facebook user claimed that Almena 'brought this' on himself by not ensuring the space was safe.

Photos of the interior showed a hodgepodge Bohemian scene of Tibetan prayer flags, Christmas lights and scores of wooden statues of Buddha, the virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, elephants and dragons that sat atop pianos and turntables.

Tapestries hung from the walls, mannequin legs and arms stuck out from the ceiling, while rolled-up rugs sat in corners.

A small, clear wooden spot of floor was at times used for art performances.

'It was just a labyrinth of little areas,' said Deputy Fire Chief Mark Hoffmann.

A second-story mezzanine had been built without permits and could only be accessed through a makeshift stairwell of wooden pallets, Hoffman said.

Officials revealed on Saturday that the city of Oakland started investigating nearly three weeks ago whether people were illegally living in the warehouse destroyed by the fire.

'Permits would be needed for people to live in the buildings and those permits have not been issued,' Darin Ranelletti, of the City of Oakland Planning Department said.

He said no permits were issued for a party on Friday night.

Deloach-Reed said that fire crews found a 'makeshift stairwell' between the first and second floor and that most people who died were on the second floor of the building. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Deloach-Reed said that when fire crews first entered the building to fight the blaze, they were impeded by a massive amount of clutter that included furniture, art and several mannequins. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

She said: 'It filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections,' Deloach-Reed said. 'It was like a maze almost.' The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

It's unclear exactly how many people were inside of the building at the time of the deadly blaze. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district and lives a block from the burned-out warehouse, said the building had been a problem for several years and many residents had complained.

Those included complaints about trash piling up outside the property and concerns the garbage posed a danger, according to the city's Planning and Building Department website.

'We were reporting the issues when it came to the illegal dumping... creating the rooms, there's no permits,' he said.

'Whether it's law enforcement or the fire enforcement, we need to be more aggressive' about ensuring property owners are held accountable, he said.

According to The East Bay Times, records show on November 13 a neighbor filed a complaint over a 'a ton of garbage piling up on the property' at 1305 31st Ave.

'Also, a lot of items are left on the sidewalk near the property,' the complaint said.

'Some of trash was hazardous. This property is a storage but the owner turned it to become trash recycle site.

'The yard became a trash collection site and the main building was remodel for residential. The change causes our neighborhood looks very bad and creates health issue.'

The Los Angeles Times reported that the building had at least three code violations this year.

Alameda County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ray Kelly said they fear up to 40 people could have possibly died in the blaze that has destroyed the warehouse (above)

At least nine people died and 24 are still missing after a massive fire destroyed the Oakland warehouse during a party early Saturday morning

Just last month city officials cited the owner of the warehouse and had launched an investigation into whether the interior structure was illegal. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Property records list the owner as Chor N. Ng and that he purchased the warehouse in 1997. He also owns other properties in the city.

City officials opened an investigation on November 13 and an investigator went to the premises on November 17, but could not gain access to the inside of the building.

Officials have not confirmed whether people were living in the building, which had first floor spaces divided by home-made partitions and a staircase to a second level fashioned with wooden pallets.

As of 9pm ET on Saturday, authorities said nine bodies had been recovered from the wreckage of the warehouse gutted by the fire and that at least two dozen people remain missing.

Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly said during a press briefing on Saturday evening that the bodies of the nine deceased have been taken to the coroner's office to be identified.

There are more bodies trapped in the debris that are hard to reach and need to be 'cut from the wreckage,' Kelly said.

Excavators, a crane and dumpster trucks are being brought in to help in the recovery and the building is being flooded with light to allow crews to work through the night,' he said.

He added that crews will have to move very slowly as they pull out debris and look for more victims.

Fire Chief Teresa Deloche-Reed confirmed earlier on Saturday that nine people had died in the fire that started around 11.30pm on Friday in the 1300 block of 31st Avenue.

'We still have to do a more thorough search of the building and we don't know the potential number of other victims,' Deloche-Reed said. 'In my career of 30 years, I haven't experienced something of this magnitude.'

Oakland Police Department PIO Johnna Watson speaks to the media at a press conference as firefighters and investigators continue work at the scene of the warehouse fire

A person collapses to the street as coroners begin work at the scene of the warehouse fire on Saturday

An emotional man covers his face outside of the warehouse that was destroyed by a fire on Saturday

Flowers are placed on a street sign as people begin to leave memorials while firefighters and investigators continue work at the scene of the fire

Some Facebook users commenting on a post about those who have been reported missing by family or friends have shared their experiences at The Oakland Ghost Ship and how it apparently was disorganized by the clutter

She added that there was no sprinkler system and that firefighters saw no evidence that smoke detectors were activated during the blaze inside the two-story building that is known as an artist's enclave called The Oakland Ghost Ship.

During an afternoon press conference, city officials said an investigation was underway into if the interior of the structure was illegal.

Deloach-Reed said that fire crews found a 'makeshift stairwell' between the first and second floor and that most people who died were on the second floor of the building that only had two exits.

She said that when fire crews first entered the building to fight the blaze, they were impeded by a massive amount of clutter that included furniture, art and several mannequins.

'It filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections,' Deloach-Reed said. 'It was like a maze almost.'

She said 50 to 100 people were believed to have been at the party when the fire started and that clutter 'made it difficult for people to escape.'

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said that she's spent most of the day with the family's of loved ones waiting for information.

'This is a devastating scene. This is going to take time to do a methodical investigation,' she said.

They said they were working to stabilize the building, since the roof had collapsed onto the second floor, which collapsed onto the first floor making their process difficult.

Records show on November 13 a neighbor filed a complaint over a 'a ton of garbage piling up on the property' at 1305 31st Ave. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

The next day the city launched an investigation into an illegal interior building structure, but the status of that investigation is unknown. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district and lives a block from where the fire occurred, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the building 'has been an issue for a number of years.' Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

The party located in the 1300 block of 31st Ave in the Fruitvale district of the city was part of musician Golden Donna's '100% Silk' West Coast tour

Earlier in the day, some Facebook users commenting on a post about those who have been reported missing by family or friends shared their experiences at The Oakland Ghost Ship and how it apparently was severely disorganized by the clutter.

George Goatmandan Weber said on Facebook: 'This was the nightmare I always had about hazmat. I spent alotta (sic) time planning escape routes from that sh******.'

Another user, Kristen Parks, replied back to him about how 'narrow' walkways were inside the building.

'yes (sic) true no windows too. I remember this (sic) place being super scary escape wise with wood everywhere and narrow walkways'.

Michael Rosen described vivid details to The Daily Beast about the moments before the fire consumed the building, as one of his friends said, 'That place was a tinderbox.'

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a statement of condolences and said he and his wife, Anne, were saddened to hear about the deadly blaze.

In the statement Saturday he said: 'Our thoughts are with the entire city in this difficult time and we extend our condolences to the family and friends of those lost.'

Firefighters assess the scene where a fire tore through a warehouse party early Saturday

Fire Chief Teresa Deloche-Reed (above) said that at least another 24 people are still unaccounted for after the deadly blaze started around 11:30pm in the 1300 block of 31st Avenue during an event advertised as 'Rave Cave' featuring musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour

Firefighters are still working at the aftermath of a warehouse fire in the Fruitvale district of Oakland at the corner of 31st Avenue and International Boulevard

It's unclear what started the deadly blaze that has left at least 9 people killed and dozens more missing

Firefighters examine the roof of the warehouse to check its stability after a portion of it collapsed in the fire

Arson investigators have been on the scene since Saturday morning to help with investigation, as well as federal authorities.

Kelly said that people inside during the party either escaped unscathed or were trapped inside.

'Right now there's 24 names of people that have not been accounted for,' Deloach-Reed said.

'We're not sure if they have already self-transported to the hospital or they have gone to friend's home. We're not sure.

'This is a true loss for the city, for the firefighters who responded, and the people who lost family and friend. It's just tragic, a real tragedy.'

The fire is thought to be one of the deadliest single-structure fires in Oakland's history.

The part started at 9pm and was supposed to last until 4am, officials say.

Saya Tomioka posted on the event page for the party saying she was looking for Griffin Madden (above) who is believed to be missing as no one has heard from him

Michela Gregory (pictured) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Donna Kellogg (pictured) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Johnny Igaz (left) and Micah Danemayer (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jalien Adrian (left) and Barrett Clark (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Hanna Henriikka Ruax (left) and Alex Ghassan (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Denalda Nicole Renae is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

In terms of efforts of party-goers trying to flee or firefighters trying to rescue people, Deloach-Reed said, 'We know it was going to be difficult if it started anywhere near that stairwell.'

Alameda County Sheriffs Office Sergeant J.D. Nelson told KTVU that the building is not safe enough to enter.

He said earlier on Saturday that the coroner's office is preparing for 40 or more bodies, but no bodies have been removed from the building.

She explained that a multiagency task force was being created to investigate the fire and begin the task of recovering victims inside.

'The building is a huge building,' Deloach-Reed said. 'There's going to have to be a methodical way we go about body recovery, and then also trying to find out where the fire started and how the fire's spread took place. ... We have not done a complete search of the building.'

Jennifer (Kiyomi) Tanouye (left) and Cash Askew (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Ara Jo (left) and Chelsea Faith (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jonathan Bernbaum (left) and Feral Pines (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Caw Charleston (left) and Jessi Canz (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Fifty-five firefighters battled the blaze at the scene, as crews found flames on three sides of the building located in the Fruitvale district of the city, Battalion Chief Lisa Baker told the East Bay Times.

An aggressive attack on the fire was underway when conditions suddenly changed and firefighters had to go back outside.

Officials say it took an estimated four hours to bring the huge blaze under control.

Firefighters are still at the scene along with police who are investigating what happened. International Boulevard is closed between Derby and Fruitvale avenues.

The Oakland Police Department says the building also functions as 'a live work/residence.'

Terry Lightfoot, a representative of Oakland's Highland Hospital, told CNN that 'the hospital received two patients and one of them has been discharged. Lightfoot did not know the condition of the patient who remained hospitalized.'

David Cline (left) and Nick Gomez-Hall (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Nex Iuguolo (left) and musician Alana Kane (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Peter Wadsworth (above) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about his whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Musician Amanda Allen (left) and musician Joseph Matlock (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Sabrina May Dolan told DailyMail.com that her sister, Chelsea Faith, was performing at the party under her stage name Cherushii when the fire started on the second floor of the building.

Dolan said she is standing by waiting for an update, as her sister still has not been located and cannot be reached.

The electronic dance musician headlining the warehouse party was Golden Donna, whose real name is Joel Shanahan, was reportedly performing when the fire broke out.

Early reports indicated the Wisconsin-based musician was one of the missing, but a post on his Facebook late on Saturday morning confirmed he made it out of the blaze alive, according to CBS.

'Joel is safe but like many people he is heartbroken and has several friends among the missing,' the Facebook post read.

'Please refrain from messaging this page or Joel's personal channels unless you have information on the Oakland fire victims. Sending love to everyone affected by this horrific event.'

Numerous people have been posting on the event page on Facebook about who they believe is missing, as others have posted on the event page to say they are safe and escaped the fire unharmed.

'It was too hot, too much smoke, I had to get out of there,' Mule, a photographer and artist who lives at the building and suffered minor burns, told the Times.

'I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke. I couldn't get the fire extinguisher to work.'

Mule was able to make it out of the building that was engulfed in a matter of minutes.

It's unclear how the fire started, as it's believed an artists' collective that is adjacent to the warehouse was also engulfed in flames. No firefighters were injured.

Oakland police said those who were concerned about missing people in the fire should contact the Alameda County Sheriff's Coroner's Bureau 510-382-3000.

The electronic music label, 100% Silk, that hosted the party issued a statement offering up resources for friends and family of the victims.

'What happened in Oakland is an unbelievable tragedy, a nightmare scenario. Britt and I are beside ourselves, utterly devastated,' the statement shared to Facebook reads.

The electronic music label, 100% Silk, that hosted the party issued a statement (above) offering up resources for friends and family of the victims

Officials say betwen 50 to 100 people were in the building for the party when the fire started around 11:30pm PT

Fifty-five firefighters battled the blaze at the scene, as crews found flames on three sides of the building, Battalion Chief Lisa Baker told the East Bay Times

Numerous people have been posting on the event page on Facebook about who they believe is missing

'We are a very tight community of artists and we are all praying, sending love and condolences to everyone involved and their families.

'Thank you for everyone who's been reaching out, we are hoping so hard for the best. We will be posting here on how you can help, and any information as it comes to us.'

Schaaf released a statement late Saturday morning: 'Last night's fire was an immense tragedy. I am grateful to our first responders for their efforts to deal with this deadly fire.

'Our focus right now is on the victims and their families and ensuring that we have a full accounting for everyone who was impacted by this tragedy.

'We are fully committed to sharing as much information as we can as quickly as possible.'

Oakland Vice Mayor Annie Campbell Washington said: 'This is a huge tragedy for Oakland, such a deep loss of life last night.

'This is being reported as the worst structure fire in Oakland and I'm here to express my deepest condolences.'

Other people have posted on the event page to say they are safe and escaped the horrific fire unharmed

As of 4:20am PT, the fire was not officially under control, as smoke was still coming from an upper floor in the building. It took firefighters four hours to put the blaze out
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Cuba bid a final goodbye to Fidel Castro on Sunday, bringing nine days of official mourning to a close - as his brother and successor Raul urged the nation not to turn its grief into a cult of personality for the late leader.

Castro's remains were interred in a private ceremony, away from the public eye, at Santiago De Cuba's Santa Ifigenia cemetery. Cuban officials at the last minute cancelled plans to broadcast the event live on national and international television and barred foreign media from the service.

The ashes left the Plaza Of The Revolution in the eastern city of Santiago at 6:39 am, more than 20 minutes ahead of their scheduled departure. Thousands of people lined the two-mile route to Santa Ifigenia cemetery, waving Cuban flags and shouting 'Long live Fidel!'

The funeral caravan entered the cemetery at 7:12 am. The Cuban military fired a 21-gun salute and crowds at the entrance to the ceremony sang the national anthem, then filled the road to the cemetery where the ashes were being interred inside, out of the public eye.

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Fidel Castro's ashes were interred Sunday morning at Santiago De Cuba's Santa Ifigenia cemetery during a private ceremony. The motorcade carrying the remains of the late Cuban leader is pictured on final journey to the ceremony

Thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza Antonio Maceo to the cemetery waving Cuban flags and shouting 'I am Fidel!', on the last of nine days of official mourning for the late leader

A woman sobbed after watching Castro's ashes leave the Antonio Maceo plaza for the Santa Ifigenia cemetery on Sunday

A group wore T-shirts spelling out the name of the late leader, but President Raul Castro announced the previous day that Cuba would prohibit naming streets and monuments after his brother, as well as statues of the revolutionary icon

Sunday's events ended more than a week of national mourning for Fidel Castro that reached near-religious peaks of adulation. Thousands of supporters watched as the urn containing Castro's ashes (pictured) traveled to the cemetery

The funeral caravan entered the cemetery at 7:12 am. The Cuban military fired a 21-gun salute and crowds at the entrance to the ceremony sang the national anthem. The ceremony at Santa Ifigenia is pictured from a distance

Workers fixed the plaque with Castro's name on his tomb at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where his ashes were buried Sunday

A guard of honor remained in place whilst workers fixed the plaque on Castro's tomb after he was buried near national heroes

Castro's ashes were interred Sunday at Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where he now has a tomb next to other national heroes

A man saluted to Castro's tomb in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia in Santiago de Cuba after the ceremony Sunday

People lined up to visit Castro's tomb inside the cemetery after the former president's ashes were interred in the morning

The public (pictured watching the funeral cortege) couldn't go into the cemetery for the service, which was held privately

A woman wiped away tears while clutching a Cuban flag after seeing the cortege bring Castro's ashes to their resting place

Martial music could be heard during the ceremony from outside the cemetery, where mourners gathered.

Mourner Ines de la Rosa said she would have liked to watch the ceremony on television, but 'we understand how they as a family also need a bit of privacy'.

Fellow mourner Elena Vinales says she wasn't surprised that the images of the ceremony were not broadcast. 'It seems to be a family moment,' she said.

Cubans were later allowed briefly inside the cemetery where Castro was interred to see his tomb. It is a simple round stone about 15 feet high with an emerald-colored plaque bearing his name.

The tomb stands to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiago's Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.

Photographs taken by the Cuban national press show President Raul Castro dressed in an olive green uniform as he presides over the interment of his older brother Fidel.

The images were seen by The Associated Press after the Sunday morning ceremony in the eastern city of Santiago.

The photos also show Fidel Castro's wife and sons and presidents Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.

The decision to hold a private ceremony came the morning after Castro's brother, President Raul Castro, announced that Cuba will prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after the former leader.

The nation will also bar the construction of statues of the former leader and revolutionary icon, in keeping with his desire to avoid a cult of personality.

Sunday's events ended more than a week of national mourning for Fidel Castro that reached near-religious peaks of adulation.

'The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality and was consistent in that through the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected,' Raul told a massive crowd gathered in Santiago.

Cuba's National Assembly, he said, will vote in its next session on the law fulfilling the wishes of his brother, who died last week at 90.

The decision to hold a private ceremony came the morning after Castro's brother Raul announced that Cuba will prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after the former leader. His ashes are pictured Sunday on their way to the cemetery

Mourning for Castro has been fervent and intense across the country since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba. Supporters lined up all the way to the Santa Ifigenia cemetery and watched the motorcade go by

The ashes left the Plaza Of The Revolution in the eastern city of Santiago at 6:39 am, more than 20 minutes ahead of their scheduled departure. Castro's remains are pictured on their way to the cemetery

A young woman cried after watching the military jeep towing a trailer with the chest containing Castro's remains drive past

People looked on from a building on which a Cuban flag hung as they waited to watch the funeral procession on Sunday

Soldiers smiled as they stood next to the road after watching the motorcade carrying Castro's remains to the cemetery

The legislature generally holds a meeting in December and under Cuba's single-party system, parliament unanimously or near-unanimously approves every government proposal.

Fidel Castro, who stepped down in 2006 after falling ill, kept his name off public sites during his near half-century in power because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a personality cult.

The images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, however, became common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths.

Mourning for Castro has been fervent and intense across the country since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba, where huge crowds have been shouting Castro's name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes.

'All of us would like to put Fidel's name on everything but in the end, Fidel is all of Cuba,' said Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a 70-year-old retired economist. 'It was a decision of Fidel's, not Raul's, and I think he has to be respected.'

FIDEL CASTRO'S FUNERAL BRINGS NINE DAYS OF OFFICIAL MOURNING TO A CLOSE Nine days of official mourning were declared after the death of the 90-year-old former leader last week, beginning on the weekend that followed his passing. Events regarding his funeral began the following Monday and continued through Sunday. November 28 and 29: Castro's supporters gathered at the Jose Marti Memorial on the Revolution Plaza in Havana to say goodbye to their former leader. November 29: The two-day event on the Revolution Plaza ended with a massive rally echoing those that Castro addressed on the plaza for most of his time in power. November 30  December 3: Castro's ashes were transported from Havana to Santiago de Cuba, traveling 560 miles in four days. The itinerary was the reverse of the route his caravan took in January 1959, during the revolution. December 3: A rally was held at 7 pm on the Plaza Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba. December 4: Castro's remains were buried in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia in Santiago de Cuba, where Marti is also buried. Source: The Havana Times Advertisement

Fidel Castro, who stepped down in 2006 after falling ill, kept his name off public sites during his near half-century in power because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a personality cult

Huge crowds have been paying tribute to the late revolutionary (pictured in 1959 receiving an invitation to the New York Press Photographer's Ball), shouting Castro's name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes

Some woke up early to catch a glimpse of the funeral procession and are pictured resting on a sidewalk Sunday morning

Crowds lined up the streets of Santiago De Cuba before the sun even rose on Sunday to watch his ashes go by in a motorcade

People rested on a sidewalk while waiting for the cortege carrying the ashes of the former president to the cemetery

The cortege carrying Castro's ashes went through Santiago De Cuba while crowds line up the streets for a final goodbye

A billboard of former President of Cuba Fidel Castro could be seen as people lined the street ahead of his private funeral on Sunday morning to watch a military jeep tow a trailer with the flag-draped chest containing his remains

Sunday marked the final day of more than a week of remembrance of Castro as thousands gathered to bid him a final farewell. But in the future, Cubans will forbid named tributes to the late leader, to avoid a cult of personality

The crowd waved Cuban flags as the motorcade took Castro's ashes, which have traveled around the country, to the cemetery

A man held a photo of the former Cuban president as he waited to watch the military jeep towing Castro's remains Sunday

Students gathered on Sunday and held Cuban flags as they waited to see the motorcade transporting Castro's remains

Castro's ashes arrived to the cemetery after a tour through the country during which thousands paid tribute to the late leader

The former president's ashes traveled from Havana to Santiago De Cuba this week, arriving the day before the private funeral
Alec Baldwin was back for another week playing Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live and this time the show went after the president-elect's relentless tweeting and his dinner with Mitt Romney.

In the skit, Trump tweeted random Twitter users and said if he had to have dinner with Mitt Romney, he wanted a picture where Romney 'looked like a little b****'.

The scene prompted an angry response from the president-elect, describing it as 'unwatchable', 'biased' and 'not funny'.

'The Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad,' the businessman said in the Twitter tirade after the show aired.

The skit began by poking fun at The Donald for retweeting a 16-year-old boy after CNN said he had no evidence that voter fraud occurred during the election.

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Alec Baldwin (right) was back for another week playing Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live and this time the show went after the president-elect's relentless tweeting

The skit began with Aidy Bryant, playing a teacher, scolding a student, played by Pete Davidson for having his phone on

'I'm sorry, Mrs. Leman, I think someone retweeted me,' Davidson replied to Bryant

As the scene opened on a school, a tweet text tone could be heard.

Aidy Bryant, playing a teacher, scolded a student, played by Pete Davidson for having his phone on, and he replied: 'I'm sorry, Mrs. Leman, I think someone retweeted me.'

When Bryant asked who would 'retweet some kid', the show cut to Trump Tower where Trump, played by Baldwin, informed Kellyanne Conway, played by Kate McKinnon: 'Kellyanne, I just retweeted the best tweet. Wow what a great, smart tweet.'

Two staff members reminded Baldwin's Trump that they were in the midst of a security briefing, but he replied: 'I know but this could not wait, it was from a young man named Seth. He's 16, he's in high school. And I really did retweet him, seriously, this is real.'

When Bryant asked who would 'retweet some kid', the show cut to Trump Tower where Trump, played by Baldwin, reveled in his 'great tweets'

'Kellyanne, I just retweeted the best tweet. Wow what a great, smart tweet,' Trump said as two aides tried to get him to focus

'I know but this could not wait, it was from a young man named Seth. He's 16, he's in high school. And I really did retweet him, seriously, this is real,' Baldwin's Trump said into the camera

The staff members begged Trump to get back on track, but his only focus was fawning over 'Seth's' Twitter bio

In a break from her performance as Conway, McKinnon panned to the camera and said of the real Trump: 'He really did do this.'

The staff members begged Trump to get back on track, but his only focus was fawning over 'Seth's' Twitter bio.

Conway tried to play the president-elect's Twitter obsession as a tactic: 'Okay, see, there is a reason Donald tweet sods much.

'He does it to distract the media from his business conflicts and the scary people in his cabinet.'

The staff member, played by Kenan Thompson, said that makes sense, but Trump cut in replying: 'Actually, that's not why I do it. I do it because my brain is bad. But I promise I'm done retweeting, I'm ready to buckle down and get to work.'

A title card appeared on screen, explaining that two minutes had elapsed.

After Trump promised that he would stop tweeting the skit cut to a couple in their home when a Twitter tone shows that the husband had just been retweeted by Trump

The camera cut back to Trump in Trump Tower singing Brittney Spears' 'Oops, I did it again'

Begging Trump to get back to work, Conway said: 'Mr. Trump. Please stop retweeting all these random real people. You're not getting any work done'

When the image returned, it showed a couple watching television in their living room as a woman complained that her husband wasn't paying attention.

In a lampoon of Trump's Twitter supporters, the man replied: 'Hey, sorry, babe. You know I love to tweet. You see my new profile picture? A skull with two big guns through its head and the word "Infidel" above it.'

A moment later, the tweet tone is heard again and the man exclaimed that he had just been retweeted.

The camera cut back to Trump in Trump Tower singing Brittney Spears' 'Oops, I did it again'.

Begging Trump to get back to work, Conway said: 'Mr. Trump. Please stop retweeting all these random real people. You're not getting any work done.'

But Trump insisted that all of president Obama's accomplishments were his own.

'That's not true. I was elected 25 days ago and already unemployment is at a nine-year low. Millions and millions of people have health care. And Osama bin laden is dead.'

Conway quipped: 'Yes, he is dead. Just like my soul and all of my hair.'

The aides tried to get Trump back on course, but Trump was relentless that he was able to work and tweet at the same time

'I was elected 25 days ago and already unemployment is at a nine-year low. Millions and millions of people have health care. And Osama bin laden is dead,' Trump said

Conway, played by Kate McKinnon (left) quipped: 'Yes, he is dead. Just like my soul and all of my hair'

Then the cast spoofed Trump's real-life promise to 'Drain the swamp', with Baldwin exclaiming: 'Next I'm going to do what I promised my whole campaign and I'm going to build that swamp.'

Conway asked if he meant he was going to 'drain the swamp' and 'build the wall'.

'That's too many things. Just smoosh them together. Smoosh, smoosh,' Trump said.

Next, in a fit of distraction, Trump asked if the picture he hates of himself was at the end of the table - but Conway said it was just a plate of mashed potatoes.

The aids tried to get Trump back on course, but then a screen showing the words 'Two seconds later' appeared.

The camera cut away to a dinner date, where a woman asked a man to 'tell her about his Twitter bio'.

The aides tried to get Trump back on course, but then a screen showing the words 'Two seconds later' appeared and the camera cut away to a dinner date, where a man was being retweeted by Trump

The camera cut back to Trump as he celebrated his latest retweet with an air horn that Conway tried to pry away from him

Conway reminded Trump that they 'need to get moving because you have that dinner with Mitt Romney tonight'

Trump asked if he 'had to' and when the aides said 'yes' he replied: 'Can we at least have a picture of us together where he looks like a little b****?'

In a another jab at Trump's supporters, the man said the bio claimed 'Liberalism is a mental illness' before a Twitter tone chimed and the camera cut back to Trump.

Trump celebrated 'another great tweet' before the staff members again implored him to pay attention.

'This is an extremely dangerous world. Pakistan is increasingly unstable --' one aide said.

Trump asked: 'Should I call them?'

'No,' Conway replied.

After the staff agreed, Trump asked where his chief strategist Steve Bannon was and in walked a hooded skeleton with a demonic voice

'Sorry I'm late' the nightmarish Steve Bannon said to Trump, who told him it was 'OK'

Then both turned to the camera to shout: 'And live from New York it's Saturday night!'

Conway reminded Trump that they 'need to get moving because you have that dinner with Mitt Romney tonight'.

Trump asked if he 'had to' and when the aides said 'yes' he replied: 'Can we at least have a picture of us together where he looks like a little b****?'

After the staff agreed, Trump asked where his chief strategist Steve Bannon was.

'I can't start without Steve Bannon,' Trump said.

Later, Trump, as if right on cue, tweeted that he was not impressed by the skit

In walked Steve Bannon played by a hooded skeleton with a demonic voice, who said: 'Sorry I'm late.'

Trump told him it was 'OK' before both turned to the camera to shout: 'And live from New York it's Saturday night!'

Later, Trump, as if right on cue, tweeted that he was not impressed by the skit.

'Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad,' he wrote.
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Three UC Berkeley students have been identified among the dozens of people missing after an Oakland warehouse was engulfed with flames during an electronic music event on Friday night.

Friends have identified Griffin Sean Madden, 21-year-old Jenny Morris and Vanessa Plotkin among those who have not yet been accounted for.

Authorities have confirmed that nine people died and 24 people are missing after the Oakland Ghost Ship burst into flames around 11.30pm during an event featuring musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour.

UC Berkeley alumnus David T. Cline has also been reported missing.

UC Berkeley students Jenny Morris (left) and Vanessa Plotkin (right) are among the dozens missing after an Oakland warehouse was engulfed with flames during an electronic music event on Friday night

Griffin Sean Madden is a fellow UC Berkeley student who attended the event and remains missing as of Saturday night

Officials said the building had no sprinkler system or working smoke detectors as the owner had been cited by the city just last month for other violations.

Fellow Cal student Seung Lee briefly attended the event but left temporarily with friends to purchase alcohol at a nearby liquor store.

When they returned, the venue was on fire.

'We just saw this thick black smoke just coming out of the front windows at a very furious place,' he told UC Berkeley's student newspaper The Daily Californian.

Lee said there were people holding each other outside, worried about friends they had not yet found.

'There were some people kind of crying and wailing and just saying, "Oh my god, oh my god"', he said.

'That's one of the hardest parts - it's the fact that you know maybe they knew that they had people inside there.'

As of 6pm ET, authorities were only able to recover one of the deceased, as the building was not completely stabilized for them to go in and recover the rest.

They said they were working to stabilize the building, since the roof had collapsed onto the second floor, which collapsed onto the first floor making their process difficult.

UC Berkeley alumnus David Cline (left) and Nick Gomez-Hall (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Musician Amanda Allen (left) and musician Joseph Matlock (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Nex Iuguolo (left) and musician Alana Kane (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

The post above from the Facebook page says 17-year-old Draven McGill is missing and asks for anyone who may have spotted him to let the family know

During an afternoon press conference, city officials said that the building owner had been cited by the city just last month and an investigation was underway into if the interior of the structure was illegal.

Officials said that the last use of the property was legalized to be just a warehouse and not a residential building, as the city was investigating reports that people were living inside the warehouse.

A city inspector had attempted to secure access to the building on November 17, but the official was not able to enter inside. The city has not confirmed people were living inside.

Also during the press conference, a city official said the building had no permits for a party to be held at the space.

Alameda County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ray Kelly said they fear up to 40 people could have possibly died.

Arson investigators have been on the scene since the morning to help with the investigation, as well as federal authorities.

Sgt. Kelly said that people inside during the party either escaped unscathed or were trapped inside.

'Right now there's 25 names of people that have not been accounted for,' Deloach-Reed said.

'We're not sure if they have already self-transported to the hospital or they have gone to friend's home. We're not sure.

'This is a true loss for the city, for the firefighters who responded, and the people who lost family and friend. It's just tragic, a real tragedy.'

Those searching for the missing were sent to a local sheriff's office, where Dan Vega was anxiously awaiting news.

He had been unable to find his younger brother or his brother's girlfriend.

Ara Jo (left) and Chelsea Faith (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jennifer (Kiyomi) Tanouye (left) and Cash Askew (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Peter Wadsworth (above) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about his whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Vega said he was not sure if the two were at the party on Friday night but that his brother likes to go to raves and he had not been able to reach him on Saturday.

His girlfriend's car was still parked at a transit station in San Bruno, south of San Francisco.

Fighting tears, Dan Vega said he's frustrated authorities hadn't been able to tell him anything about his 22-year-old brother.

'I just want to go over there. I have my work boots on, I'm ready to go,' Dan Vega said.

'Just give me some gloves. I'll help out any way, shape or form, I don't care. This is infuriating. I don't know where my brother's at. I just want to find him.'

A Facebook event page showed 176 people planned to attend the party, which featured electronic music performances.

Golden Donna, Cherushii and Nackt were among the acts scheduled to perform as part of the Los Angeles-based 100% Silk label's West Coast tour, Variety reported.

David Marks of San Francisco, who was searching for news of a friend, said: 'We are all just hoping people ditched their phones when they got to the party.'

Marks had planned to go to the party after working late, but checked Facebook before setting out and saw news of the deadly blaze.

Sabrina May Dolan told DailyMail.com that her sister, Chelsea Faith, was performing at the party under her stage name Cherushii when the fire started on the second floor of the building.

Denalda Nicole Renae is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Hanna Henriikka Ruax (left) and Alex Ghassan (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jalien Adrian (left) and Barrett Clark (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Dolan said she is standing by waiting for an update, as her sister still has not been located and cannot be reached.

Numerous people have been posting on the event page on Facebook about who they believe is missing, as others have posted on the event page to say they are safe and escaped the fire unharmed.

'It was too hot, too much smoke, I had to get out of there,' Bob Mule, a photographer and artist who lives at the building and suffered minor burns, told the Times.

'I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke. I couldn't get the fire extinguisher to work.'

Mule was able to make it out of the building that was engulfed in a matter of minutes.

'It's just so hard to accept that some really wonderful people's lives got cut short,' said Jenny Yang, 34, an artist and activist who was waiting for news of missing friends at Eli's, an Oakland bar that opened early as a gathering spot.

'I don't have high hopes,' said a woman who had four friends among the missing, declining to give her name. 'We've just spent the night calling hospitals and listening to police scanners.'

Terry Ewing said his girlfriend was at the party and is missing.

Ewing, who went to a sheriff's office building on Saturday to await information, said he didn't know about the party and that he learned of the fire from friends who came to his house.

Golden Donna, the electronic dance musician headlining the warehouse party, whose real name is Joel Shanahan, was reportedly performing when the fire broke out.

Early reports indicated the Wisconsin-based musician was one of the missing, but a post on his Facebook late on Saturday morning confirmed he made it out of the blaze alive, according to CBS.

'Joel is safe but like many people he is heartbroken and has several friends among the missing,' the Facebook post read.

'Please refrain from messaging this page or Joel's personal channels unless you have information on the Oakland fire victims. Sending love to everyone affected by this horrific event.'

The fire is thought to be one of the deadliest single-structure fires in Oakland's history.

'We still have to do a more thorough search of the building and we don't know the potential number of other victims,' Deloche-Reed said earlier on Saturday.

'In my career of 30 years, I haven't experienced something of this magnitude.'

She said 50 to 100 people were believed to have been at the party when the fire started and that clutter 'made it difficult for people to escape.'

The warehouse was partitioned into artist studios and was packed with furniture, mannequins, statues, lamps, and other objects and did not have a clear entry or exit path, the fire chief said.

She added that there was no sprinkler system and that firefighters saw no evidence that smoke detectors were activated during the blaze inside the two-story building that is known as an artists enclave called The Oakland Ghost Ship.

Johnny Igaz (left) and Micah Danemayer (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Donna Kellogg (pictured) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Saya Tomioka posted on the event page for the party saying she was looking for Griffin Madden (above) who is believed to be missing as no one has heard from him

The mayor of Oakland said that she's spent most of the day with the family's of loved ones waiting for information.

'This is a devastating scene. This is going to take time to do a methodical investigation,' she said.

Sgt. Kelly said that some 'foreign nationals' were believed to have been inside the building attending the party, which could make it difficult for authorities to locate some of the families.

Authorities have set up a family assistance center at the sheriff's substation at 2425 E. 12th Street in Oakland as a place for fire survivors and families to meet.

Deloach-Reed said that fire crews found a 'makeshift stairwell' between the first and second floor and that most people who died were on the second floor of the building.

She said that when fire crews first entered the building to fight the blaze, they were impeded by a massive amount of clutter that included furniture, art and several mannequins.

'It filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections,' Deloach-Reed said. 'It was like a maze almost.'

Just last month city officials cited the owner of the warehouse and had launched an investigation into whether the interior structure was illegal, records show.

According to The East Bay Times, records show on November 13 a neighbor filed a complaint over a 'a ton of garbage piling up on the property' at 1305 31st Ave.

Michela Gregory (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Caw Charleston (left) and Jessi Canz (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jonathan Bernbaum (left) and Feral Pines (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

'Also, a lot of items are left on the sidewalk near the property,' the complaint said.

'Some of trash was hazardous. This property is a storage but the owner turned it to become trash recycle site.

'The yard became a trash collection site and the main building was remodel for residential. The change causes our neighborhood looks very bad and creates health issue.'

The next day the city launched an investigation into an illegal interior building structure, but the status of that investigation is unknown.

Property records list the owner as Chor N. Ng and that he purchased the warehouse in 1997. He also owns other properties in the city.

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district and lives a block from where the fire occurred, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the building 'has been an issue for a number of years.'

'People have been living inside, and the neighbors have complained about it,' he said.

'Some of these young people that were in there were underage. They frequently had parties there.'

At least nine people died and 25 are still missing after a massive fire destroyed a northern California warehouse during a party early Saturday morning, officials said

Firefighters examine the roof of the warehouse to check its stability after a portion of it collapsed in the fire

It's unclear what started the deadly blaze that has left at least 9 people killed and dozens more missing

Firefighters are still working at the aftermath of a warehouse fire in the Fruitavale district of Oakland at the corner of 31st Avenue and International Boulevard

Fire Chief Teresa Deloche-Reed (above) said that at least another 25 people are still unaccounted for after the deadly blaze started around 11:30pm in the 1300 block of 31st Avenue during an event featuring musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour

Alameda County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ray Kelly said they fear up to 40 people could have possibly died in the blaze that has destroyed the warehouse (above)

Firefighters assess the scene where a fire tore through a warehouse party early Saturday

The party featured numerous electronic musicians, performers and producers as well as visual projections, the Facebook page for the event states.

'SECRET EAST OAKLAND LOCATION ANNOUNCED DAY OF SHOW,' the page said.

More than 200 people had responded to say they would attend the event, but it's unclear if that many people were at the party.

In terms of efforts of party-goers trying to flee or firefighters trying to rescue people, Deloach-Reed said, 'We know it was going to be difficult if it started anywhere near that stairwell.'

A man who only gave his name as John said at the time of the blaze he was working at the door, since he was one of the organizers of the event, the Chronicle reported.

He said that the fire appeared to start on the ground floor and went up, and that he was able to escape the building because he was near the exit.

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district and lives a block from where the fire occurred, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the building 'has been an issue for a number of years.' Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

The next day the city launched an investigation into an illegal interior building structure, but the status of that investigation is unknown. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Records show on November 13 a neighbor filed a complaint over a 'a ton of garbage piling up on the property' at 1305 31st Ave. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Just last month city officials cited the owner of the warehouse and had launched an investigation into whether the interior structure was illegal. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

'I watched that building burn for five hours,' he said. 'And those people didn't walk out.'

Alameda County Sheriffs Office Sergeant J.D. Nelson told KTVU the coroner's office is preparing for 40 or more bodies, but only one body has been removed from the building as of 6pm ET.

Deloach-Reed explained that a multi-agency task force was created to investigate the fire and begin the task of recovering victims inside.

'The building is a huge building,' Deloach-Reed said.

'There's going to have to be a methodical way we go about body recovery, and then also trying to find out where the fire started and how the fire's spread took place. ... We have not done a complete search of the building.'

Fifty-five firefighters battled the blaze at the scene, as crews found flames on three sides of the building located in the Fruitvale district of the city, Battalion Chief Lisa Baker told the East Bay Times.

Oakland Police Department PIO Johnna Watson speaks to the media at a press conference as firefighters and investigators continue work at the scene of the warehouse fire

An emotional man covers his face outside of the warehouse that was destroyed by a fire on Saturday

A person collapses to the street as coroners begin work at the scene of the warehouse fire on Saturday

Flowers are placed on a street sign as people begin to leave memorials while firefighters and investigators continue work at the scene of the fire

An aggressive attack on the fire was underway when conditions suddenly changed and firefighters had to go back outside.

Officials say it took an estimated four hours to bring the huge blaze under control.

Firefighters are still at the scene along with police who are investigating what happened. International Boulevard is closed between Derby and Fruitvale avenues.

Terry Lightfoot, a representative of Oakland's Highland Hospital, told CNN that 'the hospital received two patients and one of them has been discharged. Lightfoot did not know the condition of the patient who remained hospitalized.'

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a statement of condolences and said he and his wife, Anne, were saddened to hear about the deadly blaze.

In the statement Saturday he said: 'Our thoughts are with the entire city in this difficult time and we extend our condolences to the family and friends of those lost.'

The destroyed building is known as The Oakland Ghost Ship, as authorities say fire fighters had a difficult time getting inside due to massive amounts of clutter. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Deloach-Reed said that fire crews found a 'makeshift stairwell' between the first and second floor and that most people who died were on the second floor of the building. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Deloach-Reed said that when fire crews first entered the building to fight the blaze, they were impeded by a massive amount of clutter that included furniture, art and several mannequins. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

She said: 'It filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections,' Deloach-Reed said. 'It was like a maze almost.' The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Officials say between 50 to 100 people were in the building for the party when the fire started around 11:30pm PT

Fifty-five firefighters battled the blaze at the scene, as crews found flames on three sides of the building, Battalion Chief Lisa Baker told the East Bay Times

Numerous people have been posting on the event page on Facebook about who they believe is missing

It's unclear how the fire started, as it's believed an artists' collective that is adjacent to the warehouse was also engulfed in flames. No firefighters were injured.

Oakland police said those who were concerned about missing people in the fire should contact the Alameda County Sheriff's Coroner's Bureau 510-382-3000.

The electronic music label, 100% Silk, that hosted the party issued a statement offering up resources for friends and family of the victims.

'What happened in Oakland is an unbelievable tragedy, a nightmare scenario. Britt and I are beside ourselves, utterly devastated,' the statement shared to Facebook reads.

'We are a very tight community of artists and we are all praying, sending love and condolences to everyone involved and their families.

'Thank you for everyone who's been reaching out, we are hoping so hard for the best. We will be posting here on how you can help, and any information as it comes to us.'

The electronic music label, 100% Silk, that hosted the party issued a statement (above) offering up resources for friends and family of the victims

Other people have posted on the event page to say they are safe and escaped the horrific fire unharmed

As of 4:20am PT, the fire was not officially under control, as smoke was still coming from an upper floor in the building. It took firefighters four hours to put the blaze out

Some Facebook users commenting on a post about those who have been reported missing by family or friends have shared their experiences at The Oakland Ghost Ship and how it apparently was disorganized by the clutter

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf released a statement late Saturday morning: 'Last night's fire was an immense tragedy. I am grateful to our first responders for their efforts to deal with this deadly fire.

'Our focus right now is on the victims and their families and ensuring that we have a full accounting for everyone who was impacted by this tragedy.

'We are fully committed to sharing as much information as we can as quickly as possible.'

Oakland Vice Mayor Annie Campbell Washington said: 'This is a huge tragedy for Oakland, such a deep loss of life last night.

'This is being reported as the worst structure fire in Oakland and I'm here to express my deepest condolences.'

Some Facebook users commenting on a post about those who have been reported missing by family or friends have shared their experiences at The Oakland Ghost Ship and how it apparently was disorganized by the clutter.

George Goatmandan Weber said on Facebook: 'This was the nightmare I always had about hazmat. I spent alotta (sic) time planning escape routes from that sh******.'

Another user, Kristen Parks, replied back to him about how 'narrow' walkways were inside the building.

'yes (sic) true no windows too. I remember this (sic) place being super scary escape wise with wood everywhere and narrow walkways'.

On Saturday, a Google Doc had been created with a list of resources for survivors and concerned family and friends looking for their loved ones.

Well-wishers were offering lodging, cooked meals, car rides, clothes and emotional support and therapy.
Faiz Siddiqui outside the Royal Courts of Justice

An Oxford graduate is suing the university for 1million because he was awarded a 2:1 instead of a first-class degree.

Modern History graduate, Faiz Siddiqui, says he would have enjoyed a career as a top international commercial lawyer had he not been held back by only obtaining a 2:1 grade, after graduating in June 2000.

Failing to join the academic elite 'denied him the chance of becoming a high flying commercial barrister,' his counsel, Roger Mallalieu, claims.

Mr Siddiqui, who trained as a solicitor after university, says his life and career have been blighted by his failure to obtain a first class degree.

He says he would have achieved his goal had it not been for 'negligent' teaching of a specialist subject course on Indian imperial history during his final year.

The University admit that they had 'difficulties' teaching Asian history in the year Mr Siddiqui graduated - because more than half of the faculty teaching staff were on sabbatical leave at the same time.

Mr Siddiqui, 38, says the standard of tuition he received from Dr David Washbrook suffered as a result of the 'intolerable' pressure the 'eminent historian' was under.

As a result, he says he 'underachieved significantly,' causing his overall course grade to bomb.

He is now bringing a loss of earnings claim, valued by his lawyers at at least 1m, against the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford.

More than a dozen other students could bring similar claims against the University if Mr Siddiqui succeeds, London's High Court was told.

Mr Siddiqui's case got off to a rocky start when his legal team asked the judge to step down, due to past links with Oxford University.

The court heard Mr Justice Kerr read modern languages as an undergraduate in the late 1970s, although his degree wasn't disclosed in court.

After several hours of debate on the point he refused to recuse himself, noting that it would 'lead to further delay' in the case.

Mr Mallalieu also pointed out that the judge once advised Oxford University when still a barrister.

But the judge concluded there was no risk of a 'fair minded observer thinking there might be a possibility of bias' on his part.

His only professional links with the University dated back 17 years, he said, when he delivered some 'telephone advice'.

He had studied at Magdalen College - whereas Mr Siddiqui was a Brasenose man.

'To my shame, I don't think I ever set foot in Brasenose during my time there,' he said, although adding that he'd once visited the college in later years with his wife.

Mr Mallalieu told the judge the problem with the course stemmed from the fact that four of the seven staff teaching Asian history were on sabbatical leave at the same time during the 1999-2000 year.

He said it was a 'clear and undisputed fact ' that there was a shortage of tutors, and that the University knew of the situation in advance.

The problem 'could have been catered for by restricting the number of students' on the course, he added.

He said the 'intolerable' pressure of work on those staff remaining reduced the quality of teaching to a level which was 'deficient' and 'negligent.'

He told the judge that 13 out of 15 students who received the tutoring and sat the same exam as Mr Siddiqui 'got their lowest or joint lowest mark' in that subject.

'This is a large percentage who got their lowest mark in the specialist subject papers.

'There is a statistical anomaly that matches our case that there was a specific problem with the teaching in this year having a knock-on effect on the performance of students,' he said.

'The standard of teaching was objectively unacceptable' he claimed.

Mr Siddiqui studied at Brasenose College, above, and said the 'boring' tuition meant he could not achieve the grades to get a first overall

Speaking of Dr Washbrook, the barrister added: 'It is said by one of the witnesses that his classes were boring.

'It has been said that he was boring, but if that in itself was a viable allegation against teachers these courts would be full. That is not part of my client's case.

'There is no personal criticism of Dr Washbrook. It is absolutely clear that Dr Washbrook believed he had been left in an intolerable position.

'Our target is on the University's back for allowing this to happen.'

The court heard that Mr Siddiqui had himself sent an email to the University complaining, 'the paper for the specialist subject was taught appallingly badly and confounded my efforts to do well on this paper.'

He now suffers from depression and insomnia which he links to his 'disappointing examination results' and says he has a 'fundamental inability to hold down any professional day job for any significant length of time.'

He says that, had he got a first, he would have launched a successful international commercial law career in the USA.

'The claim is one on the claimant's case of substantial value. The picture presented is one of a clear pattern of acknowledged failings and recognised consequences,' said Mr Mallalieu.

'There was a serious and systemic problem with the teaching of this particular subject in this particular year.'

Other claims could be in the pipeline if Mr Siddiqui is successful, the barrister said, telling the court: 'The claimant is only one of a number of students who no doubt have proper cause for compliant against the University in relation to this matter.

'However, for reasons including his peculiar vulnerability to an adverse psychiatric reaction, to disappointing examination results and the particular effect that his under-performance has had on his career progression, he is undoubtedly the most gravely affected,' added the barrister.

Julian Milford, for the University, asked the judge to strike out the claim, telling him that Mr Siddiqui is years out of time to bring his case and ought to have done so just after he graduated if he felt he had a legitimate grievance.

He added that the University had done its utmost to help Mr Siddiqui at the time - making an allowance in some of his papers for his hay fever.

But Mr Mallalieu told the judge Mr Siddiqui didn't know enough about the problems with the teaching staff that year to launch a compensation bid until 2013.

Only then did he suspect 'that there was any proper foundation or basis for a complaint beyond a mere post-examination grumble,' said his barrister.

Mr Milford also denied that his claim against the University has any substance, although he admitted 'circumstances were difficult' in that year.

He told the judge: 'The lecturer (Dr Washbrook) said in an email that he was a bit stressed because of overwork and he thinks it may have affected his teaching style.

'But he didn't accept that it affected the quality of what he was delivering.'
Officers were on the scene after reports of a man causing a

A police officer shot a dog after it attacked him and his partner during an arrest.

Residents on a suburban street in Orelia, south west of Perth in Western Australia, called police reporting a man causing a disturbance.

Officers arrived at the scene to find Aaron Emery, 25, who was behaving angry and distressed, PerthNow reported.

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A police officer shot dead a dog after it attacked him and his partner. The pitbull (right) bit one officer on his leg and the other on his arm (left)

Emery allegedly became aggressive, causing a struggle during the arrest, it was at this point his pitbull dog escaped and bit one of the officers on the arm and the other on his leg.

One of the officers allegedly used a Taser and pepper spray to subdue the dog, but it continued to attack them.

The pitbull allegedly still had a hold of the officer who shot it three times, dying at the scene.

The officers were taken to Rockingham hospital where they were treated for the bites and cuts.

The officers were at the dog's owner home, Aaron Emery, 25, to arrested him following reports he was causing a disturbance on the suburban street. He faced court on Saturday where he pleaded not guilty to obstructing police

A witness named John, said the man let the dog out without stopping it, in a report by 7News.

'[The dog] stopped for a second and then went back at [them] and had latched onto one of the officer's arms,' he said.

Emery faced the Perth magistrates court on Saturday where he pleaded not guilty to obstructing police.
It was supposed to be a happy time for Perth couple Simon and Sam Daff with their third child due to be born any day.

But it quickly turned into a nightmare when they discovered both their new baby boy Jackson and eldest daughter, aged just four, have a rare degenerative disorder that will kill them.

It started with a limp their daughter Mackenzie developed in June, but the devastated family was shocked when she was diagnosed with metachromatic leukodystrophy.

Mackenzie (R), four, and baby boy Jackson (L) have rare and deadly disease metachromatic leukodystrophy

Children only have a one in 40,000 chance of developing the deadly degenerative condition - and it has no cure. Pictured with their sister Ashlee (R)

Simon Daff found out his baby son had the disease as well as Mackenzie (L) while his truck was broken down on an isolated highway

'To have that news while we were expecting another baby and to be told that all three children could possibly have it was absolutely the worst moment of our lives,' Mrs Daff told The West Australian.

MLD sufferers die six to 14 years after they start showing symptoms, depending on whic variant of the disease they have.

The chance of a child having the neurological disease is one in 40,000 as both parents need to carry a defective gene.

There is only a one in 10,000 chance this could happen, and even then only one in four children born to parents with the gene develop MLD.

Doctors at Princess Margaret Hospital said it was the first case they had seen in years, and Mackenzie and Jackson are the only cases in WA.

Doctors are not yet sure if Jackson and Mackenzie have the late infantile or juvenile form of the disease, neither of which have a cure.

The late infantile variant kills its victim by age five and sufferers of the juvenile form survive 5-10 years after they start to show symptoms.

The Daffs quickly got their younger daughter Ashlee tested and were relieved the result came back negative. After Jackson was born in November he too was tested.

What is metachromatic leukodystrophy? Metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) created a toxic buildup of lipids (fatty materials such as oils and waxes) and other storage materials in cells in the white matter of the central nervous system and peripheral nerves, leading to a breakdown in communication between the nerves and the brain. Symptoms include muscle wasting and weakness, developmental delays, progressive loss of vision leading to blindness, impaired swallowing, mental deterioration, an inability to control movements, seizures, and dementia. Symptoms continue to get worse, and death generally occurs within six to 14 years after onset of symptoms. It has three forms  late infantile, juvenile and adult. Children with late infantile MLD usually die by age five. Children with juvenile MLD usually live for 10-15 years after the onset of symptoms. About one in 100 people carry the defective gene. If both parents are carriers, there is a one in four chance a child will have MLD and a one in two chance a child will be a carrier. About one in 40,000-160,000 people have MLD. Advertisement

The phone call with the results came when Mr Daff was stuck by the side of the road in a broken-down truck on the way to work halfway between Perth and Margaret River.

'I just sat there and cried. I didnt even know what to do. I was trying to start the truck and I couldnt start it and I just lost it. I just put my head into my lap and cried,' he said.

The couple said knowing they only have a short time to be with their children made them feel helpless, but they were trying to enjoy life as much as they could.

'Thats the hardest thing Ive found with Jackson, you want to bond with him but you also know what the end result is,' Mr Daff said.

'Ill have a day where Im just walking around the house crying because Im holding him and I feel close to him... its a weird feeling.'

Mother Sam Daff (pictured with with Mackenzie) said the family was trying to make every moment count

Mrs Daff has similar feelings: 'If you had told me that Id be dealing with this now, I would have thought Id be in bed, unable to get out, unable to talk,' she said.

Ashlee, aged two, does not understand what is happening to her big sister, but knows she needs help as her balance and mobility start to become affected.

Mrs Daff said the little girl was already helping Mackenzie tie her shoes and picking up anything she drops as she can't lean over to grab it without sitting down.

The family's friends started a GoFundMe page to help with medical bills and help them give the children as many goods memories as time will allow.

It has raised more than $65,000 in the past two weeks.




A woman, aged in her 20s, has been rescued after falling 10 metres off a cliff face while walking the coastal trail at Sydney's eastern beaches.

The woman is believed to have lost her footing about 4pm on Sunday, near Clovelly Bowls Club, and plunged to the rocks below.

She suffered lower limb injuries and concussion and was winched to safety by paramedics using a helicopter, a NSW Police spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.

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A woman in her 20s has been rescued by paramedics after falling 10 metres off a cliff face at Clovelly

Paramedics winched her to safety with a helicopter on Sunday afternoon

Emergency services are at the scene at the Clovelly Bowls Club

The woman was transferred to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Randwick Councillor Scott Nash wrote on Twitter the woman was doing the Coogee to Bondi coastal walk when she slipped.

'Looks like someone unfortunately has fallen off cliff edge while walking,' he wrote on Twitter.

Another witness described the woman as being of Asian appearance.

Eastern Beaches Police Inspector Chris Whalley told Daily Telegraph the woman was stable and described her fall as a 'misadventure'.

'There's sections along there where any member of the public can walk right up to the cliff. It's sheer in places and potentially quite dangerous,' he said.

Paramedics and a man, believed to be a member of the public, help the woman

The woman is hoisted to safety to a helicopter with a paramedic

Emergency services are pictured at the scene on Sunday afternoon

The NSW Ambulance chopper is pictured at Clovelly at Sydney's eastern beaches

Paramedics work to hoist the woman, aged in her 20s, to safety

The NSW Ambulance chopper is pictured at Clovelly at Sydney's eastern beaches
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, must now consider what options she has left

An Algerian terror suspect, who has been in Britain for more than 20 years, cannot be deported because he has kept his identity secret.

The Home Office's attempts to remove the man have been thwarted yet again after an appeals panel ruled in his favour.

Despite twice being categorised as a threat to national security, the Algerian is still in the country after entering the UK illegally in 1993.

Since then the man, known only as 'B' in court, has repeatedly failed to give his name - meaning the authorities have been unable to identify him.

He has given the false identities of 'Nolidoni' and 'Pierre Dumond' to keep the Home Office from having his true name.

Judges have made court orders demanding he identify himself to no avail.

In one case the judge decided to send him to prison for four months in contempt of court because of his lack of cooperation.

The court have also strangely imposed an anonymity order on the man, despite his identity not being know, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

In 2000 he was ruled as being 'actively involved in the procurement of telecommunications equipment and in the provision of air time for satellite telephones for the purpose of terrorist activity.'

Two years later he was detained over terror allegations and spent four months in the high-security Broadmoor Hospital.

In 2005 after being released he was given a control order under anti-terror legislation as Home Office bosses continued to try and deport him.

And in 2008, a judgement found that he had 'played a leading role in facilitating communications for Algerian terrorists, as well as being responsible for the procurement of false documentation and high technology equipment'.

The man's lawyers have warned he would face torture if sent back and have used the Human Rights Act to defend him.

Tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent on his legal team through legal aid.

The Home Office's attempts to remove the man have been thwarted yet again after an appeals panel ruled in his favour

Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, must now consider what options she has left in appealing the decision made by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

Lawyers for the Government have warned they will now struggle to remove 'B' from the country.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative Party leader, told the Telegraph: 'How ridiculous. It is completely mad. We have a legal system that has lost all common sense.

'When we leave the European Union we can introduce our own bill of rights and then we can kick people like him out.'

A Home Office spokesman told the Sun on Sunday: 'Our priority will always be the safety and protection of the British public and we are extremely disappointed with SIAC's judgment, particularly as they have twice ruled this individual to be of national security concern.'
Greater Manchester Police Superintendent Sarah Jackson was embarrassed by her boss's rant at a women's conference

A senior police officer who was humiliated by her female boss for having breast enhancement surgery says she has been forced to quit her job even though her boss kept hers.

According to the Sunday Times, a source close to Sarah Jackson, a former superintendent with Greater Manchester Police (GMP), said the officer left the force as a result of the behaviour of Rebekah Sutcliffe, an assistant chief constable.

Ms Sutcliffe told Ms Jackson that her 'credibility was zero' after she had a 'boob job' and berated her as a 'laughing stock' who would be judged professionally 'on the size of her tits'.

She then went on to pull down the front of her dress to expose her left breast and say: 'Look at these, look at these, these are the breasts of someone who has had three children. They are ugly but I don't feel the need to pump myself full of silicone to get self-esteem.'

Ms Jackson, who transferred to Cumbria police, is said to have felt awkward and embarrassed about the exchange which emerged during a gross misconduct hearing into Ms Sutcliffe's behaviour.

The source told the Sunday paper Ms Jackson needed a fresh start after the incident.

The source said: 'Sarah has been portrayed as someone who was having an argument with another woman about who had the better breasts.

'She wasn't taking part in the argument, she was simply being shouted at.'

Ms Jackson is said to have had corrective surgery following weight loss, rather than breast enhancement.

Rebekah Sutcliffe Assistant Chief Constable told her junior officer Ms Jackson that she was a laughing stock because she'd had breast surgery

Ms Sutcliffe, 47, who was the most senior female GMP officer at the time, verbally attacked her younger subordinate following a gala dinner at the national Senior Women In Policing Conference last May.

The haranguing in the early hours of May 6 at Manchester's Hilton Hotel concluded when Ms Sutcliffe told her colleague she was no longer going to support a further promotion for her.

Ms Sutcliffe denied what she did amounted to gross misconduct but a panel found it did following a hearing this week.

However the panel recommended that Ms Sutcliffe receive a final written warning rather than dismissal.

Ms Sutcliffe admitted misconduct in failing to treat Ms Jackson with respect or courtesy and that she abused her position and authority. She also acknowledged that her actions discredited the police service.

The rant went on at a conference about women in policing, and a source close to Ms Jackson said she was being shouted at rather than involved in an argument

Greater Manchester Police will decide the fate of Rebekah Sutcliffe, left, after a hearing said she should have a final written warning for the verbal attack on Sarah Jackson, right

Her counsel, John Beggs QC, had told panel chair Rachel Crasnow QC, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Tom Winsor and independent member Alastair Cannon that the 'sheer quality and quantity' of the character references before them 'entitle you to come to a decision which is not career-ending'.

He said many of the statements from senior and subordinate officers spoke of her as 'inspirational', 'visionary' and 'a strong leader'.

One unnamed female detective chief inspector at GMP said she is 'a role model to many women in the organisation'.

Sir Tom asked Mr Beggs: 'Has her capacity to be a role model for many women officers not been fatally undermined by having humiliated and insulted a fellow woman officer in relation to her body and performance?'

Mr Beggs replied: 'No, it has not been fatally undermined unless you take the approach that once you make a mistake you are tainted.

'In this case the humiliation and upset caused has been acknowledged, admitted and sincerely and fully apologised for.

'Assistant Chief Constable Sutcliffe remains a role model - a role model who is not perfect, who has human frailties.

'Greater humility has been brought upon her. She will emerge as an even more impressive senior leader if you permit her to.'

Ms Sutcliffe, who was earning 109,000 per year at the time of her suspension, would face a pension shortfall of more than 500,000 if sacked.

Greater Manchester Police will decide the fate of Ms Sutcliffe.




She claims the 30-year-old is 'obsessed' with his old partying

Gable Tostee has been dumped by his Kiwi girlfriend who says he 'hurt me in ways he said he wouldn't' and left her 'emotionally starved'.

Lizzi Evans was Mr Tostee's shoulder to cry on during the Brisbane Supreme Court murder trial which saw him exonerated by a jury in October.

But in recent weeks Ms Evans broke off her relationship with the 30-year-old Gold Coast playboy and returned to her native New Zealand.

Gable Tostee has been dumped by his Kiwi girlfriend Lizzi Evans (pictured together), who says the former Tinder identity hurt her 'in ways he said he wouldn't' and is obsessed with his 'old life' of partying and drinking

'I said we had no future,' she (pictured with Mr Tostee) told Daily Mail Australia in an exclusive interview

Ms Evans was Mr Tostee's shoulder to cry on during the Brisbane Supreme Court murder trial which saw him exonerated of the murder of Warriena Wright (pictured) by a jury in October

'I said we had no future,' she told Daily Mail Australia in an exclusive interview.

Ms Evans said she was 'frustrated' by his behaviour and emotionally hurt by Mr Tostee, who she described as being 'obsessed' with his 'old life' which revolved around partying, drinking and girls.

'He wants to live like that forever,' she said.

Ms Evans was initially attracted to his quick wit and thinking, debating skills, occasionally chatty and outgoing nature and similar hobbies.

But said he was set in his ways, unmotivated, scared of change and unwilling to compromise: 'It was either his way or no way,' she said.

The pair were together for about a year, described as 'an intense time with a lot of emotions obviously'.

Ms Evans claims she ended their year-long relationship in recent weeks and has returned to her native New Zealand from the Gold Coast

Ms Evans (pictured) says she was 'frustrated' by the 30-year-old Gold Coast playboy's behaviour and claims he is set in his ways and unwilling to compromise

'We had hoped to begin a new chapter of life but he became resistant,' she said of Mr Tostee (pictured right)

'He wants to live like that forever,' Ms Evans (right) said of Mr Tostee's (left) old life, which consisted of partying and dating many women

Daily Mail Australia first revealed Ms Evans' role supporting Mr Tostee throughout the ordeal of the nearly fortnight-long murder trial.

'We had hoped to begin a new chapter of life but he became resistant,' she said.

'I just had no more to give in the end but he seems (unfazed) as to be expected I suppose.'

She declined to go into the specific circumstances of their break-up - except to say it was not related to the trial - but rather his personal behaviour. She also described his supportive parents as 'incredible' people.

Mr Tostee is seen leaving Brisbane's Supreme Court in October after being found not guilty of Ms Wright's murder

His Tinder date Ms Wright (right) plunged from Mr Tostee's fourteenth floor Surfers Paradise apartment to her death on August 8, 2014

Mr Tostee's trial received international attention - with news anchors broadcasting live from the grounds outside the Brisbane courtroom - because of the involvement of the popular dating app.

His Tinder date Warriena Wright plunged from Mr Tostee's fourteenth floor Surfers Paradise apartment to her death on August 8, 2014.

Mr Tostee - who regularly picked up women on Tinder and boasted of bedding more than 200 women in his lifetime - was found not to have culpability for Ms Wright's death by a unanimous jury verdict.

Before Ms Wright's death, Mr Tostee regularly picked up women on Tinder and boasted of bedding more than 200 women in his lifetime

'I just had no more to give in the end but he seems (unfazed) as to be expected I suppose,' Ms Evans (pictured) said

Since the trial, Mr Tostee has answered questions from TV news magazine program 60 Minutes and members of a Facebook discussion group.

'I suffer brain damage every time I read a dumb comment,' he told punters last week.

He also returned to the limelight after becoming the first person to drink a Gold Coast cafe's monster milkshake.

Mr Tostee is studying architecture, friends said, and was hoping to leave the Gold Coast, perhaps to New Zealand with Ms Evans.

But his hopes for a future with her seem to have dimmed.
Far-right candidate Norbert Hofer has lost the race for the Austrian presidency and has conceded defeat as the first results emerged.

As the polls closed at 4pm UK time, exit surveys indicated left-leaning candidate Alexander Van der Bellen has taken an unbeatable lead in the election with more than 53 per cent of the vote.

Hofer would have been the first far-right politician elected to national office in Europe since World War 2.

Hofer, who often carries a Glock pistol, had hoped to capitalise on the anti-establishment wave credited with delivering Brexit in Britain and sending Donald Trump to the White House.

The tide of discontent could yet reach Italy today where a high stakes referendum on constitutional reform is taking place. A No vote would doom Italian PM Matteo Renzi's career.

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Norbert Hofer, pictured as the results came in today, would have been Europe's first elected far right leader in 70 years

Norbert Hofer (right) and his team were pictured waiting for the results in his office in Vienna today but the far right candidate conceded defeat within minutes of the polls closing

Green Party candidate Alexander Van der Bellen is set to be the new president of Austria following today's elections

In a statement issued on Facebook, Hofer conceded in a note to supporters which said 'I am incredibly sad it didn't work out'.

He congratulated Mr Van Der Bellen on his success and urged 'all Austrians, to pull together and work together'.

He said: 'We are all Austrians, no matter how we decided at the ballot box.'

The first official results, released shortly after the polls closed on Sunday, show Mr Van der Bellen with 53.5 per cent of the vote while Mr Hofer has 46.4 per cent.

While votes continue to be counted, officials say they will not change the outcome but the percentages may still vary.

The margin is a surprise as polls ahead of Sunday's vote had shown the two candidates neck-and-neck.

Supporters of Van der Bellen reacted with delight to the first results, with one activist waving a banner that translates as 'thank God'

Van der Bellen was elected as Austrian president today in a re-run of an election he was declared the victor of in the spring. His supporters, pictured, were unable to contain their emotions as the first results were declared

The election is a court-ordered re-run of a May vote that Mr Van der Bellen won by less than one percentage point.

Protesters marched through the streets of the Austrian capital Vienna on the eve of the election carrying banners reading 'No Nazi in the Hofburg - end with the trivialization of fascism'.

Hofer's supporters claimed he would have proved he is not a Nazi if he had been elected.

The first result in the spring was annulled. Van de Bellen won by just 31,000 the first time but only after postal votes had been counted.

Had he won, Hofer's victory could have paved the way for a return to government of his popular FPOe, founded by ex-Nazis.

Some 6.4 million voters were eligible to cast ballots at polling stations which opened at 6am UK time.

Norbert Hofer, pictured today as after he voted, was narrowly leading in opinion polls as the ballot began after a campaign dominated by harsh rhetoric on immigration and asylum seekers

Observers feared a win for Hofer, pictured right with wife Verena today, would trigger a domino effect ahead of key elections next year in France, Germany and The Netherlands

Hofer, left alongside his Green Party rival Alexander Van der Bellen lost when the election was held in the spring but the result was later annulled

Both candidates issued final video appeals on Saturday urging Austrians to cast their ballots, amid growing voter fatigue.

Van der Bellen said people should be guided by 'reason, not extremes' while Hofer promised 'a safe Austria' for generations to come.

If he wins, Hofer will be the EU's first far-right head of state in a party first made famous at the turn of the millennium when Joerg Haider propelled the Freedom Party into a coalition government.

His party colleague Andreas Rabl, 44, was elected the mayor of the Austrain city Wels last year.

Among the policies he has implemented are intensive German language training in all schools and requiring all state funded schools and nurseries to celebrate Christian festivals.

Italian PM Matteo Renzi also faces a high stake poll today as Italy votes on a constitutional referendum that could end his career

Protests against Mr Renzi dominated the run up to today referendum and there are fears anti-establishment frustration could end the career of another mainstream leader

And he has defended his colleague Hofer, saying his policies are a far-cry from the Nazis.

He told the Times: 'There is this constant message that the FPO is a Nazi party, the new fascism and dictatorial.

'The foreign report about radicalism and the far-right in Austria, I hear that all of the time. I ask myself, what are they talking about?

'New facism? I do not see it. Mr Hofer as president would have the opportunity to correct this view. We are a normal right-wing party, correct, but we are a far cry from the Nazi party.'

Anger: Hundreds of furious Austrians marched through the streets of Vienna on Saturday to protest against far-right presidential candidate Norbert Hofer

Reinforcements: Police were present to ensure the protests stayed safe and peaceful

Rabl's comments come after it was revealed that if Hofer wins tomorrow's vote, he will push for a referendum on Austria's EU membership being dubbed 'Oexit'.

He is up against independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, who is being backed by the Green Party.

And while Hofer is not backing a Brexit-style withdrawal from the bloc, he says he wants a 'better European Union' and was afraid of more centralisation in the wake of the British retreat from the club.

'If the answer to Brexit would be to make a centralised European Union, where the national parliaments are disempowered and where the union is governed like a state....in this case, we would have to hold a referendum in Austria, because it would lead to a constitutional change,' he said.

Fuming: One protester let his feelings about the far right candidate known on the streets of Vienna

During his election campaign, Hofer has enthused supporters, and horrified critics, with comments against Muslims - 'Islam is not part of our values' and 'Islam has no place in Austria' - and has promised to increase criminal penalties for immigrants committing crimes like rape while cutting back on assistance to newcomers.

This has prompted anti-fascist demonstrators to hold a 'F*** Hofer' rally through Vienna later today.

Meanwhile the election is also being closely watched as both candidates are hoping to exploit the Trump effect in the first EU nation to hold a vote since the US poll.

One of his close friends has claimed that if Mr Hofer is elected, he will prove he is not a Nazi

Experts say how the result plays out could be a barometer of its resonance in other countries with upcoming national elections that also feature strong populist and euro skeptic contenders.

Van der Bellen says he hopes that Trump's triumph will serve as a 'wake-up call' to vote for him against Hofer.

While Hofer previously greeted the U.S. election result as a victory for democracy blasting opponents who 'wildly berate' Trump.

It comes as many Austrian voters unhappy with the current ruling coalition, made up of the Social Democrats (SPO) and conservative People's Party (OVP), flocked to Hofer and his promise of 'putting Austria first'.

Born on March 2, 1970 into a middle-class family, Hofer grew up as the son of a local OVP councillor in Burgenland, the country's least prosperous state near to the border with Hungary.

After a short stint working for the now-defunct Lauda Air airline, Hofer joined the FPO's Burgenland branch in 1994 and became party secretary two years later.

Moving up through the ranks, he later became a close advisor to Heinz-Christian Strache who took over the party from Haider in 2005.

While the 45-year-old is not backing a Brexit-style withdrawal from the bloc, he says he wants a 'better European Union' and was afraid of more centralisation in the wake of the British retreat from the club

People walk between election posters in Vienna, Austria ahead of tomorrow's presidential election

He often carries a Glock pistol for 'protection' and at his swearing-in as Freedom Party candidate, he wore a cornflower in his lapel, which was a Nazi symbol in the 1930s.

However, Hofer denies that his fondness for the cornflower has anything to do with the Nazis.

Under the new leadership, the party initially grew more extremist and re-introduced racist slogans - speech which has been modified by Hofer but, say critics, the party philosophy has not.

An avid social media user, his Instagram account shows him at a gun range with his four children. 'I just love to shoot,' he declared in a recent interview. 'I understand the rising trend of gun owners in Austria given the current uncertainties'.
He his parents say he has successfully passed a standard eye test

A young boy bitten by a venomous snake has successfully passed an important eye test, after fears he would go blind.

Eli Campbell was bitten three times by a taipan snake while he was collecting eggs with his mother from the family's chicken pen in Agnes Water, in central Queensland, in September.

Since the incident, Eli's parents have shared the good news that he has passed a standard eye test continuing his impressive recovery, in a report by The Observer.

Eli Campbell was bitten by a taipan snake in September, he suffered a cardiac arrest and brain injury. There were fears he would go blind and loose muscle movement

His mother Brittany Cervantes (pictured) and father Giles Campbell said the two-year-old passed eye tests that show his eye sight has improved

Giles Campbell and Brittany Cervantes said Eli was able to show he could fixate on an object, follow with both eyes and each eye individually, as well as pick up small objects in front of him.

'We still don't know if he is able to see in colour, that will be something that can be assessed later,' they said.

The couple also shared the heartwarming moment they new their little boy could see.

As the family walked along the Brisbane river, Eli looked out at the water and said 'ocean', which Ms Cervantes said was the word he used to call most bodies of water prior to the accident.

'We just looked at each other with teary eyes and said 'he can see',' she said.

The couple said: 'we still don't know if he is able to see in colour, that will be something that can be assessed later'

Eli went into cardiac arrest after being bitten three times by the deadly snake.

The bites caused a brain injury and was declared dead for six minutes until paramedics were able to revive him at the family's home.

The two-year-old was taken to Brisbane's Lady Cilento Children's Hospital where he was fighting for life.

In November, the toddler show signs of improvement when he regained movement in his arms and legs, and also awarded the #smileoftheweek at the Children's Hospital.

He underwent rehabilitation to learn how to live with his injury.

The GoFundMe page dedicated to help the parents afford the medical bills on the Queensland toddler's road to recovery has now raised more than $73,000.

GoFundMe page set up to help the toddler's parents pay for the medical bills has so far raised more than $73,000

Richie Gilbert from Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers 24/7 told Daily Mail Australia taipans are elusive but will strike when cornered.

'It was tragic. The snake would have probably had its head in a hole looking for rats or mice. They are a shy but they can strike repeatedly and very quickly if they feel threatened.'

Mr Gilbert said there were approximately two fatal bites a year from taipans in Australia.

Richie Gilbert from Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers: 'The [taipan] snake would have probably had its head in a hole looking for rats or mice. They are a shy but they can strike repeatedly and very quickly if they feel threatened'

He is helping Eli's parents raise money for his medical bills with a free snake awareness demonstration.

'We're hoping to raise awareness on different breeds of snakes and explain what to do in case of a snake bite. We're staging a number of activities to raise money for the family.'

A GoFundMe page has also been set up to help Eli's family and can be seen here
Drones could be used by terrorist groups to launch a chemical attack on Britain, according to law enforcement agencies.

Isis is believed to be able to produce their own mustard gas, having used the tactics in the Middle East and a drone factory found near Mosul fuelled fears that the devices could be used to carry out an atrocity.

Troops fighting against the terror group have been left with appalling injuries  including agonising blisters on their skin and badly damaged lungs  in a frightening echo of warfare in the trenches on the Western Front.

Ingredients to make these bombs are fairly common and easy to obtain, as most of them have other, legal uses.

Drones could be used by terrorist groups to launch a chemical attack on Britain, according to law enforcement agencies (file image)

According to The Sunday Times' Dipesh Gadher, the warning has been issued in a quarterly threat report by terrorism insurance company Pool Re.

'Daesh has developed a significant chhemical weapons capability in Syria and Iraq,' the Government-back company said.

'Reports also indicate the group as been conducting research into radiological dispersion devices in Mosul, Iraq.

'As more fighters return home, there is a growing risk of a technology transfer from current attack methods in the Middle East to future attacks in the UK.'

The report also describes a chemical attack as an 'aspiration' for Isis, but a more conventional attack using guns and explosives still remains the most likely threat.

Two Kurdish fighters were killed in October by an Isis drone fitted with explosives, fuelling fears of a similar attack in the West.

And last month a drone was used to drop a grenade on members of the Iraqi police forces.

The grenade exploded on the roof of a building where officers were sheltering as they advanced some 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Mosul, the last IS-held Iraqi city.

Isis is believed to be able to produce their own mustard gas, having used the tactics in the Middle East

No one was injured, according to an Iraqi officer, but the incident nonetheless represents another escalation in the war of commercially available drones that is playing out as Iraqi forces battle the jihadists.

The terror alert in Britain is still high, with around 200 names on an SAS list of jihadis who could return to Britain to carry out attacks.
A man who crashed a multi-million dollar luxury car in into a ditch has been charged with reckless driving.

The 65-year-old Australian man was driving a 1994 McLaren F1, worth an estimated $20 million, when it drove down a ditch on Saturday morning, in Closeburn south of Queenstown, New Zealand, The NZ Herald reported.

He was driving with 31 other McLaren super cars in a tour of New Zealand for the founder of the car brand Bruce McLaren when lost control of the vehicle.

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A 65-year-old Australian man has been charged with recklessly driving after the McLaren super car he was driving crashed into a ditch. Event organisers were quick to put a dust cover over the car, get it out of the ditch and on to the back of a truck (pictured)

The super car fleet was headed to the Glenorchy when the car is believed to have spun off the road and crashed into a ditch.

Event organisers were reportedly quick to cover the car, which can reach speeds of up to 400km/h, with a dust cover and hire a crane truck to lift it out.

Wellington police said they will investigate the crash.

McLaren Automotive Asia Pacific marketing manager Geoff Tink said there two people were in the car, neither of them were injured or taken to hospital, in a report by Stuff.co.nz.

Mr Tink said: 'this is a car that was built in the early 90s that has some older electronic stability systems in place.'

He added the McLaren team are confident they have taken the appropriate safety precautions throughout the event.

The Australian driver will face the Queenstown District Court on Monday.

The 1994 McLaren F1 (pictured), worth an estimate $20 million, was part of a convoy of McLaren super cars touring New Zealand in honour of the car brand's founder Bruce McLaren
There is no suggestion that those pictured are charged with drug offences

Those arrested will have to appear at the Dungog Local Court in January

Police have arrested a total of 40 revellers on drug related offences

Festivalgoers dress for the event in cosmic and space-themed outfits

After three days of music and space-themed costumes, the Subsonic music festival has wrapped up for another year.

Over the weekend, revellers flocked to the annual electronic music festival at the Riverwood Downs, on the New South Wales mid north coast.

However, the police were disappointed the three-day event ended with 40 people so far were charged with drug related offences.

Revellers dressed for the quirky, cosmic, space-themed electronic music festival

However, police were disappointed that on the last day of the event that 40 people had been arrested for charges relating to the possesion of illicit drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy, LSD, ketamine and amphetamines

This couple show off their risque side at the rural electronic music festival

Police, with the assistance of the dog unit, found people who were allegedly in possession of illicit drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy, LSD, ketamine and amphetamines.

Most of those charged will have to appear at the Dungog Local Court in January 2017.

Partygoers dress for the event in cosmic and space-themed outfits, combining it with a quirky, boho chic vibe.

Many also enjoyed the swimming in a nearby river with giant novelty floaties.

This flower crowned woman enjoys a quick rest on a rug before getting back to the festival

Ladies enjoying the music and space themed weekend pose for a group shot

A person in a quirky Nicholas Cage-faced tunic, topped with what appears to be a deer or horse headpiece stops to chat to a female friend before heading back into their tent

But festival got off to a rocky start after 20 people were charged with drug offences after a police raid on Friday.

Three people were charged with supplying a prohibited drug, including a 30-year-old Erskineville man who was allegedly found with LSD and charged with supplying an indictable quantity of a drug.

He was granted bail and will appears at Raymond Terrace Local Court on January 9, 9News reported.

Port Stephens Commander Superintendent Chris Craner said police were 'shocked' at the number of people risking their health by taking drugs.

A man advertising free love on his stero and wearing a skeleton uni-suit lifts up a female festival

This festival goer shows off her quirky lilac outfit, contrasting against her aqua blue hair

Another enjoying the event's festivities inside their tent show off their detailed tattoos

'Consuming a prohibited drug is extremely dangerous - you don't know what is in the drug, how and where it has been manufactured, or what effects it can have on your body,' he said in a statement.

'The illegal activities at these events will put the future of any such event in this area in serious jeopardy.'

Some drug and health experts have been calling for governments to allow pill testing at major music festivals so that music fans can make informed decisions about what they plan on taking.

But NSW Premier Mike Baird earlier this year equated tests with supporting illegal drug use and dismissed a privately-funded planned trial as 'ridiculous'.

Friends pose for a photo in their eccentric festival outfits, combining a cosmic and boho chic

Plenty of reveller enjoyed swimming at a nearby river over the weekend with large novelty floaties

Other festival goers, like this woman, enjoyed the sun and fresh air at Riverwood Downs
Boris Johnson has said Britain will not need to make 'large' payments to the EU after Brexit.

The Foreign Secretary's intervention comes just days after Brexit Secretary David Davis hinted payments were on the table. Downing Street backed up the claim.

It was claimed today that specific payments to the EU would be proposed by Theresa May as part of a 'grey Brexit' that tacks between the extremes on the Leave and Remain sides.

Making his case, Mr Johnson said five months after the Brexit vote, he was now convinced a good deal on quitting the EU was possible - but forecast 'hairy moments' to come.

Mr Johnson stood up for Britain pursuing a so-called 'hard' Brexit that leaves the Government free to get money back, control the borders, strike trade deals and escape the EU court.

In other developments today, Nick Clegg insisted the Liberal Democrats - emboldened by by-election victory in Richmond - would vote against starting Brexit talks without a promised second referendum on the final deal.

Boris Johnson, pictured on today's Andrew Marr programme, said five months after the Brexit vote, he was now convinced a good deal on quitting the EU was possible - but forecast 'hairy moments' to come

Mr Johnson told the BBC's Andrew Marr: 'I do believe that as a result of Brexit we will be able to take back control of the money we currently give to Brussels.

'Not only that, we will be able to take back control of the money currently spends on our behalf.

'People say what about the 350million, what about your bus, what about the NHS - they are right to raise it. But the crucial thing to understand is very large sums of money will be coming back to this country.

'That will be one of the outcomes of Brexit.'

Asked if 'very large' payments back to the EU were negotiated for access to the single market as suggested by Mr Davis, Mr Johnson said: 'My own view is I see no reason why those payments should be large.'

Mr Davis was asked in the Commons on Thursday whether Britain would make a contribution in return for continued access to the single market.

He replied: 'The simple answer we have given to this before is, and it's very important because there is a distinction between picking off an individual policy and setting out a major criteria, and the major criteria here is that we get the best possible access for goods and services to the European market.

'If that is included in what you are talking about then of course we would consider it.'

He was backed up by Downing Street within hours.

Mr Johnson, pictured on today's Andrew Marr, said he Britain would be able to strike free trade deals - suggesting a complete exit from the single market and the customs union

The Sunday Times reported today Mrs May had ordered ministers to look at how payments could work in securing specific benefits from the EU.

Brussels has insisted Britain cannot 'cherry pick' the parts of EU membership it wants but making payments of some kind is thought likely to be a key negotiating card for the Government.

Mr Johnson said there were four points of Brexit which would be delivered - control of Britain's money, the border, escaping EU law and making trade deals.

He said: 'Within those four ideas is a wealth of information - that is all you need to understand the very exciting agenda the Prime Minister has.'

David Davis, pictured in Downing Street this week, hinted to MPs that payments for single market access were being considered

The Foreign Secretary avoided re-committing to the Government's manifesto target of getting migration to the 'tens of thousands'.

But he said the current levels - recorded this week at 335,000 - were 'too high'.

He said: 'You have got to have a system of control that allows you to get down below that.

'I would be in favour of a reduction but you can still have a very open and dynamic economic with immigration running at a reasonable level. That's what we want to see.'

Mr Johnson said five months as Foreign Secretary had proved to him initial alarm around the world at Brexit as eased.

He said: 'The mood amongst our European friends, and also the rest of the world, was a bit startled by Brexit to begin but the mood has really changed.

'They are starting to see the positive possibilities.

'A certain amount of plaster did come off the ceiling immediately after the Brexit vote and you did see some quite intemperate language coming from our friends in the rest of the EU. That has definitely gone.

'I think what the EU wants to achieve is a partnership... it may get pretty hairy at times and there may be difficult bits but beneath it all there is a massive fondness for the UK and a desire to do the best possible deal.'

Ex-Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg slammed Brexit backers for failing to offer a clear plan while they shouted down any opposition.

He told the BBC's Andrew Neil: 'We are speaking for the 48 per cent of Britain who are being shouted down as moaners, as people living in denial.

'But they are putting the country first.'

But Mr Neil ripped into the fanatic Europhile as he told him: 'Your party, the Liberal democrats, maybe it is time for a rebrand. Maybe you should drop the Democrat bit!'

Top Tories warn a 'hard Brexit' could mean DEFEAT at the 2020 election despite Theresa May's vast leads in the polls

Senior MPs led by Dominic Grieve have warned the Tories could yet face defeat

Theresa May has been warned that she risks losing the next general election if she alienates moderate Conservative voters by pushing through a 'hard Brexit'.

A group of former Conservative ministers and MPs has urged the Prime Minister not to alienate Conservative voters who backed Remain in the referendum by turning the party into 'Ukip-lite'.

Mrs May has enjoyed double-digit poll leads over Labour since taking over as Prime Minister in July.

The intervention comes after the Liberal Democrats overturned a Conservative majority of 23,000 in the Richmond Park by-election with a campaign fought on their demands to avoid a sharp break with the EU.

Writing in The Observer, the former attorney general Dominic Grieve and ex-ministers Alistair Burt and Claire Perry, along with education select committee chairman Neil Carmichael and Bath MP Ben Howlett, said the result must serve as a wake-up call for the party.

'The Conservative Party needs to be alert that there is a moderate core of Conservative voters, who voted Remain, and who want to hear the Conservative government speaking above the noise of the Brexiters,' they wrote.

'They do not want the Conservative party to be Ukip-lite, nor to hear that their desire for a negotiated Brexit ... is somehow an attempt to delay or simply an expression of Remoaning.

'They want the Conservative leadership to speak for them, too, and Richmond may be a reminder that their votes have another destination if we don't get this right.
Real life hero: Michael Keaton took a boy affected by the Troubles in Northern Ireland into his home over seven years

While most children who idolised Batman only saw him in cinemas, a Belfast boy lived with the actor who played the caped crusader over seven years during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Michael Keaton took in a James Dawson, now 36, during the Troubles for the charity Project Children.

Project Children paired US couples with children from Northern Ireland.

Host families in the US welcomed children from Northern Ireland into their home for six weeks over the summer.

The scheme began in 1975 at the height of the Troubles.

Through this programme the young Mr Dawson experienced a life of Hollywood glamour, The Sunday Times reported.

Mr Dawson was only supposed to stay with Mr Keaton, who tends to keep his private life relatively under wraps, and his ex-wife Caroline McWilliams for six weeks.

Instead, Mr Dawson ended up going back to the US to live in the home of his 'American dad' in New York over seven years.

The 10-year-old became acquainted with celebrities such as Danny DeVito and Courteney Cox who dated Mr Keaton in the 1990s.

James Dawson met celebrities such as Courtney Cox who was Michael Keaton's girlfriend at the time he lived in his New York home

Mr Keaton and Mr Dawson's father-son relationship started in 1990 at the height of his Batman fame.

Mr Dawson grew up to be a firefighter controller in Lurgan. He said that he felt welcomed and loved in Mr Keaton's home.

He said: 'Michael referred to himself a my American dad. He was a father figure to me.'

Caroline McWilliams died in 2010 which devastated Mr Dawson. He was close to the family during the difficult time.

Meeting and living with a real life superhero was a dream come true for 10-year-old James Dawson

Mr Keaton kept his work with Project Children quiet but is no stranger to charitable endeavours.

He attended SeriousFun Children's Network charity gala in 2015 with the likes of Renee Zellweger and Jamie Foxx.

Liam Neeson is also a supporter of Project Children and narrated the film How to Defuse A Bomb: The Project Children Story which was released in September.
Grace Roseman died in April 2015 when she moved onto the edge of her Bednest cot and cut off the oxygen to her brain

The mother of a baby girl who died when her throat was crushed on the side of her cot has called for the bed to be recalled in Britain.

Grace Roseman died in April last year while sleeping in a Bednest cot.

The cot is designed to be placed next to the parents beds with its side partially lowered so mothers and babies feel they are sleeping next to each other.

But tiny Grace was able to roll over and, when her head went over the cots lowered side, crushed her windpipe against the side of the Bednest.

Current designs of the cot do not have this same feature and the company also issued a kit for the older models which allowed people to modify the cots.

But Grace's mother Esther is worried that people can buy second-hand cots which don't have the modifications or all the instructions.

She told the Sunday Times: 'On April 9, 2015, at 10.39am, our beautiful baby, Grace, who was just seven weeks old, was pronounced dead.

'Immediately following Grace's tragic death, as her mother, I felt nothing but guilt, self-blame, shame and judged. I felt tortured that I didn't have the choice of ending my life because I could not be that selfish to my family.

'When it first happened, I had some sympathy for Bednest, assuming it too would be mortified and remorseful.

'Unfortunately, the company does not appear to believe that the design of the cot caused Grace's death.'

The webpage of the Bednest luxury cot, where customers pay 199 for the product or 89 for an unlimited rental. The cot's previous designed featured a moveable side panel that could be left halfway up

The cot has been recalled in the USA and Canada for not complying with safety standards, but not in the UK.

Mrs Roseman continued: 'I urge any parent with one in their loft, with the original set of instructions, to throw the cot and the instructions away. The huge second-hand market for cots such as Bednest remains worrying and dangerous.

'Instructions and the modification kit will likely have been lost and many people will be unaware of the dangers.'

Grace's parents told the inquest 'We are eternally grateful to the doctors and nurses at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath (pictured), who did everything possible to try and save our little Gracie'

Mrs Roseman put Grace down for a nap at around 8.30am on April 9. The cot  which is designed to be placed next to a parents bed  has a moveable panel on one side which can be folded down, leaving a ridge just 7cm high.

Mrs Roseman returned about 90 minutes later to find Grace unresponsive, lying with her head over the edge of the cot.

The provisional cause of death was given as asphyxia, caused by the ridge cutting off the oxygen supply from Graces windpipe.

The inquest into the baby's death will take place this month.

Last year, West Sussex coroner Penelope Schofield issued a report expressing concern over the Bednest Bedside cot, which was endorsed by the charity National Childbirth Trust, saying urgent action must be taken to prevent future deaths.

The company's managing director, Mark Thomas, told the MailOnline: 'Bednest has and will continue to co-operate fully into the investigations as we have with all trading authorities and experts in order to safeguard babies and give parents using Bednest peace of mind.

'We can correct the misleading impression given with respect to recalls, after a suggestion that the companys action in the UK is less than in the USA. We can also correct any misleading impression given that the product with the half-folding side is still being supplied by the company.

'We can reassure consumers that all Bednests sold or rented by the company after November 2015 are to the new 2016 design without a half-fold side panel, and pre-November 2015 Bednests can be modified in two minutes with a free simple self-fit kit with minimum inconvenience.

'In November 2015, as a result of concern expressed by some experts in the UK and our desire for complete caution, we changed the design of the folding side, and provided the modification kit for existing owners to fit. We continue to monitor online second hand sales and contact anyone who appears not to have the modification.
Vladimir Putin once again praised Donald Trump on Sunday, this time branding the president-elect a 'clever man' who will quickly learn about his new responsibilities as president.

The Russian president, who has in the past called Trump a 'brilliant and talented person', spoke in favor of the mogul during an interview with Russian channel NTV. He brought up Trump's business background, saying his success in that domain was a proof of his intelligence.

Putin has spoken previously of his hope that Trump will help restore US-Russia relations, and analysts said he was unlikely to want to dial up anti-Western rhetoric before Trump's inauguration in January.

Vladimir Putin (pictured Friday in St Petersburg) once again praised Donald Trump in an interview Sunday, this time branding the president-elect a 'clever man'

'Trump was an entrepreneur and a businessman. He is already a statesman, he is the head of the United States of America, one of the world's leading countries,' NTV quoted Putin as saying in the interview Sunday.

'Because he achieved success in business, it suggests that he is a clever man. And if [he is] a clever man, then he will fully and quite quickly understand another level of responsibility. We assume that he will be acting from these positions.'

Putin's comments appeared to address criticism from Trump's opponents who say his actions since the election - including attacking the cast of a Broadway show and early-morning invective on Twitter - show Trump is out of his depth.

China lodged a diplomatic protest on Saturday after Trump spoke by phone with Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen. The call violated decades of diplomatic protocol dating back to 1979, when Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, acknowledging Taiwan as part of 'one China'.

The Russian president praised Trump a year ago, telling reporters the mogul was a 'bright and talented person without any doubt', with an 'outstanding and talented personality'.

Trump has received positive comments from Putin in the past. The Russian president called him a 'bright and talented person without any doubt' a year ago

He further defended Trump in October this year, saying the then-GOP nominee was acting 'extravagantly, but not so pointlessly'.

'He represents the interests of the part of the society tired of the elites that have held power for decades. He is representing the common people, and he is acting like a common guy himself,' Putin said in front of Russian and foreign world policy experts according to NBC.

Speaking about Russia's relations with the West, Putin said in Sunday's interview that attempts to create a unipolar world had failed.

'The situation is changing,' he said. 'I think it is not a secret to anyone, everyone sees it, that many of our partners already prefer to stick to principles of international law, because the world's balance is being gradually restored.'
Foreign students should not be counted in immigration targets, Boris Johnson has claimed just weeks after No 10 rebuked the Chancellor over the same view.

The Foreign Secretary risked a clash with Prime Minister Theresa May over the issue as she has made clear she opposes the idea.

Removing international students from migration statistics - on the grounds many are only in Britain temporarily - would lower the total net immigration statistics that currently show near record highs.

Chancellor Philip Hammond told MPs in October the idea was being discussed but he was slapped down by Downing Street.

Boris Johnson, pictured today on ITV's Peston on Sunday, said he 'took the view' students should not be counted within immigration statistics

Mr Johnson told Peston foreign students were of 'massive benefit' to Britain so long as there were strict rules to ensure they came for a proper degree and did not stay without permission

Mr Johnson told ITV's Robert Peston today: 'It's a great compliment to this country that, as Theresa and I have found virtually everywhere you go, the number one question people ask is 'How can I make sure my kids are going to be able to come to the UK and come to university here?'.

'Let me give you one statistic - of all the kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers in the world today, one in seven were educated in Britain.

'And there's no reason now - when you look at the talent coming to our universities - to think that that ratio will go down.'

Asked if he took the view that university students should not be included in immigration figures, Mr Johnson said: 'I do take that view and I think it's of massive benefit to this country.

'You've obviously got to have limits, you've got to make sure - as Theresa has rightly said - when they come, they've got to be coming for a bona fide degree and they're not staying on without permission.

'That is totally reasonable. But don't forget that international students - I used to be shadow spokesman for higher education and even then the contribution was 5 billion from their fees to our higher education economy.'

Mr Johnson, pictured today arriving at the BBC studios, steered clear of endorsing the 'tens of thousands' immigration target but said today the current level of migration was 'too high'

Mr Hammond had told MPs in October that ministers were having 'conversations' about whether international students should be taken out of the Government's net migration target.

But in a a blunt rebuke the next day, a No 10 spokesman said: 'Our position on who is included in the figures has not changed, and we are categorically not reviewing whether or not students are included.'

In a separate interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr today, avoided re-committing to the Government's manifesto target of getting migration to the 'tens of thousands'.

But he said the current levels - recorded this week at 335,000 - were 'too high'.

He said: 'You have got to have a system of control that allows you to get down below that.

'I would be in favour of a reduction but you can still have a very open and dynamic economic with immigration running at a reasonable level. That's what we want to see.'

Theresa May rebuked Chancellor Philip Hammond for suggesting the Government would think about removing foreign students from net migration statistics

Elsewhere today, Diane Abbott risked stoking Labour tensions over its approach to immigration after disagreeing with leading MPs and Jeremy Corbyn's spokesman.

The shadow home secretary was pressed to outline the Opposition's policy on how to manage migration, insisting it is about 'fair rules and reasonable migration' - something she said shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has outlined.

But she discounted Mr Corbyn's spokesman who said in September that the Labour leader is 'not concerned about numbers' and not seeking to reduce immigration.

She also said shadow business secretary Clive Lewis is 'no longer saying' companies should only be allowed to bring in foreign workers if they 'belong to a trade union', with Ms Abbott describing this idea as 'profoundly anti-civil libertarian'.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, pictured on today's Sunday Politics, risked stoking Labour tensions over its approach to immigration after disagreeing with leading MPs and Jeremy Corbyn's spokesman

The Labour frontbencher later said 'targets never work' after being told Labour MP Dan Jarvis would like to see one to outline cuts to immigration numbers.

Extracts from what Mr Corbyn's spokesman said in September were quoted to Ms Abbott, including 'it's not an objective to reduce the numbers, to reduce immigration', and 'Jeremy is not concerned about numbers'.

Shadow Brexit minister Sir Keir Starmer's October claim of there being 'a huge amount of immigration over the last 10 years' and a need for it to be reduced was also quoted.

Presenter Andrew Neil then pointed to remarks from Ms Thornberry about the need for Labour to be 'open to the idea of having reasonably managed migration'.

Asked which of the three lines is Labour policy, Ms Abbott told BBC 1's Sunday Politics: 'Our policy is fair rules and reasonable management of migration.'

Host Andrew Neil confronted Ms Abbott with a series of contradictory statements on immigration from Labour and invited her to point out which one was correct

Pressed again, Ms Abbott said: 'Well, the Corbyn spokesperson I think we can discount that - that wasn't Jeremy Corbyn, Jeremy has never said anything like that.

'However, Jeremy has been very clear we musn't play politics with migration.'

Ms Abbott added: 'Our policy is fair rules and reasonable migration and that's what Emily was saying.'

Told about Mr Lewis's idea, Ms Abbott said: 'I think he's rowed back from that - that would be profoundly anti-civil libertarian to insist that people join a union.

'However, we should do everything we can to encourage to people to join.'
But he has refused to step down and says he will continue in his role

He said he 'resents' Yenni's claims he'd written it to be 'salacious'

Now Brown student Daigle has said he stands by his piece 'in its entirely'

He called Daigle's article where he alleged Yenni bought him designer underwear and kissed him in a bathroom 'certainly

But the Republican denied any sexual contact between the two of them

An Ivy League student has defended his claims Republican Mike Yenni kissed him in a mall bathroom and bought him designer underwear after the married politician called the allegations 'fictional.'

Alex Daigle wrote an article titled 'I was seduced by a politician' for The Tab earlier this year, claiming that the Jefferson Parish President had sexted him when he was just 17-year-old.

He also claimed that Yenni, named as Kevin for the purposes of the article, had met up with him in the local mall where the Louisiana politician had asked him to model some designer underwear for him before they shared an illicit kiss in the bathroom.

Yenni, who was investigated by the FBI over the allegations, has since admitted that he did sext the teen in 2015 but flatly denied they'd had any sexual contact, insisting 'I'm not gay.' He claimed that most of Daigle's article was 'truly fictional.'

Now Daigle has spoken out after Yenni's comments to insist he stands by his article 'in its entirely', and that he had only written it to warn other teens of 'predatory' older men.

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Alex Daigle (right) claimed earlier this year that Republican Mike Yenni (left) had sexted him when he was just 17-year-old.

'The article was in no way meant to be a personal attack,' Dailgle told The Tab, 'but rather an example of dangerous, predatory behaviors within our community that might be overlooked without an active voice making them heard.'

He added that he 'resents' claims from Yenni that his article was written to be 'salacious' for the cash prize and that he had chosen not to name the him directly, although his piece alluded the politician.

'Now, Mr Yenni has chosen to deny the facts rather than to admit to his actions, presumably in an effort to protect his own image, and, in the process, has chosen to attack my integrity,' he said. 'I choose to no longer be victimized by Mr Yenni.'

In a recent interview with Fox 8, Yenni, the former mayor of Kenner, Louisiana, admits he texted the boy but said that they never had any sexual contact.

Scandal: Jefferson Parish President Mike Yenni (left, with wife Michelle Swanner and daughter Reagan) admitted to sending sexts to the then-17-year-old

In an interview with Fox 8, Yenni, the former mayor of Kenner, Louisiana, said that they never had any sexual contact and called Daigle's claims 'fictional'

'I sent inappropriate text messages,' he said. 'We had some off color texts. At no time did I ever think he was not a consenting adult.'

Yenni insisted that many of Daigle's claims were 'fictional' but repeatedly refused to confirm or deny which parts of the article were false.

'There are a lot of elements of that story I truly believe are certainly fictional,' he told Fox 8 without elaborating further.

'One thing that the author of that article and I can absolutely agree in is that there was no sex.'

Yenni claims that he first met the boy through a group text message.

When asked about the alleged liaison in the mall, all Yenni would confirm was that they met once, briefly.

Daigle (left and right) has spoken out after Yenni's comments to insist he stands by his article 'in its entirely', and that he had only written it to warn other teens of 'predatory' older men

'He alleges a kiss,' the Fox 8 interviewer said of the young student.

Once again, Yenni dodged the question.

'There was no sex,' he replied. 'I'm not gay,' he added.

Age of consent in Louisiana is 17, although Yenni could potentially face charges through a federal law banning texting with anyone under 18.

Yenni called the sexting 'one of the stupidest decisions I have ever made'.

When asked whether the electorate should be concerned about his judgement, he argued that it was just one mistake made during 17 years in politics.

In fact, his sexting has landed him in trouble before when, while chief administrative officer in Kenner, he allegedly used his city-funded BlackBerry to sext multiple men and a woman.

Denial: Yenni, a Republican politician, denies he misused his powers as a public official, but admits that the sexts were 'a bad decision'

The Jefferson Parish President's wife Michelle is standing by her husband, Nola reports.

Although she said she was upset and disappointed by the news, after praying she decided that 'our family will be better together'.

'And this is something that we can pass and be stronger from, and we've been better since. And we work hard at our marriage. I think it's taught us not to take each other for granted as well.'

The Republican who has a three-year-old daughter with wife Michelle, also addressed the story with an infomercial last month.

'Last summer I was old enough to know better, but I guess I was still young enough to do something stupid,' the 40-year-old Jefferson Parish President said in the video posted by NOLA.com.

He also released an infomercial (pictured),where he apologizes for the messages - but doesn't broach other allegations, including claims he kissed the boy and bought him underwear

'I chose to send improper texts to a young man,' he explains. 'I won't go into details out of respect for the rights and privacy of all parties.'

According to WWL TV, Yenni was introduced to Daigle by a 19-year-old mutual friend at a function being held at the boy's Catholic high school and their relationship developed through phone and text messages

Daigle provided WWL with text messages sent by Yenni from a personal number. That number is not being billed to taxpayers.

In the texts, Yenni allegedly asks him if he's worn the underwear and says he wants to see him modeling them.

He also says he wants to perform a sex act on the boy, and that he would like a threesome with the boy and their 19-year-old mutual friend, it is claimed.

The youth said he was flattered at first by the attention, but became uncomfortable with the increasingly detailed texts.

'He asked me to go with him to his house in Oxford (Mississippi),' he told WWL.

Angry: Jefferson County coroner Gerry Cvitanovich (left) and clerk of court Jon Gegenheimer (right) are among several officials demanding that Yenni step down from his position

Staying in: Yenni, however, says that he will press on with his job - but has promised that he's 'smart enough never to repeat the past'

'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.'

In his infomercial, Yenni says he 'never abused or misused' his powers as a public official, but only addresses the sexting claims.

And the video hasn't stopped local officials demanding his head

Jefferson Parish Councilman at-large Chris Roberts and council Chairwoman Cynthia Lee-Sheng drafted a letter calling for Yenni's resignation.

They join Jefferson County's coroner, Gerry Cvitanovich; assessor, Thomas Capella; and clerk of court Jon Gegenheimer in demanding Yenni step down.

But in his video Yenni makes it quite clear that he's going nowhere.
Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, of Homs and Hama in Syria, claims he was told his application was denied because it is policy not to issue visas to anyone in Syria

Three Christian leaders from Iraq and Syria were denied entrance to the UK last week - despite a formal invitation to meet Prince Charles.

The men planned to travel to London for a consecration ceremony of Britain's first Syriac Orthodox Cathedral.

Archbishops Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf of Mosul, Timothius Mousa Shamani of St Matthew's in Nineveh valley of northern Iraq, and Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh of Homs and Hama in Syria reportedly missed the event as the Home Office deemed their visa applications unacceptable.

The three claimed that they were told their visas were denied because they 'did not have enough money to support themselves and might not leave the UK', according to the Sunday Express.

Archbishop Alnemeh claims he was told by the British embassy that they do not issue visas to anyone in Syria.

Prince Charles, Princes of Wales, pictured right, attended the event alongside His Holiness the Patriarch of Antioch the supreme head of the Syriac Orthodox Church , pictured left

The incident has been condemned by critics such as Dr Martin Parsons, who heads research at the Barnabas Fund, which aids Christians to escape war-torn countries.

He said: 'It's unbelievable that these persecuted Christians who come from the cradle of Christianity are being told there is no room at the inn when the UK is offering a welcome to Islamists who persecute Christians.

'There is a serious systemic problem when Islamist leaders who advocate the persecution of Christians are given the green light telling them that their application for UK visas will be looked on favourably, while visas for short pastoral visits to the UK are denied to Christian leaders whose churches are facing genocide.'

In August of this year, The Home Office released a statement which discussed asylum grants being given to members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood - which is characterised as a terrorist organisation in their own country.

At the joyous event, the first Syrian Orthodox Church in Britain was consecrated, and Prince Charles used the opportunity to discuss the grave suffering in Syria

According to their statement: 'High profile supporters or those perceived to support the MB, such as journalists, may also be similarly at risk of persecution. In such cases, a grant of asylum will be appropriate.'

Dr Parsons also claims that two Islamic leaders from Pakistan who advocate the killing of Christians accused of blasphemy were granted UK visas in July.

The Home Office told the Sunday Express that 'all visa applications are considered on their individual merits and applicants must provide evidence to show they meet the requirements of the immigration rules.'

The Mail Online has contacted the Home Office for a response on the incident.
Two toddlers didn't have their seatbelts on in a car allegedly speeding 40 kilometres above the limit in a street race.

A Toyota Kluger and Jeep were allegedly clocked speeding down Sydney's Great Western Highway about 11pm on Saturday at 120km/h in an 80km zone.

P-plater Brad Hawkins, 33, was allegedly behind the wheel of the Toyota with his wife in the passenger seat,7 News reported.

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P-plater Brad Hawkins, 33, was allegedly behind the wheel of the silver Toyota with his wife in the passenger seat (pictured together)

He was allegedly driving a Toyota Kluger in a street race on Great Western Highway about 11pm on Saturday

Two children, aged three and 18 months, were sitting in the backseat, allegedly without belts.

'With the amount of people dying on our roads, with the amount of communication we do on all this, how a sensible person could even think to do that is just beyond me,' Assistant Commissioner Michael Corboy said.

The wife claimed the two children had unbuckled themselves from their car seats as the adults drove home from a dance concert in Penrith, she told 7 News.

The 27-year-old man driving the Jeep Grand Cherokee was its only occupant, NSW Police said in a statement.

The licences have been taken off both alleged drivers.

Mr Hawkins was charged with street racing, exceeding speed limit by more than 30km/h, not carrying a licence, not displaying P-plates and two counts of driving with a passenger aged six months to four years not restrained.

Two children, aged three (pictured) and 18 months, were allegedly sitting in the backseat without belts

The 18 month old child in the backseat unrestrained is pictured

The 27-year-old was issued a court attendance notice for street racing and exceeding the speed limit by more than 30km/h.

Both to appear at Penrith Court at a later date.

The allegations come following a bloody weekend on NSW roads.

Between Friday and Sunday, eight people died in road accidents across the state, taking the total toll for 2016 to 365.

Police have cited mobile phone use, fatigue, and disobeying the road rules as the most common causes for the crashes.

The wife claimed the two children had unbuckled themselves from their car seats as the adults drove home from a dance concert in Penrith (one of the child seats is pictured)

Mr Corboy said the Christmas holiday period hasn't even begun yet and police are already disturbed about the potential road toll for the full year.

He said police were seeing more and more risk taking behaviour and 'distracted driving'.

NSW Police have planned targeted road patrols all through December to the end of January.

'We are really throwing every officer we can at this,' the assistant commissioner said.

'We are not going to drop the ball on this.'

Two accidents, including one on Sunday morning at Bringelly, involved people being incinerated.
Cuba closes a major chapter in its history today as it buries Fidel Castro and gazes at a future without the communist icon who defied Washington and ruled for decades.

Capping a week of tributes and mass rallies, the revolutionary dictator's ashes will be interred at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago de Cuba, the eastern city where his revolution was launched more than a half-century ago.

President Raul Castro led a massive, final rally in his brother's honor at Santiago's Revolution Plaza late Saturday, leading the crowd into pledge to uphold the revolution.

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Capping a week of tributes and mass rallies, the revolutionary dictator's ashes will be interred at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery

Cuba closes a major chapter in its history today as it buries Fidel Castro

'In front of Fidel's remains ... we swear to defend the fatherland and socialism,' Raul Castro said.

'He demonstrated that, yes we could, yes we can, yes we will overcome any obstacle, threat, turbulence in our firm resolve to build socialism in Cuba,' he said.

Castro, who died on November 25 at age 90, will be laid to rest during a 'simple' ceremony near the mausoleum of 19th century independence hero Jose Marti.

But the national assembly, which meets later this month, will pass a law to fulfill Castro's dying wish that no statues be erected in his memory or streets named after him, he said.

'The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality,' Raul Castro said.

While Castro was sidelined by emergency intestinal surgery a decade ago, he remained a towering figure in Cuba.

He was revered by supporters for the free health care and education he spread across the island, and vilified by dissidents who saw him as a brutal dictator.

His burial ends a nine-day period of mourning during which Cubans, often encouraged by the government, flooded the streets to pay tribute to Castro, chanting 'I am Fidel!' as his ashes were taken across the Caribbean country.

Castro supporters lined the streets ahead of the funeral today of their revolutionary leader
it stems from the 7.8 earthquake which struck last month

New Zealand's famous Elephant Rock has reportedly lost its trunk after a series of earthquakes rocked the country over the past few weeks - including a 5.5 'severe' quake which struck on Sunday.

The popular tourist destination, which sits close to the Three Sisters rock formation at Tongaporutu on the country's North Island, appears to have shed its large trunk, according to resident Mike Brown.

Mr Brown told the New Zealand Herald on Sunday he noticed a change in the formation as he stared at it from his living room window this week.

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New Zealand's popular tourist destination Elephant Rock has reportedly lost its trunk (pictured) after weeks of earthquakes have rocked the country, including a 5.5 quake which struck on Sunday

The popular tourist destination, which sits close to the Three Sisters rock formation at Tongaporutu on the country's North Island, appears to have shed its large trunk (pictured)

Mr Brown said the popular rock formation appeared to be fine a week or two ago but he speculated the damage stemmed from the 7.8 earthquake which struck 60km south of Kaikoura on the country's South Island on November 14 (pictured)

'It's quite a big rock, it's in the shape of an elephant, you've got its back, its hind legs and front legs and you've got its trunk which is right out the front and comes down to the ground and the trunk has fallen off, so it's lost its elephant look.'

'I'm standing now 400metres away and can see it but I haven't been able to get down to the beach because the tide is too full,' Brown said before later claiming the trunk was gone after taking a closer look - around the same time the 5.5 magnitude quake struck about 500km south, near Seddon on the South Island.

Mr Brown said the popular rock formation appeared to be fine a week or two ago but he speculated the damage stemmed from the 7.8 earthquake which struck 60km south of Kaikoura on the country's South Island on November 14.

Mr Brown said he noticed the trunk appeared different as he stared at the formation from his living room

Elephant Rock has become a popular destination spot for tourists

The rock formation is often featured as a 'wonder of the world' on soical media

The 7.8 earthquake, which triggered hundreds of aftershocks for days after, killed two people and caused billions of dollars' worth of damage to homes and New Zealand's roads and railways, including busy State Highway One, which connects Wellington to Christchurch.

An elderly man when his home near Kaikoura collapsed, but his 100-year-old mother and another person were pulled from the home's rubble. The second person to die had a heart attack.

The quake triggered an estimated five-metre tsunami, forcing residents on the country's east coast to flee to higher ground.

The 5.5 magnitude earthquake had a depth of 12km when it hit around 4.15pm, according to Stuff.co.nz.

It is believed to have been felt from Christchurch to Auckland.

The 7.8 earthquake, which triggered hundreds of aftershocks for days after, killed two people and caused billions of dollars' worth of damage to homes and New Zealand's roads (pictured)
or even may require some families to bring in items for DNA matching, such as a hairbrush

Authorities say that due to the condition of the bodies, they may need to consult dental

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Twelve victims have been named as firefighters announced they have recovered 33 bodies from the Oakland warehouse party blaze.

The names of Cash Askew, 22, David Cline, 24, Nick Gomez-Hall, 25, Sara Hoda, 30, Donna Kellogg, 32, Nex Iuguolo, 32, and Travis Hough, 35, were released by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office Coroner's Bureau on Sunday.

Pete Wadsworth, Barrett Clark, Ara Jo, Jonathan Bernbaum and 17-year-old Draven McGill have also been identified as victims of the fire by family and friends on social media.

Sergeant Ray Kelly also revealed on Sunday that the deceased includes the son of an Oakland police deputy, but did not release the boy's name.

'This tragedy has hit very close to home for our agency,' he said during a press conference. 'We're still dealing with that as we continue to deal with the other victims. Our department is hurting from that.'

Kelly said that among the victims are citizens from countries in Europe and Asia and that the department is in the process of contacting the necessary embassies and consulates before their names are released.

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Donna Kellogg (left) and Cash Askew (right) have been identified as two of the 30 victims of the Oakland Ghost Ship fire

Barrett Clark (left) and Nex Iuguolo (right) have been confirmed as dead by their family and friends on social media

Sara Hoda, 30, (left) and Nick Gomez-Hall, 25, both perished in the fire during an electronic dance music event on Friday

The sergeant said firefighters have made their way through about 30 percent of the building so far and that it remains unclear if the death toll could rise.

'We have another 60 plus percent to search, and we're finding motor homes and trailers where people may have been living inside,' he said.

'We don't even know if people are inside of those, we can't get into those yet.'

'If you had told us at the start of this investigation that we would have 33 victims, we wouldn't have believed you,' he added.

'We don't know how many people were in that building that night - we don't know how many people got out of that building that night.'

Kelly said that victims are being found 'throughout the entire square footage' of the venue.

'We've broken the warehouse into four quadrants, we found victims in every quadrant of the warehouse,' he said.

'We're finding victims where we least expect them.'

Investigations continue but the fire chief admitted that they had not ' even gotten close to the point of origin of the fire.'

Authorities said that some victims will have to be identified by matching dental records or even DNA testing as families are urged to bring in items such as hair brushes to see if the DNA matches the bodies.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf confirmed that the District Attorney's Office activated their criminal investigation team and that a representative of the DA was onsite.

'It is far too early for us to have suspicions for what caused this fire,' she added. 'There are many interviews being conducted right now, but you have to understand that the scope of this tragedy is tremendous.'

'We have many, many witnesses to interview. We are in the process of doing that.'

'Our first task is to attend to the victims and the families, that is our moral obligation to put the bulk of our resources right now on this most important task.'

Travis Hough (left) and Peter Wadsworth (right) also tragically perished in the warehouse fire on Friday night

Family members confirmed that that UC Berkeley alumnus David T. Cline (lef) and Ara Jo (right) are victims of the horrific fire

Draven McGill, 17, was one of the fire's youngest victims. Sgt Kelly reported that multiple teenagers were killed in the tragedy

Jonathan Bernbaum was an esteemed visual artist for the popular electronic music act known as Knife Party and had also worked with DJ Markus Schulz

A neighbor of the Ghost Ship warehouse, who saw it go up in flames, has claimed the blaze began in a junk yard belonging to the artists.

Nick Garcia, 21, said he first saw a little fire in the the empty lot next to the building which was full of RV parts, wood and welding equipment.

He told Daily Mail.com: 'We saw it a little bit start in the yard, and then within about five minutes the entire building was burning and then after that there was nothing. Within about five minutes of a little fire in the yard, the whole thing lit up and then it burned for like four hours.'

Nick said the building's windows had metal screens on making them impossible to use as an escape route.

'If you look at the outside of them they were bolted on metal mesh,' he said.

'There's no way, they couldn't even jump out of them if they wanted to. I know there was a way to get to the roof, because we've seen people on the roof.'

'It used to be a warehouse and it was abandoned for a long time and then these people moved in about three or four years ago. They are in and out different people, if you want to come and stay there you can stay there.'

Nick's mother Nancy Garcia, who's brother Al Garcia runs Reid supply next door to the warehouse, said it was 'unbelievable' how quick the building went up in flames after it began at around 11.40pm. '

'By 11.50pm the whole building was engulfed. How could it go up that fast both floors?' she asked.

Askew, a transgender musician from San Francisco, is among the 30 victims who lost their lives in the fire

Brian Hough shared a touching photo of himself and Travis, the musical creative behind Ghost of Lightning who also went as Travis Blitzen, on Facebook as he confirmed his son had died in the blaze

Ara Jo's death was confirmed by the brother of her partner Zack Dewane (pictured together). 'She is family, and I can't explain how devastated we all are,' Ian Dewane wrote on Sunday. 'She was an amazing artist, musician, and all around bad a**'

Tributes have been pouring in for those that lost their lives in the blaze. Clark (left), a freelance sound engineer, of Santa Rosa, who studied Sound at SAE Expression College, appeared to have touched many people's lives before his tragic death. Friend Emmet Corman, described Barrett as his 'guiding light'

Bob Mule (left) a photographer and artist who lived at the building and attended the electro dance party, told how he got burned trying to drag Wadsworth to safety

'The flames were so intense it was like they were almost fuel there.'

Garcia said the warehouse used to have air vents on the roof but the inhabitants got rid of them two years ago because of rain getting in.

'When they moved in, there used to be wind turbines to take the air out of the place, and they took them down and covered them,' she said. 'So if there was any place to get air out of the place they sealed it.'

Bob Mule, a photographer and artist who lived at the building and attended the electronic dance party suffered burns trying to drag his friend to safety.

The artist told NBC he had been running back to get his camera when he saw Wadsworth lying on the floor with a suspected broken ankle after he tried to climb down from his loft space.

'He needed me to pull him out. I tried my best - he was a larger gentleman. T here was a lot of stuff in the way, there was too much smoke.

'I had to let him... I had to let him...' he said, his voice breaking. 'The thought of him in there is in my brain.'

Mule suffered burns on his arm, hands and shoulder, while his denim vest was left charred and blackened.

'If I didn't have this vest on while I was pulling out Pete, I don't know. It would have been me too probably.'

Meanwhile, a former tenant of the warehouse has since described the venue space as a 'death trap' full of illegal electrical cords and music equipment.

Shelley Mack said Saturday that she didn't know the dwelling was illegal when she lived there about two years ago, and was told to tell visitors it was a 24-hour workspace for artists.

Kellogg (pictured) is believed to have been on the second flore when a blaze tore through the Oakland warehouse party

Iuguolo (left), also known as Chase, of Oakland, was a project director for a band called Symbiotic Fungi, according to his Facebook page. A friend of Pete Wadsworth (right) had attempted to pull him to safety to no avail

Clint was from Santa Monica, California and lived in Berkeley. His brother Neil announced he was one of the victims

When inspectors or other outsiders came to visit, she said she and other residents scurried to hide clothes, bedding and other evidence anyone was living there.

Oakland officials say the space was cluttered with rugs, old sofas and other items when the fire tore through it during the dance party on Friday night.

Fire crews were only able to access 20 percent of the smoldering warehouse wreckage after working through Saturday night.

Sgt Kelly says crews are starting to get deeper into the building and that as they advance they expect to find more victims.

Fire Chief Battalion Melinda Drayton said at a press conference on Sunday that they recovered 30 bodies just within the fifth of the building.

The fire chief appeared to be overcome with emotion at one point, as Kelly explained that the search effort had been 'emotional' for all of them.

'We anticipate the number of victims will rise,' he added.

'This will be a long, arduous process,' Drayton said. 'What we were able to accomplish in 12 hours was a phenomenal feat. We have a lot more to go. We're going to be here for a few more days.'

They are working tirelessly, around the clock in 12-hour shifts removing debris 'bucket by bucket,' she said.

Oakland Police Officer Joanna Watson said that police have also been working to identify victims and missing persons by looking at cars parked near the building - potentially belonging to party revelers - to try and trace their owners.

Th e sheriff's office began making notifications on Saturday night. But dozens of families are still desperately waiting to hear if their loved ones are alive or dead.

Officials said the building had no sprinkler system or working smoke detectors. The owner had been cited by the city just last month for other violations.

Max Ohr, the creative director of the art collective that used the warehouse, told the TODAY Show on Sunday that he was working the door when he saw 'an orange glow coming from the back of the warehouse' and had run to get an extinguisher. He estimated around 70 people had been inside the venue at the time.

Sergeant Ray Kelly revealed on Sunday that the deceased include 17-year-old minors and that one of the victims is the son of an Oakland police deputy

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf confirmed that the District Attorney's Office activated their criminal investigation team and that a representative of the DA was onsite.

The fire chief (left) appeared to be overcome with emotion at one point, as Sergeant Ray Kelly (right) explained that the search effort had been 'emotional' for all of them

'I ran back and got maybe one squirt out of and realized it wasn't going to do anything,' he said. 'The roof had already caught and the flames were coming towards the door at an alarming rate.'

'It took about 15 seconds to go from notification of a fire to completely engulfed,' he added.

Ohr said there were no sprinklers in the building prior to the art collective leasing the warehouse. He blamed poor wiring for the cause of the fire.

The creative director said that the art collective had reported the building's electricity issues to the warehouse owner.

'They were not very helpful with us throughout the entirety of our struggle with the electricity here so that's my first instinct is to think perhaps some of the building's wiring had something to do with this,' he said.

'The landlord has been in communication with both myself and the owner of this space for at least three years now and the electricity was a major issue prior to my coming on board,' he said.

Eva Ng, the warehouse's owner's daughter, said the family had no comment.

'We are also trying to figure out what's going on like everyone else. We're so sorry to hear about the tragedy,' Ng said in an email attributed to her mother, building owner Chor Ng. 'Our condolences go out to the families and friends of those injured and those who lost their lives.'

Today, tributes have been pouring in for those who lost their lives in the blaze.

Anya Taylor, the civil partner of Askew, a transgender musician from San Francisco, has been left devastated by the loss.

'My love is gone,' she posted on Facebook. 'Nothing is real. All I want is her. I miss my love so much and I can't fathom a life without her.

'I would give anything to have her back. I love you Cash'

Adi Putra said she was 'truly devastated by the news' and the loss of 'sweet, dear Cash. Thanks for the beautiful tunes and memories.'

Another friend said his 'heart was breaking' after finding out the Them Are Us Too band member, 'the sweet beautiful Cash Askew', had perished.

Askew's father Christopher Conn Askew had posted a desperate plea for news of his daughter in the early hours of the morning, before confirming she was among the 30 casualties.

Meanwhile Mollie Cohen Rosenthal D'Agostino paid tribute to Kellogg, who was reportedly on the second floor, and whom she called 'a beautiful giggly, wise, person who will be very missed.'

Firefighters work at the aftermath of a warehouse fire as smoke continues to rise from the structure in the Fruitvale district of Oakland

Firefighters pull debris at a warehouse where a fire killed 30 people at 31st Ave. and International Blvd, Oakland

A firefighters, covered in black soot from the fire, helps clear away debris as crews search for bodies

Clark, a freelance sound engineer from Santa Rosa who studied Sound at SAE Expression College, appeared to have touched many people's lives before his tragic death.

'It's not often that person can literally change your whole life,' friend Brian Adler said. ' Barret, I'll miss you forever.'

His former roommate Bascom P LeMay said: ' Goodbye Barrett. We saw each other at our best. You saw me at my worst. Our times together I'll cherish forever. A true friend - roommate - collaborator - brother. He had my back so many times. His smile, his laughter, his heart will be missed.'

Another friend, Emmet Corman, described Barrett as his 'guiding light.'

'Now that he's gone, I feel lost. Fly thither, friend, twixt the ether. Thank you for blessing us with your chaotic grace, you are forever among us.'

Chandra Shukla described Clark as someone who could make anyone laugh and a 'huge friend' that filled 'a huge hole in our lives.'

'He was always there to make us smile and reassure us things were going to be ok no matter how dire the consequences. I was reeling in disbelief yesterday that the GhostShip fire would claim him as he was the guy that wasn't supposed to leave us.'

Brian Hough shared a touching photo of himself and Travis, the musical creative behind Ghost of Lightning who also went by Travis Blitzen, on Facebook as he confirmed his son had died in the blaze.

Friends and family described him as 'the warmest, sweetest guy who is loved by all'.

Meta Jane Johnson wrote: 'Travis Hough you will always be loved, missed and remembered. Your energy touched everyone around you, and couldn't help but make us smile. Your creativity was unparalleled. You were my favorite rockstar & always will be. My thoughts and prayers are with you, your family, and all the friends you treated like family. Sending so much love.'

Iuguolo, also known as Chase, of Oakland, was a project director for a band called Symbiotic Fungi, according to his Facebook page.

Friends described him as the 'best dude at the bar', while Liz Melena shared a picture of Iuguolo, who she says used to live with her and her daughter.

'He was a very good friend. An amazing, quirky guy. Great cook, he had a ear for music, sweet voice. I will truly miss him,' she wrote.

UC Berkeley students Jenny Morris (left) and Vanessa Plotkin (right) are among the dozens missing after an Oakland warehouse was engulfed with flames during an electronic music event on Friday night

Griffin Sean Madden is a fellow UC Berkeley student who attended the event and remains missing as of Saturday night

Ara Jo's death was confirmed by Ian Dewane, the brother of her partner Zack.

'She is family, and I can't explain how devastated we all are,' he wrote on Sunday. 'She was an amazing artist, musician, and all around bad a** who could light up a room with her infectious big hearted laugh.'

Friend Barb Streis reminisced about the work Ara had put into the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest occurring just next week.

'I was supposed to help Ara make some props when I got back from my trip. She put sooooo much energy and time into doing it and she said it was going to be her last year,' Streis wrote.

'She never wastes time, always producing something, whether it be food, art, music or laughter.'

'There is no way for me to be productive right now and I know nothing will ever be done as well as Ara Jo could do it. She's five awesome people for the price of one.'

It appears Jo was also the co-director of Sgraffito, an art gallery in Emeryville, and also worked at an Oakland beauty salon and a Berkeley arts and crafts shop.

Three UC Berkeley students, Griffin Sean Madden, 21-year-old Jenny Morris and Vanessa Plotkin, are among those who have not yet been accounted for.

Fellow Cal student Seung Lee briefly attended the event but left temporarily with friends to purchase alcohol at a nearby liquor store.

When they returned, the venue was on fire.

'We just saw this thick black smoke just coming out of the front windows at a very furious pace,' he told UC Berkeley's student newspaper The Daily Californian.

Lee said there were people holding each other outside, worried about friends they had not yet found.

'There were some people kind of crying and wailing and just saying, "Oh my god, oh my god'', he said.

'That's one of the hardest parts - it's the fact that you know maybe they knew that they had people inside there.'

Musician Amanda Allen (left) and musician Joseph Matlock (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Musician Alana Kane (right) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

During an afternoon press conference yesterday, city officials said that the building owner had been cited by the city just last month and an investigation was underway into whether the interior of the structure was illegal.

Officials said that the last use of the property was legalized to be just a warehouse and not a residential building, as the city was investigating reports that people were living inside the warehouse.

A city inspector had attempted to secure access to the building on November 17, but the official was not able to enter inside. The city has not confirmed whether people were living inside.

A city official also revealed that the building had no permits for a party to be held at the space.

Arson investigators and federal authorities have been on the scene since Saturday morning to help with the investigation.

Those searching for the missing were sent to a local sheriff's office, where Dan Vega was anxiously awaiting news.

He had been unable to find his younger brother Alex or his brother's girlfriend Michela Gregory.

Chelsea Faith is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jennifer (Kiyomi) Tanouye (pictured is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Vega said he was not sure if the two were at the party on Friday night but that his brother likes to go to raves and he had not been able to reach him on Saturday.

His girlfriend's car was still parked at a transit station in San Bruno, south of San Francisco.

Fighting tears, Dan Vega said he's frustrated authorities hadn't been able to tell him anything about his 22-year-old brother.

'I just want to go over there. I have my work boots on, I'm ready to go,' Dan Vega said.

'Just give me some gloves. I'll help out any way, shape or form, I don't care. This is infuriating. I don't know where my brother's at. I just want to find him.'

A Facebook event page showed 176 people planned to attend the party, which featured electronic music performances.

Golden Donna, Cherushii and Nackt were among the acts scheduled to perform as part of the Los Angeles-based 100% Silk label's West Coast tour, Variety reported.

David Marks of San Francisco, who was searching for news of a friend, said: 'We are all just hoping people ditched their phones when they got to the party.'

Marks had planned to go to the party after working late, but checked Facebook before setting out and saw news of the deadly blaze.

Sabrina May Dolan told DailyMail.com that her sister, Chelsea Faith, was performing at the party under her stage name Cherushii when the fire started on the second floor of the building.

Denalda Nicole Renae is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Hanna Henriikka Ruax (left) and Alex Ghassan (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Jalien Adrian (left) is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about his whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Dolan said she is standing by waiting for an update, as her sister still has not been located and cannot be reached.

Numerous people posted on the event page on Facebook about who they believe is missing, as others have posted on the page to say they are safe and escaped the fire unharmed.

'It's just so hard to accept that some really wonderful people's lives got cut short,' said Jenny Yang, 34, an artist and activist who was waiting for news of missing friends at Eli's, an Oakland bar that opened early as a gathering spot.

'I don't have high hopes,' said a woman who had four friends among the missing, declining to give her name. 'We've just spent the night calling hospitals and listening to police scanners.'

Terry Ewing said his girlfriend was at the party and is missing.

Ewing, who went to a sheriff's office building on Saturday to await information, said he didn't know about the party and that he learned of the fire from friends who came to his house.

Golden Donna, the electronic dance musician headlining the warehouse party, whose real name is Joel Shanahan, was reportedly performing when the fire broke out.

Early reports indicated the Wisconsin-based musician was one of the missing, but a post on his Facebook late on Saturday morning confirmed he made it out of the blaze alive, according to CBS.

'Joel is safe but like many people he is heartbroken and has several friends among the missing,' the Facebook post read.

'Please refrain from messaging this page or Joel's personal channels unless you have information on the Oakland fire victims. Sending love to everyone affected by this horrific event.'

Deloche-Reed said 50 to 100 people were believed to have been at the party when the fire started and that clutter 'made it difficult for people to escape.'

The warehouse was partitioned into artist studios and was packed with furniture, mannequins, statues, lamps, and other objects and did not have a clear entry or exit path, the fire chief said.

She added that there was no sprinkler system and that firefighters saw no evidence that smoke detectors were activated during the blaze inside the two-story building.

Johnny Igaz (left) and Micah Danemayer (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Saya Tomioka posted on the event page for the party saying she was looking for Griffin Madden (above) who is believed to be missing as no one has heard from him

Michela Gregory is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about her whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Caw Charleston (left) and Jessi Canz (right) are thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Feral Pines is thought to be missing as people have posted requesting information about their whereabouts on the Facebook event page

Deloache-Reed said that fire crews found a 'makeshift stairwell' between the first and second floor and that most people who died were on the second floor of the building.

According to The East Bay Times, records show on November 13 a neighbor filed a complaint over a 'a ton of garbage piling up on the property' at 1305 31st Ave.

'Also, a lot of items are left on the sidewalk near the property,' the complaint said.

'Some of trash was hazardous. This property is a storage but the owner turned it to become trash recycle site.

'The yard became a trash collection site and the main building was remodel for residential. The change causes our neighborhood looks very bad and creates health issue.'

The next day the city launched an investigation into an illegal interior building structure, but the status of that investigation is unknown.

Property records list the owner as Chor N. Ng, who purchased the warehouse in 1997. She also owns other properties in the city.

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district and lives a block from where the fire occurred, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the building 'has been an issue for a number of years.'

'People have been living inside, and the neighbors have complained about it,' he said.

'Some of these young people that were in there were underage. They frequently had parties there.'

At least 30 people died and 20 are still missing after a massive fire destroyed a northern California warehouse during a party early Saturday morning, officials said

Firefighters examine the roof of the warehouse to check its stability after a portion of it collapsed in the fire

It's unclear what started the deadly blaze that has left at least 9 people killed and dozens more missing

Firefighters are still working at the aftermath of a warehouse fire in the Fruitavale district of Oakland at the corner of 31st Avenue and International Boulevard

Fire Chief Teresa Deloche-Reed (above) said that at least another 25 people are still unaccounted for after the deadly blaze started around 11:30pm in the 1300 block of 31st Avenue during an event featuring musician Golden Donna's 100% Silk West Coast tour

Alameda County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ray Kelly said they fear up to 40 people could have possibly died in the blaze that has destroyed the warehouse (above)

Firefighters assess the scene where a fire tore through a warehouse party early Saturday

The party featured numerous electronic musicians, performers and producers as well as visual projections, the Facebook page for the event states.

Han Park, drove up from Los Angeles to Oakland yesterday after hearing his niece Ara Jo, 29, had attended the warehouse rave but hadn't been heard from since.

Speaking outside a family assistance center set up for victims' families about a mile from the sight of the fire, Han told Daily Mail.com: 'I came from LA looking for my niece. She was there. I haven't heard from her.

'Her friend called her brother and her brother informed all the family so everybody could come up here. Her brother said she went to this band and now she's missing and we don't know where she is. She's on the missing list. Nobody knows exactly who's in the hospital and what they found, they identified a few, they're not really releasing any information at this point...so hopefully (she's ok).'

Ara's parents were in Korea when they got the news and are currently traveling to Oakland.

Han said: 'Her parents moved back to Korea and they are flying back to the US. They've been told. Everyone is very very anxious to hear what's going on.'

Park described his niece as a sociable artist, and a 'great painted' who attended school in Oakland.

'She was great girl,' he said. 'Lovable kid, everybody loved her. She used to draw pictures on the schoolbags and charge kids and everybody loved it. She was gifted.'

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district and lives a block from where the fire occurred, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the building 'has been an issue for a number of years.' Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

The next day the city launched an investigation into an illegal interior building structure, but the status of that investigation is unknown. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Records show on November 13 a neighbor filed a complaint over a 'a ton of garbage piling up on the property' at 1305 31st Ave. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Just last month city officials cited the owner of the warehouse and had launched an investigation into whether the interior structure was illegal. Above firefighters work at the aftermath of the warehouse fire

Asked what he knew about the Ghost Ship venue, Han said: 'I don't know anything about this place, what I heard is they tried to raise a fund for these artists rent money...that it was a fund helping other artists to pay their rent, it was a good cause.'

Deloach-Reed explained that a multi-agency task force was created to investigate the fire and begin the task of recovering victims inside.

'The building is a huge building,' Deloach-Reed said.

Fifty-five firefighters battled the blaze at the scene, as crews found flames on three sides of the building located in the Fruitvale district of the city, Battalion Chief Lisa Baker told the East Bay Times.

Oakland Police Department PIO Johnna Watson speaks to the media at a press conference as firefighters and investigators continue work at the scene of the warehouse fire

An emotional man covers his face outside of the warehouse that was destroyed by a fire on Saturday

A person collapses to the street as coroners begin work at the scene of the warehouse fire on Saturday

Flowers are placed on a street sign as people begin to leave memorials while firefighters and investigators continue work at the scene of the fire

An aggressive attack on the fire was underway when conditions suddenly changed and firefighters had to go back outside.

Officials say it took an estimated four hours to bring the huge blaze under control.

Terry Lightfoot, a representative of Oakland's Highland Hospital, told CNN that 'the hospital received two patients and one of them has been discharged. Lightfoot did not know the condition of the patient who remained hospitalized.'

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a statement of condolences and said he and his wife, Anne, were saddened to hear about the deadly blaze.

In the statement Saturday he said: 'Our thoughts are with the entire city in this difficult time and we extend our condolences to the family and friends of those lost.'

The destroyed building is known as The Oakland Ghost Ship, as authorities say fire fighters had a difficult time getting inside due to massive amounts of clutter. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Deloach-Reed said that fire crews found a 'makeshift stairwell' between the first and second floor and that most people who died were on the second floor of the building. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Deloach-Reed said that when fire crews first entered the building to fight the blaze, they were impeded by a massive amount of clutter that included furniture, art and several mannequins. The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

She said: 'It filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections,' Deloach-Reed said. 'It was like a maze almost.' The interior of the warehouse before the fire is pictured above in an undated photo

Officials say between 50 to 100 people were in the building for the party when the fire started around 11:30pm PT

Fifty-five firefighters battled the blaze at the scene, as crews found flames on three sides of the building, Battalion Chief Lisa Baker told the East Bay Times

Numerous people have been posting on the event page on Facebook about who they believe is missing

Oakland police said those who were concerned about missing people in the fire should contact the Alameda County Sheriff's Coroner's Bureau 510-382-3000.

The electronic music label, 100% Silk, that hosted the party issued a statement offering up resources for friends and family of the victims.

'What happened in Oakland is an unbelievable tragedy, a nightmare scenario. Britt and I are beside ourselves, utterly devastated,' the statement shared to Facebook reads.

'We are a very tight community of artists and we are all praying, sending love and condolences to everyone involved and their families.'

'Thank you for everyone who's been reaching out, we are hoping so hard for the best. We will be posting here on how you can help, and any information as it comes to us.'

The electronic music label, 100% Silk, that hosted the party issued a statement (above) offering up resources for friends and family of the victims

Other people have posted on the event page to say they are safe and escaped the horrific fire unharmed

As of 4:20am PT, the fire was not officially under control, as smoke was still coming from an upper floor in the building. It took firefighters four hours to put the blaze out

Some Facebook users commenting on a post about those who have been reported missing by family or friends have shared their experiences at The Oakland Ghost Ship and how it apparently was disorganized by the clutter

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf released a statement late Saturday morning: 'Last night's fire was an immense tragedy. I am grateful to our first responders for their efforts to deal with this deadly fire.

'Our focus right now is on the victims and their families and ensuring that we have a full accounting for everyone who was impacted by this tragedy.'

'We are fully committed to sharing as much information as we can as quickly as possible.'

Oakland Vice Mayor Annie Campbell Washington said: 'This is a huge tragedy for Oakland, such a deep loss of life last night.

'This is being reported as the worst structure fire in Oakland and I'm here to express my deepest condolences.'

Some Facebook users commenting on a post about those who have been reported missing by family or friends have shared their experiences at The Oakland Ghost Ship and how it apparently was disorganized by the clutter.

George Goatmandan Weber said on Facebook: 'This was the nightmare I always had about hazmat. I spent alotta (sic) time planning escape routes from that sh******.'

Another user, Kristen Parks, replied back to him about how 'narrow' walkways were inside the building.

'yes (sic) true no windows too. I remember this (sic) place being super scary escape wise with wood everywhere and narrow walkways'.

On Saturday, a Google Doc had been created with a list of resources for survivors and concerned family and friends looking for their loved ones.
Boris Johnson has walked out of a live TV interview after being challenged to name the South Korean President, declaring: 'We are not doing a pub quiz.'

The Foreign Secretary invited host Dermot Murnaghan to join him for a quiz in the pub but said he would not do one live on air.

The embarrassing incident was similar to one involving his Labour shadow Emily Thornberry who got into a row over Murnaghan after being asked to name a French minister.

In September, the shadow foreign secretary accused the Sky News host of asking her questions she would not ask a man - prompting today's clash with Mr Johnson.

Boris Johnson walked out of a live Sky News interview after being challenged to name the South Korean President today, declaring: 'We are not doing a pub quiz.'

Mr Johnson was today able to answer that question but refused to go for a second round.

Challenged by Murnaghan to name the French Foreign Minister, he said: 'If you want to have a pub quiz Dermot I'll be very happy to meet you in the pub.

'The French Foreign minister is 'mon ami', Jean-Marc Ayrault. I know him very well!'

He said their relationship proved people across the EU are seeing 'all the exciting things we can do with the Brexit vote'.

But asked a second question on South Korea, Mr Johnson stuttered: 'Ah.. your... We are... We are not getting into a, er, a pub quiz about leaders around, er, leaders around the world,' he said.

'And I will, I'm going to in great respect invite you out to the pub Dermot so that we can take these conversations further.

'I have a terrible feeling if I keep answering you, you will keep coming back with more.

'Have a good morning. See you!'

Mr Johnson was in the middle of an interview about the Government's Brexit strategy when Murnaghan turned to finding out if he knew who senior foreign leaders were

Murnaghan got an answer on who the French foreign minister was but was unsuccessful when he challenged the Foreign Secretary on South Korea

Ms Thornberry lost her temper with Murnaghan in September after he asked her to name prominent foreign politicians.

After failing to name French Foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault or even answer what gender South Korean President Park Geun-hye is, Ms Thornberry lashed out at Mr Murnaghan for his 'patronising' questions and claimed he did not ask similar questions of male politicians.

Murnaghan insisted the questions were relevant to her job, which also includes shadowing the new Brexit department.

But an angry Ms Thornberry shot back: 'Let's take this off air because I've got a lot to say to you and I don't think a lot of it ought to be broadcast.'

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson hit out at MS Thornberry, saying there were 'plenty of genuine sexism and mysogyny in politics' but said we 'don't need prominent women debasing the term to cover their own poor performance'.
The body of a woman who vanished in Florida after fleeing her 'abusive' husband has been found more than 600 miles away in Tennessee, the FBI believes.

Rachael Madison, 44, vanished while jogging in Ormond-by-the-Sea, near Daytona Beach, at around 1.30pm on November 27. She had fled there from Indiana to escape her husband, Jarvis Madison, 58.

His arrest on Friday led to the body's discovery in 'a remote area off the I-40 near Knoxville, Tennessee' that afternoon, the FBI said.

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The FBI says it may have found the body of Rachael Madison (left), 44, who disappeared on Nov 27 while out jogging in Florida. Husband Jarvis Madison (right), 58, was arrested last week

Jarvis Madison, who lives in Indiana, had allegedly poured acid on a tattoo of Rachael's and cut the back of her neck with a knife. Feds are now working to confirm that the body is indeed hers

'Evidence gathered at the site will now be processed to positively confirm that the remains recovered are that of Rachael Lynn Madison,' the Bureau said, adding that it had 'notified Rachael Madison's family of the findings.'

'The thoughts and prayers of everyone in the FBI are with Ms Madison's family,' the statement, from Charles P Spencer, special agent in charge of the FBI Jacksonville Division, said.

Jarvis 'Wayne' Madison was arrested arrested in Louisville, Kentucky on Friday and was booked in the Clark County, Indiana, jail on Friday evening. No charges were filed.

According to court records, on November 28 a felony arrest warrant was issued against him for criminal confinement where a vehicle is used.

The warrant carried a $15,000 cash bond and gave law enforcement nationwide the right to arrest Jarvis Madison.

Rachael had allegedly been kidnapped by Jarvis on Nov 14 after he found out she was leaving him. She escaped him and fled to this Walmart, where she called state troopers, reports say

Rachael was staying with relatives in Ormond-by-the-Sea, near Daytona Beach, having fled her 'abusive' husband. The body was found as a result of Jarvis's arrest, the FBI said

Courtesy WDRB

Investigators say Jarvis Madison called his wife's relatives inquiring about her whereabouts and had threatened to kill her aunt for hiding her.

Volusia County Sheriff's deputies told local news outlets earlier this week that they are concerned for her well-being because of past incidents of violence.

Police have described Madison as 'violent' and 'abusive'.

It was reported on Tuesday that Mrs Madison fled from Indiana to Florida to escape her husband.

Reports indicate Madison had poured acid on a tattoo of Rachael's, leaving a wound on her back.

He had also allegedly cut the back of her neck with a knife.

Before she escaped, Jarvis Madison is said to have taken his wife hostage when he learned of her plan to go to Florida.

After moving, Rachael took up running for long stretches on the beach (pictured), but would return home after completing her run each time. She vanished during a 1:30pm jog

Family members of Rachael's had previously worried that Jarvis Madison had kidnapped her.

'Those past incidents are what has us concerned for her well-being,' Volusia Sheriff's spokesman Andrew Grant told the News-Journal Online.

Family members say that Rachael called her aunt from Kentucky and begged her to 'take her away from her abusive husband'.

The couple had become homeless and were staying in motels and Jarvis's silver 2011 Honda Pilot in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, police said.

Rachael's aunt drove to Kentucky and planned to meet her in a bookstore on November 14, but Jarvis found out about the plan, according to reports.

The FBI has not yet conclusively proven that the body is Rachael's

The reports then indicate Jarvis held her hostage in his car while driving around with a handgun.

Rachael eventually asked if she could use the bathroom and Jarvis kicked her out on the side of the road, police say.

When she tried to run, he fired his handgun at her but missed, reports said.

Authorities say that she eventually convinced him to let her use a Clarksville, Indiana Walmart bathroom. She called her aunt, who told her to contact security and call the police.

After Rachael filed a police report, she and her aunt headed off to her aunt's home in Volusia County, more than 800 miles away.

Two days later the pair arrived in Florida, where she began looking for a job.

In January 2014, Rachael was indicted for picking up her sons from school and disappearing.

She had the sons from a previous relationship with Gerald Stone. They were subsequently found two weeks later.

After moving, Rachael took up running for long stretches on the beach, but would return home after completing her run each time.

She was last seen by family members AT 1:30pm on November 27, before setting off for a jog.

About 30 minutes earlier, Jarvis had called Rachael Madison's aunt asking where his wife was.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence and top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway were on message this morning when talking about President-elect Donald Trump's controversial call with the president of Taiwan.

'Well, I think the conversation that happened this week with the president in Taiwan was a courtesy call,' the vice president-elect said on 'Meet the Press.'

'It was just a phone call at this point,' Conway echoed during an interview with Chris Wallace on 'Fox News Sunday.'

Trump turned heads on Friday when he accepted a call from Tsai Ing-wen, who he referred to on Twitter as the 'President of Taiwan,' hinting to the world that he may upend the 37-year-old policy in which the United States recognizes Beijing as the seat of Chinese power, while having no official diplomatic relations with the island of Taiwan.

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Vice President-elect Mike Pence (left) and Donald Trump's campaign manger Kellyanne Conway (right) took to the Sunday shows to defend Trump's conversation Friday with the president of Taiwan

Both Taiwan and Beijing have claims on the same territory so foreign countries, like the United States, cannot recognize both.

The United States recognizes Beijing, but sells arms to Taiwan, in an effort to protect a fellow democracy.

'She reached out to the president-elect and he took the call from the democratically-elected leader of Taiwan and it's one of more than 50 telephone calls that the president-elect has taken from and made to world leaders in the midst of a historic pace in cabinet appointments and senior appointments, building a legislative agenda, even traveling the country and saving a thousand jobs in the state of Indiana,' Pence said.

Conway made the same point.

'He accepted a congratulatory call from the president of Taiwan, that marks probably the 40th or 50th world leader that has reached out to the president-elect or the vice president-elect Mike Pence since they won the election last month,' she said.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence (left) told Chuck Todd (right) not to expect Donald Trump to calm the waters this week by reaching out to the Chinese

'Meet the Press' host Chuck Todd asked Pence if accepting the call was meant to be an intentional message to the Chinese, who have already complained about the conversation between the Taiwanese leader and the president-elect.

'No. Chuck, this was a courtesy call of the democratically-elected president of Taiwan. And a call to congratulate the president-elect,' Pence said.

Trying to pin Pence down, Todd mentioned how upset the Chinese were over this call and asked him what his advice would be to his counterparts in China.

'I think I would just say to our counterparts in China that this was a moment of courtesy,' Pence said.

'The president-elect talked to President Xi two weeks ago in the same manner that was not a discussion about policy,' Pence continued.

'And we're going to be preparing after January 20th to advance now what will be President Trump's agenda on the world stage and we'll deal with policy at that time,' the vice president-elect added.

Pence also said he didn't expect Trump to call the Chinese this week to calm the waters.

Conway suggested the real policy talk should be left until after inauguration as well.

'But the president-elect's perspective is he accepted a congratulatory call and when he's sworn in as president and commander-in-chief in a little over a month Chris, he will make clear what the fullness of his plans are,' Trump's campaign manager said.

Both high-ranking members of team Trump suggested that the media was playing favorites with President Barack Obama, who opened up dialogues with both Iran and Cuba during his administration.

'Some of the press coverage ... is really astonishing when you think of how it was covered when Barack Obama was going to try to reach out with Iran and come up with the Iran nucelar deal,' Conway said on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'And this man, president-elect, received a phone call from someone, from a world leader in another country.'

Pence used a different example to make the same point.
An investigation is underway over whether the alleged incident took place

Another woman has come forward to allege sexual harrassment

Forbes is accused of 'groping' a female reporter on the bottom

Allegations of sexual harrassment made against Mark Forbes, editor-in-chief of The Age, were known for weeks by Fairfax Media before he was stood down, it has been reported.

Forbes was stood down on Friday less than an hour before the Walkley Awards - a major national media awards event - were due to begin in Brisbane last Friday.

Insiders said he was stood down after Fairfax was called by The Australian the same day, suggesting it was trying to cover up the allegations, News Corp claimed.

It was suggested by The Australian that Fairfax was attempted to hide the incident by letting Forbes remain in his job as an investigation was conducted.

It came as a second woman made allegations he made unwanted sexual advances upon her in February, separate to a female reporter who alleged he had touched her bottom at an event in November, according to News.

The Age editor-in-chief, Mark Forbes, has been stood down pending the outcome of an investigation, following accusations of sexual harassment

The young reporter made a formal complaint to management after Forbes allegedly 'groped her on the bottom' at the Age Music Victoria awards in November, The Guardian reported.

The second woman to complain alleged he made inappropriate remarks and stared at her breasts at social function earlier in the year, News Corp reported.

On Friday, Fairfax told The Australian: 'We make no apology for following due process in investigating any HR-related matter.

'Your suggestion that your inquiry was key to the timing the announcement of the decision [of Forbes being stood down] is incorrect and conceited'.

Before the Walkley event, Forbes was reportedly seen in Fairfax's Brisbane newsroom in 'tense' discussions on a phone and it appeared he did not attend the event, it was reported.

Alex Lavelle, editor of the Age, will now oversee the newsroom which was held by Forbes since April this year.

The Age offices in Melbourne. Editor Alex Lavelle will now oversee the newsroom

'Mark Forbes has been stood down pending the outcome of an investigation that is underway,' a spokesman said.

'Fairfax is committed to a safe workplace and has zero tolerance for any behaviour that does not meet the highest standards.

Upon his appointment to the top position, Mr Forbes was described as an 'outstanding journalist' by Fairfax Media editorial director Sean Aylmer.

'Mark is an outstanding journalist, with a keen news sense and belief in quality reporting. He is the ideal person to continue The Age's transformation, providing quality journalism across print and digital.'
The union for American Airlines flight attendants is demanding a recall of their new uniforms after 1,600 employees complained the fabric was giving them severe reactions.

The uniforms were rolled out to over 70,000 workers in September, but workers started reporting health problems, according to USA Today.

There have been complaints of headaches, rashes, and respiratory problems, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) said Wednesday.

The union for American Airlines flight attendants is seeking a recall of their new uniforms after allegedly making workers ill. There have been complaints of headaches, rashes, and respiratory problems, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) said

APFA said: 'Since August, we have received over 1,600 Flight Attendant reports of suspected uniform reactions that include headaches, rashes, hives, burning skin and eye irritation, itching, and respiratory problemsto name a few.

'The growing number of reports of suspected reactions, triggered by both direct and indirect contact with the uniform, has prompted APFA to ask that all uniforms be recalled until further joint testing with the Company can be completed.

'While the Company has reaffirmed its commitment to continue joint testing with APFA to determine what is causing these conditions, it has stopped short of a full recall.

'We feel a remedy that excludes a full recall of the uniform fails to adequately protect our members.'

The union stated: 'Our members should not only look good in the uniform, but also feel good in the uniform.

'Yet this feeling is not the case for a rapidly growing segment of our membership who has reported adverse reactions, including many Flight Attendants who are quite pleased with the look of the uniform.'

The uniforms were rolled out to over 70,000 workers in September. They are seen in a publicity campaign from the airline

American Airlines spokesman Ron DeFeo told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the airline's has permitted 200 flight attendants to wear their old uniforms and American Airlines ordered 600 non-wool uniforms to deal with the reactions.

The airline has completed three rounds of testing and the results were 'in line with normal standards', DeFeo told the Dallas Morning News.

He said: 'This is something we're taking very seriously. We obviously want to make sure every employee feels good in their uniform.'




A woman who has been on the run from police for two days after allegedly being linked to the murder of a bikie associate on the Gold Coast - along with her adopted son - turned herself in on Sunday.

Renee Moseley, 31, was seen handing herself in to police around 4.30pm with her lawyer by her side after officers claimed she fled the Carrara property of Jason Boyd on Friday after he was shot to death, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.

Police allege she and her adoptive son, 18-year-old former Nomads bikie Taylor Ruatara, left the home in their Holden Commodore after Ruatara allegedly killed Jason Boyd, 41, at about 8.45 that morning.

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Renee Moseley (pictured), 31, who has been on the run from police for two days after allegedly being linked to the murder of a bikie associate on the Gold Coast on Friday, has turned herself in

Police allege she and her adoptive son (pictured together), 18-year-old former Nomads bikie Taylor Ruatara, fled the Carrara property of Jason Boyd after he was shot in the head and died

A man is taken away by paramedics from the scene of a fatal shooting at Carrara on the Gold Coast on Friday

Mr Ruatara eventually handed himself in at Southport Police Station around 5pm the same day, where he told officers he didn't mean to kill Mr Boyd and that the death was an 'accident'.

Mr Ruatara - who is also allegedly an associate of the Black Power bikie gang in New Zealand - faced the Southport Magistrates Court on Saturday morning and was charged with murder.

The teenager's lawyer Michael Gatenby said the teen claims to have found the gun while partying at the house and didn't realise it was a real firearm.

'The (police) allegation is that there's a party over there, everyone's over-indulged and the prosecution case is that the firearm's discharged - they say willfully and we say accidentally,' Mr Gatenby told the Courier Mail.

'My client gives a version that he never pulled the trigger of the gun. I think it's fairly well-accepted that it's not his gun.

'He provided a version to police that he didn't know it was a real weapon.

'He was told certain things by the deceased. But at the end of the day, people just can't play with guns.'

Ruatara (left) handed himself in at Southport Police Station at about 5pm on Friday night after allegedly killing Boyd at about 8.45 that morning. Ms Moseley (right) soon followed on Sunday afternoon

Ruatara, 18, is alleged to have killed Jason Boyd on Friday afternoon but claims his death was an accident

Both the teenager (left) and Mr Boyd are believed to have links to Nomads bikie group

The teenager's (right) lawyer Michael Gatenby said the teen claims to have found the gun while partying at the house and didn't realise it was a real firearm

In 2011, Ms Moseley (pictured) narrowly avoided jail for trying to sneak the drug buprenorphine into a jail for a prisoner who befriended her but she barely knew

Mr Boyd is believed to have been shot through the heart with a single bullet.

Mr Ruatara was remanded in custody but plans to apply for bail in the Supreme Court.

He's also scheduled to re-appear in court on February 21 for a committal hearing mention.

In 2011, Ms Moseley narrowly avoided jail for trying to sneak the drug buprenorphine into a jail for a prisoner who befriended her but she barely knew.

Police remained at the scene of the shooting at Carrara on Saturday gathering evidence.

Mr Boyd also allegedly had links to a bikie gang, however, his family have denied those reports.
The shocking murder of a three-year-old girl could finally be solved almost 47 years after detectives found a new lead in old case files.

Cheryl Grimmer disappeared from outside a beach shower block near Wollongong on January 12, 1970, and despite a massive search no sign of her was ever found.

Police now believe the little girl was abducted by a teenage boy, who would now be in his early 60s, seen running from the area towards bushland around the time she was last seen.

The suspect was missed on the day and though they would not reveal many details, investigators are 'confident [they] are on the right track'.

The shocking murder of three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer (pictured with her father, John) could finally be solved almost 47 years after detectives found a new lead in old case files

'We are calling this a breakthrough in the investigation. Its something that was missed over the years,' Detective Sergeant Damian Loone told the Daily Telegraph.

The vital clue was found by reviewing many boxes of old case files looking for leads the original investigation missed or didn't follow up on.

Their renewed interest followed a re-enactment of the Grimmer family's day at the beach two weeks ago in a bid to convince the killer to turn themselves in.

'Its time to come clean and absolve yourself and tell us what happened on that day  and, more importantly, for the family. If not for yourself, do it for them,' Sergeant Loone said.

The new suspect was described at the time as caucasian, aged between 16 and 17, about 152cm tall with a medium build, brown hair, blue eyes and fair complexion.

The young girl (right) is believed to have been snatched from outside a shower block

Cheryl's family were pictured eating a meal on the night of her disappearance

This ransom note for $10,000 was sent to Cheryls parents after three days but no one showed up to collect the money where police dressed as council workers lay in wait

Cheryl was at the beach with her mother Carole and brothers Ricki, eight, Stephen, six, and Paul, five, when the four children were sent to the showers at about 1.30pm.

A few minutes later Ricki ran to his mother and said Cheryl wouldnt come out of the shower block, but by the time they got there she was gone and never seen again.

'She was gone in just a minute or two. Its something I still live with every day,' Ricki, 54, said last week.

There were myriad conflicting reports of who took her and subsequent sighting and theories, none of which panned out.

Cheryl disappeared from outside this beach shower block near Wollongong on January 12, 1970, and despite a massive search no sign of her was ever found

Some said a man in an orange swimsuit lifted a girl to drink at a fountain before running off with her, another witness saw her being driven off in a white car.

A ransom note for $10,000 was sent to Cheryls parents after three days but no one showed up to collect the money where police dressed as council workers lay in wait.

The couple John and Carole lost their youngest child less than a year after coming to Australia from England and were living in a hotel near the beach.
Niyousha Haki who died in 2010 after begging three ambulance crews to take her to hospital

A paramedic who refused to take a patient with swine flu to hospital said 'all is well' just hours before she died.

Niyousha Haki begged three different ambulance crews to take her, but all refused to take her to hospital.

She died the next day.

After a six year battle for justice by her devastated mother Hazel Nannestad, West Midlands Ambulance Service have finally admitted liability for Niyousha's death.

The NHS has offered to pay 15,000 in compensation, but furious Ms Nannestad says she does not want their 'blood money' and will donate it to charity instead.

Ms Nannestad, 53, said: 'West Midlands Ambulance service has blood on its hands. The way they treated my daughter in her hours of need was disgraceful.

'No one would let a stray dog die in the way my daughter did, let alone a beautiful young woman with her whole future ahead of her.

'As a mother I should never have to bury my child before myself.

'I don't want a penny of compensation, I wanted justice for my daughter and to make sure this never happens again.'

Hazel Nannestad at home in Brentford. The devastated mother has been through a six year legal battle after the death of her daughter

In a desperate bid to prevent more needless deaths, Ms Nannestad has released tapes of the heart-wrenching 999 calls made by her dying daughter pleading to be taken to hospital.

She has also shared recordings of the phone conversations between the negligent ambulance workers and HQ staff.

Miss Haki with TV host Chris Tarrant. Haunting tapes of her calls with the paramedics have been released

Mis Haki first phoned WMAS for help on the evening of December 14, 2010, after her condition rapidly deteriorated.

In the first of three calls, she explains through wheezing and broken breaths that she needs urgent treatment.

With a temperature of 39.6C, chest pains, shortness of breath and blood in her vomit, Miss Haki should have been taken to hospital.

But the ambulance crew decided to leave her at home, simply advising her to drink water and take paracetamol.

Knowing she was extremely unwell, Miss Haki became frustrated and angry that her pleas were being ignored and threatened to sue the ambulance service if they did not take her.

She was seen again by two other crews from WMAS over a five hour period.

Between the second and third visits, Miss Nannestad and her brother Houram Haki, who were in London at the time, rushed to Birmingham to check on her.

Ms Nannestad recalls: 'My daughter asked her uncle and I for help. She said: 'I am dying and they are not going to help me'.

'When we arrived we saw she was in pain. She was short of breath and her face was as white as the wall. There was something seriously wrong.'

Mr Haki, 45, made the third call to WMAS at 4am, and a first responder was sent to the house.

Hazel Nannestad and her brother Houram Haki. The pair rushed to Birmingham from London when they realised how ill Miss Haki was in 2010

In a previously unheard phone conversation between the medic and HQ, the call handler suggests Niyousha has been wasting their time, saying: 'Unfortunately we have to keep going and checking her out.'

The shocking recording continues with the first responder asking for clarity on the protocol for taking patients to hospital if they suspect swine flu.

The call handler goes away to check before phoning back to say: 'We are not entirely sure with this one, as we've had no protocols on it this year.

'The others have not taken her in.'

To which the first responder replies: 'I think as far as the hospitals are concerned they are not wishing to have anybody with flu like symptoms in.'

The call handler then adds: 'It is the clinician's decision.

'I think you'll probably be the same as all the others who have been tonight and believe that she doesn't need to go to hospital.

'She's not been violent with anyone, I think she's just getting aggressive because she wants to go in, which is why she keeps ringing.

'Maybe you could try and have a word with her this time.'

The responder then phones back at 4.40am to say her mother had been advised to speak to the GP in the morning, adding: 'All is well'.

Miss Nannestad had also been told not to take her daughter to A&E herself, as she would be sent away due to the infection risk of swine flu.

So the following morning the desperate mother took Miss Haki - who by then couldn't even walk - to see a GP who recognised the signs that her body was shutting down and called an ambulance.

She suffered the first of three heart attacks on arrival at hospital and died later that day.

Miss Haki with Ms Nannestad. The money given to Ms Nannestad after the death of Miss Haki will be donated to charity

Miss Haki with her mother. Ms Nannestad said Christmas used to be a happy time of year but now she is just reminded of her death

She had developed secondary staphylococcal pneumonia - a recognised and life threatening complication of swine flu that paramedics failed to identify.

An inquest in 2012 lead by coroner Aidan Cotter found that Miss Haki had died of natural causes, and there was no gross failure or neglect.

Devastated by the findings of the inquest Hazel instructed her solicitors to launch civil court proceedings against the ambulance service in December 2013.

Finally this year WMAS made a written admission of their breach of duty of care for all three attendances and wrote an apology to Hazel, admitting liability.

Ms Nannestad, from west London, said: 'This has caused me and my family years of distress. It has destroyed us.

'Christmas used to be a happy time of the year but now December reminds me of my daughter's painful drawn out death.

'My mistake was that we believed the paramedics would help my daughter.'

The devastated mother's solicitor Josie Robinson said: 'This was a long and hard fought legal battle, to obtain some sense of justice for Hazel, who knew that her daughter's death was avoidable.

'All Hazel wanted was an early admission of liability and a genuine and heartfelt apology from the ambulance service.'

A spokesperson from the WMAS said: 'The Trust has apologised for its failings, specifically in respect of the failure to get Niyousha to hospital in December 2010.

'The Trust wanted to ensure that lessons were learnt from this case.

'Several recommendations were made and the Trust has since implemented a number of measures, which included the creation of a Trust-wide policy governing non-conveyance of patients.
Natalia Myrie, 12, was last seen at her school in Lewsham

A search is underway for a missing girl who has not returned home since she left school as usual one afternoon.

Natalia Myrie, 12, was described as black, of slim to medium, build and having long black hair.

She was wearing her school uniform when she went missing which consisted of a black blazer and check shirt.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said it was thought she may have visited Lewsham Shopping Centre after leaving her school in Lewisham, London, at 3pm on Thursday.
A town in France has been ordered to tear down a statue of the Virgin Mary to comply with a national ban on religious symbols in public.

A judge warned the town council of Publier - on the shores of Lake Geneva - that it will be fined 100 a day if the marble effigy is not removed within three months.

The statue is owned by a Roman Catholic association and was installed in a park overlooking the lake in 2011.

A judge warned the town council of Publier - on the shores of Lake Geneva - that it will be fined 100 a day if the Virgin Mary statue is not removed within three months

But because it stands on is public property it is in breach of French laws on displays of religious symbols.

Publier mayor Gaston Lacroix said the town would comply with the ruling and relocate the statue to private land.

The first order for it to be removed came in January 2015, but as no action has been taken the town is now being threatened with financial implications.

The separation of church and state is a core concept in the French constitution.

In 2010, France became the first European country to ban the burka, the full-face Islamic veil, as well as the partial face covering known as the niqab.

In August several French Riviera towns imposed controversial bans on burkinis - the women's Islamic full-body swimsuits - but they were later overturned by the country's top administrative court.
Hillary Clinton's transformation from speech-giving political megastar to forest-bound hermit has been turned into a hilarious SNL skit.

One of the Democrat's few media appearances since she lost to Trump came in mid-November, when a fan supposedly met her by chance in the woods near her Chappaqua, NY home and took a photo for Facebook.

Now SNL has taken that idea to the next level with Saturday's 'The Hunt for Hill' sketch, which saw Kate McKinnon's Clinton pursued, Bigfoot-like, through the woods by a pair of legend-seeking hunters.

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Lookalike: Kate McKinnon (left, in edited image) plays the mythical Hillary Clinton (right, in original viral photo with Margot Gerster, who says she bumped into her in Chappaqua, NY)

Laughing matter: In the SNL sketch, the hunters (Beck Bennett, left, and Kyle Mooney, right) imitate Clinton's laugh as a hunting call to lure her out of the woods

The hunters - played by SNL regulars Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney - start out their quest to trap, catch and thank Clinton by interviewing the woman, played by Vanessa Bayer, at the center of a previous sighting.

'I saw something moving through the woods,' she says, pointing to a laptop with footage of the elusive former candidate.

'It was blond, about 5'6",' the woman says. 'It seemed like it wanted some time to itself so I immediately started following it.'

Following a footprint - tellingly without a high heel - they try to lure Clinton in by imitating her braying laugh. When that fails, they lay a trap: A cutting about the Wisconsin recount.

Clinton still eludes the pair, so they find a shaman in the woods, played by Kenan Thompson, who uses his mystical powers to locate their quarry.

Bait: The hunters try to lure her in by laying bait - a New York Times article (right) about the Wisconsin election recount

Shaman: Kenan Thompson plays a Chappaquan shaman who uses his mystical powers to ask the trees where Clinton is. Their answer? Buying eggs in a ShopRite

'I have lived my whole life in these Chappaqua woods,' he says. 'The trees whisper their secrets to me.'

The secret in question? She's buying eggs in a ShopRite.

The real-life Clinton was seen in the woods on November 9 by a woman named Margot Gerster, who was hiking with her daughter.

She was out walking with Bill Clinton and their dog a day after the election, and posed for a photo with Gerster and her infant.

That photo, which Gerster says was a chance encounter, went viral.

Afterward it emerged that when Gerster was in high school, her mother held a fundraiser for Clinton at Crabtrees Kittle House in Chappaqua.

Gerster and her sister were seen posing with Clinton in a photo, leading skeptics to believe that their chance encounter was not so chance after all.
Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus defended Donald Trump's tweet in which the president-elect falsely accused 'millions' of Americans of voting illegally, giving the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

'Well, I don't know if that's not true,' Priebus told 'Face the Nation' host John Dickerson, when the CBS newsman asked him how he reacts when Trump says something that he knows isn't true.

Priebus pointed to an article in the Wall Street Journal, noting, 'it had a certain percentage of people that are voting who shouldn't be voting.'

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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said 'I don't know if that's not true' about a claim Donald Trump made about 'millions' voting illegally

'Face the Nation' host John Dickerson (left) wanted to know how Reince Priebus (right) handles it when Donald Trump says something that the RNC chair knows if false

'There are estimates all over the map on that, and here's the problem, no one really knows,' said Priebus.

The current head of the Republican National Committee was likely pointing to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal published Wednesday and co-written by Hans Von Spakovsky, of the Heritage Foundation, and John Fund, of the National Review.

They argue the point, not that 'millions' are voting illegally, which is what Trump wrote in his tweet, but that illegals are voting.

'Widespread voter fraud, the media consensus suggests, isnt possible,' the wrote. 'But there is a real chance that significant numbers of noncitizens and others are indeed voting illegally, perhaps enough to make up the margin in some elections.'

The danger, they argue, 'looms large,' in places like California, a state that gives driver's licenses to non-citizens.

And the number of fraudulent votes? 'Theres no way of knowing for sure,' they wrote, which is the same answer that Priebus gave.

Dickerson pointed out that Trump had said 'millions of people,' asking the RNC chair to defend that claim.

'You don't know that that's not true,' Priebus said.

'But you think millions of people voted illegal?' Dickerson asked again.

'It's possible,' Priebus answered.

Dickerson again pointed out that there is no evidence suggesting that millions of votes in California were cast fraudulently.

'I guess the question is, when you're president, can you just offer a theory that has no evidence behind it, or does he have to tighten up his standards of proof?' Dickerson asked.

Priebus commended Trump, saying that he had done a great job.

'I think the president-elect is someone who has pushed the envelope and caused people to think in this country,' the future White House chief of staff said. 'He's not taking conventional thought  on every single issue and has caused people to look at things that maybe they have taken for granted, you look at the flag burning issue last week.'

Last Sunday, Trump tweeted about widespread voter fraud, but by Monday he was tweeting about making flag burning, which is Constitutionally-protected speech, according to the Supreme Court, illegal.

As for consequences, Trump wrote, 'perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!'

'I mean this is an 80 percent issue and you watch the news media and they say well that it's constitutional. Well, right, it is constitutional, but it doesn't mean it's not a subject for debate and discussion for the Supreme Court to revisit down the road,' Priebus pointed out.

Priebus suggested that some of Trump's more unconventional comments, delivered via Twitter, will make his White House a success.
No injuries have been reported

Between 60 and 80 firefighters were at the site battling the blaze

Explosions were heard at a Remondis plant in Prescot, Merseyside

Firefighters are battling a huge blaze which engulfed a hazardous waste plant in Liverpool today.

Emergency services were called to the scene at the Remondis plant in Prescot, Merseyside, at around 6am.

The cause of the fire is currently unknown and no injuries were reported.

A large fire broke out at a Remondis hazardous waste plant in Liverpool at 6am today

The smoke plumes from the hazardous waste plant could be seen as far as 15 miles away

According to the Remondis company website, the site handled materials containing mercury, offshore drilling waste and pesticides

Due to the hazardous waste housed at the plant, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service advised residents to keep windows closed.

The smoke from the flames could be seen as far as 15 miles away.

According to the Remondis company website, the site handled materials including mercury, offshore drilling waste, pesticides and acids, as well as non-hazardous substances.

Nick Searle from the Merseyside service told the Liverpool Echo that up to 80 firefighters were called in to battle the flames throughout the day.

Due to the hazardous material the plant handled, fire services advised residents to keep windows closed

Towards the evening, fire services reported that the size and density of the smoke plumes had reduced drastically

Mr Searle said the huge billows of smoke were caused by the various waste materials the warehouse held and expected the fire to last for 48 hours.

Twitter users shared news of the fire and one Twitter user said the smoke could be seen from Ainsdale beach, more than 15 miles away from the site.

The BBC reported that the Environment Agency was working with Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, Merseyside Police and Public Health England to look after the well-being of the residents and environment.
The leader of a Ku Klux Klan branch missed his own Donald Trump victory parade because he was in a jail cell, arrested after a planning meeting descended into violence.

Dozens of KKK members drove through rural North Carolina on Saturday, giving Nazi salutes and shouting: 'White power.'

The event attracted nationwide publicity after details were posted online announcing it as a celebration of Mr Trump's victory.

Christopher Barker, 37, was charged with one count felony aiding and abetting assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill, inflicting serious injury

However, its organizer, Chris Barker, 37, Imperial Wizard of the Loyal White Nights in North Carolina, was not present after he was arrested in connection with a stabbing.

Michael Welch, sheriff of Caswell County, said Barker was one of two men detained after a stabbing victim was dumped in the lobby of his office complex in the early hours of Saturday morning.

'The victim Richard Dillon told investigators that he had been at the residence of Christopher Eugene Barker due to a Ku Klux Klan meeting when the altercation took place,' he said.

A police officer told the Burlington Times News that Barker had urged on William Hagen, 50, of Indiana, in the attack and had kicked the victim as he fell to the ground at his home.

He was arrested after officers raided Barker's home just outside Yanceyville and charged with aiding and abetting assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury.

William Hagen, 50, of California was arrested and charged with one count felony assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill

The rally attracted widespread media attention, reflecting fears that Mr Trump's improbable victory had unleashed dark forces across the US.

But it was marked by chaos and confusion as KKK members arrived along the North Carolina-Virginia border in the absence of their leader.

TV crews descended on the tiny village of Pelham, close to the border with Virginia, where a KKK spokesman, known as the Exalted Cyclops, said the rally was due to take place at 9am.

At about that time, Mr Barker's wife Amanda emerged from her home in Yanceyville to tell DailyMail.com that the rally would be taking place in another town, Roxboro, at 3pm.

She said she had only just woken up and was dressed in pink pyjama bottoms and a red T-shirt as she stood on the porch of her modest home.

A Confederate flag flew overhead as she said the event was to show support for Mr Trump and his anti-immigrant policies.

'We actually kind of have the same views. A lot of white Americans felt the same way about the wall, immigration, terrorism,' she said, standing with bare feet on the concrete floor.

Barker identified himself as the 'imperial wizard' of the Loyal White Knights of the KKK earlier this year at a protest in Cafliornia where things quickly turned violent

Rally: Barker missed this victory parade in Roxboro because he was arrested for allegedly trying to kill a fellow Klansman the night before Saturday's event

'Donald Trump is going to do some very good things and turn this country around.'

She added that the rally would take the form of a convoy of cars as the weather was too cold for a march.

Rumors swirled all day that the event had been cancelled as counter-demonstrators tried to track down the Klansmen.

Eventually, a convoy of about 30 vehicles flying Confederate flags and with the KKK symbol of a white cross on a red background pulled into Roxboro.

Men dressed in black shirts leaned from one pickup to give a Nazi salute, while others screamed 'White Power' at startled Christmas shoppers on the town's quiet Main Street.

They were scheduled to hold an evening awards ceremony and a cross burning  if the wind died down, said Mrs Barker, known as the Grand Kommander.

But their chaotic day  several members including the Exalted Cyclops were marooned at their motel unaware of the rally taking place in Roxboro - provoked mirth among some onlookers.

One state trooper said: 'We were laughing at them because there weren't very many trucks. Some looked like they was in those little rental cars you can get for $19.'
Police have arrested a male prostitute after they claim he murdered one of his clients and then cut off the man's penis.

Jerry Pagan, 32, is accused of showing up to the Bronx home of the 68-year-old victim on Friday night and then striking him in the head with a hammer before stabbing him with scissors after the two had a verbal argument.

The victim was then castrated by Pagan according to authorities, with a razorblade being used to remove his genitals.

When police arrested Pagan, he told them that he had planned to eat his victim's penis.

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Jerry Pagan (above on Sunday) was arrested at 1am Sunday morning and charges with second-degree murder

Pagan (booking photo above) then sliced off the man's genitals with a razorblade, later telling police he planned on eating the penis

Pagan and the victim had known one another for years according to police, and had met just one week ago for a sexual encounter.

It was during that encounter that the victim reportedly did something to upset Pagan.

Police did not arrest Pagan until 1:00am Sunday morning, over 24 hours after the alleged murder.

During that time, Pagan had reportedly continued to come and go from the man's apartment while his body lay in a bathtub.

It was a neighbor who had entered the apartment on Friday and saw Pagan there with the victim who notified another individual of the situation, who in turn contacted police.

Pagan has now been charged with second-degree murder.

He was taken to the 44th Precinct where he later smiled for the cameras as he was led away in handcuffs and ankle restraints on Sunday.
Ecila Henderson, 44, was held under the Mental Health Act after being charged with the murder of her 69-year-old mother Rosemary Armstrong (pictured)

A mental health patient who stabbed her mother to death is suing the NHS because they failed to stop her carrying out the fatal attack.

Ecila Henderson, 44, was held under the Mental Health Act after being charged with the murder of her 69-year-old mother.

She admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at Winchester Crown Court following the attack in a street in Bournemouth, Dorset.

Henderson, who stabbed retired teacher and mother-of-three Rosemary Armstrong in 2010, was given a hospital order after the court hearing.

She was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia before she carried out the gruesome attack outside a block of flats in the seaside town.

The NHS has now admitted negligence in her treatment, reports Jake Ryan at The Sun on Sunday.

However, it will not pay out compensation - believed to be a six-figure sum - to Henderson for the 'consequences of killing her mother'.

Her lawyers suggest that she would not have stabbed her mother to death if medics had not let her down.

It comes after Dorset Healthcare University Foundation NHS Trust admitted negligence in 2014.

Henderson killed her mother on Queensland Road in Bournemouth, Dorset, (pictured) in 2010

Part of Henderson's claim includes her 'loss of liberty' following the death of her mother, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, according to the newspaper.

NHS lawyers argue it would defy the 'rule of law' to pay out and therefore give Henderson a chance to profit from the crime she committed.

They also suggest her claim should only relate to psychiatric harm she suffered following negligent treatment she received and the case will be heard at London's High Court.
A Minnesota mall's decision to hire its first-ever black Santa has resulted in an appalling racist backlash.

This week Mall of America announced that it had hired professional Father Christmas Larry Jefferson to bring gifts and good cheer to the children of Bloomington and the surrounding area.

But that announcement has been met with disgusting invective online, including some who have spoke openly about 'black genocide', Raw Story reported.

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Good Santa: Larry Johnson (left and right) is the first black Santa to be hired by the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota - but his appointment has inspired racist remarks

Professional: Johnson has been a professional Santa for 17 years, and says kids don't even notice his race. But the reaction from some online adults has been extremely strong

'Horrible': This user on a news website said it was 'a nasty lie' and a 'horrible thing' to portray Santa as black. They were just one of many people who made appalling remarks

'Thief': Many users, such as this one, made 'jokes' about Jefferson stealing presents from homes because he is black. Others made much more vicious, even more hateful remarks

Speaking to WCCO on Wednesday, Jefferson said that his four-day run at the appointment-only Santa Experience was 'no big deal', explaining: 'I'm still Santa, I just happen to be a Santa of Color'.

'Santa is still just Santa. Kids are very innocent, they just love Santa,' added the former army vet, who has been a professional Santa for 17 years.

The reaction from some adults has been anything but innocent, however.

Negative comments on the WCCO website run the gamut from confused to outright hateful.

'Santa is NOT black!! that is a nasty lie and horrible thing to subject children to!' John Armstrong posted. 'My god people! ..holycow thank god I DO NOT go to malls anymore.'

Other users made racist jokes about black people, including one man who said a black Santa would 'steal people's presents' and another who talked about how 'HO HO HO rolls off this Big Pimpin' Santa's tongue'.

Even more shocking remarks came from Peter Morgan, who said 'Santa is WHITE. BOYCOTT Mall of America. Maybe they should change their name to MALL of RAGHEAD LAND.'

'Joke': This user was one of many who 'joked' about Jefferson, who is a military veteran, being a pimp and using the term 'ho' to mean prostitute

Slur: This user went even further, calling for a boycott of the Mall of America, and throwing an anti-Arab slur into the mix too

Celebration: The mall is holding a 'Christmas Experience' until December 24, and Jefferson is one of a number of Santas working there

And a poster under the name Laquisha Reynolds made a series of vicious remarks, referring to Jefferson's hiring as 'an atrocity' and claiming that 'blacks [ate] each other in Africa'.

She also said that if Martin Luther King Jr were to be played by a white man 'blacks would try to kill him'.

Other comments, worse than these, made repeated use of the N-word and equally appalling slurs.

The Star Tribune shut down its comments on the page about Jefferson, according to an editor there. The writer of the article later said 'We routinely turn off comments on articles involving racial issues'.

Twitter saw complaints from many too. @Brad_D80 replied to a CNN report about Jefferson's appointment with: 'Oh boy racial racist identity politics reporting from CNN.Only you racist lefty types actually care.'

But @HiHoney333 was outright venomous, saying a black Santa shows 'there's nothing too sacred to muddy up' and called for 'black genocide'.

The user apparently later deleted that remark.

United: Jefferson is a part of America's professional Santa community, and is even on an all-Santa soccer team

Turned off: This editor for the Star Tribune said the site had to turn off its comments on the article about Jefferson. Another at the paper said it was related to 'racial issues'

'Racist': This user called CNN 'racist' for simply reporting that Jefferson had been given the job at the mall

'Genocide': In one of the most shocking remarks, this Twitter user called for 'black genocide' as a response to Jefferson playing Santa in a shopping mall. The tweet was later deleted

And user @tlange92 called Jefferson's hire a 'catastrophe' and made a series of racist black Santa jokes, including: 'why were black Santas reindeer tired? the reindeer had a tough time pulling his stolen hummer'.

Thankfully, there were plenty of positive remarks to balance out the relentless racism and negativity.

Several people pointed out that St Nicholas was born in the 4th century in what is now Turkey, and was traditionally shown to have dark skin.

Twitter user @levantina joked: 'White people are offended at a black Santa...y'all gonna be blown away when you find out where Jesus is from...'

'Humor': This Twitter user used racist 'humor' to imply that a black Santa would be a criminal because of the color of his skin

Joker: Many users defended Jefferson, including this user who joked that people who were offended by a black Santa would be 'blown away' to learn about Jesus's Middle Eastern origins

And Japanese-American Star Trek actor and playwright George Takei, 79, who was interned during WWII, said: 'Watching people meltdown over a Black Santa in the Mall of America. '"Santa is white!"

'Well, in our internment camp he was Asian. So there.'

Mall of America is home to a 'Santa Experience' until December 24, although Johnson's four-day stint there ends Sunday - as was always planned.
A drug-affected man has been charged after allegedly arming himself with a sword and machete before launching a vicious attack on his girlfriend and mother.

The 28-year-old man ran naked down the street after police forced their way into a home in Emu Plains, a suburb in Sydney's west, just before midnight on Sunday and found him trying to beat down a bedroom door.

The man had savagely attacked his mother and girlfriend - stabbing them both multiple times in the head and body - before they escaped and barricaded themselves inside the room, according to police.

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Two women have been viciously attacked by a drug-affected young man armed with a machete and sword

'There was extensive amounts of blood through the house and obviously the wounds to both victims were significant and it required a very priority response,' Detective Superintendent Brett McFadden said, according to the Western Weekender.

'It was an absolutely harrowing experience for the responding police and emergency services officers,' he added.

Police chased the nude and armed man down the street and arrested him, while his alleged victims - aged 55 and 22 - were rushed to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition.

The two women were both covered in blood as they were wheeled into the hospital early Monday morning.

The 55-year-old underwent surgery after being stabbed in the stomach and has received treatment for wounds to her hands and neck.

Both women were struck in the head with the machete and remain in a serious but stable condition.

The two women were both covered in blood as they were wheeled into the hospital early Monday morning

The women were rushed to hospital in a critical condition but have since stabilised

Superintendent McFadden said they were undoubtedly faced with a 'life threatening situation'.

'After sustaining significant injuries across their body, they barricaded themselves with a view that if the male managed to get into that room that they were in, their life was in real peril,' he said.

Police are investigating if the man was affected by drugs at the time of the attack after neighbours claimed he was screaming 'they are going to eat me' during the incident.

'I knew something bad was happening but I was too frightened to go out and have a look,' a neighbour told the Today Show.

'There was doors being kicked - it was just bedlam,' she added.

Another witness said the man involved had been heard yelling at his partner on other occasions.

'There was lot of swearing. He was telling her to get out and leave him alone, which he does. He did that the other day,' they told Sunrise.

A man who overheard the incident described the scene as being like 'the wild west'.

The man was naked and still armed with a knife when he was arrested in Emu Plains

Forensic investigators were seen taking evidence from the scene on Monday morning

A crime scene has been established at the Lucas Street home (pictured) where the young girl had been staying the night with her boyfriend

'We were in bed when it happened and we just heard this screeching and swearing and the police came.'

The alleged offender was taken to Penrith Police Station where police charged him with a string of offences including two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with the intent to murder.

Police allege the attack was a domestic-violence related offence.

A crime scene has been established at the Lucas Street home where the young girl had been staying the night with her boyfriend.

Forensic investigators were seen taking evidence from the scene on Monday morning.
Most of the over

The federal government is hoping to reclaim $4 billion in incorrectly paid welfare, issuing debt notices to dole bludgers worth $4.5 million a day.

A new automated system links a welfare recipient's details with the tax office to generate 20,000 'compliance interventions' a week.

'Our aim is to ensure that people get what they are entitled to - no more and no less. And to crack down hard when people deliberately defraud the system,' Human Services Minister Alan Tudge told The Australian on Monday.

Most of the overpayments are a result of welfare recipients forgetting to update their details online - such as changes to income earnings - but some are legitimate cases of deliberate fraud.

The federal government is hoping to reclaim $4 billion in incorrectly paid welfare, issuing out 20,000 'please explain' notices to dole bludgers every day

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge said the new system aimed to 'crack down hard when people deliberately defraud the system'

The clampdown on welfare debt, which first came into effect in July when an overhaul of the system was announced, should see 1.7 million notices sent out over the next three years.

During the 2015-16 financial year, 1.5 million people were overpaid about $1,000 each by the Department of Human Services, totalling $1.5 billion.

The government was only able to retrieve $920 million of the money, deciding not to recover $76 million worth of overpaid welfare benefits as the cost of pursuing them would be more than the debt.

Further to the $76 million debt, 76,526 families owe the government $148 million as a result of claiming too much of their family tax benefit.

But new laws which come into effect on January 1 next year will allow the government to chase welfare debts that are more than six years old.

When a person refuses to pay, their interest on social security will increase and they could be banned from exiting the country.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Australian Taxation Office for comment on the new compliance interventions.

A new automated system links a welfare recipient's details with the tax office to generate 20,000 'compliance interventions' a week - and an estimated 1.7 million notices in three years




President-elect Donald Trump has once again focused his Twitter ire on the recount being pushed by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

'The Green Party just dropped its recount suit in Pennsylvania and is losing votes in Wisconsin recount,' Trump wrote Sunday afternoon. 'Just a Stein scam to raise money!'

By the time the president-elect typed his Tweet, Stein had changed course on Pennsylvania, deciding to take her recount efforts to federal court after saying on Saturday that a state court's ruling had made a Pennsylvania recount cost-prohibitive due to a $1 million bond put in place.

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President-elect Donald Trump (left) again took to Twitter to criticize the recount efforts of Green Party hopeful Jill Stein (right)

This afternoon Donald Trump tweeted that Jill Stein had dropped her recount suit in Pennsylvania, except she plans to refile a suit in federal court and hold a press conference at Trump Tower tomorrow

But after midnight on Sunday, Stein tweeted that she would 'escalate' the recount effort in the Keystone State and 'demand a statewide recount on constitutional grounds.'

'The people deserve answers,' Stein added.

Both Clinton and Trump have lost votes in the Wisconsin recount, but gained some too, according to numbers and details being given out by the state.

Stein appeared on 'Fox News Sunday' today and had a contentious back-and-forth with host Chris Wallace over the merits of the recount.

Sounding slightly like Trump, Wallace hinted that the recount was just a fundraiser for Stein and fellow Greens.

'Isn't that what this is really about, Dr. Stein, using the recount to raise lots of money and build your list of supporters?' Wallace asked.

Stein responded saying that the recount money was going into a 'segregated account,' which would only be used on recount efforts.

'Fox News Sunday' host Chris Wallace (left) had a contentious back and forth with Jill Stein (right) over the merits of the recounts in three states

'So this  this money is entirely  will be completely used, and we'll be lucky if we can cover the cost at the rate that there is a bait and switch going on here,' she said.

'In Wisconsin, we just saw this cost triple. So, to my mind, its  it really underscores why we need a fundamentally secure voting system that has built-in safeguards that should have automatic audits, recounts,' she continued.

'We need to get rid of these voting machines, these electronic touch screens, which have been proven highly vulnerable to tampering, to hacking, to human and machine errors,' she added 'This is an  this is an abuse of the American vote.'

The recount efforts began after computer scientists and election lawyers urged Hillary Clinton's campaign to challenge the election results in three key states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, arguing that there was some evidence that the vote may have been manipulated or hacked, according to a report from New York Magazine.

One of the computer scientists, J. Alex Halderman, wrote in a Medium post that the New York Magazine story 'incorrectly describes the reason manually checking ballots is an essential security safeguard.'

He said 'probably not' when answering the question of whether the election results' deviations from the polls were the results of a cyberattack.

'I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than the election was hacked,' he argued.

Though he urged someone to step forward and check anyway.

'The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence  paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania,' he said.

'Unfortunately, nobody is ever going to examine that evidence unless candidates in those states act now, in the next several days, to petition for recounts,' he added.

Instead of Clinton, Stein did, asking donors to support recount efforts in that trio of states.

Eventually the Clinton campaign sent its lawyers to participate in the recount process.

While the recount is ongoing in Wisconsin, in Michigan a federal judge will soon decide its fate. There was a three-hour hearing in federal court today in Detroit on the matter, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The bassinet has not been banned in the UK or Australia

The bassinet that killed a seven-week-old girl is still being sold in Australia - despite being banned in the US and Canada.

Grace Roseman died in April last year when her throat was crushed on the side of her Bednest cot in Sussex, England.

The cot is designed to be placed next to the parents beds with its side partially lowered so mothers and babies feel they are sleeping next to each other.

Grace Roseman died in April 2015 when she moved onto the edge of her Bednest cot and cut off the oxygen to her brain

But tiny Grace was able to roll over and, when her head went over the cots lowered side, crushed her windpipe against the side of the Bednest.

The cot has been recalled in the USA and Canada for not complying with safety standards, but not in the UK or Australia.

Australia and the UK issued a kit for the older models which allowed people to modify the cots.

And the product was voluntarily recalled in Australia, but both new and second-hand cots have made their way onto popular shopping websites like eBay.

One consumer advertised their used bassinet, with the old folding sides feature, for AU$400.

Online retailers in Australia are still selling the old bassinet.

The current designs no longer have sides that can be folded down.

The cot has been recalled in the USA and Canada for not complying with safety standards, but not in the UK or Australia

One consumer advertised their used bassinet on eBay, with the old folding sides feature, for AU$400

But Grace's mother Esther is worried that people can buy second-hand cots which don't have the new design, modifications or all the instructions.

Esther told the Sunday Times: 'On April 9, 2015, at 10.39am, our beautiful baby, Grace, who was just seven weeks old, was pronounced dead.

'Immediately following Grace's tragic death, as her mother, I felt nothing but guilt, self-blame, shame and judged. I felt tortured that I didn't have the choice of ending my life because I could not be that selfish to my family.

'When it first happened, I had some sympathy for Bednest, assuming it too would be mortified and remorseful.

'Unfortunately, the company does not appear to believe that the design of the cot caused Grace's death.'

The webpage of the Bednest luxury cot, where customers pay more than AU$330 for the product or $150 for an unlimited rental. The cot's previous designed featured a moveable side panel that could be left halfway up

Mrs Roseman continued: 'I urge any parent with one in their loft, with the original set of instructions, to throw the cot and the instructions away. The huge second-hand market for cots such as Bednest remains worrying and dangerous.

'Instructions and the modification kit will likely have been lost and many people will be unaware of the dangers.'

Mrs Roseman put Grace down for a nap at around 8.30am on April 9. The cot  which is designed to be placed next to a parents bed  has a moveable panel on one side which can be folded down, leaving a ridge just 7cm high.

Mrs Roseman returned about 90 minutes later to find Grace unresponsive, lying with her head over the edge of the cot.

The provisional cause of death was given as asphyxia, caused by the ridge cutting off the oxygen supply from Graces windpipe.

The inquest into the baby's death will take place this month.

Last year, West Sussex coroner Penelope Schofield issued a report expressing concern over the Bednest Bedside cot, which was endorsed by the charity National Childbirth Trust, saying urgent action must be taken to prevent future deaths.

Grace's parents told the inquest 'We are eternally grateful to the doctors and nurses at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath (pictured), who did everything possible to try and save our little Gracie'

Earlier in 2016, consumer website Choice said the incident throws the lack of Australian standards for bassinets and bedside sleepers into the spotlight.

In its statement, Choice questions 'whether the US standard for bedside sleepers, which is the only official standard currently available, is rigorous enough to prevent such accidents in future.'

The company's managing director, Mark Thomas, told the MailOnline: 'Bednest has and will continue to co-operate fully into the investigations as we have with all trading authorities and experts in order to safeguard babies and give parents using Bednest peace of mind.

'We can correct the misleading impression given with respect to recalls, after a suggestion that the companys action in the UK is less than in the USA. We can also correct any misleading impression given that the product with the half-folding side is still being supplied by the company.

'We can reassure consumers that all Bednests sold or rented by the company after November 2015 are to the new 2016 design without a half-fold side panel, and pre-November 2015 Bednests can be modified in two minutes with a free simple self-fit kit with minimum inconvenience.

'In November 2015, as a result of concern expressed by some experts in the UK and our desire for complete caution, we changed the design of the folding side, and provided the modification kit for existing owners to fit. We continue to monitor online second hand sales and contact anyone who appears not to have the modification.

'We are greatly saddened and extend our heartfelt condolences to Graces parents and family and continue to do everything we can to ensure the safety of all children using our equipment.'
Adults who lure children into committing crimes could face up to 10 years behind bars under tough new laws as police recruit more officers to tackle offences.

Up to 180 youths are responsible for almost one in four crimes in Victoria, including violent carjackings, armed robberies and home invasions, Crime Statistics Agency has revealed.

Children as young as 10 are being groomed to commit crimes, with the state's rate of youths under justice supervision almost doubling since 2012.

The statistics comes as the Victorian government calls on 'Fagin's Law' to be introduced to State Parliament next year in an effort to target adults procuring children to do their criminal 'dirty work'.

Up to 180 youths are responsible for almost one in four crimes in Victoria, including violent carjackings, armed robberies and home invasions (stock image)

Adults who lure children into committing crimes could face up to 10 years jail (stock image)

Attorney-General Martin Pakula said the new legislation could see adult criminals sentenced to 10 years in jail for such behaviour regardless of the crime committed by the youth.

Fagin's Law has been named after Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist who recruited children and taught them how to steal for him in exchange for shelter.

In tackling crime, Victoria's police force will boost its frontline by nearly 3,000 extra officers as part of a $2 billion recruitment drive, the largest ever in the state's history.

Another 2,729 officers will be recruited over the next four years, with the funding going towards building new police stations and expanding their specialist units.

The funding announcement will see the force grow 20 per cent by 2021.

'Sadly, many in our community do not feel safe at this time,' Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Sunday.

'We have seen crime rise and we have seen the need to do more, and not more of the same.'

Victoria's police force will boost its frontline by nearly 3,000 extra officers as part of a $2 billion recruitment drive, the largest ever in the state's history (stock image)

Chief Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said crime statistics have risen in the past six years - mostly relating to family violence, car thefts and carjackings (stock image)

Chief Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said crime statistics have risen in the past six years - mostly relating to family violence, car thefts and carjackings.

WHERE THE $2 BILLION INVESTMENT WILL GO? 2729 new police

415 frontline and specialist family violence officers

42 new youth specialist officers

Metro police stations at Wyndham, Altona North, Reservoir and South Melbourne to be replaced

Regional police stations at Warracknabeal, Rutherglen, Wedderburn, Alexandra, Wycheproof and Tangambalanga to be replaced Advertisement

'The increase in theft of motor car and associated offences has really stretched police resources in dealing with that crime because it has been high in volume,' Mr Ashton said.

'It's often quite violent crime as well, so it's been challenging for police.'

The additional funding, combined with the 406 new officers included in this year's budget, will increase the total number of police recruitment to 3135.

That number is just shy of the police union's push for 3301 new officers to help relieve short-staffed stations.

The latest investment will include 415 specialist family violence officers and 42 youth specialist officers.

Up to 180 youths are responsible for almost one in four crimes in Victoria, including violent carjackings, armed robberies and home invasions, new statistics have revealed (stock image)

Another 2,729 officers will be recruited over the next four years, with the funding going towards building new police stations and expanding their specialist units (stock image)

The premier says 'business as usual won't cut it anymore' and police and the government are changing the way they allocate resources thanks to a new model developed with the police union.

'Recent events, and recent trends, have demonstrated to us that the boom and bust cycle of police recruitment is not the way to fight crime and keep our community safe,' he said.

Police Association secretary Ron Iddles said the new staff allocation model guarantees a long-term approach to policing.

'Every member of the Victorian community will benefit from this, regardless of what political persuasion you are,' he said.
Shocking video footage shows the moment a pack of vicious hounds brutally mauls a fox to death during an apparent illegal hunt.

The clip, shot on Saturday, shows the group of more than 20 dogs attack a helpless fox before it is plucked from the melee by an anti-hunt campaigner.

Its lifeless and dismembered body was then hauled over the shoulder of a man who walked off into the woodland with the pack of yelping canines behind him.

The fox's intestines can be seen hanging from its body while an activist carried the fox away in Chiddingstone Hoath, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

The large pack of hounds set upon the fox during the 'illegal hunt' near Chiddingstone Hoath near Tunbridge Wells, Kent

The fox's intestines can be seen hanging from its body while an activist carries the fox away in Chiddingstone Hoath, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent

The Hunt Saboteurs Association said the video, apparently featuring members of the Old Surrey Burstow & West Kent Hunt (OSB), has now been passed onto the police.

On its website, the OSB says it was founded in 1999, but has roots dating back to 1866, when a hunt called The Burstow began as a harrier pack.

The group now hosts an annual black-tie 70 ball at the Effingham Park Hotel near Crawley, West Sussex, for its members, as well as a puppy show judged by 'visiting masters and huntsmen'.

Hunting with dogs has been illegal in England since 2005. To get round the ban, modern hunts lay scent-based trails which the hounds follow instead of a live animal.

One of the hunt's alleged organisers, Mark Bycroft, denied any criminal activity had taken place and insisted his members had embarked on a legal trail hunt.

He said: 'I understand they found a dead fox in the wood but I wasn't there at the time so I don't know what has happened.

'We had about 25 people on horses and 40 to 50 people on foot. There were about three Land Rovers of the saboteurs - they come every week trying to disrupt what we are doing.

'They use hunting horns and play recordings and try to disrupt the hounds. If an incident has happened they are to blame.'

Lee Moon, Spokesperson for the Hunt Saboteurs Association, said: 'Mark Bycroft has previous convictions for assaulting hunt saboteurs.

'His hunts have also been filmed illegally chasing and killing foxes but have never been prosecuted for this due to the inadequacies of the police and the Hunting Act.

'We hope this time it will be different but won't hold our breath. Whether they get prosecuted or not, this video footage speaks for itself.

The pack of hounds surrounded the helpless animal and started ripping it apart on Saturday

The dogs surrounded the fox after going on the allegedly 'illegal hunt' on Saturday afternoon

Its lifeless and dismembered body was hauled over the shoulder of a man who walks off into the woodland

'Well done to the saboteurs present who, although they weren't able to save this particular fox have again highlighted the reality of hunting since the ban.'

A spokesman for the Hunt Saboteurs Association said the video was shot near Frienden Gill Wood, Kent, at approximately 3pm.

They added: 'Hunt saboteurs arrived just as the hounds were ripping the fox apart but were unable to save it.

'They retrieved the body and it has been taken to a sympathetic vet for autopsy. The incident is now being investigated by Kent Police.'

On the activists' website, they claim the hunt met at the Spotted Dog pub, just outside Tunbridge Wells, led by Mr Bycroft.

They then allegedly chased a fox for five or ten minutes before 'ripping it apart in the wood'.

A Kent Police spokesman said: 'Kent Police was called at 3.33pm on Saturday, December 3, 2016 to a report that a fox had been killed by dogs in Oakenden Lane, Chiddingstone Hoath.
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Whether the dusty romance of the desert or the thrill of a rugged game reserve appeals more, there is nothing quite like reconnecting with nature on your vacation.

From an Australian beach bolthole so remote it can only be reached by air to a Peruvian resort overlooking a lake, Conde Nast Traveller has chosen the worlds best wilderness hotels for 2017.

For a spell-binding sneak peek of the selection, which features in the January issues prestigious Gold List, read on.

Amangiri, Utah, USA

Amans desert sanctuary is set in an otherworldly Utah location with its swimming pool built from a 164million-year-old rock

If its disconnection you seek, this luxury desert retreat is ideal for couples, who can take advantage of the terrace fires, starry skies and roof-top beds

Amans desert sanctuary is set in an otherworldly Utah location with its swimming pool built from a 164million year old rock.

Conde Nast Traveller describes the contemporary aesthetic as a love letter to light, written in concrete'.

If its disconnection you seek, this luxury desert retreat is ideal. Couples can take advantage of the terrace fires, starry skies and roof-top beds. Meanwhile, adventure-seekers can discover canyons and Lake Powell nearby.

Berkeley River Lodge, Western Australia

Travel experts at Conde Nast rate this far-flung Australian resort because it offers absolute isolation and guests can only reach it by air

It doesnt get much more wild than Berkeley River Lodge in Australias far-flung The Kimberley.

The string of 20 villas are so isolated that guests can only reach them by helicopter or air taxi.

Guests are advised to swim in a nearby creek as the river and Timor Sea, which bedrooms overlook, are infested with sharks and crocodiles.

Titilaka, Lake Titicaca, Peru

After 14 action-packed activities offered by the hotel, including a catamaran trip and a visit to a historic site, guests can replenish their energy at one of the 18 bedrooms, which each have heated floors and large bath tubs

Heavenly views: Making the most of its breath-taking Lake Titicaca location, guests are rewarded with floor-to-ceiling windows throughout

Endless serenity awaits visitors to this colourful Peruvian gem.

Making the most of its breath-taking Lake Titicaca location, guests are rewarded with floor-to-ceiling windows throughout.

After 14 action-packed activities offered by the hotel, including a catamaran trip and a visit to a historic site, guests can replenish their energy at one of the 18 bedrooms, which each have heated floors and large bath tubs.

Jawai, Rajasthan, India

Call of the wild: Located between forests and hills, tigers regularly stalk around these nine lavish suites, dining tent and swimming pool in Rajasthan

Big cats and humans live harmoniously in this stretch of Rajasthan.

Located between forests and hills, tigers regularly stalk around these nine lavish suites, dining tent and swimming pool, according to the magazine.

The experts recommend the unique location to holidaymakers as it promises magic of the bewitching tail-twitching variety.

Singita Sabora Tented Camp, Grumeti, Tanzania

Where the wild things are: Just nine tents lie in the Great Migration path of a 350,000-acre private game reserve. Each tent is decorated with Persian rugs, antique mahogany and other luxury touches

If youre craving a stay immersed in nature with the opportunity for thrilling animal encounters then Singita ticks all the boxes.

Just nine tents lie in the Great Migration path of a 350,000-acre private game reserve.

The publication highlights that guests will not only marvel at the surrounds but will also be impressed by luxury touches at the camp, including tents decorated with Persian rugs and antique mahogany.
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Sailing into Cuba you're suddenly hit by a wave of colour while a stream of beeping car horns top off the sensory cocktail.

A multi-coloured patchwork of buildings line the shoreline of Old Havana with the neoclassical-style Capitolio standing tall.

The grand marble building - once home to the government - was emptied when communist leader Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and re-purposed as a science academy.

Currently it is covered in scaffolding as a renovation project will see it return to its original purpose, with president Raul Castro taking office at the central spot.

MailOnline Travel spent 48 hours exploring Cuba, seeking out some of the must-see spots in the space of two days.

Cityscape: Sailing into Cuba you're suddenly hit by a wave of colour while beeping car horns top off the sensory cocktail

Hotchpotch: A multi-coloured patchwork of buildings line the shoreline of Old Havana

Religious touch: The Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception is one of eleven Roman Catholic cathedrals on the island of Cuba

After docking at Havana following an overnight cruise from Jamaica, it was time to hit the streets.

Peeling paint, tumbled down brickwork and loose cobbles underfoot appeared to be running themes.

We stumbled across outdoor market stalls selling a jumble of fresh produce and narrow alleyways distracting us from our intended route.

While the bright and sunny streets are enough to keep you enthralled, another point of interest is the 18th century Roman Catholic cathedral with a grand facade and cool interiors.

Meeting the locals: Peeling paint, tumbled down brickwork and loose cobbles underfoot appeared to be running themes in Havana

Post your letters here: The paintwork in Havana is bright and sunny, with vintage fixtures completing the eclectic look

Cultural insight: The capital of Cuba, Havana, has a population of around 2.1 million inhabitants

Beep beep: To explore the city in style, grab a ride in one of the dozens of vintage American cars whizzing around

One thing we noticed on the Caribbean island was how the warm air envelopes you - the average temperature in Cuba is 27 degrees Celsius - and the sweaty weather definitely calls for a refreshing beverage.

El Floridita in Havana's historic old town was a well-known hangout of Ernest Hemingway.

Proud of its reputation as the The Cradle of the Daiquiri, there is really only one drink to order at the plush cocktail joint.

Sloppy Joe's saloon, an iconic Cuban bar that reopened in 2013 after a nearly 50-year break, is another potential place to take a pew.

Along with Hemingway, other well-known clients during the roaring pre-Castro era included film stars such as John Wayne, Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable.

Drinking hole: El Floridita in Havana's historic old town was a well-known hangout of Ernest Hemingway

Working up a thirst: Proud of its reputation as the The Cradle of the Daiquiri, there is really only one drink to order at the plush cocktail bar

Feast for the senses: If you can, continue journeying on to Cuba's iconic cabaret club, the Tropicana, which first opened its doors

Sense of history: Fidel Castro ruled over Cuba for nearly five decades, until handing off power to his younger brother Raul in 2008

There are many variations of the mojito to wet your whistle at the drinking hole.

To explore the city of Havana in style, grab a ride in one of the dozens of vintage American cars whizzing around.

Sunset is probably the best time for this, as you can watch the colours melt on the horizon with the top down as you go.

If you can, continue journeying on to Cuba's iconic Tropicana cabaret club in time for nightfall.

There are nightly shows at the open-air venue - which first opened its doors in 1939 - with show-stopping routines performed by a troupe of dancers, decked to the nines in outrageous outfits (Think bras lined with feathers and fruit bowl headdresses).

After a night of rest - the art nouveau Hotel Raquel comes highly recommended - hit the countryside to get some fresh air during your final 24 hours.

We headed to the Vinales Valley - about a two-and-a-half hour drive from Havana - to catch glimpse of the breathtaking landscape.

Lush: We headed to Vinales - about a two-and-a-half hour drive from Havana - to catch glimpse of the breathtaking landscape

Traditions: In Cuba's countryside you can visit tobacco farms (above, a barn where the tobacco leaves are dried)

Learning from a pro: A farmer shows how to use the dried tobacco leaves to make a proper Cuban cigar

A farmer driving his oxen and plough through a rust-colored tobacco field,

Rural roving: In the Pinar del Rio Province of Cuba, there are endless options when it comes to things to do

Here, in the Pinar del Rio Province of Cuba, there are endless options when it comes to things to do.

On our whirlwind tour we went on a boat ride through a network of caves at Cueva del Indio, we learned how to roll cigars with a farmer on a tobacco farm and we visited the Mural de la Prehistoria.

The 65.6-foot-long mural - which features the trippy mix of a huge snail, dinosaurs, sea monsters and humans - was designed in 1961 by Leovigildo Gonzalez Morillo and took 18 people four years to complete.

From Vinales, we returned to Havana and bode a fond farewell to the city after our short-lived stay.

If you have more time, there's plenty more of Cuba to explore, from hitting the white sand beaches on the coast, to adventuring to the coffee plantations in the mountainous east.

Passing by: One-story wooden houses with porches are commonplace while driving through the Cuban countryside

Hard at work: A farmer drives his oxen and plough through a rust-colored tobacco field in Vinales

An ox rests under a tree to beat the heat in the Pinar del Rio Province of Cuba
Hotel Bibles are on the brink of extinction a new survey suggests, as modern amenities such as WiFi take priority.

According to new research, just 46 per cent of hotel rooms in the U.S. feature religious materials, less than half of what it was a decade ago.

In comparison, 98 per cent of rooms now have wireless internet, up from 82 per cent ten years ago.

On the out: Hotel Bibles are on the brink of extinction a new survey suggests, as modern amenities such as WiFi take priority

High definition or flat screen TVs are now in 88 per cent of U.S. rooms and there is also more emphasis on healthy living, with 85 per cent of hotels offering free fitness facilities.

The American Hotel and Lodging Association and hotel research firm STR quizzed 8,000 hotel managers as part of the research.

Supporting the findings, Marriott International, the worlds largest hotel chain, has recently decided that no religious materials should be offered at two of its newest outposts.

A spokesperson for the company, told the Los Angeles Times that this is because the religious books 'dont fit the personality' of the millennial-inspired Moxy and Edition hotel brands.

One hotel which is bucking the Bible downtrend however, is Donald Trump's new Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

In keeping with tradition: One hotel which is bucking the Bible downtrend however, is Donald Trump's new Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The rooms reportedly come with a Gideon Bible in the nightstand with the offering of other religious texts on request.

According to a reviewer from The Washington Post, a note left with the Christian Bible reads: 'If you would like to continue your spiritual journey, we also offer the followings [sic]: Talmud. Quran. Gita. Avesta. Tripitaka (Pali Canon). Shri Guru Granth Sahib. Book of Mormon. Kindly contact Housekeeping should you wish to have one delivered to your room.'

Over in the UK, hotel Bibles are also becoming more of a rarity.

In 2014 Travelodge made the decision to remove Bibles from its rooms to avoid upsetting non-Christians.

The decision was swiftly condemned as tragic and bizarre by the Church of England, which said Bibles in hotel rooms are important to provide hope, comfort and inspiration to travellers.

But the chain, which runs 500 hotels, said the country was becoming increasingly multicultural and it had taken the action for diversity reasons.

Growing trend: In 2014 Travelodge made the decision to remove Bibles from its rooms to avoid upsetting non-Christians

It said the policy was implemented in order not to discriminate against any religion  despite having had no complaints from guests.

Bibles were taken away at the same time as a refurbishment of its rooms, removing drawers where they were kept.

The Bibles, which were provided free by the Gideon Society, were retained and are stored behind reception for guests to borrow on request, the company said.

Travelodge was the first national hotel chain to remove Bibles  although in 2012 one independent hotel, the Damson Dene Hotel in Crosthwaite, Cumbria, replaced them with the erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey.

A Travelodge spokesman said at the time: 'The removal of Bibles from hotel rooms was a policy we decided upon in 2007 and has been gradually implemented over the following years.
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A freezing wind whips the desolate, undulating landscape - it looks as if it could be another planet far from Earth.

In fact, this is Beechey Island in the Canadian high Arctic, the place where two ships from the ill-fated 1845 Franklin Expedition anchored with perilous results.

MailOnline Travel docked at the remote stretch of land during the summer months, to visit the spot where three of the some 130 crew members were put to rest.

Cropping up at slight angles on the shores of the shingle beach, wooden grave stones mark the burial sites of Petty Officer John Torrington, Royal Marine Private William Braine, and Able Seaman John Hartnell.

A frost-proof plastic orange flower rests by one of the timber markers.

Laid to rest: Beechey Island, located in the Canadian high Arctic, is the place where two ships from the ill-fated 1845 Franklin Expedition anchored with perilous results

A fourth placard indicates the resting place of Thomas Morgan, a sailor who died during the McClure Arctic Expedition of 1850, which was one of several British search efforts to determine the fate of the Franklin's lost expedition.

The burial sites have an eerie feel, with no other man-made material in sight.

Each grave has a bronze plaque, detailing the men's ages.

Torrington, is listed as 20 at the time of his death, while Hartness was 25, Braine was 32 and Morgan was 34.

HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were abandoned by their crews after a failed attempt to complete a crossing of the Northwest Passage - a sea route through the Arctic connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Times gone by: Wooden grave markers at the burial sites of Petty Officer John Torrington (seen above), Royal Marine Private William Braine, and Able Seaman John Hartnell - a fourth placard indicates the resting place of a sailor named Thomas Morgan

A place of extremes: The temperatures at Beechey island range from six degrees Celsius during the summer months to minus 36 degrees Celsius in the winter

Soldier and explorer Sir John Franklin sailed in Erebus and took overall command of the expedition, despite being late in his career at the age of 59.

The two state-of-the-art ships were heralded as 'unstoppable' when they were launched in 1845 under Sir John's command.

They were last seen entering Baffin Bay, on the southwest coast of Greenland in August 1845.

Both ships later became icebound and were abandoned by their crews, in total about 130 men, all of whom subsequently died from a number of causes, including hypothermia, scurvy and starvation, while trying to trek overland to the south.

The disappearance of the Franklin expedition set off a massive search effort in the Arctic.

Remote spot: The Franklin Expedition ships became icebound during the search for the Northwest Passage, the men ended up wintering on Beechey Island (located above)

Navigation woes: Even in the summer months it is difficult to sail in the high Arctic, with hazardous ice blocking routes

The broad circumstances of the expedition's fate were first revealed when Hudson's Bay Company doctor John Rae collected artifacts and testimony from local Inuit in 1853.

Later expeditions up to 1866 confirmed these reports.

In 1981, a team of scientists led by Owen Beattie, a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, began a series of scientific studies of the graves left by Franklin's men on Beechey Island.

With permission to exhume the bodies, the team were stunned to find the men and their coffins perfectly preserved thanks to the Arctic cold.

Making waves: An illustration of Sir John Franklin's North Arctic exploration published on Le Tour du Monde, Paris, 1860

Flashback: A painting of the HMS Erebus trapped in ice as the British exploration ship that was abandoned on an ill-fated mission to travel through the fabled North West Passage

A complete medical autopsy revealed that the men suffered from extreme malnutrition in their final days and there was also high levels of lead in some of their systems.

This would lent credibility to the theory that the entire Franklin expedition suffered from lead poisoning as a result of a poorly canned food supply.

Further discoveries in 1992 also backed up claims of cannibalism among crew members, including bones cut to expose marrow.

On the boat front, on September 7 2014 Erebus was finally discovered near King William Island in the eastern Queen Maud Gulf, Canada, using a remotely operated underwater vehicle.

Two months later the ship's bell was recovered from the wreckage.

The discovery this autumn of the HMS Terror is expected to lead to further finds.

TRAVEL FACTS Air Canada operates daily non-stop flight from London Heathrow to Ottawa, with return economy flights starting from 563.75 (incl. taxes, December 2016). Find out more at www.aircanada.com or call reservations on 0871 220 1111. One Ocean Expeditions' 12-day trip 'Baffin Island - Jewel of the high Arctic' departs on July 25 in 2017, with stops at Beechey Island's grave sites. Prices start from 5,389 for a triple share cabin with return charter flights to the start and finish destinations costing 1,537. The Fairmont Chateau Laurier in Ottowa - the starting point - has rooms starting from 266. The Fairmont Hotel Macdonald in Edmonton - the finishing point - has rooms starting from 158. Advertisement




For years, Simon Cowell has celebrated the festive season in style by frolicking on board a luxury yacht with a string of beautiful ex-girlfriends for company.

Photos of him sprawled out on the deck alongside old flames Sinitta, model Jackie St Clair and make-up artist Mezhgan Hussainy have been beamed around the world.

But this year Simon's 'harem' has been dealt a devastating blow after the X Factor tycoon ditched his playboy image and told them: Sorry, Christmas is cancelled.

The exes will be spending the big day without him for he first time in years so that Simon can instead play happy families in the Caribbean with his girlfriend Lauren Silverman, their two-year-old son Eric, and Adam, Lauren's ten-year-old son from her marriage to property magnate Andrew Silverman.

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Simon Cowell will instead instead play happy families in the Caribbean with his girlfriend Lauren Silverman and their two-year-old son Eric (pictured together)

It's a significant moment for Cowell, who had been banned from seeing Adam by his father. Andrew was once Simon's best pal, but unsurprisingly their friendship turned decidedly sour when he learned that Lauren was carrying Simon's child.

A mole tells me: 'This Christmas is a real turning point for Simon because he has been allowed to spend it with Adam and he is taking it very seriously by cancelling his usual holiday with the harem. Instead, he is whisking Lauren and the kids off to sail around the Caribbean.'

It is thought that Lauren is particularly pleased that Cowell has decided to ditch his harem. Previously, Cowell has spent Christmas at the exclusive Sandy Lane resort in Barbados  where other regular guests include Topshop boss Sir Philip Green  before hopping aboard a yacht for a trip to the millionaires' paradise of St Barts.

This year he will fly to Sandy Lane for a charity ball in aid of the Hope Sanctuary animal charity on December 23, and set sail with his family soon after. However, he will be returning in time for Barbados's famous fireworks display on New Year's Eve, while Adam will jet to New York to be reunited with his father.

For years, Simon Cowell has celebrated the festive season in style by frolicking on board a luxury yacht with a string of beautiful ex-girlfriends for company

Helen Mirren was thrilled when she was invited to become a 'nude' 2017 Pirelli calendar girl alongside Uma Thurman and Kate Winslet. Then she got the bad news  she had to keep her kit ON. Helen, right, was expecting to put on a raunchy performance. 'I arrived thinking I would have black eyes and red lips, and rock a decadent, sexy look,' she said at the calendar's Paris launch last week. 'Then the photographer told me to take off all my make-up and gave me a hairy blanket to put on.' Photographer Peter Lindbergh claimed the women were nude because the camera had 'stripped them to soul'. But Helen says: 'To be truly nude you have to be naked, not hidden.'
I hear that the Duchess of York made everyone around her hot and bothered at the British Curry Awards even before they'd eaten anything spicy.

Fergie was guest of honour at the party, but she arrived late and took to the stage even later  much to the annoyance of the audience  and then blamed her tardiness on problems with her sari. But word at the event was that the sari designer, who was supposed to help Sarah get changed, went to her London house but couldn't get in. It could be time for Sarah to fix her doorbell.

Fergie arrived late and took to the stage even later  much to the annoyance of the audience  and then blamed her tardiness on problems with her sari

In these security-conscious times, I wasn't surprised to see last week's star-studded Victoria's Secret lingerie catwalk show in Paris's Grand Palais protected by an army of guards. But I was taken aback to see beautiful Dutch supermodel Doutzen Kroes  a star of the event  being turned away. Doutzen, 31, arrived with male model Jordan Barrett, but while he was allowed to walk straight in, she was ticked off for not having a special VIP pass. Perhaps the bouncers didn't recognise her with her clothes on.

Gerald Grosvenor, the late Duke of Westminster, may have been the third-richest man in Britain thanks to a 9 billion property portfolio, but he had humble tastes. So it was fitting that after his memorial service at Chester Cathedral last week, mourners including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were invited to drink soup from mugs at a racetrack on his Eaton Estate. The touchingly low-key arrangement was made by the Duke's heir, Hugh, 25, who at the service gave a moving reading of Rudyard Kipling's poem If.
Matt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso were spotted hand-in-hand Friday night, out for a date night as they left a celeb staple Hollywood hotspot.

The two were caught leaving the loungey, classic Italian spot, The Nice Guy, located in West Hollywood.

Luciana looked effortlessly beautiful, dressed in an all black jumpsuit.

Two cute: Matt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso were spotted hand in hand Friday night, out for a date night as they left a celeb staple Hollywood hotspot

She was wearing a high pony tail with dangling earrings and red lip, with red ankle-strap heels to match.

The former bartender carried a small, red bag.

Her hubby kept it casual in a black hooded sweater, black hat, jeans and dark brown boots.

Chic: She was wearing a high pony tail with dangling earrings and red lip, with red ankle-strap heels to match

The couple will have been married for 11 years on December 9.

Their success might have something to do with their sort of famous (or at least it should be) two-week rule.

The doting hubby has said: ' I'm not away for more than two weeks. I think you need to be with the person you love as much as possible.'

He added: 'My wife is my soul mate. I don't like being apart from her.'

Romance on the red carpet: the actor and his wife rock the red carpet at the European premiere for Jason Bourne on July 11, 2016 in London

Jason Bourne: The title character and the staple actor of the Bourne series returned for the fifth installment of the saga

The two-week rule might have been a tough one in 2016, because the actor, writer and producer has had very a busy year.

He's starred in or produced two major movies that came out in 2016, to include Manchester by the Sea and Jason Bourne. Manchester by the Sea, the story of a handyman called upon to raise his 16-year-old newpew, is out in theaters now.

Jason Bourne, the fifth installment in the Bourne series, came out in July 2016. Damon has starred in all but one of the movies in the series.

He'll kick off 2017 with the release of The Great Wall in February, an American-Chinese historical fiction action adventure film directed by Zhang Yimou.

No days off: The star from Massachusetts will kick off 2017 with the release of The Great Wall, an American-Chinese historical fiction action adventure film directed by Zhang Yimou
They've been sharing ever more loving snaps and video clips on social media for months, fueling rumours of romance.

And on Friday, Becca Tilley finally admitted that she is in a relationship with her hunky Bachelor Nation co-star Robert Graham.

'I am dating Robert,' the 26-year-old told Us Weekly at 102.7 KIIS FM's Jingle Ball 2016 in Los Angeles.

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Up close and personal: On Friday Becca Tilley finally admitted that she is in a relationship with her hunky Bachelor Nation co-star Robert Graham, pictured at an event in Miami in July

'We've been friends for a long time and it was just a natural progression, and he's just amazing and been patient with me,' the chiropractic assistant dished.

'I need someone that's patient and willing to deal with me, and he's been that way. So it's been fun, it's been an easy transition.'

Fortunately for 33-year-old Robert, Becca didn't receive the winning rose in 2015 when she was the runner-up on Chris Soules' season 19 of The Bachelor.

She was asked back for season 20 with Ben Higgins this year when she finished fifth.

Getting it out there: The 26-year-old, who slipped her slender body into a black miniskirt and bustiere, revealed her romantic status in an interview at 102.7 KIIS FM's Los Angeles Jingle Ball

Meanwhile, Robert competed on Desiree Hartsock's season 9 of The Bachelorette in 2013 before starring in the inaugural season of Bachelor In Paradise.

The former competitors often hang out together and that's likely how Becca and Robert, an advertising entrepreneur based in Glendale, Arizona, met.

'We have the same group of friends so it's very natural when we hang out and it's very, just, casual,' the San Diego native told Us. 'I just like him.'

I had this video secretly made while we were in Greece  Becca didn't know I was doing it, and I'm pretty sure was annoyed with me 20-60% of the time I asked her to go to random places while @joonaskent (sort of) undercover filmed us.... worth it @beccatilley A video posted by Robert Graham (@robertgraham) on Nov 28, 2016 at 11:03am PST

Hanging out last Christmas: Becca and Robert looked like much more than friends when they were spotted at an event together in Los Angeles last December

The couple sparked relationship rumors earlier this year after Becca shared shots of themselves together.

In November, they visited New York City together, and posed for selfies at the One World Observatory and Central Park. 'Like ya lots,' Tilley captioned one Instagram shot.

The pair reunited for Thanksgiving when Graham visited her in Los Angeles. 'He came home from Arizona and had a Thanksgiving meal prepared for me since I didn't have one yesterday!' she gushed on Instagram on November 26. '@robertgraham - you're the best!'
The moral of her tale... never scratch your butt on a sacred rock when you're in Hawaii because it could kill someone.

That's according to Jennifer Lawrence, who told the hilarious story on BBC One's Graham Norton Show in London on Friday night.

The late-night host kicked off the conversation by saying: 'You filmed some of The Hunger Games films in Hawaii...'

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Ready for a chat: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt and Jamie Oliver appeared on BBC One's Graham Norton Show in London on Friday night

At which the surprised 26-year-old actress cut in saying: 'Oh God, how do you know about this?'

And she raised her glass to whoever it was that spilled the beans, as the audience laughed.

It turns out that Jennifer was wearing a wet suit for a scene when her bum became itchy, so she sat on a rock and began rubbing it back and forth to scratch it.

'It ended up coming loose,' Jennifer giggled. 'And it was a giant boulder and it rolled down this mountain and it almost killed our sound guy!'

'Oh God, how do you know about this?' The 26-year-old actress was caught off guard when Graham asked her about one incident during filming on The Hunger Games in Hawaii and jokingly raised her glass to whoever had spilled the beans

To make matters worse the rocks are sacred to the indigenous people 'and youre not supposed to sit on them,' she added.

'It was this huge dramatic deal and all the Hawaiians were like, "Its the curse!" And Im over in the corner going, "Im your curse. I wedged it loose with my ass." 

Jennifer looked chic in a black velvet dress and jacket with her blonde hair in an elegant updo for the interview.

And here's the story: Jennifer was wearing a wet suit for a scene when her bum became itchy, so she rubbed it against a rock that came loose, 'rolled down this mountain and almost killed our sound guy,' she admitted

Promo tour: Graham with Jennifer, Chris and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. The two actors were on the show to talk up their new sci-fi flick, Arrivals

She and Chris Pratt were on the show to promote their new sci-fi movie, Passengers.

They play two people who wake up 90 years too soon from an induced hibernation on board a spaceship bound for a new planet.

Also starring Michael Sheen, Andy Garcia and Laurence Fishburne, it's due out on December 21 in the US and the UK.
She's known for her famous father and for dating Justin Bieber.

But on Sunday, Hailey Baldwin was the one stealing the spotlight for once as she strutted through Sydney airport trailed by fans and photographers.

At one point, things got so heated that an eager fan plunged to the ground in the scuffle surrounding the aspiring A-lister.

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Have a nice trip? Hailey Baldwin tended to an overzealous fan at Sydney airport on Sunday

Thankfully, Hailey was there to help the fallen female admirer back up.

The socialite is currently in Australia to promote budget tanning and cosmetics line ModelCo.

The blonde beauty has collaborated with the affordable brand on a number of limited edition products, including beige lipsticks, eyebrow pencils, and Instagram-ready highlights.

She's tripping! The eager fan plunged to the ground in a bid to get close to Hailey

Concerned: The 20-year-old was quick to tend to the disheveled admirer

Humble: Despite her celebrity status, Hailey wasn't too famous to go out of her way to lend a helping hand

Before arriving Down Under, Hailey was in Paris to watch BFFs Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid walk in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

The daughter of Celebrity Big Brother UK star Stephen Baldwin has previously confessed that appearing in the Victoria's Secret show is her 'dream.'

'I want to walk in the Victoria's Secret show,' the 20-year-old Instagram model told Daily Mail in October.

It's Haileymania! The socialite was besieged by fans demanding photos

Signing her life away: The daughter of Stephen Baldwin signed autographs for her fans

Don't get too close! Hailey leaned in for a photo, yet still tried to maintain a comfortable distance

Working girl: The ex-girlfriend of Justin Bieber is in Australia for a modelling gig with budget cosmetics brand ModelCo

She added: 'It's every girl's dream.'

Unfortunately, the star has been unable to turn her Victoria's Secret dreams into a reality like Kendall, Gigi, and Bella Hadid all have.

While she hasn't been able to represent the world's hottest lingerie label like her A-list pals, she's still manged to model for a few budget brands like TopShop and Britain's Public Desire footwear.

Despite her Hollywood lifestyle, which often sees her out partying and wearing an array of skimpy ensembles, Hailey is known for her love of the Bible.

'I want to walk in the Victoria's Secret show:' The Instagram model recently opened up about her dream to model for Victoria's Secret

'It's every girl's dream': While BFFs Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner have made it to the Victoria's Secret runway, Hailey has yet to fulfill her dream

Making the most out of it: While she hasn't qualified for Victoria's Secret yet, the 5ft 7in stunner has modeled for budget brands like TopShop and Britain's Public Desire footwear

In a video shared to Instagram in June, the 5ft 7in stunner was seen reciting books of the bible in a rapid fire fashion.

' U dont wanna challenge me on those bible books,' she captioned the clip.

The God-fearing bombshell previously spent time in Australia hobnobbing with the Hillsong Church's elite alongside ex-boyfriend and fellow devout Christian Justin Bieber.

Jesus Christ! Despite her Hollywood lifestyle, which often sees her out partying and wearing an array of skimpy ensembles, Hailey is known for her love of the Bible

Oh God: In a video shared to Instagram in June, the social media stunner was seen reciting books of the bible titles in a rapid fire fashion

Praise him! The God-fearing bombshell previously spent time in Australia hobnobbing with the Hillsong Church's elite alongside ex-boyfriend and fellow Christian Justin Bieber
After just a year with the company, the 27-year-old has been given the opportunity of a lifetime.

Ashlee Mullany flew to the US last week ahead of taking a job in Channel Seven's United States bureau.

The reporter will begin work in the US this week, according to The Daily Telegraph.

'A bit of a whirlwind': After just a year with the network, Channel Seven reporter Ashlee Mullany has been sent to the US to fill the correspondent job left by Angela Cox last week

She explained to TV Insider ahead of her departure the promotion had 'happened quite quickly' and been a 'bit of a whirlwind'.

'There is a lot to get my head around but I'm looking forward to just immersing myself in the news in the States and covering some of the really big [court] cases as well.'

Prior to her employment with the network, Ashlee worked as a courts and crime reporter for the Telegraph.

It is understood Channel Seven are sending her to the States to fill the position left by veteran Angela Cox, who returned to Sydney earlier this week.

Back in the swing of things: Angela Cox arrived back in Sydney after seven years at the US bureau and read her first bulletin on Weekend Sunrise on Saturday

The presenter returned to Weekend Sunrise as a news presenter on Saturday, and it is rumoured the move is permanent.

A tweet from her sister Belinda appears to back up the rumours, which are yet to be confirmed by Channel Seven.

'Woohoo, my sister is back in Australia and back with the weekend Sunrise team,' she wrote on Saturday.

She's back! Though it is yet to be officially confirmed, Angela's sister took to Twitter to announce the reporter's new job. It is not known if the role is permanent

A bit of everything! During her time overseas, Angela covered everything from the recent US election to the Emmys

With Angela back in Australia and her former position in the US now filled, it remains to be seen what will become of current Weekend Sunrise news presenter Talitha Cummins.

The 36-year-old took the job in 2014, and is yet to announce a move.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel Seven for comment.

What will become of Talitha? The current Weekend Sunrise newsreader is yet to announce a move, and with Angela Cox appearing to have taken her job, it is not known where the reporter will move to
Duck Dynasty star Rebecca Robertson tied the knot with fiance John Reed Loflin in Mexico on Saturday.

The bride was walked down the aisle by dad and Duck Commander CEO, Willie, 44.

Sister Sadie Robertson, 19, shared a snap of the gorgeous bride and the bridal party, her sisters and sister-in-law Mary Kate.

Just married: Duck Dynasty star Rebecca Robertson tied the knot with fiance John Reed Loflin in Mexico on Saturday

Rebecca wore a Sherri Hill gown, complete with a sheer, overlay duster tied in a bow at the front.

'WOW WOW WOW what a wedding. every single moment was just absolutely priceless. I will cherish the memories forever! I love seeing my family grow <3 12.3.16 #loflinweddedwife,' said the Live Original author.

The snap featured Mary Kate, Rebecca, Bella and Sadie. For make-up, the newly-wed wore a deep, smokey eye and nude lip, Her hair was styled in loose waves, complete with a side braid.

The bridesmaids looked beautiful in a printed, cap-sleeve gowns. For their bouquets, the ladies carried a collection of greenery and baby's breath flowers.

WOW WOW WOW what a wedding every single moment was just absolutely priceless. I will cherish the memories forever! I love seeing my family grow <3 12.3.16 #loflinweddedwife A photo posted by Sadie Robertson (@legitsadierob) on Dec 3, 2016 at 5:14pm PST

Father-daughter tradition: The bride was walked down the aisle by dad and Duck Commander CEO, Willie, 44

'What you think you look like': The stunning brunette, 28, showed off her glamourous hair and make-up prep on Instagram

Earlier in the day, mum Korie took to Instagram to share a behind-the-scenes shot of the beautiful bride and her party getting ceremony ready.

Wedding guests were staying at the Hotel Esencia in Mexico.

'The bride and her ladies,' wrote the Robertson matriarch, along with the couple's official hashtag,#loflineweddedwife.'

In love: Rebecca shared a sweet kiss with John at their rehearsal dinner on Friday night

Scanning away! The couple, who became engaged on December 31 last year, snapped a photo while registering for gifts at Target

Rebecca shared a dazzling smile, dressed in a printed robe. Sister-in-law MaryKate embraced her with a side hug.

Sister Sadie was front and center in the make-up chair while youngest sister Bella stood on the opposite side of the bride, looking relaxed in a bridal party T-shirt.

Ducks And Dressing owner Rebecca, who has a background in fashion design, assisted in the creation of her custom Sherri Hill gown.

So excited! The attractive duo shared a silly snap of themselves prepping to fly to their wedding destination

'The bride and her ladies': Earlier on Saturday, mum Korie took to Instagram to share a behind-the-scenes shot of the beautiful bride and her party getting ceremony ready

In an interview with The Knot, the stunning brunette revealed that her famous family of sisters flew to Austin to help assist in the dress shopping experience.

'It was incredible and I loved having them all there to help me. It was crazy, it actually seemed like we were all on the same page, and that doesn't usually happen in our family! Haha,' she joked.

In weeks leading up to her big day, the 28-year-old has excitedly been preparing for it with various activities.

Last week, Rebecca, Korie and Sadie enjoyed a day of relaxation as they received mani-pedis ahead of the wedding.

Wedding fun! (L-R) Chrys Howard, Rebecca, Sadie, Bella and Korie snapped a photo during the bride's White-Christmas-themed tea party last week

Fancy! The girls also posed in traditional tea time hats

Additionally, the ladies, including Bella and Korie's mum, Chrys Howard, got together for a bridal party tea party.

The White-Christmas-themed dinner was beautifully decorated with elegant gold decor, candles, flowers, Christmas trees and angels.

On Halloween 2014, Rebecca met her soon-to-be husband at the Voodoo Music Festival in New Orleans, and they begin dating one month later.

It took just over one year for the John to know Rebecca was the one he wanted in his life forever. On December 31, 2015, he proposed to her with a 14-karat gold, opal ring decorated with tiny diamonds, created by Lindsay Lewis, a Chicago jewellery designer.

Glamourous! Rebecca was elegant in white during a bridal party held in her honour

Country girls! The beauty held her bachelorette weekend in Texas

Their beginning: On Halloween 2014, Rebecca met her soon-to-be husband at the Voodoo Music Festival in New Orleans , and they begin dating one month later

'He took me on a treasure hunt on the beach at sunset and he had the ring hidden in a seashell!,' she began.

'I was determined to find the best shell that day  we had been walking and searching for like an hour  and I saw this beautiful swirly shell hidden in the sand, and the ring was hiding in there.'

'He got on his one knee as I pulled the ring out, and he said, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you spend the rest of your life with me? 'I immediately said yes!'

While Rebecca was surely surprised, her family already knew John was planning to propose.

Different! On December 31, 2015, he proposed to her with a 14-karat gold, opal ring decorated with tiny diamonds, created by Lindsay Lewis, a Chicago jewellery designer

'We love her fiance. He's so nice,' said little sister Bella, in an interview with Youtube channel Bravely Brittany earlier this year.

And one night we were all sitting at the dinner table and...somebody said something about a ring, and he looked over at me and was like, "There may be one in the making."'

'And I said, "John Reed, you just said that right in front of Rebecca!" I was like, "She's sitting right there!" He was like, "She can't hear me."'

'And I was just in shock the rest of the night. But it was so fun. He's so sweet. We love him,' said the 14-year-old.
She's the bubbly blonde model who regularly shares bikini-clad images to her more than 650,000 Instagram followers.

And Natalie Roser showcased her enviable frame in a cleavage-baring playsuit in Sydney on Saturday.

The 25-year-old turned heads in her floral ensemble as she celebrated the debut of Heineken Saturday at Bondi's Royal Croquet Club.

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Busty babe! Model Natalie Roser flaunts her enviable figure in cleavage-baring floral playsuit at the debut of Heineken Saturday at Bondi's Royal Croquet Club on Saturday

The former Miss Universe Australia's ensemble flaunted her ample assets, including her taut abs and lithe legs.

The design complemented Natalie's busty figure, with the Maxim cover girl drawing further attention to her perky bosoms by hanging her sunglasses and draping her choker necklace between her cleavage.

The blonde beauty was seen chugging down a beer in the summer heat as she sat on a stool with a male friend.

Cheers to the weekend! The blonde beauty was seen chugging down a beer in the summer heat as she sat on a stool with a male friend whose attention seemed to be on her outfit

Flaunt it! The design complemented Natalie's busty figure, with the Maxim cover girl drawing further attention to her perky bosoms by hanging her sunglasses and draping her choker necklace between her cleavage

Spilling out! The twisted material covering her chest seemed unable to contain her ample assets, as at times her frilled bra was visible from under the short romper

The bottoms skimmed her upper thigh, allowing for a complete view of her bronzed pins at the outside event.

The twisted material covering her chest seemed unable to contain her ample assets, as at times her frilled bra was visible from under the short romper.

She added to the summery, bohemian outfit with a large floral headpiece atop her long blonde tresses.

Leggy display! The bottoms skimmed her upper thigh, allowing for a complete view of her bronzed pins in her high-heeled black boots at the outside event

The Sydney-based stunner accessorised with black boots, a fringed bag, rope choker and sunglasses.

Natalie applied dark eyeshadow and mascara for her event look, with a light pink lipstick used to highlight her bronzed complexion.

She is currently engaged to Dan Adair, but rumours have surfaced of potential difficulties between the pair as she has been spotted without her engagement ring on multiple occasions in the past few weeks.
He's shortly set to tie the knot with Ronnie Mitchell following a rocky road to romance.

And Jack Branning will certainly be letting loose on his rowdy stag do, organised by close pal Mick Carter (Danny Dyer), as upcoming scenes from the BBC One soap show.

The groom-to-be, played by Scott Maslen, can be seen getting into the festive spirit for his winter wedding.

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Knocking back the drinks: Jack Branning will certainly be letting loose on his rowdy stag do, organised by close pal Mick Carter, in scenes set to air on EastEnders this month

Dressed in Santa suits, Mick and the lads take Jack to the Queen Vic, where they proceed to get him very drunk on shots.

According to Radio Times, tensions will run high during the bash, with Lee reluctant to joing the gang.

Martin Fowler (James Bye) will take matters into his own hands when he discovers the council have a fancy Christmas tree, while Albert Square residents haven't been allowed one.

Festive fun: The groom-to-be, played by Scott Maslen, can be seen getting into the festive spirit for his winter wedding

Boys' night out: Dressed in Santa suits, Mick and the lads take Jack to the Queen Vic, where they proceed to get him very drunk on shots

As the big day approaches, fans are preparing to bid farewell to Ronnie and her sister Roxy, who are allegedly set to be killed off.

It's safe to say that Ronnie has had her fair share of drama, having killed her father, lost two babies tragically and found herself locked-up for kidnapping.

The unlucky soap siren will reportedly meet her end on her big day after she finds her sister Roxy (Rita Simmons) dead in a swimming pool.

Bowing out with a splash: Ronnie Mitchell (played by Samantha Womack) is reportedly set to drown in her wedding dress

According to The Sun, the two sisters will go out the same way after Ronnie tries to save her sister's life.

The plot-line will see a drunken Roxy meet her end by falling into a swimming pool after Ronnie ties the knot with Jack Branning for a second time.

The wedding day drama has only just begun though, as the tragedy will be compounded when her devoted sister finds her.

Spotting Roxy's lifeless corpse in the pool, Ronnie - still in bridal gown - will fall into the water as she tries to recover her sister's body.

Doomed: The unlucky soap siren will reportedly meet her end on her big day after she finds her sister Roxy (Rita Simmons) dead in a swimming pool

Weighed down by the billowing, heavy gown, viewers will see her pulled under the surface to her death.

Speaking to the paper, a show insider said: 'Ronnie has had some grim storylines, it's fitting she goes in similar fashion.'

The news of the sister's demise appears to confirm reports in October that alleged the sisters would be killed off in an incident involving a swimming pool.

No happy ending: The plot-line will see a drunken Roxy meet her end by falling into a swimming pool after Ronnie ties the knot with Jack Branning for a second time

Going out together: Spotting Roxy's lifeless corpse in the pool, Ronnie - still in bridal gown - will fall into the water as she tries to recover her sister's body

It was reported that the 'grisly' and 'gruesome' deaths have been written in the hopes of it being on of the big dates in the soap-land calendar.

The two blonde actresses shocked fans when they announced their departure from the long-running BBC soap back in August, just days apart from each other.

'From the minute it was revealed they were leaving, and even before, the writers have been trying to think of a brilliant way to kill them off,' the insider added.

A date to remember? It was reported that the 'grisly' and 'gruesome' deaths have been written in the hopes of it being on of the big dates in the soap-land calendar.

However the news of the Mitchell sisters' demise has sparked outrage amongst many EastEnders fans, and has even angered the Soap's most iconic actress.

Last week Dame Barbara Windsor slammed the show's bosses for killing off the two Hell-raising sisters.

Responding to the death's of her on-screen nieces, part of a shake-up by the soap's new boss Sean O'Connor, the 79-year-old actress insisted it was a mistake.

She told The Sun: 'It wasn't the girls' choice. It's the new producer's decision.

Soap icon: Barbara Windsor has slammed EastEnders for killing off the Mitchell sisters in upcoming scenes

'I'm sure he'll be good for the show, but that is a mistake. When I heard, I was shocked.'

Rita, 39, and Sam, 43, who play Roxy and Ronnie respectively, have been beloved members of the cast since 2007 when they were introduced as the cousins of Phil and Grant Mitchell.

The planned exits of Roxy and Ronnie have been instigated by O'Connor, who also recently killed off characters Margaret Midhurst and Paul Coker.

Mistake: Barbara's onscreen nieces Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell (played by Samantha Womack and Rita Simons) are set to die as part of a shake-up of the soap by new boss Sean O'Connor

The insider added: 'People are worried who's going to be next. The script for Roxy and Ronnie's deaths has been written, but none of the actors know what's going to happen.'

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the BBC told MailOnline that while the girls were thought to be set to drown to death, the show is actually filming multiple endings.

Samantha confirmed she was leaving first to pursue other projects, before a BBC spokesperson said soon after of her co-star: 'We can confirm that Rita Simons will be leaving EastEnders.

Shock exit: Barbara herself, bowed out of the soap this summer by taking a fatal overdose to end her battle with terminal cancer

'Having joined the show in 2007, Rita immediately won the hearts of the audience in the role of Roxy Mitchell and between her and Samantha Womack they created one of the most iconic duos EastEnders has ever seen.

'Alongside Samantha, Rita was recently offered to take part in the same big storyline that will see the Mitchell sisters depart Walford, but we will not be releasing any further details at this time. We wish Rita all the best for the future.'

Following the announcement, Rita wrote on Twitter: 'Thanku guys 4 all the continued love & support u have shown me (and Roxy) over the years. I'm so grateful for my time on EE. Love to u all.'

She added: 'As the saying goes 'Mitchell sisters..together forever' @Sam_Womack Haaaaa you're stuck with me sis!'

Barbara herself, bowed out of the soap this summer by taking a fatal overdose to end her battle with terminal cancer.
The American model arrived in Australia on Saturday to promote her new line of cosmetics.

And Hailey Baldwin made sure everyone knew she was in town as she stepped out in a sheer pantsuit for a yacht party in Sydney on Sunday, which showed off her pert posterior.

The 20-year-old's modesty was only covered by what appeared to be a high cut white swimsuit, which left little to the imagination.

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Sheer delight! Hailey Baldwin stepped out in a white sheer pantsuit to attend a yacht party in Sydney on Sunday

The see-through pantsuit showed off the blonde's lithe legs, which she accentuated with a pair of strappy white stilettos.

Though she is known for her very svelte frame, the bizarre outfit did her no favours as it billowed in the wind.

After walking on to the opulent boat with confidence, the Arizona-born beauty appeared to become self conscious of her cheeky display.

No ifs or butts about it! The 20-year-old flaunted her pert derriere as she stepped on to the boat

A vision in white: Hailey's modesty was only contained by what appeared to be a skimpily cut one piece swimsuit

Yes please! As the model looked around the boat, a man offered her a glass of champagne off a tray

Sea breeze: The bizarre pantsuit did her svelte figure no favours as it billowed in the wind

The ex of Justin Bieber was seen leaning on to a couch on an elevated platform, sticking her toned bottom in the air as she did.

After finally getting off, she was seen patting her derriere, perhaps to check the positioning of her swimwear.

As guests came to her aid, she appeared to thrust a hand forward to hold them off.

What have you lost? The model was spotted trying to lean on to a couch on an elevated platform

Almost got it! She appeared to be reaching for something, but as she bent over, her swimsuit rode up causing it to be even more revealing

Step back! After walking on to the opulent boat with confidence, the Arizona-born beauty appeared to become self conscious of her cheeky display

Is it even? After finally getting off, she was seen patting her derriere, perhaps to check the positioning of her swimwear

Earlier, she was seen spending time with two other young guests at the party, and the trio relaxed on the roof of the yacht.

As they reclined into the couch and took in the spectacular harbour views, a man brought up glasses of champagne and bottles of beer for them to drink.

Later, as more people joined the party, Hailey and her entourage were seen downing shots.

Yes please! The star eventually returned to the couch to relax with a friend and a glass of champagne

Tranquility: Hailey appeared relaxed as she took in the spectacular harbour view, keeping her eyes shaded with a pair of Quay Australia sunnies

And now for something a little stronger: As more people trickled in to the party, a waiter brought over a tray of shots

Careful now! Hailey appeared to be trying to guard her shot from the wind as she prepared to drink it

As they drank, the group began to stage a mini photo shoot.

Hailey was seen posing provocatively on the couch as a friend took pictures on a phone.

She later returned the favour, peering over her reflective aviators to see the screen, before pouting with the girl for a seductive selfie.

Picture perfect: The Arizona-born beauty was seen posing provocatively on the couch as a friend took pictures on a phone

Your turn! Hailey then returned the favour by taking a photo of her friend

Sizzling: The pair then took a sultry selfie together, and were seen pouting as Hailey held up a phone

The party was thrown by Shelley Sullivan to celebrate Hailey's collaboration with ModelCo, Shelley's cosmetics company.

But as the makeup mogul came over to the model and her friends, the pair appeared to get into a heated conversation.

The international runway model was seen making big hand gestures and appeared to be yelling.

When the pair passed each other walking around the boat, the two seemed to exchange a frosty glance.

Deep in thought: The model ditched her shoes and appeared to stare off in to space as she relaxed on the boat

Not happy! Hailey was seen making big hand gestures and appeared to be yelling at Shelley Sullivan, who owns ModelCo and had thrown the party for the American

A helping hand? As Hailey went to leave the couch, Shelley offered a hand down, but appeared annoyed at her brand ambassador

Hailey has collaborated with Shelley's company on a number of limited edition products, including beige lipsticks, eyebrow pencils, and Instagram-ready highlights.

She is now down under to promote the range, and for one reason or another she has grabbed headlines from the moment she stepped off the plane.

As she arrived at Sydney Airport, the model was mobbed by fans and photographers.

At one point, things got so heated that an eager fan plunged to the ground in the scuffle surrounding the aspiring A-lister.

Thankfully, Hailey was there to help the fallen female admirer back up.

Up you get! When Hailey landed at Sydney Airport on Saturday, she was mobbed by photographers and fans, and a woman was knocked over - but the runway model stopped to help her back up

Make space! A friend of the woman's seemed to make space around her as she reached out a hand for her pal on the ground

Checking in: Hailey rested a comforting hand on the woman's back as she recovered from the shock of the stampede

Before arriving Down Under, Hailey was in Paris to watch BFFs Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid walk in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

The daughter of The Usual Suspects star Stephen Baldwin has previously confessed that appearing in the Victoria's Secret show is her 'dream.'

'I want to walk in the Victoria's Secret show,' the 20-year-old Instagram model told Daily Mail in October.

She added: 'It's every girl's dream.'

Dreaming: Before arriving Down Under, Hailey was in Paris to watch BFFs Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid walk in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, something she admits is a dream of hers




The couple have charmed fans with their lasting reality television romance for three years.

But it appears their admirers are getting impatient, with Tim Robards being pressured to get down on one knee and propose to Anna Heinrich while they holiday in Bali.

The lawyer shared an image of the couple looking happy and relaxed by the pool, but Instagram followers were demanding more.

Left hand still bare: Fans of the original The Bachelor couple weren't shy to try and put the pressure on for Tim Robards to propose to Anna Heinrich while on holiday in Bali, commenting on the couple of three years' photo on the blonde beauty's birthday

'I want to see a ring!' one fan demanded, while another commented, 'Still no ring !!!'

In a group shot from the reality TV star's 30th birthday party the night before, fans were still only focused on the idea of a wedding.

'If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was a hens night,' one user wrote, articulating their point with a sly smile emoji.

Hens night? Anna shared a photograph of her with friends at her 30th birthday party, but Instagram followers questioned if it was a hens night

During an interview with Popsugar Australia last month, the 29-year-old admitted she would like to receive a ring this coming Christmas.

'I think it's always fun and exciting to open jewellery on special occasions or a big holiday, and these rings are just gorgeous,' she said.

The lawyer's comments comes a month after Tim hinted at an imminent proposal during an appearance on KIIS FM's Kyle & Jackie O Show.

Over the wait? Anna has admitted she would love a ring from Tim this coming Christmas

The Sydney-based Chiropractor revealed that while he has a jeweller in mind for Lawyer Anna's engagement ring, he is still unsure of the size.

'It's three years on, so probably getting around that time,' he said.

'I know where I'd probably go to get [the ring] ... I know what she likes. I need to steal one of her other ones to find out the size.'

Long time coming: Tim and Anna have been the subject of engagement rumours ever since falling in love on The Bachelor

The revelation comes two months after he told Daily Mail Australia that he feels pressured to pop the question.

'With Anna and I, there's lots of pressure... Every photo we put up together, people are like 'when are you getting engaged?' he said.

At the time, he explained that he would continue to take his time until they are both ready for marriage.

Tim and Anna have been the subject of engagement rumours ever since falling in love on The Bachelor.
Just a few days ago she was sashaying down a catwalk in her lingerie while filming the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

But Alessandra Ambrosio was back on mom duty on Saturday when she stepped out with her two children in Los Angeles.

The 35-year-old was spotted taking her daughter Anja, eight, and son Noah, four, to meet Santa at The Grove.

From garters to garlands: Alessandra Ambrosio took her children to meet Santa in Los Angeles on Saturday, a few days after the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

Alessandra and her youngsters were seen wrapped up in their winter wardrobes as they strolled hand-in-hand through the outdoor shopping centre.

The model looked cosy but chic in a long-sleeved purple top, jeans, grey ankle boots and a matching knitted scarf, with a striped jacket slung around her shoulders.

Alessandra, who wore her chestnut brown locks down, finished off her look with sunglasses over her minimally made-up face.

Meanwhile her daughter showed that she is has inherited her mother's flair for fashion in a black dress, tights and shoes with a furry white gilet over the top.

Santa, she's been naughty: The model was a sizzling sight on the catwalk in her lingerie while filming the show in Paris on Wednesday. It will air on December 5

Back on mom duty: Alessandra strolled hand-in-hand through The Grove with her youngsters

And Noah was feeling in the festive spirit with a Christmas jumper, jeans and printed trousers.

Alessandra, who has been modelling since the age of 15, shares the children with fiance Jamie Mazur. The pair have been engaged since 2008.

The Brazilian beauty is back in LA after stripping to her underwear during the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris earlier this week.

Baby, it's cold outside: Alessandra and her daughter Anja, eight, and son Noah, four, were all wrapped up warm

Cosy but chic: The 35-year-old wore a a long-sleeved purple top, jeans, grey ankle boots and a matching knitted scarf, with a striped jacket slung around her shoulders

The catwalk event took place on November 30 and will be televised on December 5.

Alessandra first walked in the annual show in 2000, alongside supermodels Tyra Banks, Gisele Bundchen, Heidi Klum and Naomi Campbell.

This year, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Irina Shayk all joined the Angels on the runway, while Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars and The Weeknd performed.

'It feels like Christmas': That same day Alessandra shared an Instagram photo from her time in Paris
From her starring role in Home and Away to her Hollywood break out role in Wedding Crashers, Isla Fisher's career has gone from strength-to-strength.

And on December 7, the flame haired actress will be honoured for her work, receiving the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Trailblazer Award in Sydney.

Joining the likes of Rose Byrne, the first recipient of the honour, the award hopes to highlight the achievements of someone who inspires others with their work.

Award winner: Isla Fisher is set to receive the prestigious AACTA Trailblazer Award in Sydney December 7 for her role in advocating for comedic female roles in film

The self-professed 'comic-actress' is a strong advocate for comedic roles for women in Hollywood but has also found acclaim in dramatic performances including Baz Lurhmann's The Great Gatsby and more recently Nocturnal Animals.

Taking to Instagram, the 40-year-old actress told fans: 'I am incredibly honored to be the recipient of this year's AACTAs Trailblazer award'

The actress added the hash-tags: 'Sydney here we come', 'come a long way from summer bay' and 'gratitude'.

Isla elaborated further in a statement, released on Sunday, saying: 'That I am considered among those Australians who are inspiring the next generation of talent is a true honour.'

The 40-year-old actress added: 'I'm looking forward to coming back to Sydney to accept the AACTA Trailblazer Award.'

Trailblazers: Isla (R) will join the likes of Rose Byrne (L), the first recipient of the honour, the award hopes to highlight the achievements of someone who inspires others with their work

CEO of AACTA Damian Trewhella said the Definitely, Maybe actress is respected and admired by her peers across the globe, which played a part in her receiving the sought after award.

'Isla Fisher's reputation in the international screen industry has added to Australia's reputation for producing outstanding screen talent.

'The Australian Academy is delighted to honour her at home in Sydney at the 6th AACTA Awards presented by Foxtel,' he said.

Breakout: Isla made her name on popular Australian soap Home And Away as Shannon Reed

Damian went on to add: 'Isla has carved a diverse career we hope serves as an inspiration to other Australian performers.'

'We also recognise Isla's influential role as a champion for female comic actresses  a cause she has advocated for over a decade.'

Joining Isla for the prestigious event will be husband of six years Sacha Baron Cohen.

Hollywood star: Isla also played a role in the comedy film Wedding Crashers alongside Vince Vaughn

A long list of celebrities including, presenters Jessica Marais, Michael Caton, Marta Dusseldorp, Shane Jacobson, and Stephen Curry will also be in attendance.

Also appearing on the night will be guests Josh Thomas and Greta Scacchi.

Culture Club are the headline act for the evening but local artists including Jessica Maubouy, Dami Im and Paul Kelly will be attending. Isla Fisher found fame when she joined the cast of Australian soap Home And Away in 1994.

'I'm incredibly honoured': Taking to social media, Isla thanked the AACTAs for being chosen for the Trailblazer award

Since then the red-haired beauty has become an accomplished dramatic actress, author and has released three movies to differing levels of success this year.

The Brothers Grimsby, which she starred in alongside her husband, received mixed reviews, while Keeping up with the Joneses was poorly rated by critics.

Reviews for Nocturnal Animals were mostly positive though, and the Tom Ford directed film has already picked up a number of awards and nominations.
During a foul-mouthed tirade, Paris Hilton angrily banned vodka from her DJ booth after a Miami clubgoer spilled a cocktail on her computer Friday night.

The 35-year-old celebutante kicked off her 'annual Art Basel' set around 2:30AM at WALL Lounge, which is located inside the W Hotel South Beach.

TMZ posted a video of the reality TV icon's boozy debacle, which took the tech team 10 minutes to remedy as she loudly complained on the microphone.

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No more! During a foul-mouthed tirade, Paris Hilton angrily banned vodka from her DJ booth after a Miami clubgoer spilled a cocktail on her computer Friday night

Fashionably late: The 35-year-old celebutante kicked off her 'annual Art Basel' set around 2:30AM at WALL Lounge, which is located inside the W Hotel South Beach

'Just reset it and we'll go back!' an obviously annoyed Paris ordered one WALL Lounge employee.

'Dude. No more vodka in the booth! You guys are f***ing up my s***. I need a shot, by the way, since someone spilled [mine].'

This, after the Donald Trump supporter - who boasts 28.1M followers - bragged about being a 'huge undercover tech geek' in Galore Magazine.

As she manned the decks, Hilton sported large sunglasses, a bedazzled mini-dress, fingerless gloves, and pink-tipped blonde hair extensions.

'Just reset it and we'll go back!' TMZ posted a video of the reality TV icon's boozy debacle, which took the tech team 10 minutes to remedy as she loudly complained on the microphone

An obviously annoyed Paris announced: 'Dude. No more vodka in the booth! You guys are f***ing up my s***. I need a shot, by the way, since someone spilled [mine]'

'I am obsessed!' This, after the Donald Trump supporter - who boasts 28.1M followers - bragged about being a 'huge undercover tech geek' in Galore magazine

Nepotistically-privileged: As she manned the decks, Hilton sported large sunglasses, a bedazzled mini-dress, fingerless gloves, and pink-tipped blonde hair extensions

#miami are you ready??? @parishilton #baselatwall A video posted by WALL Lounge (@wallmiami) on Dec 2, 2016 at 11:32pm PST

'I've learned so much more now. I've been DJing for six years. I produce my own music and I remix live. It's all me,' the former sex tape star told the Daily Star in August.

'Top name DJs that I really respect [were] like: "Oh my god Paris Hilton DJing, she can't do that." Well now those haters come to my nights and they get in the booth with me and are blown away.'

Meanwhile, Cash Money Records has yet to put out Paris' EDM-style album, which was supposed to include her singles - Crazy, Come Alive, and High Off My Love.

Friday's Galore-sponsored bash also attracted the likes of Rich Kids of Beverly Hills stars Ezra J. William and Dorothy Wang.

The former sex tape star told the Daily Star in August: 'I've learned so much more now. I've been DJing for six years. I produce my own music and I remix live. It's all me'

The heiress continued: 'Top name DJs that I really respect [were] like: "Oh my god Paris Hilton DJing, she can't do that." Well now those haters come to my nights and they get in the booth with me and are blown away'

Stalled singing career: Meanwhile, Cash Money Records has yet to put out Paris' EDM-style album, which was supposed to include her singles - Crazy, Come Alive, and High Off My Love
She returned to Australia last week after an eventful year of living in New York City.

And on Saturday, model Megan Blake Irwin put on a leggy display as she stepped out for a night on the town in Sydney.

During her outing, the 22-year-old, who was rumoured to be dating Scott Disick earlier this year, flaunted her long legs in a black mini-dress, which featured a thigh-high split on the side.

Legs eleven: Model Megan Blake Irwin flaunted her long legs in a black mini-dress, which featured a high split on the side, on Saturday as she enjoyed a night out in Sydney

While dressed in the strapless, tailored ensemble, she accessorised with suede over-the-knee boots and a black blazer, which had a white hemline and gold buttons.

Megan wore her blonde hair out and parted down the middle, while styling them with a natural wave.

The Australian model also opted for simple makeup with a nude gloss lipstick, a brush of black mascara and bronzer that defined her cheekbones.

Hottie on the loose: While dressed in the strapless, tailored ensemble, she accessorised with suede over-the-knee boots and a black blazer

Later on in the night, the beauty was seen with a bright pink handbag that she rested over her shoulder.

She was also joined by a group of female and male friends during the evening.

Megan perhaps best known for her 'fling' with Kourtney Kardashian's ex-partner Scott Disick.

Boating around: Earlier in the day, she enjoyed some time out in Darling Harbour on a boat

Earlier this year, she was spotted partying with the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star on several occasions.

When questioned about their relationship on The Morning Show in June, she refused to confirm their 'relationship'.

'I do know Scott, we're friends, but I've made a lot of great new friends in LA and New York. Not just him, a bunch of people.'
She's been plastering loved up snaps with new beau Jeremy Banks across social media after debuting their relationship on Halloween.

And on Sunday, Kiralee 'Kiki' Morris was seen gearing up for another holiday season with her hunky brunette boyfriend, as the couple posed for a festive snap posted to Instagram.

Kiki gushed over her beau in the accompanying caption, telling fans: 'Finally been a good enough girl to get what I asked for from Santa'.

Tis the season: Kiralee 'Kiki' Morris has posted a festive snap with beau Jeremy Banks standing beside a Christmas tree after debuting their relationship on Halloween in October

The smitten pair had their arms around one another as they posed next to a red and silver decorated Christmas tree, which was surrounded by wrapped gifts underneath.

Dressed in matching all white garments for the early Christmas lunch, Kiki looked almost angelic with her sandy blonde locks out for the occasion.

The Bachelor star opted for an off-the-shoulder playsuit, which cut in low around the bust and showed a glimpse of the busty babe's cleavage.

Kiki elongated her slender legs in the tigh-skimming summer ensemble by adding beige coloured sandals.

The blonde wore a small hairpiece and necklace to accessorise her outfit in a festive manner.

'Halloweeny with my little girl scout': The pair debuted their relationship on social media in October and were seen dressed as vampires in celebration of Halloween

Jeremy matched his girlfriend with an all white outfit including a crisp white button up shirt and white shorts.

Adding to the festive snap, Jeremy opted to pair the outfit with a small Santa's hat.

The pair debuted their relationship on social media in October and were seen dressed as vampires in celebration of Halloween.

Smitten: The Bachelor reject - who hoped to find love on the reality dating show - has fallen head-over-heels for her new beau often seen posting snaps with him around Sydney

Since then, the Bachelor reject - who hoped to find love with Richie Strahan on the reality dating show - has fallen head-over-heels for her new beau often seen posting snaps with him.

Jeremy appears to be happy to spread their love across social media as well, posting pictures with Kiki regularly - including one captioned: 'When you know ya know.'

Jeremy is the first man Kiki has been linked to since being booted off the Channel Ten dating show.

Cute: Jeremy appears to be happy to spread their love across social media as well posting pictures with Kiki regularly with one captioned, 'When you know ya know'

But despite being sent home without a rose quite far into the competition, Kiki insisted she knew there wasn't a romantic connection with Richie Strahan.

'I knew that my relationship with Richie hadn't progressed like the other girls,' the busty model told Popsugar.

'He's not normally my type and personality-wise.

'He's a very light-hearted, jokester kind of person and I look for quite a deep intellectual connection as well as a physical one, as well as a humourous one.'
They're the Bachelor and Bachelorette rejects who are often seen hanging out with one another in their hometown of Perth.

And on Saturday, The Bachelor's Megan Marx and Tiffany Scanlon met up with Nikki Gogan, Natalie Nazzari and The Bachelorette's Cameron Cranley at Polo in the City.

The Perth event also saw The Bachelor's Rachael Gouvignon, although the brunette reality TV star was not present in her co-stars' pictures.

'Getting our Polo faces on': Megan Marx (L) and girlfriend Tiffany Scanlon (R) pose at Perth's Langley Park during Polo in the City

Plastering Instagram with pictures from the event, Tiffany and Megan were seen cuddling up to their favourite Bachelorette boy, Cam, as they enjoyed the day.

Sitting with the brunette hunk on a swing the couple smiled and laughed as Cam sat between them.

Cam posted a picture of the trio to Instagram and wrote: 'All smiles at the Polo yesterday. I obviously hadn't realised I'm the third wheel on this swing.'

Megan later posted a similar pic, while making an unhappy face and wrote: 'So we get to the end of the day and Tiff still wants to take photos.

Squad goals: Cameron Cranley (far left) joined Megan and Tiffany (centre) at the glamorous event on Saturday

'This is what I always do. Sorry babe. But I think I'm fkn hilarious,' she wrote next to the picture of her pulling a face.

In pictures posted by Tiffany, she and Megan looked especially loved up as they held each other in their floor length ensembles.

Megan was spotted wearing a white dress designed by Wild Horse Label which was cropped and came with a triangular cut-out detail on the front.

Loved up: In pictures posted by Tiffany, she and Megan looked especially loved up as they held each other in their floor length ensembles

The skirt of the dress fell below her ankle but flaunted a hint of upper thigh through the chiffon layer.

A split in the skirt showcased the blonde bombshell's trim pins and a pair of brown sandals.

She appeared to be wearing minimal makeup and was seen carrying a brown bag with her.

'I'm the third wheel on this swing': Sitting with the brunette hunk on a swing Megan and Tiffany smiled and laughed as Cam sat between them

Tiffany was seen wearing a salmon pink dress designed by Natalie Rolt designs which plunged in the front and had a split in the skirt.

The outfit showcased her svelte physique and revealed tattoos on her side.

In a picture posted to Tiffany's Instagram, the blonde haired beauty - who is dating Megan - was seen posing with Bachelor's Nikki Gogan.

Blessed: In a picture posted to Tiffany's (R) Instagram, the blonde haired beauty - who is dating Megan - was seen posing with Bachelor's Nikki Gogan (L)

She wrote: 'This girl is living proof that angels walk amongst us. I feel blessed to call you my friend. Loved catching up at Polo.'

Taking to Instagram, Nikki posted the same picture and wrote: 'My beautiful friend @tiffany_janes you are sunshine and I adore you so grateful.

Nikki wore a white Grecian styled dress for the polo event and had her hair tied back in loose curls.

'The only brunette amongst a bunch of banging blondes': Natalie Nazzari (centre) later joined the other Bachy crew on a swing as they posed for photos

She paired her outfit with a blueish grey handbag and minimal accessories and was seen enjoying cider while watching the event.

Nikki was not pictured with Cam, who she was linked to during the Spring Racing Carnival last month.

The Bachelor and Bachelorette gang were later joined by Bachelor reject Natalie Nazzari who was seen wearing a blue floral dress.

On Instagram, the brunette haired reality star wrote: 'The only brunette amongst a bunch of banging blondes.'

Where was she? Rachael appeared to be missing from most of the group pictures of the reality stars but posted pictures wearing an all black ensemble from the event

Adding: 'Where are you @rachael_gouvignon?! So lovely seeing you all!'

Rachael appeared to be missing from most of the group pictures of the reality stars but posted pictures wearing an all black ensemble from the event.

This isn't the first time the Bachy crew have met up, often spending time together at glamorous events such as Maxim HOT 100 party and Spring Racing events.

Friends: Bachelor's Kiki Morris, Noni Janur, Faith Williams and Rachael are often spotted spending time together

Bachelor's Kiki Morris, Noni Janur, Faith Williams and Rachael are often spotted spending time together.

While Rachael and Nikki were joined for The Bachelorette season finale screening by contestants Ryan Palk and Cam.

The Bachelor and Bachelorette stars rose to fame after competing on a reality dating show in the hope of finding love.
She ruled the catwalk at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris on Wednesday night.

And Alessandra Ambrosio put on another incredible sartorial display as she went Christmas shopping in West Hollywood on Saturday.

The 35-year-old looked incredible wearing a black and white super short dress which had a semi-sheer top section and swirly detail.

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Wow thing: Alessandra Ambrosio paraded her long legs in a very sexy black and white dress and knee high boots as she went Christmas shopping in West Hollywood on Saturday

Flaunting her long and lean legs, she wore a pair of heeled knee-high boots as she made her way down the street carrying an oversized bag in her hand.

With her long brunette locks cascading down past her shoulders, she showed off her natural beauty wearing minimal make-up.

Just a few days ago she was sashaying down a catwalk in her lingerie while filming the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

She's got it going on: With her long brunette locks cascading down past her shoulders, she showed off her natural beauty wearing minimal make-up

But Alessandra was back on mom duty on Saturday when she stepped out with her two children in Los Angeles earlier in the day.

The model was spotted taking her daughter Anja, eight, and son Noah, four, to meet Santa at The Grove.

Alessandra and her youngsters were seen wrapped up in their winter wardrobes as they strolled hand-in-hand through the outdoor shopping centre.

The model looked cosy but chic in a long-sleeved purple top, jeans, grey ankle boots and a matching knitted scarf, with a striped jacket slung around her shoulders.

Alessandra, who wore her chestnut brown locks down, finished off her look with sunglasses over her minimally made-up face.

Meanwhile her daughter showed that she is has inherited her mother's flair for fashion in a black dress, tights and shoes with a furry white gilet over the top.

From garters to garlands: Alessandra took her children to meet Santa in Los Angeles earlier on in the day just days after the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

Santa, she's been naughty: The model was a sizzling sight on the catwalk in her lingerie while filming the show in Paris on Wednesday. It will air on December 5

Back on mom duty: Alessandra strolled hand-in-hand through The Grove with her youngsters

And Noah was feeling in the festive spirit with a Christmas jumper, jeans and printed trousers.

Alessandra, who has been modelling since the age of 15, shares the children with fiance Jamie Mazur. The pair have been engaged since 2008.

The Brazilian beauty is back in LA after stripping to her underwear during the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris earlier this week.

Baby, it's cold outside: Alessandra and her daughter Anja, eight, and son Noah, four, were all wrapped up warm

Cosy but chic: The 35-year-old wore a a long-sleeved purple top, jeans, grey ankle boots and a matching knitted scarf, with a striped jacket slung around her shoulders

The catwalk event took place on November 30 and will be televised on December 5.

Alessandra first walked in the annual show in 2000, alongside supermodels Tyra Banks, Gisele Bundchen, Heidi Klum and Naomi Campbell.

This year, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Irina Shayk all joined the Angels on the runway, while Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars and The Weeknd performed.

'It feels like Christmas': That same day Alessandra shared an Instagram photo from her time in Paris
She's well known for her love of healthy eating and fitness - and Holly Hagan showed off the fruits of her labour as she headed to the Clothes Show in Birmingham.

The 24-year-old looked incredible wearing a very short grey jumper dress which was cinched in at the waist with a matching rope belt.

She added some further sass to her look with a pair of fishnet tights and wore a pair of black suede thigh-high boots.

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Sexy lady: Holly Hagan showed off her super svelte figure in a short grey jumper and thigh-high suede boots as she headed to the Clothes Show in Birmingham on Saturday

Her caramel locks were cut into pretty layers which framed her face perfectly and she carried an oversized bag on her arm.

Smiling at the camera, she showed off her natural beauty with minimally applied make-up.

She was in good company on the day as also present was Binky Felstead and Billie Faiers who have collaborated on a clothing line together.

Stunner: The 24-year-old looked incredible wearing a very short grey jumper dress which was cinched in at the waist with a matching rope belt

The Made In Chelsea star, 26, and the TOWIE star, 26, looked stylish as they arrived in matching over-the-knee boots and navy dresses on Saturday.

Binky showed off her trademark understated chic look in a loose blue swing dress with flare sleeves.

Skimming the tops of her toned thighs, she teamed it with a pair of black boots, carrying a blue holdall.

Showing off her natural beauty, the reality star added a touch of mascara and glittery eyeliner, wearing her brunette hair in loose curls.

Fashionistas! Binky Felstead and Billie Faiers put their fashionable foot forward as they also attended the clothes show in Birmingham

Stylish duo! The Made In Chelsea star, 26, and the TOWIE star, 26, looked stylish as they arrived in matching over-the-knee boots and navy dresses on Saturday

Understated elegance: Binky showed off her trademark understated chic look in a loose blue swing dress with flare sleeves

Meanwhile Billie flaunted her tiny bump in a ribbed poloneck with an array of Kanye-inspired holes.

The thigh-skimming piece flashed her slender pins, and she wore coordinating black boots.

With her blonde tresses perfectly blow dried, she went for bold brows and a touch of lipgloss and highlighter.

The duo put on cheery display as they arrived at the venue.

Chic: Meanwhile Billie flaunted her tiny bump in a ribbed poloneck with an array of Kanye-inspired holes

She is! Billie changed into a 'Cute but Crazy' black jumper later in the day

Leggy: She teamed it with leather look leggings

Monochrome maven: The reality star stunned in a black dress with trumpet sleeves

Legs for days! She flaunted her enviably lean limbs in the daringly short dress

Billie is expecting her second baby- a boy, in 2017 with fiance Greg Shepherd.

She is also mother to two-year-old Nelly, and the trio recently returned from a sun-soaked break in the Maldives.

Billie confirmed she was expecting a boy last month, telling OK! magazine: 'We cant stop smiling. Greg got quite emotional, but hes over the moon.'

Their own best ad: The duo posed in front of their clothing line poster

Looking glamorous! The pair looked preened to perfection

Snap-happy stars: The duo beamed as they played on their phones

Faier-s enough! Billie seemed to be taking a video of the event

Making an entrance: They ensured all eyes were on them as they took to the floor

Fancy footwear! The clothes designers both sported matching black suede thigh high boots

Having a natter: They happily chatted away onstage later at the event

Got a point to make? Binky appeared particularly animated at one point

Taking centre-stage: The good-looking duo looked glamorous even as their monochrome outfits

Mane attraction: Binky wore her chestnut-hued tresses in glossy tumbling waves

'We want to see him first but we love traditional names like Edward and George.

'I definitely wont be naming him baby Greg like Sams baby Paul. We might make the middle name Gregory, but it wont be a first name.'

Meanwhile Holly Hagan and Fearne McCann were also in attendance at the fashion event.

Wintry: Holly Hagan also went for over-the-knee boots

She teamed the boots with a stylish grey slouchy mini dress

On trend: Georgia Kousoulou also rocked thigh-high boots and teamed with with a burgundy wooly jumper dress

Cheery: Ferne McCan appeared at the event for an interview

Earning her stripes! She put on a bright appearance in a red jumpsuit
She's the pretty ex-flame of Justin Bieber who's known for her devotion to Jesus.

And Hailey Baldwin showed her faith hasn't wavered as she arrived at the Hillsong Convention Centre in Sydney on Sunday.

The 20-year-old stunner was pictured entering the religious gathering held by the controversial church with two gal pals.

Holy chic! Hailey Baldwin cut an elegant figure as she arrived at a convention for controversial religious group Hillsong in Sydney on Sunday

Sporting a pair of denim jeans over risque fishnet stockings, the genetically-blessed model appeared in high spirits as she greeted her friends.

Her tinted brunette tresses were parted at the middle and tied into an effortless ponytail.

Her pop star ex-beau Justin is a known member of the church, but the pair are rumoured to have split four months ago.

Devout Christian: Hailey showed her faith hasn't wavered as she arrived at the Hillsong Convention Centre

Gal pals! The 20-year-old stunner was pictured entering the religious gathering held by the controversial church with two girlfriends

Chic: Hailey's tinted brunette tresses were parted at the middle and tied into an effortless ponytail

Hailey is currently in Australia to promote her collection of cosmetics for skincare brand ModelCo.

'If I am collaborating with a company it's because I personally use their stuff and enjoy their products,' she told an audience at the brand's Sydney store, according to The Daily Telegraph.

'Brands that come out of Australia are amazing. There are a lot of Australian clothing brands I enjoy. I just think the aesthetic of Australia is really cool. I enjoy the style, the lifestyle and the people.

'I don't think it is a coincidence I have worked with so many Aussie brands - it makes sense.'

Controversial: Hillsong, an evangelical christian mega-church, has been labelled by some as a cult, but it has enjoyed huge success with its conferences over the last 30 years

Small beginnings: Pastor Brian Houston said that Hillsong's first conference was attended by 150 people

Meanwhile, Hailey's beloved Hillsong, an evangelical Christian mega-church, has been labelled by some as a cult.

But the church has enjoyed huge success with its conferences over the last 30 years.

Pastor Brian Houston told 7News that his first conference was attended by 150 people in a warehouse in Baulkham Hills.

'I don't think we had any idea where this was all going to end up', he said.

This year, 30,000 people attended the four day conference, and tickets cost almost $350 each.

'I don't think we had any idea where this was all going to end up': Pastor Houston previoulsy spoke about the church's humble beginnings

In 2014, Hillsong's conference in Sydney attracted around 20,000 followers from more than 60 countries.

Justin has always been open about his involvement with the megachurch, even enlisting a spiritual adviser in Australian Pastor Joel Houston.

Hillsong was established in 1983 by the late and controversial Frank Houston and his son Brian Houston, who is a prominent speaker at the conference.

The church's headquarters are in Baulkham Hills in the north-west of Sydney.

It has campuses all across Australia and some parts of the world, including London, Ukraine, South Africa, Sweden and New York.
She recently returned from watching the Victoria's Secret models storm the runway in Paris.

And Millie Mackintosh was still in the catwalk mood as she stepped out in London on Sunday, going braless underneath a tailored suit.

Appearing to wear the same two-piece she donned in France, the 27-year-old former Made In Chelsea star almost popped out of her formal ensemble.

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Fresh from Paris: Millie Macintosh was still in the catwalk mood as she stepped out in London on Sunday, going braless underneath a tailored suit

The fitted blazer featured a semi-glossy collar and a delicate pattern of buttons across the sleeves.

Wearing it with nothing underneath, she gave onlookers a glimpse of her ample cleavage.

Showcasing her endless lean legs in fitted slightly flared trousers, she accentuated her statuesque figure in patent pointy killer heels.

And going completely accessory free, she left her hair loose, opting for minimal make-up.

Formal with a twist: Appearing to wear the same two-piece she donned in France, the 27-year-old former Made In Chelsea star almost popped out of her formal ensemble

Racy! The fitted blazer featured a semi-glossy collar and a delicate pattern of buttons across the sleeves

Millie recently returned from watching the Victoria's Secret show with her beau Hugo Taylor.

The loved-up couple went public with their rekindled romance in May when they travelled to the Monaco Grand Prix for Hugo's 30th birthday celebrations - the same week that Millie's divorce from rapper husband Professor Green, 32, was finalised.

They previously dated back in 2011 when they met on E4 reality show, Made In Chelsea.

Model behaviour: Showcasing her endless lean legs in fitted slightly flared trousers, she accentuated her statuesque figure in patent pointy killer heels.

But the union was not to last and ended rather dramatically when Millie discovered Hugo had cheated on her with her friend, Rosie Fortescue.

At the time, Millie claimed she would always love Hugo, saying in an interview: 'I loved him - those feelings dont disappear  but I just always have to remind myself why were not together.

'I do think that, for the rest of my life, every time I see him, Ill get that feeling in my stomach. I dont think I could ever not get that butterfly feeling.'

Matching suits! Millie recently returned from watching the Victoria's Secret show with her beau Hugo Taylor

Rubbing shoulders with the Angels: Hugo posed with VS model Adriana Lima after the show

Millie was previously married to rapper Professor Green, but the duo announced their split in February after just over four years together. Their two-and-a-half-year marriage was dissolved in just 30 seconds in May.

In a statement at the time, they said: 'It is a mutual decision, we still care deeply about each other and would like it to be known that it is on amicable terms and we wish each other well.'

They were granted a decree nisi at Central London Family Court with Millie citing 'unreasonable behaviour' as the reason for their split.

The rapper has since moved on with model Fae Williams.
She has always been one to get tongues wagging.

And Danniella Westbrook ensured she was the talk of the town on Saturday night as she left nothing to the imagination during a DJing gig at a club in Liverpool.

The 43-year-old former EastEnders star went braless beneath a sheer top - allowing punters at the nightclub to see her entire bust - while also debuting new long locks.

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Busty beauty: Danniella Westbrook ensured she was the talk of the town on Saturday night as she left nothing to the imagination during a DJing gig at a club in Liverpool

Danniella, who has undergone seven boob jobs, oozed body confidence as she matched tight leather with flimsy lace to make the most of her sensational figure.

The ensemble no doubt caused stirs among clubgoers as she flashed her chest in all its glory - ensuring her perky assets were totally on show.

Her long-sleeved top was perilous in its plunging detail and sheer body, she made things more shocking by shunning a bra for her evening on the town.

Adding to her sexy look was her leather pencil skirt, which sat high on her waist and skimmed her calf in length - seemingly at a stab at demureness alongside her shocking top half.

Oops! Sheer delight! The 43-year-old former EastEnders star left nothing to the imagination as she went braless beneath an entirely sheer top - allowing punters at the nightclub to see her entire bust - while also debuting new long locks

Addicted: Getting into the beat, Danniella appeared to be nailing her new job as a DJ

These!? The brunette beauty debuted a new look - yet her hair was overshadowed by her shocking outfit choice

Listen out! Daniella truly got into the groove as she belted out the tracks

Aside from her showstopping sartorial choice, Danniella also debuted new lengthy locks, having boosted her cropped hair with extensions.

Her glossy brown locks looked worlds away from the severe crop she has rocked for some time although she pulled off the new look with aplomb.

As she played around with a cooling fan, which momentarily protected her modesty, she also proved it was only the best for her as the table in the VIP area was weighed down with luxury booze including Grey Goose vodka and Dom Perignon.

Sizzling: Danniella was certainly brazen when flashing her whole body for the camera

Fanning it out: Adding to her sexy look was her leather pencil skirt, which sat high on her waist and skimmed her calf in length - seemingly at a stab at demureness alongside her shocking top half

A hairy situation: Daniella used her new long locks to cover up her ample bust

DJing is potentially another career path for the stunning actress who made a fleeting return to EastEnders earlier this year after a stint in Celebrity Big Brother in January.

Danniella is clearly back to her best having shocked fans earlier in the week when she decided to film herself undergoing a procedure for a designer vagina.

She insisted the procedure was pain free as she shared intimate details on Snapchat. Seeming to back up her statement, the star looked in high spirits as she spoke to the camera while laying on her back undergoing laser treatment.

Brave: The stunning star braved the cold to help make the most of her stunning figure

Strutting her stuff: Danniella went all out for her night on the town where she no doubt turned heads

Oops! Danniella proudly showed off her assets in the skimpy top which showed off every inch of her ample chest

Popping bottles! Standing in front of the display of booze, she was certainly animated

The short clip sees Danniella say: 'Just another day in the crazy world of Danniella Westbrook.' She enthused, 'Get ready for that designer vagina people', while showing her smiling nurse waving her hands in the air.

The former EastEnders star looked comfortable throughout, telling fans: 'See the thing is, when you have this designer vagina done you thinks it's gonna really hurt... it don't. I'm having my treatment done right now.'

Her recent troubles following her split from toyboy lover George Arnold have been well documented, but it looks like he is keen to reconnect.

Why hello there! While Danniella played coy with a fan, her bare chest sadly ruined the illusion

Popping bottles in the ice: Danniella grabbed the Dom Perignon to show just how plush her clubbing experience was

Brunette beauty: Her glossy brown locks looked worlds away from the severe crop she has rocked for some time although she pulled off the new look with aplomb

Bubbles: Danniella sipped away at a glass of champagne as she offered a cheers to her pal and clubbing partner

Danniella also posted a screenshot showing five missed calls from 'my George'. Over which she had written: 'Seriously... Just when life was going good... my phone starts blowing up.'

She previously revealed that she was so devastated following their split earlier this year that she was left feeling suicidal and even attempted to take her own life on many occasions through drug overdose.

Danniella recently appeared on This Morning and said: 'I tried to overdose a lot when George walked out.'

Oh the glamour: It was only the best for Danniella as the table in the VIP area was weighed down with luxury booze including Grey Goose vodka and Dom Perignon

Peace out! Danniella also posted a screenshot showing five missed calls from 'my George'. Over which she had written: 'Seriously... Just when life was going good... my phone starts blowing up'

Boobs akimbo: Danniella recently appeared on This Morning and said: 'I tried to overdose a lot when George walked out'

Out and a pout: The brunette beauty pouted her way through her DJ set

'I was so depressed with everything... George just got up one morning and left, and I realized I didnt know you at all then.

'He had his reasons but at the time I couldnt see it that way because I was so depressed.

'I did relapse [because I] thought my whole world was over when he left.'

Check me out! The DJ diva looked stunning as she played out the tunes

Fluttering fancy: With a bottle in one hand and a fan in the other, she was certainly having a laugh

Posing with the crew: Danniella posed with her blogger pal Ryan Mira
She's been putting on a stylish display at The Clothes Show.

And Ferne McCann continued to turn heads as she attended the Birmingham fashion event on Sunday.

The TOWIE star, 26, put on a busty and leggy display in a revealing navy dress.

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Racy! Ferne McCann continued to turn heads as she attended The Clothes Show in Birmingham on Sunday

The daring frock was cut low on the bust, revealing her ample cleavage.

Skimming her toned midriff, it was slashed to the hip showcasing her long lean legs.

Adding a touch of vamp, she opted for a slim velvet choker and bright lipstick.

And accentuating her stature the reality star opted for patent chunky ankle boots.

Daring: The TOWIE star, 26, put on a busty and leggy display in a revealing navy dress at the fashion event

In true Essex style she scraped her hair into a high ponytail and completed her look with bold brows and dusky eyeshadow.

The reality star was there to answer a Q&A at the event.

Oozing confidence, it's difficult to believe Ferne suffers with self-esteem issues.

Busty: The daring frock was cut low on the bust, revealing her ample cleavage

Leggy: Skimming her toned midriff, it was slashed to the hip showcasing her long lean legs

But she recently opened up to MailOnline about her journey to loving herself.

She said: 'It's really difficult. Sometimes I spend nights on my Instagram feed and feel really s**t about myself.

'I find myself thinking there's just so many beautiful people out there and I feel rubbish about myself, we all get those ugly days.'

In the same breath, the reality TV star went on to say that she's better at praising herself for the little things now, offering advice on combating her 'self-loathing'.

Statuesque: And accentuating her stature the reality star opted for patent chunky ankle boots

Rock! She added a leather jacket emblazoned with the word Rock

Still learning: She recently opened up to MailOnline about her journey to loving herself

'Yeah, I don't look like a Victoria's Secret model,' she told MailOnline. 'But I [tell myself I] did ace that job interview today.

Though as a public figure, Ferne still faced questions over whether she was advocating surgery to a younger audience, especially given the loyal following of ITVBe's The Only Way Is Essex.

Ferne's response was: 'For people thinking that I'm promoting plastic surgery, is just rubbish because you can see what type of girl I am, I'm not that 'surge' looking girl.

'It's not like I'm a walking, walking plastic surgery promoter, it was just my one insecurity but I'm still a big believer in learning to love yourself from the inside.'

Loved up: Love Island's Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen packed on the PDA as they posed at the show

Doting duo: The couple, who met on the show five months ago, appeared loved up as they showed off their edgy style

Edgy: Olivia, 22, wore a two-piece ribbed nude skirt and bardot crop top ensemble with a matching choker

Meanwhile Love Island's Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen packed on the PDA as they posed at the show.

The couple, who met on the show five months ago, appeared loved-up as they showed off their edgy style.

Olivia, 22, wore a two-piece ribbed nude skirt and bardot crop top ensemble with a matching choker.

Flaunting her toned midriff, she dressed it down with Timberland style boots.

And going for bold brows and lashings of mascara, she put on a pouty display.

Racy! Sam Lavery attended the event flashing a hint of thigh in her over-the-knee ensemble

Talented: The X Factor star took to the stage to perform, providing the entertainment

Alex looked dapper in an oversized camouflage jacket, teaming it with an all-black ensemble.

With his hair perfectly preened and rocking his trademark nose ring, he put on a dapper display.

Hugging his flame as they joked in front of the cameras, the love birds appeared in the throes of the honeymoon period.

X Factor star Sam Lavery attended the event and took to the stage to perform, flashing a hint of thigh in her over-the-knee ensemble.

Feeling flowery! Laura Whitmore also attended the event, looking fashionable in a floral-print suit

Daring: Going braless underneath the two-piece, she showed a glimpse of cleavage, elongating her stature in black strappy sandals

And Laura Whitmore also attended the event, looking fashionable in a floral-print suit.

Going braless underneath the two-piece, she showed a glimpse of cleavage, elongating her stature in black strappy sandals.

Flaunting her natural beauty, Laura went for minimal make-up flaunting her blue peepers and leaving her golden tresses loose.

The Irish presenter was took to the stage to share her skills at the event.

Professional! The Irish presenter was took to the stage to share her skills at the event
She divided opinion with her aspirations of becoming a hip hop star during her time on the X Factor.

But it seems that Honey G's fans were out in force for her first performance since receving the boot from the show last week.

Hitting the stage at London club G-A-Y, the 35-year-old MC looked to be in fine-form as she strutted her stuff and spat lyrics during a high-tempo set.

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The peoples' rapper? Honey G's fans were out in force for her first performance since receving the boot from the show last week, as she hit the stage on Saturday night at G-A-Y in London

Honey, real-name Anna Gilford, was her usual boisterous self as she performed in front of an ecstatic crowd.

Despite having missed out on a recording-deal with Simon Cowell's SYCO label, the wannabe rapper couldn't help but smile as she interacted with her fans.

Wearing a zip-up jacket, which bore the initials H and G, she rounded off her look with a pair of skinny black jeans and gold high-top trainers.

She rounded her look off with a chunky gold chain, as well as her ever-present shades and cap.

She's got their attention: The 35-year-old MC looked to be in fine-form as she strutted her stuff and spat lyrics during a high-tempo set in front of a lively crowd

Playing up to her hip hop image, Honey bounced around as she rapped while a number of backing dancers dressed up like the rapper also got the crowd moving.

The performance was her first solo gig since she was booted off X Factor, and following her exit from the show she revealed she's not just looking for success musically.

Appearing on Lorraine earlier in the week, she explained: 'I'm single. I am looking for love, I really want to have kids soon and obviously I just want to get a long term partner before I decide to have kids, hopefully marriage one day as well.'

In fact, she reveals that kids are one of the main reasons she wants to make a career out of her hip-hop loving alter-ego.

Which one's the real G? Honey bounced around as she rapped while a number of backing dancers dressed up like the rapper also got the crowd moving

She adds: 'I love being Honey G so much because I love kids so much. I went to visit a primary school during X Factor, it's one thing that makes me so happy to make kids happy.

'Their mum's have been filming kids dancing to my songs in from of the TV and sending them to me on Twitter, it's so amazing to me.'

Revealing how she has sparked the interest of Simon Cowell's Syco label after fans went wild for her performances on Spotify.

She says: 'I've got so many ideas. The first track I performed in the first week and the sing off last night both went to number one on spotify, so Syco know there's potential there.'-

Charitble: Meanwhile it was announced that the Government is to waive VAT on the X Factor winner's single following the announcement the proceeds will be donated to charity
She's no stranger to style and glamour being a regular on the red carpet and TV screens.

So it was no surprise to see Laura Whitmore putting her most fashionable foot forward when she arrived at The Clothes Show, in Birmingham, on Sunday.

Heading to the city's NEC Arena, the 31-year-old presenter and model flashed a hint of skin as she went braless beneath her floral trouser suit.

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Stylish as always: Laura Whitmore put her most fashionable foot forward when she arrived at The Clothes Show, in Birmingham, on Sunday

The Irish beauty, who compete on this year's Strictly Come Dancing, opted for a modern twist on formal wear from Baum und Pferdgarten.

Choosing to wear nothing underneath her suit jacket, which she wore withe the sleeves rolled-up, Laura ensured that she displayed a tantalizing amount of skin.

Her matching trousers featured flared legs, which gave her formal attired a more relaxed edge.

A hint of skin: Heading to the city's NEC Arena, the 31-year-old presenter and model flashed a hint of skin as she went braless beneath her floral trouser suit

Floral fashion: The Irish beauty, who compete on this year's Strictly Come Dancing, opted for a modern twist on formal wear from Baum und Pferdgarten

The bubbly TV star wore a pair of strappy black stilettos which also added to that laid-back but super chic vibe to her look.

Keeping things simple and stylish, Laura chose to go without a handbag; though she wore a collection of rings and a simple gold chain around her neck.

Wearing her long blonde locks styled into gentle waves which fell past her shoulders, she allowed her golden tresses to frame her pretty face.

Choosing to wear nothing underneath her suit jacket, which she wore withe the sleeves rolled-up, Laura ensured that she displayed a tantalizing amount of skin

Killer heels: The bubbly TV star wore a pair of strappy black stilettos which also added to that laid-back but super chic vibe to her look

She's got a job to do: The presenter was on hand at the annual fashion bash to host the catwalk show, where she was joined on-stage by muscular male models

Wearing a complementary palette of make-up, Laura defined and highlighted her striking features; adding a smokey eye effect and a flash of red lipstick.

The presenter was on hand at the annual fashion bash to host the catwalk show, where she was joined on-stage by muscular male models.

Ever the professional Laura wasn't phased by the shirtless male models, but she did play a prank on one as she covered his chest by hanging a tote bag around his neck.

Cover it up: Ever the professional Laura wasn't phased by the shirtless male models, but she did play a prank on one as she covered his chest by hanging a tote bag around his neck

Strike a pose: Laura cosied up with a model and some fans at the event on Sunday

Hostess: The former Strictly star looked flawless in her florals as she helmed the evening's events

Co-hosts: Joey Essex joined Laura on stage for the event in an interesting jacket and hat

Fashion forward: The pair entertained the audience at The Clothes Show
Taylor Swift accused former radio DJ David Mueller of 'grabbing her a**' while posing for a photo backstage at a 2013 concert.

On Tuesday Mueller - who was fired from his Denver country music station DJ gig following the incident - defended himself while speaking out for the first time on iHeart's Mojo In The Morning.

But the interview was quickly removed from the station's website and neither iHeart nor Taylor's team are taking responsibility, according to TMZ.

The interview was reportedly ordered to be pulled from the station's website by Taylor's people, a source connected to iHeart told the site.

Bad blood! Taylor Swift denied having anything to do with pulling the plug on an interview conducted by David Mueller earlier this week according to TMZ - who defended himself against 'groping' her in 2013

And while no reason was allegedly given, the source added that iHeart agreed in order to maintain their relationship with Swift, as she frequently performs at iHeartRadio shows.

During Mueller's interview he stated: 'I was just trying to get my right hand around Taylor.'

Mueller also claimed that a photo released by TMZ last month of their encounter has proved he did not 'reach under her skirt.'

Swiftly pulled! The interview was reportedly ordered to be removed from the station's website by Taylor's people - a source connected to iHeart told TMZ - in order to maintain their relationship with the singer

Following the picture's surfacing last week, Mueller's legal team told TMZ on Tuesday, the shot: 'doesn't prove a thing other than he didn't have his hand underneath her skirt.'

Taken at a meet-and-greet event at Denver's Pepsi Center in June 2013, the photo published by the site shows Mueller's right arm extended behind Swift. While his hand is not visible, it appears level with her rear.

Mueller was let go from his job following the incident and Taylor's people said they had nothing to do with the radio station's decision.

'The radio station was given evidence immediately after the incident. They made their independent decision,' the rep said.

'Grabbed my a**': Mueller filed a lawsuit to clear his name and the 10-time Grammy winner countersued

Mueller filed a lawsuit to clear his name and Swift countersued.

The 10-time Grammy winner, 26, stated in her deposition that Mueller 'reached up under my skirt and grabbed my a** right when I was having to pose for a photo.'

However, the DJ has now claimed that his unusual hand placing was a result of the fact he 'leaned into the shot at the last minute'.

MailOnline have contacted Swift's representatives for comment.

When Mueller's attorney pressed Taylor on what exactly the photo shows, she said: 'It's impossible to know if that was in the moment before or as he's grabbed on, but I was there, so I felt it, so I didn't just see it in a photo afterward.'

The said photo, which the pop superstar described as the smoking gun, was sealed by a judge at her request.
He is known not only as an actor but for having had a long career as an undefeated boxer.

And on Saturday, Mickey Rourke attempted to go incognito in a camouflaged Western-inspired button down as he stepped out in Beverly Hills.

The 64-year-old was spotted heading to lunch at Caffe Roma with his beloved Pomeranian pup, which he cradled under one arm.

Where's Mickey? Mickey Rourke went incognito in a flamboyant camouflaged western-inspired button down as he stepped out in Beverly Hills on Saturday

The Wrestler star flaunted his incredibly trim, age-defying body, in a white muscle T-shirt and skintight distressed jeans which bared holes on each leg.

Mickey sported a large silver belt buckle around his lean waistline, adding a country flare to his off-duty look.

His fringed camouflage coat looked quirky with a serious face printed on the back, and was left open to reveal a few of his chest tattoos which peaked out beneath his bottom layer.

Adding an extra flamboyant edge to his ensemble, Mickey walked tall in a pair of matching camouflage boots with a pointed toe-cap in dark brown.

Lunch date: The 64-year-old was spotted heading to Caffe Roma with his beloved Pomeranian pup, which he cradled under one arm

Quirky: His fringed camouflage coat looked quirky with a serious face printed on the back, and was left open to reveal a few of his chest tattoos which peaked out beneath his bottom layer

The star who is famed for being a style chameleon when it comes to his hair, even sporting blonde dreadlocks for The Wrestler in 2009, allowed his natural color to come through.

His silver locks were styled long and straight around his face which was shielded by a dark pair of shades for the southern California sunshine.

The Iron Man 2 actor looked relaxed as he spent time in the company of his fluffy canine who joined him for lunch at one of his favorite L.A. eateries.

Details: The Iron Man 2 actor looked relaxed as he spent time in the company of his fluffy canine who joined him for lunch at one of his favorite L.A. eateries
Former reality stars Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen looked to be having fun on the press boards at The Clothes Show in Manchester on Sunday.

Olivia - the 22-year-old star of Love Island - posed for the cameras with her boyfriend Alex, 24, as they sauntered into the fashion event.

The TV personality-turned-clothes designer sported a two-piece ribbed nude skirt and bardot crop top ensemble showing her midriff, with elaborate fraying along the edges.

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Loved up: Love Island couple Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen entwined themselves around one another as they attended The Clothes Show

She wore a choker in the same style around her neck - thick, with a brooch attached to the front of it.

She completed the look with a pair of Topshop workman's boots, giving a clunky finish to the heavy and wintry look.

She sported a bronzed complexion and wore thick eyeliner and a clay-pink shade of lipstick.

Olivia piled her dark blonde locks on top of her head.

Doting duo: The couple, who met on the show five months ago, appeared loved up as they showed off their edgy style

Under wraps: The pair posed a little awkwardly with their hands in front of them, linked at the fingers, before breaking into an excitable display of PDA by wrapping themselves around one another in fits of laughter

Alex kept it all black, in a pair of skinny jeans and a sheer top, finished off with an army print jacket and a silver chain around his neck.

The pair posed a little awkwardly with their hands in front of them, linked at the fingers, before breaking into an excitable display of PDA by wrapping themselves around one another in fits of laughter.

Alex and Olivia found love during the second season of the ITV2 show and their relationship has gone from strength to strength.

The handsome star recently moved into his girlfriend's Wolverhampton home, and the pair bought an adorable French bulldog puppy together called Reggie.

Edgy: Olivia, 22, wore a two-piece ribbed nude skirt and bardot crop top ensemble with a matching choker

Statuesque: And accentuating her stature the reality star opted for patent chunky ankle boots

Speaking to Femail about her beau, Olivia recently gushed: 'I know it sounds cliche but I honestly dont think it could be any better.

'When Im with him it just feels so right, its like nothing Ive experienced before. My mum always told me that when you find The One youll see why your past relationships werent right. Alex is The One.'

A few weeks ago, she launched her own clothing range too - winning her a deserved ticket to this year's Clothes Show.

Also in attendance were the likes of Laura Whitmore, looking fashionable in a floral-print suit, and Sam Lavery in knee-high boots.

Ferne McCann also made an appearance, wearing a daring frock cut low on the bust, revealing her ample cleavage.
As one of the most famed supermodels of all-time, it's no wonder she has a custom Barbie doll created just for her - signature mole and all.

And on Saturday Cindy Crawford, 50, took to Instagram and showed off her very own figurine with a caption that read: 'Just living in a Barbie world.'

Her post came just one day after it was announced comedienne Amy Schumer had landed the role in the upcoming Barbie movie.

'Living in a Barbie world': Cindy Crawford shared a photo of her very own custom doll - signature mole and all - via Instagram on Saturday

The beloved Mattel toy is dressed in a black and white checkered three-piece ensemble.

She is clothed in a cropped top, mini skirt and fitted jacket which hangs over the doll's shoulders.

But it's not the first time the former face of Revlon was recreated into the legendary high-fashion doll.

Ageless beauty! The 50-year-old Vogue cover girl - pictured November 3 - is one of the most famed supermodels of all-time so it's no wonder she has a Barbie created just for her

Back in March 2015 Cindy debuted her very first Barbie wearing a Roberto Cavalli ensemble.

Cindy gushed over the doll in an Instagram snapshot she shared with her 1.7million followers.

'Thanks @mattel for my very own @robertocavalli wearing Cindy doll!' she wrote. 'I was obsessed with my #BarbieDolls growing up! What do you all think?'

Other celebrities who have been gifted with their own Barbies include Beyonce, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez and Heidi Klum.

Dolled up! Back in March 2015 the former face of Revlon debuted her very first Barbie recreation in a post which she captioned: 'Thanks @mattel for my very own @robertocavalli wearing Cindy doll!'

Good company: Cindy joined the ranks of other celebrities who have also been gifted with their own Barbies including Beyonce, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez and Heidi Klum

Cindy's post comes just a day after it was announced by Deadline that comedienne Amy Schumer has landed the lead role in the upcoming Barbie movie.

According to the site, the film will be a 'fish out of water' story in the mould of Splash of Big.

It is set in Barbieland, a world inhabited by the many different version of the doll - more than 180 - whose names, personalities and professions are defined by the particular outfit they wear.

Sony's live action film based on the beloved Mattel toy is due out in 2018.

But soon after the announcement body shamers took several digs at the Emmy Award-winning actress.

Role model: Cindy's post comes just a day after it was announced by Deadline that comedienne Amy Schumer has landed the lead role in the upcoming Barbie movie

'So @amyschumer's gunna play a FAT Barbie with a gut and two chins and a pie fetish,' one person wrote on social media.

While another exclaimed: 'Wtf?? @amyschumer as Barbie?? But Barbie is beautiful & thin. Not FAT & UGLY.'

However the Trainwreck star also received a ton of love and support as one man wrote: 'Don't sweat the trolls @amyschumer! Plenty of REAL men love REAL women like u! Can't wait 2 see u in #Barbie!'

But a graph compiled by mental health treatment site Rehabs.com in 2013 claimed a life-size barbie would not be able to hold her head up and would have to walk on all fours, in addition to only having a fraction of her intestines and liver.
Jennifer Aniston looked cute in her nerd glasses as she strolled with friends in New York City on Friday.

Alongside her was her decades-long friend and hairstylist Chris McMillan, the man behind her iconic do The Rachel during her career-defining turn on the NBC sitcom Friends.

This sighting came shortly before the 47-year-old was given props for her surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live.

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Quartet: Jennifer Aniston (second from left) took a walk in New York City on Friday with a group of friends including her decades-long hairstylist Chris McMillan (left)

Surrounded by a couple of other friends as well, the actress let her blonde hair fall free over the scarf, which partly obscured her chin.

The Horrible Bosses star otherwise black leather jacket featured knit sleeves and a thick wool lining, and she'd left it open.

Mrs Justin Theroux showcased her svelte legs in a pair of faded sky blue jeans, which she'd folded up at the hem to show off her black high heeled boots.

Keeping away the cold: The 47-year-old (left) protected herself from the cold by way of a voluminous pine green scarf

Meanwhile, McMillan, whom she'd also been spotted with in town at night, wore a cream beanie and a black anorak with black slacks and white trainers .

Earlier this year, he'd dished to The Telegraph that 'I first created The Rachel back when I met Jennifer, which was more than 20 years ago. We have been friends a long time. Back then, Jennifer had really long hair with a fringe.'

His advice was that 'she should grow her fringe out, get some highlights and just try something a bit different. We cut the length and added in all these layers to blend the bottom to the bangs - and the rest is history.'

New lighting: The actress and her coiffeur were also spotted together in the evening

Recalled he: 'Her initial reaction was great, she loved it then. It was a really fun cut and different to anything else around at the time.'

The coiffeur did note, however, that 'If you arent someone who wants to put effort into your hair, this isnt the cut for you.'

He'd explained that 'It was an easy cut, but it needed regular trims to keep the layers looking sharp. Its high-maintenance, not a wash-and-go style. You need to blow-dry with a round brush to help define all those flicks.'

Iconic: It was McMillan who'd come up with the iconic hairdo 'The Rachel' that Aniston wore during her career-defining role on the NBC sitcom Friends

Aniston's Saturday Night Live shot was a tribute to Friends nostalgia as well. She'd crashed the programme's mainstay Weekend Update segment, where regular cast member Vanessa Bayer was impersonating Rachel - complete with her haircut.

In an adorable bit, Aniston criticised Bayer's impression of her, lambasting it as just a series of 'What?'s and 'Oh!'s. Bayer then launched right into that impression, and Aniston's flustered response was almost precisely the same.

The two actresses will be playing opposite each other in the new film Office Christmas Party, which is due for a UK release December 7th and an American release two days later.

More nostalgia: On this week's Saturday Night Live, Mrs Justin Theroux put in a surprise appearance to 'criticise' Vanessa Bayer's impression of her Friends character
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Karrueche Tran has been working out nonstop all year.

So it's little wonder the ex-girlfriend of Chris Brown wanted to show off the fruits of her hard gym labor.

On Sunday the 28-year-old model flaunted her curves when walking on a beach in Miami. She has been in town to shoot her web series The Bay.

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Fine in Florida: Karrueche Tran walked on the beach in Miami on Sunday

Oops: At one point the LA party girl held onto her bare bottom with her two hands making it seem as if she was worried there may be a wardrobe malfunction on the way

More backside: After a stroll Karrueche took a dip in the Atlantic Ocean and then snapped away on her phone

The petite wonder wore a pale pink two piece from IT girl go-to label Are You Am I that showed off her frame.

At one point the LA party girl held onto her bare bottom with her two hands making it seem as if she was worried there may be a wardrobe malfunction on the way.

At other moments, Tran appeared lighthearted as she laughed with an onlooker.

Hee hee: At other moments, Tran, 28, appeared lighthearted as she laughed with an onlooker and looked great in her pink Are You Am I bikini

She loves the sun: The 5ft1in star has been at the beach all week, soaking up the sun as her native Los Angeles experiences colder temperatures

The 5ft1in star has been at the beach all week, soaking up the sun as her native Los Angeles experiences colder temperatures.

On her series The Bay, the stunner stars as who plays Vivian Johnson.

The beauty - who is of Vietnamese and Jamaican descent - was seen shooting scenes on the beach on Wednesday.

Part work: The looker has been shooting her web series The Bay in Miami

She remained close to co-star Kristos Andrews while the pair the romantic scene that required them to get a little wet.

In the scene, the stunning star was seen being carried by her leading man - the two hovering close.

In May the actor - who stars as Peter Garrett - took home a Daytime Emmy Award at the 43rd annual ceremony for Outstanding Actor in a Digital Daytime Drama Series.

Her thoughts: Earlier this year, the petite model-turned-actress stated how 'important' it was to build her own empire, which includes the successful show

Their series also won for Outstanding Digital Daytime Drama Series.

And earlier this year, the petite model-turned-actress stated how 'important' it was to build her own empire, which includes the successful show.

'Its very important at this point,' she told Hip Hollywood. 'Im a business woman and I need to present myself in the best way possible.'

She added: 'Unfortunately people know me for certain other things that theyve seen in the media, or whatever it is.

Check me out: The budding actress is known for being very athletic and keeping a workout schedule

Have to make sure that tan line is just right: The star, who wore a turquoise anklet, adjusted her bottoms

'So now its very important for me to show my personality and show the woman I am and the woman Im growing to be.'

Karrueche dated Chris Brown on and off from 2011 to 2015, briefly breaking up in 2013 when the RnB hitmaker reconciled with his ex-girlfriend, pop princess Rihanna.

After their relationship ended, Chris and Karrueche reunited, but the couple parted ways again when the model discovered the musician had fathered a child with Nia Guzman while they were together.
News of Matthew Newton's engagement to his American girlfriend Catherine Schneiderman broke in October.

And according to Woman's Day magazine, the troubled 39-year-old actor is rumoured to be expecting a baby with the 23-year-old.

'The way they're talking right now, a baby could be on the scene before they tie the knot,' a friend of Matthew's claimed to the tabloid.

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Something to tell us? According to Woman's Day, Matthew Newton (left) is reportedly expecting his first child with his fiancee Catherine Schneiderman (right)

'Matt is desperate to be a father,' the source added.

It comes after Catherine was spotted out and about in New York in October while sporting what the magazine claims to be a possible baby bump.

Woman's Day previously claimed that Bert and Patti were completely unaware of their son's relationship with Catherine - who is the daughter of a high-profile New York District Attorney, Eric Schneiderman.

Surprised? Woman's Day previously claimed that Bert and Patti were completely unaware of their son's relationship with Catherine - who is the daughter of a high-profile New York District Attorney, Eric Schneiderman

'Patti and Bert knew absolutely nothing about his relationship - let alone the engagement - and are worried sick about the future,' the insider claimed.

But last month, after Catherine stepped out in New York flashing her large diamond engagement ring, Patti insisted she was 'thrilled' for her son.

Speaking to Who magazine, the 71-year-old revealed they 'are absolutely thrilled' and have spoken to their future daughter-in-law 'many times' despite having never met face-to-face.

'Thrilled': The new claims come after Patti, 71, and Bert, 78, insisted they were 'thrilled' for their son and have spoken to his fiancee over Skype

Her comments come days after Bert, 78, told The Daily Telegraph, 'Patti and I are thrilled', before adding that it was the 'best thing' they could hope for for their beloved son.

Despite having met their future daughter-in-law via Skype, Woman's Day also claimed the showbiz veterans are 'desperate for Matt and Catherine to join them in Australia for Christmas, but Matt is hesitant and it's causing rows and tension with his family, who have accused him of turning his back on them.'

Bert and Patti, who recently celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary, are very close to their daughter and her retired swimmer husband Matt Welsh, as well as their four children.

Close: Bert and Patti are very close to their daughter Lauren and her husband Matt Welsh, as well as their four children

They were all recently spotted celebrating Bert's 78th birthday in Melbourne, with Patti sharing a family snap.

'Bert had a wonderful birthday dinner at Kokos at Crown .We are so lucky x (sic),' the TV icon gushed.

Meanwhile, Matthew, who is currently living in the US with Catherine, has a well-documented history of mental health troubles and arrests.

Family Christmas? Bert and Patti are said to be ''desperate for Matt and Catherine to join them in Australia for Christmas' but the actor is 'hesitant'

The actor made headlines in 2006 after he was convicted of assaulting his then-fiancee Brooke Satchwell.

The conviction was quashed a year later after a psychiatrist advised he had been rehabilitated and was unlikely to offend again.

In 2010, he announced his split with ex-fiancee Rachael Taylor, after two 'violent and unprovoked' attacks in Rome, which prompted her to take out an AVO against him.

His latest romance with Catherine has raised some eyebrows, due to her father Eric's known stance against domestic violence.

Troubled past: Matthew was previously involved in two assaults against ex-fiancees Brooke Satchwell and Rachael Taylor

In 2010, the New York District Attorney passed a bill to increase the punishment handed to those involved in such crimes.

'The time to criminalise this horrific form of abuse is now,' he told a press conference according to the New York Senate.

'I am proud of the overwhelming bipartisan support for this legislation. It sends a strong message that we must do everything in our power to ensure that no one is immune from accountability for committing such a heinous crime.'

New Idea magazine has claimed Catherine is aware of the Australian actor's past but she 'sees Matt as a misunderstood genius'.

Awkward: Matthew's latest romance with Catherine has raised some eyebrows, due to her father Eric's known stance against domestic violence
Robert Irwin is one of the most high profile teenagers in Australia.

After being given a makeover and his own Instagram account, New Idea magazine alleged that the budding photographer is being groomed to become 'the new face' of his famous family.

On Monday, the publication reported that the youngster is the subject of a 'Bob Blitz' PR Campaign - orchestrated by mum Terri - aimed at boosting his profile as he bids to become as well known as his late father Steve.

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Next in line: New Idea magazine allege Robert Irwin is being groomed to become 'the new face' of his famous family

An insider told New Idea: 'He wants to be as famous as his dad, and his mum is backing his dream. She would never make Bob do anything he didn't want to do. But we can't help but worry it's too much, too soon for Bob.'

A spokesperson for Australia Zoo rebuked the allegations, branding them 'completely false' and 'sadly typical' of the magazine.

The claims come after the teenager became the 'main focus' of the Steve Irwin Gala Dinner last month following the debut of a slick new haircut in October.

Last week, Robert was also busy at a number of media appearances, including an appearance on Rove and Sam on Nova FM, to promote his new calendar, before celebrating turning 13 on Thursday.

New look: The publication report that the youngster is the subject of a 'Bob Blitz' PR Campaign - orchestrated by mum Terri (R) - after he got a slick new haircut and his own Instagram account. Pictured with older sister Bindi and his mum earlier this year

Birthday boy: Robert celebrated his 13th birthday on Thursday - a day after appearing on Rove and Sam's Nova FM show

The wildlife conservationist has also recently joined Instagram, quickly gaining over 30,000 followers, increasing concerns that he may be missing out on his childhood.

The insider continued: 'He's only just turned 13 and he's already works more than most adults. Is it too much pressure for a kid? Will he burn out? That's what we're all worried about.'

Robert's rise coincides with his elder sister Bindi taking a back seat, according to the magazine.

Family ties: Robert's rise coincides with his elder sister Bindi (L) taking a back seat, according to the magazine. Pictured with mum Terri (R) on his 13th birthday

Rising star: An industry insider is quoted as saying that the youngest Irwin could eventually be worth '$2 million' if his career is managed properly

The 18-year-old is set to take a 'step back' from her public life in order to focus on her relationship with American boyfriend Chandler Powell and her conservation work.

Her retreat from the spotlight paves the way for Robert to become 'the next Steve Irwin', according to an industry insider.

They said: 'If Bob plays his cards right, he can be bigger than his dad. He could easily be worth $2 million - even more - if his career and profile is managed properly over the next ten years.'
She went topless on the beach just days ago in Miami.

But transgender model Andreja Pejic opted to cover up as went for a dip over the weekend.

The 28-year-old showed off her figure in a red and black striped two-piece as she strolled on the sand.

Watch the tan lines! Transgender model Andreja Pejic wore a red and black bikini at the beach over the weekend in Miami after going topless just days earlier

The skimpy suit featured a plain top and tiny bottoms with ties at the sides.

She accessoried with colour, shielding her eyes with blue-rimmed sunglasses and wearing multi-coloured bracelets around her wrists.

Makeup free, she let her wet locks hang loosely around her shoulders.

Daring to bare: Andreja went topless on the beach just days ago on the same Miami beach

Born in Bosnia, Andreja moved to Melbourne, Australia at eight years of age after her family was granted political asylum.

The blonde beauty was discovered while working at McDonald's aged 16.

Her androgynous look quickly won over the fashion world and she modelled for a string of big names such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Marc Jacobs and Vogue.

Skimpy: Andrea's latest skimpy suit featured a plain top and tiny bottoms with ties at the sides

But Andreja faced discrimination in 2011 when FHM magazine referred to her as a 'thing' and 'professional cross-dresser' in an online profile.

The magazine apologised after an outcry of disgust over the article.

Since undergoing female gender reassignment surgery two years ago, Andreja continues to model.
Rastas in Ghana preach peace ahead of presidential vote

Ghana is internationally renowned for being a peaceful country on a continent scarred by ethnic clashes, dictators and crime. So what's its secret?

In the days before the hotly contested presidential vote on December 7, Rastafarians in the West African country say they have the answer.

"It's because we've put Ghana first before everything," said Martin Quarpong, a Rastafarian in his late 30s wearing a green and orange tie-dye shirt with his hair in a black head-wrap.

People walk past a campaign poster of presidential candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party Nana Akufo-Addo in Accra, on December 3, 2016 ahead of the December 7 election PIUS UTOMI EKPEI (AFP)

"We see ourselves as one people and we think about our future."

Despite their dreadlocks and love of tie-dye, in many ways the ubiquitous Rastafarian community in Ghana embodies the country's commitment to peace.

Their message of one love isn't so different from that of ordinary Ghanians on the street who pride themselves on respecting each other -- and the democratic process.

"Rastafarians contribute a lot during and after election time. Everything we do is peace, peace, peace," Quarpong told AFP in Ghana's coastal capital of Accra.

"We should accept the winner in good faith, and let them know they should put Ghana first."

Quarpong sells clothing at the beachside Rising Phoenix hotel, where a reggae rendition of White Christmas is softly playing in the background.

A black and white portrait of the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, a Rastafarian idol, is painted on the wall beside posters advertising a "Peace in Ghana" concert featuring local reggae stars Ras Kuuku and Jah Wyz.

Just because Quarpong believes in peace over politics doesn't mean he won't vote.

In fact, peace is why he'll be casting a ballot next Wednesday.

"Yes, of course I will vote. I have to as a patriot," Quarpong said.

"It's not compulsory, but it's necessary."

- 'Perfect harmony' -

As the heated campaign enters its final stretch, there is an increasing call for peace in Ghana, where its reputation for stability has made it an attractive destination in Africa for investors.

Ghana's presidential candidates -- including front runners Nana Akufo-Addo and incumbent John Mahama -- last week signed a declaration "against electoral violence, impunity and injustice."

After signing the accord, Mahama said "our democracy and progress is too precious to be gambled away on a quest to attain or hold onto power."

Unlike fellow West African nation Nigeria, plagued by ethnic rivalry and suspicion, Ghana at independence emphasised unity.

In his 2012 autobiography, My First Coup d'Etat, Mahama wrote that even the motto of his illustrious Accra boarding school, Ut Omnes Unum Sint (That All May Be One), reflected that principal.

"You can play a tune of sorts on the black keys only; and you can play a tune of sorts on the white keys only; but for perfect harmony, you must use both the black and the white keys," said one of the school's founders James Aggrey, who Mahama quotes in the book.

Rastafarians give credit to the "Big six", Ghana's founding fathers, for entrenching peace.

"If you know Nkrumah, you know everything, Ghana is a motherland," said Kwaku Akupleca, a 32-year-old wearing a silver ring shaped as a marijuana leaf.

Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana's liberation movement from British colonialists, becoming the country's first democratic head in 1957 and a hero of the Pan-African movement that championed black unity.

"We've seen the light," Akupleca said, speaking at Labadi beach in Accra.

"We are very humble and peaceful. We feel like protecting humanity."

- 'Rasta wonderland' -

This inclusive attitude has allowed Rastafari to carve out a space for themselves in Ghana, home today to many different branches, including the Bobo Shanti and The Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Some 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Accra lies Kokrobite, a town described as a "Rasta wonderland" that is a magnet for Rastas in the region and across the Atlantic from the United States and Jamaica.

This year, local media reported that the Rastafari Council of Ghana held its first-ever national conference, with a focus on repatriating "brothers and sisters."

In 2013, Bob Marley's widow Rita was named an honorary citizen of Ghana.

Jamaican reggae legend Marley himself is regarded as a prophet in the Rasta community.

Not everyone sees eye-to-eye with the Rastafarians, but most can agree that a peaceful Ghana is better for all.

"When you have peace it's better than riches, you can be rich without peace of mind," Akupleca's friend Kwaku Francis said.
Big data helped Trump even after he scorned it

Donald Trump derided the use of data and technology tools for his presidential campaign -- but those techniques might well have propelled him to victory.

Trump's stealth digital campaign, thrown together hastily in the final months of the campaign, allowed the Republican billionaire to fine-tune his message and reach voters in crucial Rust Belt states that gave him an Electoral College majority.

During the primaries, Trump dismissed as "overrated" the kinds of data analytics and "micro-targeting" successfully used by President Barack Obama.

President-elect Donald Trump's stealth digital campaign allowed him to fine-tune his message and reach voters in crucial Rust Belt states Jason Redmond (AFP/File)

But after winning the nomination, he quietly developed a digital strategy led by a political neophyte, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and a data company whose parent firm worked on the Brexit campaign.

In the final stages of the race, Trump relied on insights generated by Cambridge Analytica, the US unit of British behavioral marketing firm SCL, that allowed his campaign to reach voters in the key states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that delivered his majority over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"We built an algorithm that generated top cities to reach the highest concentration of persuadable voters," said Matt Oczkowski, head of the data science team for the Trump campaign at Cambridge Analytica.

"That intelligence was being updated and shared daily. This campaign had to be far more surgical because Hillary Clinton outspent this campaign by double."

The digital efforts involved "thousands of variations" of messages that were targeted based on voter profiles to platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat or Pandora radio, Oczkowski said.

Cambridge Analytica said its 4,000 different online ads for Trump were viewed 1.5 billion times by millions of Americans.

The data science team could glean information about users to deliver pitches "based on the issues they care about," Oczkowski said.

- Voter turnout -

While many factors contributed to Trump's win, data analysts from both parties said a major element was determining who would turn out to vote.

"The linchpin to understanding this election was based on the ability to understand who a likely voter was," said Oczkowski.

"The main reason we were hired was to quantify the Trump effect," and to quantify "how unique this candidate was."

Tom Bonier, CEO of the consultancy TargetSmart that worked with Democratic candidates, agreed that understanding turnout was a key factor in 2016.

"If there is an Achilles heel in analytics, it is predicting turnout," Bonier said.

"The models do a great deal in predicting how people are going to vote, but have a hard time predicting who is going to vote."

Trump's digital strategist tapped by Kushner was Brad Parscale, head of a Texas-based marketing firm who was new to politics.

Parscale's lack of experience may have played to his advantage, said Chris Wilson, CEO of WPA Research, who led digital strategy for Senator Ted Cruz's presidential bid.

"There's a lot of value in going into a campaign knowing what you don't know," Wilson said.

"The Clinton team knew what it would take to motivate an Obama voter and assumed the same approach would work, and it didn't."

- Digital targeting -

Effective digital targeting involves gathering data from various online and offline sources to match voters to their profiles on Facebook and other platforms.

"I can take a predictive model of a potential Trump voter that I can match to Pandora, and match it to the kind of music they listen to and target them on Snapchat based on the filters they use," Wilson said.

A report by Bloomberg/BusinessWeek said the Trump campaign used micro-targeting to deliver negative messages on Facebook -- reminding them of Clinton's comments and "super predators" seen as disparaging to African-Americans -- in an effort to depress turnout.

Oczkowski said negative ads were "a very small part of our strategy" and that "most of our focus was to reach our voters."

He added that the campaign did only a small amount of "psychographic" profiling because of the limited time frame it had to work in.

The company said it was able to review and update ads on a daily basis to reach undecided voters, who were divided into 12-15 subgroups for "highly-targeted" messages.

"Our cutting-edge digital capabilities allowed the campaign to reach voters more effectively than ever before, and at a fraction of the cost spent by the Democratic candidate," Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix said in a statement.

Wilson said that there is no evidence that negative ads and posts depressed turnout, and that such efforts "are more likely to do the opposite" by energizing supporters.

Bonier said there appeared to be a slight drop in turnout of black voters in key states, but that it was not clear if this was due to Trump's ads or other factors.

"It's difficult to draw too many lessons from this particular campaign, this was such a unique race," Bonier said.
US woman alleges gang-rape in Indian capital

A US woman has told police she was gang-raped at a top hotel in the Indian capital during a visit earlier this year -- the latest in a series of alleged sexual assaults against tourists.

Delhi police launched a formal investigation Saturday after receiving a direct complaint from the woman, who is in the United States and had initially contacted them through an email by a US-based NGO.

"The police have registered a case of rape and will now verify all aspects of the woman's complaint," Joint Commissioner of police Mukesh Meena told AFP.

An American woman has told India police that she was gang-raped at a top hotel in the Indian capital Delhi during a visit earlier this year Chandan KHANNA (AFP/File)

"We had received the email (from the US-based NGO) earlier but could register a case only after getting a direct complaint from the woman late Saturday," the officer added.

Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj urged police to "bring guilty to book" after initial media reports of the incident.

"I have also asked Indian Ambassador in US to contact the victim and assure her that we will not spare the guilty," she tweeted on Saturday.

Local media reports, citing police sources, said the woman had travelled to India in April but cut her visit short after the alleged crime.

The woman has complained that her local tour guide, who had access to her room, gave her a spiked bottle of water and raped her with four other acquaintances inside her hotel room.

"She said that after having water from the bottle, she started feeling dizzy. Then four other men... entered the room and locked it," a report in the Sunday Times of India said.

Police are now verifying the woman's timeline and tracking the suspects, including by checking security camera footage from the hotel.

Sexual attacks on tourists in India are widespread, with several western countries warning visitors about the risk.

A 35-year-old Japanese tourist was raped in southern India last month.

Last year a Japanese woman was drugged and raped by a tourist guide in the western city of Jaipur, less than a month after six men gang-raped a 22-year-old Japanese tourist in the eastern city of Kolkata.

An Indian court in June this year convicted five men for gang-raping a 52-year-old Danish tourist in New Delhi in 2014. They were jailed for life.
Kurdish curbs harm recovery of Iraq Yazidis: rights group

Kurdish restrictions on the movement of goods are harming the recovery of Iraq's Yazidi minority, which was targeted for genocide by the Islamic State group, Human Rights Watch said Sunday.

It said restrictions imposed by the autonomous Kurdish government "disproportionate to any possible security considerations are causing unnecessary harm to people's access to food, water, livelihoods, and other fundamental rights."

It said the restrictions affected the Sinjar area, the main hub of the Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority whose unique faith is despised by jihadists.

A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter guards a checkpoint near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar Safin Hamed (AFP)

The area is theoretically under the authority of the central government in Baghdad but it is largely controlled by the forces of the autonomous Kurdish region.

"The KRG should be working to facilitate access to Sinjar for the hundreds of Yazidi civilians wishing to return to their homes, not adding more barriers to their recovery," HRW said.

It said it had not been able to find a single farmer who had been granted a permit to take his produce to the Kurdish region.

HRW said the Kurdish authorities argued they were concerned about the activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The separatist rebel group, which is also present in neighbouring Turkey, has long had bases in northern Iraq but stepped up its presence there after IS swept through the region in 2014.

It is outlawed by Ankara, which is the closest ally of the Iraqi Kurdish region's leadership.

According to HRW, there were around 360,000 Yazidis in the Sinjar area before 2014, 90 percent of whom were displaced by the violence. Very few have returned.

The United Nations says IS committed genocide against the minority, which is neither Arab nor Muslim and faces continued isolation.

Thousands of Yazidis were massacred when IS took over the Sinjar area in August 2014 and thousands of Yazidi women abducted and turned into sex slaves.

The Yazidi, a persecuted community

Lamia Haji Bashar won the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize with another Yazidi survivor, Nadia Murad Thomas Kienzle (AFP)
Afghan leader criticises Pakistan for 'undeclared war'

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused Pakistan Sunday of waging an "undeclared war" and said Taliban insurgents battling his government would not last a month without sanctuary in the neighbouring state.

Ghani also urged Pakistan to spend around $500 million pledged in aid for Afghanistan to tackle extremism instead.

"Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan on bilateral and multilateral basis, the undeclared war... not only has not abated but also intensified during 2016 with special intensity," Ghani said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) meets Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in the Indian city of Amritsar on December 4, 2016 NARINDER NANU (AFP)

"One of the key figures in the Taliban movement recently said if they didn't have a sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," he added.

The Taliban were toppled from power by a US-led invasion in 2001 and have battled the Kabul government and its foreign allies since.

Afghan officials accuse Pakistan of supporting the Taliban and continuing to provide sanctuaries on its soil in hopes of maintaining influence in Afghanistan.

The Afghan leader was speaking at the sixth ministerial conference of the Heart of Asia -- Istanbul Process, a dialogue on ways to encourage security, political and economic cooperation among Afghanistan and its neighbours.

Delegations from more than a dozen countries including Pakistan, China, Russia, Turkey and Iran attended the conference in the northern Indian city of Amritsar on Sunday.

They discussed challenges to the long-term growth and stability of the war-torn country.

India, the fifth largest bilateral donor to Afghanistan, has been a key supporter of Kabul's government and has poured more than $2 billion into the country since the Taliban were toppled.

- 'Threat to peace' -

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday promised his country's support for peace while also indirectly criticising Pakistan's role in the region.

"Terrorism and externally-induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity," he said.

"It (support for peace) must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them," Modi added, hinting at Pakistan.

The declaration issued at the end of the conference by the participating nations emphasised the need for a collective approach towards tackling terrorism in the region, particularly Afghanistan.

"Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region, we demand an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism," the statement said, identifying several well known local "terrorist groups" including the Taliban, the Haqqani network, Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, among others.

Both the Indian and Afghan leaders in recent months have vocally blamed Pakistan for its support for groups and individuals behind attacks in their countries.

Pakistan -- the historic backer of the Taliban -- has long been accused of supporting the insurgents in Afghanistan, especially with attacks on Indian targets in the country.

Last December Modi inaugurated Afghanistan's new parliament complex in Kabul, built by India at an estimated cost of $90 million.

A few days after his visit militants launched a 25-hour gun and bomb siege near the Indian consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

And in March Taliban militants fired a barrage of rockets at the parliament complex.

In an earlier bilateral meeting Modi and Ghani discussed a range of issues including improved connectivity, trade, investment and terrorism.

Ghani, in his address on Sunday, said they had reached agreement on an air cargo corridor between the two countries.

The strained ties between India and Pakistan have impeded any progress on land transport links between India and Afghanistan.

The two countries also recently signed a three-way transit agreement with Iran to develop the southern Iranian port of Chabahar.

The deal, bypassing Pakistan to connect Iran, India and Afghanistan to Central Asia, is expected to boost economic growth in the region.
S. Africa's Zuma pushes to overturn graft probe

South African President Jacob Zuma has launched a court challenge to a watchdog probe that raised allegations of misconduct against him, an affidavit showed Sunday, as he fights to hold on to power.

Zuma, who last week beat back an attempt within ruling ANC party to unseat him, has been under pressure since the probe uncovered possible criminal activity in his relationship with the Guptas, a wealthy business family.

The president, who came to power in 2009, has faced growing calls to resign over multiple graft scandals and the country's poor economic performance, with unemployment at a 13-year high.

South African President Jacob Zuma has been in office since 2009 Nic Bothma (Pool/AFP/File)

The watchdog instructed Zuma to set up a judicial inquiry into the allegations that the Guptas had influence over ministerial appointments and lucrative government contracts.

"To accede to that instruction... would be to abdicate my responsibility," he said in the affidavit quoted in South African papers on Sunday.

"(I) cannot be instructed by anyone as to when I should appoint a commission of inquiry."

The affidavit was lodged in Gauteng High Court on Friday.

"We look forward to opposing this application," the main opposition Democratic Alliance party said. "This is a desperate move by Jacob Zuma."
Philippine vice-president says plot to oust her

Philippine Vice-President Leni Robredo announced Sunday she would quit President Rodrigo Duterte's cabinet after being told to stay away from its meetings, and said there was a plot to oust her as his deputy.

Robredo did not say who was behind the alleged plot to remove her as vice-president.

But she cited "major differences in principles and values" with Duterte, such as over the rash of extrajudicial killings during his "war on drugs" and the hero's burial he granted for dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte (right) poses for photographs with Vice-President Leni Robredo in Manila on July 1, 2016 TED ALJIBE (AFP/File)

In the Philippines the president and vice-president are elected separately. Duterte and Robredo come from rival parties.

"I had been warned of a plot to steal the Vice-Presidency. I have chosen to ignore this and focus on the job at hand. But the events of recent days indicate that this plot is now being set in motion," Robredo said in a statement on her Facebook page.

"I will not allow the Vice-Presidency to be stolen. I will not allow the will of the people to be thwarted," despite leaving the cabinet, she said.

"We received a text (SMS) message last Saturday from Cabinet Secretary (Leoncio) Evasco, relaying the Presidents instruction... for me 'to desist from attending all Cabinet meetings starting this Monday, December 5'."

"This is the last straw, because it makes it impossible for me to perform my duties," Robredo said.

She had been appointed to the cabinet as a housing official.

- Foreign criticism -

Duterte's war on drugs has claimed thousands of lives and sparked international criticism, including from key ally the United States and the UN.

He has struck back by calling US President Barack Obama a "son of a whore" and UN chief Ban Ki-moon a "fool".

Duterte's spokesman Martin Andanar, interviewed on ABS-CBN television on Sunday, confirmed Robredo's departure from the cabinet and cited "irreconcilable differences".

Regarding the alleged plot to unseat her from the vice-presidency, Andanar said: "If there is a plot, that plot did not come from the camp of the president."

"Tomorrow, let us see if the president actually accepts her resignation (from the cabinet)," he added.

Evasco confirmed separately that he had sent Robredo a message, telling her not to attend further cabinet meetings on the instructions of Duterte.

He said there was no order to strip Robredo of her housing position.

Duterte won presidential elections in May after pledging to kill tens of thousands of drug suspects, warning that otherwise the Philippines would turn into a narco-state.

Since he assumed office, some 4,800 people have been killed by police or unidentified attackers.

Other differences cited by Robredo were the government's moves to bring back the death penalty, to lower the age of criminal liability to nine and "sexual attacks against women".

She did not specify which attacks but Duterte and his supporters have often used accusations of sexual misbehaviour and other insults against female critics.

In the May elections for the vice-presidency, Robredo, 51, narrowly defeated Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, the son and namesake of the dictator who died in exile in 1989.

However Marcos Jnr, a key ally of Duterte, has a pending election protest which argues he was the real winner.

Robredo, originally a lawyer for the disadvantaged, rose to fame as the wife of respected cabinet member Jesse Robredo.
Egypt brings in tougher penalties against female genital mutilation

An amended law that toughens penalties for female genital mutilation to up to 15 years in jail has come into effect, the health ministry announced Sunday.

Health ministry officials will monitor and oversee clinics and private hospitals to enforce the anti-FGM law that came into effect last Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement.

The government had sent the bill to parliament on August 28, and lawmakers approved it days later.

In Egypt, the partial or full removal of the external sex organs for no medical purposes, ostensibly to control women's sexuality, remains widespread, especially in rural areas Simon Maina (AFP/File)

In Egypt, the partial or full removal of the external sex organs for no medical purposes, ostensibly to control women's sexuality, remains widespread, especially in rural areas.

The procedure, common in some parts of the African continent, is practised by both Muslims and Christians in Egypt.

Under the new law, those convicted of carrying out female circumcision can now be jailed for between five and seven years, from three months and two years under the former law.

If the procedure leads to permanent disability or death, the perpetrators could be jailed for up to 15 years.

The new law also calls for anyone who forces a female to undertake the procedure to be jailed for between one and three years, which could potentially apply to parents or family members.

FGM can cause lifelong pain, including extreme discomfort during sexual intercourse, serious complications during childbirth and psychological trauma.

In January 2015, an Egyptian doctor was sentenced to two years in jail for involuntary manslaughter and three months for practising FGM, after a 14-year-old girl died during an operation he performed.

He served only the three-month sentence.

However, "the latest figures from the Egypt Demographic and Health Survey show that were winning," the United Nations Development Programme said in a report last year.

"Mothers attitudes are changing, too," UNDP said.

While 92 percent of mothers had undergone the procedure, only 35 percent of them "intend to circumcise their daughters", according to the UNDP report.

According to the World Health Organisation, more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut, and over two million join their ranks each year.
Secret weddings and phone calls in Mosul under IS

To celebrate her wedding in Mosul, Shaimaa covered herself in black to hide her dress and make-up from the jihadists on her way to the groom's house.

During the more than two years they spent under the control of the Islamic State group, many residents of the Iraqi city often defied the strict rules of the "caliphate" in the secrecy of their homes.

Shaimaa, 20, married Ali, 24, four months ago.

A displaced Iraqi woman pictured at Hasansham refugee camp, near Mosul, on December 3, 2016 THOMAS COEX (AFP)

In the Hasansham displacement camp where they now live with thousands of other people who fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched a broad offensive to retake Mosul in mid-October, they recounted their big day.

"I put on a white wedding dress, I did my make-up and hairdo and then disappeared under a black niqab and a long abaya to go from our house to my husband's," the young lady said.

"When we reached the house, we locked the doors and turned on the generator so the noise would cover the music. The women were able to party while the men stayed outside," her husband said.

That celebration was in violation of several rules enforced by the jihadists, who banned music, smoking and checked that no men were shaving and no women showing their faces.

"I never thought my wedding party would be like that, I really wanted to wear a suit and shave, I wanted my friends to share our joy and I wanted to parade around town with my wife in a convoy," Ali said.

"The wedding was quick, we thought about going for a ride in town but eventually we were too scared to do anything," she said.

A picture of their clandestine wedding, which shows Shaimaa wearing a white dress and putting her hands around her smiling husband's face, survived the fighting and chaos that came when they fled.

"I had a printing shop so I locked myself in, pulled the shutter down and printed the photo because such photos are forbidden," he said.

He sat on a mattress with his wife in front of their tent with former neighbours who also fled last month, including 23-year-old Samiha, who remembered having to keep her voice down during the stealthy wedding party.

She said she used to put earphones on to listen to music she had downloaded to her phone's memory card but mobiles were tightly controlled under IS and simply owning a sim card was punishable.

Samiha said she used to hide her phone's memory card and sim card inside a curtain railing.

- Smoking, dominoes, television -

Communication with relatives living outside the "caliphate" IS proclaimed over parts of Iraq and Syria in June 2014 was complicated and perilous.

Somebody had to stand guard outside the front door while she made a call, usually only a few quick words: "How are you? Good. Goodbye".

If an IS patrol showed up and searched the house, they would hide mobiles in large bags of flour or rice, said Alia, a 40-year-old displaced woman who now lives in the neighbouring camp of Khazer.

Most of the people AFP interviewed refused to be photographed or give their full names, out of fear for relatives still living in IS-held parts of Mosul.

In their efforts to cut off their denizens from the rest of the world, the jihadists also banned satellite dishes and some residents had to pull off risky tricks to watch television.

"When the jihadists came to take my dish, I gave them an old one and hid the other two," said Adnan, a 46-year-old who also ended up in Hasansham.

"Every evening I would go to the roof to set up my dish and watch programmes on TV for about three hours," he said.

"I would smoke in secret, play dominos in secret, use my mobile in secret," said Hala, a 35-year-old woman living in Khazer, who explained she would hide her sim card in her bra.

"Everything was secret."

A displaced Iraqi boy photographed at Hasansham refugee camp near Mosul on December 3, 2016 THOMAS COEX (AFP)
Raids kill dozens in Syria's Idlib, army advances in Aleppo

Suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 46 people in opposition-held parts of Syria Sunday, a monitor said, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.

Syria's government is waging an offensive to recapture all of second city Aleppo, and it has so far captured more than 60 percent of eastern districts that fell to rebels in 2012.

In Idlib province, in northwest Syria, at least 26 civilians were killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Kafr Nabel, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

A Syrian boy cries as he stands next to a building hit by an air strike on the village of Maaret al-Numan, in the country's northern province of Idlib, on December 4, 2016 Mohamed al-Bakour (AFP)

An eyewitness told AFP warplanes hit several places in the town, including a market.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

The group said 18 people were also killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Maaret al-Numan, where an AFP photographer saw rescue workers and residents trying to pull survivors from rubble at a market.

The monitor reported two additional deaths, one in an earlier strike on Maaret al-Numan and another in Al-Naqir, also in Idlib.

It said six civilians, four of them children, had been killed in a government barrel bomb attack on the town of Al-Tamanah in the same province.

Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad's government, began a military intervention in support of Damascus in September 2015.

Moscow says it is targeting "terrorists" and has dismissed reports of civilian casualties in its strikes.

- Army advances in Aleppo -

In east Aleppo, government forces advanced against rebels, taking three neighbourhoods and pushing into a fourth, state media and the Russian defence ministry said.

The army and allied forces are nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of the city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syria's opposition its worst defeat in the five-year civil war.

State television said late Sunday the army had captured the districts of Karm al-Tahan and Myessar and advanced into the Qadi Askar neighbourhood.

The Russian defence ministry said regime forces had also taken the district of Karm al-Katurji.

Rebels are increasingly under pressure in the remaining southeastern districts they control.

State news agency SANA said the air force was dropping leaflets over rebel-held areas urging "militants to abandon their weapons and... allow civilians and the sick and wounded to leave".

Damascus says rebels are preventing civilians from leaving the east and trying to use them as human shields.

But tens of thousands of residents have fled the east as the army has advanced, with some heading south to remaining rebel territory and others going to areas under government or Kurdish control.

The east has been pounded with air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire.

At least 311 civilians, including 42 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the government assault began, the Observatory says.

- Nothing but rubble -

Rebel fire on west Aleppo in the same period has killed 69 civilians, including 28 children, it says.

On Sunday, the bombardment of rebel districts was so fierce it shook buildings in the west as well as in the east, AFP correspondents on both sides said.

The Observatory said a woman and two children were killed in the eastern neighbourhood of Fardos in government artillery fire.

The latest assault has added to the massive destruction in east Aleppo, which has seen some of the worst violence in the conflict that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

The army has encouraged residents to return to recently recaptured neighbourhoods, but many who have ventured across to see their old homes have found nothing but rubble.

"This is all we found, this photo of my niece. It is precious to us, and we found a copy of the Koran, so we brought that too," said Um Yayha, 55.

The Russian defence ministry also said Syrian government forces took control of the town of Al-Tal outside Damascus after a local truce.

"More than 500 rebels from the Fateh al-Sham Front have left Al-Tal for Idlib over the last days with 1,500 family members," it said, referring to Al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate.

Despite international outcry over the conflict, successive attempts to end it have failed.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura on Saturday urged a return to negotiations, warning of a "creeping, ongoing guerilla (war) and no reconstruction" unless peace talks resumed.

The battle for Aleppo Valentina BRESCHI, Simon MALFATTO, Frederic BOURGEAIS, Sophie RAMIS (AFP)

Syrians search for survivors following a suspected Russian air strike on the village of Maaret al-Numan, Idlib province, on December 4, 2016 Mohamed al-Bakour (AFP)

Syrians inspect the damage following an air strike on the village of Maaret al-Numan, in Idlib province -- which is mostly controlled by a powerful rebel alliance known as the Army of Conquest Mohamed al-Bakour (AFP)

Syrian pro-government forces gather in east Aleppo in an ongoing operation to recapture the city on December 4, 2016 George OURFALIAN (AFP)

Syrian pro-government forces advance in the Myessar district in east Aleppo on December 4, 2016 George OURFALIAN (AFP)
EU accuses China of wrecking 'green' goods deal

China has scuppered attempts by world trade heavyweights to eliminate or reduce tariffs on a list of environmentally friendly products, the European Union said on Sunday.

A list of around 300 "green" products had been prepared by the US and EU to be presented at WTO talks on Sunday in Geneva for the 18 participants -- including Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey -- to discuss.

But to the surprise of all present, China submitted its own list of products, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said, thus derailing talks.

China has scuppered attempts by world trade heavyweights to eliminate or reduce tariffs on a list of environmentally friendly products, the European Union says THIERRY CHARLIER (AFP/File)

"They took away many of our priorities," Malmstroem, who deplored the Chinese move, told journalists.

"The Chinese list had commonalities with the original list but there were lots of differences -- too many to absorb them.

"It would have been very helpful if they had engaged earlier in this sort of specifics because, of course, they came out with a list that surprised everybody."

Talks on the Environmental Goods Agreement began in July 2014, based on a proposal at the World Economic Forum in Davos six months earlier.

But Malmstroem insisted the participants at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks were determined to find a solution.

"Everybody said, all delegations said... this is a very important agreement. We are committed to conclude this and we will reinforce our efforts next year," she said.

The US-EU list included solar panels, wind turbines and air quality monitors while China's list contained electric bicycles, according to a WTO spokesperson.

Over $1,000 billion (940 billion euros) worth of "green" goods are traded every year, according to the WTO.

Asked by reporters if China's stance had been a reaction to US President-elect Donald Trump's controversial telephone conversation with Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen on Friday, Malmstroem declined to comment.

China reacted with fury at Trump's contact with Tsai and his referring to her as the Taiwan president in a tweet.
Uzbekistan has first election since Soviet-era ruler's death

MOSCOW (AP)  Voters in Uzbekistan are casting ballots Sunday in the tightly controlled, ex-Soviet nation's first presidential election since the death of Islam Karimov, the authoritarian leader who ruled for 27 years.

Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who spent 13 years as Karimov's prime minister, is expected to easily win a five-year term in the Central Asia country.

Karimov led Uzbekistan since before the Soviet collapse, first as its communist boss and then as president. During his long tenure, he ruthlessly crushed all opposition, silenced the media and was repeatedly denounced by international human rights groups for abuses that included killings and torture.

Karimov also never cultivated a successor. His September death raised concerns that the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation of 32 million might see fierce infighting over its leadership that could allow radical Islamists to rise to power or exploit the situation.

But the 59-year old Mirziyoyev shifted into the acting president's job quickly and without any visible tensions, highlighting apparent consensus between regional clans.

In Sunday's election, Mirziyoyev faces three nominal rivals. Two of them, Hotamjon Ketmonov and Narimon Umarov challenged Karimov in past elections, each receiving about 3 percent of the vote.

However, neither candidate has campaigned as a vocal critic of Mirziyoyev, while the fourth contender, Sarvar Otamuratov, has been just as pliant.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the main trans-Atlantic security and rights group, deployed an observer team to monitor the election. It has described the campaign as "strictly regulated" and "moderately visible."

"There is no perceptible exchange of views among the candidates with regard to their programs," the OSCE said in an interim report. "All candidates refrain from criticizing the government or each other, and claim to target distinct segments of the electorate."

Under Karimov, Uzbekistan's relations with its ex-Soviet neighbors were strained by disputes over water, energy and other issues. Analyst Arkady Dubnov noted in a commentary for the Carnegie Moscow Center that Mirziyoyev has worked quickly to ease tensions.

Dubnov also pointed to Mirziyoyev's pledge to liberalize foreign currency trading as a sign that he was planning to ease some of the rigid rules established under Karimov.

Since gaining independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has pursued a policy of economic self-reliance and sought to balance its diplomatic ties with the West and Russia, playing them against each other.

Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous nation, is rich in natural resources and borders Afghanistan, making it of strategic interest to Russia, the United States and China.

Shortly after Karimov died, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Uzbekistan and met with Mirziyoyev, a trip that reflected Moscow's desire to strengthen its influence in the country.

The United States installed a military base in the country for action in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Washington was forced to abandon the facility in 2005 as relations between the Uzbekistan and the U.S. soured following a government crackdown on rioters in the Ferghana Valley city of Andijan that is believed to have left hundreds dead.
Gunman kills 3 in Finland; police say no political motive

HELSINKI (AP)  A gunman in Finland killed a local town councilor and two journalists in an apparent random shooting in a small town's nightlife district, police said Sunday. A local man was detained on suspicion of murder.

The chairwoman of the Imatra town council and two female reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant around midnight Saturday, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said. Police said two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her mid-30s.

Police detained a 23-year-old suspect who didn't resist arrest. He had allegedly fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle, authorities said.

Candles in front of the restaurant Vuoksenvahti where three women were killed in a shooting incident, in Imatra, Finland, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. A gunman killed a local town councilor and two journalists, all women, in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in southeastern Finland, police said Sunday. A male suspect has been detained. (Hannu Rissanen/Lehtikuva via AP)

Detective Superintendent Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the suspect had a criminal record that included violent incidents and theft, but declined to identify him.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."

The suspect arrived outside the restaurant in his car and shot the three women as they stepped out of the restaurant during a busy Christmas party evening. He then waited in the car until police arrived and accompanied officers silently and peacefully, police said.

Tielinen said investigators would question him later.

Hundreds of people lit candles and placed them Sunday in the bloodied snow outside the restaurant in Imatra, a southeastern town of 28,000 about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of the capital, Helsinki.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto conveyed his "deepest condolences" to the families and friends of the victims, saying the killings "shocked all of Finland." Prime Minister Juha Sipila said the government would consider new security measures pending the results of the investigation.

"Finland is one of the most secure countries in the world, but even so these sorts of incidents unfortunately are possible here too," Sipila said.

Social welfare officials provided support to victims' families and to witnesses of the incident.

"We decided to open a crisis center after the shooting occurred," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. "In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident. Many people were shocked."

In Finland, a country of 5.4 million with strong hunting traditions, there are 650,000 officially recognized gun owners but homicides with guns are unusual. After two deadly school shootings in 2007 and 2008, gun laws have been tightened.

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This version corrects the dates for previous school shootings.

Police guard the area where three women were killed in a shooting incident outside of a restaurant in Imatra, Finland after midnight, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. A gunman killed a local town councilor and two journalists, all women, in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in southeastern Finland, police said Sunday. A male suspect has been detained. (Hannu Rissanen/Lehtikuva via AP)

Police investigate the area where three women were killed in a shooting incident outside of a restaurant in Imatra, Finland after midnight, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. A gunman killed a local town councilor and two journalists, all women, in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in southeastern Finland, police said Sunday. A male suspect has been detained. (Hannu Rissanen/Lehtikuva via AP)

Police guard the area where three women were killed in a shooting incident outside of a restaurant in Imatra, Finland after midnight, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. A gunman killed a local town councilor and two journalists, all women, in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in southeastern Finland, police said Sunday. A male suspect has been detained. (Hannu Rissanen/Lehtikuva via AP)
Russian patriarch blesses new Paris church, a Putin project

PARIS (AP)  The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church consecrated a prominent new church Sunday near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of Russian President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe.

Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of Putin, led the elaborate sanctifying ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, the gold-domed centerpiece of a 100 million euro ($106 million) complex owned by the Russian government that will include a cultural center and a school.

The hours-long ceremony included the consecration of the altar, a procession around the grounds and the placing of relics, accompanied by an all-male choir and the rich smells of incense.

Russian Patriarch Kirill attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

The Paris mayor, Russian model Natalia Vodianova, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's wife Svetlana and members of France's large Russian community crowded into the invitation-only, high-security event in the imposing, block-shaped white church.

While it was primarily a religious event, it carried strong political overtones.

The staunchly conservative Kirill came to Paris' Left Bank as Europe faces a populist push against multicultural liberalism in favor of the kind of tougher, more traditional politics that Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church eschew. And his visit comes as some leading French and other European politicians argue for better relations with Russia after years of diplomatic tensions over Moscow's role in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.

Churchgoer Ekaterina Besse, a Russian living in Paris, welcomed the new church complex and expressed hope for a "thaw" in relations.

"We can see this is also a political gesture as much as a religious one," she said.

Putin championed the project for a new Russian church in Paris, which prompted criticism from rights groups when it was first approved in 2008, and new concerns as diplomatic relations soured in ensuing years. Putin played down suspicions that it would be used by Russian secret services to spy on sensitive government buildings and embassies in the surrounding neighborhood.

The Russian state-owned church on a prominent piece of Parisian real estate is also an awkward symbol for secular France, which adheres firmly to its division between church and state.

In Russia  until 25 years ago an officially atheist state  the role of the church has grown under Putin, notably in its lobbying for traditional family policies and against homosexuality. Putin, who once explained the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine by noting that the prince of the ancient Kievan Russian state was baptized there more than 1,000 years ago, has publicly supported conservative Christian groups, arguing that Western liberal values are alien to Russians.

The Russian patriarch thanked France for allowing the construction of the "magnificent" Paris site. In meetings with Russian emigres, he warned that it's "dangerous" for them to lose their loyalty to Russia.

"It's your duty. You can live wherever you want, but you cannot break spiritual and cultural ties with your people," he said.

Kirill meets Monday with French President Francois Hollande, a critic of Russia's support for both Syrian President Bashar Assad and separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Putin was meant to inaugurate the Paris church complex in October, but cancelled his trip amid French anger at Russia's bombing of civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Change may be in the air, however. Two top contenders for France's presidential election next year, conservative Francois Fillon and far right leader Marine Le Pen, are arguing for allying with Putin against Islamic extremists and pushing for an end to EU sanctions against Russia.

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Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.

Russian Patriarch Kirill attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill, left, attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill, center, attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill, left, attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill, center, attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill, center, attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

French director Robert Hossein, left, and Natalia Vodianova look on as Russian Patriarch Kirill, an ally of Putin, is presiding over a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Exterial view of the Saint Trinity Church, next to the Eiffel Tower on the banks of the Seine River after Russian Patriarch Kirill attended a blessing ceremony, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill, an ally of Putin, is presiding over a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill, center, attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill, center, attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

An eagle decorates a carpet used by Russian Patriarch Kirill for a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, at right, look son as Russian Patriarch Kirill attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Exterial view of the Saint Trinity Church, next to the Eiffel Tower on the banks of the Seine River after Russian Patriarch Kirill attended a blessing ceremony, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Russian Patriarch Kirill attends a blessing ceremony in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River, in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
The Latest: No tears shed by Miami exiles for Castro funeral

SANTIAGO, Cuba (AP)  The Latest on the interment of Fidel Castro in Santiago, Cuba (all times local):

11:10 a.m.

Cuban exile Armando Garcia was at the Versailles restaurant in Miami's Little Havana on Sunday when Fidel Castro was being interred in the island's eastern city of Santiago.

The ashes of Fidel Castro leave the Antonio Maceo plaza for its burial in a private funeral ceremony at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba Sunday Dec. 4, 2016.(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Regulars sipped espressos and smoked cigars at the restaurant that serves as a hub for exiles in South Florida.

Garcia is a 76-year-old retired electronics salesman who left Cuba in 1963. He said Castro's funeral offered no simple closure for those people who left the country chafing under his rule. But Garcia added that the moment did represent a "light at the end of the tunnel" in hopes for democracy on the island.

Garcia said it was painful to see leaders in some Latin American countries praising Castro "'for supposedly liberating the poor, when in reality he has enslaved the poor."

He joked that there was no sadness at the restaurant over Castro's interment, calling it "the best funeral ever."

Garcia said, "Look at us. No one is crying, everyone is happy, no need for handkerchiefs. It's a party."

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10:25 a.m.

Photographs taken by the Cuban national press show President Raul Castro dressed in an olive green uniform as he presides over the interment of his older brother Fidel.

The images were seen by The Associated Press after the Sunday morning ceremony in the eastern city of Santiago.

The photos also show Fidel Castro's wife and sons and presidents Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.

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10 a.m.

France's representative at Fidel Castro's funeral is drawing fire for shrugging off concerns about Cuban human rights and political prisoners.

French environment and energy minister Segolene Royal told reporters in Cuba on Saturday that the world should look at the country's accomplishments "positively." When asked about human rights concerns, the Socialist minister said "there's a lot of disinformation."

She says, "When you ask for a list of political prisoners, there isn't one. So show me a list of political prisoners and at that point we can do something."

French politicians from left and right and Amnesty International have been criticizing her for defending a man who built a one-party system that exercised political repression on dissidents. Royal stood by her position Sunday.

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9:45 a.m.

Cubans are being allowed briefly inside the cemetery where Fidel Castro has been interred in Santiago to see his tomb.

It is a simple round stone about 15 feet high with an emerald-colored plaque bearing his name.

The tomb stands to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiago's Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.

A dozen uniformed soldiers are standing in front of Castro's tomb.

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9 a.m.

Exiles in Miami say they aren't planning to watch news coverage of the funeral. Waves of Cubans have emigrated to South Florida to escape political repression or other hardships since Castro's 1959 revolution.

Miriam de la Pena is the mother of a pilot killed in 1996 in Cuban airspace while trying to rescue people leaving the island. She says watching the coverage would cause "a lot of pain."

She says, "It is not pleasant to watch because all the pain comes back, all the suffering that we have been through because of him."

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8:55 a.m.

Fidel Castro's ashes have been interred in a private ceremony in the Santa Ifigenia ceremony in the eastern city of Santiago.

The Russian jeep that carried his ashes across Cuba could be seen leaving the cemetery around 8:50 a.m., and military officers outside the cemetery said the ceremony had ended.

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8:35 a.m.

The private interment ceremony for Fidel Castro is still under way at Santa Ifigenia cemetery in eastern Cuba.

Martial music can still be heard from outside the cemetery, where mourners gathered.

Ines de la Rosa said Sunday she would have liked to watch the ceremony on television, but "we understand how they as a family also need a bit of privacy."

Fellow mourner Elena Vinales says she wasn't surprised that the images of the ceremony were not broadcast. She says, "It seems to be a family moment."

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7:20 a.m.

The crowds lining the road into the cemetery for Fidel Castro's funeral are singing Cuba's national anthem and shouting, "Viva Fidel!"

The caravan entered the cemetery, but the road has been crowded and access for the press has been blocked.

The ceremony is not being broadcast live on television as expected.

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7:15 a.m.

Fidel Castro's ashes have arrived at a Santiago, Cuba cemetery to mark the start of funeral ceremonies for Fidel Castro.

The salute sounded in the capital, Havana, as Castro's ashes before they were taken to the cemetery in eastern Cuba where they will be interred at the end of a nine-day waiting period.

In the eastern city of Santiago, thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza of the Revolution to the Santa Ifigenia cemetery waving Cuban flags and shouting "I am Fidel!"

The caravan carrying the ashes arrived at the cemetery around 7:15 a.m. as a 21-salute was also fired in Santiago.

Two women embrace after watching the ashes of Fidel Castro leave the Antonio Maceo plaza heading to the Santa Ifigenia cemetery for a private funeral ceremony in Santiago, Cuba, , Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016.(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Two bystanders stand under a sign reading 'farewell commander' after the ashes of Cuban leader Fidel Castro were carried to the Santa Ifigenia cemetery for burial in a private funeral ceremony in Santiago, Cuba Sunday Dec. 4, 2016.(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A woman cries after watching the ashes of Fidel Castro leave the Antonio Maceo plaza heading to the Santa Ifigenia cemetery for a private funeral ceremony in Santiago, Cuba, , Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016.(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Heavy rain causes flooding in southern Spain

MADRID (AP)  Spain's government has issued a public safety warning after heavy rainfall has caused flooding in and around the southern city of Malaga.

The national weather service has issued a red alert for "extreme danger," its highest level of warning, for the area near the tip of the Iberian Peninsula.

Spanish state television shows images of flooded streets because of torrential rainfall on Sunday morning.

The government's regional authority says that there have been more than 600 public safety incidents reported because of bad weather in the area.
Ex-Tiger McGehee signs 1-year deal with Japan's Giants

TOKYO (AP)  Former Detroit Tigers infielder Casey McGehee has agreed to a one-year deal with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan's Central League worth $1.7 million.

The Giants announced the signing on their official website on Sunday.

McGehee played in 30 games for the Tigers in 2016 posting a .228 batting average.

This will be McGehee's second stint in Japan. In 2013, he batted .292 with 28 home runs and 93 RBI while helping the Rakuten Eagles of the Pacific League win the Japan Series.
Trump's inauguration set to test nation's readiness to heal

WASHINGTON (AP)  One thing you can count on during inauguration season in Washington: People of all stripes will find a reason to show up  whether it's to celebrate or commiserate.

There are parties and protests to attend, stars to gawk at, receptions to be worked, deals to be done, drinks to be consumed.

Less than two months out from Inauguration Day, there's a different dynamic surrounding the planning for Donald Trump's swearing-in than the unbridled enthusiasm that swirled around the installation of the first black president in 2008.

In this Nov. 15, 2016 photo, inaugural preparations continue on the West Front of Capitol Hill in Washington, looking at the National Mall and Washington Monument. One thing you can count on during inauguration season in Washington: People of all stripes will find a reason to show up, whether its to celebrate or commiserate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Crowd expectations are down. Fewer A-list celebrities are likely to descend. Hotels still have rooms to be rented.

But congressional offices are maxing out on ticket requests for the Jan. 20 swearing-in. Trump's inaugural committee is wooing big donors with candlelight dinners, exclusive luncheons and premier access to balls. Interest groups are lining up sideline events. And among those still mourning Hillary Clinton's loss, there is plenty of counter-programming afoot, including plans for a giant women's march aimed at sending a defiant message to the incoming president.

Before the election, District of Columbia planners set an early estimate of 800,000-900,000 people for this year's inauguration and they haven't revised that number yet, according to Christopher Geldart, director of D.C.'s Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. But there's scant expectation of replicating the 1.8 million people who descended on Washington for Barack Obama's first inaugural.

Nor will Hollywood turn out as it did for Obama, whose two inaugurals attracted the likes of Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Usher, Jamie Foxx, Jay-Z, Oprah Winfrey and many more A-listers.

"More than any election we've seen in a very long time, the Hollywood community was really behind Hillary, and a lot of people put their reputations on the line," says longtime Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman. "Clearly those are people who are going to be taking their Xanax and Valium that day and staying in bed with the covers over them."

But Bragman said there still will be Republican-leaning celebrities who turn out for Trump  and a larger contingent of Hollywood types who show up for counter events like the women's march planned for the day after Trump's inauguration.

While demand for hotel rooms and other venues is slower than at this point four and eight years ago, hoteliers remain "guardedly optimistic," according to Elliott Ferguson, president of Destination DC, the city's tourism bureau. Some hotels that set up four-day-minimum inaugural packages are rethinking that model, hoping to capture more business from those headed to Washington for the women's march.

Hotels are noticing "more rooms being picked up on Saturday than on Friday," Ferguson says, suggesting strong interest in the march, whose organizers hope to draw 200,000 people to the city.

Be advised: The president-elect's own Trump International Hotel is sold out.

Still available: For $2.5 million, the J.W. Marriott is offering a package that includes four presidential suites, 325 guest rooms, a craft bourbon barrel tasting reception, special inauguration menus, and a private viewing party on the terrace overlooking the parade route, among other amenities.

There are always more affordable options through rental network Airbnb, which says local bookings for inauguration weekend spiked by 80 percent during the week after the election.

Airbnb host Jade Moore, a video editor and Democrat, doubled her prices to $200 a night for inauguration weekend and says she's booked both Trump supporters and women marchers for her Anacostia home. Before her inaugural guests arrive, she'll be removing the toilet paper bearing Trump's photo and the sign in her bathroom that invites people to "take a dump on Trump."

"I'm sure we'll all get along," says Moore, hopefully. "We don't even have to bring up politics."

Not all hosts are that dispassionate.

Another local Airbnb host, who asked that her name not be used to avoid getting in trouble for violating the company's nondiscrimination policy, says she declined to accept a rental request that looked like it came from a Trump supporter and did accept a request that came from women planning to attend the march.

Interest groups, too, are adapting in different ways.

The Creative Coalition, a bipartisan advocacy group for the arts, has been holding inaugural balls for the past 20 years that typically attract top talent and celebrities. Coalition CEO Robin Bronk says interest in the ball remains strong and she expects it to feature top names once again.

"It's an event that hopefully will be part of the healing of the nation," Bronk says. Plus, she adds, "I would venture to say a lot of business gets done at our ball."

The Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization that threw an "equality ball" eight years ago, this year is focused on making sure its members get involved in demonstrations, marches and other events on inauguration weekend and throughout the year, says spokeswoman Sarah McBride.

The Latino Victory Project, which four years ago helped mount a huge Kennedy Center gala featuring Eva Longoria, George Lopez and other top Latino entertainers, this time is putting together events that put the Trump administration on notice that Latinos will fight "his hateful rhetoric and policies," says project president Cristobal Alex.

"I wouldn't call it a party," Alex said of this year's yet-to-be-announced events. "What I would call it is a moment to learn" from the last election.

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Associated Press writer Ben Nuckols contributed to this report.

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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/nbenac

Construction continues on the presidential reviewing stand on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016. One thing you can count on during inauguration season in Washington: People of all stripes will find a reason to show up, whether its to celebrate or commiserate. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Fidel Castro laid to rest in private ceremony in east Cuba

SANTIAGO, Cuba (AP)  A wooden box containing Fidel Castro's ashes was placed by his brother and successor on Sunday into the side of a granite boulder that has become Cuba's only official monument to the charismatic bearded rebel who seized control of a U.S.-allied Caribbean island and transformed it into a western outpost of Soviet-style communism that he ruled with absolute power for nearly a half century.

The private, early-morning ceremony was attended by members of Fidel Castro's family, the ruling Politburo of the single-party system he founded, and Latin American leaders who installed closely allied leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Brazil.

After nine days of fervent national mourning and wall-to-wall homages to Castro on state-run media, the government barred independent coverage of the funeral, releasing a handful of photos and brief descriptions of the ceremony later in the day.

The motorcade carrying the ashes of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro makes i's final journey towards the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

The ceremony began at 6:39 a.m. when the military caravan bearing Castro's remains in a flag-draped cedar coffin left the Plaza of the Revolution in the eastern city of Santiago. Thousands of people lined the two-mile route to Santa Ifigenia cemetery, waving Cuban flags and shouting "Long live Fidel!"

The ashes were delivered to Castro's younger brother and successor, President Raul Castro, who wore his olive general's uniform as he placed the remains into a niche in the enormous grey boulder that will serve as his tomb. The niche was sealed with a green marble plaque emblazed with the name "Fidel" in gold letters.

The tomb stands to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiago's Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.

As the funeral ended, martial music could be heard outside the cemetery, where Ines de la Rosa was among the mourners gathered. She said she would have liked to watch the interment on television, but "we understand how they as a family also need a bit of privacy."

The decision to keep the final farewell private came the morning after Raul Castro announced that Cuba would prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after his brother, and bar the construction of statues of the former leader and revolutionary icon, in keeping with his desire to avoid a cult of personality.

"The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality and was consistent in that through the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected," Raul Castro told a massive crowd gathered in the eastern city of Santiago.

He said that Cuba's National Assembly would vote in its next session on the law fulfilling the wishes of his brother, who died last week at 90. The legislature generally holds a meeting in December and under Cuba's single-party system, parliament unanimously or near-unanimously approves every government proposal.

Fidel Castro, who stepped down in 2006 after falling ill, kept his name off public sites during his near half-century in power because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a personality cult. In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto "Che" Guevara became common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths.

Mourning for Castro has been fervent and intense across the country since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba, where huge crowds have been shouting Castro's name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes.

"All of us would like to put Fidel's name on everything but in the end, Fidel is all of Cuba," said Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a 70-year-old retired economist. "It was a decision of Fidel's, not Raul's, and I think he has to be respected."

Castro's reign over the island nation 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida was marked by the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Castro, who outlasted a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots, died 10 years after a life-threatening illness led him to turn over power to his brother.

Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. For decades his defiance of the U.S. and dedication to social equality, free health care and universal education was a source of inspiration and support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa, even as Cubans who fled to exile loathed him with equal measure.

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Michael Weissenstein reported from Havana. Fabiola Sanchez contributed from Havana.

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Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARodriguezAP

Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mweissenstein

Students wait to see the ashes of Cuba's leader Fidel Castro driven to the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. The motorcade carrying the ashes made i's final journey towards the cemetery as thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza Antonio Maceo.(AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

Cuba's President Raul Castro places the ashes of his older brother Fidel Castro into a niche in his tomb, a simple, grey, round stone about 15 feet high at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba, Sunday Dec.4, 2016. The niche was then covered by a plaque bearing the single name,"Fidel."(Marcelino Vazquez Hernandez/Pool Photo via AP)

The motorcade carrying the ashes of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro makes i's final journey towards the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. Thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza Antonio Maceo or Plaza of the Revolution to the cemetery waving Cuban flags and shouting "I am Fidel!"(AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

Soldiers line up, background left, around the grave site where the ashes of Fidel Castro were laid to rest at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. Thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza Antonio Maceo or Plaza of the Revolution to the cemetery where the ashes were buried in a private ceremony near the grave of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)

People line the street leading to Santa Ifigenia cemetery as they wait at sunrise for the funeral procession carrying the ashes of Fidel Castro in Santiago, Cuba, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. Thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza Antonio Maceo or Plaza of the Revolution to the cemetery where the ashes will be buried in a private ceremony near the grave of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)

People hold pictures of late Fidel Castro near Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. Thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza Antonio Maceo or Plaza of the Revolution to the cemetery where the ashes were be buried in a private ceremony near the grave of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)

This frame grab from video shows workers sealing the grave where the ashes of Fidel Castro were interred at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. Thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza Antonio Maceo or Plaza of the Revolution to the cemetery where the ashes were buried in a private ceremony near the grave of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti. (AP Photo/APTN/Ariel Fernandez)

A woman walks by a the word 'Fidel' written on the asphalt near the route made by the motorcade carrying Fidel Castro's ashes to the the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. Thousands of people lined the short route from the Plaza Antonio Maceo or Plaza of the Revolution to the cemetery where the ashes will be buried in a private ceremony near the grave of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Cuba's President Raul Castro salutes at the tomb of his older brother Fidel Castro, a simple, grey, round stone about 15 feet high, at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba, Sunday Dec.4, 2016. Raul Castro placed the ashes in a niche in the tomb that was then covered by a plaque bearing the single name,"Fidel."(Marcelino Vazquez Hernandez/ACN via AP)
NY tweaks medical pot law but still no talk of legalization

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP)  New York is loosening restrictions in its nearly year-old medical marijuana law but, to the dismay of some pot advocates, there is no sign the state is in any hurry to join eight other states in embracing full legalization.

Among the latest to do so are two in the Northeast  Massachusetts and Maine  and the huge state of California. Still, Gov. Andrew Cuomo remains a skeptic of outright recreational use and legalization faces challenges in the Legislature too.

"It's unlikely to happen in the short term," predicted physician Kyle Kingsley, chairman of Vireo Health, one of five companies selected under New York's law to grow and sell cannabis for medical uses. "But I do think what's going on in Massachusetts, it helps knock down the stigma ... I think it's inevitable. It's just a matter of time."

FILE - In this Nov. 12, 2015, file photo, assistant cultivator Emily Errico examines cannabis plants grown by Vireo Health of New York at Tryon Technology Park and Incubator Center in Perth, N.Y. New York is loosening restrictions in its nearly year-old medical marijuana law, but to the dismay of some pot advocates, there is no sign the state is in any hurry to join eight other states in embracing full legalization. (John Carl D'Annibale/The Albany Times Union via AP, File)

New York's medical marijuana law still has some of the strictest rules among the more than 20 states that allow medical pot. Among its requirements: that pot products can't be dispensed in smokeable form and that physicians complete a training course to approve the drug for patients.

So far, 750 physicians have signed up to participate, and 10,730 patients have been certified, a number that dispensary operators have complained has made it hard to turn a profit.

"We're not breaking even yet, and neither has anyone else in the industry," said Hillary Peckham, chief operations officer of Etain, a family run company that has dispensaries in Albany, Kingston, Syracuse and Yonkers. "It's not at a sustainable point."

In an effort to effort to boost patient access, officials are loosening some regulations. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants will soon be allowed to certify patients for the drug. The state is considering authorizing home deliveries and this past week announced plans to add chronic pain to a list of 10 qualifying conditions that also include cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.

Kate Hintz lobbied for the law to help people like her daughter Morgan, who has a rare form of epilepsy. The Westchester County woman said that the state is making significant progress in making the medicine more accessible to patients  but that more work is needed.

"I don't think it will ever move fast enough, but the changes are encouraging," she said. Morgan is enrolled in the program, but Hintz said no dispensary currently offers the type of medical cannabis that would best treat her daughter. "No one I know is utilizing the program 100 percent."

Among the changes dispensary owners and patient advocates say are still needed: expanding the formulations the dispensaries can offer, encouraging more doctors to participate and approving more qualifying conditions.

The state is also looking at permitting additional companies to open new dispensaries, a move opposed by the operators of the 19 current dispensaries around the state. Owners say the market is too small and fragile to absorb the new competition.

"What we don't want to do is compromise the integrity of the program by saturating the market," said Nicholas Vita, CEO of Columbia Care NY, which operates a Manhattan dispensary in addition to three upstate facilities.

One option that's not on the table yet is full legalization. Massachusetts, California and Maine's votes in November join them with states including Colorado, Washington and Oregon in allowing recreational use of pot.

Advocates, however, note how quickly public support for legalization has increased and say California and Massachusetts could prompt them to reconsider.

"The time to have a conversation about ending the prohibition on marijuana in New York is now," said Kassandra Frederique, New York state director at the Drug Policy Alliance. "New York should be at the forefront."

But state officials say they don't feel pressure to change their approach. "Legalization of marijuana in other states will not impact the program," the state's Department of Health said in a statement.

Instead, it's Washington, D.C., and the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump that has state officials on edge. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick to be attorney general, has voiced opposition to loosening marijuana policies.

State Sen. Diane Savino, a Staten Island Democrat who helped write New York's law, said she wonders what approach the Trump administration will take to state marijuana laws that violate federal drug laws.

Said Savino: "I'm less concerned about what's happening in Massachusetts than about Washington, D.C."

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2016, file photo, packaging for medical marijuana is displayed at Vireo Health of New York, a dispensary in White Plains, N.Y. New York is loosening some restrictions in its year-old medical marijuana law to boost patient access, but to the dismay of some pot advocates, there is no sign the state is in any hurry to join seven other states in embracing full legalization. (AP Photo/Jennifer Peltz, File)
US, China, EU, others fail to reach environmental goods deal

GENEVA (AP)  Forty-six countries including the U.S., China and European Union nations failed Sunday to agree on a list of "environmental goods" like solar-powered air conditioners or LED light bulbs that could see lower tariffs.

The two-day meeting at World Trade Organization involved a bid to agree on reducing tariffs on over 200 environment-friendly goods worth around $1 trillion in trade annually, part of a process that EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom called important "to show that trade and the environment can go hand in hand."

She and other officials said China's presentation of a late list of goods to include threw a monkey wrench into the weekend negotiations.

FILE - In this Monday, July 11, 2016 file photo, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom speaks at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. Forty-six countries including the U.S., China and European Union nations failed Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016 to agree on a list of "environmental goods" like solar-powered air conditioners or LED light bulbs that could be targeted for lower tariffs. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

The talks amounted to just a step in a broader process on the Environmental Goods Agreement that was already facing uncertainty about how the incoming administration of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will approach it.

"In the last seconds, China proposed a list that was not studied enough," Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Many countries, they have concerns about the list."

Zeybekci cited other concerns about sustainable-development lumber between Canada and New Zealand on one side and Japan and Taiwan on another.

The United States and the European Union, who chaired the talks, said in a joint statement that envoys would return home to consider the next steps, but did not provide any timetable.

"We tried really hard," Malmstrom told reporters, adding that all negotiators were leaving "with clear determination to do this deal ... This is important for the environment, for the climate, for our moral obligation to show that trade can deliver after the Paris and Marrakech agreements" to help fight global warming.

One senior negotiator said the last-ditch Chinese effort affected priority items for many other nations. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the talks, said China's new list - which was lopsided in favor of its own priorities - came in at 11 a.m. Sunday when others had already agreed upon many other points.

"All delegations had some of their red lines moved in or moved out in a way that it was impossible to deal with in a couple of hours," Malmstrom said, referring to China's proposal.

Jake Colvin,? ?vice president? for global trade issues at the National Foreign Trade Council, said the failure was a missed opportunity that was "disappointing to the American business community."
Officials: No smoke detectors in Ohio deadly home fire

AKRON, Ohio (AP)  No smoke detectors were found in an Ohio house where a fire killed two adults and two young girls in Akron, officials said as an investigation continued into what started the deadly blaze.

The early Saturday fire killed a man and a woman and two girls, ages 8 and 9. A 12-year-old girl was rescued and a woman escaped by jumping from an attic window in the three-story house.

Media reports said the girls were the daughters of the couple that died. Cleveland.com reported that the 12-year-old was the deceased woman's daughter. Authorities haven't identified the victims.

Kyle Otto of J. Bowers Construction boards up a burned home in Akron, Ohio, on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016 after a deadly fire. (Leah Klafczynski/Akron Beacon Journal via AP)

Neighbors told the Akron Beacon Journal that nearby security cameras showed smoke coming from the house around 12:30 a.m. Saturday, nearly an hour before the fire was reported.

Investigators say the blaze appeared to start on the first floor.

The Rev. Zach Prosser, pastor at Celebration Church that the victims attended, called them "a great family." A vigil was scheduled at the church Sunday evening.

Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James announced on Twitter that the girls who died were members of his foundation's educational program. The program focuses of getting Akron schoolchildren to graduate from high school and go on to college.

"Unbelievably saddened to hear the news. My heart hurts," the Akron native wrote.

The girls attended Akron City Schools, and the district said counselors would be available this week.

Clarence Tucker, sworn in as Akron's new fire chief just two days earlier, has said he wants to make sure every home in the city has smoke detectors, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

The fire department has worked with the American Red Cross for several years to provide smoke detectors to people who can't afford them, fire department spokesman Mike Brooks told the paper.

Kyle Otto, left, and Corey Mace of J. Bowers Construction board up a burned home in Akron, Ohio, on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016 after a deadly fire. (Leah Klafczynski/Akron Beacon Journal via AP)
Monday will be only public hearing on Westar-KCPL merger

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP)  The only planned public hearing on the biggest utility merger in Kansas history is scheduled for Monday in suburban Topeka.

The Kansas Corporation Commission has scheduled Monday evening at a Topeka-area high school as the single public hearing on the proposed $12.2 billion acquisition of Westar by Great Plains Energy, the parent company of KCP&L, The Wichita Eagle reported (http://j.mp/2fUGSPV).

Customers in other parts of the state will be able to watch the hearing live or view a replay at the KCC website. They can also submit comments in writing or online at the site.

If the merger's approved, Westar and KCP&L will become a single electric company straddling the Kansas/Missouri border, with 1.5 million customers.

The last comparable commission decision was about 25 years ago, when Wichita-based Kansas Gas & Electric Co. fought off a KCP&L acquisition attempt and instead merged with Topeka-based Kansas Power & Light to become Western Resources. Western Resources was later renamed Westar Energy.

David Nickel, consumer counsel for the Citizens' Utility Ratepayer Board, is urging Westar and KCP&L customers who don't live close to Topeka to weigh in on the merger via the written comment route. Nickel said CURB, the state agency that represents home and small-business customers, will read all the comments, as should the commissioners themselves. CURB can and probably will use some of the comments in its own testimony, he said.

"The big question in our mind is whether or not this acquisition is in the public interest," Nickel said. "Is there a net benefit that inures to the ratepayers?"

The commission isn't required to hold public hearings, but it's customary to do so in important cases. The commission has also previously held more than one hearing at different locations or provided teleconference links so residents far from the hearing site could speak directly to the commission.

Kansas law requires that merging utilities prove the deal will actually benefit the rate-paying public, not just the company's shareholders. Simply not harming customers isn't enough, he said.

"The questions I would have, were I a member of the audience, would be: Is this going to be a reliable system afterwards? Are there savings that we're going to enjoy by virtue of this? . How is this going to affect the local economy? Are we going to lose jobs in various locations such as Wichita and south-central Kansas?" Nickel said.

Westar is one of Topeka's biggest private employers, and thousands of Kansans, including retired company workers, own stock in Westar. Under the acquisition terms, Westar stockholders are proposed to receive $51 in cash, plus $9 worth of stock in Great Plains, for each share of Westar.

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New Mexico budget crisis rears its head in courts, colleges

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)  New Mexico's grinding budget crisis is taking a toll in courtrooms where overburdened attorneys have denied legal counsel to poor defendants, at museums reeling from layoffs and admission hikes, and at state universities and colleges grappling with steep spending cuts.

A prolonged downturn in oil and natural gas markets continued to ripple through New Mexico's economy over the summer and into the fall, undermining state tax revenues.

Employers across the state have shed thousands of jobs since October 2015, as more than a third of New Mexico's oil rigs shut down.

FILE - In this April 24, 2015, file photo, pumpjacks work in a field near Lovington, N.M. New Mexico's grinding budget crisis is taking a visible toll in courtrooms where overburdened attorneys have denied legal counsel to poor defendants, at museums reeling from layoffs and admission hikes, and at state universities and colleges grappling with steep spending cuts. A prolonged downturn in oil and natural gas markets continued to ripple through New Mexico's economy over the summer and into the fall, undermining state tax revenues. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

Fossil fuel prices are squeezing budgets in several states that rely heavily on severance taxes, such as Alaska, North Dakota, Wyoming and Oklahoma  even as OPEC nations consider cutting production to boost prices.

"They've had cuts, significant cuts," said John Hicks, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers. "That's very notable in comparison with the rest of the country to have an actual decrease in general fund taxes and general fund spending. I can't say it's bottomed out  it's kind of a lower-revenue hit that is sustaining."

The effects are evident in New Mexico's Lea County, an area known for its oil production. Public defenders there have declined or asked to withdraw from representing hundreds of indigent criminal defendants. They say swelling caseloads and limited funding threaten their ability to provide effective legal assistance.

The actions prompted a standoff this week as District Court Judge Gary Clingman held the state's chief public defender in contempt of court, and the local district attorney petitioned the New Mexico Supreme Court to intervene.

Chief Public Defender Bennett Baur insists on his agency's obligation to speak out when attorneys and budgets are strained.

"We can't continue to spread our attorneys so thin that they don't have time to read police reports, to meet with a client, to do legal research if necessary," he said. "This is a systemic problem."

The dispute threatens to taint cases that lead to convictions since defendants can argue they lacked effective representation.

An October special legislative session culminated in budget cuts of 3 percent across the judiciary, where court-employee furloughs are under consideration and travel reimbursements have been reduced for jurors and court-ordered witnesses.

Most state agencies are grappling with spending cuts of 5.5 percent, and they're bracing for more belt tightening as state economists prepare to release reduced revenue estimates for the current and coming fiscal year.

The forecast, due Monday, sets the benchmark when legislators meet in January to write a state budget for the coming fiscal year and fix shortfalls from the current year.

Amid hiring freezes, the state workforce dwindled to 21,905 full-time positions in October, down 18 percent from mid-2008.

Sen. Peter Wirth, the Democratic majority leader, worried cuts to the Taxation and Revenue and Cultural Affairs department would be counterproductive  limiting the state's ability to collect money and attract tourists.

"Here in Santa Fe  the arts, tourism  these are huge economic development drivers," Wirth said. "We are impacting a big portion of our economy."

Cultural Affairs Secretary Veronica Gonzales has warned legislators the agency might have to reduce the days of operation at the state's world-renowned network of museums and historic sites. Her agency already laid off a dozen employees this year, raised entry prices and discontinued some free Sundays at Santa Fe museums as attendance numbers dipped.

Gov. Susana Martinez has steadfastly opposed any new taxes to close the gap. Democrats who are pushing for new revenue sources  including a gasoline tax increase  will have some new leverage come January after winning back a majority control of the Legislature.

The Las Cruces-based New Mexico State University last summer cut nearly 40 active staff positions and scuttled the school's equestrian team, an employee health center and a small engineering program in response to spending reductions and enrollment declines.

University President Garrey Carruthers said a $10 million state funding cut in October has added urgency to a top-to-bottom review for new efficiencies. Academic programs could be merged and investments delayed indefinitely for student facilities and services.

"We're going to be more involved in surviving the cuts rather than making some strategic investments, simply because of the depth of the cuts," he said.

Even as revenues falter, finance officials have placed a priority on replenishing depleted operating reserves to protect the state's credit rating. Adding to budget pressures, New Mexico is struggling to cover its annual obligation to Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled.
Chilean court rejects demand against Israeli judges

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP)  A Chilean court rejected lawsuits filed in the South American country against three current or former Israeli Supreme Court justices for endorsing the construction of the West Bank separation barrier and the seizure of lands and the property on them from Palestinians.

The Associated Press had access to the ruling Sunday.

Chile's Palestinian Federation filed a war crimes lawsuit last week against current Justices Uzi Vogelman and Neal Hendel and retired justice Asher Grunis, who was president of the court in 2012-15.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the stretch of barrier is built on land the international community considers occupied and has separated Palestinians from properties and farmland.

The group contended that Chile's international agreements allow for suits involving crimes against humanity committed in other countries. But in their ruling, the judges said they did not have the authority to intervene in another country's court decisions.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Nicolas Pavez, said the group would appeal the ruling.

A Chilean-Palestinian woman who owns land in the Cremisan Valley, which is near Bethlehem, had also filed a lawsuit.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman earlier said the federation's lawsuit had no legal basis.

Chile's Palestinian community is among the world's largest, with about 350,000 immigrants and their descendants.

Israel says the barrier built beginning in 2002 is needed to keep out Palestinian attackers. Palestinians call the structure an illegal land grab because it frequently juts in and out of the West Bank, placing occupied territory claimed by the Palestinians on the "Israeli" side.

The International Court of Justice, the United Nations' highest judicial organ, in 2004 issued an advisory opinion saying the barrier was illegal.
Wyoming police to dole out donated money for good deeds

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP)  A good deed could turn into a $50 tip from Jackson law enforcement officials who will dole out donated money ahead of the holidays.

The Jackson Hole News and Guide reports (http://bit.ly/2h35w1O) that Teton County Sheriff Jim Whalen says anonymous donors have contributed enough for deputies, officers and troopers to give $50 to $100 gifts.

Whalen said the money could be given out for almost anything, including good drivers or people who are simply down on their luck.

He said the cash gifts are about spreading goodwill.

Donations last year helped officials run a similar effort.

Whalen said all of this year's donors were Jackson Hole residents. The area has a number of wealthy residents who own large estates.

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PICTURED: In Cuba, a near-religious farewell to Castro

In Havana's Plaza of the Revolution, hundreds of thousands paid tribute to images of Fidel Castro and signed oaths of loyalty to the socialist system he created. On the lonely roads of eastern Cuba, crowds waited for hours to salute the casket holding his ashes.

For four days, Associated Press photographers documented the mourning by Cubans as Castro's ashes were carried across the island to their final resting place. It was a near-religious farewell to the man who ruled the country for nearly 50 years.

President Raul Castro said Saturday that Cuba will bar statues of Castro and monuments bearing his name, in keeping with the former leader's desire to prevent the growth of a cult of personality. But for those watching state media, where Cubans endlessly described Castro in messianic, almost god-like terms, a cult of personality already seemed well underway.

In this Nov. 28, 2016 photo, roses and medals serve as a base for a portrait of the late Fidel Castro at Revolution Plaza, the site of two days of tributes to the late leader, in Havana, Cuba. Cubans bid farewell to Castro, the man who ruled the island for nearly half a century. Cuba's declared nine days of national mourning following Castro's death Friday night at age 90. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Yet there was also a quieter, more contemplative mourning. A schoolgirl rested amid sugarcane stalks as her classmates waited for the passing of the caravan transporting Castro's ashes toward his interment site in the eastern city of Santiago. A group of decorated veterans stood quietly in an eastern town. A farmer sat on a horse as the convoy approached, a small Cuban flag stuck in his straw hat.

In this Nov. 29, 2016 photo, a man holds a child as he waits in line to visit the memorial site for the late cuban leader Fidel Castro at the Revolution Plaza in Havana, Cuba. Schools and government offices closed in homage to Fidel Castro, with the day ending in a rally on the wide plaza where the Cuban leader delivered fiery speeches to mammoth crowds in the years after he seized power. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

In this Nov. 28, 2016 photo, a woman holds an image of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, as she waits in line to pay her final respects, in Havana, Cuba. Thousands of Cubans lined up early for the start of week-long services bidding farewell to the man who ruled the country for nearly half a century. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this Nov. 28, 2016 photo, people wait in line to pay their final respects to the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in Havana, Cuba. Hundreds of thousands paid tribute to images of Fidel Castro and signed oaths of loyalty to the socialist system he created. Cuba's government declared nine days of national mourning following Castro's death at age 90. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this Nov. 28, 2016 photo, a girl writes her name on a list to be added to a book of condolences for the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro at a municipal office in Havana, Cuba. In Havanas Plaza of the Revolution, hundreds of thousands paid tribute to images of Fidel Castro and signed oaths of loyalty to the socialist system he created. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

In this Nov. 29, 2016 photo, a television showing grainy black and white footage of Fidel Castro delivering a speech, sits on a table at a memorial in his honor in Guanabacoa, on the outskirts in Havana, Cuba. President Raul Castro said Cuba would bar statues of Castro and monuments bearing his name in keeping with the former leaders desire to prevent the growth of a cult of personality. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

In this Nov. 29, 2016 photo, a woman arrives at a memorial in honor of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, holding a bouquet of flowers, in Guanabacoa on the outskirts in Havana, Cuba. President Raul Castro said Cuba would bars statues of Castro and monuments bearing his name in keeping with the former leaders desire to prevent the growth of a cult of personality. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

In this Nov. 29, 2016 photo, state workers gather after clearing the sides of the road Fidel Castro's funeral procession will drive through in Santa Elena, Ciego de Avila province, Cuba. Castro's ashes retraced the journey he made from Santiago to Havana after his rebel force won power in 1959, in a solemn procession to his final resting spot. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this Nov. 30, 2016 photo, people wait for the arrival of the caravan carrying the ashes of Cuba's leader Fidel Castro during a funeral procession that retraces the path of Castro's triumphant march into Havana nearly six decades ago, in Cruces, Cuba. On the lonely roads of eastern Cuba, crowds waited for hours to salute the casket holding Castro's ashes. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

In this Nov. 29, 2016 photo, a man peeks out of a bus window as he arrives to attend a massive rally honoring the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro at Revolution Plaza in Havana, Cuba. Schools and government offices were closed in homage to Fidel Castro, with the day ending in a rally on the wide plaza where the Cuban leader delivered fiery speeches to mammoth crowds in the years after he seized power.(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

In this Nov. 30, 2016 photo, a man with a tattoo of Cuba'a late leader Fidel Castro, waits for the arrival of the caravan carrying his ashes during a funeral procession that retraces the path of Castro's triumphant march into Havana nearly six decades ago, in Cruces, Cuba. Castro's ashes completed in Santa Clara the first leg of a cross-country trip, a four-day journey across Cuba from Havana to their final resting place in the eastern city of Santiago. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

In this Nov. 29, 2016 photo, a man holds a sign with a picture of Fidel Castro that reads in Spanish "Fidel among us'" during a rally honoring the late Cuban leader at Revolution Plaza in Havana, Cuba. Schools and government offices were closed in homage to Fidel Castro, with the day ending in a rally on the wide plaza where the Cuban leader delivered fiery speeches to mammoth crowds in the years after he seized power. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

In this Nov. 30, 2016 photo, Michael Mendoza carries a portrait of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in his horse-drawn taxi carriage in Camaguey, Cuba. Castro's ashes retraced the journey he made from Santiago to Havana, passing trough Camaguey, after his rebel force won power in 1959, in a solemn procession to his final resting spot. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this Nov. 30, 2016 photo, a car covered with messages to Cuba's leader Fidel Castro is parked in La Esperanza, Cuba. Castro's ashes journeyed in a funeral procession that retraced the path of his triumphant march into Havana nearly six decades ago in a four-day journey across Cuba from the capital to their final resting place in the eastern city of Santiago. President Raul Castro said Cuba would bars statues of Castro and monuments bearing his name in keeping with the former leaders desire to prevent the growth of a cult of personality. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

In this Nov. 30, 2016 photo, people wait for the arrival of the caravan carrying the ashes of Cuba's late leader Fidel Castro, during a funeral procession that retraces the path of Castro's triumphant march into Havana nearly six decades ago, in Esperanza, Cuba. Castro's ashes travelled in a a four-day journey across Cuba from Havana to their final resting place in the eastern city of Santiago. Castro died Nov. 25 at 90. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

In this Dec. 2, 2016 photo, seniors who were part of Fidel Castro's rebel force during Cuba's revolution pose for a group portrait, before Castro's funeral procession passes through Bayamo, Cuba. Castro's ashes travelled in a four-day journey across Cuba through small towns and cities where his rebel army fought its way to power nearly 60 years ago, to their final resting place in the eastern city of Santiago. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

In this Dec. 1, 2016 photo, placed in a small coffin covered by a Cuban flag, the ashes of Cuba's late leader Fidel Castro are driven along the streets of Florida, Cuba. Castro's ashes journeyed across Cuba from Havana to their final resting place in the eastern city of Santiago. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

In this Dec. 2, 2016 photo, a villager mounted on his horse waits for the ashes of Cuba's late leader Fidel Castro as they drive along the central road in Las Tunas, Cuba. On the lonely roads of eastern Cuba, people waited for hours to salute the casket holding Fidel Castro's ashes. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this Dec. 2, 2016 photo, a man uses a picture of Fidel Castro to shade himself from the sun while waiting for the convoy carrying the ashes of Cuba's late leader, along the central road near Yarigua, Las Tunas, Cuba. Castro's ashes journed across Cuba from Havana to their final resting place in the eastern city of Santiago. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this Dec. 3, 2016 photo, a former combatant of the Revolutionary Army, Paulina Ballard, 81, weeps after watching the funeral procession carrying the ashes of Cuba's late leader Fidel Castro arrive in Santiago, Cuba. After a four-day journey across the country through small towns and cities where his rebel army fought its way to power nearly 60 years ago, Castro's remains were interred in Santiago. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

In this Dec. 1, 2016 photo, Elisa Ricardo, reflected in the mirror at right, stands in her living room decorated with images of Cuba's President Raul Castro, right, his late brother Fidel Castro, center, and late revolutionary hero Camilo Cienfuegos, left, in Old Havana, Cuba. President Raul Castro said the country would bar statues of Fidel Castro and monuments bearing his name in keeping with the former leader's desire to prevent the growth of a cult of personality. (AP Photo/Enric Marti)
Theresa May warns Whitehall moles - and the memo is leaked

Theresa May has ordered a crackdown on unauthorised leaks by ministers and civil servants with a warning that culprits will face instant dismissal if they are caught ... a leaked memorandum has revealed.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has written to senior officials informing them the Prime Minister had demanded urgent action to tighten security in Whitehall.

Embarrassingly for No 10 however, his memorandum has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday just days after being issued.

Prime Minister Theresa May, who has reportedly ordered tightening of security in Whitehall to prevent leaks

In his note - dated November 28 and marked Official-Sensitive - Sir Jeremy referred to a "spate of leaks and unauthorised briefings" which had appeared in the media on Brexit, the US elections and the Autumn Statement.

"Leaking is corrosive and undermines trust and good government. Leaks are never acceptable but the regularity and cumulative impact of recent incidents mean we must now collectively take exceptional action," he wrote.

"The Prime Minister has directed that we urgently tighten security processes and improve our response to leaks. She has instructed that we begin this work immediately and expects to see rapid and visible improvement.

"Ministers, permanent secretaries and senior officials set the tone in an organisation and no amount of process will make up for an environment where leaks are accepted. If leaders think they are the necessary cost of open ways they are mistaken."

He concluded: "Anyone found to have leaked sensitive information will be dismissed even where there is no compromise of national security. The Prime Minister will be writing in similar terms to ministers."

The warning appears to reflect the acute sensitivity in No 10 over reports of government divisions, with claims of clashes between pro-Brexit ministers like Boris Johnson and Liam Fox and Chancellor Philip Hammond and of tensions between Mr Hammond and the Prime Minister.

In his note, Sir Jeremy said it was essential that policies on using only "official technology" - particularly mobile phones - for official business were "strictly enforced" while "security teams" needed to properly "resourced and empowered" to carry out investigations when breaches occurred.

"We need to obtain phone and email logs quickly, ensure staff are available for interview and tough disciplinary measures when a culprit has been identified to show leaking will never be tolerated," he wrote.

"I have already strengthened the controls for sensitive Cabinet Committee papers. This will require all the energy and attention any cultural change demands."

Downing Street declined to comment on the report.

There was little sign Sir Jeremy's warning had had any impact, with the Sunday papers continuing to report the behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings over Brexit.

The Sunday Times said that Mrs May had given ministers the green light to draw up secret plans for a "grey Brexit" that would steer away from the demands of Leave and Remain hardliners.

The paper quoted Whitehall sources as saying that Mr Hammond and Brexit Secretary David Davis had formed a "small clique" with No 10 to avoid a "hard Brexit".

The Sunday Telegraph, meanwhile, reported claims of a "smear campaign" against Mr Johnson designed to undermine the Government's preparations for Brexit.
Government 'concerned' about possible use of UK munitions in Yemen civil war

The Government is "deeply concerned" about the possible use of UK munitions by the Saudi air force in strikes on civilian targets in Yemen's civil war, Boris Johnson has said.

The Foreign Secretary said he did not believe a "threshold has been crossed" requiring the suspension of British arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

However he said that the depth of concern in Whitehall about the mounting civilian death toll should not be underestimated.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said they were concerned

Britain has been under pressure to halt military exports to the Saudis who are heading a regional coalition supporting the Yemeni government against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels amid reports they have repeatedly hit civilians.

A United Nations panel found earlier this year that there had been "widespread and systematic" attacks by the coalition on civilian targets in violation of international humanitarian law.

Appearing on BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show, Mr Johnson acknowledged there were "very difficult questions" which ministers had to address about the use of UK munitions and technology in the conflict.

"So far we do not believe there has been a clear risk of breach of international humanitarian law," he said.

"People should not underestimate the concern we have about this. We are deeply concerned. I had a conversation only last night with the Saudi foreign minister, my counterpart, about this.

"Of course we are making representations the whole time. At the moment we do not think the threshold has been crossed."

Mr Johnson confirmed British advisers were continuing to give "general advice" to the Saudis on targeting in an attempt to avoid more civilian casualties, but said they were not involved in target selection.
Non-league Barrow stun Bristol Rovers in FA Cup second round

National League side Barrow pulled off a major FA Cup second-round upset as they came from behind to win 2-1 at League One Bristol Rovers.

Byron Harrison netted twice to turn the tie around, swiftly cancelling out Rory Gaffney's 10th-minute opener for the hosts before adding a second strike after 61 minutes.

Sixth-tier Curzon Ashton had looked set to cause a shock as well but suffered heartbreak against AFC Wimbledon after they went from 3-0 up to losing 4-3 in the closing stages of a crazy match at Tameside Stadium.

Former Cheltenham forward Byron Harrison was Barrow's hero

Adam Morgan completed a hat-trick in the 62nd minute to seemingly secure a fine victory for the hosts, but their League One opponents were suddenly level late on following goals from Tom Elliott, Dominic Poleon and substitute Tyrone Barnett in the 80th, 81st and 82nd respectively.

Elliott then headed in his second in stoppage time to send his side through.

League Two Cambridge recorded a comprehensive victory over opponents from a division above, thrashing Coventry 4-0 at home with Luke Berry scoring all of the goals.

Midfielder Berry notched a first-half hat-trick - the middle effort being a penalty - before adding his fourth towards the end.

Eastleigh of the National League secured a 3-3 draw at home against sixth-tier FC Halifax thanks to Mikael Mandron's 90th-minute leveller.

Mandron had opened the scoring, before Jordan Sinnott, Scott Garner and Richard Peniket scored in quick succession after the break to put the Shaymen 3-1 up. Scott Wilson subsequently pulled a goal back, with Mandron then ensuring both sides' names will be in the hat for Monday's third-round draw.

Another non-league side who will feature in the draw are seventh-tier Stourbridge, whose home tie against Northampton was postponed due to a frozen pitch.

Braintree fought bravely at Millwall before ending up being beaten 5-2.

Michael Cheek gave the National League visitors an early lead, but Millwall replied swiftly through a Harry Smith double and Shane Ferguson's effort before Jack Midson made it 3-2 10 minutes prior to the break.

Smith then completed his hat-trick soon after the interval, and Aiden O'Brien added a strike at the death.

Woking, another National League outfit, had Charlie Carter sent off as they lost 3-0 at home to Accrington.

Carter was dismissed shortly after Stanley went 1-0 up through Billy Kee, who then struck again with half-time near. John O'Sullivan added his name to the scoresheet in the second-half.

Elsewhere, Notts County snatched a replay against Peterborough as they battled back to seal a 2-2 draw at home.

Posh appeared to be cruising after early goals from Leonardo Da Silva Lopes and Gwion Edwards, but then Adam Campbell made it 2-1 and the visitors had Lee Angol sent off, with Louis Laing subsequently drawing the tie level in stoppage time.

Bolton advanced with a 3-2 win over Sheffield United at the Macron Stadium, where Gary Madine and Sammy Ameobi put the home side in charge.

Paul Coutts responded for the Blades and Josh Vela then netted Wanderers' third, with Jack O'Connell's effort soon after proving only a consolation.
Tony Gardner contracts Zika virus during Caribbean filming

Actor Tony Gardner has told how he contracted the Zika virus while filming in the Caribbean.

The 52-year-old said he felt "pretty rough" for a week after being bitten by a mosquito carrying the disease .

Gardner was filming the hit BBC crime series Death In Paradise on the island of Guadeloupe when he became infected.

Tony Gardner caught the Zika virus in Guadeloupe

"At the time there was about 100 cases in the country that had come into our country from outside ... There are now about 200 Brits who have had Zika, but quite a lot of them, possibly, come from the group of people that go out to Guadeloupe for six months a year to film," he said on comedian Sean Hughes's podcast.

"About a couple of hours before I flew out I got a rash. And then for a week I wasn't particularly well with joint pain and swelling and a bit of sort of ... didn't like the light ... I just felt pretty rough actually for about a week."

But the father and qualified doctor said that the virus was not a "problem" for him because he has no plans to have more children.

"It's quite dangerous for people getting pregnant or men starting families. That's why it can be serious in people who are about to have families."

The production company behind the drama, Red Planet Pictures, said in a statement: "We take the safety of all of our cast and crew seriously and made all actors aware of the potential medical issues that may arise when filming in the Caribbean, including the risk of the Zika virus.
New data on risk vs benefit for potent CAR-T cancer drugs

By Deena Beasley

Dec 2 (Reuters) - A promising but risky new group of customized cancer drugs will be in focus this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), where clinical trial results will help clarify their potential for doctors and investors.

Experimental chimeric antigen receptor T-cells, or CAR-Ts, are made by genetically altering a patients' own T-cells in the lab to help the immune system find and kill cancer cells. The altered cells are then infused back into the patient.

Early excitement over the drugs has propelled investor interest in biotech Kite Pharma Inc, whose shares have tripled since a 2014 initial public offering, as well as rival Juno Therapeutics Inc, whose therapy JCAR015 has generated concerns after five leukemia patients died due to severe brain swelling. Juno shares now trade about 14 percent below their IPO price.

"Juno has dug themselves into such a deep hole," said Brad Loncar, manager of the Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy ETF. "My guess is that they may drop the JCAR015 program." He will be watching closely to see whether data at ASH on another Kite candidate, JCAR017, shows similar issues.

Data on CAR-T drugs from Kite and Novartis AG will also be presented at the meeting.

In early trials, CAR-Ts eliminated all trace of leukemia and lymphoma in 40 percent to 90 percent of patients who had run out of other options. But it is not yet clear how long those remissions will last. Also, the drugs can overstimulate the immune system, which can cause dangerous side effects.

If they work safely, Wall Street expects annual sales for CAR-T therapies in the billions of dollars.

Shares of Bluebird Bio Inc closed 14 percent higher on Thursday after a small study showed that its CAR-T, bb2121, induced remission in several patients with advanced multiple myeloma with no worrisome side effects. The Bluebird drug is being developed in partnership with Celgene Inc.

"The data look good, but these are very small trials," said Les Funtleyder, healthcare portfolio manager at E Squared Asset Management in New York, which does not currently hold positions in CAR-T companies. "We would definitely like to see larger sample sizes and longer duration."

He is also looking for clarity on pricing. Estimates have run into hundreds of thousands of dollars per treatment. It is not yet clear if patients will need more than one treatment or whether that can even be done safely.

The CAR-T technique is being tried initially against blood cancers, which contain specific proteins that can be differentiated from normal tissue, limiting a possible immune system attack on healthy organs. Drugs like Juno's JCAR015 target a protein called CD19, which is found on the surface of a type of white blood cell.

Juno is slated to present early-stage data at the ASH meeting in San Diego on JCAR017, which also targets CD19.

Juno Chief Executive Hans Bishop said JCAR017, and the similar JCAR014, are safer than JCAR015 because of a manufacturing process that allows for active control of the composition of the T-cells that make up the final product, said

"We think when you get to the extremes ... that is likely a source of variability," he said.

Novartis plans to file next year for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for its drug, CTL019, in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who have exhausted other options, based on Phase 2 trial results to be released at ASH on Saturday.

The study results show "what it looks like when you roll this out to a bunch of different centers across the world," said Dr Stephan Grupp, research director at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's childhood cancer center and the study's lead investigator.

He said most patients in the Novartis trial experienced a serious side effect known as cytokine release syndrome, or CRS, as well as neurological toxicity, including confusion and seizures, but all responded to treatment for those side effects and none had severe brain swelling.

Kite is expected to report further details from a Phase 2 trial of patients with an aggressive type of lymphoma whose cancer returned despite treatment with chemotherapy or a bone marrow transplant. Interim results showed that a month after treatment 47 percent of patients achieved complete remission, but that rate dropped to 33 percent after three months. The company, which said it will begin a rolling FDA application, expects to have data with six months of follow-up in the first quarter of next year.
Green Party's Stein to pursue Pennsylvania recount petition in federal court

By David DeKok

HARRISBURG, Pa., Dec 3 (Reuters) - Green Party candidate Jill Stein late Saturday vowed to bring her fight for a recount of votes cast in Pennsylvania in the U.S. presidential election to federal court, after a state judge ordered her campaign to post a $1 million bond.

"The Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania," Jonathan Abady, lead counsel to Stein's recount efforts, said in a statement.

Saying it has become clear that "the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem," the statement said "we must seek federal court intervention."

The Stein campaign said it will file for emergency relief in the Pennsylvania effort in federal court on Monday, "demanding a statewide recount on constitutional grounds."

The bond was set by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania a day after representatives of President-elect Donald Trump requested a $10 million bond, according to court papers.

The court gave the petitioners until 5 p.m. local time (2200 GMT) on Monday to post the bond, but said it could modify the amount if shown good cause. Instead, Stein's campaign withdrew.

"Petitioners are regular citizens of ordinary means. They cannot afford to post the $1,000,000 bond required by the court," wrote attorney Lawrence Otter, informing the court of the decision to withdraw.

Stein, who garnered about 1 percent of the presidential vote on Nov. 8, has also sought recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump won narrow victories over Democrat Hillary Clinton in all three states, part of the industrial heartland of the country until manufacturers started leaving for Mexico and other low-wage countries.

Trump and his allies have attempted to stop the initiatives in the states, calling the recount effort a "scam." Clinton's campaign has said it would take part in the recounts.

"The judge's outrageous demand that voters pay such an exorbitant figure is a shameful, unacceptable barrier to democratic participation," Stein said in a statement. "No voter in America should be forced to pay thousands of dollars to know if her or his vote was counted."

Stein said she planned to announce "the next step" in the recount effort on Monday at a previously scheduled news conference at Trump Tower in New York City.

She said recounts already under way in some Pennsylvania counties would continue. The state's election commission had approved recounts in 75 precincts where voters requested one, but refused to allow a full forensic audit of voting machines.

Even if all the recounts were to take place, the overall election outcome would not likely change. The race is decided by the Electoral College, or a tally of wins from the state-by-state contests, rather than by the popular national vote.

Trump surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win, with 306. Recounts would have to flip the result to Clinton in all three states to change the result.
Voting starts in decisive Italian referendum

ROME, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Italians started voting on Sunday in a referendum on constitutional reform, with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi promising to resign if he loses the ballot.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. (0600 GMT) and are set to close at 11 p.m. (2200 GMT). Some 51 million Italians are eligible to vote and full results are expected in the early hours of Monday.
Britain may continue with some EU cooperation post-Brexit -Johnson

LONDON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Britain could pay in to some EU programmes after Brexit but the government will take back control of its own money and will no longer spend large amounts in Brussels, Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday.

Businesses, investors and opposition lawmakers are clamouring for clarity on the government's negotiating position before it triggers the formal exit procedure from the European Union by the end of March.

Last week, Brexit minister David Davis said Britain could pay into the EU budget to get access to the bloc's single market of 500 million customers, easing fears that the government is heading for a "hard Brexit" involving a clean break with the bloc.

But Johnson, speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr television programme, declined to confirm whether that was a priority for the government, saying ministers were considering several options.

"I've always thought that there were aspects of EU cooperation ... where actually ... to be part of that in the future might be a good idea, certainly would be a good idea if it involved paying in," Johnson said, referring to the Erasmus student exchange programme and Horizon programme for research.

"(Paying in for single market access) is obviously something that David Davis is considering. That doesn't mean that a decision has been taken."

"The crucial thing to understand is very large sums of money will be coming back to this country which ... could be spent on priorities like the NHS (national health service)," said Johnson, who campaigned for Britain to leave the EU on a "battle bus" that had written on its side: "We send the EU 350 million a week, let's fund out NHS instead."

Johnson has been criticised for saying the health service could benefit to such a large extent and since then has found some of his comments made during the campaign have come back to haunt him.

Several EU officials have questioned whether they can trust him, and some opposition lawmakers have accused him of putting one of the most complicated negotiations since World War Two in jeopardy by making unscripted comments.

Brexit spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, called on the government to offer parliament more clarity on its plans.

"The government must put its basic plan before parliament so we can discuss it, at the moment ... we are all going through trying to find fragments of evidence as to what approach they are going to take," Starmer said.

"There are two very different versions of our future. One is an isolated hard Brexit, the other is a collaborative, cooperative Brexit. That's the one the Labour Party has to fight for."

But Johnson said the government was being clear in its aims and said from his experience, officials he had met appreciated his honesty.

"Seriously, what I find is that people do appreciate frankness and they do appreciate people saying what they think as much as possible," he said.
Italy PM Renzi facing big referendum defeat - exit polls

By Crispian Balmer and Gavin Jones

ROME, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has lost a referendum on constitutional reform by a wide margin, exit polls and early projections showed on Sunday, throwing his future into doubt and opening the door to renewed political instability in Italy.

Renzi, who had promised to resign if his flagship project was defeated, is due to address the nation at around midnight (2300 GMT), government sources said.

The euro fell sharply against the dollar on the exit polls, slipping to $1.0550 from $1.0625.

A trio of polls for various television stations saw the 'No' camp ahead by at least eight percentage points. Within half an hour, projections based on the initial counts suggested Renzi could lose by as much as 20 points.

If confirmed, the result would represent a fresh blow to the European Union which is struggling to overcome an array of crises and was eager for Renzi to continue his reform drive in the euro zone's heavily indebted, third-largest economy.

Defeat could also prompt fresh market ructions, especially in the banking sector which has lost almost half its value this year on the Milan bourse, hit by fears over its huge exposure to bad loans accumulated during years of economic downturn.

Renzi, 41, took office in 2014 promising to shake up hidebound Italy and presenting himself as an anti-establishment "demolition man" determined to crash through a smothering bureaucracy and redraw the nation's creaking institutions.

Sunday's referendum, designed to hasten the legislative process by reducing the powers of the upper house Senate and regional authorities, was to have been his crowning achievement.

However, his reforms so far have made little impact, and the opposition 5-Star Movement has claimed the anti-establishment banner, tapping into a populist mood that saw Britons vote to leave the European Union and Americans elect Donald Trump president.

EARLY ELECTIONS

Under Italian law, Renzi had to call a referendum on his plans to overhaul the constitution, but it was his decision to pin his future to the outcome, arguing that if Italy was not willing to accept his recipe for change he should leave office.

This move turned the vote into a defacto plebiscite on Renzi himself, uniting disparate opposition forces in a fierce battle to unseat Italy's youngest prime minister that played out over months of relentless campaigning.

If he does resign, it does not necessarily mean that he will vanish from the political stage, as happened in Britain when David Cameron quit as prime minister after his Brexit defeat.

President Sergio Mattarella could ask Renzi to reconsider, calling on his sense of responsibility at a time of great market uncertainty. If however he refuses, the head of state will open a round of consultations with party leaders to find a new prime minister, who will have to draw up a new electoral law.

As head of the largest party in parliament, Renzi would have a big say on who should succeed him.

After voting in Genoa earlier on Sunday, Beppe Grillo, founder of the anti-euro 5-star Movement which backs a 'No' vote, said the country needed to go to new elections as soon as possible. His party is running neck-and-neck with Renzi's Democratic Party (PD) in the opinion polls.

The biggest immediate loser if the 'No' camp has indeed triumphed could be Italy's third-largest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which is bowed by bad loans and is looking to raise 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) this month to stave off collapse.

Investors are likely to shun the operation if political chaos prevails, meaning a state intervention will be needed to save it. Several other lenders also need a cash injection to stay afloat raising fears of a domino-effect crisis.

Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan sought to calm nervous markets on Friday, saying there was "no risk of a financial earthquake" if 'No' wins, though there may be "48 hours of turbulence".

A Nov. 25 Reuters poll suggested investors would expect to demand an extra 25 basis points in yield to hold Italian debt over its German equivalent if the reform is rejected, with the euro dipping 1.25 percent.
Rebels defiant as Syrian army nears Aleppo's Old City

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Syria's army and allied militia advanced towards rebel-held areas of Aleppo's Old City on Sunday in an attack which a military source predicted would be over in a matter of weeks.

Western and regional states backing the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad appear unwilling or unable to do anything to prevent a major defeat for those fighting to topple the Syrian leader, whose campaign to regain all Aleppo has been backed by the Russian air force and foreign Shi'ite militias.

Rebel groups in Aleppo have told the United States they will not leave their shrinking enclave, a senior rebel official told Reuters, after Russia call for talks with Washington over a full withdrawal of opposition fighters.

But the rebels may eventually have no choice but to negotiate a withdrawal from eastern Aleppo, where tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be sheltering, in the face of relentless bombardment and ground assaults.

The army said Sunday's gains, some of which were confirmed by a rebel official with the Jabha Shamiya group, included a strategically important eye hospital. The rebel official said it had yet to fall.

Loud explosions were heard in eastern Aleppo as night fell, Reuters journalists in the government-held part of the city said. The Jabha Shamiya official said further advances may force a rebel withdrawal to the southwestern corner of their enclave.

"The areas of Old Aleppo will be threatened to a great degree," the official said. "It is scorched earth."

Food and fuel supplies are critically low in eastern Aleppo, where hospitals have been repeatedly bombed out of operation.

The U.N. Security Council is due to vote on Monday on a draft resolution demanding an initial seven-day truce in Aleppo, which could then be renewed. But it was unclear if veto-power Moscow would block the resolution.

Restoring full control over Aleppo would mark the biggest triumph yet for Assad in a war that spiralled from protests against his rule in 2011. The campaign is one of the war's most ferocious, with hundreds reported killed in recent weeks alone.

Russia said on Saturday it was ready for talks with the United States over a full withdrawal of rebels from Aleppo, but speaking to Reuters from Turkey, senior rebel official Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim group said rebels fighting in Aleppo had told U.S. officials on Saturday they would not leave.

"Our response to the Americans was as follows: 'we cannot leave our city, our homes, to the mercenary militias that the regime has mobilised in Aleppo'," Malahifji said.

"They listened to the response and did not comment," he said, adding the rebel groups had reiterated calls for humanitarian corridors to be opened for the delivery of food and medicine and the evacuation of the wounded.

The United States has yet to comment on the proposal made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks on the withdrawal of all rebel fighters "without exclusion" from Aleppo.

ARMY TO REGAIN ALEPPO "IN WEEKS"

The rebels said the Russians had retreated from proposals agreed at talks with rebel groups in Turkey that would have resulted in jihadist fighters leaving the city, a ceasefire and humanitarian aid deliveries.

The Syrian army has vowed to crush the rebels and take back Aleppo.

"The expectation is weeks...The Syrian Arab Army will continue to implement its missions until the elimination of the terrorists and the recovery of control over all the eastern districts," the military source said.

The U.N. estimates that close to 30,000 people have been displaced by the latest fighting, 18,000 to government-held areas, a further 8,500 to the Kurdish-controlled neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud and the rest within rebel-held areas.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has said more than 100,000 people may still be in the rebel-held area. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that reports on the war, said it could be as many as 200,000 people.

The rebels, including foreign-backed groups, say they have been abandoned to their fate in a war against better armed enemies including the highly trained Lebanese group Hezbollah.

PEOPLE INSPECT HOMES

In another blow to the rebels, the head of a new rebel alliance in Aleppo, "The Aleppo Army", was seriously wounded on Saturday, the rebel officials said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army or its allies were attacking in at least eight places in effort to deplete their ammunition and manpower.

Residents who fled eastern Aleppo for government-held areas early in the war began returning to the Hanano district recently captured from the rebels to inspect their homes.

The government took journalists to the district of northeastern Aleppo on Sunday, using a road through the city centre that was reopened two days ago.
Austrians roundly reject far right in presidential election

By Francois Murphy and Kirsti Knolle

VIENNA, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Austrian voters roundly rejected on Sunday a candidate vying to become the first freely elected far-right head of state in Europe since World War Two, halting at least temporarily the wave of populism sweeping Western democracies.

The runoff vote was a litmus test, since it was a re-run of a vote held in May, before Britain voted to leave the European Union and Americans elected Donald Trump as president.

Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration Freedom Party lost the May election by less than a percentage point, and polls had for months shown the race too close to call.

But within minutes of polls closing it was clear he had lost to former Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen, who had put the June Brexit referendum at the centre of his campaign, saying Hofer would lead Austria down the same road as Britain and warning voters not to "play with this fire".

"A red, white and red signal of hope and of positive change is being beamed from Vienna through Europe," Van der Bellen said in a victory speech, referring to the colours on Austria's flag. "I will be a pro-European president of Austria open to the world."

With only postal ballots left to count, a projection by pollster SORA for broadcaster ORF showed Van der Bellen on 53.3 percent and Hofer on 46.7 percent with a margin of error of 0.4 percentage points.

Turnout was roughly a percentage point higher than in May, at 74 percent. That election had to be re-run because of irregularities in counting the votes.

The result dealt a blow to populists who had hoped anti-establishment anger had grown enough since the Brexit referendum and Trump's triumph to sweep Hofer into office. The closely watched vote also came before elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands next year.

European governments breathed a sigh of relief at the result, as they had done after the May runoff.

"A weight has fallen from all of Europe's shoulders," said German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat. "If the projections are confirmed, the result of the election in Austria is a clear victory for reason against right-wing populism."

What effect the Brexit and Trump votes had on the Austrian election is not clear.

Data from SORA showed that Van der Bellen's pro-European stance was his supporters' second-strongest reason for voting for him, cited by 65 percent of them, just behind the view that he would best represent Austria abroad.

Among Hofer supporters, the top reason was that he "understands the concerns of people like me", cited by 55 percent of respondents.

'INFINITELY SAD'

With one blow to Europe's political establishment averted, a potentially bigger one looms. Italy is holding a referendum on Sunday on constitutional reform that could decide the political future of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has promised to resign if he loses .

There is also the more distant prospect of a clash between Van der Bellen and the Freedom Party - the FPO - in the event of an FPO victory in parliamentary elections. The president plays an important role in the formation of coalitions after an election, and Van der Bellen has said he would try to prevent an FPO-led government.

"I am infinitely sad that it didn't work out," Hofer said on his Facebook page less than an hour after polls closed, later adding that he would run again in the presidential election in six years.

He said he would now turn his attention to running for parliament in an election due by 2018. Polls suggest the FPO would win that election, since it now has the support of roughly a third of voters, well clear of its nearest rival.

"Congratulations to the FPO, which fought valiantly. The next legislative elections will show their victory!" tweeted Marine Le Pen of France's National Front, an FPO ally who will contest the French presidential election next year.

Austria has for decades been dominated by two centrist parties that are once again in coalition, and anger at that entrenched duopoly has fuelled support for the FPO, which wants to end the two parties' grip on power.

There has been speculation about whether Chancellor Christian Kern's Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party will manage to keep working together until their mandate expires in 2018.

"I don't think this government will last much longer," Hofer said.

For now Austrians will be glad to put behind them the comedy of errors that meant this election dragged on for almost a year, prompting some media to label the country a "banana republic".

The result of the May 22 runoff was overturned mostly due to election officials cutting corners as they raced to complete the count. The re-run was then postponed because the glue on the envelopes for some postal ballots did not stick.
California loft fire's toll rises to 33, with more victims expected

By Rory Carroll

OAKLAND, Calif., Dec 4 (Reuters) - A fire that devastated an Oakland, California, loft building during a weekend dance party has taken at least 33 lives and the toll will likely rise, authorities said on Sunday, as criminal investigators joined recovery teams at the charred ruin.

Firefighters in Oakland, east of San Francisco, found the remains of nearly three dozen victims as they sifted through the debris-filled shell of the two-story converted warehouse being used by an artists' collective.

The cause of the fire was still undetermined, officials said. Arson is not suspected but investigators want to find out if the building, often used for musical performances, had a history of code violations.

Mayor Libby Schaaf said the Alameda County District Attorney's Office activated its criminal investigation team at the fire scene. A representative of the prosecutor's office is monitoring the recovery process, she said, adding she was not authorized to say if a criminal probe was under way.

The mayor said the city's first priority was finding the victims and supporting the families. "We have delivered the unacceptable and horrific news of losing a loved one to seven of our families."

The blaze, which erupted about 11:30 p.m. on Friday (0730 GMT on Saturday), ranks as the deadliest in the United States since 100 people perished in a 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire.

The warehouse, which served as a base for the Ghost Ship Artists Collective, was one of many converted lofts in the city's Fruitvale district, a mostly Latino area where rents are generally lower than in the rest of Oakland.

As of Sunday evening, only 35 to 40 percent of the building had been searched, said Sergeant Ray Kelly, spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

Officials are still unsure how many people were in the building at the time of the fire and how many more victims might be found.

SOME VICTIMS AGED 17 OR YOUNGER

Recovery teams had yet to search an unspecified number of mobile homes parked on the first floor, Kelly said, in illustrating the scope of the task. He said the trailers appeared to have people living in them.

The building was designated for use as a warehouse only, according to the city. The city was aware of reports that people were living there, but no permits had been issued for that purpose.

The recovery operation was delayed for hours as the roof collapsed onto the second floor and in some spots, the second story had fallen onto the first, making it unsafe to enter.

The effort has proceeded slowly as teams have struggled to clear mountains of debris and locate victims who appeared to scatter throughout the unstable structure.

"We're finding victims in every quadrant of the warehouse," Kelly said. "We're finding victims where we least expect them."

Exhaustion and the scope of the disaster were taking an emotional toll on crews who had been working around the clock since the fire ignited about 36 hours earlier, officials said.

Some of the victims were 17 years old or younger, although most were in their 20s and 30s, officials said. Some were from other parts of the country and outside the United States.

One of the dead was the son of a sheriff's deputy, Kelly said. "This tragedy has hit very close to home," he said.

With many victims burned beyond recognition, family members were asked to preserve items that might contain DNA of the victims to help with identification.

Chris Nechodom, 30, said he was on the ground floor of the building when he saw flames race across the ceiling. As he fled, he heard a loud noise and saw a plume of thick black smoke billowing out.

"It blew out maybe 10 feet out of the entrance. After that, I saw a few more people crawl out," he said. Nechodom said he was unsure how many people were inside when the fire started.

'SET UP FOR A FIRE'

Photos of the "Ghost Ship" venue posted online showed a space brimming with an elaborate array of musical instruments, religious statues and antiques. The area was furnished with a mix of overstuffed sofas and colorful carpets and featured a maze of side rooms and nooks.

"The whole place was built like you are going to set up for a fire," said Matt Hummel, 46, who has worked in construction and helped renovate other warehouse spaces for artists.

The party took place on the second floor of the building, which appeared to have only two exits, officials said. There was no evidence of smoke detectors or sprinklers, they added.

The city had received complaints about "blight" and construction without permits and opened an investigation. An inspector verified the "blight" complaint after observing piles of debris outside, but failed to gain access to verify the construction complaint, the city has said.

Schaaf told reporters she did not know why inspectors were unable to get into the building when they tried to inspect it. She said she was putting together a team of city employees "to gather every piece of information."
Uzbekistan's interim leader expected to win presidential election

TASHKENT, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Uzbekistan's prime minister and interim president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, looked likely to win a presidential election on Sunday by a landslide and become the second leader of Central Asia's most populous nation since independence.

The biggest challenge may still lie ahead for the 59-year-old former communist apparatchik - establishing the same level of authority as his all-powerful predecessor, Islam Karimov, in whose shadow Mirziyoyev spent more than a decade.

Karimov, who had run the resource-rich former Soviet republic of 32 million people with an iron fist since 1989, died from a stroke in September, aged 78.

Mirziyoyev, cabinet head since 2003, swiftly emerged as Karimov's most likely successor after the speaker of the upper chamber Senate stepped aside for him. Under the constitution, the speaker would normally assume the role of interim head of state.

The size of Mirziyoyev's election victory, whether he secures a realistic 65 to 70 percent of the vote or a Karimov-style 90-plus percent, will indicate how serious Tashkent is about political and economic reforms, said Kazakhstan-based Central Asia analyst Alexander Knyazev.

"The outcome will show whether the state apparatus is ready for changes," he said.

Polling stations in the country closed at 8 p.m. (1500 GMT) and 87.8 percent of Uzbekistan's more than 20 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, the Central Election Commission said. The commission will announce the results of the vote at 4 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Monday, it said.

"Our people have shown high political activity," commission chairman Mirzo-Ulugbek Abdusalomov told reporters.

Mirziyoyev did not speak to reporters when he went to cast his vote with his family at a polling station in Tashkent.

Despite pledging continuity, Mirziyoyev has announced plans for economic reforms, including a liberalisation of the tightly controlled foreign exchange market, and has acted to ease strains in relations with neighbouring Central Asian countries.

"We are seeing many positive changes in our life, we hope for even more positive changes in our country," said Temur Samiev, a pensioner, as he voted in Tashkent.

Diplomats say Mirziyoyev is also expected to move Uzbekistan closer to Russia, its Soviet-era overlord.

An engineer by training, Mirziyoyev began ascending the Communist Party career ladder in the 1980s, becoming a member of Uzbekistan's legislature by the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

According to a 2009 United States embassy cable published by Wikileaks, Karimov regarded Mirziyoyev as "unprofessional" and planned to replace him eventually, although not immediately.

POWER SHARING

According to another embassy cable, sent in 2008, Mirziyoyev had instructed state media to never show him on television for fear of making Karimov jealous. Karimov was retaining Mirziyoyev as cabinet head because of his loyalty to Karimov's family, the same cable said.

Diplomatic and business sources have told Reuters that Mirziyoyev has been able to secure support for his presidential bid from Uzbekistan's powerful informal clans by agreeing to share power with two other political heavyweights, Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov and security chief Rustam Inoyatov.

Some analysts, however, say this arrangement may only delay the fight for ultimate power within the political elite, which may destabilise the Muslim nation, which borders Afghanistan.

The United States, Russia and China all watch developments in Uzbekistan closely and are concerned about its stability because it is a major exporter of natural gas and cotton. At least two million Uzbeks work abroad, mostly in Russia.

Tashkent fought an Islamist insurgency in the 1990s and thousands of Uzbeks are believed to have joined Islamic State militants fighting in Syria and Iraq.
Gambia's Jammeh to hand over power by end January - minister

By Emma Farge

BANJUL, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Gambia's defeated President Yahya Jammeh remains in the country and will hand over power to president-elect Adama Barrow in January following a transition period, the communications minister said on Sunday.

Jammeh, who has ruled the West African nation for 22 years, has not been seen in public since he shocked observers by accepting his surprise loss in a Dec. 1 election on Friday, leading to rumours he had fled Gambia.

His defeat was met with wild celebrations this weekend but his absence prompted speculation that a man who scrapped constitutional limits on the length of his rule and has a firm grip on the military, might not keep his word.

"We are working on the transition now. They (Barrow's coalition) will come and we will show them the ropes," Information Minister Sheriff Bojang said in an interview.

"It will be the latter part of January," Bojang said of the hand-over.

The outgoing president is currently in his residency at State House and will meet Barrow next week, he added. Gambian law calls for a 60-day transition period.

In a sign of growing confidence in the new political era, people tore down giant billboards wishing Jammeh "Happy 51st Birthday Mr. President" that had lined streets in Banjul.

Jammeh's birthday was in May.

"I came here to witness this," said Gibril Jaw, a tourist guide, standing in front of the torn posters. "Now there will be no more stress, no more scares, no more problems."

The former British colony attracts thousands of British tourists to its beaches every year. But it has become increasingly estranged from the West in recent years amid tensions over allegations that Jammeh's security forces have imprisoned and tortured opponents.

It withdrew from the Commonwealth in 2013 and in October Bojang announced the withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, calling it the "International Caucasian Court".

But Barrow's election has raised hopes of reforms, including the release of dozens of political prisoners, and closer relations with the West.

A Commonwealth spokesman said representatives from Barrow's team had spoken with them and had "warm and friendly" discussions.

"Like every close knit family, our Commonwealth doors remain open and we look forward to continuing the conversation," he said.
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder S.Ramadoss on Saturday demanded that fishermen from Tamil Nadu should be allowed to take part in the festival in St. Anthonys church in Katchatheevu in Sri Lanka on December 7.

In a statement, he said though the church was built by people belonging to Lanka, Katchatheevu was under the control of Tamil Nadu fishermen for a long time.

The agreement between the two countries on Katchatheevu clearly mentions that Ramanathapuram fishermen should be allowed to attend the St. Anthony church festival, he pointed out.

It had not been specified that they could attend only the festivals in March and not in other months, Ramadoss argued. The reasons cited by the centre for not allowing Tamil Nadu fishermen was not acceptable, he said and added it does not matter if the festival is big or small.

The islet had been transferred to Lanka without the consent of Tamil Nadu, he said and added that the state government had supported the Ramanathapuram fishermens demand for participation in the festival.(DC)
It is only a few who could stand unflinching against terror. Most often than not victims succumb to terror in ways they do not foresee, understand or fathom. In Island of a Thousand Mirrors, the debut novel of Nayomi Munaweera which won the Commonwealth Regional Book Award for Asia in 2013, it is terrorism that cripples the lives of the characters and adds profundity to the story. Her second novel What Lies Between Us is about childhood terror experienced by at the hands of an abuser that makes the character commit the most unforgivable act a mother could commit.



Nayomi Munaweera lives strongly by Nathaniel Hawthornes quote Easy reading is damn hard writing. Like most South Asian and African writers, her novel encompasses beautiful nature imagery and it bursts with colour, despite it being a rather dark read. Her characters are complex and well fleshed out and they evoke a great deal of empathy amongst readers, despite their vices. She deals with the universal theme of motherhood, and shows the sacrifices one has to make as a mother. She also explores the theme of migration and shows aims to show how one can lose their sense of belonging and feel like a hybrid as they feel they belong neither here nor there.



1.What lies between us explores the complexities of love between a mother and a child. It is also the exploration of childhood trauma and how it affects adult lives and relationships. What were the difficulties you encountered in creating this powerful character?



This was another dark book! I seem incapable of writing light material. But Im a firm believer that the work of the writer is to explore the deeper aspects of human nature. Yes, the protagonist was a powerful and sometimes difficult character to write about and yet for me, writing is rather similar to method acting. I do a lot of research and then I get into the character or the skin of a made-up person and I imagine what it would be to live their life. In the process Im trying to say something about what it means to be a human being in this world. It was a hard book to write. But I think the good ones always are.



2.The book explores the attitude to sex and class in relation to women. The narrator says Shame is female; shame is the price I must pay for this body. What are your perceptions of the treatment of women in Sri Lanka?



Im always astounded by the everyday sexism women face in Sri Lanka. I live mostly in California and dont get me wrong-we have our fair share of misogyny here.

But in Sri Lanka walking out the door in the body of a woman (which by the way-we cant help) means you are open to men staring, making stupid noises, trying to rub themselves on you. Its absolutely annoying and exhausting. I asked a female friend of mine how she deals with it day in and day out. She said, I walk out the door like a battle axe.



This means shes ready at any moment to have to defend herself. It means she gets to enjoy her everyday experience far less than a man who can take his bodily safety (for the most part) for granted. Men, I guarantee that if you talk to your sister, wife, girlfriend, mother, perhaps even grandmother, you will hear stories of this kind of harassment. Its also your job to help us end this nonsense.

3. Is this story a piece of confessional writing?



I am not a survivor of the trauma my character underwent. I do however have a tremendous amount of sympathy for people that did survive abuse in childhood. I hope that they get the courage to talk about these things and perhaps get some help. They should know that whatever happened in childhood was not their fault. They were innocent. It is always and ONLY the adults fault and these adults should be punished. Ive already heard from readers in Sri Lanka and abroad who are survivors of sexual trauma and Im always touched when the book makes them feel seen or gives them some power back. I think that what happened to my character in childhood wrecked her life, but thats because she couldnt get help, couldnt even talk about it. The message is if that she had been able to share the story with even one other person, it wouldnt have come to this.



4.The narrators name is revealed only at the end. As readers we did not notice that she was unnamed. How were you able to do it so subtly and what purpose does it serve?



You didnt notice till the end, thats great and thats what I wanted. She begins her story by saying that she has been judged by the crime she has committed and that she will not tell you her name until you know her whole story and then judge her for yourself. Names, themselves are powerful.

They have a way of forming us even thought we might not notice. Names in fiction are especially important. For this book I was interested in telling the story of a woman who had committed the worst crime a woman

can commit.



This was the challenge I set myself. To tell the story of a monster and try to make readers understand her humanity and perhaps empathize with her.

For the reader to feel that in similar circumstances they too might have gone down the same terrible, dark road. Her name is withheld until we follow her on the journey of her life and come to some understanding of her

internal world.



5.How has your present environment, upbringing and your Sri Lankan heritage facilitated your writing?



I think being Sri Lankan and having that in my heritage, in my blood, even as Ive lived in various parts of the world really facilitates my storytelling. Sri Lanka is full of stories! Everyone you meet has a fantastic story and if you travel to the North and to the South, out of Colombo these stories are even more dramatic. Some of my white American friends complain that they dont have new stories to explore- this isnt too much of a problem for me. I think that in the same way Sri Lanka is lush with vegetation, its lush with story.



7.Can you give a bit of insight to your third book?



Its a very different book. Its coming to me more quickly than the other two. It has a dark and dangerous character in it. Hes rather thrilling to work with. I cant tell you more.
Coastal erosion in Bassiyawaththa, Negombo

The Port City project -stalled, suspended and recommenced-has been under public scrutiny for various reasons. Five years in the making, the project has withstood regime change, public protests and spurious criticism levelled by political parties and personalities who have changed their tunes according to election whims.

Nevertheless a group of activists who voiced their concerns over the detrimental consequences of the project have remained relentless. They still believe that the Port City project will be the greatest self-inflicted ecological hazard to Sri Lanka. The approached several environmental activists to query their stance on the project. Among them was Rev. Fr. Sarath Iddamalgoda, a Christian priest who has been a strong and vocal opponent of the project, representing the disheartened and helpless fishing community of the island, whose livelihoods will be undermined by the mega project.

Our stand remains the same, the peoples movement against the port city will continue. We supported the citizens who protested sand mining in Negombo, but we shall go beyond that. Our

Rev. Fr. Sarath Iddamalgoda

position has not changed; we want the project to be stopped completely. Especially after the court case was filed on the advice of the Chief Justice, fishermen of this area visited the subject Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka whom they requested to come and observe the situation for himself.

The officials there would not know the situation here unless they observe it, Fr. Iddamalgoda said. Commenting on the Ministers assurances that the project was carried out on a strong scientific basis minimising environmental and livelihood damage, Fr. Iddamalgoda said in certain cases experience and common knowledge trump science. Scientific evidence is not always accurate; peoples traditional knowledge that has been gathered over years has to be taken into account. For instance, farmers were introduced to various new scientific developments. But this technology has only destroyed the lives of people. The same principles can be applied to fishing; technological developments wont always help. Therefore, it is very important that the minister and experts who advise him come and see whats happening on the ground level. When the Minister was involved in the Janantha Mithuro movement during his young days, he had a better understanding and respect for the people Fr. Iddamalgoda opined.

Port City still illegal - Environmentalists

Meanwhile, the members of the Environmental Monitoring Committee (EMC) appointed by the Coast Conservation Department (CCD) to oversee the environmental compliance of the Port City project

Sajeewa Chamikara

inspected the project site last month.

The EMC team comprises representatives from 20 government agencies, including the CCD, Central Environment Authority (CEA), Road Development Authority (RDA), Sri Lanka Land Reclamation Development Corporation (SLLRDC) with National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA).

The group had expressed its satisfaction at the projects compliance. They concluded that the reclamation and construction work is carried out according to the conditions outlined in the development permit issued by the CCD.

On the contrary many environment protection organisations believe the project is illegal. Spokesman for the Environment Conservation Trust Sajeewa Chamikara opines the project was an illegal implementation by the previous government and expressed disappointment over the present governments continuation of the project.

This project is carried out despite two cases filed in Court and amidst public protests. The government was elected on promises of good governance; the continuation of the project is a violation of the law and thereby is a violation of good governance. Not only does this project pose harm in economic terms but it also threatens the livelihood of the fishing community, the marine ecosystem as well as the coastal belt, Chamikara explained.

The initial plans for the Port City project were said to be carried out in an area of 233 hectares. According to Chamikara this was then increased to 269 hectares and finally to 271 hectares. The land that will be reclaimed for the project has been increasing. What is even more disappointing is that the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report was not carried out properly amd this report is extremely weak, Chamikara accused.

"Fishermen around the island have expressed fear and concern even before the implementation of the project. Aruna Roshantha of the All Ceylon Fisheries Union resides in Morawala, Negombo. He says sand mining activities on account of various development projects over the years had caused serious damage to the coast. "

Environmentalists say, the Port City project is carried out in contravention to the Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management Act. The recent report was tabled as a Supplementary Assessment Report (SEIA). The law does not provide for any supplementary reports. This is clearly illegal! Chamikara added.

A massive project of this nature implemented without a proper EIA will not only harm the environment but also destroy livelihoods. The project requires 100 cubic metres of sand dredged from the deep-sea bed for construction. The mining of such a massive amount of sand will heighten hte danger of coastal erosion. We have already seen such sea erosion in the western coastal belt

Ravindra Kariyawasam

including the coasts of Panadura, Angulana, Mount Lavinia, Uswetakeiyawa, and Negombo. This will also cause irrevocable damage to the coral reefs off the coast of Negombo, the coral life in Morawala, Negombo will be destroyed. The reclamation of land and sand mining will also cause changes to the currents, which may further threaten our shores

with erosion.

Environmental Scientists believe that the Indian Ocean is home to 32,000 marine species out of which a considerable portion is found in the seas surrounding our island. Meanwhile the total area of the island which measured 65,610 square km several years ago, has reportedly shrunk to 65,525 square km.

Environmentalist Ravindra Kariyawasam of the Centre for Environment and Nature Studies is convinced that with the continuation of the Port City project natural erosion will be unnecessarily augmented.

According to Kariyawasam this does not simply mean that Sri Lanka loses its land area to the sea. This type of aggravated erosion causes much more harm than meets the eye. The already depleting resources of Muthurajawela, the lagoons of Negombo, Mahawewa, Chilaw, Anawilundawa and several other lagoons in the western coast will subsequently be obliterated. This would result in the disturbance and eventual destruction of the lagoon eco-system. You can imagine what this would mean for our lagoon fisherfolk, Kariyawasam said.

Fisherfolk fear imminent disaster

Fishermen around the island have expressed fear and concern even before the implementation of the project. Aruna Roshantha of the All Ceylon Fisheries Union resides in Morawala, Negombo. He says

Aruna Roshantha

sand mining activities on account of various development projects over the years had caused serious damage to the coast.

This natural reef in Morawala protected us from the Tsunami. Ever since sand was extracted for the construction of highways and the port, the reef has been damaged. Do we need more evidence that sand mining will cost us our environment? questions Roshantha.

Dredging activities for the Port City were re-commenced by the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) in September within a 56 square km block that starts from 4.1 km from the western shoreline of the Negombo area.

In a statement obtained by the CHEC states the new SEIA did not grant approval for dredging at an identified site 2.1 km from the shoreline.

In Bassiyawaththa, Negombo, fishermen like Roshantha say they have already witnessed a massive vessel extracting sand off the area, dredging sand close to the shore at a distance of 2 km, despite the permit not being granted. Buoys were installed by the contractor to guide fishing vessels and keep them away from the dredging zone.

Fishermen of the area protested against this in October as they believed the move endangered their livelihood.

Sand dredger seen off the coast of Negombo

"This project is carried out despite two cases filed in Court and amidst public protests. The government was elected on promises of good governance; the continuation of the project is a violation of the law and thereby is a violation of good governance. ..."



Following the protests, Minister Ranawaka met with representatives of the fishing community. At this meeting, authorities claimed that fishermen have damaged buoys installed by the contractor, costing them a great deal, while ironically, the meeting was concluded with the government representatives saying that the fishermen never opposed the project. Minister Ranawaka who also attended the meeting had not only challenged fishermen to provide scientific evidence that the project will cause environmental damage but also had assured fishermen that they will receive compensation for the temporary losses incurred due to the project.

We dont want these bribes! Roshantha claimed. What the Minister and the Government promised fishermen has now been exposed as a complete lie. Who will save our livelihoods when the marine life is destroyed? Before the election the Prime Minister promised us that this project would be stopped. This is not the change we voted for! He should tender

his resignation.

Dredging will be carried out in approved areas - CHEC

In the meantime, CHEC says the dredger movements can be tracked live via a website provided to the fishermen and catholic clergy which establishes the exact location of the dredger. The statement said the dredger is shown to move at 1/10th the normal speed and assured that dredging would be carried out in approved areas. Yet when contacted by the , fishermen alleged that the vessel draws towards the shore during after hours, close to a distance of 2 km.

CHEC said at present, based on representations made by fishermen regarding the existence of a fish breeding rock outcrop at a distance of 10km from the shoreline only on the approved dredging site, the Secretary to the Ministry of Megapolis requested that the dredgers be temporarily shifted to 10km and beyond, pending NARA carrying out a more extensive study on the existence of such rock outcrops.

According to Roshantha however there is a deadlier risk posed by sand mining. Although at the meeting with fishermen the government representatives had agreed that the dredging will maintain a 10 to 15 km distance from the shoreline, Roshantha says the dredger closes in about 2km from the shore each evening.

In Bassiyawaththa, located on the land that separates the Negombo lagoon from the sea, this kind of sand mining in water that is already 20 to 30m deep will take away the reinforcing layers of sand. Divers and environmentalists say the reef in Morawala, which holds the weight of the Negombo lagoon, has cracked in several places following the continuous sand mining over the years. If this continues the reef will eventually give away, as it will no longer be capable of withstanding the pressure of the lagoons water mass, the stretch of land in between or the surrounding marshy land with hard and heavy soil. Unfortunately, these factors have not been assessed in the EIA report and therefore the risk of an impending landslide has not been acknowledged.

We are asking the authorities to put an end to this hypocrisy. We are not allowed to even take a basin of sand, its illegal, because they say that it endangers our environment. So how come foreign companies are allowed to take hundreds of cubic metres of sand? There are over 30,000 fishermen in Negombo alone who are directly affected by the sand mining. But the government in its hope of realising a Singaporean dream is callously ignoring our livelihoods,

laments Roshantha.

"We are not allowed to even take a basin of sand, its illegal, because they say that it endangers our environment."

Continuous sand mining has caused extensive coastal erosion in Negombo

Permit subject to conditions - CEA

The s continuous attempts to contact officials of the Oceanography Department of NARA and the CCD were unsuccessful. However, when contacted, the Director General of the CEA K.H. Muthukudarachchi commenting on the matter said the athouritys stance on the Port City project was

K.H. Muthukudarachch

a positive one. Although the CEA which is the legal entity charged with all matters connected with the environment on land or offshore, when questioned about the anomalies pertaining to the project, distanced itself saying that the EIA was conducted

by the NARA.

We have laid out some 70 odd conditions prior to granting the permit. These conditions have to be met in order to minimize the environmental impact, Muthukudarachchi said. Questioned about various concerns raised by environmentalists, he said: Environmentalists can raise various issues, they think that we are doing nothing in this regard. But we have laid out our conditions for the project. He added that in the event the conditions are violated, CEA will resort to legal action.

The conditions which shed light on a number of environmental concerns were tabled in March this year. However as Muthukudarachchi confirmed, the conditions will enable developers of the Port City project to minimize and control the adverse effects caused to the environment, though they wont prevent any possible bio-hazards.

Among the conditions specified in the permit are terms pertaining to sand mining, supply of quarry, solid and liquid waste management, archaeology, coastal conservation and even noise, traffic and

vibration impacts.

Developers of the project will be subject to these terms which validate the permit. Nevertheless effective monitoring of these conditions by the relevant authorities and activities that appear to be contrary to the conditions raise many doubts, as was apparent during the protests carried out in Negombo against sand mining.

The understanding reached between the minister and fishermen of the area too has been disregarded. While documents, permits and other approvals are in place and appear above board, we question if the relevant ministries and departments are in agreement and the monitoring process is being properly carried out.

"When contacted, the Director General of the CEA K.H. Muthukudarachchi commenting on the matter said the athouritys stance on the Port City project was a positive one. Although the CEA which is the legal entity charged with all matters connected with the environment on land or offshore distanced itself saying that the EIA was conducted by the NARA. "

The damaged Morawala reef holds the weight of the Negombo lagoon
Sri Lankas export earnings rose for the second consecutive month in September 2016 to US $ 898 million, recording an increase of 5.7 percent from a year ago, according to latest Central Bank data.

Earnings from exports had been falling for 17 months in a row starting from March 2015 before they picked up in August.



All major categories of exports showed positive growth rates mainly sub sectors of transport equipment, food, beverages and tobacco and rubber products, the Central Bank stated.

However, during the nine months to September, the exports declined by 3.0 percent Year-on-Year (YoY) to US $ 7.76 billion.



Sri Lankas exports were partly affected by the slump in global commodities prices, which was triggered mainly by the sharp fall in the crude oil prices and the slowdown in the Chinese economy, worlds second largest consumer of goods and services.

However, Sri Lankas shallow export-oriented manufacturing sector was the biggest reason for the dismal performance in exports.

Sri Lankas annual export earning is around US $ 10 - 11 billion, half the size of its import bill.

However, the island nation targets to triple its exports earnings to US $ 30 billion by 2025 as it pins its hopes on potential preferential market access to around 3 billion people by this time next year through proposed free trade agreements with China and Singapore and a deeper trade and services agreement with India.



The country further expects to regain GSP Plus concession for its exports to the European Union by the second half of next year.



Meanwhile, the countrys import bill declined by 2.5 percent YoY to US $ 1.54 billion in September, largely due to the slowdown in consumption related imports as vehicles for personal use sharply declined in response to toughened conditions for vehicle imports.

Under the intermediate category, the fuel imports declined but the continuity of further declines towards next year is uncertain as the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) last week reached a difficult consensus to cut the production by 1.2 million barrels per day, effective from January 2017.

During the nine months to September, the imports contracted by 1.7 percent YoY to US $ 13.95 billion.



As a result, the overall trade deficit narrowed by 12 percent YoY to US $ 645 million in September but the trade deficit for the nine months to September edged up by 0.02 percent YoY to US $ 6.18 billion.
The Special Task Force (STF) has been deployed to areas of Batticaloa to maintain law and order in the areas following a clash between two parties yesterday, Batticaloa Police said.

Police said the clash had triggered following a heated argument among the two parties.

It also said the situation had been brought back to normal.
leppo was once Syrias second largest city, with 2 million inhabitants. Aleppo, or Halab in Arabic, is one of the worlds oldest continually inhabited cities, being mentioned in Egyptian texts from the 20th century BC. However, after nearly five years of civil war, it is estimated around 300,000 inhabitants remain in the rebel-held area of the city

Syrias brutal civil war, has raged for over five long years and has pitted Russia, Iran and Hezbollah -backers of Syrias president Assad- against an anti-Assad armed opposition (which includes the Islamic State) backed by the US its NATO allies, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel.



The UN special envoy for Syria estimated that 400,000 people have been killed during the past five years of civil war, though it is not an official UN statistic.

According to reports the city of Homs, the third largest in Syria and once home to a population of over 800,000, has been completely destroyed.

Desperate parents carrying infants, the aged trundled in wheel chairs, fear-filled faces of children fleeing what appears to the final battle for Aleppo Syrias second largest city- sear the mind. Rebel-held Aleppo seems condemned to a fate similar to that of Homs.



It is sad the UN with its highly paid staff of experts in peace-making, has been reduced to being a spectator on the sidelines, vis-a-vi the Syrian civil war. The founding fathers of the UN itself are all directly involved in the ongoing violence in addition to supporting the antagonists to the conflict with weapons of death and destruction. To make matters worse the UN, which was set up to preserve peace among nations seems to view armed intervention by nations as an extension of the political struggle by other means.

The imposition of a no-fly zone during the Libyan crisis by the UN helped implement western nations plans for regime change in that country, but left Libya a dysfunctional state that has neither stabilized nor unified since Gadaffi was overthrown in 2011.



On November 30, the UN Security council held an emergency meeting on the humanitarian situation in Aleppo, with a UN worker describing it as a descent into hell.

Experts from diverse human rights organizations inform us that the death and destruction being unleashed in Syria, will only lead to a radicalization of local populations subject to the indiscriminate violence perpetrated on them.

But history teaches us otherwise the firebombing of Tokyo, the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the carpet bombing of Dresden and other German cities by the US and Britain during World War II did not lead to a radicalisation of either the Japanese or the Germans.



The present violence being unleashed on Syrian people will not lead to a radicalisation of its population. It will only lead to more deaths, suffering and destruction in Syria.

What the conflict in Syria does expose is the cynical, calculated, disregard of human costs in the ongoing conflict in favour of an outcome sought by the different powers.

Western powers fear the fall of Aleppo strategically situated in proximity to the Turkish border will cut the lifeline for the flow of food arms to the insurrectionists in rebel-held Aleppo. If Aleppo falls the rebels will be isolated to small pockets with no lifeline to western arms and food supplies and hopes for setting up a pliant pro-west parallel authority in rebel-held areas will be crushed.

The international forces backing one or other party to the Syrian civil war is least interested in the well-being of the Syrian people or their suffering.

Israel and the West want the large oil deposits situated in Syrias Golan Heights, now occupied by Israel. Russias access to the Mediterranean depends on its naval bases in Syria.

It cannot afford regime change.



Overcoming Syrias tragedy requires facing up to its roots-basically an internal problem- which has to be worked out by the Syrians themselves.

Unless and until the external forces leave Syria and stop intervening in its affairs Syria will be doomed to more bloodletting and there can be no hope for peace.
An escalating number of people, for different reasons, suddenly encounter restrictions, either for a short time or for a longer period, in their physical or mental activities. Every one of us is only temporarily able-bodied.

An estimated 20% of the Sri Lankan population are already in this plight. As the Supreme Court accepted in 2011, they form the largest minority of people in Sri Lanka.

In 1996 an Act (No. 28) was established by the Parliament of Sri Lanka to achieve mainly the following two key objectives:

(1). To set out what rights people with dis-abilities are entitled to enjoy and; (2). To guarantee their full enjoyment on an equal basis with others.



Full enjoyment of rights.



For three main reasons this is a high priority.

(a). To our protection against other people who might want to harm, hurt, oppress or marginalise us. (b). To protect our inherent dignity and basic humanity. (c). To enable our participation in daily life as equal members of society.



Twenty (20) long years have passed since then. Where are we today? Where is the reality of the promises we were given of inclusion and equality in January 2015?

Equal rights is for a better tomorrow. Hence this assessment should be the moral duty and legal obligation of all top politicians and decision makers.

The best time for us to open our eyes and check the realities is this week: starting December 3- International Day of people with dis-abilities - and ending December 10- World Human Rights Day.



Glimpse of a struggle of the largest minority



1. It took us ten years (2006) to get prepared and get the first set of regulations under this Act approved by Parliament the only one to-date - To enable people with dis-abilities to have access to public buildings, facilities and services without discrimination BUT they are yet not implemented and many dis-abled children, adults and seniors consequently lack the opportunities of the mainstream population as restrictions:

(i). Prevent them accessing facilities at schools and universities so as to deny from them an education - International Schools and degree awarding institutions with large resources being the worst.

(ii). Prevent them accessing work stations, toilets and other facilities and thereby getting paid employment, even when qualified and driven towards unwanted dependency.

(iii). Prevent Sri Lanka becoming the destination of choice for a generation destined to transform the travel, hotel and tourism industry inaccessible facilities denying new profits.

(iv). Deny some basic, but essential healthcare facilities; properly designed accessible toilets and wash facilities in hospital wards - imperative even for the mandatory rehabilitation prior to discharge; accessible wash facilities for out-patients with severe burns - a stumbling block for burns surgeons; an increasing number of pharmacies that are physically inaccessible and not user-friendly (with high counters).

(v). Hinder almost all normal daily activities in all other avenues (recreation, shopping, travel, etc.) and thereby increasing numbers resembling third class citizens continue to live in the shadows and margins of society with shattered self-esteem.

2. With continuing threat to quality of life, this writer was forced in 2009 in seeking redress to have unhindered access for mobility restricted persons accessing new public buildings and facilities.



The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka gave a landmark order on April 27, 2011.



Yet even after five years, the state and private sector continue to fail to comply; hence this continuing malady.

3. Establishment of a National Council with a National Secretariat followed by monthly meetings; even inter-ministerial meetings (1997  2016); establishment of a Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (2007 March) - to Promote and Protect the Rule of Law for all - remain caged able to play only advisory roles; establishment of a national policy on dis-ability (2004) and a national action plan after ten years (2014) - only to gather cobwebs.

Despite their establishment, we are still unable to meet the two key objectives in establishing the Act No: 28 in 1996.

4. The UN established an essential Convention (2006 March) on the Rights of People with dis-abilities (CRPD) as a set of legally binding instruments and enforceable obligations on all countries. It came into force on May 3, 2008.



Amidst growing struggles for ten long years - until 2016 February - we failed to ratify this important Convention.

5. Ten more months have passed but nothing productive is emerging.

As this convention calls for, we need progressive realization of its provisions, instead of red-tape as a disability rights bill that has already been delayed 10 years. Short term action is imperative-until a properly enacted Disability Rights Bill is brought in.



A good start - low cost and feasible



(i). Adopting this convention is good economic sense as when physical and social obstacles are eliminated dis-abled persons are empowered to live upto their optimum potential enabling them to become productive employees, entrepreneurs and consumers, along with everybody else.

(ii). A change of perceptions focusing ability within dis-ability is an essential investment to project the positive image and improve the situation. Awareness raising as per Article 8 and its preamble, for States to recognize the valued contributions made by persons with disabilities, do not need legislations or extra costs.

(iii). Government now has a binding legal obligation to fulfil the requirements of the UN Convention.

The 2017 budget proposals should be made the ideal place to start. It is also the last chance to rectify grave omissions.

Its Article 4.3 stipulates: To CLOSELY consult with and ACTIVELY involve People with dis-abilities in decision making processes and developing policies, concerning issues related to them. Therefore, I propose:

1. Budgetary allocations running into several million additional rupees to be passed for improvements of the physical infrastructure facilities of State and private sector in fields such as education and health, Acland House and Mumtaz Mahal and, introducing light train facilities to upgrade lifestyles and add a clause to make it mandatory that (Perhaps also include Lanka Sathosa Outlets) all these works comply with the Supreme Court order SCFR 221/2009 of 27 April 2011 enabling physical access.



I propose: Fines for non-compliance, which could be used to establish a new fund.



2. Government must get funds from people who have funds. None can justify why those unemployed due to permanent major dis-abilities and those terminally ill should be equally taxed!!

They are much worse off than even the seniors, as travel and medical costs alone are extremely high. They are the people who make best use of the internet to pay utility bills, channel doctors, etc. but are now asked to meet a telecom levy enhanced to 25%.

The total benefits they receive far outweigh additional outgoings. Why rob poor Peter to pay Paul? Like in other countries we do not ask for financial incentives but appeal the generated monthly income through our own investments with registered banks and financial institutions, be made totally tax-free, to prolong our survival.

3. The Budgets focus is on human development; BUT are dis-abled persons not human beings to be overlooked like this?

From clause 326 onwards the empowerment of youth and women are talked about BUT nothing is included about the youth and women with disabilities. IT being an employable skill, facilities at 3500 schools (clause 93) should afford opportunities for children and adults with dis-abilities; those with extra-ordinary skills amongst them (clause 97) should be further supported with the proposed Rs. 2,500/- monthly grant.

4. Smart Classrooms (clause 92) should become accessible class rooms to extend the 13 years of mandatory education and higher education EQUALLY to dis-abled students.

5. Like price regulations for selected medications, exorbitant escalating charges by hospitals on pre-determined routine medical tests and rooms along with fees by doctors, must also be subjected to a maximum amount.

6. Budget must enforce introduction of laws and effective implementation from January 2017 to ensure that urban physical infrastructures; public facilities and services under the new Megapolis agenda end-up accessible, regardless of the degree of ability.

The wake-up call

It is amazing why even the vociferous joint opposition (SLPP), JVP, JNP, TNA, joint front of the civil societies the late Most Venerable Sobitha Thera gave birth to - every one of them - continue to remain as deaf, dumb and blind towards the dis-abled - the countrys largest minority!

Justice delayed is justice denied and, in this case, loss of profits, a better tomorrow and the countrys good name too!

The final reading of the Budget 2017 is on the eve of Human Rights Day  the Judgement Day for the dis-abled people of Sri Lanka. All members of Parliament have a moral duty to actively support them - that includes the heroic soldiers - in getting these proposals (No. 2 in particular) included in the Budget before passing it.
Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. engages in designing, building, overhauling, and repairing military ships in the United States. It operates through three segments: Ingalls Shipbuilding, Newport News Shipbuilding, and Technical Solutions. The company is involved in the design and construction of non-nuclear ships comprising amphibious assault ships; expeditionary warfare ships; surface combatants; and national security cutters for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. It also provides nuclear-powered ships, such as aircraft carriers and submarines, as well as refueling and overhaul, and inactivation services of ships. In addition, the company offers naval nuclear support services, including fleet services comprising design, construction, maintenance, and disposal activities for in-service the U.S. Navy nuclear ships; and maintenance services on nuclear reactor prototypes. Further, it provides life-cycle sustainment services to the U.S. Navy fleet and other maritime customers; high-end information technology and mission-based solutions for Department of Defense (DoD), intelligence, and federal civilian customers; nuclear management and operations and environmental management services for the Department of Energy, DoD, state and local governments, and private sector companies; defense and federal solutions; and unmanned systems. Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Newport News, Virginia.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the 5th largest bank in the world and the largest in the U.S. The current company is the result of a series of mergers that began in the earliest days of American banking history and include more than 1,200 original banks. The oldest predecessor is The Bank Of The Manhattan Company which was founded in 1799 by Aaron Burr. At the time, The Bank Of The Manhattan Company was the 3rd oldest bank in the U.S. and the 31st oldest in the world. The Chase Manhattan Bank, a precursor to JPMorgan Chase, was later formed when The Bank Of Manhattan Company purchased Chase Bank which was established in 1877.

JPMorgan & Co came to life in 1895 in order to finance the United States Steel Corporation. Itself a result of merger, the company also financed other early American businesses as well as aided the federal government by backing a bond offering. It wasnt until the year 2000 and after several more mergers that JPMorgan Chase & Co was born. It will be four more years before the merger with Bank One which is notable because it brings CEO Jamie Dimon into the picture.

JPMorgan Chase & Co was instrumental in aiding the US government during the 2008 financial crisis. It backed the accounts of several major banks including Bear Stearns and eventually took over their operations. Today, JPMorgan Chase & Co operates as a financial services company worldwide with operations on every continent and in more than 60 countries.

JPMorgan Chase & Co operates through four segments that are Consumer & Community Banking (CCB), Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), Commercial Banking (CB), and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM). Services are available in branches in 48 of the 50 US states and around the world. Services are available via ATM, online, mobile, and telephone.

The CCB segment offers traditional banking services to consumers that include but are not limited to deposits, loans, mortgages, and lines of credit. The CIB segment provides investment banking products and services to businesses, institutions, and governments that range from prime brokerage, insurance, corporate strategy, and access to capital markets, to lending, cross-border financing, and derivative instruments. The CB segment provides financial services for small, medium, and large businesses including commercial real estate banking of all types.

The AWM segment provides investment management solutions to institutional and retail investors. This segment also provides retirement products, brokerage, trusts and estates, and investment management products.
CA, Inc., doing business as CA technologies, develops, markets, delivers, and licenses software products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Mainframe Solutions, Enterprise Solutions, and Services. The Mainframe Solutions segment offers solutions for the IBM z Systems platform, which runs various mission critical business applications. Its mainframe solutions enable customers enhance economics by increasing throughput and lowering cost per transaction; increasing business agility through DevOps tooling and processes; increasing reliability and availability of operations through machine intelligence and automation solutions; and protecting enterprise data with security and compliance. The Enterprise Solutions segment provides a range of software planning, development, and management tools for mobile, cloud, and distributed computing environments. It primarily provides customers secure application development, infrastructure management, automation, and identity-centric security solutions. The Services segment offers various services, such as consulting, implementation, application management, education, and support services to commercial and government customers for implementation and adoption of its software solutions. The company serves banks, insurance companies, other financial services providers, government agencies, information technology service providers, telecommunication providers, transportation companies, manufacturers, technology companies, retailers, educational organizations, and health care institutions. It sells its products through direct sales force, as well as through various partner channels comprising resellers, service providers, system integrators, managed service providers, and technology partners. The company was formerly known as Computer Associates International, Inc. and changed its name to CA, Inc. in 2006. CA, Inc. was founded in 1974 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
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.
Oshkosh Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies worldwide. The company's Access Equipment segment provides aerial work platforms and telehandlers for use in various construction, industrial, institutional, and general maintenance applications. This segment also offers rental fleet loans and leases, and floor plan and retail financing through third-party funding arrangements; towing and recovery equipment; carriers and wreckers; equipment installation services; and chassis and service parts sales. Its Defense segment provides heavy, medium, and light tactical wheeled vehicles and related services for the department of defense. The company's Fire & Emergency segment offers custom and commercial firefighting vehicles and equipment; and commercial fire apparatus and emergency vehicles, such as pumpers, aerial platform, ladder and tiller trucks, tankers, rescue vehicles, wild land rough terrain response vehicles, mobile command and control centers, bomb squad vehicles, hazardous materials control vehicles, and other emergency response vehicles. This segment also provides aircraft rescue and firefighting, snow removal, and broadcast vehicles, as well as command trucks, and military simulator shelters and trailers. Its Commercial segment offers front-and rear-discharge concrete mixers for the concrete ready-mix industry; refuse collection vehicles and related components to commercial and municipal waste haulers; and field service vehicles and truck-mounted cranes for the construction, equipment dealer, building supply, utility, tire service, railroad, and mining industries. Oshkosh Corporation provides its products through direct sales representatives, dealers, and distributors. The company was formerly known as Oshkosh Truck Corporation and changed its name to Oshkosh Corporation in February 2008. Oshkosh Corporation was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
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. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Laboratories (Mozambique) Limitada, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Philippines), Abbott Laboratories (Puerto Rico) Incorporated, Abbott Laboratories (Singapore) Private Limited, Abbott Laboratories A/S, Abbott Laboratories Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Abbott Laboratories B.V., Abbott Laboratories C.A., Abbott Laboratories Finance B.V., Abbott Laboratories GmbH, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Abbott Laboratories International LLC, Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited - Laboratoires Abbott Limitee, Abbott Laboratories NZ Limited, Abbott Laboratories Pacific Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Laboratories Products B.V., Abbott Laboratories Residential Development Fund Inc., Abbott Laboratories S.A., Abbott Laboratories SA, Abbott Laboratories Services Corp., Abbott Laboratories Slovakia s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trustee Company Limited, Abbott Laboratories Uruguay S.A., Abbott Laboratories Vascular Enterprises, Abbott Laboratories d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories de Chile Limitada, Abbott Laboratories de Colombia S.A., Abbott Laboratories de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Abbott Laboratories druzba za farmacijo in diagnostiko d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories(Hellas) Societe Anonyme, Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios del Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Abbott Laboratuarlari Ithalat Ihracat ve Ticaret Ltd.Sti, Abbott Laboratorios Lda, Abbott Laboratorios do Brasil Ltda., Abbott Limited Egypt LLC, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Management GmbH, Abbott Management LLC, Abbott Manufacturing Singapore Private Limited, Abbott Mature Products International Unlimited Company, Abbott Mature Products Management Limited, Abbott Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Abbott Medical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc.,      ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics.

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Vipshop Holdings Limited operates online platforms for various brands in the People's Republic of China. It operates in Vip.com, Shan Shan Outlets, and Others segments. The company offers women's apparel, such as casual wear, jeans, dresses, outerwear, lingerie, pajamas, and maternity clothes; men's apparel comprising casual and smart-casual T-shirts, polo shirts, jackets, pants, and underwear; and skin care and cosmetic products, including cleansers, lotions, face and body creams, face masks, sunscreen, foundations, lipsticks, eye shadows, and other cosmetics-related items. It also provides shoes and bags, which comprises casual and formal shoes, purses, satchels, luggage, duffel bags, and wallets; handbags; apparel, gears and accessories, furnishings and decor, toys, and games for boys, girls, infants, and toddlers; sportswear, sports gear, and footwear for various sporting activities; home furnishings, such as bed and bath products, home decor, kitchen and tabletop items, and home appliances; and consumer electronic products. In addition, the company offers food and snacks, beverages, fresh produce, and pet goods; beauty products; and internet finance services, including consumer and supplier financing, and microcredit. Vipshop Holdings Limited provides its branded products through its vip.com and vipshop.com online platforms, as well as through its internet website and cellular phone application. Further, it offers warehousing, logistics, product procurement, research and development, technology development, and consulting services; software development and information technology support solutions; and supply chain services. Vipshop Holdings Limited was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Guangzhou, the People's Republic of China.
Hundreds of children in Charlottesville are struggling with homelessness and poverty  and among them are children who are adjusting to life in a new country after fleeing their homeland in search of peace and security.

City school officials are now calling on the generosity of the community to help those children and families who often go unnoticed by the public throughout the year.

The Santa Fund, which runs from Thanksgiving Day through early January, collects donations to provide vouchers for families to buy shoes, clothing, medicine and other essentials for children in need.

Sponsored by The Daily Progress and radio station WINA in conjunction with the United Way-Thomas Jefferson Area, the Santa Fund serves children in the city of Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Madison, Nelson and Orange.

The Santa Fund, now in its 122nd year, has a goal of $150,000. Last years goal, also $150,000, was surpassed, with $150,901.37 in donations made. The money helps an estimated 2,000 children each year.

In the Charlottesville school system, $18,000 is budgeted for the vouchers.

The vouchers, which can be redeemed at a handful of stores throughout the region, are distributed in Charlottesville based on the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

Janie Evans, a social worker with the city division, said the vouchers are the only way these kids are able to go out and pick out their own clothes, try them on and pick what they like.

Ill often meet families in need, and this is one thing I have access to immediately that is a really nice thing to be able to offer to families, Evans said.

According to Evans and Regan Harker, two of the school systems four social workers, they work with teachers, administrators and guidance counselors to identify about 275 children from a pool of 2,425 children who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Those 275 children will then receive a voucher valued at about $60.

Among those who are eligible for some kind of assistance in the school system, hundreds are either homeless or refugees, settled in a temporary shelter or shifting from different homes and communities, Evans said.

Its based on need, Harker said. If kids are coming to school and their clothes are obviously too tight, or dirty because the parent isnt able to wash them consistently, or because they dont have more than a few outfits, they may then be offered a voucher, she said.

Stephanie Snider, another one of the school systems social workers, said the vouchers can sometimes encourage students to stay on the right track in school.

I think the Santa Fund can help in a pinch or an emergency if a kid doesnt want to come to school because they dont have anything decent to wear ..., Snider said.

The bottom line is, the need is much greater than the number of vouchers we get, but the families are grateful, Evans said.
With in just five years of commencing operation in India, Renault India has achieved a market share of 4.5 per cent in the passenger car segment just behind Tata Motors market share of 5 per cent.

Mumbai: Going by its current pace of growth, the Indian arm of the French automobile major Renault is expected to overtake Tata Motors to become the fifth largest seller of passenger cars in India.

With in just five years of commencing operation in India, Renault India has achieved a market share of 4.5 per cent in the passenger car segment just behind Tata Motors market share of 5 per cent.

In the passenger car segment, Maruti currently tops the chart with 47 per cent market share followed by Hyundai (17 per cent), M&M (8 per cent) and Honda (6 per cent).

All those who are ahead of us in market share in the passenger car segment have been present in India for the last 20 years while those who are below us have been operating here for the last 10-30 years. We achieved this feat with just three product variants in a span of five years.

Our plan is to launch one new product every year. By the end of 2017, we expect to increase our market share to 5 per cent, said Sumit Sawhney, country CEO and managing director, Renault India Operations.

According to him, Renault Kwid, its entry level car launched in October 2015 have received a tremendous response from customers with the company selling over 1.10 lakh units since its launch.

Renault Kwid is the biggest Make in India story today manufactured in India with 98 per cent localisation in value terms. We have also exported it to Sri Lanka and Nepal where we are now the number one European brand. In 2017, we will be exporting it to more countries including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Mauritius and South Africa among others, he added.
Mumbai: Despite being plagued by recurring technical glitches, the national carrier Air India will complete acquisition of the 27 Dreamliners from Boeing before April, and will take delivery of the 23rd B-787 early January.

"We will be taking delivery of the 23rd Boeing 787 Dreamliner on January 9 and hope to have the last batch of four more Dreamliners by the end of this fiscal year. That will have us completing the process that started more than a decade ago in 2006," Air India finance director Vinod Hejmadi told PTI.

Hejmadi was in the city to deliver the keynote address at the 112th birthday celebrations of the airline founder JRD Tata over the weekend. He founded the airline as Tata Airlines on October 15, 1932 which was taken over the government later.

In 2016, the American aviation giant delivered two Dreamliners to against the plan of three. It was supposed to deliver the 23rd plane in November/December. The national carrier had in January 2006 ordered as many as 68 Boeing aircraft, making Air India one of the launch customers for what Boeing claimed as a game-changing plane.

The mega order included 27 Dreamliners or B787s and 41 B-777s and B-737-800s for a whopping Rs 64,000 crore. But the 2008 global financial crisis and the resultant recession worldwide delayed the delivery inordinately and the first batch of b787s reached the airline only in 2015.

While the long delivery delays sank the airline into a cesspool of debt and poor revenues due to the lingering crisis in the global aviation market, what was more worrisome for it was the recurring technical glitches that had for months grounded the entire fleet which was sold by Boeing originally as a game-changer aircraft with high fuel efficiency and larger space.

At present Air India has 22 B-787s which are deployed in long-haul routes. In October, the airline set a world record by flying the Dreamliner over the Pacific for the first time (normally the airline has been crossing the Atlantic) at a record 14.5 hours between New Delhi and San Francisco.

The airline has applied to take into the Guinness Records, Hejmadi said, adding began as a tri-weekly flight using the Dreamliner, the airline is flying six days a week now to near full capacity.

He said, with the delivery of the remaining B787s, the national carrier will double the frequency of the Sydney flight to 6-days a week, apart from flying to Washington and from summer and also to Denmark, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv. On December 1, it launched a direct flight to Madrid, which may also be doubled to six days a week, Hejmadi said.
New Delhi: Demonetisation will lead to a spurt in economic activity, which will in turn push GDP growth to 10 per cent, Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal has said.

"Some economists predicted that demonetisation would dampen economic activity over the next two quarters. But I believe that the decision to scrap high-value banknotes would push GDP growth up by two per cent," he told PTI.

"There are many types of financial transactions that are not considered as an economic activity. As a result of demonetisation, the ambit of economic activity will grow and add to the GDP," the Minister of State for Finance said.

Asked about former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh terming the implementation of demonetisation as "monumental mismanagement and organised loot", Meghwal said, "Singh has held several key posts in the government, such as Chief Economic Advisor, Reserve Bank Governor and Planning Commission head. He served as the Prime Minister for 10 years.

I fail to understand why has he not been able to check mismanagement in these monumental offices?"

Replying to a query about opposition parties attacking government over the issue, he said, "Prime Miniser Narendra Modi while announcing the decision to invalidate Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8 had said there will some inconvenience to people for the initial 50-day period after which the situation will ease out."

Rubbishing the Opposition's charge that the government did not make proper arrangements for demonetisation, the minister said "the government set up an SIT on black money, rolled out the Income Declaration Scheme and took several steps which were part of the preparations. And, if we had calibrated ATM machines in advance, we would not have been able to maintain secrecy.
Hyderabad: Noted industrialist Adi Godrej has expressed optimism over growth in manufacturing once GST is in place and creation of large-scale jobs going forward, and termed the retrenchment at engineering major L&T as company-specific and not a "new normal".

The chairman of diversified Godrej Group said the role of technology in manufacturing will go up but refused to buy argument that it would not lead to generation of desired number of jobs.

"There will be much more technology in manufacturing. And once GST is implemented, manufacturing will get a big boost," the former President of Confederation of Indian Industry told PTI.

Once GST is implemented, economy will grow faster and that will create much more requirement for products, consequently manufacturing will increase and that will create jobs also, Godrej said.

On L&T laying off 14,000 employees across businesses in April-September this year and asked if it's going to be a "new normal" (in terms of job cuts) in the sector, he said: "Individual companies will have their individual reasons.

But overall, I think job growth will depend entirely on economic growth. This will be directly related to level of economic growth." Asked about "anti-globalisation" sentiment taking hold in some countries and its impact on exports, he said, "India currently has such a small share of the global export market that if we are competitive, if we have good policies, then we can increase our exports also."

On Goods and Services Tax, Godrej said, "GST is more or less sorted out. I hope it will be implemented by April 1. They (NDA Government) are going to bring it as a Money Bill which will require only the Lok Sabha's approval.

In the Lok Sabha, the government has a majority." "So, I don't think there should be a problem. And there are a couple of points to be resolved with states. I hope they do resolve them soon," he added.
Katrina will next be seen in Anurag Basu's 'Jagga Jasoos' alongside Ranbir Kapoor.

Mumbai: Post widespread speculation, it has now become official that Katrina Kaif will be appearing with Anushka Sharma on Koffee With Karan.

The actress had earlier been rumoured to have been in talks to appear with her rumoured superstar ex Salman Khan. However, Sallu will be sene on the show with his brothers Arbaaz and Sohail.

Katrina, who's been having a disastrous year with two big flops in 'Fitoor,' co-starring Aditya Roy Kapur and 'Baar Baar Dekho,' co-starring Sidharth Malhotra, has been keen on re-inventing herself, from her typecast girl-next-door image.

It also doesn't help that the actress will next be seen in the much delayed Anurag Basu helmed 'Jagga Jasoos,'co-starring her ex Ranbir Kapoor.

Kat and Anushka had earlier worked together on Shah Rukh Khan's 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan'.

There have also been rumour doing the rounds that in a desperate move to salvage her career, Kat has also decided to stay clear of the younger actors, and only collaborate with the A-list superstars, hereon.

Be as it may, with her on the couch, fresh in the wake of her not so amicable separation from Ranbir, Karan Johar is going to have a field day grilling her.

Readied the popcorn, yet?
Mumbai: He may have adored the cover pages of posh magazines and featured in lists that have the word good-looking in them, but Hrithik is far from being boastful.

In a recent event, Hrithik, who, as per worldstopmost.com, has worlds 3rd most handsome face, said the title was more of a compliment.

The actor, who is currently busy promoting his upcoming revenge drama Kaabil, does not see the title as an achievement. When asked to comment on the list that has driven his fans insane with pride and joy, a humble Roshan Jr said Its a compliment, not an achievementI take it as a compliment. Its nice, its okay.

Yaami Gautam, co-actor of Hrithik in Kaabil, said that it is Hrithiks humility that keeps intimidation at bay.

When you work with him (you dont realise), there is so much humility in himIt is only when you (the media) asks these questions that you feel Oh my God! Yes! I am standing right next to this manI think its this attitude that makes someone sexy, said Yaami about her co-star.

Hrithik, blushingly replied to Yaamis comment, saying, Now I am feeling very awkward, now we should move.

His striking good looks, coloured eyes and overall personality has often allowed him the privilege of featuring on the list of best looking men across the world. Salman Khan also makes it to the list is ranked at No. 7.

Keeping the Bollywood superstar company in the envied top three positions are Hollywood actor Tom Cruise, followed by Twilight star Robert Pattinson. Hrithik is in third position beating even Johnny depp and Brad Pitt who are at number four and number 8 respectively.

On the work front, Hrithiks Kaabil releases on January 25.

Watch the interview clip here:
Mumbai: Veteran producer-director Subhash Ghai is being celebrated over the years for his tremendous contribution towards Indian Cinema. The talented film maker Subhash Ghai has put in numerous efforts to keep the Indian Cinema Culture alive and promote it; be it opening a Film School to launching various multiplexes to conducting and being a part of exchange programs nationally and internationally.

Well it is always a pleasure to have such an iconic personality so close to your heart and learn so much from them.

Recently, Subhash Ghai was invited for Madhur Bhandarkars house warming party where the two spent a lot of time together talking and discussing about Cinema and film making. Apart from the two personalities, present were other prominent film makers like Siddhartha Roy Kapoor, Krishika Lulla, Nitin Desai, Kunal Kohli, Vipul Shah and many more.

A source from the party disclosed that the house has a wall full of more than 200 pictures of the film makers and film stars he admires, captured moments of him receiving awards. One of those pictures was of the legendary Subhash Ghai. Director Madhur Bhandarkar expressed his admiration towards Ghai while pointing out the picture to him.

Madhurs house shows his strong passion for movies. He is a real movie man right from his early days when he fell in love with films while selling movie cassettes, said Subhash Ghai in awe after he was shown his picture on the wall of photographs.
Ranveer is of the opinion that if them (the Pakistani artists) working in India makes even one person uncomfortable, then it is our (the people's) duty to show solidarity towards the nation.

Mumbai: While some of the big guns from film industry have vehemently criticised the self-imposed ban on Pakistani artists working in India, others are of the opinion that the ban is a fair move.

One actor who has been keeping mum for the longest time on this critical issue is the emerging star of Bollywood, Ranveer Singh.

In a recent chat show with NDTV, Ranveer was asked many a question, among which was the much talked about ban on Pakistani artists.

Did you feel sorry for the Pakistanis that they were being driven away or did you think it was not necessary or did you think it was the right thing? asked the host of the show.

To which Ranveer replied, I really feel that artists should be just left alone and be able to do there thing but at the same time, I will tell you that even if there is one person who doesnt want that. Given the situation, even if there is one person who is not comfortable, I think we need to show solidarity as a nation and I wouldnt oppose that."

Singh, who had openly admitted to and frankly elaborated on his casting couch experience on this very show, was asked if superstars like Shah Rukh Khan being flaked over voicing their political opinions will preclude him from doing the same.

Ranveer, who has himself faced backlash for featuring in an ad that allegedly objectifies women, said," I am a really really simple person, my political views are probably agnostic. I know very little about this whole gamut of politics. I, subconsciously, steer very clear from it. I am an artist and like to be just that.

After the Uri attacks that saw 18 Indian soldiers losing their lives to terrorism, the country finds itself in the middle of an unusual battle with Pakistani actors. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had given a 48-hour ultimatum to Pakistani artistes to leave the country forcing actors like Fawad Khan to leave. Things got messier when Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) announced a ban on Pakistani artists and technicians for an indefinite period until normalcy returns.

While celebs like Salman Khan, Karan Johar and Mahesh Bhatt have condemned the decision of banning Pakistan talent, veteran actor Nana Patekar feels that the country should come first and artists are only a small part of it.

In fact, Karan Johar's 'Ae Dil Hai Mushkil', starring Fawad Khan, was assured a smooth release only when Johar agreed to pay 5 Cr to National Defence Fund to show respect towards the Indian Army.

Now, Shah Rukh Khan's 'Raees', starring Pakistani star Mahira Khan, may also face similar fate. Rumours have it, since the Uri attack and surgical strikes, Mahira has not come back to complete her shoot and her role in the movie has also been trimmed down.
Chennai: Superstar Rajinikanth on Saturday suffered a minor injury on his left leg during the filming for 2.0, the sequel to his Endhiran.

According to reports, he fell down at a shooting location on the outskirts of Chennai.

Rajinikanth was rushed to the Chettinad Hospital near Kelambakkam.

An official in the hospital was quoted as saying, "The actor was in the hospital for half an hour from around 8:45 pm. The minor injury was dressed and he returned fine."

But his team did not confirm the injury. Instead they released a video showing him walking out of a building and said "He's on the sets shooting."

The much-awaited film 2.0 is reportedly being produced on a budget of Rs 400 crore. Amy Jackson is paired opposite Rajinikanth and the film also stars Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar. AR Rahman has composed the music for the film.
Never go to bed angry, the old saying goes, or bad feeling will harden into resentment. Now scientists have found evidence to support the idea that negative emotional memories are harder to reverse after a nights sleep.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that during sleep, the brain reorganises the way negative memories are stored, making these associations harder to suppress in the future. In our opinion, yes, there is certain merit in this age-old advice, said Yunzhe Liu, who led the research at Beijing Normal University and is now based at University College London. We would suggest to first resolve argument before going to bed; dont sleep on your anger. The findings could also have implications for the treatment of conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the authors said. The study, conducted over two days, used a psychological technique known as the think/no-think task to test how successfully 73 male students suppressed memories.

First, the men learnt to associate pairs of neutral faces and unsettling images, such as injured people, crying children or corpses. Next, they were shown the faces again and told to either actively think of the associated picture or to consciously avoid thinking of it. When this session was conducted just 30 minutes after the initial learning, the participants were nine per cent less likely to remember the images that they had avoided thinking about compared to control image pairs  the suppression had been effective.

However, when the suppression session was carried out 24 hours after the initial learning, after a good nights sleep, they were only three per cent less likely to recall the image. Brain scans offered a clue to why memories may be more difficult to unpick once they have been consolidated by sleep. Functional MRI scans of the participants revealed that newly acquired memories were represented by brain activity tightly centred on the hippocampus, the brains memory centre, but the overnight memories had become more distributed across the cortex.

The authors caution that the findings were in healthy participants and are not immediately applicable to conditions like PTSD and expecting people who have undergone a traumatic experience to start working on suppressing the memory on the same day is probably not realistic advice, Liu said. However the research could help design evidence-based treatments for PTSD in the future, he said.

 Source: www.theguardian.com
The Kenyan youth who behaved in an objectionable manner while being taken to court by police. (Photo: DC)

Salem: A Kenyan youth has been arrested by personnel of All Women police station at Ammapettai for allegedly raping a college student from his own country in Salem district. Police said the victim, aged 25, is studying M.Sc. Bio Technology in a private college and staying in a rented house at Athikarapatty area.

The accused Erick Mulinge Nthuli, 24, had gone to her house recently and forced her into a sexual relationship. Police said Erick had stayed back in Salem after his graduation in a private college.

Based on a complaint at AWPS-Ammapettai, police booked him under IPC sections 376, 506(2), and section 4 of Women Harassment (Prohibition) Act and arrested him on Saturday.
Amritsar: Pakistan Premier's foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz along with foreign ministers of four countries on Saturday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who told them that it was important to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability in Afghanistan and the region.

The Foreign Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Slovakia, which holds the European Union Presidency this month, along with Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Aziz called on Modi ahead of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process on Afghanistan in Amritsar on Sunday.

Prime Minister Modi welcomed the Foreign Ministers and stressed it was the collective responsibility of all those in the region to work together to help Afghanistan out of its current difficulties, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

The Prime Minister stated that his several interactions with both the common people of Afghanistan and the country's leadership had convinced him that the Afghan people were tired of the continuing violence and terrorism.

Prime Minister Modi stressed on "the need to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability, security and development in Afghanistan and our region," Swarup said.

In this context, the Prime Minister hoped that discussions in the Ministerial Conference on Sunday will produce good results.

Agreeing with the Premier on the need to end violence in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministers shared Prime Minister Modi's view that Afghanistan's stability, security and prosperity are integral to the region's, Swarup said.

"They greatly appreciated the continued commitment and engagement of India and its leadership for these ends. The Foreign Ministers warmly thanked India for hosting the Conference and expressed confidence that all friends of Afghanistan will work together for realising the aspirations for peace and development," he said.
Chennai: Leader of Opposition, M.K. Stalin on Saturday complained that 27 per cent reservation for backward communities as per the Mandal Commissions recommendations had not been implemented and appealed to youth to raise their voice to for their rights.

Releasing the autobiography of DK president K. Veeramani titled Ayyavin Adichuvattil to mark his 84th birthday celebrations, Stalin said only 12 per cent of jobs had been reserved to backward communites, 26 years after the implementation of the commission report.

Out of the 651 jobs in the UPSC office only nine per cent had been reserved to BCs and there is not a single A grade official from the BC communities at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Stalin said.

Assuring that the ideals of Dravidian movements founder E.V.R. Periyar would continue to be the policies of the DMK, he said. Stalin said the social justice policy of Periyar had been transformed into the DMKs programme and it would be so in future.

The DMK is functioning in the electoral arena and the DK in the social reformation sphere, the two parties would fight together, where there is a danger to Tamils, Stalin said and recalled that party president M. Karunanidhi had described the two movements as double barrel guns.

Property rights for women is a key resolution in Periyars self-respect movements conference in 1929 and the DMK government in 1989 enacted a law to ensure its implementation. The UPA government introduced the law ensuring property rights for women at the national level in 2006, he said. The DMK was instrumental in the implementation of Mandal Commissions recommendation providing 27 per cent reservation for OBCs.

Stalin recalled his association with Veeramani, when the youth wing leader was jailed under MISA. He said Veeramani with comforting words dispelled Stalins fears as soon as he entered the prison room.
MoS Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal also rubbished the Opposition's charge that the government did not make proper arrangements for demonetisation. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: Demonetisation will lead to a spurt in economic activity, which will in turn push GDP growth to 10 per cent, Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal has said.

"Some economists predicted that demonetisation would dampen economic activity over the next two quarters. But I believe that the decision to scrap high-value banknotes would push GDP growth up by two per cent," he told PTI.

"There are many types of financial transactions that are not considered as an economic activity. As a result of demonetisation, the ambit of economic activity will grow and add to the GDP," the Minister of State for Finance said.

Asked about former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh terming the implementation of demonetisation as "monumental mismanagement and organised loot", Meghwal said, "Singh has held several key posts in the government, such as Chief Economic Advisor, Reserve Bank Governor and Planning Commission head. He served as the Prime Minister for 10 years.

I fail to understand why has he not been able to check mismanagement in these monumental offices?"

Replying to a query about opposition parties attacking government over the issue, he said, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi while announcing the decision to invalidate Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8 had said there will some inconvenience to people for the initial 50-day period after which the situation will ease out."

Rubbishing the Opposition's charge that the government did not make proper arrangements for demonetisation, the minister said "the government set up an SIT on black money, rolled out the Income Declaration Scheme and took several steps which were part of the preparations. And, if we had calibrated ATM machines in advance, we would not have been able to maintain secrecy."
New Delhi: Questioning Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz' presence in Amritsar for the 'Heart of Asia' conference, Congress leader Manish Tewari on Sunday took a jibe at the Centre and asked whether the former has been called to feed him biryani.

"The fundamental question is what Mr Sartaj Aziz is doing in Amritsar. If this government was indeed wanting to corner Pakistan on terror and they believe that terror and talks should not go hand in hand, so have they called Mr Sartaj Aziz to Amritsar to feed him Amritsari Kulcha or biryani?" Tewari told ANI.

The Congress leader said when the ruling BJP was in opposition, it kept on saying for ten years that talks and terror can't go hand in hand.

"For the last 30 months, you are seeing flip flops, U-turns and somersaults including talking about terror with Pakistan. So, therefore, there is absolutely no coherence, no consistency, no tactics to this government's strategy for Pakistan and that's why the deep state of Pakistan has been running circles around India," he added.

Asserting that Pakistan has not stopped attacking India, Tewari asked, "Where is the terror stopping that this government keeps on kowtowing to the Pakistani state?"

The Congress leader's assertion came a day after Aziz arrived in Amritsar for the 'Heart of Asia' conference amid speculations that he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would meet for more than the customary handshake.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had, however, earlier this week said that talks were not possible amidst continued terrorism in Pakistan, a clear reference to the latest strike on the Nagrota base.

The sixth 'Heart of Asia' conference will see the participation of representatives from over 30 countries including China, United States, Russia, Iran and Pakistan to discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan.

The main ministerial conference will be inaugurated today jointly by Prime Minister Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
Afghanistans President Ashraf Ghani at the Heart of Asia Conference, in Amritsar on Sunday. (Photo: ANI Twitter)

New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani jointly inaugurated the sixth Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference in Amritsar on Sunday.

The two leaders spoke for an hour and discussed terrorism and development-related issues, said a report.

The project of Chabahar Port between India, Afghanistan and Iran is very important to us for connectivity, Ghani said addressing the Conference.

Heart of Asia is meeting at time of great opportunity in significant threats for Afghanistan for Asia-wide and global implications, he added.

Ghani said that Afghanistan has enduring and strong ties with India in its quest towards development.

India's support to Afghanistan is aimed at improving people's life. It is transparent with no strings attached, the Afghan President said.

Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable. About 30 terrorist groups, as named by the UN, are trying to establish a base in our country, Ghani said.

We need to identify cross-border terrorism and a fund to combat terrorism, he added.

Slamming Pakistan, Ghani told Sartaj Aziz that the 500 million dollars pledged by Pakistan for Afghanistan's development can be spent to contain extremism instead. Highlighting Pakistan's role in terrorism, Ghani said that a key Taliban leader has himself admitted to getting sanctuary in Pakistan.

Our words and actions remain focus on building, strengthening & securing Afghanistans territory and its citizens from external threats, Narendra Modi said responding to Ghanis praise of India for helping Afghanistan unconditionally.

Our gathering today re-affirms the commitment of the international community to durable peace & lasting stability in Afghanistan, he added.

Modi said the world must display strong willpower to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat too Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity, Modi said.

On Indias part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering, Modi reiterated.

Modi said that Asia needs to fight not only against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter and finance them.

As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by a resolute action, he added.

The PM said that Indias bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistans development needs must continue and increase.

Modi announced that India and Afghanistan would soon be connected through an air transport corridor.

He also said that the Herat India-Afghanistan dam that was launched a few months ago will help revive economic activity for the people there.

The Conference will discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan .

The theme for this year's conference is 'Addressing Challenges, Achieving Prosperity'.

India says a basket of six confidence-building measures would be discussed during the conference.

Earlier, Sartaj Aziz, Advisor to Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif spoke with Ashraf Ghani.

Modi had on Saturday night told Aziz at a multilateral conference of foreign ministers that Pakistan must rein in terrorism in order to achieve stability in the region. He said Afghans were tired of terrorism.

At the Ministerial Conference, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley led the Indian delegation in place of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who is unwell.

Heart of Asia process was launched in 2011 from Istanbul . Elaborate security arrangements have been made for the event in Amritsar .

Eleven Companies of Para Military forces and more than five thousand policemen have been deployed in the city to ensure smooth conduct of the conference.

On Saturday, senior officials of the Heart of Asia process discussed finalising the Amritsar Declaration and adopting the Regional Counter Terrorism Framework drafted by Afghanistan .

Afghanistan 's Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai chaired the meeting with Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani shake hands during Sixth Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

Amritsar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday held bilateral talks on a range of key issues including cross-border terrorism and decided to strengthen counter-terror cooperation between the two countries.

During their meeting, the two leaders agreed to operationalise the additional amount of USD 1 billion for bilateral cooperation especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including through a possible air corridor.

The corridor will give India a leverage in Afghanistan as Pakistan continues to deny transit link through its territory.

The two leaders discussed several aspects of the "close and friendly" relations between the two countries, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said, adding they also reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

"Both leaders exchanged views on the common threat of terrorism, especially the cross border nature of the scourge which had caused immense suffering to the people of India and Afghanistan.

"In this context, the two leaders agreed to strengthen counter terror cooperation between the two countries, and enhance coordination at the UN and other relevant fora," he said.

India had pulled out of SAARC Summit, to be held in Islamabad last month, citing cross-border terror strikes emanating from Pakistan. Afghanistan and other SAARC countries had also sought cancellation of the eight-nation meet on the grounds that there was incitement of terrorism in the region.

Noting with satisfaction the prospects for bilateral relations, Modi and Ghani agreed that both countries would continue to work ever harder for further strengthening them.

"Both leaders agreed to operationalise the additional amount of US Dollar One Billion for bilateral cooperation especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including through a possible air corridor between India and Afghanistan to overcome obstacles to promotion of bilateral trade," Swarup said.

Ghani, who arrived in Amritsar last evening to attend the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process Conference, also recalled his visit to Golden Temple on Saturday, describing it as "a moving experience".

In the meeting, Modi assured Ghani of India's continued support for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Also, Afghanistan is learnt to have sought enhanced supply of military hardware from India.

Afghanistan has been trying to revamp its military to fight the resurgent Taliban after drawdown of NATO forces began nearly two years ago.

Sources said both India and Afghanistan were keen to finalise the air cargo agreement as soon as possible and that the broad contours of the pact were already finalised.

India and Afghanistan have been exploring various connectivity projects for greater two-way trade.

In May, India, Iran and Afghanistan had signed an agreement to set up a trade and transport corridor with Chabahar in Iran as the hub.

The sea-land route of Chabahar Port was designed to bypass Pakistan and the project was seen as India's effort to counter China's plan to develop Gwadar port in Pakistan.

Afghanistan was very keen on deeper defence and security cooperation with India and there were indications that Ghani may press for ramping up supply of arms and military hardware from India though Pakistan would be unhappy if there was closer Indo-Afghan military cooperation.

Last week, India had given to Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters.

India has trained hundreds of Afghan security personnel but has been adopting a cautious approach in providing weapons.

Afghanistan has also been seeking India's assistance in making functional Soviet-era helicopters and transport aircraft which were not in flying condition.

India has a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and is implementing projects worth USD 2 billion to help rebuild the country's infrastructure.

India has been supporting an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of peace and reconciliation, and advocating the need for a sustained and long-term commitment to Afghanistan by the international community.
The HoA expressed serious concern over gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan and in many parts of the region. (Photo: PTI)

Amritsar: Combating terrorism was at the centre-stage of Heart of Asia (HoA) conference which sent a clear message to Pakistan, holding terror and violent extremism as the biggest threat to peace, but could not firm up a regional framework proposed by Afghanistan to effectively deal with the menace.

After the two-day deliberations, attended by 40 countries including major regional and global powers and blocs, the HoA, a platform to help Afghanistan in its transition, issued the Amritsar Declaration which called for dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terror networks.

Held in the backdrop of number of cross-border terror attacks on India and elsewhere, the HoA expressed serious concern over gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan and in many parts of the region, holding that united efforts are required to contain terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Taliban, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida, IS and its affiliates, TTP, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah and other foreign terrorist groups.

Addressing a press conference, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who headed the Indian delegation, said the declaration recognizes terrorism as the biggest threat to peace and stability and demands immediate end to all forms of terrorism and all support, financing, safe havens and sanctuaries to it.

"For the first time, a Heart of Asia Declaration expressed concern at the violence caused in Afghanistan and the region by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Daesh, LeT and JeM etc," Jaitley said.

Incidentally, HOA's Islamabad declaration had mentioned Al Qaeda and Daesh.

Apart from calling for concerted cooperation to combat the terror groups, the declaration sought early finalization of the draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

It also favoured an early meeting of experts to discuss a draft Regional Counter-Terrorism Framework, recently prepared by Afghanistan, for its early finalization.

Afghanistan had pushed hard for adoption of the framework but as many countries had not given their inputs, it could not be firmed up.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani slammed Pakistan for providing support and safe sanctuaries to terror groups including Taliban, accusing it of engaging in an "undeclared war" while many other leaders sought firm and decisive action to deal with the challenge.

Jaitley said three major issues deliberated upon at the conference were countering terrorism to create stability and security in Afghanistan, providing it with connectivity and ensure the war-ravaged countrys development.

"We recognize that terrorism is the biggest threat to peace, stability and cooperation in our region. We encourage the international community to continue to assist the Government of Afghanistan.

"We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism," said the declaration.

In this regard, "we call upon all states to take action against these terrorist entities in accordance with their respective national counter terrorism policies, their international obligations and the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy 2006.

"Furthermore, we encourage early finalization of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism with consensus," said the declaration.

In an indirect reference to Pakistan, the declaration said the HoA acknowledged the support that terrorism derives in the region and demands an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism.

The declaration, which also mentioned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and East Turkistan Islamic Movement, said it was "recognising once again that terrorism, violent extremism, radicalization, separatism, and sectarianism and linkages among them are the gravest challenges that the Heart of Asia region and the rest of the international community face" These problems would continue to pose a severe threat to the sovereignty, territorial integrity, economic development and bilateral and regional cooperation.

"We renew our strong commitment to strengthening comprehensive cooperation among the Heart of Asia countries and intensify our efforts to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations through solidarity and collective action," the declaration said.

It said the countries recognised the necessity of taking serious measures to address recruitment of youths to extremist and terrorist networks and underlined the need for effective de-radicalization and counter-radicalization strategies.

The HoA felt combating terror will not succeed without a concerted and coherent regional approach and decided to develop such a regional approach by tasking experts to meet in the first half of 2017 to identify key areas for such initiative.

The experts will give recommendation to the HoA in the first half of 2017 for further action. Calling for dismantling nexus between revenue and its financial support for terrorist entities in the region, it said dialogue between relevant ministries and agencies of the HoA countries were necessary to tackle the menace.

The Conference was attended by delegations from practically every participating country, supporting countries and international organizations 45 in all.

The delegations of Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan, and of the European Union were led by the respective Ministers.

The Conference also saw the presence and participation of guest countries Austria, Bulgaria, Latvia and Uzbekistan.

Jaitley said the discussions and the declaration reiterated the strong support from the Heart of Asia countries for Afghanistan's efforts to use its geographic location to enhance wider regional economic cooperation.

Specific initiatives in this regard including the India-Iran-Afghanistan Trilateral Agreement on developing Chabahar were acknowledged.

He said during the Conference various delegations expressed appreciation for the constructive role that India has been playing in supporting Afghanistan and its people in the past decade and a half.
Amritsar: In clear reference to Pakistan, a conference of 40 nations on Sunday pitched for dismantling of safe havens for terror groups like LeT and JeM, amid a message by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the world community that "silence and inaction" would "only embolden terrorists and their masters".

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, whose country's proposal for a framework to effectively deal with terrorism could not be adopted by the conference, made a stinging attack on Pakistan, accusing it of launching an "undeclared war" against his country by providing support and safe sanctuaries to terror groups including Taliban.

Terror took the centre stage at the 'Heart of Asia' (HOA) conference here which was attended by Pakistan Prime Minister's Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz as also representatives of major powers, including the US and Russia and regional groupings.

While most of the countries pitched for strong action against terrorism, some said India and Pakistan should join hands in helping Afghanistan.

Hosted by India in the backdrop of several cross-border terror attacks emanating from Pakistan, the HOA adopted, after two-day deliberations, the Amritsar Declaration which pressed for dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terror networks.

"We remain concerned by the gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan in particular and the region and the high level of violence caused by the Taliban, terrorist groups including ISIL/ DAISH and its affiliates, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Islamic Movement, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TTP, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah and other foreign terrorist fighters," the Declaration said.

It is for the first time that LeT and JeM have been mentioned in a declaration of the HOA, whose main objective is to discuss efforts to reconstruct and stablise war-torn Afghanistan.

"Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region, we demand an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism. We recognize that terrorism is the biggest threat to peace, stability and cooperation in our region...

"We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism," the Declaration said.

In his address at the conference, Modi emphasised the need for a "strong collective will" to defeat terrorism which he described as the "gravest threat to peace and security of Afghanistan and rest of South Asia.

He pressed for "resolute action" against those who "support, train and finance" terrorism and warned that "silence and inaction" would "only embolden terrorists and their masters".

"For the first time, a Heart of Asia Declaration expressed concern at the violence caused in Afghanistan and the region by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Daesh, LeT and JeM etc," said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who headed the Indian delegation, while addressing a press conference at the conclusion of the conference.

Incidentally, HOA's Islamabad declaration had mentioned Al Qaeda and Daesh. The BRICS Summit held in Goa in October also failed to mention LeT or JeM.

The conference expressed concern over terrorism, "the biggest threat to peace and stability", and demanded "immediate end to all forms of terrorism and all support, financing, safe havens and sanctuaries to it."

Besides calling for concerted cooperation to combat the terror groups, the declaration sought early finalization of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

Afghanistan's proposal for Regional Counter-Terrorism Framework was referred to a group of experts, whose early meeting was favoured for early finalisation of the document.

Afghanistan had pushed hard for its adoption but it could not fructify as many countries had not given their inputs.

Modi said "the growing arc of terrorist violence is posing the gravest threat" to the region.

"As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them," the Prime Minister said in clear reference to Pakistan.

He said there was a need to "demonstrate strong and collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear."

Expressing India's strong commitment to Afghanistan's transition, Modi said, "On India's part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering. The welfare of Afghanistan and its people is close to our hearts and minds."

Many other leaders sought firm and decisive action to deal with the challenge.

Ghani, in a direct attack, said despite Afghanistan's bilateral and multilateral ties with Pakistan, the "undeclared war" that started in winter of 2014, has intensified after the recent Brussels conference on his country's transition.

Slamming Islamabad for giving shelter and support to terror groups, the Afghan President quoted a top Taliban commander as saying that 'unless terror sanctuaries were allowed in Pakistan, the outfit will not last even a month'.

Hitting out at Pakistan for its habit of denying cross- border terror attacks, he said, "An Asian or international mechanism must be put in place, without playing games, to find out who was benefiting from terror, extremism and other illicit activities....

"An Asian or international regime, whatever is acceptable to Pakistan, should be put in place to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations. We do not want blame game, we want verification."

He also sought setting up of a global fund to combat terrorism, while emphasising that time has come for concrete action against terror infrastructure and those support it.
Meanwhile, Chennai and its suburbs received rainfall disrupting normal life. Mahabalipuram, Uthiramerur, Chengalpet and Maduranthagam in Kancheepuram district received good rainfall.

Chennai: Water starved Tamil Nadu is expected to receive more rains in the coming days as a depression brewing close to south Andaman is likely to intensify into a system bringing in showers, the weather office in Chennai said on Saturday.

An upper air cyclonic circulation lies over Malay peninsula and neighborhood and extends up to mid-tropospheric levels. Under its influence, a low pressure area is likely to develop over South Andaman Sea and neighborhood during the next 24 hours. It is very likely to concentrate into a depression in the subsequent 48 hours, S. Stella, director, Agromet Advisory Service Unit, regional meterological department (Chennai), told reporters here on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Chennai and its suburbs received rainfall disrupting normal life. Mahabalipuram, Uthiramerur, Chengalpet and Maduranthagam in Kancheepuram district received good rainfall.

At Chennai airport, the authorities rescheduled as many 51 flights due to bad weather conditions and fog. Thirty four flights from Chennai including five international flights departed with a delay of more than one hour affecting passengers.

Chennai Corporation in a press release said there was minor logging and felling of avenue trees due to showers and were being attended by round-the-clock squad.

All subways are equipped with high power motor pumps to drain storm water and 176 relief centres in Chennai are kept ready, the release added.
There better be some method in this madness or else Pakistans diplomatic overture  read, large-heartedness - in attending the Heart of Asia meeting in Amritsar, will make Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appear politically naive and amateurish on how best to tackle the perpetually hostile government of Narendra Modi. Ever since his participation in Prime Minister Modis May 2014 oath-taking, Prime Minister Sharif has relentlessly attempted to engage with his counterpart on resuming diplomatic engagement with India in the spirit of the Lahore declaration. After his brief interaction at the oath-taking ceremony, Mr. Sharif had told me in his Delhi hotel room that the Indian premier was keen to have dialogue with Pakistan.

I want a Muslim child to hold a Quran in one hand and a computer in the otherI am soon going to send my envoy to Pakistan to discuss Kashmir, is what the Prime Minister said Modi told him. Yet Modis then foreign secretary Sujata Singh sabotaged any message of goodwill that Nawaz Sharif could have taken back to Pakistan when she held a press conference even before the Pakistani Prime Minister could speak to the Indian media. Her message? No discussion on the K word and Modi had only discussed terrorism with the Pakistani PM.

Its been uphill since then; more hot than cold. The Pathankot attack and the investigation, the still-born Ufa statement, the aborted Sartaj Aziz Delhi visit, Modis birthday visit to Lahore, the killing of Burhan Wani, the confessions of Kulbhushan Yadav, the bilateral engagement of the National Security Advisors, the Uri attack, the cross-border attacks and mounting civilian and military deaths, the water war and the Indus Treaty, the verbal sword-crossing at the UNGA and so goes the saga. But Pakistans Prime Minister remains determined. The rationale to send a senior Minister to India, even for an international conference has been questioned in Pakistan. Engagement and more engagement is the Sharif mantra. And so his Advisor of Foreign Affair will be in Amritsar. By most media accounts, the Modi government will frame the issues at the multilateral Heart of Asia Conference, within its hostile policy towards Pakistan, especially since the July Uprising in Kashmir. Several factors point to this possibility. Ahead of the Heart of Asia conference, in recent days while cross-border LOC attacks from both sides have been on the rise, Delhi has accused Pakistan of cross-border terrorism. Clearly countering terrorism is likely to be a core agenda at the HoA conference.

With Pakistan itself a repeated target of target of terrorism, it must welcome any suggestion to set up a mechanism for checking cross border terrorism. However the likely scenario of India using this platform to conflate the Kashmiri uprising with terrorism and Afghanistan conflating increasing presence and attacks of Daesh and al-Qaeda with the Pakistan-based Haqqani group, will likely turn any counter terrorism discussion into a censure Pakistan discussion. India is already accusing Pakistan of turning terrorism and cross-border terror as the new normal. Delhis unsuccessful diplomatic attempts to isolate Pakistan has not prevented Delhi from trying in recent weeks - after aborting the SAARC summit that was to be held in Islamabad - to call for Pakistans ouster from AARC. At the BRICS meet in Goa in October, India labelled Pakistan as the mother ship of terrorism globally and earlier this week Kabul and Delhi again repeated the mantra of terror from Pakistan being the greatest threat to regional peace and stability.

To Pakistan, the reasoning behind the stepped up verbal attack is simple. Its Indias attempt to sabotage CPEC, as any Indian inclusion in CPEC requires Delhi to engage with Pakistan and resolve outstanding issues. Unlike his own political predecessor, the wise Atal B Vajpayee, with brutality having failed to suppress the Kashmir uprising and with the stories of the post-July saga of over 150plus teenager deaths, the haunting blindness of pellets-targeted Kashmir youths now being broadcast locally and globally, the Modi governments diplomatic and political aggression towards Pakistan too is on the rise.

While the Modi government deals with Kashmiri defiance and determination through continued atrocities, Pakistan sits at the core of Delhis three-point deflection strategy on Kashmir; one, remaining blind to the huge casualties Pakistan itself suffers from terrorist attacks, Pakistan is projected as the cause of all regional terrorism; two, to conflate the Kashmiri uprising with terrorism of ISIS, TTP, al-Qaeda etc and presenting it under the rubric of terrorism to deflect the worlds attention from Kashmirs killing fields; three, blame Pakistan for initiating cross-LOC attacks and infiltration while Delhi itself increases confrontation along the LOC.

While Delhis killing of Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani qualifies as one of Indias biggest Kashmir blunder of the last few decades, it was after the Uri attack that the Modi government launched its aggressive campaign linking LOC attacks, Kashmiri uprising to Pakistan as the cause of all regional terrorism. In Afghanistans President Ashraf Ghani, Delhi has found a willing partner to launch an unceasing pincer-move on the diplomatic front against Pakistan. Pakistans past policies and the global environment that remains enamoured by Indias burgeoning economy and Modi himself, makes Pakistan, to some degree, vulnerable to such a Delhi policy.

But this is not the way forward. An immediate return to unconditional bilateral dialogue on all outstanding issues simultaneously is the only solution. For all those seeking peace in the region, for steering away from the poison of hate and violence being sown in our hearts and souls , the million dollar question is if any breakthrough on bilateral India-Pakistan dialogue will be in the offing at Amritsar. The cantankerous cribbing and blame-game, is getting old.

(Nasim Zehra is a leading Pakistani political analyst and commentator who anchors a current affairs programme on Pakistans Channel 24)
New notes of Rs 2000 issued by the Reserve Bank of India. (Photo: PTI)

Udupi: Close on the heels of I-T sleuths confiscating over Rs 5 crore in Bengaluru, another Rs 71 lakh have been seized from the possession of three persons in Rs 2000 denomination near Udupi, police said on Sunday.

"Rs 71 lakh was seized from three persons who were arrested for carrying new Rs 2,000 notes in their car without any documents at Bailoor village," Udupi Superintendent of Police K T Balakrishna said adding the police swung into action on a tip-off.

Bailoor village is about 32kms from here.

The three have been handed over to the Income Tax officials in Mangaluru for further investigation, he said.

Police intercepted the car on December 1 and found the currency notes of Rs 2,000 denomination totalling to Rs 71 lakh in a bag.

The three occupants, Imran Hussain, Asif Umar and Deepak Shetty (driver), had failed to produce appropriate documents or provide explanation about the cash, Balakrishna said.

They were travelling from Mangaluru to Kudremukh for a business payment, he said.

Over 50 I-T sleuths and police personnel had searched premises in Bengaluru, Chennai and Erode (Tamil Nadu) as part of the country-wide operations, with the Department saying the seizure of cash in new currency was over Rs five crore.

On December 2, IT officials said the cash found, after searches were launched on December 1, on the premises of two engineers and two contractors, has risen to Rs 5.7 crore and the notes were in the denomination of the new currency of Rs 2,000.

"Total admission of unaccounted income by the group stands at Rs 152 crore. Investigations are on," they had said in New Delhi.
The government expected at least 10% of the Rs 14.6 lakh crore removed from the economy on November 8 to disappear for good. (Photo: Representational Image)

New Delhi: With three and a half weeks to go before the deadline to deposit old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in banks is over, Rs 9.85 lakh crore have already been deposited in banks after November 8 in these denominations.

According to a report, this challenges the Centre's estimate that demonetisation might flush out about Rs 3 lakh crore in black money that may never come back.

The government expected at least 10% of the Rs 14.6 lakh crore removed from the economy on November 8 to disappear for good  which would have reduced the RBIs liability.

But the large amount deposited so far indicates that black money hoarders may have found ways to convert their cash into white money.

A massive number of deposits of Rs 49,000 have been made into Jan Dhan accounts. This is suspicious because the threshold to avoid furnishing PAN number for deposits is Rs 50,000. Thus, Prime Minister Narendra Modis warning about black money hoarders depositing money into Jan Dhan accounts to escape the arm of the law seems to carry weight.

There are also instances where employers, including educational institutions and hospitals, put money into accounts of employees and have taken post-dated cheques as security, said the report.

The Centre is aware of this laundering on "industrial scale", and has responded by tweaking regulations of the Income Tax Act. It has also restricted withdrawals from Jan Dhan accounts, in what is a cat and mouse game between the Centre and black money hoarders, an official was quoted as saying.

But the report said a substantial amount of black money will still be flushed out and this, coupled with what is expected to be realised by higher tax and penalty on undeclared cash, will help the Centre justify demonetisation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani shake hands at 6th Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

Amritsar: In a hard hitting attack on Pakistan, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday accused it of launching an "undeclared war" on his country by covertly supporting several terror networks including the Taliban, and noted that there were no hidden deals in India's growing engagement in the war-ravaged country.

In his address at the 6th annual conference of Heart of Asia, Ghani, who severely criticised Islamabad, said an Asian or international mechanism must be put in place, without "playing games" to find out who was benefiting from terror, extremism and other illicit activities.

He said time has come for concrete action against terror infrastructure and those support it, and quoted a top Taliban commander saying unless terror sanctuaries were allowed in Pakistan, the outfit will not last even a month.

He said despite Afghanistan's bilateral and multilateral ties with Pakistan, the "undeclared war" that started in winter of 2014, has intensified after the recent Brussels conference on Afghanistan's transition.

Slamming Pakistan's habit of denying cross border terror attacks, the Afghan President called for setting up of international mechanism to verify reality of such attacks which have increased in the last few months.

He also sought setting up of a global fund to contain terrorism.

"There should be an Asian or international regime, whatever is acceptable to Pakistan, should be put in place to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations.

"We do not want blame game, we want verification," he said, without mincing words.

"We need to set up a fund to combat extremism," Ghani said.

Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz was among representatives of 30 countries who attended the conference inaugurated jointly by Ghani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Hailing India's role in Afghanistan's transition, he said "India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached", adding "there are no hidden deals between India and

Afghanistan."

"We thank Pakistan for their pledges of USD 500 million for reconstruction of Afghanistan.

"This fund Mr Aziz could very well be used to contain extremists because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people," he said.

Asserting that no amount of money can assist Afghanistan if there is support to terrorists by Pakistan, he said military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists.

Ghani said Afghanistan witnessed highest levels of violence between October 5 and ?November 20, after the Brussels Conference, demanding dismantling of the state sponsored sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Talking about Amritsar, he said the city used to be a centre of commerce and business which connected India to Central Asia, Russia and beyond.

Ghani visited the Golden temple last evening with Modi.

Referring to Modi's visit to Afghanistan, he said there were spontaneous celebrations all over Afghanistan following the inauguration of Salma Dam.

He also thanked India for further assistance of USD 1 billion apart from USD 2 billion.

"India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached," Ghani said, adding an air corridor between India and Afghanistan will be soon launched to deepen trade ties.
New Delhi: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday ruled out the possibility of returning to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Speaking at a media event, Kumar stressed that his support for the Centres demonetisation exercise did not have any political implication.

The JD(U) leader also denied having any meeting with BJP chief Amit Shah after Prime Minister Narendra Modis shock announcement to scrap high-value banknotes.

Kumar was non-committal about the possibility of a grand alliance in 2019 for the Lok Sabha elections. He said there had been no serious discussions on the issue.

My ambition is to resurrect JD(U), my party, as a national party. It is the flag-bearer of the Janata Dal legacy, the 65-year-old said.

He added that the Mahagathbandhan experiment does not have any relevance outside of Bihar, unless the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) come together in Uttar Pradesh.

However, Kumar said he will push to form a coalition at the national level for the 2019 polls because it will win.

The Bihar CM also played down reports of differences between him and ally Lalu Prasad Yadav over issues such as the demonetisation exercise.

Kumar had come out firmly in support of demonetisation, a move that was opposed even by his own party president Sharad Yadav. The CM stated that he supported the move only because it was good for the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistans President Ashraf Ghani in a lighter mood at the Sixth Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: In a humiliation for Pakistan on Indian soil, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused it of backing terror by launching an undeclared war against his country.

Speaking at the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference in Amritsar, not far from the Indo-Pak border, on Sunday, Mr Ghani rejected the Pakistani offer of financial assistance. He told Pakistan PMs adviser on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz that Islamabads offer of $500 million could instead be used by Pakistan to contain extremism.

In what was music to Indias ears, President Ghani also lavished praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Indias support is impressive, both in its scale and delivery. Indias assistance is aimed at improving peoples lives. It is transparent. It is a convergence of interests and values of two states, he said.

Sanctuaries in Pakistan help Taliban: Ghani

A stunned Pakistan put up a week defence later, with Mr Aziz saying that it was simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence (in Afghanistan).

The conference happened amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan following a string of terror attacks and border skirmishes.

The HoA is an annual meet of regional and global powers to explore ways to fight terrorism and rebuild the war-ravaged Afghanistan. Forty-five countries and international organisations attended two days of deliberations with a call for a war on terror taking the centre stage.

Launching an all-out attack on Pakistan in his speech, Mr Ghani said, Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan on bilateral and multilateral basis, the undeclared war  the name that I gave to the phenomenon in the winter 2014  not only has not abated but also intensified during 2016, with special intensity right after the Brussels Conference.

He said that a key Afghan Taliban leader had admitted that the Taliban would not last even for a month if it did not have sanctuaries in Pakistan. Analysts say Pakistan has historically backed the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against the influence of arch rival India.
Thiruvananthapuram: Days after mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy shocked the nation with a Rs 500 crore wedding at the heights of penury brought about by demonetisation, Kerala is soon to witness a similar feat.

Congress leader and ex-minister Adoor Prakashs son and liquor mogul Biju Rameshs daughter all set to tie the knot on Sunday amidst much pomp and fanfare and reports reveal that nearly 20,000 guests have already been invited to the wedding.

The wedding venue, set up in a sprawling eight acre premises, is modelled after Mysore Palace and the mandap is stylized to resemble Akshardham Temple.

The engagement ceremony triggered much controversy in Kerala after Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President, V M Sudheeran slammed former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and party leader Ramesh Chennithala for secretly attending the function.

When asked about the expensive wedding, during this period of cash crisis, Biju Ramesh claimed that the money was sourced from several businesses and did not deposit them in the bank as he was retaining it for the wedding. I have no black money, he added. However he refused to comment on the total budget of the wedding. When asked about the invitations send to former cabinet colleagues, Adoor Prakash said he invited some and avoided some. He refused to comment about the wedding, I should not comment on my sons marriage.

The Congress leaders attending this wedding would hence be keenly watched.

Biju Ramesh is the chairman of famous hospitality chain Rajdhani Group and owner of scores of bars. Earlier, Biju had raised bribery allegations against former Minister K M Mani in the previous UDF government, when Adoor Prakash was also the Minister.

Mani, who had to quit from UDF post the allegations also criticised the presence of Congress leaders at the function. He added that their presence at the function is a proof that the bribery allegations against him were a conspiracy involving Chennithala and Prakash.
Harris was unable to attend his own wedding due to prior work commitments, however, in his absence, his relatives took the onus of getting him married. (Photo: Representational Image)

Kochi: Unable to obtain leaves for his wedding, Harris, a native of Veliyam of Kerala's Kollam district, exchanged the wedding vows online from Saudi Arabia.

In his stead, his sister tied the nuptial knot to his bride Shamla, said a report in India Today.

The unusual wedding took place at Thamarakulam city of Alappuzha district of Kerala, the report said.

Harris was unable to attend his own wedding due to prior work commitments, however, in his absence, his relatives took the onus of getting him married.

Harris' sister Najitha tied the knot to the resplendent bride. This one-of-its-kind wedding saw the groom witness the ceremony live from Saudi Arabia.

Harris works as a marketing manager with a private firm in Riyadh, while Shamla works as a nurse in a government health facility in Mecca.
Patna: The JD(U) on Sunday hit back at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her 'gaddar' (traitor) jibe at party chief Nitish Kumar for backing the Centre's demonetisation move, and cautioned her against behaving like a 'dada' (bully).

"She looks good in the role of didi...she should not behave like a bully," JD(U) secretary general K C Tyagi told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

Mamata had made the remark on November 30 at a dharna in Patna.

Criticising the JD(U) for not opposing the demonetisation of high-value currencies despite being wary of the NDA-led Centre, she had said that the people would not spare the 'gaddars' (betrayers), indirectly referring to Nitish Kumar.

The JD(U), a constituent of the ruling Grand Alliance in Bihar, had stayed away from Mamata's dharna on note ban in the Bihar capital while another constituent, RJD, had backed the Trinamool Congress chief's stir.

The local JD(U) leaders had charged the Trinamool Congress with being "a party of scamsters".

Nitish while speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in Delhi yesterday had remarked that too much aggression could spoil the perception of people (about a leader) in an apparent reference to Mamata's caustic remarks at the Patna dharna.
Amritsar: India on Sunday pressed for collective efforts to ensure resurgent forces of terrorism and extremism do not find sanctuaries and safe havens in any name, form or manifestation.

Neighbours of Afghanistan have a particular responsibility in this regard, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at the 'Heart of Asia' conference here.

"There is also a need to neither differentiate between good and bad terrorists, nor to play one group against the other," said Jaitley, who is representing an ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Taliban, Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda, Daesh, Lashkar-e- Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, etc. are all terror organisations and should be treated as such, he said.

"End to terrorism and extremism, and adherence to internationally-accepted redlines including renouncing of violence, severing ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits and commitment to democracy and human rights are essential for successful reconciliation and lasting peace in Afghanistan," said.

The theme for the Heart of Asia Process this year is Addressing Challenges, Achieving Prosperity'.

As Afghanistan faces the challenges related to its multiple transitions, focused and sustained support will be required from all friends of Afghanistan in the international community for overcoming these challenges and achieving durable peace and prosperity, he said.

Jaitley noted that Afghanistan has faced gruesome violence for decades and in the last few months, terrorism there has grown in both intensity and scope.

"Terrorist groups have made concerted efforts to capture and hold territory. Taliban have tried to expand its influence to territories in North and North East along with South West where they traditionally were not so strong," he said.

"These developments only underline the fact that these groups have changed neither their ideology nor objectives. The evil of terrorism, which threatens not merely one or two countries but our entire region, has made the current year the worst in a very long time," the minister said.

For its part, India is happy to work with Afghanistan to strengthen its capabilities to fight terrorism and violence directed at it, he said.

A key focus during India's co-chairmanship of the 'Heart of Asia' process has been to centre-stage the importance of connectivity for Afghanistan, Jaitley said, adding promoting it remains at the very core of India's cooperation with that country and also in the region.

Afghanistan has the potential to be the land bridge between various parts of the vast and dynamic Eurasian landmass, he said, adding there are many promising projects like the TAPI gas pipeline, TAT railway line, CASA 1000 which will bring prosperity to Afghanistan besides bringing the Central Asian and South Asian regions closer together.

"For India, the issue of connectivity for Afghanistan is not a mere talking-point. We strongly believe that the lack of connectivity directly impacts the economic, security and political situation in Afghanistan," he said.

The Finance Minister said a well-connected Afghanistan will be economically vibrant and prosperous and also politically stable. "It will be able to engage the energies of its youth and attract its talents back from the foreign lands", he added.

"Earlier this year, we achieved a milestone by signing the trilateral Transit and Transport Agreement among India, Iran and Afghanistan for provision of year-round and reliable connectivity to Afghanistan via Chahbahar in Iran.

"This endeavour will overcome the lack of direct overland access for Afghanistan through Indian markets. Afghanistan will further benefit from the zero duty available to Afghanistan?s exports to India," Jaitley said.

He said benefits to Afghanistan will accrue if Afghan trucks could carry Indian products to markets in Afghanistan, Central Asia and beyond and indeed visa-versa.

"In this regard, India is willing to receive Afghan trucks on its territory, at Attari. We will be happy to create necessary facilities for Afghan products at Attari," he said.

To fully achieve these benefits it is essential that trade and transit agreements that Afghanistan enters into need to be fully inclusive, comprehensive and are most importantly fully activated, Jaitley said.

In the press conference, Jaitley said terrorism was at the "core" of the deliberations and that it took the centre-stage with tone being set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Stressing on the connectivity projects, he said India was considering a number of road and rail projects to establish direct link between the two countries.

Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai termed the deliberations "extremely productive" and said his country was looking to enhance connectivity with India via land routes.

In the declaration, the HoA also commended the Afghan government for successfully pursuing peace talks with Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin Hekmatyar resulting in the "signature of a peace agreement that sets a good precedent for future peace talks with all other armed groups".

It also appreciated Iran and Pakistan for hosting millions of Afghan refugees for over three decades.

The HoA countries also urged all Afghan Taliban groups and other armed groups to enter into peace talks with the Afghanistan government.

"We acknowledge the crucial role of Afghanistan as a natural land bridge in promoting regional connectivity and economic integration in the Heart of Asia region, and we reiterate our strong support for Afghanistan's efforts to use its geographic location to enhance wider regional economic cooperation.

"We further stress that economic development will contribute to achieving lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan and the region, and enhance regional economic integration.

"In this regard, we welcome the practical implementation of TAPI and completion of the first stage of the Asian International Railway Corridor between Imamnazar,

Turkmenistan, and Aqina, Afghanistan -- the initial stages of TAT linking Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan," the declaration read.

It also welcomed the MoU on jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road between the China and Afghanistan.

"All these will lay the foundations for a successful Seventh Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA) planned for November 2017 in Ashgabat," it said. Next year, the Heart of Asia conference will be held in Azerbaijan.
Mumbai: Terming taxation laws in the country as "ill-defined", Niti Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya on Sunday called for removing ambiguities in them so as to do away with "discretion of the tax officer".

He also said that demonetisation of high value currency is just one step to combat black money, and more needs to be done.

"Tax reform is really important to curb black money," he said at a panel discussion here.

"More simplification means reduction and presumably elimination of the many exemptions under the existing laws. Also, we need to spell out many of these rules and laws explicitly. In our case the tax laws are often ill-defined. That of course leads to scope for discretions," he added.

He said tax reforms like reduction in stamp duty are necessary to stop generation of black money in the system and that this should be done at the earliest following the demonetisation of high value banknotes.

"Demonetisation is one of the steps to stop creation of black money but a lot more needs to be done," said the academic-turned planner.

Underlining the need for removing ambiguities in tax laws, he said: "We have to go back, start looking at those tax laws, if there is a way to make them precise enough so that it is not left to the discretion of the tax officer but the law itself is clear enough that the taxpayer can figure out rather than having to negotiate with the tax officer."

Calling for the need to bring in reforms related to stamp duties to stop black money, Panagariya said: "Stamp duties vary widely across the states and there is need to look at that. If you keep the stamp duties too high, that encourages under the table real estate transactions."

Panagariya said demonetisation was not done completely out of the blue but it was part of the Prime Minister's promise to combat corruption.

This was preceded by at least half-a-dozen steps against corruption such as appointing SIT (after the Supreme Court asked it to do) to probe black money stashed away aboard, an income disclosure scheme that ended on September 30 and amendments to the Benami Property Act, he said.

On the impact of notes ban on growth, he admitted that there have been some dislocation in the short term but he was quick to add that some dataprints suggest that industrial activity is rising.

Despite many economists suggesting that the government's claim of a bounty has not fructified, with close to Rs 11 trillion (Rs 11 lakh crore) of the Rs 14 trillion of banned money already reaching bank accounts, he claimed that demonetisation will translate into a lot of extra revenue for the government.

He also called for creating an ecosystem in which the labour-intensive industry can flourish and hoped that the proposed coastal employment zones may play an important role in creating such an environment.
But when asked, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup only said, 'There was no meeting'. (Photo: PTI)

Amritsar: Pakistani Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had a brief interaction on Saturday night, amid intense strain in Indo-Pak ties in the wake of Nagrota terror strike and intensified cross-border firing in Jammu and Kashmir.

Aziz and Doval had a short informal chat after Foreign Ministers of five countries called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi last night in a group. The call on by the foreign ministers preceded an official dinner attended by representatives of almost all countries participating in the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference here.

While Indian sources said Aziz and Doval "had a stroll for about 100 feet" at the venue of the dinner 'Sada Pind', a heritage village, Pakistani officials maintained that they had a "meeting". However, it is not known what transpired during their conversation.

When asked, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup only said, "There was no meeting".

Aziz arrived here last night to attend HoA conference amid speculation on whether the two sides will have bilateral talks on the sidelines of the conclave to break the ice in ties.

During the dinner, Aziz exchanged pleasantries with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Earlier, in a goodwill gesture, Aziz sent a bouquet to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj yesterday, extending his "sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery" from illness.

Swaraj and Aziz had held a meeting during last year's HoA meet in Islamabad during which both countries had agreed to start 'Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue' that was to cover all outstanding issues.

The resumption of the dialogue could, however, not take place due to the Pathankot terror attack in January this year and subsequent terror strike involving Pakistan-based terrorists.

Earlier this week, Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit had said Pakistan was willing for unconditional resumption of dialogue if India was ready.

India had already made it clear that it will never accept continuing cross border terrorism as the 'new normal' in bilateral ties with Pakistan while asserting that talks cannot take place in an atmosphere of "continued terror".

Tensions between the two countries escalated after the cross border terror attack on an army base in Nagrota in Jammu.
Thiruvananthapuram: Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala is facing brickbats from his own partymen over his lacklustre performance vis-a-vis Finance Minister Thomas Isaac in highlighting the mess created by demonetisation. He could not even cash in on the crisis faced by the government in the disbursal of salaries and pension of the staff conceding the Opposition space to the BJP, it is alleged. The belated response of Mr Chennithala reflected the lack of clarity of the Congress over the issue, it is said.

The salvoes fired by Mr Chennithala against Dr Isaac have created internal bickerings within the Congress. A section of the Congress leaders vouch that Mr Chennithala had botched up the strike against the self-financing college fee structure earlier and floundered in handling the currency issue now. According to a prominent leader, Mr Chennithala has proved that he is not fit to be the Oposition Leader.

No one trusts Chennithala in the party, including his own group leaders. When stalwarts like K. Karunakaran and Oommen Chandy had proved their mettle as Opposition leaders, Chennithala has failed, said the leader. He pointed out that Chennithala looks at the scribbling pad while holding press meets as he gropes for the exact words instead of presenting valid points. A prominent A group leader and member of the Political Affairs Committee told DC that Dr Isaac is well-studied. Chennithala does not do his home work well unlike Thomas Isaac and he aims at headline news like when he asked Dr Isaac to stop his road shows, he said.

Dr Isaac had voiced his frank opinion on demonetisation on the same night when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced it on November 8, though most leaders belonging to other states had praised it. Congress leaders also faulted KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran for failing to take the Modi government to task for the demonetisation chaos. Meanwhile, BJP leader P.K. Krishnadas alleged that Thomas Isaac was triggering riots by creating panic over demonetisation.
By a curious twist of fate, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has thrown her hat into the ring for a fourth term, has emerged as the face of liberalism and sanity in a world peopled by President-elect Donald Trump in the US and ascendant far right parties on the European continent. Ms Merkels congratulatory message to Mr Trump emphasising the common thread of liberal values was duly appreciated by many in Europe, including her countrymen, for being explicit for the benefit of an unpredictable future US administration. And with Britain sitting in the departure lounge of the European Union and Frances Francois Hollande wisely announcing he wont run for the presidency again with his abysmally low popularity rating, Ms Merkel remains the only major leader left standing.

After enjoying enviable popularity as her countrys undisputed leader for her sane head and no-nonsense approach, Ms Merkel has had her own basket of problems with her open door policy towards Syrian and other refugees. Germany took in more than a million refugees last year in sharp contrast to a refugee-shy Europe. Inevitably, the initial welcome turned to grumbling, given the sheer numbers involved. It was oxygen to parties such as Alternative for Germany (AfD). Ms Merkel has gone some way to ensuring that she reaches out to people over the change in the very fabric of German society. A faster process of sending back undesirables has been set in motion. But the larger context she has been functioning in, in a crisis-ridden continent, has catapulted her to a position of pre-eminence to save the cherished concept of European unity.

Typically, Ms Merkel has relied on common sense, rather than charisma, to build her enviable reputation as a safe pair of hands. This is a typical German virtue appreciated by her countrymen and women after the trauma of the Nazi period. But she is being called upon now to take on a continentwide role to save European unity and the liberal values it enshrines. Inevitably, the crisis point has been reached following the earlier recession and the new straightened circumstances of Europeans who have seen levels of unparallel prosperity. These tendencies have gone hand in hand with the rise of populism and the far right and a form of ultra-nationalism espoused by countries such as Hungary and Poland. In refusing to take in Muslim refugees, they declare they do not wish to alter the fabric of their Christian ethos. The European Union concept was buttressed by the military underpinning of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). In his campaign rhetoric, Mr Trump has belittled the role of the military organisation to shock Europeans. This is particularly true of countries like Poland and the Baltic states that consider themselves vulnerable to Russian pressure.

Europes need for a reassuring figure such as Ms Merkel is therefore all the greater. The process of Brexit is likely to be painful not only for the UK but also for the EU because altering the single markets freedom to live and work in any member country would be strongly opposed. Yet the emotive issue of continentals movement towards Britain for work was a central point in swinging the referendum vote to leaving the EU. Britains Prime Minister Theresa May still gives the impression of making up her plans as she goes along. Obviously, the great tragedies of World War II that gave rise to idealists to bring about European unity in a shattered continent, the crowning achievement being Franco-German reconciliation, is no longer felt. New generations have taken for granted the freedom to travel and live and work in any member country. On the other hand, they are being egged on by nationalists and populists towards narrower causes. Ms Merkels giant size task is therefore cut out for her.

First, she must win her re-election and make gestures to her domestic constituents. Apart from taking a stricter criterion to weed out undesirables from the refugee flow, she has announced plans to bring East German pensions to West German levels by 2025. Ms Merkel herself lived in East Germany and graduated from there, and has a sentimental thread to those living in the former East Germany. The crisis in Europe is accentuated by the dramatic impending change in the US administration. The American pole is the ultimate guarantee of the continents safety and security, however much people cavilled at Washingtons ways. Given Mr Trumps campaign talk, that pole is less than secure, in effect bringing about a psychological trauma.

The Trump administration, once it takes office, will inevitably temper its campaign rhetoric, but the basic beliefs of the President-elect, underlined by the key appointments made thus far, portend a more selfish policy with the accent on Make America Great Again, emphasising American prosperity and jobs. The scene is set for a more transactional relationship. If Mr Trump makes good on his sentiments and beliefs, will Ms Merkel be left alone fighting for the liberal cause? Ideals and the very idea of a united Europe minus Russia are under siege. The US Marshall Plan that pulled Europe out of its misery and destruction was based on the American national interest. But the element of altruism and daring in undertaking the venture cannot be overlooked.

It is a very different picture today. The one silver lining is that Mr Trump is looking at relations with Russia with fresh eyes and is impressed by Russian President Vladimir Putins leadership qualities. The problem, however, is larger than the President-elect comprehends. The Ukraine crisis is a telling example. Mr Putin is contesting the basis of the West appropriating vital Russian interests, leaving Communism aside, by seeking to join to the West a bordering country nearly 50 million strong that is the mother of Slavic orthodox religion. It happened in the Boris Yeltsin era after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through compulsion and temperament, Yeltsin was putty in American hands. Mr Putin is seeking to reverse that.
These are early days yet and weeks left before Donald Trump is sworn in as Americas 45th President on January 20. But prejudging the President-elect is a game the world is forced to play, and the belief that it has to tackle his unconventional, even maverick, views is almost universal. The billionaires pronouncements are such that he threatens to upend years of conventional wisdom, even on settled global issues. One of Mr Trumps most controversial acts so far was to speak to Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen, thats almost like a bull running amok in a china shop. Beijing is upset with the call, that it fears threatens the very fabric of a One China policy followed for so long. In public, Beijing called it a petty transgression, perhaps hoping it was a mistake by Mr Trump, not the signal of a policy shift. But its a taste of the way Mr Trump could function.

No US President has spoken in public to the Republic of Chinas President since 1979. Mr Trump also referred to Ms Tsai as President of Taiwan on Twitter, that lends greater uncertainty to tenuous ties that revolved around not hurting China while keeping Taiwan armed, a delicate balancing act by the US that kept the peace in the Taiwan Straits for the past 37 years. While the call from Taiwan may have been the work of one of his many advisers, we only hope Mr Trump, as President, will act differently, as the uncertainty he has raised on issues like Taiwan and even India-Pakistan is causing unease in world capitals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will jointly inaugurate the 6th Ministerial Meeting of the Heart of Asia process in Amritsar on December 4. Long term observers of Indias role in Afghanistan would have noted that by hosting such a large multilateral meeting India would be finally burying the veto that Pakistan had sought to impose on Indias participation in international and regional processes on different facets of the Afghanistan situation. This was ironic for it has been Pakistans obstinately negative role that has prevented Afghanistans stabilization. However, the Western Powers and important Islamic countries such as Turkey pandered to Pakistans India obsession in the elusive hope that by excluding India they would secure Pakistans good behaviour in Afghanistan.

Also Read: Theres A Hole in the Heart of Asia

The Heart of Asia process emerged out of the Istanbul Conference for Afghanistan organised by Turkey in November 2011. Its object was to enhance Afghanistans security through regional cooperation. India was invited to this meeting, though in January the previous year, Turkey had kept India out of a regional countries meeting on Afghanistan on Pakistans insistence; Turkish-Pakistan ties have been traditionally strong. A group of fourteen countries formed the core of the Heart of Asia process. These include China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, some Central Asian states, Iran and Pakistan. A large number of Western countries particularly the US form a group of supporting countries.

The US encouraged the Heart of Asia process from the start as it was part of its withdrawal strategy from Afghanistan. As the US completed a decade of combat operations in Afghanistan in 2011, it was obvious that the Taliban were far from being defeated and with active and large Pakistani support, the Taliban could carry on indefinitely. President Obama wanted to withdraw military forces and make the region reconcile its interests in Afghanistan and take over a larger responsibility for the countrys stabilization. The then Afghan President Hamid Karzai had many differences with the Americans by then, and with Pakistan, but on this issue he went along with Obama in the hope that Pakistan would feel another source of pressure to reduce its interference in Afghan affairs. Afghanistan is the permanent chair of the Heart of Asia process. The co-chair rotates among the other member countries. It is therefore both natural and appropriate that Afghanistan should fix the theme of ministerial meetings. For the Amritsar meeting, Afghanistan is focussing on the need to eliminate terrorism and improve connectivity for its stabilization and regional prosperity. India can only be in complete harmony with these themes.

To meet the continuing challenge of terrorism which is perpetrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan the Ghani-Abdullah led government has prepared a draft of Regional Counter-Terrorism Framework which it would like the Amritsar meeting to adopt. The Framework focuses on collective measures that the regional countries need to take. It is obvious from what the Afghan Ambassador to India briefed the media about, that the Framework includes a reference to the need to close sanctuaries given to terrorists.

The only country that gives the Taliban sanctuaries is Pakistan. On its part Pakistan claims that Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) leaders and cadres have found refuge in Afghanistan from where they have launched operations against targets in Pakistan. It will be interesting to see how the meeting finally handles the Afghan draft which will no doubt receive Indias full support. Modi and Ghani will no doubt emphasise that the region has to fight the menace of terrorism collectively and that a strong message needs to be given to countries that use terror. No one will be left in any doubt that their target is Pakistan.

Also Read: Nawazs Amritsar overture: Naivete or political gamble?

Afghanistan has long complained of Pakistan impeding its access to India. It does not allow Indian goods to go to Afghanistan via the land route through the Wagah border though it permits Afghan exports to India through its territory to reach Indian via the Wagah border. Hence, Afghanistan has linked prosperity and connectivity as a theme for the meeting. Indeed Amritsar symbolises the old connections that linked Afghanistan to the Indian sub-continent. Hence, it is a telling venue for the meeting.

It is unlikely though that Pakistan will relent on this issue. It is comforted by the connectivity that will be provided by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and besides does not wish to lose the captive market it has in Afghanistan in the absence of Indian competition that will happen if the Wagah route was open to Indian trade with Afghanistan. Sartaj Aziz, foreign policy advisor of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will lead the Pakistan delegation to the meeting. Aziz had commented last week that Pakistan would be open to talks with India on the sidelines of the meeting. India-Pakistan relations have been in the freezer through this year because of the Pathankot, Uri and the recent Nagrota terrorist incidents and also Pakistans high pitched support for the Kashmir valley agitation that occurred after the terrorist Burhan Wanis killing in July. There is naturally interest in the Indian media about Azizs visit as this would be the first ministerial level visit from Pakistan this year. However, there is no need to begin the dialogue process with Pakistan till it does not abandon its sponsorship of terrorism against India. The official clarification that there will be no India-Pakistan talks on the sidelines of the meeting is therefore timely.

The problems in Afghanistan stem from Pakistans interference in Afghanistan and its desire to control that countrys India policy. Indias positive role in the development activity in Afghanistan cannot remotely be tied in to Pakistans approach to Afghanistan.

(Vivek Katju is former ambassador to Afghanistan and specialises on the Af-Pak-Iran region.)
Prior to the Srinagar Assembly elections in 2014, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)  which created Jan Sangh in 1951 and controls its successor, the BJP  declared from the rooftops that it sought to secure a majority. It reckoned on support in large parts of Jammu and a split in the ranks of Kashmiris in the Valley. The Hurriyat had consistently boycotted elections in Indian Kashmir, whether parliamentary or the Srinagar Assembly, for two reasons. First, they were rigged. Second, it did not accept the Constitution of India or of Kashmir under which elections were held. To foil the RSS move, the Hurriyat relented, albeit unofficially. The BJP candidates all lost. It, however, succeeded to a significant degree thanks to the PDP leaders (the late Mufti Mohammed Sayeed) insatiable lust for power, which his daughter and successor in office shares. The PDP-BJP alliances agenda was drafted by the muftis Man Friday, Haseeb Drabu (now finance minister), and Ram Madhav (BJPs general secretary), a lifelong RSS activist. The RSS seconded him to the BJP in order to rivet its control over the party. The agenda conceded nothing of significance to the PDP; it bears the imprint of the RSS tight fist.

All this is well known. What escaped notice was that, as part of the bargain, the RSS secured for an activist the office of the Assembly speaker in order to block or interfere with debates, adjourn the House for partisan reasons, and ensure his partys primacy in the coalition. This is just what the RSS Kavinder Gupta did no sooner than he was elected Speaker. This alone suffices to prove the abjectness of the muftis betrayal of his people. They voted for him to keep the BJP at bay, instead he made a deal with it. For the very first time, the RSS acquired a presence in Indian Kashmir, on the seat of power and beyond. The leader of the RSS Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Surinder K. Jain, boasted last year in August that the RSS is gaining in Kashmir. In September of that year, the Kashmir Economic Alliance, an organisation of traders, raised the alarm on this development.

Both were proved right by speaker Gupta. On Sept 8, 2015, he publicly declared that he was a proud RSS man. MLAs shouted in anger when he arbitrarily adjourned the house, without transacting any business, to avoid debate on the beef ban. Casting aside the conventions and rules that bind the speaker to aloofness from party politics, Gupta participated in an RSS procession in Jammu on Oct. 25, 2015 dressed in RSS uniform. Anil Sethi, a respected city advocate, censured him: It is unbecoming of a Speaker to participate in an RSS procession. None of this could have happened were it not for the respectability and encouragement that the mufti had provided. To the RSS, Kashmiris who object to Indian rule are pro-Pakistan elements. Accordingly, on May 28, 2015, Ram Madhav demanded that they must be arrested and completely marginalised.

Encouraged in 2015, it spread its wings further this year. On Oct. 8 it held a rally in Doda, a Muslim-majority district of Jammu, and another that was regarded as a move to incite passions in the Chenab valley. The president of the bar association alleged the polices and the administrations support of the rally. Muslim organisations observed a protest on Oct 15. In the Valley, Mehbooba Mufti has banned processions by separatists for months. The difference is glaring. She calls for a dialogue and a political solution. Ram Madhav publicly snubbed her on Sept. 7, 2016. Political solution is a mere slogan raised by romantic people, he said. As a committed RSS man, on Dec. 26, 2015, he said that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will reunite one day and that the RSS still believes this. The implications for Pakistan and Bangladesh are obvious. No less so for Nepal and Sri Lanka. This body has been allowed a presence in Kashmir because the muftis saw in it the only organisation that would provide them with a few morsels of power  for a brief period.

By arrangement with Dawn
Emotions are increasingly becoming important in politics. The economy is gradually being replaced by emotonomy in the global political discourse. Unsurprisingly, India is no outlier to this shift. The banning of high-value currency notes has predominantly been an emotional plank, having real economic consequences, both good and bad, in the short as well as long term, on diverse stakeholder groups. The government suddenly took out more than 80 per cent of the currency in circulation on November 8. The move appears to have struck an emotional chord with the public, which was ready to bear short-term inconvenience in the hope of long-term benefits. The poor chuckled at the notion of the rich being taken to task. However, when the short-term slowly started to border on the medium and, perhaps, long term, government pundits spurred into action and started working towards building a parallel narrative. Consequently, what started as a measure to curb black money is being quickly and intelligently turned into a campaign to promote digital money.

Let us revisit the initial days of this drive. One of the predominant questions at the beginning of the demonetisation debate was how would this move prevent generation of black money in the future, given the immediate issue of fresh notes of Rs 2,000 and re-issuance of Rs 500 notes. This and similar doubts would have died their natural death had the generation of new notes met their demand if the pain had been shortlived, and the public would have gone back to its usual ways of functioning. However, the inconvenience continued for much longer than initially expected, and it still continues. Even after working overtime, government printing presses have been unable to print an adequate number of currency notes, or replenish bank branches and ATM outlets quickly and efficiently. One wonders why the government does not look for overseas suppliers as it does whenever there is a domestic shortage of anything.

As a result, concerns of collateral damage such as unemployment and underemployment specially for daily wage earners; lack of access to medicare, severe damage to the informal economy, including small and medium enterprises, farmers, construction labourers, migrants and the like, emerged. This resulted in the poor wondering if the pain was worth it. To counter such growing negative narratives, the government started adopting a digital payments agenda and promoting its benefits of greater transparency, accountability and formalising of businesses. It publicised its already launched initiatives of Jan Dhan Yojana, RuPay cards and avenues offered to go digital. In effect, the government is increasingly emphasising that demonetisation is not an exercise to curb the supply of money in the economy, but a nudge to shift from cash payments to digital payments.

Latching on the agenda of a cashless society and showcasing the efforts which the government has been making to promote has resulted in two primary outcomes. First, it takes away the burden on the government to meet the increasing demand for paper currency, and thus hiding the poor planning and inefficiency in the execution of the demonetisation exercise. Second, it shifts the responsibility of pain to the poor and informal workers from the government to informal businesses, merchants and the like who have been reluctant to shift to the formal economy due to fear of being subject to the tax net and increase in regulatory compliance cost. Blame has also been shifted to financial sector service providers who have been unable to lure the poor to shift to digital payments.

In this background, the government has been arguing that this shock to the economy was necessary for long-term benefits. The perceived inconvenience will last till the time industry and market players remain reluctant to shift to the formal economy. The government has argued that long-term benefits of this exercise would be greater transparency, enhanced tax base, access to formal finance, and the like. This strategy of taking control of the political discourse by a sudden announcement, thereby building a narrative and shifting responsibility has not been a first. The government did a similar thing when it declared carrying out a surgical strike on select Pakistani outposts, avenging the terror attacks at Uri and Pathankot, and neutralising potential terrorists. Overnight, nationalist emotions were aroused and questions of what went wrong and how to prevent repetition were swept under the carpet.

Unsurprisingly, a comprehensive security review and corrective measures were absent, which left scope for terrorist attacks. The recent attack in Nagrota is a case in point. It will not be surprising if black money comes back to haunt governments of the future, requiring well-planned concrete multi-pronged measures, beginning with greater transparency and accountability in funding of political parties and elections. Already, there are reports of public servants being caught with huge bribes in new currency and black money hoarders using creative ways to hide their wealth or converting the same to white. The relentless push to digital payments has heightened concerns with respect to misuse of personal information, consumer protection and increasing barriers to access formal financial services. It will also not be surprising if the government comes up with another issue to take control of the political discourse once the debate around demonetisation starts becoming boring and the focus begins to shift to real issues like jobs, agriculture, poverty, health and education, by building a narrative and striking another emotional chord with the public. Just wait and watch.
The Yash Bharti Mela

The Yash Bharti awards, touted as the highest civilian award in a state, are becoming a joke of sorts. When the Yash Bharti award was launched in 1994 and when the first one was bestowed on Harivansh Rai Bachchan, the award was considered an achievement. Over the years, the Samajwadi Party government has turned the award into a tool for pampering its loyalists. This year the Akhilesh Yadav government conferred the honour on 46 eminent persons in March, then another 54 eminent persons in October and, this week, another 12 persons were conferred the award which carries a cash prize of Rs 11 lakhs, a shawl and a monthly pension of Rs 50,000.

The awards were broiled in a controversy earlier this year when the Allahabad high court asked the state government to explain the criteria for selection and process. The Samajwadis have turned the award into a party affair and that is why it gets discontinued when rival parties are in power. If it is a state award, it should be given due respect and there should be transparency in selecting the awardees, said a retired bureaucrat, and added that Yash (honour) Bharti had turned into an Apyash (dishonour) Bharti due to politics.

Badals and super-luxury resort

Last week the Oberoi Sukhvilas Resort & Spa was opened near Chandigarh. The super-luxury resort is owned by Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and his wife Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal. A villa at the resort costs Rs 5 lakhs a night, premium rooms Rs 35,000 each, a one-km nature trail to forests and a private approach road are some of the features. However, the Opposition parties were not impressed with the resort, and described it as a brazen promotion of family interests by the Badals.

Senior Congress leader Sunil Jakhar said that the resort would be akin to Taj Mahal for the Badal family, where their dreams of ruling Punjab for 25 years will lie buried. He said that the resort was a cruel joke on the people of the state who have been awaiting fulfilment of false promises made by the Akalis. As they say in Hindi, ye to chhati pe moong dalne wali baat hai. Without feeling any compunction for the pain and suffering of the people of the state, they are busy expanding their businesses.

Naveen: Master of Masterstroke

Odisha chief minister and Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik, who is considered in political circles as a master of masterstrokes for neutralising his adversaries, has done it again with elan. A week after BJP president Amit Shah snubbed him in very harsh words like an inefficient and incapable ruler and called upon partymen to overthrow his government, the bachelor politician took sweet revenge on Thursday. Enthused by Mr Shahs speech, Odisha state BJP leaders had organised an intellectual meet at 3 pm on Thursday to be addressed by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.

They hoped Mr Jaitley would push forward the saffron partys anti-BJD agenda launched by Mr Shah by highlighting the failure of the Patnaik government. All plans of the BJP leaders went astray when the crafty Chief Minister literally hijacked Mr Jaitley in his own car from the Make in Odisha conclave venue to his residence for sharing lunch. While over 2,000 people, including top leaders such as Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan and state BJP president Basant Panda, were waiting for Mr Jaitley to arrive at the venue, he arrived there one hour later. By that time, the damage had already been done with all electronic media airing the news: Amit Shah proposes, Arun Jaitley disposes. Minutes later, Opposition Congress leaders went on to say: Our allegation that the BJD and BJP leaders have tacit understanding to help each other now stands vindicated.

A tableau issue

Sending a tableau representing the states cultural heritage in the Republic Day parade has been a major political issue in Assam. In fact, there have been many occasions when the previous Congress government failed to send its tableaus for the parade. Keeping in mind their hard-hitting remarks against the previous Congress government for its failure in sending its tableau, the newly-formed BJP government had taken all necessary steps to ensure that the state is represented with its tableau in the parade, obviously to avoid any embarrassment.

The Assam government succeeded in sending the Republic Days tableau design on time but the expert committee for the selection of tableaus, this time rejected the design of the tableau, which was based on theme of the historic Kamakhya temple. Obviously embarrassed, the Assam government has rushed its MP Ramen Deka and minister Naba Kumar Doley to take up the issue with defence ministry officials.

There's a lot in a name

Till a year ago, no one knew Dilip Ghosh in political circles of West Bengal. He was a committed RSS man who was in-charge of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and had even worked as an assistant to former RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan. It was in early 2015 that he came to the state BJP. The first time most people and political leaders heard his name was a year ago when he was appointed president of the BJP in poll-bound West Bengal in December 2015. He replaced well-known state party president Rahul Sinha. Despite being an outsider, Mr Ghosh very quickly took control of the party organisation. In April-May he also contested the Assembly election from Kharagpur and wrested the high-profile seat from Congress Gyan Singh Sohanpal, who had won it 10 times consecutively in the past half-century.

Emboldened by the electoral triumph, he intensified his attacks against Didi. After Narendra Modis announcement of demonetisation on November 8, Mamata Banerjee took the lead to unite the Opposition parties in the country against what she described as Hitler-like decision. Mr Ghosh also sharpened his attacks against her. Last fortnight the CID busted several baby trafficking rackets in Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal, BJP supporters hit the streets to embarrass Ms Banerjee who is also the health minister. However, suddenly the tables were turned when some Bengali channels recently aired the breaking news BJP leader Dilip Ghosh arrested for baby trafficking.

Mr Ghosh was momentarily shocked out of his wits. The picture became clear within a short time when it was learnt that the arrested Ghosh was a doctor who was a small-time BJP leader who had unsuccessfully contested the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation elections in 2015. Mr Dilip Ghosh immediately suspended the doctor from the party. However, the damage had been done. Mr Ghosh has gone into a sulk. Why the hell the arrested doctor had to be my namesake? the state BJP president asked a colleague.
In this photo dated Tuesday, Nov, 29, 2016 the Soyuz-FG rocket booster with the Progress MS-04 cargo ship is installed on a launch pad in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The unmanned Russian cargo space ship Progress MS-04 broke up in the atmosphere over Siberia on Thursday Dec. 1, 2016, just minutes after the launch en route to the International Space Station due to an unspecified malfunction, the Russian space agency said.(Oleg Urusov/ Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service photo via AP)

An unmanned Russian cargo spaceship heading to the International Space Station broke up in the atmosphere over Siberia on Thursday due to an unspecified malfunction, the Russian space agency said.

The Progress MS-04 cargo craft broke up at an altitude of 190 kilometers (118 miles) over the remote Russian Tuva region in Siberia that borders Mongolia, Roscosmos said in a statement. It said most of spaceship's debris burnt up as it entered the atmosphere but some fell to Earth over what it called an uninhabited area.

Local people reported seeing a flash of light and hearing a loud thud west of the regional capital of Kyzyl, more than 3,600 kilometers (2,200 miles) east of Moscow, the Tuva government was quoted as saying late Thursday by the Interfax news agency.

The Progress cargo ship had lifted off as scheduled at 8:51 p.m. (1451 GMT) from Russia's space launch complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to deliver 2.5 metric tons of fuel, water, food and other supplies. It was set to dock with the space station on Saturday.

Roscosmos said the craft was operating normally before it stopped transmitting data 6  minutes after the launch. The Russian space agency would not immediately describe the malfunction, saying its experts were looking into it.

This is the third botched launch of a Russian spacecraft in two years. A Progress cargo ship plunged into the Pacific Ocean in May 2015, and a Proton-M rocket carrying an advanced satellite broke up in the atmosphere in May 2014.

But both Roscosmos and NASA said the crash of the ship would have no impact on the operations of the orbiting space lab that is currently home to a six-member crew, including three cosmonauts from Russia, two NASA astronauts and one from the European Union.

Orbital ATK, NASA's other shipper, successfully sent up supplies to the space station in October, and a Japanese cargo spaceship is scheduled to launch a full load in mid-December.

NASA supplier SpaceX, meanwhile, has been grounded since a rocket explosion in September on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The company hopes to resume launches in December to deliver communication satellites.

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Facebook is working on a new feature which will showcase lists of curated-content from publishers directly in the News Feed.

Social media giant Facebook has been making quite a few changes to its platform. All the way from adopting AI to flag offensive content to integrating Snapchat-like features to improve the user experience. Now reports suggest that the company is at it again. Facebook is working on a new feature which will showcase lists of curated-content from publishers directly in the News Feed.

The feature called Collections functions similarly to Snapchats Discover section, showcasing news stories, videos and the company is reportedly asking publishers to create more content, reported Mashables on December 3.

Snapchats Discover feature grants users with the access to channels from top publishers who curate content daily. Facebook, which has 1.8 billion users as told early Collections partners that the content they create will be inserted directly into the News Feed, effectively giving them direct and potentially much broader access to the social networks vast audience, the report added.

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You may want to consider upgrading your device if you want to continue using WhatsApp. Facebook-owned WhatsApp recently announced that the messaging platform will no longer be functional on older devices.

Earlier this week, WhatsApp turned seven years old. It has been an amazing journey and in the coming months, were putting an even greater emphasis on security features and more ways to stay in touch with the people that you care about, WhatsApp wrote in their blog.

But anniversary dates are also an opportunity to look back. When we started WhatsApp in 2009, peoples use of mobile devices looked very different from today. The Apple App Store was only a few months old. About 70 per cent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia. Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft  which account for 99.5 per cent of sales today  were on less than 25 per cent of mobile devices sold at the time, the blog continued.

As we look ahead to our next seven years, we want to focus on our efforts on the mobile platforms the vast majority of people use. So, by the end of 2016, we will be ending support for WhatsApp Messenger on the following mobile platforms: BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40, Nokia Symbian S60, Android 2.1 and Android 2.2, Windows phone 7, iPhone 3GS/iOS 6, WhatsApp added, while announcing their decision.

According to the company, these mobile devices do not offer the kind of capabilities they require to expand their apps features in the future.

While, they have extended support for BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40 and Nokia Symbian S60 until June 30, 2017; support for all other devices mentioned above will end in less than a months time period.

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A slew of incidents of intimidation and assaults have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women post election. (Photo: Representational Image)

New York: A Muslim student was allegedly assaulted aboard a US subway train by three drunk white men who repeatedly screamed "Donald Trump!" and hurled anti-Islam slurs before trying to rip her hijab off, the latest in a slew of incidents in which headscarf-clad women have been targeted.

Three men attempted to rip off Yasmin Seweid's hijab, calling the 18-year-old student a "terrorist" and shouting President-elect Trump's name as she rode the subway through Manhattan.

Straphangers stood by and watched as the three drunk white men repeatedly screamed "Donald Trump!" and hurled anti-Islam slurs at the Muslim Baruch College student before trying to rip her hijab off on an East Side subway, the woman told the New York Daily News.

The incident that took place on Thursday is being investigated by the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force. Police are reviewing surveillance video to identify the men involved.

Seweid said she was stunned by the assault and the fact that no one in the subway car came to her aid.

"I heard them say something very loudly, something about Donald Trump...I also heard them say the word terrorist and I sort of got a little scared," Seweid was quoted as saying.

They kept screaming Trump's name at her, and then said, "Oh look, a (expletive) terrorist," according to Seweid.

"Get the hell out of the country!" they yelled during the train ride. "You don't belong here!"

Seweid, who was born in the US to Egyptian parents, was shocked. "I born and raised in this country. I'm an American, you know?" she said.

When Seweid ignored them, they pulled on her bag to get her attention and the strap broke.

"That's when I turned around and said 'can you please leave me alone', and they started laughing," Seweid said.

She walked to the other end of the train, and they followed her and tried to pull off her hijab.

"I put my hand on top of my head to hold it. Then I turned around and screamed," she said. Seweid got off the train and reported the terrifying incident to police.

The incident comes amid a slew of intimidation and assault cases that have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women following Trump's win.

Earlier this month, a Hijab-clad Muslim student was allegedly struck in the face with a glass bottle in broad daylight at the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

In another incident, a hijab-clad woman was allegedly accosted at a US store by another customer who called her a "terrorist" and told her to "get out" of the country.

Also, a Muslim student's hijab was allegedly ripped off and her hair pulled down by a classmate at a school in Minnesota.
Washington: Days ahead of his visit to India, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter on Sunday said that the defence relationship between the world's two largest democracies has never been as close it is now.

"The US-India defence relationship is the closest it's ever been. Through our strategic handshake? With America reaching west in the rebalance, 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 like never before," Carter said this in his address to the Regan National Defence Forum in Simi Valley, California. Carter would be visiting India next week.

The outgoing US Defence Secretary's last overseas trip includes Japan, India, Israel, Bahrain, Italy and the UK. "We also have a technological handshake? As the US-India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, or DTTI, grasps hands with Prime Minister Modi's Make in India campaign? That's helping our countries move towards more diverse co-development and co-production of weapons systems," he said.

As he begins his last overseas tour from the Asia Pacific region, Carter reflected on the rebalance strategy of President Barack Obama. "It will ensure DoD continues to help provide the security necessary for that consequential region ? Which is home to nearly half the global population and nearly half the global economy ? To remain a place where everyone can rise and prosper for decades to come," he said.

"That's been American policy and practice since the end of World War II more than 70 years ago. Regardless of what else was going on at home or in other parts of the world ? During Democratic and Republican administrations, in times of surplus and deficit, war and peace ? The United States has remained economically, politically, and militarily engaged in the Asia-Pacific," he said. The US, he said, has long taken a principled and inclusive approach, and collaborated with a network of regional allies and partners to enable security and uphold important principles like resolving disputes peacefully; ensuring countries can make choices free from external coercion and intimidation; and preserving the freedom of overflight and navigation guaranteed by international law.

"Because we did so, out of the rubble of World War II, economic miracle after miracle has occurred. Think about it...first Japan, then Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia rose and prospered, and today, China and India are doing the same," he said.

That progress has produced incredible changes in the region: populations are growing, education has improved, freedom and self-determination have spread and economies have grown more interconnected, and military spending and cooperation are growing, he added.
Washington: United States Ambassador to India Richard Verma has expressed confidence in the US-India relationship which he feels will gain much more significance under the incoming Trump administration.

Verma, who is on a six-day trip of Northeast India, arrived in Tripura capital Agartala on his maiden visit on Saturday. Verma said he is very optimistic about the development and future of US-India relations.

During the last few years, it has been wonderful as the US President and the Indian Prime Minister wanted it (ties) to improve. It is important for peace, prosperity, and economic opportunity, he said. His trip was focused on improving connectivity, economic connectivity, trade, investment, infrastructure, education and building connections between the people of Indias northeastern states and the United States.

He said that the US has arranged a two-day conference focusing on internal and regional connectivity at Kolkata to improve economic condition of people by providing opportunities of work.

Ambassador Verma during his visit went to the Sundari Temple, the Tripura State Museum and the Indo-Bangladesh border at the Akhaura integrated check post (ICP) to observe the beating retreat ceremony of the Indo-Bangladesh guards. He also called on Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and met the business community to discuss ways to improve bilateral trade and connectivity through Tripura.

Representatives from all the northeastern states, the Union Government, US consulate in India, Nepal and Bangladesh are likely to discuss ways to improve regional connectivity at a two-day conference on December 14 and 15 to be held at the US Consulate in Kolkata.
Firefighters assess the scene where a deadly fire tore through a late-night electronic music party in a warehouse in Oakland, California, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016.

Oakland (California): Up to 40 people were feared dead in a huge fire that tore through a rave party held in a warehouse near San Francisco, authorities said, warning that the initial death toll of nine would likely rise once crews swept the stricken building.

Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said most of those who perished in the blaze that started about 11:30 pm (1300 IST) on Saturday were thought to have died on the upper floor of the two-story warehouse known as Oakland Ghostship.

"It must have been a very fast-moving fire," she told reporters.

It was not immediately known what sparked the inferno at the electronic dance music party attended by an estimated 50 to 100 people.

By mid-day on Saturday, fire crews had not yet been able to fully sweep the scene and officials braced for more casualties once rescuers entered the building.

"We are prepared for several dozen fatalities," Sergeant Ray Kelly, of the Alameda County Sheriff's department, told reporters. "We are prepared to deal with 30, 40 deceased people."

He said some of the missing were from overseas, making identification of the victims -- thought to be in their 20s and 30s -- more difficult.

The warehouse, which housed an artist collective, had numerous partitions that had been added and a makeshift stairwell built from pallets.

Some of the structural changes made it extremely difficult for people to escape, Reed said.

"There wasn't a real entry or exit path," she said.

"I don't know where the fire started, but I do know that the way the building was situated made it difficult for people to escape."

Firefighters were hampered in their efforts to put out the blaze by clutter.

"It was filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections," Reed said. "It was like a maze almost."

She added that it appeared no smoke detectors were activated in the building, which also had no sprinkler system.

The fire raced through the structure quickly and got out of control at one point, forcing fire fighters to pull back.

Friends and family of partygoers went to social media to try and find news about their loved ones, with some posting information on the event's Facebook page.

"Please tell me you are safe," one woman wrote, adding a friend's name, while others posted prayers.

The rave party featured a little-known act called Golden Donna and several other performers. It was unclear if any of the DJs were among the dead.

"I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke," Bob Mule, a photographer who lives in the building, told Fox television affiliate KTVU. "I couldn't get the fire extinguisher to work."

Another artist told the station that the fire broke out in the back of the building where some 18 artists shared space.
London: A British Sikh family has written to UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson calling for a new investigation into the death of a woman who they claim was the victim of an honour killing in India.

The woman, who cannot be named due to legal reasons, was a mother of four who died in "highly suspicious circumstances" in March 2015 after allegedly refusing to allow one of her sons to be adopted by her childless brother-in-law, who was said to be desperate for a male heir to secure "ancestral wealth", 'The Sunday Times' reported.

In the letter to Johnson this week, representatives of the mother's family say she was "tricked" into going on a family trip to India, where she died after a heated argument with her husband about giving up their youngest son.

The family said they were told she had died of a "sudden heart attack", but found bruises on her body.

She was cremated without their knowledge before they could fly her back to Britain.

The relatives claim they have been "shunted from pillar to post" by the UK Foreign Office and Metropolitan police and have a meeting in the Parliament complex in London next week where they will call for a fresh investigation into the death.

The husband, a Hindu builder who lives with his family in north London, could not be contacted for a comment.

Scotland Yard said it was "aware of the tragic death" but was "unable to comment publicly".
China is the world's largest coal producer and deadly accidents are common. (Photo: AFP/ Representational Image)

Beijing: At least 59 people have been killed in two separate Chinese coal mine blasts, according to death tolls reported by state media.

An explosion on Saturday at a colliery in the northern Inner Mongolia region killed 32, Xinhua news agency said.

A total of 181 people were working underground when the gas explosion struck the mine in the city of Chifeng, with 149 managing to escape.

In a separate incident, a blast occurred late Tuesday at a private mine in Qitaihe City, in northeast Heilongjiang province, trapping 22 workers, Xinhua said.

Twenty-one were confirmed dead on Friday night, it said, citing provincial authorities.

Rescue efforts were hampered by debris from the blast in some of the tunnels, according to an earlier report.

China is the world's largest coal producer and deadly accidents are common.

A further 33 miners were killed in a colliery explosion on October 31 in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, and in September at least 18 were killed in a mine blast in the northwestern Ningxia region.

Officials say the number dying annually in the country's mines has fallen substantially in the past decade, to fewer than 1,000 a year.

But some rights groups argue the actual figures are significantly higher due to under-reporting in a sector with poor oversight.
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, keen to meet Donald Trump, may visit Washington next month for the oath-taking ceremony of the US President-elect, media reports said on Sunday.

Speculation about the visit comes after telephonic conversation between Sharif and Trump last week.

Sources in Islamabad said Special Assistant to Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi is leaving for the US today to finalise the schedule of the visit.

Prime Minister House sources said a proposal regarding the Sharif's participation in the oath-taking ceremony of the new US president is also on the cards but nothing has been finalised so far.

"Invitations are usually issued to the heads of states and governments on such occasions. The option to respond positively to any such invitation once received is under consideration," a source close to the Prime Minister was quoted by Express Tribune as saying.

Fatemi would stay in Washington for 10 days and would meet the Trump team as well and discuss the ways to strengthen the bilateral ties between Pakistan and US. He would brief the team about the role Pakistan played in the war on terror and Pakistan's policy towards Afghanistan and India.

According to media reports, Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) has been trying to arrange a possible visit of Sharif to Washington where Trump will assume charge of the Office of the President of the United States on January 20.

Sharif has expressed his desire to attend Trump's oath -taking ceremony, another media report said.

The Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen. It was reported that the Sharif may leave for the US on the January 18 or 19.

The decision of Sharifs US visit hinges on the possibility of a meeting with Trump. Analysts say that it will be a major breakthrough if a meeting is actually realised, the reports said.

Trump has already set up a provisional team, encouraging foreign leaders and officials to visit his headquarters in New York for familiarisation meetings.

Sharif is said to have given special instructions to Fatemi who would meet the US Congress members and Senate and seek their support and cooperation for better ties with the new US administration.

The adviser would also meet the US think tank members and would brief them on Pakistans efforts for peace in the region. Fatemi would also highlight the "Indian atrocities" in Kashmir and "ceasefire violations" by Indian security forces on Line of Control and Working Boundary, sources said.

Meanwhile, The News International reported that Sharif could undertake the important visit of the US in the first quarter of the next year.

"The arrangement would be worked out through diplomatic channels soon after assuming the office by President Trump," it reported.

It further said that Pakistan has decided to maintain its ties with the United States on the cardinal principle of mutual respect while addressing each others concerns in a dignified manner once the new administration of Donald Trump is at the helm of affairs in Washington, it said.

The Foreign Office is tight-lipped about the mission of Fatemi and chances of the visit of Prime Minister Sharif to the US.

During their conversation last week, Trump had described Sharif as a "terrific guy" and offered to play "any role" in helping Pakistan address its problems.
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister will visit the United States by March 2017 to meet the US President-elect Donald Trump, officials said. Foreign ministry officials said Prime Minister Sharif could undertake an important visit of the US in the first quarter of the next year where a meeting with Mr Trump as President of the host country would be included in his engagements in Washington. Sources said a proposal regarding Mr Sharifs participation in the oath-taking ceremony of the new US president is also on the cards but nothing has been finalised so far.

Officials said Pakistan had decided to maintain its ties with the US on the cardinal principle of mutual respect while addressing each others concerns in a dignified manner once the Trump administration is at the helm of affairs in Washington. The standpoint of Pakistan in this regard would be conveyed to think-tanks in the United States this week when Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi would be in the US capital. He will also have an extensive interaction with the stalwarts likely be part of the new team in various departments, particularly in the State Department.

Mr Fatemi, who served in Washington for a long period of time in various capacities including his posting as ambassador, had held a meeting with Mr Sharif the other day to seek his guidance for the mission on which he embarked on Sunday. The dash of Mr Fatemi who in his own right an astute diplomat has attained significance in the backdrop of maiden communication between Mr Sharif and Mr Trump last week where the latter expressed goodwill for Pakistan and its people. Fatemi would also highlight the Indian atrocities in Kashmir and ceasefire violations by Indian security forces on Line of Control and Working Boundary, sources said. He would stay in Washington for 10 days and meet the Trump team as well and discuss ways to strengthen the bilateral ties between Pakistan and US.
Pakistan Premier's foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz along with foreign ministers of four countries Saturday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who told them that it was important to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability in Afghanistan and the region.





The Foreign Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Slovakia, which holds the European Union Presidency this month, along with Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Aziz called on Modi ahead of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process on Afghanistan here.



Prime Minister Modi welcomed the Foreign Ministers and stressed it was the collective responsibility of all those in the region to work together to help Afghanistan out of its current difficulties, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.



The Prime Minister stated that his several interactions with both the common people of Afghanistan and the country's leadership had convinced him that the Afghan people were tired of the continuing violence and terrorism.



Prime Minister Modi stressed on "the need to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability, security and development in Afghanistan and our region," Swarup said.



In this context, the Prime Minister hoped that discussions in the Ministerial Conference tomorrow will produce good results.



Agreeing with the Premier on the need to end violence in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministers shared Prime Minister Modi's view that Afghanistan's stability, security and prosperity are integral to the region's, Swarup said.



"They greatly appreciated the continued commitment and engagement of India and its leadership for these ends. The Foreign Ministers warmly thanked India for hosting the Conference and expressed confidence that all friends of Afghanistan will work together for realising the aspirations for peace and development," he said.
A day after an unidentified man's body was found in southeast Delhi's Saket area with the legs chopped, another body of an unidentified woman was found in southeast Delhis Amar Colony on Saturday morning with its lower portion missing.





The woman is said to be in her thirties and was found stuffed inside a black bag and dumped in an open drain near a bus stand on Captain Gaur Marg near Garhi village T-point.



Police said the woman must have been murdered 24 hours ago. It also appeared that some portion of the body had been eaten by an animal.



The woman has a wheatish complexion. She had a religious thread on one of her wrists and was wearing a red salwar kameez, said a police officer.



Police said that a PCR call was received around 10.30 am after a local went near the drain to urinate and spotted the bag. When he went near, he realised there was a foul smell coming from the bag and he informed the police.



A case under section 302 (punishment for murder) of Indian Penal Code has been registered at Amar Colony police station.



Police officials said that locals are being questioned to know if they saw any suspicious activity in the area and efforts are on to identity the woman.



We are going through reports of women who had gone missing in the past one week. Prima facie, it appears that the woman was murdered at another place and later her body was dumped here, the officer said.



Police officers of southeast police district also acknowledged on condition of anonymity that they are probing if there is any relation between the two bodies which have been found in a space of one day in somewhat similar conditions.



This is the fourth such case of an unidentified body being found in last nine days in the capital.



Earlier cases of unidentified bodies found in last nine days a mans body, which was cut in two parts, was found on a road in southeast Delhis Sangam Vihar early on Friday morning.



Police said that the body had been wrapped in a blanket and tied with a rope.



The body of a woman, with injury marks on her throat, was found under a car at Pushp Vihar in south Delhi on Wednesday. It had tattoos on the left and right wrists. The body had injury marks inflicted with a sharp object on the throat. There were similar marks on her chin and left wrist too.



On November 25, a headless and decomposed body of a woman, stuffed in a black plastic bag, was found inside the sewer of a four-storey building in south Delhi's Munirka.


The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday held a demonstration at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence protesting against the CM's stand on demonetisation and `stalled' development works in several unauthorized colonies and villages of south Delhi.



The protest was led by MP and Delhi BJP general secretary Ramesh Bidhuri along with the workers of South Delhi Parliamentary constituency.



Addressing the workers, Bidhuri said that Kejriwal is strongly against demonetisation because his party has collected huge amount of cash in the form of donation in the last three years.



The opposition to demonetisation by Kejriwal is clearly due to his personal loss otherwise it is beyond comprehension that the person who raised slogans in support of demonetisation in Ramlila Maidan in 2011 is now opposing it, he said. He alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party operates with hundreds of paid volunteers now posted in Punjab and this demonetisation has made Kejriwal a pauper with no money left to pay them. His frustration is a result of this penury, he said in a statement.



He accused the MLAs from south Delhi of enreaching themselves as a result of which the development work has been stalled.



The people from Chhattarpur, Badarpur to Bijwasan are struggling to drink water, the condition of roads is very pathetic and the standard of government schools is falling but the Kejriwal government is not concerned about it, Bidhuri alleged.



He said that contract of crores for the demolition of BRT Corridor and its maintenance has been awarded but even after a year this corridor is not fit for traffic.



The roads connecting the most posh colonies of Delhi from Kalkaji in South Delhi to Anand Niketan is in bad shape specially the outer ring road has become shabby due to lack of maintenance, the BJP MP said.



Meanwhille, the workers of BJP Purvanchal Morcha took out a 'Note Bandi Samarthan March' (Demonetisation Support March) from Akshardham Metro station to Laxmi Nagar.



Morcha president Dinesh Pratap Singh said the move will help eradicate black money and transform economy.




Angered at being denied entry at a night club in south Delhi's Hauz Khas, a group of five men allegedly opened fired and stabbed the club's bouncer and a Nigerian national on late Friday night.



Police said the injured have been identified as the club's bouncer Manoj and a Nigerain national Nnamadi Makuochuk.



Immediately after the incident, one of the accused identified as Rahul Chaudhry, tried to run away from the spot but was caught by the locals and thrashed. He was later handed over to the police. Police said his four accomplices however managed to flee.



Police said the incident took place around 12.15 am on Saturday, when Chaudhry, who stays in Madangir, had come to the night club with his four friends in inebriated condition.



When the bouncer denied entry to them, Chowdhury took out his country-made gun and fired indiscriminately.



After firing, Nnamadi who was nearby protested. Angered by this, Chowdhury and his men stabbed him with knives on the chest and hand. Seeing this, the bouncer ran to Nnamadi to save him but he was overpowered by Chowdhurys men, who also stabbed the bouncer, said a senior police officer.



Efforts are on to nab the other accused. Police have registered a case under section 307(Attempt to murder), 323( voluntarily causing grievous hurty), 341(Punishment for wrongful restraint), 34( Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code read with sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act.



Police have also found two empty cartdriges and one Enfield Bullet motorcycle from the spot.



Both the injured were admitted to AIIMS in the early morning and discharged by the evening, police said.
Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz today met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during which they discussed ways to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan.



The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference. Both Ghani and Aziz had arrived here last evening.



The bilateral meeting came amid Afghanistan expressing its anguish over Islamabad's not so cooperative approach towards the peace process in the war-ravaged country.



Afghan government has also been critical of Pakistan over rising terror attacks on Afghanistan by militant groups operating from Pakistani soil.



"They discussed prospects of peace, development and stability in Afghanistan," a Pakistani source said.



Ahead of the conference, Afghanistan had called terror emanating from Pakistan as the "greatest threat" to regional peace and stability and pressed for adopting a regional counter-terror framework at the Heart of Asia conference to effectively deal with terrorism.



The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was launched in 2011 and the participating countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.



The platform was floated to encourage security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours.
A fire broke out in the city's popular South City shopping mall this morning, hours before it was to open for the Sunday crowd.



Eighteen fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames, noticed at around 9.15 AM in the false ceiling of the food court on the third floor of the mall, a senior police officer said.



People watching movies at a multiplex inside the mall in the southern part of the city, workers of various stores as well as security guards were evacuated.

There was no report of casualty, the officer added.



Power supply was cut off and fire fighters found it quite difficult to go inside the building as thick smoke engulfed the interior of the mall on posh Prince Anwar Shah Road.



Traffic was stopped in front of the mall as curious onlookers gathered there. A team from the Kolkata Police's disaster management group also rushed to the spot.



A fibre glass wall in the food court was demolished to let the smoke out, a fire brigade officer said.



State Fire and Emergency Services Minister and city Mayor Sovan Chatterjee also visited the scene.



"Fire is absolutely under control as our fire officers fought bravely to douse the fire. They are still using water to douse fire in pockets," he said after coming out of the mall.



"Looking by the nature of it, it seems the fire was caused due to short circuit," he added.



The mall authorities have decided to keep the place closed for today.
In a hard hitting attack on Pakistan, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani today accused it of launching an "undeclared war" on his country by covertly supporting several terror networks including the Taliban, and noted that there were no hidden deals in India's growing engagement in the war-ravaged country.





In his address at the 6th annual conference of Heart of Asia, Ghani, who severely criticised Islamabad, said an Asian or international mechanism must be put in place, without "playing games", to find out who was benefiting from terror, extremism and other illicit activities.



He said time has come for concrete action against terror infrastructure and those support it, and quoted a top Taliban commander saying unless terror sanctuaries were allowed in Pakistan, the outfit will not last even a month.



He said despite Afghanistan's bilateral and multilateral ties with Pakistan, the "undeclared war" that started in winter of 2014, has intensified after the recent Brussels conference on Afghanistan's transition.



Slamming Pakistan's habit of denying cross border terror attacks, the Afghan President called for setting up of international mechanism to verify reality of such attacks which have increased in the last few months.



He also sought setting up of a global fund to contain terrorism.

"There should be an Asian or international regime, whatever is acceptable to Pakistan, should be put in place to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations.

"We do not want blame game, we want verification," he said, without mincing words.

"We need to set up a fund to combat extremism," Ghani said.



Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz was among representatives of 30 countries who attended the conference inaugurated jointly by Ghani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



Hailing India's role in Afghanistan's transition, he said "India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached", adding "there are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan."



"We thank Pakistan for their pledges of USD 500 million for reconstruction of Afghanistan.



"This fund Mr Aziz could very well be used to contain extremists because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people," he said.

Asserting that no amount of money can assist Afghanistan if there is support to terrorists by Pakistan, he said military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists.



Ghani said Afghanistan witnessed highest levels of violence between October 5 and November 20, after the Brussels Conference, demanding dismantling of the state sponsored sanctuaries in Pakistan.



Talking about Amritsar, he said the city used to be a centre of commerce and business which connected India to Central Asia, Russia and beyond.

Ghani visited the Golden temple last evening with Modi.



Referring to Modi's visit to Afghanistan, he said there were spontaneous celebrations all over Afghanistan following the inauguration of Salma Dam.



He also thanked India for further assistance of USD 1 billion apart from USD 2 billion.

"India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached, " Ghani said, adding an air corridor between India and Afghanistan will be soon launched to deepen trade ties.
The JD(U) today hit back at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her 'gaddar' (traitor) jibe at party chief Nitish Kumar for backing the Centre's demonetisation move, and cautioned her against behaving like a 'dada' (bully).





"Woh didi ke roop mein bahut achchi lagti hain, unhe dada ke rup mein vwyahar nahin karna chahiye (she looks good in the role of didi...she should not behave like a bully," JD(U) secretary general K C Tyagi told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

Mamata had made the remark on November 30 at a dharna in Patna.



Criticising the JD(U) for not opposing the demonetisation of high-value currencies despite being wary of the NDA-led Centre, she had said that the people would not spare the 'gaddars' (betrayers), indirectly referring to Nitish Kumar.



The JD(U), a constituent of the ruling Grand Alliance in Bihar, had stayed away from Mamata's dharna on note ban in the Bihar capital while another constituent, RJD, had backed the Trinamool Congress chief's stir.



The local JD(U) leaders had charged the Trinamool Congress with being "a party of scamsters".



Nitish while speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in Delhi yesterday had remarked that too much aggression could spoil the perception of people (about a leader) in an apparent reference to Mamata's caustic remarks at the Patna dharna.


The Finance Ministry today revised upwards black money disclosed under Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) to Rs 67,382 crore, which will fetch the government a little over Rs 30,000 crore in direct tax revenue even as it did not take into account two high value disclosures.





The Income Tax Department, it said, did not take into consideration the much-talked about Rs 13,860 crore declaration made by Ahemdabad based Mahesh kumar Champaklal Shah, who has threatened to disclose the names of politicians and businessmen for whom he was acting as a front.



"Among the declarations received, there were two sets of declarations of high value which were not taken on record in the above figure because they were found to be suspicious in nature being filed by persons of small means," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.



It said: "On Oct 1, 2016, it was announced that declarations totalling Rs 65,250 crore were received from 64,275 declarants, subject to reconciliation.



"After final reconciliation the revised figure of actual declarations received and taken on record was Rs 67,382 crore which had been made by 71,726 declarants."



On the omission, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram in a tweet said, "There is a Rs 13,860 crore hole in the Rs 65,000 crore IDS! How many more holes?"



Giving details, it said a family of four headed by one Abdul Razzaque Mohammed Sayed, residents of Bandra, Mumbai made a total declaration of Rs 2 lakh crore which was rejected by the Department as three out of the four PAN numbers were originally in Ajmer which were migrated in September 2016 to Mumbai, the place of the declarations.



These declarations from Mumbai and Ahmedabad were kept pending for investigation about the genuineness of the same and were not included in the total value of declarations announced on October 1, it said.



After due enquiry it was found that these declarants were persons of suspicious nature and very small means and the declarations could have been misused, it said.



"Therefore, after due consideration, the Income Tax Department decided by November 30, to reject these two sets of declarations of Rs 2 lakh crore and Rs 13,860 respectively. The Department has commenced enquiries against these declarants to determine the intention behind these false declarations," said the ministry's statement.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, keen to meet Donald Trump, may visit Washington next month for the oath-taking ceremony of the US President-elect, media reports said today.





Speculation about the visit comes after telephonic conversation between Sharif and Trump last week.



Sources here said Special Assistant to Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi is leaving for the US today to finalise the schedule of the visit.



Prime Minister House sources said a proposal regarding the Sharif's participation in the oath-taking ceremony of the new US president is also on the cards but nothing has been finalised so far.



"Invitations are usually issued to the heads of states and governments on such occasions. The option to respond positively to any such invitation once received is under consideration," a source close to the Prime Minister was quoted by Express Tribune as saying.



Fatemi would stay in Washington for 10 days and would meet the Trump team as well and discuss the ways to strengthen the bilateral ties between Pakistan and US. He would brief the team about the role Pakistan played in the war on terror and Pakistan's policy towards Afghanistan and India.



According to media reports, Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) has been trying to arrange a possible visit of Sharif to Washington where Trump will assume charge of the Office of the President of the United States on January 20.



Sharif has expressed his desire to attend Trump's oath -taking ceremony, another media report said.



The Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen. It was reported that the Sharif may leave for the US on the January 18 or 19.



The decision of Sharifs US visit hinges on the possibility of a meeting with Trump. Analysts say that it will be a major breakthrough if a meeting is actually realised, the reports said.



Trump has already set up a provisional team, encouraging foreign leaders and officials to visit his headquarters in New York for familiarisation meetings.



Sharif is said to have given special instructions to Fatemi who would meet the US Congress members and Senate and seek their support and cooperation for better ties with the new US administration.



The adviser would also meet the US think tank members and would brief them on Pakistans efforts for peace in the region. Fatemi would also highlight the "Indian atrocities" in Kashmir and "ceasefire violations" by Indian security forces on Line of Control and Working Boundary, sources said.



Meanwhile, The News International reported that Sharif could undertake the important visit of the US in the first quarter of the next year.



"The arrangement would be worked out through diplomatic channels soon after assuming the office by President Trump," it reported.



It further said that Pakistan has decided to maintain its ties with the United States on the cardinal principle of mutual respect while addressing each others concerns in a dignified manner once the new administration of Donald Trump is at the helm of affairs in Washington, it said.



The Foreign Office is tight-lipped about the mission of Fatemi and chances of the visit of Prime Minister Sharif to the US.



During their conversation last week, Trump had described Sharif as a "terrific guy" and offered to play "any role" in helping Pakistan address its problems.
Basel Mission Press, which pioneered the printing revolution in coastal districts 175 years back, continues to breathe in Mangaluru, although not in its earlier glory. Established in 1841, the press is now recognised as Balmatta Institute of Printing Technology and Book Craft, located at Balmatta, Mangaluru. The institution has seen many ups and downs in a century. The printing press is currently run by KACES (Karnataka Christian Educational Society) and continues to operate.



The press is also evidence to the first Kannada newspaper Mangaluru Samachara, the first copy came out in 1843 as a fortnightly. The landmark publications in Kannada, Tulu, Malayalam and Konkani languages were also printed in the same printing press.



The printing revolution in Dakshina Kannada was pioneered by German Missionaries who landed in Mangalore on 1834, with an objective to spread the holy gospel, at a later stage, consciously involved themselves in the publication of literary works in Kannada, after mastering the language. During the year of their arrival, the missionaries started organising religious meetings in Kannada and also opened a Kannada medium school. Realising that there was a need to print the hymn books, they decided to introduce the lithograph technology, which had already started in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. Kannada printing was available in Bellary and Serampore. Rev Hermann F Moegling, who is acclaimed as the Father of Kannada Journalism, along with another missionary Wagler, brought the lithograph machine, from Bombay to Mangalore.



Between the period 1852 and 1862, the lithography printing was in the pink of robust health. Textbooks of all schools in the then Madras Presidency were printed in the Basel Mission Press. The first publication was a book containing 50 hymns. Textbooks were brought out for the school established by the Mission. A book on Word of God according to Matthew was printed in 1842. In the stewardess of Rev Ferdinand Kittel and other scholars, the Basel Mission printed English- Kannada and Malayalam - English dictionaries, which were the first of their kind.



The printing press was located at Neereshwalya near Pandeshwar in Mangaluru. Due to space constraints, the press was shifted to Mission compound, Balmatta. Dasa compositions, Chennabasava Purana, Haribhaktisara were among the major Kannada publications in 1847.



Karnataka Theological College Archives assistant Bennet Ammanna said that in 1913 the printing press was again shifted to the building where the Hebiks Technical Institute exists today and later to the existing location in Balmatta Road in 1907. The current printing press building was a handloom unit then. By 1940, the number of employees had reduced to merely 30. The press had to remain closed in 1970 and 1972 owing to administrative drawbacks. During the world war, the ownership went to another organisation and continued till the KACES took over the management of the press in 1978. The institution also provided training to the interested in printing and book binding. The institution was named Balmatta Institute of Printing Technology and Book Craft. In 1980, offset machines were introduced in the press.



At present, there are 15 staff in the press. The old printing machines are preserved in the building. To mark the post-centenary diamond jubilee celebrations of Basel Mission Press, KACES, plans to open a museum where the machines depicting the printing technology of those days, such as lithography machines, will be displayed while the existing press will also be upgraded with new machines.



(Inputs from Karnataka Theological College Archives Assistant Bennet Ammanna)


The sixth Heart of Asia ministerial conference concluded on Sunday without a bilateral engagement between India and Pakistan on the sideline. Sartaj Aziz, Foreign Affairs Adviser of Pakistan Prime Minister M Nawaz Sharif, returned to Islamabad, without having any one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.



Modi joined Afghan President M Ashraf Ghani to inaugurate the conference. Jaitley, standing in for External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, chaired the conference. Sushma, who is suffering from kidney failure, is undergoing dialysis at All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Pictures of Aziz and Modis National Security Adviser Ajit Doval talking to each other at the venue of the Heart of Asia meet did fuel speculation about a bilateral meeting between the two countries.



Official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup, however, categorically stated that the two had no pull-aside chat or a bilateral meeting. Aziz, who was to reach Amritsar on Sunday, advanced his arrival by a day, apparently to explore opportunities for an India-Pakistan bilateral engagement.



Shortly after he landed here, Aziz attended the dinner hosted by V K Singh and M J Akbar  the two Ministers of State for External Affairs  for the leaders of the delegations from Heart of Asia nations. He was also among the delegates, who collectively called on the prime minister late on Saturday night. Though Modi shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with Aziz, neither he nor Jaitley had any bilateral meeting with the Pakistani diplomat.




The BJP high command on Sunday warned party leader K S Eshwarappa and others of disciplinary action if they continued to be associated with Rayanna Brigade, an apolitical forum to organise backward classes and Dalits.





BJP national general secretary in charge of Karnataka P Muralidhar Rao told reporters that the party will neither support nor tolerate organisational activities done outside the party forum. Organisational activity done outside the party forum amounts to anti-party activity. The party will be forced to take disciplinary action against such people, he warned, without naming Eshwarappa.



This is the first time the party has issued a strict warning to Eshwarappa, who is trying to emerge as a backward classes leader by organising the brigades conventions. The warning comes following a recent announcement by the brigade to organise an oath-taking ceremony for its leaders at Nandgad in Belagavi district on December 6.

Eshwarappa started associating with the brigade a few months ago as he was reportedly sidelined by his political bete noire Yeddyurappa.



Asked whether the party will take action against Eshwarappa if he continues to associate himself with the brigades activities, Rao said: The party is closely watching all developments. There will be a Lakshman Rekha for everything. Action will have be taken if it is broken (sic), he stated, adding that Eshwarappa is a senior leader and that he will understand the circumstances.



On seeking his reaction to the brigades plan to organise an event on December 6 in Belagavi, the BJP national general secretary said the party has separate wings such as backward classes, SCs, STs, women and farmers. All organisational activities should be planned under these party forums. Besides, the party has already declared Yeddyurappa as its chief ministerial candidate. All activities should be done under his leadership, he added.


Afghanistan on Sunday joined India to lambast Pakistan for sheltering terrorists and exporting terror in its neighbourhood. Jointly inaugurating the sixth Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference at Amritsar in Punjab with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Afghan President M Ashraf Ghani directly blamed Pakistan for providing sanctuaries to Taliban and other terrorist organisations operating in his country.



Ghani quoted Taliban leader Mullah Rahmatullah Kakazada saying recently that the terrorist organisation would not have survived if they had no sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister M Nawaz Sharif, was in the audience when Ghani blamed Islamabad for the recent spurt in violence in his country. Aziz led the delegation of the Pakistan government in the meet. Ghani even snubbed Pakistan, referring to its pledge for $500 million assistance for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.



There is a need for a fund to combat extremism, he said. Pakistan has generously pledged $500 million for reconstructing Afghanistan. This fund, Aziz, could very well be used for containing extremism because without peace, any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people, he said addressing the leader of the delegation from Pakistan. Modi did not directly blame Pakistan, but said terrorism and externally induced instability posed the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity.

And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, he said. Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters, he added.

Role of non-state actors

Kabul has been upset over the role of state and non-state actors of Pakistan in fomenting extremism and exporting terrorism to Afghanistan. So has been New Delhi over repeated attacks being launched in India by outfits based in Pakistan.



Military operations

The military operations in Pakistan have brought a major but selective displacement of the Pakistani extremist networks and their allies on to Afghanistan, said Ghani, who earlier had a bilateral meeting with Modi.



Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan on bilateral and multilateral basis, the undeclared war  the name that I gave to the phenomenon in 2014  has intensified during 2016, with special intensity right after the Brussels Conference (in early October), he said.




We are much keen on increasing PhD seats as the aim is to increase our research output and provide innovative and affordable technological solutions necessary to meet the requirement of our country as well as society, the source added.



The HRD minister has assured the IITs of making a proposal to the government for rolling out a new fellowship scheme to support research scholars. The proposed Prime Minister Research Fellows (PMRFs) programme would seek to support at least 1,000 PhD students every year, the source said.

Students of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) securing at least a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 8.5 in BTech will get direct admission to PhD programmes. Such students will be entitled for a fellowship of Rs 60,000 per month for a period of five years at the premier technical institutes from next year. Besides, they will also get a suitable research grant, to cover the expenses like attending international conferences required to complete their research projects, a Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry official said.The IITs, particularly the seven older ones, are set to increase their PhD intake by at least 20% in the next three years, starting from the academic session of 2017-18. The council of the premier technical institutes agreed to increase the seat intake to one lakh by 2020, particularly at the post-graduate level, accepting a proposal of the HRD ministry. This came at a meeting of the council chaired by HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar in August.We will increase our intake by 20% over the next three years, particularly the post-graduate level. We will admit more students to the PhD programmes from next year, an official source in IIT Delhi told DH. The institute is considering increasing the number of MTech seats.
The Midigeshi police on Saturday arrested a man for repeatedly raping a woman at his farm at Kattirajanahalli in the taluk.





Police said the suspect Shivakumar, a resident of the village under Midigeshi hobli, had repeatedly raped a woman, an agricultural labourer, at his farm. He had threatened to kill her if she dared to disclose the incident.



The suspect had sent the victim to Midigeshi Primary Healthcare Centre to abort the pregnancy. The PHC staff refused to abort the pregnancy as it was in an advanced stage, the police said.



The heinous act came to light when the victim (unmarried) told her parents that she was 8 months pregnant. Her parents lodged a complaint against Shivakumar on December 2.



The jurisdictional police registered a case and arrested Shivakumar on Saturday.
Thirty-seven summers ago, as a young Amol Palekar rehearsed for the rollicking Hindi flick Golmaal, Hrishikesh Mukherjee was in complete command. But as Palekar immersed himself in his first shoot, the famed Hrishi Da was busy playing chess!



From the corner of his eye, Palekar watched this apparent lack of interest in utter disbelief. I was annoyed that Hrishi Da was not even looking at me, he recalled to a delighted audience, as they sat hooked to a fascinating trip down memory lane.



For three days, they had watched Amol Palekar in his prime, lending his immense artistic talent to an array of Hrishikesh Mukherjees films. As curtains drew close on the festival, it was Palekars turn to lend perspective, meaning and complete that contemporary connect to an era gone by.



On that first day of Golmaal shooting, Palekar had heard Hrishi Da responding that he had watched every take, analysed every high and low. I felt so stupid then. He knew exactly what he wanted and what had to be done. He was giving the actor in me the option to explore, to do things in multiple ways.



But the audience wanted more, they had to probe deeper into Palekars journey, as a painter, as an actor, as director. I was known as one of the most reluctant actors. I would say No to nine out of 10 films. I was seen by the industry as some sort of an upstart, reminisced the veteran.



It was the early 1970s and he had just entered the Hindi film world. Palekar rode that journey: I started my Hindi film career with three silver jubilee hits. But in the fourth film, Shyam Benegals Bhumika, I chose to do the villains role. That completely shook the industry. How could a successful hero make such a suicidal shift? Palekar remembered everyone asking him what nonsense is this?



The audience erupted in mirth. But for him, it was about breaking every rule, every norm that the industry was fixated with. For Palekar, the 1970s was a period of renaissance, an era of creative outbursts in its truest sense. We were doing theatre, music, literature, cinema Everywhere, new experimentations were happening. I was privileged to be there.



Exposed to the very best of international cinema, theatre and visual arts, actors were striving to fashion a unique Indian identity. It was, as Palekar put it with a nostalgic finesse, a yearning to take on the entire world and still be Indian.


The Bengaluru police have been put on alert as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaas health condition worsened on Sunday night, on alert. Police personnel across the city have been directed to intensify patrolling to make sure the law and order is not disturbed. A tight vigil has been kept in areas with high Tamil-speaking population, a senior police officer said.



He continued, People should not spread rumours and disturb peace. Anyone found indulging in anti-social activities will be punished in accordance with the law. Patrolling has been intensified in border areas and roads leading to Hosur and surrounding places.




It will be another month before you could easily use digital payment methods at petrol pumps in Bengaluru. At least half of the filling stations in the city are yet to procure the point of sale (card swipe) machines or use e-wallets. The Centres decision to stop the use of scrapped notes at petrol pumps from December 3 onwards is affecting business at filling stations. As the cash crunch continues, many petrol stations do not have enough notes in low denominations. They are putting up no stock notices just because they cannot give change for Rs 2,000 notes.



Raghuveer, a resident of Malleswaram, recounted the inconvenience at a filling station. I was asked to refuel for at least Rs 500 or get more vehicles to fill up. The staff at the filling station said they couldnt give me change as I refuelled for Rs 200 and gave them a 2,000-rupee note. They are short of Rs 100 notes.



Another resident, John B, said the fuel station on Sarjapur Road refused to give change or accept card payment. I needed the change to buy vegetables and groceries. I was forced to give Rs 100 notes for refuelling, she said. Just half of the 500 petrol stations in Bengaluru have PoS machines while just a handful have Paytm or e-wallet payment options.



Bhushan Narang, chairman of Petroleum Dealers Association, however, hoped that all petrol pumps in the city would have PoS machines and e-wallet facilities by the end of December.



Presently, only some of them have the machines and e-wallet facilities. Each petrol station needs at least four to five PoS machines, he said. He acknowledged that filling stations were grappling with shortage of low-denomination notes and said banks were also helpless. I am hopeful that by the end of this month, everything will be sorted out, he added.



A senior official in the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) said that just 723 out of their 1,770 fuel stations in Karnataka had digital payment options. Bengaluru has 189 such petrol stations.



We are in talks with banks to help fuel stations on a priority basis as there is a pressing need for this essential service. There are 600 applications pending with us for installing PoS machines and introducing e- wallet facilities, he said.



The facility of cash withdrawal at fuel stations has not picked up pace either. The IOC official said they were focusing on providing the facility at 100 petrol stations in rural Karnataka with the help of State Bank of India. In case of Bengaluru, the IOC is in talks with a private bank.


By Jordan Fermanis

1 December 2016 (Crikey)  When One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts delivered his maiden speech to the Senate on September 13 of this year, he used the occasion to attack the science of climate change. In his speech, Roberts labelled climate change a scam, said it was prone to hyperbolic predictions and accused no less auspicious an organisation than the Bureau of Meteorology of manipulating climate data. If Pauline Hanson is her partys multiculturalism and cultural sensitivity expert, Malcolm Roberts entered Parliament as the self-proclaimed One Nation party climate change expert (with a background in coal mining). The following exchanges unravel the ideological war between One Nation and its fiercest opponent: science. One Nation says: On One Nations website the party alleges that climate change scientists, the United Nations and global governments including Australia are part of a mass environmental deception. Keep in mind, neither Hanson nor any other senator in One Nation is a qualified scientist.

Climate change should not be about making money for a lot of people and giving scientists money. Lets [sic] know the facts and scientific evidence to make a well informed decision as to how best to look after our environment. Paris main role was to endorse the climate sham. It gives Hunt and Turnbull a way to keep moving Australia under tighter UN control. This is despite there being no empirical evidence that carbon dioxide from humans affects climate.

Science responds: According to NASAs website, there is a global scientific consensus that humans have contributed to climate change phenomena like global warming. NASAs scientists include Dr Carmen Boening, who has a PhD in physical oceanography and is a part of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, and Dr Michael Gunson, an atmospheric scientist with a PhD in chemistry.

Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.

The CSIRO, Australias leading scientific research organisation, is responsible for inventing wi-fi and Aeroguard insect repellent. The CSIRO has been monitoring climate data and producing biennial reports since 2012. CSIRO research indicates last century global sea levels rose by 20cm. Global temperatures in this century have increased year upon year, with 2015 ranking the warmest year on record. The CSIRO says its getting hot in here:

The Bureau of Meteorologys Manager of Climate Monitoring, Dr Karl Braganza said Australia was already experiencing the effects of climate change with record-breaking heat now becoming commonplace across the country.

And why?

CSIRO Senior Scientist and leader of the NESP Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub, Dr Helen Cleugh said the [climate] changes were due to an increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, which act like a blanket by keeping heat in the Earths lower atmosphere.

Science finds: A report released on Monday by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies based at James Cook University titled Life and Death after Great Barrier Reef bleaching found the highest recorded bleaching levels at the Great Barrier Reef:

Scientists have confirmed the largest die-off of corals ever recorded on Australias Great Barrier Reef. The worst affected area, a 700 km swath of reefs in the northern region of the Great Barrier Reef has lost an average of 67% of its shallow-water corals in the past 8-9 months. Further south, over the vast central and southern regions of the Great Barrier Reef, the scientists were relieved to find a much lower death toll.

As the figure above indicates, coral bleaching is most acute in the northern section of the reef. Scientists from the ARC forecast that it will take 10 to 15 years for coral in the northern region of the reef to regenerate. The central and southern portions of the reef remain in relatively healthy condition. In an attempt to create a political splash last week, Pauline Hansons One Nation Party held a party meeting at Great Keppel Island, in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef. One Nation reacts: Hanson, having never attended university, put forth her opinion that the reef was in pristine condition, going so far as to deny global warming had a significant impact on coral bleaching. As the ARC figure shows, the southern part of the reef has been largely unaffected by bleaching events, precisely the location Hanson and Roberts chose to visit. [more]
Its been more than two months since Haley and Sophia Moyers were seriously injured in a car crash while vacationing in Florida.

That crash claimed the lives of both their parents. While it's been a difficult couple months the girls have come a long way in their recovery.

Rich Moyers, the girls uncle, said if you didnt know them you wouldnt even know what they had been through.

They are doing really well considering everything and compared to how they were, said Rich. Both girls have started back to school and they are getting over their injuries. They are doing physical therapy and they are getting around really well.

Rich said they flew the girls home from Florida and then drove them to the house and they handled the car ride very well.

We family and friends are very impressed with how well they are doing each day, said Rich. It makes a big difference during the holidays with as close as we were with them. We saw them every day since they lived next door, so not much will change (in that regard) this holiday season.

Rich added that every once in a while they may mention something about the accident or what they have been through.

As a family we are very open with each other and will talk about it, said Rich. They also are in therapy and that is helping them through everything. But they cut up, laugh, and are just a 13 and 8 year old.

Rich said with the help of his buddies he was able to build an addition onto their home so they had more space for the girls since they would be living there.

Our family, friends and everybody showed up to help build it, said Rich. We have had an outpouring of community support for the girls and we couldnt be more thankful. The community has helped us tremendously and we are very thankful for everything they have done.

Rich stressed how well the girls are doing and that they are able to walk around. He said the physical therapy has really helped out and they are pretty much back to their normal selves.

They are both back in school and were excited to go back, said Rich. They actually wanted to go back before we could let them. We were wanting to hold off a little bit, but the kids were ready to get back to school. They were anxious.

The Moyers family was enjoying vacation with another family in Florida and had reportedly went separate ways from their friends after enjoying Disney together. The Moyers were heading to the beach when tragedy struck.

For an unknown reason the driver of another car drifted into the left lane and the left side of his car struck the Moyers car on the right side causing them to leave the roadway and hit a tree. The wreck happened in Volusia County in Florida. Both Greg, 40, and Sarah, 39, died in the crash.

Since then the community has continually pulled together to help support the Moyers girls. Donations continue to come in through the GoFundMe account and the memorial fund set up at a local bank. Fundraisers have been held and other donations have been made to the family.

Last I checked a few days ago the bank account at First State Community Bank had raised a substantial amount of money and I had already given the family a check (from other fundraisers), said family friend Jason Nash. We also ran a gun raffle and I still have to give that to them."

With the holidays here its been asked that everyone keep the girls in their thoughts and prayers.

Nash said he checked the post office box last week and there were six or seven cards in there for the girls.

Nash said he has handed over the accounts to Richs wife, Summer, who is handling all the donations and GoFundMe account now. Anyone wanting to make a donation to the family can visit any First State Community Bank location and donate to the "Greg and Sarah Moyers Memorial Fund."

A Facebook page also has been set up, Greg and Sarahs Angels, to help update the public on the girls progress. If anyone wants to mail a donation, card or anything else for the girls, send it to: P.O. Box 1443 Farmington, Mo 63640-1443.
[cf. Australias One Nation party vs. science] By Jessica Shankleman

21 November 2016 (Bloomberg)  Populism is drawing momentum from environmentalism in the U.S. and Europe, threatening the worlds effort to rein in climate change. Donald Trumps election in the U.S., the U.K. Independence Party and Marine Le Pens ascent in France all represent a break with political leaders who made the environment a priority. All three are skeptical of climate change and resistant to international projects like the United Nations global warming talks. Envoys from more than 190 countries gathered by the UN made progress this weekend in their work to contain fossil-fuel emissions and keep a lid on temperature increases. Two weeks of discussions in Marrakech, Morocco, were overshadowed by the election of Trump, who has called climate change a hoax. Many delegates left the city concerned about the forces working against them. If climate change is labeled as an elitist, global project, which is what UKIP and Le Pen want to do, then its dead, said Nick Mabey, a former climate adviser to the U.K. government now leading the environmental consultant E3G. Trump takes office in January and has said hell pull out of the Paris agreement negotiated through the UN. Thats a sharp contrast to outgoing President Barack Obama, who spent six years concentrating on the issue, resulting in a historic agreement with China in 2015 to work together on lowering emissions, prompting dozens of developing economies to follow suit. Trumps stance is echoed by right-wing movements in Europe:

Le Pens National Front doubts global warming is linked to human activity and has promoted a New Ecology movement emphasizing national programs on the environment over global rules like the ones coming from the UN talks.

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage called the fight against climate change one of the biggest and stupidest collective misunderstandings in history, saying the science isnt settled and technologies to defeat the problem like renewable energy are damaging to the economy. UKIPs push to leave the European Union was endorsed by British voters on June 23, leaving Farage more influential in shaping government policy. [more]
Norma Becker was suspicious from the moment she opened the letter supposedly sent by Nationwide Insurance.

We are pleased to inform you that your settlement in the amount of seventy five (sic) thousand dollars.in accordance with the above mentioned police number has been approved for your payment, the letter reads.

Except, Becker is not a customer of Nationwide and does not have a claim.

Enclosed with the letter was what appeared to be a legitimate check in the amount of $1,382.45.

On Thursday, Becker said the person offered her congratulations on that the check had cleared the bank.

The only catch is Becker recognized the check and letter as fraudulent from the very beginning.

She asked Patrick Oliver how she was selected to receive the check.

He told me I won through a contest, Becker said, an extreme contrast to what the letter states.

When she asked what sort of contest, the person on the other end of the phone asked if Becker subscribed to magazines.

I told him I did and he said thats how I was entered into the contest, she said.

She was then given specific instructions to purchase Western Union money orders in specific amounts, sending one in the amount of $575 to Patrick Oliver in Quebec, Canada and another in the amount of $995 to Charles Robert.

In January, the Better Business Bureau issued a warning about the scam with the letter and check appearing to be from Nationwide Insurance.

In its warning, the BBB said any consumers may not understand that the financial institution is required by law to allow its customers to withdraw funds, but the customer is still responsible if there arent enough funds to cover the withdrawal.

Becker said she took the letter to her bank to confirm there was no fraudulent activity on her account.

When Becker said she asked what happens if someone would cash the check, Becker was told that person would then be responsible for the amount  a sentiment echoed on the BBB warning.

Remember, any time you sign the back of a check and deposit it you are taking responsibility for the legitimacy of that check, the BBB warning states. Therefore, its a good idea to call the bank on which the check is written and verify its legitimacy first.

Bottom line, if you receive a check in the mail from someone youve never met, dont sign it.
The OnePlus 3 was launched about half-a-year ago, and OnePlus has already brought forth an upgrade, with the OnePlus 3T. Why? The company says its because it saw some room for improvement. We spoke to Pete Lau, Founder, OnePlus, asking for some explanations on this, his take on VR, the expected Android Nougat update, and more.

Q. The obvious question first. Why did you upgrade the OnePlus 3 so soon?

The OnePlus 3 has been launched for almost half a year, and we thought we needed to improve on the product. We thought there was some way to improve the product, which is why we did it.

Q. When we met Carl Pei last time, he had said you guys worked really hard to make the OnePlus 3 perfect. So, how does the new hardware make it better?

Technology is always developing very fast. When we launched the OnePlus 3, there was no Snapdragon 821. Now there is, and the CPU performance actually increased by about 10% and the GPU performance increased by about 5%. Some people may think that this isnt a huge improvement, but we yearn for perfection, and if we think even if we can add a little bit, we will do it.

The biggest change on the OnePlus 3T is in the battery. It has changed from 3000 mAh to 3400 mAh, and the size didnt change. The phone is as lightweight, but the battery performance is two hours more.It took us almost half a year to validify this battery. In the choice of the battery, we are like the most conservative. Our principle is that the current battery has been used for almost half a year, and while theres no problem with it, this new one is now ready, so we can use it.

Q. But OnePlus is a fan-oriented company, and youre telling them that you launched a new phone half a year ago, they bought it and youve now upgraded it. How do you justify it to those fans?

We actually listened to our fans. When we launched OnePlus 3, some fans liked Dash Charge, but they also wondered if the battery could last longer. So, taking that feedback from our consumers, we decided to use this new battery. For fans who are already using the OnePlus 3, I dont think there is a need to upgrade. But, if a person doesnt have a OnePlus phone, the OnePlus 3T is the best phone to buy.

Q. From the OnePlus One to OnePlus 3, youre now better known, but you still cater to your fans. Do you have any plans to ever cater to the first time buyers, which India has a huge number of?

Of course we will cater to those new customers. But, having said that, the fans are still our first focus. Our brand and reputation is spread from mouth-to-mouth, so their loyalty is very important to us.

Q. Last year you hit two different price brackets, with the OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X. Then you said youll stop that and follow a one flagship strategy, but this year again we have two phones. So where is it headed? Are you going to hit different price brackets soon?

We wont continue with the OnePlus X series. We had an interview with some of our fans, and they said they wouldnt buy the OnePlus X. They said our brand positioning is in the premium market, so theyll only buy our flagship phones. OnePlus represents the best of flagship smartphones, so even if we have those lower ranged devices, our fans dont want to buy them.

Q. Ok, coming back to the OnePlus 3T. You said it brings a 10% improvement, which is what Qualcomm also says for the Snapdragon 821. But does it also bring Daydream VR support?

No, VR isnt the reason for adding the Snapdragon 821. I dont see VR headsets having a very promising future.

Q. Then why did you try the Loop VR last year?

Its a very good one-time experience for customers. But if you want customers to use these as everyday products, they wont be good. Right now, when I wear VR headsets, I feel dizzy.

Q. So, how are you then going to differentiate your products? Everyone can bring specifications, and an average consumer will see very little difference between most smartphones. How does OnePlus stand out?

Yes, everyone can do specifications. But why do people choose Apple or Bentley? Because it pays attention to the details. And thats us, we care about the details. We will take a lot of time to ensure that our product is detail oriented.

The difference between a 200,000 RMB car and one that costs two million is in the details. Thats what were trying to achieve. One example is the notification drawer on the OnePlus 3T. Our engineers gave me ten versions of that and asked me to feel it for a whole day, to choose which one was the best.

Q. Is 10% higher performance, two hours extra battery life and a new front camera the upgrade a detail oriented company should be giving, then? Because neither the OnePlus 3 nor the OnePlus 3T will ever need their top speeds in practical usage, the OnePlus 3 has no lags either? So practically theres no difference between the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T.

So, one example is the launch speed for games. We have actually compared the OnePlus 3 with the Samsung Galaxy S7. For most games, the OP3 was faster, but for some games, with the F2FS format, we found it to be slower. So we redid that, and the launch speed on the OnePlus 3T is actually 48% higher than the Samsung Galaxy S7.

Q. So, Im pretty sure theres going to be no answer to this, but with 48% improvement in the OnePlus 3T, what do you plan for the OnePlus 4, then?

*smiles* OnePlus 4 will be way better, but I cant tell you more right now.

Q. Well, I expected that, but do you think the industry is saturated right now, and is that big an improvement even possible?

I dont think its saturated. Its unpredictable. Maybe therell be no innovation in the short term, but can you imagine what a smartphone will be like in ten years? Itll be totally different.

Q. But what are your expectations in the next one or two years?

Within the next one to two years there may not be a big change, but there will be change after that. Thats my personal perspective.

Q. A lot of the performance of the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T comes from OxygenOS. What are the changes expected there? What are you working on more?

So, most of the changes are in details in design. We have made a lot of changes in the design, which youll see if you look closely. We added a button to edit the Quick Settings menu, which wasnt there earlier. It made more sense for usability to have it this way. We dont actually mention these things to the customers, but the changes do make things more comfortable. And we added more functions to the Shelf screen, file manager etc.

Our goal is to give our customers something that is not original Android, but feels really good. When they use it, theyll feel good, and they dont know why, and they dont need to know why.

Q. When is the Android Nougat update due?

Our goal is to start upgrading the OnePlus 3 within next month.

Q. Im assuming it comes for the OnePlus 3T at the same time?

Yes.

Q. Lastly, do you plan to continue with this strategy, where you have a flagship and upgrade it a little bit, or is it still going to be a one-flagship strategy?

We will stick to the principle of one flagship per year. This is just with the OnePlus 3T, because we thought there could be some improvement. If we dont see any chance to improve our product in the second half of next year, then we wont do anything like this.

Buy Oneplus 3t from Amazon at Rs.29998
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Shares of ReNeuron are for brave investors only, said the Sunday Times' Inside the City column. The stem cell pioneer is scheduled to publish the results of second-phase clinical trials of its potential stroke paralysis treatment alongside its interim results on Monday. ReNeuron's therapy for stroke disability involves injecting CTX neural stem cells generated using the company's proprietary technologies into the patient's brain.

If the 21-patient pilot study, the worlds first fully regulated clinical trial of a neural stem cell therapy for disabled stroke patients, is a success then the company would progress to a final-stage trial in more patients and then look to turn it into a commercial product. After a fundraising in 2015, the company has 65.7m in the bank, which should provide for around two years' worth of future drug development. Fingers crossed, said the column, for ReNeuron as the rest of the pipeline is a lot less advanced than the CTX stroke disability candidate.

Clipper Logistics shares are worth holding, according to Questor in the Sunday Telegraph. Retail logistics is Clipper's bread and butter, with the rise and rise of internet shopping being a big boon, especially the need to remotely return items. Clipper says its Boomerang returns service is the best as it ensures goods are returned in a state where they are ready for resale, which saves retailers time. Marks & Spencer is a customer, while Clipper's 10-year contract with John Lewis includes operating its national returns centre.

This contract with John Lewis also includes click-and-collect services, where items are bought online and picked up in store. This service is also being opened up to other clients and is expected to be a growth driver, along with expansion in Europe sometimes on the back of contracts with existing UK clients. Sales have grown on average by a compound rate of around 31% in the last decade and a half, while profit margins have remained little altered - and are expected to be slightly boosted by the move into click and collect. First-half results last week indicated trading continues to be positive, with significant increases in activity in all sectors.

Income hunters looking for a long-term investment might buy RM Secured Direct Lending, said Midas in the Mail on Sunday, which is being floated by parent RM Capital in London with a planned 4% dividend next year rising to 6.5% from 2018, paid quarterly. The business gives 2-10m loans to SMEs and mid-sized outfits that have visible cash flows and are typically from non-cyclical industries, offering asset-backed lending secured against assets such as real estate or plant and machinery and/or income streams such as account receivables.

The fund is tapping into a market that has seen smaller firms struggled to borrow from high street banks if their financial needs are relatively complex. As a result, RM generally lends at rates of 8-12% due to their more complex nature and higher risk of small companies, which is how the fund can pay such a chunky dividend. Risk is spread across sectors and via the secured nurture of the loans.





Please note: Digital Look provides a round-up of news, tips and information that is impacting share prices and the market. Digital Look cannot take any responsibility for information provided by third parties. This is for your general information only and not intended to be relied upon by users in making an investment decision or any other decision. Please obtain a copy of the relevant publication and carry out your own research before considering acting on any of this information.






J.T. Tuimoloau's NIL value surges after win over Penn State

Ohio State defensive lineman J.T. Tuimoloau could see some very tangible benefits from his performance against Penn State.
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Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low near 60F. Winds light and variable.
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A Midway man has been charged in connection with the transportation, release or possession of live feral pigs in the state of Alabama.

Cordall Hurt, 24, of Midway was arrested after an investigation by Conservation Officers in the Division of Wildlife and Fresh water Fisheries (WFF) led to arrest warrants being issued for 16 people in three states.

Although hunting feral pigs is legal in Alabama, their live transport and release has been illegal in the state since 1997 according to Kevin Dodd, Chief of Enforcement with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Thirteen Alabama residents were arrested in multiple counties in the state. Counties were arrests took place included Barbour, Choctaw, Fayette, Marengo, Mobile, Monroe and Sumter Counties. Two additional arrests occurred in Florida and Mississippi where one violator was arrested in each state.

For almost two years, the WFF investigators concentrated on feral hog related hunting, trapping and sales activities to determine the extent of the transport or release of feral swine in Alabama. Their findings revealed an accepted culture among some hog hunters where laws governing possession or transport of live feral hogs were ignored.

Contrary to the law, some persons continue to trap pigs for live sale to others, and in some cases carry them across state lines, Dodd said. We documented feral pigs being trussed up and transported in car trunks, dog boxes, and back seats of vehicles for release elsewhere.

In some cases, pigs were purposefully mutilated by cutting off their ears or breaking out their teeth. This mutilation was done during the training and conditioning of hunting dogs. While the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources strongly supports lawful and humane hunting, it does not condone any activity that involves the live possession of feral hogs for the purpose of training dogs, expressed Dodd.

Dodd went on to say that despite the number of arrests in this investigation, much of the illegal transport of feral swine is conducted by individuals. We are not seeing a large organized effort with this violation. It seems to be pockets of individuals seeking to benefit, he noted.

According to a press release issued by Outdoor Alabama, feral swine have been documented in nearly every Alabama County where they cause extensive agricultural damages and compete with native wildlife. Economic damages are severe in many regions. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that feral swine in the United States cause more than $1.5 billion in damages and control costs each year. They can damage almost any commercial crop by foraging, feeding, chewing, rooting, and trampling it. This animal does not spare trees either. Hogs will disturb newly planted seedlings and damage larger trees by chewing roots or girdling them by continuously rubbing the bark.

In addition to the rapid reproduction rate of feral swine, much of their expansive growth is attributed to some hog hunters who catch, transport and release the animals for hunting and training hunting dogs.

As a deterrent, in 2015 the offense in Alabama was increased from a class C to a class B misdemeanor, which carries a mandatory fine of $2,500 and possible jail time of up to 180 days.

Dobb warns violators the WFF will continue to investigate and charge anyone who disregards the law relating to transport, release or live possession of feral swine. This is a prime example where one individuals simple violation can negatively affect numerous others, he said. We will continue to do everything possible to eliminate this illegal activity.
This past week I wrote about a package of voter suppression bills currently being blasted through the state legislature (HERE and HERE.) They are House Bills 6066, 6067, and 6068.

Heres a piece of what I wrote on Friday:

First, we have the voter suppression effort that I wrote about on Wednesday. This legislation does away with the option to sign an affidavit in lieu of showing a photo ID when voting. If this package of legislation  House Bills 6066, 6067, and 6068  becomes law, anyone without a photo ID will be required to go to their local clerks office within 10 days of the election to prove they are who they say they are. As the Detroit Free Press points out, this would effect thousands and thousands of voters [] Given the virtual non-existence of voter fraud, this is a solution in search of a problem. In fact, its a bald-faced voter suppression effort and nothing more. Its also a way to help Republican Lisa Lyons when she runs for Michigan Secretary of State in a few years. Shes term-limited now and was just elected Kent County Clerk. Shes widely expected to run for Secretary of State in a few years and is trying to make her mark now. People I have spoken with believe shes pushing this voter suppression legislation now as a way to get leverage to have her all but useless No-Excuse Absentee Voting bill passed, legislation she has been trying unsuccessfully to get through the legislature for some time. That legislation would allow people to vote absentee without an excuse as is currently required. However, they would still have to vote in-person making it a half-step toward expanding voting access at best. [] Lyons used her position as Chair of the House Elections Committee to (a) introduce the legislation on Tuesday, (b) hold a single, unscheduled hearing to take testimony on Wednesday, and (c) hold a second unscheduled Elections Committee meeting on Thursday to pass the legislation and send it to the full House to be voted on as early as next week.

After the original bill left the Elections Committee, it had one very important change inserted in it. Its this sentence that is in the modified version (Substitute H-5) and NOT in the original version:

SEC. 523C. FOR THE 2016-2017 FISCAL YEAR, $10,000,000.00 IS APPROPRIATED FROM THE GENERAL FUND TO THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE FOR ELECTION MODERNIZATIONS, VOTER EDUCATION, AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE VOTER IDENTIFICATION PROVISIONS.

That $10 million appropriate makes the legislation referendum-proof (or as I like to call it, Democracy-proof), immune from being overturned by the citizens of Michigan through our referendum process. Its the same sort of bullshit Michigan Republicans pulled when they replaced the original Emergency Managers law just a few short weeks after voters shot it down in the 2012 election as well as a bill allowing wolf hunting in Michigan and their recent attempt to do away with straight-ticket voting in our state.

To put this very bluntly, Republicans do NOT want the citizens of this state interfering with their complete and total consolidation of political power in Michigan.

Make sure your state legislators hear from you on this issue. Call your State Representative and Senator and make sure that he or she votes AGAINST all three of these disgusting pieces of voter suppression legislation. You can find your Senator HERE and your Representative HERE.
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A raging wildfire in a Canadian tar sands town has forced tens of thousands of evacuations and destroyed several residential neighborhoods, offering a bleak vision of a fiery future if the fossil fuel era is not brought to an end.

Officials estimate 17,000 citizens fled north to industry sites. Another 35,000 headed south, including 18,000 people enroute to Edmonton. Photo credit: Holly Ayeasrt

The blaze in Fort McMurray, Alberta, started over the weekend, doubled in size on Monday, and grew into an inferno on Tuesday. It is expected to worsen on Wednesday as strong wind gusts and record high temperatures persist.

Its apocalyptic, John OConnor, a family physician who has treated patients with health problems in the region related to tar sands pollution, told the National Observer.

There was smoke everywhere and it was raining ash, evacuee Shams Rehman said to the Globe and Mail after he and his family reached an evacuation center in the resort town of Lac La Biche, Alberta. Ive never seen anything like it.

Brian Jean, the leader of Albertas opposition party and a resident of the city, said much of downtown Fort McMurray was going up in flames: My home of the last 10 years and the home I had for 15 years before that are both destroyed.

According to the Edmonton Journal:

Officials estimate 17,000 citizens fled north to industry sites. Another 35,000 headed south, including 18,000 people enroute to Edmonton.

Traffic was bumper-to-bumper as people packed families and pets into cars, trucks and campers. Line-ups snaked around gas stations and late in the evening, RCMP were advising they would travel the highway with gas to assist stranded motorists. Wednesday morning, the Alberta government took to social media to say that it would be escorting a fuel tanker along Highway 63 to help people who were still waiting for gas.

No casualties have been reported.

Fire season came early to Western Canada this year; already there have been 311 fires in Alberta, according to the provinces Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and approximately 192 fires in British Columbia.

Experts attribute the early onset and extremity of the fires to human-caused climate change, exacerbated by a strong El Nino effect, which led to a drier and warmer winter with lower-than-average snowfall.

Because spring came about a month early here, we are already in the middle of our prime fire season for the spring, Mike Flannigan, a wildfire expert at the University of Alberta, told Global News. Given the already dry conditions means its easier for fires, once they sustain themselves, to go underground until it gets windy and they re-appear.

Furthermore, University of Lethbridge professor Judith Kulig told the publication, the whole aspect of climate change and global warmingis then interrelated [to] things such as insect infestation, so pine beetle increases because its not a cold enough winter. The trees are infested and drier and more prone to fire.

#ymmfire Us getting out of Beacon Hill! My childhood home and everything I've ever known is burnt to the ground.  pic.twitter.com/eY1KmCVIvi  Androgynous Boi (@androgynousking) May 4, 2016

At Climate Central on Wednesday, senior science writer Brian Kahn put it succinctly:

The wildfire is the latest in a lengthening lineage of early wildfires in the northern reaches of the globe that are indicative of a changing climate. As the planet continues to warm, these types of fires will likely only become more common and intense as spring snowpack disappears and temperatures warm.

Fort McMurray is home to the Athabasca tar sands, the largest single oil deposit in the world, containing an estimated 174 trillion barrels of bitumen. Tar sands oil production is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada, and greatly increases the countrys contribution to global warming.

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Were going to be dealing with an onslaught of daily emergencies during the Donald Trump years. Already its begunif theres nothing going on (or in some cases when there is), our leader often begins the day with a tweet to stir the pot and suddenly were debating whether burning the flag should lose you your citizenship.

These crises will get worse once he has powerfrom day to day well have to try and protect vulnerable immigrants or deal with the latest outrage from the white supremacist alt-reich or confront the latest self-dealing scandal in the upper reaches of the Tower. It will be a game (though not a fun one), for 48 months, of trying to preserve as many people and as much of the Constitution as possible.

Apollo 17s Blue Marble. NASA

And if were very lucky, at the end of those four years, we might be able to go back to something that resembles normal life. Much damage will have been done in the meantime, but perhaps not irreparable damage. Obamacare will be gone, but something like itmaybe even something betterwill be resurrectable. The suffering in the meantime will be real, but it wont make the problem harder to solve, assuming reason someday returns. Thats, I guess, the good news: that someday normal life may resume.

But even that slight good news doesnt apply to the question of climate change. Its very likely that by the time Trump is done well have missed whatever opening still remains for slowing down the trajectory of global warmingwell have crossed thresholds from which theres no return. In this case, the damage hes promising will be permanent, for two reasons.

The first is the most obvious: The adversary here is ultimately physics, which plays by its own rules. As we continue to heat the planet, we see that planet changing in ways that turn into feedback loops. If you make it hot enough to melt Arctic ice (and so far weve lost about half of our supply) then one of the side effects is removing a nice white mirror from the top of the planet. Instead of that mirror reflecting 80 percent of the suns rays out to space, youve now got blue water that absorbs most of the incoming rays of the sun, amping up the heat. Oh, and as that water warms, the methane frozen in its depths eventually begins to meltand methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Even if, someday, we get a president back in power whos willing to try and turn down the coal, gas and oil burning, there will be nothing we can do about that melting methane. Some things are forever, or at least for geologic time.

Theres another reason too, however, and thats that the international political mechanisms Trump wants to smash cant easily be assembled again, even with lots of future good will. It took immense diplomatic efforts to reach the Paris climate accords25 years of negotiating with endless setbacks. The agreement itself is a jury-rigged kludge, but at least it provides a mechanism for action. It depends on each country voluntarily doing its part, though, and if the biggest historic source of the planets carbon decides not to play, its easy to guess that an awful lot of other leaders will decide that theyd just as soon give in to their fossil fuel interests too.

So Trump is preparing to make a massive bet: a bet that the scientific consensus about climate change is wrong, and that the other 191 nations of the world are wrong as well. Its a bet based on literally nothingwhen The New York Times asked him about global warming, he started mumbling about a physicist uncle of his who died in 1985. The joband it may not be a possible jobis for the rest of us to figure out how to make the inevitable loss of this bet as painless as possible.

It demands fierce resistance to his sillinessclearly his people are going to kill Obamas Clean Power Plan, but perhaps they can be shamed into simply ignoring but not formally abrogating the Paris accords. This is work not just for activists, but for the elites that Trump actually listens to. Heres where we need whats left of the establishment to be weighing in: Fortune 500 executives, Wall Streetersanyone who knows how stupid a bet this is.

But we also need to be working hard on other levels. The fossil fuel industry is celebrating Trumps election, and rightly sobut we can continue to make their lives at least a little difficult, through campaigns like fossil fuel divestment and through fighting every pipeline and every coal port. The federal battles will obviously be harder, and we may lose even victories like Keystone. But there are many levers of power, and the ones closer to home are often easier to pull.

We also have to work at state and local levels to support what we want. The last election, terrible as it was, showed that renewable energy is popular even in red statesFlorida utilities lost their bid to sideline solar energy, for instance. The hope is that we can keep the buildout of sun and wind, which is beginning to acquire real momentum, on track; if so, costs will keep falling to the point where simple economics may overrule even Trumpish ideology.

And of course we have to keep communicating, all the time, about the crisisusing the constant stream of signals from the natural world to help people understand the folly of our stance. As I write this, the Smoky Mountain town of Gatlinburg is on fire, with big hotels turned to ash at the end of a devastating drought. Mother Nature will provide us an endless string of teachable moments, and some of them will break throughits worth remembering that the Bush administration fell from favor as much because of Katrina as Iraq.

None of these efforts will prevent massive, and perhaps fatal, damage to the effort to constrain climate change. Its quite possible, as many scientists said the day after the election, that weve lost our best chance. But we dont know precisely how the physics will play out, and every ton of carbon we keep out of the atmosphere will help.

And amidst this long ongoing emergency, as I said at the beginning, weve got to help with all the daily crises. This winter may find climate activists spending as much time trying to block deportations as pipelines; we may have to live in a hot world, but we dont have to live in a jackbooted one, and the more community we can preserve, the more resilient our communities will be. Its hard not to despairbut then, it wasnt all that easy to be realistically hopeful about our climate even before Trump. This has always been a battle against great odds. Theyre just steeper now.

Reposted with permission from our media associate Moyers & Company.
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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.
http://www.elkgrovenews.net/2016/12/sacramento-police-investigating.html

Early this morning the Sacramento Police Department responded to the 100 block of Redondo Avenue in the Noralto neighborhood on the city's north side regarding the report of shooting.





Upon arrival, officers located an unresponsive male adult seated inside a vehicle parked in the driveway of the residence. Officers began life saving efforts until fire personnel arrived on scene.





The Sacramento Fire Department responded to the location and pronounced the victim deceased. A male adult passenger, who was also seated in the vehicle, sustained a non-life threatening injury and was treated at the scene.





Homicide Detectives and Crime Scene Investigators were summoned to the scene to begin their investigation.





Based on preliminary information, it was determined the victims were parked in a driveway when they were approached by a male suspect armed with a firearm who fired multiple rounds into the vehicle fatally wounding one victim. The suspect fled the scene on foot.





This investigation remains active and no arrests have been made. Detectives have not yet established a specific motive for the shooting, but believe this is an isolated incident.





The identity of the deceased victim will be released by the Sacramento County Coroners Office.





The Sacramento Police Department encourages any witnesses with information regarding this homicide to contact the dispatch center at (916) 264-5471 or Sacramento Valley Crime Stoppers at (916) 443-HELP (4357) or submit an anonymous tip using the free P3 Tips smartphone app. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.





December 3, 2016 |
Linn County Sheriff's Office deputies arrested a Marysville, Washington, woman after a robbery that took place early Saturday afternoon in the 23000 block of Highway 99E, north of Harrisburg.

According to a news release, a deputy was responding nearby to a reported trespass in progress when the robbery call came in. The officer was able to make contact with the male caller, who was unlocking a propane tank when a woman the sheriff's office later identified as Dawn Allison Ferguson, a 40-year-old transient, approached him from behind and grabbed him around the neck. She then jammed an unknown object  ostensibly a weapon  against his back and demanded the keys to his truck.

The skeptical victim turned around and struck Ferguson, who then fled toward the Knife River property on Peoria Road. After a brief chase and struggle with deputies, she was taken into custody. Officers learned she didn't have a gun and may have used a cigarette lighter to simulate one.

Ferguson was taken to the Linn County Jail and charged with second-degree robbery, three counts of second-degree criminal trespass, and resisting arrest.

No one was injured in the incident.
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Growthpoint Properties today announced it will subscribe for an initial 26.9% stake in London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market listed Globalworth Real Estate Investment Limited, the largest owner of office space in Romania.

Its 186,4 million investment in the Romanian-based real estate developer, owner and manager launches Growthpoints Central and Eastern European (CEE) strategy with a conservative market entry point and a high-growth investment platform in a transaction that Growthpoint expects to be accretive to its distributions.

Globalworths 1bn property portfolio includes mostly modern A-grade offices, industrial properties, a residential complex, as well as developments. Its portfolio is concentrated in Bucharest, Romania, and underpinned by Euro-denominated leases with many multinational business brands.

Globalworth is internally managed by a 70-strong professional team led by CEO, major shareholder and founder Ioannis Papalekas, who has established a respected 15-year track record in all aspects of property in Romania. Following Growthpoints initial subscription, Mr Papalekas will continue to own 25.7% of the enlarged share capital of Globalworth.

With its subscription for new shares, Growthpoints significant capital injection into the company will provide the key to unlocking exciting new growth, strategies and prospects for Globalworth.

Immediately, it enables Globalworth to fully develop and lease up its excellently located 87,800sqm three-tower A-grade Globalworth Campus multitenant office project in northern Bucharest as well as supporting Globalworth to pursue attractive pre-identified investment opportunities in Romania and the broader CEE region.

The transaction also provides a platform for greater growth through quality developments and accretive acquisitions. In addition, it will enable Globalworth to draw on a deeper pool of equity and access alternative and potentially more cost-effective sources of funding, including from international debt capital markets, to support its future growth. Globalworth will also benefit from Growthpoints significant institutional investor following and large and diversified shareholder base.

Further, with access to Growthpoints institutional knowledge, Globalworth will introduce enhanced governance, an active dividend policy and build its institutional investment appeal with the prospect of greater liquidity for Globalworth's shares.

For Growthpoint, the transaction advances its international strategy of yield-enhancing investment alongside local skilled and experienced management teams. The partnership leverages the extensive industry, geographic and investment expertise of its partners.

Commenting on the subscription, Norbert Sasse, CEO of Growthpoint Properties, says: It has taken us some time to find the right partners and expertise to create a powerful platform for high-growth CEE property investment. Growthpoint is thrilled to embark on this partnership with Globalworth as an established, high-quality, real estate business. It has the people, properties, skills, experience, opportunities and network for growth. We look forward to being part of its phenomenal growth story, to the benefit of our shareholders and investors.

Mr Sasse adds: We believe Globalworth represents a suitable investment strategy for Growthpoint to access opportunities in CEE real estate markets. It allows us to further diversify our assets internationally and harness opportunities for growth that support sustainable value for our stakeholders.

Commenting on Growthpoints investment, Mr Papalekas says: We are delighted to welcome Growthpoint as a major strategic shareholder to our company. We believe that this transaction will transform our business and we look forward to working together with Growthpoint towards creating one of the leading institutional real estate investors in the region.

Growthpoint sees good opportunities in CEE markets, with their relatively high real estate yields and growing demand for quality, modern commercial property. The region represents the globes 11th largest economy. It achieved 3.1% real GDP growth in 2015, nearly double that of the Euro area at 1.6%. Whats more, its growth is expected to exceed 3% over the next five years. This presents a compelling proposition compared with South Africas sub-1% growth.

The CEE regions growth is being driven by a young, skilled and cost-effective labour market, competitive industries, EU funded investment in infrastructure, greenfield foreign direct investment in manufacturing, and business process outsourcing from multinational corporations.

There are few assets in the market that meet the firm demand for quality, investment-grade offices, explains Mr Sasse. This presents exciting development opportunities in these jurisdictions, especially as multinational corporates are committing on long-term contracts.

With this in mind, Growthpoint sought a partner with an established property portfolio as well as a development acumen.

Growthpoints subscription for the initial 26.9% stake in Globalworth is below the mandatory offer threshold of 30%, and will be funded in Euros. In terms of the deal, Globalworth has agreed to issue Growthpoint a further 1,000,000 fully-paid up fee shares by 31 December 2017, thereby increasing Growthpoints stake in the enlarged share capital of Globalworth to 25.3 million shares or 27.7%. For Growthpoints shareholders, Globalworths growth will be earnings enhancing over time.

The transaction is subject to the usual conditions precedent, including approvals from the South African Reserve Bank and Globalworths shareholders. Already, irrevocable commitments in favour of the transaction had been received from shareholders holding more than 75% of shares in issue.

Growthpoint is the largest South African primary listed REIT and strives to be a leading international property company providing space to thrive. It creates value for all stakeholders with innovative and sustainable property solutions. It is the 35th largest company on the JSE, Growthpoint is a Top 5 constituent of the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Emerging Index and has been included in the FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Index for seven years running. It owns and manages a diversified portfolio of 530 property assets including 467 properties in South Africa, 63 properties in Australia through its investment in Growthpoint Properties Australia (GOZ) and a 50% interest in the properties at V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.
The Pound to Euro exchange rate continued to edge away from Mondays lows on Tuesday afternoon, but its gains were soft and the pair remained around half a cent below the weeks opening levels.

Demand for the Euro became even weaker later in the day as Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano suggested that Italy could see a snap election as soon as February 2017.

GBP/EUR struggled to reach the key level of 1.19 but edged higher on 1.18 throughout the day.

After the GBP/USD exchange rate hit a two-month best we ask does the British Pound have further scope for gains in the near-term?

Hopes of state support for the Italian banking sector have helped to keep the Euro on a stronger footing after its initial fall in response to the result of the constitutional referendum.

Despite the latest US service data proving encouraging, having bettered expectations in November, and the odds of an imminent Fed rate hike remaining high the US Dollar has generally struggled against its rivals.

GBP/EUR trended over half a cent lower on Monday afternoon as Sterling was weakened by Brexit jitters while the Euro recovered solidly from its lows.

The Euro was also able to recover against the US Dollar. The US Dollars strength was limited against the Pound and Euro despite the days composite PMI from ISM coming in well above expectations.

Italys No vote on constitutional reforms triggered some marked volatility for the Euro exchange rates, although the bearish mood was somewhat muted by the reassuring news of the far-rights defeat in the re-run Austrian presidential election.

Confidence in the US Dollar has remained heightened, nevertheless, with expectations for the afternoons services data positive.

Last week the GBP/EUR failed to hold a high of 1.1941 but ended the week above opening levels of 1.1779.

The pound to euro rate chart below shows the clear trajectory in the last period:

GBP/USD saw a similar movement, briefly hitting 1.2692 - but Sterlings gains here were a little sturdier as the US Dollar was limited after weeks of bullish behaviour.

Below you can see the pound to dollar exchange rate's graph for the last week and the period prior to that:

Pound (GBP) Forecast: Supreme Court to Hear Governments Article 50 Appeal

The Pound trended sturdily last week and was bolstered numerous times by new hopes that the UK would somehow be able to remain in the European Unions single market following the Brexit process.

While the British currency was sold off from its best levels towards the end of the week, it continued to perform well and edged higher against the Euro and the US Dollar, sustaining gains against both throughout the week.

This could continue to give the Pound support in the coming week too, but Mondays session will be vital and is likely to set the tone for the whole weeks GBP trade trajectory.

The High Court recently ruled that UK Parliament must be able to vote on Article 50 before it is activated by Prime Minister Theresa Mays administration  but the government appealed this decision.

UK Supreme Court will hear the appeal on Monday, which could cause additional ongoing uncertainty about when the Brexit process will begin and how it will begin. This could undermine much of Sterlings recent strength.

Euro (EUR) Rate Forecast: Eurozone Politics and ECB in Focus

Economic data is likely to have less of a impact on the Pound Euro exchange rate this week in light of looming political events.

Citizens in Italy and Austria will take to the polls today, and markets are eagerly anticipating the results of both votes.

Italy will be voting for a constitutional amendment, but the main attraction here is that if citizens vote No the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, may resign and leave Italy open for the election of far-right nationalist party the Five Star Movement.

Similarly, Austrias Presidential election re-run could lead to the election of far-right populist Norbert Hofer.

These populism-influenced votes could lead to stronger protectionism in key Eurozone nations. The possibility of a nationalist nation pulling out of the bloc is currently seen as the single biggest threat to the Euro project.

This has kept the shared currency weighed down in the last week despite strong ecostats, and traders will definitely sell the Euro on Monday if Sundays votes end with a populist result.

Traders are also anxious about the coming weeks European Central Bank (ECB) policy meeting, which is the date the ECB is expected to clarify its outlook on monetary policy for 2017.

The bank may extend the length of its stimulus packages which would weaken the Euro against the Pound and US Dollar.

US Dollar Currency Projections: Will Fed Rate Hike Bets Keep USD Sturdy?

While the coming weeks US datasets are to be less influential than last weeks slew of optimistic stats, US Dollar (USD) exchange rates may have the underlying factors they need to hold its ground regardless.

Last week, the US Dollar was largely able to hold its ground despite most of its November bullishness running low. Strong US data and Federal Reserve rate hike bets kept the currency afloat, but key psychological resistance kept it from advancing further.

Next week could see this trend continue. Unless some Trump-related news shocks investors and send markets into a panic, the US Dollar is likely to perform solidly with under two weeks to go until Decembers Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision.

Bets of a rate hike have been above 90% for over two weeks and are unlikely to fall far even if next weeks stats disappoint.

As a result, even if the Pound advances against the US Dollar its gains may be limited.
The Pound to South African Rand exchange rate struggled to hold its ground on Tuesday afternoon. At the time of writing, it trended near its lowest levels in a week despite the Pounds decent performance against other currencies.

Weaker prices in oil as well gave the Rand space to breathe as traders indulged in an emerging market currency rally throughout the afternoon.

GBP/ZAR was on track to lose around 0.5% on the day overall, after hitting a new weekly low of 17.32 in the early afternoon.

After South Africa narrowly escaped a credit downgrade from S&Ps the Rand has found some support, leaving the GBP ZAR exchange rate on a weaker footing in spite of continued political turmoil.

Even though President Jacob Zumas attempt to challenge a report into alleged corruption the Rand has been able to regain ground against the Pound, although political uncertainty looks set to maintain downside bias for the currency.

The GBP ZAR exchange rate has remained on a volatile trend in the early week, despite fresh hopes that the UK will avoid a hard form of Brexit.

The Pound to South African Rand exchange rate fluctuated within a wide range on Monday afternoon.

However, it trended with an upward bias after oil prices began to increase again, limiting demand for emerging-market currencies like the Rand.

Political uncertainty also weighed on the Rand throughout the day, as South Africas President Jacob Zuma pushed to challenge a report of corruption against him.

After South Africa narrowly escaped a ratings downgrade from Standard & Poors, although the agency maintained a negative outlook on the economy, the Rand found a fresh rallying point.

Even so, Monday morning has seen the Pound to Rand exchange rate trending higher, thanks to a renewed bout of market risk aversion

Last week, GBP/ZAR softened despite sterling rising elsewhere on account of an extended rally lasting throughout Thursday and Friday.

This mass investor optimism was triggered by Brexit Minister David Davis suggestion that the UK might be able to remain in the single market after leaving the EU, via payments.

Although this flew in the face of Leave campaign pledges to send less money to the EU after Brexit, it still bolstered demand for the Pound considerably.

Pound Outlook Positive on Services PMI Prediction

The first UK data release of next week is set to be a big one  Mondays November services PMI. Services is the biggest of the UKs contributing sectors, so the current forecasts for a slight rise bode well for GBP traders.

Following from this news will be Wednesdays October manufacturing and industrial production figures, which are presently predicted to rise on the year in both cases.

The weeks closing UK data will be the October trade balance, which is set to show a deficit reduction, as well as the positively predicted October annual construction output stat.

South African Rand (ZAR) Demand Knocked after Zuma Challenge Quashed

While the Rand was able to close last week in a strong position, it was given a serious blow earlier on when President Jacob Zuma managed to dodge another challenge to his leadership.

This had been due to come from Zumas own ANC party, though as it happened, the ANC ultimately decided against acting to remove the controversial leader.

The Rand managed to secure some late support from the November Barclays manufacturing PMI, which rose from 45.9 to 48.3, above expectations.

Rand Pound (ZAR GBP) Rate Forecast to Slump on Poor GDP Predictions

The coming week does not look especially bright for the Rand Pound exchange rate, given that Tuesdays Q3 GDP growth rate figures are already expected to drop to 0.3% on the quarter and year.

Following on from this pessimistic prediction on Thursday, the October manufacturing and mining production results are expected to fall, which could prove disastrous for future ZA metal exports.

Closing off the week on Friday morning will be the Q4 consumer confidence printing, which is currently set to drop to -13 points.

UK Focus: Pay to Stay or Pick and Mix? Single Market Options Discussed by UK Trade Minister

The key issue of the previous week, whether the UK will be able to stay in the single market after leaving the EU, has been firmly in focus since it was first announced on Thursday.

Commenting on how the matter could play out has been Trade Minister Greg Hands, who has said;

You can choose which markets, which products the customs unions affect and which they dont -- so there isnt a binary thing of being inside the customs union or outside of the customs union. The history of international trade has got all kinds of examples of customs unions
The campaign for Ann Roe, who is running for Congress against Lyin' Bryan Steil has come out with the best one-liner of this cycle so far: I can't argue...

1 year ago
When George Green first left San Antonio more than two decades ago, the city lacked a professional theater company aligned with Actors Equity, the national union for actors and stage managers.

Nothing had changed when he came home 26 years later in July to begin his new job as CEO and artistic director of The Playhouse San Antonio.

Part of his charge when he took the gig was to change that, transforming a space that has been a community theater since the building opened in 1930 into a professional house that pays performers a living wage.

Of the 10 largest cities in the U.S., San Antonio is the only one without an Equity house, and the only large city in the state without one. There are four each in Houston, Fort Worth, Austin and Dallas. Irving and Addison, which both are near Dallas, each has one, for a total of 18 across the state.

Like symphonies, large performing arts centers and concert halls, Equity playhouses are considered by many to be one of the requirements for a truly cultured city.

More Information Equity contracts Actors' Equity offers a range of contracts, including agreements for those who work in cabarets, children's theaters and Disneyworld. The most basic level is the small professional theater agreement, which covers commercial and nonprofit spaces with less than 350 seats. Its current provisions include: Pay: In a theater's first year with the union, the minimum weekly salary is $236 for actors and $280 for stage managers for rehearsal and production time for a show with up to four performances each week. In addition, the contract calls for $158 weekly for health insurance and supplemental worker's comp accounts, as well as "weekly contributions thereto in an amount equal to 8 percent of all gross salary payments made to the actor" for the actor's pension. Other hiring requirements: Dance captains are required for any show with choreography or musical staging; they are paid a weekly minimum ranging from $47.17 to $136.78 plus 20 percent of an actor's salary for the equivalent number of performances. Any time that there is stage combat, a fight captain is to be assigned from the company, and he or she receives a minimum paycheck bump of $10 per week. Some shows - including complex productions with casts of 10 or more - also call for an Equity assistant stage manager, who is to be paid a minimum ranging from $256 to $710 each week. Cost of flying: Actors who agree to "extraordinary risk" will receive a minimum of an additional $10 per week. "Extraordinary risk" includes acrobatic feats, working with trapezes or similar "contrivances;" the use of or exposure to smoke, mobile scenery, excessive heights or fire; and performing on potentially dangerous sets. Costuming costs: Any actor who provides their own costume pieces is to be paid a rental fee, ranging from $1.50 per week for a nightgown, jeans or a bra to $18 for a complete outfit. If the actor agrees to a change in hairstyle - including shaving his or her head or facial hair - the producer takes on the cost of the change and of maintaining the look throughout the run of the show. See More Collapse

For a lot of theaters, being able to say youre an Equity theater is a point of pride in their growth and development, and most major cities do have one or more Equity theaters, said Gail Gabler, western regional director/assistant executive director for the union. We would look forward to having that in San Antonio.

The Playhouse isnt the only San Antonio theater working toward that goal. Classic Theatre, which was founded in 2008, has been quietly laying the groundwork for that transformation, as well.

Getting there will take a lot of money, elbow grease and time. Union contracts set strict standards for items such as work hours, wages and a variety of fees and theater building requirements. For most nonprofit community theaters used to scraping by on community donations and goodwill for directors, tech crews, costumes and set pieces  even theater space rental fees  the cost of a union contract is substantial. It can more than triple the cost of producing a show.

Both Classic and The Playhouse pay actors a stipend now, from $250 to $750 and $150 to $600, respectively, for the run of a show. The majority of community theaters in San Antonio, however, pay their actors nothing.

Still, the stipends come nowhere near Equity scale, which starts at $236 a week for rehearsal and production time. Thats just one of the many costs that would increase with a union contract, which also requires union stage managers and pay for choreographers, as well as reimbursement for actors who provide their own costume pieces.

Barring a massive infusion of cash, Green expects it will take six to 10 years for The Playhouse to make that move, and the folks at Classic have set a timeline of three to five years.

But with so many union playhouses already in the state  and given how nearby and vibrant the theater and film community is in Austin  many in the San Antonio arts community question whether the Classics and Greens goal can be achieved. With such a small pool of corporate donors, relative to other Texas cities, can a theater here  much less two  drum up enough corporate funding to operate on Equity contracts full-time?

Without the theater union and with a tepid-at-best market for other acting and film jobs, San Antonio loses much of its homegrown talent to cities around the county with much more robust theater, film and commercial markets. Perhaps the biggest rival is Austin, an easy round trip for S.A. actors who are looking for auditions and jobs.

As a world-class city, this is one area in which we dont yet measure up to other cities, said Bart Roush, who is on the Classic Theatre board and who has worked across the country as a professional stage manager.

San Antonio native J. Robert Moore is a new member of the union. One of his first big theater experiences came when he was 15 and appeared in Camelot at The Playhouse (then known as the San Pedro Playhouse). More recently, he was in Classic Theatres 2010 staging of Waiting for Godot and he directed Stage Kiss in the Cellar Theater at The Playhouse in January.

He weighed Equity membership for a long time before deciding to join.

For me, I realized that if I was going to be (working in theater) full time, I wasnt going to be able to afford that $200 stipend for rehearsals and the run of the show, said Moore, 30. I didnt have the luxury to be part of it as a hobby.

The (union) card doesnt stand for talent, but the card does say I have jumped through hoops to get here, and I have some experience.

He moved back to San Antonio after six years in New York to pursue a graduate degree in directing at Texas State University. Hes gotten work in other cities but would like to continue living here.

I think San Antonio, unfortunately, loses a lot of talent every year because there is no Equity theater here, and there are no opportunities for actors to make a living out of their art, he said. In my dreams, I would never have left San Antonio.

What is Equity theater?

Equity theaters operate under seasonal, ongoing contracts with the 50,000-member Actors Equity. The contracts require theaters to commit to using a set number of Equity members in all of their productions.

It doesnt mean that every actor on stage in an Equity house belongs to the union. Non-Equity members can perform in Equity theaters, but union members conly can perform at non-Equity houses with a guest artist agreement.

There are about 200 Equity members in South and Central Texas, Gabler said. And should San Antonio reach its union goal, that number could increase.

Both The Playhouse and Classic have hired Equity actors from time to time, working with guest or special appearance contracts.

Equity contracts call for weekly paychecks rather than stipends, making union members lives a little less perilous financially, said Laura Walberg, the Austin-based liaison for the union.

When someone has a 9-to-5 (job), theres a level of security, Walberg said. Being an actor, that doesnt exist. You are on a constant search to find your next paycheck. Being a part of the union helps cushion that difficult part somewhat by making sure, when you get a job, youre ensured a base minimum wage, you have the opportunity to get affordable health and dental insurance, and you are protected by basic working and living conditions.

Texas is a right-to-work state, meaning that, by state law, union membership or nonmembership cannot be factored into hiring decisions. That doesnt alter the way that Equity operates here, Walberg said.

Normally in New York, if youre offered a job in an Equity show, its expected that you will join the union, she said. But with Texas being a right-to-work state, it is entirely plausible to be offered an Equity contract in an Equity theater, but not be required to join the union.

Steps toward Equity

Both The Playhouse and Classic slowly have been laying the groundwork to become Equity houses. The Playhouse has upgraded some areas of the building, including installing a shower and putting in separate dressing rooms for men and women in its downstairs Cellar Theater.

Those changes were made during Asia Ciaravinos three-year run as president and CEO of the theater, which ended in December when she left to become the chief operating officer for the citys Tricentennial Commission.

Those were all on the path so that we could make sure that we were giving our Equity actors what they needed for their contracts, Ciaravino said. We really tried to build that basic foundation so that we could go in a direction of working with corporations to continue to update the space.

Among the steps that are being taken now is a national search for a development director who will focus on fundraising, as well as an upgrade for the ticketing system.

Were creating that infrastructure, Green said. Its like putting plumbing under a concrete foundation.  You see a lot of work that you wont appreciate for another two years.

Classic, too, has been preparing. Kelly Hilliard Roush, Classics executive director since 2015 and a member of the union, is now a full-time employee, and, in September, she hired Cynthia Langston as the companys first development director. Both moves were made possible by the companys first Kronkosky Charitable Foundation grant of $50,000, which should open doors for other donors, said Langston.

When you get a Kronkosky grant, thats a real benchmark. Its like the gold standard, the seal of approval, if you will, said Langston, who has been involved with various San Antonio nonprofits since 2000.

In addition, Hilliard Roush has hired stage managers, a costumer and a lighting designer for the entire 2016-17 season rather than hiring production-by-production.

It does feel like theres been a lot of growth, she said.

The companies also are looking at ways to increase audiences. The Playhouse, which will produce 10 shows in 2016-17, averages around 35,000 to 40,000 patrons each year. Greens goal is to at least double that and to produce more shows each season.

Classic, which typically presents a four-show season with smaller productions dropped in as its Classic Presents series, averages around 4,000 people each season.

The company plans to increase the number of performances to get those numbers up. It sold out every performance of its season opener, The House on Mango Street  a first for the company.

Funding

The Playhouses current budget is $1,149,565. Green would like to see it grow to between $2 million and $3 million annually. Classics budget grew from $200,000 last season to $264,000 for 2016-17.

Neither theaters budget is big enough to cover an Equity payroll.

You have to have an Equity stage manager, you have to have union people backstage, said Ciaravino. There are a lot of layers to that puzzle that will increase the cost of each show.

At Classic, the production budget for a midsize show is about $20,000, Hilliard Roush said. The cost would grow to about $75,000 under the small professional theater agreement.

This size budget would provide an Equity actor a salary of $400-$450 a week which, as you can imagine, is still not a lot to live on, she said. There are higher-tier contract levels that we would hope to grow into to provide a professional salary.  This would also include increasing fees for director, designer, crew and some increased budgets for the set, costumes, etc. That would push budgets for an average show over $100,000.

At The Playhouse, Green estimates that operating under Equity contracts would require the budget for actor pay alone to jump to around $500,000 annually.

Covering such expenses takes corporate cash. Classic receives city funding, but does not have any corporate sponsorships, Hilliard Roush said. She does expect them to come.

Money will follow mission, she said. If we are doing our mission, and it is the time (to transition to Equity)  which we believe it is  then the other things will follow. We feel that weve taken a sizable leap this year, so in the next two years  once it starts, there really is the ability for it to explode.

The Playhouse does have some corporate support, and it receives some city funding, as well. The program for Beauty and the Beast, the theaters most recent production on the Russell Hill Rogers stage, included thank yous to H-E-B, Whataburger, Frost, NuStar and the Valero Energy Foundation, among others.

Green declined to say how much the theater receives in corporate dollars, but a 2011 federal tax form showed the biggest donation was $25,000 from the Capital Group Cos., an investment firm. The return also notes $10,000 each from H-E-B and Valero.

Much more is needed, Ciaravino said.

Until corporations are able to give at larger levels  Im talking five and six figures  we wont be able to achieve Equity membership, Ciaravino said. Theater is very expensive.  Just as any professional should be paid so that they can make a living wage, this is what were looking at when we look at Equity. Were not at a place yet where corporate donors understand what it costs to do that.

One of the challenges to boosting corporate funding is that there are fewer large companies here than in other top-10 cities. Of the 54 Fortune 500 companies based in Texas, only five are in San Antonio: Valero Energy Corp., Tesoro, CST Brands, USAA and iHeartMedia (formerly CC Media Holdings). By contrast, Houston has 25 and Dallas has nine.

On the flip side, Austin is home to just one Fortune 500 company  Whole Foods Market  and has four Equity companies. And Fort Worth has two Fortune 500 companies  American Airlines Group and D.R. Horton  and has four Equity companies.

San Antonio has traditionally been challenged by having the usual suspects (doing all the philanthropic giving). And certainly, the Tobin Endowment is high on the list of the usual suspects, and thats good because thats the business were in, said J. Bruce Bugg, chairman and trustee of the Tobin Endowment. But I would say that the base of philanthropic support coming from San Antonio is expanding daily, just as the population of San Antonio is expanding daily, and San Antonio has popped to the top of a lot of national charts from a business standpoint. With prosperity comes a broadening base of potential philanthropic support.

NuStar Energy, which has supported The Playhouse, also is among the usual suspects, as is the Greehey Family Foundation, founded in 2004 by NuStar Chairman Bill Greehey.

NuStar and the Greehey Family Foundation (GFF) have always been supportive of our major arts organizations and initiatives. In fact, while we prioritize health and human services and education because of the tremendous social needs in our community, NuStar and the GFF have given well over $4 million to arts and cultural projects in San Antonio in recent years, said Mary Rose Brown, executive vice president and chief administrative officer for NuStar, via email.

Not every dollar for the move to Equity needs to come from local coffers. Becoming an Equity space also opens the door to national funding sources that are not available to non-Equity companies. That includes Equity itself, which offers grants to its member theaters.

Green is certain that the money for the move is within reach for The Playhouse. He would not have taken the job otherwise, he said.

If organizations would buy in right now, and be philanthropically minded to say, Look, were going to invest in your talent at X amount for the next three to five years, and after that, you need to be self-sustaining  thank you, high-five, that is exactly what were looking for, Green said. Granted, well always need philanthropic support  but we want to be a self-sustaining institution for the city of San Antonio in six to 10 years.

To Langston, Classic has a solid foundation for the kind of growth that will need to happen to transition into Equity membership.

The great news is the revenue stream is very robust  its not exclusively top heavy with grants or individual (donors) or the city funding. Its a nice, solid mix, and healthy, but now it needs to go bigger  each category needs to grow, she said.

Equity in South Texas

One of the most visible Equity houses in the area is the Zach Theatre in Austin. The space, which opened in 1932, started the journey to being a full Equity house 26 years ago. The theaters leaders traveled to the well-regarded Actors Theatre of Louisville, where they discussed their plans with and got the blessing of Jon Jory, the Kentucky companys legendary producing director. The Zach crew then hired Dave Steakley to lead the theater, a role he fills to this day.

There are a few lessons to be taken from the companys history, Steakley said.

I think its important to tell what this organization did before I got here, he said. They found the organization that they wanted to emulate, and they made that investment of the research trip and they got their most valued stakeholders all on that page (of becoming an Equity house), because there will be a sense of loss and fallout. Youve got to have champions throughout the process.

And then I think its always been important to us to stay financially solvent, in the black, at each step of this. Make sure your growth is in manageable bits.

At Zach, that meant starting out with a commitment of two union actors and one union stage manager for one show in that first season. The commitment grew gradually each year, he said.

After a period of six years, all six shows were operating under small professional theater Equity contracts, Steakley said.

Becoming a full Equity house, he said, was a big game changer for us. When he came to Austin, the annual budget for the theater was around $700,000. Now, its just over $8 million. The company also has expanded physically, adding a second stage, the Whisenhunt, in 1990, and the Topfer Theatre in 2012.

It is more expensive to operate as an Equity space, Steakley said. But being an Equity company also opens up doors to funders who might not be as likely to give to a community theater.

It becomes like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval, he said.

He would like to see a San Antonio theater have that designation.

I think its important, he said. We are in the same sort of geographic hub. I would love to see Austin actors to be able to find work in San Antonio and vice versa. Its very hard to carve out an existence solely in one city.

dlmartin@express-news.net

Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN
Every December, Christmas beers flood retail shelves. The best burst forth from the bottle with Christmas cheer, while others merely muster a happy holidays, and some, perhaps participating in the so-called war on Christmas, show little seasonal character at all.

So I decided to check them out by gathering a few friends for a tasting panel. I concentrated on domestic beers whose labels hint at some kind of Christmas-like flavor. I decided against including any straight-up Christmas India Pale Ales since the style is so prevalent all year long. If my tasting panel was representative of the general population of beer drinkers, that was a good choice since the expressly flavored beers proved to be the most popular.

Beginning the most celebratory category, Harpoon describes its Winter Warmer simply as a spiced ale. Thats certainly true, but there is a lot more to it than that. Its malty and lightly sweet with some subtle toasted malt setting the stage for the spices. Nutmeg and cinnamon are the most prominent, but there are hints of ginger, vanilla cream and plums as well. Its like a pumpkin spice beer, but more interesting.

Anchor Christmas is a perennial favorite, and deserves that billing again in its 42nd iteration. The base beer, which remains the same year after year, adds roasted malt notes and dark fruit flavors like plums and prunes. Each person who sampled it found different flavors, including cinnamon, rum soaked raisins, fruitcake, vanilla and allspice to name a few. No matter the flavors your tongue detects, this beer is sure to please.

Rounding out the top tier of finishers, Evil Twin Christmas Eve at a New York City Hotel Room is an imperial stout that that tops 10 percent alcohol by volume. There are dark fruits, rum, cinnamon and a light dose of resiny hops that go along with the core imperial stout. The brewery doesnt give any insight into what, if any, special ingredients they used, but especially as this beer warms up, it has a plethora of festive flavors to enjoy.

In the happy holidays tier, there were still some good beers to be had. Samuel Adams White Christmas starts out with a yeasty Belgian wit base (Wit Christmas, anyone?) and adds rather prominent nutmeg and clove notes. The brewery also mentions adding orange peel, which mostly fades into the background but adds to the mere eight claimed International Bittering Units.

Abitas Christmas Ale is another one of the brews that changes every year. This season, the base beer is a hoppy ale with some caramel in the aroma and rather strong piney hops from beginning to end. Theres some roasty and toasty flavors as well that are reminiscent of chicory. Perhaps this is a collaboration with fellow Louisiana enterprise Cafe du Monde? In the finish, the hops linger with a faintly minty character.

I always enjoy serving Shiner Cheer for these tastings because its such a polarizing beer. Some people avail themselves of the dump bucket, while others enjoy its sort of quirky flavor. This year, almost everyone thought it tasted like grapefruit, though Shiner (and my tongue) claimed its made with Texas peaches. Underneath that, you get a dark wheat beer with some bready and malty flavor. So, if youve never had it, buy a single first and make up your mind if you want six more.

In the war on Christmas category, the beers arent bad or flawed, they just dont inspire holiday cheer other than from the label design. Rogue Santas Private Reserve Ale has a festive bottle with glow in the dark snowflakes, but beerwise is just a classic hop-forward American red ale. Saint Arnold Christmas is a soft, malty, faintly sweet and warming ale that would pair well with desserts. Sierra Nevadas Celebration Ale is its fresh hop IPA that may well have been the first hop-dominated beer with a Christmasy label when it debuted in 1981. Its a great beer, but I wouldnt pair it with plum pudding.

With international shipping and Texas label approval often slowing the arrival of new beers, there are more Christmas beers to come, especially the imports. Ill be adding some more reviews as the month goes on.

Markus Haas is the beer writer for the Express-News. Reach him at mhaas@express-news.net.
All 40 teachers were told to report to the Wright Elementary library one October afternoon. On every table were little tied scrolls next to fruit cups and champagne glasses brimming with juice. Vice-Principal Victoria Trevino and Garnell Harris, a counselor, were standing on a desk.

When the teachers entered, fluorescent lights blinked on, Principal Martha Gonzalez and her staff blew noisemakers and Kool and The Gangs Celebration blasted from a speaker. Gonzalez told the teachers to open the papelitos all together.

The scrolls were reports that the Texas Education Agency had sent back to the school about its performance. Wright Elementary had not only met standards, it had received all six possible distinction designations. Its currently one of the highest performing elementary schools in the district and the only one to receive more than three distinctions.

I think even they were shocked at the six stars. I said Thats what you guys have done, Gonzalez said, smiling at the memory of the celebration.

Just two years ago, reports from TEA didnt bring out noisemakers and champagne glasses. The school was marked improvement required and had failed to meet standards on three of four of TEAs performance indexes (student achievement, closing performance gaps and postsecondary readiness). It was a school with no distinctions and little prospects.

They must have had amazing turnaround programs, said DeEtta Culbertson, spokeswoman for the TEA.

According to school staff, it was the programs that did it, but those came from something else: a new administration.

Teachers communicate now that they feel proud theyre part of our team. Before it didnt feel good to be part of a school known for failing, said Harris, who has worked at Wright for more than 40 years.

Gonzalez, a Laredo native, joined Wright Elementary as principal in January 2015, halfway through the year. Before that she was vice-principal at several high school and middle schools for about 20 years in Harlandale ISD.

Shes no nonsense and all business with a crackly laugh and an upbeat disposition. Her hair is close-shaven and sometimes she pauses to search for words, but when she does speak, its direct and intense.

Theres a picture outside her office of a day when the staff all created posters with Gonzalezs choice expressions. Dale chine, Where your kids, Fair enough and Suck it up were just a few. For her last birthday, all the staff pitched in to pay for her to go see her favorite artist, Adele, in concert.

Gonzalez and her side-kick Trevino are constantly roving the hallways, popping into classrooms and checking up on kids in the cafeteria. Sometimes theyll hand out little candies, other times theyll give teachers or students their 2 cents. Always theyre reminding them about the push to succeed and the importance of success.

Were always visible to the teachers and we need to be aware of whats going on in the classroom, we need to know whats happening, said Trevino. And if we see something thats not up to par, then we need to address it, we need to say You know I saw this when I was in the classroom today, I saw you had trouble with classroom management, what can we do to solve the problem?

Gonzalez also said that as principal, she sometimes has to be the bad guy. Shes strict with the teachers and students; she doesnt sugarcoat it, as Harris said.

Are we the most popular team? Well, Ms. Trevino is, but Im not, Gonzalez said matter-of-factly. And you know what? Im okay with it. I dont take it personal. It is about taking care of business and as long as the adult knows its nothing personal, its about taking care of the children, then you know what? Im a happy camper.

She and the teachers are very transparent with their students  they know all about STAAR testing and student achievement efforts. Hanging on a wall in each classroom is a chart of the classs average score from its most recent set of tests, and projected goals for the next one. Each child has a binder with a graph tracking their individual scores.

We know thats why the principal is so strict because she wants us to learn, learn and learn. So we can be stronger and smarter every day, said Jazmine Villegas, 8, a third grader.

Once a day, classrooms break into a response to intervention period, where students are grouped by their strengths and weaknesses and learn in that small setting. In Carilu Hernandezs third grade classroom, for example, Jazmine taught a few students math in a student-tutoring session. Meanwhile, in another corner of the room, Hernandez taught a different group of students. The remaining students were outside in the hallway, receiving remedial support from an outside tutor.

They give us everything we need, their expectations are clear, we know we can go to them for everything. I think thats what it is, Hernandez said, articulating what makes her school tick. And they provide structure for our kids. You really see the kids grow because of that.

Gonzalez and Trevino also found ways to let teachers help teachers. When the fourth grade students take the STAAR writing exam  a test that takes longer to grade than others  all the teachers help out grading the essays.

Gonzalez said when she arrived at the school almost two years ago, the first thing she realized that needed to change was campus morale.

We started by saying were not going to be on the bottom anymore. Were going to move up and this is how were going to do it, she said, so they developed a plan based on positivity.

She and Trevino started by analyzing student data. They brought all the teachers together and discussed student outcome goals. They even had teachers bring in samples of how they graded student work, to standardize grading across the classes.

I think what youre seeing is that the district and the campus itself took it upon themselves to immediately address the issues They put whatever plan they had into action and achieved great results, Culbertson said.

The campus implemented community-building routines. Now, the staff meets once a month to continue providing support for each other. Also every month, the teachers get a little thank you, Gonzalez said, which is usually a $5 gift card or breakfast in the morning.

The kids get cookie coupons for good work, and sometimes theyll get randomly called into the principals office to find out that Gonzalez or Trevino just want to congratulate them on their score improvement. And the students that have perfect attendance six weeks in a row get either ice cream or a doughnut, depending on the weather.

Its all about recognizing that theyre making an improvement. We really felt like we have to motivate our kids and motivate our staff, to keep it going so they know their work is being noticed, Gonzalez said.

Every teacher greets the students as they file into their classrooms with a good morning, which the kids are expected to respond to. Earlier this year Gonzalez and Trevino pooled money with staff to get T-shirts and jackets that represent Wright Elementary.

I believe, and I take pride in this Gonzalez paused as her voice broke, tears welling. Were a family. Were a family working together. We dont allow for anyone to fail. We help each other out.

As change revved up at Wright, not all the teachers were on board. Gonzalez said there were five or six teachers she had to let go because they werent rowing in the same direction, as Trevino put it, as the rest of the teachers.

Gonzalez said the main challenge now is to maintain their success. Theyre giving teachers the reins now so they can continue to explore other creative programs for their children without losing accountability for their scores.

I wouldnt have believed it had I not experienced it for the last year and a half, said Hernandez. But when you have a group of people who know that theres a need to do something, to change, and you have your kids at stake, anything is possible.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net
The state will not be allowed to license family detention centers as child care facilities after a judge issued a final judgment Friday, according to the Austin-based advocacy group Grassroots Leadership.

That judgment would apply to the 2,400-bed Dilley center and the 1,000-bed Karnes County center, both run by private companies. After a record number of women and children crossed the U.S. border from Central America in 2014, the U.S. government began detaining people at the two centers.

Grassroots Leadership sued the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services along with the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group this year after DFPS issued a child care license for the Karnes County Residential Center. In June, state District Judge Karin Crump issued a temporary injunction was issued against the department.

During hearings in May and June, Judge Crump heard testimony from mothers detained at the facilities who testified to the prison-like conditions at the facility, and child welfare and faith leaders who argued that children locked up with their mothers in immigrant family detention camps are not safe, physically or mentally, a press release from Grassroots Leadership read.

DFPS representatives had said state licensing would give the agency oversight abilities and would help the agency investigate abuse allegations, according to a previous report.

A document on the DFPS website said adopting the family residential centers rule  which the final judgment ruled invalid  ensures the continued protection of children housed in the facilities by making the facilities subject to the regulatory authority of a child care license.

While the ruling doesnt close facilities necessarily, it does say the facilities arent allowed to be licensed under lower standards, said Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership.

The state rule to allow detention centers to be designated child care centers was proposed after a federal judge in California found that a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy violated a 1997 lawsuit settlement by detaining female-led families in unlicensed, secure residential centers.

The states executives admitted in documents and testimony that DFPS wanted to license these facilities to help the federal government, and not the children. Motive matters, and we believe it was the key to the case, said attorney Jerry Wesevich of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, said in a news release.

The plaintiffs included mothers detained with their children at Dilley and Karnes.

DFPS spokeswoman Mary Walker said Saturday that the agency is reviewing the ruling.

The dissents are completely unfounded and ignore GEOs long history of providing culturally responsive, safe, and humane environments that meet the non-penal needs of those individuals entrusted to the care of ICE, said Pablo Paez, GEO Group spokesman in a statement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Carl Rusnok said ICE doesnt comment on pending litigation. Requests for comment from the GEO Group werent immediately returned.

The HSAC Subcommittee spent months investigating this issue and concluded that the facts support the continued use of privately-contracted facilities. The dissents are completely unfounded and ignore GEOs long history of providing culturally responsive, safe, and humane environments that meet the non-penal needs of those individuals entrusted to the care of ICE, said Pablo Paez, GEO spokesman.

Libal said his group would continue to advocate to both the current administration and the next to end the practice of family detention completely and that it would continue fighting until all facilities are closed.

frahman@express-news.net

Austin Bureau Chief Peggy Fikac contributed to this report.
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
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WASHINGTON  Preparing for an uncertain future for trade with Mexico, Texans in Congress are racing to enable cities and businesses to provide unlimited financial support for customs agents in order to reduce backups in the flow of goods and people across the border.

Three years ago, Congress approved pilot projects that have yielded more than two dozen such arrangements for public and private financing of overtime and other support for chronically understaffed Customs and Border Protection.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and allies have sought without success to greatly expand the so-called partnerships.

Now, that bipartisan effort has taken on new urgency with the pending arrival of a Trump administration and the likelihood of new scrutiny of foreign trade and changes in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, noting the loose talk on trade in the presidential campaign, last week engineered passage of the Senates version of the legislation.

But with only a week to go in this Congress and a crowded calendar, House passage is uncertain.

If you have private and public sources who want to come in and help with this problem, then we should let them do it, said Cuellar, House sponsor of the legislation.

U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, is pressing the House GOP leadership to put the legislation on a list of bills that can be passed before adjournment.

This is a big deal, Hurd said. You get legitimate goods and services back and forth faster. In a tight federal resources environment, you have to work with the private sector and municipalities to meet the needs.

The legislation enables nonfederal entities to pay for expenses of full-time personnel as well as overtime, covering services that range from customs and agricultural processing to border security and transportation. Bills also remove obstacles to paying for border facilities.

Under pilot projects, companies have financed construction of cooling buildings to protect produce that might be threatened by delays.

In an effort to speed hiring of border agents, a provision was inserted waiving requirements for polygraphs for military veterans. A Homeland Security Committee report accompanying the legislation noted that fewer than half of the 2,000 new CBP officers authorized two years ago have been hired.

El Paso is among the border cities that has taken full advantage of the initial service agreements, reimbursing CBP more than $3 million from money collected through tolls. But the city says the return on its investment has been 10 to 1 for commercial traffic, not counting increased Mexican shopping that makes up 15 percent of the citys retail sales.

Sam Vale, whose company owns the Starr-Camargo International Bridge at Rio Grande City, is part of a consortium that includes 12 international bridges and is a supporter of the legislation. He recalled an agreement to pay for extra staff during especially busy hours that reduced waits from four hours to one.

Its not that anybody in Texas would be in favor of paying what the federal government should, by all rights, fund themselves. But when we have the choice of no business or reduced business or bellying up to the bar and putting down our coins, well do the latter, he said.

Russ Jones, chairman of the Arizona-based Border Trade Alliance, said CBP staff shortages are causing delays along the Canadian border as well as on the border with Mexico. He noted especially heavy traffic at Peace Bridge in Buffalo, New York.

Anything related to trade right now gets sort of a jaundiced eye with regard to NAFTA and TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), he said. But this is about best practices and improving trade and cross-border travel.

bill.lambrecht@hearstdc.com
A man was shot and killed early Saturday at an apartment complex in the Far West Side.

The shooting happened in the 1800 block of Rogers Road, at the Villas In Westover Hills apartment complex, at about 1 a.m. according to San Antonio police at the scene.
A large question mark hangs over the future of British agriculture now that the UK has voted to leave the EU. Rural property agency H&H Land and Property seeks to answer the question: What next for farming support?

The date was 23rd June 2016, when the UK voted to leave the European Union by 52% to 48%. The Government is expected to trigger Article 50 around March 2017 and this will start the exit negotiation process, which is expected to take about 2 years.

In parallel, the UK will need to negotiate a new trading relationship with the EU and the rest of the world. Trade with the EU is vital for UK agriculture, with about 61% of our exports being sold into the Single Market. It is especially important for livestock farmers with over 90% of UK exports of beef and lamb sold in Europe.

Trade negotiations will probably take even longer than the exit talks, so there is a lengthy period of uncertainty ahead.

2017-2020: More of the same?

Trade negotiations will probably take even longer than the exit talks

While the UK is within the EU, farming support is delivered through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

In simple terms, there are two Pillars: 'Pillar 1' involves direct support, delivered in the UK through the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS). 'Pillar 2' covers the Rural Development Programme, including the Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS), measures to aid agricultural productivity and support for rural enterprise.

In August, the Treasury announced that the agricultural sector would receive the same level of funding under Pillar 1 as it would have through the CAP, up to 2020. The carefully worded statement only guarantees that the Basic Payment will continue until the 2019 claim year. However, most commentators seem to think that a further comparable payment will be made in 2020.

With Pillar 2, the situation is less clear. Natural England have said that they will honour, in full, all existing Environmental Stewardship and CSS agreements, including those CSS agreements starting on 1st January 2017. However, there have not yet been any announcements regarding agreements starting in 2018, which would need to be applied for next year.

While it seems inconceivable that there will be no Stewardship Scheme available over the next couple of years, it could potentially be limited to Higher Tier - or perhaps funding will only be offered for 2-3 years, instead of the normal five.

Beyond 2020: The English Agricultural Policy (EAP)

With a blank sheet of paper, the Government will be able to design a new regime of agricultural support that could comprise any of the following elements:

 Direct support - this could be area-based (like BPS) or could be coupled to production (for example, like the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme).

 Agri-environmental schemes, which provide payments for public goods, such as landscape and habitats, where there is otherwise no market.

 Schemes to improve agricultural productivity and efficiency, through support for on-farm investment, research & development and marketing & promotion.

Agri-environment schemes are likely to play a big part in future policies

 George Eustice, the Agriculture Minister, has spoken positively about the Canadian model of farming support. This combines crop insurance, to protect against natural hazards, with margin-based support. A third element of the programme allows farmers to deposit surplus cash in good times into a savings account, which is partially matched by the Government. This account can then be drawn on when there is financial need.

So what are the pros and cons of each of these methods of support?

Area-based Direct Support (like BPS)

The advantages are that it is easy to understand and the systems required are already in place. Moreover, there is no direct impact on the market for agricultural produce. However, direct payments may be linked to increases in rents and land prices. And support is untargeted, so everyone is paid regardless of need, making it unpopular with successive Governments and the public alike.

Coupled Direct Support

On the positive side, coupled support goes to active farmers and would encourage food production. However, there are lots of restrictions in terms of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. It would also probably bring more inspections, complex administration and the potential for overproduction and environmental damage.

Agri-environmental Schemes

These schemes pay farmers for producing public goods where there is no market. The resulting positive environmental gains enhance the image of farming with the public. In England, we have a lot of experience of developing such schemes and it should be possible to design something more workable than the current CSS scheme, without the bureaucratic requirements of EU legislation.

On the downside, WTO rules limit payments to income forgone, not the value of public goods being produced. And some believe such schemes can create an unhealthy dependency on payments.

Productivity Schemes

These schemes are considered essential if trading conditions are more liberal and they are proven to improve the competitive advantage of UK farmers. However, it is hard to assess if they offer value for money and many believe they tend to benefit those best at completing applications, rather than the most deserving.

Investment & Insurance Scheme (Canadian model)

This has proven popular with farmers and the wider public in Canada.

On the positive side, it provides stability for farmers against market fluctuations. The disadvantages are that it is complex and bureaucratic to administer and there can be a long lead time between losses and insurance settlement. Furthermore, such schemes have never been used to support the livestock sector and may not work as effectively here. For it to function, farmers would have to have some profitable years!

What could farming support look like in 5 years time?

It seems probable that the overall total spent on farming support (around 2 billion per annum in England) will reduce, with some commentators suggesting it could fall by as much as 50%.

Under the CAP, Pillar 1 accounts for over 75% of current agricultural support, with about 20% relating to agri-environment schemes and the small remainder to productivity and rural enterprise. It seems highly likely that this balance will change, with direct payments (BPS) being significantly reduced and possibly phased out altogether. Successive Governments of all colours have argued that direct payments should be reduced, so it seems inevitable the opportunity will be taken to do so.

Some element of direct support may continue for upland farmers, as it is politically easier to justify. A figure of 40 per ha on Severely Disadvantaged Area (SDA) land has been suggested as a possibility by some commentators.

Agri-environment schemes are likely to play a big part in a future EAP. However, if direct payments are to disappear, stewardship schemes will need to be accessible for all farmers, which CSS is not. This could see the return of a basic entry level stewardship scheme to complement higher level agreements for more significant conservation management.

Some kind of insurance and investment scheme along the lines of the Canadian model does remain a possibility, if the current Government remains in power.

Schemes to encourage greater productivity and efficiency are likely to form part of the EAP but will probably continue to be a relatively small component.
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Voter Guide: Everything Cumberland County voters need to know

Early voting is underway, with local, state and federal races on the ballot in Cumberland County.
The 1975's Matty Healy has opened up about his mother Denise Welch's battle with post-natal depression and the song on the group's most-recent album that spawned out of a story Denise told him when he was 17-years-old.

Speaking to NME, he explained: "Well, 'She Lays Down' is about my mum, it doesn't get much more personal than that. I'm sure my mum won't mind me saying this, but she told me a story when I was about 17, she was so gripped by post-natal depression that she was coming into my room when I was a couple of months old, lying on the floor and actively trying to love me.

"How f**king brutal is that? That is brutal - especially considering how close me and my mum are. We are like, insanely close. That resonated with me so much, I think that writing music for me is such a catharsis, and such a personal thing, I think that had to come out."

Matthew Healy

Also opening up about the rest of the record, Healy said: "There are songs on there about my nana, the whole record is completely personal. That's the only reason that gives it purpose for me. It doesn't matter otherwise. I don't care if I'm not like 'figuring something out'. There's no point."

The 1975 play their final UK dates of the year a little later this month, at the following locations:

Manchester Arena - December 13

London, The O2 - December 15, 16

Newcastle, Arena - December 17

Glasgow, Hydro - December 19

Bournemouth, International Centre - December 21

Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena - December 22

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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One of Vietnams most recognisable brands and dynamic private sector companies has launched an initial public offering that may herald a long hoped for turning point in the development of the countrys equity capital markets.

Vietnam remains one of Asias last major outliers when it comes to a fully functioning stock market, with progress bedeviled by a series of small, mis-priced deals that have done nothing to improve liquidity or foster good market practice.

VietJets $200 to $259 million IPO (including the upsize option) therefore carries far more symbolism that its issue size indicates. It is also coming at a time when the government is lining up trade sales and public equity offerings in a clutch of state-owned companies including its two national brewers Saigon Beer & Alcohol Company (Sabeco) and Hanoi Beer & Alcohol Company (Habeco).

Kevin Snowball CEO of Ho Chi Minh-based PXP Vietnam Asset Management suggests the governments enthusiasm is not primarily being driven by a desire to embrace capital markets development as much as the need to raise revenue for infrastructure projects at a time of low oil prices.

But he also told FinanceAsia, Theres still been a sea change in thinking about what a stock market can be used for. Before, weve typically been offered tiny percentages of companies at inflated multiples. The government has finally figured out it can use the stock market as a valuation methodology.

VietJet deal structure is as closely aligned to international best practice as current Vietnamese regulations allow. The company will have a reasonable freefloat (18% including the upsize option).

Back to front regulatory process

However, Vietnams arcane securities laws means much of the IPO process is back to front, leaving investors exposed to an exceptionally long period between settlement and trading.

Yet, this is not quite as long as it first appears. While pricing and allocations are scheduled for December 13, investors have until January 9 to fully fund the deal by placing their money into an escrow account. At this point, the shareholder register is updated and investors will receive their certificates one day later on January 10.

The regulatory approval process, which would take place pre-launch in other countries, now begins. The leads expect to submit the listing application around January 16 and receive approval on February 15, targeting a preliminary trade date on February 20.

As one banker explained, The regulator not only requires all funds to be placed in an escrow account, but also wants full disclosure for every investment vehicle so they can see who the beneficial owners are. Its a different world, but thats their rules.

The lengthy six-week wait before settlement and trading is expected to put off a lot of hedge funds and momentum players. It is also likely to result in fairly accurate demand indications from long-only funds.

However, the leads have been able to facilitate access for prospective investors, which are not already set up to trade the Vietnamese market, by offering participation via P-notes.

Bankers said VietJets deal is being pitched as a macro play on Vietnam.

On this basis, it offers a compelling sales proposition given the countrys high GDP growth rate compared to the TIP countries of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, plus its young upwardly mobile population. In the third quarter, the country registered 5.93% growth compared to 5.02% in Indonesia.

From a travel perspective, VietJet also holds advantages over competitors in other countries. Vietnam is one of the worlds longest nations and a train or bus journey between its two major cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, takes nearly 30 hours. Flying takes roughly two hours and costs the same amount of money.

VietJet has also prospered in a fairly closed market and against an uncompetitive state owned airline. As a result, it has snatched market share very quickly from Vietnam Airlines since it started up in 2011.

By 2013, it had already achieved a market share of 20.2%, rising to 43.1% by the end of June this year.

Low-cost carriers typically trade at a premium to national carriers during their early growth stage. They are also a good proxy for a countrys GDP growth, although typically trade at a discount after accounting for their more volatile earnings stream.

For example, VietJet does not hedge any of its fuel costs unlike the airline it aspires to emulate, AirAsia. The latter usually hedges roughly three quarters of its jet fuel costs.

According to the IPO termsheet, VietJet will have a market capitalization of $1.08 billion to $1.4 billion based on a price range of VND75,900 to VND98,400 and offering of 59.723 million shares (including the upsize option).

The primary shares will be structured as a top up placement, again because of an arcane law, which subjects straight primary share offerings to a one-year lock up. The company and the selling shareholder, CEO Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, are both locked-up for 90 days.

Valuation

Specialists say the deal is being marketed on an EV/Ebitda multiple of 6.3 to 7.4 times prospective 2017 earnings.

By contrast, comparables such as AirAsia are trading at 5.9 times, while Asia Aviation is at 7.6 times, Cebu Air at 5.5 times and Indigo Air at 6.6 times.

Syndicate research argues for an Ebitda compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20% to 25% over the next three years.

In 2015, VietJet recorded Ebitda of $190 million, which represented 119.9% year-on-year growth.

This equated to an Ebitda margin of 32.8%, which rose to 38.2% at the end of the first half of 2016.

Bankers and investors agree that the domestic retail offering will be extremely popular, with demand easily covering the entire deal. The research company, Nielsen, counts VietJet as Vietnams most recognisable brand and the only one to feature in its Asian top 500.

As one investor commented, This IPO will be very popular with retail investors. The company has an extremely high profile, not least because of its bikini-clad stewardesses.

Using scantily glad young girls to market an airline might raise eyebrows in the western world, but the campaign is likely to make the companys female founder a billionaire on paper if the IPO prices above the bottom end of the range. The companys chairwoman, Nguyen Thanh Ha, is also female.

VietJet has lofty ambitions to overtake AirAsia and one day take on Emirates. For investors, this promises considerable upside, but will also provide one of the main risks. As the company accelerates its international strategy it will increasingly butt up against other competitive regional airlines.

VietJet flew 9.3 million passengers in 2015 and operates 39 domestic routes and 17 international routes. It plans fly 45 domestic routes by 2019 and 36 international routes by 2018.

Passenger traffic has been growing at a CAGR of 71.8% since 2013 according to the groups online roadshow.

It has a young fleet with an average age of 3.3 years. This comprises 33 Airbus A320s and five A321s. But it also has 102 Airbus and 100 Boeing planes on order.

Syndicate research predicts 44% traffic growth in 2017 and 26.2% in 2018. It is also forecasting a load factor of 87.1% in 2017  pretty much the same level the company has averaged for the past three years.

Listing will take place on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) and investors believe the company will just fall outside the top 10 in terms of its VN Index weighting. However, as Snowball explained the latter index can be a little misleading.

The Vietnamese market looks bigger than it actually is because the index is calculated on market capitalisation, but most companies have tiny freefloats, he commented.

One exception is Vinamilk, which Snowball says can now trade up to $20 million a day and accounts for about 18% of the VN Index.

The government is preparing to sell a further 9% stake from its 44.7% holding on December 12. Morgan Stanley, Saigon Securities and VinaCapital are advisors.

The stock is currently trading around 23 times 2017 earnings ahead of the markets 12.5 times P/E average.

Snowball concluded: Vietnam trades at the same level as the other TIP markets, but it has much higher GDP growth so investing here makes a lot of sense, stock specific issues aside.

Other houses are not so bullish. In a research report published towards the end of September, Credit Suisse wrote: While structural drivers remain intact and reform seems to have gathered pace, we highlight that valuations are rich and credit growth is unsustainably high.

State divestments brewing

Two other big sales flagged for 2017 are Sabeco and Habeco. Investors believe both will involve a trade sale and a publicly marketed offering to build up their respective freefloats.

Under Vietnamese law, a company needs only 300 shareholders to list, so many companies have a public listing in name only. Sabeco and Habeco both completed their IPOs in 2008, for example. The government is now trying to rectify this.

Sabeco, Habeco and Vietnam Airlines are all scheduled to move from the third board Unlisted Public Companies Market (UPCoM) to the HOSE main board by way of introduction in December.

Under its present shareholding structure, the government owns 89.6% of Sabeco and has said it will sell it in two separate tranches.

Where Habeco is concerned, Carlsberg has first right of refusal on any potential trade sale when the government begins to divest its 82% stake. It currently has a 17.5% stake and has publicly said it wants to purchase a 61.79% stake following the public auction of a 20% stake, which will determine the valuation.

However, it is not happy with the companys current UPCoM-based market valuation, on the grounds that a tiny freefloat and huge demand has had a distorting effect. Since it began trading on UPCoM at VND39,000 in late October, Habecos stock price has more than doubled.

These are just the kind of companies Snowball says his fund has been targeting. Weve been looking at UPCoM listed companies, which are likely to move to the main board, he commented.

Vietnam Airlines is also due to be moved from UPCoM to HOSE in December and analysts believe the government will also sell its 45.1% stake in batches.

If the Vietnamese government can finally get its privatization moving at a faster clip, it will in no part be testament to the countrys most powerful man and Communist party secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong.

Earlier this year, he won a power struggle over former prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who had been perceived as the reformer but stood down in April. Joint global co-ordinators are BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Viet Capital Securities.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ALNY) announced positive interim results from Part D of its ongoing Phase 1 study with fitusiran, an investigational RNAi therapeutic, in patients with hemophilia with inhibitors. The company plannned to initiate Phase 3 program in early 2017.



The results were presented at 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), held December 3 - 6, 2016 in San Diego, California.



New clinical data showed that once-monthly subcutaneous administration of fitusiran achieved lowering of AT and increases in thrombin generation, resulting in a median estimated annualized bleeding rate (ABR) of zero in patients with hemophilia A or B with inhibitors (N=16).



In addition, fitusiran was generally well tolerated through the data cut-off date, October 6, 2016, with no thromboembolic events, were presented from Part D of the ongoing fitusiran Phase 1 study, which included patients with hemophilia A or B with inhibitors who were enrolled in two separate dose cohorts of 50 mg, once-monthly (N=6) or 80 mg, once-monthly (N=10). Treatment with fitusiran resulted in potent and dose-dependent lowering of AT and increases in thrombin generation.



Additional data on longer-term administration of fitusiran in patients without inhibitors will be presented in a separate poster presentation at ASH on December 4.



In an exploratory analysis of bleeding events, a median ABR of zero was achieved for patients in combined dose cohorts in the observation period, compared to the pre-study median ABR of 31. The majority of patients treated in both cohorts (9 of 16; 56 percent) were bleed-free and most patients (11 of 16; 69 percent) experienced zero spontaneous bleeds. In the 80 mg cohort, 70 percent (7 out of 10) of patients were bleed-free and 90 percent (9 out of 10) of patients experienced zero spontaneous bleeds.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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ABU DHABI, UAE, April 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Event Will Explore How Culture Can Help Find Solutions to Critical Global Challenges

CultureSummit 2017 Abu Dhabi will bring together an extraordinary group of the world's top creative minds to discuss culture and the significant role they play in addressing the universal challenges faced in our present time.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/485527/HE_Mohammed_Khalifa_Al_Mubarak.jpg )



Over 300 participants from more than 80 countries, including key players involved in the fields of government, arts, philanthropy, heritage preservation, education, media, science and technology, will gather from April 9 - 13 2017, at Manarat Al Saadiyat on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, to explore a multidisciplinary approach a wide range of topics all focused on answering how cultural tools can be used to help address significant international challenges and seize emerging opportunities.

The summit's programme is notable both for the calibre of its speakers and for its focus on identifying actions that the group of leaders can take to help address key global challenges. These range from combatting extremism to reversing climate change and from cultural preservation to promoting the arts in education worldwide.

HE Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of TCA Abu Dhabi said: "It is our mandate and responsibility to promote Abu Dhabi's rich cultural heritage and sustain its growing art scene, side by side with the diverse vibrancy of cultures it embraces, and from within its distinctive location in the world. It is through international events like the CultureSummit 2017 Abu Dhabi, that Abu Dhabi's unique and tireless efforts towards the preservation of culture and advancement for arts are naturally revealed."

He added "We are proud that so many exceptional leaders will gather in Abu Dhabi to discuss the challenges facing today's world and devise actionable next steps in pursuit of positive social change. The summit's agenda demonstrates the diversity of attendees who will participate in the discussions ensuring broad perspectives are considered, and incorporated, in the actionable outcomes."

Highlights from the daily plenary sessions during the event will include:

"Case Studies in Connectedness: New Collaborations for a New World" featuring Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairsand Chairwoman, Media Zone Authority-Abu Dhabi and twofour54, HE Noura Al Kaabi, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and Robert Lynch , President and CEO, Americans for the Arts.

"Global Culture Hubs: The Role and Lessons of New Cities in an Urbanising World"featuring HE Mohamed Al Mubarak , Chairman, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, Richard Armstrong , Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, Rula Jebreal, journalist, author, foreign policy analyst, and Ana Cristina Vargas , Award-winning Architect.





"The Universals: What the Arts Can Tell Us About How We Can Come Together" featuring Sabine Choucair , Artistic Director of Clown Me In, Amb. Cynthia Schneider , Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy, Georgetown University , and Dustin Yellin , Founder, Pioneer Works.

"Globalisation and the Other: Lessons from Refugees and the Dislocated" featuring HE Faryad Rwandizi, Iraqi Minister of Culture, Sherrie Westin , EVP, Global Impact & Philanthropy, Sesame Workshop and Natalia Ka liada, Co-founding Artistic Director of the Belarus Free Theater.

"The Different Cultures of Funding Culture: A Look at Private Philanthropy, State Support and What Lies Between the Two"featuring Darren Walker , President of the Ford Foundation, Angela Migally , Executive Director of the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, and Werner Bin nenstein-Bachstein, Director of the Community Arts Lab of the Porticus Foundation.

"The Why and the How of Cultural Preservation in the Coming Decades" HE Dr. Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh , Cultural Advisor at the Ministry of Presidential Affairs , HRH Princess Dana Firas , President of the Petra National Foundation, Zaki Aslan , Arab States Representative, ICCROM, and Mariet Westermann, EVP of the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

"Problem Solving Through the Arts: Case Studies in Social Solutions"featuring 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Tawakkol Karman, Bassem Youssef , Comedian and Political Satirist and Panmela Castro, President, NAMI Rede Feministe de Arte Urbana.

"The Arts and Fighting Climate Change"featuring Sibylle Szaggars Redford, Artistic Director, "The Way of the Rain," Fabrice Monteiro , Photographer, and Aurora Robson , Founding Artist, Project Vortex.

"The Arts and Gender Equity"featuring Alyse Nelson , CEO, Vital Voices , and Adejoke Tugbiyele, Artist and Advocate.

"Expo 2020 Dubai Preview"featuring Dr. Tarek Al Shayya , Director of International Affairs Department at the Minister of State office & Board Director, Expo 2020, Manal Al Bayat, Senior Vice President Business Development and Integration, Expo 2020, Dr. Hayat Shamsuddin , Senior Advisor Culture, Expo 2020, and moderated by Dyala Nusseibeh , Director, Abu Dhabi Art,Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority.

"The Arts and Advocacy: Confronting the Challenges of Our Time"a conversation with former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright .

"Innovators Roundtable: Visions for a Different Tomorrow"featuring Aaron Koblin , technologist, artist and Co-Founder of Within virtual reality platform, Horacio Lecona , Creative Director, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico , Tracy Fullerton , Chair of USC Interactive Media & Games Division, and Matthew Putman , Nanoscientist, Musician and Board Chair, Pioneer Works.

"The Unintended Consequences of Technological Change"featuring Bill Bragin , Artistic Director, NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center, Kristy Edmunds, Artistic Director, Center for the Art of Performance, UCLA , and Samantha Diamond , CEO, CultureConnect.

"The Future of Culture"featuring HE Saif Saeed Ghobash, Director General, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, Deborah Rutter , President, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Princess Alia Al-Senussi of Libya , Chair of the Tate Young Patrons Board and Advisor, Art Basel , and Adrian Ellis , President, AEA Consulting.

In addition to these plenary discussions, the programme will feature daily workshops designed to help the group shape a collective action agenda. There will also be displays of the artwork of participating visual artists and performances and presentations by an extraordinary array of globally known musicians, singers, dancers, composers, and others

The event is organised by TCA Abu Dhabi in conjunction with The FP Group, publishers of Foreign Policy magazine, and TCP Ventures, LLC, a cultural advisory firm.

Attendance at the event is on an invitation-only basis. The entire programme is available online at www.culturesummitabudhabi.com

ABOUT ABU DHABI TOURISM & CULTURE AUTHORITY (TCA Abu Dhabi)

Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority conserves and promotes the heritage and culture of Abu Dhabi emirate and leverages them in the development of a world-class, sustainable destination of distinction, which enriches the lives of visitors and residents alike. The authority manages the emirate's tourism sector and markets the destination internationally through a wide range of activities aimed at attracting visitors and investment. Its policies, plans and programmes relate to the preservation of heritage and culture, including protecting archaeological and historical sites and to developing museums, including the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. TCA Abu Dhabi supports intellectual and artistic activities and cultural events to nurture a rich cultural environment and honour the emirate's heritage. A key authority role is to create synergy in the destination's development through close co-ordination with its wide-ranging stakeholder base.

http://tcaabudhabi.ae/en

ABOUT THE FP GROUP

The Foreign Policy Group is the publisher of Foreign Policy magazine and ForeignPolicy.com and the producer of FP Events. Foreign Policyis the leading international source for global news, providing an evolving network of world-leading insights and analysis coupled with rapidly expanding original reporting. With more than 30 journalists and regular contributors,Foreign Policypublishes thousands of originally-reported articles per year, focusing on leading global issues in national security, technology, markets, and energy & resources. Leaders are set apart by vision, the ability to see over the horizon and anticipate change. For them, the secret to doing so is being able to depend on trusted advisors like The FP Group - a world leader in the provision of insight and analysis on global affairs.

ABOUT TCP VENTURES, LLC

TCP Ventures, LLC (TCPV)is an arts organization specializing in development and management of arts projects and in international arts advisory work. The company draws on its team's extensive experience as artists, presenters and managers working at the very highest levels in North and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

THE CULTURESUMMIT 2017 ABU DHABI

The CultureSummit 2017 will convene the leaders of the world's art, media and cultural policy communities for the first time ever to address their shared opportunities and challenges. The event comes at a watershed moment in human history. For the first time ever, we are just a few years away from every individual on the planet being connected in a single man-made system. That system, the Internet, thanks to the advent and rapid dissemination of smart phone and computing technology, will enable the creation of a single global cultural ecosystem.Whereas in the past, geography has determined the divides between cultures and thus led to both richness of different perspectives and creative visions and idioms and at the same time has produced tensions that torment us to this day. www.culturesummitabudhabi.com
VIENNA, AUSTRIA--(Marketwired - December 04, 2016) - Global lung cancer researchers and patient advocates today emphasized that new models of delivering care and communicating about cancer care play an important role in the fight against lung cancer. Their remarks come on the first day of the IASLC 17 th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Vienna, Austria.

Dr. Laurie Gaspar of the Univeristy of Colorado reported that shared decision making (SDM) between patients and their physicians can improve communications about cancer care. Patients and clinicians agree SDM is recognized as a desirable goal in the treatment of lung cancer. However, both patients and clinicians agree SDM may be improved upon with the use of Patient Decision Aids (PDAs)

Gaspar conducted a survey of lung cancer patients who reported that decisions regarding systemic therapy, such as chemotherapy, were the most commonly perceived difficult decision (58 percent) and/or tests that were done or not done (34 percent). Sources of difficulty were identified as insufficient information (44 percent) and conflicting information or recommendations from their physicians (34 percent).

Most of the 190 patients who responded said they desired SDM, with only nine percent expressing the desire to make the decision alone. Of 90 respondents who viewed the PCI PDA, 61 percent felt that this type of decision aid would have been helpful.

"One of the difficulties patients face is when they have to weigh one doctor's view with another," Gaspar said. "One way to alleviate this is to use a multi-disciplinary process where all doctors can discuss patient care together."

Dr. Raymond Osarogiagbon from Baptist Cancer Center in Houston reported that using a Center of Excellence (COE) model that focuses on underserved areas allows doctors to diagnose lung cancer patients in those areas early and provide treatment that is on par with lung cancer care offered at academic medical centers.

"Four out of five lung cancer patients are treated in a community hospital setting and may not receive the same level of care as those treated at a leading academic center; so, if we are going to move the needle on lung cancer care, we must do it where patients receive their care," he said.

Osarogiagbon explained that the COE program is a patient-centric model for lung cancer that establishes a standard of care for community hospitals which often treat minority and underserved patient populations. The COE program has been in operation for three years and currently includes 13 hospitals in underserved areas.

The COE program tracks patient data for quality-of-care metrics, including disease stage at diagnosis; molecular testing; tumor board review; time from diagnosis to treatment; treatment type; and clinical trial participation. Site data is also monitored to provide a contextual picture of the program including total patients seen, demographics, insurance mix, rates and outcomes of molecular testing, among other metrics. Data is analyzed across the COE community and against comparable groups to demonstrate impact of the COE program.

"Lung cancer patients in a COE model show outcomes equivalent to patients who get care at top-tier research hospitals," he said.

The press briefing ended with a summary of the mesothelioma workshop by Dr. Michele Carbone, University of Hawaii, on new mesothelioma research. Dr. Carbone previously identified a gene, BAP1, that when mutated, causes mesothelioma in certain families. At the press briefing, he shared that he has extended his research from Turkey and is now focusing on China. He hopes to publish his new findings in IASLC's Journal of Thoracic Oncology in 2017.

About the WCLC:

The WCLC is the world's largest meeting dedicated to lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, attracting more than 6,000 researchers, physicians, and specialists from more than 100 countries. The goal is to increase awareness, collaboration, and understanding of lung cancer, and to help participants implement the latest developments across the globe. Organized under the theme of "Together Against Lung Cancer," the conference will cover a wide range of disciplines and unveil several research studies and clinical trial results. For more information, visit http://wclc2016.iaslc.org/.

About the IASLC:

The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) is the only global organization dedicated to the study of lung cancer. Founded in 1974, the association's membership includes more than 5,000 lung cancer specialists in over 100 countries. Visit www.iaslc.org for more information.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/12/4/11G124118/Images/Ray_1-3d1f5e7b361daffb9ea62da88ec6ed59.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/12/4/11G124118/Images/Gaspar_1-6e0baed95403831eb14e865fa13d18b0.jpg

Contact:

Jenny Jaacks

JJaacks@DavidJamesGroup.com
During a special honoring ceremony held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dubai, the publishers of Global Reinsurance and StrategicRISK announced the winners of the 2016 MEA Risk Insurance Excellence Awards, honoring Mr. Farid Chedid, Chairman and CEO of Chedid Re, a Chedid Capital Holding company, as the 'MEA Industry Achiever of the Year'.

The prestigious title awarded to Mr. Chedid comes as a recognition of his personal and professional commitment to the industry and to the region, and as a proof of excellence for his leading role impacting professional individuals, businesses and the MENA insurance markets.

Since its inception in 1998, Chedid Re's continued growth, integrity, professionalism and talent pool, have jointly translated into a number of strong partnerships with the most powerful and trusted reinsurance groups worldwide, including its outstanding track record as an approved Lloyd's correspondent cover-holder. Today, Chedid Re delivers comprehensive reinsurance and retrocession treaty and facultative solutions to over 400 insurance companies spread across 45 countries.

In their announcement, publishers of Global Reinsurance and StrategicRISK, stated:

"The winner of the 2016 award has established one of the largest reinsurance brokers in the Middle East. He has bucked the trends of major European companies setting up in the Middle East by expanding into Europe and becoming a Lloyd's registered broker, in spite of not having a physical office in London. The winner has built a reinsurance broking powerhouse since its humble inception in Cyprus in 1998 and over those 18 years has earned a reputation as an established broker and a trusted international partner. The winner is, Farid Chedid of Chedid Re."

Commenting on winning the sought-after title, Mr. Farid Chedid, Chairman and CEO of Chedid Re, said:

"I am greatly honored and deeply humbled to win such a memento from the highly-regarded MEA Risk Insurance Excellence Awards. This is a trophy for all of us at Chedid Re, and is dedicated to every one of our talented, hard-working team members, whose integrity, professionalism, good faith, and discipline has propelled us to become, in a relatively short span of time, the intermediary of choice for many regional and international capacity providers for the MENA insurance market and one of the fastest growing reinsurance brokers in the region. Auspiciously, this award comes on the heels of Chedid Capital Holding, Chedid Re's parent company's 10th anniversary and its celebration of a decade of outstanding achievements".

*Source: ME NewsWire

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161204005046/en/

Contacts:

Grey Doha

Denise Yamine, +974-333-18-761

Denise.yamine@greydoha.com
After Bani J is declared safe in the Saturday episode of Weekend Ka Vaar, the other three contestants Jason, Elena, and Rahul are still in 'jail', the danger zone. Raising the craziness quotient of the house, Ranveer Singh, and Vaani Kapoor surprise the contestants as they enter on the song of Nashe Si Chadh Gayi. As the duo greets all the housemates, Ranveer compliments Bani and tries to bring a smile on her crestfallen face. He tells her to stop living in sombreness and to have a positive attitude.

Enlivening the house, Ranveer decides to spice up the Bigg Boss 10 house that is lacking a bit of drama. The Befikre cast Ranveer and Vaani introduce an exciting game for the contestants where they have to complete few dares. If they fail to complete the challenge, they will have to pay penalty for it.

The first one to be challenged is Jason who has to do a sexy pole dance to entice Vaani. Jason gives a jaw-dropping performance as he grooves to the song Aaj Phir Tum Pe Pyaar Aaya. Up next, Monalisa is challenged to give a sensuous dance performance to Yeh Raat Rukjae while seducing Jason. Ranveer is deeply impressed by Mona's performance. Before making an exit from the house, Ranveer and Vaani shake a leg to the title track of the movie Befikre along with the contestants.

After a fun filled session, kickstarting the episode, megastar and show host Salman Khan along with Ranveer, who is seen dressed like Salman -- in ganji, checkered shirt and, of course, the trademark turquoise bracelet, burn the stage with an electrifying performance on Salmans hit songs  Tera Hi Jalwa and Dhinka Chika. Ranveer further tells Salman that he is a huge fan of his song Baby Ko Bass Pasand Hai and requests him to join in to show off some moves. They not only dance to the peppy number but Ranveer also raps few lines of the song for Salman. Further, Ranveer gives Salman the proof of being his fan by showing him his madness at the time of the release of Sultan, in a theatre in Paris, and how he copied his style from Maine Pyar Kiya and Ek Tha Tiger. As an avid follower of the show, Ranveer declares Om Swami as his favourite contestant and also says that if ever he gets a chance to collaborate with him, he will create their own reality show.

After having a quick interaction with them, Salman sends Vaani and Ranveer to the activity area where they have to emulate various Bollywood celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra as the contestants of the Bigg Boss house. Salman throws a volley of questions at Ranveer and Vaani and they have to give quirky replies. While Ranveer impeccably mimics Shah Rukh, Sanjay and Anil, Vaani attempts to sing like Priyanka Chopra. Salman then introduces another game where the duo is required to guess the combination of actors faces put together in one picture. When a combination picture of Deepika Padukone and Ranveer is flashed on the screen, Salman pokes fun at Ranveer saying that their kids will look like it.

Soon Salman interacts with the contestants and points out that Bani was looking happy after she was back in the house. Earlier, we saw Swamiji being summoned by Bigg Boss in the confession room and he was told to exit the house due to an emergency. And when Bigg Boss discloses this to the contestants, they start guessing what could be reason and Lopamudra gets it right. She is heard saying that maybe some court case has come up. When Salman asks everybody that how was the atmosphere without Swamiji, they say that it was peaceful and quiet.

Further on, Salman has a few contestants to guess who must have said what in the house and the contestant will have to apply the foam spray on the contestants face. After the task, Manveer and Mona are seen having a candid conversation about what perception everyone has of each other in the house. Mona is especially referring to Jason saying that Mona should now have a firangi boyfriend. So people here are feeling that I can only dance or flirt with boys, sighs Mona.

The Appyfizz caller of the week asks Bani if her friendship with Priyanka Jagga is genuine or is it just for the show. Bani justifies saying that these questions bothered her, too, but Priyankas behaviour during the dome task changed her perception. And adding to this, Salman tells Bani that because she gave up too soon during the dome task, she became a weak contestant which wasnt justified for someone who has a strong image and personality. The episode comes to a close with Salman revealing the name of the evicted contestant which is Elena Kazan, who entered the house as a challenger only a week ago. Rahul and Jason, who are safe this week, move to the main area of Bigg Boss to be with the other contestants.

And in another shocker tomorrow, Bigg Boss will call Manu in the confession room and tell him to exit (following his mothers demise) as theres an emergency. However, unlike Swamiji, Manu will get the chance to inform everybody, and Manveer and Mona have a major breakdown. And it appears that there will be some major fights in tomorrows episode which is also the nomination day. Mona will be seen taunting Priyanka that she didnt have to work too hard in breaking their (Manu-Mona-Manveer) friendship (as Manu had to leave the house) and Priyanka gives her back saying that she was already in Manu and Manveers team whereas it was she (Mona) who came later. There will be many more fights with everybody going against Priyanka and nominating her tomorrow.
In a 2013 video that resurfaced recently, the director of the controversial but sometimes considered high-art film Last Tango in Paris Bernardo Bertolucci confessed that the infamous 'butter rape scene' between the lead actors Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider was not consensual.

The Guardian reported that Bertolucci admitted in the video that he "conspired with Marlon Brando to film a graphic rape scene without the consent of 19-year-old actor Maria Schneider". Bertolucci, according to the video, reportedly came up with the idea (with Brando) to shoot the graphic rape scene, where Brando's character uses butter to sodomise Schneider's character. Brando was 48 at that time.

"The sequence of the butter is an idea that I had with Marlon in the morning before shooting," Bertulocci said at an event held at La Cinematheque Francaise in Paris in 2013, The Guardian report quoted him as saying. Bertolucci reportedly wanted a reaction "as a girl, not as an actress" and went on to admit that Schneider probably "hated me and also Marlon because we didnt tell her".

The explicit rape scene is one of the best remembered moments from the film; disturbing no doubt. Brando went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Bertolucci was nominated for Best Director.

Schneider, in an interview in 2007, revealed that she felt "humiliated" and "a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci". She went on to say that the scene wasn't in the original script and that it was Brando who came up with the idea. "They only told me about it before we had to film the scene and I was so angry," Mail Online quoted her as saying.

Following the fame that Last Tango in Paris gave her, Schneider revealed that she got into drugs  "pot and then cocaine, LSD and heroin, it was like an escape from reality".

Schneider passed away in February 2011 after a long illness at 58 and her interview with Mail Online's Lina Das wasn't picked up until the former's death, noted Slate.

Schneider went on to act opposite Jack Nicholson in The Passenger and worked with directors such as Rene Clement in The Baby Sitter and Jacques Rivette in Merry-Go-Round. Brando, meanwhile, is remembered for his performances in The Godfather, A Streetcar Named Desire, Apocalypse Now and Julius Caesar.

Celebs react

Actors Anna Kendrick and Chris Evans had a little exchange on Twitter discussing this 'confession'.

Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage https://t.co/uvaLogvv7I  Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) December 3, 2016

@colliderfrosty @ChrisEvans Ms Schneider stated this several years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes).

 Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) December 3, 2016

Zero Dark Thirty star Jessica Chastain said of the revelations, "To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick."

To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick. https://t.co/qVDom2gYf6  Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) December 3, 2016

Last Tango in Paris was critically lauded but surrounded in public controversy. The film's director was put on trial for obscenity in Italy after the release of the film. Copies of the film were destroyed at the time and Bertolucci was served with a four-month suspended sentence in prison and denied his civil (including voting) rights for five years.

With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: RBI Governor Urjit Patel gets a little over Rs 2 lakh as salary and has not been provided with any supporting staff at his residence, the central bank has said.

Patel, who took over as RBI Governor in September, is presently in possession of the bank's flat (Deputy Governor's flat) at Mumbai, it said.

"No supporting staff has been provided to the present Governor, Urjit Patel at his residence. Two cars and two drivers have been provided to the present Governor," RBI said in reply to an RTI query.

The bank was asked to provide details of remuneration given to former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and incumbent Patel.

For the month of October  the first full month Patel was in office as Governor  Patel got Rs 2.09 lakh as his salary, the same amount drawn by Rajan as his August's salary. Rajan demitted office on September 4, and was given Rs 27,933 as remuneration for four days.

Rajan assumed the charge of RBI Governor from 5 September, 2013 at a monthly salary of Rs 1.69 lakh. His salary was revised to Rs 1.78 lakh and Rs 1.87 lakh respectively during 2014 and March 2015. His salary was hiked to Rs 2.09 lakh from Rs 2.04 lakh in January this year, the RTI reply said.

Rajan was provided with three cars and four drivers. "One caretaker and nine maintenance attendants were posted as supporting staff in the bungalow provided by the bank to the former Governor Raghuram Rajan at Mumbai," RBI said.

The Centre has recently declined to share details on appointment of Patel and other candidates shortlisted for the top post in the central bank saying these are "cabinet papers" and cannot be made public.

Patel was on August 20 named as RBI's Governor to succeed Rajan.
By Sanjeev Miglani

| AMRITSAR, India

AMRITSAR, India Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday that the Taliban insurgency would not survive a month if it lost its sanctuary in neighbouring Pakistan, urging its neighbour to take on militant groups on its soil instead of giving Kabul financial aid.Ghani's remarks, made at an international conference in the northern Indian city of Amritsar not far from the border with Pakistan, suggested tensions were rising with Pakistan after Ghani attempted to improve relations with Islamabad when he took office in 2014.Pakistan said while violence had increased in Afghanistan , blaming another country for it didn't help.Violence has spread around Afghanistan and the Taliban's ability to conduct coordinated high profile attacks in the capital Kabul has piled pressure on Ghani's Western-backed government to provide better security to a war weary people.Last year, Afghanistan suffered the highest number of civilian casualties and military related deaths in the world, Ghani told the Heart of Asia conference aimed at getting regional players together to help stabilise his country. "This is unacceptable... Some still provide sanctuary for terrorists. As a Taliban figure said recently, if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," he said.Analysts say Pakistan has historically backed the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against the influence of arch-rival India, with whom Pakistan has fought three wars, in its backyard.

Pakistan denies this and instead said it is itself a victim of terrorism and that fighters of the Tehrik-i-Taliban, one of the main groups carrying out attacks inside Pakistan, were operating from Afghanistan.Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's top foreign policy adviser, said it was true that there had been an upsurge in violence in Afghanistan. "We need to have an objective and holistic view rather to blame one country," he told the conference.The number of people displaced by conflict in Afghanistan this year has surpassed half a million people, the United Nations reported last month, the highest number since it began compiling such statistics in 2008.On top of the Taliban, Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks targeting minority Shi'ites in Afghanistan where sectarian violence has been rare.

Ghani said there were 30 militant groups identified by the UN that were trying to establish a base in Afghanistan. "I don't want a blame game, I want clarifications on what is being done to prevent the export of terror," Ghani said, calling it an undeclared war on Afghanistan."We thank Pakistan for their pledge of $500 million assistance for reconstruction of Afghanistan. I hope you use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan." Pakistan had made the pledge earlier this year.

Ghani's remarks, the strongest in recent months, come as India has simultaneously mounted pressure on Pakistan to end what it too calls cross-border terrorism in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said regional players had to act against not only the militants but their sponsors. "It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them."Islamabad has rejected the Indian allegations and said it was ready to hold talks with India on the dispute over Kashmir, but no talks are planned with Aziz while he is in Amritsar, Indian officials said. (Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Eric Meijer)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Jackie Cai and Jake Spring

| SHANGHAI/BEIJING

SHANGHAI/BEIJING China's wealthiest shoppers are spending at home again, roused from a three-year slumber by a weaker yuan, lower prices and a crackdown on overseas sales agents - a welcome boost for the world's luxury brands. China's rich make up almost a third of the world's luxury shoppers, up from only 2 percent around the turn of the millennium. They are a driving force for global luxury, even after a slight dip this year when fewer traveled abroad, in part due to militant attacks in Europe. For the past three years, a crackdown on corruption and ostentation by President Xi Jinping dampened sales: big names such as LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, shuttered stores, particularly in second- and third-tier cities. In 2016, however, fashion houses, jewelers and buyers say that is changing, as China tries to shift away from an economy driven by heavy investment in infrastructure and encourages consumers to shop.Burberry, Gucci-owner Kering, and Tiffany have all reported an uptick in their most recent China earnings, striking a note of optimism as the industry enters its critical weeks between the Christmas rush and Chinese New Year."Everyone is benefiting from more traffic at the Chinese (luxury) shops," said Bruno Lannes, a Shanghai-based partner with consultancy Bain. It estimates a four-percent increase in mainland China sales after three years of decline."Some brands in China are expecting 2016 to go back to their peak in 2012, though the mix is different. I expect some brands will beat that record," Lannes said.SHOPPERS FOR HIRE

On the streets of Shanghai and Beijing, shoppers say they are, indeed, splashing out more often at home.The depreciating yuan means the currency doesn't buy as much abroad, while luxury brands such as Chanel have moved since last year to narrow once huge differences between prices in China and overseas. At the same time, the government has cracked down on daigous, shoppers-for-hire who trade off that price imbalance and buy goods more cheaply overseas for mainland Chinese."Some brands price their products in China closer to the overseas markets, such as Chanel," said Emma Yu, a 32-year-old housewife exiting a Cartier store while shopping for a handbag in Shanghai's financial district. "If there's only a few thousand yuan difference, I would just buy it at home." Another shopper outside a Louis Vuitton store in central Shanghai, an accountant at a multinational who gave her surname as Lu, said she was also buying more at home, especially if not traveling.

"I definitely bought more luxury items at home than in the past since last year - a lot more - because it's convenient to buy things here," she said, standing with a friend as she compared a $5,700 purse she had bought with one in the shop window.BEARING FRUIT

Mainland China has been seeing positive sales for a while, Johann Rupert, chairman of Compagnie Financiere Richemont, told investors last month.

"It seems that the Chinese government's intent to promote growth through consumption rather than just investment is bearing fruit," Rupert said.Richemont, the owner of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and a dozen other luxury brands, reported "marked" October sales growth in mainland China in its presentation to investors.Kering, owner of Gucci and Saint Laurent, reported Asia Pacific sales were up 24 percent in the third quarter as many Chinese buyers stayed home. Burberry reported a double-digit increase in China in the second quarter, excluding the impact of changes to its offerings in Beijing.Local brands have benefited less, analysts say. A spokesman for jeweler Chao Tai Fook said sales in greater China stabilized in September and October compared to declines in the previous two quarters.The picture is also less rosy in Hong Kong, once the prime destination for Chinese shoppers wanting to avoid the hefty taxes of mainland without requiring extensive travel. Even so, after drops of over 20 percent a year in the last two years, sales have stabilized, analysts and luxury companies said.Mainland shoppers willing to splash out abroad, and wanting a more original high-end experience, prefer to go to Japan, Europe or even Macau, said Mariana Kou, an analyst at investment bank CLSA. Tax incentives are no longer enough."Hong Kong has become a bit boring," Kou said. (Additional reporting by Clara Ferreira Marques in SINGAPORE, Donny Kwok in HONG KONG and BEIJING newsroom. Editing by Bill Tarrant.)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Amritsar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi served langar (community meal) in the hall of Golden Temple, stated to be the first premier of the country to do the service here.

Last night, Modi along with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani visited the Golden Temple, the revered seat of Sikh religion.

During the visit, Modi took a bucket in his hand and started serving people langar.

"Modi is the first Prime Minister of the country who served langar to the devotees in the Golden Temple," Chief Information Officer Gurbachan Singh told PTI here today.

"We were caught unawares...Modi saw devotees taking langar...went to the hall and started serving the langar to them," he said.

He said though almost every Prime Minister during their visit to holy city came to the shrine to pay obeisance but except Modi no premier participated in the serving of langar.

Despite heavy security and thick cordon of SGPC task force, devotees got a chance to click selfies with Modi.

The gurdwara authorities were told that Modi and Ghani might partake langar during their visit. The leaders paid obeisance at the temple wearing caps.

Singh said while non-Sikhs can wear caps at the holy shrine, Sikhs have to cover their heads with a piece of cloth if they have shaved off their hair.

The prime ministers who have visited the Golden Temple are Indira Gandhi, VP Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, HD Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Manmohan Singh.

LK Advani had also paid obeisance at the holy shrine when he was Deputy Prime Minister of the country.
Washington: Days ahead of his visit to India, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter on Sunday said that the defense ties between the world's two largest democracies has never been as close as it is now with their militaries exercising together by air, land and sea like never before.

"The US-India defense relationship is the closest it's ever been. Through our strategic handshake  with America reaching west in the re-balance, and India reaching east in what Prime Minister Modi calls his Act East policy  our two nations are exercising together by air, land and sea like never before," Carter said in his address to the Regan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.

Slated to be in India on 8 December, Carter would travel to Japan, Bahrain, Israel, Italy and the UK. This is for the first time that an outgoing American Defence Secretary has included India in his itinerary for the final overseas trip.

"We also have a technological handshake  as the US  India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, grasps hands with Prime Minister Modi's Make in India campaign  that's helping our countries move toward more diverse co-development and co-production of weapons systems," Carter said.

Carter would meet Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and other leaders during his trip to New Delhi. "He (Carter) will look to build on the strategic handshake between the two nations and to continue the momentum in the relationship over the past decade, including expanded defence cooperation during his time as Secretary," the Pentagon had said in a statement last week.

Carter said the US-Japan alliance remains the cornerstone of Asia-Pacific security. "And with our new Defense Guidelines, the US-Japan alliance has never been stronger, or more capable of contributing to security in the Asia-Pacific and beyond," he said.

Carter also reflected on the re-balance strategy of US President Barack Obama. "It will ensure DoD continues to help provide the security necessary for that consequential region  which is home to nearly half the global population and nearly half the global economy  to remain a place where everyone can rise and prosper for decades to come," he said.

"That's been American policy and practice since the end of World War II more than 70 years ago. Regardless of what else was going on at home or in other parts of the world  during Democratic and Republican administrations, in times of surplus and deficit, war and peace  the United States has remained economically, politically, and militarily engaged in the Asia-Pacific," he said.

The US, he said, has long taken a principled and inclusive approach, and collaborated with a network of regional allies and partners to enable security and uphold important principles like resolving disputes peacefully;

ensuring countries can make choices free from external coercion and intimidation; and preserving the freedom of overflight and navigation guaranteed by international law.

"Because we did so, out of the rubble of World War II, economic miracle after miracle has occurred. Think about it....first Japan, then Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia rose and prospered, and today, China and India are doing the same," Carter said.

That progress has produced incredible changes in the region: populations are growing, education has improved, freedom and self-determination have spread, economies have grown more interconnected, and military spending and cooperation are growing, he added.

"Amid all this remarkable change and progress, America's interests and objectives in the Asia-Pacific have endured: we still want peace, stability, and progress there. But as the region has changed, our approach to how we meet those interests and uphold those enduring principles has had to change along with it," he added.
Bhagalpur, Bihar: The Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University (TMBU) Syndicate, the top decision making body of the university, on Sunday recommended cancellation of law degree of former Delhi minister Jitendra Singh Tomar. "The University Syndicate accepted decision of the Examination Board and recommended cancellation of law degree of Aam Aadmi Party MLA and former Delhi minister Jitendra Singh Tomar," Pro-Vice Chancellor of TMBU A K Rai told PTI.

The Syndicate recommendations would go to Chancellor of the Universities, who is the Governor of Bihar. The Syndicate also recommended action against 14 employees of the University, seven of whom have retired and one died, in connection with acquisition of fake law degree by Tomar, Rai said.

Among those whose name has been recommended for action includes lecturer Janardan Yadav and head clerk of Examination department Krishnanad Singh of Biswanath Law College at Munger where the former Delhi minister was falsely registered as a student. Tomar, who was Law minister in the Arvind Kejriwal government was earlier arrested last year on the charge that degree was fake.

He was forced to resign as a minister after the issue hogged national headlines in 2015.

Tomar is currently out on bail. In the probe it was found that the migration certificate of the former Delhi Law Minister was fake. The controversy relates to the acquisition of Law degree by Tomar on the basis of a doubtful enrolment at Biswanath Law College in the academic session 1994-95. He had claimed to have passed the law examination in 1998-99.
Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani called for strong action against terrorists as well as those sheltering, financing and training them on Sunday, while speaking at the inauguration of the ongoing 6th ministerial Heart of Asia conference  Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in Amritsar.

While Modi didn't name any specific country, Ghani categorically mentioned how Pakistan has been providing a safe haven to terrorists, and that it must be prevented.

Quoting a Taliban leader, Ghani said that terror networks like the Taliban movement wouldn't have lasted a month had Pakistan not been offering a safe haven to terrorists. Ghani said that the response to fight against terror has been fragmented from states as some still "provide sanctuary, support and tolerate these networks".

We need to identify cross-border terrorism and a fund to combat terrorism: Dr.Ashraf Ghani #HeartofAsia pic.twitter.com/y45fBwNF4K  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Calling for an intense dialogue and engagement, Ghani said, "I propose an Asian and international regime whatever is acceptable, particularly to our neighbour Pakistan to verify cross-frontier activities and terrorist operation. We do not want blame games. We want verification." Ghani also informed that his government plans to use the $500 million funds that Pakistan has pledged to give Afghanistan for development to fight terrorism in the region. "We need to identify cross-border terrorism and a fund to combat terrorism," he said.

Pak has pledged 500 million dollars for Afghanistan's development,this amount Mr.Aziz(Sartaj) can be spent to contain extremism:Ashraf Ghani  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Ghani also said that Afghanistan has been at the receiving end of terrorism for years now. "Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable," Ghani said, "About 30 terrorist groups, as named by the UN, are trying to establish a base in Afghanistan," Ghani said while speaking at the inauguration session of the Heart of Asia Summit.

Meanwhile, making an oblique reference to Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged action against those who support and finance terror and endanger peace in the entire South Asian region. "We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks. Support for peace alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action," Modi said while addressing the delegates at the inaguration of the Heart of Asia Summit.

"Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough.

With Pakistan being represented at the two-day conference by its de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz, Modi said mere action against "forces of terrorism" was not enough and the world also needed to act against "those who support, shelter and finance them", the PM said in an obvious reference to Pakistan.

We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terrorism: PM Modi #HeartofAsia pic.twitter.com/67GYqH9Ql9  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Expressing India's strong commitment to Afghanistan's transition, Modi said, "On India's part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering. The welfare of Afghanistan and its people is close to our hearts and minds."

Modi also called for Afghanistan-led, owned and controlled peace process for bringing peace and stability in the country.

The two leaders had earlier on Sunday held a bilateral meeting before the commencement of the conference. According to sources, CNN-News18 had reported that isolating Pakistan was one of the key agendas of the meeting. Modi and Ghani had also discussed an air connectivity corridor between India and Afghanistan. Pakistan had earlier rejected a road connectivity between the India and Afghanistan via the Wagah border. Even though Ghani had threatened to block Pakistans trade access to Central Asian States (CAS), for opposing it.

With inputs from Agencies
Transcription

1 FOSTERING UKRAINE s INVOLVEMENT IN THE EUSDR: A Civil Society Perspective Igor Studennikov Executive Director Centre for Regional Studies, Odessa, Ukraine

2 BACKGROUND Key Characteristics Ukraine, a non-eu country involved in the EU Danube Strategy process, shares significant part of the Danube-Carpathian Region. The Ukrainian part of the Danube Region is formed by four oblasts (regions) Odessa Oblast, Chernivetska Oblast, Ivano-Frankivska Oblast and Zakarpatska Oblast occupying 68,100 sq km with a population of 5.9 million.

3 BACKGROUND Key Characteristics In terms of a river basin approach and according to the ICPDR methodology, the Ukrainian part of the Danube Region is located in the sub-basins of the Danube Delta, the Prut and the Siret, and the Tisza River.

4 BACKGROUND Attitude Theoretically, in Ukraine the EU Strategy for the Danube Region is seen as a tool for the sustainable development of the areas belonging to the Ukrainian part of the Danube Region and a factor able to accelerate Ukraine s move towards the European integration. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the Danube Strategy process, at the official level Ukraine has never been an active player demonstrating more or less clear understanding of its own expectations from the EUSDR. The Government s formal attitude to Ukraine s involvement in the EUSDR.

5 BACKGROUND Governance & Coordination Structure Ukraine is a unitary state with a highly centralised public administration system. Formally, in the EUSDR coordination structure Ukraine is represented by the central Government. Currently the Ministry of Regional Development and Housing performs the responsibilities of the EUSDR national coordinator in Ukraine. On 21 September 2011 the Coordination Centre for the Implementation of Activities Related to Ukraine s Involvement in the EU Strategy for the Danube Region was established by the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers. But since then only two meetings of the Coordination Centre have been held (last one on 15 February 2013).

6 CIVIL SOCIETY INVOLVEMENT the Beginning In April 2010, an independent working group on the basis of the Civic Expert Council of the Ukrainian part of the EU- Ukraine Cooperation Committee (CEC) was established to ensure that Ukrainian civil society is involved in the development of an updated Ukrainian vision of the Danube Strategy. In fact it was a civil society s response to extremely poor quality of the 1 st Ukrainian contribution to a future Danube Strategy prepared by a governmental cross-sectoral working group coordinated by the Ukrainian Ministry of Regional Development and Housing and submitted to the EC on 25 May 2010.

7 CIVIL SOCIETY INVOLVEMENT the Beginning Major results: Public Vision of Ukraine s Participation in the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (2010) developed with financial support from the International Renaissance Foundation; 2 nd (updated) position document Ukrainian vision of a future Danube Strategy produced in cooperation with the governmental working group and submitted to the EC at the stage of the EUSDR elaboration; Action Plan for the UE Strategy for the Danube Region: Analysis and Implementation Perspectives for Ukraine (2012) developed with financial support from the International Renaissance Foundation; Series of public hearings on the EUSDR in Ukraine (2011).

8 CIVIL SOCIETY INVOLVEMENT Consolidation In February 2013, an EU-funded project Strengthening Civil Society Involvement in Assisting the Government with the Implementation of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region has been launched. Overall objective is to strengthen the Ukrainian civil society involvement in the implementation of the EU Danube Strategy (EUSDR), and to promote dialogue between CSOs and the Ukrainian authorities responsible for the coordination of Ukraine s involvement in the EUSDR implementation.

9 CIVIL SOCIETY INVOLVEMENT Consolidation Key components of the project are: The development of a Comprehensive Vision of Ukraine s Involvement in the EUSDR Implementation. The development of a Public monitoring scheme for assessing the efficiency of Ukraine s involvement in the implementation of the EUSDR. The establishment of a Ukrainian network of the Danube Civil Society Forum. The advocacy of the EUSDR as an opportunity for the improvement of regional development policy in Ukraine.

10 CIVIL SOCIETY INVOLVEMENT Consolidation The Ukrainian network of the Danube Civil Society Forum (28 member organisations today) is seen as an institutional tool for assisting with the EUSDR implementation in Ukraine involving CS and independent expert community. The development of a Comprehensive Vision of Ukraine s Involvement in the EUSDR Implementation has brought together 20 experts in various fields of regional development.

11 CIVIL SOCIETY INVOLVEMENT & THE GOVERNMENT The Public monitoring scheme for assessing the efficiency of Ukraine s involvement in the implementation of the EUSDR is a tool for the monitoring of the government s attitude to Ukraine s involvement in the Danube Strategy process. 1 st National Public Hearing, 22 April 2015, Kiev International conference PAVING THE WAY FOR A COMMON EUROPEAN FUTURE: Ukraine and the EU Strategy for the Danube Region, 6 October 2015, Odessa, 1 st big event providing an opportunity for a public dialogue on Ukraine s involvement in the Danube Strategy process and involving CS, independent expert community and the government.

12 BUILDING UP AN INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR UKRAINE S CLOSER INVOLVEMENT IN THE EUSDR The creation of an Association of Local Self-Government Bodies in the Context of the EUSDR a tool for closer involvement of local actors in the EUSDR and achieving a good balance between the national coordination of Ukraine s involvement in the Danube Strategy process at the central government level and real actors acting at the regional and local level.

13 LESSONS LEARNT Civil society is a real actor in the Danube Strategy process able to fulfill complicated tasks. But civil society cannot be the only actor in the EUSDR process. The government cannot be the only actor in the EUSDR able to ensure a country s successful involvement. A good coordination structure is needed to ensure that general coordination at the official level is achieved; a policy dialogue on the country s strategic priorities in the framework of the EUSDR implementation is maintained involving civil society and expert community; both the government and civil society are involved in the joint coordination process at the EUSDR level.

14 Vom Schwarzwald zum Schwarzen Meer was uns in Europa verbindet From the Black Forest to the Black Sea our common link to Europe

15 Thank you for your attention! CONTACT DETAILS: Centre for Regional Studies tel/fax:
Amritsar: Pakistani Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz and National Security Advisor Ajit

Doval had a brief interaction on Saturday night, amid intense strain in Indo-Pak ties in the wake of Nagrota terror strike and intensified cross-border firing in Jammu and Kashmir.

Aziz and Doval had a short informal chat after foreign ministers of five countries called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi last night in a group. The call on by the foreign ministers preceded an official dinner attended by representatives of almost all countries participating in the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference.

While Indian sources said Aziz and Doval "had a stroll for about 100 feet" at the venue of the dinner 'Sada Pind', a heritage village, Pakistani officials maintained that they had a "meeting". However, it is not known what transpired during their conversation.

When asked, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup only said, "There was no meeting".

Aziz arrived here last night to attend HoA conference amid speculation on whether the two sides will have bilateral talks on the sidelines of the conclave to break the ice in ties.

During the dinner, Aziz exchanged pleasantries with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Earlier, in a goodwill gesture, Aziz sent a bouquet to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday, extending his "sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery" from illness.

Swaraj and Aziz had held a meeting during last year's HoA meet in Islamabad during which both countries had agreed to start 'Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue' that was to cover all outstanding issues.

The resumption of the dialogue could, however, not take place due to the Pathankot terror attack in January this year and subsequent terror strike involving Pakistan-based terrorists.

Earlier this week, Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit had said Pakistan was willing for unconditional resumption of dialogue if India was ready.

India had already made it clear that it will never accept continuing cross border terrorism as the 'new normal' in bilateral ties with Pakistan while asserting that talks cannot take place in an atmosphere of "continued terror".

Tensions between the two countries escalated after the cross border terror attack on an army base in Nagrota in Jammu.
Terrorism remained one of the important topics discussed at the Sixth Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia in Amritsar on Sunday.

The participating and supporting countries and their ministers on Sunday signed a joined declaration stating the need to work to combat terrorism in Afghanistan and the region and to improve connectivity to it.

The declaration also sought for peaceful means to achieve its goal including bring an end to any kind of support and shelter to terrorism, and to create a fund to find forces of terror in the region.

Here's the full text of the declaration:

We, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and high-level representatives of the participating and supporting countries, joined by high-level representatives of the international and regional organisations, have met in Amritsar, the Republic of India, on 4 December 2016 at our Sixth Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia  Istanbul Process (HoAIP). The Conference was co-chaired by Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister of the Republic of India and Salahuddin Rabbani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

We express our gratitude to Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India for inaugurating the Sixth Ministerial Conference.

We recall the five Ministerial Conferences in Istanbul (2011), Kabul (2012), Almaty (2013), Beijing (2014), and Islamabad (2015) and we reaffirm our commitment to the principles, objectives, and outcomes enshrined in the Declarations of these Conferences that have defined the ideals for the working of the HoAIP aimed at promoting regional peace and prosperity.

We reaffirm the importance of the HoA-IP as an important regional platform for political dialogue and close regional cooperation aimed at promoting stability, peace and prosperity in Afghanistan and the entire Heart of Asia region, and for enhancing Afghanistan's connectivity with the entire Heart of Asia region. We recognise the role of cultural heritage as a catalyst for social and economic development of the Heart of Asia region.

We reaffirm our commitment to the United Nations Charter and its enshrined principles of sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, sovereign equality of nations and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states as well as universally recognised principles and norms of international law. Further, we reaffirm our commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We reiterate the importance of increased political dialogue and consultations between countries of the Heart of Asia region for a stable, peaceful and prosperous region.

We remain committed to resolving our differences peacefully, and refraining from threat or use of force against the political independence, territorial integrity, or sovereignty of any state. We will also work towards regional consensus on non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, which is critically important for good neighbourliness between countries of the region, and for peaceful co-existence as independent and sovereign nations, and re-affirm our commitment to these principles.

We stress the need for advancing regional cooperation as an effective means to address common challenges and to promote security, stability and socio-economic development in the Heart of Asia region. We, therefore, renew our commitment to strengthening enhanced cooperation among Member States in a sincere and effective manner.

We reaffirm our appreciation and express strong and unequivocal support for the ongoing constructive efforts of the Government of Afghanistan towards regional engagement and its commitment to building an increasing environment of trust and confidence throughout the region.

We appreciate the commitment of the international community for supporting the Government and people of Afghanistan and stress the crucial need for continuation of such support for achieving a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan.

We welcome the assumption of full responsibility for security by the ANDSF and for their role in fighting terrorism and violent extremism in Afghanistan. We welcome the agreements between the International Community and the Government of Afghanistan, and relevant decisions, which allow for continued financial support to the ANDSF until 2020 and assistance to them by the Post-ISAF Mission, in support of long-term security and stability in Afghanistan. We also pay tribute to the sacrifices made by the ANDSF and international forces.

We commend the European Union and Afghanistan for convening the 4-5 October Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, and recognise the importance of the development assistance commitments made by over 100 countries and international organisations, and of the Self-Reliance through Mutual Accountability Framework (SMAF) and its deliverables. We call on the international community to further strengthen international and regional cooperation towards sustained efforts for a secure, stable and prosperous Afghanistan.

We appreciate the continued efforts by the OIC and Afghanistan to convene the International Ulema Conference in Mecca, Saudi Arabia with inclusive representation of the Islamic countries and hope a positive outcome would contribute to lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan.

We recognise the significance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) and its subsequent resolutions on the role of women in conflict prevention, peace negotiations and post-conflict processes in the Heart of Asia region.

We remain concerned by the gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan in particular and the region and the high level of violence caused by the Taliban, terrorist groups including ISIL / DAISHand its affiliates, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Islamic Movement, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TTP, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah and other foreign terrorist fighters. Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region, we demand an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism. We recognise that terrorism is the biggest threat to peace, stability and cooperation in our region. We encourage the international community to continue to assist the Government of Afghanistan. We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism. In this regard, we call upon all states to take action against these terrorist entities in accordance with their respective national counter terrorism policies, their international obligations and the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy 2006.Furthermore, we encourage early finalisation of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism with consensus.

We commend the government of Afghanistan in successfully pursuing peace talks with Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin Hekmatyar resulting in the signature of a peace agreement that sets a good precedent for future peace talks with all other armed groups.

We commend countries in the region and beyond, particularly Iran and Pakistan, for their hospitality in hosting millions of Afghan refugees for over three decades. We call on all these countries to continue hosting the Afghan refugees until their sustainable repatriation and reintegration in Afghanistan can take place in a voluntary, safe, gradual and dignified fashion, in accordance with the Solutions Strategy for Afghan Refugees to Support Voluntary Repatriation, Sustainable Reintegration and Assistance to Host Communities. We are concerned by the recent spike of Afghan refugee returns and the challenges that this sudden influx presents for returnee re-integration programmes. We, therefore, urge the international community to provide generous support and targeted assistance for Afghan refugees, returnees and host communities in the region, with emphasis on youth, education and livelihoods. We welcome the Afghanistan-Pakistan-UNHCR and Afghanistan-Iran-UNHCR Tripartite Commissions on Voluntary Repatriation of Afghan Refugees from Iran and Pakistan, as vital steps in the Solutions Strategy. We support the Final Statement of the UNHCR Executive Committee High-Level Segment refocusing the international community's attention on the Afghan refugee situation in this critical period.

Addressing Challenges

Recognising once again that terrorism, violent extremism, radicalisation, separatism, and sectarianism and linkages among them are the gravest challenges that the Heart of Asia region and the rest of the international community face, and these problems would continue to pose a severe threat to the sovereignty, territorial integrity, economic development and bilateral and regional cooperation, we renew our strong commitment to strengthening comprehensive cooperation among the Heart of Asia countries and intensify our efforts to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations through solidarity and collective action.

We reaffirm our recognition made in Islamabad last year that violent extremism facilitates, encourages and justifies acts of terrorism and violence and we undertake to introduce measures to curb the spread of violent extremism and terrorism. We recognise the necessity of taking serious measures to address recruitment of youth to extremist and terrorist networks. We realise that the radicalisation of disaffected elements of the population, especially youth, can only be prevented by effective de-radicalisation and counter-radicalisation strategies involving all the HoA countries.

We, therefore, believe efforts to eliminate the menace of terrorism and violent extremism will not succeed without a concerted and coherent regional approach involving all HoA countries. This approach will have to utilise the capacities of men and women throughout the cross section of society of the region that includes political figures, religious leaders, educational institutions, opinion makers, youth, civil society, mass media and social networks. We undertake to develop such a regional approach to counter radicalisation by tasking our relevant experts from the fields of security, education and local governance to meet in the first half of 2017 to identify key areas to be addressed for developing this regional approach and provide recommendations to be presented to the Senior Officials Meeting of the HoA-IP in the first half of 2017 for further action on this critical issue. We encourage HoA member countries to share their experiences and best practices in the area of counter radicalisation with a view to helping evolve their national counter radicalisation strategies.

We welcome and support Afghanistan's initiative in taking the lead in exploring a regional counter-terror strategy, in accordance with the established principles of the UN charter, which we agreed was necessary when we last met in Islamabad in December 2015. We note the progress that has been made since the last Ministerial with an Ambassadorial meeting of the CT-CBM participating countries at which a draft framework strategy was shared by Afghanistan for further consideration and development. We call for convening an early meeting of experts to discuss the draft framework strategy with the view to its finalisation for consideration by senior security officials.

We are concerned about the increase in production and cultivation of opium in Afghanistan, the volume of drug trafficking and demand in the HoA Region and beyond. This requires further eradication efforts and poses a threat to the socio-economic development, security and stability not only in Afghanistan, but also in the surrounding region and the world as a whole. We understand that acuteness and global scale of the drug threat requires appropriate international efforts aimed at intensifying measures to fight drugs production and trafficking in Afghanistan and the region of HoA. We also stress the urgent need to respond to the serious challenges posed by the nexus between revenue and its financial support for terrorist entities in Afghanistan, the Heart of Asia region and globally. To disrupt these links, the HoA countries intend to increase dialogue between their relevant ministries and agencies to tackle this menace. In this regard, we believe it is essential to integrate a comprehensive approach in addressing the drug problem of Afghanistan and the HoA region.

We recognise that a politically negotiated settlement remains important for durable peace in Afghanistan. We reiterate our support to the Government of Afghanistan in its efforts to advance an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. We urge all Afghan Taliban groups and all other armed groups to enter into peace talks with the Government of Afghanistan. While recognising the importance of the contributions of neighbouring countries and regional partners in this process, we urge all those countries in the region and beyond who have leverages and influence to help bring the Taliban to the negotiation table.

Achieving Prosperity

We acknowledge the crucial role of Afghanistan as a natural land bridge in promoting regional connectivity and economic integration in the Heart of Asia region, and we reiterate our strong support for Afghanistan's efforts to use its geographic location to enhance wider regional economic cooperation. We further stress that economic development will contribute to achieving lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan and the region, and enhance regional economic integration. In this regard, we welcome the practical implementation of TAPI and completion of the first stage of the Asian International Railway Corridor between Imamnazar, Turkmenistan, and Aqina, Afghanistan -- the initial stages of TAT linking Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Further, we encourage the early implementation of the multinational energy and connectivity projects of CASA-1000, TUTAP, Chabahar Agreement, the Five Nation Railway, TAT linking Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan by rail, all of which would play a central role in strengthening regional cooperation between Central Asia and South Asia and further forge economic connectivity and growth in the region. We welcome the MoU on Jointly Building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road between the Government of the Peoples Republic of China and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. All these will lay the foundations for a successful Seventh Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA) planned for November 2017 in Ashgabat.

We are encouraged by the continued commitment of regional countries to establish significant North-South and East-West corridors within the Heart of Asia Region with a focus on the development of infrastructure connecting Afghanistan and the region to seaports. We recognise the crucial significance of enhanced and assured sea-land access for Afghanistan to region's biggest markets. In this context, we note the significant step taken by Afghanistan, Iran and India by signing their trilateral transport and transit agreement based on sea access through Chabahar. Once implemented, this corridor will provide additional and dependable access for Afghanistan and Central Asia to regional and global markets. We also welcome the progress made on the Lapis Lazuli corridor, and believe that this will further increase the connectivity of Afghanistan.

We appreciate the necessity to maximise the speed of movement of goods across the region, and in this context we agree to collaborate more closely in removing the non-tariff barriers to trade, establishing and implementing bilateral and multilateral regional transit-trade framework agreements. In this regard, we stress on the urgent need to integrate, through the land route, South Asia and Central Asia through the expansion of existing bilateral trade and transit agreement both northwards and southwards.

We recognise the importance of the role of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the economic growth of individual countries and the region as a whole. We commit to undertake measures to strengthen the growth of SMEs, including women entrepreneurship, and enable their expansion across borders into other countries of the region. To realise these objectives, we task the members of the Trade, Commerce and Investment Opportunities CBM to explore measures, such as simplifying customs procedures, exchanging information on regional markets and addressing tariff and non-tariff barriers, and submit a report to the Senior Officials Meetings, so as to take these ideas forward for implementation.

Confidence Building Measures

Reiterating our collective support to promote the implementation of six CBMs identified in the HoA-IP, we note with satisfaction that a number of activities under various CMBs that were carried out since we last met in Islamabad in December 2015.

We request the lead countries of CBMs that did not hold their Regional Technical Group meetings as we stipulated in Beijing (2014) and in Islamabad (2015) to reflect on how they could strengthen their capacity to play a lead role, as per their commitments, in advancing the work of the CBM that they lead. We also call upon participants and supporters to collaborate closely to implement prioritised activities under the CBMs of which they are members. We urge lead countries, participating and supporting countries and organisations to ensure the implementation of the activities prioritised by each CBM.

We appreciate the valuable support of the international community to the HoA-IP. In this context, we look forward to continued contributions of the supporting countries and organisations to realise the implementation activities prioritised under each CBM. In order to have a more precise picture of the contributions by the international community to the Heart of Asia Process, we request the co-Chairs to provide us with an annual report on the activities of each CBM and the contributions made by the participating countries and supporters of this process. In this context, an assessment of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process from its inception in 2011, including on the CBMs, was carried out by the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and presented to the Senior Officials Meeting of the Heart of Asia- Istanbul Process in New York. We encourage participant countries and supporters to consider the recommendations of this assessment.

Conclusion

We task our Senior Officials to hold the first 2017 SOM of this process, within three months of this Conference, and engage in substantive discussions on various important subjects in accordance with our commitments in Beijing and Islamabad and also to review the plans submitted by the RTGs.

We express our sincere appreciation to the Government of the Republic of India for hosting the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process in Amritsar. We welcome the willingness of Republic of Azerbaijan to host the next Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process as Co-chair in 2017.

We welcome the presence of guest countries Austria, Bulgaria, Latvia and Uzbekistan in this Conference and note their interest in the Heart of Asia Istanbul process.

This Declaration was adopted in Amritsar, India on 4 December 2016, by the Foreign Ministers and high-level representatives of the participating countries of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process: Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Republic of Azerbaijan, People's Republic of China, Republic of India, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Russian Federation, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Republic of Tajikistan, Republic of Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations. This Declaration was welcomed and supported by the Foreign Ministers and high-level representatives of the supporting countries of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process, and the high-ranking representatives of the supporting international and regional organisations: Commonwealth of Australia, Canada, Royal Kingdom of Denmark, Arab Republic of Egypt, European Union, Republic of Finland, Republic of France, Federal Republic of Germany, Republic of Iraq, Republic of Italy, Japan, Republic of Poland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Collective Security Treaty Organisations (CSTO), Economic Cooperation Organisations (ECO), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
The Prime Minister, on Sunday said there was a need to demonstrate strong and collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

In a clear message to Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for "resolute action" not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, saying silence and inaction will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

He was speaking after jointly inaugurating the 6th conference of Heart of Asia, a platform to help Afghanistan in its transition, in Amritsar along with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani which is being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz along with representatives of around 30 countries.

In his address at the annual Ministerial conference, Modi said the growing arc of terrorist violence is posing the gravest threat to the region.

Expressing India's strong commitment to Afghanistan's transition, the Prime Minister also touched upon the deepening India-Afghanistan ties, reinstating that India was committed to a developed and stable Afghanistan. Modi said, "On India's part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering. The welfare of Afghanistan and its people is close to our hearts and minds."

Here is Prime Minister Modi's full inaugural address at the 6th Heart of Asia Summit.

Your Excellency Dr Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,

Your Excellency Salahuddin Rabbani, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,

My colleague Minister Arun Jaitley ji,

Foreign Ministers, Heads of Delegations,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Namaskar. Sat Sri Akal.

It is an honour to speak at the inaugural session of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia- Istanbul Process on Afghanistan.

And, it is a particular pleasure to jointly inaugurate this Conference with our friend and partner, President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan.

I thank Excellency Ghani for accepting my invitation and for gracing this conference. It is also a great privilege for me to welcome all of you in Amritsar, a city blessed with simplicity, beauty and spirituality, and abode to the Golden Temple, the holiest shrines of Sikhs.

It is a place made sacred by Sikh Gurus who meditated here. It embodies peace and humanism, and is open to all people and religions. Its streets and parks tell stories of great valour and immense sacrifice.

It is a city whose character has been shaped by proud patriotism and generous philanthropy of its residents. And, by their spirit of enterprise, creativity and hard work. Amritsar also happens to nurture an old and steadfast connection of warmth and affection with Afghanistan.

Among the earliest disciples of the first Guru of Sikhs, Baba Guru Nanak Dev ji, were Afghans he had preached to in Kabul in the 15th century.

Even today, the shrine of an Afghan-origin sufi saint Baba Hazrat Sheikh in Punjab is revered by all faiths, including visitors from Afghanistan.

The flow of trade, people and ideas through our region has often intersected in Amritsar on one of Asias oldest and longest surface arteries, the Grand Trunk Road. Amritsar reinforces the value of restoring connectivity which is so crucial for the overall growth, stability and economic prosperity of Afghanistan.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since the turn of this century, the international community has extensively engaged in Afghanistan.

Major powers, regional countries and concerned nations from around the world have cooperated through multiple programmes of political, social, military, economic, and developmental support.

Our gathering today re-affirms the commitment of the international community to durable peace and lasting political stability in Afghanistan. Our words and actions remain focused at advancing a critical unfinished mission of our time.

And, that is to help Afghanistan:

-- Build and strengthen its social, political and institutional fabric

-- Secure its territory and citizens from external threats

-- Spur its economic and development activity

-- Stitch a stable and prosperous future for its people

Indeed, this is also the intent of this conference, aptly captured in its theme, "Addressing challenges; Achieving prosperity.

We have no doubt about the scale of the challenge. But, we are equally determined to succeed.

The results of our collective efforts thus far have been hard-won, but mixed. There have been important successes. Much more remains to be done.

The need of the hour is to stand our ground and continue with our line of effort. We must protect and build on the gains of the last fifteen years and march ahead.

Because, at stake is not just the future of Afghanistan that has invested in a vision of development, democracy, and pluralism. But, the peace and stability of this entire region, and beyond.

Let us also reflect with urgency on what more must be done and what we must avoid in Afghanistan so that its citizens can self-sustain peace and economic growth. The answers are all there. The question is of resolve and action. And, of putting Afghanistan and its people first.

For this, First, an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled process is key. It is the only guarantor of durability of solutions. Second, we must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough.

It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them.

Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Third, our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistans development and humanitarian needs must continue and increase.

Our cooperative endeavours in Afghanistan should contribute to its infrastructure and institutional capacity, and self-propelling engines of growth.

Fourth,we should all work to build stronger positive connectivity between Afghanistan and other countries of the region.

Afghanistan should be at the centre of our connectivity networks, not peripheral to them. On our part, we see Afghanistan as the hub for strengthening links of connectivity between South Asia and Central Asia.

We cannot deny that the more connected Afghanistan is with the regional arteries of trade, capital and markets, the more assured would be its economic growth and progress. President Ghani and I have converged on the priority of strengthening trade and transport linkages with other partners in the region.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

On Indias part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering. The welfare of Afghanistan and its people is close to our hearts and minds.

The successful record of our partnership in projects, big and small, in Afghanistan speaks for itself. The principal dimension of our cooperation has always been its people centric nature.

Our joint efforts:

-- educate Afghanistans young and nurture their skills

-- provide health care and improve agriculture

-- build infrastructure and institutions

-- allow traders and small businesses in Afghanistan to connect with immense commercial and economic opportunities in India.

And, the reach and benefit of such efforts extends to all corners of Afghanistan.

Herats India-Afghanistan Friendship Dam, also called the Salma Dam, that was launched a few months ago, will help revive economic activity for the people there.

The Parliament Building in Kabul represents our strong commitment to Afghanistans democratic future. Zeranj-Deleram highway and India-Afghanistan-Iran cooperation on Chahbahar would enable Afghanistan to link its economy with centres of strong economic growth in South Asia and beyond.

We also plan to connect Afghanistan with India through an air transport corridor

President Ghani and I have discussed additional measures for deepening our bilateral cooperation. We are making progress in developing plans for utilization of the additional 1 billion US Dollar earmarked by India for capacity and capability building in Afghanistan.

It will extend to areas like water management, health, infrastructure, energy and skill development. As India implements its additional commitments, we are open to work with other like-minded partners for the development of Afghanistan.

We are also happy to note the international commitments at the Brussels Conference in October and Nato's Warsaw Summit in July this year. We will continue efforts to scale up our ambition and dedication to assist Afghanistan.

In this, we draw upon lessons learned and best practices derived from our shared experience in working on projects.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

Let us remember that every passing day we help Afghanistan to achieve successful political, security and economic transitions, we are also helping ourselves create a more peaceful region and world.

I hope that your deliberations will produce constructive and forward looking pathways for action that:

-- promote cooperation in place of conflict

-- development in place of need

-- security in place of terrorism.

Let us re-dedicate ourselves to making Afghanistan a Geography of Peace. A place where reason and peace succeeds; progress and prosperity prevails and democracy and plurality wins.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.
Don't blame one country for terrorism: Pakistan's Aziz

Amritsar: Reiterating that Paksitan "is committed to lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region", Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz on Sunday said only one country cannot be blamed for rising terrorist violence in the region.

"The first and foremost in our view is continuing violence and acts of terrorism claiming scores of human lives. This needs to be addressed urgently and effectively through collective efforts," Aziz said at the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia Conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in this Punjab city near India's border with Pakistan.

"It's simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view," Aziz said at the two-day conference.

Earlier, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, in his blunt remarks in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, unequivocally named Pakistan for promoting terrorism in the region.

Aziz said Pakistan had "been making serious efforts for facilitating peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban that have not yet produced positive results".

"We need to make an objective evaluation of our efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan."

Aziz said his government stood in solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development.

"In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led Afghan-owned process."

Advocating the need to promote connectivity across the borders, the diplomat said Pakistan was committed to enhancing facilitation for transit of Afghan goods through Pakistan.

"We believe the two sides need to work together for extension of and improvements in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement. In this context, let me emphasize that peaceful resolution of outstanding disputes will further improve prospects of regional cooperation and connectivity."

 IANS
Amritsar: In a clear message to Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called for "resolute action" not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, saying silence and inaction will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

In his address at the 6th conference of Heart of Asia, a platform to help Afghanistan in its transition, Modi said the growing arc of terrorist violence is posing the gravest threat to the region.

"Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough.

"It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them," the PM said in an obvious reference to Pakistan.

He was speaking after jointly inaugurating the annual Ministerial conference here along with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani which is being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz along with representatives of around 30 countries.

"Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Third, our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistan's development and humanitarian needs must continue and increase," the Prime

Minister said.

The Prime Minister said there was a need to demonstrate strong and collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

Expressing India's strong commitment to Afghanistan's transition, Modi said, "On India's part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering. The welfare of Afghanistan and its people is close to our hearts and minds."

He also called for an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process to bring stability to the country.

Calling for sustained and sincere global efforts to bring "durable peace and lasting political stability" to Afghanistan, Modi said securing its territory and citizens from external threats must be a focus area for the "critical unfinished mission of our time".

"We have no doubt about the scale of the challenge. But, we are equally determined to succeed," he said, adding the results of collective efforts thus far have been hard-won, but mixed.

The Prime Minister said there was a need to reflect with urgency on what more must be done and what must be avoided in Afghanistan so that its citizens can self-sustain peace and economic growth.

"The question is of resolve and action. And, of putting Afghanistan and its people first. For this, First, an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled process is key. It is the only guarantor of the durability of solutions.

"Second, we must demonstrate a strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear," he said.

Noting that all those involved in Afghanistans transition must build on the gains of the last 15 years, he said what was at stake is not just the future of Afghanistan that has invested in a vision of development, democracy, and pluralism but the peace and stability of the entire region, and beyond.

Pitching for improving connectivity between Afghanistan and countries of the region, the Prime Minister said Afghanistan should be at the centre of our connectivity networks, not peripheral to them.

"On our part, we see Afghanistan as the hub for strengthening links of connectivity between South Asia and Central Asia.

"We cannot deny that the more connected Afghanistan is with the regional arteries of trade, capital and markets, the more assured would be its economic growth and progress. President Ghani and I have converged on the priority of strengthening trade and transport linkages with other partners in the region," he said.

Talking about the significance of hosting the Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar, Modi said the flow of trade, people and ideas through the region has often intersected in the holy city on one of Asia's oldest and longest surface arteries, the Grand Trunk Road.

"Amritsar reinforces the value of restoring connectivity which is so crucial for the overall growth, stability and economic prosperity of Afghanistan," he said, while describing the city as an embodiment of peace and humanism as well as a symbol of great valour and sacrifice.

Talking about Amritsar's link with Afghanistan, he said among the earliest disciples of the first Guru of Sikhs, Baba Guru Nanak Dev ji, were Afghans he had preached in Kabul in the 15th century.

In his address, Modi also highlighted India's infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, noting the main dimension of the cooperation has always been its people-centric nature.

The PM cited the India-Afghan Friendship Dam, the Parliament Building in Kabul and the Zeranj-Deleram highway.

He also spoke about the India-Afghanistan-Iran cooperation on Chahbahar project, saying it would enable Afghanistan to link its economy with centres of strong economic growth in South Asia and beyond.

"Let us re-dedicate ourselves to making Afghanistan a Geography of Peace. A place where reason and peace succeeds, progress and prosperity prevails and democracy and plurality wins," he said.

The Prime Minister said India was planning to connect Afghanistan with India through an air transport corridor.

"President Ghani and I have discussed additional measures for deepening our bilateral cooperation. We are making progress in developing plans for utilisation of the additional One billion US Dollar earmarked by India for capacity and capability building in Afghanistan.

"It will extend to areas like water management, health, infrastructure, energy and skill development. As India implements its additional commitments, we are open to work with other like-minded partners for the development of Afghanistan," he said.

The Prime Minister said India will continue efforts to scale up ambition and dedication to assist Afghanistan.

The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was launched in 2011 and the participating countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The platform was floated to encourage security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours.
Amritsar: Under severe attack over terrorism emanating from its soil, Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Advisor

Sartaj Aziz on Sunday hit back saying it is "simplistic" to blame one country even as he raked up the issue of strain in Indo-Pak ties at the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference on Afghanistan.

Aziz asserted his attending the meet despite "escalation" along the LoC was testimony to Pakistan's "unflinching" commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and expressed unhappiness over cancellation of Saarc Summit in Islamabad in November, terming it as a setback to regional cooperation. He did not mention the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

Noting that Pakistan was aware about serious challenges being faced by Afghanistan, Aziz said, "The first and foremost in our view is continuing violence and acts of terrorism claiming scores of human lives. This needs to be addressed urgently and effectively through collective efforts.

"The security situation in Afghanistan is very complex. It is simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view."

His strong response came after India and Afghanistan hit out at Pakistan for sponsoring and supporting terrorism and called for "resolute action" against terrorists as well as their masters.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who jointly inaugurated the annual ministerial conference along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, directly hit out at Pakistan for "launching an undeclared war" against his country and demanded an Asian or international regime to verify Pakistan-sponsor terror operations.

In his address at the HoA conference, a platform for Afghanistan's transition, Aziz said," My participation in the event, despite escalation on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary with India, is testimony to Pakistan's unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region.

"I look forward to meaningful deliberations today towards this objective," he said and pressed for a politically negotiated settlement of the Afghan issue.

Observing that regional cooperation plays an important role in ensuring political stability and promoting economic cooperation, he said postponement of the Saarc Summit scheduled in Islamabad in November was a setback to these efforts and "undermined the spirit of regional cooperation".

"Saarc is an important forum, not only for promoting regional cooperation but also for the improvement of

relations," he said.

India had pulled out of SAARC Summit, citing cross-border terror strikes emanating from Pakistan. Afghanistan and other Saarc countries had also sought cancellation of the eight-nation meet on the grounds that there was incitement of terrorism in the region.

Aziz arrived last night amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan over a series of cross-border terror attacks on India by Pakistan-based terror outfits and India's surgical strike across the LoC two months back.

Aziz said the peace process for talks between Afghan Government and Taliban has not yet produced positive results and Pakistan has been making "serious efforts for facilitating the peace talks".

"In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a

politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led Afghan-owned process," he said. He said Pakistan deeply values the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process in promote Afghanistans connectivity with neighbouring and regional countries for durable stability in Afghanistan.

"Afghan security forces have firmly and bravely stood their ground in repulsing militant and terrorist attacks.

The international community has reiterated its commitment of support to Afghanistan in the areas of security and economic development upto 2020.

"The government and people of Pakistan stand in complete solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development in Afghanistan. We would do whatever we can to help achieve this objective," he said.

The conference is being attended by over 30 countries including Russia, China, the US. "The Afghan government has also signed peace agreement with Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA). The implementation of this peace deal can serve as a model for talks with other insurgent groups in future," he said.

Calling for enhanced regional connectivity to stimulate economic development, he said Pakistan was building its national rail, road and energy transmission network to meet with the growing regional transport needs.

"The focus is on modern, state of the art infrastructure including through the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). "There is immense potential for connecting our transportation and energy infrastructure with Afghanistan, and other countries of West and Central Asia," he said.

He said Pakistan was committed to enhancing facilitation for transit of Afghan goods through Pakistan.

"We believe the two sides need to work together for extension of and improvements in the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA)," he said.

The postponement of the Saarc Summit scheduled in Islamabad in November 2016 was a setback to these efforts and undermined the spirit of regional cooperation. He voiced hope that the deliberations would be

constructive and focused on the efforts for lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan, which is our shared objective.

Pakistan also welcomes the invitation of Azerbaijan to host the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia process in 2017 and looks forward to its active participation in this Conference, he said.
Cross-border terrorism once again took centre stage at an international platform as the 6th Annual Heart of Asia Summit adopted the Amritsar Declaration that reiterated the need to stem terrorism in the region on Sunday.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed aspects of strengthening counter-terror cooperation at the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process conference, which saw participation of over eight foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 other countries from south and central Asia and several western countries.

In a clear message to Pakistan, Modi called for "resolute action" not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, saying silence and inaction will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

In his inaugural address at the 6th conference of Heart of Asia, a platform to help Afghanistan in its transition, Modi said the growing arc of terrorist violence is posing the gravest threat to the region.

"Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough," he said.

"It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them," the prime minister said.

"Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Third, our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistan's development and humanitarian needs must continue and increase," Modi added.

The prime minister said there was a need to demonstrate strong and collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

Even though Modi refrained from naming Pakistan at the summit, which also saw the attendance of Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz, the Afghan Premier went all out and openly named Pakistan as a terror 'sanctuary'.

Ghani, in his Sunday's speech at the summit, unambiguously named Pakistan for promoting terrorism and said no amount of financial assistance can help stabilise the war-ravaged nation if "support to terrorists" from the neighbouring country continued.

He said that military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists.

"The state-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. A Taliban figure said recently if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last for more than a month," Ghani said at the two-day event being hosted by India in Amritsar.

Even though the Afghan President thanked Pakistan for its pledge to donate $500 million for reconstruction of the war-ravaged nation, he did not shy away from lashing out at the terrorism emanating from the Pakistani soil.

Directly addressing Pakistan's top diplomat, Ghani said, "I hope that you (Sartaj Aziz) use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan."

Ghani shared India's concern on cross-border terrorism and said the world needed to fight the "menace".

"Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable. Some (countries) still provide sanctuary for terrorists," he said

The Afghan president said he didn't want to engage in a blame game at this event but wanted clarification on what is being done to "prevent the export of terror".

Meanwhile, the Pakistani diplomat also hit back reiterating that his country "is committed to lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region".

Aziz on Sunday said that it was wrong to hold only one country responsible for the violence in the region.

We are cognisant that Afghanistan continues to face serious challenges... This needs to be addressed, a CNN-News18 report said.

"It's simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view," he said.

Aziz said Pakistan had "been making serious efforts for facilitating peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban that have not yet produced positive results".

"We need to make an objective evaluation of our efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan," he added.

Aziz said his government stood in solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was representing an ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also pressed for the need of eliminating terrorism in the region while stating that "neighbours of Afghanistan" have a particular responsibility in this regard. Jaitley also announced the adoption of an anti-terror declaration at the annual summit, highlighting that it is the biggest impediment to putting Afghanistan back on the trajectory of development and growth.

The theme for the Heart of Asia Summit this year is Addressing Challenges, Achieving Prosperity'. As Afghanistan faces the challenges related to its multiple transitions, focused and sustained support will be required from all friends of Afghanistan in the international community for overcoming these challenges and achieving durable peace and prosperity, Jaitley said.

The declaration, while reaffirmed the attendee nation's commitment for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan, recognised that "terrorism is the biggest threat to peace, stability and cooperation in our region."

The Amritsar Declaration said: "We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism."

The declaration, although subtly, also acknowledged that terrorism finds roots in the region only because there is a support mechanism available locally. "Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region, we demand an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism," the declaration further added while highlighting the pandemic of terrorism.

The Amritsar Declaration also urged the member states to continue to work towards the goal stating: "We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism."

With inputs from agencies
Looks like the Income Tax Department has found another bogus declaration under the Income Disclosure Scheme (IDS) that the Narendra Modi government had launched on 1 June to give tax evaders a chance to escape any action after paying 45 percent total tax.

The Income Tax department on Monday rejected another fake disclosure totalling Rs 2 lakh crores, by a Mumbai-based family of four, ANI tweeted on Sunday.

According to the news agency, the IT-department has rejected a declaration of Rs 2 lakh crore by a Mumbai-based family of four and has commenced enquiries into these declarants.

"Abdul Razzaque Mohammed Sayed (self), Rukhsana Abdul Razzaque Sayed (wife), Mohammed Aarif Abdul Razzaque Sayed (son) and Noorjahan Mohammed Sayed (sister) from Mumbai, had filed a total declaration of Rs 2 lakh crore," ANI said.

According to ANI, investigations from the income separtment had revealed the declarants to be persons of suspicious nature, and with very small means. The declarations were rejected because the department suspected that they could be misused.

The I-T department had received another bogus declaration of Rs 13,860 crore from a Gujarat-based businessman, named Mahesh Shah, who had vanished just days before the date of paying interest on the disclosed income. Shah, however, appeared on a television channel on Saturday, and was, thereafter, arrested by IT sleuths.

The news agency also informed that the department had knowingly kept declarations from Mumbai and Ahmedabad pending, and didn't include them in the total value of declarations (Rs 65,250 crore) that was announced on 1 October.
Transcription

1 The RSA Network on EU Cohesion Policy Public and Private Resources for Regional Development in the Least-Developed, Most Deprived Micro-Regions in Hungary Judit Kalman Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies Hungarian Academy of Sciences RSA WORKSHOP EU Cohesion Policy: Focus on the Territorial Dimension Lisboa, 05 e 06 de Novembro de 2015

2 RSA Workshop: EU Cohesion Policy: Focus on the Territorial Dimension Context - Public policy trade off: equity vs. efficiency public finances: How to allocate public funds in an efficient and effective, yet also equitable manner? (tax policy, welfare system etc.) especially under crisis and austerity, but during normal operation too development policy : often opposing goals/policy tools, used tradeoff between equity vs. efficiency (Brakman et al., 2005; Bachtler et al., 2003; Martin, 1999) mixed policy both EU and national level (infrastructure? human resource? to business? to public sector? And what other aspects of devt.?) = grants given to faster developing hubs of the economy (growth oriented, NEG ) AND/OR to lagging regions for cohesion (EUSF) see mixed EU2020 goals in the EU development policy domain

3 In focus: the 33 most depressed (least advanced) microregions of HU and another 14 3

4 Characteristics of these most disadvantaged micro-regions 33 micro-regions (NUTS IV) 10% of national population mainly rural (2/3 without a town above 10thousand people) mainly peripheral (1/2 on border, 2/3 in borderregion) mainly with large Roma population (1/3 of national Roma population) under-educated, low-skilled population Child poverty (HU: % of children live under the 60 % of median income at national level) 4

5 LAMR Program an innovation in HU devt.policy complex program for 33 least advanced (most disadvantaged)microregions identified via complex poverty indicator Dedicated support framework (cc.320mn EUR) from For stimulating local economy (jobs) & reducing inner social and regional inequalities via infra, human devt. (health, educ., labour market etc.) tried to develop both regulatory and operating environment in a positive direction extra funds via new mechanisms - combined from several OP s (regional, social devt., social infra, econ.devt.) Preferential treat extra points for applications from there complex innovative project packages in an iterative way, improvement of local development capacity, Incitement of collaboration among local actors, between local and central, and among different OPs (funding) 5

6 LAMR policy contd. Additional policies also affecting least advanced microregions: Start labour program domestic central ALMP Rural development (LEADER Program) Domestic decentralized sources YET: no real coordination between EU and national funded programs, even no true harmonization of different OPs within devt. Policy! a major governance problem

7 Specific Questions of this study (Part of an overall evaluation on EU funds affecting disadvantaged regions of H. ) What type and magnitude of private/public (natl. and EU) regional development resources least developed (depressed) micro-regions (NUTS3) have access to at all in Hungary? What is the spatial pattern of these three different resources (private/natl./eu)? Have the least developed MRs managed to absorb more EU funds due to the special LAMR program within Hungarian Cohesion policy interventions? 7

8 Our initial hypothesis under normal circumstances in any region available development policy funds are minor compared to private (business) investments or state budgetary resources only additional role can be expected of them in the development potential of a region yet in the least developed, economically depressed and poor areas the private sector is very weak, barely any investments happen, thus here we can expect development policy to have a more major role without any special targeting fund-absorption capacity (measured by per-capita EU grants allocations) is lower than average among these least-developed micro-regions due to various (project size, lack of co-financing, admin. Capacity etc.) reasons, which further aggravates their underdevelopment 8

9 Data a new micro-region (174) and settlement (3152) based database, represents a major new element in the literature ( formerly only county data) Connecting demographic, infrastructure, economic, financial, business accounts and grants data from several sources (hard access, tedious cleansing!) : National Development Agency EMIR database on EU funds allocations, Central Statistical Office T-Star data on socio-economics Hungarian State Treasury s Kincsinfo on local government finances aggreagated to micro-region level 9

10 Data/ Calculating private investment Problem: CSO of Hungary collects investment data only county-wise, not separating public and private sector! Bureau van Dijk s Amadeus international database for business financial data calculating private investment from fixed assets Investment t = fixed assets t (fixed assets t-1 - depreciation t )>0 fixed assets corrected with depreciation, AND equity ratio (equity/total assets)>= 0.25 i.e. only take positive change in fixed assets as real private investment in the given year, if the firm has enough own capital to invest (leverage) not just re-values its assets 10

11 Forrasok Uneven distribution - Regional development resources in function of the cumulative population Forrasok elosztasa S o u r c e s Public grants for local govt. Inv. EU funding Private inv. S o u r c e s Public grants for local govt. Inv. EU funding Private inv. Cumulative population (developmental ranking) Cumulative Fejlettsegi sorrend population szerint (developmental kummulalt populacio ranking) In first period EU funds follow almost the population-based EU tamogatasok distribution EU (the tamogatasok Jeremie Allami beruhazasi tamogatasok Piaci beruhazasok diagonal ), however in the period (+ adding rural development resources) they are a bit more equalizing, though not as much as natl. LG grants (bump above the line= more than proportional parts go for underdeveloped quantiles) private sector investment follows opposing pattern: very low proportions in underdeveloped quantiles and a major jump in the upper 2(almost 80% in the highest (Bp.) 11

12 TOTAL sum of development resources by micro region quintiles (along CSO complex development indicator) EUs tamogatasok (NFT, UMFT, EMVA) es Jeremie Onkormanyzati tamogatasok Piaci beruhazasok red natl. Budget grants for LG investment are negligible Green EU funds : the amount is similar for 3.,4.,5. quintiles, but while it is half of the total in the 3rd quantile, it is just cc.1/10 in the upper, most developed quantile blue- private investment 12

13 Opposing devt.patterns emerge Development Resources in micro regions (NUTS3) of H EU Cohesion funds (mn HUF) (%) Private investment (mn HUF) 93-95% of private sector investment goes to more developed parts of the country (non LAMR) Given that in magnitude this resource is the largest (10x) this has serious implications for devt. (but o.k from NEG perspective! and from the overall convergence of HU to EU average) National budgetary devt. Resources are almost negligible in size, though follow a similar targeting pattern than EU funds But in per capita terms - in 33MDMs private invest is comparable to EU funds, or even EU funds are higher! (underpopulated small regions) (%) Natl.budget invest. grants (mn HUF) (%) Population (%) more developed , , ,28 68,3 33 LAMR , , ,53 9,8 14 other LAMR(47) , , ,56 5,4 47 other underdeveloped mr (94 LAMR)) , , ,63 16,5 13

14 Per capita resources in different types of Disadvantaged Microregions 14

15 Opposing devt.patterns emerge Non LAMR regions and cities develop due mainly to private sector investment activity, while LAMR characterized by grantdependence 15

16 Per capita private investments, fore juto piaci beruhazas kistersegenkent LHH Per capita public grants for local govt. investments, fore juto hazai onkormanyzati beruhazasi tamogatas kistersegenkent LHH Per capita EU funds, fore juto EU tamogatas kistersegenkent LHH 16

17 Total and per capita EU funds by microregions Per 1 fore capita juto EU tamogatas EU fundings, kistersegenkent LHH 17

18 Conclusions Very significant disparities in economic development and economic potential of micro-regions : private investment flows mostly into more developed regions market forces strengthen reg.differentiation convergence by EU or natl. grants not possible, only smoothing Overall convergence of HU towards EU average, as well as economic recovery from crisis-hit stagnating position is served more by concentrating development resources on growth poles BUT: for the sake of reducing disparities within the country support for the lagging microregions is still important! well targeted programs of even smaller amounts can offer chances to smooth and slow down negative processes as development of such laggards is grant-dependent the highlighting /favoring of disadvantaged microregions is a useful and necessary tool However governance matters: targeting, program complexity, local planning and cooperative implementation is key >yet to be seen what is accomplished in new round 18

19 RSA Workshop: EU Cohesion Policy: Focus on the Territorial Dimension Thank you! Comments more than welcome!
Amritsar: Pakistan on Sunday claimed that its Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz was not allowed to visit the Golden Temple and speak to Pakistani mediapersons at the hotel where he was staying, even as India said it was done due to security considerations.

Sources in the Pakistani High Commission said Aziz had planned to visit the Golden Temple but was not allowed citing security concerns.

Aziz, who arrived in Amritsar on Saturday evening, wanted to interact with Pakistani mediapersons who accompanied him at the Radisson Blue hotel, the venue of the Heart of Asia conference, but was not given permission by security personnel, the sources said.

Indian government sources said the permission was not given considering his security.

"Security was very tight. Permission was not given due to security reasons. Security of our guests is paramount. India ensured no untoward incident took place," they said.

There was a tiff between Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit and security personnel at the hotel after they denied Pakistani journalists entry to the venue.

After security personnel denied permission for Aziz's interaction with the Pakistani media at the conference venue, the Pakistani High Commission planned the interaction at another hotel but that too was not allowed, the Pakistani High Commission sources said.

Later, Basit spoke to the Pakistani media. Aziz left for Pakistan by a special aircraft around 8 PM.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had visited the Golden Temple on Saturday, while Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visited it on Sunday. Apparently, the parents of Hamid Ansari, who is at present lodged in a jail in Pakistan, were waiting for a meeting with Aziz at the Golden Temple.

Mumbai-based Fauzia Ansari and her husband Nihal had come to Amritsar, hoping to request Aziz to release their son from prison, who has already completed his jail term. Hamid, an IT engineer and MBA degree holder, had gone to Kabul on 4 November, 2012 from where he reached Pakistan allegedly to meet a Pakistani girl he had been in touch with through e-mails.
Islamabad: Pakistan's former army chief, General Raheel Sharif (retd.) has agreed to command a multinational Islamic anti-terror force, on certain terms and conditions, including being allowed to arbitrate between belligerents, a media report said.

Daily Pakistan, citing sources, reported that Sharif, who relinquished office of the army chief command last week, was willing to command the 39-nation Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT) set up under Saudi Arabia's auspices in December last year.

The report said that Iran has also assured to accept Pakistan's role in mediating Yemen crisis if Sharif becomes IMAFT chief with an authority of arbitrator, and would use its influence on the Houthi rebels to bring them to the negotiating table.

It quoted the sources as saying that Sharif had expressed his willingness for the arbitration during his meeting with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz.

The creation of IMAFT, with a joint command centre in Riyadh, was announced by Saudi Arabian Defence Minister Mohammad bin Salman Al-Saud on December 15, 2015.

Initially with 34 members, the military alliance of Muslim countries spanning Nigeria to Malaysia intended to undertake military intervention against IS and other anti-terrorist activities across the Middle East and other countries, had risen to 39 by March 2016.
Pump a rat with narcotics from both ends and see how it burrows through the mud like a mole, rabbit-eared bandicoot bilby, or an inebriated chipmunk. It is no surprise that the three terrorists who were killed near Chamliyal on 29 November carrying AK-47s, 8mm pistol, 20 grenades, GPS set, chained IED, explosives and food items, had according to DG BSF KK Sharma, probably crawled through an 80 metre-long cross-border tunnel that was detected by the BSF along the International Border (IB) the next day  on 30 November.

Sharma said there might more tunnels and the matter would be raised with Pakistan. He also said there is no technology to trace tunnels easily and that the BSF is in touch with several countries, including Israel, and institutions like IIT-Delhi to look for solutions.

Speaking to the media, Sharma made the following points: The three terrorists killed in Samba, Jammu on Tuesday (29 November) might have crawled through an 80 metre-long tunnel under farmlands to cross the IB. After the operation in Samba at the Chamliyal border outpost, no breach of the border fence was found; on Wednesday (30 November) morning, a small 2x2 metre tunnel was found in a field where farming is done and the soil is soft; the tunnel is about 75-80 metres from the IB and about 35-40 metres from the fence. By the end of 2017, the BSF will have a patrol-less, multi-layered smart fence along its borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh as 20 big global firms are undertaking a technical evaluation for the same.

It will be prudent to examine the following in the above context: One, taking up the issue with Pakistan is routine procedure but amounts to asking a confounded terrorist if he believes in violence; two, breaching the border isnt simply cutting through the border fence  breach also implies getting across via the underground tunnel. In this instance, the IB was very much breached; three, this is not the first time that Pakistan has infiltrated terrorists through tunnels  there have been such occurrences in the past, and; four, a patrol-less smart fence is Utopian considering that the opening of this tunnel was 75-80 metres on our side of the IB.

Patrolling cant be just along the fence especially when infiltration at times is assisted from the Indian side, even if for smuggling narcotics. Besides, traitors can always orchestrate temporary technical failure of particular section of the smart fence. So, there cant be any shortcut to patrolling. Smart fence is only a more powerful force multiplier.

Tunneling for operations, terrorism, smuggling is a global phenomenon. North Korea is estimated to have dug some 103 tunnels under the heavily guarded and well-fenced demilitarised military zone (DMZ) between South and North Korea. Two have been discovered and opened for public viewing. These are large enough to push a brigade-sized force across in one hour with small vehicles. These were discovered by chance when a farmer observed smoke coming out of the ground. Properly fortified and lighted, these tunnels are meant for military offensive by North Korea. Israel suffers similar menace of multiple tunnels made by Hamas from the direction of the Gaza Strip. These are for terror attacks and to escalate conflict, but if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) enter Gaza, they would encounter a network of tunnels, which implies the problem of first locating individual tunnel and then destroying it. So Gaza Strip has both offensive and defensive tunnels.

After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and Hamas seized control in 2007, the tunnels became a weapon that Hamas could deploy at will. The tunnel system branches beneath many Gazan towns and cities, running some dozens of kilometres within the Gaza Strip. They are used for hiding weapons and ammunition, facilitating communication, plus concealing and deploying militants, rocket teams and mobile anti-tank missile teams, making detection from air difficult. Hamas used cross-border tunnels to capture Gilad Shalit in 2006 and many times during the 2014 conflict. In July 2014, it was Hamas use of a tunnel near Sufa that spurred Benjamin Netanyahu to launch a ground operation in Gaza. During 2014, the IDF went in to neutralise 32 of these tunnels, 14 of which crossed into Israel. The IDF estimates Hamas spent around $30-$90 million, using 600,000 tons of concrete to build 36 dozen tunnels, some individually costing $3 million to construct.

Many tunnels dug from the Pakistani side have been discovered in India in recent years for smuggling and terrorism, including targeting urban areas. These include: March 2016, 10 feet underground tunnel, 3x4 feet diameter, 30 metre inside India in RS Pura sector to target Jammu. The tunnel was 200-300 metre inside Pakistan; 2014, 50 metre tunnel discovered near Pallanwala in Jammu sector, 10 feet underground, 3x4 feet diameter; 2014, 23 metre tunnel discovered in Chillyari in Samba district; 2012, 400 metre long and 20 feet deep tunnel with ventilation discovered near Pathankot; 2012, 540 metre long tunnel found dug into the Indian side cutting through Pakistan from the zero line. In 2009, a tunnel was found near Chakkla post along the LoC when it caved in due to heavy rains; 2008, tunnel found in Rajasthan's Barmer sector probably meant for smuggling; March 2001, tunnel found in Gurdaspur area running 135 metre into India.

In Pakistan's case, it is not the terrorist-rodents that are nurtured by the military, but also is assisted by godmother China and Chinas second protege  North Korea. Pakistan-North Korea nuclear nexus is well-known and goes as far back as the mid 1990s, North Korean technicians and engineers were developing missile silos in Pakistan. China is presently developing some 22 tunnels in Gilgit-Baltistan where the locals are denied entry. Some of these obviously would house strategic weapons. With Chinas expertise in tunneling including the Metok tunnel, China may well be assisting Pakistan in establishing a tunnel network in PoK to surprise Indian forces against any offensive in case of conflict. Tunnels also have strategic significance if a weapon of mass disturbance (if not destruction) can be smuggled through it. The fact that some of the tunnels discovered could not have been dug without machinery and are proximate to Pakistani posts along the IB/LoC prove they are part of the offensive plan of the Pakistani military at sub-conventional level. We must also acknowledge that more our border fence is strengthened, making it smart, more would be the Pakistani effort towards tunneling.

In August 2014, the IDF announced they had successfully tested a system that could be used to detect tunnels, using combination of sensors and special transmitters to locate underground tunnels. The IDF expects development to cost up to NIS 1.5 billion. However, Amir Oren, senior correspondent with Haaretz wrote on 26 April, 2016, In another two years, perhaps Israel will have perfected its response to the tunnels. This is one area that must become priority in India-Israel cooperation, in addition to research within India. Tunneling affects our security and should not be treated as the baby of the BSF alone. The MoD should be looking at this seriously including developing a concept for our armed forces  both defensive and pro-active. In addition, we must have 24x7 satellite surveillance of our borders. Where Isro is helping chart the underground course of Saraswati river below the Thar desert, perhaps focused research could lead to detecting underground infiltration.

(The author is a veteran Lieutenant-General of the Indian Army.)
It took me a while to get over the results of the US elections this year. I was watching the results with my friends at a downtown bar and the way it all ended left me angry, helpless, frustrated and completely drained of energy and hope. Yes, I know Im not American, but what happens in America affects all of us, even if we live half way across the world. I had invested every last ounce of my hope and positive energy into Hillary Clinton.

But when it became clear that she wasnt going to be the next POTUS, I went into a downward spiral that honestly I havent quite come out of, given the overdose of pain and negativity that is anyway commonplace in my life. You see, as a listener-healer to survivors of sexual abuse I have to deal with copious amounts of grief and pain every single day as every time someone narrates their experience, I relive mine. Add that to the catastrophe that took place on 8 November, it becomes harder to bounce back. Now, dont get me wrong. Im not trivialising sexual abuse by comparing the resulting grief with that which is born out of a political debacle. Im merely saying pain gets compounded when it comes all at once even if it is from vastly different sources. This pain affects me. And slipped over the precipice into an endless vortex of hopelessness and despair, I receded further into my shell. Sometimes, I just did not feel like getting out of bed. I would hug my dog and cry.

It is common to find distraction, avoid the grief or go into complete denial in such a situation. I have been through all those stages. But gradually I have been working towards finding sources of hope to re-energise me. You see, sometimes, it is not just about your will to live. It has to do more with your purpose or raison d'etre. And oddly enough I found hope in the words of my fallen warrior queen, Hillary Clinton. When she said, This election has never been about one person, that was my cue.

I realised we need to look for new heroes and champions. The old guard may have fought the good fight, but now they need to pass on the baton. New hope can come from anywhere in the world. So who should I invest my trust in now? Which man, woman or transperson has the potential to supercharge me and millions of people across the world. Who can inspire us to continue to strive to make this world a better, nicer, politer, more united and compassionate place?

Now, my political leaning is slightly left of center but even Im a little scared of swinging as far left as Elizabeth Warren. However, she does raise excellent questions about how America has treated its have nots. She also proposes (somewhat radical) remedies. I will not discount her prospects because at least she is thinking in terms of finding solutions instead of just stating and restating problems.

Well theres also Michelle Obama. While she is decidedly apolitical, her measured words are a soothing salve to our wounds. I doubt she will ever run for President, but there is so much more she can do in many other leadership roles. I hope she continues to inspire people and stay active in public service in some way or the other.

Then theres Amal Clooney. She has a proven track record of using her legal prowess and intellectual acumen to address humanitarian crises across the world. Should she consider a career in politics, she will make for an astute stateswoman and a compassionate leader.

Im also willing to place a bet on Condoleezza Rice. She has a stellar academic background, an impressive if not somewhat intimidating knowledge of international geo-politics and tonnes of experience in running the world. Yes, she is Republican. But so what? Maybe she is their shot at redemption for hurling an orange duck in our faces!

Nikky Haley has also emerged as a political force in her own right. Id keep my eyes peeled for that one. It would be interesting to see an American Punjabi dealing with the UN. She has some real steel in her.

I know I have only given examples of women leaders, but somehow I cant quite picture men doing anything other than treating politics like an exclusive all-boys club and brokering secret deals over expensive cigars in their drawing rooms over the weekend. I know that sounds sexist, but isnt that what has been happening so far?

And dont talk to me about Bernie Sanders. I lost respect for him when he asked Hillary to stop shouting with a dismissive flick of the wrist. Besides, his generic platitudes about people rising together sound a bit like anarchist bulls**t that teenagers spout when they want to sound all adult like.

But it isnt just America that needs saving. Europe is at the edge of darkness with extreme right wing parties represented by xenophobes vying for power. Could this be the beginning of the end for Angela Merkel? I hope not. West Asia and North Africa also need strong and compassionate leaders to inspire and unite people if we are to ever eradicate the scourge of ISIS. Up North in Russia, apparently Putin likes Trump. That isnt surprising, but terrifying in so many different ways! China has always been on its own trip and I have never quite understood the far East.

That brings me to India. Can we look for inspiring young men, women and transpersons who can give us the government we deserve? Can we find among us those who will strive for equality, inclusivity and basic human rights  all this with a modicum of decency? These may not be political leaders, just people dedicated to finding creative and lasting solutions. People who can help us recharge the batteries of our soul, so we can start helping others and healing ourselves in the process. We need new leaders.
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin is back with a new book  this time, a memoir called Exile. Published by Penguin Randomhouse, Exile has Nasrin disclosing the series of events during the seven-month struggle that led to her ouster from West Bengal, Rajasthan and India; the time she spent under house arrest and the "anxious days (she) had to spend in the government safe house, beset by a scheming array of bureaucrats and ministers desperate to see (her) gone".

In an interview with Firstpost, Nasrin spoke about being a writer in exile, taking on both religion and patriarchy in her works and why her novels are never disconnected from social realities.

Excerpts:

From your writings being banned, banished or rejected to panelists refusing to share the stage with you in discussions and debates, you have been targeted one way or the other. Which one of these many instances has hurt you the most and why?

Every ban and censorship hurt. But banishment hurts the most. Banishment took away the ground from beneath my feet. What I need now most is a firm footing to stand up somewhere to fight for the freedom of expression. I was banished from both East and West Bengal. As a Bengali writer it is necessary for me to live in Bengal, though I am equally entitled to live wherever I want to live and to express my views which can be in-consonant from a hell lot of others. But banishment throws me away from my readers. There are not only people who hate me, or try to banjax and even eliminate me, but there are also people who love and respect me, who are encouraged and inspired by me and who need me. I undertake the risk of my life to speak up for the betterment of society. Come what may, I will never be silent.

You often write and openly address the two oldest systems of subjugation in our culture  religion and patriarchy  which themselves are neither mutually exclusive nor critical of the other. Do you feel there is enough freedom or space to address them? For those who are willing to, what would you say could be a way of tackling the isolation that will be a natural outcome?

There is not enough space to address religion and patriarchy. The state uses religion to control people, and the society uses patriarchal systems to control women. Whenever I challenge the two, I get attacked not only by misogynists and fundamentalists, but by the state and the society as well. My books get banned, I get censored, blacklisted, physically attacked and eventually banished. But I do not shut my mouth. I urge people who fight against religion and patriarchy not to give in whatever be the odds and continue fighting for equality and justice.

In your book you write openly about reactions to your writings and relationships within the literary community. Has there ever been a point when you thought you were putting too much of your personal life out there? Are you not fearful of your personal life becoming public knowledge?

I did not write about 'reactions to my writings and relationships within the literary community' anywhere in my creative works. But in my autobiography I have revealed everything of my personal life. An autobiography is about one's personal life. I have not hesitated to disclose my experiences. I am not a criminal, nor a hypocrite nor a liar. Never have I harmed anybody. But some people from the literary world tried to besmirch and destroy me. Ironically, they are treated as great people. Nobody knows they can be so conservative and cruel. I have been a victim of their petty politics. In my autobiography if I hide the truth, then I should not be writing the autobiography at all.

Of all the opposition you have faced which one would you say has made you feel the most threatened  the religious or patriarchal? Do you remember instances when these threats made you fear for the worst?

Religious fundamentalists are visible. Everybody knows they are bad people; they kill. However, not many people know that you can be killed by patriarchal people also. I divorced the man who I married, because he cheated on me; patriarchal people blame me, not him. I had a sexual relationship with my boyfriend; they call me a prostitute, but have nothing to say against him. They hate me because I have not lived a conventional life and I criticise the patriarchal system and oppose misogyny. All religious fundamentalists are patriarchal because religion is grounded in patriarchy. The patriarchal people are also those people who are not religious or religious fundamentalists. You will find misogyny among atheists and rationalists as well. It is not that difficult to be atheists, but it is not that easy to be feminists or true believers of women's rights either.

Do you think writers and literature for that matter has distanced itself from key issues in our society. Is there a disconnect? Is our literature far too cosmetic to amount to anything at all, other than a text to pass time with, or even escape?

I am a socially committed writer. I write poetry, short stories, essays, novels on women's rights, human rights, humanism, rationalism, feminism, freedom of expression and many other issues. Many writers do not write about any problems at all. They write love stories and treat women who believe in patriarchy as chaste or great women. You would not find any fiction in which a revolutionary woman or a woman who believes in sexual freedom, freedom to say yes or no to sex, is portrayed as a great woman. Most popular male writers in Bengal unfortunately hate feminism, and exploit women. I do not think they seriously want to change society. They love the status quo.

Does a book, or a text, have a homeland and need one? You have been in exile for some time, but your writings still go around. Would you ever exchange places with the books? Do you ever contemplate things like  giving up writing to return home?

Never did. Will never do.

Finally, Exile will probably be read by a number of your detractors. Apart from them, who do you think the audience for your book is? From Uniform Civil Code activists to women fighting against Triple Talaq, is there a group of people who Taslima Nasrin hopes to inspire and motivate for the struggles ahead?

People who read my books will continue to read my books. I know about my Bengali readers. But for the English audience it is different. I am not that widely read by English language readers. I expect progressive people to read my book. But I would be happy if all kinds of people read my books- men and women, progressive and retrogressive. I do not want to convert the converted. I want the blockheads or shitheads to read my books and change. It is not easy to change people besotted with ideologies, be it religious obscurantism, patriarchy or misogyny. These are benighted people who need exposure to modern, scientific and rational thinking. I do not believe in writing belles-lettres. My writings aim at changing society. How far writings can [help] do it is a debatable issue. It is immaterial whether I succeed or fail but I will continue my fight for change and no force can subdue me.
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday demanded a probe against BJP president Amit Shah following allegations that he may have used a Gujarat property dealer as a front to disclose unaccounted Rs 13,860 crore under a tax amnesty scheme.

"Amit Shah should respond to Hardik Patel's allegations. Very serious! It should be investigated," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader tweeted.

Amit shah shud respond to Hardik Patel's allegations. V serious. It shud be investigated. https://t.co/l77xQS1Va1  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) December 4, 2016

The tweet came after Patel, a Patidar leader, alleged on Saturday that the main face behind Mahesh Shah, the man who disclosed the record amount under the government's income disclosure scheme, is "General Dyer" referring to the BJP President.

Mahesh Shah, a businessman from Gujarat had made a surprising disclosure of Rs 13,860 crore two months ago. He went absconding on 29 November, a day before he was supposed to pay the first installment of tax levied on the hidden money.

The Gujarat businessman appeared at the ETV studio in Ahmedabad on Saturday and said he was used as a front by some businessmen and politicians to declare the money. But he didn't name any.

Posters calling the BJP chief as "General Dyer" appeared in September hours before Amit Shah was felicitated at a function in Surat.

Patel, the founder of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) who is leading an agitation for reservation in education and government jobs for his community, usually addresses Amit Shah as 'General Dyer'.
Kuala Lumpur: Aung San Suu Kyi must step in to prevent the "genocide" of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, Malaysia's prime minister said Sunday as he mocked the Nobel laureate for her inaction.

Addressing a 5,000-strong rally in Kuala Lumpur, Najib Razak said the Myanmar government must stop the bloody crackdown in its far west that has sent thousands of Rohingya fleeing, many with stories of rape, torture and murder.

Whats the use of Aung San Suu Kyi having a Nobel prize?" Najib asked a raucous crowd.

We want to tell Aung San Suu Kyi, enough is enough... We must and we will defend Muslims and Islam," he said as supporters chanted "Allahu Akbar [God is greater]".

"We want the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) to act.

"Please do something. The UN do something. The world cannot sit and watch genocide taking place," said Najib.

More than 10,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, the United Nations said on Wednesday, escaping a bloody army crackdown in the north of Rakhine state.

Arrivals in Bangladesh have told AFP horrifying stories of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmar's security forces.

Myanmar has denied allegations of abuse, but has also banned foreign journalists and independent investigators from the area.

Muslim-majority Malaysia has recently upped its criticism of Myanmar for its handling of the crisis.

Last month it summoned the Myanmar ambassador, while around 500 Malaysians and Rohingya marched to the embassy in the Malaysian capital carrying banners denouncing the "genocide."

A senior minister has called on ASEAN, the ten-country Southeast Asia bloc, to review Myanmar's membership, while a strongly worded statement from the foreign ministry Saturday accused Myanmar of engaging in "ethnic cleansing."

But analysts said Sunday the issue is a convenient smokescreen for Najib, who is fighting allegations he took part in the looting of billions of dollars of public cash through state fund 1MDB.

Both he and the fund deny any wrongdoing.

James Chin, director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania, told AFP that Najib "is there [at the rally] to boost his standing as an Islamic leader," with a general election looming.

"Najib is looking for anything to make him look good and the Rohingya issue is simply a tool," said Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia politics expert with Turkey's Ipek University.

She added that if Najib's government really cared for the Rohingya, they would "reexamine their own treatment of the community within Malaysia."

Malaysia might be a beacon for Rohingya fleeing Myanmar but many have said they end up in a precarious and stateless limbo and suffer a new kind of marginalisation.
Long before Narendra Modi emerged as a leading dramatis personae on the scene of Indian politics, Mamata Banerjee was Bengals undisputed queen of political melodrama. The recent events that have unfolded in rapid succession  first, the fracas over an IndiGo aircrafts delayed landing in Kolkata airport, and then the row over army deployment in Bengal  reveal that the Trinamool Congress chief still has a flair for the dramatic; never mind that she now occupies the highest governmental office in the state. Mamata's refusal to leave the state secretariat (Nabanna) till the army withdrew from a toll plaza near it, provides further testimony to this aspect of Banerjees character.

I wont leave unless the army is withdrawn from near the secretariat. Ill keep vigil to protect democracy, to protect my democratically elected government, Banerjee told a hurriedly convened late night press conference this Thursday. Arguably, her ongoing battle with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as Banerjees own national ambitions (now that Bengal is firmly under her thumb,) are potent enough incentives for such theatrical skills to flourish further.

If Modi can tearfully choke up in the process of exhorting people to bear the agony of demonetisation, Banerjee can easily outperform the Prime Minister in the department of unleashing powerful emotions.

Rewind to Banerjees long and flamboyant tenure as opposition leader.

Those were the decades when she honed her dramatic skills to perfection, delighting and repelling her audience by turns. Her political tormentors could never quite anticipate the next spectacle that Banerjee would put on display. Her admirers, for their part, were spellbound by Didis frequent and unexpected emotional outbursts.

Consider the scene that unfolded on Kolkatas streets in the run up to the 1996 polls: Refusing to contest the elections, Banerjee charged the Congress  the party to which she belonged then  of fielding incompetent, ineligible candidates. Banerjees withdrawal from the contest provoked a hysterical outpouring from her admiring followers. Amid the high-pitched drama, Mamata threatened to hang herself with her fabled black shawl, even as delirious with rage, her supporters surrounded her, pleading with her to change her mind. Which she subsequently did, filing her nomination and going on to win the South Kolkata constituency. That was her third term in Parliament.

Alongside theatricality, Banerjee has continued to nurture her predilection for conspiracy theories. Sample the Chief Ministers latest response to army presence in her state: Is this a military coup? she asked, adding, even for a mock drill, the army has to take the states permission, and they have not. Just days ahead of the spat with army, the Trinamool Congress had floated dark insinuations about Banerjees life being endangered, alleging that an IndiGo airline flights delayed landing (by 13 minutes) occurred due to fuel shortage. The government has now ordered an inquiry into the delay.

According to a report in The Hindu: Trinamool member Sudip Bandyopadhyay raised the matter in the Lok Sabha. Today, it is one Opposition leader ... this Opposition leader is at the forefront ... [of the fight against the government], Derek OBrien said in the Rajya Sabha, suggesting that there was a perception that Opposition leaders were not safe.

High theatricality and emotional manipulation are today the leitmotif of politics. Though at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, Modi and Banerjee, have grasped the effectiveness of this idiom in defining contemporary electoral politics. The chief objective is to plunge the audience into an emotional vortex. Facts and prosaic rationality seem to drown in an emotional deluge unleashed by politicians. This is an idiom that is most effectively leveraged by politicians with the gift of the gab, those with a flair for whipping up mass frenzy and taking people on a rollercoaster ride of feelings that may have little relation to facts. Such experiences are amplified by multiple social media platforms, with their continued flow of comments and news (often fake,) and deliberately rendered sensational.

For instance, consider how facts relating to the efficacy of demonetisation as a means to eliminate black money have been pushed to the background in the face of the Prime Ministers emotional outbursts. Scores of economists have questioned the wisdom of a policy as drastic and painful as demonetisation. But what seems to stick is the rhetoric of feeling, the emotional pitch orchestrated by Modi.

Instances like these show quite plainly, the ineffectiveness of fighting political fights purely through data and ignoring the emotional appeals at the core of the message.
Patna: Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Sunday said after notebandi (demonetisation), there is an urgent need to make laws for nasbandi (sterilisation) in the country.

Singh, who is the Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, is the second senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader who has advocated sterilisation after demonetisation.

Last week, former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Sanjay Paswan said sterilisation will help control population of the country.

Singh said all sections of society should adopt this practice to control population in the country.

Singh said India has 16 percent of world's population and adds population equal to Australia every year. "The country is facing population explosion, it has to be controlled soon."

In October this year, Singh had said Hindus should seriously think of increasing their population in the country by producing more children.

"There is a need to increase population of Hindus in the country. They should take this issue seriously as their population has been decreasing in eight states in the country," Singh said.

He then recalled that none other than RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had advised Hindus in August last year to produce more children and said no laws can prevent them from reproducing more children.

Singh is the BJP's Lok Sabha member from Nawada constituency in Bihar. He is known as a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and champion of Hinduvta politics.




Tomorrow Italy votes on a package of complex referendums that are extremely difficult for voters without post-graduate degrees to understand. But rejection could be another devastating blow the EU. The BBC tried sorting out what it means and why it's important . The reforms Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is trying to impose on his fractious country are tied up in the referendum and he says he'll step down if they lose-- the 3rd domino after Brexit and Trump in "he onward march of the right-wing (neo-fascist) populists. Italy's been there before-- and it worked out badly for them. Unfortunately by making the referendum about himself, Renzi has put the country in unnecessary danger with plenty of voters looking at the referendum as nothing but an opportunity to punish a government they have beefs with.

Renzi has had strong support from global leaders... The concern is that if Renzi goes, Italy's politicians will squabble, the country's fragile economy will suffer, borrowing costs will spike and once again Europe will be facing a crisis in the eurozone.



Waiting in the wings are anti-establishment parties like the Five Star movement which is promising that if it eventually wins power, it will offer a referendum on retaining the euro. The very idea of another vote sends shivers down the spines of Europe's leaders.



Five Star's leader, the former comedian Beppe Grillo, has spoken of an "era going up in flames." It is a similar sentiment to that expressed by Nigel Farage, UKIP's former leader, who declared after Mr Trump's victory that the "democratic revolution" is only just beginning.



If polls retain any credibility after this year of political shocks then a No vote is expected on Sunday. The financial markets, caught out by both Brexit and Trump, have already factored in a Renzi defeat.



There is no doubt that Italy needs reforming. The tangle of bureaucracy and judicial delays snares investment projects, reforms get diluted or blocked in the two houses of parliament and the Senate, with its 315 members, needs shrinking.



But there are legitimate concerns that Renzi's plan will lead to a centralising of power. The winning party will gain a premium of seats, ensuring an absolute majority. Five Star campaigners argue that the "reforms serve to give more power to those who are already in power."



...The risk is that a No vote and a Renzi resignation would tip Italy into an early election. And that might give the Five Star movement and the anti-establishment Northern League an opportunity of success at the polls.



The prospect of two Eurosceptic parties gaining ground in the eurozone's third-biggest economy might well rattle the markets.



Government ministers will tell you that unemployment is inching down, that the deficit is falling and that labour markets have become more flexible. But the economy is 12% smaller than when the financial crisis began in 2008.



Italy's banks remain weak. The problem of non-performing loans has not been sorted out and the country's debt-to-GDP ratio, at 133%, is second only to Greece's.



The Italian vote is not about Europe or the EU but it will be interpreted as an indicator of the strength of the anti-establishment winds blowing through Europe in the aftermath of Mr Trump's unexpected victory.

Obama has been very supportive of Renzi's referendum and made a big deal about a recent trip to DC which played well in Italian media back home. Trump's not on the same side-- to put it mildly. Meanwhile European socialists met in Prague today to figure out how to deal with the rise of neo-fascism-- they call it populism-- in the western democracies. Jeremy Corbyn had his hands full , admitting "that populists have been successfully identifying many of the problems faced by people across the country, but their solution-- to attack minorities-- was not the answer... It's clear that there is a problem of the alarming rise and acceleration of the populist right all across this continent. Be it UKIP in my country, Donald Trump and the language he used in the presidential election in the United States, or what's happening in Hungary with Jobbik or Marine Le Pen in France, with her National Front. Politics has been shaken across the world. We know why the populist right is gaining ground and it's increasingly hard to get our message heard. It's up to us to give a real political alternative."





The European left-- much like the old and clueless out-of-touch Democrats in DC-- is grappling to effectively frame an alternative explanation for the problems they face and come up with solutions, that include increasing social justice and inclusion. Corbyn should sound familiar on this side of the Atlantic:

"The gap between rich and poor is widening. Living standards are stagnating or falling. People feel left behind by the forces unleashed by globalisation. They feel powerless in the face of deregulated corporate power.



"We have to deal with those issues and we have to deal with them quickly and seriously.



"The populist right do identify many of the problems but their toxic solution is actually a dead end. It's about attacking minorities rather than facing the real issues that many communities face.



"So, unless progressive parties across Europe are prepared to break from the political establishment of the past, which has sought to manage the change of globalisation, then we are going to have problems."



Mr Corbyn went on: "We have to offer a different economic message. It's about convincing the long-term unemployed that the reason there is no work for them is not because of migrants, it's because of an economic programme of deindustrialisation and insecurity.



"We have to make clear that our public services are being run down because of austerity and often very predatory privatisation.



"We cannot and must not abandon socialist principles, because many tell us that is the only way to achieve power.



"We have to put forward a very clear economic message-- one of social justice and inclusion."

Polls show that tomorrow's presidential vote in Austria could well go to the neo-fascist candidate Norbert Hofer, an anti-immigrant gun nut, said it be backed surreptitiously by Putin. Polls show him leading Alexander Van der Bellen, the Green Party-backed independent by double digits. The two mainstream parties were eliminated in the first round. His Freedom Party (FPO) was founded by Nazi SS officers in 1956.

[A] win for Mr Hofer would also be a blow to Europes political mainstream. It would mark a grim milestone: the continents first democratically elected far-right head of state since 1945. It would also present a headache. In the past its neighbours isolated and upbraided Austria for its flirtations with nationalist extremism: like when in 1986 it elected as president Kurt Waldheim, whose wartime Wehrmacht unit had been involved in war crimes; and when, on the formation of the 2000 coalition, other EU member states imposed sanctions. Now, with authoritarian populists on the march in much of the continent (take Viktor Orban across the border in Hungary), it would be harder to single the country out.



Europe would also be subject to such an election results global significance. Mr Hofer may represent an old party, but his political style is somewhat new and part of a bigger trend. Like Donald Trump in America, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France, the FPO leadership has sanded off the most overtly racist edges of traditional far-right politics and blended flag-waving, anti-migrant social policies, a redistributionist economic credo and the language and style of anti-establishment insurgence. So notwithstanding the distinctive aspects of Austrias election, it is the latest test of this formulas ability to create electoral upsets; perhaps even another omen of a strong showing by Ms Le Pen next spring. These phenomena may have their differences but they are also intertwined: each populist success in one country emboldening, enlightening and maybe even detoxifying counterparts in others. Once Austria was ostracised. Now others are Austrianising.

UPDATE: Good News From Osterreich





Despite polls showing neo-fascist Norbert Hofer 10 points ahead, savvy Austrian voters elected independent Green-backed Alexander Van der Bellen president today. There is general rejoicing all over Europe as this is seen to be a set-back for the Putin-backed neo-Nazi revival that has been gaining strength everywhere across the continent (not to mention Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania). Estimates show Van der Bellen besting the Nazi 53-46%. During the campaign, Van der Bellen's comment on Trump's victory was that "his campaign style, the sexist attacks were unacceptable. As regards content he has raised concerns-- let's give him several months."
By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

| BEIRUT/AMMAN

BEIRUT/AMMAN As the Syrian government and its allies prepared to ramp up their attack on Aleppo in November, one of the rebel groups defending the opposition-held part of the city took up arms against another, seizing its stores of ammunition, fuel and food.The incident near an Aleppo frontline underlined the rebel rivalries that only worsened in the face of an unprecedented onslaught by Russian-backed government forces, supported by Shi'ite militias from across the region.Rebel infighting has plagued the Syrian opposition since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, helping to put him on the verge of the biggest victory yet.The unexpectedly rapid retreat in Aleppo is provoking recriminations among an opposition divided by local rivalries as well as ideological differences between jihadists and more nationalist groups.With Aleppo long seen as a stronghold of mainstream groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) banner, jihadist influence will only grow if Assad and his allies win there, leaving the West with even fewer partners on the ground.In the November incident, an FSA group, Fastaqim, came under attack from the Nour al-Din al-Zinki movement, a faction that also counts itself part of the FSA but has recently moved closer to jihadist groups.This damaged morale. "Unfortunately it had a very negative impact on the factions and on the internal situation," said an official in another Aleppo rebel group, the Jabha Shamiya, speaking from Turkey. "It affected the psychological condition of the fighters, and the internal situation for the civilians."

The struggle amounted to a turf war, as so often among the myriad rebel groups.Zinki sources said the background to the incident was a Fastaqim plot against one of its allies. Fastaqim said Zinki was trying to crush mainstream groups in Aleppo in collaboration with the jihadists of the Fateh al-Sham group."In some ways, the relations among the Aleppo factions deteriorated even as the pro-regime offensive was ramping up," said Noah Bonsey, senior analyst with International Crisis Group. "That may have played a role in the opposition's limited ability to defend against the opening stages of the offensives."JIHADIST INFLUENCE TO EXPAND

The rebels have been on the back foot since the Russian air force intervened on Assad's behalf in September, 2015. Rebels say their internal divisions are a marginal factor in their setbacks when compared with the firepower unleashed by the Russian bombers, Shi'ite militias, and the army. But splits have nevertheless played a part. Conflict among rebels this year helped Assad and his allies to make significant gains near his seat of power in Damascus.The newly-appointed leader of one of the biggest rebel groups, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham, blamed "destructive divisions" this week for the opposition's setbacks, and urged a new effort towards unity.But Ahrar al-Sham also faces divisions in its own ranks between one camp that is close to the FSA groups, and another that wants closer ties with al Qaeda-inspired insurgents.

The rebels are making what may be a final attempt to organise themselves into a more effective "Aleppo Army". But after losing large parts of their territory in the city, it may be too late.The loss of Aleppo would still leave the rebels in control of large areas to the west and southwest of the city, including all of Idlib province and large parts of Hama province.But these are areas where jihadist factions dominate, including Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which has crushed numerous Western-backed rebel factions during the conflict.Jihadist influence discouraged the United States from supplying rebels with the more powerful weaponry they sought. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has indicated he may stop supporting the opposition altogether.A rebel commander in a town north of Aleppo said that instead of protesting against Assad, people in his area had put up posters criticising rebel commanders."They are all demanding unity," he said. (Writing by Tom Perry; editing by David Stamp)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Dhaka: A Hindu temple was vandalised and seven idols of goddess Kali were on Sunday destroyed by some miscreants in two separate incidents in Bangladesh, weeks after over 10 temples of the minority community were attacked in the Muslim-majority nation.

The first incident came to light after people of Mymensinghorohi village in Netrokona district found the doors of a temple open this morning.

Upon entering its premises, they noticed the temple was vandalised. Four broken idols of goddess Kali were also found lying close to the temple, a senior police officer told PTI.

Immediately, police launched an investigation. "We have collected evidence of the vandalism and started a probe. It was learnt that the temple's doors were not locked. We are looking for those behind this heinous act," Netrokona sadar police Officer-in-Charge Shahnur-e-Alam said.

Netrokona Additional District Magistrate Abdul Matin said those responsible will be punished. "We are treating the case with priority. A group with vested interests may have carried out the crime to disrupt communal harmony," Netrokona Superintendent of Police Joydeb Chowdhury.

In a separate incident, unidentified assailants vandalised three Kali statues in clandestine predawn attack on a Hindu temple in northwestern Pabna district.

"Three statues of Hindu goddess Kali were found broken at a temple at Bera (sub-district) of Pabna... the miscreants visibly entered the temple early in the morning and damaged the statues," a police officer told reporters in Pabna.

Badal Ghosh, secretary of the Sharifpur Kali Temple committee, demanded immediate arrest of the attackers.

There have been several incidents of attacks on Hindu temples in the past.

In October last week, miscreants set on fire at least six houses of Hindus in a predawn attack in Brahmanbarhia district's Nasirnagar, the place where at least 15 temples and more than 20 houses were vandalised after a Facebook post deemed offensive to Islam sparked outrage in the country.

A cyber cafe owner was arrested last month for allegedly masterminding attacks on Hindu temples and houses. The attacks on several Hindu temples in Bangladesh were carried out under a well orchestrated plan aimed at grabbing lands of the minority community, National Human Rights Commission had said.
Oakland: Fire crews in California on Sunday were searching the charred remains of a warehouse gutted by a blaze during a rave party, with officials saying the death toll could reach 40.

Relatives of dozens of people missing in the Friday night blaze in Oakland near San Francisco endured an anxious wait for news. Nine people have been confirmed dead so far.

The converted two-storey warehouse was used by artists as a living and work space but had no license for this, officials said, nor for the electronic dance party under way when the blaze broke out. The cause of the fire was not yet known.

Firefighters said the building seemed to have no sprinklers or smoke detectors.

Orange flames shot through the roof as the fire burned for hours and thick smoke billowed into the sky. The roof collapsed onto the second floor, which officials said was connected to the ground floor only by a makeshift system of wooden pallets.

Firefighters had to withdraw from the building to shore it up when part of the fragile structure began to move.

Sergeant Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff's department said Saturday evening that about two dozen people who were reported missing had been located.

But at least two dozen more remain missing, he said.

"We don't know how far into the process we are, because we don't absolutely have a number of people that we know are deceased inside of there," Kelly said.

"Theres still a lot of the building that needs to be searched," Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said.

An official at the sheriff's office who declined to be named said early Sunday the death toll could rise to 40 or higher.

Most of those who perished in the blaze that started about 11:30 pm Friday (0730 GMT Saturday) were thought to have died on the upper floor of the warehouse known as the Oakland Ghost Ship, Reed said.

"It must have been a very fast-moving fire," she added.

The electronic dance music party was attended by an estimated 50 to 100 people.

'Expecting the worst'

The sheriff's office station in Oakland became a center for relatives of the missing. The Salvation Army dropped off 50 meals for them, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Daniel Vega told the newspaper he is looking for his brother Alex and his girlfriend, who had said they were going to a rave in Oakland.

"If he is dead, if he is in the rubble, fine, I'll get over it. But I just want to find him," Vega told the Chronicle.

Al Garcia, who owns a supply company across the street, said that when he learned of the fire and went to the scene, flames were coming out of the windows and roof.

"I knew people were dead," he told the Chronicle. "There was no way anyone could get out."

Some of the missing were believed to be from overseas, making identification of the victims  thought to be in their 20s and 30s  more difficult.

The warehouse had numerous partitions added to the original building.

Some of the structural changes made it extremely difficult for people to escape, Reed said.

"There wasn't a real entry or exit path," Reed said.

The clutter hampered firefighters' efforts to put out the blaze.

"It was filled end-to-end with furniture, whatnot, collections," Reed said. "It was like a maze, almost."

Friends and families of partygoers took to social media to search for news about their loved ones, with some posting information on the event's Facebook page.

"Please tell me you are safe," one woman wrote, adding a friend's name, while others posted prayers.

"I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke," Bob Mule, a photographer who lives in the building, told Fox television affiliate KTVU. "I couldn't get the fire extinguisher to work."

The fire was described as the deadliest incident in Oakland since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in northern California, which killed 63 people.

The deadliest nightclub fire in the United States in recent decades occurred in 2003, when pyrotechnic effects by the rock band Great White set off an inferno at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island, killing about 100 people.
Helsinki: A gunman killed a local town councilor and two journalists, all women, in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in southeastern Finland, police said Sunday. A male suspect has been detained.

The chairwoman of Imatra Town Council and two local reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant in the town just before a police patrol car arrived to the scene around midnight Saturday, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said. Police said two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her 30s.

Police detained a 23-year-old local man who didn't resist arrest. The three victims were shot multiple times in the head and torso with a rifle. There was no known motive.

Imatra, which has 28,000 inhabitants, is about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of the capital, Helsinki.

"We decided to open a crisis center after the shooting occurred right in the middle of the town near restaurants and nightclubs," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. "There were people there when it happened. In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident and many people were shocked."

In Finland, a country of 5.4 million people with strong hunting traditions, there are 650,000 officially recognized gun owners although homicides with guns are unusual. But after two fatal school shootings early this decade, gun laws have been tightened.
New Delhi: India and Russia are likely to sign the General Framework Agreement (GFA) on Kudankulam units 5 and 6 by this month.

"Leaders of the two countries Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin had set a deadline to sign the General Framework Agreement for units 5 and 6 by the end of this month. The work is on and we are trying to stick to deadline," a top official of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) said.

The joint statement, during Putin's visit to India this year, had stated that the two countries will try to complete the GFA by the end of the year.

Negotiations for the contract are still on and details are being worked out by Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and Rosatom, nuclear power agency of Russia.

Work on the ground breaking ceremony for unit 3 and 4 was held early this year.

The agreement for the project was inked by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988, but the actual work started only in 1997.

The unit 1 and 2 of Kudankulam plant were built at a cost of Rs 20,962 crore. A major share of power generated in the plant goes to Tamil Nadu, followed by Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry. Unit 1 was started in October 2013, while the second unit was connected to grid in August this year.

Unit 3 and 4 of the Kudankulam are expected to be commissioned by 2022-23.

The Russian built Water-Water Energetic Reactor (VVER) reactor Kudankulam unit 1 and 2 are the largest power generating stations in the country. After all the units (1-6) of the plant are commissioned, the nuclear park will have the power generating capacity of 6,000 MW.
Robin Hood stole the Sheriff of Nottinghams wealth and distributed it to the poor. The legend grew and turned romantic.

Prime Minister Modi pretty much turned Moradabad into Sherwood forest when he announced that all Jan Dhan holders who had loaded up their accounts with other peoples black money (about Rs 30,000 crores) after November should now plan to keep these ill gotten gains while those who gave it to them should start marching off to jail.

Party time, people, what a windfall.

Obviously, the announcement was received with rapturous cheers. Except that it bypasses the fact both sides colluded in the deal.

For another, even if we argue that the poor were compelled by circumstances where their bosses (masters, sahibs, maliks, munims, seths, Thakurs and whatever) ordered them to do so or else they would face the consequences, it is exactly this relationship that will prevent the vast majority from either surrendering the route map of the money or coughing up names. They are not going to risk their jobs by becoming quislings. There is no other job waiting outside. Nor does the gift come with any guarantee of employment.

Such impractical statements not only make presumptions that all the rich are bad (not that Rs 2.5 lakhs is exactly enough for a castle in Capri) and that all the poor are little angels but contributes to the class divide, encourages loathing and suspicion and pits one against the other. The government cannot absolve itself of the role that it has played in creating this equation when it announced that upto that sum (Rs 2.5 lakhs) being put in an account no questions would be asked.

In the first days, it was no secret that people were using their minions to do the dirty work. Some even proudly spoke about it. No one denies that it was wrong but that it was allowed; when populist interpretations are made which call on you to take what is not yours, it reminds one of the French revolution and the sound of the tumbrels.

We are now one step away from breaking the glass window and looting. Why not find the key to the office safe and take the money...same difference.

Modi would have better served the situation if he had said take out that money and clear your accounts of what is not yours and give it back to your bosses and tell the Seth and the Malik and the sahib to go fly a kite. Dont keep that fruit of the poisoned tree in your account. Give it to the authorities if you cannot give it to the bosses but don't keep it...Let not your bosses get a chance to take it back from you.

Now that would have been a fight worthy of the Prime Minister. Not reducing the gravitas of the situation to a theatrical hostility that does no one any good. What is edifying about making statements that suggest there is great glee in having the rich fall at the feet of the poor. The rich never fall at feet of the poor. They would simply manipulate them and if they did fall at their feet momentarily it would only be to pull the edge of the rug.

Why were Jan Dhan accounts not exempted from the allotted Rs 2.5 lakh ceiling and the nation informed that any untoward spike would be seen as criminal in such accounts.

Thing is we cannot turn this into a social war. That is far too dangerous. If the them and us becomes the spearhead of the demonetisation movement it might win some votes in the imminent elections but over the long haul will turn as sour as lime when nothing pans out.

Allowing the poor to keep the black money of the rich only replaces one crime with another. And before the cascade begins how does one draw the line in the sand between what is rich and what is poor.

It does not become white money.

And as for sending the hundreds of thousands to jail even if you got a handful of names what crime is there in in gifting your staff a bonus of Rs 2.49 lakhs?

Can we really see the truly rich and corrupt and the big time scammers at the top even losing a minutes sleep.

Contrary to the current trend a huge number of well off people take care of their lesser fortunate brethren...so do you. Let's not destroy that powerful pillar of our society.
Kathmandu: Concerned about the deadlock over amending Nepal's Constitution, President Bidya Devi Bhandari called for an all-party meeting to discuss the current political situation. The meeting with the political parties represented in Legislature-Parliament will take place later today. "President Bhandari has been concerned with the latest political development," a source was quoted as saying by the Republica Online.

"She has called an all party meeting in a bid to seek a political solution to the current imbroglio," it said. Rastriya Janamorcha Nepal Chairman Chitra Bahadur KC said the President called him to be present for the discussion. The meeting has been called at a time when the political parties are sharply divided over the constitution amendment bill registered in Parliament.

Bhandari has been urging the top leaders of the major the parties to bail the country out of the current political deadlock through consensus.

The Madhesi Front last week refused to back the Constitution amendment bill, saying it was not acceptable in its current discriminatory form. The Constitution promulgated last year could not be implemented due to the agitation by the Madhesis.

The Madhesi parties and ethnic groups have been demanding more rights and representation for the marginalised people.

Re-demarcation of the provincial boundaries and citizenship issue are the two major demands put forth by the Madhesis. The Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, launched a six-month agitation from September last year to February this year in which more than 50 people were killed.

The agitation had also crippled the landlocked country's economy as supplies from India were blocked.
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is likely to visit the US in the first quarter of next year when a meeting with incoming President Donald Trump would be included in his Washington engagements, media reports here said on Sunday.

The arrangement would be worked out through diplomatic channels soon after Trump assumes office on 20 January, The News International reported.

Pakistan has decided to maintain its ties with the US on the cardinal principle of mutual respect while addressing each other's concerns in a dignified manner once the Donald Trump administration is at the helm of affairs in Washington, the report said.

The Pakistan standpoint in this regard would be conveyed to think-tanks in the US later this week during Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi's visit to Washington, it said.

Fatemi will also have extensive interaction with those likely to be part of Trump's team in various departments, particularly in the State Department.

A significant meeting with one of the top officials of the US with Sharif will take place next month in Davos (Switzerland) on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the report noted.

The Foreign Office, however, was tight-lipped about Tariq Fatemi's mission and Sharif's visit to the US.

Fatemi, who served in Washington for a long period of time in various capacities including as ambassador, had a detailed meeting with Sharif during the past week to seek guidance for the upcoming mission.
By Roberta Rampton

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday downplayed the significance of a phone conversation between Donald Trump and Taiwan's president, describing it as a "courtesy call" that was not intended to show a shift in U.S. foreign policy.Trump's call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday was the first by a U.S. president-elect or president with a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of "one China."The diplomatic contretemps was one of several recently for the president-elect, a real estate magnate who has never held public office and has no foreign affairs or military experience. Trump is still considering who to name as his secretary of state.China blamed Taiwan for the call, but also lodged a diplomatic protest with the United States on Saturday, saying that the "one China" policy was the bedrock of relations between China and the United States.Pence called the uproar over the call with "democratically elected" Tsai a "tempest in a teapot." He blamed the media for the controversy, saying the call was similar in nature to one between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping after the Nov. 8 election."I think I would just say to our counterparts in China that this was a moment of courtesy. The president-elect talked to President Xi two weeks ago in the same manner. It was not a discussion about policy," Pence said on NBC's "Meet the Press."Trump's policy decisions will come after he takes office on Jan. 20, Pence said. China's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it had lodged "stern representations" with what it called the "relevant U.S. side," urging caution on the issue.Pence said he was not aware of any contact between the Trump transition team and the Chinese government since Friday, and said he did not expect Trump's team to reach out this week to ease tensions with China.

UNCONVENTIONAL DIPLOMACY

Trump, known for his unconventional approach to politics, has raised eyebrows with his initial forays into the complex web of international diplomacy as president-elect. He has had more than 50 phone calls with foreign leaders so far.He was praised by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said in an interview on Sunday that Trump was a "clever man."

Last week, Trump offered to help Pakistan solve its problems and praised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as a "terrific guy" during a phone conversation, the Pakistani leader's office said.Asked whether that meant Trump wanted to mediate the long-running border dispute between Pakistan and India, Pence acknowledged recent violence in the Kashmir region."I think what the president-elect expressed in conversations with leaders from both countries was a desire for continued U.S. engagement, building the relationship with both of those countries," Pence told NBC.He said Trump would show "energetic leadership" in engaging with foreign nations and "look for ways that he can bring those extraordinary deal-making skills to bear on lessening tensions and solving problems in the world."Trump last week also spoke with Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte, who said Trump showed understanding about a deadly crackdown on drug dealers. Duterte has sparred with President Barack Obama, telling him earlier this year to "go to hell" after Obama expressed concerns about possible human rights abuses in Duterte's war on drugs.

On Sunday, Pence said policy decisions would be made after Trump takes office."It will be for the president-elect to decide whether he implements that policy after the inauguration," Pence said in an interview on ABC's "This Week."Pence also said that Trump may consider new candidates for secretary of state, America's top diplomat, after having narrowed the field last week to four people."We've been winnowing the list, but it might grow a little bit," Pence said on NBC.Trump will have additional interviews with new candidates for secretary of state in the coming week, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's senior adviser who managed his campaign, told reporters at Trump Tower on Sunday.The Associated Press and Fox News both reported Trump was considering Jon Huntsman, a former ambassador to China and Utah governor, for secretary of state. Conway declined to confirm whether Huntsman, who criticized Trump during his race, was in the running. (Additional reporting by John Whitesides in Washington and Melissa Fares in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Tom Perry

| BEIRUT

BEIRUT Rebels in Aleppo have told the United States they will not leave their besieged enclave in the city after Moscow called for talks with Washington over their withdrawal, signalling they will fight on even as their top commander was wounded.A Syrian military source said the army aimed to take full control of Aleppo within weeks, after seizing swathes of the city's rebel-held east in an advance poised to deal a major blow to the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.With more than 30,000 people uprooted by the latest fighting, residents who fled eastern Aleppo for government-held areas early in the war began returning to the Hanano district recently captured from the rebels to inspect their homes.Under relentless attack, the rebels may have no choice but to negotiate a withdrawal from their shrinking, besieged enclave in eastern Aleppo, where tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be sheltering.The Western and regional states that have backed the rebellion appear unwilling or unable to do anything to prevent a major defeat for the opposition fighting to topple Assad.Restoring full control over Aleppo would mark the biggest triumph yet for Assad in a war that spiralled from protests against his rule in 2011. The campaign waged by the Syrian army and its allies in Aleppo is one of the most ferocious of the war, with hundreds reported killed in recent weeks alone.Russia, whose air force has helped the government close in on eastern Aleppo this year, said on Saturday it was ready for talks with the United States over a full withdrawal of rebels from Aleppo.Speaking to Reuters from Turkey, senior rebel official Zakaria Malahifji said groups fighting in Aleppo told U.S. officials on Saturday they would not leave the city.The U.S. officials had asked the rebels "do you want to leave, (or) do you want to be steadfast", Malahifji said."Our response to the Americans was as follows: 'we cannot leave our city, our homes, to the mercenary militias that the regime has mobilised in Aleppo'," said Malahifji, the head of the political office of an Aleppo rebel group."They listened to the response and did not comment," he said, adding the rebel groups had reiterated calls for humanitarian corridors to be opened for the delivery of food and medicine into eastern Aleppo and the evacuation of the wounded.

The United States has yet to comment on the proposal made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday for talks on the withdrawal of all rebel fighters "without exclusion" from Aleppo.ARMY EXPECTS TO TAKE EASTERN ALEPPO "IN WEEKS"

The rebels said the Russians had retreated from proposals agreed at talks with rebel groups in Turkey that would have resulted in jihadist fighters leaving the city, a ceasefire and humanitarian aid deliveries.The Syrian army, backed on the ground by an array of militias including Shi'ite groups from Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, has vowed to crush the rebels in Aleppo."The expectation is weeks," the military source said, referring to the timeframe for taking back the whole city.

"The Syrian Arab Army will continue to implement its missions until the elimination of the terrorists and the recovery of control over all the eastern districts," he said. Pro-Damascus sources have previously said the army aimed to take back all of Aleppo by the time U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. The reason was to mitigate the risk of a shift in U.S. policy on Syria, though Trump has indicated he could end U.S. support for the rebels.The United Nations estimates that close to 30,000 people have been displaced by the latest fighting, 18,000 of them leaving to government-held areas, a further 8,500 going to the Kurdish-controlled neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud and the rest moving within rebel-held areas.U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has said more than 100,000 people may still be in the rebel-held area. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that reports on the war, said it could be as many as 200,000 people. Food and fuel supplies are critically low in eastern Aleppo, where hospitals have been repeatedly bombed out of operation.

The rebels, including foreign-backed groups, say they have been abandoned to their fate in a war against better armed enemies including the Russian air force and Lebanon's highly trained Hezbollah.PEOPLE INSPECT HOMES

In another blow to the rebels, the head of a new rebel alliance was seriously wounded on Saturday, rebel officials said. Abu Abdelrahman Nour will be replaced as head of the "Aleppo army" he was appointed to lead last week.The army and its allies have opened numerous fronts against the rebel-held east in what rebels see as an effort to deplete their ammunition and men. Malahifji said the rebels could remain steadfast for "an excellent period" of time.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army or its allies were attacking in at least eight places. It says rebels have lost more than 60 percent of the area they held until recently. Rebels say the amount captured is less.Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said the pro-government forces were seeking to drive another wedge into the rebel-held sector from Aleppo's ancient citadel southwards.The government took journalists to the recently captured Hanano district of northeastern Aleppo on Sunday, using a road through the city centre that was reopened two days ago.A Reuters journalist said buses leaving from western Aleppo were bringing a steady stream of people to inspect homes they had not seen in years. Russian military trucks also delivered aid to the captured eastern districts of eastern Aleppo. (Additional reporting by Firas Makdesi in Aleppo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
About a week ago we looked at the upcoming French presidential elections from the perspective of the primary of the center-right party, Les Republicains, which have since had their run-off and selected the further right of the two party front-runners, Francois Fillon. The betting is now that Fillon will eventually face neo-fascist leader Marine Le Pen. But what about the Socialists, you wonder? French conventional wisdom is that they've made a hash of governing and stand no chance. In fact, this week their standard bearer, President Francois Hollande, announced that he won't seek reelection , a not entirely unexpected development, although he is the first French President to not seek reelection since the 1940s.

With a satisfaction rating so low it recently dropped to just 4%, the Socialist president appeared shaken and emotional as he said in a live televised address from the Elysee palace that he would not attempt to run for a second term, conscious of the risks to the French left if he did so.





Hollandes decision leaves the way open for a bitter Socialist primary race in January to decide who will run in his place. Manuel Valls, the ambitious prime minister who is a tough law-and-order voice and pro-business reformist on the right of the party, could now decide to run to become the Socialist candidate.





If he does run, Valls will face opposition from several former government ministers who are part of a leftwing rebel movement, including the ambitious former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg, who is fiercely critical of Hollandes pro-business line.





Hollandes popularity slumped right from the start of his presidency in 2012. He beat the rightwing Nicolas Sarkozy after a classic leftwing campaign in which he targeted big business and pledged to raise taxes for high earners. He began his presidency with a leftist programme that included a wealth super-tax of 75% on top earners but he shifted course midway through his term.





Grassroots supporters were further alienated by a pro-business switch in 2014, a wavering over security reforms, and labour laws that brought thousands out onto the streets in protests early this year.





Hollande was accused of a lack of preparation, zigzagging on policy and being unable to keep a lid on his governments internal feuding on how to address the economy. His initial attempt to style himself as a normal president-- paying no heed to the superficial trappings of office-- backfired and endeared him even less to the electorate.





Accused of lacking authority and coherence, dithering over policy decisions from tax increases to pro-business reform, failing to kickstart the sluggish economy and failing to protect France from a series of devastating terrorist attacks, he was eventually abandoned by his own core of Socialist party voters who felt betrayed by his muddled, stop-start pro-business reforms.





One recent poll by Odoxa put him at only 7.5% in the first round of the presidential race, behind the rights Fillon, the far-right Marine Le Pen, his former economy minister and maverick independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, and the hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon.
Aleppo: Syria's army advanced in east Aleppo Sunday in a devastating assault that has placed it in control of more than half the former rebel stronghold and sparked a civilian exodus.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled eastern neighbourhoods of the battered city since President Bashar al-Assad's regime began its latest offensive in mid-November.

Overnight, government troops and allied forces seized the district of Tariq al-Bab where heavy fighting had raged a day earlier, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

On Sunday, regime forces also secured a zone around the road from regime-held west Aleppo to the international airport just east of the city, taking two whole districts while fighting continued in a third.

The government has now recaptured around 60 per cent of eastern parts of the city that rebel forces seized in mid-2012, the monitor said.

The advance has prompted more civilians to flee, heading either further south into remaining rebel-held districts or crossing into areas under regime or Kurdish control.

Assad's forces have made swift gains in east Aleppo, and its loss would be the biggest blow yet to Syria's opposition in the more than five-year war.

More than 3,00,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted with anti-government protests in March 2011, and over half the country's population has been displaced.

Around 310 civilians have been killed in the government's assault on east Aleppo since 15 November, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

At least 69 civilians have been killed in the same period by rebel fire into west Aleppo, it says.

The government has trumpeted its advances, with state television today showing buses full of residents going from west Aleppo back to their homes in neighbourhoods retaken by the army.

"The army is advancing bit by bit according to plan," Brigadier General Samir Salman said.

He said it was determined to "carry out its job of chasing terrorists in the eastern districts and elsewhere", referring to the rebels.

Rebel forces have struggled to hold back government ground units, who have advanced backed by air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire.

On Saturday, the insurgents rolled back some regime gains in the Sheikh Saeed district on Aleppo's southeastern outskirts, but it was unclear how long they could hold that line.

Sheikh Saeed is close to the last parts of Aleppo still in rebel hands  densely populated residential neighbourhoods where thousands have sought refuge from advancing regime forces.

The Observatory said rebels brought down a Syrian air force plane overnight near Aleppo airport, killing both pilots.
Moscow: President Vladimir Putin in an interview aired Sunday called US President-elect Donald Trump intelligent and predicted he would quickly grasp his new level of responsibility and act accordingly.

"Since he managed to achieve success in business, that shows he is a clever person," the Russian strongman said in an interview with NTV television that has already aired in the country's far east, quoted by TASS news agency.

"If he's clever, that means he will fully and quite quickly grasp a different level of responsibility."

Putin said that Russia "expects that he will act precisely on this basis."

The Kremlin said last month that the two men agreed, in their first phone call after Trump's election win in November, on the need to "normalise" Russia-US relations.

Putin on Thursday reiterated Moscow's readiness to work with Trump's administration once the president-elect takes office in January.

"It is important to normalise and start to develop bilateral relations on an equal and mutually-beneficial basis," Putin said in his annual state of the nation address.

Trump has praised Putin's leadership and said he looks forward to "a strong and enduring relationship with Russia."

During the US election campaign, Putin praised him for appealing effectively to disenchanted American electors.

"He represents the views of a significant part of society in the United States that is tired of those elites who have been in power for decades," he said in October.

"He just represents the interests of such ordinary people, and he presents himself as an ordinary guy who criticises those who have already been in power for decades."
Acquisitions typically help companies that are struggling to muster organic growth, but let's not read too much into this week's chatter about Fitbit (FIT) snapping up smartwatch pioneer Pebble. It's a smart deal for both parties -- if it happens -- but let's not assume it will be the spark Fitbit needs to woo back torched investors.

Tech blog The Information initially broke the news on Wednesday, and that was followed by TechCrunch, The Verge, and others with some more insider info. The deal would supposedly set Fitbit back between $34 million and $40 million, a far cry from when at least one watchmaker was reportedly entertaining a $750 million deal for Pebble last year.

Pebble's in trouble, with layoffs earlier this year and a languishing product pipeline to boot. Fitbit spending enough to just barely cover Pebble's debts may seem like a sign of desperation, but it's also about survival. If Pebble wants to be relevant in the future, it's not going to get there alone.

Pebble makes watches, so it knows what time it is -- Fitbit's going to put a band on it.

It's not a lose-lose situation

Fitbit's business is decelerating at an alarming rate. Revenue that grew at a triple-digit rate in each of the three previous years has slowed to rates of 50%, 47%, and 23% through the first three quarters of 2016, respectively. That may not seem so bad, but the 2% to 5% year-over-year growth on the top line that Fitbit's targeting for the current quarter is clearly problematic.

It gets worse. Fitbit remains the leading maker of fitness trackers, but the competition for wearables is heating up. Fitbit has had to keep its markups in check, and with margins contracting, we're seeing earnings growth going the wrong way. Net income has posted double-digit percentage declines in all thee quarters of 2016, and things obviously won't be getting any better over the holidays with revenue growth continuing to decelerate.

Pebble should help, but not necessarily by stacking Pebble's meandering product line on top of Fitbit's wares. Fitbit entered the smartwatch market earlier this year with Blaze, a well-received entry that has already sold a couple of million units. Incorporating Pebble's brand will help improve Fitbit's pedigree beyond this rookie year. Taking the best of Pebble and Blaze and combining those perks to create a watch that will appeal to both established user bases would be huge.

Wearables are booming as a product category this holiday shopping season, even as Fitbit's margins shrink and Pebble's prospects dim. Combining the two entities makes sense. Fitbit will get a great brand at a great price, and Pebble will get the kind of partner that will treat this transaction as more than the mere "acquihire" that larger smartwatch players would see in assessing this opportunity. Fitbit and Pebble need one another at this point.
Little introduction is necessary for either Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A -0.97%) (BRK.B -1.59%) or American Express (AXP -2.43%). The former is the investment vehicle of ace investor Warren Buffett, while the latter is one of the three biggest credit card brands on the market. Both are very profitable, prominent, and enjoy a strong presence in stock portfolios, but only one can be preferred. Let's dig a little deeper to decide which.

AmExit

Of the two, American Express has a less-than-stellar reputation. In early 2015, it famously lost its position as the sole credit card brand accepted at Costco Wholesale registers and as co-branding partner of the retailer's proprietary card.

The market hasn't entirely forgiven AmEx for this, which is probably deserved. After all, it was estimated that during their collaboration, one in every 10 AmEx card was a Costco piece of plastic. Before the divorce was announced, the card giant's share price was around $85; these days, it's about $72.

Still, the latter figure is close to the year-to-date high for the stock; again, this is justifiable. The company recently reported its Q3 2016 results, delivering a convincing earnings beat, and a top line that edged past expectations. If the Costco-related take was stripped out of the Q3 2015 tally, revenue would have increased by 5% on a year-over-year basis.

Business should improve going forward. AmEx said that it is to launch an "extensive" marketing effort this current quarter, which is crucial since it's where the holiday season falls. Although cardholders won't like it, a seemingly modest bump in the company's maximum late fee (to $38) will also help its finances.

AmEx lifted its guidance for fiscal 2017; the company now expects that its adjusted earnings will come in at $5.90 to $6.00 per share. This betters its previous estimate of $5.40 to $5.70, and it tops the average analyst forecast of $5.74.

A high flyer

Warren Buffett is the financier investors love to love. His genius for making money has led to outsized returns for Berkshire Hathaway. Over the past five years, the company's stock has more than doubled, well outpacing major stock indexes and a great many blue-chip shares.

Although its third quarter wasn't much to write home about, with only a slight uptick in revenue (to just over $59 billion) and a 23% slide in net income (to $7.3 billion), recent developments suggest Berkshire Hathaway will do well in the near future.

Donald Trump's statements on the roll-back of the Dodd-Frank amendment have helped juice the prices of financial stocks. To say the sector is well represented in Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio would be a serious understatement: Among other holdings, the company owns nearly 10% of down-but-not-out Wells Fargo, over 5% of Goldman Sachs, and incidentally, almost 17% of AmEx.

Additionally, the company recently opened positions in the four incumbent U.S. air carrier stocks. According to its most recent portfolio disclosure, it owns over $1 billion of American Airlines shares, has a $317 million stake in United Continental, and holds nearly $310 million of Delta. It also holds Southwest Airlines stock, but it hasn't yet revealed the size of the position.

We're currently in a world of cheap gas (airlines' No. 2 cost item, next to salaries), and a still-growing economy. These, among other factors, bode well for travel in general and airlines in particular in the coming months.

The bull chooses

Both AmEx and Berkshire Hathaway, in my opinion, are fine companies that have proven their value over many years of solid performance. Sure, both have had their unhappy moments -- even recently, like Costco for AmEx, and the Wells Fargo scandal for big, loyal shareholder Warren. Yet they have still managed to deliver for their investors.

Of the pair, Berkshire Hathaway is the more expensive on both a trailing and forward P/E basis (16.7 vs. AmEx's 12.7 for the former, and 19.6 against 12.8 for the latter). It also doesn't pay a dividend; the card giant currently dispenses a quarterly payout of $0.32 per share.

Still, I'd have to go with Berkshire Hathaway. Although AmEx is doing better than many people expected, its revenue and profitability are both down; more time will be needed to make up for the loss of the Costco business. Meanwhile, Berkshire Hathaway, ever nimble and opportunistic, has several high-potential sources of growth in front of it. Plus, Berkshire owns a lot of American Express, so buying Berkshire also nets you a stake in the credit card company.

Again, I'm bullish on both companies, but my choice between the two is Buffett's baby.
Whatever the problems Boston Beer (SAM -0.38%) has that make selling its Samuel Adams brand so difficult these days, it's not because of the image on the bottle's label -- though that isn't stopping the leading craft brewer from updating its packaging once again. That it feels the need to do this again, though, shows it's going to take more than sharp images and cool graphics to sell a beer.

Stale beer sales

Boston Beer's, well, beer is in a funk. Depletions, or sales from distributors to retailers -- a reliable industry proxy for consumer demand -- are decreasing at an accelerated rate, falling from 5% in the first two quarters of 2016 to 8% in the third quarter primarily because of decreases in its Samuel Adams brand, though its Angry Orchard, Coney Island, and Traveler brands also exhibited weakness.

Part of it has to do with the overall malaise in the industry. Although craft beer now accounts for 12% of all the beer brewed in the U.S., sales growth is slowing to single-digit rates, or about half the rate it enjoyed previously. Much of the blame can be assigned to the biggest names in the industry, Boston Beer included, but also Craft Brew Alliance, New Belgium Brewing, and others, who are experiencing a pronounced slowdown while smaller breweries continue enjoying significant growth.

However, the decline is also more specific to Boston Beer and its flagship Samuel Adams brand. The beer has been around for more than 30 years, so it's getting a bit long in the tooth in an industry where drinkers seemingly want newness at a regular pace. A mature brewer like this, with more than 3 million barrels sold so far this year, stretches the credulity of hop-heads who are always on the lookout for the next small batch hit.

Nothing new under the sun

It's also a recurring problem for the craft brewer. It was only a few years ago that Boston Beer was caught in a similar down cycle. In 2011, sales of Samuel Adams were growing slower than the overall craft beer market even though its portfolio of seasonal beers was well received. While Boston Beer had launched its Freshest Beer Program to ensure drinkers were getting peak flavor by having its beer not sitting in a distributor's warehouse or on a retailer's shelf for very long, it's notable that Boston Beer undertook an image upgrade then, too, albeit a more modest one than what is being attempted now.

Back then, the colored drawing of Sam Adams lifting a mug of beer was only changed slightly: The mug was raised higher, the colors surrounding him were brighter and more vibrant, and the typeface hardly changed at all.

The latest makeover is much more dramatic. Gone is the cartoon figure of Adams, replaced instead by an engraved image of the statue of the man that stands in Faneuil Hall, stern looking with arms crossed. The font is the same, but the highlights on the individual letters have been erased. Also added is a red star reminiscent of Heineken's similar design, but this one has the silhouette of a pint glass added in.

According to BostInno, founder and CEO Jim Koch says, "The new look reflects a bold, authentic, patriotic version of Samuel Adams and a return to our roots and to the spirit of Samuel Adams, the great Revolutionary patriot."

A passion for beer

Perhaps, and while many have praised the new graphics as a needed update, it doesn't address Boston Beer's underlying issues. People aren't going to start drinking Samuel Adams beer because of the bold label on the bottle, redesigns of which are likely seen as something a big, mass-produced beer maker would try to entice drinkers to it rather than a craft brewer still concerned about the quality of the liquid that's in the bottle.

There's no argument that Koch is passionate about the flavor and quality of his beer, and he has been a dedicated innovator and cheerleader for his industry. It ultimately may be that he's a victim of his own success, the company having grown to such a size, and the beer now distributed across the country, that it has simply outgrown its niche.

Regardless of how it redesigns its label, Boston Beer just might be too big to be a craft brewer and effectively lead the industry, yet too small to wage war on the macro brewers. There may be no middle ground for the leading craft brewer other than going private and getting away from the Wall Street expectations game, or getting bought out by a bigger rival.
When it's time to sell your home, it's tempting to make a bunch of expensive changes in order to appeal to prospective buyers.

That temptation could become even stronger if early showings or an open house results in feedback on the lack of expensive finishes, hardwood floors, or a revamped kitchen. A certain number of buyers want a move-in ready home, one done exactly to their liking with all the high-end touches that they would have picked.

When my wife and I sold our Connecticut home, much of the early feedback focused on our carpeted floors, the lack of granite in our kitchen, and the fact that we somehow lived without stainless steel appliances. It was tempting to make some of those changes to appeal to people who may or may not have actually been interested in our home.

We didn't and that proved to be the right call because the money we would have spent would never have been made back. Yes, we might have sold our home faster, but we might not have sold it for more money then we ultimately did. That's because the same buyers who were horrified by our carpet, and granite-less and stainless-steel free kitchen almost certainly would have had issues with any upscale changes we would have made.

Maybe the hardwood floors would have been the wrong shade. Perhaps the appliances would not be the ones they would have picked, and the granite might well not be the color the possible buyer would want. There are absolutely changes you should make before putting your house on the market, but they are not the budget busters listed above.

What changes should you make?

If you're going to put your home on the market you should repair anything obviously broken because you will end up doing so anyway after an inspection. It's also reasonable to do some touch-up painting work, and it's not unreasonable to restore any rooms painted in a bold color to a more neutral look. Basically, the only changes worth making, Remodeling Magazine Editorial Director Sal Alfano told HGTV are ones that correct obvious problems.

"Buyers want to take the basic systems for granted," he said. "They assume the roof doesn't leak and the air conditioning and plumbing work. Maintenance can chew up a lot of cash quickly, and people are afraid of that."

Don't spend big money

Making a major change to a home simply to sell it generally does not pay off. The two highest returns-on investment, according to HGTV, are adding siding (which recoups 92.8% at resale) or a small (under $15,000) kitchen upgrade (which returns 92.9%). Next on the list is replacing windows or a roof, which brings back 80%.

Those are the best-case scenarios and they are all money losers. Making big changes could make your house sell faster and for more money, but you won't make more once you subtract what you spent.

"I don't believe renovating a kitchen will give you a good rate of return. In this market buyers prefer the home priced to sell in regards to what works needs to be done as opposed to a home owner remodeling a kitchen that now will only appeal to a small percentage of buyers," Robin Nardozzi, a South Florida real estate broker told The Motley Fool.

Nardozzi (who helped my wife and I buy my current home and buy, then sell a vacation condo) explained that not doing most major repairs comes down to simple math.

"An average kitchen remodel will cost $40,000. With a home currently priced to sell at $300,000 spending $40,000 on the kitchen will only give you a return at $315,000," she said. "A seller is better off painting the home a neutral color and decluttering the entire house to give potential buyers the vision to make that house their own."

Don't ask for more than your house is worth

The other big mistake people make when selling their home is assuming that it's worth more than their real estate agent tells them it is. In general, the days of unsophisticated buyers paying too much for a property are gone and tightened mortgage standards make it hard for anyone not paying cash to overpay even if they want to.

Almost anyone buying a home either works with a real estate agent with access to comparative sales or runs the numbers on their own. That means that asking too much for your house is not just a waste of time, it can actually stop people who would be willing to buy it at the proper price from even looking at it.

Listing at the right price can be painful if your house has declined in value since you purchased it. Still, if you actually want to sell it, it's best to start at the high-end of reasonable rather than shooting for an over-market number that's not likely to happen.
President-Donald Trumps renewed call for a 35% import tax on firms that ship jobs out of the United States triggered the expected round of derision from an array of critics, both on the left and the right. The critics are correct. It is indeed a terrible idea. One sure way to discourage job creation in the US is to guarantee that firms will be punished if they need to layoff employees in the future. It is just bad policy, plain and simple.

But if thats your takeaway, I think you are making a mistake.

Whether or not Trump can or should attempt to reverse the decline in manufacturing jobs is not the big story here. He cant. The real story is that he continues to tap into the anger of his voters about being left behind. That will give him much more power than our criticisms will take away.

Politicians, aided by economists, have long ignored the negative impacts of trade-induced structural change. Indeed, they have even cheered it on. After all, the process releases resources for use in other, more productive parts of the economy. Those workers are just low-skilled workers. The US needs more high-skilled workers anyway.

Fact: Workers hate being referred to as low-skilled.

How we respond to Trump is important. If we simply fall back on our standard numbers, we lose. If we confidently predict that TPP is a big win because it will add 0.5% to GDP by 2030, we lose. If we just use this as an opportunity to reiterate the importance of a college degree, we lose. We have been doing this for decades, and it helped deliver Trump to office.

As an example, take Paul Krugmans latest on trade. I dont want to keep picking on Krugman, but he epitomizes traditional economic thinking on international trade. He concludes with this:

But what about the now-famous Autor-Dorn-Hanson paper on the China shock? Its actually consistent with these numbers. Autor et al only estimate the effects of the, um, China shock, which they suggest led to the loss of 985,000 manufacturing jobs between 1999 and 2011. Thats less than a fifth of the absolute loss of manufacturing jobs over that period, and a quite small share of the long-term manufacturing decline. Im not saying that the effects were trivial: Autor and co-authors [sic] show that the adverse effects on regional economies were large and long-lasting. But theres no contradiction between that result and the general assertion that Americas shift away from manufacturing doesnt have much to do with trade, and even less to do with trade policy.

Nothing is wrong with the analysis here. But I think Krugman is downplaying the transition costs, especially regional impacts. Politically, that is the important part. Economists tend to just pay lip-service to the negative effects as we seek what is perceived to be the bigger prize, the aggregate effects. Fundamentally. Krugman is looking for what we got right in trade theory, and he finds it in Autor et al.

For me, Autor et al is not about what we got right in trade theory, but what we got wrong. Spectacularly wrong:

The importance of location for evaluating trade gains depends on how long it takes for regional adjustment to occur. A presumption that US labor markets are smoothly integrated across space has long made regional equilibration the starting point for welfare analysis. The US experience of trade with China makes this starting point less compelling. Labor-market adjustment to trade shocks is stunningly slow, with local labor-force participation rates remaining depressed and local unemployment rates remaining elevated for a full decade or more after a shock commences. The persistence of local decline perhaps explains the breadth of public transfer programs whose uptake increases in regions subject to rising trade exposure. The mobility costs that rationalize slow adjustment imply that short-run trade gains may be much smaller than long-run gains and that spatial heterogeneity in the magnitudes of the net benefits may be much greater than previously thought. Using a quantitative theoretical model, Caliendo et al. (2015) find that in the immediate aftermath of a trade shock, constructed to mimic the effects of growth in US imports from China, US net welfare gains are close to zero. The ultimate and sizable net gains are realized only once workers are able to reallocate across regions to move from declining to expanding industries. Establishing the speed of regional labor-market adjustment to trade shocks should capture considerably more attention from trade and labor economists.

The speed of regional labor market adjustment to shocks is agonizingly slow in any area that lacks a critical mass of population. Rural and semi-rural areas remain impacted by negative shocks for at least a decade, but often longer. Relative to life spans, in many cases the shocks might as well be permanent.

And note that this is not just about negative trade shocks. Trade is an easy punching bag for Trump, but his message carries wider because we are really talking about structural shocks in general. For example, rural towns in Oregon where devastated by the collapsed of the timber industry in the mid-80s. Where is what the New York Times wrote about Oakridge, Oregon a decade ago:

For a few decades, this little town on the western slope of the Cascades hopped with blue-collar prosperity, its residents cutting fat Douglas fir trees and processing them at two local mills. Into the 1980s, people joked that poverty meant you didnt have an RV or a boat. A high school degree was not necessary to earn a living through logging or mill work, with wages roughly equal to $20 or $30 an hour in todays terms. But by 1990 the last mill had closed, a result of shifting markets and a dwindling supply of logs because of depletion and tighter environmental rules. Oakridge was wrenched through the rural version of deindustrialization, sending its population of 4,000 reeling in ways that are still playing out. Residents now live with lowered expectations, and a share of them have felt the sharp pinch of rural poverty. The town is an acute example of a national trend, the widening gap in pay between workers in urban areas and those in rural locales, where much of any job growth has been in low-end retailing and services.

Trump is speaking to all of these workers, not just the trade-impacted workers. And you can complain that they dont matter, they arent high-skilled workers, that the economy is shifting away to urban areas, that they should just move. In the rural Oregon case, you can add in that the big (and labor-intensive) trees were almost gone anyway, that technology was taking over at the logging site and at the mill, that falling transportation costs meant you didnt need to mill locally.

None of that works because all you are doing is telling people they have no value relative to the lives they knew.

We dont have answers for these communities. Rural and semi-rural economic development is hard. Those regions have received only negative shocks for decades; the positive shocks have accrued to the urban regions. Of course, Trump doesnt have any answers either. But he at least pretends to care.

Just pretending to care is important. At a minimum, the electoral map makes it important.

These issues apply to more than rural and semi-rural areas. Trumps message  that firms need to consider something more than bottom line  resonates in middle and upper-middle class households as well. They know that their grip on their economic life is tenuous, that they are the future low-skilled workers. And they know they will be thrown under the bus for the greater good just like low-skilled workers before them.

The dry statistics on trade arent working to counter Trump. They make for good policy at one level and terrible policy (and politics) at another. The aggregate gains are irrelevant to someone suffering a personal loss. Critics need to find an effective response to Trump. I dont think we have it yet. And here is the hardest part: My sense is that Democrats will respond by offering a bigger safety net. But people dont want a welfare check. They want a job. And this is what Trump, wrongly or rightly, offers.
"Game of Thrones" star Maisie Williams wants everyone to stop buying tickets to marine shows. She says it's the best way to stop the capture and killings of dolphins in Japan.

"These animals travel the ocean. That's what they explore daily. No tank will be big enough. No tank will ever be deep enough, ever be exciting enough," she said Friday in a Skype call from the small Japanese town of Taiji, whose dolphin hunt was documented in the 2009 Oscar-winning film "The Cove."

Williams, 19, is the latest celebrity joining the cause to save dolphins. Others include Brian May of Queen, Sting and Daryl Hannah.

She hopes her influence, especially on social media, with 4 million followers on Instagram and 1.5 million on Twitter, will help the cause.

Ric O'Barry, the dolphin trainer for the "Flipper" TV series, started the protests against the Taiji dolphin kill. He starred in "The Cove," which depicts a pod of dolphins getting herded into an inlet and bludgeoned to death.

The ones that are killed and sold for meat are left over from the main purpose of the hunt  selling the best-looking ones to aquariums and shows.

The hunters in Taiji and their supporters have repeatedly defended the custom as tradition, although eating dolphins is extremely rare in Japan. The Japanese government also defends whaling as research.

Williams, who is the global ambassador for O'Barry's Dolphin Project campaign, said that only a handful of Taiji fishermen are benefiting from the practice and many Japanese don't even know about Taiji.

"It's not an attack on Japan at all, or on Taiji, or the people of Taiji," she said. "I want to say, honestly, hand on heart, that this is not an attack on anyone in specific."

"The Cove," directed by Louis Psihoyos, which was not widely shown in Japan, went online Friday for free viewing limited to Japan and in a Japanese language version, after the filmmakers rebought distribution rights.

Williams said she went to the cove earlier in the day, but there was no slaughter.

During her trip, her second time in Japan, she plans to go whale-watching in Mikura Islands, south of Tokyo, where whales are protected and dolphins are often seen swimming in the wild.

"It was something that just struck a chord in my heart. And I'm a firm believer that, if there is something that you really want to stand up and fight for, then you should. And with everyone doing their own little bit for what they believe in, hopefully together we can make the world a better place," she said of her wish to save dolphins.
Yessica Flores is getting ultrasounds more frequently than the average pregnant woman, but there's a cruel downside accompanying the joy of seeing how much her unborn daughter grows every few weeks: fear of possible defects caused by Zika.

Flores became infected early in her pregnancy, and frequent ultrasounds and bloodwork are the only comfort doctors can offer in what so far looks like an issue-free pregnancy despite Zika, which can cause shrunken heads and other problems.

Flores and her husband have gotten used to hearing their doctors respond to questions about their baby's future with a simple sentence: "I don't know."

"It is really hard to hear something like that. It is scary at times," Flores said Monday at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where she is being treated by the University of Miami's Zika Response Team.

"There's great joy, but it was very hard to bring this child into the world with this type of news," Flores said in Spanish, speaking through an interpreter. "It's a mix of emotions."

Flores' unborn daughter  named Daniela  seems to be developing normally. That's a relief, because Zika can cause severe brain-related birth defects when pregnant women become infected.

However, the family still faces years of uncertainty after the baby is born in February. There are no tests to determine whether Flores' child will suffer from hearing, vision or developmental problems as she grows into a toddler.

Flores' experience illustrates the gaps in doctors' understanding of how Zika affects pregnancy, said Dr. Christine Curry, Flores' obstetrician-gynecologist and the co-director of the Zika Response Team. For example, doctors don't currently know why the virus  which is mainly spread by city-dwelling mosquitoes but also can be sexually transmitted  remains detectable in a pregnant woman's bloodstream far longer than in the bloodstream of a man or a woman who is not pregnant.

"It's hard to continue to say, 'I don't know,' but it's not unexpected with a disease that's really made its mark only in the last few years," Curry said.

Flores had not shown any Zika symptoms, but testing performed when she was 16 weeks pregnant in late August confirmed that she had been infected. Her husband also was tested for Zika, but his results were negative.

It's not clear where Flores contracted the virus. She lives and works in Miami's Wynwood neighborhood, the first area in the continental U.S. to have mosquitoes spread the virus, but she traveled to Honduras earlier in the summer at the beginning of her pregnancy.

Until this summer, the only cases of Zika on the U.S. mainland stemmed from travel to areas with Zika epidemics  mostly the Caribbean and Latin America. Of the more than 4,000 U.S. cases to date, nearly 900 were pregnant women.

The Miami area comprises the bulk of Florida's Zika caseload, and U.S. health officials now recommend Zika testing for all pregnant women who have spent time anywhere in Miami-Dade County.

Over 110 women in Florida have been diagnosed with Zika, and Curry said about a third of them have been cared for by University of Miami Health System doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Like Flores, many expressed shock and sadness at their Zika diagnosis before resolving to learn more about how they could help their babies, Curry said.

Flores had some advice for other pregnant women with Zika: "First of all, have faith. Then make sure you go see your doctor, and just know that everything is going to be OK if you keep up with the recommendations from the doctors."

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Wanda Serrano arrived at Puerto Rico's largest public hospital before dawn to take her 17-year-old son to an appointment. Six hours later, they were still in the packed waiting room hoping to see a doctor.

They had gone to San Juan's Centro Medico to see one of the many kinds of specialists the teen needs for treatment of a genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis, which can cause tumors to grow on his brain, kidneys and other organs. But specialized medical expertise is increasingly difficult to find in the economically troubled U.S. island territory.

Six hours in a waiting room is no longer the exception, but the norm. A pediatric neurologist recently told Serrano that her son, Cedrik, needed to wait 10 months for an appointment.

"I live terrified every single day," Serrano said one recent morning as she clutched his medical records and peered anxiously down a fluorescent-lit hallway for a nurse or doctor. "You feel powerless. You can't do anything except wait for that date to arrive."

Doctors have gradually left Puerto Rico during a decade-long recession that has gripped the island and driven more than 200,000 people to the U.S. mainland seeking better opportunities.

Now, the steady departure of pediatricians, surgeons, orthopedists, neurologists and others has become a stampede as the economy shows no sign of improving and financial problems in the territorial health insurance program make it nearly impossible for doctors to stay in business.

Up to 700 doctors are expected to leave Puerto Rico this year, double the number from two years ago, said Dr. Victor Ramos, president of the island's Association of Surgeons. The territory's number of doctors has dropped from 14,000 to 9,000 in the past decade, the majority leaving for higher salaries and lower living costs on the U.S. mainland.

The island of 3.5 million people now has only two pediatric urologists, one orthopedist specializing in ankle and feet, one pediatric cardiologist, and a handful of geneticists and endocrinologists. It can take a year to see a specialist, Ramos said.

"People are waiting much longer for appointments, including one that could be a matter of life or death because there is simply no room," he said.

Dr. Hiram Luigi, an orthopedic surgeon, said he has to realign the bones of patients a couple of times each month because they did not see a specialist in time.

"I have spent 30 years in orthopedics, and I have never seen something like this," Luigi said.

The lack of specialists has adversely affected patients, whose health conditions often worsen before a doctor sees them.

Many people like Serrano have moved to the U.S. specifically to get medical care. "I'm searching for quality of life," she said.

Puerto Rico's financial woes are largely to blame. The government is behind on insurance payments as it scrambles to make payments on debts that have ballooned in recent years to nearly $70 billion. Doctors not only struggle with delayed reimbursements for services but receive less money through the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs as well as private health insurance than they would for the same services on the U.S. mainland.

Many specialists no longer accept patients with Medicaid, which covers roughly half of Puerto Rico's population. The great majority of patients like Serrano's son now seek specialists at Puerto Rico's largest public hospital, lining up as early as 1 a.m. daily for medical care.

"It's truly the final stop for many people," said Edgar Colon, dean of the University of Puerto Rico's School of Medicine. "We can't keep up."

The hospital is buckling under a surge of patients as it operates with a dwindling budget, unable to buy certain medical supplies like it used to when the government could still borrow money.

Jorge Vidal, president-elect of Puerto Rico's Radiology Association, said he cannot perform some procedures because he can't obtain two types of specialized needles.

"There's a very simple reason they haven't bought them," he said. "They cost $300."

Such problems pushed pediatrician Dr. Hector Nieves to move to Florida in February 2015. In his new office, the answering machine offers same-day appointments.

"I don't regret leaving," Nieves said. "Puerto Rico's problems are much bigger than people think."

Those who have stayed say it will only get worse.

More than 20 percent of the island population is 60 years and older, and that percentage is expected to spike as not only doctors but all types of Puerto Ricans leave for the U.S. mainland.

Serrano and her son will move soon to Orlando to join her husband, who found a job there. She is optimistic about finding specialists to provide the checkups her son needs every six months.

"I'm leaving in peace," she said. "I feel like I've been born again."

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When Deborah Giannecchini was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer four years ago, it didn't make sense. She had no family history, nor did she seem a high risk.

But months later, when her daughter saw a TV ad for a law firm asking ovarian cancer victims who used talcum powder to come forward, Giannecchini realized a possible link: She had been using Johnson & Johnson's baby powder for most of her life.

"I used it for 45 years, from age 15," Giannecchini, now 63, said Friday. "I was still using it."

On Thursday, a St. Louis jury awarded more than $70 million to Giannecchini, of Modesto, California, wrapping up a monthlong trial. It was the third big verdict awarded by a St. Louis jury against Johnson & Johnson in ovarian cancer lawsuits this year. Combined, the three awards amount to nearly $200 million.

Giannecchini said she was happy with the verdict, but it doesn't make up for the cancer fight and ongoing health problems caused by chemotherapy.

"There's not enough money in the world to pay for fighting the cancer," she said at a news conference arranged by her lawyers.

A spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson said in a statement that while the company sympathizes with women and their families impacted by ovarian cancer, it will appeal the latest verdict "because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder."

About 2,000 women nationwide have filed similar suits over concerns about health damage caused by extended talcum powder use. Lawyers are reviewing many additional cases, many of them generated by television ads by law firms.

In February, a St. Louis jury awarded $72 million to relatives of an Alabama woman who died of ovarian cancer. Another jury awarded $55 million in May to a South Dakota survivor of the disease.

But two cases in New Jersey were thrown out by a judge who said there wasn't reliable evidence that talc leads to ovarian cancer, an often fatal but relatively rare form of cancer.

Ovarian cancer accounts for about 22,000 of the 1.7 million new cases of cancer expected to be diagnosed in the U.S. this year. Factors known to increase a women's risk of ovarian cancer include age, obesity, use of estrogen therapy after menopause, not having any children, certain genetic mutations and personal or family history of breast or ovarian cancer.

Talc is a mineral that is mined from deposits around the world, including the U.S. The softest of minerals, it's crushed into a white powder. It's been widely used in cosmetics and other personal care products to absorb moisture since at least 1894, when Johnson & Johnson's baby powder was launched. But it's mainly used in a variety of other products, including paint and plastics.

Much research has found no link or a weak one between ovarian cancer and using baby powder for feminine hygiene, and most major health groups have declared talc harmless. Still, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies genital use of talc as "possibly carcinogenic."

Attorneys with Onder, Shelton, O'Leary & Peterson, the firm that handled all three St. Louis cases, cited other research that began connecting talcum powder to ovarian cancer in the 1970s. They cite case studies showing that women who regularly use talc on their genital area face up to a 40 percent higher risk of developing ovarian cancer.

The firm has also accused Johnson & Johnson of marketing toward overweight women, blacks and Hispanics  the very same women most at-risk for ovarian cancer.

Wylie Blair, an attorney for Giannecchini, said the firm is working with about 1,700 additional plaintiffs. Another trial is scheduled for February.

Blair said there has been no talk with Johnson & Johnson concerning a class-action settlement.

"Acknowledging that a seminal product that everybody identifies with the company has been causing a horrible disease for all these years is going to be a tough pill to swallow for them," Blair said.

Giannecchini said that as of now there is no evidence of cancer, but she won't know for years if she is free of the disease.

"One day at a time," she said. "Just stay hopeful."

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Lissette died under the care of the Chilean state, suffocating in her own vomit while a caretaker allegedly sat on her back while trying to contain the 11-year-old during what was described as "a crisis of aggressiveness."

Her mother had sent her to a government shelter hoping authorities could protect her as she became increasingly violent and difficult to handle.

The former head of the National Service for Minors later said that Lissette died because she was "conflictive." But a police investigation has shown that the child's caretakers were partly responsible for her death and failed to administer the CPR that could have saved her life.

Lissette's case exploded in a crisis over the care of at-risk children that has outraged Chileans. After initially reporting just 185 deaths, the government recently acknowledged that 865 children have died under the care of the National Service for Minors over 11 years.

Calling Lissette's death shameful, President Michelle Bachelet has committed $ 3.7 million for an overhaul of the agency charged with looking after more than 100,000 children in the government's care each year in Chile, some in their own homes and some in shelters.

"As a society and as a state, we have failed these vulnerable children," Bachelet said.

The agency had come under fire in previous years, but remained unchanged, partly because the extent of the problems at the institutions it oversees were not publicly known. Some critics say that the latest measures come too late and that the agency is beyond repair.

"This institution must disappear to give way to a public structure that does take the responsibility that the state is taking," said Rene Saffirio, a ruling party lawmaker who led efforts pushing the government to release the agency's statistics on the children's deaths.

The death of Lissette caused a public outcry that led a congressional commission to launch an investigation. It also forced the resignation of Justice Minister Javiera Blanco and Marcela Labrana, the former head of National Service for Minors.

When Lissette died, Labrana said that the girl had suffered from stress caused by being sexually abused by a member of her family. She also said the child suffered a breakdown because her family was not visiting her at the shelter.

Chile's investigations police, the country's equivalent of the FBI, later said that the girl suffered from bipolar disorder and was taking medicines. Its forensics department noted that "Lissette was not a healthy girl," and that "this time the crisis was predictable."

Lissette spent more than half of her life in and out of the agency's shelters, including the last few years. Her mother, Juana Poblete, decided she could no longer care for her and began placing her under the state's care when she was as young as 5.

Poblete, who lives in a wooden shack on Santiago's outskirts, told The Associated Press her daughter was institutionalized because of violence in the family. "Her dad abused her and tried to kill her twice," she said.

Lissette died the night of April 11, when her caretaker and a colleague were alone by themselves at the shelter. They called an ambulance after the child became unresponsive.

The subsequent police report showed that the weight of an adult on her back caused her to choke and breathe vomit through the lungs before she suffered a fatal heart attack. It also showed that the girl could have been saved if the staff had provided cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

A special prosecutor is investigating the deaths of Lissette and all the other children who died in the agency's care.

One of the caretakers who was with Lissette when she died later acknowledged in comments to Chile's local Channel 13 that she did not have first aid training. It was unclear whether she was the adult who allegedly sat on the child's back.

"Perhaps I harmed her," she said in an interview that concealed her identity

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Gibbon students are learning all they can about preparing for college, starting as early as their sophomore year of high school.

The Kearney Hub reports that all of the students enrolled in the Pathways For Success class will be the first in their families to attend college. To achieve this goal, Gibbon High School Spanish teacher Abby Jones is giving them the guidance they need.

"We learn about how to apply for scholarships and how to put together a resume," Jones said. "Before we started this program, I worked with four students individually. With the help of teachers and the guidance counselor, I helped them do what they needed to do to get into college. This year we started offering this as a class."

"I didn't know what an ACT was or how to do a resume," junior Kelly Tovar said of her knowledge before enrolling in the class.

The Pathways for Success class is offered this year to sophomores, juniors and seniors, Jones said.

"The freshmen have too many other required classes to fit it in this year, but we're hoping to fit it into their schedules in the future," she said.

Jones said the class meets daily. During class time, students share their experiences in their activities. They also learn who is appropriate to ask to be a reference for scholarships and what to include on a resume, Jones said.

"I could tell by the fourth draft of my resume it looked better and seemed more professional," sophomore Keysha Mendez said.

Senior Mauricio Martinez said he hopes the class will help him learn how to get as much scholarship money as possible for college.

"I know I can't do it myself," he said.

Senior Noemi Escandon hopes to get a full ride to the University of Nebraska at Kearney and is working hard toward that goal.

Jones hopes to grow the program.

"I'm really excited that this opportunity is open to all the students who need it," she said. "The kids are really working hard."

In addition to college prep, Jones encourages her students to get involved in extracurricular activities at the school and to volunteer in the community.

Mendez said she and other students volunteered for two weekends at the Nebraska State Fair.

"We worked in the Welcome Center. We were in the lost-and-found place and looked through items there when people came by to see if their things were there. We helped with the kids on the playground."

"We did interpreting, too," Avigail Corona said. "We interpreted for the Welcome Center and for games. Every two weeks, we'd help translate the Head Start newsletter, too. Each of us is given parts of it to interpret."

Senior Lisa Moore volunteered at the Harvest of Harmony Parade in Grand Island.

"I helped welcome the band members that participated," Moore said.

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Allergy treatments havent advanced much in decades, even as hundreds of millions around the world suffer from wheezing, itches, and rashes  and in severe cases, risk death  from exposure to allergens ranging from eggs to pollen to dog dander.

But hope may be on the way.

Scientists who study the immune system are beginning to understand the root cause of allergies  and are starting to work on next-generation therapies that could stop allergies in their tracks, rather than simply treating symptoms. Private investors and corporations are pouring money into the field.

Sean Parker, the internet mogul of Napster fame, donated $24 million to set up an allergy research center at Stanford University. Nestle this month invested $145 million in a startup aimed at tackling peanut allergy. And the Broad Institute of Cambridge, Mass., recently launched a new initiative to unravel the basic biology of food allergy.

The potential market is huge: Its estimated that 50 million Americans have allergies. As many as 10 percent of children suffer from hay fever, nearly 12 percent have skin allergies, and 5 percent have food allergies, most commonly peanuts, dairy, and shellfish, according to the 2014 National Health Interview Survey.

I foresee that a lot of allergy therapies will become more and more specific and targeted, and more customizable to the individual patient, said Andrew Long, the lead investigational drug pharmacist at Stanfords Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy & Asthma Research.

Read more: Why poison ivy is so itchy  and how scientists are working to quell the rash

Answering home brews with science

The experimental treatment that may be closest to market is also one of the simplest. Bay Area startup Aimmune, backed in part by Nestle with that $145 million investment, is creating a methodical peanut desensitization pill that slowly weans patients away from allergy.

The company has isolated the peanut protein that triggers allergic reaction and is filling little capsules with the stuff. Patients start out by taking half a milligram of peanut protein, and gradually work their way up  over the course of about six months  to the equivalent of eating a single peanut.

The people who need it the most are the people who have the most profound and potentially life-threatening reaction, said Dr. Daniel Adelman, chief medical officer of Aimmune.

The capsules are sciences answer to previous efforts from allergists, who would concoct home brews of peanut protein to desensitize patients under the table. Aimmunes peanut powder is in Phase 2 trials  and, despite its relative simplicity, is still considered something of a trailblazer in allergy science.

Tackling multiple allergies at once

Researchers at Stanford University are building on the concept of desensitization.

One of the drugs Long is excited about: omalizumab, a biologic drug made by Genentech under the trade name Xolair.

To understand how it works, you have to back up and look at why you get all itchy and wheezy when you encounter an allergen. Such responses make sense from an evolutionary standpoint: They initially came into being to protect our bodies against toxins, like snake venom, or to ward away parasites. But they can be deadly in the modern era.

Read more: WATCH: How EpiPens  and epinephrine  stop a serious allergic reaction

Two types of immune cells  called mast cells and basophils  are the biggest culprits behind allergic reactions. When a person encounters an allergen, lets say peanut protein, a type of antibody called immunoglobulin E, or IgE, gets activated. This stimulates the mast cells and basophils to release a storm of chemicals that provoke an allergic response to help exorcise peanut protein from the body.

Genentechs drug is an engineered antibody that binds to human IgE, blocking it from triggering that chemical storm.

It was approved by the FDA in 2003 to treat a form of asthma often triggered by allergens, but Stanford researchers are now testing it on patients with food allergies  and finding that it might help speed along classic allergy desensitization therapy, in which patients are slowly introduced to escalating quantities of the allergen, via allergy shots or those home brew concoctions.

Right now, the process of immunotherapy is painstakingly long  it takes not just weeks or months, but years, to treat a single allergy this way, said Dr. Toshi Kawakami, a researcher at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology.

This timeline becomes untenable for patients with multiple allergies  and about 70 percent of people who have an allergy to one type of food will also be allergic to another, Long said.

So Stanford has paired Xolair with desensitization therapy to treat up to five different food allergens at any given time. Instead of taking years to gird a patients body against peanuts, theyre able to help her control her reactions to, say, hazelnuts, fish, dairy, and wheat as well.

Read more: 5 reasons why no one has built a better EpiPen

Looking at IgE from a different angle, Harvard statistical geneticist Liming Liang has been hunting for new drug targets that might modulate how, exactly, the antibody is expressed. In a paper published last year in Nature, Liangs team found 30 genes that are involved in kicking off the allergic response.

We think well be able to identify a potential drug target here for allergy reaction  but, of course, itll take quite a long time to turn that into a medicine used by patients, Liang said.

Testing a DNA vaccine for allergens

Another compelling approach is being taken by Japans Astellas Pharma, which is developing a DNA vaccine meant to protect the body from cedar pollen. (Hay fever has been called a national affliction in Japan, affecting a quarter of the population.)

The underlying research, from Johns Hopkins University, involves attaching a fragment of DNA from, say, cedar pollen to a template vaccine that can embed itself inside the cell. Once there, it revs up an aggressive immune response and imprints an immunological memory, which means the immune system will respond even more quickly to future exposures to the allergen.

The idea is to create resistance to an allergen without ever having to expose the patient to that substance. If it works, itd be fairly easy to swap out the cedar pollen DNA for a different allergen  for instance, the genetic material that codes for peanut or cat antigens  and tack it onto this vaccine template.

The beauty of this is that, unlike food desensitization or skin patches, patients arent exposed to the circulating antigen, Long said. That hypothetically decreases the risk for adverse events.

Overcoming an industrys fears

For all the research on allergies, none of the drugs in the pipeline is a sure thing.

For a cautionary tale, look no further than Circassia Pharmaceuticals, which has been working on an experimental immunotherapy drug to forestall cat allergies. Interest in Circassia had been sky-high  the small biotechs market value had shot up to $1 billion earlier this year on speculation that its drug would prove effective.

But in a Phase 3 study, it turned out that the placebo effect was as effective as the drug itself. The companys stock plummeted on that news this past June.

Its not just that solving allergies is hard. Current medications  such as Benadryl, Claritin, and epinephrine (best known for powering the EpiPen)  do a decent job controlling symptoms in most patients, so theres little incentive to innovate.

Theres a dearth of new allergy products because antihistamines work so well, said Dr. Todd Brady, CEO of Aldeyra Therapeutics, a startup in Lexington, Mass., thats developing a drug to reduce eye irritation from allergies.

Theyre generic, theyre cheap, theyre safe, and easy to use  but unfortunately, a lot of patients suffer because of that phenomenon, because not everyone responds to antihistamines, Brady said.

Another reason for the hesitancy: liability concerns. Its a risky proposition to give patients the foods theyre deathly allergic to  inducing anaphylactic reactions simply to test drugs in clinical trials.

At the end of the day, its a fairly 19th-century approach, said Dr. Wayne Shreffler, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital who is working on the Broad Institutes Food Allergy Science Initiative. Theres really no doubt that there have been cold feet in the industry about this issue.

But investigators around the world have shown they can carry out these food challenge trials safely  which could help hasten the development of new drugs.

In school, we didnt learn anything about allergy treatment, except antihistamines and epinephrine, Long said. But now, were seeing this whole new spectrum of treatments. Itll be interesting to see how this translates into making it into a pharmacy, and into the hands of patients.
In this In this Oct. 7, 2016 photo, Dr. Reynold Lopez, center, one of the few surgical oncologist on the island and teacher at the University of Puerto Rico school of medicine, gets ready to perform thyroid surgery with resident physicians at the Dr. Isaac Gonzalez Martinez Oncological Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Up to 700 doctors are expected to leave Puerto Rico this year, double the number from two years ago, said Dr. Victor Ramos, president of the island's Association of Surgeons. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)
After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings  though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.



Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance


On Sunday, by a razor-thin majority, Colombians rejected a much anticipated peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) sending shock waves across Colombia and the world.

Even those campaigning against the accord didnt anticipate the outcome, with polling indicating that the Yes to peace deal would win by a comfortable margin. But amid record-high abstention, fewer than 55,000 votes tipped the balance in favor of the No campaign.

No Colombian wants to return to war, and the United States, will continue to do whatever it can to help to facilitate the process.  Jason

How could this happen? After all, the deal was carefully negotiated over four long years with sectors across society having a space at the table. A country that has suffered so much loss after five decades of conflict would seem poised to want to end the killing, kidnapping, and displacement.

But what motivated people to get out to vote was not peace. It was deep-seeded hatred toward the FARC and a belief that war could be ended without compromise. And although this was supposed to be a vote only on the peace deal, its clear that Colombian voters also used it as a referendum on the mandate of President Juan Manuel Santos whose approval was only at 29 percent as of September 2. When an unpopular leader calls for a vote, nothing can be taken for granted.

As is seen around the world, especially in this anti-establishment era, those against a policy or project are more motivated to get out to the polls  a lesson for policymakers who still see referendums as a mechanism to get the peoples stamp of approval. That type of validation cannot be counted on.

And here in the United States, with our own election just over a month away, Sundays vote yet again reinforces how no eligible voter can afford to sit back on November 8. In Colombia, the 63 percent abstention rate helped propel the No vote. Every vote truly does count.

Colombians at home and around the world are in a state of disillusionment. Nobody expected such an outcome less than a week after world leaders convened in Cartagena for the formal signing of the accords. Sundays vote was supposed to be a moment of triumph of how peace can be achieved in coordination with the international community. To say the road ahead is now uncertain would be an understatement.

But peace is still possible. Over the last four years, the process seemed doomed to failure multiple times, whether due to attacks or impasses at the negotiating table. No Colombian wants to return to war, and the United States, will continue to do whatever it can to help to facilitate the process.

Still, now with the No side newly energized, the question is if new termslikely to be much harsherwill be accepted. The political fallout is immense but hope still rings that cooler heads will prevail and that a road to peace will still be possible.
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Economic growth may be staggeringly slow across the country, but Puerto Ricos lengthy decline makes even seasoned economists blush. Last weeks island-wide blackout didnt help boost confidence in a near-term turnaround when a small fire dominoed into everyone losing power (yes, everyone), offering yet another reminder that a decade of economic decay doesnt mix well with poor fiscal choices.

While we can only hope this recent episode serves as but the climax to the horror story Puerto Ricans have had to live through, turning the tide in Puerto Rico will require legislators and the new fiscal oversight board to adhere to the one truth that all recovering economies eventually learn: growth only comes when the private sector leads the way.

This years gubernatorial election in Puerto Rico offers the same two economic choices as were previously witnessed: one that represents the status quo and a philosophy of government intervention that likely led to the current crisis, and another who has an outside perspective, offering a plan to help its people to lead the way instead.  Justin Velez-Hagan

One of the great ironies to last weeks blackout, was that it immediately preceded several events many of us held as symbols of a Puerto Rican renaissance. While en route to the first, led by a group of investors offering its own private sector solutions and touting the investment climate in Puerto Rico, I couldnt help but laugh to myself reading the following on a government website: [Puerto Rico has] abundant and reliable electricity to meet the demands of industry

Fortunately, power recovered rapidly for most of the island, nevertheless the outage still served as another example of how desperately Puerto Rico needs experienced and accountable private sector managers to lead the charge toward prosperity.

The follow up act was the one so many of us have been waiting for: the first official board meeting for the fiscal oversight board set up by Congress PROMESA bill. Although the board seems intent on taking rapid action, setting a mid-October deadline for Governor Garcia-Padilla to submit his first fiscal plan, no one really knows whether they will have to intervene in Puerto Ricos affairs or if the island will self-correct knowing it has a new overseer with a heavy hand.

Regardless of how it will come about, it is increasingly clear that Puerto Rico will have no choice but to cut spending, implement structural economic reforms, and step back to watch the rest of us work. Though this may worry the thousands of private-sector skeptics around the country protesting against D.C.s overreach in the islands affairs, history shows that properly implemented reforms (even dramatic ones) can lead to economic magic.

In fact, with an onslaught of fresh data since the Great Recession, an entire subset of economic literature has recently been devoted to this idea. Most of the research focuses on the two basic types of austerity measures that governments can implement to counter periods of economic contraction: tax-based policies that rely on higher taxes to meet expenses and spending-based policies that focus on cutting back.

While it might make intuitive sense (or perhaps best fit your political ideology) that cutting spending leads to a reduction in GDP, in actuality, results are starting to show that spending cuts are less harmful to the economy than tax increases. Combined with specific structural reforms, spending reductions can even lead to more rapid economic growth.

Although a number of countries around the world have experienced this exact phenomenon, Puerto Rico may have already proved the theory in its own backyard. In the years beginning its lengthy recession, Puerto Rican legislators thought it best to cover shortfalls with more borrowing and higher taxes. After years of doing the same thing begat a continued economic downturn, a new governor passed reforms that led to the only period of growth the island has seen over the last ten-plus years.

Regrettably, the results didnt keep pace with politics, as a new governor (the current one) was elected to undo the new measures. The unfortunate result is, well, Puerto Ricos headline-making fiscal falter of 2016.

The roadmap is there for anyone willing to put in the work. But, it takes a perspective that is wider than Puerto Rico, and an understanding that a few educated lawyers are probably less adept at creating a dynamic and growing economy than thousands of entrepreneurs.

Interestingly enough, this years gubernatorial election in Puerto Rico offers the same two economic choices as were previously witnessed: one that represents the status quo and a philosophy of government intervention that likely led to the current crisis, and another who has an outside perspective, offering a plan to help its people to lead the way instead. The political success of the latter may have been ensured by a fiscal crisis, but if voters have the patience to wait for his policies to take effect, Puerto Rico may finally have a long-term solution at hand.
One of the hallmarks of GOP nominee Donald Trumps platform is a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Using natural barriers where feasible, his plan is to build a 35 foot to 40 foot wall 1,000 miles long. While the idea has been much discussed on the campaign trail, from a border security perspective, the details and implications have been insufficiently debated. Setting the rhetoric aside, there are many aspects to a border wall that Americans need to know.

It took President Obama more than a year to pass the disastrous Affordable Care Act. Funding the wall would be just as contentious.  Nelson Balido

Here are five facts stand out that voters should understand:

1. Illegal border crossings will continue. There is a perception that if the wall is high and long enough, it will be insurmountable. But a wall of any size only pushes smugglers and others to dig deeper tunnels or build taller ladders. We know this from experience. When the current 18-foot fence was installed in McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol officers began collecting 19-foot ladders in such number that station supervisors said to stop bringing them in.

Rather than an impenetrable bulwark, a wall is a force multiplier. Like ground sensors, radar, cameras, and the existing 650 miles of fencing along the border, a wall gives Border Patrol additional time to respond to an attempted crossing. As former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Ralph Basham wrote in 2009, All it really does is buy you time where a crosser could otherwise quickly escape or assimilate. None of the fencing is impenetrable. People will eventually dig under it or cut through it or go over it, but it gives you enough time to respond and apprehend them.

2. Dont mess with Texas. A continuous wall would cross private land, where the government needs permission to build. It is ultimately not up to the president nor the Congress to dictate what a citizen does with their land, short of seizing it citing eminent domain. The 2006 Secure Fence Act appropriated funds to build the current fence and patrol roads, and because border lands in Arizona, New Mexico and California are mostly federally owned, the existing 650 miles of fence in those states is nearly continuous. In Texas, however, much of the land along the border is privately owned, and as the government found during construction, many of those land owners do not want a fence on their property.

The previous fence building led to hundreds of private property lawsuits, which would certainly recur with Trumps border wall project. By consequence, the project could degrade the critical relationships between Border Patrol and citizens. By law, land owners cannot restrict the Border Patrol from patrolling their property within 25 miles of the border; however, land owners could conceivably fence off the roads that lead to their property, restricting the kinds of vehicles Border Patrol can use in some areas or simply reduce them to walking. Creating a wall over the opposition of local residents sets up a number of scenarios that would make Border Patrols job harder.

3. $12 Billion wont cut it. Trump has estimated at different times that the wall will cost between $8 billion and $12 billion. It will almost certainly cost more. The current (incomplete) fence cost $7 billion. The Government Accountability Office reported in 2009 that finishing the fence with the current design would cost $5.1 billion, and maintaining the existing fence will cost $6.5 billion over 20 years. The current fence is made up largely of thick metal plates topped with razor wire. While details are slim, the wall Trump proposes is imagined to be more robust. One engineering estimate for a continuous wall design would require 12.6 million cubic yards of concrete (three times the Hoover Dam) and 5 billion pounds of steel. That volume of material plus costs for labor, safety equipment, heavy machinery, surveying, geological studies, excavation and more could cost some $25 billion. And since the Obama administration called for $274 million for fence maintenance in the 2015 budget request, it stands to reason that upkeep of Trumps wall could average $600 million or more per year, or at least $12 billion over 20 years. Those billions of dollars have to come from somewhere, and we still need more agents on the border with better weapons, better communications equipment, and as-yet-nonexistent technology to address the increasing use of drones by drug cartels.

4. Mexico wont pay for it. Trump continues to say Mexico will fund the wall, but the proposals he has put forward to force Mexico to pay are unlikely to yield the full $12 billion he claims they will, much less the $25 billion the wall actually requires. As a threat to get Mexico to pony up, Trump proposes to impound remittances from illegal wages, increase visa fees, increase fees on border crossing cards and increase fees at ports of entry, as well as possible tariffs and reductions in foreign aid.

The thing is, these are not strong incentives for Mexico to pay. A good portion of remittances come from legal Mexican aliens and U.S. citizens, visa and border card fees will impact citizen costs and not Mexican tax revenue, and tariffs hurt U.S. consumers as much (if not more) than Mexican exporters. More than that, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told Trump in person that Mexico would not pay, and the Mexican Treasury Secretary Luis Videgaray concurred that Mexican taxes would never be used in any scenario to pay for a project of this nature. By the way, if Mexico was to pay for the wall, will they own it? Are we going to sell land back to Mexico? I think not.

5. Enter, the Legislature. Even if Mexico paid for the wall, those funds would still need to be appropriated by Congress. That would lead to a protracted, highly politicized fight with wall opponents using every option to frustrate, prevent and stall votes on wall funding. Imagine filibusters, arcane procedural rules and endless lobbying to prevent any congressional movement. The National Reviews conservative writer Jim Geraghty notes, Until all of these obstacles were overcome  until funding was procured from Mexico, the Congress gave its approval, and the courts signed off  construction of the wall couldnt even begin.

It took President Obama more than a year to pass the disastrous Affordable Care Act. Funding the wall would be just as contentious. Meanwhile, it took more than three years from the time President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act to when the fence stretched from San Diego, CA, to Yuma, AZ. Using that as a metric for the time needed to build Trumps wall, the project could not be completed during his first term.

Keep in mind, the wall or fence today is anywhere from 3 feet to 300 feet (and in some cases even farther) from the actual border line. That means even if a person was on the other side of the fence, they are technically on U.S. soil, and by law, we would have to go to the other side and arrest them. So are we actually keeping them out, or does a continuous wall just become the new de facto U.S. southern border?

As Americans head to the polls, voters should be aware that for anyone to complete a wall within a first term, they will need to seize private property to build a wall twice as fast and half as cheap as all estimates available. And even if they do, it wont stop illegal border crossings.
The news that Donald Trump was caught on a hot mic sounding like a dirty old Hollywood pervert hit the race for the White House like an exploding bomb last Friday evening. His unguarded remarks to Billy Bush about how he could molest any women he wanted because of his celebrity destroyed his chance to be the 45th president of the United States. The remarks were raw and they were ugly, even in the context of what he later explained was locker room banter.

He survived to fight for four more weeks, but it will not be enough. There have been too many foot-in-mouth moments, and Im guessing there are more to come.  Donald Trump

Trump: I just kiss. I dont even wait. And when youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Billy Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.

Although the remarks were made 11 years ago, most of the public cut him no slack. Even some diehard Trump supporters, forced by their loathing of Hillary Clinton to stick with him through thick and thin, found this latest revelation beyond the pale. Certainly many folks not tuned into the campaign spectacle found the remarks unsavory.

How can we elect someone president when we could not let our children hear his profane remarks?

Prominent GOP senators and governors jammed the doors as they jumped off the Trump train in the wake of the revelations. From former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, some of the biggest stars in the GOP firmament announced they had turned off their support for Trump. The Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will never appear with Trump again, despite the obvious threat a landslide defeat for the Republican at the top of the ticket poses to Ryans majority in the House of Representatives.

He has survived half dozen scandals that have historically wrecked more convention candidates. He lost my vote when he vowed to deport all undocumented immigrants, even if they had lived otherwise law-abiding lives and even if they have citizen-born children. He said he would ban all Muslim immigrants, insulted POWS and Gold Star families and so forth and so on. But this simple tacky racy scandal is too much for too many. It has a special repugnance because all of us have been there, saying things out of school. We know when someone has gone over the line, even for a locker room.

When he made those remarks that would later destroy Billy Bushs career on NBC and the Today Show, Mr. Trump was 59 years old, hardly a high school jock in a sweaty gym. I am of his Mad Men generation and admit to occasionally engaging in locker room banter back in the day, sometimes with Mr. Trump. But even in that context the hot mic conversation on the bus with Billy was graphic and lowbrow. In the current climate of heightened awareness of sexual harassment and sexual assault, it was grotesque. The cavalier arrogance he displayed when talking about his sexual prerogatives makes it impossible for less hard-core Trump supporters to continue to associate with a candidate who was already running well behind Hillary Clinton.

Going into Sunday nights second debate, Trump needed a miracle performance to salvage his crippled campaign. He didnt quite get it, although he did better than expected under the circumstances. His stunt with the purported victims of Bill Clintons predatory behavior was outrageous, ill mannered and out-of-line, but it worked despite the fact that Bill is not running for president, Hillary is.

As president, Bill Clinton paid for his transgressions with impeachment, only the second in the history of the land to be so humiliated. Still, viewed objectively, Trumps stunt with the ladies, and his implacable attacks on Secretary Clintons E-Mail scandal and her essential honesty seemed to wear Hillary down.

He narrowly won that debate by going nuclear, and there is no doubt that his most fervent supporters are defiantly cheering his bare-knuckled performance. He attacked relentlessly in a way unseen in modern American history. He had some good, cutting lines, including his pledge to put Secretary Clinton in jail if he is elected. That got a huge gasp from the audience in St. Louis and the millions watching on television, but it heartened his deflated followers.

So thanks to his swaggering and extraordinarily aggressive debate, he dodged the Access Hollywood bullet and rallied his base. But it will not be enough to reverse his political fortunes. No candidate for national office can prevail with the support of just his core of high school-educated white folks.

Mr. Trump needed to broaden his support to make up his dearth of support from Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, Muslims, Jews and suburban white women, especially those with college education. He did not do that Sunday night. He survived to fight for four more weeks, but it will not be enough. There have been too many foot-in-mouth moments, and Im guessing there are more to come.
Immediately after electing a new governor on November 8, Puerto Ricans will face an unprecedented challenge. Their government will be bankrupt but unable to declare bankruptcy. A Financial Control Board (FCB) will run their economy. Every public budget, and every law, will require FCB approval. The political impotence will be so profound, that U.S. Federal Judge Juan Torruella is recommending the suspension of elections in Puerto Rico, until the FCB has finished fleecing it.

Given these grim conditions, many have lost faith in the political class of Borinquen, and are fleeing the island in record numbers. For the remaining 3.5 million souls, here is a brief list of what the next governor should do, and can do for their island.

The next governor should:

End the PLP. For the past 50 years, the two major parties (the PPD and PNP) have actually been one party  the PLP  the Party of Lining their Pockets. The next governor should revoke both party charters, resign from office and run for governor againin a non-partisan election. This is not as ridiculous as it sounds. Today, more than 80 percent of U.S. cities hold non-partisan elections for local office.

Declare a moratorium on mayors. Puerto Rico has 78 mayors and 78 mayoral payrolls. This is the equivalent of New York City having 189 mayors, instead of one. The cost of these 78 mayoralties has been estimated at $1.1 billion in payroll and $2.2 billion for local budgets. Eight regional mayors, instead of 78, would save the island billions of dollars annually.

Establish a Puerto Rico Ethics Commission. Just like the governor of New York, who recently empanelled a Moreland Ethics Commission, the next governor can establish a non-partisan Puerto Rico Ethics Commission with full subpoena powers. This commission could investigate the toxic oil kickbacks at PREPA, the missing $100 million from the Fideicomiso de Ciencia, the $450 million spent on a gas pipeline that was never built, the $4 billion Ponzi scheme disguised as Series AA Municipal Bonds, and the $9 billion in private contracts handed out from 2009 to 2013, from which $1 billion went to public relations.

This ethics commission would help to re-establish the reputation and integrity of Puerto Ricos governing class  which in 2016, have reached a historic nadir.

Jones Act exemption. If the 1920 Jones Act were repealed in Puerto Rico (Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920) it would lower consumer prices by 15-20 percent, enable the island to develop its own shipping industry, create hundreds of large and small businesses, and produce tens of thousands of jobs.

Jones Act reform  and outright repeal  has already been advocated by the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, Capital Research Center and The Hill. The Washington Post and New York Times agreed. Even the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in a 40-page report, found that the Jones Act hurts the Puerto Rican economy.

With all this widespread support, the governor should lead a massive public education campaign  on the island and the mainland  to remove the Jones Act from Puerto Rico, and allow her to negotiate her own international trade agreements.

A governor should do all of the above. But it requires a level of courage and conviction that is notably absent in the PLP (the Party of Lining their Pockets). So heres what the next governor can do:

Require complete transparency from the FCB. The US Financial Control Board should commit to recorded votes. It should hold public meetings, release the names of everyone they meet with, conduct bilingual hearings, and document every activity and decision in both English and Spanish. It should also itemize and disclose how it spends its $370 million budget, since Puerto Rico (not the US) will be paying for it. Congressman Luis Gutierrez has already demanded all of this, and the governor can join him.

Economic Reforms. The governor can push for urgent economic reforms. These include tax incentives to re-invigorate the island's agricultural sector; developing wind, water and solar energy technologies; and offering the same 20-year tax exemptions that US billionaires are enjoying in Puerto Rico, to small business persons from the island itself.

In addition, any tax abatement deals for foreign corporations (and US billionaires) should require the reinvestment of a stipulated percentage of profits, into Puerto Rican infrastructure and industrial development.

Invoke UN Resolution 1514 (XV). In 1953, the US declared that Puerto Rico had achieved self-determination and political sovereignty through their new Commonwealth relationship with the US. The United Nations then removed Puerto Rico from the list of countries that were overdue for de-colonization. But two recent Supreme Court cases, Sanchez Valle and Franklin Trust, have terminated this alleged sovereignty.

In both cases the Obama administration argued, and the US Supreme Court agreed, that Puerto Rico is a territorial possession of the US: with no legislative, juridical, or political sovereignty whatsoever. In the same week that Sanchez Valle was decided, the US Congress passed the PROMESA bill to impose a Financial Control Board over Puerto Rico, and manage its entire economy.

Thus in 2016, all three branches of the US federal government declared that Puerto Rico is a property of the USa colony. Given this open declaration from the entire US government, the next governor of Puerto Rico can appear before the UN and invoke Resolution 1514 (XV), which stipulates the right to self-determination of every nation, and the right to reject a colonial relationship.

Bad news and good news. There is no escaping the brutal fact that Puerto Rico is headed for more austerities and privatization, more P3s and public private partnerships, that will enrich an elite club of capitalists and criminals while draining the people of Puerto Rico. Several members of that club are sitting on the Financial Control Board.

Thousands of Puerto Ricans will lose their jobs and pensions. Thousands more will be forced to leave their island. Throughout this painful process, there will be bad news and good news.

The bad news isPuerto Rico is a colony and will continue to suffer, until this condition is resolved.

The good news isthe next governor can do something about it.
Should jury deliberations always be kept secret? Thats the question the Supreme Court is weighing right now.

In 2010, Miguel Angel Pena-Rodriguez was convicted of assaulting two teenage sisters at the racetrack where he worked, in Colorado. After his trial, two jurors told his lawyer that another juror had made bigoted statements about Latinos during deliberations. Pena-Rodriguez wanted another trial. The problem was that, like most states, Colorado has a law protecting jurors from testifying about any statements made during deliberations.

Eight states already allow defendants to challenge their verdicts based on improper behavior by the jury during deliberations, and there is no evidence that such laws have been disruptive or produced a flood of post-trial challenges.  Raul A. Reyes

Pena-Rodriguez brought a suit challenging that law, and last week the case landed at the Supreme Court.

Colorados law should not be allowed to stand in the face of legitimate constitutional concerns. At a time when our criminal justice system has faced scrutiny over structural racism, the Court must do its part to root out improper bias on juries.

The ideal of secrecy during jury deliberations is not more important than the real-life consequences of racial bias among jurors.

It might surprise people to know that the high court has generally not been inclined to interfere with jury verdicts if it would require jurors to testify about deliberations. In Tanner v. U.S. (1987), the Court considered a challenge to a mail fraud case where jurors were reportedly on one big party. During deliberations, there was rampant drug use.

The jurors drank beer and wine, smoked marijuana, and used cocaine. Some jurors fell asleep or had fits of giggling in the courtroom. Amazingly, the Supreme Court let this jurys verdict stand. They decided that allowing after-the-fact challenges to a verdict would undermine the finality of trials, and discourage jurors from speaking their minds during deliberations.

In Warger v. Shauers (2014) the Court likewise held that jurors should not be compelled to testify about deliberations, even to expose dishonesty during the jury selection process. So up to now, jury deliberations  no matter how dysfunctional  have basically been shielded from scrutiny once the jurys verdict was in.

However, a footnote in the Warger case said that there may be cases of juror bias so extreme that  the jury trial right has been abridged. If and when such a case arises, the Court can consider whether the usual safeguards are not sufficient to protect the integrity of the process.

Now such a case has arisen. Pena-Rodriguez was convicted after the juror in question  a former law enforcement officer  argued during deliberations that Pena-Rodriguez was guilty because hes Mexican and Mexican men take whatever they want.

The juror stated that nine out of 10 Mexican men are aggressive towards women. He called a witness who provided Pena-Rodriguez with an alibi an illegal, although that witness was in fact a legal resident. Its hard to see how anyone can maintain that this jurors prejudice did not infringe on Pena-Rodriguezs Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.

At the oral arguments for the case, some of the justices seemed wary of ruling for Pena-Rodriguez. They worried that, if they allowed deliberations to be challenged on racism, that it would unleash all sorts of post-trial claims by defendants looking for one last chance at changing the outcome of their case. But eight states already allow defendants to challenge their verdicts based on improper behavior by the jury during deliberations, and there is no evidence that such laws have been disruptive or produced a flood of post-trial challenges.

Latinos should care about the outcome of Pena-Rodriguezs case, and not just because he is Latino. Consider that Latinos are statistically underrepresented on juries. In New York City, for example, Latinos are 27 percent of the population, but only six percent of jurors. Hispanics are also underrepresented in juries everywhere from Texas to Washington. An American Bar Association report has called the lack of diversity on juries a national problem with individual consequences. What happened to Pena-Rodriguez could happen to us  or someone in our family or community. Thats why the Hispanic National Bar Association, civil rights groups, and even Mexico have submitted briefs in support of his case.

True, what is said in the jury room is supposed to stay in the jury room (think 12 Angry Men). And in the overwhelming majority of cases, that is exactly what will continue to occur. But when blatant bigotry or racism infects our legal system, it should not be ignored. A ruling for Pena-Rodriguez would establish an important precedent, and bring us closer to a uniform national system for dealing with juror misconduct. A ruling against Pena-Rodriguez would not only harm him; it could undermine public confidence in the integrity of our jury system as well.

A fair trial is a fundamental component of due process. The Supreme Court should rule in favor of Pena-Rodriguez, to guarantee the right of all Americans to an impartial jury.
Bad hombres, nasty woman. Is there anything new Trump can possibly say to continue to alienate two key segments that could mark a winning difference on November 8?

There is nothing more powerful than the power of data. And, as reported in the last few months by Fox News Latino and also on a segment on The OReilly Factor  and confirmed by traditional polls  the Trump sensation had been unshaken until now.

Research confirms that the use of Spanish is not necessarily to appeal or pander to a group that doesnt speak English, but as a vehicle that drives better brand affinity, loyalty and trust. After all, us Latinos may speak in English but we still love in Spanish, and using the language is the best way to pull into the heartstring that move the core of who we are culturally.  Lili Gil-Valletta, Allie George

Using CulturIntel, a proprietary methodology using search, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, we mined over 319K Hispanic data points which report only a 14 percent positive opinion among Latinos, as compared to the 37 percent reported back in June.

This is a 23 percent decline in support for the Republican candidate in less than four months.

This gap can be accredited simply to one thing, not having a disciplined Hispanic outreach strategy, which was a winning factor to fellow Republicans during the midterm elections  in 2014, on-the-ground engagement, Spanish language advertising and a balanced platform helped Republicans capture the Hispanic vote successfully in key states like Colorado with Cory Gardner.

During the midterm season through September of 2014, Univision and Cmag reported Republican investment in Spanish language media exceeded the Democrats, which had declined by 50 percent since 2012.

There are currently 27.3 million eligible Hispanic voters, a number that continues to grow as legal immigrants apply to become citizens in time to vote this year. An 80 percent increase in the number of Latino eligible voters since 2012 has helped make the U.S. electorate more diverse than ever. Their influence upon the direction of national politics, culture, economic trends, and a broad range of other issues will only increase.

The New York Times reports that some of the biggest increases in applications this year came in battleground states, including a 30 percent increase in Colorado, a 40 percent increase in Florida, and a 53 percent increase in Nevada.

Over 50 percent of Latinos consider themselves political independents. These voters present a huge opportunity, as there are potent concentrations of these voters in Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina, crucial battleground states.

Hillary Clinton has capitalized on this demographic by running Spanish-language ads on television and radio in key markets and reaching millennial voters through new media. The median age for Hispanics is 27 years, while the median age for the U.S. population is 37 years, making them by definition a millennial community.

The Clinton campaign has also hired Latino voter directors and organized children of undocumented immigrants and Hispanic women to inspire Hispanic voter engagement and encourage them to join the campaign. Comparatively, Trump has done very little to reach out to Hispanic voters.

These choices are a distinct break with two decades of bipartisan tradition. Research confirms that the use of Spanish is not necessarily to appeal or pander to a group that doesnt speak English, but as a vehicle that drives better brand affinity, loyalty and trust. After all, us Latinos may speak in English but we still love in Spanish, and using the language is the best way to pull into the heartstring that move the core of who we are culturally.

Unfortunately for Trump, his divisive tone and his emphasis on immigration prompted over half of the members of his Hispanic advisory council to step down. His pledge to build a militarized border wall between the U.S. and Mexico and plan to reverse Obamas reprieve and place 11 million people into deportation proceedings were highly significant.

Even if immigration is not the top issue for Hispanics, the tone is telling of the desire to respect, engage and build trust with the community.

Also, a coalition of Hispanic Republicans was recently formalized during the morning of the last debate for conservative Latinos to reclaim their voice and demand the respect and voice the community ought to represent. In fact, the group underscores that the GOP will cease to be a national party unless Latinos are engaged. As the party prepared to face a potential third loss in 12 years, the same issues that hamstrung the GOP in 2008 remains, and have essentially grown stronger.

From September through November of 2016, Latino Decisions partnered with the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) and Noticias Telemundo to publish the results of a weekly tracking poll. Currently, this weekly tracking poll shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump among Latinos 74 percent to 15 percent, a 59 percent gap.

It is highly unlikely Trump can close the gap and win the election while ignoring the fastest growing segment of voters in the country and very far from George W. Bushs 44 percent Hispanic support  a rapid decline which is counter to the growing importance of the changing face of America.
Miami is in a veritable tizzy this week. Many South Floridians are screaming mad over the release of information they did not want to hear. They did not want to hear that their favorite son was legally drunk on the night he crashed his boat into the jetties on South Beach. They did not want to hear that he was also found to have ingested cocaine on the night of the accident. All of this, along with an autopsy report that explains why his casket was kept shut, is a pill much too bitter for fans of Miami Marlins superstar Jose Fernandez to swallow.

We should take no solace in the realization that Jose Fernandez was drunk and high on cocaine when he crashed his boat and died off of South Beach. He was after all no worse and no better than the rest of us. Fernandez was an imperfect 24-year-old with millions of dollars and a fast boat.  Rick Sanchez

Jose Fernandezs truth truly hurts those who idolized him. But should that get in the way of our responsibility to do what democracy behooves of us? Lets start at the beginning.

As a boater familiar with the waters off the Government Cut jetties where Fernandezs boat crashed, I knew the very moment I heard the news that there was no way Fernandez could have missed those giant boulders. In other words, barring a situation as ridiculous as one in the movie Speed, where mechanical failure causes the vehicle to drive itself, I knew the captain of the boat was either horribly distracted or horribly impaired.

As it turns out, thats exactly what happened. Of course, few at the time  and even now wanted to accept that reality. Many Miamians, including one prominent politician, said it was the fault of the rocks, formally asking the coast guard to investigate the jetties. Really?

The outcrop of jetties that smooth the waters and create a lane for boaters entering and leaving Miami Beach are more than 100 years old and surrounded by lighted buoys and a flashing red signal to warn boaters. The rocks that form that jetty did not cause the death of Jose Fernandez and his two friends, something all of us who occasionally boat at night realized right away. Why? Because the GPS charts we know better than to take our eyes off tell us that  by pointing out the rocks!

We should take no solace in the realization that Jose Fernandez was drunk and high on cocaine when he crashed his boat and died off of South Beach. He was after all no worse and no better than the rest of us. Fernandez was an imperfect 24-year-old with millions of dollars and a fast boat. Here, let me say it  there but by the grace of God, go I, and possibly you.

This week in Miami, thousands have complained about the release of Jose Fernandezs truth. Let him rest in peace, they plead. Youre a vulture for wanting to report that, one older woman screamed at me on the phone. Many of Miamis most recent arrivals, who like Fernandez grew up in Cuba not understanding how democracy works, are especially frustrated.

To them, truth is not something you report unless it fits a necessary narrative  thats how the state-owned media trained them and too often, thats how they still think.

As Americans, we know better  or we should, because the consequences of not telling the truth are often worse. It can set in motion a series of effects. Imagine if Marco Rubio had convinced the U.S. Coast Guard to remove the jetties. Imagine if the boat manufacturers reputation had been destroyed by those who thought it was to blame.

No matter how painful, we know that for democracy to flourish, truth is vital  just as withholding relevant information is lying. And when we do it for our own convenience, its selfish lying.
This past Saturday night, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony hosted a special, free concert in Miami in support of Hillary Clinton. At the end of the night, Mrs. Clinton joined the duo onstage as they urged the crowd to go out and vote early for the Democratic nominee. Ms. Lopez said it was time for Latinos to unify and carry Florida for Clinton. She went on to refer to Mrs. Clinton as the perfect person to lead America.

It pains me to say it, especially as someone born in the Island, Hillary Clinton will make the mainland U.S. look like Puerto Rico  debt ridden, over-regulated, and with little hope for prosperity.  Manny Roman

Not only is Mrs. Clinton far from the perfect candidate to lead our nation in these turbulent times, both at home and abroad, but also no amount of star power can make up for her dismay record as a public servant and the subsequent lack of enthusiasm for her candidacy.

When Did Rock n Roll Become Part of the Establishment?

Hillary Clinton does seem to have an edge on Donald Trump when it comes to Hollywood endorsements  other rock stars like Bruce Springsteen and Katy Perry have come out in support of the former Secretary of State.

One typically sees rock n roll stars with a certain anti-establishment flair to them. What ever happened to being against the man? Against the system? Against the corrupt establishment? Hillary Clinton epitomizes the stall Washington establishment that is AGAINST real reform, and FOR the corrupt special interest. Her well-documented and undeniable ties to both Wall Street and K-Street interests make it extremely hard for these celebrities to make a credible case to their fans.

The truth is that these, perhaps once anti-establishment, rock stars have now become part of the establishment themselves. Even worse, their young, unsuspecting fans are being grossly misled into thinking that someone like Hillary Clinton fights for them and is the perfect person to elect as President.

Luckily, there is overwhelming evidence and now, thanks in part to WikiLeaks, even more evidence being revealed every single day, that Hillary Clinton looks out only for herself and those who she deems strategically important for advancing her personal agenda.

Rags to Riches Public Servant

Most Latinos know better than to trust politicians who become multi-millionaires while being public servants. We see this happen in Latin America all too frequently and we have an intuition that usually alarms us when we see the signs  Hillary Clinton has admittedly spent the last three decades in public service, but somehow parleyed fighting for women and children into vast wealth. Earlier this year Fortune estimated the Clintons net worth at over $100 million.

While Hillary Clinton was serving as the nations chief diplomat, The Clinton Foundation received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments, including instances in which the donations were direct violations of the ethics agreement the foundation held with the Obama administration (this has been widely reported since 2015). Many of the donations the Clintons lobbied for, and later received, came from governments who have been heavily criticized for infringements of human rights. Not surprisingly though, Mrs. Clinton happily turns a blind eye to atrocities committed by these foreign actors so long as the checks continue to roll in.

These donations did nothing but buy favors from Mrs. Clinton  the type of pay-to-play politics that has made countless of government officials filthy rich in places like Venezuela. Hugo Chavez would be proud if he were alive, and likely would be taking notes, to see how robust the Clinton scheme has become and how she became a multi-millionaire while being a public servant.

Corruption Scandals and Poorly Thought Out Policies Will Not Be Ignored

Celebrity endorsements and special free concerts are not going to move Floridians to the voting booths, although it may drive media headlines.

The young college graduate who cannot find a decent paying job in the weakest economic expansion since WW2, or the working class Puerto Rican who moved his young family from the Island to central and south Florida with aspirations of working hard and providing a more stable life for his family is not going to ignore the harsh economic reality they face every day. Although they may have a fun afternoon at a concert, Latinos are not going to allow themselves to be blindsided by star power.

Floridas exponentially growing Puerto Rican community, a group targeted by these get out the vote efforts, were driven out of the island by the exact same bloated government policies that Clinton supports.

Democratic Governors and their big government solutions have dominated Puerto Rican politics since the mid 60s. Today, we see the results from decades of their poorly thought out policies. Make no mistake about it, Hillary Clinton would not have done anything different if she had been governor of Puerto Rico over the past decades.

It pains me to say it, especially as someone born in the Island, Hillary Clinton will make the mainland U.S. look like Puerto Rico  debt ridden, over-regulated, and with little hope for prosperity.

Donald Trump is imperfect. We all are. I wouldnt dare to go around claiming the Republican nominee is the perfect candidate. The fact that Jennifer Lopez does so for Hillary Clinton is disingenuous at best. But he has committed to undo much of the damage President Obama has done in the past eight years, including repealing and replacing Obamacare. Furthermore, Trump would ensure radical liberals do not overtake the Supreme Court.

And for the record, this piece is not an attack on Jennifer Lopez or Marc Anthony; both are incredibly talented at their craft and Im actually a huge fan of their music! If their intent is truly to shape better public policy and improve everyones standard of living, I would welcome an opportunity to discuss solutions and the proper role of government.
Venezuela and the excesses of the Chavista regime have become an issue in the presidential elections in the U.S.

Bad memories come back to haunt all of us Latin Americans, particularly Venezuelans, when we hear Trump speak, and we Venezuelans already constitute a visible group of electors in Southeast Florida.  Leopoldo Martinez Nucete

Right at the moment when the regime blocked the recall referendum aimed at removing President Nicolas Maduro and as the economic and social crisis suffocating the Venezuelan people grows ever worse, Hilary Clinton published an article in Spanish in El Nuevo Herald titled For Greater Unity in Latin America in which she wrote the following about Venezuela:

We need to keep the pressure on Venezuela and work to find a peaceful solution to the current political and humanitarian crisis which is a result of the legacy of the authoritarian regime of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. We wont hesitate to punish individuals who have violated human rights or robbed their fellow citizens and nor will we hesitate to speak out on behalf of political prisoners. While Venezuelans exercise their constitutional right to initiate a change of course for their country, they should know they are not alone. The United States stand with them. And we will use our leadership in Latin America to ensure that the rest of the region joins in solidarity with them too.

In these few lines she reiterated the policy maintained by the Obama administration with both consistency and prudence while attempting to create a regional coalition to deal with the delicate question of Venezuela. This policy has included seeking the good offices of The Vatican to support the position of the Secretary General of the OAS Luis Almagro, whom has advocated for the enforcement of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. At the same time the U.S. has sought to develop economic and energy cooperation with Central America and the Caribbean, now that the financial crisis and the fall in the price of crude oil have left Maduro without the diplomatic shield that the Chavista regime constructed over a decade with Petrocaribe.

Clinton is very clear about the issue and how to address it. She also has the credibility and respect necessary in the eyes of the Latin American leadership to face the challenge of the absurd radicalization of the Venezuelan government, a radicalization in violation to its commitment to democracy within the framework of the Inter-American Charter.

Chavista neo-authoritarianism and its taste for dividing society have also been the subject of campaign spots from the Democratic Party and other independent organizations like the Latino Victory Project, focused on reminding the first generation of immigrants who live in Florida and come originally from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Peru and Chile or Argentina, how leaders who present themselves as anti-political saviours end up becoming a huge headache.

Trump has not only engaged in a divisive xenophobic and prejudiced rhetoric against Latinos, Mulisms. He also belittles women and people with disabilities; and as if this was not enough, he has claimed to be better than our Generals in dealing with national security, praised Vladimir Putin as a great leader, threatened Clinton with jail by appointing a special prosecutor. He expelled Jorge Ramos from a press conference for having the temerity to ask a question challenging the assumptions of his massive deportation plan, and sent teams of lawyers to threaten the media that have published investigative journalism about the cases of sexual harassment he has been accused of, as well as fraudulent bankruptcies, possible tax evasion and the Trump University scandal. He also declared that if elected he will seek to pass new laws on defamation (which in the U.S. is a state and not a federal matter) with the aim of shutting up the independent media and he has also promised to take Saturday Night Live off the air because of its stinging parodies of his excesses.

In a phrase that has become iconic of his lack of temperament, he claimed the system is rigged and not working, and he alone can fix it.

And the latest of these excesses (faced with what looks like certain electoral defeat given Clintons solid two digit polling lead) has been to promote the organization of vigilante groups to intimidate immigrant voters (Latinos and Muslims), yet another example of his open racism and xenophobia. In any case he has said that hell only recognize the results of the election if he wins. And lets not forget that he has insinuated that if Clinton wins his anti-gun control followers will take matters into their own hands. His activists have also threatened violence and rebellion if he loses. Doesnt all that remind you of someone? Of who, exactly?

Bad memories come back to haunt all of us Latin Americans, particularly Venezuelans, when we hear Trump speak, and we Venezuelans already constitute a visible group of electors in Southeast Florida. And its not for nothing therefore that the Democratic Party has reminded them that supposed messiahs like Castro, Somoza, Pinochet, Noriega, Fujimori and, of course, Chavez lead to social division and authoritarianism and that whether they come from the far left or far right their methods and characters are remarkably similar.

There was no delay in the reaction from the Foreign Minister of Venezuela. In a hard to understand message on Twitter she said that it was an abuse to compare Chavez with Trump and that the Democratic Party was being racist and arrogant. This talk of arrogance from the Foreign Minister can only be understood as an example of what psychologists call projection. And her mention of racism defies comprehension as its one of Trumps most visible characteristics and an accusation impossible to make against todays Democratic Party and Clinton herself, who for decades now has promoted social inclusion and fought for the rights of African Americans, women, minorities in general and in particular for a path to citizenship for Latino immigrants.

As the question of Venezuela becomes an electoral issue in the United States, the spiral of deterioration into which Venezuela has fallen looks uncontrollable, only with the cautious hope that a combination of protests and dialogue will bring some path to resume democratic change.

Nonetheless, it seems that once the U.S. elections have concluded things will continue to worsen in there, to the point of making the country a priority issue for the regional policy of Hillary Clinton, for the reasons stated in her well-written article published in El Nuevo Herald.

Well have to wait and hope that is the case.
On Tuesday, we all know that there are presidential elections. But there is a message that all Latinos need to hear: we must vote down the whole ballot.

After two long years of this presidential campaign, everyone knows about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And after a campaign in which Mr. Trump has frequently scapegoated Latinos and immigrants with words like "criminals" and "rapists," it is clear that Latinos are going out to vote in massive numbers for Mrs. Clinton. That's how it should be.

So for those who live in states with elections for the Senate, like Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Illinois, or Florida, it is essential to vote this year for respect and dignity for our community and make our voices heard in the Senate elections.  Javier H. Valdes

But, as a community, we must also focus on the rest of the critical races across the United States. This year, there are key elections for the federal Senate, the House of Representatives and state legislatures. Often in the past, Latino voters in presidential years who have voted for president have not continued down the rest of the ballot to vote for their congressional representatives and state legislators. This year, that has to change.

First, the U.S. Senate is critical to achieve immigration reform with a path to citizenship for the eleven million undocumented immigrants in this country. If the Senate remains in Republican hands, it will be very difficult to pass immigration reform before 2020. The same logic applies to issues like raising the minimum wage and investing more in public education and affordable housing  if the Democrats do not control the Senate, it will be very difficult to advance the priorities of working families.

So for those who live in states with elections for the Senate, like Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Illinois, or Florida, it is essential to vote this year for respect and dignity for our community and make our voices heard in the Senate elections.

Second, all voters will be electing our representatives in the House of Representatives this year. In recent years, the Republicans in control of this chamber of Congress have blocked immigration reform and other issues such as gun control, equal pay for women, and efforts to combat discrimination against the LGBTQ community. Make sure to study the candidates and then vote.

Third, it is absolutely critical that Latinos continue down the whole ballot and vote for our state legislators. In many cases, state government has the most impact on our lives. On issues such as public school funding, college access, infrastructure, affordable housing, and more, state government decides how and how much to support our communities.

In my state of New York, I have watched how a State Senate, controlled by Republicans, has blocked the passage of the New York DREAM Act, which would open state financial aid for college to all, regardless of immigration status; how the Republican Senators made it harder to win an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour, because they listened more to big business that working families; and how conservative Senators in the suburbs have taken millions in campaign contributions from the real estate industry to prevent stronger rent laws.

That's why, when I go to vote on Nov. 8, I will be voting down the whole ballot. I urge you to do the same  voting not only for president, but also for Congress and your state representatives.

On Tuesday, just remember three words: the whole ballot.
Recent polls of Latino voters are forecasting a blowout by Hillary Clinton tomorrow. According to the latest Washington Post-Univision survey, 67 percent of Hispanics intend to vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday against only 19 percent for Donald Trump.

Latino Decisions predicts even better numbers for Clinton: 79 percent versus 18 percent for the Republican candidate. In some states like Arizona and Nevada, Clinton beats Trump by around 50 percent among Hispanic voters.

Some analysts speculate that Trump's tirades may galvanize as many as 4 million more Hispanics to vote this year than in 2012. Tomorrow will tell.  Jose W. Fernandez

If these polling figures hold, Trump's support among Latinos will have reached record lows for a Republican candidate. Mitt Romney asked Latinos to self-deport and was rewarded with 27 percent of their ballots. By contrast, 44 percent of Latino voters backed George W. Bush in 2004. In the aftermath of Romney's defeat, experts concluded that future Republicans running for President would need at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote to stand a chance.

Conventional wisdom, then, assures us that the recent poll numbers bode well for Clinton.

In 2016, however, Hispanic preference figures may not matter. What's more, they obfuscate the fundamental issue regarding Latino voting. On November 8th, the key question for Latinos will be turnout.

The history of Latino voting participation in presidential elections is dismal. In 2012, 62 percent of all registered voters in the U.S. went to the polls, but only 48 percent of eligible Latinos did. In Colorado, Latinos lagged behind the overall turnout by 18 percent. This was not an aberration, for Hispanic voting numbers in previous elections were similarly feeble.

By contrast, for the first time in U.S. history, African-Americans in 2012 voted at a higher clip than whites. No wonder Trump had little fear of retribution when he chose to kick off his campaign by calling Mexicans "rapists" and "criminals," promising to build a wall that would be paid for by workers' remittances from the United States if the Mexican government refused, and labeling a Mexican-American judge unfit to rule on fraud charges against Trump University.

In his businessman's mind, the profits to be gained by demeaning Latinos far outweighed losing the votes of a group with a history of staying home on Election Day. Trump's insults in this election were the price Latinos paid for our voting apathy.

Reports of early voting in battleground states suggest that we may have learned our lesson. With a week to go, Hispanics in Florida had already cast more early votes than in the early 2012 cycle. Their share of early voting in the Sunshine State has increased to 15 percent versus 10 percent four years ago. In Clark County, where Las Vegas is located and Hispanics comprise a substantial part of the electorate, early balloting has pushed the Democrats' lead over Republicans above the numbers for Obama at the same time in 2012.

And in El Paso County, Texas, which is 81 percent Latino, early voting is running twice as high as in the last election. Some analysts speculate that Trump's tirades may galvanize as many as 4 million more Hispanics to vote this year than in 2012. Tomorrow will tell.

This election has been trying for Latinos. Our place in this great nation has been questioned and policies that would help our families strive towards the American Dream have been rejected. Whether we respond at the ballot box on Nov. 8th will determine if future candidates choose to demonize Hispanics instead of working to earn our votes. Come Tuesday, Vota o Calla.
Overlooked in the shock of the unexpected Donald Trump presidential victory is this: 602,351 Arizona voters threw 84-year-old Sheriff Joe Arpaio out of office after decades of putting up with his criminally-directed department of law breakers.

Other Arizonans soundly defeated another big-mouthed, anti-Mexican sheriff, Paul Babeu  aka, Sherriff Boo-Boo  in his second failed attempt to win election to the U.S. Congress of the United States.

All in all, it was a terrific day for Arizonas intelligent sector of the population. Sen. John McCain triumphed despite the ultra-right wing cabal that has worked so hard to defeat him for 20 years. Tucsons retired Col. Martha McSally, the first woman to fly combat for the U.S., easily won reelection with 57 percent in a congressional district in which she originally won with a handful of votes.

In Phoenix, with 702 of 724 voting precincts reporting, retired Phoenix police officer, Paul Penzone attracted 602,351 votes to overwhelm Sheriff Joe  aka Americas Toughest Sheriff  and his 487,989 votes.

Questions remain, such as did by how many years did Joe overstay his office? Did Joe lie too many times in federal court? Did Joe refuse to follow federal court orders? Did Joe get so old  in his 80s now  that he simply forgot what the truth was when he lied in court to a federal judge?

Joes trouble started when he and his department were sued in federal court in 2007 for illegal racial profiling by deputies who were following Joes policies on people in the country illegally.

The court case against his department proved that Joes deputies illegally profiled Mexican-looking people walking or driving on Maricopa County streets or working in county business enterprises. The court ordered Sheriff Joe to stop the illegal profiling of Mexican-looking people. Joes department continued for 18 months after the court ordered the illegal activity to stop.

When the plaintiffs hauled Sheriff Joe into court to answer for not following the courts orders, he conveniently forgot the answers to dozens upon dozens of questions. Questions like whether he ever ordered his deputies to follow the courts orders and directions. He couldnt remember.

Federal District Judge Murray Snow, a George W. Bush appointee wrote in his decision that Arpaio was in contempt of court: There is also probable cause to believe that many, if not all, of the statements were made in an attempt to obstruct any inquiry into their further wrongdoing or negligence.

In other words, Arpaio lied under oath.

When asked if he ordered a secret investigation of the presiding judge, at first he couldnt remember, and when he did he claimed he ordered it because he suspected some corruption.

That answer did not please the judge he tried to investigate: Murray Snow.

Arpaio was referred by Judge Snow to federal prosecutors for criminal prosecution; they accepted the referral and announced that Sheriff Joe would be criminally charged and taken to court with possible jail time. The announcement came just days before the election. It undoubtedly contributed to his defeat.

Probably more important is the fact that Sheriff Joe is a bully and someone who simply shouldnt be in public office.

Six of ten people who voted on Tuesday voted against the boorish sheriff. Interestingly, the man he very publicly supported for president, Donald Trump, carried the same county that voted Joe out.

Interesting.

Arizonans voted for Trump, McCain, McSally and threw Americas Toughest Sheriff out of office and replaced him with a Democrat.

Talk about ticket splitting.
Going to a Broadway show last night, my way across Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan was blocked by hundreds of angry college-age young people, including many Latinos, protesting the election of Donald Trump. They chanted variations of, Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Donald Trump go away!

[The] modest bump in Latino turnout was inundated by a tsunami of working class white voters, many of whom are enthusiastically in favor of harsh immigration enforcement. Those white folks flooded the polls from Florida to North Dakota, Arkansas to Arizona to Altoona.  Geraldo Rivera

This was just one of several demonstrations that snarled traffic around Trump properties in the borough and in other locations around the country. And some of those kids have legitimate beefs against Mr. Trump, especially one sub-set of Latinos living in the nations shadows: Americas approximately 700,000 undocumented immigrant Dreamers given a temporary reprieve from deportation by an Obama executive order that is now threatened by repeal by President-elect Trump.

As half the country celebrates and the other half suffers the daze and disappointment of Donald Trumps almost entirely unexpected victory in the race for the White House, imagine how you would be feeling right now if you were one of those kids, say a 16-year-old New York high school junior who was smuggled across the border from Mexico by her parents at age two.

The parents of this teenager have done relatively well, despite their undocumented status. Her dad, like many thousands of others, works in a Manhattan restaurant. Her mom is a housekeeper. She has two younger siblings, both of which were born here in the United States and are therefore birth-right citizens, thanks to the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

She is doing well in school, but until four years ago she lived under the constant threat of deportation back to a country of which she has no memory. Then, in an act of extraordinary kindness, in 2012 President Obama used his unique powers to grant relief from deportation to her and the millions of other undocumented young people like her brought into this country as children.

Her first shock came three years later, in 2015, when a federal court stopped President Obama from expanding the executive order to her parents, even though they had no criminal record and paid their taxes. Formally known as DACA, for Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, the order is now in legal and political limbo.

Then something even more egregious happened. That August 2015, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump told NBCs Chuck Todd that not only her parents, but she and her citizen born siblings would all be deported by a President Trump.

Were going to keep the families together, but they have to go, Trump said on Meet the Press. We will work with them. They have to go. Chuck we either have a country, or we dont have a country.

Protecting kids like this from deportation by a candidate who referred pejoratively to undocumented Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers was one of the rallying cries of the campaign just concluded. The Hispanic community was supposedly roused by his insults and his vow to build a great wall to separate the United States from our Latin American neighbors. He even talked of a deportation force that would presumably go door-to-door rounding up all 11 plus million undocumented immigrants.

As Americas largest minority community, Latinos were expected to flood the polls in unprecedented numbers, humbling the brash billionaire.

So how did that go?

According to the Pew Research Center, the national exit poll suggests that Latinos did make up a larger share of voters in 2016 than previously: 11 percent this year. Up from 10 percent in 2012 and 9 percent in 2008. But guess what? That modest bump in Latino turnout was inundated by a tsunami of working class white voters, many of whom are enthusiastically in favor of harsh immigration enforcement. Those white folks flooded the polls from Florida to North Dakota, Arkansas to Arizona to Altoona.

More to the point, despite his crude approach to immigration enforcement, Donald Trump outpolled courtly Governor Mitt Romney among Latinos. Trump got 29 percent to Romneys 27 percent. Hillary Clinton did not do badly, earning 65 percent of the Latino vote. But that compares negatively to Barack Obamas 71 percent.

So Hillarys 65 percent is not too shabby, but who were the 29 percent of Latinos that voted for Trump

What self-respecting Latino voted for someone who threatens to disrupt a significant portion of their community? But are we really one community? Does that reflect our expansive reality? Isnt branding our disparate ethnicity by a single name, whether Latino or Hispanic more a statement of aspiration than fact?

If we consider the result of the election just concluded, the fact that we trace our ancestry to a nation once ruled by Spain is just not enough to join us together. Other forces tear us apart. Cuban-Americans for example, are as pampered by current immigration laws as Mexicans are pursued. They get amnesty. Mexicans get the heave ho. And initial returns show Cuban Americans gave a majority of their votes to the Republican.

What are the consequences of Mr. Trumps victory for undocumented immigrants?

Just Thursday, after his cordial meeting with a gracious President Obama, when visiting Capitol Hill President-elect Trump said he was getting to work strongly on immigration, health care and jobs, so immigration enforcement is the first item on his To Do list. Hopefully, a Trump Administration will focus most of its resources on evicting undocumented criminal immigrants, like the MS-13 gangbangers who have recently terrorized the community of Brentwood Long Island. But who knows?

Pity the poor dreamer example I gave you earlier. Will she and her family be hunted down by the deportation force? That, undeniably, is her fear right now. Will those of us sympathetic to her plight hide her in our attics from the enforcers?

How far will this scenario play out? How deep is Heartland Americas fear and loathing of otherwise law-abiding illegal aliens? Will awful things be done to them in our name?
More than 400,000 people were apprehended attempting to cross the U.S. border this year, and many of them were people from Central America seeking asylum. The southern border wall that President-elect Donald Trump promised during his run for office will take years to build, and there is an immigration crisis on the border right now.

The new president will need to think creatively, engage private and non-profit think tanks, and empower the people and programs to enforce U.S. law and develop workable strategies that can stem the tide of migrants. And a physical wall isnt going to cut it.  Nelson Balido

I have mentioned many times that a physical wall or barrier does little to control illegal immigration because a trespasser to the United States must cross the national boundary to get to a wall in the first place. By law, once someone is on U.S. land, Border Patrol must arrest the trespasser, regardless of which side of the wall they are on. And the people illegally crossing the border today are counting on it.

In 2014, there was a sudden and significant uptick in the arrival of unaccompanied minors, as well as family units, attempting to cross the border. For the first time, the majority of people crossing the southern border were Central American, not Mexican. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are plagued with gang violence and economic hardship, and the people fleeing these conditions yielded an increase in illegal immigration that strained U.S. government capacity to respond.

New detention centers were built, and the Obama Administration attempted to send the message that crossing the U.S. border was not a free ticket to remain in the United States. Those apprehended at the border would be processed through the legal system and deported.

In practice, however, this message and approach has had the effect of encouraging more attempted border crossings. All a trespasser needs to do is set foot on U.S. soil, and they are safely ushered into the U.S. legal system, sometimes for years. Many of the minors and families detained in 2014 cleared the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) preliminary criteria for a full application for asylum, with more than 86 percent of those detained relating a credible fear of returning home. By this, tens of thousands of people were permitted to remain in the country while their asylum claims were processed.

This has resulted in a significant backlog in the court system, and because the volume of people exceeded the funds and capacity of U.S. detention capabilities, many people were released and entered non-detention monitoring, a cost-saving measure that allowed more than 60,000 people to live in the United States, often with family members, while being monitored. And even this approach has exhausted available resources. In October, the Department of Homeland Security revealed that they are facing a $136 million funding shortfall for detention and non-detention, owing to the increase in arrivals.

With the number of illegal arrivals expected to increase in 2017, the United States needs new solutions, fast. This is not something that can be ignored while a presumably more robust border wall is built. President-elect Trump will need to implement effective ways of addressing the factors contributing to the increase in illegal immigration.

Gang violence, narcotics trafficking and economic instability in Central American countries encourage people to risk a journey to the United States. The 2015 omnibus spending bill provided nearly $1 billion in funding to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador for the Obama Administrations Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle. This plan supposedly focused on stimulating economic growth, encouraging education, going after human trafficking networks and encouraging better governance.

While well-conceived, the plan, as implemented, appears not to be working  or at least, not working fast enough. This program demands an audit to determine how American tax dollars have been spent, the results and whether the plan can be improved or should be scrapped. One question is whether that $1 billion might be better spent expediting asylum claims.

At the same time, it is important to use available technologies to create a virtual wall. For example, one existing technology uses a fiber optic cable to sense trespassers and remarkably can distinguish between meandering livestock and illegal border crossers. It has the additional advantage of being able to carry a Wi-Fi signal, which would give communications capacity across the entire southwest border. Currently, there are vast communications deserts where Border Patrol is unable to communicate with law enforcement colleagues and superiors.

Mexico also needs to step up its immigration enforcement at its northern and southern borders. President-elect Trump will need to find effective ways to incentivize Mexico to better guard its borders and prevent the illegal transit of Central Americans towards the United States. Priority needs to be given to forging partnerships between people working on both sides of the border to identify trends and enhance the capacity to stop people before they reach U.S. soil.

These are not simple challenges to address. The new president will need to think creatively, engage private and non-profit think tanks, and empower the people and programs to enforce U.S. law and develop workable strategies that can stem the tide of migrants. And a physical wall isnt going to cut it.
On November 18th, Barack Obama visits Latin America as president for the last time to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Summit hosted in Lima, Peru.

This is the second time this meeting will take place in Peru, a country hosting several high-level international conferences in recent years including the World Banks Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors in 2015 and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP20) the year prior.

While certainly an honor and privilege for Peru, these high-profile gatherings also heighten security concerns around Islamic terrorism in a country and region not accustomed to this kind of threat.

Going forward, with the help of the new Trump administration, Peru can become Latin Americas leader in the global fight against expanding Islamic terrorism, a vacancy that urgently needs to be filled in our region.

Peru is no stranger to terrorism, having been the victim of terrorist violence since 1980 when the Partido Comunista de PeruSendero Luminoso de Mariategui, more commonly known as the Shining Path, initiated a bloody war against the Peruvian state and people. Or in 1985, when the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) began a comparable terrorist offensive. Threats from Islamist terrorist networks, however, are a more recent phenomenon.

Currently, an ongoing Peruvian trial could be the most important counterterrorism case preparing Latin America for the rising threats emanating from the global Jihad.

On October 28, 2014, just months before the United Nations COP20 meeting in Lima, a Lebanese national named Mohamed Ghaleb Hamdar was arrested and charged with potentially plotting a terrorist attack in Peru. Hamdar, a self-admitted member of Hezbollah, was apprehended with several hundred pictures of critical infrastructure and potential high-value targets on his iPad and cell phones. On further investigation, it was later discovered that he handled chemicals such as nitroglycerine often used in explosives. While his motivations and objectives are unclear, two years later, Hamdar is now the subject of a terrorism trial in Peru that could change the legal landscape in Latin America.

If convicted, Hamdar will be the first member of an Islamic terrorist organization imprisoned for plotting a terrorist attack in Latin America, although Islamic terrorists have been operating in the region for decades. This is an important legal precedent sending a strong signal to Jihadists around the world that Peru and Latin America are off limits.

History shows terrorist groups, particularly Jihadists, compensate for their lack of conventional strength with opportunistic timing and careful selection of targets. The presence of so many heads of state in Peru, including President Obama at the upcoming APEC meeting, presents a golden opportunity for Jihadists to act. This challenge is compounded by the regions lack of legal framework for monitoring and punishing active terrorist agents. That is why the case of Mohamad Ghaleb Hamdar in Peru is so important and merits global attention.

Peru has plenty of experience in antiterrorism efforts, resulting from years of experience battling the Shining Path and MRTA. However, many of the counterterrorism officials who dealt with these terrorist groups in the 1980s and 1990s are now retired, and efforts to systematically institutionalize their expertise was undervalued by previous Peruvian governments.

For instance, the Peruvian National Intelligence Service, known as the DINI, has significantly deteriorated in recent years due to political scandals in the previous administration. The predictive analysis necessary to fight terrorist networks has been abandoned and the DINI has produced limited analytical products in the last two years. As a result, there has been a resurgence in Shining Paths activity in illicit industries and drug trafficking, as well as an intensification in their involvement in social conflicts that have caught the previous and current government by surprise.

This past July, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski or PPK, was inaugurated as Perus new president. Months into PPKs presidency, the DINI continues under the previous governments leadership and without changes, the likely result will be more unpleasant surprises by nefarious elements operating within our borders. The legacy of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA), an anti-American bloc created by the late Hugo Chavez and the Castros in Cuba, is present in Peru. ALBA-inspired social movements in Peru engage in propaganda and destabilization against the government, while Iran and Hezbollah, open allies of the ALBA, follow close behind.

For instance, a small Islamist group, known as Inkari-Islam, has been operating in the resource-rich region of Apurimac, in south-central Peru. In recent years, this group has seen members traveling repeatedly to Qom, Iran for training and indoctrination. While there is no known connection between this Islamist group in Apurimac and presumed terrorists in the country, such as Hamdar, it is clear that Iran and Hezbollah have invested at least some resources into establishing a political support base on Peruvian territory.

Political movements dont equal terrorism, however, terrorist groups do need political cover in which to operate. In this sense, Peruvian authorities need help in understanding the nexus of political movements and terrorism coming from the Middle East.

President Kuzynski and President Obama will meet soon at the APEC summit to discuss bilateral issues. Part of this conversation should focus on increased counterterrorism cooperation. Going forward, with the help of the new Trump administration, Peru can become Latin Americas leader in the global fight against expanding Islamic terrorism, a vacancy that urgently needs to be filled in our region.
The name Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III sounds like a character in a Civil War drama. But Jeff Sessions, as he prefers to call himself, is posed to take a starring role in the real-life Trump Administration. The Alabama senator has been tapped by Trump to be attorney general, charged with upholding the law and Constitution for all Americans.

As attorney general, Sessions would be very unlikely to investigate violations of the Voting Rights Act, which is critical in ensuring that minorities have access to the ballot, or to investigate police brutality, as Obamas DOJ did in Ferguson and Baltimore.  Raul A. Reyes

"Jeff has been a highly respected member of the U.S. Senate for 20 years. He is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and U.S. Attorney in the state of Alabama, Trump said in a statement. Jeff is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him."

The key word here is virtually, because not everyone who knows Sessions admires him.

His nomination for a federal judgeship was sunk years ago because of charges of racism. Immigrants and civil rights advocates are rightfully critical of his radical policy positions. As attorney general, Sessions could play a major role in carrying out policies of a Trump administration  policies that could well harm Latinos and other Americans.

Sessions first came to national public attention back in 1986, when he was nominated by then-President Ronald Reagan to be a federal judge. That never happened, though, because of the sworn testimony of his colleagues. They told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Sessions had used the N-word, called an African-American prosecutor boy, and joked about liking the KKK.

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Sessions also reportedly called a white civil rights attorney a race traitor and dismissed the ACLU and the NAACP as un-American. As a result, the Republican-controlled Committee denied Sessions a spot on the federal bench. So the obvious question is that, if Sessions was unfit for a low-level judgeship, how can he be considered for attorney general?

The answer is that Sessions hardliner approach to immigration appears to line up with that of the incoming administration. As senator, Sessions has opposed every piece of immigration reform legislation that included legalization or a path to citizenship for the undocumented. Meanwhile, he has opposed Birthright Citizenship, which is enshrined in the Constitution thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment. Sessions is even against legal immigration, because he thinks too many people are coming into this country and creating cultural problems.

Sessions record on civil rights and human rights is equally troubling. He has defended Trumps proposed ban on Muslims entering the country, arguing in favor of a religious test for immigrants. He favors turning away unaccompanied children who arrive at the border, and sees refugees as economic and security threats. He voted against John McCains bill to ban cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees by the military. Not only does Sessions oppose President Obamas sensible criminal justice reforms, he believes that good people dont smoke marijuana.

It should concern all reasonable citizens that Trump wants to install this narrow-minded individual with outdated views as the nations highest legal officer.

Latinos have particular reasons to be wary of Sessions. He has called the Voting Right Act a piece of intrusive legislation. He led the GOP opposition to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. And he is on record as saying that immigrants from the Dominican Republic are useless to our country. No wonder that Latino advocacy groups like the National Council of La Raza, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Hispanic Federation, and League of United Latin American Citizens have all come out against Sessions nomination. They recognize that, based on his record, Sessions is no friend to our communities.

Yes, as President Obama himself once stated, Elections have consequences. Having won the presidency, Trump has the right to choose whomever he wants for his Cabinet. That doesnt mean that the Senate should rubber stamp his choices. If anything, Sessions deserves intense scrutiny because of his past views and potential future responsibilities.

Consider that as head of the Department of Justice, Sessions would also oversee the DOJs civil rights division, which almost seems like a bad joke. Or that as attorney general, Sessions would be very unlikely to investigate violations of the Voting Rights Act, which is critical in ensuring that minorities have access to the ballot, or to investigate police brutality, as Obamas DOJ did in Ferguson and Baltimore.

Sessions has shown far more interest in rooting out and prosecuting (unsuccessfully) allegations of voter fraud. The New York Times Editorial Board was insightful in terming Sessions nomination an insult to justice.

Trumps pick to serve as the nations top law enforcement official is toxic to the American ideal of equality for all. Jeff Sessions should not be confirmed as our next attorney general.
China and the Washington foreign policy establishment thought they could tell President-elect Donald Trump whom he can and cannot speak with on the phone. They thought wrong.

On Friday, Trump received a congratulatory call from Taiwans president, Tsai Ing-wen, in which the leaders briefly touched upon economic, political, and security-related ties between our two democracies. Trump congratulated Tsai on her own victory in Taiwanese elections earlier in the yeara watershed since Tsai is the first woman leader in Asia who isnt the daughter or wife of a previous leader.

Tsais victory also marked the third shift in power from one party to another in Taiwana symbol of a matured Taiwanese democracy and further proof that democracy can work for ethnically Chinese people wherever they reside.

None of this is welcome in Beijing, whose deeply corrupt and authoritarian government is used to getting its way from the United States, especially on Taiwan. Beijing is mad not only that Trump took a call from Tsaieven though he previously spoke with Chinese leader Xi Jinpingbut that the statement announcing the call referred to Tsai accurately as the president of Taiwana reality that is obvious to average Americans, Taiwanese, and Chinese, but something diplomats like to pretend isnt so.

The foreign policy establishment and their media buddies were even more apoplectic than Beijing. The leftwing UK Guardian huffed that Trump had upended 37 years of U.S. diplomatic practice in a few minutes, said the call was a gaffe or provocation (must it be either?), and hinted without evidence that Trump was trying to advance his personal financial interests. The New York Times claimed that the simple call was a bigger provocation of Beijing than selling billions in weapons to Taiwan, which the United States has routinely done even after breaking formal diplomatic ties in 1979 to please Beijing.

Nick Burns, a longtime member of Foreign Service guild that dominates the State Department, tweeted, Taking a call from Taiwans leader a significant mistake by Trump. Is he listening to the State Department?

That type of condescension is why the late Senator Jesse Helms once joked that the State Department needs an America Desk to remind some people there whose interests they are supposed to serve. These experts need to listen to the American people and the person who was just elected presidentnot the other way around.

Furthermore, the call between Trump and Tsai was not necessarily a change in broader policysomething that should be obvious since Trump doesnt become president until January 20th. Rather, it struck most Americans as a decision by Trump to take a congratulatory call from another democratically elected leader. This is simple courtesy and a fundamental part of real diplomacy. Trump is adhering to the what he made clear throughout the presidential campaign: that he will be open to talking to foreign leaders who want good relations with the United States.

The fact that a simple courtesy call caused so much trepidation and genuflections to past protocol just shows how absurd U.S.-China policy has become. If a little courtesy to a democratic friend and a little truth about Taiwan could really threaten peace in the Pacific, as the experts contend, then we need to reevaluate our defense and come up with something better.

Trump is off to a good start by ignoring the experts who have led us astray.
While much has been made about the historic nature of this years presidential election  how the United States could see its first female president, or its first reality television star president  there are a number of down-ballot races where the winner could also make history.

And Latinos appear to be leading the charge when it comes to becoming a trailblazer on Election Day. This year could see the first Latina  or two  elected to the U.S. Senate and the first Dominican-American in Congress. And Florida, with its burgeoning Puerto Rican population in the central part of the state, could send the states first Boricua to congress.

This is a very exciting election, Arturo Vargas, executive director of NALEO Educational Fund, told Fox News Latino. This is part of the evolution of the Latino community in the U.S. This is what will help us make real gains in the political system.

This comes in a year when two Cuban Americans  Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz  were serious contenders for the GOP presidential nomination.

Its already been historic because we did have two Latinos candidates on the Republican presidential debate stage, Mary Ann Gomez, the president of the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, told FNL.

In terms of the U.S. Senate, two Latinas  former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California  are both vying for seats in hotly contested races.

Cortez Mastro, a Democrat and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, is in a tight race in Nevada as she battles Republican Rep. Joe Heck to replace longtime Sen. Harry Reid, who is retiring at the end of his term. Currently the Real Clear Politics polling average has Heck leading by three points, 44 percent to 41 percent.

On the stump, Cortez Masto has made direct appeals to the Silver States burgeoning Latino population  saying the country has provided her the opportunity to be elected as the first Latina U.S. senator in U.S. history while demonizing her opponent as being someone in favor of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trumps harsh rhetoric on immigration.

The message that Donald Trump is sending is getting [Latinos] energized, Cortez Masto told Fox News Latino. He called Mexicans rapists and criminals. It energizes people to come out and vote against Donald Trump.

She added, Congressman Heck has not said one thing to take on Donald Trump about this message of hate.

Political observers say that Cortez Masto has a good shot at making history because of the growing political influence of Latinos in the state.

Nevada has been transformed in its politics because of the Latino vote, Vargas said.

In neighboring California, Sanchez faces a tougher challenge as she tries to upset her rival, fellow Democrat and the states current attorney general, Kamala Harris, to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer. Sanchez is currently trailing Harris by 13 points and there have been reports that she is losing ground among Latino supporters in the closing weeks of the election season.

You can see that among Latinos, the initial support for Sanchez had a lot to do with the recognition that she had a Latino surname, Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo told the San Jose Mercury News. That put her in the early lead (with Latinos). Now more voters at least have some inkling of who the candidates are.

Harris recently got a boost from some of the states Latino leadership when she earned the endorsement of State Senate President Kevin De Len, Sen. Ricardo Lara and former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez as well as the backing of President Barack Obama.

On the east coast, Adriano Espaillat is hoping his immigrant story can propel him to be the first Dominican-American in Congress.

After winning the Democratic primary in a strongly Democratic district that includes Harlem and parts of the Bronx, Espaillat is heavily favored in November's general election to succeed the long-serving Rep. Charles Rangel, who is retiring.

It would break new ground for the historically black district, which includes Harlem and has been represented by only two African-Americans, Rangel and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. before him, for more than 70 years  even though it recently became a Hispanic-majority district.

Espaillats candidacy represents the growing diversity of different Latino groups in our political system, Vargas said. There have been only a few majority Latino districts that were not represented by a Latino and Charley Rangels was one of them.

In Florida, while he may not be the first Puerto Rican in Congress, Darren Soto is hoping to become the first Puerto Rican to represent the Sunshine State on Capitol Hill.

Soto, a state senator who earned the backing of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, will face off against Republican Wayne Liebnitzky in November for a seat representing Floridas Democratic-leaning 9th Congressional District.

The Florida state senator is expected to get a boost in his race from the recently burgeoning Puerto Rican population in his district, which represents parts of Orlando as well as Kissimmee and St. Cloud.

Thousands of Puerto Ricans have moved from the island to Florida in the past year to escape the crippling economic situation. And Soto is hoping that they will turn out in November to cast their vote for their fellow Boricua.

"I'm also so proud, con mucho orgullo, (with a lot of pride) that we are continuing on a historic run, one that represents the culmination of over a million Puerto Riquenos and millions of Hispanics here in Central Florida and beyond to be the first Puerto Rican elected from Florida and first Hispanic elected from central Florida," Soto said back in August.

While Latino activists and experts agree that this November could be historic for the community, they also warned that history will only be made if Hispanic voters show up and cast their ballots.

Of the eligible 24 million eligible Latino voters in 2012, less than half (48 percent) showed up to vote  a figure that has remained relatively unchanged over the last four presidential elections and on par with how non-Hispanic whites voted in the 2010 midterm elections.

In 2016, there is a record 27 million eligible Latino voters, but how many of those will register and vote in November is still very speculative.

We want to make sure that our voices are heard, said Gomez of the Hispanic Leadership Institute, and the only way to do that is to have a seat at the table.

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Back in August, the campaign for Carlos Curbelo, a Cuban-American Republican Congressman running for reelection in a hotly contested race in Miami, warned a pro-Democrat political action committee to stop implying he was falling in line behind his partys presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

Star Republican attorney Charles Spies, who represents the congressmans campaign, sent a letter to American for Sensible Solutions that it was selling Curbelo/Trump paraphernalia on its website and social media accounts that fraudulently misrepresents his clients stance on Trump. Curbelo has consistently said he is not supporting the New York billionaire and will not vote for him.

Exploitation of Mr. Curbelos name, likeness and image to promote, advertise and market the social media accounts and the bogus merchandise falsely implies that Mr. Curbelo has granted you and ASSP certain rights to do so, the letter read. He has not.

Contrast Curbelos response with Sen. Marco Rubio, who is also running for re-election after he failed to unseat Trump for the presidential ticket. While many prominent Republicans, including Sen. John McCain, have rescinded endorsements for Trump since the release of audio tapes in which he talks about groping women without their consent, Rubio hasnt followed their lead.

In an Oct. 11 statement, Rubio criticized Trump, but said he would still endorse him. "I disagree with him on many things, but I disagree with his opponent on virtually everything," he said. "I wish we had better choices for president. But I do not want Hillary Clinton to be our next president. And therefore, my position has not changed."

The widely different approaches Curbelo and Rubio are taking with regards to Trump shows the varying degrees to which Republican politicians  particularly Latino ones  are distancing themselves from the top of the Republican ticket.

Florida GOP insiders tell Fox News Latino that candidates are fretting about how much of a negative impact Trump will have on congressional, state and local races. At the same time, candidates are also leery of alienating the Republican base that wants them to stand by Trump, who won 66 out 67 counties in the March Florida primary, trouncing Rubio by 19 points.

Rudy Fernandez, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, said every Republican candidate has a legitimate reason to be worried given Trumps missteps and snafus. Of course there is concern about the Trump effect down the ballot, Fernandez said. However, there are candidates who have well-known identities. I think voters can distinguish them from Donald Trump.

For instance, Fernandez said, hes not voting for Trump, but he will cast his ballot for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, whos been in Congress for 27 years and is viewed as a moderate. She has also come out against Trump and said she will not vote for him. I will gladly fill in the bubble next to her name, Fernandez said. I think a lot of Republican voters who are critical of Trump and cannot support him can tell the difference.

Even so, the Miami congresswoman is taking her latest Democratic challenger, Scott Fuhrman, very seriously even though the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which analyzes congressional races, lists her seat as likely Republican.

In September, the congresswoman released a pair of TV ads that viciously attacked Fuhrman for his criminal driving record, including for driving under the influence. One of the hit pieces features a father of a teenage girl killed by a drunk driver and a police officer who responded to the scene. Even though Fuhrman wasnt involved in the crash, the ad shows him behind bars.

Ben Pollara, a Democratic political consultant working for Fuhrmans campaign, said Ros-Lehtinen is attacking her opponent in a way she hasnt done before her entire career. The longtime congresswoman rarely has a formidable challenger and usually coasts to victory whenever shes up for re-election.

Every Republican in a somewhat competitive race or district is worried about the Trump effect as it relates to Hispanics, Pollara said. Just look at the tight rope Rubio is walking right now. In fact, a lot of Miami Republicans breathed a sigh of relief that he decided to run for re-election.

Pollara said Rubio helps offset the Trump down ballot effect because he remains a popular politician in Miami-Dade County, which has the most Latino Republican voters in Florida.

A new Quinnipiac poll released on Tuesday shows the Rubio race is too close to call. The poll shows hes only beating Murphy by 2 points, 49 to 49 percent  though the margin of error is three points. And Rubio's hometown newspaper, The Miami Herald, endorsed his opponent.

The Trump effect could have the most devastating impact on Curbelo, who is in a virtual tie against Joe Garcia, the Democrat he beat in 2014. The district, which encompasses most of Miami-Dade and the Keys, now leans more Democrat, but still has a rich base of Republican voters.

Emiliano Atunez, a Republican strategist who has worked on congressional campaigns, said Curbelo and Rubio are walking a fine line so they dont alienate Trump supporters.

Curbelo embracing Trump would not be good, Atunez said. At the same time, some Republican voters are want loyalty for Trump.

Still, Atunez said the belief that Trump will hurt Latino Republicans is all psychological.

In the end, I dont think he will drag down other Republicans, he said. Hes run his campaign on earned media. Everyone else is doing conventional campaigning, which includes canvassing for voters. All the candidates have a ground game.
Protesters angry about Trumps stunning presidential election victory Tuesday are taking to the streets around the country Wednesday, with students walking out of colleges and high schools and anti-Trump peace vigils scheduled for this week and the days to follow.

Berkeley High School students in California staged a walkout with their teachers.

About 200 West Seattle High School students walked out of their classes Wednesday, chanting Save our future, and Not my president, as they marched through city streets holding a banner that read, Fight It.

At the University of California at Santa Barbara, students marched through campus chanting, "No more Trump! No more Trump!"

From California to Pennsylvania, Washington and Oregon, people demonstrated their unhappiness with the election results.

We cant just sit back and let a racist and sexist become president, Adam Braver, a 22-year-old political science student at the University of California, Berkeley, told the New York Times.

Daniel Colin, a graduate student in epidemiology and a naturalized American citizen from Guatemala, told the Times the election marked the first time he had voted in the United States.

Now that Im finally expressing my vote, this happens, he said. Its very sad.

In New York, a chapter of the Socialist Alternative social justice group is planning a demonstration in Union Square on Wednesday evening, with 11,000 people who are expected.

Religious organizations are offering gatherings to discuss Trump's win.

The Auburn Seminary has assembled a post-election service in New York's Washington Square Park on Nov. 11, at which leaders of various faith groups will speak about the election  theyre calling it a multi-faith movement for justice.

Early Wednesday, Lady Gaga took a stand in front of Trump Tower in New York, tweeting a photo of herself holding a sign that read Love Trumps Hate, along with the caption, I want to live in a #CountryOfKindness where #LoveTrumpsHate.

Students from Saint Peters University, in Jersey City, New Jersey, announced in a press release that they are walking out of class on Thursday to demonstrate solidarity with all the marginalized communities who have been targeted by now president elect Donald Trump.

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Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants living in the country illegally willingly came out of the shadows and identified themselves to the Obama administration on the promise that they'd be safe from deportation and allowed to work.

Some may now regret that decision.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to immediately scrap the program that protected these immigrants. If he does, it's not clear whether he would take action against the more than 741,000 participants. But if he decides to pursue them, the government now has their addresses, photographs and fingerprints.

Twenty-year-old Nancy Villas was among the first to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in the summer of 2012, waiting in line hours at a sign-up site at Chicago's Navy Pier. Since then she's been working part time at a child care center to pay for college classes. Now she's worried she may eventually be forced to return to Mexico, a country she left when she was 9.

"I knew it was the only way to have better opportunities," Villas said. "I took the risk without thinking that somebody would want to take it away."

Trump made illegal immigration the cornerstone of his campaign, promising to build a massive wall along the Mexican border and deport millions of people living in the country illegally. Once he takes office, Trump can almost immediately rescind the promised protection and, with it, likely void the accompanying work permits.

But there is little to suggest that he would move swiftly to deport program participants. In a post-election interview with CBS' "60 Minutes," Trump said he would focus initially on criminal immigrants living illegally in the U.S. He said that could be about 2 million to 3 million people, though that figure is likely inflated.

Mark Krikorian, executive director for Center For Immigration Studies, said the fears of program participants may be overblown.

"Unless there's a crime issue or something specific that's going to draw attention to an individual, I can't see how they'd be a priority," said Krikorian, whose think tank describes itself as low-immigration, pro-immigrant.

President Barack Obama initiated the program to shield from deportation young immigrants, some of whom don't even remember their native countries. It didn't give the immigrants legal status, only "deferred action"  meaning they wouldn't face deportation while they participated.

There was never a guarantee that it would last beyond Obama's term as president. A former immigration official who helped craft the program, John Sandweg, said the White House and the Homeland Security Department considered the reality that a future president could end it. But at the time, he said, it appeared that revoking already-approved protections would be politically difficult.

"These are the kinds of kids you should bring out of the shadows," said Sandweg, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "I don't think anyone envisioned a President Trump when this was created."

Trump wasn't subtle about his opposition to the program. He called it an "illegal amnesty" and promised to "immediately terminate" the program. And since winning office, Trump has said he will nominate immigration hardliner Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. As he considers other Cabinet vacancies, Trump has met with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who led his state's court fight to prevent an expansion of the deportation protection plan.

When the program started, the Obama administration suggested that application files would not generally be used for enforcement efforts. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services addressed the concern in its published "frequently asked questions," saying information would be shared with enforcement officials only if someone "meets the criteria" for deportation proceedings.

But revoking the deportation protection would make those young immigrants almost immediately eligible to face deportation.

Sandweg said going after participants would be a massive logistical undertaking that would only worsen backlogs in an already overburdened immigration court system where many people wait years for a final decision.

Adding about 750,000 to the court system "would do nothing for public safety," Sandweg said.

Nonetheless, the mere prospect of that has prompted some Democratic lawmakers to ask Obama to protect these immigrants with pardons before he leaves office.

And advocates for the young immigrants have pledged to keep up their fight to win public and political support for overhauling immigration laws.

"We organized across the country, we shared our stories publicly and we came together. We took direct actions and held politicians accountable," said Cristina Jimenez, executive director and co-founder of United We Dream.

Under a Trump administration, Jimenez said, that won't change.

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Both the California State University system and the University of California are urging their undocumented students who are studying abroad to return home before Donald Trump is sworn in as president.

They are taking seriously his campaign promise to deport undocumented immigrants. While that is difficult to do if authorities had to track down immigrants without legalization papers, keeping undocumented immigrants from returning to the U.S. if they are visiting relatives or studying abroad in a university-sanctioned education program would be much easier.

Called DACA students for their enrollment in President Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, they are in danger of not completing courses and losing out on classes already paid for by student loans, as well as transportation and housing costs.

But the alternative is to be stranded overseas.

A letter sent by the state university to campus study abroad administrators reads unless they return by January 19, 2017, there is no assurance they will be allowed to return to the U.S. and there is a realistic possibility they will be denied entry.

University of California legal advisers to students are also recommending that students return to the U.S. before inauguration day on Jan. 20. Both the CSU and the UC have reaffirmed their support of undocumented students while also saying it may be beyond their ability to change federal policies enacted by the new president.

For more central California stories go to Fox40.com.

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The official picture is one of collective mourning by masses of people over the loss of the founder of modern Cuba.

Immediately after President Raul Castro announced the death of his older brother, Fidel, last Friday evening, the music in Havana stopped playing. Discos and movie theaters emptied out and closed temporarily. Bars and restaurants were told to severely restrict the sale of alcohol.

Hundreds of thousands of Fidelistas braved the Caribbean sun to pay homage in Revolution Square. On Sunday, stone-faced students stood on the steps leading to the University of Havana, acting as a silent honor guard for the former dictator, carrying banners with slogans and guarding a temporary monument at his alma mater.

But in a country with a regime with a history of rounding up crowds for rallies by knocking on people's doors, things are rarely what they seem.

Many Cubans, especially those old enough to remember the Revolution and the early years of communist nation building on the island, are genuine in their grief over the death of the man they saw as a national icon who defied the United States for more than half a century. But the state-imposed nine-day period of mourning also left little room for Cubans with a more dissenting view of the deceased leader.

You need to be very careful about what you say, one artist in Havana, who asked not to be named out of fear for reprisals, told FNL. Any opinion that isnt in line with the national mourning can have consequences."

Prominent Cuban dissidents show restraint in their reaction to Castros death, with many choosing to stay home and stage no protests or show any sign of relief or happiness over the passing of the comandante en jefe, in sharp contrast to jubilant scenes in Florida.

People are terrified to say something that isnt in line with the national mourning, said Berta Soler. She heads the Ladies in White, a group of women staging protesting political imprisonment. The group, which is often the target of government action due to their persistent opposition to the regime, chose not to stage its weekly silent protest march last Sunday, which was instead held by their counterparts in Miami.

The harassment and the repression continue, she told FNL. Ive heard that people who dont abide by the rules of not playing music received fines and have music equipment confiscated.

According to Soler, some Cubans were told at their place of work to go out and support the national mourning. She discarded rumors that government officials were knocking on doors of homes to get as many people as possible to attend rallies and public mourning sessions, but did say that public transportation is used to facilitate such their movement.

Moreover, there were also signs in Havana that the authorities tried to restrict Cubans already extremely limited access to information not in line with the official national period of mourning. Only around five percent of Cubans enjoy internet access at home; the rest can go online at a growing number of wifi hotspots in hotels and in public spaces such as parks. But although social media such as Facebook and Twitter can be accessed there, opposition websites are blocked.

In at least one hotel in Havanas old center, the router of the wireless internet was suddenly turned off on Monday, several days after Castros passing was announced. According to an employee of the establishment, who asked to remain anonymous, government people ordered the router to be turned off.

They said people had to show respect for Fidel and shouldnt go online in large numbers, she told FNL. She said the same thing had happened in other establishments, which FNL was unable to confirm.

Some fear that, with the loss of Fidel Castros towering figure, the regime may become more hostile to dissent. Last year alone, more than 8000 people were detained for political reasons, according to human rights groups.

We believe that there will be more repression, Guillermo Farinas, one of the most prominent members of Cubas opposition, told journalists last Saturday during a press conference in Puerto Rico. Already some brothers have there homes monitored, they wont allow them to leave and what simply needs to be said is that, at this moment, we need more support from the international community and from democratic governments.

Berta Soler told FNL that she too believes repression against members of the opposition could grow. Theres a feeling of uncertainty now that Fidel Castro is gone.
The Mexican ambassador to the United States said that his country would be open to modernizing NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, but he stated flatly, We are not paying for the wall.

"For us, it is important that [NAFTA] is well-understood  because we think perception does not always correspond to reality," Ambassador Carlos Sada Solana told editors and reporters from the Arizona Republic and La Voz during a two-day visit to Phoenix.

He said that NAFTA has benefited thousands on both sides of the border, creating five to six million jobs in the U.S. and lifting trade between the two countries from $80 to $360 billion.

A recent example he cited was Lucid Motors announcing the construction of a $700 million facility in Casa Grande, Arizona, that will produce electric cars to compete with Tesla.

Some parts for the autos will be manufactured in Sonora, Mexico.

"So [NAFTA] has been a remarkable success from the perspective of how things have been evolving, and this is something we have built together," he said. "We are not just buying and selling, we are producing together.

As for the border wall, he argued that building one would undermine years of cross-border economic activity and would do more harm than good.

"Mexico is not the enemy. It is the partner" of the U.S., Sada told the journalists, referring specifically to policy proposals put forth by President-elect Donald Trump during the election campaign.

Instead of a border wall, Sada would prefer to see immigration reforms passed that would allow Mexicans to enter the U.S. and work here. He believes taking that step would improve border security.

"It is in our interests to have a safe and efficient border," Sada, who was making a two-day trip to the Phoenix area, said.

Beyond that, he noted, a border wall might have unintended consequences.

"We fear that there [will] be consequences regarding environmental issues," he said. "It's also going to be sending a very negative message. What we say is, Wed like to build bridges."

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The Obama administration said Saturday that it has officially received Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahls request for a pardon, while the soldiers lawyers work on a backup plan to have their clients charges dismissed after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Bergdahl is the former prisoner of war accused of endangering comrades by walking off his post in 2009 in Afghanistan.

Bergdahls original pardon request was apparently sent Friday to President Obama through the Justice Department, and the secretary of the Army received a copy. But it was not formally requested through the military chain of command, Fox News learned.

If Obama grants the clemency request before leaving in January, Bergdahl could avert a military trial scheduled for this spring, when he will face charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

The misbehavior charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

However, if the pardon isn't granted, Bergdahl's defense team plans to expand its legal strategy by filing a motion arguing Trump violated its clients due process rights with scathing public comments about the case.

Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, was held captive by the Taliban and its allies for five years after walking off his post.

The Obama administration's decided in May 2014 to exchange him for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prompted criticism that included some Republicans accusing Obama of jeopardizing nation's safety.

Some lawmakers were outraged that the administration didn't give Congress a 30-day notice about transferring the detainees, as required by law.

Shortly after Bergdahl was returned to U.S. custody, President Obamas national security adviser, Susan Rice, said he served his country with honor and distinction.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump criticized Bergdahl, saying repeatedly the soldier is a traitor who would have been executed in the "old days."

During a July speech in Indiana, Trump lamented that Bergdahl could wind up with a light punishment.

"Remember the old days? A deserter, what happened?" he said before pantomiming pulling a trigger and adding: "Bang."

And in an August 2015 campaign event, Trump called Bergdahl a dirty, rotten traitor.

Bergdahl lawyer Eugene Fidell declined Saturday to comment on the pardon request. But he said he plans to file a motion seeking dismissal of the charges against Bergdahl shortly after the January inauguration, arguing that Trump violated his client's constitutional due-process rights.

All of these things put together and repeated rally upon rally for basically a year have a cumulative effect that I think is totally at odds with the right to a fair trial," Fidell said.

The defense has been noting Trump's comments about Bergdahl in what they've dubbed the "Trump Defamation Log." A version included in the court record lists 40 such instances as of August.

A spokeswoman for Trump didn't respond to emails this weekend seeking comment.

There is precedent for a military judge to decide a president's comments have tainted a military prosecution.

In 2013, a Navy judge cited comments by Obama when he issued a pretrial order that two defendants in sexual assault cases couldn't be punitively discharged if they were found guilty.

The judge wrote that Obama's public comments about cracking down on sexual assault, specifically referencing dishonorable discharges, appeared to be demand particular results from military courts.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Donald Trump senior adviser KellyAnne Conway on Sunday defended the president-elects decision to take a congratulatory phone call from Taiwans president, saying Trump is routinely briefed on international intelligence reports and is not signaling plans to change U.S. foreign policy.

Its just a phone call, Conway, a Trump transition team adviser, told Fox News Sunday. President-elect Trump is not out there making policy or policy prescriptions.

Trump, a first-time elected official with no official foreign policy experience, talked Friday with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, breaking with decades-long diplomatic tradition.

Washington has pursued a so-called "One China" policy since 1979, when it shifted diplomatic recognition of China from the government in Taiwan to the communist government on the mainland.

Under that policy, the U.S. recognizes Beijing as representing China but retains unofficial ties with Taiwan.

China on Saturday filed a diplomatic protest about the call, which it blamed on Democratic-runTaiwan.

Conway said Trump is fully aware of the One China policy and that he is routinely briefed by foreign policy and military experts, amid reports he doesnt take daily State Department briefings.

And she accused the media of cherry picking about who has called Trump, a Republican, to congratulate him on his upset win over 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Conway, who became Trumps campaign manager in the final stages of the White House race, argued that the president-elect and Vice President-elect Mike Pence have received such a call from 49 or 50 other world leaders.

Thats just not fair, she said.

Conway also said that if the conversation with Tsai sends any signal, its that Trump accepted a congratulatory call.

I know that China has a perspective on this, she said. The White House and State Department probably have a perspective on it, and certainly Taiwan has a perspective on it. But the president-elects perspective is that he accepted a congratulatory call. And when hes sworn in as president and commander in chief in a little over a month, he will make clear what the fullness of his plans are.

Conway suggests that the outrage over the call shows many Americans' unwillingness to accept Trump as their president and to give him a chance, which includes Green Party presidential nominee Jill Steins three-state, vote-recount effort.

Give it up, she said to Stein. Even your friends at the Clinton campaign said it wont change the results.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The American military, along with its international partners, will need to remain in Iraq even after the expected defeat of the Islamic State group, outgoing Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Saturday.

Carter said the U.S. and its coalition partners must not stop after completing the current campaign to expel ISIS from Iraq's second largest city of Mosul.

He said the militants are on a path to lasting defeat.

"But there will still be much more to do after that to make sure that, once defeated, ISIL stays defeated," he said, using an alternative acronym for ISIS. "We'll need to continue to counter foreign fighters trying to escape and ISIL's attempts to relocate or reinvent itself. To do so, not only the United States but our coalition must endure and remain engaged militarily."

"In Iraq in particular, it will be necessary for the coalition to provide sustained assistance and carry on our work to train, equip, and support local police, border guards, and other forces to hold areas cleared from ISIL," said Carter.

Carter did not say how long this continued U.S. military presence might be necessary or how many troops would be required. At any rate, those decisions are likely to fall to the Trump administration after it takes office in January.

While describing recent Pentagon actions to put a stranglehold on ISIS worldwide, Carter said the Obama administration has directed the secretive Joint Special Operations Command to prioritize destroying the militant group's ability to conduct attacks in the West.

Carter said that in his final weeks in office, he is focused on ensuring a smooth transition to his successor.

Earlier this week, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he intends to nominate retired Marine Gen. James Mattis to be his defense secretary.

Carter congratulated Mattis on Saturday, who is a former commander of U.S. Central Command overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I've worked with Jim for many years, he's a friend, and I hold him in the highest regard," Carter said. He made no mention of the aspect of the Mattis selection that has drawn the most attention: the fact that his nomination will require legislation by Congress to exempt Mattis from a legal prohibition on a retired military officer serving as secretary of defense before he has been out of uniform for a minimum of seven years. Mattis retired in 2013.

Carter made his remarks at the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Hours after a Green Party-backed campaign dropped its case in state courts they announce a change to their strategy to force a statewide recount of Pennsylvania's Nov. 8 presidential election, won by Republican Donald Trump, and said late Saturday night that it will seek help in the federal courts, rather than the state courts.

The campaign announced that it would seek an emergency federal court order on Monday for a recount.

"Make no mistake  the Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania," recount campaign lawyer Jonathan Abady said in a statement issued a little before midnight. "We are committed to this fight to protect the civil and voting rights of all Americans."

Abady said barriers to a recount in Pennsylvania are pervasive and the state court system is ill-equipped to address the problem.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, raised over $6.9 million to fund recount efforts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.Stein framed the issue as an effort to explore whether voting machines and systems had been hacked and the election result manipulated.

Stein announced Sunday morning that she plans to hold a rally on Monday morning outside of Trump Tower in New York.

Despite Stein's lawyers having offered no evidence of hacking in Pennsylvania's election.

The state Republican Party and Trump asked for a dismissal in the state court case.

The decision came two days before a state court hearing was scheduled in the case. Saturday's court filing to withdraw the case said the Green Party-backed voters who filed it "are regular citizens of ordinary means" and cannot afford the $1 million bond ordered by the court by 5 p.m. Monday. Green Party-backed efforts to force recounts and analyze election software in scattered precincts were continuing. The court's order can be read here.

The Wisconsin recount began on Thursday, while a potential recount could begin in Michigan next week.

No Republican presidential candidate had captured Pennsylvania since 1988.

Stein announced Pennsylvania's recount purpose was to ensure "our votes are safe and secure."

They have unsuccessfully sought to get various counties to allow a forensic examination of their election system software.

Trumps lawyers and the state Republican Party claimed there was no evidence or allegations that tampering occurred with Pennsylvania's voting systems. Pennsylvania law does not allow a court-ordered recount, they argued, and a lawyer for the Green Party had acknowledged that the effort was without precedent in Pennsylvania.

Republican lawyers also argued that the case has threatened the states ability to certify its presidential electors by the December 13 federal deadline.

On Saturday, a GOP lawyer, Lawrence Tabas, said the case had been meant "solely for purposes to delay the Electoral College vote in Pennsylvania for President-Elect Trump."

The state's top elections official, Secretary of State Pedro Cortes, a Democrat, has said there was no evidence of any sort of cyberattacks or irregularities in the election. Cortes predicted that a recount would change few votes.

As of Friday, Trump's margin of victory in Pennsylvania was 49,000, or less than 1 percent, out of 6 million votes cast, according to state election officials. State and county officials did not expect any outstanding uncounted votes to change the outcome of the presidential election in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania's automatic statewide recount trigger is 0.5 percent. Stein drew less than 1 percent of the votes cast.



The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Two adults and two young girls were killed in an overnight house fire on Saturday in Ohio.

Multiple media reports say the fire broke out about 1:30 a.m. when a caller reported people were trapped inside the Akron house.

A city spokeswoman said the adults were a man and woman and the two girls were around 7 or 8 years old.

Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James announced on Twitter that the girls who died were members of his foundation's educational program.

"Unbelievably saddened to hear the news. My heart hurtsOur family lost two bright, bright stars," James said.

Counselors at the Akron city schools, where the children attended, will be available at their schools next week.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


Tribal elders have asked the military veterans joining the large Dakota Access pipeline protest encampment not to have confrontations with law enforcement officials, an organizer with Veterans Stand for Standing Rock said Sunday, adding the group is there to help out those who've dug in against the four-state, $3.8 billion project.



About 250 veterans gathered about a mile from the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, camp for a meeting with organizer Wes Clark Jr., the son of former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark. The group had said about 2,000 veterans were coming to the camp, but it wasn't clear how many actually arrived.



"We have been asked by the elders not to do direct action," Wes Clark Jr. said. He then talked about North Dakota authorities' decision to move away from a key bridge north of the encampment by 4 p.m. Sunday if demonstrators agree to certain conditions, saying the National Guard and law enforcement have armored vehicles and are armed.



"If we come forward, they will attack us," Clark said. Instead, he told the veterans, "If you see someone who needs help, help them out."



The federal government has ordered people to leave the main encampment, which is on Army Corps of Engineers' land in southern North Dakota, by Monday. But demonstrators say they're prepared to stay, and federal, state and local authorities say they won't forcibly remove the protesters.



"The question was asked if we would consider pulling back from the Backwater Bridge," Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said in a Saturday news release after a conversation between law enforcement and the group's organizers, "and the answer is yes! We want this to de-escalate."



Authorities said they'll move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge if protesters stay south of it and come to the bridge only if there is a prearranged meeting. Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in the late October conflict that led to several people being hurt, including a serious arm injury.



Protesters also are not supposed to walk, ride or fly drones north of the bridge, Laney said. Any violation will "will result in their arrest," the statement said.



The bridge blockade is something that Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault has been asking to be removed, the Bismarck Tribune reports , and something he said he would to talk to Gov. Jack Dalrymple about when they meet in person. A date for that meeting hasn't been set.



Veterans Stand for Standing Rock's GoFundMe.com page had raised more than $1 million of its $1.2 million goal by Sunday -- money due to go toward food, transportation and supplies.



"People are fighting for something, and I thought they could use my help," said Navy veteran and Harvard graduate student Art Grayson. The 29-year-old from Cambridge, Mass., flew the first leg of the journey, then met up with other veterans and rode from Bismarck in the back of a pickup truck.



"For people to recognize we are here says a lot," Grayson said, adding that though he has finals this week, he told professors, "I'll see you when I get back."



Steven Perry, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran who's a member of the Little Traverse Bay band of Odawa Indians in Michigan, spoke of one of the protesters' main concerns: that the pipeline could pollute drinking water.



"This is not just a native issue," the Traverse City, Mich., man said, "This is an issue for everyone."



Perry also said of the veterans' gathering: "When we fought for this country, we fought for everyone."



On Monday, some veterans will take part in a prayer ceremony in which they'll apologize for historical detrimental conduct by the military toward Native Americans and ask for forgiveness, Clark said. He also said the veterans' presence at the campsite is "about right and wrong and peace and love."



The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and others want changes made to the route of the pipeline, which is largely complete except for a short segment that is planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir. Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners says it is unwilling to reroute the project.
A metal band has had its upcoming Chicago show canceled over its excessive use of guns and violent imagery on stage.

KING 810 was booked to play Thalia Hall on Dec. 18 but the venues promoter has told the band he was having a tough time defending the gig in light of Chicagos gun violence epidemic. There were 701 murders in the city through November.

KING 810 has appeared on stage with masked characters dressed in black and armed with automatic weapons. Their first album includes "Killem All" and Murder Murder Murder."

Frontman David Gunn posted on the bands Facebook page a Nov. 30 email notifying the band of the cancelation. A Thalia Hall promoter sent it.

We have been receiving phone calls from people in the neighborhood asking why the show is being allowed to happen, the email says. Specifically they are [citing] the bands excessive use of guns and violent imagery.

The email adds, We are ending 2016 with the highest rate of gun violence in Chicagos history and people are particularly sensitive. Defending the show, in the current environment, is becoming more and more difficult.

Gunn fired back at the cancelation in a short video on Facebook.

The gun thing is part of the culture where were from, its inherently part of the band, he says. Its not something that we apologize for or regret or anything like that.

Gunn also says that to him the Bataclan massacre in Paris is an excessive use of guns.

Guns are a part of our lives and were not going to be caught in this type of situation, he says.

So with all due respect to anyone in this type of situation if anyone ever comes through the front door with an automatic rifle, theyre not going to be able to kill 150 people at a KING show, theyll probably be shot from the stage, he adds. So, the guns arent going away, and we dont apologize for anything.
New Orleans resident Cardell Hayes has been convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of former New Orleans Saints player Will Smith, whose death earlier this year shocked the country. Here's a look at the timeline of events related to the case:

 April 9: A driver in a Hummer runs into the back of Smith's SUV. An argument ensues. Smith is fatally shot and his wife Raquel is wounded in the legs. Hayes is arrested on the scene.

 April 11: Surveillance video shows Smith's SUV bumping Hayes' Hummer moments before the crash that preceded the shooting.

 April 12: Police say they found a loaded handgun in Smith's car, that Hayes told officers on the scene he was the shooter and that in addition to the .45 used in the shooting officers found a revolver in Hayes' vehicle.

 April 13: An attorney for Smith's family holds wide-ranging news conference during which he says Smith didn't brandish a gun during the altercation and had a concealed-carry permit. But a lawyer for Hayes says a witness saw Smith with a gun that night. A coroner says Smith was shot seven times in the back and once in the side.

 April 15: Hayes' lawyer calls for the New Orleans police to recuse themselves from the investigation, claiming their competency and honesty are questionable. The request is later rejected.

 April 16: Funeral services are held for Smith.

 April 28: Grand jury indicts Hayes on one charge of second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence, and one charge of attempted second-degree murder.

 May 5: Smith's wife, Racquel, accepts his posthumous degree from the University of Miami.

 June 3: A defense lawyer says test results show Smith was legally drunk the night he died.

 July 14: Hayes' lawyer tries to get the New Orleans District Attorney's Office off the case, saying the DA made "baseless and inflammatory" statements about him in a report sent to law enforcement agencies.

 July 22: The judge refuses to remove the New Orleans DA and his staff from the Hayes case.

 Oct. 28: Racquel Smith offers her first public remarks since her husband's death, speaking at Will Smith's induction into the Saints' Hall of Fame.

 Nov. 16: Judge rules the jury will be sequestered during Hayes' trial, which begins Dec. 5.

 Dec. 5: Trial begins.

 Dec. 11: A jury convicts Hayes of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.
The trial for the man charged with second-degree murder in the April 9 shooting death of former New Orleans Saints player Will Smith begins this week.

Jury selection starts Monday in the trial of Cardell Hayes. Prosecutors say he rammed Smith's SUV, then shot Smith in the ensuing argument. The defense has been laying the groundwork for a self-defense argument, saying Hayes was not the aggressor and that he feared for his life.

Smith was shot eight times. He died in the front seat of his vehicle. Police have said there was a gun  loaded but not fired  in the SUV.

Hayes has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder in the death of Smith and the wounding of Smith's wife.
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Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has led a protest rally against what he called a "genocide" of Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar.

Najib says Sunday's rally at a stadium Kuala Lumpur in Muslim-majority Malaysia sends a strong message to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her government that "enough is enough" as he vowed to fight for the rights of the Rohingya.

He said: "The world cannot stand by and watch genocide taking place."

The plight of Rohingya in predominantly-Buddhist Myanmar has galvanized Muslims in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Some critics accuse Najib, who is grappling with a financial scandal, of using the rally to win the support of the country's Muslim Malays ahead of general elections due in 2018.
A gunman in Finland killed a local town councilor and two journalists in an apparent random shooting in a small town's nightlife district, police said Sunday. A local man was detained on suspicion of murder.

The chairwoman of the Imatra town council and two female reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant around midnight Saturday, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said. Police said two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her mid-30s.

Police detained a 23-year-old suspect who didn't resist arrest. He had allegedly fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle, authorities said.

Detective Superintendent Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the suspect had a criminal record that included violent incidents and theft, but declined to identify him.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."

The suspect arrived outside the restaurant in his car and shot the three women as they stepped out of the restaurant during a busy Christmas party evening. He then waited in the car until police arrived and accompanied officers silently and peacefully, police said.

Tielinen said investigators would question him later.

Hundreds of people lit candles and placed them Sunday in the bloodied snow outside the restaurant in Imatra, a southeastern town of 28,000 about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of the capital, Helsinki.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto conveyed his "deepest condolences" to the families and friends of the victims, saying the killings "shocked all of Finland." Prime Minister Juha Sipila said the government would consider new security measures pending the results of the investigation.

"Finland is one of the most secure countries in the world, but even so these sorts of incidents unfortunately are possible here too," Sipila said.

Social welfare officials provided support to victims' families and to witnesses of the incident.

"We decided to open a crisis center after the shooting occurred," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. "In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident. Many people were shocked."

In Finland, a country of 5.4 million with strong hunting traditions, there are 650,000 officially recognized gun owners but homicides with guns are unusual. After two deadly school shootings in 2007 and 2008, gun laws have been tightened.


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Local officials in Finland say that three people have been fatally shot in a southeastern town overnight.

The South Karelia Social and Health Care District says on its website that the shooting happened in the town of Imatra.

Imatra police on Sunday confirmed in a brief statement that a shooting incident had occurred in the town at about midnight Saturday but didn't mention victims and gave no other details.

Health officials said they had opened a crisis center in the town.

No other details were immediately available. Police said they would provide more information later.
A Chilean court rejected lawsuits filed in the South American country against three current or former Israeli Supreme Court justices for endorsing the construction of the West Bank separation barrier and the seizure of lands and the property on them from Palestinians.

The Associated Press had access to the ruling Sunday.

Chile's Palestinian Federation filed a war crimes lawsuit last week against current Justices Uzi Vogelman and Neal Hendel and retired justice Asher Grunis, who was president of the court in 2012-15.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the stretch of barrier is built on land the international community considers occupied and has separated Palestinians from properties and farmland.

The group contended that Chile's international agreements allow for suits involving crimes against humanity committed in other countries. But in their ruling, the judges said they did not have the authority to intervene in another country's court decisions.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Nicolas Pavez, said the group would appeal the ruling.

A Chilean-Palestinian woman who owns land in the Cremisan Valley, which is near Bethlehem, had also filed a lawsuit.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman earlier said the federation's lawsuit had no legal basis.

Chile's Palestinian community is among the world's largest, with about 350,000 immigrants and their descendants.

Israel says the barrier built beginning in 2002 is needed to keep out Palestinian attackers. Palestinians call the structure an illegal land grab because it frequently juts in and out of the West Bank, placing occupied territory claimed by the Palestinians on the "Israeli" side.

The International Court of Justice, the United Nations' highest judicial organ, in 2004 issued an advisory opinion saying the barrier was illegal.

Palestinians seek the entire West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as parts of a future independent state, a position that has wide international backing.
A former German soldier has left his life's savings to a small Scottish village where he was held as a prisoner of war during World War II.

Heinrich Steinmeyer, a Waffen SS soldier, was 19 when he was brought to POW camp at Cultybraggan near the village of Comrie in Perthshire. After the war, he regularly visited.

He died in 2014, leaving 384,000 pounds ($485,000) to the village in his will. His wish was to help the elderly in the community. It was unclear why nearly two years elapsed between his death and the announcement of the legacy.
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The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):

2:15 p.m.

Syrian activists say at least 3 children and 18 others have been killed in a series of air strikes on the opposition-controlled town of Kafranbel in northwestern Syria.

The activist-run Kafranbel Media Center published a list of 22 dead from the presumed Russian or Syrian government airstrikes.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group was able to confirm 21 dead, among them members of the local police force. It said the airstrikes hit the town's main marketplace.

Russia's military announced last month it was resuming its airstrikes on the northwestern Idlib province and central Homs province in support of the government's efforts to suppress a years-long uprising against its national authority. Kafranbel is not on any front lines of the raging war.

___

12 p.m.

Syria's army says it is offering rebel fighters in besieged eastern Aleppo an opportunity to leave the city with their lives.

Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Samir Suleiman said those who choose to stay will face "inevitable death."

He spoke to The Associated Press in Aleppo, where government forces and allied militias are seeking to collapse an opposition pocket on the city's eastern side.

"We will continue fighting until we restore stability and security to all neighborhoods" of Aleppo, Suleiman said.

He said the Syrian army has retaken more than 50 percent of neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo.

He also said that efforts to retake Aleppo's historic quarters known as Old Aleppo will be the most difficult, adding that the army will use infantry and special forces.
Left-leaning Alexander Van der Bellen and his message of moderation and tolerance prevailed in Austria's presidential election Sunday, with preliminary results showing him with an unbeatable margin over right-wing rival Norbert Hofer.

Austria's president has mostly symbolic duties. But with Sunday's election coming after Donald Trump's win in the United States and the Brexit vote in Britain, the vote was being watched across Europe as an indication of how well right-wing euroskeptic figures would do next year in elections in other EU nations.

The result was greeted with relief and congratulations by mainstream politicians in Austria and neighboring Germany.

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who heads Germany's center-left Social Democrats, told the Bild newspaper that "a load has been taken off the mind of all of Europe." He called the result "a clear victory for good sense against right-wing populism."

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said Van der Bellen "will represent Austria domestically and abroad in an excellent manner"  alluding to fears by establishment politicians in Austria that a victory by Hofer, whose anti-immigrant Freedom Party is critical of the European Union, would hurt Austria's image.

Van der Bellen is pro-European Union and represents liberal to left-of-center views.

Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament called Van der Bellen's victory a defeat for "anti-European, backward-looking populism."

Right-wingers allied with Hofer, meanwhile, praised the losing candidate for a strong electoral fight despite his defeat.

With nearly all results counted, Van der Bellen had 53.3 percent of the vote to Hofer's 46.7 percent. While the margin may change slightly when final results are in, Austrian officials said the results gave Van der Bellen an unbeatable lead.

Noting the outsize attention the election in Austria was receiving, Van der Bellen declared that "what happens here today has relevance for all of Europe" as he cast his ballot.

As his victory became clear, Van der Bellen said it showed most voters backed his message of "freedom, equality, solidarity."

He said he would work to unite a country deeply split between the moderate liberals who voted for him and supporters of Hofer's anti-immigrant party.

Hofer conceded his loss in a Facebook posting.

Acknowledging that he was "endlessly sad," Hofer said. "I would have been happy to take care of our Austria." He urged voters of both camps to bury their differences and work together.

Final results will not be available until more than 500,000 absentee ballots are counted Monday.

Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen of France and anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, who both face national elections next year, tweeted their support Sunday for Hofer as voting took place. After he lost, they congratulated him on his strong showing.

Traditional political figures in Germany put aside their differences to welcome Van der Bellen's victory.

Manfred Weber, a conservative who heads the main center-right group in the European Parliament, wrote on Twitter: "Austrians send clear pro-European signal. The European right-wing populists' party is off for now."

Top German opposition Green leader Simone Peter called it "a good day for Austria and Europe. The right-wing rabble-rousers have to be stopped!"

The election was a rerun of a vote in May that Van der Bellen narrowly won. Austria's Constitutional Court ordered a repeat following a court ruling after Hofer's Freedom Party claimed widespread irregularities.


The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is consecrating a new church near the Eiffel Tower seen as a controversial symbol of President Vladimir Putin's influence in Europe.

Patriarch Kirill, an ally of Putin, is presiding over a blessing ceremony Sunday in the Saint Trinity Church on the banks of the Seine River. Members of France's large Russian community crowded in for the invitation-only event.

The imposing, block-shaped white church, topped by an 8-ton gold onion dome, is the centrepiece of a new 100 million euro ($106 million) complex owned by the Russian government.

Putin has championed the project, prompting protests from rights groups.

Since the 2008 sale of the site to Russia, diplomatic relations have soured over Moscow's actions in Syria and Ukraine.
Scotland Yard has been given money to investigate a new lead in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in what senior officials are calling the last throw of the dice.

According to The Sun, detectives are looking into a tip that traffickers from Europe kidnapped the then 3-year-old after taking photographs of her.

This is an important new line of inquiry which could provide an explanation on whether Madeleine was abducted and transported away, a source told the paper. It raises hope that she could still be alive.

Madeleine disappeared in 2007 while on vacation with her family in Portugal. She was snatched from a holiday apartment as her parents dined with friends nearby. One witness has claimed that the girl was photographed on the beach with her parents in the days before she vanished.

In 2011, police in Portugal smashed a trafficking ring snatching young women and underage girls in the Algarve and Aveiro sections, in the north of the country.

The latest information is being pursued as Scotland Yard has been given more money to look into what is being called an important new lead in Madeleines disappearance.

There is specific information which is being investigated, the source said.



The source added the investigative team is pushing forward to try to confirm or disprove the latest lead.

At present, funding is due to run out next April when it will be reviewed again, the source said.
High-ranking officials representing 46 countries including the U.S., China and European Union nations have failed to agree on a list of "environmental goods" like solar-powered air conditioners or LED light bulbs that could be targeted for lower tariffs.

The two-day meeting at World Trade Organization involved a bid to agree on reducing tariffs on over 200 environment-friendly goods worth more than $1 trillion in trade annually.

Diplomats cited troubles over Chinese demands on many goods including bicycles, and disagreements over sustainable-development lumber between Canada and New Zealand on one side and Japan and Taiwan on another.

Any agreement would only be a first step. The incoming administration of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is expected to have important say on the final contours of the Environmental Goods Agreement.
Justin Carpenter sits on the edge of the bed and attaches the five parts of an Indego exoskeleton device to the lower half of his body.

His physical therapist, Amber Walter, helps him, locking the metal pieces into place on one leg while he works on the other.

While sitting, Carpenter picks up both his legs one at a time. The device starts to vibrate.

Then, the 20-year-old Gloucester County residentwho suffered spinal injuries during a motorcycle accident a year ago and can no longer walkpushes down on a walker, stands and walks away from his wheelchair.

The Sheltering Arms rehabilitation hospital in Hanover County where Carpenter does physical therapy received its Indego exoskeleton in August.

The device allows patients who otherwise cannot move or put too much pressure on their legs to stand up and walk with the aid of a walker or crutches.

Carpenter communicates with the device by changing his posture, Walter explained. When he sits forward and presses down on the walker, Indego knows to lift him into a standing position.

While Sheltering Arms has other devices that help patients with spinal cord injuries walk, the Indego is unique in that the patients are not restricted in where they can go. While supporting himself on a walker or crutches and with Walters guidance, Carpenter can use Indego to walk around the Sheltering Arms hospital or even go outside.

Not only does Indego allow Carpenter to build stronger muscles throughout the lower half of his bodywhich he rarely uses while in his wheelchairit also helps him get used to walking with the aid of a device, such as leg braces that he could purchase and use at home.

He didnt have any experience walking after the injury, so he can go from [the Indego device] to a device thats affordable ... and use those at home, Walter said.

Indego also helps Walter better assess where the patients are in their rehabilitation. Carpenter, for example, has developed stronger muscles in his hips, so Indegos support can be manually reduced so Walter can see exactly how strong his hips have gotten.

Sheltering Arms purchased three Indego devices to participate in a clinical trial run by the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.

The nonprofit hospital systems Junior Boardwhich helps raise money for Sheltering Armsprovided the $180,000 necessary to buy the three exoskeleton devices.

Though the exoskeletons were purchased for research, the device was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration so Sheltering Arms is able to use them for any clinical patients, not just those enrolled in the study.

Carpenter was one of those clinical patients, and Walter said she was eager to allow him the opportunity to try the Indego device.

When he initially put it on, he said, the first thing that struck him was that he was able to look down at the people around him.

Im so used to looking up at them, he said.

He now practices with the device regularly and said he has gotten more movement in the tops of his legs.

Im hoping a lot more will come, he said.

But even as Carpenter gains strength throughout his legs and hips, Walter said it is unclear if he will be able to walk again without a device.

Its a lingering question, she said. We talk about this every timehow far is it going to go? We really dont know.

Another Sheltering Arms patient, 22-year-old Taylor Roberts, said that since she has started using Indego, she has seen improvements in her rehabilitation. She suffered spinal cord injuries in a car crash in February 2015.

Using Indego feels good, she said. Its the closest thing to actually walking.

Walter explained that Indego helps patients like Carpenter and Roberts develop the muscles and skills they need to practice walking at home with leg braces.

That sort of practice is necessary, she explained, because most patients insurers limit the number of times they can have physical therapy sessions.

Roberts, for example, ran out of her covered appointments, so she enrolled in Sheltering Arms NeuroFit training, an exercise program that includes using the Indego when she visits the hospital.

NeuroFit is an option for patients whose functioning is not certain to change with physical therapy, so therapists like Walter cannot assure insurers that it will help the patient transition from sitting to walking, Walter explained.

So we offer it as a cash-based service, she said. Its also a bridge if people run out of benefits.As Carpenter took off the Indego device and Roberts prepared to put it on, Newport News resident William Purcell watched from his wheelchair a few feet away.

He was preparing to use the Indego exoskeleton for the first time the following day. He said he hoped his 7-year-old daughter would be there to watch him try it on.

He had used other devices in the hospital to stand but had yet to try Indego. He said he felt a little nervous.

You dont know what to expect, he said.

He has been a patient at the rehabilitation hospital for about two weeks after losing the ability to walk over the summer. He said his doctors still have not figured out what is wrong, though it does involve a piece of muscle pressing into his spine.

He said staying at the hospital has been good and bad. The physical therapy should help him regain his ability to walk, since he can still feel his legs.

But those at the hospital tell him the truth, he said. They are not sure if he will be able to walk again, and he does not want to leave in a wheelchair.
Another large apartment complex has been proposed near Massaponax, continuing a recent trend in that part of Spotsylvania County.

The county received a rezoning request in November for a 25-acre development with 400 apartments and commercial space on the west side of U.S. 1, about a mile south of Spotsylvania Parkway. The four-story apartment complex would include 60 one-bedroom units, 200 two-bedroom units and 140 three-bedroom units.

Donn Hart, a member of the Spotsylvania Economic Development Authority and the owner of Virginia Properties Inc., is proposing the mixed-use project, called Palmers Creek. He said he would develop the retail center and Northern Virginia-based Bonaventure Realty Group would purchase land from him to build the apartments.

Currently, just one home can be built on the land, most of which is zoned for commercial uses.

The proposal will require public hearings in front of the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, which has the final say. Hart said the Planning Commission hearing could happen next month.

Bonaventure CEO Dwight Dunton said renting is more popular now than it has been in decades, partly because of the flexibility it provides in what he called a mobile economy. He said there is a demand for more apartments in the Fredericksburg area, despite a flurry of construction activity in recent years.

You look at the merger of the D.C. metropolitan area and the Richmond metropolitan area, and its going to become one big megalopolis, Dunton said. We see that where those two are going to merge is at the Spotsylvania line.

Hundreds of new apartments have sprouted near Massaponax in recent years, at least partly because of the proximity of the new Virginia Railway Express station off Massaponax Church Road.

In Southpoint II, between U.S. 1 and Courthouse Road, developer HHHunt is finishing a 280-unit apartment complex across the street from CarMax.

Virginia Beach-based Breeden Co. plans to break ground next year on 450 apartments at an 87-acre site off U.S. 1 next to Cosners Corner. That project is part of the Jackson Village development, which supervisors approved late last year.

In addition, the Fredericksburg-based Silver Cos. in June opened a 274-unit apartment complex across the street from Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center on Spotsylvania Parkway. A little more than half of the apartments have been leased at the Silver Collection complex, said Chris Hornung, vice president of planning and engineering for the Silver Cos.

Plans for the newly proposed Palmers Creek apartment complex include a commercial area fronting U.S. 1 with two buildings totaling about 40,000 square feet. Hart said the commercial site would likely have sit-down restaurants, hair salons and other retail to complement the community.

The developer plans to submit profferswhich can include money or infrastructure improvements to offset the impact of a projectat a later date.

In recent years, Spotsylvania supervisors have approved several mixed-use developments that include plans for about 2,700 apartments. For instance, plans for the Jackson Village development next to Cosners Corner call for 695 apartments.

Supporters of mixed-use developments say the combination of homes and retail will grow the local economy and provide a place for residents to live, work and play. But some critics point out that the developments will require new schools and roads, the cost of which outweighs any additional tax revenue.
Sunday morning update: David Washington is charged with first-degree murder, robbery and grand larceny.

Original post:

A Spotsylvania man has been taken into custody and labeled a person of interest in connection with the brutal slaying of a 54-year-old county store clerk early Saturday, police said.

David Junior Washington was apprehended without incident at Dunning Mills in Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Sheriffs Capt. Jeff Pearce said. He was being questioned by detectives but had not been formally charged as of Saturday evening.

Police still have not released the name of the victim, whose grisly death was discovered by a customer inside the Sunoco station in the 5300 block of Jefferson Davis Highway in the Massaponax area of Spotsylvania. Pearce said police believe the clerk was killed about 1:35 a.m. and the customer showed up a short time later.

The investigation showed that prior to the attack, a man entered the store, milled about for a few minutes and then viciously attacked the clerk for no apparent reason. Police have refused to say what, if any, weapon was used in the attack but have confirmed that it was not a gun.

It was a brutal, vicious attack, Pearce said. Whoever did this is obviously a very dangerous person.

The Spotsylvania Sheriffs Office obtained an image a man captured on store surveillance cameras and put it out in the public Saturday in hopes of getting an identification. Pearce would not say what led detectives to Washington, a man with no fixed address and a criminal record in the area dating at least back to the early 1990s. His convictions include unlawful wounding, possession of cocaine and grand larceny.

Persons with information about the incident are asked to call the Sheriffs Office at 507-7200 or Crime Solvers at 582-5822.
Thirteen people, most of them residents of Colonial Beach, were arrested this week as the result of a nearly yearlong investigation into drug 
AS the country adjusts to the news of the new president-elect, the Trump administration and a new Congress have an opportunity to make some key changes to our nations health-care system, and it is hoped for the better.

For the last year and a half, American voters have been intently focused on the presidential and senatorial candidates plans for health care in 2017 and beyond. Hillary Clinton laid out her plans to expand the Affordable Care Act and increase the governments role in our health care by setting drug costs and making a public option available.

On the other side of ballot, voters heard from Donald Trump and fellow Republicans, including Pennsylvanias senatorial candidate Pat Toomey and Floridas Sen. Marco Rubio warning of ever-increasing insurance premiums and promising to address rising health-care costs by repealing and replacing the ACA.

With the election results swinging in Republicans favor, one thing is clear: Americans are not willing to accept an expanded government role in our nations health-care system that has thus far resulted only in double-digit premium increases and lack of access to the care they need.

For both consumers and the health-care industry, 2016 has been a frustrating year. Over the last several months, a majority of the ACA co-ops closed, and major insurers exited the exchanges, leaving only a single provider in some states and counties. Furthermore, supporters of the ACA underestimated how much the law was negatively affecting consumers across Middle America.

Skyrocketing premium increases for those living in states such as Arizona, Alabama and Oklahoma were not only a huge shock to consumers but also left them angry and wondering how they would be able to pay for adequate coverage.

In important swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, consumers are expected to experience rate increases of more than 30 percent, 16 percent and 17 percent, respectively, hurting the publics health-care options while the insurance companies revenues continue to rise. Given the double-digit increases across the country, it should come as no surprise that this was on the top of voters minds when it came to the future of our health care.

Even some of the laws strongest supporters and key figures in Washington acknowledged the ACAs flaws. Former President Bill Clinton said it was the craziest thing in the world, and Vice President Joe Biden said it is not as good as it should be, while Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton stressed that the ACA is no longer affordable.

While there is no clear solution yet for addressing the nations health-care issues, leaders in Washington know that Americans are expecting a change.

With Republicans controlling the White House and Congress, there is a chance the ACA will be repealed in 2017, along with several other changes to the health-care landscape. However, if Congress and the new administration are seeking tangible changes in health care that will last for the next four years and beyond, then the ACA must be replaced with policies that protect consumers and taxpayers without handcuffing them to insurers through narrow networks and dwindling competition.

Moreover, health care is about prioritizing Americans needs to ensure that the nation remains strong and healthynot for the insurance industry and the government to put their interests before those of consumers.

As with any political transition, consumers will rely on the next set of leaders to drive progress in health care for consumers. The Department of Health and Human Services will certainly undergo many changes in the coming months, and those who take on reform in 2017 will have a long and tumultuous job ahead of them.

More important, its critical that new American leadership recognize and acknowledge that affordable health care means that people can comfortably pay for it. The government would be wrong to undermine consumers and taxpayers, again, for the next four years.
AS I remember it, November 2008 was a gray month. The few colorful leaves remaining on the trees were scarce compensation for the cold weather, the leaden skies or, as I saw it, the political news.

The candidate I supported lost the presidential election. As I sat watching throngs of my fellow Americans pouring into parks on election night celebrating Barack Obamas victory, I wondered, who are they? I felt estranged. I opposed his liberal ideas and I felt concern for our nations future.

I remember my husband had a cough that November. Larry had been through one round of antibiotics and was now working his way through the usual diagnostic processes to see if he had pneumonia.

When Larry called me at work with his X-ray results, I felt concerned. I caught Jim Hall, our knowledgeable medical reporter, at the back door of The Free LanceStar building. Jim, I asked, when medical reports use the term mass, arent they referring to cancer?

Maybe, maybe not. The Nov. 21 X-ray had detected a rounded mass-like opacity in the lower left lobe of Larrys lung. A Nov. 26 CT scan showed a lobular mass with engulfed bronchi and size significant lymph nodes. And a Dec. 12 biopsy confirmed our fears: My nonsmoking husband had well-differentiated adenocarcinomalung cancer.

Cancer strikes like a lion. It knocks you off your feet, disorients you, and sends you scrambling to fight for your life. It also has a way of placing a lens on life that brings into sharp focus whats truly important.

While the world hung Christmas lights and chatted about Obamas Cabinet picks, we spent the month of December 2008 meeting new doctors, looking up new vocabulary words and getting CT scans, PET scans and MRIs. I bought a notebook to keep track of all we were learning.

The cheery Christmas season formed an ironic backdrop to the new normal of our lives. Decorations in the hospital, the lights on our neighbors homes, the music on the radio all spoke of wonder and hope and joy. Meanwhile, we battled a dark threat. We spent Christmas Eve at Mary Washington Hospital while Larry underwent more diagnostic procedures, and a quiet Christmas Day at home while he recovered.

The cancer journey is a roller-coaster ride of twists, turns, speedy downhills and creeping ascents. Larrys cancer was too advanced for surgery. Instead, just after the New Year, he would begin five months of chemotherapy and radiation. Although his doctors were invariably encouraging, I could not help but flinch at the statistics I found: The five-year survival rate for his Stage IIIb non-small cell lung cancer was just 5 percent.

That number slammed me hard. Suddenly, the beginning of a presidential term faded in importance. Family, primarily my husbands health, took precedence. I had sunk roots deeply into my faith; now I drew hard on that wellspring.

Going through those difficult early months, I found much for which to be grateful: my co-workers, who picked up the slack for me as I helped Larry; our doctors, (especially Dr. Christopher Vaughn and Dr. John Chinault) who were kind, encouraging, and proficient; friends from church, who drove Larry to appointments when I was working; a plethora of caring medical personnel; the amazing advances in cancer treatment.

The months went by and then the years. Larry continued to survive. We began to rack up milestones, events we never thought hed see: the end of that initial treatment; Larrys retirement; the birth of our first grandchild; our 40th anniversary; a graduation; the marriage of our younger daughter; the birth of a second grandchild and then a third.

When the cancer came back, Dr. Vaughn tried a new drug. When the cancer spread, he added another. Several times, Larry and I thought, this is ithes in the final six-month slide. But each time, there was another drug, another procedure, a new advance, another lifeline.

Now here we are, eight years after that initial dread diagnosis, and Larry is still up and around. Hes not able to do all that he could before, but hes alive, hes driving, hes able to enjoy our family and friends. One day, cancer may win, but until then theres so much for which to be grateful, so much to enjoy.

Ive learned many lessons through my husbands cancer journey, but one seems particularly relevant today. Im a political junkie. Politics was my college minor. I worked as an editorial writer. Ive got well-formed, deeply held, conservative political opinions, opinions that were challenged by Obamas election.

But our kick-in-the-teeth, priority-shaking, 2008 cancer surprise put politics in perspective for me. Despite a liberal president, I am still able to help my husband, love my neighbor and support my family. Im still able to practice my faith and grow in it. Although I have freely and respectfully opposed Obamas policies (most recently last month in this column), I refuse to allow politics to poison my soul with hatred. I hold fast to this truth: In politics and my personal life, God is in control.

All around the region, lights are going up on houses, trees are appearing in living rooms, and carols are spilling into the air. During one of the most oppressive regimes in all of human history, a Child was born. Few people remember the names of those Roman rulers or recall their political views, but two thousand years later, the world continues to celebrate Jesus Christ. That should tell you something.
ANY doubt about the importance of controlling how state legislative and congressional districts are drawn has been erased by a bill proposed by Del. Mark Cole.

The Spotsylvania County Republican wants the Virginia General Assembly to approve legislation next year to award the commonwealths Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who wins each congressional district rather than the traditional winner-takes-all approach for the candidate who wins the statewide vote.

The practical impact of the bill? If it had been in effect for the Nov. 8 election, Hillary Clinton, who won Virginias 13 electoral votes, would get seven votes (she won five congressional districts and would get two at-large votes) and Donald Trump would get six electoral votes for winning six districts. Only Nebraska and Maine apportion Electoral College votes based on the winners of congressional districts.

Cole certainly knows how to make districts drawn by the majority party work for the GOP. He leads the House Privileges and Elections Committee, which oversees Virginias redistricting laws. And despite efforts by some legislators and nonpartisan groups to reform the way districts are drawn, those measures have never gotten out of Coles committee.

University of Mary Washington political science professor Stephen Farnsworth aptly points out that Coles proposal would increase the impact of gerrymandering the districts to benefit Republican lawmakers.

Cole says his proposal would better reflect voter sentiment, adding that some people in rural areas feel like their votes dont count because populous Northern Virginia, Richmond and Tidewater area are strongly Democratic. Those areas carried the state for Barack Obama twice and Clinton this year. Virginia was reliably Republican for 40 years before that.

Undoubtedly, Coles bill would double down on the impact of Virginias congressional district map. Make no mistake, gerrymandering was at work. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that the map violated federal voting rights laws. A federal panel redrew the 3rd congressional district after determining that AfricanAmerican voters were packed into snake-like area represented by Rep. Bobby Scott. As a result of the changes to the 3rd and surrounding districts, Virginia voters on Nov. 8 elected a second AfricanAmerican to Congress, former state legislator Donald McEachin of Richmond, in the 4th District.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over the racial gerrymandering in a dozen state House districts. A ruling from the high court similar to its decision on the congressional map would send a clear message that Virginia must change how it draws its districts.

Its not just about packing certain voters into districts to lessen their influence on elections. It also involves splitting up communities, cities such as Fredericksburg, so that challengers see no reason to run.

Theres no perfectly nonpartisan way to set voting district boundaries, but Virginians deserve better. Its time to break the redistricting reform logjam in the General Assembly. And we hope that if Coles Electoral College vote bill passes the legislature, it is vetoed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
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The PM said as a founding member, Vietnam always proactively contributes to the development of the ADB and makes efforts to build a close and effective relationship with the bank.



The opening of the ADB representative office in Vietnam in December, 1996, is an important landmark in the Vietnam-ADB relationship and since then, the office has acted as a bridge, helping bring the relationship to a new height, the PM said.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc poses for a photo with the ADB leaders and staff. (Source: VNA)



He noted that the two sides have signed and implemented more than 160 programmes and projects worth around 16 billion USD in total, including Official Development Assistance and concessional loans.



The ADBs projects in Vietnam cover a wide range with a focus on supporting equal and sustainable growth, PM Phuc said, stressing that they have been implemented effectively, helping transform Vietnam from a poor nation into a middle income country deeply integrated into the region and the world.



The PM affirmed the ADB has been not only a sponsor but also a partner in advising policies for the Vietnamese government and the ABDs researches and reports have been useful consulting materials for the Vietnamese government.



The head of the Vietnamese government said despite difficulties and challenges, Vietnam will continue to strongly implement reform programmes, maintain macro-economic stability, perfect institutions, improve investment environment, develop the workforce, protect the environment and respond to climate change while ensuring social security, thus laying a firm foundation for long-term development.



In that process, Vietnam will always treasure and use effectively the capital and loans provided by the ADB, he said, expressing the hope that the bank and its Vietnam office will closely work with ministries and localities for the successful implementation of the Vietnam-ADB Country Partnership Strategy for the 2016-2020 period.



The PM also asked the bank to continue working with Vietnam in regional mechanisms like the Mekong sub-region, ACMECS, CLMV, and CLV for economic connectivity, transport infrastructure, sustainable poverty alleviation, and climate change response.



At the event, the ADB Country Director Eric Sidgwick said in the past 50 years, the bank has loaned USD250 billion for infrastructure, research, and knowledge sharing to open up opportunities and create prosperity across Asia-Pacific.



The ABD has closely worked with the Vietnamese government to promote equal development, reduce poverty and support sustainable development in the transition from a centrally-planned economy to a market economy, he said.



Sidgwick affirmed the ADBs commitment to stronger support for Vietnam via encouraging the creation of jobs, enhancing competitiveness, boosting the coverage of infrastructure and service provision, improving environmental sustainability and responding to climate change./.




Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai and Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worships Secretary for International Economic Relations, Ambassador Maria Cristina Boldorini co-chaired the event.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trades report, the two-way trade value showed a 13.1 percent rise from last year. Vietnam earned USD302.3 million from exports to Argentina as of early November and spent USD2.12 billion on imports from the Latin American country, up 15.8 percent.

The figure is estimated at nearly USD3 billion this year.

Argentina is currently investing in four projects worth USD3.2 million in Vietnam, ranking 80th out of 112 countries and territories investing in the country.

Deputy Minister Hai said a number of commitments have been delivered in the fields of trade, investment, agriculture, culture, health care, legal medicine and science-technology since the fourth meeting in 2014.

The two sides signed a food safety control agreement in June 2014, under which 206 Vietnamese seafood processors were allowed to export to Argentina while 36 Argentine meat producers and 221 seafood processors gained access to the Vietnamese market.

Hai also spoke highly of joint efforts to implement technical cooperation projects within the framework of the South-South and Triangular Cooperation Fund of Argentina.

At the meeting, the two countries agreed on 11 quarantine certificate samples for Argentine animal products, including frozen beef and lamb, milk and dairy products.

Vietnam is working to export dragon fruit, longan, litchi and mango to Argentine market while Argentina has also applied for exporting orange, lemon, blueberry, apple, grapefruit, tangerine, pear and sweet cherry to Vietnam./.
Sister Wives Season 8 News & Update: Madison & Mykelti Wedding, Still Debated; Meri, Most Hated Wife; Kody, Only Pretends Fixing Marriage?

The "Sister Wives" Season 8 has finally aired its first episode last week, hoping that the Brown family may have already fixed their issues. Unfortunately, Kody and the rest of the sister wives are dealing with wedding issues, as well as Meri and Kody's deteriorating relationship.

Following the first episode of "Sister Wives" Season 8, Kody has been very uncomfortable with Mykelti getting married sooner, since the family has initially planned to focus first on Maddison's wedding. According to reports, Kody is now experiencing a shortage in finances, which might be the reason for his hesitation to accommodate another wedding.

Kody was not very happy with Mykeltie's abrupt decision to get married, and has called the sister wives to discuss the issue. Obviously, the wives are not ready for such wedding to take place, but as Robyn asserted, Mykeltie does not really need the approval because she's already in her marrying age. If these will push through, there will be two wedding celebrations in "Sister Wives" Season 8.

5 years ago today God gave us this little guy! He pushes me to my limits and melts my heart on a daily basis. I am so blessed! pic.twitter.com/j9xzl8ZyG0  Robyn Brown (@LuvgvsUwngs) October 27, 2016

Certainly, planning two weddings two months apart would be very difficult for the Brown family, especially to Kody. According to Empty Lighthouse Magazine, Janelle was the one most concerned about Mykeltie's wedding plans. "Sisters Wives" Season 8 is becoming more intense as more issues confronts the Brown family.

According to Gamenguide, Kody is trying hard to keep his four wives intact, but how effective his strategies are, has been a constant debate. It was previously reported that Kody was somehow distant to Meri because of the catfish scandal. Now, reports are claiming that Kody is just pretending to fix his marriage with Meri to make himself a husband figure. Rumors are pervasive that Meri is the most hated wife, and that Kody can't stand her. To Kody, it is best to see their family therapist to have a chance in fixing their useless marriage.

Will Kody and Meri fix their marriage? Stay tuned for more Gamenguide update.
'Game of Thrones' Season 7 Spoilers, Latest News & Update: Alfie Allen Hints At Daenerys Targaryen, Theon Greyjoy Alliance At Malta India Comic Con

"Game of Thrones" Season 7 is currently in development, but fans got more details at the Malta India Comic Con. Alfie Allen, who plays Theon Greyjoy, shared some details from the upcoming "Game of Thrones."

More Dragons and Torture in "Game of Thrones" Season 7

Watchers On The Wall reported that Allen shared some information about "Game of Thrones" Season 7 while visiting the event. He said that the new season will feature more of the same, but better. The English actor added that there will be more dragons and more torture.

Allen also said that his "Game of Thrones" character will be skittish and full of fear, which will eventually turn into rage. He did not specify, however, whether he will be the one enduring more torture.

Allen also advised "Game of Thrones" fans not to believe everything on the internet, saying that it is still uncertain whether Theon will meet Jon Snow (Kit Harington) or Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) again. He did answer the hypothetical question by saying that Theon would feel horrible and awful.

He may deem the grand meeting between the characters as a chance to redeem himself. Although he previously saved Sansa, some fans speculate that he may still be compelled to go against the Starks once again, due to his newly forged alliance with Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke).

The Greyjoy-Targaryen Alliance

In "Game of Thrones" Season 6, Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) offered to join the Mother of Dragons on her quest to conquer the Seven Kingdoms. Dany's dragons were seen flying around the ships bound for Westeros, which may be what Allen was referring to with "more dragons."

It could also mean that there may be more dragon riders or dragon scenes in the new "Game of Thrones" at least. According to Fansided, there are also theories of Dany turning into the Mad Queen Targaryen. She may lose control of her dragons at some point or there may even be an undead dragon, as previously rumored.

It is expected that her dragons will be having more appearances in the new "Game of Thrones" Season 7. More updates and details on "Game of Thrones" are expected soon.
'Days Of Our Lives' Weekly Spoilers: Abigail Will Once Again Attempt to Tell Chad She's Alive; Another Person Will Stumble on Her Secret

Days of Our Lives (DOOL) spoilers for the week of December 5 reveal that JJ (Casey Moss) will talk Abigail (Marci Miller) into the idea of telling Chad (Billy Flynn) that shes alive. He will assure her sister that there is no future for Gabi and Chad since she already made the choice of being with him instead.

Deep down inside though, JJ is worried because he is aware of the strong connection between Gabi and Chad according to "Days of Our Lives" spoilers. JJ feels that Abigails coming out will make things work for the best. But, Abigail seems not convinced with JJs argument. Jennifer (Melissa Reeves) too will insist that her daughter should stop hiding since Abigail has caused a lot of pain already. Jennifer is afraid things will only get worse of Abigail waits any longer.

The Days of Our Lives spoilers state that Abigail will later decide that it is indeed time for Chad to know the truth but quickly her fear of his rejection will stop her once again. Unfortunately, she could not stop others from knowing her secret. A stunned Dario (Jordi) catches a glimpse of her and Abigail is forced to explain her coming back from the dead.

Dario will tell her that Chad should be told the truth but Abigail warns him that he should not be too fast in telling her secret to him reveal Days of Our Lives spoilers. She tells him that she knows some of his dirty secrets as well which might have something to do with his illegal business with Eduardo (A Martinez). Dario will not have a choice but to back down and promises Abigail that he will keep quiet if she does the same.

Days of Our Lives spoilers reveal that Abigail will try to confess to Chad again next week as she knows she wont be able to stay away from him anymore. It is not clear if maybe this time she will be able to follow through.
The Corvallis City Council will hold its first discussion of expansion plans by Samaritan Health Services at its 6:30 p.m. meeting Monday at the downtown fire station, 400 N.W. Harrison Blvd.

The citys Parks, Natural Areas and Recreation Advisory Board voted 7-2 at its Nov. 17 to recommended approval of the plan, while attaching five conditions.

The parks board reviewed the plan because Samaritan hopes to swap some property it owns north of Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center with city-owned park land and also use 4.55 acres of city property for stormwater facilities.

Samaritan hopes to annex the 84 acres into the citys stockpile of land via a ballot measure in the November 2017 election. City approval is required because of the land swaps.

On another matter, Monday's meeting originally was scheduled to include a public hearing on a controversial plan to increase the street maintenance fee. But that discussion has been tabled until next year because of inconsistencies that have been found in the way the city applies the current fee.

In other public meetings:

Saturday

 Ward 1 Corvallis Councilor Penny York will be the government comment corner guest from 10 a.m. to noon at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645 N.W. Monroe Ave.

Monday

The Philomath Finance/Administration Committee meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 980 Applegate St.

Tuesday

 The Benton County Board of Commissioners holds a work session at 9:30 a.m. in the county boardrooms, 205 N.W. Fifth St. The agenda includes possible code amendments to allow commercial marijuana growing in the rural residential and special use zones, and a possible social media commenting policy. The board will reconvene at noon in the same location for a meeting to consider whether to issue a declaration of sanctuary.

 The Corvallis City Council holds a work session at 3:30 p.m. at the Madison Avenue Meeting Room, 500 S.W. Madison Ave., with the main topic a review of the draft climate action plan. The discussion is scheduled for 3:50 p.m. and public comment will be taken at that time.

 The Adair Village City Council meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 6030 William R. Carr Ave.

 The Corvallis City Council will interview Planning Commission candidates Richard Raymond, Vanessa Blackstone, Esther McEvoy and Seth Sherry at 6:30 p.m. at the Madison Avenue room.

Wednesday

 The Corvallis Community Police Review Advisory Board meets at 3 p.m. at the Walnut Community Room, 4950 NW Fair Oaks Drive

 The Corvallis Planning Commission meets at 7 p.m. at the downtown fire station. No land-use public hearings are planned.

 The Philomath Transportation System Plan Update Citizen Advisory Committee meets at 6 p.m. at the Police Department, 1010 Applegate St.

 The Corvallis Library Advisory Board meets at 7:30 p.m. at the library.

 The Corvallis Community Involvement and Diversity Advisory Board meets at 5 p.m. at the Madison Avenue room.

Dec. 10

 Ward 3 Corvallis Councilor Zach Baker will be the government comment corner guest from 10 a.m. to noon at the library.
More than 120 volunteers planted about 650 native riparian plants Saturday as the first step in a project aimed at regenerating a lost portion of Dunawi Creek.

The volunteers, which consisted of dozens of local volunteers as well as more than 60 Oregon State University students, are hoping the plants will help to restore native wildlife on the City of Corvallis agricultural field between Bald Hill and the Benton County Fairgrounds and eventually help reconnect two sections of Dunawi Creek that were separated more than 75 years ago.

Historically, there was a stream going through here, but just because no one paid attention, for decades and decades, people forgot about it, so they tilled it over, said organizer Dave Eckert of the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition. He added that aerial photos dating back to the 1930s show the creek's separation. There are a number of issues that were created when that was lost, he said.

According to Eckert, if the creek is reconnected, it will create a more sustainable ecosystem for aquatic and nonaquatic life in the area. The aquatic life needs the gravel from the creek's north end on Bald Hill, and native birds and other wildlife in the area need the native riparian plants along creeks and streams for habitat and food.

The rocks and gravel create that habitat for the aquatic life that the fish eat, he said. Until you have the whole stretch reconnected, you dont have that whole ecosystem.

Saturdays plantings are the first step in what is expected to be a years-long project to restore native plants on four acres of City of Corvallis agricultural land. Although city officials granted approval and support for the project, they provided no funding. Instead, organizers are relying on grassroots fundraising from the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, Friends of Parks and Recreation, Corvallis Oddfellows, and the Marys Peak Group of the Sierra Club.

Its very personal grassroots. These are donations and fundraising from individuals who are passionate about this, Eckert said. Its going to take money and time. Were not sure what weve bitten off, so were doing it carefully and one step at a time.

If Saturdays efforts end up being the last step, Eckert said the project will have been worthwhile.

Even if we did nothing else, this area needs this, he said. Ive never seen this many people come together for a project like this. There is a lot of passion for this, so I think well keep going.

Ralph Alig, a retired Forest Service Research & Development employee, said Saturdays turnout is a positive sign that the project will continue.

This is unexpected to see this many good people come out, he said. I think its a great example of community conservation, and thats what is needed is people joining together to help improve our environment.

Volunteer Tim Jensen said he and many of his neighbors use and enjoy walking the trails of Bald Hill, and that he and others wanted to get involved to help pay it forward.

Were here on a nearly daily basis and we see the wildlife and we love it. This is our backyard, Jensen said. If you benefit from this landscape, then you should work to protect it.
The Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry said on December 2nd that the two sides also considered the opening of embassies in Quito and Hanoi.



The two countries consented to promote trade and investment through an agreement signed between the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) and the Institute for the Promotion of Exports and Investments of Ecuador, as well as with the participation of the private sector of both countries.

Illustrative image (Source: Crossed Flag Pins)



At the same time, they will step up bilateral technical cooperation in such areas as energy and technology parks in Yachay city in northern Ecuador.



During the meeting, Vietnam appreciated Ecuador's proposal to engage in the cooperation partner mechanism of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as Ecuadors holding the chair of the group of developing and emerging nations (G77) from January 2017, the ministry said.



It added that Vietnams military-run telecom group Viettel has shown its interest in the telecommunication sector in Ecuador.



Vietnam and Ecuador established diplomatic ties in 1979. Vietnam is currently one of Ecuadors most important trade partners.



The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry delegation to the event was led by Deputy Minister Dang Dinh Quy. Earlier, the delegation paid an official visit to Paraguay and held the second political consultation with the country.



After Ecuador, the Deputy Minister is scheduled to visit Argentina./.
An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.


Visitors at Vietnam's kiosk (Photo: VNA)

The event has 38 foreign representative agencies, five international organizations and two international schools in Bratislava.

Vietnams kiosk was prominently decorated with the national flag, photos to promote Ha Long Bay, which is recognized as World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and photos of other outstanding tourism destinations.

Products displayed and sold include handicrafts such as Bat Trang ceramics, rattan and Van Phuc silk products.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Affairs Miroslav Lajcak visited Vietnams kiosk and thanked the Vietnamese Embassy for active participation in the charitable activity.

The money earned from the sales as well as support from FPT-Slovakia, the Vietnamese Embassy has contributed to the charity fund of the organizers.

According to the organizers, the charitable fair 2015 collected EUR75,000 to help schools for orphans, disabled children across Slovakia.

It is expected that the proceeds from the fair this year may be larger than that of last year due to donation from the businesses and participation of many representing agencies.

Apart from charitable purposes, participation of the fair is also a way to promote the image of Vietnam, including tourism, cuisine and traditional trade villages./.
kacylee at 4-12-2016 08:28 PM (5 years ago) (f)



According to a statement released by the U.S. State Department, the sham embassy operated in Accra in a run-down, pink, two-storey building with a corrugated iron roof and flew a U.S. flag outside. Inside the office is a portrait of President Barack Obama.

According to a statement released by the U.S. State Department, the sham embassy operated in Accra in a run-down, pink, two-storey building with a corrugated iron roof and flew a U.S. flag outside. Inside the office is a portrait of President Barack Obama.







It was operated by a cartel that issued illegally obtained but legitimate visas.

It was not operated by the United States government, but by figures from both Ghanaian and Turkish organised crime rings and a Ghanaian attorney practicing immigration and criminal law, the State Department said in its statement

Turkish citizens, who spoke English and Dutch, posed as consular officers and staffed the operation. The syndicate issued fraudulently obtained but legitimate U.S. visas and false identification documents, including birth certificates at a cost of $6,000 each.



During the raid at the sham embassy, several persons were arrested while items seized include authentic and counterfeit Indian, South African and Schengen Zone visas as well as 150 passports from 10 different countries along with a laptop and smart phones. It was operated by a cartel that issued illegally obtained but legitimate visas.It was not operated by the United States government, but by figures from both Ghanaian and Turkish organised crime rings and a Ghanaian attorney practicing immigration and criminal law, the State Department said in its statementTurkish citizens, who spoke English and Dutch, posed as consular officers and staffed the operation. The syndicate issued fraudulently obtained but legitimate U.S. visas and false identification documents, including birth certificates at a cost of $6,000 each.During the raid at the sham embassy, several persons were arrested while items seized include authentic and counterfeit Indian, South African and Schengen Zone visas as well as 150 passports from 10 different countries along with a laptop and smart phones.

Post Reply I have been reporting for several years now and I am very interested in visual news reportage with strong inclusion of photos and video multimedia. Posted: at 4-12-2016 08:28 PM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero
Nokia D1C

Nokia D1C is the first smartphone that is believed to be launched by the company along with HMD Global in 2017. As per the rumors, this will be the best smartphone that will be launched by the manufacturer in the next year. Going by the speculations, the Nokia D1C will be fueled by Android Nougat OS and will arrive in a budget as well as a mid-range variant. The alleged specs include a 5-inch/5.5-inch FHD display, Snapdragon 430 processor, 2GB/3GB RAM, and 16GB storage capacity that can be expanded.

Nokia C9

The Nokia C9 that emerged in rumors a few days back is likely to feature a metal frame body. The device is alleged to be equipped with a 64-bit quad-core Snapdragon 820 processor, 21MP main snapper at its back and an 8MP front-facing selfie shooter. The other specifications of the device, as per the rumors, are 4GB RAM, three storage options - 32GB/64GB/128GB and a removable battery.

Source

Nokia E1

Ever since the Nokia Android smartphones were rumored, Nokia E1 has been hitting the web. The device is believed to be a budget smartphone. Specwise, the rumors suggest that the Nokia E1 might feature a 2.3GHz Intel Atom processor, a 5.-inch IPS display with FHD 1080p resolution and 2GB RAM. The other specs of the alleged Nokia E1 are 32GB of storage capacity, 20MP rear snapper, 5MP front-facer and a 2,700 mAh battery.

Also Read: Android-Powered Nokia Smartphones to Debut in H1 2017

Nokia Swan

Nokia Swan is one of the smartphones that is believed to be launched in 2017. The concept of this smartphone hit the web in the past and it is believed to feature a 2K 5.3-inch display with a screen-to-body ratio of 89%. The hardware specs of Nokia Swan include Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB internal storage capacity, The gossip about this upcoming phone is that it will arrive with Dual boot feature that will let it run Android and Windows OS both. Also, Nokia is rumored to include a 42MP rear snapper with dual-LED flash.

Source

Nokia P1

The Nokia P1 is rumored to feature a 5.3-inch FHD screen and employ a Snapdragon 820 processor teamed up with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of default memory capacity. It is identical to the Sharp Aquos P1 and it is claimed to feature a 22.6MP main snapper at its back. The other features of the alleged Nokia P! Include IP58 certification for water and dust resistance and a 3,000mAh battery.
Will South Korea-Japan Intelligence Deal Change Status Quo?

By Steve Miller December 03, 2016

An intelligence-sharing deal between South Korea and Japan allows the two countries to bypass the United States as they work together to combat the growing threat of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

The deal was signed last week and went into effect immediately.

Rodger Baker, vice president of strategic analysis at Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence provider in Austin, Texas, said the deal gave the two countries "a capability to share in real time information that normally would have had to pass through the United States and only been partially parsed off to each of them."

Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington public policy think tank, went a step further, calling the pact a "game changer."

"Having the capability to share intelligence as quickly as possible, hopefully with the speed of an internet connection and a computer, would truly be a game changer in getting rid of Washington [to] not be the middleman anymore."

Different abilities

Baker said the two countries bring different abilities to the table: South Korea may be better at human intelligence collection, and Japan may be better at satellite imagery.

Kazianis also pointed to the timeliness of the agreement, reached in late November, as the U.N. Security Council passed additional sanctions against North Korea related to its trade practices.

"Look to see in the next, probably, few months," Kazianis said, "the North Koreans  pushing up tensions to try to get the sanctions lifted or eased or whatever they can do to get that minimized." In the next couple of months, he said, "tough times in the Korean Peninsula could become very dangerous."

In Seoul, Yonsei University's Choi Jong-kyun questioned the need for such an agreement, telling VOA, "Do we have not enough deterrence and information sharing with the U.S. vis-a-vis North Korea?  Are we in really grave danger?"

In 2012, South Korea and Japan were headed toward signing a similar intelligence-sharing pact, but relations soured and they scuttled the deal. Even today, Choi said, some may try to undo what South Korean President Park Geun-hye was able to achieve.

Why the objection?

But why is there so much resistance to directly sharing intelligence with Japan?

Stratfor's Baker identified three areas of resistance in South Korea.

"One, the South Korean government has done a very poor job of explaining strategic interest to their own population," he said. "They've done very little to really help people understand the physical security component ... particularly as the governments have tried to not look like they're connected to the old government, the old dictatorial or autocratic regimes in South Korea."

Baker identified the second area as being related to the 1910-45 period of control Japan exerted over the Korean Peninsula and the way the Japanese government tried to "erase Korean culture." That effort resulted in "a long history in South Korea of animosity toward Japan."

Finally, he said, a third aspect ties the past to the present with South Korea's Park. "Park's father, Park Chung-hee, was by many considered a collaborationist with the Japanese  and so they see what Park is doing with Japan as something that, in many ways, is against fundamental Korean interests and goes back a very long time in history."

Chinese opposition

Kazianis at the Center for the National Interest said the implications of the deal can already be felt, and not necessarily only on the Korean Peninsula.

"Chinese military officials came out and were strongly against the deal, and the reason being is quite simple: They see the deal is being created as a sort of new U.S.-Japan-Korea alliance that is really aimed towards Beijing and not aimed at towards North Korea  and I think that's a mistake on Beijing's part," he said.

Kazianis said that the United States, Japan and South Korea are worried about the strength and capabilities of North Korea's military, but that the Chinese perspective is different.

"They see THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] and much more advanced missile defense systems going into South Korea [and] Japan considering that system  and then plop this deal on top of it ... it really creates a lot of worries in Beijing," he said.

While Kazianis said he thought there might be a small negative impact of the South Korean-Japanese intelligence sharing deal, he said he also thought Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington "can work with Beijing and explain why they need this deal and why it makes common sense."

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Trump's Priorities Could Shift US Africa Policy, Analysts Say

By Mariama Diallo December 02, 2016

People across Africa reacted with mixed feelings last month to news of businessman Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential elections.

Fatima Sadiqi, a professor of linguistics and gender studies at the Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Morocco, recalled that "populist parties didn't hide their joy and democratic parties didn't hide their shock;" but "beyond their immediate reactions, there is a general sense of two things: surprise and apprehension."

Analysts inside and outside Washington are weighing what U.S. relations with Africa will be like under the new leader, who has promised to shift U.S. foreign policy priorities and reshape America's alliances after he takes office in January.

"The gut instinct for most Africans  and I accept I am generalizing here  is that President-elect Trump is not only oblivious and ignorant about African issues, but by the virtual complete absence of any mention of Africa during the campaign, it is going to be very low on his list of presidential priorities," said Terence McNamee, Brenthurst Foundation deputy director in South Africa.

McNamee said there hadn't been a lot of debate about what a Trump presidency would mean for Africa. He noted that "until the new president's team is finalized  that is, who the secretary of state will be, who's the head of USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development], trade representative and so forth  basically, Africa doesn't have a lot to go on except the president-elect's campaign rhetoric."

Terrorist propaganda

Some of the rhetoric, such as "his attack on Muslims, was reacted to very negatively here," Sadiqi said, and "generally it's thought to play into the propaganda of the terrorist groups on the continent."

The growing trend of extremist groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Qaida's AQIM in Mali and al-Shabab in eastern Africa present all kinds of challenges to African governments.

Sadiqi said that for many, the future of the African economy, which she said was slowing down in some places, is also a big source of concern.

"If Trump's campaign ideas are put into practice, the situation will worsen. ... Especially, we hear a lot about the president-elect refraining from trade deals and foreign aid."

In general, McNamee characterized U.S.-Africa relations as only "OK," saying he thought they were superficial.

For example, "the initiatives of the Obama administration like Power Africa and YALI [Young African Leaders Initiative], while not unimportant, they are not hugely noteworthy in historical terms," he said.

He wondered whether "the U.S. business community has really caught on to the business opportunities on the continent or are they going to fall behind the Chinese, who overtook the U.S. in terms of volume of trade back in 2009 and never looked back."

Robin Renee Sanders, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and a big supporter of President Barack Obama's Power Africa program, said she hoped such an initiative wouldn't be abandoned.

"There have been an additional 3,000 megawatts of power added to the grid as a result of Power Africa," she told VOA. "You have the 'Electrify Africa' legislation; you have a number of off-grid projects that are supported by USAID and the African Development Foundation."

YALI progress

Ngozi Bell, an advocate with the U.S. Small Business Administration, echoed those sentiments on the current administration's YALI program.

"In business, there are a few things you should care about," Bell said. "One is the ecosystem. Once you've built an ecosystem, you start an economic movement that takes on a life of its own." YALI has built that, she said, by pulling in investors, practitioners, business development and continuing education.

"The second thing is that you have brought in very hungry and excited young people. ... They formed relationships and networks, so they have the responsibility themselves to take it to the next level," Bell said.

While it's easy to think about doing away with some of Obama's signature policies, American University professor Kwaku Nuamah said it's easier said than done.

"Trump is going to have to keep a lot of these policies," he said. "It's hard to cut policies once they've already been funded and there's a constituency for it."

In addition, Nuamah and others said security, health and climate change should be part of the president-elect's African agenda.

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Inherent Resolve Strikes Target ISIL in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Dec. 3, 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 two strikes in Syria:

-- Near Shadaddi, a strike destroyed a communications tower.

-- Near Ayn Isa, a strike destroyed an artillery system.

Strikes in Iraq

Attack and fighter aircraft and rocket artillery conducted two strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Mosul, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed an ISIL-held building, damaged eight supply routes, and suppressed a tactical unit.

-- Near Rawah, a strike destroyed a vehicle bomb factory.

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 a strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, the region, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

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U.S. House of Representatives passes 611 bln USD defense bill

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 14:52, December 03, 2016

The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill that allowed 611 billion U.S. dollars' defense budget for 2017.

The bill, which gave an extra 9 billion dollars than the original request by President Barack Obama, was passed in a 375-34 vote.

The extra money would cover a 2.1 percent pay raise for troops, 0.5 percent higher than requested, 16,000 and 3,000 more personnel for the army and the marine corps, respectively.

The upper chamber of Congress is expected to vote on the paper next week and send it to Obama for ratification, a White House spokesman said. The president will decide whether he approves the revision after studying the fine print.

Despite the extra money, House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry thought the budget was not enough.

"My great hope is that the new incoming administration will submit to Congress a supplemental request that can really get about the job of rebuilding the military, which is so essential," he said.

Within the budget, Base Budget, which finances running costs of the U.S. military, is 543.4 billion dollars, while 59.5 billion dollars are marked Overseas Contingency Operations Budget, also known as the war budget.

The overall budget showed a slight hike from the 607 billion dollars budget provided for 2016.

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Yemeni snipers kill 4 Saudi troopers in retaliatory attacks

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 6:28PM

Yemeni army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, have shot dead four Saudi troops in the kingdom's southwestern border regions of Jizan and Asir amid Riyadh's aerial attacks against its beleaguered southern neighbor.

Yemeni forces shot and killed three Saudi troops in the al-Dhabra military base of Jizan region, located 969 kilometers south of the capital, Riyadh, on Saturday evening, Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported.

Separately, Yemeni soldiers and Popular Committees fighters launched an attack against a base in the al-Rabu'ah town of Asir region, killing a Saudi trooper there.

Earlier, Yemeni forces and their allies fired a barrage of artillery rounds at al-Mostahdeth camp in Jizan, but no immediate reports of possible casualties and damage were available.

Also on Saturday, Yemeni forces fired several missiles at Jizan's al-Kars military outpost, but no casualties were reported.

Yemeni army soldiers also pounded a gathering of Saudi-sponsored Yemeni militiamen loyal to resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the Nihm district of Yemen's western-central province of Sana'a.

Similarly, casualties were caused when Yemeni soldiers and Popular Committees fighters launched a number of Katyusha rockets at Sehna Jin Camp in the central Yemeni province of Ma'rib.

The developments came on the same day that Saudi jets launched three aerial attacks against Majz district in Yemen's mountainous northwestern province of Sa'ada. There were no immediate reports of casualties and the extent of damage.

Munabbih district in the same Yemeni province was also hit, though no reports of casualties were available.

Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a deadly campaign against Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to bring back the former Yemeni government to power and undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The impoverished Arab country is grappling with the scarcity of food supplies and outbreak of diseases amid Saudi Arabia's atrocious airstrikes.

The UN International Children's Fund (UNICEF) says 7.4 million Yemeni children are in dire need of medical help, and 370,000 run the risk of severe acute malnutrition.

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Saudi warplanes claim seven civilian lives in Yemeni capital

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 11:12AM

Saudi Arabia continues to launch airstrikes against its impoverished neighbor, Yemen, killing at least seven civilians in the latest such attacks in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a.

Yemeni media reported on Saturday that Saudi warplanes had bombed the district of Bani al-Harith in Sana'a, leaving seven civilians dead and several others wounded. The airstrikes also destroyed several residential buildings in the district.

Saudi fighter jets also launched more than a dozen airstrikes against the district of Sahar in the Yemeni province of Sa'ada.

On Friday, several Saudi air raids were also reported in the provinces of Hudaydah and Hajjah.

Yemen's al-Masirah television reported that the Saudi warplanes launched 12 air raids against the Harad district of Hajjah on Friday, adding that cluster bombs were used in four of them.

Also on Friday, the Yemeni army and Popular Committees managed to thwart an attempt by Saudi-backed mercenaries to advance in the Matun district of Yemen's Jawf Province, killing and injuring an unspecified number of militants.

The Yemeni forces also managed to take control of the strategic mountain of Ham in the northeast of Matun.

In the province of Ta'izz, Houthi Ansarullah fighters also killed two other Saudi-backed mercenaries.

The Yemeni troops also continued to launch attacks against the Saudi positions in retaliation for the non-stop Saudi aggression.

Yemeni forces fired Katyusha rockets at the positions of Saudi mercenaries in the Khadara border crossing in Saudi Arabia's southwestern region of Najran on Friday.

Yemen's army snipers also killed a Saudi soldier on the Hamraa hill in Jizan, also in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi war on Yemen began in March 2015 in a bid to reinstate the former Yemeni administration. The war has left at least 11,400 civilians dead, according to a latest tally by a Yemeni monitoring group.



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US House passes $619bn military budget

Iran Press TV

Fri Dec 2, 2016 10:30PM

The US House of Representatives has easily passed President Barack Obama's requested military budget of $618.7 billion for the next fiscal year, allowing the Pentagon to increase payments as well as the number of active duty forces.

The lawmakers on Friday showed strong bipartisan support for the annual defense policy bill, voting 375-34 to authorize it.

The massive bill put the Pentagon's base budget at $559.2 billion, while allowing it to take another $59.5 billion from a war fund named the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account.

The bill also instructed the government to spend $8.3 billion, $3.2 billion more than what Obama had requested, to raise pay and increase troops among other purposes.

He had proposed a 1.6-percent raise for the troops, but the House pushed it up to 2.1 percent.

The lawmakers also voted to increase the end strength across various services. According to the bill, the Army should keep its troops above 476,000 in 2017. The figure was set at 321,000 troops for the Air Force and 185,000 for the Marines Corps.

In May, the House of Representatives passed the bill for 2016 in a 277-147 vote.

Back then, the Democrats fiercely opposed the idea of using the OCO for military spending, arguing that it would weaken the US military in conflict zones abroad.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter went as far as describing the strategy as a "road to nowhere," while the White House threatened to veto it.

On Friday, however, many of the Democrats were in favor of the bill, with Representative Adam Smith of Washington calling it an "excellent product."

"It prioritizes the men and women who serve in the military to try to make we provide for them, give them all the training they need and all the support they need so that when we ask them to something they are trained and ready to do it," said Smith, a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Before reaching Obama's desk, the bill needs to be approved by the Senate, which will vote on it next week.

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Is A New 'Brexit' Bubbling In Italy?

Charles Recknagel December 03, 2016

Italians are voting in a referendum on December 4 that could gauge anti-EU sentiment in the country. The vote, which follows Britain's Brexit referendum in June and Donald Trump's election in the United States, again sees rising populist forces challenging an established order in a contest too close to call in advance.

In the referendum, Italians will decide whether to approve a proposal by pro-EU Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to increase his powers so that he can push through economic reforms. Anti-EU parties are urging Italians to vote 'No' in hopes of driving Renzi from office and clearing the way for a harder push to get Italy out of the eurozone or remove it from the European Union altogether.

How likely is a Brexit Italian-style and what would be its consequences? Here are three things to consider.

What's at stake in the December 4 referendum?

The December 4 referendum is not directly about the EU. It is about increasing the prime minister's executive powers by limiting the size and strength of the Italian Senate -- where Renzi has faced resistance along regional lines to reforms he hopes will help strengthen Italy's sluggish economy.

But because Renzi has very publicly vowed to step down if voters do not approve his proposal, anti-EU forces have seized upon the referendum as a chance to unseat him. A Renzi resignation would require a new government to be formed, something that could offer anti-EU parties the chance to enter a caretaker government or compete with renewed strength in early elections.

"We should take what Renzi said seriously; if he loses the referendum he will certainly at this point have to resign," said Giovanni Orsina, a professor of political history at Luiss University in Rome. "If the 'No' camp prevails, the greatest victory will belong to the anti-EU populist camp."

But even if Italy's two populist anti-EU parties -- the Five Star Movement and Lega Nord (Northern League) -- stand to gain strength from a possible 'No' vote, just how much so is hard to know.

"All the anti-EU forces are in the 'No' camp but in the 'No' camp there are also pro-EU forces that are against Renzi," said Orsina. "So, the picture is more complicated than an outright confrontation between pro-European and anti-European forces."

The last opinion polls conducted ahead of a mandatory moratorium three weeks before the referendum date showed the 'No' camp leading by an average of 4 to 5 percentage points  too close to predict the outcome of the referendum with certainty.

How strong is anti-EU and anti-euro sentiment in Italy?

Observers say the populist parties are tapping into genuine unhappiness among Italians.

"The chances of Italy deliberately choosing to leave the EU are quite low, but the chances that Italy will leave the eurozone and bring about the collapse of the single currency are moderate to good and probably getting stronger at the moment," said Steve Davies, an economist at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a free-market think tank in London.

He said that since Italy joined the eurozone, the Italian economy "has not grown by more than 1 percent in any one year," creating huge public frustration both with Brussels and perceived inefficiencies in the Italian economy.

Much of the anger has focused on the euro because belonging to the single currency prevents Italy from stimulating its export economy by devaluing its money, something it frequently did when it had its own lira.

Still, many Italians are leery of quitting the EU, even as Britain has now set the precedent of a member state deciding to do just that.

"In the case of Italy, getting out of the European Union does not just mean getting out of the European Union, it means getting out of the eurozone," said Orsina. "Changing the currency, getting back to the lira and facing all the consequences of that kind of action is a gigantic leap in the dark."

Italy's anti-EU movement itself is divided over what it wants. The Five Star Movement, with around 30 percent of popular support, courts both right- and left-leaning Italians as it calls for holding a referendum on the euro but not on leaving the EU. The far-right Lega Nord, with around 12 percent support, is fiercely nationalist, anti-immigrant, and pledges to take Italy out of the EU. The two parties have shown no indication so far of working together.

What would be the impact of Italy leaving the EU?

Italy is the EU's third-largest economy after Germany and France, so many economists say that an Italian exit from either the euro or the EU would be a deathblow to the union.

"If it becomes likely that Italy may leave the euro, then what will happen immediately is that investors will become spooked and there will be a sharp rise in the yield on Italian debt of all kinds and most notably on government debt, which is a large amount, but also private debt," says economist Davies.

He says that, in turn, would cause not only a crisis in Italy's already fragile banking system, which holds much of the country's debt, but also have a knock-on effect on partner banks across Europe. The resulting weakening of investor interest in the euro would likely lead to an unravelling of the EU in its current form.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/is-a-new-brexit -brewing-in-italy/28154120.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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US Commander Worries About Aid Taliban Receives From Pakistan, Russia, Iran

By Ayaz Gul December 03, 2016

The "malign influence" of Pakistan, Russia and Iran with the Taliban-led insurgency, and concerns about future political stability of the Afghan government threaten international efforts aimed at stabilizing the war-raved country, warns a top U.S. commander.

"We're concerned about the external enablement of the insurgent or terrorist groups inside Afghanistan; in particular where they enjoy sanctuary or support from outside governments," said General John Nicholson, leader of NATO's Resolute Support Afghan mission.

He told reporters at the Pentagon Friday, the Haqqani Network of terrorists, which is fighting alongside the Taliban, still poses the greatest threat to Americans, coalition and Afghan partners from its sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan.

"And the Haqqanis hold five American citizens hostage right now," Nicholson said. "I think this is worth remembering as we think about the Haqqani Network. And they remain a principal concern of ours, and they do enjoy sanctuary inside Pakistan."

Pakistani officials, however, insist their security forces have uprooted any infrastructure Taliban insurgents and their allies were using for cross-border attacks, and extensive efforts are being undertaken to secure the porous Afghan border.

Russia, Iran

Nicholson raised concern about Taliban insurgents' links to Russia and Iran, saying they are not advancing the cause of stability in the region.

Moscow is allegedly helping and arming the Taliban in a bid to contain the influence of Islamic State affiliates in Afghanistan and prevent it from threatening neighboring central Asian states.

Speaking at a U.N. General Assembly session late last month in New York, Russian envoy Vladimir Safronkov even called for easing U.N. sanctions on the Taliban for promoting peace talks between warring sides.

"So, Russia has overtly lent legitimacy to the Taliban," Nicholson said.

But he dismissed assertions about the Taliban's successes against rival IS fighters. Instead, he said, Afghan forces and the U.S. counterterrorism effort are the ones taking on and "achieving the greatest effect" against loyalists of the Middle Eastern terrorist group in Afghanistan.

"So, this public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact, but it is used as a way to essentially undermine the Afghan government and the NATO effort and bolster the belligerents," Nicholson added.

Iran and Taliban

The general suggested Shi'ite Iran maintains contacts and influence with the Taliban for similar reasons. He said Afghan officials have engaged both Iranian and Russian governments over the issue.

"We're hopeful  speaking now as commander Resolute Support  that these outside actors will act in a positive way, so we can work together to help bolster the capability and legitimacy of the Afghan government, not the belligerents," Nicholson said.

He also called for Afghan leaders to make sure their internal political rivalries do not undermine security efforts in the country.

A lack of electoral reforms, internal rivalries plaguing President Ashraf Ghani's national unity government, growing political opposition and the recent unseating of several Afghan ministers by an increasingly assertive parliament all have fueled political uncertainty and confrontation.

"And one possible risk of Afghan political instability is a fracture, but we have not seen this happen within the security forces," Nicholson said. He praised Afghan security forces for prevailing against the resurgent Taliban in the outgoing year and appeared upbeat about their future successes.

"You know, my message to our Afghan partners and members of the political opposition is that we respect your political process, but please don't allow that process to undermine security gains, which have been made this year at such great cost."

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Somalia Security Forces and IS Fighters Directly Clash for First Time

By Harun Maruf December 03, 2016

Somali regional forces in Puntland have clashed with pro-Islamic State militants in the country's northeast in the first-ever military confrontation between security forces and pro-Islamic State fighters.

Local sources told VOA that today's fighting occurred near Bashashin village, just 50km west of Qandala after the regional troops were halted by landmines.

Governor of Puntland's Bari region Yusuf Mohamed Dhedo who is leading the offensive against Qandala confirmed the fighting to VOA Somali in an exclusive interview via satellite phone.

Dhedo said that his forces were attacked by IS fighters while they were dismantling the landmines.

"They planted a landmine in a narrow road where vehicles do not have a space to move off the road," he said.

"We tried to remove the mines then we received gunfire, we responded killing seven militants, three of our soldiers were wounded in the firefight."

Dhedo said his troops have custody of militants' bodies, saying, "They are all Somalis." He said they have not seen any foreigners so far.

Villagers reported sporadic gunfire ongoing between the troops near Bashashin and Karin villages.

Dhedo said he is "certain" that the security forces offensive will succeed and he will be in Qandala within the next 24 hours.

Pro-IS militants captured Qandala, 80kms east of Bosaso port town, without a fight on October 26 and hoisted their flag atop the historic headquarters of the district commissioner built by Italian colonists. All residents of the town have fled according to officials.

"Our plan is to liberate the town and to help the people of the town return to their homes," he said.

Asked about the size and strength of the pro-IS militants, Dhedo replied, "We don't have numbers but they have heavy weapons including [Russian-made] PKM machine guns, bazookas and small arms such as AK-47."

He said his troops will pursue the militants to their training camps and hideouts in the mountains near Qandala.

He dismissed criticisms that his administration may have taken the threat from the group lightly as they recruited and trained in the mountainous area in Bari region without interference from the authorities.

"That is not true, these are guerrilla men they live in the mountains, we wanted them to gather their force in one identifiable spot. We have that today," he said.

"We want to weaken their power, it will be meaningless if we liberate Qandala and then leave, and we have strategic military objectives."

Pro-IS militants split from Al-Shabab in October last year. Al-Shabab eliminated IS sympathizers in the southern regions of the country but has so far failed to suppress the faction that is active in Puntland.

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With Friendly Phone Call, Trump Wades Into Fraught South Asia Politics

By Masood Farivar December 03, 2016

On the campaign trail this year, Donald Trump had harsh words for Pakistan.

"These are not friends of ours," Trump the candidate said at one point, referring to Pakistan and China. "And we're going to probably have to deal with them a lot differently than we thought."

President-elect Trump expressed a much different view this week.

During a congratulatory phone conversation, Trump called Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif "a terrific guy" with a "very good reputation" who is "doing amazing work."

This is a nuclear-armed U.S. ally that has repeatedly thwarted U.S. aims in the region despite taking in billions of dollars in American aid over the past two decades. Though it has taken on militant groups on its soil, Pakistan has resisted calls to halt its support of insurgent groups fighting the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan. Relations have soured under President Obama as Washington has deepened its engagement with Pakistan's arch rival, India.

"For Washington, there is a sense of frustration that after it's provided so much aid and arms to the Pakistani military, the country continues to provide sanctuary to terrorists that target the United States," said Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center in Washington.

Trump is known for not sticking to a script when he speaks. His impromptu remarks were a signature part of his successful presidential campaign and in line with his pledge to build new relationships with world leaders. But when it comes to foreign policy, analysts say consequences from a gaffe or misinterpretation  by allies and adversaries alike -- can be severe. In a region marked by age-old rivalries, a statement by the American president can be misconstrued as a shift in the country's strategic alignments.

"It could lead them to draw conclusions which I think would be unwarranted And then follows the let down," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department analyst for Afghanistan and Pakistan now with the Middle East Institute in Washington.

With Pakistan long wary of the increasingly warm U.S. relations with India, Trump's flattering remarks came as a surprise that Islamabad apparently couldn't resist publicly reporting.

So effusive was Trump in his praise of Sharif that "understandably Pakistan recognized here that it had a gold piece handed to it from the president," Weinbaum said.

According to a 200-word summary of the Wednesday phone call between Trump and Sharif released by the Pakistani prime minister's office, the president-elect called Pakistan "amazing with tremendous opportunities."

"Pakistanis are one of the most intelligent people," Trump reportedly told Sharif.

And when Sharif invited Trump to visit Pakistan, Trump reportedly responded that "he would love to come to a fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people."

The release of a near-verbatim read-out of the call, which appeared to relay direct quotes from the conversation, drew sharp criticism for its apparent breach of a long-standing diplomatic practice to announce such calls in intentionally bland language.

The Pakistani prime minister's office hasn't responded to the criticism. Trump's transition team released a statement about the phone call but did not confirm or deny the Pakistani version.

Rethinking Leader Phone Calls?

Since the U.S. presidential election, Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence, have received more than 50 congratulatory calls from world leaders, including Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Sharif was not the only foreign leader to report words of praise from the incoming American president. Trump reportedly told Kazakhstan's authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, that under his leadership Kazakhstan "had achieved fantastic success that can be called a 'miracle'" and expressed a desire to visit the country, according to a statement on the Kazak leader's website.

The fallout from Trump's off the cuff remarks to world leaders may lead his advisors to bring a greater measure of discipline to his international contacts, Weinbaum said.

"I think there will be immediately a rethinking of how he's handling these kinds of conversations," he said.

A Trump transition team spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment

Reactions in Washington and in the region to Trump's unscripted conversation with the Pakistani prime minister ranged from bemusement to skepticism to incredulity.

James Cunningham, a retired American diplomat who served as Ambassador to Afghanistan and Israel, said he was surprised by the Pakistani decision to release details of the phone call.

"Usually, it's, if they say anything, a confirmation that they spoke," Cunningham said.

Others were left agape.

"When I first heard about it, I thought it was a joke," said Kugelman, who writes regularly about Pakistan. "I couldn't believe this conversation happened."

But on closer examination, he said he could not help but detect Trump's voice in the transcript and conclude that the statement was authentic.

"Cleary, it happened," Kugelman said. "The conversation was positive. Perhaps the Pakistani decided to go one extra step in this case and make things a little less typical by trying to be more detailed in capturing this idea of a deep camaraderie between Trump and Sharif."

Trump's business interests in India have played into Pakistani fears that Trump will carry on the Obama Administration's tilt towards India, experts said. Just days after the election, Trump met with three Indian business partners building a Trump Tower outside Mumbai, stoking criticism about the potential conflicts of interest arising from his global business operations.

Trump reported income of between $1 million and $5 million from each of his two Indian licensing deals, according to his latest financial disclosure form.

Others voiced skepticism about the statement's veracity but many took the words at face value.

In both India and Afghanistan, "for those that accepted it, there would be a lot of concern," Kugelman said.

Of particular concern to many in India was Trump's offer to Sharif to "play any role that you want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems"  which some read as an apparent allusion to the decades-old feud between Pakistan and India.

The two neighhors have gone to war three times over the past 70 years over the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistan has long called for international mediation but India sees the dispute as a closed case.

"An open ended offer like that from the U.S. president to the prime minister of Pakistan would be seen as an alarm in India where there is all kinds of concern already that the U.S. relationship with Pakistan is too strong," Kugelman said.

In Afghanistan, too, "anything that suggests that the U.S. sees things Pakistan's way is viewed as a strong negative," Weinbaum said.

But Cunningham played down the phone call's policy implications.

"These initial contacts are just that: initial contacts," Cunningham said. "I don't think there is any particular shift or sign or indication in that first contact about what later discussions will be like."

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Kerry Congratulates Barrow, Gambia on Successful Election

By VOA News December 03, 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday congratulated Gambia and its new president-elect, Adama Barrow, on the country's first democratic presidential election, calling it "a new era in The Gambia."

Barrow handily defeated Gambia's president of more than 22 years, Yahya Jammeh, in the election Thursday, and Jammeh vowed to relinquish his position peacefully, calling the election results "a clear victory" for Barrow.

Kerry commended Jammeh for his willingness to respect the results and said he was grateful to the electoral commission for its transparent handling of the election.

"We call for unity and calm during this transition period, and urge the Gambian government to respect the rights of citizens to freely assemble and express their views on the election results," Kerry said in a statement.

Kerry said he looked forward to working with the new president to "promote democracy and governance" in Gambia, which has had long-standing ties with the U.S.

Gambia's electoral commission announced Friday that Barrow had won 263,000 votes, or 45 percent of the total, while Jammeh took 212,000 votes, about 36 percent. A third candidate, Mama Kandeh, won 17 percent.

Barrow, 51, represented a coalition of seven opposition parties that challenged Jammeh in Thursday's election.

Jammeh, also 51, has ruled the tiny West African nation since taking power in a military coup in 1994. He won four subsequent elections that critics said were neither free nor fair and supported a 2002 constitutional amendment that removed presidential term limits. He once said he could rule Gambia for "a billion years."

Rights groups have often accused Jammeh of having political opponents and journalists arrested or killed.

Amnesty International said in a statement Friday that the new administration would have an obligation to "transform the human rights situation in Gambia, freeing political prisoners, removing repressive laws and entrenching newly found freedoms."

Gambia is a former British colony that occupies a narrow sliver of land surrounded by French-speaking Senegal. About 880,000 Gambians were eligible to vote in Thursday's poll, which took place under a complete communications blackout, including social media platforms.

The president, who had predicted he would win, had said that no protests would be allowed after the election.

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Ghana Electoral Commission Assures Problem-free Second Round of Special Voting

By Francisca Kakra Forson December 03, 2016

Ghana's electoral commission on Sunday will hold a second special early voting period for citizens who encountered trouble Thursday when they tried to cast ballots in the first one.

The early voting period was scheduled to allow those who work on Election Day, December 7  security forces, electoral officers and journalists  to cast ballots. But many people from these groups could not vote because they could not find their names in the voter registry.

In Accra, journalist Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie had checked to ensure his name was in the registry at the designated constituency the day before. But when he showed up at the polls, he was asked to travel to the western region where he first registered.

"My registration is far away in the western region," he said. "So clearly the time constraints couldn't allow me to even travel that far to go and vote as a special voter. I do not know what to do, but I am hoping that the EC [electoral commission] may rectify the problem."

First problems

Authorities said this was the first time the special-voter exercise had faced such problems. The EC said the omission of names arose because of problems in how some electorates applied for special voting. In other cases, the commission said people went to the wrong voting constituencies to cast their ballots.

In a statement, the commission announced those who could not vote the first time could try again Sunday.

Constitutional lawyer Nana Asante Bediatuo warned that this could lead to multiple ballots from individuals during the second round of special voting and even during the main elections if the electoral commission did not improve the transparency of its voter registration system.

"The biometric verification devices have counters. How are those counters going to be useful in determining how many people have already voted [and how many are left to vote]? ... There has to be a clear path to determining which list is going to be used so that there is no confusion. I think there is a danger. I'm never in favor of two-day voting."

The electoral commission said it was putting in place measures to keep people from voting multiple times. It said it would provide to all political parties of a list of those eligible early voters who had already cast ballots.

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DRC Political Talks Break Down

By William Clowes December 03, 2016

Political talks mediated by the Catholic Church have suffered a major setback with the withdrawal of the president's supporters in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For more than a month, the National Episcopal Conference of Congo, the influential body with represents the Catholic Church, has been working to avoid a crisis in the DRC. The institution, known as CENCO, has been mediating between the presidential majority, President Joseph Kabila's political alliance, and the Rassemblement, a large coalition of opposition groups.

CENCO is hoping to facilitate an agreement between the parties that will reduce the chances of unrest on December 19, the last day of Kabila's second term and the date on which the Rassemblement says the president should leave office. On December 2, however, the presidential majority announced that CENCO's efforts have been "a failure," blaming "flagrant contradictions within" the Rassemblement. The two parties had not met face to face during CENCO's weeks of mediating.

Several hours earlier, Abbe Donatien Nshole, CENCO's deputy secretary general, had conceded that all was not well.

Nshole told reporters that disagreements remained over important questions, including the interpretation of the Congolese constitution.

Elections had not been organized in 2016, as they were supposed to be, and the presidential majority argues that the constitution allows Kabila to stay in office beyond the end of his second term until polls are held. In a separate agreement with a smaller opposition coalition signed in October, the next election has been provisionally scheduled for April 2018.

The Rassemblement claims the constitution is clear. It wants Kabila to step down on December 19 and a transitional government to lead the country to elections, which it says should take place in 2017.

Despite the differences, Nshole said CENCO believes a compromise is still possible and reaffirmed the church's willingness to help but warned that the DRC risks 'sinking into an uncontrollable situation' without an agreement.

VOA spoke with Augustin Kabuya, a spokesman for the Rassemblement, which remains supportive of CENCO.

He accuses the presidential majority of acting in bad faith and of seeing violence as the way to solve their problem. 'For the Rassemblement', Kabuya said, 'we are still counting on the mediation of CENCO because it is the only way of finding a way out of this crisis for the country'.

Hans Hoebeke, senior Congo analyst at the International Crisis Group, questions whether the presidential majority was ever interested in a compromise.

"CENCO did call both parties to sit around a table so it's clear the majority feels a little bit cornered. I don't think it was ever genuine in engaging in these talks," said Hoebeke. "They wanted to give the impression to the international community and to the region that they had exploited all avenues to enlarge the agreement they concluded in October. I don't think they were ever prepared to go to any concrete concessions."

If this marks the end of CENCO's intervention, which has the support of the international community, the risk of violence on December 19 will likely grow. A protest organized by the Rassemblement in Kinshasa on September 19 descended into violence and the United Nations says security forces killed more than 50 people.

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Duterte Boasts Trump's Backing of Philippines' War on Drugs

Sputnik News

09:50 03.12.2016

US President-elect Donald Trump has endorsed the anti-drug campaign in the Philippines, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  This came after Trump had a 10-minute phone call with the Filipino hardliner, the second since the Republican's election last month. Duterte called Trump a day after he won the presidential poll.

Duterte said late Friday the newly-elected US president praised the government of the Philippines for conducting the tough anti-drug campaign "the right way," according to the Philippine Star newspaper.

"He understood the way we are handling it and said that there's nothing wrong in protecting a country," Duterte said in his first comment on the phone conversation.

The Philippines has been accused by the United Nation of excessive brutality with which it has been conducting its campaign against drug traffickers, including of indiscriminate killings.

 Sputnik

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Obama Bars Chinese Company From Buying US Part of Aixtron Technology Firm

Sputnik News

01:24 03.12.2016(updated 02:58 03.12.2016)

Obama issued an executive order prohibiting a German subsidiary of China's Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund to buy US part of the technology firm Aixtron.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  President Barack Obama issued an executive order barring China's Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund from buying the US arm of German microchip manufacturer Aixtron, the Department of the Treasury announced in a release.

"The President issued an order prohibiting the acquisition of the US business of Aixtron SE (Aixtron) by Grand Chip Investment GmbH (Grand Chip) and certain of its direct and indirect shareholders," Friday's release stated.

The executive order requires Grand Chip Investment to abandon its acquisition offer within 30 days.

The Treasury Department explained that Obama issued the order under the Defense Production Act, a section of which authorizes a US president "to suspend or prohibit certain acquisitions of US businesses by foreign persons where he finds that there is credible evidence that the foreign interest exercising control might take action that threatens to impair national security," according to the release.

Grand Chip Investment is partly owned by China's government, along with individual investors from China, the Treasury Department said.

The decision followed an interagency review by the Treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which according to the statement found that the deal's national-security risk "relates, among other things, to the military applications of the overall technical body of knowledge and experience of HYPERLINK "" Aixtron, a producer and innovator of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and technology, and the contribution of HYPERLINK "" Aixtron's U.S. business to that body of knowledge and experience."

Friday's order was only the second time Obama has expressly banned a foreign acquisition. In 2012, he cited national security in blocking a privately owned Chinese company from building wind turbines near a US Navy site in the state of Oregon. HYPERLINK ""

HYPERLINK "" Aixtron's US subsidiary, HYPERLINK "" AixtronInc., employs about 100 people at a chip production facility in California's Silicon Valley.

 Sputnik

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Italy - Politics

A standard interpretation of political development in Italy since the early 1990s crisis saw the First Republic as built upon a tripolar party system while the "Second Republic" saw a shift towards a Republic built on a bipolar party system. By 2001, there was fairly wide agreement that the party system was fundamentally bipolar. Fragmentation remained the second defining feature of the party system and subsequent developments led to the 2008 election being fought on a multipolar basis.

Major political parties, beset by scandal and loss of voter confidence, underwent far-reaching changes in the 1990s. New political forces and new alignments of power emerged in March 1994 national elections. The election saw a major turnover in the new parliament, with 452 out of 630 deputies and 213 out of 315 senators elected for the first time. The 1994 elections also swept media magnate Silvio Berlusconi -- and his Freedom Pole coalition--into office as Prime Minister. Berlusconi, however, was forced to step down in January 1995 when one member of his coalition withdrew support. The Berlusconi government was succeeded by a technical government headed by Prime Minister Lamberto Dini, which fell in early 1996. New elections in 1996 brought a center-left coalition to government for the first time after World War II.

Berlusconi was often criticised for exercising indirect control of state television while also being the owner of a vast private media empire. However, argued Veltri, in Italy there have never been editori puri (pure proprietors), entrepreneurs whose exclusive business is that of publishing and who have no interests elsewhere. Media proprietors have always used their publishing activities as a means of exercising the political leverage required to enable them to advance other business interests. A more important issue concerns the way the media inform the Italian public: broadcasters in particular have always been subject to considerable political interference. RAI, the publicly-owned television network, had always been subject to lottizzazione (sharing out), each channel operating under the influence of one of the main parties. Guaranteeing plurality led to the abandonment of objective, balanced reporting.

The situation as of 2011 seemed to be one of multipolarity, perhaps even of a predominant party system, in which one relatively unified block of parties faced "the rest." The novelty in Italian politics is that the landscape is more fragmented, but for the most part, it's the same old faces. Although the faces are the same, the names used to describe their groupings are new, and almost all point to a common idea: Italy is in trouble and must somehow return to the essence of Italian-ness to save herself. Italy is a populist and 'leader-led' population. Italian politics had lost the capacity to produce ideas and produce visions. It had become a laboratory, perhaps unique in the world, of political communication, a laboratory of leadership, but it doesn't really produce political thoughts. Until recently, there had been frequent government turnovers (more than 60 and counting) since 1945. The dominance of the Christian Democratic (DC) party during much of the postwar period lent continuity and comparative stability to Italy's political situation.

Italian Prime Minister-designate Mario Monti, a former top EU commissioner, was asked 12 November 2011 by the country's president to form a new government. The move came a day after Berlusconi's resignation. Monti performed really badly. The center-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani took the most votes in the lower house in the elections of 24 February 2013 - about 125,000, or 29.55 percent - but that was just barely more than the 29.18 percent won by the party led by right-leaning Silvio Berlusconi. The movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo known as the Five-Star Movement took the third-largest share of votes in the lower house.

Voting in the election showed no clear winner, creating a hung parliament and diminishing prospects for a reform-minded government coalition. The vote was the latest example of populations in the eurozone lashing out at budget-balancing measures within their governments. On 25 April 2013 former Christian Democrats (i Popolari) Enrico Letta was designated as the new Prime Minister. He announced his decision 13 February 2014 after his center-left Democratic Party overwhelmingly backed a proposal by leader Matteo Renzi to withdraw support from Letta and form a new government.

After receiving the mandate from President Giorgio Napolitano on 17 February 2014, the 39-year-old Matteo Renzi moved to form a new government, to deliver on his promise to lead Italy "out of the quagmire." Paddy Agnew writing for the Irish Times observed in February 2016 that "The Renzi style of government, at times, seems based more on the photo-op, the clever soundbite, the apt tweet and the monologue news conference rather than a substantial analysis of complex government issues.... senior figures in Brussels as well as elsewhere have concluded that, whatever the shortcomings of Renzi, the alternative would be much more worrying."

Italy headed for its 64th government since the end of World War II, and soon thereafter the 66th. After a period of stability, Italy had returned to the political fragility that was its defining characteristic during the Cold War. Italy appeared to be trapped in a vicious circle in which people expect to be disappointed by their governments, and watch them play right into these expectations. This prompts one more government to collapse and a new one to be elected, and the cycle begins again.

Renzi became Italian premier in 2014 after he manoeuvered the governing Democratic Party to oust Enrico Letta. Renzi, though, lost a political gamble two years later when he staked his premiership on a constitutional referendum that failed, forcing him to resign. He later broke with his fellow Democrats and formed the Italia Viva party, which, while small, had enough support in the Senate to make his voice count in the government.





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Russian Central Bank Says Hackers Stole $31 Million; FSB Warns Of Plot

RFE/RL December 03, 2016

Russia's Central Bank said hackers stole more than $31 million from correspondent accounts, as Russia's main security agency warned of cyberattacks aimed at destabilizing the country's banking system.

The bank's announcement, December 2, was the latest example of growing number of cyber attacks that have targeted financial institutions worldwide.

Central Bank official Artyom Sychyov revealed the losses at a briefing in Moscow, saying that the hackers had attempted to steal about 5 billion rubles (US$78 million).

A bank report released earlier December 2 described hackers breaking into accounts there by faking a client's credentials, but provided few other details.

Also December 2, the Federal Security Service said it had uncovered the plot that aimed to destabilize the Russian banking system.

The service, known as the FSB, did not identify the culprits behind the alleged plot, but said the computer servers involved were located in the Netherlands and were registered to Ukrainian web-hosting company BlazingFast.

he statement said the attacks had been set to allegedly begin December 5 and would be accompanied by a stream of text messages and posts on social networks containing claims of an imminent collapse of Russia's major banks and the financial system's breakdown.

It said the attack would target several dozen Russian cities.

The director of Kyiv-based BlazingFast, Anton Onoprichuk, said no intelligence agency had been in touch with his company. He also said he was waiting for more information so the company could investigate.

It appeared likely the two announcementsby the Central Bank and the FSBwere coordinated, though that could not be independently confirmed.

The theft, and the alleged plot, come amid growing number of hacks and cyberattacks targeting institutions around the world, some committed by private individuals, others by government-sponsored cyber groups.

After the U.S. government publicly accused the Russian government of involvement in the hack of Democratic party officials, U.S. intelligence later promised countermeasures.

Vice President Joe Biden said in October "we're sending a message" to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"It will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact," he warned.

With reporting by Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-bank-hack-plot/28153692.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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Russian Central Bank Denies Losing $31Mln in Single Hacking Attack

Sputnik News

11:28 03.12.2016(updated 11:29 03.12.2016)

The Bank of Russia refuted media reports it had lost over $31 million in a hacking attack.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia's central bank denied media claims that it had lost 2 billion rubles (over $31 million) in a single hacking attack, saying the money was stolen from Russian commercial banks throughout this year.

"Information about the theft of 2 billion rubles by hackers from the Bank of Russia's correspondent accounts is not true. This is the estimate of losses that commercial banks and their clients lost over 2016, as estimated in the Financial Stability Review, released overnight," a press officer with the regulator told RIA Novosti.

The bank's security executive, Artyom Sychev, told journalists on Friday hackers had stolen billions worth of funds from accounts of banks kept by the Bank of Russia. He said this estimate was a year's total and a relatively small sum for the entire country.

 Sputnik

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US Cybersecurity Panel Presents Anti-Hacking Recommendations in Final Report

Sputnik News

04:27 03.12.2016

The US Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, tasked by President Barack Obama with developing ways to strengthen the nation's defense against hackers, issued its final report, with advice for the current and future administrations.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  "The Commission's recommendations affirm the course that this Administration has laid out, but make clear that there is much more to do," Obama said in a statement accompanying the report. "Deepening public-private cooperation will help us better protect critical infrastructure and respond to cyber incidents when they occur."

The commission was established in February by an executive order from the president. Its final report, released Thursday and made public Friday, laid out 16 recommendations for Obama's administration and that of President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office in January.

The report identified potential vulnerabilities in the global supply chain of manufacturers, critical infrastructure and the "internet of things," the growing array of connected consumer devices.

Moreover, the commission stressed that the US government depends on cyber tools just as much as private companies do. Its report explained that technological developments now outpace security and that cyber breaches could damage the economy, national security and civil liberties.

Obama has asked the commission to brief Trump at its earliest opportunity and encouraged his successor to use the report recommendations as a guide in governing.

The commission made a number of recommendations for the incoming administration, including the appointment of an "ambassador for cybersecurity" who would "lead US engagement with the international community" on relevant strategies, standards and practices.

Another recommendation is for US presidents to work with other countries to develop and promote global cybersecurity norms and behavior. The report suggested that the White House convene a summit of business, consumer and government leaders to plan and launch a national cybersecurity-awareness campaign.

To help consumers, the report said, an independent organization should develop the equivalent of a nutrition label for technology products and services, "ideally linked to a rating system of understandable, impartial, third-party assessment that consumers will intuitively trust and understand."

US officials have pushed for deeper cooperation between the government and private sector to combat cybersecurity threats and strengthen the industry.

Public-private efforts have been largely suspended since 2013 when former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked government documents highlighting collaboration between the nation's spy agencies and private companies.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has been a leading supporter of private-public partnerships and international cooperation on cybersecurity, establishing joint efforts with both tech companies and foreign militaries.

The commission also recommended that the departments of State and Homeland Security as well as other agencies assist foreign countries with their cybersecurity efforts and promote peacetime cybersecurity norms.

Cybersecurity has been a concern across all levels of government in the United States, affecting federal regulation of the airline industry, individual states' election systems, cities attempting to link public services, and beyond.

During the 2016 presidential election, state officials across the country cited worries about the vulnerability of voting systems, forcing the Department of Homeland Security to hire more than 120 cybersecurity professionals to deal with potential threats.

Outside of government, the US health care system is frequently targeted by hackers, who have been able to exploit vulnerabilities in old, insecure networks to steal patients' medical records.

US banks have also proven vulnerable in recent years. Hackers have not only captured reams of personal data from banks, they have stolen billions of dollars, mainly by draining depositor accounts with stolen login credentials.

Commission Chairman Tom Donilon, a former national security adviser to Obama, urged Trump to proceed swiftly to implement the recommendations with the support of legislators and the private sector.

Additionally, Obama urged Congress to fund the cybersecurity measures laid out in his February budget request, a $19 billion package representing a more than 35 percent increase in spending on information-technology security, protection of critical infrastructure, and investment in the cybersecurity workforce.

 Sputnik

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China deploys female peacekeepers in South Sudan

People's Daily Online

(CRI Online) 13:33, December 03, 2016

China will send an infantry battalion of 700 peacekeepers in South Sudan, including a 13-soldier female squad, the army unit dispatching them said Friday.

It is the third batch of Chinese peacekeepers sent to South Sudan. From Sunday, they will take United Nations charter flights to the mission area, replacing the second batch of Chinese peacekeepers.

The female infantry squad will carry out humanitarian relief and protect the rights of women and children, said Ding Hailong, battalion commander.

The battalion is comprised of officers and soldiers from the 54th Group Army, including foot soldiers, armored units, artillery forces, signal troops and special warfare troops and others.

A total of 138 have conducted peacekeeping missions before, and 166 peacekeepers have won merits of third-class and above.

The infantry battalion will be deployed in South Sudan's capital city of Juba, protecting civilians, UN staff and humanitarian relief programs, with patrols, escorts and other missions.

Ding Hailong said all peacekeepers have been trained for three months and passed all related tests so they are capable of carrying out peacekeeping missions.

Since April last year, China has deployed peacekeeping infantry battalions in South Sudan. In July this year, two Chinese peacekeeping soldiers were killed in fighting between South Sudan's rival army factions in Juba.

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China Lodges Protest With US Over Trump's Telephone Call With Taiwan President

Sputnik News

12:40 03.12.2016(updated 12:56 03.12.2016)

China urges the United States to honor the One China policy and the countries' joint communiques after US President-elect Donald Trump's phone conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

BEIJING (Sputnik)  China has lodged a protest with the United States following US President-elect Donald Trump's phone conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Saturday.

"We have noticed relevant reports and have already made a tough representation to the US side," the spokesman said in a statement published by the ministry.

According to the state news agency Xinhua, the protest urges the United States to honor the One China policy and the countries' joint communiques.

Trump spoke with Tsai Ing-wen on Friday in a move that broke with the White House's four-decade-long policy on what Beijing considers its breakaway province.

Earlier in the day, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed the phone call as Taipei's trick.

Trump emphasized in a tweet the talks were not his initiative. He said President Tsai congratulated him on his November 8 victory.

The United States sticks officially to a "One China" position but has kept informal relations with the island east of the Chinese mainland after severing diplomatic ties with it in 1979.

 Sputnik

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Xi calls for smaller but more capable army

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:38, December 04, 2016

BEIJING, Dec. 3 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for a smaller army with better combat capability and optimized structure as the military reform deepens.

Xi, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and head of a leading group for deepening reform on national defense and the armed forces, made the remarks at a two-day conference on military reform, which ended Saturday.

"This is a major, inevitable change," Xi told the meeting. "We must seize the opportunity and make breakthroughs."

The president said changes must be made if China is to build a strong world-class army.

Xi announced in September last year that the armed forces would be cut down by 300,000 troops from the original 2.3 million.

Citing rapid changes to the global military environment, Xi spoke about the informationized modern warfare, noting that joint operations have grown to be the basic form of combat.

"Accordingly, there have been new changes in terms of the military's size, structure, and formation, which features smaller in size, more capable in strength, modulization and multi-functionality, with scientific factors playing bigger roles," Xi said.

The president, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said the military's structure must be readjusted and optimized, new type of forces be developed, the ratios between different types of forces be rationalized, and the number and the scale of the military be downsized.

The Chinese army must grow into modern armed forces with Chinese characteristics, which can win informationized wars and implement their missions, the president said.

"Quantity should be reduced, quality improved to build a capable and efficient modernized standing army," Xi said, adding that China must develop a joint operation force system with the elite force at its core.

Xi also urged the armed force to take the reform as a major political issue, strengthen rules and disciplines in the work, and further purge the pernicious influence of Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, two corrupt former CMC vice chairmen.

A total of 230 high-ranking military officials, including members of the CMC, attended the meeting.

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Xi Jinping Calls for Smaller But More Effective Chinese Army

Sputnik News

03:00 04.12.2016(updated 03:25 04.12.2016)

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for a smaller but more effective army with an optimized structure and better combat capability as part of the country's ongoing military reform.

"This is a major, inevitable change," Xi, who is also a chairman of the country's Central Military Commission (CMC), said during a two-day conference on military reform which ended December 3. "We must seize the opportunity and make breakthroughs."

Xi's plan involves a dramatic reduction of armed forces personnel to some 300,000, a miniscule number compared to today's 2.3 million. The message comes as China conducted a flight test of 10 ballistic missiles at the end of November, which media have already dubbed a "display of force."

However, the reduction must be balanced by improved combat effectiveness, the Chinese leader pointed out, which means proficiency in new means of warfare, most of which is based on information and technology.

"There have been new changes in terms of the military's size, structure and formation, which features smaller in size, more capable in strength, modularization and multi-functionality, with scientific factors playing bigger roles," Xi said.

China has the world's second largest military budget. However, recent changes in global military conflicts have demonstrated that large military expenditures and large armed forces do not necessarily mean high combat effectiveness.

Recent armed conflicts have shown that large armies are no longer of much use, as even major conflicts, such as the fight against terrorists in Syria or Afghanistan, are being conducted by smaller units in tight cooperation with other branches of the military, such as air forces for precision airstrikes or navies for maritime cruise missile support. High-tech weapons capable of neutralizing large threats with relative ease have rendered massive assaults useless and instead pushed tactics, situational awareness and cooperation to the front.

To achieve a high level of military effectiveness, the military's structure must be readjusted and optimized, new types of forces developed, ratios between different types of forces rationalized and the number and the scale of the military downsized, Xi said.

Xi also urged the armed forces to take the reform as a major political issue, which means strengthening rules and discipline, and also to treat it as an opportunity to erase any remaining influence of the two previous vice chairmen of the CMC, whom the Chinese government considers corrupt.

 Sputnik

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Single state must not be allowed to jeopardize nuclear deal of seven states

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Dec 3, IRNA -- President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that the nuclear deal has been struck by seven states in July 2015 and that a single country must not be allowed to jeopardize the international accord.

Rouhani made the remarks in a meeting with Special Envoy of Russian President on Syria Alexander Lavrentiev.

Noting that all the parties involved have to safeguard the achievements of the deal, the president said that Iran has always been committed to its international promises and the G5+1 member states are also expected to honor their commitments under JCPOA.

President Rouhani said that terrorism posed a big threat to the region and the entire world, calling for collective cooperation of the Iranian and Russian governments to help resore international peace and security.

He underscored that the humanitarian crisis in Syria can be resolved only through respect for the country's territorial integrity and the right of the Syrian people to determine their own fate.

The Russian official, for his part, briefed the Iranian president about outlook of President Putin on the regional crises and the latest developments in Syria.

Lavrentiev said that President Putin attaches special significance to the existing confidence between Iran and Russia.

He said that Russian stance about Iran nuclear deal is stable and there is no reason to jeopardize the deal.

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FM: Extension of sanctions discredits US

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, Dec 3, IRNA -- Extension of Iran's Sanctions Act (ISA) for another decade by US will discredit Washington at the international level, said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday.

He made the remarks upon arrival at the New Delhi airport.

The US unilateral sanctions will have no impact on the third countries' relations with Iran, the official added.

Zarif made the remarks while commenting on the latest anti-Iran move by the US lawmakers who on December 1st unanimously voted for extension of the ISA for another ten years and sent it to the White House to be signed by President Barack Obama.

As it was the duty of the US officials in the past to stop implementation of sanctions against Iran, they have the same duty at present, Zarif stressed.

He made it clear that if the US president signs the sanctions act, it will dicredit his country at the international level despite the fact that the act has no executive impact.

Zarif stressd that since the ISA 'has no impact on entrepreneurs, we will not discuss it during this visit' (to India).

The Iranian foreign minister said the main objective of his visit to India is to attend the Heart of Asia Conference.

He is slated to hold talks with ranking Indian officials and take part in an eco-political meeting in New Delhi.

The foreign minister is accompanied by a 38-member delegation from Iran's Chamber of Commerce, 15 Iranian knowledge-based companies and 8 trade banks.

The delegation which also includes a number of industrial, commercial and scientific officials will hold talks with Indian trade officials and take part in joint economic meetings with India, China and Japan.

The Heart of Asia conference is scheduled to be held in Amritsar on December 3-4.

The sixth Heart of Asia conference is expected to see attendance of leaders from around 30 countries including US, Russia, China and Iran. The theme will be connectivity and increasing security in and around the Afghan region.

The discussions will revolve primarily on peace, cooperation and economic growth in Afghanistan and neighbouring regions. India is the co-chair and host this time and Afghanistan is the permanent chair of the conference.

Zarif is to outline Iran's policies on promotion of peace and stability in heart of Asia especially in Afghanistan during his speech in the conference.

India visit comes at the first leg of the Iranian foreign minister to Southeast of Asia. He will proceed to China and Japan from here upon the invitations of his Chinese and Japanese counterparts.

This is Zarif's third visit to the country as foreign minister.

According to the Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi on Wednesday, Zarif is to hold talks with several high-ranking Chinese and Japanese officials and attend the joint trade meetings in these Asian countries.

He said Zarif would review the latest regional and international developments with senior officials during his Asian tour.

9191**1771

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Velayati: Extrension of 20-year old sanctions breach of JCPOA

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Dec 3, IRNA -- Head of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council Ali Akbar Velayati said on Saturday that no doubt that reimposing, confirmation and extension of sanctions under any excuse amounts to breach of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

He made the remarks in a press encounter on the sidelines of a meeting with Russian special envoy on Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev responding to a reporter asking about Iran's stance vis-a-vis extension of sanctions by the US Senate.

Of course, US president has not signed the bill for extending sanctions, but if he signs to finalize it, it is a blatant violation of the deal, he said.

Iran has accepted limitations on its nuclear activities for a certain period in return for lifting all restrictions imposed on Iran's economy by the other side, Velayati said.

The official also said that it is not acceptable to ink an accord on the one hand and resume sanctions on the other under various excuses of human rights or the so-called support for terrorism.

The statement that Iranians are supporting Hezbollah, they are defending terrorism is illogical and really ridiculous, the official said, noting that aiding Hezbollah which defends Lebanon's territorial integrity and dignity against the expansionist goals of Israeli occupying regime is aiding terrorists but the Americans themselves support Daesh, an-Nusra and al-Qaeda to defend freedom seeking.

They are misrepresenting the international and legal concepts and that nobody believes them, he said.

The US and certain western states are violating human rights more than others and racial discrimination is on the increase in the United States, he said.

'Iran will stand against breaching the JCPOA and is fully prepared to retaliate for any violation and it will continue with peaceful use of nuclear energy within the framework of the international regulations,' he said.

Approval of the inhuman extension of of 20-year old sanctions account for breach of JCPOA indicating the US anger at Iran and its allies victory in the region, he said.

As to his talks with Lavrentiev, he said, 'Both of us agreed that the Syrian army and government, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah should continue fighting until full liberation of Aleppo.'

Iran believes that no change in the Americans' behavior has been seen in the past 11 months since the conclusion of JCPOA, Velayati said.

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Iran will halt JCPOA implementation if sanctions re-imposed: Zarif

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 5:18PM

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned that the Islamic Republic will halt the implementation of last year's landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries if the US sanctions are re-imposed on the country.

Zarif made the remarks while addressing a meeting with Indian intellectuals and elites in New Delhi on Saturday, after the US Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years. The bill includes penalties against Iran's banking sector as well as its energy and defense industries. The bill needs to be signed into law by US President Barack Obama.

"If they (the US) return to sanctions, we will not remain committed to the agreement," the top Iranian diplomat said.

He added that the US Senate's extension of a piece of anti-Iran legislation "shows incredibility of the US government."

"It is obvious that we have all options and alternatives in Iran [to respond to] the US violation of its commitments," Zarif pointed out.

The era of the US hegemony has come to an end, he said.

Iran has vowed to take "appropriate measures" against the ISA extension, saying it violated the JCPOA terms.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that no move is authorized to undermine the JCPOA which was signed following efforts by seven countries in line with the promotion of international peace and security.

"No country must be allowed to carry out a measure based on its own desires to weaken the agreement," the Iranian president said, urging all countries to safeguard the achievements of the JCPOA.

The top Iranian nuclear official, Ali Akbar Salehi, who played a leading role in concluding the nuclear deal, said on Friday that the US move was a "blatant violation" of the JCPOA.

Salehi, who is the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, added that the Islamic Republic was fully prepared to respond to the US Senate's decision to extend the ISA but would act wisely and with prudence.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council  the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia  plus Germany started to implement the JCPOA on January 16.

Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to put limitations on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related bans imposed against Tehran.

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Bans renewal, US revenge for gains by Iran, allies: Leader's aide

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 4:25PM

A senior Iranian official has criticized a US Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, saying the move is Washington's revenge for the recent achievements made by Iran and its allies in the Middle East.

"It seems that this [move] is [the US] revenge for successive and valuable achievements made by Iran and its allies in the region, but it will not be successful," Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, said in a meeting with Russia's special envoy on Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, in Tehran on Saturday.

He added that such an "inhumane" move by the US to approve the extension of sanctions was a "blatant violation" of last year's landmark nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries.

It also shows the anger of the US and its elements at the recent victories made by Iran and its allies in the region, he reiterated.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will resist against any JCPOA breaches and is quite ready to retaliate in kind," Velayati said.

He emphasized that Iran would strongly continue to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in line with international regulations.

"That would not be right that an agreement is signed on one hand and sanctions are re-imposed [against Iran] under different pretexts such as human rights and [alleged] support for terrorism on the other hand," the senior Iranian official said.

Velayati added that it is "really ironic" that the US, which is a sponsor of different terrorist groups, wants to punish Iran under the false allegation that the Islamic Republic is supporting terrorism because it backs the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah.

The US Senate on Thursday unanimously voted to extend the Iran Sanctions Act for one decade after it easily cleared the House of Representatives last month.

The ISA was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran over its nuclear program.

The bill needs to be signed into law by US President Barack Obama.

Iran, Russia must continue to expand relations: Velayati

In the meeting with the Russian diplomat, Velayati said Tehran and Moscow should make constant efforts to develop relations.

"New conditions have been created in the region and the international scene, which reminds us that Iran-Russia relations must continue to move forward," the Leader's adviser said.

Velayati said futile attempts have been made to damage Iran-Russia relations.

He said West Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East would face a "very sensitive" situation in the future and stressed that Iran and Russia must further boost relations to counter the existing threats.

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No move authorized to undermine JCPOA: Iran president

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 2:33PM

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says no move is authorized to undermine last year's landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries.

The nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was signed following efforts by seven countries in line with the promotion of international peace and security, Rouhani said in a meeting with Russia's special envoy on Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, in Tehran on Saturday.

"No country must be allowed to carry out a measure based on its own desires to weaken the agreement," the Iranian president said.

He urged all countries to safeguard the achievements of the JCPOA.

"Iran has always remained and will remain committed to its international obligations (under the JCPOA) and the P5+1 members must fully fulfill their commitments so that the JCPOA would remain in place," Rouhani pointed out.

He made the remarks in reaction to the US Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years.

The US Senate passed the ISA 99-0 on Thursday after it easily cleared the House of Representatives last month.

The ISA was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran over its nuclear program.

Iran has vowed to take "appropriate measures" against the ISA extension, saying it violated the JCPOA terms.

The top Iranian nuclear official, Ali Akbar Salehi, who played a leading role in concluding the nuclear deal, said on Friday that the US move was a "blatant violation" of the JCPOA.

Salehi, who is the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, added that the Islamic Republic was fully prepared to respond to the US Senate's decision to extend the ISA but would act wisely and with prudence.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council  the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia  plus Germany started to implement the JCPOA on January 16.

Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to put limitations on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related bans imposed against Tehran.

Need for Iran-Russia close anti-terror fight

Rouhani also said terrorism poses a serious threat to the region and the entire world and stressed the importance of improving close cooperation between Iran and Russia in the fight against the malicious phenomenon.

"There is good cooperation and consultation between Tehran and Moscow in this field, which would continue until the achievement of the ultimate goal, which is to uproot terrorism and establish total peace and stability in the region," the Iranian president added.

He emphasized that the Syrian crisis can be solved through political negotiations, respect for the people's will and the maintenance of the country's territorial integrity.

Iran and Russia are Syria's main allies and have been assisting the government in Damascus in its fight against foreign-backed terrorist groups, including the Daesh Takfiri terrorists.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani commended growing cooperation between Iran and Russia on mutual, regional and international issues.

He said the two countries' cooperation on mutual issues will undoubtedly serve the interests of the two nations and contribute to regional peace and stability.

Russia's clear-cut stance on JCPOA

The Russian diplomat, for his part, said his country has a clear-cut stance on the JCPOA, emphasizing that there is no reason to weaken the agreement.

He also called for the development of bilateral cooperation on regional and international developments.

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Iran Officials Upset Over Extension of US Sanctions

By VOA News December 03, 2016

Iran's top diplomat has strongly condemned a bill that passed the U.S. Congress earlier this week to extend sanctions against the country.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Iranian state broadcaster IRIB the extension of the sanctions "shows the unreliability of the American government" to the rest of the world.

"America is acting against its commitment," he said.

The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to extend sanctions against Iran for another 10-year period, prompting several of Iran's top officials to accuse the U.S. of reneging on the nuclear agreement signed by both countries last year.

Iranian officials are upset because they believe the extension of the sanctions violates the agreement struck between Iran and six other world powers, including the U.S., that constrained Iran's nuclear program.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also condemned the extension of the sanctions.

"The (nuclear accord) is the result of efforts by seven countries, and one country should not be allowed to weaken it," the president reportedly told state news agency IRNA.

Congressman have said the Iran Sanctions Act extension only continues sanctions already in place, so it isn't in violation of the nuclear deal, and they hadn't heard of any other key partners who opposed the extension.

"I have not heard strident objections from our key allies in the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action)," Delaware Senator Chris Coons said.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said the extension of the sanctions would allow the new Trump administration greater leverage when dealing with Iran in the future.

"Extending the Iran Sanctions Act ... ensures President-elect (Donald) Trump and his administration have the tools necessary to push back against the regime's hostile actions," he said in a statement.

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Iraqi army troops seize back four villages north of Daesh-held Mosul

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 4:41PM

Iraqi army soldiers have managed to liberate four villages north of the strategic city of Mosul as government forces, backed by fighters from Popular Mobilization Units and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, press ahead with an operation to expel Daesh terrorists from the area.

The commander of Nineveh Liberation Operation, Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah, said in a press statement on Saturday that the 16th Infantry Division of the Army had recaptured the village of Gara Tepe, and hoisted the Iraqi national flag over a number of buildings there, Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network reported.

Yarallah added that Iraqi government forces inflicted heavy losses on Daesh during clashes with the Takfiri terrorists.

Iraqi soldiers also established control over the villages of Kuri Ghariban, al-Darawish and Abu Jarbouah north of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers north of the capital, Baghdad.

Moreover, Iraqi Special Operations Forces managed to liberate al-Kafa'at neighborhood in the eastern quarter of Mosul on Saturday.

Iraqi Federal Police also announced that security forces had foiled an infiltration attempt by Daesh terrorists into the village of Azbah south of Mosul.

Over 85,000 displaced since Mosul operation began

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes since Iraq launched a military operation to retake Mosul nearly two months ago.

The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration reported on Saturday that a total of 85, 590 civilians had experienced forced displacement ever since Iraqi troops, supported by pro-government fighters from Popular Mobilization Units as well as Kurdish Peshmerga forces, kicked off the Mosul operation on October 17.

The ministry noted its field teams continued to shelter displaced families and distribute basic commodities among them, adding that its camps could well accommodate up to 120,000 displaced people.

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Roundup: S. Korean lawmakers propose president impeachment bill, vote heralded on Dec. 9

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 10:22, December 03, 2016

South Korean lawmakers put forward a historic bill to impeach scandal-hit President Park Geun-hye early Saturday, after the opposition bloc heralded a vote on the motion on Dec. 9.

A parliamentary official told Xinhua on the phone that the bill was handed in to the relevant office at about 4:10 a.m. local time (1910 GMT).

It marks the second impeachment proposal since the country's constitutional government was launched about seven decades ago. The latest was in 2004 for late President Roh Moo-hyun.

The impeachment motion was filed with the National Assembly by 171 opposition and independent legislators. The ruling Saenuri Party, which has 128 lawmakers, refrained from taking part in the proposal.

The assembly's speaker Chung Se-kyun of the biggest opposition Minjoo Party failed to join the move for political neutrality rules, but he reportedly plans to participate in the vote.

Three main opposition parties, including the Minjoo Party, People's Party and the Justice Party, have agreed to vote on the impeachment on Dec. 9 when the regular session ends.

The impeachment motion states that President Park comprehensively and gravely violated laws and the constitution in her office for nearly four years. Park took office in February 2013.

It says Park's breach of laws and constitution was threatening enough to justify the expulsion of the president and that Park betrayed legitimacy and trust granted by the general public.

The constitutional violations, according to the impeachment bill, include the president's permission of her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil and other associates of Choi to meddle in state affairs and influence the appointment of government officials behind the scenes.

Also included in the breach of the constitution is the government's initial bungling of rescue operations in one of the country's most devastating maritime disasters on April 16, 2014 when a passenger ferry Sewol sank in waters off southwestern South Korea.

Controversy arose over the whereabouts of the president for seven hours right after the ferry tragedy occurred. The impeachment bill says President Park failed to recognize what was happening during the "golden time" for rescue.

Park's inappropriate response to the disaster has been denounced for contributing the most to the death of over 300 passengers, mostly high school students on a class trip to the southern resort island of Jeju.

The infraction of laws referred to by the impeachment motion is the bribery. Park's decades-long friend has been charged with extorting tens of millions of U.S. dollars from large conglomerates to set up two nonprofit foundations controlled by Choi.

Prosecutors branded President Park as a criminal accomplice to Choi in multiple charges including abuse of power and extortion. The prosecution office was investigating whether Choi used her relationship with the president to grant business favors in return for donations.

The headquarters of Samsung Group was raided by prosecutors on suspicion that the country's largest family-run conglomerate bribed Choi in exchange for support from the national pension fund in last year's controversial merger of two subsidiaries of the group to create a de-facto holding company.

The offices of Lotte and SK, two of the country's top five chaebols, were also searched on charges of offering kickbacks to Choi in return for getting licenses for lucrative duty-free shop operation.

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South Koreans demand arrest of scandal-hit president

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 6:41AM

Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans have rallied in Seoul for the sixth straight week to demand the resignation and arrest of President Park Geun-hye.

The huge gathering on Saturday came just hours after opposition parties filed an impeachment motion against the president who is mired in a scandal over abuse of power.

The 64-year-old stands accused of colluding with an old friend who has been formally indicted for attempted fraud and abuse of power.

Up to 171 opposition and independent lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament filed an impeachment motion which is due to be voted in the National Assembly next Friday.

Park is about to become the first democratically-elected South Korean president not to complete a full, five-year term whether the motion is adopted or not.

Anti-Park lawmakers in the ruling party have vowed to vote for her impeachment if she fails to announce by Wednesday that she will voluntarily resign next April, allowing a presidential election to be held in June, six months ahead of schedule.

Protesters who have taken to the streets in their millions in recent weeks want her out immediately, but the political establishment is struggling to find a similar unity of purpose.

The corruption scandal surrounding Park's administration is centered on a long-time confidante of hers, Choi Soon-sil, who has been described as "Korea's female Rasputin."

Korean prosecutors say they have evidence that Park colluded in Choi's efforts to intimidate firms into "donating" tens of millions of dollars to two dubious foundations she controlled.

The president has been named as a formal suspect in the corruption probe, making her the first sitting head of state to face a criminal probe while in office.

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Putin's presidential address focuses on economy, highlights Russia-China relations

People's Daily Online

(CRI Online) 10:57, December 03, 2016

Russian President Vladimir Putin's latest state-of-the-nation address has political circles buzzing, with many noting his comments connected to Russia's ties with China, as well as Russia's relationship with the United States.

Speaking to a gathering of leading political and economic figures at Moscow's Great Kremlin Palace, Vladimir Putin has praised his compatriots for a display of national unity.

"As we can see, our people have united together, and we need to thank them for doing so. We are seeing a display of patriotic values not because our people are satisfied with everything, but because they are understanding of our challenges and trusting in our nation. Our unity will help us overcome all difficulties. "

Putin's speech has stressed the need for the stable development of the Russian society, given what he calls a rising number of social and political conflicts around the world.

Most of the presidential address has been devoted to domestic issues.

When it comes to the economy, Putin says Russia has managed to slow a trend of negative growth, which saw the country's GDP decline by 3.7% last year.

He says emphasis will be given to boosting Russia's agricultural and IT industries, while small businesses will also receive extra support.

"I'd like to emphasize, a stabilizing economy does not mean it will automatically register consistent growth. If we do not address the fundamental problems in our economy and do not have new growth engines, then our economy could linger around zero-growth for the next few years. "

Putin has also set out long-term development goals for the Russian economy, including a growth rate above the global average by 2020.

On foreign policy, Putin says Russia wants peaceful development with the international community while protecting its interests and rights.

He says China remains an important partner of Russia, suggesting bilateral ties between the two nations can serve as a healthy example for other countries.

"In the current difficult situation, the Russia-China strategic partnership has become one of the key factors in ensuring global and regional stability. It serves as a model of international relations based not on the idea of one country's domination, no matter how strong it is, but on an all-encompassing respect for the interests of all states."

Beyond China, Putin also says India and Japan remain important Asian neighbors of Russia.

And in a departure from an often hostile stance toward US policies, Putin says Russia is now ready to cooperate with the new U.S. administration, saying it is important to "normalize and start developing bilateral relations based on mutually beneficial grounds. "

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American Volunteer Who Died Fighting in Syria Was Kurd Loyalist

By Sirwan Kajjo December 02, 2016

It was a passion for the Kurdish cause that drove Californian Michael Israel to fight on the front lines in northern Syria against the Islamic State group.

Israel, 26, died fighting for that mission.

Kurdish authorities late this week identified Israel and German national Anton Leschek as two foreign volunteer fighters killed last month while fighting with a Kurdish militia against IS.

Israel, who called himself by a Kurdish name, Robin Agiri, was traveling November 24 with a Kurdish unit of the People's Protection Units, or YPG, near Arima, a village 13 miles northeast of the IS-held city of al-Bab. The unit came under attack from a Turkish airstrike.

Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization and an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in Turkey. Ankara fears that a strong Kurdish entity in northern Syria will empower Kurdish rebels in Turkey who are engaged in a bloody conflict with Turkish forces.

Foreign fighters

Contacted by VOA, Turkish authorities would not confirm that attack. But a high-ranking Turkish military official in Ankara, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkey was aware of foreigners fighting within Kurdish units in Syria

"If he had a connection with terrorist organizations in Syria, it is possible that he may have been hit during an air attack," the official said, referring to the YPG.

Shervan Derwish, spokesman for the YPG-aligned Manbij Military Council, said the unit suffered at least 10 casualties.

"Michael and Anton died two days after the attack, suffering from severe wounds," Derwish told VOA.

Despite having no military training, Israel went to Syria in August 2015 to participate in a major battle against IS, according to a friend and Kurdish officials. He returned home to California, before going back to Syria for a second time in July, his friends and fellow fighters said.

In a video posted on YPG International Brigade's Facebook page, Israel said he went to Syria to help the Kurdish people.

"I'm here to defend the people's revolution of Rojava," Israel said, using the Kurdish name for YPG-controlled territories in Syria, "and fight against the enemies of the struggle here."

Hanna Bowman, a Canadian who also fought for Syrian Kurds, said she met Israel last year at a training academy for new international volunteers.

"He understood that it was more than a fight against IS," she told VOA. "He knew it was bigger than that. He knew the Kurds were also building a new society where people are equal and in control of their own futures instead of being dictated to by the government. ... I was impressed with his understanding of gender equality and the patriarchal system that the Kurds were trying to destroy."

Family contacted

Kurdish officials announced the death of an American volunteer on Monday but withheld Israel's name until relatives in the United States could be contacted.

When Israel's name became public Thursday, friends in California hailed him as a "hero" and recalled his sense of humor and dedication to the Kurds.

Israel grew up in a mostly rural part of northern California where he developed a passion for advocating for justice for oppressed and impoverished peoples of the world, said David Roddy, a Sacramento resident, who met him in middle school.

Roddy said that as he and Israel were growing up, they read many books together about many parts of the world, and "we didn't like many things that we saw."

Anne Colman, principal of Mountain Oaks Charter School, from which Israel graduated in 2007, said Israel had a unique international outreach.

"He was a global citizen who was morally upright," said Colman, who taught Israel from the eighth to 12th grades.

Israel missed his graduation ceremonies, she said, because "he walked all the way from California to the East Coast to promote peace."

Home for short break

Colman said that she ran into Israel in a coffee shop shortly after he returned from his first trip to Syria. In the brief meeting, Israel told Colman that he was in Syria to bake for the fighters.

"I believe he was telling the same thing to his family and friends so they won't be scared," she said. "But everybody knew he was there to fight.  What was happening in Syria was like it was happening in his backyard. Michael cared about the world."

Israel's family has so far declined to publicly comment.

Kurdish officials have said they are in contact with authorities at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq to arrange for the transfer of Israel's body to the United States.

Friends say Israel expressed no regret in fighting for the Kurds despite the dangers.

"He believed in Rojava and their righteous revolution," said childhood friend Roddy.

VOA's Kasim Cindemir contributed to this report.

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Syria now in control of 60% of east Aleppo: Group

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 8:32AM

Syrian forces have retaken another district in the east of the city of Aleppo, now exerting control over 60 percent of the city's militant-held eastern part, according to a monitoring group.

Joined by allied fighters, the Syrian military seized Aleppo's Tariq al-Bab neighborhood from the militants, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.

The advance also restored control on a road leading from Aleppo's government-held western neighborhoods to the city's airport, which is also under government control.

Foreign-backed militants amassed in the city's eastern side in 2012. The government has been controlling its west and fighting to retake the east.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency said the military had also wrested back control over the Karam Al-Qaterji, Jazmati, and Halwaniyah neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo. An unspecified number of the militants were killed in the operations.

The government's advances have taken by surprise many of the foreign states that have been channeling financial and military support to the militants since the onset of the foreign-backed militancy in Syria in 2011.

Amid the victories, some countries, including France, have called for the implementation of a ceasefire in Aleppo, citing a need for secure corridors for the transfer of humanitarian assistance to the city.

On Wednesday, Russia warned that the issue of aid delivery in Syria was becoming highly politicized as most UN humanitarian aid was going to the areas occupied by foreign-backed militants. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said only one percent of the UN aid supplies was being directed to the western city of Dayr al-Zawr, where at least 200,000 people trapped by the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group remain in desperate need of help.

Russia has, meanwhile, voiced outrage at the recent formation in Aleppo's east of a militant umbrella group calling itself the Army of Aleppo, describing it a diversion tactic to shield a notorious terrorist group there.

The move, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday, was just an attempt to disguise and shield al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaeda that has recently renamed itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and has claimed to have broken up with al-Qaeda.

Lavrov said nearly all the militant groups fighting in eastern Aleppo were controlled by the Takfiri terrorist group.

"I do not rule out that this is just another attempt to rebrand al-Nusra Front and shield it from righteous retaliation," Lavrov said, referring to the formation of the so-called Army of Aleppo.

Also on Saturday, a unit grouping army forces and its allies destroyed the positions of al-Nusra, in the suburbs of the city of al-Rastan in the southwestern Syria Dara'a Province.

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Formation of 'Army of Aleppo' ploy to shield Nusra terrorists: Lavrov

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 6:37AM

Russia says the formation of the so-called Army of Aleppo in the east of the Syrian city is an attempt to disguise and shield the al-Nusra Front terrorist group.

"I do not rule out that this is just another attempt to rebrand al-Nusra Front and shield it from righteous retaliation," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Rome on Friday.

Lavrov stressed that nearly all the militant groups in the eastern part of the flashpoint Syrian city, where the "Army of Aleppo" was recently formed, are under the control of al-Nusra Front.

"As I have already mentioned, according to our intelligence, practically all armed opposition groups in eastern Aleppo report to al-Nusra Front. Nusra has some 1,500 militants there, while other groups under its command have up to 6,000 militants," he said.

Al-Nusra Front is an affiliate of al-Qaeda that has recently renamed itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and has claimed to have broken up with al-Qaeda in what has largely been interpreted as a decoy attempt.

Russia has long been pressing for the designation of al-Nusra as a terrorist group at the United Nations Security Council. Such attempts have, however, been hindered by the United States.

Lavrov also said his country had supported an initiative by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on the exit of militants from eastern Aleppo.

"De Mistura proposed allowing all terrorists to leave eastern Aleppo, we, despite the idea's controversy, supported it and were ready to cooperate with it," he said, adding the proposal "was blocked by those who, we are convinced, are interested in eastern Aleppo remaining under the control of terrorists." He did not elaborate.

The Syrian government holds and defends the city's western side and has been purging its east of militants.

Meanwhile, a monitoring group said on Friday that Syrian troops had taken control of half of the militant-held areas in eastern Aleppo.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the government forces "consolidated their control" over two eastern districts on Friday, adding they are now "comfortably in control of half" of the militant-controlled areas in Aleppo's east.

He added the Syrian forces were advancing toward the recapture of the rest of the areas under the militants' control in the east of the city.

The Russian Defense Ministry had already announced on Tuesday that the Syrian army had extended its control to half of those areas.

Russia has been offering military support to the Syrian government.

Elsewhere in his Friday remarks, Lavrov blamed the foreign-backed opposition for the stall of the intra-Syrian peace talks for more than six months, saying they "put forward ultimatums in the form of an absolute precondition to oust President [Bashar] Assad."

The conflict in Syria, which flared up 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.

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(Xinhua) 09:23, December 04, 2016

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 -- The White House on Friday reaffirmed backing for its long-standing one-China policy and the three China-U.S. joint communiques, after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump received a telephone call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen.

"We remain firmly committed to our one-China policy based on the three joint communiques," White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price told local media. "Our fundamental interest is in peaceful and stable cross-strait relations."

Trump's transition team confirmed in a statement Friday afternoon that Trump spoke with Tsai. Trump later wrote in his Twitter that Tsai "CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency."

It is universally recognized by the international community that there is only one China in the world, and both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one China.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has made clear that adherence to one-China policy is the prerequisite for Taiwan to conduct contacts with foreign countries or participate in international activities.
Russia sends demining team to Syria to clear Aleppo's liberated areas

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 2:7AM

Russia has dispatched a bomb disposal unit to Syria to help demine the liberated eastern parts of the flashpoint city of Aleppo, the Russian Defense Ministry says.

"An advance unit of the international anti-mining center of the Russian Armed Forces has flown to Syria to participate in the humanitarian demining of districts in eastern Aleppo liberated from the militants," the ministry said in a statement, RT reported on Friday.

The statement further said that the bomb disposal unit "is fully autonomous and is equipped with the most advanced demining tools and means of protection."

According to Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi, more than 200 servicemen and 47 units of combat and special equipment would be involved in clearing the newly-liberated areas of the city from mines and booby traps.

The former commander of the Russian engineering troops, Colonel-General Nikolai Serdtsev, described the bomb disposal mission in Aleppo as much more "complicated" than the one carried out in Palmyra city, in the central province of Homs, back in April and May.

He added that Russian sappers in Aleppo could not use unmanned ground vehicles, such as the Uran-6 bomb disposal robots, which were employed in Palmyra.

"Robots work on search of metal, and there the whole [city] is inundated with armature. Spoons, forks, everything will be indicated and it will be extremely problematic to operate for mine detectors," Serdtsev told the Interfax news agency on Wednesday.

According to the Russian military, around 18,000 explosive objects were defused, and over 8,500 booby-trapped houses were cleared by the Russian demining troops in Palmyra. In addition, over 800 hectares of territory, 23 kilometers of roads and 10 sites of historic heritage were cleared of explosives during the mission.

Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, remains divided between government forces in the west and foreign-backed terrorists in the east, making it a frontline battleground.

The Syrian army has recently advanced deep inside the longtime militant stronghold of eastern Aleppo, taking control of key neighborhoods. The government troops have managed to re-establish control over half of the areas that had been under the control of terrorists in the east of the city.

'All militants in Aleppo report to Nusra'

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that all militants fighting in eastern Aleppo are under the control of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terrorist group -- al-Qaeda's Syrian branch formerly known as al-Nusra Front -- the second most brutal Takfiri terror group ravaging Syria after Daesh.

"As I have already mentioned, according to our intelligence, practically all armed opposition groups in eastern Aleppo report to al-Nusra Front. Nusra has some 1,500 militants there, while other groups under its command have up to 6,000 militants," Lavrov added.

The Takfiri terrorist group was formed months after the outset of the Syrian crisis in March 2011. The group first enjoyed generous support from Daesh extremists, but broke from them in 2013 and paid allegiance to al-Qaeda terror network, which in late July endorsed the move as a necessary gambit to protect the group.

The foreign-backed conflict in Syria has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to an estimate by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

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Rebel Commander: Aleppo Fighters Will Not Surrender Eastern Sector

By VOA News December 03, 2016

Syrian rebel commanders in war-ravaged Aleppo say they will not surrender the city's eastern sector to Russia-backed government forces, despite a government offensive that threatens to drive out opposition fighters after a four-year occupation.

"I asked the factions. They said, 'We will not surrender,' " said commander Zakaria Malahifji in comments Saturday to Reuters. He spoke from Turkey, where a select group of rebel leaders was reported to be holding secret talks with Russian envoys on the monthslong Aleppo crisis.

"There is no problem with corridors for civilians to leave, but we will not leave the city," Malahifji said.

Malahifji spoke hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready for talks with Washington to, in his words, "ensure the withdrawal of all rebels without exception from eastern Aleppo."

Lavrov's remarks came after a meeting Friday in Rome with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Further talks between the two diplomats were set for next week in Geneva.

Offensive in eastern Aleppo

Meanwhile, Syrian warplanes and artillery on Saturday again pounded eastern Aleppo, where observers said an alliance of Syrian and Russian forces, their Shi'ite Hezbollah allies and Shi'ite Iranian militia has seized 60 percent of the sector since mid-November.

Syria's state-run news agency carried photos Saturday of Defense Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij leading government officials on an inspection tour of government military positions established since ground forces intensified their push into the east early last week.

Nearby, monitors from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce clashes and airstrikes in a half-dozen contested eastern neighborhoods. The observatory also said rebels seeking to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad fought back with with rocket fire and mortar.

Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be trapped in Aleppo, despite a huge uptick of refugees fleeing the combat in the past 10 days.

Monitors estimate 18,000 civilians have moved into government-controlled western Aleppo, and nearly 9,000 others into a Kurdish-controlled district, since government troops breached the northeast perimeter of eastern Aleppo early last week.

U.N. special envoy Stefan de Mistura, speaking Friday at a Rome conference on humanitarian aid to Aleppo, said he expected eastern Aleppo to fall to government forces by the end of the year, without a negotiated settlement.

De Mistura said he expected a "terrible battle" in the coming weeks. "I hope the battle will not take place, that there will be some type of formula" to end the onslaught, he said.

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Syrian Army Command Calls On East Aleppo Residents to Return After Liberation

Sputnik News

01:07 04.12.2016

The Syrian army's command calls on the residents of eastern Aleppo's liberated areas to return to their homes.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik)  The Syrian army's command urged the residents of eastern Aleppo's liberated areas to return to their homes once security has been established.

"The Syrian Army General Command has called on the residents of the eastern districts of Aleppo to return to their homes after security and stability have been restored, as well as with the resumption of the work of public institutions in these areas," the general command said in a statement on Saturday.

Local sources told RIA Novosti that work was underway in the liberated districts to restore utility services, including water and electricity.

In November, Syrian government forces, supported by local militias, launched a large-scale offensive against extremist groups in the eastern part of Aleppo. The army made major strides earlier this week, liberating almost half of the militant-held areas by late Monday, according to the Russian reconciliation center in Syria.

Earlier on Saturday, militants still encircled in the city again refused to seize the government offer of safe passage out of the city and vowed to continue resistance.

Over recent months, Aleppo became major battleground in Syria, engaging government forces, jihadists, and numerous opposition groups. Eastern Aleppo is currently encircled by government troops, and the fighting has affected thousands of civilians still trapped in the city. Previous internationally mediated ceasefires have collapsed as militants continued attacks and government troops resumes their advance.

 Sputnik

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Tsai, Trump discuss economy, defense over phone

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/03 12:41:18

Taipei, Dec. 3 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump spoke over the phone on issues related to developing economy and strengthening national defense, the Presidential Office said Saturday.

President Tsai also conveyed to Trump the hope that the United States would lend support for Taiwan to have more participation and contributions on international issues.

The conversation, which lasted for a little over 10 minutes, was held at 11 p.m. Friday Taipei time (10 a.m. Friday EST), the Presidential Office said in a press release.

Joseph Wu (), secretary-general of the National Security Council, Foreign Minister David Lee () and two other presidential aides were present during the conversation, according to the press release.

Tsai congratulated Trump on his victory in the closely contested U.S. presidential election and said she believed he would make an excellent president, it said.

In their conversation, Tsai and Trump shared views and ideals on governance, especially on promoting domestic economic development and strengthening national defense to ensure a better, safer life for the public.

The two leaders also exchanged views briefly on the situation in Asia.

On Taiwan-U.S. relations, Tsai expressed the wish of strengthening bilateral exchanges and contacts and establishing closer cooperation relations.

(By Lu Hsin-hui and Lilian Wu)

Enditem/cs

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Opposition parties positive about Tsai-Trump call

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/03 16:30:19

Taipei, Dec. 3 (CNA) Taiwan's opposition parties on Saturday responded positively to a phone conversation between President Tsai Ing-wen () and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, the first publicly reported call between a U.S. president or president-elect and a Taiwanese leader, since 1979.

"The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!" tweeted Trump.

The conversation, which lasted for a little over 10 minutes, was held at 11 p.m. on Friday Taipei time (10 a.m. Friday EST), according to the Presidential Office.

Issues addressed included economic development and strengthening national defense. President Tsai also said she hoped the United States would support Taiwan's efforts to participate more extensively on international issues, the Presidential Office said.

The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) said it viewed the call positively.

"The KMT welcomes the call and appreciates the United States' support of Taiwan," said Hu Wen-chi (), deputy director of the KMT's Culture and Communications Committee.

Hu said the KMT is happy to see the government continue the "zero incident" diplomacy of the previous KMT administration and develop policies beneficial to the people of Taiwan under that framework.

Hu urged President Tsai to make clear to the public the direction of Taiwan-U.S. relations after the Trump administration assumes office next year, particularly in the areas of trade policy and future military cooperation and exchange.

He also called on national security authorities to correctly analyze the first official exchange with the U.S. since 1979 to determine whether it represents a turnaround in U.S. policy or was just a courtesy call.

He reminded the DPP that any diplomatic policy must take into consideration political balance in the region and not just the pursuit of fleeting diplomatic breakthroughs.

Tang Te-ming (), another committee deputy director, said he hopes the Tsai administration will strive to establish a more positive relationship with the United States.

Lee Hung-chun (), a party whip from the People First Party, said the call was the first since Taiwan and the United States severed diplomatic ties in 1979.

He said that although Trump's policy toward Taiwan, Asia and the world is unclear, the call between the two leaders has symbolic meaning and he hoped for improvements in bilateral relations.

Lee said that leaders in Taiwan and China should put aside animosity and engage in further dialogue.

Hsu Yung-ming (), convener of the New Power Party, noted that Trump first said Tsai offered congratulations, but later tweeted: "Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call," indicating that he is under pressure from China in the wake of the call.

Former Foreign Minister Cheng Chien-jen () said the phone conversation indicates Trump's goodwill toward Taiwan.

Cheng said that in the past, Taiwan often congratulated the U.S. president-elect in private or in writing.

The call indicates that Trump and his team are basically friendly toward Taiwan and that such ties could continue if handled properly he said, adding that Trump has adopted an approach unfamiliar to the U.S, with a singular focus on U.S. interests.

However, a U.S. president has to handle global issues, and how much flexibility Trump will have on Taiwan after assuming office remains to be seen.

According to a press release issued by the Trump transition team, the president-elect "spoke with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, who offered her congratulations."

"During the discussion, they noted the close economic, political, and security ties that exist between Taiwan and the United States," according to the press release.

"President-elect Trump also congratulated President Tsai on becoming President of Taiwan earlier this year," it said without giving other details about the conversation.

Tsai was among four "world leaders" that Trump spoke with during the day, according to the press release. The other three, all from Asia, were President of Afghanistan Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte of the Philippines and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore.

(By Tang Pei-chun and Lilian wu)

Enditme/AW

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Tsai-Trump phone call not start of new U.S. policy: experts

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/03 19:33:20

Taipei, Dec. 3 (CNA) A phone conversation between President Tsai Ing-wen () and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump does not signal a change in Washington's policy toward Taiwan, experts in international and cross-strait relations said on Saturday.

The conversation, which took place on Friday and lasted for a little over 10 minutes, was the first publicly reported call between a U.S. president or president-elect and a Taiwanese leader since 1979, when Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

Bao Chengke (), deputy head of the School of Advanced International and Area Studies at East China Normal University in Shanghai, told CNA that as of now, it is difficult to determine Trump's overall strategic thinking toward China, Taiwan and the world.

The phone call was the result of "maneuvering by many people" but does not represent any deliberate policy intent, Bao said.

He said a more important question was whether Trump will still have phone conversations with Tsai after he takes office. If he continues to deal positively with Taiwan in the future, conflict between China and the United States will intensify, Bao predicted.

Sun Zhe (), director of the Center for U.S.-China Relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said Trump was probably not aware how sensitive the issue of Taiwan is in China-U.S. relations.

If Trump had talked to the Chinese side beforehand, he might not have accepted Tsai's call, Sun said.

He said the call will not seriously impact relations between China and the United States, because the two countries have been developing "a new type of relationship between major powers," on which Taiwan has only a "marginal impact."

Yang Lixian (), a former deputy secretary-general of the National Society of Taiwan Studies in Beijing, described the phone conversation between Trump and Tsai as "accidental," suggesting that such contacts are unlikely to continue.

Yang said Beijing insists on the "one China" principle and would reject any attempt by Trump to maintain relations simultaneously with Beijing and Taipei.

If Trump chooses Taiwan, it means he has to give up China, she said.

Chen I-hsin (), a professor of international relations at Tamkang University in Taipei, said the phone call carried only symbolic meaning because Trump has yet to assume office and there is no need for China to get nervous.

What Beijing should pay attention to is Trump's policy toward Taiwan after he is sworn in on Jan. 20, Chen said.

(By Chang Shu-ling, Yin Chun-chieh, Kao Chao-fen and Y.F. Low)

ENDITEM/AW

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U.S. House of Representatives backs military exchanges with Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/03 16:34:19

Washington, Dec. 2 (CNA) The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, which included for the first time a section on senior military exchanges with Taiwan.

The bill, which was voted through 375-34, will be forwarded to the Senate for consideration next week.

Section 1254 of the act states: "It is the sense of Congress that the Secretary of Defense should conduct a program of senior military exchanges between the United States and Taiwan that have the objective of improving military-to-military relations and defense cooperation between the United States and Taiwan."

Such a program should be conducted at least once each calendar year in both the United States and Taiwan, according to the act.

It defines "senior military exchange" as meaning "an activity, exercise, professional education event, or observation opportunity in which senior military officers and senior defense officials participate."

Although the U.S. Congress has tried to include similar provisions in the annual budget bill over the past few years, they were dropped from the final version of the bill after the executive branch stepped in, out of concerns that the move would damage U.S.-China relations.

(By Rita Cheng and Y.F. Low)

ENDITEM/AW

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Trump talks with Taiwan leader anger China

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 8:13AM

China has lodged an official protest with the US over a direct contact by phone between President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.

Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification with China and any move implying independence for the island would anger Chinese leaders.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday denounced the contact a "ploy by the Taiwan side that simply cannot change the One China framework."

The Foreign Ministry in Beijing later said it had lodged "stern representations" with the US and urged it to handle the Taiwan issue with caution to avoid any disturbances in ties.

"We urge the relevant parties in the US to abide by the commitment to the One China policy," the statement said, calling Taiwan an inalienable part of China's territory.

According to Trump's office, the US president-elect and Tsai underlined "the close economic, political and security ties" between Taiwan and the US in their talks.

Washington cut formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979 and recognizes Beijing as the sole government of "One China".

The 10-minute telephone call was the first by a US leader since former president Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China.

China's influential state-run tabloid the Global Times warned in an online editorial that if Trump really overturned the "One China" principle upon assuming office it would create a major crisis.

The official Xinhua news agency said Trump needed to know Beijing can be a "cooperative partner" as long as Washington respects China's core interests, including the issue of Taiwan.

Washington remains Taiwan's most important political ally and sole arms supplier. Trump defended the contact, saying Tsai had initiated the call.

"Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call," Trump said in a tweet.

Trump has eschewed tradition in other calls with foreign leaders since he won the US election. His adviser Kellyanne Conway said Trump was "well aware of what US policy has been" on Taiwan.

His advisers have indicated that the president-elect is likely to take a more aggressive policy towards China than President Barack Obama and that Trump plans to boost the US military in Asia in response to China.

The Taiwanese presidential office said the two leaders had discussed issues affecting Asia and the future of Washington-Taipei ties.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office called the conversation a "petty" move by Taiwan that does not change the island's status as part of China.

Tsai, who took office in May, has refused to accept the "One China" concept, prompting Beijing to cut off all official communication with the self-ruled island's new administration.

China and Taiwan are physically separated by the Taiwan Strait in the Western Pacific Ocean. They split politically following the 1927-1950 Chinese Civil War and there have been no formal cross-strait diplomatic relations ever since.

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Trump risks angering China by calling Taiwan leader

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 1:4AM

US President-elect Donald Trump has talked over the phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a historic move that is likely to anger China, which views Taiwan as a breakaway province.

Trump talked to Tsai over the phone on Friday, becoming the first US president or president-elect to hold a conversation with Taiwan's leader since severing ties with the territory in 1979, the Financial Times reported.

Trump's transition team said Trump and Tsai discussed "the close economic, political, and security ties" between the two sides.

It was not clear if the Republican president-elect's transition team had arranged the phone call or Tsai had reached out first.

The move signals a major change in US foreign policy and is slated to infuriate China, although Beijing has not reacted yet.

Upon the beginning of Tsai's presidential term in May, Beijing urged her to acknowledge that Taiwan was part of "One China."

"The Chinese leadership will see this as a highly provocative action, of historic proportions," argued Evan Medeiros, former Asia director at the White House national security council.

"Regardless if it was deliberate or accidental, this phone call will fundamentally change China's perceptions of Trump's strategic intentions for the negative," he added.

Ever since a 1972 meeting between then US President Richard Nixon and his Chinese counterpart Mao Zedong, Washington has adopted the "One China" policy.

In 1978, former President Jimmy Carter officially declared Beijing the only government of China. The US government closed its embassy in Taipei the following year.

Meanwhile, Dennis Wilder, former top White House Asia adviser during the George W Bush administration, said China should not "over-interpret" the call.

Trump's other controversial calls

This was not Trump's first controversial conversation with world leaders since winning the November 8 election.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's government said Friday that Trump had invited the anti-US leader to visit the White House next year.

The president-elect also raised eyebrows in India by calling Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif an "amazing" leader in a phone call on Wednesday.

The White House advised Trump on Thursday to make use of the State Department's policy makers and diplomats in contacting the foreign leaders.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong were two other leaders who spoke with Trump on Friday.

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China Lodges Protest Over Trump Phone Call With Taiwanese Leader

RFE/RL December 03, 2016

China has lodged an official diplomatic protest after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump spoke by telephone with Taiwan's president, breaking four decades of U.S diplomatic policy.

Beijing said on December 3 that it was urging Washington to maintain its one-China policy and avoid disruptions in bilateral relations.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted by Chinese media as saying the phone call was "just a small trick by Taiwan," adding he did not believe it signaled a change in U.S. policy.

"The one-China policy is the cornerstone of the healthy development of China-U.S. relations and we hope this political foundation will not be interfered with or damaged," Wang said.

A statement from Trump's transition team on December 2 said the Taiwanese leader, Tsai Ing-wen, offered her congratulations to Trump on his election.

The two noted that "close economic, political, and security ties exist between Taiwan and the United States," the statement said.

Trump later posted a message to Twitter in which he said the Taiwanese leader was the one who called him.

"The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!" he wrote.

Officials at the White House reacted quickly to news of the telephone conversation, suggesting concern for the relationship between Washington and Beijing.

"There is no change to our longstanding policy on cross-Strait issues," Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in an e-mail to RFE/RL.

"We remain firmly committed to our one-China policy," he said. "Our fundamental interest is in peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations."

News reports said the White House did not learn of the phone call until after it occurred.

It was the first direct contact between U.S. and Taiwanese leaders since diplomatic ties were severed in 1979 and Washington formally established relations with China.

The United States has tread lightly with Taiwan since then, trying to balance relations with China while also not discouraging Taiwan's independent-minded democratic system.

The call is the latest by Trump to break diplomatic protocol.

Trump's apparent fulsome praise for Pakistan's leader, in a phone call earlier this week, worried South Asia observers, who feared it would alienate India.

With reporting by Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/trump-taiwan-china/28153664.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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(Xinhua) 09:34, December 04, 2016

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 -- Apple is reportedly planning to use drones and new indoor navigation features to improve is maps app, aiming to compete with longtime leader Google, Bloomberg News quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying.

The tech giant has been assembling a team of experts in robots and data-collection who will use drones to quickly capture and update map information, a major upgrade to its existing fleet of camera-and-sensor ladened minivans, one of the sources told Bloomberg News.

The drones will allow Apple to examine and monitor roads, street signs and construction areas. The data collected would be send to the Apple teams that rapidly update Apple Maps to provide the most up-to-date information to users, the source added.

Alongside the drone efforts, Apple is also developing an indoor mapping view that will allow users to navigate through museums and airports using Apple Maps with their iPhones, another source familiar with the matter said.

To compete with Google Maps's similar indoor view features, Apple has acquired startup Indoor.io to help build out the new feature for its own app and catch Google.

The Federal Aviation Administration has granted Apple approval to "operate an unmanned aircraft system to conduct data collection, photography, and videography," according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News.

Apple's drone initiative is considered as its latest efforts to fight in the ongoing war between tech giants for dominance in mapping following the problematic launch of Apple Maps in 2012.

Apple Maps was introduced with glaring errors like marking a grocery store as a hospital and giving incorrect addresses, as it lacked the technology to quickly take in data from different sources to evaluate and change the digital maps.
President-Elect Trump Speaks to President of Taiwan, Risking Feud With Beijing

Sputnik News

01:55 03.12.2016(updated 08:11 03.12.2016)

US President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Taiwanese President Tsai Ying-wen on Friday, marking what appears to be the first presidential contact between the nations since 1979 when diplomatic relations were ended.

The move could potentially lead to a major diplomatic dispute with China.

"The US has adopted the so-called 'One China' policy since 1972 after the Nixon-Mao meetings and in 1978 President Jimmy Carter formally recognised Beijing as the sole government of China, with the US embassy closing in Taipei the year after," the Financial Times explained.

The Taipei Times reported that Tsai was planning to congratulate Trump on his election win and to assert that Taiwan wishes to continue maintaining a steady relationship with the US. She was also expected to "express hopes for expanded Taiwan-US collaborations on the economy, politics and regional security."

Tsai may also be meeting with top aides to the Trump administration early next month in New York, during a layover on a trip to Central America, the Taiwan Times has reported. The paper cited unconfirmed reports asserting that she may meet with prominent Republican Reince Priebus, who has visited Taiwan before, or his transportation secretary-designate, Taiwanese-born Elaine Chao.

"The Chinese leadership will see this as a highly provocative action, of historic proportions," Evan Medeiros, former Asia director at the White House national security council, told the Financial Times.

"Regardless if it was deliberate or accidental, this phone call will fundamentally change China's perceptions of Trump's strategic intentions for the negative. With this kind of move, Trump is setting a foundation of enduring mistrust and strategic competition for US-China relations," Medeiros said.

Trump has also spoke to the Afghan president and the Prime Minister of Singapore, his transition team is reporting.

 Sputnik

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Trump, Taiwan Put China on the Defensive With Historic Phone Call

By Ralph Jennings December 03, 2016

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and the leader of Taiwan put China on the defensive late Friday with a historic, upbeat phone call to discuss Washington's role in possibly helping the diplomatically isolated island gain international status.

China's foreign minister dubbed the 12-minute phone call by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen a "petty action" that will lead to no changes in Sino-U.S. relations.

But the communist leadership will watch for fallout, such as whether Trump talks again with Taiwan after his Jan. 20 inauguration or gives Taiwan some of what its president suggested on the call, experts predict.

"It serves notice to Beijing that Washington chooses to do what's beneficial to Washington," said Raymond Wu, managing director of Taipei-based political consultancy e-telligence. "It'll do that whether it's in terms of substantive issues or symbolic gestures."

Although Washington is a supporter of Taiwan, there has been no contact between leaders of the two countries since the U.S. formally broke off diplomatic relations in 1979 out of deference to China, which regards Taiwan as a breakaway province. Since Trump's phone call however, some Republican lawmakers have largely embraced his contact with Taiwan's leader.

"I commend President-elect Trump for his conversation with President Tsai Ing-wen, which reaffirms our commitment to the only democracy on Chinese soil," said a statement from Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from the midwestern state of Arkansas. "I have met with President Tsai twice and I'm confident she expressed to the president-elect the same desire for closer relations with the United States."

Several other Republican lawmakers backed up Trump's phone call, including Arizona Congressman Matt Salmon, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

"America has always been a champion of democratic values and individual freedoms, and I applaud the President-elect for making a strong statement in support of those values around the world," Salmon told The Hill.

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton also praised the call, arguing that the U.S. should shake up its relationship with China, which he accused of making "aggressive ... beligerent claims in the South China Sea."

"Nobody in Beijing gets to dictate who we talk to. It's ridiculous to think that the phone call upsets decades of anything," Bolton said Saturday on Fox News' morning show Fox and Friends, noting that he believes a president should be able to speak with any foreign leader he wants if he thinks it is in the best interest of America.

Beijing, Taipei relations

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s and forbids its more than 170 diplomatic allies, including the United States, from making official contact with the Taiwanese leadership. But Washington has remained a staunch informal supporter of the self-ruled, democratic island since it cut diplomatic ties in 1979 in favor of economically more powerful China.

On the call - a first between a Taiwan leader and a U.S. president-elect since the 1970s - Tsai said her government wanted stronger ties with the United States, according to a statement from her office Saturday. She particularly asked for U.S. help increasing Taiwan's international exposure.

"The presidenttold Trump that in the future she hopes that on the question of international relations, the U.S. side can continue to help Taiwan have more chances to participate and make contributions," the statement said.

China bars Taiwan from joining international organizations such as the United Nations if they require statehood as a prerequisite. Diplomatic isolation is a sore point for Taiwan's public, which has leaned on the president to push for change. Lack of formal ties abroad has also made it hard to sign trade deals with other countries.

Tsai wants a "strengthening of security" in Taiwan to "let people have a better life and guarantee of safety," she added on the call.

Washington and Taipei

The U.S. government has sold Taiwan advanced weapons in the past despite opposition from China, which is 160 km away and believed to have missiles aimed in its direction. China insists the two sides eventually reunify and does not rule out use of force if needed.

China and Taiwan have not agreed on how to talk with each other, keeping relations on hold since Tsai took office May 20.

Taiwanese people will cheer the contact with Trump because they normally lack high-level contact with the United States, said Alexander Chiang, associate professor of international politics with National Chengchi University in Taipei.

The call further shows that Trump may not care whether Beijing demands that the United States ignore Taiwan, said Sean King, senior vice president with the New York political consultancy Park Strategies. Trump, a New York real estate billionaire, lashed out at China during his campaign, though he tempered those comments after winning the election Nov. 8.

But if Trump contacts Tsai while in office, China is likely to grow angrier and say his government violated a deal that bars official U.S. relations with Taiwan. "If anything, Beijing's predictable outrage will probably make (Trump) even happier he did it," King said.

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Some Republicans Applaud Trump Call With Taiwan

By VOA News December 03, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump's telephone call with Taiwan's president on Friday broke decades of U.S. diplomatic policy in the region and brought a quick objection by China, but several Republican members of Congress have applauded Trump's decision to accept the call.

"I would much rather have Donald Trump talking to President Tsai [Ing-wen] than to Cuba's Raul Castro or Iran's Hassan Rouhani," Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted Saturday. "This is an improvement."

Cruz, one of Trump's main challengers and critics during the Republican presidential nominating contests this year, was referring to President Barack Obama, who has spoken to both Rouhani and Castro.

China said earlier Saturday that it had lodged an objection to the telephone conversation Trump had with Taiwan's president.

"We have already made solemn representations about it to the relevant U.S. side," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "It must be pointed out that there is only one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory."

Trump brushed aside nearly four decades of diplomatic protocol Friday to speak with Tsai. The U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, however, approved of the phone call, saying in a statement, "I commend President-elect Trump for his conversation with President Tsai Ing-wen, which reaffirms our commitment to the only democracy on Chinese soil.

"I have met with President Tsai twice and I'm confident she expressed to the president-elect the same desire for closer relations with the United States," he said.

Arizona Representative Matt Salmon told The Hill he applauded Trump for "making a strong statement" with the telephone conversation. "I commend [President-elect] Trump for reaching out to the democratically elected president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen," he said in his statement to the newspaper.

Salmon, head of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, attended Tsai's inauguration, according to The Hill.

'Small trick by Taiwan'

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday that he hoped Beijing's relationship with Washington would not be interfered with or damaged by the telephone call.

China's foreign minister characterized the conversation as "just a small trick by Taiwan."

China claims democratically ruled Taiwan is part of its territory and has never renounced the use of military force to bring the island under Beijing's control.

Trump had been widely criticized Friday for calling the Taiwanese leader, but responded to his critics in a message on his Twitter account, saying, "The president of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency."

Later, Trump said on Twitter that it was "interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

When asked Saturday about Trump's Twitter message that said Tsai had been the one to initiate the call, Tsai spokesman Alex Huang said that "both sides agreed ahead of time before making contact."

The White House said it was not told about the call until after it had happened.

'That's how wars start'

Some Democrats questioned Trump's departure from decades of U.S. diplomatic policy.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on Twitter that it was Trump's right to shift policy and strategy, but "what has happened in the last 48 hours is not a shift. These are major pivots in foreign policy w/out any plan. That's how wars start."

Senior Trump aide Kellyanne Conway dismissed such criticism, saying the call did not necessarily indicate a change of policy, according to the French news agency AFP.

When questioned Friday whether the president-elect was aware of what U.S. policy has been on Taiwan, she told CNN, "President-elect Trump is fully briefed and fully knowledgeable about these issues on an ongoing basis, regardless of who is on the other end of the phone."

The State Department declined to comment about whether it had been notified or asked to brief the transition team on current U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan prior to the phone call.

"Our job is to offer support, whether that's in terms of facilitation, translation or context, which we have done and will continue to do," State Department spokesman John Kirby said Friday.

"But the degree to which it's utilized is really for the transition team to decide, and it's really more appropriate for them to speak to," Kirby added.

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee who was named by Trump as White House chief of staff, met with Tsai in October 2015 while leading a Republican delegation to Taiwan.

Game-changer?

Experts said the conversation between Trump and Tsai showed a clear break with the so-called pivot to Asia and could be a "game-changer."

"While one phone call certainly can't replace a clear strategy for Asia or the rest of the world, President-elect Trump has shown guts in shaking up the status quo on foreign policy issues that are of supreme importance," said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington public policy research group.

John Bolton, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during former President George H.W. Bush's administration, met Friday with Trump. Bolton, who emerged as a contender for the next secretary of state, had advocated for "an upgrade" of Taiwan's relations with the U.S.

"The new U.S. administration could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department; upgrading the status of U.S. representation in Taipei from a private 'institute' to an official diplomatic mission; inviting Taiwan's president to travel officially to America; allowing the most senior U.S. officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business; and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition," according to a commentary article Bolton wrote for The Wall Street Journal this year.

Criticism on Carrier deal

Earlier in the week, heating and air-conditioning company Carrier said it received a $7 million tax-break package from the Midwestern state of Indiana and a promise from Trump to improve the U.S. business climate in return for the firm's pledge to keep about 1,000 jobs in the U.S.

Carrier had announced earlier this year that it was planning to move about 1,400 jobs to Mexico. But now Carrier apparently has agreed to save the jobs of about 1,000 Indiana workers, following talks with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is still Indiana's governor.

However, Sarah Palin, who strongly supported Trump during his campaign, condemned the deal on Friday, AFP reported.

"When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent," Palin wrote on the website Young Conservatives. "We support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail."

Palin is a favorite of the far-right tea party movement, which values limited government and conservative values.

VOA's Nike Ching at the State Department and Bill Ide in Beijing contributed to this report.

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20 PKK militants killed as military foils attack on Turkish army base

Iran Press TV

Sat Dec 3, 2016 2:3PM

Nearly two dozen members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group have been killed after Turkish military forces thwarted their assault on an army base in the country's southeastern province of Hakkari.

The Turkish General Staff said in a statement that scores of Kurdish militants had crossed the border from Iraq's northern and semi-autonomous Kurdistan region into southeastern Turkey on Friday, and sought to mount an attack on a military position in the Cukurca district of the province, located more than 1,000 kilometers east of the capital, Ankara.

Turkish Air Force fighter jets launched an aerial attack in response, killing 20 Kurdish militants.

Three soldiers also lost their lives and six others sustained injuries during clashes with the Kurdish militants.

A total of 275 PKK militants were killed and 23 others captured during clashes with Turkish security forces in November, according to figures compiled by Turkey's official Anadolu news agency.

Another 19 Kurdish militants surrendered themselves to authorities.

Fourteen members of the security personnel were killed, and 18 civilians lost their lives during the mentioned period. More than 100 people were also injured.

Furthermore, 560 PKK suspects were arrested, out of whom 367 were taken into custody.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK, which has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984, and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. 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 the PKK positions in the country's troubled southeastern border region as well as northern Iraq and Syria.

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Turkish Opposition Holds Rally Over Gov't Plans to Shift to Presidential System

Sputnik News

00:13 04.12.2016

Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party held a rally in southern city of Adana against the government's intention to amend the constitution, aimed at replacing the parliamentary republic by the presidential system.

ANKARA (Sputnik)  In November, the CHP announced plans to hold nationwide rallies in protest to the government's intention to change the constitution.

"The philosophy of the republic should be important for us, because those people, who built it, paid a high price in order to leave a better Turkey for their children and grandchildren. That is why we must take care of it. We will defend the democratic parliamentary system. It is unacceptable when one person says  'I have the majority, and I will change the system.'" CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said at a meeting.

In November, Turkey's Forestry and Water Affairs Minister Veysel Eroglu said that a new constitution draft, elaborated by the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), was likely to be put to a referendum next spring.

Under the new constitution there would be no prime minister in the political system, while the president would be a member of a political party.

The draft is supported by the AKP, holding 316 seats, and the MHP, with 40 seats in the parliament. The CHP and pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) oppose the initiative, blaming President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for seeking to establish a one-man rule.

In order to secure a referendum to replace the parliamentary republic by the presidential system, the constitutional draft needs 330 votes, while it could pass directly without a referendum if approved by more than 367 parliamentarians. However, the AKP announced it would take the constitution to a referendum in any case.

 Sputnik

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(Xinhua) 11:31, December 04, 2016

BEIJING, Dec. 3 -- China's top securities regulator Liu Shiyu slammed Saturday the practice of leveraged acquisition with "questionable" funds, calling the buyers "barbaric."

Liu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, made the remarks during a meeting of the Asset Management Association of China, a self-regulatory body that oversees private funds.

Any attempt to acquire a majority stake in a listed firm using funds from questionable sources is crossing the line, Liu said.

Acquisition backed by insurance funds will inevitably affect the target company's share price, and could threaten the corporate governance structure.

"Funneling public funds into leveraged acquisition means ordinary investors will ultimately bear the risks," he said, underscoring this is absolutely not "financial innovation."

His criticism is seen as partly alluding to recent instances of high-profile A-shares acquisitions, including a bid by property developer China Evergrande Group to acquire 14.07 percent shares of its peer China Vanke Co. Ltd. with 36.27 billion yuan (5.26 billion U.S. dollars).
A planned Ku Klux Klan rally in honor of Donald Trumps election attracted protestors from across the country Saturday, even though the event never came to be.

Protestors marched in Pelham, North Carolina, and Danville to show  in their words the KKKs not welcome here.

The Loyal White Knights of the KKK, a white supremacist group with chapters located in Pelham, North Carolina, and Martinsville, announced plans for a Trump victory rally in November.

The group set it for Saturday, but did not specify a time or place. Late Friday night, a spokesperson for the chapter confirmed to media outlets they would be marching at 9 a.m. in Pelham. KKK members were eventually seen at 3 p.m. in Roxboro, a 45-minute drive from Pelham, flying confederate battle flags from cars and yelling white power, according to media reports.

The Caswell County, North Carolina, Sheriffs Office had notified Danville police that dozens of anti-KKK protestors were headed for the city because they believed a KKK rally was supposed to occur there and their intent was to engage in a counter protest, according to a news release from the Danville Police Department.

After learning there was no KKK rally, the group dispersed for lunch but later regrouped with about 100 protestors.

The protestors marched in Danville for about an hour, starting on Main Street and going through the Old West End neighborhood. Danville Police Department and Virginia State Police monitored the protest and rerouted traffic, calling the protest spontaneous and peaceful in a news release.

Terrell Simmons of Mobile, Alabama, found out about the planned rally late last month, and wanted to fight back against the mistreatment by white supremacists like the Loyal White Knights.

Theyre not gonna keep doing what they used to do back in the 60s, Simmons said. Were not gonna stand for it.

Similar protests were held in Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, by other groups Saturday, as well as others across the nation.

My goal is to show the KKK were just trying to show them that love trumps hate, Hepzibah Nanna, who organized the #opstopkkk protest in Danville, said. Even if youre a different race, religion, we need to accept diversity and help each other learn to love each other. This isnt about being violent  we stand for love.

Andrew Blum of Cary, North Carolina, came to the protests because he felt like this election has brought lots of isms  racism, sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia  into the public discourse in a way it hasnt been for decades, and I feel really strongly that it needs to be put back into the bottle. I feel like any kind of public action where shame can be employed is really important.

Nanna said she received death threats for a week before the protest, and some told her the KKK was going to show up and teach them a lesson, but no members of the KKK were spotted at Saturdays protests.

I think that the KKK needs to realize you cant threaten people if you want to be taken seriously. You need to walk in love, Nanna said. You cant threaten peoples lives.
Around two dozen people arrived at the Doyle Thomas park on Green Street on Saturday afternoon for the Put The Guns Down community rally.

There have been 14 homicides so far this year, the most in the citys history. All of the offenses involved firearms.

Attendees held up signs that stated 434 Lives Matter, leep the peace and other anti-violence messages.

Beverly Richardson wants to see the adults step up in the wake of this increase in violent crimes.

The suspected offenders of many property and violent crimes in Danville have been by teenagers or young adults no older than 25.

Richardson wants the youth to be what you want. Dont follow the crowd.

Unfortunately, our children dont know what to do with their time, she continued.

Richardson, David Wilson, Jessica Griffith and many concerned residents have raised their voices at rallies and marches throughout the year for a change.

Griffith said that when violence comes to a persons neighborhood or their home, it can be a traumatic experience.

After the rally, Griffith and other attendees went to Memorial Drive and Kemper Road to discuss anti-violence ideas and plans with residents.

Its more of you out there that should be here, Wilson said.

Gerald Holmes used his cellphone to record every individuals remarks on Facebook Live so people who were not in attendance could hear the message.

Jeffrey Totten arrived at the rally to help the community in any way he could, he said.

Justin Ferrell said that economic revitalization of Danville was necessary for change in the city.

Dale Jordan would like to see local business leaders offer jobs to or invest in young people.

Danville city councilman Lee Vogler was there to show support and solidarity with the anti-violence rally.

He said its important to do things on a grassroots community level. The community is where the change is going to start.
HAVANA, Dec. 3 -- The ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, arrived Saturday in Santiago de Cuba, where he will be laid to rest in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery on Sunday.

The final leg of his funeral procession travelled the last 120 km between the city of Bayamo to Santiago de Cuba, the place known as the Heroic City for "its decisive contributions to the complete and definitive independence of the Cuban nation."

The caravan also crossed some of the city's key spots, including the former Moncada Barracks, now a school, on which Castro led a failed attack against the army of dictator Fulgencio Batista in July 1954.

Tonight, at 7:00 pm, a massive ceremony will be held in the city's Antonio Maceo Revolution Square, where President Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, will address a crowd of mourners and dignitaries.

On Sunday, concluding nine days of national mourning, Castro will be buried in the historic Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where lies the hero of Cuba's national independence, Jose Marti.
DoD Publishes Vulnerability Disclosure Policy  On Monday, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter continued that engagement when he signed a vulnerability disclosure policy that establishes ground rules and guidance going forward for researchers who find and wish to privately disclose bugs on any DoD website.

(Australia) Security Vulnerability Disclosure Is Still a Minefield  There have been many clashes between researchers and vendors, some of which have resulted in legal action against bug hunters. Today, we look at an extremely grey area in IT security: how security vulnerabilities should be disclosed.

(UK) Hack the Army: US military begs white hats to sweep it for bugs  Security experts reckon the US governments newly unveiled 'Hack the Army' bug bounty programme may usher in greater co-operation across the whole arena of security research.

Back in July 2016 at the first-ever Billington Global Automotive Cybersecurity Summit in Detroit, I moderated a panel session titled: Securing the Car Through Vulnerability Testing and Coordinated Disclosure Programs.The topic of our session, stated in terms that you may have heard more frequently, was why (and how) the automotive sector (as well as other industries) is starting to offer "bug bounties" to improve its products and services. And this topic is only growing more intense as we close out 2016impacting more public- and private-sector organizations around the world.One of my upcoming predictions for 2017 () will be that governments and other critical infrastructure sectors will be setting up coordinated vulnerability disclosure programs and starting to offer more bug bounties. I also think bug bounties will become an important component to securing Internet of Things (IoT) devices, smart cities and much more.Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to dive a bit deeper into this topic and dedicate a blog on coordinated vulnerability disclosure programs.Lets start with the value proposition for responsible vulnerability disclosure programs. Heres how Marten Mickos, who is the chief executive officer at HackerOne, described why this topic is so important right now:The entire panel session was just aired on CSPAN this past week, and the video is available for free on-demand viewing now. I embedded the video below, and I strongly urge readers to watch the entire 38-minute discussion.I can tell you that I learned quite a bit by engaging with this expert panel (before during and after this summit session). Here are some panel highlights from the CSPAN transcript website (note capitalized text comes from CSPAN and other text is my commentary):THERE IS AN INCREDIBLE GROUP OF GOOD GUYS THAT  WANT TO HELP. WHAT WE ARE LOOKING AT IS TWO GROUPS OF PEOPLE WHO NEED TO HAVE A CONVERSATION BUT ARE HISTORICALLY TERRIBLE AT GETTING ALONG.(Responding to the question of whether $1,500 is enough motivation for hackers.) THE INITIAL MOTIVATION, THE PRE-EMINENT ONE, HACKERS ARE GOING TO HACK.IN A WEEK'S TIME, IT WOULD BE INTERESTING FOR EVERYONE TO REVISIT THE THOUGHT OF, 'HOW I AM I GOING TO GET STARTED WITH THIS?' IT [getting hacked] IS ACTUALLY GOOD FOR YOU. IT IS AS GOOD AS GOING TO THE DOCTOR AND DOING CHECKUPS YOU DON'T REALLY LIKE TO DO. MUCH BETTER TO KNOW YOUR WEAKNESSES THAN NOT TO KNOW.A BUG BOUNTY PROGRAM IS LIKE A NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH. YOU ARE TRAVELING AND ASK YOUR NEIGHBORS TO TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR HOUSE. NO MATTER WHAT ALARMS AND LOCKS, YOU CAN'T BE PROTECTED AGAINST EVERYTHING SO ASK THE WORLD AROUND YOU TO HELP YOU.(Answering question on why some companies do not participate in bug bounties) THEY MUST NOT CARE ABOUT SECURITY.(On vetting hackers) I WOULD THROW IT BACK AND SAY, 'HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR EMPLOYEES ARE ALL GOOD ACTORS?' YOU DON'T SCORE THEM THE WAY WE DO.IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO RESEARCH, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT SAFELY. THIS IS HOW WE WANT TO REWARD YOU FOR THAT RESEARCH.(On insider versus outsider threats) I THINK THEY ARE 50-50. THOSE INSIDE HAVE GREATER ACCESS, BUT THE INSIDER THREAT IS NOT NECESSARILY SOMEONE PURPOSELY TRYING TO DAMAGE. IT IS MORE THEY ARE CLICKING ON THAT LINK AND RESPONDING TO EMAILS THE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO. I WISH WE COULD PATCH STUPIDITY, BUT IT HAS NOT HAPPENED YET.This topic has been getting plenty of news lately, if you know where to look. No doubt, the election, hacking, recounts and recent DDoS attacks that use IoT devices to bring down networks have been stealing the cybersecurity headlines of late. Still, check out these related stories:The US Army will offer cash rewards to hackers who find vulnerabilities in selected, public-facing Army websites under the scheme, which builds on the US militarys previous 'Hack the Pentagon' programme.Back in spring 2016, before the Automotive Cybersecurity Summit, I wrote this blog on bug bounties as an important part of our technology future solution to solve cybersecurity woes and the surge in hacking in all areas of life. Heres an excerpt:Bug bounties are simply rewards for finding and reporting security flaws with a software program that permit unintended actions to happen. A more formal set of definitions surrounding bug bounty programs (sometimes called hacker bounty programs) can be found here .I believe that this trend is set to take off in all parts of federal, state and local governments, as well as in global governments moving forward. Just as the DoD issued a new policy, expect the same from others in the public and private sector. Vendors who support these websites and government applications also need to adjust their approaches to include this new normal.This quote is telling about the new policy (from the DoD article above): For the first time, anyone who identifies a security issue on a DoD website will have clear guidance on how to disclose that vulnerability in a safe, secure, and legal way. This policy is the first of its kind for the Department, Carter said. It provides left and right parameters to security researchers for testing for and disclosing vulnerabilities in DoD websites, and commits the Department to working openly and in good faith with researchers.I expect to see most states and large cities issuing some type of policies over the next few years  and certainly before New Years Eve in 2020.In the meantime, do your homework on setting up coordinated vulnerability disclosure programs.Watching this CSPAN panel video is a good first step to learn more.
(Xinhua) 12:20, December 04, 2016

TAIYUAN, Dec. 3 -- An amateur photographer has every weekend for the past two years documenting and chatting with veterans who fought in China's war against Japanese aggression from 1937 to 1945.

Li Ruobing, a clerk with the industrial and commercial bureau in Yangquan City of north China's Shanxi Province, compiled his photographs and conversations into a book, self-published it, and gave a copy to each of the veterans.

"I did this to show the veterans that they are not forgotten," said Li. "I had to race against time because of their age."

Guo Jingrui, who is over 90, cried like a child at the end of Li's interview. "His wife said she had never seen him shed a tear in decades. She said my visit was long overdue."

One of the veterans, Wang Qi, died just a day before Li was to meet him. He did leave behind an old photo and a brief description of his wartime experience. Li included these in his book, too.

"At least 20 of the veterans I interviewed did not live to see the book published," he said.

Li's campaign began in the summer of 2014. He was visiting Wang Xixian, a veteran who was critically ill and bed bound at a welfare home.

"On the window sill was a photo of him at the height of his youth: he was handsome, energetic and proud in his soldier's attire," said Li.

Li asked Wang if he could salute and pose for another photo. "His eyes sparkled at my suggestion and he asked several time if his salute was 'up to standard.'"

Li was moved by that photo, and decided to take more photos for every surviving veteran in his home province of Shanxi.

With the support of the local government, he located about 200 veterans. He visited them one by one, often chatting for hours. Each visit ended with a photograph.

Over the past year, dozens of volunteers have joined Li on his weekly veteran visits. During winter and summer vacations, school children also join him, hoping to hear history first hand.

Li has so far revisited more than 50 veterans with his gift book. Each time he was received with hospitality and left in tears.

"Some insisted on walking me to the door, even though they walked with great difficulty. Some buttoned up my coat for me fearing I might catch a cold."

Even the youngest of the veterans are nearing 90 and many are unable to move about. All are awarded with medallions but few like to show off. "One of them told me his medallions should belong to his contemporaries who did not survive the war," Li said.

"I hope my trips will go on forever. From these heroes I've learned all about devotion, loyalty and sacrifice."
The damage from the fire at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

The man who confessed to setting fire to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco was sentenced to 35 months imprisonment, said U.S. federal prosecutors.

The arsonist was Feng Yanfeng, who held permanent resident status in the United States, but was of Chinese origin. He put three containers of gasoline by the consulate's front entrance and poured gas on the front door and steps almost three years ago. The fire did substantial damage, but no one was injured.

Feng has been in custody since he confessed to the arson just a few days after the incident in January 2014.

The 42-year-old was originally charged with arson and violence to a foreign official that prompted Chinese government officials to urge the U.S. to provide better protection for their diplomats across the country.

Head of FBI in San Francisco describes the arson case on January 6, 2014. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

However, his lawyer argued that Feng suffered mental illness. An affidavit in the case also said Feng told federal agents that he was hearing voices that asked him to do so.

After two years' trail, Feng entered a guilty plea to only one felony count of "offering violence to a foreign official" on September 14 of this year.

Feng will also serve three years of supervised release after his prison term is up.
The first Honda Clarity Fuel Cell vehicles arrived in Europe last week. The first six vehicles will be based with customers in London and Copenhagen as part of the Hydrogen for Innovative Vehicles ( HyFIVE ) demonstration project, partly funded by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking ( FCHJU ).

Honda has always been one of the leaders in the field of hydrogen fuel cell technology, with over 30 years of research and development behind us. The arrival of these vehicles in Europe and Hondas participation in HyFIVE is the next step towards Hondas vision of the full commercialization of this technology. Thomas Brachmann, Chief Project Engineer, Honda Research and Development and leader of Hondas Clarity Fuel Cell program in Europe

The HyFIVE project aims to promote the awareness and adoption of fuel cell vehicle technology and infrastructure across Europe. Once deployment is completed, 185 fuel cell vehicles from five automotive manufacturers will be with private and corporate customers across Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden and UK.

The Clarity Fuel Cell is the pinnacle of Hondas current electrified vehicle technology and highlights the commitment, recently announced by company president Takahiro Hachigo, that two thirds of global sales will feature an electrified powertrain by 2030.
Members of the Supreme Courts conservative majority are questioning the continued use of affirmative action in higher education. In lengthy arguments Monday, the justices wrestled with persistent, difficult questions of race. The justices heard from six different lawyers in challenges to policies at the University of North Carolina and Harvard. Those policies consider race among many factors in evaluating applications for admission. One conservative justice likened affirmative action to giving some college applicants a head start in a footrace. But a liberal justice said universities are the pipelines to leadership in our society and suggested that without affirmative action minority enrollment will drop.
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An outlet of American Apparel in Beijing refused to uphold a request to access surveillance footage after a woman lost her mobile phone while shopping in the store.

The woman initially went to the local police, who suspected her phone may have been stolen in the shopping district. The police then accompanied her back to the store and asked for surveillance footage to investigate further.

The outlet refused and the manager said as American Apparel will close in Beijing at the end of this month, the surveillance is now in the hands of the US headquarters. The outlet was unable to provide the surveillance without permission from the headquarters, even if it was to assist a police investigation.

Employees said the only way to obtain footage is to submit an application to the head office.

The store contacted the US headquarters on access, and promised to inform the customer when they would hear back. As to date, no further contact from the store has been received.

A lawyer from Beijing Yue Cheng Law Firm, said as the store is registered in Beijing according to China's corporation law, the store's assets belong to the store, this includes the surveillance cameras and monitoring equipment, there should be no problem in them accessing the footage. Also, the footage doesn't have property value and may involve criminal scenes, so businesses should cooperate when asked by the police for investigations.

The lawyer said China's laws are applicable to the outlet running in China, even if it claims as an overseas-funded enterprise. Businesses resisting police investigations may be fined or detained.
(Xinhua) 16:17, December 04, 2016

BEIJING, Dec. 4 -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will pay an official visit to China from Monday to Tuesday at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang announced Sunday.

Wang and Zarif will co-chair the first annual foreign ministers' meeting, according to Geng.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Iran in January, both countries agreed to set up an annual meeting mechanism as a part of efforts to deepen mutual strategic trust.




Haiti - Humanitarian : 550,000 people need immediate stabilization





The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicates that nearly 550,000 people affected, with particular emphasis on women, need immediate stabilization of livelihoods, access to credit for communities, and to help the rapid recovery of the local economy.



Several partners created 3,238 emergency jobs to clean up the irrigation infrastructure in order to

facilitate the watering of the canals in Petit-Goave ; Helvetas initiated cash for work activities for relocation of ravines and repair of rural tracks, and cleaning of irrigation canals. Some 700 family members in Belle-Anse in Sud and Chapelle and Verrettes in Artibonite benefited from this initiative ; Action Aid donated 10,000 gourdes to 500 women in GrandAnse for reviving their small businesses.



An agreement of $50,000 was signed with the Municipality of Apricots within the framework of the Partnership between UNDP and UNWomen. The agreement engages women and empowers them in the post-hurricane response by creating 900 jobs in emergency clearing of irrigation and infrastructure to facilitate drainage of sewage and storm water to mitigate the risk of flooding and sludge flow.



Two Communal Rehabilitation Plans are prepared by the Commune of Dame Marie. The plans are designed to guide humanitarian and development efforts in the post-hurricane response. The objective is to optimize the invested funds and maximize the deployed technical assistance. This technical support is thought to be a first step towards the development of the Communal Development Plan (PCD), which will define the orientations of spatial planning over the longer term.



UNDP carried out cash-for-work activities in connection with the cleaning and unblocking of roads in Dame Marie and Anse d'Hainault.



The Early Recovery sector has also reported 6,500 beneficiaries from the cash for work program related to the cleaning of debris in Sud and GrandAnse.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2016/12/03

Vanity Fair showcases some of the country's top literary gems, 10 Magazine turns up the heat on Korea's stance on climate change, the Korean Wave is still riding high, and does living in Korea change the way you speak?

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"5 Korean Novels You Should Read Now"

Han Kang's novel "The Vegetarian" was awarded the Man Booker International Prize back in May, but what other great books are there from Korea's literary scene? In this post on Vanity Fair, Lilit Marcus highlights four other books by South Korean writers that are worth exploring: "Fox Girl", "Please Look After Mom", "Drifting House" and "The Interpreter". What South Korean novels have you read? Do you have any books to add to this list? Let us know in the comment section below...

...READ ON VANITY FAIR

"SOUTH KOREA RANKS AS ONE OF THE WORST COUNTRIES FOR CLIMATE CHANGE"

Are you concerned about made-made global warming? Soon Holland, writing for 10 Magazine, reveals how South Korea has responded to climate change; spoiler: it's not great. But as Soon notes, "Under the current circumstances, it would seem Seoul might have higher priorities than reducing gas emissions".

...READ ON 10 MAGAZINE

"SEOUL LIFE: DOES BEING IN KOREA CHANGE HOW I SPEAK?"

The vlogging duo that is My Korean Husband look back at their busy week in their latest video: "The world has been an uncertain place", says Nichola, referring in part to the recent protests in Seoul, as well as the impact YouTube's new algorithm has on their work. In this video, however, they tackle the question: "Does being in Korea change how I speak?" This episode is extra long  enjoy!

...WATCH ON MY KOREAN HUSBAND

"Korean wave's here to stay"

Is the Korean Wave just a fad, or is it going to be with us for at least a little while longer? It's true that over the past decade or so the world has been introduced to, and embraced, modern Korean culture. The country's music, cinema, TV dramas and cuisine have led the charge here, and its literature and arts are coming through, but are folks getting K-Wave fatigue, or is Korean cultural dynamic enough to keep rolling on? Zuliantie Dzul explores...

...READ ON NEW STRAITS TIMES
Published on 2016/12/03

Busan recognised as Korea's top incentive tourism destination, 10 Magazine has some tips to help you get over your homesick this holiday season, get to know Naver Maps and take advantage of Korea's awesome public transport system, and see Korea's romantic side with some lovely suggestions for travelling couples.

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"Busan recognized as top incentive tourism destination"

The coastal city of Busan is leading the way as the country's top incentive tourism destination, and, as this report on the Korea Herald reveals, "The city is now ranked among the top five international conference cities in Asia and the top 10 in the world, according to recent data from the Union of International Associations". The city has put a lot of effort into raising the city's profile internationally to attract tourists and businesses to their shores. Planning a trip to Korea? Best not miss out on Busan...

...READ ON THE KOREA HERALD

"10 WAYS FOR OVERCOMING HOMESICKNESS IN KOREA"

Travelling and working in South Korea will be a fantastic experience, no doubt, but there will come a time during your stay  usually around holiday times like Christmas  where you may start to get homesick and miss your life, friends and family back home. So what to do? In this post on 10 Magazine you'll find 10 suggestions for how to beat these blues: "Sometimes we can feel that despite enjoying life here in Korea, things are not quite right. By shifting and expanding our mindset, we are able to feel more at home here in Korea and less homesick!"

...READ ON 10 MAGAZINE

"9 Step Photo Guide to Korean Buses with Naver Maps"

South Korea's public transport, and the technology driving it, is simply world-class. The taxis, buses, the subway and trains are all so easy to use, safe and reliable, but how are you going to navigate this awesome infrastructure if you can't read Korean? There many solutions (Koreans are pretty friendly after all), but getting to know Naver Maps will go a long way to helping you reach your destination without much fuss. "Whether you're visiting or living in Seoul, the city offers one of the best public transportation circuits in the world. Luckily it's also quite easy to learn and acclimate to..." Have you used Naver Maps before?

...READ ON LIVE TRAVEL TEACH

"5 ROMANTIC BUDGET DESTINATIONS IN SOUTH KOREA"

Maybe it's Korea's four distinct seasons that adds to its romantic allure, or perhaps all those happy couples in matching T's walking around town, but whatever way you look at it the country definitely has a romantic side worth experiencing with your partner. This is great news if you're a travelling couple, and in this post you'll discover where to go and what to do if you're looking for a little love and romance in the Land of the Morning Calm: "If you're a couple traveling to Korea, you don't need to spend a fortune to show how much you love your partner while visiting the country". What are some of you favourite dating spots in Korea? What part of the country do you think is the most romantic? Let us know below!

...READ ON CHRONICLES OF A TRAVEL ADDICT
Published on 2016/12/04 | Source

Now that the annual college entrance exam is over, many youngsters are looking for part-time jobs before they start university. But they are often taken advantage of because they are young and inexperienced, and keeping a cool head is essential before entering the world of adult work.

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To help with the challenge, job portal Albamon on Thursday offered some essential tips for young part-time workers.

First of all, check what the minimum hourly wage is in the company. This year's official minimum wage for both regular and temporary employees is W6,030, rising to W6,470 from next year (US$1=W1,171).

In some cases, trainees are paid only 90 percent of the legal minimum wage, but employers cannot cut their pay if they are employed for less than one year.

Payment should be made in cash directly on a fixed date, and employers are not allowed to change the date or pay in kind or coupons.

Remember that employers are not allowed to dock a worker's wages for a mistake, no matter how costly.

Workers are entitled to half an hour's break for every four hours they work, and what they do in that break is entirely up to them.

Employers who force their staff to use their break time in bits and pieces of 10 minutes here and five minutes there are in breach of the law, no matter how busy they may claim the company is.

Contracts are also important. They lay down the employer's promises and specify terms such as wages, working hours, and holidays.

If they suffer abuse at work, young workers can get advice at the Youth Labor Rights Center, an agency founded by the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Certified Public Labor Attorneys Association to protect their rights.
I was hanging out with Miguel de Icaza in New York a few weeks ago and he was sharing with me his ongoing love affair with a NoSQL Database called Azure DocumentDB. I've looked at it a few times over the last year or so and though it was cool but I didn't feel like using it for a few reasons:

Can't develop locally - I'm often in low-bandwidth or airplane situations

No MongoDB support - I have existing apps written in Node that use Mongo

No .NET Core support - I'm doing mostly cross-platform .NET Core apps

Miguel told me to take a closer look. Looks like things have changed! DocumentDB now has:

Free local DocumentDB Emulator - I asked and this is the SAME code that runs in Azure with just changes like using the local file system for persistence, etc. It's an "emulator" but it's really the essential same core engine code. There is no cost and no sign in for the local DocumentDB emulator.

MongoDB protocol support - This is amazing. I literally took an existing Node app, downloaded MongoChef and copied my collection over into Azure using a standard MongoDB connection string, then pointed my app at DocumentDB and it just worked. It's using DocumentDB for storage though, which gives me Better Latency Turnkey global geo-replication (like literally a few clicks) A performance SLA with <10ms read and <15ms write (Service Level Agreement) Metrics and Resource Management like every Azure Service

DocumentDB .NET Core Preview SDK that has feature parity with the .NET Framework SDK.

There's also Node, .NET, Python, Java, and C++ SDKs for DocumentDB so it's nice for gaming on Unity, Web Apps, or any .NET App...including Xamarin mobile apps on iOS and Android which is why Miguel is so hype on it.

Azure DocumentDB Local Quick Start

I wanted to see how quickly I could get started. I spoke with the PM for the project on Azure Friday and downloaded and installed the local emulator. The lead on the project said it's Windows for now but they are looking for cross-platform solutions. After it was installed it popped up my web browser with a local web page - I wish more development tools would have such clean Quick Starts. There's also a nice quick start on using DocumentDB with ASP.NET MVC.

NOTE: This is a 0.1.0 release. Definitely Alpha level. For example, the sample included looks like it had the package name changed at some point so it didn't line up. I had to change "Microsoft.Azure.Documents.Client": "0.1.0" to "Microsoft.Azure.DocumentDB.Core": "0.1.0-preview" so a little attention to detail issue there. I believe the intent is for stuff to Just Work. ;)

The sample app is a pretty standard "ToDo" app:

The local Emulator also includes a web-based local Data Explorer:

A Todo Item is really just a POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) like this:

The MVC Controller in the sample uses an underlying repository pattern so the code is super simple at that layer - as an example:

The Repository itself that's abstracting away the complexities is itself not that complex. It's like 120 lines of code, and really more like 60 when you remove whitespace and curly braces. And half of that is just initialization and setup. It's also DocumentDBRepository<T> so it's a generic you can change to meet your tastes and use it however you'd like.

The only thing that stands out to me in this sample is the loop in GetItemsAsync that's hiding potential paging/chunking. It's nice you can pass in a predicate but I'll want to go and put in some paging logic for large collections.

I'm going to keep playing with this but so far I'm pretty happy I can get this far while on an airplane. It's really easy (given I'm preferring NoSQL over SQL lately) to just through objects at it and store them.

In another post I'm going to look at RavenDB, another great NoSQL Document Database that works on .NET Core that s also Open Source.

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Fee for fishing? Study group looks at possibility of non-commercial license

WHT:  Non-commercial fishing has cultural, environmental and economic implications in the state, and attempts to regulate it and/or create a fee structure for the privilege are controversial in nature.

Jim Rizzuto, a 77-year-old lifelong fisherman, said the idea of charging for non-commercial fishing licenses in Hawaii has been around for years.

I think theyve been looking at it most my life, said Rizzuto, who has written a weekly fishing column for West Hawaii Today for decades.

He said it could be seen as problematic by many fisherman around the state.

Often, people are resistant to a change to something theyre used to getting for free. Aside from that, the cost for an agency to run the licensing program would likely eat up much of the revenue it was supposed to generate, he said, and it could prove a nuisance to fishermen having to fill out the details and specifics of what theyre catching and where.

Restrictions to non-commercial fishing could be especially irksome to fishermen in Hawaii, where casting line is a lifestyle.

Its like having a license for walking, like having a license for swimming, he said. I dont see it as useful in any way. .

read  Fee for Fishing

* * * * *

REPORT ON POTENTIAL NON-COMMERCIAL FISHING LICENSES RELEASED

Varied Stakeholders Contributed and Collaborated

News Release from DLNR, December 2, 2016

(Honolulu) - Following six meetings earlier this year, the DLNR Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) has received a report from a group of experts and organizations with interest in establishing non-commercial fishing licenses in Hawaiii.

The independent group studied the potential benefits and impacts of different forms of a non-commercial marine fishing registry, permit, or license system. Participants in the meetings, held between May and November, included the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council, Conservation International, fisheries resources managers, experts, and representatives from different fishing organizations and interest groups. The study group interviewed fisheries managers from other coastal states, conducted a detailed economic feasibility analysis, and consulted with legal experts, including an expert in native Hawaiian law.

According to DAR Administrator Dr. Bruce Anderson, This group specifically focused on the ability of a potential system to meet three primary fishery objectives. This includes providing additional and more robust data to support fisheries management; to foster more dialogue between fishers and managers; and to create a continuous source of independent funding to support effective fisheries management. In expressing the DLNRs appreciation to the members of the study group, Anderson wrote, It is indeed a thorough and well-researched document. We are impressed with the way all the members worked together throughout the project.

While Study Group members did not hesitate to express divergent views, their comments were always intended to be constructive. I believe the final report reflects this spirit of cooperation and collaboration as well as the dedication and hard work of all members. Every member certainly has a great passion and appreciation of the value of our marine resources.

Anderson concluded, We look forward to getting comments from a broad range of stakeholders before making such a decision on what option is preferred. Undoubtedly, this report will generate considerable discussion and serve as a valuable reference for all those interested in this issue.

# # #

RESOURCES

Read the full report: dlnr.hawaii.gov/dar/announcements/feasibility-of-a-non-commercial-marine-fishing-registry-permit-or-license-system-in-hawaii/

HD video of fishermen and Hawaii island fishing tournament: www.vimeo.com/170543631
Eating honey and using it topically can be good for you and may provide you with health benefits.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

Trend:

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that the country does not eye present day territory of the Republic of Armenia.

We have no intention to return either Iravan or Mehri or Gorus through militarily, said President Aliyev as he met with representatives of the general public as part of his visit to the frontline district of Tartar.

But I am confident that the time will come and we, Azerbaijanis, will return to all our historical lands, he added.

We will achieve this through conducting a consistent policy, peacefully, the president said. All objective factors demonstrate that this day will come. We should just work to hasten that day. How should we do it? We should be stronger.

The president said international law has almost been a fiasco.

Power is the main factor now, the president said. This is the reality, and we live in this real world. So we must be more powerful, we must build a stronger army.

Our economy must grow stronger, the president said. Our economy must develop at a more rapid pace. Our development must speed up. Our population has increased and will continue to increase even in the years of crisis.

In a year or two Azerbaijan`s population will reach 10 million, the president said. This is a stable tendency, and the growth will be even bigger in the years ahead.

President Aliyev also said that the Armenian population is decreasing, which, he added, is caused by both natural reasons, migration, hopelessness, despair, arbitrariness.

He said that in fact the incumbent fascist regime in Armenia created unbearable conditions in the country.

Therefore population in this country will continue to decrease, people will leave the country as they are doing now, he added.
By Starrla Cray

Associate Editor WINSTED, MN  The past 57 years have flown by fast for Winsteds Glenn Weibel. Thats how long hes been in the aviation industry, a career he retired from Oct. 31. Ive had some very high highs in aviation, Weibel said. Some included attending jet school at age 62, serving on numerous airport advisory boards, and flying to places like Paris, Germany, Alaska, and Acapulco. I cant describe the adrenaline, sitting at 45,000 feet, looking down at mountains and vast valleys  its fantastic, he said. Ive been very fortunate; better than I deserve. Weibels aviation career didnt take off easily, though. He joined the military at 17, with dreams of becoming a helicopter pilot. However, when he turned 21 (the earliest age for helicopter training at that time) and took the flight exam, he was denied due to his need for eyeglasses. Undeterred, Weibel pursued a different path in aviation, and was hired by North Central Airlines Nov. 1, 1959 as a station agent, loading and unloading aircraft. When I started, they had 32 DC-3s and three Convair 340s, he said. When I left the airline, they were into turbo props  Convair 580s, and jet aircraft  DC-9s. His next job involved managing an international travel office for AAA. In 1970, Weibel signed up as an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He was later promoted to a supervisor position there. Then, one day at work, I got a phone call that my brother had been killed here in Winsted in a farm accident, Weibel said. Thats when I said, Im going to quit the FAA and Im going to try to get a flying job . . . . Id always wanted to do it, so I was going to do it. He became the operations manager of the flight department for US Bank, which had three crew bases and about 13 pilots out of St. Paul. Weibel later worked for a company called S&T Food Specialty for about seven years, until the company was sold. The airplane was taken over by a flight management company, and Weibel flew with them for about four years. From about 2007 to 2016, I flew out of Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie, Weibel said, adding that he also flew part time at airports in Anoka, Crystal, St. Paul, and Lakeville. Grounded in service When Weibel wasnt flying, airplanes were still on his mind. He served as chairman of the Reliever Airports Advisory Council (RAAC) for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, advising six airports in the metro area. Now, Im vice chair of that group, Weibel said. I also chair the Downtown St. Paul Airport Advisory Council for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, and the City of St. Paul. Along the way, Weibel served as treasurer of Leon Township in Goodhue County for 17 years, as well as mayor and city council member of Cannon Falls. He was also chairman of the Cannon Falls Hospital District for several years, was co-chair of the Minnesota Association of Townships, served as an auxiliary police reserve member, and was a training coordinator for the volunteer ambulance services of Goodhue and Wabasha counties. I was a certified EMT, and also helped run ambulances, Weibel said, adding with a laugh that he also took vacation occasionally. Weibel makes time for faith, too, and he has served on numerous church boards. I wanted to go to the seminary high school, and my parents at the time said, no, finish high school, then go to seminary, Weibel recalled. But by then, aviation bit me. Although Weibel never became an ordained minister, he has been asked to give mini sermons at funerals and community events. I did a sermonette for my former mother-in-law when she passed away, Weibel said. When it was over, I was asked if I was ordained and on the call list. Sadly, Weibel has had to attend funerals for many family members through the years. An especially difficult one was that of his son, Sean, who was killed in a helicopter accident June 23, 1994. It was a terrible summer, Weibel recalled, explaining that in April that year, his wife suffered a stroke that nearly took her life. The one silver lining later that summer was the birth of Weibels grandson, who was named after his late father. Weibel describes his grandson, Sean, as a carbon copy of his father, in features and mannerisms. Both blonde with blue eyes, Weibel said its virtually impossible to tell their high school graduation pictures apart. Staying young into retirement Weibel is looking forward to spending more time with his kids and grandkids now that hes retired. Its a full-time job, he laughed. Hes also looking to buy a plane, but hes not rushing into anything. In the meantime, hes content being part of various aviation clubs, and hopes to do more flying for people who need planes transported to different states. Ive enjoyed aviation immensely, and time went by so fast, Weibel said. Despite his decades of life experience, Weibel has managed to stay surprisingly young. He noted that he hasnt turned 60 yet, explaining that I recently celebrated the 19th anniversary of my 59th birthday.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:

Creation of a new government in Spain will give an impetus for bilateral cooperation with Azerbaijan, Jose Luis Diez Juarez, Charge d'Affaires of Spain to Azerbaijan believes.

"We had an acting government for a year. Our parliament managed to form a government just a couple of weeks ago and now we have to prepare all the agendas," Diez told Trend in an interview.

He noted that no official visits have been confirmed yet between the countries for the next year.

Diez reminded that Azerbaijan and Spain held political consultations last year, adding that a memorandum of understanding is being negotiated now in order to make those political consultations more regular  every year or every two years.

Charge d'affaires noted that the two countries have a lot of cooperation and support each other within international organizations.

He also stressed that Spain strongly supports territorial integrity and sovereign independence of Azerbaijan.

Moreover Diez said that Azerbaijan and Spain develop cooperation in educational and cultural spheres. He noted that some Azerbaijani students have already got scholarships from Spanish government adding that Azerbaijani government also gives scholarships to students to go to Spain.

"We always have a few students in Spain coming from Azerbaijan," Spanish diplomat said.

He noted that there are a regular cooperation between Azerbaijani and Spanish universities, for example between the University of Architecture and the University of architecture in Alicante, University of Languages and the University of Murcia, and one of biggest Spanish institutes  Instituto de Empresa (IE) is cooperating with Azerbaijan too.

"We also have Erasmus exchange. So the exchange of the students and professors of our universities is quite developed," Diez said.

He went on to say that from time to time Spanish students participate in some programs in the energy or Caspian studies spheres in Azerbaijani Universities.

Diez also said that in the last two years Spanish Embassy had organized a lot of cultural events in Azerbaijan.

"We found sponsors to support several concerts of Spanish music here - flamenco, classical guitar. We did a film festival in May, a night of Spanish literature and music in October. We participated in the Jazz festival and it was very successful. And we are planning already more projects for the next year," Spanish diplomat said.

In particular it is planned to participate in the Jazz festival next year, do at least one more flamenco concert and try also to have a Spanish film festival next year, he said.

Follow the author on Twitter:@E_Kosolapova
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

By Huseyn Veliyev - Trend:

Russia and Azerbaijan get ready to sign a cooperation agreement in the field of postal services, Rashid Ismailov, deputy minister of telecom and mass communications of the Russian Federation, told Trend.

He said they were considering delivering goods from China via Azerbaijan since Azerbaijan is a transit country.

"We considered delivery of Chinese goods to Russia by our planes, transshipping them from here [Azerbaijan], but Silk Way [Azerbaijani cargo airline] has opened a subsidiary in Moscow which allows delivering goods directly to Moscow or Yekaterinburg, depending on the necessity," Ismailov added.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Dec. 4

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

The Turkmen-German political consultations were held in Ashgabat, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message.

The delegation of the German Foreign Ministry was headed by Commissioner for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia Andreas Peschke, the message said.

"The issues of international and regional agenda were discussed during the talks," the message said.

According to the message, the issues of cooperation in political, trade-economic, energy and humanitarian spheres were also discussed during the consultations.

"Turkmenistan and Germany expressed gratification with the results of political consultations and expressed the need to further continue the negotiations at various levels," the message said.
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Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Dec. 4

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

The 69th meeting of the Interstate Coordination Water Commission of Central Asia (ICWC) is planned to be held in Ashgabat December 19, the Turkmen government said in a message.

According to the message, the agenda includes the issues of rational use of water resources.

The delegates from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will attend the meeting, the message said.

"The effective use of water is primarily associated with the development of the agro-industrial complex and environmental protection," Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said at a government meeting.

The president drew attention to the importance of the integrated and sustainable use of transboundary water resources in Central Asia.

Turkmenistan borders with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan and uses the water resources from four transboundary rivers, namely, Amu Darya, Tejen, Atrek and Murghab, in accordance with the agreed quotas.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Dec. 4

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

The 21st International Exhibition and Conference "Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan 2016" will be held in Ashgabat on December 7-9, the Turkmen government said in a message.

According to the message, the specialists from 40 countries and representatives of nearly 100 oil and gas companies are expected to participate in the event.

Special attention will be paid to the diversification of supply of Turkmen natural gas to the world markets, as well as the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline construction project, the message said.

A number of documents related to the implementation of the project are planned to be signed, the message said.

"In the context of geopolitical cooperation, prospects of global, regional and national growth in the oil and gas industry, the market experts will consider the potential of Central Asia and the Caspian region as a major supplier of energy resources, Turkmenistan's role in global energy security," the Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary state news agency reported.

One of the sessions will be devoted to the implementation of know-how in the oil and gas refining and petrochemical industries of the country, the message said.

According to the message, the overview of current exploration work in the region, the development of Galkynysh gas field, as well as oil and gas fields on the Caspian shelf will be presented to the specialists.

The investments in oil and gas industry of Turkmenistan, the legal aspects of intergovernmental and multilateral agreements will be also discussed, the message said.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

Trend:

Today, on Dec. 4, polling stations have been opened at 06:00 (UTC/GMT+5) for voting in the presidential election in Uzbekistan.

In total, 9,383 polling stations, including 44 at the Uzbek diplomatic missions in foreign countries, have been opened for voting.

The polling stations will be closed at 20:00.

Names of 21.435 million Uzbek nationals, who are 18-years old, have been included in the voters lists.

Earlier, the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Uzbekistan announced the 100-percent readiness for the extraordinary presidential election in the country. Polling stations are equipped with the necessary means of communication, technology and literature. All voters are notified by district election commissions about the time and place of voting.

Conditions for disabled citizens have been created at the polling stations. Almost every polling station has ramps for wheelchairs and voting booths with appropriate width. Special ballot papers, as well as materials about the election on the basis of Braille alphabet have been prepared for blind people. Sick citizens can call to polling stations on the election day and ask them to come home with relevant documents and a special ballot box.

Uzbekistans Interior Ministry and National Security Service will ensure security during the presidential election in the country.

Citizens, who dont have the opportunity to be at the place of their residence on the election day, voted in advance from November 24 to December 2. According to the CEC, the number of citizens, who participated in early voting, was 117,902.

The Uzbek presidential election campaign started Sept. 9, 2016.

The canvassing, which began since the registration day of the candidates, Oct. 28, ended on Dec. 2 evening.

Uzbekistan will hold an early presidential election December 4 due to the death of ex-president Islam Karimov, who passed away after suffering a stroke at the age of 79 on Sept. 2.

Candidates from four political parties of Uzbekistan participate in the presidential election - Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP), People's Democratic Party (PDPU), Milly Tiklanish (National Revival) Party, and Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party.

Among the presidential candidates are the countrys Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev from UzLiDeP, Sarvar Otamuratov from Milly Tiklanish Party, Nariman Umarov from Adolat Party, and Hotamzhon Ketmonov from PDPU.

The new head of state will be elected for a period of five years.

The election will be considered valid with a 33 percent turnout of the total number of voters. A candidate has to gain over 50 percent of the vote to win the election.

In general, nearly 80,000 observers will be monitoring the presidential election in Uzbekistan, including over 500 international representatives from 43 countries and such international organizations like the OSCE ODIHR, CIS Executive Committee, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

About 1,300 local and foreign journalists have been accredited to cover the presidential election in Uzbekistan, according to the CEC.

Preliminary results of the election will be revealed Dec. 5.
God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers.

This verse from the Bible rings cent per cent true in the case of Dorris Francis. Perhaps you havent heard of her. Those born in average families and those who stand on the lowest rung of the economic ladder often fail to catch peoples eye.

Dorris left Punjab and reached Delhi along with her brother and sister at the age of nine. She began making a living as a domestic help. Around this time she got married with Victor Francis. They built a home in the Khoda neighbourhood near the Delhi-Ghaziabad border and this is where she gave birth to three children. If life hadnt taken a tragic turn for Dorris, her story, like 99.9% people in the world, would have ended in just these words: they were born, lived and passed away.

One fine evening in 2008, Dorris was returning home with her husband Victor and daughter Nikki. Near the Khoda traffic crossing, a car rammed into their auto-rickshaw. The couple was injured and their daughters lungs badly damaged. After nine months of agony and expensive treatment, Nikki didnt survive.

Such tragedies often leave people broken but Dorris decided that she wouldnt let what had happened to her happen to others. She decided to make the management of traffic and saving peoples lives her mission. Every morning at 7 am, she would station herself at the Khoda traffic crossing and manage traffic for the next four hours. Initially the drivers didnt listen to her and even the police wondered what her motive was. But Dorris wasnt fazed. Gradually, passersby began respecting her. Maintaining this daily drill wasnt easy for her. Dorris comes from a socio-economic section where people have to dig a well every day to meet their needs. But I salute her indomitable spirit. She faced a number of problems owing to vehicular pollution. She got a liver infection and her blood pressure shot up beyond acceptable limits, but she was determined not to give up on her mission.

If someone enquired, she said she would keep saving lives till her last breath. I cant silently watch children getting orphaned, women getting widowed or mothers losing their children, she retorted.

Read| Removing DND Flyway toll to create traffic mess in south, central Delhi

On top of this, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Just the mention of cancer is enough for the poor to feel their life has ended. But Dorris was not one to be dissuaded. She was standing at the Khoda crossing with her stick which she used to direct traffic, till November 20 last month. When her health deteriorated, she was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on November 21. She could not spend more than 10 days there because she needed a total sum of anywhere between 2,000 and 3,000 every day for treatment. The sole breadwinner in her family, her son, drives an autorickshaw. Her husband is a diabetes patient who is unable to make a living now. Her daughter works as a security guard but hasnt got her salary for the last few months. She sold her motorcycle to pay for her mothers treatment. The medical expenses were so exorbitant that they couldnt have afforded treatment even if the family sold itself.

Dorris dejected family members got her discharged from AIIMS on November 30. At the time these lines were being written, she was getting treatment at a private hospital in Vaishali that has decided to support Dorris. A few people have come forward to help her after reading newspaper reports. And the PMO has promised 3 lakh for her treatment. Ultimately, the society, to whom she dedicated eight years of her life, is waking up to Dorris plight.

Read | Two killed, four injured as truck crushes cars in Delhi

Delhi isnt just the national capital but also the capital of those who die unsung. Thousands of people who come to the city every day to earn a livelihood end up losing their lives.

The question is, why cant institutions such as AIIMS treat the economically underprivileged? AIIMS is an autonomous body. Organisations such as these have certain limitations but also have certain special rights. Nobody expects private hospitals to do it, but if organisations like AIIMS dont help the underprivileged, how can India live up to its reputation as a welfare state?

One hopes that Dorris Francis gets comprehensive treatment and gets freedom from physical agony. People like her are like lamps shining on a hill. They might not take away all the darkness but they do provide hope to those fighting against it. We can, therefore, confidently conclude that the countrys population of downtrodden often throws up beacons of hope. Acid attack victim Lakshmi and transgender rights activist Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi are living examples of this.

Lakshmi and Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi proved to be luckier than Dorris. Their fame spread across the world and they were felicitated on international platforms. Paving the way for victims like them, these people are living leading more honourable lives than before.

Read | PMs fund sanctions Rs 3L for treatment of activist who managed traffic on NH

One wishes people like Dorris, who are fighting for human dignity, could get similar recognition.

Even then, the injustice in the world wont go away, but facing it would be slightly less painful.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan
Pollution has pervaded all five elements  or panchatattvas  earth, water, fire, air and aether. To document the change in these elements over the last many years, a photo-festival, Habitat Photosphere, is being organised in the city.

We started a year ago, when four photographers were selected by a jury of four renowned photographers, Parthiv Shah, Bandeep Singh, Prabir Purkayastha and Aditya Arya. Each was awarded Rs 2 lakh, and mentored by the jury members to work on the theme of sustainable development. In the following nine months, what these awardees captured across India will now be displayed as the exhibition Panchtattvas: The Road Ahead. Weve designed the exhibition to sensitise people, says Alka Pande, artist director of the festival.

When the salt water enters the farms, the crops are destroyed and the farm land becomes barren for 2-3 years. This makes the farmers migrate in search of work and their children are left with the grandparents. So the children have to grow up without parents.

Delhi-based Monica Tiwari has captured the lifestyle changes in children of migrant parents in the global-warming affected Sunderbans and Kerala-based KR Sunil has photo-documented the ponds of Kerala that are on the verge of extinction. The salt water that enters the farms destroys the crops, making the land barren for two to three years. Farmers then have no choice other than to migrate in search of work, and their children are left with the grandparents, away from parents, says Tiwari.

The other two artists are Mumbai-based Harikrishna Katragadda, who focuses on Ganga, and Pune-Holland based Shraddha Borwake, whose work explores the earths gravity. Alongside their works, jury members will also showcase theirs. A highlight among these is Aditya Aryas documentation of the degradation of the Aravalli range.

A still from the animation film, Sharing Grace, by IIT Delhi students.

A film festival on the subject of sustainability will also be organised as part of Habitat Photosphere. Forty-four films, including an animation feature, Sharing Grace, by IIT Delhi students, will be screened during the festival. This is based on a short story by Grimm brothers, on how new families are formed in the event of an earthquake. We had workshops of storytelling and story writing, in which we created cartoon characters and then shot them frame by frame, says Nitin Donde, curator, film festival.

Highlights A light-based installation, Illume, by artist Ashim Ghosh A video work, Deep Weather, by Swiss-artist Ursula Biemann Graphic novel project, 17 Seen Unseen, at Jor Bagh Metro Station

The multi-dimensional Photosphere will also have a light-based installation, Illume, by artist Ashim Ghosh and a video work, Deep Weather, by Swiss-artist Ursula Biemann. In addition, at the Jor Bagh Metro station, authors Kavita Singh Kale and Santosh Kale will show images from their graphic novel project, 17 Seen Unseen, which is based on 17 sustainable development goals.

There will also be treasure hunts, curated walks and interactive and educative workshops, conducted by renowned photographers throughout the month of December.

Catch It Live WHAT: Habitat Photosphere 2016 WHERE: Atrium and outdoor spaces, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road

ON TILL: December 31

TIMINGS: 11am-8pm

NEAREST METRO STATION: Jor Bagh on Yellow Line

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Bhopal: Commenting on Bhopal additional district magistrate (ADM) Ratnakar Jhas statement on celebrating gas tragedy, minister for gas relief and rehabilitation Vishwas Sarang said the government will take cognisance if the administrative official has made such an objectionable statement.

ADM Ratnakar Jha on Friday had reportedly raised questions on the need for declaring holiday on the anniversary of Bhopal Gas Tragedy. He also used the word celebrate instead of mourning for the anniversary of the industrial disaster. He said, What is the need of a holiday? Let the gas tragedy survivors celebrate the anniversary.

Congress leader PC Sharma said on Saturday that Jhas statement is condemnable and amounted to an insult to the victims of the tragedy.

Additional district magistrate Ratnakar Jha has hurt sentiments of thousands of gas victims by referring to the Bhopal gas tragedy anniversary as celebrations. This is very insensitive of him and the government should take action against him, said gas tragedy survivor Kusum Srivas.
Bhopal: Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is down with viral fever and has been advised rest by doctors, CMs principal secretary SK Mishra told HT.

Chouhan cancelled all his engagements for Saturday.

The chief minister had gone to Delhi to attend a private conference on Friday morning. After his return to Bhopal later in the day, he looked tired and unwell, and even did not attend the cabinet meeting scheduled at 8pm, official sources said.

On Saturday morning, he didnt participate in the All-Religion Prayers, organised at Barkatullah Bhavan, to pay tributes to the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy on the accidents 32nd anniversary.

He has viral fever, nothing else. He is not attending any function because he has been advised by doctors to take rest. He needs to be fine to attend the big government event (on Sunday), Mishra said.

The chief minister is scheduled to launch new schemes at BHEL Jamburi Maidan on Sunday.

More than 350 cases of dengue, 200 cases of chikungunya and 550 cases of viral fever have been reported in the state capital since August.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dec. 4

By Demir Azizov Trend:

Uzbekistan has thoroughly prepared for the presidential election, Eldar Ibrahimov, chairman of the Committee on Agrarian Policy of the Azerbaijani parliament said.

Ibrahimov, as well as Azerbaijani MPs Siyavush Novruzov, Elman Nasirov arrived in Tashkent to observe the presidential election in Uzbekistan.

During the meeting with Deputy Chairperson of the Uzbek Senate Svetlana Artykova, the sides stressed that cooperation between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan in social, political, cultural and educational spheres plays an important role in the development of Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, the upper house of the parliament told Trend.

The sides exchanged views on the activity of parliaments and electoral systems of the two countries, developments and innovations in this field.

Candidates from four political parties of Uzbekistan participate in the presidential election - Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP), People's Democratic Party (PDPU), Milly Tiklanish (National Revival) Party, and Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party.

Among the presidential candidates are the countrys Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev from UzLiDeP, Sarvar Otamuratov from Milly Tiklanish Party, Nariman Umarov from Adolat Party, and Hotamzhon Ketmonov from PDPU.

The new head of state will be elected for a period of five years.

In general, nearly 80,000 observers will be monitoring the presidential election in Uzbekistan, including over 500 international representatives from 43 countries and such international organizations like the OSCE ODIHR, CIS Executive Committee, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
In good news for travel and tourism enthusiasts of Madhya Pradesh, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will soon operate tour packages for Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bhutan and Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The package will include visa fee, air tickets, food, 3-star hotel stay and AC bus service for sight-seeing, IRCTC officials announced at a press conference here on Friday.

The tour package to Sri Lanka is called Ramayana Yatra and will include spots like Sita Mata Mandir, Ashok Vatika, Hanuman Mandir along with some popular Buddhist tourism places. The flights for this tour will depart next year on January 8, January 20, February 9, February 21 and March 21 from Indore and Bhopal, said KK Singh, deputy general manager, IRCTC (tourism).

The Combodia package, he said, will include Angkor Wat in Siem Reap and its flights will depart on March 5, April 16 and May 14.

The package for Dubai and Abu Dhabi will cover important tourist destinations in both the places and its flights will depart on February 11 and March 25. The package for Bhutan will include destinations like Thimpu, Punakha and Paro for which flights will depart on February 20, added Singh.

Skill development programme for youths

The IRCTC regional office at Bhopal has also started a skill development programme under the ministry of tourism under which it is providing training to youths in food and beverage services. It was commenced on November 9 on first-come-first-serve basis. The eligibility for enrolment is Class 8 pass.

The six-week skill development training programmes first batch includes 30 candidates. They will be provided practical training of four days during the course, which will enhance their skills and help improve their job prospects, said Singh.
Bhopal: The October 31 jailbreak by suspected SIMI men and the September 25 custodial torture of an RSS leader are set to rock the five-day winter session of Madhya Pradesh Assembly beginning Monday.

While the Congress will corner the BJP government on the jailbreak, at least two members of the ruling party are likely to raise the Balaghat incident, an RSS leader claimed, demanding arrest of the accused policemen in the case.

Congress chief whip in the assembly Ramniwas Rawat told HT on Saturday that he has sought an adjournment motion to raise the issue of jailbreak, in which eight suspected SIMI men escaped Bhopal central jail after killing head warder Ramshankar Yadav, before being gunned down by police in an alleged encounter in the outskirts of the city in the morning.

Deputy leader of opposition and Congress MLA from Rajpur (Barwani), Bala Bachchan said the state government will have to answer how the eight were awake but the security apparatus was caught sleeping.

The eight alleged jailbreakers were undertrials and some of them were awaiting court judgments. How can such a lapse even take place? Didnt the government learn lessons from the October 1 early morning escape by the same men from Khandwa jail? asked Bachchan.

Firebrand Congress MLA from Rau (Indore), Jeetu Patwari said the government will also be questioned as to who is responsible for the murder of jail head warder Ramashankar Yadav.

That security staff meant for jails is being deployed for security of bureaucrats and ministers would also be raised, he asserted.

Facing flak from various quarters, the state government has already ordered a judicial probe into the whole incident.

On the Balaghat custodial torture, an RSS leader claimed at least two BJP MLAsDr Yogendra Nirmal and Rampyare Kulastewill question the government on the delay in arrest of the accused cops.

Both the MLAs have personally assured me to raise the issue in the winter session, RSS Mandla-Balaghat head Subhash Badole said.

While the Waraseoni MLA, Nirmal was not available for comment, Kulaste, who represents Niwas and is the brother of Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste, confirmed that he had assured the RSS leader about raising the issue in the assembly.

Its not possible now to get the matter listed for question hour, but I will certainly try to raise it through the call attention motion in the coming session, Kulaste said.

The state government needs to come clear on the issue by stating in the assembly whether the accused cops would be arrested or not, Badole said.

The alleged torture of RSS pracharak Suresh Yadav by cops in a Balaghat police station sparked outrage among right wing outfits, with RSS demanding action against the accused cops who were bookedseven of them were suspended and two home guards terminated. No arrests have been made so far in the case being probed by an SIT.
Bhopal:

Hundreds of activists took to the streets on Saturday to condemn government inaction and apathy in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy that killed thousands 32 years ago on this day.

Various NGOs representing those affected took out rallies chanting slogans and burnt effigies of Warren Anderson, the then CEO of Union Carbide, the logos of the US firm and its current owner Dow Chemicals, and the flags of the US.

The activists also visited various crematoria and burial grounds to pay tribute to those who died following leakage of toxic methyl isocyanate from the Union Carbide Corporations pesticide plant in this city on December 3, 1984.

Leaders of five survivors organisations who jointly organised the rally, urged the US, the state and the central governments to stop sheltering and colluding with the corporations and ensure justice for the half million survivors.

The US government is sheltering Dow Chemicals for the last two years by refusing to serve the notices of Bhopal district court against the US firm. It must stop violating the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty it signed with India in 1991, Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, said.

Abdul Jabbar, convener of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sanghathan, expressed sadness over none being punished for the worlds largest industrial disaster. We hope the culprits are punished as per the law of the land, he said.

The government organised an all-religion prayer meeting at the Barkatullah Bhawan, led by gas relief and rehabilitation minister Vishwas Sarang in the presence of various religious heads.

Governor O P Kohli, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and mayor Alok Sharma were not present.

DGP Rishi Kumar Shukla , chief secretary Basant Pratap Singh and senior officials of police and government took part in the commemoration along with a host of distinguished citizens and public representatives.

Isai Mahasangh took out a candle march from Berasia road till the statue of peoples memorial near the Union Carbide factory.

NGOs organised a condolence meeting at Shahjani Park and gave a memorandum to minister Sarang demanding adequate compensation for gas victims and proper disposal of toxic waste dumped at the Union Carbide plant.

Balkrishna Namdeo, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Pensionbhogee Sangharsh Morcha, accused the Indian government of colluding with US firms, denying justice to victims.

He also claimed that victims were denied justice as they were either Muslims or lower caste Hindus.

Nawab Khan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modis indifference, saying that he took special care of the menu of the dinner he invited Dow Chemicals CEO, Andrew Liveris to, but he remains oblivious to the need for revision of figures of injury and death for additional compensation to survivors.

Charging the state government with deliberate negligence, Satinath Sarangi of Bhopal Group for Information and Action accused it of not taking legal steps to make Dow Chemicals pay for the contamination of ground water in and around the pesticide factory since 1991.

Safreen Khan of Children Against Dow Carbide, said the aftermath of the disaster was also man-made.

The disaster can end today if the governments of USA, India and Madhya Pradesh respect national and international laws follow their respective constitutions and fulfill promises made, he said.
Principals of Delhi government schools will now get a chance to get trained at Indias premier management institute  Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad)  to improve education standards in schools.

The government on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the right to education resource centre at IIM-A for a principal leadership programme where the heads of around 1,024 Delhi government run schools will participate.

A statement released by the government said that the institute will administer an intensive course to all principals on school leadership. The course will be conducted over the next 18 months.

Talking about the impact of such a training session on the administration of city government run schools, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said, The heads of schools functioning in Directorate of Education schools have a rich wealth of experience in managing schools. Their capacities to run an academic institute should be supplemented by professional training in leadership, especially in the field of school education.

Read more: New readers at Delhi govt schools make slow, steady progress

The government is serious about building skills and capacities of all principals, teachers working in our schools, and I am confident this step will go a long way towards improving the way individual school managements function, he said.

The initiative is, however, not new. The education department has in the past tied up with the University of Cambridge, UK, and National Institute of Education, Singapore, to improve the teaching techniques in schools.

The school authorities, however, stood divided over the announcement.

Mahesh Kumar, principal of the Government Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, Patel Nagar, welcomed the move.

If we stay updated, we will be able to ensure good training and education to our students. There is no age to learn and newer skills will only bring improvement in our system, he said.

However, Ajay Veer Yadav, general secretary of Government School Teachers Association (GSTA) said, The government just wants to show that it is doing something with the hefty budget that it has assigned to the education department. If the same money would have been invested in improving infrastructure and hiring more teachers it would have done some good. We have seen such trainings in the past and these do not help students in any way.
Paul Krugman would stand in line to meet Charlie Stross. The Nobel Prize winning economist who spoke at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit last week is a sci-fi buff and, with the conviction of a true zealot looking for an argument (Ive been there, so trust me), told me that the British writer is the best science fiction writer alive. This was at a pre-summit dinner and the small group that had gathered around Krugman  managers of private equity funds, CEOs of global and local companies  didnt really seem to care. Later that evening, we briefly discussed the economics and probability of commercial space travel of the kind that could enable the colonisation of Mars.

That we were having a serious discussion on what was once a popular theme in sci-fi (Mars books are legion) is a sign of the times. Towards the end of the tumultuous decade that started in 2008, and characterised by flat-lining incomes, the rise of authoritarian leaders selling simple (and usually shallow, but very popular) ideas, and general unhappiness and strife, it is clear that everyone, including economists, needs to accept that the future is upon us. Indeed, in recent years we have seen a profusion of literature trying to understand what would happen if the homo economicus (or the economic and rational human) is replaced by machina economicus (an interpretative translation would be the perfectly rational machine).

Read: Flipkarts fashion unit Myntra bets on artificial intelligence to drive growth

For the benefit of those who have been away on Mars, lets make a list. In the ongoing decade since 2008, Artificial Intelligence has finally stopped being a buzzword and become reality thanks to what is called deep learning (simply put, teaching a machine to think and learn); self-driving cars have been launched; advances in gene-editing have put the 100-year life (borrowed from the title of a book on what longevity means to life and work by Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton) within our grasp, and AR and VR (augmented and virtual reality) are disrupting everything from pornography to education (although, sometimes, pornography is educative). Ive left out the more ordinary innovations including homes that think, phones that talk back, robots that greet you at stores, transparent yet secure ledgers of everything (as some have described Blockchain) or household 3D printers.

Pause for a moment and think. And then, if you want to, trivialise. I am told there are no queues in Mars.

Id like to call this an ex machina moment for businesses. Start-ups and incumbents that understand the power and utility of these technologies will be able to write the new rules of business and define not just industry standards but industries themselves. For instance, artificial intelligence could take away 60-80% of service sector jobs. That voice at the other end of the line when you call your bank (if you are one of those who still calls banks) could soon belong to an intelligent agent. How soon? Yesterday.

Read: The complex issue of AI and ethics

Where would we find such companies? Actually, all around us, and even in India (and I use the word even not as an expression of disparagement but with a sense of pride because one would typically expect to find such companies in the US, Japan, or the country with the most digital society in the world, South Korea). Within a 25km radius of the Hindustan Times newsroom in central Delhi is a start-up that makes industrial robots. There are a few dozen companies in the country working in the area of artificial intelligence, including a handful that would be recognised as true AI companies anywhere in the world. Mint has been profiling some of these companies as part of its Mint40 series, an ongoing listing that also covers popular companies that do not use cutting edge technologies but which could dominate the countrys business landscape in the 2020s. As the name suggests, the listing will have 40 companies  40 companies that could well constitute an index of the future.

In the 1990s, pharma firms such as Dr Reddys Laboratories and IT companies such as Infosys were among the bright lights in this landscape (although both companies were founded earlier). In the 2000s, it was telcos such as Bharti Airtel Ltd. And in the 2010s, this role was taken up by the e-commerce marketplaces. Capital and the best human resources gravitated towards them. They received glowing (and sometimes gushing) media coverage. And they were valued disproportionately.

Read: IoT and AI: Potent combo redefining healthcare

This doesnt mean todays large companies will simply roll over and die. The smarter ones among these  one example is industrial conglomerate General Electric  are already re-inventing themselves, using their existing and obvious advantages to innovate, define standards, even acquire hot start-ups. But, at the risk of repetition, disproportionate value will be created by start-ups in these new areas.

Thats why smart venture capitalists, analysts, journalists and job-seekers would do well to brush up on their science fiction.

R Sukumar is editor, Mint.

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It could be an eerie coincidence that three corpses found within 10km of each other over the past nine days in the Capital were chopped and mutilated almost identically.

Police in south and south-eastern districts, where the bodies of a man and two women were found, have launched separate investigations to solve the mystery  are there separate murderers, or a single killer is involved.

Investigators suspect the victims  probably between 30 and 40 years of age  were murdered somewhere and their bodies dumped elsewhere. And the murder weapon for any of these three cases is yet to be recovered.

The bodies were dumped at three spots after being murdered. If we find a weapon in even one case, it will help us crack the case. Even if we identify one body, it will help us in our probe, an officer said.

The only obvious clue is that the victims were chopped to pieces before being dumped. Police have not been able to identify them yet.

Read | Delhi: Womans headless, decomposed body found in sewer in Munirka

These mutilated bodies appear to be separate murder cases. We are working round-the-clock to find the culprits and are confident of nabbing them soon, joint commissioner of police Dependra Pathak said, refusing to link the three horrifying murders to a single killer.

The first victim was a woman in her mid-30s. Her naked, decapitated corpse was found in a sewer on the ground floor of a building in south Delhis Munirka on the night of November 25. Police have not found her head yet. Civic sanitation workers are checking the network of drains nearby.

On December 2, the body of a man, with his legs and nose chopped off, was found at in Mangal bazaar in Sangam Vihar. The man, probably 40, had cut marks on his face. He was almost naked, barring a vest and underpants. The body was wrapped in a blanket and dumped outside a shop.

A day later, police in Amar Colony  roughly 10km from Sangam Vihar and Munirka  were informed about a womans corpse in a drain near a Delhi Jal Board office. The body was in a black bag. The lower torso was hacked off at the waist.

Read | Gurgaon shocker: Minor raped, strangled and dumped

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There is a yawn factor in hearing United States president-elect Donald Trump warn American companies that they would face consequences if they outsourced jobs overseas. There was every expectation Mr Trump would make this a policy issue. After all, the loss of manufacturing and low-end service jobs to places like Mexico, China and India was a cornerstone of his campaign and helped generate the working class support that put him in the White House. The attack on outsourcing is something the world has heard before. The outgoing US president, Barack Obama, repeatedly said jobs needed to stop moving from Buffalo to Bangalore. Traditionally, it was Democratic candidates who always incorporated attacks on outsourcing in their electoral speeches and Republicans who kept mum about it.

Read | Trump vows to tackle visa violations causing job losses in US

Mr Trumps recent comment referred to the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. But he has attacked the outsourcing of service jobs to India during the campaign, so one should assume these will eventually receive some presidential ire. The question is whether Trump actually has any options when he warns of consequences. Are there actually penalties or incentives that could make a US firm think twice before outsourcing? The president-elect has ballyhooed a recent deal where he persuaded an air-conditioning maker from sending 1,000 jobs to Mexico in return for $7 million in tax incentives. However, this is hardly fiscally sustainable on a national scale and in the long term. But the most important reason is that manufacturing jobs are disappearing to automation. Even if factories could be persuaded to come back to the US, they would increasingly consist of machines making machines.

Read | Tech workers with H1-B visas may face uncertain future under Trump, Sessions

The Trump administration is likely to experiment with other means to stop service jobs from being outsourced. He will be taking a well-worn road to nowhere. In the past, US state and municipal governments have sought tied contracts to the promise of not outsourcing jobs only to watch their budgets sink in red ink. Penalties like massive fines and so on have been shot down in courts or led to entire companies leaving the country.

The US, like much of the world, has a jobs crisis at the lower levels of society and the solutions lie in high-end service jobs and bespoke manufacturing. These require changes in education and skilling merged with the opportunities offered by technology. It is yet to be seen whether a Trump administration will take the path less travelled or continue to seek eco-television-friendly victories of the air-conditioning factory variety.
There is a disturbing tendency which is increasing of late on the part of some politicians to involve non-political entities or institutions in political diatribes and mud-slinging, or cast aspersions on them. And it is unfortunate that Mamata Banerjee, even in her second term as West Bengal chief minister, has proved no exception to this. Ms Banerjee has all along been known to be impetuous in her ways, even when she was a Union minister. And now the way she has accused the army of staging a coup in her state  over a relatively unimportant issue of army troopers collecting data at toll plazas  was an entirely unnecessary attempt at creating a controversy. There has been no coup against any state government in Indian history, and so far, looking at the armys conduct, there is no possibility of there being one.

While Ms Banerjee has claimed that the army had done this exercise without her permission, the army on its part has said that the state government was apprised of the matter, and the dates for doing this had been changed on the request of the Kolkata Police. This still leaves open the question of whether the state government had given its approval. Whatever the truth of the matter, what is certain is that this is an exercise thats conducted not just in West Bengal but in other states also. If Ms Banerjee is peeved, it can only be over the manner in which this has been done. So, at this stage, the right thing for her would have been to talk to the Union defence minister, who would then have been able to clear the air on this. The matter is currently being discussed at the police, army and bureaucratic levels, and it should be ensured no such misunderstanding takes place in future.

Ms Banerjee is now at the forefront of leading the charge against the Central government on demonetisation and her speech in Delhi did create a re-think on the part of many on this move. She showed a good grasp of the measure and the hardship that it might entail. But her stance on the army issue looked like not just an assault on the army but also opening a second flank against the Centre. This can not only affect her personal stature but also dilute to some extent the issues of demonetisation she has raised. The army is often called out to control internal disturbances and also natural calamities such as floods and cyclones in states. No one should drag it into a political slugfest and make unsubstantiated allegations about its intentions.
The real test for the operator of Kherki Daula toll plaza starts today as traffic is expected to increase multiple times on the first working day after the resumption of toll collection, following the demonetisation move.

Though the highway authority and the district administration said they set up adequate cashless payment facilities at the plaza, there were not many takers for the cashless service on the weekend.

As many as 100 personnel of Gurgaon police, including two assistant commissioners and five inspectors, will be deployed to manage the toll plaza. Besides, the administration has also appointed a duty magistrate for the purpose.

The dip in revenue collection notwithstanding, the highway operator said it would try best to prevent jams at the toll plaza.

We know that it would mean a dip in our revenue, but we will lift the boom barriers and let commuters pass without paying the toll in the case of a snarl, an official of Skylark, the operator, said.

Toll collection resumed on December 2 after the government imposed hiatus of 24 days to tackle the cash crunch post scrapping of old currency notes on November 8. The police lifted the boom barriers 20 times for vehicles to pass without paying the toll on Saturday and Sunday was no different.

Snarls were witnessed at the toll plaza on the weekend as commuters paid with the scrapped 500 notes, acceptable at toll plazas till November 15, and 2,000 notes.

Not more than 1% of the commuters used cards, e-wallets and other online payment modes facilitated by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for paying toll charges, officials said.

The NHAI has installed card swipe machines as well for making payment through debit/credit cards.

Around 86,000 vehicles pay toll at the Kherki Daula toll plaza on a working day. The concessionaire claimed that it has already incurred a loss of 11 crore between November 8 and December 2.

The chaos at Gurgaon-Faridabad toll plaza is also expected to increase, though the collection was not totally suspended.

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Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dec. 4

By Demir Azizov Trend:

The voter turnout in the presidential election in Uzbekistan stood at 87.83 percent as of 20:00 (UTC/GMT +5 hours), according to the results of the online monitoring held by the countrys Central Election Commission (CEC).

A total of 17.94 million voters cast ballots in the election.

According to the updated data of CEC, names of 20,428,890 Uzbek citizens have been included in the voters list. Earlier, CEC said that names of 21.4 million citizens were included in the lists made by precinct election commissions.

Stateless persons, who have changed their citizenship, juveniles in detention, as well as Uzbek citizens who have stayed abroad for a long time, were excluded from the voters list, said CEC.

Polling stations opened at 06:00 (UTC/GMT+5 hours) and closed at 20:00. The voting currently continues at the polling stations established at the representative offices of Uzbekistan in Europe and the US.

The counting of votes separately for each presidential candidate started at the polling stations, where the voting was completed.

The Uzbek president is elected for a period of five years. The election is considered valid with a 33 percent turnout of the total number of voters. A candidate has to gain over 50 percent of the vote to win the election.

The Uzbek presidential election campaign started Sept. 9, 2016.

The canvassing, which began since the registration day of the candidates, Oct. 28, ended on Dec. 2 evening.

Candidates from four political parties of Uzbekistan participated in the presidential election - Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP), People's Democratic Party (PDPU), Milly Tiklanish (National Revival) Party, and Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party.

Among the presidential candidates were the countrys Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev from UzLiDeP, Sarvar Otamuratov from Milly Tiklanish Party, Nariman Umarov from Adolat Party, and Hotamzhon Ketmonov from PDPU.

The Uzbek CEC chairman said that the commission hasnt received any reports of violation of the countrys electoral legislation so far.

In general, nearly 80,000 observers were monitoring the presidential election in Uzbekistan, including over 500 international representatives from 43 countries and such international organizations like the OSCE ODIHR, CIS Executive Committee, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

About 1,300 local and foreign journalists were accredited to cover the presidential election in Uzbekistan, according to the CEC.

Preliminary results of the election will be revealed Dec. 5.
Actors Chris Evans, Jessica Chastain have lashed out at a recently resurfaced interview in which Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci admitted the rape scene in the movie was filmed without the consent of its lead actor Maria Schneider.

In a recently viral video interview from 2013, Bertolucci confirms that Schneider, who died in 2011, did not know about the rape scene which she shot with Marlon Brando, and that the graphic nature of the scene in the erotic drama was improvised on set, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Id been in a way horrible to Maria because I didnt tell her what was going on. Because I wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress, Bertulocci said in the clip.

Celebrities voiced their outrage of the resurfaced news on Twitter.

Chastain said of the revelations, To all the people that love this film- youre watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick.

To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick. https://t.co/qVDom2gYf6  Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) December 3, 2016

While, Evans tweeted that Bertolucci and Brando should be in jail.

Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage, he tweeted.

Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage https://t.co/uvaLogvv7I  Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) December 3, 2016

Actor Anna Kendrick acknowledged that Schneiders lack of knowledge of the scene prior to the shooting day was nothing new.

Ms Schneider stated this several years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes), she tweeted.

@colliderfrosty @ChrisEvans Ms Schneider stated this several years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes).  Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) December 3, 2016

Actor Evan Rachel Wood also reacted with disgust on the micro-blogging site.

This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The two of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok, she tweeted.

I second that. This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The 2 of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok. https://t.co/Ft4SArjcgd  #EvanRachelWould (@evanrachelwood) December 3, 2016

Last Tango in Paris was critically lauded but surrounded in public controversy. The films director was put on trial for obscenity in Italy after the release of the film. Copies of the film were destroyed at the time and Bertolucci was served with a four-month suspended sentence in prison and denied his civil (including voting) rights for five years.

Inexcusable. As a director, I can barely fathom this. As a woman, I am horrified, disgusted and enraged by it. https://t.co/voGRhafy9K  Ava DuVernay (@ava) December 4, 2016

All copies of this film should be destroyed immediately. It contains an actual rape and sexual assault. #disgusting #disgrace https://t.co/pKKdSlBDbU  Jenna Fischer (@jennafischer) December 3, 2016

Last Tango in Paris earned Brando a Best Actor Oscar nomination and Bertolucci a Best Director nomination.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
A 42-feet-long carcass of a whale was found at Baidhara Pentha beach in Puri district of Odisha, an official said on Sunday.

The forest officials recovered the dead marine species on getting information from the local people.

Its a rare whale shark mostly seen in the Pacific Ocean. Cause of death can be ascertained after the post-mortem examination, said Satapada Forest Ranger Achyutananda Das.

He said the veterinary college doctors have been requested to conduct an autopsy to establish the reason of death.

The marine mammal might have died 10-15 days back and the carcass may have washed ashore, Das said.
A 70-year-old farmer collapsed and died while filling up a withdrawal form at a public sector bank near Papanasam in the district, police said on Sunday.

The incident happened on Saturday when M Subramanian, from Vaazhkai village near Papanasam, had gone to the bank with his wife. As he was filling up the form, he suddenly collapsed. A senior bank official said some staffers tried to administer first aid and customers rushed to offer help. An employee offered him some water, but he did not respond, he said.

An ambulance service was called, and on arrival a doctor pronounced Subramanian dead, he said.

The bank official said the farmer was a long-time customer and had come to the bank last week also when there was a crowd.

Yesterday, he came at 10.23 am and collapsed at 10.25 am itself. He was not standing in the queue. He collapsed when he was filling up the form, the official said.

A senior police officer said it was natural death and hence no case was registered.

We have not registered a case since it is death due to natural causes. Nobody gave any complaint. The body was later taken to his home town and cremated in the evening, the officer said.
Welcoming diplomats on Saturday, including Pakistans foreign affairs advisor to its premier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was important to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability in Afghanistan and the region.

Foreign ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Slovakia, which holds the European Union Presidency this month, along with foreign affairs advisor to Pakistans Prime Minister, Sartaj Aziz, called on Modi ahead of the sixth to the Heart of Asia Conference on Afghanistan.

Modi stressed on the need to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability, security and development in Afghanistan and our region, external affairs ministry spokesperson, Vikas Swarup, said.

Modi also said it was the collective responsibility of all those in the region to work together to help Afghanistan out of its current difficulties, Swarup added.

The Prime Minister stated that his several interactions with both the common people of Afghanistan and the countrys leadership had convinced him that Afghans were tired of the continuing violence and terrorism.

In this context, Modi hoped the discussions in the conference will produce results.

They (foreign ministers) greatly appreciated the continued commitment and engagement of India and its leadership for these ends. The foreign ministers warmly thanked India for hosting the Conference and expressed confidence that all friends of Afghanistan will work together for realising the aspirations for peace and development, Swarup said.

Pakistans diplomat Aziz arrived in Amritsar earlier than scheduled amid speculation of possible bilateral meets between India-Pakistan as ties remain tenuous.

Read | No India-Pak bilateral meeting on sidelines of Heart of Asia conference

Indias external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, who is undergoing treatment for renal failure, is not attending the conference; finance minister Arun Jaitley is instead heading the Indian delegation.

In a goodwill gesture, Aziz sent a bouquet to Swaraj, extending his sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery from illness.

Aziz, who arrived on a special flight, was received by Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit.

Pakistan and India had held a meeting during last years Heart of Asia Summit in Islamabad during which both countries had agreed to start a Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue which was to cover all outstanding issues. The resumption of the dialogue could, however, not take place due to the Pathankot terror attack in January this year.

Earlier this week, Basit had said they was ready for unconditional resumption of dialogue if India was ready.

Read | Heart of Asia summit: India, Afghanistan team to isolate Pakistan on terror

India has made it clear it will never accept continued cross border terrorism as the new normal in bilateral ties with Pakistan and that talks cannot take place in an atmosphere of continued terror.

Tension between the two countries escalated after the cross border terror attack on an army base in Nagrota.

During Sundays proceedings at the conference, India is likely to step up its efforts to corner Pakistan diplomatically by mobilising support for concrete action against state-sponsored terrorism.

Afghanistan, which has also been witnessing increased attacks from terror groups operating from Pakistani soil, is set to push hard for a regional counter-terror framework with binding commitment at the annual HoA conference, a platform set up in 2011 to assist the war-ravaged country in its transition.

Also read | Heritage Street in Amritsar gets ready for PM Modis visit
Raising question over Prime Minister Narendra Modis idea of a cashless society, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday said that the Centre has not taken any initiative to apprise the rural population of the concept.

You (Modi) should tell what preparations were made for digital India? Who will teach cashless transaction? How will it reach villages? Youth might be able to do it but what about others?, Akhilesh said during an event here.

We have given laptops in villages. Over one crore registration has been done so far for our smartphone scheme. You (PM) should tell what have you done? You should know that the government which gives pain to people does not survive, he said.

Comparing the performance of his government with that of the Centre, Akhilesh said,  They should compete with the UP government on development as tremendous work has been done in the state in the past four years.

Attacking the BJP government at the Centre, he said, Yatras of BJP have failed due to demonetisation. The people had to line up in queue due to which it failed.
An international conference on Afghanistan here on Sunday named Pakistan-based terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, as grave threats to peace in the South Asian region.

The resolution called Amritsar Declaration, adopted at the 6th ministerial Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan in this Punjab city near Indias border with Pakistan, said it was concerned by the gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan in particular and the region.

Among other terror groups propagating high level of violence, the declaration said, were the Taliban, Daesh (Islamic State) and its affiliates, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida...Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan... and other foreign terrorist fighters.

Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region, the joint declaration demanded an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism.

Citing the declaration, finance minister Arun Jaitley, who chaired the meeting in the absence of ailing external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, said the document strongly called for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism.

The mention of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation is an Indian diplomatic victory over its western neighbour -- accused of using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy since decades.

Indian efforts to include names of the terrorist groups, the Lashkar and Jaish, in the Goa Declaration of the October Brics summit had failed after China allegedly scuttled the move.

New Delhi alleges that the Lashkar and Jaish have been enjoying financial and logistical support from the Pakistan government and its agencies were being used as a tool to disrupt peace in India. Pakistan denies this.
The All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) has demanded that criminal action be initiated against around 8,000 loan defaulters including beleaguered businessman Vijay Mallya.

There should be criminal action against 8,000 odd loan defaulters including liquor baron Vijay Mallya for failure to repay the loan amounts...pegged at Rs 80,000 crore, AIBEA general secretary CV Venkatchalam told reporters in Panaji on Sunday.

He was in the coastal state to attend the 18th conference of Goa Bank Employees Association (GBEA), a union affiliated to AIBEA.

Black money cannot be weed out through demonetisation. For that you require stringent anti-corruption, anti-bribery and amendments to the existing recovery laws, he said.

Venkatchalam questioned why is government not disclosing the names of these black money holders and loan defaulters?

Why no criminal action is initiated? Why just civil case against Mallya? he sought to know.

The Association has resolved that the Centre should announce the names of loan defaulters.

The banking union has also decided to call for nationwide protest against demonetisation, if the Centre fails to make available the adequate currency in the banks and recalibrate the existing ATM machines.

The demonetisation move has led to financial chaos. The government has failed in its move. The common man is suffering and bankers are feeling the heat. People have money but are not in position to withdraw. Chaotic situation is prevailing at the bank branches and this is unbearable for customers as well as bank employees and officers, he said.

Venkatchalam also claimed that as against the total requirement of the currency at national level, only 28% has come to bank since November 8.

He stated that in a letter written to finance minister Arun Jaitley, they have demanded that RBI should take immediate steps to supply adequate cash to all banks and daily announce the details of the notes it supplies.

Failing which, we would be forced to hold massive agitations, he said.

Talking about the move to go cashless, Venkatchalam said the country cannot be cashless overnight considering that 90% of its economic transactions are cash based.

India is not developed to that level that we should go for cashless system. The move is basically to help the corporate sector and other business people involved in technological advances, he said.

Moving another resolution, the association has raised strong objection to government attempt to privatise the public sector banks and further amalgamation of banks for global competition.
With the usage of micro-ATMs and point-of-sale counters witnessing a sharp surge post demonetisation, the countrys premier cyber security agency, CERT-In, has cautioned customers, bankers and traders against skimming and malware attacks on these systems and asked them to adopt high-end encryption to plug possible breaches.

The CERT-In, the governments nodal agency to combat hacking, phishing attacks and to fortify security-related defences of the Indian Internet domain, has issued two specific advisories for micro-Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and POS terminals.

The advisory states that as micro-ATMs work with minimal power and connect to central banking servers through a GPRS network, their security features need to be strong and updated to check attempts by hackers who stealthily plan to steal private customer and bank data which leads to loss of their hard earned money by way of hacking or electronic stealing.

Traditionally, data input into the POS system is in memory in clear text which allows attackers, memory scrapers to be very successful.

Read | Digital transactions in banking sector going up: SBI

The way to minimise this risk is by encrypting the card data as soon as possible and keeping it encrypted to the maximum extent throughout its life within the system. Point to Point Encryption (P2PE) could be used to address the issue of encrypting data in memory, the advisory, accessed by PTI, said.

It explains that skimming is the theft of classified credit/debit card data.

A thief can obtain the victims credit card number using a small electronic device near the card acceptance slot and store hundreds of victims credit card numbers, it said.

Read | Petrol pumps get into digital overdrive, play up wallets

A social engineering attack can be engineered at these facilities, it added, by gaining trust of the owner as the fraudster poses as a member of staff.

The fraudster would then ask the customer to check the card for damages. The fraudster would have gained confidence from his prey using various tactics such as offering assistance to the customer who perhaps would have tried to use the ATM without success or perhaps the customer who is not familiar with use of micro ATM machine and requires assistance, it said.

A micro ATM enables the un-banked rural population to access banking services in their villages or towns in a convenient manner and it offers facilities of deposit, withdrawal, funds transfer, balance enquiry and issuance of mini-statement.

The agency has asked the banks and micro ATM operators to exercise some counter-measures to thwart such attacks.

The micro ATM must not transmit any confidential data unencrypted on the network; it must automatically log out the operator and lock itself after a period of inactivity; keep all the micro ATM software, application, anti-virus regularly updated and educate the customer about basic functionalities and security best practises, the advisory by Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-In) said.

Read | Demonetisation: Are mobile wallets safe enough?
DMK chief M Karunanidhi, admitted to a private hospital in Chennai for further treatment of a drug- induced allergy, is likely to be discharged in one or two days, Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy said on Sunday.

A host of leaders have been visiting the Kauvery Hospital, where Karunanidhi was admitted on December 1 for the treatment.

I came to enquire about his health since he is one of the senior most respected political leaders in the country. I was told that he will be discharged in one or two days, Narayanasamy told reporters outside the hospital here.

On October 25, DMK had announced that Karunanidhi was suffering from allergy caused by a medicine he has been using and advised rest by doctors.

The 93-year-old leader, who is seen regularly in the public, has since confined himself to his home although he had been issuing statements and reacting on key matters such as demonetisation.

He had also skipped campaigning in the elections to three Tamil Nadu Assembly seats last month. Ruling AIADMK won all three constituencies.

Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol Thirumavalavan, state secretaries of CPI(M) and CPI G Ramakrishnan and Mutharasan respectively, and actor-politician S Ve Shekhar also visited the hospital and wished him a speedy recovery.
The Congress promised on Sunday free education and housing to Dalit families as part of its plan to woo weaker castes who might play a decisive role in next years assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

The party released an eight-point list as part of its Dalit manifesto that promises free education from KG to PG and free housing equipped with toilets, safe drinking water and electricity.

If the Congress comes to power, the government will make direct payments of all education expenses for a Dalit student. The government will also pay additional Rs 1000 aid to students going to other cities for higher education, including courses such as BA, MA, BTech, LLB and MBBS, party Rajya Sabha member PL Punia said in Lucknow.

Uttar Pradesh state chief Raj Babbar and Congress SC/ST department chairman K Raju were also present.

The party also flagged off a number of Dalit roadshows  or yatras  that will crisscross the state to campaign in far-flung villages about the Congress past contributions to the Dalit community.

This is part of the Congress 50-day Shiksha, Suraksha, Swabhiman campaign targeting to reach out to Dalits in about 5,000 villages across 85 reserved constituencies.

Strategist Prashant Kishor who was hired by the Congress for the assembly polls is reportedly not part of this campaign. He had earlier planned the 27 Saal UP Behal and Kisan Yatra for the party.

The Congress is planning to come back to power after more than two decades in Uttar Pradesh but faces a strong challenge from the BJP, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.

Dalits comprise more than a fifth of Indias most populous state and experts say the community hold the key to the state polls, scheduled early next year. The Dalits  who face abject poverty and lack of health services and education  have traditionally supported the BSP but the BJP has made a strong pitch for their support.

The Congress launched the campaign invoking Dalit icon BR Ambedkar two days ahead of his death anniversary and printed pamphlets listing all the eight promises to be distributed among Dalits during the yatra.

The Congress government in UP under Sheila Dixit will also establish residential schools -- one in each of the 821 blocks in the state for Dalits, Punia said.

For the safety of Dalits, the government will post a Suraksha Mitra at each police station. The Suraksha Mitra will report cases to the district magistrate and also o a particular officer posted at the chief ministers office.

The party also promised up to Rs 2 lakh in medical aid for Dalits in government or private hospitals. The scheme will be named Ambedkar Arogya Shree.

Sixty-five percent of Dalits do not have access to safe drinking water, 66% dont have toilets, and 41% dont have electricity, said Punia, adding that a Congress administration would give Rs 3 lakh bank loans to any Dalit youth for self-employment. The government will provide guarantees to the banks for these loans.

Similar to Suraksha Mitra, the government will also appoint Vikas Mitra in each block to assist Dalits to draw benefits of government schemes including rural employment scheme (MNREGA), food security programmes, and toilet schemes.

Also read | The great Dalit cauldron and why it matters

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 3

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:



OPECs recent decision on curbing the level of its output may have a positive impact on Irans plans to lure foreign investment in order to develop its strategic oil industry.



However the US Senates recent vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 more years as well as doubts over the OPEC members intention to honor their commitments regarding the production cut have cast shadow on the Islamic Republics capabilities to seize the created opportunity with both hands.

"If OPEC succeeds in implementing its decision to reduce its total production by 1.2 million barrels per day (b/d) and maintain the ceiling of 32.5 million b/d, the oil price will remain above 50 dollars per barrel and international oil companies will be encouraged to increase their capital expenditure for developing new oil resources," Parviz Mina, a former member of OPEC Long-Term Strategy Committee, told Trend.

"Iran being a low cost area($12 per barrel) should benefit from it and attract foreign investment," he added.

According to Iranian officials, the country plans to lure $130 billion in investment to develop its upstream oil sector by 2021.



Wood Mackenzie, a global energy, metals and mining research and consultancy group, earlier in June suggested that the volume of global upstream development spending from 2015 to 2020 declined 22 percent, or $740 billion, since fourth-quarter 2014.



According to the Iranian expert, OPEC's success depends on whether its members will commit themselves to reduce the output.

"If all of OPEC members do not adhere fully to their quotas, we might see another price decline," Mina noted.

Although the OPEC decision was received in a positive way in Iran giving renewed hopes for an economic recovery in the sanctions-hit Islamic Republic, the extension of the existing US imposed sanctions against Tehran may kill off any lingering hopes for rebuilding the oil producing countrys stagnant economy.
President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK leader M Karunanidhi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Union ministers and various chief ministers expressed concern over Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaas health condition on Sunday and wished her a speedy recovery.

Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery, Mukherjee tweeted after the condition of Jayalalithaa, who has been undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai since September 22, deteriorated in the evening.

Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 4, 2016

AIADMKs official handle retweeted the tweet on Monday morning.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also tweeted his prayers for the Tamil Nadu leader:

Very concerned about Jayalalitha Ji's health. I pray for her speedy recovery. God bless her  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) December 5, 2016

Karunanidhi, the Jayalalithaas rival in the state, also wished her a speedy recovery.

Tamil Nadu Opposition leader MK Stalin tweeted: I pray that the intensive treatment being given to the chief minister yields fruit and that she recovers soon.

Urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu tweeted, Feeling bad to know abt da critical condition of TN CM Selvi Jayalalitha. Praying for her speedy recovery and quick response 2 the treatment (sic).

Union minister for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman also tweeted: Very upsetting news about Hon.CM of Tamil Nadu, Selvi.Jayalalitha suffering a cardiac arrest. Prayers for her speedy recovery.

In his tweet, Rahul Gandhi said: Praying for Jayalalithaa jis quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon.

Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) December 4, 2016

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said, Very concerned about the health of Jayalalithaa Ji. Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her.

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa jis health. Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!

Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health.

Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery !  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) December 4, 2016

Former Bihar chief minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad said, Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Lets all pray for her.
The widow of a freedom fighter has lost a legal battle to get back the money her husband had deposited in Shanghai while serving in Subhash Chandra Boses Indian National Army, with Delhi high court saying government cannot raise a dispute with another country on private claims.

We are of the view that merely because the Government of India, on a representation being made, has forwarded the claim of the petitioner to the Embassy of India at China, would not create an obligation on the Government of India to take any further steps in the matter.

The Government of India is under no obligation to raise a dispute with a foreign government qua the private claim of its citizens, a bench of chief justice G Rohini and justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said while dismissing her plea.

The order came on an appeal filed by Harbhajan Kaur, the widow of the INA officer who died in 1979, against a single judges order dismissing her plea for direction to the government to take appropriate action to release the money deposited by her late husband in his accounts with Shanghais general post office.

Her husband had served in the Indian National Army, which was formed by nationalist leaders like Subhash Bose and Rashbehari Bose in 1942 in Southeast Asia during the 2nd World War with an aim to secure Indias freedom from British rule.

In her plea, Kaur said, on a representation made to the Chinese authorities, she was on October 9, 2003 informed that the claim for the money deposited in the accounts stood abandoned as per the policies of their government.

The Shanghai post office, in a letter to Kaur, had said that her claim stood abandoned for failing to register it within the assigned time after the issuance of the policy of the Chinese government.

The single judge was also not convinced with her contentions and dismissed her plea in December 2015 saying the petition is also highly belated and suffers from delay, laches, acquiescence and waiver.

Concurring with the findings of the single judges order, the bench headed by the Chief Justice said, We find no infirmity with the order of the Single Judge under appeal.

The petitioner was unable to provide us with any specific obligation under which the Government has to pursue private claims of petitioner against a foreign government.

Kaur had submitted that the government was under obligation to protect and ensure aid, advise and help to emigrants under the Emigration Act, 1983.

Her counsel had further submitted that it is an established principle of international law that any property, particularly belonging to aliens, cannot be confiscated without just compensation and the fact that they suffered confiscation only because they were in service of the Indian National Army.
President Ashraf Ghani thanked India for helping with no strings attached at the inaugural session of the sixth Heart of Asia conference that began in Amritsar on Sunday.

Ghani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had held bilateral talks ahead of the start of the conference, discussing a range of issues including trade and investment, defence and infrastructure.

The talks also spoke of firming up an air cargo service pact between the countries, which will give India leverage in Afghanistan as Pakistan continues to deny transit link through its territory.

In the meeting, Modi assured Ghani of Indias continued support for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Also, Afghanistan is learnt to have sought enhanced supply of military hardware from India.

Afghanistan has been trying to revamp its military to fight the resurgent Talibans after the drawdown of NATO forces began nearly two years ago.

Read | End terror for stability: Modi tells Paks Aziz, other Heart of Asia diplomats

Sources said both India and Afghanistan were keen to finalise the air cargo agreement as soon as possible and that the broad contours of the pact were already finalised.

India and Afghanistan have been exploring various connectivity projects for greater two-way trade.

In May, India, Iran and Afghanistan had signed an agreement to set up a trade and transport corridor with Chabahar in Iran as the hub with an aim to develop a transit corridor.

The sea-land route of Chabahar Port was designed to bypass Pakistan and the project was seen as Indias effort to counter Chinas plan to develop Gwadar port in Pakistan.

The project of Chabahar Port between India, Afghanistan and Iran is very important to us for connectivity, Ghani later said during the inaugural session.

Afghanistan was very keen on deeper defence and security cooperation with India and there were indications that Ghani may press for ramping up supply of arms and military hardware from India though Pakistan would be unhappy if there was closer Indo-Afghan military cooperation.

Last week, India had given to Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters.

India has trained hundreds of Afghan security personnel but has been adopting a cautious approach in providing weapons as it did not want to antagonise Pakistan.

Afghanistan has also been seeking Indias assistance in making functional Soviet-era helicopters and transport aircraft which were not in flying condition.

India has a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and is implementing projects worth USD 2 billion to help rebuild the countrys infrastructure.

New Delhi has been supporting an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of peace and reconciliation, and advocating the need for a sustained and long-term commitment to Afghanistan by the international community.

Also read | Heart of Asia summit: India, Afghanistan team to isolate Pakistan on terror
India pressed for collective efforts on Sunday to ensure resurgent forces of terrorism and extremism do not find sanctuaries and safe havens in any name, form or manifestation.

Neighbours of Afghanistan have a particular responsibility in this regard, union finance minister Arun Jaitley said at the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar.

There is also a need to neither differentiate between good and bad terrorists, nor to play one group against the other, said Jaitley, who is representing an ailing external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.

Taliban, Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda, Daesh, Lashkar-e- Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, etc. are all terror organisations and should be treated as such, he said.

End to terrorism and extremism, and adherence to internationally-accepted redlines including renouncing of violence, severing ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits and commitment to democracy and human rights are essential for successful reconciliation and lasting peace in Afghanistan, Jaitley said.

The theme for the Heart of Asia Process this year is Addressing Challenges, Achieving Prosperity.

As Afghanistan faces the challenges related to its multiple transitions, focused and sustained support will be required from all friends of Afghanistan in the international community for overcoming these challenges and achieving durable peace and prosperity, he said.
India and Russia are likely to sign the General Framework Agreement (GFA) on Kudankulam units 5 and 6 by this month.

Leaders of the two countries (Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin) had set a deadline to sign the General Framework Agreement for units 5 and 6 by the end of this month. The work is on and we are trying to stick to deadline, a top official of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) said.

The joint statement, during Putins visit to India this year, had stated that the two countries will try to complete the GFA by the end of the year.

Negotiations for the contract are still on and details are being worked out by Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and Rosatom, nuclear power agency of Russia.

Work on the ground breaking ceremony for unit 3 and 4 was held early this year.

The agreement for the project was inked by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988, but the actual work started only in 1997.

The unit 1 and 2 of Kudankulam plant were built at a cost of Rs 20,962 crore. A major share of power generated in the plant goes to Tamil Nadu, followed by Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry. Unit 1 was started in October 2013, while the second unit was connected to grid in August this year.

Unit 3 and 4 of the Kudankulam are expected to be commissioned by 2022-23.

The Russian built Water-Water Energetic Reactor (VVER) reactor Kudankulam unit 1 and 2 are the largest power generating stations in the country. After all the units (1-6) of the plant are commissioned, the nuclear park will have the power generating capacity of 6,000 MW.
An Indian-origin student has sued the Oxford University for boring teaching, saying that he suffered a loss of earnings in his career as a lawyer after he received the second-class degree from the varsity.

Faiz Siddiqui studied modern history at Brasenose College at the university and accuses its staff of negligent teaching of his specialist subject course on Indian imperial history, which led to him getting a 2:1 back in 2000, the high court in London heard this week.

A judgement is expected later this month.

Siddiquis barrister Roger Mallalieu told the judge that the problem came down to four of the seven staff teaching Asian history being on sabbatical leave at the same time during the 1999-2000 academic year, The Sunday Times reported.

Siddiqui believes he could have had a high-flying career as an international commercial lawyer if he had not got lower grades.

He singled out the boring standard of tuition that Siddiqui had received from David Washbrook, an expert on the history of southern India between the 18th and 20th centuries.

Mallalieu claimed that the eminent historians teaching had suffered from the intolerable pressure of the staff shortages on the course.

There is no personal criticism of Washbrook. Our target is on the universitys back for allowing this to happen, Mallalieu told the court.

Siddiqui, who trained as a solicitor after college, suffers from depression and insomnia, which he links to his disappointing examination results, and has said he has a fundamental inability to hold down any professional day job for any significant length of time.

Oxford University argues that the claim is baseless and should be struck out because of the number of years that have passed since Siddiqui graduated.

Julian Milford, the universitys barrister, denied that Siddiquis case had any substance but admitted that circumstances were difficult during that year.

Siddiquis legal team claims he is only one of a number of students who no doubt have proper cause for complaint against the university in relation to this matter.
Jammu and Kashmir police have registered a case against a reporter with the banned newspaper Kashmir on charges related to publication of statements of conducing public mischief.

A case under Section 505 was registered on Friday against Ishfaq Reshi for a September 28 report on crop-burning, in which villagers were quoted as blaming government forces for the alleged arson. The story did not have a response from any police or government spokesperson.

Kashmir Reader was banned on October 2 for allegedly inciting violence during the ongoing unrest in the Valley that has claimed at least 90 lives and left thousands injured.

Read | J-K govt shuts down English daily to maintain public tranquillity

Reshi, a student of convergent journalism at the Central University of Kashmir, said he was presented before a Munsif court in Magam on Friday and directed to apply for bail from the sessions court in Budgam. I was in police detention during the day (on Friday) and allowed to go home in the evening, Reshi was quoted as saying in a media report.

On Friday night when Hindustan Times called the station house officer of Magam police station, Aftab Ahmad, to verify Reshis statement, the officer denied making any arrest. There are charges against him but he has not been arrested, the officer said.

Consequently, police also said Reshi circulated fake news and for a normal incident of crop burning he blamed the forces.

JK Police had on September 30 released a statement denying the charges but it did not have any specific reference to the Kashmir Reader article.

Apropos to the news item published by a section of press under the heading, Forces set ablaze rice crop in Budgam. In this regard district police administration Budgam have clarified that the incident has been maliciously linked with forces. However, some anti-social elements set on fire two haycocks at village Adina, Magam, the police statement had said.

On the receipt of the complaint, police took cognizance and lodged an FIR no 159/16 in police station Magam and investigation has been taken up. The allegation is as such rebutted, it added.

Separatist organisation Dukhtaran-e-Millat on Saturday criticised JK police for arresting and intimidating Reshi. In a statement issued here, DeM secretary general, Nahida Nasreen said that the harassment of journalists is the worst form of political vendetta.

Also read | Journalists of banned daily Kashmir Reader find their livelihoods hampered

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Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa was readmitted to the critical care unit (CCU) of Chennais Apollo Hospital after she suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening. Her condition stabilised later, sources said, but anxious supporters rushed to the hospital and broke through police barricades.

The 68-year-old AIADMK supremo was readmitted to the CCU shortly after the party announced that she had been given a clean bill of health by a team of medical specialists.

Doctors from AIIMS visited the hospital on Saturday, and after examining her health, they shared the good news with us that she has completely recovered, AIADMK spokesperson C Ponnaiyan told reporters earlier in the day.

She is on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and is being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists.  Apollo Hospitals (@HospitalsApollo) December 4, 2016

Jayalalithaa was put on an extracorporeal membrane heart-assist device and was being treated by a team of critical care specialists.

Read | Jayalalithaa: A timeline of a movie star-turned-politician

Additional police personnel were deployed at Greams Lane outside the hospital, which eventually filled up with AIADMK supporters. Nine CRPF companies were on standby to avert any law and order problems though reinforcements had not been sought from the Centre till midnight. The party maintained that Amma  as the six-time chief minister is reverently known among her supporters  was completely fine.

Heavy police force deployment seen outside Apollo hospital in Chennai as huge crowd gathers after hearing about TN CM's cardiac arrest. pic.twitter.com/K2H7KiPssu  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Tamil Nadu governor C Vidyasagar Rao arrived in Chennai around 11pm and discussed Jayalalithaas health situation with home minister Rajnath Singh. President Pranab Mukherjee and political leaders across the country wished the chief minister a speedy recovery.

Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 after she complained of high fever and dehydration. Initial press releases from the hospital failed to throw any light on the exact nature of her ailment, creating further confusion and resulting in the spread of wild rumours.

A team of doctors from different specialties, including three specialists from Delhi-based AIIMS and a multi-organ specialist from London, attended to her.

Read | From Rahul to Karunanidhi, political leaders pray for Jayalalithaas health
The governments clarification last week that there is no limit on legitimate holding of gold and jewellery, including from inheritance, has not convinced the gold man man of Kanpur, Manoj Sengar.

On Thursday, the government had also clarified that would be no seizure of bullion up to a certain limit even if that does not seem to match income. But Sengar who loves to wear gold and flaunt it unabashedly, seems to be a casualty of rumours of an impending government crackdown on gold holdings.

Every citizen is bound to respect the government and its decision but what is next  a limit on sneezing and coughing? asks Sengar, who wears gold chains weighing kilos, bracelets, a gold belt to support white trousers and shoes made of silver.

He wears about 4kg of gold jewellery but refuses to disclose the total quantity of gold he possesses.

Ask him about the source of gold, and he laughs away the query. Sab baap dada kaa diya hai (All my gold is ancestral and inherited). I didnt sell the family gold and preserved it, he says.

If the government asks for the receipts, I will have to go up (heaven) there to ask my forefathers how they got their gold, he breaks out in laughter.

Sengar who is in his late 40s, is miffed with the finance ministrys statement that jewellery and ornaments to the extent of 500gm for married lady, 250gm for unmarried lady and 100gm for male member would not be seized, even if prima facie, it does not seem to be matching with the income record of the assessee.

Dont men have the right to be obsessed with gold? Why should their holding limit be any different from that for women? he asks.

A jewellery store owner, Sengar has been wearing gold since his college days and his obsession with the precious metal kept growing, and in his words, it would go with him.

Such is his love for gold that he asked his son to run his jewellery store instead of taking up a job or some other business. I just visit the jewellery store and keep looking at gold. I do not deal with customers, he says.

Sengar, the city convener of Kshatriya Mahasabha, was recently in news when he visited the survivors of Indore-Patna Express train accident at Kanpurs LLR Hospital and provided them food, drinks and medicines.

Despite the occasion being a tragic one, Sengar thought it was normal to walk into the hospital wearing gold which left everybody surprised.

I spent eight hours to explain to them it was my dream. People have different aspirations. Some want to own Mercedes, Bentley and other big cars. I chose gold, he says.

The day after news broke that the government may impose curbs on domestic holdings of gold as part of the fight against black money, Sengar sat down with the newspaper, reading the news item word by word.

He then wrote a couplet giving a spin to an original from Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas  Jaahi vidhi rakhe Modi ji taahi vidhi rahiye, Modi ji ki baat maan haani-laabh sahiye (Live the way Modiji wants you to, follow his words and bear with the profit or loss).
A school building was gutted in a mysterious fire in south Kashmir's Anantnag district late on Saturday night, an addition to the over 25 schools burnt down completely or partially in the last five months of unrest in the Valley.

The unabated burning of schools in Kashmir in October had spiralled into a major issue in the Valleys political discourse and the state high court had stepped in to direct the government to take all necessary steps to protect them.

Fire broke out in Government High School at Larnoo in Kokernag area of Anantnag, police said. Locals said that the rooftop of the single-storey building, comprising four rooms, was the first to catch fire.

Anantnag superintendent of police Zubair Khan told HT the possibility of miscreants setting fire on the school cannot be ruled out. The other possibility, he said, could be that the rooftop caught the fire because a powerful electrical cable passes over it.

He added that further investigation into the cause behind the fire was being investigated. The flames were, however, brought under control by authorities and no one was injured in the incident.

Police have said there has been no common ground found among the arsonists arrested on alleged school burning charges.

In November, international rights body Human Rights Watch (HRW) had said attacks on education sector in Kashmir, including the mysterious burning of schools, should be stopped immediately.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

The value of Irans steel exports over the first seven months of the current fiscal year (starting March 20) surpassed $1.6 billion, an Iranian deputy minister said.

Mehdi Karbasian, a deputy industry, mines and trade minister, has said that the value of the countrys copper exports also hit $511 million in the mentioned period, IRNA news agency reported.

Mehdi Karbasian noted that Irans mineral sector registers about 10 percent growth over the first seven months of the current fiscal year.

In the meantime, Iran exported $140 million worth of aluminum and $400 million of other mineral products, he added.

According to the official, the country needs to lure $50 billion in investment to develop its mining sector by 2021.

According to the latest statistics, the Islamic Republic exported 1.99 million tons of crude steel as well as 1.296 million tons of steel products over the first seven months of the current Iranian year. The figures indicate 103 percent and 5 percent rise, respectively, year-on-year.

The country, however, imported 150 tons of crude steel (a 299-percent increase) and 1.807 million tons of steel products (a 18-percent fall) in the same period.

The countrys economic growth in the mentioned period stood at four percent.
Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa was laid to rest near her political mentor M G Ramachandrans memorial in Marina Beach in Chennai on Tuesday.

Thousands of people gathered outside her final resting place to pay tributes. Political leaders paid their last respects before the sandalwood casket with her body was lowered into the ground with full state honours.

Jayalalithaas close aide Sasikala peformed the last rites and the national flag draped on the late chief ministers coffin was presented to her.

Earlier the funeral procession started from Rajaji Hall and crawled towards Marina Beach as thousands of mourners lined the streets to pay their respects. Police teams were pressed into action for crowd control, as emotionally charged supporters shouted slogans during Jayalalithaas final journey.

On Tuesday afternoon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tributes to the six-time chief minister.

The movie-star-turned politician with a huge following died at Chennais Apollo Hospital on Monday. She was 68.



Here is how the day panned out

 6:07pm: The six-time chief ministers mortal remains in a sandalwood casket gets buried.

 6:05pm: Casket with Puratchi Thalaivi (revolutionary leader) J Jayalalithaas body closed.

 6:04pm: Sasikala performs Jayalalithaas last rites

6:03 pm: The national flag draped on Jayalalithaas coffin is presented to her close aide Sasikala.

 6:00 pm: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi removes his sandals and pays his last respects to Jayalalithaas body.

 5:55 pm: After the armed forces pay tribute, all the leaders including Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam pay their last respects.

 5:45 pm: Tamil Nadu governor Vidayasagar Rao pays his last respects

 5:40 pm: Former AIADMK supremos body is placed in a sandalwood casket with Puratchithalaivi Selvi J Jayalalithaa engraved on it.

 5:15 pm: The final journey ends near MGR Memorial and former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaas casket is lowered from the hearse and taken towards her final resting place.

 5:15 pm: The funeral procession enters Beach road. Preparations for the last rites and burial near MGR memorial begin.

 5:10 pm:

One half of Beach Road is full of ADMK supporters. They've been steadily advancing past police cordons #Jayalalithaa @htTweets pic.twitter.com/1WePJ0jPXD  Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) December 6, 2016

 5:00 pm: Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Jayalalithaas close aide Sasikala are seated on the wagon leading the funeral procession.

 4:50 pm: AIADMK MPs and MLAs lead the procession, closely followed by the rapid action force and police personnel who form a human chain around the trailer which carries the former chief ministers mortal remains.

 4:30 pm: As the iconic leaders final journey moves towards MGR Memorial, emotionally charged supporters shout slogans in praise of the Amma (Mother)

Funeral procession of #Jayalalithaa underway, to be buried at MGR memorial, Marina Beach in Chennai; huge crowd seen. pic.twitter.com/NLQlLJnqi1  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

 4:30 pm: Thousands descend on the streets of Chennai to bid goodbye to Jayalalithaa.

 4:25 pm: The final procession from Rajaji Hall to Marina Beach begins.

 4:20 pm: Former AIADMK Supremos coffin is placed into a flower-bedecked trailer.

 4:15 pm: The security personnel start moving her coffin towards Marina Beach.

#WATCH: Funeral procession of #Jayalalithaa underway, to be buried at MGR memorial, Marina Beach in Chennai. pic.twitter.com/8G87nNsiix  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

 4:10 pm: President Pranab Mukherjee pays his last respects.

 4:00 pm: People gather near Marina Beach to pay their last respects to the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu where she will be laid to rest.

 3:55 pm:

The ADMK cadres gathered on beach road getting a little more vocal. Shouts of "Puratchi Thalaivi Amma!" @htTweets pic.twitter.com/u1fBxoUku5  Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) December 6, 2016

 3:45 pm:

How Marina beach looks like now. #Jayalalithaa's funeral is to be held here at 400pm @htTweets pic.twitter.com/vfR9FXsaRL  Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) December 6, 2016

 3:35 pm:

Rapid action force units stand guard at Marina beach, where #Jayalalithaa's funeral is to be held @htTweets pic.twitter.com/5Jl958JPw2  Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) December 6, 2016

 3:30 pm:

ADMK cadres begin to congregate around Marina beach, where #jayalalithaa's funeral is to be held @htTweets pic.twitter.com/nXhnFj5gzD  Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) December 6, 2016

 3:15 pm: Pictures of the Rajaji Hall where the chief ministers body has been kept.

 2.58pm: Jayalalithaas niece Deepa Jayakumar pays tribute to her at Rajaji Hall in Chennai. She was on Monday not allowed inside the Apollo Hospitals to meet her ailing aunt.

 2.45pm: AIADMK cadres begin to congregate near Marina beach, where Jayalalithaas funeral would be held

 2.30pm: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh arrives at the Rajaji Hall to pay tributes to Jayalalithaa.

 1:45pm:

Tamil Nadu: PM Narendra Modi pays his last tributes to #Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall in Chennai pic.twitter.com/nsr34EOqFr  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

 1:30pm: A Jayalalithaa supporter in Tamil Nadus Coimbatore shaves his head in mourning.

#WATCH: Supporters in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) shave their heads in mourning after #Jayalalithaa's demise pic.twitter.com/BBaGFsRZyF  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

 12:30pm: President Pranab Mukherjee to depart for Chennai from Delhi again after. The IAF plane carrying him had earlier developed a technical snag: ANI

 12:06pm: PM Narendra Modi arrives in Chennai to pay his respects to J Jayalalithaa

Tamil Nadu: PM Modi arrives in Chennai to pay last tributes to #JJayalalithaa who passed away yesterday pic.twitter.com/TKjc3Adt4T  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

 12 noon: IAF plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee to Chennai returns to Delhi after facing a technical snag: PTI

 11:46am: Tamil superstar Rajinikanth pays his respects to Jayalalithaa, whose body is at Rajaji hall in Chennai

 11:42am: Maharashtra Assembly adjourns for the day after offering their condolences to the late former chief minister. Motion moved by Maharashtra CM, Devendra Fadnavis

 11:35am: Odisha assembly also adjourns for the day. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik to attend Jayalalithaas last rites

 11.11am: AIADMK rival DMKs treasurer and former deputy CM of Tamil Nadu MK Stalin pays tributes to Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall

 11:05am: Both houses of Parliament adjourn for the day after offering their condolences to former chief minister Jayalalithaa. A minute of silence was also observed

 10:35am: President Pranab Mukherjee condoles the death of the former chief minister. He said the country had lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions.

 10:05 am: The Rajya Sabha will adjourn for the day as a mark of respect to J Jayalalithaa, who was a member of the Upper House from 1984 to 1989

 9.15am: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar expresses grief and announces one day state mourning.

Describing her as a statesman and a social worker, Kumar says that in her death not only Tamil Nadu but the entire country has suffered a huge loss in political, social, cultural and art field

 9:10am: Chennai shuts down as Tamil Nadu mourns the death of its 18th chief minister

 8:25am: Funeral to be held at 4:30pm at Marina beach

 8:25am: Shops down shutters in Coimbatore as Tamil Nadu mourns Jayalalithaas death: ANI

 8:24am: The chief minister, who was elected for a second consecutive term this May, is being accorded a state funeral. Flags will be flown at half mast and ceremonial functions have been cancelled

 8:22am: Centre declares one day of national mourning and the Kerala government announces a public holiday for state offices and educational institutes

 7:57am:

Tamil Nadu: Tributes being paid to #Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall in Chennai where her mortal remains have been kept pic.twitter.com/YWGLsaCxdu  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

 7:55am: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will leave for Chennai later on Tuesday to pay his last respects to Jayalalithaa: ANI

 7:45am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi to leave for Chennai to pay homage to Jayalalithaa, after paying homage to BR Ambedkar at Parliament House, reports ANI

 6:55am: Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu pays tribute to Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall

 6.25am: Tamil Nadu government declares public holiday under Negotiable Instrument Act as a mark of respect to Jayalalithaa, reports ANI

 6.20am:

#WATCH Mortal remains of #Jayalalithaa reaches Rajaji Hall in Chennai (Tamil Nadu), last tributes being paid. pic.twitter.com/Jn1UM7AlmZ  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

 6am: Jayalalithaas cremation to be held on Tuesday evening

 5.50am: Jayalalithaas body being taken from her residence Poes Garden to Rajaji Hall where people can pay last respects

#WATCH: #Jayalalithaa's mortal remains being taken from her residence Poes Garden to Rajaji Hall in Chennai (Tamil Nadu) pic.twitter.com/qYmCmcuPjV  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

 3.30am: I offer deep condolences on passing away of Jayalalithaa. Wishes of lakhs of her followers will make her immortal, DMK chief Karunanidhi tells ANI.

 3am: Clashes between police and Jayalalithaa supporters in Poes Garden. Police trying to keep barricades intact.

 2.20am: Jayalalithaas body begins its final journey from Apollo Hospital to Poes Garden. Cries of Puratchi Thalaivi Amma can be heard.

 1.10am: Express my condolences to people of Tamil Nadu, may her soul rest in peace: Governor C Vidyasagar Rao

 1.02am: O Panneerselvam unanimously elected as the Tamil Nadu chief minister by AIADMK leaders.

 1am: State mourning will be observed for seven days from today, says Tamil Nadu chief secretary.

 12.45am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences over Jayalalithaas demise.

I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji (honorific). May her soul rest in peace, Modi tweets.

 12.30am: A three day mourning has been declared in the state. Schools and colleges will also remain closed.

 December 6 (Tuesday) 12:15am: Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa has died, Apollo Hospital says in a statement.

Tamil nadu chief minister #Jayalalithaa passes away at 1130pm according to latest announcement @htTweets pic.twitter.com/VHPeoIpA3c  Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) December 5, 2016

 11.45pm: CMs convoy being readied at Apollo hospital, heavy security presence around Poes garden.

 11.40pm: AIADMK MLAs have gone into a huddle after finance minister O Panneerselvam arrived late around 11 pm to the party headquarters where they are likely to discuss the way forward. Party sources have indicated that in all likelihood Panneerselvam would be chosen as the leader of the AIADMK legislative party.

 11.15pm: Senior AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam reaches party headquarters, reports ANI.

 10pm: A meeting of ruling AIADMK MLAs in Tamil Nadu which was expected to discuss key issues in the wake of the grave health situation of party supremo and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, could not be held as planned and has since been postponed, party sources told PTI on Monday night.

 9pm: Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu, who has been camping in Tamil Nadu since this morning, has apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the latest health condition of Jayalalithaa.

 8pm: A near total shutdown like situation prevailed in Chennai with shops and other establishments downing shutters and office goers returning home early

 7pm: AIADMK MLAs meeting underway at party headquarters, says ANI.

 6:30pm: Union minister Venkaiah Naidu was spotted at the Apollo Hospital in Chennai.

 5:55pm: Minutes after local TV channels claimed Jayalalithaa was dead, Chennais Apollo Hospital said the rumours were baseless and false.

Some TV channels are wrongly reporting that honorable chief minister is no more. This is totally baseless and false. They are advised to rectify this mistake, based on this press release. S Vishwanathan, chief operating officer, Apollo Hospitals said in a statement.

 5:45pm: Local TV reports say Jayalalithaa has died.

 5:00pm: Apollo Hospitals latest tweet says their team of doctors are closely monitoring and treating Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa but her condition remains critical.

 4:30pm: Reactions from Opposition parties in the State have come. Everyone prays for her speedy recovery.

MDMK general secretary Vaiko visited Apollo Hospital and said, She detained me under anti-terror law but apart from politics I treat her like sister. She will come out of this crisis. The best medical treatment has been given, we should not speculate anything.

BJP State president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan also arrived at Greams Lane on Monday, she said, Her condition is critical, but I have seen patients recovering from such illness; she is a fighter.

 3.35pm: Dr Richard Beale, a London based specialist in Intensive Care Medicine at Guys and St Thomas Hospital, has issued a statement saying, The situation is extremely grave, but I can confirm that everything possible is being done to give her the best chance of surviving this shocking event.

The Apollo Hospital had consulted Dr Beale last month after Jayalalithaa was hospitalised.

He was consulted again on Sunday after the Tamil Nadu chief minister suffered a cardiac arrest.

I was most saddened to hear yesterday (Sunday) that Madam Chief Minister suffered a cardiac arrest, Beale said in his statement.

Beale adds: ...in spite of the progress she had made, her underlying health conditions inevitably meant that the risk of further problems always remained

Here is the full statement

 3.15pm:

Despite our best efforts, our beloved CM remains in a grave situation. #GodblessAmma  Apollo Hospitals (@HospitalsApollo) December 5, 2016

 2.15pm: US consulate in Chennai issues advisory for American citizens in the city: ...even gatherings intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence. You should avoid areas of demonstrations, and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings, protests, or demonstrations.

The US Consulate General in Chennai operating with reduced staffing on December 5, 2016, and has temporarily suspended appointments for routine services to US citizens and visa applicants. The Consulate will provide updates when routine services are restored.

Emergency contact numbers: Consulate in Chennai: +91-44-2857-4000, US embassy in New Delhi: +91-11-2419-8000.

 12.50pm: A statement issued by Apollo Hospitals on Jayalalithaas health condition says she continues to be very critical and is on ECMO and other life support systems.

 12.20pm:

Jayalalitha ji ki tabiyat ke baare mein sunke mujhe bahut chinta ho rahi hai.Main Ishwar se prarthana karti hun ki wo jald theek ho jaayein.  Lata Mangeshkar (@mangeshkarlata) December 5, 2016

 12.03pm: Amma supporters arrange special poojas at Sakthi Vinayagar Temple in Mumbais Dharavi for the speedy recovery of Jayalalithaa.

 11.34am: Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu to go to Chennai on Monday to take stock of Jayalalithaas health condition

 11.14am: If Tamil Nadu requires help, we (Centre) are willing. The Union home ministry will put forces on standby, but we cant intervene on our own: Kiren Rijiju, minister of state for home affairs, tells ANI

 11.00am: After Chennai, security increased in Coimbatore and along Tamil Nadu borders with Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka in view of CM Jayalalithaas health condition

 9.48am: Jayalalithaa, who suffered cardiac arrest (on Sunday evening), had surgery this morning. Shes fine now, AIADMK spokesperson CR Saraswathi tells NDTV.

 9.45am: Union health minister JP Nadda says the Centre is in regular touch with Apollo Hospital and Tamil Nadu government.

We have sent a team from Delhi AIIMS to Chennai. They (Apollo Hospitals) needed doctors and we have sent them that. The government is doing whatever is possible for us. We hope and pray for Jayalalithaas speedy recovery, Nadda tells ANI.

 9.38am: Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan and BJP Rajya Sabha MP La Ganesan reach Apollo Hospital to enquire about CM Jayalalithaas health

 9.10am: Heavy police deployment on Greams Lane as more supporters gather outside Apollo Hospital

Supporters and police outside the hospital (ANI on Twitter)

 8.30am: All roads leading to the Apollo Hospital on Greams Lane blocked by Chennai traffic police to avoid any congestion. Thousands of supporters already outside the hospital

 7.00am: Huge police barricading as the number of supporters grows outside Apollo Hospital. Amma still in critical care unit. CRPF teams put on high alert.

 6.50am: Tamil actor Sarathkumar arrives at the hospital to meet the Tamil Nadu CM. With all blessings she will come out of this situation. She is being treated by the medical team, the actor tells ANI.

 December 5 (Monday), 6am: Supporters stay put outside the Apollo Hospital all night praying for Jayalalithaa. Tearful eyes amid high police security seen all over.

 11.54pm: DMK leader MK Stalin tweets: I sincerely hope that the treatments being given to the TN CM prove successful and she recovers completely.

 Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao reaches Apollo Hospital in Chennai to inquire about CM Jayalalithaas health.

Police stop supporters of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa after they gather outside the hospital in Chennai. (Reuters)

Read | From Rahul Gandhi to Karunanidhi, political leaders pray for Jayalalithaas health

 Additional police personnel were deployed at Greams Lane outside the hospital, which eventually filled up with AIADMK supporters.

 Tamil Nadu police were on standby to avert any law and order problems though reinforcements had not been sought from the Centre till midnight. The party maintains that Amma  as the six-time chief minister is reverently known among her supporters  was completely fine.

Supporters outside Apollo hospital in Chennai break down as they hear about TN CM Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest this evening. pic.twitter.com/6Cb59Y06h6  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

 Tamil Nadu governor C Vidyasagar Rao arrives in Chennai around 11pm and discusses Jayalalithaas health situation with home minister Rajnath Singh. President Pranab Mukherjee and political leaders across the country wish the chief minister a speedy recovery.

Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 4, 2016

 10.59pm: Jayalalithaa was put on an extracorporeal membrane heart-assist device and was being treated by a team of critical care specialists, Apollo Hospital tweets.

Dr Richard Beale from London has also been consulted and he has concurred with the line of treatment by our cardiologists and pulmonologists, the hospital adds.

 December 4 (Sunday), 10.58pm: The Honourable Chief Minister of Tamilnadu who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals,Greams Road, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening,  tweets Apollo Hospital

Read | Jayalalithaa: Timeline of the movie star-turned-politician

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Pakistani media took note of the handshake and exchange of niceties between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan prime ministers adviser on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz at Amritsar amid deadly border skirmishes and rhetoric.

Aziz reached Amritsar on Saturday evening to attend the Heart of Asia conference instead of Sunday morning apparently to dodge early-morning fog.

The change of schedule provided a subtle opportunity for a handshake and exchange of pleasantries with Modi, who hosted a banquet for the delegates.

The Express Tribune under the front page headline -- Aziz-Modi handshake sets off media frenzy -- wrote that After months of war rhetoric and deadly border skirmishes, Indian and Pakistani officials exchanged niceties and set the media abuzz on Saturday.

With a broad smile on his face, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook hands with Pakistans Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz at a banquet he had hosted for the participants of the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, it reported.

The paper reported that Modi also asked about the health of his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, who had recently undergone open heart surgery in a London hospital.

Aziz conveyed good wishes to the Indian leader on behalf of Sharif.

The Dawn reported that Aziz was received by Pakistan high commissioner to India Abdul Basit and the joint secretary of Indian ministry of external affairs.

Sartaj Aziz also sent a bouquet to Indian external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj at her residence, extending his sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery, it said.

The News International reported that Modi shook hands with Aziz and inquired after the well-being of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from him.

Aziz said Nawaz Sharif is well and he has also expressed good wishes for him, it further reported.

It also reported that Aziz sent a bouquet to Swaraj at her residence extending good wishes for her speedy recovery.

Pakistan was unanimous that no meeting between Pakistani and Indian officials on the sidelines was expected due to the ongoing bilateral tension.

Contrary to Indian media reports, no actual talks took place during the banquet. Nonetheless, the customary handshake after months of belligerence and hostilities set off media frenzy in both countries, according to the Express Tribune.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained following the Uri terror attack in September that killed 19 Indian soldiers.
Additional Advocate General Pawan Girdhar said on Sunday there is no direction to prosecute any journalist with regard to the alleged Murthal gangrapes case. He was responding to charges put forward by amicus curiae Anupam Gupta before the Punjab and Haryana high court on Saturday.

Gupta appealed that a Delhi-based journalist, who reported on alleged cases of gangrape in Murthal, Haryana, during the Jat agitation earlier this year, should be prosecuted for producing false and fabricated evidence of the alleged victim.

There is no direction to prosecute any journalist. There is no variation at all and we have submitted all the details before the court as and when required, Girdhar said.

Read | Murthal gangrapes: Khattar abused IAS officer for sharing info, says amicus curiae

We are definitely going to file a response to clear any kind of variation which has been pointed out by the learned amicus curiae before the honourable court. We will file a response to clarify the same, he added.

At least 30 people were killed and over 320 injured in the nine-day long Jat agitation for reservation in February this year. There were reports that women had been dragged out to the fields and raped during the violence that ensued.

The Haryana government had initially denied the reports of rape, but admitted in April that it could have happened.

The SIT report earlier said that no victim of the alleged mass gangrape or molestation had come forward to lodge a complaint.

The high court, taking suo motu notice of reports in the media about the gang-rapes, had asked the Haryana government and police to submit a status report and appointed lawyer Anupam Gupta as amicus curiae.
Narendra Modi distributed food to devotees at the Golden Temple on Saturday night thus becoming the first Prime Minister to serve the community kitchen, or langar, at the holiest of Sikh shrines in this Punjab city.

It was the Prime Ministers first visit to the shrine and he was accompanied by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani. The visit came on the sidelines of the 6th Heart Of Asia-Istanbul conference on Afghanistan.

Modi is the first prime Minister who served the devotees in the Golden Temple, Gurbachan Singh, Chief Information Officer at the shrine, said on Sunday.

Gurbachan Singh said though almost every Indian Prime Minister has visited the Harmandar Sahib, the sanctum sanctorum, to pay obeisance and offer prayers, none had so far participated in the distribution of food in the community kitchen.

On Saturday night, when Modi entered the dining hall, he suddenly started serving the devotees, Gurbachan Singh said.

The shrines main dining hall is the 24-hour community kitchen where an estimated 100,000 devotees are fed traditional meals on peak days.

The official remembered that almost all former Prime Ministers visited the temple. Indira Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, H.D. Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Manmohan Singh, to name a few, he recalled.

In fact, Manmohan Singh visited the Golden Temple many times as Prime Minister, Gurbachan Singh said.

Official sources said Modi, donning a woollen cap, spent more than 40 minutes in the Golden Temple, which is spread over 15 acres.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) provided a volunteer force inside the shrine during Modis visit while security officials in plain-clothes were accompanying the high-security VIP visitors.

Foreign leaders who have visited the shrine include then Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in November 2009. British monarch Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Phillip visited the Golden Temple in October 1997.
NITI Aayog has been asked to explore ways to find out how allocations under the Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-plan can be made non-lapsable.

The decision was taken at a recent meeting on Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) monitoring framework chaired by the principal secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Also, to put an end to the tussle between the ministry of social justice and empowerment and NITI Aayog over the monitoring of SCSP, it was decided that SCSP will now be monitored by the ministry.

Similarly, the TSP will be monitored by the ministry of tribal affairs.

Both the ministries (SCSP and TSP) will develop monitoring based on the framework designed by NITI Aayog. The system will be put in place in 60 days and will focus not just on financial allocations and utilisation but also on outcomes, according to an official document.

SCSP and TSP mandate every central ministry to allocate budget for the welfare of Dalits and tribals.

NITI Aayog will examine if the allocations under the SCSP and TSP be made non-lapsable in addition to the non- divertible. NITI Aayog may examine this in consultation with the relevant ministries and Cabinet Secretariat and recommend appropriate action, the official document stated.

A major chunk of the funds allocated under the SCSP and TSP by different ministries remain unutilised and goes back to exchequer at the end of fiscal.

Now NITI Aayog has been asked to explore ways to see if the allocated amount under these schemes can be made non- lapsable so that the unutilised amount remains in the corpus and carried forward in the next fiscal, said a government official.

Tribal ministry allocated Rs 1,250 crore under the TSP for the fiscal 2015-16 out of which Rs 1,132 crore could be utilised.

Similarly, around Rs 4,500 crore was allocated by ministry of social justice in the last fiscal of which around Rs 3000 crore could be utilised.
The Anandeshwar Temple has decided to accept cashless donations for shringar and rudrabhishek rituals to support Prime Minister Narendra Modis war against black money.

Situated on the banks of the Ganga, the temple has applied for GPRS-enabled point-of-sale terminals (card swiping machines) to help devotees donate through debit and credit cards.

The PMs mission is important to weed out black money from the system, head priest of Anandeshwar Temple Ramesh Puri Maharaj told HT.

The temple administration believes going cashless will set an example for the people. Cashless transactions will be accepted for shringar and rudrabhishek while the cash coming in donation boxes will be deposited in the bank, he said.

The temple has applied for PoS machines from Gwaltoli branch of Punjab National Bank where the temple has its accounts. Cash swiping machines will be available at the temple later this week.

Cash donations at the temple had shrunk after the government declared high-value currency illegal on November 8.

Next week onwards, the temple authorities will start convincing shopkeepers in the vicinity to accept debit and credit card payments from devotees.

We will speak to traders and also appeal to devotees to make cashless donations, said Ajay Pujari, spokesman of the temple.

Dedicated to Lord Shiva, it is one of the oldest temples in Uttar Pradesh.

About 50,000 devotees visit the temple on Mondays while other days of the week draw 20,000 worshippers every day. During the month of Shrawan, nearly one lakh devotees visit the temple every day.

The temple charges Rs 6,100, Rs 11,000, Rs 21,000, and Rs 31,000 for shringar  a ritual to anoint and enrobe the deity for the day. Devotees have to pay Rs 5,100 for rudraabhishek, the ritual bath of Shivalingam. The temple gives receipt for payments.

The temples decision to accept card payments comes on the heels of the Kanpur bar association urging lawyers to go cashless and install point of sale terminals or use e-wallets for accepting payments.

Our members have made the beginning, I think everyone will be going for digital banking; it is better, said Yogendra Awasthi, general secretary of the association.

Lawyer Sharad Tripathi became the first man on court campus when he received his fee through Paytm on Saturday.

My clients are having difficulty in paying me so I opted for this way, he said.
India on Saturday said the Pakistan high commissions banking issues over withdrawal of salaries were not of its concern, and should be sorted out between the bank and the mission.

Pakistan had lodged a protest with India over its diplomats in the high commission in New Delhi allegedly not being allowed to withdraw their salaries, which is paid in US dollars, by the bank.

As far as we understand, the matter was between Pakistan High Commission and a private banking entity. It had nothing to do with the government, official sources said, adding that the matter had been resolved.

The mission asserted that not allowing its officials to withdraw their salaries was in breach of Vienna Protocol, and Pakistan threatened it might consider retaliatory action against salary disbursal for Indian diplomats in Islamabad if the matter wasnt sorted.

Read | Unable to withdraw salaries, say Pak diplomats as they threaten retaliation

RBL Bank, an Indian private bank, holds the salary account of the Pakistan high commission staff.

We are not allowed to withdraw our own salary. It is not a demonetization issue. It appears that it is done more at the instructions of the Indian government, a senior official at the mission alleged.

According to other commission officials, they were not being allowed to withdraw their salaries without letters of purpose for any dollar amount.

Diplomats are allowed to draw their tax-free salaries in dollars without question, except for amounts above USD 5,000. In this case, an explanation needs to be submitted.

Incidentally, demonetisation has led to a sharp spike in demand for dollars and other foreign currency, making it scarce.
Words fail 70-year-old Mohammed Younus and a much younger Shah Alam when they try to explain how lucky they are to be alive and, perhaps, safe.

They are among hundreds of Rohingya Muslim migrants from Myanmar, who have taken shelter in and around Jammu and Kashmirs winter capital.

Four years ago, I came to Jammu. The junta in Myanmar had unleashed the gravest atrocities on Rohingyas and the world was silent. They are raping our girls and women, setting our houses on fire, firing at us as if we are sitting ducks, and chopping people into pieces, Younus said.

As a mark of proof, he lifted his shirt to show bullet scars on his torso.

Mohammed Younus says the Myanmar junta unleashed the gravest atrocities on the Rohingyas (Nitin Kanotra / HT Photo )

The Rohingyas, a stateless ethnic group loathed by many of Myanmars Buddhist majority, were forced to leave their homes since a bloody crackdown by the army in their home state of Rakhine. Many came to India, with nothing but the clothes they were wearing and with horrifying stories of rape, torture and murder.

Several Rohingya families  the majority with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards and some without papers  have found Jammu a safe haven.

Read | Aung San Suu Kyi should speak against the persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar

I work at a scrap-dealers shop; my wife and eldest daughter work as domestic helps. We have to pay Rs 500 a month for the shanty and Rs 200 for electricity. Some NGOs help us. Life is not easy, but at least we are alive here, said 45-year-old Shah Alam in a pidgin mix of Hindi and Urdu.

Fellow migrant Maulana Shafiq, 37, runs a madarsa or Islamic school for Rohingya children in Narwal Bala, where a sizeable number of these stateless people live.

He said about 3 million of the 4 million Rohingyas in Myanmar fled to Bangladesh, India, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Thailand to escape the persecution.

Those left behind put up with inhuman, concentration camp-style restrictions. They cant marry without permission, married women cant conceive, and cant even run small shops for livelihood. Rohingyas cant even go out at night in Myanmar. Theres a 6pm-to-8am curfew.

A Rohingya Muslim repairs a shanty in Narwal Bala area of Jammu after over 80 shanties were reduced into ashes in a major fire recently. (Nitin Kanotra / HT Photo )

Mohammed Yousuf, a 21-year-old who landed in Jammu in 2012, couldnt be more thankful to the people of his adopted home. Here all religions live in total harmony. Death doesnt stalk us here.

The state has several charities that help the Rohingyas.

Read | Myanmar pursuing ethnic cleansing of Rohingya: UN official

Here, we get almost all our daily requirements in zakat (charity), said Mohammed Rafiq, a 43-year-old father of five. We dont get any state assistance because we arent Indian  but still Jammu is hundred times better than Myanmar.at least we are alive, getting two square meals and a shanty to live in.

Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti told the state assembly this June that about 13,400 Myanmarese and Bangladeshi migrants are living in camps in Jammu. Bathindi Ka Plot is home to the highest number of Rohingya migrants  686 in total.

However, security forces see this Rohingya population as a potential threat in the militancy-hit state close to a hostile neighbour.

The insecurity grew after one of the two foreign militants killed in a shootout in south Kashmir last October turned out to be a native of Myanmar. A military official called them a ticking time bomb.

For the likes of Alam, the immediate concern is food and shelter  that is to rebuild their shanties after nearly 80 of them were gutted in a blaze. The gleaming corrugated sheet houses springing up from the ruins mirror these migrants resolve to live.

Read | Dhaka to send back Rohingyas infiltrating Bangladesh fleeing Myanmar unrest

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Guwahati

Assam farmer Jintu Bora could well be the rustic version of Gujarats Mahesh Shah who declared Rs 13,860 crore under the income-tax disclosure scheme.

Barely 24 hours after Shah told a Gujarati news channel that the money belongs to other Indians, the police in central Assams Majuli district raided Boras house in Madhupur village. The raid on Saturday evening yielded 37 passbooks of nationalised banks and post office, 44 ATM cards, 34 cheque books and more than 200 blank cheques besides Rs 22,380 in cash, a laptop and blank stamp papers.

Bora said he had been keeping the passbooks, ATM cards and other documents as sureties against loans given to other villagers, but we are not totally discounting the possibility of black money having been parked through these accounts, Vaibhav Chandrakant Nimbalkar, Majulis superintendent of police, told Hindustan Times.

Bora, an investigating officer said, could get away with lighter punishment because scrapped high-value banknotes were not recovered from him. We are questioning him to find out who parked how much money in the accounts in his possession, he said.

Property dealer Shah, who had declared a whopping Rs 13,860 crore of undisclosed wealth under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS), appeared on a television show on Saturday night and claimed the money did not belong to him, only to be held by income tax officials for questioning.

Shahs disclosure under the Centres IDS, which ended in September, accounts for over 20% of the total Rs 65,000 crore declared under the scheme.

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A 25-year-old artiste was allegedly shot dead while she was performing late on Saturday by a reportedly inebriated man at a wedding in Maur, approximately an hours drive from Bathinda.

A Shiromani Akali Dal leaders son, who owned the gun and had also been attending the wedding, was among five people booked by police on Sunday.

Rajinder Singh, the husband of the victim Kulwinder Kaur, said his wife was shot by Lucky Goyal when he was stopped from going onto the stage and dance with the women.

A video of the moment spread quickly on the internet, showing Kaur immediately collapsing after being shot in the head from the 12-bore double barrel gun.

Several other people were also seen firing in the air during the celebrations, as is customary in parts of north India. Such celebratory firings claim multiple lives every year.

The gun is owned by Sanjay Goyal, son of Vijay Goyal. Sanjay was present at the crime scene, said SSP Bathinda Swapan Sharma. Vijay, a SAD leader, is a former councilor in Maur.

Following the shooting, the members of the wedding orchestra staged a protest, prompting the marriage ceremony to be held under police protection.

Relatives of the killed woman also staged a protest outside the Bathinda civil hospital on Sunday morning demanding the arrest of the suspects, who had fled from the venue after the shooting.

Kaurs husband also said that she was three months pregnant, though local doctors contradicted the claim.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Irans oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh invited Brazilian oil companies to take part in Irans offshore oil and gas projects, SHANA news agency reported Dec. 4.

Zanganeh made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting with Brazil's Minister of Mines and Energy Fernando Coelho Filho in Tehran.

The Iranian minister said that Brazilian companies, in particular Petrobras have very good experience in exploration and development of oil fields in deep waters.

Iran needs this experience for its oil projects in Caspian Sea, Zanganeh added.

He further said that Tehran and Brasilia can also cooperate in manufacturing oil industry equipments.

Brazilian firms can invest in Irans oil industry and set up joint companies with Iranian counterparts, Zanganeh added.

Iran can also participate in Brazils refinery projects, Zanganeh said, adding that however the government can not make investment in this regard, but can supply the crude oil needed for the refineries.

Zanganeh also underlined that solid banking relations is the requisite for Iran-Brazil cooperation.

The issue was discussed during the recent visit of Irans economy minister to Brazil and the two sides will continue the negotiations in this regard, he explained.
The finance ministry on Sunday revised upwards black money disclosed under Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) to Rs 67,382 crore, which will fetch the government a little over Rs 30,000 crore in direct tax revenue even as it did not take into account two high value disclosures.

The Income Tax Department, it said, did not take into consideration the much-talked about Rs 13,860 crore declaration made by Ahmedabad based Mahesh Kumar Champaklal Shah, who has threatened to disclose the names of politicians and businessmen for whom he was acting as a front.

Among the declarations received, there were two sets of declarations of high value which were not taken on record in the above figure because they were found to be suspicious in nature being filed by persons of small means, the finance ministry said in a statement.

It said: On Oct 1, 2016, it was announced that declarations totalling Rs 65,250 crore were received from 64,275 declarants, subject to reconciliation.

After final reconciliation the revised figure of actual declarations received and taken on record was Rs 67,382 crore which had been made by 71,726 declarants.

On the omission, former finance minister P Chidambaram in a tweet said, There is a Rs 13,860 crore hole in the Rs 65,000 crore IDS! How many more holes?

Giving details, it said a family of four headed by one Abdul Razzaque Mohammed Sayed, residents of Bandra, Mumbai made a total declaration of Rs 2 lakh crore which was rejected by the Department as three out of the four PAN numbers were originally in Ajmer which were migrated in September 2016 to Mumbai, the place of the declarations.

These declarations from Mumbai and Ahmedabad were kept pending for investigation about the genuineness of the same and were not included in the total value of declarations announced on October 1, it said.

After due enquiry it was found that these declarants were persons of suspicious nature and very small means and the declarations could have been misused, it said.

Therefore, after due consideration, the Income Tax Department decided by November 30, to reject these two sets of declarations of Rs 2 lakh crore and Rs 13,860 respectively. The Department has commenced enquiries against these declarants to determine the intention behind these false declarations, said the ministrys statement.
Residents of Jubilee Court, Linking Road, Bandra woke up on Sunday to see the media outside their building. The reason: A family, the Sayeds, residing in the ground plus two building had declared an income of Rs 2 lakh crore.

But heres the catch. The residents say they have never heard of the Sayeds living in flat number four as claimed by the official government release. They claim the flat has been vacant for several years.

A resident of the building said, The flat has been closed from more than 7 to 8 years. Around a decade ago, one Shailesh Hingorani owned the flat and he used to run a beauty parlour. Before that, RR Vaid lived there and sold the flat around 15 years ago, said a resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While another resident of the building said, The flat has been on sale from the past one year. A week ago, a resident even received a forwarded message from an unknown broker on his phone, asking interested parties to buy the flat. A few residents and shopkeepers in the locality claimed the flat is currently owned by a builder whose name they claimed not to know.

According to a press note issued by the Public Information Bureau (PIB), a family of four  Abdul Razzaque Mohammed Sayed, his son Mohammed Aarif Abdul Razzaque Sayed, wife Rukhsana Abdul Razzaque Sayed and sister Noorjahan Mohammed Sayed  were listed as residents of Flat no. 4, Ground Floor, Jubilee Court, 269-B, T.P.S-III, Linking Road, Bandra (W), Mumbai. The note said the family had filed a total declaration of Rs 2 lakh crore (Rs 2,00,000 crore). Three of the four PAN numbers were registered in Ajmer, which were migrated to Mumbai in September 2016, when the declarations were filed.

The income-tax department has rejected the familys declaration of Rs2 lakh crore and investigations in the matter are on, the Union finance ministry said. The ministry said the declaration was rejected as it was suspicious in nature, being filed by persons of small means.

Read

I-T dept rejects declarations of over Rs 2 lakh crore by suspicious people
Indian cornered its rival neighbour on Sunday as an international conference on Afghanistan named Pakistan-based militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, among others, as threats to regional peace.

The resolution, called Amritsar Declaration, adopted at the sixth Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process initiative said Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad ... and other foreign terrorist fighters were propagating high level of violence.

The declaration was announced after Afghanistan and India jointly indicated Islamabad was doing little to rein in militancy in the region. But an India- and Afghanistan-backed joint counter-terror framework wasnt adopted at the meet, and instead referred to an expert committee.

Speaking at the opening session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about externally induced instability in Afghanistan, a reference to Pakistan that is accused of fomenting unrest in border regions.

PM @narendramodi: Second, we must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear. pic.twitter.com/bHDlYdnle6  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) December 4, 2016

Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters, he said, without taking Pakistans name.

Minutes before Modi spoke, Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani attacked Islamabad by name, saying Taliban wouldnt last a month if they didnt have sanctuary in Pakistan.

We thank Pakistan for their pledges of $500 million assistance for reconstruction of Afghanistan. I hope that you use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan, he said in a stinging rebuff.

He said state-sponsored sanctuaries for terrorists exist in Pakistan, a charge constantly raised by India.

Read | Highlights: Modi, Ghani open Heart of Asia meet, talk Indo-Afghan ties, terror

Finance minister Arun Jaitley, who chaired the ministerial meeting in the absence of ailing foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, said the declaration strongly called for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism.

He termed terrorism as a centre-stage issue at the Heart of Asia conference.

There is also a need to neither differentiate between good and bad terrorists, nor to play one group against the other, Jaitley said.

The mention of Pakistan-based militant outfits in the declaration boosts Indian efforts to corner Pakistan diplomatically. New Delhi alleges that Lashkar and Jaish enjoy support from the Pakistani establishment and its agencies, and were being used as tools to disrupt peace in India. Pakistan denies the charges.

Read | Too simplistic to blame one country for terrorism, says Paks Sartaj Aziz

India blames the Lashkar for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008, in which 166 people were killed, and the Jaish for two audacious strikes this year  on an air force base in Pathankot in January and at an army camp in Uri in September. The country lost 26 soldiers in these two attacks.

India led other regional nations in pulling out of this Novembers scheduled SAARC Summit in Islamabad in protest against Uri attack.

Ghani and Modi held bilateral talks before the start of the conference on Sunday, discussing a range of issues, including trade and investment, defence and infrastructure.

Specific initiatives in this regard, including the India-Iran-Afghanistan Trilateral Agreement on developing Chabahar were acknowledged, Jaitely said.

Also read | Heart of Asia summit: Over 30 nations to plan fight against terrorism
Terming taxation laws in the country as ill-defined, Niti Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya on Sunday called for removing ambiguities in them so as to do away with discretion of the tax officer.

He also said that demonetisation of high value currency is just one step to combat black money, and more needs to be done.

Tax reform is really important to curb black money, he said at a panel discussion here.

More simplification means reduction and presumably elimination of the many exemptions under the existing laws. Also, we need to spell out many of these rules and laws explicitly. In our case the tax laws are often ill-defined. That of course leads to scope for discretions, he added.

He said tax reforms like reduction in stamp duty are necessary to stop generation of black money in the system and that this should be done at the earliest following the demonetisation of high value banknotes.

Demonetisation is one of the steps to stop creation of black money but a lot more needs to be done, said the academic-turned planner.

Underlining the need for removing ambiguities in tax laws, he said: We have to go back, start looking at those tax laws, if there is a way to make them precise enough so that it is not left to the discretion of the tax officer but the law itself is clear enough that the taxpayer can figure out rather than having to negotiate with the tax officer.

Calling for the need to bring in reforms related to stamp duties to stop black money, Panagariya said: Stamp duties vary widely across the states and there is need to look at that. If you keep the stamp duties too high, that encourages under the table real estate transactions.
Gujarat businessman Mahesh Shah who declared unaccounted for income of Rs 13,860 crore before going missing and then surfacing on TV on Saturday faced questions from taxmen through the night before being allowed to leave for a day.

He was allowed to leave the office after 10am on Sunday. He was asked to come at 11.30am on Monday, said an official, declining to share details of Shahs questioning. Shah, 67, a heart patient, was allowed to take a nap for a while in between, added the official, who did not want to be named, as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Read: Missing Gujarat realtor surfaces, says declared income of Rs 13,860 cr not his

Police, meanwhile, provided security cover for Shahs family. Appearing on Gujarati ETV channel on Saturday, Shah had said he feared for himself and his familys security, while claiming he was just a face for the unaccounted money and it belonged to others.

The Ahmedabad-based realtor was picked up from the TV studio by police in the presence of I-T department officials.

The realtor, whose business interests are mostly in Mumbai, was missing after he defaulted on the first tax instalment of over Rs 1,500 crore on the amount he had disclosed. He was supposed to pay the instalment by November 30 as a part of the amnesty called the income declaration scheme (IDS).

Shah had claimed on TV he declared the amount under the IDS on behalf of people staying in different parts of the country. Kuch Hindustanio ka paisa hai (the money belongs to some Indians).

Shah also said he was offered a commission for making the declaration, but the actual owners of the money backed out before the first instalment was to be paid. The I-T department has cancelled his IDS claim.
It is too simplistic to blame one country for the recent upsurge in violence, said Sartaj Aziz, the foreign affairs advisor of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, during the sixth Heart of Asia conference on Sunday.

There is a need to have a holistic and objective view of terrorism, he said, dismissing allegations that Pakistan is promoting and sheltering terrorism. His response came after both India and Afghanistan hit out at Pakistan for waging an undeclared war and called for resolute action against terrorists on the ground and those coordinating them.

Read | India press for collective efforts against terrorism at Heart of Asia meet

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said Taliban insurgents battling his government would not last a month without sanctuary in the neighbouring state. He also urged Pakistan to spend around $500 million pledged in aid for Afghanistan to tackle extremism instead.

Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan on bilateral and multilateral basis, the undeclared war... not only has not abated but also intensified during 2016 with special intensity, Ghani said.

On cancelled Saarc summit

Aziz also emphasised that his presence at the meet, despite the escalation of tension along the Line of Control was testimony to Pakistans unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan. He also expressed unhappiness over the cancellation of the Saarc Summit in Islamabad in November, terming it as a setback and that it undermined the spirit of regional cooperation.

Applauding the leadership of Ghani and Afghanistans Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah for making progress in achieving peace and stability in the region, Aziz said the Pakistan government stands in solidarity with the Afghan government.

Read | Silence, inaction embolden terror: Modi calls for action at Heart of Asia

Afghan security forces have firmly and bravely stood their ground in repulsing militant and terrorist attacks. The international community has reiterated its commitment of support to Afghanistan in the areas of security and economic development up to 2020. The government and people of Pakistan stand in complete solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development in Afghanistan. We would do whatever we can to help achieve this objective, he said.

QCG framework

Aziz also pointed out that the peace process for talks between the Afghan government and Taliban has not yet produced positive results through the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) framework.

Pakistan has been making serious efforts for facilitating the peace talks through the QCG. We believe that all members of the QCG should continue their respective efforts for talks between Afghan Government and Taliban. In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led Afghan-owned process, he said.

Read | Pakistans Sartaj Aziz meets Afghan President Ashraf Ghani

Aziz said that Pakistan is committed to enhancing facilitation for transit of Afghan goods through Pakistan under the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA).

We believe the two sides need to work together for extension of and improvements in the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA). In this context, let me emphasize that peaceful resolution of outstanding disputes will further improve prospects of regional cooperation and connectivity, he said.

Read | Highlights: Modi, Ghani open Heart of Asia meet, talk Indo-Afghan ties, terror
Union minister Giriraj Singh on Sunday said after notebandi (demonetisation), there is an urgent need to make laws for nasbandi (sterilisation) in the country.

The minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises had advocated sterilisation to control population growth at a function in his parliamentary constituency Nawada on Saturday.

Singh said the India needs a strong population control act including sterilisation as the country was facing a population boom impeding development and social stability.

Read | Revoke voting rights of people with more than two kids: Giriraj Singh

 India has 17 % of the world population and adds population equal to Australia each year. The country only has 2.5% of land mass of the globe with only 4.2% of water resources. In this scenario, the population explosion in the country is proving to be a big roadblock for development. We need population control act to tide over the problem, he said.

Singh is the second senior BJP leader in Bihar who has advocated sterilisation after demonetisation. Last week, former union minister and senior BJP leader Sanjay Paswan said sterilisation will help control the population of the country.

Singh told HT that he had been advocating the same for a long time as it was the need of the hour to control population growth. He, however, insisted that it would be wrong to link his support for sterilisation as directed against any particular community emphasising that population control measures were in practice in many countries.

 There are population control laws in Bangladesh and Malaysia. So, there is nothing wrong if it happens in India, he said.

Read | There is a need to increase population of Hindus in India: Giriraj Singh

The MoS is considered a hardliner in his party and his controversial statements have raised eyebrows and embarrassed the BJP before.

In October this year, the minister of state had said Hindus should seriously consider increasing their population in the country by producing more children. He then recalled that none other than RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had advised Hindus in August last year to produce more children and said no laws can prevent them from reproducing more children.

He had also proposed to revoke the voting rights of people with more than two children to control population, in April earlier this year.

During the 2014 parliamentary poll campaign, Singh courted controversy when he said that critics of the then BJP PM candidate Narendra Modi should go to Pakistan.

Also read | Revoke voting rights of people with more than two kids: Giriraj Singh
Three Nigerian were arrested by officers from Anti-narcotic Cell of Thane police with contrabands worth Rs12lakh. The arrested accused were identified as Justin Egbonako Joy, 28, Yugo Chukuaa Ajaah, 32, and Suleman Okik Ekinichokho, 26, all resident of Navi Mumbai. All the three operated as pedlars in Thane, Mumbai, and Navi Mumbai.

On Saturday, ANC officers received a tip-off that three Nigerians were coming to Thane railway station, near Gaondevi temple, with ephedrine. Accordingly, the ANC collaborated with the police and laid a trap to nab the pedlars. The accused finally showed up around 11.45pm near Gaondevi temple and were taken into custody. While searching, police recovered 260gm of mephedrone and 320gm of ephedrine, worth Rs12 lakh.

All three were arrested under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), 1985. The accused were produced in a court on Sunday and were remanded in police custody for the next five days.

Speaking to HT, a Thane ANC officer said, We suspect link of three Nigerians with that of Sushil Kumar Aasikanan, the key supplier of ephedrine to Nigeriens in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai. They are trying to mislead us. Initially they told us that they reside in Navi Mumbai, but later they changed their address to Nalasopara. We are also investigating whether the three pedlars know Sushil and purchased ephedrine from him. Moreover, their visas have been seized.

In the second haul, officers from Kapurbawdi police station arrested a 54-year-old man and seized marijuana weighing 5.4 kg during a combing operation at Azad Nagar in Kapurbawdi in the wee hours of Sunday. The arreste accused was identified as Sunil Tammna Bhatt.

Another confiscation

A police officer from Kapurbawdi police station said, The marijuana is worth Rs38,000. The accused was produced in a court today and will be in police custody for the next two days. Bhatt has been in the business of supplying contraband for the past few years and had managed to evade arrest for quite w while. He was arrested and booked under relevant section of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. Bhatt is a resident of Kapurbawdi and supplying marijuana across Thane.

Who is Sushil Kumar Assikanan?

#He was arrested in Rs2,000 crore-ephedrine drug haul case by Thane police on August 22 from Bengaluru.

#Investigation revealed that Assikanan was the key supplier of ephedrine to drug pedlars across Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai, including Nigerians.

#A Panvel resident, the 34-yer-old was on the run since April13 after the cops raided Solapur-based Avon Pharma Life Science Private Ltd

#During investigation, cops learnt that Assikanan was about to fly to Dubai and a few of his Bangalore friends were helping him monetarily

#He has been accused of supplying 180 kg ephedrine in the past and is the 11th accused to be arrested in the case.

Read

Thane ephedrine case: Key accused wants drug seized to be tested again

Thane drug haul case: Trio transferred crores using hawala

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A Hindu can marry again after 90 days of the decree dissolving his or her marriage, if no appeal has been made against the decree, the high court said on Friday.

A bench of the Bombay high court on Friday resolved a conflict in the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Family Courts Act, 1984, that dealt with time periods for filing appeals against such decrees. The bench comprising Justice Naresh Patil, Justice RD Dhanuka and Justice Sadhana Jadhav held that the appeal period would be 90 days  as charted in the 1955 Act.

While discussing the provisions of the two enactments, it needs to be considered that we are a country with a vast population and millions face financial hardships to litigate a matter. People spend a considerable amount of time, money and energy, said the bench while leaning in favour of a longer appeal period.

The conflict had arisen as the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, provides a 90-day period for preferring an appeal, the Family Courts Act provides 30 days after issuance of the decree, and therefore, a reference had been made to the full bench.

In January this year, a division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Ajay Gadkari had referred to the acts after refusing to accept another division benchs view that was made in April 2007 where they said that the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, will prevail over the provisions of the Family Courts Act, 1984 as regards the appeal period.

The period of limitation for preferring an appeal assumes importance in the context of Section 15 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 which says that when a marriage has been dissolved by a decree of divorce, it becomes lawful for either parties to marry again, provided the period of limitation for filing an appeal is over and no appeal is preferred against the decree within the prescribed period.

The issue had cropped up in an appeal filed by a Thane resident challenging the decree of divorce issued by the family court in Thane on a petition filed by his estranged wife. The decree was issued on April 22, 2013 and the husband filed the appeal in the high court on July 3, 2013. The woman remarried six days later  within the 90 days from the date of issuance of the decree.

Apart from challenging the decree issued by the Thane court, the husband had also raised objections to the validity of the womans second marriage. The wifes advocate, Nitin Dalvi, had opposed the contention and pointed out the April 2007 decision of another bench of the high court holding that the period of limitation for filing an appeal would be 90 days, as provided under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

Justice Oka and Justice Gadkari, had however, refused to accept the view. As an appeal is the creation of a statute, the same will be governed by the period of limitation provided in the statute which creates the appeal, the bench had said, referring to the fact that the family court appeal was an extension of the Family Courts Act, 1984, and therefore he appeal period would be 30 days, as provided in it.

Apart from challenging the decree issued by the Thane court, the husband had also raised objections as to validity of the womans second marriage. The wifes advocate, Nitin Dalvi, had opposed the contention and pointed out the April 2007 decision of another bench of the high court holding that the period of limitation for filing an appeal would be 90 days, as provided under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

The bench of Justice Oka and Justice Gadkari, had however, refused to accept the view. As an appeal is creation of a statute, the same will be governed by the period of limitation provided in the statute which creates the appeal, the bench had said, referring to the fact that the family court appeal was a creation of the Family Courts Act, 1984, and therefore appeal period would be 30 days, as provided in it.

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Long queues at toll plazas will recede in the next few days, the state government said on Sunday.

While lighter vehicles have been exempted from toll tax at 53 toll plazas, no such exemption has been granted at 12 plazas, including the five toll plazas in Mumbai. The Mumbai-Pune expressway has been witnessing long queues of small and heavy vehicles, resulting in clashes over change between motorists and operators.

Public works department minister Chandrakant Patil said the toll plazas in Mumbai and along the Mumbai-Pune expressway have witnessed long queues. There is a problem at toll plazas where small vehicles have not been exempted from paying toll. We have urged people to tender the exact amount. Operators, too, have been directed to make necessary arrangements. Motorists are facing problems at certain plazas. We have reported it to the Centre and the guidelines from them will be followed, Patil said.

The state has requested the State Bank of India to make adequate cash available to toll operators. The state government has been promoting e-tag for payment. We have the e-tag facility at all major toll plazas in the state and have dedicated lanes for the motorists with the tag. By opting for the cashless solution, motorists can easily avoid the long queues, said Ashish Kumar Singh, principal secretary of the PWD.

Sanjay Shirodkar, a toll expert, said, In some cases, the queues go up to 10km. The government has failed to come up with a solution to the crisis.

READ MORE

Traffic snarls as toll tax restarts in Mumbai
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

The Iranian government has proposed a considerable increase in the expenditure on the countrys railways for the next fiscal year (starting March 20).

The governments draft budget bill for the next Iranian year has envisaged an 80 percent increase in spending for railways compared to the current year, Tasnim news agency reported.

According to the report, the government has proposed to spend about $235.1 million (7.76 trillion rials) on the railway in the coming year.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani presented the governments proposed budget bill for the next year this morning.

He earlier announced that the government would give priority to the water, water treatment, environment and railways sectors in the next budget bill.
The two-week winter session of the state legislature, which is set to start from Monday, is likely to be stormy.

The Opposition parties, led by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, boycotted the customary tea party hosted by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday to protest against the governments failure to address issues related to farmers suicides, inadequate prices for farm produce and demonetisation.

The NCP-Congress combine will also look to pin down the government over allegations of corruption against its ministers.

Read: Fadnavis asks administration to prepare roadmap for cashless economy

Fadnavis, meanwhile, sought cooperation from the Opposition in both the Houses and pledged to provide relief to farmers who have been facing problems because of demonetisation.

He said his government was ready for a constructive discussion on all issues on the floor of the House. We are ready to show the opposition what the government has done in the last two years and will also share the roadmap for remaining three years, Fadnavis said after holding a cabinet meeting here at his official residence, Ramgiri.

If the opposition makes any valid point we will address it. But if they behave immaturely and talk of cartoon characters, it will be a sad state of affairs for the Maharashtra legislature, said Fadnavis.

Buoyed by BJPs and its ally Shiv Senas electoral performance in the municipal council and MLC elections, Fadnavis said people are with the government on demonetisation as they are facing all hardships in national interest.

If they (opposition) play a constructive role, we can together address problems of people from Vidarbha and Marathwada to whom this session is dedicated, he said. He denied the charge that the farm sector was in dire straits because of demonetisation.

The chief minister said reports on rabi crops were encouraging as 78% of sowing was completed which was the highest in the last five years. Similarly, the Kharif harvest was excellent and 35% of produce has already reached the market and all transactions were taking place normally.

The leader of opposition in legislative Assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and his counterpart in legislative council, Dhananjay Munde, said they will chalk out a strategy on how to proceed on various issue by Monday morning.

The farmers, farm labourers, tribal, backward class and minorities are feeling unsafe in the saffron regime, Patil and Munde said, adding that there was a demand for reconstruction of crop loans but nothing has been done. Farmers suicides have not stopped, they alleged.

Munde and Patil said the government has misled Dhangar, Muslim and Maratha communities, which led to the reservation protests across the state.

The rural economy is on the verge of collapse, they said. Other Opposition leaders Vijay Wadettiwar, Sanjay Dutt (both Congress), Jayant Patil (NCP) and Jogendra Kawade (PRP) have signed a letter that was sent to the chief minister, boycotting the tea party.
Officers from Kapurbawdi police station on Saturday arrested a Karnataka man, said to be in his 40s, for murdering a Thane priest in 2013. The deceased was identified as Rameshwar Yadav, 80, who worked for a security firm in Kapurbawdi. The accused, Rimpujay Dole, was Yadavs neighbour at Kolshet Road in Thane.

On May 15, 2013, Dole strangled Yadav to death and later stabbed his body several times to ensure that he was dead. Dole then fled to Assam with his wife Manju and the police have been on his lookout ever since.

The police recently received a tip-off about Doles hideout in Karnataka, following a team went to the neighbour state and arrested him on Saturday. He was brought to Thane and produced in a court, which remanded him in police custody for the next four days.

A police officer from Kapurbawdi police station said, Yadav used to hand over his pension, Rs5,000, to Dole for safekeeping. However, Dole refused to give back the money when Yadav asked for it. This lead to an argument between the two, following which Dole murdered Yadav.

Read

Man held for killing colleague over financial dispute

Womans body found, lower half missing

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If Sanjay Gunjals one acre of cabbage field had just ripened before the decisive November 8 decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to scrap high value notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500, he would have been contended farmer today. Instead, the cabbage took a tad longer and by the time a deal was made the agriculture market was reeling under a cash crunch that slashed prices of all farm produce.

When Gunjal, a farmer from Khandgaon village in Ahmednagar district finally sold his cabbage, he got only Rs 6,000 for the entire acre of produce instead of Rs 80,000, the market price he could have got earlier.

On the heels of three consecutive droughts and unseasonal rains, Gunjal and his family was counting on this cabbage field to make some headway in 2016. ``The money I would have got from the cabbage would have gone into planting of pomegranates in this season, paying back one installment of loan, running the house and paying labourers. Now, I have been left with half a field of cabbage that even the trader did not bother to take and will have to plough over it, said Gunjal, whose family including two other brothers owns 16 acres of land, where they grow vegetables, sugarcane and fodder crops.

Like Gunjal, lakhs of farmers in rural Maharashtra are facing the brunt due to demonetization as the cash crunch has led to a drop in prices of farm produce. Majority of agriculture markets in the state that have so far been dealing solely in cash, were working at only 50 % or less of their capacities this month.

With the district co-operative banks, where a majority of farmers have their transactions, not getting enough cash from the state banks, currency has only a notional value even for the relatively well to do sugar cane farmers, as they cannot withdraw money from their accounts. The result is that the entire cycle of transactions in the farm sector from commissioning agents to landless labourers, has been disrupted.

`` My farm labourers have to be paid weekly in cash. I owe them Rs 20,000 already. I have had to let go of sowing in this rabi season because there was no money in hand. I lost 60 per cent of my last onion produce in the rains. The remaining 40 per cent or 100 quintals I brought to the market but traders have no money to pay me,  said Namdeo Karade, farmer from Ahmednagar in Western Maharashtra. ``I have sold my entire produce on trust to a trader; he will pay me when the cash is handy in a couple of days. I have never been paid in cheque before, what if it bounces?

At the Sangamners APMC, traders and agents owe farmers like Karade nearly Rs 5.72 crore in the last 15 days. At the Ahmednagar APMC, that makes a profit of Rs 9.4 crore, nearly Rs 12.10 crore is pending in payments to farmers in the 14 days from November 8 to November 26.

``We are functioning at 50 per cent of our capacity.. the cash crunch has slashed all prices especially of fruits, vegetables by 30 to 40 per cent. But, cheque payments have slowly started with 35 to 40 per cent of payments being done in cheques. It is going to be slow but the shift can be made as all farmers do have bank accounts. The problem is that clearance of cheques can take as much as 10 days, said Abhay Bhise, secretary of Ahmednagar APMC.

By the time the shift to cheque payments is 100 per cent and farmers can actually get their hands on their hard earned cash, the rabi sowing season will be over. In this shift, many a small farmer, will be hit so badly that it will take him another year to recover, that too only if the monsoons are good.

Rajaram Akolkar for instance is among those, who says, survival will be difficult. Akolkar drove on his motorcycle 53 kms from the drought prone Pathardi taluka to come to APMC in Ahmednagar, carrying with him one quintal of lemons, seeking a better price. He was however offered only Rs 8 for a kilo of lemons and he can return home with Rs 800, but this pricely sum includes one old Rs 500 note.

`` I have no choice but to accept Rs 800 being offered to me, including one old Rs 500 note, stand in a queue to deposit the money and withdraw it. I have a Jan Dhan account in a nationalized bank but the branch is away from my village and will cost me one days work. I need the cash now, he asked. After demonetization, Akolkar was forced to abandon his 200 bags of onions in local market at Pathardi, for the lack of buyers. In APMCs, farmers like Akolkar sitting on gunny bags of produce from ginger to carrots, hunting for buyers and finally abandoning produce is not uncommon.

READ MORE

Protest against demonetisation in Mumbai: Congress leader calls Centre anti-poor

Demonetisation effect: Fewer property registrations in Maharashtra

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Intensifying its protest against demonetisation, a delegation of Shiv Sena members of parliament (MPs) will on Monday meet Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel, seeking clarity on the time that would be needed to tackle the cash crunch. Party chief Uddhav Thackeray met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh head Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur on Sunday and discussed various issues, including demonetisation. The party has been very vocal in its criticism of the move from Day One of its announcement.

The Senas move coincides with the first day of the winter session of the state legislature in Nagpur, where opposition parties are preparing to target the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government over a host of issues.

The Shiv Sena had earlier decided to hold a protest march at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) headquarters in Fort. The party also planned to hand over its protest in writing to the Governors office.

A Sena leader who did not wish to be named said, The protest was canceled as the Mumbai Police requested the party to avoid assembly of large crowd.

While most parties have slammed the governments sudden decommissioning old Rs500 and Rs1,000 currency notes, the Shiv Sena has maintained it is not against demonetisation, but the method in which it has been implemented. The party has openly targeted the BJP over the governments exercise and even participated in an Opposition protest led by Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress.

Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant said, Even today, there are restrictions on withdrawals. A majority of the ATMs are not functioning. People were not able to access their salaries this month because of the chaotic situation. It is absolutely miserable. People are starting to lose faith in banks.

Earlier, the partys MPs even met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to express their criticism of the method of implementation of the exercise, and request allowing district central banks, urban cooperatives and credit societies to accept decommissioned Rs500 and Rs1,000 currency notes.

Another senior Sena leader, who did not wish to be named, censured the Modi governments ambitious plans of having a cashless economy. Put the basic infrastructure in place first. Many parts of the country still dont have electricity. How will card terminals work without power? How will the government ensure that there are no cyber frauds and peoples money is actually protected?

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Mumbai: Despite poll tie-up talks, Uddhav hits out at Modi again

Council polls: Sena-BJP tie-up worked in less than 10 places

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Many top leaders flew in to attend the wedding of Union minister Nitin Gadkaris daughter Ketki in Nagpur on Sunday even as the proposed visit of several others for the ceremony was cancelled.

The office of Gadkari, the Union minister for transport and shipping, said only 12 chartered planes ferried VVIPs for the wedding. Nagpur airport authority sources said at least 28 chartered planes from diverse locations landed at the airport till 5 pm on Sunday.

Read: 50 chartered planes to ferry VVIPs to Nagpur for Gadkaris daughters wedding

Some of the chartered flights expected were cancelled at the eleventh hour, said a source at the airport who did not want to be named.

On HTs story that 50 chartered planes were to ferry VVIPs for his daughters wedding, Gadkari told HT, Barely 10 to 12 chartered planes landed in Nagpur for attending Ketkis marriage.

Earlier, Manoj Wadekar, additional private secretary of Gadkari, had said the news of 50 chartered flights to ferry VIPs for the event was mischievous, misleading, factually incorrect and highly speculative.

According to a source with knowledge of the wedding details, chief ministers of at least four states were among the bigwigs whose plans to attend the event were cancelled.

The Gadkari and Kaskhedikar families pose for a group photograph during the wedding ceremony of Aditya and Ketki in Nagpur on Sunday. (Sunny Shende)

Most of them are expected to attend the marriage reception in Delhi on December 8, the source added.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, BJP president Amit Shah, Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and yoga guru Ramdev turned up for the wedding.

MNS chief Raj Thackeray during the wedding ceremony in Nagpur on Sunday. (Sunny Shende)

Union ministers Maneka Gandhi, Prakash Javadekar and Hansraj Ahir, and former civil aviation minister Praful Patel too were among the guests at the wedding along with Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray.

(From left) Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Aaditya Thackeray at Mahal, Nagpur, on Sunday. (Sunny Shende)

While the Union home minister, and BJP president arrived on Sunday morning, Fadnavis landed here Saturday night. Maharashtra ministers Chandrakant Patil, Subhash Deshmukh, Pankaja Munde, Girish Mahajan, Sadabhau Khotkar and Girish Deshmukh were also present on the occasion.

Later, Uddhav Thackeray met Bhagwat and held discussions for a while.

Ketki, the youngest among Gadkaris three children  both his sons are married  tied the knot with Aditya, the son of Sandhya and Ravindra Kaskhedikar of Nagpur. Aditya works with Facebook in the US.
Over two lakh customers who have accounts with the District Cooperative Bank are apprehensive over their current situation as the bank branches have been out of cash for five days. They are mulling to hold a demonstration against the demonetisation move.

The account holders, mostly farmers and small traders, blamed the Central government for the problem. They said it is becoming impossible to conduct daily transactions, besides facing problems in procuring raw materials for farming.

The two branches of the District Cooperative Bank in Noida are located at Mamura and Nithari.

We have accounts in Nithari and Mamura branches, but both the branches have been out cash for the last six days. Bank managers are helpless and we are unable to withdraw cash. They give us the same excuse, that they are getting a low supply of cash, and do not provide further details, said Sunil Yadav of Sector 70 in Noida said.

We failed to get money even for marriage purpose despite completing the necessary formalities. We will not tolerate this situation any longer. Such mismanagement in the current situation will definitely lead to protests, Yadav said.

The cash flow has been badly affected after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on November 14 directed cooperative banks not to accept the scrapped notes.

We are not able to deposit cash that we have in old notes. We are pinning hopes on the Supreme Court and hope it brings us relief on Monday. Otherwise, we will lose hope in the system and this may also lead to protests, said Jantar Singh, a resident of Sarfabad village.

We will then be left with no option but to open an account with another bank to deposit these notes. Else, we will lose all our money, Singh said.

District cooperative banks in Kerala had moved the Supreme Court last Tuesday against the directive banning them from exchanging the scrapped 500 and 1,000 notes. The case is scheduled for hearing in the apex court on Monday.

The two cooperative bank branches are getting an average 1-2 lakh per day, which is insufficient to fulfil the account holders demands.

The managers of the two branches said they have been reporting the situation to the general manager (GM) of the District Cooperative Bank daily.

There are 33 branches under me in three districts Gautam Budh Nagar, Hapur and Ghaziabad. We need a minimum 5 crore daily, but we get less than 1 crore from the RBI. We then distribute money among these branches. We are helpless and we try to convince customers of the actual situation. We are also concerned as our customers are opening accounts with other banks. We are losing the goodwill of customers, UK Saraswat, general manager of the District Cooperative Bank, said.

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Commuters in the city are worried as faulty traffic signals at several intersections pose a threat of accidents. The absence of traffic police at the intersections where signals are not functional or are covered by tree branches adds to the problem, especially in the view of decreasing visibility in the early hours due to fog.

Commuters said that the traffic police are also failing to act on complaints they lodge through the recently launched traffic application.

There are 105 intersections with the presence of traffic signals in the city. A large number of signals, at important intersections, are often out of order, commuters said.

Signals at the sector 12/56 intersection, Mamura Chowk, Sector 10 intersection, sector 22/23 intersection, Sector 15 intersection, among several others on the internal roads of sectors 62 and 63, are faulty at present.

On October 9, the traffic police launched an application to improve traffic flow in the city. It has a feature for feedback from commuters, but it is useless. I have complained about jams and non-functional traffic signals several times, but never got a reply, said Sumit Shekhar, a resident of Swastha Vihar, Delhi who has his office in Sector 62.

We witness faulty traffic signals often at the intersection near National Institute of Biologicals (NIB) and Sector 62, which have a very high volume of traffic in the evening. I am worried about the months ahead as winter has set in and dense fog is going to compound the problem, Shekhar said.

The sector 12/22, 12/56 and 22/23 intersections are other busy points that witness a huge traffic volume daily, including a large number of shared autorickshaws that cause traffic jams and chaos on roads, residents said.

People moving from Sector 16 towards Sector 56 have to cross the traffic signal at the sector 12/22 T-point. The signals here are often out of order or keep flashing multiple colours, confusing many. Some commuters also jump the light in the absence of adequate police personnel, Nirbhay Singh of Sector 33 said.

He said that a similar situation exists at the sector 22/56 intersection as the signal is covered by tree branches.

Jagat Ram of Khora said, I was driving from NH-24 to Labour Chowk via NIB and the signals at all the three intersections on this stretch are faulty. I had to drive slowly to avoid accidents in the evening.

The police said that they will inform officials concerned.

We will write to the Noida authority in this regard soon after we get a complaint in this regard, Prabal Pratap Singh, superintendent of police (SP), traffic, Gautam Budh Nagar, said.

He said additional police personnel have been deployed at busy intersections to manage traffic during the winter to prevent jams and accidents.

Salil Yadav, project engineer (electrical wing), Noida authority, said, We have not received any complaint in this regard from the traffic police. However, we will ask the officials concerned to find out if there is any problem.

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There could be an element of truth in parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumars assertion that the opposition parties are shifting goalposts to disrupt Parliament.

The two Houses were not allowed to function for the 13th consecutive day last Friday.

The opposition started a debate on demonetisation in the Rajya Sabha at the start of the winter session, but took the disruption route the very next day. Their varied demands crop up after intervals  Prime Minister Narendra Modis presence, his response to the debate, his apology for allegedly calling opposition parties supporters of black money, probe by a joint parliamentary committee, and discussion in the Lok Sabha under a motion that entails voting. Its debatable which of these demands, if met, will bring immediate succour to the people.

Read | Govt says Oppn avoiding demonetisation debate, Parliament impasse may continue

Congress leaders offer different versions of their parliamentary tactics. One version describes it as an after-thought on the part of the Congress leadership  to not allow West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to take a lead role in opposing the government. Another pins the blame on a Floor leader in the Rajya Sabha who unilaterally agreed to the governments offer of a debate at a meeting with the presiding officer of the House.

The Congress has since taken the lead in stalling Parliament proceedings. So much has been its commitment to demonetisation victims  real or imagined  that the party let the government off the hook for a train accident that claimed 147 lives last month.

The opposition party didnt go beyond perfunctory statements on the killing of seven officers and jawans in a terrorist attack on the Nagrota army camp on the outskirts of Jammu on November 29, exactly two months after the much-hyped surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the de facto border in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation if a terror attack on Uri army base.

Read | As it happened: Another day of disruptions in Parliament over demonetisation

Asked about the impact of the surgical strikes in the context of the Nagrota attack at the HT Leadership Summit on Friday, defence minister Manohar Parrikars reply was quixotic: It introduced a degree of uncertainty (across the border). Really! Its a courageous stand post-Nagrota and incidents of mutilation of jawans bodies. The Congress and other opposition parties, however, dont seem inclined to question the government on these issues.

However sanctimonious and outraged NDA ministers might sound in their criticism of the opposition over its disruptive tactics, BJP strategists are gloating. So must Parrikar and Suresh Prabhu. A senior minister drew an analogy between the dilemma of the Congress in Parliament and that of a horse-riding, sword-wielding warrior without scabbard and stirrups.

Where does the Congress go from here? It can keep disrupting Parliament till the last day of the winter session on December 16, a strategy that the NDA might not mind. After the ruling side conceded to the oppositions demand for Modis intervention in the debate, the oppositions justification for continuing the disruptions does not hold much water.

Their current strategy of disruption  instead of exposing what former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called monumental mismanagement post-demonetisation  might not earn them many political brownies from the already harried people standing in queues.

Read | Demonetisation: Inconvenience to insecurity, the narrative is changing

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It is a matter of pride for the city to host the two-day Heart of Asia ministerial conference which commenced on Saturday, but the barricading of roads and traffic restrictions caused great inconvenience to the residents.

Top dignitaries from 14 member countries are meeting here to discuss key challenges facing the region, including from terror groups, and explore ways to bring lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan.

A thick security blanket was thrown in the city to ensure safety of delegates from participating countries, supporting countries including China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE, and various organisations. Also a special traffic route had to be marked for them, leading to hassles for the local residents.

The city was dotted with police personnel deployed to make sure that the visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani and adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz are hassle-free by providing them a traffic free route.

The walled city got choked due to traffic snarls as the Hall Bazar was closed for the commuters and it was converted into a no-traffic zone. No vehicle was allowed in the Town Hall area and route diversion was made from RS tower (Bijliwala Chowk) from where the traffic was sent towards the already chaotic markets such as Katra Jaimal Singh, Katra Baghia and Guru Bazar.

The worst-affected areas were adjoining the Golden temple which connect each other. The scenario led to traffic jams wherein people got stuck for hours, with no way out.

11 paramilitary companies, 5,000 cops deployed

Amritsar was turned into a fortress with deployment of 11 companies of parliamentary forces and 5,000 cops.

Amritsar police are on their toes to ensure smooth traffic movement to VIPs and others. It may give a bit of hassle to residents, but we assure that after Sunday evening, there would be normalcy and smooth movement of traffic, said ADCP, traffic, Gurcharan Singh.

He said in order to supervise traffic, Batala SSP Daljinder Singh Dhillon, 4 SPs, 8 DSPs and 16 inspectors have been put on duty, beside 600 cops.

Barricading on major roads

During the morning hours, when the delegates landed at the city airport, there were a proper arrangements for them. But as the entire airport area was cordoned off and people faced a lot of problems.

Security was so tight that traffic movement was also hampered at the airport road and people were held back to their homes. In the afternoon, the entire Circular Road was under surveillance and all the U-turns were prohibited which gave hard time to commuters. The area where PM Modi, along with other VIPs, is putting up was also converted into a no-traffic zone because of safety issues and every vehicle crossing the adjoining road was also checked. Even the cars with read beacons were also stopped for checking.

PM pays obeisance at Golden temple

There was a security alert in the late evening as PM Modi, who is putting up at Taj, left for paying obeisance at the Golden temple. The entire route he took was made traffic-free which affected the regular traffic of the city.

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With eight candidates withdrawing from the fray on Sunday, the last day of withdrawal of nominations, 122 candidates will fight it out on 26 wards for the municipal corporation elections scheduled on December 18.

The Congress and the BJP are contesting from all 26 wards; the Bahujan Samaj Party is contesting from 17 wards. The candidature of 56 candidates, including former mayor and SAD leader Harjinder Kaur, was cancelled. Two candidates withdrew giving their support in favour of the Congress.

Mukesh Devi, Independent candidate, from ward 1 withdrew her nomination in favour of Congress candidate Harmohinder Singh Lucky.

Announcing this former MP Pawan Kumar Bansal said she joined the Congress and declared her support to Lucky. Lucky also carried out door-to-door campaign in government quarters in Sector 7. Kapil Bhardwaj of the BSP withdrew his candidature after coming out in support of Davinder Singh Babla, Congress candidate from ward 18.

Independent candidate from ward 21, Rakesh Sharma (Rocky) withdrew his nomination in support of BJP candidate Gurpreet Singh Dhillon. Another independent candidate Vijay Singh from ward 14 extended his support to BJP candidate.

Three BJP members suspended

BJP state president Sanjay Tandon dismissed three party members for contesting against official party candidates, with immediate effect.

The party took disciplinary action against Geeta Ram, whose wife is contesting independently from ward 6, Dalip Sharma, who is independently contesting against BJP candidate from ward 19, and Narinder Guleria, who is contesting independently from ward 10.

Tandon said, While the Congress believed in assurances, the BJP managed to meet its commitments by bringing major relief to the youth by relaxing the upper age limit from 25 years to 37 years, for joining government jobs in the Chandigarh administration.

He added local MP Kirron Khers efforts enabled the decision for entry into government service (in direct recruitment) for technical and non-technical posts on the Punjab pattern.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said that Iran will give a strong response to the US if it violates the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/nuclear deal).

We believe that the recent vote by the US Congress is in contradiction with the JCPOA and it breaches the deal, IRNA news agency quoted President Rouhani as saying this morning.

He urged President Barack Obama to turn down the recent vote extending the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 more years.

President Rouhani added that all reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) prove that Iran has fulfilled its commitments regarding the last years landmark nuclear deal reached between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of countries.

The JCPOA is an international document endorsed by the Security Council of the United Nations and Iran believes that the proper implementation of the nuclear deal would be a considerable achievement for the international community and the participants of the deal.

He further touched upon Irans role in protecting security and stability in the region saying that collaboration with Iran will contribute to re-establishing security in the region.

The US lawmakers have recently reauthorized the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), which was first introduced in 1996 to punish investments in Iran's energy industry based on accusations that Tehran was pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

While Barack Obama is expected to approve the legislation on the renewal of sanctions against Iran for the next 10 years, Iranian leaders have sharply criticized the motion describing it as a breach of the last years landmark nuclear deal.
A paediatrician, Dr Meenu Singh, at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), among one of the three doctors shortlisted for the post of the director at the institute, had a review in an international global review withdrawn in September this year.

The Cochrane Library, a global independent network of researchers, professionals, patients, carers, and people interested in health, has withdrawn a review Zinc for the common cold written by Dr Meenu Singh, department of Pediatrics, PGIMER and Dr Rashmi R Das, department of pediatrics, AIIMS, Bhubaneshwar.

The review published in 2013 was temporarily withdrawn in April 2015, after Harri Hemila, a public health researcher at the University of Helsinki complained, The 2013 update has copied parts of my 2011 paper as ideas, as data and as sentence without attributing these to my 2011 paper.

Reasons for withdrawal

The review was withdrawn as a result of comment submitted by Harri Hemila in February 2015. Hemila identified multiple errors in the Cochrane review and made allegations of plagiarism of text and data from a previously published systematic review, states the Cochrane Library. The Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group, which maintains the review, withdrew the review in April 2015, pending an assessment of the errors reported, and the group referred the allegations of plagiarism to the editor-in-chief.

Doctor denies charges

The allegations made were are of serious nature, but Cochrane Editorial Unit carried out a systematic and just investigation. They have taken the decision that it will stay withdrawn. I am also one of the editors of Cochrane and I agree with them. We are updating the review and it is not permanently withdrawn, said Dr Meenu.

This is a review, which means that a literature has been published and we have to compile it. Whenever we have to compile the literature, there would be minor replications, this is not a major one. So, minor replication up to 5% or 10% can be there. There was some concern regarding data calculation through feedback mechanism, which the editor has asked us to update. So this 2013 version was withdrawn from the library and the editor advised us to update the same with addition of new available data, said Dr Das of AIIMS, Bhubaneshwar..

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Determined to get to the end of her eight-month undercover investigation in Gujarat, journalist Rana Ayyub, who conducted a sting operation that Tehelka withheld from publication in 2010, hasnt given up.

Her belief in her work makes her want to reach out to as many people as possible. Besides attending promotional events about her self-published book Gujarat Files, the journalist released the Punjabi version of her text in Patiala last month.

In Chandigarhs Pracheen Kala Kendra on Sunday to talk about publishing the text in 18 languages, including Punjabi, an emotional Rana was seen engaging closely with the senior citizens here.

As an octogenarian who travelled five hours in a bus to attend the event in Chandigarh recited a two-page poem in praise of her book, Rana said the Punjabi version gave her a different kind of empathy from those connected to the region. Be it here in Chandigarh or in Patiala last month, I have witnessed that Sikhs relate their own 1984 struggle to the Gujarat riots, said Ayyub, adding that she was content that the larger point was being conveyed on how the state machinery was now thinking of things they perhaps had been overlooking.

Despite being mocked at for having been able to conduct this investigation simply because she was pretty, she said she was happy that there were others who were at least picking up the regional language text to read it to know what happened. Elderly women have come and cried to me saying that the text reminded them of their own struggle during the Sikh riots, Ayyub told HT.

Meanwhile, the self-published author and journalist is also in talks with a Bollywood director about making a film on her investigation. Confirming the same, Rana Ayyub said she was in talks with a very prominent director to convert the book into a film.

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Suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 46 people in opposition-held parts of Syria on Sunday, a monitor said, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.

Syrias government is waging an offensive to recapture all of second city Aleppo, and it has so far captured more than 60% of the eastern districts that fell to rebels in 2012.

In Idlib province, in northwest Syria, at least 26 civilians were killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Kafr Nabel, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

An eyewitness told AFP that warplanes hit several places in the town, including a local market.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carries out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

The group said 18 people were also killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Maaret al-Numan, where an AFP photographer saw rescue workers and residents trying to pull survivors from the rubble at a vegetable market.

The monitor reported two additional deaths, one in an earlier strike on Maaret al-Numan and another in Al-Naqir, also in Idlib.

And it said six civilians, four of them children, had been killed in a government barrel bomb attack on the town of Al-Tamanah in the south of Idlib.

Russia is a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assads government and began a military intervention in support of Damascus in September 2015.

Moscow says it is targeting terrorists and has dismissed reports of civilian casualties in its strikes.

Army advances in Aleppo

In Aleppo, government forces advanced against rebels in east Aleppo, taking two small neighbourhoods and pushing into a third, state media said.

The army and allied forces are nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of Syrias second city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syrias opposition its worst defeat of the countrys five-year civil war.

State television said Sunday evening that the army had captured the districts of Karm al-Tahan and Myessar and advanced into the Qadi Askar neighbourhood.

The operation has already seen some 60% of east Aleppo fall to the government, and rebels are increasingly under pressure in the remaining southeastern districts under their control.

State news agency SANA said the air force was dropping leaflets over rebel-held areas urging militants to abandon their weapons and... allow civilians and the sick and wounded to leave.

Damascus says rebels are preventing civilians from leaving the east and attempting to use them as human shields.

But tens of thousands of residents have poured out of eastern neighbourhoods as the army has advanced, with some heading south to remaining rebel territory and others going to areas under government or Kurdish control.

At least 311 civilians, including 42 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the government began its assault, according to the Observatory.

The east has been pounded with air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire since the operation began.

UN envoy urges talks

Rebel fire on west of Aleppo has killed 69 civilians, including 28 children, in the same period, the monitor says.

On Sunday, the bombardment of rebel districts was so fierce it shook buildings in the west as well as the east, AFP correspondents on both sides said.

The Observatory said at least three people were killed in the eastern neighbourhood of Fardos in government artillery fire, a woman and two children.

The latest assault has only added to the massive destruction in east Aleppo, which has seen some of the worst violence throughout the conflict that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

The army has encouraged residents to return to recently recaptured neighbourhoods, but many who have ventured across to see their old homes have found nothing but rubble.

This is all we found, this photo of my niece. It is precious to us, and we found a copy of the Koran, so we brought that too, said Um Yayha, 55.

Despite international outcry over the conflict, successive bids to end Syrias war have failed.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura on Saturday urged a return to negotiations, warning of a creeping, ongoing guerilla (war) and no reconstruction unless peace talks resumed.
The death toll from a fire that tore through a warehouse hosting a late-night dance party climbed to 33 on Sunday as firefighters painstakingly combed through rubble for others believed to still be missing and made the grim announcement that teenagers were among the dead.

The building that went up in flames was known as the Ghost Ship, had been carved into artist studios and was an illegal home for a rotating cast of a dozen or more people, according to former denizens who said it was a cluttered death trap with few exits, piles of wood and a mess of snaking electric cords.

If you were going there for a party, you wouldnt be aware of the maze that you have to go through to get out, said Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of the couple who ran the warehouse.

The death toll was expected to rise, as crews using buckets and shovels slowly made their way through the building, finding victims where they least expected them, Alameda County Sheriffs Sgt. Ray Kelly said.

Less than half of the charred remains of the partly collapsed structure had been searched as of Sunday afternoon, Kelly said.

When we started this investigation, if you had told us that you would have 33 victims, we wouldnt have believed you, Kelly said. I dont know how many people are left in there.

The victims include 17-year-olds and people from Europe and Asia and range in age from their teens to 30-plus years old, Kelly said. Officials have identified eight people who were killed  at least seven of them using fingerprints.

Anxious family members who feared the worst gathered at the sheriffs office to await word on their loved ones. They were told they may have to provide DNA samples to help identify remains.

As many as 100 people were there for a party Friday night when the fire broke out just before midnight. Fire officials were still investigating the cause of the blaze, but they said clutter fueled the flames, there were no sprinklers inside and few exits to escape.

Boudreaux identified the operators of the Satya Yuga collective as Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison. She had a falling out with Almena when she convinced Allisons parents and sister about a year ago that the warehouse was a dangerous place for the couples three children to live.

Michael Allison of Portland, Oregon, the father of Almenas partner, Micah Allison, said the couple had a troubled relationship. Michael Allison and other family members were able to persuade his daughter, Micah, to go to a drug rehabilitation center in 2015, but Almena talked his way into the rehab center, and convinced Micah Allison to leave with him, Michael Allison said.

The familys three children had lice and needed new clothes, prompting family to call child-protective services, said Michael Allison, who wept as he talked. But Almena and his partner eventually were able to win custody of the children back and cut off all communication with Michael Allison, the father said.

Whenever I could, I would to talk to (Micah Allison) to get away from him because I knew he was dangerous from day one, he said. All of that has now been proven.

Almena did not immediately respond to emails or phone numbers associated with him. Authorities declined to talk about the manager, saying they were focused on recovering the bodies and consoling families.

No one answered a call to a number for Micah Allison.

A man identified as Derick Ion posted a Facebook message early Saturday, saying, Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound. He drew rebukes online from others who said he was warned the building was unsafe.

The couple rented out five recreational vehicles and other nooks on the ground floor as living spaces. A rickety makeshift staircase led to a second floor where concerts were held. Former residents said there frequently was no electricity or running water.

Oakland planning officials opened an investigation last month after repeated complaints from neighbors who said trash was piling up and people were illegally living in the building zoned as a warehouse. An inspector who went to the premises couldnt get inside, said Darin Ranelletti, of the Oakland Planning Department.

The city had not confirmed people lived there, but a former resident, Shelley Mack, said she had been lured in part by reasonable rents in a region beset with a housing shortage and exorbitant leases driven by the tech boom.

To a first-time visitor, the labyrinth of uniquely designed spaces was stunning, said Alastair Boone, a University of California, Berkeley student who arrived at the party with five friends around 11 p.m.

Boone said she had just received a tour of the property and stepped outside when someone yelled, Fire!

In a couple of minutes there were flames coming out of the windows and black smoke was just billowing out of the house, she said.

Some of the people who got out were crying and others stood silently in shock as firefighters arrived to put the flames out.

Online records listed the buildings owner as Nar Siu Chor. The Associated Press could not locate a telephone number for her Saturday. Efforts to reach her at other Oakland addresses associated with her were not successful.
After the convincing win of a pro-Remain party candidate in a London suburbs by-election last week, many say it points to the start of a renewed push against Brexit in the UK.

The by-poll was held after Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, elected from the suburb of Richmond Park in 2015, resigned in protest against the governments October decision to lay a third runway at Londons Heathrow Airport, which is likely to increase noise and air pollution in his constituency and in west London.

The unabashedly pro-EU Liberal Democrats party re-focussed the by-election on Brexit, with its candidate, Sarah Olney, and party leader, Tim Farron, throwing everything they had into the campaign. The Conservative party did not put up a candidate, while the Labour candidate lost his deposit. Olney won.

Many among the 48% in Britain who voted to remain in the EU referendum see the Richmond Park outcome as the beginning of a fightback against Brexit, which is so fraught with legal and other impasses at various levels that it might take the 2020 general election to resolve.

Goldsmith, who lost the London mayoral election in May, was a pro-Brexit candidate in an anti-Brexit constituency, 72% of which had voted to remain in the EU. His protest against the third Heathrow runway remained in the background, even though many share his concerns.

The Brexit process remains embroiled in a maze of imponderables. The Supreme Court is due to hear from Monday a case to decide whether the high court was right to rule that the Theresa May government cannot trigger the exit process without approval from parliament.

Even if a bill or motion to that effect were to be rushed through parliament and the May government sticks to its deadline of triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March 2017, the two-year completion of the exit process is expected by mid-2019.

The timeline is another imponderable, but even if talks and other exit formalities are completed as envisaged, it will be close to the 2020 general election in Britain. A mid-term election to resolve the Brexit conundrum is unlikely, but the 2020 election may well become an election on Brexit and have the last say.

There are already indications that the Remainers are coming together to get the best possible pro-EU deal, if not scuttle the Brexit vote altogether. Former prime ministers Tony Blair and John Major want another referendum, while many MPs and lords are keen to seek amendments when the governments brings a bill or motion in parliament to seek its approval to trigger Article 50 - and delay it beyond March 2017.

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Fidel Castros ashes were placed in the niche of a boulder on Sunday, capping nine days of official mourning when hundreds of thousands of Cubans said farewell with a combination of tears, Castro-like defiance and choruses of I am Fidel!

President Raul Castro placed the wooden box containing his elder brothers cremated remains in the 10 foot (3 metre) rounded stone at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, photos released by state media showed.

Castro died on Nov. 25 at age 90.

A dark plaque engraved with the word Fidel was then fixed over the niche. Dressed in his four star general military uniform, Raul Castro saluted the rock, which was flanked by two honor guards in white uniform.

Castro gave Cuba an outsized influence in world affairs. He was feted by Nelson Mandela for helping to end apartheid at a time when the West supported the racist system, but helped take the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, left, and Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega attend the burial ceremony of the ashes of the late Fidel Castro at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago. (AP Photo)

His monument sits a few steps from the mausoleum of independence hero Jose Marti, another towering figure of Cuban history who Castro long admired.

Castro had been out of power for a decade but never far from the center of public life. In his final years he wrote a periodic column on world and local matters and received foreign dignitaries at his home on the outskirts of Havana.

Forced to step down due to an intestinal ailment, he ceded power to his younger brother, at first provisionally in 2006, then definitively in 2008.

In keeping with his wishes, Castros image will not be immortalized with statues and public places will not be named after him, his brother said on Saturday.

His send off seemed reflective of a man who had a vast public career but could be intensely private about his health and personal life. Cubans still do not know the cause of his death, or where he was cremated.

After a three-day caravan in which hundreds of thousands of people lined streets and packed squares to bid him farewell, the last ceremony was not broadcast on Cuban media.

Instead, in Havana, military cannons unleashed a 21-gun salute that thundered across the capital city as the ceremony began hundreds of miles to the south east.

Castros memorial at the cemetery is a large, round stone placed close to, but dwarfed by, Martis mausoleum, according to a Reuters witness. The stone is a few steps from a monument to rebels who died fighting in Castros failed 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago, the start of the revolution.

Seeing greatness in himself long before taking power, Castro created his own, enduring persona, and played the role with a flourish throughout his long public life.

People stand at the entrance of the Santa Ifigenia cemetery where the ashes of Fidel Castro were interred in Santiago. (AP Photo)

He was at various times a triumphant revolutionary, an indefatigable speaker, and a military strategist. His larger-than-life character instilled Cuba with pride and national identity, while also generating acute hatred among his enemies.

It even came with its own wardrobe and props: olive green fatigues and military hat, boots and a beard, and, until he quit smoking in the 1980s, a long lancero cigar.

He ruled for 49 years, longer than any contemporary except for Queen Elizabeth of England, after overthrowing a U.S.-backed dictator in 1959. He went on to align Cuba with the Soviet Union and sustained a near-permanent confrontation with the United States, sending both doctors and soldiers overseas to burnish Cubas revolutionary character.

In recent years, Cuban doctors have been widely praised for their quick deployment in international health crises, including the Ebola outbreak and the aftermath of Haitis 2010 earthquake.

Even after ceding power to Raul, now 85, Fidel was a guiding light to leftists and anti-imperialists around world and a lightning rod for the barbs of his critics, who loathed him for confiscating private property, jailing opponents, and shutting down almost all dissent.

The impact of his long clash with the United States is still being felt. Cuban-Americans in Miami celebrated his death, and Washington maintains a trade embargo that Castro long used as the reason for Cubas economic troubles.

U.S. President Barack Obama changed course on U.S. policy toward Cuba in December 2014, agreeing on a prisoner exchange, declaring his intent to restore diplomatic ties and asking the U.S. Congress to end the embargo.

Fidel Castro gave begrudging approval to the detente brokered by his brother. He did not meet Obama during his historic visit to the island, instead penning a column that warned Cubans not to trust the presidents honey-coated words.

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to reverse Obamas rapprochement after he assumes the White House on Jan. 20 unless Cuba enacts internal changes, the kind of pressure both Castro brothers have vehemently rejected.
President-elect Donald Trump has expanded his search for secretary of state, and it now includes Jon Huntsman, a former governor who shares a good equation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is a strong supporter of ties with India.

The India link is personal. His youngest daughter, Asha, is from Gujarat. He adopted her when he was governor of Utah and Modi was chief minister of the state. Modis first question to Huntsman was about Asha when they met in 2015.

A late entrant to the race, Huntsman is up against frontrunners Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president, Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor, senator Bob Corker and former CIA director Davis Petraeus.

Trumps search for secretary of state, the nations top diplomat, has become embroiled in a bitter feud between his senior advisers over Romney, who has met the president-elect twice and was reported to be his favourite.

But the Trump campaign said on Sunday the list was being expanded beyond the four, and, according to reports, Huntsman, who ran for president in 2012 and had called for Trump to drop out of race earlier this year, was among the fresh entrants.

Huntsman has more foreign policy experience than some of the frontrunners, having served as US ambassador first to Singapore and then China and as the US Trade Representative, who keeps an eye on Americas trade interests around the world.

Currently head of Atlantic Council, an influential Washington DC think-tank focussed on international affairs, he has travelled widely meeting and engaged with world leaders, with India and West Asia heading his list of destinations.

Huntsman has been extremely keen on India, and has argued for stronger ties between India and the US to balance the rise of China, and not solely through defence cooperation but realising the full potential of ties, most importantly economic.

To fulfill the potential in the US-India relationship, the alliance must cultivate roots in both high and low politics, Huntsman wrote in a piece co-authored with Bharath Gopalaswamy, South Asia head at Atlantic Council, in June, on the eve of Modis visit.

High politics largely pertains to issues of national security, while low politics focuses on economic issues, people-to-people exchanges, and cultural ties. Thus far, both US and Indian policy elites have segmented this relationship, prioritizing Indias value as a defense partner over its economic and trading potential. But if their shared security perception erodes, the US-India partnership is unlikely to endure without other connections.

Huntsman also launched the US-India Trade Initiative at the think tank to to create a platform for engagement, to build consensus, and to advocate increasing US-India trade to $500 billion by addressing the most crucial areas of the US-India trade relationship.

Due to his interest in India, there was talk at one stage, and one he did nothing to stop, that he was trying for ambassadorship to India. That didnt happen, but according to those who know him, his interest in India continues.

He will be good for India no matter what position he gets in the cabinet, said Gopalaswamy, the Indian-origin co-author of Huntsmans article on India.

Huntsman also shares a special relationship with foreign secretary S Jaishankar, harking back to their days as ambassadors to China for their respective countries. They met when Jaishankar was in the US recently.
A British Sikh family has written to UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson seeking a fresh investigation into the death of a woman, who they claim was killed by her husband and in-laws in India.

The woman was a mother of four, who died in highly suspicious circumstances in March 2015 after allegedly refusing to allow one of her sons to be adopted by her childless brother-in-law, who was said to be desperate for a male heir to secure ancestral wealth, a daily reported.

In the letter to Johnson this week, representatives of the womans family say she was tricked into going on a family trip to India, where she died after a heated argument with her husband on giving up their youngest son.

The family said they were told she had died of a sudden heart attack, but found bruises on her body. The woman was cremated without their knowledge before they could fly her back to Britain.

The relatives claim they have been shunted from pillar to post by the UK foreign office and metropolitan police and have a meeting in the Parliament complex in London next week where they will call for a fresh investigation into the death.

Scotland Yard said it was aware of the tragic death but was unable to comment publicly.
Pakistan Prime Ministers advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz denied news reports that he was mistreated during the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, while addressing the media back in Islamabad. He said that he did not regret attending the conference as Pakistans participation was welcome by every quarter.

Aziz also said that he was barred from speaking to reporters during his visit to India and and that he was making up for it upon his return. The attitude towards the media was not good. I wanted to have press interaction with our own media. But we were not allowed, he alleged.

He added that the arrangements made for his stay were strange since the Pakistani delegation was housed in a separate hotel and were not allowed to have any guests.

To a question on whether a breakthrough was achieved on India-Pakistan ties, Aziz said that he had not expected any in the first place. To talk on bilateral issue at a multilateral conference cannot be done, he said. Aziz said that all the meetings he held in India were generally pleasant. They were not structured or detailed meetings.

He said cross-border firing had come up over the issue of investment in the region. I said how can you expect heavy investment if there is such cross border firing.

Aziz also spoke about Pakistans relationship with Afghanistan. He said the two nations were like congential twins and that India cannot divide us but the situation is much more complex than it is made out to be.

PTI reports that Aziz said he exchanged pleasantries with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, finance minister Arun Jaitley and NSA Ajit Doval in Amritsar, hours after India said there was no Indo-Pak bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia meet.

(With agency inputs)
Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview aired on Sunday called US president-elect Donald Trump intelligent and predicted he would quickly grasp his new level of responsibility and act accordingly.

Since he managed to achieve success in business, that shows he is a clever person, the Russian strongman said in an interview with NTV television that has already aired in the countrys far east, quoted by TASS news agency.

If hes clever, that means he will fully and quite quickly grasp a different level of responsibility.

Putin said that Russia expects that he will act precisely on this basis.

The Kremlin said last month that the two men agreed, in their first phone call after Trumps election win in November, on the need to normalise Russia-US relations.

Putin on Thursday reiterated Moscows readiness to work with Trumps administration once the president-elect takes office in January.

It is important to normalise and start to develop bilateral relations on an equal and mutually-beneficial basis, Putin said in his annual state of the nation address.

Trump has praised Putins leadership and said he looks forward to a strong and enduring relationship with Russia.

During the US election campaign, Putin praised him for appealing effectively to disenchanted American electors.

He represents the views of a significant part of society in the United States that is tired of those elites who have been in power for decades, he said in October.

He just represents the interests of such ordinary people, and he presents himself as an ordinary guy who criticises those who have already been in power for decades.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Russias special envoy on Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev has conveyed an important message to Iranian officials, Ali Akbar Velayati, the Iranian Supreme Leaders senior advisor, said.

Lavrentiev was in Tehran to convey a very important message, Velayati said without elaborating, Mehr news agency reported.

He made the remarks following a meeting with the Russian diplomat on Dec. 3.

Today, we see hope-inspiring advance on the ground in Syria by Syrian forces and according to Lavrentievs report, government forces are advancing from the west of Aleppo. This is a great achievement in pinning terrorists into the city quarters, said Velayati.

During the meeting the two sides agreed that Syrian army and government as well as Iranian and Russian allies and Hezbollah will continue the fight unless Aleppo city is fully liberated, he added.

Lavrentiev also discussed the latest development in Syria with Irans President Hassan Rouhani.

Tehran and Moscow share the same stance towards Syria, supporting the Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Tehran has always expressed support for the Syrian government since it sees the Assad regime as its main strategic ally in the region and as a part of an "axis of resistance" against Israel.
To celebrate her wedding in Mosul, Shaimaa covered herself in black to hide her dress and make-up from the jihadists on her way to the grooms house.

During the more than two years they spent under the control of the Islamic State group, many residents of the Iraqi city often defied the strict rules of the caliphate in the secrecy of their homes.

Shaimaa, 20, married Ali, 24, four months ago.

In the Hasansham displacement camp where they now live with thousands of other people who fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched a broad offensive to retake Mosul in mid-October, they recounted their big day.

I put on a white wedding dress, I did my make-up and hairdo and then disappeared under a black niqab and a long abaya to go from our house to my husbands, the young lady said.

When we reached the house, we locked the doors and turned on the generator so the noise would cover the music. The women were able to party while the men stayed outside, her husband said.

That celebration was in violation of several rules enforced by the jihadists, who banned music, smoking and checked that no men were shaving and no women showing their faces

Several rules enforced by the Islamic State include banning music, smoking, and checking that no men shaved and no women showed their face

I never thought my wedding party would be like that, I really wanted to wear a suit and shave, I wanted my friends to share our joy and I wanted to parade around town with my wife in a convoy, Ali said.

The wedding was quick, we thought about going for a ride in town but eventually we were too scared to do anything, she said.

Displaced Iraqi women queue to receive food distribution from a British charity, on December 4, 2016 in the village of Gogjali, on the eastern edge of Mosul. (AFP Photo)

A picture of their clandestine wedding, which shows Shaimaa wearing a white dress and putting her hands around her smiling husbands face, survived the fighting and chaos that came when they fled.

I had a printing shop so I locked myself in, pulled the shutter down and printed the photo because such photos are forbidden, he said.

He sat on a mattress with his wife in front of their tent with former neighbours who also fled last month, including 23-year-old Samiha, who remembered having to keep her voice down during the stealthy wedding party.

She said she used to put earphones on to listen to music she had downloaded to her phones memory card but mobiles were tightly controlled under IS and simply owning a sim card was punishable.

Samiha said she used to hide her phones memory card and sim card inside a curtain railing.

Smoking, dominoes, television

Communication with relatives living outside the caliphate IS proclaimed over parts of Iraq and Syria in June 2014 was complicated and perilous.

Somebody had to stand guard outside the front door while she made a call, usually only a few quick words: How are you? Good. Goodbye.

If an IS patrol showed up and searched the house, they would hide mobiles in large bags of flour or rice, said Alia, a 40-year-old displaced woman who now lives in the neighbouring camp of Khazer.

I would smoke in secret, play dominos in secret, use my mobile in secret... Everything was secret.

Most of the people AFP interviewed refused to be photographed or give their full names, out of fear for relatives still living in IS-held parts of Mosul.

In their efforts to cut off their denizens from the rest of the world, the jihadists also banned satellite dishes and some residents had to pull off risky tricks to watch television.

When the jihadists came to take my dish, I gave them an old one and hid the other two, said Adnan, a 46-year-old who also ended up in Hasansham.

Debris litter the ground of the heavily damaged Saint John the Baptist church in the Christian town of Qaraqosh, also know as Hamdaniya. (AFP Photo)

Every evening, I would go to the roof to set up my dish and watch programmes on TV for about three hours, he said.

I would smoke in secret, play dominos in secret, use my mobile in secret, said Hala, a 35-year-old woman living in Khazer, who explained she would hide her sim card in her bra.

Everything was secret.
President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday threatened retribution and consequences for American companies that relocate abroad but hope to sell their products in the US  essentially, a punitive tax of 35% on entry.

The threat, delivered in a stream of six tweets on Sunday morning, reiterates an old position but one that comes in the wake of the decision by Carrier, a manufacturer of air-conditioners, to cut its relocation plans in return for economic benefits.

The U.S. is going to substantially reduce taxes and regulations on businesses, but any business that leaves our country for another country, Trump wrote in his first tweet.

He continued, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the US  without retribution or consequence, is WRONG! There will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies  wanting to sell their product, cars, AC units etc., back across the border. This tax will make leaving financially difficult, but  these companies are able to move between all 50 states, with no tax or tariff being charged. Please be forewarned prior to making a very  expensive mistake! THE UNITED STATES IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS.

However, criticism of Trumps threat came swiftly, and from his own party. Pres-Elect Trump means well. But won't his 35% tariff idea raise prices on American families? How would it not be a new 35% tax on families? senator Ben Sasse wrote in a tweet.

Trump ran on the promise of not only keeping American jobs from being shipped abroad, but also bringing them back, and has since his election repeated it every opportunity he got. But his first so-called success, Carrier, hasnt been one really.

Indiana, which is vice president-elect Mike Pences state and from where Carrier was considering relocating to Mexico, has offered the company $7 million in economic benefits over the next few years for retaining at least half of the planned job cuts.

Sarah Palin, a former vice-presidential nominee and an early backer of Trump, slammed the move as crony capitalism.
With a 10-minute phone call and two tweets, Donald Trump inspired banner headlines and renewed hopes across Taiwan for a stronger partnership with the United States, while also inflaming the complex relationships between the US, mainland China, and the self-governing island China regards as a renegade province.

Whether the US president-elect meant to jump into the generational fight between China and Taiwan remains an open question. But by speaking to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, Trump upended four decades of American foreign policy and engaged China directly on the issue of Taiwan, which Beijing has threatened to reclaim by force if necessary. No American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to Taiwans leader since the US ended their formal diplomatic relationship in 1979.

Four of his words drew particular attention in Taiwanese newspapers: Trumps reference, in a follow-up tweet, to Tsai being the President of Taiwan.

The phrase is far from benign for China, which regards any reference to a Taiwanese president as an unacceptable acknowledgement of Taiwans statehood. Official Chinese pronouncements typically refer to the Taiwanese president as the Taiwan regional leader.

Chinese leaders have indicated they dislike Tsai, who was elected in January from a pro-Taiwan independence party and became the islands first female president.

Read | China blames Taiwan for presidents petty phone call with Trump

Taiwanese are divided over whether they support independence, a formal unification, or the status quo, in which China and Taiwan maintain robust social and economic exchanges while the island retains its democracy and de facto independence. Chinese President Xi Jinping, however, has warned that the issue of unification cannot be put off indefinitely.

Yang Chih-kai, a 22-year-old university student at Taiwans Tamkang University, said Saturday that the call raised Taiwanese hopes for a stronger relationship with the United States.

People will think that the US will keep on helping Taiwan protect itself against Chinas threat, Yang said.

Chen Chun-hao, a 43-year-old designer, said Trump might bring more help to Taiwan now that both sides had opened a dialogue.

I believe that this could help Taiwan in its international status and its global situation, Chen said.

Kao-cheng Wang, dean of Tamkang Universitys college of international studies, said he believes Trump might increase American exports to Taiwan and try to strengthen economic ties between the two sides.

Trump will not be restricted by the established foreign policy, Wang said. The diplomatic policy may be flexible after he takes office.

China cut off diplomatic contact with Taiwan in June, one month after Tsai took office, accusing her of refusing to endorse the concept that Taiwan is a part of China. Last month, Xi met with Taiwans opposition leader, Nationalist Party Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu.

The Taiwanese presidential office said Trump and Tsai discussed issues affecting Asia and the future of US relations with Taiwan. Tsai also told Trump that she hoped the US would support Taiwan in its participation in international affairs, the office said, in an apparent reference to Chinas efforts to isolate Taiwan from global institutions such as the United Nations.

Read | White House reaffirms One China policy after Trump calls Taiwan leader

Taiwans presidential office spokesman Alex Huang said separately that Taiwans relations with China and healthy Taiwan-US relations can proceed in parallel. There is no conflict (in that), he told reporters in Taipei on Saturday.

After Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi blamed Taiwanese leaders Saturday for playing a small trick, China said it would issue a diplomatic complaint with Washington.

That is likely only the beginning of Chinas response, said Douglas Paal, a former director of the American Institute in Taiwan, which unofficially represents US interests in Taipei.

Wangs comment is intended to give time for Trump to back away from or desist from moves to elevate treatment of Taiwan, said Paal, now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. China will watch carefully to see what he does. But Taiwan will be seen as in need of some form of punishment.

One potential move for China is to apply new pressure to the 22 states that have formal diplomatic ties with Taipei, Paal said. Most of the world and the United Nations already recognize Beijing as the official government of China.

What happens next will hinge on whether the call is seen as a complicated accident or an intentional signal of new policy, Paal said.

Beijing will watch closely to see which it is, he said. But until someone from Trump Tower explains further, it is unknowable.
Recently, NASA's Kepler's K2 mission journey uncovered a new planet. Called the K2-3d, it is thought to be harboring alien life.

Taking great interest in the new planet, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan found that it was about 150 million light-years away from the Earth. It was found to be 1.5 times bigger than the Earth, while it orbits a star just half the sun in size. One revolution lasts 45 days.

Even though it is quite some distance away, the Space.com says that the K2-3d planet shares man similarities with the Earth, which might harbor and maintain life.

The characteristics include a warm and tolerable atmosphere, quite similar to the earth. It also appears to be hosting water as well as a star orbiting nearby. Hence, the possibility of life on this planet is very high.

While there is no way of confirming these speculations, such studies take a longer time to prove than other space-related studies. The theories are most likely to be confirmed in the coming year.

NASA will launch the Hubble Telescope in the coming year in order to go for a "more in-depth examination" of the likely planet. The objective of NASA scientists would be to find two important characteristics that would confirm its ability to host life: clouds and hydrogenic atmosphere. The attempt and hope is to discover "a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, or a blanket of clouds," says Dr Bjorn Benneke at the California Institute of Technology.

If this happens, the K2-3d planet will be the center for further in-depth and comprehensive research, confirming how much life it can hold. "'If we found any signal, then we would hit K2-3d extremely hard with James Webb Space Telescope [Nasa's successor to the Hubble telescope, which will launch in 2018],' Dr Benneke said.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
J. Cole seriously stirred the pot of hip-hop this week, and one by one, rappers have been responding. In Coles new track Everybody Dies, the North Carolina rapper took existential shots at the class of Lil rappers. Most assume he meant either Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi Vert, or both.

Yachty has responded, denying he has any beef with Cole. Yesterday on Twitter, Uzi acknowledged the track as well, deviously acknowledging the song. Uzis tweet said, Heard some beautiful shit today @JColeNC. Following the caption was a fire emoji, a 100 emoji, and the purple devil face making a sly smile. The emojis signal that the initial text of the tweet should not be taken fully in genuine.

https://twitter.com/_/status/804761931114487812



Is Uzi ducking beef with J. Cole? Whats his motive behind the tweet? Do you think he was offended by Jermaines words?

Let us know in the comments below.

Lil Uzi Vert
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Lissette Alves was 6 years old when her family boarded a boat in Cuba for Key West, Fla. She's waited her entire life for more direct access to the island nation, and on Saturday, she witnessed that moment as a gate agent for United Airlines.

Armed with a box of tissues, Alves, now 42, helped passengers board United's inaugural Houston-Havana flight at Bush Intercontinental Airport. The comfort of the Boeing 737-800, especially in stark contrast to the boat ride she had, gives Alves hope for the future.

"It's direct access to home," she said. "There's just no way to put that in words."

The on-time departure of Flight UA1506 ushers in a new era of regular commercial flights to Cuba, part of President Barack Obama's larger efforts to normalize relations.

"It is an expression of belief that we can resurrect our relationship with a friend, a neighbor that has languished for over half a century," said Mario Diaz, director of the Houston Airport System.

In February, officials from the U.S. and Cuban governments signed an arrangement that allows U.S. carriers to operate 110 daily round-trip flights to Cuba - 20 daily round-trip flights between the U.S. and Havana and 10 daily round-trip flights between the U.S. and each of Cuba's nine other international airports.

Demand is there

In addition to the Saturday-only nonstop service from Houston, United began offering daily nonstop flights between Newark Liberty International Airport and Havana on Tuesday.

And while a Tweet from President-elect Donald Trump has created concern that his administration might roll back Obama's efforts, the airline isn't speculating. It is focused on launching and growing its two routes to Havana.

"As for what comes next, we'll focus on that when we need to and if we need to," said Steve Morrissey, United's vice president of regulatory and policy.

He said Houston got a Havana flight partly because it's United's gateway to Latin America, offering 91 daily nonstop flights to 52 destinations across Latin America and the Caribbean.

"The number of applications were heavily weighted toward South Florida," Morrissey said. "We know that there's demand for this service from across the country."

Eight U.S. airlines were given permission to fly to Havana from 10 U.S. cities. Outside of Havana, six domestic airlines were approved to fly from five U.S. cities to Cuban cities other than Havana.

American Airlines has already disclosed plans to reduce its flights to Cuba, a spokeswoman confirmed Saturday. Starting in February, it will drop to 10 daily flights from 13.

'Exciting for everybody'

Yeniset Giniebra, of Cypress, moved to the U.S. about five years ago to work as a control systems engineer. She was taking the inaugural flight to visit family and said the nonstop commercial offering is cheaper and faster than previous options.

Tatiana Abramov and her son Dennis, 33, also were visiting family. Dennis' father is Cuban and he spent his early years on the island, but hasn't returned since.

"It's going to be a very, very exciting moment for everybody," Tatiana said.

She said her son is outgoing - making him more Cuban than Russian, her home country, so she hopes the new flight will allow him to visit relatives more.

Tourism is still not permitted to Cuba, so travelers must fall into authorized categories, such as family visits, journalistic activities, religious activities or educational purposes. People-to-people education has allowed Americans to visit Cuba through organized groups focused on educational experiences, but this can be expensive.

So in March, individual people-to-people educational travel was permitted to "make authorized educational travel to Cuba more accessible and less expensive for U.S. citizens," according to a news release. Travelers must engage in a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities.

Mike Weingart, Houston-based president of the southwest chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents, said interest for Cuban travel has picked up in the past two years. "I'm getting lots of inquiry, but people have a lot of sticker shock, too," he said of the organized trips that comply with current regulations.

A dream moment

Mayor Sylvester Turner also highlighted the business opportunities available in Cuba, which he said has a special appeal in Houston because of its "incredibly strong business and cultural ties" to Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Business owners and entrepreneurs have dreamed about the moment when they would be able to explore business opportunities waiting for them just 900 miles away from the spot where we are today and 90 miles from the United States coast," Turner said Saturday.

Alves, the United gate agent, plans to visit Cuba soon. She said it was difficult watching everyone board the plane while she remained in Houston.

"Seeing everybody going home, I feel like I want to be on that plane," she said, "even if it's just a U-turn."
Peter Huntsman almost sounds like he's tempted to run for political office when he says the United States needs a leader to push for open, but fair global trade that would require countries to adopt similar labor, environmental and other regulatory policies to participate.

Huntsman is the chief executive of Huntsman Corp., The Woodlands-based petrochemical company founded by his father, Jon Huntsman Sr. And he is not unfamiliar with politics; his older brother, Jon Jr., is a former Utah governor who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2012.

"The world is getting to be a smaller and smaller place," Peter Huntsman said. "Society really need not fear that. Global trade, so long as it's done on a fair basis, is not our enemy."

As the international trading system faces upheaval following the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. and nationalist movements in Europe, Huntsman is leading his company through its own major changes. Huntsman Corp. is refocusing on specialty chemicals, divesting units that make low-margin base chemicals, and looking for acquisitions that will help it expand into more profitable lines of business.

The company is spinning off its division that makes titanium dioxide, a chemical used to make pigments for paints, food coloring and other products, into a stand-alone publicly traded company. At the same time, it has expanded plants in both Port Neches and Conroe to make more proprietary chemicals that go into laundry detergents, cosmetics, and other consumer goods.

"When Huntsman makes a product, I like to think we're one of maybe two or three in the world who can make the product," Peter Huntsman said. "Our competition is going to be less and our product lines are going to be more unique."

After the company went public in 2005, Huntsman moved the family business from Utah, where it was founded, to The Woodlands, where it would be closer to its plants, customers, and supplies of natural gas that provide the feedstock for petrochemicals. Huntsman today employs about 15,000 people in 30 countries, including more than 1,300 in the Houston area.

The company first hit it big more than more than 40 years ago making the cheap, plastic "clamshell" containers for McDonald's Big Mac burgers, but now focuses more on the specialty chemicals, plastics, foams and composite materials that go into Boeing airplanes, BMW cars and Nike shoes. Huntsman began the switch from common base chemicals to specialty products a decade ago.

"When people think of the chemical industry," said Huntsman, recalling the villain of a Batman movie, "by and large they probably think of something that's portrayed in most Hollywood movies of a highly polluted, bubbling green cauldron of something that the Joker falls into."

Huntsman is doubling down on his strategy by splitting the company into two publicly traded firms and creating a new pigments and additive business - name to be determined - that would be traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Huntsman Corp. became the world's second-largest pigments producer two years ago after buying more than $1 billion in plants from New York-based Rockwood Holdings.

Cyclical pigments

But the timing was bad, Huntsman admitted. The pigments business is cyclical, dominated by four or five large paint companies whose buying decisions drive the cycle up or down.

Huntsman said he bought the Rockwood assets at a good price during a cyclical low, but that trough lasted two years longer than expected and dragged down the value of Huntsman Corp. Last year, Huntsman reported an annual net profit of just $93 million, down 71 percent from 2014.

The pigments business is now recovering - global prices jumped in September - so the timing of the spinoff is right for getting higher share prices, said Hassan Ahmed, a chemical industry analyst for New York-based Alembic Global Advisors. Huntsman values the proposed new company at $3 billion.

The move should satisfy Huntsman shareholders that pushed for the company to shed the pigments business, Ahmed said. But it also shows that Huntsman is willing to take risks in an industry that generally fears change and clings to past successes, rather than looking toward future opportunities.

"Peter is out there making the right decisions - the bolder decision," he said. "The chemical industry has a long history of falling in love with the assets they have."

Huntsman had already proved that he's willing to leave once-cherished assets behind. About a decade ago, he decided the company needed to get out of base chemicals - commodity products, such as the plastic component ethylene, that are the same no matter who produces them. Companies compete only on price, resulting in tiny profit margins.

Even though it meant the company would get significantly smaller, Huntsman Corp. sold its European base chemicals business to the Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corp., called SABIC, and its U.S. business to Koch Industries, for a combined $1.2 billion to pay down debt and shift focus to specialty products.

Big shoes

Spinning off the pigments business will again make Huntsman Corp. smaller. But Peter Huntsman doesn't expect that to last for long. He said the company is already eyeing potential mergers or acquisitions that could be made with proceeds from the spinoff and wouldn't rule out making deals before the new company goes public next year.

"We are probably more open to the idea of a potential merger than we would have been in the past," Huntsman said. "This company is poised to expand, and I like to think mergers is one of those areas."

Peter Huntsman, 53, took over the CEO role from his father in 2000 just as the company began faltering under heavy debts incurred from acquisitions made during a period of rapid growth. It was a challenging time for Huntsman - a college dropout who struggled with dyslexia - who had worked his way up the company ladder, starting as a truck driver.

"Nepotism I'm sure had its place," he joked.

Although his father, who remains executive chairman of Huntsman Corp., took a more active role, Peter Huntsman helped the company stave off bankruptcy by attracting a new financial backer, David Matlin, who specialized in investing in distressed companies. That led to Huntsman Corp. going public and the family losing a majority ownership stake. The Huntsmans own about 20 percent of the company today.

Despite the later problems, the expansion in the 1990s made Huntsman an international company and set the stage for its growth in and relocation to Houston. In 1994, Huntsman bought Houston-based Texaco Chemical, more than doubling Huntsman's size. Five years later, Huntsman took on much of the United Kingdom's Imperial Chemical Industries' assets, making Huntsman a global player overnight.

Locally, Huntsman employs 1,000 people in The Woodlands, including 300 at its nearby Advanced Technology Center. That's not counting additional workers at Huntsman's regional manufacturing facilities in Houston, Conroe, Alvin, Dayton, Port Neches and Freeport.

Now well-established in his job and industry, Peter Huntsman has become vocal on trade, economic and political issues. He donates money to both Republicans and Democrats, including the fiery Democratic Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. He said this year's presidential election came down to the country's two least-popular people - Trump and Hillary Clinton - calling the election both astounding and pathetic.

In recent years, he has emerged as one of the biggest critics of exporting U.S. crude and liquefied natural gas - both of which began in the last 12 months. Restricting such exports, of course, would help American petrochemical companies, giving them access to bigger supplies at lower costs. But Huntsman argues that implications are broader than that.

U.S. jobs and economic growth are lost by exporting raw materials rather than higher-value finished products, he said. Instead of shipping natural resources overseas, manufacture natural gas into chemicals and plastics and refine oil into fuel, which can then be sold to foreign customers for more money. Trade is good, he said, but don't give up the value and jobs that can come from it.

"We've got fewer oil and gas jobs today, and we're exporting more than we ever have," Huntsman said of crude and natural gas. "That doesn't feel like we've accomplished a whole lot."
Two Cy-Fair ISD teenagers died Friday night in a crash outside the gates of Traders Village in northwest Harris County.

Five people were in a Nissan Sentra that collided with another vehicle about 5 p.m. Friday at North Eldridge Parkway and Traders Village Drive, Harris County Sheriff's deputies said.

Back seat passengers Troy Carrol, 17, and Reon Woodman, 17, were not wearing seat belts, deputies said. Carrol died at the scene and Woodman died later at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center.

"We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of two Cypress Lakes High School students who were involved in an automobile accident," the Cy-Fair ISD said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of these students and those who were injured. Additional counselors will be on campus as long as necessary to provide support for students and staff dealing with this tragedy."

According to deputies, the person driving the Nissan Sentra turned left onto Traders Village Drive in front of a Chevrolet Impala traveling south along North Eldridge Parkway. The Impala struck the Sentra with enough force to roll it onto its side in the grass at the intersection.

The crash also sent two others in the Nissan Sentra to the hospital  including one of them with serious injuries, officials said.

The two drivers showed no signs of impairment and refused medical treatment, deputies said.

Reon Woodman's family knew something was wrong when he didn't answer his phone for hours.

"It was completely out of character for him to go somewhere without telling us," his older sister Shernel said.

"Reon was a really good kid, he was really smart," she said.

The junior wasn't always a stellar student, but had big dreams. "He wanted to do something with plant biology or be a veterinarian. He loved animals and he loved planting things," she said.

The introverted teen was also into sports. Noe Botello, 16, met Woodman playing soccer in the seventh grade.

"He was talented," Botello said. "He wanted to play professional soccer."

The two talked everyday, and had made plans Friday at lunch to play soccer together soon.

Anthony Rendon said he was close friends with Carrol in middle school. They drifted apart a bit at Cypress Lakes High but remained friendly. On Saturday, Rendon said he could still imagine playing video games with Carrol just like in the old days.

"He was a really good guy and had a huge heart. He was always there to make someone laugh," Rendon recalled.

After the Friday crash, GoFundMe sites sprung up to support the grieving families.

Woodman's sister posted the fundraising page for her younger brother on Sunday morning. The campaign for Carrol raised more than $3,000 in the first 20 hours.

"Troy was an awesome kid who was set to graduate in the spring," wrote Yvette Salinas, a family friend who created the page.

"He loved to fish and was protective of his mom and younger sister, Maryah. He was loved by all and respectful. If anyone needed a helping hand, he never hesitated to assist. He loved kids and we just knew he would be an awesome father one day."
Spokesman of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Naqavi-Hosseini said Sunday that Russia fully delivered all parts of S-300 air defense system to Iran and the two countries have agreed to develop logistical and technical cooperation, IRNA reported.

Naqvi-Hosseini said that the air defense system was finally handed over to Iran despite the ups and downs and Iran currently has taken possession of the technology as well as air defense technology.

MP of Varamin said that given the full implementation of the S-300 deal by Russia, there is no need for pursuing complaint with the International Court of Arbitration over delays in delivery of the air defense system.

Fortunately, Tehran and Moscow have excellent ties in the field of arms interaction, he said.
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By the end of 1914 - months into history's first great world war - the myth of national invincibility had dissolved in blood.

More than half a million had lain wounded or dead at Marne and Aisne. And as Christmas approached, thousands shivered in frozen trenches, yearning for home, expecting death.

Amid carnage came calls for peace. From Rome, Pope Benedict XV implored that "the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang." The plea quickly was dismissed.

Still, on Christmas Eve in France and Belgium, lighted candles dotted battlefield trenches. Warriors' voices joined in carols, and - on one of Christendom's holiest days - men intent on killing one another emerged from their ditches to exchange, food, gifts and greetings.

On Sunday, Dec. 11, Houston religious leaders - Christian, Muslim and Jewish - will commemorate that singular expression of goodwill in tandem with worshipers in Germany and England during a service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church.

Donations collected at the "Prayers and Songs for Peace" will be offered to international relief agency Oxfam to assist millions of refugees displaced by Middle Eastern turmoil.

"In a time when a lot of the nation and world is turning to things that give personal satisfaction or personal victory, we've got to call for it to lay down every kind of arms and walk hand in hand," said St. Martin's Rector the Rev. Russell Levenson. "Peace, service, love - those things last. Wars do not last."

At the free service, Levenson will be joined by Imam Wazir Ali of Houston's Warithuddeen and Al-Qur'an mosques and Rabbi David Lyon of Congregation Beth Israel.

Similar observances will be held at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England - site of filming of the television series "Downton Abbey" - and at a church in Marburg, Germany.

"We know that there are theological things that divide us," Levenson said. "But we will come at this from a different angle: things that bring us unity. One of those is the shared freedoms of this country."

The Houston service will feature patriotic and religious music as well as 10-minute readings by each of the clergy, drawing on teachings of their respective faiths.

The international observance was proposed by Highclere's Lady Fiona Carnarvon, who previously has organized similar events in England. Last year's Highclere service featured a presentation by former Canterbury Archbishop George Carey.

Carnarvon spoke at St. Martin's during a 2015 visit to Houston.

Highclere, a 19th-century castle standing on the site of the medieval palace of the Bishops of Winchester, was used as a hospital during World War I, Carnarvon said in an interview. "It was horrendous," she said of the conflict that claimed more than 17 million civilian and combatant lives. "I don't think they dreamt of what it would become. They thought they'd be home by Christmas."

The Christmas season, she said, is a fitting time to commemorate both the 1914 truce and to work to aid Middle Eastern refugees.

"Our story is of refugees, Mary and Joseph, who were rejected, pushed pillar to post," she said. "At the moment, we can look with horror at what is happening to families like ours in the Middle East. I know there are homeless in England and America, but those in Syria and Lebanon are being bombed and killed. They have no food. They have so little. It's quite a broken world. It's time to reach out, to take some step."

In Houston, Ali said the 1914 Christmas truce "reminds us of the power of seeing the humanity in an adversary."

"Here you have two groups of soldiers fighting on different sides of a violent war, finding a way to have small periods of peace," he said. "It is our prayer that as citizens of the Earth we will all see our common humanity and find ways to live with each other in peace."

The truces, a few of which preceded the 1914 Christmas season, came as the pope called for a respite from fighting and a group of British women wrote an open letter to like-minded pacifists in Germany and Austria.

As many as 100,000 troops participated in the impromptu truces, exchanging food, alcohol and tobacco as well as news about sporting events and laments for absent sweethearts. The cessations of fighting most often occurred between British and German troops, but incidences of French soldiers also laying down arms also were reported.

"It was extraordinary," Carnarvon said. "It was a moment of peace that came spontaneously."

The truces, which sporadically continued into 1915, often were opposed by commanding officers. By 1916, intensification of warfare, including the use of poison gas, dampened the desire of opposing forces to fraternize.

"Who knows? You can only guess," Levenson said of the Christmas truce. "The spirit of God fell on the Allies in the hymns creeping out of the trenches. It turned the hearts of one another.  For however many days it went on, something miraculous happened."

The lesson of WWI and other wars "that we were supposed to learn from," said Lyon, "is that, in the end, we are just all men and women, and we all bleed red.  We battle for territory and ideology, but we are all human beings. The truce helped us on different sides to stand together. Sometimes we find new perspective, greater lights and, perhaps, real hopes."
It's an unremarkable little building, maybe 600 square feet, with cracked stucco wrapped around a boxy frame. The roof slumps, and the window frames are graying with rot.

Inside, it's empty, the last tenants having left 107 N. Cherry, in Tomball some 20 years ago.

But the deserted and dingy building might have a future because of its past. It was Tomball's first city hall, built shortly after drillers struck oil there in 1933.

Although Tomball has never marked the site with so much as a plaque, city leaders are trying to decide whether it's a landmark worth saving.

"It was the everything office," said Tomball City Secretary Doris Speer, who is researching the building's history for the City Council.

Few Tomball residents remember the building as being anything more than it is today. Many only know the existing city hall, which opened nearly a half-century ago.

After years of neglect, the former city hall is in the spotlight because the owner of a neighboring restaurant is interested in leasing the property for more outdoor seating.

The building occupies a corner lot in Old Town Tomball, a blossoming historical district with retro-chic boutiques, antique shops, an artisan bakery, a soda fountain, a wine bar and a yoga studio, among other businesses. The city's oldest residence, which was built in 1907, is home to a barbecue joint and chocolate stand.

Time capsule buried on site

Rodney Hutson, who has developed several businesses in Old Town Tomball, said he would like to see the old city hall preserved, if possible, and the surrounding property used as a park.

The rectangular lot also features an overhanging oak, the base of a former water tower and a marker for Tomball's first oil well, which was abandoned in 1980. And there's a time capsule buried on the property, scheduled to be opened in 2032.

"If we can save it, the building is a historical part of Tomball," said Hutson, who sees the old city hall becoming an information center for visitors to Old Town Tomball. "It adds a little more charisma and could be a green space within the district."

Chuck Harper, who owns and operates Cherry Street Antiques in a former feed store across the street from the old city hall, said he also wants to see the building saved. To him, it doesn't matter whether the city puts the structure to a public use or sells it as long as the structure remains.

"I can't believe there's a question about preserving it," said Harper, who has expressed an interest in buying the property from the city. "It's part of our history, and Tomball has a great history."

Oiltown USA

Tomball, which has a population of about 11,500, was settled as a farming community in the middle 1840s by immigrants from Europe.

Originally known as Peck, the community was renamed after Thomas Ball, a Houston lawyer and former congressman, who had routed the railroad through the small town. The Humble Oil Company struck oil here on May 27, 1933, earning Tomball the nickname "Oiltown USA."

There isn't a lot that's known about the old city hall, said Speer, the city official who is trying to construct a history of the building from records and photographs.

Tomball's first City Council meeting was held at a restaurant called the White Kitchen Cafe. The three members talked about applying for federal money to help pay for a city hall.

Unused since 1997

In the early 1980s, then-Mayor Doug Looney mentioned in a speech that the original city hall was built in 1937 and housed municipal operations for "a few years" before they were moved to a larger, temporary space in a fire station.

The current city hall opened in 1968 on Market Street, about a quarter of a mile from the original building.

The Texas Department of Public Safety was the building's last tenant and left in 1997. The agency's name remains on the front door, as well as some maps and desks inside.

Whether the former city hall is demolished or saved, the building needs to be cleaned up. David Esquivel, Tomball's public works director, said that it will cost about $25,000 to remove materials with mold and lead from the structure.

Once the cleanup is done, it likely will cost less to demolish the building than to restore it, Esquivel said.
Asad Khan got a call Sunday morning alerting him that something was wrong at his Galveston restaurant ZaZa Bar & Bites.

The 44-year-old business owner, who is Muslim, was shocked to find the front of his restaurant covered in bacon when he arrived.

"It shook me," Khan said. "It took me off guard because I wasn't expecting that."

It is religious practice for Muslims to abstain from pork.

This incident is the second this week for Khan, who also discovered bacon grease smeared on the front door handles on Thursday. He filed a report with the Galveston police, but there have been no arrests made in the case.

ZaZa Bar & Bites has only been open for about nine months, and Khan said he is worried about his employees' safety. Since opening his business on Postoffice Street. Khan also has received about five threatening phone calls telling him to go back to his country.

Khan immigrated from Pakistan to the United States in 1993. He has been splitting his time between Galveston and Florida for the last seven years. He said most of his experience in Galveston has been positive, which is why this incident took him by surprise.

"I don't have a victim mentality," he said. "I'm blessed to live in this country. Ninety-nine percent of my experience here has been nothing but phenomenal."

The business owner plans to install cameras on the outside of the restaurant because currently he only has security cameras on the inside.

"I feel bad for whomever did this because they're carrying so much hate in them," Khan said. "I will get over this. I hope they get peace."
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Cheering crowds pressed in around the focused competitors as "The Eye of the Tiger" boomed from the speakers. The tension was palpable as the would-be champions powered through their annual face-off.

There was sweat. There was saliva. There were random food crumbs flung in every direction.

It was all in the name of the passion and glory that was the yearly tamale-eating contest at the sixth annual Tamale Festival.

Houston's own John Anthony Gaitan, 46, turned up his tight tamale-eating technique and trashed 24 of the husked treats in just over 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

His soaked shirt speckled in tamale tidbits, the first-time competitor held up the gleaming trophy and grinned for the dozens of spectators enjoying Saturday's foodie-friendly festival.

Launched in 2011, the gathering has grown steadily over the years, according to founder Daniel Hinojosa.

"The first time we did just under 1,000. Today, we were preparing for well over 10,000," he said.

The weekend's cool and drizzly weather kept away some of the crowds - but hardcore tamale fans were undeterred.

"Houston is infatuated with tamales," the 42-year-old said. One festival-goer even sported a necklace honoring Tamalito, the event's tamale mascot.

Hinojosa, who also runs a catering company and plans to launch a restaurant next year, got the idea for a tamale festival while he was consumed by the world of competition barbecue.

"I started brainstorming for a good festival," he said, so he combined Houston's tamale pride with his own love for the food - and a new Bayou City institution was born.

Although the rest of the year Hinojosa runs Harris County General Store Barbecue and Catering, launching the tamale-festival also eats up a good bit of time.

"This is a yearlong labor of love," he said.

But tamales themselves, he explained, are a mostly seasonal food.

"The tradition in Hispanic culture is that tamales are a Christmas season recipe where families get together and make them and present them to each other as gifts," he said.

That's why the festival is typically slated for the first week in December, at the start of "tamale season."

The festival features dozens of vendors, hawking everything from tamales to giant gourmet cupcakes to Vietnamese nachos.

"I pride myself on this having small mom and pop businesses," he said. "It's like the ultimate small business Saturday."

To honor Hinojosa's contributions, Councilman Robert Gallegos showed up to read an official proclamation honoring the husk-filled occasion.

"On behalf of Sylvester Turner, mayor of the city of Houston, and my colleagues on City Council, we hereby proclaim December 3, 2016, as Tamale Festival Houston day in Houston, Texas," he said to a chorus of raucous cheers.

Among the handful of tamale vendors on scene Saturday was local favorite Alamo Tamale & Taco. To gear up for their favorite annual event, the nearby eatery calls in around 10 staff to whip up a few hundred tamales in a three-hour cooking craze.

"This is the biggest event of the year because our specialty is tamales," said Alamo supervisor Lucrecia Garza.

For some of the popular tamale-makers, it's just a once-a-year occasion, not a regular specialty.

Debra Mattix of Victoria, who took first place in the chef's choice category, said this was her first time competing - but her pork and beef blend wowed the judges. But for Hinojosa, it's not the contestants who are the real stars of the day.

"The real highlights are the tamales," he said. "They are the real heroes."
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State District Judge Marc Carter remembers sizing up the man before him in late 2009: a grim-faced, middle-aged guy with a U.S. Marine's bearing and politeness, but with eyes closed off to the world, skeptical of everyone and everything.

Carter, a retired Army captain, would explain to retired 1st Sgt. Arthur Davis that his court was different, that veterans got a fair shake here. That everything he might need - drug treatment, psychological therapy, housing assistance, employment assistance, a second chance - was available. He just had to want them.

Davis wasn't sold. He was new to the criminal justice system, and the only good thing he'd seen was another judge step down and thank him for his service - right after sentencing him to probation for an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Carter knew Davis needed more than a handshake. He needed the program that the Republican judge had pioneered in Harris County for veterans facing criminal charges.

The program itself had been a challenge politically to sell to the Legislature, even with the help of longtime state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. Some dismissed it as a boutique court. Carter argued that it wasn't special treatment, it was earned, and appropriate, actually saving the county money by marshaling federal resources at the VA hospital and reducing recidivism. Carter's insistence to include felony assault cases made the proposal even more controversial. Interestingly, though, veterans charged with assault turned out to be among the most successful in the program, Carter said, because what happened is often an isolated incident and not learned behavior or a chronic problem.

Carter knew that to serve veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, he'd have to focus on common symptoms: aggression and violence. The effects are often magnified in the civilian world, where veterans still grieving the loss of their military brotherhood often feel misunderstood, under-appreciated and alone.

Davis, who struggled to cope back home in Houston after 22 years in the military, was the poster child for Carter's cause.

"That sense of loss was devastating for him," Carter told me in an interview in September. "For a time, he lived as an angry, miserable son of a bitch. But now, he is one of the most beautiful, inspiring individuals you'll ever meet."

Carter's program has garnered the judge half a dozen awards over the years. The latest honor, a couple of weeks ago, was among the most prestigious - the William Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, presented by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in Washington D.C.

Nathan Hecht, chief justice of Texas' highest civil court, nominated Carter: "It was his wholeheartedness in making sure it worked that was really extraordinary," he said.

High success rate

The pages of this newspaper are often filled with the tragic failures of our criminal justice system. Carter's court is an example of a bold reform, and it's worthy of recognition.

The court serves only a fraction of the hundreds of veterans booked into the Harris County Jail each month: about 45 participants per year and 198 since 2009, most charged with crimes such as felony drug offenses, aggravated assaults and drunken driving, according to Carter's staff. They tout a 90 percent success rate, meaning few have been arrested on new offenses.

Patrick McCann, a retired Navy commander and criminal defense attorney who helped establish Carter's program and subsequent ones in other jurisdictions, said the pioneering Harris County court has inspired more than two dozen in Texas.

"Everything the military teaches one to do to keep your fellow soldiers and Marines safe is a felony in the civilian world," McCann said. "That was the genius of Marc's approach - he was the only one with the guts and the sense to realize that the skills the service teaches you are the exact reason vets get into trouble outside, when they are combined with traumatic brain injury, PTSD, depression or self-medicating."

It worked for Davis, but not right away.

"I had to put my faith in the program, and I didn't want to," Davis, now 49, said. "The judge, I'll be honest with you, saved my life."

Paralyzed by paranoia

Davis, a veteran of Desert Storm and the post-Sept. 11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, followed a familiar path toward destruction. While leading 200 men in Iraq, his convoy was bombed one day near Fallujah, killing two of his Marines. Their dog tags still hang from his rear-view mirror. They were young, and he had promised their families he'd get them home alive.

He began to drink, among the first manifestations of PTSD.

After retiring in 2008, there was no ticker-tape parade, no stream of visiting family and well-wishers. He was paralyzed by paranoia, anger and nightmares. Soon, he became an alcoholic, a cocaine addict, and a criminal after he threatened a neighbor during an altercation.

"I guarded the president and now I'm in the county jail," he remembers thinking. "It was the most horrific experience of my life, and you're talking to someone who's been in combat four times."

He felt trapped and humiliated, even on probation, where he had to give urine samples regularly and ask permission to travel to Dallas to visit his son. Even after a probation officer recommended Carter's court, his troubles didn't stop immediately.

One weekend, he spiraled out of control and couldn't reach anyone at the court because it was Mother's Day. Davis said he ended up in a police car four times. When he reported back to Carter, the judge told him he was a leader but was failing to act like one.

"It was enough to embarrass me," Davis recalled. "He gave me what I needed that day."

Not all happy endings

Gradually, Davis got sober. He made the support groups and therapy sessions. He exercised. And he began to lead, establishing a mentor program that continues today in partnership with Mental Health America. After graduation, Davis began volunteering with other veteran's groups, speaking across the nation. Even now that he's dialed back to focus on his own family, including a 17-year-old daughter and 27-year-old son, he still fields calls daily from veterans who need help. And he's in the process of getting his record expunged with the pro bono legal assistance from Vinson & Elkins.

Davis said the reason the court works is simple: the judge and the staff care. They see the veterans as people, and they talk to them as veterans, not criminals.

Carter, now 57, acknowledges that they aren't all happy endings. He's had veterans lie to his face. He's had soldiers reoffend.

"I'm patient as hell," he said. "But sometimes they give up on me."

The common denominator of the veterans in his court is "very low sense of self-esteem and self-purpose," along with self-hate. Part of Carter's program tackles these issues by encouraging the veterans to lean on each other for support. That tight-knit feel presents an unexpected problem: "How do we keep them connected when they don't have to be here anymore?" Carter said. "That's really our current struggle."

Carter appreciates the accolades, but his true reward are the veterans like Arthur Davis, many of whom still come visit, just to give him a hug.

"The guys always tell me 'thanks, judge. You've done so much for me.' And I'm thinking if you only knew how much personal satisfaction and how much my life was better because of your improvement and what's happening here, you wouldn't be thanking me.

"I'm getting just as much out of it as you are."
The older man wore just a loincloth, revealing taut muscles and leathery skin from decades of living deep in the rainforest.

The man, Teu Kapik Sibajak, went off through the forest to chop down a sago palm tree. The tree's leaves provide the roof for his wooden long house; its starchy insides can be cooked and eaten, or fed to the household's pigs, ducks and chickens.

Kapik and his wife, Teu Kapik Sikalabai, are among the last of the Mentawai people living traditional lives on the remote island of Siberut in Indonesia.

They, and others like them, have for decades resisted Indonesian government policies that pressured the forest-bound indigenous groups to abandon their old customs, accept a government-approved religion and move to government villages. That shift has led to major disjunction between generations of Mentawai.

The Mentawai tribe, which numbers around 60,000, is a rare Indonesian culture that was not influenced by Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim currents. Instead, their traditions and beliefs strongly resemble those of the original Austronesian settlers who came to this vast archipelago from Taiwan around 4,000 years ago. If the tribe's culture disappears, one of the last links to Indonesia's early human inhabitants will go with it.

Petrus Sekaliou, 42, the Kapiks' son, wears Western clothing and can communicate in fluent bahasa Indonesian, the national language.

He lives in Mongorut village on the outskirts of the forest. He farms and does odd jobs.

Since arriving on the island of Siberut around 2,000 years ago, the Mentawai people had limited exposure to the outside world. It wasn't until Indonesia gained its independence in 1949, and the new country's leaders sought to turn this archipelago into a nation with a common language and culture, that the Mentawai culture began to be fundamentally transformed.

By law, all citizens had to accept one of Indonesia's officially recognized religions.

The Kapiks fled deeper into the forest to avoid the state's incursions.

Only after Western tourists began paying visits to the forest people in the 1990s did the local government recognize the commercial advantages of allowing traditional Mentawai to live freely. By that point, an entire generation had been raised without the touchstones of traditional life.

Attempts to revive Mentawai tradition have begun, however haltingly.

Still, many Mentawai are reeling from what they have lost over decades of government oppression. "My kids don't know about their culture whatsoever," Sekaliou said.
In August, 2015, when Donald Trump's improbable presidential campaign was just gathering steam, Texas Republican Michael McCaul told MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" that the political newcomer's plan of building a border wall funded by Mexico is a "kind of a simplistic" and "kind of knee-jerk response."

But elections, as they say, have consequences. In a new opinion piece on Fox News, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security has come to see the wisdom of Trump's plan.

The title: "Yes, we will build a wall, put Mexico on a 'payment plan' and enforce the law."

RETALIATION?: Mexican governor calls for boycott of shopping in Texas town

McCaul, who recently met with Trump as a contender for Homeland Defense Secretary, vows "to stand side-by-side with the Trump administration" and its agenda on the border.

McCaul has said before that much more was needed than a wall, and he's sticking to that line:

CONSERVATIVE STAR: Things to know about Tomi Lahren

"We are talking about more than just a wall," he wrote. "We are talking about a historic, multi-layered defense system so that drug cartels and terrorists cannot simply slip through the cracks. This means more border patrol agents, new authorities, aerial surveillance, sensors, and other technology to make sure we seal our territory from illegals for good."

As for the "payment plan:" "There are many reasonable ways to do this," McCaul said. "For starters, we can put in place new immigration fees from Mexico, institute a security toll at border crossings, 'seize and freeze" drug cartel assets, and more."

As yet, no price tag. But the congressman promised to lay out details next Wednesday when he delivers his annual State of Homeland Security Address at the Heritage Foundation.
One of the chief concerns of President-elect Donald Trump's detractors during the presidential campaign was that the brash and notoriously loose-lipped real estate mogul wouldn't be able to handle the delicate balancing act that is diplomacy. It's one thing to make wild claims domestically; it's another to inflame a fellow world power with a careless word or two.

Today, a fellow world power -- China -- is inflamed.

And Trump's controversial conversation with Taiwan's leader, which broke nearly four decades of protocol when it comes to U.S.-China relations, harks back to another controversial bit of diplomacy: Trump's first big foreign visit as the GOP nominee to Mexico.

That visit erupted into a major political problem for Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto, and by the end of it, the two sides were offering different versions of what had happened. Similarly, Trump and Taiwan seem to be at odds about precisely what just occurred.

Back in August, Trump claimed after a meeting with Pena Nieto that the two of them hadn't discussed Trump's plan to somehow force Mexico to pay for his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Pena Nieto and his staff quickly differed with that account, saying he had told Trump that Mexico wouldn't pay for the wall. The president tweeted, "At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall."

A week later, Trump doubled down on his version of events and seemed to suggest Pena Nieto wasn't being truthful, telling ABC News: "He didn't say that. He tweeted that long after the meeting was over. He didn't say that."

Much as with Mexico, Trump and Taiwan are now apparently differing about precisely what their call entailed.

After news broke of the call with Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen -- China considers Taiwan a province, and the United States has pursued a "One China" policy since the 1970s -- Trump explained that it was Taiwan who initiated the conversation, and he downplayed it as a "congratulatory call."

Trump tweeted, "The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!" and "Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

But a spokesman in the Taiwanese president's office clarified to Reuters that the call was agreed to beforehand.

"Of course both sides agreed ahead of time before making contact," spokesman Alex Huang said in response to Trump's tweet.

Taiwan's government also said the two sides discussed "strengthening bilateral relations" and talked about their "close economic, political and security ties" -- all words likely to make China cringe and suggestive of a more in-depth conversation than just a congratulatory call.

As with Mexico, we can quibble about just how at-odds the two versions of events are. Perhaps Taiwan did reach out first but there was some coordination before Trump picked up the phone. And Taiwan certainly has an interest in making the call out to be a big deal.

Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway and potential Trump foreign policy adviser Ric Grenell said Friday night that the flap was overblown.

"It was totally planned," Grenell said. "It was a simple courtesy call. People need to calm down. The 'One China' policy wasn't changed. Washington, D.C., types need to lighten up."

But the situation raises real questions about who is advising Trump when it comes to diplomacy with Asia. It also came just a day after the New York Times reported on building concerns about Trump's handling of other calls with world leaders and his preparation level. And the stakes are considerably higher with China than with Mexico and many other countries.

Even if it wasn't meant to be a big deal, it's clearly become a big deal to China. China has now lodged an official complaint with the United States over the matter, though it appears to be giving Trump the benefit of the doubt and blaming Taiwan. China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, called it a "petty" move by Tsai."The One China principle is the foundation for heathy development of Sino-U. S. relations," Wang said. "We don't wish for anything to obstruct or ruin this foundation."

So the flap could just as soon blow over. But it's notable that yet another Trump diplomatic call has turned into a sort of he-said-they-said.

And for those concerned that Trump doesn't have the discipline and knowledge to deal with the intricacies and very sensitive feelings involved in foreign policy and diplomacy, Trump is yet again proving their point by creating a needless headache over a "congratulatory call."
We are living in a trying time for our democracy. Many of us are questioning the survival of our deeply divided society. Seventy-five years ago, Americans faced an even graver danger when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, destroying much of our navy and killing 2,403 Americans. The enemy then was a foreign power, but the challenges at home were not very different from what we see around us today.

The American response to Pearl Harbor showed the power of public service to bring distrustful, hurting citizens together and forge a stronger nation. We can learn from that experience today as we reflect on where to begin in healing our more recent wounds and re-defining the American promise for the 21st century.

At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States was deeply divided. Most Americans had not recovered the wealth they lost during the Great Depression, and they remained insecure about their futures in a weak economy. Insecurity fed bigotry and intolerance.

The vast majority of Americans opposed war against the fascist powers. They remembered the costs of the First World War and the unsatisfying results. They hated many elements of fascism but did not believe it was worse than Soviet communism, British imperialism, or the continued growth of "Oriental," "African" and "Jewish" groups in the lands conquered by the fascists. "America First" was a rallying cry for ordinary white Americans who felt mistreated by elites, scarred by economic difficulties and dislocated by international policies.

The Japanese intended their attack to inflame the divisions in the United States, much as Russian, Chinese, the Islamic State group and North Korean leaders seek to exploit our divisions today. But contrary to these expectations, the United States emerged more united in 1941 because it had leaders, especially President Franklin Roosevelt, who tied the war effort to public service, not partisan positions or special interests.

Defending American territory and defeating those who threatened it, Roosevelt spoke directly to citizens: "Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories - the changing fortunes of war."

The American people heard the call and responded. They would collectively serve their country in different forms - some on the battlefield, many more in factories - to improve the world, despite their lingering reservations and differences of viewpoint. Roosevelt articulated a big goal for all groups, and he made everyone a participant, a stakeholder, and, yes, a public servant. He called the war effort a "covenant with each other before all the world."

After the war, the public service ethic inspired by Pearl Harbor continued. Americans from all backgrounds served their country in the military, politics, philanthropy and many other fields. Through the G.I. Bill, public service provided access to education and homeownership, both designed to bring citizens together in improving themselves and sharing neighborhoods. For the pre-baby boomer generation that lived through Pearl Harbor as young men and women, working for your country, paying taxes for the common good and defining your success by your public service were essential parts of citizenship. They built the schools, roads, power plants and businesses that continue to undergird our prosperity.

But by the late 1960s, amid controversies over civil rights and an unpopular war in Vietnam, many Americans rejected public service. Bipartisan agreement in 1973 to eliminate conscription and make the military an all-volunteer profession contributed to an abandonment of public service as a marker of citizenship. By the end of the century, the majority of our nation's business, academic and media elites had never served their country in any serious way - a complete reversal from a generation earlier, when public service was a necessary step to leadership and respectability.

Today, we will never overcome our current divisions by continuing to argue over the issues that divide us. Nor will we rally together magically behind a charismatic outsider who promises to blow it all up. The lesson of Pearl Harbor is that a divided nation needs a common mission and a shared commitment to public service to build new bonds for cooperation, as occurred 75 years ago.

Programs like Teach for America, AmeriCorps, and the Peace Corps are a start, but they remain very small. Our citizens can do so much more.

We should begin with our crumbling infrastructure and fighting terrorism, two topics that received extensive attention in the recent presidential campaign. Our national and state leaders should create new avenues for young Americans to get involved in addressing these needs, perhaps volunteering their skills for a year or two, followed by assistance with education. Young men and women can apply their talents as engineers, translators, social workers and even soldiers. They will learn to work with people very different from themselves and take pride in contributing to the public good. They will define their success not just in what they earn, but how they serve their fellow citizens.

Our divided country needs a new generation to get out of its segregated neighborhoods and away from its electronic devices to work together in public service. That is what the Pearl Harbor generation did when attacked by a foreign foe. Young men and women are fed up with politics as usual, and they are eager to become another "greatest generation," if only we will give them a chance.

Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His newest book, forthcoming in 2017, is "The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office."
Seven districts of Aleppo were shelled, Syrias SANA news agency reported, adding that at least five civilians died and 29 others sustained injures.

According to other media reports, the victims included children. Over the recent months, Aleppo has turned into a major battleground in Syria, where government forces are fighting against jihadists and numerous opposition groups, Sputnik reported.

Thousands of citizens are believed to be trapped in the terrorist-besieged eastern parts of Aleppo with no access to food or water.
Editor's note: East Texas native Vaughn E. Hamberlin enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1940 and was only 19 years old, assigned to the USS Tennessee, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. His son, Cliff W. Hamberlin, a resident of The Woodlands, said that while his father didn't talk much to his family about the experience of the Dec. 7, 1941, assault, he was sometimes called on to impart his reflections and recollections at Beaumont-area schools.

But talking about the experience to his family became easier to do after the elder Hamberlin, who died in 1994, penned the following essay. He was inspired to put ink to paper after his first visit to Pearl Harbor's Arizona Memorial in April 1976, Cliff Hamberlin said.

The younger Hamberlin said the 75th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack seemed an appropriate time to rekindle the spirit of the essay and its author: "He wanted people to remember the attack for the people who died there."

As we glided across the blue-green water of Pearl Harbor, we were all caught up in the beauty of the "Pearl of the Pacific." My mind quickly traveled back across the years to a Sunday morning not unlike this one.

As a young man of nineteen, I had been assigned duty aboard the battleship USS Tennessee. In two days I would complete my first year in the U.S. Navy. On this particular morning, I was waiting with my fellow softball team members for a launch that was to transport us to the Naval "Rec" field. None of the team ever boarded that launch.

The anticipation of a day of leisure at the recreation field and on the beach was broken by an excited voice on the public announcing system, "All hands man your battle stations!" As the ship's crew hastened to their stations, I thought, "Why couldn't this drill have waited five minutes, then we would have been off the ship." I should have known something was wrong; normally, general quarters was sounded on a boatswain's whistle, followed by verbal instructions. The voice on the loud speaker began shouting, "This is no drill; it is the real thing!"

'World on fire'

Before I reached my station the old wagon was shaking from stem to stern. I wasn't sure what was going on, but the battleship USS West Virginia which was tied to our port side had taken the first of what would be many torpedoes into her port side. World War II had begun.

From that moment on things began to happen so fast and furious it is hard to put them in sequence. The short time that followed branded my mind with memories that would last a lifetime.

The battleship USS Maryland was docked just forward of the USS Tennessee with the USS Oklahoma alongside her. None of the ships escaped being hit by either torpedoes or bombs in the first few minutes.

At the beginning of the vicious attack, the Oklahoma was hit hard on her port side by several torpedoes - as was the West Virginia. It was standard procedure for all ships to get underway when under attack; but to everyone's horror, when the Oklahoma's lines were cut from the Maryland she immediately began to roll over. It only took a few minutes until she was bottom-up, trapping many of her crew below deck.

The West Virginia would have seen the same fate if an old boatswain on the Tennessee had not refused to allow her lines to be cut from us. She sank only a few feet and her keel rested on the bottom, wedging the Tennessee against the quays, making it impossible for her to move; but without a doubt the boatswain's decision had saved many lives on the West Virginia. The USS California docked forward of the Maryland had much the same fate as the West Virginia.

Being located as they were, the Tennessee and Maryland were protected from the torpedo planes. Directly aft of us was the battleship USS Arizona and the repair ship USS Vestal was alongside her. Because of Ford Island, the Naval Air Station, the attackers could not make a water approach from our starboard side; however, we did take several heavy bomb hits and a lot of strafing.

Then the biggest blast of the day came; the Arizona blew up! Some believe a bomb went directly in her stack; others believe a torpedo went under the Vestal, hitting her below the armor plating, blowing her boilers and magazines. It seems inconceivable that what I saw could actually happen. Her forward deck seemed to roll forward, and she belched forth fire, steel, oil and men; all coming down on the ships around her. It seemed for a time the entire line of battlewagons was on fire and that nothing could be saved. My whole world was on fire.

Where is my brother?

No one knows how, but the Vestal was able to get underway and move out of the holocaust and move away from the Arizona. But her freedom was short-lived when she caught a couple of heavy bomb hits - one ripping her open from the main deck to her keel. She began to sink, and her skipper ran her aground to prevent disaster.

Throughout the attack I was alternately fighting fire and handling the dead and wounded. My hands had never before touched a dead man. It was a horrifying experience to have the flesh of a man fall apart to my touch. I heard cries, whispered prayers of fear and cursing in anger, but through it all, I saw no panic. I had tasted the bitters of Hell, but I did not weep.

In the days following, I was assigned to a launch as the motorman. Two others - a coxswain and a bowman - made up the launch crew. Our duty was removing bodies that were rising to the surface in the harbor. It was almost impossible to pull the bodies into the launch without tearing the flesh, so we towed them to a specially-built float at the recreation field.

After three days this work began to tell on my nerves. Each time we removed a body I was afraid to search for identification because, you see, I was afraid I would find my brother, Wayne, who was assigned to the Vestal.

On the third day after the attack, I told the bowman how to operate the engine and then asked the coxswain to drop me off on the gangway to the Vestal, then lay-off and wait for me. I was surprised when the duty officer allowed me aboard, but when I told him why I made the request, all he asked me was if I knew where my brother's quarters were. When I said yes, he welcomed me aboard. I walked to the hatch that led down to Wayne's quarters, and my heart almost stopped from what I saw. The hatchway was blown away, and a bomb had gone right through Wayne's quarters. I began to shake. I tried to light a cigarette, and my hands shook so hard I couldn't contact flame with cigarette. A man lit my cigarette for me. It was a friend of my brother whom I had met on a previous visit. He said Wayne was okay, but was on the beach in a work party. I was shaken, but did not weep.

It took 10 days to remove the Tennessee from her wedge between the West Virginia and the quays. When she was freed, we returned to the shipyard at Bremerton, Wash., for extensive repairs and alterations.

The years that followed were spent on three ships in every corner of the globe, both in the Pacific and the Atlantic. All through the suspense, monotony, loneliness and horror, I was proud that this farm boy had the privilege of wearing the uniform of Uncle Sam's Navy. The songs "Anchors Aweigh," "America the Beautiful" and our beloved "Star Spangled Banner" still make my chest swell with pride.

'I wept'

As the tour craft pulled alongside the memorial that is constructed over the still visible hull of the Arizona, my thoughts returned to the present. The crowd was very quiet as we filed aboard the Memorial. The first thing we saw was the great bell that served the battleship for many years.

The people were very reverent, and when anyone spoke, it was almost in a whisper. My wife and I stood for several minutes viewing the pictures of the attack and read the more than one thousand names of those still entombed in the hull only a few feet below where we were standing.

As we stood looking down on what would have been about midship, small wisps of oil would occasionally break on the surface as if those below were saying, "Hey up there; we're still here." I wanted to shout, "We remember, mates - and thank you." I wept.

As I stood gripping the railing with my back to the crowd so they could not see the tears rolling down my face, my thoughts raced through history and the years from 1776 to the present. There were so many that had paid the ultimate price to win and hold the freedom we enjoy. To those below and the others before and after you, "You are not forgotten."
Over the last 8 years, the United States has lost credibility with its allies, failed to deter her enemies and seen the security of American families suffer in an increasingly dangerous world. More often than not the cause were actions or inactions taken by the Obama administration through their inability to stand with our friends or take a stand against regimes that want to inflict harm against the United States. As we close the chapter on the failure of President Obamas last 8 years and ready for new leadership, there are already positive signs about the direction President Elect Trump will take our National Security.

His choice for CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, a Congressman and colleague of mine from Kansas has received strong bipartisan support because of his extensive defense background with real firsthand experience and knowledge of the issues and threats we are facing. Pompeo graduated first in his class at West Point and even patrolled the Berlin Wall during his service. In Congress Pompeo serves on the House Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Select Benghazi Committee; charged with uncovering the truth behind the terrorist attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Libya.

President-elect Trump has also named Lt. General Michael Flynn to be his National Security Advisor and 4-Star General James Mattis to be the Secretary of Defense. These gentlemen have had distinguished military careers and been recognized for their intellect, strategic thinking, and experience with combat operations. Their knowledge and expertise will help guide the President-elect and our country as we prepare and plan to keep our citizens and soldiers safe both home and abroad, while always putting America first.

While Mr. Trump has recruited some of the best and brightest military minds to his administration he is also nominating very skilled diplomats, like South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley as ambassador to the United Nations. Haley will be responsible for working with our next Secretary of State to articulate American positions to our friends, to take strong lines against our enemies and will make providing for the security of American families a priority once again.

In addition to these strong appointments by the new Trump Administration, Congress passed legislation this week to improve our national security programs. The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, provides support for national security programs that are critical to protect our country at a time when we face the most significant threat level since 9/11. The legislation allows the National Counterterrorism Center to better track and report on the emergence and movements of any terrorist network and also increases scrutiny of activities of countries like Russia. Cyber warfare and secret cyber intelligence-gathering operations by the Russians pose a major threat to America, a danger that President Obama and his administration have failed to highlight.

With strong leaders like Mike Pompeo, Michael Flynn, James Mattis and Nikki Haley who are dedicated to Americas success, I am confident the United States will return to its place as world leader and become a safer place. I look forward to working with all of them to take strong stances against countries like North Korea and Iran and wipe groups like ISIS from the face of the earth. The last 8 years have taught us that trying to lead from behind is simply not leading at all and only allows others to chart a course we are destined to follow, fortunately it looks like we are on our way to putting America first once again.

Jason Smith represents Missouris 8th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. Contact him at 573-335-0101 or visit https://jasonsmith.house.gov
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At least six people were killed and over a dozen injured when a car bomb exploded in central Baghdad, Sputnik reported.

"Six people were killed and 15 others wounded after an explosives-laden vehicle was detonated in the central city square," an Iraqi interior ministry source told The New Arab media outlet late on Saturday.

The area has been cordoned off by security forces in an effort to prevent a recurring attack, according to the website. No terrorist group, including the Islamic State (Daesh) has so far taken responsibility for the bombing.

Daesh has previously taken responsibility for a number of attacks in the Iraqi capital, often targeting Shiites. In late November, the group took responsibility for a truck bomb which killed some 100 Shiite pilgrims south of the city.

Daesh overran large parts of Iraq in 2014 amid the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria. Iraqi forces have since pushed back and are now fighting to liberate the northern city of Mosul from the militants.
It's snowing in Hawaii.

The tropical island's highest peaks were blanketed in half a metre of snow Saturday evening, and more is on the way.

The U.S. National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, the two highest volcanic peaks in the state.

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The service warned of temperatures dipping below -30 C, strong winds and as much as 30 centimetres of snow by Monday.

WINTER STORM WARNING for Big Island summits. View of Mauna Loa looking toward Mauna Kea this morning. Up to a foot of snow possible. #hiwxpic.twitter.com/94ITamK27P  Ben Gutierrez (@bengutierrez) December 1, 2016

While it may seem odd to think of snow falling over Hawaii, but it's actually not that rare.

"It snows here every year, but only at the very summits of our three tallest volcanoes (Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea and Haleakala)," Ken Rubin, a geology professor at the University of Hawaii, told Weather.com.

The two volcanoes reach altitudes of about 3,700 metres  which is close to the altitude of the Rockies.

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Unfortunately for those on the Big Island, it might be tough to see the snow up close. The roads leading to both summits are currently closed. Hiking and camping are also prohibited, Hawaii News Now reported.

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Canadians are really eager to get their hands on a pass to a national park.

Parks Canada is handing out free 2017 Discovery passes to mark the country's 150th anniversary. The passes will be available for the entire year, but nature lovers were so ready to jump on the offer, that they crashed Parks Canada's website over the weekend.

"We are thrilled that so many of you are excited for Canada150 and the free souvenir 2017 Parks Canada Discovery Pass," the organization posted on Facebook.

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"We wish to remind those who are trying to order their pass online that this is not a limited time offer and encourage you to come back and try again later."

Admission to all of Canada's national parks will be free in 2017. (Photo: Gibsonpictures)

The organization's website was still down as of Sunday morning. Beginning on January 1, passes will also be available at park entry gates and visitor centres, as well as at Parks Canada partners like Mountain Equipment Co-op.

An annual adult pass to all of Canada's national parks usually costs $67.70 or $9.80 for a single day pass.

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Riz Ahmed is a rapper and award-winning actor set to star in the upcoming film "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." But his celebrity isn't enough to insulate him from being racially profiled at the airport.

I mean my day-to-day reality is as contradictory as ever. Every time I get on the plane, I get searched," the 34-year-old told The Guardian.

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"The last time I came back from LA, I got fully searched and all of that. Thats as usual. Then the second search. But this time, I got on the plane and I picked up the inflight magazine. And I was on the cover. I was already on the plane.

Introducing our new issue with cover star @rizmc. Find on newsstands from 12th November or subscribe here: https://t.co/wn41Fxddjqpic.twitter.com/aMYOzwejJK  Gentleman's Journal (@thegentsjournal) November 11, 2016

In September, the British-Pakistani actor penned a piece for the newspaper titled "Typecast as a Terrorist."

He talked about his experiences being pigeonholed for roles, both at auditions and in civilian life:

"... the holding pen was filled with 20 slight variations of my own face, all staring at me  kind of like a Bollywood remake of 'Being John Malkovich.' It was a reminder: you are a type, whose face says things before your mouth opens; you are a signifier before you are a person; you are back at stage one."

Ahmed wrote in a recent Instagram post that his growing fame has developed into an odd situation: often young fans from Asian neighbourhoods near London's Heathrow Airport often want his autograph after patting him down.

After his memorable role as a terrified videographer in 2014's "Nightcrawler," Ahmed received critical acclaim for his role in the HBO miniseries "The Night Of." He is set to star in upcoming detective flick "City of Tiny Lights."

On his most recent album "Cashmere," he tackles racial profiling on two tracks, breathing witty commentary into the discriminatory practice.

However, he says the album is more about reaching out to misfits than it is about politics.

I just want to fly the flag for everyone who feels like they dont necessarily fit in," Ahmed told The Wall Street Journal.

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If Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline violates First Nation land in B.C., it's going to face serious pushback.

A Quebec Mohawk chief says there will be civil disobedience if the government breaks its promises to First Nations communities.

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If the government insists on ignoring its commitment to First Nations, were looking at unrest in many areas of the country, not just in British Columbia," Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Simon told the Montreal Gazette.

Simon co-founded the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, a group of 115 First Nations chiefs from across North America.

Grand Chief Serge Simon, Mohawk Council of Kanesatake speaks at a conference in Winnipeg on November 29.

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The Alliance is opposed to any pipeline project that would lead to an expansion of Alberta's oilsands, including the newly approved Trans Mountain and Line 3 pipelines, and the high-profile Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that both the Trans Mountain expansion project and Enbridge's Line 3 would be allowed to move forward.

If both pipelines are constructed, they will have the capacity to ship over 1.5 million barrels of crude each day.

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said Thursday that the federal government won't require First Nations' consent for the pipelines to go forward.

"I don't care what Jim Carr says that no consent is necessary ... Consent, it's what we are demanding and he will never get our consent, not for something like this ... What if we gave Canada 20 Standing Rocks? I wonder if his position will change then?" Simon said in an interview with APTN.

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Carr has warned opponents of the projects to keep their resistance non-violent.

If people choose for their own reasons not to be peaceful, then the government of Canada  through its defence forces, through its police forces  will ensure that people are kept safe, Carr said, according to BNN.

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Justin Trudeau isnt legalizing marijuana to please the people who smoke it.

People are right now breaking the law, the prime minister told the Toronto Stars editorial board on Friday. He called the recent flood of new storefront dispensaries in cities like Toronto, frustrating.

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The government is legalizing pot to prevent kids from accessing it, and to prevent criminal organizations from profiting off it, he said. So, I dont know how much clearer we can be that were not legalizing marijuana to please recreational users.

Trudeaus comments come as his government is set to introduce legislation regulating the sale of marijuana this spring. Hes faced pressure  most notably from the NDP  to decriminalize the drug, so that Canadians who smoke up in the meantime wont be left with a criminal record.

People are right now breaking the law."

But Trudeau has consistently ruled that out, saying the move would give criminal groups a legal stream of revenue. "Thats not what anyone wants in this country, he told the House of Commons in April.

At this point, theres no way for cops to stop the spread of dispensaries, the medical marijuana industry has said.

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"If you close down a dispensary, somebody else is going to open up because there's a need that's not being addressed," the outgoing president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries, Jamie Shaw, said in the spring. "Once those start opening, it becomes an avalanche. You can't keep up from an enforcement perspective."

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I was speaking at a debate on homelessness a few weeks ago at the Battle of Ideas Festival (a wonderful event that I urge you all to go to next year by the way!). What was most striking for me was that there was little battle over the fact that it's at least as bad as it's ever been. Which is quite a thing when you consider the hook for the debate was the 50 year old groundbreaking docu-drama Cathy Come Home, that so shocked the nation that it gave rise to the campaigning charities Crisis and Shelter that are still with us today.

How could homelessness have got worse when we've otherwise become so much more affluent? What is causing today's homelessness problem and what solutions are being put forward to solve it? In trying to answer that question I found as many difficulties with the proposed solutions as I did with the problem they were supposedly designed to solve.

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Homelessness comes in many different forms: from rough sleeping, staying in hostels, shelters and temporary accommodation; to those officially recognised as 'statutorily homeless' by their local authority, as well as those 'hidden' in overcrowded housing, squatting, 'sofa surfing', sharing or sleeping on the night bus. In the space of five years the numbers deemed homeless have roughly doubled. Those living in temporary accommodation have risen by 40%. In 2015, 30% of those recorded as statutorily homeless were private tenants forced out of their home because they could no longer afford to pay the rent; and in the same year it is estimated that 2.3 million households contained 'concealed' single people.

People find themselves made homeless for a variety, even a combination, of reasons. It could be leaving the care system, gaining refugee status and losing their asylum accommodation, being discharged from a mental health ward, or simply the breakdown of a relationship. According to the Homelessness Monitor, the two biggest causes of today's housing problem are an impossibly pricy housing market and the impact of the government's welfare reforms. Though these are themselves, I would argue, secondary effects of economic failure, they go some way to explaining the scale of the problem. This has created an affordability problem for more and more people - particularly, but not exclusively, in London.

The government plans to build 400,000 affordable homes by 2021 - half of them starter homes and 135,000 shared ownership. Most experts will tell you that we need to build at least 250,000 homes ('affordable' or not) every year. There has been wide support for the Homelessness Reduction Bill; not least from my co-panellist Daniel Dumoulin at St Mungo's who was involved in its drafting, and from MPs on the Communities and Local Government Committee. Recently voted through to the next stage in parliament, it will impose greater duties on local authorities to advise the homeless, (somehow) prevent homelessness happening in the first place, and to provide relief or emergency accommodation where necessary. All without building more houses.

The problem is, of course, that you can't legislate against homelessness or force local authorities to provide stock that they don't have. So what should be done instead? We need to build at least sufficient housing to break even i.e. to replace aged stock, and then more again to reflect the growing population and the changing shape of households. This isn't a 'luxury', as my co-panellist Rebecca Wilson of the Labour Campaign to End Homelessness claimed. It is a necessity if we are to prevent further rises in homelessness, and if house prices and rents are to fall and become genuinely affordable. Policy-makers and campaigners need to stop accommodating to diminished expectations, and start accommodating people with the housing they need and want. That's not to say that a bricks and mortar approach to the homelessness problem is going to be enough - as is clear from the mix of personal, socio-economic and policy determinants at play. There needs to be more targeting of more resources in more coordinated ways if the specific, complex and entrenched, needs of some homeless people are to be properly addressed.

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We also need to stop expecting the homeless to play the vulnerability card. That would mean, for instance, abolishing the indignity of people having to prove that they are in 'priority need' and instead making common cause with them to demand more. I agree with Ken Loach, the man responsible for Cathy Come Home, who said in a recent interview: 'People are not docile victims ... they fight back'. He's right, or at least he would be if he didn't level this accusation at the Tory right alone - as my co-panellist, John Moss, chairman of an almshouses charity and Tory councillor, might agree.
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I voted remain in the Brexit referendum, but I don't want a re-run. I don't want MPs to reject it. I don't want a High Court ruling to stall it. I just want out - asap.

Why? Because I believe that this sorry saga can only be properly resolved by seeing it through. The only way to end the argument over the impact of leaving the EU is to leave it. To some remainers, this is like watching a child put a finger in a flame. Their instinct is to stop it. But this isn't a child. It's 17.5 million fellow adults who need to be treated as such. They chose to ignore thousands of politicians, business leaders and economists and put their faith in Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, the Mail and the Sun. Maybe they were right. Maybe the 'experts' will be proved wrong. Maybe not. But let's see.

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Class-of-97

Plenty of remainers disagree and are trying to stop the bus. The group British Influence is proposing legal action to keep Britain in the European Economic Area - as distinct from the EU. Some MPs are set to vote against triggering the EU's Article 50, which starts the Brexit process. And Tony Blair, John Major and Paddy Ashdown are calling for a second referendum on the basis that the first one only offered an in-out choice and not a new deal. I sympathise, nostalgically, with this class-of-97 party leaders' reunion. It has a logic to it - the argument that true democracy demands two referenda - one on the principle and another on the practice. But at a deeper level, I think it is an intervention of its generation. It speaks of an era when representative democracy ruled, when people voted for an MP and then left the experts to make decisions. We still defer to experts every time we call the doctor or get on a plane - but no longer in politics. It's gone. Years of simplistic propaganda - plus the antics of some in politics - have led people to think politicians are all useless and they know better. Now's the time to see if they're right.

Photo: Pixabay

A British Trump?

Imagine what lies ahead if Brexit is stopped. The leavers will claim, with good cause, that the wishes of the people have been over-ridden. The anti-EU press will howl about stolen freedom and never be proved wrong because you can't prove a negative. The ground will be cleared for a British Trump promising to sweep away the corrupt politicians who have betrayed the people. Democracy itself could be at risk.

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On the other hand, if Brexit goes ahead, the shouting will cease and reality will take over. And if free movement is to end, as it surely must to deliver on the Leave campaign's promise to "decide for ourselves who can come into this country", single market membership will end as well as I believe it will pan out as the remain side predicted. Tariffs will be re-imposed. Investment will migrate from the UK for mainland Europe. Prices will rise. Jobs will be lost. British influence will decline. Leavers will try to blame the problems on scapegoats - immigration, protectionism - whatever. But substance will beat spin. Remainers will be able to join the dots and demonstrate cause and effect. Slowly, people will see the decades of deceit by anti-EU media and politicians for the Wizard of Oz style sham they were. And then, in time, the damage can be repaired. Britain can re-join the EU. Representative democracy can make a comeback. It will be a bumpy ride, but better than the horrors risked by over-turning June's democratic decision.

Post-truth and post-reality

So-called 'post-truth' politics applies only where nothing is proven and people are choosing between claim and counter-claim. But once claims give way to realities, facts become undeniable and consequences indisputable. In politics, some things are decided on claims; others on reality. Brexit was almost wholly the former. The Leave side even boasted about disregarding facts. By contrast, for example, the landslide election of Attlee government was a collective reaction to the brutal reality of World War Two. In 1983, Thatcher instead appealed to individualism with the very real offer of rock bottom prices for the homes Attlee built. Three centuries earlier, in 1660, the experience of civil war and then dictatorship led the country to restore the balanced relationship of monarch and Parliament, with the Chancellor Edward Hyde declaring "All the motions of these last twenty years have been unnatural." Funny how history repeats itself. Once again today, we look back on 20 years of distortion which only the reality of Brexit can expose. You don't miss your water till your well runs dry, as the song says.

It will take a few years, but those few years are also needed for Britain's progressive forces to regroup and rebuild a political movement capable of governing and leading Britain back to the EU. And hopefully a similar restoration of sanity - based on reality - can occur in the US. The right is rampant in the UK and US right now - but all based on words, not action. Instead of trying to fight a rear-guard action, the remainers should hold their fire, believe in themselves and let events show who was right. That is the way back. We may live in a post-truth world - but not a post-reality one.

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Even at the best of times, people with disabilities can find themselves feeling invisible - their rights, concerns and the many obstacles they face are hidden from the world.

Globally, up to 150 million people living with disabilities are children. Whatever their circumstances, they are often the most vulnerable and excluded in their communities, and are at higher risk of poverty, discrimination and violence. They often face difficulties accessing basic services such as healthcare and education.

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And today, as conflicts and crises rage around the world, it's disabled children in affected areas who are among those most at risk. Often the first to be left behind and the last to have their needs met in chaotic emergency situations, children with disabilities face unprecedented adversity in conflicts.

Michael, 14, fled violence in the Central African Republic and found shelter in a refugee camp in Cameroon with his parents. He cannot walk, but enrolled in a school in the camp in spite of the challenges of getting there every day.

"I spent nearly an hour crawling to school every day, located 400 metres from my home", says Michael.

"I always arrived late. When it rained, I had to crawl in dirty water and mud."

Plan International provided Michael with a wheelchair to help him get to and from school. He also received a Disabled Persons' Card that gives him free access to public schools, as well as reduced cost healthcare and public transport services.

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"Since I got my wheelchair, I get to school on time. Some of my schoolmates who use to laugh at me now play with me and offer to push me around", Michael says.

But children with disabilities do not just face challenges in the midst of a war zone.

Mohand is a nine-year old Syrian boy with learning difficulties and epilepsy. Three years ago, when intensive bombing destroyed the area where Mohand and his family lived, they were forced to flee, first to Lebanon and then to Egypt, where they now live.

Although the family is now safe from the immediate dangers of war, they struggle to get by. Mohand's father can no longer work due to health issues, and the family can barely cover their basic costs including rent, food, healthcare and education.

Thanks to Plan International, Mohand takes part in recreational activities with other children. He's never been to school before, and for the first time, his disability is no longer a barrier. He's learning basic life skills, and receiving support to recover from the trauma of what he's left behind.

Mohand's mother, who herself receives financial and parenting support, sees this as his first step towards independence - she hopes that one day her son will be able to attend school.

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Over 30 people have died as a result of a coal mine blast in northern China, Sputnik reported.

Earlier reports said 17 were killed and 10 were missing after an explosion rocked a mine in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region midday on Saturday.

The number of casualties has now risen to 32, the Xinhua news agency reported. The incident took place at a mine belonging to the Baoma Mining company in the city of Chifeng.



Earlier, local officials said four miners had been rescued and search operations continued.

An investigation has reportedly been launched into the incident, which was attributed to a gas leak.



Over 180 people were working underground at the time of the blast, with at least 149 escaping to the surface.
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(This is the second installment of a discussion begun here)

The first installment of this two-part article argued that the election of Donald Trump demonstrates dramatically that the state of mind of the tens of millions of Americans who make up the Republican electorate is now at the heart of the threat to the well-being of America posted by the destructive force that's taken over the American right.

That broken consciousness was not always such a driving force in the dismantling of America, as a brief review of the history of the hijacking of American "conservatism" over the past generation can show.

If we look back to, say, 1990 to investigate the state of this destructive force, we do not see any particularly intense sickness permeating the Republican electorate. The first president Bush was in office, and the people who voted for him were still quite recognizable to those familiar with the Republicanism of previous decades (from Eisenhower, say, onward).

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Nonetheless, that destructive force itself -- which has now brought Donald Trump to the pinnacle of power in America -- was already in evidence. It consisted of some public faces, and behind them were some big interests. (If we look at the gathering web, we find things like the Powell memo, the consolidating Big Money Power (including the Koch brothers), Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority, etc.)

The force had established its advanced base inside the top-down power structure, while the Republican base had not yet become the cesspool of brokenness -- of a deeply false picture of what's happening in America, of magnified hatreds and fears -- it has since become.

Back in the 1990s, it was the job of some of the major public faces of that force -- especially Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich -- to undertake a program of poisoning the minds of the American people.

(The basic elements of this poison have always been there -- e.g. the bigotries, the inclination to conflict over cooperation, the lack of critical thinking -- but their role in the people's overall patterns of thought and feeling was far smaller. The task of poisoning the minds of the people was, then, a matter of feeding the darker patterns, and starving the more benign ones.)

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The poisoning of the minds of the people then accelerated during the presidency of W, with "Bush's Brain" (Karl Rove) orchestrating his manipulative and deceitful propaganda. He (and Cheney) knew how to magnify the fears prompted by 9/11, and magnify them for their political purposes. And it was presumably Rove -- never one to care about the truth -- announced the abandonment of any allegiance to reality, and declared that they could create their own reality.

Throughout, Rove and company assiduously sold a false, fact-free, distorted reality to their followers-- eroding their capacity to distinguish truth from falsehood, and orienting their passions toward perpetual conflict based on the fear and hatred of enemies, foreign and domestic.

By the time W left office, the right-wing public was so far removed from reality that the Republicans could sell their policy of across-the-board obstructionism to people who regarded themselves as "American patriots."

And by the time President Obama's second term was approaching its conclusion, these Republican voters could support a monster -- a bigot, a hypocrite, a narcissist, a wrecking-ball -- like Donald Trump for president.

Thus. this sickness in the consciousness of the "conservatives" has only gradually grown to be such a central reservoir from which the destructive force that's taken over the right draws its power to wreck the nation.

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As it becomes more central to the overall battle, must not addressing this profound sickness among the American electorate become more central to our overall strategy to defeat this destructive force on the right?

*******************************************************

But there's an important part of my friend's argument not yet dealt with here. I have no doubt that my friend would agree that the people in the right-wing bubble (Fox News, Limbaugh, the GOP, Trump, etc.) hold a overwhelmingly false picture of our political reality. Nor would he disagree that there's a real disconnect between their stated value beliefs and the nature of the political forces they support. And he'd concur, I suspect, that over the past several decades, their worse passions have taken over and the "better angels of their nature" have ceased to have any discernible voice in the political realm.

So I expect he would agree that bringing them back from the Dark Side would be desirable. But, he might well argue, that doesn't prove that it is possible.

That's a good point-- in that no one, including me, has demonstrated clearly an ability to bring today's "conservatives" back from the Dark Side. But since when does an uncertainty about the possibility of success, when something is necessary to achieve, justify not even trying? No one could guarantee in 1939, or even 1944, that the Manhattan Project would succeed, yet the United States embarked on that herculean effort.

Speaking of which, I have studied how FDR successfully led America to victory in World War II. And I believe there FDR's approach contains lessons for Democrats today seeking to succeed in the dark battle in which we are now engaged.

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My friend would want me to attend to more urgent political needs: how to mobilize down to the grassroots; how to confront Trump; etc.

What would FDR do? Here's how I see it.

Yes, the immediate crisis has to do with how to deal with President(-Elect) Trump. But not only is that not the only component of the battle, but even the battle against Trump cannot be fought only head-on. Trump's power will be quite directly related to his approval ratings. If that approval rating can be brought down below, say, 40%, Trump's ability to dominate our national direction will be greatly curtailed.

(If it goes low enough, it is even conceivable that such major misbehaviors as we can reasonably expect could be treated as grounds for impeachment.)

But beyond that, we need to think of this struggle as a multi-front, multi-dimensional war, as FDR dealt with that global struggle. Not only did he have to deal with two wars against two major enemies, he also had to:

Turn millions of American civilians into an effective fighting force;

Maintain a complicated set of alliances, with not only Churchill's Britain, but also with Stalin's Soviet Union, and Chiang Kai-shek in China;

Gear up the latent power of America's industrial might to produce aircraft and tanks and ships by the thousands;

Conduct challenging R & D like the Manhattan Project;

Prepare for the peace that would turn victory into a lasting benefit.

Now, we also have to deal with a complex struggle in a multiplicity of ways. It is not a matter of choosing one piece of the struggle

instead of

another, but rather finding the best ways of fighting them all in an integrated way. Among the various dimensions on which this struggle must be waged:

The political mobilization my friend calls for;

The role of the Democrats in Congress in minimizing the damage (and if possible maximizing the beneficial outcomes) from the Trump presidency;

A campaign to pressure the media to do the job American democracy requires of it during what will surely be an unprecedented kind of dishonest, constitutionally questionable presidency (this is another challenging task about which we cannot simply throw our hands up and declare it hopeless;

AND conduct a campaign to change the state of consciousness among America's conservatives, both short-term to turn them against Trump and the Republicans, and long-term to bring them back from the Dark Side to greater sanity, greater alignment with both what is true and what is right. (And I am not claiming that my best efforts are the best way, and they are surely not the only way, to go about it. Perhaps another approach than mine will work better; perhaps a whole combination of approaches.)

Liberal America largely forfeited the battle over these people's souls while they were being poisoned over the past generation. Our nation - and we as a political force - have paid an enormous price for that forfeiture.
Andy Warhol, Open This End, 1962, Acrylic on canvas, 8 x 11 in. (20.3 x 27.9 cm). The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles partial and promised gift of Blake Byrne.  2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The final leg in the two-year journey of "Open This End: Contemporary Art from the Blake Byrne Collection" exhibition continues at the Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art, Lewis & Clark College, in Portland, Oregon. This amazing show's travels began in 2015 at the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, which coincided with Blake's 80th birthday celebration, and then toured to The Ohio State University Urban Arts Space and Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University. "Open This End" assembles both iconic and lesser-known selected works from Byrne's remarkable and distinguished collection, which features more than 1,200 pieces, narrowed down to about seventy-five for this exhibition.

John Sonsini, Blake, 2005, Oil on canvas, 72 x 60 in. Collection of Blake Byrne. Photo by Alan Shaffer.

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This delightful presentation is a virtual window into a serious collector's personal vision through an art historical context, highlighting some of the most influential artists of the last fifty years, carefully and skillfully tracing a number of intertwined narratives in the progression of contemporary art from the 1960s to the present. Organized over the last five years by Barbara Schwan, Executive Director of The Skylark Foundation, this is a simply remarkable exhibition on so many levels, and supporting her efforts to produce a scholarly and impressive hardcover catalog were Richard J. Powell, Kris Paulsen, Kimerly Rorschach and Bruce Kogut. The title comes from a small 1962 silkscreen painting by Andy Warhol, the earliest work in the show, which suggests an invitation for the viewer to explore this soon-to-be "unpacked" display, which, like a gift being unwrapped, always brings with it an element of surprise, anticipation and delight.

Installation, "Open This End: Contemporary Art from the Blake Byrne Collection," Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon.

Joseph Wolin, the curator of the exhibition elaborates: "By extension it also suggests that contemporary art may comprise a sometimes puzzling package that we can unlock for both pleasure and edification. In a more humorous vein, the title implies that there exists a certain way to approach contemporary art and its history, a particular end from which to open the box (in this case, a crate!), an implication belied by contemporary art itself, and by the multiple, parallel, interconnected, open-ended, and at times contradictory artistic and historical threads the exhibition gathers together." For any number of reasons, the title seems to fit rather cleverly and appropriately, but the irony is that from the get-go Byrne was not interested in building a collection to impress others with brand names like Warhol, but rather with very little guidance early on, used his intuition to seek out works that would provoke an emotional response, regardless of how obscure the artist was initially, it obviously was a chance that Byrne felt worth taking. I'm reminded of Evel Knievel's own fifteen minutes of Warholian fame, which came with a personal observation just after one of his well-known and dangerous motorcycle jumps: "No risk, no reward."

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Jack Pierson, Nothing (Yellow, Blue, Red), 1992, Mixed media, 54 x 112 x 1 in. (137.2 x 284.5 x 2.5 cm). Collection of Blake Byrne.  Jack Pierson; courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photo by Alan Shaffer.

In fact, risk is related to reward and achievement for most of the artists represented in this memorable exhibition, especially for Warhol, as it is for most great private collections of contemporary art. This is an era when some noted art collectors around the planet have built huge museums for their own collections, including Francois Pinault in Paris, Jorge Perez in Miami, Eli and Edythe Broad in Los Angeles, Dutchman Joop van Caldenborgh and Budi Tek in China, among others. Blake Byrne's goal was not to construct an art fortress to protect his artworks, but to choose to live with his most treasured pieces, rarely "de-acquisitioning" any of them, and eventually passing on portions to other institutions. Byrne graciously does this from time to time; his promised gift to MOCA LA of 123 works, for example, remains the largest and most generous donation in the museum's history, in fact, over half of the works included in "Open This End" are from the promised gifts to MOCA LA, as well as a good selection that has been promised to Duke University's Nasher Museum.

Mark Bradford, Spinning Man, 2007, Mixed media collage on canvas, 72 x 84 in. (182.9 x 213.4 cm). Collection of Blake Byrne. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Luciano Fileti.

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The story of Blake Byrne is unique, and is encouraging news for young collectors that have an interest in contemporary art, but at first have little background in art appreciation and a sense of where to begin. Byrne first started accumulating modest pictures during his honeymoon in Paris, and after several moves in between, he landed in Providence, a significant art city and home to thousands of artists as well as the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), one of the world's best art schools, and then to Fort Worth, where he and his family regularly visited the Kimbell Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art for inspiration. He eventually moved back to Manhattan in 1988, taking up residence at 58th Street and 7th Avenue, so naturally he would visit the 57th Street art galleries in his neighborhood, which strengthened his perspectives on art.

Sherrie Levine, Une Pipe: 1, 2001, Cast bronze, 2  x 5  x 1  in. (6.4 x 13.3 x 3.8 cm), Edition of 12. Collection of Blake Byrne.  Sherrie Levine; courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Photo Alan Shaffer.

I first met Blake and his family on the day they moved into the Victorian house next door to mine on the historic east side of Providence, Rhode Island. He was in the business of managing TV stations, and his magic touch made them profitable. He also had all the makings of a great collector: inquisitive, instinctual, studious, intelligent, adventuresome, open-minded, enthusiastic, an astute eye and a warm heart, along with a willingness and the resources to invest in works of art with which he also wanted to enjoy living. As our friendship developed, I introduced him to the campus of RISD, and as I recall, he began acquiring a few works here and there of local artists, such as Bill Drew and several very early works of mine. Mr. Byrne was a proud workaholic, and was especially adept at analyzing TV station data reports every evening when he finally arrived home. Surely it was this experience and training that later he applied to buying art, after he retired as a broadcast executive and began collecting in earnest in 1988. On the advice of Jack Tilton, his long-time friend and mentor and highly respected Manhattan gallerist, Byrne went to Art Basel with Tilton in 1988 and made his first cutting-edge art purchases, including works by Juan Munoz, Cristina Iglesias and Richard Tuttle, among others. Not bad for the first date! And, fortuitously, he started collecting Marlene Dumas at bargain prices the following year, a wise decision, as her works have since shot up greatly in value. From this jumping off point, he assembled an impressive collection that is both expansive and focused, maintaining strong commitments to certain artists that he has accumulated en masse.

Jennifer Steinkamp, Jimmy Carter, 2002, DVD animated painting, dimensions variable. Collection of Blake Byrne. Courtesy of the artist, Metro Pictures, New York, and Acme, Los Angeles. Photo by Alan Shaffer.

"Open This End" does not try to track a single theme or storyline, but takes advantage of the significant strengths of Byrne's collection that offers a unique and personal overview of contemporary art. With the size, breadth and complexity of this memorable show, it's not possible here to examine select works in detail, but suffice it to say that the following alphabetical sampling of "Open This End's" line-up will give you a clear perspective on what constitutes a wonderfully revealing and dramatic presentation: Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Mark Bradford, Marlene Dumas (11 works), Robert Gober, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Douglas Gordon, David Hammons, Bruce Helander, Thomas Houseago, Mike Kelley, Martin Kersels, Martin Kippenberger, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Glenn Ligon, Agnes Martin, Rita McBride, Paul McCarthy, Steve McQueen, Matthew Monahan, Juan Munoz, Wangechi Mutu, Bruce Nauman, Albert Oehlen, Paul Pfeiffer, Jack Pierson, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Tony Smith, Jennifer Steinkamp, Luc Tuymans, Andy Warhol, Kehinde Wiley and Christopher Williams. It should be noted that this list signifies only about 10% of Byrne's entire collection, which continues to grow. As a whole, this distinguished assortment of human creativity provides an astute summary of most of the important trends in contemporary art since the 1960s. Kimerly Rorschach proposes a striking summation in her insightful catalog essay, "Blakean Vision," which is appropriate to repeat here: "Through collecting, the collector can engage with and consider the great issues: love and loss, birth and death, the fate of our planet, our identity and culture, both collective and individual--in short, our humanity."

Happy Birthday Blake Byrne!

Installation, "Open This End: Contemporary Art from the Blake Byrne Collection," Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon.

For additional information and a complete list of works included in the exhibition, go to: http://theskylarkfoundation.org. The exhibition continues at the Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art, Lewis & Clark College, in Portland, Oregon through December 11, 2016.

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While trying not to appear too spooked or rattled by the prospect of a Trump presidency, organized labor (with a nod to Hunter S. Thompson) nonetheless assumes it's going to be hit with a million-pound shithammer. They'd be foolish to assume otherwise.

And that's not because the AFL-CIO believes Trump is, at root, anti-labor. Indeed, over the years America's unions have had a surprisingly respectful if not cordial relationship with Trump. Rather, it derives from the belief that a Republican-dominated House and Senate will insist the White House continue their systematic assault on organized labor, the one that began in 1947, with passage of the Taft-Hartley Act.

But before getting down to the gruesome finer points, let us consider the physical, mental and spiritual condition of the unions--both large and small, service and industrial--that this next president will be inheriting. It's no exaggeration to say that, across the board, their condition isn't good. In fact, it's fairly grim.

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Labor's condition was grim under Obama, grimmer yet under George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, (grim enough for Clinton's Secretary of Labor Robert Reich to resign "in protest") and grimmest of all under Ronald Reagan, who declared war on America's unions by making a gaudy show of firing more than 11,000 air traffic controllers.

Nationwide union membership (public and private) hovers at about 11-percent. When we compare those pitiful figures to the glory days of the 1950s (when the middle-class was flourishing, and union membership was close to 35-percent), we are stunned.

And when we learn that, in 1921--in the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the 1919 Boston police strike, Sacco and Vanzetti, and Socialist Eugene Debs receiving more than a million votes while in prison--there was genuine trepidation among the Establishment that the U.S. was on the verge of a great "proletarian revolution," we are dumbfounded.

Could that be true?? Could it be true that as recently as 1921, the movers and shakers of this country actually feared that the American worker would rise up and seize control of the government? Given today's pro-corporate climate, that notion of a proletarian revolution--tantalizing as it is--seems like something out of a science fiction novel.

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Back to Trump. Let's look at both scenarios: worst and best.

The worst case goes like this: Trump names an anti-union Labor Secretary to oversee the project; he appoints a hundred pro-business judges; he names three pro-business appointees to the 5-person NLRB; and with no hurdles in sight, Congress aggressively moves to water down or repeal as many features of the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act) as possible. And with labor as vulnerable and "friendless" as it is, the whole ball of string begins to unravel. That's worst case.

As for "best case," it goes like this: Trump basically leaves the unions alone. After all, with immigration, Obamacare, building a wall, courting Russia, pacifying the Middle East, and "reclaiming America," Trump has neither the time nor inclination to focus on something so trivial as organized labor.

Those who adhere to this scenario remind us that Trump is from New York, the state with the highest union density (the top five, in descending order: New York, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, California), and that the majority of his construction projects were done with union labor, which means that, despite his weirdness and volatility, Trump is basically labor-friendly. That's the "best case" scenario.

Alas, that account is not so much a "scenario" as a fantasy. A Republican House, Republican Senate, and Republican Supreme Court would never allow such "benign neglect" to remain in place. Congress will pressure Trump to disarm America's unions, and render them defenseless.

Granted, we hear disaffected workers say that labor unions are already defenseless, that they're obsolete and anachronistic, that they're essentially "fangless," but that simply isn't true.

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If unions were "fangless," the Establishment wouldn't fear them. But they do fear them. They fear them because they realize they are the one and only institution capable of mobilizing working people.
Another U.S. president soon will have to deal with North Korea, which has been busy developing nuclear weapons for a quarter century or more. The Kim dynasty is on its third leader, Kim Jong-un, who recently presided over Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test. By the end of the year the North could possess as many as 20 nuclear weapons.

Over the same two or so decades three different U.S. presidents insisted that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea could not be allowed to deploy nukes. But Washington policy obviously failed: the DPRK long ago crossed what sounded like a "red line." With the Kim regime also making progress on long-range missiles, the next president may confront a North Korea capable of retaliating against America cities for any U.S. military action.

This result might have been inevitable. Kim Il-sung plunged the peninsula into war and created one of the globe's truly totalitarian dictatorships. Kim Jong-il formally institutionalized a "military first" policy. Kim Jong-un is emphasizing economic development, but only alongside the nuclear program. Negotiated denuclearization might never have been possible.

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Yet it's worth wondering what would have happened had President Bill Clinton visited the North before leaving office. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright partied in Pyongyang during the brief warming of relations after negotiation of the Agreed Framework. Efforts to arrange a presidential summit foundered as the Clinton presidency ran out of time.

The Kim Jong-il government fulfilled the nuclear pact, but launched a separate uranium-enrichment program which crashed relations with the incoming Bush administration. The latter tried isolation of and later engagement with the DPRK; next the Obama administration largely pushed North Korea into the background while strengthening ties with the South. Pyongyang continued its nuclear course. Today few believe the regime will ever voluntarily yield its nuclear arsenal.

What if Clinton had made the trip? And, more important, the two governments had moved forward with some agreements to reduce the confrontation level. What if this, in turn, led to a different Bush administration policy--no inclusion of the DPRK in the infamous "Axis of Evil," for instance?

Given the nature of the North Korean system, it certainly is possible that little might have changed. Even a deal with Washington would not have turned the Kims into Western-style reformers prepared to beat their missiles into ploughshares. Later agreements involving the North came to grief, though the failure was not always solely Pyongyang's fault.

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Nevertheless, a transformation of the U.S.-North Korea relationship a couple decades ago could have dramatically changed the international environment, encouraging the North to take a different path. Imagine President Clinton, who nearly launched military strike on the DPRK's nuclear facilities, sitting down to have a peaceful conversation with Kim Jong-il, who had succeeded the latter's father. Then assume a Bush administration which did not target the North alongside Iraq and Iran--the first of which was invaded and the second of which was threatened with military action.

Although North Korean rhetoric should be treated skeptically, the paranoid regime does have enemies. Certainly the U.S. fits that description, The Bush administration reversed the Clinton approach while making regime change a central foreign policy tenet. President George W. Bush explained that he "loathed" Kim Jong-il. The Obama administration promoted regime change in Libya--after the latter negotiated away its missile and nuclear programs.

So Pyongyang is acting rationally in seeking a capability to deter U.S. military action, whether unilateral or in conjunction with the Republic of Korea. A civil bilateral relationship would have reduced the likelihood of American military action, and thus would have undercut at least this reason for the North's aggressive military policies.

Rapprochement under the Clinton administration would have had another beneficial impact. Although the People's Republic of China keeps the DPRK afloat, there is little affection between the two parties. North Korea downplayed the PRC's role in the Korean War; Kim Il-sung imprisoned and executed Communist Party members allied with Beijing. Pyongyang has ostentatiously ignored Chinese "advice" on nuclear weapons and economic development. In late 2013 Kim Jong-un executed his uncle, once China's chief interlocutor in the North.

It seems that one reason North Korea has pressed so hard for direct contact with America is to counterbalance Beijing. During the Cold War the DPRK skillfully played the Soviet Union and China against each other. Recently Pyongyang has revived relations with Russia. Had the U.S. been more open to establishing even limited ties with North Korea, the latter might have been willing to make some concessions to cement the relationship.

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Moreover, an opening to the U.S. and West more broadly would have provided a greater opportunity for the North to draw in economic resources and promote growth. One obvious benefit of possessing a nuclear weapon is the potential for extortion, yet friendlier relations with formerly threatening states would have opened up possibilities for even greater economic gain through less confrontational means. The North might have been willing to adopt at least some limits on arms development in return.

Of course, Pyongyang still would have had reasons to push ahead with its missile and nuclear efforts. Nukes bring prestige as well as might help tie the military to the Kim dynasty. And even better relations with America would not make the Kim dynasty trust Washington or anyone else.

Nevertheless, over the last two decades U.S. policy toward the North almost looks to have been designed for failure. Successive American administrations targeted Pyongyang while promoting regime change elsewhere in the world. They imposed ever tighter sanctions and emphasized closer military cooperation with South Korea. And they failed to offer China any convincing reason to pressure the DPRK; to the contrary, the so-called pivot to Asia only made it more important for Beijing to back its only military ally.
"Soldier. Veteran. Surfer. Member of Congress. Doing my best to be of service."

U.S. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's (D-HI) Twitter handle is an accurate summation of the unpretentious woman who stood before 400 Veterans and Water Protectors at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. It was a frigid Dakota Saturday night, and you could have heard the proverbial pin drop echo against the metal walls as she addressed the crowd. Gabbard served two tours of duty in the Middle East, and she continues her service as a Major in the Army National Guard. In 2005 she completed a 12-month tour in Iraq, where she served in a field medical unit as a specialist with a 29th Support Battalion medical company. Gabbard was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal at the end of the tour.

The vets were proud to have one of their own in a visible leadership role. It was written on their faces and obvious in the occasional tear that was quickly wiped away.

In a show of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux, Congresswoman Gabbard is joining thousands of veterans from across the United States who have come to Standing Rock and the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation to protest the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The pipeline, if approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, would cross under the Missouri River and threaten not only the water supplies of Standing Rock, but also that of the Cheyenne River Sioux to the south.

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In a statement to the Oceti Sakowin Camp Gabbard said, "I'm participating in the Dakota Access Pipeline protest because of the threat this project poses to water resources in four states serving millions of people."

Addressing the universal issue of water quality, Gabbard said, "Whether it's the threat to essential water sources in this region, the lead contamination in Flint, Michigan, or the threat posed to a major Hawaii aquifer by the Red Hill fuel leak, each example underscores the vital importance of protecting our water resources."

Some may remember the Congresswoman as the person who introduced and nominated Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for President of the United States during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last July 26. Gabbard quit her post as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee to support Sanders in the primaries.

In recent days, Gabbard met with President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team last Monday. Sources say she is possibly being considered for positions in the "Defense Department, State Department and the United Nations," according to a CNN report.

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"Veterans for Standing Rock," are assembling at the Standing Rock Reservation from December 4-7 to relieve the water protectors from the harsh winter conditions and the constant emotional pressure and presence of militarized law enforcement.

"We are veterans of the United States Armed Forces, including the U.S. Army, United States Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Coast Guard and we are calling for our fellow veterans to assemble as a peaceful, unarmed militia at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation on Dec 4-7 and defend the water protectors from assault and intimidation at the hands of the militarized police force and DAPL security," the organization said.
MADRID, SPAIN - 2016/12/02: American community in Madrid protesting against USA President-elect Donald Trump. (Photo by Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Spend time in working class white communities. American voters of all demographic groups like candidates who court them and ask for their votes, and do not like candidates who they only see a few weeks before the election. Any Democrat who wants to run for President in 2020, must start spending time in places like Akron, Ohio or Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2017. Visiting union halls, community centers, churches and speaking with local media in places like that will help any Democrat win votes in these communities, but will also help them understand the people in those communities and how to address their concerns and problems. This is much better than lecturing these voters from afar, or in the waning days of the campaign, about how Republicans are selling them a bill of economic goods.

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Don't talk about public service and sacrifice. If you are a normal American, a life in politics complete with good salary, great health care, ample opportunities to cash in afterwards and, in many cases, nice public housing does not exactly qualify as a sacrifice. The fact that many in politics could have made more money in the private sector is not exactly relevant to the experience of most Americans. Every time a Democratic politician uses this language-and Hillary Clinton did a lot-it is a reminder of the elitism of the Party, and the candidate.

Move beyond the Clintons. For a few aging Democratic insiders, the Clinton name is still magic, but for everybody else, for better or for worse, the brand is strongly identified with scandal and ethical shenanigans. Additionally, thanks to this recent campaign, there are probably many female voters younger than 40 for whom Bill Clinton is primarily viewed as a sexual predator. Despite this, there are some in the Clinton's world who think Chelsea Clinton should run for Congress, presumably as the first step in a more ambitious political career. The main reason, however, that the Democratic Party must move beyond the Clintons, is that the brand of center right politics on which Bill got elected and reelected in 1996 has no place in today's Democratic Party, or for that matter in Trump's Republican Party. The sooner the Democrats can finally get beyond the Clintons, the sooner the Party will stop having to defend what a decade of Democratic governance that looks much more problematic from 2016 or 2017 than it did from 1999 or 2000. For this reason, the only Clinton who should even appear at the next Democratic convention is George.

Sell the foreign policy ideas. During the campaign, Donald Trump's foreign policy pronouncements were neither nuanced nor well-informed, but they were effective because they made sense to an electorate that was tired of being talked down to to by a bipartisan foreign elite that seemed to have made a mess of the world. Hillary Clinton, of course, epitomized that elite. This does not mean that Trump's foreign policy ideas were better, just that he did a better job of selling them to the American people. The Democrats may choose to embrace the more progressive isolationism of Bernie Sanders, but if they continue to be the party of internationalism it is absolutely essential that they explain to the American people why that is the best approach. If not, they will continue to be viewed by voters as responsible for every failed intervention and foreign policy crisis around the world.

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Focus on impact of what Trump does, not just his outrageous behavior. Trump is an easy person for educated elites to mock. HIs personal brand, while laughable to many, is broadly viewed as a synonym for luxury, even class, by many of the lower income white voters who supported him in such big numbers. Thus continuing to mock him, his lack of understanding of presidential protocol, vulgar behavior or his unsophisticated use of language may make Democrats feel good about themselves, but will only make his supporters like him more. Democratic criticism of Trump should focus not on what he says, but how his presidency effects people's lives. For example, few voters are going to change their view of Trump based on his position on flag burning, but hammering away at the orthodox trickle down economic views of his insider financial elite cabinet appointments just might, particularly after the GOP congress helps him pass these damaging policies.
Promoting culture is imperative for Arabs given the destruction of, and war on, culture launched by extremist and terrorist groups in the Middle East/North Africa region, said Sultan Al Qassemi.

"Every single member of our community in the Arab world has a responsibility and has the ability today, thanks to mobile phones, to document and save culture in case it disappears," Al Qassemi, founder of the Barjeeel Art Foundation, told me.



Sultan Al Qassemi (Abu-Fadil)

And it's not limited to elites, he insisted.

Al Qassemi was attending Kuwait-based Nuqat's conference boosting innovation, promoting entrepreneurship, uncovering censorship, and serving as a teaching platform.

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This year's three-day conference was entitled "The Seventh Sense: Powering the Creative Economy."

Al Qassemi spoke on the Arab world's rich history in culture, and promoted the notion of cultural diplomacy, but admitted funding in general remained a hindrance to supporting the arts.



Screen shot of Barjeel Foundation home page

He said Kuwait was a frontrunner in establishing art museums.

Al Qassemi, a noted patron of the arts from the United Arab Emirate of Sharjah where he set up his foundation, is a Renaissance man.

He is a columnist and commentator on Arab affairs whose articles have been published in the Guardian, CNN, The Independent, and Foreign Policy, and is a successful businessman to boot

But his passion is to save everything from lullabies to poetry, to music, to paintings and sculptures.

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In his Nuqat presentation, Al Qassemi said challenges facing the creative economy in the Arab Gulf region included copyrights, the artist as master, and the lack of respect for intellectual property rights.

"Challenges facing the registration of intellectual property rights mean waiting at least a year to do so," he noted, pointing to the high cost incurred by a creative person who has to register in each separate country.

Additionally, cyber crime laws are not properly developed to halt intellectual property right theft and there is no Arabic language website to handle the matter.



Al Qassemi on Arab art and culture (Abu-Fadil)

Another major hitch is the burden of social and religious censorship, the closure of exhibitions deemed too provocative in Arab Gulf countries, and petrified educational systems, said the outspoken Al Qassemi.

His foundation's mission is to promote art by artists from the Arab world through local and international exhibitions.

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Al Qassemi, who is also the co-director of the Dubai Global Art Forum that gathers artists, curators, musicians and writers to exchange and debate ideas on chosen themes, recently gave a talk at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt on the political undertones of iconic 20th Century artworks in the Arab world.

The subject: artworks as tools of soft power and propaganda by various Arab governments, including the Baathist regimes of Syria and Iraq, and the pan-Arabist government of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ahram Online reported.

His talk coincided with the Barjeel Foundation's opening of the Hurufiyya: Art and Identity exhibition on letterism.



Screen shot of "Politics in Modern Arab Art" poster

The dynamic Al Qassemi rattled off a list of exhibitions to me that Barjeel was promoting from the end of 2016 through 2017, including the show in Alexandria, Egypt, as well as contemporary and modern art events in Tehran, Amman, Paris and Washington, DC.

I asked if Tehran wasn't a sensitive topic given the tension between certain Arab countries and Iran, and the complicated geopolitics of the region.

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His reply:

"Tehran is, and will remain forever, our neighbor. We here in the Gulf don't have an issue with the Iranian people. We have a huge disagreement with the Iranian government. But it doesn't mean that this should stand in the way of people-to-people, even commercial, exchange."

Cultural exchange and tourism are probably among the most important things that bind people, he said.

"I think this helps to calm the atmosphere, even if governments disagree, so this is something that we have to keep in mind," he explained.

The Nuqat conference was followed by four days of intensive workshops including designing and producing Arabic fonts using the Glyphs app, knowing one's customer to improve one's business, food in motion videography, Sadu-inspired product design from tapestries, boosting one's employability in the creative industry, and creative problem solving skills in leadership.



Tarek Atrissi explains the mechanics of font creation (Abu-Fadil)

Nuqat is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of creativity in the Arab world.

I attended the first two workshops featuring Lebanese graphic design, typography, calligraphy and lettering expert Tarek Atrissi, and, Syrian entrepreneurship, design thinking and business management trainer Yara Al Adib.

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"I'm interested in how typography becomes part of the visual language," Atrissi said, adding that one can create compositions and visuals without resorting to pictures.



Creating Arabic fonts (Abu-Fadil)

Atrissi said the Arab brand was becoming cool again and that common factors in the Arab world were language and change, with the complexity of culture in every aspect of design.

For Yara Al Adib, designers must know their customers to improve their businesses.

Unfortunately, many designers focus more on the creative side of their projects and neglect business requirements that keep them financially viable. Communicating about, and marketing, designers' brands is almost an afterthought.
According to sources close to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, next year will be Egypt's year par excellence. They say Egypt will be the only Arab country that will have strategic quasi-alliances with both Putin's Russia and Trump's America. They say in all confidence that Egypt's economy will recover but also its strategic role, to the point that it will stop needing assistance from wealthy Gulf governments. The sources claim that there is a nationalistic and patriotic surge in Egypt coupled with a wager on a special relationship between Trump and Putin, and the belief that the Egyptian leadership has made good use of strategic alliances with powers led by Russia. Many in Egypt are celebrating Donald Trump's victory as though they were American voters. One of the main reasons is the antipathy towards the Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom they accuse, alongside the outgoing President Barack Obama, of endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood and their rise to power in Cairo and beyond.

However, the supposedly cozy relationship between Trump and Putin, as suggested by Trump's campaign remarks, will have a definitive impact on US policy in the Middle East including in the Gulf, the sources argue. They are convinced the biggest winner will be Egypt and the biggest loser will be the Arab Gulf states, and thus Egypt has decided "nationalist pragmatism" requires it to support Russia's efforts in Syria despite war crimes accusations coming from key European powers. Without equivocation, then, it seems the ruling class in Egypt have washed their hands clean of any moral responsibility vis-a-vis Syrian civilians. The rulers of Egypt seem to have resolved that the fight against Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood is an absolute priority and decided to support the efforts led by Russia, Iran and allied proxy militias fighting to keep Assad in power.

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Turning a blind eye

Likewise, Germany is also turning a blind eye to Russian-Iranian violations in Syria. Berlin sees itself as the nexus of Western-Russian/Iranian relations and because it played a key role in making the nuclear deal with Iran happen, the ruling class and the elite in Germany are keen to protect the deal, and therefore Iran, from accountability for its actions in Syria. Egypt in the Arab region is similar to Germany in Europe, in terms of the default exoneration of Iran's actions in Syria. The difference, however, is that Germany plays a leading role in in influencing US-Russian relations from a strategic standpoint, while Egypt is riding on the coattails of these relations having judged them to be proceeding along a path favorable to Cairo.

This week, an event held by the Korber-Stiftung Institute in Berlin featured a debate on the nuclear deal. The debate asked whether the deal has made the Middle East more or less stable. A pre-debate poll saw 80 percent disagree with its premise, compared to 60 percent following the discussions. The other 40 said the deal emboldened Iran to carry out military interventions in the Arab countries.

Despite hearing evidence of Iran's violations, the number of people agreeing to the premise of the debate question doubled. What matters most in this context is therefore the knee-jerk way in which the nuclear deal has come to be defended, coupled with resistance to scrutinizing Iran's practices in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Such keenness is obvious in discussions with decision makers in Berlin, not just in terms of bilateral relations with Iran but also in terms of what issues will figure in the agenda of prospective talks with the Trump administration.

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Top priority

The top priority in Germany seems to be the Minsk talks with Russia on Ukraine, which German diplomats say they want to keep separate from Syria. Germany does not accept that separating the two issues - something that it will seek to convince Trump of - will have the same effect as the separation of the nuclear deal from regional issues during negotiations with Tehran, which emboldened Iran against Arab countries.

Meanwhile, there is no indication Arab - especially Gulf - governments are thinking about influencing policies being drafted ahead of Trump's inauguration, be they US or European policies. Russia and Iran are both at the heart of these policies and so there is a vital need to think of an Arab approach.

Egypt is no exception. It is taking out bets, not planning. The political class and elite are furious with the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, and seem to be willing to gamble relations with them despite the implications for the Egyptian economy. Egypt believes its interests require strengthening the strategic relationship with Russia, an important ally to Cairo in the fight against the Muslim Brotherhood. For Egypt's rulers, Obama's departure removes one major foe and obstacle. Donald Trump, they believe, will usher in a new strategic US-Egyptian relationship that will upgrade Egypt's role in the regional balance of power, without the need for Gulf governments. This is what a visitor to Cairo senses these days. Yet despite hopes for Egyptian economic and regional recovery, it is difficult to be reassured by Egypt's nationalist wave marred by extreme detachment from the reality of its internal circumstances and regional ambitions.

Egypt's leadership has made clear its support for the regime army in Syria and decided that its interest lies in becoming the fourth pole of the Russia-Iran-regime axis. Egypt may not be the fourth pole in a military sense, but it will definitely be one in the political and strategic senses. This is a major development, especially as Saudi Arabia and the UAE had rushed to give billions to Egypt to shore up its internal stability and Arab weight in the regional balance of power. But now, things could be altogether different.

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The elephant in the room is Donald Trump. Everyone is waiting for the message he will send through his key appointments, led by the state department and the national security advisor posts. Some believe the appointments would determine the trends of Trumps policies. But others believe Trump will personally set the tone for US foreign policy despite being a newcomer.

For its part, Germany is gearing up to influence the Trump administration in a calculated manner, based on policies, relations and strategies. Egypt, however, is betting on changes in the international landscape that it believes would serve its interests, such as the election of Donald Trump and the Russian president's determination to impose his country's role in the Middle East through Syria with Iranian partnership. That will be nothing short of a very Egyptian adventure.
WASHINGTON DC- JUNE 09: President and CEO Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards onstage at the 2016 Planned Parenthood Action Fund Membership Event held during the Planned Parenthood National Convention at Washington Hilton on June 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jennifer Graylock/WireImage)

The Democrats desperately need a new national party leader, technically the chair of the Democratic National Committee. The current national committee, elected at the last Democratic convention based on the relative strengths of the Clinton and Sanders forces, is narrowly divided, and close to deadlock.

Rep Keith Ellison of Minnesota, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, an early favorite after Sanders endorsed him, now appears to be fading. Though Senator Chuck Schumer quickly jumped in and backed Ellison as part of Schumer's repositioning as a progressive, there is pressure on Schumer and other early supporters to back off.

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The biggest problem is that Ellison is a sitting Member of Congress, and national party chair ought to be a full time job. The best recent DNC chair, Howard Dean, who rebuilt a 50-state party in the mid-2000s, wanted the job back, but Sanders vetoed that because he felt Dean had been disrespectful to him. Dean has now dropped out.

Other objections have lately been raised, that Ellison is a Muslim and that he is not friendly to Israel. His religion is the wrong reason to challenge his candidacy, but the latest disclosures of remarks that alienated much of the Jewish community make sink Ellison as a party unifier.

In 2010, it recently emerged, Ellison spoke at a fund-raiser hosted by a past president of the Muslim American society. In the speech, referring to Israel. He declared, "We can't let another country to treat us like we're their ATM." This is not entirely wrong as a description of Israel's view of U.S. aid, but Ellison added:

The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people [Israel]. A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million. Does that make sense? Is that logic? Right? When the Americans who trace their roots back to those 350 million [Muslims] get involved, everything changes.



So while it is appalling to have Ellison's candidacy founder for the sin of criticizing Israel, his language was pretty raw and Ellison is now probably too radioactive to get the job. No other contenders seem to have what it takes.

Here are two outside-the-box ideas for potential people to lead the national Democratic Party. Neither has declared a candidacy. This is just a citizen nomination, from me:



Cecile Richards. The head of national Planned Parenthood, a job she's held for a decade, is far and away one of the best organizers, on the ground and nationally, in the progressive Democratic universe, as well a prodigious fundraiser for progressive causes, a fighter and a genuine hero.

As a young adult, Richards was a labor organizer in the south. She did a brief stint as an aide to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and then headed a broad get-out-the vote coalition in 2004 called America Votes.

Tom Perez. Obama's labor secretary and former assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights, is one of the best we've got. He is also a superb politician, with no immediate plans after January 20.

Perez is great at connecting to the working class -- black, white, Latino. He served as the elected president of the Mongtomery County Council and many of his admirers were disappointed he passed up the chance to run for governor of Maryland.

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Both of these leaders are charismatic, in their 50s, widely admired, and good at details as well as at rousing grass roots enthusiasm. As full time party leaders, either could re-energize a party in an understandable funk. None has Democratic enemies.

Both bridge the Clinton/Obama wing of the party with the now ascendant Warren/Sanders wing. Both are somewhat to the left of the Clintons ideologically, though Hillary was a Richards ally as a stalwart on reproductive rights. And Perez was one of the most progressive of Obama's appointments.

The appointment of either one would sidestep a potentially divisive factional dispute, would look forward rather than backward, and unify the party behind a progressive leader.

As that old typing-drill sentence had it: Now is the time for all good men [and women] to come to the aid of the party. Lord knows, the party needs some fresh leadership.

What say, Cecile and Tom?

--

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and professor at Brandeis University's Heller School. In his spare time, he writes musicals. His latest book is Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility.



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China has a four-tier smog warning system introduced in 2013. The highest red level warning is issued in case heavy smog conditions last for over three days, while orange is issued during three-day pollution spells, Sputnik reported.

"This morning, in portions of southeast Beijing, northern Tianjin, central and southern Hebei, Sichuan Basin, western and southeastern Chongqing, and northeastern Guizhou, heavy fog with local visibility down to less than 200 meters is predicted. Whats more, the visibility in some parts of these areas can even fall to less than 50 meters," the center said in a statement.

The previous orange warning was issued just days ago for December 2-4. PM2.5 pollution, which consists of suspended particles 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, is at 252 micrograms per cubic meter compared to the recommended safe level of below 25 micrograms.

The situation is expected to improve on Monday.
The election of Donald J. Trump as America's 45th president was not only an irredeemable defeat for the political establishment in the U.S. in general, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in particular. It represented a seismic shock for the nation's mainstream news media. Never before had American journalism, in print and on-air, been so invested in confidently, even boastfully, predicting the impossibility of one of the two major contenders for president winning the White House. And never before has the hubris and complacency of the establishment media been do devastatingly shattered.

In the wake of its failure, the humility one would expect from the media has been largely lacking. Instead of a post-mortem introspective on its journalistic failures, much of the media has been looking for scapegoats outside the confines of the Fourth Estate. In addition, some in the conservative faction of mainstream media have blamed the failures in news reporting on Trump's campaign on the old standby slogan; "liberal media bias. "

If "liberal media bias" is responsible for a lousy job by journalists covering the 2016 presidential campaign, then how does one explain the fact that Fox News, a paragon of mainstream conservative journalism, hosted many talking heads who told the American electorate that Donald Trump could not win, even in the early evening of November 8, 2016, when the first election results filtered into the newsrooms? Then there is the example of ultra-liberal, progressive and leftist documentary film maker Michael Moore. Three months before the votes were counted, Moore penned a prescient piece on his website entitled, "5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win (http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/)." The film maker made no bones about his deep contempt for Trump. Yet, when it came to analyzing the dynamics of the 2016 presidential election, Moore had the intellectual integrity to put aside his personal bias, and judge the likely outcome on an objective analysis of facts he knew through deep connection with many of the voting constituencies that would prove pivotal for Trump's electoral triumph. His most emphatic prediction was that Trump would win the rustbelt states of Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, giving him the presidency. And that is exactly what happened. So, ideology would not appear to have been a decisive factor in explaining why the media got the election so wrong.

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These are the three primary reasons I believe explain why America's major news organizations failed to adequately cover the major news story of 2016; Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

1 The traditional separation between news reporting and editorializing broke down. For generations, the power of American journalism has been objectivity, with news coverage being uninfluenced by the editorial posture of a newspaper, radio or television network. This Chinese Wall that underpinned the traditional integrity of news coverage and separated the straight news department from the editorial side of a news organization largely vanished in 2016. Much of what was passed on to the public as straight news coverage of the Trump campaign could have been composed by the editorial department, and had the character of political propaganda, often indistinguishable from the musings of Trump's GOP and Democratic opponents. While it was certainly within the purview of editorial writers to express critical views of Donald Trump, when supposed journalists composed similar views in the guise of news, it short-circuited their ability to understand the revolution in political affairs that was sweeping America in 2016. It is ironic that Donald Trump and Michael Moore understood this dynamic, while the men and women whose profession it is to report and explain such phenomena almost entirely missed it.

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2. Journalists suffered from a failure of imagination. Clearly, America's political establishment - Republican and Democratic - failed to understand the internal forces at work in American society that paved the way for a President Trump. However, too many political journalists relied on sources within this same myopic establishment. This meant that often their perspective was undifferentiated from that of the traditional political establishment in the United States. By being embedded with the political establishment, many journalists assigned to cover the presidential election were constricted in their ability to look beyond conventional norms for conducting a successful presidential campaign. The dismissive tone towards Trump's unconventional and unprecedented presidential campaign reflects this failure of imagination. This resulted in journalistic myopia, manifested in news coverage that grossly underestimated the impact and effectiveness of the Donald J. Trump For President campaign.

3. American news organizations did not comprehend the power of celebrity and social media in shaping the presidential campaign . There was much reporting in the final weeks of the presidential campaign on the superiority of Hillary Clinton's ground game, traditional media advertising and the overall imposing strength of her campaign infrastructure. The word coming out of news organizations in America was not only that the Democratic nominee was ahead in the polls; her powerful ground operation would guarantee a strong voter turnout, while the supposedly all-but-invisible Trump ground effort meant all he could rely on were campaign rallies, which many in the media suggested, based on historical precedent, would almost certainly prove inferior in generating voter turnout. What American journalists did not get was that celebrity branding, just as in the consumer marketplace, has increasingly been the most decisive factor in the nation's political campaigning. Not only did Donald Trump have perhaps the most powerful celebrity brand in America; its fusion with an array of social media platforms enabled the candidate to build an unprecedented level of interconnection with potentially tens of millions of voters, bypassing the need for a conventional campaign infrastructure, traditional advertising and even a reliance on favorable news coverage by the mass media. For the most part, the nation's journalists were largely ignorant of these tectonic shifts occurring within the presidential campaign landscape.

Come January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. Incisive, accurate and thoughtful reporting on the incoming Trump administration will be crucial for the American people. However, such a level of journalistic quality will only occur if the news organizations of America demonstrate humility, recognize the many failures and inadequacies in the manner in which they covered the 2016 presidential election, and earnestly learn and apply the lessons that are so clearly manifested. Failure to do will reduce their role to irrelevancy among a large part of the American people, as the era of Trump is upon us.
The incoming administration of Donald Trump continues to contact a host of world leaders. On December 1, Vice President-elect Mike Pence reached out to Norway, Armenia and Mongolia, among others.

Let's take a look at the readout of his call with Maithripala Sirisena, Sri Lanka's president:

"The President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena thanked Vice President-elect Pence for his commitment to strong relations between the two nations and to government reform. Vice President-elect Pence shared his gratitude for the desire to work together and complimented President Sirisena for the work he has done to heal Sri Lanka and unite the country following civil war."

Sirisena's office has provided a slightly different take on the call and notes that "Vice President-elect Mr. Mike Pence informed President Sirisena that they will work towards arranging a visit by President Sirisena to Washington DC for a meeting with President-elect Mr. Donald Trump."

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Inviting Sirisena to Washington would be both unwarranted and unwise. Frankly, over the past two years, the U.S. has been supportive enough. The incoming administration could easily maintain bilateral ties without being too effusive about it. Besides, a U.S.-Sri Lanka Partnership Dialogue is due to be held next year in Colombo.

The conventional wisdom says that Trump will deprioritize human rights and democracy promotion abroad. If American foreign policy were to move decisively in that direction, then we'd be unlikely to see many constructive efforts from Washington at the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, a multilateral venue which has highlighted Sri Lanka's human rights record and conflict-related matters in recent times.


Mexico often detains Central Americans before they reach the US border, including children, like Kendri Hernandez, 3 (L) and Andri Yovani, 2. Carlos Jasso/Reuters

In describing the complex relationship between the two countries, Jeffrey Davidow, American ambassador to Mexico from 1998 to 2002, spoke of "the bear and the porcupine". The US is an arrogant bear, brawny and insensitive to Mexico's concerns. Mexico is a resentful porcupine, paranoid about American plots to undermine its sovereignty.

Davidow candidly noted that the bear could crush the porcupine, but every time it has tried to, the porcupine's sharp spines have hurt the bear's big paws.

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This analogy remains pertinent. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump strategically chose Mexico and Latin America as his straw men, characterising Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, threatening to build a border wall and capping off his win by confirming plans to deport up to three million undocumented Latino migrants.

In this contemporary parallel of Davidow's comparison, the evil porcupine keeps injuring the trusting and innocent bear. But in truth, for the last few years, the porcupine has been doing the bear a big favour by guarding its expansive lair.

Border patrol goes down Mexico way

All the attention on Mexico's northern border and US immigration policy has overshadowed ongoing violence and deportations related to migrants who have crossed Mexico's southern border with Guatemala and Belize.

These have seen a sharp rise since 2014, when the Mexican government announced the implementation of the Programa Frontera Sur (Southern Border Program). The policy's key declared objectives were to bring order to migration into Mexico's southern region while protecting the human rights of migrants who enter and travel through the country.

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But implementation has gone off course. In 2013, Mexico deported 80,709 immigrants. In 2014, that figure increased 35% to 107, 814.

Mexico decriminalised undocumented entry into its territory in 2008. Yet it has also increased patrols throughout areas where migrants travel and conducted controversial raids, which human rights organisations have described as hunting parties, to detain migrants in remote places.

Enforcement has changed migration routes but hasn't deterred migrants. Instead, the Southern Border Program has dispersed them, making them more vulnerable to extortionists, rapists, and thieves.

Children, sent away by desperate parents trying to get them away from gang violence, are among the most affected groups. In 2014, 18,169 migrant children were deported from Mexico. This represents a 117% increase from the 8,350 returned to Central America in 2013.

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Children not immediately deported are locked up in detention centres. From January 2015 to July 2016, 39,751 unaccompanied minors were "secured" by Mexican authorities.

The US has enthusiastically greeted Mexico's new immigration policies. In January 2015, US President Barack Obama celebrated "strong efforts by Mexico, including at its southern border" that had helped reduce Central American migration into the US "to much more manageable levels".

From an instrumental standpoint, Obama's praise makes sense. In 2014, some 69,000 unaccompanied children were stopped at the US border. The resulting humanitarian crisis was an embarrassing public relations mess.

Thus, Mexico's detention and expulsion of immigrants who travel through it en route to the US is beneficial. Once immigrants cross the US border, it's American money and effort that's spent on returning them.

The shifting border

In short, the US has outsourced border control. Trump's rants against sending American jobs to Mexico aside, the president-elect may be pleasantly surprised to learn that Obama persuaded Mexico to take over the task of stopping migrants.

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In practice, this means that the Mexican-American border has shifted 3,000 kilometres south. It now passes through the southern states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, where Mexico is narrowest and the traffic of immigrants is easier to control (here's an interactive map).

According to the American Border Patrol, between October 2014 and February 2015, apprehensions of unaccompanied migrant children decreased 42% over the previous year. On the flip side, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission reported a substantive increase in migrant complaints against the authorities in the year after the Southern Border Program was implemented.

Today, most of Mexico has become an extension of the US border region. As intellectual Sergio Aguayo has argued, on immigration matters, Mexico is "a servant of the US".

Or in Davidow's framing, the porcupine deploys its spines to protect the bear.

The Porcupine Tamed

This is the paradoxical reality behind Trump's hyperbolic vision of America's border area.

A week after the American election, the Mexican government announced an 11-point plan to assist Mexicans in the US, who migrated both legally and illegally, with accurate information on possible changes to immigration policy.

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"These are uncertain times," said Secretary of Foreign Relations Claudia Ruiz Massieu in a Twitter video, speaking directly to immigrants. "The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto and all Mexicans are with you. We are going to be closer than ever".

Mexico's measures include a 24-hour hotline that will allow people to report harassment and immigration raids, and the expansion of deportation-defense work at the Mexican Embassy and 50 consulates.

The mildness of these measures starkly contrasts with the brutality of Trump's projected policies. As Univision reporter Jorge Ramos has pointed out, the government of Enrique Pena Nieto, paralysed by fear, has seemingly decided to kneel before Trump.

The financial, diplomatic and commercial consequences of the coming era cannot be addressed through tweets or hotlines.

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An ethical revolution

For 20 years, a group of women from La Patrona, Veracruz, has been feeding thousands of Central American migrants. Each day, "Las Patronas", the (lady) Bosses, stand a few metres away from the train - known as "La Bestia" (The Beast) - that transports Central American immigrants through Mexican territory. When they hear the train's whistle, they toss drinks, tortillas and beans to the hungry migrants.

These women offer a powerful human rebuke to Mexico's policies toward vulnerable travellers, who, after all, have grown up and lived in the same rough and violent conditions that compel Mexicans to journey northward. Their basic act of decency is an ethical revolution; people do not surrender as easily as governments do.

With El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala structuring a common strategy to face the challenges of a Trump presidency, Mexico has the opportunity to ally with its neighbours and render Trump's wall useless by improving quality of life in the region.

The first step is to acknowledge the importance of social and economic rights, such as education or health services, in deepening democracy and fighting inequality. Other provisions in the Central American strategy include improving security while respecting human rights and strengthening Mexico's relations with Latin American countries.

If Mexico's government is not up to the challenge, (as its harshness with migrants and mildness toward Trump suggest), then Mexican citizens can nonetheless follow las Patronas' example. Many Mexican academic institutions, including the Colegio de la Frontera Norte and civil society groups, such as the Tabasco-based migrant refuge "La 72", are responding to the Central America border crisis with calls for rights-based immigration policies. Together, Mexicans can exercise the dignity of saying "no" - both to Trump, the bully to the north, and to Pena Nieto, their very own American pawn.

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Such efforts support George Orwell's assertion that "if men would behave decently the world would be decent". Las Patronas tell a tale more radical than that of the porcupine and the bear, which is that even when governments are indecent, nobody can prevent the people from embracing decency.

Luis Gomez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong
Laura Kelly, Derek Schmidt locked in close governor's race, poll shows

New polling released Wednesday shows races for Kansas governor and attorney general remain toss-ups, as the Nov. 8 election nears.
A gunman opened fire in Los Angeles County, California, injuring 6 people, local media reported.

The incident took place on Saturday near the intersection of West 91st Street and Western Avenue in South Los Angeles after the fight inside a storefront spilled out into the street, the CBS broadcaster reported.

All those injured sustained non-life threatening injuries and were transported to a local hospital, according to the television network.

The investigation into the shooting has been launched.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Sunday that Turkey has taken steps to do its foreign trade in its national currency, Anadolu reported.

Speaking at an inauguration ceremony in central province of Kayseri, Erdogan said: "We have taken steps also to do trade with Russia, China and Iran in our local currency."

The president also reminded that Prime Minister Binali Yildirim will pay an official visit to Russia on Monday. "We will also take steps to do our trade in that region in the local currency.

"If we buy something from them [foreign countries], we will do that in their currency; if they buy something from us, they will do it in our currency."

Erdogan noted that Turkey will "play its own game" in the economic arena against "all games" played against it.

The president reiterated his Friday call on Turkish citizens to convert their foreign exchange savings into Turkish lira and gold to help boost the value of the local currency.

Following Erdogan's call to support the declining Turkish currency against the US dollar, Turkey's stock exchange also decided the same day to convert all of its cash assets into Turkish lira.

All of the cash assets will be kept in lira accounts, Borsa Istanbul said in a statement.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate went up to stand at 3.5430 at 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Friday, compared to 3.4860 at Thursday's close.

Also making remarks at the ceremony in Kayseri, PM Yildirim said Turkey continues its economic growth despite all recent developments in the world. "It is for sure that Turkish economy remains strong against all attacks and ruses."
President-elect Donald Trump pointing-at as seen with daughter Ivanka Trump (Photo : Getty images/Jeff J Mitchell)

President-elect Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka, as reported, hopes to contribute for climate change as central piece of work as father is in office - although the issue stated as a set up secured by the Chinese.



As reported by Politico, Ivanka Trump is exploring different ways to use the spotlight as the first daughter to positively signify climate change.



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"The issues she's talking about are ones she's always talked about. "These are totally consistent with what she's developed with her brand. She is playing a critical role in being able to have issues that moderate and liberal women care about - and creating a bridge to the other side," a close source to Ivanka told Politico.



Making an endeavor to bring down the skepticism about Trump, bridge among liberals and moderates is a unique role the businesswoman has taken up and also stated as among most trusted Trump's advisers while apparently played throughout the campaign.



U.S. news reported that Ivanka was the campaign's primary spokeswoman on issues aimed exclusively at women, promoting plans for childcare and paid leave. Once Trump moves into the White House, it is also expected that Ivanka will take more prominent role than her stepmother, Melania, who plans to reside in New York with son, Barron, until the end of the school year.



Few liberals have pleaded Ivanka after the election by sending letters and protesting outside New York's Puck Building which is owned by husband, Jared Kushner, with a hope that Ivana will lean on his father to relinquish plans and undo some of the Obama administration's efforts to combat climate change.



In December last year, the COP21 conference, 195 nations saw in a legally binding agreement pledging to keep global warming well below a 2C increase.



The Independent reported that the lead scientist of global warming report stated that Trump's stance on climate change is "catastrophic for humanity"



"We're not a competitive nation with other nations anymore. We have to make ourselves competitive. We're not competitive for a lot of reasons. That's becoming more and more of the reason," Trump told The New York Times when asked about ending the Paris agreement.



President Obama pledged to slash U.S greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025 as part of the Paris deal. China made no pledge to cut emissions, instead promising to "peak" emissions by 2030.






Imperial Valley News Center

President Obama on the Report of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity

Washington, DC - President Barack Obama: "In February of this year, I directed the creation of a nonpartisan Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, charging it with assessing the current state of cybersecurity in our country and recommending bold, actionable steps that the government, private sector, and the nation as a whole can take to bolster cybersecurity in todays digital world.

"Yesterday, the members of the Commission  leaders from industry and academia, many with experience in government  provided their findings and recommendations to me. And earlier today I met with the Commissions Chair, Tom Donilon, to discuss how we as a country can build on the Commissions work and enhance our cybersecurity over the coming years. I want to thank the Commission members for their hard work and for their thoughtful and detailed recommendations. I am confident that if we implement the Commissions recommendations, our economy, critical infrastructure, and national security will be better equipped to thrive in the coming years.

"The Commissions report makes clear that cybersecurity is one of the greatest challenges we face as a nation. That is why I have consistently made cybersecurity a top national security and economic security priority, reflected most recently by the Cybersecurity National Action Plan I announced in February and my 2017 Budget, which called for a more than 35 percent increase in Federal cybersecurity resources.

"During my Administration, we have executed a consistent strategy focused on three priorities:

Raising the level of cybersecurity defenses in the public and private sectors; Deterring and disrupting malicious cyber activity aimed at the United States or its allies; and Effectively responding to and recovering from cybersecurity incidents when they occur.

"To strengthen our cybersecurity defenses across the country, in 2013 we convened experts from industry, academia and civil society to create the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. As the Commission notes, the Framework has become the gold standard for cybersecurity risk management, and I wholeheartedly support the Commissions recommendations to expand its usage in the Federal government, the private sector, and abroad. We encouraged the formation of information sharing and analysis organizations, worked with Congress to enact tailored liability protections for private sector entities that share threat information with the government, and took steps to automate information sharing. As the Commission calls for, we launched public campaigns to promote cybersecurity awareness among consumers, including the Lock Down Your Login campaign encouraging consumers to better secure their identities online. We have given consumers more tools to secure their financial future by assisting victims of identity theft, improved the governments payment security, and accelerated the transition to next-generation payment security. We have invested in cybersecurity research and development to lay the groundwork for stronger cyber defenses in the future. And I have clarified the roles and responsibilities of Federal agencies in responding to significant cyber incidents by issuing a new directive codifying eight years of lessons learned from incident response.

"To strengthen government cybersecurity, we created the first-ever federal Chief Information Security Officer and drove dramatic improvements in Federal agencies use of strong authentication and in critical vulnerability patching. We have pushed to reduce the Federal governments reliance on legacy technologies, proposing an innovative $3.1 billion fund to modernize costly and vulnerable information technology (IT) systems  a fund that the Commission proposes to expand. We updated the guidance for Federal agency IT management, cybersecurity, and privacy, introducing the kind of coordination that the Commission calls for. Agencies are increasingly centralizing their cybersecurity efforts and relying on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for shared services like vulnerability detection, network discovery and monitoring, intrusion detection and prevention, and cybersecurity assessments of high priority IT systems. Consolidating DHS cybersecurity and infrastructure protection missions within a single DHS line agency  as my Administration has proposed, and as the Commission recommends  would further strengthen DHS ability to support Federal and critical infrastructure cybersecurity. Finally, consistent with the Commissions emphasis on improving the Nations cybersecurity workforce, my Administration has issued a comprehensive workforce strategy and has hired more than 6,000 new cybersecurity professionals in the Federal government in 2016 alone.

"As the Commission recognizes, we have championed the application of international law to cyberspace; promoted voluntary international norms of state behavior during peacetime, securing over 30 countries commitment to these norms in the G20 and other international fora; and committed to confidence building measures to reduce escalation risk. We have secured commitments from China and other nations to oppose cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property and business secrets for commercial gain, sought to modernize the Mutual Legal Assistance process, and submitted legislation to enable greater cross-border data sharing between law enforcement agencies  another effort the Commission strongly supports. We have developed additional tools and cyber capabilities to deter and disrupt malicious cyber activity aimed at the United States. Finally, we created the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center to ensure that there is a single government-wide source for integrated intelligence assessments on cyber threats

"In total, the Commissions recommendations affirm the course that this Administration has laid out, but make clear that there is much more to do and the next Administration, Congress, the private sector, and the general public need to build on this progress. Deepening public-private cooperation will help us better protect critical infrastructure and respond to cyber incidents when they occur. Expanding the use of strong authentication to improve identity management will make all of us more secure online. Increasing investments in research and development will improve the security of products and technologies. Investing in human capital, education, and the productivity of the cybersecurity workforce will ensure that this countrys best and brightest are helping us stay ahead of the cybersecurity curve. Continuing to prioritize and coordinate cybersecurity efforts across the Federal government will ensure that this critical challenge remains a top national security priority. And furthering the promotion of international norms of responsible state behavior will ensure that the global community is able to confront the ever-evolving threats we face.

"The Commissions recommendations are thoughtful and pragmatic. Accordingly, my Administration strongly supports the Commissions work, and we will take additional action wherever possible to build on the work my Administration has already undertaken and to make progress on its new recommendations before the end of my term. Importantly though, I believe that the next Administration and the next Congress can benefit from the Commissions insights and should use the Commissions recommendations as a guide. I have asked the Commission to brief the President-Elects Transition Team at their earliest opportunity. Further, we must provide sufficient resources to meet the critical cybersecurity challenges called out in the Commissions report. Before Congress adjourns for the year, it must act to fully fund the urgent cybersecurity needs that my Administration has identified in my 2017 Budget and elsewhere, investing in areas such as securing Federal information technology systems, protecting critical infrastructure, and investing in our cybersecurity workforce.

"As the Commissions report counsels, we have the opportunity to change the balance further in our favor in cyberspace  but only if we take additional bold action to do so. My Administration has made considerable progress in this regard over the last eight years. Now it is time for the next Administration to take up this charge and ensure that cyberspace can continue to be the driver for prosperity, innovation, and change  both in the United States and around the world."
Imperial Valley News Center

Anniversary of the San Bernardino Attack

Washington, DC - One year ago Friday, the people of San Bernardino endured the horror of a terrorist attack whose reverberations touched all of America. The 14 innocent men and women who were taken from us that day had come together to celebrate the holidays and represented the best of our country. Their paths to the Inland Regional Centerwhose mission is to serve fellow members of the communityvaried. Some of the victims were just beginning careers of service, while others had devoted decades to those around them. The brutality of the attacks perpetrators could not have been in starker contrast to the selflessness and generosity that characterized those taken from us.

In the year since this tragedy, we have mourned those we lost, just as we have continued to confront the violent ideology behind this attack as well as the terrorist groups, including ISIL, that propagate it. As the President told the nation shortly after the attack, we will succeed in this mission because we are on the right side of history. Today, as we remember the horror of last December 2, we also recognize our progress in that campaign and the enduring truth of the Presidents words.
California Air Resources Board draft plan to achieve 2030 climate goals

Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued the following statement on the California Air Resources Boards initial draft plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030  the most ambitious target in North America. The initial draft plan, released today, builds on the states successful efforts to reach its more immediate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and outlines the most effective ways to reach the new 2030 goal, including continuing Californias Cap-and-Trade program.

This plan lays out a road map for California  and the rest of the world  to achieve climate goals that were inconceivable only a decade ago, said Governor Brown, who established this 2030 target by Executive Order in April 2015 and signed SB 32 in September to codify it. There are steep hills ahead, but well scale them by continuing to take a series of bold actions, including extending Californias Cap-and-Trade Program.

Californias Leadership on Climate Change

California is playing a world-leading role in setting aggressive climate goals, broadening collaboration among subnational leaders and taking action to reduce climate pollutants.

In recent weeks, Governor Brown issued a joint release with the governors of Oregon and Washington and the premier of British Columbia reaffirming their commitment to climate action at the close of COP22. The Governor also announced 29 new members to the Under2 Coalition, an international climate pact formed by California and Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany among cities, states and countries to limit the increase in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius, the level of potentially catastrophic consequences. A total of 165 jurisdictions have now joined the coalition representing more than a billion people and $25.7 trillion in combined GDP  more than one-third of the global economy.

In September, California took bold action to advance its climate goals, establishing the most ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in North America and the nations toughest restrictions on destructive super pollutants. The Governor also signed legislation that directs cap-and-trade funds to greenhouse gas reducing programs which benefit disadvantaged communities, support clean transportation and protect natural ecosystems.

This action builds on landmark legislation the Governor signed in October 2015 to generate half of the states electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and double the rate of energy efficiency savings in California buildings. Governor Brown has also committed to reducing todays petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50 percent within the next 15 years; make heating fuels cleaner; and manage farm and rangelands, forests and wetlands so they can store carbon.

Over the past year and a half, the Governor has traveled to the United Nations headquarters in New York, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, France, the Vatican in Italy and the Climate Summit of the Americas in Toronto, Canada to call on other leaders to join California in the fight against climate change. Governor Brown also joined an unprecedented alliance of heads of state, city and state leaders  convened by the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund  to urge countries and companies around the globe to put a price on carbon.

These efforts to broaden collaboration among subnational leaders build on a number of other international climate change agreements with leaders from the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Mexico, China, North America, Japan, Israel, Peru and Chile and Governor Browns efforts to gather hundreds of world-renowned researchers and scientists around a groundbreaking call to action  called the consensus statement  which translates key scientific climate findings from disparate fields into one unified document.

The impacts of climate change are already being felt in California and will disproportionately impact the states most vulnerable populations.
NSC Spokesperson Ned Price on Elections in The Gambia

Washington, DC - The United States congratulates the people of The Gambia on a peaceful and democratic presidential election that has the potential to mark a new beginning for all Gambians. We congratulate President-elect Adama Barrow on his victory, and we commend The Gambias Independent Electoral Commission for administering a credible election. We welcome President Yahya Jammehs concession to President-elect Barrow and welcome President Jammehs respect for the will of the Gambian people.

The Gambias first democratic transfer of power is a moment of great opportunity, and the United States looks forward to being a strong partner in efforts to unify the country, promote inclusive economic development, and advance the vital work of strengthening democratic institutions so that the Gambian people can enjoy the bright, peaceful, and prosperous future they deserve.
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The suicide of chef Benoit Violier, however tragic, had an unexpected effect on the fortunes of French restaurant guide La Liste, whose second edition launches next week. A beneficial effect. This time last year a beaming Violier was posing for photos with fellow restaurateurs and media in the gilded ballroom of 37 Quai DOrsay, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Flushed with bonhomie and vintage Moet & Chandon, I joined the queue for a quick congratulation, which Violier accepted graciously without the faintest idea who I was.

Violier, chef and proprietor of the Hotel de Ville in Crissier, Switzerland, had just received the award for the worlds best restaurant in the brand new listing. A month later, the 44-year-old chef and keen hunter was found dead, his rifle beside him. Suicide was the verdict, and remains so, though speculation continues to bubble privately: losses in a wine scam, an allegation denied by his wife and entourage and never substantiated; the pressure of staying at the top.

Comparisons are made with another top chef, Bernard Loiseau, who took his life in similar way 13 years earlier, after reports suggested he may lose his third Michelin star. Whatever, global press coverage of Violiers death, suddenly describing him as the worlds top chef rather than simply a top chef, began to talk about La Liste.

As Philippe Faure, the founder of the guide, remarked, suddenly everyone was talking about his brainchild. Faure is President of Atout France, the state tourism entity, an ex-diplomat and businessman, whose CV includes both ownership of the Gault & Millau guide and tenure of the French embassies in Mexico City and Tokyo, where he once served couscous to an audience of curious Japanese guests. But La Liste is described erroneously as a French government initiative  its entirely financed by corporate sponsors such as San Pellegrino and Moet Hennessy. It does, however, spring from a French feeling that the national cuisine has been sidelined by superior, state-supported PR skill on the part of the Spanish, Scandinavians and Peruvians.

Next week, La Liste number two is launched with another glittering bash at the Quai DOrsay. It remains to be seen whether its influence has grown or receded. This year the worlds top chef will be Guy Savoy, whose move to La Monnaie, the old Paris Mint overlooking the Seine, was one of the restaurant events of 2015. Savoy, on the phone from his kitchen on Thursday, was sanguine about the pressures of awards. Theyre important. My third Michelin star increased my turnover by 12 per cent straight away. But everybody reacts to pressure differently. Ive learnt to live with it after 40 years. Savoy is a jovial rugby fan, known for his personal enjoyment of good food, the antithesis of tortured kitchen intellectual or driven businessman.

French chef Guy Savoy (Getty)

If guide ranking is a pressure on ambitious chefs, La Liste in theory applies it only indirectly. The unique selling point of La Liste is that it surveys and aggregates other opinions rather than expressing its own. It works by surveying hundreds of book and online guides, press reviews, public evaluators of the TripAdvisor type, and much more, then converting their verdicts via an algorithm that applies numerous weightings, for reliability of source for example, to arrive at a figure. This year La Liste doesnt rank the top 1,000 in order, but according to percentage marks, while a new feature comprises a further 9,000 restaurants, of more modest price, simply listed, with a new application that enables the user flying from, say, Turkey to Uzbekistan via Iran to look up and book restaurants in all three places between two tweets and a text.

La Liste does have an additional function, as snapshot of the changing world of catering. Though you need a bit of explanation from the creators to understand the nuances. The 2017 Liste contains considerably more establishments in China, for example. Why? Because, explains Jorg Zipprick, the food journalist and brains behind how the listings are constructed, there are a number of new Chinese restaurant guides to feed into the calculation. La Liste has no option but to reflect notable demotions and critiques. Last years number two, the American restaurant Per Se, is down due to an unusually severe review in the New York Times, while the rating of top Parisian chef Yannick Alleno has suffered in some degree due to online reaction to accusations of his kitchen bullying.

In one other respect La Liste stands out. It gives a good party, a touch staid perhaps by comparison with younger operations such as Le Fooding, less bling than the Worlds 50 Best, but outclassing both in establishment grandeur. On Monday evening a couple of hundred guests will sit down to six courses, including Guy Savoys trademark soupe dartichaut a la truffe, brioche feuilletee et beurre de truffe [truffled artichoke soup, flaky brioche and truffle butter]. Finished by Savoy himself in the Quai DOrsays kitchens, which he says are as state of the art as any in Paris, and a lot busier.

Former foreign minister Laurent Fabius made these state premises available, as part of an initiative to boost gastro diplomacy. So what will become of the gastronomic offensive in April or May, if, as seems inevitable, the current French government disappears into history in the wake of President Francois Hollande. Unlikely to be any change, says Faure. Food policy is not high on anybodys political agenda right now. For what its worth, the new presidential front runner Francois Fillon is supposed to be something of a gourmand anyway, with a weakness for the rillettes of his native Sarthe, considerable skills in boeuf bourguignon, and a Welsh wife whose cooking he jokingly disparages. If Fillon gets in, the kitchens of the Elysee and the Quai DOrsay are probably safe. As for the other contender, Marine Le Pen, no one dares speculate, but there probably wouldnt be a lot of room for Faure to serve couscous.
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Boris Johnson might be the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs but he appears to lack basic pub trivia about world leaders.

The Conservative politician was left momentarily lost for words when asked to name the South Korean President and stumbled for a drawn-out moment when probed about who the French Foreign Minister was.

Appearing on Sky News Murnaghan program, the presenter Dermot Murnaghan questioned the former Mayor of London in the same way that he interviewed Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, in September.

At the time, the Labour politician accused the presenter of sexism after she failed to name the French Foreign Minister on live television. Dont start pub-quizzing me, Dermot, Ms Thornberry initially snapped back.

Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Show all 7 1 /7 Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson plays rugby with Japanese elementary school children in Tokyo Getty Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson bumps into a schoolchild during a Street Rugby event at Tokyo Square Gardens building EPA Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson collides with 10-year-old Toki Sekiguchi during a game of Street Rugby with a group of Tokyo children Reuters Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson falls down after colliding with 10-year-old Toki Sekiguchi during a game of Street Rugby with a group of Tokyo children Reuters Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson falls down after colliding with 10-year-old Toki Sekiguchi during a game of Street Rugby with a group of Tokyo children Reuters Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match

Mr Johnson has now fallen into the same trap on air. After Murnaghan asked him to take a stab at one of the questions Ms Thornberry failed to answer, he appeared to become rather tongue-tied and outrightly refused to take part in the interview.

We are not getting into a pub quiz about leaders around the world, Mr Johnson chipped in. I am going to, with great respect invite you out the pub Dermot so that we can take these conversations further. I have a terrible feeling if I keep answering you, you will keep coming back with more.

Earlier in the interview, Mr Johnson also stopped for rather too long after being asked who the French foreign minister was. Ruffling his hair and stammering for a moment, he said: If you want to have a pub quiz Dermot Ill be very happy to meet you in the pub but the French foreign minister is mon amie Jean-Marc Ayrault, I know him very well.

His question prompted a fiery debate between the politician and the presenter which ended with her saying she wanted to take the dicussion "off air".
RAF Eurofighter Typhoons. (Photo : RAF)

The United Kingdom has announced it will regularly patrol the disputed South China Sea, first with jet fighters from the Royal Air Force and later with jets from aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy.



The patrols, which will infuriate China, are meant to reinforce the right of nations to freedom of navigation in this disputed maritime area.



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The Royal Navy patrols will begin by 2020 when the Royal Navy's newest aircraft carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, becomes fully operational. The Royal Navy said jet fighters from the Queen Elizabeth will fly over the South China Sea.



It also expressed concerns about restrictions to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea as a result of China's string of man-made islands, some of which have become military bases with facilities for jet fighters, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, radar installations and warships.



The first Royal Air Force patrols over the South China Sea might take place as early as this year, however.



United Kingdom Ambassador to the United States Sir Nigel Kim Darroch said British Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighters currently deployed on a visit to Japan will fly across disputed parts of the South China Sea to assert international overflight rights.



Darroch, however, gave no time frame for this patrol but four Typhoons landed in Japan in late October to take part in its first aerial exercise with fighters of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF).



The Typhoons are still at the Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture in Japan while the exercise dubbed "Exercise Guardian North 16" ended Nov. 6. The exercise involved air defense, dogfighting and ground-attack training.



"Certainly, as we bring our two new aircraft carriers onstream in 2020, and as we renew and update our defense forces, they will be seen in the Pacific," said Darroch.



"And we absolutely share the objective of this U.S. administration, and the next one, to protect freedom of navigation and to keep sea routes and air routes open."



Darroch said the United Kingdom "we will try to play our part" in the Pacific.



The HMS Queen Elizabeth is a few months from sea trials and is expected to be fully operational by 2020. Her sister ship -- the HMS Prince of Wales -- is scheduled to be launched around 2017. She will be commissioned in 2020 and enter service thereafter.


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Bar the colour of his Make America Great Again hat, which tends to come in the rather limited colours of red, white and camouflage, Donald Trump tends to dress pretty similarly. His hair rarely changes and his suit remains suitably oversized.

In keeping with tradition, the President-elect decided not to dress up for the Villains and Heroes fancy dress party he attended at a major donors stately home in Long Island on Saturday night. Instead, the billionaire simply went as himself.

When probed about what get-up he had opted for, Mr Trump, who was in his usual suit, merely mouthed me and gestured at himself. While it is not clear what suit Mr Trump was wearing, a little ironically Mr Trump has previously said his all-time favourite suit is made by Italian-made French-owned company Brioni.

The annual Christmas party was at the Mercers family estate. Rebekah Mercer is the daughter of hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and is one of his biggest donors. According to a member of his press team, Mr Trump, who is still in the process of pondering important Cabinet positions, did a brief speech at the party, thanking the Mercer family.

President Donald Trump life in pictures Show all 16 1 /16 President Donald Trump life in pictures President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump poses in a rocking chair once used by President John F. Kennedy at his New York City residence Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump with his new bride Marla Maples after their wedding at the Plaza hotel in New York Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Celina Midelfart watch the match between Conchita Martinez and Amanda Coetzer during U.S. Open. She was the date whom Donald Trump was with when he met his current wife Melania at a party in 1996 Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas serving as the grand marshal for the Daytona 500, speaks to Donald Trump and Melania Knauss on the starting grid at the Daytona International Speedwa Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump talks with his former wife Ivana Trump during the men's final at the U.S. Open Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and his friend Melania Knauss pose for photographers as they arrive at the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode : 'The Phantom Menace,' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump talks with host Larry King. Trump told King that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump answers questions as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura looks on in Brooklyn Park. Trump said on Friday he 'very well might' make a run for president under the Reform Party banner but had not made a final decision Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump makes a face at a friend as he sits next to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before the start of the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama City Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Entrepreneur Donald Trump is greeted by a Marilyn Monroe character look-a-alike, as he arrives at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend the an open casting call for his NBC television network reality series 'The Apprentice.' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Simon Cowell present an Emmy during the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Megan Mullally perform at the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump, poses with his children, son Donald Trump, Jr., and daughters Tiffany and Ivanka Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump told Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner on Tuesday she would be given a second chance after reported misbehavior Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. property mogul Donald Trump stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland Reuters

A number of strategists who helped steer Mr Trump into the White House were at the party - such as soon-to-be chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon and senior aide Kellyanne Conway. While Ms Conway went as Superwoman, Mr Bannon did not feel the need to wear a costume.

Recommended Donald Trump responds to SNL mocking his Twitter habit by tweeting

Mr Bannon was formerly the executive chairman of Breitbart News and declared the pro-Trump site the platform for the alt-right. The alt-right political movement has been accused of racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny and of sharing an ideology with far-right parties such as the French National Front.

While Mr Bannon and Mr Trump might have decided to simply go as themselves, security guards at the event were dressed as Hell's Angels.

Despite attending the party, Mr Trump managed to find time in his no doubt busy schedule to tune into Saturday Night Live. Ironically, Mr Trump responded to SNLs sketch about his tweeting habit by tweeting. Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad, he wrote.
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Members of the Ku Klux Klan gave Nazi salutes and shouted white power slogans as they held a Donald Trump victory parade in a North Carolina town.

After Mr Trumps victory, a win that was celebrated by many white supremacist groups, one of the many organisations that use the KKK name said the would hold a rally on Saturday, December 3. The Loyal White Knights had initially said the event would be held in Pelham, located 60 miles north east of Winston-Salem.

Yet reports said that in an apparent attempt to throw off demonstrators opposed to the rally, who had been holding their own events across the state, the parade was eventually held in Roxboro, about 40 miles away.

Amanda Barker, who is identified on the KKKs website as an imperial kommander, told the Times-News newspaper that the parade involving around 30 vehicles was a celebration of Mr Trumps victory.

We actually kind of have the same views, she said. Actually a lot of white Americans actually felt the same way, especially about the wall, immigration and the terrorism coming here. I think Donald Trump is going to do some really good things and turn this country around.

The newspaper said that vehicles carried KKK banners, Confederate battle flags and Donald Trump posters. The Daily Telegraph said some of those taking part gave Nazi salutes and shouted white power. They vehicles did not stop in the town.

Mr Trumps victory has been widely celebrated by white supremacist organisations and groups, some of which have sought to rebrand themselves as the alt-right.

 Donald Trump's controversial cabinet

During the primary campaign, Mr Trump was criticised for failing to distance himself from figures such as former KKK leader David Duke, who had endorsed his candidacy.

Since becoming President-elect, he has made greater efforts to denounce racist violence and extremist views, though not with sufficient vigour for many observers.

At a rally last Thursday in Cincinnati to celebrate his win, Mr Trump said: We condemn bigotry and prejudice in all of its forms. We denounce all of the hatred and we forcefully reject the language of exclusion and separation.

Earlier this year, members of various KKK groups said they were hoping to reinvigorate the movement after decades of decline. Among events they have organised was a cross and swastika burning ceremony in Paulding County, Georgia, pictured above.
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Scotland Yard has reportedly been given more money to investigate an "important" new lead into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Metropolitan Police detectives are said to be looking into a tip that a gang of European traffickers snatched the three-year-old from her family's Portuguese holiday apartment in 2007.

Senior Whitehall officials have been briefed by the Met on its progress, The Sun on Sunday reports.

Recommended Police end forensic inquiry into Madeleine McCann disappearance

The lead is said to be the "last throw of the dice" in the investigation.

A source told the newspaper: This is an important new line of inquiry which could provide an explanation on whether Madeleine was abducted and transported away.

It raises hope that she could still be alive.

Current funding for the investigation is understood to allow it to run until April, when it is due for review again.

Kate and Gerry McCann display a poster of their missing daughter Madeleine McCann during a press conference on 6 June, 2007 in Berlin, Germany (Miguel Villagran/Getty Images)

Operation Grange was launched five years ago after Madeleine vanished at the age of three, while on holiday with her parents and despite a high-profile hunt, no trace has ever been found.

In April, the head of the Metropolitan Police Sir bernard Hogan-Howe said the probe was expected to end within months.

The Home Office granted a further 95,000 in funding to keep the investigation going for another six months.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police told The Independent: "The Operation Grange team are not prepared to discuss any lines of inquiry whilst the investigation is ongoing."
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A man has been arrested following an investigation into an allegedly threatening Twitter post that called for people to "Jo Cox" an MP.

Police launched a probe into messages sent to Anna Soubry, MP for Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, who has been an outspoken defender of Britains membership of the European Union.

Ms Soubry revealed a Twitter post calling for her to be Jo Coxed  a reference to the Remain-supporting MP murdered by a right-wing extremist in the run-up to the EU referendum.

She also said her constituency office had received a call threatening to harm her in the same way as the murdered Labour MP.

Someone jo cox Anna sourby [sic] please, the tweet read.

The message was posted by a social media user identifying as Mike. His account has been removed from the website.

The politician responded to the message on social media, calling the Twitter user a "sad cowardly troll" and noting the differently spelled surname.

Nottinghamshire Police later confirmed they were investigating the incident.

Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes and candles are placed by a picture of slain Labour MP Jo Cox at a vigil in Parliament square in London AFP Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Tributes to Labour Party MP Jo Cox are placed on her houseboat in Wapping in London REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures The Union flag at half-mast on top of Portcullis House in London after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (2R) and deputy leader Tom Watson (L) light candles as they attend a vigil to slain Labour MP Jo Cox in Parliament square in London AFP/Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and deputy leader Tom Watson (rear) arrive to leave tributes at Parliament Square PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People leave St Peter's Church after a vigil in memory of Jo Cox REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Flowers left at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminste, following the death of Labour MP Jo Cox PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People react as they look at tributes left for Labour Member of Parliament Jo Cox in Parliament Square, London REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A man writes a message at Parliament Square PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People stop to look at tributes left at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminster PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A woman arrives to lay flowers at a statue to Joseph Priestly in Birstall near to the scene where Labour MP Jo Cox was shot AFP/Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Tributes at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminster PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A woman places candles in tribute to Labour Party MP Jo Cox REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A member of the public signs a memorial for British MP Jo Cox in Parliament Square, London EPA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People sign messages of condolence for MP Jo Cox during a vigil in Parliament Square in London Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Flags at half mast outside Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death in the street outside her constituency advice surgery in Birstall PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People arrive in Market Square with floral tributes after the death of Jo Co Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes are placed in Market Square next to the statue of Joseph Priestley following the death of Jo Cox Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes are brought to the scene after the death of Jo Cox Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A police officer carries bunches of flowers at the scene of the shooting of Labour MP Jo Cox in Birstall REUTERS

Afterwards Ms Soubry tweeted: "Thank u everyone for much appreciated support. Voices of hope & tolerance will not be bullied off [Twitter] or anywhere else."

On Saturday the Metropolitan Police said a 25-year-old man was arrested at his home in Bethnal Green on "suspicion of sending malicious communications".

A spokesman said the man was in custody in an east London police station. He has not been charged.

It comes after Jo Cox's murderer, 43-year-old Thomas Mair, was jailed for life for shooting and stabbing the Labour MP for Batley and Spen outside her constituency office in Birstall, West Yorkshire, in June.

Conservative MP Ms Soubry was a Remain supporter in the EU referendum, as was Mrs Cox.

Press Association
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Hindu temples have banned the new five pound note after it was revealed that it contained animal fat.

Last week, it was revealed that the banknotes contain tallow, which comes from beef or mutton fat.

As well as outraging vegetarians and vegans, the news also caused concern among members of the Hindu community, who view cows as sacred.

Recommended The other products containing animal fat that you should avoid

Now, some Hindu temples have decided to ban the note on their premises.

The Bhaktivedanta Manor, a Hare Krishna temple in Hertfordshire, posted a photo of a sign to Facebook which said: We no longer accept the new five pound notes as they contain animal fat. Apologies for the inconvenience.

The National Council of Hindu Temples has issued a statement against the new material and said the money ceases to be a simple medium of exchange but becomes a medium for communicating pain and suffering and we would not want to come into contact with it.

The statement continued: We are very comfortable that this has happened without any malicious intent but merely out of ignorance and a lack of sensitivity and knowledge and it seems that steps are being taken to ensure that this error is corrected.

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We look forward to being able to identify which notes are contaminated and learning of their prompt withdrawal and replacement with Karma free notes.

Satish Sharma from the Council told the BBC he knew of at least three temples which are not accepting the banknotes.

However, while disappointed at the use of tallow in the tender, other temples have agreed to continue using it.

The Shree Sanatan temple in Leicester has launched a campaign to have the note replaced.

We are very disappointed to learn that the new 5.00 note contains traces of animal fat, a statement on the temples website said. We will make our devotees aware of the content of the new 5.00 note and encourage them not to utilise it in our main prayer hall.

Being a charity organisation that relies solely on public donations we will reluctantly continue to accept the new 5.00 on our premises for the time being.

We urge the Bank of England to expedite a rectification on this matter.

A petition to remove tallow from the bank notes has received more than 120,000 signatures.
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When 19-year-old Rasheed Benyahia bounced out the door of his Birmingham home on the morning of 29 May 2015, it felt like any other day to his unsuspecting family.

Dirty socks lay on his bedroom floor, his toothbrush was by the sink. Only the teenagers rucksack full of equipment for his electrical engineering apprenticeship was missing.

But that was not Rasheeds destination. He was on his way to the airport to catch a flight to Turkey and onwards to Syria, to join the so-called Islamic State.

Nicola Benyahia and her son Rasheed Benyahia, who was killed fighting for Isis aged 19 in 2015 (Supplied)

He kissed me goodnight the night before and bantered with me like he normally did when he went to his bedroom, recalls his mother, Nicola Benyahia.

He always got up early so I didnt think anything of it until it was the evening and he didnt come back home. Even if he was 10 minutes late he would always ring me.

When Rasheed didnt respond to calls and messages, his parents and four sisters went into overdrive trying to find him, checking with friends, hospitals and the police, who tried to assure the family that the teenager would return.

Three days later, a message arrived from Rasheed, saying he was very safe and in good hands.

Please know that I would never put anyone through this if I didnt know the reward, it read. I ask Allah to protect you and reward you with the highest paradise. Please do not worry, I love you more than ever and again I am sorry.

Timeline: The emergence of Isis Show all 40 1 /40 Timeline: The emergence of Isis Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2000 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (pictured here) forms an al-Qaeda splinter group in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its brutality from the beginning alienates Iraqis and many al-Qaeda leaders. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2006 Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Al-Zarqawis successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, announces the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2009 Still al-Qaeda-linked ISI claims responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 155 in Baghdad, as well as attacks in August and October killing 240, as President Obama announces troop withdrawal from Iraq in March. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2010 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes head of ISI, at lowest ebb of Islamist militancy in Iraq, which sees last U.S. combat brigade depart. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2012 In Syria, protests (pictured here starting in Daree) have morphed into what president Assad labelled a real war with emergence of a coalition of forces opposed to Assads regime. Syria group Jabhat al-Nusra are among rebel groups who refuse to join, denouncing it as a conspiracy. Bombings targeting Shia areas, killing more than 500 people, spark fears of new sectarian conflict. Sunni Muslims stage protests across country against what they see as increasingly marginalisation by Shia-led government. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2013 Al-Baghdadi renames ISI as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as the group absorbs Syrian al-Nusra, gaining a foothold in Syria. In response, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Ladens successor) concerned about Isis expansion orders that Isis be dissolved and ISI operations should be confined to Iraq. This order is rejected by al-Baghdadi. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - January Isis fighters capture the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, giving them base to launch slew of attacks further south. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraqs second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Around the same time Isis releases a video calling for western Muslims to join the Caliphate and fight, prompting new evaluations of extremists groups social media understanding. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis take Baiji oil fields in Iraq - giving them access to huge amounts of possible revenue. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August James Foley is executed by the group as concerns grow for second American prisoner, fellow reporter Steven Sotloff. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August Obama authorises U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, helping to stall Isis along with action by Kurdish forces following the deaths of hundreds of Yazidi people on Mount Sinjar. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release video showing Steven Sotloffs murder prompting Western speculation his executioner is same man who killed Mr Foley. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Obama tells us that America will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release a video appearing to show David Haines, who was captured by militants in Syria in 2013, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert while he reads a pre-prepared script. It later shows what appears to be the aid worker's body. Rex Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Peshmerga fighters scrabble to hold positions in the Diyala province (a gateway to Baghdad) as Isis fighters continue to advance on Iraqi capital. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Aid worker Alan Henning is killed. Self-imposed media blackout refuses to show images of him in final moments, instead focuses upon humanitarian care. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Isis raise their flag in Kobani, which had been strongly defended by Kurdish troops. The victory goes against hopeful western analysis Isis had overextended itself, while alienating much of the Muslim population through the murder of Henning. Victory causes fresh waves of Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - November American hostage, who embarced values of Islam, Peter Kassig and 14 Syrian soldiers are shown meeting the same fate as other captives. But intelligence agencies will be poring over the apparently significant discrepancies between this and previous films. Seramedig.org.uk Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis has released a video revealing the murder by burning to death of a Jordanian pilot held by the group since the end of December 2014. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have released videos which appear to show the beheading of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February American aid worker, Kayla Mueller was the last American hostage known to be held by Isis. She died, according to her captors, in an airstrike by the Jordanian air force on the city of Raqqa in Syria, though US authorities disputed this. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have posted a gruesome video online in which they force 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages to kneel on a beach in Libya before beheading them. Egypt vowed to avenge the beheading and launched air strikes on Isis positions. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February The British Isis militant suspected of appearing in videos showing the beheading of Western hostages has been named in reports as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Rex Features Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - March Isis triple suicide attack has killed more than 100 worshippers and hundreds of others were injured after the group members targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in battle for Tikrit and raised the flag in the city. EPA/STR Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people queuing to collect their wages and injured 100 more. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis media arm released a 29-minute video purporting to show militants executing Ethiopian Christians captives. The footage bore the extremist groups al-Furqan media logo and showed the destruction of churches and desecration of religious symbols. A masked fighter made a statement threatening Christians who did not convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis has been "incapacitated" by a spinal injuries sustained in a US air strike in Iraq. He is being treated in a hideout by two doctors from Isis stronghold of Mosul who are said to be "strong ideological supporters of the group". Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis has also claimed responsibility for killing 300 of Yazidi captives, including women, children and elderly people in Iraq AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis attack on Prophet Mohamed cartoon contest in Texas was its first action on US soil. Two gunmen were shot and killed after launching the attack at the exhibition. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi have been named as the attackers at the Curtis Culwell Centre arena in Garland. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isiss deputy leader, Abu Alaa Afri, a former physics teacher who was thought to have taken charge of the deadly terrorist group, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May US special forces have killed a senior Isis leader named as Abu Sayyaf in an operation aiming to capture him and his wife in Syria. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Iran-backed militias are sent to Ramadi by the Iraqi government to fight Isis militants who completed their capture of the city. Government soldiers and civilians were reportedly massacred by extremists as they took control and the army fled. Charred bodies were left littering the city streets as troops clung on to trucks speeding away from the city. Ramadi is the latest government stronghold to fall to the so-called Islamic State, despite air strikes by a US-led international coalition aiming to stop its advance in Iraq and Syria. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis rounded up civilians trapped in Palmyra and forced them to watch 20 people being executed in the historic citys ancient amphitheatre. The Unesco World Heritage site was overrun by militants, threatening the future of 2,000 year-old monuments and ruins. Thousands of Palmyras residents fled but many are still living within the city walls, while the UN human rights office in Geneva said it had received reports of Syrian government forces preventing people from leaving until they retreated from the city. Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May A group of Isis-affiliated fighters have captured a key airport in central Libya. The militants took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in Sirte after a local militia tasked with defending the facility withdrew from their positions. Affiliates of Isis, already control large parts of Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a former stronghold of his supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June The US Air Force has destroyed an Isis stronghold after an extremist let slip their location on social media. According the Air Force Times, General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said that Airmen at Hulburt Field, Florida, used images shared by jihadists to track the location of their headquarters before destroying it in an airstrike. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Kurdish forces captured a key military base in a significant victory in Raqqa as well as town of Tell Abyad. YPG fighters, backed by US-led airstrikes and other rebels, consolidated their gains, when they seized the key town on the Syria-Turkey border. They are now just 30 miles to the north of Raqqa and have cut off a major supply route deep inside Isis-held territory. Ahmet Silk/Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has released gruesome footage claiming to show the murder of more than a dozen men by drowning, decapitation and using a rocket-propelled grenade as it seeks to boost morale among its fanatical supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has begun carrying out its threat to destroy structures in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blowing up at least two monuments at the Unesco-protected site as Syrian government troops made advances on the Islamists positions. AFP

Mrs Benyahia did not hear from her son for an agonising 64 days, until he called with a confirmation that the family feared. He was in Syria.

As soon as I knew where he was, I knew then I was never going to see him again, Mrs Benyahia said, her voice wavering.

I knew that even if he wanted to come back he couldnt, every day it was more likely that he would never come back.

I was just waiting for him to be killed. My grief started as soon as I knew where he was. I had lost him already.

Rasheed was in Raqqa, the capital of Isis self-declared caliphate, and had undergone the terror groups compulsory training ahead of battle against Syrian forces and rebel groups.

Contact became regular but details were sparse and conversations were sometimes interrupted, leading Mrs Benyahia to believe they were monitored.

Rasheed Benyahia, 19, in the first picture sent to his family after he joined Isis in Syria in May 2015 (Supplied)

In September, Rasheed disappeared for a month. When he came back online, he told his father he had been to visit Bashar al-Assad.

It meant he had been fighting Syrian forces, Mrs Benyahia said. He never told me, he was very protective because I was his mum and he didnt want me to get worried and upset.

The last time Rasheed called his family, he had been summoned to Raqqas central mosque to receive new orders. Weeks later, they received news of his death from another Isis fighter calling their son by the nom de guerre Abu Huraira al-Britani.

He died on 10 November but we didnt find out until the 20th because they were fighting and couldnt get hold of a phone, his mother said.

Whoever this guy was phoned the house line. My husband answered and he told him my son had been killedhe paid the consequence of his choice.

The man claimed Rasheed died in an air strike by the US-led coalition in the Iraqi province of Sinjar. He had not reached his 20th birthday.

In their grief, the family were also feeling intense shame. They received news of Rasheeds death a week after Isis militants massacred 130 people in the Paris attacks.

Rasheed Benyahia, 19, joined Isis in Syria in 2015 (Supplied)

It was difficult to carry the burden without telling people he was dead, said Mrs Benyahia, pausing. I dont want other people to go through what I did.

Both Rasheeds family and the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit have been trying to piece together how the teenager became radicalised  and who instructed him on how to reach Isis.

Mrs Benyahia, from Wales, converted to Islam as a young woman and later married Rasheeds father, who is originally from Algeria. They brought up their children as Muslims, observing Ramadan and Friday prayers, but describe themselves as liberal.

His mother remembers Rasheed as a gentle and naive boy who looked young for his age.

When he confirmed he was in Syria, I found it difficult to comprehend because he was such a queasy person, she said. He couldnt look at vomit or blood  he couldnt watch Casualty.

Rasheeds Instagram account provides a glimpse of the teenager she remembers, showing him joking with friends and indulging his love of parkour.

The posts stopped shortly before the start of his transformation in 2014, when he switched to a different mosque and became increasingly religious, asking his parents to join a local dawah conversion group.

Rasheed Benyahia practicing parkour with friends in Birmingham before being radicalised (Instagram)

His mother refused permission. He then asked her to shorten his trousers  a sign of deepening Islamic observance. At the same time, political debates were turning into family arguments amid news of Isis atrocities and growing caliphate.

Rasheeds father cautioned that the group did not represent Muslims but the teenager was angered by civilian deaths in Syria, calling for action. His demands stopped in winter 2014, leaving his family temporarily reassured.

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They had other problems. Mrs Benyahia was a trustee at Birminghams Park View Academy  one of the schools at the centre of the Trojan Horse scandal  and stood down with other trust members in July that year.

Mrs Benyahia admits she missed signs of her sons radicalisation, assuming he was gaming in the hours spent alone in his room, when she now believes he was in contact with online recruiters.

There is no question that he was instructed to the letter, she said. I dont know who recruited him and I hope one day that I can connect the dots."

After Rasheeds death she contacted Daniel Koehler, director of the German Institute on Radicalisation and Deradicalisation Studies who helped found a European anti-extremism group for jihadis families.

Meeting other mothers inspired Mrs Benyahia to create her own group in the UK, Families for Life, where she is using her counselling training and personal experience to help other parents spot the signs of radicalisation and cope if, as with her son, the realisation comes too late.

Rasheed Benyahia, who was killed fighting for Isis aged 19 in 2015 (Supplied)

I wanted to set up a safe place for families to come and talk, said Mrs Benyahia. Somebody needs to speak out and we need to be talking about this.

As well as offering a helpline and counselling, the organisation acts as an online resource for concerned parents, listing warning signs and offering guidance.

Asked how he would respond to anger at the idea of a supporting terrorists families, Mr Koehler said experiences must be shared to prevent them from repeating.

Radicalisation can happen to any family of any background, he added.

Isis has turned terrorist recruitment into a mass product. These families are up against a massively superior enemy that is reaching in using advanced psychological warfare.

Mr Koehler acknowledged that some parents may be radical themselves but said those approaching his group are the 95 per cent who want to fight their childrens growing extremism.

Someone often recognises that radicalisation process very early but dont trust the police, dont know what to do, dont know what to call, he said.

They are our first line of defence and we are strengthening that line.
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The controversial human rights record of Gulf states should not be a bar to increased post-Brexit trade with them, Theresa May has said ahead of a high-profile visit to the Middle East.

Ms May will be the first British Prime Minister, and first woman, to attend the Gulf Co-operation Council summit during a two-day trip to Bahrain.

With her hosts having been sharply criticised for the way they suppressed protests during the Arab Spring, Ms May insisted closer ties will allow the UK greater influence in pushing its values.

Speaking ahead of the visit, the Prime Minister said she wants to open a new post-Brexit chapter in relations with the Gulf.

Recommended People want to behead a Saudi woman for daring to not wear a hijab

"No doubt there will be some people in the UK who say we shouldn't seek stronger trade and security ties with these countries because of their record on human rights.

"But we don't uphold our values and human rights by turning our back on this issue. We achieve far more by stepping up, engaging with these countries and working with them to encourage and support their plans for reform.

"That is how Britain can be a force for good in the world as well as helping to keep our people safe and create new opportunities for business.

"This year marks 200 years of relations between Bahrain and the United Kingdom and a century of ties with Saudi Arabia, but in recent years our relationship hasn't felt as close as it is old. I want to change that.

"There is so much we can do together - whether it is helping one another to prevent terrorist attacks, Gulf investment regenerating cities across the UK, or British businesses helping Gulf countries to achieve their long term vision of reform."

Ms May will attend a dinner with the six leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman on Tuesday, before addressing the plenary session of the summit on Wednesday.

Trade, security and the civil wars in Syria and Yemen will feature in Ms May's talks on the margins of the gathering, and an annual summit between the UK and the regional grouping is to be launched.

PA
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Boris Johnson has said he is not worried about Donald Trump's admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Discussing Syria's brutal civil war, which has raged for nearly six years, the foreign secretary said he hoped Mr Putin and "the puppets he supports" should make a deal to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power.

He told the Andrew Marr Show that Britain "has been at the forefront of applying that ligature of sanctions" against Russia for its role in the civil war, where it has been supporting Mr Assad's ferocious assault on Aleppo.

Mr Johnson said he was not concerned about Mr Trump's friendship and admiration for Mr Putin when asked by Mr Marr.

In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Show all 19 1 /19 In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Syrian boys cry following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Aleppo Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian defense ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov speaks to the media in Moscow, Russia. Konashenkov strongly warned the United States against striking Syrian government forces and issued a thinly-veiled threat to use Russian air defense assets to protect them AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Syrians wait to receive treatment at a hospital following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Alepp Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov speaks at a briefing in the Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russia. Antonov said the Russian air strikes in Syria have killed about 35,000 militants, including about 2,700 residents of Russia AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Jameel Mustafa Habboush, receives oxygen from civil defence volunteers, known as the white helmets, as they rescue him from under the rubble of a building following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Aleppo Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civil defence members rest amidst rubble in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A girl carrying a baby inspects damage in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civilians and civil defence members look for survivors at a site damaged after Russian air strikes on the Syrian rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civilians and civil defence members carry an injured woman on a stretcher at a site damaged after Russian air strikes on the Syrian rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Volunteers from Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, help civilians after Russia carried out its first airstrikes in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria The aftermath of Russian airstrike in Talbiseh, Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Smoke billows from buildings in Talbiseh, in Homs province, western Syria, after airstrikes by Russian warplanes AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian Air Forces carry out an air strike in the ISIS controlled Al-Raqqah Governorate. Russia's KAB-500s bombs completely destroy the Liwa al-Haqq command unit In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy firing Kalibr cruise missiles against remote Isis targets in Syria A TASS/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russia claimed it hit eight Isis targets, including a "terrorist HQ and co-ordination centre" that was completely destroyed In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A video grab taken from the footage made available on the Russian Defence Ministry's official website, purporting to show an airstrike in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A release from the Russian defence ministry purportedly showing targets in Syria being hit In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russia launched air strikes in war-torn Syria, its first military engagement outside the former Soviet Union since the occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. Russian warplanes carried out strikes in three Syrian provinces along with regime aircraft as Putin seeks to steal US President Barack Obama's thunder by pushing a rival plan to defeat Isis militants in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy firing Kalibr cruise missiles against remote Isis targets in Syria, a thousand kilometres away. The targets include ammunition factories, ammunition and fuel depots, command centres, and training camps A TASS/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

"As I've said before, I think it's very important to be as positive as we possibly can about our relations with the administration-to-be," the foreign secretary said. "And actually so far the contacts have been extremely productive."

Pushed to answer further, Mr Johnson added: "The answer is no, because I don't believe that in the end that it will significantly affect our relations with Washington.

"What we will see is an understanding by the US administration that the scene there in the Middle East is very complex. You've got Iran, you've got Russia, you've got a congress in America that is, certainly on the Republican side, very sceptical to put it mildly about both Russia and Iran. And so I think there will be a confluence of thinking about that.

He added: "And don't forget the relationship between the UK and the US is the paramount political fact of the last hundred years."

 Boris Johnson: Trump election 'a moment of opportunity' for Britain

Last week, Mr Putin struck an unusually conciliatory tone in his annual state of the nation address when he said he is "ready to cooperate" with the Trump administration.

We don't want confrontation with anyone. We don't need it. We are not seeking and have never sought enemies. We need friends, Mr Putin told Russia's political elite.

We are ready to cooperate with the new US administration. We have a shared responsibility to ensure international security.

Last Friday, Mr Johnson used his first major speech as Foreign Secretary to highlight how the UK can align with Mr Trump's incoming administration.

Mr Trump has suggested he could halt support for rebels in Syria and instead switch support to Mr Putin and the regime of Mr Assad.

Mr Johnson said: "Britain is prepared to be tough with Russia, but that does not mean that it is not also sensible to talk."

He added: "We cannot normalise relations with Russia or go back to business as usual.

"But as I have said time and again, Russia could win the acclaim of the world by halting its bombing campaign in Syria, delivering Assad to peace talks and abiding by the letter of the Minsk agreements in Ukraine and, once more, I will not shy away from delivering those messages face to face."
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Boris Johnson has risked igniting a row with Downing Street after revealing he believes international students should be exempt from the Governments immigration figures.

Despite Theresa May repeatedly ruling out removing students from the net migration numbers  as Home Secretary and as Prime Minister  the Foreign Secretary insisted such students were of massive benefit to this country.

And as recent as October the Prime Minister refused to relax the rules after Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, claimed such a move could be in line with public opinion at a select committee hearing.

But speaking on ITVs Peston on Sunday the Foreign Secretary said Britain is the knowledge capital of the world and said he takes the view students should not be included in the figures.

"You've obviously got to have limits, you've got to make sure  as Theresa has rightly said  when they come, they've got to be coming for a bona fide degree and they're not staying on without permission.

"That is totally reasonable. But don't forget that international students  I used to be shadow spokesman for higher education and even then the contribution was 5 billion from their fees to our higher education economy."

He added: It's a great compliment to this country that, as Theresa and I have found virtually everywhere you go, the number one question people ask is 'How can I make sure my kids are going to be able to come to the UK and come to university here?'.

"Let me give you one statistic  of all the kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers in the world today, one in seven were educated in Britain.

"And there's no reason now  when you look at the talent coming to our universities  to think that that ratio will go down."

After his interview a Downing Street spokesperson told The Independent: Our position on who is included in the figures has not changed and we are categorically not reviewing whether or not students are included.
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Boris Johnson has insisted a threshold has not been crossed by Saudi Arabia in its bombardment of Yemen.

A UN panel in January found 119 air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition in the country potentially breached human rights law.

The UK is the second biggest arms dealer in the world and Saudi Arabia is it's biggest customer, implicating British-made Brimstone missiles and Typhoon missiles in the fighting.

At the moment, we do not think the threshold has been crossed," the Foreign Secretary said on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

So far we do not believe there has been a clear risk of breach of humanitarian law in respect of the use of those weapons.

He reaffirmed British allegiance to the Kingdom, saying the "UK is supportive of Saudia Arabia", while the country bombs Yemen.

Yet he denied that British experts were involved in picking exact targets of Saudi-coalition air strikes, saying they were simply giving "general guidance" and "trying to advise them on how targeting should work.

The Saudi-led coalition has been accused of bombing multiple international hospitals run by the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, as well as schools, funerals and wedding parties.

Strikes on a wedding in September killed 131 people, including children, in the capital Sannaa.

One attack on a funeral left at least 140 dead. At first the Saudis denied any role in the lethal attack, but later admitted it had "wrongly targetted" civilian mourners.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The slaughter and starvation of Yemeni civilians, caught between the Saudi bombardment and the country's Houthi rebels, has continued with little respite since the country spiralled into a civil war in 2015.

An estimated 10,000 people have been killed and 83 per cent of the population are now in need of humanitarian assistance.

In response to the foreign secretary's statements, director for arms control at Amnesty International UK said: "The Foreign Secretary is ignoring the real threshold here  the one that divides an approach to selling arms responsibly based on our arms trade controls system, and the UK's present cavalier approach to selling weaponry to Saudi Arabia.

Recommended EU budget could be spent developing arms for Saudi Arabia

"As Mr Johnson should know, where there's a clear and continuing risk that any UK arms sold to Saudi Arabia could be used to commit breaches of international humanitarian law in Yemen, the UK should immediately suspend all such arms sales.

"Time and time again, the Saudi coalition's attacks have hit hospitals, schools, funeral halls and homes, and thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed and injured.

"Mr Johnson is ducking his responsibility to prevent the UK being party to the unlawful killing of civilians in Yemen".

Since 2010 Britain has also sold arms to 39 of the 51 countries ranked not free on the Freedom House "Freedom in the world" report, and 22 of the 30 countries on the UK Governments own human rights watch list.

Saudi Arabia has rejected numerous accusations of human rights violations in Yemen, including the use of cluster bombs.
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Boris Johnson has cast aside the idea of paying large sums into the EU after Brexit in return for market access as speculation  despite his Cabinet colleague revealing he would consider it.

Just last week in the Commons David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, surprised MPs by revealing the Government is potentially willing to pay the EU in return for retaining access to the single market.

It was the first time any minister has admitted Theresa Mays administration is open to the idea of paying Brussels to secure access to the trading bloc for British businesses and immediately led to a surge in the pound.

Hours later Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, also said the Government should not rule out the concept, adding that Mr Davis is absolutely right not to rule out the possibility that we might want to contribute in some way to some form of mechanism.

But asked about his colleagues comments on BBCs The Andrew Marr Show, the Foreign Secretary said: It is obviously something David Davis is considering, it doesnt mean a decision has been made. Im not going to get involved  what I will say  I do believe, as a result of Brexit, we will be able to take back control of the money that we currently give to Brussels.

Mr Johnson, who led the official Leave campaign during the EU referendum, added: People say what about the 350m and what about your bus  and they are right to raise it. But the crucial thing to understand is that very large sums of money will be coming back to this country, which will be capable on being spent on priorities such as the NHS.

Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned  forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA  because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty

Asked about specifically buying access to the EUs markets, Mr Johnson added: That is a speculation.

Ive given you an indication of the kind of payments I think might be sensible  my view is that I see no reason why those payments should be large. I do see a big opportunity for us to take the money that were getting back and spend it on other priorities.

Taking questions in the Commons last week, Mr Davis was asked if the Government would consider making any contribution, in any shape or form, for access to the single market.

He responded: "The simple answer we have given to this before is, and it's very important because there is a distinction between picking off an individual policy and setting out a major criteria, and the major criteria here is that we get the best possible access for goods and services to the European market. If that is included in what you are talking about then of course we would consider it."
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Diane Abbott risked stoking Labour tensions over its approach to immigration after disagreeing with leading MPs and Jeremy Corbyn's spokesman.

The shadow Home Secretary was pressed to outline the Opposition's policy on how to manage migration, insisting it is about fair rules and reasonable migration  something she said shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry has outlined.

But she discounted Mr Corbyn's spokesman who said in September that the Labour leader is not concerned about numbers and not seeking to reduce immigration.

She also said shadow Business Secretary Clive Lewis is no longer saying companies should only be allowed to bring in foreign workers if they belong to a trade union, with Ms Abbott describing this idea as profoundly anti-civil libertarian.

The Labour frontbencher later said targets never work after being told Labour MP Dan Jarvis would like to see one to outline cuts to immigration numbers.

Labour MPs Rachel Reeves and Chuka Umunna have stressed the need to end freedom of movement but also retain the best possible access to the European single market as part of Brexit talks.

Ms Abbott said they were not facing the fact that access to the single market is dependent on comparable freedom of movement.

She made the remarks during an interview on BBC 1's Sunday Politics, days after statistics were published showing net migration  the overall difference between the numbers arriving and leaving the country - was 335,000 in the year to the end of June.

These figures are significantly above the Government's controversial target of fewer than 100,000.

Extracts from what Mr Corbyn's spokesman said in September were quoted to Ms Abbott, including it's not an objective to reduce the numbers, to reduce immigration, and Jeremy is not concerned about numbers.

Shadow Brexit minister Sir Keir Starmer's October claim of there being a huge amount of immigration over the last 10 years and a need for it to be reduced was also quoted.

Presenter Andrew Neil then pointed to remarks from Ms Thornberry about the need for Labour to be open to the idea of having reasonably managed migration.

Asked which of the three lines is Labour policy, Ms Abbott told Neil: Our policy is fair rules and reasonable management of migration.

Pressed again, Ms Abbott said: Well, the Corbyn spokesperson I think we can discount that  that wasn't Jeremy Corbyn, Jeremy has never said anything like that.

However, Jeremy has been very clear we musn't play politics with migration.

Ms Abbott added: Our policy is fair rules and reasonable migration and that's what Emily was saying.

Told about Mr Lewis's idea, Ms Abbott said: I think he's rowed back from that  that would be profoundly anti-civil libertarian to insist that people join a union.

However, we should do everything we can to encourage to people to join.

Asked to confirm people would not have to be a trade union member to be allowed into the UK, she added: Clive Lewis is no longer saying that.

Questioned about Mr Jarvis's desire for a target, Ms Abbott replied: I'm a former Home Office civil servant and what I can tell you is targets never work.

Look at the humiliation for the Tories of their targets of bringing it down to tens of thousands - immigration is as high as it's ever been.

Targets are not the point. The point is to look at the underlying economic issues which bring migrants to our shores.

Ms Abbott has previously said it would be wrong to unnecessarily throw away access to the single market in the name of controlling migration through ending free movement, adding ending free movement has become a synonym for anti-immigrant racism.

Questioned if Ms Reeves, Mr Umunna and former senior Labour MP Ed Balls had been guilty of anti-immigrant racism, Ms Abbott said: I'm not accusing them of that but what I am saying is they're not facing the fact - the fact is you cannot have access to the single market without commensurate freedom of movement.

Ms Abbott was questioned why the UK could not follow Canada in securing access to the single market while not allowing free movement.

She replied: Our geographical situation across the Channel from the European continent is very different from Canada.

Whether people like it or not, it's not whether you're against freedom of movement or for freedom of movement, it's like the weather - if the UK, off the Channel from continental Europe, wants access to the single market there has to be commensurate freedom of movement, otherwise the European Parliament will not vote for that deal.

Ms Abbott's shadow cabinet colleague John Healey earlier this week said Labour's challenge from Ukip is there is a sense in too many areas that the party no longer understands the issues which matter to many people.

Asked about Mr Healey's comments, Ms Abbott said: He's wrong if what he is saying is we have to move right on immigration to save seats from Ukip.

My belief is that if the Labour Party starts saying that Ukip is right and immigration is the cause of all these people's problems, I think if we start saying that it gives credence to Ukip.

Labour MP Ian Austin, writing on Twitter, said Ms Abbott had managed to disagree with Mr Healey, Sir Keir, Mr Lewis and Mr Corbyn's spokesman.

A Conservative spokesman said: Labour's position on immigration is hopelessly confused and totally out-of-step with the values of ordinary working people.

PA
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Ministers have been told to stop referring to Boris Johnson as Boris, in an attempt to counter his cabinet clown reputation.

Whitehall mandarins are trying to clamp down on jokes being made at Mr Johnsons expense which were apparently making [his] job impossible, according to an edict seen by the Mail on Sunday.

The edict tells ministers to refer to him as Foreign Secretary" instead.

Boris is a clever chap but he cannot stop playing the fool when he meets EU leaders. We think he is funny but to them he is disrespectful, an unnamed minister told the Mail on Sunday.

The news comes as Boris Johnson was interviewed on Sky News and quizzed on the names of foreign leaders.

Presenter Dermot Murnaghan had previously asked shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry the name of the French foreign minister. Ms Thornberry responded brandishing the line of questioning a pub quiz and asked Mr Murnaghan if he had asked Mr Johnson similar questions.

Mr Murnaghan asked the Foreign Secretary to attempt one of the questions Ms Thornberry had struggled with.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty 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

We are not getting into a pub quiz about leaders around the world, Mr Johnson interjected.

I am going to, with great respect invite you out the pub, Dermot, so that we can take these conversations further. I have a terrible feeling if I keep answering you, you will keep coming back with more.
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Ukip thinks it can win the by-election in Lincolnshire next week after the Liberal Democrats pulled off a surprise victory in Richmond.

After Sarah Olney overturned a 23,000 majority, Ukip believe they can win the seat of Sleaford and North Hykeham which had a Conservative majority of 24,000 in 2015.

Ukip candidate Victoria Ayling is hoping to become the partys second MP and noted the constituency voted predominantly for Britain to leave the European Union and might be unhappy with the Government's actions since the referendum.

"The overarching feeling is to give the Government a good kick as happened in Richmond, which was predominantly Remain, Ms Ayling told Sky News.

"Here it is predominantly Out and they want to give the Government a kick here, so after Richmond it's looking very encouraging."

The Sleaford seat is vacant after Stephen Phillips resigned following irreconcilable policy differences with the Government.

He made the decision after Theresa May refused to allow Parliament a vote on triggering Article 50  a move that was overturned by the High Court.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty 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 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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

Shadow energy secretary David Gardiner said Labour was focused on those who voted for Brexit and securing the best possible deal for the country.

"We want to show the people of Sleaford that actually the way in which we leave the EU is vitally important for their future prosperity, Mr Gardiner told Sky News.

"We mean to get the best possible deal. That means we have tariff-free access into the single market. The Government has clearly abandoned that."
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Paul Nuttall has claimed privatisation of the NHS could have to be debated this century  although not while he is Ukip leader.

The MEP, who has previously suggested more privatisation for the health service, said his party will be committed to keeping the NHS in public hands and free at the point of delivery.

But he said everything in politics should be up for debate, adding at some point years on from now there could be talks about how the NHS is funded - citing the country's ageing population as a factor.

Challenged about his views on NHS privatisation, Mr Nuttall told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One: I stood on a Ukip manifesto in 2015 ... which ensured we put 3 billion a year into the NHS and kept it public.

Presenter Mr Marr read out Mr Nuttall's views from 2011 in which he said the very existence of the NHS stifles competition and as long as the NHS is the sacred cow of British politics the longer the British people will suffer with a second-rate health service.

Recommended Paul Nuttall denies issuing fake CV saying he had a PhD in history

Mr Nuttall said: Firstly, nothing should be a sacred cow in British politics. All things should be up for debate.

In certain areas like procurement, for example, I think the NHS could do better because in certain areas the NHS is paying 30% over the odds for certain drugs.

If you brought in a private company you could hire and fire on the results they got.

Told he was originally talking about privatising the NHS, Mr Nuttall replied: Under my leadership Ukip will be committed to keeping the NHS in public hands and free at the point of delivery.

A video was then played of Mr Nuttall previously describing the NHS as a monolithic hangover from days gone by and noting he wanted more free market introduced into the health service given the country's ageing population.

Asked about these comments, Mr Nuttall replied: I made it clear we are an ageing population, we're a growing population as well.

At some point in this century, years on, we may well have to have a debate on how we fund the NHS in this country.

I want to make it clear, under my leadership Ukip will be committed to putting more money into the NHS but to the frontline  into nurses, into doctors, into midwives because it cannot be right that in England today 51 per cent of people who work for the NHS are not clinically qualified.

Mr Marr said Mr Nuttall sounded as if he was massaging the sacred cow and asked if the Ukip leader had changed his views.

Mr Nuttall replied: No, I think everything in politics should be up for debate. Nothing should be parked, because if you don't debate things, things never improve.

Asked if the NHS will go private one day in the future, Mr Nuttall said: Maybe at some point, in years to come within this century we'll have to have this debate but it won't be under my leadership in Ukip.

Mr Nuttall suggested he would not seek to reverse benefits cuts proposed by the Government.

Despite his support for reintroducing the death penalty for child killers, Mr Nuttall also said it would not be Ukip policy.

Asked if he would reverse cuts to Universal Credit, he said: I probably would not reverse the cuts.

He agreed with the suggestion that the country's welfare budget is too high, adding: We need to do something.

It cannot be right that we have 1.7 million in Britain today who are unemployed, 600,000 of them are between 18 and 24, and this goes back to the key issue of immigration.

On the death penalty for child killers, Mr Nuttall said: If this was a referendum tomorrow and that was on the table, I would vote in favour  there are other people in Ukip who would vote differently. That is not going to be Ukip policy, that is a personal view.

Asked if he would like a referendum on the issue, Mr Nuttall cited Ukip policy that if 10 per cent of people sign a petition within a certain period of time then one should take place.

Mr Nuttall was also asked about reports that his CV included claims that were not accurate, including a PhD from Liverpool Hope University.

He replied: No, I've never claimed I've got a PhD. It's not on my website. It's on a LinkedIn page that wasn't put up by us and we don't know where it's come from.

Mr Nuttall said he has always stated he wants to finish his PhD, which he started in 2004.

On whether the Conservatives will betray the Brexit vote, Mr Nuttall replied: I think we're on a slippery slope.

PA
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A female Isis fighter used three young children as a decoy to approach Libyan forces before blowing herself up.

Several women blew themselves up on Friday, killing four Libyan soldiers who had granted them safe passage to leave buildings under Isis control, a spokesman for the government forces told Reuters.

Libyan forces, backed by US air strikes, are close to taking full control of the former Isis stronghold of Sirte after a campaign lasting more than six months.

But they are having difficulty dislodging Isis from a final patch of land near the city's Mediterranean sea front, partly because of concerns about families or captives still held by the militants.

Smoke rises as fighters of Libyan forces allied with the UN-backed government advance against Isis holdouts in Ghiza Bahriya district in Sirte, Libya, 1 December, 2016 (Reuters)

During a pause in fighting on Friday, Reuters journalists reported seeing one woman escorting three young children through an alleyway, towards waiting Libyan forces.

Shortly after the children were driven away in an ambulance, there was a blast as the woman detonated her explosives, wounding around a dozen people.

Rida Issa, a spokesman for the Libyan forces, said two similar incidents, which he said were suicide attacks, had taken place as other women and children were leaving Isis-held ground.

Four members of the Libyan forces had been killed and 38 wounded, he added.

In pictures: The rise of Isis Show all 74 1 /74 In pictures: The rise of Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters of the Islamic State wave the group's flag from a damaged display of a government fighter jet following the battle for the Tabqa air base, in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from Islamic State group sit on their tank during a parade in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from the Islamic State group pray at the Tabqa air base after capturing it from the Syrian government in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Fighters from extremist Islamic State group parade in Raqqa, Syria AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping A video uploaded to social networks shows men in underwear being marched barefoot along a desert road before being allegedly executed by Isis Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping Haruna Yukawa after his capture by Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis kidnapping Khalinda Sharaf Ajour, a Yazidi, says two of her daughters were captured by Isis militants Washington Post In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Spokesperson for Isis Vice News via Youtube In pictures: The rise of Isis A pro-Isis leaflet A pro-Isis leaflet handed out on Oxford Street In London Ghaffar Hussain In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters Isis Jihadists burn their passports In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid A man collecting aid administered by Isis in Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid A woman collecting aid administered by Isis in Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis controls Syrian Aid Local civilians queue for aid administered by Isis. Since it declared a caliphate the group has increasingly been delivering services such as healthcare, and distributing aid and free fuel In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces detain men suspected of being militants of the Isis group in Diyala province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Mourners carry the coffin of a Shi'ite volunteer from the brigades of peace, who joined the Iraqi army and was killed during clashes with militants of the Isis group in Samarra, during his funeral in Najaf In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi Shiite Turkmen family fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, arrives at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Arbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan region In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi A photograph made from a video by the jihadist affiliated group Furqan Media via their twitter account allegedly showing Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at a mosque in Mosul. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamist caliphate in the territory under the group's control in Iraq and Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq Shiite's Al-Qubba Husseiniya mosque explodes in Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq Smoke and debris go up in the air as Shiite's Al-Qubba Husseiniya mosque explodes in Mosul. Images posted online show that Islamic extremists have destroyed at least 10 ancient shrines and Shiite mosques in territory - the city of Mosul and the town of Tal Afar - they have seized in northern Iraq in recent weeks In pictures: The rise of Isis Islamic extremists destroying mosques in Iraq A bulldozer destroys Sunni's Ahmed al-Rifai shrine and tomb in Mahlabiya district outside of Tal Afar In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces celebrate after clashes with followers of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi, in front of his home in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi at his home after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces arrest a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis A vehicle burns in front of a home of a follower of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi after clashes with his followers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi woman holds her exhausted son as over 1000 Iraqis who have fled fighting in and around the city of Mosul and Tal Afar wait at a Kurdish checkpoint in the hopes of entering a temporary displacement camp in Khazair In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees Displaced Iraqi women hold pots as they queue to receive food during the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, at an encampment for displaced Iraqis who fled from Mosul and other towns, in the Khazer area outside Irbil, north Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria A militant Islamist fighter waving a flag, cheers as he takes part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa. The fighters held the parade to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic "caliphate" after the group captured territory in neighbouring Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters wave flags as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province Reuters In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters travel in a vehicle as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Fighters from the Isis group during a parade with a missile in Raqqa, Syria. Militants from an al-Qaida splinter group held a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria, displaying U.S.-made Humvees, heavy machine guns, and missiles captured from the Iraqi army for the first time since taking over large parts of the Iraq-Syria border In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters during a parade in Raqqa, Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Fighters from the Isis group during a parade in Raqqa, Syria. Militants from the splinter group held a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria, displaying U.S.-made Humvees, heavy machine guns, and missiles captured from the Iraqi army for the first time since taking over large parts of the Iraq-Syria border In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters hold a military parade in their stronghold in northeastern Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria Isis fighters during a parade in Raqqa, Syria In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Syria A member loyal to the Isis waves an Isis flag in Raqqa In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi anti-government gunmen from Sunni tribes in the western Anbar province march during a protest in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The United Nations warned that Iraq is at a "crossroads" and appealed for restraint, as a bloody four-day wave of violence killed 195 people. The violence is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that broke out in Sunni areas of the Shiite-majority country more than four months ago, raising fears of a return to all-out sectarian conflict In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi security forces hold up a flag of the Isis group they captured during an operation to regain control of Dallah Abbas north of Baqouba, the capital of Iraq's Diyala province, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq Isis fighters parade in the northern city of Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Volunteers, who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Isis group, demonstrate their skills during a graduation ceremony after completing their field training in Najaf In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Kurdish Peshmerga troops fire a cannon during clashes with militants of the Isis group in Jalawla, Diyala province In pictures: The rise of Isis Lieutenant General Qassem Atta speaks during a press conference Iraqi Prime Minister's security spokesman, Lieutenant General Qassem Atta speaks during a press conference about the latest military development in Iraq, in the capital Baghdad. Iraqi forces pressed a campaign to retake militant-held Tikrit, clashing with jihadist-led Sunni militants nearby and pounding positions inside the city with air strikes in their biggest counter-offensive so far In pictures: The rise of Isis A police station building destroyed by Isis fighters An exterior view of a police station building destroyed by gunmen in Mosul city, northern Iraq. Iraq's new parliament is expected to convene to start the process of setting up a new government, despite deepening political rifts and an ongoing Islamist-led insurgency. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani issued a decree inviting the new House of Representatives to meet and form a new government In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq Smoke billows from an area controlled by the Isis between the Iraqi towns of Naojul and Tuz Khurmatu, both located north of the capital Baghdad, as Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces take part in an operation to repel the Sunni militants In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An elderly Iraqi woman is helped into a temporary displacement camp for Iraqis caught-up in the fighting in and around the city of Mosul in Khazair In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi Christian woman fleeing the violence in the village of Qaraqush, about 30 kms east of the northern province of Nineveh, cries upon her arrival at a community center in the Kurdish city of Arbil in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraqi refugees An Iraqi woman, who fled with her family from the northern city of Mosul, prays with a copy of the Quran AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Isis fighters in Iraq The body of an Isis militant killed during clashes with Iraqi security forces on the outskirts of the city of Samarra Reuters In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Iraqi civilians inspect the damage at a market after an air strike by the Iraqi army in central Mosul EPA In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Members of the Al-Abbas brigades, who volunteered to protect the Shiite Muslim holy sites in Karbala against Sunni militants fighting the Baghdad government, parade in the streets of the city AP In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis Shia tribesmen gather in Baghdad to take up arms against Sunni insurgents marching on the capital. Thousands have volunteered to bolster defences AFP/Getty In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq crisis A van carrying volunteers joining Iraqi security forces against Jihadist militants. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced the Iraqi government would arm and equip civilians who volunteered to fight AFP/Getty In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters of the Isis group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq An Islamist fighter, identified as Abu Muthanna al-Yemeni from Britain (R), speaks in this still image taken undated video shot at an unknown location and uploaded to a social media website. Five Islamist fighters identified as Australian and British nationals have called on Muslims to join the wars in Syria and Iraq, in the new video released by the Isis In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Al-Qaida inspired militants stand with captured Iraqi Army Humvee at a checkpoint belonging to Iraqi Army outside Beiji refinery some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad. The fighting at Beiji comes as Iraq has asked the U.S. for airstrikes targeting the militants from the Isis group. While U.S. President Barack Obama has not fully ruled out the possibility of launching airstrikes, such action is not imminent in part because intelligence agencies have been unable to identify clear targets on the ground, officials said In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants attacked Iraq's main oil refinein Baiji as they pressed an offensive that has seen them capture swathes of territory, a manager and a refinery employee said In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants from the Isis group parading with their weapons in the northern city of Baiji in the in Salaheddin province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq A smoke rises after an attack by Isis militants on the country's largest oil refinery in Beiji, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad. Iraqi security forces battled insurgents targeting the country's main oil refinery and said they regained partial control of a city near the Syrian border, trying to blunt an offensive by Sunni militants who diplomats fear may have also seized some 100 foreign workers In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group stand next to captured vehicles left behind by Iraqi security forces at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province. For militant groups, the fight over public perception can be even more important than actual combat, turning military losses into propaganda victories and battlefield successes into powerful tools to build support for the cause In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq An injured fighter (C) from the Isis group after a battle with Iraqi soldiers at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis aiming at advancing Iraqi troops at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis group taking position at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Fighters from the Isis group inspecting vehicles of the Iraqi army after they were seized at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq One Iraqi captive, a corporal, is reluctant to say the slogan, and has to be shouted at repeatedly before he obeys Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Iraqi captives held by the extremists Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Iraqi captives held by the extremists Sky News In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group force captured Iraqi security forces members to the transport In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group transporting dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members to an unknown location in the Salaheddin province ahead of executing them In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq A major offensive spearheaded by Isis but also involving supporters of executed dictator Saddam Hussein has overrun all of one province and chunks of three others In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Militants of the Isis group executing dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis militants taking position at a Iraqi border post on the Syrian-Iraqi border between the Iraqi Nineveh province and the Syrian town of Al-Hasakah In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis rebels show their flag after seizing an army post AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Isis militants waving an Islamist flag after the seizure of an Iraqi army checkpoint in Salahuddin Getty Images In pictures: The rise of Isis Iraq Demonstrators chant slogans as they carry al-Qaida flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad. In the week since it captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, a Muslim extremist group has tried to win over residents and has stopped short of widely enforcing its strict brand of Islamic law, residents say. Churches remain unharmed and street cleaners are back at work

Several groups of families or hostages have been freed or escaped from Isis in Sirte in recent weeks, some of them refugees from sub-Saharan Africa who were captured by the group as they crossed Libya.

"The investigation will tell us whether these women were fighting with Daesh [Isis], or if they were captives," Mr Issa said of those who got out on Friday.

Isis took full control of Sirte in early 2015, imposing its ultra-hardline rule over the city in the following months.

Forces led by brigades from Misrata began a campaign to retake Sirte after Isis advanced towards their city in early May.

Additional reporting by Reuters
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The relatives of passengers aboard the Malaysia Airlines flight that went missing more than two years ago have travelled to Madagascar to take the search into their own hands.

Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew after leaving Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing on 8 March 2014.

So far just 20 pieces of debris have been found, but no major wreckage from the plane has been discovered.

A search for the wreckage in the south Indian Ocean entered its 1000th day on Saturday.

"It has fallen into our hands to take this search upon ourselves," said Grace Subathirai Nathan, a spokeswoman for the Members of Voice 370, an MH370 next-of-kin support group, after arriving in Madagascar.

"After repeated requests for mobilisation of a search along the east African coastline, nothing has been done to date.

"We want to speak to as many people as we can. We want to especially speak to NGOs, to the missionaries, to the churches who have outreach programmes.

"We can talk to people who work as fishermen, people who live on the coastline. We hope that we can raise awareness, teach them how to identify debris, how to collect debris, what to do with it when they find it.

MH370 debris - in pictures Show all 7 1 /7 MH370 debris - in pictures MH370 debris - in pictures MH370 debris French police officers carry a piece of debris from a plane in Saint-Andre, Reunion Island. AP MH370 debris - in pictures MH370 debris Police carry a piece of debris from an unidentified aircraft found in the coastal area of Saint-Andre de la Reunion, in the east of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion AFP PHOTO / YANNICK PITOUYANNICK PITOU/AFP/Getty Images MH370 debris - in pictures MH370 debris The plane part is being taken to France for further investigation Reuters MH370 debris - in pictures MH370 debris French gendarmes and police inspect a large piece of plane debris which was found on the beach in Saint-Andre, on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion Reuters MH370 debris - in pictures MH370 debris French gendarmes and police inspect a large piece of plane debris which was found on the beach in Saint-Andre, on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion Reuters MH370 debris - in pictures MH370 debris Johnny Begue, a member of a local shore cleaning association, in Saint-Andre, French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, holds the remain of a suitcase found the day before on the same site Getty Images MH370 debris - in pictures MH370 debris Searches continued on Friday for other possible MH370 debris along beaches on the island of Reunion AP

Ms Nathan, whose mother was on the plane, was among four Malaysians, two Chinese nationals and a Frenchman who arrived in Madagascar on Saturday to hunt for debris and raise awareness of the plane among local communities.

They plan to distribute brochures educating local people on how to identify plane debris.

Three pieces of debris found on the beaches of Mauritius, Tanzania and the French island of Reunion, have been confirmed to be from MH370.

Investigators are examining several other pieces found in Mozambique and South Africa.

The group hopes the trip will encourage the Malaysian, Chinese and Australian governments to collect debris along the continental coast where parts from the air craft have been found.

MH370 next-of-kin, Grace Subathirai Nathan of Malaysia (C) and Jiang Hui (L) and Bai Shuan Fu (R) from China attend a press conference at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia (EPA)

The search is expected to be suspended by the end of the year, when an Australian-led team completes its scouring of a 120,000-sq-km target area.

"We need to know what happened to this plane and what happened to the people that we love," Ms Nathan said.

Last month, new information published in a report supported the investigators long-held theory that pilots were not at the controls of the Boeing 777 when it ran out of fuel.

The report, from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said the planes flaps were not extended when it crashed, ruling out a controlled descent.

Data from the final communications with the aircraft was consistent with the aircraft being in a high and increasing rate of descent at that time, the report says.

This scenario means the plane would have plummeted at high speed into the Indian Ocean.

Additional reporting by agencies
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One of the chief concerns of President-elect Donald Trump's detractors during the presidential campaign was that the brash and notoriously loose-lipped real estate executive wouldn't be able to handle the delicate balancing act that is diplomacy. It's one thing to make wild claims domestically; it's another to inflame a fellow world power with a careless word or two.

Today, a fellow world power -- China -- is inflamed.

And Trump's controversial conversation with Taiwan's leader, which broke nearly four decades of protocol when it comes to U.S.-China relations, harks back to another controversial bit of diplomacy: Trump's first big foreign visit as the Republican nominee to Mexico.

That visit erupted into a major political problem for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, and by the end of it, the two sides were offering different versions of what had happened. Similarly, Trump and Taiwan seem to be at-odds about precisely what just occurred.

Back in August, Trump claimed after a meeting with Pena Nieto that the they hadn't discussed Trump's plan to somehow force Mexico to pay for his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Pena Nieto and his staff quickly differed with that account, saying he had told Trump that Mexico wouldn't pay for the wall.

A week later, Trump doubled down on his version of events and seemed to suggest Pena Nieto wasn't being truthful, telling ABC News: "He didn't say that. He tweeted that long after the meeting was over. He didn't say that."

Much as with Mexico, Trump and Taiwan are now apparently differing about precisely what their call entailed.

China considers Taiwan a province, and the United States has pursued a "One China" policy since the 1970s. To that end, the leaders of the United States and Taiwan haven't spoken, that we know of, in decades, given such a dialogue generally symbolizes government recognition.

After news broke of the call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the backlash began, Trump explained that it was Taiwan who initiated the conversation, and he downplayed it as a "congratulatory call."

But a spokesman in the Taiwanese president's office clarified to Reuters that the call was agreed to beforehand.

"Of course both sides agreed ahead of time before making contact," spokesman Alex Huang said in response to Trump's tweet.

Taiwan's government also said the two sides discussed "strengthening bilateral relations" and talked about their "close economic, political and security ties" -- all words likely to make China cringe and suggestive of a more in-depth conversation than just a congratulatory call.

As with Mexico, we can quibble about just how at odds the two versions of events are. Perhaps Taiwan did reach out first but there was some coordination before Trump picked up the phone. And Taiwan certainly has an interest in making the call out to be a big deal.

Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway and potential Trump foreign policy adviser Ric Grenell said Friday night that the flap was overblown.

"It was totally planned," Grenell said. "It was a simple courtesy call. People need to calm down. The 'One China' policy wasn't changed. Washington, D.C.-types need to lighten up."

But the situation raises real questions about who is advising Trump when it comes to diplomacy with Asia, as The Washington Post's Emily Rauhala wrote. It also came just a day after the New York Times reported on building concerns about Trump's handling of other calls with world leaders and his preparation level. And the stakes are considerably higher with China than with Mexico and many other countries.

Even if it wasn't meant to be a big deal, it's clearly become a big deal to China. China has now lodged an official complaint with the United States over the matter, though it appears to be giving Trump the benefit of the doubt and blaming Taiwan. China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, called it a "petty" move by Tsai. "The One China principle is the foundation for healthy development of Sino-U. S. relations," Wang said. "We don't wish for anything to obstruct or ruin this foundation."

So the flap could just as soon blow over. But it's notable that yet another Trump diplomatic call has turned into a sort of he-said-they-said.

And for those concerned that Trump doesn't have the discipline and knowledge to deal with the intricacies and very sensitive feelings involved in foreign policy and diplomacy, Trump is yet again proving their point by creating a needless headache over a "congratulatory call."

Washington Post
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Donald Trump is a clever man who will understand his new responsibility as US president quickly, according to Russias President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Putin said attempts by the West to create a unipolar world had failed and the global balance of power was gradually being restored.

Since Trumps victory over Hillary Clinton, Mr Putin has made it clear he wants to rebuild a relationship with the United States.

The US President-elect has previously expressed his admiration for the Russian leader and a willingness to work alongside the Kremlin for mutual gain.

The Russian President said he didnt want a confrontation with the White House but rather wanted to join efforts to tackle international terrorism.

In a speech to officials and politicians in the Kremlin, Mr Putin said: We dont want confrontation with anyone

Unlike our foreign colleagues who are seeing Russia as an enemy, we have never been looking for enemies  we need friends.

We are ready to cooperate with the new US administration. We have a shared responsibility to ensure international security.

 Putin quotes

Mr Putin made it clear relations with Washington DC would have to be mutually beneficial and Russia would react strongly if this strategic parity was disrupted.

He added: We wont allow any infringement on our interests and neglect of them.

Following the Russias annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the Syrian civil war, relations between the Kremlin and the West have reached a post-Cold War low.

President Obamas administration has accused Kremlin-back hackers of breaking into US political websites and email accounts during the presidential elections with the aim of interfering with proceedings.
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Former president Jimmy Carter has called on Barack Obama to recognise Palestinian statehood before he leaves office.

Mr Carter, who has been outspoken about Palestinian rights and has urged a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, said Palestine should achieve full United Nations membership.

In an article published in The New York Times, the former president wrote: "I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short."

He added: "The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine."

The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Show all 10 1 /10 The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Medics evacuate a wounded man from the scene of an attack in Jerusalem. A Palestinian rammed a vehicle into a bus stop then got out and started stabbing people before he was shot dead AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Israeli ZAKA emergency response members carry the body of an Israeli at the scene of a shooting attack in Jerusalem. A pair of Palestinian men boarded a bus in Jerusalem and began shooting and stabbing passengers, while another assailant rammed a car into a bus station before stabbing bystanders, in near-simultaneous attacks that escalated a month long wave of violence AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Getty Images The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinians throw molotov cocktail during clashes with Israeli troops near Ramallah, West Bank. Recent days have seen a series of stabbing attacks in Israel and the West Bank that have wounded several Israelis AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Women cry during the funeral of Palestinian teenager Ahmad Sharaka, 13, who was shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes at a checkpoint near Ramallah, at the family house in the Palestinian West Bank refugee camp of Jalazoun, Ramallah AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies A wounded Palestinian boy and his father hold hands at a hospital after their house was brought down by an Israeli air strike in Gaza Reuters The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinians look on after a protester is shot by Israelis soldiers during clashes at the Howara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus EPA The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies A lawyer wearing his official robes kicks a tear gas canister back toward Israeli soldiers during a demonstration by scores of Palestinian lawyers called for by the Palestinian Bar Association in solidarity with protesters at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, near Ramallah, West Bank AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Undercover Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian in Ramallah Reuters The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinian youth burn tyres during clashes with Israeli soldiers close to the Jewish settlement of Bet El, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, after Israel barred Palestinians from Jerusalem's Old City as tensions mounted following attacks that killed two Israelis and wounded a child

Mr Carter also said the UN Security council should pass a resolution "laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict".

Such a resolution, he wrote, should "reaffirm the illegality of all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders," with further measures including the demilitarisation of the Palestinian state and a possible UN peacekeeping force.

He also criticised the building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

"Israel is building more and more settlements, displacing Palestinians and entrenching its occupation of Palestinian lands," he wrote. "Over 4.5 million Palestinians live in these occupied territories, but are not citizens of Israel.

"Most live largely under Israeli military rule, and do not vote in Israels national elections."

 Israel accept help from Palestine after forest fires

Mr Obama has been critical of Israel, telling the nation it cannot permanently occupy and settle on Palestinian land.

In a speech to the United Nations, the US president said both sides would benefit if Israel recognised it cannot permanently occupy the land and if Palestinians rejected incitement and recognised Israel's legitimacy.

However, while President-elect Trump said he would continue with the current US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an advisor said he was "sceptical" of the efficacy of a two-state solution in October.

An Israeli government minister said his victory meant "the era of a Palestinian state is over".

In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York in September, Mr Trump said he would take the unusual step of recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a statement which angered Palestinians, who also claim the city as their own.
Professional gamers of Pantech and Curitel team practice at their dormitory on August 11, 2005 in Seoul, South Korea. Multi-player gaming in South Korea is extremely popular thanks to its fast and widespread broadband network. Games are televised and prof (Photo : Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

The AMD Radeon RX 490 by American semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices is one of the highly anticipated video cards for 2017, and a benchmark result was spotted in the wild. The graphics processing unit appears to be much faster than the company's own Radeon RX 480 but its speed is close to the figures tossed out by its competitor, the NVIDIA GTX 1080.



Advertisement

Eagle-eyed tech enthusiasts have discovered a listing on Prisguide that displays the alleged video graphics card. Although it is a Norwegian site, it can easily be understood that the posting only shows basic information about the GPU, which include support for CrossFire mode and the use of a PCI Express 3.0 bus. It is also reportedly designed for DirectX 12.



It is believed that the Radeon RX 490 is a high-end card that will be able to produce 4K resolution and will be powerful enough to drive those resource-hugger virtual reality headsets. It is also speculated that the upcoming card will be based on the newly developed Vega architecture that will have a bus width that is more than 256 bits, an HBM2 memory, and at least 12 TFLOPS computing power.



Meanwhile, according to WCCFTech, an unknown video card device ID was discovered on the "Ashes of the Singularity" video game benchmark page and is believed to have come from the alleged AMD video graphics card. The benchmark database is home to several performance results of video cards before being launched in the market, and it includes the current RX 480 and the GTX 1080.



The card in question shows an ID 687F:C1 that offers a result under the Standard 1080P DX12 test. It gained 8,400 points and was given a 131st position. The entry was said to have been deleted afterwards but its test scores were reportedly comparably close to those of NVIDIA's high-end gaming card. There is no other AMD Radeon 400 series GPU that comes close to the score generated by the GTX 1080; thus, the unnamed entry is believed to be the next-generation card.



AMD also posted on its website that a media event will happen at 4 p.m. ET Dec. 13 in Austin, Texas and is dubbed as "New Horizon." The announcement shows that it will feature the new Zen CPU. Tech enthusiasts believe that the event could also feature the new video graphics card, although it is expected to be available by mid-2017.



The said event is also scheduled ahead of Intel's desktop CPU launch and fans are simply waiting for the showdown to unfold.






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A young woman has talked about an attack being investiated by New York police in which she was abused by three men on the subway who called her a terrorist and repeatedly chanted Donald Trump.

Yasmin Seweid, 18, told reporters the three white men, who appeared drunk, also tried to remove her hijab, while other passengers did nothing to help.

I heard them talk, but I had my headphones in, I wasnt really listening, I had a long day. And they came closer and I distinctly heard them saying, Donald Trump, she told CBS.

Yasmin Seweid wrote about the incident on Facebook (AP)

They were surrounding me from behind and they were like, Oh look, its an f***ing terrorist. I didnt answer. They pulled my strap of the bag and it ripped, and thats when I turned around and I was really polite and I was like, can you please leave me alone. Everyone was looking, no one said a thing, everyone just looked away.

Ms Seweid said the incident happened on Thursday evening as she was riding the subway networks 6 train. Later, she wrote about the incident on Facebook, saying: It breaks my heart that so many individuals chose to be bystanders while watching me get harassed verbally and physically by these disgusting pigs.

Police said they were searching for the men and scouring surveillance video in a hunt for clues.

The New York Police Department said last week that incidents involving racial abuse had increased by 300 per cent in the two weeks since Mr Trump won the election, compared to the same period last year.

On Friday, people gathered to protest over the attack on the teenager.

Were horrified by the incident in and of itself, Afaf Nasher of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Anyone going through some kind of attack is absolutely unacceptable. But then you feel this overwhelming empathy because we know that this is not the only person who has been assaulted in mass transit, but also on streets.
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The death toll from a fire at a warehouse dance party in California has risen to 36, and officials have said it is likely to increase further as crews search more of the building.

In an update on Monday, officials said they had positively identified the bodies of at least 11 people and informed their families. They have not determined the cause of the fire, and said they had to temporarily suspend the search for more victims as the building was "wobbly" and "could collapse".

They added they were preparing to open a criminal probe in association with the incident.

On Sunday afternoon, Alameda County Sheriffs Sgt Ray Kelly said victims ranged in age from teenagers to people older than 30.

The death toll is expected to rise further (AP)

He said authorities had used fingerprints to identify 17-year-olds among the victims and that some of the dead were from Asia and Europe.

Fire Battalion Chief Melinda Dayton said that her team had worked through the night in a mindful, thoughtful and compassionate way.

This will be a long and arduous process, but we want to make sure we are respecting the victims and their families and firefighter safety, she said, according to the Associated Press.

The news agency said that a fire ripped through the warehouse structure on Friday night.

The site was an artist workspace that doubled as an illegal dwelling for a rotating cast of a dozen or more residents.

Former residents said it was also a death trap with few exits, a rickety makeshift staircase and a labyrinth of electrical cords.

If you were not familiar with the building and the way that it was, if you were going there for a party, you wouldnt be aware of the maze that you have to go through to get out, said Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of the couple who ran the warehouse.

Ms Boudreaux identified the operators of the collective as Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison.

The couple charged tenants enough to cover the warehouse rent and used proceeds from parties to pay their own living expenses, Ms Boudreaux said.

On Saturday, the artist retreat had turned into a scene of horrors, with the 4,000-square-foot structure burnt to rubble.

The building's roof collapsed into the second floor, which in places fell to the bottom floor. Firefighters had to temporarily stop their search and rescue operations Saturday when they became too dangerous, taking time to shore up the structure.

One man confirmed that his daughter was among the dead. Keith Slocum told the AP that Donna Kellogg had died in the fire. He declined to provide additional comment.
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Amnesty International has urged Barack Obama to halt the construction of a controversial oil pipeline in North Dakota, and condemned possible instances of excessive use of force against largely peaceful protesters.

Days after authorities in the state were criticised for using water cannons against protesters in sub-zero temperatures, the human rights group wrote to the president to allege an over-militarized response by police at Standing Rock.

Amnesty International urges you to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and ensure that the human rights of indigenous people and others opposed to the pipeline are respected, protected and fulfilled - including their right to peaceful protest and assembly, the group said.

The group said it was concerned about what it had witnessed at the protest site (Amnesty International)

We have sent four human rights observer teams to Standing Rock and have documented an over-militarisation of law enforcement in response to largely peaceful protests and possible instances of excessive use of force.

Protesters have for months been demonstrating against the construction of the North Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,200-mile, four-state project designed to carry oil from western North Dakota to a shipping point in Illinois. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux, whose reservation lies near the pipeline route, have opposed a proposal for the $3.8bn project to pass under the Missouri River at a point close to their homes. They argue that with 470,000 barrels of crude oil passing beneath the river every day, a leak would contaminate their drinking water supply.

Amnestys letter to Mr Obama followed a previous request to the US Justice Department that it review the way local police are treating protesters, whose demonstrations have been largely peaceful.

 Standing Rock protests continue: 'Water is life'

Writing on Medium, Zeke Johnson of Amnestys Individuals at Risk Programme, said he had visited the protest site four times. What Ive seen there and on video has deeply concerned me. Non-violent Indigenous People opposed to the Dakota Access pipeline have been met with over-militarised policing and excessive, disproportionate and unnecessary military force, he said.

People exercising their human rights to assemble, pray and speak out have been brutally arrested, shot with rubber bullets, drenched in tear gas, and sprayed with water in freezing temperatures.

On Sunday, in a sign of possible compromise between protesters and North Dakota officials, state authorities said they would move from a key bridge near the main protest camp, if demonstrators agreed to certain conditions.

(REUTERS)

The Associated Press said the Morton County Sheriff's Office said it had made the offer after discussions with military veterans who have travelled to the site to build shelters for protesters. The question was asked if we would consider pulling back from the Backwater Bridge, said Sheriff Paul Laney. And the answer is yes. We want this to de-escalate.

Authorities will move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge by 4pm on Sunday, they said, if protesters stayed south of the bridge in the Oceti Sakowin camp, where thousands are camped out. Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in the late October conflict that led to several people being hurt, including a serious arm injury.

Hundreds of veterans are due to gather on Sunday at the reservation, then go to the main camp.

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock spokeswoman Ashleigh Jennifer Parker told AP the groups mission was to go and ask and offer if we can help and support the tribes that are already there.
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China has blamed Donald Trumps communication with the Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen on his foreign policy inexperience.

The China Daily, commonly regarded as a mouthpiece for Beijing, said: For Trump, it exposed nothing but his and his transition team's inexperience in dealing with foreign affairs.

But Mr Trumps diplomatic gaffe  speaking with Ms Ing-wen and then tweeting about US military sales to Taiwan  has caused anger and uncertainty in Beijing.

Recommended China issues diplomatic protest against Donald Trump

The issue of Taiwan is a particularly sensitive one to the nationalistic Chinese government, which follows a One China policy. Separate governance on the island, which calls itself the Republic of China, was established by nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 after the Communist party took control of the mainland.

But Beijing officials have maintained the territory is part of greater China and seek unification  potentially by force.

The US and most other countries have kept relations with Taiwan informal and low key in order to stay on good terms with the Beijing government. For Beijing, the One China principle underlines its approach to international affairs.

However, Mr Trump ended those diplomatic norms on Saturday after he tweeted:

Although China's displeasure was immediately obvious, the government and state media response has been measured, especially for such a sensitive issue.

The Daily acknowledged Mr Trumps remarks came as a striking move but it did not bear the same importance as it seems to be.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didnt know the air conditioner didnt work and sweated like dogs, and they didnt know the room was too big because they didnt have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall  and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

And while Chinese officials will be issuing a formal diplomatic complaint to the US, Foreign Minister Wang Yi placed the focus of blame on Taiwanese leaders for playing a "small trick".

Mr Wang's comment "is intended to give time for Trump to back away from or desist from moves to elevate treatment of Taiwan," said Douglas Paal, a former director of the American Institute in Taiwan, which unofficially represents U.S. interests in Taipei.

He continued: "China will watch carefully to see what he does. But Taiwan will be seen as in need of some form of punishment."
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Weeks before Donald Trump's controversial conversation with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, a businesswoman claiming to be associated with the Trump Organisation reportedly expressed interest in investing in luxury hotels near the island's airport.

The mayor of Taoyuan, Cheng Weng-tsan, said a representative of the Trump Organisation had visited the city, in a statement posted on the city government's website last month.

The statement said the visit was too brief for both sides to get into details.

Although the Trump Organisation has denied it has any projects planned in Taiwan, an official told The Guardian the businesswoman said she was associated with the billionaire's corporation and "would like to propose a possible investment project in the future, especially hotels".

The official added: One thing quite sure from her side was that she would like to bring the Trump corporation here to build the hotel."

Fears have been raised over potential conflicts of interest between Mr Trump's business and US foreign policy. Mr Trump has said he will keep his business and presidential interests separate by having his three children run his business interests once he is inaugurated.

The President-elect has been unapologetic about his decision to speak with Taiwan's leader, which was met by a swift protest from China.

World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Show all 29 1 /29 World reaction to President Trump: In pictures World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty Images World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mosul , Iraq Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures New Delhi, India Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Karachi, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kabul, Afghanistan AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem. Israel Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Moscow, Russia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Seoul, South Korea AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Peshawar, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Hyderabad, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kolkata, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Aleppo, Syria Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem, Israel EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Baghdad, Iraq Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Tokyo, Japan Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico Getty

The US severed ties with the self-governing island in 1979, but has maintained close unofficial relations and a commitment to support its defence.

The call was the starkest example yet of how Mr Trump has flouted diplomatic conventions since he won the 8 November election. He has apparently undertaken calls with foreign leaders without guidance typically given by the State Department, which oversees US diplomacy.

Over the decades, the status of Taiwan has been one of the most sensitive issues in US-China relations.

China regards Taiwan as part of its territory to be retaken by force, if necessary, if it seeks independence. It would regard any recognition of a Taiwanese leader as a head of state as unacceptable.

Additional reporting by AP
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European leaders across the continent breathed a collective sigh of relief as Austrias eurosceptic, anti-immigration candidate, who threatened to become the countrys first far-right head of state since the Second World War, was defeated in the countrys presidential election.

Former Green party leader Alexander van der Bellen was re-elected in a closely fought poll after Norbert Hofer conceded defeat. Nationwide exit poll results released on Sunday showed that 72-year-old Mr Van der Bellen had secured a clear seven percent lead over his 45-year-old, far right Freedom Party opponent.

Mr Hofer was quick to concede defeat. On Facebook he said he was disappointed and infinitely sad at having lost the election. He congratulated his opponent on his victory.

Mr Van der Bellen, a former leader of Austrias Green party had campaigned with a vigorous pro-Europe message. I believe that Austrias place is firmly at the centre of Europe, he told viewers in an interview shortly before voting.

By contrast his opponent, Mr Hofer, an aeronautical engineer, had delivered a strong anti-immigrant message and had suggested conducting a referendum in Austria on whether to keep the Alpine country in the European Union.

In response, German vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who heads Germany's centre-left Social Democrats, told the Bild newspaper: "A load has been taken off the mind of all of Europe." He called the result "a clear victory for good sense against right-wing populism".

Ulrich Kelber, a deputy German justice minister and Social Democrat, said: "Perhaps (Donald) Trump's election was the turning point. The liberal majority pushes back."

Sundays poll result was expected to be greeted with a huge sigh of relief from the European and Austrian liberals, who had feared that their countrys would not only follow Britain with a decision to quit the EU, but saddle Austria with an unenviable reputation of becoming the first country in Europe to have a far-right president.

The result was also expected to be welcomed by Germany which had feared that a win by the Freedom Party in Austria would encourage similar gains by the far right in Germany and in neighbouring France an and Holland. Preliminary presidential election results showed Mr Van der Bellen had secured some 53 percent of the vote nationwide compared to 46 percent by Mr Hofer. Although the margin was expected to change, the overall result was not.

Sundays election was a rerun of last Mays poll which was narrowly won by Mr Van Bellen. However, the result was overturned by Austrias highest court because of irregularities in the count.

Supporters of the candidate for the presidential election in Austria Alexander Van der Bellen react to the first results after Austria's Presidential elections in Vienna (Getty)

Analysts had pointed out that with Brexit and Donald Trumps US presidential election victory, much had changed in the world since last May, with voters turning increasingly against what they perceived as the political establishment.

Austrias presidential poll was being seen as a barometer of how well populist anti-immigration candidates could fare in forthcoming elections in Europe. Apart from Sundays crucial constitutional vote in Italy, voters go to the polls in France, the Netherlands and Germany next year. In all three countries populist anti-immigration parties are on the rise.

Sundays poll was one of the most acrimonious in Austrias countrys post-war history. In Vienna, one newspaper dubbed the poll an Election of Hate.

Mr Hofers Freedom Party portrayed Mr Van der Bellen as a forgetful geriatric, and suggested he had worked as a spy for East Germanys hated Stasi secret police. Mr Van der Bellen used a video broadcast by an 89-year-old woman Auschwitz survivor to denounce his opponent as somebody who  brings out the basest in people.

Critics denounced Mr Hofer as a Nazi because of his anti-immigrant, nationalist rhetoric. On hundreds of his Freedom Party election campaign placards his photograph was defaced with a Hitler moustache.

We think he is a Nazi. He is against women, foreigners and Europe. He comes from a party which was founded by Nazis, a young woman protester told Austrias ORF television channel filming a No Nazi for President demonstration in central Vienna on Saturday.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. 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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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But many of Mr Hofers supporters back his outspoken criticism of Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel, and her open door refugee policy which allowed more than a million refugees into Europe and Austria last year: It was an invasion, said a 68-year-old Vienna pensioner called Siegfried.  It is as if we have been occupied on somebody elses orders. Now we are not allowed to say anything, he insisted.

A study published by the independent Vienna think tank, Agenda Austria on Sunday revealed that trust in Austrias established conservative and social democratic parties was sharply in decline and coincided with a negative attitudes to refugees and immigrants.

However the authors of the study said that unlike the UK and the US, there was little indication that poverty or the feeling of having been left behind fuelled the decline in trust. Agenda Austria said populist party supporters tended to have average incomes and hold secure jobs.
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Austria's Norbert Hofer has conceded defeat after his hopes of becoming the European Union's first far-right president were dashed.

The first official results showed left-leaning candidate Alexander Van der Bellen with what appeared to be an unbeatable lead over his rival.

When the results were released shortly after polls closed on Sunday, Mr Van der Bellen had 53.5 per cent, while Mr Hofer had 46.4 per cent.

 Austrian election: Right-wing candidate says Turkey should not be in EU

Austria's Freedom Party conceded defeat within minutes of the poll projections being released.

"I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Van der Bellen," the party's chief strategist told Austrian media.

"The bottom line is it didn't quite work out," he said. "In this case the establishment  which pitched in once again to block, to stonewall and to prevent renewal  has won."

Mr Hofer congratulated his opponent on Facebook and called on "all Austrians to stick together and work together".

He was "incredibly sad," he added.

Alexander Van der Bellen reacts during an election party after the second round of the Austrian President elections on 22 May, 2016, in Vienna (AFP/Getty)

While votes continue to be counted, officials say they will not change the outcome but the percentages may still vary.

The margin came as a surprise  polls ahead of Sunday's vote had shown the two candidates neck-and-neck.

The election is a court-ordered re-run of a May vote that Mr Van der Bellen won by less than one per cent.

Right-wing Austrian Freedom Party presidential candidate Norbert Hofer at a rally in May (Getty Images)

An anti-immigration and Eurosceptic candidate, Mr Hofer was hoping to become the first far-right European head of state since Adolf Hitler in the election.

Hofer, a 45-year-old former aeronautical engineer, moved the emphasis from the Austrian Freedom Party's (FPOe) often xenophobic agenda to one highlighting social inequality.

The gun-enthusiast has ran with the slogan "unspoilt, honest, good", and won the first round of the presidential election in April with 35 per cent of the vote - knocking out the top government-backed candidates.

Relegating the issue of immigration, Mr Hofer's campaign then focused on economic reforms and a call for a more Swiss-style direct democracy.

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. 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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. 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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. 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

In May, he lost the presidential election by just 31,000 votes to Mr Van der Bellen - but after FPOe cried foul, voting irregularites were uncovered and a re-run was organised.

Despite softening his message, Hofer called for Austria's borders to be "protected" and warned against the "dangers of the wrong immigration policy".

Speaking to a young Austrian Muslim on a talk show in May, he said Islam "has no place in Austria" as it poses a threat to the country's Judeo-Christian and humanist values.
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A French town has been ordered to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary which was publically funded and sits on municipal land.

Despite having a strong Catholic contingent, France has some of the strictest secular laws in the world and displaying religious symbols in public is banned.

The statue was erected in 2011 to much controversy in the eastern town of Publier - there was no council debate on it going up in a public park.

The statue was later bought by a religious group but it has remained in public. Now, if it stays there, the town will be fined 100 per day.

Publiers mayor, Gaston Lacroix, has said he will try to have the statue moved to private land.

The decision, made by a local administrative court, was criticised by right wing politicians, including Front Nationals Jacques Clostermann, who said it represented a new tyranny.

In France,the separation of the church and state is deeply ingrained in society.

In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans PA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Jenny Dawkins, a curate from All Saints Church in Peckham, at an anti-burkini ban protest at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans PA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Somayia Khan's six-year-old daughter at a protest against burkini bans at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Friends Rebecca (L) and Hannah (R) at a protest against burkini bans at the French Embassy in London on 25 August Lizzie Dearden In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans Reuters In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans EPA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London Demonstrators stage a beach party outside the French Embassy, in Knightsbridge, London, in protest against burkini bans AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London People participate in a 'Wear what you want beach party' protest outside of the French Embassy in London EPA In pictures: Protest against burkini bans in London A protester holds a sign which reads "Are you Burkini Beach Body Ready?" as she lies on a beach towel outside the French Embassy in London on August 25, 2016, AFP/Getty Images

Full face veils, such as niqabs and burqas, worn by some Muslim women were banned in 2010, making France the first European country to pass such strict measures.

More recently, some French Riviera towns imposed bans on women wearing 'Burkini' costumes on their beaches. However, the rules were later overturned in the courts.
A visitor tries out an Apple iPhone 7 on the first day of sales of the new phone at the Berlin Apple store on September 16, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo : Getty Images/Sean Gallup)

Ex-manager at Foxconn, known supplier for Apple products like the iPhone, has been formally indicted of stealing and reselling 5,700 iPhones. The amount of stolen products amount to $1.56 Million and the former manager, referred to by his surname Tsai, will be facing a maximum of ten years in prison.



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Tsai previously worked in the testing department of Foxconn at a facility located in Shenzhen, China, reported CNET. He was reportedly tasked with scrapping the devices after they had gone through the testing phase but instead smuggled the devices out of the factory with the aid of several employees.



It is further stated that he specifically managed to steal iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s models from 2013 to 2014. The illegal activities were not discovered until Foxconn performed an internal audit and he was then reported to the authorities.



Tsai managed to return to Taiwan but the authorities had been alerted of his actions. According to Apple Insider the authorities in Taiwan did question Tsai but he was released after posting bail.



Foxconn itself has reportedly been under fire from the public due to alleged unfair treatment towards employees and the conditions of its factories. The company most recently garnered negative feedback after its buildings were fitted with suicide nets.



Apple has also been reportedly pressured to take some distance from Foxconn. Although Apple has no direct responsibility over the supplier's actions the company's reputation may still be affected. It is stated that President-elect Donald Trump had urged Apple to move their production to the United States and Apple is allegedly considering this option.



Apple is also suffering from multiple leaks originating from its suppliers. The report points out several schematics have been leaked out to the media and this can give Apple's suppliers a head start to combat their competitor.



Several of these leaks include a possible flexible circuit board and an OLED display for the iPhone 8, which is not scheduled to release until Fall 2017. It is important to note that Apple has yet to address if these leaks are accurate and if it will distance itself from Foxconn following Tsai's indictment.






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Italians have begun voting in a referendum heralded as the jucture when the fate of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi  and some say of Europe  will be decided.

The vote is being watched worldwide for signs of escalating anti-establishment sentiment, following a surge of support for populist parties that has forcibly rocked America and the UK during 2016.

Mr Renzi has promised to resign if he loses, triggering political instability and risking plunging the Italys already struggling economy into a fresh crisis, which could cause further turmoil in the eurozone.

The Prime Minister proposes streamlining Italys government  long considered gridlocked with bureaucracy  including slashing the size of the senate from 315 members to 100.

The centre-left politician argues this will accelerate the lawmaking process in Italy, which currently has 60 governments, but opponents say this will hand too much power to the prime minister.

Polls opened at 7am, with about 51 million Italians eligible to vote on Mr Renzi's plan to drastically reduce the role of the upper house Senate and claw back powers from regional authorities.

The Italian leader made not comment as he voted in Pontassieve, a Tuscan town east of Florence, along with his wife, Agnese Landini. He is expected to return to Rome later this afternoon to watch the outcome of the vote.

With all the opposition parties lined up against the reform, a victory for Mr Renzi would be a surprise and represent an enormous personal triumph for Italy's youngest prime minister who often appeared to be fighting the campaign single-handed.

All surveys published in the month before a blackout was imposed on 18 November put the 'No' camp ahead.

Private polls have continued to be conducted in the last two weeks and bookmakers say 'No' remains the clear favourite to win.

However, in the final days of frenetic campaigning Mr Renzi insisted the public mood was changing, focusing his attention on the millions of Italians who said they were undecided.

Pippo Nicosia, a stall-holder at Campo dei Fiori market in central Rome, said he would vote 'Yes' but had no doubt about the result. 'No' will win, everything will collapse so we might as well all go on holiday, he said.

Turnout, expected at between 50 and 60 percent, could be crucial. Pollsters say lower participation could favour Renzi, as hostility to his reform is strongest among young voters and those in the poor south, segments of the population that often don't bother to vote.

A turnout above 60 percent could also make the result more unpredictable, as it would suggest many voters who said they planned to abstain ended up going to the polls.

With bookmakers' odds suggesting a roughly 75 per cent chance of a win for 'No', speculation is rife on what Renzi will do in the event of defeat.

Odds stacked against Renzi, who vows to resign if he loses (AP)

He is widely expected to resign and has said he will play no role in any unelected, technical government, which President Sergio Mattarella may try to put in place. Some of his allies have urged him to stay in power regardless of the result.

The result of exit polls will be announced as soon as voting ends and the count begins at 11pm.

After around 30 minutes, the first projections of the result will be announced on the basis of actual votes counted.

If the result is not close, the winner could be clear after the second projection, sometime between midnight and 1am.

In a very close race, the winner may not be known until the count is completed, probably between 2 and 3am.

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

Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan sought to calm nervous markets on Friday, saying there was no risk of a financial earthquake if 'No' wins, though there may be 48 hours of turbulence.

Market jitters have concentrated on Italy's banks, saddled with 360bn euros (300bn) of bad loans, and most specifically on Monte Dei Paschi di Siena, its oldest and third largest lender.

The bank needs to raise 5 billion euros (420bn) by the end of the year to plug a capital shortfall or risk being wound down. Government officials say potential investors may be deterred by political instability if 'No' should win.

Meanwhile, a runoff in Austria could put a right-wing populist in control of the nation for the first time since the Second World War.

Reuters
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Rome's mayor has issued a blanket ban on 'gladiators' from the Italian capital.

Actors dressing up as gladiators and centurions near tourist hotspots offer to pose for photographs with tourists for money.

Mayor Virginia Raggi issued the ban after a number of complaints accusing the actors and rickshaw drivers overcharging and even pickpocketing tourists, The Local reports.

The ban targets anyone attempting to portray a historical subject such as ancient Roman soldier in photographs or videos for cash.

Anyone caught breaking the new regulation will face a 400 fine as Rome's authorities attempt to "protect public order" and guard the capital's "cultural, artistic and monumental heritage".

The rickshaw ban applies to any vehicle partially or fully powered by pedals used to transport people around the city.

This is not first time gladiator impersonators have been banned in Rome, the latest regulations replace previous public orders which expired on November 30.

One centurion impersonator and father of two told the Italian newspaper Il Corriere: "In Verona, characters pay 10 in order to occupy land for a day; there's an online application and then they're allowed to work.

"Why isn't that possible in Rome?"

Rome elects Virginia Raggi as first female mayor

Rome authorities claimed unauthorised gladiators were able to make up to 12,000 Euros (10,000) each month through overcharging tourists for holiday snaps.

The new regulation will be valid until July 2017.
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Artefacts looted from Syrias ancient Semitic city of Palmyra have been seized by Swiss authorities after they were discovered in Genevas secretive free ports  warehouses often used to store expensive objects with few questions asked.

Relics from war-torn Yemen and Libya were also confiscated from the storage lockers, which are often placed near airports and allow people to keep items tax-free.

The relics date back to the third and fourth centuries and include a head of Aphrodite.

Geneva's public prosecutor said in a statement most of the items arrived in Switzerland after travelling through Qatar and were taken by looters, who left them at the ports between 2009 and 2010.

Suspicions were raised in April 2013 during a customs inspection, prosecutors added, and criminal proceedings began in February.

Three of the artefacts came from Palmyra, an ancient city ravaged by Isis after it seized control in mid-2015.

Videos of the group vandalising the Unesco site  which contains relics dating back to the neolithic period  elicited shock and horror around the world when they were circulated on social media.

Another five of the confiscated objects were from Yemen, AFP reported.

The Aphrodite relic was from Libya and characterised the Hellenisation of north Africa the statement said, adding that the Geneva Museum of Art and History will now put the relics on public display before returning them to their country of origin.

On Saturday, France and the United Arab Emirates launched a $100 million fund to protect heritage sites threatened by conflict.

The money will be used to create safe havens for endangered artifacts and to transport and restore monuments damaged by war, according to UAE state news agency WAM.

In Pictures: Isis loses control of Palmyra Show all 4 1 /4 In Pictures: Isis loses control of Palmyra In Pictures: Isis loses control of Palmyra The iconic Temple of Bel prior to being blown up by Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in September 2015 and the remains of the temple after Syrian troops recaptured the ancient site In Pictures: Isis loses control of Palmyra he Arc de Troimphe (Triumph's Arc) prior to being destroyed by Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in October 2015 and the remains of the iconic structure after government troops recaptured the ancient city In Pictures: Isis loses control of Palmyra The once vibrant museum is now full of empty displays after the destruction of artefacts In Pictures: Isis loses control of Palmyra Corbis The Monumental Arch is among the many lost structures and treasures Corbis

In October French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said more needed to be done to tackle the role of free ports in helping fund terrorism.

We have to fight the trade in works of art as part of the fight against terrorist financing, he said, adding: there is a weak link [in fighting terrorist funding], which is the existence of free ports.
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The European Union has been urged to urgently clarify whether it is helping to fund Iranian anti-narcotics programmes linked to mass executions.

In a letter seen by The Independent, human rights charity Reprieve raises concerns that as part of a new page in EU-Iran relations announced earlier this year, the EU and member states could be actively seeking to fund UN programmes linked to support for Irans drug police  a body responsible for hundreds of executions in the country.

Reprieve has called for urgent clarification of the European Commissions policy on funding counter-narcotics operations in Iran, following deeply concerning reports in the Iranian media that a senior official in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the EU was actively seeking to provide support for Iranian drug enforcement operations.

The letter, addressed to EU foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini and co-signed by NGOs including Human Rights Watch and Iran Human Rights, cites a report in the Iran Daily stating a UNODC official named Alex P Schmid confirmed the European Union has positive evaluation of Irans performance in the anti-narcotics fight, and the European Commission is eager to earmark new funds to Iran for the purpose.

He reportedly added: Countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Norway are ready to allocate the credit to Iran.

Around 1,000 people were executed in Iran last year, according to a report from the United Nations investigator Ahmed Shaheed. But, the unofficial number is believed to be higher.

The majority of these executions are linked to drug trafficking and non-lethal drugs offences.

According to Reprieve, in 2014 the Iranian government executed 474 drug offenders, in 2015 682 drugs offenders were hanged and around 189 drug offenders had been hanged as of September 2016.

Despite these statistics, the deputy head of the judiciary, Mohammad Bagher Olfat, said in August that the death penalty had not had a dissuasive effect on drug trafficking through Iran, which is one of the main routes for Afghan heroin heading for Europe.

The EU is the second largest donor to the UNODC, spending more than 2 million (1.6 million) on the law enforcement arm of UNODCs 2010-15 regional programme for Afghanistan and the neighbouring countries  an initiative alleged to support the activities of the Iranian drug police, according to reports from Reprieve.

Counter-narcotics support programmes in Iran risk enabling death sentences by urging Iranian drug police to demonstrate increased arrests, higher conviction rates, and larger seizure sizes  all of which end up encouraging capital convictions in a judicial system that fails to meet the minimum standards of due process and where the death penalty is one of the required punishments for seizures of more than 30g of illegal drugs, the letter reads.

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

A draft resolution by the European Parliament published in October called on the European Commission to ensure that any technical or other assistance offered to Iran is not used to commit human rights violations.

The EUs 28 member states made a joint statement to the UN General Assembly in April confirming that imposing the death penalty for drug offences is against the norms of international law.

During the same month, Ms Mogherini visited Iran to announce the EU and Iran had turned a new page in their diplomatic relations, but also said "it is not a secret we have some concerns" over the question of human rights in Iran.

Countries including the UK, Italy, Germany and Austria have previously indicated they will not contribute to Iranian counter-narcotics programmes overseen by the UNODC.

Maya Foa, a director at Reprieve, said: Iran continues to hang hundreds of alleged non-violent drug offenders every year in a brutal and ineffective war on drugs. In light of these abuses, many national Governments across Europe have refused to provide support for Irans anti-narcotics efforts  rightly acknowledging that this would put them at risk of complicity in the countrys execution spree.

Given many member states' refusal to fund such raids, and the EUs clear and categorical opposition to the death penalty, it would be hypocritical and unacceptable for the EU to provide support to Irans execution machine. The EU should urgently disavow comments by the UN drugs agency that it is willing to do just that.

An EU spokesperson said: We do not comment on comments neither on reported comments. No decisions on new funding have been taken on the matter. We are in a stage of launching a dialogue with the Iranian authorities. Any EU-Iran cooperation on the fight against drugs is done in a manner fully consistent with the respect of human rights."

The UNODC declined to comment and said they were not able to verify the Iranian media reports.

The Independent has contacted the Iranian Embassy for comment.
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To get a sense of the mood among Italians as they vote in a crucial referendum, on a constitutional overhaul on which Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has staked his leadership, you need only to speak to those whose life savings were wiped out in a government-brokered rescue of four banks.

It's been almost a year since Letizia Giorgianni, a bondholder in one of the banks, Banca Etruria, woke up to the news that she had lost 100,000 in savings. She now respresents thousands of other small investors still fighting to get their money back from the salvaged banks, which include Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara, Banca della Marche and CariChieti. At the time, Renzi insisted the 4 billion rescue had to be done "to save jobs".

"What happened with these four banks was an injustice to people who had nothing and who have been left in dire straits," said Giorgianni, adding that between them they lost 400 million. "This deal was disgraceful  and now this government wants to modify the constitution in order to strengthen its own power?"

Giorgianni, from the Tuscan town of Arezzo where Banca Etruria is based, has cast her vote and is confident Italians will snub Renzi's proposals, which are intended to streamline a costly and bloated government. "It's not that this constitution doesn't need change, but this government has worked badly for us. If we win, then it will send out a strong message."

Having lost her savings, Giorgianni is unperturbed by the forescasts of doom should Renzi step down, and further calamity among Italy's banks prevail. The biggest concern, at least in the short-term, is whether the ensuing political uncertainty will jeopardise a 5 billion bailout of the world's oldest bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), which was rated as Europe's most vulnerable in stress tests in July.

"Whatever the outcome of the vote, it will be bad news for MPS," she added. "They haven't been able to find any investors to help save it so far, and nothing will change if Renzi wins."

It's a big moment for Matteo Renzi (AFP)

Voters are being asked whether they want to curtail the powers of Italy's upper house of parliament, a move that would slash the number of senators from 315 to 100 and save an estimated 500 million a year.

The main aim is to get laws passed quicker and bring stability to a country which has had 63 governments in 70 years.

But populists, emboldened by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the US, have have also exploited public discontent over a perennially sluggish economy, and Renzi's vow to quit. The Five Star Movement, the second biggest party in parliament, founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, has repeatedly pledged to call a referendum on Italy's membership of the euro if it wins the next general election.

Dave Brown on Europe Show all 9 1 /9 Dave Brown on Europe Dave Brown on Europe 4 March 2016 Boris Johnson campaigns for Brexit Dave Brown Dave Brown on Europe Dave Brown on Europe 15 January 2016 Chris Grayling hints that he will campaign for Britain to leave EU Dave Brown on Europe 21 October 2015 ECB prescribes more Quantitative Easing Dave Brown on Europe 13 October 2015 Cameron seeks an EU re-negotiation as ex M&S boss announced to lead Dave Brown on Europe 30 June 2015 Greek ATMs close as Tsipras fails to get a bailout deal from Merkel Dave Brown on Europe 6 February 2015 Merkel and Hollandes send Putin a peace proposal for Ukraine Dave Brown on Europe 28 June 2014 Cameron defeated in vote for new EU President Dave Brown on Europe 17 May 2014 Farage makes his position on Europe clear

His supporters are also feeling upbeat that change is afoot. "I don't believe in the word 'populist', said 67-year-old Stefano Gaetani, who also rejecting Renzi's reforms. "But this party is more in touch with the people, why not give them the chance?"
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Just recently I have come to realise that I am a very naive person, having been brought up to believe that in a democratic country it is the will of the people that carries the day. In the past, as a nation, we have done our best to spread the philosophy of democracy and even fought wars to defend the democratic rights of ourselves and others.

A recent referendum concluded that the majority of this country wished to leave the European Community. However, many of those who voted to remain in the community are behaving like spoilt children who did not win a prize at the birthday party.

Those who lost are doing all they are able to sabotage the will of the majority, and thereby sabotaging the talks that will eventually start with regard to our departure. These people who are doing all that is possible to rock the boat should remember that we do not always have what we want, and that they are living in a democratic country which believes in true democracy and the will of the people.

These spoilt children who did not win the race will do all they are able to make life a misery for the rest. To those who are doing all in their power to wreck the referendum result I say quite simply: grow up and realise that in life we do not always have what we want.

Colin Bower

Sherwood, Nottingham

The populist right is winning  and Jeremy Corbyn is in denial as to why. He can't acknowledge that a living wage is incompatible with open borders. The unpalatable truth about low pay and insecure jobs is that employers are taking advantage of a ready supply of unskilled migrant labour. Simply curtail unskilled immigration and there will be a transfer of purchasing power from the majority haves to the minority have-nots as menial jobs that cannot be outsourced abroad become more costly. This is a small price to pay for national cohesiveness.

Nor can Corbyn acknowledge that the welfare state is ultimately incompatible with open borders.

Yugo Kovach

Dorset

A Brexit minister who won't be affected by Brexit is a very fine thing

Vaughan Thomas writes to suggest that Monmouthshire MP, Brexit cheerleader and amateur dental inspector David Davis should resign his seat and face the verdict of his Remain-voting constituency. It is worth noting that, like Nigel Farage, Davis does not have to worry about Brexit: his wife is an EU citizen, so Davis and his family will retain their EU rights after Brexit, unlike the rest of us.

Chris Webster

Abergavenny

Should we care about animal products in the 5 note?

Having raised the question of tallow in the new 5 note, I suggest Mr Maw gets involved in something more useful. He does not have to use these notes, and the minute amount of tallow is from dead animals and undoubtedly goes into other day-to-day products we do not know about.

Relax: be a vegetarian but don't force your views down everyone's throat.

Marlene Maguire

Claygate

Instead of saying that vegetarians and others are stupid for complaining about the new banknote (Vegetarians being stupid for new 5 note animal fat protest, says inventor, December 3) perhaps the inventor should look at the bigger picture and see what they are really opposing. Undercover footage from some UK slaughterhouses have shown shocking abuse of the animals by workers. In other countries, torture is the only word we would use to describe the treatment of animals inside these killing factories.

Jenny Moxham

Victoria, Australia

We had the wool pulled over our eyes where Syria and Iraq are concerned

Thank goodness for Patrick Cockburn. It has been blindingly obvious to anyone who has been paying attention that the situations in Aleppo and Mosul are mirror images of one another, and yet these two gruesome operations have been reported in completely different ways.

Sadly, re-taking a city while its population is still living there will inevitably lead to civilian casualties, especially if the occupying forces are refusing to allow people to leave. And yet only now are we being allowed to know that the Al-Nusra fighters in East Aleppo have threatened to shoot anyone who is trying to leave, and that there have been significant civilian losses in Mosul. But then, there's none so blind as he who will not see!

Robert Curtis

Birmingham

No sensible person would support an early general election

Can we please stop this talk of an early general election?

The Fixed Term Parliaments Act was one of the best things the Liberal Democrats did in coalition with the Conservatives. It effectively ends the corrupt practice of a government being able to call a general election when it wishes  in other words, when it is ahead in the polls.

We should be very wary of trying to chip away at the already sparse version of democracy we now have in Britain.

Tom Green

Address supplied

Exactly which God does Theresa May believe in?

What do Theresa May, David Cameron, Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher all have in common? Yes, they all have claimed at some point in their careers that a belief in God drives them on to do the right thing.

As we know, Thatcher was arguably the most divisive figure in British history and her contribution to society very much depends upon your political viewpoint. But surely anybody who can earn the nickname of Thatcher the milk snatcher may not actually be following the teachings of any religion weve heard of?

Similarly, Tony Blair has the dubious distinction of sending British troops into battle more times than any other British PM. Cameron left office with an unprecedented and record number of Brits dependent upon food banks for survival. And Theresa May has just implemented the most aggressive, regressive and oppressive snooping legislation within the western world, legislation that I bet Castro himself would be shocked by.

Certainly, prime ministers have to take difficult decisions. But really, can we trust a PM to that is influenced to some extent by a belief that God would actually approve of those decisions?

Paul Dodenhoff

Leyland
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You may know Bana. You may have seen her face on Facebook; you may have caught a glimpse of one of her videos on Twitter. Bana is a seven-year-old, living in East Aleppo. She tweets  or rather her mother does for her, a setup giving rise to a thousand conspiracy theories  about rubble and buried school friends. Through the power of the internet, we can send her Harry Potter books, but not drinking water. Such is the deceptive promise of our connected world.

Time is running out for Bana. She knows it, we know it. Last week, her house was bombed out, and she and her mother took to living with friends. East Aleppo has been the heart of Syrias insurgency, but in the last few weeks, government forces  many of them Shia fighters from neighbouring Iraq and Iran  have taken control of 50 per cent of the land previously held by rebels. Refugee agencies estimate 34,000 civilians were displaced last week. The UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, estimates the city will fall by the New Year. President Assads forces  and their Russian funders  are not known for showing mercy to civilians.

Who betrayed Bana? How did it come to this? Even as the Wests liberals weep goodbye to President Obama, bracing ourselves for his successor, we should ask ourselves some tough questions about his  and our  complicity in Syria.

President Assad maintains, as he has done since the first pro-democratic protests began in 2011, those who took up arms against his rule are terrorists and radical Islamists to boot. All those who oppose him, by extension, are Isis sympathisers, a murderous monolith of extremists. It is the natural responsibility of modern governments to destroy Islamist killers. Looking at the headless corpses littering the ground of Raqqa, who could disagree?

In pictures: Children play underground in Syria Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: Children play underground in Syria In pictures: Children play underground in Syria A child plays in the ball pit at the 'Land of Childhood,' an underground playground in a besieged town in Syria Unicef In pictures: Children play underground in Syria Abdulaziz, 10, plays in the 'Land of Childhood' underground playground in Syria Unicef In pictures: Children play underground in Syria Boys look through a show window inside the tunnel that provides a safe passage for children between the two basements that form the 'Land of Childhood' in a besieged town in Syria Unicef In pictures: Children play underground in Syria Children play at the underground 'Land of Childhood' in a besieged town in Syria Unicef In pictures: Children play underground in Syria Two girls play at the 'Land of Childhood' underground playground in a besieged town in Syria Unicef In pictures: Children play underground in Syria Children on the ride on a ferris wheel at the 'Land of Childhood', an underground playground in a besieged town in Syria Unicef In pictures: Children play underground in Syria Seven-year-old Massa at the "Land of Childhood" underground playground in a besieged town in Syria Unicef In pictures: Children play underground in Syria Children wait in line to buy sweets at the 'Land of Childhood,' an underground playground in a besieged town in Syria Unicef

Assads critics have long known Isis is not his enemy. For years, evidence has built up about his governments nurturing of Isis cells, cultivated first in order to be sent back into Iraq, bogging down the Americans, then to carve up Syria in an Assad-Isis pact to squeeze more secular rebels on multiple fronts. This week, the Daily Beast is publishing a series of extraordinary interviews with former Assadists, attesting to the longevity of the Presidents links with anti-Western Islamists. But while the details are new, the gist is not. In early 2016, a series of leaked documents proved that Assadist commanders had colluded with Isis fighters to coordinate their attacks on moderate cities, including Palmyra, and that the Syrian government had been paying Isis for the oil pumped from looted air fields.

Such details seem to have been lost on the newest arrival to the international scene, Donald Trump. Assads ally, Vladimir Putin, has consistently made the case that Western governments should be supporting President Assad as the last bulwark against Islamist terror. Russias own role as the last defender of white Christianity is the fevered dream of a thousand white supremacist Twitter accounts. Thus, throughout the American election campaign, Donald Trump has repeated Putins talking points; now, after his election, Democrat-appointed diplomats are scrambling to tie down international agreements keeping Assad out of Aleppo before President Trump takes over and waves the Syrians in. Their chances are not good.

Meanwhile, in America, liberals mourn the dying days of Barack Obamas presidency. Against the advent of Trump, any outgoing leader would look eloquent, heroic and presidential. In a much-shared profile in The New Yorker, David Remnick wrote of Trumps victory as a personal loss for Obama, an American tragedy. There is a strong temptation to recast the last eight years as an idyll of internationalist humanitarianism.

Yet for Bana and her younger brother, hiding amid the rubble in Aleppo, Trumps victory may have little effect. The damage to them has been done; it has been done over the last five years. Consistently, Obama has sought to negotiate with Vladimir Putin; consistently, Russian-Syrian promises have been broken, and ignored by a conflict-averse America. Obama once promised the use of chemical weapons by President Assad would be a red line after which retribution must follow  and we all know how that turned out.

 Obama: I'll weigh in on Trump's presidency if necessary

He was not helped by Britains left; Ed Milibands recent attempts to recast himself as an elder statesman sit uneasily with the political games he played during Parliaments 2013 vote on Syrian intervention. Having promised to support a government bill preparing the way for strikes on Assadist targets, he reneged at the last moment, afraid to lose support in his own party to Diane Abbott and the anti-interventionist hard left. We know how that turned out, too.

Bana, I suspect, will survive, nominally. Siege victims who become international symbols have a funny way of being rescued and feted by the victors. How many of her friends, family members, teachers, will die or have already died may be quietly brushed away. But those in America keen to burnish Obama as the last, great President before the Trump tragedy, will have to answer to Bana's mother.

A few years ago, I visited a refugee camp on the edge of Turkey. The Syrian inhabitants made a little money selling craftwork to the trickle of well-meaning international visitors who routinely toured its streets. On my last day, I discovered a former engineer, who had made, with rhomboids cut from plastic bottle caps, a careful, waxy mosaic depicting a narrow street in Old Aleppo. A fantasy of a medieval Syrian merchant strolled in the foreground. I paid, obscenely over the odds, as my companions told me, in my absurd attempt to give the man a little pride. A few hours later, frantically packing, I realised it would never fit in the suitcase or make it through security in Istanbul. I left it in the hotel. The image it depicts  and how swiftly I disposed of it  still haunts me.
The President has awarded medals to members of the Irish Defence Forces to recognise their efforts in a year that marked the centenary of the Easter Rising.

Michael D Higgins was assisted by Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald and a number of government ministers as they presented the commemorative medals at a ceremony in Dublin.

A group of serving permanent and reserve members of the Defence Forces were honoured at the event in Dublin Castle.

It was one of the last big set piece events in a year of official commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the uprising again British rule on the streets of Dublin - a seminal event that paved the way for future Irish independence.

Smaller scale medal ceremonies are planned for 11 military installations across the Republic so all Defence Force members are recognised.

Ms Fitzgerald said: "I, along with members of the Government and the citizens of our country, have participated in remarkable and moving ceremonies commemorating key events that took place 100 years ago.

"The awarding of the 1916 Centenary Commemorative Medal is a fitting tribute and thank you from the Government, on behalf of the people of Ireland, to our Defence Forces for their dedication to duty during this commemorative year."
His experience over the years has left Michael McCall, in no doubt that the Aubrac are "the one breed that can make money for the farmer".

Michael, who is better known among his peers as 'Kim', decided to import the first of the breed on to his farm from France two decades ago, and it continues to be one decision that he has never had reason to regret.

His ambition was to breed beef animals for the Calverstown herd at Kilcullen, Co Kildare that would leave a decent margin of profit from a combination of low costs and good performances.

"We brought them in because we thought that they were a good all round breed. The key point is the economy of the breed."

Michael could hardly have expected their offspring delivering such a very high percentage of E and U grade beef animals as they have been doing.

Neither did he envisage that in 2016 one of his pedigree Aubrac bulls, Calverstown Koala, would become the leading all breed bull on the ICBF Gene Ireland selection with a rating of 163 on the replacement index.

Koala is a five-star bull for both Maternal and Terminal indexes, and comes with an estimated calving difficulty of 3.3pc and described as having a very placid temperament.

"I don't think he is the best bull that we have bred in the herd, but he is the one that was selected on the day, and his rating is good", said Kim.

Koala is the sixth calf of his dam 'Calverstown Bodalla', who is a consistent breeder with a calving internal of 359 days and no assisted calving.

She is described as being "a deep and square cow, with plenty of milk, and a growth rate of 1.53kg/ day from birth" whose bloodline originated from the Ramon Herd, based in France, that is well-known for its maternal traits.

Koala's sire 'Four Candles' was purchased in France out of the highly rated Boubal herd and is from the herd's best performing bloodline.

Four Candles has sired over 200 calves, with very little calving difficulty. He has produced daughters of excellent maternal quality, while on the other hand his progeny that have been slaughtered have performed extremely well with a total 90pc of bullocks U grade.

The herd

The herd's consistency is exceptional, with the 75 cows in the herd having a calving interval of 363 days - a calf every year - against the national average at 401 days - over the past three years.

Pedigree stock are continually sought from herds in France with the number of herds from which stock are purchased narrowed down over the years to the current scale of three or four of the tops in the country.

Efficiency

Apart from the performance of the animals, Kim is very impressed by the feed efficiency of the breed.

"Last year we kept 75 cows on 2.5 bales of silage or haylage per day and one bale of straw, using less than 400 bales over a 120-130 day winter season" he said.

He believes that it would be very difficult to get the same combination of performance and feed efficiency that the Aubrac have delivered over the years.

"The Aubrac have been providing us with consistent results for over 19 years" says Kim and by any standard that is a reasonable period of test.

He sums up the breed's qualities as "consistency in docility, milk, ease of calving, lively calves, good growth rate and feed conversion - cows that can milk well off grass, hay or silage, and do not need meal".

"Fertility, longevity, and calving interval are good. They are low cost cattle that are pleasant and easy to work with" which leaves no doubt about conviction in favour of the breed.

"Aubrac suit our system of farming which is not intensive but as we are full time farmers the profit has to be enough to sustain the family and keep on investing in the farm. With Aubrac cattle, we can do that" he explains.

Stock from the Calverstown Herd are rarely seen on the show circuit."We are not interested in shows but look for an efficient suckler cow that leaves us with a bit of profit" says Kim.

While it may appear unusual for a high profile pedigree herd not to utilise the show as a shop window for the progeny, demand from other breeders for all available progeny from the herd for breeding or finishing as beef animals speaks volumes.

And it is not the only unusual feature of the herd or the farm where farming continues in a modern style of traditional farming methods - with very limited artificial fertiliser.

In addition to the Aubrac Herd the 85 ha farm, which is run by Kim and his wife, Mireille who is also very involved in the management, carries 80 breeding ewes and there are 10 ha of forestry.

About 350 tonnes of farmyard manure and 105.000 litres of slurry are spread on average each year with Bacteriolit added to the straw in the shed and to the slurry. Bacteriosol is also used. Bacteriolit and Bacteriosol are a natural product from Sobac which speeds up composting.

The manure is usually spread in August and September and slurry between January and March. The farm is mainly old pasture with a very high concentration of clover mostly white and red.

"We have found a noticeable improvement in the pastures since using it. The grass is sweeter and the animals eat more of the field. It also helps to rectify compaction problems and reduce weeds" he explains.

The farm was in REPS for a number of years and was demonstration farm for REPS 1. In AEOS hedges have been planted, rich meadows species managed and an orchard replanted.

"The farm is not organic but we are being careful to protect the environment and wildlife in simple measures that do not interfere with the profitability on the farm," says Kim.

The success of the farm has been recognised in the national awards received. In 1990 it won the National Farming and Conservation Award, followed in 1998 by the Profitable Farming and Conservation Award, in 2000 with first prize for REPS for the Leinster region and in 2009 by an RDS-sponsored Forestry Award.

The farm was originally purchased by the McCall family in 1958. Kim's father bred racehorses and fattened bullocks on the farm. In 1986 when Kim took over he opted for suckler cows and sheep to replace the horses choosing the Aubrac breed which he has never regretted.
KickassTorrents (commonly abbreviated KAT) was a website that provided a directory for torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. (Photo : YouTube/BNO News)

Speculations are rife that the much-loved torrent website Kickass Torrents may return in a new avatar as Kat.cr in February 2017. Kat.cr may have the original database and the look and feel of the parent website.



In July, the owner of Kickass Torrents Artem Paulim was arrested in Poland on many charges of copyright infringement. Till date, he has not been able to secure bail and is languishing in a prison cell.



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After the demise of Kickass Torrents, numerous mirrors, proxies and lookalike websites cropped up in order to cater to the torrent lovers. However, most of them could not survive a long time as they were also served legal notices and forced to close down.



A few nifty scammers also tried to ride on the Kickass Torrents brandwagon and came up with some scamming websites, which used to ask for the personal and financial information of the users. Thousands of people were duped out of their financial details before word spread that these were scamming sites. They were promptly forced offline, according to Torrent Freak.



"The King of Torrents" The Pirate Bay soon reclaimed its position as the number one torrent website in the world, after Kickass Torrents was forced to shut shop. Extra Torrent also saw a surge in daily visitors and it quickly became the number two torrent website in the world, according to the same publication. However, their position in the torrenting world is at danger of being cut short and they may be also going down the Kickass Torrents route.



Meanwhile, the French authorities have also stepped up their efforts against piracy. In this regard, they forced the closure of two Kickass Torrent alternatives Zone Telechargement and DL Protect in France.



The offices of Zone Telechargement were raided by the French police on Nov. 29 and they were forced to go offline. After the raid, the website did manage to come back online but most of its services were not working. Similarly, DL Protect was also forced to shut shop when its owners were confronted by the French police.



Watch the video to know more about the Kickass Torrents alternatives here:






Thirty years after it first floated on the Irish Stock Exchange, Kerry is at a crossroads. The firm has grown to become a genuine multinational but relations between the plc and the founding co-op and its milk suppliers have never been poorer.

Kerry was the first Irish dairy processor to float on the Irish Stock Exchange in October 1986.

The flotation did not proceed entirely smoothly. The co-op's umbrella body IAOS (now called ICOS) objected strongly to the flotation, arguing that selling shares to outside investors would dilute the co-operative ethos.

This was despite the fact that the original flotation still left Kerry Co-op with a controlling shareholding in the new plc.

Kerry's founding chief executive Denis Brosnan, never one to be constrained by tradition, ignored these objections resulting in Kerry being temporarily banished from the co-op ranks.

Admonitions from his fellow dairymen of how the flotation violated the "Rochdale principles" so beloved of co-op purists cut no ice with Brosnan.

When the success of the Kerry flotation became apparent, many of the other major co-ops quickly changed tack. Waterford and Avonmore (which merged to form Glanbia in 1997), and IAWS (now Aryzta) all floated in 1988, with only Dairygold resisting the siren call of the Stock Exchange.

Brosnan had set his heart on a flotation share price of 52p (66 cent). Irish Life's fund management arm, then by far the largest Irish institutional investor, was only prepared to pay 50p (63.5 cent). The conventional wisdom in the mid-1980s was that, without Irish Life's participation, no flotation could succeed. A stand-off ensued and the flotation went ahead successfully, at 52p, without Irish Life.

For a young upstart to stand up to the giant Irish Life like this was unprecedented - Brosnan and Irish Life quickly made their peace. Irish Life went on to become one of the major investors in the new Kerry plc.

And a good thing, too. With the share price now at 64.50, someone who invested 1,000 in Kerry shares 30 years ago would now have shares with a value of almost 100,000, even if they hadn't re-invested their dividends.

Brosnan, who stepped down as Kerry chief executive at the end of 2001, and his successors Hugh Friel, then Stan McCarthy (pictured with chief financial officer Brian Mehigan), who took the reins in 2008, have created a genuine Irish multinational - a company that has used a combination of Irish raw materials and brains to build a world-beater.

Kerry's sales have grown from 337m in 1986 to 6.1bn in 2015, while its pre-tax profits have grown from 8m to 603m over the same period and it employs more than 23,000 people. Even after the recent fall in the Kerry share price, the group has a market capitalisation of 11.4bn, making it the third most valuable company on the Irish Stock Exchange after CRH and Ryanair.

Through a combination of organic growth and audacious acquisitions, Kerry is now the world's largest producer of food flavourings and coatings. As more and more food companies have been sold to private equity buyers, they are increasingly farming out the development of new flavourings and coatings to specialist producers such as Kerry. In 2015, over three-quarters of Kerry's sales and five-sixths of its trading profits came from flavourings and coatings.

This is a high-margin, high-growth business, with Kerry's flavourings arm increasing its trading profits by almost 12pc to 663m in 2015. That is a trading margin of 14.1pc, up from 13.7pc in 2014.

By comparison, Kerry's consumer foods division increased its trading profits by just 0.2pc to 126m in 2015 and its trading margin widened by 0.2pc to 8.5pc. Not bad, but not a patch on the margins and growth being achieved by its flavourings division. The performance of the two divisions diverged even further in 2016, with Kerry's interim management statement revealing that volumes at flavourings grew by 3.4pc and trading margins rose by 0.7pc in the first nine months of 2016, but volumes at consumer foods were up by only 2.2pc, and trading margins rose by just 0.3pc in the same period.

The geographic spread of the two divisions' sales is also completely different. While virtually all of Kerry's consumer foods sales are in Europe - with more than 70pc in the UK and most of the rest in Ireland - flavourings is a truly global business, with only a third of its sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, half coming from the Americas and the remaining sixth from Asia-Pacific.

All of which begs the question, why doesn't Kerry do the splits and hive off its flavourings division as a separate company? With its superior margins and stronger growth prospects, it would surely command a higher rating on the stock market than it does at present, yoked to a consumer foods division in the eye of the Brexit storm.

That's not how they see things in Kerry Group.

"We have a strong business [consumer foods]. It has been repositioned. The cost of entry was low and it is cash-generative. It is a highly valued business", said a Kerry spokesman.

But what about Brexit? Surely a business that makes most of its sales to UK multiples and food service operators must be feeling the chill wind of the post-Brexit fall in the value of sterling? Not so, according to the firm, which said: "The assets in Ireland substantially meet the needs of the Irish market, while the assets in the UK meet the needs of the British market. We are largely insulated from Brexit and the fall in the value of sterling.

"The two businesses have operated successfully side by side. They continue to drive the growth and development of the Kerry Group. We have a dual strategy. A lot of the talent that comes in at graduate level gets experience in both divisions. The board is confident about both divisions."

Long-term Kerry watchers are not convinced. "The focus of the company will be on its taste and nutrition [flavourings] business with a tilt, from a geographical standpoint, towards developing markets", said Liam Igoe of Goodbody Stockbrokers. "Kerry is capable of delivering at least 10pc annual earnings growth from organic developments alone. On top of that, acquisitions look set to play a bigger part for the Group.

"We reckon it could spend up to 4bn on new deals in the coming five years which, combined with the organic growth, could as much as double its earnings in the period".

This could cause Kerry's flavourings division to double in size over the next five years. This would result in the division having annual sales of close to 10bn and trading profits of around 1.5bn by 2020. Kerry has always been an acquisitive company, spending a net 888m on acquisitions in 2015.

Perhaps the greatest success of Kerry over the past three decades has been the way in which it has managed the sometimes divergent interests of shareholders and suppliers.

Of course a rising share price and seven spin-outs of rapidly appreciating plc shares to co-op shareholders since 1993 have been of enormous assistance in this regard. The rising share price also meant that the reduction in the co-op shareholding to under 50pc in 1997 was a far less traumatic event than it might otherwise have been. Now there are signs that this relationship is under stress as never before. The fall in the milk prices that followed the lifting of EU quotas in March 2015 has led to a number of Kerry milk suppliers taking legal action against the plc and McCarthy stepping down from the co-op board - the first time that the plc chief executive wasn't also on the co-op board.

Further complicating matters has been the recent move by the Revenue Commissioners to tax so-called "patronage" shares issued to Kerry milk suppliers as income, where they would be subject not just to income tax but also USC and PRSI rather than as capital gains, as had previously been the practice.

With the co-op still owning 13.7pc of the plc, each co-op share has an implied value of about 400 as against the par value of just 1.25 at which they were issued to suppliers.

Kerry increased its milk price to suppliers for August, September and October, which has taken some of the sting out of the milk price dispute. However, the row, currently in arbitration, isn't going to go away any time soon.

As Kerry faces into its second 30 years on the stock exchange, the founding co-op and milk suppliers will own an ever-decreasing share of the plc. Will McCarthy and his successors be able to continue to combine the two within one corporate structure? Or will they too be forced to split the two sides of its business, as rival processor Glanbia has already done?
A record 163,000 visitors attended EuroTier in Hannover this time around, which is regarded as the world's leading trade fair for the latest technologies in livestock production.

Held every two years, EuroTier is organised by the German Agricultural Society, DLG, and is home to the latest technology, services and genetics surrounding modern animal husbandry.

The four-day show ended on November 18 and played host to thousands of new products and services devised to help farmers with their everyday chores on the farm. "With 2,629 exhibitors and 163,000 visitors, including 36,000 from outside Germany, the EuroTier 2016 exhibition has delivered again, breaking the previous record attendance of EuroTier 2012," said Dr Reinhard Grandke, chief executive officer of EuroTier organiser, DLG.

"EuroTier has impressively demonstrated its great appeal to animal producers and experts from all over the world, and has underlined its leading position as the leading global trade fair for modern animal production."

SMART THINKING ON SLURRY HANDLING

There was a heavy focus on farm safety at EuroTier, particularly products for the handling of slurry.

Expand Close Managing director Pat ODonovan and technical manager Rick Crowley were on the stand to discuss the Smart Slurry aeration system with farmers / Facebook

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Whatsapp Managing director Pat ODonovan and technical manager Rick Crowley were on the stand to discuss the Smart Slurry aeration system with farmers

Cork firm Dairypower Equipment was exhibiting its Smart Slurry aeration system that was first introduced to the Irish market in 1998.

With so many farm fatalities caused by slurry gas, more farmers are installing aeration systems in their tanks. The company has installed over 600 systems in Ireland and numerous more worldwide on a number of large and small units.

Managing director Pat ODonovan and technical manager Rick Crowley (pictured above) were on the stand to discuss the system with farmers.

Aerating the slurry prevents a crust forming on the surface that traps in the gas. It has also been proven to increase the nitrogen content of the slurry making it more valuable as a fertiliser, said Pat.

There is no need to mix slurry when an aeration system is in place as this is an environmentally friendly method of keeping slurry in a homogeneous pumpable state that is always ready to spread.

The company is going to install new systems in Iceland and in the Netherlands. Greenmount College in Northern Ireland has installed one of the companys systems in a slurry store.

The system is relatively simple because it employs a low-energy consumption electric motor and roots blower pump, electric rotary valves and self-closing neoprene non-return outlet valve.

All the piping is 50mm class D uPVC which neither corrodes nor degrades. Working on a time switch, the system is fully automatic and would typically run for three to four periods each day without any need for human intervention.

One main pump is enough for up to 320 cows depending on the logistics of the shed. Furthermore, the running costs have been shown by independent evaluation to be as low as 1 per day. A typical cost for installing the Smart Slurry system is around 25,000 to 30,000 for a 100-cow shed.

ALL-WEATHER HUTCHES FOR CALVES

US-based Hampel Animal Care introduced its new Calf-Tel ECS calf hutch at the show. This elevated 5ft by 4ft hutch is designed for calves up to two months old and protects them from all-weather situations.

It is made entirely from plastic for increased durability, minimal maintenance and easy cleaning and disinfecting. One of the main features of the ECS is the sliding roof panel which protects both the animal and the feed from rain or sun.

There are back vents on the hutch to adjust the ventilation.

Each hutch costs 350.

FAST FEED DELIVERY FOR CALVES

A Milk Taxi won a silver award at EuroTier and is designed to transport milk to feed calves around the farm. It can mix milk powder and water to the required temperature and another model can pasteurise raw milk.

Up to 260 litres can be transported by the biggest model. The milk temperature is controlled by a heating system on the unit. The Milk Taxi can also recognise each calf individually and dispense the required amount of milk to that calf to correspond with its feeding curve.

Price for the 260l pasteuriser unit is around 6,000 and a self-drive battery powered unit can be fitted for a further 1,250.

BEDDING MASTERS AND CUDDLE BOXES

Expand Close The Einstreu-Meister, or 'Bedding Master' won a silver medal at EuroTier / Facebook

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Whatsapp The Einstreu-Meister, or 'Bedding Master' won a silver medal at EuroTier

The Einstreu-Meister, or Bedding Master (pictured above) won a silver medal at EuroTier. It is a self-propelled machine that travels along a rail on top of the cubicles, and distributes straw to the beds that are empty.

Made by Hartmann & Co in Germany, the unit is equipped with patented sensor controls which enable it to identify individual cubicles based on the pre-defined cattle housing layout and to differentiate between occupied and empty cubicles.

While Spinders Cuddle Box (below) provides a system that ensures easy and safe access between mother cows and their calves, as well as farmers.

Expand Close Spinders Cuddle Box provides a system that ensures easy and safe access between mother cows and their calves, as well as farmers / Facebook

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Whatsapp Spinders Cuddle Box provides a system that ensures easy and safe access between mother cows and their calves, as well as farmers

The front section of the box comprises a plastic box, in which newborn calves can be placed safely and kept clean. Cows can easily reach their calves through the head rails. A long swing gate right next to the box allows cows to be easily and safely restrained by a single person if required. As a result, cows can be reached and even milked in the Cuddle Box just as easily and safely.

CALF TRACKING SYSTEM STRIKES GOLD

A focus on smart calf feeding at EuroTier saw this system from Forster-Technik win a gold medal. Changes in drinking patterns and reduced fluid intake are usually the first signs of disease in calves and often occur before any other visually identifiable symptoms develop.

However, it is generally difficult to detect changes in behaviour and reduced volumes of fluid intake, especially on larger farms or with staff on shiftwork. Also, trying to locate a particular calf in a large area constitutes an additional challenge.

The Smart Calf System delivers a comprehensive range of modules for monitoring calves both continuously throughout the day and directly as they take in milk feeds or water.

The system also supports the electronic location of calves.
One of the big lessons from last February's general election was that rural Ireland would henceforth get a fair hearing.

Fine Gael's ill-starred election slogan "Let's keep the recovery going" was in hindsight deemed far too narrowly focused on east coast voters.

People in vast areas of the country had heard about the recovery on the wireless and seen newspaper references to "green shoots." But they knew it not.

The plethora of Independent rural-based TDs returned in February 2016 was seen as a signal that things would have to change.

Big promises were bandied about during the prolonged stop-start government-making talks which took 70 days. There was talk of a fully-fledged Minister for Regional Development and Rural Affairs; government actions were to be "rural proofed."

In a direct recognition of the misfired election slogan, there were to be job-creation targets for each county. A very ambitious proviso here was that unemployment rates were to be kept within 1pc of the national average. That one would make very interesting reading for people in Donegal for example.

There was a commitment to revisit and implement the CEDRA report linked to the great Pat Spillane. And there was a flurry of other encouraging commitments.

So, here we are more than 200 days since this extraordinary hybrid Coalition has taken office. How are we doing on all of these matters?

It was a question posed the other week by Dr Michael Harty who is based in Kilmihil, west Clare. He was elected on the "No doctor - no village" platform arguing that rural Ireland was losing basic services like doctors' surgeries and pharmacies.

Dr Harty voted for Enda Kenny as Taoiseach and he is associated with the two less dissident Independent Ministers, Denis Naughten and Katherine Zappone.

But first off he ruefully noted the failure to deliver that stand-alone department of rural development. Instead the issue was tacked on to the Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht. His inference was clear: history teaches us that where responsibility for an issue is dispersed it is often dodged.

The "rural-proofing" of various policies, in efforts to ensure they accord with the general aim, is also a nebulous enough objective which requires constant monitoring. "We see very little evidence of it," Dr Harty said.

The Clare TD then made a telling point. "We are developing into a nation of city states," he said.

Fine if you are in around Dublin, Cork, Limerick or Galway, but vaste swathes of rural Ireland are still being neglected.

On the day, Deputy Harty's questions were being answered by Public Expenditure Minister, Paschal Donohoe. He could offer no detail on the functioning of the rural and regional development section of the huge department now headed by Minister Heather Humphreys.

Mr Donohoe promised to get back with some more details and that should in due course make for interesting reading. For the rest of it the Minister fell back on the time-honoured device of some anecdotal good news peppered with the odd statistic.

But the reality is that time ticks on and progress is hard to see. We need action here.

We cannot rely on "city states" sparking any kind of rural regeneration.

John Downing is an Irish Independent political correspondent
Grazing ground at Lyons is now closed in preparation for next year and the ewes have moved to a crop of forage rape.

The 30 remaining lambs on the farm are continuing to graze the Redstart (Rape/Kale hybrid) crop, and after some initial concerns around the high propensity of volunteer cereals in this crop, it has proved an excellent feed source with good regrowth capacity, even when grazed in late September.

The most recent batch of lambs slaughtered off this crop achieved a kill out percentage of 49.6 pc - this is an exceptional performance for March-born lambs at this time of the year, and with growth rates of 260 grams per day, it is a performance that certainly wouldn't be achieved from grass.

Redstart and other catch crops do offer an alternative feed source on sheep farms or where sheep farmers can access tillage ground, and there is scope for more co-operation between sheep and tillage farmers in this regard.

Rams were removed from the ewes and ewe lambs last week and we await the scanning results in early January. We mate these two groups at the same time, and both are sponged to synchronise lambing. This aids in cross-fostering lambs from ewe lambs to the main ewe flock. Where possible we will try to turn ewe lambs out with one lamb at foot. We find this gives both the ewe lamb and her lamb the best chance up to weaning.

When we had the ewes going through the yard to remove the rams, we took the opportunity to deal with some lameness which had developed since mating.

It was five weeks since initial mating when we did this and as most ewes were over one month pregnant at that stage we were happy any chance of upsetting the pregnancy were minimal. Luckily most of the lameness cases were scald, with one or two incidence of foot rot and thankfully no cases of CODD were present.

Last week also saw the final visit of the fourth year Ag Science students from Belfield to Lyons.

With dry weather we took the opportunity to visit the ewes grazing on the hill. It provided an ideal example of the variation in growing conditions between hill ground and the lower grazing platform used for the dairy herd at Lyons.

Despite a linear distance of less than 1km between the two sites, annual grass dry matter yield on the hill ground is about 3 to 4 tonnes of dry matter per hectare per year. This is a combination of differences in soil type, aspect, and seasonal differences in soil temperature. The noticeable drop in temperature as we climbed the hill demonstrated this perfectly.

At this time of the year things are getting pretty quiet with the animals, but the abundance of paper work never ends. There are a lot of regulations around the use of our animals for research studies, but this does mean a proliferation of forms to be filled, checked, reviewed, revised, resubmitted and hopefully approved. This has occupied a lot of my time for the last two weeks as we prepare for the research which will commence at lambing 2017.

Many of you will have followed Frank Campion's and Fiona McGovern's PhD studies in these pages over the last four years. I am delighted to report that Frank sailed through his Viva voce (a three hour interview, to decide whether or not his thesis and his knowledge met the necessary standard) last month. Fiona will graduate from UCD with her PhD next week.

Both Frank and Fiona have continued their interest in sheep research and development. Frank is heading up the Better Sheep Farm program with Teagasc, and Fiona is leading the INZAC program in Teagasc alongside Dr. Noirin McHugh.

Associate Prof Tommy Boland is a lecturer in sheep production at Lyons Farm, University College Dublin. tommy.boland@ucd.ie

Twitter: @Pallastb
Those of us foolish enough to think it was possible to avoid the waves of populism flooding across the globe in the wake of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the US were given a jolt back to reality this week.

It appeared in the form of the report of the Expert Commission on Domestic Public Water Services which said the "vast majority" of people will no longer have to pay water charges. It also recommended that normal household usage should be paid for using general taxation.

And if the report itself, albeit an opening gambit, seems like a populist fudge, the plan to fund our future water needs almost entirely from central taxation needs to be examined further.

For a start, we don't know how much it will cost to fix the crumbling system that has suffered from decades of under-investment, poor maintenance and an ageing infrastructure.

A cornerstone of any debate about funding of our water services should be consideration of whether or not general taxation has the scope to cover another big cost like fixing the country's water system.

While definitive figures are hard to come by, Irish Water has estimated this to be a whopping 13bn. The figure was included in a submission to the Commission for Energy Regulation and the utility said the 13bn was the minimum total capital requirement. (It hasn't been lost on us that it is the same figure as the controversial Apple tax bill).

But to put that figure into perspective - it represents about one-fifth of what the Government spends every year delivering all of our public services and investing in our infrastructure.

In addition, there are a number of other unknowns in relation to cost and the Commission's proposal itself.

It is still not clear whether metering, which has already cost 500m, will continue. If it doesn't, how can the wastage households are to be charged for be measured?

And what about the 500,000 people who have spent money sinking wells and paying into group water schemes?

Business representative group Ibec has also voiced concerns about the recommendation that domestic water and waste water services should be funded almost entirely from general taxation given the existing competition for Exchequer resources.

It added that while businesses would be willing to pay a fair share of the water bill, they cannot be expected to cross-subsidise domestic users.

Then there are other headwinds already facing the economy that could put further pressure on the central taxation pot.

They include Brexit, pressure from the US, the UK and the EU on our low corporation tax regime, which is a central plank for economic growth, and growing demand for public sector pay hikes at home.

The Fiscal Advisory Council warned last week that the slowing economy could have implications for public finances and Budget targets leaving central taxation even more vulnerable.

We are also set to break EU rules designed to keep government spending on the straight and narrow. These were introduced against the backdrop of the fiscal crisis and give governments a bit of leeway when economic times are tighter - I suppose the opposite of former Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy's School of Budgetary Planning mantra of "when I have it, I spend it".

So, while our budget deficit is set to drop below 1pc of gross domestic product this year, our structural deficit is estimated to fall by 0.3pc as opposed to an 0.6pc improvement under EU rules.

In 2017, the Government is set to breach another key plank of the EU's Stability and Growth Pact, its expenditure benchmark, by 200m, the fiscal council added.

Then we have a new troika - this time it's the EU, the UK and the US - all with plans that could affect our corporation tax take, even if the low rate of 12.5pc is not itself at risk.

The EU has made no secret of its issues with our corporation tax regime. New radical plans are expected to be introduced by Europe shortly that include a proposal to ban transfer pricing that allows big multinationals like Apple to cut bills by shifting profits through low-cost countries.

The Government and other nations have vetoed all previous attempts from Brussels to impose common tax rules.

But there are growing fears that with the turmoil that following the Brexit vote, everything will be put on the table as EU leaders struggle to deal with the fallout.

The corporation tax plans around the UK and US might not be as big a threat for different reasons. The UK, which will no longer be a member of the EU when it triggers Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, is planning to cut its rate to 17pc from 20pc by 2020.

And Trump has said the US rate will be chopped back to 15pc to attract multinationals home. So all of these factors could contribute to a shrinking of the central taxation pot at a time when it's expected to be the funding source for the massive task of funding our water problem.

It would seem now that the Government and much of the general public have become unusual bedfellows in the Irish water conundrum - there appears to be little appetite among either party to fix the problem for once and for all.

With the highlighted combination of economic headwinds conspiring against the recovery we have all worked so hard for, maybe hard numbers will focus some minds.

Trojan horses and dead cats aside, we need the Government to give on the populist side but we also need to the electorate to at least consider that the responsible way forward is the introduction of household water charges in as fair a way as possible.

Focusing on central taxation to fund the problem is a retrograde step.

Populism on the rise

The flight towards populism continues in Europe and the spotlight this weekend is on Italy and Austria.

In Austria, the electorate is preparing to go to the polls to chose their next president. They could elect the EU's first far-right leader since Adolf Hitler in Sunday's election in the form of Norbert Hofer.

Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi 's referendum is designed to kick-start the economy as well as restructure the government.

Polls show, however, that he is facing defeat.

And while a loss would not only be destabilising politically it could also hit plans to restructure Italy's ailing banks - concerns about these institutions having already contributed to the euro's recent slump.

All eyes are on Italy's populist Five Star Movement, a party founded by comedian Beppe Grillo back in 2009. Both the referendum and the election will test the strength of populism following on from Brexit and the election of Donald Trump stateside.

Hofer, who is up against a Green Party candidate who is running as an independent, has promised Austrians a vote on EU membership.

The results of the election are too close to call but will no doubt be watched very closely in Brussels and further afield, as will the referendum.
Eurazeo, the French investment firm that recently bought Galway financial services firm Fintrax, approached Fintrax's Irish rival Monex about a potential takeover, the Sunday Independent understands.

The takeover approach for the Kerry-based firm - founded and run by entrepreneur Frank Murphy - was rebuffed.

Monex declined to comment about the approach but said it is performing strongly this year and on track for its best year ever. A Eurazeo spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Last year Monex's operating profits dipped to 6.4m from 7.6m, which the company said was a reflection of its investment in the business. The value of transactions it processed rose 26pc from 28bn to 35bn.

Monex specialises in dynamic currency conversion (DCC) - a financial service that enables credit card holders to be charged in their own currency when buying goods abroad. It was set up by Murphy in 1997 after he left fellow Kerry financial services company Fexco.

Fintrax also provides DCC services, as well as VAT refunding services.

Set up by Gerry Barry, it was sold to private equity firm Exponent for 170m in 2012 in what was thought to be the biggest ever deal for a Gaeltacht-based company. Barry left the company thereafter.

Last November, Eurazeo announced it was buying 90pc of Fintrax for up to 585m on an enterprise value basis (including the purchased company's debt as well as the cost of its shares).

The French company's managing director Marc Frappier said Fintrax had "a strong business model based on the solid megatrends of the rapid expansion of the middle classes in emerging markets, growth in international travel and increasing luxury consumption".

Fintrax posted revenue of 212m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 41m in 2015.

Murphy is also known for developing a high-tech beef farm in Banteer, Co Cork, that uses a robot to feed cattle.

Clients of Monex include Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ryanair, Hertz, and Hilton Hotels, according to the company's website.

Monex has been courted by several potential buyers in recent years, including private equity firm Investcorp. It has also been linked with a potential IPO but to date Murphy has opted to remain in control of the business.
A new strategy aimed at promoting Ireland as a whiskey tourism destination will be unveiled this week.

The campaign, which has national and local government support, is targeting massive tourism growth, building on the 653,277 tourists who visit an Irish whiskey distillery each year and increasing this figure to 1.9m by 2025. The Irish Whiskey Association is seeking to capitalise on a whiskey renaissance that is in full swing. Exports continue to drive Irish beverage exports, with double-digit growth in 2015. Annual whiskey exports are valued at 410m.

The industry is calling for an internationally-marketed Irish whiskey trail, along the lines of Tourism Ireland's 'Wild Atlantic Way' and 'Ireland's Ancient East'.

The new strategy also calls for greater investment support for tourism infrastructure around distilleries and the promotion of Irish whiskey festivals.

Tourism Ireland has said 10.5m people will have visited Ireland by the end of 2016, with numbers up from nine million last year.
Giles Hurley sweeps into the office with a wave to staff.

He's on his weekly visit to Ireland and there's little time to waste. He walks down a long corridor in Aldi's massive distribution centre in Naas and into a kitchen where around 10 of his buying staff are standing around a table laden with Aldi's goods.

It feels a bit like a royal visit - the buyers explain their strategies for Christmas and we're invited to sample the food and drink on offer: ham, turkey, steak, beef, cheese, mince pies, chocolates, yogurts, honey, wine.

There's a common theme the team is trying to get across - the supermarket wants people to feel they can buy at Aldi without compromising on quality.

Hurley (41), an Aldi group managing director with responsibility for Ireland and Scotland, sees the retailer as a "broad church".

"We want to ensure that we're servicing all the people who are seeking value. A lot of people have found the last few years very challenging, but we also recognise that as the economy loosens a bit there is a perception that people have more disposable income.

"We've got to be in a position to ensure that people feel they can indulge with us as well. There's that sense of the market splitting, people are indulging maybe at the weekends and during the week it's lentils and vegetable curry - it's about trying to support both."

Hurley estimates the retailer will open around 20 new stores in the next three years as it seeks to increase its Irish footprint. The company estimates that will come to a 100m investment. With 128 stores, it's the fifth-largest supermarket in the country and is growing sales value above the market rate according to the latest Kantar Worldpanel figures. The company does not disclose its sales or profit figures for Ireland.

"Almost inevitably the question is how big are you going to get, how far are you going to go, and that's a really difficult one to answer.

"We've only just opened our first two stores in West Cork. We've been on the island for 16 years and we've only just made it to Bandon and Skibbereen now. We've only got one store in Co Monaghan.

"There is I would say a big opportunity in the big metropolitan areas of Dublin, Limerick, Galway, Cork, where we feel there's lots of customers who can't easily access one of our stores.

"One of our visions is that every consumer in Ireland can get to an Aldi store within easy reach, so straight off the bat, I'd say comfortably we'd open another 50 stores, and I suspect after that we'll keep on going.

"We've had I would say pretty meteoric sales growth over 16 years, and even if you look back to 2011 we had about 7pc of the market and we're now not far off 11.5pc.

"Our business model is pretty simple. There's not a hugely complex strategy. We want to make a store available to everbody in Ireland. Our belief is that by doing that we'll continue to develop our sales and our market share.

"I would say we're not really focused on market share as a particular goal or metric, it's an outcome of developing our sales."

Home for Hurley is the West Midlands in the UK, where a 10-week old baby keeps him busy. Born in Surrey to Irish parents, he boarded in Headfort primary school in Kells, and then attended Harrow in his teens.

After college - he studied history in Trinity - Hurley went to teach English in China for a year, before coming back to Ireland, where his parents now lived.

"I was at that point thinking of maybe going back to China because I'd had a great experience, and probably my best bit of business advice was from my dad, who said: 'You should probably go and get a job'.

"So I joined a graduate recruitment programme in McDonald's and spent 20 months there. It was a fantastic experience learning the business, starting as a crew member, mopping floors and working on the till, and then you work through to floor manager, shift manager, second assistant manager, first assistant manager.

"I was first assistant manager and looking forward to potentially taking my own store, and then I saw the opportunity with Aldi. Aldi at that point had opened a couple of stores and were looking for graduates with business experience to be area managers."

He applied and was successful. "When I joined the business we had just opened the fifth store, which was Longford, and I went over to Manchester because we weren't training the management team in Ireland at that point.

"I worked in Manchester for about six months, and then earned my stripes and came back and took over an area in Ireland."

He comes to Ireland every Tuesday where he spends time with Aldi's buyers. One day a week is enough time for that, Hurley insists, adding that he regularly stays overnight to enable him to spend time visiting front-line staff, meeting customers, and measuring up the competition. "You can't beat that time," he says.

Hurley's plans for developing Aldi's in-store offering centre on working with suppliers to improve its products and stay abreast of market trends, healthy eating being among them.

Tech is an important trend to monitor too. Tesco, with its self-service checkouts, is probably the most advanced in that regard here.

Eliminating till staff saves a lot of money for retailers but the self-service terminals get a mixed reaction from shoppers.

Hurley doesn't expect to be introducing self-service to Aldi any time soon.

"When we've sat down and thought about it, and when we've listened to our customers, at the moment they are saying they prefer the personal transaction. I think that's very much the case in Ireland. Relationships are so important. This is not a transactional society.

"And especially in small towns or rural areas, that sense of knowing who you're dealing with, a familiar face, somebody who says hello and goodbye, actually means a lot to people.

"So I can't see any imminent changes there for us, but I would never say never because the market develops and things change."

In the UK, Aldi has recently launched an online shopping offering. Hurley says the business is "in the very early stages of understanding the opportunity" and will monitor how it affects the bricks and mortar business before looking to move the service into Ireland.

He seems relaxed about Brexit and its potential impact on Aldi, and indeed on Aldi's customers.

"Nobody knows yet how it's going to affect the business. Our business, any other business or our customers.

"Like many businesses we've got a team of people who are looking at potential outcomes and scenario-based planning.

"But my firm belief is that the effect of Brexit will ultimately be determined by how quickly you can adapt and how nimble you can be once the changes come in, because there are so many unknowns.

"In terms of how it will affect our customers here in Ireland, I think it will be very limited because over 50pc of what we sell is from Irish producers and suppliers. I would say that we've got a contract with our customers that we're going to continue to ensure that everything that they like to buy that's Irish will remain 100pc Irish.

"That won't change, we learnt that a long time ago, that's what people want and therefore that's what we need to sell.

"Obviously a proportion of our range comes from the eurozone, or further afield for the likes of Basmati rice. And while I can't put a figure on it right now the actual proportion of product that comes from the sterling zone is very, very small. So I think the impact of currency fluctuations and or other challenges that might come from Brexit are going to be pretty limited, at least that's what we can see at the moment."

Aldi has been here since 1999 when it was greeted with a certain hostility by rivals. Finding suppliers was difficult. The company did a deal to take in milk from the Northern Irish dairy Strathroy.

"When we first arrived in Ireland there was a real challenge in terms of being a newfound business, I guess inevitably suppliers asked are you here to stay? If we back you how is that going to work out? So, there were a number of suppliers who agreed to do business with us, and I can say that we've still got a relationship with almost all of those key suppliers.

"With Strathroy, it became apparent that as we learned more about the Irish market as a newcomer that we needed to supply Republic of Ireland milk, not Northern Irish milk," he says.

"So we said we want to keep you as a supplier but we need the business model to change, and what that led them to do is to find farmers south of the Border, enter into contractual relationships with them, and take milk from the Republic.

"Now we do deal with other dairies in the Republic of Ireland , and all of our milk is Republic of Ireland, but some of our lines are processed in a Strathroy dairy, but I don't think we're going to apologise for that, because we're absolutely clear on the importance of longevity of relationship, how they helped us in our journey in this market."

Now Hurley's vision for the next part of the journey is to try and get Irish consumers to love Aldi a little bit more.

It's clear he wants people to see it as Irish business embedded in local communities. When I ask about interaction with the German head office, Hurley says it's very limited.

"The Irish business is run by an Irish executive team with me at the head...it's very much an Irish business run by Irish people."

As part of the strategy former Irish rugby captain Paul O'Connell has come on board as an ambassador for the supermarket's 'Play Rugby' initiative which seeks to develop the sport in Irish primary schools.

"The time is right now to ensure that while the quality and price are compelling, the emotional connection with our business is there as well," Hurley says.

In three years' time, with another 20 stores open, it should be clear if that strategy has delivered.

'My history roots are never far behind me'

In my spare time I...

Ive got four kids and I have to say they are all-consuming  all of the time. Rugby is a Hurley family pastime. We are an island of Leinster supporters in the West Midlands. My boys are both keen rugby players.

My taste in music is...

Above and beyond nursery rhymes, I really like Coldplay. Theyre a constant feature on the playlist and I was lucky enough to get to Wembley in June and see them. Theyre playing in Ireland next year, so Im just negotiating with my wife to see if I can come back.

The book Im reading is...

I tend to read more than one book at a time. At the moment Im reading The Battle by Paul OConnell. Its a fascinating book and hes a fabulous ambassador for us. My history roots are never far behind me. Most of the time I have a history book by the bed. Im also reading a good book on the Somme by Simon Sebag Montefiore.

The best piece of business advice Ive received is...

My dad telling me to get a job. He called it right without question. It was good advice!
Brando And Schneider (Photo : Getty Images)

There are hundreds of rapes occurring every day, but rapes involving celebrities  whether they are the victims or accused  would always be followed by the public.



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A rape which occurred 44 years ago is a hot topic now because the director of the 1972 movie Last Tango in Paris admitted that the rape of actress Maria Schneider was real. Bernardo Bertolucci, who directed the critically acclaimed Franco-Italian erotic drama film, admitted in a 2013 interview at La Cinematheque Francaise in Paris that he connived with actor Marlon Brando in the rape scene.



The video of the interview was posted on YouTube on Nov. 27 and became viral with more than half a million views.







Brando, who played Paul, a recently widowed American, raped 20-year-old Jeanne, the character played by Schneider, with the help of a stick of butter. Brando and Bertolucci decided to use the butter as lubricant for the rape scene and did not tell Schneider about it before shooting the scene, People reported.



The director explained that he made the rape scene real because he wanted Schneider to react humiliated. He thought the actress hated him and Brando after the incident because they did not tell her in advance.



However, the incident would just be another footnote in the illustrious career of Bertolucci and Brando since Schneider died in 2011 in Paris at the age of 58. She was an unknown actress when she accepted the role in Last Tango in Paris, but after the film her acting career in the U.S. floundered, although she acted in French films.



In 2007, Schneider wrote in an exclusive essay for Daily Mail that she felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. She added, Brando did not even console or apologize after the rape scene which was just one take.



The director said Schneider did not stay in contact with him after Last Tango in Paris was released because she hated him. Bertolucci admitted he felt guilty over the incident but said he did not regret it since he wanted the actress to feel and not act the rage and humiliation.



Among the Hollywood actors who have criticized Bertolucci following the posting of the interview on YouTube were Jessica Chastain, Chris Evans and Evan Rachel Wood, according to Independent. Schneider, in her essay, said on a hindsight she should have called her agent or lawyer but at that time she did not know what to do.



I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage, Chastain wrote, while Evans said the actor and director should be jailed.






Margaret Barron: 'This is the most exciting time to be a marketer in this country'

With a turnover in excess of 3bn a year, 438 petrol stations around the country and 2,000 staff, Topaz is Ireland's largest forecourt and convenience retailer. With a 35pc market share, it also operates one of the largest commercial fuel businesses, supplying competitors as well as the residential and commercial heating markets. Canadian multinational Couche-Tard acquired it for 258m earlier this year.

Topaz's marketing director Margaret Barron is now plotting the next stage of the company's development within the Couche-Tard group. She previously worked at PepsiCo, Glanbia, Heineken Ireland and Musgrave Group.

What does Couche-Tard bring to the Irish market in terms of global insights, trends and marketing?

"Couche-Tard is committed to becoming the world's preferred convenience and fuel retailer through the roll-out of its global fuel and convenience brand, Circle K. Couche-Tard's presence in Ireland will bring significant benefits to Irish consumers as well as ourselves as a business unit within the group.

"It prides itself on being a 'family of merchants,' which is dedicated to fast and friendly service, easy visits, and products for people on the go.

"The scale of the company and its ambition, is a huge benefit to us directly as a new member of the 'family' and to the Irish convenience and fuel market in general.

"The fact that we now have international insights and goals when it comes to coffee, food and our overall offering, coupled with the fact that we now also have colleagues whom we work directly with across the globe, means we have access to insights and trends globally, which is a big advantage."

What are the key trends in forecourt retail in Ireland?

"The opportunities in our market lie in thinking outside the box and innovating. Healthy eating and health and well-being in general are huge trends in Ireland at the moment. The forecourt sector and convenience retailers have seen demands surge from consumers in these categories."

"Customer research and food trends show that consumers want more healthy options on the go and more variety. Recent research shows that almost one in two consumers struggle to find time to eat as healthily as they would like to, and 20pc of Irish customers say their busy lifestyles makes it hard to eat healthily. It's in that space that we saw an opportunity, and in 2015 we launched Re.Store in Ireland. With our Re.Store concept, we took a number of steps which saw us redefine our offer and revolutionise perceptions about forecourt food.

"As part of this we put a huge focus on quality coffee and our fresh food offer. Re.Store customers can avail of the barista-made coffee, healthy, fresh, wholesome artisan foods and a selection of treats as part of the Re.Store range."

How does a forecourt operator compete in the wider convenience market?

"It's a highly competitive market but as a company we are on a mission to change the way people think about forecourt service stations and food on the go. We are constantly innovating."

"With most acquisitions you would expect that scope for innovation may reduce but our recent acquisition by Couche-Tard has not seen this happen. Ireland is a very developed market in terms of food and food offerings, and our global colleagues take a collaborative approach with the local team. We are working with our new colleagues to develop our food offering even further."

"During the acquisition we had begun working on a completely new Mexican food concept and offer called Cantina which officially launched in December 2015 in Newcastle, Co Galway. Since then we have opened another two Cantinas in Dublin and plan to open another 12 in 2017. Our second Cantina in Dublin, at the newly renovated Topaz Dublin Port, opened in November and along with Cantina we also launched the first of another new concept called The Good Catch, a gourmet fish and chip offering."

"Our global colleagues are excited by both Cantina and The Good Catch and intend to look to take both concepts outside of Ireland."

What kind of challenges do you face as a marketer?

"The pace of technological change is a huge challenge facing marketers. Marketers need to be tech-savvy and understand both the power and the sensitivities around social platforms and personalized consumer communications. Marketers need to use technology to target consumers who are genuinely interested in hearing from their brand. That combination of consumer segmentation and pragmatic targeting is a delicate balance.

"Loyalty towards brands is equally challenging for marketers. Loyal customers are extremely important to any brand and if you don't invest in retaining their loyalty and rewarding their commitment to your brand, they will leave you. Customer retention is the lifeblood of any brand and understanding the right mix of rewarding people for their loyalty with something tangible and incentivising them to return with bonus gifts is critical."

"Although there are increasingly new challenges for marketers I firmly believe this is the most exciting time to be a marketer in this country."
Homeowners in the west of Ireland are being charged as much as three times more for home insurance than their Dublin counterparts - because of the damage inflicted by the powerful storms of recent years. Meanwhile, those homeowners living in a burglary blackspot could see the cost of their home insurance soar by hundreds of euro a year because some insurers charge them up to twice the price for cover.

These are some of the findings of research conducted by the Sunday Independent into the cost of home insurance.

We examined the cost of home insurance for an individual with a similar property - using various addresses: Tallaght, Donnybrook and Skerries in Dublin; Kinvara, Co Galway; Dunfanaghy, Co Donegal; Dingle, Co Kerry; and Clonmel, Holycross and Littleton in Co Tipperary. By far, the most expensive address to get cover for was Kinvara in Galway. Dunfanaghy also usually worked out pricier than most Dublin addresses - as did Tipperary.

Storms and your insurance

Storms battered much of the country last winter, with coastal areas around the west of Ireland among the worst hit. This is one of the reasons why home insurance can be so much more expensive for a property in Kinvara and Dunfanaghy (both coastal villages in the west), even if the property itself is not at risk of flooding, according to one insurer. Distance from emergency services - which could see many rural homeowners facing a longer wait than their urban counterparts for a fire brigade or other vital help - is another factor.

The profile of home we examined the cost of cover for was a three-bed semi-detached home which has never been flooded and is not in an area prone to flooding or subsidence. The home has a house alarm that is IS199 approved but not monitored. It has security locks on the doors and windows and smoke alarms. The homeowner, who is 53-years-old, has never made a claim. The property is 30-years-old, has a rebuilding cost of 200,000 and has 30,000 worth of contents.

Aviva quoted 636 for cover if the homeowner lives in Kinvara, Co Galway. This was almost 400 more than the 232 quoted to a homeowner in Donnybrook, Co Dublin. The second-most expensive quote from Aviva was 484 for a homeowner in Holycross, Co Tipperary - an area hit by flooding last winter. Aviva gave a quote of 383 to the Dunfanaghy homeowner. It declined to quote the homeowners in Littleton, Clonmel, Skerries and Dingle because of the potential for flood damage. Aviva said it didn't have a blanket ban on homes in these areas but the exact address of a property determines whether or not it would offer home insurance.

Liberty Insurance quoted the Kinvara homeowner 440, much higher than the 255 quoted for the Donnybrook resident. Liberty's second-highest quote was 366 for the Dunfanaghy property. The Tipperary villages of Holycross and Littleton were also amongst the most expensive addresses to insure with Liberty. Like Holycross, Littleton too has had flooding in recent years. Littleton has also seen a big increase in the number of break-ins in recent years. Liberty would not provide a quote for the homeowner in Clonmel - an area regularly hit by floods.

Floods and your insurance

You could easily get turned down for insurance if you live in an area that insurers believe is at risk of flooding - even if your home or street has never been flooded.

"One of our customers was refused flood cover by five home insurers, even though he was living in an area which was never flooded before," said Jonathan Hehir, managing director of the online brokers, insuremyhouse.ie. "The insurers had the area down as a flood zone. In the end, the customer had to get home insurance without flood cover. Insurers have got much cleverer about managing flood claims, or potential claims."

Aviva said it will not offer cover "if a property is located in a flood-prone area and it has flooded previously". "In certain instances it may be possible to provide cover [for a home in a flood-prone area which has not been previously flooded] - but with an increased excess," said the Aviva spokeswoman. (An excess is the first part of claim you pay yourself).

"We would take into account the likelihood of the area to flood, any flood prevention works in the locality, and any specific aspects of the property - such as if it is raised above ground level, if there is a basement, and so on."

Existing customers of an insurer will usually find it easier to get flood cover from their insurer than an individual buying cover for the first time. "We've seen cases where people have had one flood claim and the insurer has kept the flood cover on, especially if flood defences have gone into the area," said Hehir.

An insurer may refuse to quote you if your home is a few hundred meters away from water.

Liberty reviews its flood cover for all properties that are within 200 meters of water. "This applies to all policies for new and existing customers," said a spokesman for Liberty.

The increasingly damaging floods have left many homes uninsurable - with homeowners often footing the huge cost of repairs themselves. "When flooding moves from being a possibility to an inevitability, it can't be covered by ordinary insurance," said Conor Faughnan, director of consumer affairs with the Automobile Association (AA). "However, if a person lives in an area that is prone to flooding and they can demonstrate that their property is not a major risk, we can ask the underwriter to provide cover. We can consider things like improved flood defences or work carried out by local authorities."

Some insurers deliberately price themselves out of certain areas so that they won't be left footing the bill for any flood claims that might arise from homes there. So even if an insurer offers you cover, the quote could be so high that you simply cannot afford it.

Burglary hotspots and your insurance

There has been a big drop in the number of burglaries so far this year and many house insurers have seen a fall in the cost of burglary-related claims as a result. However, there is no sign of insurers reducing the cost of home insurance to reflect the reduced risk of burglaries. Indeed, the price of home insurance has gone up by about 8pc over the last year, according to the latest official figures.

"Burglaries represent 3.8pc of the claims reported in 2016 in comparison to 9.08pc in 2015," said a spokesman for Liberty. "Whilst the rate of burglaries has reduced, there are other factors to be taken into account when considering the pricing of our home products including for example the age of the building, the type of construction and so on."

Aviva also said that it had seen a drop in theft claims. When asked if homeowners can expect a reduction in home-insurance premiums as a result, a spokeswoman said that crime statistics "are just one of a number of data sources" that influences its prices.

A Dublin address can work against you in home insurance if you're living in a burglary blackspot. A Tallaght homeowner for example could expect a quote of 428 from Aviva - almost 200 more that an individual would pay if their address was Donnybrook in Dublin 4, according to Sunday Independent research. The AA quoted 360 for the Tallaght homeowner and 289 for the Donnybrook resident. Tallaght - which is known as a burglary blackspot - has had almost twice as much burglaries as Donnybrook so far this year.

Even if you live in a burglary or flood blackspot, should you find yourself quoted over the odds for home insurance - or refused a quote, try a few other insurers.

"Prices range so much between different insurers," said Hehir. "Different insurers have different appetites for different areas. Some insurers love Dublin; some hate Dublin. One insurer could offer a good quote for one area with another offering a really expensive quote for the same area - and then the complete opposite could be true of each insurer in another area. It's so random. You have to shop around for your insurance every year."
Latest Central Bank figures show the age of the typical first-time buyer continues to rise. In 2006 it was 29 - but by last year it had risen to 34 (Stock photo)

Middle-aged homeowners who take on a 30-year mortgage - which can push repayments into their 70s - risk a poverty-stricken old age.

Financial experts warn that as the country's pension crisis deepens, the 'double whammy' of also having high home loan bills will tip many older couples into huge debt.

Latest trends confirm the growth of mortgages with a 30-year repayment liability - because a growing number of new house purchasers are incapable of meeting the standard 20-year repayment programme.

Latest Central Bank figures show the age of the typical first-time buyer continues to rise. In 2006 it was 29 - but by last year it had risen to 34.

Experts said this could rise even more dramatically in the next few years, as average income levels become increasingly out of line with house prices in Dublin and other key urban centres.

This means that many borrowers who sign up for 'super term' mortgages, which can take up to 35 years to repay, will be saddled with a lifetime of debt, which may run well into their retirement years.

This type of mortgage is particularly tempting in the short term as it stretches the loan out over a longer period, thereby reducing the monthly repayment figure. However, the overall amount of interest that the borrower must repay is considerably more than if it was a traditional 20-year loan.

While no centralised statistical data has been compiled by agencies such as the Central Bank, a number of financial experts said there was "clear-cut evidence" of hard-pressed homeowners "stringing out" their mortgage repayment deals for a minimum of 30 years.

Property expert and market commentator Philip Farrell said that up to now the "cut-off point" for repayments was between the age of 68 and 70. "But that's going to come under severe pressure because people are living longer. The average age when a mortgage is finally paid off is increasing all the time," he said.

"Normally it would be 65, but I see that figure increasing as the average lifespan increases. The cut-off point age is likely to creep up to 71, 72 and 73 over the coming years.

"Another factor which people should take into account is that many pension pots may be less than expected."

Farrell warned that a combination of financial pressures would mean a growing number of older borrowers would have no option but to remain in the workforce. "Of course many people are also able to work longer because of medical advances," he added.

Chief executive of the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) Jerry Moriarty said it was concerning that some lenders were extending repayments for borrowers who might no longer be earning a salary. He also warned that concerns over the value of traditional pension arrangements needed to be taken into consideration when deciding older people's capacity to repay mortgages.

"It's always a concern when you're pushing something beyond the age at which people are likely to be earning a salary," he said. "Most people are going to be in defined contribution plans which means what you get in retirement depends on the funds you've built up, and what market conditions are like at a given time. So it's very hard to be definitive about what you'll be getting in the future."

In a statement, the Central Bank said it did not have "specific guidelines or requirements" regarding 30-year mortgages - or deals with longer repayment periods.

Meanwhile, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe has called on the private sector to allow workers to continue in employment beyond the normal retirement age of 65. He said that if increases in the age at which people qualified for State pensions were not matched by longer working lives, future incomes for retirees would become an increasingly pressing issue.
'The internet remains essentially a mystery to me. It occupies the same awkward psychological niche as the video recorder did for my parents' generation: an infernally complicated contraption that one wishes wasn't quite so useful' Photo: Depositphotos

Confused by the weird language used by technology executives? Wonder how clusters and hubs interact with pivoting mentors, urging user engagement to improve the social graphs? Me too. Here's a modest attempt at making sense of the most common terms of 2016, wrapped up in an Irish tech catechism of cliche. (With apologies to Flann O'Brien.)

In Ireland, where are semi-state and local council IT services generally rolled?

Out.

And when little happens for 18 months but they need to put out a press release denoting a fresh attempt at rolling out the services, is there some other process which they are subjected to?

Yes, they are ramped.

In which direction are they ramped?

Up.

And if that doesn't work, what series of thrusts and slashes is to be employed to help the initiative's economic prospects?

Growth hacking.

Is this growth to be genetically modified in any way?

No, it's organic.

What slimy, reptilian measure is proof positive that one is achieving such growth?

Scale.

And which pre-marital state best denotes customer attention following such growth?

User engagement.

What friendly mathematical devices must be used to describe all the people who come in contact with the product or service?

A social graph.

What central radius do local politicians assert for their area whenever a local resident launches a web design business?

A hub.

And if a cousin from the next parish moves into the area with his ringtone business, what then does the hub evolve into?

A cluster.

By contrast, what dizzying motion inevitably occurs when someone starts a tech company in a college?

A spin-out.

If the spin-out needs a bit of money, what subterranean pill-shaped funding module is the order of the day?

Seed.

Is this seed funding ever a square?

No, it's always a round.

If that works, what is the sum of the terms of a sequence that make up a subsequent, larger funding announcement?

A series.

Is it any old series?

No, it's Series A.

But before even considering Series A funding, what Greek cursive must the startup's product have entered?

Beta.

Afterwards, if the product doesn't take off, what classic jazz-ballet move can be performed?

A pivot.

And to help this pivot, what sort of thetan must be consulted as a matter of good practice?

A mentor.

What sort of Asian assassins will that mentor advise must be shed from the company if it is to successfully pivot?

The ninjas.

What musically-themed overachievers can replace the ninjas though?

Rockstars.

Ideally, what angry dais will the new pivoted product have adopted to help greater adoption?

A cross platform.

And what self-sustaining natural phenomenon could that pivoted product now create?

An ecosystem.

At a more senior level, to seal the pivot, what act of consumerism must senior management now do?

Buy.

And which general direction are they to buy?

In.

What is the tricky nautical manoeuvre that will now have to be done to get customers to try the new pivoted product?

Onboarding.

If there is to be an edge added to the product, what sort of distressed one is preferred?

A bleeding one.

And what kind of source is generally to be preferred?

Open.

To protect the newly pivoted enterprise, what type of headwear does one need to stay a step ahead of online hackers?

A white hat.

And what size data will invariably become a currency now?

Big.

And what sooty means of extraction will be required to get this data?

Mining.

Which end of things will continue to mysteriously pull the strings for just about everything?

The back end.

What objects is the internet now of?

Things.
Cork-based software company Teamwork turned down a 14m demand for the internet domain Teamwork.com, eventually securing the web address for just over 500,000.

Company co-founder Peter Coppinger told the Sunday Independent that securing the domain in 2013 was "the best thing we ever did" and that the company is on track to record 14.5m in revenue this year.

Teamwork, which was set up by Coppinger and co-founder Dan Mackey in 2007, recently announced a recruitment drive for 50 people, bringing the software firm's numbers up to 120. The company, whose clients include Disney, HP, Paypal and Spotify, has opened a new 5m office complex in Cork in a bid to attract engineers and developers.

Coppinger said that the company does not need any external funding to expand.

"We have millions in the bank," he said. "We've always been fairly safe about our finances. We're self-funding the building, which is a 2m fit-out and 3m in rental over 10 years. We could have taken that money out and split the 2.5m each and called it a day. But we're not in this to flip it.

"We don't want to be bought by Microsoft or whoever. We want to be get to 100m in annual revenue and we're doing about 14.5m this year. I feel that we're at a tipping point now, that when we add salespeople next year and launch our new product, we may easily double the company next year and double it again after that."

However, Coppinger said that the company needs to urgently hire more engineers.

"Our biggest pain point is people," he said. "We need to get more engineers in. Every day we don't have more engineers is literally costing us more money."

Coppinger and Mackey have launched a website, escapetocork.ie, to try to persuade Dublin-based engineers to relocate to Cork.
They're burdened with a mountain of bad loans. Their stocks have cratered. And they have to operate in an economy prone to recession and political upheaval.

Signs have been mounting for months that Italy's weakest lenders, and in particular Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, were sliding toward the precipice, threatening to reignite a broader crisis.

But don't be surprised if Italy's troubled banks sidestep disaster yet again. The next chapter could start today, when polls suggest Italian voters will reject a constitutional change to streamline the legislative process, a decision that could lead Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to resign. Should he quit, Italy may enter a period of political and market turmoil just as its fragile banks are struggling to win back the confidence of investors and regulators. Monte Paschi is in the middle of a 5bn capital raise, while UniCredit, Italy's biggest lender, is considering its own stock offering.

Crises have become routine in a nation that's been ruled by more than 60 governments since World War II. While Britain's decision to quit the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as the next US president shattered expectations, investors have been girding for Italians to thumb their noses at their own establishment for some time. Shares in the nation's top 12 banks have tumbled about 8pc on average in the past three months, compared with a 6pc jump in the Euro Stoxx Banks Index.

"A 'no' vote is widely expected and priced in by markets, so I expect less volatility and speculation than we saw in Brexit and the US election," said Mario Spreafico, who oversees 2bn as chief investment officer at Schroders Wealth Management Italy.

The nation's political leaders, the Bank of Italy and the European Central Bank could take steps, if necessary, to keep the financial system from collapsing, including making state aid available, said Nicolas Veron, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank. "It's hard to see a scenario that leads to Armageddon in the Italian banking sector even if Renzi does step down," he said.

Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan has held discussions with the European Commission on how the government can help Monte Paschi raise capital without breaking rules on state aid, Corriere della Sera reported Friday. Italy also asked the EU to authorise a nationalisation of the bank should it become necessary, the newspaper said.

The wild card is Monte Paschi itself, an institution that's become a byword for the troubles that have long plagued Italian finance. Undermined by derivatives deals that hid losses, the lender has received 4bn in taxpayer-funded bailouts and 8bn from investors since 2009. Now Italy's third-biggest lender is back for more. More than a third of its loan book has soured and its shares have fallen 83pc this year.

Monte Paschi is planning a share sale as early as next week, in tandem with the disposal of 27.7bn in bad loans. Chief executive Marco Morelli has been criss-crossing the globe telling investors how the deal will liberate the bank and pave the way for its rebirth as a lean and responsible lender. But persuading money managers to commit good money after bad may prove tough. And the deal's interlocking structure - offloading the bad debt will only succeed if the equity raising does - may be too ambitious.

On Tuesday, chief financial officer Francesco Mele pressed Monte Paschi bondholders on a conference call to swap their debt for shares, said people with knowledge of the discussion. If they don't, they could incur losses if the government has to assist the lender, Mele said. Under new EU rules, stakeholders must absorb the pain before taxpayers do in a process called a "bail-in." A Monte Paschi official declined to comment.

Mele may have raised the spectre of a state rescue to scare bondholders into making the swap. But he might not be bluffing. There is a possibility Rome will have to salvage the offering if a 'No' vote on December 4 scares off potential investors.

Such an intervention could spur outrage given how much taxpayer money the bank has already received. If the Monte Paschi recapitalisation gets messy, that could alarm investors in other shaky Italian banks such as Banca Carige.
'This would be at least the second central bank to suffer a major digital attack in the past year. In February, hackers stole $81m by manipulating the international payment system at the central bank in Bangladesh' Stock photo: Reuters

State-sponsored hackers who unleashed a digital bomb in key parts of Saudi Arabia's computer networks over the last two weeks damaged systems at the country's central bank, known as the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, according to two people briefed on an ongoing investigation of the breach.

The attacks, which afflicted at least six government entities, used a computer-killing malware known as Shamoon that is linked to Iran, they said. Hitting the targets had the potential to inflict damage across several critical sectors, including finance and transportation.

The investigation is still in its early stages and the determination of responsibility could change, the two people said. The number of entities where damage occurred is likely to grow as the probe continues, a third said.

Iranian officials didn't respond to repeated requests for comment on the attack. Calls placed to the Saudi Interior Ministry about the targeting of the country's central bank weren't returned.

This would be at least the second central bank to suffer a major digital attack in the past year. In February, hackers stole $81m by manipulating the international payment system at the central bank in Bangladesh.

The central bank manages foreign-exchange reserves, supervises commercial banks, and runs the country's electronic-payments system.

It's unclear what part of its information systems were damaged in the attack. There haven't been reports of outages in the electronic-payments system or other parts of the banking sector.

The malware, which overwrites the master boot record of a computer, rendering it inoperable, has already destroyed thousands of computers across multiple government agencies, two people familiar with the probe said.
Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz's decision to step down is unlikely to hamper growth at the world's biggest coffee chain as his successor Kevin Johnson is well suited to take the helm, analysts said.

Starbucks said on Thursday that Schultz would step down on April 3 to focus on new high-end coffee shops, handing the top job to chief operating officer Johnson, a long-time technology executive.

The company's shares were down 2.5pc at $57.02 on Friday as investors worried that the exit of one of Wall Street's most regarded CEOs would spell trouble. Analysts, however, downplayed these concerns. "Howard can't be in that position forever," Morningstar analyst RJ Hottovy said.

Hottovy said the timing of the handoff made sense because the company had a strong management team and Johnson had more retail experience than the market was giving him credit for. Johnson worked with Schultz for nearly two years and has been on Starbucks' board since 2009.

He also has a strong technology background, including a stint at Microsoft, which sets him up to lead Starbucks at a time when the company is looking to project itself as a pioneer in mobile payments technology. "Johnson appears to have been an important behind-the-scenes contributor to Starbucks' post-recession turnaround, and his background in technology should position him well," Bernstein analyst Sara Senatore said.

The last time Schultz stepped down as CEO - in 2000 - the company's shares had plunged. He returned to the top job in 2008. Since then the company's annual sales have more than doubled and its stock has risen six-fold.

Starbucks was the first to push into mobile ordering and payments through its app, allowing customers to avoid standing in long lines and forcing rivals like Dunkin' Brands Group and Panera Bread Co to follow suit.
For some reason that I don't quite understand, certain times really lend themselves to settings for crime novels. The Thirties, the post-WWII era, the near-future, the sleazy Seventies - and the late Victorian age.

You really can't go wrong with a mystery placed somewhere shortly before or after the turn of the 20th century. Perhaps it's all the images that instantly spring to mind when we think of that time: cobbled streets, galloping carriages, top-hats and frock-coats, gas lamps and, of course, fog, fog everywhere.

For whatever reason, I and many of you love the whole fictional world of Victoriana - and that's squarely where we're landed in Conor Brady's Joe Swallow series, of which A Hunt in Winter is the third book. The first two were warmly received by readers and critics, but for the uninitiated (and you don't need to have read the others to get straight into this one), a quick recap.

It's November 1888. Joe Swallow, of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, has been promoted from Detective Sergeant to Detective Inspector. And he has plenty on his plate, professionally and personally.

A teenager on her way home from work is brutally attacked with a blunt instrument, and subsequently dies of her injuries. Swallow's men in G Division set to investigating, but there are complications ahead. First, two more attacks on young women. Is a local lunatic copying the notorious Jack the Ripper murders, currently scandalising and terrifying the populace over in London? Swallow doesn't want to believe it.

Even worse, our hero and his boss Mallon are in a tricky bind: the Crown wants to fit-up Charles Stewart Parnell, and insist on G Division handing over their logs of all Parnell's comings and goings in Dublin - including, naturally, his dalliances with Kitty O'Shea.

Mallon is reluctant, believing that removing the moderate Parnell from the Irish political scene will unleash darker, deadlier forces: Fenians, IRB and other violent revolutionaries. So he and Swallow "lose" those logs, which brings down the wrath of Major Kelly, an arrogant and dangerous English intelligence man.

Meanwhile, Swallow must balance an ever-heavier workload with his romance with young widow Maria Walshwho has just got pregnant.

From here on Brady, a former Irish Times editor and member of the Garda Ombudsman Commission, brings us on a rattling tale which draws in real-life historical events, a multi-strand thriller plot, the complex web of personal relationships between Swallow and his friends and enemies, and even a trip to the freezing reaches of Berlin.

The narrative unfolds slowly enough, but it's all tied up satisfactorily by the end, with a few nice twists and a well-earned sense of resolution. And the real pleasure in this book is revisiting - is that the right word? - at least visiting the Dublin of bygone days.

Knowing the city, I got a kick both out of recognising streets and areas, but also not recognising them: in other words, trying to imagine parts of Dublin which looked unrecognisable in 1888. Rathmines, for instance, was in the countryside back then - who knew?

One or two minor complaints. The book contains quite a number of typos - very atypical of New Island, in my experience - and a few jarring anachronisms. Swallow says at one stage, "I'm done here", which strikes me as being about 12 decades ahead of its time, not to mention more American than Dublin-ese. Also, as far as I'm aware, Scotland Yard didn't get the "New" part of its name until 1890, but is given that later title throughout this book.

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But that's being picky. A Hunt in Winter is an entertaining read, particularly if your preference is for historical crime more than the modern-day version.

I'm not the biggest fan of series - I prefer my crime novels as one-offs - but I enjoyed this, and also appreciate that many mystery fans love to follow the hero on his journey through life, book after book. In Joe Swallow, they have an interesting and agreeable travel companion.
PLAGF infantry. (Photo : PLAGF)

Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) to transition from a massive army geared towards defense to a smaller but attack-oriented fighting force capable of taking on enemies of the Communist Party of China (CPC) anywhere in the world.



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The transition to a smaller and more professional army in the mold of the United States Army Xi wants, however, will entail demobilizing hundreds of thousands of men out of the 1.6 million men in the PLAGF, which is the largest standing army in the world.



Xi, however, made no mention of what he wanted to do with the 500,000 man reserve force backing-up the PLAGF.



The PLAGF's main rival, the United States Army, has a strength of 475,000 active personnel. There are also over 180,000 fighting men in the United States Marine Corps. The army has a reserve of 540,000 personnel (including the National Guard) while the Marine reserve force numbers close to 40,000 men and women.



The PLAGF has no capability of projecting its power anywhere outside mainland Asia since the People's Liberation Army Navy neither has sufficient troop ships to transport masses of Chinese soldiers overseas nor control of the seas, which is wielded by the U.S. Navy.



On the other hand, the U.S. Army and Marines can deploy to any location in the world at short notice.



The PLAGF is basically an impotent fighting force as it is currently constructed. Xi's admonition the PLAGF modernize by reducing its ranks while relying more on technology instead of massive numbers of men is an effort to create a smaller army with better combat capability.



"This is a major, inevitable change," said Xi. "We must seize the opportunity and make breakthroughs."



Xi said changes must be made if China is to build a strong world-class army. He also spoke about informationized warfare, noting that joint operations have grown to be the basic form of combat.



"Accordingly, there have been new changes in terms of the military's size, structure, and formation, which features smaller in size, more capable in strength, modulization and multi-functionality, with scientific factors playing bigger roles," he said.



He argued that the military's structure must be readjusted and optimized; new type of forces developed; the ratios between different types of forces be rationalized and the number and the scale of the military downsized.



He said the PLAGF must grow into modern armed forces with Chinese characteristics, which can win informationized wars and implement its missions.



"Quantity should be reduced, quality improved to build a capable and efficient modernized standing army."



He believes China must develop a joint operation force system with an elite force at its core.



In March 2014, the CPC Central Military Commission (CMC) whose chairman is Xi, issued a guidance demanding the level of military training be raised to actual combat standards to improve the PLA's capabilities.



The guidance stressed improving combat readiness should be top priority.



In 2013, Xi said raising the capability of the PLAGF to win wars was one of the fundamentals of building a strong army, the others being the command of the CPC and having a proper working style.


Jessica Chastain, Chris Evans and Evan Rachel Wood are disgusted by director Bernardo Bertolucci's admission he staged a brutal rape scene in Last Tango in Paris without teenage actress Maria Schneider's consent.

In a 2007 interview with UK newspaper the Daily Mail, Schneider, who is now deceased after passing away from cancer in 2011, revealed she "felt a little raped" when her co-star Marlon Brando forced himself on her in a controversial scene.

The contentious moment in the 1972 film sees Brando's middle-aged character Paul sexually assault Maria's youthful persona Jeanne using a stick of butter as lubricant.

I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you cant force someone to do something that isnt in the script, but at the time, I didnt know that," she recalled.

"Marlon said to me: Maria, dont worry, its just a movie, but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasnt real, I was crying real tears. I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci.

"After the scene, Marlon didnt console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take.

And in newly surfaced video footage of a 2013 interview filmmaker Bertolucci gave during a Q&A at La Cinematheque francaise in Paris, the director admits he and Brando conspired together to surprise the rape scene on Schneider, who was only 19 at the time. Bernardo confessed during the talk he and the late actor set up elements of the scene without telling her what they were planning to do.

We were having, with Marlon, breakfast on the floor of the flat where I was shooting," Bertolucci recounted. "There was a baguette, there was butter and we looked at each other and, without saying anything, we knew what we wanted."

I had been, in a way, horrible to Maria because I didnt tell her what was going on, he added before noting: "(I) wanted her (Schneider's) reaction as a girl, not as an actress. I wanted her to react humiliated.

Bertolucci's questionable filmmaking tactic has sparked an outcry in Hollywood, with actors Chastain, Evans and Wood all expressing their outrage about it on Twitter on Saturday.

Chastain writes: "To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick."

"Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage," her colleague Evans writes on his profile, before calling for prosecution: "They should be in jail."

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Wood, who recently opened up about her own rape terror in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, agrees with her peers, tweeting: "I second that. This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The 2 of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok."
Was President Michael D Higgins right or wrong in his eulogy to Fidel Castro? It certainly stirred up a hornet's nest on radio, and for once reaction was justified: it's a serious thing, the leader of our country making allegedly over-kind pronouncements on such a divisive figure.

The matter was covered across several stations and shows, generally in a for-and-against setting. Interestingly, the results were as predictable as you'd expect (that's meant neutrally, by the way, not necessarily negatively).

On RTE's Morning Ireland (Radio 1, Mon-Fri 7am), we had conservative senator Ronan Mullen criticising Higgins (and, by extension, Castro), left-wing TD John Halligan defending. The same station's Today with Sean O'Rourke (Mon-Fri 10am) saw Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams in defence, Ciaran Cannon of Fine Gael on offence.

On Today FM's The Last Word (Mon-Fri 4.30pm), writer Ruth Dudley Edwards - "small c" conservative, I suppose - was damning of the president, while trade unionist Brendan Ogle came to praise him.

Some contributors were more persuasive than others. The left-leaning ones had the harder sell, let's face it, and so were less convincing in defending the harder edges of Castro's regime, or - sigh - comparing repression in Cuba to life in Ireland. As Dudley Edwards put it, why then do so many people want to leave places like Cuba to live in the West?

Having said all that, I really don't know who's right or wrong on old Fidel. Online heroes are always accusing the mainstream media of being "biased" (and, of course, they're right - I personally am paid by a cabal of Nigel Farage, Vladimir Putin and Mossad), so I feel I should declare my own prejudices.

Do I think Castro was a hero or a villain? Well, unlike apparently everyone else in Ireland, I don't really know enough to take a firm stand either way. But it would appear to me, as yer average know-nothing schmuck, that Castro did a lot of good stuff for his people and a lot of bad stuff.

What I do know are two things. One, ideologies are a stronger motivational factor in human life than almost anything else, even more than self-interest.

If you're a committed left-winger, you will defend Castro and socialism regardless of what evidence is presented in condemnation, and even when it goes against many of your own core beliefs. If you're on the right end of the spectrum, you will see only the bad in people like Castro and ignore the good, again in the face of empirical evidence.

But as Sean Moncrieff (Newstalk, Mon-Fri 2pm) said while teeing up a section on Castro, El Presidente was neither some lily-white angel nor the reincarnation of Attila the Hun (I'm paraphrasing a tiny bit) - he was somewhere in between.

And the second thing I've learned? Michael D Higgins should keep his mouth shut. It's not his place to take a side on political issues, barring the vaguest of references to the most uncontentious of issues.

The president is supposed to be neutral, but the current one doesn't seem to understand this simple fact, which would make you wonder why so many people laud him as an intellectual powerhouse. I suppose, as someone once said - a little unkindly - of Stephen Fry, Higgins appears an intellectual only to stupid people. (Or, come to that, a poet to the kind of people who don't read much.)

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So in the end, it doesn't matter what I think of Castro, or what you think, or indeed what Michael D Higgins thinks. It's not his place to take sides, full stop. Consider that a presidential dictate if you wish.
This morning I woke up in a warm bed. I was able to have a hot shower, choose from a wardrobe full of clothes, and make my own breakfast in my own kitchen.

It is freezing cold outside, Christmas is almost here, and with the fire lighting the place will seem extra cosy as myself and Shane settle down to binge-watch Netflix.

For some people in Ireland, what we have - the comfort of waking up in a home of your own instead of on the street - is as far-fetched as winning the lottery. We have a homelessness crisis. Every single day at least two families are becoming homeless, many of them families with young children.

According to Focus Ireland, in the first four months of 2016, 366 families with 731 children became homeless in Dublin alone. And it is a growing problem, as rents continue to rise and National Emergency Accommodation figures show a 26pc increase on last year.

And homelessness is not just an Irish problem. Globally, there are estimated to be between 100 million and 1.6 billion people either without any homes or without adequate housing. New York City now has the highest level of homelessness since the Great Depression of the 1930s and there are 61,931 people, including 24,148 children, homeless in that great city.

As you'd expect when my other half is Shane MacGowan, I have heard Fairytale of New York a million times - but I never stop shivering at the part where Kirsty MacColl sings "the wind goes right through you, it's no place for the old".

Because the central characters in the song are two old people who have sunk as low as it is possible to sink - a junkie and an alcoholic gambler, social outcasts. It is an uncomfortable Christmas song, not very jolly, a bit too gritty.

When Shane and I were younger in London, he looked like he lived on the street, he had holes in his shoes and a filthy old overcoat and always a bottle in his hand. We would be refused entrance to restaurants and taxi drivers would not stop for us. He didn't seem bothered, but he would never walk past a homeless person or anyone begging on the street without giving them money and talking to them. He seems to identify strongly with people on the margins of society and it is one of the things that I admire about him, but he does not think that it is a big deal. "Why would I not?" he asks me. "They are our fellow human beings."

Having never slept on the street, I cannot even imagine how awful it must be, how cold, how alone, unloved and abandoned a person must feel. How hopeless. Especially at Christmas time.

A friend of mine, who was a homeless single parent, says that the worst thing is that you are so worried about where you will sleep you don't get to think about anything else. And if you do get your child into a school, you never know when you will have to move. And when they discover that you are homeless, people never want to rent to you.

It doesn't feel good to let your thoughts linger on things that make you feel bad - things like poverty, loneliness, abandonment and death. Most of us would rather watch a box set, which may be partly why homelessness has become such a problem.

This morning, I watched a video about volunteers in Cork who spend their evenings talking to people who are sleeping rough, holding hands with them, giving them hot meals and clean clothes and generally paying them some attention, showing some compassion and kindness.

The video made me cry - not just because of how agonising it is to see this kind of human misery, but also because it is hard to watch other people doing something to help without wondering why one is not also helping, without wondering why I hurry past people who are cold and hungry instead of stopping to ask what I can do.

I wondered about the people who actually try to do something to help, what special quality do they have that will not let them hurry past.

JC Pearson is a strikingly handsome man who has been homeless in San Francisco for 17 years. Other homeless people call him 'Aunt Jack'. "I am a motherly person," he says. "Everybody comes to me for help and advice. If you cannot help yourself, help save the world, that is what I say."

Jack is a hairdresser and he cuts homeless people's hair. "I can make anyone pretty, and if you look better and feel better about yourself, it gives you more confidence to approach the situation."

Pauline Burke works for Focus Ireland and is often asked how can she do that job? She has an answer.

"I do this job because I believe we can make a difference," she says. "I know we are making a difference."

Shane and I have a good friend, a fashion designer called Bella Freud. Last year, she and Kate Moss designed a Fairytale of New York jumper and this year she has also made a Fairytale of New York candle. It smells beautiful. And as a way of trying to do something to help, we are going to sell the candles at a special, one-off event in Dublin, to raise some money and awareness for Focus Ireland.

So if you know of anyone who likes the song, you could maybe get them a candle for Christmas.

When a situation is bad - really bad - it can sometimes seem overwhelming. But even if fixing it is a challenge, there is always an opportunity to try something. And if like me all you do is something small, it all makes a difference.

The Bella Freud 'Fairytale Of New York' candle will be available to pre-order from www.thegoodfoodstore.ie from today until Tuesday, December 6, and for collection at a special musical event on Thursday, December 15, in the store, along with signed photographs of Shane by Sunday Independent photographer Steve Humphreys
File photo: An investigation has been launched after a suspicious device was placed near the home of a serving garda.

THE Garda Representative Association (GRA) has called for the "full weight of the law" to be brought down on those who left a suspicious device outside the home of a serving officer.

GRA President Ciaran O'Neill has described the attack as a "reprehensible" attempt to intimidate a garda doing their duty.

Yesterday Independent.ie revealed that the Army Bomb Disposal team were called to the home of the serving garda in Rush, Co Dublin after the item was uncovered on Friday morning.

A cordon was established around the scene and residents were evacuated while the bomb experts dealt with the device.

In a strongly worded statement, released to Independent.ie, Mr O'Neill said the association was "shocked and appalled" to hear of the attack.

He added: "When they report for duty, Gardai have no idea what situations they may face that day and often work in difficult, dangerous surroundings.

"For this device to have been placed outside a member's home, endangering his personal safety as well as that of his family in an attempt to intimidate him is reprehensible."

He continued: "We would demand that the full weight of the law is brought to bear on those responsible and that the full resources of an Garda Siochana are used to apprehend the offender."

Mr O'Neill said the GRA sends its best wishes to the garda involved.

In a statement on Friday the Defence Forces confirmed that the army Explosive Ordnance Defence (EOD) team was called to the housing estate following a request from local gardai.

The specialist bomb disposal team arrived at 9.40am and made the device safe at the scene.

The area was declared safe at 11.30am.

A spokesperson for the Defence Forces said in a statement on Friday: "The device was removed to a secure military location for further examination.

"Material of an evidential nature will be handed over to An Garda Siochana to assist them with their investigation."

A spokesperson confirmed on Saturday that an examination of the device found it was not viable.
Fares will shortly be offered for a service which Cork Airport has been campaigning for now for more than 25 years (Stock picture)

The US ended a year-long stand-off with Ireland and the EU by granting an operating licence for Norwegian Air International (NAI) to begin transatlantic services.

The move is now expected to spark a price war on transatlantic services - and offers Cork its long-awaited first transatlantic link.

The US Department of Transport confirmed the granting of a licence which will now allow NAI to start services from Cork to Boston early next year.

Fares will shortly be offered for a service which Cork Airport has been campaigning for now for more than 25 years.

The budget carrier also plans to launch a service from Cork to New York, most likely in 2018.

Cork Airport managing director Niall MacCarthy hailed the decision as "a great win for Open Skies" while Housing Minister Simon Coveney described it as "a landmark development" for Cork.

Cork Chamber of Commerce chief executive Conor Healy said the decision offered enormous potential economic benefits for both the city and entire region.

The decision came after the EU had signalled it was demanding independent arbitration on the US failure to grant an operating licence to NAI. Taoiseach Enda Kenny had also requested US President Barack Obama's help over the increasingly bitter row. The issue was even raised during the US election.
Businessman Denis O'Brien has no constitutional right to achieve "personal satisfaction" by having members of the Dail sanctioned by the High Court for statements he complained about, the court has been told.

A defence barrister said the investigation into comments by two TDs was entrusted exclusively to the Dail's Committee for Procedure and Privileges (CPP), and Mr O'Brien had no right to see this was done to his "satisfaction".

Michael Collins SC, for the CPP, made the argument on the fourth day of Mr O'Brien's court action against that committee, the Clerk of the Dail and the State over statements about the businessman's banking affairs.

The action arose out of statements by Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy and Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty in the Dail in May and June 2015.

At the time, Mr O'Brien was involved in injunction proceedings against RTE, to stop it from broadcasting banking information.

But the court had heard the statements made by the two TDs had the effect of putting all of the information at issue in the injunction proceedings into the public domain.

Lawyers for Mr O'Brien have claimed the TDs were "guilty of an unwarranted interference" in the RTE case, and had disregarded the constitutional separation of powers between parliament and the courts.

The claims are denied by the defendants.

Mr Collins said it was being argued by the plaintiff that the Dail statements were an infringement on the separation of powers and that they effectively determined the outcome of his interlocutory injunction.

But he said the TDs' statements could never be an infringement of the separation of powers. "The exercise by the deputies of their constitutionally protected freedom of speech could not be a breach of the separation of powers," he said.

Mr Collins said that in the "cut and thrust of political life" things were done that "changed the factual mix" that might come before the court for a decision, but that did not in any way interfere with the judicial function or judicial independence.

The case, before Ms Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh, continues next week.
ASTI members will be urged to reject Department of Education proposals aimed at resolving their dispute with the Government over pay and conditions for new teachers.

They will be balloted in January, said the union's central executive committee, after meeting in Dublin yesterday.

Members are being urged to reject a deal offered to the union that is largely based on the terms already accepted by the two other teaching unions, the INTO and the TUI, including some pay increases for recently qualified teachers.

Accepting the offer would mean ASTI members would have to agree to come under the umbrella of the Lansdowne Road Agreement.

However, long-serving union members would be given the right to opt out of the supervision of students outside of scheduled class times under the proposals considered by the central executive committee yesterday. The union will continue to defer its industrial action pending the outcome of January's ballot.

ASTI president Ed Byrne said teachers have struggled financially in recent years.

"Teachers have suffered savage cutbacks to education resources, attacks on their pay and conditions, and recently qualified teachers have been singled out for additional cuts," he said.

"This has included the removal of improved access to job security for young teachers, the removal of payment in recognition of supervision and substitution work, and the threat of redundancies. However, despite this CEC is of the firm belief that the proposals are not acceptable, and should be rejected by members."

In October, ASTI members voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action over unequal pay for recently qualified teachers. The decision by the 180-member central executive committee dashes the government's hopes of an early resolution in the dispute.

While the union has said that it will defer its industrial action pending the result of January's ballot, it does not rule out further industrial action in the New Year.

Further strikes will remain an option, something that will be of concern to students and parents as they prepare to sit state exams next year. The vote is also due to be held as students gear up for pre-Leaving Certificate and pre-Junior Certificate exams or orals in Irish, French, German and Spanish.

Sources close to yesterday's talks failed to rule out a 'no' vote in January's ballots leading to more school closures.

Yesterday's decision will also pose many questions for junior cycle students. Those taught by ASTI members risk losing 10pc of marks in their English exams because of the union's lack of co-operation with junior cycle reforms.
Top: A garda forensics officer removes a gun from near the scene. Left: Mark Desmond and, right, a car found burnt out nearby

The Dublin gang murderer Mark 'the Guinea Pig' Desmond may be the latest victim of the Kinahan-Hutch blood feud, gardai believe.

It is suspected that Desmond, who is thought to have been responsible for several murders over 17 years, was lured to a meeting by members of the Kinahan cartel and shot dead.

Sources said Desmond was a 'gun for hire' in the city and, although he had close associations for years with a west Dublin gang affiliated with the main Kinahan cartel, he also had secret links with the rival Hutch mob.

Desmond was known to have had meetings with a number of key Hutch gang figures, possibly with a view to supplying heroin. The Hutch gang was almost beaten into submission by some 10 murders of members and associates in response to the attack on the Kinahans at Dublin's Regency Hotel in February.

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The 41-year-old was suspected of carrying out several murders, mainly in west Dublin, since the double killing of Darren Carey (19) and Patrick Murray (20) who he lured to a meeting on a quiet stretch of the Grand Canal near Karneystown, Co Kildare, on the Millennium Eve. He murdered both with a shotgun and shoved their bodies into the water where they were found the next morning by walkers.

A relative of Darren Carey posted on social media: "You deserved it, If it was my way I would of tortured you Ye fat cunt, enjoy hell you prick."

Desmond was also the main suspect in the murder of west Dublin gangster Maurice 'Bo Bo' Ward (56) in May 2002. He was also regarded as the likely gunman in the double murder of gangsters Kenneth Corbally (32) and his brother Paul (35) in June 2010 in Ballyfermot.

He is also believed to have murdered and secretly buried minor rival James Kenny McDonagh, a 29-year-old father-of-one in October 2009. Determined work by detectives eventually led to the discovery of Mr McDonagh's body in January 2012 but there was not sufficient evidence to charge Desmond.

Gardai said Desmond was almost uniquely hated owing to his murderous and generally vicious behaviour, including the reported rape of a teenage prisoner in 2000 while he was serving a jail term for assaulting and threatening to murder a young woman.

Desmond had the 'protection' of a major west Dublin gang which has imported large amounts of cocaine and heroin into Ireland. He also had links with a drugs gang operating in the Sligo area and it is believed he was involved in the importation of drugs into the country in drop-offs by ships on the unprotected west coast.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close The remains of the dead criminal are removed from Griffeen Valley Park, Lucan. Photo: David Conachy Gardai at the scene at the entrance to Grifeen Valley Park, Lucan. Inset: Mark Desmond / Facebook

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Whatsapp The remains of the dead criminal are removed from Griffeen Valley Park, Lucan. Photo: David Conachy

Detectives suspect that a 'torpedo'-type container washed up on a Co Clare beach in October may have been one of the consignments lost by the gang.

The metal container had been welded onto the hull of a ship but may have come off in bad weather and washed up on the shore.

The same gang is believed to have direct links with heroin suppliers in Pakistan affiliated to the Taliban and the Pakistani secret services. A number of Desmond's associates are known to have visited the country.

Desmond's reasons for meeting members of the Hutch gang during the height of the murder campaign against its members remain a mystery. But sources said that once this was known by the Kinahans, and in the absence of any adequate excuse, Desmond's life was in immediate and real danger.

The Kinahan gang has sworn to eradicate its rivals and any figure associating with known Hutch gang members is a target for assassination.

One of the figures under investigation for shooting Desmond at Griffeen Valley Park, Lucan, on Friday night was a close associate of David Byrne (32) who was shot dead at the Regency Hotel in Whitehall.

Two handguns believed to have been used in Desmond's murder were left at the scene by his killers.
Facebook and WhatsApp logos are displayed on portable electronic devices on Feb. 19, 2014 in San Francisco City. (Photo : Getty Images/ Justin Sullivan)

WhatsApp will stop supporting millions of older model smartphones later this month. Hence, users whose phone models are on this list released by WhatsApp, they need to either upgrade their device or simply move to another chat app.



Early this year, WhatsApp announced that it will not support phones such as the iPhone 3GS and Android handsets from the end of 2016. As a result, people owning these devices will not be able to send or receive messages on the chat app any longer, The Independent reported.



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In a blog post published on its website in Feb. 26, 2016, WhatsApp, the company owned by Facebook, recommended that people owing older phone should purchase a new handset before the December 2016 end. "If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone before the end of 2016 to continue using WhatsApp," the blog said.



Explaining the rationale behind the move, WhatsApp further said that the company was initiating the change to ensure that the platform is more secure. At the same time, it said that the move will help the company to focus on new features.



The blog, which was posted on the seventh anniversary of the company, said that when WhatsApp was introduced in 2009, the Apple Store, which was just few months old. At that time, almost 70 percent of devices marketed during that time ran on operating systems offered by Nokia and BlackBerry. About 99.5 percent of smartphones sold today run on operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft, the company stated.



The company updated its post later to confirming that it will extend support for all BlackBerry phones until June 2017 end. Apparently the decision was taken in response to user pressure. However, all BlackBerry phones, including relatively newer devices like the BlackBerry 10, will be deprived of WhatsApp from July 1, 2017.



Aside from BlackBerry devices, WhatsApp will also end support for the iPhone 3GS, handsets running on Windows Phone 7 as well as those using Android 2.1 or Android 2.2. The chat service will also stop supporting first, second, third or fourth generation iPad, which have not been updated to iOS 9.3.



WhatsApp to end support to Nokia devices on Dec. 31, 2016:






GARDAI are appealing for witnesses after a woman was injured crossing the road on Sunday morning.

Gardai in Sundrive Road are investigating the serious injury collision beside Sundrive Park in Dublin.

"At approximately 7.15am this morning a woman in her 70s was struck by a car as she crossed the road," a spokesman said.

"The driver of the car was uninjured. The woman was taken to St James's Hospital with injuries described as serious."

Gardai wish to appeal for witnesses to contact Sundrive Road Garda Station on 01 6666600, The Garda Confidential Telephone Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.

This section of Sundrive Road is currently closed to facilitate an examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators and motorists are advised to take alternative routes.
More than 500 hospital consultants are suing the State for back pay and an additional 1,800 may have to be compensated, landing the Health Service Executive with a potential bill for 700m.

The figure puts the cost of reimbursing doctors' wage increases that were withheld during the public pay freeze at an average of 300,000 for every consultant, including legal fees and interest due.

The potential windfall for hospital doctors stems from a contract they negotiated with the Government in 2008.

The contract allowed for two pay increases to bring their salaries to between 170,000 and 240,000. One increase was paid; the second, due in June 2009, was not because of pay cuts across the public sector triggered by the economic collapse.

Two consultants, Thomas Hogan, a retired anaesthetist, and John McDermott, an endocrinologist, took cases to the Employment Appeals Tribunal, claiming the pay increases due under the 2008 contract should have been paid. The Employment Appeals Tribunal agreed. In a ruling last December, it found that Hogan should be paid 100,000 and McDermott was due 14,000.

The Health Service Executive is now appealing that ruling. But on the foot of it, more than 500 hospital consultants started legal proceedings this year to secure the pay rises that were withheld during the bust. In some cases, they are also seeking compensation. In total, around 2,300 hospital consultants will be entitled to be compensated if the legal cases are successful.

The Government is considering a deal with consultants, to avoid the lengthy and costly litigation that could end up costing as much as 700m, once legal fees and other costs are included.

Brendan Howlin, the former minister for public expenditure and reform, already suggested a negotiated deal before he left office earlier this year.

Speaking last January, he said whatever liabilities accrue to the State will be met through negotiation.

No negotiations are underway as yet, however.

The HSE has appealed the Employment Appeals Tribunal ruling but in the High Court last month, a barrister representing 37 consultants asked for a hearing on two "lead cases" to press ahead.

Hospital consultants negotiated the pay rises in 2008. They agreed to change their work practices in return for higher salaries of between 170,000 and up to 240,000.

Most consultants signed up for the new contracts, which meant reducing their private practices and working extra hours and at weekends in public hospitals.

The corresponding salary increases were to be phased in over two payments, but while the first was paid, the second was not.

The economic collapse hit, the health minister refused to pay the second increase, and following the introduction of financial emergency legislation, consultants' pay was further reduced by 15pc.

Consultants have been lobbying the Government to have the cuts imposed on their contracts under financial emergency legislation to be reversed.

The shortage of hospital consultants in Ireland has been linked to their pay. Ireland ranks below the OECD average for doctors per head of population.
More than 2,000 doctors, nurses and other medical staff have been recruited from overseas in 2016 as the exodus of young Irish health professionals continues.

New figures show that so far this year 2,058 work permits have been granted to non-European Union residents.

The health sector remains the key area for recruitment, with the Health Service Executive (HSE) having to cope with an ongoing shortage of nurses and doctors, raising concerns that this could be a record year for the allocation of work permits in hospitals.

The inflow into the Irish health service comes as a significant proportion of young Irish nurses take advantage of a variety of career options in the UK, and further afield - in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The Middle East, with the promise of tax-free salaries, has also emerged as a magnet in recent years.

Many Irish doctors who decide to work in other countries also do so to gain valuable experience from the range of high-tech health resources on offer.

Experts said the continuing economic recovery was another factor in driving demand, particularly for those with specific skills.

Latest data shows that the Health Service Executive is the biggest recruiter of non-EU workers in Ireland, followed by American internet giant, Google.

The health authority topped the list in the first six months of the year, securing 1,027 work permits for in-demand staff. That was almost four times the number of applications made by Google, which requested 268 permits.

Latest figures reveal that a total of 8,007 applications were granted by the end of October.

Only 17.5pc of those visas were renewals; the rest were new applications.

Overall, the number of permits issued in 2016 is set to be up by a staggering 35pc compared with previous trends.

India is the largest source of foreign workers, followed by Pakistan and the US.

Professionals from Brazil and Sudan completed the top five nationalities that were issued permits.

Meanwhile, an estimated 7,500 Irish-trained nurses have emigrated to the UK in the past five years.

Irish-qualified medics can avail of job opportunities in various countries - but their level of experience will determine the career options which are available to them.

In the UK, for example, newly qualified nurses can be assured of finding work, but the situation can be more complicated in countries such as Australia.

In a statement, the Department of Jobs said Ireland was experiencing skills shortages in certain "key areas" of the health service.

It added that it was the State's policy to prioritise workers from other EU and EEA states.

However, the department said it was necessary to hire non-EEA nationals when specific skills proved "difficult to source."
The Health Service Executive (HSE) is embroiled in a bitter feud with a children's cancer charity after it backtracked on a commitment to give the organisation 450,000 in funding.

Galway-based charity Hand in Hand, which offers support to the families of severely sick children, fears it will have to close if the HSE does not provide the funding.

And in a highly unusual move, the financially struggling charity is now considering pursuing the HSE through the courts in a last-ditch effort to secure the funding.

Senior HSE officials have held meetings in recent weeks in an attempt to defuse the situation, but charity management are understood to be frustrated by the "piecemeal" offers from the health service chiefs.

Fianna Fail's public expenditure and reform spokesman Dara Calleary, who has been seeking a resolution to the dispute on behalf of the charity, said he was "stonewalled" by the HSE when he sought answers.

Fine Gael Galway West TD Hildegarde Naughton also insisted a "great injustice" had been done to the charity which she has raised with Health Minister Simon Harris.

The row with the children's cancer charity stems back to 2009 when another voluntary agency 'Boy Hope/Girl Hope' was wound up. The charity, which provided residential and outreach services for the families of sick children, was "funded almost completely by the Health Services". When it ceased operating in 2005, the charity was obliged to return any remaining assets to the HSE, a spokesman said.

"This in turn occurred in 2009 and it was hoped that these monies, together with an additional funding stream of up to 150,000 over three years, could have been made available to Hand in Hand. This would have totalled 450,000," he added.

Hand in Hand claims 300,000 of this funding was a donation from the dissolved children's charity. The HSE disputes this and said it was not acting as an "intermediary" between the charities.

However, months after the agreement was signed, the HSE decided to withdraw the funding "in light of the very difficult financial position the health service experienced during this period".

A spokesman said the HSE contacted the charity to notify it of the "changed financial position" and "they in turn took immediate and appropriate actions in this changed context".

"In 2010 the HSE was able to provide 50,000 in funding to Hand in Hand. Upon review, it is clear from our records that the decisions taken by HSE management in 2009 were appropriate, given the financial circumstances of the HSE at that time," he added.

A number of meetings have taken place between the charity and HSE officials in recent weeks with the aim of finding a resolution to the dispute. However, the HSE is insisting it will not be giving the charity 450,000.
Senator Kevin Humphreys taking a photo of First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon MSP and female members of the Seanad.

All cosy: Best-selling author of the 'Little Book of Hygge' and CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Meik Wiking

I love the theatre - the velveteen seats, the hushed whispers and, of course, there's always the tantalising possibility everything could go t**s up at any moment.

But the air of self-righteous sanctimony that can surround Ireland's theatre scene makes me want to scream. This week, the Abbey Theatre launched its 2017 programme 'What Happens Next Is This'.

The programme consists of previous hits from the last decade of Irish theatre, and a few productions from overseas. Enda Walsh's Arlington and Ballyturk, the Corn Exchange's Dublin by Lamplight sit alongside stage adaptations of Emma Donoghue's Oscar winner Room and Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall.

Oh, and Roddy Doyle's Two Pints Facebook series will embark on a pub tour/crawl around the country.

It may not be a high risk or innovative programme, but it does have one thing the 2015 line up was lacking - women.

Maybe not a huge amount of female writers (three in total), but that's still more than the 2015 slate (which only had one). However, there was something about the programme launch that didn't sit so well with me. First of all, it was far, far too long. A two-hour discussion on the creative selection process is not fun. On top of this, the underlying tone of self-congratulation irked me. People talked about the Abbey finally being "re-opened".

"When I met you," producer Ann Clarke told directors Graham McLaren and Neil Murray, "You said to me 'This is your theatre'. And I want to thank you for that." This sentiment was reiterated by several others during the evening. Some comments seemed to be a not-too-subtle side swipe at the previous artistic director, Fiach Mac Conghail. That bothered me.

Sure, Fiach had his share of shortcomings - he didn't see the importance of a good edit, and had an insatiable appetite for the work of George Bernard Shaw - the most boring Irish writer going.

Yes, the 2016 centenary programme was a total balls-up, and his reaction ("Them's the breaks") was even worse. But he seems to have become the fall guy for everything the Abbey got wrong in the past decade. It's worth remembering the Abbey board members approved Fiach's 2016 programme. Why aren't they taking more flak?

To reduce his contribution down to one season seems grossly unfair. A similar thing seems to be happening at the Gate Theatre.

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The theatre's announcement in June that Michael Colgan was stepping down was staggeringly disrespectful.

The first official statement came in the form of a classified job listing in the back of The 'Irish Times'. I mean, come the f**k on. The man has worked at the theatre for the best part of 40 years! A little fanfare wouldn't go amiss. Trying to relegate people's artistic contribution because you didn't like some of their programme choices is not only unjust, it's kind of pathetic.

Are Seoige sisters Ireland's answer to Hygge?

Expand Close All cosy: Best-selling author of the 'Little Book of Hygge' and CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Meik Wiking / Facebook

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Whatsapp All cosy: Best-selling author of the 'Little Book of Hygge' and CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Meik Wiking

In the past month, I feel like I have scrolled through approximately 768 "How to Hygge" articles. That impossible-to-pronounce Danish word all about being warm and fuzzy inside.

If by some miracle of fate, the Hygge hype has passed you by, then here's a quick debrief.

It's basically a lifestyle choice constructed around the lyrics of 'These Are a Few of My Favourite Things'.

This week, author of the Little Book of Hygge and CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Meik Wiking rocked into town c/o of BIC.

Meik is very, very handsome - as most Danish men seem to be - and in the toasty surroundings of Whelan's pub he told us about the joy of living 'hygge-ly'.

A lot of the stuff seemed blindingly obvious - warm socks, for example, are preferable to cold, wet socks.

This may explain why articles such as 'Hygge is Byllshytte' have started popping up. But Meik is charming (did I mention that he's also very, very handsome?) so with his help I have constructed a list of super Hygge Irish things.

They are as follows; woollen socks, candles, the Rose of Tralee, barmbrack, Enya, hot chocolate, more candles, Nationwide, Barry's Tea, mismatched china tea cups, Ballymaloe relish, turf, jumpers, porridge, and the Seoige sisters.

And the not so Hygge things?

Concrete, Twink, sequins, the queue outside Copperface Jacks, Eurovision, high heels, Iarnrod Eireann toilets, the shifting wall inside Copperface Jacks, Buckfast and Linda Martin.

Having compared the two lists, I concede that Hygge is more comforting and cosy but doesn't the anti-Hygge list sounds heaps more fun?

I mean who would choose drinking tea with the Seoige sisters over a night on the rip with Twink?

Mr Pussy's memoirs? Gotta grab them all

Expand Close Drag empress: Alan Amsby aka Mr Pussy / Facebook

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Drag empress: Alan Amsby aka Mr Pussy

Before there was Panti, there was Pussy.

Ireland's first drag empress arrived here in 1969, caused a sensation and never returned to London.

Along the way, Mr Pussy became BFFs with Bono, tap danced with Lionel Blair, performed alongside Lily Savage and snogged Danny La Rue.

This week, he launched his memoir Before I Forget to Remember in Lillie's Bordello.

"I haven't set foot in here for 20 years," said Miriam O'Callaghan, who was on hosting duties.

The place was packed; TV3's Alan Hughes, Katherine Lynch, Rory Cowan, Sil Fox and Senator David Norris all flitted about the pleather clad room. Journalist Dave Kenny helped write the book and said getting Pussy to 'fess up about his celebrity encounters was like "squeezing champagne from a turnip".

Mr Pussy inspired a whole legion of drag artists including Panti Bliss - who wrote the foreword.

"I met him when I was a baby drag," Ms Bliss recalled. "Pussy looked me up and down and then imperiously dismissed me, but that made me love her even more."

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Toy Show chitter chatter

Now Ryan and the kids have had their say, it truly is Christmas

Bella Hadid

Gave a masterclass in the art of post-break-up side-eye at the Victoria Secrets show

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Trickmas angst

Undue amounts of stress caused by those devilishly difficult people to buy for

Wearable sleeping bags

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The new onesie. Style inspo = Arsene Wenger

SAY WHAT?

Theyre more focused on glamour than the weather

Viewers inform the BAI that they are not impressed with RTE weather forecasters snappy dress sense.

#PHOTOFAIL

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Whatsapp Senator Kevin Humphreys taking a photo of First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon MSP and female members of the Seanad.

Another week, another political selfie scrum  this time with Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Can we please have a clause written into our constitution banning politicians from posing for these snaps?
He has done the state some service: TK Whitaker with Taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2014 Picture: Mark Condren

TK Whitaker's long life of public service parallels the history of the modern Irish state in whose economic, financial, social, educational, political and cultural evolution he played a pivotal role.

In 1956, aged 39, he became secretary of the Department of Finance. Against a background of economic stagnation, rampant emigration and an atmosphere of national despondency, in 1958 he devised Economic Development, a blueprint for the economic regeneration of the country.

Detailed, meticulous and practical, written in a style and language aimed at the ordinary citizen as much as at politicians, he offered a radical remedy: the replacement of non-productive by productive capital expenditure, the introduction of free trade and an end to the isolation and protectionism of the previous era. Above all, Economic Development offered hope and a way out of the economic quagmire in which Ireland and its people were bound and led to a period of growth, optimism and equilibrium in State finances.

Whitaker's role as Governor of the Central Bank, during a period of economic instability in the 1970s, has a relevance today in light of the recent banking collapse.

Maintaining the autonomy of the Central Bank vis-a-vis both the Government and the Commercial Banking system, in 1970 he successfully resisted Government attempts to obtain statutory control over the implementation of credit policy - a move, as he told the Minister for Finance, he "did not consider to be in the national interest".

He ensured that the Bank fulfilled its statutory obligation in relation to credit control (especially to the over-heating building industry) stemmed the inflow of foreign capital and resisted numerous government attempts to fund non-productive expenditure out of Central Bank coffers.

In the area of regulation and supervision, under his governorship, the Central Bank's control over the Irish banking system evolved and strengthened.

During the 1960s, Whitaker spear-headed Ireland's convoluted path towards the European Economic Community, leading many delegations to European capitals.

His later unease that the idealism, the community ethos - the 'elan vital' as he refers to it - that motivated the EEC's founding fathers, were being sidelined has an echo today in view of the sense of disconnect and disillusionment apparent within the EU.

It is also interesting to note his less-than-enthusiastic reaction to Ireland's abandonment of sterling in 1979, a move he then, perhaps prophetically, described as being "a quixotic gesture".

Between 1967 and 1997, he played a behind-the-scenes role in the search for peace in Northern Ireland.

As far back as the 1950s, he initiated cross-border relationships with his opposite numbers in the Northern Ireland administration and in 1965 arranged the historic meeting between Sean Lemass and Captain Terence O'Neill.

In 1969 he wrote Jack Lynch's famous Tralee Speech which, for the first time, committed the Irish Government to a policy of reunification by the principle of consent. In the 1970s he embarked on a series of meetings with contacts in the public service and banking sectors in Northern Ireland and in the UK from which many policy documents emanated which, in turn, informed government policy both in the Republic and in the UK.

One of his own policy documents, Northern Ireland - A Possible Solution, which he wrote in 1971 is, in reality, the basis of the Good Friday Agreement almost 30 years later.

His approach to the Irish language, both in his personal and public life, and as first chairman of Bord na Gaeilge, was one of practical application, from his promotion of bilingualism as a national policy, to the preservation of the remaining Gaeltachts.

In a world exposed to ever-changing technological advances and to the standardisation and globalisation of every aspect of life, including culture and language, as he now notes, government policy is no longer enough to ensure the survival of the Irish language.

It requires an acknowledgement by all of us that the language is worth saving and that we have the will as a society to ensure that it does.

During his lifetime, Whitaker has received numerous national and international honours.

It is to the credit of the ordinary Irish public, however, who saw through the subjectivity of historical and political iconology and the tinsel of celebrity, to confer the accolade 'Irishman of the 20th Century' on a former public servant, someone whose work over many decades transformed and improved the lives of generations, who spoke his mind with integrity and honesty on matters of public concern and who neither sought nor acquired personal gain in the process.

Whitaker's own words best sum up the essence which motivated and guided his many undertakings throughout his long life of public service: "Let us remember that we are not seeking economic progress for purely materialistic reasons - but because it makes possible relief of hardship and want, the establishment of a better social order, the raising of human dignity, and, eventually, the participation of all in the benefits, moral and cultural, as well as material, of spending their lives and bringing up their families in Ireland."

Anne Chambers is the author of 'TK Whitaker: Portrait of a Patriot'
Embattled Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has claimed he has not spoken to the three politicians he named in an email to Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan since the latest controversy surrounding the IRA murder of prison guard Brian Stack emerged last week.

Mr Adams also doubled down on his claim that Mr Stack's son Austin gave him the names which he forwarded to the Garda Commissioner. Austin Stack has insisted he did not give the Sinn Fein leader any names.

The Irish Independent revealed Mr Adams named four people in an email to Ms O'Sullivan, three of whom are Sinn Fein politicians.

Yesterday, he claimed he wrote to the commissioner to tell her he had "no information" on Brian Stack's murder in 1983 but did reveal he had been passed names by Austin Stack.

Speaking before a Sinn Fein Irish language event, Mr Adams said: "Why would I suggest for one second that Austin Stack gave me names if he didn't give me names? How could Austin Stack expect me to try and get people to meet with him if he didn't tell me who he wanted to meet. Come on," he said. "I didn't name suspects. I never said anybody was a suspect," he added.

The Sinn Fein leader, who had just returned from Fidel Castro's funeral in Cuba, said he was given the names of four people by Austin Stack in 2013. At the time, Mr Adams arranged for Austin and his brother Oliver to meet and IRA figures to discuss their father's death.

"That engagement with the Stack family culminated in a meeting with the former IRA leader who had undertaken an investigation of sorts. The Stack brothers made it clear to me they wanted an acknowledgement if republicans were involved and they wanted closure," he said.

"At the end of that process they got that acknowledgement and in their own words they got closure of sorts and they thanked me," he added.

Mr Adams said he did not forward the names to gardai earlier because it "wasn't an issue". He said the issue was brought up "maliciously" during the General Election campaign when Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan accused him of having information on the murder. Earlier this week, Mr Adams revealed that an IRA member had been disciplined by the terrorist organisation for their role in the murder of Mr Stack.

Today, he said he did not know the name of the individual and he was not aware how they were disciplined because he did not ask.
A rumour went around last weekend that Housing Minister Simon Coveney had begun the process of forming a committee of supporters to discuss his prospects ahead of a fast-approaching Fine Gael leadership election.

Names touted as members of the committee were Senator Tim Lombard, a childhood friend of Coveney, Junior Housing Minister Damien English and Housing Committee chair Maria Bailey. Other names were in the frame too. Supposedly the point of the committee was to task TDs in various parts of the country with gauging the levels of support for Coveney.

The minister insisted none of this was true and he was far too busy working on the important issues of housing and water to concern himself with such trivial matters as taking over from Enda Kenny once, if ever, he steps down as Fine Gael leader. And who are we to question the minister's response?

So let's just take it as given that he has not upped the ante in the leadership race and has not decided to finally take the fight to Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar.

However, this will come as a big disappointment to his supporters who would very much like to see the extremely capable Housing Minister mentioned more in the context of the leadership race.

Every time Varadkar steps in front of a microphone he's asked about the leadership race or his vision for the country. Similarly, Fianna Fail is obsessed with Leo Varadkar and hardly mentions poor old Simon Coveney in its various attacks on Fine Gael. That's not to say Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin is not acutely aware of the potential impact of having a Fine Gael leader in his own constituency.

That aside, Coveney's supporters are desperate to see the minister front and centre in the leadership battle. They are tired of the growing impression in the media that it will be a coronation of King Leo. Instead, they are anxious to get across the idea that Prince Coveney of Cork is a man dedicated to his portfolio and moving the country in a better direction. He is, they say, focusing on his brief and ensuring that his legacy will be one filled with policy achievements rather than media appearances.

Every time a first-time buyer crosses the threshold of their new home they should think 'Simon Coveney helped me get this'.

"He has a lot of things to do between now and the leadership race, and he wants to show that he does more than buy people cups of coffee and promise them ministries," a source close to Coveney said.

The reason for the policy- based approach is because, as one Coveney supporter put it, "he's not going to beat Varadkar in a personality battle". At the same time, Coveney's camp would like to see him shake of the image of arrogant legislator who doesn't have time for backbenchers as he is too busy thinking of the greater good of the country.

Those who know him best insist that Simon Coveney is far from arrogant despite the trappings of wealth in his background. Rather, they say, he is a reserved, even shy, minister who is more comfortable talking policy than taking colleagues out for pints.

Varadkar's many and varied media appearances are beginning to see him take some flak from within the party. His decision to host an RTE Radio programme over Christmas has raised some eyebrows to say the least. This plays into Coveney's hands.

But does any of this matter and does Coveney even stand a chance against media darling Varadkar? This remains to be seen. But, and this might come as a shock to Team Coveney, more than 30 TDs and senators are already understood to have pledged their loyalty to Leo Varadkar. This includes senior and junior ministers. It represents almost half of the parliamentary party which consists of 50 TDs and 15 senators. It's a testament to Varadkar's popularity and the self-preservation nature of politicians that they are already aligning themselves to a candidate.

Varadkar is not relying on the support of these Fine Gaelers in the long term as he knows the fickle nature of politicians. However, he is understandably buoyed by the level of support within the parliamentary party. Coveney's people say different and don't believe that Varadkar has the backing of as many party members as he thinks he does.

It will be a while, but maybe not that long, before we know who has called that one correctly. It is also worth bearing in mind that every Fine Gael member, elected or otherwise, has a vote in the election, albeit weighted in favour of the parliamentary party.

Another element of this intriguing political drama that has become apparent in recent days is that there will be no agreement between Varadkar and Coveney that would result in either candidate getting a free run and the other taking a deputy role. Both sides last week insisted that there would be no deal despite speculation that an arrangement could be reached between the pair. Both ministers are interested only in leading Fine Gael and neither side is keen on playing second fiddle to the other.

Another interesting development emerging is the soundings from Varadkar's camp which suggest he will punish TDs and senators who nominate candidates other than Coveney. The threat, if you can call it that, stemmed from a suggestion in this paper last weekend that Health Minister Simon Harris might throw his hat in the ring too.

Harris is a well-known supporter of Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, who is very much still the third candidate in the leadership race. However, Harris has been urged by colleagues to consider the prospect of entering the race and is eager to be mentioned along with other senior ministers.

The Health Minister knows that is unlikely he would win but believes there is no harm in being considered in the mix. After all, Enda Kenny lost out to Michael Noonan before eventually taking over from him.

Ultimately, Harris is likely to back Fitzgerald but should she decide not to run the he may well step forward. However, as predicted in these very pages, Fitzgerald is very much in campaign mode and has spent the last few months setting out her vision for the country every time she is asked to speak in public.

Meanwhile, Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Paschal Donohoe is still seen as the dark horse. Donohoe is doing OK on the public sector pay dispute but it is still too early to say whether he has been a success, especially as strikes are looming in the new year.

He has gone to great lengths to say he is not interested in leading but there is a section of the party eager to see him step up to the plate.

At the moment, the leadership race is up in the air - mostly due to the Taoiseach's rich vein of form. Kenny has been confident, comfortable and almost cocky since he settled into his second term. His advisers and officials even seem in better form in the wake of the second coming of the Mayo Messiah. The public is also getting used to Enda Kenny and, dare I say, beginning to take to him.

Last Monday he met Pope Francis in the Vatican and he is just back from a tour of the US this weekend. Those who want him gone say it's the first leg of his farewell tour. Kenny's camp says different and the Taoiseach has said he hopes to be in the same job when the Pope arrives in August 2018. The chances of this are slim.

Three Fine Gael ministers, who sit around the Cabinet table with Kenny every Tuesday morning, insisted he will not be Taoiseach in 2018. There's no rush for anything to happen over Christmas or early into the new year but if he's still around come next summer there will be trouble.

Varadkar and Coveney will not publicly support a heave but equally neither is likely to back Kenny if it comes down to a vote of confidence. There's a belief in Fine Gael that there may be outward support for Kenny but if it comes to a secret ballot, he's gone.

It will be up to the rebels to oust Kenny if he digs in over the summer, and they do need him gone by then to allow the leadership election process to take place during the Dail recess.

It will take more than a prayer from Pope Francis to save Kenny but he may still have one more fight left in him. Should he lose, then the real battle begins, and we will see if Varadkar's popularity withstands the ultimate test or if Coveney's 'head down and get on with things' strategy actually works.
Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has challenged Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin's view that nothing has changed since Mr Ahern was forced to resign from the party he once led to three election victories.

Mr Ahern also believes Fianna Fail would win more Dail seats in Dublin if Mr Martin did not oppose an application by his former constituency for him to rejoin the party.

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Independent, Mr Ahern said his "only interest" was to help win Fianna Fail seats in Dublin.

"All I am being asked to do is to play a local role. Helping locally in an area I know inside out and back to front. But if the perception is that it is something else then that's a problem. I think that is the problem - the perception."

He also disputed a claim by Mr Martin that nothing had changed since Mr Ahern was forced to resign from Fianna Fail after the publication of the Mahon tribunal report in 2012. "The circumstances have changed a lot," he said, "Things aren't the same," he added, in reference to legal challenges taken by associates to the tribunal's findings.

He also played down reports he was interested in challenging for the Ppesidency: "Michael D is a good friend of mine. I think he is doing a very good job and I would make no comment about that." Later he said: "I think it is disrespectful for anyone to talk about the Presidency."
Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are just friends despite being spotted strolling around London last August. (Photo : YouTube/CleverNews)

It appears that Andrew Garfield may have been disappointed about how the "Amazing Spider-Man" films turned out. The actor revealed that he was "heartbroken" by how the creators of the film did not prioritize Spider-Man as a character and that movie was more driven by the "corporate enterprise."



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In a candid interview with Variety, the 33-year-old actor gave his honest opinion about the "Amazing Spider-Man," in which he played the leading role of Peter Parker. "I signed up to serve the story, and to serve this incredible character that I've been dressing as since I was three, and then it gets compromised and it breaks your heart," Garfield said.



According to Garfield, the character and the story of Spider-Man was not the top priority of the producers. Instead, he explained that he felt like he was just one piece in a massive corporate machinery.



Garfield further explained that seeing how the character was compromised in the films left him heartbroken to a certain degree. He initially signed up for three "Spider-Man" movies, but dropped from the franchise after "The Amazing Spider-Man" performed poorly.



"There were great things about it, I got to work with incredible actors, a really great director," NME quoted Garfield as saying. "I learned a lot about what feels good and what doesn't feel good, and what to say 'yes' to. There's something about being that young in that kind of machinery which I think is really dangerous."



Since his stint as the web-slinging Spider-Man, Garfield has gone to portray more serious movies roles such as the 2014 drama "99 Holmes" and Martin Scorcese's Oscar-buzz movie "Silence."



However, Garfield was not the only one with complaints about working in a superhero film. Amy Adams, who stars in the upcoming alien film "Arrival," said she was disheartened by how very little detail goes into Lois Lane in the films.



"I love playing her, I love everyone I work with, but sometimes it's tricky because I feel like she's in service of the story instead of the story serving the character," Adams said about appearing as Lois Lane in "Batman v Superman" and "Man of Steel."



In the meantime, Garfield will appear in the upcoming epic "Silence," which will be out in Dec. 23.






Bertie Ahern seems tickled pink. For a man who hasn't even been in the country for several weeks, he still manages to make it on to the front pages.

As he is sitting in the Skylon Hotel, drinking tea and eating sandwiches over two hours with his good friend Des Richardson, a well-wisher approaches to shake his hand.

"That guy was assuming -like everyone I have met in the last couple of days - that I am back," he tells me afterwards. "I have only been asked to play a very, very minor role."

A short time later another man beams at the sight of the old Drumcondra native. He tells Bertie he should be Taoiseach again.

"You see this is the trouble," Bertie laughs. "Before it takes off that I am coming back as Taoiseach or President [I want to make it clear that] all the party was trying to do was see if I would come back to help the local organisation win some votes."

Local Fianna Fail's Dublin Central activists want to win back seats in Dublin North West and Dublin Central -Bertie's local stomping ground - and they want Bertie to help. "We used to have three out of five for this area," he says after ushering me to a quiet corner of the hotel to explain the political debacle.

When you were involved?

"Yes. In my first election in this area I got two out of the three seats. All of the other elections, I headed the poll. And all that [the Dublin Central] are doing is looking at the figures and saying 'Bertie used to have 12,500 votes in one area, Noel [Ahern, Bertie's brother] had 12,500 votes in another area, they had 25,000 votes, they were there for 30 years, if we got a slice of that vote back - it would help."

Do you think you can help?

"Of course I want to see Fianna Fail win the seat back and - one way or another - I would help."

Earlier in the week, members of the Dublin Central branch had planned to write a letter to the former Taoiseach to formally ask him to re-join the party. But Bertie says Micheal Martin has put paid to those plans.

"I never got the letter because he [Micheal] stopped it."

How do you feel about it?

"Well you know the way. If you are not invited to the party by the host, you don't go to the party. That's my view on it," shrugs Bertie.

Why don't you apply for membership and let the party decide, regardless of what Micheal says?

"It has to go through [him]," he says, "This is the point. If I apply for membership apparently, apparently, it has to go back to him. I would be the only person in the organisation who joins where my application would have to go back to him," he laughs, "according to him anyway."

Is Micheal Martin's attempt to stamp out Fianna Fail's Dublin Central's plans against the best interests of the party?

"That's what he has to make a judgement on," says Bertie.

But the man who is Ireland's second longest serving Taoiseach - and one of the most popular and successful politicians in the history of the State - wants to reassure Micheal Martin "there is no big masterplan."

"My only interest, my only interest, would be to see my old constituency win seats. And if I was to say yes to an application - which I haven't got," he laughs, "but if I was going to say yes, it would only be to help in my local area and to play my small role."

On Thursday the Fianna Fail leader issued a strong statement to ensure the former Taoiseach would not come back into the fold. Newspaper reports described how Martin cast Ahern as a figure from the party's grubby past, which Fianna Fail wants to move on from.

"I don't agree with that," says Bertie. "I think Fianna Fail has been a great party for 90 years. It has been a wonderful party for 90 years. The party has had ups and downs in Dev's time, in Lemass's time, in Lynch's time, in Charlie's time, in Albert's time, in my time, in his time.

"The party goes up and down. So if you talk about the grubby past, which of them are you talking about?" he laughs. "You know? Are you only talking about my time? Were there no other ups and downs in anyone else's time?"

Still, Martin is adamant his views on Bertie's position are unchanged. In recent days he told reporters: "Nothing has changed from four years ago and I don't anticipate Bertie Ahern coming back into the party. I don't see any possibility of that".

But Bertie believes "the circumstances have changed a lot".

"Things aren't the same," he says. "There have been several court cases that have changed the circumstances. Charlie Chawke won his case. The tribunal gave in to Dermot Carew, Des Richardson had his case. All of these cases have happened, so to say it is the same - how is it the same when these cases have all happened?"

He says: "You have to take into account the cases that friends of mine took and won and those things have moved on."

On Fianna Fail's rehoned image, Bertie believes it can always be bettered: "I think there is always room for improvement with any brand and no one should ever stop trying to improve it and I think we have to try - and Fianna Fail as a political party have to try - and continue to improve the brand and one of the ways they should do that is to make sure people know all of the good things that Fianna Fail has done over the past 90 years and not be apologising for it."

Does he receive a warmer response on the streets now?

"Ah yeah, for years. That moved on... you know politics. Listen, when the economy was growing by 10pc and when the country had lots of money, or looked as if we had lots of money, and when unemployment was low, there were still people who weren't happy," he laughs, "of course when the downturn happened, I was gone. People now forget I was gone. People relate it back to some of the decisions in my time and I gave all of my evidence in the banking tribunal for hours on end on that and I think people understood my position -I am not saying everyone agreed with everything I said - so that's long finished."

On the economy bouncing back, he says: "Well, sure the country only went down in two areas. The property and the banking. Lots of other areas of the economy never went down.

"It was an international recession, some people seem to think there was only a recession in Ireland, it was everywhere in the world."

Looking ahead he says: "We have to be very careful. We did learn some hard lessons ."

But he adds: "What always annoys me is that we were building at 80,000 [units] when we should have been building at 45,000 [units]. We were building too many. So we take responsibility for that."

But, "its amazing everyone was going around a few years ago saying, 'We're building too many houses, we have ghost estates, we'll never have them full.' Now they are all gone, bar a few, and we don't have enough houses. Now we have to get the supply up again.

"The trouble is a lot of the developers who built them are gone."

At 65, he says he still has "a contribution to make".

"All I am being asked to do is to play a local role. Helping locally in an area I know inside out and back to front. But if the perception is that it is something else then that's a problem. I think that is the problem - the perception."

Before taking photos by the Christmas tree, I ask about the prospect that he will run for President.

"Michael D. is a good friend of mine. I think he is doing a very, good job and I would make no comment about that."

Would you rule it out?

"I would make no comment about that."

Again and again, I ask.Again and again he refuses to rule it out. Eventually he says: "I think it is disrespectful for anyone to talk about the presidency. He is an excellent president. And he'll probably stay on for another nine years.

"So I can't rule it out if it's not available. And in another nine years, I will be too old." He will be 74 - a year younger than Michael D. is now.

Stranger things have happened. Remember only a week ago the idea of Bertie getting back into politics was unimaginable.
Gerry Adams at the Friends of Sinn Fein Annual Dinner in New York in 2014 Picture: Dan Callister

Sinn Fein raised almost $70,000 (65,000) in six months in the US this year.

The party's American fundraising arm, Friends of Sinn Fein, collected the money at fundraisers and from individual donors between May and October.

The latest filings to the US State Department, published last Friday, show the party took $69,735. All of the money stayed in Sinn Fein's five bank accounts in New York.

The money received was less than the $144,875 (135,000) cost of running Friends of Sinn Fein for the six-month period. General office expenses amounted to more than $43,000 (40,000), while $28,226 (26,000), was spent on travel and accommodation, mostly for visiting Sinn Fein TDs such as the party's deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald and Minister for Education John O'Dowd - both of whom flew to the US during the six-month period.

The biggest donor was United Structural Works, which gave $20,000 (18,750) in May. O'Sullivan Equipment and Keelan McLaughlin each donated $10,000 (9,300).

Most of the donors are Irish-Americans who are long-term contributors to the party.

The $70,000 takings for the past six months did not include Sinn Fein's biggest money-spinner - the annual Friends of Sinn Fein dinner, which is held in New York every November. The $500-a-plate event (470) usually raises more than $400,000 (37,500).

Friends of Sinn Fein is obliged by law to report all donations to the US Department of Justice.
Businessman Denis O'Brien's mistrust of the Oireachtas stems from much more than the disclosure of his banking arrangements by two TDs in the Dail chamber.

He also believes it is possible for TDs to be used by individuals to put information in their interest into the public domain using the cloak of Dail privilege.

The media and telecoms tycoon wasn't quizzed about this view when he took to the stand last week in his High Court action against the State, the Clerk of the Dail and the Dail Committee on Procedure and Privilege (CPP). But he raised the concern in a written submission to the court, citing another lawsuit in which he is involved.

This was the much publicised dispute with Red Flag Consulting, a company run by former Independent News & Media executive Karl Brophy.

In those proceedings he alleged a conspiracy against him involving the compilation of a dossier of "damaging" information.

The documents in the dossier included a draft of a Dail speech by former Fianna Fail TD Colm Keaveney, which O'Brien said included suggested amendments by Red Flag.

Keaveney claims the speech he gave in the Dail was "his alone" with no third party influencing or contributing to it. But in drawing attention to the Keaveney speech, O'Brien said: "It is by no means inconceivable that in Ireland parties with no particular political interest seek to use deputies to communicate messages supportive of their private interests using the protection afforded by Dail privilege."

His point here is that there are a number of ways in which privilege can be abused by TDs and there need to be certain curbs on the scope of the Dail to debate. To his mind, TDs who have abused privilege have not been policed correctly by the Dail either through being stopped in their tracks by the Ceann Comhairle or afterwards, when disciplinary investigations take place.

The two TDs in this case, Social Democrat Catherine Murphy and Sinn Fein representative Pearse Doherty, were both cleared of any wrongdoing by the CPP, much to O'Brien's annoyance.

He wants the High Court to declare that the committee got things wrong.

O'Brien also wants the courts to declare that by disclosing loan arrangements he had with the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, they effectively decided the outcome of injunction proceedings he had taken against RTE, which had been seeking to broadcast the information.

The TDs breached the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary and should be censured by the courts for that, he argued.

He said he was taking the case not just for himself, but so something like this would not happen to another citizen.

Seasoned legal observers spoken to by the Sunday Independent believe O'Brien's chances of winning the case are slim as the constitutional protection on free speech in the Dail may be too strong for his arguments to override.

TDs and senators are conferred with a powerful "immunity" by the constitution.

Article 15.13 states TDs and senators cannot be held amenable to the courts over something they say in the chambers of the Oireachtas.

This means that the courts cannot deal with complaints made about matters said in the Dail and that the Houses of the Oireachtas is the only authority with exclusive power to deal with such complaints. As Michael Collins SC, representing the CPP, neatly put it, if a TD said something which caused a murder trial to collapse, this immunity would hold.

O'Brien admitted under cross examination that if he was to win, the mere fact of issuing High Court proceedings would have the effect of greatly restricting Dail speech.

Collins said politicians were entitled to speak freely in the Oireachtas without the "chilling hand of litigation resting on their shoulders", a freedom which is integral to the separation of powers.

Even if he does lose, the O'Brien case is likely to be the cause of some soul searching in Leinster House.

It is commonly accepted that parliamentary privilege should be used responsibly.

But the way the Dail polices itself leaves a lot to be desired and the penalties for TDs who abuse privilege amount to little more than a slap on the wrist.

For example, the CPP found Sinn Fein TD Mary Lou McDonald had abused parliamentary privilege when she named several people, including five former ministers, as Ansbacher account holders.

In doing so, she defied legal advice the Public Accounts Committee had received urging against the disclosure of unfounded claims made by a civil servant in the so-called Ansbacher dossier.

If McDonald's comments had been made outside the Dail, those named could have sued and secured hefty libel awards.

Despite the CPP's finding against her, McDonald stood over her actions and refused to apologise, saying her comments were made "in good faith and in the public interest". There were no adverse consequences for McDonald and the issue eventually fizzled out.
Eight Degrees Brewing was one of the first to emerge in Ireland's nascent craft brewing scene. In a field that's now crowded (and has been partly high-jacked by big brands muscling in on what is properly the preserve of the small guys, so that unless you examine the labels very carefully you can think that you are buying an artisan product when in fact it is anything but), the Michelstown-based brewer is the real deal.

For Christmas, Eight Degrees is launching some special seasonal beers developed under its 2016 Three Dukes of Burgundy Project, all of which are French barrel-aged and bottled in 750ml amber champagne-style bottles and available either individually or in two-bottle gift packs. The first two beers to be launched are The Fearless Farmhouse Ale and The Bold Imperial Stout, and they will be followed in January by The Good Barleywine.

"The Golden Age of Burgundy was from 1364 to 1477," says Cam Wallace, founder and brewer at Eight Degrees, and lover of good food. "Then, the Duchy was recognised as one of the major powers of medieval Europe. John the Fearless was known for defending the emerging Burgundian state but all his scheming couldn't save him from an axe in his back. Under Philip the Good, there was pomp and ceremony aplenty - along with mistresses and illegitimate children - as he manipulated strategic alliances into independence for the Duchy. A lover of luxury, Charles the Bold had drained the coffers by the time he was killed at the siege of Nancy in 1477, thus ending what had been the wealthiest state in Europe. Our new beers celebrate these colourful medieval dukes."

Fearless Farmhouse Ale (7.95) is the perfect Christmas table beer, and will work equally well with the smoked salmon to start, the turkey and ham main event, and washed-rind Irish cheeses at the end of the meal. The Bold Imperial Stout (10.95) is best saved for the end, and paired with Christmas pudding, vanilla ice cream and aged Irish blue cheese. Wallace says that it also "mind-blowing" with Turkish Delight.

Come January, The Good Barleywine is "a Caribbean Christmas cake with lots of ginger, spice and orange", and may be just what you need to get you through the darkest days. For information and stockists, see eightdegrees.ie.

Bites...

GREEN BARN AT BURTOWN

Next week's review is of the Green Barn at Burtown House in Athy, which is hosting a Christmas celebration on December 8th. There's fizz on arrival, a choice of two menus (4 courses for 52, and 6 for 62), and music from the Urban Folk Project, plus shopping. Booking: 059 8623148

GO FULL IRISH FOR CHARITY

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During December, Hayfield Manor is donating half of the price of every non-resident breakfast served from Monday to Friday to the Cork Simon Community. The full Irish costs 27 and is a great way of catching up pre-Christmas without involving alcohol. Reservations required: 021 4845900, hayfieldmanor.ie.

TIPPERARY MERINGUES

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The Tipperary Kitchen's hand-piped, slow baked meringues are the real, old-fashioned deal. Available in four flavours, six shells cost 3.99 at SuperValu and selected stores - handy to have in the cupboard for last-minute desserts over the coming weeks. Just add fruit and whipped cream for instant pavlova. thetipperarykitchen.ie
A few weeks back, I wrote about a little restaurant in Blackrock Market, Heron & Grey, which had just been awarded a Michelin star. There's nothing very glamorous about the market, and the accolade for Andrew Heron and Damien Grey's establishment has been seen as a sign that the tyre company is starting to shake off the shackles of conformity, and to recognise and acknowledge exceptional food regardless of the premises in which it is served.

Not that there's anything wrong with the market, I hasten to add, it's just that it's not the kind of place where you'd expect to find a Michelin-starred restaurant.

El Celler is a new-ish arrival to the same market, and its Spanish tapas bar schtick is more what you'd expect to find tucked away amongst the units selling Asian ingredients and hippy bits and pieces. I imagine that it's benefiting from its proximity to Blackrock's latest celebrities because potential diners have to walk past it on their way to having a gander through the windows of H&G, which is now booked out well into 2017.

The tapas offering in Ireland is a mixed bag, and by that I mean that I have found it to be poor. The quality of what's on offer in the most modest little establishment in Barcelona or San Sebastian is in a different league entirely to what passes for tapas here. In my opinion, there are a number of well-known tapas restaurants in the city that take a cynical approach to their food offering, pawning their customers off with food that's of a low standard, made with inferior ingredients, and seemingly getting away with it under the forgive-all label 'tapas'. With the high quality of Irish fish, meat and other foods available to those who are prepared to seek them out, there's no excuse - other than cheapness - for restaurants not to use free-range meat and poultry, wild fish and organic vegetables.

So I'm delighted to see a note on the menu at El Celler that says that all ingredients are locally sourced, and that they do their best to buy organic where possible. Yes, it's a bit woolly, and I'd love more specifics in terms of provenance, but having eaten at El Celler and experienced its rather endearing charm, and having the sense that it's a place that is doing its very best while it finds its feet, I'm going to take them at their word.

This is the time of year for eating out in big groups, and the quest for the place that can be all things to all men (and women) is a tricky one. We need a place to go with the parents of our children's school-friends (how else will we find out what's really going on?), as well as somewhere for the book club night out (it has to be done), the gathering with former work colleagues (yes, really, it will be fun) and the informal (non-inclusive) school reunion. We go out with the neighbours, the lads from... (actually, where are they from?), and the laydees from bootcamp. There's even a night out with the schnauzer/doodle/cockerpoo/Kerry Blue owners. We want to keep the food accessible and the bill modest, because some people will eat a lot and others will just want to drink. No wonder there are so many tapas restaurants in Dublin; if they are good then they can cater for all this and more.

First things first, El Celler could do with turning up the heat. On a chilly winter's evening there's a draught blowing in through the front door directly onto our table in the outer of its two rooms. The staff are apologetic, and offer to move us into the inner room when a table comes free, but by the time that it does we have had a couple of glasses of wine and have warmed up nicely.

We order lots of food and share it all. The best dishes are the Catalan rustic bread with grated tomato, extra virgin olive oil, Maldon salt and garlic - a huge portion for 4.20, made with tomatoes that taste of tomatoes - the Spanish omelette, a fine pie-slice of an impeccably executed classic, the padron peppers, the cod fritters (in one of the new breed of Irish restaurants they'd be called 'snacks') and the arroz negro, squid ink rice with calamari, shrimps and baby octopus.

A dish of langostinos a la plancha is disappointingly oily and made with tiger prawns rather than the langoustines that we were expecting (the menu does make this clear, so it was our fault) and the albondigas meatballs lack flavour and seasoning, as does the sauce in which they are served.

Our resident Spanish expert doesn't find the croquetas de pollo asado (roasted chicken croquettes with bechamel) authentic, although they taste pretty good to me, and a platter of bread and dips comprises a curious mix of pesto, sobrasado, hummus and aioli that feels as if it belongs in a different restaurant.

Pork ribs marinated in honey and mustard are another anomaly, but meaty and delicious all the same, and the patatas bravas get a unanimous thumbs up. The bread is all grilled on the plancha and tastes wonderful. We finish with a single shared crema Catalana that's simple and just right.

Our meal at El Celler was by no means perfect but I have a good feeling about this place that makes me want to go back. Our bill worked out at around 50 per head, including plenty to eat and drink.

The rating

7/10 food

7/10 ambience

7/10 value for money

21/30

ON A BUDGET

Choosing carefully, tapas for two with a bottle of house wine could cost less than 50.

ON A BLOW OUT

If you were to push the boat out and share a cured meat plate, half a dozen tapas, and a cheese plate, and wash it all down with a bottle of serious Flor de Pingus 2010 (140), you could run up a bill of 250 before service.

THE HIGH POINT

The simple pa amb tomaquet - rustic tomato bread - at 4.20, and charming, helpful service.

THE LOW POINT

The outer room can be chilly.
Have we reached the fourth-wave of feminism? That's the question being asked by academics and armchair activists alike, as new schisms unfold and new figureheads emerge within the modern women's movement.

While the existence of an entirely new wave of feminism is up for debate, there is no doubt that modern feminism has transmogrified into a perplexity of factions, under which an umbrella of minorities are represented.

Perhaps Feminism 2.0 is a better term. Social media has popularised and democratised the movement, and what was an alternative interest as recently as 10 years ago has moved into the mainstream of the millennials' daily newsfeed.

Beyonce now performs against a backdrop of the word 'Feminist', lit up in giant letters, during her concerts. Barack Obama - always righter than right on - recently wrote an essay on feminism for Glamour magazine.

Yet 'hashtag feminism', as it is known, is a double-edged sword: the viral nature of social media is great for rousing people power, but not so great for discourse.

While social media has been used to great effect to promote campaigns like Repeal the Eighth and, more recently, Waking the Feminists, there is a shadow side to the type of feminist discourse that takes place on social media platforms.

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A medium like Twitter, for instance, is both competitive in that posts are validated with likes, and confining, in that tweets can't go beyond 140 characters. Make your point; just make sure it's on point - even better if it's witty and pithy.

Many would argue that social media's voracious appetite for instant impact and wider reach isn't compatible with an issue as complex as feminism. It certainly creates a culture in which in-fighting, point-scoring and hysteria thrive - and things can get ugly.

Radical feminists spar with liberal feminists. White feminists spar with WOC (Women of Colour) feminists. Some women have started to define themselves as 'equalists'. Others are tagged as 'meninists' when they support the men's rights movement.

Elsewhere, Annie Lennox, talking about Beyonce's brand of feminism, gave us the descriptor "Feminism Lite", while Roe McDermott, writing for The Pool, introduced us to the "faux-feminist" - a man who claims feminist beliefs to "manipulate [his] way into power, pants and hearts".

Add eco-feminism, neo-feminism and this curious new form of nudist feminism to the mix, and things become even more confusing.

"The expression of feminist politics is becoming more prevalent in different forms of media - both commercial and alternative - but at the same time, the question of what feminism is has never been more fractured," says Professor Diane Negra, head of film studies at University College Dublin and Commissioner on the Commission for Gender Inequality and Power in the UK.

Running alongside these many new subsets and factions is Feminism. Women's brands like Pantene and Always have piggybacked the movement and launched campaigns that challenge gender norms.

The short films that these brands have created to promote their initiatives ('Sorry, Not Sorry' and 'Like A Girl' respectively) are compelling, but it's hard to get away from the fact that they are ultimately designed to push product. Where there is a bottom line, it's not what you can do for feminism but what feminism can do for you.

Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, calls this "marketplace feminism" - a brand of feminism with a "cool, fun, accessible identity".

"The diversity of voices, issues, approaches, and processes required to make feminism work as an inclusive social movement is precisely the kind of knotty, unruly insurrection that just can't be smoothed into a neat brand," she adds.

It's not only the big brands that are exploiting feminism for personal gain. Diane points to the personal branding movement. "There is this neoliberal idea that we should all be brands and our role in the world is to cultivate our self-brand," she explains. "And it's increasingly possible to make one's brand or career based on a feminist identity.

"Ten or 15 years ago, a whole range of celebrities, almost as a ritual gesture, would disavow feminism. Now we have these celebrity figures who emphatically claim feminism as a big part of their identity.

"The kind of feminism they espouse is plutocratic, or mercantile. Sheryl Sandberg wrote Lean In with good intentions but there are limits on how much a Facebook billionaire can tell us about feminism."

The other thing about brands is that they constantly need to reinvent. This could explain the endless dissection of gender differences, and the many newly coined words that punctuate modern feminist discourse.

Incidents of 'mansplaining', 'manspreading' and 'manslamming' may not be of major concern to every feminist, but it's worth noting that this new wave of feminism also brought progressive terms like 'slut-shaming' and 'victim-blaming' into common parlance - and paved the way for a wider discussion on consent.

Ellen O'Malley Dunlop, former CEO of Dublin's Rape Crisis Centre and Adjunct Professor of Law in UL, points out that there is still no statutory definition for consent in Irish law.

"There were a lot of really positive things in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015, but people are still blaming the victim: how they were dressed, what state they were in We need attitudinal change in this regard."

A recent Eurobarometer study bears this out. Twenty-one per cent of Irish people think that sex without consent is justified in certain situations. Nine per cent said that sexual intercourse without consent is justified if the person is wearing revealing or sexy clothing. Eleven per cent said that being under the influence of alcohol or drugs justifies sex without consent.

Another recent study by Women's Aid found that 87pc of women who died violently in Ireland over the last 20 years were killed by a man they knew.

Meanwhile, the gender pay gap in Ireland stands at 20pc. The gap widens for MBA holders, according to recruitment firm Morgan McKinley. Their research found that women with an Executive MBA earn an average of 32,500 less than their male counterparts annually.

Orla O'Connor, director of the National Women's Council of Ireland, says the gender pay gap is largely due to women taking on the burden of care in society. "When families have children, it makes no statistical impact on men's career patterns. Women are the ones taking time out."

She adds that women are more likely to take time off work to look after a sick child or an incapacitated parent, while grandmothers generally take on the lion's share of babysitting duties.

This is the grey area of the gender pay gap. The distribution of care work is a complex, and sometimes uncomfortable, conversation, but it's one that needs to happen - at home rather than just online.

"As the discussion on feminism has grown, which is a really positive thing, often we focus on the symptoms rather than the structural inequalities," adds Orla. "Having a wider discussion on feminism gives us an opportunity to focus on the whys."

Yet online feminism doesn't encourage discussion: it sparks debate. Some feminist channels have become echo chambers where those who dare to express a contrary opinion are ostracised. Others single out and shame The White Male, perhaps without realising that witch hunts often precede cycles of systemic oppression.

Anna Carey, author and co-founder of pioneering blog, the Anti-Room, respectfully disagrees. "Twitter obviously isn't an ideal medium for discussing complex subjects, and yes, there can be pointless fighting and pile-ons, but I think online feminism is sometimes unfairly maligned," she says.

"Twitter has allowed lots of marginalised women to find communities of like-minded people, and hashtags such as #EverydaySexism have served a real purpose, basically acting as old-school consciousness raising. So while there are definite downsides to activism on social media, I generally think the good far outweighs the bad."

"I think in any movement you're going to have the extreme," adds Ellen. "It's the same in the political world - there's the pull to the right and the pull to the left and the middle ground is getting scarcer and scarcer."

The mother of four sons adds that her own beliefs don't always resonate with modern feminist ideology. "I like my son opening the door for me - I'm not going to say, 'Don't open the door. I can do it myself! I like those kinds of things."

Other women don't. Modern feminist idealogy is becoming increasingly individualised, or "micro-segmented" as Diane puts is. Micro-issues like men opening doors, leaving toilet seats up and spreading their legs apart on public transport, are given as much airtime as the macro issues.

For every feminist who is concerned about structural gender equality, there is another who is distressed about the exact definition of the word feminist. For every feminist who has something to say about the pay gap, there is another with something to say about 'thigh gap', and why it's a feminist issue.

It begs the question: Are we overlooking the big, potentially transformative, conversations when we examine Taylor Swift's feminist credentials or ask if 'twerking' is a form of female empowerment? Do we lose sight of a unified agenda when the movement devolves into them-and-us in-fighting?

In the essay Miami, Nora Ephron wrote about how in-fighting over the meaning of feminism cannibalised the second wave of the movement in the 1970s. Is modern feminism going the same way?

Dr Emer O'Toole, assistant professor of Irish Performance Studies at Concordia University and author of Girls Will Be Girls, doesn't think so.

"I am surprised by those who consider these controversies to be symptomatic of feminism imploding or becoming toxic. For me, it's clearly the opposite.

"These debates are the sign of a movement that refuses to accept orthodoxies, that constantly interrogates its own prejudices, and that cares deeply about creating a community which listens to individual women's stories yet studies structural oppressions."

Diane is equally optimistic about the future of feminism, but she's also mindful of the need for a guiding ethos. "Instead of a feminism that can shapeshift to be anything you want it to be, I hope that we can agree on a collective value."
Come the hour, come the holiday, come the car, come the hotel...it's strange how things work out. When you think you deserve a bit of luck, it sometimes has a way of finding you. We hadn't taken any time out since going to Donegal - now adjudged the "coolest place on the planet" - at the end of June so the week in November was long overdue.

It was my youngest daughter's graduation and my partner and I also wanted a dog-friendly hotel in the country to visit. But what car?

For a trip into the wilds of deepest Wicklow an electric one wouldn't have been my first choice but that was how the cookie - or at least the bookings - crumbled.

There has been a lot of hype over the Hyundai Ioniq, with its claims to be the first car in full electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid mode. Also, with a certifiable range of 280kms in pure e3lctric mode, it outperforms even the latest version of the Nissan Leaf. As it is a completely new car it has the chance to have all the styling touches, sharp design, comforts and safety features which are so far lacking in the Nissan trail-blazer. That together with the five-year unlimited mileage warranty against three years/100,000kms from Nissan and Toyotas, with its Prius, means that Hyundai has a proposition that they can really shout about.

But it doesn't matter just how big your list of equipment is, or tasty design, what matters to the aspiring electric car driver is dealing with range anxiety. That is going on a trip and finding yourself perilously close to - or even out of battery life - in some remote location.

It is still the main reason why electric sales have been so sluggish.

And so my heart and mind were both a bit exercised when we set off from Dublin to visit the BrookLodge Hotel and Wells Spa in Aughrim, Co Wicklow. We were a bit late getting ready, Sam had to be walked and the cats nourished. There was no time to go over the mountains which would have saved battery life with the braking regeneration loop. It was to be full speed down the MII before turning off at Ashford and Rathnew for Rathdrum and onward to Aughrim. And, of course, the range suffered. I will totally believe people who get the full 280kms around town but halfway through our trip the excellent read-out on the fascia were pointing to the fact that by the 90kms it would take to get to Macreddin Village, the home of BrookLodge, we would have used half our battery life. I snapped at my partner to look for charging stations through the satnav, but she wasn't to be bullied by me or technology. Of course we should have checked if the hotel had a charging point. Being all organic it was the sort of place that probably would but we hadn't thought to find out. The afternoon was getting darker and colder as was my mood.

I loved the car, super smooth, comfortable, brilliantly specced and at 28,495 including all grants good value for a real family car, but my mind was distracted thinking of hassles the next day if I had to go and find a charging station when again we would be up against it in time.

Soon enough we turned into BrookLodge, unpacked the car and took Sam down his ramp and walked towards the reception passing the two nearest parking spaces to the hotel complete with ESB charging points. Everything changed, I could relax.

There was a beautiful dog-friendly room including a letter to Sam from the hotel's two retrievers and pack of chews. Wonderful massages in the spa followed, pints in the hotel's own pub and dinner in the Italian restaurant. It was worth every penny. I woke to a new universe and a great breakfast. I could crack this electric car thing. It just needs a bit of planning.

There will probably be up to 1,000 Ioniqs sold next year in all its guises. It deserves to do well as it is a brilliant drive with all the bells and whistles you would want.Yet while the styling outside is good - if rather reminsiscent of the Prius - inside it is rather bland with some poorish materials. Pricing is good though; the EV is a bit more than the Leaf but worth it, while the hybrid well undercuts the Prius.

The Ioniq is smoothness personified. Just touch either the button for reverse or drive and you are off. Nothing more to do than steer and, as Martin Brennan says below, that could be going soon.

And that is the problem with technology, especially with electric cars. As Andrew English was writing in the Daily Telegraph last weekend from the Los Angeles Auto Show, where he compared electric cars from Jaguar, Porsche and Tesla, "that's the trouble with EVs right now. The technology is like that of the early mobile telephone; buy one today and it'll be blown away by what you are able to buy tomorrow."

Yet with all the advertising that Nissan is doing now, the push by car-makers including BMW, Daimler, Ford and Volkswagen to collaborate on establishing charging stations along major European highways and the very urgent need to really start cutting emissions, the electric proposition is very much there.

The Ioniq doesn't quite live up to the hype before the launch but Hyundai probably has the best offering in the electric/hybrid family car range out there now and seeing how well they have been doing over the last few years there's no reason to think that won't continue.

There's no point in thinking electric and not checking it out. You, like me, might then start to relax about range anxiety. I'm probably not fully there yet but I'm well on the way.
Castro's death spells the end of the country's vintage charm, says award-winning travel journalist Eoghan Corry.

The death of Fidel Castro means that one of the great museums of the world is to be torn down and replaced by something far less interesting.

Cuba is big as museums go, one and a third times the size of Ireland. It has been in a state of suspended animation for 57 years, an interactive spectacle with museum streets, museum community life, museum theatre and museum music.

Sadly, it will likely be replaced by a theme park.

That's the trend and Cuba can no longer buck it. The first thing, maybe the most important thing, you notice as you travel to Havana is that the people of Cuba somehow managed to turn the volume down. There are silent streetscapes.

We don't notice when we travel the noisy world just how noisy it is, but we are being shouted at, screamed at by people who want to sell us things - cars, mobile phones, straight teeth - with their impossibly happy consumers leering at us from billboards and TV screens.

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Not that the streets of Cuba do not have their own special signs. There are reproductions of Jim Fitzpatrick's Ernesto Che Guevara Lynch silhouette head on gable walls, posters, the names of restaurants. One of these Che Guevara icons had the wisdom of Lennon, not Lenin, painted over his portrait: "You may say I am a dreamer but I'm not the only one."

"Victory to the revolution" is painted in yellow and blue, rather discreetly on some street frontage, a yellow sun to the side. It's subtle as if they really didn't want people to notice that the revolution didn't export as well as they would have liked.

A personal favourite was the giant "socialism or death" placard at Cienfuegos airport (departing passengers needed cheering up).

The other three remaining countries of the communist world, China, Laos and Vietnam - even the twilight zone territories such as Transnistria and Northern Somalia - all have advertisements.

That silence, the volume turn of background music, is certainly doomed. Not so much death of a salesman as death of the anti-salesman.

An odd thing that I did not expect was, in the absence of billboards, you notice other things in the urban landscape - colours, faces, doors, clothes. The crumbling paint on the walls was a signature of urban Cuba. Tractors with workers standing in the trailer a signature of rural Cuba.

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The streets with artistically-wrought rusting iron balconies, classical pillars and peeling wood where shutters might otherwise have been, the shops with no produce and broken tiles, the bars with lines of Havana club bottles on the shelves.

Over another glass of Havana Club or Bucanero beer, Cuban people wondered why we needed so many different varieties of the same product. Surely one brand would suffice. Washing powder comes in one brand. Why do we need more? We can expect the brands to come tumbling on to their shelves, with their built-in obsolescence and the cry to consume more.

You would not learn it from movies or observe it from a hotel room in Valadero, but Cuba is one of the most complex and culturally diverse countries on earth. Diversity in a homogenised world is something cherished by a traveller weary of seeing the same thing everywhere he turns.

There are surprises and not all of them have been eradicated by 55 years of collectivism or one-brand centralism. The shrine of Our Lady of El Cobre, up a flight of 254 steps, would not be out of place in Mediterranean Europe, or indeed the west of Ireland. Old women kneel here, deep in prayer to Cuba's patron saint, oblivious to history.

Visitors to Cuba will notice the wind has already changed. Since the smell of the end of American blockade, hotel prices have soared and existing contracts have been cancelled.

The 57 years of Castro's regime have not blinded them to the prospects of a fast buck.

Locals who look forward to the walls and rusty ironwork being repainted would do well to heed the lessons from the feeding frenzy that accompanied the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe - the mistakes of Bulgaria, Romania and even Hungary versus the pragmatism of the Czechs, Poles and Slovakians.

This very Hispanic society, a world away from the Florida coast that is just 75 miles away, would do well to keep their distance culturally as they tightly embrace the Americans economically.

Cuba's great stand was to enter the 21st century with the volume turned down. This, not their socialism, is what marks them out, rather than dictatorship, which is a shared displeasure with three quarters of the countries of the world, or, most astonishingly, their ability to survive the displeasure of the USA.

Castro did not have to die for us to wonder how long it can continue. This is the Alamo, the Moncada Barracks attack on consumerism as we know it worldwide, the last stand for those who don't want their houses, like the Mickey McConnell song, full of stuff they didn't really want.

Unlike other communist leaders, Castro's body will not be embalmed. The requiem for a lost world that is the bearded one's funeral is almost certainly the signal for a new dictatorship to begin - consumerism in the face of communism.

No doubt some Cubans will love having more than one type of washing powder to chose from.

They will, no doubt, share the feeling of post revolutionaries everywhere that they should have taken more care about what they wished for.

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Dan O'Brien Opinion While we catastrophise about Covid, we ignore risk of running out of cash

We Irish view the world in an increasingly strange and unhealthy way. We catastrophise about Covid in a way other European countries do not. We focus on how bad the effects of the virus could get, on how many more restrictions might be imposed by Government and how helpless we are in the face of the virus.
Andy Samberg and Melissa Fumero are present during the "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" steak-out block party and special screening event. (Photo : Getty Images/Mark Davis)

Jake (Andy Samberg) and Amy (Melissa Furnero) have finally taken their relationship to the next level on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" Season 4 when they moved in together. With this, there have been rumblings of the couple tying the knot pretty soon, and this may likely be given the circumstances on the show.



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Jake, together with Captain Holt, is still in Florida under the witness protection program. In recall, both Jake and Captain Holt exposed Jimmy Figgs for his involvement with the mafia. They are kept in Florida for their own safety.



Speaking to EW, Samberg revealed that while Jake's being in the witness protection program will inflict some strains on their relationship, it will not entirely put it in jeopardy.



"But they miss each other a lot. Eventually they will see each other again and it's hard for them to get back into sync," executive producer Dan Goor said. "It's awkward to make up time after not seeing each other for six months. When they first see each other, that might cause some tension."



If ever Jake and Amy do get engaged on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" Season 4, it may take a while before Jake pops the big question. For now, we know that Amy has met Jake's parents, which is a big step for the couple.



According to EW, the witness protection program will take a toll on Captain Holt's and Jake's personal relationships with their loved ones, friends and the squad. It will be a key element this season and will be the source for the comedic relief for the show.



For the most part, Goor said that Jake and Amy's relationship will not be the central romantic subplot of the show in the coming episodes, so it's possible that the developments in Jake and Amy's life will come slower.



"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" Season 4 picks up where the previous season left off. This time, Figgs is still in search of Jake and Holt, hoping to extract revenge on them for exposing him and his mafia activities.



"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" Season 4 airs every Tuesday on Fox.






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Gene Kerrigan Opinion This time, we did the right thing

The people act in solidarity. Children donate their pocket money and adults offer the use of a spare room. Refugee fundraising goes on in all the usual places, with the Late Late Show leading the way. When the Ukrainians needed help, we did the right thing.
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Mary Kenny Opinion If men want to yammer on about sport, then let them  it helps them connect emotionally

I was travelling on a train from Dublin to Cork, and near me sat two Dublin men. Throughout the entire journey they managed to keep up a fluent dialogue about English football teams. From Aston Villa to Sheffield Wednesday, from Crystal Palace to Manchester City the conversation flowed eloquently. I was in awe at the minutiae of their knowledge and expertise. And if the topic of their discourse lacked a certain variety, it was nonetheless better than sitting in sullen silence, or glued to their phones.
Gerry Adams has long lived happily in a media-made 'post-truth' world, where facts have no power to dent his propaganda.

Denying he was ever a member of the IRA is one example. Evading important questions on the murder of Brian Stack is another.

Adams has been helped by the inherent limitations of the interview format favoured by broadcast media in focusing public outrage on the perpetrators of political crimes.

As far back as 1987, as a producer in RTE, I dealt with these limitations in a document called Television and Terrorism, correctly predicting that lifting the Section 31 ban would see Sinn Fein run rings around RTE reporters.

Last Monday, Harry McGee gave a good account of the Section 31 debate in the first part of his pacy RTE programme Polaitiocht: Power on the Box.

But he could not prevent the recycling of two 'post truths' by Sinn Fein and RTE spokespersons.

Gerry Adams made the brazen charge that Section 31 (not the IRA, of course) had prolonged the "war".

Peter Feeney, the former chief of RTE television current affairs, claimed that Section 31 had prevented RTE reporters from holding republicans to account.

As Sinn Fein and RTE are objectively on the same side of the Section 31 debate, their spokespersons objectively prop each other up. But I can disprove both their positions.

First, let me take Adams's smear that Section 31 cost lives. If so, the killing should have stopped after 1994 when Michael D Higgins lifted the Section 31 ban on Sinn Fein/IRA.

But a full two years later, on June 7, 1996, the IRA murdered Detective Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare. So much for Adams's sick slander that Section 31, rather than the IRA, kept the "war" going.

Second, Feeney's claim that lifting Section 31 would lead to more robust reporting was disproved in the days after McCabe's murder. Sinn Fein spokespersons created the usual successful smokescreen of confusion.

Public anger was not fully focused until years later when the Sunday Independent, ignoring the interview format, and with the full support of his widow Anne, published a photo of Jerry McCabe's bullet-riddled body.

Feeney and former RTE reporters perpetrate a 'post truth' when they claim that Section 31 censorship prevented RTE from challenging Sinn Fein.

In fact, things got no better when the Section 31 ban was finally lifted in 1994. But you don't have to take my word for it.

John Burns, associate editor of the Sunday Times and a former RTE reporter, reviewed its record in his Mediaplayer column of September 21, 2014.

Burns wrote: "The idea that RTE broadcasters would expose holes in Sinn Fein's arguments died soon after the lifting of Section 31 in 1994. Since then, Adams and McGuinness have almost never experienced discomfort in radio and TV studios, even when questioned about IRA atrocities such as the 'disappearance' of Jean McConville."

Burns went on to recall how "the relative ease with which Sinn Fein handles such interrogations was prophetically demonstrated by another RTE producer, Eoghan Harris, in an experiment he conducted in the station's training centre in August 1987."

Burns's first-hand account of the experiment is worth recording in full as follows: "Harris presented his class, comprising RTE reporters and researchers, including me, with a scenario of an IRA mortar overshooting an RUC barracks and landing in a schoolyard, killing several children.

"One reporter was coached to play the part of a Sinn Fein spokesman appearing on a Prime Time-style programme that evening. The rest of us took turns being the Prime Time presenter who would shrilly demand: 'Will you now advise the IRA to declare a ceasefire?'

"Despite our best efforts the 'Shinner' emerged virtually unscathed, using lines such as 'regrettable mistakes happen in war' and 'this is no worse than what the British did on Bloody Sunday'."

Burns pointed to the predictive timing. "Eerily, this experiment was just a few months before the Enniskillen bomb attack, an IRA 'mistake' that cost 11 lives."

And he came to a cold conclusion. "Had Adams been allowed to appear on RTE television afterwards, all apology and whataboutery, he would probably have talked his way out of it in similar fashion."

Pity that RTE reporters who privately admit that Adams cannot be pinned down by simply asking questions haven't the moral courage to say so.

Pity that the scores of politicians who voted for the renewal of Section 31 don't show the same courage in Peter Prendergast, former government press secretary.

Like me, Prendergast is convinced that Section 31 kept impressionable young hotheads out of the IRA.

"People wouldn't bat an eyelid now if you said you were going to make sure Isil didn't appear. I don't believe it was a hell of a lot different. The first proxy bombs came from the IRA, not Isil, who learned from them."

Bottom line: Sinn Fein and the IRA cost lives. Section 31 saved lives.

*****

Micheal Martin makes few mistakes. But he made a bad mistake by rejecting Bertie Ahern's return to Fianna Fail, in a relatively minor role, for three reasons.

First, common sense suggests there's something timid about banning one of the architects of the peace process from taking a modest advisory role in local electoral affairs.

Second, the public knows that in human terms it's wrong to let talents go to waste. And Ahern has lots of political talent, as he proved in three recent interventions.

Ahern was spot on in his analysis of the last hung Dail situation, brilliant in his take on Brexit, and all Anglo-Irish and EU affairs.

Finally, Irish people backed Ahern over three general elections. Simple psychology tells you that at some level people would like to think that their judgment was not completely flawed, and Ahern had some merits. And they would be right.

The public gave Ahern a yellow card, not a red card. Most people feel he should spend some time in the sin bin, but it's moot whether a majority feel he deserves a life sentence.

Fergal Keane's voxpops from Drumcondra on Drivetime were so positive that Mary Wilson asked him if he'd edited out the negative ones. He hadn't.

If Martin is scared by the fading ghost of the Mahon Tribunal he is making the same lethal mistake as Hillary Clinton by letting PC media set his agenda.

Fianna Fail is stagnating in Dublin. Bertie Ahern's battlefield experience is badly needed.

But if Martin is still determined to keep Ahern out of Fianna Fail then in common decency he should find the former Taoiseach a position worthy of his political talents.

Ahern can be a pain in the arse. But he is also a patriot who wants to contribute to his country.

So here's a suggestion. Martin should request Enda Kenny - very firmly - to appoint Ahern as a special envoy on Brexit.
Quiet quest: Austin Stack was forced to grow up quickly as a young boy after his prison officer father died as a result of injuries he received when he was shot by the IRA

'He tried to play the victim with me, saying: 'You're not the only victims here, I'm a victim too,' and I got a little bit angry. I explained to him what a victim was and how I felt as a 14-year-old boy shaving my father, and he (my father) was crying and I was crying. I explained how my mother used to be woken at all hours in the middle of the night to go in and scratch my father's nose and simple things like that. He didn't say anything. He kind of sat back in his chair."

The emotive words of Austin Stack describing one of his meetings with Gerry Adams, in an interview with me in the Sunday Independent in 2015. In 1983 his father, Brian Stack, the chief prison officer at Portlaoise, was shot by the IRA and died 18 months later as a result of his injuries. It was an emotional recollection, the role reversal a powerful image of how a young boy was forced to grow up quickly, and how the cruel actions of a few meant that his once-vibrant father ebbed away over time, sending a tsunami of grief through his family. He quietly and articulately spoke of how his quest for the truth led him to being driven in a blacked-out and boarded-up van with Gerry Adams 30 years later to meet a senior representative of the IRA.

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This week, Austin Stack revealed that he had recently been asked by gardai to give a statement in relation to an email sent to Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan by the Sinn Fein president, in which Adams named four men; names, he says, which he had "in respect of the Stack case", while also simultaneously claiming he had no information.

It should be welcomed that Adams has passed names to gardai, even if how they came to be in his possession is in dispute. Adams claims he got them from Austin Stack. Stack is adamant he didn't. My interview with Stack was in March 2015, 11 months before the Adams email was sent. Crucially, Austin Stack stated categorically: "I deliberately did not give him the names I knew."

I found him to be credible and consistent. His version of events has not changed one iota from when he first went public on his meetings with Adams. Adams, in contrast, is sketchy on the detail, and this was never more evident than in an interview with Michael Reade of LMFM radio on Thursday of this week.

Michael Reade: "But you can confirm to us that you did write to the Garda Commissioner naming four individuals who may have information that may help with the investigation into the murder of Brian Stack?"

Gerry Adams: "Yes. I felt I was obliged to give this information. I've no way of verifying it and I certainly have no additional or other information"

MR: "Can you tell us when those names were first made known to you?"

GA: "In course of discussions with Austin Stack."

MR: "OK but you tell us that you wrote to the Garda Commissioner in February (2016) just before the election, and there are suggestions that you had this information in 2013?"

GA: "No, I didn't have any information at all, eh, on this particular case, until I met with the Stack brothers and, eh, then subsequently, and it was some time afterwards, this took quite a long time, eh, to, to, get any sort of an explanation from republican sources, eh, so my, my first information on this was from the Stack family themselves, and then my second more, eh, clear position when I facilitated the meeting between the Stack brothers and the person who had previously been in a senior position in the IRA."

Now, either Adams is trying, and failing spectacularly, to blind us with waffle in the hope that people will miss the detail in the question, or he really can't remember when he met the Stack family. What he refers to later in the interview as "a very clear recollection" is actually inaccurate. The meeting with the IRA which Adams facilitated for the Stack family was indeed in 2013. The last time that Austin Stack spoke to Adams was in 2013. So Adams, who says he got the names from Austin Stack, had this information, which he thought pertinent enough to a murder investigation to bring to the attention of the commissioner - but not until 2016. Only he can explain why it took him three years to do so.

There are a number of things that are unprecedented in this affair. Firstly, that the leader of a political party has named potential persons of interest to a live murder inquiry in an email to the Garda Commissioner.

Secondly, that Gerry Adams, the leader of the provisional republican movement, has named four men, three of whom are prominent Sinn Fein politicians, to the gardai. There is an important distinction in the silent non-questioning acceptance of this from Shinners and how they receive the news when anyone has cooperated with criminal investigations, or indeed named republicans in the public domain in the not so distant past.

In 1987, when IRA informer Charlie McIlmurray was murdered by republicans, it was Adams himself who chillingly explained the provisional psyche on cooperation with the police to the media in the aftermath: "Mr McIlmurray, like anyone else living in West Belfast, knows that the consequence for informing is death."

One wonders how the McIlmurray family feel this week. After Brendan Hughes gave interviews to the Boston College project, Mary Lou McDonald referred to him as a "vigorous and determined opponent of the peace process". Veteran republican Danny Morrison went further and referred to the by then ended project, run by journalists Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre, as: "The Boston College Touting Programme RIP" on his Twitter account. Surprisingly, this was retweeted by both Adams and McDonald at the time, though they stopped short of retweeting his words on Sean O'Callaghan, where he referred to him as "a living tout'.' Graffiti appeared on walls in West Belfast referring to "Boston College Touts" after Hughes' testimony was seized by the PSNI and used to justify the arrest of Adams in connection with the Jean McConville case at the time.

I myself was labelled a "tout" by some republicans for making a police complaint and naming my abuser and others.

There appears to be one level of vitriol for naming republicans to the police, and a completely different set of rules if you are El Presidente.

Still, what the Adams email has done is to render any of the criticisms of anyone who has cooperated with the police in the past obsolete. The door is now open to all to do so, and Adams has led by example.

When it comes to believing how those names came to be in his possession, the public can choose to believe a man who, as a boy, lost his father and who has consistently searched for answers, or a man with a poor grasp of detail who is adept at being economical with the truth.

Having met both during my life, I know who I believe.
By my reckoning, Cerberus made about 168m on Project Eagle in 2015. On that, they paid just under 1,600 in tax. That's a tax rate of 0.001pc. Photo: Reuters

Closing down tax avoidance by large investors is part of the difference between the State having, and not having, enough money to invest in public services and infrastructure for the next decade. And to that end, the latest Project Eagle accounts tell us three important things.

First, they vindicate the Comptroller and Auditor General's (C&AG) assertion that Nama undersold Project Eagle, though by far more than the C&AG's figure of 170m. Nama believed the portfolio would yield 85m a year in rent and interest payments. This would represent a 7pc yield on an investment of 1.2bn. The C&AG points out that, when you take out the non-income-producing land that was in the portfolio, the real yield was in fact nearly 9pc. If this upset the C&AG, he's going to be sick when he looks at Cerberus' 2015 filed accounts for Project Eagle.

Why? Because Cerberus, the New York-based private equity firm that bought the portfolio, didn't bring in 85m. In their 2014 accounts, they showed that they brought in 112m, nearly a third more than Nama forecast. But in their latest accounts, they show that in 2015, Cerberus got this income level up to 162m. That's a yield of nearly 14pc (there's a reason these folks make a lot of money).

Why does this matter? Nama sold the portfolio for 1.2bn. Based on the new accounts, Cerberus could sell the portfolio today for 2.2bn. So the Irish people have not lost 170m, we have lost at least 1bn, or 1.2bn. Enough to build two children's hospitals.

The second thing the new accounts highlight is just how little tax is being paid. By my reckoning, Cerberus made about 168m on Project Eagle in 2015. On that, they paid just under 1,600 in tax. That's a tax rate of 0.001pc. It's 13,000 times less than Ireland's already low corporation tax rate of 12.5pc.

Thirdly, the accounts suggest that the benefit to the State of shutting down this tax avoidance could be even bigger than initially thought. My previous estimate was that 10-20bn could be avoided in Irish taxes in the next decade by the so-called vulture funds. That's between a quarter and a half of the total cost of the bank bailout. This was based on the funds making yields of 9pc, as Cerberus did in 2014. But Cerberus are now seeing a yield of nearly 14pc. Now it's unlikely that all so-called vulture funds will get to this level. However, it does suggest they'll move well north of 9pc. And if this happens, the total Irish taxes at stake will rise by several billion euro.

It's worth taking a moment to understand just how much money these funds are making in Ireland. The 9pc returns referenced above are based on the total sales price of the loan books. But these funds make 'leveraged' purchases, meaning they use some of their own money (about one third) and borrow the rest. The plan, as per their own brochures, was to get an annual return on their own money of around 15pc (that turns 100m into 400m in 10 years). For Cerberus, that return for 2015 wasn't 15pc, it was over 30pc. It's an incredible profit margin. And it's before capital gains. And until last week, completely tax free. Nama knew it was selling to tax-free entities. My guess is that IBRC knew too. And of course, the government knew. We really are "the best small country in the world in which to do business".

So let's make sure that taxes are paid on these profits. To that end, here's what we need to do.

1 Mandate that all funds, vehicles and other tax structures must file publicly accessible Irish accounts. The 2015 Cerberus accounts show that about half the Project Eagle asset base has now been moved out of their Irish Section 110 company. Were these assets to be put into a different type of Irish vehicle (i.e. QIAIF, a trust), it would no longer be possible to see what profits are being made, and what Irish taxes are being avoided, because many investment vehicles in Ireland don't have to file publicly accessible accounts. Such a lack of transparency has no place in a modern democracy. It is not credible that an Irish fund, vehicle or other structure can get to avoid the Irish taxes that a normal Irish company pays and not file public accounts.

2 Disallow the technique of 'orphaning' - which often involves Irish charities - for the purpose of tax avoidance. If you or I told the Revenue that the money we'd invested in a local shop was really a high-interest loan, to ourselves, based in the Cayman Islands, through which all our Irish profits are exported - untaxed - they would laugh. Funds can get around this using 'orphaning', where they get a third party (often an Irish charity) to 'own' their company, and then apply for full Irish tax deduction on their internal high-interest loans. The same tax rules and practices that apply to citizens must also apply to these funds. We should not allow charities to be used in this way.

3 Tax the profits from domestic Irish property assets like other Irish companies. That means 12.5pc Corporation tax on Irish trading profits, 33pc capital gains tax on any Irish gains, and 20pc dividend withholding tax on net Irish profits distributed to all shareholders.

4 Despite co-called vulture funds and foreign landlords having an almost embarrassment of choice in vehicles for Irish tax avoidance, the Government has, in addition, decided to give a blanket exemption on capital gains tax. Why? It makes no sense.

We live in turbulent times. The stakes are growing. There is much we cannot control. But there is much we can. We must make sure we tax all domestic Irish economic activity fairly, and not make one sector or class of investors tax free. And we must invest those taxes smartly, in the long term health of our nation.
It can only be a matter of time before the queen of wrap, Diane von Furstenberg, heads this way.

The Belgian-American designer is world-famous for her iconic wrap dress and excitement was bubbling over about the opening of her store at Kildare Village yesterday.

We witnessed the sense of anticipation first-hand at the Mistletoe magazine readers' event which took place on the eve of publication of the Irish Independent's glossy gifting guide. It was on the eve of Black Friday, and there was heightened interest in the new labels, such as Pretty Ballerina, New Balance and Escada, which have arrived into the Value Retail property - half sister to the Bicester designer outlet mall in Oxford.

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There was lots of love for the red paper-taffeta hi-lo hem skirt pictured above, worn by 1st Options model, Joanne Nordy, pictured with Morgan model Grace Connell. I chose the Escada skirt and polo combo for my talk on savvy shopping, and I was joined by one of the Village's personal shopping advisors, Tess Purcell from Co Clare.

Guests travelled from all over for the event and Caroline Eivers from Co Louth, pictured in main photo with Roisin O'Hea, won a Folli Follie bag.

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Tara O'Connor, above, from Co Kildare attended and was off the next day to organise the Cari lunch at the Shelbourne.

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Meanwhile, major celebrations going on for award-winning hair stylist Aoife Bradley and colourist Jenny Dawson, above, from the Dylan Bradshaw Salon & Academy, who clinched their first ever international final win at this year's L'Oreal Colour Trophy International.

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I never fail to be impressed by the very individual style of Eimear Mallon, above, who has exquisite taste. A former winner of the best dressed stakes at Punchestown, Eimear wore a Maje cape and silver tinsel dress she bought online to the Joe Mallon Renault 30th Anniversary Style Games in Naas last Friday. However, there was no way she could win the best dressed prize, because she's married to the son of the owner.

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Whatsapp Darren Kennedy, Philip Mallon and Ethna Mallon O'Brien at Joe Mallon Renault 30th Anniversary Style Games. Photo: Kieran Harnett

Her hubbie, Philip Mallon, is pictured (above, centre) with his sister Ethna Mallon O'Brien and Darren Kennedy, who is a Renault ambassador and was MC for the night. Lorraine Keane and I conducted a Style Games with clothes from local boutiques modelled by Kildare GAA players. Among the guests toasting Joe and his wife Beatrice at the super glam night were motor racing doyenne Rosemary Smith with her pal Eileen Murphy while Judith Matthews spoiled us with her fab canapes.

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Fresh from her latest visit to Downing Street, I met designer Louise Kennedy at the Image Business Woman of the Year awards on Monday of last week, and again on the Wednesday at the Tiffany Ireland Funds Lunch at the newly re-opened Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, which is looking tres chic for party season. This week, Louise hosted a private shopping event at her salon before she flew to Delhi on Monday to oversee her next collection. She's a dynamo in Manolos!

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Hollywood stars have expressed outrage at resurfaced revelations that key details about the infamous "butter" scene in Last Tango In Paris were withheld from the film's leading lady until the cameras were rolling.

The controversial scene featuring then 19-year-old actress Maria Schneider made headlines again after footage of a 2013 interview with director Bernardo Bertolucci recently began circulating online.

In the clip, the Italian director explains he and leading man Marlon Brando conceived the idea of incorporating butter into the graphic scene "used as a lubricant" the morning before it was scheduled to be shot.

Bertolucci said he had been "in a way horrible to Maria" because he did not tell her the full details of their plan in a bid to get "her reaction as a girl, not an actress".

In an apparent reference to the butter, he said: "I think she hated me and also Marlon because we didn't tell her that.

"I feel very guilty for that."

But pressed to explain if he felt regret about how the scene was filmed, Bertolucci added: "No. But I feel guilty."

The clip has reignited controversy among A-listers about the notorious scene and film, with Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain tweeting she felt "sick" after reading about it online.

Her sentiments were retweeted by Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood, who recently penned an open letter about her experiences with sexual assault, with the addition: "This is heartbreaking and outrageous."

Girls creator Lena Dunham posted a picture on Instagram of Schneider and her former partner Joan Townsend, writing she was "so sorry that art became pain rather than release for you".

Captain America star Chris Evans said on Twitter: "This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage," after reading the latest reports, while Game Of Thrones regular Lena Headey tweeted: "F***ing disgraceful."

In reply to Evans, actress Anna Kendrick said Schneider had spoken about her traumatic experiences on the film years ago.

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"I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes)," Kendrick wrote.

The sentiment was echoed by other Twitter users, with one remarking: "Last Tango In Paris issue becomes far more disturbing when you realise the woman's claims were resigned to history until the MAN admitted it."

Schneider, who died in 2011, said the scene was not in the original script, during an interview with the Daily Mail in 2007.

She said: "They only told me about it before we had to film the scene and I was so angry."

Afterwards, she described feeling "humiliated (and) a little raped" by Brando and Bertolucci.

Brando died in July 2004.
Julie Cowell (Simon Cowell's mother) and his ex Jackie St Clair watch the racing at Ascot in 2010.

Simon Cowell's mother has passed away.

The music mogul's mum Julie had been unwell for some time according to British newspaper The Sun, but the 55-year-old had decided to keep her struggles private.

Now it's been confirmed she died aged 89 after suffering a stroke.

Today our beloved mum Julie passed away. Anyone who had met her would know what a truly special and kind lady she was," the Cowell family said in a statement to the publication.

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We are heartbroken and will miss her terribly, but she is now at peace.

Simon's brother Tony was approached by The Sun but said he was too upset to give comment at the time. However he did take to Twitter to share his sadness with fans.

"Very sad night tonight. We will all miss Mum so very much. She was the heart and soul of our family x (sic)" he wrote.

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Simon has so far remained silent on social media. However, a source says this will be a very tough time for The X Factor creator.

Simon is absolutely devastated," the insider said.

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His mum was the most beloved person in his life and they were incredibly close."

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They added that Julie would have been happy to witness Simon settle down with Lauren Silverman and welcome their son Eric in February last year.

Auditions for the upcoming UK X Factor were due to start in Manchester today but they were cancelled to allow Simon to be with his family.
Emily Middlemas has been voted off the X Factor, leaving Matt Terry, Saara Aalto and 5 After Midnight to battle it out in next week's finale.

The 18-year-old was given the boot after losing out in a surprising sing-off with Terry.

After learning her fate, she said: "I'm so proud of myself to actually get to the semi-final, this year has been amazing and I'm just so lucky to be part of it."

The sing-off, described as a "shocker" by host Dermot O'Leary because neither acts have been in the bottom two before, saw Terry perform Hurt by Christina Aguilera and Middlemas appear barefoot to sing Wings by Birdy.

O'Leary revealed this week had seen the biggest vote of the series so far, with more than two million votes cast.

Judges Sharon Osbourne, Louis Walsh and Terry's mentor Nicole Scherzinger all voted to save Terry, while only Middlemas's mentor Simon Cowell wanted to keep her in the show.

Cowell said: "T he three do deserve to be there, but I'm gutted for Emily to get this close. It's all about what you do with your life now and using this properly."

The show opened with all the semi-finalists performing Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas?, before Sweden's Got Talent winner Zara Larsson performed her singles I Would Like and Lush Life.

Later in the show, Lady Gaga performed her new single Million Reasons on a platform, clutching a cowboy hat and dressed in a black jacket with crystal embellishments which she threw off to reveal a plunging chainmail top and leather shorts.

After the performance, O'Leary asked her about her English accent, which he had heard during the soundcheck, and she put on the voice, saying: "It's a really awful one where I talk like this."

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Throughout the show, the names of the finalists were daubed on battle buses the hopefuls will travel round the country in over the next week as they bid to drum up votes.

All the finalists will also perform homecoming gigs, with Terry appearing in Bromley on Wednesday, boyband 5 After Midnight will hope to draw a crowd in Leicester on Tuesday, and Aalto will return to her native Finland for a gig in Helsinki on Monday.

The show was the last to be filmed at London's Fountain Studios, the home of the competition for 13 years. The live final will take place at the nearby Wembley Arena.

Cowell paid tribute to studio staff, saying: "They are going to knock this place down, I can't believe it, but that is life I guess."

Earlier in the day O'Leary posted a picture of the studio on Instagram with the caption: "The last ever live day at Fountain Studios today.

"It's been our home for 13 years. And it's where I taped my first pilot show. Just a tiny piece of concrete in north-west London. But memories are history, laundry and property. Thanks to all the crew and staff for making it spit and crackle."

Osbourne's act Aalto has taken over from Terry as the bookies' favourite to win after her performances of Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You and Sia's hit Chandelier on Saturday.
AUTHORITIES in Ghana have busted a fake U.S. embassy in the capital Accra run by a criminal network that for a decade issued illegally obtained authentic visas, the U.S. State Department said.

Until it was shut down this summer, the sham embassy was housed in a run-down, pink two-storey building with a corrugated iron roof and flew a U.S. flag outside. Inside hung a portrait of President Barack Obama.

"It was not operated by the United States government, but by figures from both Ghanaian and Turkish organised crime rings and a Ghanaian attorney practicing immigration and criminal law," the State Department said in a statement released late on Friday.

Turkish citizens, who spoke English and Dutch, posed as consular officers and staffed the operation. Investigations also uncovered a fake Dutch embassy, the State Department said.

Officials in the Netherlands were not immediately reachable for comment on Sunday.

The crime ring issued fraudulently obtained but legitimate U.S. visas and false identification documents, including birth certificates at a cost of $6,000 each, the statement said.

During raids that led to a number of arrests, authorities also seized authentic and counterfeit Indian, South African and Schengen Zone visas and 150 passports from 10 different countries along with a laptop and smart phones.

The statement did not say how the gang obtained the authentic visas. And the State Department did not say how many people were believed to have illegally entered the United States and other countries using visas issued by the crime ring, which used bribery to operate unhindered.

"The criminals running the operation were able to pay off corrupt officials to look the other way, as well as obtain legitimate blank documents to be doctored," the statement said.

There was no immediate comment from Ghana's Criminal Investigations Division.

Visas for Western countries are in high demand in Africa and embassies say the visa market is a big target for organized crime.

The real U.S. embassy in Ghana is a prominent and heavily fortified complex in Cantonments, one of the capital's most expensive neighbourhoods. Lines of people queue outside each day for visa appointments and other consular business.

The fake embassy was open three mornings a week and did not accept walk-in appointments. Instead, the criminals advertised on billboards in Ghana, Togo and Ivory Coast and brought clients from across West Africa to Accra where they rented them hotel rooms in nearby hotels.

U.S. authorities conducting a broader security operation were tipped off about it and assembled a team including the Ghana Detectives Bureau and police as well as other international partners to shut down the ring.
"Avengers: Infinity War Part 1" would premiere on May 4, 2018, followed by Part 2 on May 3, 2019. (Photo : YouTube/ScreenRant)

"Captain America: Civil War" left a lot of big questions regarding Steve Rogers fate as the titular hero and as a member of the Avengers. In the midst of speculations, Sebastian Stan's Instagram account may hold a major hint on what happens in future Marvel films.



Stan recently shared a photo of him on Instagram carrying a shield similar to that of Captain America, but it does not have his signature blue and red rings. Instead, it is a plain, shiny metal with a red star in the middle, which is clearly inspired by Bucky's metal arm. The caption states that the shield "will come in handy."



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The shield was created by Casey McBroom. He isn't affiliated as Marvel's official prop designer or maker, but he is known for producing shields for cosplayers and fans who want replicas of film props.



It is still unclear if the Winter Soldier-designed shield is an official prop to be used in future Marvel films, particularly "Avengers: Infinity War." According to Geek, a source close to the "Captain America: Civil War" production said that Stan has been fitted for a Captain America costume, which makes Bucky a potential candidate to replace Chris Evan's Steve Rogers as Captain America.



Marvel President Kevin Feige previously said that it is possible to have a "Captain America" movie without Steve Rogers being the hero, given the character's story in the comic books. "I'm not saying we'll do it in the movie but I've read Captain America comics that don't have Steve Rogers in them," Feige told Collider.



Steve Rogers was not always Captain America. At some point in the comic books, the mantle was passed on to Sam Wilson, a.k.a Falcon and Bucky Barnes a.k.a Winter Soldier. Both characters have appeared in the "Captain America" films and are portrayed as Steve Rogers' closest friends and allies.



In response to the rumors about him taking over the Captain America mantle, Stan said, "I love the character that I have. It's up to a lot of different things, and whatever Marvel decides, I'm game."



Evans has done a really good job playing Captain America, but if the comics are to be followed it is inevitable that he has to pass down the baton to another character.






A Syrian family displaced from east Aleppo last month return to their home in the Hanano district (AP)

The Syrian army has ordered rebels in Aleppo to leave the city or face "inevitable death", as a series of air strikes on the neighbouring Idlib province killed at least 50 people, including several children.

Aleppo shook from the sound of explosions throughout the day as pro-government forces, including foreign fighters dispatched from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, pounded the city's opposition neighbourhoods in the east.

Rebel defences have buckled after months of siege and waves of devastating air strikes, and the opposition could soon be driven from Syria's largest city.

It would mark their biggest defeat since 2011, when a government crackdown against dissent sparked a civil war.

Rebels swept into Aleppo in 2012.

The government's fortunes changed after the Russian air force intervened in September 2015, allowing the government to begin to reconquer it.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Samir Suleiman said government forces would "continue fighting until they restore stability and security to all neighbourhoods".

He said the army has already retaken more than half the neighbourhoods in eastern Aleppo, and that special forces would lead the battle in the narrow streets of the city's historic district.

On Sunday, the government captured large swathes of the Qaterji, Maysar and Karm al-Turab neighbourhoods, bringing their eastern flank to within less than a kilometre (half a mile) of the citadel that anchors the centre of the city. The citadel has remained under government control throughout the conflict.

The advance also threatens to split the rebels' rump enclave in two and isolate the once densely populated al-Shaar neighbourhood.

Judy al-Halaby, an activist still in the city, said residents began evacuating the area five days ago, with thousands fleeing to government control and thousands of others deeper into rebel territory.

The UN estimates that more than 31,000 people have fled their homes since pro-government forces began advancing inside east Aleppo one week ago.

In the Hanano district, which was captured by government forces on November 26, hundreds of people were seen returning to their homes, as minivans passed through carrying troops and militiamen to the front lines.

For some of the residents, it was their first time seeing their homes in years.

Mohammed Qadra, 58, who left the district four years ago, returned from the government-held western part of the city on Sunday to discover that his home was so badly damaged that it is impossible for him to return.

"I have no money to renovate it now but I will do so step by step," said the man, who said he cried once he saw his home.

Russian or government jets, meanwhile, were thought to be behind several raids on Idlib province on Sunday, including two that struck rural markets and killed dozens of people, activists said.

The Syrian civil defence first responder group said 52 civilians were killed in raids across the province.

"The fear was clear on everyone's face. There were limbs and bodies all over the ground," said Ahmad al-Sheikho, of the civil defence, who said he arrived at the Maaret al-Nouman marketplace 10 minutes after it was struck.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said six members of the same family died in the attack.

The market at Kafranbel, a village 11 kilometres (seven miles) away, was also bombed a few hours earlier.

The observatory said 26 people, including members of the local religious police force, were killed.

Four children and two women were killed in Tamanaah when the village was attacked by government helicopters, the observatory and civil defence reported.

Russia's military said last month it was resuming air strikes on the north-western Idlib province, where Kafranbel is located, and in the central Homs province in support of government forces.

Kafranbel is at least 12 kilometres (seven miles) from the nearest front line, at Jabal Zawiyeh.

AP
Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi is to resign after suffering a stinging defeat in a constitutional reforms referendum on which he staked his premiership.

"Good luck to us all," Mr Renzi told reporters, after saying he would tell his cabinet of his decision on Monday , then tender his resignation to the Italian president, after more than two years in office.

Mr Renzi conceded defeat after exit polls showed his proposal losing by a margin of about 60 to 40% in Sunday's ballot.

The prime minister said his reforms would have slashed Italy's bureaucracy and made the country more competitive. His opponents were hoping to tap into the populist sentiment that has been gaining ground in Europe and the U.S.
A man has been arrested following investigations into an allegedly threatening Twitter post that called for people to "Jo Cox" an MP.

Anna Soubry, the MP for Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, was the apparent target of an online message which read: "someone jo cox Anna sourby please."

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The politician responded to the message on social media, calling the Twitter user a "sad cowardly troll" and noting the differently spelled surname.

Nottinghamshire Police later confirmed they were investigating the incident.

Afterwards Ms Soubry tweeted: "Thank u everyone for much appreciated support. Voices of hope & tolerance will not be bullied off #Twitter or anywhere else."

On Saturday the Metropolitan Police said a 25-year-old man was arrested at his home in Bethnal Green on "suspicion of sending malicious communications".

A spokesman said the man was in custody in an east London police station. He has not been charged.

It comes after Jo Cox's murderer, 43-year-old Thomas Mair, was jailed for life for shooting and stabbing the Labour MP for Batley and Spen outside her constituency office in Birstall, West Yorkshire, in June.

Conservative MP Ms Soubry was a Remain supporter in the EU referendum, as was Mrs Cox.
Police guards the area were three people were killed in a shooting incident at a restaurant in Imatra, eastern Finland, after midnight on December 4, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / Lehtikuva / Lauri Heino / Finland OUTLAURI HEINO/AFP/Getty Images

Three women including a local politician and two journalists were shot dead with a rifle in front of a restaurant in the small Finnish town of Imatra around midnight, police said on Sunday..

A 23-year-old local man with a criminal record was detained at the scene, the Southeastern Finland Police Department said.

It said the motive for the killings remained unclear.

"At the moment, it looks like the victims were chosen at random," Detective Inspector Saku Tielinen told a news conference.

Victim Tiina Wilen-Jappinen was chairwoman of Imatra City Council while the other two women were journalists, the police said.

Imatra, which has 28,000 inhabitants, is about 140 miles (230km) east of the capital, Helsinki.

Police said the gunman fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle.

Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the suspect had a criminal record, including for violent incidents and theft.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."

Investigators will question him later on Sunday.

The suspect arrived outside the restaurant in his car and shot the three women as they stepped out of the restaurant. He then waited in the car until police arrived and accompanied officers silently and peacefully, police said.
David Petraeus has been named as a possible contender to serve in Donald Trump's cabinet

US government whistleblower Edward Snowden says former CIA director David Petraeus leaked information that was "far more highly classified" than anything he had ever disclosed, but with minimal penalty.

Mr Petraeus has been named as a possible contender to serve in President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet.

He pleaded guilty last year to knowingly sharing binders of classified information, including the names of covert operatives, with a woman he was having a sexual relationship with.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked details on the US government's collection of intelligence on Americans, said that he shared information "with the public for their benefit", whereas Mr Petraeus shared information with "his biographer and lover for personal benefit".

Speaking in an interview with Yahoo News' Katie Couric, Snowden said there is a "two-tier" justice system in the US that favours people with government connections or personal wealth.

AP
Norbert Hofer of Austria's Freedom Party arrives at a polling station during the country's presidential election (AP)

Alexander Van der Bellen, who preached moderation and tolerance, has won Austria's presidential election over right-wing populist Norbert Hofer.

Preliminary results, released shortly after the polls closed on Sunday, showed Mr Van der Bellen, former head of the Greens, with 53.5% of the vote and Mr Hofer having 46.4%.

Mr Hofer said in a Facebook post that he was "endlessly sad" about his loss, adding: "I would have been happy to take care of our Austria."

He congratulated his rival and urged Austrians to "stick together and to work together".

While the final result will not be official until absentee votes are counted on Monday, officials said the outstanding ballots will not change the outcome, even if the percentages the candidates won may vary.

The Austrian president's functions are largely ceremonial and past elections have merited little attention outside the country because they were decided between mainstream candidates. This time, though, the contest was different because the vote was seen as an indicator of how well Eurosceptic candidates will do elsewhere in the EU next year.

Mr Van der Bellen is pro-European Union and represents liberal to left-of-centre views while Mr Hofer comes from the Eurosceptic anti-migrant Freedom Party. His campaign message has varied from hard-line when talking to Freedom Party supporters to more moderate when trying to woo undecided voters disenchanted with the political establishment.

The election was a rerun from May, which Mr Van der Bellen won by less than one percentage point. It was re-held following a court ruling after Mr Hofer's Freedom Party claimed widespread irregularities.

Mr Van der Bellen noted the outsize attention the election in Austria was receiving.

"What happens here today has relevance for all of Europe," he said before casting his ballot.

Other populist politicians in the EU who want their countries out of the bloc were supportive of Mr Hofer ahead of elections they will face next year. Both far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen of France and anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders in the Netherlands tweeted their support.

German vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who heads Germany's centre-left Social Democrats, told the Bild newspaper: "A load has been taken off the mind of all of Europe."

He called the result "a clear victory for good sense against right-wing populism".

Ulrich Kelber, a deputy German justice minister and Social Democrat, said: "Perhaps (Donald) Trump's election was the turning point. The liberal majority pushes back."

AP
The Green Party is switching strategy in its bid to force a state-wide recount of Pennsylvania's November 8 presidential election vote.

The party dropped the state case on Saturday, but said hours later that it would go to federal court instead.

The lead lawyer for the recount campaign said the party would seek an emergency federal court order for the recount, adding that barriers to the procedure in Pennsylvania were pervasive and the state court system was not equipped to address the problem.

Green Party-backed voters who filed the state case could not afford the million-dollar bond ordered by the court by 5pm on Saturday, two days before Monday's hearing, lawyers said earlier.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein spearheaded a recount effort in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Republican Donald Trump won narrowly over Democrat Hillary Clinton, framing it as an effort to explore whether Pennsylvania's election result was manipulated by hackers.

Mr Trump and the Pennsylvania Republican party had opposed the recount and Pennsylvania's top elections official, a Democrat, has said there is no evidence of cyber-attacks or voting irregularities.

AP
Syrian government soldiers gather in Al-Haidariya neighbourhood after government forces took control of the area in Aleppo. Photo: Omar Sanadiki/Reuters

Syrian rebel groups faced with almost certain defeat in the city of Aleppo have promised to continue their war on regime forces by adopting the guerrilla tactics of assassinations, armed raids and roadside bombs.

The four-year battle for control of Syria's largest city is likely to end in the next few weeks as Syrian regime forces either advance into the remaining opposition neighbourhoods, or rebel areas are forced to surrender as they run completely out of food and medicine.

Regime forces have now captured more than 60pc of rebel-held east Aleppo after they took the strategic district of Tariq al-Bab early yesterday.

But rebel leaders have said that the loss of territory will lead their forces to carry out more traditional insurgent operations against Bashar al-Assad's troops, who are trying to reassert full control over Aleppo for the first time since 2012.

"We didn't rebel to take or lose a neighbourhood, or a village, or a city," said Bassam Hijji, a spokesman for the Nour al-Din al-Zenki rebel group in Aleppo.

"This is a total revolution against Bashar al-Assad, his regime, his security forces, his corrupted elite.

"We'll use all the forms of resistance: guerrilla fighting, assassinations, explosions. We won't rule out any form of fighting against the regime."

While the fall of Aleppo was never expected to bring the six-year Syrian war to a decisive end, the defiance of rebel groups indicates it is unlikely to even bring a halt to fighting around the city.

Rebel forces control the countryside to the west of Aleppo and regularly shell the regime-controlled west of the city, often killing civilians in the process.

That shelling will likely continue but rebels said if they are driven from their neighbourhoods in east Aleppo they will also look to mount raids against regime forces inside the city and try to attack supply lines outside it.

There are around 8,000 rebel fighters inside east Aleppo but analysts have estimated there are 30,000 more in the Aleppo countryside and the nearby city of Idlib - meaning there are enough of them to continue fighting in the area.

"The rebels will be in the countryside and will have no choice but to resort to guerrilla warfare," said Kyle Orton, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society think-tank.

"They will shift away from any kind of governance structures to insurgency tactics and the regime won't even be able to hold Aleppo properly once they take it.

"The insurgent attacks will be really full raids and the regime won't be able to maintain any kind of stability."

For now, rebel fighters are still dug in to their positions in the remaining southern neighbourhoods of east Aleppo.

Last Friday, they managed to push back an assault - by regime forces, Hezbollah fighters and allied militiamen from Iraq - on the strategic Sheikh Saeed district.

But as the days grind on, they continue to lose ground - and the roughly 250,000 civilians still inside rebel areas edge closer to starvation.

Even so, there is no end in sight. Federica Mogherini, the EU's policy chief, said yesterday: "I'm convinced the fall of Aleppo will not end the war."

 Telegraph
The Nizip camp is home to thousands of Syrian refugees.

Situated on the verge of a busy highway and a dam, it is divided in two - tents and containers.

One of 24 such camps dotted along the border, it is a place of broken lives and broken dreams.

Mother-of-four Delal Dahinin (29) came here five years ago, fleeing the war that engulfed her home across the border in Idlib.

"We ran away from all the airstrikes and all the bombing. It was so terrifying and had got so bad that we could see no way that we would survive," she says.

"The children were really scared and they could not continue to live their lives like this.

"When we arrived, the Turkish government took us in immediately," she recounts.

Home now for her and her three daughters Nour (11), Ela (10), Hala (5) is a simple tent with a rug floor and a very basic food preparation area. Youngest Abdul (1) was one of 3,000 children born in the camp in the last five years.

She describes the flight from her homeland. "The journey was really horrible. Sometimes we were on foot, then into a car, back on foot. Towards the end, we were crossing through mud fields; it was winter and bitterly cold. I had to carry my youngest in my arms." Even the reminder of those days causes the young mother to break down briefly.

The family was also on the verge of starvation, not having eaten in days. As soon as they arrived in Nizip, they had to be taken straight to hospital.

"The children are happy and much better now," she says. Their smiles, outgoing personalities and healthy complexion are evidence of that. Along with 3,800 other children, they attend the schools funded by Unicef which are based in the camp.

She is separated from her husband, who she has not seen since before Abdul was born. She does not know where he is and he has not been in contact. "I am not receiving any support from him and I do not know where he is," she says.

She is thankful for the support of the Turkish authorities and Unicef, but would love to be able to return home and work again. That is not going to happen anytime soon.

"The situation is the same every jday back in Syria. The airstrikes and the bombing. The fear is forever in our hearts. Young children are still dying daily in the bombings."

Delal was in high school in Syria when her older brother died in an accident and she had to quit school. Now she only hopes that her own children can finish education and get good jobs. "I would really like them to study and accomplish the dream I had and see them back in Syria."

She does not want to move to western Europe and clings to the hope of one day returning home.

One can only hope the best for this family as the girls pose for a portrait from photographer Mark Condren.

As Delal's image is reflected in the broken mirror, there is hope but it will be an almighty struggle for this brave family.
'Deadpool' is a 2016 American superhero comedy film directed by Tim Miller, produced by Simon Kinberg and Lauren Shuler Donner, and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. (Photo : YouTube/Screen Junkies)

Viewers saw Morena Baccharin as the sexy but sweet and loving Vanessa in the first "Deadpool" film. She played the love interest to Ryan Reynold's Deadpool and appears to be very normal and without any mutant abilities. However, there are speculations that Vanessa's powers would be unveiled in "Deadpool 2."



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The movie and comic book versions of Vanessa depict her as a stripper before she met Wade Wilson. The only difference is that while she did not have powers in the movie, Vanessa actually possessed mutant powers in the comic books and was known as Copycat.



As Copycat, Vanessa is a shape-shifter with powers similar to those of Mystique. When she broke up with Deadpool, she also became a mercenary herself.



When Cinema Blend asked why writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick held off this important aspect of Vanessa's character, they explained that it was something they considered but eventually altered because they thought it would be too much for the audience.



"We did toy with [the idea], you know, but again, there was so much for the audience... We're introducing a new character to the world, and so we didn't want to muddy the waters with, 'Wait a second, she's also a mutant?'" Reese explained.



The reason is justifiable, considering that the first "Deadpool" movie served as an introduction of Wade Wilson as a human and his transition into the smart-mouthed sword-wielding anti-hero that he is. Having another mutant on board might shift the focus from Deadpool to Copycat.



However, Reese is hopeful that Copycat's story would be something worth exploring as "Deapool 2" moves forward. There's an interesting way Baccharin could debut as Copycat. In the comics, Copycat once infiltrated X-Force's team by appearing as Domino under Tolliver's orders. She was tasked to blow up X-Force's headquarters in order to kill Cable.



Cable has always been talked about as potentially playing the big bad in "Deadpool 2." According to Collider, Cable is confirmed to appear in the film, which means there is a possible storyline to bring out Vanessa as Copycat.



"Deadpool 2" will premiere in theaters on Jan. 12, 2018.






LE Samuel Beckett has recovered three dead bodies while rescuing 269 migrants off the coast of Tripoli.

Earlier today, following a request from the Italian Maritime Rescue Co-Ordination Centre, LE Samuel Beckett located and rescued a total of 269 migrants from two rubber vessels off the coast of Tripoli.

During the course of the operation it became apparent that one of the rubber vessels was sinking and 3 people have been declared dead. Their bodies are now onboard the LE Samuel Beckett.

The rescue operation began at 12:18pm and all migrants were taken on board LE Samuel Beckett by 4pm.

Following the Search and Rescue Operation, LE Samuel Beckett was directed to rendezvous with an Italian Coast Guard vessel where a further 160 migrants plus 11 deceased people were transferred to LE Samuel Beckett.

The 429 migrants currently onboard LE Samuel Beckett are now receiving food, water and medical treatment where required.
Window of opportunity: A Syrian refugee child at school in Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Photo: Mark Condren

Of the 2.8 million Syrian refugees who escaped to Turkey, 1.2 million are children.

Many are scarred and traumatised by the barbarity they witnessed less than half an hour away over the border.

We witness first-hand how Unicef is trying to give these children - many of them orphans - a hand up, full education and hope.

The personal stories are impossible to forget.

Such as the father-of-three who tried to get his daughter to safety at the outset of war. As they attempted to get over the border, they got caught in a minefield, killing the father and injuring the girl. She somehow managed to get home, where with her mother and two brothers, they finally escaped to Turkey.

School principal Bulent Bilir says this was not the end of the nightmare. "They had to stay with relatives and they were treated very badly. The mother had to escape and she had to leave her children behind," he says.

The family was then divided up between uncles. "We saw one of the sons crying outside school. We asked him what was wrong. 'Everyone else has someone to give them a hug but I have no-one. Even my brother, he is in another family,' he said," explains Bilir. "Our hearts ache from that," he says.

Bilir runs the school, or Temporary Education Centre as it is known in Gaziantep, that caters for 2,160 refugee children aged 2-11. It teaches Syrian children who are living in the local community. The school, where teacher wages are funded by Unicef donations - operates two shifts because of demand.

The smiling faces and spirited banter shows the children enjoy being here. Many here are orphans, cared for by wider family or, in some cases, by the State.

Most come from poorer backgrounds, explains Bilir. "Those who come from wealthier backgrounds prefer western-type cities or the West," he explains bluntly.

Like Unicef executive director Peter Power, he believes the best trauma rehabilitation is education. "You explain to the families that they should come to class and that the teaching will help them recover," says Bilir.

Back in Nizip Camp, the schools are also working flat out - operating two school days between 8am and 5pm to cope with the demand from 3,000 students.

Even the sound of a tyre burst on the motorway, visible from the camp, is enough to send the children scurrying for cover, says the camp manager Mehmet Ozdeniz.

Close to the camp hospital, Unicef and the Turkish Red Crescent operate a Child Friendly Place where "children can be children". They can play, get support services and in the case of teenagers, get vocational training.

Here too the teachers have seen first-hand the scars left by the war on the children. "When they first arrive, it is clearly visible. You might be having some activities with music - and if the volume suddenly goes up, you will see some children hiding under chairs. They would think it was a bomb or an airstrike," says Musa Cetin of the Red Crescent.

"The fear disappears after a while as the children adjust and received psycho-social counselling," he says. With the children who don't get any help, the workers see a higher degree of peer violence.

Unicef's Peter Power adds that giving the children an education is the first step to helping them to deal with the trauma. "Coming to school and learning gives them a structure and they thrive under it," he says.

Children in the refugee camps are freezing this winter. You can help keep a child warm this winter and help fund a teacher. If you would like to help, log on to www.unicef.ie.
Kellyanne Conway, campaign manager and senior advisor to the Trump Presidential Transition Team, wears a costume as she arrives at the home of hedge fund billionaire and campaign donor Robert Mercer in Head of the Harbor, New York, U.S., December 3, 2016. REUTERS/Mark Kauzlarich

US President-elect Donald Trump attended a "Villains and Heroes" costume party at a major donor's Long Island home on Saturday night, but declined to don any garb that was in keeping with the theme.

Trump entered the party hosted by the Mercer family, one of his biggest donors, at their home in the village of Head of the Harbor in St. James, N.Y., wearing a suit and a blue and white checked tie. Security guards at the event however were dressed as biker gang members Hell's Angels.

Trump walked into the home and gave reporters, who were not allowed inside, the thumbs up and posed briefly for photos, but did not respond to questions except to mouth "me," pointing to himself when asked who he was dressed as.

Trump spoke briefly at the party, thanking the Mercer family, according to a member of his press team, staying for just under two hours. It was his only outing from his Manhattan home on Saturday.

None of Trump's immediate family members attended, but his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was on hand, dressed as Super Woman. Trump's designated White House strategist Steve Bannon was also on hand, but appeared not to be in costume.

Music by Adele, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Sia and Celine Dion emanated from the Christmas light decorated home.

Expand Close U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to the media as he arrives at a costume party at the home of hedge fund billionaire and campaign donor Robert Mercer. REUTERS/Mark Kauzlarich / Facebook

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Whatsapp U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to the media as he arrives at a costume party at the home of hedge fund billionaire and campaign donor Robert Mercer. REUTERS/Mark Kauzlarich

A wifi network set up for the party used the password "HeroesWin!"

Robert Mercer, the billionaire at whose mansion on Long Island's tony North Shore the party was held, is co-chief executive of Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund. Daughter Rebekah Mercer sits on Trump's transition team. Trump is in the midst of choosing cabinet members.

Mercer initially supported Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination before putting his support behind Trump in the November presidential election.
Police investigate the area where three women were killed in a shooting incident outside a restaurant in Imatra, Finland (Hannu Rissanen/Lehtikuva via AP)

A gunman killed a town councillor and two journalists - all female - in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in Finland, police said.

The chairwoman of Imatra Town Council and two female reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant in the town just before a police patrol car arrived at the scene around midnight on Saturday, said police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki.

Two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her mid-30s.

Police said the gunman fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle, authorities said.

Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the 23-year-old suspect had been detained on suspicion of murder. He had a criminal record, including for violent incidents and theft.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."

Investigators will question him later on Sunday.

The suspect arrived outside the restaurant in his car and shot the three women as they stepped out of the restaurant. He then waited in the car until police arrived and accompanied officers silently and peacefully, police said.

Imatra, which has 28,000 inhabitants, is about 140 miles (230km) east of the capital, Helsinki.

"We decided to open a crisis center after the shooting occurred right in the middle of the town near restaurants and nightclubs," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. "There were people there when it happened. In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident and many people were shocked."

AP
Voters in Uzbekistan have gone to the polls in the tightly-controlled ex-Soviet nation's first presidential election since the death of Islam Karimov, the authoritarian leader who ruled for 27 years.

Acting president Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who spent 13 years as Karimov's prime minister, is expected to easily win a five-year term.

Karimov led Uzbekistan since before the Soviet collapse, first as its communist boss and then as president. During his long tenure, he ruthlessly crushed all opposition, silenced the media and was repeatedly denounced by international human rights groups for abuses that included killings and torture.

But he never cultivated a successor and his September death raised concerns that the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation of 32 million might see fierce infighting over its leadership that could allow radical Islamists to rise to power or exploit the situation.

But the Mr Mirziyoyev, 59, shifted into the acting president's job quickly and without any visible tensions, highlighting apparent consensus between regional clans.

He faces three nominal rivals. Two of them, Hotamjon Ketmonov and Narimon Umarov challenged Karimov in past elections, each receiving about 3% of the vote.

Neither has campaigned as a vocal critic of Mr Mirziyoyev, while the fourth contender, Sarvar Otamuratov, has been just as pliant.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the main transatlantic security and rights group, deployed an observer team to monitor the election and described the campaign as "strictly regulated" and "moderately visible".

"There is no perceptible exchange of views among the candidates with regard to their programs," the OSCE said in an interim report.

"All candidates refrain from criticising the government or each other, and claim to target distinct segments of the electorate."

Under Karimov, Uzbekistan's relations with its ex-Soviet neighbors were strained by disputes over water, energy and other issues. Analyst Arkady Dubnov noted in a commentary for the Carnegie Moscow Center that Mirziyoyev has worked quickly to ease tensions.

Dubnov also pointed to Mirziyoyev's pledge to liberalize foreign currency trading as a sign that he was planning to ease some of the rigid rules established under Karimov.

Since gaining independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has pursued a policy of economic self-reliance and sought to balance its diplomatic ties with the West and Russia, playing them against each other.

Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous nation, is rich in natural resources and borders Afghanistan, making it of strategic interest to Russia, the United States and China.

Shortly after Karimov died, Russian president Vladimir Putin visited Uzbekistan and met Mr Mirziyoyev, a trip that reflected Moscow's desire to strengthen its influence in the country.

The United States installed a military base in the country for action in Afghanistan after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks.

But Washington was forced to abandon it in 2005 as relations between Uzbekistan and the US soured following a government crackdown on rioters in the Ferghana Valley city of Andijan that is believed to have left hundreds dead.

Almost all Western media have been long barred from reporting inside Uzbekistan and the country's independent journalists and activists have faced sustained harassment.

AP
Syrian children Abdillilah (1) and his sisters Ela and Hala at the tent they live in Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Pic:Mark Condren

Syrian refugee children on the way to school at Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Pic:Mark Condren

Syrian refugee children gather for school in the camp they live in Nizip 1 outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Pic:Mark Condren

UNICEF Ireland Ambassador Joe Canning at a tent school for refugee children in Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Pic:Mark Condren

Life in ruins: Syrian residents fleeing the eastern part of Aleppo, where many of the refugees at the Gaziantep camp have come from. Photo: Getty

Shattered dreams: Delal Dahinin (29) (pictured in the mirror) with her children Abdul (1), Nour, Ela and Hala and sister Jasmine at the tent they live in Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Photo: Mark Condren

Syrian refugee children gather for school in the camp they live in Nizip 1 outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Photo: Mark Condren

Gaziantep is a prosperous, bustling city. There are smart restaurants, fruit and vegetable stalls groaning with local produce, busy but excellent roads and a well-to-do, middle-class population. Here too you can detect an edge. That feeling common to frontier towns.

It's December but the daytime temperature rises to 16 degrees; from dusk it plunges to near zero. The region in which Gaziantep in south-eastern Turkey sits is known for its agricultural and industrial output. During our visit, there is an exhibition under way celebrating the local pistachio nut. It is also home to the world's finest baklava, the honey-soaked pastry.

Four years ago, Aleppo must have looked like this too. Bustling, commercial and comfortable for its two million inhabitants. Now it is a mere shell, pounded for months by Russian jets, Syrian regime artillery and helicopter barrel bombs - filled with explosives, shrapnel, oil and chemicals.

Around 25 people a day are being killed in Aleppo - where this week the Assad regime's army took its most decisive grip on the city since the outbreak of civil war. Aleppo's near neighbour, Gaziantep is just 30 miles from Syria. It is now also the centre of one of the biggest geo-political stories of our time.

Expand Close Syrian refugee children gather for school in the camp they live in Nizip 1 outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Photo: Mark Condren / Facebook

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Whatsapp Syrian refugee children gather for school in the camp they live in Nizip 1 outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Photo: Mark Condren

Nearly three million of the 7.65 million Syrians who have fled the country's catastrophic civil war have settled in Turkey, many remain in this border region - and this city in particular. Most of those who have stayed here are the poorest - their better-off compatriots with the means to make it to Germany and the West. In the last two weeks, Turkish President Erdogan has upped the stakes and threatened to tear up a landmark deal to stem the flow of refugees into Europe.

His comments came a day after the European Parliament urged governments to freeze EU accession talks with the administration in Ankara.

The fear is that Erdogan could stop supporting the refugee camps that hold up to 500,000 Syrians, and open the gates for them to flee into Europe.

"You clamoured when 50,000 refugees came to Kapikule and started wondering what would happen if the border gates were opened," Erdogan said in a speech last week - referring to the Bulgarian border crossing where refugees massed in the summer of 2015.

Expand Close Stephen Rae with the Dahinin family at the camp. Photo: Mark Condren / Facebook

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Whatsapp Stephen Rae with the Dahinin family at the camp. Photo: Mark Condren

"If you go any further, these border gates will be opened. Neither I nor my people will be affected by these empty threats," he said. "Do not forget the West needs Turkey."

Relations between the EU and Turkey have cooled considerably since the attempted military coup in July - which has now seen President Erdogan consolidate power, clean out all his rivals at every level of the establishment and muzzle the media.

The president does not like the repeated criticism from European capitals of the purge of tens of thousands of civil servants, army officers, judges and 10,000 police since the failed coup. Similarly, media outlets have been closed and journalists jailed without trial in Turkey.

Here in Gaziantep, the fear of a clamour of refugees that is being felt in Europe and the threats from Ankara ring a little hollow. The Syrians we met in camps around the city and those living in one-room tenements don't harbour a dream of making it to Oslo or Berlin. For them, day-to-day survival is the number-one priority. After that, they want their children to get an education, and then they want to return home to Syria.

Expand Close A Syrian refugee child in Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Photo: Mark Condren / Facebook

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Whatsapp A Syrian refugee child in Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Photo: Mark Condren

"All they want is to be safe, to get a job. The first thing, however, is safety. They want a place where they feel safe. After that, the adults would like to earn a living, send their children to school and have a place for medical help when needed. Then they can regain their dignity and take care of their own basic needs," says Philippe Duamelle, Unicef's representative in Turkey.

But even such fundamental desires remain firmly out of grasp for most.

Time and again you meet Syrian widows who cannot afford to send their sons to school - because the boys are sent to work as the sole breadwinners. It is estimated that there are 850,000 child labourers in Turkey.

The influx of Syrians has added to the numbers of children working for poor wages in textile factories, backstreet garages and warehouses.

Expand Close Heading for class: A Syrian refugee outside his Unicef-supported school outside Gaziantep / Facebook

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Whatsapp Heading for class: A Syrian refugee outside his Unicef-supported school outside Gaziantep

One organisation at the frontline of helping parents find ways to keep their children in education and out of the sweatshops is ASAM (Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants). It also helps treat the psychological problems that afflict adults and children alike from years of bombardment and dodging snipers.

ASAM's director, Ebru Saner, introduces me to a young mother-of-four children, aged 12, 11, seven and four, who fled Aleppo after six months under siege. She is waiting to see the organisation's psychologist to make an appointment for her son.

"We all have been damaged by the war but especially my seven-year-old boy. Since the age of two-and-a-half, he has had problems with wetting the bed and different psychological problems that have affected his speech," the mother says.

Expand Close Life in ruins: Syrian residents fleeing the eastern part of Aleppo, where many of the refugees at the Gaziantep camp have come from. Photo: Getty / Facebook

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Whatsapp Life in ruins: Syrian residents fleeing the eastern part of Aleppo, where many of the refugees at the Gaziantep camp have come from. Photo: Getty

Earlier, the psychologist explained that the four biggest problems they encounter with refugees are depression, trauma, and (with children) fear of loud noises and bed wetting.

The mother, through an interpreter, explains why she is here. "Now we have big problems with him at school. He can be violent, hits his peers and when I ask the teacher, 'is it because he is Syrian and the other children gang up on him?', she says, 'no. No, he has been damaged by the war'."

Her husband was incapacitated in a car accident, meaning he can no longer work as a cobbler. Her two eldest boys, aged just 12 and 11, have left school to work in a sewing shop - the family's only source of income. Their wages are used to pay for a rat-infested two-bedroom flat they share with her sister-in-law. In all, 12 people share the house, including three orphan girls her sister-in-law cares for.

Expand Close A Syrian refugee child in Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Pic:Mark Condren / Facebook

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Whatsapp A Syrian refugee child in Nizip 1 camp outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Pic:Mark Condren

She, like all the Syrian women I encountered, was dressed smartly, in a long, patterned winter overcoat.

I asked, did she dream of coming to Europe. "No. My husband tried three years ago but we do not want to go, and I am not interested in going. We had an interview in Istanbul. We refused the idea later on.

"I have a lot of relatives who have actually resettled in Europe, in Norway."

Expand Close A Syrian refugee man shaves in Nizip 1 outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Pic:Mark Condren / Facebook

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Whatsapp A Syrian refugee man shaves in Nizip 1 outside Gaziantep, Turkey on the Syrian border. Pic:Mark Condren

She, like so many others, clings to the hope of getting back across the border to Aleppo.

"My hope is to go back to Syria. We had our own house. We had to pay for electricity and water but that was all." To her, this week's drive into Aleppo by the Syrian regime army offers a glimmer of hope that this may actually happen.

Being the major crossroads, Gaziantep has gained a reputation for espionage and nefarious activity. It is said that all the major powers have intelligence assets in the city and that Isis also has its spies.

Read more: Unicef aids youngsters scarred by barbarity witnessed over border

It was here that Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of the two brothers responsible for the killing of 32 people in Brussels in March, was arrested by Turkish police as a suspected Isis fighter. They deported him to Holland only when the Belgians said they didn't think he had terror links. Here too came the three British teenagers, Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, from London to join Isis and cross the border to become teenage jihadi brides.

In August, 54 people died when a suicide bomber attacked a wedding here, and two Syrian journalists who wrote about Isis have been killed on the streets.

It has been reported that some of the apartment blocks that dot the city are home to people-smuggling gangs and sex-slave trading - where the wives and daughters of Sunni Muslims killed by Isis are sold.

Earlier this year, before the Syrian army advance into Aleppo and the large-scale Russian air strikes, foreign fighters flocked to the city to join Isis ranks. Locals tell the story of the jihadis arriving in Gaziantep in shorts, covering their beards with scarves and having their socks pulled up high - apparently a giveaway sign of Isis membership, as the fanatics are forbidden "lavish" wearing of garments below the ankle.

The steady trek across the border by Islamists has all but stopped as the encirclement of Syria's biggest city - home to 2 million before the war - is pulled ever tighter and the so-called Caliphate shrinks by the day.

The intrigue that surrounds Gaziantep makes the work of organisations such as Unicef on behalf of the Syrian dispossessed children all the more clear.

Only by giving them schooling will they keep the vulnerable out of the hands of the jihadis - and give the Syrian children some hope of a future.

Children in the refugee camps are freezing this winter. You can help keep a child warm this winter and help fund a teacher. If you would like to help, log on to Unicef
Microsoft Corporate Vice President Panos Panay introduces a new tablet titled the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 at a media event for new Microsoft products on October 6, 2015 in New York City. (Photo : Getty Images/Andrew Burton)

Fresh speculations suggest the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 that would be arriving next year would feature a maximum of 512 GB storage along with Intel Kaby Lake processor.



The rumor mill has started talking about the upcoming features of the Surface Pro 5. Here is are specs that can be expected from Surface Pro 4 successor:



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Increased Storage

The Surface Pro 4 was released in October 2015 with highest configuration of Intel Skylake chipset, 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. The Surface Pro 5 is expected to arrive with a maximum SSD storage of 512 GB, The BitBag reported.



Intel Kaby Lake

It will be powered by the Intel Kaby Lake chipset. The inclusion of the new chipset will help in resolving the battery performance associated with Surface Pro 4.



4K Display

The Intel Kaby Lake chipset comes with inbuilt support for 4K video. Hence, it is likely that the Surface Pro 5 will be arriving with a 4K display.



Fingerprint Sensor

Four years ago, Microsoft had filed a patent for incorporating fingerprint scanning through PixelSense display. Rumors suggest instead of upgrading to a 4K display, Microsoft may simply upgrade the screen on Surface Pro 5 by adding a fingerprint sensor to it.



Improved Surface Pen

The Surface Pen stylus is rumored to come with support for wireless charging. It is also expected to be available with a magnetic charging dock.



Other Enhancements

The Surface Pro 4 was launched without a USB Type-C port. The SP5 is expected to come with USB Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports.



Windows 10 Redstone 3

Microsoft is expected to release Windows 10 Redstone 2 in spring 2017 and Redstone 3 in fall 2017. The Redstone 3 is expected to deliver better unified experience across all the devices running on Windows 10. It will also include support for HoloLens VR device, Phone Arena reported.



The Surface Pro 5 is now pegged to come with Windows 10 Redstone 3 update which indicates that the Surface Pro 5 release date may happen in October 2017. If the 2-in-1 device is to come with Redstone 2, it may release in March 2017.



What do you think about the above specs? Will any of these features come true on the Microsoft Surface Pro 5? Do let us know your thoughts by adding your comments.



Here is a reivew of the Microsoft Surface Pro 4:






He is called the Greek God of India. As if all that praise from his fans wasnt enough, a recent survey validated his gorgeous looks and announced him as the third most handsome man in the world!

pinterest

Bollywood hungama

And no its not a facade. Confirming his modest nature was his co-star Yami Gautam, of upcoming film Kaabil. She told Deccan Chronicle,

When you work with him (you dont realise), there is so much humility in himIt is only when you (the media) asks these questions that you feel Oh my God! Yes! I am standing right next to this manI think its this attitude that makes someone sexy.

twitter

Come to think of it what more can someone ask for? With striking good looks, a dashing personality and impressive intellect, Hrithik Roshan is down to earth despite belonging to a full-blown celebrity background.

While he scored the 3rd position in the list of most good looking men in the world, giving him company is Salman Khan at number seven.
Actor Rajnikanth suffered a minor injury of the right knee while shooting for his latest movie 2.0.

Bollywoodlife.com

Police sources said the 65-year-old actor had a fall while shooting a scene at Kelambakkam on East Coast Road around 8pm. He was taken to a private hospital nearby.

A doctor in the hospital said the actor was sent home with a suture on his right leg.

TOI
Romanian beauty Iulia Vantur has had her share of limelight for the past one year. From being deemed as actor Salman Khans girlfriend to being the woman who will make him shed his bachelor status, she has been a victim of enough rumours and speculations. However, this time she is in the news for a totally different reason altogether.

libertatea

She is all set to kick-start her career in Bollywood but there is a big catch. While many people assumed that she will be making her debut as an actress, she proved them all wrong. Turns out she is trying her hand at singing! Yes, you read that right. Vantur has come out with her first music album with none other than Himesh Reshammiya.

At the press meet of the launch, she was asked the same redundant question  her relationship with Salman Khan.

He is a very good friend! What more can I say? He is a very good friend for everyone who meets him. He has such a good heart and he is welcoming to everyone. So you know what I think about him, she told Indian Express.

rediff

When she was further question about her impending wedding with the Sultan actor, she went on to say,

Iulia Vantur Insta

As I said, we are very good friends. More than that what can I say? There is a lot of respect for him. It is because of him I met India! And I love India. I always wanted to come here since I was a kid because I used to read so many stories about India and was very fascinated. So at the right time, I reached here. And the first feeling I had when I stepped on this land was like home. The energy, the vibe of this place was so good and so welcoming. And honestly, when I left from India, I cried. I cried because I didnt want to leave this land. But life brought me here back. So I am happy for that. There were rumours that I didnt like India or its culture but I am telling you thats its not correct. I love this place, I love the people and I am grateful to all the people I have met here.

Looks like its high time that we put an end to all those speculations of her marriage with bhai!

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Salman Khan wont ever be tamed, oops married! *wink*
With pro-President Bashar-al-Assad troops to zeroing in on the besieged city of Aleppo crushing the rebels of left, right and centre, the city of Aleppo has descended into a never ending furry where lives of innocent civilians are getting lost as if life has a little or no worth.

AFP

According to the story published in The Independent, Aleppo is experiencing hell letting loose amid warnings that the city could witness one of the biggest massacres since the WW-II's concentration camps run by Hitler as Assad's troops continue their brutal offensive on the city.

It has been over four months since pro Assad forces of both Syria and Russians have been attacking bombarding the city to thwart rebels and their control on the city. Though the rebels to fought hard to keep forces at bay, but their fall was inevitable. The bombing campaign has brought rebel-held east Aleppo to its knees, civilians are fleeing across the frontline in their thousands to escape Assads attempts to crush the citys rebels for good.

UN said on last Tuesday that the sweeping advance by Syrian army backed by Russia and other smaller militias has displaced thousands of Syrians with residents unsure where to turn to for safety as the frontline fighting rapidly moves and rebels struggle to maintain control of key neighbourhoods. The true figure once those who have fled to government areas is included is likely to be much higher.

AFP

French UN ambassador, Francois Delattre, warned: "France and its partners cannot remain silent in the face of what could be one of the biggest massacres of civilian population since World War II".

Russia, meanwhile, has claimed that the regime air strikes and ground assault on east Aleppo have managed to liberate the area.

Half of the territory in parts of eastern Aleppo occupied by militants in recent years has been completely freed, Russian defence ministry spokesperson Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov was quoted in The Independent. Most importantly, more than 80,000 Syrians have been liberated, tens of thousands children. Many received for the first time water, food, medical care from Russian humanitarian centres, he stressed.

Our Western counterparts are showing surprising blindness when it is time to assess the real situation in Aleppo. Irrespective of the Russian narrative, activists on the ground don't see any light, even at the end of the tunnel because they believe that the west isn't doing anything to benefit the cause of the people.

AFP

Doctor Abdul, working out of a makeshift facility, told The Independent that the decimated medical services  east Aleppo has approximately 30 doctors left  were struggling to cope. Another sent pictures to The Independent of what he said were the bodies of casualties from overnight still lying on the streets.

Wissam Zarqa, a teacher and rebel activist, also sent Whatsapp recordings to journalists saying that while the opposition has managed to accommodate hundreds of fleeing families in their rapidly shrinking territory, tripling the occupancy of some buildings, the fate of many of those who crossed into government-held areas or stayed put as the Syrian army retook their neighbourhoods is unknown.

AFP

Wissam is worried about two of his known ones who have been arrested by Assad forces.

"Hopefully they will be OK but I am not optimistic about that now, he said. Fear of arrest and interrogation by the army or Syrias infamous mukhabarat, or secret police, has long been one of the major factors stopping the 250,000 people trapped inside east Aleppo from leaving, despite regime and Russia exhortations it is safe do so.

Here Are three video IndiaTimes got from the ground zero:
The reports of more than 10,000 guests and 50 chartered planes will ferry VVIPS to Nagpur for Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's daughter's wedding, has suddenly made him the centre of all talks.

In the midst of the ongoing chaos related to demonetization, Gadkari somehow managed to go all extravagant with his daughter's wedding.

(Also read: Photos Of The Lavish Reddy Wedding Are Out And The Bling Is Making Our Eyes Water!)

From the likes of Union home minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president Amit Shah, industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, Union ministers and chief ministers, the wedding is going to be flooded with all the big shots of the country.

privatejetcharterflightsdallas

Reportedly, senior BJP leader LK Advani and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, will be there at the wedding too.

To ensure an avant-garde service for all his guests, Gadkari has brought on board 50 chartered flights to ferry his guests.

And not just that, the air tickets from any place to Nagpur on December 3 and 4 are said to be unavailable.

The wedding function will be held at Rani Kothi on Wardha Road in Nagpur and the vicinity is jam packed.

.@htTweets So, @nitin_gadkari arranged 50 chartered planes for his daughter's wedding.Woh bhi 2.5lakh k budget me.Make him finance min ASAP  Santoesha Bissesar (@MsSantoesha) December 4, 2016

Sir @sgurumurthy shld Nitin Gadkari organise such gala wedding of his daughter, pls be honest sir . https://t.co/Q1SzwCS26o  Ujjaval Shah (@UJJAVALSHAH2) December 4, 2016

Today @nitin_gadkari daughter is getting married in Nagpur.. Lets see if the marriage arranged in 2.5 lacs or 250 crores? @ArvindKejriwal  Vikram Saxena (@saxena_vikram) December 4, 2016

This is the wedding of Gadkaris youngest daughter Ketki. She will tie the nuptial knot with Aditya, the son of Sandhya and Ravindra Kaskhedikar of Nagpur. The bridegroom works with social networking group Facebook in the US.

(Also read: Farmers Fear Demonetisation Will Ruin Wheat Season As They Don't Have Money To Buy Seeds)

It's needless to say that the entire nation is eyeing the event because of our ongoing struggle with the demonetization. Let's not lose our 'cool' over this, and accept the fact that the ministers in India live the way they want to, regardless of anything and everything.
Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba on Friday announced that the Naval Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) did not meet his force's requirements; the organisation is now seeking foreign-made planes.

Despite the Navy junking its homegrown version of LCA's and the DRDO has taken the full responsibility of working on the plane to create an indigenous fifth-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).

(Also read: Indian Navy Rejects Indigenously Built Lightweight Tejas Fighter Aircraft, Calls It Overweight)

globalmilitaryreview

So much for Modi's 'Make In India' campaign.

"Despite the Navy junking our project, we would go ahead with developing the Naval LCA as a technology demonstrator. We will use the experience and learning for developing it into a fifth generation fighter plane," DRDO officials told Mail today.

The DRDO is already working on Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, which will have the capacity of a fifth-generation fighter, which they will produce basis their knowledge and expertise of working on Naval LCA.

The Navy comes in full swing with permissions given by the Defence Ministry to explore the international markets. Nevertheless, the naval LCA made its maiden flight in April 2012 and two prototypes are currently undergoing flying.

indiannavy

Both, the DRDO and the Navy have come together to create 'Shore-based Test Facility' at the INS Hansa naval air base in Goa to run testing.

"We will seek aircraft elsewhere which can operate on the aircraft carrier," Lanba had announced on Friday.

(Also read: Indian Navy Gets MiG-29K Fighter Jet)

Navy is currently operating Russian MiG-29K fighters from the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and these will also fly from the first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) Vikrant once it enters service.
Tamil Nadu is on high alert after Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa who had been in hospital since end September suffered cardiac arrest and was rushed into the ICU.

Strangely enough, earlier today AIADMK had issued a statement saying she was recovering well and would be back at work soon.

The hospital released a statement and said, "She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including pulmonologists, cardiologists and critical care specialists," the release issued by hospital COO Subbiah Viswanathan said.

What's happening right now?

Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao is on his way to the hospital to take stock of the situation, there are huge crowds of supporters have gathered outside the hospital. Minutes after the message about her being moved into the ICU following a cardiac arrest was flashed on the media, members from the AIADMK cadre gathered outside the hospital. They were seen making loud prayers. "She has fought even more bitter enemies. We are hoping and praying she will fight this one too," one of the party members said. Several senior leaders visited temples to offer prayers to Lord Shiva.

The party cadres were also asking the gathered TV crews to shut their cameras.



Law and order situation

More than nine companies of Rapid Action Force have been kept on standby to be rushed to the state in case the situation worsens. Tamil Nadu police has been put on state of high alert and some school and colleges will be closed tomorrow.

MPs asked not to travel to Delhi to attend Parliament tomm. Mps, Mlas all asked to remain in Chennai. #Jayalalithaa  Tavleen Singh Aroor (@Tavysingh) December 4, 2016

Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health.

Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery !  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) December 4, 2016

Huge crowd seen outside Apollo hospital in Chennai where CM Jayalalithaa is admitted. TN CM suffered a cardiac arrest this evening pic.twitter.com/1ibjRBN5o3  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016
Gujarat businessman Mahesh Shah, who had disappeared after declaring unaccounted income of Rs 13,860 crore, the biggest disclosure in India under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS), appeared before the media on Saturday.

thewire.in

Shah, who was later detained for concealing income, said he was a front to convert black money into white for several influential people. He said he received a hefty commission.

"The Rs 13,860 crore declared in IDS was not mine. It belonged to a mix of people from across the country. The amount can be higher," he said when asked if the money belonged to politicians, businessmen and builders.

"I was going to pay the first instalment of Rs 1,560 crore (penalty) but the persons (whose money I declared) backed out at the last minute. Something happened in two days and the money was not given to me. I will name each and every person and they will have to appear before I-T officials," he said.

Reuters

I-T department seeks police cover for Gujarat businessman

I-T officials said Shah would be questioned through the night to verify if he was a front and if so, to identify others involved in the proxy IDS declaration. Shah said that earlier, he was offered commission to make the disclosure on behalf of a few people who were extremely close to him.

"During that time, there was no question of names being revealed in IDS. I got lured by commission. I now realize that what I did was wrong. It is my fault and my family should not be dragged into this as they were not aware of my dealings," said Shah whose wife is a cancer patient.

His son, Monitesh, is unemployed. The businessman said that he had got scared but was not absconding.

Shah said he would come clean before the income tax department and hoped for security and justice for himself and his family. Since Shah is involved in a major money laundering racket, I-T department has sought police assistance to ensure his security, local cops said.
A detailed Rs 1,000-crore plan to set up perimeter defence systems and intrusion alert devices at forward locations and Army garrisons in J&K is pending for government clearance. The plan to strengthen defences at armed forces installations in the sensitive state was drawn up after an attack at Pathankot airbase in January in which militants managed to breach a military airfield that housed combat aircraft.

AFP

Sources have told ET that the plan, which details the high-tech equipment that is required on an urgent basis to secure the installations, involves an initial outlay of `400 crore and is stretched over a three-year period.

A clear pattern has emerged over the past few months  starting with Pathankot and leading to an attack at an Army base in Uri that left 19 soldiers dead  in which militants have managed to repeatedly breach existing perimeter defence systems in a fire assault.

Reuters

In repeated attacks, groups of 3-4 militants have managed to enter military camps and take up hidden defensive positions, only to fire at quick reaction teams of the Army and inflict heavy casualties. In the Nagrota attack, four of the seven soldiers who died were lost in the initial breach and contact itself.

With the present systems unable to indicate the exact location of a breach, the proposal is to create smart fencing systems with underground sensors, motion triggers and a centralised command and control room that can direct reaction teams to the right place.

BCCL

In the aftermath of the Pathankot attack, the defence ministry had tasked former Vice-Chief of the Army, Lt Gen Philip Campose (retd), for a security audit and to make suggestions to bolster defences. The retired officer submitted his report to the ministry over six months ago. In a separate move, the Air Force has managed to move ahead with its plan to increase security at bases, having initiated a procurement process for a pilot project on a smart fencing system.
When Naval Chief, Admiral Sunil Lanba began his career in early 1980s, his family in Faridabad used to travel 8 kms to talk to him over phone. In an interview with bhaskar.com, Naval Chief who visited his ancestral village in Palwal told many things about his life which were until now unknown.

"Members of my family used to travel 8 kms to reach Alawalpur if they wanted to speak to me over telephone back in 1982. Things have changed now, it used to take hours in 1980s to cover the short distance of 8 kms," said Sunil Lanba who recently visited his village.

AFP

Lanba hails from Amarpur, a village in Palwal tehsil of Faridabad in Haryana. Lanba told that back in 1982, one official of BSNL had come to his father, Rajender Lanba, regarding phone connection.

His father was ready but the official said that minimum 11 connections are required to provide service in the village.

"During the vacation, I would return to my village and play in the same streets which were part of my childhood. Though at that time, my village didn't even have small facilities. We hadto travel 3 kms if someone was unwell," Lanba told Bhaskar.com.

Naval Chief, Admiral Lanba also shared that how his father paid fee for phone connections of two his uncles and 8 other villagers to get the facility of phone in village.

"My father paid fee of my uncles and 8 other to get phone connection so that they don't have to travel 8 kms in order to talk to me," added Lanba. Lanba's father was Commandant in Navy and he was born in 1957 in Mumbai. He graduated from army school in Ajmer. Lanba grandfather, Chaudhary Soudan Singh was in British Indian army and had fought in WW-II.

AFP

Bhaskar.com also quoted his uncles and aunts who have seen him grow old and become India's Naval Chief. Lanba owns 13 acres of land in village which he has given on lease. His uncle also revealed that Admiral Lanba loves to take bath under tube-well and probably that's the reason he was always fond of waves of the Indian ocean.
Indian Navy is one of most potent maritime forces in the world and certainly most lethal in Indian Ocean. But this reputation hasn't been forged in a year or two, it has taken over seventy decades to make Indian Navy, a force that strikes fear in the heart of the enemies.

Wikipedia

Today is Navy Day, a day Indian Navy with the rest of the armed forces celebrates to commemorate the historic 'Operation Trident' which destroyed Karachi harbour on the night of December 4, 1971, incurring huge losses to the Pakistani Navy while making sure that Pakistan Navy doesn't stand a chance to attack any of the Indian naval bases.

But along with a tale of supreme success, it's also a story of two friends of Bengaluru who joined navy together and luckily both became part of this heroic operation which seal India's maritime security in the war of 1971.

But first, let's know what was 'Operation Trident'

'Operation Trident' was launched on night of December 4, 1971, when Indian Navy bombarded the Karachi harbour incurring huge losses to the Pakistani Navy. To commemorate the historic operation, the day is observed as Indian Navy Day annually.

Indian Navy sank four Pakistani vessels and ravaged the Karachi harbour fuel fields, killing over 500 Pakistani Navy personnel. Three missile boats of the Indian Navy, INS Nipat, INS Nirghat and INS Veer, played a pivotal role in the attack.

Two buddies who obliterated Karachi harbour

S Sundar Raj and Suresh Bangara had joined navy in 1966 as second lieutenants. But with only five years into their service, they were thrown into the biggest test of their lives as both friends were part of this historic operation 45 years ago.

Ministry of Defence, India

"Around 2 pm on December 4, 1971, our fleet sailed from Okha Port in Gujarat, towards Pakistani waters following orders to attack the Karachi port, the stronghold of the Pakistani Navy," reminisced Sundar Raj, the veteran at his Byappanahalli home who was second in command at INS Nipat.

The fleet reached 70 miles south of Karachi around 10.30 pm and was ready for combat. Raj remembers seeing a blip on the radar, which indicated an enemy vessel which was closing in.

Wikipedia

"The orders to engage were given and we fired the first missile. We saw it hit the vessel but it was still floating. Then we fired the second one and sunk the ship, which we later came to know was Pakistani destroyer PNS Khaibar," added the National College alumnus.

As the Indian Navy advanced, Pakistani vessels too approached to defend the Karach harbour, INS Veer fired its first missile onto Pakistani vessel Muhafiz, a minesweeper, sinking it with the entire crew.

"We had rehearsed the attack numerous times as war situation was rife. We were thrilled to attack the enemy at its den," recalled 70-year-old Suresh Bangara, a Benson Town resident and a St Joseph's College passout, who was then a 25-year-old lieutenant at Veer.

Wikipedia

With 90 minutes, Indian warships fired six missiles which resulted in sinking four enemy vessels including a cargo ship carrying ammunition and destroyed the fuel storage facility at the Karachi harbour, before successfully returning to Mumbai without a single Indian casualty.

"As we were returning to Mumbai, one sailor climbed up the missile hanger on Nipat and wrote 'killers' on it in red paint, which was emphatically received by the successful crew," added Bangara. The squadron was thereafter christened 'The Killers' and a Killer Day has been celebrated by the Indian Navy on December 3 ever since.

Wikipedia

Sundar and Suresh were decorated with Nao Sena Medal and Mention in Dispatches certificate respectively for gallantry. The two friends retired from service in 2006 (Sundar as rear admiral and Suresh as vice admiral).
Some leading capitals cities in the world are going to ban diesel vehicles from their cities by 2025. Mexico City is the latest to join the list which includes Paris, Athens and Madrid.

Reuters

The agreement was made at the C40 Mayors Summit in Mexico City on Thursday and according to a statement released the ban will reduce air pollution and health issues in those cities.

Instead Mayors of respective cities will encourage citizens to cycle and use other alternative modes of transportation.

Anne Hidalgo, Paris Mayor, said, Its a worldwide public health concern.

Miguel Angel Mancera, Mexico City Mayor, said the citys diesel buses will be replaced with alternative systems and buses operating as part of the bus rapid transport will be replaced with hybrids. The city will also soon have its first electric corridor.

Pollution

Leaders from major cities across the world are meeting in Mexico City this week to exchange ideas and discuss how to move towards a sustainable environment by reducing carbon emissions.
A 1972 French-Italian movie is in the news for all the wrong reasons decades after its release. Last Tango in Paris has a rape scene, which at the time took people aback because of its raw emotions, but now it is making people angry after it has surfaced that the rape was non-consensual.

Last Tango in Paris

During an interview films director, Bernardo Bertolucci admitted that the rape scene was shot without lead actress Maria Schneiders consent because he wanted it to be as realistic as possible.

It was a decision between Brandon and the director, the interview reveals, to keep the scene a secret from Maria so her reaction would be as a girl, not an actress.

Bertolucci admitted that not telling her the plan about the scene was a horrible idea but he does not regret the scene whatsoever.

Though the rape does not actually happen, in a 2007 interview with Mail Online, Maria said she felt a little raped.

Refinery29

Maria said: "That scene wasn't in the original script. The truth is it was Marlon who came up with the idea. They only told me about it before we had to film the scene and I was so angry.

"I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script, but at the time, I didn't know that.

"I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take, said Maria, who passed away in 2011.

Last Tango in Paris, about a man who begins an affair after his wife commits suicide, is one of the most controversial films and upon its release shocked audiences because of its raw depictions of sex and rape.

Last Tango in Paris

On social media, film enthusiasts and celebrities alike have condemned the non-consensual nature of the scene. People are saying that they will never see the movie again.

Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage https://t.co/uvaLogvv7I  Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) December 3, 2016

outrage: 'Last Tango in Paris' contains an actual rape, not an acted scene. should never be taught or watched again. https://t.co/aaeayIMtVe  Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) December 3, 2016

Stomach-turning: Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci admits butter rape scene was non-consensual https://t.co/JDHBtLBfkD  Mary-Anne Toy (@mtoy88) December 4, 2016
Many people in America and around the world have been unable to come to terms with Donald Trumps election win to become Americas President-elect to the point where a petition on Change.org to make Hillary Clinton president has become the largest petition in history with 4.7 million signatures.

Reuters

The Change.org petition, Make Hillary Clinton President asks members of Americas Electoral College to vote for Clinton when they meet on December 19. She won the popular vote by 2.5 million votes but Trump won the Electoral College by winning important states likes Wisconsin and Michigan.

The petition says, Donald Trump has not been elected president. The real election takes place on December 19, when 538 Electors cast their ballots  for anyone they want.

Reuters

ALSO READ: As People Debate Use Of Online Petitions, Here Are Some Pleas That Have Brought Desired Changes

We are calling on Conscientious Electors to protect the Constitution from Donald Trump, and to support the national popular vote winner.

More than 4.6 million Americans support this grassroots effort.

Reuters

Since the election on November 8, anti-Trump protests have been taking place in America with protesters holding signs saying, Hes not my president.
The search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, which disappeared two years ago, entered its 1000th day on Saturday. Relatives of those aboard the flight have travelled to Madagascar to take the search into their hands, after most parts of the plane remains undiscovered.

EPA

Flight MH 370, en route Beijing from Kuala Lumpur went missing on March 8 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board. Even after two years of constant search for the planes debris, only 20 pieces have been found.

Grace Subathirai Nathan, spokesperson for the Members of Voice 370, said, It has fallen into our hands to take this search upon ourselves.

Reuters

After repeated requests for mobilisation of a search along the east African coastline, nothing has been done to date. We want to speak to as many people as we can. We want to especially speak to NGOs, to the missionaries, to the churches who have outreach programmes. We can talk to people who work as fishermen, people who live on the coastline. We hope that we can raise awareness, teach them how to identify debris, how to collect debris, what to do with it when they find it.

Reuters

Grace along with three other Malaysians, two Chinese nations and one French person plan to spread awareness about the plane to locals and teach them how identify debris, and what to do in case they spot something.

A few pieces of debris were found on the shores of Mauritius, Tanzania and Reunion. Some found in South Africa and Mozambique are being examined to determine whether they belong to the Malaysian flight.

Reuters

Grace added, We need to know what happened to this plane and what happened to the people that we love.
No European crisis has left Greece untouched in recent years, visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Waltersaid in Thessaloniki on Sunday, while inaugurating the exhibition "Fragmented Memories 1940-1950", at the northern metropolis Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art
Why Everything Youve Read About Syria and Iraq Could be Wrong





By Patrick Cockburn

December 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Independent " - The Iraqi army, backed by US-led airstrikes, is trying to capture east Mosul at the same time as the Syrian army and its Shia paramilitary allies are fighting their way into east Aleppo. An estimated 300 civilians have been killed in Aleppo by government artillery and bombing in the last fortnight, and in Mosul there are reportedly some 600 civilian dead over a month.

Despite these similarities, the reporting by the international media of these two sieges is radically different.

In Mosul, civilian loss of life is blamed on Isis, with its indiscriminate use of mortars and suicide bombers, while the Iraqi army and their air support are largely given a free pass. Isis is accused of preventing civilians from leaving the city so they can be used as human shields.

Contrast this with Western media descriptions of the inhuman savagery of President Assads forces indiscriminately slaughtering civilians regardless of whether they stay or try to flee. The UN chief of humanitarian affairs, Stephen OBrien, suggested this week that the rebels in east Aleppo were stopping civilians departing  but unlike Mosul, the issue gets little coverage.

One factor making the sieges of east Aleppo and east Mosul so similar, and different, from past sieges in the Middle East, such as the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982 or of Gaza in 2014, is that there are no independent foreign journalists present. They are not there for the very good reason that Isis imprisons and beheads foreigners while Jabhat al-Nusra, until recently the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, is only a shade less bloodthirsty and generally holds them for ransom.

These are the two groups that dominate the armed opposition in Syria as a whole. In Aleppo, though only about 20 per cent of the 10,000 fighters are Nusra, it is they  along with their allies in Ahrar al-Sham  who are leading the resistance.

Unsurprisingly, foreign journalists covering developments in east Aleppo and rebel-held areas of Syria overwhelmingly do so from Lebanon or Turkey. A number of intrepid correspondents who tried to do eyewitness reporting from rebel-held areas swiftly found themselves tipped into the boots of cars or otherwise incarcerated.

Experience shows that foreign reporters are quite right not to trust their lives even to the most moderate of the armed opposition inside Syria. But, strangely enough, the same media organisations continue to put their trust in the veracity of information coming out of areas under the control of these same potential kidnappers and hostage takers. They would probably defend themselves by saying they rely on non-partisan activists, but all the evidence is that these can only operate in east Aleppo under license from the al-Qaeda-type groups.

It is inevitable that an opposition movement fighting for its life in wartime will only produce, or allow to be produced by others, information that is essentially propaganda for its own side. The fault lies not with them but a media that allows itself to be spoon-fed with dubious or one-sided stories.

For instance, the film coming out of east Aleppo in recent weeks focuses almost exclusively on heartrending scenes of human tragedy such as the death or maiming of civilians. One seldom sees shots of the 10,000 fighters, whether they are wounded or alive and well.

None of this is new. The present wars in the Middle East started with the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 which was justified by the supposed threat from Saddam Husseins possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Western journalists largely went along with this thesis, happily citing evidence from the Iraqi opposition who predictably confirmed the existence of WMD.

Some of those who produced these stories later had the gall to criticise the Iraqi opposition for misleading them, as if they had any right to expect unbiased information from people who had dedicated their lives to overthrowing Saddam Hussein or, in this particular case, getting the Americans to do so for them.

Much the same self-serving media credulity was evident in Libya during the 2011 Nato-backed uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.

Atrocity stories emanating from the Libyan opposition, many of which were subsequently proved to be baseless by human rights organisations, were rapidly promoted to lead the news, however partial the source.

The Syrian war is especially difficult to report because Isis and various al-Qaeda clones made it too dangerous to report from within opposition-held areas. There is a tremendous hunger for news from just such places, so the temptation is for the media give credence to information they get second hand from people who could in practice only operate if they belong to or are in sympathy with the dominant jihadi opposition groups.

It is always a weakness of journalists that they pretend to excavate the truth when in fact they are the conduit rather than the originator of information produced by others in their own interests. Reporters learn early that people tell them things because they are promoting some cause which might be their own career or related to bureaucratic infighting or, just possibly, hatred of lies and injustice.

A word here in defence of the humble reporter in the field: usually, it is not he or she, but the home office or media herd instinct, that decides the story of the day. Those closest to the action may be dubious about some juicy tale which is heading the news, but there is not much they can do about it.

Thus, in 2002 and 2003, several New York Times journalists wrote stories casting doubt on WMD only to find them buried deep inside the newspaper which was led by articles proving that Saddam had WMD and was a threat to the world.

Journalists and public alike should regard all information about Syria and Iraq with reasoned scepticism. They should keep in mind the words of Lakhdar Brahimi, the former UN and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria. Speaking after he had resigned in frustration in 2014, he said that everybody had their agenda and the interests of the Syrian people came second, third or not at all.

The quote comes from The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East by Christopher Phillips, which is one of the best informed and non-partisan accounts of the Syrian tragedy yet published. He judiciously weighs the evidence for rival explanations for what happened and why. He understands the degree to which the agenda and pace events in Syria were determined externally by the intervention of foreign powers pursuing their own interests.

Overall, government experts did better than journalists, who bought into simple-minded explanations of developments, convinced that Assad was always on the verge of being overthrown.

Phillips records that at a high point of the popular uprising in July 2011, when the media was assuming that Assad was finished, that the long-serving British ambassador in Damascus, Simon Collis, wrote that Assad can still probably count on the support of 30-40 per cent of the population.
7 Reasons that the Corporate Media Is Pro-War

Why There Is So Much Pro-War Reporting?

By WashingtonsBlog

December 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " WashingtonsBlog " - American media is always pro-war:

Can you name a single paper, or a single TV network, that was unequivocally opposed to the American wars carried out against Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and Vietnam while they were happening, or shortly thereafter? Or even opposed to any two of these seven wars? How about one? In 1968, six years into the Vietnam War, the Boston Globe (Feb. 18, 1968) surveyed the editorial positions of 39 leading U.S. papers concerning the war and found that none advocated a pull-out. Has the phrase invasion of Vietnam ever appeared in the U.S. mainstream media? In 2003, leading cable station MSNBC took the much-admired Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.

Why?

There are seven reasons that the mainstream media and many of the largest alternative media websites are all pro-war.

1. Self-Censorship by Journalists

There is tremendous self-censorship by journalists.

A survey by the Pew Research Center and the Columbia Journalism Review in 2000 found:

Self-censorship is commonplace in the news media today . About one-quarter of the local and national journalists say they have purposely avoided newsworthy stories, while nearly as many acknowledge they have softened the tone of stories to benefit the interests of their news organizations. Fully four-in-ten (41%) admit they have engaged in either or both of these practices.



Similarly, a 2003 survey reveals that 35% of reporters and news executives themselves admitted that journalists avoid newsworthy stories if the story would be embarrassing or damaging to the financial interests of a news organizations owners or parent company.

Several months after 9/11, Dan Rather told the BBC that American reporters were practicing a form of self-censorship:

There was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around peoples necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions. And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism. What we are talking about here  whether one wants to recognise it or not, or call it by its proper name or not  is a form of self-censorship.

Rather said in 2008:

One of the most pernicious ways in which we do this is through self-censorship, which may be the worst censorship of all. We have seen too much self-censorship in the news in recent years, and as I say this please know that I do not except myself from this criticism. As Mark Twain once said, We write frankly and freely but then we modify before we print. Why do we modify the free and frank expression of journalistic truth? We do it out of fear: Fear for our jobs. Fear that well catch hell for it. Fear that someone will seek to hang a sign around our neck that says, in essence, Unpatriotic. We modify with euphemisms such as collateral damage or less than truthful statements. We modify with passive-voice constructions such as mistakes were made. We modify with false equivalencies that provide for bad behavior the ready-made excuse that everybodys doing it. And sometimes we modify with an erasersimply removing offending and inconvenient truths from our reporting.

Keith Olbermann agreed that there is self-censorship in the American media, and that:

You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble . You cannot say: By the way, theres something wrong with our . system.

Former Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin wrote in 2006:

Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. . . . Theres the intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources, even as those sources become ridiculously unrevealing and oversensitive. Theres the fear of being labeled partisan if ones bullshit-calling isnt meted out in precisely equal increments along the political spectrum. If mainstream-media political journalists dont start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy  if not to the comedians then to the bloggers. I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter  whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship  or whatever it is  out of the way.

MarketWatch columnist Brett Arends wrote in 2013:

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? Ill tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world. Once upon a time you saw people like this in every newsroom in the country. They often had chaotic personal lives and they died early of cirrhosis or a heart attack. But they were tough, angry SOBs and they produced great stories. Do you want to know what kind of people get promoted and succeed in the modern news organization? Social climbers. Networkers. People who are gregarious, who buy in to the dominant consensus, who go along to get along and dont ask too many really awkward questions. They are flexible, well-organized, and happy with life. And it shows. This is why, just in the patch of financial and economic journalism, so many reporters are happy to report that U.S. corporations are in great financial shape, even though they also have surging debts, or that a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds will protect you in all circumstances, even though this is not the case, or that defense budgets are being slashed, when they arent, or that the U.S. economy has massively outperformed rivals such as Japan, when on key metrics it hasnt, or that companies must pay CEOs gazillions of dollars to secure the top talent, when they dont need to do any such thing, and such pay is just plunder. All of these things are consensus opinions, and conventional wisdom, which are repeated over and over again by various commentators and vested interests. Yet none of them are true. If you want to be a glad-handing politician, be a glad-handing politician. If you want to be a reporter, then be angry, ask awkward questions, and absolutely hate it when everyone agrees with you.

The Jerusalem Post wrote last year:

Any university journalism course will teach that there are two forms of media censorship in the media: censorship and self-censorship. As one online article explains: Censorship occurs when a state, political, religious or private party prohibits information from reaching citizens. Self-censorship occurs when journalists themselves prevent the publication of information because they are fearful of what could happen if they publish certain information  they are fearful of injury to themselves or their families, fearful of a lawsuit or other economic consequence. *** A 2014 academic article was more alarmist in tone. M. Murat Yesil, assistant professor at Turkeys Necmettin Erbakan University, wrote that self-censoring practices of journalists put the future of journalism into danger [such] practices may be threatening the future of journalism. This past week, Spanish journalists are claiming a new law that protects police officers from having their photographs published will encourage self-censorship.

Self-censorship obviously occurs on the web as well as in old media. As Wikipedia notes:

Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying ones own work (blog, book(s), film(s), or other means of expression) 

2. Censorship by Higher-Ups

If journalists do want to speak out about an issue, they also are subject to tremendous pressure by their editors or producers to kill the story.

The 2000 Pew and Columbia Journalism Review survey notes:

Fully half of [the investigative journalists surveyed] say newsworthy stories are often or sometimes ignored because they conflict with a news organizations economic interests. More than six-in-ten (61%) believe that corporate owners exert at least a fair amount of influence on decisions about which stories to cover.

The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, said:

All of the institutions we thought would protect us  particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress  they have failed. The courts . . . the jurys not in yet on the courts. So all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didnt. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because thats the most glaring. Q: What can be done to fix the (media) situation? [Long pause] Youd have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors and executives. Youd actually have to start promoting people from the newsrooms to be editors who you didnt think you could control. And theyre not going to do that.

In fact many journalists are warning that the true story is not being reported.

A series of interviews with award-winning journalists also documents censorship of certain stories by media editors and owners (and see these samples).

Its not just the mainstream media. The large alternative media websites censor as well. For example:

Every year Project Censored [which Walter Cronkite and other ] puts together a list of the top 25 stories censored and ignored by the mainstream media. How many of these stories were you aware of? Even regular consumers of alternative, independent media may be surprised to learn about some of these stories .

There are many reasons for censorship by media higher-ups.

One is money.

The media has a strong monetary interest to avoid controversial topics in general. It has always been true that advertisers discourage stories which challenge corporate power. In 1969, Federal Communications Commission commissioner Nicholas Johnson noted that tv networks go to great lengths to please their sponsors.

Indeed, a 3-time Emmy Award winning CNN journalist says that CNN took money from the royalty in Bahrain to kill her hard-hitting expose, and instead run flattering propaganda for Bahrain.

Some media companies make a lot of money from the government, and so dont want to rock the boat. For example, Glenn Greenwald notes:

Because these schools [owned by the Washington P0sts parent company, whose profits subsidize the Post] target low-income students, the vast majority of their income is derived from federal loans. Because there have been so many deceptive practices and defaults, the Federal Government has become much more aggressive about regulating these schools and now play a vital role in determining which ones can thrive and which ones fail. Put another way, the company that owns The Washington Post is almost entirely at the mercy of the Federal Government and the Obama administration  the entities which its newspaper ostensibly checks and holds accountable. By the end of 2010, more than 90 percent of revenue at Kaplans biggest division and nearly a third of The Post Co.s revenue overall came from the U.S. government. The Post Co.s reliance on the Federal Government extends beyond the source of its revenue; because the industry is so heavily regulated, any animosity from the Government could single-handedly doom the Post Co.s business  a reality of which they are well aware: The Post Co. realized there were risks attached to being dependent on federal dollars for revenue  and that it could lose access to that money if it exceeded federal regulatory limits. It was understood that if you fell out of grace [with the Education Department], your business might go away, said Tom Might, who as chief executive of Cable One, a cable service provider that is owned by The Post Co., sat in at company-wide board meetings. Beyond being reliant on federal money and not alienating federal regulators, the Post Co. desperately needs favorable treatment from members of Congress, and has been willing to use its newspaper to obtain it: Graham has taken part in a fierce lobbying campaign by the for-profit education industry. He has visited key members of Congress, written an op-ed article for the Wall Street Journal and hired for The Post Co. high-powered lobbying firms including Akin Gump and Elmendorf Ryan, at a cost of $810,000 in 2010. The Post has also published an editorial opposing the new federal rules, while disclosing the interests of its parent company. The Post is hardly alone among major media outlets in being owned by an entity which relies on the Federal Government for its continued profitability. NBC News and MSNBC were long owned by GE, and now by Comcast, both of which desperately need good relations with government officials for their profits. The same is true of CBS (owned by Viacom), ABC (owned by Disney), and CNN (owned by TimeWarner). For each of these large corporations, alienating federal government officials is about the worst possible move it could make  something of which all of its employees, including its media division employees, are well aware. But the Post Co.s dependence is even more overwhelming than most. How can a company which is almost wholly dependent upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. Government possibly be expected to serve as a journalistic watchdog over that same Government? The very idea is absurd.



In addition, the government has allowed tremendous consolidation in ownership of the airwaves during the past decade.

Dan Rather has slammed media consolidation:

Likening media consolidation to that of the banking industry, Rather claimed that roughly 80 percent of the media is controlled by no more than six, and possibly as few as four, corporations.

This is documented by the following must-see charts prepared by:

And check out this list of interlocking directorates of big media companies from Fairness and Accuracy in Media, and this resource from the Columbia Journalism Review to research a particular company.

This image gives a sense of the decline in diversity in media ownership over the last couple of decades:

The large media players stand to gain billions of dollars in profits if the Obama administration continues to allow monopoly ownership of the airwaves by a handful of players. The media giants know who butters their bread. So there is a spoken or tacit agreement: if the media cover the administration in a favorable light, the MSM will continue to be the receiver of the governments goodies.

The large alternative media websites also censor news which are too passionately anti-war.

Huffington Post  the largest liberal website  is owned by media giant AOL Time Warner, and censors any implication that a Democratic administration could be waging war for the wrong reasons. So HuffPost may criticize poor prosecution of the war, but would never say that the entire War on Terror as currently waged by the Obama administration is a stupid idea.

The largest alternative websites may weakly criticize minor details of the overall war effort, but would never say that more or less worldwide war-fighting is counterproductive. They may whine about a specific aspect of the war-fighting  but never look at the larger geopolitical factors involved.

They all seem to follow Keith Olbermanns advice:

You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble . You cannot say: By the way, theres something wrong with our . system.

3. Digital Demonetization

The biggest social media websites censor the hardest-hitting anti-war stories. And see this.

We noted in 2013:

Indeed, Youtube admits that it censors:

Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown

Moreover, all of the social media giants say theyre going to crack down on fake news. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other social media are partnering with corporate media such as the ABC News, NBC News, Washington Post, New York Times, to filter out what they label as fake news.

Why is this a problem?

Because corporate media giants like the Washington Post are labeling virtually any website which questions U.S. foreign policy as fake news  and calling on them to be investigated by the FBI and Department of Justice for treason.

So think about how this will play out

1. First, criticizing U.S. wars will get a website listed on a slapdash fake news list

2. Second, the blacklisting will lead to social media  and perhaps search engines  blocking links to the site

3. With links blocked, ad revenue for the site will plummet, which will destroy the main source of revenue for most websites, effectively shutting them down.

Get it?

If this trend continues, it will lead to tremendous pressure to stop criticizing U.S. military policy.

4. Drumming Up Support for War

In addition, the owners of American media companies have long actively played a part in drumming up support for war.

It is painfully obvious that the large news outlets studiously avoided any real criticism of the governments claims in the run up to the Iraq war. It is painfully obvious that the large American media companies acted as lapdogs and stenographers for the governments war agenda.

Veteran reporter Bill Moyers criticized the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between 9/11 and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that the false information was not challenged because:

The [mainstream] media had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President  no questions asked.

As NBC News David Gregory (later promoted to host Meet the Press) said:

I think there are a lot of critics who think that . . . . if we did not stand up [in the run-up to the war] and say this is bogus, and youre a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didnt do our job. I respectfully disagree. Its not our role.

Even after all of the mea culpas for their horrible Iraq war coverage  by the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and others  they did the exact same thing in the Libyan and Syrian wars.

But this is nothing new. In fact, the large media companies have drummed up support for all previous wars.

For example, Hearst helped drum up support for the Spanish-American War.

So why has the American press has consistently served the elites in disseminating their false justifications for war?

One of of the reasons is because the large media companies are owned by those who support the militarist agenda or even directly profit from war and terror (for example, NBC was owned by General Electric, one of the largest defense contractors in the world  which directly profits from war, terrorism and chaos. NBC was subsequently sold to Comcast).

Another seems to be an unspoken rule that the media will not criticize the governments imperial war agenda.

And the media support isnt just for war: it is also for various other shenanigans by the powerful. For example, a BBC documentary proves:

There was a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen . . . . The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bushs Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Moreover, the tycoons told the general who they asked to carry out the coup that the American people would accept the new government because they controlled all the newspapers.

See also this book.

Have you ever heard of this scheme before? It was certainly a very large one. And if the conspirators controlled the newspapers then, how much worse is it today with media consolidation?

(Kevin Dutton  research psychologist at the University of Cambridge  whose research has been featured in Scientific American Mind, New Scientist, The Guardian, Psychology Today and USA Today  also notes that media personalities and journalists  especially when combined in the same persons  are likely to be psychopaths. Some 12 million Americans are psychopaths or sociopaths, and psychopaths tend to rub each others backs.)

5. Direct Government Funding and Support

An official summary of Americas overthrow of the democratically-elected president of Iran in the 1950s states, In cooperation with the Department of State, CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines which, when reproduced in Iran, had the desired psychological effect in Iran and contributed to the war of nerves against Mossadeq. (page x)

Indeed, it is well-documented that the CIA has long paid journalists to write propaganda. This includes foreign, as well as American reporters.

And the military-media alliance has continued without a break (as a highly-respected journalist says, viewers may be taken aback to see the grotesque extent to which US presidents and American news media have jointly shouldered key propaganda chores for war launches during the last five decades.)

As the mainstream British paper, the Independent, writes:

There is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it. The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news.

The article in the Independent discusses the use of black propaganda by the U.S. government, which is then parroted by the media without analysis; for example, the government forged a letter from al Zarqawi to the inner circle of al-Qaidas leadership, urging them to accept that the best way to beat US forces in Iraq was effectively to start a civil war, which was then publicized without question by the media.

Indeed, many branches of the U.S. government  and allied governments  fund propaganda.

For example, the New York Times reports:

Richard Stengel, the State Departments undersecretary for public diplomacy [i.e. minister of propaganda]  has approved State Department programs that teach investigative reporting and empower truth-tellers .

In other words, the State Department is supporting reporters who spout its party line about U.S. foreign policy without question.

And Robert Parry, the investigative reporter who many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s, points out:

In May 2015, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) issued a fact sheet summarizing its work financing friendly journalists around the world, including journalism education, media business development, capacity building for supportive institutions, and strengthening legal-regulatory environments for free media. USAID estimated its budget for media strengthening programs in over 30 countries at $40 million annually, including aiding independent media organizations and bloggers in over a dozen countries, In Ukraine before the 2014 coup ousting elected President Viktor Yanukovych and installing a fiercely anti-Russian and U.S.-backed regime, USAID offered training in mobile phone and website security, skills that would have been quite helpful to the coup plotters. *** Beyond funding from the State Department and USAID, tens of millions of dollars more are flowing through the U.S.-government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, which was started in 1983 under the guiding hand of CIA Director William Casey. NED became a slush fund to help finance what became known, inside the Reagan administration, as perception management, the art of controlling the perceptions of domestic and foreign populations.

6. Access
The 'Washington Post' 'Blacklist' Story Is Shameful and Disgusting



The capital's paper of record crashes legacy media on an iceberg



By Matt Taibbi December 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Rolling Stone " - Last week, a technology reporter for the Washington Post named Craig Timberg ran an incredible story. It has no analog that I can think of in modern times. Headlined "Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say," the piece promotes the work of a shadowy group that smears some 200 alternative news outlets as either knowing or unwitting agents of a foreign power, including popular sites like Truthdig and Naked Capitalism. The thrust of Timberg's astonishingly lazy report is that a Russian intelligence operation of some kind was behind the publication of a "hurricane" of false news reports during the election season, in particular stories harmful to Hillary Clinton. The piece referenced those 200 websites as "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda." The piece relied on what it claimed were "two teams of independent researchers," but the citing of a report by the longtime anticommunist Foreign Policy Research Institute was really window dressing. The meat of the story relied on a report by unnamed analysts from a single mysterious "organization" called PropOrNot  we don't know if it's one person or, as it claims, over 30  a "group" that seems to have been in existence for just a few months. It was PropOrNot's report that identified what it calls "the list" of 200 offending sites. Outlets as diverse as AntiWar.com, LewRockwell.com and the Ron Paul Institute were described as either knowingly directed by Russian intelligence, or "useful idiots" who unwittingly did the bidding of foreign masters. Forget that the Post offered no information about the "PropOrNot" group beyond that they were "a collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds." Forget also that the group offered zero concrete evidence of coordination with Russian intelligence agencies, even offering this remarkable disclaimer about its analytic methods: "Please note that our criteria are behavioral. ... For purposes of this definition it does not matter ... whether they even knew they were echoing Russian propaganda at any particular point: If they meet these criteria, they are at the very least acting as bona-fide 'useful idiots' of the Russian intelligence services, and are worthy of further scrutiny." What this apparently means is that if you published material that meets their definition of being "useful" to the Russian state, you could be put on the "list," and "warrant further scrutiny." Forget even that in its Twitter responses to criticism of its report, PropOrNot sounded not like a group of sophisticated military analysts, but like one teenager: "Awww, wook at all the angwy Putinists, trying to change the subject - they're so vewwy angwy!!" it wrote on Saturday. "Fascists. Straight up muthafuckin' fascists. That's what we're up against," it wrote last Tuesday, two days before Timberg's report. Any halfway decent editor would have been scared to death by any of these factors. Moreover the vast majority of reporters would have needed to see something a lot more concrete than a half-assed theoretical paper from such a dicey source before denouncing 200 news organizations as traitors. But if that same source also demanded anonymity on the preposterous grounds that it feared being "targeted by Russia's legions of skilled hackers"? Any sane reporter would have booted them out the door. You want to blacklist hundreds of people, but you won't put your name to your claims? Take a hike. Yet the Post thought otherwise, and its report was uncritically picked up by other outlets like USA Today and the Daily Beast. The "Russians did it" story was greedily devoured by a growing segment of blue-state America that is beginning to fall victim to the same conspiracist tendencies that became epidemic on the political right in the last few years. The right-wing fascination with conspiracy has culminated in a situation where someone like Alex Jones of Infowars (who believes juice boxes make frogs gay) is considered a news source. Jones is believed even by our new president-elect, who just repeated one of his outrageous reports, to the effect that three million undocumented immigrants voted in the November 8th election. That Jones report was based on a tweet by someone named Greg Phillips of an organization called VoteStand. When asked to comment on his methodology, Phillips replied in the first person plural, sounding like a lone spree killer claiming to be a national terror network. "No. We will release it in open form to the American people," he said. "We won't allow the media to spin this first. Sorry." This was remarkably similar to the response of PropOrNot when asked by The Intercept to comment about its "list" report. The only difference was, Phillips didn't use emoticons: "We're getting a lot of requests for comment and can get back to you today =)" PropOrNot told The Intercept. "We're over 30 people, organized into teams, and we cannot confirm or deny anyone's involvement." "They" never called The Intercept back. Most high school papers wouldn't touch sources like these. But in November 2016, both the president-elect of the United States and the Washington Post are equally at ease with this sort of sourcing. Even worse, the Post apparently never contacted any of the outlets on the "list" before they ran their story. Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism says she was never contacted. Chris Hedges of Truthdig, who was part of a group that won the Pulitzer Prize for The New York Times once upon a time, said the same. "We were named," he tells me. "I was not contacted." Hedges says the Post piece was an "updated form of Red-Baiting." "This attack signals an open war on the independent press," he says. "Those who do not spew the official line will be increasingly demonized in corporate echo chambers such as the Post or CNN as useful idiots or fifth columnists." All of this is an outgrowth of this horrible election season we just lived through. A lot of reporters over the summer were so scared by the prospect of a Trump presidency that they talked  in some cases publicly  about abandoning traditional ideas about journalistic "distance" from politicians, in favor of open advocacy for the Clinton campaign. "Trump is testing the norms of objectivity in journalism," is how The Times put it. These journalists seemed totally indifferent to the Pandora's box they were opening. They didn't understand that most politicians have no use for critical media. Many of them don't see alternative points of view as healthy or even legitimate. If you polled a hundred politicians about the profession, 99 would say that all reporters are obstructionist scum whose removal from the planet would be a boon to society. The only time politicians like the media is when we're helping them get elected or push through certain policies, like for instance helping spread dubious stories about Iraq's WMD capability. Otherwise, they despise us. So news outlets that get into bed with politicians are usually making a devil's bargain they don't fully understand. They may think they're being patriotic (as many did during the Iraq/WMD episode), but in the end what will happen is that they will adopt the point of view of their political sponsors. They will soon enough denounce other reporters and begin to see themselves as part of the power structure, as opposed to a check on it. This is the ultimate in stupidity and self-annihilating behavior. The power of the press comes from its independence from politicians. Jump into bed with them and you not only won't ever be able to get out, but you'll win nothing but a loss of real influence and the undying loathing of audiences. Helping Beltway politicos mass-label a huge portion of dissenting media as "useful idiots" for foreign enemies in this sense is an extraordinarily self-destructive act. Maybe the Post doesn't care and thinks it's doing the right thing. In that case, at least do the damn work. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy. U.S. Journalists and Professors Appearing on RT America Get Blacklisted : Some independent journalists and university professors in the United States who have appeared on RT television to criticize either runaway corruption on Wall Street or in Washington, have landed on two newly created blacklists.
A Bare-Knuckle Fight Over Recounts Democrats are trying to stop Donald Trumps inauguration by claiming Russian interference in the election, but the White House sees no evidence and Trump is now challenging the recounts, reports Joe Lauria. By Joe Lauria December 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Consortium News " - When the Clinton campaign said it would join the recount in three Rust Belt states narrowly lost to Donald Trump, it didnt say its motive was overcoming the vote totals but instead to find out if there was foreign interference in the election. This election cycle was unique in the degree of foreign interference witnessed throughout the campaign, wrote Clinton campaign counsel Marc Elias. The U.S. government concluded that Russian state actors were behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the personal email accounts of Hillary for America campaign officials. During the campaign Hillary Clinton made no secret of where she thought that foreign interference might be coming from. She repeatedly blamed Russia for trying to sway the election. When the Green Partys Jill Stein launched her recount campaign in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (the three states that gave Trump the victory), Steins announcement quoted her on her website as saying that because foreign agents had hacked into party databases, private email servers, and voter databases in certain states, many Americans are wondering if our election results are reliable. Steins page was then updated to eliminate reference to foreign agents in her quote. But her recount petition filed in Wisconsin begins by saying it was widely reported that foreign operators breached voter registration databases in at least two states and stole hundreds of thousands of voter records. The petition then says the U.S. intelligence community is confident Russia was behind the hacks. There is well-documented and conclusive evidence of foreign interference in the presidential race before the election  [that] call[s] into question the results and indicate the possibility that (a) widespread breach occurred, Steins lawyers wrote. In fact the intelligence community has never made public its evidence for independent computer experts to weigh in on. After the election, the Obama administration said it had no proof of Russian interference in the election tallies and that the results accurately reflect the will of the American people. Citing Press Articles Nevertheless, Exhibit A in Steins petition is an affidavit from Professor J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, who alleges that Russia hacked the election. Halderman took part in a conference call with the Clinton campaign last month trying to convince the campaign to seek a recount, which it only did after Stein launched her effort. Exhibit B from Steins petition is an article from Wired Magazine about Russias alleged role in the hack. Exhibit C is a New York Times article quoting DellSecureWorks, a private security firm, saying Russia was behind the hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The company says Podesta clicked on a phishing link to gain access to his account. The Times relied on the companys word that Russian spies were behind the phishing expedition, without also offering any proof that could be analyzed by other computer security experts. Exhibits D through G  meaning all of Steins exhibits  are on alleged Russian hacking. One article is about an alleged attempted Russian hack of the 2014, post-coup Ukrainian election. In her many media appearances since launching the recount campaign, Stein has carefully avoided mentioning Russia, or foreign agents, as she inadvertently did in her initial web posting. But her petition is about nothing else but Russias alleged hacking of the election. Scott McLarty, the Green Party national media coordinator, told me in an email last week that the Green Party has not taken a position on meddling by foreign agents. Since then, top Green Party officials have distanced themselves from Stein, including her running mate, Ajamu Baraka. Im not in favor of the recount, Baraka told CNN. He said he told Stein it was a potentially dangerous move because it would be seen as carrying the water for the Democrats. Margaret Flowers, the Greens Senate candidate in Maryland, posted an open letter signed by several prominent party members saying, While we support electoral reforms, including how the vote is counted, we do not support the current recount being undertaken by Jill Stein. The recount, however, does appear to have gotten under the skin of Donald Trump and his allies who, on Friday, went to courts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, seeking to stop any further examination of the votes. The challenges did not immediately stop the recounts but could create legal complications down the road. Lobbying the Electors Since recounts that overturn the vote totals seem unlikely, it appears the Clinton campaigns Plan B is to use any evidence of tampering that it can pin on Russia to lobby electors to change their votes to Clinton when the Electoral College meets in state capitals on Dec. 19. Trump won the electoral college 306 to 232. That means 38 Republican electors would have to be convinced to change their vote to Clinton to reach the required 270 to win the White House. Finding evidence of hacking of election computers that can somehow be blamed on Russia could be crucial for the Clinton team in their effort to convince electors to change their vote. Russia has been blamed in the U.S. for many things and though proof never seems to be supplied, it is widely believed anyway. It has been accepted as fact by American corporate media, for instance, that Russia invaded Ukraine and had a hand in shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17, though the supposed evidence is more argumentative than conclusive. Emotional appeals to electors patriotism and defense of the American system against interference by Russia could make a persuasive argument, however. At an event at Harvard University on Thursday, Robby Mook, Clintons campaign manager, repeatedly blamed Russia for hacking and tampering with the election. Congress has got to investigate what happened with Russia here, said Mook. It is outrageous that a foreign aggressor got involved in our election. Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Bill Clinton and a Hillary supporter, argued that one reason the electors should flip to Clinton is to stop foreign interference in an election. Quoting on article, he wrote on Facebook: The Framers were extremely concerned about infiltration by rivals including Great Britain. In Federalist No. 68, Hamilton wrote that one major purpose of the Electoral College was to stop the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. He said that the college would, Guard against all danger of this sort  with the most provident and judicious attention from the electors. Reich continued: Theres incontrovertible evidence Russia interfered in the campaign by hacking the email accounts of top Democratic officials and cooperating with WikiLeaks parallel campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton campaign. If such incontrovertible evidence exists, the Obama administrations intelligence community has not shared it with the public. Clinton operatives are also making her victory by more than 2 million popular votes part of their appeal to electors to switch sides. Twenty-four states do not legally bind electors to the popular vote in their states. Elsewhere, electors face fines of about $1,000 if they vote against the will of the people of their states. Laurence Tribe, a well-known and connected Democratic lawyer, has offered to defend pro bono any elector who breaks the law by changing their vote to Clinton. And there are plans to mount a constitutional challenge against the 26 states that legally bind the electors to their states popular vote. Accompanying Media Campaign The lobbying effort to blame Russia and get the electors to flip their votes is being accompanied by an intense media campaign. In the announcement that the Clinton campaign would join the recount, campaign counsel Elias aligned the campaign with an unverified Washington Post article based largely on a shadowy, anonymous group that blamed a list of 200 alternative media sites and political groups for spreading Russian propaganda to influence the election, without providing any evidence. The Washington Post reported that the Russian government was behind much of the fake news propaganda that circulated online in the closing weeks of the election, Elias wrote. A Huffington Post article said one of the eight reasons the electors should overturn the election is because Russian covert action influenced the election. The staunchly pro-Clinton Daily Kos wrote that Even if they never touched a voting machine, theres absolutely no doubt: Russia hacked the election. If evidence of hacking is found in the recounts, the Clinton campaign would be greatly aided in lobbying electors with confirmation from the Obama administration that Russia was behind it. But on the day before the Clinton team joined the recount, the Obama administration appeared to throw a wrench into the plan to blame Russia. The administration said it remained confident in the overall integrity of electoral infrastructure, a confidence that was borne out, adding: As a result, we believe our elections were free and fair from a cyber-security perspective. The timing of that statement may have been intended to undermine Clinton as a split was reported between President Obama and Hillary Clinton over whether to have a recount. Not satisfied with the administrations conclusion, a group of Democratic senators on Thursday asked that information about Russian hacking should be declassified and released to the public. White House press secretary Josh Earnest responded that the administration would take a look at the request. But he added that the intelligence community did not observe an increase in malicious cyber-activity on Election Day from the Russians that was directed at disrupting the casting or counting of ballots. Joe Lauria is a veteran foreign-affairs journalist based at the U.N. since 1990. He has written for the Boston Globe, the London Daily Telegraph, the Johannesburg Star, the Montreal Gazette, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers. He can be reached at joelauria@gmail.com and followed on Twitter at @unjoe. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy. U.S. judge denies pro-Trump groups' effort to halt Wis. recount: U.S. District Judge James Peterson rejected their request for a temporary restraining order to immediately halt the Wisconsin recount. A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Dec. 9.
Trumps Appointments By Paul Craig Roberts December 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - What do they mean? Before I give an explanation, lets be sure we all know what an explanation is. An explanation is not a justification. The collapse of education in the US is so severe that many Americans, especially younger ones, cannot tell the difference between an explanation and a defense, justification, or apology for what they regard as a guilty person or party. If an explanation is not damning or sufficiently damning of what they want damned, the explanation is interpreted as an excuse for the object of their scorn. In America, reason and objective analysis have taken a backseat to emotion. We do not know what the appointments mean except, as Trump discovered once he confronted the task of forming a government, that there is no one but insiders to appoint. For the most part that is correct. Outsiders are a poor match for insiders who tend to eat them alive. Ronald Reagans California crew were a poor match for George H.W. Bushs insiders. The Reagan part of the government had a hell of a time delivering results that Reagan wanted. Another limit on a presidents ability to form a government is Senate confirmation of presidential appointees. Whereas Congress is in Republican hands, Congress remains in the hands of special interests who will protect their agendas from hostile potential appointees. Therefore, although Trump does not face partisan opposition from Congress, he faces the power of special interests that fund congressional political campaigns. When the White House announced my appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Republican Senator Bob Dole put a hold on my appointment. Why? Dole had presidential ambitions, and he saw the rising star of Republican Representative Jack Kemp as a potential obstacle. As I had written the Kemp-Roth bill that had become Reagans economic policy, Dole regarded me in the Treasury as a one-up for Kemp. So, you see, all sorts of motives can plague a presidents ability to form a government. With Trump under heavy attack prior to his inauguration, he cannot afford drawn out confirmation fights and defeats. Does Trumps choice of Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary mean that Goldman Sachs will again be in charge of US economic policy? Possibly, but we do not know. We will have to wait and see. Mnuchin left Goldman Sachs 14 years ago. He has been making movies in Hollywood and started his own investment firm. Many people have worked for Goldman Sachs and the New York Banks who have become devastating critics of the banks. Read Nomi Prins books and visit Pam Martens website, Wall Street on Parade ( http://wallstreetonparade.com ). My sometimes coauthor Dave Kranzler is a former Wall Streeter. Commentators are jumping to conclusions based on appointees past associations. Mnuchin was an early Trump supporter and chairman of Trumps finance campaign. He has Wall Street and investment experience. He should be an easy confirmation. For a president-elect under attack this is important. Will Mnuchin suppport Trumps goal of bringing middle class jobs back to America? Is Trump himself sincere? We do not know. What we do know is that Trump attacked the fake free trade agreements that have stripped America of middle class jobs just as did Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot. We know that the Clintons made their fortune as agents of the One Percent, the only ones who have profited from the offshoring of American jobs. Trumps fortune is not based on jobs offshoring. Not every billionaire is an oligarch. Trumps relation to the financial sector is one as a debtor. No doubt Trump and the banks have had unsatisfactory relationships. And Trump says he is a person who enjoys revenge. What about the hot-headed generals announced as National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense? Both seem to be death on Iran, which is stupid and unfortunate. However, keep in mind that Gen. Flynn is the one who blew the whistle on the Obama regime for rejecting the advice of the DIA and sending ISIS to overthrow Assad. Flynn said that ISIS was a willful decision of the Obama administration, not some unexpected event. And keep in mind that Gen. Mattis is the one who told Trump that torture does not work, which caused Trump to back off his endorsement of torture. So both of these generals, as bad as they may be, are an improvement on what came before. Both have shown independence from the neoconservative line that supports ISIS and torture. Keep in mind also that there are two kinds of insiders. Some represent the agendas of special interests; others go with the flow because they enjoy participating in the affairs of the nation. Those who dont go with the flow are eliminated from participating. Goldman Sachs is a good place to get rich. That Mnuchin left 14 years ago could mean that he was not a good match for Goldman Sachs, that they did not like him or he did not like them. That Flynn and Mattis have taken independent positions on ISIS and torture suggests that they are mavericks. All three of these appointees seem to be strong and confident individuals who know the terrain, which is the kind of people a president needs if he is to accomplish anything. The problem with beating up on an administration before it exists and has a record is that the result can be that the administration becomes deaf to all criticism. It is much better to give the new president a chance and to hold his feet to the fire on the main issues. Trump alone among all the presidential candidates said that he saw no point in fomenting conflict with Russia. Trump alone questioned NATOs continued existence 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trump alone said that he would work to bring middle class jobs back to America. And Trump said that he would enforce immigration laws. Is this racism or is this a defense of citizenship? How is the US a country if there is no difference between illegal aliens and citizens? Commentators of all stripes are making a mistake to damn in advance the only government that campaigned on peace with Russia, restoring middle class jobs, and respect for the countrys borders. We should seize on these promises and hold the Trump administration to them. We should also work to make Trump aware of the serious adverse consequences of environmental degradation. Who is blowing these opportunities? Trump? Mnuchin? Flynn? Mattis? Or us? The more Trump is criticized, the easier it is for the neoconservatives to offer their support and enter the administration. To date he has not appointed one, but you can bet your life that Israel is lobbying hard for the neocons. The neocons still reign in the media, the think tanks, university departments of foreign affairs, and the foreign policy community. They are an ever present danger. Trumps personality means that he is likely to see more reward in being the president who reverses American decline than in using the presidency to augment his personal fortune. Therefore, there is some hope for change occuring from the top rather than originating in the streets of bloody revolution. By the time Americans reach the revolutionary stage of awareness the police state is likely to be too strong for them. So lets give the Trump administration a chance. We can turn on him after he sells us out. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy. U.S. judge denies pro-Trump groups' effort to halt Wis. recount: U.S. District Judge James Peterson rejected their request for a temporary restraining order to immediately halt the Wisconsin recount. A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Dec. 9.
Rafael Correa's Moving Farewell to Fidel



Video



'Fidel will continue to live in the faces of the children who go to school, in the sick whose lives are saved, in the workers who own the fruits of their labors.'

Posted December 03, 2016

Farewell to Fidel



Tariq Ali reflects on the life of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary who stood up to America and won.
Will Vietnam Embrace China After Trump Got Elected? By Andre Vltchek December 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Common wisdom says that after Donald Trump got elected in the United States, Vietnam should be in panic. True, there could be some objective reasons for alarm, if one is truly obsessed with the free trade agreements. The Trans-Pacific Partnership may soon go to the dogs and at least one sizeable part of the Vietnamese leadership was counting on it, hoping that it would boost the economy, particularly its garment and agricultural sectors. However, Vietnam is and always was tough, and on top of it, there are many signs indicating that the public and many government and Party heads are actually demanding a more hardline Communist path, not just more business activities. Earlier this year, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, was re-elected, while Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung was pushed from power. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported: Mr Dung was the partys strongest voice in denouncing Beijing and was credited with Vietnams smooth accession to a US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership. In brief: he was one of the main local advocates of the pro-Western foreign and economic policy, which was setting Vietnam on a dangerous crash course with China. And he is gone After the recent election results in the United States were announced, Vietnam is set to move much closer towards both China and Russia. President-elect Donald Trumps exceptionalist and often anti-Asian rhetoric is already setting off alarm bells all over the region: from Hanoi to Jakarta, and naturally from Manila to Beijing. * Donald Trump is now getting ready to murder the Trans-Pacific Partnership (the 12-nation trade pact). Vietnam, which during the previous years developed (pragmatically) a very close relationship with the Obama administration, is watching nervously. Before the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party earlier this year (and particularly since a new Constitution was adopted in 2013), Vietnam introduced and passed around 100 new laws, some described rightly or wrongly by Western analysts as pro-market economic reforms. Undeniably, some in the Vietnamese leadership believed that their country would be one of the main beneficiaries of the TPP. There was even some muted grumbling about the growing strategic relationship between Vietnam and the United States. To impress the West, particularly the United States, Hanoi kept improving the business climate, easing its trade regulations and yielding to various demands from Western and Asian businesses and corporations. Most alarmingly, Hanois confrontational stand towards China was changing from rhetorical to tangible, after Vietnam began expanding its runway  and according to Reuters and other Western sources  after it began deploying several rocket launchers in or near the disputed area in the South China Sea. * To say that Vietnam changed its basic positions opportunistically and abruptly would be wrong. Even before the US elections, Vietnam began diversifying its foreign policy. Now Hanoi is hoping for the deal that is being proposed by China: a 16-nation agreement called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which would include Vietnam and the rest of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. Relations between Hanoi and Beijing have been rapidly improving. It is becoming clear that Vietnam may be following the example of the Philippines, backing off permanently from the confrontational course with the most populous nation on earth. Significantly, the top Vietnamese leadership recently hosted the outspoken anti-imperialist President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. To quote Gary Sands from the Foreign Policy Blogs: While the previous administration in Hanoi had angered Beijing by seeking legal advice from Manila in order to potentially file their own claim at The Hague, the new leadership under Quang appears to be backing off confrontation with Beijing, along with Manila. Any jointly-coordinated legal or military effort between Hanoi and Manila appears now to be out of the question for fear of provoking the dragon next door, while we await the outcome of hopefully peaceful bilateral negotiations. The ideological stand of the Vietnamese leadership became clear following the death of the Cuban leader Fidel Castro Ruz. The country announced a day of mourning and Vietnams government and Party officials delivered powerful emotional revolutionary and internationalist speeches. * One major problem is that the Western perspective has managed to kidnap almost entirely the narrative on the country  the way all major or minor developments in Vietnam are being perceived and interpreted. This does not necessarily apply to the Vietnamese people, although many of them are actually also consuming Western propaganda at an excessive rate. However, it definitely applies to how the rest of the world understands (or misunderstands) Vietnam. The slowing down of Doi Moi pro-market reforms is hardly addressed by Western mass media. As they hardly address any social changes in neighboring China. In Europe and the US it is generally perceived that both countries are determinately and happily embracing the market economy concepts. The reality couldnt be any farther from that. In China and in Vietnam (although still more in China), the majority of the population has been disappointed, even disgusted, by capitalist practices. People are demanding the re-introduction of essential socialist principles. In China, under the leadership of President Xi, the government is yielding to the peoples demands. It appears that Vietnam is paying close attention to its giant neighbor in the North, and is also willing to reconsider its hard-core pro-market stands. The people of Vietnam may be hopeful, but they are not necessarily content, in the cities and in the countryside. Life is now better than two decades ago, but expectations are also much higher. Socialism Vietnam-style would most likely be welcomed by the majority, and could be coming soon! Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel  Aurora  and two bestselling works of political non-fiction:  Exposing Lies Of The Empire  and  Fighting Against Western Imperialism . View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter . The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy.
Hands off the Iran Deal



Iran seeks to renew its civil fleet by ordering $25 billion of new aircraft from Boeing and Europes Airbus. But Republicans in Congress voted to block the sale, clearly choosing Israels demands over jobs for tens of thousands of US workers. Rarely have we seen so raw an exercise of power.



By Eric S. Margolis December 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - President-elect Donald Trump vows to either tear up or rewrite the recent international nuclear deal with Iran, calling it disastrous, and the worst deal ever negotiated by Washington. Iran, which has closed important nuclear facilities, shut down half its centrifuges, and neutralized its stores of nuclear material under the international agreement, must be wondering if its nuclear deal was not really, really disastrous. In his rush to condemn the Iran deal, Donald Trump seems to be forgetting that the pact was co-signed by Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany and the UN. Backing out of the pact will be no easy matter and sure to provoke a diplomatic storm. The outgoing CIA director, John Brennan, calls Trumps plan to junk the Iran deal the height of folly. Brennan warns that doing so would further destabilize the Mideast and embolden hard-liners on all sides. He could have added that if Iran resumes nuclear enrichment, Israels far right government will likely go to war with Iran in order to preserve its Mideast nuclear monopoly. An Israeli attack on Iran could quickly drag in the United States and become a major Mideast conflict. The Pentagon is not anxious to get involved in yet another war in the Muslim world. Interestingly, some Iranian hardliners actually hope the US will attack Iran: America will break its teeth on Iran, and that will be the end of its Mideast empire, as one overconfident Iranian told me. Adding to tensions, the Iranian nuclear deal has been under heavy attack in the US that may sabotage the pact even without Donald Trumps intervention. The US Israel lobby has made sabotaging the deal with Tehran a priority. Equally important, Israels extraordinary influence over the US Congress and media has been directed at overturning or at least derailing the nuclear accord. Iran is loudly accused of sponsoring terrorism for supporting the Palestinian cause and Lebanons resistance movement Hezbollah and Yemens shadowy Houthi tribal movement. This while the US is arming, supplying and financing ultra-violent anti-regime jihadists in Syria and waging war in East Africa. US Congressmen and senators hypocritically blasted the late Fidel Castro for being a dictator while hailing Egypts brutal dictatorship of Field Marshall al- Sisi and, of course, Chinas dictatorship. At least Castro was esteemed, even loved, by most of his people. One seeks in vain any traces of affection for US-backed dictators like Sisi or the Saudi royal family. Meanwhile, Israels partisans have been waging what they call Lawfare against the Iran deal by trying to obstruct it in many legal and bureaucratic ways, particularly by refusing to removed most of the US trade and financial embargo on Tehran stipulated in the agreement. Europe is also forced, unwillingly, to comply with many of the US trade sanctions against Iran. One of the more egregious examples was recent efforts by Israels supporters in Congress to thwart the sale of some 200 commercial US and European jets to Iran. Over 30 years of US embargo have left Iran with a dilapidated and often perilous transport fleet that has killed large numbers of Iranians in crashes caused by mechanical failures. Iran seeks to renew its civil fleet by ordering $25 billion of new aircraft from Boeing and Europes Airbus. But Republicans in Congress voted to block the sale, clearly choosing Israels demands over jobs for tens of thousands of US workers. Rarely have we seen so raw an exercise of power. Abrogation of the international nuclear deal with Tehran would almost certainly undermine the dominant moderates in Irans government and boost the hardliners back into power. They have all along claimed that the US cannot be trusted. Besides, North Koreas Kim Jong-un has nuclear weapons and no one dares attack him. But Trump will need Russian and European support for Americas other foreign policy headaches. Europe is totally behind the Iran deal and fears its rejection will ignite yet another crisis on its doorstep. Mr. Trump is strongly advised to leave Obamas Iran deal alone. Its one of the outgoing administrations few real foreign policy successes. Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation  Pakistan, Hurriyet,  Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia. http://ericmargolis.com Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2016 The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy.
Was 11/8 a New 9/11?





The Election That Changed Everything and Could Prove Historys Deal-Breaker



By Tom Engelhardt

December 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Tom Dispatch " - For decades, Washington had a habit of using the Central Intelligence Agency to deep-six governments of the people, by the people, and for the people that werent to its taste and replacing them with governments of the [take your choice: military junta, shah, autocrat, dictator] across the planet. There was the infamous 1953 CIA- and British-organized coup that toppled the democratic Iranian government of Mohammad Mosadegh and put the Shah (and his secret police, the SAVAK) in power. There was the 1954 CIA coup against the government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala that installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas; there was the CIAs move to make Ngo Dinh Diem the head of South Vietnam, also in 1954, and the CIA-Belgian plot to assassinate the Congos first elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961 that led, in the end, to the military dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko; there was the 1964 CIA-backed military coup in Brazil that overthrew elected president Jango Goulart and brought to power a military junta; and, of course, the first 9/11 (September 11, 1973) when the democratically elected socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, was overthrown and killed in a U.S.-backed military coup. Well, you get the idea.

In this way, Washington repeatedly worked its will as the leader of what was then called the Free World. Although such operations were carried out on the sly, when they were revealed, Americans, proud of their own democratic traditions, generally remained unfazed by what the CIA had done to democracies (and other kinds of governments) abroad in their name. If Washington repeatedly empowered regimes of a sort Americans would have found unacceptable for ourselves, it wasnt something that most of us spent a whole lot of time fretting about in the context of the Cold War.

At least those acts remained largely covert, undoubtedly reflecting a sense that this wasnt the sort of thing you should proudly broadcast in the light of day. In the early years of the twenty-first century, however, a new mindset emerged. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, regime change became the phrase du jour. As a course of action, there was no longer anything to be covert about. Instead, the process was debated openly and carried out in the full glare of media attention.

No longer would Washington set the CIA plotting in the shadows to rid it of detested governments and put in their place more malleable client states. Instead, as the sole superpower of Planet Earth, with a military believed to be beyond compare or challenge, the Bush administration would claim the right to dislodge governments it disdained directly, bluntly, and openly with the straightforward use of military force. Later, the Obama administration would take the same tack under the rubric of humanitarian intervention or R2P (responsibility to protect). In this sense, regime change and R2P would become shorthand for Washingtons right to topple governments in the full light of day by cruise missile, drone, and Apache helicopter, not to mention troops, if needed. (Saddam Husseins Iraq would, of course, be exhibit A in this process and Muammar Gaddafis Libya, exhibit B.)

With this history in mind and in the wake of the recent election, a question came to me recently: In 2016, did the American people leave the CIA in a ditch and potentially do to themselves what the Agency (and more recently the U.S. military) had done to others? In other words, in the strangest election of our lifetimes, have we just seen something like a slow-motion democratic coup d'etat or some form of domestic regime change?

Only time will tell, but one sign of that possibility: for the first time, part of the national security state directly intervened in an American election. In this case, not the CIA, but our leading domestic investigative outfit, the FBI. Inside it, as we now know, fulminating and plotting had been ongoing against one of the two candidates for president before its director, James Comey, openly, even brazenly, entered the fray with 11 days to go. He did so on grounds that, even at the time, seemed shaky at best, if not simply bogus, and ran against firm department traditions for such election periods. In the process, his intervention may indeed have changed the trajectory of the election, a commonplace in the rest of the world, but a unique moment in this country.

Donald Trumps administration, now filling up with racists, Islamophobes, Iranophobes, and assorted fellow billionaires, already has the feel of an increasingly militarized, autocratic government-in-the-making, favoring short-tempered, militaristic white guys who dont take criticism lightly or react to speed bumps well. In addition, on January 20th, they will find themselves with immense repressive powers of every sort at their fingertips, powers ranging from torture to surveillance that were institutionalized in remarkable ways in the post-9/11 years with the rise of the national security state as a fourth branch of government, powers which some of them are clearly eager to test out.

Blowback and Blowforward as the History of Our Times

It took 22 years -- in the wake of Washingtons 1979 decision to use the CIA to arm, fund, and train the most extreme Afghan (and other) Muslim fundamentalists and so give the Soviet Union a Vietnam-style bloody nose -- for the initial American investment in radical Islam to come home big time. On that blowback path, there would be American military housing in Saudi Arabia blown sky high, two U.S. embassies bombed in Africa, and a U.S. destroyer ripped apart in a harbor in Aden. But it was 9/11 that truly put blowback on the map in this country (and, appropriately enough, turned Chalmers Johnsons book with that title, published in 2000, into a bestseller). Those al-Qaeda attacks, estimated to cost only $400,000, were aimed at three iconic structures: the World Trade Center in Manhattan (representing American financial power), the Pentagon in Washington (military power), and assumedly either the White House or the Capitol (political power) -- as United Airlines Flight 93 was undoubtedly headed there when it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Those strikes by 19 mainly Saudi hijackers were meant to deliver a devastating blow to American amour propre, and so they did.

In response, the Bush administration launched the Global War on Terror, or GWOT (one of the worst acronyms ever), also known to its rabid promoters as the Long War or World War IV. Think of that war, including the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, as a kind of blowforward, or a second vast, long-term investment of time, money, and lives in Islamic extremism that only entrenched the phenomenon further in our world, helped recruit more supporters for it, and spread it ever more widely.

In other words, Osama bin Ladens relatively modest $400,000 investment would lead Washington to squander literally trillions more dollars in ever-expanding wars and insurgencies, and on the targeting of growing, morphing terror outfits in the Greater Middle East and Africa. The resulting years of military effort that spiraled out of control and into disaster in that vast region led to what Ive called an empire of chaos and set a new kind of blowback on a path home, blowback that would change and distort the nature of American governance and society.

Now, 37 years after the first Afghan intervention and 15 years after the second one, in the wake of an American election, blowback from the war on terror -- its generals, its mindset, its manias, its urge to militarize everything -- has come home in a significant way. In fact, we just held what may someday be seen as our first 9/11-style election. And with it, with the various mad proposals to ban or register Muslims and the like, the literal war on terror is threatening to come home big time, too. Based on the last decade and a half of results in distant lands, that cant be good news. (According to the latest report, for instance, fears of persecution are growing even among Muslims in the Pentagon, the CIA, and the Department of Homeland Security, and with Islamophobic sentiments already rampant inside the newly forming Trump administration, you can conclude that this wont end well either.)

Historys Deal-Breaker?

On September 12, 2001, you would have been hard put to guess just how the shock of the attacks of the previous day would play out in the U.S. and the world, so perhaps its idle to speculate on what the events of 11/8/16 will lead to in the years to come. Predictions a dicey business in the best of times, and the future ordinarily is a black hole. But one thing does seem likely amid the murk: with the generals (and other officials) who ran Americas failed wars these last years potentially dominating the national security structure of a future Trump administration, our empire of chaos (including perhaps regime change) will indeed have come home. Its reasonable to think of the victory of Donald Trump and his brand of right-wing corporatist or billionaire populism and of the rising tide of white racism that has accompanied it as a 9/11-style shock to the body politic, even if it proves a slo-mo version of the original event.

As with 9/11, a long, blowback-ridden history preceded 11/8 and Donald Trumps triumph. That history included the institutionalization of permanent war as a way of life in Washington, the growing independent power and preeminence of the national security state, the accompanying growth and institutionalization of the most oppressive powers of that state, including intrusive surveillance of almost every imaginable sort, the return from distant battlefields of the technology and mindset of permanent war, and the ability to assassinate whomever the White House chooses to kill (even an American citizen). In addition, in blowback terms, domestically you would need to include the results of the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision of 2010, which helped release staggering amounts of corporate and 1%er funds from the engorged top of an increasingly unequal society into the political system (without which a billionaire running for president and a cabinet of billionaires and multimillionaires would have been inconceivable).

As I wrote in early October, a significant part of the white working class... feels as if, whether economically or psychologically, its back is up against the wall and theres nowhere left to go... many of these voters have evidently decided that theyre ready to send a literal loose cannon into the White House; theyre willing, that is, to take a chance on the roof collapsing, even if it collapses on them. Think of Donald Trumps election, then, as the victory of the suicide bomber the white working class dispatched to the Oval Office to, as people now say politely, shake things up.

In a moment that, in so many senses, is filling with extremism and in which the jihadists of the national security state are clearly going to be riding high, its at least possible that election 2016 will prove the equivalent of a slow-motion coup in America. Donald Trump, like right-wing populists before him, has a temperament that could lend itself not only to demagoguery (as in the recent election campaign), but to an American version of authoritarianism, especially since in recent years, in terms of a loss of rights and the strengthening of government powers, the country has already moved in an autocratic direction, even if thats been a little noted reality.

Whatever Americans may have ushered in with the events of 11/8, one thing is increasingly certain about the country that Donald Trump will govern. Forget Vladimir Putin and his rickety petro-state: the most dangerous nation on the planet will now be ours. Led by a man who knows remarkably little, other than how to manipulate the media (on which hes a natural-born genius) and, at least in part, by the frustrated generals from Americas war on terror, the United States is likely to be more extreme, belligerent, irrational, filled with manias, and heavily armed, its military funded to even greater levels no other country could come close to, and with staggering powers to intervene, interfere, and repress.

Its not a pretty picture. And yet its just a lead-in to what, undoubtedly, should be considered the ultimate question in Donald Trumps America: With both the CIAs coup-making and the militarys regime-change traditions in mind, could the United States also overthrow a planet? If, as the head of what's already the worlds second largest greenhouse gas emitter, Trump carries out the future energy policies he promised during the election campaign -- climate-science funding torn up, climate agreements denounced or ignored, alternative energy development downplayed, pipelines green-lighted, fracking and other forms of fossil-fuel extraction further encouraged, and the U.S. fully reimagined as the Saudi Arabia of North America -- he will, in effect, be launching a regime-change action against Planet Earth.

All the rest of what a Trump administration might do, including ushering in a period of American autocracy, would be just part and parcel of human history. Autocracies come and go. Autocrats rise and die. Rebellions break out and fail. Democracies work and then dont. Life goes on. Climate change is, however, none of that. It may be part of planetary history, but not of human history. It is instead historys potential deal-breaker. What the Trump administration does to us in the years to come could prove a grim period to live through but a passing matter, at least when compared to the possible full-scale destabilization of life on Earth and of history as weve known it these last thousands of years.

This would, of course, put 9/11 in the shade. The election victory of 11/8 might ultimately prove the shock of a lifetime, of any lifetime, for eons to come. Thats the danger weve faced since 11/8, and make no mistake, it could be devastating.

Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World .

Copyright 2016 Tom Engelhardt
A former minister of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Bola Kuforiji-Olubi, 80, is reportedly dead.

She was said to have died, Saturday morning in Lagos.

An online platform, The Elites reported that she died at 11:30am.

The banker, recently visited President Muhammadu Buhari to thank him for his contribution to her success. She said that it was Buhari as a military Head of State that appointed her the first female Chairman of United Bank for Africa.

She said, Having turned 80, I looked at my life and made a list of those who contributed to what I have become in my life and the name of President Muhammadu Buhari came topmost on the list.

This is why I am here to pay my respect and thank him, she said.

Dr. Olubi was born September 28, 1936. The former ICAN president graduated from the University of London in 1963. She was appointed the first female chairman of the United Bank for Africa, UBA in 1984.

Source: BreakingTimes
A fake US embassy in Accra run by a criminal network has been busted by authorities in Ghana.

According to the US State Department, the sham embassy has been in operation for a decade issuing illegally obtained authentic visas.

Until it was shut down, it was housed in a run-down, pink two-story building with a corrugated iron roof and flew a US flag outside.

Inside hung a portrait of US President Barack Obama.

It was not operated by the United States government, but by figures from both Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings and a Ghanaian attorney practising immigration and criminal law, the State Department said in a statement released late on Friday.

Turkish citizens, who spoke English and Dutch, posed as consular officers and staffed the operation.

The crime ring issued fraudulently obtained but legitimate US visas and false identification documents, including birth certificates at a cost of US$6,000 each, the statement said.

During raids that led to a number of arrests, authorities also seized authentic and counterfeit Indian, South African and Schengen Zone visas and 150 passports from 10 different countries along with a laptop and smart phones.

The statement did not say how the gang obtained the authentic visas. And the State Department did not say how many people were believed to have illegally entered the United States and other countries using visas issued by the crime ring, which used bribery to operate unhindered.
In its continuous efforts to ensure information and communications technology, ICT, is deployed in all aspects of governance in the country, the Federal Government has partnered with Sokoto State government on the development of ICT.

The Minister of Communication, Mr Adebayo Shittu, made this disclosure after a meeting Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State in Abuja.

He said that the proper use of ICT would go a long way in improving the lifestyle of Nigerians.

On his part, Gov Tambuwal expressed joy with the collaboration, saying his state is looking forward to work with the FG toward effective ICT usage.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is set to re-arrest and prosecute a former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori, who will return to the country after completion of his prison sentence in Britain on December 20, 2016.

Barring last minute changes, the former governor will be arraigned on 170 charges bordering on money laundering and corruption.

A Southwark Crown court had on April 17, 2012, sentenced Ibori to 13 years in prison after the ex-governor pleaded guilty to 10 counts of money laundering and stealing $250m from the treasury.

Following his conviction in the UK, there were criticisms of the Nigerian justice system, especially an Asaba High Court which had struck out 170 charges which the EFCC had brought against Ibori.

However, the EFCC took the matter to the Appeal Court where a three-man panel of justices on May 15, 2014, at the Benin Division of the Court of Appeal ruled that the ex- governor, who is currently serving a 13-year jail term in a London prison, has a case to answer.

The appellate court panel, led by Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, ordered that the case be re-assigned to another judge of the Federal High Court for continuation of trial.

The EFCC subsequently said in a statement in 2014 that the ex-governor would be re-arrested upon the completion of his prison sentence.

The EFCC statement read, With this judgment, the coast is clear for Ibori to face trial in Nigeria upon the completion of his jail term in London.

However, an EFCC source told the Punch that the legal department of the commission would have to look into the matter again.

He said, Indeed Ibori still has a case to answer but it will be reviewed and charges might be amended.

However, Chairman of Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay, SAN, also told Punch that there was no need prosecuting Ibori again.

Sagay, speaking in his personal capacity, said that Ibori had already been punished and prosecuting him again could amount to human rights abuse.

He said, It will constitute double jeopardy because he was been punished according to the law and any attempt to arrest him and make him go through the process a second time will be unconstitutional.

Bori has lost a house in Hampstead, North London, worth 2.2m; a property in Shaftesbury, Dorset, worth 311,000; a 3.2m mansion in Sandton, near Johannesburg, South Africa; a fleet of armoured Range Rovers valued at 600,000; a 120,000 Bentley Continental GT; and a Mercedes-Benz Maybach 62 bought for 407,000 cash in the corruption case.

Source: Dailypost
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has urged the public to disregard the speculations that it had commenced the sales of its application documents for 2017 UTME by some group of persons.

The boards head of media and information, Fabian Benjamin, debunked the speculations in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, on Sunday in Lagos.

According to the statement, the registrar of the examination body, Ishaq Oloyede, has expressed disappointment with the development and called on innocent Nigerians not to fall prey.

The public is hereby notified that JAMB has not commenced the sales of its application documents as advertised by some unknown and desperate persons.

They are to disregard any website or individuals claiming to be in possession of these documents and offering same for sales.

We are putting finishing touches to innovation and changes to ease the challenges associated with the procedure of application for the 2017 all Computer-Based Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

We are looking forward to announcing the commencement of the sales of these documents very soon, the statement quoted the registrar as saying.

The statement advised the public to feel free to contact the board for clarification on its activities through its website or contact numbers whenever they were in doubt.

It noted that Mr. Oloyede had announced his willingness to open the boards door to the public to make valuable contributions and also report any act against the boards pedigree by either the staff or the boards development partners.

We must all be interested in what happens in JAMB, as it is too important to be ignored.

Help us to watch over where our eyes cannot get to, hear where our ears fail and be our police where our presence is insufficient, the statement said.

It added that the Registrar had restated the boards determination to ensure that nobody was spared in sustaining and advancing the credibility of the board.

Meanwhile, the board has hailed the judgment of the National Industrial Court sustaining the sack of one of its former staff, Cletus Uloko, in 2015.

According to the statement, Mr. Ulokos services were terminated following acts of misconduct contrary to civil service rule.

It said Mr. Uloko was sacked because he was wrongfully in procession of over 120 e-slip of candidates without authorisation and justification.

The statement explained that upon the development, Mr. Uloko was queried and on responding, his explanation was not satisfactory to the board.

It further said that the board then constituted a disciplinary committee which recommended that Mr. Uloko ran foul and breached all the extant civil service laws and therefore sacked him.

According to the statement, based on the termination of the appointment, Mr. Uloko approached the National Industrialist Court to seek for redress, compensation and reinstatement.

The statement explained that in a notification of termination of suit made available by the JAMB legal team to the board said: We, by this letter, hereby notify the board that final judgment had been delivered on the matter on September 27.

The letter then noted that the court dismissed the claimants suit.

Source: NAN
The jungle justice meted out to the man who claims to be a filmmaker and movie marketer for nine iPhones from a shop on Medical Road was the beginning before his arraignment at an Ikeja Magistrate Court on Thursday for stealing.

With the advent of social media, however, fans and followers would always have their say in any matter of interest to them. And this was no exception.

Upon releasing the statement,

@mhz_zeal wrote: Karma is a bitch while @walking goldmine wondered: How could you have gone to the shop to buy 9 iPhones with no money on you, then took those phones to the car bcos you needed to fetch money?

Why not leave the phones, go for the money and make payment before taking them to your vehicle?

Also having her say, @queenstacyp wrote:

He was advertising for iPhone.

He is now a proud brand ambassador for them your cup will soon overflow and jungle justice will be the next. You better join MMM and stop this petty stealing.

Adding a comic angle to it, @ abunmsy wrote:

He even stole the English because I know he cant speak good English.

Meanwhile, Toyin Aimakhu who remains Egbegbes biggest claim to fame, has refused to be drawn into the messy incident.

She has been busy on social media in the last few days but has concentrated on posting pictures from a movie location she is shooting in Abeokuta and environs.

In fact, one of her followers pointedly urged her to say something about the matter a few days ago but she refused to say anything as at the time of going to press.

Following his arraignment, Egbegbe was remanded in prison custody at Kirikiri on Thursday with a bail bond of N1million with two sureties in like sum after he pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs) in partnership with Y!/YNaija.com has announced the speakers at the 2016 Human Rights discussion conference themed: Human Rights, Sexuality and the Law.

The conference, which will take place on December 14, 2016 at Four Points by Sheraton, Victoria Island, Lagos, will be an earnest inquiry into the issues of human right violations in Nigeria and it is organized to mark the 2016 International Human Rights Week.

Speaking on the selected speakers for the event, Olumide Makanjuola, Executive Director of TIERS, said, Human rights in Nigeria is an issue that requires a serious examination. It is an important discussion that we need to have as a society and as a country. Speakers at this years event were selected based on their long standing on the issues of human right violation, law and protection in Nigeria.

Panelist at the event include Abayomi Shogunle, Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) at Nigeria Police Force; Cheta Nwanze, Chief Executive Officer, SBM Intelligence; Latasha Ngwube, Founder, About That Curvy Life/Content Writer at Vanguard Allure Magazine; Joy Isi Bewaji, Writer, Lifestyle Editor, Presenter, Publicist, Scriptwriter, Author at Happening Magazine; and Ayokunle Odekunle, Associate, Kenna Partners (Barristers and Solicitors) & Director, Corporate and Legal at BBG Media Group; Osikhena Dirisu (Osi Suave), On Air Personality and TV host.

The panel will be moderated by Chioma Agwuegbo, Founder at TechHer, while the keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Ruben Abati, the former Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.

To confirm your attendance for this event, please click on the link below:

http://evite.me/PDtuD3F6BJ
Expanded Limit Bounce for Midweek Cotton Barchart - Wed Nov 2, 4:43PM CDT Front month cotton futures extended their bounce on Wednesday, with 4 cent gains through the May 23 contract. December gapped higher to start the day, and failed to close the gap. The online cotton... CTZ22 : 79.25 (+0.32%) CTH23 : 78.00 (-0.81%) CTK23 : 77.22 (-2.07%)

Cattle Close Mixed on Feeder Strength Barchart - Wed Nov 2, 4:43PM CDT Feeder cattle futures ended the day with triple digit gains capturing some of the weakness in the corn market. Fats bled 7 to 55 cents weaker on Wednesday, though August 23 ended the day up by 12 cents.... LEZ22 : 151.400s (-0.36%) LEG23 : 154.900s (-0.23%) LEJ23 : 158.500s (-0.24%) GFX22 : 178.925s (+1.13%) GFF23 : 180.000s (+1.01%)

Hog Futures Fall on Wednesday Barchart - Wed Nov 2, 4:43PM CDT Lean hog futures closed the midweek session with $0.42 to $1.90 losses on the day. December was down the most on the day with a 2.2% loss to the lowest since 10/17. The USDA National Average Base Hog Price... HEZ22 : 83.300s (-2.23%) HEJ23 : 92.650s (-1.01%) KMZ22 : 93.850s (-1.60%)

Soy Futures Close Mixed Barchart - Wed Nov 2, 4:43PM CDT Soymeal futures ended the session off the lows but still down by $0.30 to $1.20/ton. Soy oil was the leader on the day, having rallied +3% on the crude oil strength. Beans themselves found balance from... ZSX22 : 1440-0 (unch) ZSPAUS.CM : 14.1311 (+0.60%) ZSF23 : 1449-0 (-0.34%) ZSH23 : 1456-6 (-0.33%)

Hard Losses for Midweek Wheat Barchart - Wed Nov 2, 4:43PM CDT Russia re-entering participation for the Black Sea grain export corridors dropped the market back to last weeks levels. CBT SRW gave back 4.5% to 6.2% on the day and mostly erased the gains to start... ZWZ22 : 839-4 (-0.77%) ZWH23 : 858-4 (-0.75%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.7768 (-6.65%) KEZ22 : 935-6 (-0.48%) KEPAWS.CM : 8.9804 (-5.26%) MWZ22 : 944-6 (-0.47%)

Corn Markets Close Red Barchart - Wed Nov 2, 4:43PM CDT Corn futures ended the day off their lows, but still gave back 5 3/4 to 10 1/4 cents on the day. December printed a wide 17 1/4 cent range. Analysts project corn bookings were between 250k MT and 600k... ZCZ22 : 685-0 (-0.36%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.8342 (-1.34%) ZCH23 : 690-4 (-0.32%) ZCK23 : 690-0 (-0.36%)

Did You Pivot? Fed, the need to know. Blue Line Futures - Wed Nov 2, 4:00PM CDT Our daily video . . .
In a seminar about the new NGOs law Thursday, representatives from the Egyptian parliament and civil society organisations discussed the impact of the newly approved NGOs law on the work of civil society organisations and whether it is in line with the constitution and international human rights conventions.

Talaat Abdel-Qawy, president of the Public Union of NGOs and a former member of the 50-member Committee that drafted the 2014 Constitution, said in the seminar organised by the Law and Society Research Unit (LSRU) at the American University in Cairo, that new NGOs law is positive for civil society organisations and is in accordance, particularly, with Article 75 of the constitution that addresses NGOs work.

Article 75 of Egypts constitution stipulates that all citizens shall have the right to form non-governmental associations and foundations on a democratic basis, which shall acquire legal personality upon notification. Such associations and foundations shall have the right to practice their activities freely, and administrative agencies may not interfere in their affairs or dissolve them, or dissolve their boards of directors or boards of trustees save by a court judgment.

On the other hand, Mohamed Zaree, a researcher and member of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, argued in the seminar that the newly approved law has does not conform in any way to international conventions as well as the constitution.

On Tuesday, two-thirds of Egypts MPs passed a new 89-article law aimed at regulating the operations of NGOs in the country, after being reviewed by the State Council on its constitutional consistency, despite criticism from rights groups which condemned some of its articles.

The law has to be ratified by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi before it goes in effect, replacing Law 84 of 2002 which currently regulates the work of NGOs.

MP Mohamed Abo Hamed, who is deputy head of parliaments social solidarity committee that drafted the new NGOs law, contended that it [the new NGOs law] is on the side of the civil society organisations.

Explaining the rationale

Abdel-Qawy, whose organisations supports the new legislation, said that the main arguments against the new law focus on penalties for violations, the new body to govern and supervise NGOs and certain restrictions, such the prohibition on conducting surveys without state approval.

In the new NGOs law, Article 70 stipulates that a new body - the National Foreign NGOs Regulation Apparatus (NFNRA) - would oversee all the activities of foreign NGOs in Egypt, including all forms of their cooperation with governmental and non-governmental institutions inside the country, as well as supervise all forms of foreign funding given to local Egyptian NGOs and civil society organisations."

The body will include 10 representatives of the ministries of defence, foreign affairs, justice, interior, the general intelligence apparatus, Illicit Gains Authority and the central bank.

Abo Hamed argued that the logic behind NFNRA is centralise the process of applications and approvals for civil society organisations.

When a foreign NGO intends to work in Egypt, it would normally have to approach several ministries for approval, but as per this law, the NGO would have to approach only one body, said Abo Hamed.

Abdel-Qawy also praised the creation of such a body, saying we had a coordinating committee from the ministry of social solidarity with some representative from other ministries, but not as [broad] as this one.

According to the new law, NFNRA has to approve foreign funds for NGOs within three months of an application. If there is no response by the NFNRA at the end of this timeframe, the request would be considered rejected.

Asked in the seminar what NGOs should do if after the waiting period funding is rejected, Abdel-Qawy said that there are other funding sources for NGOs, varying from donations, membership subscriptions to self-generated profits.

Only one percent of NGOs are foreign funded, Abdel-Qawy contended.

Abdel-Qawy went on underlining what he sees as the positive aspects of the law and their rationale.

He argued the NGO law achieved an important thing by creating legal accountability for heads of civil society organisations.

Article 87 of the approved sets one to five-year prison sentences, and fines of EGP 50,000 to EGP 1 million, for violations the law by a head of an organisation.

Moreover, Abdel-Qawy hailed Article 14 that forbids NGOs from conducting fieldwork or public opinion surveys as well as publishing surveys without government permission.

MP Abo Hamed, who is a member of the parliamentary pro-government coalition Support Egypt which overwhelming voted for the law, seconded Abdel-Qawy, saying that the article prevents information gathering by foreign parties disguised as research or development projects.

Sharp criticism of law

On the other hand, MP Nadia Henry criticised the law, saying that NGOs should not be under threat of imprisonment.

The law has to be in accordance with international conventions on human rights. There should be no doubts about the constitutionality of the law. And it is not clear why the philosophy of this law would be based on fear.

Article 2 of the new NGOs law states that the operations of NGOs should follow executive bylaws to be issued later, and must not "disrupt national security, public order and decency."

We all for national security and we salute the states efforts in that regards and we do help in the process; but it would not be possible to [achieve these goals] through such a law, MP Henry said.

If you are supervising 84,000 NGOs with [only] a problematic 100 or even 1,000 NGOs, such a law should not have been issued.

There are MPs who object to the law and how it passed parliament without sufficient time for representatives to discuss the bill."

In mid-November, the law, which was drafted by the chairman of parliament's social solidarity committee, Abdel-Hadi El-Qasabi, and 203 other MPs, was preliminarily approved.

On Wednesday, the opposition 25-30 parliamentary bloc called on the president not to ratify the NGOs law, asking him to return it to parliament for further discussion.

The 25-30 bloc's statement said the approved law would turn hundreds of thousands of civil society organisations workers into "suspects."

Even from an economic point of view, the new body [NFNRA] costs more money. Why not develop ministerial staff instead of spending more money? said Henry, who sits parliaments economic committee.

Agreeing with Henry, Zaree, who worked on previous NGOs draft laws, slammed the law saying that it is an announcement of war on civil society.

As per the new law, if a civil society organisation wants to do something as little as hire a foreigner as an intern, the NFNRA  which includes representatives of ministries as defence and foreign ministry  has to approve, Zaree objected.

Should 10 ministries gather to hire this one intern? he exclaimed.

I am not even talking about how the law is treating civil society organisations as suspects. Im here talking about the financial burden, Zaree noted, saying that the new law adds up bureaucratic (and thereby economic) obstacles in front of NGOs.

I know of a development NGO that has been trying to register for the past two years and they have already paid EGP 70,000, and they are not sure whether they will be allowed to register or, if they do, get sources of funds.

The new law stipulates 60 working days not 60 days to answer registration applications per the constitution; This means three months to approve a request, and then wait for the social solidarity ministry to give the green light to the banks to allow the NGO to open an account; this could take up to a year.

We do not oppose supervision per se but we differ on the mechanisms of supervision, Zaree remarked.

Zaree highlighted that the new law prohibits NGOs from working in fields permitted by the constitution, citing the laws Article 13 that bars NGOs from working on issues addressed by syndicates and political parties.

Article 75 in the constitution only prohibits NGOs from conducting secretive work or work of a military or quasi-military nature, he said.

Moreover, the new NGO law prohibits the conduction of any human development activities not in accordance with the states development plan, Zaree said.

He pointed out that the new NGO law created new penalties - including fines and prison sentences - for violators, whereas all previous laws simply used penalties stipulated in the penal code.

In the case of polls or surveys, if I did a field survey for the project, I can be personally imprisoned for five years and fined, or the NGO itself can be dissolved.

Zaree argued that the new law does not overall conform to the constitution, and also contradicts international human rights conventions that affirm that every citizen has economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Human rights organisations work in Egypt is already almost 'finished' due travel bans [on members] and other decisions , he said.

Several rights activists have been banned by the authorities from travelling this year.

In November, three renowned rights activists, Aida Seif El-Dawla, co-founder of the Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, Azza Soliman, head of the Centre for Egyptian Women Legal Assistance (CEWLA) and Ahmed Ragheb, director of the National Community for Human Rights and Law (NCHRL) were banned from travelling while on their way to attend international conferences.

There has not been any confirmation El-Dawla was banned from travel for facing charges, but both of Ragheb and Soliman were told by authorities that they are facing investigation in a case related to alleged illegal foreign funding of a number of NGOs in the country.

Zaree himself has been banned from travelling since May when he attempted to fly to Tunisia to attend a workshop. He has not yet been summoned for questioning.

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights, where Zaree works, is under investigation in the so-called NGOs Case.

In March, the justice ministry re-opened investigation in the case, which dates back to late 2011, where dozens of NGOs have been accused of receiving illegal funding from foreign governments and institutions.

A number of prominent activists are being investigated in the case, including Hossam Bahgat, a founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), Gamal Eid, a lawyer and founder of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), and Mozn Hassan, director and founder of Nazra for Feminist Studies.

All three have been banned from travel. Bahgat's and Eid's assets have been frozen. The activists are appealing these decisions.

In April, an Egyptian administrative court ruled that non-governmental organisations have the right to receive foreign funding.

Two weeks ago, 60 international and local organisations as well as 22 NGOs and six political parties released two similar statements condemning the new NGO law, saying it would end civil society.

Economic impact

This law would not allow NGOs to help in this time of economic crisis in Egypt, including small and medium enterprises attempting to offer humanitarian assistance, Zaree argued.

MP Henry said: There is a [negative] economic impact for this law. Egypt is facing one of its toughest economic times; civil society has an active role to play in allievating the peoples suffering and reducing poverty.

Since November, prices of many essential goods have risen after the government freely floated the Egyptian pound as part of its economic reform plan to alleviate a currency shortage and stabilise the country's flagging economy.

The state calls for a strong social safety net, but they forget that this net already exists through civil society organisations, in unemployment, infrastructure, human development, and volunteer work." Henry said.

If this law is ratified by the president, it would add burdens on the Egyptian citizen and the government.

Calls for a new law

Before 2011, there had been calls by civil society organisations for a new law to replace the 2002 NGO law. From 2012 to 2016, there were 36 drafts law, said MP Abo Hamed.

It was always said that the law should not be drafted by the government but by parliament. It has always been on [the parliament's] agenda to draft a bill, so we gathered previous draft laws and ideas.

We heard about the cabinet-sponsored bill only in public statements, but we did not officially receive anything until 2 November, the MP said, adding that the parliament has been working on a draft bill since August.

Abdel-Qawy, a former MP during Mubaraks era, said, I have been working on one ever since 2006. The Ministry of Social Solidarity has had a final bill at the end of 2014; [the ministry] conducted societal dialogue on the draft and submittid it to the cabinet this September.

Meanwhile, MP Abdel-Hadi Qasdi exercised his constitutional right to submit a bill proposal as per law. The bill was submitted with 203 MP signatories, not only the required 60 signatures, Abdel-Qawy said.

MP Abo Hamed said that, Parliaments NGO bill was not a secret; it was public knowledge that we submitted the draft law.

Zaree disagreed with Abo Hamed's assertions, saying that No one heard this bill was submitted on 6 September.

Asked by Ahram Online about when the draft became public, Abo Hamed said We have been working on it for eight months, but it was announced publicly when it was referred to the [social solidarity] committee at the start of September.

About the inclusion of national civil society bodies such as the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) and National Council for Women, in discussions on the draft bill, Abo Hamed said that, The constitution mandates that the bill be sent to all parties concerned, but we should not delay our work to wait for their feedback because our main target was to make sure the law has constitutional consistency.

The NCHR report said that the bill might not be constitutional, but it is not their area of specialisation, it is the State Councils, he told Ahram Online.

Parliament versus Cabinet bills

MP Abo Hamed said that The main area of contention on the law between us (parliament) and the social solidarity ministry is [NFNRA].

In a letter to parliament last week, the ministry opposed the creation of the new body, arguing that the ministry itself can perform regulatory activities and warning that the creation of NFNRA would be a costly bureaucratic move, especially at a time when the government is struggling to reduce the budget deficit and implement administrative reform.

The minister [Ghada Waly] proposed that the body would be under the auspicies of the ministry and she head it herself, said Abo Hamed, adding this proposal was rejected as it contradicts the purpose of NFNRA of being a comprehensive body.

The new law stipulates that NFNRA would carry out its duties under the jurisdiction of the Cabinet.

Abdel-Qawy pointed to another difference between the parliament and Cabinet proposals  the Cabinet draft bill only referred to penalties already existing in the penal code, while the newly approved law stipulates new penalties.

Road forward

MP Abo Hamad said that the new legislation's bylaws will be drafted by the Cabinet, adding that the parliaments social solidarity committee will take part in the process.

We will make sure everything the bylaws are clear."

Upon its ratification, any citizen can appeal the constitutionality of any of the law's article in front on the Supreme Constitutional Court, Abo Hamad said.

The new law gives existing NGOs one year to adjust their legal conditions, instead of six months as was proposed in an earlier draft circulated two weeks ago.

This new law will be implemented before the end of this parliament session; if it obstructs the work of civil society we should revisit it in parliament, MP Henry said.

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Egypt's Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said on Sunday that the country's contentious protest law will be amended after a court ruled one of its articles unconstitutional, and that a committee is currently looking into a controversial decision to lift import taxes on poultry.

Ismail said during a press conference at the cabinet headquarters that the 2013 protest law will be "amended" after a court ruled on Saturday that an article that grants the interior ministry authority to deny protest requests was unconstitutional.



"Draft legislation will then be submitted to the cabinet before review by the parliament," he said, according to MENA.

The court has however upheld other challenged articles, including one that imposes jail sentences and hefty fines for unauthorised demonstrations, something that critics say are broadly defined.

Saturday's ruling has angered rights campaigners who say the law as a whole is unconstitutional and that the ruling means that hundreds of protesters arrested under the legislation will remain in prison.

Ismail also spoke about a decision last week to exempt frozen poultry from taxes and custom duties, which has caused uproar among local poultry producers who argue the move will hurt local industry, saying that a government committee "is studying the [new] move from all aspects" and will draw up a report on the matter.

Locally produced poultry known as "balady" chicken, which many consumers prefer, is currently more expensive than imported frozen chicken.



The government says the decision is aimed at keeping prices stable after recent hikes, while producers claim prices haven't been subject to fluctuations in the first place, arguing that the decision was unnecessary.

Ismail also said during Saturday's press conference that the country's finance ministry is mulling the adoption of progressive taxation, a longstanding demand by many left-of-centre political groups. A report by the ministry on the matter will be put to the cabinet by the end of this year.

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The One Child Policy is a law in China which is aimed to control population growth. This law restricts each urban parents to have one offspring only. As a result, some parents prefer to have sons instead of daughters. There are about 30 to 60 million "missing girls" in China because of the policy. It was believed that female children were killed in the womb or after birth. Recently, though, a team of researchers found that these "missing girls" may not have been killed after all.

A Lot Of Female Children Are Unregistered At The Time Of Birth

Researchers John Kennedy of the University of Kansas and Shi Yaojiang of Shaanxi Normal University conducted a study about China's missing girls, and found that they were simply unregistered.

"People think 30 million girls are missing from the population. That's the population of California, and they think they're just gone. Most people are using a demographic explanation to say that abortion or infanticide are the reasons they don't show up in the census and that they don't exist. But we find there is a political explanation," Kennedy said.

Kennedy and Yaojiang gathered information from villagers in rural China and used Chinese population data that spanned for a period of 25 years. They discovered that families wait until a female child is 10 to 20 years old before they register.

China Finally Abandon The One Child Policy

Just earlier this year, the most populated country in the world finally abandoned the One Child Policy. However, a lot of people are still concerned about the effects of the gender ratio.

"If 30 million women are truly missing, then there's going to be more males than females of marriageable age as they start looking for wives. There is nothing more socially unstable than a bunch of testosterone with nowhere to go," Kennedy concluded.
Sometimes, even when we are wide awake, we fail to pay attention. Researchers from Stanford found the reason why this is so. They say that every section of the brain cycles in and out of sleep all day, while you're awake.

Our Brain Independently Sleeps And Awakens All The Time

This new study recorded the activity of columns of neurons in the brain. What the researchers found was that each column of the brain's neurons would cycle together, like the ebbing and flowing of a wave. The brain cycles that happen when awake is the same cycle that happens when asleep. The research team used extremely sensitive pins that records activity from a column of brain neurons.

Senior author Kwabena Boahen said: "During an on state the neurons all start firing rapidly. Then all of a sudden they just switch to a low firing rate. This on and off switching is happening all the time, as if the neurons are flipping a coin to decide if they are going to be on or off."

The research team also noticed that alert animals and humans tend to have more dilated pupils. This demonstrates an interaction between synchronous oscillations in the brain, the ability to pay attention to a task, and external signs of alertness.

Why Can't The Brain Stay Active All The Time?

A question arises as to why the brain doesn't stay awake at all times. Boahen said it could be because of energy. "There is a metabolic cost associated with neurons firing all the time," he said. The brain uses a lot of energy, so it could be giving its brain cells some time to recharge.

Also, when neurons are very active, they produce cellular by-products that can damage the cells. Giving it time to cope would mean allowing it to clear out those neuronal waste.
After six years and 10,000 deaths, the United Nations (UN) issued a carefully and clearly worded public apology on Thursday for its role in the 2010 cholera outbreak especially in Haiti and the widespread suffering it has caused since then. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon himself apologized Thursday for the UN not doing enough to contain the spread of a cholera outbreak in Haiti.

United Nations Apologizes For Cholera Spread In Haiti

The UN has long refuted claims that Nepalese peacekeepers brought cholera to the island nine months after the destructive earthquake happened. The first known appearance of the disease there in over 150 years. Scientists, victims' families and all the advocacy groups accused peacekeepers, especially UN, of spreading cholera through improper sanitation disposal at their base near a river.

According to CNN, with a month left in his term, Secretary Ban issued the carefully worded apology as part of an announcement of a new plan to eradicate the disease."On behalf of the United Nations, I want to say very clearly: We apologize to the Haitian people," Ban told the UN General Assembly. "We simply did not do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and its spread in Haiti.

Mr. Bans apology, as reported by NY Times, is part of his push for redress in Haiti before the end of his 10-year tenure on Dec. 31. Yet the people of Haiti have seen few tangible benefits so far. The United Nations has not yet met its promise to eradicate cholera once and for all from Haiti, though Mr. Bans aides said on Thursday that they were close to raising the $200 million.

What Is Cholera?

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Cholera remains a global threat to public health and an indicator of inequity and lack of social development. Researchers have estimated that every year, there are roughly 1.3 to 4.0 million cases, and 21 000 to 143 000 deaths worldwide due to cholera.
"Days of Our Lives" spoilers for Monday, Dec. 5 hint at Gabi cutting ties with JJ after getting too cozy with Chad. This could prompt Abby to finally reveal herself to protect her brother. On the other hand, Theo continues his scheme to ditch Valerie out of his father's life, while Rafe seeks Kate's help to get Hope out of prison.

Gabi Dumps JJ

JJ (Casey Moss) was glad to inform Abby (Marci Miller) that he'd secretly set Gabi (Camila Banus) to a date with him with hopes that she and Chad (Billyn Flynn) are just friends. "Days of Our Lives" spoilers hint that Gabi would tell JJ straight that everything between them might no longer work. JJ would get upset and remember Gabi has felt this way because she's getting closer with Chad (Billy Flynn). If Abby knows about her brother's frustrations, would it prompt her to finally show up to Chad? Preview for Monday shows that Abby realizes that it's about time for her to show up.

Theo Discovers Nasty Stuff In Valerie's Phone

In the meantime, Theo (Kyler Pettis) gets his hand on Valerie's (Vanessa Williams) phone and discovers something nasty. Abe (James Reynolds) finds out about Theo snooping around Valerie and it will cause him some troubles. Theo sees his father falling for her again so there's no stopping him from ditching Valerie out of the picture.

Rafe Seek Kate's Help

Elsewhere, Hope (Kristian Alfonso) wins Hattie's (Deidre Hall) sentiments after she had been mistreated in jail. Hattie tells Hope her past that got her into trouble. Hope travels back to past wishing how she'd like to change it. In the meantime, Rafe (Galen Gering) and Shawn (Brandon Beemer) have latest developments in search for evidence that will lead Hope out of prison.

"Days of Our Lives" spoilers hints at the duo seeking the help of Kate (Lauren Koslow) about Stefano's (Joseph Mascolo) physician. Later on, they'll work on proving that Stefano had committed suicide and progress ensues further through the emails Rafe has on hand.

"Days of Our Lives" airs Mondays thru Fridays at 2:00 p.m. ET on NBC.
Sebastian Stan just teased what may have been the biggest reveal in the Marvel Universe as the fans await the release of the film next "Captain America" movie franchise. Could it be true that Winter Soldier will become the new Captain America?

Bucky/Winter Soldier's Sebastian Stan Teases Photo About Buck Becoming The New Captain America?

In an Instagram post made by the actor Sebastian Stan who plays Bucky/Winter Soldier in one of the highly rated Marvel franchise of all time, "Captain America," he teased a little something to the fans. He posted a photo of him holding what looks to be Captain America's shield but had a Winter Soldier star imprinted on it. There was nothing much in the caption that may have led to the conclusion that he will be next Captain America, it still tells a lot about the upcoming movie.

If the Marvel Cinematic Universe follows the storyline in the comics, Steve Rogers will be assassinated by the Crossbones. Bucky Barnes will then be replacing him as Captain America after his death, after an undeniable friendship was made between the two. This storyline has then fed to the rumors even more that Sebastian Stan may indeed play the role of Captain America in the upcoming Avengers movie that is set to premiere by 2018. However, the greatest question is: what will happen to Chris Evans?

Chris Evan's Contract With Marvel To End In 2017; Will His Character Be Killed Off The Movies?

Along with Sebastian Stan's teasing photo about playing Captain America soon, there have been reports claiming that Chris Evan's contract with Marvel ends in 2017. Since the next Avengers movie will be released by 2018, fuelled the rumors even more that Steve Rogers will be out of the picture, and Chris Evans who plays the role will be out of the movie franchise. However, there hasn't been any confirmation from any of the parties involved, and the Marvel group about the issue, thus the speculations should only be taken lightly.

"Avengers: The Infinity War" is scheduled to premiere on April 25, 2018.
The recent "Gilmore Girls" revival has raised more questions than it answers especially that it had ended in a cliffhanger. Nevertheless, series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino answers the questions that left the fans hanging ever since the revival was released.

The Most-Awaited Last Four Words Revealed During "Gilmore Girls" Revival; Leaves The Audience Hanging

The "four last words" has been intrigued ever since the "Gilmore Girls" ended during its seventh season, wherein it was confirmed that it had not ended the way that the writers have originally planned. Thus, now that they had a chance at a revival, they finally revealed the four last words that created intrigues among the fans. Those words revealed that Rory was pregnant, and that is just how the revival ended. The fans are now asking if that is a hint for a sequel to the revival.

Amy Sherman-Palladino openly answered the questions that were eagerly asked by the fans. According to the series creator, she has initially planned for Rory to be pregnant at 22, after graduating from college. However, given the turn of events during the series run, she couldn't do it. Thus decided to do it now when Rory is 32, the same age when Lorelai was during the pilot episode. It still worked out well enough even though there needed to be some alterations to be done in the storyline.

Rory's Pregnancy Should Be Focused On The Event, Not On Who The Father Could Possibly Be

Sadly, there aren't any talks of a sequel to the "Gilmore Girls" revival just yet. Amy said that having ended the entirety of the show in a sense that the fans couldn't totally move on from it is just the ending that she has always wanted. The fans are left wondering and wanting more, but assured them that she is not closing any doors to the possibility of more episodes. It's not like she doesn't want Rory or any of the characters to have a happy ending, she just wanted to leave some things to the imagination of the audience.

She did not reveal who the father of Rory's baby is, still leaving that for the audience to fill their own voids and perhaps have an ending to their own satisfaction. She insists that Rory's pregnancy was not about who the father was, but the event in itself that she has paralleled to her mother's life somehow. Amy has always said that it is more than just the romantic story in the series, it was always about the "Gilmore Girls."
It is with great joy that Moon Express has recently revealed that it has been the only company to be granted permission to travel beyond Earth's orbit and land on the Moon. Billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Naveen Jain, founder of the company, said his startup is willing to work with Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, as matter of fact, he adds, he believes that they really complement each other as Elon would be assigned in building the rocket while they do the rover.

Moon Express In 2026

In one of his interviews in Helsinki, Finland, reported by Daily Mail, Mr. Jain explains that the company hopes to mine their satellite for materials like platinum-group metals, rare earth metals, helium-3 and moon rocks. Mr. Jain said within the next ten years, the cost of going to the moon could become as cheap as $10,000 (7,921). Additionally, Mr. Jain has also revealed that NASA's first mission to the moon has amounted up to $25 billion (19 billion), and if we were to go next year, he believes that it would cost $7 million (5.55 million).

According to The Telegraph, the billionaire entrepreneur has also said that in 2017, Moon Express will be launching an unmanned vessel into orbit in the first of a series of missions which basically aims to teach humanity the value of standing outside our planetary system and learning how to live somewhere else.

Considering that the launch will be successful, experts say that it can radically change our travel habits in the near future, as well as laying the groundwork for colonization of the moon. Furthermore, it was found that apart from being granted the permission to commercially explore the moon, the Federal Aviation Administration's unprecedented go-ahead for the Moon Express mission has also set a legal and regulatory framework for a host of other commercial expeditions to the asteroids and Mars.

Ultimately, NASA is similarly committed to exploring Mars in greater detail, and has launched a Journey to Mars programme that aims to send humans to the planet by the 2030s. But with his brave objectives from his peers, Mr. Jain remains to be confident that his own target will be a success.
A number of UFO enthusiasts were once again thrilled after a mysterious object has been recently spotted to be floating through skies of Texas. Last November 23, a video footage has quickly circulated online like a wildfire after is has allegedly captured the strange silver-gray shape, which appeared over downtown Houston at about 3:15pm.

Are Aliens The Real Shape Shifters?

In one of his statement reported by Mirror, the eyewitness who took a shot of the video said that within the video's duration, the UFO has allegedly appeared to change its shape over a period of around four minutes.The witness claimed that he was able to notice the reflection of light in the sky, and it was stationary at first, but as we was looking at it, that was when it started moving and has appeared to change in shape .

According to Daily Mail, the mutual UFO network (MUFON) is now investigating the sighting, and looking for an explanation. It was found that while some are convinced that flying saucers exist, experts believe that most sightings turn out to be just man-made objects such as weather balloons or satellites, or down to natural phenomenon like ball lightening or meteors.

On the other hand, a map that records UFO sightings which created last year has shown that Houston has a relatively low amount of UFO sightings compared to the rest of the country; especially the southeastern parts known to be the site where the US military conducts several test flights. Statistically speaking, it was found that in Harris County alone, the county which Houston is located in, there were 8.8 sightings per 100,000 people, as per the National UFO Reporting Center's data.

Ultimately, although UFO enthusiasts are convinced that the object appeared to be morphing or changing shape as it floated across the sky, some remain to be skeptic about the footage and had dismissed the speculation that it was an extraterrestrial craft, saying it was likely only a drone or a cluster of balloons.
News reports suggested prior to the visit that the Egyptian president would meet with Saudi King Salman in the UAE

Related Egyptian presidency says only bilateral meetings scheduled during Sisi's trip to UAE Egypt's president Sisi starts 2-day visit to United Arab Emirates The Egyptian presidency has denied any modifications to the date or the programme of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisis latest visit to the UAE, Al-Ahram newspaper reported on Sunday, despite media reports that El-Sisi would meet with Saudi's King Salman while in the Gulf country.

El-Sisi visited Abu Dhabi for two days last week, returning to Cairo on Saturday.

Later on Saturday, King Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia arrived in the UAE on an official tour to the Gulf States that will include Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

News reports had suggested prior to El-Sisis visit that the president would meet with King Salman in the UAE.

Presidential spokesman Alaa Youssef said the programme of El-Sisis visit was planned in advance to include only bilateral meetings with Emirati leaders and attendance at the country's 45th National Day ceremonial events on Friday.

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Naji was sentenced in February by a misdemeanor court to two years in prison for publishing a sexually flagrant article in the state-owned cultural newspaper Akhbar Al-Adab in 2015

Naji was sentenced in February by a misdemeanor court to two years in prison for publishing a sexually flagrant chapter in the state-owned cultural newspaper Akhbar Al-Adab in 2015.

The chapter was an excerpt of Naji's story "The Guide of Using Life."

The court also fined Tareq El-Taher, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, EGP 10,000.

Following the verdict, Naji's defence filed three appeals to suspend implementation of the sentence. However, they were all rejected.

In late April, Naji's defence team filed an appeal before the Court of Cassation.

The initial decision to refer Naji and Taher to prosecution came after one of the newspaper's readers, known as Hani Saleh Tawfik, filed a legal complaint claiming that the text in question caused him to experience heart palpitations and an extreme feeling of sickness along with a sharp drop in blood pressure due to the alleged indecency of the text.

Last week, the Egyptian parliaments constitutional and legislative affairs committee rejected proposals by two MPs to abolish jail terms for those convicted of publishing materials that violate public decency, state news agency MENA reported.

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There had been so many images and video recordings of UFO sightings which all "try" to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. However, it seems like nothing is more genuine than what has been taken recently in Ireland, although there is no official confirmation yet.

A massive UFO mothership was spotted over County Leitrim, Ireland on November 25. The object was emitting a very bright light and suddenly disappeared. A local resident was able to take a snapshot of the alleged UFO before it totally went out.

In a report by Metro, the witness said, "I was walking my dog up a county road and suddenly witnessed biright lights in a local farmer's field." According to the witness, it was the first time he witnessed anything like that in the area. He also added that it was the only picture he was able to take because his phone crashed.

Metro also told in the same report that phone dying 'is a typical phenomenon' according to alien hunter Scott C Waring. Waring also added that the reason why UFOs usually land in farmers' field is because 'they can test the food we eat'. Although there is no firm understanding of what could be the behavior of aliens and the main objective of their unverified visitations in the planet, many are convinced that it's all about invasion and the humankind may not stand chance against the aliens.

SETI Institute Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak said that "as far as he knows", the government does not have any current countermeasures planned should there be alien invasion, reports Aussie Network News. By the looks of it, it seems like Shostak is suggesting that any plans would be useless against the aliens' advanced weaponry and technologies. According to the same source, Shostak even said, "It would be like the Neanderthals having a plan in case the US Airforce showed up." Well, that's way too good to boost our confidence.

It seems like the government could use artificial intelligence robots to do the fighting against the aliens. It would be awesome. However, Elon Musk said using AI robots along with humanity might only result to even massive destruction. How so? Check out a report by Jobs & Hire.
The release of the third season of the hit anime series in Japan, "Code Geass", has been confirmed bearing the title "Lelouch of the Resurrection". Even though no specific details were released, the anime's director, Goro Taniguchi, exposed the return of Lelouch Lamperouge.

As "Code of Geass" celebrates its 10th year anniversary, spoilers and news in the return of Lelouch roam around the internet. In a report by Game N Guide, the setting of the latest season of "Code of Geass" is based on numerous years after Lelouch's plan of Zero Requiem from the "Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2."

According to Yibada, despite the fact that there has no other confirmation released by the anime studio, the news, spoilers and fan blogs roaming around the internet and social media, there is indeed a huge possibility that Lelouch Lampperouge will resurrect. And based on the title itself, "Lelouch of the Resurrection", the anime's main character can be presumed to be alive. More so, reports also say that in the new season of "Code Geass", there will be no other clone or alternate character making stronger assumptions of the comeback of Lelouch.

Lelouch vi Britannia, also known as Lelouch Lamperouge, is the main protagonist of the hit anime series. Britannia's downfall was shown in the final episode of "Code Geass R2" which has become a subject of contest among the anime's fans. But some fans still assume that it was actually Lelouch who passed away in the episode.

According to a report by iTechPost, "Code Geass" is also working on a film featuring the compilation of the anime's three seasons following the actual sequence of events in all of its episodes including those from its first two seasons. It is also revealed that the movie will feature some original scenes that are not shown in the three episodes.

Just recently, Jobs & Hire reported that "Code of Geass" will be holding a lottery in commemoration of the Sunrise anime series' 10th anniversary. "Code of Geass: Lelouch of Resurrection" will be released on 2017.

Aside from the sequel, the franchise is also reported to be making a trilogy compilation film which will follow the events from all 50 episodes from the first and second seasons. The film will also include some original scenes not seen in the series and the cast members are re-recording all of their lines.
The minister said that US aid throughout consecutive administrations represented a great support for Egypt's development efforts, especially with the country's "current role in fighting terrorism and maintaining stability in the region."

Shoukry also stated that his current visit aimed to form an initial contact between Egypt and the newly elected administration in the United States.

US military aid to Egypt, worth $1.3 billion annually, was halted in 2013 following Islamist president Mohamed Morsis ouster, with the US voicing concerns over Egypt's human rights record. The aid resumed in 2015.

Egypt's foreign minister began his visit to the United States on Tuesday, where he met with Secretary of State John Kerry, Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan and John McCain, Chairman of the House of Representatives armed services committee

He also met Wednesday with Vice President-elect Mike Pence to relay a verbal message from Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

Shoukry is the first Arab official to meet with the vice president-elect.

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Egypt's air and naval forces have departed for Greece to participate in joint Egyptian-Greek military drills between 8 and 12 December.

The exercise, named Medusa 2016, includes several activities that involve planning and administering joint naval operations and operating day and night sailing formations, maritime interception operations and inspecting suspicious ships, and search and rescue procedures.

The Egyptian air force are also set to participate in the exercises, in cooperation with their Greek counterparts.

The exercises include planning and leadership operations and carrying out group offensive and defensive operations in accordance with the finest air tactics.



Greece is set to be the latest country that Egypt has carried out joint military exercises with this year.

Egypt has carried out 30 joint military exercises in 2016 with 20 Arab and African countries, as well as European countries including France and Russia.

In November, Egypt concluded a joint military exercises with Jordan, which included the participation of ground and special forces troops.

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John Allison, the retired top executive of BB&T Corp., has had the ears of a veritable whos who of banking executives, economists, congressional leaders and top White House administrators for more than a quarter-century.

Allisons influence has been seen on a number of pivotal banking and national economic conversations.

Perhaps most noteworthy are Allisons opposition to using eminent domain to seize private property for a public purpose and his opposition to the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Federal regulators prodded BB&T, a financially healthy bank, to accept $3.1 billion in federal borrowing during the financial crisis of 2008-10 to give cover to struggling banks that really needed the money for the sake of short-term solvency. BB&T was one of the first large banks to repay the obligation.

Last Monday, however, may have presented Allison with one of the more surreal moments in his five-decade involvement in the financial-services sector.

Allison was summoned to New York and Trump Tower for an audience with President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and other members of Trumps transition team.

The 90-minute conversation served in part as a vetting of Allison as a potential candidate for U.S. Treasury secretary, as well as other administrative positions with a financial focus that Allison declined to identify.

Allison said Trump also sought his advice as an outside-the-box thinker that includes being a devotee of author Ayn Rand and her economic philosophy of objectivism, which extols rational individualism, creativity, independent thinking and a limited role for government as a protector of peace.

I didnt get offered anything specific, nor asked for anything specific, Allison said. I felt I was a potential nominee for Treasury, and we talked about other positions.

I got his emphasis on wanting to get as much talent from outside D.C. in his administration as possible, he said.

I was not told why the president-elect chose Steven Mnuchin (a Goldman Sachs and Wall Street veteran), nor does he owe me an explanation.

Allison said he met Mnuchin for about 30 minutes Monday.

Allison still may be on Trumps short list, given that Mnuchin is viewed by Democratic senators as a controversial choice as Treasury secretary. Mnuchin profited significantly from taking over a failed IndyMac during the Great Recession with federal regulatory assistance and selling it in 2015 to CIT Group for $3.4 billion.

Allison was critical of Goldman Sachs role in the financial crisis, calling the investment company crony capitalists, in his 2013 book The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure.

Mnuchins history on Wall Street is not something that I am all that thrilled about, Allison said.

He does know Wall Street, though, and I believe he will do his best to bring about appropriate changes to federal tax laws, and regulatory cutbacks and eliminations, to foster economic growth.

Talking to Trump

The conversation with the Trump team was a pretty heady experience, Allison said, considering that he retired as BB&Ts chairman at the end of 2009 and as its chief executive at the end of 2008.

Allisons post-retirement resume includes taking an executive in residence role at the Wake Forest University School of Business and serving as the president and chief executive of the Cato Institute for three years, until November 2015, during a major internal pivot for the libertarian research group.

The Trump invitation came from Pence, who previously asked Allison to speak at congressional hearings about his theories on how the financial crisis occurred and his recommendations for avoiding another severe economic blow.

Pence also supported Allisons stances on TARP and eminent domain. He thought my book was one of the best explanation of the crisis, Allison said. As such, he was kind enough to inform the president-elect of my qualifications to serve in his administration.

It was flattering to have been asked to meet with (Trump), and if I had been asked to serve in an administrative position, it would have required some significant thought and consideration, he said.

Those considerations would include memories of three years of commuting from his home in Lewisville to his Cato offices in Washington. We had great results with the turnaround (at Cato), but I didnt like the atmosphere in D.C., Allison said.

It was hard to find the genuineness that you find in Winston-Salem. I could reach The Washington Post and Winston-Salem Journal on certain subjects, and it felt like I was in two different worlds.

Allison cited the influence of his wife of 43 years, Betty, who signed off on his Cato Institute leadership role. At age 68, Allison would be younger than Trump and on par with some of Trumps announced department secretaries.

Allison retired at age 60 when most banking analysts thought he still had another five years as chief executive, and perhaps another 10 or 20 years as chairman since BB&Ts culture was so intertwined in Allisons business and economic philosophies.

Yet, Allison always has been conscious of his own mortality, given that his father died at age 61 and the two preceding chief executives at BB&T died in their early to mid-50s.

I have accomplished much of what I wanted in my professional career, and I have pledged to Betty that, thankfully in good health, to take it easier in retirement life, he said.

Focus on growth

Allison said he considers the meeting valuable because he was able to gain a better insight into Trumps planned economic policies that include a focus on reducing regulations on the financial-services industry in hopes of spurring economic growth of 4 percent to 6 percent in the nations gross domestic product.

Allison said he told Trump he supported many of his economic initiatives as disclosed to date, such as radically restructuring the Dodd-Frank Act that imposed new layers of regulations on the banking industry as a ripple effect from the financial crisis.

Allison said he and Trump support tax reform that is simpler and flatter, rolling back regulations on the energy industry and getting rid of at least the parts of the Affordable Care Act that have driven up premium costs for participants on the federal health insurance exchange.

The president-elect has thought our economy is underperforming, and his role was to help the economic cause of working-class Americans, who were so pivotal to getting him elected, Allison said.

He is willing to have a short-term increase in deficits because the long-term solution is to accelerate the growth rate.

However, Allison said that borrowing to pay for a massive infrastructure initiative is what he would do.

Trump has proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure plan to help upgrade the nations transportation system while having a major job-creation impact during the process. That proposal is likely to face opposition from some Republican congressional leaders who believe in a pay-as-you-go strategy or cutting costs elsewhere to offset the costs.

At this point in the economic cycle, I believe a focus on growth is very healthy rather than just a strict focus on cutting government spending, Allison said. They are willing to take the risk it doesnt work.

He said he believes that Trump will be able to accomplish more in overhauling the Affordable Care Act than some experts think is possible.

Without Obama there, their belief is that (Democrats) are going to be more willing to negotiate because (Obamacare) is actually a millstone around the Democratic Party, Allison told Bloomberg Television.

Whether thats accurate or not, I dont know.

Old-fashioned banker

Allison said the economic advice he gave Trump and Pence was nothing new per se. Allison said he supports proposed legislation in the U.S. House, known as the Financial Choice Act, that he says would restore accountability and responsibility to the financial-services industry.

The act would provide an off-ramp from the post-Dodd-Frank supervisory regime and Basel III capital and liquidity standards for organizations that choose to maintain high levels of capital, he said.

Those financial-services companies who cant meet those capital criteria would remain subject to Dodd-Frank regulations.

Allison said that approach may compel some of the too big to fail banks to shrink by selling off less lucrative businesses.

That could help create a lot more level playing field and make more sense economically, Allison said.

The act would require banks to remain subject to publicly disclosed regulatory stress tests but exempt those that achieve the assigned capital levels from regulatory limitations on purchases.

The act also would require that consumers be vigorously protected from fraud and deception, as well as the loss of economic liberty and taxpayer bailouts of financial institutions must end and no company can remain too big to fail, he said.

BB&T, however, has benefited from the act since Allisons retirement through buying banks willing to sell, most notably National Penn Bancshares Inc., because of the higher costs of adhering to the new regulations.

I believe it is very poor public policy to have consolidation decisions based foremost on regulatory costs, Allison said.

He expressed his concerns that the Federal Reserve, particularly under Chair Janet Yellen, has limited economic growth through what he considers to be burdensome regulations that may make sense to regulators but not on Main Street in terms of creating demand for loans in particular from entrepreneurs and small businesses.

When asked about his interest in serving as Fed chairman, Allison said that while he would be interested because of the opportunity to change lending policies, I dont know if I could get through Congress.

It may seem old-fashioned or quaint, but I still believe in making loans by sitting across the table from the applicant and getting to know them as much as learning about their reasons for borrowing, he said.

I believe if regulators would step back with some of the regulations, consumers tend to figure out the good and bad players in the marketplace.
KING  The victim in a fatal shooting in King on Saturday night has been identified as 17-year old Chanler Aaron Gilham, according to King Police Chief Paula May.

Gilham died as a result of a single gunshot wound to the chest, May said. Other witnesses were present inside the apartment at 113 Pineview Drive where Gilham was shot.

Roger Dale Phillips III, 19, of Cliff View Drive in King, was charged with murder late Saturday in connection to the case.

Phillips is being held without bond in the Stokes County Detention Center pending his first court appearance Monday morning.

The victim and suspect knew each other and had an ongoing dispute, police said.

There is evidence of illegal drug activity in the case, according to police, but officials are withholding further information concerning a possible motive in the fatal shooting.

Phillips has pending, unrelated charges in Stokes and Forsyth counties of misdemeanor carrying a concealed weapon, reckless driving to endanger, larceny and several counts of drug possession, according to state court records.

Gilham, a student at West Stokes High School, was well liked by his peers, May said.

He was in the process of transferring to Meadowbrook Academy in King.

Gilhams parents reside in Rural Hall.

An autopsy is scheduled for Monday afternoon at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

Funeral arrangements will be made by the family through Hayworth-Miller Funeral Home in Rural Hall.

This is Kings first homicide of 2016, police said.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  Universities and colleges in several states are considering labeling themselves sanctuary campuses amid fears from immigrant students and pressure from activists following the election of Donald Trump.

College administrators in New Mexico  the state with the highest percentage of Latino residents  are looking into proposals that would grant immigrant students living in the country illegally protections while they pursue their studies.

Meanwhile, advocates in California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota and Texas are pressing their state and private universities to provide sanctuary to these immigrant students, known as DREAMers.

We urge you to declare the University of San Diego a sanctuary campus for students, faculty, staff and community members now facing, among other things: the threat of deportation under President-elect Donald J. Trumps policy proposals, and the specter of hate speech and bigoted violence in our campus community, read a letter from alumni to administrators of the private Roman Catholic university.

Trumps alma mater  the University of Pennsylvania  even has renewed its pledge to block federal agents without a warrant from removing students in the country illegally.

Let us be unequivocally clear: We are and remain resolute in our commitment to Penns undocumented students and will do all that we can to ensure their continued safety and success here at Penn, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and other administrators wrote in a letter released Wednesday.

Students and professors at University of Illinois campuses are circulating petitions to make their schools sanctuary campuses. One such group in Chicago gathered more than 1,700 signatures and turned them over to school leaders.

The movement comes after Trump promised he would end an executive order that granted temporary status to immigrant students living in the country illegally.

Trump has not said anything about sanctuary campuses.
Two men were arrested after a man was stabbed multiple times at a Caswell County home during a Ku Klux Klan meeting, according to deputies.

William Ernest Hagen, 50, of Orange County, Calif., and Christopher Eugene Barker, 37, of Yanceyville, face charges in the incident, WGHP/FOX8 reported.

Caswell County deputies found the 47-year-old victim in the lobby of the Caswell County Sheriffs Office on Saturday. Deputies said he had been stabbed in the upper chest area.

The victim was taken to Danville Regional Medical Center where he was treated and released, according to deputies.

The victim told deputies that he was stabbed multiple times during a Klan meeting at Barkers home in Yanceyville. Deputies executed a search warrant at the home and the two suspects were arrested.

Hagen was charged with one count of felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

Barker was charged with one count of felony aiding and abetting assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

Hagen was jailed under a $350,000 secured bond and Barker received a $200,000 secured bond. Both suspects have court in Caswell County next week.

A man matching Barkers name identified himself as the imperial wizard of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan earlier this year, according to the Associated Press.
Egyptian author and journalist Ahmed Naji has been included on a second pardon list that would be presented to the presidency, a member of the prisoners' pardon committee told Ahram Online on Sunday.

Mohamed Abdel-Aziz said Naji, who is serving two years in prison for publishing a sexually explicit article in a state-owned literary newspaper, is on the list of prisoners' proposed for pardon set to be presented to the presidency within days.

The committee to review the cases of Egyptian youth detainees was formed by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi following the National Youth Conference held in Sharm El-Sheikh in late October, and has been tasked with reviewing the cases of youth prisoners.

Abdel-Aziz added that the number of individuals included on the committee's second list is higher than the 82 prisoners - mostly students - who were pardoned by El-Sisi in mid-November.

He explained that the new list was penned down following proposals from the National Council of Human Rights (NCHR), the parliament's human rights committee, as well as online requests filled out on a website launched following the National Youth Conference last month.

Only those who received final verdicts in cases related to protesting or freedom of speech would be included on the list, Abdel-Aziz said, adding that those convicted in violence related cases would not to be included.

Naji has not yet received a final verdict in his case. On Sunday, Egypts Court of Cassation adjourned a ruling on Naji's third appeal against his sentence to 18 December.

Abdel-Aziz also explained that the committee is considering submitting the names of certain individuals who have been detained pending investigation to the prosecutor-general, who holds jurisdiction in open cases, for a review of their status.

Its up to prosecutor-general to agree to review the cases of some detainees and reject others, Abdel Aziz explained.

Under Egyptian law, individuals held in precautionary detention do not qualify for a presidential pardon.

Article 155 from the 2014 constitution stipulates that only The President of the Republic may issue a pardon or mitigate a sentence after consulting with the Cabinet.

Former TV host and Islamic studies researcher Islam El-Behery and MD Ahmed Saeid were among those pardoned in November..

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WASHINGTON  Democrats are in danger of moving from complacency to panic. Neither is particularly helpful.

The complacency part is obvious: Until about 9 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 8, supporters of Hillary Clinton (myself included) were certain that Donald Trumps weaknesses among women, nonwhite voters, and younger Americans would prevent him from becoming president.

This analysis was half-right: Trump lost the popular vote by more than 2 million. But things went just wrong enough for Clinton in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to give Trump his Electoral College victory. His combined margin in the three states stands at about 100,000. Roughly 134 million votes have been counted nationwide.

Is pointing to the limits of Trumps victory simply a way of evading the depth of the Democrats plight? After all, they also failed to take over the U.S. Senate in a year many Republican incumbents looked vulnerable. They picked up a paltry six seats in the House. Add to this the large-scale losses of governorships and state legislatures since the Democrats recent high point in 2008 and you have the makings of a party-wide nervous breakdown.

Note, however, that the party in the White House often fares badly in midterm elections, Democrats especially so because they lean on votes from the young, who are less inclined to go to the polls in off-years.

But unless Trumps first two years are wildly successful, 2018 offers Democrats opportunities to rebuild hollowed-out local parties. This is especially true in statehouses, as The Washington Posts Greg Sargent pointed out. Ten states with Republican governors could plausibly turn blue (as could New Jersey in 2017).

Clintons popular vote advantage speaks to other opportunities. It reflected a shift toward the Democrats in Sunbelt states with large minority populations that is likely to continue. In Texas, Clinton got some 560,000 more votes than President Obama did in 2012, while Trump ran 4.6 percentage points behind Mitt Romneys showing. Trump also fell short of Romneys percentages in California, Arizona and Georgia.

The Democrats big Sunbelt problem on Election Night was Florida. Both major party candidates received more votes there than the 2012 nominees, but Trumps gains were significantly larger. If Democrats are looking for a state to fret about in their postmortems, Florida should be at the top of the list.

Trumps narrow wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (unless theyre miraculously overturned in recounts), plus his larger victories in Ohio and Iowa, have the Democrats focused on the white working class  and on whether its time for the end of identity liberalism, the headline of a recent New York Times article by Mark Lilla, a Columbia University political philosopher.

Lillas New York Times essay provoked a polemical tempest. Many advocates for African-Americans, gays and lesbians, immigrants and women fear Lillas suggestion would lead liberals to abandon beleaguered constituencies at the very moment when they most need defending.

In fact, Lilla is right that liberalism needs to root its devotion to inclusion in larger principles and should not allow itself to be cast (or parodied) as simply about the summing up of group claims. He is also dead on when he writes: If you are going to mention groups in America, you had better mention all of them. If you dont, those left out will notice and feel excluded. Democrats, who gave us the New Deal and empowered the labor movement, should be alarmed by the flight of the white working class.

But Lillas critics are right about something, too: An effort to reach out to the white working class cannot be seen as a strategy for abandoning people of color, Muslims or immigrants, or for stepping back from commitments to gender equality, or for withdrawing support for long-excluded groups. Liberalisms very inclusiveness offers Democrats long-term advantages both in the Sunbelt and among younger voters who will own the future.

A panicky abandonment of their core commitments is the last thing Democrats need. Far better advice comes from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who urges the party to re-engage with rural and small-town voters. Also promising: the formation of a Blue Collar Caucus in the House announced this week by Reps. Brendan Boyle, an Irish Catholic from Philadelphia, and Marc Veasey, an African-American from Fort Worth.

I mention the backgrounds of this pair of Democrats because their cross-racial partnership sends exactly the right message. Progressivisms embrace of social and economic justice is about lifting up the left-out across all of our dividing lines. Remembering this is the first step toward political recovery.
The Charlotte Observer published a longer version of this editorial Wednesday.

Of all the words Mecklenburg District Attorney Andrew Murray said in his news conference late Wednesday morning, none may have been truer than his first.

Were here, Murray said, to discuss a tragic case.

The shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott was exactly that  a tragedy for Scotts family, which has had to grapple with a sudden and very public loss. It was a tragedy, too, for Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Brentley Vinson, who fired four bullets in the heat of a moment few can imagine.

Vinson will not face criminal charges for that September shooting, Murray announced Wednesday. The officer, he said, acted lawfully. We heard nothing that makes us disagree with the district attorneys determination.

For more than an hour Wednesday, Murray laid out the reasons for his decision, which he and 15 career prosecutors unanimously arrived at after reviewing the evidence. Murray also released his offices full report on the shooting to the public.

Murrays report revealed convincing evidence that Scott not only was in possession of a gun in the minutes and moments before being confronted by police, but that he did not drop the gun despite being ordered to do so. That, in itself, presented a threat to Vinson and the other officers, and the law is clear in allowing police to determine that such threats need to be addressed, even lethally.

Attorneys for the Scott family expressed disappointment Wednesday, although they didnt explicitly dispute Murrays legal decision. They did, however, leave open the door to a civil lawsuit, with which they might pursue different questions, such as whether officers could have avoided or deescalated the confrontation that led to Scotts death.

The Scott shooting has also prompted larger questions about the relationship between police and blacks in Charlotte, and about Charlotte falling short in addressing inequality in housing, jobs and education.

On Wednesday, however, one issue  and one tragedy  needed to be addressed. We hope that the Scott family  and our city  can find peace with the district attorneys conclusion.
Correspondent of the week

BARRY WESTMORELAND, Germanton

Project Blue Light

The year has been a scary, dangerous and deadly time for law-enforcement officers across our nation. As of this Thanksgiving, 131 law-enforcement officers have died in the line of duty in 2016, a 13-percent increase over last year.

Many were the results of ambush-style attacks and assassinations. Many other officers have been disabled by on-duty injuries.

Officers are often wrongly criticized, by the public and social media, hate groups, society, their municipalities and by their own department administrators. These criticisms often outnumber the compliments or support that officers receive.

Officers see the worst in people, from the victims to the suspects, young and old, male and female and all races. They are the first line of defense for our homes, schools and places of worship, businesses and communities. Without them, there would be chaos. These brave men and women are owed much more than criticism. They are owed our support, our encouragement and our thanks.

The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Fraternal Order of Police asks that you please join us again during this holiday season in Project Blue Light. Project Blue Light involves placing a lighted, single blue-light candle in your window. The glowing candle is in honor of the many men and women who have given their lives in the line of duty, those who continue to serve today and to honor the profession of law enforcement. These shining blue lights say Thank you.

Barry Westmoreland is the president of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Fraternal Order of Police.  the editor

ERNEST J. LUNSFORD, Winston-Salem

Rigged elections

Remember how, throughout the election campaign, President-elect Donald Trump thundered over and over that the election was rigged? It was a constant drumbeat at the heart of his every campaign speech. But once he was declared the winner, all talk of the election being rigged disappeared as if by magic. Hmm, interesting

Now here in North Carolina, we have the opposite happening. Gov. Pat McCrory made no such accusations of a rigged election during the campaign. But now that the votes are in and he has come up a loser, suddenly he and his minions are braying about irregularities and fraud. This is despite the fact that the members of the State Board of Elections were appointed by McCrory and the 100 county boards were appointed by the state board, and all are dominated by Republicans.

Is McCrory accusing his Republican boards of elections of overseeing a rigged election? Rigged by Republicans to tilt the election to the Democrats? This all smacks of desperation and carries the powerful stench of a poor loser.

Let me see if Ive understood this correctly. If a Republican wins, that means that the election was fair and not rigged. Is that right, Trump? But if a Republican loses, that proves that the election was rigged. Is that correct, McCrory? I just want to be sure that Ive understood exactly how this works.

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Spokesman Salah Eissa said the council's members complained that the new media laws were not reviewed by the State Council; MPs deny claim

Related Egypt parliament committee set to discuss new media laws Sunday

Board members of Egypt's Higher Press Council and the Journalists Syndicate decided Sunday to boycott the Egyptian parliament's first hearing session on two new media laws.

The session, organised by parliament's culture, media and antiquities committee, was only attended by MPs and representatives from some state-owned or national press organisations, such as Ali Hassan, chief editor of the government-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA), and Abdel Mohsen Salama, deputy chief editor of Al-Ahram newspaper.

Head of the committee Osama Heikal said invitations were directed to all board members of the Higher Press Council and the press syndicate.

"But I was surprised by their decision not to come," said Heikal, adding that "I was also surprised that the council's spokesman and high-profile journalist Salah Eissa has issued a statement announcing that he will not attend sessions on the new media laws under the claim that they were not revised by the State Council."

Heikal insisted that "the law was put to debate only after the State Council had completely finalised revising them."

Some sources said Eissa and other Higher Press Council members believe that the unified media law was divided into two laws upon the recommendation of some media MPs like journalist Mostafa Bakri, and not upon the order of the State Council.

Heikal indicated that upon the recommendation of the State Council, two laws on the media  rather than one  were referred to parliament: one to create three media regulatory bodies and the other seeking to supervise the media as a whole.

"In its debate, the committee will make sure that the two laws observe six articles that govern the media in Egypt's 2014 constitution," said Heikal.

Heikal also indicated that "the two new media laws are not government-drafted ones as some might claim."

"These laws were prepared by a special commission that comprised a number of experts on media laws from the Press Syndicate, the Higher Press Council and the Ministry of Justice," said Heikal, adding that "but when a unified media law reached its final station, the State Council recommended that it be divided into two laws  one on regulatory bodies and one on media conditions as a whole."

"The council made this recommendation upon the grounds that the constitution states a unified press law must first gain the approval of three media regulatory bodies - the Higher Council for Media Regulation (HCMR), the National Press Organisation (NPO), and the National Media Organisation (NMO)  before it is enacted into final legislation," Heikal added.

Joining forces, Mahmoud Fawzi, a legal advisor to parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal, argued that "the State Council's recommendation for two media laws  instead of one  is a logical step and must be observed to guarantee that these laws do not contravene the constitution."

Heikal said: "Board members of the Higher Press Council and the Press Syndicate should attend the committee's coming hearing sessions without imposing preconditions.

"I still have open invitations for them to come at any time to reach consensus on the interests of the press and media community in Egypt."

Independent MP Mostafa Bakri and MENA's chief editor Ali Hassan launched a scathing attack against the Higher Press Council, accusing its members of doing their best to delay the release of new media laws.

"They want to stay in their positions without any legal grounds," said Hassan.

He said the legal term of the current Higher Press Council has expired and a new one should be appointed.

Al-Ahram's deputy chief editor Abdel Mohsen Salama said there is a pressing need that new media laws be passed in Egypt.

"Since 2011, we have suffered from two higher press councils. The first was formed when the Muslim Brotherhood was in one office to serve its interests and the second was dominated by leftists who want to keep their grip on the press community in Egypt," said Salama.

Mokhtar Shoeib, an assistant to Al-Ahram's chief editor, said the new media laws should be carefully debated and discussed in parliament.

"The government and the executive authority should not have any hand in selecting heads of the three media regulatory bodies," said Shoeb, proposing that "institutions, like the independent press syndicate and civil society organisations, have the greatest say in naming heads of these bodies."

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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Several members of Donald Trumps new team, including National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and proposed Secretary of Defense Mike Mattis have expressed themselves troubled about political Islam (or in Flynns case, just Islam). Mattis seems to have confused Daeshs (ISIS, ISIL) idea of a neo-Caliphate (bringing back a medieval papacy-like institution to Islam) with political Islam in general. He wants Americans to ask the question of whether political Islam is good for the US

Gen. Mattis should grapple a little with whether his 2004 Fallujah campaign did not alienate the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, turn them off to the 2005 elections, and pave the way for them to ally with Daesh/ ISIL in 2014. That is, Mattis may have created the political Islam he now wants to name and ideologically combat.

The American right wing has substituted hysteria about socialism with hysteria about Islam and especially political Islam, equating both with terrorism. And its members appear to imagine that Islam is an ideology like Communism, and can be defeated by the United States just as Communism was (well, except in China, which, lets face it, is a hell of an exception).

There is hopeless confusion on the American right wing about Islam in general and political Islam in particular. Let me suggest some distinctions:

Muslims are adherents of the religion of Islam. Some 85% of them in opinion polling are not fundamentalists.

Fundamentalist Muslims are those who take a literalist approach to Muslim law, ritual and doctrine and disallow any ambiguity. Fundamentalists can be quietist (uninterested in politics) or political.

Political Islam is the attempt to make Islam the basis for a political ideology that would dictate government policy. It is analogous to Zionism, which makes Jews the basis for a political ideology. It is also analogous to the Christian Right in the US, which makes Christianity a political ideology and pursues the Christianization of American law (e.g. striving to ban abortion, to outlaw sex outside Christian marriage, etc.)

Not all Muslims are fundamentalists. Many in e.g. West Africa or South Asia are Sufi mystics who have an allegorical interpretation of the religion. Others are secular-minded. Of the fundamentalists, not all are devotees of political Islam.

Terrorism is the tactic of a non-state actor harming non-combatants to achieve a political goal. Very, very few Muslims engage in terrorism, and very few fundamentalists do so, and very few devotees of political Islam do so. (People of Christian heritage also routinely deploy terrorism).

Arguably, Daesh runs a terrorist state, not a political-Islamic one. The people fighting against Daesh at Mosul include a large contingent of Shiites who believe in political Islam and belong to the major parties in the Iraqi parliament that advocate this ideology, including the Dawa Party of Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi and the Islamic Supreme Council of Ammar al-Hakim. If you denounce political Islam across the board, youd have to denounce the Iraqi government, but Gen. Mattis construes it as a friend.

Regular readers will know that I dont like the word Islamism, which was coined by French academics in reaction against the English-speaking worlds tendency to speak of Muslim fundamentalism. In English, fundamentalism is a perfectly good description of the phenomenon, and it has the advantage that we all recognize that fundamentalism exists in all religions.

Martin Martys Fundamentalistm Project at the University of Chicago resulted in several volumes that underline this point. Here are some common elements in fundamentalisms across the board as Martys project discovered them:

1. Patriarchy: women are to be subservient to their fathers and husbands and if possible to remain at home.

2. The rules of religion are self-evident and must be literally obeyed.

3. Children of believers should be segregated from non-believers (as incoming Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos holds).

4. Fundamentalists hold that their religious laws are binding on all, believer and unbeliever alike (thus, incoming Attorney General Jeff Sessions tried to keep an LGBT meeting from happening on a state college campus; fundamentalism construes public space as belonging to fundamentalist believers).

5. Fundamentalist believers are the in-group. The out-group is rejected.

6. They are nostalgic for an imagined religious golden age of the past that they would like to reinstate.

So here is a question for Gen. Mattis and Gen. Flynn: If political Islam is so bad, why is political Christianity better?

And, then we have to ask, are governments ruled by believers in political Islam really inimical to the US?

The ideology of the ruling government of Morocco, a non-NATO ally of the United States, is political Islam.

The major opposition party in Tunisia, the only successful case of democratization coming out of the Arab Spring, is a party of political Islam.

Adherents of political Islam just won a majority in the Kuwaiti parliament. Kuwait is a key ally of the US which provides basing to the US military.

The major Shiite parties forming the government in Baghdad, Iraq, are all devotees of political Islam. The Baghdad government is a key ally of the US in taking down Daesh/ ISIL.

While the Muslim League, the ruling party in that fantastic Pakistan over which Trump gushed in his phone call to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, is not a fundamentalist party despite its name, many of its backbenchers do believe in aspects of political Islam. I.e., they believe in using the state to assert what they consider to be Islamic law. Pakistan is waging a long-term and important campaign against the Pakistani Taliban, from which the 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan benefit.

The US has been actively backing 30 Syrian rebel groups for years. Almost all of them have as their ideology political Islam. It is the regime of Bashar al-Assad, backed by the Baath Party, that is secular.

So Gen. Mattis apparently does not mean by political Islam what social scientists or people in the Middle East mean by it. Governments of political Islam, aside from Iran and a few others, appear to have perfectly good relations with the US.

On the other hand, secular governments like that of Syria, Algeria, and Uzbekistan have often had frosty relationships with the US.

In any case, neither Islam nor political Islam in any way resembles Communism. Islam is the religion of 1.6 billion people, over a fifth of humankind. Because of high birthrates in Muslim countries, moreover, the proportion of the world that is Muslim will probably go to 1/3.

If the United States, which is 5% of the world by population, tries to go against a third of humankind, it will lose. But the fact is that the US has no beef with most forms of Islam or even political Islam. And aggressive attempts to dictate to Muslims what they may believe will backfire, just as the whole Iraq War backfired.

The US can defeat individual terrorist organizations that appeal to Muslim themes. Counter-terrorism tactics can work. But it will need Muslim help, including the help of devotees of political Islam. If Daesh goes down in Iraq, it will have been defeated in large part by an alternative form of political Islam, to which the US gave air support. If what the Trump cabinet wants to say is only that the US plans to promote kinds of Islam that support the US and to fight those that stand in the way of the interests of the American Empire, well, the French and British empires used to plot out those schemes, too. Those empires arent around any more, but there are plenty of governments rooted in political Islam.
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By Sarah Aziza | (Waging Nonviolence) |  

Demonstrators gathered in over 30 U.S. cities last Wednesday as part of a Jewish Day of Resistance against President-elect Donald Trump and his appointment of Stephen Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor. The group responsible for organizing the days events is IfNotNow, an organization of Jewish youth concerned with the rise of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and xenophobia characterized by the rhetoric of Trump and his appointees.



IfNotNow marched on the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia on Nov. 22. (Facebook / IfNotNow)

In New York City, protesters lined up on the Brooklyn Bridge and outside the midtown office of Birthright Israel. In Washington, D.C., protesters already entered the lobby of the Republican Jewish Coalition, or RJC, holding signs to Draw the Line against policies that threaten to tear the country apart and calling for the coalition to stand against Bannon. The group was violently forced from the building by RJC private security, according to IfNotNow organizer Ethan Miller. The incident was recorded on Facebook Live.

The political lines are being redrawn right now, said New York-based IfNotNow organizer Sarah Lerman-Sinkoff. Were concerned that our institutional leaders are trying to cozy up to power, believing that will protect them. One of those leaders, according to IfNotNow, is the Zionist Organization of America, or ZOA, which endorsed Bannons appointment. In response, IfNotNow helped organize a protest on Nov. 20 outside a ZOA gala dinner in New York where Bannon was scheduled to appear. The demonstration drew over 700 protesters, and when Bannon failed to show, Lerman-Sinkoff said the group counted this as a major victory.

Miller described Wednesdays actions as building on the growing dissent catalyzed by Trumps election, saying, This is bigger than Bannon or Trump, its about what they represent. He sees IfNotNow as representing the growing number of Jewish youth who are demanding a stronger moral stance from their leaders. We refused to be sold down the river by institutions silently supporting Trump because he supports right-wing policies in Israel and supports the occupation.

Opposition to the occupation was the founding objective of IfNotNow, which formed in reaction to the 2014 Israeli offensive on Gaza. IfNotNow aims to bridge political divides by focusing first on dismantling the occupation. Other organizations are focusing on policy, but we think all solutions will be stronger once the occupation has ended, Miller said. The occupation is a moral crisis in the Jewish community, Miller continued, adding that Jewish leaders must recognize the freedom and dignity of the Palestinian people as integral to their communitys future.

IfNotNow, which has seven official chapters across the United States, has seen a surge in first-time activists since the election and has provided advice, support and two-day training sessions to meet the growing interest. They also work closely with fellow grassroots movements like the migrant justice group Cosecha, while maintaining a uniquely Jewish framework, by organizing actions around Jewish holidays and traditions, and singing Hebrew songs.

There is a long Jewish tradition of having public moral discussions, Miller said. Thats what we want to do  to bring issues of justice into the public arena.

This article was originally published on Waging Nonviolence.

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South Koreas three opposition parties on Saturday introduced a joint impeachment motion against embattled President Park Geun-hye. The motion [WSJ report], which will be voted on this upcoming Friday, comes just days after Park offered to resign if parliament could come to an agreement on the transition. Some ruling party legislators threatened to support impeachment proceedings if Park did not announce a timeline for her resignation before Friday. The motion accused Park of various crimes including violating the constitution, extorting money from state conglomerates, and allowing friends and aides to influence government decision-making. Despite 171 of the nations 300 legislators signing the motion, it remains unclear whether the motion will capture the required two-thirds vote to pass. Even if it passes through the legislature, the impeachment motion would require approval by the Constitutional Court. Park has also been under criminal investigation on corruption allegations, though she currently has constitutional immunity. If, however, Park chose to resign or the vote to impeach were to pass, the state would be allowed to levy criminal charges against her. The presidents approval rating is at an all-time low as further street protests are expected to take place in Seoul this weekend.

The investigation into the president is the latest controversy affecting South Korean government officials. In October Park proposed [JURIST report] to amend the countrys constitutional provision that limits presidents to one term in office. Currently, South Korean presidents can only have a single five-year term, and Park finishes her term in office in February 2018. The Korea Fair Trade Commission, South Koreas antitrust regulator, confirmed [JURIST report] in August that the country is investigating whether Google violated the countrys antitrust laws. In Kyung-joon, a senior prosecutor in South Korea was indicted [JURIST report] in July on charges of bribery by accepting more than USD $11 million from an executive at the online-game company Nexon during collusive stock transactions over a nine-year period.
The woman found the 1929 copy of "Travels With A Donkey In The Cevennes" by Robert Louis Stevenson while clearing out her house

A British pensioner has returned a library book to her school some 63 years after taking it out, the librarian said Friday.

The woman, now in her 70s, found the 1929 copy of "Travels With A Donkey In The Cevennes" by Robert Louis Stevenson while clearing out her house.

The book, which charts the author's 120-mile (195-kilometre) solo hike through the Cevennes mountains in southern France, contained a stamp showing it was due to be returned to North Walsham High School in Norfolk, eastern England, in 1953.

Luckily for the student, the market town school has a policy of not fining students for overdue books.

"The lady who brought back the Robert Louis Stevenson book apologised for not returning it sooner -- but better late than never," school librarian Liz Sawyer said, appealing for others with overdue books to do the same.

"While we don't lose many books, there must have been a few which have been inadvertently retained by students over the years," she said, adding: "It would be really nice to get some of them back."

The world's largest fine for an overdue library book is $345.14 (323 euros) according to Guinness World Records.

That book, returned after 47 years by the borrower's daughter, was lent out by Kewanee Public Library in the US state of Illinois, and was due back in April 1955.

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Air strikes on a village in the Syrian province of Idlib killed at least 14 civilians on Sunday, among them a child, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

The Britain-based group said dozens more had been injured in the strikes on several parts of the village of Kafr Nabal and that the death toll could rise.

It said the strikes appeared to have been carried out by a Russian warplane.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

Russia began a military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad in September 2015, saying it was carrying out strikes against "terrorists".

It denies that its strikes have caused civilians casualties.

In November, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian forces had begun a "major operation" targeting Idlib and Homs provinces.

The northern Idlib province is mostly controlled by a powerful rebel alliance known as the Army of Conquest, which groups Islamist factions with jihadists of the Fateh al-Sham Front, formerly Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate.

Most of Homs province is controlled by the Syrian government, but small parts of the countryside in the region are controlled by a range of rebel groups.

Kafr Nabal gained fame in the early years of Syria's conflict for the creative, topical and sometimes humourous placards and banners carried by protesters at weekly demonstrations against the government.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests before spiralling into a complex, multi-front war.

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The Iraqi government on Sunday sent truckloads of food, heating oil and drinking water to residents of areas retaken from the Islamic State group in and around the northern city of Mosul as more civilians streamed out of the city amid intense fighting between the militants and troops.

Diaa Sallal, the top relief official at the Ministry of Immigration and Displaced, told The Associated Press that the supplies were being delivered to the towns of Bartella and Qayara, east and south of Mosul respectively, as well as the outlying Mosul neighborhoods of Ekhaa First and Ekhaa Second.

Sallal, reached by telephone in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, gave no further details.

The government launched a campaign to retake Mosul from IS group in October. The fighting has caused shortages of vital supplies like clean drinking water, according to the U.N. and Iraqi officials.

On Sunday, heavy fighting flared up in the eastern sector of Mosul, with both sides exchanging heavy gunfire from rooftops in the Shaimaa neighborhood. IS militants, meanwhile, shelled the district with a heavy barrage of mortars, according to an AP team that witnessed the battle.

Scores of families braved the fighting, leaving their homes and fleeing IS-held districts for the relative safety of the Shaimaa and Entissar neighborhoods, both retaken by government troops, or camps for the displaced at a safe distance outside the city.

Hamdan al-Abed, an 18-year-old Shaimaa resident, broke down in tears at the sight of members of the Iraqi special forces in his neighborhood and later recounted the brutality of the group in Mosul, which was captured by the militants in June 2014.

"We couldn't resist them, we didn't have weapons and they would kill anyone against them," he told the AP. "When the security forces approached our neighborhood, all the Daesh fighters fled with their families deeper inside Mosul," he said, using an Arab acronym for the group.

Fighting in Mosul has been mostly focused in the part of the city east of the Tigris River, with the special forces deployed there progressing slowly due to the spirited resistance of IS group and fears over the safety of civilians. There are an estimated 1 million civilians inside the city, Iraq's second largest and the last major urban center still held by IS group in Iraq.

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KEARNEY  A Kearney man admitted selling methamphetamine to a police informant.

Eli Hernandez, 27, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Buffalo County District Court to felony distribution of meth on Jan. 7 after selling

.17 grams of the drug to an informant in southeast Kearney. In exchange for his plea, Deputy Buffalo County Attorney Mike Mefferd dismissed a second count of felony distribution of meth on Jan. 8.

A second district court case and a Buffalo County Court case also were dismissed.

Judge John Icenogle ordered Hernandez to undergo a presentence investigation to be conducted by the state probation department. Sentencing will be in November.

Hernandez is attending the Siena Francis Treatment Center in Omaha. If he isnt placed on probation, he faces one to 50 years in prison.

As Hernandez left the courtroom he exchanged words with Mefferd and shook his hand.
KEARNEY - A Kearney man accused of sexually assaulting a girl in his Kearney Girl Scout troop is not an employee of Kearney High School.

Daniel S. Miller, 32, was contacted at Kearney High School by law enforcement authorities about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and arrested on a Dawson County warrant for first-degree sexual assault.

Kearney Public Schools Superintendent Brian Maher said Miller was at the school attending a public event. Miller isn't an employee of school district, and wasn't in contact with any students at the school, Maher said.
OMAHA -- The Nebraska Attorney Generals Office, empowered under law to protect the financial assets of Nebraska charities and ensure those dollars are used for public good, has launched a review of the operations of Goodwill Omaha.

Officials declined to detail what specific issues are under examination, though one likely concern is whether Goodwills high levels of executive compensation represented an unlawful misuse of charitable dollars.

We are currently reviewing the matter, said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Stempson, chief of the public protection bureau and consumer protection division under Attorney General Doug Peterson. The attorney general is here to protect charitable assets. (This office) has the ability to protect charitable assets if it feels there may be issues.

Goodwill officials confirmed the inquiry and indicated that they are cooperating with the attorney generals subpoenas seeking information.

Goodwill has been notified of a civil inquiry from the State Attorney Generals Office, which regulates Nebraska nonprofit corporations, said Pauli Bishop, the Goodwill chief financial officer who is serving as its interim CEO. We are currently working on a response to their inquiries.

A recent investigation by The World-Herald spotlighted the corporate-style pay package of former Goodwill CEO Frank McGree and the unusually large number of other executives and managers at the nonprofit who were paid $100,000 or more. Goodwill spent so much on executive pay and other administrative costs that scant dollars from its signature thrift stores were left to support the community jobs programs that are central to the charitys mission.

State law does not provide any specific compensation limits for charities. However, their officers and boards have a fiduciary obligation under law to ensure nonprofit assets are being spent on charitable causes. In addition, state law bars charities from distributing their income to their directors or officers in the form of excessive pay.

The big end-of-year incentive bonuses Goodwill Omaha awarded to McGree and other top executives in recent years could come under particular scrutiny.

The attorney generals powers include the ability to subpoena a charity for information, bring civil action in court against a charity and its leaders, and to seek return of any money that may have been unlawfully paid out.

Based on whats known about Goodwills operations and the attorney generals authority, the state also could probe possible conflicts of interest involving Goodwill board members and officers, and possible violations of laws dealing with deceptive trade practices.

In addition to recovering assets, the attorney general has the authority to ask a court to remove officers or directors or to completely dissolve a charity.

While dissolution would seem unlikely in the case of Goodwill Omaha, the attorney generals involvement at a minimum would provide some legal scrutiny and oversight as the charity implements the reforms its leaders have pledged in the wake of The World-Herald investigation.

In spite of Goodwills slogan that shopping at or donating to its thrift stores helps the disabled and others with barriers to employment, The World-Herald found that at the charitys Omaha affiliate, such efforts have contributed more to lofty executive salaries.

McGree received a pay package exceeding $400,000 annually  more than double the average for CEOs at other large Omaha social service nonprofits. A $519,000 payment in 2014  part of a retirement and retention package signed 20 years earlier  brought his compensation that year close to $1 million.

Fourteen executives and managers at Goodwill Omaha last year were paid $100,000 or more, including McGrees daughter. None of the nations 78 largest Goodwill affiliates could match Goodwill Omaha, for its size, in the number of executives paid six-figure salaries, the newspaper found.

The World-Herald also revealed that out of about $4 million in profits generated by Goodwills thrift stores last year, no more than $557,000 found its way into its job programs. Most thrift profits were essentially gobbled up by the agencys $4 million in overhead expenses, including executive pay.

More than a dozen employees told the paper that Goodwills mission in recent years had taken a back seat to executive pay. Job trainers who worked with disabled students became frustrated by the charitys reluctance to hire graduates to work in the profit-driven thrift stores.

McGree stepped down within days of the initial series, published in late October, and two other high-paid executives have since departed. The charitys board and Bishop, the interim CEO, have pledged a top-to-bottom evaluation of Goodwills pay structure, a third-party assessment of its operations and an ethics review by another outside organization.

Like attorneys general across the states, the Nebraska attorney general has both common law and statutory authority to protect charitable assets. Basic to that power is ensuring that charities are not violating the nondistribution constraint  the legal principle that prohibits a nonprofit from disbursing its net earnings among the individuals who oversee the organization.

The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled the nondistribution constraint is essentially what sets a nonprofit apart from a for-profit corporation. In return for tax-exempt status, nonprofits are required to devote their net earnings to the services the organization was set up to provide.

The attorney general encourages citizens who believe charitable assets are being misused, or whistleblowers who have information about violations by a charity, to file a report with its division that oversees nonprofits. The attorney general has an online complaint form on its consumer protection website, protectthegoodlife.nebraska.gov.

When citizens have concerns about assets of charitable entities, we encourage them to come to our website, Stempson said. Thats how we often get information.

While Stempson would not detail her offices look into Goodwill, two recent cases handled by her office illustrate the states power to intervene when questions arise about nonprofits.

The Nebraska attorney general joined the attorneys general from the 49 other states and the Federal Trade Commission this year in getting a federal court in Arizona to dissolve two cancer charities accused of bilking donors out of $187 million. The complaint alleged that a small fraction of public donations to the Cancer Fund of America went to services for cancer patients, with most instead paying for additional fundraising operations, high salaries of its leaders and luxury vacations.

As part of the settlement, the charitys assets were liquidated and its top executive was required to forfeit personal assets, including artwork, a gun collection and a boat.

And in 2014, the Nebraska attorney general intervened in a bankruptcy case involving an Omaha retirement home after a creditor alleged that one of the charitys officers was diverting funds to family members. That case is pending.

In the case of Goodwill Omaha, the attorney general could look into whether pay and expenses paid to top officers constituted violation of the nondistribution constraint.

State law specifically defines an unlawful distribution as payment of a dividend or any part of the income or profit of a (nonprofit) corporation to its members, directors or officers. While Goodwill did not pay members of its volunteer board of directors, several top executives  including CEO McGree and the charitys executive vice president, chief operating officer, chief financial officer and vice president for federal contracts  in recent years were listed on public disclosure forms as officers of Goodwill.

To determine whether the pay to officers was reasonable, the attorney general would likely look at how the charity complied with IRS regulations requiring executive pay to be based on comparisons with similar entities. Goodwills board has defended McGrees pay as befitting a 30-year leader who significantly grew the charity. The board says it used valid comparisons to set the pay, but has declined to release its pay comparison data to The World-Herald, citing nondisclosure agreements with consultants who provided it.

However, the attorney generals subpoena authority could force Goodwill to disclose that data. The attorney general has the power to issue subpoenas without going to court when its investigating deceptive trade practices or other issues of consumer protection. The attorney general could similarly learn of any severance payments McGree received  another matter the charity has not publicly disclosed.

In a similar case in 2005 the attorney general in Oregon found that CEO pay at Goodwills Portland affiliate was not reasonable because it was primarily based on comparisons with much larger for-profit corporations. The charity agreed to slash the CEOs $831,000 in pay and benefits and to stop making contributions to a big severance package he was to receive when he left the organization.

Goodwill Omahas performance bonuses in particular could draw attention.

Goodwills public disclosure statements suggest that in the five years from 2011 to 2015 it paid nearly $1.2 million in incentive bonuses to McGree and the four other top officers. McGree alone received $470,000 in such payments  nearly $100,000 a year.

Goodwill officials say payment of performance bonuses was based on achievement of goals in five areas: total enrollment in Goodwill programs, safety, revenue growth, administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue, and operating profit.

An attorney in the Douglas County Assessors Office previously questioned whether the payment of bonuses on a basis that included the charitys profit margin would violate the nondistribution principle. Ron Jensen, an attorney who serves on Goodwills board, said in a recent interview he believed that the bonus payments complied with law.

Nebraska law holds that board members can be held personally liable for unlawful distributions but also makes provision for recovery of such funds from those who received the money.

The Cancer Fund of America case involved fundraising misrepresentations made by the charity  another area where Goodwill Omaha could draw state scrutiny.

Though Goodwill runs almost $10 million in jobs programs annually, they are nearly completely funded by grants and contracts with the government and others  not by the thrift stores the charity touts in its ads when it encourages the public to donate goods. A new state law that took effect in July makes it a deceptive trade practice to employ any deception, fraud or misrepresentation to solicit funds or assets for a charitable purpose.

Goodwill board leaders have said they had no knowledge the charity was out of step in the amount of store profits it put into its jobs programs. They said they were unfamiliar with the figures revealed in the World-Herald analysis.

Goodwill also operated a program in which Chinese-made hair rollers were repackaged in bags labeled Made in America  a program that it recently discontinued. Nebraska law states it is a deceptive trade practice to misrepresent the geographic origin of a good or service.

The attorney general has the power to seek a court injunction to stop a deceptive trade practice, can accept an assurance from a violator that such a practice will discontinue, and can seek repayment of any money or property acquired by deceptive means.

The World-Heralds recent reports on business ties between Goodwill, its board and its leaders suggest another area of possible inquiry.

Goodwill Omaha routinely engaged in no-bid contracts with businesses that employ board members, and with smaller companies owned by family members and friends of Goodwill leaders.

Nebraska conflict-of-interest laws allow such dealings as long as several legal steps are followed and if the directors approving the transaction in good faith reasonably believe that the transaction is fair to the charity. If the attorney general finds that a transaction was not entered into lawfully, possible remedies include seeking to legally void the deal.

Goodwill officials have said they complied with state laws in awarding the contracts to board members companies. They also blame executives no longer with the organization for the smaller no-bid contracts entered into with family members and friends of Goodwill leaders.
Congregation of Notre Dame Sisters Marilyn von Zuben, left to right, Lorraine Costello and Sheila Sullivan are seen in the chapel at the Mother House, in Montreal on Wednesday, November 16, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
The Syrian regime's advances in war-torn east Aleppo do not represent a "victory for Assad" or his Russian ally Vladimir Putin, British foreign minister Boris Johnson said Sunday.

"I really think that it's a mistake to think whatever happens in Aleppo and other areas of rebel-held Syria could amount to a victory for Assad or for Putin," Johnson told the BBC.

The advance of President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the key Syrian city has sparked international outrage, with hundreds of civilians killed and tens of thousands fleeing since the latest offensive began in mid-November.

Syria's army pushed further into eastern Aleppo Saturday in a devastating assault that has placed it in control of more than half the former rebel stronghold.

Asked if the gains could represent a win for Assad, Johnson replied: "Winning, what is he going to win?"

"It's impossible to imagine that the people of Syria, millions of them, are going to be reconciled to an Assad-led regime.

"There are millions of Syrians who won't accept that outcome, who will continue to fight, so the best outcome is for President (Vladimir) Putin and the puppets that he supports to get to the negotiating table and do a deal that moves Syria away from the Assad regime."

The government has recaptured around 60 percent of eastern parts of Aleppo that rebel forces seized in mid-2012, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Moscow, a key Syria ally, has proposed setting up four humanitarian corridors into the city's east but said regime approval remained essential.

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Fierce fighting shook east Aleppo on Sunday as Syrian government forces pressed an assault that has seen them retake control of more than half of the former rebel stronghold.

President Bashar al-Assad's army is nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of Syria's second city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syria's opposition its worst defeat of the country's five-year civil war.

On Sunday, heavy fighting was underway in the Myessar district and elsewhere on the outskirts of newly recaptured neighbourhoods in the east.

Syrian state television showed what it said was live footage from the front line, with its correspondent crouched by a building as explosions were heard in the distance and warplanes screeched overhead.

The Syrian army holds more than 60 percent of east Aleppo after seizing the Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood on Friday night and making additional advances on Saturday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor.

"The army now aims to advance and take control of Shaar district and the surrounding districts to force the rebels to withdraw toward the southeastern neighbourhoods," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The army issued a statement overnight urging Syrians from northeastern Aleppo "to return to their homes after the Syrian Arab Army restored security and stability to those districts and state institutions began rehabilitation work."

On Saturday, several hundred people took advantage of the resumption of government buses from west to east to check on homes long abandoned in territory formerly held by rebels.

But the level of destruction in many places meant people were able to do little more than check whether any possessions could be retrieved from ravaged homes.

"This is all we found, this photo of my niece. It is precious to us, and we found a copy of the Koran, so we brought that too," said Um Yayha, 55.

The army began its assault on the east in mid-November, pounding rebel-held neighbourhoods with air strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire.

The assault has killed at least 311 civilians, including 42 children, according to the Observatory.

Rebel fire on the government-held west of Aleppo has killed 69 civilians, including 28 children, in the same period, the monitor says.

The government advance has prompted an exodus of civilians, with some fleeing south to remaining rebel-held territory and up to 50,000 heading to areas controlled by the government or Kurdish forces.

Russia, a staunch ally of the Syrian government, said Sunday it had delivered 30 trucks of aid to Aleppo.

"It is important for Russia that people do not starve, that the people feel that they are needed both by the Syrian government and by Russia," Russian official Nikolai Ponomaryov told journalists in Aleppo.

East Aleppo has been under government siege since July, with international aid stocks exhausted and remaining food supplies dwindling.

Russia says it is not participating in the offensive in Aleppo, though its forces are continuing to wage the aerial campaign they began in September 2015 elsewhere in the country.

Last month, Moscow said it was beginning a "major operation" in the northwestern Idlib and central Homs provinces.

Idlib is largely controlled by a rebel alliance that includes former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, while Homs is mostly under government control but includes pockets of rebel territory.

On Sunday, the Observatory said at least 21 civilians, including three children, were killed in an apparent Russian air strike on Kafr Nabal in Idlib.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, and several rounds of talks have failed to produce a deal to end the fighting.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura on Saturday warned of a "creeping, ongoing guerilla (war) and no reconstruction" unless peace talks resumed.

On Sunday the opposition High Negotiations Committee urged the international community to "take immediate action to stop the bombing and massacres targeting several areas in Syria and Aleppo in particular."

Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson meanwhile said regime advances in Aleppo were not a "victory for Assad" as many Syrians would continue to reject his rule.

"The best outcome is for President (Vladimir) Putin and the puppets that he supports to get to the negotiating table and do a deal that moves Syria away from the Assad regime," he said.

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Dear President-elect Trump,

On the campaign trail, you referred to the opioid epidemic plaguing the nation a tremendous problem  and it is. You claimed that this crisis could be mitigated by building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to cut off the source. You promised to dedicate resources to get afflicted Americans treated. You pledged to take addicts and work with them to ensure they are gonna get that habit broken.

As a board-certified practicing pain physician, I appreciate your enthusiasm for addressing the issue and broad commitments to do so. But there are three underlying facts you need to consider if we as a nation are going to adequately address the problem.

Fact 1: Legally prescribed opioids can be a gateway drug to heroin. One hundred million Americans suffer from chronic pain conditions, and four out of five new heroin users first abused opioid painkillers that were legally prescribed by doctors. For physicians and patients alike, the pain management path of least resistance remains opioid medications. This still growing reliance on prescription opioids to manage pain is troubling; in 2012, enough prescriptions were written in the U.S. to give every adult their own bottle. In order to solve this crisis, we need to start at the root source. Surprisingly, most U.S. physicians have limited training in pain management. Educating health professionals, increasing understanding of how to diagnose pain and expanding the suite of appropriate treatment options to manage painful conditions is paramount.

Fact 2: Opioid medications are often cheaper than non-pharmaceutical pain treatment options. Physicians work with patients to ensure they get the best and most affordable health care they can. But the harsh reality is that for many pain sufferers, the time required and cost to fill a prescription is less than alternative treatment methods such as physical therapy, acupuncture, and medical devices which are often not covered by even the most generous insurance plans. The health care industry has to mainstream alternative treatment options and increase accessibility to those treatments so that they are turned to as frequently as the prescription pad or the pill bottle in the medicine cabinet.

Fact 3: The opioid addiction is a public health crisis, not merely a criminal justice problem. Opioid addiction doesnt just afflict the criminal underbelly of society; people with no prior criminal record are increasingly becoming overdose statistics. Women are more likely to suffer from chronic pain conditions, be prescribed prescription pain relievers, given higher doses, and use them for longer time periods than men. Prescription pain reliever overdoses in women increased by 400 percent between 1999 and 2010, compared to 237 percent for men. Adolescent use is also on the rise, and most kids who abuse or misuse prescription pain relievers are given them (for free) by a friend or relative and do not take them under the supervision of a doctor. This behavior can spiral quickly into addiction patterns that lead to heroin or other illegal drug use.

Mr. President-elect, as you may have experienced watching your brothers battle with addiction, cutting off the source of illegal drugs is not a sufficient enough response. An addict will always find a new dealer or way to get high. While expanding law enforcement and prosecuting traffickers of illegal drugs are laudable goals, gaining a better understanding of how to treat pain and expanding access of those treatments should be a priority. And once a patient is addicted, we turn to addiction treatment facilities and abuse-deterring drugs. But these options alone wont solve the problem, which must be regarded as the greatest public health crisis facing our nation in a generation.

While the Congress recently passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), this law is just the start and must be fully funded if it stands of chance at working. Furthermore, advocates need to recognize CARA does not address all the issues that lead to opioid addiction. But neither does building a wall, prescribing more drugs or increasing police presence. In medical school, they teach us to treat the problem, not merely bandage the symptoms.

Mehul Desai is a pain management specialist.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Two of the five finalists in this years Making an Impact competition organised by the Higher Education Authority in conjunction with the Irish Independent were from Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT).

One of the finalists was Inistioge woman, Dayna Killian, a PhD student at the Department of Creative and Performing Arts in the School of Humanities at WIT.

She is a recipient of the WIT PhD scholarship fund for her PhD entitled Performing Women.

Her entry was titled Women Playwrights: Gender Equality for Irish Cultural Institutions.

Dayna attended the Holy Faith, New Ross and Newtown, Waterford secondary schools. Her family includes her father Michael and mother Margaret, sisters Megan and Isabel.

There were over 200 entries from higher education institutions across Ireland and the finalists were charged with effectively communicating their research to a lay audience.

Vice President for Research, Innovation and Graduate Studies at WIT Dr Peter McLoughlin commented: WIT is extremely proud of Dayna in reaching the final of this years Making an Impact competition.

This achievement highlights the breadth and quality of research being carried out at WIT.

The competition along with the #LoveIrishResearch initiative reinforces the importance of research and making this research accessible to a wider audience.

At the final held recently at The Helix, Dublin City University each researcher had a maximum of ten minutes to make their presentation, followed by a brief question and answer session with an expert panel.

The Performing Women doctoral programme, which Dayna started in September 2015 aims to both recoup the work of women playwrights whose plays were both produced, and rejected, by the Abbey Theatre throughout the twentieth century and to inform and change the ways in which theatre researchers, practitioners and policy-makers engage with and foster new theatre practice by women, programme plays by women and document, archive and undertake theatre research into women practitioners.

She completed her MSc at WIT in Global Financial Information Systems. Prior to my MSc my educational achievements included a first class honours degree in Drama and Theatre studies at Liverpool Hope University.

What attracted me to the MSc in Global Financial Information Systems at the school of Business in WIT was my interest in how the arts can influence society and communicate and question the existing status quo.

In order to explore this in greater depth I felt it was desirable to form a greater understand of existing economic systems and in my thesis I considered, partly through an analysis of the Kilkenny festival Kilkenomics, the ways in which the arts can be utilised to bridge the gap between the often confusing language used to describe public policies and the people who are effected by them, she said.

The supervisory support I have received from Dr Una Kealy, Dr Richard Hayes and Dr Jacinta Byrne-Doran has been unwavering. Dr Una Kealy is the principal investigator on the Performing Women project and has imparted knowledge and encouragement while guiding me through this research process and making me aware of certain events and opportunities which I should be attending and applying for.

She is currently analysing the plays and production material she found at the Abbey archives in NUI Galway and at the National Library and is focusing on the 1930s.

Some of the plays include works by Maura Molloy, Teresa Deevy and Mary Rynne. I am interested in the relationship between these playwrights and the Abbey Theatre and am currently comparing and contrasting their work. I'm also particularly interested in the influence Ernest Blythe had on selecting the plays which were produced.

Additionally, I have recently completed a discussion document about the creation and development of gender policy in the Irish cultural sector and am exploring how this could be extended to the media and broadcasting sector, she said.

Dayna hopes to go on to find work promoting diversity within the Irish cultural sector.
SANTIAGO, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Chile's state-owned Codelco , the world's largest copper producer, plans investments of about $3.8 billion in 2017 and more cost cutting, Chief Executive Nelson Pizarro said in an interview published on Sunday.

"Of that, $3.143 billion is in projects, and $651 million is in mine development, which compares to almost $3 billion in 2016," Pizarro told Chile's El Mercurio newspaper.

Codelco would prioritize an expansion at its massive Chuquicamata mine, he said, while plans to expand its Andina and Radomiro Tomic mines would be delayed. Projects deemed most profitable would take priority, he said.

Pizarro also said that he hoped for savings from cost cuts of around $400 million in 2016.

"In the year 2015 ... we saved between $500 and $600 million," he said.

"This year we hope that there's another $400 million, and in 2017 we hope to reach savings of $200 million as a first phase. We have a goal of structural savings of $2 billion by 2020."

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Susan Fenton)
ABUJA, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Nigeria is expecting the arrival of warplanes and helicopters it ordered from Pakistan and Russia, its latest effort to counter terrorist and militant activities, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar said on Sunday.

Nigeria is battling jihadist group Boko Haram, which has waged a seven-year insurgency in the northern part of the country aimed at creating an Islamic state. Thousands have been killed and more than 2 million displaced.

It also faces threats in its crude-producing heartland in the southern Niger Delta, where militants have been blowing up oil pipelines. The subsequent loss of crude oil output has hurt government revenues.

The air force chief said it was assisting the army and navy in countering activities of terrorists and militants.

Nigeria's foreign minister said in May the government hoped the United States would sell it aircraft to fight Boko Haram militants, because its human rights record had improved enough for a blockade on arms deals to be lifted .

Under the previous government, the United States had blocked arms sales and ended training of Nigerian troops, partly over human rights concerns such as treatment of captured insurgents.

Air Marshal Abubakar declined comment on arms procurement issues but said his force was receiving necessary support from several countries in terms of military training.

He said more than 700 of his troops were undergoing training in Pakistan, China, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Egypt, Russia and the United States.

In a separate statement, Nigeria's army chief reminded the military that captured terrorists must be treated in accordance with international law, adding that he wanted to get the military back to their barracks in 2017.

Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai urged all his commanders to act in conjunction with the air force and navy to rescue those abducted by Boko Haram.

(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Additional reporting by Lanre Ola in Maiduguri; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Larry King)
North Kitsap girls soccer keeps state tourney streak alive

Four teams  North Kitsap, Bremerton, Olympic and Sequim  came away victorious in the first round of the Class 2A West Central District tournament.
A plane originally intended for Tunisia's toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been sold to Turkish Airlines, Tunisair said Sunday, six years after it was grounded following his ouster.

The Turkish firm bought the Airbus A340 for 181 million dinars ($78 million), Tunisair spokeswoman Amal Bourguiba said, without giving a date for the sale.

The A340 had arrived in the French airport of Bordeaux in the autumn of 2010 to be equipped for Ben Ali's use, but a popular uprising in Tunisia toppled the dictator early the next year.

According to French daily Sud-Ouest, Ben Ali -- who now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia -- only used the plane once to test it before it was outfitted.

Tunisair put the plane on the market in January 2012, saying it had been outfitted with a living room and bedroom "to suit the travel needs of a head of state".

Another Airbus A340 -- this one luxuriously furnished for slain Libyan president Moamer Kadhafi -- has also been grounded for years in the French airport of Perpignan.

The plane, which a Kuwaiti firm was once interested in buying, still in theory belongs to Libya, a country that has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 revolt that toppled and killed Kadhafi.

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Department of Defense kicks off Hack the Army initiative

DECEMBER 4, 2016 at 2:57 p.m.





WASHINGTON  Building on the success of the Hack the Pentagon bug bounty pilot in which hackers from across the country were provided legal authorization to spot vulnerabilities in specific Department of Defense networks in return for cash payments, the Department of Defense (DoD) has unveiled two new initiatives designed to further enhance the DoD cybersecurity.



The first initiative is a new DoD policy regarding the identification of network vulnerabilities. Beginning today, the DoD Vulnerability Disclosure Policy provides a legal avenue for security researchers to find and disclose vulnerabilities in any DoD public-facing systems. This policy is the first of its kind for the Department. It provides clear guidance to security researchers for testing and disclosing vulnerabilities in DoD websites, and commits the Department to working openly and in good faith with researchers.



The Vulnerability Disclosure Policy is a see something, say something policy for the digital domain, said Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. We want to encourage computer security researchers to help us improve our defenses. This policy gives them a legal pathway to bolster the departments cybersecurity and ultimately the nations security.



The U.S. Department of Justices Criminal Division, which was consulted during the development of DoDs Vulnerability Disclosure Policy, welcomed it as an important development. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell described it as a laudable way to help computer security researchers use their skills in an effective, beneficial, and lawful manner to reduce security vulnerabilities.



Today also marks the opening of registration for Hack the Army, the next bug bounty challenge. The competition is modeled after the Defense Digital Services Hack the Pentagon pilot, but is focused on more operationally relevant websites -- specifically those affecting the Armys recruiting mission. Partnering with the Defense Digital Service, Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning announced the challenge earlier this month in Austin, Texas.



As Secretary of the Army, the security of these foundational systems is incredibly important to me, and security is everyone's responsibility, Secretary Fanning said. We need as many eyes and perspectives on our problem sets as possible and thats especially true when it comes to securing the Armys pipeline to future Soldiers.



Approximately 500 hackers are expected to participate in this bug bounty challenge. They will be eligible to receive thousands of dollars in bounty rewards.



The Vulnerability Disclosure Policy will provide a standing avenue of reporting for all DoD websites, whereas bug bounties like Hack the Army will provide incentives to researchers to focus on specific high-priority DoD networks and systems. These two initiatives underscore Secretary Carters commitment to innovation and adopting commercial best practices. DoD has focused on efforts to modernize our digital security and find new ways to solve our internal challenges. Both Hack the Army and the new Vulnerability Disclosure Policy are in line with these goals.



Please visit HackerOne.com/DeptOfDefense and HackerOne.com/HacktheArmy for more information on the DoD Vulnerability Disclosure Policy and the Hack the Army bug bounty challenge. Published December 4, 2016
Chaos erupted in eastern Mosul on Sunday when hundreds of civilians overwhelmed aid trucks distributing food and water.

The Iraqi government has called on Mosul's residents to stay in their homes during the operation to retake the city from the Islamic State group, hoping to avoid large-scale displacement, but as progress on the ground slows, hundreds of thousands are now stuck with dwindling food and water supplies.

The Iraqi government sent truckloads of food, heating oil and drinking water to residents in areas retaken from IS on Sunday, but few of the trucks could make it to civilians trapped near front-line fighting.

"There is no justice," Abu Ahmed said during a chaotic distribution in the Samah neighborhood on the eastern edge of Mosul. "Some people took so many bags of food and others got nothing." He asked that his full name not be used out of security concerns.

While the trucks bore banners identifying them as distributing aid on behalf of the local government, there were no government or security officials present in Samah during the melee that ensued.

Men, women and children fought over bags of flour and baskets of apples.

"We are desperate, this is the first time I've seen aid trucks," Abu Ahmed said. He said the food and water residents had stockpiled before the start of the operation had run out.

At one point, Iraqi soldiers fired into the air in an attempt to clear the street to make way for ambulances carrying casualties from the front.

Younis Shamal, a teenager from Mosul, watched crowds fighting over food and water scatter from the far side of the road. "Our lives used to be very normal, we would just go to work and come home at the end of the day," he said, "this has turned us into uncivilized people."

More than six weeks in, the battle for Mosul is proceeding slowly, with Iraqi forces battling street by street against heavily armed militants who have launched scores of suicide car bomb attacks.

In the Shaimaa neighborhood, soldiers and IS fighters exchanged heavy gunfire from rooftops as Iraqi forces tried to advance down narrow residential streets. IS militants shelled the district with a heavy barrage of mortar rounds, according to AP reporters at the scene.

Diaa Sallal, a senior Iraqi relief official, told The Associated Press that the supplies were being delivered to the towns of Bartella and Qayara, near Mosul, as well as two outlying Mosul neighborhoods. Sallal, reached by telephone in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, gave no further details.

Scores of families continue to brave ongoing fighting to flee IS-held districts for the relative safety of neighborhoods retaken by government troops or camps for the displaced outside the city.

Deeper inside Mosul, Iraqi special forces set up a tight security perimeter around a more organized aid distribution in the Bakr neighborhood. Hundreds of men and women lined up along a residential street as Iraqi special forces handed out boxes of aid.

But with the front line just over a hundred meters (yards) away, only a small number of aid trucks could reach the neighborhood.

Soldiers screened the civilians as gunfire echoed nearby. Ambulances and armored vehicles carrying wounded soldiers came screaming past after an IS suicide car bomb struck a nearby army position.

Elsewhere in Iraq, security forces in the northern Kurdish region shot and killed two of four people who resisted arrest in a village near the Iranian border. Nasah Mala Hassan, the mayor of a nearby town, said the other two blew themselves up, and that an armed Kurdish civilian was killed. It was not immediately clear whether the suspects were members of an armed group.

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B2LiNK CEO Lee So-hyung / Courtesy of B2LiNK



By Park Jae-hyuk

The Group of Two's recent protectionists policies followed by Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election and China's economic retaliation against Korea over the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system seem to be serious risks for Korean exporters.

B2LiNK CEO Lee So-hyung, however, confidently said no government can interfere with macro-trends in the market. The 33-year-old is one of the co-founders of the IT-based business-to-business startup which distributes Korean beauty brands to global retail channels in the most effective way possible.

"The U.S. will not restrict small areas. It may impose anti-dumping tariffs on steel, but consumer goods  especially Korean cosmetics  will not be regulated as they are not in the majority of the market," Lee said in an interview with The Korea Times on Friday.

"Most people fear that trade with China will be threatened, but local Chinese firms actually earn more money than Korean businesses through the cosmetics trade. Chinese authorities will be unlikely to regulate the trade, as most Chinese consumers purchase Korean cosmetics via their local online platforms."



An inside view of B2LiNK office in Gangnam / Courtesy of B2LiNK



After working in many industries in several countries as a consultant of McKinsey & Company for four years, Lee decided to operate a business that introduces Korean consumer goods to the world. He said, "The industry in which Korea has an advantage over other countries is in consumer goods."

His company initially targeted the Chinese market and has expanded its presence there. The Seoul-based company established local offices in Tianjin and Shanghai. It also signed supply contracts with China's top commerce firms including Watsons China and RuHnn.

"When I began to run my business in 2014, China's economy was growing rapidly with its e-commerce market which was growing much faster," Lee said. "The rate of cosmetics consumption, on the other hand, was still low at that time, so I thought there might be a chance for a success."

However, B2LiNK is drawing up a blueprint to globally expand the presence of K-beauty beyond China. Lee said, "Korean consumer goods have depended too much on China so far, and we want to help the firms gain competitiveness in the global market. Demand for Korean consumer goods is rising in the U.S., Europe, Africa and the Middle East."

B2LiNK began to supply Korean cosmetics to retail channels in Southeast Asia this May and posts more than 100 million won ($85,000) in monthly sales there. It plans to establish an office in the U.S. next year, which will be the company's first base camp toward the developed market.

"We are actively recruiting employees in the U.S. and Southeast Asia," Lee said. "We will hire local people to lead our subsidiary companies there."

Lee said B2LiNK wants employees who can build their careers in the company, rather than those who already have experiences in similar industries. "Our basic concept is to develop less advanced industries. Expertise is an old-fashioned concept in B2LiNK," he said.

Among young "B2LiNKers" whose average age is 29, B2LiNK posted more than 11 billion won in sales last year. The company estimates its sales will be over 30 billion won this year.
A woman passes by a sign that reads "Flowers are not a bribe, No Kim Young-ran Act" at a flower market in Yangjae-dong, southern Seoul, Saturday. After the law took effect, Sept. 28, the amount of corporate card use to buy flowers dropped 28.1 percent year-on-year in October. / Yonhap



By Nam Hyun-woo

An anti-graft law calling for high morality for public officials seems to be losing steam, as top government officials  including even President Park Geun-hye  were allegedly involved in various corruption scandals.

The law, dubbed the Kim Young-ran Act, prevents people working for the government, media outlets and schools from receiving meals priced higher than 30,000 won, gifts exceeding 50,000 won, and congratulatory and condolence money over 100,000 won under any circumstances.

Should there be any reciprocity found, both the givers and receivers will be subject to legal punishment regardless of the value of the gifts.

Despite heated political controversy and concern over the law's economic impact, the value of a transparent society has earned a large advocacy and the Park administration's endorsement.

However, as the administration is now mired in an unprecedented political scandal including ties between conglomerates and the government, concerns are growing that the law has been compromised and it will end up catching only minor violators, not the kingpins. Also, a growing number of people are expressing their anger over Park's duplicity.

According to the National Police Agency, the number of cases related to the law reported is decreasing. As of Nov. 27, 348 cases were reported including 289 reported within a month after the law took effect. Of them, only two cases were sent to the prosecution, meaning most of them were minor violations.

Among these, two Daegu-based civil servants are waiting for the Daegu District Court's judgment after leaving a box of soft drinks, worth 18,000 won ($15) at the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) headquarters in Seoul, where they visited for an administrative trial-related process.

The workers claimed "It was not a bribe; we just brought the drinks as a greeting gift," according to the Kookmin Ilbo newspaper, but the ACRC requested the court fine them for offering the drinks, which seem too humble to be a bribe. Along with the police, the ACRC also takes reports related to the anti-corruption law.

The ACRC, where Kim young-ran served as chairwoman from 2011 to 2012 and suggested the law during her tenure, is ruthless in its authoritative interpretation.

On Nov. 21, the ACRC and related government branches said through interpretation that giving or receiving a carnation on Teacher's Day is also a violation of the law, because "teachers are in a position to assess students, giving or receiving a carnation can be deemed as a bribe." In Korea, the red carnation is the representative flower given on Teacher's Day.

In its interpretation, the government also declared a case in which a professor receiving a canned coffee drink from his student was a violation of the law. It was the first reported case related the law.

"Placing legal standards to a pure expression of gratitude seems to be excessive," said Kim, an elementary school teacher based in Southern Seoul who requested anonymity.

"I used to tell my students laws are the society's ethical minimum, but the law gives me the impression that it is more restrictive then ethics."

Kim said she worries less about some mothers giving her any kind of gifts, but feels a little discouraged that she will not even get a carnation on Teacher's Day.

"After the recent scandal, my boyfriend and I talked about the law all day. Most of our talk was complaining how unfair society is. Big shots came up with such a strict law while they give and receive tens of billions of won in bribes."

In her campaign to endorse the law, President Park stressed its importance in a public statement in May 2014, asking the National Assembly to pass it as soon as possible. In August this year, when the Constitutional Court found the law constitutional, she said she welcomed the decision.

After the law took effect, she stressed in a Cabinet meeting in October that "the law is a promise to the public to take corruption out of society."

While she was highlighting the importance of the law, Park allegedly exerted influence to conglomerates to donate more than 70 billion won to the Mir and K-Sports foundations, which were under the control of Choi Soon-sil, her confidant who influenced the president over state affairs.

"With Park being alleged as the greatest violator of the law, her behavior dealt a critical blow to not only the cause of the law but also the public expectation over a clean society," reported a domestic news wire reporter surnamed Shin, 27.

"After Park extorted billions of won from conglomerates, she said it (Park's debacle) just happened while she was trying her best for the country and the public. Maybe I should get bribes as much as I can and then say something like that as an excuse."

A Seoul-based civil worker, Lee, 43, said: "Frankly, the law was nothing more than regarding all public workers as potential criminals, restricting too many things in our daily lives."

"With the President being involved in such a scandal, it is bitter that I have to fear for a student giving me a can of coffee," he said.

Despite their anger, lawmakers, Friday, budgeted more than 400 billion won for social overhead capital projects which seem to be giving favors to their constituencies. Such a practice is nicknamed a "slip-in budget" here, earmarks in the U.S., because lawmakers slip in plans for their constituencies while dealing with national matters. It has been stirring controversy questioning whether or not this is a violation of the anti-graft law.

With government and lawmakers at odds over the legitimacy of such a practice, the majority of lawmakers are saying that it is not a violation.

Rep. Lee Sang-min of the Minjoo Party of Korea, who has been vocal against the law, said that "to lawmaker's such a practice is clearly displaying the flaws in the law. It can be interpreted differently by each lawmaker."

"The law was initially designed to affect high ranking public officials, but as it was expanded problems are occurring," he said.
By Nam Hyun-woo



Analysts and experts forecast Sunday that the constitutional referendum in Italy can cause a stir in the domestic financial market, if Italians say no to the reforms proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and he resigns as he promised.



Italians began voting on Renzi's constitutional reforms Sunday and the result is expected to be available Monday afternoon (KST). The plan contains sweeping changes to Italy's Constitution, including reducing the number of senators from 315 to 100.



Of all the impacts from the vote, Renzi's promise to resign if the voters reject the referendum will likely be the greatest. In more than 40 polls over the referendum, "Yes" voters outnumbered No voters only three times.



If Renzi resigns, Italy has to form a new government and one of the leading opposition parties, the Five Star Movement, will likely take control of the country.



The populist party has been throwing out questions about Italy staying in the European Union. Though several more steps, such as constitutional amendments, will be needed before "Italexit," analysts say it will bring a populist surge across Europe and increase political uncertainties which will affect Korean markets.



"The vote actually is a confidence vote for Renzi," said Kim Yong-goo, an analyst at Hana Financial Investment. "A no'result will bring huge political turmoil to Italy and will increase political uncertainties all over Europe."



"This will likely cause a materially weaker euro and a strengthened U.S. dollar. This clearly is a not good for the Korean stock market," he said.



The fallout of the referendum also includes the possibility that several Italian banks will collapse. Renzi has been trying to convince the EU to allow the Italian government to inject cash directly into Italian banks, which are already sitting on huge amounts of bad loans.



To prepare for Renzi's loss, banks are striving to improve their financial status on their own, such as issuing new shares, but expectations are growing that markets may refrain from making investments.



The Italian referendum is the first of a series of major political events scheduled in Europe. France will have a presidential election in April and Germany will have a federal election in August. With the surge of populists being expected, whose major pledges are an exit from the EU, experts say the elections will become major risk factors for not only Korea but also all of Asia.



"The events, including the Italian referendum and those scheduled next year, are enough to spook investors," said IBK Investment & Securities Economist Jeong Yong-taek. "After the global financial crisis, Europe has been the epicenter of global financial shocks."



"An interim cabinet will have weaker stability and responsiveness to economic issues. Also, we have to note that Renzi has been maintaining good relations with the EU," he said, adding that it is time for Korean investors to elevate their awareness of European issues.




Scene from upcoming disaster film "Pandora" / Courtesy of NEW



By Park Jin-hai

The film "Pandora," the first local film dealing with a nuclear disaster here, is striking in that it bears much on what is happening in Korea now.

The nation, which was perceived by many as earthquake-free, was hit by a strong tremor in September. The nation is plagued with a scandal involving President Park Geun-hye, her confident Choi Soon-sil and their cronies who meddled in state affairs.

The seven hours Park went missing during the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster and what she did during that critical time still remain a mystery, prompting much speculation from the media.

The movie, starring veteran actors Kim Myung-min, Jung Jin-young and Kim Nam-gil, features a disaster at a nuclear power plant following a massive earthquake.

Although the film was first shot four years ago, the large-scale film, directed by Park Jung-woo, is a tale about something that could happen if an earthquake strikes nuclear power plants in the southern part of the country. In the movie, there is no contingency plan in place. The president is so incompetent that he has no idea of how to respond to the disaster in the face of the mighty prime minister. The No. 2 man is the real power and controls the Cabinet. The prime minister and Cabinet members strive to cover up the incident and worry more about financial loss than the lives of civilians.

The police are self-serving, too. They care more for their own safety and neglect the safety of the public, putting the lives of the people who are locked into the disaster on the line.

"Pandora" is not an easy movie to watch. It lends a painful patina of the real-world Sewol tragedy that claimed the lives of over 300 people in 2014.

The selfish captain and his crew on the ferry boarded a rescue boat, while telling passengers to stay calm. By doing so, they wasted time for the passengers to be evacuated from the ship. President Park missed the golden time to rescue the hundreds of passengers who lost their lives.

"Pandora" reminds the audience of the difficult ordeal the nation endured over two years ago. Through the voices of people portrayed in the film, the director doesn't shy away from criticizing the government. The prime minister says "We cannot risk the whole nation in order to save just a few lives." A plant worker says, "They (people in power) make the mess and now we have to clean it up."

Structurally, "Pandora" is not innovative. It shares many parts with other local disaster movies such as "Tidal Wave" (2009) and "Train to Busan," where ordinary people become heroes who risk their lives to save their fellow citizens.

However, this film wisely mixes elements of computerized graphics and human stories, leading the viewers to feel that the 136-minute running time isn't that long.

The tragedy culminates at the moment when the president, played by actor Kim Myung-min, confesses in a televised message "The nation has no means to save itself from the disaster," and asks for volunteers, who are courageous enough to risk their lives to repair the cracks in a nuclear reactor, to help.

In contrast, power plant worker Jae-hyuk, played by Kim Nam-gil, is an ordinary citizen who fears death but gathers up the courage to save his own family. The scenes, including the one where Jae-hyuk is crying and saying, "I didn't do anything wrong to suffer this kind of accident," when he speaks to his mother over the phone, are heart-breaking.

At the end, the film reminds the audience that Korea is first country in the world to have its population living near nuclear power plants but even at that, the nation is heading in the wrong direction because it is going against the global trend in nuclear energy.

Other nations are closing down nuclear power plants but Korea plans to build more.

The movie is meaningful in that it raises alarms in describing the danger of disaster in great detail. It also shows that even those who live within 100 kilometers from the disaster-hit area will be affected once a nuclear disaster strikes.

As in the Greek tale of Pandora, the director opens Pandora's box and releases death and many other evils to the world. Except there is hope that lies at the bottom  in this case Jae-hyuk's sacrifice.

After the film, the questions and bitterness linger why an ordinary person such as Jae-hyuk should sacrifice himself for the privileged 1 percent of the people who started all of this to begin with.

"Pandora" will be in local theaters Wednesday.
Candles held by 1.7 million citizens are lit during an anti-President Park Geun-hye protest at Gwanghwamun Square, central Seoul, Saturday, in the above photo. In the bottom photo, the participants put out the candles simultaneously for one minute at 7 p.m., in a move to call for the truth behind President Park's seven-hour absence from duty on the day of the Sewol ferry sinking on April 16, 2014. / Joint press corps



By Kim Bo-eun

The 1.7 million candles at the anti-government protest in central Seoul Saturday evening were put out simultaneously for one minute at 7 p.m.

It was a symbolic move to call for the truth about President Park Geun-hye's seven hours of absence from duty right after the Sewol ferry started skinking on April 16, 2014.





Protestors hold signs that read, "Democracy is dead," "You killed it," "Obedience is over," and "We will deliver judgment on you," in front of Gyeongbok Palace, central Seoul, Saturday. / Korea Times photo by Kim Jung-hyun



The "seven missing hours" is only part of numerous allegations the President is facing. Public demands for her to resign over the influence-scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil show no signs of subsiding, with the number of candles only growing.



After a local court allowed protesters to march up to 100 meters from Cheong Wa Dae, the closest ever to the presidential office, bereaved family members of the Sewol disaster led the march.





A chrysanthemum, thrown by a protestor, remains on the top of head gear of a police officer as protestors threw the white flowers at police officers to express their intention to hold a nonviolent protest. / Yonhap



"We pleaded for the President to meet us, but it took two years and eight months for us to arrive 100 meters in front of Cheong Wa Dae," said Yoo Kyeong-keun, the committee head of the Sewol Families for Truth and a Safer Society.

The family members had staged protests since the incident, attempting to reach Cheong Wa Dae to have their voice heard by the President, but had been blocked from going further. They staged a 76 day sit-in in front of the Cheongun Hyoja-dong Community Center, which is 200 meters from Cheong Wa Dae, from August to October in 2014.





A rally participant sweeps a street with a broom and dustpan he designed with photos of President Park Geun-hye

and her confidant Choi Soon-sil. The signs on them read: "Park uses her head for creative economy,' but the economy

remains at the bottom," and "Park swept money into Choi's pocket. Confiscate her wealth." / Korea Times



Their march was followed by hundreds of thousands of other citizens. Despite the huge crowd, participants  as they did in the previous five rallies  expressed their anger in peaceful ways.

Protesters demanded that special prosecutor Park Young-soo uncover the truth behind Park's whereabouts during the Sewol tragedy.





Thousands of protestors holding candles march towards Cheong Wa Dae during the anti-government protest in central Seoul, Saturday. / Joint press corps



Jung Mi-jung, from Jindo, South Jeolla Province, said, "The special prosecutor's priority is unveiling the truth behind the seven missing hours on the day of Sewol tragedy."

She also said the ruling Saenuri Party should be held accountable for co-conspiring with Park in the corruption scandal.

Jung added that the candlelit rally will play a role in helping clean up the systemic corruption in all of society. "We should clean out the collaborators who back up this corrupt system."





Cheong Wa Dae remains dark while protesters light up candles near the presidential office in central Seoul, Saturday.

/ Joint press corps



Protesters said they will continue to join the rally until Park steps down. They warned that the people will keep their eyes peeled to watch who does not follow the people's mandate.

"I took to the street rally in 1987 uprising against the then military regime, and the scale of anger is way larger than that time," said Kim Seong-ho, 53. "The anti-Park faction in the Saenuri Party should recover their conscience. If the National Assembly fails to pass impeachment, every lawmaker must abandon their position."

While the streets were lit up with candles and warmed up with angry protesters' chants and performances, the presidential office remained unlit and calm, as if the people inside it were trying to ignore what was happening outside.
Yoon Chang-jung



By Kim Rahn



Conservative civic groups and members of President Park Geun-hye's fan club have claimed that the current influence-peddling scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil is a "witch-hunt" against the President organized by North Korea.

About 30,000 people from pro-Park groups, including the group "Park Sa Mo" (literarily meaning people who love Park), held a rally in front of Dongdaemun Design Plaza in central Seoul, Saturday.

It was a separate gathering from the massive anti-Park candlelit protest in Gwanghwamun where 1.7 million people called for the President's resignation over the Choi scandal.

Mostly in their 60s and older, the participants said the candlelit protests were orchestrated by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

"Park did not take a single penny for personal interest and it was Choi who took the money," Jung Gwang-yong, head of Park Sa Mo, said during the rally. "But people say it was third-party bribery. It is a witch-hunt and kangaroo court."

"The independent counsel has not yet disclosed the truth, but people are calling for Park's resignation or impeachment based only on rumors from the media. This is insane," said Heo Pyeong-hwan, head of a conservative civic group for peace and reunification.

Heo said the President complied with almost all of his group's wishes, including pressuring the North by closing down the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, disbanding the Unified Progressive Party and publishing the state-authored history textbook. He also proposed a "taegeukgi protest" to deal with the candlelit protest.

One of the participants, former presidential spokesman Yoon Chang-jung, blamed the media for "spreading rumors" and "attempting to overthrow the government." Yoon, who was the first presidential spokesman for Park, was accused of making unwanted sexual advances toward a young intern working as his temporary secretary during Park's first visit to the U.S. in 2013. He was fired in the middle of the trip.

"The media and the politicians bombarded me with criticism because they thought they would be able to deal a blow to the President by dealing a blow to me, as I was the first official appointed by Park," he said.

"Overthrowing state authority through protest cannot happen in a constitutional democratic country."

Yoon also claimed his innocence about the sexual harassment allegations. "Because I was innocent, I did not commit suicide unlike Roh Moo-hyun," he said, referring to former President Roh who killed himself in 2009 while undergoing an investigation into his alleged bribery acceptance allegations.

After the rally at Dongdaemun Design Plaza, the participants marched to Jongno. Jung said he is considering holding a demonstration at Gwanghwamun Square next Saturday, raising concerns over possible clashes with anti-Park ralliers who also plan to continue their protest there.
Lee Geum-hee, center, the mother of a missing victim of the Sewol ferry disaster from 2014, speaks at Gwanghwamun Square during the sixth anti-president rally on Dec. 3. / Courtesy of Hankook Ilbo



By Ko Dong-hwan

On Dec. 3, when the sixth massive anti-president rally was held at Gwanghwamun Square, protesters re-encountered the haunting trauma of the Sewol ferry disaster more than two years ago.

When an embittered mother of a missing passenger from the accident recounted her last phone call with her daughter in the sinking ship, the heart-wrenching scene vindicated another cause for the scandal-plagued President's resignation: that the head of state should not be free from the deaths of 304 nationals and nine missing unless she explains what she did during the first "seven hours" after the ship began to sink.

The mother of Cho Eun-hwa, a second-year student from Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, stood in front of a 1.7 million crowd in the candlelit anti-Park demonstration in central Seoul.

She said that since the accident on Apr. 16, 2014, she had been "draping herself under a blanket" and staying at Paengmok Harbor on Jindo Island, near which the disaster happened, until now.

"I am still living in that same date," Lee Geum-hee, the bereaved mother, said, struggling not to cry.





The Sewol ferry, which departed the port city of Incheon and headed for Jeju island carrying 476 paassengers, sank in waters off Korea's southwestern coast on Apr. 16, killing 304 passengers and leaving nine missing. / Korea Times file



Lee's main message was to promote the importance of recovering the sunken ship, which will not only make family members of missing victims feel better but also unearth evidence to help "verify the truth" behind Korea's worst maritime disaster in Korea in years.

There is still suspicion about the responsible authorities, including the President.

"If the country turns its back on 304 passengers who died in that accident, to have them die in vain, that country will never bear responsibility for not a single thing," said Lee on stage, drawing a round of applause.

The mysterious "seven missing hours" have long been a subject of public criticism as the President, the first head to be investigated by prosecutors on charges of allowing her friend  Choi Soon-sil  to control state affairs and abusing her power in helping Choi illegitimately amass wealth, has not revealed what she did during those critical hours.

The presidential office defended that its staffs and the President kept communicating about the accident "through written reports" while she was at Cheong Wa Dae.

The response only boosted public curiosity and doubts about what she actually did.

Park's control tower also received a backlash for belatedly responding to the disaster that killed mostly high school students on their way to a retreat on Jeju Island.

The President's silence generated rumors, including that she was receiving cosmetic medical procedures during those hours.

Park Young-soo, the special prosecutor named to investigate the so-called "Park Geun-hye scandal," said on Dec. 2 he would investigate the President's whereabouts during the controversial hours.

The following is Lee's full speech at Gwanghwamun Square on Dec. 3.



Hello, I am the mother of Cho Eun-hwa from Danwon High School Class 2-1.

On Apr. 16, 2014, I got a phone call from Cho at 8:55 a.m. She asked me if I had a breakfast. Then she added that something is wrong with the ship. I thought it was just a strong wave that was causing her sea-sickness. She told me the ship will arrive at Jeju Island at 12 p.m.

She called me again at 9:12 a.m. She said the ship was slanting about 45 degrees. She said her phone got chipped and her teacher told her to wear a lifejacket.

And that was my last conversation with her.

I saw on TV with my husband in the living room the sinking ship and asked him what we should do, sobbing.

He told me, "The big ship will be saved. It certainly will."

At 9:58 a.m., I could talk to Eun-hwa's friend, Seung-hee. I asked her where Eun-hwa was. Seung-hee told me she cannot see her now but she must be in a different room.

I went to the school. There, they told me all the passengers have been saved. I pitied Eun-hwa who must have been scared and went down to Jindo Island to take her home.

At Jindo, I could see a small number of kids out there who were saved from the ship. And since that day, I have been draping myself under a blanket and staying at Paengmok Harbor until now.

People with candles in your hands, I am sure you know why I am telling you this story. That was how I spent the day of Apr. 16, 2014. I am still living in that same date and I am sure the last name Eun-hwa had called out must be her mother.

Many of us, including parents, were at first relived to see from TV news that all the passengers were saved. In the evening that day, however, the relief turned into terror for many of us, mothers, fathers, Eun-hwa's friends, asking, "How could this happen?"

I thank all of those who have been right beside the bereaved victims who lost their family members, either dead or missing, shouting "To the bosom of families."

But Sewol ferry is still under the sea. I hope the missing people  Eun-hwa, Da-yun, Hyun-chul, Young-in, Yang Seung-jin, Ko Chang-seok, Kwon Jae-geun, Hyuk-gyu, Lee Young-sook  return to their families.

Recovering that ship will connect the missing victims to their families, provide evidence for verifying the truth for the victims whose family members died out there, relieve the surviving passengers who can finally live on without pain, and suggest a way to build a safe world for all citizens.

Recovering the ship will bring the missing victims ashore. It is finding those missing people.

Please give us your support to recover the ship, to bring up that ship that we have been avidly watching, waiting and longing.

Only then, the time will come for citizens to be protected by their country.

If the country turns its back on 304 passengers who died in that accident, to make them die in vain, that country will never bear responsibility for anything.

For the 304 not to have died in vain, for the Sewol ferry to come ashore to the bosom of mothers and fathers who broke down on Apr. 16, 2014, for me to bid farewell to Eun-ha as a human being, as her mother, please give us your support.

I sincerely ask for nationwide support, cheer, attention and prayer so that the missing victims' death can be confirmed and every single one of them can return to their families.

Thank you.
The EU on Sunday hailed the victory of Greens-backed candidate Alexander Van der Bellen over his far-right opponent in Austrian presidential elections as bolstering European unity at a time of many challenges.

"It is my pleasure to extend my wholehearted congratulations on your election ... On behalf of the European Council and personally, I wish you every success," Council head Donald Tusk said in a statement.

"At a time when we are faced with many difficult challenges, the continued constructive contribution of Austria to finding common European solutions and keeping our European unity will remain essential," Tusk said in a statement.

Public television projections gave Van der Bellen 53.3 percent of the vote against 46.7 percent for Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration Freedom Party.

Polls had suggested the outcome would be very close, as in the first poll in May, stoking fears Hofer could become the European Union's first far-right leader and so give growing anti-establishment sentiment a major boost after Britain's shock Brexit vote in June and Donald Trump's victory.

Earlier, European Parliament head Martin Schulz hailed the outcome as a "heavy defeat of nationalism and anti-European, backward-looking populism".

"Congratulations to @vanderbellen who won the presidential election with a clear pro-European message and campaign," Schulz said in a tweet.

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Jeju Island will intensify regulation of foreigner-only casinos. This 2013 picture shows a casino at Walker Hill Hotel in eastern Seoul. / Korea Times file



By Lee Jin-a

Jeju Island will intensify its management and supervision of foreign-only casinos there.

The provincial government said Friday it would legislate to manage casinos to improve transparency.

This will be an upgraded version of the government's ordinance for the casino industry, which was launched last June.

Under the new legislation, which will be effective from January, casinos must establish a permit system for people to enter any restricted areas  the storage room of gaming devices and computer rooms  in their buildings.

The casinos should also increase the number of security cameras to reduce blind areas, and build game facilities based on the new rules.

The government has also banned the casinos from using illegal gaming equipment.

To improve transparency, Jeju Island also requires gambling companies to calculate their daily income immediately, sell poker chips at the gaming table, install electronic game tables, and provide serial numbers for each game contract.

The government also requires casinos to record information of their foreign customers including their name, nationality, date of visit, passport number and passport expiration date.

The casinos must also store the identification of Korean visitors who are especially allowed to enter foreigner-only casinos.

Jeju Province decided to intensify its regulations after a series of crimes related to the casinos.

In 2014, Chinese police caught about 100 Chinese illegally gambling at casinos on Jeju Island.

In the same year, Korean police arrested five casino employees on suspicion of embezzling about 5 billion won ($4.3 million). Two men were arrested for using casinos to transfer 63 billion won from China to Korea.

This year, a Chinese man was arrested for killing a Chinese woman on Jeju Island and spending all her money at a casino after the murder.
By Jun Ji-hye





Pyo Chang-won

The ruling Saenuri Party has filed a lawsuit against Rep. Pyo Chang-won of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea for unveiling online a list of the governing party lawmakers who oppose impeaching President Park Geun-hye.

The governing party said Sunday that it believed Pyo has violated the Personal Information Protection Act and unlawfully interfered with officers in the execution of their duty. The party said the complaints were submitted to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, Friday.

On Nov. 30, Pyo posted on his Facebook account the names of 16 Saenuri Party lawmakers, including Reps. Suh Chung-won and Choi Kyung-hwan, claiming they were opposing the impeachment motion led by the opposition parties.

The police officer-turned-lawmaker also posted the names of 112 lawmakers of the governing party, saying they were hesitant about the motion. The names included those who have confronted the scandal-ridden President and vowed to join forces with the opposition parties to pass the motion.

Pyo said he would continue to update the list, saying the public has the right to know.

The three opposition parties submitted a motion at dawn Saturday to impeach Park over the high-profile corruption and influence-peddling scandal involving herself and her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil.

In the complaints, the ruling party also asked the prosecution to look into an unknown person who disclosed their mobile phone numbers on the social network services.

Following the disclosure, the Saenuri Party lawmakers have been bombarded with phone calls and text messages from people lodging vehement protests against their alleged disagreement with the impeachment motion.

The lawmakers said such phone calls and text messages at all hours were severely interfering with the performance of their duties.

The ruling party lawmakers reportedly raised the possibility that Pyo conspired with an unknown person, given that their phone numbers were leaked at around the same time as Pyo's posting.

Pyo denied this, saying he was unrelated to that person. He also said he produced the list of lawmakers based on their official details published in the press.
Lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party who do not support President Park Geun-hye, including former floor leader Yoo Seong-min, third from right, attend a meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul, Sunday, to discuss whether to back impeaching the scandal-ridden President. / Yonhap



By Kim Hyo-jin



Anti-Park lawmakers from the ruling Saenuri Party have succumbed to growing public calls to oust the scandal-hit President, joining forces with the opposition parties to vote for her impeachment Friday regardless of whether she announces her voluntary resignation or not.



They said the rival parties should still negotiate a roadmap for President Park Geun-hye's early resignation but if the efforts fall through, they will participate in an impeachment vote scheduled for Friday at the National Assembly.



The opposition bloc is adamant in starting the impeachment process by refusing to sit down for talks on Park's resignation.



The decision by the Saenuri Party's anti-Park faction is expected to give a boost to the opposition-led move toward impeachment.



It is now more likely that the impeachment motion, backed by 171 opposition and independent lawmakers, will be endorsed in the National Assembly. At least 28 votes are required from the ruling party to secure the two-thirds majority required in the 300-member legislature.



"We hope the rival parties reach an agreement on (Park's path) up to the last minute; but if they fail, regardless of Park's potential announcement on her position, we will participate in the vote," Rep. Hwang Young-cheul, a spokesman of an anti-Park group, told reporters.



The decision was made Sunday afternoon in a meeting of 29 lawmakers including former party leader Kim Moo-sung and ex-floor leader Yoo Seong-min.



When asked if participation means they will vote in favor, Hwang said, "Although it is the right of every single lawmaker to make their own decision, we will do our utmost to pass the impeachment bill."



The decision came amid increasing pressure to support the impeachment of President Park by the public after the largest-ever candlelit rally, Saturday, in which more than 2 million citizens assembled to demand her immediate resignation.



The anti-Park lawmakers were divided on how to respond to the opposition-led move to impeach the scandal-hit President.



Some lawmakers including former party leader Kim were cautious about impeachment, saying they will not participate in the vote "if Park accepts their call to step down by the end of April."



But others including Rep. Yoo insisted that "even if Park promises to step down by April, if the rival parties fail to agree on a timetable," they will still have to vote.













The latter's voice gained weight following the massive candlelit rally, according to party officials and lawmakers.



"If the impeachment motion is voted down because we did not cast a vote, the already aggravated public anger will shift toward us. The aftermath will be out of control," an anti-Park lawmaker said, noting a majority of the participants agreed on the point during the meeting.



After Park's announcement last week that left the timing and manner of her resignation in the hands of the National Assembly, they showed signs of breaking away from previous impeachment efforts, calling on the opposition to discuss the matter first.



They also demanded that the president step down by April and allow a presidential election in June in tune with Park loyalists, asking her to accept officially the timetable by 6 p.m. Wednesday, otherwise they will participate in the vote.



The stance, however, changed drastically following the massive rally where protesters expressed direct anger toward Park's hesitance toward resigning and the ruling party's roadmap.



Buoyed by public support at the rally, the opposition earlier strongly urged the Saenuri Party lawmakers to join forces with them.



"Anti-Park lawmakers should get off the fence and cast their vote in the impeachment process," said Ki Dong-min, the spokesman of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). "They have to choose either remaining as the President's accomplice or stand on the people's side."



Ko Yeon-ho, a spokesman of the minor opposition People's Party, said, "The Saenuri Party has to be part of a historic mission, taking responsibility for the paralysis gripping the country; otherwise, they will face fierce public protests."



The public has increased pressure on the anti-Park lawmakers, sending messages and emails to them. The Assemblymen have also received thousands of emails from a website that some citizens set up Friday.



The webpage, called "parkgeunhack.com," allows Internet users to find a lawmaker from their constituency and send an email requesting participation in the impeachment vote.



As of 11:00 p.m., more than 752,300 people had made a request. Rep. Kim Moo-sung, a de-facto leader of the anti-Park faction, received the most messages, about 5.2 percent.

Later in the day, the opposition parties welcomed the anti-Park lawmakers' decision and reaffirmed their plan to push ahead with the impeachment.



"It is a very sensible and natural consequence," DPK spokesman Ki said in a press briefing. "The rival parties should respect the public will and accordingly step jointly toward impeachment."



Meanwhile, pro-Park lawmakers seemed perplexed. "There's nothing to say," a senior loyalist said. "They just made their own decision after we gathered together and made Park's early resignation the party's official position, last Thursday."




By Kim Bo-eun

The independent counsel team that will investigate the influence-peddling scandal surrounding President Park Geun-hye's confidant Choi Soon-sil is set to officially begin its work next week.

Cheong Wa Dae is soon expected to name four assistant counsels out of the eight candidates recommended by the special prosecutor Park Young-soo. The Ministry of Justice will also dispatch 10 prosecutors to the special team.

"I have requested the 10 prosecutors to be dispatched," Park told reporters, Sunday. "What I focused on in selecting them was their sense of duty and investigative ability."

Park also said he may request 10 additional prosecutors this week. The special team can have up to 20 prosecutors.

"After assistant counsels and the prosecutors are selected, we will receive investigation records from the prosecution and start preparing for the probe," he said.

Each of the four assistants is likely to lead a smaller team, which will be in charge of investigating different allegations.












One of the floors of the U.S. Embassy Seoul went dark at 7 p.m. during a "light-out" event of the Saturday's sixth anti-president rally in downtown Seoul. / Screencaptured from the Internet The lights lit up again at 7:01 p.m. / Screencaptured from the Internet



By Hong Dam-young

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul may have expressed its unity with and support for the ongoing anti-President Geun-hye rally by joining part of the event.

Streets in Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul on Saturday were jam-packed with protesters holding candles and chanting "Park Geun-hye OUT," in the sixth anti-president rally since the national protests began in late October.

Similar rallies were held in cities across the nation, including Busan, Gwangju, Daegu, and Jeju, marking the biggest turnout so far of the six rallies, with a record 2.3 million people nationwide.

Part of the peaceful rally was a "light-out," in which protesters put out candles all at once for a minute from 7 p.m. and then lit them again.

The gesture aimed to send a message that the darkness cannot beat the light. People in offices or apartments also turned off lights.

While the streets plunged into darkness, lights were also turned off in the U.S. embassy overlooking the protesters at the square. One of the building's floors went dark and lit up after a minute.

Such scene was captured by a camera that was broadcasting the rally. The picture went viral on social media as it was seen as the embassy's expression of support for Park's resignation.





Some worried that such an act could cause a diplomatic stir with the Korean government.

Earlier on Nov. 28, the U.S. Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a daily press briefing that the U.S. supported Korea's peaceful protest against its government, while reaffirming the U.S. commitment to Korea.

Kirby was answering a question regarding the stability of the two countries' relationship in the midst of the growing anti-president protests.

"You know where we stand on the right of peaceful protest and assembly and we continue to support that around the world," he said. "People should have the ability to go out and voice their concerns about government.

"But it doesn't change one iota our commitment to South Korea, to the government, to the people there, and to making sure that we continue to meet all our alliance commitments."

Kirby also accentuated that the right to assembly was part of how democracies worked.

While it is still unclear whether the act officially represented the embassy's decision, some viewed it could be in line with U.S. support for the ongoing protests.

Whether the embassy spokesman will make an official statement on the issue is unknown.

Meanwhile, the sixth rally on Saturday came after Park's third national apology on Tuesday, which only added more fuel to people's anger because she refused to step down voluntarily and denied her wrongdoings.
Protestors demanding President Park Geun-hye's resignation over the influence-peddling scandal surrounding her confidant Choi Soon-sil gather 100 meters from Cheong Wa Dae during the sixth consecutive weekend rally in central Seoul, Saturday. A local court allowed protesters to go this far, the closest they have been able to approach the presidential office since the rallies began Oct. 29. / Korea Times photo by Kim Joo-sung



2.3 million protesters demand Assembly pass impeachment vote



By Park Si-soo, Choi Ha-young

It's the candlelit revolution  a record number of 2.3 million people took to the streets across the nation, Saturday, demanding President Park Geun-hye step down and the National Assembly pass a motion to impeach her.

The historical sixth street protest came after Park made a third apology for the influence-peddling scandal involving her and her friend Choi Soon-sil, and opposition parties submitted a motion to vote on impeachment Friday.

The winter chill failed to deter people from gathering at the anti-Park protest rallies nationwide. Rather, their determination turned out stronger in the face of Park's resistance and the ruling Saenuri Party's apparent reluctance to vote for impeachment.

Park's third speech and apology, Tuesday, only added fuel to the people's anger by making it clear that she has no intention of stepping down.

"I wouldn't come here if I was not angry," said a housewife surnamed Ko, 48. "Park's third speech shows she has no remorse for what she did. Park should resign with dishonor. I don't need to listen to her fourth apology."

Protesters were able to march to within shouting distance of Cheong Wa Dae, the closest ever at 100 meters, following a Seoul Administrative Court decision Friday. For the previous rally, the court drew a 200-meter limit from the presidential office.

"She absolutely ignored the people," said Kim, 73, from Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province. "I believe the people power will change politicians, forcing them to pass the impeachment Friday."

Organizers said an estimated 1.7 million people were marching through the streets of central Seoul. Similar protests took place in other major cities, including Busan, Gwangju, Daegu, Daejeon and Jeju, with nearly 600,000 people participating.

The crowds chanted slogans such as "President Park Out" and "Disband the ruling Saenuri Party," carrying candles in one hand and fliers containing an anti-Park message in the other.
Protesters rip up a large-sized Saenuri Party flag in front of the party's headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, Saturday, during a demonstration to denounce the ruling party's decision to allow an "honorable exit" to scandal-ridden President Park Geun-hye instead of impeaching her. / Korea Times photo by Kim Joo-sung



Protesters slam Saenuri's inconsistency over impeachment



By Lee Kyung-min

Public rage against President Park Geun-hye over the influence-peddling scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sill has spilled over to the ruling Saenuri Party after it decided to help the President step down by April instead of being impeached.

Nearly 20,000 people held a protest in front of the ruling party's headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, at 2 p.m., Saturday.

Since the scandal emerged in late October, this was the first massive protest in Yeouido, the center of the nation's politics where parties' headquarters and the National Assembly are located, while Gwanghwamun used to be the main rally site. The gathering came after the Saenuri Party decided Friday to guarantee Park an "honorable exit," instead of pushing for impeachment, with a schedule for her resignation by April and an early presidential election in June.





Korean-Americans hold their third rally in Los Angeles' Korea Town, Saturday, urging President Park

Geun-hye to step down. / Yonhap



The rally participants said the party is attempting to give an "indulgence" to the President, demanding that it disband.

"The ruling Saenuri Party adopting such an outrageous flip-flop decision instead of joining efforts to impeach Park, is seeking an opportunity to suit its political interest. It is now an accomplice in this crime," said Oh Min-hwan, a staffer at an association of progressive civic groups.

"We hereby declare that our next mission is to make the Saenuri Party dissolve for its failure to listen to the public. We will keep expressing our opposition to make sure its lawmakers and other politicians learn that they exist to serve the public."





Protesters demand President Park Geun-hye's resignation at a rally in Daegu, Saturday. Daegu is Park's

hometown and the home turf of conservatives. / Joint press corps



The participants ripped a large-sized Saenuri Party flag into pieces. Some also threw eggs at the banner on the wall of the headquarters, which read, "Our fellow citizens, we offer our deepest apologies. We will settle the current situation as soon as possible."

"If the National Assembly fails to uphold the public will, Yeouido will be the second Gwanghwamun with millions of protesters holding candles," one participant said.

They then marched to Yeouido Station and many headed to Gwanghwamun for an evening protest there.

Besides the offline protest, online ones have been also active.





Elementary schoolchildren hold signs that read, "Resign, Park Geun-hye!" during an anti-President Park rally in central Seoul, Saturday. / Yonhap



A new site, https://parkgeunhack.com, opened Friday where people can send messages and petition for Park's impeachment to lawmakers of their constituencies, either the Saenuri Party or others. Nearly 700,000 people had signed the petition there as of Sunday evening.

"Impeachment is possible only by lawmakers. Please ask lawmakers of your constituencies to vote for impeachment," the site reads. It also shows the lawmakers' reactions to the petitions  while many opposition lawmakers said they would vote for it, most Saenuri Party members remained without responses.

Some people are directly calling or text messaging Saenuri Party lawmakers after the party members' mobile phone numbers were disclosed online last week by an unknown individual. The disclosure coincided with another list of 16 lawmakers opposing Park's impeachment, which Rep. Pyo Chang-won of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea unveiled on his Facebook page, Wednesday. They included Saenuri Party floor leader Chung Jin-suk and Chairman Lee Jung-hyun.





Protesters fly "hope lanterns" at a rally calling for President Park Geun-hye's resignation in front of ruling Saenuri Party Rep. Kim Jin-tae's office in Chuncheon, Gangwong Province, Saturday. Kim had earlier said that the anti-Park rallies will subside as "candles will be blown out by the wind," aggravating public anger. / Yonhap



The 16 members have been unable to carry out their duties due to a barrage of hate calls and messages demanding they vote for impeachment. Some have changed their phone numbers.

The Saenuri Party filed a complaint with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office against Pyo for obstructing their public duties and violating the law governing personal information protection.
The number of one-man operations in South Korea swung to an upturn in the third quarter of this year, government data showed Thursday, apparently as more people set up shop for "non-voluntary" reasons amid a prolonged economic slump.

The country's mom-and-pop businesses, which don't hire workers, numbered 4.09 million as of the end of September, up 1.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the data by Statistics Korea.

It marks the first time since the first quarter of 2013 that the number has increased on-year on a quarterly basis.

After registering a 0.5 percent gain for the January-March period of 2013, the figure had been decreasing at an annual rate of 2 to 3 percent.

Self-employed men led the third-quarter increase. The number of one-man operations run by men surged 2.6 percent from a year earlier to 2.88 million as of the end of September.

Analysts said the number of one-man operations rebounded in the third quarter as jobless people and retired baby boomers set up restaurants and other businesses to make a living.

They expressed concern that owners of one-man operations are faced with a host of negative factors, including the long-running weakness of the country's economy and a recent surge in borrowing costs.

Hit by the economy's sluggishness, output index in the local restaurant industry tumbled to a five-year low of 85.2 in September.

South Korea's economy, Asia's fourth-largest, has remained sluggish in the wake of falling exports and stubbornly weak domestic demand.

In one of the latest setbacks, South Korea's industrial output dropped 1.6 percent on-year in October on a sharp fall in mobile devices and cars, marking the second consecutive month of decline.

Industry watchers warned that one-man operations could bear the brunt of the recent upturn in bank lending rates because most self-employed people rely on loans to start businesses.

"The situation is not good as the restaurant and lodging industries are faced with the worst business conditions amid a rise in the number of self-employed people without workers," said professor Kim Kwang-seok of Hanyang University in Seoul. "Bankrupt one-man operations are feared to create a vicious circle of further undermining the nation's overall economy."

According to the latest central bank data, bank lending rates on new household loans edged up 0.05 percentage point in October from the previous month. (Yonhap)
By Frank Chang

Last week, President-elect Donald Trump confirmed his intention to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership "from day one" of his administration. In a clip posted on YouTube, he called the TPP "a potential disaster for our country" and said that he would instead "negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back."

The trade agreement involving 12 Pacific Rim countries was the Obama administration's attempt to deny China the right to "write the rules of the global economy." Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has said that it would be "meaningless" for the 11 other countries to proceed since the TPP would be "meaningless" without US participation.

Indeed, from the perspective of Japan and other Asian countries, a major attraction of the TPP was to anchor the US in the Asia Pacific region. Without the US, there is little point to continuing the exercise. Worse, the US campaigned actively to get the other TPP members to sign on and quite a few governments had to take domestic political risks to accept American terms; now, the US itself is pulling out.

This is a very severe blow to American credibility and prestige. It will certainly be much more difficult in future for the US to persuade other countries to adopt positions that may be unpopular domestically when they have no guarantee that Washington will not do a 180-degree turn when a new administration takes office.

President Obama had on more than one occasion said TPP was necessary to enable the US, not China, to set the rules of trade. But now, with a President-elect who is openly opposed to multilateral trade agreements, the US has in effect ceded the ground to China, which will no doubt move in to fill the vacuum.

The same applies to leadership in climate policy. Trump had said during the campaign that climate change was a Chinese hoax perpetrated on the US to cripple American business and manufacturing. However, in an interview with The New York Times on Nov. 22, the president-elect said he had "an open mind" on the issue and accepted there was "some connectivity" between climate change and human activity.

"It also depends on how much it's going to cost our companies," Trump said. "You have to understand, our companies are noncompetitive right now."

So, it appears, Trump has not repeated his campaign pledge to pull the US out of the Paris climate change agreement, which entered into effect on November 4. But it is ironic that while he sees that agreement as an impediment to American growth, China sees it as a spur to the next cycle of its economic growth.

It is also ironic that, in 2009, the first year of the Obama administration, China and the US were on opposite sides of the climate question, with Washington putting pressure on Beijing to cut its emissions. Today, China has decided that it is in its own interests to reduce its emissions and move toward a low-carbon economy, given the severe pollution that its big cities are experiencing.

Now China is a major investor in renewable energy, such as wind technology, and is steadily reducing its reliance on coal, though it is still highly dependent on it.

China has already indicated that it is committed to a green economy and, in fact, is ready to assume global leadership on climate in the absence of the US. As the People's Daily-affiliated newspaper Global Times said, "Although there is a possibility that the US may betray its words, China will unswervingly keep its promise and seek to play a greater role in global affairs."

As Washington withdraws from the global role that it has assumed since the end of World War II, China will inexorably play a bigger role.

"It is beyond imagination to think that China could replace the US to lead the world," a Global Times commentary said. Then it added: "But as China is rapidly developing, bringing about changes to the global power structure, its participation in global governance will be a natural and gradual process, which Beijing cannot rush or escape." That is to say, global leadership will, inevitably, be thrust upon China and the country will have to bear it as both a responsibility and a burden, just as has been the case with the US for the last 70 years.

Of course, if America were to withdraw faster, China's pace would need to be quickened. After all, nature abhors a vacuum.
By Tong Kim



Three weeks into Trump's transition to power, nobody seems to have a clear idea of what the incoming American administration would do on the Korean Peninsula and regarding a menacing nuclear North Korea in particular.



The President-elect has not clarified or reconciled conflicting comments that he made on the campaign trail. He is likely to present an overall foreign policy agenda or a Trump doctrineafter he takes office on Jan. 20.



Since his election, he has had phone calls with a number of foreign leaders, including the South Korean president, and told them all what they wanted to hear. He also met the Japanese prime minister and said positive things, without specifying what he would want to do with Japan. There were some criticisms of the way Trump handled his calls with foreign heads of state without seeking the assistance of the state department. But, there is only one president at a time.



For some time now, attention is focused on who will be heading national security posts. They may be an indication of how Trump will carry out his foreign policy. Trump is still going through a process of assembling his White House staff and cabinet secretaries.



As of this writing, he is yet to pick a nominee for the post of secretary of state from four finalists -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Retired Gen. David Petraeus, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker. For defense secretary, Trump said Thursday night that he will nominate retired Marine Gen. James "Mad dog" Mattis.



Trump appointed Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, a strong advocate for fighting "radical Islamists",as national security adviser at the White House. From his book "The Field of Fight." some critics are concerned about his view that there is "an alliance" between extreme Islamists and countries like North Korea, China, and Russia.True, North Korea cooperated with Pakistan, Iran, and Syria on missile and nuclear development, but there is no evidence that the North Koreans worked with extreme Islamists.



Views of the relevant cabinet nominees or potential nominees so far with regard to Korea or Northeast Asia are not well known. Their views will be known during Senate confirmation hearings. (Senior White House staffs are not subject to confirmation).

The U.S. president-elect is still walking back and forth on his campaign promises.He doubled down on immigration and Obamacare, while moderating on prosecution of Hillary Clinton, climate change, waterboarding, etc. Although he is unswerving on America First, there is room for flexibility between campaign and governance. To "make America great again", Trump promised to hire the best and the brightest who can help him make the best deals for America.



On the foreign policy front, one place that requires an urgent security deal is North Korea. Here is a set of ideas for Trump's security team to consider in dealing with North Korea.



First, announce a serious interest to engage the DPRK and confirm the U.S. treaty commitment of alliance to the Republic of Korea -- hopefully through an inaugural speech. At one point, Trump said he would negotiate with Kim Jong-un. Trump also said his administration would seek no hostile policy against other countries. What goes around comes around, a proverb in which the North Koreans believe.

Maintain various forms of leverage, including sanctions and deterrent against provocation and threats from the North. Remind Pyongyang of economic and political rewards for its positive response. Delink the human rights issue from the issue of war and peace.



The UNSC resolution 2321 adopted last week that would reduce the DPRK's revenue of foreign currency by roughly 25 percent is unlikely to persuade the North to cease its nuclear program. Pyongyang immediately rejected the latestUN sanction, repeating its narrative of self-defense, but it did not vow to keep strengthening its nuclear capability, as it did on previous occasions.



A phased plan of sanction removal can be designed to lock in steps of progress of a denuclearization process, if a serious negotiation is undertaken. To show the seriousness of its intent to engage the North, reopen the New York Channel for communication channel. An immediate goal should be to prevent misunderstanding and miscalculation, and to reduce tension and secure stability.



A total freeze of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs under international inspection and verification in return for corresponding carrots as well as agreement on non-proliferation to a third state or a non-state actor should be reached as a transition phase to the ultimate goal of denuclearization. Initial containment of North Korea's nuclear arsenal is not incompatible with the policy of non-acceptance of a nuclear North Korea.



Coordinate with South Korea to reopen the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and encourage resumption of inter-Korean dialogue. Bring China on board again to work on the North Korean nuclear and missile issue. Reconsider the deployment of a THAAD battery to South Korea. At least, announce a plan to reexamine the plan.

Deterrent should include the option of a preemptive strike, if it can serve as a preventive effect on the North Korean military from launching an attack. Enhancement of allied defense capability, including joint exercises, should continue until such a point when an adjustment or moderation may be warranted due to progress in nuclear negotiations.



These measures would be radical but constructive departures from President Obama's failed policy of strategic patience. Washington must lead, instead of responding to provocations from Pyongyang. Take the first step and see what happens -- one step at a time. What's your take?

Tong Kim is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Korean-American Studies. He can be contacted at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.
Swiss authorities said Friday they had seized cultural relics looted from Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, as well as from Libya and Yemen, which were being stored in Geneva's free ports.

The free ports provide highly secured warehouses where basically anything can be stashed tax-free with few questions asked.

The confiscated objects, from the third and fourth centuries, include a head of Aphrodite and two funereal bas-reliefs.

Most of the items reached Switzerland via Qatar and were taken by looters, Geneva's public prosecutor said in a statement.

They were deposited at the free ports in 2009 and 2010 and the alarm was first raised in April 2013 during a customs inspection, prosecutors added. It was not immediately clear when they were seized.

The customs office contacted the cultural authorities in Bern whose expert confirmed the artefacts were genuine, prompting the start of criminal proceedings in February.

Three of the pieces came from Palmyra, a UNESCO world heritage site devastated by Islamic State group jihadists who seized it in May 2015. The Islamists sent shock waves around the world as they systematically destroyed the central city's monuments.

Five of the confiscated objects were from Yemen.

Last year the UN cultural agency placed two ancient cities in conflict-torn Yemen, Sanaa and Shibam, on its list of endangered World Heritage sites.

UNESCO said Sanaa, known for its many Islamic sites and multi-storey rammed earth houses, "sustained serious damage due to armed conflict" between Iran-backed rebels and the beleaguered Saudi-supported government.

The Aphrodite relic was from Libya and characterised "the Hellenisation of north Africa" the statement said.

While awaiting return to their countries of origin the archaeological contraband is being looked after by the Geneva Museum of Art and History where the relics will be put on public display.

Last month French Finance Minister Michel Sapin complained that Swiss, and other, free ports were a "weak link" in countering terrorist financing.

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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By hollowing out the crystals, sugar will be reduced by up to 40 percent without affecting the taste

Nestle, the world's largest packaged food group, said it had devised a new technology that has the potential to reduce sugar in some of its confectionery products by up to 40 percent without affecting the taste.

The maker of Kitkat and Aero bars said its researchers have found a way using only natural ingredients to change the structure of sugar particles. By hollowing out the crystals, Nestle said each particle dissolves more quickly on the tongue, so less sugar can be used in chocolate.

"Our scientists have discovered a completely new way to use a traditional, natural ingredient," the company's chief technology officer, Stefan Catsicas, said in a statement .

 inRead invented by Teads

 inRead invented by Teads

The announcement comes as a global obesity epidemic ramps up pressure on processed food makers to make their products healthier. Nestle and its peers have all been working to reduce sugar, fat and salt, as consumers increasingly opt for fresher, healthier options.

Nestle said it was patenting its findings and would begin to use the faster-dissolving sugar across a range of its confectionery products from 2018.

Nestle is not the first company to experiment with designer molecules.

PepsiCo in 2010 piloted a designer salt molecule that it said would allow it to use less sodium without affecting the taste of its snacks, which include Walkers crisps and Cheetos.

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Nile FM and Nogoum FM will partner with the campaign to fight HIV/AIDS

Each year, Egypt commemorates World AIDS Day on 1 December through a nationwide advocacy campaign aimed at raising awareness about HIV/AIDS.

This year, and as part of the campaign which has been successful in previous years in mobilising different parties to combat the negative stigma that still prevails around the disease, the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in Egypt has signed a protocol of cooperation with two of the most popular radio stations in the country, Nile FM and Nogoum FM.

The two stations will be official partners of the national campaign to fight HIV/AIDS in 2016, which is launched by the UN programme and Egypts national HIV programme which is under the aegis of the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population.

The main aim of the protocol is to spread awareness and eliminate the negative stigma surrounding those suffering from the disease.

According to a global report released by UNAIDS, the number of new HIV infections in 2015 was estimated to be 2.1 million.

The latest statistics issued from UNAIDS Egypt in 2014 indicate that the number of registered people living with HIV inside Egypt is almost 8,800. The estimated number of people living with HIV including those who aren't registered is 11,000.

Egypt is still experiencing an annual rise in the number of new infections.

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When the ultra-hip Moxy Hotel opens in San Diego next year, the rooms will be stocked with the usual amenities  an alarm clock, hair dryer, writing desk and flat-screen TV.

But you wont find a Bible in the bedside nightstand.



For the record: This article cites a recent survey by hospitality analytics company STR showing that the percentage of hotels that offer religious materials in rooms had dropped from 95% of hotels in 2006 to 48% this year. After the story was published, STR discovered an error in the results of the latest survey. STR now says that 79% of hotels surveyed this year have religious materials in their rooms.

Marriott International, the worlds largest hotel company, supplies a Bible and the Book of Mormon in the rooms of every other hotel in the franchise. But the company has recently decided that no religious materials should be offered at two of its newest millennial-oriented hotel brands, Moxy and Edition hotels.

Its because the religious books dont fit the personality of the brands, said Marriott spokeswoman Felicia Farrar McLemore, explaining that the Moxy and Edition hotels are geared toward fun-loving millennials.

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Marriotts decision mirrors others in the industry who are quietly phasing out the long-held tradition of stocking religious material in hotel rooms.

It is difficult to gauge how many of the countrys 53,000 hotels still put Bibles in the rooms because most major hotel franchise companies let individual hotel owners and managers decide whether to make the Scriptures a standard amenity.

But a recent survey by STR, a hospitality analytics company, found that the percentage of hotels that offer religious materials in rooms has dropped significantly over the last decade, from 95% of hotels in 2006 to 48% this year.

Among the reasons for the change, according to industry experts, is a need to appeal to younger American travelers who are less devout than their parents or grandparents and to avoid offending international travelers such as Muslims or Buddhists.

And then there is this practical issue: Many newer hotel brands install shelves rather than nightstands with drawers next to the bed, making it difficult to be discreet about offering a Bible. A copy of the Scriptures on a bedside shelf makes a more pronounced statement than a Bible slipped into a drawer.

In an era of not offending anyone, I think hotels have a conundrum, said Carl Winston, director of San Diego State Universitys L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management program.

Hotels also have been under pressure lately from atheist groups.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes separation of church and state, wrote to 15 major hotel companies last year, asking them to keep Bibles out of hotel rooms.

The group succeeded in the last year in getting hotels operated by Arizona State University and Northern Illinois University to remove all Bibles from their rooms.

The foundation also created a sticker that reads: Warning: Literal belief in this book may endanger your health and life. The group has encouraged its supporters to affix the stickers on any hotel room Bible they find.

We are trying to educate the hotel industry that a quarter of our population is not religious, said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the group.

STR officials cautioned about reading too much into its survey, noting that managers representing only 2,600 of the more than 8,000 hotels responding to the survey answered the question about religious material in rooms. Still, industry experts say the changing demographics in America and the surge of international travelers in the U.S. are creating more reasons to keep religious materials out of hotel rooms.

A lot of international hotels are trying to reach a very diverse group of travelers, and religion now has become a really sensitive topic, said Linchi Kwok, an assistant professor at the Collins College of Hospitality Management at Cal Poly Pomona.

Bibles started to become a hotel standard in the late 1800s when three traveling businessmen founded Gideons International with a plan to spread the Gospels by placing the Bible in hotel rooms across the country.

The nonprofit group now has about 270,000 members in 200 countries. In its latest fiscal year, Gideon International spent about $100 million to distribute Bibles to hotels, prisons, hospitals and other locations, about the same amount as in 2015, according to the groups financial statements.

Jeff Pack, Gideons Internationals director of communications, said he isnt sure why the STR survey shows a decline in religious material in hotel rooms, considering that the distribution of Bibles by his group hasnt dropped.

The decline of religious materials in hotels, as cited in the survey, is reflective of increasing secularism and independence in the world, he said. This has resulted in an erosion of spiritual awareness.

Two years ago, Travelodge hotels in Britain removed Bibles from their rooms in order not to discriminate against any religion, the company said. Still, the hotels kept copies at the front desk where guests could borrow them upon request.

The parent company of Travelodge, the Wyndham Hotel Group, said the company does not require Bibles in any of its 15 hotel brands worldwide.

At Marriott International, which was founded by a devout Mormon, a decision was made this year to keep Bibles and a Book of Mormon out of four new brands, AC, Moxy, Protea and Edition hotels, spokeswoman McLemore said. But company executives reconsidered, she said, and instead moved to keep religious materials out of only the Moxy and Edition hotels because the AC and Protea hotels are geared toward more traditional travelers.

Marriott has opened nine Moxy hotels, with at least 40 more hotels under construction or in the planning phase. Four Edition hotels are open and nine others are set to open in the future.

Intercontinental Hotel Group, the giant British company that operates the Holiday Inn brand, among others, doesnt require managers of its more than 5,000 hotels in nearly 100 countries to put Bibles in each room.

Our hotels have the flexibility to offer religious materials to their guests if they choose to do so, spokeswoman Caroline Huston said.

James McKnight, pastor at the Congregational Church of Christian Fellowship in Los Angeles, said he isnt offended when he finds his hotel room doesnt include a Bible. He said that travelers who regularly read the Bible probably already have one with them, either in book or digital form.

I dont expect the owner of a hotel to have the responsibility to give me the sacred text, McKnight said.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
Dear Liz: Are federal student loans turned over to a collection agency still collectible after 20 years?

Answer: Yes. Very much so. There is no statute of limitations on federal student loans, which means collectors can come after you until you pay or die, whichever comes first. Statutes of limitations on most other types of debt limit how long you can be sued. Federal student loans also typically cant be erased in bankruptcy.

Those arent the only ways federal student loans differ from other debt. The government can seize your tax refunds or take part of your wages without going to court. Even Social Security benefits arent protected, as they are from other creditors.

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So it makes sense to dig yourself out of this debt if you possibly can. You can find out how to do so at the U.S. Department of Educations Federal Student Aid site (studentaid.ed.gov).

Does moving to a new state necessitate a new living trust?

Dear Liz: My husband and I have a revocable trust that was drawn up in Florida. We live in California now. We are renting and dont own a house. Do we still need a trust if we dont own property and have just one adult child to leave our financial funds to? One tax planner wants to charge us $1,800 to revise our trust to comply with California laws. That sounds high to me. What do you recommend?

Answer: Any time you move across state lines, you should have your estate documents reviewed and  probably  revised. State laws differ, and in this case you moved from a common law state to a community property state, where the rules differ a lot. Property acquired during marriage in a common law state isnt automatically owned by both spouses, while in community property states, it typically is.

Property, by the way, doesnt just refer to real estate. It refers to pretty much all your assets, including financial funds.

A relatively simple revocable living trust typically costs $2,000 and up, so the price you were quoted does not seem high, but you can check with one or two other estate planning attorneys if you want to compare costs.

Transferring property after death

Dear Liz: Just a quick comment on the woman who contemplated transferring her house to her partner and daughter as joint tenants. One must always consider the property tax impact on such transfers. In Los Angeles, real property that is transferred to a transferors significant other who is not the spouse or domestic partner will ultimately be reassessed by the county assessor. There are a number of property tax reassessment exclusions on transfers, such as from a parent to a child, from a person to his or her revocable trust and between spouses. This is why all factors must be considered before such a transfer is made.

Answer: A revocable transfer on death deed allows real estate to avoid probate in many states, but this option shouldnt be used before thoroughly researching the consequences and consulting an estate planning attorney. Read on for an actual case where an ill-considered transfer had big financial consequences.

Proposition 13 considerations

Dear Liz: I read your column with some interest since I just had a client who received a life estate from his long-term partner. They neither married nor formed a registered domestic partnership, either of which might have saved my client some bucks.

The Los Angeles County assessor reassessed the property at its full value even though the remainder will go to my clients partners children on my clients death. The property was originally purchased in the 1970s. Id like to think that I or any other estate planning lawyer could fashion a satisfactory work-around for this potential problem faced by folks who wish to give a life estate to someone without Proposition 13 protection and the remainder to someone with that protection.

Of course, one must always bear in mind that the tax tail should not wag the business dog, so a weighing of burdens and benefits is always in order in any plan.

Answer: Heres another case where stinting on an estate planning attorneys fee probably cost the heirs vastly more.

For those of you who dont live in California, Proposition 13 limits property taxes to 1% of the assessed value, and assessments typically cant increase more than 2% a year until the home changes hands. The lower Prop. 13 value of a home can be inherited by the children, which means their tax bill would be a fraction of that owed by someone who purchased a similar property more recently.

Instead, the property in question lost its Proposition 13 protection and its tax bill more than tripled.

Liz Weston, a certified financial planner, is a personal finance columnist for NerdWallet. Questions may be sent to her at 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the Contact form at asklizweston.com. Distributed by No More Red Inc.
The fire that ripped through an electronic music concert at an Oakland warehouse-turned-art space Friday night was a worst-case scenario for anyone who attends such events.

As of Sunday morning, 24 bodies were recovered, with more people unaccounted for. Officials fear the death toll could rise to 40. It might be one of the worst disasters in the history of live music in North America.

There are risks in throwing any kind of off-the-grid event, but its hard to imagine a more nightmarish confluence of structural failures. Early reports say that the warehouse building, known as the Ghost Ship, filled with art installations and ad-hoc construction, was unsuited for public events. Despite a lack of permits for residential occupancy, some familiar with the location described it as a live/work space with no working sprinklers or smoke detectors and a makeshift staircase to a second floor that trapped fans upstairs once the fire broke out.

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The human toll in this tightknit world of artists, promoters and fans is staggering. As the owners of 100% Silk, the Los Angeles label whose artists headlined the event, said in a statement: What happened in Oakland is an unbelievable tragedy, a nightmare scenario. Right now, that grief is paramount.

But as the fallout becomes clearer, its important to recognize that these kinds of parties, held in unpermitted or semi-legal art and industrial spaces, happen in Los Angeles and every major city in the country. Whatever later recriminations come regarding the particular safety hazards at this one venue, its now impossible for anyone who goes to these shows to think that it cant happen anywhere, at any time.

This tragedy will have to be a moment of reckoning for the music community and local governments about the nature of these shows and how to deal with them from a public-safety standpoint.

This kind of terrifying event should make every promoter understand that it could have been them, their fans, their loved ones.

1 / 24 The ruins of the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, the site of a fire that killed at least 36 people, are seen from above on Dec. 5. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 24 Debris litters the inside of a warehouse where a fire killed 36 people during a club-style party. (David Butow / For The Times) 3 / 24 A firefighter walks through the burned-out Oakland warehouse on Saturday. (David Butow / For The Times) 4 / 24 Firefighters walk through a debris-strewn warehouse where a fire killed at least nine people in Oakland. (David Butow / For The Times) 5 / 24 A drone flies over investigators outside Oaklands Ghost Ship warehouse, where 36 people died this month in one of the worst fires in modern California history. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 24 Titus Cromwell, 4, places a flower from his familys garden near the scene of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 24 In the days after the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, hearts dedicated to victims were hung from a nearby tree. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 24 Daryl Norman, 63, of Oakland stops by the scene of the fire on his way to church in Oakland. I had to come see for myself, he said of the 36 victims. God bless them. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 24 People stand at the perimeter holding flowers while watching crews remove material from what remains of the Ghostship warehouse fire, that burned and killed at least 36 people in the Oakland neighborhood of Fruitvale. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 24 An art installation near the scene of the Ghost Ship fire. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 24 People pay their respects Dec. 11 near the scene of the warehouse fire. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 24 Mourners observe a moment of silence for the lives lost in the Ghost Ship warehouse fire at the Oakland Museum of California on Friday evening. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles TImes) 13 / 24 ATF agents map the scene of the fire investigation Friday at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland. (Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times) (Francine Orr / Los Angeles TImes) 14 / 24 Rain falls on the memorial for victims of the Oakland warehouse fire. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles TImes) 15 / 24 Hillary Morse, 22, of Oakland mourns the loss of two of her close friends in the warehouse fire in Oakland. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 24 Jacob Ramirez, 4, left, looks on while his grandmother Eva Ramirez, 52, consoles Hillary Morse, 22, right, of Oakland near the site of the warehouse fire in Oakland. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 24 Flowers, candles and notes, memorializing those killed and injured in the Ghostship warehouse fire that burned and killed at least 36 people in the Oakland neighborhood of Fruitvale. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 24 A makeshift memorial of flowers and candles stands Dec. 4 near the site of the Oakland warehouse fire. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 24 A man who identified himself as Ben P. reads cards on Sunday at a memorial near the site of the blaze. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 24 Kristen Grzeca, a music teacher at Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, hugs Monina Sen Cervone, director of world music and dance at the school, on Sunday at a makeshift memorial for victims of the warehouse fire. A 17-year-old victim was one of Grzecas students. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 24 After attending church, Teionna Cunningham of Oakland leaves flowers near the site of the fire. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 24 A Seventh Day Adventist group prays on Sunday near the scene of the fire on 31st Avenue in Oakland. (David Butow / For The Times) 23 / 24 Flowers are left near an Oakland warehouse where a fire broke out during a concert, killing 36 people. (David Butow / For The Times) 24 / 24 Dino Graniello, left, and Jessie Xenakis light candles near the scene of a warehouse fire in Oakland that killed at least two dozen partygoers. (David Butow / For The Times)

In Los Angeles, much of the decade-long conversation around fan safety at dance music events has focused on drug use, high temperatures and medical staffing at large-scale events (whose migration away from Los Angeles County has only transferred the problems of drug-related deaths to the exurban stretches of San Bernardino County). Now it will have to include structural safety at underground happenings with a much lower profile than the major summer festivals.

However, the Ghost Ship tragedy poses a tougher problem. The world of underground music is ephemeral. There is no one festival or promoter that cities can ban.

Unlike mega-raves such as Electric Daisy Carnival and Hard Summer (which are owned by Live Nation and attract tens of thousands of fans), smaller concerts in the underground club music scene, like the one consumed in the Oakland fire, rarely stay in one place for long. The artists and promoters often rotate between industrial venues and makeshift art and residential spaces that are rarely intended for live music.

Economics and gentrification also play a role. Formal clubs often close at 2 a.m. or earlier, and many underground promoters arent welcome or cant afford to produce shows in Hollywood-style nightclubs, so they turn to an archipelago of unpermitted spaces. Addresses are frequently announced just hours before showtime through email or select groups of fans on social media. The challenging music and welcoming atmosphere often appeal to feminist, queer and outsider audiences, who cherish these shows as a place for self-expression free from the judgment and police scrutiny found at more mainstream concerts.

This makes the myriad, horrific failures at Ghost Ship all the more tragic.

To judge from early reports, the particulars of this space  piles of furniture blocking paths out, a labyrinth of hand-built studios and thwarted fire-safety inspections  appear to have compounded each other in a deadly confluence of mistakes, accidents and ignorance. For all the vitality and artistic necessity of underground dance music, this kind of terrifying event should make every promoter understand that it could have been them, their fans, their loved ones.

But as Oakland and the larger world try to figure out what to do to prevent tragedies like this, its also important to remember that had this happened at a venue with proper fire exits, safety equipment and inspections, we might only be reading about a scary incident at a nightclub instead of dead young music fans.

The risks of illegal warehouse shows are very different from those of a mega-rave, but the principle is the same. The music community should be held to the same standards of safety as anyone participating in public life and commerce. Promoters who turn to illicit venues to throw shows have to understand their role in how this tragedy happened.

But cities should also understand that making it more difficult to be responsible will never save one more life. Shunting artists and fans away from safe, regulated venues with easy access to services and inspections only makes things worse.

As of now, it looks like music fans died because that nightmare scenario happened in a place wholly unequipped to handle it. For many, the fantasy of underground club music as an escape from reality is now broken forever.

Any coming crackdown, however, will only move these shows to risky dark corners. Saving lives means bringing this scene back into the light as best we can, which includes making it easier for small promoters to be safe and permitted.

Everyone involved in this world  from the promoters booking sets to the fire departments and city governments charged with keeping young people safe  has to finally be candid about the risks inherent in this scene, and cannot let it happen again.

On Twitter: @AugustBrown

ALSO

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Oakland concert struck by deadly fire was promoted by L.A. dance label 100% Silk

Officials fear up to 40 dead in fire during concert at Oakland warehouse

Raves leave L.A. for the suburbs, but deaths and drug problems continue

What Hard Summer founder Gary Richards said about safety before 3 fans died at this weekends concert

UPDATES:

11:11 a.m.: This article was updated to reflect that 100% Silk has clarified that it did not promote the event in an official capacity.
Scrutiny is increasing about the conditions and management of an Oakland warehouse where at least 24 people died when a fire swept through during a concert Friday night.

The building, known locally as the Ghost Ship, was being used as an artists space, though officials said it was zoned for use as a warehouse. Some neighbors and former residents said people lived there.

Here is what we know:

Had there been complaints about conditions at the building?

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Yes.

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the district where the fire broke out, said he had been hearing complaints from constituents about debris outside the warehouse. Asked if the building had permits for people to live there, he said: Absolutely not.

The reality is, there are many facilities being occupied without permits, he said. Theyre occurring on Oaklands streets, especially in neighborhoods like mine.

Neighbors had repeatedly contacted the city about trash and debris piled up outside the warehouse. On Nov. 14, inspectors with Oaklands Planning and Building Department began investigating an allegation of illegal construction inside the building.

Darin Ranelletti, the departments interim director, said inspectors attempted to enter the warehouse three days later but failed.

Ranelletti said his department had also received reports that people were living in the warehouse illegally. Inspectors were still investigating that allegation before the fire broke out, he said.

Who owns the building?

The Oakland warehouse is one of several properties owned by Chor N. Ng, according to her daughter, Eva Ng, 36. She was adamant that the warehouse was being leased as studio space for an art collective and not used as residences.

Eva Ng said she had been reassured by the lease holder that nobody lived in the building. They confirmed multiple times. They said sometimes some people worked through the night, but that is all, Ng said.

Still, one former tenant told The Times that he remembered at least 10 people living inside the warehouse. Bradley Evans, who moved out in August 2015, said the man who collected the rent lived in the building with his wife and three children.

The man instructed tenants to tell the landlord they were working on art projects and not living there full time, said Evans, 21. The landlord came by once a month to collect the money and didnt ask any questions, he added.

Ng said she believed the building had smoke detectors and two second-floor exits, both wooden stairs. She was not familiar with a report that one of the stairs was at least partly made of pallets. But she was aware that there had been parties in the building.

Its Christmas, after all, she said.

How do former residents and visitors describe the building?

People who previously lived there recalled a building that lacked fire sprinklers and had a staircase partly made of wooden pallets. Partygoers described a rabbit warren of rooms crammed with belongings  pianos, organs, antique furniture, doors and half-finished sculptures.

It was a tinderbox, said Brooke Rollo, 30, who lives less than a mile from the scene and had gone to parties there.

Firefighters who responded to Fridays three alarm blaze described the interior as a labyrinth.

Was the concert permitted?

City officials said no one got a permit to hold the concert at the building.

Cities in California typically require a special permit for one-time events  such as weddings, art openings and concerts  in buildings not constructed for such activities, said development consultant Hamid Behdad, who supervised L.A.s effort to convert commercial buildings to lofts and apartments.

To secure those permits, an owner must show fire and building inspectors where the exits are, the locations of the fire extinguishers and how the building will be illuminated in case of an emergency, he said.

ALSO

Criminal investigators join probe of blaze as death toll rises to 33

A womans frantic, anguished Facebook search for friend missing in Oakland fire

Oakland warehouse fire leaves community of artists reeling and fearful of a crackdown
When students enrolled in USCs daunting neuroscience graduate program needed help cracking a tough project, they all went to Bosco Tjan.

It didnt hurt that his advice often came with a free cappuccino.

Mara Mather, a professor of gerontology and psychology at USC, described Tjan as an affable, caring presence on campus. He always found time to aid students and professors despite a breathless schedule. In many ways, she said, Tjan was the centers heartbeat.

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One of my students, who is now a faculty member, was describing how he would take the time to really explain things to her, Mather said. He was someone who made it all work and really helped out so many people.

As each former friend and colleague recalled Tjans nurturing personality, they all struggled with the same question: How could a professor so beloved by the campus community see his life end at the hands of a student?

Tjan, 50, was stabbed to death inside his 10th-floor office in USCs Seeley G. Mudd Building about 4:30 p.m. on Friday, according to Los Angeles police and colleagues. He suffered a severe chest wound and died at the scene, officials said.

David Jonathan Brown, a 28-year-old student in Tjans introductory lab course, was arrested at the scene, according to the LAPD.

Police have not discussed a motive in the slaying, though an LAPD spokeswoman described the attack as targeted on Friday.

Calls and emails seeking further comment from the LAPD on Saturday were not immediately returned.

Dalton Combs, right, and Kate Swift-Spong bring flowers to the office of USC professor Bosco Tjan, who was stabbed to death Friday. A graduate student has been arrested in the slaying, according to the L.A. Police Department. Combs was Tjans former student. (Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

Tjans death sent shock waves through USC, where he had worked for more than 15 years and was considered a cornerstone of the neuroscience graduate program.

The Beijing native was a co-founder of the colleges neuroimaging center, where he served as technical director, but he also led a number of research projects and taught a lab course on functional imaging to graduate students, according to Irving Biederman, director of USCs Image Understanding Laboratory.

Tjan worked tirelessly, also serving on various committees at the school and often choosing to repair the complex machinery in the imaging center himself, Biederman said.

It was impossible not to love him once you knew him, Biederman said. He was brilliant and incredibly knowledgeable and incredibly generous with his time and support.

Born in Beijing and raised in Hong Kong, Tjan emigrated to the U.S. with his family as a teenager, according to Zhong-Lin Lu, a longtime friend and former USC colleague who now serves as director of the Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences at Ohio State University.

He earned his doctorate in computer and information sciences at the University of Minnesota, where he also met his wife in 1997 before joining USCs staff in 2001, Lu said.

Tjan was so selfless that Lu would often tease his longtime friend about spending more time aiding others than conducting his own research.

Most people these days are focused on their own promotion, their own research, Lu said. Bosco was very different.

Tjan was an expert in vision loss research, and his most recent project focused on aiding people with retinal degeneration, Biederman said. He is survived by his wife and young son.

The killing came on the heels of violent attacks on other college campuses in the last few months. Earlier this week, a student at Ohio State University injured 11 people when he rammed a car into a crowd and then slashed several people with a butcher knife. Investigators are trying to determine whether terrorism was a motive in the attack.

Tjans death also bore an eerie similarity to the June shooting death of UCLA professor William S. Klug. The 39-year-old professor was shot and killed by a former graduate student who had accused Klug of plagiarizing his work, Los Angeles police said. The gunman killed himself after shooting Klug, but the incident prompted a massive LAPD response and caused the Westwood campus to be locked down.

Though several students said they were saddened to hear of Tjans death, they did not seem concerned about their safety. Students wearing backpacks could be seen riding bicycles or lazing under canopies on Saturday morning, just a few feet from the building where Tjan died the night before.

Ramiro Mendoza, a sophomore studying aerospace engineering, said USCs almost instantaneous response to the attack put him at ease.

These things can happen and [theyre] tragedies when they do, but it wont change the way I feel about the safety of the campus, he said.

Casey Powell, a senior environmental studies major, said he was saddened, but not shaken, by the attack.

Its just really sad to lose a faculty member, Powell said. Its also said that it was a student ... a member of the Trojan family.

Brown enrolled at USC in 2013, and was one of nearly 60 graduate students in Tjans course, according to a campus spokesman and Tjans faculty Web page.

Biederman, who knew of Brown through the graduate program, described the student as a soft-spoken introvert who had never shown an aggressive streak.

If I thought of male students who would be capable of that, he would not be on the list, Biederman said.

Biederman said some faculty have wondered whether Brown attacked Tjan after receiving a less than stellar review from the committee that evaluates graduate students.

Mather did not know anything about Browns review. But she said that as Browns advisor, Tjans evaluation of the student would have been a key source of information for that committee.

Lu, who last saw Tjan while attending a workshop in Argentina in April, also said the professor told him one of his graduate students was struggling to keep pace in the neuroscience program. Although he did not mention Brown by name, Lu said Tjan described the student as socially awkward.

I didnt think the person was a violent person, Lu said. [Tjan] wasnt concerned in our conversation. It was more that this person was not performing well.

Tjan was a perfectionist, according to Lu, who said students sometimes became frustrated when Tjan acted as a taskmaster, even though he was more than willing to help with difficult projects.

Whatever the motive behind Tjans slaying, friends and colleagues agreed that his sudden death has created a hole in the USC community that may be impossible to fill.

It made going to campus a treat, that I might run into him, Biederman said. Im devastated. Life is not going to be the same.

james.queally@latimes.com

amina.khan@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California. Follow @aminawrite for science news.

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Five people were shot Saturday afternoon at a wake in South Los Angeles, authorities reported.

A fight broke out about 3:30 p.m. during the wake, which was held at a storefront near the intersection of West 91st Street and Western Avenue, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Thomas Bojorquez.

According to police, a man left the gathering, returned with a rifle and began shooting into the storefront. Some people inside the building may have returned fire, Bojorquez said.

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Police suspect the motive for the shooting was gang-related because numerous gang members attended the wake, which was held for a person who died of natural causes.

Bojorquez said all five people were taken to local hospitals for non-life threatening injuries and all were in stable condition Saturday night. Police are investigating.

ben.poston@latimes.com

Follow @bposton on Twitter.

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The Oakland warehouse where at least nine people were killed at a late-night concert was a deadly blaze waiting to happen.

People who previously lived there recalled a building that lacked fire sprinklers and had a staircase partly made of wooden pallets. Partygoers recalled a rabbit warren of rooms crammed with belongings  pianos, organs, antique furniture, doors and half-finished sculptures.

It was a tinderbox, said Brooke Rollo, 30, who did not attend Fridays event but had gone to parties there previously.

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Firefighters who responded to Fridays blaze described the interior as a labyrinth. And an Oakland building official said organizers of the warehouse concert never obtained a permit for the event, preventing city workers from inspecting exits, fire extinguishers and other vital safety features.

Still, the nearly 10,000-square-foot building on 31st Avenue, known to many as the Ghost Ship, had been a subject of complaints well before Fridays fire.

The city was contacted three times in the last two years about trash and debris piled up outside the warehouse. On Nov. 14, inspectors with Oaklands Planning and Building Department began investigating an allegation of illegal construction inside the building.

Darin Ranelletti, the departments interim director, said inspectors attempted to enter the warehouse three days later but failed to gain access.

Ranelletti said his department had also received reports that people were living in the warehouse illegally. Inspectors were still investigating before the fire broke out, he said.

The Oakland warehouse is one of several properties owned by Chor N. Ng, according to her daughter, Eva Ng, 36. She was adamant that the warehouse was being leased as studio space for an art collective and not used as residences.

Eva Ng said she had not been to the building for a year and saw no evidence someone was living there. She said she had been reassured by the lease holder that nobody lived in the building.

They confirmed multiple times. They said sometimes some people worked through the night, but that is all, Ng said.

Still, one former tenant told The Times that he remembered at least 10 people living inside the warehouse. Bradley Evans, who moved out in August 2015, said the man who collected the rent lived in the building with his wife and three children.

The man instructed tenants to tell the landlord they were working on art projects and not living there full time, said Evans, 21. The landlord came by once a month to collect the money and didnt ask any questions, he added.

Shelley Mack, who lived in the warehouse from October 2014 to February 2015, said the building had no fire alarms or fire sprinklers. Five or six mobile homes were parked inside the warehouse and were rented out, she said. At one point, residents used an illegal hookup to get their electricity from the building next door, said Mack, 58.

Its a dump and a death trap, she said.

Ng said she believed the building had smoke detectors and two second-floor exits, both wooden stairs. She was not familiar with a report by authorities and others who had been inside the building that one of the stairs was at least partly made of pallets. But she was aware that there had been parties in the building.

Its Christmas, after all, she said.

The warehouse was leased to a collective, Ng said.

An organization housed at the venue called itself the Satya Yuga Collective, a group of artists and musicians who described themselves on social media as an unprecedented fusion of earth home bomb bunker helter skelter spelunker shelters ...

The collective had been run by a man who identified himself as Derick Ion. His wife, Micah Allison, declined to talk about conditions at the warehouse, including whether there was a sprinkler system and whether people lived there. She said she was focused on finding a hotel for the night and getting emergency clothing for her children.

Im not going to speak to anybody about that kind of stuff, Allison said. Im going to have to speak to my lawyers before I answer any questions.

Cities in California typically require a special permit for one-time-only events  such as weddings, art openings and concerts  in buildings not constructed for such activities, said development consultant Hamid Behdad, who supervised L.A.s effort to convert commercial buildings to lofts and apartments.

To secure those permits, an owner must show fire and building inspectors where the exits are, the locations of the fire extinguishers and how the building will be illuminated in case of an emergency, he said.

Behdad also said the states building code prohibits the use of wood and other combustible materials for staircases in buildings that stage events with more than 49 people, he said.

Wood stairs, my God, he said. Any way you look at, this was a recipe for disaster.

Photos on the warehouses Tumblr page show a maze of rooms, with walls and dividers made from pianos, boxes, salvaged doors and other materials. Wooden rafters were adorned with hanging lanterns, holiday lights, bicycles, stereo equipment and exposed wiring.

Ben Brandrett, a mental health researcher living in San Francisco, attended a performance at the warehouse about seven or eight months ago and noticed that a staircase didnt have a banister.

I remember thinking, This seems sketchy, he said.

Members of Oaklands artist community said they were devastated by news of Fridays fire. Rising real estate prices, they said, have pushed many artists out of San Francisco and into the East Bay. Now, some are struggling to stay in Oakland, they said.

Its increasingly difficult for artists to pay to live here, said a 31-year-old performance artist who goes by the name Lichen. In order for us to create, sometimes we have to do it in places that arent the most ideal or safe.

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the district where the fire broke out, said he had been hearing complaints from constituents about debris outside the warehouse. Asked if the building had permits for people to live there, he said: Absolutely not.

The reality is, there are many facilities being occupied without permits, he said. Theyre occurring on Oaklands streets, especially in neighborhoods like mine.

Times staff writers Gale Holland, Paige St. John, Russ Mitchell and Tracey Lien contributed to this report.

liam.dillon@latimes.com

ben.poston@latimes.com

david.zahniser@latimes.com

laura.nelson@latimes.com

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A fatal fire Friday night at a party in a converted warehouse in Oakland has claimed the lives of at least nine people. At least two dozen are still unaccounted for.

Heres look at some other nightclub and music venue fires that have exacted terrible death tolls:

 October 2015: A blaze at the Colectiv nightclub in the Romanian capital of Bucharest killed 64 people and injured nearly 150 others. A spark from a bands pyrotechnic show ignited the foam ceiling, erupting into flames.

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 January 2013: A fire killed more than 200 people at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil. Soundproofing foam on the ceiling caught fire and released poisonous gases.

 December 2009: Some 152 people died when a blaze started by an indoor fireworks display broke out at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia.

 January 2009: An indoor fireworks display after a New Years countdown ignited a blaze in the Santika club in Bangkok, Thailand, killing 67 people.

 September 2008: A fire killed 44 people at the jammed King of Dancers nightclub in Shenzhen, China, when a stampede broke out after a fireworks show ignited the ceiling.

 December 2004: In Buenos Aires, Argentina, a fire killed 194 people at the crowded Cromagnon Republic club after a flare ignited ceiling foam.

 February 2003: A fire at the Station nightclub in Warwick, R.I., killed 100 people and injured more than 200 others. Fireworks being used by the band Great White set fire to flammable foam inside the club.

 December 2000: A fire that was blamed on a welding accident killed 309 people at a disco in the central Chinese city of Luoyang.

 October 1998: An arson attack against an overcrowded youth disco in the Swedish city of Goteborg killed 63 people and left about 200 injured. Four people were later convicted for starting the fire.

 March 1996: A fire at the Ozone Disco Pub in Quezon City, Philippines, killed 162 people. Many of the victims were students celebrating the end of the academic year.

 March 1990: An arson attack at the Happy Land nightclub in the Bronx borough of New York City killed 87 people. A man angry with his girlfriend threw gasoline on the clubs only exit and then jammed down the metal front gate, trapping people inside.

 May 1977: A fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Ky., killed 165 people and injured more than 200.

 November 1942: The deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history killed 492 people at Bostons Cocoanut Grove club. The fire led to new requirements for sprinkler systems and accessible exits.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

Follow @lanow for breaking news.

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LA 90: Army halts Dakota Access pipeline: Today, the voices of indigenous people were heard Energy Transfer Partners chief executive Kelcy Warren has said the company would not be willing to explore alternative routes.
An estimated 2,100 U.S. military veterans were bound for the frigid Northern Plains on Saturday in a mass show of support for Native Americans and their allies battling the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

The vets, organized under the banner Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, include 219 vets from California, many of whom departed in seven charter buses on Friday.



For the record: An earlier version of this article said that Army veteran Elizabeth Torrance served in Kosovo in 2004. She served in Iraq, in 2007.

Heres a chance to use my energy as a vet and as a Native American, said Robin Gage, 60, a former member of the California National Guard who organized transportation for the California veterans. Her grandmother was a member of the Choctaw Nation, from Louisiana.

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Quite frankly, I dont like bullies, said Gage, referring to North Dakotas deployment of militarized police against opponents of the 1,172-mile, $3.8-billion pipeline, which would transport up to 570,000 barrels of oil a day.

The pipeline is nearly finished but for a section under the Missouri River. Native opponents say an oil spill could contaminate water sources that serve them and some 17 million other Americans.

The Seven Council Fires Camp at the edge of North Dakotas Cannonball River, just north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, has swelled to some 5,000 water protectors in recent weeks, and has received support from 300 tribes, along with many environmental organizations and climate change activists.

Gage predicted that far more than the estimated 2,100 veterans nationwide would come to Standing Rock.

Its history in the making, said Kenny Nagy, a 64-year-old Vietnam veteran, dragging four duffel bags down a long corridor in Union Station before boarding the bus for North Dakota on Friday. Were going to be actually helping out people of the United States instead of corporations. I am so ready. The whole world is watching.

Invoking the nonviolent protest tactics of Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the veterans group pledged to peacefully support the unarmed protesters.

In the ultimate expression of alliance, we are there to put our bodies on the line, no matter the physical cost, in complete nonviolence, wrote the groups in its operations order. The group added, Our mission is to prevent progress on the Dakota Access Pipeline and draw national attention to the human rights warriors of the Sioux tribes.

The veterans will muster at noon on Sunday at a high school gymnasium on the Standing Rock reservation, then quickly form into platoons and companies for anticipated confrontations on the front lines with several hundred state police, county sheriff deputies the North Dakota National Guard, and military vehicles originally designed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will likely be gassed, pepper sprayed, shot with rubber bullets, hit with batons, said the order, adding, It is critical that we demonstrate discipline, resolve and bravery. This is not an action of violence.

Mark Boster at the Standing Rock protest in North Dakota pic.twitter.com/X0kVUC4al2  Mark Boster (@MarkBoster) December 4, 2016

The veterans effort drew criticism from the North Dakota Veterans Coordinating Council, which urged local vets not to join the protest.

The council doesnt have an opinion about the pipeline, and it supports anyone who wants to protest peacefully.

Council president Russ Stabler told the Associated Press that the group worried that the veterans arrival could exacerbate an already tense situation. The group also accused the protesters of breaking laws, attacking law enforcement and destroying property, the AP reported.

Last week North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple urged pipeline opponents to leave the encampment, citing his concern for their welfare in the extreme cold. The protesters rejected his plea, saying that North Dakota authorities did not appear concerned about hypothermia when drenching protesters with water hoses in subfreezing temperatures during a confrontation in late November.

Dalrymple also said he would suspend emergency services to the areas near the Seven Council Fires camp, including snow removal.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered protesters to leave the camp by Monday, citing the building of unauthorized permanent structures on federal land. Protesters have insisted on their right to build the encampment on land covered by an 1851 treaty, in which the U.S. ceded the land to the Great Sioux Nation.

What will happen Monday is unclear. The protesters say they have no intention of leaving, and there appear to be no imminent plans to enforce evictions.

On Friday, U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch placed calls to Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier and Standing Rock Tribal Chairman David Archambault, and later released a statement urging everyone involved to exercise restraint, to refrain from violence and to express their views peacefully.

For the arriving veterans, though, their biggest foe may not be North Dakotas police, but its brutal cold.

Temperatures at the camp are expected to dip below zero in coming days. Despite admonitions that veterans come prepared with subzero sleeping bags and other winter gear, the risk of exposure and hypothermia remains high.

California veterans bound for Standing Rock expressed readiness for the cold, and whatever else awaits them.

As a veteran we take an oath to defend the American people against enemies foreign and domestic, said Elizabeth Torrence, 30, an Army veteran who served in Iraq in 2007, as she prepared to board the bus in Union Station. And the way theyre treating American people, unarmed people, is unacceptable.

Tolan is a special correspondent.

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President-elect Donald Trump has promised to increase military spending.

Its a pledge that had widespread support among the hundreds of defense officials  including members of Congress, military leaders and industry executives  who met Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley to discuss national security.

Peace through strength, said Howard Buck McKeon, a former Republican congressman from Santa Clarita, quoting one of Reagans favorite maxims.

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There was also great enthusiasm for Trumps selection Thursday of James N. Mattis, who retired as a Marine Corps general in 2013, for the post of Defense secretary.

But attendees at the Reagan National Defense Forum, an event in its fourth year, were much more muted when it came to talking about the president-elect himself. Panel discussions centered on security threats from Russia, North Korea and Islamic State, as well as cyberattacks and the strength of U.S. forces.

But panelists rarely ventured into questions of how Trump would be likely to handle such issues.

Its all a mystery to everybody, Eric Fanning, the secretary of the Army, said in an interview.

Former California Gov. Pete Wilson, right, moderates the Q&A; portion of the keynote address by Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the Reagan National Defense Forum. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times )

At a lunch banquet, a journalist asked the featured speaker, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the anxiety that Trump had caused in Europe with his comments that seemed to undermine U.S. commitment to the NATO and what the president elect-could do to offer reassurance.

Im clearly not going to get into the policies of the next administration, Dunford said.

He added that he felt confident the U.S. would continue to honor its NATO obligations. Dunford also answered a flat no when asked whether he had any concerns about Mattis leading the Defense Department  a job traditionally held by civilians  so soon after leaving the military.

The crowd responded with laughter and applause to Dunfords no.

How about hell, no?  said the emcee, former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

There appeared to be widespread agreement that Mattis, who is nicknamed Mad Dog, would be demanding on the Pentagon but could also make a strong case to Congress for providing more money for defense spending.

The forum attendees included many establishment Republicans who had opposed Trump during their partys primary elections. It was difficult to find any willing to criticize him now. Even Trumps break with four decades of protocol Friday to take a phone call from the Taiwanese president  prompting a diplomatic protest from China  didnt appear to cause alarm, at least not publicly.

I personally dont think it should come as a major surprise, said Steve Womack, a Republican congressman from Arkansas. This is not a business-as-usual president-elect.

Asked about Trumps inexperience on foreign policy and national security, Womack said: He has the right people around him who will bring him up to speed.

Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat and former member of Congress who served as undersecretary of State for arms control and international security affairs during Obamas first term, said that many people in the Republican-dominated defense establishment were viewing Trump with a wait-and-see attitude.

Many speakers avoided talking about Trump at all. In a panel entitled Passing the Baton: Prioritizing national defense in the next administration during the transition, he barely came up.

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On paper, the new Inupiat Eskimo name of the nations northernmost town is now official. But not so fast. The reality is not so simple. The town was known as Barrow until Thursday, when the new name, Utqiagvik (oot-GHAR-vik), became effective, less than two months after the town approved the change at the polls, by a margin of a mere six votes.

But the name is being challenged. A local Native corporation filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday that claims city officials rushed the process with insufficient outreach to the public.

Plaintiffs also maintain the new name isnt even the areas traditional place name, and they also note the name change would come at a steep cost to the city in public expenditures to change signs, contracts and other documents to reflect the new name.

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And on Tuesday, Mayor Fannie Suvlu introduced an ordinance to consider asking voters if the change should be repealed.

The City Council will address the proposal in January. Suvlu said Friday the ordinance was prompted by several factors, including the tight vote and claims by more than a handful of community members in the town of 5,000 that there had been no due process before the October vote.

The 381-375 vote happened before Suvlu came into office.

I feel that whether I am in the city of Barrow or I am in the city of Utqiagvik, I am here to serve the community members, Suvlu said. It was the community members that voted me in.

The lawsuit was filed by the Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corp., which also was seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the city from changing the name.

A state judge, however, denied that motion on Thursday, ruling that the city did not receive notice of it until that morning and that the plaintiffs also did not show how the city would be immediately and irreparably injured by the cost of changing the name. The judge also noted that Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott certified the name change more than a month ago.

In court documents, plaintiffs say the lack of input from the public led to a flawed law being passed, one that didnt even use the correct traditional name for the city. They claim the correct word is Ukpeagvik, which means the place where we hunt snowy owls.

City Council member Qaiyaan Harcharek, who is Inupiat on his mothers side, introduced a local ordinance in August that began the process ultimately ratified by voters. After the October vote, however, he said Utqiagvik essentially means a place for gathering potatoes.

We are now in an era where the reclamation of tradition is critical to the perpetuation of identity as Inupiat, he wrote in an October email to the Associated Press. The people of Utqiagvik voted to regain our traditional name. Hopefully, it signifies the beginning of a decolonizing revolution. Regaining our traditional names is just one step towards that healing!

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Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, President-elect Donald Trumps pick for Defense secretary, will need more than the usual Senate confirmation before being able to take office.

U.S. law states that a nominee for Defense secretary must have been out of the active-duty military for seven years.

Mattis, 66, retired in 2013 after serving as the commander of the U.S. Central Command.

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The requirement was originally set by law in 1947, when Congress established a minimum of 10 years out of active duty. It was changed to seven years in 2008.

But theres a way around that restriction: Congress can approve a law bypassing it. Thats what would have to be done for Mattis.

Here is a look at why the limitation exists:

Why civilian control of the military?

Civilian control of the military is ingrained in American history and was set in stone in the U.S. Constitution, which decrees that the president shall be the commander in chief. It grants Congress the power to raise and support armies. Congress also has the authority to declare war, but as recent conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria have shown, the U.S. military can wage combat without a formal declaration of war.

The principle of civilian control of the military is anchored in the belief in a balance of power. It sets the U.S. and other democracies apart from countries where militaries plot coups to overturn governments.

It ensures, said Spencer Meredith, an associate professor at the National Defense University, that the military is just one tool an administration can use in conflict so it isnt fighting constant and even needless wars.

Presidents have rebuked military commanders who were seen as wading into political waters. Most famously, President Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951, during the Korean War, for publicly proposing wider action against the Chinese army than Truman considered wise or safe.

As recently as 2010, President Obama cited the tenet when he fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal after a Rolling Stone magazine profile anonymously quoted people around him criticizing members of Obamas national security team. A Pentagon inquiry later cleared McChrystal of wrongdoing.

Military service

Of the 25 men who have served as secretary of the modern Defense Department, only seven never served in the military, including the current Pentagon chief, Ashton Carter. One served only as an enlisted military member: Chuck Hagel, who received two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam.

Only one exception to the law requiring a gap after military service has been approved. Gen. George Marshall was appointed Defense secretary in 1950 by Truman, who was looking for a highly respected leader to take over as the Korean War ramped up. Marshall needed a special law passed because he had not been out of the military for 10 years, as was then required.

A Pentagon history says Marshalls appointment was quickly approved, but questions were raised by some senators about a military leader holding a job intended for a civilian.

Politics and the military

Military leaders today still take their political neutrality seriously. During the recent tumultuous presidential campaign, both Carter and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, steadfastly steered clear of politics.

The concern is that the candidate they criticize may one day be their commander in chief, whose orders they would have to follow. And leaders must maintain their credibility with the public and lawmakers from both parties so that they can provide their best advice without raising questions of political motives.

Loren DeJonge Schulman, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank, said the preservation of independent military advice and civilian control of the military are grounding principles for how the U.S. was set up and any move to make exceptions to the regulations should be weighed carefully.

Granting exceptions, she said, could lead people to question in the future whether a military leader is giving advice to curry favor with a particular party or administration in order to get an appointment down the road.

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Democrats draw sharper battle lines in tug of war over party leadership By Chris Megerian Even as Democrats try to move past last years defeats, their internal fault lines show signs of deepening in the campaign for the partys leadership. The latest evidence came Wednesday when former Vice President Joe Biden endorsed Thomas E. Perez, who served as President Obamas Labor secretary, to chair the Democratic National Committee. We have a lot of good people vying for this important job, Biden said in a statement. But I do think for this moment and in this time, Tom Perez is our best bet to help bring the party back. The endorsement was seen as more evidence that key members of the recently departed Obama administration were backing Perez. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) with Sen. Bernie Sanders. (Alex Wong / Getty Images) It was followed by a statement from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont reiterating his support for Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), another leading candidate in the race. Although Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary, he has continued to try to pull Democrats to the left, and he has emphasized the need to create a grass-roots party. Obama left office with strong poll numbers, but under his watch, Democrats lost power not only in Washington but in states around the country, something Sanders and his allies have stressed in the fight over the party chairmanship. The question is simple: Do we stay with a failed status-quo approach or do we go forward with a fundamental restructuring of the Democratic Party? Sanders said. Read More Facebook

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Border Patrol chief is abruptly out after being brought in as a reformer By Brian Bennett The chief of the Border Patrol will leave his post at the end of the month, likely the result of a change in direction by the Trump administration and a reflection of the new power of the agencys union. Mark Morgan, the agencys head, was hired from the FBI in June to reform the force after a series of corruption allegations and problems with excessive force. He will leave the Border Patrol abruptly after seven months on the job, according to a person familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Morgans departure was first reported by the Associated Press. Morgan spent 20 years at the FBI and was first brought to Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrols parent agency, in 2014 to overhaul its internal affairs division. After a subsequent stint running the FBIs training academy, he started the top job at the Border Patrol in June. The Border Patrols union had opposed Morgans appointment, preferring a candidate who had risen through the ranks of the agency. The union endorsed President Trump in the election, breaking with its practice of remaining neutral in elections. News of Morgans departure comes a day after Trump announced he would build a border wall and hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents, bringing the total force to 26,000. Trump said the Border Patrol union would have a lot of clout in department decisions. Facebook

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Trump was silent on new U.S. sanctions against Russia, but he praises Putins response By Michael A. Memoli After President Obama on Thursday announced retaliatory measures against the Russian government for what the U.S. has concluded were efforts to interfere in the election, President-elect Donald Trumps response was terse and dismissive, saying it was time to move on to bigger and better things. But after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he would not respond in kind to the U.S. actions  preferring to wait until the new administration takes office  Trump weighed in with high praise. Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016 Trumps tweet did not appear to be off the cuff. As if to underscore his sentiment, Trump affixed the tweet to the top of his Twitter feed. And he posted an Instagram photo shortly after, quoting himself. View Instagram post Trumps effusive words were particularly striking given the bipartisan view of Putin as more adversary than ally. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said they supported the Obama administrations move to expel Russian diplomats and block access to two properties owned by its government. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) is expected to call a hearing on Russias cyber activities when the new Congress convenes next week. A Trump transition spokesman was asked earlier Friday whether Trump had spoken or planned to speak with Putin before his inauguration. The priority right now is for the president[-elect] to get an update next week from the intelligence community, Sean Spicer said. Trumps praise did get tacit approval from some quarters. The Russian embassy in Washington retweeted it. Facebook

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Most popular White House petitions included requests to label a hate group and deport Justin Bieber By Colleen Shalby Over the past five years, Americans have produced and signed nearly 5,000 petitions through the White Houses We the People site. How could we ever forget the effort to get the Obama administration on board with building a Death Star? Some, like that one and a petition to deport Justin Bieber, resulted only in conversation. But others made an impact. The Pew Research Center analyzed the petitions in a recent report. They ranged from serious, like an effort to ban gay conversion therapy at a state level that led the president in 2015 to support states bans, to playful. A request for Obama to appear on a previously unvisited talk show, for example, prompted him to appear on Real Time with Bill Maher in January 2016. In 2015, 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin requested a meeting with the first black president, something she never thought shed live to see. Her petition garnered only 19 signatures. But it nonetheless resulted in one of first couples most memorable meetings, this dance party: The petitioning system, launched in 2011, was part of Obamas open-government initiative. The most common topics for petitioning included healthcare, veterans issues and requests to honor individuals, such as Yogi Berra, and create or officially recognize holidays, like Talk Like a Pirate Day. While not every petition made a change or elicited a response from the White House, many captured a momentary pulse of the nation. Here are the five most popular: Legally recognize the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group, posted Dec. 14, 2012; 367,180 signatures. Establish justice and prevent a great catastrophe, posted April 4, 2016; 331,914 signatures. File charges against the 47 U.S. senators in violation of the Logan Act in attempting to undermine a nuclear agreement, posted March 9, 2015; gained 322,117 signatures. Ask President Obama to appear on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher,  posted Jan. 15, 2016; 314,226 signatures. Deport Justin Bieber and revoke his green card, posted Jan. 23, 2014; 273,698 signatures. Facebook

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Obama slaps Russia with sanctions for meddling in the U.S. election By Christi Parsons In the most sweeping retaliation against Russia in decades, President Obama slapped the country with new penalties Thursday for meddling in the U.S. presidential election, kicking out dozens of suspected spies and imposing banking restrictions on five people and four organizations the administration says were involved. All Americans should be alarmed by Russias actions, Obama said in a statement. Such activities have consequences. Read More Facebook

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How Trump and an Obamacare rollback could affect the growing gig economy By Chicago Tribune Gabby Golub of Chicago does chalkboard art for bars and restaurants in addition to driving for Lyft and working part time at her old high school. (Kristan Lieb / Chicago Tribune) A growing share of the U.S. workforce is reyling on alternative work arrangements, which include on-demand gigs through online platforms like Lyft or Uber as well as work through temporary help agencies, freelance assignments and independent contracts. The Bureau of Labor Statistics plans to conduct a comprehensive survey of these so-called contingent workers next year, its first since 2005, helping policymakers understand the size and makeup of a workforce not covered by many labor protections or privy to the benefits that come with a traditional employer relationship. Whether policy will catch up to the labor shifts is a question experts will watch in 2017. A major conversation point has been how to develop portable benefits that give gig economy workers access to retirement plans, unemployment insurance and paid sick leave even as they move from job to job. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts plans by Sprint and OneWeb to create 8,000 U.S. jobs By Jim Puzzanghera (Don Emmert / AFP/Getty Images) President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday touted plans by telecom company Sprint and technology start-up OneWeb to hire a total of 8,000 workers in the U.S. in what he said was very good news for the economy. He appeared to be highlighting previously made jobs announcements. OneWeb, which is building a network of satellites to deliver high-speed Internet access, said on Dec. 19 that it expected to create nearly 3,000 jobs in the U.S. over the next four years after securing $1.2 billion in funding, mostly from Japans SoftBank Group Corp. And the head of SoftBank, which owns Sprint, said on Dec. 6 that the company had agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 jobs here. The announcement by SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son came after he met with Trump at Trump Tower in New York City. Trump touted it that day. Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday, Trump said Sprint was going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States. They have taken them from other countries. They are bringing them back to the United States, Trump said. Sprint, though, said in a statement that the jobs would be a mixture of new positions and others that were reinstated. It wasnt clear whether those jobs were part of the 50,000 that were mentioned earlier in the month at Trump Tower. We are excited to work with President-Elect Trump and his administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U.S., said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure. We believe it is critical for business and government to partner together to create more job opportunities in the U.S. and ensure prosperity for all Americans. Trump also said the OneWeb hiring is very exciting. OneWeb did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 3:25 p.m.: This story was updated with comment from Sprint. Facebook

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Kerry offers fierce defense of Obamas support for Israel, urges resumption of Mideast peace talks By Laura King Secretary of State John Kerry outlines his proposals for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Zach Gibson / Getty Images) With President-elect Donald Trump tweeting from the sidelines, Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Wednesday outlined broad principles for reviving the moribund Israel-Palestinian peace process -- calls that quickly ignited a new burst of Israeli anger against the Obama administration. Kerrys lengthy and impassioned address, delivered at the State Department, marked the latest chapter in an unusually bitter public clash between the United States and Israel -- and the even more extraordinary spectacle of a president-elect again inserting himself into a sensitive diplomatic matter before taking office. In a speech lasting more than an hour, Kerry appealed for a hiatus in Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, called on Palestinian leaders to explicitly denounce terrorist attacks against Israelis, and warned repeatedly that the prospects for a two-state solution, with Israel and a Palestinian state existing side-by-side, were in jeopardy. We cannot in good conscience do nothing, and say nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away, he said. Read More Facebook

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Former California lieutenant governor will meet with Trump to discuss running Agriculture department By Michael A. Memoli Abel Maldonado. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) President-elect Donald Trump is considering former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado to lead the Agriculture department, a move that would bring greater diversity to the Republicans Cabinet. Maldonado will meet with Trump on Wednesday at his Palm Beach, Fla., estate. Trump spokesman Sean Spicer noted that Maldonado, owner of Runway Vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley, comes from three generations of farmers and has strong roots in the agriculture industry of California. Trump will also meet with Dr. Elsa Murano, the former president of Texas A&M University and a former Agriculture undersecretary for food safety, in connection to the post, one of the few Cabinet positions yet unfilled. Maldonado, 49, was once considered to be the kind of Republican who could break through the partys struggle to attract widespread Latino support. A Santa Barbara County farmer whose parents were Mexican farmworker immigrants, he served as mayor of Santa Maria before being elected to the state Assembly in 1998. Perhaps Maldonados most notable political moment came when he worked with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to force Democrats to embrace the top-two primary system for California during negotiations on the state budget crisis in 2009. Schwarzenegger rewarded Maldonado with the appointment to the then-vacant post of lieutenant governor in 2010. But Maldonados role in helping push the nonpartisan primary system made him a pariah among many conservative Republicans, and he failed in subsequent races for Congress in 2012 and a brief flirtation with a run for governor in 2014. If nominated and confirmed, Maldonado would be the sole Latino in Trumps Cabinet. Facebook

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Trump attacks Obama over Israel just ahead of Kerrys speech on the Mideast By Michael A. Memoli The detente between President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump, as both aimed to portray a smooth transition of power, appears in jeopardy. Trump condemned the Obama administrations foreign policy on Wednesday, tweeting he was doing his best to overlook inflammatory Obama moves, while engaging in 1990s-style sarcasm. Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016 Last week, Obama decided to have the U.S. abstain from a United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity, which allowed the measure to pass. The vote angered Israeli leaders, who accused senior U.S. officials of complicity in drafting the resolution, a claim disputed by the U.S. We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but.......  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016 not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016 Trumps postings came just before Secretary of State John F. Kerry delivered a major address on U.S. foreign policy that included a rebuttal to Israeli government criticisms of the Obama administration. Trumps statement of support for Israel was welcomed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long had a tense relationship with Obama. President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel! @IvankaTrump @DonaldJTrumpJr https://t.co/lURPimG0wS  Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) December 28, 2016 Trump transition spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that the president-elects tweets speak for themselves, very clearly. He also stressed that White House officials have been helpful and generous with their time, at least in terms of the mechanics of the transition. In a brief statement to reporters Wednesday night, Trump said he had a general conversation with Obama during the day. Very, very nice, was how the president-elect described the chat, which he said Obama initiated. A White House spokesman confirmed the call and characterized it as positive. When asked whether he thinks the U.S. should exit the U.N., Trump repeated his earlier comments that the global body is not living up to its potential. When do you see the United Nations solving problems? he asked. They dont, they cause problems, so if it lives up to its potential its a great thing, if it doesnt its a waste of time. The U.N. seemed to respond to Trump on Monday, in a message pinned to the top of its Twitter feed: Here's a list of 10 ways the UN makes a difference in the lives of millions every day.



See what else we do: https://t.co/MGT7G5uPFL pic.twitter.com/nMxHV0rvkf  United Nations (@UN) December 26, 2016 Times staff writer Christi Parsons in Honolulu contributed to this report. 5:10 p.m.: This story was updated with White House comment. 2:45 p.m.: This story was updated with Trumps comments. Facebook

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John Kerry, tireless in his diplomatic efforts, often came up empty-handed By Tracy Wilkinson John F. Kerry is nothing if not indefatigable, traveling to all corners of the world as Americas top diplomat over the last four years. But as he prepares to leave office, he confronts a mixed legacy: a handful of successes coupled with searing defeats, especially in the Middle East. His inability to halt the carnage in Syria, or to block Russias growing influence, ranks as the most serious blot on his record. But he also got nowhere trying to end the Israeli-Palestinian standoff, or to stop Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, from bombing civilians in Yemen. Kerrys greatest success was the historic accord to curtail Irans nuclear development program and a landmark climate change treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming. Read More Facebook

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At Pearl Harbor, Obama says we must resist the urge to demonize those who are different By Christi Parsons Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Obama. (Marco Garcia / Associated Press) President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe scattered petals together on the waters of Pearl Harbor on Tuesday in a symbolic act aimed at laying to rest the enmity of the Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the U.S. into World War II. In a moment consumed with history, both leaders were fixed on the future. They expressed concern that the lessons of the war might be forgotten amid a shifting world order and the anti-internationalist sentiment that has swept over politics around the globe, most notably with the ascendance of President-elect Donald Trump. Read More Facebook

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Obama and Japans Abe to visit Pearl Harbor amid renewed talk of nuclear concerns By Christi Parsons Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu on Monday. (AFP/Getty Images) President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are scheduled to honor the war dead at Pearl Harbor on Tuesday, marking the 75th anniversary of the attack that thrust the U.S. into World War II. The visit was planned as a coda to Obamas visit to Hiroshima in May, where Abe hosted him as the first sitting president to visit the site where the U.S. dropped one of two nuclear bombs in 1945 to end the war, the only instances of nuclear attacks in history. But the visit has taken on a new meaning. President-elect Donald Trump reawakened old fears of a nuclear arms race last week by declaring his commitment to strengthen and expand U.S. nuclear capability. In his remarks at Pearl Harbor, Obama will have an opportunity to address those renewed anxieties and to lay out the dangers of an arms race. Obama has fought to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to secure existing caches. The visit is meant to highlight the strength of the relationship between the U.S. and Japan, an administration official said. Several Japanese prime ministers before Abe have visited the Pearl Harbor site. But Abe is the first to go to the memorial at the resting place of the battleship Arizona, where 1,177 American military personnel died in the Japanese aerial attack on Dec. 7, 1941. Facebook

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Will the Feds Janet Yellen take away the punch bowl after Trump takes office? By Don Lee After three years of almost single-handedly juicing up the slow-growing economy, Janet L. Yellen and the Federal Reserve should be looking at easier days ahead. Yellen, in what will probably be her last full year as Fed chair, may finally get help from somewhere else in Washington. Tax cuts and infrastructure spending planned by President-elect Donald Trump, if backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, would lighten the load for a Fed whose easy-money policies have been the primary economic support for the nation. She is already breathing easier on the Feds employment mandate; the jobless rate has fallen to a nine-year low of 4.6%. Inflation, too, is under control and, by all accounts, creeping toward the central banks optimal level of 2%. And yet, Yellen may come under as much economic and political pressure as ever, on both the Feds policy and the independence of the institution. Read More Facebook

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Obama says he could have beaten Trump By Tracy Wilkinson (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press) President Obama says he could have defeated Donald Trump in last months election by recapturing the same vision of hope that twice carried him to the presidency. Obama also was mildly critical of the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, saying her campaign didnt do enough to get her message out. The remarks were notable because Obama has been careful since the election to avoid criticizing Trump, or to deliver a post-mortem on Clintons failed bid. Obama spoke in a wide-ranging interview with former senior advisor and now CNN commentator David Axelrod for the Democratic political operatives Axe Files podcast. The interview was released by CNN on Monday. You know, I am confident in this vision because Im confident that if I -- if I had run again and articulated it, I think I couldve mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it, Obama said. His comments were part of a wider discussion of what he called ugly sentiments of racism and xenophobia that surfaced during the 2016 campaign. Obama repeated his assertion that Clinton faced a double standard as a woman, which put her at a disadvantage. But he also said a kind of complacency set in that made the Clinton campaign too cautious and thus unable to get its message out sufficiently. If you think youre winning, then you have a tendency, just like in sports, maybe to play it safer, Obama said. During the interview, Obama also spoke of his family, the strength hed gotten from wife Michelle and the improbability of his own political career. And the president said the spirit that his candidacy originally inspired, especially among young people, was never snuffed out despite the last eight years of turmoil. The idealism and the dedication stayed with the staff and got us through some really hard times, he said. Trump later responded to the remarks on Twitter. UPDATE 2:07 p.m.: This article was updated with Trumps response. This article was originally published at 12:28 p.m. Facebook

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Obama personally authorized U.S. abstention from U.N. vote on Israeli settlements By Michael A. Memoli President Obama personally directed Friday that the U.S. abstain from a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity, seeing the escalation of settlement building as an increasing threat to the viability of a two-state solution to the regions problems. Ahead of the expected vote, Obama, who is vacationing with his family in Hawaii, convened a discussion Thursday with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and other top national security officials. The vote was postponed, but U.S. officials continued to monitor discussions over the Egyptian-authored resolution until Friday. Obama spoke with national security advisor Susan Rice on Friday to issue his final decision. President-elect Donald Trumps intervention in the discussions, which included a conversation with Egypts president Thursday that preceded the delay in the planned vote, did not affect Obamas calculations, deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters.. Theres one president at a time, he said. The decision to allow the resolution to pass, rather than cast a veto to block it is consistent with long-standing, bipartisan U.S. policy opposing Israeli settlement activity, Rhodes said. One of the administrations great concerns was that such activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has accelerated significantly since 2011, when the U.S. last vetoed a comparable resolution. U.S. officials also have been concerned about continued incitements of violence by Palestinians, and Rhodes said the resolution voted on Friday included greater balance to reflect that than past resolutions. Weve been very concerned that these accelerating trends are putting the very viability of the two-state solution at risk, Rhodes said. In that context, we therefore thought that we could not in good conscience veto a resolution that expressed concerns about the very trends that are eroding the foundation for a two-state solution. He also underscored what he called Obamas iron-clad commitment to Israel and its security, noting that the administration recently concluded a major military assistance package. The U.S. did not vote for the resolution because of continued concerns about the United Nations as a venue for Middle East peace discussions, Rhodes said. He also responded to what he called strident comments of Israeli officials criticizing the U.S. move. It seems like the Israeli government wants the conversation to be about anything other than the settlement activity, he said. Facebook

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Trump team seeks to ease fears on womens programs at State Department By Tracy Wilkinson ( Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) Donald Trumps transition team said Friday its requests to the State Department for details on positions and funding for global womens programs were part of an effort to ensure and protect gender equality. The statement appeared to be an attempt to allay concerns that Trump might seek to cancel or roll back gender-focused programs at the State Department following a request by the transition team on Wednesday for information about them. Most were created or championed by Trumps campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, when she served as secretary of State during President Obamas first term. The transition team statement Friday did not outline Trumps plans for the programs, which seek to promote equality, education and vocational training for women around the world as well as combat gender-based violence. President-elect Trump will ensure the rights of women across the world are valued and protected, the statement said. To help fulfill this promise, the transition team inquired about existing programs at the State Department that helps [sic] foster gender equality, ends gender-based violence, and promotes economic and political participation  finding ways to improve them. The statement said the inquiry was one of hundreds of requests it sent to federal departments as part of the transition effort. Facebook

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Trump team asks State Department for details on programs aimed at helping women By Tracy Wilkinson Donald Trumps transition team has asked the State Department for details on programs aimed at benefiting women around the world, including identifying staff members who worked to reduce gender-based violence and promote women in the workplace. In an email sent to numerous State Department offices Wednesday, the president-elects transition team asked for urgent response to its inquiries about gender-related staffing, programming and funding. Many of the programs were begun or were championed by Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of State during President Obamas first term and who lost to Trump in November. The unusual request to the State Department follows a similar email to the Department of Energy. There the transition team asked for names of staff members who had worked on efforts to combat climate change, which Trump has dismissed as a hoax. Several Obama administration officials called that query chilling. The Trump team withdrew the request after it was widely criticized. The latest email suggests the incoming Trump administration will attempt to roll back some of the State Departments most innovative programs and may seek to penalize people who worked on them. People are freaked out, said a senior State Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The email asked the State Department to deliver issue papers from bureaus and offices (one paper max per bureau/office) outlining existing programs and activities to promote gender equality, such as ending gender-based violence, promoting womens participation in economic and political spheres, entrepreneurship, etc. It said the issue papers should note jobs whose primary functions are to promote such issues, as well as money allocated for those activities and programs in fiscal year 2017. While at State, Clinton made womens issues a top priority. An office was created to deal exclusively with global womens issues, and money was allocated for programs that promote education of girls, train women in marketable skills and offer microloans. Read More Facebook

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Trump taps seasoned Republican operative Sean Spicer as White House press secretary By Lisa Mascaro President-elect Donald Trump named Sean Spicer as his new press secretary, tapping a seasoned Republican operative as the public face of the new White House. Spicer, a top Republican National Committee strategist who brought a measure of establishment Washington to Trumps operation, is known for his combative but engaging approach to communications. He will likely take over the press podium as the top spokesman at the incoming White House. Two other veterans of the Trump campaigns press operation also will get White House jobs: Jason Miller, who had been Trumps communications chief after moving from the campaign of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, will stay in that role as communications director at the White House. Hope Hicks, who was Trumps spokesperson on the campaign trail and one of his earliest campaign aides, will be assistant to the president and director of strategic communications, and Dan Scavino will serve as director of social media. Sean, Hope, Jason and Dan have been key members of my team during the campaign and transition. I am excited they will be leading the team that will communicate my agenda that will Make America Great Again, Trump said in a statement. Facebook

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Obama eliminates post-9/11 registry for foreigners, making it harder for Trump to restart it By Brian Bennett (Don Emmert / AFP/Getty Images) The Obama administration is taking apart a controversial, dormant national registry program that tracked visitors from countries with active terrorist groups for several years following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A final rule eliminating the program will be published in the federal register on Friday. The move would make it more difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to revive the registry, which hasnt been used since 2011. The Department of Homeland Security determined it was ineffective and didnt improve security. Civil rights advocates have long said the program was discriminatory. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to track Muslims coming to the U.S. and require them to register. He later changed his stance to say he would bar people from countries with a record of Islamist extremism. Trumps policy advisors have been looking closely at ways to jump start the registry, called the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, after he takes office at the end of January. With the program being officially dismantled on Friday, Trumps team would have to issue new federal rules to restart it, a process that could take several months and would require a period for soliciting comments from the public, which likely would be contentious. The Trump transition team is preparing several executive actions for the incoming president, Trump spokesman Jason Miller told reporters Thursday morning when asked about Obama dismantling the registry. Stopping radical Islamic terrorists from entering the U.S. is of paramount importance, Miller said. He didnt say directly if Trump would rebuild the visitor registry. The American people strongly support tough measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country, and President-elect Trump has made clear that we will suspend admissions of those from countries with high terrorism rates and apply a strict vetting procedure for those seeking entry in order to protect American lives, he said. When asked on Wednesday if he would set up a registry for Muslims or impose a ban on Muslim immigrants in the wake of the truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Trump said simply: You know my plans. Democratic lawmakers and civil liberties advocates have demanded in recent weeks that Obama dismantle the registry. Theyve cited a 2012 inspector general report that said Homeland Security databases collecting traveler fingerprints, flight manifests and intelligence information on foreigners are more effective at preventing terrorist attacks. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) praised the Homeland Security Departments decision to strip away dead-letter regulations no longer in use. These regulations symbolized an ineffective program based on religious and ethnic profiling, rather than individualized suspicion  a program based on fear, rather than reason, Leahy said in a statement. That has no place in this great country, under any administration. Facebook

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Trump is unwinding some foreign deals but many potential conflicts remain By Joseph Tanfani The Trump hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan, would be among the finest in the world, Donald Trump promised two years ago, another example of our involvement in only the best global development projects. But the dream of a world-class Trump Baku died this month, with Trump saying he was backing out of the deal because of delays and blown deadlines caused by the developer, a 34-year-old with close family connections to the countrys government. The demise of Trump Baku is not an isolated decision. With his inauguration less than a month away, President-elect Trumps company has pulled out of a few international business deals that might have created especially sticky conflicts and controversies for his administration. Read More Facebook

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Trump names UC Irvine professor and fierce China critic to new White House Trade Council By Don Lee Peter Navarro, left, and China expert Gordon Chang attend a screening of Death By China, the film adaptation of Navarros book, in New York in 2012. (Andy Kropa / Getty Images) President-elect Donald Trump, signaling that he intends to follow through on his tough talk on trade, is establishing a new White House-based trade council to be headed by a vehement critic of Chinas economic policies. Trump on Wednesday named Peter Navarro, a Harvard-trained business professor at UC Irvine, as director of trade and industrial policy and head of the newly created White House National Trade Council. The move sends a strong message: The Trump administration will take a much more aggressive posture to shrink the nations large trade deficit and combat what the president-elect and Navarro believe are forces behind Americas manufacturing woes  unfair and mercantilist practices on the part of China and other trading partners. Read More Facebook

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The issue of race has hung over Sen. Jeff Sessions like a shadow. Heres why By Del Quentin Wilber (Scott Olson / AFP/Getty Images) Jeff Sessions uneasy history with race can be traced back to the long, winding country roads that cut through the pine forests and farm land in this deep corner of the Deep South. As a boy, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III began each day before dawn, boarding a segregated bus to his all-white school. En route he and his classmates passed the bus ferrying black students in the opposite direction. The day ended when he sat down to dinner each night with his father, an avowed segregationist until the end of his life. Reflecting on those years, Sessions acknowledged recently that he knew back then that segregation was morally wrong and regretted standing by passively as civil rights leaders in the 1960s struggled and died in the fight for equality. I should have stepped forward more and been a leader and more positive force, Sessions said in February while participating in a ceremony honoring the Selma foot soldiers. Read More Facebook

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Kellyanne Conway will join Trump in the White House By Evan Halper (Gerald Herber / Associated Press) Donald Trump has named his media-savvy campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, to advise him in the White House in the role of counselor, his transition team announced early Thursday morning. The move comes after Conway sought to put to rest speculation that she would continue to serve as the public face of the Trump team. But the new job is sure to keep her profile high. Conway will will work with senior leadership to effectively message and execute the administrations legislative priorities and actions, according to a statement from the Trump transition team. Kellyanne Conway has been a trusted advisor and strategist who played a crucial role in my victory, Trump said in the statement. She is a tireless and tenacious advocate of my agenda and has amazing insights on how to effectively communicate our message. The appointment would boost diversity in a Trump inner circle made up mostly of older white men. It also sets up another potentially competing power center on a White House staff that already will have several, including Reince Priebus, the chief of staff; Stephen K. Bannon, the chief strategist; and Stephen Miller, the policy chief. Conway had previously turned down other proposals for White House jobs, telling reporters late last month that she did not want to spend long hours away from her children. At that point, Conway said she thought she could best help Trump by forming an outside organization to support his policies. But that role appears to have gone to Brad Parscale, who ran Trumps online operations during the campaign. Conway joined Trumps campaign during the summer when it was beset with infighting and disarray. She is widely credited with helping bring message discipline and professionalism to an operation in desperate need of it. In the run-up to the election and the weeks that followed, Conway was a ubiquitous presence on cable news networks, capably moving through her talking points in tough interview settings  often on the firing line and held to account for the exaggerations and incendiary remarks Trump was prone to make on the campaign trail and Twitter. I am humbled and honored to play a role in helping transform the movement he has led into a real agenda of action and results, Conway said in the statement. She is the founder and owner of the Polling Company, inc./WomanTrend, a GOP firm that has been advising candidates for two decades. Trump has not yet chosen a press secretary. But he is believed to be considering several candidates. Sean Spicer, former communications chief of the Republican Party who has served in a spokesman role for Trump through the transition, has been a prominent possibility, although Trump reportedly has considered several women, including conservative talk radio star Laura Ingraham and Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle. Facebook

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Trump Hotel employees in Las Vegas get a union contract By Kurtis Lee (Mike Nelson / Getty Images) Its owned by President-elect Donald Trump and is among a handful of hotels on the Las Vegas Strip to not be unionized. But that will change soon. For more than a year, Trump and his staff at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas have fought efforts by employees and the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 to negotiate a contract. But a four-year contract announced by the union on Wednesday will offer Trump employees annual wage increases, a pension and family healthcare, among other benefits. In Nevada, the culinary union is the states largest and most powerful, representing nearly 55,000 workers who serve cocktails and prepare food at hotels throughout the state. A majority of the unions members are Latino. Read More Facebook

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Wait! Dont cancel that Air Force One order just yet By Evan Halper Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016 After Donald Trump scolded Boeing earlier this month for the escalating cost of building a new Air Force One, the companys CEO projected confidence that Trump wouldnt be following through with his threat to cancel order! The two men met together at Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Wednesday. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said they spoke about a range of issues. The Air Force One project, which Trump complained would cost taxpayers more than $4 billion, invariably arose. Were going to get it done for less than that, and were committed to working together to make sure that happens, Muilenberg said. The company had previously noted that the project did not yet have a firm price tag. I was able to give the president-elect my personal commitment on behalf of the Boeing Company. This is a business thats important to us. We work on Air Force One because its important to our country, and were going to make sure that he gets the best capability and that its done affordably, Muilenberg added. He called the conversation terrific and Trump a good man who is doing the right thing. The presidential aircraft remains a long way from takeoff  a new plane wont be ready for use in the next four years. Even if Trump is reelected, he might not get to use the plane, as the earliest projected date for completion is 2024. Boeing is currently doing early development work on the plane  a modified 747  that will likely be outfitted with such gadgetry as top-secret communications equipment, countermeasures to foil missile attacks, and aerial refueling capability that would enable it to remain airborne for days at a time if necessary. The timing of delivery was among the topics that came up at Trumps meeting with the Boeing CEO. Thats what were going to work on together, Muilenberg said. We have an active 747 production line, and were eager to get started on the program. We havent actually started the build of the airplane yet, but once we finalize the requirements and make sure that its affordable, well launch on building the aircraft. Weve got a hot production line and were ready to go. The government actually has two planes outfitted to serve as Air Force One, which is the designation given to whichever plane is carrying the president. The current planes, which were put into service during the Reagan administration, are nearing the end of their design life. Facebook

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Fierce China critic and UC Irvine professor to head Trumps new trade council By Don Lee (Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times) President-elect Donald Trump is establishing a new White House-based trade office that will be headed by a UC Irvine professor known for his fierce criticisms of Chinese trade and economic practices. In appointing Peter Navarro as director of trade and industrial policy and the head of the new National Trade Council inside the White House, Trump is signaling that he wants to follow through on his tough campaign rhetoric in which he blamed the Chinese for the large U.S. trade deficit and manufacturing woes. During the campaign,Trump threatened to slap a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. Navarro, a Harvard-trained economist who advised Trump during the campaign, is the author of the book Death by China: Confronting the Dragon  a Global Call to Action. Trump endorsed the 2011 book as well as Navarros film version of the polemical work. I read one of Peters books on Americas trade problems years ago and was impressed by the clarity of his arguments and thoroughness of his research, Trump said Wednesday in a statement announcing the appointment. He will fulfill an essential role in my administration as a trade advisor. Trump said the new trade office would develop policies to shrink the nations trade deficit and curb the off-shoring of jobs, as well as to lead initiatives such as the Buy America, Hire America program. Navarro, in a statement, said he would be honored to serve Trump and the nation and to advise on policies to re-balance our trade, rebuild our industrial base, and restore Americas comprehensive national power by making America great again. Facebook

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Trump stops the drain the swamp talk as new alligators emerge By Evan Halper Newt Gingrich. (Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press) It made for a great slogan during the campaign, but now that hes won, Donald Trump is finding that maybe he doesnt actually want to drain the swamp. In fact, the alligators seem to be doing quite well. Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on Wednesday boasted about his access and proximity to Trump in announcing a new consulting firm he plans to open with former Trump campaign advisor Barry Bennett. The firms offices will be one block from the White House. Clients who pony up what are sure to be hefty fees for the firms services are being assured by Lewandowski in his marketing materials that he turned down multiple opportunities within the administration so he can serve them. The pitch implies Lewandowski will remain a de facto surrogate for Trump  with all the access that implies  as he bills those seeking to influence the Trump administration for his services. So perhaps the time is ripe for Trump to stop using the drain the swamp phrase. And that is what Trump has decided to do, according to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who describes himself as an outside advisor to the president-elect. Im told he now just disclaims that, Gingrich said in an interview on National Public Radio, referring to the slogan Trump used in the final phase of his campaign to crystallize his promise to cleanse Washington of insiders and self-dealers. He now says it was cute, but he doesnt want to use it anymore, Gingrich said, adding that perhaps all this swamp draining talk isnt presidential. Hes in a different role now and maybe he feels that as president, as the next president of the United States, that he should be marginally more dignified than talking about alligators in swamps, Gingrich said. I personally have, as a sense of humor, like the alligator and swamp language, he added. I think it vividly illustrates the problem, because all the people in this city who are the alligators are going to hate the swamp being drained. And theres going to be constant fighting over it. But, you know, he is my leader, and if he decides to drop the swamp and the alligator, I will drop the swamp and the alligator. Lewandowski, for his part, made no mention of swamps or alligators in announcing his new consulting firm would be open for business. Proud to launch our new venture today to support @realDonaldTrump achieve his agenda in Washington D.C. pic.twitter.com/ZEot6IrvJ4  Corey R. Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) December 21, 2016 Facebook

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Death penalty in steep decline, but not in Los Angeles County By David Savage Lonnie Franklin Jr. was tried and convicted of 10 counts of murder. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles County and the state of California again recorded the most new death sentences this year, amid a sharp decline across the nation in both executions and new death sentences. Judges and juries in Los Angeles County imposed a death sentence on four murderers during 2016, including Lonnie Franklin Jr., the so-called Grim Sleeper, who was convicted of killing 10 women. No other county had more than one death sentence, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since 2010, Los Angeles County has recorded 36 new death sentences, more than any county in the nation. This year marked the first time in more than 40 years where no state recorded 10 or more new death sentences, the group said in its year-end report. California had the most with nine, followed by Ohio (five), Texas (four), Alabama (three) and Florida (two). California has by far the nations largest death row, with 750 condemned inmates, but it has not carried out an execution in the past decade. Overall, the report documented the steep decline for capital punishment over the past two decades. The number of new death sentences had fallen by 90%, from 315 in 1996 to only 30 this year. And the number of executions has fallen from a high of 98 in 1999 to 20 this year. Georgia (nine) and Texas (seven) accounted for most of the executions. The only other states to put inmates to death were Alabama (two), Missouri (one) and Florida (one). Robert Dunham, the groups executive director, says the nation is clearly turning away from capital punishment. Whether its concerns about innocence, costs and discrimination, availability of life without parole as a safe alternative, or the questionable way in which states are attempting to carry out executions, the public grows increasingly uncomfortable with the death penalty each year, he said. But his report noted that Californias voters, by a 53%-47% margin, rejected a ballot measure to abolish the death penalty, and narrowly approved a measure, by a 51%-49% margin, to limit appeals and expedite executions. Facebook

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New survey finds less optimistic Democrats seeking many paths to their future success By Cathleen Decker (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) Since Hillary Clintons November defeat, Democrats have squabbled over how to return to prominence. Should they continue to court ascendant voter groups in the country, such as women, minorities and young people? Or should they turn to those who have long been in their camp but abandoned the party nominee this year, such as rural and non-college-educated voters. The answer, according to a Pew Research poll published Tuesday: Democrats want to walk both paths, simultaneously. The poll asked Democrats and Republicans whether their parties had spent too much, too little or just the right amount of time meeting the interests and concerns of specific groups of voters. Among Democrats, 64% said the party had spent too little time talking to rural voters, and 58% said the same about non-college voters. Almost two-thirds of Democrats said low-income voters had not gotten enough of the partys attention, and 58% said middle-class voters had been ignored to some extent. But Democratic voters did not want to let up on the partys outreach to its stronger supporters this year. About half said that the concerns of women and African American voters had gotten too little attention, while 43% said the same about Latinos. In the case of women, African Americans, Latinos, low-income voters, rural residents and younger voters, Democrats were substantially more likely than Republicans to say their party had not put enough emphasis on the groups concerns. The poll suggested far more confidence by Republicans than Democrats in their partys current positioning. Much of that may simply be the flood of confidence that accompanies a presidential victory. When the pollsters asked before the election about their view of their party, 61% of Republicans said they were optimistic, as did 77% of Democrats about their own party. After the election those figures reversed, with 79% of Republicans optimistic compared with 61% of Democrats. A key to Trumps success also was evident in the poll: a chameleon-like ability to make the different ideological groups in the party think he was one of them. Almost 3 in 5 conservatives said that Trumps views were conservative. And among moderates, 52% said that Trumps ideology was a mix of conservative and liberal, echoing their own posture. But queries about the new presidents impact on his party drew sharply partisan responses. More than two-thirds of all voters said that Trump had forced major changes on his party. Yet 72% of Democrats cast those changes as bad ones, while 83% of Republicans cast the changes as good ones. Facebook

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The artist and the senator: One built a desert masterpiece, the other a Nevada legacy By Lisa Mascaro When Sen. Harry Reid heard about a reclusive artist building a massive land sculpture across desolate acres in the Nevada desert, he knew they should meet. Its not just that Reid enjoys eccentrics and fighters, which he does. Michael Heizer had found an unusual way to express the majesty  and artistry  of the same lonely Nevada landscape that formed Reids childhood, when he would escape the dismal, rugged conditions of tiny Searchlight to play in the deserts hidden springs and abandoned fortresses. Both men discovered in Nevada what many outsiders miss. Far from seeing a nuclear wasteland, a dumping site or even a playground for gamblers, they drew inspiration from Nevadas quiet beauty. Heizer created an American masterpiece  a milelong complex of dirt, rock and cement rising from the desert floor like modern-day pyramids or the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. For Reid, his appreciation for Nevadas unique landscape became a cornerstone of one of the most lasting yet less-familiar pieces of his political legacy. Read More Artist Michael Heizer and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) speak in the Capitol. (Lisa Mascaro / Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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With 304 votes, electoral college seals Donald Trumps election as president  despite more desertions than ever By Michael Finnegan They convened amid unusual scrutiny, widespread protests and rafts of speculation about efforts to alter the outcome, but, in the end, the nations 538 presidential electors mostly stuck to the script Monday, formally sealing Donald Trumps victory with 304 votes in the electoral college, well above what he needed to capture the White House. After all the efforts to lobby Republican electors to desert Trump, only two did  a pair from Texas, one of whom voted for former Texas Rep. Ron Paul and the other for Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Indeed, instead of an uprising against Trump, the days voting was punctuated more by small, but persistent, gestures of Democratic discontent with Hillary Clinton. A handful of electors deserted her and a few more tried to, but were deterred by state faithless elector laws. Some of the Democratic dissenters were supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who lost the primaries to Clinton but galvanized the partys left wing. Others were backers of an abortive effort that had tried to recruit Democrats and Republicans to unite behind a third candidate other than Clinton or Trump. In the end, seven electors voted for a person other than the candidate who won their states  the largest number of electoral college desertions in a presidential contest in U.S. history, eclipsing a record set in 1808. Read More Facebook

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As electoral college meetings end in Hawaii, Bernie Sanders gets a vote that will stick By Michael A. Memoli David Mulinix, Hawaii elector who voted for Sanders, said Clinton wasn't qualified. Also said @POTUS wasn't progressive, but "conservative" pic.twitter.com/miCnZ6PzXI  Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) December 20, 2016 The last of the 50 states gave Bernie Sanders his first electoral college vote that counted. Hillary Clinton received three of the states four electoral votes after winning 60% of the popular vote here last month. But one elector, David Mulinix, said he cast his vote for the Vermont senator because he was the most qualified candidate. They can call me faithless, but the point is if we dont think someones qualified  and Hillary Clinton I do not feel is qualified, he said. Hawaiis electors are chosen by the major parties at their state conventions. Mulinix said he joined the party only this election cycle to support Sanders, who he said would have been elected president had he been the Democratic nominee. He had previously told the Associated Press he would cast his vote for Clinton, but said he changed his mind at the last minute. She did not lose the vote to Russian hackers; she lost the vote right there at the convention, he said, referring to the Democratic National Convention, where he said Sanders backers were treated unfairly. They robbed us, and the millennials know it. Mulinix, who, like his fellow electors, wore a lei made of green jade flowers, arrived for the vote with a list of candidates who had received votes in other electoral college meetings across the country. He was aware that an elector in Maine had tried to vote for Sanders but that his vote had been invalidated. An election official said the vote for Sanders here would count. The brief proceedings here in a nondescript conference room on the state Capitols third floor began with another elector, John Bickel, asking whether there was any penalty for electors who cast their ballots for someone other than the winner of the statewide vote. He said later that he had asked because he suspected someone might stray. The electoral college is outdated. If any election has proved the electoral college is outdated, its this one, Bickel said. Dolly Strazar, another elector and the vice chair of the state Democratic Party, said she had long supported the electoral college because it ensured some degree of competition between large states and small ones like Hawaii. It really seems in our times, its thoroughly outdated, she said. Janice Bond, the fourth elector, said she would have voted for Sanders but did not believe she was able to. She also expressed regret that President Obama, who was born in Hawaii and is vacationing here with his family, did not attend the meeting. To have him be on our island and not show face was disappointing, she said. Facebook

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No fireworks as Nevada electors cast votes for Clinton By David Montero Nevadas six electors cast their votes for Hillary Clinton on Monday afternoon in Carson City, reflecting her victory in the swing state despite losing the overall electoral college vote to President-elect Donald Trump. Clinton won Nevada by almost 3 points over Trump, and the swing state was one of her few bright spots on election day. The six electors  five from northern Nevada and one from Las Vegas  cast their ballots before about 75 people who had packed into the Old Assembly Chambers of the state Capitol. A few brought signs in support of Clinton, and there was some applause when the votes were cast. It all took place in less than a half-hour. No fireworks, said Wayne Thorley, deputy secretary of state for elections. He said about 40 people showed up in front of the state Capitol in the morning in sub-freezing temperatures to also show support for Clinton. Thorley said he hadnt anticipated a lot of controversy as the electors were required to sign a pledge before voting that said they wouldnt deviate from Nevadas Nov. 8 election results. Facebook

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In solemn ceremony, California electors cast votes for Hillary Clinton By Melanie Mason Casting my electoral vote for President and Vice President of the United States of .... https://t.co/jI2FGFCrVg pic.twitter.com/qufSJUM5WF  Susan Eggman (@SusanEggman) December 19, 2016 In a proceeding long on formalities and short on speeches, Californias 55 electors cast their vote for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday, a ceremony that coincided almost exactly with Republican Donald Trump clinching the national electoral college win. Contrasting with the spirited protests outside the state Capitol, the mood in the state Assembly chambers was muted, even a bit glum, as electors, tapped by the states Democratic establishment, convened to cast their votes for Clinton. California, which overwhelmingly backed Clinton in the presidential contest, requires all 55 electors to back the states winner. Todays solemnity and formality reminds us that in our nation, American greatness and American independence, rests on a foundation of law, said Assemblyman Ken Cooley (D-Cordova), who presided over the event. As written ballots were distributed, the room was completely silent, save for the clicking of camera shutters. Just moments before voting began, Trump, Clintons rival, had secured the electoral college win, with Texas, Californias perennial rival, putting him over the top. His victory went unacknowledged in the ceremony. Among the electors were current elected officials, such as Assemblywomen Susan Talamantes Eggman of Stockton and Shirley Weber of San Diego. Others included Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Laphonza Butler, leader of the powerful labor union SEIU in California. Electors did not make individual speeches during the main ceremony, and Trumps name was hardly mentioned. But there were subtle references to the rancorous political season: Rev. Bob Oshita, the Assembly chaplain and former reverend of the Sacramento Buddhist Church, urged leaders to engage in calming self-reflection in an opening prayer. The tone grew considerably sharper at the end of the gathering, when Pelosi offered a motion calling for an investigation into Russian efforts to influence the election outcome. I move that as an Electoral College, we do not normalize this election. We do not accept Russian interference in our election, Pelosi said. Her motion was adopted by electors, with applause. View Twitter post This post was updated at 3:32 p.m. with comments from Christine Pelosi. It was originally published at 3:12 p.m. Facebook

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All of Floridas electoral votes go to Trump By Gray Rohrer Floridas electors applaud as the vote for Donald Trump is announced at the state Capitol in Tallahassee on Monday. (Steve Cannon / Associated Press) Donald Trump officially won all 29 of Floridas electoral college votes on Monday during a ceremony held at the Capitol in Tallahassee, despite pleas from protesters to electors to change their vote at the last minute. About 100 protesters gathered outside the Florida Senate chambers before the vote, chanting love trumps hate and flip the vote and holding signs that read Vote Your Conscience, Dont Make Russia Great Again! The electors, made up of Republican Party of Florida members and high-ranking elected officials like state Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, Senate President Joe Negron and state party chairman Blaise Ingoglia, did their best to ignore the protesters. Read More Facebook

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Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim was a Trump nemesis. Now the president-elect says hes wonderful By Evan Halper Donald Trump has decided that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, one of his favorite villains during the presidential election, might not be so bad after all. Hes even wonderful, Trump now says. The two dined together Saturday at Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, after which Trump had only nice things to say about Slim, according to a report in the Washington Post. Trump described the interaction with his erstwhile nemesis as a lovely dinner with a wonderful man. This is not how Trump talked about Slim, one of the worlds richest men, during the election. The Mexican billionaire was a regular target of the then-GOP nominee because of his large ownership stake in the New York Times. Add to that Slims generous contributions to the Clinton Foundation and his citizenship in the country Trump reveled in attacking, and he made for good fodder at Trump rallies. When Trump objected to the New York Times coverage of his campaign  and its reporting on the allegations by multiple women of past inappropriate sexual advances by Trump  he alleged it was all part of a conspiracy cooked up by Slim. Trump called the outlets reporters corporate lobbyists for Carlos Slim and for Hillary Clinton. The New York Times called Trumps charges a fabrication, saying Slim had never inserted himself in editorial decision making there. And Trump offered no evidence to the contrary. A spokesman for Slim said at the time the two had never met, and the Mexican businessman had no interest in involving himself in the U.S. election. Now theyve met. The takeaway from the meeting, though, is murky. Maybe it indicates Trump is softening his posture toward Mexico  or maybe it just indicates billionaires enjoy the company of other billionaires. Facebook

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Meet the California electors By Liam Dillon Among the electors are Janine Bera, the wife of Rep. Ami Bera of Elk Grove; Christine Pelosi, the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and chairwoman of the state partys womens caucus; Eileen Feinstein Mariano, granddaughter of Sen. Dianne Feinstein; and Olivia Reyes-Becerra, daughter of Rep. Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles. State Assemblywomen Susan Eggman of Stockton and Shirley Weber of San Diego, former state Sen. Christine Kehoe of San Diego, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez and Laphonza Butler, president of the Service Employees International Union chapter that represents home care employees, also are on the list. Read More Facebook

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Three Washington state Democratic electors vote for Gen. Colin Powell, one for Faith Spotted Eagle By Rick Anderson (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press) Despite a statute binding the 12 members of the electoral college to vote for the winner of the states 2016 presidential election popular vote, four Washington electors made history and risked a $1,000 fine by voting for someone else Monday. But it wasnt Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton, supported by 57% of the states voters, wound up with eight of the 12 electoral votes at a session held in the State Capitol building here. Gen. Colin Powell received three votes. And Faith Spotted Eagle, an elder of the Yankton Sioux, received one. Read More Facebook

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Colorado elector says he was oppressed by state law into voting for Clinton By David Kelly In Denver, all nine electors voted for Hillary Clinton, after one was replaced for casting his ballot for Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich instead. A boisterous crowd packed the state Capitol and booed when elector Michael Baca was dismissed and another sworn in to take his place. Vote your conscience! someone cried. The new elector voted for Clinton. Hecklers screamed Resign! Resign! at Secretary of State Wayne Williams after he shooed Bacas lawyer off the podium. Suspense had been building for weeks over how the electors would vote. Two courts blocked their attempts to vote for someone other than Clinton. State law here says electors must support the candidate who won the popular vote. On Sunday night they went to court again, this time asking a judge to reject a new oath drawn up by the secretary of state requiring electors to pledge to support the winner of the popular vote. Their motion was denied. As they waited, the crowd sang This Land is Your Land and America the Beautiful. But once the electors filed in, it was over quickly. Elector Robert Nemanich said he was oppressed by state law into voting for Clinton and would go to the U.S. Supreme Court. He did not elaborate. Lance Armstrong, 68, stood outside with an American flag. Im glad some of the electors made a point today, he said. Any point is better than none. Facebook

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Trump officially gets 270th electoral vote, sealing his election as president By Julie Westfall Donald Trump has obtained the required 270 electoral votes to become president. Although electors in dozens of states still have to vote, the electoral balloting in Texas put Trump over the majority threshold, according to a state-by-state tally by the Associated Press. Thirty-six of the states electors voted for Trump, one for John Kasich and one for Ron Paul. The next, and last, official step in the electoral process is for Congress to count the votes. Under the procedure set out by the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, that formal process is scheduled for Jan. 6. Some anti-Trump activists had hoped against hope that they could persuade electors in states that voted for Trump to defect, but their efforts were unsuccessful. Electors are nearly all party loyalists. Additionally, they faced more than two centuries of tradition and, in some states, legal obligations that called for them to cast their ballots according to which candidate won the popular vote in their states. No defectors have ever changed the result of a presidential election. Four electors today successfully defected in Washington state. Instead of voting for Hillary Clinton, who won the states popular vote, three electors voted for former secretary of State Colin Powell and one voted for Faith Spotted Eagle, an environmental activist. Electors in two other states who tried to vote against the states winner were replaced with alternates. There may be additional defections in the remaining states, but since Trump now has a majority of the electoral votes, those would not be enough to change the result. Facebook

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Emotions high in Maryland as electors unanimously vote for Clinton By Erin Cox (Erin Cox/Baltimore Sun) As Marylands 10 electors unanimously cast votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton for president Monday, several said they were privileged to vote for the countys first female presidential nominee. Outside, hundreds of anti-Trump protesters cheered as the solemn ceremony unfolded on live-stream television. A state delegate, who had the ceremonial task of handing the electors votes to another official, wept while executing her duty. This is an emotional moment for many, many women in this country and in this state, said Del. Maggie McIntosh, a Baltimore Democrat. She added later: I guess I didnt cry enough on Nov. 8. Marylands electors were bound by state law to vote for the winner of Marylands popular vote, which Clinton secured with more than 60% of the ballots cast. About 100 protesters who had been chanting and singing around the historic State House grounds for at least four hours before the vote said they came in solidarity with protesters in Republican state capitols, pleading with electors not to endorse President-elect Donald Trump. This is appalling and unacceptable, and Im hoping the Republicans, in particular, rise above and do the right thing, said Cheryl Kreiser, a retired teacher from the Washington, D.C., suburb of Silver Spring. For an hour every day for the last 21 days, Kreiser has protested Trumps win on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was the only way I could cope with the disappointment, she said. Marylands Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who wrote in his fathers name rather than vote for Trump on election day, opened Marylands 58th electoral college meeting but left the room before electors were sworn in. Each elector had been appointed by the Maryland Democratic Party state chair, Bruce Poole, who reminded the crowd the United States is not a direct democracy ruled by the popular vote. A lot of people lose sight of the fact that were a republic. Were not a democracy, Poole said. The whole idea was that the president would not be chosen just by the whims of the moment, but instead there would be an opportunity for people who were thoughtful, who had judgment, who had integrity to take a step back from the moment of emotion and consider what would be in the best interest of the country. Here is "the old book" where Maryland has recorded its Electoral College electors every year since 1789. pic.twitter.com/GlsaJd3F3X  Erin Cox (@ErinatThePost) December 19, 2016 Before he introduced Marylands electors, Poole lamented the state of political discourse in the country. We live in the age of information. It is not necessarily the age of wisdom or age of judgment, he said. People on both sides, on all sides, make decisions at the snap of a finger. Maryland was both the model for creating the electoral college and the first state in the country to vote to bypass it. Framers modeled todays system after the way the Maryland House of Delegates selected Maryland senators, a process the state later abandoned after it was considered undemocratic, according to a history of the electoral college written by staff at the Maryland Board of Elections. Hogan noted the state is one of six to have participated every year since 1789. In 2007, Maryland was the first state to vote to sign the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a promise designed to award the electoral college to the winner of the national popular vote. It required enough states to comprise 270 votes to sign on for it to take effect. So far, only 10 states  including California  with a combined 165 votes have signed the compact. The president of Marylands electors, Courtney Watson, also co-chaired Clintons campaign in Maryland. She said she thought changes to the electoral college should be considered and described Monday as a poignant moment for Maryland residents. Its a very emotional time, she said. Many of us have worked long and hard, and for the first woman candidate. The point, though, is that people are still moved and even more engaged. And thats what I find promising for our future and the future of women. Facebook

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Christine Pelosi, daughter of Nancy Pelosi and California elector, demands to know the truth about Russian influence By Jazmine Ulloa Elector @sfpelosi: We won't stand down. #caleg pic.twitter.com/4cM3cE4Wb6  Jazmine Ulloa (@jazmineulloa) December 19, 2016 California elector Christine Pelosi on Monday told crowds gathered outside the Capitol that she has been part of a chorus of people demanding to know the truth about Russian interference in the November presidential election. Pelosi, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosis daughter, is leading 10 other electors in a call for an intelligence briefing on Russian influence. Shouting into a microphone Monday, she said Russian hackers aim to turn the American people against each other and had marginalized her and others for speaking out. They trespass on servers, she said. They receive stolen emails. They pump out stories that day after day focus on scandal rather than policy, rather than talking about climate and immigration and human rights. Californias meeting of electors is about to get underway in the state Capitol. Facebook

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After prayer for national unity, Georgia electors vote for Trump By Jenny Jarvie Outside the Georgia Capitol today, some may have held a flicker of hope that a GOP elector would refuse to cast a ballot for Donald Trump as 45th president of the United States. Yet among the inner circle of Republicans who gathered inside the cozy, wood-paneled Senate chamber, there was little doubt about what would unfold. One by one, all 16 electors - dressed in formal business suits and red dresses, bow ties and blazers -- cast their ballots for the contentious Republican candidate. It was a short ceremony, with little opportunity for disruption. Security guards prevented the public from entering the chamber, cordoning off the hallway outside the room with a red rope and locking the main door before proceedings began. The electors chosen by Georgias Republican Party included well-connected attorneys and real estate agents, a high school teacher and a farmer. As they waited for the gathering to begin, many snapped selfies and waved at loved ones above in the upper gallery. After a call to order by the Georgia Republican Party chair, the electors bowed their heads, and Rachel Little, an elector and grass-roots Republican organizer, delivered an invocation. Lord, we know we are a divided country right now, she said. We pray that you will unite us.  We pray that [those who oppose Trump] will see our conservatism lived out in a gracious way. In a short speech, Gov. Nathan Deal hit out at activists who had bombarded electors with emails, letters and phone calls in an effort to sway their votes. You have been the subject of harassment by those who perhaps are not as dedicated to the proposition of what this body is supposed to do as they are agitated by the fact that the people didnt do what they wanted them to do. I have every confidence you will not succumb to that, Deal told the electors. My words to you: Do your job. Shortly before the electors cast their ballots, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican who represents Georgias 11th District, took to the podium to present a short history of the electoral college. Our founders actually despised the idea of democracy because mob rule often results in a decision made out of pure emotion, Loudermilk told the electors, after referencing the noise of protesters outside. It does not result in good government. In fact, our founders often cited the historic trial of Jesus as how mob rule does not work. The electoral college was devised to protect the integrity of government, Loudermilk said. To protect those who live in the rural areas of America, those who work, those who are part of the farming communities and part of the industrial communities, those who live and work every day, that their interests are protected as well of those who make their living on Wall Street. For a moment earlier this year, there was an inkling of a Republican revolt against Trump in Georgia. In August, Baoky Vu, a GOP elector based in Decatur, Ga., admitted he might not cast his ballot for Trump if he won. Within hours, however, he was forced to resign. Trump went on to win 51% of Georgias popular vote. On Monday, Vu did not show up at the Capitol, and he was formally replaced by a solid Trump backer, John Padgett, the chairman of the Georgia Republican party. There seems little chance that Georgia legislators might vote to overhaul the electoral college. Earlier this year, Republican legislators authored two bipartisan pieces of legislation in Georgias House and Senate that would have made Georgias electoral votes based solely on the outcome of the national popular vote. Yet both bills stalled, and Republicans say there is little momentum to revive the debate. The system prevents the tyranny of the majority, said Kirk Shook, an elector who is a high school teacher in rural Oconee County. He scoffed at those who, since the election, had sought to overhaul the electoral college system. Theres all this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, Shook said of those who opposed Trumps win. And rightly so. Theres going to be a Republican president, a Republican Congress and a Republican Supreme Court. With the stroke of a pen, 90 percent of what Obama considered his legacy will be gone. Facebook

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Four Washington state electors defect from Clinton; one chooses Faith Spotted Eagle instead By Associated Press (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press) Four members of the electoral college in Washington state cast their votes for a candidate other than Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the states popular vote. Its the first time in four decades the states electors have broken from the popular vote for president. Washingtons 12 electors met Monday afternoon in the state Capitol to complete the constitutional formality. Clinton got eight votes while other candidates got the remaining four. Elector Bret Chiafalo, who earlier in the day said he planned to vote for Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, said that he ultimately changed his vote to former Secretary of State Colin Powell after conversations with other Washington electors. The exact breakdown of the other four votes wasnt immediately known, although at least one vote was cast for Faith Spotted Eagle. In last months election, Republican Donald Trump won 306 electoral votes to Clintons 232, though Clintons tally will now be lower. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win. The last time an elector broke from the popular vote in Washington was in 1976, when Mike Padden, who is currently a Republican state senator, voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford, who had won the state. Facebook

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Hundreds protest the electoral college at Capitol building in Sacramento By Jazmine Ulloa Protesters are now chanting, "hey hey ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go" pic.twitter.com/4nNyTMroI5  Marcus Yam  (@yamphoto) December 19, 2016 Cheers and chants of U.S.A and Keep him out filled the air Monday, as dozens of protestors gathered outside the California Capitol in a last ditch attempt to sway the electoral college from voting for president-elect Donald Trump. Speakers called Trump a celebrity and authoritarian unfit for the presidency. And they urged Congress to do away with the electoral college process, which they described as an outdated and broken system susceptible to foreign influence and manipulation. This is a secret system of voting where we are not allowed to see where the votes are actually coming from or how they are counted, Brent Turner, with the movement organization Democracy Spring, shouted into a microphone. John Franco, 52, says the electoral college is an outdated system that can be manipulated with or without hackers. #caleg pic.twitter.com/fs2L2W2HKp  Jazmine Ulloa (@jazmineulloa) December 19, 2016 John Franco, a 52-year-old business owner visiting Sacramento from New Orleans, said he came to the demonstration with his family to protest that secret process. We dont feel a system that can be manipulated represents the interests of the people who voted for Hillary Clinton, he said. Rochelle Towers was among hundreds to protest at the CA Capitol today: "I'll take any shot that there is. #caleg https://t.co/QcOhWklrpx pic.twitter.com/mtx76NjdEW  Jazmine Ulloa (@jazmineulloa) December 20, 2016 Rochelle Towers, 68, said she drove in from Oakland in an attempt to persuade the electoral college from voting for Trump. She said she would not have to live through a lot of what its decision would set in motion. But my children and grandchildren will, she said. Even though this is a real long shot, Ill take any shot that there is. Facebook

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Colorado elector removed after refusing to vote for Clinton By David Kelly A new elector is sworn in in Colorado after one refused to vote for Hillary Clinton. (David Kelly / Los Angeles Times) Eight of nine Colorado electors have voted for Hillary Clinton. One elector, Michael Baca, refused to vote for Clinton and was immediately replaced with an alternate, who was sworn in on the spot. As the crowd jeered, the new elector promptly voted for Clinton. Shouts of Resign! followed Secretary of State Wayne Williams announcement of the results. Protesters at the state capitol in Colorado. (David Kelly/Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Electors say they have been barraged with emails By Nigel Duara View Twitter post Arizona elector J. Foster Morgan said he had received several letters protesting the election of Donald Trump, but experienced nothing on the scale of some his fellow Arizona electors whose email addresses were distributed to protest lists. They heard the worst thing imaginable, Morgan said. I just got a few letters. Despite protests outside the meeting, Morgan said, the vote went fine. Eleven votes for Donald Trump. Facebook

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Democratic electors in Minnesota and Maine try to vote for Bernie Sanders By Associated Press (Spencer Platt / Getty Images) A second elector  this one in Minnesota  has refused to cast a vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Mondays electoral college tally. It wasnt immediately clear why Muhammad Abdurrahman didnt vote for Clinton, but he was a delegate for Bernie Sanders at the Democratic National Convention. The electors are pledged to cast Minnesotas 10 electoral votes for Clinton since she won the state. Abdurrahman was immediately replaced by an alternate who later voted for Clinton. Earlier in the day, a so-called faithless elector in Maine cast his vote for Sanders, who lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Clinton. David Bright said on his Facebook page that he cast his vote for Sanders because voting for Clinton would not have helped her win. But he ultimately voted for Clinton on a second vote after being ruled out of order. Facebook

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Utah voting goes off without incident  six for Trump By David Montero A protest sign outside the gathering of Utah electors (Rick Bowmer / Associated Press) Despite chants of vote your conscience and the whole world is watching from more than 100 protesters, Utahs six electors cast their votes for President-elect Donald Trump today in Salt Lake City. Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox announced the official results within minutes of the votes being cast, but he was drowned out by jeers of Shame on you by the protesters. I hope you know this is what our country is all about, Cox said. I hope all of us here are sincerely grateful we live in a country where we have the opportunity to express ourselves. The six electors -- two small-business owners, a custom metal worker, a farmer, a Brigham Young University professor and a Republican activist -- quickly introduced themselves before casting their ballots. The votes were largely a formality, as the state requires electors to vote for the winner. Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by getting 45%t of the vote. He also withstood a challenge from Evan McMullin, who garnered 21% in what was largely a protest vote from those, many of them Mormons, who felt uncomfortable casting a ballot for Trump. Cox said the turnout for this years electoral vote was a far cry from 2012, when four people and one camera crew showed up. Im a big fan of the electoral college, Cox said to the restless crowd. You dont have to boo me now. You can boo me later. About 200 protesters and Trump supporters arrived in the rotunda of the state Capitol about three hours before the votes were cast shortly after noon. The room where the votes were cast was too small to accommodate everyone, and the fire marshal sought to limit occupancy to about 130 people. Interest was high, and the vote even drew Hawthorn Elementary School students, who helped lead the room in the Pledge of Allegiance. Cox thanked them for coming and told them they were getting an experience youll never forget. Facebook

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Clinton elector balks in Minnesota One of 10 Minnesota electors has decided not cast a vote, Muhammad Abdurrahan. An alternate is now being sworn in. #ElectoralCollege pic.twitter.com/4eN1PIrZdO  Dylan Wohlenhaus (@DylanWohlenhaus) December 19, 2016 In Minnesota, where the 10 electors had all pledged their votes to Hillary Clinton, one of them refused to go through with it. Elector Muhammad Abdurrahman opted not to vote. He was replaced by an alternate, who cast a vote for Clinton. Facebook

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As Pennsylvania went unanimously for Trump, a voice from the back: Thank you By Steve Esack Electors sworn in in Pennsylvania (Matt Rourke/Associated Press) In Pennsylvanias capital of Harrisburg, the states 20 electoral college voters selected Trump today in a ceremony marked by traditional pomp and bellowing protests. Trump won the popular vote in Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes  the first Republican presidential candidate to do so since 1988. It earned him the states 20 electoral college votes. When the result was announced shortly before 1 p.m. inside the gilded, ornate House chamber, protesters jeered and supporters cheered. Shame on you, a womans voice called down from the public balcony. Thank you, a male voters voice responded back from the floor. Facebook

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How some electors have reacted to all the mail from voters Facebook

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Protesters outside Florida Senate chambers: Trump is dangerous By Gray Rohrer Protesters gather outside the Florida Senate chambers ahead of the electoral college voting ceremony. (Gray Rohrer / Orlando Sentinel) A group of about 100 protesters huddled outside the Florida Senate chambers Monday morning as Floridas 29 electors prepared to cast their votes for Donald Trump in the formal electoral eollege vote ceremony later in the day. The protesters held signs that read You can fix this, keep America free, What would Hamilton do? and Electors: Protect Us, Trump is Dangerous, pleading for electors to change their minds and not vote for Trump, who beat Hillary Clinton by 112,911 votes in Florida, about 1.2%t of all votes cast in the state. Tallahassee resident Bonnie McCluskey held a sign reading Send it to the House. If enough electors across the country do not vote for Trump, hell fall short of the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency, sending the matter to the U.S. House. The reason Im here is because I dont trust [Trump]) and I think he will harm the United States, McCluskey said. My grandmothers were suffragettes; their ancestors were willing to be traitors to the British crown to create this democracy and I dont want to see it end. And that sounds awfully dramatic but thats how Im feeling. She said that part of the reason she doesnt trust Trump is because he didnt pay a company she worked for that did promotional videos for his buildings in 1998. They were basically given the opportunity to take 10 percent or go to court. Back then I didnt realize that was his business plan, McCluskey said. I didnt make the deal with him I was just one of the people who saw a company go bankrupt. Despite the pleas from protesters, all of Floridas electors are expected to vote for Trump. Some, such as Florida Senate President Joe Negron, have posted pictures of hundreds of letters theyve received asking them to change their vote but declaring theyll be voting for the Republican candidate. Facebook

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Colorado electors make last-ditch plea to switch votes By David Kelly Crowds await the electoral college vote at the Colorado Capitol in Denver. (David Kelly / For The Times) Colorado electors are trying a last-chance legal appeal to avoid voting for Hillary Clinton, and instead vote for an alternative candidate to replace Donald Trump. A week ago, a district court judge told them they had to vote for Clinton, who won the popular vote in Colorado. A few days ago, a federal appeals court upheld that decision. But just hours before the vote today, two electors filed suit to stop the Colorado secretary of state from requiring them to swear to vote for the candidate supported by the electorate. Their effort is part of a loose national scheme to defeat Trump by persuading Republican electors to join with Democrats, such as those in Colorado, and coalesce around an alternative candidate. There has been no decision so far. Facebook

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Chants of Shame! erupt as Wisconsin electors cast ballots for Trump By Bill Ruthhart Demonstrators erupt after Wisconsin's 10 presidential electors cast their #ElectoralCollege ballots for Republican Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/A0GrASaIbY  Bill Ruthhart (@BillRuthhart) December 19, 2016 Wisconsins 10 presidential electors unanimously cast their ballots for Republican Donald Trump as expected Wednesday, but the vote still drew chants of Shame from dozens of demonstrators who had pleaded for them to back away from the president-elect. The typically procedural vote in a fourth-floor conference room in the Wisconsin State Capitol was anything but routine as about 150 protesters greeted the 10 electors with signs pleading for them to vote your conscience not your pledge. In a short 15-minute meeting, the electors quickly cast their ballots for Trump. They did not address the controversial nature of the election and no speeches were made before the 
Remember when China was the climate-action outcast, the obstacle standing in the way of progress in the global fight against a warming planet? What a difference a few years  and an election  can make.

Over the past few weeks, world leaders, delegates to the climate change conference in Marrakech and activists everywhere have expressed alarm that, as president, Donald Trump might actually realize his America First Energy Plan. Any one of the proposals would set back the environmental movement  withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, abandoning President Obamas Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon emissions, reviving the coal industry, opening up more public land to oil and gas drilling, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency  but together they conjure up dystopian dread. If President Trump follows through with candidate Trumps promises, it will be all but impossible to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

China, of course, was no more prepared for the results of the American election than the U.S. But it has been quick to size up the environmental implications of a Trump victory, and officials in Beijing are contriving to cast China in a fresh role, to project the country as a  perhaps the  global leader on climate change.

China is betting that clean energy and green technology will be what powers the global economy of the 21st century.

During the Marrakech talks, the official Xinhua News agency stated, China is playing an active role in negotiation and global governance on climate change. Self-motivated and willing to work with others to save the planet, China has taken steps, including billions of dollars of investment, to tackle climate change and provide new-energy technology. No need to make the contrast with the U.S. more explicit.

Lost on much of the world is that even as a soupy smog blankets its skies, China has been going green and clean with a vengeance in recent years. As the environmental and health consequences of fossil fuel emissions have become more widely understood, Beijing has bolstered its efforts to curb coal consumption and vehicle exhaust.

In 2015, China invested $111 billion in renewable energy  more than any other country in the world and, indeed, more than the U.S. ($44 billion), Japan ($36.2 billion) and the United Kingdom ($22.2 billion) combined. In the same year, it led the world in installed wind power, solar power and hydropower (with a total renewable capacity of 500 gigawatts, compared with 220 gigawatts in the U.S.). China today is the worlds leading manufacturer  and exporter  of both wind turbines and solar panels. And, next year, Beijing will inaugurate a nationwide carbon-emissions trading program.

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In an effort to wean the Chinese public from fossil-fuel-powered transportation, the state provides hefty subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles (up to $16,000 for a unit). Chinas high-speed rail system, at some 12,000 miles already the longest in the world, will add 7,000 additional miles by 2020. Also by 2020, the Ministry of Transport plans to add 200,000 new-energy buses and 100,00 new-energy taxis to the nations streets.

For China, going greener and cleaner has been driven in considerable part by environmental necessity. But at least as important, China is betting that clean energy and green technology will be what powers the global economy of the 21st century.

Already in 2010, then-U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu alerted Americans to what is at stake: From wind power to nuclear reactors to high-speed rail, China and other countries are moving aggressively to capture the lead. Given that challenge, and given the enormous economic opportunities in clean energy, its time for America to do what we do best: innovate.

If China is right, if Chu is right, to renege on the Paris agreement, to expand oil and gas drilling, to rebuild the coal industry, to cancel federal funding for research and development of new, cleaner forms of energy  as Trump has proposed  not only will cede global leadership on climate change to China but also undermine American leadership of the global economy.

Finally, if Trumps proposals surrender the leading role played by the U.S. on climate change and in the global economy, they threaten to diminish its moral influence in the world as well.

Developing countries are counting on the U.N.-sponsored Green Climate Fund to assist them in their efforts to combat the ill effects of climate change. Of the $3 billion the U.S. has pledged to the fund, only $500 million has been paid out. Trumps America First Energy Plan proposes to stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs, suggesting that developing countries may be waiting a long time to get the remaining $2.5 billion. So much for Americas word.

In Beijing last week, the government reaffirmed its commitment to set up a $2.9 billion fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change. China is surprising us daily. Whatever theyve promised, theyre delivering, Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, chairman of the Least Developed Countries Committee, said in Marrakech.

As 2017 approaches, China is poised to assume global leadership on climate change, and the U.S. is poised to become the new climate-action outcast. In Marrakech for the climate talks, Erik Solheim, head of the United Nations Environmental Program, spoke right to the point: Its a new world order.

Daniel K. Gardner is a professor of Chinese history at Smith College and author of the forthcoming book Environmental Pollution in China: What Everyone Needs to Know.

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At a ceremonial groundbreaking three months ago in Watts, elected officials, housing authority bureaucrats and residents all took turns swinging sledgehammers at a 1950s cinder-block structure to mark the demolition of Jordan Downs. The event marked the first phase in the remaking of this public housing development into an urban village, with planned green spaces, a retail center and mixed-income housing.

But after the photo-op, inside Jordan Downs deteriorating World War II-era buildings, plenty of residents felt wary. They keep talking about how good this place is going to be and how everyone will be included, one longtime resident told me a few weeks afterward. But I want to know: Is there really going to be a place for me here? Or will they want me out? Do they have room for me in the new Jordan Downs? His voice grew louder as he spoke those last three words, then he added, Im not so sure.

Hes not alone. Current residents have a long list of concerns about the redevelopment, and their biggest one is this: What is really going to happen to this community of 2,300 people once these buildings get torn down around them?

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Jordan Downs must be redeveloped... However, in the rush to create a new urban village, it is crucial to remember that a community already exists here.

For decades, Jordan Downs and two other public housing developments dominated the landscape and reputation of Watts. As a newly minted social worker at nearby Martin Luther King hospital in 1980, I was admonished to visit the projects only when accompanied by a Los Angeles police officer  advice I promptly discarded. What I discovered there was a community of families  strong, troubled, proud and interconnected  many bearing the scars of poverty and drugs. The epidemic of crack cocaine decimated families as gangs fought to control the drugs production, distribution and sales. Rates of death and incarceration soared.

Today Watts is different. First as a social worker and then as a researcher and nonprofit facilitator, I watched it transform. After a gang truce in 1992 and with further effort by the Watts Gang Task Force starting in 2005, violence and crime began to abate. Cross-cultural conflicts that surfaced as Latinos took up residence ultimately eased; Jordan Downs, per 2010 Census data, is now 64% Latino and 36% African American. Community organizations turned their focus to new issues such as improving local schools and supporting the reintegration of long-incarcerated men.

Jordan Downs is emblematic of Watts as it now exists: multiracial, multicultural, multi-generational. There are newly arrived immigrants as well as families who have lived there for three generations. Black and brown children come of age together. You can see Jordan Downs in the babies that are playing at the community center, Lee Sprewell, a peace ambassador at Shields for Families, told me. They have a brown mama and a black daddy. We are all one family.

The conflicts that remain are largely the disagreements that occur in any neighborhood setting. At a recent Project Fatherhood community meeting, I heard residents complain about trash that hadnt been picked up and the need to control loud music and noise after dark. Meantime, public- and private-sector investment has started trickling in to Watts. Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson chose Watts for their healthy fast food experiment, LocoL. A Frank Gehry-designed campus for the Childrens Institute will break ground in 2018.

This supposed rebirth of Watts just adds to the growing unease around Jordan Downs. Many residents worry that the neighborhoods affordable real estate and proximity to both downtown and Los Angeles International Airport render it ripe for gentrification. The watchword from community activists builds on Ted Watkins legacy, Dont move. Improve. Still, residents are fearful that they will lose control over their community, or be displaced entirely. What if people want to buy up houses at cheap prices and fix them up, one resident said. Is Watts going to be another East L.A.?

The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, or HACLA, has made extensive promises and projections about the remade Jordan Downs. But little has gone according to plan so far. Due to bureaucratic snafus, HACLAs application for $30 million in federal grants got rejected  twice. HACLA needs more money for the next phases of construction, but the agency hasnt identified funding sources yet.

Contractors also promised that there would be construction jobs for residents and the hard to hire  primarily the formerly incarcerated  but there is no way to ensure that happens.

Adding to the anxiety: The formerly industrial lot where construction is beginning was horribly contaminated with lead and required a massive clean-up. High lead levels also were found at area schools as recently as September. Mothers fear that the 300 kids at Jordan Downs could be exposed to more toxins as demolition and construction blow debris into the air.

But the central worry is that families will simply be pushed out. The new Jordan Downs development will be bigger overall  1,410 units, if fully built  but its uncertain that it will contain as many subsidized apartments (700) as exist now. Phase 1 contains just 250 subsidized units. HACLA has handed out right to remain certificates, but everyone I talk to is aware these are simply pieces of paper, not legally binding agreements.

Jordan Downs must be redeveloped. The buildings are decrepit, the surrounding area underutilized and the soil hazardous. However, in the rush to create a new urban village, it is crucial to remember that a community already exists here. Residents need to be systematically involved in the redevelopment process, from planning committees to project review. The number of affordable housing units must be revisited, with legally binding guarantees of 1-to-1 replacement and assurances that there will be homes for all current residents. Town hall meetings and photo opportunities are not enough.

The redevelopment of Jordan Downs has been hailed as a project that will change the landscape of Watts. While the addition of affordable housing and green spaces is something that nearly all residents desire, the landscape of Watts does not need to be changed  it needs to be strengthened.

Jorja Leap is a professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and co-founder of the Watts Leadership Institute.

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When President-elect Donald Trump announced that James N. Mattis was his choice to lead the Department of Defense, what seemed to delight him most was the retired generals Iraq war nickname: Mad Dog.

Mad Dog Mattis! Trump told a post-election rally. Mad Dog. He is great, he is great. They say he is the closest thing to Gen. George Patton that we have.

Over the next few weeks, were going to hear a lot about Mattiss prowess as a combat commander and his salty exhortations to the troops he led.

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Be professional, be polite, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet, he told his Marines. (A pretty good definition of what combat forces are for, actually.)

Trump needs Cabinet officers who are willing to stand up to him and push back when hes wrong. Mattis has already done that.

And he incautiously told a partly-civilian audience that fighting is a hell of a hoot. ... Its fun to shoot some people. (He apologized for that one.)

But if Trump chose Mattis for his mad-dog reputation, he made a good choice for the wrong reason.

Yes, Mattis was a Marine who demanded ferocity from his troops in battle. But hes also a strategic thinker and scholar who ordered his officers to read military history, can quote Marcus Aurelius or Ulysses S. Grant  and never much liked the mad dog sobriquet his men bestowed on him in Anbar province.

Off the battlefield, hes soft-spoken, thoughtful, cautious  and, most important, un-Trumplike.

Indeed, Mattis has already disagreed with many of the foreign policy positions Trump adopted without evidence of deep study during his campaign.

Trump has suggested that the United States should adopt an America First foreign policy, shedding excess obligations and spending less on traditional alliances. Mattis has called for continued engagement in the world and stronger alliances, and said Trumps dismissal of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance was kooky.

When Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, Mattis said the proposal caused great damage to U.S. relationships in the Middle East. (Trump later softened the policy to extreme vetting.)

Trump has suggested that Vladimir Putins Russia could be a U.S. ally; Mattis considers Putin a major threat, and believes the U.S. should do more to help Ukraine.

And, as Trump himself reported, Mattis told the president-elect to his face that he was wrong to suggest that U.S. forces should torture suspected terrorists for information. Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers, and Ill do better, the general told the president-elect.

Trump and Mattis also differ on Iran, which could set up one of the new administrations first big foreign policy debates.

Trump has said dismantling Obamas 2015 nuclear arms deal with Tehran would be his top priority. Mattis says thats simply impractical.

Theres no going back, Mattis said in April. I dont think that we can take advantage of some new presidents [arrival] and say were not going to live up to our word on this agreement. I believe we would be alone if we did, and unilateral economic sanctions from us would not have near the impact of an allied approach.

Instead, he said, the priority should be to keep pressure on Iran to curb its intervention in the rest of the Middle East, and to deter Iran from abandoning the nuclear agreement in the years ahead.

I think were going to have to hold at risk the nuclear program in the future  in other words, make plans now of what wed do if in fact they restarted, he said.

Theres one big problem with Mattiss nomination: the law that prohibits a former military officer from being secretary of Defense unless he or she has been retired for at least seven years.

Its a sensible law, meant to guarantee the principle of civilian control, and its only been waived once before, for George C. Marshall in 1950. Marshall was an extraordinary case: the chief of staff who organized victory in World War II and then served as a successful secretary of State.

This is an extraordinary case for a different reason: Trump needs Cabinet officers who are willing to stand up to him and push back when hes wrong. Mattis has already done that.

And Trump needs someone to balance the influence of his other favorite general, the volcanic Michael Flynn, who will be his national security advisor. Mattis and Flynn, who know each other well, are likely to go head-to-head on a long list of issues. (According to one report, Flynn wasnt thrilled with the idea of nominating Mattis, who outranked him four stars to three. Generals remember details like that.)

Trumps infatuation with generals  he boasted frequently in the campaign about their support  sometimes takes on an odd fanboy tone. (Mad Dog!)

But in this case, it might be a good thing. When Mad Dog Mattis tells Trump that blowing up the Iran nuclear agreement, weakening alliances, bombing civilians or reinstating torture is a bad idea, the boss might actually listen.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Twitter: @DoyleMcManus

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The differences between how Donald Trump and Barack Obama express themselves are vast and obvious. Trump is sometimes funny and cheerful, but more often cruel, barbarous, vindictive and vulgar. Obama is none of these things. He is too earnest to be genuinely funny, and it would never occur to him to engage in the kind of raw meanness for which his successor is famous. But reflexive accusations of moral equivalence shouldnt prevent us from acknowledging what Obama and Trump have in common: a searing contempt for their critics.

Trump dismisses his opponents with the simple epithets favored by pre-teen boys: loser, liar, crook and so on. Obamas contempt is infinitely subtler and more focused, but its no less real.

We got a hint of it in his first inaugural address in 2009. There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, Obama said. Were there? I remember many people questioning the ambitions themselves  that is, disagreeing with him on grounds of policy  but did they, as Obama went on to say, suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans? He was sure, in any case, that thats what they meant. What the cynics fail to understand, he said, is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. Those who opposed Obamas agenda, chiefly his promise to spend truckloads of government money in an effort to stimulate the economy, were already cynics with stale arguments in the first hour of his presidency.

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Reflexive accusations of moral equivalence shouldnt prevent us from acknowledging what Obama and Trump have in common: a searing contempt for their critics.

Obama would return again and again to this conceit over the course of his presidency. In a 2010 speech on his education initiative Race to the Top, for instance, he concluded his remarks this way: I know there are some who say that Race to the Top wont work. There are cynics and naysayers who argue that the problems in our education system are too entrenched, that think that well just fall back into the same old arguments and divides that have held us back for so long. These naysayers had no countervailing proposal, according to the president. They were content merely with saying his would not work. I would despise such critics too, if they existed.

Obamas imaginary opponents arent just cynics and naysayers, however. Theyre irrational and malevolent. Over and over weve been told by our opponents, he said at a campaign event in 2012, that since government cant do everything, it should do almost nothing. A few people here and there may believe government should do almost nothing, but approximately no one believes that governments inability to do everything is the reason it should do almost nothing. In Obamas mind, though, lots of people not only believe this piece of sonorous nonsense, but use it as a reason to dismiss other peoples problems as irrelevant. If you cant afford health insurance, he went on, lampooning his own invention, hope you dont get sick. If a company is releasing toxic pollution into the air that your children breathe, well, thats the price of progress.

Many a politician, of course, has failed or refused to distinguish between his opponents views and what he believes to be the consequences of those views. If I think your view will lead to more car accidents, I accuse you of trying to increase the number of car accidents; and so on. Thats part of politics. But Obama engages in this practice so frequently as to suggest some form of neurosis. His opponents are goblins, fixated on the ruin of everything he loves simply because he loves it.

I reject the idea, he said in typical campaign remarks in 2011, that America is going to be more successful if we abandon the 30 million people who dont have health insurance that are going to get health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. He doesnt say his opponents views would result in, or would amount to, such an abandonment; he says this is their idea.

Maybe its acceptable to caricature ones adversaries during a campaign, but not, surely, in an inaugural address  a speech ostensibly dedicated to rallying Americans around a common purpose. Enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war, he said in his 2013 address  as if the other side believes, actually or even metaphorically, in going to war for any reason or no reason.

And again from the 2013 inaugural: We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. What lies behind the remark is a long-running debate about what American resources can realistically achieve  whether we can continue current funding levels without substantially reforming Social Security and Medicare. Obama thinks we can do both, and fair enough. Whats remarkable isnt his view but the language he employs to express it: Any deviation from his view is, he believes, the deliberate abandonment of a generation.

These sorts of formulations have peppered Obamas remarks for eight years. But his offense isnt so much rhetorical as attitudinal. The contempt in his discourse signals the hubris of his outlook. Obama thought his adversaries had neither cleverness nor discipline, and that they couldnt thwart him by standing on principle.

He was wrong. Donald Trump, beware.

Barton Swaim is the author of The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
California lawmakers next year will make it a top priority to reform the system through which judges award criminal offenders bail, saying courts across the state are punishing the poor for being poor.

Assemblyman Rob Bonta and Sen. Bob Hertzberg said they plan to fire the first salvo Monday, when lawmakers descend upon the Capitol for the start of the 2017 legislative session. They will introduce bills stating the Legislature intends to enact laws that will reduce the number of people detained before trial and address the racial and economic disparities in the bail process.

The details of upcoming legislation are still under deliberation, but Bonta and Hertzberg said they have assembled a broad coalition of organizations and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to tackle what they consider to be one of the most significant pushes  and likely one of the hardest battles  of the year.

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Lawmakers discuss reform for Californias bail system 

Bonta, an Oakland Democrat, said he sees unprecedented energy and momentum on the issue, but predicted a heavy, strong resistance from the bail industry and insurance companies.

Debate over bail reform has simmered at the national level in recent years and has often been waged in court, with cities and counties across the country facing lawsuits over policies that some legal experts say have turned jails into modern-day debtors prisons. At least two of those cases  against statewide practices used in San Francisco and Sacramento  have been filed in federal courts in California.

Under state law, bail is set when a person is arrested according to a county fee schedule and depends on the gravity of the alleged crime. Offenders must post the amount upfront, or pay a 10% fee to a bond company, before they are released.

Those who cant afford to do so either can remain incarcerated up to an additional 48 hours before they are formally charged and arraigned. A judge then sets the conditions for release before trial, weighing such factors as whether the defendants pose a flight risk or are a threat to their community.

Those conditions typically include bail, and lawyers and legal experts say the rules on how high that monetary amount is set vary by city and county, often allowing courts to keep people in jail based on their inability to pay their fees.

We have to make the criminal justice system more just, Bonta said. When you have a system that is making decisions simply and solely based on a persons wealth, something is fundamentally wrong and that is simply not acceptable.

Bail reform legislation has failed in California in the past, often because of tough opposition from bondsman companies that argue the current system allows defendants access to their civil liberties.

But lawmakers said they could point to successful reforms in Washington D.C., Kentucky and New Jersey. And they have studied jurisdictions within the state that have developed risk-assessment models, which allow court and pretrial staff to use data and other evidence to determine whether a person should be released.

Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) said Republicans are suggesting interest in reform. Now you have a whole host of groups on both sides of the aisle looking at the cost and fairness of the system, he said.

Modernization of the pretrial system is urgently needed in California, which relies on pretrial detention at much higher rates than other states, according to the bills to be filed Monday. About 63% of people in state jails, or 46,000 inmates, had not been sentenced in 2015, according to the Board of State and Community Corrections.

That comes at a housing cost to the state of roughly $100 per inmate per day in most counties, or roughly $4.6 million a day.

It also placed an expensive burden on families. When people cannot afford to pay for their release, they can lose their housing, lawyers and reform advocates said. Even three days in jail can result in a loss of wages, jobs and family connections, leaving some defendants 40% more likely to commit crime in the future, studies show.

The problem we see with money bail is that it is a price tag on freedom, said Phil Telfeyan, executive director of Equal Justice Under Law, which filed the legal challenges over bail reform in California. Those who are rich get to pay their way out and those who arent have to languish in jail.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

jazmine.ulloa@latimes.com

Twitter: @jazmineulloa

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Buzz Aldrin said he was evacuated from the South Pole last week because he became short of breath and began showing signs of altitude sickness.

The 86-year-old adventurer, who was the second man to walk on the moon, released details Sunday of his dramatic medical evacuation from Antarctica. He is continuing to recuperate in a hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Because of the thick ice that blankets Antarctica, the South Pole sits at an elevation of 9,300 feet.

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Aldrin said in a statement that he still has some congestion in his lungs and has been advised to rest in New Zealand until it clears up and to avoid the long flight back to the U.S. for now.

Aldrin, his son Andrew and manager, Christina Korp, had been visiting Antarctica as tourists on a trip organized by the White Desert tour company. They left last Tuesday from South Africa. South Pole here I come! Aldrin wrote on Twitter at the time.

He said the trip began well and that hed been planning to spend time with scientists who were studying what it would be like to live on Mars because the conditions in Antarctica were similar.

I had been having a great time with the group at White Deserts camp before we ventured further south, he said.

I started to feel a bit short of breath so the staff decided to check my vitals. After some examination they noticed congestion in my lungs and that my oxygen levels were low, which indicated symptoms of altitude sickness.

Aldrin said he was put on the next flight, a ski-equipped LC-130 cargo plane that took him to McMurdo Station, a U.S. research center on the Antarctic coast. Once I was at sea level I began to feel much better, he said.

From there he was flown to Christchurch, where he arrived at 4:30 a.m. on Friday. His manager described the evacuation as grueling. She posted a picture of Aldrin on his hospital bed, on oxygen and with an IV in his arm.

The following day he was looking upbeat as he welcomed NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman.

Aldrin posted a photo of himself wearing pajamas and sitting up in bed with Newman by his side. Both were giving a thumbs-up.

I had a surprise visitor this morning. My longtime friend, Aldrin wrote. She beat me to the South Pole by one day.

Korp, his manager, wrote on Twitter that Buzz is ok. Resting but flirting with all the nurses!

She said shed told Aldrin he now holds the record as the oldest person to reach the South Pole, according to the National Science Foundation.

Hell be insufferable now, she wrote.

Indeed, the achievement completes a remarkable list of extreme locations visited by Aldrin. In 1966, he spacewalked while in orbit. In 1969, he and Neil Armstrong became the first men to walk on the moon.

In 1996, Aldrin voyaged to the bottom of the North Atlantic in a mini-submarine to view the Titanic. A couple of years later, he traveled to the Arctic aboard a Russian icebreaker.

Aldrin is now focusing on getting back to his home in Satellite Beach, Fla., which is not far from Cape Canaveral and its launch pads. But hes eyeing more distant horizons.

Im looking forward to getting home soon to spend Christmas with my family and to continue my quest for a permanent settlement on Mars, he said in his statement. You aint seen nothing yet!

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized U.S. lawmakers on Sunday for, in his view, undermining a landmark nuclear agreement but said Tehran had no intention of abandoning the deal.

In a speech to parliament, Rouhani slammed a Senate vote last week to extend for 10 years a longstanding package of trade, energy, defense and banking sanctions against Iran.

The unilateral U.S. restrictions were not rescinded by the agreement that Iran signed last year with six world powers  including the United States  to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of international sanctions.

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Rouhani delivered an endorsement of the nuclear deal, a signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration that is under fire both from Iranian hard-liners and from President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to dismantle it.

The moderate presidents speech was aimed mainly at pacifying hard-line domestic critics who say the nuclear accord has not delivered the economic benefits he promised. Irans economy continues to struggle nearly one year after restrictions on oil sales and other international trade were lifted.

The benefits of the nuclear deal are clear for everybody, Rouhani said. We can now, under the nuclear deal, export as much oil as possible. International transportation and shipping are much less inexpensive, and many trade and foreign investment contracts and agreements have been signed.

Iran has argued that unilateral U.S. sanctions over Tehrans ballistic missile program and support for terrorism dent American credibility and undermine the spirit of the nuclear deal by restricting its access to dollars, the currency of most international trade.

Whatever the American administration says or does, the Iranian government will not drop the nuclear deal, simply because Iran has no better option available.  Nader Karimi Juni, an independent analyst in Tehran

The Senate voted 99-0 on Thursday to extend the Iran Sanctions Act for 10 years. The White House has said President Obama opposes the extension of the law but will not veto it.

We believe the Iran Sanctions Act extension is not necessary, but we also believe it wont interfere with the Iran deal, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.

Lawmakers say the extension allows the U.S. to punish Iran should the nation fail to live up to the terms of the nuclear deal.

Iranian officials, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have ratcheted up anti-U.S. rhetoric in response to the continuing sanctions.

Iranian media reported Sunday that 145 lawmakers  half of the 290-member parliament  have signed a petition to boycott all American-made products. If enacted, it could imperil a reported $25-billion agreement with Boeing to upgrade Irans passenger airline fleet, the biggest U.S.-Iran business deal since Washington cut diplomatic ties with Tehran following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

When Rouhani said a special committee of Irans national security council would issue a report on implementation of the nuclear deal, chants of Death to America! echoed through the chamber.

Yet the nuclear deal remains popular in Iran for reducing its diplomatic isolation and in Western capitals for boosting hopes of winning Tehrans cooperation on other thorny issues, such as battling Islamic State extremists in Syria.

In the weeks before Trumps inauguration, both Iranian and U.S. government officials have sought to bolster the accord. CIA Director John Brennan said last week that for Trump to scrap the deal would be the height of folly.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said over the weekend that U.S. efforts to punish Iran unilaterally were a failed policy but would not undermine the agreement.

I do not believe the nuclear deal is in jeopardy, Zarif told an audience in New Delhi. Of course, in Iran, we have options for every alternative.

Most analysts believe Iran has too much to risk by walking away from the deal. The Islamic Republics oil exports have more than doubled from a year ago, to 2.6 million barrels per day, and well-connected conservatives who criticize the deal publicly are quietly enjoying the benefits of increased trade with foreign countries.

Whatever the American administration says or does, the Iranian government will not drop the nuclear deal, simply because Iran has no better option available, said Nader Karimi Juni, an independent analyst in Tehran.

Despite the harsh anti-Iran rhetoric of Trump and top members of his incoming administration  including Gen. James Mattis, his choice for Defense secretary, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, his national security advisor  Britain, Germany, China and other signatories continue to honor the nuclear deal. (Even Mattis has said that although he opposed the deal, he believes it is now too late to tear it up.)

The Iranians know that if they are seen internationally as acting out of pique, it could turn into an own goal of epic proportions, said Ali Vaez, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Itd be a historic mistake for Tehran to destabilize the deal even before Trump takes over.

Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and staff writer Bengali from Mumbai, India.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia

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Soon after the confirmation of the upcoming K6 Power smartphone, Lenovo announced on Friday that the device will be exclusively offered via Flipkart.

Executive Director of Lenovo MBG India Sudhin Mathur had said, "We are the number one online smartphone brand in India with 1 out of 4 shoppers choosing to buy a Lenovo or Moto smartphone, and Flipkart has partnered us well to achieve this success. We are glad to announce that we have exclusively partnered with Flipkart for the next launch in the popular K series, Lenovo K6 Power and hope to replicate our winning formula again."

The Lenovo K6 Power was launched during the IFA trade show along with K6 and K6 Note devices. The whooping 4000 mAH battery life of K6 Power is the biggest suprise on its launch.

The upcoming smartphone will come in THREE different colors, Dark Gray, Gold and Silver with a metal sport unibody design.

Lenovo K6 Power will come with integrated fingerprint sensor which also supports dual-SIM. The device is powered by a 64-bit Snapdragon 430 octa-core processor with Adreno 505 GPU for graphics. The device will run in Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

In addition to the specifications of the Lenovo K6 Power includes a big full-HD 5-inches display. It will come in two variants, 2 GB RAM with 16GB storage and 3 GB RAM with 32GB storage with expandable internal memory via microSD.

Report from PRESSKS says the sales will start via Flipkart. The Lenovo K6 Power supports 13 megapixel rear camera with LED flash and an 8 megapixel Front Facing Camera. As far as connectivity is concerned, the device supports 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS also users can use the Reliance Jio without any problem, the mobile price starts at USD 175.

By the looks of the new Lenovo K6 Power, the handset will go head to head with popular competitors like the Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime and soon K6 Power is going to hit the Indian market.
The young man in the Army running jacket wanted one thing to be crystal clear.

"I'm not a deadbeat," he said as he sat rigidly in a chair, his hair closely cropped and his eyes carrying a message. "I'm doing what I have to do to be a father."

He's the father of an adorable 3-year-old girl, who was all smiles one recent day in Easton.

But the little girl's demeanor belied the victimization authorities say she suffered -- sexual assaults that occurred while her father and protector was at Army training.

"I want ... to motivate young fathers," he said.

"I want young fathers to realize that their children need them. I want them to read this story and wake up realizing that they need to step up and become responsible. A lot of young dads aren't in their children's lives. So not only is this important to me, it's important to the children as well."

The 20-year-old spoke while on short leave to complete a custody process that under normal circumstances could have been straightforward.

Unspeakable crimes

But there was nothing normal about these circumstances. Because while the young man and his onetime girlfriend were agreeing to terms, another man sat in prison, accused of sexually assaulting the child at least four times and videotaping the crimes.

The mother caught on to the assaults when she saw a video on a cellphone, according to authorities. She called police.

"It was the day of my last jump in airborne school," the young man said. "She called me hysterical. She said he molested my daughter."

Courtney Alphonso Thompson Jr., 19, of the 600 block of Wilkes-Barre Street in Easton, was arraigned in September on two counts of rape of a child, two counts of aggravated indecent assault of a child and child pornography.

Thompson remains jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail. His formal arraignment is scheduled for Jan. 12 in Northampton County Court.

All names in this report other than Thompson's are being withheld due to the nature of the crime. The child's mother declined to comment.

The child's father couldn't leave his military training that day in September. He spoke to police and child protective services, he said.

He said he spoke to a reporter because he wanted to stand up -- to show the child had a father who loved her. He wanted to show others what it meant to be a dad.

"It was the most aggravating thing," not being able to immediately return home, he said, adding that his superiors have been very helpful the past few months. "When I'm able to (get) leave, it's only for a short period of time."

The young man met the girl while in high school. The baby was born when he was 16, and she was 18, he said. He took on two part-time jobs in addition to finishing his high school education, he said.

"I had to work," he said. Both families "wanted me to take responsibility."

He got his diploma and went on to college, focusing on criminal justice, while still holding down a job.

"I was young," he said. "I was stressed. We weren't getting along. We ended up breaking up."

Custody agreements

But the couple had an informal agreement of custody, he said. The child was with her mother during the week and his mother on weekends where he could spend time with her.

He felt he was in no position to fight for sole custody, although he wasn't comfortable that Thompson, whom he said he knew to be violent, was allowed by the child's mother to watch the baby, he said.

The young man joined the military in May, with the goal of a career and some day becoming a master sergeant. He was an E-1 (junior enlisted) when he spoke, with an expected promotion nearing.

He said he pays his child support; it comes right out of his military paycheck. He got married March 29 to another member of the military.

When he finishes advanced training, they hope to get a home off-base near Fort Benning in Georgia or Fort Bragg in North Carolina. There's on-base day care and school. It would be safe, he said.

The young man's mother was awarded physical custody of the little girl. But court papers show some hurdles if the young man wants his daughter to live with him, because legal custody is shared by his mother, the child's mother and him. Any thought of moving her would require an agreement.

"Custody is settled for the meantime, and my daughter is safe due to my motivation, me being a responsible young dad, and thanks to my mother," he said.

Before he learned about the assaults, he thought the worst that could happen was his daughter would miss him or forget about him as he began his career in the Army.

Now she's getting counseling and the hope is her memory fades, he said.

"They're trying to have her get it all out," he said. "My mom (at first) couldn't change her diaper without (the child) mentioning the (charged) man's name."

'She's my motivation'

The young soldier said he wants to be a full-time father.

"And I can't wait," he said, before returning to Virginia to continue advanced training. "It's all I think about. She's my motivation. She's why I'm here. She tells me all the time she 'wants to live with Daddy in the Army.'"

And if he were to raise his daughter, he has clear goals.

"I want to give her what I always wanted," he said. "I want her to grow up with everything she wants. I want her to be safe and happy. I want her to start new somewhere else."

That's important, he said, because now in Easton "everybody knows" what happened.

Somewhere down the road, since the Army assists in enlisted personnel going to college, he said, perhaps he'll get that degree in criminal justice.

"I want to be a detective," he said. "I want to work with cases like what happened to my daughter."

For now, he said, it's all about his little girl.

"My daughter is important to me, and ... I have something to prove to myself and to everyone that thinks I disappeared and didn't do a thing about it," he said. "I want it to plant a seed in fathers' heads."

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
80crash.jpeg

Four people have died after a box truck Nov. 18, 2016 crossed into oncoming traffic and struck a family's car on Interstate 80 in Monroe County on Nov. 18, 2016. (Photo courtesy Robert Halberstadt)

( )

The father of a Lackawanna County police officer has died after a crash along Interstate 80 in the Poconos in which the officer's siblings also were killed.

Thomas Rutkowski, 53, of Tobyhanna in Monroe County, was pronounced dead at 4:27 p.m. Saturday at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township. An autopsy is scheduled to determine Rutkowski's exact cause and manner of death, according to the Lehigh County Coroner's Office.

The crossover crash occurred about 4:30 p.m. Nov. 18 in Pocono Township, in the area of the Tannersville interchange (Exit 299), near the popular Crossings Premium Outlets.

Luigi Depari, 61, of Allentown, at about 4:30 p.m. Nov. 18 was behind the wheel of a box truck headed east when it crossed the median and collided with a car in the westbound lanes.

Depari was reportedly thrown from the truck and pronounced dead at the scene.

Sammy Rutkowski, 12, in the back seat of the car, was pronounced dead at the scene. Andrea Rutkowski, 14, also of Tobyhanna, was pronounced dead shortly before 2 a.m. at Lehigh Valley Hospital. She died from complications of injuries suffered in the crash, according to the Lehigh County Coroner's Office.

Thomas Rutkowski,, as well as his wife, Galina Rutkowski, 45, were airlifted to the trauma center. A 15-year-old girl suffered moderate injuries.

Galina Rutkowski's condition was not immediately available Sunday morning.

The parents and siblings are the family members of Aleksey Dmitriev, a Moscow Borough police officer who graduated from the Lackawanna College Police Academy and currently serves as an EMT.

Dmitriev also is related to a Coolbaugh Township volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician, according to the Pocono Record.

A GoFundMe fundraiser, started by family friend Stacey Kordish on behalf of Dmitriev, aims to raise $40,000 to help pay for funeral and medical expenses. The fundraiser by late Sunday morning had raised $35,856 from 551 people, in 15 days.

The GoFundMe posting states the family was returning home from a birthday celebration for the 15-year-old when the accident occurred.

"The family has many struggles they must now face," Kordish states in the posting. "Surmounting medical bills as well as unplanned funeral expenses are further adding to their hardship. Please take the time to donate to this heartbroken family as any help is needed and deeply appreciated. May we keep him and his family in our thoughts."

The Lackawanna County Police Academy also has taken to Facebook, urging the public on the department's Facebook page to donate. Donors also can contribute through the police academy.

State police and coroners from Monroe and Lehigh counties are continuing the investigation. Anyone who witnessed the crash is asked to contact the state police Swiftwater barracks at 570-839-7701.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Jill Stein

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein is shown in a file photo.

(The Associated Press)

TRENTON -- Jill Stein says her fight for a recount of presidential election results in Pennsylvania is not over, despite a setback in state court, pushback from President-elect Donald Trump's team, and the unlikelihood that it would change the race's outcome.

Stein, the Green Party's candidate for president, has sought recounts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin -- three states that have traditionally leaned Democratic in presidential elections but were won by Trump, a Republican, en route to his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton last month.

On Saturday, Stein -- who received less than 1 percent of the vote across the nation -- announced that the Green Party was dropping its push in Pennsylvania state court for a statewide recount because the voters who filed the case are "regular citizens of ordinary means" who cannot afford a $1 million bond they were ordered to pay by 5 p.m. Monday.

But Stein tweeted a few hours later that she will instead "escalate" her efforts by filing a suit in federal court seeking an emergency order for a recount in Pennsylvania.

On Monday, I will escalate #Recount2016 in PA and file to demand a statewide recount on constitutional grounds. The people deserve answers.  Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) December 4, 2016

Stein plans to hold a news conference in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan on Monday to discuss the suit.

In the meantime, Stein's campaign said recounts in hundreds of precincts in some Pennsylvania counties -- including Allegheny, Lehigh, and Philadelphia -- will continue.

"This is not about Donald Trump, it's not about Hillary Clinton, it's not about my campaign," Stein said during an interview on "Fox News Sunday." "This is about the American voters who deserve to have a voting system they can trust."

The results in all three states would need to be overturned for Clinton to become the president-elect instead of Trump. Expert say that is extremely unlikely.

Clinton's campaign is not actively seeking recounts, but general counsel Marc Elias said "we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides."

Stein said her main goal is to examine whether voting machines and systems were hacked and the results were manipulated.

"If we find evidence that there is a systemic problem, we need to expand the recount," Stein said Sunday.

.@DrJillStein: "If we find evidence that there is a systemic problem, we need to expand the recount." pic.twitter.com/h6SyVitzp1  Fox News (@FoxNews) December 4, 2016

Officials, though, say they've found no evidence so far. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes, a Democrat who is the state's top election official, said there is no sign of any cyberattacks or irregularities in the state's election.

Trump's team and the Pennsylvania Republican Party have asked for the case to be dismissed. GOP attorneys note the issue threatens Pennsylvania's ability to certify its presidential electors by the Dec. 13 federal deadline.

Republican lawyer Lawrence Tabas said Saturday the case was meant "solely for purposes to delay the Electoral College vote in Pennsylvania for President-Elect Trump."

Trump, a former Atlantic City casino mogul, was the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since 1988.

Wisconsin's recount began Thursday, and one in Michigan could start this week. But on Friday, Michigan's attorney general, a Republican, filed a lawsuit to stop a recount in his state.

On Sunday, Stein accused Trump of "obstructing" and "delaying" the cases.

Trump has dismissed Stein's recount effort as a "scam" to fill her coffers and attract new donors. Stein has raised more than $7 million for the recounts.

But Stein told Fox News on Sunday that "this money is going strictly into a segregated account which can only be used for the recount."

During a separate interview on "Fox News Sunday," Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway called on Stein to drop her efforts, saying it won't change any votes in the end.

"I would say to her: Give it up," said Conway, a South Jersey native and resident of Alpine. "The people have spoken."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
THE death has occurred of John, Ballinvreena, Martinstown, Kilmallock and formerly of 123 Upper Rathmines, Rathmines Road, Dublin 6, peacefully, at his home.

Survived by his sister Anne, nephews, nieces, cousins, relatives, kind neighbours and many friends.

Reposing at Daffys Funeral Home, Kilmallock on Tuesday from 11am with funeral to arrive to The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Martinstown, Kilmallock for 12 noon requiem mass. Burial afterwards in Mt Jerome Cemetery, Dublin.

The death has occurred of Nora Casey (nee Hannon), Kilfinane Road, Ballylanders, in her 93rd year peacefully at home surrounded by her loving family.

Pre-deceased by her husband Richie, sons Michael and Eamon. Sadly missed by her loving sons, daughters, son-in-law, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, relatives, neighbours and many friends.

Reposing at Ryan's Funeral Home, Ballylanders, this Sunday evening from 5:30pm. Removal at 7pm to The Church of The Assumption, Ballylanders. Funeral Mass on Monday at 11:30am. Burial afterwards in Ballylanders Cemetery.

No flowers please. Donations if desired to Our Lady Day Care Centre, Ballylanders.

The death has occurred of Rev. Fr. PJ O'Donnell, who died in the loving care of the staff of Killeline Nursing Home, Newcastle West, on Saturday, December 3.

Sadly missed by his brothers Teddy and Liam, sisters in law Barbara and Nora, nephews, nieces, clergy of Limerick Diocese, relatives and friends.

Arriving at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Newcastle West, for 11.30am requiem mass on Monday, December 5. Body donated to medical research.
INCIDENTS of deer poaching are occurring in the county, midway through the annual culling season, the Limerick Leader has learned.

According to a spokesperson for the Wild Deer Association of Ireland, there were two recorded incidents of deer killed without a culling license in the last fortnight.

Speaking to the Leader, WDA secretary Damien Hannigan said that the association has been working closely with An Garda Siochana as part of Operation Bambi, which aims to crack down on deer poaching. He said that there have been successful cases of poachers being prosecuted in Limerick, since its foundation in late 2013.

It is predominantly people using firearms at night, but what we are increasingly seeing is that people have specifically-bred large dogs and the deer is chased by two large dogs. When the deer becomes exhausted, they pin the deer to the ground, and they are either bludgeoned to death with a hammer or a crowbar, or have its throat cut, Mr Hannigan explained.

He described these acts as barbaric, and said that the WDA absolutely condemns these incidents.

He added that poaching can be very dangerous when using firearms in rural areas.

These people are shooting at night, willy-nilly, from public roads. They dont have any regard for whats in the background, really. And unfortunately, its only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or, worse, killed, he warned.

He said that poaching causes deer herds to disperse and move into unfamiliar areas.

The current deer culling season runs from September 1 to February 28. Last season, 293 deer were culled, after 157 licenses were granted to approved deer stalkers in Limerick. Just one permit was requested by a landowner over crop damage done by local deer.

The low cull in County Limerick would be an indicator, with only one farmer requesting a permit in the entire county, it would suggest that deer are not an issue, and are not causing any damage in County Limerick.

However, he added, the population has to be managed.

Deer are fantastic animals. Anyone who encounters the deer in the wild, it is something that you always remember. But as beautiful an animal they are, they can be disruptive if they are unmanaged and uncontrolled.

What you would see is localised areas and hotspots where they need to be managed. There are individual areas in Limerick where there would be hotpots in population, and if that population is not managed, it can get out of control. If the deer are not managed, the population can increase by 25% a year.

The predominant species in Limerick are Red Deer and Fallow Deer, and are protected under the Wildlife Act.

Deer stalkers who wish to cull in Coillte-owned areas require acreditation through the Hunter Competence Assessment Programme.
IN the past year alone, over 100 women from Limerick have travelled to the UK to get access to abortion services there.

In addition, dozens more have used abortion pills in their own homes, supplied from the WomenOnWeb.org website by doctors, Cllr Cian Prendiville, Anti Austerity Alliance said.

He was speaking at a meeting of Limerick City and County Council where he proposed an immediate referendum to repeal the 8th amendment on abortion rather than further delaying this or trying to replace this archaic amendment with another anti-choice amendment through the citizens assembly."

Under Irish law, Cllr Prendiville pointed out, the women who travel to the UK or those who help themselves find themselves deemed as criminals, facing a 14 year jail sentence if reported.

The political establishment can no longer to stick their head in the sand and hope it goes away.

In establishing the Citizens Assembly, he argued, the government had hired a private company, which selected 99 citizens to make non-binding recommendations to the Dail.

This company has excluded anyone who has campaigned, posted on social media or even wore a pro-choice badge. It has also excluded some of those most affected by the 8th amendment: non-citizens, including asylum seekers in Direct Provision who do not have the ability to travel.

A worrying aspect, he added, was that what would transpire is an amendment to the amendment and the same anti-choice laws would be on the books.

The reality is that a referendum is the ultimate Citizens Assembly, he said but the government was afraid of allowing ordinary people to have their say.

Cllr Bill ODonnell FG opposed the motion, saying his views were the polar opposite but argued that there was a process under way and that should be allowed to run its course.

Cllr Emmett OBrien Ind agreed the framework put in place should continue and people should wait for the report of the assembly and then perhaps bring a motion.

I know this is political grandstanding, he said.

Cllr Vivienne Crowley FF said some of what Cllr Prendiville had said has merit.

Some is just not quite true.

She argued that the Citizens Assembly was based on a huge variety of people and the 99 people were not people of no opinion. There were people from the church, people who had travelled for abortions she argued.

Cllr Lisa Marie Sheehy SF also disagreed with the references to the Citizens Assembly.

I dont think it is professional to assume the outcome, she said. This is an objective group of people.

However, she agreed a referendum was needed and she proposed an amendment called for an immediate referendum but also for legislation to be enacted to allow for terminations in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities,rape and incest. This was seconded by Cllr Frank Daly Lab who said the framework was in place.

The motion is not looking for support. It is looking for headlines,Cllr Seighin OCeallaigh SF said.

The Sinn Fein amendment was lost and Cllr Prendivilles motion was defeated overwhelmingly with just three votes in favour.
HAVING celebrated Mass on approximately 25,000 occasions over the course of his 51 years as a priest, Canon Donough OMalley has opened a new chapter in his religious life.

After almost 15 years as a parish priest in St Marys parish in the city, Canon OMalley has bid farewell to parishioners and has relocated to the Dominican parish of St Saviours, St Josephs and Our Lady of Lourdes.

The bishop has reorganised how parishes are looked after so I am a member of the team who will be looking after the Dominican parish. I have also been appointed Chancellor of the Diocese - a part-time job in the diocesan office, Canon OMalley explained this week.

I will be saying Mass every day, the only thing I have retired from is the administration of a parish.

To mark Canon OMalleys departure from St Marys parish, a special celebration was organised by parishioners to convey their thanks and gratitude to him for all the work that he has done during his time there.

The people of St Marys parish are blessed to have had him as their parish priest. He has been a great pastor during his time with us  indeed he ministered alone for periods, week in week out, rarely taking a day off, explained Eddie Butler, chairman of St Marys Parish Pastoral Council.

Mr Butler was speaking at Ardscoil Mhuire in Corbally where parishioners gathered for a function after a Mass of Thanksgiving was offered in St Marys church.

Canon OMalley came to St Marys as parish priest in March 2002.

He was born in Limerick in 1941 and educated at the Model School and at Crescent College. In 1959 he entered St Patricks Seminary in Thurles to study for the priesthood, and was ordained on June 13, 1965.

The newly ordained Fr OMalley left for London and spent the first 16 years of his priestly life ministering, in three different parishes, in the Archdiocese of Southwark.

He returned to the Diocese of Limerick in 1981 and spent 10 years as curate at Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish. The next 11 years were spent as parish priest at Our Lady of Lourdes parish until 2002, when he arrived to St Marys as parish priest .

He has been a priest for 51 years and three months. It is reasonable to say that during all of this time he would have celebrated Mass on approximately25,000 occasions. Nonetheless, he has the same respect, dignity and reverence for the Mass as he had when ordained all those years ago, said Mr Butler.

A highlight of his ministry in the parish was the project to refurbish and restore St Marys Church. This was a very significant task which cost more than 200,000 and took almost 18 months to complete.

Canon OMalley paid tribute to his parishioners for their support during his time in St Marys parish.

You get to know the community well and you get to appreciate every aspect of the life of the place. I want to thank all the parishioners and the people involved in the schools - all the different organisations and the religious of the parish as well who play a big part, particularly the Mercy Sisters, he explained.

Canon OMalley is also well-known for his extensive postcard collection.

He has been collecting books since he was at school and in more recent years he began collecting postcards picking out whatever caught his eye at auctions, car boot sales and postcard fairs. His collection has now taken pride of place in his new home in the city centre.

Canon OMalley will be giving a talk under the auspices of Thomond Archaeological and Historical Society at Mary Immaculate college  focusing on county Limerick using the medium of postcards - on Monday, January 23 at 8pm.
Apr 27, 2021, 11 AM

Mute cancellations on stamps of Austria instead of Lombardy-Venetia, which were prohibited by the directive of May 1851, are rare. This example is from Milano, in the form of a cogwheel or fan.

This combination of 3-kreuzer red and 6kr brown stamps used at Mantova is an example of a most uncommon pair of stamps (from the home of the Victor Hugo-inspired Rigoletto opera by Giuseppe Verdi).

This example of a mute cancellation on an Austria 3-kreuzer stamp is from Venezia. The cancellation has three concentric rings with a large V. in the center.

The top image is of an example of the Verona cancellation on two of Austrias 3-kreuzer red stamps is fairly common. Another example of a fairly common use is the stamp below it, the Lombardy-Venetia 15-centesimo red with a Gorz cancellation.

This fragment bears two examples of the 3-kreuzer red stamp, the left one with raised quads both at top and bottom, tied by rectangular framed postmark of Venezia (home of William Shakespeares Othello, The Moor of Venice) and canceled on the first year o

Fragments and letters with combinations of Lombardy-Venetia and Austria stamps are highly sought after. This example of such a combination bears a Lombardy-Venetia 15-centesimo red and an Austria 6-kreuzer brown.

This very scarce complete strip of four crosses from a Lombardy-Venetia 15-centesimo sheet shows clearly the sheet margin at bottom and at right. It is from the second composition.

This diagram shows the arrangement of stamps and crosses in two panes from the second composition. Each pane had eight rows of eight stamps each. Because 64 stamps in each pane would have complicated their arithmetic, four positions in each pane were fill

Quads (small blocks used by printers to define and maintain distances between stamps) vary in thickness, and vertical separations are wider than horizontal separations. These examples show quads at top or bottom of the stamps. On each, the quad impression

An extraordinary example of the St. Andreas Cross, there is a single cross on one side, printed in a deep shade, and on reverse is part of a stamp and part of a cross. This item is extremely rare.

By Sergio Sismondo

Editors Note: This is Part 3 of Sergio Sismondo's series on the first stamps of Austria and Lombardy-Venetia. Part 1, which introduces the stamps and explains different types and colors, can be found here. Part 2 focuses on aspects including paper, paper thickness, watermarks, and sheet margins, and can be found here.

Raised Quads

The Oxford English Dictionary explains that a quad is a small metal block in various sizes, lower than type height, used by letterpress printers for filling up lines. For stamp printers, quads are used to define and maintain distances between stamps, both vertically and horizontally. Quads vary in thickness, and vertical separations are wider than horizontal separations.

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Normally quads do not make impressions. This is because they are positioned lower than type, and therefore do not touch the ink source nor the paper. However, if they rise above their intended positions, they can pick up ink and leave impressions. Usually such impressions are rectangular, of 1.4-millimeter width, forming parts of an additional and unplanned frame to the stamp. The vast majority of them are horizontal, at top or bottom of the stamp.

These impressions have come to be known as raised quads (in German balken, and in Italian spazi tipografici). Stamps of the first issues of Austria and Lombardy-Venetia show raised quads more often than typographed classic stamps of other countries. Still, they are not common, are avidly sought by collectors, and command substantial premiums.

The first image shows raised quads at top or bottom of the stamps. Values range widely with quad impressions along the full width of the stamp being the scarcest and with greater value. In all four cases illustrated here, the quad impressions span the entire width of the stamp.

Related rarities are stamps with raised quads both at top and bottom, and stamps with vertical raised quads. Covers are another matter. On covers, Lombardy-Venetia stamps in a grade of fine with single raised quads fetch in auctions between $400 (15 centesimi) to about $4,000 (10c machine paper). For Austria, raised quads on cover range from $350 (3 kreuzer) to about $2,000 (2kr machine paper).

St. Andreas Crosses

Austria and Lombardy-Venetia stamps were printed in sheets of 240 stamps, arranged in four panes of 60 stamps each. Each pane had eight rows of eight stamps each. Because 64 stamps in each pane would have complicated their arithmetic, four positions in each pane were filled in with crosses, which soon became known as St. Andreas crosses.

Several differing compositions exist in which the position of the four crosses varies from left to right, always on the lower row of each pane. The nearby image shows the arrangement of stamps and crosses in two panes from the second composition.

Two types of St. Andreas crosses exist: the first has thicker lines, and the second has much thinner and less regular lines. Shown here is a very scarce complete strip of four crosses from a Lombardy-Venetia 15c sheet. It shows clearly the sheet margin at bottom and at right.

It is from an 1854-1858 printing on machine-made paper. The combination of the two features assures us that it is from the second composition.

The vast majority of St. Andreas crosses ended in the rubbish bins at post offices. Nobody knows how many sheets of these stamps were printed, and there is only a vague idea of how many crosses have survived. We can say for sure that complete crosses are rarities; any complete cross attached to a sound stamp will fetch from $35,000 and upward.

Because few collectors can afford such a stamp (and even if many could, there would not be a sufficient number of examples to please all), the market adjusted and created strong demand for parts of crosses attached to stamps. They are measured in millimeters. A stamp may have at right, left, or at bottom the beginning of a cross. If the stamp is cut rectangularly, two parts of a cross may be seen, both of the same length. If the stamp is cut obliquely, the measurement is taken of both parts, and the shorter one is used to define the stamps value.

Beginning with 1mm of St. Andreas cross, values for fine stamps start at about $75 for a 3kr or 15c stamp. For all the other denominations and scarcer types, values are between $100 and $375. For 2mm parts of a cross, the values are doubled. For stamps with 3mm of a cross, they are doubled again, and so forth. It is easy to see how we can reach $35,000 for complete crosses attached to stamps. Such values attest to the high demand and extremely low supply of stamps with St. Andreas crosses.

An extraordinary example of a St. Andreas cross is shown with this column. This is a single cross on one side, printed in a deep shade, and on the reverse is part of a stamp and part of a cross. Given the composition of the sheets adopted by the Austrian printers, such a strange stamp necessarily exists. Its rarity, no doubt, is extreme.

It is also interesting that if it were found undescribed among a group of early stamps, a poorly informed collector might just toss it aside as irrelevant. Preferably, the item could go in a back-of-the-book page of cinderellas, to be rediscovered and studied at a later time. And speaking of cinderellas, St. Andreas crosses in singles or multiples are found on the reverse side of covers, conveniently used as seals. Such covers, far from being insignificant, also command substantial premiums.

Cross-Border Usages

Colors of stamps for use in Austria and Lombardy-Venetia were the same for equivalent denominations, and served for the same postage rate, as described here:

1kr or 5c yellow, printed matter under 17.5 grams (1 Viennese loth)

2kr or 10c black, city letters and district letters under 17.5 grams

3kr or 15c red, internal letters under 17.5 grams, less than 75 kilometers

6kr or 30c brown, internal letters under 17.5 grams, less than 150 kilometers

9k, or 45c blue, internal letters under 17.5 grams, less than 225 kilometers

For the purpose of this discussion, what is apparently obvious is that stamps denominated in kreuzer could easily be confused for stamps of the equivalent value denominated in centesimi and vice versa. Aside from the denomination, the stamps were for all practical purposes identical. In other words, we would expect to find a good number of letters franked with Lombardy-Venetia stamps used in Austria and Austrian Empire territories, and also a good number of letters franked with kreuzer-denominated stamps used in Lombardy and in Venetia.

However, the stamps were really not the equivalent of each other because the Austrian lira was worth somewhat less than the Milano lira. To be precise, 1 Austrian lira was worth 0.865 Milano lira (1 kreuzer = 4.35 Italian centesimi.) That was a substantial difference, and it led to abuse as Lombards and Venetians took advantage of buying stamps in Austria to frank their letters in Italy.

But soon the Austrian overlords decreed the practice to be illegal, beginning May 28, 1851. That decree seems not to have made much difference. Austrian stamps continued to be used in Lombardy-Venetia.

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A much smaller number of Lombardy-Venetia stamps were used in Austria. The fact that 45c in Milano was worth more than 9kr in Austria was the significant factor in explaining the difference in usage. Italians could gain by using the incorrect stamps. In the opposite direction, no gain could be made.

As we would expect, stamps of Lombardy-Venetia used in Austria are much scarcer than stamps of Austria used in Lombardy-Venetia. Although, we might add that many Lombardy-Venetia stamps were used in Austrian territories in the Dalmatian archipelago, and Italian-language communities such as Pola, Fiume,Trieste, Zara, and many others for the simple reason that ship captains and ship pursers, who visited these lands daily or weekly, carried Lombardy-Venetia stamps in their strongboxes or wallets and would sell them to passengers as needed.

The Scott Classic Catalogue of Stamps and Covers 1840-1940 lists in the Austria section stamps used in Lombardy-Venetia, and gives minimum values for singles and covers. In the section on stamps in Lombardy-Venetia, it lists stamps used in Austria, and gives minimum values for single stamps and covers. All such values followed the word from because the value varies enormously depending on the town where the stamp was used.

Minimum values are for stamps with legible Milano and Venezia cancellations, and on the other side of the border for stamps with cancellations of Wien, or Brun and a few other large cities. Cancellations from small towns and villages are worth a great deal more.

Even single stamps with good strikes can reach up to $5,000  Arcisate, for instance, struck on an Austrian stamp. Nearby are two examples of fairly common usages: Verona on 3kr red, and Gorz on 15c red.

The next two illustrations are of much rarer stamps. First is a combination of 3kr red and 6kr brown stamps used at Mantova  a most uncommon pair of stamps (from the home of the Victor Hugo-inspired Rigoletto opera by Giuseppe Verdi).

The other image is a fragment bearing two examples of the 3kr red, the left one with raised quads both at top and bottom, tied by a rectangular framed postmark of Venezia, (home of Willian Shakespeares Othello, The Moor of Venice) and canceled on the first year of issue. It is unbelievably rare.

Even more prestigious and sought after are fragments or letters with combinations of Austrian and Lombardy-Venetia stamps. Shown nearby is one such combination: Lombardy-Venetia 15c red and Austria 6kr brown. Such a combination on fragment of a letter may be worth about $3,000. A full cover bearing such a combination may fetch on the order of $30,000. The rarest combinations on cover, such as the twin stamps 45c blue with 9kr blue, have reached realizations of $250,000.

Mute Obliterators

There is room for one more interesting detail regarding the Austrian Empires stamps of 1850. Sometime in late 1850 a postal inspector determined that the cancellations on stamps were not heavy enough, opening the possibility of fraudulent second use of stamps. The department decided to launch an experiment in heavy postmarks, which in other countries were called obliterators, or killers, but in this context became known as mute.

The experiment consisted in giving each of 16 busier post offices a distinctive handstamp destined to be applied on the stamps, while the dated town marking would continue to be applied elsewhere on the envelope.

The experiment lasted a few months but was soon discontinued (apparently at different times in different towns). The reasons for and against the new devices are not recorded, so we do not know the reasoning behind the discontinuation. We can assume that the extra time it took to apply two handstamps on the envelope instead of one was judged to cost more money than the tiny number of fraudulent frankings that passed undetected through the mail.

Be that as it may, the 16 obliterators are rather attractive and make a nice collecting area. They are also scarce, and worth looking out for. From Milano, the largest city in the territory, a fine strike on a fine stamp may fetch $250. From Venice, it may be worth about the same or somewhat less. Some of the other mutes fetch thousands of dollars. The mute cancellation from Monza, a small locality near Milano, for instance, admittedly being a much fancier marking, would today fetch as much as $4,000 for a fine strike on a single fine stamp.

The same obliterators struck on stamps of Austria instead of Lombardy-Venetia, which were prohibited by the directive of May 1851, are definitely rare and worth much more. Shown nearby are two examples of the mute cancellations on the proscribed 3kr stamps of Austria. The first example is from Milano, in the form of a cogwheel or fan, and the second example, from Venezia, has three concentric rings with a large V. in the center.

With this note I will stop, although there are still many subjects regarding these stamps, their history, and their postal history that could be discussed. Perhaps we will revisit the subject of Austrian first issue stamps and postal history in a future article.

Thus we bring to a close the articles for 2016, with which we have attempted to give readers information about where and how to look for worthwhile and valuable varieties in the first stamp issues of 1843 to 1850. It is our intention to continue in 2017 with descriptions of more stamps issued by European kingdoms, principalities, grand duchies, and duchies in 1850, beginning with the unified Kingdom of Spain.

Read the first two parts of this series:

The first-issue stamps of Austria that set the standard for Europe: Stamps were simple in the Austro-Hungarian Empire even though the empire housed 11 ethnic groups and 18 principal languages.

Learning more about the Austria and Lombardy-Venetia stamps: Covering the papers, imperfections of typographical impressions, offset prints, and watermarks of the classic stamps.
Dec 4, 2016, 4 AM

A competition sponsored by the Danish post office led to the design chosen for the 1938 stamp for the sesquicentennial of the reform ending serfdom in Denmark.

Aage Gitz-Johansen served as staff artist for the Danish North-East Greenland Expedition in 1938 and made several return visits. This 1997 stamp from Greenland marks the artists birth centenary and 20th death anniversary.

By Kathleen Wunderly

Denmark is the smallest Nordic country, south of Norway and southwest of Sweden, both of which neighbors were part of a union with Denmark in the 14th century. Sweden seceded in 1523, and in 1814 Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden while retaining the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. The latter became a republic in 1944, but the Faroes and Greenland are still autonomous constituent countries of Denmark.

Among the major events in Denmarks political and economic history were the extensive agricultural reforms of the late 18th century, including changes in methods of farming and the status of those who did the work.

A royal decree on June 20, 1788, revised the historic form of Danish serfdom known as stavnsbaand, and the 150th anniversary of this decree, in 1938, certainly deserved postal recognition.

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Stavnsbaand, a form of villenage or serfdom, began in Denmark in 1733 as a way to keep workers on the farms, when many were leaving to seek better lives in the cities. Estate owners had a duty to delegate men to military service, and so both the farms and the army were in trouble over the loss of workers.

Also known as adscription, stavnsbaand required bonded males between ages 14 and 36 (later changed to between 9 and 40 and then 4 and 40) to stay on the estate where they were born, unless they were able to buy their way out of the obligation. A system known as hoveri required the serf to cultivate the estate owners land as well as his own.

The Danish statesman Christian Ditlev Frederik, Count of Reventlow (1748-1827), himself the owner of a large estate, believed that freed labor would be better both for agriculture and the workers.

Appointed head of the exchequer in 1784, Reventlow used his new power to appoint a commission to study the crowns own serfs. In 1786, he persuaded the crown prince regent, Frederick (ruling for his mentally ill father, King Christian VII), to extend the study to include the condition of all Denmarks peasants.

A royal decree in 1787 modified the leasehold system to the benefit of the serfs, and the decree of June 20, 1788, began the process of abolishing stavnsbaand, with a transition period lasting until 1800 (due to fears that too-sudden change would disrupt society).

At first, the change affected only males under the age of 14; later, those over age 36; and finally, those who had already done military service. The hoveri system wasnt abolished until Dec. 6, 1799.

In 1791, a public subscription among the people of Copenhagen was gathered to pay for a monument in that city, in tribute to the king and the end of adscription. Some Danish historians today interpret this movement to build the Frihedsstoetten (freedom or liberty statue) as an organized counterattack by those who hailed the reforms as the beginning of new personal and political freedoms, against the conservative landowners who strongly opposed the changes.

Crown Prince Regent Frederick laid the cornerstone for the statue in July 1792, on a plot outside the western ramparts of the city. The main designer of the monument was Nicolai Abildgaard, a painter, sculptor, and architect who had painted many works in the various royal palaces. The statue would be in the form of an obelisk more than 65 feet tall, made of red sandstone from the Baltic island of Bornholm, and resting on a base of Norwegian marble.

Inscriptions on the obelisk include a statement that, The king commanded serfdom shall cease, and an essay by poet Thomas Thaarup. Four female allegorical statues around the obelisk were the work of Abildgaard, Johannes Wiedewelt, Nicolai Dajon, and Andreas Weidenhaupt, and symbolize loyalty, civic virtue, bravery, and agricultural diligence.

The Frihedsstoetten was completed in 1797, but was renovated in 1850 and then taken apart and moved in 1909, making way for the construction of the first central railway station in Copenhagen. A copy of the statue was prepared by sculptor Jens Lund and erected in 1911, about 17 feet east of the original location. That version was renovated in 1998-99.

The Danish postal administration had been soliciting new stamp designs through competitions throughout the 1930s, and announced a contest for the intended Abolition of Villenage issue in January 1938.

Some contestants resubmitted designs they had sent in to the competition sponsored in 1937 by a Copenhagen newspaper, Berlingske Tidende. The newspaper had instructed entrants to submit a series of six designs, with the general purpose being to improve the quality of Danish stamp issues and allow artists to demonstrate their skills in this genre.

The newspaper received at least 1,500 designs for its competition; the post offices contest specifically for the Villenage issue received 186. According to the wonderful Handbook of Danish Essays, Volume Two, 1920-1939 by William R. Benfield and Bruno Noerdam (published by Jay Smith & Associates, 2004), the first-place prize was awarded to Aage Johansen, an advertising designer from Aarhus. He won 500 kroner plus an additional 500kr because the design actually was issued as a stamp.

The design is very simple: only the obelisk, centered on a solid-color background.

Other submissions included detailed drawings of nearby buildings, a banner coming down from the sky, a parade of horsemen, and so on.

The Handbook of Danish Essays indicates that Very little is known about Johansen, but I believe that the stamp designer was the artist who adopted his mothers birth name as part of his own and became known as Aage Gitz-Johansen (1897-1977), born in Odense in central Denmark, and initially a zoologist by university training. He then studied art in Paris and Copenhagen and edited an art magazine while working as a book illustrator, designing stage scenery, and entering several art exhibitions.

Johansens design was issued as a 15-ore stamp on June 20, 1938, 150 years to the day after the royal decree beginning the reform of the stavnsbaand system.

The only change the post office had made to Johansens design was to add 20-6 (for June 20) above the two year dates 1788 and 1938.

Winning the design contest was not the most exciting thing that happened to Aage Gitz-Johansen in the summer of 1938. He also served as staff artist for the Danish North-East Greenland Expedition, on a journey that literally changed the course of his art. He returned to Greenland repeatedly for the rest of his life and focused on woodcuts and other art media to depict the scenery, culture, legends, and sagas of the country.

Examples of his works are in museums worldwide, and two of his paintings appear on Greenland Scott 325-326, stamps issued in 1997 for the artists birth centenary and 20th death anniversary.

The Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps and Covers 1840-1940 calls the 1938 stamp, Scott 262, the Emancipation Column design. It was engraved by Johannes Britze, who engraved all the recess-printed stamps for Denmark from 1933 until the end of World War II, as well as some issues for Greenland, Iceland, and Sweden. Britze also had submitted a design in the contest for the 1938 stamp, and won second prize. The stamp was printed in scarlet ink and perforated gauge 13.

The Scott Classic Specialized catalog values the Emancipation Column stamp at only 50 unused or used, with a modest increase to $1.25 for a mint never-hinged example.
Cllr Mark Casey (Ind) called for funding from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to complete works on the footpath along the Lanesboro to Longford Road at Barnacor during last weeks meeting of Ballymahon Municipal District.

Money for footpaths was secured for 2016, area engineer Alan Slattery told the meeting.

We did extend that footpath out about 60 meters, but anything beyond that, is outside of our remit.

I will get onto road design about this and they will endeavour to work something out.

Cllr Casey then said that the matter needed to be addressed.

It is in the interests of the people who live in the area and those who use that footpath for works to be completed, he added.

It needs to be finished and I will keep this on the agenda until that footpath is completed.
One of north Longfords most cherished community facilities is struggling to keep its head above water due to financial cutbacks and staffing concerns, writes Liam Cosgrove.

Lus na Greine, a family resource centre in Granard, is arguably the regions predominant facility for families, community groups and individuals, offering a range of services and supports across a wide genre of areas

But at a meeting of Granard Municipal District last week, the current plight was laid bare by project co-ordinator Eileen Finan.

Speaking with passion and fervour aplenty, she said the service has seen its funding level cut by 30,000, a drop that has forced the centre to make up that shortfall through fundraising and charity work.

We all belong to a family and that is the most important thing in a community, she told elected members.

If you havent a strong family then you havent a strong community. And if we in communities dont look after those who are on the margins then we are failing them.

Ms Finan admitted staffing anxieties were placing an added strain on the centre's ability to uphold its current service provision.

Our work is very broad and we work with familes, she said, naming parent and toddler groups, youth groups and counselling as just some of its many service areas.

Without the help of Community Employment, Tus and volunteers we would really be on the floor, she said.

In an effort to drive home the importance resource outlets like Lus na Greine are to communities, Ms Finan said it was incumbent on those holding the purse strings to empower such organisations accordingly.

We need to staff all family resource centres in Ireland equally, she said.

Ms Finan also reveale d the strain on finances has also placed question marks over how long it can stay in its present home, which is a rented facility along Granard's Main Street.

She added one possibility could be the former Convent of Mercy which is now under the ownership of the Sue Ryder Foundation.

However, she said significant investment would be needed to replace much of the copper fixtures which, in recent years, have gone missing due to vandalism.

On foot of a request made by Cllr Martin Mulleady, local representatives agreed to write to the Children and Youth Affairs Minister in the hope of securing additional personnel and revenue.

Even if we got half an extra post or along with myself, a full time development worker, we would be really happy with that, Ms Finan added.
Patna: Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev on last day described Rashtriya Janatha Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad as the 'political heritage' of India. After his meeting with Lalu, Ramdev said that Lalu is a social and political heritage of India, who needs to remain in good health.

He also added that he shares a warm relation with the politician. When asked about demonetisation, he pointed that eventually the note crisis will settle down. He also refuted the rumours that his niece will tie the knot with Lalu Prasad's elder son, Tej Pratap Yadav, who is the Bihar Health Minister.
The World Prays for the End of Americas Global Hegemony

Americas global hegemony was initially crafted in 1913, through the introduction of the income tax, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and the consequent rise of the military industrial complex. Since then, America now operates 800 military bases in more than 70 countries, which has forcefully been subsidized through the taxation of the American population. While the American government can not be held accountable for its countless and atrocious war crimes, failing to pay taxes to support the military industrial complex will land anyone else straight in jail. While the Federal Reserve and income tax has certainly been a catalyst for the slow, but steady deterioration of Americas middle class, the greater destruction has certainly manifested outside the shores of America.

The world now stands in a precarious state where civilians throughout the world must face the threat of unwarranted attacks from US airstrikes, while the American military evades any level of condemnation through the pretext of it implementing democracy in other nations, and being the force of peace in the world it ironically wreaks havoc on. America, the great threat to world peace and perhaps the greatest human rights violator, has the deign to impose sanctions and unwarranted military aggression against countries while experiencing negligent global accountability. The majority of the world is too vulnerable to fight these forces, not to mention the IMF as well, and countries that are in positions of power are often happy to bow to their masters in Washington.

While questioning how this complex has risen is futile, it is worthwhile to speculate the unsustainable actions of America on both a domestic and global level, and to note how much of the world would benefit if Americas global hegemony was at its peak and poised to collapse. The world would benefit greatly if other countries could rise and create a form of hegemony that launched other nations into increased prosperity, through peaceful economic cooperation. I believe that this rise will be centered around Asia, and that it is by no means contrarian to claim that 60% of the worlds population is a wiser area for one to hedge their focus on. It is also safe to say that many in these 70 countries with US military presently pray for the end of this complex, perhaps most notably the population of Waziristan that fears being turned into bugsplat from a military force that is unable to distinguish between terrorists and civilians. Much of the world is poised to benefit if Americas military industrial complex falls.

FDI vs. Drone Strikes: The Intellectual Superiority of Chinas Global Hegemony

Chinas strides to assert its geopolitical dominance can in many ways be considered more intelligent, sustainable, and social in nature. The general discrepancy is the difference between unwarranted military aggression and strategic FDI, which can serve as a social and economic catalyst, as seen by the two countries drastically varying undertakings in Pakistan. Dawn News recently noted that Pakistan has seen 424 US drone strikes since 2004 killing 350 civilians, and how drone strikes increased by over 600% under Obamas administration. Pakistan is one of many countries where US drone air strikes murder civilians, and strikes have even been made against children hospitals and schools in many countries.



Meanwhile China has swooped in to pledge a new $46 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor, providing much needed infrastructure development for the country, as well as facilitating increased geopolitical cooperation between both countries. This is a far cry from Americas meager level of $218 million in 2012, and is a clear reflection of how excessive military spending has relegated its global duty to be more active in FDI, as the worlds largest economy. Chinas continued emerging global hegemony can in many ways be considered more social and appreciated from countries, serving as an economic catalyst for some of these unsung countries. It is imperative to note that Pakistan has been Asias best performing stock market YTD, and how the market is a key global contributor in many areas, such as sugar, cement, and textile production to name a few. More social FDI from China and less bombing from America would certainly bode well for Pakistan, and I am rooting for this long term transition.



Its the Economy Stupid

America is lagging behind globally in terms of FDI, which can easily be attributed to the countrys excessive military spending. If we look at Vietnam for example, which has the USA as its top export destination, we can see how America has been trumped by other Asian nations in terms of FDI, choosing to feed the military industrial complex in lieu of pursuing a valuable opportunity in FDI. Vietnams top investors have been Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, yet many were quick to praise the now out of question TPP for its ability to bring in American FDI into Vietnam. The worlds top economy has been dormant in this sense, and was only quick to dive in to agree to begin supplying arms to Vietnam this year under the pretext of the countrys improving human rights environment, although it is blindingly obvious that this was intended as a geopolitical stab to China. America has a monodimensional focus on war, and has forgotten about the true underlying significance in global hegemony: its the economy stupid. We could say that America has a responsibility to reconcile other nations through its FDI, rather than cripple them with its military and sanctions.

While America continues to relegate this opportunity, Asia is becoming increasingly intertwined in trade and developing a robust middle class. In the long run, this will be a catalyst for the declining significance of America and Europe, and the rise of Asia. There is no free lunch in economics. At the end of the day, declined economic participation, in terms of FDI and production, results in declined economic significance and the failure to sustain this flawed model of global hegemony. America has sidestepped this perhaps with the artificial hedge from the Federal Reserve, the increased contribution of the financial sector to the economy, misplaced stock market optimism and its aggressive widespread military force. Americas military can certainly be considered a liability to the domestic population, and also as a global thorn to those that need democracy. In the long run, it is certainly feasible for this undesired hegemony to decline amid the rise of other economic global powers which focus more on economics and less on bombing.

A shift in power is befitting, and this is a futuristic trend that I am personally rooting for. A more prosperous world could be created with the rise of Asia, and the decline of America, primarily regarding its futile and destructive military pursuits. China can be praised for its purer strides to create a better form of hegemony, which is altruistic for other nations, and its actions in Pakistan is by no means an outlier, as seen by its strong FDI in areas of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. While the social nature of Chinas FDI does stand open for some level of criticism, we can see that its relative magnitude is unquestioned, and it does deliver social value to some countries, as clearly seen in Pakistan. The long-term implication of these vast variances is very powerful, in terms of how other countries will respond when they rise in economic power: which would you prefer, infrastructure development or hospital and school bombings?

Dylan Waller: Futurist/Anarcho-Capitalist/Frontier Market Analyst

Contact: dylan@nomadicequity.com

Website: www.nomadicequity.com

Copyright  2016 Dylan Waller - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




MARTINSVILLEMore than 200 people celebrated the birth of Christ in two languages Friday night in uptown Martinsville.

It was La Posada, a local version of the popular Mexican Christmas tradition Las Posadas.

In Las Posadas, groups of people, headed by two representing Mary and Joseph, go from house to house. Mary and Joseph ask for shelter, and everyone turns them down. All of that is represented by songs. At the final location, they are allowed to stay in the manger. The wandering is over, and the party begins.

In uptown Martinsville, La Posada was a group of about 200 walking uptown, stopping occasionally for Bible readings, carols and music. Pastor Mark Hinchcliff read the passages in English, and Efigenia Cuenca read the Bible sections in Spanish.

La Posada started with the lighting of the municipal Christmas tree, which was lit by Vice Mayor Jennifer Bowles. Then the crowd went to a parking lot across the road.

There, Jose Enrique Rangel Rodriguez was dressed as Joseph, Stacy Herrera was dressed as Maria and Esmeralda Matos was dressed as an angel. Azlyn and Natalie Espana were dressed as shepherds.

The crowd by then had grown to about 150. They sang Mary Did You Know in English and Spanish.

The group walked down Church Street. On the way to the Broad Street parking lot, Lili Rodriguez, Emily Rodriguez and Mindy Diaz were in front of Steve Ruckers antique shop playing traditional Mexican carols on guitar and violin.

In the Broad Street parking lot, carols included O Little Town of Bethlehem and Gloria In Excelsis Deo. In the parking lot of Ranias, carols included Por Caminos de Belen (By Walks to Bethlehem and Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

There, men were dressed as the Three Kings, and the Star of Bethlehem lit the way.

The congregation then walked to the former Henry County Courthouse, where the Holy Family, this time with Baby Jesus, assembled on the patio in a Nativity scene. Final Bible verses were read and carols were sung.

The singing ended with Feliz Navidad. Mexican-style hot chocolate was served, then children went across the road to a pinata.

They squealed and laughed in delight as they took turns trying to break it. They were given a wide berth by police officers, who kept the roads around it closed. When it broke finally, they swooped down to the ground to pick up candy.

Afterward, Cuenca and friends served pozole, a hot chicken and hominy soup, and tostadas. It took two people to carry the hefty pot from her office across the road to the patio of the courthouse.

It was outstanding, said Bob McDonald. He and his wife, Beth, have lived in an RV in Martinsville for almost two years; in April, the pair said, they will head to Pennsylvania.

Were glad to see all ethnic groups participating, he added. It really brought a community together.

Beth McDonald said they couple volunteered all day at the state park, and still came to town for the Posada. They were glad they did. He thanked me twice tonight for suggesting they go, she said.

The event was a way for the community to come together, Hispanics as well as Americans, said Ruben Diaz. It helped him and his fried remember their native traditions, and it was an enjoyable way to enjoy the fellowship of new people as well.

La Posada was coordinated by Hinchliff, assisted by several other churches. Many members of the choir at St. Joseph Catholic Church were among those singing carols and taking roles.
HAMPDEN-SYDNEY  Lynchburg lawyer and GOP activist Mark Peake will face off against former Fluvanna County Sheriff Ryant Washington of Palmyra in the Jan. 10 special election to fill the state Senate seat of U.S. representative-elect Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham .

Peake topped Goochland County supervisor Ken Peterson Saturday at a GOP convention at Hampden-Sydney College.

Washington prevailed over Lynchburg school teacher Katie Webb Cyphert in a Democratic caucus held at the Robert Russa Moton Museum in Farmville.

The special election will be held the day before the General Assembly session convenes.

I feel good about where I stand, Peake said, noting that he has been campaigning since January in anticipation of Garretts nomination and victory for the congressional seat.

I will continue to talk about representing our conservative values in Richmond and standing up to government interference and government overreach, he said.

Peake said he also wants to address what has become a compensation crisis for Virginia State Police and for local sheriffs departments.

The GOP-leaning 22nd Senate District runs west from Goochland County to include Amherst and Appomattox counties and part of Lynchburg.

Washington said he hopes to be a voice for the localities in the district on issues such as public safety, health care, education and the economy.

The economy is the driving issue, and a strong education is key to a strong workforce, said Washington, adding that it is important that we dont enact burdensome policies.

Democratic Party of Virginia Chairwoman Susan Swecker said in a statement: Ryant Washington will be a change-maker for Virginias 22nd Senatorial District by fighting for good-paying jobs, affordable health care, education, and other critical issues facing the commonwealth.

John Whitbeck, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, said Mark Peake is a longtime (GOP) activist in Virginia and an accomplished attorney. We look forward to his campaign and to his service in the Senate.

On Nov. 8 Garrett defeated Democrat Jane Dittmar to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Robert Hurt, R-5th.

Peake, a married father of five  including a set of 18-year-old quadruplets  is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a law degree from Washington and Lee.

Then-Gov. Bob McDonnell appointed Peake to the Commonwealth Transportation Board. Peake also is a former chairman of the Lynchburg City Republican Committee.

Washington, a married father of two, was elected Fluvanna County sheriff in 1999 after having served as a deputy sheriff and as a state trooper.

In 2014, Gov. Terry McAuliffe named Washington as a special policy adviser to the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

McAuliffe appointed Washington to address issues in ABCs law enforcement division after a University of Virginia student was mistakenly arrested on suspicion of an underage alcohol purchase. It turned out that she bought sparkling water.
A gunshot victim drove into a Mattapan home Saturday morning before dying from his injuries, according to Boston Police.

Officers were called to the area of Alpine and River streets in Mattapan around 12:12 a.m. A vehicle had collided with a home. The driver of the car, a man in his 20s, had been shot several times.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators determined the shooting took place in the area of Tileston and Rosemont streets. The victim's name has not been released.

The Boston Police Department is asking anyone with information to call the Homicide Unit at (617) 343-4470.
Leominster drug arrested 12/3/2016

(Massachusetts State Police)

LEOMINSTER -- A Leominster man was arrested on heroin distribution and drug charges Friday night after he was pulled over by a state trooper.

Trooper Joseph Hall was on patrol around 6:35 p.m. Friday when he saw a green Audi A4 commit motor vehicle violations, according to Massachusetts State Police. The trooper pulled the Audi over on West Street in Leominster.

Authorities said they found drugs, cash and drug paraphernalia inside the passenger compartment.

The driver of the Audi, identified by police as Domenic Dellechiaie, 30, of Leominster, was charged with heroin distribution, possession of a class E substance and failure to wear a seat belt. He will be arraigned Monday in Leominster District Court.
UXBRIDGE A pedestrian walking on the Quaker Highway in Uxbridge was struck by a car and critically injured Friday night, police said. The car did not stop and police are searching for a dark-colored vehicle with front end damage, the

Worcester Telegram

reported.

The victim, a man from Rhode Island was walking near 535 Quaker Highway when he was struck. Police do not know if he was attempting to cross the highway or simply walking along the side of the road at the time of the crash. A relative of the victim called police to report the hit and run.

The victim was flown by helicopter to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester where he is currently listed in stable condition in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Uxbridge Police Department at 508-278-7755, or the Central Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council Accident Reconstruction Team ay the Northboro Police Department at 508-393-1515.
Theres a term for visitors who come to an area seeking direct connection with local people, landmarks and customs: geo-tourists.

While oil prices lifted a little last week at news of OPEC production cuts, drilling in the Bakken shale in nearby North Dakota is far below levels from a few years ago.

So people here are looking to attract more visitors to experience something permanent in this area, the raw beauty of rural Montana  and spend money.

By ERIK OLSON [email protected]

Full Story: http://billingsgazette.com/business/in-eastern-montana-locals-look-to-tourism-to-soften-blow/article_20734609-f859-56df-8c18-704d6d850a08.html
State Council executive meeting on Nov 29

Premier Li Keqiang heard an update on the progress of replacing the business tax with a value added tax (VAT), and supervision of central State-owned enterprises (SOEs) at the Nov 29 State Council executive meeting.

The meeting decided to return fixed amounts of VAT to ensure the financial security of local governments and strengthen external oversight on SOEs.

Support for entrepreneurship in rural areas

The State Council General Office issued a guideline to support entrepreneurship and innovation, and promote the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas.

Migrant workers, college graduates, retired soldiers and science workers will have policy support for entrepreneurship and innovation in rural areas.

Further promote domestic service consumption

The State Council General Office issued a circular to further promote consumption in tourism, culture, sports, health, elderly care and educational training.

Standardized management of auxiliary police

The State Council recently issued a circular to specify rules on the management of auxiliary police, including their responsibilities, recruitment, supervision and protection of their rights.

Management of subsidies for compulsory education in urban and rural areas

The ministries of Finance and Education recently issued management methods of subsidies for compulsory education in urban and rural areas to enhance supervision and raise efficiency.

The two ministries should decide key content supported by subsidies according to the central government and education reforms.

Rules for land VAT

The State Administration of Taxation issued a document to clarify the tax base and collection methods for a VAT in real estate transfers after replacing the business tax with a VAT.

Tax breaks on Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock link

The Ministry of Finance, State Administration of Taxation and China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued a circular on tax collection in the Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock link on Dec 1.

According to the circular, individual mainland investors buying shares in Hong Kong through the program will be exempted from personal income tax on profits for three years.

300 national food security standards formulated, amended

The National Health and Family Planning Commission issued a plan for food security standards and evaluation (2016-2020).

According to the plan, the food security monitoring system will be further improved in the 13th Five-Year plan period, with 300 national food security standards formulated and amended.

Efforts to improve food security in rural areas

The food security office of the State Council recently issued a circular, urging more efforts to improve food production environments and food security in rural areas.

According to the circular, local governments should find loopholes and formulate reports to facilitate inspection teams work from the central government.

More care for the disabled

Seven ministries, including the China Disabled Persons Federation and the National Development and Reform Commission, issued a plan to improve grassroots service capacity for disabled people.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, December 2, 2016

A Golden State Warriors fan is urging a judge to allow her to proceed with a lawsuit accusing the team, along with app developer YinzCam and beacon technology company Signal360, of eavesdropping on her through the team's mobile app.

The app allegedly contains an "undisclosed functionality" that requires smartphones to "constantly record and monitor all background audio, which necessarily includes all of its users conversations," New York resident LaTisha Satchell says in court papers filed Thursday.

"While there may be a hypothetical consumer who is glad to let three separate entities capture and analyze all of his or her daily interactions -- e.g., from ordering lunch, to conversing with colleagues at the workplace, to private conversations at the family dinner table -- defendants never told any of their users about the apps invasive recording and audio usage practices," Satchell adds.

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Satchell makes the assertions in response to a request by the Warriors, YinzCam and Signal360 to dismiss her lawsuit.

The dispute dates to September, when Satchell alleged in a class-action complaint that the app turns on devices' microphones, and then records conversations and other audio whenever it's running, even if people aren't actively using the app. Satchell, who says she used the app from April through July of this year, accused the companies of violating the federal wiretapping law by intercepting her private conversations without consent.

The app sends offers to fans when they pass concession stands, and notifies users about the possibility of seat upgrades at the team's home stadium in Oakland, California. To accomplish this, the app tracks users' physical locations via beacons, which transmit out audio signals that are picked up by phones' microphones, according to Satchell's complaint.

Last month, the Warriors, Signal360, and YinzCam asked U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White in Oakland to dismiss the complaint. They argued that the app doesn't violate the federal wiretap law, because the app only detects high-frequency signals, which are inaudible. They also say the app doesn't cause audio data to be transmitted from phones to servers or other devices.

Satchell is now asking White to reject those arguments. "Defendants unlawful 'interceptions' began as soon as the App was opened and the microphone began listening and recording, continuously doing so (seemingly over a four-month period) without consent," she argues. "These facts readily state an actionable interception."

She argues that the app "intercepted" her communications regardless of whether it transmitted any conversations to outside servers. "All that matters is Defendants captured her communications using the app," she argues.

The Warriors and other companies additionally contend the lawsuit should be dismissed on the grounds that Satchell didn't suffer any "concrete" harm as a result of using the app.

Satchell counters that a privacy violation is in itself the type of concrete harm that can warrant legal proceedings. "Unauthorized surveillance by private parties, whether it be eavesdropping or tapping a phone -- snooping, essentially -- has long been actionable in the courts," she argues. "And it is the snooping itself, not anything done with the information (blackmail, monetization, etc.), that has traditionally given rise to an injury."

Satchell and the companies are expected to present arguments to White in January.
by Sara Guaglione , December 2, 2016

The Washington Post has hired Scot Gillespie to becomes its first chief technology officer. has hired Scot Gillespie to becomes its first chief technology officer.

Gillespie will manage The Post's engineering team and will be responsible for overseeing its publishing platform, Arc, which the publication migrated onto last year and hopes to license to develop a lucrative revenue stream.

Gillespie will report to Shailesh Prakash, chief information officer and vice president of digital product development. Gillespie will take on the new role starting January 3.

In a statement, Frederick J. Ryan, Jr., publisher and CEO of The Washington Post emphasized the important partnership between news, engineering and product at The Post,as well as ongoing experimentation and innovation throughout the organization.

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In recent years, The Washington Post has focused on transforming into a growing, world-class media and technology company, he stated.

As technology continues to change the landscape at an unprecedented pace, The Post will stay ahead of the curve by continuing to invest in highly skilled technology and engineering talent, Ryan added.

Gillespie was previously VP of engineering at industrial supply company W. W. Grainger.

I look forward to the opportunity to help further evolve and differentiate the product suite and create unique value for customers with the Arc technology platform, Gillespie said in a statement.

The Post also announced that Prakash will deepen The Post's ties with technology partners going forward, as well as outline The Post

's expanding product and technology roadmap over a longer time horizon.

He will also work more closely with the Audience Development and Data Science teams to help grow

The Posts audiences.
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Psoriasis, and specifically plaque psoriasis, is an inflammatory skin condition that causes thick, red, and scaly plaque on the skin. Some anecdotal evidence suggests that tea tree oil can help manage the itchiness and pain of psoriasis, especially on the scalp. Tea tree oil is an essential oil, meaning that it is the distilled extract of a plant that contains beneficial compounds in high concentrations. As essential oils can be highly potent, people often mix them with a carrier oil to make them safe for use. In this article, we explore the benefits of tea tree oil and the evidence for its use in treating psoriasis symptoms.

Benefits Share on Pinterest Tea tree oil has a range of benefits for psoriasis, according to anecdotal evidence. Tea tree oil is a yellow essential oil that comes from the leaves of Melaleuca alternifolia, which people refer to as the tea tree plant. The plant grows in Australia, where locals have used it for nearly 100 years to treat minor wounds and skin issues. Early studies suggest that tea tree oil has antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral properties. As a result, people use tea tree oil to alleviate many skin irritations and health problems, such as acne, lice, and possibly psoriasis. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that it is a safe treatment, but no clinical studies have confirmed either the effectiveness or safety of tea tree oil.

Use Some suggestions for using tea tree oil for psoriasis include: mixing the oil with water, applying it to the skin with a cotton ball, leaving it overnight, and washing it off in the morning

diluting tea tree oil with olive oil or another carrier oil, applying it to affected areas, allowing it to dry, and then washing it off

adding a few drops of tea tree oil to a bathtub and bathing in lukewarm water

combining one part of tea tree oil with 10 parts of shampoo Tea tree oil is readily available and present in a wide range of skin care products. While the only evidence supporting its use is anecdotal, it is safe when a person uses it correctly. People should try different remedies for psoriasis until they find an option that is effective and comfortable for symptom relief.

Risks and precautions Share on Pinterest Speak to a doctor before using tea tree oil to treat psoriasis. Some people have reported allergic reactions, including: severe rashes

redness

irritation

swelling

burning If these occur, stop using the oil. Take care when using tea tree oil and other essential oils. Applying them directly to the skin without a carrier oil can be harmful. Dilute the oil to reduce the risk of side effects. Never consume tea tree oil by mouth. Swallowing tea tree oil could lead to the following adverse effects: stomach upset, including diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach ache

blood cell anomalies

severe rash

drowsiness

hallucinations

confusion Some people should apply caution before using tea tree oil, including: women who are pregnant or breastfeeding

people who are taking vancomycin, an antibiotic

people with linear IgA disease, an autoimmune skin disorder

boys who have not yet reached puberty, as tea tree oil can increase the growth of breast tissue

people with a known allergy to tea tree oil or its source plant No studies have examined the effectiveness of tea tree oil for psoriasis. The risk of side effects when using tea tree oil means that people should be careful before using it to manage the symptoms of psoriasis. Also, due to the potential complications with certain medical conditions, anyone considering using tea tree oil should inform their doctor first.

Other natural remedies Some people use other common herbal remedies to manage the symptoms of psoriasis. These include: Aloe vera: A person with this condition can apply a cream containing at least 0.5 percent aloe to the skin up to three times a day. It may help to reduce scaling and redness associated with psoriatic lesions.

A person with this condition can apply a cream containing at least 0.5 percent aloe to the skin up to three times a day. It may help to reduce scaling and redness associated with psoriatic lesions. Capsaicin: This is the chemical adds the spicy flavor to hot peppers. Creams containing capsaicin may help reduce psoriasis-associated discomfort, redness, and scaling.

This is the chemical adds the spicy flavor to hot peppers. Creams containing capsaicin may help reduce psoriasis-associated discomfort, redness, and scaling. Epsom salts: Adding Epsom salts to a bath can soothe irritated and itchy skin, and may help to reduce some of the scaling found in psoriasis. Most people tolerate this remedy well.

Adding Epsom salts to a bath can soothe irritated and itchy skin, and may help to found in psoriasis. Most people tolerate this remedy well. Omega-3 fatty acids: These are nutrients available in vegetable oils, fatty fish, soy products, nuts, and seeds, as well as in supplement form. Some evidence supports the use of fish oils, which have high quantities of omega-3 fatty acids, in managing psoriasis symptoms. Remedies that work for one person may not have the desired effects in another. These natural treatments should also not replace the medical treatments for psoriasis, which are scientifically proven and often require a doctors prescription. They can, however, provide further relief when used alongside these treatments.

Lifestyle changes Share on Pinterest Controlled sun exposure might improve symptoms. People can enhance physical comfort and the appearance of psoriatic plaque by taking certain measures at home. Some examples of effective home care methods for psoriasis include: Bathing: Bathing and showering can help remove dead and inflamed skin and may also help reduce psoriatic plaque. Adding Epsom salts to the water can also help to manage scaly skin, but avoiding hot water and harsh soaps is important for sensitive skin. However, showers and baths can cause irritation and dry skin. You should limit baths or showers to one a day for only 515 minutes, keeping the temperature warm and not hot. After bathing, a person should apply a heavy moisturizer while their skin is still moist. Coconut oil is an effective natural moisturizer. Exposure to sunlight: Exposure to small amounts of sunlight can help improve symptoms. However, too much sunlight can trigger a flare-up of symptoms or make it worse, so speak with a doctor before beginning a regimen of light therapy. People with psoriasis should apply sunscreen to any skin not affected by plaque. Being aware of triggers: Finally, people should keep track of what triggers their psoriatic symptoms and avoid them if possible. Keeping a journal of symptoms and possible triggers can help pinpoint what causes psoriatic flares. Anyone using tea tree oil or other natural remedies for psoriasis should talk to their doctor, as some of them can cause an allergic reaction. Some of these remedies may also be dangerous if they interact with other medications or medical conditions. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should also consult their doctor.

Medical treatments Most people need medication to control the symptoms of psoriasis. Options include topical creams, light therapy, and systemic medications. Topical medications: These are creams and ointments that people apply directly to the affected skin. The most commonly prescribed topical medications are corticosteroids, a class of anti-inflammatory drugs. However, people using these creams for a long time may at some point find that their symptoms can get worse, making other medications necessary. Other types of medication include synthetic vitamin D creams, topical retinoids, and calcineurin inhibitors, such as Protopic or Elidel. Light therapy, or phototherapy: Mild exposure to natural sunlight or artificial ultraviolet A (UVA) or ultraviolet B (UVB) light can ease symptoms and decrease psoriatic affected areas. Light exposure should be monitored by your doctor. Tanning beds are not recommended for psoriasis treatment. Systemic medications: People with severe cases of psoriasis may take these drugs by mouth or by injection. Most of these medications alter the immune system, helping to reduce inflammation and the overproduction of skin cells. However, these present a risk of serious side effects. Biologic medications: For some types of psoriasis, and especially for moderate-to-severe symptoms, a doctor may prescribe a biologic medication. This type of drug will aim to reduce the number of flares and manage symptoms by targeting a specific part of the immune system. In order to ensure the best treatment, a person with this condition should always inform their doctor about changes in symptoms.
Paris is going to be introducing a floating gym vessel that will be floating on the waters of the Seinne River and the vessel will be powered by solar panels. In addition, the commuters will also power the floating gym, as it is required for them to pedal on stationary bikes.

Carlo Ratti

The vessel is dubbed as the The Paris Navigation Gym and it is capable of accommodating up to 45 commuters. It will have glass windows to give access to the beautiful vistas the city has to offer. The windows will also have augmented reality screens installed.

The vessel is expected to hit the banks of Sienne soon and Parisian citizens may also hire the gym for parties.

Carlo Ratti Associati has proposed the design, a studio based in Torino, Italy.
Icelands most radical political party is expected to take control of Icelands government and might replace the current coalition that is ruling. The opposition in its entirety has agreed to hold elections earlier than usual, thanks to the Panama Papers scandal that were leaked earlier in October.



The Pirate party practises direct democracy and wants to encourage greater government transparency, an asylum for US whistleblower Edward Snowden and a new constitution. The party has been on top of every opinion poll that has been conducted in every constituency across the nation.



The election is expected to be held in October 2017 as the former Prime Minister Sigmundur Davio Gunnlaugsson resigned earlier this year in April. He was the first victim of the Panama Papers leak and there were documents that revealed that he had millions of pounds of money that was stashed offshore.



President Gudni Johannesson made the announcement after meeting Birgitta Jonsdottir, who is the head of the Pirate political party.

YouTube

"Earlier today I met with the leaders of all parties and asked their opinion on who should lead those talks. After that I summoned Birgitta Jonsdottir and handed her the mandate," he told reporters.

The pirate party was founded four years ago by a group of hackers and activists as they spearheaded the anti-copyright movement and later transformed into a political party. Icelands Pirates attained over 5% of the vote in the 2013 elections and won 3 seats in the 63 member parliament.

There is a clear consensus that the people of Iceland want to vote against the establishment, as the partys appeal is very much similar to Syriza in Greece and Spains Podemos.



It has been three years since the party was established and the people of Iceland are connecting to the partys policy of transforming their democracy and transparency. The Pirate party is not really clear about their policies but it is not acting as a deterrent.



Icelands citizens feel that there is a cronyism endemic in Icelandic politics and the impunity of the wealthy few support the Pirate Party has skyrocketed in the recent past.



The Pirate party is built on the belief that new and updated technologies will help in promoting civic engagement and also increase government transparency. They believe that the citizens of Iceland have unlimited right to be involved in Politics and political decisions. They want ordinary citizens to promote new legislation and also take part in referendums.
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Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

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The Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell was quoted as saying by reports that the bank is firmly committed to lowering inflation.
Despite his brawler reputation, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis actually tried hard on the battlefield to avoid fights, Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said Saturday.

Neller means that as a compliment.

The commandant said he had served under Mattis twice and "I never met anybody who tried harder to win without fighting."

The retired general, selected by President-elect Donald Trump for defense secretary, has a special talent for matching goals with means and "how to engage below the level of conflict," Neller said during a panel discussion at the Reagan National Security Forum in Simi, Calif.

Neller quickly added that he had also "never met anybody -- if you have a fight -- there's no way we're not going to win." Neller called Mattis a rare combination of "accomplished leader, thinker, fighter" whose fitness to lead the Pentagon will soon become evident to Congress.

"He's a very measured guy. He listens and he's decisive. I'm confident that when he makes the callsto members of Congress and testifies at Senate confirmation hearings, he will be judged to be exceptionally qualified to serve as the next defense secretary, Neller said.

In a later address to the forum, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, a former Marine commandant who served under Mattis as a regimental commander in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, had a curt answer to a question on whether he was concerned about recently retired military officers being considered for cabinet posts.

"Do I have concerns? No," Dunford said. He did not offer, and was not asked, to expand on his response.

Under current law, Mattis would need a waiver from Congress to get past the rule barring military officers from taking posts requiring Senate confirmation for seven years after retiring. Mattis stepped down as head of U.S. Central Command in 2013.

In addition to two fellow Marines, Mattis has strong and widespread support among former colleagues across the services in the upper ranks of the military. "We all congratulate him," said Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

At a Pentagon briefing Friday, Nicholson said of Mattis that "he's a soldier's soldier, a Marine's Marine." Nicholson said he first met Mattis in 2006 during what he called a tough fight in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.

"He's a very inspirational leader," Nicholson said of Mattis, "I know he inspired me."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

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Camp Lejeune Town Halls Aim to Help Those Exposed to Toxic Water. Heres How You Can Go.

Retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger made it his mission to tell the world that if they lived or served on Camp Lejeune...
Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said Saturday the service chiefs are preparing a new plan to speed up the defeat of the Islamic State, in line with the campaign pledges of President-elect Donald Trump.

"The President-elect said he wanted to do that," Dunford said, and the service chiefs were readying a classified brief on a revised campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, that would be presented to Trump once he's inaugurated.

Working with local forces, the U.S. has already "made significant progress" in defeating ISIS, Dunford said, but "there are some things that we probably would bring into the new administration for consideration." The general added, "I owe it to the new administration" to keep the advice under wraps until Trump signs off.

In an address to the all-day Reagan National Security Forum in Simi, Calif., Dunford also attested to the professionalism and readiness of the military in remarks that were at odds with Trump's frequent complaints about the parlous state of the armed forces and the need to reform and rebuild.

Without mentioning Trump's assertions, Dunford said there was too much emphasis on "worn out equipment and deferred modernization" in an era of unstable budgets. The U.S. military was the world's finest, Dunford said, and has a "competitive advantage over any potential adversary. I have absolute confidence that the joint force today can defend the homeland and our way of life."

U.S. military supremacy "needs to be understood by our allies," Dunford said, and the American public should understand that it's funding "the most capable military force in the world" because of "the quality of the young men and women we're fortunate enough to recruit and retain."

At a separate panel discussion earlier, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said the brief being prepared for Trump would focus on potential military responses to threats posed by Russia, Iran, North Korea, China and terrorism. The Joint Chiefs report would be apart from the daily intelligence briefings being made available to Trump, which he frequently skips.

Goldfein said he recently returned from two weeks in South Korea, where concerns over the nuclear threat from North Korea "are ... real and growing." The South Koreans and the Japanese repeatedly stressed to him "the need for extended deterrence" from the U.S. nuclear umbrella and "their reliance on the deterrence we provide."

In addition, "we are quite concerned with the continued malign activity Iran has engaged in across the region," Goldfein said. "We're prepared to lay this all out for the president-elect."

Goldfein dismissed concerns about the "unpredictability" of Trump and whether that would limit him as commander-in-chief.

"I can't speak to the policy," Goldfein said, adding his job was to provide options in response to a threat "so the president can act as he sees fit. I want to provide the widest spread of options. If there's unpredictability in that because the president has more options, then I've done my job."

At a separate panel, outgoing Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Goldfein's ability to provide options, and the military's ability to respond to emerging threats while rebuilding the nuclear triad, would all depend on Congress providing more funding and ending the cost-cutting sequestration process. "The money will need to flow," she said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related Video:
The Mets are positioned to move fairly quickly to trade Curtis Granderson and/or Jay Bruce, Newsdays Marc Carig writes (Twitter links). While it isnt likely they trade both, that scenario is a possibility, Carig adds.

After recently re-signing Yoenis Cespedes, the Mets have plenty of outfield options, also including Michael Conforto, Juan Lagares and Brandon Nimmo, in addition to Granderson and Bruce. Trading both Granderson and Bruce arguably would leave the organization a bit short, but theres the possibility the Mets could deal both as a prelude to other moves.

Between Granderson and Bruce, the latter appears to be more likely to be traded, as noted earlier this week. If the Mets were to trade Bruce, Granderson could stay and share time with Lagares in center field.

The 29-year-old Bruce had a strong season overall in 2016, batting .250/.309/.506 with 33 homers in 589 plate appearances. He did, however, struggle a bit after arriving in New York via an August 1 trade. The Mets recently exercised his $13MM option for 2017, and he can become a free agent. Granderson hit .237/.335/.464 with 30 home runs of his own. He was also rated as about an average defender in 251 innings in center field, no small feat for a 35-year-old. Hes set to make $15MM in 2017, after which he, too, can become a free agent.
The Tigers goal is to cut payroll and age from their roster, but they havent held active trade talks involving high-priced, 33-year-old first baseman Miguel Cabrera, reports FanRags Jon Heyman.

Theres never been anything close, a source told Heyman in regards to a potential Cabrera trade.

Detroit general manager Al Avila indicated last month that hed be open to taking offers for Cabrera, though he added that it would be in [the Tigers] best interest to retain the future Hall of Famer. Even if Avila were more willing to part with him, Cabreras onerous contract could serve as a significant roadblock. Cabrera still has at least $190MM coming his way through 2024, when hell be 41, assuming his employer exercises an $8MM buyout in lieu of picking up a $30MM club option. Regarding the eight-year, $248MM extension then-Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski signed Cabrera to in 2014, a rival GM told Heyman, Not too many contracts like that one will be given anymore.

Cabrera also has 10-and-5 rights  meaning hed be able to veto any trade  but he didnt rule out playing elsewhere on Saturday, according to Evan Woodbery of MLive.com.

I love playing in Detroit, I love the city. But the doors are open, said Cabrera, who added that a trade would have to help the Tigers. If its a good deal, Ill accept the trade. If the team does not benefit, I prefer to stay in Detroit.

Cabrera has already been part of one trade in his illustrious career, having gone from the Marlins to the Tigers in a 2007 deal that has worked out brilliantly for Detroit. Since his tenure with the Tigers began in 2008, Cabrera has won two American League MVP awards, gone to seven All-Star games and helped the club to four playoff berths  including a World Series appearance in 2012. Along the way, Cabrera has hit an astounding .325/.404/.573 in 5,929 plate appearances and swatted the second-most home runs in the majors (308, one behind Albert Pujols). Cabrera was his usual excellent self at the plate this past season, slashing .316/.393/.563 with 38 homers in 679 PAs.
Bryant.jpg

Detroit Lions defensive end Armonty Bryant has rejoined the team following his three-game suspension for substance abuse.

(Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)

DETROIT -- One day before they'll take on the Saints in New Orleans, the Detroit Lions made a flurry of roster moves, including one to protect against the health of their No. 1 receiver.

Detroit signed wide receiver T.J. Jones to the active roster and elevated defensive end Armonty Bryant. To make room on the 53-man grouping, the Lions cut cornerback Johnthan Banks and running back Justin Forsett. The team also signed running back Mike James to the practice squad.

The T.J. Jones signing comes one day after the Lions listed Marvin Jones as questionable for Sunday's game with a thigh injury. Marvin Jones leads the Lions with 730 yards and 17.4 yards per reception but spent the week limited in practice due to the injury. If he's unable to go, Andre Roberts will likely assume the starting position out wide in addition to his return duties.

The Lions drafted T.J. Jones in the sixth round out of Notre Dame in 2013. He played 10 games for the team last season, returning five kicks and seven punts, before spending this season on the practice squad.

Bryant has spent the past three weeks on the exempt list as he's been suspended for substance abuse. He was originally awarded to the Lions off waivers on Oct. 4 and played Weeks 5-8 with the team, notching three sacks. The Lions needed to activate Bryant by Monday if they wanted to use him this season, but they decided to do so now to have him available against the Saints. The Lions as a team have not recorded a sack the past two weeks.

"We're looking forward to what he's going to do this week," Lions defensive end Ezekiel Ansah said Friday.

Banks and Forsett ended up as the roster casualties. The Lions acquired Banks on Nov. 1 by trading a conditional 2018 seventh-round draft pick to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who drafted him in the second round in 2013. He played 25 snaps at cornerback over the past two weeks against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings.

The Lions signed Forsett on Oct. 11 following his release from the Baltimore Ravens. The ninth-year veteran ran 13 times for 38 yards combined in Weeks 6 and 7 but has been inactive for games since.

James comes to the Lions practice squad four days after he was cut by the Buccaneers. A sixth-round pick out of Miami in 2013, James took four carries for 19 yards for the Buccaneers this season. His best year as a pro was his rookie season, when he had 60 carries for 295 yards, a 4.9 yards-per-carry average.
Humans of New York, a popular blog that features portraits and interview snippets of a random people collected on the streets of New York City, has been in Macomb County for a couple of weeks.

The blog said the visit to Macomb County was based on president-elect Donald Trump's win in the county during the general election. HONY said it hoped to shift in the area that is "representative of a greater movement among America's white working class."

HONY referred to Macomb County as "largely 'blue collar'" with an economy that is "heavily dependent upon the auto industry." The stories will not touch directly on politics, according to the blog, but will look to "introduce you to a few of the people who live (in Macomb County)."

Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by more than 11 percent in the county, helping him become the first Republican to carry the state of Michigan in 28 years. He was the first Republican to win in Macomb County since 2004.

President-elect Trump took about 54 percent of the vote in Macomb County, against Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton's 42 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson got about 3 percent of the vote.

See below for a rundown of the blog's visit to Macomb. To view every post since Humans of New York came to the Great Lakes State, head to http://www.humansofnewyork.com.
mary-barra-f95943f71ed85acc.jpg

GM CEO Mary Barra

(AP File | Carlos Osorio)

General Motors CEO Mary Barra has been selected for Donald Trump's economic advisory group, which will offer the president-elect ideas on how to create jobs and economic growth.

The Associated Press reports the President's Strategic and Policy Forum will meet in the first week of February after Trump takes office. Barra has been CEO of GM since Jan. 15, 2014, and Chairman of the Detroit automaker's board of directors since January 2016.

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group investment firm, will lead the advisory group, A.P. reports.

"This forum brings together CEOs and business leaders who know what it takes to create jobs and drive economic growth," Trump said in a prepared statement. "My administration is committed to drawing on private sector expertise and cutting the government red tape that is holding back our businesses from hiring, innovating, and expanding right here in America."

In September, Barra was named Fortune Magazine's most powerful woman for the second year in the row. The graduate of Flint's Kettering University earned the honor due to the company's record-breaking profits in 2015 of $9.7 billion after a length ignition switch recall ordeal.

The rest of the forum is a who's who of executives from around the country, which also includes Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase; Doug McMillon, CEO of Wal-Mart Stores; Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM; Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock; and Bob Iger, CEO of Walt Disney, according to a news release from the Blackstone Group.

"The Forum is designed to provide direct input to the President from many of the best and brightest in the business world in a frank, non-bureaucratic, and non-partisan manner," the release reads.
Wayne State University reports it has sold its former criminal justice building for $2 million to a company who has housing and retail redevelopment plans.

The school reported the transaction of the Albert Kahn designed, 1920-built building, 6001 Cass Ave., in a news release Saturday, Dec. 3.

Platform LLC bought the building and reportedly plans to convert the 147,500-square-foot building into 69 residential units with 19,000 square feet of retail and a school art gallery, according to the release.

The sale of the six-story structure was approved by the Wayne State University's Board of Governors.

"This is an exciting project for the university. This will bring activity, residents and retail to the corridor connecting TechTown with the main campus," William Decatur, CFO at Wayne State, said in the release. "We are able to transform a historic building that has been dormant for years and revive it into something that will be beneficial for everyone."

The building originally had offices and a showroom when it was built in 1920, but was converted into Wayne State's criminal justice building in the 1970s. While it has sat vacant for a period, the school reports the Detroit Police Department has conducted training in the building in recent years.

Along with the criminal justice building comes the nearby property at 445 York Street. The school reports this surface parking lot will be constructed into a parking structure with 543 places. There are also plans for 64 apartments and 48 condominiums for the property at 445 York St.

"We are thrilled that this project will not only help bring new life to Wayne State's north campus, but also bring another gallery and top attraction to Detroit," Peter Cummings, principal of The Platform, said in the school's release. "This goes hand in hand with our goal of creating community and revitalizing our city."
Standing Rock

Flint residents Arthur Woodson and George F. Grundy II set out on a road trip on Saturday, Dec. 3 to join thousands of protesters in North Dakota fighting against a multi-billion-dollar pipeline project near a Native American reservation. (Jiquanda Johnson | jjohns16@mlive.com)

FLINT, MI -- A group of Flint area residents left for North Dakota over the weekend to support protesters who are fighting against a multi-billion-dollar pipeline project near a Native American reservation.

Nearly 3,500 veterans joined the fight using their bodies as a human shield to protect the protesters from law enforcement, according to a Dec. 3 Reuters article.

Flint military veterans George F. Grundy II and Arthur Woodson set out on road trip along with other Michigan residents to join the effort to block the pipeline project beneath a lake near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservations.

"The opportunity showed itself to be able to help people keep and have their voices," said Grundy who served in the US Marine Corps from 2008 to 2012. "I'm going to help people be able to observe their constitutional rights. If I don't help the weak now, then when I'm weak then people who will be there to help me."

Protesters have been fighting against the pipeline for months and have endured being shot with rubber bullets and sprayed with water in freezing temperatures by police. So far, reports say an estimated 564 people have been arrested.

Grundy traveled for nearly 20 hours with Woodson to Cannon Ball, North Dakota where protestors are camped out.

Woodson, who also is a military veteran, said he knows what they are facing but he felt obligated to stand with veterans during the protest.

"I am going because my veteran brothers and sisters called out and asked for the veterans to come and help support the native Indians for their land," said Woodson. "It's the same thing with Flint. The people need to start standing up together in unity instead of worrying about what color they are and what (political) party they are. We are driving 17 hours to stand in unity."

Woodson served in the US Army from 1986 to 1993.

Both men have worked in Michigan fighting for veteran rights.

According to Reuters, the veterans and other supporters will help finish building a barracks and mess hall near a camp about five miles outside of north Cannon Ball.

The 1,172-mile pipeline project is complete except for the portion that is to run under Lake Oahe. The project cost $3.8 billion.
you are here:
In todays Money Morningnice to you, if youre from the Commonwealthwho really picks the fruit that we hold so dear?15% is better than 32.5%, but far worse than 0%and more

Before I get started, Ive just been told that next week Port Phillip Publishing is going to blow wide open a huge story.

What story? To be honest, I have no idea.

A very close lid has been kept on the subject matter of Port Phillip Publishings first ever Special Investigation, released next week. They wont even tell me what its about.

All I know is it sets out to solve a 41-year-old Australian mystery. And I know that Im dying to find out what its all about.

I managed to get a hold of investigation host Vern Gowdie, and he said it, could be the single biggest influencer of your carefully invested capitalyour hold-in-your-hand cashyour privacyand your core financial freedoms

I try not to let Vern scare me too much, but when he talks I listen.

Keep an eye out for what Im told is our first feature-length documentary, out mid-next week.

Now back to todays Money Morning

Living in the UK I get to speak to a lot of Brits. Ill walk into a shop and during a bit of small-talk I typically get the question, Wheres your accent from?

Some people have the ambition to guess for themselves. Ive had everything from Canadian, American, South African to, of course, Australian. People over here seem to love a foreigneror at least one from the Commonwealth.

Or maybe its just because Im buying something from their shop. Hmmm.

Either way, after the first question they typically follow with a statement. And that statement is often along the lines of, I know so and so who went out to Australia. They went out for a backpacking holiday, had a blast, loved the place.

Its amazing how many people in the UK have a friend, cousin, brother, sister, son, daughter, or friend of a cousins wife that went to Australia at some point.

Lots seem to backpack, too. Lots seem to go for a long time. Lots also seem to go with not all that much money, but somehow manage to live and travel in (expensive) Australia.

I wonder how they do it

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Backpackers pick the fruit the fruit that goes to Cottees, I guess.

Do you remember that old 80s commercial for Cottees cordial? The lyrics read,

My Dad picks the fruit that goes to Cottees. To make the cordial. That I like best.

Its one of the most iconic Australian advertisements of all time. Even today, 30 years on, the jingle still resonates with Gen X, Y an even millennials. Its a classic.

But if you actually watch the commercial, its clear its a fantasy land. Theres a bunch of kids marching around an orchard singing the song. Their Dad is up a ladder picking some fruit off a tree. Clearly hes the Dad that picks the fruit that goes to Cottees.

This is a fantasy land because Dads dont pick fruit that goes to Cottees. Backpackers do.

The real Cottees song should go,

My cousins wifes friend went to Australia from England, to pick the fruit that goes to Cottees. To make the cordial. That people in Australia like best.

But I guess that hasnt got the same catchy tune to it.

Now I must add that I dont know if backpackers actually pick the fruit or not that really does go to Cottees. But its a fair assumption that they might. I say this because the Australian fruit industry relies on backpackers to survive.

Tim Reid, Cherry Farmer from Tasmania said, We would not be able to operate our business without [backpackers].

Around 600,000 backpackers travel to Australia on working holiday visas each year. Many of them decided to take up jobs picking fruit or working as farm hands to pick up some extra travelling cash.

Its a booming industry. Check it out for yourself. Just Google backpacker jobs Australia and look at some of the sites. Most of these sites have jobs for picking fruit. Jobaroo.com even says, the ultimate backpacker job is seasonal or harvest work.

You can see the appeal. Beautiful locations around the country in rural and remote areas. Areas that give the real Aussie experience for backpackers, and typically some good weather  which theyre not used to in the UK.

With so many backpackers coming into the country making money, the government decided they needed a backpackers tax. Originally the tax was going to be 32.5%. But that wasnt going to ever fly with the Greens and Labour.

As it stands theres now an agreement on a 15% backpacker tax. Of course this isnt just for backpackers picking fruit. Its for all backpackers. But whichever way you look at it, its the government trying to find another way to grab any bit of cash they can, while they can.

Many are claiming this as a win for the farmers. But I dont see how. In fact, I think this tax will thwart those hundreds of thousands of backpackers. Theyll go somewhere else. And long term, its going to hurt the Aussie fruit industry, unless theres some revolutionary change.

Just PC for immigration control

Somehow the government has convinced everyone that 15% tax is better than a 32.5% tax. But were quickly forgetting 15% is far worse than 0%.

According to the Daily Mail,

Farmers can now plan next years harvest with confidence that they will have a backpacker workforce there to help them harvest their fruit and harvest their crops, said Fiona Simson, president of the National Farmers Federation, Australias leading farming group.

Hang on a second, last time I checked backpackers didnt pay any tax on earnings. As long as they earn less than $18,200 they fall under the tax-free threshold, just like any other low-income earner. The money they earn was the money they kept.

Not anymore. Maybe a 15% tax is better than 0% tax  for the government, that is.

The Age reports that Fiona Simson also said,

A very, very sensible common sense package that is going to benefit agriculture  and give backpackers the certainty that they need.

I think shes been drinking Turnbulls Kool-Aid  or should I say Cottees?

Give backpackers certainty? Certainty youre now going to pay tax? I can hear the backpackers around the world rejoice

Make no mistake, this tax  any tax  will turn away backpackers from coming to Australia. In fact this tax is a veiled form of immigration control. They call it a tax. But thats just a PC way of saying we want to close our borders.

While its only early days yet, I think I can hear the conversations Ill be having around the UK,

I have a cousin whos wifes friend was going to go to Australia but she couldnt afford it, so she went to Asia instead.

And if the backpackers do look elsewhere, then the fruit industry is in real trouble. If they cant operate their business without them, then what will they do? Fail?

There is a way out of it, though. It requires innovation and a little bit of robotics.

Ill go into it a little more next weekend, as I explain why robotics and automation arent something to be afraid of. If we can embrace it, like the fruit industry should, then it can make everything a lot better off for everyone. Except the government.

Regards,

Sam
Education

Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu.

Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu.

Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events:

International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu.

EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu.

Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale  an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s  will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets  June Homecoming: Participant  $18 per person; Sustainer  $25 per person; Benefactor  $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler  Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events:

SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available  for information call 610-275-1960

Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above)

SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m.

Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.

Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.  4 p.m.  computers are available during those hours.

Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863.

Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376.

Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com.

The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes:

Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at

other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020.

CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313.

The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events:

Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m.

Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m.

Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30.

Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301.

For Kids & Families

The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443.

Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950.

Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required.

The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950.

Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus.

Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage.

Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun.

Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train.

Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world!

Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class.

Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org.

Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583.

Community Events at the Ambler Y:

-YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register.

Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org.

Health

Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot.

The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information.

Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245.

Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net.

Spring Aquatic Programs  UDHS Pool:

-Summer is just around the corner  Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required.

 Shallow Water Aerobics  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR.

 Adult Swim Instructions  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR

-Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21.

-Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday  Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m.

-Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons.

-Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates.

Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994.

SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com.

Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org.

Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs:

FITNESS CLASSES

Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month.

Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30  9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000.

Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30  7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047.

New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m.  12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30  4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931.

Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325.

Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes.

Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com.

Librarytalk

Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744

www.upperdublinlibrary.org

APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS:

Storytimes: Please register in the library.

o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m.

o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m.

o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m.

o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6.

APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS:

North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee

APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS:

NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org.

One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register  contact info above.

Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744.

o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register.

Meetings:

Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m.

Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m.

Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org.

For children and teens at Blue Bell:

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m.

* May 14  Despicable Me

* June 11  Alpha and Omega

* Special Events

* April  watch for date of spring/Easter events

* April 14 at 4:30 p.m.  Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children.

* April 14 at 7 p.m.  Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided.

* April 16 at 1 p.m.  Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King.

* April 16 at 1:30 p.m.  Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes?

* April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button.

* April 30 through May 3  Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults.

* May  sign up for Science in the Summer

* June  sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children

* June  sign up for Summer Reading, all ages

For adults at Blue Bell:

* Daytime Book Discussion Group  fourth Tuesday, Jan  April at 1:30 p.m.

* April 26  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Night-time Book Discussion Group  third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

o April 19  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges

o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked?

*Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs

* Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class.

* Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class.

* Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m.

* Giant Book Sale, April 29  May 3

o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults!

o Held during library hours.

o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m.

o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join.

* Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series

o May 11 at 1 p.m.  Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society

* Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room.

* Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read.

* Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome.

* Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome.

*Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older.

* Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours

* Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours

* Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday!

Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library.

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* For adults:

* Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn.

* Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net

* Special Events:

* April 14 at 1:30 p.m.  Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.

* April 19 at 7 p.m.  Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m.

* April 21 at 7 p.m.  Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades.

*May 2 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

*May 10  Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*May 12 at 1:30p.m.  Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman.

*May 17  Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*June 13 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

Meetings and Lectures

The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833.

The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200.

The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/.

LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings.

Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org.

Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org)

-Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them.

The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter.

For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps.

Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin.

Special Events

The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County.

The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065.

Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members.

Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex.

The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com.

The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348.

The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org.

Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163.

The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu.

The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com.

The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net.

Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages.

13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries.

Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family.

The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler.

JPRN  Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them  Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike.

Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies.

Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately.

Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways.

Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table.

Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp  Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall:

-Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store.

Music and Theater

The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220.

Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html.

Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free.

The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org

Religious News

The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276.

Reunions

St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net.

Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572.

Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779.

Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net

Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net

The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411.

Support

New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149.

PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931.

The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296.

Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656.

Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group  every other Wednesday, 7  8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support  second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner  Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers  Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information.

CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7  8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich,
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FORT WORTH -- A new bill intended to help Texans know what is going on in their childrens lives has sparked outcry from those who fear it could put some students at risk of being outed to their parents -- for anything from being gay to being pregnant -- by school officials.

Republican state Sen. Konni Burton of Colleyville said she filed Senate Bill 242 to make sure parents can access all school information about their students, not just what is written down in school records.

I wasnt concerned until a local school in my district decided, without parental input, that certain information should be kept from parents, she told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. School districts should not be allowed to create policies, for any reason, that create exceptions to a parents expectation of full and honest information upon request.

She has stressed that the words sexuality and gender arent in the bill.

But many are concerned about the controversial bill, particularly on behalf of gay Texas youths.

Until kids are not kicked out of their house for being gay or transgender, and until kids are not being beaten by parents for being gay or transgender, we owe it to kids to protect them, said Steven M. Rudner, chairman of Equality Texas, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

We believe Sen. Burtons legislation would essentially destroy protected communications between a student and an educator, said Rudner, the father of a gay child. SB 242s stated intent would force the outing of LGBTQ students.

Burton said her bill was prompted by the Fort Worth Independent School Districts controversial effort earlier this year to create guidelines letting transgender students use the restroom that matches the gender with which they identify.

Statewide officials and local parents alike protested the guidelines.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion claiming that the Fort Worth policy wrongly limited parental access to information. And Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick -- who plans to make the restroom battle a legislative priority next year -- even called for Superintendent Kent Scribners resignation.

Scribner did not resign, but he and other Fort Worth school officials went back to the drawing board, held public hearings and rewrote the guidelines, which appeared to please state officials and parents alike.

What happened at FWISD exposed opportunities to strengthen the provisions of state law that secure a parents expectation of full and honest information upon request, Burton said. While the attorney general ruled that the new policies put in place by FWISD were in violation of the existing provisions in state law, I find it necessary to strengthen, and make more definitive, the language in the Education Code.

School districts should not, for any reason, subvert the relationship the parent has with their child, and state law should provide a clear defense for parents to rely upon should they attempt to do so. It should never have come to the intervention of the attorney general.

State law already allows written information such as attendance records, disciplinary records or test scores to be released to parents.

But Burtons bill requires schools to release more of a students record -- including any documentation about their general physical, psychological or emotional well-being -- to parents.

This is what some fear could out lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youths to their parents. Any attempt to withhold information from a parent, under this bill, is grounds for discipline of a teacher or school official.

My bill would make clear that when a parent seeks information from a school district that all information means all, Burton said. We, of course, are maintaining the current exception for abuse and neglect, as children of all backgrounds could be in potentially harmful home situations and we must allow our school district faculty and staff the flexibility to make those judgment calls on behalf of the child.

Burtons proposal generated a social media storm, prompting comments on Twitter such as This legislation will kill kids, This is how you kill queer kids and I want to kick someone in the shins, not to mention a variety of blog posts and articles.

Burton said her office has been fielding responses to this bill but believes most of the backlash is based on misinformation.

The overwhelming majority of opposition has not only come from outside the district, but outside the state of Texas, she said. We saw locally in Fort Worth that treating parents as part of the solution and not as part of the problem has broad support and what Im hearing from the local community reflects that.

Some local parents say they will be watching how this bill evolves through the upcoming legislative session.

On the surface, much of the bill seems to be reasonable and prove information a parent would want and should have access to, said Veronica Villegas, mother to two high school students in the Fort Worth school district.

However, there are some things in the proposed bill that do have me concerned, she said. Of course any parent is concerned about their student ... and would want to know these things. But it doesnt take into account special circumstances.

For instance, general knowledge about a student might simply include what a teacher has heard from another student or gossip -- which very well might not be accurate at all, she said.

Asking for indirect, incidental knowledge is putting too heavy a burden on our school district employees. Its unfair to the school district or the students, Villegas said, particularly when a child fears retribution or punishment or ostracization from the parent, the person who is caring for them the most.

I think some sort of latitude and discretion should be allowed ... certainly consideration should be given if they fear emotional or physical harm.

Burtons proposal has also come to the attention of local educators, some who say they will take a wait-and-see approach to the bill.

On the fact of it, its not a bad thing, but its going to take a lot of learning on both sides, said Steven Poole, executive director of the Tarrant County-based United Educators Association.

Right now, he said, if a parent suspects their child is gay and asks if anything was said to school officials, school officials arent obligated to share unless that information was on a written record.

Under Konni Burtons law, they would have to say if they knew, if it was something the student had shared with them, Poole said. Its going to create a bit of trust issues between students and their teachers or counselors, who know if parents ask, they have to tell.

------

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Victor Martinez & Juan Morel Blast Delts - Shoulder Workout

Written by Ron Harris

14 January 2018

Anatomy of Delt Training

Victor Martinez & Juan Morel Blast Shoulders

They are good friends, they are both native New Yorkers and they are both full-blooded Dominicans. In fact, Victor Martinez and Juan Morel are the two best Dominican-American bodybuilders ever. At 42, Victor is the veteran big brother of the two. A pro since he won the NPC Nationals in 2000, Martinez has battled his way to five pro titles so far including the prestigious Arnold Classic. Hes also been in a slew of posedowns, and nearly won the 2007 Mr. Olympia. Juan, 33, earned his pro card in 2011 and in just four seasons in the IFBB has racked up three pro wins so far. Both men have spectacular physiques, with some strong points in common. Two muscle groups that Victor and Juan both share elite-level development in are their melon delts and wide, rugged backs. Its a lot of area to cover, both literally and figuratively. We let each man expound on one muscle group while the other went over the best exercises for it. Heres what Dominican Double Dynamite has to tell you about training your shoulders!

Juan Talks Delts

They Werent Always Impressive

People look at my shoulders now and assume they were always big and wide and round, but they were actually a very average body part when I started out. They sloped and had no caps to them at all. My workouts then were pretty similar to what I do now. Ive always done presses, but laterals were what I found brought my side delts up the most and got them rounder and fuller. I do six to eight sets of them. I also like supersets. Pumping the shoulders up with blood works really well for me.

Stop the (Barbell) Presses!

My main pressing movement for years was standing barbell presses to the front and rear. They worked very well for me and helped me build my shoulders up a lot, but over the last year or so I started getting really bad tendinitis in my left elbow from doing them. So since my shoulders are pretty big now, I decided to do all my pressing on the Smith machine to save my joints.

Juan Breaks the Rules

I train everything twice a week. I really dont believe in overtraining. I think if you eat enough and your strength is still good and not falling off, youre not overtraining. So many guys are so worried about doing too much, when a lot of them would be bigger if they did more. I train shoulders the day after chest, which is also supposed to be a bad idea. But my chest and my shoulders keep growing. Rules are made to be broken, not that there are really any rules to this stuff anyway.

Use Free Weights and Machines

Free weights are the best, but I also think some machines are very effective too. They do a perfect job of isolating the target muscle. But free weights force you to balance them, so you recruit more muscle groups. They also allow you to adjust the motion to your own structure, while machines lock you into one position all the time. Overall, I use mostly free weights; but I do like to use machines as parts of supersets and tri-sets near the end of the workout when youre going for that crazy pump. Thats when I find them to be the most beneficial.

Where Do Guys Go Wrong?

Not just with shoulders, but in general, I see a real lack of intensity. Very few guys in the gym actually train heavy and hard. Most of them are afraid to. I understand injuries and the fear of them, because Ive been hurt more than once myself. But you cant let that stop you from putting out serious effort and intensity. If you dont have that in your training, youre not going to grow.

Juans Top 3 Exercise Picks

Military press, dumbbell laterals and rear laterals. About as basic and effective as it gets for shoulders.

Picking Your Best Type of Press

I loved the standing press for years because its the hardest type to do. When it comes to training, easier is never better. Dumbbell presses are also tough to do, but they give you great results. They do become tough to get into position and balance as you get heavier. As far as when to press, that depends on the person and what they need more of. If you are seriously lacking side delts, do your laterals first when youre fresh.

Front Raises and Upright Rows

I dont do either one of those exercises for shoulders. I do think upright rows are a good exercise for traps, though. Not for me. I dont train traps anymore because they just grow too easily. I could have no neck if I wanted to look that way! But thats me. If you like upright rows for shoulders, go ahead and do them. I dont see the point in doing front raises, honestly. If youre doing presses for your shoulders, theres no need to work front delts directly.

Why Great Rear Delts Are Scarce

Guys usually dont train them much, or if they do, they do them wrong and wind up hitting their lower traps. You need to learn to squeeze them and get a pump. If youre not feeling them work and youre not getting a pump, youre not doing them right. Pick a really light weight and learn how! I feel the rear delts are so important that I do two or three different exercises for them. I want to have all three heads of my delts popping.

Victor Talks About the Exercises

Dumbbell Lateral Raises

Victor always includes dumbbell side raises, alternating them with cables from workout to workout. He does one warm-up set for 15-20 reps, and then pyramids up in 10-pound jumps over three or four work sets. A lot of guys do drop sets on their laterals, but I have never heard of anyone who finishes off the exercise the way Martinez does and you may just want to try this yourself on your next shoulder day. After I max-out with the 60s or 70s to failure, I grab a pair of 80s or 90s and do a few partial reps from the bottom to about one-third of the way up, he says. I keep my arms straight. Though I might have to cheat a little to get the dumbbells up there, I always control the negative and do those slowly. Try it  your side delts wont know what hit em.

Overhead Presses

Victor likes to alternate between a few different types of shoulder presses in his workouts. One staple has been the military press, which he has done both standing and seated many times. This is the best overall shoulder builder you can do. It allows you to use the absolute heaviest resistance to overload the delts. Just make sure you take your time and warm up, and dont go so heavy that you can only get a few reps. You need to respect your shoulder and elbow joints if you plan on doing this a while.

Speaking of which, there are times when Martinezs shoulders or elbows arent feeling 100 percent, and then he wont hesitate to press using a Smith or a Hammer Strength machine instead. I think beginners and intermediates should stick to barbell or dumbbell presses, but for the old-timers like me who might be a little banged up but still want to hit it hard, you can press with a machine instead.

Rear Laterals

Dumbbells used to be Victors tool of choice for this targeted isolation, and he still uses them on occasion, but at this stage in his career he feels that cables or a rear delt machine do a better job. I actually feel the rear delts working best when I use the cable and do just one arm at a time, he says. You can really squeeze the muscle and get a killer pump. I had always thought dumbbells were the best way to hit the rear delts, but it was only because I wasnt giving cables or machines a chance, he says. Whatever type of rear lateral you do, make sure you are feeling the rear delts working and not the upper back.

Dumbbell Front Raises

Not everyone does specific work for his anterior or front delts, but Victor does about every other workout. His favorite movement is the front dumbbell raise, which he refers to as hammer front raises due to the thumbs-up grip he takes on the bells. Vic raises them in alternate fashion up to shoulder level, going as heavy as 75s for 10-12 reps. He is just as likely to do these on chest day as he is for shoulders, as the front delts work very hard in any pressing movement for the pecs.

Shrugs

Victor has trained traps with both shoulders and back in the past, but in recent years he hasnt done much for them. Its a body part that grows pretty easily for me, and its getting a lot of indirect work from so many other exercises I do for back and shoulders anyway. But if your traps arent quite scraping your earlobes yet, Vic recommends either barbell or dumbbell shrugs plus close-grip upright rows. Just make sure you go all the way up with any type of shrug, he notes. Those little bouncy reps dont do shit.

Next week Victor and Juan talk back.

Victors Shoulder Routine

Rotator Cuff Exercises With Dumbbell 5 x 15-20

Barbell Clean and Press 3 x 8

Dumbbell Lateral Raises* 40/60 x 12, 50/75 x 12, 60/80 x 12

Standing Single Dumbbell Press 3 x 10-12

Rear Delt Machine 4 sets of 12-15

Barbell Upright Rows (shoulder-width grip) 3 x 12

*Victor does full reps to failure, then immediately grabs a heavier pair of dumbbells and does partial reps from the bottom to about a third of the way up.

Juans Shoulder Routine

Seated Dumbbell or Barbell Press 4 x 10-12

Dumbbell Lateral Raises 3 x 10-12

superset with

Bent Dumbbell Lateral Raises 3 x 10-12

Dumbbell Lateral Raises 3 x 10-12

superset with

Rear Delt Machine 3 x 10-12

Standing Behind-neck Press 3 x 10-12

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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 []
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IND vs BAN: 'For Such a Young Guy to Come And do it is Not Easy' - Rohit Sharma Lauds Arshdeep Singh
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Actress Leah Remini's new documentary series on A&E is resurfacing some old, yet still relevant criticisms of the 62-year-old religion, Scientology.

Remini, perhaps most known for her starring role in the TV sitcom "King of Queens," was a former Scientology devotee, joining the church sometime in 1979. During an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on Sept. 9, 2013, she announced she and her family had left Scientology.

"My mother got involved when we were very young, so it's all we ever really knew," she said. "But over time, my eyes opened and I could no longer be affiliated with the organization and my family felt the same, so we left."

WEIRD PHOTOS: How Scientologists celebrate the holidays

Two years later, Remini went into more detail about her experiences with the church in her memoir "Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology." An excerpt from the book detailed Tom Cruise's outrage at being served prepackaged cookie dough and a chipped mug.

On Nov. 29, A&E debuted the first episode of the 8-episode series "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath." The documentary show aims to reveal "shocking stories of abuse" by people who have left the church of Scientology. The first episode garnered around 2.1 million viewers, the network's best televised premiere in two years, Deadline.com reported.

MEET THE GROUPIES: These Hollywood celebs are all-in on Scientology

The Church of Scientology, not to be besmirched without reprisal, released a lengthy statement on the matter that reads in part:

"Ms. Remini is showing herself to be a spoiled entitled diva who still obsessively complains about such petty matters as her seating placement, limo ride, five-star hotel accommodations and the paparazzi's failure to recognize her nearly a decade ago."

The next episode of Remini's docu-series airs on Dec. 6. According to the teaser, she'll be heading to Clearwater, Fla. to pay a visit to Mike Rinder, an independent Scientologist.

Leah Remini isn't the only celebrity to divorce from the Church of Scientology. In the gallery above, see other high-profile figures who decided L. Ron Hubbard's religion wasn't for them, and keep clicking to see the others who stuck with it.
James Tripp is senior counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, which filed in court to assist the Public Service Commission in defending a lawsuit over a nuclear subsidy. The name of the environmental organization was incorrect in Saturday's paper.

Accuracy is a fundamental of journalism, but mistakes sometimes occur. The Times Union's policy is to acknowledge errors as promptly as possible. Mistakes may be brought to the attention of the editors by calling 454-5420.
SOUTHBURY - State Police Troop A is collecting toys for kids in need through its sixth annual holiday toy drive, beginning 10 a.m. Sunday.

The troop has teamed up with various corvette and classic car clubs from western Connecticut and the Westchester and Putnam counties in New York. Troopers will meet more than 150 classic cars at Exit 1 on Interstate 84 in Danbury and drive to Troop A Southbury off of Exit 14 for a holiday toy cruise, according to a state police release. Santa Claus will join the ride.
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Beijing

President-elect Donald Trump is unapologetic about roiling diplomatic waters with his decision to speak on the phone with Taiwan's leader, a breach of long-standing tradition that risks enmity from China.

The U.S. severed diplomatic ties with the self-governing island in 1979 but has maintained close unofficial relations and a commitment to support its defense.

Trump's conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen drew an irritated, although understated, response from China, as Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday that the contact was "just a small trick by Taiwan" that he believed would not change U.S. policy toward China, according to Hong Kong's Phoenix TV.

"The one-China policy is the cornerstone of the healthy development of China-U.S. relations and we hope this political foundation will not be interfered with or damaged," Wang was quoted as saying. Chinese officials said they lodged a complaint with the U.S. and reiterated a commitment to seeking "reunification" with the island, which they consider a renegade province.

After the phone conversation Friday, Trump tweeted that Tsai "CALLED ME." He also groused about the reaction to the call: "Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

The U.S. shifted diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979. But the governments in Washington and Taipei have maintained close unofficial ties and deep economic and defense relations. The U.S. is required by law to provide Taiwan with weapons to maintain its defense.

Since 2009, the Obama administration has approved $14 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.

The call was the starkest example yet of how Trump has flouted diplomatic conventions since he won the Nov. 8 election. He has apparently undertaken calls with foreign leaders without guidance customarily given by the State Department, which oversees U.S. diplomacy.

"President-elect Trump is just shooting from the hip, trying to take phone calls of congratulatory messages from leaders around the world without consideration for the implications," said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Over the decades, the status of Taiwan has been one of the most sensitive issues in U.S.-China relations. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory to be retaken by force, if necessary, if it seeks independence. It would regard any recognition of a Taiwanese leader as a head of state as unacceptable.

Taiwan split from the Chinese mainland in 1949. The U.S. policy acknowledges the Chinese view over sovereignty, but considers Taiwan's status as unsettled.
Albuquerque, N.M.

Universities and colleges in several states are considering labeling themselves "sanctuary campuses" amid fears from immigrant students and pressure from activists following the election of Donald Trump.

College administrators in New Mexico  the state with the highest percentage of Latino residents are looking into proposals that would grant immigrant students living in the country illegally protections while they pursue their studies.

Meanwhile, advocates in California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota and Texas are pressing their state and private universities to provide sanctuary to these immigrant students, known as DREAMers.

"We urge you to declare the University of San Diego a sanctuary campus for students, faculty, staff and community members now facing, among other things: the threat of deportation under President-elect Donald J. Trump's policy proposals, and the specter of hate speech and bigoted violence in our campus community," read a letter from alumni to administrators of the private Roman Catholic university.

Trump's alma mater  the University of Pennsylvania  even has renewed its pledge to block federal agents without a warrant from removing students in the country illegally.

"Let us be unequivocally clear: We are and remain resolute in our commitment to Penn's undocumented students and will do all that we can to ensure their continued safety and success here at Penn," University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and other administrators wrote in a letter released Wednesday.

Students and professors at University of Illinois campuses are circulating petitions to make their schools sanctuary campuses. One such group in Chicago gathered more than 1,700 signatures and turned them over to school leaders.

A Nevada education philanthropist also is pushing for UNLV, College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College.to declare themselves sanctuary campuses.

The movement comes after Trump promised to end an executive order that granted temporary status to immigrant students living in the country illegally. During his campaign, he also promised to launch a "deportation force" and withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities.
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Two days after burying his daughter, well-known North Texas attorney Brian Loncar was found dead.

Loncar, the lead attorney in a civil litigation firm, was billed as "The Strong Arm" in a series of television commercials seen across North Texas for years.

The Dallas County medical examiner confirmed Loncar's death to multiple news outlets, but didn't provide additional details.

WFAA-TV reported that police officers were seen outside Loncar's Dallas law offices Sunday morning.

IN COURT: Man accused of killing deputy still incompetent, lawyer says

Loncar's death comes just days after he buried his 16-year-old daughter, Grace, who took her own life after struggling with depression.

In his daughter's obituary, Loncar, 56, wrote that Grace struggled from the time of her diagnosis at age 11, but tried to press on.

"Sometimes the brightest star burns out too soon. That was Gracie's life," Loncar wrote.

He leaves behind his wife, Sue, and five children: David, Patrick, Sally, Hailey and Abby.
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UPDATE:

A news release early Sunday evening from the Alamo Heights Police Department reported the buck menacing the Olmos Basin area was removed by a Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden Sunday.

ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES:

If you live in or near Alamo Heights or Olmos Park, or plan on being in the area in the near future, be on the lookout for an aggressive deer that the Alamo Heights Police Department is warning residents about.

An alert from the department to residents was sent out Sunday afternoon. It warns of an aggressive buck currently roaming the Olmos Basin.

The department noted it had received "numerous" reports of this buck. The notice did not give a time frame, but a spokeswoman with the department said they were only aware of the reports coming in on Sunday.

RELATED: Alamo Heights residents concerned after coyote sighting

The spokeswoman said officers were in contact with game wardens with the Texas Department of Wildlife on how to handle the deer.

Police warn residents not to try and feed or pet this buck if they come across it. During the fall bucks become territorial and dangerous because they are in full rut.

People are advised to stay clear of this animal and contact police if they see the deer.
Much has been made of the personalities and deficiencies of the candidates at the top of the ticket this November. However, far less attention was paid to the actual issues each candidate believed in  much less the issues that separated candidates toward the bottom of the ballot.

Straight-party-ticket voting allows voters to check one box and have the entire ballot completed for them. As a result, the voter casts a ballot for a partys entire slate of candidates. This election was a textbook lesson in why convenience voting does not always produce the best results up and down the ballot.

For this reason, I believe Texas should join 41 other states in eliminating straight-ticket voting. The Founding Fathers concept of the self-governance of our nation relied on entrusting voting rights to an educated (not just informed) electorate. When the campaign becomes about personalities and parties, the need to research and be educated on the platforms, records and issues of each candidate is obscured or overlooked entirely.

For example, I wonder how many straight-party voters on the Democratic side knew that not only were they casting a ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but also for my opponent, who has run for office four times under three different party banners including as a write-in candidate for vice president under the Socialist Party in 2012? I seriously doubt that the vast majority of Democrats in House District 65 are socialist. I am sure examples on the other side of the political aisle could be cited as well.

The fact of the matter is too often voters focus on top-of-the-ballot races with little regard for the policies of local candidates, who almost always have a much bigger impact on their day-to-day lives. Removing one box voting will also require all candidates to get out their message and their goals if elected. It prevents them from hiding behind a party banner that may or may not reflect their personal views or policies.

Voters will still be free to vote only for the candidates of a single party, but it would require them to make each choice individually, and hopefully lead them to become more educated about the process, the candidates, and the issues affecting them.

Isnt our way of life and system of government important enough to merit reflection on each candidate for elected office? With the onslaught of new voters this cycle and the vitriol at the top of the ticket, I am confident that many votes were cast down ballot with little or no education by the voter.

I introduced HB 1288 in the 84th Legislature to remedy this, but it died in committee. I just filed a similar bill for the upcoming 85th Legislature, and I ask you to call your senators and representatives asking for their support of this important legislation  and even more important, civics lesson  for our fellow Texans.

Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, represents Texas House District 65.
Each day thousands of Texas patients see their health care provider for services ranging from the common cold or flu to delivering a new baby to geriatric care to mental health services. And for more and more Texans, it is highly trained and specialized nurses who provide this level of personalized care.

Advanced Practice Nurses, or APRNs, perform many of the same duties as a physician, which is good news for our states health care provider shortage. The bad news for patients is that our current regulatory climate is restricting the ability of APRNs to practice to the full extent of their licensure and training.

Lawmakers have long recognized APRNs, which include nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, certified nurse anesthetists, and clinical nurse specialists, play a crucial role in addressing our states growing and changing health care needs. To that end, the state funds several programs to train these specialized nurses and to license and regulate them. After APRNs complete undergraduate and graduate classroom training, graduate specialty clinical training, and complete their state licensure, theres one last hurdle Texas throws in their way: a delegation agreement.

When advanced practice nursing was relatively new, the Legislature made doctors delegate their authority to APRNs. Fifty years later, Texas has robust educational, licensure, and regulatory frameworks, and this delegation is no longer necessary. Indeed, the U.S. military, federal agencies and many other states have ended this practice.

Today in Texas, the delegation is merely a physicians signature on a page that says the APRN can practice. The physician is not required to provide care for the APRNs patients or even be in the same city as the APRN.

In fact, Texas allows many physicians to delegate to numbers of APRNs, further proof there is no meaningful supervision occurring. In many cases, the most substantial interaction between some physicians and APRNs is that the APRN has to pay the doctor simply for the privilege of being able to practice to the full extent of his or her education and licensure. A 2016 study of Texas APRNs found that some were forced to pay their delegating physician up to $120,000 every year.

The reality is our state does not have enough health care providers to meet our populations needs. Texas ranks 47th among the 50 states in primary care access. And while Texas is busy worrying about whether APRNs should have to pay doctors to practice, other states like New Mexico are happily recruiting our Texas-trained APRNs to come to them. Why wouldnt an APRN go to a different state where their competitors arent allowed to deny them the right to practice?

For everyone involved, this means higher costs. When there is a shortage of providers, people end up seeking treatment from more expensive alternatives, like emergency rooms. That not only costs more to patients, but it causes the entire cost of health care to go up. That means higher costs to employers as well.

We know that APRNs are fully capable of doing many of the things a primary care physician can do, because so much of what they do is routine. APRNs should have the ability to stay home in Texas and do the job they have been trained to do.

This once well-meaning regulatory requirement has more than outlived its purpose and today serves as a costly hindrance to patient-centric care from the now proven advanced practice nursing industry. Its time for Texas to end this nonsensical and unfair regulatory regime. Like most Texans, I want to see our state provide a level playing field and cut the unnecessary red tape. Lets do the right thing for Texas patients and put an end to delegation agreement requirements.

Bill Hammond is president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business.
Re: Terrorism suspected in Ohio State attack, Nation & World, Tuesday:

What was meant to be a normal day back to work after Thanksgiving took a sad turn as news of the attack at the Ohio State University trickled in.

Having lived in Minneapolis for many years, I have gotten to know and be friends with many individuals of Somali origin. I am also aware that Somali refugees in the U.S. face many challenges, with the long-running civil war in their country having taken a physical and mental toll on the survivors.

With concern and prayers for the victims, I hope that this event is not used as political capital to further the anti-refugee rhetoric in our country.

Abdul Naseer Malmi Kakkada, Pflugerville

Blaming the press

Re: Mayor Taylor complains of media coverage, Brian Chasnoff, Nov. 26:

So has Ivy Taylor adopted the Donald Trump method of reacting to the press? It seems that she has, and in so doing has lost sight of just what the medias role is and what it can be for providing information to the public. Mayor Taylor needs to learn how to use the media to her advantage in this respect. Upbraiding the press for what appear to be long-standing resentments is certainly not the way to get things done. What we care about are her goals for the city and how she plans to achieve them. So quit using that tired, old rhetoric of advancing the community, Mayor Taylor, and leave your personal resentments at home. Be the mayor, not the dictator-in chief!

Carolyn Pinc

Scarier than war

Is there any way to stop Lyin Donald from assuming the office of president?

He continues making allegations with no basis in fact. A current example is his attempt to undermine one of our democratic tenets, the right to vote and have it counted. He continues claiming voter fraud without a trace of evidence.

Now he claims he will destroy the mutually beneficial agreement with Cuba that has just been worked out. He has already alienated a large portion of South America and the Middle East. Our previous allies in NATO just shake their heads and grit their teeth.

He scares me more than two tours in Vietnam did.

Eugene R. New

Burning flags

Re: Trump citizenship tweet ignores court ruling, Nation, Nov. 30:

Donald Trump expressed an opinion shared by most patriotic Americans. It was a mouse trap with a huge piece of cheese, and the New York Times bit with this article. Hillary Clinton in 2005 co-sponsored a bill to criminalize flag burning, and the Times called it pandering.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia expressed an opinion from the bench far harsher than Trumps, but also understood that flag burning is a form of speech and protected. Not all Democrats burn American flags and destroy businesses during protests, but most flag and business burners are Democrats.

Leo Q. Gomez
The Warriors will hold a moment of silence for victims of the Oakland Fire before the national anthem at their 7:30 p.m. game Saturday against Phoenix at Oracle Arena, a team spokesman told The Chronicle.

Additionally, Golden State is donating $50,000 to the Unity Council in the Fruitvale district, a nonprofit organization that helps low-income families in that community. .
1 Mine explosion: Thirty-two miners were confirmed dead Sunday in the second coal mine explosion in a week in China, state-run media reported. The gas explosion hit the mine in Chifeng city in the Inner Mongolia region Saturday. Out of 181 miners working underground, 149 managed to get out. News of the blast came just hours after 21 miners who were trapped for four days after an explosion hit their unlicensed coal mine were confirmed dead in northeast Chinas Heilongjiang province. Four people were arrested in connection with that disaster.

2 Missing plane: Thirteen people are feared dead after an Indonesian police plane lost contact during a flight Saturday to the island of Batam near Singapore. The plane, carrying five crew members and eight passengers, dropped out of contact about 50 minutes after taking off from Pangkal Pinang in Bangka Belitung province off the southeast coast of Sumatra island, police said. National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said rescuers were searching waters between Mensanak and Sebangka islands for the plane.
ZANU PF politburo member, Sydney Sekeramayi has fallen on hard times and is failing to repay a US$250 000 debt to a friend.

This has emerged after the friend, Exevia Maoneke, dragged him to court in a bid to recover the money.

Court papers show that Maoneke gave the money to Sekeramayi last year, who promised to repay by February 28 this year.

Sekeramayi however failed to honour his promise, prompting Maoneke to seek the courts intervention.

Documents seen by NewZzimbabwe show that the money was given to the politician in two batches.

First he was given US$150 000 on August 18, 2021 and later US$100 000.

Sekeramayi offered as surety, a stand in Marondera, measuring 4 199 hectares.

The mortgage bonds were registered against the property.

Having failed to pay, Mawonekes lawyers wrote a letter of demand to Sekeramayi saying; You will recall that it was a material term of the agreement that the loan would become due and payable on the 28th of February 2022.

Having not tendered repayment, we are accordingly instructed to serve this letter as our clients final demand that you pay US$250 000.

Copies of the mortgage bonds and final notice show that Sekeramayi was supposed to pay U$150 000 on December 4 2021.

The remaining balance of US$100 000 was supposed to be paid on February 28 this year.

The final letter of demand was handed over to Sekeramyi at his Borrowdale residence in March 2022, with Maoneke giving him until March 14 to pay, but he still defaulted.

High Court judge, Justice Slyvia Chirawu-Mugomba, ruled that Sekeramayi should pay up and slapped him with costs.

Whereupon, after reading documents filed of record and hearing counsel, it is ordered that the provisional sentence be and is hereby granted against Sekeramayi. Sekeramayi shall pay Maoneke US$250 000 plus interest at the prescribed rate of five percent at the date of filing of the summons until the date of payment, said the judge.

The immovable property called stand 722 Marandellas Lands, measuring 4 199 square meters, held under deed of transfer No 10120/1997 dated November 25 1997 be and is hereby declared executable, she ruled.

Sekeramayi was ordered to pay a collection commission in terms of the Law Society of Zimbabwe Tariff being 10 percent of the capital.

 NewZimbabwe

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By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends most of her time in Asia researching a book about textile artisans. She also writes regularly about legal, political economy, and regulatory topics for various consulting clients and publications, as well as scribbles occasional travel pieces for The National.

I noticed in yesterdays comments that some readers take issue with my use of the term Obamamometer, regarding it as mere gratuitous snark. Unless youve read my earlier post, Dont Be An Obamamometer: Support Naked Capitalism and Critical Thinking, describing behaviour for which I coined that word, youll not realize the terms anything but gratuitous, and dates to the late 1980s long before most (if not all) of you had encountered the man.

Allow me to quote a small section here:

We called him the Obamamometer or at least I did and it quickly caught on in our circle because it described his behavior so well. Near the end of class time, just in time for the last word, his arm would rise. Hed wait to be recognized. A pause setting his audience on seats edge (or at least the ones whod never heard him speak before), and then in his mellifluous voice, hed intone, Rain is wet or something equally banal, with the gravity otherwise due to a proposition from Wittgenstein. Always the last word. Always uttered with utter conviction. And never, never despite sitting through two classes with him did I ever hear him say anything even remotely interesting. The Obamamometer took the ideological temperature of the room, and then unfailingly said something with which no one could possibly disagree but which no other person would bother to say, because it was both so vapid and blindingly obvious.

So, other than an amusing anecdote, what does this imply for the Obamamometers toxic legacy on national security issues? Well, I rather encourage you to read that earlier post in full. But the main takeaway for the present post is this: So when Barack Obama was elected President, and soon put in place an economic team consisting of former Clintonites and Rubinites, I and other [Harvard Law School (HLS)] classmates werent all too surprised by what followed. We saw those promises of hope and change as empty banalities, rather than the transitional political program many Obama supporters had voted for.

How does that assessment stand up?

Now, many years later, were all enduring endless rounds of Obamamometer legacy-gilding. The mans still actively seeking to have the last word. My sense of what an Obamamometer does has expanded a bit, extending now beyond merely uttering banalities, to willful substitution of empty rhetoric for substance. Id like to examine that legacy with a more jaundiced eye, on some national security issues that progressives back in 2008 had so much hope would change. But first, please allow me a bit of a digression, in a bit of a riposte to some of yesterdays comments.

Literary Lingo

The term Obamamometer isnt a mere riff on the mans name, but falls within a venerable literary tradition of using someones name to illustrate a broader concept. So, we have the term spoonerism, named for the former Warden of New College, Oxford, Reverend William Archibald Spooner, famous for employing what the Greeks called metathesis roughly, switching things around. Examples: Spooner once praised farmers as nobel tons of soil when he meant to say sons of toil, and reprimanded a student who hissed my mystery lecture and also tasted two worms.

Another such term is malapropism, describing utterances of Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridans 1775 play The Rivals and a name no doubt derived from the French mal a propos loosely translated as poorly placed. A malapropism is the substitution of a word that sounds similar for another, to comic effect. Examples: dance a flamingo (rather than flamenco), Yogi Berras comment that Texas has a lot of electrical votes (rather than electoral), and my favorite used once by a relative of mine who would not take kindly to being outed publicly so I wont to lambaste a real estate developer as a real prefabricator  (when she meant prevaricator). And last on the list, theres also bowdlerize a word I didnt realize came from someones name until Lambert helpfully pointed out it that it originated with Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), who published expurgated Shakespeare fit to be read by proper ladies and children (and which excised the naught bits).

My use of the term Obamamometer has broadened since I first observed the behavior at HLS. On the grander stage on which the man now plays, I now routinely extend it to apply to more toxic behaviour than mere banal, uncontroversial utterances: rhetoric whether soaring or banal as a substitute for action. And now as then, always trying to have the last word. This behavior even if called by any other name that lacks the sense Obamamometer conveys of wary measurement would still smell as foul.

Institutionalization vs Aberration

Im not alone in recognizing that one of the biggest disappointments with the Obamamometers failure to break decisively with George W. Bushs administration on key national security issues is to institutionalize positions that were formerly considered beyond the pale and make them part of a twisted bipartisan consensus. This is a subject Ive liked to reserve for a further post. Im going to discuss two particular issues below, the failure to close Guantanamo despite eloquent promises in the 2008 campaign to do so, and ample supporting legal authority and weasel words disclaiming an ability to pardon Edward Snowden, uttered in a recent interview conducted in Germany. In both cases, the Obamamometer leaves a toxic legacy for President-elect Trump to exploit which I have little doubt that he will.

Guantanamo

One issue on which the Obamamometer was particularly eloquent in the 2008 campaign was on closing Guantanamo. As Connie Bruck has quoted him as saying in a New Yorker article, In the dark halls of Abu Ghraib and the detention cells of Guantanamo, we have compromised our most precious values.

Over to Bruck, writing in August (2016):

Guantanamo, which has held as many as seven hundred and seventy-nine prisoners, now houses just seventy-six. But it remains open, at a cost of $445 million last yearan expensive reminder that the United States, contrary to the ideals of its judicial system, is willing to hold people captive, perhaps for life, without a trial. For Obama, it is also painful evidence of the difference between the campaign promises of a forty-six-year-old aspirant and the realities of governing in a bitterly polarized time. Last March, when he made an appearance in Cleveland, Ohio, a seventh grader asked what advice he would give himself if he could go back to the start of his Presidency. Obama said, I think I would have closed Guantanamo on the first day. But the politics had got tough, he said, and the path of least resistance was just to leave it open.

The path of least resistance. Not much hope and change there, now is there? As of today, December 4, 2016, according to Closeguantanamo.org, 60 prisoners are still held, 21 of whom have been recommended for release by high-level governmental review processes. Think about that for a moment. We have indeed compromised our most precious values, especially when we still detain men who have already been cleared for release.

And, how difficult would it be to close the place down, now, despite the political consequences? After all, what political consequences is the Obamamometer subject to now? Theres no election pending. Would Republicans hunt down released detainees and reopen the place? I dont think so.

I should mention here that the Obamamometer claims that he cant just close Gitmo down, because Congress wont let him. Does that claim stand up?

Let me quote from the work of another HLS 91 classmate, now distinguished professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Eric Posner (son of noted legal scholar and sitting judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Richard Posner) writing in Slate in an article entitled President Obama Can Shut Guantanamo Whenever He Wants:

[In a 2013 press conference], President Obama repeated that he wanted to shut Guantanamo Bay but blamed Congress for stopping him. They would not let us close it, he said. But thats wrong. President Obama can lawfully release the detainees if he wants to. Congress has made it difficult, but not impossible. Whatever hes saying, the president does not want to close the detention centerat least not yet.

Posner goes on to make an extended, careful argument about just how this could be achieved. But notice, three years later, this has not yet been done. Why not? Well, as Posner anticipated in that same article:

The real issue here, of course, is that Congress has given the president a convenient excuse for not doing something he doesnt really want to do anyway. The public wants to keep Guantanamo open. Shutting it would generate a serious backlash that enraged members of Congress would whip up. It also matters that President Obama does not object to indefinite detention, but to the island prison itself. That is why he wants to move detainees to a supermax in the United States, not release them. But doing so would make clear that his campaign promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay was an empty one. The place of indefinite detention would change; the system supporting it would not. He does better with headlines like Congress, rules keep Obama from closing Guantanamo Bay than with Obama moves detainees to U.S. soil where they will remain forever. The president will not shut Guantanamo, and the reason is politics, not law. If you dont like this choice, blame him.

Posners not the only law professor to suggest that the Obamamometer could close Guantanamo immediately, if he wished to do so. As Andy Worthington has written recently in Donald Trump and Guantanamo: What Do We Need to Know?

For NPR, Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University constitutional law professor and former Pentagon official, suggested Obama could still close Guantanamo without too much effort. If President Obama wanted to close Guantanamo tomorrow, he could do it, she said, explaining that he should simply ignore the ban Congress has imposed on sending any Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for detention or trial, as NPR described it. In Brooks words, If I were President Obama and I wanted to close Guantanamo, I would say, I regard this particular limitation as an unconstitutional infringement on my inherent powers as commander in chief. You know, thank you for your input, Congress, but Im doin it.

In another post in Slate, Legacy Time, Eric Posner concurs, resting also on the Obamamometers authority as commander-in-chief.

So, on the issue of Guantanamo, as of today, the Obamamometers legacy scores 1 for rhetoric and 0 for results leaving the prison still open for business, with prisoners still detained some of whom I emphasize have already been cleared for release as President-elect Trump prepares to take office. The same Trump whos said, as quoted in the Worthington link cited above, as saying at a campaign rally in Sparks, Nevada, This morning, I watched President Obama talking about Gitmo, right, Guantanamo Bay, which by the way, which by the way, we are keeping open. Which we are keeping open  and were gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me, were gonna load it up.

Pardoning Snowden

On the issue of pardoning Snowden,the Obamamometer also displays his core weasaly tendencies. The American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have launched a campaign to pardon Edward Snowden, following in the wake of the Snowden, the successful Oliver Stone film, and IMHO, the even better documentary, Citizenfour. This is a cause dear to many progressives but is also highly politically controversial. Indeed, in September, all members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence 9 Democrats and 13 Republicans sent a letter denouncing Snowden and recommending against a pardon:

We urge you not to pardon Edward Snowden, who perpetrated the largest and most damaging public disclosure of classified information in our nations history. If Mr. Snowden returns from Russia, where he fled in 2013, the U.S. government must hold him accountable for his actions. In a press conference on August 9, 2013, you said, l dont think Mr. Snowden was a patriot. On September 15, 2016, after an exhaustive two-year review, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence unanimously approved a final report entitled Review of Unauthorized Disclosures by Former NSA Contractor Edward Snowden. In short, we agree with you. Mr. Snowden is not a patriot. He is not a whistleblower. He is a criminal.

Now I happen to disagree with these statements, and instead believe that the Obamamometer should pardon Snowden. But I can admit that arguments can be made on the other side. The Obamamometer, however, doesnt take a principled stand and make those arguments. Instead, in a recent interview conducted by Der Spiegel in Germany where Snowden happens to be very popular the Obamamometer responded to the simple question Are you going to pardon Edward Snowden? by outright misrepresentation (while simultaneously trying to pander to progressive opinion):

I cant pardon somebody who hasnt gone before a court and presented themselves, so thats not something that I would comment on at this point. I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns. How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system. At the point at which Mr. Snowden wants to present himself before the legal authorities and make his arguments or have his lawyers make his arguments, then I think those issues come into play. Until that time, what Ive tried to suggest  both to the American people, but also to the world  is that we do have to balance this issue of privacy and security. Those who pretend that theres no balance that has to be struck and think we can take a 100-percent absolutist approach to protecting privacy dont recognize that governments are going to be under an enormous burden to prevent the kinds of terrorist acts that not only harm individuals, but also can distort our society and our politics in very dangerous ways.

The Obamamometer surely realizes this argument is nonsense. We sat in the same HLS constitutional law class together, were both among the many students who worked as research assistants during our time at HLS for the celebrated constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe, and the Obamamometer subsequently and famously taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

As Ive written earlier in Pardon Power: The Obamamometers Options, Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution says that the President shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. Allow me to quote from that earlier post:

The Presidents pardoning power is absolute. Pardoning decisions are not subject to judicial review, nor can any individual pardon be overturned by an act of Congress. The pardoning powers also unlimited as to offenses against the United States, so in theory, at least as a matter of law, a President could pardon someone for committing any offense against the United States ( I leave to one side the question of whether such an action would be politically possible). A President could also, at least in theory, pardon him or herself for anything except in cases of impeachment.

But the most crucial point for the sake of the Obamamometers false statement about his ability to pardon Snowden is as follows:

Its not necessary for someone to be charged or convicted of a crime against of the United States for the President to pardon that person. The most famous example of a President granting a pardon in a case where no indictment had been brought is President Gerald Fords September 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon shortly after he resigned the office of President.

In my earlier post on pardoning, I quote extensively from Proclamation 4311 Granting Power to Richard Nixon. And I encourage interested readers to follow that link to fill out their understanding of what the Obamamometers evidently forgotten.

So, on the issue of pardoning Snowden, not only is the Obamamometers rhetoric empty, but its factually incorrect leaving Snowdens fate open as President-elect Trump prepares to assume office. Snowdens fate looks highly threatened, as expressed in a piece in The Intercept entitled: Obama Refuses to Pardon Edward Snowden. Trumps New CIA Pick Wants Him Dead. And to make matters worse, some have mused that Vladimir Putin might be open to abandoning Snowden as part of a broader effort to repair relations with the United States.

Some legacy!
NASCAR details changes to Next Gen car in 2023 Listen as NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran discusses the ongoing testing and upgrades being done to the Next Gen car for the 2023 season.
The third book by popular Cahir author Ann Gardiner is set to be launched this Friday, December 9, in Kilcoran Lodge.

Called Dont Tell Anyone, this Ann's latest project is another evocative and nostalgic depiction of life in the 40s, 50s and 60s in South Tipperary.

In the stories in her new book Ann is remembering how people struggled to keep their personal affairs private but it was all in vain because somehow the neighbours always knew everything about each other!

One story tells of a quiet man from the mountain who wouldnt say boo to a goose until it came to protecting his only daughter and then he found his voice and courageously confronted a shocked parish priest.

Theres Paddy who went to have a look at the sea for the first time and had an unexpected adventure. Moll met her spoilt priest going to town on the bus but worried about how the community would view her notions of romance in the autumn of her life.

The funeral tells the story of an abusive marriage where everything is hidden from the neighbours. My Sweet Rose of Erin is the tale of the girl from the big house who unexpectedly has to spend a year in London in a poky hotel staff room and strikes up a lifelong friendship with Moira, a rough diamond, from Scotland.

There are a couple of emigration stories from the Forties when Irish people had no option but to cross the Atlantic; how Nellie found love in New York and Tess met a kind benefactor. Who is the mysterious tramp in the duck shed and what is his story? Will his family forgive him for the shame he brought on them all those years ago? Could you ever tell anyone that you saw a fairy in your own field? Who would believe you? In a Boys Dream his parents are shocked beyond disbelief when their son announces that he wants to join the circus. How can this be resolved? And tongues are certainly wagging when a couple in their sixties decide to take a vacation in America. The very idea! And what a culture shock for our elderly couple whod never been beyond the village not to mind getting into an aeroplane. Then theres eight year old Eoin who was warned to never go near the wood near his home but when his life is turned upside down by the unexpected arrival of a new baby sister he decides to disobey and meets a life changing stranger.

Ann, wife of accordionist, Bobby Gardiner of Burncourt, Cahir, and a former Clerical Officer with the Dublin Health Authority, has written an honest, insightful book. Ann, an Irelands Own writing award winner, hails from a very literary family.
New statistical methods have revealed what's in store for the U.S. in terms of storm intensity and size. Researchers from the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory predict that though storms in the U.S. will be more powerful, they will have a smaller radius.

In a research published in Journal of Climate, the new approach was used to identify and track storm features in both observational weather data and new high-resolution climate modeling simulations.

"Climate models all predict that storms will grow significantly more intense in the future, but that total precipitation will increase more mildly over what we see today," according to senior author Elisabeth Moyer. An associate professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, she is also a co-director of the Center for Robust Decision-Making on Climate and Energy Policy. "By developing new statistical methods that study the properties of individual rainstorms, we were able to detect changes in storm frequency, size, and duration that explain this mismatch."

Climate change has brought on increased temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns and has also resulted in more droughts and flooding. Most climate models predict that high levels of atmospheric carbon will increase precipitation intensity by an average of approximately 6 percent per degree temperature rise. More recently, high-resolution simulations have begun to approach weather-scale, but analytic approaches had not yet evolved to make use of that information and evaluated only aggregate shifts in precipitation patterns instead of individual storms.

Moyer and her team developed new methods to analyze rainstorms in observational data or high-resolution model projections. The researchers were able to study results of new ultra-high-resolution (12 km) simulations of U.S. climate performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting Model at Argonne National Laboratory.

According to their findings, individual storms covered smaller land areas during the summer. The same was observed for winter months, but with storms lessening in terms of frequency and duration.

"While our results apply to only one model simulation, we do know that the amount-intensity discrepancy is driven by pretty basic physics. Rainstorms in every model, and in the real world, will adjust in some way to let intensity grow by more than total rainfall does," Moyer shared. "Most people would have guessed that storms would change in frequency, not in size. We now have the tools at hand to evaluate these results across models and to check them against real-world changes, as well as to evaluate the performance of the models themselves."
Actions against climate change have been aggressive since the Paris Climate Change Agreement, and it has been reported that four of the biggest cities in the world would be banning diesel vehicles by 2025. These four include Paris, Mexico, Madrid, and Athens. Experts have claimed that it is one of the actions of major world leaders to improve air quality in their countries.

According to a report from BBC, the countries which would be banning diesel vehicles in the coming years have also expressed their intentions of giving incentives to individuals and organizations that will use alternative vehicles and transport. These "alternatives" may include but are not limited to bicycles and electric transportation.

It would be good to note that these four countries are not the first to officially ban diesel vehicles. For instance, New Delhi has been reported to suffer severe smog late of this year where people have been complaining of difficulty breathing and choking due to intense pollution. Times of India has reported that New Delhi has released an official ban on diesel vehicles which are older than ten years.

It would also be interesting to note that a number of European diesel vehicles are not available locally in the U.S. for the same reason that diesel vehicles can largely contribute to pollution. The Scientific American reported that statistically, the number of diesel vehicles in the U.S. is roughly less than 10 percent.

A number of prevailing diseases right now, especially respiratory illnesses, can be attributed to the growing problem of pollution. With greenhouse gas emissions as one of the largest problems in the world right now, societies all over the world are finding ways to reverse their effects. This will not only to benefit the future generations but also make sure that the people of today will be able to enjoy good air quality in their lifetime.
New research suggests that the Sahara desert used to be moist and green before it has turned into one of the largest deserts on Earth. An analysis and simulation of weather patterns has indicated that a majority of the Sahara desert has experienced very heavy and continuous rains more than a thousand years ago.

A study by Robert Korty and William Boos, professors from Yale University, has indicated that changes in the weather patterns in the region have turned the Sahara into what it is now. Their research has focused on the weather patterns from the Holocene era and it is through their computer simulations that the "Intertropical Convergence Zone" is not in the same place as it is today.

They have discovered that an atmospheric circulation known as the Hadley circulation has travelled too far up the equator during this time which has called severe storms and hurricanes in the area. An unusual shift in weather patterns, it has been known to bring about heavy rains in places that used to be quite dry.

Now it has descended downward to a place nearer the equator and has been sucking in humidity. Interestingly, where the Hadley circulation descends is where the temperatures are quite arid and the air very dry creating desert like conditions in sub-tropical regions like the Sahara as explained by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in Pennsylvania State University.

This finding can also be supported by archaeological finds that ancient fishing gear has been found underneath many of the uninhabitable places in the Sahara. There are also a number of fossil records that indicate that there have been fishes and other aquatic creatures that lived during this "Green Sahara" of the ancient.

A study from Cambridge and the University of London has found that the Sahara used to be covered by a dense river network which was divided into multiple branches. This condition has allowed the migration and movement of a number of aquatic species from neighboring areas into many of the oases found in the region.
Scientists have been trying to figure out the age of the universe and have come to the conclusion that the Earth is aging. On top of that, it has been recorded from observations of different galaxies that the universe may be starting to die.

A number of research studies have explored the concept of the "aging universe." With no absolute idea of when the universe began, scientists are afraid of what may come in the event that the universe will die.

According to a report from Express UK, energy levels in the universe are dipping. More than a hundred galaxies have been surveyed, and "the levels of energy being generated are not even half of what it was two billion years ago.

They have also found that the rate for which galaxies create new stars is slower. An interview of the U.S. National Public Radio with a number of scientists noted that this expected decline in the life of the universe may last for as long as 10 billion years, but no specific number can really be calculated so far.

It is without a doubt that the aging of the universe could be seen even in our own sun that has been estimated to reduce its energy more than a thousand years from now. As the universe ages, it starts to cool down. The temperature of the coldest white dwarfs, or dead stars, is how scientists approximate the age of the universe. As more and more of these white dwarfs are discovered, it gives scientists an idea of how old the universe truly is.

NASA has reported that even though the universe has been marked as an aging universe, it is without a doubt that new galaxies are still being formed. Devices are used to scan large portions of the sky, and they could detect new sources of ultraviolet wavelengths.
New innovations in technology have improved crime scene investigation. Probably one of the most innovative yet would be the use of face recognition technology to identify and determine whether or not a suspect is a criminal. However, experts are not quite keen on the criminal face recognition technology and are questioning its accuracy.

Similar to most kinds of biometric database, face recognition technology is used to scan and record data of not only criminals but normal residents as well. A research from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China has published a system that could allegedly determine whether or not a scanned photo belongs to a criminal.

According to CNN, the FBI was able to launch a similar system of face recognition technology in 2015 which was used to ease their photo searches on a daily basis. The aim of this is not to necessarily determine whether the photo uploaded belonged to a criminal but to just minimize the number of photos with potentially similar characteristics of the scanned face.

A report from Fortune Magazine has explained that face recognition systems usually take in the shape of the face or the nose to match with an existing database. On the other hand, there are newer technologies such as machine learning systems that "teach" devices to recognize objects and faces more generally. This is what social media like Facebook uses to create automatized videos and slides.

The study has raised very controversial issues as experts have claimed that there is a possibility of risking normal people's lives with this technology. Since it is not fully accurate, there might be tendencies of suspecting the wrong person.

Furthermore, private companies can acquire these kinds of technology to create limitations or concentrations to their target market. Age, gender, and race determination apps could potentially create discrimination.

As the power of technology has increased such as in this criminal face recognition system, experts have noted that there must be a more stringent policy with regards to its proper use. This is yet what local governments are yet to find.
Decades after Queen Nefertari's, spouse of Pharaoh Ramses II, royal tomb was discovered in 1904 in Egypt's Valley of the Queens, scientists have finally identified that one of the remains found on the tomb, a pair of legs, belonged to the queen herself.

According to the study published in the journal PLOS ONE, Queen Nefetari's royal tomb was looted even before Ernesto Schiaparelli discovered it in 1904. In the royal tomb, archeologists found colorful wall paintings as well as a pair of sandals and leg bones.

To determine if the mummified legs belong to Queen Nefertari, scientists conducted various techniques and processes such as x-rays, chemical analysis, radiocarbon dating, genetics, paleopathology, Egyptology, etc. The study notes that this is the first ever multidisciplinary investigation performed on the mummified legs.

Results showed that the mummified legs belonged to Queen Nefertari. The tests also revealed that the legs belonged to a woman who was about five feet and four inches tall, had mild athritis and could be around 40 to 60 years old when she died, FOX News reports. The study also said the embalming materials that were used to mummify the legs coincide with the traditions of Ramesside mummification.

The expertise that had gone into that mummification -- even judging from the legs -- the care, the attention, the wrapping, the materials employed; they are strongly suggestive someone of incredibly high status, Joann Fletcher, co-author of the study, told The Guardian.

Queen Nefertari was the favorite Royal Consort of Pharaoh Ramses II. She was thought to have died in 1250 B.C. and was known for her beauty.

[Her] main role [was] to be the decorative bystander when Ramses was flexing his pharaonic muscles at public events, and she was there as the eye candy. But really, [she was] a striking woman who I think exerted a quiet power behind the throne," Fletcher said.
Alec Baldwins Donald Trump couldnt focus in a meeting with his top advisors  his Twitter finger was itchy.

In this weeks "Saturday Night Live" cold open, Trump is seen in a meeting with Kellyanne Conway, Mike Pence and various other top advisors, all of whom try in vain to brief the president-elect on Syria. But Trump could not stop gleefully, compulsively retweeting his social media fans.

I just retweeted the best tweet. Wow. What a great, smart tweet! he announces.

Theres a reason why Donald tweets so much, offers Kate McKinnons Kellyanne Conway. He does it to distract the media from his business conflicts  and all the scary people in his cabinet.

It's a theory that has taken hold as the president-elect continues to take to Twitter, sometimes at odd hours, to throw shade on his rivals and perceived nemeses. Indeed, after the episode aired Saturday night, the real Trump registered his disapproval of the show on social media.

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

Baldwin fired back on Twitter, jabbing Trump for not releasing his tax return.

...@realDonaldTrump



Release your tax returns and I'll stop.

Ha  HABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 4, 2016

The cold open continued with Trump's aides toughening their stance after the president-elect breaks his promise to buckle down and get to work by retweeting yet another supporter.

Not to worry, Trump says. Ive gotten a lot done so far. I was elected 25 days ago, and already unemployment is at a nine-year low, millions and millions of people have health care and Osama bin Laden is dead, he explains, taking credit for the work of the Obama administration.

Even when Baldwin's Trump is not distracted by Twitter, he finds something else to distract him.

Whats that at the end of the table? he asks. Is that the picture of me that I hate? The one the press always uses where I look so ugly? One of Trumps many complaints of the news media is that they select unflattering photographs of him to use in reports.

Actually, its a plate of mashed potatoes, Conway tells him.

Alright, Trump relents. You have my undivided attention.

But, another 10 seconds later, he's at it again.

"SNL" also made comedy out of recent Hillary Clinton sightings in the woods of upstate New York: intrepid Hillary hunters bait her to the edge of the treeline with news articles on the recount efforts under way in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Weekend Update touched on Trump as well, and also covered the ongoing Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the Kellogg company dropping its association with website Breitbart.com and a new ban on smoking in New York public housing.

Host Emma Stone revisited a long-lost love in her monologue.

Shawn Mendes performed two songs.
Cirque du Soleil performers will return to the stage Saturday night four days after a company technician died before a scheduled performance at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

Oliver Rochette, who was later identified as the son of one of Cirque du Soleil's founders, died Tuesday night during set-up of the company's show "Luzia," marking the third time since 2009 that an emloyee affiliated with the worldwide acrobatic show died on the job.

Following the fatality, Cirque du Soleil cancelled multiple shows scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. A performance scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Saturday was also cancelled, but the 8 p.m. show is a go, the company announced Saturday.

"Cirque du Soleil wishes to thank fans, friends, family members, the San Francisco community and the entire Cirque du Soleil family from around the world for their love and support through these difficult times," the company wrote in statement.

Rochette was struck by a lift about 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday at the AT&T Park show in Lot A at Mission Rock and Third Street. He was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. He died later.

Cal-OSHA has six months to investigate the death. Cal-OSHA's investigation consists of checks and tests on safety equipment and work equipment as well as ensuring workplace conditions met all safety standards.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration records, Cirque du Soleil has four violations, including one death, cited in the last five years within the United States.

The most notable was on June 29, 2013, when Sarah Guillot-Guyard died during a show in Las Vegas. She had fallen 94 feet in front of spectators after the wire attached to her safety harness shredded during the production of "Ka." She was the second death during a Cirque show.

The first person to die on Cirque's watch was in 2009, the Guardian reported, when Ukrainian acrobat Oleksandr Zhurov, 24, died during a Montreal, Quebec rehearsal.

And just three days ago in Brisbane, Australia, acrobat Lisa Skinner was hospitalized, when she lost her grip on a ring during a "Kooza" performance, according to Courier Mail.

The other U.S. violations OSHA has on record occurred in Florida in October, and two others in Nevada, in 2013 and 2014.

Cirque du Soleil had zero violations in California over the last five years, according to OSHA records.
As rescue crews and authorities continue to sift through the wreckage from a deadly Oakland warehouse fire, family members and friends wait anxiously to find out the fate of their missing loved ones.

At least 24 people died and dozens remain unaccounted for after flames broke out late Friday inside the "Ghost Ship" warehouse located in East Oakland, according to officials.

Below is a confirmed list of missing persons, according to family members or friends.

Alex Vega. Vega was attending a music event at the "Ghost Ship" building with Michela Angelina Gregory, his girlfriend, according to Daniel Vega, Alex Vega's older brother.

Manuel Vega/Instagram

Michela Angelina Gregory. Gregory was inside the "Ghost Ship" building attending a music event with Alex Vega, her boyfriend, according to Daniel Vega.

Manuel Vega/Instagram

Pete Wadsworth. Wadsworth reportedly lives on the first floor of the "Ghost Ship" building, according to a friend.

Pete Wadsworth/Facebook

Jennifer Kiyomi Tanouye. Tanouye was reportedly doing nail art inside the "Ghost Ship" building when the fire ignited, according to a friend.

Jennifer Kiyomi Tanouye/Facebook

Ara Jo. Jo was believed to have been inside the "Ghost Ship" building when the blaze broke out, according to her family. Having not received any information about her location, Jo's family is struggling to remain hopeful.

Ara Jo/Facebook

Alex Frantz Ghassan. Ghassan, a budding director, posted a video to his Instagram account of what appears to be a cluttered room inside of the "Ghost Ship" building before flames ripped through the structure. Comments on the post are clamoring for Ghassan to let people know that he is OK, but he has not responded.

Alex Ghassan/Instagram

Officials with the University of California, Berkeley confirmed Sunday that "members of the Berkeley campus community" are also among the missing.
The nation's largest mall is hosting its first-ever black Santa Claus this weekend.

The Star-Tribune reports the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis hired Larry Jefferson to play Kris Kringle from Thursday to Sunday as part of its Santa Experience.

Santa Experience co-owner Landon Luther says they "want Santa to be for everyone, period." With that in mind, he tells the newspaper he launched a nationwide search for a diverse Santa and found Jefferson at a Santa convention in Branson, Missouri, over the summer. He was the only black Santa among the 1,000 impersonators in attendance.

Jefferson tells WCCO-TV that playing jolly old Saint Nick is "no big deal" to him, saying "I'm still Santa, I just happen to be a Santa of color."

Jefferson will return home to play Santa in the Dallas-area after Sunday.
An abandoned factory in Derby was so heavily damaged by fire Sunday morning that the building will be torn down, city officials said.

Fire crews were called to the factory on Caroline Street around 5:15 a.m. When they arrived the building was fully engulfed in flames.

Firefighters said the roof caved in and the top floors collapsed.

The city said the damage was so extensive the building can no longer safely stand on its own and could collapse at any time. The mayor told NBC Connecticut shes asked the state fire marshal to give the city permission to demolish the building. The factory is over 100 years old.

The chief has notified us the building is in imminent danger of collapsing. The roof is down the second floor is gone, said Derby Building Official Carlo Sarmiento.

The state of the building is making it difficult for officials to determine the cause of the fire, as its not safe for investigators to go very far inside. The state fire marshal said hell do the best he can to discover the cause.

This is not the first time the factory caught fire.

About a month or so ago there was a fire in there. The building is abandoned. So, we dont know if there was people living in it or not, but they inspected the building the last time, said Carmen DiCenso, Board of Alders President.

Fire officials continue to investigate.
There may be a Grinch in West Hartford.

One family fears someone snuck around their home and snipped their beloved Christmas lights.

Strung around a West Hartford home on Colony Road, classic Christmas lights have been a cherished holiday decoration for the Morris family.

Theyre old-fashion, gum drop looking lights and so I bought tons of them at the time, said Dawn Morris.

Morris bought the Olive the Other Reindeer Lights 16 years ago and they now require a hunt just to find replacement bulbs.

Theyve survived the familys four moves and are hung to the delight of the family and neighbors each year. So Morris was devastated when she came out Sunday morning and realized this morning something was wrong with them.

I was truly heartbroken. It sounds crazy but I was trying not to cry because Im so fond of them, she said.

Pictures showed the cuts to two of the strands of lights. Morris told NBC Connecticut while theres a possibility a rodent was responsible, a contractor told her the clean cuts looked deliberate.

The vandalism was reported to police, who agreed someone likely purposefully did this. Sunday the wires were repaired and the family is overwhelmed by the support of the community, showing the good even when things appear to have gone dark.

My hope is everything stays lit and we dont have any more issues and we can enjoy these, Morris said.

Morris said police assured her they would be keeping an eye out during their patrols. NBC Connecticut contacted police but said they were unable to comment.
Sixteen-year-olds Markos and Tamrat Bogale stepped off a plane into America for the first time this weekend; hoping their stay in North Texas will prove life-changing.

The twin brothers from Ethiopia have long shared a common problem: severe cases of scoliosis.

Markos spine curves about 60 percent while brother Tamrat lives with a 120 percent curve that leaves him unable to stand up straight.

In Ethiopia, the funds and resources to fix that kind of disorder are scarce, but theyre finding renewed hope in the Lone Star State.

During a pilgrimage to the African country this year, Dr. Theodore Belanger from the Texas Back Institute met the boys and examined their situation.

Through a partnership with Medical Center Plano, Dr. Belanger and his staff at the institute offered to take on the brothers cases and to give them the care needed free of charge.

So the Bogales made the trip to town where they will live with Belangers Chief Development Officer Cheryl Zapata and her family for several months while they undergo the multiple surgeries and long recoveries required to fix their backs.

Its beautiful, said Tamrat about seeing America for the first time.

The twins took in their first American church experience Sunday at Prairie Creek Baptist in Plano as they work to learn more of the English language and more about the American culture.

Zapata said the boys are shy as they immerse in the new place, but clearly excited and grateful for the journey they are about to take.

They will continue evaluations at the Texas Back Institute this week and then surgeries will be scheduled at Medical Center Plano.
Loved ones of those unaccounted for in the massive Oakland warehouse fire that broke out Friday night took to Facebook Saturday morning to search for them.

Those who knew the nine killed in the fire, posted condolence messages, some from as far away as New Orleans and Montreal.

According to an event page created on Facebook, Los Angeles-based Golden Donna was scheduled to perform at a party at the warehouse on 1305 31st Ave. in Oakland, as part of the 100% Silk 2016 West Coast Tour from 9 p.m. Friday to 4 a.m. Saturday.

Oakland Police Deaprtment spokesperson Johnna Watson said at a press conference the party was attended by young people, most of them in their twenties. Attendees included people from outside the United States, she said. Officials made a plea to the public to remember any distinguising features about those missing, such as a tattoo, that would help to identify them.

The fire broke out at 11:24 p.m., Alameda County fire officials said, adding that its estimated dozens were still inside the building when it was engulfed in flames.

On the event Facebook page, people were leaving messages asking about the safety of those missing, as well as notes for those who had lost their lives.

"I'm so sorry to those that lost their lives," Linda Parrett Ryan wrote. "Condolences to their family and friends. This is heart breaking."

San Francisco resident David Marks created a Google document list with names of people still missing, adding phone numbers, Facebook profile links and distinguishing characteristics such as tattoos and piercings to aid in the search.

PLEASE comment if you know 100% if any of these people are safe, he wrote. If you DONT see a name here you KNOW to be missing tell us please. And please only comment here if you know something for sure.

Families, friends take to Facebook to search for those missing in Oakland warehouse fire. https://t.co/x27q6y5XXN pic.twitter.com/sHJcQ4X52d  NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) December 3, 2016

A Fire in Oakland Safety Check Facebook page has also been created so those who were in the area could also mark themselves safe.

Facebook user Sam Machado wrote that her cousin Madison Machado had attended the party last night, but had yet to let them know she was safe.

We are the parents of Joey (Joseph) Matlock aka Joey Casio. We were just alerted to this tragedy and that Joey's name is on the missing person list. If anyone has any information about Joey, please contact us. Praying..., wrote Kathe and John Matloc.

Prayers for the lost prayers for the survivors, wrote Nathan Nelson

Hopes and prayers out for those missing... and also for all the families and friends worried about loved ones... This is awful news, I hope you all can find some solace in these dark times, wrote Lucas Seymour-Willey

Oakland police said anyone trying to get information about people missing in the fire should contact the Alameda County Sheriffs Coroners Bureau at (510)-382-3000.

On social media, people referred to the building as the Oakland Ghost Ship, an artist's conclave. According to the Oakland Ghost Ship Tumblr page, the building is home to Max Ohrs Deeper Magic Tattoo Studio.



The building's name has nothing to do with the San Francisco Halloween Ghost Ship party, organizers for that event said.

City of Oakland property records show multiple complaints have been filed against the property's owner, one most recently as Nov. 14 for "housing habitability," involving an illegal interior building structure. City officials were in the process of investigating the complaint when the fire broke out.

A complaint was filed on Nov. 13 for garbage piling up on the property, as well as trash left on the sidewalk, some of which was reportedly hazardous. Records show previous complaints for blight on property as well.

Property records indicated the building is owned by a trust managed by Chor N. Ng of Oakland.[[404490006, C]]
Gov. Jerry Brown and other state officials issued statements of condolences Saturday after a warehouse fire in Oakland, California, left at least nine people dead, with the possibility of the death toll rising to 40.

Brown, the former mayor of Oakland, said in a statement that he and his wife, Anne, were saddened to hear about the deadly blaze.

In the statement Saturday he said: "Our thoughts are with the entire city in this difficult time and we extend our condolences to the family and friends of those lost."

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom also took to Twitter to send his thoughts to the Oakland community and thank first responders for "risking their lives to save others."

State Attorney General and U.S. Sen.-elect Kamala Harris also tweeted her reaction Saturday, saying, "Sending strength and prayers to Oakland for those lost and suffering. A terrible, terrible tragedy."

Deadly Fire Rips Through Converted Warehouse in Oakland

State Assemblyman Rob Bonta issued a statement via Facebook and tweeted it. Bonta, who represents the 18th district, which includes Oakland, offered his condolences to the victims and their families.

"As a strong Oakland community, I know we will come together to help and console our friends and neighbors," Bonta said in the statement. "My office stands ready to help in any way. I ask everyone to take a moment in your own way to remember these victims and support their families."

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a separate statement calling the fire "an immense tragedy."

Authorities say they fear up to 40 people might have died in the fire at a warehouse converted into artist studios that was hosting an electronic dance party.

Rescue crews were combing through wreckage and still trying to access parts of the warehouse Saturday.
The site of one of the deadliest fires in Oakland that took away at least 30 lives during a night of music is being described as a twisted "labyrinth" jam-packed with clutter  and by some accounts, a "tinderbox" waiting to go up in flames.

Photographs from the Tumblr page of the warehouse, known as the "Oakland Ghost Ship," depict a maze-like structure, filled to the brim with wooden furniture, couches, colorful drapery, tapestries, Persian rugs, antiques and a host of other relics stacked floor-to-ceiling in several rooms. Photos also showed old pianos on the floor and promotions for weekly DJ events. A YouTube video shows an intimate performance inside the Ghost Ship, with young people dancing to electronic music.

Photos: Inside the Oakland 'Ghost Ship' Warehouse Building Before It Caught Fire

"Everything was made of wood," said Oakland resident Darrell Ortis who visited the warehouse last year. He described the warehouse as having one staircase constructed out of rickety and unstable pieces of timber.

The Ghost Ship was also known as Satya Yuga, and was believed to be the home to an artists' collective. Various rooms throughout the two-story structure housed a collective of sculptures, musical instruments and acting props.

A Facebook book post by Derrick Ion, believed to be the leader of the yoga and arts collective, is under fire, with critics calling him out for lamenting over his own loss rather than the lives of those lost in the fire.

"Are you kidding? People died and you are lamenting you are poor," one Facebook user commented.

"Confirmed. Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound its as if I have awoken from a dream filled with opulence and hope to be standing now in poverty of self worth," Ion wrote on his Facebook page at 2 a.m. Saturday.

His wife Micah Allison declined to talk to the Los Angeles Times about the living conditions in the house.

In a May 2014 Facebook post, Allison described the Ghost Ship as "the true crossroads of culture and revolution in Oakland."

"Within the walls of the most beautiful temple living tribute tied bound nailed erected and held together with love and blood. It is the center of the universe," she wrote. Allison describes herself as "Mother Superior" of Satya Yoga on her Facebook profile.

Satya Yuga's Facebook profile photo is that of Kali, the goddess of destruction in Indian mythology. "An unprecedented fusion of earth home bomb bunker helter skelter spelunker shelters and indonesian straw huts rolling into valleys and down alleys," is how Satya Yuga describes itself on its Facebook page. At least one Facebook user has demanded the page be taken down in light of what happened.

In Hinduism, Yuga is an era, within a four-age cycle, with a complete Yuga starting with Satya.

A one-star Yelp review for the collective by Oakland resident Alan R. detailed a discrepancy with Ion over a booking fee of an event in 2015. 'Owner Derick Ion should not be trusted," the review said. The same reviewer described the Ghost Ship as a "death trap" in a Yellow Pages review. "One incident, and anybody unfortunate enough to be inside will be trapped in a mountain of trash and improvised construction," the review said.

People have described the Oakland warehouse as a labyrinth. Laura Malpert reports.

Officials are under the impression that the building's residents were living illegally in the structure, although it was permitted for use only as a warehouse.

Investigators were also unable to locate smoke alarms or sprinklers inside the now-caved in building located at 1315 31st Avenue, Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said.

"One of the issues," Reed said, was that the building had only "one way up and down from the second floor and its my understanding that stairwell was kind of like a makeshift, that they put it together with pallets."

Friday night's blaze is not the first time the building has been under the spotlight. The Oakland Planning and Building Department launched an investigation into the habitability of the warehouse less than a month ago, citing an "illegal interior building structure."

Property records show the warehouse is owned by a trust created by Chor N Ng. Records show Ng, either individually or through the trust, also owns more than a dozen other buildings in Oakland, San Francisco and Santa Clara.

On Saturday, the building owners had no comment, saying: "I'm sorry but we do not have any comment, we are also trying to figure out what's going on like everyone else."[[404620625, C]]
A man drove a live, practice aerial bomb he found behind a motor home to a San Diego-area fire station, prompting a lengthy response from Bomb Squad investigators.

The person discovered the device in a gym bag behind a nearby motor home at approximately 11:30 a.m. Sunday, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue (SDFD) Captain Joe Amador.

Amador said the man got scared and called his girlfriend, and then decided to bring it to Fire Station 23, located at 2190 Comstock Street in San Diego's Linda Vista neighborhood.

On his drive, he called 911 and told them he was bringing the device to the station.

Firefighters were waiting for the man when he arrived at the station, Amador said.

He got out of the car with the duffel bag. Firefighters told him to put them item down, but the man was scared the bomb would go off, Amador said. He eventually went back to his car.

Bomb Squad investigators responded and asessed the device. They determined it was a five-pound live, practice aerial with a small spotting charge, meaning it could have gone off.

The device was collected by the Bomb Squad.

Amador said the issue was resolved and all units were cleared.

No other information was immediately available.
A man suspected in the murder of a Huntington Beach mother was taken into custody in Oregon Saturday night, police confirmed.

Jason Becher, 41, was arrested days after the mother of three was found dead inside a Huntington Beach home Friday, Huntington Beach police said.

Becher had a dating relationship with the victim, identified as Marylou Sarkissian by police.

Sarkissian was found dead about 1 p.m. after a friend of Becher asked police to conduct a welfare check at the woman's home in the 9300 block of Litchfield Drive based on comments that Becker had allegedly made, according to Huntington Beach Police Department Public Information Officer Jennifer Marlatt.

The woman's oldest son was at home at the time and assumed she just wasn't home, authorities said. He continued playing video games until police knocked on his door to conduct a welfare check at the house, where his mother was found dead.

Sarkissian had a restraining order against Becher, neighbors said.

Becher was last seen in white 2015 four-door Lexus ES350 with the California license plate, according to Marlatt. Police initially believed Becher was heading to the Anaheim area or Las Vegas.

When Becher was arrested, the Lexus was not found.

It was unclear if she and Becher lived together before the death.
The 85th annual procession honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Los Angeles area's oldest religious procession, will be held Sunday in East Los Angeles and Monterey Park.

The mile-long procession will begin at 10:30 a.m. at the corner of Cesar Chavez Avenue and Ford Boulevard in East Los Angeles and will feature floats, equestrian groups, mariachis and indigenous dancers. Awards will be given to the three floats that most creatively depict the procession's theme, "Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protector of Family.'"

The procession will also include Catholic school students escorting La Peregrina, an exact digital reproduction of the pilgrim image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City's Basilica.

The procession is the culmination of the pilgrimage of the images of the Virgin of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego to more than 50 parishes and detention centers in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The pilgrimage began in September with the first visit to St. Catherine of Alexandria Church on Santa Catalina Island.

The procession was established by Mexican Catholics who fled persecution by the Mexican government, according to Adrian Marquez Alarcon, the director of media relations for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The procession will be followed at 1 p.m. by an outdoor mass at Weingart Stadium at East Los Angeles College celebrated by Archbishop Jose H. Gomez with priests from throughout the archdiocese. More than 30,000 people are expected to attend, Marquez Alarcon said.

This year is the 485th anniversary when the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to St. Juan Diego in 1531, leaving her image on his cloak. The image has been a symbol of unity, peace, compassion and hope for people around the world.
Officials are praising 911 dispatchers who used cellphone data and their own intelligence to help first responders save a mans life.

A dispatcher working at the 911 Center on Middletown Road in Media, Pennsylvania received a call Friday at 8:47 a.m. from a disoriented man suffering from dementia who had fallen in his living room and needed medical help. The caller was unable to tell the dispatcher where he lived however.

The dispatcher kept the man on the phone while other dispatchers used GIS and cellphone data to determine the general area where the victim lived. The centers fireboard team determined the call was from Chester City, Delaware County.

Responding police officers and EMS arrived in the area but were unable to find the man. The dispatchers then used sirens from the emergency vehicles to guide the rescuers closer to the victim.

By keeping him on the line we made the suggestion that maybe we can use their sirens in their vehicles or their air horns, said Mike McGinley, a 911 dispatcher. If we could hear them in the background we might be able to pinpoint this gentlemans address.

The first responders then went door to door and knocked on each house until they eventually found the victims home. They then forced themselves inside the home at 9:06 a.m. and found the man. He was taken to the hospital where he is recovering and doing well.

Officials say the incident was an example of how technology, training and compassion came together to save a life.




Loved ones mourned a woman who died after suspects who were fleeing police crashed into her vehicle.

A large crowd gathered at the home of Carol Isom, 55, on the 200 block of 53rd Street in West Philadelphia Saturday night to remember the wife, mother and grandmother of five. Loved ones describe her as a woman of faith who loved her family.

"[She] loved her family most of all," said Isom's daughter Jessica Isom. "Family was most definitely important to her. I still can't believe she's gone. It's like a dream I can't wake up from."

Isom will be laid to rest on December 10 which would have been her 56th birthday.

Two suspects slammed into 55-year-old Carol Isoms car while trying to escape from police on Wednesday night. Isom died at the hospital later that night. NBC10s Rosemary Connors has the newest developments on the investigation.

Isom left her home Wednesday night to go to a nearby store and was sitting in her car at 52nd and Locust streets around 7:15 p.m. Wednesday when her vehicle was struck by a gray Nissan. Police say the two men inside the Nissan had fled the scene at 48th Street and Westminster Avenue when officers responding to a report of gunshots tried to stop them.

Isom's car was one of four that was struck by the Nissan. Isom was taken to Penn-Presbyterian Hospital where she was pronounced dead a short time later.

The two suspects, who police say are siblings, tried to flee the scene after the crash but were apprehended by responding officers, police said.

NBC10 obtained exclusive surveillance video of the aftermath of the crash. In the video a man emerges from the smoke and takes off his jacket. An officer then rushes in and pins him against a truck. Another officer then moves the man to the ground and appears to place handcuffs on him. More officers join and the man is led away. [[403915746, C]]

The suspects were taken into police custody after they were treated and released at Penn-Presbyterian Hospital. Police said they recovered a gun as well crack cocaine from the suspects.

"There was a 9mm extended magazine in the Nissan," said Philadelphia Police Lt. Ray Evers. "The Nissan has strike marks. So we know [there was a] gun battle. Gun fight."

A 27-year-old man who was suffering from gunshot wounds to his left arm and wrist also walked into Mercy Hospital around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Investigators believe the man is associated with the two suspects and that he was shot during the incident at 4800 Westminster Avenue.

The two suspects are expected to be charged with fleeing and eluding law enforcement, homicide by vehicle, aggravated assault and other related offenses.

"I just can't begin to tell you how saddened we are by the loss of life," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.

Commissioner Ross said the department would review the incident and that it appeared the officers did the right thing by calling in the pursuit.
Protesters celebrated a major victory in their push to reroute the Dakota Access oil pipeline away from a tribal water source but pledged to remain camped on federal land in North Dakota anyway, despite Monday's government deadline to leave.

Hundreds of people at the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, encampment cheered and chanted "mni wichoni"  "water is life" in Lakota Sioux  after the Army Corps of Engineers refused Sunday to grant the company permission to extend the pipeline beneath a Missouri River reservoir.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters argue that extending the project beneath Lake Oahe would threaten the tribe's water source and cultural sites. The segment is the last major sticking point for the four-state, $3.8 billion project.

"The whole world is watching," said Miles Allard, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux. "I'm telling all our people to stand up and not to leave until this is over."

Despite the deadline, authorities say they won't forcibly remove the protesters.

The company constructing the pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, released a statement Sunday night slamming the Army Corps' decision as politically motivated and alleging that President Obama's administration was determined to delay the matter until he leaves office.

"The White House's directive today to the Corps for further delay is just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favor of currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency," the company said.

President-elect Donald Trump, a pipeline supporter who has reportedly invested in both Energy Transfer Partners and another company involved with the pipeline, will take office in January, although it wasn't immediately clear what steps his administration would be able to take to reverse the Army Corps' latest decision or how quickly that could happen.

Industry group the MAIN Coalition, which is made up of agriculture, business and labor entities that benefit from Midwest infrastructure projects, said it hoped Trump would take action.

That uncertainty, Allard said, is part of the reason the protesters won't leave.

"We don't know what Trump is going to do," Allard said.

Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said in a news release that her decision was based on the need to "explore alternate routes" for the pipeline's crossing. Her full decision doesn't rule out that it could cross under the reservoir or north of Bismarck.

"Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it's clear that there's more work to do," Darcy said. "The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing."

North Dakota's leaders criticized the decision, with Gov. Jack Dalrymple calling it a "serious mistake" that "prolongs the dangerous situation" of having several hundred protesters who are camped out on federal land during cold, wintry weather. U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer said it's a "very chilling signal" for the future of infrastructure in the United States.

"Im encouraged we will restore law and order next month, when we get a president who will not thumb his nose at the rule of law," Cramer said in a statement to Politico.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Sunday that the Department of Justice will "continue to monitor the situation" and stands "ready to provide resources to help all those who can play a constructive role in easing tensions."

"The safety of everyone in the area - law enforcement officers, residents and protesters alike - continues to be our foremost concern," she added.

Carla Youngbear of the Meskwaki Potawatomi tribe made her third trip from central Kansas to be at the protest site.

"I have grandchildren, and I'm going to have great grandchildren," she said. "They need water. Water is why I'm here."

Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault said Monday that the tribe "will be forever grateful to the Obama administration" for the Army Corps of Engineers' decision.

Archambault said the Corps' decision "took tremendous courage" and he hoped Energy Transfer Partners, and the incoming Trump administration will respect that decision.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, whose department has done much of the policing for the protests, said that "local law enforcement does not have an opinion" on the easement and that his department will continue to "enforce the law."

U.S. Secretary for the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement that the Corps' "thoughtful approach ... ensures that there will be an in-depth evaluation of alternative routes for the pipeline and a closer look at potential impacts."

Earlier Sunday, an organizer with Veterans Stand for Standing Rock said tribal elders had asked the military veterans not to have confrontations with law enforcement officials, adding the group is there to help out those who've dug in against the project.

About 250 veterans gathered about a mile from the main camp for a meeting with organizer Wes Clark Jr., the son of former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark. The group had said about 2,000 veterans were coming, but it wasn't clear how many actually arrived.

"We have been asked by the elders not to do direct action," Wes Clark Jr. said. He added that the National Guard and law enforcement have armored vehicles and are armed, warning: "If we come forward, they will attack us."

Instead, he told the veterans, "If you see someone who needs help, help them out."

Some veterans will take part in a prayer ceremony Monday, during which they'll apologize for historical detrimental conduct by the military toward Native Americans and ask for forgiveness, Clark said. He also called the veterans' presence "about right and wrong and peace and love."

Authorities moved a blockade from the north end of the Backwater Bridge with the conditions that protesters stay south of it and come there only if there is a prearranged meeting. Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in the late October conflict that led to several people being hurt, including a serious arm injury.

"That heavy presence is gone now and I really hope in this de-escalation they'll see that, and in good faith . the leadership in those camps will start squashing the violent factions," Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said in a statement, reiterating that any violation will "will result in their arrest."

Steven Perry, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran who's a member of the Little Traverse Bay band of Odawa Indians in Michigan, spoke of one of the protesters' main concerns: that the pipeline could pollute drinking water. "This is not just a native issue," he said, "This is an issue for everyone."
Its the holidays, so why not spread a little cheer -- or even a little charity? On Friday, Dec. 16, from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., Til-Two Club will do just that whilst simultaneously ramping up the rowdy factor. Join the Fictitious Dishes, Gloomsday, Hocus and DJ Heather Hardcore for a moshable show to support Second Chance San Diego, a nonprofit that helps move youths and adults from poverty to self-sufficiency.

Not only will the show be rad, but all proceeds from the affordable $8 cover will go to Second Chance. And guess what? If you dont have cash, you can bring a pack of socks, a pack of underwear or two full-sized hygiene products (toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, deodorant, conditioner, lotion, etc.) instead!

"We started thinking about this back in October, actually. We have never organized anything like this, and since we've all been in San Diego bands for a while, we thought it would be cool to plan an event that would help some people out," said Fictitious Dishes' Taryn Popplewell. "Plus, it's an excuse to get some rad bands together and drink beer," she added.

Its no secret that musics sorta our thing, but if you need a little more sensory stimulation and even more reasons to go, local artist Luna Norte will be selling handmade jewelry and Donut Panic will be providing some sweet, doughy goodness as well. I'm sure you can also expect a few holiday jams worked into the mix.

For most, music and art just dont pay the bills, so the fact that all artist proceeds will go to benefit Second Chance speaks volumes about the care and dedication going into this event.

"We chose to support Second Chance with this show because their efforts directly help San Diegans who are working to get back on their feet and return to society as productive members. Sometimes people just need a little help and guidance to get there," Popplewell said.

So go on, join the event, check out the Second Chance program and support local artists as they spread cheer and charity with job readiness, sober living housing, re-entry services and good music.

Doesnt everybody deserve a second chance?

The Fictitious Dishes, Gloomsday, Hocus and DJ Heather Hardcore get rowdy for the Second Chance San Diego benefit show at Til-Two Club on Friday, Dec. 16.

Rutger Rosenborg was almost a Stanford neuroscientist before he formed Ed Ghost Tucker. He now plays in the Lulls and makes music on his own when he's not writing. Follow his updates on Facebook or contact him directly.
An Encinitas man is rallying the community to gather donations for Haitian refugees who are living in camps in Tijuana.

Orthodontist Torin Chenard is preparing for his third trip to take donations of food and blankets to one of the shelters at a Tijuana church, as part of a blanket and food drive he calls Bussin Blankets to Baja. He delivers the donations in his VW bus.

The response was just amazing, Dr. Chenard told NBC7. Our patients went to Costco they went to Walmart they bought new blankets. The kids have got really involved in it.

He says hes already delivered 26 large bags filled with hundreds of donated blankets and sheets, as well as food.

Torin Chenard

They say they really want rice, beans cooking oil and sardines and I think those are just the things they can prepare easily in a big pot," Dr. Chenard said.

In the last year, thousands of Haitian refugees have entered the U.S. through Southern California border crossings. Many of those refugees have ended up in Tijuana.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as 2016 comes to an end, there is still a steady stream of people arriving and the centers to hold and process the refugees are operating beyond capacity.

Dr. Chenard said the refugees are in great need of clothing, but because of customs regulations he has not been able to take clothes across the border.

A monetary donation from other dentists did allow him to purchase dozens of shoes for the refugees on his second visit.

Torin Chenard

"As the guys are trying on their shoes, he added. I saw lots of really scuffed up and scarred legs and I know they've been through a lot just to get here."

On his next trip, he plans to take tent repair kits he purchased to help fix their tents, which he said are falling apart.

"As long as people keep bringing things I'll keep I'll keep getting it there," Dr. Chenard said.

If you would like to contribute to the Bussin Blankets to Baja drive, you can find information at the Encinitas Orthodontics Facebook page.
San Diegos hip Hillcrest neighborhood will celebrate the holidays with an event that highlights three components of the festive season: food, cocktails and a little shopping.



Taste n Tinis  a self-guided walking tour of Hillcrest featuring samples and sips  goes down between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 8. Revelers can stroll through the neighborhood while enjoying holiday-themed drinks, tasty bites and shopping at the unique shops that line the area at 5th and University avenues.



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Participating eateries will serve festive fare to attendees, from appetizer and entree samples to sweet treats. Hillcrest is known for its international restaurants, so foodies can expect tastes from all over the world, from Mexican food to Italian eats. Participating restaurants include the Crest Cafe, Baja Betty's, Chocolat, Lemonade and Michoz's Fresh Lebanese Grill, to name a few.

Organizers say participating retail shops along the Taste n Tinis route will offer a holiday-inspired martini for patrons to sip on while shopping, too. Some of those martinis on the list include "Rudolph's Tipsy Spritzer," the "Happy Elf" and "Darlin, Why Don't You Mule it Over?"

The event also includes a chance to take a photo with Santa Claus over at "Santa's Village" at Blue Stocking Books.

Following Taste N' Tinis, there will be an after-party at The Merrow, where live music goes down from 9 p.m. to midnight. There is no cover charge if you show your Taste N' Tinis wristband.

Tickets to this savory soiree cost $30 at the door and can be picked up at the Rite Aid at 535 Robinson Ave. and at Rich's at 1015 University Ave. If youre partaking in the cocktails portion of the party, you must at least 21 years old in order to buy a wristband. Attendees will also receive a walking guide with their wristband that highlights each savory stop along the route.

For more info, visit the the Fabulous Hillcrest website.

Free or Cheap Things to Do in San Diego
A man shot in the head on State Route 94 late Saturday night has died, San Diego Police (SDPD) said.

The shooting reportedly happened at approximately 11:35 p.m. Saturday when police received called for shots fired on State Route 94, on the north shoulder near Euclid Avenue in San Diego's Chollas Creek neighborhood.

A man was lying on the ground with an apparent gunshot wound to his upper torso, officers found when they arrived on scene. He was brain dead as soon as he was shot, police said. He was pronounced dead at this hospital.

San Diego Police Homicide detectives are investigating the incident. Police said there was some sort of altercation near the side of the freeway, and that is when the man was shot.

The SR-94 westbound ramp from 4800 A Street will be closed for a portion of time as the incident is under investigation.

Police have identified the victim and his identity will be released when the family has been notified.

No other information was immediately available. Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.
A 104-year-old San Diego resident known as the oldest survivor of Pearl Harbor boarded a flight to Honolulu Saturday, where he will be honored at a ceremony.

Ray Chavez, who lives in Poway, will serve as a special guest of the 75th anniversary commemorative ceremonies on Dec. 7. Seaman 1st Class Chavez was assigned to the USS Condor. On Dec. 7, 1941, he was asleep at home after a minesweeping mission during which his crew helped in sinking an enemy submarine. His wife woke him up with word of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Chavez raced to the burning Pearl Harbor and did not leave for a week. Today, he is the oldest known living U.S. military veteran of the bombing raid that killed thousands and pulled America into WWII.

I never will forget [Pearl Harbor] as long as I live, Chavez said before boarding his flight at the San Diego International Airport Saturday.

Alaska Airlines flew Chavez and his daughter, Kathleen  a retired U.S. Navy veteran  first class.

Hes the oldest, and theres not too many of them left anymore, his daughter said.

San Diego firefighter Mitch Mendler and retired New York firefighter Joe Torillo, who survived the 9/11 attacks, accompanied Chavez on the flight as honorary escorts.

A special TSA line awaited Chavez at the airport, giving him his screening. And, as he made his way to his gate, stranger after stranger stopped him to take photos with him, shake his hand and thank him for his service.

Chavez said hes humbled by the attention.

Well, Im not exactly a hero, because there were thousands of other heroes, too. But Im very proud of the honor bestowed on me, he added.
A 39-year-old man was injured after a vehicle struck him in Leesburg, Virginia, police said.

A Toyota Highlander struck the man when he was trying to cross the Leesburg Bypass near the Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets about 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

Medics airlifted the victim to the INOVA Fairfax Hospital. He is in critical condition, police said.

The SUV driver is a 71-year-old man from Culpeper. Police said he is cooperating with investigators.
Thirty-three people were confirmed dead Sunday after a horrific Oakland warehouse blaze that has since been deemed one of the countrys deadliest structure fires, sheriff's officials said.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced at a news conference Sunday that the Alameda County District Attorney's Office has launched a criminal investigation into to the fire at the converted warehouse on 31st Avenue.

Meanwhile, firefighters continued to maneuver through the wrecked "Ghost Ship," where an unknown amount of people were attending a Friday night electronic music festival.

Thirty-three people were confirmed dead Sunday after a horrific Oakland warehouse blaze that has since been deemed one of the countrys deadliest structure fires, sheriffs officials said. Jodi Hernandez reports.

Any potential criminal investigation must be officially implemented by the Alameda County district attorney, and Schaaf confirmed that a representative from that office is at the scene of the blaze and "engaged in the recovery effort."

"What I am doing is getting a team of city employees to gather every piece of evidence," she said.

A Facebook event page indicates that the fire sparked during a Golden Donna show  promoted by Los Angeles-based dance label 100% Silk  at the warehouse at 1315 31st Avenue.

Crews, who arrived on scene Friday night within 3 minutes, have so far only been able to search about 35 to 40 percent of the building, sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly said Sunday. Schaaf added that crews continue to piece through the rubble around the clock.

"We are working as fast as we can," she said.

Victims range in age from as young as 17 years old to people in their 30s, but that scope could shift as the rest of the wreckage is peeled back, Kelly said.

"It's very unfortunate that we have to tell you that we have 17-year-old victims," Kelly said.

Among the dead include an Alameda County Sheriff's deputy's son and people visiting from countries across the globe such as Europe and Asia, Kelly said.

Sheriff's officials plan to begin releasing the names of victims Sunday after notifying the families. A total of seven people have been positively identified as of Sunday afternoon, according to Kelly. Kelly added that officials have been able to identify victims after comparing fingerprints or locating personal identifiers such as material found in wallets or purses.

"We're doing the identifications as fast as we can," Kelly said. "The sooner we can get those identifications done, the sooner we can meet with the families, offer counseling and begin to move forward from that. We want to get everybody identified as quickly as possible, however it's a very cumbersome process."

Among the missing include community members associated with UC Berkeley, the school confirmed Sunday. Meanwhile, "several dozen" people who were initially reported missing have been located and reunited with their families, he said.

Capt. Melanie Ditzenberger with the Alameda County Coroner's Bureau reiterated that the families of people who are still missing to "preserve sources of DNA," including combsand toothbrushes, to "prevent future delays" in the identification process. She also asked that such items be stored in clean paper sacks, but not sent to the coroner's bureau. Officials will ask for them, if needed.[[404611656, C]]

"It's a terrible thing to have to say that, to have to come out here and do that, but that's what we're left to deal with here," Kelly said.

Officials suspect that artists were living illegally in the structure, although it was permitted for use only as a warehouse. Mark Hoffman, operations chief at the Oakland Fire Department, described the building as a "labyrinth," cluttered with woodworkers, sculptors, painters and more.

Thirty-three people were confirmed dead Sunday after a horrific Oakland warehouse blaze that has since been deemed one of the countrys deadliest structure fires, sheriffs officials said. Elyce Kirchner reports.

"I think it really hits this community because there are a lot of warehouses," resident Fallon Burner said. "I live in a warehouse thats very similar to this one. ... And that leads to things not being fire coded and stuff like this happening."

Oakland property records indicate the warehouse is owned by the Chor N. Ng trust, and multiple complaints have been filed against the owner. A family member speaking on behalf of Ng said they were "trying to figure out what happened just like everyone else" and were "sorry to hear of [the tragedy] and those injured and killed."

Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said there was no evidence of smoke alarms or sprinklers at the now-destroyed building. Further, its charred roof collapsed onto the second floor, which in places plunged onto the first floor.

When she tried to enter the building, Reed said she was "just able to get in about 10 feet." Kelly agreed that it has proven "tricky" to move around in the building because of debris, downed beams, a collapsed roof and leaking water.

The inferno reduced the building to a smoldering skeleton, and Kelly said weakened walls further complicated and delayed the recovery and identification process. Fire crews were forced to withdraw from the unstable structure Saturday because it needed to be shored up.[[404628345, C]]

Officials brought in heavy equipment, including cranes, dump trucks, excavators and bulldozers, to create a safe path into the building. They flooded the building with light while crews worked carefully so bodies weren't scooped up with debris, Kelly said.

Melinda Drayton, a battalion chief with the Oakland Fire Department, said she took up her post around 9 p.m. Saturday and oversaw recovery efforts for 12 hours.

Crews "breached the left side of the warehouse building" so firefighters and Alameda County sheriff's officials could move debris "literally bucket by bucket" from the ravaged structure to a vacant lot next door," Drayton said.

Firefighters dressed in "coveralls" used "buckets and shovels" to clear the scene in a "methodical, thoughtful, mindful and compassionate way," according to Drayton.[[404551156, C]]

When Drayton entered the building, she said she noted a "somber approach" to the difficult work being done.

"It was quiet. It was heartbreaking," she said, choking up.

Kelly echoed the same sentiment.

"This is very hard work and it's very slow and it's definitely taken a toll on first responders here," he said.[[404471386, C]]

Of the bodies recovered, one was found within a few feet of the breached wall, three were on the east side of the building, four lay at the center  where large and treacherous timber rafters had also landed  and within 10 feet of them were six more, according to Drayton.

Although it was a "phenomenal feat" to comb through one-fifth of the warehouse overnight, firefighters still have a ways to go, Drayton said.

"This will be a long and arduous process, but we want to make sure that we are respecting the victims, their families and our firefighters' safety," Drayton said.

In the meantime, Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said officers have conducted an areawide search, noting license plate numbers of cars that victims may have driven to the warehouse. They are now trying to match cars with registered owners to aid in the identification process.

It may take "considerable" time before all the victims are found and identified, according to Kelly. He added that officials are investigating the warehouse "around the clock" and will be there for "days and days to come."

"It appears that people either made it out or didnt make it out," he said. "Theres not a lot of other injuries that have been reported to us at this time."

Drayton, who has spent 19 years with the city's fire department, said, "This is the most deadly fire in Oakland Fires history that Im aware of." The 1991 Oakland Hills fire killed 25 people. "It is tragic to watch so many people perish from a fire fatality in front of your eyes and have to be stoic in your job, be professional in your actions, and make sure were honoring the victims and their families to bring them safely out of the building," Drayton added.

In the hours after the fire, the Bay Area community roared back with support for people affected by the fire. Elected officials, including Schaaf and Gov. Jerry Brown, offered their condolences; groups organized vigils; the A's and Raiders made donations; and Facebook rolled out its Safety Check so people could inform family and friends about their condition.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Office and American Red Cross also set up a family assistance center at 2425 E. 12th St. People called 510-382-3000 for help.

According to Kelly, the center proved to be a great resource for people frantically searching for their loved ones.

"We have contacted every family member. We have sat down with them. We have talked to them. We have cried with them. We have spent hours and hours with them," Kelly said. However, that wouldn't have been possible without support from chaplins, city workers, Red Cross officials and others.

"The offers of assistance have been amazing," he said.

Separately, an arson task force is investigating the cause of the fire, but theres no reason to suspect arson at this time, officials said.

"Its still under investigation," Drayton said. "We dont believe weve even gotten close to the point of origin of the fire."

NBC Bay Area's Jodi Hernandez and Elyce Kirchner contributed to this report.


Two teenagers have died after a car accident in Seabrook, New Hampshire.

According to the Union Leader, police first responded to reports of a crash on Route 107 Saturday afternoon. The driver, 19 year old Taylor Nelson from Freemont, was taken to Portsmouth Regional Hospital where she later died. The passenger, a 17 year old boy, was first rushed to Exeter Hospital. He was then flown to Massachusetts General Hospital for additional treatment, where he later died from his injuries.

Both the driver and passenger were unconscious when police arrived on the scene.

The passengers identity has not yet been released.
Six hikers are safe following two separate rescue missions in Central Massachusetts on Saturday.

State police said they first received a 911 call from a missing hiker at 5 p.m. stating he was lost with his two children on the Mid-State Trail in Princeton.

State Police patrols and K9 units, as well as a State Police Air Wing helicopter and air crew, responded to the search.

The missing family was located at about 6:30 p.m. after the family was able to direct search crews to their location. Authorities said all three were in good condition and did not require medical assistance.

At about 8 p.m., Sturbridge Police received a call to search for three missing people believed to have been hiking on a trail off Stallion Hill Road. The adult and two teenagers were missing somewhere in the trail network, south of Old Sturbridge Village.

A State Police Air Wing helicopter and flight crew assisted in the search as well as a K9 crew. At about 10:20 p.m., the flight crew was able to locate the hikers who directed ground units to their location.

All three were transported to an area hospital for evaluation.
Investigators say it will take some time to find the cause of the Cambridge fire that left more than 60 people out of their homes.

Firefighters were still battling hotspots Sunday morning after the blaze tore through the densely-populated neighborhood in Kendall Square at about 2 p.m. Heavy flames engulfed multi-family buildings, including a former church that had been converted to condos, and several automobiles on Berkshire Street. Crews have been forced to demolish two homes that are considered too dangerous to be left standing.

"In terms of the rest of the buildings we'll evaluate a little further tomorrow, but we're not concerned about them through the overnight," said Deputy Chief Tom Cahill of the Cambridge Fire Department.

Many came by the destruction zone to see the damage for themselves a day after flames sparked.

"It's heartbreaking," said Mike Wilson who has family now forced to live in a nearby hotel. "I'm from Cambridge. It's kind of heartbreaking and devastating."

Investigators say finding the cause of the fire is a slow process of elimination.

"It's touch and go," said Cahill. "We have to eliminate quite a bit before we're able to narrow it down to that one cause."

Now this neighborhood is left to cleanup and rebuild.

"We'll work at it together," said Louis Armedia. "We'll bring everybody back again. Pretty strong people over here."

The Frisoli Youth Center was initially where those displaced by the fire were directed to go; however, the shelter has been affected by an ongoing power outage.

Eversource told necn that about 60 customers were still without power by 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Fire crews were called in from surrounding cities and towns to help after the first calls came about 2 p.m. Saturday. It was contained about six hours later.

"They responded very quickly to get the situation under control as fast as possible, and all the cities and towns," said Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons. "I'm just very grateful for the amount of help and support that we've gotten from all the neighboring cities and towns around Cambridge to make sure that we keep the community safe."

Simmons said approximately six first responders sustained minor injuries and were taken to an area hospital, where they are doing well.

Cambridge police spokesman Jeremy Warnick said seven buildings caught fire. Some witnesses said the fire started at a residential building undergoing renovations.

"In minutes the whole house caught on fire. The wind started blowing the flames across the street and houses across the street caught on fire," Dana Fuller said. "Within three minutes there were four or five houses and cars on fire. Just like that. My family has lived here for almost 100 years."

In all, 15 buildings were damaged due to the fire. Authorities said one building collapsed and there was some concern Sunday that others could collapse as well.

Cambridge Deputy Fire Chief Tom Cahill said Sunday morning that the investigation into exactly what started the blaze was underway.

"The investigation is a combined investigation between state police, Cambridge Police, and Cambridge Fire Department Investigators. We're going to start that investigation within the next couple of hours and it's going to take quite a while to put that puzzle together," Cahill said.

It was still unclear by Sunday when those who were staying at the shelters would be able to return to their homes.

All displaced families and individuals were being told to register with the American Red Cross by calling 800-564-1234, or by stopping by one of the following drop-in sessions:

Sunday, December 4: Until 6 p.m. at the Frisoli Youth Center, 61 Willow Street

Until 6 p.m. at the Frisoli Youth Center, 61 Willow Street Monday, December 5: 8:30 a.m.-8 p.m., Cambridge City Hall, 2nd Floor, 765 Massachusetts Avenue

8:30 a.m.-8 p.m., Cambridge City Hall, 2nd Floor, 765 Massachusetts Avenue Tuesday, December 6: 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Cambridge City Hall, 2nd Floor, 765 Massachusetts Avenue

Per Mayor Simmons, anyone that would like to help displaced residents, donations can be made to the Mayors Fire Relief Fund at Cambridge City Hall: Mayors Fire Relief Fund, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge MA 02139.

Donations can also be made online.

There will also be a Fire Recovery Resource Center held on Monday from 8:30 a.m. - 8 p.m. and Tuesday December 6 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. where impacted residents will be able to meet with various organizations committed to helping them recover following this tragedy.

The City of Cambridge is also reminding residents that the following streets will remain closed to pedestrians and vehicles:
At least 125 residents have been displaced in a 10-alarm fire Saturday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fire officials estimated.

A shelter for people displaced from the fire has been set up at War Memorial Recreation Center, 1640 Cambridge St., according to the Cambridge Fire Dept..

The American Red Cross of Massachusetts is helping some of those people.

"Right now, we've got a place set up. Red Cross is down at our war memorial, which is down on Broadway Street, taking in families. A lot of families have found other places to go," Mayor Denise Simmons said. "We're providing shelter, we're providing warmth, providing food."

The mayor is recommending those who would like to help displaced residents make a donation to the Mayor's Relief Fund at Cambridge City Hall. Donations can also be made online thru the mayor's GoFundMe page.

As of 8:30 am on Sunday, the fund established by the mayor was over $70,000.

The blaze near Berkshire and Vandine streets burned eight buildings and damaged up to 11 in total, as well as several cars parked along the street.

Simmons says that while six first responders sustained minor injuries, no residents were injured.
New Hampshire police are investigating a crash involving a pedestrian in Rochester.

Police responded to Wakefield Street, near Citizen's Bank, at about 6:50 p.m. Saturday where the driver of a Cadillac had struck the pedestrian.

Police said that Michael McMahon, 36, of Rochester, was traveling north on South Main Street when he attempted to pull out from an intersection near Hanson Street. As he did, another car pulled out from North Main Street, blocking his view of Timothy Johnstone, 28 of Rochester, who was in the crosswalk.

Authorities said McMahon then struck Johnstone, causing damage to his car.

Johnstone was transported to Frisbie Hospital where he was treated for serious but non-life threatening injuries.

It's unclear if any charges will be filed.
The Navy has christened its newest attack submarine, a $2.7 billion vessel named for the state of Colorado.

The 377-foot-long Colorado is the 15th in the Virginia class of attack submarines, which are equipped to carry out warfare against submarines and surface ships as well as conducting surveillance and delivering Special Operations troops.

The submarines are built in a partnership between Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia at a cost of $2.7 billion apiece. Construction of the Colorado began in March 2012 and its contract calls for delivery to the Navy by September.

The Colorado's sponsor is Annie Mabus, the daughter of Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. The christening ceremony took place Saturday at the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton.
Massachusetts police say they have made an arrest in connection with a triple shooting at a convenience store in Brockton back in October.

Following an investigation, Brockton Police said Alezio Lopes, 21, was arrested Saturday in Taunton, in connection with the shooting of three men at the 7-Eleven at 662 Belmont Street, on October 29.

Police said the men were shot when a fight broke out. The victims were treated for non life threatening injuries.

Authorities said store surveillance video helped with their investigation.

We are relieved to get this dangerous individual off the street, said Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter. Hopefully, the courts will hold him pending these serious charges.

It's unclear when Lopes will be arraigned.
The estimated 60 people that have been displaced following Saturday's 10-alarm fire in Cambridge, Massachusetts, are now being forced to find new places to live, just weeks before the holidays.

On Sunday morning, many people returned to their homes in the Kendall Square neighborhood to find their homes were gutted by the fire.

Louche Pinheiro was still visibly shaken by the fast moving fire, that started at about 2 p.m. on Saturday.

"We had nothing. We literally left the house in a T-shirt and pants." Pinheiro recalled. "I thought it was raining out. Just all these ashes and smoke and it just got to me and my daughter and we looked down at the house and saw 4 or 5 little explosions that happened."

While Cambridge Fire officials worked throughout Sunday to assess the damage at an estimated 15 buildings, residents were busy trying to salvage what they could.

"We don't know yet the amount of damage and our tenants lost everything too," Pinheiro said. "And my husband lost his car, we thought mine was involved too but his car is a loss. A total loss."

Authorities said thankfully, there were only 6 minor injuries. Neighbors like Robert Cayman could be credited for helping to get people out of their homes.

"We ended up getting a lady out and her newborn, a dog and an older black lady out. It was just like Armageddon when I first got there," Cayman recalled.

The investigation into the exact cause of the fire continues.

"We are alive that's all that matters, we are safe," said Pinheiro.
Town council objects to Hungerford's 'biggest development for 20 years'

PLANNERS are to consider an application to build 119 new homes in Hungerford  the largest single development in the town over the past two decades.

The proposed site is land off Salisbury Road, earmarked as ideal for development for approximately 100 homes in West Berkshire Councils housing site allocation Development Plan Document (DPD).

However, the town council is withering in its response to developing that particular area.

The application states: The scheme provides a mix of different types and tenures of housing, including affordable housing directed at contributing to local needs and expanding choice in the area.

The proposals have been submitted by applicants CALA Management Limited and Wates Developments Limited.

The applicants agent, PRO Vision, states: The proposed development takes the form of a logical urban extension on the southern edge of Hungerford.

It is said to comprise around 40 per cent of affordable homes and the cost of construction is said reportedly around 4.49m.

The statement adds: This direct expenditure during construction will be of significant benefit to the local economy.

Indirect and induced expenditure during construction will also have a positive local economic impact.

The average spend per household in the UK per annum is circa 25,150.

A development of 119 households will therefore generate spending power of about 2,992,850 per annum.

Hungerford Town Councils environment and planning committee has yet to discuss the specific application.

However, in its response to the DPD, the town council stated that it favoured pepperpotting new homes around several other sites.

It said of the application site that developing it would increase traffic impacts on the A338 thorough the town centre and that what is proposed is far larger than any single development in Hungerford in the last 20 years.

n Continued on page 5

The town council also warned that such a proposal would bring about the irrevocable development of part of what has been acknowledged as a protected landscape.

Its response added: Hungerford Town Council considers that the existing development at Kennedy Meadow to the north of the proposed allocation already extends the town further to the south than would have been desirable.

The proposed allocation would extend the built-up area still further south.

Regarding any predicted economic benefit, the town council opined: Patterns of expenditure by new households are difficult to predict, and it could not be said with any confidence that more expenditure would be retained in the local area from the proposed site than from any others.

In addition, the council concluded, the site is located in a protected landscape to which the highest degree of protection is afforded.

The application can be viewed in full, and commented upon, by visiting the planning section of West Berkshire Councils website and using the reference 16/03061/OUTMAJ.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: India has nudged Iran to quickly award rights to develop the coveted Farzad-B gas field in the Persian Gulf to ONGC Videsh by wrapping up negotiations that have been dragging on for months. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif yesterday to press for award of rights to develop the field, which was discovered by OVL, at the earliest.

"Our relationship is much more than a usual (bilateral) relationship," Pradhan told PTI. "We stood by them (Iran) in their difficult times (US and western sanctions) and continued to buy oil from them." He said that he reminded the visiting minister of Iran's commitment to awarding the field development to OVL on nomination basis. "I hope they will complete the process within the agreed timeframe," he added.

In October, the two nations had pushed back the timelines for concluding a deal on Farzad-B field to February from November agreed previously. "Let me just say that I am hopeful of concluding the deal within the agreed timeframe," Pradhan said when asked if Iran would awarded the field to OVL within this fiscal. Iran is reportedly unhappy with the USD 10 billion plan submitted by OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), for development of the 12.5 trillion cubic feet reserves in Farzad-B field and an accompanying plant to liquefy the gas for transportation in ships.

It feels the USD 5 billion cost OVL and its partners have put for developing the field is on the higher side and wants it to be reduced. OVL will earn a fixed rate of return and get to recover all the investment it has made in the field development. India, however, feels that Iran is not making the right comparison by comparing it with South Pars field development. Farzad-B field is more complex than South Pars and has high sulphur, whose production and handling cost is additional. The field in the Farsi block was discovered by an Indian consortium led by OVL in 2008.

It has an in-place gas reserve of 21.7 tcf, of which 12.5 tcf are recoverable. But India initially felt deterred from investing because of the fear of sanctions imposed by the US. But with the lifting of sanctions this year, it is back discussing a master development plan involving investment of USD 5 billion in field development and an equal amount in an LNG plant. OVL is preparing a Master Development Plan for the gas field while also working on a gas pricing formula keeping in view of the global gas price scenario, sources said. Gas produced from the field can either be converted into LNG by freezing at sub-zero temperature and shipping in cryogenic ships to India or transported through a pipeline  via overland passing through Pakistan or sub-sea. Iran and six world powers in July last year sealed a deal to curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme in return for ending sanctions, opening prospects of Indian investments in the Persian Gulf field. The sanctions were lifted in January this year.

NEW DELHI: India has nudged Iran to quickly award rights to develop the coveted Farzad-B gas field in the Persian Gulf to ONGC Videsh by wrapping up negotiations that have been dragging on for months. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif yesterday to press for award of rights to develop the field, which was discovered by OVL, at the earliest. "Our relationship is much more than a usual (bilateral) relationship," Pradhan told PTI. "We stood by them (Iran) in their difficult times (US and western sanctions) and continued to buy oil from them." He said that he reminded the visiting minister of Iran's commitment to awarding the field development to OVL on nomination basis. "I hope they will complete the process within the agreed timeframe," he added. In October, the two nations had pushed back the timelines for concluding a deal on Farzad-B field to February from November agreed previously. "Let me just say that I am hopeful of concluding the deal within the agreed timeframe," Pradhan said when asked if Iran would awarded the field to OVL within this fiscal. Iran is reportedly unhappy with the USD 10 billion plan submitted by OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), for development of the 12.5 trillion cubic feet reserves in Farzad-B field and an accompanying plant to liquefy the gas for transportation in ships. It feels the USD 5 billion cost OVL and its partners have put for developing the field is on the higher side and wants it to be reduced. OVL will earn a fixed rate of return and get to recover all the investment it has made in the field development. India, however, feels that Iran is not making the right comparison by comparing it with South Pars field development. Farzad-B field is more complex than South Pars and has high sulphur, whose production and handling cost is additional. The field in the Farsi block was discovered by an Indian consortium led by OVL in 2008. It has an in-place gas reserve of 21.7 tcf, of which 12.5 tcf are recoverable. But India initially felt deterred from investing because of the fear of sanctions imposed by the US. But with the lifting of sanctions this year, it is back discussing a master development plan involving investment of USD 5 billion in field development and an equal amount in an LNG plant. OVL is preparing a Master Development Plan for the gas field while also working on a gas pricing formula keeping in view of the global gas price scenario, sources said. Gas produced from the field can either be converted into LNG by freezing at sub-zero temperature and shipping in cryogenic ships to India or transported through a pipeline  via overland passing through Pakistan or sub-sea. Iran and six world powers in July last year sealed a deal to curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme in return for ending sanctions, opening prospects of Indian investments in the Persian Gulf field. The sanctions were lifted in January this year.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: RBI Governor Urjit Patel gets a little over Rs 2 lakh as salary and has not been provided with any supporting staff at his residence, the central bank has said.

Patel, who took over as RBI Governor in September, is presently in possession of the bank's flat (Deputy Governor's flat) at Mumbai, it said.

"No supporting staff has been provided to the present Governor, Urjit Patel at his residence. Two cars and two drivers have been provided to the present Governor," RBI said in reply to an RTI query.

The bank was asked to provide details of remuneration given to former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and incumbent Patel.

For the month of October -- the first full month Patel was in office as Governor -- Patel got Rs 2.09 lakh as his salary, the same amount drawn by Rajan as his August's salary.

Rajan demitted office on September 4, and was given Rs 27,933 as remuneration for four days.

Rajan assumed the charge of RBI Governor from September 5, 2013 at a monthly salary of Rs 1.69 lakh. His salary was revised to Rs 1.78 lakh and Rs 1.87 lakh respectively during 2014 and March 2015. His salary was hiked to Rs 2.09 lakh from Rs 2.04 lakh in January this year, the RTI reply said.

Rajan was provided with three cars and four drivers. "One caretaker and nine maintenance attendants were posted as supporting staff in the bungalow provided by the bank to the former Governor Raghuram Rajan at Mumbai," RBI said.

The Centre has recently declined to share details on appointment of Patel and other candidates shortlisted for the top post in the central bank saying these are "cabinet papers"

and cannot be made public.

Patel was on August 20 named as RBI's Governor to succeed Rajan.

NEW DELHI: RBI Governor Urjit Patel gets a little over Rs 2 lakh as salary and has not been provided with any supporting staff at his residence, the central bank has said. Patel, who took over as RBI Governor in September, is presently in possession of the bank's flat (Deputy Governor's flat) at Mumbai, it said. "No supporting staff has been provided to the present Governor, Urjit Patel at his residence. Two cars and two drivers have been provided to the present Governor," RBI said in reply to an RTI query. The bank was asked to provide details of remuneration given to former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and incumbent Patel. For the month of October -- the first full month Patel was in office as Governor -- Patel got Rs 2.09 lakh as his salary, the same amount drawn by Rajan as his August's salary. Rajan demitted office on September 4, and was given Rs 27,933 as remuneration for four days. Rajan assumed the charge of RBI Governor from September 5, 2013 at a monthly salary of Rs 1.69 lakh. His salary was revised to Rs 1.78 lakh and Rs 1.87 lakh respectively during 2014 and March 2015. His salary was hiked to Rs 2.09 lakh from Rs 2.04 lakh in January this year, the RTI reply said. Rajan was provided with three cars and four drivers. "One caretaker and nine maintenance attendants were posted as supporting staff in the bungalow provided by the bank to the former Governor Raghuram Rajan at Mumbai," RBI said. The Centre has recently declined to share details on appointment of Patel and other candidates shortlisted for the top post in the central bank saying these are "cabinet papers" and cannot be made public. Patel was on August 20 named as RBI's Governor to succeed Rajan.
By ANI

HYDERABAD: The Great Bombay Circus troupe, which has returned to Hyderabad this November after a 15-year hiatus, is now struggling to draw audiences not because of performance, but due to demonetisation.



Lack of cash and change has led to complete drop in business. The travelling circus has had to cancel at least one show every day. Such is their plight that team members are now mulling on cutting down their schedule.



The management is completely bereft of help and is faced with the prospect of whether to run the circus or quit as they are unable to feed the animals and pay daily wages.



Since November 8, when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government banned the currency, people are facing a lot of problems. Notes are not acceptable anywhere, there is no public at the circus. Theres no currency in the banks. This has affected the whole nation, Pandu Ranga Jadhav, the manager of the circus told ANI.



Ram Barosa, a ticket collector at the circus, said, The sale of tickets has reduced as compared to earlier; few people come to see the circus. Demonetisation has badly affected the circus. Only 10 to 15 percent people come to the circus.



There is no public to watch the circus, we are not able to sell anything, it has happened since demonetisation. The sales are not good. We are facing a lot of problems because of money. Kurban Ali, a popcorn seller at circus, told ANI.

HYDERABAD: The Great Bombay Circus troupe, which has returned to Hyderabad this November after a 15-year hiatus, is now struggling to draw audiences not because of performance, but due to demonetisation. Lack of cash and change has led to complete drop in business. The travelling circus has had to cancel at least one show every day. Such is their plight that team members are now mulling on cutting down their schedule. The management is completely bereft of help and is faced with the prospect of whether to run the circus or quit as they are unable to feed the animals and pay daily wages. Since November 8, when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government banned the currency, people are facing a lot of problems. Notes are not acceptable anywhere, there is no public at the circus. Theres no currency in the banks. This has affected the whole nation, Pandu Ranga Jadhav, the manager of the circus told ANI. Ram Barosa, a ticket collector at the circus, said, The sale of tickets has reduced as compared to earlier; few people come to see the circus. Demonetisation has badly affected the circus. Only 10 to 15 percent people come to the circus. There is no public to watch the circus, we are not able to sell anything, it has happened since demonetisation. The sales are not good. We are facing a lot of problems because of money. Kurban Ali, a popcorn seller at circus, told ANI.
Shruthi HM By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: The small world of the SME sector lives hand to mouth at the best of times, be you the employer or the employed. Most of the workers are paid daily or weekly and the owners get by with some tight management of inventory and cash flow. Demonetisation has tipped the balance of the sweatshops in Peenya and Chamarajpet in Bengaluru.

If you got through November by dipping into all the goodwill you had in your karma account, December threatens to put you into overdraft territory.

Mary Nirmala spent the last three weeks of November begging for loans from friends, neighbours, relatives, colleagues, anyone who might have a hundred or two. The mother of three and employee of an agarbatti factory in Chamarajpet in Bengaluru is broke and Decembers pay day has not come yet. But Decembers bills have.

She is the only breadwinner of her family, her husband being too ill to work. Even today, before I came to work, I borrowed `200 from a neighbour, she told Express, her face betraying anxiety about negotiating December and then paying back her loans when demonetisations demons will presumably go back to where they came from.

Over the past four weeks, hundreds of SME daily-wagers like her have stood in queues at banks several times a day only to be told there was no cash when they finally make it to the counter. At the end of it, they return empty-handed, having lost their daily wage at the factory too.

When Express visited several SMEs in Peenya and Chamarajpet, the situation everywhere was the same. Labour-intensive and consumer-oriented sectors like garment and agarbatti factories were the worst hit as their business has dulled down following the demonetisation move.

Sakamma, a garment worker in Peenya, said the prospects for December look bleak, be it the school fees for children or rent for her house. We requested the landlord to exempt us from rent this month and we have taken time from schools too.

However, next month we will have to pay double the amount, she said.



Owners in a tough spot

Its small consolation to workers that the Seths are struggling too, scurrying around to raise cash to keep operations going.

The Labour Department has sent circulars to industries directing them to pay salaries only through the bank. But transition is not easy in the SME sector.

Creating a bank account takes at least a fortnight and workers have to be paid weekly, explained B R Srinath of Raj Fragrances in Chamarajpet.

The week after demonetisation, I pulled out money from my savings account to pay my employees. This month we have to see how to arrange the money. All employees cannot go and stand in the queue the whole day to open an account, he added.

And then there are the unforeseen problems. While some of the workers do have bank accounts, each has one in a different bank, said Suresh B R, owner of SSR Garments located in Peenya Stage II.

Garment making is a labour-intensive industry. A factory may employ more than 100 employees. We have to draw `12-14 lakh in cash just to pay wages. The weekly withdrawal limit of `50,000 does not even come close to what we need, he said.

Demonetisation has come at a particularly bad time for the garmet factories in Peenya and Chamarajpet, November to January being the lean period in the business. Now, cash-starved, business has grown dull and orders have fled. We used to get around 30,000 orders per month. Now we are down to 10,000, said Suresh of SSR Garments.

While welcoming demonetization, Karnataka Smallscale Industries Association president A Padmanabha said the implementation has caused considerable damage. By their very nature, SMEs heavily depend on cash to pay wages and buy raw material, he said.

BENGALURU: The small world of the SME sector lives hand to mouth at the best of times, be you the employer or the employed. Most of the workers are paid daily or weekly and the owners get by with some tight management of inventory and cash flow. Demonetisation has tipped the balance of the sweatshops in Peenya and Chamarajpet in Bengaluru. If you got through November by dipping into all the goodwill you had in your karma account, December threatens to put you into overdraft territory. Mary Nirmala spent the last three weeks of November begging for loans from friends, neighbours, relatives, colleagues, anyone who might have a hundred or two. The mother of three and employee of an agarbatti factory in Chamarajpet in Bengaluru is broke and Decembers pay day has not come yet. But Decembers bills have. She is the only breadwinner of her family, her husband being too ill to work. Even today, before I came to work, I borrowed `200 from a neighbour, she told Express, her face betraying anxiety about negotiating December and then paying back her loans when demonetisations demons will presumably go back to where they came from. Over the past four weeks, hundreds of SME daily-wagers like her have stood in queues at banks several times a day only to be told there was no cash when they finally make it to the counter. At the end of it, they return empty-handed, having lost their daily wage at the factory too. When Express visited several SMEs in Peenya and Chamarajpet, the situation everywhere was the same. Labour-intensive and consumer-oriented sectors like garment and agarbatti factories were the worst hit as their business has dulled down following the demonetisation move. Sakamma, a garment worker in Peenya, said the prospects for December look bleak, be it the school fees for children or rent for her house. We requested the landlord to exempt us from rent this month and we have taken time from schools too. However, next month we will have to pay double the amount, she said. Owners in a tough spot Its small consolation to workers that the Seths are struggling too, scurrying around to raise cash to keep operations going. The Labour Department has sent circulars to industries directing them to pay salaries only through the bank. But transition is not easy in the SME sector. Creating a bank account takes at least a fortnight and workers have to be paid weekly, explained B R Srinath of Raj Fragrances in Chamarajpet. The week after demonetisation, I pulled out money from my savings account to pay my employees. This month we have to see how to arrange the money. All employees cannot go and stand in the queue the whole day to open an account, he added. And then there are the unforeseen problems. While some of the workers do have bank accounts, each has one in a different bank, said Suresh B R, owner of SSR Garments located in Peenya Stage II. Garment making is a labour-intensive industry. A factory may employ more than 100 employees. We have to draw `12-14 lakh in cash just to pay wages. The weekly withdrawal limit of `50,000 does not even come close to what we need, he said. Demonetisation has come at a particularly bad time for the garmet factories in Peenya and Chamarajpet, November to January being the lean period in the business. Now, cash-starved, business has grown dull and orders have fled. We used to get around 30,000 orders per month. Now we are down to 10,000, said Suresh of SSR Garments. While welcoming demonetization, Karnataka Smallscale Industries Association president A Padmanabha said the implementation has caused considerable damage. By their very nature, SMEs heavily depend on cash to pay wages and buy raw material, he said.
Rajitha S By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: While the common man is frustrated by all that he has to endure in order to withdraw money, the woes of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) are far worse.

While people across the world were promoting World Disability Day on Saturday, (initiated by the United Nations in 1992 to spread awareness about the dignity and rights of PWDs), those working for PWDs said the current situation is not as pleasing.

CH Ishkar is the chairman of United Voluntary Action for the Rehabilitation of Disabled (UVARD) and also the founder of Shekinah Foundation. We run our foundation with public funds, and through Centres contribution. We need around `2 lakh every month to take care of 120 children with special needs. This month has been extremely difficult as people have not been able to send us donations. We havent received government funds either, said Ishkar. It seems like the government is saying, biryani is in the making, fast till its done and served, he added in a frustrated tone.

Rent, food for children, salaries for staffers have all been put on hold. Children who study in day school travel by bus. We have been struggling to pay money for the fuel, he shared. Though most public spaces are supposed to be made accessible for PWDs, only urban banks have the provision, said Nagabhushanam, secretary general, Friendly Environment for the Disabled.

If you look at the rural spaces, at least 50 per cent of them are inaccessible for PWDs. Railings, wheel chairs, ramps are all missing in these spaces. It makes it a lot more difficult for them in the present situation, he said, adding that PWDs are often the last in the list of government beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, Narsanna, another activist pointed that there are no separate queues allotted for PWDs, Sai Baba Goud, chairman of Devnar School for the Blind said all those PWDs that he has come across recently have had a smooth ride at the banks and ATMs.

HYDERABAD: While the common man is frustrated by all that he has to endure in order to withdraw money, the woes of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) are far worse. While people across the world were promoting World Disability Day on Saturday, (initiated by the United Nations in 1992 to spread awareness about the dignity and rights of PWDs), those working for PWDs said the current situation is not as pleasing. CH Ishkar is the chairman of United Voluntary Action for the Rehabilitation of Disabled (UVARD) and also the founder of Shekinah Foundation. We run our foundation with public funds, and through Centres contribution. We need around `2 lakh every month to take care of 120 children with special needs. This month has been extremely difficult as people have not been able to send us donations. We havent received government funds either, said Ishkar. It seems like the government is saying, biryani is in the making, fast till its done and served, he added in a frustrated tone. Rent, food for children, salaries for staffers have all been put on hold. Children who study in day school travel by bus. We have been struggling to pay money for the fuel, he shared. Though most public spaces are supposed to be made accessible for PWDs, only urban banks have the provision, said Nagabhushanam, secretary general, Friendly Environment for the Disabled. If you look at the rural spaces, at least 50 per cent of them are inaccessible for PWDs. Railings, wheel chairs, ramps are all missing in these spaces. It makes it a lot more difficult for them in the present situation, he said, adding that PWDs are often the last in the list of government beneficiaries. Meanwhile, Narsanna, another activist pointed that there are no separate queues allotted for PWDs, Sai Baba Goud, chairman of Devnar School for the Blind said all those PWDs that he has come across recently have had a smooth ride at the banks and ATMs.
By Express News Service

KOHIMA: "All are equal before the eyes of God," exclaimed 81-year-old Mary Lotha when asked why buses in Nagaland don't have separate seats for women. "Men can sit with women and still make them feel comfortable. Everything is in the mind," she said.

While there are no separate seats for women in the buses of Nagaland, the general practice is the young men and boys leave their seats to old and young women and old men. "The result is most of the time the young men will go standing," Mary chuckles.

However, the young men don't feel that as a pain. "Leaving seats for women and elderly has been taught to us at home. It's chivalry and people feel good about it," said 17-year-old James. "We never had separately marked seats for women, unlike Assam. Maybe church has brought more equality," said bus driver Richard. "Not many girls have to stand and travel on buses. Some male will offer his seat," said Alole.

However asked whether that was a sign of equality or leaving seat for the 'weaker populace', she opens up,"Definitely patriarchy is deep rooted in our society. Men think women must be given seats as they are physically weaker. That is in no way equality. However, the situation is better than elsewhere."

"Still, women of Nagaland have to fight a long battle for equality in everything including religion. Women have been fighting tooth and nail for becoming pastors, which only men can perform as of now. However, situation will change. Older men have to understand that women want equality in the aspect of religion that governs our society."

Women of various Naga clans including Ao, Angami and Lotha are fighting a bitter battle to take up the profession of pastor that is a male's dominion till now. However, many others don't agree with Alole.

"Separate seats would have bound us. No separate seats means we can sit anywhere we want," said Hino.

KOHIMA: "All are equal before the eyes of God," exclaimed 81-year-old Mary Lotha when asked why buses in Nagaland don't have separate seats for women. "Men can sit with women and still make them feel comfortable. Everything is in the mind," she said. While there are no separate seats for women in the buses of Nagaland, the general practice is the young men and boys leave their seats to old and young women and old men. "The result is most of the time the young men will go standing," Mary chuckles. However, the young men don't feel that as a pain. "Leaving seats for women and elderly has been taught to us at home. It's chivalry and people feel good about it," said 17-year-old James. "We never had separately marked seats for women, unlike Assam. Maybe church has brought more equality," said bus driver Richard. "Not many girls have to stand and travel on buses. Some male will offer his seat," said Alole. However asked whether that was a sign of equality or leaving seat for the 'weaker populace', she opens up,"Definitely patriarchy is deep rooted in our society. Men think women must be given seats as they are physically weaker. That is in no way equality. However, the situation is better than elsewhere." "Still, women of Nagaland have to fight a long battle for equality in everything including religion. Women have been fighting tooth and nail for becoming pastors, which only men can perform as of now. However, situation will change. Older men have to understand that women want equality in the aspect of religion that governs our society." Women of various Naga clans including Ao, Angami and Lotha are fighting a bitter battle to take up the profession of pastor that is a male's dominion till now. However, many others don't agree with Alole. "Separate seats would have bound us. No separate seats means we can sit anywhere we want," said Hino.
Namita bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW : Claiming that the country was ready to go digital, Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhorted people to switch over to digital transactions as soon as possible to reduce the scope for corrupt practices. While addressing a Parivartan yatra in Moradabad on Saturday, he said: Your phone is your wallet. Your dont need to withdraw money from ATMs. Buy things from the money in your account through your phones.



People may ask how a big chunk of Indians, who are illiterate, can switch over to a cashless transaction. Indians have always been ready for a change. When the world uses ballot paper to vote, Indians vote through the button, he stated to emphasise his point over going for e-transactions.



Earlier, touching on the issue of development, Modi gave a call to rid the country of poverty by developing larger states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra. The PM said that if poverty was reduced in larger states, the overall number of poverty-stricken people in the country would also come down.

Debit, credit cards and Paytm

are accepted by staff

at Pallikonda toll booth on

the Bengaluru-Chennai

highway | EXPRESS

Extending his gratitude to the people of UP, Modi said that he did not fight elections from Varanasi to win a Lok Sabha seat but to free the Hindi heartland from deprivation and poverty and usher in a new era of development. With development comes employment, electricity, education, lowcost treatment and better lifestyle, the PM said.

Sharing peoples concern over corruption in the society at every level, Modi said that he was fighting the war on corruption for his countrymen. Some people point an accusing finger at me. What can they (corrupt) do to me? We are fakirs, we will carry our bags and walk away, he said. Referring to the alleged misuse of Jan Dhan account of the poor by rich people to convert black money into white, the PM cautioned them against letting their accounts being misused. Dont ever return that money. Dont take out even a single penny. Promise me that you will not withdraw that money. If you do that, I promise you that I will find a way to send those corrupt people to jail and the money to your account for your use, said Modi.

LUCKNOW : Claiming that the country was ready to go digital, Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhorted people to switch over to digital transactions as soon as possible to reduce the scope for corrupt practices. While addressing a Parivartan yatra in Moradabad on Saturday, he said: Your phone is your wallet. Your dont need to withdraw money from ATMs. Buy things from the money in your account through your phones. People may ask how a big chunk of Indians, who are illiterate, can switch over to a cashless transaction. Indians have always been ready for a change. When the world uses ballot paper to vote, Indians vote through the button, he stated to emphasise his point over going for e-transactions. Earlier, touching on the issue of development, Modi gave a call to rid the country of poverty by developing larger states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra. The PM said that if poverty was reduced in larger states, the overall number of poverty-stricken people in the country would also come down. Debit, credit cards and Paytm are accepted by staff at Pallikonda toll booth on the Bengaluru-Chennai highway | EXPRESSExtending his gratitude to the people of UP, Modi said that he did not fight elections from Varanasi to win a Lok Sabha seat but to free the Hindi heartland from deprivation and poverty and usher in a new era of development. With development comes employment, electricity, education, lowcost treatment and better lifestyle, the PM said. Sharing peoples concern over corruption in the society at every level, Modi said that he was fighting the war on corruption for his countrymen. Some people point an accusing finger at me. What can they (corrupt) do to me? We are fakirs, we will carry our bags and walk away, he said. Referring to the alleged misuse of Jan Dhan account of the poor by rich people to convert black money into white, the PM cautioned them against letting their accounts being misused. Dont ever return that money. Dont take out even a single penny. Promise me that you will not withdraw that money. If you do that, I promise you that I will find a way to send those corrupt people to jail and the money to your account for your use, said Modi.
Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: A man in Bihars Vaishali district beat his pregnant wife to death in a fit of anger as she asked him not to continue his addiction for liquor and gambling.

Ganita Devi, in her mid-twenties, was tied up with a rope and mercilessly beaten up with a wooden stick by her husband, Sarjun, in their house in Chakeyaj village under Desri police station area, said her father, Ram Bahadur Paswan, on Sunday. Devi, who was about four months pregnant, had married Sarjun four years ago, he added.

This man (Sarjun) has been a monster for the past many months. He was so addicted to consuming liquor, smoking ganza and gambling that he had been neglecting his family and harassing my daughter without any reason. He beat her to death on Friday night, he said, weeping. Ganita had been opposing Sarjuns addiction and rude behaviour since the beginning of their marriage, he added.

A complaint has been lodged against Sarjun by Paswan, but police are apparently yet to take any action on the basis of the complaint. The accused is, meanwhile, absconding, said a police official.

Despite the Bihar governments stress on total prohibition after a law with strict penal provisions was implemented eight months ago, most parts of the states rural hinterland still remain in the grips of consumption of liquor and narcotic substances. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been leading a strong campaign in favour of prohibition and asking people to prevent consumption of liquor.

Huge quantities of country-made and foreign liquor get seized by police and excise officials almost on a daily basis across the state. In a few places, however, the drive for prohibition is being carried out by local women. It was on the request of Bihars women that Nitish Kumar had promised in 2015 to implement prohibition if he formed the government after the Assembly polls.

PATNA: A man in Bihars Vaishali district beat his pregnant wife to death in a fit of anger as she asked him not to continue his addiction for liquor and gambling. Ganita Devi, in her mid-twenties, was tied up with a rope and mercilessly beaten up with a wooden stick by her husband, Sarjun, in their house in Chakeyaj village under Desri police station area, said her father, Ram Bahadur Paswan, on Sunday. Devi, who was about four months pregnant, had married Sarjun four years ago, he added. This man (Sarjun) has been a monster for the past many months. He was so addicted to consuming liquor, smoking ganza and gambling that he had been neglecting his family and harassing my daughter without any reason. He beat her to death on Friday night, he said, weeping. Ganita had been opposing Sarjuns addiction and rude behaviour since the beginning of their marriage, he added. A complaint has been lodged against Sarjun by Paswan, but police are apparently yet to take any action on the basis of the complaint. The accused is, meanwhile, absconding, said a police official. Despite the Bihar governments stress on total prohibition after a law with strict penal provisions was implemented eight months ago, most parts of the states rural hinterland still remain in the grips of consumption of liquor and narcotic substances. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been leading a strong campaign in favour of prohibition and asking people to prevent consumption of liquor. Huge quantities of country-made and foreign liquor get seized by police and excise officials almost on a daily basis across the state. In a few places, however, the drive for prohibition is being carried out by local women. It was on the request of Bihars women that Nitish Kumar had promised in 2015 to implement prohibition if he formed the government after the Assembly polls.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: Questioning Pakistans Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz presence in Amritsar for the Heart of Asia conference, Congress leader Manish Tewari on Sunday took a jibe at the Centre and asked whether the former has been called to feed biriyani.

The fundamental question is what Mr Sartaj Aziz is doing in Amritsar. If this government was indeed wanting to corner Pakistan on terror and they believe that terror and talks should not go hand in hand, so have they called Mr Sartaj Aziz to Amritsar to feed him Amritsari Kulcha or biriyani? Tewari told ANI.

The Congress leader said when the ruling BJP was in opposition, it kept on saying for ten years that talks and terror cant go hand in hand.

For the last 30 months, you are seeing flip flops, U-turns and somersaults including talking about terror with Pakistan. So, therefore, there is absolutely no coherence, no consistency, no tactics to this governments strategy for Pakistan and thats why the deep state of Pakistan has been running circles around India, he added.

Asserting that Pakistan has not stopped attacking India, Tewari asked, Where is the terror stopping that this government keeps on kowtowing to the Pakistani state?

The Congress leaders assertion came a day after Aziz arrived in Amritsar for the 'Heart of Asia' conference amid speculations that he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would meet for more than the customary handshake.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had, however, earlier this week said that talks were not possible amidst continued terrorism in Pakistan, a clear reference to the latest strike on the Nagrota base.

The sixth 'Heart of Asia' conference will see the participation of representatives from over 30 countries including China, United States, Russia, Iran and Pakistan to discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan.

The main ministerial conference will be inaugurated today jointly by Prime Minister Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

NEW DELHI: Questioning Pakistans Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz presence in Amritsar for the Heart of Asia conference, Congress leader Manish Tewari on Sunday took a jibe at the Centre and asked whether the former has been called to feed biriyani. The fundamental question is what Mr Sartaj Aziz is doing in Amritsar. If this government was indeed wanting to corner Pakistan on terror and they believe that terror and talks should not go hand in hand, so have they called Mr Sartaj Aziz to Amritsar to feed him Amritsari Kulcha or biriyani? Tewari told ANI. The Congress leader said when the ruling BJP was in opposition, it kept on saying for ten years that talks and terror cant go hand in hand. For the last 30 months, you are seeing flip flops, U-turns and somersaults including talking about terror with Pakistan. So, therefore, there is absolutely no coherence, no consistency, no tactics to this governments strategy for Pakistan and thats why the deep state of Pakistan has been running circles around India, he added. Asserting that Pakistan has not stopped attacking India, Tewari asked, Where is the terror stopping that this government keeps on kowtowing to the Pakistani state? The Congress leaders assertion came a day after Aziz arrived in Amritsar for the 'Heart of Asia' conference amid speculations that he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would meet for more than the customary handshake. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had, however, earlier this week said that talks were not possible amidst continued terrorism in Pakistan, a clear reference to the latest strike on the Nagrota base. The sixth 'Heart of Asia' conference will see the participation of representatives from over 30 countries including China, United States, Russia, Iran and Pakistan to discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan. The main ministerial conference will be inaugurated today jointly by Prime Minister Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

AMRITSAR: To counter terror in the region, a bilateral meeting was held here today in the Heart of Asia conference between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani.

In a tweet, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs of India Vikas Swarup said, The two leaders discussed several aspects of the close and friendly relations between the two countries.

The two leaders noted with satisfaction the prospects for bilateral relations and agreed that both countries would continue to work ever harder for further strengthening them, he stated.

A new energy for the #HeartofAsia family. PM @narendramodi and President @ashrafghani take a group picture before the inaugural event pic.twitter.com/tYcmNOAe5V  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) December 4, 2016

Swarup tweeted that both Indian and Afghanistan leaders exchanged views on the common threat of terrorism, especially the cross-border nature of the scourge which had caused immense suffering to the people of India and Afghanistan.

The two leaders also agreed to strengthen counter-terror cooperation between the two countries, and enhance "coordination at the UN."

He said that the leaders also reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

A tweet further stated that they also agreed to operationalise the additional amount of $1 billion for bilateral cooperation, especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including through a possible air corridor between India and Afghanistan to overcome obstacles to the promotion of bilateral trade.

Modi expressed the hope that the ministerial conference would be successful in promoting greater cooperation among all concerned for peace, stability and security and development of Afghanistan.

Later, Modi and Ghani jointly inaugurated the sixth Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process, which will witness the participation of eight foreign ministers and other dignitaries of 14 other participating countries.

AMRITSAR: To counter terror in the region, a bilateral meeting was held here today in the Heart of Asia conference between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. In a tweet, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs of India Vikas Swarup said, The two leaders discussed several aspects of the close and friendly relations between the two countries. The two leaders noted with satisfaction the prospects for bilateral relations and agreed that both countries would continue to work ever harder for further strengthening them, he stated. A new energy for the #HeartofAsia family. PM @narendramodi and President @ashrafghani take a group picture before the inaugural event pic.twitter.com/tYcmNOAe5V  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) December 4, 2016 Swarup tweeted that both Indian and Afghanistan leaders exchanged views on the common threat of terrorism, especially the cross-border nature of the scourge which had caused immense suffering to the people of India and Afghanistan. The two leaders also agreed to strengthen counter-terror cooperation between the two countries, and enhance "coordination at the UN." He said that the leaders also reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries. A tweet further stated that they also agreed to operationalise the additional amount of $1 billion for bilateral cooperation, especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including through a possible air corridor between India and Afghanistan to overcome obstacles to the promotion of bilateral trade. Modi expressed the hope that the ministerial conference would be successful in promoting greater cooperation among all concerned for peace, stability and security and development of Afghanistan. Later, Modi and Ghani jointly inaugurated the sixth Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process, which will witness the participation of eight foreign ministers and other dignitaries of 14 other participating countries.
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

AMRITSAR/NEW DELHI : Iran on Saturday said it feels the nuclear agreement with the US is not in jeopardy even as it hit out at the US Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, which it said lowers American credibility.

The nuclear agreement is not a bilateral agreement but a multilateral agreement that came after everything failed, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in New Delhi.

His comments came after the US Senate voted 99-0 this week to extend the ISA. Iran maintains that the measure will be a violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

Asked if the sanctions meant that the nuclear deal is in jeopardy, Zarif said, I dont think that the nuclear deal is in jeopardy, but noted that the resolution in the American Senate dents the credibility of the US.

Meanwhile, in a last-minute change of schedule, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs Foreign Policy Advisor Sartaj Aziz reached Amritsar on Saturday evening. Earlier, he was scheduled to reach on Sunday for the Heart of Asia conference and return the same day.

As he reached a day in advance, speculations were rife that he would have bilateral talks with India. However, officials from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) ruled out this possibility.

It was learnt that Aziz rescheduled his visit citing the forecast of uncertain weather on Sunday. Aziz is leading the Pakistani delegation to the conference that focuses on regional cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours to improve connectivity and tackle security threats in the war-torn country.

Hours after his arrival, Aziz attended a dinner where he exchanged pleasantries with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also sent a bouquet to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at her residence in Delhi, extending his wishes for her speedy recovery. With Swaraj indisposed, as she is unwell, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will represent India at the ministerial conference.

Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani will jointly inaugurate the ministerial deliberations of the conference, which will see over eight foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 participating countries, on Sunday. Modi and Ghani paid obeisance at Golden Temple and were given a red carpet welcome.

AMRITSAR/NEW DELHI : Iran on Saturday said it feels the nuclear agreement with the US is not in jeopardy even as it hit out at the US Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, which it said lowers American credibility. The nuclear agreement is not a bilateral agreement but a multilateral agreement that came after everything failed, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in New Delhi. His comments came after the US Senate voted 99-0 this week to extend the ISA. Iran maintains that the measure will be a violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany). Asked if the sanctions meant that the nuclear deal is in jeopardy, Zarif said, I dont think that the nuclear deal is in jeopardy, but noted that the resolution in the American Senate dents the credibility of the US. Meanwhile, in a last-minute change of schedule, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs Foreign Policy Advisor Sartaj Aziz reached Amritsar on Saturday evening. Earlier, he was scheduled to reach on Sunday for the Heart of Asia conference and return the same day. As he reached a day in advance, speculations were rife that he would have bilateral talks with India. However, officials from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) ruled out this possibility. It was learnt that Aziz rescheduled his visit citing the forecast of uncertain weather on Sunday. Aziz is leading the Pakistani delegation to the conference that focuses on regional cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours to improve connectivity and tackle security threats in the war-torn country. Hours after his arrival, Aziz attended a dinner where he exchanged pleasantries with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also sent a bouquet to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at her residence in Delhi, extending his wishes for her speedy recovery. With Swaraj indisposed, as she is unwell, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will represent India at the ministerial conference. Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani will jointly inaugurate the ministerial deliberations of the conference, which will see over eight foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 participating countries, on Sunday. Modi and Ghani paid obeisance at Golden Temple and were given a red carpet welcome.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar turned in a regional slugfest, as India and Afghanistan lashed out at Pakistan for fomenting terrorism in the region. However, Islamabad found support in New Delhi's long term ally Moscow.

Frustrated at the impasse that Afghanistan has been facing at countering cross border terrorism, Kabul even rejected development aid from Islamabad saying it could be used for combating extremism.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, while inaugurating the ministerial level conference, aimed at raising investments for the reconstruction of his war-ravaged country, said that terror in his country cannot last even for one month without support from outside. The conference declaration did not name Pakistan but did mention many terror organisations based in its territory.

Afghanistan is the permanent co-chair of the summit the process for which started in Istanbul. Hence the sharp words coming from President Ghani carried more weight. While rejecting Pakistans proposal of $500 million fund for development, President Ghani addressed Advisor to Pakistans Prime Minister On Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz directly and said : This fund, Mr. Aziz, could very well be used for containing extremism because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people. "

The conference that came close on the heels of Uri and Nagrota terror attacks had terrorism hanging in the backdrop of the conference. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also called for action against terrorists and those who support, shelter, train and finance them as silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region" will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

Aziz's visit, first for a Pakistani official since Pathankot terror attack derailed talks between the two countries, also failed to thaw the frostiness in Indo-Pak bilateral ties. He had to leave without any bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi or Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. There have been photographs of Aziz with Modi and Doval doing rounds of social media. However, the Ministry of External Affairs put an end to speculations of talks as its spokesperson Vikas Swarup stated categorically that there was no pull aside or bilateral meeting between the two. Aziz was not even allowed to interact with media at Golden Temple owing to "security reasons".

However, Aziz rejected the blame of terrorism placed on Pakistans door. The security situation in Afghanistan is very complex. It is simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view, Aziz said at the conference. Aziz had arrived a day prior to his scheduled arrival, that he cited as Pakistans commitment to peace "despite escalation" along the border.

Facing a pincer attack from India and Afghanistan, Pakistan found an unexpected ally in Russia. Im sure President Ghani had strong reasons to do so, but I dont think the HoA is the right place for settling scores, Russias special envoy on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov told reporters in Amritsar.

The Amritsar declaration mentioned about ending sanctuaries and squeezing the terror funding. The statement named global terror organisations like Al Qaeda and Islamic State and termed the Pakistan - based Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Haqqani Network as the fountainhead of terrorism.

NEW DELHI: The Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar turned in a regional slugfest, as India and Afghanistan lashed out at Pakistan for fomenting terrorism in the region. However, Islamabad found support in New Delhi's long term ally Moscow. Frustrated at the impasse that Afghanistan has been facing at countering cross border terrorism, Kabul even rejected development aid from Islamabad saying it could be used for combating extremism. Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, while inaugurating the ministerial level conference, aimed at raising investments for the reconstruction of his war-ravaged country, said that terror in his country cannot last even for one month without support from outside. The conference declaration did not name Pakistan but did mention many terror organisations based in its territory. Afghanistan is the permanent co-chair of the summit the process for which started in Istanbul. Hence the sharp words coming from President Ghani carried more weight. While rejecting Pakistans proposal of $500 million fund for development, President Ghani addressed Advisor to Pakistans Prime Minister On Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz directly and said : This fund, Mr. Aziz, could very well be used for containing extremism because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people. " The conference that came close on the heels of Uri and Nagrota terror attacks had terrorism hanging in the backdrop of the conference. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also called for action against terrorists and those who support, shelter, train and finance them as silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region" will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Aziz's visit, first for a Pakistani official since Pathankot terror attack derailed talks between the two countries, also failed to thaw the frostiness in Indo-Pak bilateral ties. He had to leave without any bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi or Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. There have been photographs of Aziz with Modi and Doval doing rounds of social media. However, the Ministry of External Affairs put an end to speculations of talks as its spokesperson Vikas Swarup stated categorically that there was no pull aside or bilateral meeting between the two. Aziz was not even allowed to interact with media at Golden Temple owing to "security reasons". However, Aziz rejected the blame of terrorism placed on Pakistans door. The security situation in Afghanistan is very complex. It is simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view, Aziz said at the conference. Aziz had arrived a day prior to his scheduled arrival, that he cited as Pakistans commitment to peace "despite escalation" along the border. Facing a pincer attack from India and Afghanistan, Pakistan found an unexpected ally in Russia. Im sure President Ghani had strong reasons to do so, but I dont think the HoA is the right place for settling scores, Russias special envoy on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov told reporters in Amritsar. The Amritsar declaration mentioned about ending sanctuaries and squeezing the terror funding. The statement named global terror organisations like Al Qaeda and Islamic State and termed the Pakistan - based Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Haqqani Network as the fountainhead of terrorism.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry has told the Central Information Commission that information related to suspension of human rights during Emergency is not available with it.



In an RTI response, the ministry said that the Internal Security Division of the Ministry was created in 1993 and therefore it does not have information related to the events of 1975.



The applicant had sought information related to the records on the suspension of human rights after proclamation of Emergency in 1975.



Following submission by the ministry that it does not have information relating to the period, the information watchdog has directed the Government to furnish an affidavit to the effect.



The Ministry had told the applicant that the information sought does not fall under the definition of information.



The Ministry officials told the information watchdog during hearing of an appeal by the RTI applicant that the CPIO was not supposed to create or interpret information or to furnish replies to situational queries.

NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry has told the Central Information Commission that information related to suspension of human rights during Emergency is not available with it. In an RTI response, the ministry said that the Internal Security Division of the Ministry was created in 1993 and therefore it does not have information related to the events of 1975. The applicant had sought information related to the records on the suspension of human rights after proclamation of Emergency in 1975. Following submission by the ministry that it does not have information relating to the period, the information watchdog has directed the Government to furnish an affidavit to the effect. The Ministry had told the applicant that the information sought does not fall under the definition of information. The Ministry officials told the information watchdog during hearing of an appeal by the RTI applicant that the CPIO was not supposed to create or interpret information or to furnish replies to situational queries.
By PTI

AMRITSAR: An elderly Mumbai-based couple's fight to secure the release of their son lodged in a Pakistani prison, despite completing his jail term, today hit a roadblock after they failed to meet Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz.

They have been camping in this holy city bordering Pakistan, where Aziz participated in the ministerial deliberations of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process. Aziz is to fly back this evening.

"We were keen to meet Sartaj Aziz. But the tight security in place did not allow us to have an audience with him. Now we are in the Golden Temple praying for justice to our son who is lodged in a Peshawar jail," said Fauzia Ansari, the mother of 32-year-old Hamid Ansari.

"All our efforts to meet Sartaj went futile," she lamented. Over 40 foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 participating countries attended the conference that also saw the attendance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani.

Hamid, an IT engineer and an MBA degree holder, had gone to Kabul on November 4, 2012 from where he wanted to reach Pakistan, allegedly to meet a Pakistani girl he had been in touch with over e-mail.

There were no reports of his whereabouts after November 10. The deputy attorney general of Pakistan had informed the court that Hamid was in the custody of Pakistani army and had been awarded three years' imprisonment. Fauzia and Nehal, who have two children, including Hamid, said he was sentenced to three years in prison and his term ended a year ago.

The elderly couple had been carrying placards to display outside the venue of two-day Heart of Asia conference.

Fauzia said she had earlier sent a letter to Aziz seeking an appointment to request for Hamid's release but in the absence of any reply from his office, she had no option but to stand near the venue of the conference with the placards.

She had filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court seeking release of her son after the completion of his jail term.

The petition was dismissed as the court had observed that the army would decide on his release since he was in its custody.

AMRITSAR: An elderly Mumbai-based couple's fight to secure the release of their son lodged in a Pakistani prison, despite completing his jail term, today hit a roadblock after they failed to meet Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz. They have been camping in this holy city bordering Pakistan, where Aziz participated in the ministerial deliberations of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process. Aziz is to fly back this evening. "We were keen to meet Sartaj Aziz. But the tight security in place did not allow us to have an audience with him. Now we are in the Golden Temple praying for justice to our son who is lodged in a Peshawar jail," said Fauzia Ansari, the mother of 32-year-old Hamid Ansari. "All our efforts to meet Sartaj went futile," she lamented. Over 40 foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 participating countries attended the conference that also saw the attendance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani. Hamid, an IT engineer and an MBA degree holder, had gone to Kabul on November 4, 2012 from where he wanted to reach Pakistan, allegedly to meet a Pakistani girl he had been in touch with over e-mail. There were no reports of his whereabouts after November 10. The deputy attorney general of Pakistan had informed the court that Hamid was in the custody of Pakistani army and had been awarded three years' imprisonment. Fauzia and Nehal, who have two children, including Hamid, said he was sentenced to three years in prison and his term ended a year ago. The elderly couple had been carrying placards to display outside the venue of two-day Heart of Asia conference. Fauzia said she had earlier sent a letter to Aziz seeking an appointment to request for Hamid's release but in the absence of any reply from his office, she had no option but to stand near the venue of the conference with the placards. She had filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court seeking release of her son after the completion of his jail term. The petition was dismissed as the court had observed that the army would decide on his release since he was in its custody.
By Online Desk

According to media reports, it is largely speculated that the reason the advisor to Pakistans Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz arrived almost 14 hours prior to the Heart of Asia summit was in fact to hold meetings with India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

Media sources at Network 18 say Doval and Aziz held meetings that lasted for more than an hour last evening. After this, Aziz is also said to have visited the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

In the weeks ahead of the conference, Sartaj Aziz had been issuing statements to the media stating that Islamabad was ready to hold talks with New Delhi and that he was going to India with a message of peace.

However the MEA claimed ignorance of Aziz's friendly gestures. We have not received any request for a bilateral meeting from Pakistan on the sidelines of Heart of Asia conference, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Gopal Bagalay said in response to a question if India had received any talks proposals.

India has been non-committal about holding bilateral talks with Aziz but made it clear that "talks and terror cannot go hand in hand".

Hence the news about the meeting between Doval and Aziz comes as a surprise and it is still unclear as to who, whether Pakistan or India, initiated the discussions on the sidelines of the summit. This would be the first time the Pakistan and India NSAs are having a formal face-to-face discussion post the Uri attacks.

Ever since the Uri attacks on this side of the Line-of-Control (LoC), relations have soured as India holds Pakistan answerable for the increasing number of border infiltrations and disturbances that have led to the loss of several Indian soldiers' lives.

According to media reports, it is largely speculated that the reason the advisor to Pakistans Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz arrived almost 14 hours prior to the Heart of Asia summit was in fact to hold meetings with India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Media sources at Network 18 say Doval and Aziz held meetings that lasted for more than an hour last evening. After this, Aziz is also said to have visited the Golden Temple in Amritsar. In the weeks ahead of the conference, Sartaj Aziz had been issuing statements to the media stating that Islamabad was ready to hold talks with New Delhi and that he was going to India with a message of peace. However the MEA claimed ignorance of Aziz's friendly gestures. We have not received any request for a bilateral meeting from Pakistan on the sidelines of Heart of Asia conference, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Gopal Bagalay said in response to a question if India had received any talks proposals. India has been non-committal about holding bilateral talks with Aziz but made it clear that "talks and terror cannot go hand in hand". Hence the news about the meeting between Doval and Aziz comes as a surprise and it is still unclear as to who, whether Pakistan or India, initiated the discussions on the sidelines of the summit. This would be the first time the Pakistan and India NSAs are having a formal face-to-face discussion post the Uri attacks. Ever since the Uri attacks on this side of the Line-of-Control (LoC), relations have soured as India holds Pakistan answerable for the increasing number of border infiltrations and disturbances that have led to the loss of several Indian soldiers' lives.
Express News Service

AMRITSAR: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz on Sunday clarified that his participation in the Heart of Asia conference is his testimony for countrys unflinching commitment to lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region.

My participation in the event, despite escalation on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary with India, is a testimony to Pakistans unflinching commitment to lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region. I look forward to meaningful deliberations today towards this objective, said Aziz at the sixth Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process on Afghanistan.

Speaking at the conference Aziz said, Pakistan deeply values the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process. We need to make an objective evaluation of our efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan. We appreciate progress in many areas under the leadership of president Ashraf Ghani and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah.

Afghan security forces have firmly and bravely stood their ground in repulsing militant and terrorist attacks. The international community has reiterated its commitment to support to Afghanistan in the areas of security and economic development till 2020. The government and people of Pakistan stand in complete solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development in Afghanistan. We would do whatever we can to help achieve this objective.

The Afghan government also signed a peace agreement with Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA). The implementation of this peace deal can serve as a model for talks with other insurgent groups in future, he added.

The peace process for talks between Afghan Government and Taliban has not yet produced positive results. Pakistan has been making serious efforts for facilitating the peace talks through the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG). We believe that all members of the QCG should continue their respective efforts for talks between Afghan Government and Taliban. In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led Afghan-owned process, said Aziz.

Speaking on infrastructure development in the region he said, The focus is on modern, state of the art infrastructure including through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). There is immense potential for connecting our transportation and energy infrastructure with Afghanistan, and other countries of West and Central Asia.

Our two countries are already part of Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) programme and have planned transport corridors five and six. At the Global Sustainable Transport Conference in Ashgabat last week, prime minister Nawaz Sharif announced Pakistans decision to join the Ashgabat Agreement and the Lapiz Lazuli Corridor. We also need to expedite energy connectivity projects including the TurkmenistanAfghanistanPakistanIndia Pipeline and the Central Asia-South Asia power project, he said.

He made these remarks hours after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and surprise night stay with Indian hospitality at a private hotel here.

Earlier, Aziz was seen sharing his table at Saturday gala event at Punjab governments much-hyped village project Saada Pind with rural settings, folk music and colloquial food, with deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and his wife who is Union food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

Modi exchanged pleasantries with Aziz, as he walked with him for around hundred meters after the dinner. Modi shared the table with Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani, said sources.

AMRITSAR: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz on Sunday clarified that his participation in the Heart of Asia conference is his testimony for countrys unflinching commitment to lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region. My participation in the event, despite escalation on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary with India, is a testimony to Pakistans unflinching commitment to lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region. I look forward to meaningful deliberations today towards this objective, said Aziz at the sixth Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process on Afghanistan. Speaking at the conference Aziz said, Pakistan deeply values the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process. We need to make an objective evaluation of our efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan. We appreciate progress in many areas under the leadership of president Ashraf Ghani and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah. Afghan security forces have firmly and bravely stood their ground in repulsing militant and terrorist attacks. The international community has reiterated its commitment to support to Afghanistan in the areas of security and economic development till 2020. The government and people of Pakistan stand in complete solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development in Afghanistan. We would do whatever we can to help achieve this objective. The Afghan government also signed a peace agreement with Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA). The implementation of this peace deal can serve as a model for talks with other insurgent groups in future, he added. The peace process for talks between Afghan Government and Taliban has not yet produced positive results. Pakistan has been making serious efforts for facilitating the peace talks through the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG). We believe that all members of the QCG should continue their respective efforts for talks between Afghan Government and Taliban. In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led Afghan-owned process, said Aziz. Speaking on infrastructure development in the region he said, The focus is on modern, state of the art infrastructure including through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). There is immense potential for connecting our transportation and energy infrastructure with Afghanistan, and other countries of West and Central Asia. Our two countries are already part of Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) programme and have planned transport corridors five and six. At the Global Sustainable Transport Conference in Ashgabat last week, prime minister Nawaz Sharif announced Pakistans decision to join the Ashgabat Agreement and the Lapiz Lazuli Corridor. We also need to expedite energy connectivity projects including the TurkmenistanAfghanistanPakistanIndia Pipeline and the Central Asia-South Asia power project, he said. He made these remarks hours after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and surprise night stay with Indian hospitality at a private hotel here. Earlier, Aziz was seen sharing his table at Saturday gala event at Punjab governments much-hyped village project Saada Pind with rural settings, folk music and colloquial food, with deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and his wife who is Union food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Modi exchanged pleasantries with Aziz, as he walked with him for around hundred meters after the dinner. Modi shared the table with Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani, said sources.
By PTI

AMRITSAR: India today said Pakistan High Commission's concern over the withdrawal of salaries by a bank had nothing to do with the government as it was an issue between the mission and the banking entity.

At the same time, official sources said here that the matter has been resolved.

"As far as we understand, the matter was between Pakistan High Commission and a private banking entity. It had nothing to do with the government and has been resolved," official sources said.

Pakistan had lodged a protest with India over its diplomats in the High Commission in New Delhi allegedly not being allowed to withdraw their salaries, which is paid in US dollars, by the bank.

Asserting that not allowing its officials to withdraw their salaries was in breach of Vienna Protocol, Pakistan had threatened that in case the matter was not resolved soon, it may consider retaliatory action against salary disbursal for Indian diplomats there.

RBL Bank, an Indian private bank, holds the salary account of the Pakistan High Commission staff.

"We are not allowed to withdraw our own salary. It is not a demonetization issue. It appears that it is done more at the instructions of the Indian government," a senior Pakistan High Commission official had said.

Diplomats can draw their tax-free salaries in dollars and only have to give the reason for the withdrawal beyond USD 5,000.

According to Pakistan High Commission officials, they are not being allowed to withdraw their salaries and have been asked for 'letters of purpose' for withdrawal of any dollar amount.

Incidentally, demonetization has led to a sharp spike in demand for dollars and other foreign currency, making it scarce.

AMRITSAR: India today said Pakistan High Commission's concern over the withdrawal of salaries by a bank had nothing to do with the government as it was an issue between the mission and the banking entity. At the same time, official sources said here that the matter has been resolved. "As far as we understand, the matter was between Pakistan High Commission and a private banking entity. It had nothing to do with the government and has been resolved," official sources said. Pakistan had lodged a protest with India over its diplomats in the High Commission in New Delhi allegedly not being allowed to withdraw their salaries, which is paid in US dollars, by the bank. Asserting that not allowing its officials to withdraw their salaries was in breach of Vienna Protocol, Pakistan had threatened that in case the matter was not resolved soon, it may consider retaliatory action against salary disbursal for Indian diplomats there. RBL Bank, an Indian private bank, holds the salary account of the Pakistan High Commission staff. "We are not allowed to withdraw our own salary. It is not a demonetization issue. It appears that it is done more at the instructions of the Indian government," a senior Pakistan High Commission official had said. Diplomats can draw their tax-free salaries in dollars and only have to give the reason for the withdrawal beyond USD 5,000. According to Pakistan High Commission officials, they are not being allowed to withdraw their salaries and have been asked for 'letters of purpose' for withdrawal of any dollar amount. Incidentally, demonetization has led to a sharp spike in demand for dollars and other foreign currency, making it scarce.
Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: Electricity tariff in Bihar is likely to be increased by up to 20 paise per unit soon, indicated the states power minister Bijendra Yadav on Sunday. The Opposition NDA promptly criticised the move, saying it would start statewide agitations against this anti-people measure.

There is a possibility of electricity tariff being raised in the state. A proposal will be sent (by the distribution companies and the power department) and the regulatory commission would look at it. The rise could be up to between 10 and 20 paise per unit, said Yadav in reply to a question from journalists.

Power tariffs have not been raised in Bihar in the last three years, barring a small raise of 2.43 per cent for 2015-16, and the distribution companies are said to be struggling with an unsustainable financial burden even as their consumer bases have grown by more than four times in the past four years. A rise in the price of coal has also led to a rise in the cost of power.

The increased tariff rates are likely to be effective from 2017-18. According to sources, the energy department plans to simplify the tariff structure by decreasing the number of tariff slabs and change the subsidy structure for a higher cost coverage.

North Bihar Power Distribution Company and South Bihar Power Distribution Company of the state energy department are likely to approach Bihar Electricity Regulatory Authority (BERC) later this month to seek a raise in power tariff.

The two companies proposal to raise power tariff in 2015-16 was shot down by BERC, but the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity had later set aside the BERC order. The two companies said they plan to reduce their aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses by 15 per cent by 2019-20.

The Opposition NDA leaders said they would agitate against any move to raise power tariff in the state. We are against any move that affects the ordinary people negatively, said RLSP leader and Union minister Upendra Kushwaha.

We will start a statewide agitation if the government goes ahead with its anti-people decision. Power is a basic right of all citizens, said newly appointed state BJP chief Nityanand Rai minutes after the energy minister told journalists of the governments likelihood of seeking a revision in tariff rates and subsidy slabs.

PATNA: Electricity tariff in Bihar is likely to be increased by up to 20 paise per unit soon, indicated the states power minister Bijendra Yadav on Sunday. The Opposition NDA promptly criticised the move, saying it would start statewide agitations against this anti-people measure. There is a possibility of electricity tariff being raised in the state. A proposal will be sent (by the distribution companies and the power department) and the regulatory commission would look at it. The rise could be up to between 10 and 20 paise per unit, said Yadav in reply to a question from journalists. Power tariffs have not been raised in Bihar in the last three years, barring a small raise of 2.43 per cent for 2015-16, and the distribution companies are said to be struggling with an unsustainable financial burden even as their consumer bases have grown by more than four times in the past four years. A rise in the price of coal has also led to a rise in the cost of power. The increased tariff rates are likely to be effective from 2017-18. According to sources, the energy department plans to simplify the tariff structure by decreasing the number of tariff slabs and change the subsidy structure for a higher cost coverage. North Bihar Power Distribution Company and South Bihar Power Distribution Company of the state energy department are likely to approach Bihar Electricity Regulatory Authority (BERC) later this month to seek a raise in power tariff. The two companies proposal to raise power tariff in 2015-16 was shot down by BERC, but the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity had later set aside the BERC order. The two companies said they plan to reduce their aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses by 15 per cent by 2019-20. The Opposition NDA leaders said they would agitate against any move to raise power tariff in the state. We are against any move that affects the ordinary people negatively, said RLSP leader and Union minister Upendra Kushwaha. We will start a statewide agitation if the government goes ahead with its anti-people decision. Power is a basic right of all citizens, said newly appointed state BJP chief Nityanand Rai minutes after the energy minister told journalists of the governments likelihood of seeking a revision in tariff rates and subsidy slabs.
Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: Three senior students of the College of Forestry in Birsa Agricultural University (BAU) in Jharkhand capital Ranchi were Sunday rusticated for allegedly stripping eight junior students, giving one of them a tonsure and then forcing them to have a cold bath on the terrace of a hostel on Saturday night.

We conducted an inquiry immediately after receiving the complaints of ragging and found the charges against three accused students true. As the first measure, we have rusticated the three students, said Mahadeo Mahto, dean of the faculty of forestry at BAU.

The university authorities gathered for a meeting and a probe into the charges though it was a Sunday. According to complaints, five senior students of MSc (forestry) had allegedly enacted ghastly acts in the name of ragging with eight students of BSc first year in the Saranda Boys Hostel on the university campus.

Efforts are on to ascertain the charges levelled against two other senior students. Ragging in any manner is thoroughly banned in this institution, said Mahto. We have asked all the three rusticated students to immediately vacate their hostel rooms, he added.

Gautam Kumar, one of the victims, lodged a complaint with the varsity authorities and also at the local police station at Kanke. Kumar had come to live in his hostel, Bhairavi Boys Hostel, on November 29. After dinner on Saturday evening, he and his batch-mates were allegedly called by the senior MSc students to Saranda Boys Hostel where the latter live.

The rusticated students are Pratap Kumar, Feroze Ahmed and Prashant Kumar. The rustication order was issued by varsity vice-chancellor after he learnt of the findings of the probe.

We have received a formal complaint from the victim. We will investigate the allegations and take appropriate action against the accused as per law, said Meera Singh, station house officer of Kanke police station.

PATNA: Three senior students of the College of Forestry in Birsa Agricultural University (BAU) in Jharkhand capital Ranchi were Sunday rusticated for allegedly stripping eight junior students, giving one of them a tonsure and then forcing them to have a cold bath on the terrace of a hostel on Saturday night. We conducted an inquiry immediately after receiving the complaints of ragging and found the charges against three accused students true. As the first measure, we have rusticated the three students, said Mahadeo Mahto, dean of the faculty of forestry at BAU. The university authorities gathered for a meeting and a probe into the charges though it was a Sunday. According to complaints, five senior students of MSc (forestry) had allegedly enacted ghastly acts in the name of ragging with eight students of BSc first year in the Saranda Boys Hostel on the university campus. Efforts are on to ascertain the charges levelled against two other senior students. Ragging in any manner is thoroughly banned in this institution, said Mahto. We have asked all the three rusticated students to immediately vacate their hostel rooms, he added. Gautam Kumar, one of the victims, lodged a complaint with the varsity authorities and also at the local police station at Kanke. Kumar had come to live in his hostel, Bhairavi Boys Hostel, on November 29. After dinner on Saturday evening, he and his batch-mates were allegedly called by the senior MSc students to Saranda Boys Hostel where the latter live. The rusticated students are Pratap Kumar, Feroze Ahmed and Prashant Kumar. The rustication order was issued by varsity vice-chancellor after he learnt of the findings of the probe. We have received a formal complaint from the victim. We will investigate the allegations and take appropriate action against the accused as per law, said Meera Singh, station house officer of Kanke police station.
By Express News Service

AMRITSAR: Without naming any country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday underscored the need to wipe out terror networks from the Heart of Asia region even as Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said state-sponsored sanctuaries of terrorism did exist in Pakistan.

As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, Modi said the Heart of Asia conference here. Without mincing his words, Ghani said, Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan on bilateral and multilateral basis, the undeclared war... not only has not abated but also intensified during 2016 with special intensity. One of the key figures in the (Afghan) Taliban movement recently said if they didnt have a sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldnt last a month.

He added that Islamabads military crackdown on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the northwest of the country bordering Afghanistan had brought about selective displacement of terrorists.

Pakistan has long been accused of supporting the insurgents in Afghanistan, especially with attacks on Indian targets in the country.

Modi also called for an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process to bring stability to the country, terming it a critical unfinished mission of our time. Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistans development and humanitarian needs must continue and increase, he added.

Appreciating Indias support, Ghani said, Indias support to Afghanistan to improve peoples life is transparent with no strings attached, he said. There are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan. We thank India for that.

Amritsar happens to nurture an old connection with Afghanistan. The flow of trade, people and ideas through the region has often intersected in Amritsar on the Grand Trunk Road.

AMRITSAR: Without naming any country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday underscored the need to wipe out terror networks from the Heart of Asia region even as Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said state-sponsored sanctuaries of terrorism did exist in Pakistan. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them, Modi said the Heart of Asia conference here. Without mincing his words, Ghani said, Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan on bilateral and multilateral basis, the undeclared war... not only has not abated but also intensified during 2016 with special intensity. One of the key figures in the (Afghan) Taliban movement recently said if they didnt have a sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldnt last a month. He added that Islamabads military crackdown on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the northwest of the country bordering Afghanistan had brought about selective displacement of terrorists. Pakistan has long been accused of supporting the insurgents in Afghanistan, especially with attacks on Indian targets in the country. Modi also called for an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process to bring stability to the country, terming it a critical unfinished mission of our time. Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistans development and humanitarian needs must continue and increase, he added. Appreciating Indias support, Ghani said, Indias support to Afghanistan to improve peoples life is transparent with no strings attached, he said. There are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan. We thank India for that. Amritsar happens to nurture an old connection with Afghanistan. The flow of trade, people and ideas through the region has often intersected in Amritsar on the Grand Trunk Road.
Archana Dalmia By

Theres a little story about the grasshopper and the ant. The grasshopper was a jolly chap and he sang all day through spring and summer, not preparing for the winter. The hardworking ant stocked up for the cold. Inevitably, the grasshopper almost died when winter came, because he was unprepared.



Is India the ant or the grasshopper? It is unfortunate that the answer is the latter. India is not prepared for a disaster, whether it is a natural calamity or a man-made one. We are just not equipped to deal with an emergency. On November 20, a train bound for Patna was derailed in Kanpur, killing over 142 people and injuring 200. Since it took time for rescue teams to reach, some anti-social elements looted belongings from the wreckage. People were stranded for hours. Hospitals in Pukhrayan were overwhelmed and began refusing patients.



Many survivors had to be rushed to hospitals in neighbouring areas and placed in guest houses and Dharamshalas, where doctors visited them. The serious cases were shifted to Kanpur Medical College, by which time many had succumbed to their injuries. In a case like this, it was imperative for the state to receive assistance from the Centre. What is terrible about this whole scenario is that it occurred because of negligence.

The keymen who maintain railway lines are not supervised and are paid a pittance. This system may have worked a 100 years ago during the British Raj, but now it needs an overhauling, given that India is the worlds fourth-largest and busiest rail network.



In current times of climate change and pollution, the natural cycle of nature has been altered in drastic ways, which has led to an increase in natural calamities like floods, snow and earthquakes. Japan recently had snowfall after 54 years. The floods in Uttaranchal and Kashmir, whic took such a heavy toll on the people, is not that far away that they should be forgottenboth were the results of climate change and deforestation. In both instances, we as a nation were not prepared.



Often, it is the poor and underprivileged who are hit worst by natural and man-made disasters. The 2005 Disaster Management Act that gave rise to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is still a toothless piece of legislation. However, there are a few useful suggestions that have been suggested by the NDMA. Regular drills need to be carried out. The common man needs to be equipped with some knowledge about what to do during an earthquake or flood. Accident prevention and rescue operations can be improved through an added number of staff and personnel who could manage disasters caused by vehicular collisions.



Insurance companies also need to react with a bit of empathy. It was quite shocking that during the 2004 tsunami, the fishing communitywho had lost everything, including their homes and boatswere expected to present papers to claim their insurance. The cold, corporate approach does not always work in situations like these where peoples entire livelihood has been compromised by a natural disaster.



Given that Indiawith its geo-climatic conditions, high density of population, socio-economic disparities, politics and troubled relations with its neighbourshas a high risk of natural and man-made disasters, one would imagine that a well-manned disaster management authority is in place. Rather than worrying about demonetisation, our government should be preparing to combat calamities that are very real and on rise.

Theres a little story about the grasshopper and the ant. The grasshopper was a jolly chap and he sang all day through spring and summer, not preparing for the winter. The hardworking ant stocked up for the cold. Inevitably, the grasshopper almost died when winter came, because he was unprepared. Is India the ant or the grasshopper? It is unfortunate that the answer is the latter. India is not prepared for a disaster, whether it is a natural calamity or a man-made one. We are just not equipped to deal with an emergency. On November 20, a train bound for Patna was derailed in Kanpur, killing over 142 people and injuring 200. Since it took time for rescue teams to reach, some anti-social elements looted belongings from the wreckage. People were stranded for hours. Hospitals in Pukhrayan were overwhelmed and began refusing patients. Many survivors had to be rushed to hospitals in neighbouring areas and placed in guest houses and Dharamshalas, where doctors visited them. The serious cases were shifted to Kanpur Medical College, by which time many had succumbed to their injuries. In a case like this, it was imperative for the state to receive assistance from the Centre. What is terrible about this whole scenario is that it occurred because of negligence. The keymen who maintain railway lines are not supervised and are paid a pittance. This system may have worked a 100 years ago during the British Raj, but now it needs an overhauling, given that India is the worlds fourth-largest and busiest rail network. In current times of climate change and pollution, the natural cycle of nature has been altered in drastic ways, which has led to an increase in natural calamities like floods, snow and earthquakes. Japan recently had snowfall after 54 years. The floods in Uttaranchal and Kashmir, whic took such a heavy toll on the people, is not that far away that they should be forgottenboth were the results of climate change and deforestation. In both instances, we as a nation were not prepared. Often, it is the poor and underprivileged who are hit worst by natural and man-made disasters. The 2005 Disaster Management Act that gave rise to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is still a toothless piece of legislation. However, there are a few useful suggestions that have been suggested by the NDMA. Regular drills need to be carried out. The common man needs to be equipped with some knowledge about what to do during an earthquake or flood. Accident prevention and rescue operations can be improved through an added number of staff and personnel who could manage disasters caused by vehicular collisions. Insurance companies also need to react with a bit of empathy. It was quite shocking that during the 2004 tsunami, the fishing communitywho had lost everything, including their homes and boatswere expected to present papers to claim their insurance. The cold, corporate approach does not always work in situations like these where peoples entire livelihood has been compromised by a natural disaster. Given that Indiawith its geo-climatic conditions, high density of population, socio-economic disparities, politics and troubled relations with its neighbourshas a high risk of natural and man-made disasters, one would imagine that a well-manned disaster management authority is in place. Rather than worrying about demonetisation, our government should be preparing to combat calamities that are very real and on rise.
Prabhu Chawla By

For political leaders, normal is the exercise of novelty. When normal becomes obsolete, they must set new benchmarks. Debate and dialogue is becoming less of a norm for dispute resolution. The sword is becoming mightier than the word as leaders are choosing arsenal over argument to protect humanity from the savagery of terrorism.

Handling terrorism is not an art, which South Blocks pinstripes panjandrums and please-all politicians can acquire at ease. To savage terrorism itself, a nation needs an operational infrastructure manned by people with the stomach for replacing ponderous phrases with arms. Jammu and Kashmir has been hemorrhaging for decades. The military machine of mayhem across the border has spilled the blood of civilians and soldiers alike on the Indian side of the border.

After the surgical strikes on September 29, Pakistan-sponsored jihadists are maiming, beheading, shooting and shelling Indias forces along the LoC. Ever since the strikes killed around 50 Pak trained terrorists, vengeful Islamist fundamentalists have chosen Indian soldiers and defence installations as their targets. During the past two months, they have killed around 30 officers and jawansthe highest body count in the last decade. The Indian Army has eliminated over 150 terrorists since January 2016, which is the highest scalp count in the recent past. The rising number of military-terrorist encounters clearly indicates that insurgents have chosen defence personnel as their primary targets. The number of civilians killed by militants has substantially fallen to double digit numbers from its peak of around 500 in 2007.

If India has to protect its warriors and their families, it has to change its moribund institutional framework dealing with Kashmir. For almost 70 years, we have treated Kashmir as a diplomatic problem. The doves in Indian diplomacy have been talking soft and carrying even a smaller stick, persuading the leadership to refrain from choosing a permanent military solution. But ever since fundamentalist Islam escalated its global reach, India became its preferred laboratory and playground. Over a million Indians have lost their lives in the state in the last quarter century. Jihadists have spilled innocent blood in various parts of the world, including the United States. But never have even once global leaders ignored the nuances of opportunistic compassion to put their heads together and eliminate the menace.

In this decade have emerged two leaders who are ideologically and individually determined to demolish the terror doctrine. In both India and the US the worlds two most powerful and largest democracies, the people have chosen leaders who are politically incorrect, socially singular and personally unique. Both practice disruptionist diplomacy and personalised politics. And terror is the major challenge to their authority. But US President-elect Donald Trump has decided to militarise American diplomacy to handle terror. He has chosen persons with service backgrounds and avowed anti-Islamist philosophy for the mission. Examples:

 James Mattis will be Donald Trumps Defence Secretary. He is a retired Marine Corps General and served in uniform for our four decades. He led US military operations in Iraq. Most American presidents have been choosing civilians or generals who retired over a decade ago. American federal law prohibits any general, whose superannuantion hasnt completed seven years, from becoming the Defence Secretary. Trump will seek special Congressional approval for Mattis because he wants the defence of his country to be handled by an Army veteran. The only exception was in 1950 when the Congress waived the seven-year bar for the appointment of General George Marshall as secretary for defence.

 Trump has chosen Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor. He is a retired Lieutenant General, who has also served as the director of the Defence Intelligence Agency. He is famous for comparing Islamism to fascism when he told CNN: We are facing another ism, just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism.... This is Islamism, it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet and it has to be excised.

Trump need not be Narendra Modis political model. But he is well advised to use the experience and expertise of former generals to deal with Kashmir. In J&K, the fight is not between the armies of India and Pakistan but between two diametrically opposed establishments. The Pak army is in the terror turret directing its fusillade against the Indian army and civilians. The ISI is funding and controlling insurgency in the Valley. But the Indian military is mandated to take its final orders from civil service officers who are at little risk.

Dithering diplomats and laid back Track Two frequent flyers have been dining off detente for almost seven decades. If Modi can resort to the unprecedented move of demonetising over 85 per cent of Indian currency for a cause in a 20-minute speech, he is also well equipped to paint Kashmir policy with a dash of military green. He can start with the appointment of a retired general as Governor. The current occupant of Raj Bhavan has outlived his hands-off and tee off administrative culture. Since most strategic decisions are taken in South Block, Modi can induct uniformed officers in both the External Affairs and Defence Ministries at the level of special secretaries who will report directly to their respective ministers and the Prime Minister.

Since anti-terror ops are undertaken with military precision and cutting-edge equipment, appointing an additional National Security Advisor with a military intelligence background to assist the National Security Council, will augment the effort. Many an Indian Prime Minister has in the past used diplomatic decency to deal with Pakistan, while hoping to win a Nobel Peace Prize. None of them could break the nexus between professional peace brokers and neo-liberals. A festering Kashmir is both their financial sustenance and an entry pass to the corridors of power. Only a Modi-fied Kashmir policy can make them redundant and become a genuine game changer if taken it to a logical end.

Prabhu Chawla

prabhuchawla@ newindianexpress.com

Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

For political leaders, normal is the exercise of novelty. When normal becomes obsolete, they must set new benchmarks. Debate and dialogue is becoming less of a norm for dispute resolution. The sword is becoming mightier than the word as leaders are choosing arsenal over argument to protect humanity from the savagery of terrorism. Handling terrorism is not an art, which South Blocks pinstripes panjandrums and please-all politicians can acquire at ease. To savage terrorism itself, a nation needs an operational infrastructure manned by people with the stomach for replacing ponderous phrases with arms. Jammu and Kashmir has been hemorrhaging for decades. The military machine of mayhem across the border has spilled the blood of civilians and soldiers alike on the Indian side of the border. After the surgical strikes on September 29, Pakistan-sponsored jihadists are maiming, beheading, shooting and shelling Indias forces along the LoC. Ever since the strikes killed around 50 Pak trained terrorists, vengeful Islamist fundamentalists have chosen Indian soldiers and defence installations as their targets. During the past two months, they have killed around 30 officers and jawansthe highest body count in the last decade. The Indian Army has eliminated over 150 terrorists since January 2016, which is the highest scalp count in the recent past. The rising number of military-terrorist encounters clearly indicates that insurgents have chosen defence personnel as their primary targets. The number of civilians killed by militants has substantially fallen to double digit numbers from its peak of around 500 in 2007. If India has to protect its warriors and their families, it has to change its moribund institutional framework dealing with Kashmir. For almost 70 years, we have treated Kashmir as a diplomatic problem. The doves in Indian diplomacy have been talking soft and carrying even a smaller stick, persuading the leadership to refrain from choosing a permanent military solution. But ever since fundamentalist Islam escalated its global reach, India became its preferred laboratory and playground. Over a million Indians have lost their lives in the state in the last quarter century. Jihadists have spilled innocent blood in various parts of the world, including the United States. But never have even once global leaders ignored the nuances of opportunistic compassion to put their heads together and eliminate the menace. In this decade have emerged two leaders who are ideologically and individually determined to demolish the terror doctrine. In both India and the US the worlds two most powerful and largest democracies, the people have chosen leaders who are politically incorrect, socially singular and personally unique. Both practice disruptionist diplomacy and personalised politics. And terror is the major challenge to their authority. But US President-elect Donald Trump has decided to militarise American diplomacy to handle terror. He has chosen persons with service backgrounds and avowed anti-Islamist philosophy for the mission. Examples:  James Mattis will be Donald Trumps Defence Secretary. He is a retired Marine Corps General and served in uniform for our four decades. He led US military operations in Iraq. Most American presidents have been choosing civilians or generals who retired over a decade ago. American federal law prohibits any general, whose superannuantion hasnt completed seven years, from becoming the Defence Secretary. Trump will seek special Congressional approval for Mattis because he wants the defence of his country to be handled by an Army veteran. The only exception was in 1950 when the Congress waived the seven-year bar for the appointment of General George Marshall as secretary for defence.  Trump has chosen Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor. He is a retired Lieutenant General, who has also served as the director of the Defence Intelligence Agency. He is famous for comparing Islamism to fascism when he told CNN: We are facing another ism, just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism.... This is Islamism, it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet and it has to be excised. Trump need not be Narendra Modis political model. But he is well advised to use the experience and expertise of former generals to deal with Kashmir. In J&K, the fight is not between the armies of India and Pakistan but between two diametrically opposed establishments. The Pak army is in the terror turret directing its fusillade against the Indian army and civilians. The ISI is funding and controlling insurgency in the Valley. But the Indian military is mandated to take its final orders from civil service officers who are at little risk. Dithering diplomats and laid back Track Two frequent flyers have been dining off detente for almost seven decades. If Modi can resort to the unprecedented move of demonetising over 85 per cent of Indian currency for a cause in a 20-minute speech, he is also well equipped to paint Kashmir policy with a dash of military green. He can start with the appointment of a retired general as Governor. The current occupant of Raj Bhavan has outlived his hands-off and tee off administrative culture. Since most strategic decisions are taken in South Block, Modi can induct uniformed officers in both the External Affairs and Defence Ministries at the level of special secretaries who will report directly to their respective ministers and the Prime Minister. Since anti-terror ops are undertaken with military precision and cutting-edge equipment, appointing an additional National Security Advisor with a military intelligence background to assist the National Security Council, will augment the effort. Many an Indian Prime Minister has in the past used diplomatic decency to deal with Pakistan, while hoping to win a Nobel Peace Prize. None of them could break the nexus between professional peace brokers and neo-liberals. A festering Kashmir is both their financial sustenance and an entry pass to the corridors of power. Only a Modi-fied Kashmir policy can make them redundant and become a genuine game changer if taken it to a logical end. Prabhu Chawla prabhuchawla@ newindianexpress.com Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
Guru Srikanth By

Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: When the Prime Minister announced his demonetization decision on November 8, middleaged farmer Varre Venkateswarlu thought he was lucky. He had ventured into aquaculture just a month ago, converting his two-and-ahalf acre paddy field into an aquaculture pond to cultivate shrimp. Just two days after I paid cash for the shrimp seed, the government announced demonetization. Initially, I felt lucky that I beat the government to it, but now I am worried. I need cash to buy other

inputs, he says. Venkateswarlu, though assured of credit to buy feed for his shrimp, is concerned about other expenses like fuel for the motor pump, medicines and lab expenses for getting the prawns tested for diseases. Its a situation of uncertainty in an uncertain industry. Venkateshwarlus farm falls in the hinterland of Bhimavaram, the aquaculture capital of Andhra Pradesh. There are 200 acres of aqua farms in his village of Pamulaparru in Undi mandal of West Godavari district.

Another 200 fallow acres are ready for conversion, the farmers hoping like Venkateshwarlu for a bonanza in raising shrimp. But the whole economy of the village is in stasis post-demonetization.

Labourers have to be paid in cash and I dont have it. So my son and I are doing all the work. I dont know what will happen next, Venkateswarlu says, sounding doubtful about his gamble. Many fingers are crossed in this part of Andhra Pradesh with first-time farmers hoping that the cash crunch will end by the time they have to buy the seed for the February crop. The sentiment is echoed by most of the aqua farmers who sowed in October- November. Those preparing for harvest, like M Srinivas Rao of Pali village in Bhimavaram mandal, are the most anxious, as the need for cash gets more pressing each passing day. Many of them are on the edge of panic for the shrimp have to be harvested in just about 10 days. This in short is how demonetisation has cast a shadow over aquaculture in Andhra Pradesh, the largest producer and exporterof seafood, particularly shrimp, in the country. Around 3.5 lakh farmers and near about 20 lakh workers are dependent on aquaculture in the state. Be it a smalltime prawn farmer in Nellore or a big-fish farmer in Bhimavaram or a seafood exporter in Visakhapatnam, all are feeling the heat of demonetisation be it due to the curbs on withdrawal of money from banks and possible tax burden they have to face.

With not enough liquid cash inm hand, owners are either postponing or making part-payments. Initially, they gave us `1,000 and `500 notes. We had to take leave to deposit the notes. Now, we are due to be paid again, but the owners say they do not have the cash and ask us to wait for some more time, says K Ravi Kumar, a supervisor in a fish packing factory in Mahadevapatnam near Bhimavaram.

Chinna Rao, a worker in another packing unit, has run out of cash. I have to take care of my old parents. Though my parents get pension, withdrawing it has become a laborious task, he says, adding that even getting credit has become difficult. K Ramakrishna Raju, a fish farmer, on the other hand has a different problem. He has money but it is locked up in transactions and the curbs on bank withdrawals are costing him. The situation is grim. On an average, 200 truckloads of fish

leave the state per day with each truck load valued at around `10 lakh. Post-demonetisation, the number has come down to 50-60 trucks. If the situation does not improve in the next two weeks, it will be tough, Gadhiraju Subbaraju, president of the Coastal Aqua Fish Farmers Welfare Association,

explained.

Another crucial factor at play in the aquaculture sector in Andhra Pradesh is the very nature of the financial transactions. Most of them are carried out through the non-banking sector. Many farmers have no bank accounts. Making payments to them has become hard. We are ready to switch to cashless transactions,but without bank accounts, it is not possible, points out B Mastan Rao, an agent in Nellore.

Aqua farmers are in fact worried about depositing their money in banks as they do not maintain books. If the large amounts get deposited in the form of payment

for their crop in banks, they fear that the taxman will come after them. Since the amount runs into lakhs of rupees, the tax will be heavy. We have to make payments and if we pay tax for the entire amount, we will be left without anything to clear our dues, says V S Murthy, a prawn

farmer in Undi.

A higher official dealing with seafood exports said it is time for bankers to take pro-active measures to deal with the situation. Exporters on the other hand say demonetisation has little impact on exports, but are wary of the future. But one thing seems certain. Production will come down by 35-40 per cent, says V Satyanarayna Raju, AP Prawn Farmers Association president

VIJAYAWADA: When the Prime Minister announced his demonetization decision on November 8, middleaged farmer Varre Venkateswarlu thought he was lucky. He had ventured into aquaculture just a month ago, converting his two-and-ahalf acre paddy field into an aquaculture pond to cultivate shrimp. Just two days after I paid cash for the shrimp seed, the government announced demonetization. Initially, I felt lucky that I beat the government to it, but now I am worried. I need cash to buy other inputs, he says. Venkateswarlu, though assured of credit to buy feed for his shrimp, is concerned about other expenses like fuel for the motor pump, medicines and lab expenses for getting the prawns tested for diseases. Its a situation of uncertainty in an uncertain industry. Venkateshwarlus farm falls in the hinterland of Bhimavaram, the aquaculture capital of Andhra Pradesh. There are 200 acres of aqua farms in his village of Pamulaparru in Undi mandal of West Godavari district. Another 200 fallow acres are ready for conversion, the farmers hoping like Venkateshwarlu for a bonanza in raising shrimp. But the whole economy of the village is in stasis post-demonetization. Labourers have to be paid in cash and I dont have it. So my son and I are doing all the work. I dont know what will happen next, Venkateswarlu says, sounding doubtful about his gamble. Many fingers are crossed in this part of Andhra Pradesh with first-time farmers hoping that the cash crunch will end by the time they have to buy the seed for the February crop. The sentiment is echoed by most of the aqua farmers who sowed in October- November. Those preparing for harvest, like M Srinivas Rao of Pali village in Bhimavaram mandal, are the most anxious, as the need for cash gets more pressing each passing day. Many of them are on the edge of panic for the shrimp have to be harvested in just about 10 days. This in short is how demonetisation has cast a shadow over aquaculture in Andhra Pradesh, the largest producer and exporterof seafood, particularly shrimp, in the country. Around 3.5 lakh farmers and near about 20 lakh workers are dependent on aquaculture in the state. Be it a smalltime prawn farmer in Nellore or a big-fish farmer in Bhimavaram or a seafood exporter in Visakhapatnam, all are feeling the heat of demonetisation be it due to the curbs on withdrawal of money from banks and possible tax burden they have to face. With not enough liquid cash inm hand, owners are either postponing or making part-payments. Initially, they gave us `1,000 and `500 notes. We had to take leave to deposit the notes. Now, we are due to be paid again, but the owners say they do not have the cash and ask us to wait for some more time, says K Ravi Kumar, a supervisor in a fish packing factory in Mahadevapatnam near Bhimavaram. Chinna Rao, a worker in another packing unit, has run out of cash. I have to take care of my old parents. Though my parents get pension, withdrawing it has become a laborious task, he says, adding that even getting credit has become difficult. K Ramakrishna Raju, a fish farmer, on the other hand has a different problem. He has money but it is locked up in transactions and the curbs on bank withdrawals are costing him. The situation is grim. On an average, 200 truckloads of fish leave the state per day with each truck load valued at around `10 lakh. Post-demonetisation, the number has come down to 50-60 trucks. If the situation does not improve in the next two weeks, it will be tough, Gadhiraju Subbaraju, president of the Coastal Aqua Fish Farmers Welfare Association, explained. Another crucial factor at play in the aquaculture sector in Andhra Pradesh is the very nature of the financial transactions. Most of them are carried out through the non-banking sector. Many farmers have no bank accounts. Making payments to them has become hard. We are ready to switch to cashless transactions,but without bank accounts, it is not possible, points out B Mastan Rao, an agent in Nellore. Aqua farmers are in fact worried about depositing their money in banks as they do not maintain books. If the large amounts get deposited in the form of payment for their crop in banks, they fear that the taxman will come after them. Since the amount runs into lakhs of rupees, the tax will be heavy. We have to make payments and if we pay tax for the entire amount, we will be left without anything to clear our dues, says V S Murthy, a prawn farmer in Undi. A higher official dealing with seafood exports said it is time for bankers to take pro-active measures to deal with the situation. Exporters on the other hand say demonetisation has little impact on exports, but are wary of the future. But one thing seems certain. Production will come down by 35-40 per cent, says V Satyanarayna Raju, AP Prawn Farmers Association president
Srikkanth Dhasarathy By

Express News Service

YELLAPUR: Hum bhi Insaan hai. The 67-year-old Dieog Siddi of Tottalgundi village uttered the phrase  which means we are humans too  at least seven times when he described the struggles his community had to face over the years. From writing a letter to the late South African President Nelson Mandela after his release from Robben Island prison in 1990 to celebrating the victory of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the US, in 2009, Dieog had done everything in his powers to attract the attention towards the Siddis.

The 19 years between the two incidents witnessed a slight, if not massive, change in the way Siddis lived. Induction of Siddi children into the Special Area Games Programme in 1988 and the Scheduled Tribe status in 2003 after two decades of struggle were the watershed moments.

Rallying for Mandelas release was one of the first public acts the Siddis did after registering the Akhil Karnatak Siddi Vikas Sangh in 1984. The organisation was formed in 1980 by a group of Siddi community leaders. Dieog recalled the crux of the letter they sent to Mandela. Dear Mr Mandela, we look at you with pride. Our situation is not good. We request you to hold talks with our government to uplift us, Dieog said. He claimed that there was a reply from South Africas first black head of the State, a claim verified by a 2008 report in The East African Magazine.

Every Siddi village has a community leader selected by means of oral consensus among the villagers. While their African ethnicity is apparent from their appearance, the Siddis of Karnataka are divided on religious lines. There are Christian, Muslim and Hindu Siddis and they have taken to the local customs. While they had traditionally married within the community, of late, people have started to marry outside the community too, said Paulo Posto Siddi, a community leader in Mainhalli.

Mainhalli is a predominantly Christian village in Mundgod taluk, while Uginkere has Muslims. Most of the elders work as farmhands or do menial labour. However, children now have started to go to school and are starting to move out of Uttara Kannada in search of greener pastures. The outside world is not so welcoming, confusing them to be Africans and it usually takes a round of conversation and a lecture on history to prove that they are as much citizens of India as those who question them are. For 40 years, Dieog has been travelling across Siddi villages, creating awareness about rights. Dieog remembers an incident in particular. The local MLA had asked us how we can organise a function for Obama when politicians are present here? He retorted, saying, America has made an African American their president. You people are not recognising us as humans.

For generations, we worked in the same households. If we ask for money for our work, they will tell the police and keep us in fear, said Dieog, who has four children, including two daughters. One of his daughters is practising at the Bengaluru High Court. Our situation will change. Children are going to school. If not today, may be tomorrow, Dieog said confidently. His parting words, Hum bhi Insaan hai.

Shackles of fear

The Siddis speaking up for themselves is the first step towards their liberation. For decades, they were afraid of interacting with people. Police used to beat us. When people like you come, we used to run into the forests out of fear, Dieog Siddi said

YELLAPUR: Hum bhi Insaan hai. The 67-year-old Dieog Siddi of Tottalgundi village uttered the phrase  which means we are humans too  at least seven times when he described the struggles his community had to face over the years. From writing a letter to the late South African President Nelson Mandela after his release from Robben Island prison in 1990 to celebrating the victory of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the US, in 2009, Dieog had done everything in his powers to attract the attention towards the Siddis. The 19 years between the two incidents witnessed a slight, if not massive, change in the way Siddis lived. Induction of Siddi children into the Special Area Games Programme in 1988 and the Scheduled Tribe status in 2003 after two decades of struggle were the watershed moments. Rallying for Mandelas release was one of the first public acts the Siddis did after registering the Akhil Karnatak Siddi Vikas Sangh in 1984. The organisation was formed in 1980 by a group of Siddi community leaders. Dieog recalled the crux of the letter they sent to Mandela. Dear Mr Mandela, we look at you with pride. Our situation is not good. We request you to hold talks with our government to uplift us, Dieog said. He claimed that there was a reply from South Africas first black head of the State, a claim verified by a 2008 report in The East African Magazine. Every Siddi village has a community leader selected by means of oral consensus among the villagers. While their African ethnicity is apparent from their appearance, the Siddis of Karnataka are divided on religious lines. There are Christian, Muslim and Hindu Siddis and they have taken to the local customs. While they had traditionally married within the community, of late, people have started to marry outside the community too, said Paulo Posto Siddi, a community leader in Mainhalli. Mainhalli is a predominantly Christian village in Mundgod taluk, while Uginkere has Muslims. Most of the elders work as farmhands or do menial labour. However, children now have started to go to school and are starting to move out of Uttara Kannada in search of greener pastures. The outside world is not so welcoming, confusing them to be Africans and it usually takes a round of conversation and a lecture on history to prove that they are as much citizens of India as those who question them are. For 40 years, Dieog has been travelling across Siddi villages, creating awareness about rights. Dieog remembers an incident in particular. The local MLA had asked us how we can organise a function for Obama when politicians are present here? He retorted, saying, America has made an African American their president. You people are not recognising us as humans. For generations, we worked in the same households. If we ask for money for our work, they will tell the police and keep us in fear, said Dieog, who has four children, including two daughters. One of his daughters is practising at the Bengaluru High Court. Our situation will change. Children are going to school. If not today, may be tomorrow, Dieog said confidently. His parting words, Hum bhi Insaan hai. Shackles of fear The Siddis speaking up for themselves is the first step towards their liberation. For decades, they were afraid of interacting with people. Police used to beat us. When people like you come, we used to run into the forests out of fear, Dieog Siddi said
The venue is located opposite KIMS hospital, has been modelled on the lines of the Mysore palace.

The 'mandapam' where the bride and groom would the tie the knot, has been modelled on the famous Akshardham temple. The mandapam will be 120 ft long and 50 ft tall.

Around 300 workers have been working on the venue for the past four months.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made at the wedding view of the visit by VIPs from the state and TN.

Dining arrangements include two dining halls - each with an area of 120mx80m-have been set up on either side of the mandapam.

Each counter would be 78 ft in length and would serve up to 60 dishes. Arrangements have also been made to prepare up to 600 kg of biriyani of various varieties within 45 minutes.
Toby Antony By

Express News Service

KOCHI: The CBI probe into the multi-crore nursing recruitment scam is at a standstill, 19 months on, as the investigation agency is yet to nab the prime accused in the case.

CBI said the case would remain in limbo unless Uthup Mailakkattu Varghese (49), who has been charged with duping nursing aspirants of huge sums of money in the name of recruiting them abroad, is interrogated. Even though Interpol circulated a red corner notice (issued to seek location and arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition or similar lawful action) against Varghese one-and-half-years back in 2015, he remains elusive. The only information the CBI has about him is that he remains in the UAE.

The probe is not completed. However, information about Varghese has been provided to Interpol in UAE. All other evidences have been collected, said a CBI official, preferring anonymity. The official also refused to divulge further details about the pending case.

Varghese, a Puthupally-native, was running a foreign recruitment agency Al Zarafa Manpower Consultants and Travels in various Indian cities, including Kochi. CBI registered a case against Al Zarafa, Varghese and Protector of Emigrants in Kochi in April, 2015, for charging `19.5 lakh, instead of `19,500 from each candidate for nursing jobs in Kuwait Ministry of Health, which was recruiting around 1200 nurses from the country. CBI estimates that Varghese earned `500 crore through the scam. The Interpol Red Corner Notice against Varghese remains pending. The Income Tax Department and Enforcement Directorate, are also probing hawala money transaction activities connected with the case.

KOCHI: The CBI probe into the multi-crore nursing recruitment scam is at a standstill, 19 months on, as the investigation agency is yet to nab the prime accused in the case. CBI said the case would remain in limbo unless Uthup Mailakkattu Varghese (49), who has been charged with duping nursing aspirants of huge sums of money in the name of recruiting them abroad, is interrogated. Even though Interpol circulated a red corner notice (issued to seek location and arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition or similar lawful action) against Varghese one-and-half-years back in 2015, he remains elusive. The only information the CBI has about him is that he remains in the UAE. The probe is not completed. However, information about Varghese has been provided to Interpol in UAE. All other evidences have been collected, said a CBI official, preferring anonymity. The official also refused to divulge further details about the pending case. Varghese, a Puthupally-native, was running a foreign recruitment agency Al Zarafa Manpower Consultants and Travels in various Indian cities, including Kochi. CBI registered a case against Al Zarafa, Varghese and Protector of Emigrants in Kochi in April, 2015, for charging `19.5 lakh, instead of `19,500 from each candidate for nursing jobs in Kuwait Ministry of Health, which was recruiting around 1200 nurses from the country. CBI estimates that Varghese earned `500 crore through the scam. The Interpol Red Corner Notice against Varghese remains pending. The Income Tax Department and Enforcement Directorate, are also probing hawala money transaction activities connected with the case.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created a new normal for the countrys economy by breaking all stereotypes of the past through his demonetisation move.

Earlier, it was so much in cash and cheque. This was the Indian normal. The Prime Minister redefined the new normal though his bold initiative of demonetisation of high value currency notes. Now there will be less cash transaction and an increase in digital currency, Jaitley said.

Speaking on Indian economy: The new normal in the aftermath of demonetisation, Jaitley said for the first time, such a decision was taken which was difficult to implement because of many challenges that came with it. The Prime Minister had the temerity to take such a hard decision to fight black money and corruption, he said.

Attacking the Congress and other political parties opposing demonetisation, the Union Finance Minister said corruption was all-pervasive during the UPA Government. Though half of NDA Governments term is over, nobody is talking about corruption any more.

Implementing such a decision is not only difficult but painful which we are experiencing. Replacing 86 per cent of the currency in circulation is a challenging task because of the huge logistics involved and secrecy need to be maintained at all levels, he said.

Despite all odds, the people of the country have accepted this reality with enthusiasm and have shown greater maturity. Attempts by some political parties and a section of the media to provoke people against the Government have proved futile, Jaitley said.

Two categories of people have not changed - politicians and mediapersons. The Congress and Left parties are still asking when things will change while a section of the media is showing only the negative aspects of demonetisation. However, they dont realise that the country has already changed and people have accepted the move of the Government, he remarked.

For the first time, people of the country have started realising the benefit to be honest, Jaitely said.

The Union Finance Minister said he was surprised when the banks informed him that 80 crore credit and debit cards are in circulation of which 45 crore are active. Besides, crores of people have resorted to the e-wallet system which started only 15 months back.

We dont realise how fast the economic scenario is changing. Once demonetisation is complete and transaction is made on digital platform, the future of the country will be bright, he said.

Earlier, the country was unified politically but not economically. Economic integration of the country will happen after implementation of the GST, he said. I believe that the two initiatives - GST and demonetisation - would eventually benefit the whole country which will be a one big market, he said.

Tax evasion would be increasingly difficult because at some point of transaction - from inception to the end - the whole process of manufacture would be captured on the IT backbone that is being developed.

BHUBANESWAR: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created a new normal for the countrys economy by breaking all stereotypes of the past through his demonetisation move. Earlier, it was so much in cash and cheque. This was the Indian normal. The Prime Minister redefined the new normal though his bold initiative of demonetisation of high value currency notes. Now there will be less cash transaction and an increase in digital currency, Jaitley said. Speaking on Indian economy: The new normal in the aftermath of demonetisation, Jaitley said for the first time, such a decision was taken which was difficult to implement because of many challenges that came with it. The Prime Minister had the temerity to take such a hard decision to fight black money and corruption, he said. Attacking the Congress and other political parties opposing demonetisation, the Union Finance Minister said corruption was all-pervasive during the UPA Government. Though half of NDA Governments term is over, nobody is talking about corruption any more. Implementing such a decision is not only difficult but painful which we are experiencing. Replacing 86 per cent of the currency in circulation is a challenging task because of the huge logistics involved and secrecy need to be maintained at all levels, he said. Despite all odds, the people of the country have accepted this reality with enthusiasm and have shown greater maturity. Attempts by some political parties and a section of the media to provoke people against the Government have proved futile, Jaitley said. Two categories of people have not changed - politicians and mediapersons. The Congress and Left parties are still asking when things will change while a section of the media is showing only the negative aspects of demonetisation. However, they dont realise that the country has already changed and people have accepted the move of the Government, he remarked. For the first time, people of the country have started realising the benefit to be honest, Jaitely said. The Union Finance Minister said he was surprised when the banks informed him that 80 crore credit and debit cards are in circulation of which 45 crore are active. Besides, crores of people have resorted to the e-wallet system which started only 15 months back. We dont realise how fast the economic scenario is changing. Once demonetisation is complete and transaction is made on digital platform, the future of the country will be bright, he said. Earlier, the country was unified politically but not economically. Economic integration of the country will happen after implementation of the GST, he said. I believe that the two initiatives - GST and demonetisation - would eventually benefit the whole country which will be a one big market, he said. Tax evasion would be increasingly difficult because at some point of transaction - from inception to the end - the whole process of manufacture would be captured on the IT backbone that is being developed.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The BJP today criticised the state government for the preventive arrest of BJP

workers ahead of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's visit to Sundargarh district.

"The Chief Minister's visit to different parts of the state amidst heavy poice bandobast demonstrates that he is scared to face the people. Areas where he is visiting is virtually kept under a state of emergency and arrest of political opponents ahead of his visit has become a standard procedure," national BJP general secretary and Odisha in-charge Arun Singh told reporters here.

Condemning the arrest of BJP workers including secretary of the party's state unit Dhiren Senapati and state Yuva Morcha president Tankadhar Tripathy last night, Singh said such arrest will not deter the BJP activists to fight against the corrupt and incompetent BJD government.

Asserting that the BJP is in all readiness to face any challenge from the ruling BJD, Singh said his party has decided to organise panchayat level meeting for nearly two weeks from December 26 to January

7, 2017 to highlights the failures of the state government and the success of the Narendra Modi government at Centre.

Singh was here to attend a joint meeting of BJP MLAs, state functionaries, district presidents, presidents of party frontal wings and district pravaris to finalise strategy for the ensuing panchayat elections.

The meeting presided by state unit president Basanta Panda slammed the Chief Minister for obstructing the free flow of funds from Centre to the panchayats for political reasons.

Coming down heavily on the state government for the poor health services in rural areas, Panda said the Nagada malnutrition deaths and the deaths of over 100 children in Malkangiri district due to Japanese Encephalitis are results of utter mismanagement and inefficiency of the ruling BJD.

Panda said that the Chief Minister is trying to fool the people by laying foundation stones of innumerable projects ahead of the panchayat election. But such gimmicks will not work any more as people are aware that a large number of projects whose foundations stones were laid by him a decade ago have remained non-starter.

BHUBANESWAR: The BJP today criticised the state government for the preventive arrest of BJP workers ahead of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's visit to Sundargarh district. "The Chief Minister's visit to different parts of the state amidst heavy poice bandobast demonstrates that he is scared to face the people. Areas where he is visiting is virtually kept under a state of emergency and arrest of political opponents ahead of his visit has become a standard procedure," national BJP general secretary and Odisha in-charge Arun Singh told reporters here. Condemning the arrest of BJP workers including secretary of the party's state unit Dhiren Senapati and state Yuva Morcha president Tankadhar Tripathy last night, Singh said such arrest will not deter the BJP activists to fight against the corrupt and incompetent BJD government. Asserting that the BJP is in all readiness to face any challenge from the ruling BJD, Singh said his party has decided to organise panchayat level meeting for nearly two weeks from December 26 to January 7, 2017 to highlights the failures of the state government and the success of the Narendra Modi government at Centre. Singh was here to attend a joint meeting of BJP MLAs, state functionaries, district presidents, presidents of party frontal wings and district pravaris to finalise strategy for the ensuing panchayat elections. The meeting presided by state unit president Basanta Panda slammed the Chief Minister for obstructing the free flow of funds from Centre to the panchayats for political reasons. Coming down heavily on the state government for the poor health services in rural areas, Panda said the Nagada malnutrition deaths and the deaths of over 100 children in Malkangiri district due to Japanese Encephalitis are results of utter mismanagement and inefficiency of the ruling BJD. Panda said that the Chief Minister is trying to fool the people by laying foundation stones of innumerable projects ahead of the panchayat election. But such gimmicks will not work any more as people are aware that a large number of projects whose foundations stones were laid by him a decade ago have remained non-starter.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The Congress and BJP on Saturday staged a walkout in the Assembly alleging widespread corruption in the Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) and demanded that the headquarters of the organisation should be shifted to Western Odisha as early as possible.



The issue cropped up during discussion on the admissibility of an adjournment motion notice with the Opposition members alleging that the council has become the rehabilitation centre of defeated BJD candidates in elections.



Questioning the sincerity of the State Government towards development in Western Odisha region, Leader of the Opposition Narasingh Mishra demanded immediate shifting of the council headquarters and enhancement of its budget to at least `1000 crore.



Mishra, who was the first chairman of the WODC, said though formation of the council was a good beginning, over the years, it has lost its efficacy because of negligible budget provision, inadequate staff and lack of an executing agency. He warned that if the State Government does not take steps to eradicate regional imbalance, it may lead towards the demand for a separate State by the people of the area.



Alleging that corruption is widespread in WODC, Naba Kishore Das (Cong) said projects are being approved without tender. Stating that there has been large-scale corruption in WODC, he demanded a high-level probe into the matter. He alleged that though MLAs should be made members of the council on rotation basis as per rules, opposition MLAs are not nominated.



Pradip Purohit, Radharani Panda (both BJP) and Subal Sahu (Cong) also alleged widespread corruption in WODC and demanded immediate shifting of the headquarters. However, several BJD members including Padmanabha Behera, Dibyashankar Mishra, Sanjib Kumar Sahu and Raseswari Panigrahi alleged that the attack on WODC is politically motivated.



Making a statement in response, Minister for Planning and Coordination Usha Devi said the State Government has repeatedly sought the views of the council on shifting of headquarters. An appropriate decision will be taken only after the views of the council are received, she said.



Stating that WODC was formed to accelerate development in Western Odisha, the Minister said so far 28,782 projects amounting to `1250.89 crore have been sanctioned since its inception.

MLAs express concern over NFSA irregularities

Bhubaneswar: Members cutting across party lines on Saturday expressed their grave concern in the Assembly over the largescale irregularities in the distribution of ration cards under the National Food Security Act (NFSA). The issue cropped up in question hour while Minister of State for Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Sanjay Dasburma was replying to question in this regard. Padmanabha Behera (BJD) wanted to know about the steps taken so far to distribute ration cards to the poor people who are the genuine beneficiaries under the NFSA.

Alleging that persons not eligible have got ration cards, Behera said many genuine beneficiaries are yet to covered under the scheme. Opposition Chief Whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati said the Government should also provide wheat to the beneficiaries in urban areas and rice in rural areas, failing which there resentment will mount against the Government. The Minister, however, said as per the the provisions under NFSA, the Government has initiated several steps to identify genuine beneficiaries. "I request the people to bring to the notice of my department about the genuine beneficiaries whose name has not been included in the list," he said.

BHUBANESWAR: The Congress and BJP on Saturday staged a walkout in the Assembly alleging widespread corruption in the Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) and demanded that the headquarters of the organisation should be shifted to Western Odisha as early as possible. The issue cropped up during discussion on the admissibility of an adjournment motion notice with the Opposition members alleging that the council has become the rehabilitation centre of defeated BJD candidates in elections. Questioning the sincerity of the State Government towards development in Western Odisha region, Leader of the Opposition Narasingh Mishra demanded immediate shifting of the council headquarters and enhancement of its budget to at least `1000 crore. Mishra, who was the first chairman of the WODC, said though formation of the council was a good beginning, over the years, it has lost its efficacy because of negligible budget provision, inadequate staff and lack of an executing agency. He warned that if the State Government does not take steps to eradicate regional imbalance, it may lead towards the demand for a separate State by the people of the area. Alleging that corruption is widespread in WODC, Naba Kishore Das (Cong) said projects are being approved without tender. Stating that there has been large-scale corruption in WODC, he demanded a high-level probe into the matter. He alleged that though MLAs should be made members of the council on rotation basis as per rules, opposition MLAs are not nominated. Pradip Purohit, Radharani Panda (both BJP) and Subal Sahu (Cong) also alleged widespread corruption in WODC and demanded immediate shifting of the headquarters. However, several BJD members including Padmanabha Behera, Dibyashankar Mishra, Sanjib Kumar Sahu and Raseswari Panigrahi alleged that the attack on WODC is politically motivated. Making a statement in response, Minister for Planning and Coordination Usha Devi said the State Government has repeatedly sought the views of the council on shifting of headquarters. An appropriate decision will be taken only after the views of the council are received, she said. Stating that WODC was formed to accelerate development in Western Odisha, the Minister said so far 28,782 projects amounting to `1250.89 crore have been sanctioned since its inception. MLAs express concern over NFSA irregularities Bhubaneswar: Members cutting across party lines on Saturday expressed their grave concern in the Assembly over the largescale irregularities in the distribution of ration cards under the National Food Security Act (NFSA). The issue cropped up in question hour while Minister of State for Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Sanjay Dasburma was replying to question in this regard. Padmanabha Behera (BJD) wanted to know about the steps taken so far to distribute ration cards to the poor people who are the genuine beneficiaries under the NFSA. Alleging that persons not eligible have got ration cards, Behera said many genuine beneficiaries are yet to covered under the scheme. Opposition Chief Whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati said the Government should also provide wheat to the beneficiaries in urban areas and rice in rural areas, failing which there resentment will mount against the Government. The Minister, however, said as per the the provisions under NFSA, the Government has initiated several steps to identify genuine beneficiaries. "I request the people to bring to the notice of my department about the genuine beneficiaries whose name has not been included in the list," he said.
By Express News Service

THANJAVUR: A 70-year-old farm worker died while waiting in a queue to withdraw cash from a nationalised bank near Papanasam in Thanjavur district Saturday.

According to sources, M Subramanian(70), from Vaazhkai village near Papanasam, stood with his wife Thaiyyalnayagi in a queue outside a branch of the Indian Bank on East Street of Papanasam. Just as was about to withdraw cash from the bank, all of sudden he fell unconscious.

The others in the queue tried to revive him up and a doctor was rushed to the spot but the man had died by then.

Subramanian 's bank account had balance of Rs 17,000 of which he was going to withdraw Rs 4,000.

Sources said Subramanian had four daughters, all married. People who knew him said he had health complications.

The Papanasam police made arrangements to send the mans body to his home town Vaazhkai.

THANJAVUR: A 70-year-old farm worker died while waiting in a queue to withdraw cash from a nationalised bank near Papanasam in Thanjavur district Saturday. According to sources, M Subramanian(70), from Vaazhkai village near Papanasam, stood with his wife Thaiyyalnayagi in a queue outside a branch of the Indian Bank on East Street of Papanasam. Just as was about to withdraw cash from the bank, all of sudden he fell unconscious. The others in the queue tried to revive him up and a doctor was rushed to the spot but the man had died by then. Subramanian 's bank account had balance of Rs 17,000 of which he was going to withdraw Rs 4,000. Sources said Subramanian had four daughters, all married. People who knew him said he had health complications. The Papanasam police made arrangements to send the mans body to his home town Vaazhkai.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: A former panchayat president, of the DMK, was hacked to death by a six-member armed gang near his residence in Vallam village near Chengalpattu in Kancheepuram district on Saturday. The victim, Wilson Samraj alias Kalaiarasan (55), was earlier arrested in connection with murder of two DMDK functionaries in the same village and his murder could be an act of revenge.

Wilson was the DMK candidate in Vallam panchayat for the 2016 october local body polls which has been quashed by the High Court.

CHENNAI: A former panchayat president, of the DMK, was hacked to death by a six-member armed gang near his residence in Vallam village near Chengalpattu in Kancheepuram district on Saturday. The victim, Wilson Samraj alias Kalaiarasan (55), was earlier arrested in connection with murder of two DMDK functionaries in the same village and his murder could be an act of revenge. Wilson was the DMK candidate in Vallam panchayat for the 2016 october local body polls which has been quashed by the High Court.
Sruthi R Mallya By

Express News Service

COIMBATORE: Every industry has been affected, directly or indirectly, by demonetisation, and the textile industry of Tirupur has been no exception. About one-and-a-half lakh workers depend on some 2,000 small and micro units in Tirupur. Before Nov. 8, they used to work 15 shifts per week. Now its down to five shifts per week.

Workers have been paid in dribs and drabs, payments have been put on hold and demand has gone limp, forcing factories to scale down their operations greatly.

Says K S Babuji, general secretary of the South India Collar Shirts and Innerwear Small Scale Manufacturers Association (SISMA). We havent yet received payments for shipments we sent out before Deepavali. Customers do not have the money to pay us.

He also flagged an alarming trend: workers are quitting, scattering, going home or joining any company that can pay them regularly.

Exports have, however, not been affected, said Raja M Shanmugam, the president of the Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA).

Paying wages has become a huge problem. People are used to getting paid in cash. But we are unable to pay workers in cash nor can we pay them by cashless transactions. Most of them do not have a bank account. And in the midst of this banks are unable to open new accounts, he said.

However, some of the larger firms have begun distributing prepaid cards to their workers, so that they can use them for their expenses. According to Raja, they have already distributed around 1,000 cards, which the workers can swipe and a minimum of Rs 49,000 can be credited to each card.

Units that had been operating in the shadow economy are scurrying to sort out their finances, said K Rangarajan, president of the South India Spinners Association.

Many small units shut down for at least 20 days after demonetisation, just to figure out how to convert their businesses in legal operations. They started functioning again only recently, he said.

Around 60 per cent of the powerlooms have shut down completely. Coimbatore and Tirupur powerlooms produce one crore meters of cloth every day and each meter costs Rs 35. As a result of demonetisation and most of the looms have lost turnover to the tune of Rs 35 crore, said Era Velusamy, president of the Tirupur District Job-workers Weavers Association.

Most of them have asked the government to take steps to save the small and micro businesses. They have also asked the banks to give the units enough money to pay ages.

COIMBATORE: Every industry has been affected, directly or indirectly, by demonetisation, and the textile industry of Tirupur has been no exception. About one-and-a-half lakh workers depend on some 2,000 small and micro units in Tirupur. Before Nov. 8, they used to work 15 shifts per week. Now its down to five shifts per week. Workers have been paid in dribs and drabs, payments have been put on hold and demand has gone limp, forcing factories to scale down their operations greatly. Says K S Babuji, general secretary of the South India Collar Shirts and Innerwear Small Scale Manufacturers Association (SISMA). We havent yet received payments for shipments we sent out before Deepavali. Customers do not have the money to pay us. He also flagged an alarming trend: workers are quitting, scattering, going home or joining any company that can pay them regularly. Exports have, however, not been affected, said Raja M Shanmugam, the president of the Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA). Paying wages has become a huge problem. People are used to getting paid in cash. But we are unable to pay workers in cash nor can we pay them by cashless transactions. Most of them do not have a bank account. And in the midst of this banks are unable to open new accounts, he said. However, some of the larger firms have begun distributing prepaid cards to their workers, so that they can use them for their expenses. According to Raja, they have already distributed around 1,000 cards, which the workers can swipe and a minimum of Rs 49,000 can be credited to each card. Units that had been operating in the shadow economy are scurrying to sort out their finances, said K Rangarajan, president of the South India Spinners Association. Many small units shut down for at least 20 days after demonetisation, just to figure out how to convert their businesses in legal operations. They started functioning again only recently, he said. Around 60 per cent of the powerlooms have shut down completely. Coimbatore and Tirupur powerlooms produce one crore meters of cloth every day and each meter costs Rs 35. As a result of demonetisation and most of the looms have lost turnover to the tune of Rs 35 crore, said Era Velusamy, president of the Tirupur District Job-workers Weavers Association. Most of them have asked the government to take steps to save the small and micro businesses. They have also asked the banks to give the units enough money to pay ages.
By PTI

MUMBAI: Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao tonight left for Chennai after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who is admitted to a hospital, suffered a cardiac arrest.

"The Governor, who attended a Navy Day event here this evening, left for Chennai at 8.25 PM after getting intimation of the developments," a senior Raj Bhawan official told PTI.

Jayalalithaa, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, today suffered a cardiac arrest. She is being treated by a team of experts, including cardiologists.

MUMBAI: Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao tonight left for Chennai after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who is admitted to a hospital, suffered a cardiac arrest. "The Governor, who attended a Navy Day event here this evening, left for Chennai at 8.25 PM after getting intimation of the developments," a senior Raj Bhawan official told PTI. Jayalalithaa, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, today suffered a cardiac arrest. She is being treated by a team of experts, including cardiologists.
By Online Desk

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who was undergoing treatment for more than two months in Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday, a statement from the hospital said.

Chief Operating Officer and head of transformation of Apollo Hospital Dr Subbaiah Viswanathan stated in the press release issued to reporters waiting outside the hospital, her health is being monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist, and critical care specialists.

Late around midnight, Apollo Hospital's Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy tweeted: "The Apollo TN CM #Jayalalita is critical.multi speciality team @hospitalsapollo trying everything including ecmo.praying for her recovery."

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao reached Chennai earlier today night after the news of Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest came out.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh tonight spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and enquired about the health of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who suffered a cardiac arrest while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Chennai. During the 10-minute telephonic conversation, Rao briefed Singh about the health condition of the Chief Minister and conveyed that doctors attending to her were taking all necessary steps.

Governor Vidyasagar Rao spent only about five minutes at Apollo hospital, where the Chief Minister is admitted. He left the hospital without speaking to the media.

Ministers and top police officials also rushed to the hospital and informal consultations on the situation.

Meanwhile, PM MHA has asked nine companies of the rapid Action Force to be kept on standby to be rushed to Tamil Nadu in short notice, in case of any unfortunate situation and CRPF forces are accordingly are keeping them on a red alert to rush them when a final order comes. A company comprises 100 personnel.

Regarding the deteriorated health of the CM Jayalalithaa, Apollo Hospital has reportedly contacted Dr. Richard Beale from London and he has concurred with the line of treatment by Apollo's cardiologists and pulmonologists, who had been one among the doctors who treated her in one of the prior episodes of deterioration.

The Chief Minister has been put on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation device to support her heart-lung activity.

Supporters of J Jayalalithaa raised slogans seeking information on the Chief Minister's health when the Governor left the hospital. Sources indicated that the chiefs of two central paramilitary forces -- CRPF DG K Durga Prasad and CISF DG O P Singh -- could be sent to Tamil Nadu to supervise security deployment if any need arises.

Prayers flooded in the social media from all over India for her well being. DMK leader M Karunanidhi and M K Stalin wished the Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, a speedy recovery. Likewise, Congress Vice- President Rahul Gandhi and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee tweeted for her well being.

Amidst the word being passed around of examinations being cancelled for Anna university and Madras university, Education Minister K Pandiarajan confirmed to Express that schools will remain open tomorrow.

Later university Registrar confirmed that all the Anna University examinations will be conducted as per the schedule on 5/12/2016. Currently, there is not prohibitory orders for the educational institutions and all the messages passed around through WhatsApp were trashed as rumours.

Police have been deployed in most of the places in Chennai and in important places in other cities of Tamil Nadu.

Police officials had requested people to clear the way in front of the hospital, the crowd had started to thin out as police asked the people and the AIDMK cadres to leave. Apollo hospital is currently communicating about the condition of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu through twitter.

All the police deployed around Apollo had been called inside the hospital premises for a briefing following the update that cops should report to duty by 7 am on Monday morning.

Jayalalithaa who has been in under constant w at Apollo since the time she had been admitted on September 22, had transferred some of the portfolios to O Paneerselvam due to her ill-health a month back and he even held few cabinet meetings during this period. (With inputs from PTI)

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who was undergoing treatment for more than two months in Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday, a statement from the hospital said. Chief Operating Officer and head of transformation of Apollo Hospital Dr Subbaiah Viswanathan stated in the press release issued to reporters waiting outside the hospital, her health is being monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist, and critical care specialists. Late around midnight, Apollo Hospital's Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy tweeted: "The Apollo TN CM #Jayalalita is critical.multi speciality team @hospitalsapollo trying everything including ecmo.praying for her recovery." Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao reached Chennai earlier today night after the news of Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest came out. Home Minister Rajnath Singh tonight spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and enquired about the health of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who suffered a cardiac arrest while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Chennai. During the 10-minute telephonic conversation, Rao briefed Singh about the health condition of the Chief Minister and conveyed that doctors attending to her were taking all necessary steps. Governor Vidyasagar Rao spent only about five minutes at Apollo hospital, where the Chief Minister is admitted. He left the hospital without speaking to the media. Ministers and top police officials also rushed to the hospital and informal consultations on the situation. Meanwhile, PM MHA has asked nine companies of the rapid Action Force to be kept on standby to be rushed to Tamil Nadu in short notice, in case of any unfortunate situation and CRPF forces are accordingly are keeping them on a red alert to rush them when a final order comes. A company comprises 100 personnel. Regarding the deteriorated health of the CM Jayalalithaa, Apollo Hospital has reportedly contacted Dr. Richard Beale from London and he has concurred with the line of treatment by Apollo's cardiologists and pulmonologists, who had been one among the doctors who treated her in one of the prior episodes of deterioration. The Chief Minister has been put on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation device to support her heart-lung activity. Supporters of J Jayalalithaa raised slogans seeking information on the Chief Minister's health when the Governor left the hospital. Sources indicated that the chiefs of two central paramilitary forces -- CRPF DG K Durga Prasad and CISF DG O P Singh -- could be sent to Tamil Nadu to supervise security deployment if any need arises. Prayers flooded in the social media from all over India for her well being. DMK leader M Karunanidhi and M K Stalin wished the Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, a speedy recovery. Likewise, Congress Vice- President Rahul Gandhi and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee tweeted for her well being. Amidst the word being passed around of examinations being cancelled for Anna university and Madras university, Education Minister K Pandiarajan confirmed to Express that schools will remain open tomorrow. Later university Registrar confirmed that all the Anna University examinations will be conducted as per the schedule on 5/12/2016. Currently, there is not prohibitory orders for the educational institutions and all the messages passed around through WhatsApp were trashed as rumours. Police have been deployed in most of the places in Chennai and in important places in other cities of Tamil Nadu. Police officials had requested people to clear the way in front of the hospital, the crowd had started to thin out as police asked the people and the AIDMK cadres to leave. Apollo hospital is currently communicating about the condition of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu through twitter. All the police deployed around Apollo had been called inside the hospital premises for a briefing following the update that cops should report to duty by 7 am on Monday morning. Jayalalithaa who has been in under constant w at Apollo since the time she had been admitted on September 22, had transferred some of the portfolios to O Paneerselvam due to her ill-health a month back and he even held few cabinet meetings during this period. (With inputs from PTI)
Suhas Yellapantula By

Express News Service

TELENGANA: While the jury is still is out on whether the rich have the taken the hit or the poor, there is consensus in the Telugu film industry that the small guy has been affected most.

According to filmmakers, producers and industry insiders, some 45 films have been put on hold due to the cash crunch, and new production houses are hesitant to start fresh projects until the situation stabilizes.

Only films that have completed shooting and are closer to release are going ahead. The smaller films have been badly affected. Everything is currently in pause mode because we depend on cash to make transactions and pay workers, spot boys, extras and so on, explained Sai Rajesh, producer of a stalled film called Kobbari Matta (coconut frond).

After seven days of shooting, we had to stop production. There was just not enough cash in hand to pay for the expenses and labour, he explained. A lack of commitment from distributors is a big reason for most producers refraining from releasing their movies at the moment.

Most distributors used to pay 70 per cent of the money in the form of unaccounted cash. After demonetisation, they are unwilling to pay us up front. Most of them are willing to pay only a portion of it ahead of release, and are willing to share the profits afterwards. With this, producers will get money only if the film runs and thats not an idea most people are comfortable with. The distributors are safe but the producers arent, he added. While production houses have not faced much trouble, daily-wage workers on the sets are facing the brunt of demonetisation.

There are people who depend on that one payment to feed their families. Since payments are getting delayed, they are now suffering. Having said that, people believe that this is a temporary setback and that this is a good thing in the long run, said Vajpeye, a junior artist. To put things in perspective, a junior artist travels every day to Krishna Nagar in Hyderabad to work on the sets. He is paid `450: `100 on the spot for travel expenses and `350 a few days later. However, he is likely not getting paid even `100. We travel far distances every day to go to the shoot but we are not getting paid. From where will we get the money to commute if they dont pay us? How will I manage my family if Im unable to work? cried K Venkatesh, who works as an extra at Annapurna Studios.

Mainstream Tollywood, however, is unaffected, with productions going on. It hasnt had much effect. There has been a minor impact with releases getting postponed and a marginal drop in collections at the theatres, but things are slowly getting back to normal, said D Suresh Babu, a leading producer and owner of Suresh Productions.

Cheque and online payments are being made. Problems could arise in productions where people dont trust each other. But where there is trust, everything is going smoothly. My shootings are going on without any trouble whatsoever, Suresh Babu said.

Producers also highlighted the benefits of demonetisation, and claimed that this move will help clean up the industry. When payments are made in cash, there are a few middlemen who take a cut from the money thats supposed to go to the worker. For instance, if I pay a light man `500, the middleman takes `150 and the light man gets `350. By making transactions digital, we are ensuring that the full payment reaches the workers, explained producer Krishna Reddy.

Its no secret that most small-budget films are made with unaccounted money and only they are getting affected. The big budget films are managing with cheques and digital transactions, he added. But the nerves are palpable among the big fish. Director Krishs film Gautamiputra Satakarni is geared for release in January 2017 but there is a sense of unease in the crew. All the business for this film was done before demonetisation. The distribution rights were already sold and production was completed. In the current situation all sectors have been badly hit. So given the cash crunch, the uncertainty is worrisome, said Krishna Teja, a junior artist.

TELENGANA: While the jury is still is out on whether the rich have the taken the hit or the poor, there is consensus in the Telugu film industry that the small guy has been affected most. According to filmmakers, producers and industry insiders, some 45 films have been put on hold due to the cash crunch, and new production houses are hesitant to start fresh projects until the situation stabilizes. Only films that have completed shooting and are closer to release are going ahead. The smaller films have been badly affected. Everything is currently in pause mode because we depend on cash to make transactions and pay workers, spot boys, extras and so on, explained Sai Rajesh, producer of a stalled film called Kobbari Matta (coconut frond). After seven days of shooting, we had to stop production. There was just not enough cash in hand to pay for the expenses and labour, he explained. A lack of commitment from distributors is a big reason for most producers refraining from releasing their movies at the moment. Most distributors used to pay 70 per cent of the money in the form of unaccounted cash. After demonetisation, they are unwilling to pay us up front. Most of them are willing to pay only a portion of it ahead of release, and are willing to share the profits afterwards. With this, producers will get money only if the film runs and thats not an idea most people are comfortable with. The distributors are safe but the producers arent, he added. While production houses have not faced much trouble, daily-wage workers on the sets are facing the brunt of demonetisation. There are people who depend on that one payment to feed their families. Since payments are getting delayed, they are now suffering. Having said that, people believe that this is a temporary setback and that this is a good thing in the long run, said Vajpeye, a junior artist. To put things in perspective, a junior artist travels every day to Krishna Nagar in Hyderabad to work on the sets. He is paid `450: `100 on the spot for travel expenses and `350 a few days later. However, he is likely not getting paid even `100. We travel far distances every day to go to the shoot but we are not getting paid. From where will we get the money to commute if they dont pay us? How will I manage my family if Im unable to work? cried K Venkatesh, who works as an extra at Annapurna Studios. Mainstream Tollywood, however, is unaffected, with productions going on. It hasnt had much effect. There has been a minor impact with releases getting postponed and a marginal drop in collections at the theatres, but things are slowly getting back to normal, said D Suresh Babu, a leading producer and owner of Suresh Productions. Cheque and online payments are being made. Problems could arise in productions where people dont trust each other. But where there is trust, everything is going smoothly. My shootings are going on without any trouble whatsoever, Suresh Babu said. Producers also highlighted the benefits of demonetisation, and claimed that this move will help clean up the industry. When payments are made in cash, there are a few middlemen who take a cut from the money thats supposed to go to the worker. For instance, if I pay a light man `500, the middleman takes `150 and the light man gets `350. By making transactions digital, we are ensuring that the full payment reaches the workers, explained producer Krishna Reddy. Its no secret that most small-budget films are made with unaccounted money and only they are getting affected. The big budget films are managing with cheques and digital transactions, he added. But the nerves are palpable among the big fish. Director Krishs film Gautamiputra Satakarni is geared for release in January 2017 but there is a sense of unease in the crew. All the business for this film was done before demonetisation. The distribution rights were already sold and production was completed. In the current situation all sectors have been badly hit. So given the cash crunch, the uncertainty is worrisome, said Krishna Teja, a junior artist.
Ritu Sharma By

NEW DELHI: India is expecting Sartaz Aziz, the advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Foreign Affairs, to rake up the Kashmir issue during the Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has already put a pre-emptive strategy in place to counter it.

In a barely veiled reference, India and Afghanistan have been pointing fingers at Pakistan for abetting terrorism in the region.

We have accounted for Aziz raising the issue of Kashmir on the margins of the Heart of Asia conference. That is why stemming of cross-border terrorism will be a key agenda during the conference focusing on twin topics of security and connectivity, sources said.

Afghanistans Ambassador to India, Dr Shaida M Abdali, also echoed Indias statement: Afghanistan has always stated that terrorism is a continuous threat, especially to India and Afghanistan, and of course to many others in the region. This is the first time India is hosting the Heart of Asia conference constituted under the Istanbul process for the reconstruction of the war torn Afghanistan. The conference is being held in Amritsar, an important city on Grand Trunk Road, constructed by Sher Shah Suri which leads to Lahore and Kabul.

Aziz arrived in Amritsar on Saturday night to attend the ministerial-level conference. His is the first visit of a high-ranking Pakistani official after the terror attack on Pathankot airbase in January derailed talks between the two countries. The decibel level of Islamabads rhetoric on Kashmir has also gone up since July following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in the state.

According to sources in the MEA, the decision to not to have bilateral on the sides of the conference has also been taken to avoid the Heart of Asia conference in Pakistan getting overshadowed by the tension in Indo-Pak relations.

Despite Pakistan closing its borders for Afghanistan traders and refusing Indian goods intended for Kabul to transit through its territory, Islamabad could not have missed this conference as it considers and project itself as the main stakeholder in Afghanistan.

NEW DELHI: India is expecting Sartaz Aziz, the advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Foreign Affairs, to rake up the Kashmir issue during the Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has already put a pre-emptive strategy in place to counter it. In a barely veiled reference, India and Afghanistan have been pointing fingers at Pakistan for abetting terrorism in the region. We have accounted for Aziz raising the issue of Kashmir on the margins of the Heart of Asia conference. That is why stemming of cross-border terrorism will be a key agenda during the conference focusing on twin topics of security and connectivity, sources said. Afghanistans Ambassador to India, Dr Shaida M Abdali, also echoed Indias statement: Afghanistan has always stated that terrorism is a continuous threat, especially to India and Afghanistan, and of course to many others in the region. This is the first time India is hosting the Heart of Asia conference constituted under the Istanbul process for the reconstruction of the war torn Afghanistan. The conference is being held in Amritsar, an important city on Grand Trunk Road, constructed by Sher Shah Suri which leads to Lahore and Kabul. Aziz arrived in Amritsar on Saturday night to attend the ministerial-level conference. His is the first visit of a high-ranking Pakistani official after the terror attack on Pathankot airbase in January derailed talks between the two countries. The decibel level of Islamabads rhetoric on Kashmir has also gone up since July following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in the state. According to sources in the MEA, the decision to not to have bilateral on the sides of the conference has also been taken to avoid the Heart of Asia conference in Pakistan getting overshadowed by the tension in Indo-Pak relations. Despite Pakistan closing its borders for Afghanistan traders and refusing Indian goods intended for Kabul to transit through its territory, Islamabad could not have missed this conference as it considers and project itself as the main stakeholder in Afghanistan.
Harpreet Bajwa By

AMRITSAR: It was a banquet that was set to impress kings, complete with an array of delicacies that represented Punjabs rich culinary tradition. At the dinner hosted for delegates of the two-day Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and other delegates relished Punjabi cuisine in a langar (community kitchen). The dinner was organised in the heritage village Sadda Pind on Amritsar-Attari Road.



The menu included a variety of Punjab specials: fish tikka, Afghani murg tikka, Galouti kabab, paneer malai seekh, aloo channa tikka, etc. The main course comprised sarson ka saag and makki ki roti, the famous Punjab butter chicken, lamb and paneer dishes, dal and jeera pulao served with assorted Punjabi breads. For dessert, there was phirni and kesar kulfi.



A senior official said, A sumptuous dinner was served for the dignitaries. He said that Modi, Ghani and other foreign delegates spent an hour at the village, adding that around 200 people were on the guest list.

The heritage village features houses of potters, weavers, blacksmiths and other artisans who make parandis, juttis, phulkaris, clay toys, musical instruments, dhurries, farming tools and shawls.

Gold Replicas of Golden Temple for Modi, Ghani

Modi and Ghani were given 24-carat gold replicas of the Golden Temple, five books each (The Golden Temple: A Gift to Humanity, The Tenth Guru, Philosophy of Sikhism, The Sikhs and a book with black and white photos of the Golden Temple between 1809 and 1960), a siropa (saffron cloth) and a shawl. The other 14 foreign ministers were given smaller replicas of the Golden Temple and books.

Modi to stay at Taj

The Prime Minister spent the night at the Taj Vivanta, while Ghani stayed at another five-star hotel . Sartaj Aziz, Foreign Policy Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, arrived in Amritsar on Saturday evening from Islamabad. He was earlier scheduled to arrive on Sunday.

Police at Their Polite Best

Punjab Police personnel were dressed in suits and were at their courteous best. At the main venue, Hotel Radisson Blue, the outer security ring was armed uniformed cops. Just inside the gates, young men and women cops in blue blazers, grey pants, white shirts and red ties said, Hello sir, how are you. Sorry for bothering you. Can you step aside for the screening please? Sorry for the inconvenience.

AMRITSAR: It was a banquet that was set to impress kings, complete with an array of delicacies that represented Punjabs rich culinary tradition. At the dinner hosted for delegates of the two-day Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and other delegates relished Punjabi cuisine in a langar (community kitchen). The dinner was organised in the heritage village Sadda Pind on Amritsar-Attari Road. The menu included a variety of Punjab specials: fish tikka, Afghani murg tikka, Galouti kabab, paneer malai seekh, aloo channa tikka, etc. The main course comprised sarson ka saag and makki ki roti, the famous Punjab butter chicken, lamb and paneer dishes, dal and jeera pulao served with assorted Punjabi breads. For dessert, there was phirni and kesar kulfi. A senior official said, A sumptuous dinner was served for the dignitaries. He said that Modi, Ghani and other foreign delegates spent an hour at the village, adding that around 200 people were on the guest list. The heritage village features houses of potters, weavers, blacksmiths and other artisans who make parandis, juttis, phulkaris, clay toys, musical instruments, dhurries, farming tools and shawls. Gold Replicas of Golden Temple for Modi, Ghani Modi and Ghani were given 24-carat gold replicas of the Golden Temple, five books each (The Golden Temple: A Gift to Humanity, The Tenth Guru, Philosophy of Sikhism, The Sikhs and a book with black and white photos of the Golden Temple between 1809 and 1960), a siropa (saffron cloth) and a shawl. The other 14 foreign ministers were given smaller replicas of the Golden Temple and books. Modi to stay at Taj The Prime Minister spent the night at the Taj Vivanta, while Ghani stayed at another five-star hotel. Sartaj Aziz, Foreign Policy Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, arrived in Amritsar on Saturday evening from Islamabad. He was earlier scheduled to arrive on Sunday. Police at Their Polite Best Punjab Police personnel were dressed in suits and were at their courteous best. At the main venue, Hotel Radisson Blue, the outer security ring was armed uniformed cops. Just inside the gates, young men and women cops in blue blazers, grey pants, white shirts and red ties said, Hello sir, how are you. Sorry for bothering you. Can you step aside for the screening please? Sorry for the inconvenience.
Rakesh K Singh By

NEW DELHI: Just before his promotion as the army chief of Pakistan, General Qamar Javed Bajwa headed the procurement committee that decided acquisition of a host of weapons, weapon systems and gadgets for deployment along the border and Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Among the equipment cleared for procurement include six types of radars from China, a radar, a gradient distribution system and electronic warfare and early warfare systems from Russia to strengthen air defence system. This move by Pakistan came soon after India cleared purchase of S 400 advanced air defence systems from Russia.

Other equipment cleared for procurement by Bajwa include anti-tank weapon systems, wall breaching systems, mortars for medium range for its paramilitary forces.

The pattern of procurements suggest Pakistan will continue with its hostilities along the border and Line of Control and is likely to target its own citizens in restive regions. While Pakistan is seeking to strengthen its air defence to counter any more surgical strikes by India, other weapons being procured will be deployed along the border with India, a senior Intelligence official said.

Some equipment sought to be procured by Pakistan, like infra red lasers, are essentially used in combating urban terrorism. However, Pakistan does not face urban terrorism and these equipment might be used to counter rebellion in Balochistan, Gilgit and PoK, the official said, adding that the procurements are not a cause for worry for India.

With the cover of deniability blown over after the surgical strike in PoK, Pakistan may target its own citizens in restive areas and blame New Delhi for the attacks, a former Intelligence Bureau chief said.

The official said shelling by Pakistan and terror export to J&K is anticipated to continue for long.

Intelligence sources said Pakistan has approved purchase of Chinese DWL 002 Passive Detection Radar System, YL 29 mobile passive detection system, synthetic aperture radars and anti-stealth radar LX 10 and Skywatch 5 from China Electronics Technology Group Company (CETC).

Pakistan plans to acquire radar systems that are capable of detecting fighter jets and surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles.

Pakistan is also seeking procurement of anti-tank weapon system to counter Indias acquisition of 700 T 90 tanks. It is also planning to procure non-lethal technology and equipment from Europe and the US.

NEW DELHI: Just before his promotion as the army chief of Pakistan, General Qamar Javed Bajwa headed the procurement committee that decided acquisition of a host of weapons, weapon systems and gadgets for deployment along the border and Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. Among the equipment cleared for procurement include six types of radars from China, a radar, a gradient distribution system and electronic warfare and early warfare systems from Russia to strengthen air defence system. This move by Pakistan came soon after India cleared purchase of S 400 advanced air defence systems from Russia. Other equipment cleared for procurement by Bajwa include anti-tank weapon systems, wall breaching systems, mortars for medium range for its paramilitary forces. The pattern of procurements suggest Pakistan will continue with its hostilities along the border and Line of Control and is likely to target its own citizens in restive regions. While Pakistan is seeking to strengthen its air defence to counter any more surgical strikes by India, other weapons being procured will be deployed along the border with India, a senior Intelligence official said. Some equipment sought to be procured by Pakistan, like infra red lasers, are essentially used in combating urban terrorism. However, Pakistan does not face urban terrorism and these equipment might be used to counter rebellion in Balochistan, Gilgit and PoK, the official said, adding that the procurements are not a cause for worry for India. With the cover of deniability blown over after the surgical strike in PoK, Pakistan may target its own citizens in restive areas and blame New Delhi for the attacks, a former Intelligence Bureau chief said. The official said shelling by Pakistan and terror export to J&K is anticipated to continue for long. Intelligence sources said Pakistan has approved purchase of Chinese DWL 002 Passive Detection Radar System, YL 29 mobile passive detection system, synthetic aperture radars and anti-stealth radar LX 10 and Skywatch 5 from China Electronics Technology Group Company (CETC). Pakistan plans to acquire radar systems that are capable of detecting fighter jets and surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles. Pakistan is also seeking procurement of anti-tank weapon system to counter Indias acquisition of 700 T 90 tanks. It is also planning to procure non-lethal technology and equipment from Europe and the US.
Express News Service By

NEW DELHI: After flouting the appointment rules at the Delhi Commission for Women, the AAP government is mired in another similar controversy. The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has initiated a probe into alleged hiring of personal staff of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia against rules, acting on a complaint by an RTI activist.

Sisodia has appointed 63 people as peons and officers on special duty (OSD) in the last one year in his office, which is way more than the Prime Ministers personal staff of 39. ACB Chief Mukesh Kumar Meena said, We have received a complaint in this regard and will look into it.

Delhi government spokesperson Nagendra Sharma, however, refused to comment on the matter: I do not want react on it.

The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) is investigating the appointments of personal staff of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, which is claimed to have flouted laid-down procedures. No advertisements were issued, not even a written test was conducted while giving these people juicy positions in the Delhi secretariat, alleged RTI activist Vivek Garg.

He said the basic pay of these hired Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) volunteers is even much more than that of Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Civil Service (DANICS) officers. Investigation was initiated on the basis of the complaint filed by Garg, who had also moved the CB I in this regard.

Notably, Sisodia, besides holding the charge of deputy chief minister, has held several cabinet portfolios, such as finance and planning, revenue, power, education, higher education, technical education, administrative reforms and IT.

As per the RTI, there are 10 peons, seven officers on special duty (OSD), seven clerks. Besides, many others have been given jobs without even creating any vacancies. While over 400 decisions of the Delhi government are under scanner of Justice Shunglu Committee constituted by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, the report of which is not expected to shower any positivity for Kejriwal, this probe by the ACB is another hitch for the present government.

NEW DELHI: After flouting the appointment rules at the Delhi Commission for Women, the AAP government is mired in another similar controversy. The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has initiated a probe into alleged hiring of personal staff of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia against rules, acting on a complaint by an RTI activist. Sisodia has appointed 63 people as peons and officers on special duty (OSD) in the last one year in his office, which is way more than the Prime Ministers personal staff of 39. ACB Chief Mukesh Kumar Meena said, We have received a complaint in this regard and will look into it. Delhi government spokesperson Nagendra Sharma, however, refused to comment on the matter: I do not want react on it. The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) is investigating the appointments of personal staff of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, which is claimed to have flouted laid-down procedures. No advertisements were issued, not even a written test was conducted while giving these people juicy positions in the Delhi secretariat, alleged RTI activist Vivek Garg. He said the basic pay of these hired Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) volunteers is even much more than that of Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Civil Service (DANICS) officers. Investigation was initiated on the basis of the complaint filed by Garg, who had also moved the CB I in this regard. Notably, Sisodia, besides holding the charge of deputy chief minister, has held several cabinet portfolios, such as finance and planning, revenue, power, education, higher education, technical education, administrative reforms and IT. As per the RTI, there are 10 peons, seven officers on special duty (OSD), seven clerks. Besides, many others have been given jobs without even creating any vacancies. While over 400 decisions of the Delhi government are under scanner of Justice Shunglu Committee constituted by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, the report of which is not expected to shower any positivity for Kejriwal, this probe by the ACB is another hitch for the present government.
By AFP

ROME: Italians went to the polls Sunday in a constitutional referendum on which reformist Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has staked his future.

Whatever the outcome of a vote being anxiously watched in capitals across Europe and carefully scrutinised on trading floors around the world, it will lead to change.

If the centre-left Renzi's proposals to streamline a 68-year-old parliamentary system are voted down, he has vowed to resign.

That would usher in a period of political uncertainty and potential economic turmoil for the country and its European Union allies.

The most apocalyptic scenarios involve a crisis of investor confidence causing the failure of a rescue scheme for Italy's most indebted banks, triggering a broader crisis across the eurozone.

But markets last week, while jittery, appeared to have discounted that risk.

If Renzi wins, the country's youngest ever prime minister will be energised in his bid to transform Italy.

Critics say Italy will have been deprived of democratic checks and balances put in place in the aftermath of World War II following the disastrous rule of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Victory for Renzi will mean a new mandate to pursue reforms he sees as key to unshackling Italy's creativity from the influence of a self-serving political caste that has exploited institutional weakness to stymie change.

"If we miss this chance it won't come back for 20 years," he warned voters before campaigning was suspended at midnight on Friday.

- The populist factor -

Italians appear to realise how much is at stake.

Voters, who have been known to head to the beach rather than the ballot box when less important referendums have fallen on a sunny day, have spent weeks passionately embracing the pros and cons of the proposed reforms.

A bumper turnout looks like the only prediction anyone can make with any certainty, as polls have been banned since November 18.

Up until then the "No" camp was leading comfortably -- but with a quarter of the electorate undecided, Renzi is counting on a silent majority of shy reformers to pull off a surprise turnaround.

After the Brexit and Donald Trump victories, populism has been a factor, and the Five Star Movement led by comic Beppe Grillo would see a "No" vote as its stepping stone to government.

But the campaign has also sent many voters back to their high school textbooks to reconsider the merits of a much-loved constitution, producing an invigorating national discussion that has recalled Scotland's 2014 independence referendum more than the rhetorically-charged Brexit or US presidential debates.

Renzi wants to drastically scale back the size and powers of the parliamentary second chamber, the Senate.

Under his proposed reform, a body of 315 directly-elected and five lifetime lawmakers will become one with only 100 members, mostly nominated by the regions.

The body would also be stripped of most of its powers to block and revise legislation, and to unseat governments.

Other envisioned changes involve transferring some regional powers to the national government, making it easier to get major infrastructural works approved, and abolition of a costly policy agency in Rome.

- A referendum on Renzi -

Inevitably in light of his pledge to stand down should he lose, the vote has also become something of a referendum on Renzi's personality and record after just over 1,000 days in office.

"I'm voting Yes because I want Italy to change. I don't like it as it is now," said Rome market trader Marina Marabitti.

But in a reflection of how the campaign has gone, her vote was set to be cancelled out by the man she works alongside six days a week.

"I would be for 'Si' (Yes) if it was not for Renzi. I can't stand him," said Giancarlo Sallusti.

"Renzi was wrong from the start to personalise the vote by saying he would quit if the No camp wins," said young voter Elena Piccolo, a student in Naples.

"In doing so he concentrated the country's discontent on himself," she added.

Overseas there has been strong support for Renzi with US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker all openly calling for a "Yes" vote.

Nearly 51 million Italians are entitled to vote, including four million expats who, reports suggest, could help Renzi defy the odds.

Polls opened at 7am (0600 GMT) and were scheduled to close at 2200 GMT, with a reliable result not expected until the early hours of Monday.

ROME: Italians went to the polls Sunday in a constitutional referendum on which reformist Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has staked his future. Whatever the outcome of a vote being anxiously watched in capitals across Europe and carefully scrutinised on trading floors around the world, it will lead to change. If the centre-left Renzi's proposals to streamline a 68-year-old parliamentary system are voted down, he has vowed to resign. That would usher in a period of political uncertainty and potential economic turmoil for the country and its European Union allies. The most apocalyptic scenarios involve a crisis of investor confidence causing the failure of a rescue scheme for Italy's most indebted banks, triggering a broader crisis across the eurozone. But markets last week, while jittery, appeared to have discounted that risk. If Renzi wins, the country's youngest ever prime minister will be energised in his bid to transform Italy. Critics say Italy will have been deprived of democratic checks and balances put in place in the aftermath of World War II following the disastrous rule of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Victory for Renzi will mean a new mandate to pursue reforms he sees as key to unshackling Italy's creativity from the influence of a self-serving political caste that has exploited institutional weakness to stymie change. "If we miss this chance it won't come back for 20 years," he warned voters before campaigning was suspended at midnight on Friday. - The populist factor - Italians appear to realise how much is at stake. Voters, who have been known to head to the beach rather than the ballot box when less important referendums have fallen on a sunny day, have spent weeks passionately embracing the pros and cons of the proposed reforms. A bumper turnout looks like the only prediction anyone can make with any certainty, as polls have been banned since November 18. Up until then the "No" camp was leading comfortably -- but with a quarter of the electorate undecided, Renzi is counting on a silent majority of shy reformers to pull off a surprise turnaround. After the Brexit and Donald Trump victories, populism has been a factor, and the Five Star Movement led by comic Beppe Grillo would see a "No" vote as its stepping stone to government. But the campaign has also sent many voters back to their high school textbooks to reconsider the merits of a much-loved constitution, producing an invigorating national discussion that has recalled Scotland's 2014 independence referendum more than the rhetorically-charged Brexit or US presidential debates. Renzi wants to drastically scale back the size and powers of the parliamentary second chamber, the Senate. Under his proposed reform, a body of 315 directly-elected and five lifetime lawmakers will become one with only 100 members, mostly nominated by the regions. The body would also be stripped of most of its powers to block and revise legislation, and to unseat governments. Other envisioned changes involve transferring some regional powers to the national government, making it easier to get major infrastructural works approved, and abolition of a costly policy agency in Rome. - A referendum on Renzi - Inevitably in light of his pledge to stand down should he lose, the vote has also become something of a referendum on Renzi's personality and record after just over 1,000 days in office. "I'm voting Yes because I want Italy to change. I don't like it as it is now," said Rome market trader Marina Marabitti. But in a reflection of how the campaign has gone, her vote was set to be cancelled out by the man she works alongside six days a week. "I would be for 'Si' (Yes) if it was not for Renzi. I can't stand him," said Giancarlo Sallusti. "Renzi was wrong from the start to personalise the vote by saying he would quit if the No camp wins," said young voter Elena Piccolo, a student in Naples. "In doing so he concentrated the country's discontent on himself," she added. Overseas there has been strong support for Renzi with US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker all openly calling for a "Yes" vote. Nearly 51 million Italians are entitled to vote, including four million expats who, reports suggest, could help Renzi defy the odds. Polls opened at 7am (0600 GMT) and were scheduled to close at 2200 GMT, with a reliable result not expected until the early hours of Monday.
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

AMRITSAR: At the Heart of Asia conference here today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi underscored the need to wipe out the terror network, saying it was endangering the entire region. Silence and inaction will embolden terrorists and their masters, he said, without naming Pakistan. While Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani said without mincing words that the State-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan.

At the inaugural session of the sixth Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia- Istanbul Process on Afghanistan, Modi said,  Because, at stake is not just the future of Afghanistan that has invested in a vision of development, democracy, and pluralism but the peace and stability of this entire region, and beyond. Let us also reflect with urgency on what more must be done and what we must avoid in Afghanistan so that its citizens can self-sustain peace and economic growth. The answers are all there. The question is of resolve and action and of putting Afghanistan and its people first.

The key for this is an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled process. It is the only guarantor of the durability of solutions. Second, we must demonstrate a strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear, he said.

The project of Chabahar Port between India, Afghanistan and Iran is very important to us for connectivity-Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani pic.twitter.com/FFp8W205BC  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them. We should all work to build stronger positive connectivity between Afghanistan and other countries of the region. Afghanistan should be at the centre of our connectivity networks, not peripheral to them. On our part, we see Afghanistan as the hub for strengthening links of connectivity between South Asia and Central Asia, Modi said.

India's help is with no strings attached: Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani #HeartofAsia pic.twitter.com/ypBXpVkU76  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

While addressing the conference, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said, The state-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. The Taliban also say that they cannot sustain themselves for more than one month without support by Pakistan.

Appreciating Indias unconditional support for the economic development of war-ravaged Afghanistan, Ghani said the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and his country was very important for regional trade and connectivity.

Air corridor will be soon launched and it will improve trade ties between the two countries. Twenty thousand Afghan students are studying in India. These students go back and help transform and reconstruct Afghanistan, Ghani said.

Our words and actions remain focus on building, strengthening & securing Afghans territory and its citizens from external threats: PM Modi pic.twitter.com/yIkj1xg9HL  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Ghani spoke about Indias assistance in the construction of Salma dam -- officially called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam that was inaugurated on June 4, 2016, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Ghani in Herat province of that country. India's support to Afghanistan to improve people's life is transparent with no strings attached, he said.

We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear: PM Modi #HeartofAsia pic.twitter.com/n0CDFb8OS0  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

There are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan. We thank India for that, he added.

Ahead of the meet, Modi and Ghani held bilateral talks focusing on a range of key issues including boosting trade and investment, India's reconstruction activities in the war-ravaged country and ways to strengthen defence and security partnership.

India and Afghanistan are looking at the option of an air corridor after Pakistan has refused permission to Kabul to trade with New Delhi using road, rail routes through its territory.

AMRITSAR: At the Heart of Asia conference here today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi underscored the need to wipe out the terror network, saying it was endangering the entire region. Silence and inaction will embolden terrorists and their masters, he said, without naming Pakistan. While Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani said without mincing words that the State-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. At the inaugural session of the sixth Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia- Istanbul Process on Afghanistan, Modi said,  Because, at stake is not just the future of Afghanistan that has invested in a vision of development, democracy, and pluralism but the peace and stability of this entire region, and beyond. Let us also reflect with urgency on what more must be done and what we must avoid in Afghanistan so that its citizens can self-sustain peace and economic growth. The answers are all there. The question is of resolve and action and of putting Afghanistan and its people first. The key for this is an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled process. It is the only guarantor of the durability of solutions. Second, we must demonstrate a strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear, he said. The project of Chabahar Port between India, Afghanistan and Iran is very important to us for connectivity-Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani pic.twitter.com/FFp8W205BC  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016 Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them. We should all work to build stronger positive connectivity between Afghanistan and other countries of the region. Afghanistan should be at the centre of our connectivity networks, not peripheral to them. On our part, we see Afghanistan as the hub for strengthening links of connectivity between South Asia and Central Asia, Modi said. India's help is with no strings attached: Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani #HeartofAsia pic.twitter.com/ypBXpVkU76  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016 While addressing the conference, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said, The state-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. The Taliban also say that they cannot sustain themselves for more than one month without support by Pakistan. Appreciating Indias unconditional support for the economic development of war-ravaged Afghanistan, Ghani said the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and his country was very important for regional trade and connectivity. Air corridor will be soon launched and it will improve trade ties between the two countries. Twenty thousand Afghan students are studying in India. These students go back and help transform and reconstruct Afghanistan, Ghani said. Our words and actions remain focus on building, strengthening & securing Afghans territory and its citizens from external threats: PM Modi pic.twitter.com/yIkj1xg9HL  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016 Ghani spoke about Indias assistance in the construction of Salma dam -- officially called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam that was inaugurated on June 4, 2016, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Ghani in Herat province of that country. India's support to Afghanistan to improve people's life is transparent with no strings attached, he said. We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear: PM Modi #HeartofAsia pic.twitter.com/n0CDFb8OS0  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016 There are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan. We thank India for that, he added. Ahead of the meet, Modi and Ghani held bilateral talks focusing on a range of key issues including boosting trade and investment, India's reconstruction activities in the war-ravaged country and ways to strengthen defence and security partnership. India and Afghanistan are looking at the option of an air corridor after Pakistan has refused permission to Kabul to trade with New Delhi using road, rail routes through its territory.
P K Balachandran By

Express News Service

COLOMBO: The Pakistan Navy chief, Adm. Syed Arifullah Hussaini, has said that Pakistan and India should look at each other from a positive angle, and if they do that, they will find it easier to solve issues bedevilling their relationship.

In an interview with Ceylon Today on the sidelines of Galle Dialogue 2016, an International Maritime Conference held here recently, Adm, Hussaini said that there is much in common between Indians and Pakistani and that commonality should be used for smoothening ties.

 We speak the same language, almost. We have cultural connectivity. They (Indians) are not alien to us and nor are we to them. We know each other well, and when you know someone well, that is positive. If you have a negative attitude even towards your brother, he will appear as a villain. But he is still your brother. Its a question of attitude.

We (Pakistanis) have tried to be positive. There are some people, I must admit, who talk negatively, and its also not that everyone in India has been negative towards us. There are many people who want to build positive relations, Adm.Hussaini said.

Only Deterrence, No Arms Race With India

Asked if the Pakistan navy is trying to keep the balance of power in the South Asian region vis-a-vis its rival India, Adm.Hussaini said:  We dont want to maintain any particular power ratio. Our policy is to avoid and deter war. If you want to stop a war, there should be a minimum credible deterrence. So well maintain minimum, comprehensive and credible deterrence. There are traditional conflicts and there are low-intensity conflicts. We want to deter all kinds of aggression that will harm us. Defending ourselves is a legitimate right, so to ensure that we will do what it takes. But we do not want to get into an arms race because, for us, the progress and prosperity of our people are more important.

Asked about the future of military relations between Pakistan and Sri Lanka after the end of Eelam War IV against the LTTE in 2009 , Adm.Hussaini said:  We would like cooperation to become vibrant in the socio-economic sector. One does not live only for security. Meaningful engagements start when countries start socio-economic partnerships. We need a very intense socio-economic partnership.

COLOMBO: The Pakistan Navy chief, Adm. Syed Arifullah Hussaini, has said that Pakistan and India should look at each other from a positive angle, and if they do that, they will find it easier to solve issues bedevilling their relationship. In an interview with Ceylon Today on the sidelines of Galle Dialogue 2016, an International Maritime Conference held here recently, Adm, Hussaini said that there is much in common between Indians and Pakistani and that commonality should be used for smoothening ties.  We speak the same language, almost. We have cultural connectivity. They (Indians) are not alien to us and nor are we to them. We know each other well, and when you know someone well, that is positive. If you have a negative attitude even towards your brother, he will appear as a villain. But he is still your brother. Its a question of attitude. We (Pakistanis) have tried to be positive. There are some people, I must admit, who talk negatively, and its also not that everyone in India has been negative towards us. There are many people who want to build positive relations, Adm.Hussaini said. Only Deterrence, No Arms Race With India Asked if the Pakistan navy is trying to keep the balance of power in the South Asian region vis-a-vis its rival India, Adm.Hussaini said:  We dont want to maintain any particular power ratio. Our policy is to avoid and deter war. If you want to stop a war, there should be a minimum credible deterrence. So well maintain minimum, comprehensive and credible deterrence. There are traditional conflicts and there are low-intensity conflicts. We want to deter all kinds of aggression that will harm us. Defending ourselves is a legitimate right, so to ensure that we will do what it takes. But we do not want to get into an arms race because, for us, the progress and prosperity of our people are more important. Asked about the future of military relations between Pakistan and Sri Lanka after the end of Eelam War IV against the LTTE in 2009 , Adm.Hussaini said:  We would like cooperation to become vibrant in the socio-economic sector. One does not live only for security. Meaningful engagements start when countries start socio-economic partnerships. We need a very intense socio-economic partnership.
By Associated Press

SANTIAGO: After a week of national mourning that reached near-religious peaks of adulation, Cuban President Raul Castro announced Saturday that his government would prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after his brother Fidel and bar the construction of statues of him in keeping with the former leader's desire to avoid a cult of personality.

The younger Castro told a massive crowd gathered to pay homage to Fidel Castro in the eastern city of Santiago that the country's National Assembly would vote in its next session on a law fulfilling the wishes of his brother, who died last week at 90 but remains a revolutionary icon.

"The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality and was consistent in that through the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statues or other forms of tribute would never be erected," Raul Castro said.

The National Assembly generally holds a meeting in December and under Cuba's single-party system, parliament unanimously or near-unanimously approves every government proposal.

Fidel Castro, who stepped down in 2006 after falling ill, kept his name off public sites during his near half-century in power because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a personality cult. In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto "Che" Guevara became common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths.

Mourning for Castro has been fervent and intense across the country since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba, where huge crowds have been shouting Castro's name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes.

"All of us would like to put Fidel's name on everything but in the end, Fidel is all of Cuba," said Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a 70-year-old retired economist. "It was a decision of Fidel's, not Raul's, and I think he has to be respected."

Raul Castro, 85, spoke at the end of a second massive rally in honour of Fidel as Cuba neared the end of a nine-day period of public mourning. Castro's ashes arrived Saturday afternoon in Santiago, ending a four-day journey across Cuba that began after a massive rally in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution.

Thousands of people welcomed the leader's remains to shouts of "Fidel! I am Fidel!" Hundreds of thousands more gathered in Santiago's Revolution Plaza Saturday night, cheering speeches by the heads of state-run groups of small farmers, women, revolutionary veterans and neighbourhood watch committee members.

The event was attended by Bolivian President Evo Morales, Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, along with former Brazilian presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva.

Castro's ashes will be interred Sunday morning in Santiago's Santa Ifigenia cemetery, ending the official mourning period.

SANTIAGO: After a week of national mourning that reached near-religious peaks of adulation, Cuban President Raul Castro announced Saturday that his government would prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after his brother Fidel and bar the construction of statues of him in keeping with the former leader's desire to avoid a cult of personality. The younger Castro told a massive crowd gathered to pay homage to Fidel Castro in the eastern city of Santiago that the country's National Assembly would vote in its next session on a law fulfilling the wishes of his brother, who died last week at 90 but remains a revolutionary icon. "The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality and was consistent in that through the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statues or other forms of tribute would never be erected," Raul Castro said. The National Assembly generally holds a meeting in December and under Cuba's single-party system, parliament unanimously or near-unanimously approves every government proposal. Fidel Castro, who stepped down in 2006 after falling ill, kept his name off public sites during his near half-century in power because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a personality cult. In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto "Che" Guevara became common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths. Mourning for Castro has been fervent and intense across the country since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba, where huge crowds have been shouting Castro's name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes. "All of us would like to put Fidel's name on everything but in the end, Fidel is all of Cuba," said Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a 70-year-old retired economist. "It was a decision of Fidel's, not Raul's, and I think he has to be respected." Raul Castro, 85, spoke at the end of a second massive rally in honour of Fidel as Cuba neared the end of a nine-day period of public mourning. Castro's ashes arrived Saturday afternoon in Santiago, ending a four-day journey across Cuba that began after a massive rally in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution. Thousands of people welcomed the leader's remains to shouts of "Fidel! I am Fidel!" Hundreds of thousands more gathered in Santiago's Revolution Plaza Saturday night, cheering speeches by the heads of state-run groups of small farmers, women, revolutionary veterans and neighbourhood watch committee members. The event was attended by Bolivian President Evo Morales, Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, along with former Brazilian presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva. Castro's ashes will be interred Sunday morning in Santiago's Santa Ifigenia cemetery, ending the official mourning period.
By Associated Press

HELSINKI: A gunman killed three women in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in southeastern Finland, police said Sunday. A 23-year-old local man has been detained.

The victims were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant late Saturday in the town of Imatra just before a police patrol car arrived to the scene around midnight, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said.

The suspect obeyed officers and didn't resist arrest, she said. The three victims were shot multiple times in the head and torso with a rifle. There was no known motive and police were unaware of any other possible victims. No other details were immediately available.

Imatra, which has 28,000 inhabitants, is about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of the capital, Helsinki.

"We decided to open a crisis center after the shooting occurred right in the middle of the town near restaurants and nightclubs," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. "There were people there when it happened. In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident and many people were shocked."

In Finland, a country of 5.4 million people with strong hunting traditions, there are 650,000 officially recognized gun owners although homicides with guns are unusual. But after two fatal school shootings early this decade, gun laws have been tightened.

HELSINKI: A gunman killed three women in an apparent random shooting in a nightlife district in a small town in southeastern Finland, police said Sunday. A 23-year-old local man has been detained. The victims were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant late Saturday in the town of Imatra just before a police patrol car arrived to the scene around midnight, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said. The suspect obeyed officers and didn't resist arrest, she said. The three victims were shot multiple times in the head and torso with a rifle. There was no known motive and police were unaware of any other possible victims. No other details were immediately available. Imatra, which has 28,000 inhabitants, is about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of the capital, Helsinki. "We decided to open a crisis center after the shooting occurred right in the middle of the town near restaurants and nightclubs," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. "There were people there when it happened. In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident and many people were shocked." In Finland, a country of 5.4 million people with strong hunting traditions, there are 650,000 officially recognized gun owners although homicides with guns are unusual. But after two fatal school shootings early this decade, gun laws have been tightened.
By Associated Press

MOSCOW: Voters in Uzbekistan are casting ballots Sunday in the tightly controlled, ex-Soviet nation's first presidential election since the death of Islam Karimov, the authoritarian leader who ruled for 27 years.

Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who spent 13 years as Karimov's prime minister, is expected to easily win a five-year term in the Central Asia country.

Karimov led Uzbekistan since before the Soviet collapse, first as its communist boss and then as president. During his long tenure, he ruthlessly crushed all opposition, silenced the media and was repeatedly denounced by international human rights groups for abuses that included killings and torture.

Karimov also never cultivated a successor. His September death raised concerns that the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation of 32 million might see fierce infighting over its leadership that could allow radical Islamists to rise to power or exploit the situation.

But the 59-year old Mirziyoyev shifted into the acting president's job quickly and without any visible tensions, highlighting apparent consensus between regional clans.

In Sunday's election, Mirziyoyev faces three nominal rivals. Two of them, Hotamjon Ketmonov and Narimon Umarov challenged Karimov in past elections, each receiving about 3 percent of the vote.

However, neither candidate has campaigned as a vocal critic of Mirziyoyev, while the fourth contender, Sarvar Otamuratov, has been just as pliant.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the main trans-Atlantic security and rights group, deployed an observer team to monitor the election. It has described the campaign as "strictly regulated" and "moderately visible."

"There is no perceptible exchange of views among the candidates with regard to their programs," the OSCE said in an interim report. "All candidates refrain from criticizing the government or each other, and claim to target distinct segments of the electorate."

Under Karimov, Uzbekistan's relations with its ex-Soviet neighbors were strained by disputes over water, energy and other issues. Analyst Arkady Dubnov noted in a commentary for the Carnegie Moscow Center that Mirziyoyev has worked quickly to ease tensions.

Dubnov also pointed to Mirziyoyev's pledge to liberalize foreign currency trading as a sign that he was planning to ease some of the rigid rules established under Karimov.

Since gaining independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has pursued a policy of economic self-reliance and sought to balance its diplomatic ties with the West and Russia, playing them against each other.

Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous nation, is rich in natural resources and borders Afghanistan, making it of strategic interest to Russia, the United States and China.

Shortly after Karimov died, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Uzbekistan and met with Mirziyoyev, a trip that reflected Moscow's desire to strengthen its influence in the country.

The United States installed a military base in the country for action in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Washington was forced to abandon the facility in 2005 as relations between the Uzbekistan and the U.S. soured following a government crackdown on rioters in the Ferghana Valley city of Andijan that is believed to have left hundreds dead.

Almost all Western media long were barred from reporting inside Uzbekistan, and the country's independent journalists and activists have faced sustained harassment.

MOSCOW: Voters in Uzbekistan are casting ballots Sunday in the tightly controlled, ex-Soviet nation's first presidential election since the death of Islam Karimov, the authoritarian leader who ruled for 27 years. Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who spent 13 years as Karimov's prime minister, is expected to easily win a five-year term in the Central Asia country. Karimov led Uzbekistan since before the Soviet collapse, first as its communist boss and then as president. During his long tenure, he ruthlessly crushed all opposition, silenced the media and was repeatedly denounced by international human rights groups for abuses that included killings and torture. Karimov also never cultivated a successor. His September death raised concerns that the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation of 32 million might see fierce infighting over its leadership that could allow radical Islamists to rise to power or exploit the situation. But the 59-year old Mirziyoyev shifted into the acting president's job quickly and without any visible tensions, highlighting apparent consensus between regional clans. In Sunday's election, Mirziyoyev faces three nominal rivals. Two of them, Hotamjon Ketmonov and Narimon Umarov challenged Karimov in past elections, each receiving about 3 percent of the vote. However, neither candidate has campaigned as a vocal critic of Mirziyoyev, while the fourth contender, Sarvar Otamuratov, has been just as pliant. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the main trans-Atlantic security and rights group, deployed an observer team to monitor the election. It has described the campaign as "strictly regulated" and "moderately visible." "There is no perceptible exchange of views among the candidates with regard to their programs," the OSCE said in an interim report. "All candidates refrain from criticizing the government or each other, and claim to target distinct segments of the electorate." Under Karimov, Uzbekistan's relations with its ex-Soviet neighbors were strained by disputes over water, energy and other issues. Analyst Arkady Dubnov noted in a commentary for the Carnegie Moscow Center that Mirziyoyev has worked quickly to ease tensions. Dubnov also pointed to Mirziyoyev's pledge to liberalize foreign currency trading as a sign that he was planning to ease some of the rigid rules established under Karimov. Since gaining independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has pursued a policy of economic self-reliance and sought to balance its diplomatic ties with the West and Russia, playing them against each other. Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous nation, is rich in natural resources and borders Afghanistan, making it of strategic interest to Russia, the United States and China. Shortly after Karimov died, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Uzbekistan and met with Mirziyoyev, a trip that reflected Moscow's desire to strengthen its influence in the country. The United States installed a military base in the country for action in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Washington was forced to abandon the facility in 2005 as relations between the Uzbekistan and the U.S. soured following a government crackdown on rioters in the Ferghana Valley city of Andijan that is believed to have left hundreds dead. Almost all Western media long were barred from reporting inside Uzbekistan, and the country's independent journalists and activists have faced sustained harassment.








Dr. Vo Tri Thanh (left) and Dr. Do Duc Dinh





Dr Vo Tri Thanh: In terms of economics, ASEAN has not created a strong brand. More precisely, no brand has been recognized in practice.



There's a pretty good point here, the way of connection of ASEAN is the government links of developing countries, with many good things to learn, although there are still many points of controversy and challenges.



ASEAN understands that they must act as a group to be strong enough to sufficiently benefit its member countries and to have its voice in the development of Asia - Pacific. More or less, major countries have recognized that central role of ASEAN.



Like many other regions in the world, ASEAN always has to face many challenges. The success or failure of interaction with other countries, especially the big countries outside the region, requires a strong internal force. The matter is not only the enforcement of the three-pillar target. The current problem is the institutionalization of ASEAN which has certain problems. Although it has the Charter, ASEAN has yet to have a strong institution and sufficient resources to handle the current issues.



In addition, the principle of ASEAN such as a comprehensive agreement also restricts the power of the bloc in important moments. In addition to traditional security issues, non-traditional security also brings about many challenges for ASEAN.



Besides the common commitments, ASEAN still recognizes the right of each country in the conduct of bilateral relations with outside countries, especially big countries. The interests of each member country and regional interests are not always in the same direction.



In my opinion, there are two matters: Firstly, we must put the ASEAN Charter on the table to discuss and to find an ASEAN with more solid connections and a stronger ASEAN. Secondly, when the issue is placed on the scale, member countries must understand that in the long-term, non-alignment or selfishness will bring about incalculable consequences not only for ASEAN but for those countries. Centripetal force is more powerful than centrifugal force.



In this context, how should the ASEAN member countries in general and Vietnam in particular do to keep the policy balanced, and not fall into the spiral of power competition among powers, to develop peacefully together?



Dr. Do Duc Dinh: ASEAN is considered one of the most successful models of the southern countries. Previously the South put forward the nonalignment movement; especially during the Cold War, the South was not affiliated with any side, nor had any fulcrum. ASEAN is a specific model, with appropriate choices.



In Europe, it is a process of development, from the European Community to the European Economic Community and now the European Union. Africa, with many countries that are less developed than ASEAN, established the African Union but this organization could not develop. ASEAN is an association, which is not tight as Europe, not loose like Africa, but is a fairly consistent model. So, although some ASEAN members are allies of the US and some are tied to China there is still a balance between ASEAN countries.



To avoid the interference of big countries, ASEAN has several important principles: operating on the principle of consensus - if a country does not agree, ASEAN will not release a joint resolution; having dialogue forum with outside countries such as the US, China, India .... Thanks to this flexibility, so far ASEAN has not been pushed into asituation in which it must choose one side against the others. It is the wise choice and success.



This is shown clearly through dialogue between ASEAN and major powers that have strong influence in the Pacific. ASEANs ARF even has more influence than the APEC forum.



Vu Khoan: There are three characteristics of Southeast Asia affecting their behavior. Firstly, as we talked before, Southeast Asia has a very important economic geopolitical location. Secondly, most Southeast Asian countries are poor and weak. Thirdly, each country also has its own benefits.



These points lead to behavioral traits with major countries. Firstly, ASEAN countries are aware of the importance of the regions geopolitical location and know that powers need this region. That is very important. No other organization in the world could do as ASEAN: attracting all the major countries. ASEAN wisely takes advantage of this interest to uphold its role.



Secondly, the forum of ASEAN gathers harmonious voices.



Thirdly, despite different benefits, ASEAN has always had things in common, and the most common thing is the desire for peace and stability.



Fourthly, the policy of diversifying relations. All member countries are pursuing a policy of diversification and multilateralism. These characteristics also affect the behavior of member nations.



Based on the current intra-regional relations and the signing of the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community, what do you think about business opportunities, the opportunities to improve the environment for economic cooperation between the countries in the bloc and with other major partners?












Reporter

Tim Mitchell is a reporter at The News-Gazette. His email is tmitchel@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@mitchell6).
#Yoon Suk-yeol Yoon pays 4th visit to mourning altar for Itaewon crush victims President Yoon Suk-yeol paid another visit to a mourning altar for victims of the Halloween crowd crush on Thursday, his fourth this week. Yoon arrived at the altar in front of ...
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Issue of  20 banknotes with the inset letter L, with numerals in ascending size in number panels and without...https://t.co/EeFGlK1Q2w  ReserveBankOfIndia (@RBI) December 4, 2016

Issuance of  50 banknotes without inset letter, with numerals in ascending size in number panels, and without...https://t.co/DaFWRuCEGA  ReserveBankOfIndia (@RBI) December 4, 2016

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon issue new Rs 20 and Rs 50 notes to ease the cash crunch triggered by demonetisation. Old banknotes of the two denominations will continue to be legal tender.The RBI will shortly issue Rs 20 denomination banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi Series-2005, with inset letter 'L' in both the number panels, bearing signature of Dr. Urjit R Patel, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, and the year of printing '2016' printed on the reverse of the banknote, said a statement issued by the RBI on Sunday.The RBI will shortly issue Rs 50 denomination banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi Series-2005, without inset letter in both the number panels, bearing signature of Dr. Urjit R Patel, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, and the year of printing '2016' printed on the reverse of the banknote, the statement added.The design and security features of these banknotes will be similar to the banknotes of Rs 20 and Rs 50 denominations with the ascending font of numerals in both the number panels and without intaglio print issued earlier in Mahatma Gandhi Series- 2005 through Press Release No. 2016-2017/1004, it reads.The decision to print new notes comes as the RBI is already saddled with the task of printing new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes. The rush has already resulted in the central bank issuing two versions of the Rs 500 note with marked differences.
Pak has pledged 500 million dollars for Afghanistan's development,this amount Mr.Aziz(Sartaj) can be spent to contain extremism:Ashraf Ghani  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

PM Modi, your words assure Afghan ppl of support of 1.25 bn Indian ppl;Your assistance will expand historic bond btw the 2 nations: Dr Ghani pic.twitter.com/uALI9hpPF5  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday snubbed Pakistans offer to invest $500 million to reconstruct his war-torn country, saying Islamabad should instead use the money to fight terrorists operating on its soil.No amount of money can assist us if there is support to terrorists by Pakistan. Military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists... State-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan... Even the Taliban say they cannot survive even a month without support from Pakistan, Ghani said at the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar.The Afghanistan President also appreciated India's unconditional support for the economic development of Afghanistan. "India's support to Afghanistan to improve people's life is transparent with no strings attached," he said.He was addressing the inaugural function of the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in Amritsar which is being attended by leaders from south and central Asia and several western countries.Hitting back, Pakistan PMs adviser Sartaj Aziz, who is representing Islamabad the summit, said it was simplistic to blame just one country for the violence. We are cognizant that Afghanistan continues to face serious challenges... This needs to be addressed, he said.Ghanis strong snub to Pakistan was also criticised by Zamir Kabulov, Russias special envoy to Afghanistan, who said the President should not have used the forum for the attack on Pakistan.(With agency inputs)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was laid to rest near MGR Memorial at Chennais Marina Beach on Tuesday evening after political leaders from across the spectrum paid floral tributes to the AIADMK leader who breathed her last on Monday night.

Her close aide and longtime ally Sasikala performed the last rites in the presence of senior AIADMK leaders, including new Chief Minister O Panneerselvam.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Pranab Mukherjee, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik were among the VVIPS who paid rich tributes to Amma before her final journey.

Heres a recap of the Puratchi Thalaivis (revolutionary leader) final journey:

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.
Our doctors are closely monitoring Hon'ble CM's condition and they are trying their very best. #GodblessAmma @HospitalsApollo  Sangita Reddy (@SangitaApollo) December 4, 2016

The Apollo TN CM #Jayalalita is critical.multi speciality team @hospitalsapollo trying everything including ecmo.praying for her recovery  Sangita Reddy (@SangitaApollo) December 4, 2016

Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest this evening, says Apollo Hospital. She is being treated, monitored by experts pic.twitter.com/dUceqoCpW7  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Supporters outside Apollo hospital in Chennai break down as they hear about TN CM Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest this evening. pic.twitter.com/6Cb59Y06h6  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Puratchi Thalaivi Amma being treated and monitored by a team of experts including Cardiologists, Pulmonologist & Critical care specialists.  AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) December 4, 2016

#FLASH: Home Minister Rajnath Singh speaks to Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao after CM Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest.  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest late on Sunday, Chennais Apollo Hospital confirmed hours after her party said she had completely recovered."The honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening."She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists," Chief Operating Officer and head of transformation of Apollo Hospital Dr Subbaiah Viswanathan said in a statement.Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospitals, too tweeted about the 68-year-old's health.Earlier, Sangita had said Jayalalithaa is "critical" and added that she was was on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device.Top sources told CNN-News18 that the AIADMK leader has been put on cardiac assist system and the next 12 hours are crucial.The 68-year-old leader suffered the cardiac arrest hours after AIADMK said that Jayalalithaa will return home "soon" as an AIIMS expert team has confirmed that she has completely recovered after over two months of hospitalisation.Paramilitary forces have been asked to remain on standby in and around Tamil Nadu, sources told CNN-News18.Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao left for Chennai soon after the statement by Apollo. "The Governor, who attended a Navy Day event in Mumbai this evening, left for Chennai at 8.25 PM after getting intimation of the developments," a senior Raj Bhawan official told PTI.Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Vidyasagar Rao and enquired about the health of Jayalalithaa.During the 10-minute telephonic conversation, Rao briefed Singh about the health condition of the Chief Minister and conveyed that doctors attending to her were taking all necessary steps.Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration. The hospital, which had been issuing bulletins on her health status, has said she was being treated for infection.Apollo Hospitals Chairman Dr C Prathap Reddy had recently said that Jayalalithaa was in good health and was speaking using a valve attached to the tracheotomy tube.(With PTI inputs)
Accused is on the run, we are trying to trace him, have registered a case under IPC section 302: Daljeet Singh (SHO) pic.twitter.com/HlFeN8INF4  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Accused was under the influence of alcohol. Case registered against 4 people (Accused, his 2 friends & owner of banquet hall): SSP Bathinda  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

: In a shocking incident in Punjab's Bhatinda city, a 22-year-old pregnant dancer was shot dead at a wedding after she refused to dance with the alleged shooter.The incident happened last night during the marriage function of a local commission agent's son in Maur here where the deceased, identified as Kulwinder Kaur, was performing with her dance troupe.A group of the groom's friends, who were allegedly drunk, were firing in the air and tried to come on to the stage to join the dancers, police said.On being prevented from dancing on stage, one of the men from the group, Billa, allegedly opened fire with his .12 bore gun, hitting Kulwinder in her head.Video footage of the incident shows the victim being shot at from close range and collapsing to the ground."She died on the way to hospital," Bathinda DSP (Maur) Davinder Singh said on Sunday.National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam told CNN-News18 strict action would be taken against the accused.A case was registered under Section 302 of the IPC and a hunt launched for the shooter, who was reportedly drunk.
New Delhi: The terrorists who attacked the Nagrota Army base in Jammu and Kashmir were part of a larger group of 20 to 30 terrorists who crossed over to India between November 12 and 18, sources told CNN News18.



The terrorists infiltrated in small teams and an operation is underway to hunt them down in in Kathua, Jammu and Pathankot regions, sources said.



The terrorists reportedly have access to police and Army uniforms and are planning to target family members of Army personnel.



Sources also said the Nagrota base attackers were on a suicide mission.







Seven soldiers, including two officers, were killed in a dawn attack on Nagrota Army base on November 29. Three terrorists were also killed in the encounter.








We have registered a case of rape and investigation will be carried out as per law: MK Meena,Spl.CP on Shooter alleges rape pic.twitter.com/YK3Emq7bIf  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

A national level shooter has alleged that she has been sexually assaulted by her practice partner at a birthday party.The shooter, in her complaint to Chanakyapuri police station, said that she has been practising with the accused for about two years.She said that the accused had invited her to his birthday party which took place a few days ago. When she reached there she was given a drink laced with sedatives and lost consciousness. Taking advantage of this, the accused sexually assaulted her.The police have registered an FIR and are investigating the matter. A medical test has been conducted on the victim. Further investigation is on, police said.
Varanasi: Despite facing hardships people in the country are supporting demonetisation, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in Varanasi on Sunday while criticising opposition for disrupting Parliament on the issue.



People in the country, despite facing hardships, are supporting the Prime Minister's demonetisation move, which is in the "greater interest our nation", she told reporters.



Criticising opposition for disrupting the workings of Parliament in protest against demonetisation, she also said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was raising "irrelevant issues".



Government last month demonetised high value Rs 500/1000 notes to crack down on black money, leading to unending queues at banks and ATMs amid cash shortages prompting opposition parties to attack the government over poor implementation of the plan and putting people through hardships.



Sitharaman was in the city for the foundation stone laying ceremony of Indian Institute of Gem and Jewellery (IIGJ) Varanasi Extension Campus.



She said the sector has different sub-sectors by which gem and jewellery industry provides maximum jobs to people who come from rural areas as also with those from non gem and jewellery background through proper training.



GJEPC has come here to see that the talent which has been cultivated here for years is not lost, she said, adding that it is our responsibility to not only identify and support but ensure that the process is handed over to the next generation.



The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) is taking a big step towards realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi s one of the dream project, Skill India by setting up the first-of-its-kind IIGJ in Varanasi.



Varanasi is the fifth centre in the country after Mumbai, New Delhi, Jaipur and Kolkata to have an IIGJ campus.



GJEPC chairman Praveenshankar Pandya said the apex gem and jewellery body in India has always strived to support the Prime Minister s vision for putting India on the trajectory of growth through numerous initiatives, one such being Skill India .



India's Gem and Jewellery Industry has grown from a mere USD 28 million in 1966-67 to USD 38 Billion in 2015-16. It employs around 3 million people across India.
Amritsar: Pakistans envoy Sartaj Aziz said on Sunday that the country was committed to peace and that it was wrong to blame the country for the violence in Afghanistan.



The security situation in Afghanistan is very complex. It is simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view, he said at the sixth Heart of Asia conference.



My participation in the event, despite escalation on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary with India, is testimony to Pakistans unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region. I look forward to meaningful deliberations today towards this objective, he added.



Aziz comment came after Ghani snubbed Pakistans offer to invest $500 million to reconstruct his war-torn country, saying Islamabad should instead use the money to fight terrorists operating on its soil at the conference. No amount of money can assist us if there is support to terrorists by Pakistan. Military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists... State-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan... Even the Taliban say they cannot survive even a month without support from Pakistan, he said.



Aziz said that Pakistan was aware of the problems Afghanistan faced and was ready to work with the country to deal with them. We are cognizant that Afghanistan continues to face many serious challenges. The first and foremost in our view is continuing violence and acts of terrorism claiming scores of human lives. This needs to be addressed urgently and effectively through collective efforts, he said.


Chennai: President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK leader M Karunanidhi, Union Ministers, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and various Chief Ministers tonight expressed concern over Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's health condition and wished her speedy recovery.



"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," Mukherjee tweeted after the condition of Jayalalithaa, who has been undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai since September 22, deteriorated in the evening.



Karunanidhi, the arch rival of Jayalalithaa, also wished her a speedy recovery.



Tamil Nadu Opposition leader K Stalin also tweeted: "I desire that the intensive treatment being given to the Chief Minister yields fruit and that she recovers soon."



Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu tweeted, "Feeling bad to know abt da critical condition of TN CM Selvi Jayalalitha. Praying for her speedy recovery and quick response 2 the treatment (sic)."



Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman also tweeted: "Very upsetting news about Hon.CM of Tamil Nadu, Selvi.Jayalalitha suffering a cardiac arrest.



Prayers for her speedy recovery."



In his tweet, Rahul Gandhi said: "Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon."



West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, "Very concerned about the health of Jayalalithaa Ji. Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her."



Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said "Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health.



Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!"



Former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad said, "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji.



Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Let's all pray for her."
: Pakistan on Sunday claimed that its Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz was not allowed to visit the Golden Temple and speak to Pakistani mediapersons at the hotel where he was staying, even as India said it was done due to security considerations.Sources in the Pakistani High Commission said Aziz had planned to visit the Golden Temple but was not allowed citing security concerns.Aziz, who arrived here last evening, wanted to interact with Pakistani mediapersons who accompanied him at the Radisson Blue hotel, the venue of the Heart of Asia conference, but was not given permission by security personnel, the sources said.Indian government sources said the permission was not given considering his security."Security was very tight. Permission was not given due to security reasons. Security of our guests is paramount. India ensured no untoward incident took place," they said.There was a tiff between Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit and security personnel at the hotel after they denied Pakistani journalists entry to the venue.After security personnel denied permission for Aziz's interaction with the Pakistani media at the conference venue, the Pakistani HighCommission planned the interaction at another hotel but that too was not allowed, the Pakistani High Commission sources said.Later, Basit spoke to the Pakistani media. Aziz left for Pakistan by a special aircraft around 8 PM.Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had visited the Golden Temple yesterday, while Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visited on Sunday.Apparently, the parents of Hamid Ansari, who is at present lodged in a jail in Pakistan, were waiting for a meeting with Aziz at the Golden Temple.Mumbai-based Fauzia Ansari and her husband Nihal had come here, hoping to request Aziz to release their son from prison, who has already completed his jail term.Hamid, an IT engineer and MBA degree holder, had gone to Kabul on November 4, 2012 from where he reached Pakistan allegedly to meet a Pakistani girl he had been in touch with through e-mails.




Mumbai: On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Saturday, megastar Amitabh Bachchan honoured the differently abled people and said that Divyang Divas is the most respectable and deserving name for them.



"Today a day to honour those differently abled. Divyang Divas a most respectable deserving name dedicated to the deserving," Amitabh posted on Twitter.



Since 1992, the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities has been celebrated annually on December 3 across the world.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi also hailed the determination of the disabled people on the micro-blogging site.



"On International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I salute determination of our Divyang sisters and brothers and convey my best wishes to them," Modi tweeted.



"Let us continue our ongoing efforts with renewed vigour and create a nation where both accessibility and equality prevail," he said.




Nagpur: The Opposition led by Congress and NCP has decided to boycott the customary tea party to be hosted this evening by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on the eve of the winter session of the state Legislature.



Accusing the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena combine of being inactive on various issues, particularly sufferings of farmers, inadequate prices of farm products, hardships faced by the poor due to demonetisation, and alleged corrupt practices by some ministers, the Opposition parties decided to boycott the tea and informed the Chief Minister about it in a letter sent to him.



On the course of action regarding House proceedings, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and his counterpart in Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde told reporters it will be decided tomorrow morning.



They alleged the Maharashtra government has failed to provide any major relief to the farmers. The farmers, farm labourers, tribals, backward classes and minorities are feeling unsafe in the saffron regime, they alleged.



There was a demand for reconstruction of crop loan to the farmers but nothing has been done, they said, adding farmer suicides have not stopped.



They said the government was not paying adequate prices for the farm products.



They also alleged the government has misled the members of Dhangar, Muslim and Maratha communities over reservations.



The demonetisation has brought pain and misery to the common man and many persons have died standing in queues outside banks and ATMs while trying to withdraw cash. The rural economy is on the verge of collapse, they claimed.



Other Opposition leaders, including Vijay Wadettiwar, Sanjay Dutt (both Congress), Jayant Patil and Jogendra Kawade (People's Republican Party), also signed the letter sent to the Chief Minister.


New York: A Muslim student was allegedly assaulted aboard a US subway train by three drunk white men who repeatedly screamed "Donald Trump!" and hurled anti-Islam slurs before trying to rip her hijab off, the latest in a slew of incidents in which headscarf-clad women have been targeted.



Three men attempted to rip off Yasmin Seweid's hijab, calling the 18-year-old student a "terrorist" and shouting President-elect Trump's name as she rode the subway through Manhattan.



Straphangers stood by and watched as the three drunk white men repeatedly screamed "Donald Trump!" and hurled anti-Islam slurs at the Muslim Baruch College student before trying to rip her hijab off on an East Side subway, the woman told the New York Daily News.



The incident that took place on Thursday is being investigated by the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force. Police are reviewing surveillance video to identify the men involved.



Seweid said she was stunned by the assault and the fact that no one in the subway car came to her aid.



"I heard them say something very loudly, something about Donald Trump...I also heard them say the word terrorist and I sort of got a little scared," Seweid was quoted as saying.



They kept screaming Trump's name at her, and then said, "Oh look, a (expletive) terrorist," according to Seweid.



"Get the hell out of the country!" they yelled during the train ride. "You don't belong here!"



Seweid, who was born in the US to Egyptian parents, was shocked. "I born and raised in this country. I'm an American, you know?" she said.



When Seweid ignored them, they pulled on her bag to get her attention and the strap broke.



"That's when I turned around and said 'can you please leave me alone', and they started laughing," Seweid said.



She walked to the other end of the train, and they followed her and tried to pull off her hijab.



"I put my hand on top of my head to hold it. Then I turned around and screamed," she said. Seweid got off the train and reported the terrifying incident to police.



The incident comes amid a slew of intimidation and assault cases that have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women following Trump's win.



Earlier this month, a Hijab-clad Muslim student was allegedly struck in the face with a glass bottle in broad daylight at the University of Washington campus in Seattle.



In another incident, a hijab-clad woman was allegedly accosted at a US store by another customer who called her a "terrorist" and told her to "get out" of the country.



Also, a Muslim student's hijab was allegedly ripped off and her hair pulled down by a classmate at a school in Minnesota.
Dhaka: A Hindu temple was vandalised and three idols of deities were destroyed by some unknown people in Bangladesh's northern Netrokona area, triggering panic among the minority community in the Muslim-majority nation.



The incident came to light after locals of Mymensinghorohi village in Shingherbangla union under the Netrokona sadar upazila found the temple doors open this morning.



Upon entering the temple premises, they found smashed bits and pieces of the temple architecture and three idols. They also saw two of the idols one of deity Kali and another of Shiva about 600 feet away from the temple, Dhaka Tribune reported.



Immediately, police was informed after which an investigation was launched.



"We visited the site and have collected evidence of the vandalism. We have started the investigation and have found that the temple doors were not locked. We are looking for the people who are behind this heinous act," Netrokona sadar police Officer-in-Charge (OC) Shahnur-e-Alam said.



Netrokona Additional District Magistrate Abdul Matin visited the site and said the responsible parties will be identified and punished accordingly.



Netrokona Superintendent of Police Joydeb Chowdhury said officers have reached the site.



"We are treating the case with priority. A group with vested interests may have carried out the crime to disrupt communal harmony," the SP added.


Moscow: Russia's FSB security service on Saturday said it had killed an "emir" of the Islamic State group in the North Caucasus along with four other militants in a raid in the Dagestan region.



The FSB said in a statement that "among the neutralised bandits was the head of the Caucasus region's branch of the Islamic State Rustam Aselderov, and four of his close associates."



The FSB said that Aselderov was involved in 2013 blasts in the southern Russian city of Volgograd which killed 34. He was fighting for another Caucasus insurgent group at the time. It also linked him to twin car blasts in Dagestan in 2012 that killed 14 and injured at least 120.



The 35-year-old warlord pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in December 2014, the first major militant to do so in the Caucasus.



IS has since claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on police in Dagestan.



In 2015 the US Department of State imposed sanctions on Aselderov as a "foreign terrorist fighter" after the jihadist group appointed him leader of its North Caucasus franchise.



IS named Aselderov, also known as Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Qadari, the governor of a new province after Islamist militants in the region pledged allegiance to the jihadist group.



The Russian North Caucasus is one of the major sources of foreign jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq.
Matelot settling down after rainfall havoc

Speaking yesterday in a telephone interview Ramroop said that things are good and everybody settled down. He reported that residents have received power, truck borne water, supplies and yesterday morning social services conduced assessments.

They should be back to some level of normalcy next week, Monday or Tuesday, he said.

Ramroop explained that then they will look at medium and long term and assist people who lost appliances like fridges and stoves. He said that there are still roads that need fixing and bridge repairs to be done. All in all I am very pleased with the work of all the authorities, he said.

Ramroop pointed out that they provided assistance within 72 hours while in other countries it takes weeks.

I must commend the people of the area and all the authorities who came and gave assistance, he added.

On Wednesday, torrential rainfall from the previous night and all day triggered massive flooding, sea swells and landslides trapping thousands who live in the communities. Sangre Grande Regional Corporation chairman Terry Rondon in a media interview said that about 1,000 people were affected by the disaster which was caused by just two hours of rain.

Minister of Public Utilities Fitzgerald Hinds informed Sunday Newsday that by midnight Friday electricity was restored by the entire area; it had been restored up to Grande Riviere three days ago.

He said the Water and Sewerage Authority was still in the process of reconnecting all the lines and had established a base to provide truckborne water. He reported that by yesterday a bailey bridge should have installed and once completed they can restore lines to the other side and carry truck borne lines.

Defence Force Senior Public Affairs Officer Lt Cmdr Kirk Jean-Baptiste reported that the First Engineer battalion of the TT Regiment, other arms of Regiment and Air Guard are directly involved and continue to work alongside ODPM, Ministry of Works, Police Service, Sangre Grande Regional Corporation, WASA and the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission.

A combined effort, he added.

He said the road works in conjunction with the Works Ministry and the regional corporation will continue until the situation is resolved. He pointed out that the movement of supplies continue and distribution remains with councillor and member of Parliament.

We are doing our part to ensure relief is brought to everybody eventually, he added.

Jean-Baptiste stressed however that it is a heavy task.

.
I could have died

When you feel ill or have a health concern, most people trust doctors at our nations hospitals to address it and help. However, 38-year-old Keella Gift learned the hard way that doctors are not infallible and now she has absolutely no confidence in the public health system.

Gifts story started about two years ago. As one of those persons who was always involved in breast cancer awareness, Gift regularly performed self-examinations. It was during one such examination that she discovered a small lump in her left breast.

She visited several health centres and, after some time, she was eventually forwarded to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mount Hope. However, when she eventually saw a doctor, instead of taking her concern seriously, she was told that since she was under 40, it was not breast cancer but a lump caused by high estrogen levels.

When I finally got to see the doctor, he upset me. He did not even examine me. He treated me as though I was worried for nothing.

He was insensitive. As a doctor he should have been more concerned, especially since cancer is one of the leading killers of women in the world, she said.

However, some months after, she realised the lump had grown larger.

She therefore returned to the Mt Hope facility and requested an ultrasound. I begged. I told them I had no money to go and do this privately, if they could please send me to do a test to make sure the lump was not cancerous. After all that, they gave me an appointment for six months later, she recalled.

As the months passed, Gift felt a severe pain in her chest. It became so bad that she thought she was having a heart attack, and had to be taken to the hospital. They took X-rays and blood tests and realised that the lump had grown to half the size of her breast. She was prescribed painkillers and an ultrasound appointment for one month later.

On the day of her appointment, she went to the hospital, took a number and waited patiently for three hours. When her number was called however, she was told that the technician had already left for the day.

Upset and worried, Gift told some of her friends about her experience and they helped her to schedule an ultrasound appointment at the Scarborough General Hospital in Tobago for a few weeks later.

After seeing the results, Scarborough Hospital referred her to the National Radiotherapy Centre in St James. A few weeks later, a biopsy on the lump was performed. However it was another two and a halfmonths before she got the results of her biopsy because of a clerical error.

On August 10, 2016, she was diagnosed with Stage Two breast cancer.

She said even when she was diagnosed, her experience was not pleasant. When they first told me I had cancer the doctor was like, So you know you have cancer right? You know they have to cut off your breast right? He was there on his cell phone the whole time. While attending to me he was on Whats App, she said angrily.

From the time I found the lump to the time I was diagnosed, it was almost two years. Being a person who was always aware, and who took the necessary precautions, I was really upset to have to go through that. I just think doctors should be more sensitive to womens health. Because of that I have no confidence in the public health system. I detected it early and if they had taken me seriously they could have done a quick surgery and got it out. I would not have to go through all of this, she said.

Gift noted that after her diagnosis, she had to undergo numerous tests on her blood and heart, as well as CT scans to determine if the cancer had spread. Thankfully, it did not. However the doctors told her she needed to undergo surgery but they needed the lump to shrink before they did so.

However, after researching cancer treatments, Gift decided against chemotherapy. She now attends a private clinic where she undergoes alternative treatments to shrink the tumour.

She added that although she had only good things to say about the doctors and nurses at the Scarborough Oncology Centre, and mostly positive experiences at the National Radiotherapy Centre, months of irresponsibility, waiting, pain, weakness, and weight loss cemented her determination to take care of her health privately.

If I had depended on the public health system, you might never have met me. You might have been going to my funeral because with cancer, a delay of one month can have some serious repercussions, she said. I take responsibility for not going for a second opinion privately. I didnt have the money to go but I should have borrowed it, or raised funds like I do now. I want other women to go and get a second opinion. If I had done that I wouldnt have been this far gone.

And yet, I thank God its just Stage Two. Every time I think about it I get upset. It brings on a rage in me.

But I have my daughter to live for, I have my career, and I have to focus on fighting for my life, she concluded
Holy Trinity to beef up security following robbery

This was reported in an online statement by Fr Dexter Brereton CSSp (Congregation of the Holy Ghost Fathers, Spiritans), moderator of the Arouca/Maloney Cluster.

Last Sunday, November 27, at the 6 pm service at Holy Trinity which was led by Eucharistic Minister Lloyd Theodore, a man grabbed the collection plate which was being carried to the offertory and escaped with it. A number of parishioners had challenged the man but he pulled out what appeared to be a gun.

Brereton in his statement urged parishioners to remember that most people in the wider Arouca community were decent and law-abiding and meant them no harm.

I fully understand that a number of you who may have attended this service would have found this turn of events very disturbing and about this I am very deeply sorry, he said.

He reported that the parish will be seeking expert help and advice to improve implementation of increased security measures using technology and internal arrangements will also be improved.

The statement had also said changes may have to be made to arrangements at Arouca and people may be asked to fill new roles. Parishioners were asked to keep the parish in their prayers and Brereton offered assistance to anyone experiencing lingering anxiety over the incident.

In an interview with Catholic News, Brereton reported that the robber was a stranger who had attended a Mass the week prior to the robbery.

When you have these crimes we cant allow them to make us sour. The final and deepest freedom we have is the freedom to refuse to be shaped by the evil that befalls us, he said.

Brereton said the incident could be a moment of grace for the community and the church and added that it was important for Catholics not to live in a bubble.

We live in a difficult age. The Kingdom of God comes through striving and struggles; with criminality and darkness around us...

we have to strive for what we believe in, he urged.

Brereton thanked WPC Mohammed and her team for their assiduous work following up on the report.

Also in the article parishioner Paul Chow, whose sons were assisting with the collection when the robbery occurred, said Catholics need to be more alert and vigilant though they could not prevent crime from happening. He described the incident as a wake up for the church to do what we are supposed to be doing - praying, getting together as community.

Chow had also said he was touched with how the parish community had pulled together.

Chow said his family would pray for the perpetrator and continue to reach out and try to help others. He also said that despite the incident he would continue to serve and take his family to church.
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(Newser)  When Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959, the reverberations of his revolution caused a somewhat unlikely consequence: An explosion of literature never before seen in Latin America, and only rarely seen elsewhere, of such quantity and quality that it was labeled "the boom." Its not that Fidel influenced literature directly, but what the Cuban revolution and Fidel as its head did generate was a different Latin American identity," says the president of Mexicos National Autonomous University. "There was a form of Latin American pride that allowed the flourishing of literature." After centuries under the weight of colonialism, writers saw Castro's success and "the triumph of the revolution filled them with enthusiasm," a Mexican professor tells Quartz. The names that emerged are titans of literature: Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, Mexico's Carlos Fuentes, and Argentina's Julio Cortazar among them.

But Castro wasn't just inspirationand his revolution didn't often manifest itself in these authors' workshe was also an obliging patron of the arts, opening the publishing house and writers' mecca Casa de las Americas just months after taking control. Authors "traveled to Cuba, and almost all of them came into personal contact with Fidel Castro," says the professor. Fuentes wrote his seminal novel, The Death of Artemio Cruz, there, while Cortazar wrote a colleague that "once you arrive to Cuba, you dont want to leave." "Cuba, for one, is no longer just a little island. Its actually the site of some really important historical events," says a University of Southern California literature professor. And the boom literature is not simply what people down there write, its actually one of the most important bodies of literature at the time." As for Castro himself, "Hes such a good reader, that before publishing a book I bring him the original manuscripts," Garcia Marquez said in 1996. (Castro was quietly interred Sunday.)
(Newser)  The mainstream media is reporting Donald Trump's phone call with the President of Taiwan as a bad move, something sure to anger China and "exactly the sort of thing that leads to nuclear annihilation," writes Scott Adams on his blog. But remember, this same mainstream media doesn't have a great track record when it comes to explaining Trump, writes the Dilbert creator. "If you look at this situation through the filter of a Master Persuader, it makes perfect sense," he writes. "Trump is 'setting the table' for future negotiations with China. He just subtracted something from Chinas brand that they value, and later he will negotiate with them to maybe give it back in some fashion. Probably in return for some trade concessions."

Sure, the phone call provoked a nuclear power, but the truth is that China's leadership is smart, "mature and competent," Adams writes. They don't want nuclear war to break out, and neither does the US. "Dont worry about China going to war over a phone call," Adams writes. And as for the timing of the call, it also makes sense for Trump not to have waited until he took office. "This sort of bold, rapid action is evidently what Trump wants you to think is his brand as president. The Taiwan call is consistent with the New CEO Play that I described in this post. Hes setting the tone as bold, effective, and not waiting for red tape to slow him down." Click for Adams' full column. (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
(Newser)  The white man charged with the shooting deaths of nine black parishioners at a South Carolina church asked a judge on Sunday if he could have his defense team back, at least temporarily, the AP reports. In a handwritten request, Dylann Roof asked US District Judge Richard Gergel to bring his defense team back on board for the guilt phase of his federal death penalty trial, which begins this week in Charleston. "I would like to ask if my lawyers can represent me for the guilt phase of the trial only," Roof wrote. "Can you let me have them back for the guilt phase, and then let me represent myself for the sentencing phase of the trial? If you would allow that, then that is what I would like to do." Death penalty cases are split into two parts: the guilt phase, and then a separate portion that focuses on whether or not the defendant will be sentenced to death or life in prison.

Roof, 22, faces dozens of federal charges, including hate crimes and obstruction of the practice of religion, for the June 2015 slayings at the end of a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church. Police said he hurled racial slurs during the shooting and left three people alive so they could tell the world the killings were because he hated black people. The request comes a week after a federal judge allowed Roof to represent himself, a request that came as court convened last week to begin the process of qualifying a jury pool to hear Roof's case. Gergel, who had found Roof competent to stand trial a week earlier, said Roof had the constitutional right to act as his own attorney, a decision the judge called "very unwise." Roof's former defense team has remained his legal advisers but has sought to play a larger role in his defense, expressing concern last week Roof may not present evidence that could sway a jury to spare his lifesomething that could violate the US Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (Read more Dylann Roof stories.)
(Newser)  A good deed could turn into a $50 tip from Jackson law enforcement officials who will dole out donated money ahead of the holidays, the AP reports. The Jackson Hole News and Guide reports that Teton County Sheriff Jim Whalen says anonymous donors have contributed enough for deputies, officers, and troopers to give $50 to $100 gifts. Whalen said the money could be given out for almost anything, including good drivers or people who are simply down on their luck. He said the cash gifts are about spreading goodwill. Donations last year helped officials run a similar effort. (Read more uplifting news stories.)
There are data inconsistencies when the scientist says Tornados are increasing in numbers as the global temperature gets warmer. According to scientists, tornados landing in the United States over the last fifty years is just a normal average.

It is true that climate change plays a major role in the extreme weather events in the world but not to the case of a tornado on a research presented by Columbia University as said on Christian Science Monitor. The lead author Michael Tippett of this study said, "We're just saying that it's not playing the role that we expected."

What causing tornados according to Dr. Trippett are both Propensity of the rising air and shear of vertical winds. The warming moist condition of our atmosphere caused by climate change is causing one of the cause, making the global change phenomenon a small part ingredients creating a tornado.

The latest devastation caused by a tornado is the death of three people in the United States, in particular from Alabama and Tennessee said on Express. There are several dozens of cyclones that swiped other states starting from Louisiana, Mississippi, and most Southern States.

Recently, a tornado warning is flagged on the Southern States including Florida and Western Georgia on a report made by National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center. People are given advise taking precautionary measures to ensure safety.

Tornado desolation in the first half of 2016 recorded a total loss of $8.5 Billion of insured properties and crops, on an article published by Science Daily. There may be no significant trends of tornados affecting the country but it is taking much attention to the world of researchers.

"Tornadoes blow people away, and their houses and cars and a lot else," an opinion made by Joel Cohen. People should update themselves by watching TV, listen to radios, and read articles online for Tornado warning. Prevention is better than late actions.

There are no exact data on why a tornado is getting high numbers as days go by. Scientist and weather analyst are getting into the bottom of this phenomena.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy skies with late-night snow showers. Low near 10F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..

Tonight

Cloudy skies with late-night snow showers. Low near 10F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
Amritsar:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday took a heritage walk and visited the Golden Temple soon after arriving in this holy town to attend the Heart of Asia conference.

Modi and Ghani walked through the renovated heritage corridor before reaching Harmandir Sahib, popularly known as Golden Temple, where large number of people, waiting for hours, welcomed them.

The temple premise was decorated with lights and flowers and the two leaders were taken to various parts of the temple complex.

ALSO READ: (Demonetisation: This will be the last queue for people who have been standing in line for last 70 years, says PM Modi)

Ghani and Modi also offered prayers at the temple. They spent over 30 minutes braving cold weather. Modi also served Langar in the community kitchen of the shrine as Ghani stayed along with him.

The two leaders were given a 24 carat gold replica of Golden Temple and a set of five books besides a siropa (robe of honour) and shawl. Modis visit to the Golden Temple is seen by some as an attempt to connect with the Sikh community ahead of elections in the state next year.

Earlier in the evening, Ghani was received at the airport by Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar.

Ghani and Modi will jointly inaugurate the Heart of Asia Ministerial conference tomorrow. They will also have a bilateral meeting during which both sides are likely to finalise broad contours of a bilateral air cargo service pact to boost trade.

In the meeting, Afghanistan is also likely to seek enhanced supply of military hardware from India in strengthening its armed forces.

Afghanistan has been trying to revamp its military to fight the resurgent Taliban after drawdown of NATO forces began nearly two years back.

Last week India had given to Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters. India has trained hundreds of Afghan security personnel but has been adopting a cautious approach in providing weapons.

Afghanistan has also been seeking Indias assistance in making functional Soviet-era helicopters and transport aircraft which were not in flying condition and the issue may figure in tomorrows talks.

India and Afghanistan has also been exploring various connectivity projects to for greater two-way trade and the issue may figure in tomorrows talks.

In May, India, Iran and Afghanistan had signed an agreement to set up a trade and transport corridor with Chabahar in Iran as the hub with an aim to develop a transit corridor.

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Amritsar:

Amid soaring tensions, Pakistani Prime Ministers Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz arrived here on Saturday night to attend the Heart of Asia conference with speculation rife on whether the two countries will have bilateral talks on the sidelines of the conclave.

Aziz was earlier scheduled to arrive here tomorrow but came a day early for the conference. There was no clarity on whether there will be an Indo-Pak bilateral on the sidelines of the conference.

ALSO READ: (Heart of Asia conference: Holy city Amritsar under thick cloud of security)

Interestingly, in a goodwill gesture, Aziz sent a bouquet to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj extending his sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery from illness.

Swaraj, undergoing treatment for renal failure, is not attending the Heart of Asia conference and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will head the Indian delegation at the ministerial deliberations.

Aziz, leading the Pakistani delegation to the meeting of the HoA, was received at the Amritsar airport by Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit.

Pakistan and India had held a meeting during last years Heart of Asia Summit in Islamabad during which both countries had agreed to start Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue that was to cover all outstanding issues.

The resumption of the dialogue could, however, not take place due to the Pathankot terror attack in January.

Earlier this week, Basit had said Pakistan was ready for unconditional resumption of dialogue if India was ready.

India had already made it clear that it will never accept continuing cross border terrorism as the new normal in bilateral ties with Pakistan while making it clear that talks cannot take place in an atmosphere of continued terror.

The tensions between the two countries escalated after the cross border terror attack on an army base in Nagrota.

India will step up drive to corner Pakistan diplomatically and is set to mobilise support for concrete action against state-sponsored terror at the two-day conference beginning here at this holy town tomorrow.

Afghanistan, which has also been witnessing increased attacks from terror groups operating from Pakistani soil, is set to push hard for a regional counter-terror framework with binding commitment during the annual HoA conference, a platform set up in 2011 to assist the war-ravaged country in its transition.

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Santiago:

Cuban President Raul Castro has said that his government will prohibit the naming of streets or public monuments after his brother Fidel in keeping with the former leaders desire to avoid the development of a personality cult.

The younger Castro told a crowd gathered to pay homage to Fidel Castro in the eastern city of Santiago that the countrys National Assembly would pass in its next session a law fulfilling his brothers desire that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected.

Fidel Castro, who died Nov 25 at 90, kept his name off public sites during his time in office because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a cult of personality. In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto Che Guevara have become common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths.

Raul Castro spoke at the end of a second massive rally in honour of Fidel as Cuba neared the end of its nine-day public mourning. Castros ashes arrived last afternoon in Santiago, ending a four-day journey across Cuba that began after a massive rally in Havanas Plaza of the Revolution.

Thousands of people welcomed the leaders remains to shouts of Fidel! I am Fidel! Then hundreds of thousands gathered in Santiagos Revolution Plaza last night, cheering speeches by the heads of state-run groups of small farmers, women, revolutionary veterans and neighbourhood watch committee members.

The event was attended by Bolivian President Evo Morales, Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, along with former Brazilian presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva.

Castros ashes will be interred this morning in Santiagos Santa Ifigenia cemetery, ending the official mourning period. Mourning for Castro has reached near-religious peaks of public adulation across Cuba since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba.

Huge crowds have been shouting his name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes from Havana to Santiago.

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Beijing:

China lodged a protest with the US over President-elect Donald Trumps unprecedented telephone talk with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wenz, asking Washington to honour its commitment for One-China policy.

China has lodged solemn representations with the US, urging the US to honour its commitment to the One-China policy, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said on Saturday.

We have taken note of the relevant reports and made solemn representations about it to the relevant US side. It must be pointed out that there is only one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinas territory, he said.The Government of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is the sole legitimate government representing China, which is a fact recognised by the international community, he said. The One-China principle is the political foundation of Sino-US relations, he said.

We urge the relevant parties in the US to abide by the commitment to the One-China policy and abide by the principles of the three Sino-US joint communiqus, and to handle the Taiwan issue with caution and care to avoid unnecessarily interfering with the overall situation of Sino-US relations,he said in comments posted on the Foreign Ministry website.

Gengs appeal to relevant parties came after reports that Trump bypassed US State Department in talking to Tsai. Apparently the call came from the Taiwanese President, who is adversely viewed by China as she was elected early this year on anti-China platform.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi played down Trumps telephone talk with Tsai, dismissing it as a small trick by Taiwan that cannot change the One-China framework or damage Sino-US ties.

I do not think it will change the One-China policy that the US government has insisted on applying over the years, Wang said, Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV reported.

The One-China policy is the cornerstone of the healthy development of China-US relations and we hope this political foundation will not be interfered with or damaged, Wang said after Trump spoke to Tsai, a striking break with decades of US diplomatic practice not to directly speak with Taiwan leader.

While Trumps call caught China by surprise, Wangs quick reaction played down expectations of a strong reaction from Beijing which wants to establish full contacts with Trump administration after he formally takes over power next month.

Like most of the countries in the world, US too pursued a so-called One-China policy since 1979, when it shifted its diplomatic recognition by formally recognising Peoples Republic of China (PRC) instead of Taiwan which broke off with mainland in 1949 after the formation of the PRC. However, US continues to maintain low-key contacts with Taiwan including supplying military hardware to it.

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New Delhi:

A Russian cargo spaceship heading to the International Space busted up in the sky over Siberia on Thursday due to an unknown defect, told the Russian Space agency. The cargo was unmanned.

The Progress MS-04 cargo craft busted at an altitude of 190 kilometers from remote Tuva region in Siberia that borders Mongolia, Roscosmos told in a statement. It also told that most of spaceships debris burnt up as soon as it entered the atmosphere while some part fell to Earth on an uninhabited area.

Local people reported that they saw a flash of light and heard a loud thump west of the regional capital of Kyzyl, more than 3600 kilometers east of Moscow, the Tuva government told.

The cargo ship had moved up at 8:51 p.m. from Russia's space launch complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The aim was to deliver 2.5 metric tons of fuel, water, food and other supplies. It would have been a landing pier to the space station on Saturday.

Roscosmos told that the craft was functioning normally. But things took a different turn when it stopped transmitting data just after 6 and half minutes of launch. The Russian space agency told that the experts were looking into for the malfunction and so could not describe it immediately.

This is the third botched launch of a Russian spacecraft in two years. A Progress cargo ship plunged into the Pacific Ocean in May 2015, and a Proton-M rocket carrying an advanced satellite broke up in the atmosphere in May 2014.

But both Roscosmos and NASA have affirmed that the crash of the ship would not affect the operations of orbiting space lab. The lab is currently home to a six-member crew including three cosmonauts from Russia, two NASA astronauts and one from the European Union.

Orbital ATK, NASA's other shipper, successfully sent up supplies to the space station in October, and a Japanese cargo spaceship is scheduled to launch a full load in mid-December.

NASA supplier SpaceX, meanwhile, has been grounded since a rocket explosion in September on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The company hopes that the launches will be resumed by December to deliver communication satellites.

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New Delhi:

The annual conference of Heart of Asia Istanbul Process deliberates on various challenges facing Afghanistan, including revival of a peace process in the conflict-ridden country. Over the past years, seven conferences have been chaired by various political leaders in different nations. The main focus of the conference is revival of Afghanistan. First conference was held on 2 November 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Here is all you need to know about the HoA conclave:

# The 7th Ministerial Conference in Amritsar is being attended by nearly 40 countries and leading groupings like the European Union, NATO and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

ALSO READ: (Counter-terror framework, peace and regional connectivity in Afghanistan remain major focus areas on first day of HoA conclave)

# Countries falling under the central Asia meet to discuss issues like terrorism, narcotics, poverty and extremism. The United States and over 20 other nations serve as supporting nations for the process.

# The Heart of Asia Process, with its broad-based membership and clear objectives, provides an opportunity to bring greater coherence to the efforts of the various regional processes and organizations and utilize their security and political leverages in support of a safe and stable Afghanistan and Heart of Asia Region.

# Throughout the Heart of Asia Region, the countries look to support Afghanistan in attaining peace and stability, recognized as a critical pillar to building a secure and prosperous region

# From finalising a counter-terror framework to bringing lasting peace to Afghanistan and boosting regional connectivity for the war-ravaged countrys economic growth were some of the major focus areas during first days deliberations at the Heart of Asia conference.

ALSO READ: (Pak PM's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz arrives in India to attend Heart of Asia conference)

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Amritsar:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday held bilateral talks focusing on a range of key issues including boosting trade and investment, Indias reconstruction activities in the war-ravaged country and ways to strengthen defence and security partnership.

The issue of firming up an air cargo service pact between the two countries is understood to have figured in the talks which will give India a leverage in Afghanistan as Pakistan continued to deny transit link through its territory.

Ghani arrived here last evening to attend the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process conference which began here yesterday.

In the meeting, Modi assured Ghani of Indias continued support for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan. Also, Afghanistan is learnt to have sought enhanced supply of military hardware from India.

ALSO READ: (Sartaj Aziz meets Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, discuss ways to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan)

Afghanistan has been trying to revamp its military to fight the resurgent Talibans after drawdown of NATO forces began nearly two years back.

Sources said both India and Afghanistan were keen to finalise the air cargo agreement as soon as possible and that the broad contours of the pact were already finalised.

India and Afghanistan have been exploring various connectivity projects for greater two-way trade.

In May, India, Iran and Afghanistan had signed an agreement to set up a trade and transport corridor with Chabahar in Iran as the hub with an aim to develop a transit corridor.

The sea-land route of Chabahar Port was designed to bypass Pakistan and the project was seen as Indias effort to counter Chinas plan to develop Gwadar port in Pakistan.

Afghanistan was very keen on deeper defence and security cooperation with India and there were indications that Ghani may press for ramping up supply of arms and military hardware from India though Pakistan would be unhappy if there was closer Indo-Afghan military cooperation.

Last week, India had given to Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters. India has trained hundreds of Afghan security personnel but has been adopting a cautious approach in providing weapons as it did not want to antagonise Pakistan.

Afghanistan has also been seeking Indias assistance in making functional Soviet-era helicopters and transport aircraft which were not in flying condition.

ALSO READ: (All you need to know about Heart of Asia Conference)

India has a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and is implementing projects worth USD 2 billion to help rebuild the countrys infrastructure.

India has been supporting an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of peace and reconciliation, and advocating the need for a sustained and long-term commitment to Afghanistan by the international community.

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday spoke in Amritsar at the Heart of Asia conference. Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday held bilateral talks focusing on a range of key issues including boosting trade and investment, Indiaas reconstruction activities in the war-ravaged country and ways to strengthen defence and security partnership.

Here are the Live updates:

#Pleasure to jointly inaugurate the session of 6th Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia with friend and partner Afghanistan President.

#Amritsar enforces the value of restoring connectivity which is so crucial for the overall growth and economic prosperity of Afghanistan.

#Our words and actions remain focus on building, strengthening & securing Afghanas territory and its citizens from external threats.

#Our gathering today re-affirms the commitment of the international community to durable peace & lasting stability in Afghanistan.

#We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terrorism.

#We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

#Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

#We should all work to build stronger positive connectivity between Afghanistan and other countries of the region.

#On Indiaas part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering.

#Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat too Afghanistanas peace, stability and prosperity.

#As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by a resolute action.

#Not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter and finance them.

#Our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistanas development needs must continue and increase.

#Herat India-Afghanistan dam aka Salma dam that was launched a few months ago will help revive economic activity for the people there.

#Parliament building in Kabul represents our strong commitment to Afghanistanas democratic future

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New Delhi:

Each year on December 4, the Indian Navy celebrates Navy Day to commemorate the victory of the 1971 war and the naval action at Karachi Harbour on Dec 4, 1971, and respect the martyrs of the war.

This day marks the success of the Operation Trident of Indo-Pakistani War in 1971. In this operation Indian Navy sank three Pakistani vessels near the largest Pakistani port of Karachi. Operation Trident also had resulted in first use of anti-ship missiles in the Arabian Sea region.

Operation Trident and its follow-up Operation Python, were the Indian naval offensive operations launched on Pakistan's port city of Karachi by the Indian Navy during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971



So let us get deeper insights into Operation Trident, the success of which is celebrated as Navy Day

Timeline of Operation Trident

Dec 4, 1971 - Two Petya class Frigates, INS Katchall (under Cdr. KN Zadu) and INS Kiltan (under Commander. G Rao) sailed with the Missile Boats to form the Trident Force. They set sail for Karachi. The plan was to sail westward and then northwards to reach Karachi by midnight.

Dec 4, 1971 - At around 0700 hrs in the morning, four Hunter aircrafts of the IAF led by Wing commander Das, flew low over the Karachi Coast. They Flew along the coast and then suddenly gained height over the Kermari Oil tanks. They sprayed them with their rockets and canons.

Dec 4 - 1500 hrs: The Trident Task Force was steaming towards Karachi in an Arrowhead formation. They were anxiously scanning the Sonar for Pakistani submarines and keeping a sharp lookout. The missile boats switched on their Rangout Radars. They could now be picked up anytime.

At 2243 hours on Dec 4, the radar on the Nirghat picked up a big ship on Port bow. The target was PNS Khyber, a destroyer of Pak Navy. The first missile had homed in onto the target with precision and hit her on the starboard side  she lost propulsion. PNS Khyber transmitted a Mayday Signal saying it had been hit by enemy aircraft. The second missile had slammed into her boiler room. There was a sheet of flame and the ship broke into two and sank. The panic-stricken crew began to jump overboard.

The Khyber now sank like a rock. In quick succession the missile boats picked up the Merchant ship Venus challenger ( carrying ammunition for the Pak Army) and the Pakistan Navy Minesweepr Muhafiz. Missiles were fired and both these ships were sunk.

Cdr Yadav now sailed close to the Karachi Harbour- picked up the oil Tanks and Fired a missile. It hit the first oil Tank. Symapathetic explosions started and soon the whole oil complex was on fire. The Karachi oil farm in fact burnt for a week and blotted out the sun.

The Task force now turned around and returned full speed to Mumbai. It had executed its daring mission without a scratch! This was unprecedented in the annals of Naval warfare. Not content to rest on its laurels the Indian Navy repeated this deadly feat just four days later .

It attacked Karachi Harbour again, sank another three Ships (PNS Dacca and Merchant ships Harmattan and Gulf star) and for the second time set the Keamari oil tanks on fire. In close concert with this attack the Indian Air Force Canberra bombers attacked the Masroor air field and prevented the PAF from interfering with this naval operation.

The Daring Naval strikes on the home base of the Pakistani navy epitomized the highest level of military valour and courage.

Commader. (later Commodore. BB Yadav) was awarded the Mahavir Chakra and three of the Missile boat commanders won the Vir Chakra.







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New Delhi:

Superstar Rajinikanth has reportedly developed knee injury during the shooting of his upcoming Tamil science-fiction action-thriller 2.0 in Kelambakkam in Chennai. Fortunately it was a minor injury.

The incident occurred on late Saturday evening.

Rajinikanth fell while filming a crucial scene and hurt one of his knees. He was taken to Chettinad hospital where the superstar underwent treatment for about half an hour. Later, he returned home, a source from the films unit said.

However, the 66-year-old actor resumed shooting after receiving treatment, sources said. His media manager said the actor was "fine" and has shared the video of Rajinikanth on a social media site.

The "Kabali" star was seen casually dressed and waving at his fans from the shooting spot, in the video.

The movie, directed by Shankar is likely to be released in the year 2017 during Diwali.

News Naton Bureau with PTI inputs

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New Delhi:

Delhi High Court has quashed a trial court order sentencing a couple and their daughter to life for allegedly setting ablaze their daughter-in-law in 1991, ending prolonged incarceration and trauma of over 25 years in the murder case.

A bench of Justices Gita Mittal and Anu Malhotra set aside the trial courts judgement passed in 2000 by which they were convicted for the offences under sections 302 (murder), 498 A (subjecting a married woman to cruelty) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC and were awarded life term.

During pendency of the appeal before the high court, the mother-in-law of the deceased had died in March 2003 and the proceeding against her was abated.

In its judgement, the high court said the prosecution has miserably failed to establish the case against the couple and their daughter and their conviction by the trial court was not sustainable in view of the evidence on record.

The bench noted in its verdict that they had remained in jail for a long time and only in 2001, the sentence imposed upon them was suspended during pendency of their appeals.

These few facts set out the grave suffering that the appellants and their family members have faced because of their prolonged incarceration, the bench said.

The trauma and suffering of over 25 years which commenced on November 13, 1991 has not ended in as much as this appeal has remained pending and the uncertainty of the outcome must be haunting these appellants and their family members would have left indelible scars and is irreparable, it said.

The couple and their daughter had moved the high court in 2000 challenging the trial courts verdict. According to the police, in November 1991, daughter-in-law of the couple had suffered burn injuries in her matrimonial home and later died after a month during treatment. She was married to the son of the couple in November 1990.

The police had relied on two dying declarations of the deceased which was recorded in the hospital. The high court noted that in the first dying declaration, the woman had said that her clothes caught fire while she was cooking and in her second statement, she had alleged that parents and sister of her husband had set her ablaze.

The bench said it was not safe to believe the statements made by the deceased as there were some contradictions in it.

A careful scrutiny of the record would show that, other than statements attributed to the deceased, the prosecution has failed to lead any independent evidence to corroborate the statements attributed to the deceased alleging commission of the offence. The evidence is to the contrary, it said.

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Dhaka:

A Hindu temple has been vandalised and three idols of deities have been destroyed by some miscreants in Bangladeshs northern Netrokona area on Sunday, weeks after over 10 temples of the minority community were attacked in the Muslim-majority nation.

The incident came to light after people of Mymensinghorohi village in Netrokona sadar upazila of Pabna district found the doors of Sharifpur Kali temple in Aminpur open this morning.

Upon entering the temple premises, the residents noticed smashed bits and pieces of the temple architecture and three idols. Three broken idols one of deity Kali and another of Shiva were found lying about 600 feet away from the temple, a bangladeshi newspaper reported.

Immediately, police was informed after which an investigation was launched.

We visited the site and have collected evidence of the vandalism. We have started the investigation and have found that the temple doors were not locked. We are looking for the people who are behind this heinous act, Netrokona sadar police Officer-in-Charge (OC) Shahnur-e-Alam said.

Netrokona Additional District Magistrate Abdul Matin visited the site and said the responsible parties will be identified and punished accordingly.

Netrokona Superintendent of Police Joydeb Chowdhury said officers have reached the site.

We are treating the case with priority. A group with vested interests may have carried out the crime to disrupt communal harmony, the SP added.

Meanwhile, Badal Ghosh, secretary of the temple committee, demanded immediate arrest of the attackers.

In October last week, miscreants set on fire at least six houses of Hindus in a predawn attack in Brahmanbarhia districts Nasirnagar, the place where at least 15 temples and more than 20 houses were vandalised after a Facebook post deemed offensive to Islam sparked outrage in the country.

A cyber cafe owner was arrested on November 28 for allegedly masterminding attacks on Hindu temples and houses earlier this month.

The attacks on several Hindu temples in Bangladesh were carried out under a well-orchestrated plan aimed at grabbing lands of the minority community, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had said.

The statutory NHRC said their initial investigation into the attacks on several Hindu temples and households in the central Brahmanbarhia districts Nasirnagar indicated that they were pre-planned.

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New Delhi:

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening. She is being treated and carefully monitored by experts, said a statement released from Apollo hospital, Chennai. Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao also visited Apollo hospital in Chennai at midnight today.



Live Updates - A

Barricading, Police deployment as huge crowd gathered outside Apollo hospital in Chennai where #Jayalalithaa is admitted. pic.twitter.com/xAQMTEtTY4 a ANI (@ANI_news) December 5, 2016

With all blessings she (#jayalalithaa ) will come out of this situation, being treated by the medical team: Tamil actor Sarathkumar pic.twitter.com/jdAngIb4zL a ANI (@ANI_news) December 5, 2016

Morning visuals: Scene outside Apollo hospital in Chennai where CM #jayalalithaa is admitted, she suffered a cardiac arrest last evening pic.twitter.com/RnuIrwUxED a ANI (@ANI_news) December 5, 2016

All police officers asked by the DGP to report by morning in view of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister #Jayalalithaa suffering cardiac arrest. a ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Doctors closely monitoring condition of #Jayalalithaa and trying their 'very best', says #ApolloHospital. a Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 4, 2016

Tamil Nadu ministers present inside Apollo Hospital in Chennai where CM #jayalalithaa is admitted who suffered a cardiac arrest today. a ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

#WATCH: Scene outside Apollo Hospital in Chennai where CM #jayalalithaa is admitted who suffered a cardiac arrest today, huge crowd gathered pic.twitter.com/rGrBXMCm1C a ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

A

Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao has now left from Apollo Hospital in Chennai after enquiring about CM #jayalalithaa 's health a ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

# The statement issued by Apollo hospital said thatA Jayalalithaa is being treated and monitored by a team of experts including Cardiologists, Pulmonologist and Critical care specialists.A

"TN CM Jayalalithaa is on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device, being treated by expert doctors and critical care specialists.A Dr Richard Beale from London also been consulted, he has concurred with line of treatment by our cardiologists & pulmonologists," wrote Apollo hospital on Twitter.

# After hearing the news, supporters gathered outside Apollo hospital in Chennai. Huge crowd seen outside Apollo hospital in Chennai where CM Jayalalithaa is admitted.A Heavy police force deployment seen outside Apollo hospital as huge crowd gathers after hearing about TN CM's cardiac arrest.

"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," said President Pranab Mukherjee.A

"Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon," wrote Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Twitter.A

# Home Minister Rajnath Singh has also spoken to Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao after CM Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest. Also,A Union Health Minister JP Nadda spoke to Apollo Chairman and enquired about Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa's health.

# Doctor from AIIMS to leave for Tamil Nadu on Monday to assist in treatment of TN CM Jayalalithaa after she suffered a cardiac arrest.

A

Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao has reached Apollo Hospital in Chennai to enquire about CM #jayalalithaa 's health, huge crowd gathered pic.twitter.com/RzAcg7L45b a ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Heavy police force deployment seen outside Apollo hospital in Chennai as huge crowd gathers after hearing about TN CM's cardiac arrest. pic.twitter.com/K2H7KiPssu a ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Huge crowd seen outside Apollo hospital in Chennai where CM Jayalalithaa is admitted. TN CM suffered a cardiac arrest this evening pic.twitter.com/1ibjRBN5o3 a ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest this evening, says Apollo Hospital. She is being treated, monitored by experts pic.twitter.com/dUceqoCpW7 a ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

Earlier in the day, Jayalalithaa wasA againA admittedA to intensive critical care unit. Reportedly, Jayalalithaa has been struggling with her health in last few months.

Prevailing to ailing health conditions, Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration. The hospital, which had been issuing bulletins on her health status, has said she was being treated for infection.

Earlier, on Saturday, AIIMS expert team had confirmed that she has completely recovered after over two months of hospitalisation.

"The AIIMS doctors visited the hospital on Saturday and after examining her (Jayalalithaa's) health, they shared the good news with us that Amma (meaning mother as Jayalalithaa is fondly called by AIADMK cadres) has completely recovered," AIADMK spokesperson C Ponnaiyan had told reporters.

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DANBURY  Pat Kovac and Mark Henques always wanted Federal Road in Danbury.

They entertained other towns and cities, but as Hat City natives, they wanted to start their business in their hometown. Their wish came true when an ideal spot to open their Robeks franchise became available on the busy road.

In the process of opening, they found that there were other good reasons to start a business in Danbury. Working with the city, they found, was not the regulation and approval headache that can occur in some other cities. They also said their cost analysis showed that taxes and rents were lower than in the other cities and town they had considered.

We worked with a contractor who does a lot of business in Danbury and he said the city is great to work with  very pro-business, said Kovac, who opened his store with Henques in July 2015. Danbury worked around us and we opened the day we asked for.

Hotel Zero opened last month on the citys west side. Randy Salvatore, CEO of RMS Companies, said the dealings with the various city departments led to quick construction.

We were treated objectively and friendly, he said. We like to do business in places like that and we look forward to future developments.

Salvatore, Kovac and Henques are not alone in choosing Danbury as a place to start their business. According to a recent survey by the personal finance website wallethub.com, Danbury ranked as the best small city in the state to start a business. The survey ranked nearly 1,300 cities in the country based on business environment, access to resources and business costs.

Danbury did not fare well in the national rankings, placing 339th, but it was the top small city in Connecticut. The next Connecticut city in the rankings was Westport, which came in at number 550 nationally. Bristol was next at 791.

Its a good honor to have for me, personally, because thats been a main focus of my administration, to make it easier to start and expand a business, Mayor Mark Boughton said. Thats why we started places like the Innovation Center and Hackerspace so people can develop and test their business ideas. At the end, those ideas will spin off into businesses and those businesses will spin off jobs.

According to data provided by the Connecticut Data Collaborative, Danbury ranks fourth in the state in business formation in 2016, trailing Stamford, Bridgeport and Greenwich. A total of 833 business entities have been formed in Danbury this year. Entities include most businesses types, including LLC, LP, LLP, S corps. and nonprofits.

There have been a lot of surveys over the years. I think a lot goes back to us realizing we cant be too dependent upon any single industry. We have a very diverse business community in Danbury, Stephen Bull, president of the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce, said. Other parts of the state have learned that they are very vulnerable to a slow down in a particular industry. With our business diversity, we can weather economic storms.

Bull added that Danbury has the panache of Fairfield County, but is not as expensive as towns and cities along the coast.

Yes, we are in Fairfield County, but in northern Fairfield County, he said. We dont have the sticker shock as much as the Gold Coast of southern Fairfield County.

It is not by accident that Danbury ranks so highly in the state in terms of best places to start a business. Boughton has made being pro-business a hallmark of his administration. Earlier this year he took the economic development office and turned it into the Office of Business Advocacy. Roger Palanzo runs that office and is tasked with making the city an attractive place for small- and medium-sized business.

We have some big companies and more coming soon, but still the backbone of our economy is the small- and medium-sized business, Boughton said. They need support and its important that we are there for them.

A strong core helps to keep the local economy going when the larger businesses downsize and lay off workers. Last week, FuelCell Energy laid off 96 workers and Boehringer Ingelheim laid off 120 workers.

To keep that small-business core strong and growing, Danbury offers a wide variety of assistance for entrepreneurs and business owners. Organizations such as the Small Business Development Center, SCORE and American Job Center have a strong presence in the city. Danbury Library and Western Connecticut State University often hold business workshops and seminars.

The Small Business Development Center, which offers a variety of services and advice for business owners, has recently made gaining access to capital a priority in Danbury.

The fact that Danbury has a lower cost of living might be an attraction to some, Nelson Merchan, business adviser with the Connecticut Small Business Development Center, said. Danbury is a very diverse community which makes it attractive to start and or run a business. New opportunities are available for all including immigrants and other minorities.

The diverse population of the city was another attraction for Robeks franchisees Kovac and Henques.

Danbury is still a growing city, unlike much of the state, Henques said. Population and diversity is important. Were lucky to have a large range of customers that greater Danbury provides.

Danburys population has increased 8 percent since 2000, according to census figures.

Boughton also supported the creation of the Innovation Center and Hackerspace at the Danbury Library. Hackerspace, under the direction of Mike Kaltschnee , serves as a place for entrepreneurs to build upon their business ideas and turn them into reality. It has already helped to launch several small businesses, such as the design firm Born and website developer UpDesign Media.

Danbury is becoming the hub for innovation in the state, Bull said.

cbosak@hearstmediact.com; 203-731-3338
Britain's Supreme Court to begin hearing appeal over Brexit

United Kingdom,Immigration/Law/Rights,Politics, Mon, 05 Dec 2016 IANS

London, Dec 5 (IANS) The Supreme Court in the United Kingdom, is to begin hearing an appeal by the government against a High Court ruling that the Prime Minister must consult Parliament before triggering Brexit.

All 11 judges of the highest court in the UK, will begin analysing the arguments on Monday, although they are not expected to deliver their verdict until next year, Efe news agency reported.

"Next week (5 to 8 December), the UK Supreme Court is due to hear one of the highest profile appeals since its establishment," the court said in a statement.

In view of the controversy raised by the High Court, whose judges were heavily criticized by the pro-Brexit press, the Supreme Court has made it clear that its mission it to consider cases with absolute impartiality.

The Government will be represented by state Attorney General Jeremy Wright, who will claim that Prime Minister Theresa May can use a former royal prerogative to unilaterally invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon without obtaining parliamentary authorization.

Triggering Article 50 would initiate a two-year process of negotiations with Brussels for the UK to leave the European Union.

The prime minister's office maintains that the result of the June 23 referendum -- in which 51.9 per cent of voters chose to leave the EU against 48.1 per cent who wanted to remain -- gives May sufficient mandate to negotiate without the House of Commons having to pass a law.

However, the Prime Minister has been convinced that she will win the appeal and assured EU leaders that she maintains her schedule for negotiations.

--IANS

vgu/
Naveen Jain, founder of Moon Express, sees moon exploration as part of a larger, ten-year vision that could span anywhere from research facilities for needed Mars-bound technologies to honeymoon destinations. That, and hes eyeing SpaceX as a natural launch partner in reaching for those goals.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Jain expressed his reason for getting involved in private space exploration as one we are familiar hearing from Elon Musk: Multi-planetary habitation as a backup plan for the survival of the human race. With such a compatible perspective, Elon Musk and SpaceX certainly would seem to have many reasons to work with Moon Express in the future. Jain also expressed his willingness to work with Elon.

If all goes well in the space tourism economy, tourists will be able to book a flight to the moon within the next decade and stay in a hotel in orbit above Earth while watching cargo ship shuttle up from our planets surface, Jain told Space.com.

Authorized for 2017 first rover mission and plans for lowering costs

In mid-2016, the U.S. Government authorized Moon Express to travel beyond Earths orbit and land on the Moon in 2017. This breakthrough U.S. policy decision provides authorization to Moon Express for a maiden flight of its robotic spacecraft onto the Moons surface, beginning a new era of ongoing commercial lunar exploration and discovery, unlocking the immense potential of the Moons valuable resources. Moon Express received the green light for pursuing its 2017 lunar mission following in depth consultations with the FAA, the White House, the State Department, NASA and other federal agencies.

With a launch date goal for 2017, Moon Express plans to send a rover to the moons surface to begin surveying its surface for the best locations for further operations to mine iron ore, water, rare Earth minerals, metals, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and helium-3. Jain believes that because the challenges presented by moon exploration are similar to those presented by Mars  challenges such as high radiation and vast temperature differences  SpaceX and Moon Express have plenty of reasons to work together.

Moon Express founder Naveen Jain plans to be selling lunar flights for $10,000 per seat in 2026, a feat made possible by the increased affordability of space travel technology.

The first rocket Moon Express will use next year during their historic private mission to the lunar surface, the companys MX-1 lander perched atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster, will cost about $5 million.

After that, however, Jain expects the price to drop dramatically with the same spacecraft budgeted to run $2 million within five years, and within a decade seats on lunar flights will be available for about $10,000.

Moon Express will compete for the Google Lunar XPrize with their 2017 lunar mission. The contest is a $20 million race to be the first team to put a robotic lander on the moon and drive 1,640 feet while beaming HD video back to Earth; second place is worth $5 million and another $5 million is awarded for achieving various goals.

Rocket Lab Launcher

Rocket Labs Rutherford engine is comprised of primarily all 3D-printed components, uses a batter-powered, electric turbopump to drive its propulsion and is capable of 4,600 pounds of thrust.

The Rutherford engine will power propulsion for both stages of Rocket Labs Electron rocket, a 20-meter rocket created out of carbon composites. The lightweight rocket is capable of delivering 100kg payloads to a 500km Sun-synchronous orbit or 400kg payloads to lower Earth orbits, according to the companys founder, Peter Beck. The companys ambitious goal is to begin a schedule next year that would involve launching up to 100 payloads a year from its launch facility in New Zealand, at a price of just $4.9 million per launch.

Rocket Lab uses the Rutherford engine. It is an oxygen/kerosene pump fed engine specifically designed in-house for Election using an entirely new propulsion cycle. Its unique high-performance electric propellant pumps reduce mass and replace hardware with software.

They have a carbon composite rocket body.
Russias United Engine Corporation (UEC) has started ground testing a next-generation engine for the Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA fifth-generation stealth fighter according to a statement by the company.

The PAK-FAwhich is under developmentis currently powered by a pair of 33,000-pound thrust class Saturn AL-41F1 afterburning turbofans. However, the AL-41F1a version of which is also installed on the Sukhoi Su-35S Flanker-Eis not powerful enough to meet the requirements for the PAK-FA. Ultimately, the AL-41F is a highly modified derivative of the original Sukhoi Su-27s AL-31F powerplant.

While the new engineoften referred to as the izdeliye 30is being designed by the Lyulka design bureau under the leadership of general designer-director Eugene Marchukova, it is being tested at the Lytkarinsky Machine-Building Plant. Its only with the addition of the second stage engine that the PAK-FA will meet the requirements of both the Russian and Indian air forces.

The designers expect to start testing the new engine on fighter jets in 2018, and for the motor to be fully integrated in 2020.

In addition to the engine, a radar station also needs to be modified, and engineers need to remove the last deficiencies in the airframe concept, which, among all the aircraft flying today, is the most modern in the world, said the analyst.

The powerplant is expected to deliver 24,054lbs dry thrust and 39,566lbs of afterburning thrust. With the new engine installed, the PAK-FA should be able to offer kinematic performance comparable to the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptorcruising without afterburner at speeds exceeding Mach 1.5 with a maximum speed greater than Mach 2.0 at altitudes of around 60,000ft

New PAKFA fighter weapons  30-mm cannon

The firing unit consists of one of the lightest cannon in its class, the 9-A1-4071K, which is designed to destroy armored vehicles or armored enemy targets. During one flight, the pilot can shoot 150 rounds from the 30-mm cannon.

This new weapon is a modified single-barrel GSh-301 aircraft cannon, used in Russian fighters and bombers.

Aircraft bombs

The future T-50 5th generation fighter will also carry high-explosive and volume-detonating bombs, Sergey Rusakov, General Director of the Techmash Group, announced on September 22.

Rusakov said they are now considering high-explosive incendiary OFZAB-500 aviation bombs for the PAK FA, and volume-detonating ODAB-500PMV, which are currently being used in Russian operations in Syria. Engineers have already produced a set of warheads for future tests.

The T-50 will go into serial production much later than the Raptor. This allows us to take into consideration all the pros and cons of the existing aircraft when constructing our own fighter. A similar situation existed when we were working on the multi-purpose 4 th generation Su-27 fighter. The prototype of that domestic aircraft came out much later than the American F-16, and took into account the shortcomings of its precursor. As a result, the domestic Sukhoi was able to beat the American, in terms of combat characteristics, Vadim Kozyulin, Professor at the Academy of Military Sciences, told RBTH.

The expert noted that the T-50 would be able to use the full range of existing high-precision air-to-air missiles, as well as all precision-guided munitions.

As part of the stealth concept, special missiles for the PAK FA are being developed, with a square cross section that will allow more warheads to be carried in hatches during combat missions, Kozyulin added.

SOURCES- RBTH, National Interest
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is set to re-arrest and prosecute a former Governor of Delta State, Mr. James Ibori, who wil...

Barring last minute changes, Ibori will be arraigned on 170 charges bordering on money laundering and corruption.A Southwark Crown court had on April 17, 2012, sentenced Ibori to 13 years in prison after the ex-governor pleaded guilty to 10 counts of money laundering and stealing $250m from the treasury.Following his conviction in the UK, there were criticisms of the Nigerian justice system ,especially an Asaba High Court which had struck out 170 charges which the EFCC had brought against Ibori.However, the EFCC took the matter to the Appeal Court where a three-man panel of justices on May 15, 2014, at the Benin Division of the Court of Appeal ruled that the ex- governor, who is currently serving a 13-year jail term in a London prison, has a case to answer.The appellate court panel, led by Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, ordered that the case be re-assigned to another judge of the Federal High Court for continuation of trial.The EFCC subsequently said in a statement in 2014 that the ex-governor would be re-arrested upon the completion of his prison sentence.The EFCC statement read, With this judgment, the coast is clear for Ibori to face trial in Nigeria upon the completion of his jail term in London.Attempts to speak with the EFCC spokesman, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, on Saturday proved abortive.However, a source at the EFCC told our correspondent that the legal department of the commission would have to look into the matter again.He said, Indeed Ibori still has a case to answer but it will be reviewed and charges might be amended.However, legal luminary, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), told our correspondent on the telephone that there was no need prosecuting Ibori again.Sagay, who spoke in his personal capacity and not as the chairman of President Muhammadu Buharis anti-corruption committee, told our correspondent that Ibori had already been punished and prosecuting him again could amount to human rights abuse.He said, It will be constitute double jeopardy because he was been punished according to the law and any attempt to arrest him and make him go through the process a second time will be unconstitutional.Some of the possessions confiscated from the ex-governor include: a house in Hampstead, North London, worth 2.2m; a property in Shaftesbury, Dorset, for 311,000; a 3.2m mansion in Sandton, near Johannesburg, South Africa; a fleet of armoured Range Rovers valued at 600,000; a 120,000 Bentley Continental GT; and a Mercedes-Benz Maybach 62 bought for 407,000 cash.When contacted on Saturday, spokesperson for the AGF, Mr. Salihu Isah, told our correspondent that he needed to hear from the minister before he could react.It is the AGF that can take such decision, I need to hear from him first, Isah said.
Less than two weeks after a Nigerian, 38-year-old Chijioke Obioha, was executed in Singapore for smuggling 2.6kgs of cannabis into the co...

Less than two weeks after a Nigerian, 38-year-old Chijioke Obioha, was executed in Singapore for smuggling 2.6kgs of cannabis into the country, another 38-year-old man, Augustine Uchenna, has been arrested by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency in Lagos for trying to smuggle 10.2kg of cannabis to China, another country that punishes drug importation with death.NDLEA spokesperson, Mr. Mitchell Ofoyeju, said Uchenna, a safety equipment trader in Lagos, was nabbed at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport during the outward screening of passengers on an Ethiopian Airline flight to China.NDLEA commander at the airport, Ahmadu Garba, said that the weeds were discovered inside garri, bitter leaf, bitter cola and other spices, which Uchenna said he was travelling with.The suspect said during interrogation that he was simply not aware that drug trafficking in China was punishable by death.He told NDLEA officials, My friend in China promised to pay me N600,000 for the cannabis. This is my first time of smuggling drug,even though I have been going to China since 2011. The economic recession affected my business and my rent is also due.Uchenna, an Enugu State indigene said he is married with three children and was desperate to make ends meet.NDLEA Chairman, Col. Muhammad Abdallah (retd.), said the agency had taken measures to improve screening for narcotics at the nations airports.He said, All countries with death penalty for drug trafficking and source countries are all high risk destinations. The main objective of drug control is to promote public health and security.I am glad that the arrest was made here thereby preventing the suspect from facing the death penalty in China.
The Nigerian community in U.S. has lauded the appointment of Bayo Ogunlesi by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump into his Economic Adviso...

The Nigerians told the Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York, that Ogunlesi has been an excellent ambassador for Africa and Nigeria in particular.Mr Michael Adeniyi, former President of a Nigerian U.S.-based group, the Organisation for the Advancement of Nigerians Inc. (OAN Inc), told NAN that Bayo Ogunlesi is an excellent and extraordinary Nigerian.He is very humble, brilliant and outstanding in every way you can think of.He has achieved outstanding success in Wall Street and hes a proud ambassador of Africa, which he started in Kings College.For him to be appointed into Trumps Economic Advisory Team is a honour to Africa and especially to Nigeria. He will add value to the Trumps team and hes worthy of celebrating.Prior to his appointment, Bayo Ogunlesi has been a pride of Africa; he reached the pinnacle of his career in Walls Street through his company which he built from the scratch. He is a round peg in a round hole.Another Nigerian, Prof. Yetunde Odugbesan-Omede, a professor of Global Affairs and Political Science, at Rutgers University and Farmingdale State College, said Ogunlesi has all it takes to contribute to a positive American economic outlookMr Ogunlesi has an impressive background and will be able to add his perspective and vast knowledge on how to move America forward that will yield positive economic outcomes.Odugbesan-Omede, however, said it was too early to say if the appointment would have any impact on Nigeria.It is too early to determine or come to a conclusion at this moment on whether Mr Ogunlesis role will have any impact on Nigerias foreign and economic policy.I hope that Mr Ogunlesi will provide guidance on improving both economic and political U.S.-Nigeria relations, Odugbesan-Omede said.Spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the UN, Pastor Akinremi Bolaji, said Ogunlesis appointment was a positive development for Nigeria and Africa.I am not speaking for the Nigerian diplomatic community because I am not in the position to do so; it for the Embassy in Washington to do.Speaking as a Nigerian, it is a good indication and positive development for Africa and Nigeria that we are among the best brains everywhere.It is also to show you that one in every five Blacks is a Nigerian. It is a good indication for our economic and foreign policy.It also shows that Africa and Nigeria have good ambassadors everywhere. Ogunlesi has to see himself as a representative of the Black race as the only Black man that made the list by further distinguishing himself.I advise him to use his opportunity well and he should bring together people of integrity who will not smear his integrity.Bolaji said the younger generation has a lot to learn from his distinction, adding journalists have a lot to do to tell us how he was able to weather the storm and got recognised worldwide.It also shows that the best economic brains are scattered everywhere in Nigeria. We have the Dangotes in the North, Jim Ovias and Tony Elumelus in the East and South South and Otedola in the West, and now Ogunlesi.If we put our house together, we have people all over the world and at home who have all it takes for us to succeed, Bolaji said.NAN recalls that Ogunlesi, who is the chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm and one of Fortune 500 companies, was named a member of an economic advisory forum to Trump.The 63-year-old Nigerian is the only African face in the 16-man team.President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced that he is establishing the Presidents Strategic and Policy Forum, said a press release from Blackstone published by Business Insider.The Forum, which is composed of some of Americas most highly respected and successful business leaders, will be called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his plan to bring back jobs and Make America Great Again. (NAN)
A United States-based group, Nigerian American Foundation, on Saturday, expressed concerns over possible racist attacks against Nigerian...

A United States-based group, Nigerian American Foundation, on Saturday, expressed concerns over possible racist attacks against Nigerians living in the US.According to the group, there is an increase in attacks against Muslims, Blacks, Jews and Hispanics, since Donald Trump emerged as US president-elect.We are concerned that some White working class citizens have been made to believe that immigrants are taking their jobs and Nigerians happen to be the most educated immigrant community in the United States.We hope the President-elect will put out the fire he stoked with his incendiary rhetoric during the campaigns by now assuring all segments of the society that the United States values of inclusion, multiculturalism, liberty, justice and freedom for everyone have not become extinct with his impending ascension to the Presidency, NAF President, Dr. Yinka Tella revealed.Tella stated that the concerns were legitimate, based on the way Trump conducted his electioneering by appealing to White Americans racist disposition.According to him, Nigerians living in the US may face a more difficult future with Trumps emergence as president.Nigerians in the United States have always had very limited economic opportunities due to in-built racism within the society. That is why most Nigerians, regardless of qualifications or background, can be found mostly working as cab drivers, nurses, teachers, medical doctors and pharmacists, which are areas where there is a shortage of manpower.The rule of the thumb is that we have to work twice as hard as our peers to be successful. This is not going to change with Mr. Trump as President except the forces of racism have been emboldened. Nigerian legal immigrants will likely find it even tougher to integrate into the society while fewer people will be able to overstay their visas with impunity, the NAF president pointed out.He, however, said he did not think there would be a mass exodus of Nigerians from the US.
Currently, there is an ongoing debate and battle of supremacy between the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, and Olugbo of Ugbo, Oba Obat...

Oba Akinruntan also attacked the Ooni of Ife for describing Moremi Ajasoro as a heroine.The Ugbo monarch disagreed with the Ooni, who described Moremi as a goddess and recently built a 42-foot statue in her honour.To the Ondo monarch, Moremi was a traitor who betrayed her husband, Osangangan Obamakin.But in a swift reaction, the Ife monarch said Olugbo did not have deep knowledge of Yoruba history.The Olugbo, in a statement issued by the Olugbo-in-Council, said, We, the OlugboinCouncil, found such (Oonis remarks about Moremi) unguarded statements and historical fallacy disturbing, particularly when such emanated from a monarch who is expected to be a custodian of history, customs and traditions of Yorubaland. We hereby state categorically that we are Ugbos, the aboriginal settlers and owners of Ile-Ife.Our forefathers descended from heaven, that is why we are called Ugbo Atorunwo. We are not Ibos (Igbos), who are from the South-East, and who have their own clearly researched and defined ancestry. To set the record straight, Moremi remains a traitor. She was a slave captured by Ugbo warriors during one of their many raids on Ile-Ife. She later became the wife of Osangangan Obamakin, the son of Oranfe, of who was the paramount ruler of over 13 aboriginal communities of ancient Ugbomokun, which later came to be called Ile Ife.The statement said further, Oduduwa came to Ugbomokun as a stranger and was welcomed in Ilero, the aboriginal palace of Osangangan Obamakin, which is still in existence in present-day Iremo, in Ile Ife. During the dynastic struggles, Osangangan Obamakin was directed by the oracles (Ifa and Osanyin) to leave Ile Ife. Moremi betrayed her husbands trust when she exposed the secret of the Ugbo warriors gallantry.Popular history states that Oduduwa, the progenitor of the Ooni, migrated from the East/Mecca. In another account by the Oba of Benin, recently, Oduduwa came from Benin. We ask that the Ooni should confirm his ancestral roots. It is also of importance to note that in the ancient custom of Yoruba, an incumbent king must have no living father. Also, no man from a female lineage of a ruling house is qualified to sit on the throne.But Oba Ogunwusi, who spoke through the Director of Public Affairs of the Oonis Palace, Moses Olafare, said the Ooni would not dignify the Olugbo with an answer because he was more focused on achieving unity among all Yoruba people and would not allow himself to be distracted.The Ooni insisted that Moremi was a heroine, who deserved accolade because of the role she played in the liberation of Ife people from some faceless terrorists.He said, This outburst of Olugbo can only be viewed by well-meaning people as a pitiable act of absurdity that doesnt deserve serious attention by serious people. How on earth could a Yoruba king refer to Moremi as a traitor because she used her power as a woman to liberate her people from incessant invasions by some faceless terrorists?Most paramount on the mind of His Imperial Majesty, Ooni Adeyeye Ogunwusi Ojaja II, with the unflinching support of the Alaafin, baba; the Awujale; the Alake; the Orangun; the Deji; the Ewi; the Osemawe; the Olubadan; the Oba of Lagos; and other relevant peace-loving monarchs in Yorubaland and in other parts of the country is and remains the much-needed progress of Yoruba nation which can only be achieved through peace and unity.It is a pity that at this time when everybody is tired of retrogressive royal discord, the Olugbo, who claims to be the Chairman of Yoruba Obas Committee on Peace and Reconciliation, has suddenly without a deep knowledge of Yoruba history, woken up to see royal controversy as the only tool for cheap publicity.
The Inspector General Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, yesterday declared the police will deploy 20, 000 officers, three helicopters and 20 ...

The Inspector General Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, yesterday declared the police will deploy 20, 000 officers, three helicopters and 20 gun-boats to ensure hitch-free election in the forthcoming Rivers National Assembly re-runs.He spoke while addressing men and officers at Kano Police Command during a two-day working visit to the state.He said the gun boats were necessary to help ensure peace and order at the water-ways during the exercise.According to him, the police will replicate the efforts they put in that created atmosphere for peaceful election in Ondo state during the Rivers state re-run.Idris also disclosed that arrangements have been concluded to commence a housing-scheme programme for low-cadre officers to enable them own a house after retirement.He pointed out the welfare of men and officers remained his priority.Speaking yesterday at the flag off of the rehabilitation of the General Hospital Abua, Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike accused the All Progressive Congress of plotting to rig the election.He said this was why the party has refused to campaign for the exercise.Wike alleged police chiefs met with APC leaders two days ago where they allegedly extracted the promise to send three commissioners to manipulate the process.He also claimed that APC governors who will be in Rivers on Wednesday for a jamboree are coming with rented crowd.Wike said: The APC has nothing to campaign with. That is why they have arranged a one-day jamboree.Is the hunger across the country? Or is the lack of projects or the worsening exchange rate?Or is the fact that Rivers APC members have done nothing to attract any project to this state? There is nothing for them to campaign with.I have approved the Liberation Stadium for their jamboree on Wednesday.The visitors will dance and after that leave the state for Rivers people to vote overwhelmingly for PDP candidates.He alleged almost all the Divisional Police Officers in the state have been transferred with officers allegedly sympathetic to the APC on their way in.He urged youths to vehemently defend all polling units and collation centres where the police plan to assist Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to manipulate polls results.
President Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated the president-elect of Gambia, Adama Barrow, on his victory in the countrys December 1 pre...

President Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated the president-elect of Gambia, Adama Barrow, on his victory in the countrys December 1 presidential election.He also saluted the spirit of statesmanship displayed by the out-going President of The Gambia, Alhaji Yahya Jammeh, by conceding defeat.In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Buhari noted that such uncommon gesture is crucial in calming fears of unrest in the West African nation.While expressing delight at the gallantry shown by Jammeh, President Buhari enjoined President-elect Barrow to be magnanimous in victory.He also commended Gambians for peacefully exercising their democratic right to freely choose and called on all stakeholders to maintain the peace.President Buhari said he was looking forward to a smooth transition of power and working with the incoming President of The Gambia to deepen existing cordial relations between both countries.
President Muhammadu Buhari would depart Nigeria for Senegal, Monday, to attend the Third Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security...

President Muhammadu Buhari would depart Nigeria for Senegal, Monday, to attend the Third Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa holding Dakar, the countrys capital.Themed Africa and its Security Challenges: Perspectives for Effective Solutions, the Forum, convened by President Macky Sall of Senegal with support from the African Union would discuss security-related challenges on the continent.The event which would hold between Monday and Tuesday would be attended by African leaders and representatives of regional and international organisations.A statement by Mr. Femi Adesina, the presidential spokesman on Sunday stated that President Buhari was scheduled to participate in the Panel of Heads of State on Tuesday, December 6.According to the statement President, who has identified improved security in Nigeria as a priority for development, shares the vision of the Forum in finding lasting solutions to security challenges on the continent, notably terrorism and violent extremism, piracy, drugs, child and human trafficking. It added that In Dakar, the Nigerian leader will use the occasion of his participation in the Forum to continue his active engagement with political authorities on the need for enhanced security cooperation in the region.
Ex-Special Adviser, Electronic Media, to Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri has said that the Kaduna state Governor, Mallam Nasi...

Ex-Special Adviser, Electronic Media, to Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri has said that the Kaduna state Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai is opening a Pandoras box which can not be closed by paying Fulani herdsmen to stop killing in Southern Kaduna. Describing the act as unjust, idiocy and madness in what he termedOmokri condemned the Governors act and said such is capable of breeding more dangers than the solution it claims to solve.I was shocked out of my revere. Who does that? How can a government pay murderers to stop murdering? Are we living under the mafia? Are we in Chicago of the 1920s? Is this Cecily of just before the Second World War? You know that these people are murderers and youve identified them, then you as a government are sending people to go and meet them to tell them that you will compensate them, you will pay them to stop killing? I mean, who does that? Why are you in the state as a governor; why is President Muhammadu Buhari the President? You were elected into office to protect the constitution of Nigeria.The constitution of Nigeria says that if anybody commits murder, that person is arrested, prosecuted and jailed in prison. Or hanged, sentenced, shot, executed, however you put it there. You dont go and pay compensation to murderers, thats not what our Lord says.This is unjust. These people who had killed Christians in Southern Kaduna, hundreds of them, probably thousands, I think, since 2011 this has been a case of thousand of them, I know people that are from there.I know members of the Christian Association that are there because am very intimate with CAN. This is wrong. This is injustice! You are saying that, ok, youve identified them, youve traced them to where they are. Some of them are in Niger, some of them are in Chad, some of them are in different countries.Then youve gone to go and meet them, youve talked to themWhat Nonsense! What Nonsense! If there are any people among the Southern Kaduna Christians who killed Fulanis, arrest them, prosecute them and send them to jail. And then, if there are any Fulanis who have killed Southern Kaduna Christians, arrest them, prosecute them and send them to jail. Do not give anybody money, do not compensate anybody with money for killing. What kind of thing is that! What kind of nonsense is that? And you say you are a government? Look, you have children, you Mallam Nasir El-rufai, Governor of Kaduna state.If I said, ok, well, I am not happy because of the things you said about President Goodluck Jonathan and you said ridiculous things. You insulted him while he was praying. You said that if any of the soldiers take any of the lives of the Fulanis pasuwelas in Plateau state that are killing indigenes of Plateau state, that you were going to consider it a debt to be taken at a future date.Then, if I were to say that am angry with you and I go and kill somebody dear to you, does it make sense for government to come and say, oh Reno, dont be angry, take this money and leave Mallam Nasirs people? That is silly, its idiocy!  Nobody should be doing that. Look, I had to compose myself before I came to give this message.Is Nigeria a zoo? Tens of thousands of people have been killed by Boko Haram, a lot of them Christians. Boko Haram have bombed churches on Christmas day. They bombed a Catholic church in Madala on Christmas day. So many people were killed.They burnt several of churches in Borno, Yobe axis, how many of those Christian families have been paid compensation? How many of them have been paid compensation?  Ok, they killed their cows and some of their people and you want to go and pay them compensation? With what money? The money that is coming to you in Kaduna, where is it coming from? Its coming to you from the Niger Delta!And then you want to go and carry that money and pay compensation to people who were killing Christians, what nonsense!  And then people are sending me message telling me, oh Reno, you have to be careful, what if they arrest you? And so what?  If they arrest me, should I be afraid of a man and then now not be afraid of God? What will I say to God on judgment day if am there being judged that this is what happened and I kept quiet, am afraid or may be because am thinking about not being arrested by DSS.If DSS kill me, they cant kill my spirit, they cant kill my soul.  With my own money, I built an orphanage. That orphanage, we are getting a child from Borno state.Am I from Borno, do I know anybody from Borno? Am doing this because, this is what God has called us to do. Mathew 25 verse 40: Jesus said, whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, that you do unto me. What concerns me, am a dead man already. I have given my life to Christ. Galatians 2 verse 20: The life I live, I live by the faith of the son of God who loves me and gave His life for me. How will I keep quiet and watch this? Thousands of these people have been killed and then you said you are going to go and pay compensation! Why is the government in place? Is it not to arrest people who have committed murder, prosecute them and to try them?  If you do this thing, you are going to uneaten a can of worms that you cannot close.  President Muhammadu Buhari, I know that you are a Fulani man. I know that you are also a God-fearing man.I have read about your history. Am one of the critics who have studied you. I have read the Koran just like you. Am not just somebody who was just born into a Christian family and I decided to be Christian. No, I looked for God. I have read the Koran. If I begin to talk about the Koran now, you will be shocked. This thing that is happening is injustice, its unjust. As President Muhammadu Buhari, if you ever watches or your children watches or your family members or aides are watching it to explain it to you, you better stop the Kaduna state governor from taking any such kind of action.Because one, it is going to incite the people of Sotherns area, the Christian people of southern area. I am in my fourties. Since I have been a child till now, I have never heard of it when Christians just gather themselves and start killing muslims, I have never heard of it. And if they do that, they should be tried, they should be put in prison, they should be jailed, they should be locked up and they should be executed if it is proven.   You should not go and start paying murderers money. And to all of you there, Fr. Mbaka, Tunde Bakare, cardinal Onayekun, all of you that go and hob-knob them there, why cant you tell them the truth? Am not supporting anybody there. Any Southern Kaduna person that has killed, he should be arrested and tried. Any Fulani person that has killed, he should be arrested and tried.No money must exchange hands. Then, if thats what you are doing, then it is better to call it quits. There is breakdown of law and order and Kaduna state should cease to exist. Then you better go to prison and free all the murderers and give them money. And say dont kill any more.  Christian leaders are there in Abuja doing praise and worship, doing miracle breakthroughs. Look, your brethren are being killed. Go and tell El-Rufai that what he is doing is not good, it is unjust.He is one of the social media savvy governors. Go to his handle and tell him that he is opening a Pandoras box that will not be closed Recall that Governor El-rufai had said on Friday that, We took certain steps. We got a group of people that were going round trying to trace some of these people in Cameroon, Niger republic and so on to tell them that there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost and he is begging them to stop killing.In most of the communities, once that appeal was made to them, they said they have forgiven. There are one or two that asked for monetary compensation. They said they have forgiven the death of human beings, but want compensation for cattle. We said no problem, and we paid some. As recently as two weeks ago, the team went to Niger republic to attend one Fulani gathering that they hold every year with a message from me.Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/12/compensation-boko-haram-el-rufai-opening-can-warms-thatill-not-closed-reno/
In what could be clearly seen as a deft move the United States President-elect, Donald Trump, has named a Nigerian investment banker, Ba...

In what could be clearly seen as a deft move the United States President-elect, Donald Trump, has named a Nigerian investment banker, Bayo Ogunlesi, to serve as a strategist on his economic policy team.He is to serve in the 16-member group to be led by Stephen Schwarzman of the American equity firm, Blackstone, according to the Cable News Network (CNN).Mr. Ogunlesi, a private equity tycoon, came into international limelight in 2010 for his acquisition of Gatwick International Airport in London. The deal was worth about $2 billion.He is going to serve as a member of the board, which also included CEOs of General Motors and IBM.The group will have a direct line to Mr. Trump and be tasked with giving the president-elect nonpartisan views on how government policy impacts the economy and jobs.The forum is to hold its first meeting during the first week of February at the White House.Ogunlesi, 63, is the co-founder and chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners, an investment firm with a primary interest in infrastructure and real estate development.He is the first Nigerian to be appointed by Trump.His appointment came a year after President Barack Obama named Adewale Adeyemo as his Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economics.
The Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said that local governments are under absolutely control and ambience of states, a...

Aregbesola

The Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said that local governments are under absolutely control and ambience of states, and that the only organ of the state empowered by the constitution to make laws for them is the state assembly.The governor equally stated that Nigerias diversity is beautiful if limited to cultural diversity and the beauty therein.Aregbesola spoke during a courtesy visit and conferment of Nwannedinamba Ndigbo of Osun State and Ezinne Ndigbo on him and his wife by the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, in the state in partnership with the Association of Ndi Ezeigbo Nuzo Ije (Diaspora) and the South East Council of Traditional Rulers in Osogbo.The governor described the belief ygaining grounds that local governments should be independent of state governments as totally strange and anti-federalism.He noted that there are only two tiers of government in a federal system of government, namely the federal government and the government at the federating level.Aregbesola stressed that it is awkward for Nigeria to be the only federation in the world where there is only one police system, noting that it is strange for the federal government and the constitution not to allow for police in the federating units of the country.The governor held that the problems with local government administration in the country can be corrected within the laws of the states.According to him, Nigeria is not just a republic, but a Federal Republic, a federal state is where every distinction of nationality is recognised, respected and honoured. None of the units of the federation is therefore superior to the other. Every of the units are empowered by law to administer themselves under the general guideline of the constitution.Few things are awkward about federalism in Nigeria. Nigerias federation is strange to the extent that only one police force maintains law and order. In other federations, there will be a Federal Police force and other federating unit police. Nigerian nationality and people must seek to correct this abnormality.Another anomaly that people, because of their frustration to some aspect of administration, are equally making mistake on and need correction is that a federation has two tiers of government. There cannot be three tiers in a federation. The moment you have three tiers, you no longer have a federation.Aregbesola emphasised that the problem with the administration of local government can be corrected within the limits of the laws of the state in a federation.He noted that it is not by assaulting the fundamental principle of federalism that the challenges and weakness being faced by the administration of local governments can be corrected.The governor enjoined the Igbo community to join in the debate of whether the nation wants federalism or unitary system of government.He stated that Nigeria, like every other nation with different ethnicity, is blessed for the diversity which he described as beautiful, calling on all and sundry to see each other first as a Nigerians.He said, We can be who we are without rancour and doing away with what can bring rancour. We should recognise our differences and avoid hurting one another.What will clearly eliminate the hate, the sharp clarity is having good government that will work hard to expand opportunities such that it is not your ethnicity that will determine your benefit, but your citizenship and your commitment to your work, Aregbesola stated.Chief John Emeka, who led the traditional Igbo title holders in the South-West region, lauded Aregbesola for his leadership style, stating that they have been monitoring the progress of the state before they decided to bestow on him the Igbo title.He described Aregbesola as a good manager of human and capital resources particularly at this recession period and the recurring revenue fall in the state and the nation.He said, It is not by accident that we are honouring Mr. Governor and his wife. I want to use this occasion to call on all and sundry in the state to support the governor by paying all levies and taxes in his effort to transform Osun to a state where we will all be proud of within the South-West and Nigeria as a whole.
The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has vowed to start aggressive enforcement of the speed limiting device on all vehicles across ...

The Corps Marshal, Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi, stated this yesterday in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, during the 2016 mega rally tagged: Crash the crash: speed kills for motorists.He explained that the speed limiting device was introduced to address the tragedy of senseless killings on roads.Represented by the Assistant Corps Marshal in charge of Zone 6, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Jonas Agu, the FRSC boss said stakeholders had sustained the collaboration and public sensitisation programmes on the policy, which led to the last Presidential directives for the commencement of enforcement on October 1, 2016.According to him: To ensure all commercial vehicle operators embrace the policy fully without the pains of enforcement, we embarked on free safety checks to precede full enforcement.This is expected to last till the last day of December before the commencement of aggressive enforcement from January 1, 2017.He urged commercial vehicles operators to ensure their vehicles are installed with the device within the period to avoid inconveniences that go with enforcement of the law.The corps marshal advised all tanker and trailer drivers to, in addition to the installation of the device in their vehicles, observe minimum safety standards.He said: These include the use of safety valves, retro-reflective tapes and ensuring that functional lighting system are fitted in their vehicles.
The choice Nigerians need to make in 2019 One politician strolled into the fourth republic with huge dose of democratic credentials. Alh...

He became a disciple of late Gen. Shehu Musa YarAdua, the great political tactician that swept the country like a hurricane.Members of this political machine included Chief Anthony Anenih, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Lamidi Adedibu, Dapo Sarumi, Yomi Edu and others.Turaki Abubakar was at the verge of winning the governorship election of Adamawa State in 1991 before former military President Ibrahim Babangida banned him and other frontline candidates across the country.Not deterred by the setback, he contested the presidential primary election of the Social Democratic Party and placed third out 30 contestants. Who is afraid of Atiku and why are they afraid of him? In understanding who and why they are afraid of Atiku, we need to analyse the politics of the fourth republic and properly situate his role(s) in proper context.It is worthy to mention that he was a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party and actually contributed N500m to the party. It is obvious that he had already conquered the business world before assuming office as Vice President. In modern Nigeria, I have not seen a politician more tenacious that the Turaki Adamawa in defending his beliefs and projecting same for the benefit of humanity. Anybody in doubt should take a trip to the hill top of Abeokuta and debrief former Olusegun Obasanjo.He masked his intention on a third term agenda hinged on the need for policy continuity. He did not reckon with the tenacity of Atiku to rally positive forces of the political class to checkmate him. The political fallout on the Turaki was massive. Obasanjo unleashed the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) led by Nuhu Ribadu on him.Lies were churned out and international conspiracy was activated to damage the skyrocketing political profile of the former Vice President. However, his doggedness and commitment to the creation of an ideal Nigerian society kept him going.Today, he has emerged as the leading light in the remodelling of our nation. In moving Nigeria to political stability, tolerance and developmental Eldorado, what is needed is a thoroughbred politician imbued with economic foresight and ability to create jobs for the youth population. The youths have become despondent and feel left behind by the political and economic train.A tested hand like Atiku is surely needed to coordinate the proper integration of the youths into the economic mainstream. He is the highest individual employer of labour in Nigeria and a believer in excellence. The truth that cannot be dismissed is that among those jostling to convince Nigerians for their votes in 2019, only the Turaki has experience in job creation.This is the choice Nigerian must make in 2019 without sentiment and pandering to the propaganda of surrogates of past failures. The fragility of our mutual existence as a country cannot be over exaggerated. As a matter of fact, the erosion of our cultural, religious and social commonalities is an ever constant feature of the past two decades.There is need to undertake enormous reintegration of all divergent groups into a united country. Nobody can do it better than Atiku. He is a proven man of immense conviction and political muscles to navigate us to the destination of unity. President Muhammadu Buhari came at a time he was needed to abridge our drift towards excessive insecurity and anarchy. Atiku is the man to build the country for the happiness and prosperity of all citizens of Nigeria.
WYCKOFF -- A Verona man is accusing his brother, a Wyckoff resident, of stealing their mother's fortune, which includes $2 million in jewelry and a painting worth $80,000, according to a lawsuit filed recently in Bergen County Superior Court.

Barry Winograd is accused of absconding with his mother's fortune, according to a suit filed in Bergen County Superior Court. (File photo)

Steven Winograd alleges in court papers that his brother Barry Winograd took ownership of valuable items belonging to their mother, Ruth Winograd, who is "incapacitated" and undergoing medical and nursing care.

The suit states that shortly after Steven obtained power of attorney over his mother, Barry broke into the home where their mother lived and "absconded with an original painting (by) a renowned artist, Pedro Greenberg, (that) has an an anticipated value of $80,000."

Before the theft, Barry was entrusted with $2 million in their mother's jewelry, which he had agreed to secure in his home safe, the suit states.

But when Steven asked Barry for the jewelry so he could liquidate the gems to pay for their mother's nursing treatment, Barry refused, the suit states.

Steven Winograd, "who possesses a durable power of attorney of Mrs. Winograd's person and property has demanded the return of stolen property to no avail," the suit states.

The suit demands return of stolen property, along with compensatory, punitive damages, interest and other relief.

Barry Winograd could not be reached for comment.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
CAMDEN -- A man died after being shot in the stomach in Camden Saturday night, according to a report by 6abc.com.

The shooting occurred in the 900 block of North 33rd Street after 8 p.m. and no one has been arrested in connection with the shooting, the report said.

The injured man died from his injuries at Cooper University Hospital, authorities told 6ABC.com.

The number of homicides in Camden has already surpassed the total homicides in 2015. According to police numbers, 34 were killed in 2015, 33 in 2014, and 58 were killed in 2013. The record-high homicide rate was in 2012, when 67 people were slain.

Calls to the Camden County prosecutor's office were not returned Sunday morning.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
HOPEWELL TWP. -- Police said a Bridgeton man was driving drunk Saturday night when he caused an crash that injured three people in Cumberland County.

Hank Hayes, 36, is charged with assault by auto and driving while under the influence of alcohol, State Police Sgt. Gregory Williams said. He was not arrested because he was hospitalized after the crash, Williams said.

The 7:38 p.m. crash also injured the driver and passenger riding in the second vehicle. Williams said they were also taken to Inspira Medical Center in Vineland and had minor injuries.

Williams said the crash is still under investigation, but it appears that Hayes' vehicle struck a another vehicle on State Highway 49, also called Shiloh Pike, at the intersection with Pau Len Drive. The impact sent both vehicles into a telephone pole, he said.

The details of how the crash occurred are still being investigated, he said.

State police have requested a sample of Hayes' blood from the hospital to be tested to determine whether he was over the legal limit, Williams said.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Buzz Aldrin

Buzz Aldrin in a file photo.

New Jersey native Buzz Aldrin posted updates on Sunday indicating he was in good spirits - and cracking Kardashian jokes - as he continues to recover after being evacuated from the South Pole Thursday due to altitude sickness.

Aldrin, 86, was in Antarctica as part of a tour group. He said in a statement that he felt short of breath and, when examined, staff found congestion in his lungs and low oxygen levels. Both are symptoms of altitude sickness, he said.

"I didn't get as much time to spend with the scientists as I would have liked to discuss the research they're doing in relation to Mars," Aldrin said in a statement released on his website. "My visit was cut short and I had to leave after a couple of hours. I really enjoyed my short time in Antarctica and seeing what life could be like on Mars."

He is waiting on congestion in his lungs to clear up before he travels back to the United States, according to the update on his site.

Aldrin has kept busy exercising in the halls of a Christchurch hospital. He also posted a photo showing him reading in bed:

Catching up on the world while I'm stuck in quarantine. Apparently @KimKardashian is out in public again. pic.twitter.com/syUjbvt8ak  Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) December 4, 2016

Sara Jerde may be reached at sjerde@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde.
NEWARK -- Students at Newark Collegiate Academy recently took part in a "Fast for Famine" drive at school to raise awareness about hunger.

More than 150 students began a 24-hour fast on Nov. 18; the students stayed overnight at the school, where they spent their time working on charitable projects such as making blankets for the children at the Children's Hospital at Beth Israel Medical Center and sandwiches and holiday cards for families at the YMCA of Newark before their fast came to an end.

The students also raised $780, which they donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Charity Water.

To submit school news send an email to essex@starledger.com.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump. The nine-member panel sent a letter to the former president's lawyers on Friday, demanding his testimony under oath by mid-November and outlining a series of corresponding documents. The decision by lawmakers to exercise their subpoena power comes a week after the committee made its final case against the former president, who they say is the "central cause" of the multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It remains unclear how Trump and his legal team will respond to the subpoena, if at all.
After decrease in overcrowding, local lockup no longer housing overflow from state system

After nearly a year and a half, inmates in Nebraskas prison system will no longer find a home at the Lincoln County Detention Center  and the county no longer will receive state funds for housing them.

Faced with overcrowding in 2014, Nebraskas prison system began housing inmates in county jails, said Chief Deputy Roland Kramer of the Lincoln County Sheriffs Office. According to a Sept. 30 story in the Omaha World-Herald, Nebraska prisons were operating at 157 percent of capacity overall as of September.

After a year of working out the details, Lincoln County began housing prisoner inmates in 2015. Now, with state legislation aimed at reducing prison populations, Nebraska prisons have stopped sending inmates to county jails. Prisoners in the jail now will be relocated by June 30, 2017, said Dawn-Renee Smith, communications director for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.

In 2015 the Legislature passed Legislative Bill 605, which changed classifications for various offenses. This affected sentencing presumptions for crimes committed after Aug. 31, 2015, lowering some sentences.

The first year it housed prisoners, Lincoln County received nearly $600,000 from the state, Kramer said. The total increased to nearly $700,000 last year, he said.

The county receives $80 per day per prisoner, Sheriff Jerome Kramer said.

Neither the jail nor its officials saw the money  instead, Chief Deputy Kramer said, the money provided tax relief for residents, going into the countys general fund.

The sheriff did it because he wants to keep our property taxes low, the deputy said. Hes a businessman.

Chief Deputy Kramer emphasized the sheriffs work on inmate housing.

This wouldnt have happened without the sheriff. And this sheriff. And he didnt have to do it, he said.

Both Deputy Kramer and Smith said the prisoner housing was a temporary program. The county wasnt caught off guard by the programs end, Kramer said.

Sheriff Kramer pointed to the current crowding at state prisons and expressed concern about how they would alleviate the problem. He said he would like to work out a deal to continue housing prison inmates.

Chief Deputy Kramer said the county aimed to house about 20 inmates a day from the prison system, and has a current count of 15-18 state prisoners, he said. Numbers have reached about as high as 25, he said.

He called the prison inmates stable and easy to manage.

Theyve been through the court system and they know what their sentence is, the chief deputy said. They know when theyre getting out.

He added that prisoners with mental illness have been diagnosed before they arrive.

People have a tendency to think that prison is more dangerous than jail and it probably is in some aspects, he said, noting riots in Nebraska prisons in the last couple of years. But he added that the county has high standards for its detention officers and have more problems with jail inmates with undiagnosed mental illnesses, who are under the influence or are uncertain about what future they face.

Prison inmates from the North Platte area requested to be housed in Lincoln County, Kramer said. Others who were not from Lincoln County also asked to stay there. Kramer attributed the requests to good staff and morale at the jail, where he said inmates arent just a number.
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MEXICO CITY  Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that even if President-elect Donald Trump pulls the United States back from the climate goals pledged a year ago in Paris, action by major American cities can continue advancing toward those goals.

Bloomberg and the mayors of dozens of the world's largest cities were gathering this week at the C40 Mayors Summit in Mexico City to discuss concrete steps to achieve the carbon emission-reducing goals set by world leaders in Paris. He struck an optimistic tone earlier in the week in a call with reporters previewing the conference.

"Since the presidential election here in the United States, I know there's been a lot of concern that the United States will back away from the commitments that it made in Paris," Bloomberg said. "And to be fair, the incoming administration hasn't created its policies yet and right now all we can do is speculate."

Bloomberg said it's unclear whether the Republican-controlled Congress will back Trump's future policies on the environment.

But no matter what happens at the federal level, cities can make a difference with their own climate strategies, he said.

Mark Watts, executive director of the C40, said that cities produce 70 percent of the world's carbon emissions and the group now has 90 member cities that account for one of every 12 people worldwide. The group's members represent a quarter of the global economy.

The new C40 report providing a roadmap to cities argues that significant action  much more than occurred during the past decade  must be taken in the next four years to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"I'm not all that worried that even in the worst case the Trump administration would slow down our progress," Bloomberg said.
Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, President-elect Donald's Trump's pick to be Commerce Secretary, has a history with Northwest Indiana's steel industry and it's a divisive one.

"I think he's a figure about which there are strong opinions," said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a partnership between the United Steelworkers union and top employers to advance factory interests. "If you kept your job and he kept your plant from closing down, you probably like the guy. If you lost your job, you probably take a dimmer view."

Ross is known at the "king of bankruptcy" for his penchant for buying and selling off distressed companies in troubled sectors like coal at a profit. In the early 2000s, when more than 30 U.S. steel companies went bankrupt as a result of a recession and the Asian financial crisis, he formed International Steel Group by snapping up Acme Steel, LTV Steel Corp., Bethlehem Steel and the Gary Plate Mill of U.S. Steel.

Ross restarted idled steel mills in East Chicago, Burns Harbor and Riverdale but cut employment, wages and benefits. He for instance eliminated more than 500 jobs at the Acme strip mill in Riverdale, according to Times archives. ISG also eliminated thousands of jobs from Cleveland-based LTV and Pennsylvania-based Bethlehem.

But the mills stayed open and Ross sold them to ArcelorMittal precursor Mittal Steel for $4.5 billion, pocketing $300 million in the process.

"In real estate terms, he flipped the house," Paul said. "He made an investment and then sold. From the steelworker perspective, there was job preservation."

Tariffs in place at the time were only temporary, and Chinese industrial might was just coming online.

"The American economy was doing okay, but it wasn't booming," Paul said. "When he (Ross) entered into his intervention, the industry was in a crisis. There were 30 bankruptcies and overcapacity issues that were seen as an existential threat."

ISG ended up eliminating about half the jobs at LTV Steel, which had been around since 1961, and Bethlehem Steel, which was founded in 1857. Ross dumped pensions and cut retiree benefits for more than 190,000 retirees, arguing that one steelworker couldn't generate enough economic value to support 10 retirees in the radically scaled-back industry.

National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons said Ross had a unique understanding of manufacturing enterprises.

"As one of the savviest investors in the world who was once a member of the NAM while leading International Steel Group, Ross has a firsthand understanding of the challenges manufacturers face to remain globally competitive in todays economy," Timmons said.

Timmons said to raise wages and put more people to work, manufacturers in America need fairer taxes and regulations as well as expanded trade and strong trade enforcement.

"Were encouraged by Ross advocacy on many of these fronts and his extensive business experience," he said.

Paul likened the whole bankruptcy process to life-saving surgery.

"He was like a trauma surgeon," Paul said. "He could preserve a life, but there's also unpleasantness. There's also losing a limb to save the patient."

At the time of the restructuring, USW President Leo Gerard said Ross was receptive to ideas from union members, made the deepest cuts to management ranks and created a "lean and efficient structure."

ArcelorMittal currently employs more than 6,000 workers at Calumet Region mills that Ross acquired, according to company figures.

Industry officials are optimistic that Ross's background with heavy manufacturing will help a sector that has hemorrhaged more than 5 million jobs since 2000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Paul said Ross could potentially spearhead reform of trade policy and accomplish something the USW has been lobbying for: a more aggressive role for the federal government in prosecuting trade cases against steel dumpers.
Deborah Treesh wants Indiana hunters to have a chance to return to their heritage as food providers, according to her organizations website.

Treesh heads Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry, a nonprofit that works to supply local Indiana charities with meat from both hunters and farmers.

Its hard to get meat, Treesh said. For food banks, thats one of their hardest commodities to get. Its nice for them (hunters) to enjoy their hobby and give back to the community. Hunting is not just a sport to kill animals  it provides meat and food and helps keep the balance.

Often charities or food banks that work to provide meals receive significantly more canned good donations. They also dont all have the necessary storage facilities for donated meat, which doesnt last as long as cheaper, nonperishable canned foods. Thus, protein is a difficult nutrient to supply.

Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry typically sees more than 60,000 pounds of venison and livestock meat combined donated. Its not the only organization of its kind working in the Hoosier State, but Treesh said that doesnt even scratch the surface. According to the organization, 1 out of 4 Indiana households with kids are unable to properly feed their families.

Even a quarter of a million pounds of meat sounds fabulous, but its nothing, Treesh said.

Last year the organization saw more than 48,000 pounds of venison donated. However, NWI may be lacking in its contributions. For example, Langes Old Fashioned Meat Market in Michigan City, a butcher shop registered with Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry, hasnt seen a single deer donated for all the years its partnered with Treeshs organization.

So what gives? Even though NWI has some of the highest concentrations of people in the state, its one of the regions that contributes the least, Treesh said.

With Lake and Porter counties you have a big city and dont have a lot of butchers, Treesh said. That kind of hurts us.

However, it isnt all bad. Mike Ibrahim, and his nephew, Ali, co-own and manage East Side Fresh Meat & Produce in LaPorte. They partner with both Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry and Hunters & Farmers Feeding the Hungry, an organization that does meat donation on a national level. The store received 13 donated deer last year and five so far this year.

Although the numbers may seem small, 40 to 50 pounds of meat can be processed from a single carcass. When compounded, 13 deer can be up to around 650 pounds of meat.

Its also a matter of keeping things in perspective with how many deer the shop typically processes per year, Ali Ibrahim said. Including the donations, they worked with 140 deer last year, meaning almost 10 percent of that was donated meat.

Looking at percentages, thats not a bad percentage of donated deer, Ibrahim said.

Organizations like Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry also help by agreeing to pay all or some of the processing costs of deer. East Sides typical cost is $80, but they might see half of that paid for by one of the organizations for the labor and utilities used to skin, clean, grind and package the venison.

The final product is frozen; ground venison in 1-pound packages that members from local charities can come to pick up from the shop. East Side typically sees members from Lambs Chapel United Methodist Church, Faith Baptist Church, Stepping Stone Shelter for Women and more.

Ibrahim believes the lack of donated venison is because of unawareness rather than apathy to hunger in Indiana.

The marketing hasnt quite gotten out there, Ibrahim said. Weve had a few (hunters) pull up into our store and when they see the banner outside where we check in the deer, they say, Oh, wow, you guys accept donated deer.

Andy Armstrong, who operates Andys Deer Processing on his property in Cedar Lake, believes it also comes down to a matter of awareness. Like East Side, Armstrong has signs on his barn, inside his workspace and on the side of the road indicating hunters can donate their deer meat. Hes received eight donated deer this year.

Ive got some customers that shoot four to six deer a year, Armstrong said. Theres a lot of guys that just love to hunt and they cant eat it all.

Armstrong takes venison to churches in Cedar Lake. He also donates meat scraps to local police K-9 units.

It just makes you feel good that youve done a good deed, Armstrong said.

Its deer season for hunters so theres a spike around this time of the year in deer processing and donation. However, Treesh hopes meat donation, including livestock, can stay consistent year-round.

Its not necessarily about the holidays for us, Treesh said. We dont try to go after a certain season except for hunting seasons.

More information on Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry can be found at hoosiersfeedingthehungry.org, including a search function for local registered meat shops.
Illinois capital city is much more than a city centered on politics and government.

With stunning architecture, fascinating history, cultural sites, museum exhibits and eateries of all kinds, Springfield makes for a perfect destination for a weekend getaway (or a long holiday weekend) for the family. Many attractions are free, making it an economical trip, as well.

LINCOLN SITES

With its most famous former resident being our countrys beloved 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, there are several sites that touch upon his influence or focus on it completely.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library contains more than 40,000 square feet of Lincoln related exhibits, galleries and theaters covering the life of Lincoln and the struggles the country faced during his presidency. Follow his life from his humble beginnings in a replica log cabin to details of his career and campaign to a glimpse into life in the White House with a partial reproduction of the facade. There are many interactive exhibits that will draw in the younger guests.

Visit the Lincoln Depot, a restored 1852 train station where Lincoln gave one of his most memorable speeches before departing for Washington, D.C. When he departed to his new residence in the White House, he left behind a modest home that was the only one he ever owned and where he resided for 17 years. The one-and-a-half story cottage had several additions constructed during that time. It was in that house that three of their children were born, a funeral was held for one of their sons and where Lincoln was asked to accept the nomination for president. The home is open for free, public guided tours year-round.

Springfield was for several years Lincolns home and it is also his final resting place. Oak Ridge Cemetery remains the second most visited cemetery in the country (following Arlington National Cemetery). A towering memorial tomb with a granite interior holds the bodies of Lincoln, his wife and three of their four sons with miniatures of statues of the president that have been erected around the country. A bronze bust in front of the tomb is worn from the many hands that rub the nose for good luck.

Among the other sites with links to Lincoln is Edwards Place, a restored 1858 mansion that is the oldest house on its original foundation in Springfield. Linked through in-laws to Lincoln, the Edwards home was a social hub in Springfields early days. It contains some original furnishings and the courting couch, which Abraham and Mary Todd sat on together as they got to know one another. The home is open for guided tours and hosts special events.

HISTORIC SITES

The Old State Capitol served as the center of Illinois government from 1839 until 1876 and is the site where Lincoln delivered his House Divided speech. He spent a good deal of time there studying and working during his career as a lawyer. Guided tours are available or you may explore the building on your own.

Once you see the Old State Capitol, youll want to see the contrast between it and todays ornate Renaissance Revival/Second Empire-style structure containing a beautiful 405-foot dome that has served as the Illinois State Capitol since 1877. Visitors also have an opportunity to witness the Legislature in session from balcony seating. Memorials also stand on the buildings grounds dedicated to Illinois police officers and firefighters.

The Illinois State Museum is a place youll want to include on your itinerary as it is a great blend of exhibits for all interests and ages, including child-focused areas, geology, environmental evolution, history and art on three levels.

Among the other attractions with strong kid appeal are the Henson Robinson Zoo and Knights Action Park, which includes an outdoor drive-in theater, the Air Combat Museum and Adams Wildlife Sanctuary.

Springfield is a city with exquisite examples of many different styles of architecture with perhaps the most unique being the Dana-Thomas House, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in his early Prairie-style. Built as a redesign of the original home on the property for Susan Lawrence Dana, the 1902-04 renovations contain modern and ahead-of-the-time features that were meant to incorporate the outdoors and nature within the walls of the stately home.

The house is now a historic site managed by the Illinois Preservation Agency and contains more than 100 original pieces designed by Wright from light fixtures to seating to decorative glass. Guests will be wowed by this one-of-a-kind home and can see all of the living areas on a guided tour.

If you want to do more than just visit a historic mansion, you can make reservations to stay in the 1896 Pasfield House Inn Bed and Breakfast, located within walking distance of the State Capitol. The Classic Revival mansion was built on a 40-acre parcel of land acquired by George Pasfield Sr. in 1831. The home was built as a wedding gift for Pasfields grandson and has been lovingly restored by Tony Leone, who received the Springfield Historic Preservationist of the Year recognition for his efforts.

FOOD FINDS

When it comes to dining, theres a little bit of everything  nostalgic, farm-to-fork, fine dining and more.

The first thing you need to know is that when you visit Springfield, you have to have a Horsehoe. The regional specialty is an open-face sandwich of Texas toast, meat, French fries and a creamy cheese sauce. It is served at many places around Springfield and some places add their own twist. Some notable spots to enjoy a shoe (or the slightly smaller pony shoe for smaller appetites) are DArcys Pint, Dublin Pub and Obed & Isaacs Microbrewery. You can also get one at Maid-Rite, a 1924 diner on the National Register of Historic Places that features the nations first drive-thru window and is knows for loose-meat sandwiches. They also have a loose-meat horseshoe on the menu.

Charlie Parkers is another spot with a nostalgic feel that offers horseshoes and much more in a WWII-era quonset hut. They serve up an award-winning breakfast shoe that beat out over 130 competitors around the country in Thomas English Muffins Hometown Breakfast Battle. They also serve up a 16-inch pancake that is made with 24-ounces of batter and served on a pizza pan.

Cozy Dog Drive-In, established in 1949, sits on the original Route 66 and is known for introducing the corn dog (aka cozy dog) to the Midwest. Its a common stop for classic car owners who still like to travel the historic route through Illinois or all the way to the West Coast.

If you are looking for something more formal, Nick & Ninos Penthouse Steakhouse at the top of the Wyndham City Centre is the place to be for the finest in cuisine and the best view of city. From the 30th floor, you have stunning views and the highest quality selections of steak and seafood with an impressive wine list.

For a trendy, sleek setting with creative, seasonal farm-to-fork fare, pay a visit to American Harvest. Everything is made in house and locally sourced. Make the most of your visit with the five-course chefs tasting.

For more information on the Springfield area, go to visitspringfieldillinois.com.
GARY  A man fatally shot Friday in the 4200 block of Kentucky Street in Gary has been identified by the Lake County coroner's office.

James Clark, 19, of Merrillville, was pronounced dead at 1:13 p.m. Friday, according to a coroner's news release.

Police were called out at 12:10 p.m. Friday to find Clark near the street. The cause and manner of death is a gunshot wound in a homicide, according to the coroner's office.

Police departments from Gary and Indiana University Northwest, along with the Lake County Sheriff's CSI Unit and the Gary Fire Department, assisted.

Anyone with information on this incident is urged to contact Detective George Dickerson of the Lake County Metro Homicide Unit at (219) 755-3855 or through the crime tip line at 866-CRIME-GP.
Now in its 25th year, Indiana's 21st Century Scholarship program has helped more than 70,000 students get college scholarships and nearly 30,000 earn a college degree.

But in 2013, the program established certain basic requirements to help scholars establish habits that would foster college and career success, and Ivy Tech Community College Gary President Marlon Mitchell is warning that too many students, especially in Lake County, have not completed them and could lose their scholarships.

Mitchell said too many students risk losing the scholarship, and something must be done quickly.

The 21st Century Scholarship program, now called the Evan Bayh 21st Century Scholarship program, was launched in 1990 and provides a student up to four years of undergraduate tuition at any participating public college or university in Indiana.

Subsequently, a student is required to maintain a 2.5 grade point average throughout high school. Students can apply to be a 21st Century Scholar only in sixth, seventh or eighth grade.

The newer 2013 requirements, called the Scholar Success Program, involve certain minimum activities.

Each grade level has three activities students must complete each year. Scholars can complete the specific steps for their grade level and track their progress using ScholarTrack, a computer system that allows scholars to go online and add their information.

The required activities at the freshman level include creating a graduation plan, participating in an extracurricular activity and watching a short video called, "Paying for College 101."

High school sophomores must take a career interest assessment, get workplace experience and estimate the costs of college. High school juniors are required to visit a college campus, take a college entrance exam (ACT or SAT) and search for scholarships.

High school seniors are required to submit a college application, watch a video called, "College Success 101," and file the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form.

Scholars falling behind

According to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, in March, 80 percent of 21st Century student scholars had not completed the eligibility requirements. As of November, that number had dropped to 43 percent.

However in Lake County, more than 70 percent of eligible candidates for the scholarship were not in compliance, Mitchell said.

"The Indiana Commission for Higher Education is working diligently to address the large number of students falling behind on the program's mandates," he said.

"Although state officials are working on making students aware of the new requirements, I am afraid that it will not be enough to service the large numbers of students we have in Lake County."

Lowell High School guidance counselors Christina Thomas and Ginger Marinkovich, and guidance director Connie Richie, said they called all the 21st Century Scholars into the office in spring 2014 to talk to them about the new requirements and find out how students were progressing on getting them completed.

"We had them create the accounts, and each year we meet with them in the spring and encourage them to complete each activity," Richie said.

Added Thomas, "It's supposed to be the student and parent's responsibility to get this done but when we originally got the information that first year, none of the students had set up the account. We called our students in, because we didn't want to leave it to chance. I think they just needed someone to sit down and explain to them that this was a necessary component."

Lowell High School seniors Trevor Gilliam, Karoline Chraponski and Adam Sczurko are among the students who are up-to-date.

"I remember the meeting freshman year where we talked about it, and they emphasized we'd have to keep up with it each year," Gilliam said. "Not everyone had completed it so we had more meetings over the course of the next few years and we're all up-to-date now."

Most of the students also have visited colleges already, another requirement of the program.

Sczurko visited Purdue University Northwest in Hammond but is planning a move to Indianapolis to attend Indiana University Purdue University's campus there.

Educators work on solution

Mitchell, along with Roy Hamilton, assistant vice chancellor of educational opportunity programs at Purdue University Northwest at the Hammond campus; Fred Jackson, Northwest Indiana regional outreach coordinator for the Indiana Commission for Higher Education; and Tyrone Spann, 21st Century Scholar coordinator, have formed an organization called the Northwest Indiana College Success Coalition.

The group intends to visit high schools across the Region to make sure students complete the eligibility requirements. Mitchell said the most critical need is in Lake County.

Hamilton said the issue is especially critical at urban schools such as Gary's West Side Leadership Academy, where only 20 percent of 21st Century Scholars have completed their eligibility requirements. He said about 21 percent of the scholars at Gary Roosevelt College and Career Academy have completed the requirements, and about 76 percent at Gary's Wirt-Emerson.

By contrast, 81 percent of the scholars at Hammond Clark High School and 100 percent of the scholars at Lowell High School have completed their eligibility requirements.

Jackson said it's not too late for high school seniors to complete the eligibility requirements. He said students can go online to look at the requirements and complete those items before graduation.

"If a student is a sophomore now, they can look ahead to the requirements for juniors and seniors and complete them early," Jackson said.

Educators also are concerned that students maintain a satisfactory grade level once they are enrolled in college, complete 30 credit hours each school year and stay on track to graduate from college on time.

Mitchell said some students did not maintain the drug-free requirement or the satisfactory grade and were dropped from the program after enrolling in college.

Spann said mentors are important for college students, especially 21st Century Scholars who also may be first-generation college students.

"The Commission put these things in place to improve a student's ability to graduate," Spann said. "It's important to have a mentor in college. The college experience is different from the high school experience, and we want students to be able to navigate that college experience successfully."
PORTAGE  The City Council will consider revamping language regarding the definition and determination of dangerous dogs.

Amendments to the animal control ordinance are up for consideration at Tuesday's City Council meeting, which will be at 6:30 p.m. at Woodland Park.

The most significant proposal is having an animal control officer instead of a hearing committee determine what is a dangerous dog. The proposal also says disagreements are to be handled by the Porter County courts instead of the city's Board of Works.

Director of Administration Joe Calhoun said the city attorney took the proposed language directly from Porter County regulations, which are more "user friendly."

The new language allows anyone to report a dangerous dog to the animal warden. The warden is responsible for investigating the claims and imposing "reasonable conditions" on the owner if the animal is determined to be dangerous.

The determination of what is a dangerous animal is outlined in the proposed language.

The conditions on the owner include the destruction or confinement of the animal or requiring the owner to purchase liability insurance. The proposed ordinance also allows the warden to impound the animal until the conditions are met. The owner is responsible for the fees incurred in impounding the animal. If the owner disagrees with the imposed conditions, they may appeal it to the circuit or superior courts of Porter County.

The proposal also requires the owner of a dangerous dog to annually register the dog with the city and to post warning signs on his property.

Assistant Police Chief Ted Uzelac, who designed the present ordinance while he was on the City Council after several incidents involving dog bites in the city, said he was consulted by the attorney when the new language was being developed. As assistant chief, he also oversees animal control.

"The county's ordinance has been vetted," said Uzelac, adding he favors the language and will support and enforce whatever ordinance is approved by the council.

In addition to the new language involving dangerous dogs, the proposed amendments to the animal control ordinance also expands language regarding the care and treatment of animals. The amendment would also impose fines upon owners who violate the code by mistreating their animals.

Council members John Cannon and Sue Lynch, both whom sit on the council's Ordinance Committee, said while they like the proposed amendments regarding the treatment of domestic animals in the city, they would also like to see it expanded.

Cannon suggested language be added that would require dogs be kept inside during extreme warm or cold temperatures.
MERRILLVILLE  In addition to celebrating the Divine Liturgy on Sunday at SS. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church, the chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago brought parishioners the message that the religious freedom they enjoy doesnt exist in Istanbul, the birthplace of Orthodox Christianity.

Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos met with parishioners and state legislative leaders from Lake County during a reception following the worship services to highlight the need to support a Religious Freedom Resolution being introduced in the 2017 legislative session beginning in January.

The legislation, while nonbinding, calls for religious freedom for the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople, spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox worldwide. Similar resolutions have already been adopted by 45 states as well as the U.S. Congress and the European Union, Demetrios said.

It has also received the full support of Pope Benedict, Pope Francis and three U.S. presidents  Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, he said during the reception.

The resolution has five major points:

 Recognize the legal status of the ecumenical patriarchate

 Recognize the patriarchates title of ecumenical, meaning "the whole inhabited earth"

 Reopen the Greek Orthodox theological school on the island of Halki

 Return confiscated properties that have historically belonged to the Orthodox Church, and

 Permit free elections.

One of the properties that dates back to the Byzantine era is an orphanage that the Turkish government insists must be restored to its original state, Demetrios said. However, it would take $30 million to restore it to that condition, he said.

These are small, but insidious ways of hindering Mother Church, the bishop said.

Eastern Orthodox Christians are the second-largest Christian denomination worldwide. Orthodox Christianity began in Constantinople, now Istanbul, nearly 2,000 years ago. The Sacred See is led by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the 269th in direct succession to the Apostle Andrew, according to John C. Ackerman, spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago.

The Metropolis of Chicago oversees all Greek Orthodox parishes within Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, as well as large portions of Missouri and all of Northern Indiana.

State Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, will sponsor the resolution in the Indiana Senate, while newly re-elected state Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, said she will sponsor the joint resolution in the Indiana House of Representatives.

Im not an expert on the Middle East crisis, but I can speak about discrimination, Randolph said, who has been working to get this resolution on the Senates agenda for eight years. Its an insidious work and comes in all forms and fashions.

The resolution will show the world that we are nondiscriminatory. That we practice what we preach, he said.

State Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, told those gathered that he will look at this resolution very closely in our caucus.

The time has come for Indiana to add its voice to the protection of religious freedom here and around the world, Candelaria Reardon said.

Its important that we walk the walk, not just talk the talk, she said.

I am new to this issue, said Hal Slager, R-Schererville, but freedom of speech and religion is being attacked in this country. We need to pay attention.
Michigan City resident Nancy Moldenhauer and East Chicago preacher Bishop Tavis L. Grant II are co-recipients of the Frontline Advocate of the Year by the Hoosier Environmental Council.

Moldenhauer's passion for advocacy began with the OWL Gateway Chapter in St. Louis, where she helped pass six noteworthy laws in three years that benefited women, families, and children. Living in the Washington, D.C., area, she visited Capitol Hill to inform legislators about issues concerning our elders, women, and environment.

Upon return to her hometown of Michigan City, she has continued her commitment to make our world the best place possible for all, co-founding Northwest Indiana Green Drinks in Michigan City, which is an opportunity for people to learn, connect, and advocate on issues concerning environment.

Grant is senior pastor of the Greater First Baptist Church serving the congregation and community for the past 21 years. His work assisting the residents of the West Calumet area of East Chicago in the wake of the lead crisis has made him a leader for environmental justice in the Region, but his commitment to social justice spans decades.

Bishop Grant was appointed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to be the national field director of Rainbow Push Coalition in 2011. He is a member of the Joint College of African American Bishops, vice bishop of the Community Churches of Christ which spans churches across the U.S. and the continent of Africa and he has ministered in such places as South Africa, Kenya, Mexico, Brazil and Germany. He is a graduate of Moody Bible College and lives in East Chicago with his wife, Elder Robin Flournoy-Grant. He also has two sons, Tavis L. Grant III and Tavell Grant.

I am honored to receive this meaningful award from such a distinguished organization, Moldenhauer said. I invite others to play with us to change the legislative game."

This is such an awesome award. I am honored to be selected. The work of environmental justice spans the global as it affects all communities and all cultures, Grant said.
EAST CHICAGO  Residents met Saturday with a leading researcher on environmental toxins, sharing stories of how they played as children in the dirt decades ago, unknowingly aware of the pollution that had long ago settled into the soil from old industry.

Imagine, you know, we suffered unknowingly and this goes back 50, probably even 100 years  but we played on that playground at (the former) Carrie Gosch, Irma Sanders Lardydell, a Gary resident who grew up in East Chicago, said to the crowd gathered at the city's public library on Chicago Avenue.

Local, state and federal agencies are now grappling with the city's long industrialized history with a sense of urgency following this summer's discovery of dangerously high levels of lead in the soil of the EPA's USS Lead Superfund site.

Having studied the effects of lead exposure in early childhood for more than 20 years, Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a health sciences professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada, discussed how similar stories have played out all across the United States.

In the 1990s, Rochester, New York, had some of the highest lead poisoning rates in the U.S., with one in two children testing at elevated blood lead levels, he said.

Over the last half-century, blood lead levels in adults and children have reduced dramatically with increased regulations on industry, and bans on lead-based paint and leaded gasoline in the 1970s, he said.

But the problem isnt going away.

Studies show even at low levels, lead can have lifelong impacts on childrens academic ability, with evidence suggesting it can lead to lower IQ points, hyperactivity and behavior problems, he said.

Though the Centers for Disease Prevention and Registry lowered its threshold for action to 5 micrograms per deciliter in 2012, Lanphear said there are no safe levels of lead.

Confirmatory tests as of Nov. 3 show 16 children younger than 7 have elevated blood levels, out of the 300 who have been tested since this summer.

Historical testing show more than 20 percent of children tested in the census tract that includes the West Calumet Housing Complex had elevated blood lead levels between 2005 and 2015, according to state health department data. About 10 percent in the census tract encompassing two cleanup zones to the east of the complex had elevated blood lead levels during the same time period.

While a single child's behavior problems or a loss of IQ points can be subtle, Lanphear said lead exposure can be evident and heavily affect large populations of children.

Veronica Eskew, principal at East Chicago Urban Enterprise Academy, said Saturday that the state health department offered on-site testing to children over a two-day period at the beginning of November.

The school is at 1402 E. Chicago Avenue, just outside of the Superfund site. Some students who attend at East Chicago Urban Enterprise Academy live or once lived at the lead- and arsenic-contaminated West Calumet Housing Complex.

What do we do to help our kids?"she said.

Lanphear suggested fighting for additional resources to address the learning curve.

"What happens oftentimes is you don't have the resources. Schools don't have the resources. And, so, maybe that should be part of the remedy that's sought," Lanphear said. "These kids already have two or three strikes against them, on average, and now this."

The Chicago-based Goldberg Kohn law firm invited Lanphear to East Chicago to bring in a health expert who is unbiased and unaffiliated with any local, state and federal agencies involved in the cleanup.
"Not only does the pain from the accident still sit with him, he's in pain every day. They say it will be that way for a long time and will probably never change."
MICHIGAN CITY  Michigan City ushered in Santa Claus during a parade Saturday in the downtown area that provided a Christmas card type setting.

Santa rode high on a fire engine waving to the children who eagerly waved back. The kids also gave hugs to cartoon characters like Dora The Explorer and Frosty the Snowman walking the route on Franklin Street.

Another crowd pleaser was Oden, a pig being trained as a therapist for patients of Hospice Franciscan Communities.

Samantha Smoker owns the black 36-pound micro mini Juliana pig native to Vietnam that she keeps as a pet at her Michigan City residence.

"It's kind of like having a toddler and a dog combined," said Smoker, who revealed not only is Oden litter box trained but "he likes people so it works."

"I always wanted one," said Smoker, a certified nursing assistant for the medical provider.

Kristin Rouse moved here from Hammond two years ago and brought her 3-year old son, Lucas, and 2-year old daughter, Mila, who were planning to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas inside his chalet at 7th and Franklin streets after the parade.

"We're excited. I'm glad there's something like this in the community," said Kristin.

Emerson Keith, 4, also of Michigan City, couldn't wait to share with Santa that he wanted a motorcycle, toy guns and Ninja Turtles under his tree.

His sisters Aria, 9, and Cora, 8, also came along with their father, Dave, and mother, Brianna, who moved here two years ago from Kokomo.

''I liked it. The kids really liked it,'' said Brianna about the parade that lasted for about an hour.

Aria said she wants Santa to give her Darth Vader and other toys from her favorite movie "Star Wars" for Christmas.

Stephanie Ellett came from New Carlisle with her friend, Kristin Steinke, from Granger, along with their combined six children.

"We're excited. Cold, but excited," said Stephanie.

This was the second consecutive year for the parade's return to Franklin Street after several years of being relocated to the lakefront, where the number of units and attendance were paltry in comparison.

Marge Wozniak remembers when the parade a generation ago was on Washington Street and stopped going when it moved to the lakefront.

"I like it down here. I think it's great. The kids seem to enjoy it. There's a lot of kids down here. A lot of families. It's good to see," said Wozniak, who wore a red nose to symbolize Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Among the dignitaries in the parade was State Representative Scott Pelath, who said the parade back on Franklin Street is also a great way to showcase the downtown's comeback in recent years.

"People can see the improvements and revitalization. It means a lot," he said.
PORTAGE  Myers Elementary School first-graders spent November talking about what they were thankful for, life long ago, the Mayflower and how the pilgrims settled in their new land. They also read several stories about turkeys. A first-grade favorite is "Turkey Trouble." Students learned about how the turkey tried to disguise himself from the farmer in hopes of surviving another Thanksgiving. Students created a project with their families and disguised their own turkey. Then students wrote a paper from the turkey proving that it was in fact not a turkey.
WASHINGTON  U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the former prisoner of war who's accused of endangering comrades by walking off his post in Afghanistan, is asking President Barack Obama to pardon him before leaving office.

White House and Justice Department officials said Saturday that Bergdahl had submitted copies of the clemency request seeking leniency. If granted by Obama, it would allow Bergdahl to avert a military trial scheduled for April where he faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The misbehavior charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

If the pardon isn't granted, Bergdahl's defense team said it will expand its legal strategy to the new administration by filing a motion arguing President-elect Donald Trump violated his due process rights with scathing public comments about the case.

The pardon request to Obama, first reported by The New York Times, was confirmed by White House and Justice Department officials who weren't authorized to discuss the matter by name.

Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held captive by the Taliban and its allies for five years.

The Obama administration's decision in May 2014 to exchange him for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prompted criticism that included some Republicans accusing Obama of jeopardizing nation's safety. Some lawmakers were outraged that the administration didn't give Congress a 30-day notice about transferring the detainees, as required by law.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump was Bergdahl's most vocal critic, saying repeatedly the soldier is a traitor who would have been executed in the "old days."

During a July speech in Indiana, Trump lamented that Bergdahl could wind up with a light punishment.

"Remember the old days? A deserter, what happened?" he said before pantomiming pulling a trigger and adding: "Bang."

Bergdahl's lead defense lawyer, Eugene Fidell, declined to comment Saturday on the pardon request.

But Fidell said he plans to file a motion seeking dismissal of the charges against Bergdahl shortly after the January inauguration, arguing Trump violated Bergdahl's constitutional due-process rights.

The defense has been noting Trump's comments about Bergdahl in what they've dubbed the "Trump Defamation Log." A version included in the court record lists 40 such instances as of August.

"All of these things put together and repeated rally upon rally for basically a year have a cumulative effect that I think is totally at odds with the right to a fair trial," Fidell said in a phone interview.

A spokeswoman for Trump didn't respond to emails seeking comment.

There is precedent for a military judge to decide a president's comments have tainted a military prosecution.

In 2013, a Navy judge cited comments by Obama when he issued a pretrial order that two defendants in sexual assault cases couldn't be punitively discharged if they were found guilty. The judge wrote that Obama's public comments about cracking down on sexual assault, specifically referencing dishonorable discharges, appeared to be demand particular results from military courts.

"People in the military do what their commanders tell them to do," said Eric Carpenter, a law professor at Florida International University who served as an Army lawyer. He said there's a risk that military jurors could punish Bergdahl because they think it's what their commander-in-chief wants, rather than deciding strictly on the evidence.

Carpenter said he'd be surprised if the Army judge dismissed the charges entirely, but he could give the defense leeway to question potential jurors and reject them based on their answers about Trump.

Bergdahl, who faces trial at Fort Bragg, has said he walked off his post in Afghanistan because he wanted to cause an alarm and draw attention to what he saw as problems with his unit.

___

Drew reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Hope Yen in Washington contributed to this report.
For 50 years, from 1963 to 2013, there was either a Bayh or a Lugar representing Indiana in the U.S. Senate. Birch and Evan Bayh won five elections while Dick Lugar lost a 1974 showdown with the elder Bayh, then rattled off six victories. All told, these two dynasties accrued close to 15 million votes.

A good part of their combined successes were prodigious political and state organizations that raised the bucks, stroked allies and the media and dealt swift retribution for anyone who got out of line. There was an obsession for detail. I remember as a political reporter for the Elkhart Truth in 1988 when Evan Bayh was running for governor, my phone rang and there was Bayhs campaign manager, Joe Hogsett, on the line. How ya doing? he asked. What are you working on? Anything I can help you with as far as our campaign goes?

The careers of the two Bayhs and Lugar, all once invincible, ended in defeat.

Birch Bayh lost to Dan Quayle in the 1980 Reagan landslide. He governed in big style as a liberal in a conservative state, authoring two constitutional amendments, Title IX, parting with President Lyndon Johnson on the disastrous Vietnam War while attempting to retire the Electoral College. He never won a Senate race by more than a few percentage points. Because of such risky positions, he stood the chance of getting washed out in a national wave that occurred with son as his campaign manager.

Evan Bayh won a term as Indiana secretary of state, two gubernatorial terms, the second in landslide fashion, then won two U.S. Senate terms with more than 60 percent.

But Evan Bayh had national ticket ambitions. He governed in a cautious style as to not ruin his chances, and in 2010, sensing the aroused and zealous Tea Party movement and a controversial vote over Obamacare, he ducked a re-election bid that initiated his partys six-year slide into oblivion.

Like the senior Bayh, Lugar governed at an epic level, rescuing Chrysler Corp. in his first term, denouncing the election of Philippine tyrant Ferdinand Marcos, convinced President Reagan to oppose South African apartheid and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, joined forces with Democrat Sam Nunn to systemically round up and protect Russian nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act was a presidential-level achievement that probably saved civilization from a catastrophic terror attack on a Hiroshima scale.

In 2006, Lugar was so strong, Democrats didnt even oppose him. Believing an ascension into worldwide statesmanship, Lugar let his state organization wither. County chairmen couldnt coax him to a Lincoln Dinner, and in 2012 he was defeated in the Republican primary, skewered over the fact he didnt live here. The irony for a senator who had achieved policy that should have earned him a Nobel Peace Prize is that the Indiana Republican Party hasnt even bothered to honor him.

Like Lugar, Evan Bayh fell this past November on the residency issue. After leaving the Governors Residence in 1997, winning his first Senate term the following year, he moved to Washington and stayed there. He and his family became wealthy, working the inner channels of power in D.C. He sat on $10 million for six years. Had he given John Gregg $2 million in 2012, it could have been a deciding factor in a race he lost by 2 percent, rendering Mike Pence a historical footnote.

In July, Evan Bayh returned. But instead of doing what most politicians do  file for the primary, build relationships with the media and party  he took a short cut, nudging Baron Hill out of the race, figuring he could use his hoarded $10 million on a TV air war to return to power.

Democrats I talked with this summer and fall had a distinct ambivalence about Bayhs return. It was all about him, they said. He was stingy. He set in motion the partys atrophy in rural Indiana that ultimately bred the opening that Donald Trump brilliantly exploited.

The people can sense a phony and a facade, and that was where Evan Bayh de-evolved. He ran TV ads with his twin sons (who lived here only as toddlers and are now at Harvard) wearing Indiana State University and Pacer T-shirts.

In a WTHR/Howey Politics Indiana Poll in September, Bayhs favorable/unfavorables stood at 48/28 percent. After Republican nominee Todd Young, the NRA and U.S. Chamber hammered him on his residency, his career as a Washington insider, his accumulated wealth (which rose 350 percent during his two Senate terms) and his Obamacare vote, our November poll showed his fav/unfavs at an astounding 39/45 percent.

It was an utter evisceration.

Lessons for future Hoosier senators: Live and work among us. Raise your family here. Shop at Marsh or Martins. Build a statewide organization, and keep it fine tuned. Seek your millions in votes, not dollars.

As former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson once noted, dynasties dont end up on a melody. They screech when they seize up.

Evan Bayh lost to Todd Young 52-42 percent, and as he exited on Election Night, he strangely sang Happy Birthday to his sons.
Crossing the line separating Indiana and Illinois sometimes means dealing with different laws and customs. Readers are asked to share ideas for this weekly feature. This week: Pearl Harbor.

Wednesday is the 75th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese sneak attack on U.S. military forces stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

It remains, as President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed then, "A date which will live in infamy," and it resulted in the United States officially entering World War II.

The attack killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178, many of whom were serving on the USS Arizona battleship that sank and remains in the harbor.

Records show the Arizona dead included 57 men from Illinois and 24 from Indiana.

Illinois brothers Bernard and James Conlin were among 23 sets of brothers killed on the ship. As was Hoosier Max Flory, though his brother, Dale Flory, survived.

The attack wiped out the Arizona's 21-member band, which was on deck to play music for the morning flag raising when the Japanese struck.
CHICAGO  Illinois legislative leaders differed on the outcome of their latest meeting with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

But there was no budget agreement Saturday in Chicago.

Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan says in comments distributed by the Illinois Department of Central Management Services that there was no budget discussion.

He says the group discussed cost-cutting workers' compensation changes and Rauner's Thursday veto of legislation providing $215 million to the Chicago Public Schools for a teachers' pension payment due in June.

Senate GOP leader Christine Radogno and House GOP leader Jim Durkin say the group is "close to common ground" on workers' comp  an issue Rauner has tied to the budget.

A spokesman for Democratic Senate President John Cullerton says Cullerton continues to "advance solutions."

The group meets again Sunday.
Reports of inaccuracies suggest that new federal rules to ensure reliable directories are having little effect. Starting this year, all plans sold through the marketplaces are required to publish an up-to-date, accurate and complete provider directory or be subject to penalties or removed from the marketplace portal.

But so far no plans have been fined or kicked off the enrollment sites for having poor doctor directories, said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which would enforce the rules. A Health and Human Services Department survey of Medicare plans for those 65 and older that was released in October found errors in nearly half of the listings in doctor directories.

Staci Doolin, a co-owner of a radon-testing company in Forsyth, Ill., consulted the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois physician directory in January to make sure her primary care physician was in the network and even called the insurer to double-check.

The directory was wrong. The doctor was not in the plan.

I thought I was good to go, and then I get this bill and it says my insurance didnt cover anything and I owe $503, Ms. Doolin said.

It took until September to resolve the matter  but not before the office threatened to summon a bill collector. She never recovered $100 she spent on a dermatologist who was listed in the directory but who also was not part of the plan.

No comprehensive data exists on doctor directory accuracy. The health law and the Health and Human Services Department set standards for network adequacy but leave most enforcement up to states. States rarely test the lists for accuracy and often rely on consumers to report problems.

But third-party surveys frequently reveal big discrepancies. One recently published study showed as many as a fourth of the doctors listed in California directories last year for marketplace plans were not accepting new patients. About one doctor in 10 was not working for the listed practice.
Lawrence J. Tabas, the general counsel of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, said on Saturday that the withdrawal served as recognition that the Stein-led effort was completely without merit, and that the decision to drop the case assures that President-elect Trump will be declared the winner by the Electoral College, which meets on Dec. 19.

Earlier, Ms. Stein had criticized the $1 million bond needed to proceed with a recount. This is yet another sign that Pennsylvanias antiquated election law is stacked against voters, she said. We will pursue every available remedy to ensure Pennsylvanians can trust what happened in this election.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, trails Mr. Trump by 49,543 votes in the state, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of State. As voting results were updated this week, Mr. Trumps lead in Pennsylvania had shrunk by about 20,000 votes. Mrs. Clinton would have needed to be declared the winner in all three recount states to overturn the Electoral College result.

While the statewide effort was withdrawn, a related campaign to recount votes in targeted precincts in places like Philadelphia is continuing, but it would fall far short of the statewide recount Ms. Stein had sought.

Ms. Stein has gained more traction pushing for recounts in the other two battleground states, where Mr. Trump leads by narrow margins.
 President-elect Donald J. Trumps freewheeling phone calls to world leaders are upending decades of diplomacy and increasing scrutiny of his impending choice for secretary of state.

China filed an official complaint with the White House after Mr. Trump rattled the region by speaking with Taiwans president, Tsai Ing-wen.

The perception of a possible business conflict in Taiwan further complicates the three-way relationship: a Trump Organization representative discussed investing on the island in September.
3. After four months, protesters near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation have been ordered to clear out by Monday.

The government said it would not forcibly remove anyone, but could cite people for trespassing or other offenses.

Native Americans and their allies are fighting a nearly complete oil pipeline that traverses tribal water sources and sacred burial sites. Thousands of tribal members, activists and celebrities have come to the sprawling protest camp, turning the North Dakota prairie into a hive of environmental and tribal-justice activism.

I aint going nowhere, said Lee Plenty Wolf, who has settled in a snowbound tepee. Were getting tired of being pushed for 500 years.

____
Silicon Valleys soft power in China is unlikely to help Facebook or Google get back into China. But it demonstrates the sort of influence China seeks for itself. Despite its innovations, Chinas online renaissance has taken place largely within its own borders, and the countrys ambitions to create companies with global influence so far have been largely unsuccessful.

It also provides a model for a new type of Chinese business guru, politician and thought leader, in the vein of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Already the Chinese tech world has created figures like Jack Ma, the founder of the e-commerce giant the Alibaba Group, and Lei Jun, a founder of the budget smartphone maker Xiaomi, who derive their influence from channels outside the Chinese Communist Party. The party in turn courts them even as it seeks to contain them, often holding them up as examples of Chinese innovation.

Baidu, one of Chinas largest tech companies and often called the Google of China, owes a heavy debt to the valley. One founder, Eric Xu, made a documentary about Silicon Valley in the late 1990s and helped model the company around an unstructured, meritocratic  and thoroughly non-Chinese  organizational style its founders admired.

Employees receive copies of a book called the Baidu Analects, said Kaiser Kuo, a former spokesman for Baidu and the host of the China podcast Sinica. Its anecdote after anecdote of these borderline insubordinate employees who stuck to their ideas in spite of pushback, and the enlightened manager who let them do it, and ultimately they triumph, Mr. Kuo said. Its almost this libertarian, Ayn Rand ethos.

At times China seems to embrace Silicon Valley cliches more eagerly than Silicon Valley itself.

A prominent techie cafe in Beijing has a large wall with a timeline charting the initial public stock offerings of American tech companies alongside those in China. Some companies have created Apple-style product unveilings that are ticketed, cultural events. A developer in China is planning to start work on tech towns  planned communities where the innovative-minded can live and work together. Start-up offices often have open seating plans with office pets, foosball tables and a boss sitting with the employees.

Silicon Valley has become a kind of beacon of cultural change in China, said David Chao, a partner at the venture capital firm DCM. Hollywood could impact what kind of handbag a lady buys in China, but it never impacted corporate culture like Silicon Valley has.

Even so, most Chinese companies have not fully absorbed the culture. Many are still highly top-down and bureaucratic, and open office plans often mask more deeply conservative customs. In place of Californias sunny suburbs, Chinas innovation hub sits in the traffic and smog-choked northwestern part of Beijing, crammed into office towers above malls that sell all manner of electronics.
LOS ANGELES  Top Democratic lawmakers in California are moving to enact sweeping legislation to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation, the first sign of what they say will be an effort to resist immigration policies championed by President-elect Donald J. Trump.

The measures, which will be introduced Monday, would provide free legal help to undocumented immigrants during deportation proceedings, offer more assistance in criminal court, and further limit local law enforcements cooperation with federal immigration agents. The measures contrast sharply with the kind of policies that Mr. Trump pressed on the campaign trail.

Throughout the presidential campaign and since, the president-elect has made many troubling statements that run counter to the principles that define California today, said Kevin de Leon, the Senate president pro tempore, who is backing the package. There is no greater policy area than immigration where the comments run headlong to the values we share as Californians.

The legislation suggests the level of opposition Mr. Trump may face in California, a state where 40 percent of the population is Latino. The leaders of both chambers of the Legislature are Latino, as is the states attorney general-designee, Xavier Becerra. Mr. de Leon said that pushing immigration measures would be a priority of the Legislature.
WASHINGTON  The Pentagon said on Sunday that it had sent a Yemeni detainee from the wartime prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Cape Verde, the island nation off the west coast of Africa. It was the first transfer from the prison since the election victory last month by Donald J. Trump, who vowed during the campaign to reverse President Obamas effort to close Guantanamo.

The man, Shawki Awad Balzuhair, had been imprisoned without trial for more than 14 years. His departure reduced the detainee population to 59, of whom 20 are recommended for transfer.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter recently gave a 30-day notice to Congress that eight detainees on that list would be transferred several weeks from now, according to officials who discussed the notices on the condition of anonymity because they are not yet public.

The White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said last week that the Obama administration intended to continue transferring detainees approved for release, in cases in which diplomats can strike appropriate security arrangements, until Mr. Trumps inauguration.
The wrangling over who should be Americas top diplomat comes as Mr. Trumps team continues to face questions about his protocol-shattering phone conversation with the president of Taiwan last week, which angered China and rattled other Asian nations. Mr. Bolton advocates closer ties with Taiwan as a means of putting pressure on China, arguing that Beijings growing power in the region should be checked.

Mr. Trumps advisers are battling, at times publicly, over whether he should choose from among his campaign loyalists or go outside that circle, a move that could alienate voters who were angry at the Republican establishment. Much of that wrangling has centered on Mr. Romney, who was among Mr. Trumps fiercest critics during the campaign.

Mr. Trump has told aides that he believes that Mr. Romney would look the part as the face of American outreach to the world and would make a fine secretary of state.

But Ms. Conway, who has been openly critical of Mr. Romney, continued to attack him during a Fox News Sunday appearance, saying that the backlash to his candidacy among Mr. Trumps core supporters had been breathtaking.

Asked if her criticism of him was appropriate, she said, I would turn the question around and ask, was it appropriate for Governor Romney to stick his neck out so far in attacking Donald Trump, and never walking it back, never encouraging people to support the nominee once Mr. Trump had won the nomination squarely and fairly.

Ms. Conway, answering questions from reporters about the expanded search as she entered Trump Tower in New York on Sunday, said the transition team had been happily surprised by the number of wealthy businesspeople who had come forward to express interest. Mr. Trump, who was lifted to victory in the election in large part by the support of white working-class voters, has faced criticism over his appointment of several ultra-wealthy people to top posts.

There are a number of people that we may not have thought wanted to leave their very lucrative private industry positions to go and serve the government, Ms. Conway said. Its exciting, frankly, to at least get their counsel.
While analysts abroad speculated about the possible effects of Mr. Castros death on Cubas domestic and foreign policy, Cuban citizens appeared to keep expectations in check, perhaps because hopes for speedy improvements at other historic junctures, like the re-establishing of diplomatic relations with the United States in 2014, had gone unrealized for most people.

The government harnessed Mr. Castros death to reaffirm its socialist program, urging people to honor his legacy by redoubling their commitment to the ideals he espoused and the country he built. The government even placed logbooks in schools and other locations throughout the country and invited Cubans to sign an oath of loyalty to the revolutions ideals.

This is undefeated Fidel, who summons us with his example and with the demonstration that, yes, we could; yes, we can; and, yes, we will be able to overcome any obstacle, threat or turmoil in our firm commitment to build socialism in Cuba, Raul Castro, the president, said during an address to a large gathering in Santiago on Saturday night.

The public events during the mourning period, as expected, drew vast, yet restrained, crowds. Perhaps the most dramatic homage was a three-day cortege that carried Mr. Castros ashes hundreds of miles to Santiago from Havana, reversing the route that he and his guerrillas took after overthrowing the forces of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Hundreds of thousands of people lined the route, with some traveling long distances and many hours for a glimpse of the modest convoy and the small, flag-draped wooden box containing Mr. Castros ashes, which sat in a glass case on a trailer hitched to a military jeep.

Esteban Caraballo, 63, a maintenance worker at an agricultural studies institute, rode in a caravan of 36 buses that his town had provided to carry spectators to the cortege route. They were waiting roadside at a spot east of Havana by 2 a.m. one day last week, even though the cortege was not expected to arrive until after 8 a.m. People held small plastic Cuban flags on wooden sticks or clutched images of Mr. Castro to their chests.
ROME  Italy plunged into political and economic uncertainty early Monday as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would resign after voters decisively rejected constitutional changes, a step certain to reverberate across a European Union already buffeted by anti-establishment anger.

The no won in an incredibly clear way, Mr. Renzi said from the Chigi Palace. Holding back tears as he spoke in front of Italian and European Union flags, the usually brash and confident 41-year-old said, I assume all the responsibility of the defeat, adding that my experience of government ends here. He said he would go later on Monday to the countrys president, Sergio Mattarella, and tender my resignation.

Mr. Renzis defeat, and the instability that his resignation is likely to cause, raised the prospect of punishment in the markets, but also a caretaker government staffed with technocrats appointed by the Italian president.

Another possibility is the calling of early elections in 2017, though that, too, was unclear because Italys new electoral law is itself under review by Italys constitutional court. The news sent the euro down sharply in Asian trading.
VIENNA  In rejecting a far-right candidate for president on Sunday, voters in Austria showed the limitations of President-elect Donald J. Trumps tailwinds on a continent where extremist politics have traditionally brought cataclysm.

Call it the other Trump effect, one that may sow caution among some European voters suspicious of the advances of populist politicians.

Populist forces have unsettled politics in Europe and the United States, frequently by using fake news and fanning fears of globalization and migration. The British vote to leave the European Union this year was complicated by such anxieties. The rejection of constitutional changes in Italy on Sunday hinged on a variety of issues.

But the choice before Austrians was perhaps the starkest.

The bitter yearlong campaign for the presidency pitted Norbert Hofer, a leader of the far-right Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by former Nazis, against a mild-mannered 72-year-old former Green Party leader, Alexander Van der Bellen.
The Legislative Analysts Office recently announced that it is forecasting a $2.8 billion budget surplus for the state of California next year.

As the SNL Church Lady would say, Isnt that special?

But, its not special. I believe the reports conclusions are deficient, as many fiscal concerns are being smoothed over, rather than being highlighted. The LAO takes an auto-pilot approach in its assumptions. This is understandable, but it screams for a leadership decision to make a major course change. Sacramento needs to re-evaluate the priorities for its most obvious obligations.

Why do I say this? Because California has the largest unrestricted net deficit of any of the 50 states. Its nearly $170 billion  and growing. And this number does not take into account other significant unfunded liabilities. So, a $2.8 billion budget surplus may be special, but it is illusory.

With this in mind, lets ask Gov. Brown to use this supposed surplus for the real fiscal demands facing our children and grandchildren, and not toward more new programs. With budget season around the corner, there are allocations he must consider.

Were told that deferred maintenance for the states roads and highways is some $59 billion. Lets start saving up. Why does California not set funds aside for future repairs and improvements? Instead, Sacramento screams for a new tax after things have fallen apart. If it set funds aside in a methodical manner for these costs over the next 30 years, the annual budgeted amount would be $2 billion.

The state is only making the minimum required annual contribution into its retirement plans. Yet, CalPERS alone has fallen behind nearly $50 billion in the last two years on its meager investment returns. While CalPERS has a long-term plan to reduce its expected rate of return assumption, perhaps its time to accelerate the annual contributions to pay down the unfunded liabilities. If a 10 percent increase was added to the annual contribution, it would require another $800 million out of the budget.

These two critical investments would increase the states general spending by the $2.8 billion. But, there is more. California has an unfunded actuarial accrued liability of $80 billion for retiree health care. Promises to pay for the medical costs of retired state employees will come due. If the trust fund that is utilized to manage this obligation has an earnings assumption of 7.5 percent and the Capitol pays this balance off like a mortgage over 30 years, then the annual set aside would have to be $6.7 billion (such is the cost of compounded interest).

With this, the budget would have a deficit. At least the LAO has accounted for other costs on the horizon. The voters just approved Proposition 51, the $9 billion school bond measure. This adds another $500 million a year into the mix to pay for the principle and interest.

And, thats not all. The governor raised the minimum wage earlier this year to $15 per hour. His own estimates show that it will cost the budget $4 billion per year in additional personnel costs.

I would suggest that the governors last two years in office be spent improving the states fiscal house. I recommend he focus on the following:

1. More expeditiously fund the retiree medical liability. Asking employees to fund this massive debt through payroll withholdings will fall woefully short of the goal.

2. Set funds aside for future infrastructure improvements and repairs, just like the state demands of homeowners associations. We have reached capacity on debt issuances and must start paying as we go.

3. Gov. Brown acknowledged that we cannot address the pension debt in a year or two, or even ten. However, it needs to be addressed now. And that can be done by paying a little more than required to accelerate the payoff schedule.

4 Start reducing the states workforce, as compensation and benefit costs are rising. This can easily be done through the increasing attrition of baby boomer employees. Stop new hiring where feasible. Outsource where possible.

If Sacramento squanders this period of supposed budget surpluses, then the next fiscal downturn will see California taken to its fiscal knees. And, with the new administration in Washington, D.C., a bailout will be about as likely as Gov. Jerry Brown coming back for two more terms after a brief break.

Its time to make California fiscally solvent, and it will take strong fiscal leadership. Wouldnt that be special?

John Moorlach is a state Senator representing the 37th District.
Thankfully, the 11 victims of a car and knife attack on Monday at Ohio State University are expected to survive. But while not the most deadly attack in recent memory, in many ways it presents a confluence of issues that President-elect Donald Trump must address immediately.

It is a convergence of radical Islam, ISIS-inspired attacks at home and abroad, and anti-Islamic sentiment and violence against peaceful Muslims.

ISIS has claimed responsibility, calling the attacker one of its soldiers, although that is a term ISIS often uses to describe attacks around the world in which it has little involvement. No evidence of direct communication between the attacker and the group has been found in this case.

But what has become clear is that the attacker was at least inspired by the Islamic terror group. And while he may not have been a card-carrying member of ISIS, we must consider such radicalized zealots to be foot soldiers in an entirely new kind of war.

Moments before the attack, he tweeted, We will not let you sleep unless you give peace to the Muslims. You will not celebrate or enjoy any holiday.

After the attack, Trump took to Twitter, writing: ISIS is taking credit for terrible stabbing attack at Ohio State University by a Somali refugee who should not have been in our country.

It is true that the attacker grew up in Somalia and moved to Pakistan in 2007 before immigrating to the United States with his family in 2014 and becoming a permanent resident in 2015. But guilt by association is not what America was founded on, and should not be the basis of our immigration system.

Trump wasnt the only one to respond rapidly. On the left, many were quick to blame guns for the tragedy, despite the fact that no gun was used in the attack. California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted: My thoughts are w/Ohio state this AM. We cannot let an average of 1 school shooting/wk be the norm in America.

Interestingly, in August, the attacker was interviewed by The Lantern, the colleges student newspaper, for a vignette called Humans of Ohio State. In the article, he spoke of his concern for the treatment of Muslims in America, saying he feared retaliation for practicing his faith openly.

This particular attack crystalizes the challenge we face: dealing with Muslims radicalized by ISIS and other terrorists organizations while at the same time not blaming good people.

There is never an excuse for those who attempt to take the lives of innocent people, of course. Similarly we must understand that most in the Muslim community do not condone violence any more than do other citizens. Sadly, in recent weeks we have seen an uptick in anti-Muslim sentiment  including here, where recently letters have been sent to Islamic centers in Long Beach, Claremont and San Jose calling Muslims vile, filthy and evil, and claiming that Trump is going to cleanse America of Muslims.

We must work for them as much as we work to protect others, not condemn large swaths of blameless people for the crimes of some. After all, the greatest numbers of victims of Muslim terror globally have been other Muslims.

Rather than playing to base fears, our leaders should be working together to come up with strategies that balance our need for security and privacy, taking the fight to groups like ISIS that inspire hate while also protecting civil liberties at home  and that includes the Muslim community.
Californias bar association is considering a ban on sex.

No need to move to another state if youre single and looking. The California State Bar regulates attorneys, not bars.

Currently, the State Bars rules of professional conduct do not prohibit sex between attorneys and their clients as long as theres no coercion, intimidation or undue influence, and as long as the relationship doesnt cause the attorney to perform legal services incompetently.

But the Commission for the Revision of the Rules of Professional Conduct believes the rule on sex with clients must be changed, because it renders it difficult to prove a violation in the typical circumstance of consensual sexual relations. So California may join many other state bar associations in adopting a complete ban on sex between lawyers and clients.

What a terrible idea. Its the latest indication of a new Victorianism that seems to suggest women are fragile, vulnerable creatures who cant speak up for themselves, inevitably falling prey to villainous and powerful men. So helpless are women, the argument suggests, that waiting around for proof of attorney misconduct puts the fair sex at an unacceptable risk of harm.

The State Bar investigated 205 complaints of sexual misconduct by lawyers with their clients between September 1992 and January 2010, but it took action against an attorney in only one case. Perhaps it is difficult to prove a violation. Or maybe the allegations were untrue.

The truth matters. Unfortunately, too many people think it doesnt.

Consider the case of Jackie, a woman who claimed to Rolling Stone magazine that she was gang-raped at a University of Virginia fraternity party and that school administrators didnt much care. Her story was completely false. One of the school administrators sued Rolling Stone for defamation and won a $3 million judgment for damages, yet news publications continue to withhold the real name of Jackie because she still claims to be a victim.

In Missouri, Lindenwood University student Joanna Newberry claimed in 2014 that she was sexually assaulted by a man hiding in a campus bathroom. The school sent out an alert to its 12,000 students to warn them of the danger, but five days later, Newberry admitted she had made up the story. Newberry was expelled and charged with making a false report.

Reports of rape sometimes put campus police in a difficult situation. Last month, California State University Northridge Police Chief Anne Glavin chose not to issue a campus-wide alert to students when the fourth rape since September was reported in student housing. She said there was no reason for the campus community to feel threatened.

The parties are known to each other, Glavin said, and the female victim doesnt wish to prosecute.

Alcohol was involved in all four incidents, which occurred inside residences. Two incidents were logged as occurring sometime between 10 or 11 p.m. and the next morning. One was reported two weeks after it happened.

Under those circumstances, it will always be difficult to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But thats still the standard, and rightly so, before someone is convicted of rape and sent to prison.

Similarly, there should be evidence of sexual misconduct, not just sex, before an attorney is hauled before the State Bar. To suggest adult women are automatically victims in a consensual relationship is to turn back the clock to the Victorian belief that women must be protected from making their own choices.

Susan Shelley is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Reach her at Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter: @Susan_Shelley.
Europes embattled political establishment lost another round Sunday in its effort to thwart the anti-elite movement, as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned following a voter rejection of his constitutional reforms. But a center-left presidential candidate in Austria handily defeated his far-right challenger.

The thorough rejection of Renzis efforts to streamline lawmaking was a significant boost for the countrys surging anti-establishment forces just weeks after Donald Trump prevailed in the United States. Renzis loss also risked unleashing financial upheaval in Europes third-largest economy, as Italys weak banks struggle to contain the fallout.

But the surprisingly strong presidential victory in Austria for a center-left elder statesman suggested that there were still some limits to a wave of anti-elite anger that began with British vote to leave the European Union and continued with Trump last month.

A populist takeover of Italy is still an uncertain prospect, since Renzis center-left Democratic Party remains in control of the parliament and national elections do not have to be called until 2018. But much will depend on the makeup of the next government and how the anti-immigrant, euroskeptic parties capitalize on their success.

I have not managed to reach victory, Renzi said early Monday, conceding defeat at the Palazzo Chigi, his official residence. My government ends today.

Italys president has asked Premier Matteo Renzi to delay stepping down until Parliament can pass a critical budget law due later this month.

The presidential palace said Italys head of state, President Sergio Mattarella, met with Renzi on Monday evening at the presidential palace in Rome.

The palace said Renzi told the president its not possible to continue in his post as premier following the resounding defeat Sunday of a referendum on constitutional reforms that Renzi promoted.

Mattarella, considering how Parliament needs to complete its approval of the budget law, asked the premier to delay his resignation until that task is accomplished.

The lead opposition to Renzi, the insurgent Five Star movement, ran a spirited campaign against the prime ministers reforms, joining forces with an unlikely cross-section of allies, including some in Renzis own party. Many establishment politicians also questioned whether the reforms truly made sense as the country contends with grim prospects for growth and a wave of migration from Africa.

What comes next will depend partially on Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who is charged with picking a new person to try form a government and whether to hold early elections. Elections are a key demand from the Five Star movement, which is running a close second to Renzis party in the polls. The euro dropped one percent against the dollar in early Asian trading following the release of initial exit polls, but financial analysts cautioned against panic.

Renzis anti-establishment opponents were trying to capitalize on a wave of skepticism about the ability of elites to deal with globalization and the long, painful effects of the economic crisis that started nearly a decade ago. The Trump victory last month cheered the Five Star Movement, an insurgent anti-euro force that has support on the left and the right and is led by the caustic comedian Beppe Grillo.

Italians were technically just giving an up-down nod to the restructuring package. But the referendum to streamline the political system and diminish the role of the Senate long ago turned into a broader vote of confidence in Renzi, the youthful, Coke-chugging leader who portrayed himself as a lone warrior against Euroskeptic forces.

Sundays votes in Austria and Italy captured the extent to which Europeans are as politically polarized as Americans, split on issues including immigration and free trade.

In Austria, the far-right Freedom Partys Norbert Hofer conceded defeat on his Facebook page less than 30 minutes after polls closed and following projections showing a surprisingly strong lead for Alexander Van der Bellen. The 72-year-old statesman and former Green Party politician was winning by 53.3 percent to 46.7 percent with nearly 100 percent of the votes counted.

The result was an unexpectedly clear victory for Austrias beleaguered political establishment  one suggesting the aggressive tactics and Trump-style campaign deployed by the Austrian far-right may have hurt more than they helped.

Sundays election, in fact, was a rerun of one in May in which Hofer lost by 31,000 votes, a result he successfully contested. His defeat on Sunday by a far larger margin, observers said, may suggest European voters unease with the comparisons of their politicians to Trump. It also seemed to rob the momentum from far-right leaders in France and the Netherlands who have called Trumps victory part of a new world order that they were hoping to join in elections next year.

Following Hofers concession, he and Van der Bellen exchanged a long handshake for photographers in the Vienna studios of Austrian state broadcaster ORF. Van der Bellen credited his victory to a broad movement backing freedom, equality and solidarity. His campaign manager, Lothar Lockl, saw the margin as evidence of a push against the nationalist tide by moderates.

A movement could be evolving here, which is not only for Austria, but can also bring about a change of attitude in the whole of Europe, he said.

The race for the ceremonial role as president held high stakes. The position is constitutionally ambiguous, yet Hofer, who has decried Muslim immigration and free trade, had vowed to beef it up  setting up a clash with the center-left government and the European Union. Freedom Party supporters on Sunday had hoped for a Trump bump  but it bumped the wrong way.

The Trump bump could always go either way, said Reinhard Heinisch, a political scientist at the University of Salzburg. The fact is, Trump is not very popular in Austria.

Hofers campaign in Austria seemed to echo Trumps, with far-right outlets spreading damaging fake news and Hofer and his surrogates taking aim at red herrings such as his opponents health. There were more allegations of dirty tricks on election day.

On Sunday, Austrias domestic intelligence service launched an investigation into a mass text message that stated that only Hofer voters should show up because polling stations were overcrowded. Van der Bellen supporters, the text said, should instead vote on Monday  although polls would be closed by then, according to the Austrian daily Der Standard.

The race was perhaps more important as a bellwether of post-Trump voter trends in Europe, where nationalists are poised to stage potent 2017 campaigns in France, Germany and the Netherlands. A Hofer victory would have potentially signaled the new electability of the far right. Indeed, the Freedom Party sought to leverage Hofers guy-next-door demeanor that seemed to take the bite out of his harshest condemnations, such as that Islam is not part of Austria.

Still, while portraying himself as the face of a reformed far-right, he persisted in courting a more extreme base. For instance, he wore a cornflower lapel pin  a symbol of German nationalism also used by the Nazis. Hofer on Sunday called for national unity following his defeat. Yet within his party, the attacks were already flying. The Freedom Partys powerful chairman, Heinz-Christian Strache, accused Hofers opponents of running a massive fear campaign, saying Green Party supporters of Van der Bellen had painted Hofer as a Nazi.
Business

Airbnb and New York City settle short-term rental lawsuit filed by company

Its official: New York City and Airbnb will work together. The hosting company agreed to terms of enforcement of a short-term apartment rental law by New York City and dropped a lawsuit against the city that was filed in October. The law, passed by the New York state legislature in June but remaining unsigned by Governor Andrew Cuomo until October, called for fines up to $7,500 for property owners who advertised short-term apartment rentals in buildings of three or more units. In settling the suit, the city agreed it would focus on individual property owners who violated the law, not the listing companies. The law was meant for listings on Airbnb and other peer-to-peer sites that had multiple units for rent in what were clearly commercial arrangements and considered illegal hotels. Airbnb filed suit because it believed the laws wording was not clear enough to protect online platforms such as itself, which could not be held responsible for landlords who broke the law. If the listing services were charged, the risks of fines and liability would be more than the companies could bear.
Robert Bob Bennett, a broadcasting industry veteran who guided a TV station group that became the initial core of the Fox network, has died. He was 89.

Bennett died Tuesday at a Newport Beach hospital after a long illness, according to spokesman Jerry Digney. The cause of death was not specified.

In the early to mid-1980s, Bennett served as president of Metromedia Broadcasting, then among the nations largest station groups with major-market stations in cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. He worked with media magnate John Kluge.

When another magnate, Rupert Murdoch, acquired Metromedia Broadcasting in 1985, its stations and prime-time programming helped create the Fox Broadcasting Co.

Bennett, after a stint as a page at CBS Radio in the late 1940s in Los Angeles, began his TV career in 1952 at KTTV-TV in LA, first in sales and then as an executive. He was vice president and general manager of WTTG-TV in Washington, D.C., and, from 1969 to 1971, at WNEW-TV, New York.

He headed the creation of WCVB-TV in Boston, which became known for its original, locally produced programming that included the TV movie Summer Solstice starring Henry Fonda and Myrna Loy.

The station was sold in 1981 to Metromedia for $220 million, and in 1985 Bennett directed its sale to the Hearst Corp. for $450 million, according to a biography of Bennett provided by Digney.

In 1994, he was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame.

Bennett, who grew up in Altoona, Pa., was a longtime resident of Newport Beach. Survivors include his wife, Marjie, children, Kelly and Casey Bennett.
President-elect Donald Trump continued to use Twitter Sunday to defend his engagement with the leader of Taiwan, a breach of diplomatic protocol as the U.S. shifted recognition from Taiwan to China nearly 40 years ago.

In a series of evening tweets, Trump groused about criticism that he didnt work with China ahead of the contact. China considers Taiwan a rogue province.

Did China ask us if it was OK to carry out a number of actions such as build up disputed islands in the South China Sea or take economic measures hurtful to the United States, Trump tweeted.

The Taiwanese leader, Tsai Ing-Wen, called Trump on Friday to congratulate him on the election in a call set up by an American third party. Taiwans official Central News Agency, citing anonymous sources on Saturday, said that Edwin Feulner, founder of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, was a crucial figure in setting up communication channels between the sides.

The call prompted an understated complaint from China to the U.S. government. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday that the contact was just a small trick by Taiwan that he believed would not change U.S. policy toward China, according to Hong Kongs Phoenix TV.

The one-China policy is the cornerstone of the healthy development of China-U.S. relations and we hope this political foundation will not be interfered with or damaged, Wang was quoted as saying. Chinese officials said they lodged a complaint with the U.S. and reiterated a commitment to seeking reunification with the island, which they consider a renegade province.

The call was the starkest example yet of how Trump has flouted diplomatic conventions since he won the Nov. 8 election. He has apparently undertaken calls with foreign leaders without guidance customarily given by the State Department, which oversees U.S. diplomacy.

President-elect Trump is just shooting from the hip, trying to take phone calls of congratulatory messages from leaders around the world without consideration for the implications, said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence said Sunday that the phone call shouldnt necessarily be interpreted as a shift in U.S. policy. He shrugged off the attention to the incident as media hype.

It was a courtesy call, Pence told NBCs Meet the Press.

Over the decades, the status of Taiwan has been one of the most sensitive issues in U.S.-China relations. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory to be retaken by force, if necessary, if it seeks independence. It would regard any recognition of a Taiwanese leader as a head of state as unacceptable.

Taiwan split from the Chinese mainland in 1949. The U.S. policy acknowledges the Chinese view over sovereignty, but considers Taiwans status as unsettled.

Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Trumps conversation does not signal any change to long-standing U.S. policy on cross-strait issues. Yet the phone conversation prompted mixed reactions.

Yang Chih-kai, a 22-year-old university student in New Taipei City, said the call raised Taiwanese hopes for a stronger relationship with the United States.

People will think that the U.S. will keep on helping Taiwan protect itself against Chinas threat, Yang said.

Taiwanese newspapers ran banner headlines Sunday about the call, and two noted on their front pages Sunday that Trump referred to Tsai as the president of Taiwan, a formulation that would be a huge shift in American policy and infuriate China.

Douglas Paal, a former director of the American Institute in Taiwan, which unofficially represents U.S. interests in Taipei, said it was too soon to judge whether Trump was going to lead that shift, or if the incident was just a complicated accident.

Beijing will watch closely to see which it is, said Paal, now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But until someone from Trump Tower explains further, it is unknowable.

The U.S. shifted diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979. But the governments in Washington and Taipei have maintained close unofficial ties and deep economic and defense relations. The U.S. is required by law to provide Taiwan with weapons to maintain its defense, and since 2009, the Obama administration has approved $14 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.

The Taiwanese presidential office said Trump and Tsai discussed issues affecting Asia and the future of U.S. relations with Taiwan. Tsai also told Trump that she hoped the U.S. would support Taiwan in its participation in international affairs, the office said, in an apparent reference to Chinas efforts to isolate Taiwan from global institutions such as the United Nations.

Taiwans presidential office spokesman, Alex Huang, said separately that Taiwans relations with China and healthy Taiwan-U.S. relations can proceed in parallel. There is no conflict in that, he said.

Chinas foreign ministry said Beijing lodged solemn representations with the U.S. over the call.

It must be pointed out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, Geng Shuang, a ministry spokesman, said in a statement. The government of the Peoples Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing China.
SACRAMENTO  The California Court of Appeals 53-page ruling late last month in the ongoing jailhouse snitch scandal was the latest court rebuke of the local justice system. The blowback is one for the record books: The entire district attorneys office has now been removed from handling the penalty phase of the bloodiest mass-murder case in Orange Countys history.

Scott Dekraai has already pleaded guilty to murdering eight people at a beauty salon in Seal Beach in 2011, so judicial malfeasance will not set a guilty man free. But the actions of the DAs office and the Orange County Sheriffs Department are delaying justice for the families of Dekraais victims. This case has also had the unfortunate effect of impacting the legal proceedings in other cases, too, as six attempted murder and murder cases have unraveled in the aftermath.

The Registers Tony Saavedra captured the gist of the situation in an October column: Prosecutors and deputies used a jailhouse informant to gather evidence against Dekraai after he had an attorney, a violation of court procedure and law. Furthermore, the trial-court judge accused deputies of dishonesty and removed local prosecutors from the case citing fairness issues, leaving it in the hands of the state attorney generals office.

The Appeal courts ruling has been described as blistering: (T)he evidence demonstrates the (Orange County Sheriffs Department), in its secondary capacity as county jailer, created and maintained a (Confidential Informant) program whereby it continued to investigate criminal activity in contravention of targeted defendants constitutional rights.  The (Orange County District Attorneys) loyalty to protect its primary law-enforcement partner and its work interfered with its professional and ethical responsibilities.

There are reasonable arguments over which agency is more responsible for this appalling and inexplicable mess. Its appalling because even people who plead guilty to heinous crimes deserve a fair trial. Without a fair criminal-justice system, the civic foundations of society crumble. Government officials that cheat or play fast-and-loose with the rules undermine a system each of us might depend upon if accused of a crime we didnt commit.

The mess was inexplicable because Dekraai had already pleaded guilty. The death penalty is rarely enforced in California, anyway. If law enforcement officials behaved this way in this case, it suggests the behavior may be a habit. Thats what the court suggested, too, when it wrote, The magnitude of the systemic problems cannot be overlooked.

The DAs office, for its part, argues the problems were inadvertent. In its brief to the appeals court, the California Attorney Generals office advanced a similar narrative, noting although the trial court abused its discretion, no conflicts of interest in the case resulted, and nothing occurred that would prevent Dekraai from getting fair treatment in the penalty phase.

To the latter point, the attorney general stated, In fact, Dekraais emphasis on the systemic misconduct in the OCDA and the OCSO warrants against a finding of recusal in this case since recusal is to ensure that an individual defendant is treated fairly, i.e., that he is not treated differently than anyone else in his circumstances.

The systemic issues are the most concerning ones because they go to the heart of our justice system. Was the attorney general really saying the DAs recusal is wrong because Dekraais potentially unfair treatment is just as unfair as everyone elses? Fortunately, the courts seem more concerned than the states highest-ranking justice official about a system that may be fundamentally unjust.

The DA received tough criticism in the latest ruling, but the Sheriffs Department has just as much explaining to do. As the Register reported, After Orange County sheriffs officials were ordered to turn over all the records they had kept on jailhouse informants, deputies stopped keeping one set of secret records and made plans to start a new one, according to evidence released in court.

The DAs office has now instituted a wide range of new training programs and reforms. Thats good news; but whenever scandals emerge from law-enforcement agencies, there are always plans for more training. The one thing usually missing (thanks to union protections and bureaucratic inertia): appropriate punishment for those involved in the wrongdoing.

Ive written extensively about police abuse and prosecutorial misconduct and the cozy relationships between the two groups of allies. When, say, a deputy is accused of excessive force, he or she is investigated by fellow deputies and any prosecution decision is made by prosecutors. So court findings of collusion between the two groups might help explain some of the frustration expressed after, say, high-profile police shootings.

The appeals courts ruling is about far more than whether a man who pleaded guilty to mass murder will spend his life in prison or be sentenced to death. The issues raised by the courts touch on the nature of our justice system  and extend well beyond Orange County. If the problems are systemic, then so too must be the solutions.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He was a Register editorial writer from 1998 to 2009. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.
Thinking about remodeling your home? You might have trouble finding a contractor.

Were actually turning down work because were way too busy, said Bob Pinault, owner of Anaheim-based R.D. Pinault Custom Builders.

Were crazy again, added remodeling contractor Eddie Kesky of Los Alamitos. We got a lot going on. A lot of people, a lot of calls.

Southern California homeowners are gutting their dens and living rooms, sprucing up kitchens and bathrooms, adding rooms or just tearing down the whole house and starting over.

Building-permit data show that home remodeling has been rising steadily since the bottom of the recession in Southern California and throughout the state as homeowners either buy fixer-uppers and upgrade them or decide to stay put and make their current residence a dream home.

Homeowners in the region have spent an estimated $12.9 billion on residential alterations and additions since the recession, building-permit figures from the California Homebuilding Foundations CIRB Report show. And thats not counting the number of homes torn down and replaced.

Orange County has seen the biggest gains, with home remodeling dollars hitting the highest level this year since the last remodeling boom ended in 2006. According to the CIRB Report, spending totaled nearly $374 million through September this year, up 62 percent from the same January-through-September period of 2009.

Remodeling increased steadily in Los Angeles and Riverside counties as well but was lower this year than in prior years, CIRB figures show. In San Bernardino County, remodeling has gone up and down, with this years spending below 2009 levels.

The California Association Realtors reported home remodeling is on the rise throughout the state as homeowners choose to stay put rather than try to buy a new home in todays sellers market.

Its a solid and steady uptrend, said Jordan Levine, a Realtor economist. I think we will continue to see more as inventory stays tight.

REFINANCING UP

Homeowners are tapping home equity built up in the market recovery to pay for their upgrades.

U.S. homeowners took out an estimated $13.3 billion in cash-out loan refinancing during the second quarter of 2016, the most in nearly seven years, according to Freddie Mac. An additional $5.4 billion was taken out in home equity lines of credit.

Some of the top reasons why more homeowners are remodeling their homes is because the market is up, said Israel Battres, owner of Battres Construction in Santa Ana. They are able to refinance easily and add value to their home compared to when the market is down.

Wheres all that money going?

Modern kitchens with quartz counters, wood floors and extra stoves and dishwashers. Homeowners are creating open floor plans with high ceilings, an extra master bedroom, high-end sound systems and high-tech widgets.

We got to design our dream home, Jon Breitbarth, 61, said of the newly built house in Rossmoor that he and his wife, Jan, shared with 26 relatives over Thanksgiving. I wanted a large attic for storage. We like to entertain. Its important for us that people are comfortable.

CHEAPER TO STAY PUT

For many, its cheaper to remodel than to move, said Pinault, the Anaheim contractor.

Average remodels range from $150,000 to $300,000, contractors say, with complete tear-downs ranging from $850,000 to $1.2 million.

Residents say their costs are no higher than prices for comparable homes in their areas.

A move also means paying higher property taxes, since homeowners lose their lower Prop. 13 tax base after a sale.

Ron and Debby Arrin considered selling their Lake Forest home and moving, but quickly rejected that idea. The cost was prohibitive.

Homes they could afford needed work. And they didnt like the small yards, shared driveways and jammed-up neighborhoods in new housing developments.

The conclusion was, we already paid for our house. Lets just renovate what we have, said Debby, 60, who works in electronic component distribution.

Holiday dinners were cramped in their three-bedroom 1970s house, and they wanted more room for entertaining.

So they knocked out some walls, eliminated the living room and created a large, open kitchen-dining area. They upgraded the lighting and installed a new sound system, installed quartz countertops and tile. And they installed a Dutch front door, which allows you to open the top half while leaving the bottom half closed.

We love the result, Debby said. We cant believe its our house.

The Zoolakis family had a different plan. They bought their new home in Rossmoor as a tear-down.

We looked for homes that were similarly priced, but just for a small investment, you get exactly what you want, said Kari Zoolakis, 48, who works in human resources while raising two daughters. You get to pick the finish, you get to pick the colors. Were particular about what we want, so it makes sense.

Their new four-bedroom, four-bath house has an open concept. There are master bedrooms upstairs and downstairs and space for out-of-town guests. The kitchen has quartz countertops and stainless steel appliances.

Its a step up for us, Zoolakis said.

DELUXE KITCHENS

Jon and Jan Breitbarth tore down the original 1957 Plymouth model house in Rossmoor where Jan grew up.

The Breitbarths daughter and son-in-law moved into the house after Jans mother passed away, saving up for a house of their own. Then, in October 2015, after the younger couple moved out, the Breitbarths tore it down.

It made more sense than to go buy a (new) place, Jan said. Other people are buying homes to tear down and replace. I just had the benefit of  having the property already.

They moved into the new house Oct. 29.

It has three bedrooms with an office and three bathrooms. A bifold door opens onto a patio with a fireplace and flat-screen TV.

The home is designed with entertaining in mind.

It has a big kitchen, with four ovens and three dishwashers, a Thermador range with a steaming oven, a microwave oven with a warming drawer.

It seems to me everything focuses around the kitchen when people come over for family gatherings, Jan said.

MAKING MEMORIES

Jennifer Prasad, 33, a mom and part-time substitute teacher, got inspired to do a remodel by watching Flip or Flop and other remodeling shows on HGTV.

The programs make it seem easy.

Its a lot of work and a lot of stress. You have to know what youre getting into, she said.   You have to be a little adventurous.

Jennifer and her husband, Justin, began their adventure 1 years after moving into a 1965 Fullerton home they bought, with good schools nearby.

The Prasads originally planned to remodel just the kitchen. Soon, they found themselves gutting the entire first floor.

We wanted that open floor plan, Jennifer said. We went, Were already in it this deep, lets redo the floors. It just snowballed.

They knocked down two walls, expanded the kitchen-dining area and created a TV room and a family room.

But even more important, the Prasads  who have a 3-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter  wanted a house thats homey, comfortable and fits the familys needs.

Getting that made the whole endeavor worthwhile  even though they went over budget.

Your home is everything, Jennifer said. Its where you create your memories. Its where our children will grow up. At this stage in our lives, its all about family.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7734 or jeffcollins@scng.com
The husband and wife were having an issue: Neither of them ever was in a rush to get home after a long day of work. It wasnt because they were having marital problems.

Rather, they were having insulation issues  or lack thereof, to be precise. In November 2010, Samuel and Claudette Lopez-Samson became first-time homebuyers when they moved from an apartment in the Artesia area into a three-bedroom home in a quiet neighborhood in Buena Park. The house, built in 1958, has a large front and backyard  ideal for the children they plan on having.

Problem is, the walls had no insulation, making the winters colder and the summers super hot. This is why the Samsons, who both work in the health care field, werent exactly rushing to return home after completing their shifts. They simply werent super-comfy in their new home. That all changed with a knock on the door in March 2016, when Samuel Samson was relaxing on his day off. A representative from a solar and energy efficiency contractor was canvassing the neighborhood and asked Samuel if he would be willing to have his homes energy efficiency checked out. Sure, why not? Samuel told the contractor rep, who recommended a host of upgrades after a brief inspection.

Samuel asked which upgrade was most pressing, and the contractor rep recommended getting insulation in the walls. The contractor rep also introduced Samuel to the HERO Program, explaining that he and his wife could pay for the project with no upfront costs and make annual payments via voluntary assessments tied to their property taxes. Since its inception in 2011, the HERO Program has financed over $2 billion in projects throughout California.

Samuel loved the idea, applied to the HERO Program online, and soon found out he and his wife qualified for financing. A couple of days later, in the span of a few hours, the insulation job was completed. Samuel didnt want to tell his wife when the work would be done  his way of testing whether the new insulation would really work. When Claudette returned home from her swing shift on a Monday night, she noticed after a few minutes how warm it was inside the house.

Usually she dreaded getting into the shower because of how cold she got just before hopping in. This night was different. Im going to take a shower, Claudette told her husband.

Did you turn on the heat? It feels so warm in here.

Thats because of the insulation job I had done today, Samuel told her.

Great! she responded. I wonder how its going to feel inside the house this summer.

Much cooler, Samuel assured his wife.

The Samsons, who now are spending less to heat their house and also expect their electricity bill to drop this summer, are considering tapping into more HERO Program financing to have artificial turf installed in front of their house and in the backyard.

They have recommended HERO to a neighbor who also is considering having insulation put in her walls.

The HERO Program representatives were very helpful, Samuel says. They were great following up with calls, and our contractor was very punctual. The entire process went very smoothly.
On a Saturday after the election of a president whom some vilify and blame on so-called Christian conservatives, politics is far from the minds of more than 100 volunteers at one of Orange Countys larger evangelical churches.

Members of Calvary Church in Santa Ana host their first Neighbor Good event. The focus is on helping anyone who drops by, and free services range from health care to car repair.

The volunteers dont carry signs or shout slogans, but they are firm in their belief that they are here to personalize and personify what they consider the values of Jesus Christ.

As millions around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas, helping others may sound like a simple gesture that most everyone  regardless of religion  would applaud without suspicion.

But nothing is simple in an age of digital communication that facilitates making sweeping statements about someones core beliefs even before talking to that person.

Calvary Church Senior Pastor David Mitchell knows all too well what its like to be on the receiving end of that one-way communication, to be branded for something that in his heart he abhors.

He faced that just last week  in my column.

OF BIKES AND BIKERS

Much has been written and much has been said in the national media these Past few weeks about evangelicals  people who believe they are born again in Jesus Christ.

Most of it has been brutal.

In several paragraphs, my column echoed mainstream media when it quoted Richard Flory, a senior director at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC. Donald Trump, Flory said, has unexpectedly exposed the dark side of evangelicalism that is rooted in racism, sexism, misogyny and homophobia.

The words stung. But moreover, Mitchell found them plain wrong. I am evangelical, Mitchell wrote me, and I did not vote for Trump.

Sitting in his cavernous second-story office lined with books instead of windows, Mitchell and I share a wide-ranging discussion about morality, politics, religion and faith.

OK, we also talk about life on two wheels.

Mitchell has followed my columns about the outdoors and is a hard-core road cyclist. How hard-core? Try 140 miles a week.

Married 42 years and with two daughters, the pastor also is a serious motorcycle biker.

Harley Ultra, black. Sturgis, twice. Nuff said.

Every person is different, says the pastor who has led Calvary Church for more than two decades. Pigeon-holing someone in a category isnt biblical or what Christ would do.

SON OF A PREACHER MAN

Mitchell grew up as a ministers son in Phoenix. At age 12 and with his mother by his side, he prayed for his trust in Christ as his savior.

Leaning forward in his chair, Mitchell calls the moment a spiritual new birth, a time when someone becomes a new person.

But being born again also is a process, Mitchell reports. Through Christ, you begin to see change and transformation.

As with most faiths, evangelicals believe their path is the one true path. They take the Bible literally. They are adamantly anti-abortion.

We dont preach morality, the pastor says. We preach Christ. We present the truth.

Yet the mission for evangelicals isnt to change people, the pastor says. Thats Jesus job. Let him do the heavy lifting.

The pastor is quick to make clear that everyone is welcome in his church. Its not about denominations. Were not preoccupied with labels.

A graduate of Westmont College, Dallas Theological Seminary and Talbot School of Theology, Mitchell says, We love like Jesus across all cultures and generations and ethnicities.

The congregation of the 85-year-old Calvary Church ministry bears this out. With some 3,000 members and visitors, the group is diverse and includes a 400-person Spanish-language chapter.

Because of Trumps statements about immigration, I press if his church embraces immigrants living here illegally.

Mitchell considers the implications of the question. He points out hired staff are vetted with background checks because Cavalry school teaches minor children. He also acknowledges that probably some church members come here undocumented, illegal, whatever.

We dont check.

For an evangelical minister, the statement is a stone cast in a pond of controversy. To be sure, many evangelicals embrace Trumps promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

But the ripple effect of Mitchells comment also speaks to the faith-based split away from Trump within the evangelical community.

TRUMP VS. REAGAN

Mitchell explains his decision to not vote for Trump  he didnt vote for Hillary Clinton, either  is a delicate matter. It was part pragmatic, he allows, part philosophical.

California, he notes, was certain to be a Clinton state. That allowed the preacher, in a sense, to choose not to choose.

The minister describes himself as a Ronald Reagan guy. Reagan had a spirit of grace about him.

There are people out there, he says, who think they have a corner on the truth and can be judgmental and harsh.

Trump lacks decorum, Mitchell says. He also lacks Reagans demeanor.

The pastor admits Trump lacks in other areas as well.

Im irritated by Trumps behavior, Mitchell says. Hes crude, insulting. You dont win over people with hate and guilt. You do it with love.

Mitchell sprinkles his conversation with Scripture and citations and says, Christ with great compassion reached out to the lepers of the world, the most unlovable people of his time.

Thats how we should work.

REVELATIONS

On this day, Sunday  three weeks before Christmas  Mitchell feels compelled to speak of dark times ahead.

During his sermons, he will reference the Book of Revelation, Chapter 12, and warn that Satan is perched to devour the Christ child, that Satans goal is to cause confusion and destruction.

In his office, Mitchell smiles and admits his sermon rubs up against such songs as Silent Night, with its pleasant refrain, All is calm, all is bright. But, he warns, There is a battle of good and evil.

The pastor points to terrorism within the United States and abroad. He likens some powers to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.

Mitchell is not talking about Trump. Yet for good to triumph over evil, the path to righteousness and peace is similar.

The mission, the evangelical says, is to provide love, help and healing.

But is the president-elect listening?

Contact the writer: dwhiting@ocregister.com
I did not vote for Donald Trump, but one of the most dispiriting aspects of this presidential transition period is hearing people I admire, such as Bruce Springsteen and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, defend such rudeness. So it was heartening to hear Springsteens lifelong pal and fellow E Street Band member Steve Van Zandt  whose politics arent much different than Bruces  take issue with the casts behavior.

When artists perform, the venue becomes your home  the audience are your guests, Van Zandt said. Its taking unfair advantage of someone who thought they were a protected guest in your home.

Recently, a fellow baby boomer and I tried to explain to an idealistic millennial why the casts self-indulgence set such a terrible precedent. Hamilton conveys a powerful message about inclusiveness, which Pence knew when he decided to attend, and the art should have been allowed to speak for itself. We played what we thought was our, well, trump card: Pence is not Trump, we said.

Our young friend wasnt having it. She insisted that the cast wasnt talking about race primarily, but about gay rights  and on that issue she finds Pence worse than Trump, who explicitly defended LGBT people at the Republican convention.

Mike Pence wants to spend government money on conversion therapy, she said. She added that a large percentage of theater people are members of the LGBT community  and all of them have close friends who are. To her mind, the casts bad manners was, at worst, a venial sin compared to Pences mortal transgression of trying to convert gays, a discredited idea that inflicts real pain.

The Pence-favors-conversion-therapy angle sounded wrong, but vaguely familiar. I asked for sourcing and she later emailed two links from putatively respectable MSM outlets. This led down an interesting rabbit hole.

The first link was to a Time magazine column with a headline that neatly summed up the liberal presss level of objectivity during the 2016 campaign: GOPs Support of Conversion Therapy is a Death Sentence.

The piece was written by Garrard Conley, a Brooklyn-based writer who has published a harrowing biographical account of being forced into conversion therapy as a boy. Although his column can be viewed as a victims heartfelt warning about the dangers of retreating from social progress, its awfully short on evidence that GOP supports conversion therapy and long on insinuation. But the piece does provide links. Clicking through the first one gets you to another Time article quoting the offending proposed amendment, which was not adopted into the Republican Partys actual platform. That document, by the way, never mentions conversion therapy, let alone support for it (although it does fault the Supreme Courts judicial activism for overturning state statutes defining marriage as being between a man and a woman).

Meanwhile, Conley adds, Donald Trumps running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a politician with a history of referring to HIV treatment as needy, has given his support to those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.

Now were getting somewhere. But what does needy HIV treatment even mean? I click on that link, too. It takes me to a blog by a Californian named David Badash launched in response to his states 2008 referendum codifying opposition to same-sex marriage. The title of the post is Ten Times Mike Pence Worked to Defeat the LGBT community.

Two of the 10 examples entail long-ago support for Dont Ask, Dont Tell, a President Clinton-designed compromise to the gays-in-the-military controversy. Five involve Pences previous support for the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. In my view, that 1996 statute was an outrage  and it was craven of Clinton to put his signature to it. But why single out Pence? He wasnt in public office when it was enacted, and it passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support, including from the likes of Harry Reid and Joe Biden  Democrats who arent getting lectured when they go to the theater.

Yes, what about needy HIV patients, you ask, and Pences alleged support for conversion therapy? Badashs site has a link for that reference, which takes you to Talking Points Memo, a liberal outlet hostile to Republicans, and a piece titled Four Major Anti-Gay Ideas Mike Pence Floated During his 2000 Campaign.

Hes down from 10 to four, which is nice, but as that headline reveals were in the way-back machine. Gay marriage is on TPMs list, too, along with gays in the military, which put Pence in the mainstream of both major political parties in 2000. The third of the four major anti-gay ideas is from a campaign website  Pence was running for the House that year  dealing with congressional reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act, comprehensive AIDS resources legislation. In the section providing funding for indigent HIV patients (thats where the needy reference comes from), Pences campaign website advocates making sure federal dollars arent going to organizations that encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Instead, the site, says, Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.

So theres your conversion therapy angle. Its thin gruel, especially because in the context of the times and the Ryan White Act, a more obvious reading of the statement is that Pences campaign literature called for spending federal money encouraging safe sex, not changing sexual orientation.

Am I right? I dont know. I do know that the second link my millennial generation friend sent me was to Politifact, an organization made up of journalists tasked with vetting such questions. In July, the California chapter of Politifact examined the claim made at the Democratic convention by California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom that Pence advocated for diverting taxpayer dollars to so-called conversion therapy.

Citing the same 2000 campaign literature about changing sexual behavior, Politifact asserted that it was very clear that Newsom was accurate. Yeah, about as clear as mud.

I dont know what Politifact was thinking, but I dont blame Newsom. I admire him for his decision to allow gays and lesbians to marry in San Francisco while he was mayor and I invoked Newsoms actions in a 2006 presidential press conference while attempting (unsuccessfully) to get George W. Bush to concede that opposing gay marriage was folly.

The problem is that Democratic politicians, like their Republican counterparts, are content these days to outsource their study of those on the other side of the aisle to implacably hostile special-interest groups. In politics, this is called opposition research. In everyday life, wed call it digging for dirt or mudslinging. The upshot is that the fake news that liberals claim hurt them in 2016 comes in many forms, often from those same people railing against it.

Carl M. Cannon is executive editor and Washington Bureau chief of RealClearPolitics.
California was cut adrift in the wake of the political tsunami that swept the nation this November. The Sacramento response to double down, ignore Washington, tax and go it alone refuses to acknowledge what the election was about. The continual myopic analysis of the state and countrys employment and financial condition has left the governing class reeling.

While the investor-funded and often state-subsidized Silicon Valley and other tech offshoots were booming, adults of all ages, and indebted students with few job opportunities, were strapped financially and not hopeful about the future. Most of the country, including California, does not benefit from San Francisco-Berkeley based economic, tax and regulatory policies.

Fed a constant menu of wealth redistribution versus wealth creation options from the majority party controlling all levers of state government, voters continually face multiple ballot initiatives. Funded by billionaires or special interests with over $450 million this year, we were delivered a host of mediocre to bad choices. The Legislature could have voted to approve most of the issues. But fearing the repercussions for unpopular votes, they ask the people to decide the future of the state in a piecemeal fashion, with no way to ascertain the cumulative year over year effects.

Nationwide, people want good paying jobs, safe neighborhoods, good schools, efficient transportation, water and power that were Californias claim to fame. Somehow after years of voting for debt, taxes and fixes we have none of the above, our business climate is rated the worst in the nation, and our state budget is continually in peril.

Our structural problems began to escalate under the muddled governance of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Peaking with the 2008-09 crash and a Democratic controlled Legislature, we accepted federal funds to fill the multi-billion dollar budget gaps, with strings attached. Some examples of ballot and legislative actions that have indebted the state and sent employers and jobs fleeing are:

Prior to 2008, Arnold asked voters to approve $50 billion in new long-term debt for water, transportation, schools, high-speed rail and to plug the cash flow deficit from the dot-com bust. While much of the long-term debt is spent, we have little to show for it.

Arnold asked voters to approve cap and trade, authorizing transferring millions to billions of dollars from existing industries to subsidize new sustainable industries that cannot sustain without your green-back Hence, California continually pays some of the highest home prices, electricity rates and gas taxes in the nation, suffers power shortages, and declines in upward mobility due to the many skilled workers and employers that were regulated out of business to create the new green markets.

The legislature borrowed $10 billion to fund unemployment benefits in 2009 that businesses are repaying with annual premium increases from $63 in 2011 to $189 in 2017 per employee.

The legislature accepted federal funds to backfill education and social service programs in 2009, permanently expanding many by agreeing to maintenance of effort or continuing to fund in the same scope and size after the feds stop paying.

subsidy. Our state energetically dove into creating the model for Obamacare, initially forecast to increase our states budget by over 7 percent annually. Many employers chose not to expand, or to hire part-time to avoid the tax for providing coverage. The federal subsidy holding down rates has ended; those actually paying premiums will be hit with a 13.2 percent increase for 2017.

This year voters approved extending the highest personal income tax rate in the country; encouraging a black market by heavily taxing cigarettes; legalized marijuana, including cultivation and manufacturing, with little to no benefit to the general fund which supports education, health, social services and public safety.

However, new state regulatory agencies are adding employment tasked with approving, tracking, tracing and taxing pot. Farmers and landlords with fallow or vacant properties, crippled by regulation, should benefit by new outdoor and indoor growing, distribution and manufacturing. New career opportunities found on the web include: bud tenders, trimmers, edible creators, concentrates processors and glass merchants. Private security opportunities should abound in the cash industry.

So while Californias politicians scheme to dodge the wave, the rest of the nation may choose to ride. Anticipating lower federal tax, employers storing capital overseas can choose to relocate or expand in states offering a favorable business climate. Seeking workable regulations, fair taxation, favorable cost of living and a ready and able workforce, California could try to surf, or be towed under.

Diane Harkey is vice chair of the Board of Equalization.
LOS ANGELES  Police investigating a notorious gang in a city on Californias central coast issued a fake press release that the chief credited with saving two men by deceiving gang members who wanted to kill them, but the ruse was criticized by news organizations who reported it as fact.

Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin defended the rare tactic this week when it came to light, saying he had never done such a thing in his 43-year career, but he wouldnt rule out doing it again.

It was a moral and ethical decision, and I stand by it, Martin said Friday. I am keenly aware and sensitive to the community and the media. I also had 21 bodies lying in the city in the last 15 months.

The phony announcement issued in February was discovered in court documents and only reported this week by the Santa Maria Sun, a weekly newspaper in the city 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The daily newspaper and local television stations were unaware the information in the release was false when they reported that two men, Jose Santos Melendez, 22, and Jose Marino Melendez, 23, had been picked up for identity theft and handed over to immigration authorities.

In fact, detectives eavesdropping on the deadly MS-13 gang had raced to the home of the two cousins in nearby Guadalupe and took them into protective custody after learning hit men were on their way there.

Kendra Martinez, news director at KSBY-TV, said she was deeply troubled that police misled the public and news organizations.

While we strongly support the police departments efforts to protect citizens in harms way, we are concerned this type of deception can erode the basic trust of our residents and viewers, Martinez said.

The sting comes to light as news organizations try to set the record straight as truth and fiction blur amid a proliferation of fake news spread by social media.

Jonathan Kotler, a professor at the USC Annenberg journalism school, said there was nothing illegal about what police did, but it could raise questions about the departments future credibility. However, he said the public is unlikely to appreciate the importance of that issue, particularly when the police said it was matter of life and death.

If the press cries foul here, saying they were led astray by a false release, then youve got the press being angry about being misled, Kotler said. But on the other hand, the cops would say, But look we saved lives. In that kind of PR battle, who do you think comes off looking better, the press or the police?

Sending bogus information to the media to advance law enforcement goals is rare but not unheard of. Police in Ottawa, Canada, were criticized for issuing a press release with false information about evidence connected to a 2014 murder case so they could see how the suspects reacted.

Sting operations routinely use ruses to lure deadbeat parents, traffic-fine scofflaws and people wanted for all kinds of outstanding warrants to collect prizes they think theyve won.

But those stings, while reported as news, dont make the press a player in the operation and dont dupe law-abiding citizens.

They used a public system paid for with public dollars to present false information to the public, said Marga Cooley, managing editor of the Santa Maria Times.

Louis Dekmar, vice president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said hes only heard tactics like that used three times in his four decades on the force. He would only try such subterfuge in the rarest cases without other reasonable options and only after weighing the long-term consequences.

Any time you enter into a ruse that involves the media, it creates a real distrust between the police and the folks we rely on, said Dekmar, who is police chief in LaGrange, Ga. Theres a symbiotic relationship between the media and police. You need facts in order to accurately report to the public. We need the media to report facts accurately to get assistance from the public.

Martin said he did not make the decision lightly as the murder rate soared in the city of about 110,000 that typically has three to four homicides a year.

Using wiretaps and surveillance, police learned the Melendez men, members of a rival gang who lost another cousin to violence seven months earlier, were about to be killed, he said.

Police concluded they would expose their long-running Operation Matador if they made arrests, so they took the cousins into protective custody before the MS-13 hit men arrived. Figuring the would-be killers might harm family members if they thought the men were in hiding, police fabricated the press release about their arrests.

After MS-13 gang members returned the next day looking for the two, police overheard a phone conversation with them discussing the news report that the men had been arrested for identity theft.

Martin said it bought investigators another three weeks to gather evidence that led to the arrest of 17 gang members on charges of 10 murders and plots to kill eight others, including the two cousins, who remain under protection.

Martin said hes taken some flak from news media, but he has also received about two dozen supportive calls. I think if they were in my shoes they would have done the same thing, he said.
A man wanted for suspicion in the death of a 50-year old Huntington Beach woman found dead inside her home Friday, was arrested in Oregon over the weekend, authorities said.

Jason Becher, 41, was arrested in Oregon Saturday and a white Lexus he was driving was still missing, the Huntington Beach Police Department said in a Facebook post.

The circumstances of his arrest were not released. Police initially thought Becher was possibly headed to Anaheim or Las Vegas.

Calls to Huntington Beach police officials were not returned.

Police began looking for Becher after discovering Marylou Sarkissian deceased in her home in the 9000 block of Litchfield Drive around 1 p.m. Friday.

Officers were called to the home to conduct a welfare check after receiving a tip from a concerned citizen, officer Jennifer Marlatt said Friday.

Sarkissians cause of death has not been determined.

Police would not disclose her relationship with Becher.
* Post-Brexit Britain nurturing new trade ties

* Mongolia has huge reserves of copper, gold, coal

* Exports high volumes to China

By Barbara Lewis

LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Britain and Mongolia signed their first memorandum of understanding in the mining sector on Tuesday, pledging an exchange of technology and expertise, and deepening ties based on Rio Tinto's huge copper mine in the South Gobi desert.

The agreement, signed on the sidelines of a mining conference in London, recognised "the spirit of cooperation that exists between the respective countries" and a willingness "to promote closer cooperation in the extractive sector".

In an emailed statement, the Department for International Trade said the cooperation would cover technology transfer, education and training.

Tumentsogt Tsevegmid, CEO of Erdenes Mongol, set up to manage the state's mineral reserves, including copper, gold and coal, said the agreement also covered financing.

Mongolia, a vast country of just three million people, went on a borrowing spree at the height of the commodity cycle, and the $12 billion economy is staggering under total foreign debt - public and private - of more than $20 billion.

It has, however, been helped by this year's commodity price rally that has seen gains of more than 200 percent for coking coal and it is hoping to benefit from Anglo-Australian group Rio Tinto's Oyu Tolgoi copper mine.

In June, Rio gave the go-ahead to a $5.3 billion expansion of the mine, which will keep a steady flow of foreign investment during the next five-to-seven years of construction.

Rio says the massive mine will eventually be responsible for around 30 percent of the economy, but direct benefits for Mongolia will be delayed.

According to a 2009 investment agreement, investors must recoup their original investment costs before Mongolia can collect dividends for its 34 percent shareholding in the mine.

Oyu Tolgoi is jointly owned by the Government of Mongolia (34 percent) and Turquoise Hill Resources (66 percent, of which Rio Tinto owns 51 percent). Rio Tinto has been the manager of the Oyu Tolgoi project since 2010.

Story continues

Copper aside, Tumentsogt told Reuters he expected Mongolia would export 20 million tonnes of coking coal this year to China and slightly more next year.

It is also undertaking a feasibility study on construction of a 5.2 gigawatt thermal coal plant that would export power to China.

Since Britain's decision to leave the European Union in June, the British government has emphasised the importance of new trade relations and is also seeking, for instance, to negotiate contracts in Iran.

(Editing by David Evans)
MOSUL, Iraq  The bunk beds that fill the rooms sleep more than 80 Islamic State recruits. On the walls, posters detail the components of Russian Kalashnikovs and American assault rifles.

One sign reminds the trainees that victory comes from long fights and pain  rewards come later: Remember that we didnt come for this life, we came for the afterlife.

Spread across several large houses, the Sheikh Abu Samaya Ansari Camp was discovered this week by Iraqi forces as they pushed deeper into the northern city of Mosul, Iraq, which Islamic State militants have been fighting bitterly to retain.

It is the first military training center that the Iraqi forces have found in the city since they began an offensive to retake it more than six weeks ago.

Since then, Islamic States grip on its most prized urban center in Iraq has slipped. But the terrorist group is still inflicting heavy casualties on advancing Iraqi forces, waylaying them with car bombs and street-to-street fighting.

The documents and learning aids left at the training center highlight the mix of guerrilla and conventional warfare tactics  combined with religious indoctrination  that make the group such a formidable foe. They show a detailed level of military planning and training, drawing manpower and expertise from around the world.

The sign for the training camps armory was written in both Russian and Arabic. A carbon-dioxide canister, probably for use in an air rifle for target training, was also marked in Russian.

Thousands of Russian passport-holders have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join Islamic State militants, making up as much as 8 percent of the groups foreign fighters, according to Europol, the European Unions law enforcement agency. Most come from the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region.

This was an initial step for new recruits, said Brig. Gen. Haider al-Obaidi, a commander with the Iraqi counterterrorism troops that retook the camp and interviewed residents in the area. We think they were mostly Iraqi, with some foreigners. They were mostly training on Russian weapons, so maybe some foreigners were training them.

Neighbors said the fighters did not interact with them.

Wed see them go in and out, but theyd have their faces covered, said Mohammed Muthafer, who lives across the street.

This is my room; I watched them sometimes, he said, pointing at his house. But they covered all the windows.

Buses would ferry recruits in and out, but their windows would also be blacked out so it was not possible to see them, he said. A building next door was previously used to house women, including a Russian and one from Tajikistan, he said, adding that suicide bombers would party with them before their final missions.

Since seizing Mosul 21/2 years ago, Islamic State has embarked on an ambitious program of state-building, complete with bureaucracy and thorough record-keeping. The documents that the militants left behind when they moved out more than a month ago shed light on the groups inner workings.

One printed sheet detailed the equipment that fighters were told to take on operations. In addition to weapons and ammunition, each group should have two TNT mines and 10 molotov cocktails, it said, as well as a shovel, ladder, hammers and nails, and stretchers.

Fighters also were instructed to take two large smoke bombs, or four small ones, night-vision goggles and binoculars. The list continued in minute detail: a knife, torch, lighter, first-aid kit and small notebook and pen.

A set of dumbbells lay in a hallway of the center, and half-used packs of steroids in one room. In another, bundles of long, beige Afghan-style tunics and pants favored by the group were strewn across the floor.

One sign urged the mujahid to keep clean and quiet.

The recruits were apparently tested on their knowledge of weapons.

Name the firing positions for a 7.62mm Kalashnikov, read the first question on one exam that was left behind. Whats the maximum range?

Other documents detailed the health of fighters, noting their pulse rates and blood pressure.

It is unclear how old the recruits were, although Muthafer said the militants targeted young teens in the area. Since beginning to take ground in Iraq nearly three years ago, Islamic State militants have tried to build their legacy by focusing on indoctrinating the next generation.

In the mosques theyd order us to go for jihad, but youd have to really want it and get a recommendation, he said. People my age, they didnt really bother, but 12- or 13-year-olds, theyd talk to them in the mosque and in the street and try to convince them.

Islamic State has separate training camps for its cubs of the caliphate, but there were indications that some of the trainees housed at the center might have been young. Outside one building, an exercise book included lessons on the basic tenets of Islam. On one page, a short entry titled The aeroplane, was written in a childish scrawl.

At morning the sound of the airplanes is very loud, its choking us, it read. The infidels have no mercy. We are very afraid of the pilot.

On the wall of a large room, a list of rules for the city was laid out like a constitution.

All people, you have tried the secular regime, youve lived under many eras, it said. Now this is the era of Islamic State.

It praised the groups victory in the city and the release of thousands of prisoners held in Iraqi jails. Islamic State keeps moving, it said. We will never go back.

But slowly, Iraqi security forces are winning back land here in Islamic States self-proclaimed caliphate. The car bombs, which at one point numbered about 25 a day on this eastern front, have dropped to around five, counterterrorism officers said.

The militants resources appear to be dwindling, and much of the population of Mosul has turned against them.

Id wish youd push them out, said one man as he approached the counterterrorism forces outside the former training camp, pointing toward the streets behind him as gunfire rang out.
Its pretty clear that economic angst was a major reason Donald Trump won the White House.

Trumps calls for brash economic reforms resonated with voters, especially in Rust Belt states, who juggle challenging household finances and a lack of job security. So, is it a surprise that consumers in these states werent starting the holiday shopping season with much gusto  as retailing stats point to pocketbooks in play at the voting booths?

Ponder a curious retailing niche: online shopping, the fast-growing slice of the retailing world. Adobe Digital Insights tallied the first major holiday gift-buying period since the election, the Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday madness. The report showed online spending in the states carried by Trump grew slower than in states carried by his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

I put Adobes figures into my trusty spreadsheet to learn that shoppers from the 30 states that backed Trump spent $6.16 billion online in the so-called Cyber Five period. Online spending in 20 Clinton states (plus D.C.) totaled $6.63 billion over the long-weekend-plus-a-day.

This is yet another example of the disparity in economic clout between the support bases of the candidates. Trump fared surprisingly well in the nations economically challenged heartland, while Clinton did best in more prosperous coastal states.

Next, look at the varied pace of change. Trumpland consumers spent $680 million more this year vs. the same period in 2015, or a 12 percent jump. Pretty bullish, no?

Well, the shopping spree in the states that went for Clinton was up $982 million in a year, or a 17 percent gain.

Can you guess which states had the tiniest year-over-year online spending jumps? Nine of the 10 smallest online sales gains were in Trump states: Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Or look at the checkbook analysis this way: Online spending averaged $40 a person in Clinton states vs. $30 per capita in Trumpland. Thats 33 percent extra spending per resident  a spending surplus larger than the 23 percent gap between household incomes in Clinton states vs. Trumpland.

Ill admit this shopping benchmark isnt perfect as other factors may have tweaked the trends.

Trump states are seen as a bit more traditional and may not be as quick to adapt to shopping via computer, tablet or cellphone. So slower growth could be more due to habits than wealth perception.

Perhaps the spending surge in Clinton states is a non-economic reaction to their candidates loss. Is it retail therapy to ease the emotional pain?

Either way, consumers come to this big shopping season with rising optimism.

The Conference Boards consumer confidence indexes  which track national trends as well as optimism in 10 big states  showed a broad upswing in shopper sentiment for November. Much of the polling for the indexes was done before the Trump victory.

Nationally, the confidence index rebounded to the highest level since July 2007. The index had taken a typical pre-election dip in October off Septembers 20-month high. U.S. consumers told pollsters that present conditions were as good as theyve been in nine years, and their expectations of future economics was the highest in 17 months.

Californians had somewhat similar upbeat feelings. The states confidence index rebounded in October from a nine-month low to the highest level since August. California shoppers graded current conditions as the best since November 2007.

But theres a but  a cloudy future. California consumers put economic expectations at the lowest level since October 2003.

Californians have plenty to worry about with a Trump presidency. His proposed immigration crackdown and tough talk on trade could hurt the states globally focused economy. And talk of changing health insurance tactics puts Californias lauded insurance options at risk.

Its intriguing to see the state confidence indexes through an election-year prism.

As for states that went for Trump, consumer confidence in Ohio and Michigan was scored at their respective indexs highest level since they started in 2007. Florida confidence rose to a 13-month high. The Texas index rose to highest since May 2015.

Only Pennsylvania confidence dipped in November  off a nine-year high in October. Trump narrowly won the state.

Meanwhile, confidence was not brimming in states like California that went for loser Clinton. New York confidence fell to the lowest in a year. And while the Illinois index was up, it only regained two-thirds of what it lost in October.

To be fair, Trump isnt even in the White House yet. But change has a price, especially economically speaking.

Contact the writer: jlansner@scng.com
Yamaha Corp. of America, the Buena Park subsidiary of the giant Japanese musical instrument and audiovisual equipment maker, agreed to remain in California, rather than move to Texas or Tennessee, after the state granted it a $3 million tax break last month.

The global company, which has operated its U.S. marketing and sales divisions from Orange County since 1971, told California officials it would move out of state without the tax credit.

The incentive, shrinking the companys corporate tax burden over five years, rewards Yamaha for investing $46 million in a new California campus and boosting its workforce of 350 by another 66 full-time employees.

The average annual salary of the new workers will be $56,400, according to Yamahas agreement with Gov. Jerry Browns Office of Business and Economic Development, or GO-Biz.

Go-Bizs California Competes Tax Credit program, enacted in 2013, awarded $243 million in tax breaks this year to encourage businesses to expand or remain in California, up from $200 million last year.

The program was conceived to counter the aggressive efforts of Texas, Nevada, and other states to lure businesses away from the Golden State by offering generous subsidies.

Another large Japanese company, Toyota Motor Sales, is building new headquarters in suburban Dallas, moving 3,000 sales and marketing jobs from Torrance, where it was the citys largest employer.

Yamaha was evaluating relocating to Texas or Tennessee, according to letters to Go-Biz in September from Assemblywoman Young Kim (R-Fullerton) and Buena Park Mayor Fred Smith.

The elected officials wrote that the company provides hundreds of high-wage, skilled positions and asked the state agency to work with Yamaha to grant approval of their application.

According to the agreement between Yamaha and Go-Biz, the Japanese conglomerate certified in its application that absent award of the (tax credit), its project will occur in another state; and, it will terminate all or a portion of its employees in California or relocate all or a portion of its employees in California to another state.

Asked about Yamahas threat to move, Tom Sumner, senior vice president of marketing, acknowledged the company studied out-of-state options.

However, he added, We dont want to, or in some cases arent allowed to, discuss the locations or incentives offered by those locations.

The $3 million tax credit makes it more inviting to stay in California which is the place we want to be, Sumner said. Our employees love it here.

Sumner said the company would not release the amount of its overall corporate tax bill. Yamahas U.S. revenues in 2015 were $607.6 million, according to Music Trades magazine.

Under the Go-Biz agreement, Yamaha agreed to locate its new campus either in Buena Park, possibly rebuilding on the same site, or in Irvine.

The building were in is almost 50 years old, Sumner said. We want to stay in Orange County, but we dont know where yet.

Yamahas was the largest grant of the $7.7 million in tax breaks given to nine companies for Orange County investments in the November round.

Statewide, 74 businesses were granted $61 million in credits for pledging to invest $670 million and add 6,568 new California jobs between 2015 and 2020.

Among the Orange County beneficiaries, Willdan Group, an Anaheim engineering firm which helps companies and cities become more energy efficient, pledged the second largest investment: $2.7 million.

The money will buy computer equipment, software licenses, furniture and fixtures, office space, and tenant improvements.

Willdan, which now has 270 employees, agreed to hire another 100 full-time workers in Anaheim, City of Industry, Fresno and Oakland, at an average salary of $70,000 a year.

Willdan President Michael Bieber said the companys $845,000 tax credit, spread over five years, allows us to continue accelerating our investment in our business.

Unlike the Yamaha agreement, Willdans contract with Go-Biz makes no mention of any out-of-state move.

Asked if the firm would have remained in California without a tax incentive, Bieber replied, No comment.

Any business can apply to California Competes, but awards are geared toward industries with high economic multipliers that provide their employees good wages and benefits, according to Go-Biz.

Other factors: the extent of unemployment or poverty in the area where the business is located, and the incentives available to the business in other states.

The other grantees pledging to create jobs and invest in Orange County over five years include:

 Sequoia Solution LLC, a San Diego County consulting firm to the biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors.

Go Biz awarded the company a $2.5 million tax credit to invest in computer equipment and expand its current workforce of 42 by 182 full-time employees in Solana Beach, San Francisco, and Orange County.

The new workers would earn an average annual salary of $100,000.

 Pscore Inc., an Aliso Viejo software developer, gained a $250,000 tax credit, without which, it told Go-Biz, its project may occur in another state.

With only one employee this year, the company agreed to hire another 34 by 2020 at an average annual salary of $45,000. It will invest $36,000 in computer equipment and furniture.

 Partners in Control Inc., an Irvine renewable energy services firm, earned a $160,000 tax credit. It agreed to invest $327,351 in computer equipment, software licenses, and tenant improvements.

The 18-employee company agreed to add 22 new hires at average annual salaries over $73,000.

 American Psychiatric Centers, which operates psychiatric clinics, earned a $700,000 tax credit. It pledged to expand in Irvine, Culver City, Sacramento and San Rafael. It will invest $166,000 and grow its workforce to 50 full time employees from 32, at an average annual salary of $150,000.

 Brian Levy, an Irvine financial planner, gained a $125,000 tax credit. He agreed to invest $125,000 and boost his workforce to 8 from 3, at an average annual salary of $36,000.

 PHA Professional Services Inc., a plumbing and HVAC firm in San Clemente, earned a tax credit of $100,000. The firm will invest $475,000 in vehicles and a facility. It will boost its workforce to 14 from 5 at average salaries from $45,000 to $53,000.

 Amy Braun, an Anaheim architect, gained a tax credit of $20,000. She will invest $75,000 in computer equipment and tenant improvements. Her office will grow to six employees from one, with an average annual salary of $40,000.

In the California Competes program, 25 percent of the tax credits available each year are reserved for small businesses.

If a company fails to meet the terms of the agreements, and fails to retain its new hires for at least three years, the tax credits are to be revoked.

Contact the writer: mroosevelt@ocregister.com; Twitter @MargotRoosevelt
A Rancho Santa Margarita Episcopalian priest and the former director of the Nixon Library Foundation was named bishop of the six-county Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, church officials announced Saturday.

Receiving 122 clergy and 194 lay votes at the Ontario Convention Center, Saturday, the Rev. John H. Taylor, 62, was elected bishop of the area that represents about 136 neighborhood congregations and 40 schools across six counties, including Orange.

Taylor serves as vicar for St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church and school in Rancho Santa Margarita.

I look forward with joy to serving alongside my fellow ministers  laypeople, deacons, priests and bishops  as we continue to proclaim the gospel in word and deed, he said.

Ordained as a priest in 2004, Taylor also served in the Church of St. Andrew the Apostle in Fullerton and has written two novels. Taylor is married to Kathleen Hannigan OConnor and has four adult children.

The Rev. Philip DeVaul, who formerly served at St. John the Divine Episcopal Church in Costa Mesa, was mentored by Taylor while attending seminary school.

John is a guy whos a uniter, said DeVaul, who is now rector at The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Cincinati. He sees the good in people from across the spectrum of belief and ideology.

The election process comprised eight ballots and six nominees, with Taylor and the Rev. Paul Fromberg of St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco as the frontrunners.

Taylors vision for the church is to create an empathic and supportive place that shows hospitality to all people, he said. He hopes to continue his outreach with young people, the LGBTQ community and to connect with them through their drive to leave the world a better place, he said.

We strive ready to serve and produce lives of meaning to help young people serve in the church, he said.

The Episcopal Churchs Los Angeles chapter has around 70,000 members and is one of the largest out of its 109 dioceses.

Taylor is expected to be ordained as bishop at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in July. He will replace Bishop J. Jon Bruno.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2478 or lcasiano@scng.com
The Orange County District Attorneys Office, harshly criticized in a recent appellate court ruling for a systemic failure to protect defendants rights and under investigation by the state attorney general and the county grand jury, is facing a new legal challenge that could remove it from a second high-profile murder case in less than two years.

Over the past 3 years, the controversy swirling around the office has centered on allegations that prosecutors and sheriffs deputies illegally used jailhouse informants and withheld evidence. Now, the same judge who removed the District Attorneys Office from a mass murder case is being asked to bar county prosecutors from the retrial of a man accused of causing an accident that killed a Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy on the 91 in Anaheim.

Once again, the allegations involve withholding evidence, in this case information that a police report was altered in a way that bolstered the murder charge against convicted burglar Cole Wilkins.

The case started with a stolen stove and what was judged an accident by responding officers. It evolved to include an investigation into changed reports, allegedly hidden evidence and a debate about the lengths law enforcement will go to secure a conviction.

A hearing is underway before Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals on whether the District Attorneys Office should be booted from the Wilkins case. During the first week of testimony, a retired CHP sergeant testified that his officers initially concluded that the deceased deputy was at fault for the accident that killed him. Former Sgt. Joe Morrison said he changed the original police report to conclude the deputy was not at fault, boosting a murder charge against Wilkins.

Morrison said he did so on his own, without being asked by prosecutors.

But the hearing hinges on whether prosecutors Larry Yellin and Michael Murray, both of whom were elected in June as Orange County Superior Court judges, knew of the changes and withheld them from the defense team during the 2008 trial.

The information might have helped Wilkins, then 29, avoid a felony murder conviction and, with it, a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Wilkins was awarded a new trial in 2013 because of other issues, and Deputy Public Defender Sara Ross is now trying to get the District Attorneys Office pushed from the case.

If she wins, the trial could be assigned to state prosecutors. If not, then Wilkins could face the same local prosecutors who sent him to prison.

Prosecutors deny any wrongdoing, according to court documents. The District Attorneys Office did not respond to recent requests for comment, but the chief of staff previously spoke about prosecutors intentions.

A Los Angeles sheriffs deputy was murdered on his way to his work, and the OCDA will continue to work to bring justice for his wife and children, Susan Kang Schroeder said.

MURDER BY STOVE

In the predawn of July 7, 2006, Wilkins stole a stove, a refrigerator, a dishwasher and other appliances from a home construction site in Menifee, in Riverside County, according to court records.

Before 5 a.m., the $1,500 stove, unsecured and still in a box, fell from Wilkins truck and into the traffic lanes of the 91 in Anaheim. According to court records, Wilkins didnt realize the stove was gone until an angry motorist pulled him over a few miles away.

Several vehicles drove around the stove without incident, but at least two did not. In one of those accidents, Los Angeles County sheriffs Deputy David Piquette swerved his department-issued Crown Victoria into a tractor-trailer carrying cement. A trailer overturned on the vehicle, crushing and killing Piquette.

Piquette was a popular police trainer who worked out of the sheriffs academy in Whittier. He came from a police family, with his father-in-law also in law enforcement and, later, his brother. Piquette was a father and an active member of his community. His death drew media attention; his funeral was attended by a sea of uniformed officers as well as then-Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

The stove eventually was tracked to Wilkins, who had a juvenile record of burglary, rape and kidnapping. He was charged with felony murder.

At that point, Wilkins case could have gone a couple of ways. He could have been charged with some form of manslaughter.

If he was convicted of felony murder  meaning he was committing a felony at the time of the incident  then Wilkins could have faced a much longer sentence.

His fate seemed to hinge, at least partially, on whether the CHP determined that the stove or Piquette was the primary cause of the accident.

After investigating the accident at the scene, CHP officer Michael Bernardin concluded that Piquette was at fault for the collision. Court records indicate he believed Piquette was driving too fast to safely avoid the stove. Bernardin testified last week that his opinion was based on the fact the stove was stationary. In another accident connected to the stolen stove, CHP Officer John Heckenkemper arrived at the same conclusion  driver error  according to court reports.

But Wilkins lawyers at the time never saw those reports.

A NEW CASE

The Orange County D.A.s office has been accused of cheating to get convictions for much of the past three years. An evaluation by a panel of attorneys hand-picked by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas found in December 2015 that some members of his office have a win at all costs mentality and the agency was run like a ship without a rudder.

The Wilkins case comes as the pressure is mounting on the District Attorneys Office and the Orange County Sheriffs Department.

On one front, a half-dozen murder or attempted murder cases recently have been overturned or renegotiated because judges agreed with defense lawyers who said prosecutors misused jailhouse informants, withheld evidence, or both. The Wilkins case could add to that total.

On another front, the basic allegations from lawyer Ross touch familiar ground.

Last year, the same jurist hearing the Wilkins case, Goethals, ruled that local prosecutors could not be trusted to provide a fair hearing in the penalty phase for admitted mass murderer Scott Dekraai. That ruling removed the D.A.s Office from the case and made it the responsibility of the state attorney general, who appealed Goethals decision.

On Nov. 22, a California appellate court turned away that appeal, calling its key argument nonsense.

The justices 53-page, 3-0 opinion described a steady stream of evidence regarding improper conduct by the prosecution team. The judges said the patterns of misbehavior  illegally using jailhouse informants and purposely withholding evidence from defense teams  were systemic.

Its unclear if the state will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

DOCTORED REPORTS

In the Wilkins investigation, CHP administrator Morrison changed one report and had the other modified to reflect that the crashes were not caused by the drivers.

The changed reports  with a box checked off to indicate something other than driver error caused the accidents  were the ones given to Orange County prosecutors at the time of Wilkins trial.

Morrison testified Wednesday he made the changes because he was familiar with the area and the grade of the roadway and felt the stove would have been hard to see in the morning darkness.

It was the right thing to do, testified Morrison, later adding, A lot of officers will find people at fault when they should have looked further into it.

Morrison testified that prosecutors did not ask or tell him to change the reports.

He also testified that he destroyed the original report prepared by Heckenkemper, the CHP officer, because it was being replaced by his report.

Ex-officer Bernardin testified that he was told to change his report on Piquette. Though he didnt agree with the new finding, he didnt mind changing it, he testified.

I didnt care, I didnt argue with them, Bernardin said.

The former officer was a colorful witness, posting on his Facebook page that the hearing was a joke. As if to prove it, Bernardin posted a selfie taken while he was seated on the witness stand during a break.

Bernardins levity belied the importance of the hearing.

Heckenkemper is expected to testify this week.

Retired CHP Chief Steven Beeuwsaert, in a sworn declaration, said that he notified prosecutor Murray of the changed reports. Beeuwsaert said he also notified CHP internal affairs of the doctored reports.

It is normal to make minor changes to the officers reports, such as typos, grammatical errors and formatting fixes, Beeuwsaert said in his declaration. However, any changes to the cause of the collision, measurements, location, diagram, statements, etc., would be returned to the investigating officer for possible correction.

Heckenkemper, in a defense interview, said he went on vacation after filing his report and received a phone call from Morrison stating his report was being changed. He said he was told this was being done to help the murder prosecution against the suspect who stole the stove.

No information about the changed reports was relayed to the defense for Wilkins trial.

Prosecutors have said they didnt know about the changed reports and, even if they did, the information was immaterial and didnt absolve Wilkins of killing the deputy.

Immaterial or not, did the defense have the right to receive the original reports? And can the Orange County district attorney be trusted to ensure a fair trial for Wilkins?

That is the question for Goethals. The answer could intensify questions about the conduct of Rackauckas office.

Contact the writer: tsaavedra@scng.com
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hailed the strength of the Turkish lira (AFP Photo/Adem Altan)

Ankara (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was moving towards allowing trade with Russia, China and Iran to be conducted in local currencies, as he continues his efforts to strengthen the falling lira.

"If we buy something from them, we will use their money, if they buy something from us, they will use our currency," he said, ahead of a trip by Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim to Russia for meetings on Tuesday.

Erdogan -- who previously said discussions were underway with Moscow, Beijing and Tehran on the issue -- added that instructions related to this proposal had been given to the central bank.

Erdogan repeated a call for Turks to convert the euros, dollars and other foreign currency "under their pillows" into Turkish lira during a speech in the central city of Kayseri.

"Our Turkish lira is blessed," he told a cheering, flag-waving crowd after opening a museum in the city named after his predecessor and long-time friend Abdullah Gul.

Ankara hopes such demands will help the lira win back the losses it has suffered over the past few months since a failed coup in July when a rogue military faction tried to oust Erdogan from power.

In November alone, the lira haemorrhaged more than 10 percent while it continues to reach record lows against a stronger US dollar.

The lira on Friday reached a record low of 3.58 to the dollar before making up some of the loss.

- 'Patriots use lira' -

In another televised speech on Sunday, Erdogan urged owners of shopping malls to "change paying their rent in foreign currencies to TL (Turkish lira)" to prove they are "patriotic".

He gave an example of one mall owner who told Erdogan "immediately, I will change to lira" after a brief telephone call.

The government also planned for tenders to be offered in the Turkish currency, the president said.

Erdogan later repeated his call for lower interest rates and said the government's economic coordination committee which met on Friday for five hours agreed they should be cut.

Story continues

He accused unnamed individuals of attempting to launch a putsch against the country through interest rates, the stock exchange and foreign currency movements.

Ankara slashed its growth forecast to 3.2 percent from 4.5 percent for this year as the political turbulence and terror attacks in the past year take their toll.

After several months of consecutive rate cuts this year, the central bank announced in November a surprise hike to its main interest rate for the first time in nearly three years, in a bid to support the embattled lira.

Hours after the president's first mention of changing currencies to lira, the Istanbul Exchange said it would convert its cash assets "in support" of his call.

Meanwhile, Metro Holding's chairman Galip Ozturk said on Twitter that he would give a free ticket to use on Metro Tourism buses to anyone who changed $500 (470 euros) to lira and sends an image of the official receipt to a phone number he provided.
Jane Austen is turning 241, and the Omaha Public Library is celebrating.

The library will host its 13th annual tea party next weekend in honor of Austens birthday. The Jane Austen tea will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at Main Library, 215 S. 15th St.

Participants are encouraged to bring their favorite teacups to the free event. The Bookworm will have books and holiday gifts available for purchase.

The tea will include light English fare, tea (of course) and a talk by Barbara Trout, author of Reflections of the Regency Period: Dressing with Accessories. Trout will discuss womens styles, fabrics and colors popular during the Regency Period (1811 to 1820).

Register at omahalibrary.org or by calling 402-444-3399. This program is sponsored by the Friends of Omaha Public Library and the Nebraska Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

Tom Becka, Jeff Koterba discuss life and work

Radio/TV personality Tom Becka and cartoonist Jeff Koterba will discuss their crafts at 7 p.m. Thursday at Kaneko. Admission is free. Guests can register at thekaneko.org.

Becka can been seen nightly on Omahas Fox 42 News at 9, where he gives his views on whats happening in the city and the rest of the world. Becka formerly hosted talk shows on KFAB and KOIL in Omaha.

Koterba is the award-winning cartoonist for The World-Herald and the author of the memoir Inklings.

UNO plays, poetry in response to Pulse nightclub shooting

University of Nebraska at Omahas MFA in Writing program will present a staged reading of After Orlando, an evening of short plays and poetry in response to the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

The readings will be 6 p.m. Dec. 11 in the Milo Bail Student Center at UNO, 6203 University Drive South.

After Orlando is an international theater campaign that includes more than 70 playwrights in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Africa and Australia. Plays have been written and curated in response to the 2016 event.

On the calendar

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

Event: Santa Paws event for Hearts United for Animals. Santa and Mrs. Claus will be on hand to pose with pets. Photos can be printed and turned into holiday cards for $20. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, The Bookworm, 90th Street and West Center Road.

Writers group: Genealogy Writers Group, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. today, Meeting Room 1, Main Library, 215 S. 15th St. No registration required.

Book group: Alternative Book Club, 2 p.m. today, Panera Bread, 17730 West Center Road.

Author appearance: David H. Reinarz, author of Story City: Ten Short Stories and One Long Story in the Middle, 4 to 6 p.m. today, Wohlners Neighborhood Grocery & Deli, 3253 Dodge St.

Book group: The Lit Wits group, formerly the What Makes a Classic? group, will discuss One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 6:30 p.m. Monday, The Bookworm.

Book group: The Killing Time Book Group will discuss The Good, the Bad and the Emus by Donna Andrews, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, The Bookworm.

Workshop: Legend Writers Group, 9 a.m. Wednesday, Legend Comics & Coffee, 5207 Leavenworth St.

Book group: What Are You Reading? book chat, noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, The Bookworm.

Workshop: Nebraska Writers Workshop. Teen mentoring at 5:30 p.m., adults from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Baright Public Library, 5555 S. 77th St., Ralston.

Book sale: Friends of the Omaha Public Library, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Swanson Library, 90th Street and West Dodge Road.

Book group: Amiable Adult Readers Discussing Books Almost Always Read by Kids (Aardbaark) will choose selections for next year, 6 p.m. Thursday, The Bookworm.

Writers group: Nebraska Novelists critique group, 7 p.m. Friday, Do Space, 72nd and Dodge Streets.

Book group: Omaha Sherlockian Society will discuss The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 10 a.m. Saturday, Swanson Library.

Author appearance: Joe Starita will sign A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become Americas First Indian Doctor, 1 p.m. Saturday, The Bookworm.

Information for this column and other book page items should be sent to micah.mertes@owh.com.
This summer, Bryan and Darling Handlos came home to their modest Bellevue home to find raw sewage backed up in their basement, right outside their bedroom. They cleaned up the mess themselves, pulled up the carpet and bleached what they could.

The culprit was 12 feet under their front yard: a disintegrating pipe made from orangeburg, or layers of wood pulp and pitch pressed together.

A few plumbing companies came out to look, estimating the cost of replacing the sewer line at more than $8,000.

Both Bryan, 38, and Darling, 35, work full time and are sticklers for keeping to a tight budget for their family of five. But since the couple bought the small home near Olde Towne Bellevue about four years ago it has been an ongoing saga of one expensive issue after another, from asbestos to moldy siding to out-of-code front steps. Even with help from a Community Development Block Grant, the repairs had wiped out the Handlos savings.

By August, Bryan said he felt they were on track. But then came the $8,000 bill.

That was the final straw, Bryan said. We really thought that we could lose our house.

So the family started to pray.

The answers came one after the other  a man at church handed Bryan $1,000 without even knowing the family situation; a friend of a friend pitched in $200. After Bryan  who works in the mailroom at Childrens Hospital & Medical Center  went to the hospitals chaplain, he got some help from an employee assistance program.

But that still left more than $4,000 of the bill. Meanwhile, the sewage kept coming in: four major backups and maybe 15 smaller ones. Black mold continued to crawl up the walls, which Bryan had to knock down. The filter in the heating unit was covered in black mold, too. The kids, ages 16, 13 and 9, were coughing, and Darling went to an urgent care clinic with severe migraines from the mold.

Bryan and Darling couldnt sleep in their basement bedroom, so they were spending nights on a mattress on the floor in their boys room.

To try to bring in a little more money, Darling called Bellevue Central Elementary School, asking if they needed a translator. Born and raised in Nicaragua, she hoped her Spanish could help toward the bill.

Over the phone with the school she mentioned the sewage problems. The school put her in touch with Eastern Nebraska Community Action Partnership, or ENCAP, one of the social service agencies that partner with Goodfellows, The World-Heralds charity.

With one-time emergency funds from Goodfellows, ENCAP paid $1,000 directly to the plumbing company. The Handlos still paid a large chunk of the bill, but said the rest was all Gods provision.

It was all God, Darling said. God and Goodfellows.

With tears in his eyes, Bryan said hes thankful to live in such a giving and supportive community.

I cant imagine we are the only family that needs this kind of help, he said, adding that their combined income disqualified them from receiving other financial assistance. Goodfellows filled that gap for us and lifted this huge weight.

The house has cost them more than the Handlos want to think about. But still, its their home. A gingerbread house sits on the coffee table, and decorations from Nicaragua are tucked on shelves between family photos and childrens artwork.

Someday, when the budget allows, Bryan and Darling would like to give back to Goodfellows.

We were shown such compassion by the people that helped us, Darling said. Goodfellows is really a blessing.

Note: An earlier version of this article listed the time frame for when sewage first backed up into the family's basement. The article has been corrected.
Choi Soon-Sil (L), a secretive, long-time confidante of Park Geun-Hye, stands accused of meddling in state affairs, squeezing tens of millions of dollars from local companies and amassing a fortune by leveraging her ties to the president (AFP Photo/) (KOREA POOL/AFP/File)

When South Korea's Park Geun-Hye looks back on the scandal-fuelled implosion of her presidency, she may reflect ruefully on what lit the first fuse -- a parent pulling strings over a child's education.

Park's downfall was the result of her friendship with Choi Soon-Sil -- a secretive, long-time confidante who stands accused of meddling in state affairs, squeezing tens of millions of dollars from local companies and amassing a fortune by leveraging her ties to the president.

It's a damning list of charges, but one that may never have come to light but for a fatal misstep by Choi two years ago in using her influence to secure her daughter's admission to an elite university.

This was the first loose thread pulled at by investigators probing Choi, and one that swiftly unravelled the entire scandal that now looks set to cost Park her presidency.

According to a formal audit, Choi's daughter, Chung Yoo-Ra, was given preferential treatment when applying to Ewha Womans' University in 2014 and was admitted at the expense of other candidates with better qualifications.

As a student, she was given a perfect attendance record despite cutting some classes, and her high grades did not reflect her actual academic performance.

In the light of the far more dramatic revelations that followed, Choi's string-pulling on her daughter's behalf might seem like a relatively minor infraction.

- Sacred education -

But while South Koreans have become resigned to a certain degree of corruption and influence-peddling, there are a few sacred cows that even the most powerful mess with at their peril -- and education tops the list.

A rigorously meritocratic education system lies at the heart of South Korea's stellar rise from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War to Asia's fourth-largest economy.

The system is highly competitive and can take a distressing toll on young students who devote their teenage years to studying for the national college entrance exam.

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Admission to one of a handful of elite universities -- such as Ewha -- is seen as vital to a student's future prosperity, social standing and even marriage prospects.

But however cut-throat it might be, there is steadfast public faith and trust in the exam's fairness, with every applicant sitting the same paper on the same day, and a formalised marking system.

That faith is summed up in a term popular for decades, "a dragon from a ditch" -- a person of modest means who rose to success through education and hard work.

- Model 'dragons' -

Model "dragons" include former president Lee Myung-Bak, who worked as a garbageman to earn college tuition, and his predecessor Roh Moo-Hyun -- a poor farmer's son who self-studied to pass a bar exam.

"The long-held belief that even those who are poor and from a humble background can rise up the social ladder through education has been a major strength of our society," the daily Dong-A Ilbo said in a recent editorial.

"But Chung and Choi shattered this faith and hope spectacularly," it said.

Park's presidency has coincided with growing disquiet over a widening disparity in incomes and opportunities -- an inequality now embodied in the public mind by Choi and her daughter.

In a now-infamous Facebook posting in 2014, Chung flaunted her privilege, saying: "Money is part of your talent. If you don't have talent, blame your parents."

The depth of anger over Chung's admission to Ewha has been illustrated by the large number of high-school students who have taken part in weekly mass demonstrations that have seen millions march through the streets of Seoul and other cities.

"I was so angry about Chung and couldn't even sleep when I first heard about her scandal," said Jenny Park, a 16-year-old high school student.

"What's the point of studying night and day when the rich and powerful can rig the whole system so easily?" she said, waving a banner reading "We didn't study hard for this."

Prosecutors have accused Park Geun-Hye of colluding with Choi, and the president's approval rating among students -- and pretty much the entire under-40 demographic -- is currently close to zero.

- Challenged youth -

In many ways, young South Koreans face bigger challenges than their parents' generation who enjoyed ample and relatively equal opportunities during the rapid growth that peaked in the 1970s and 80s.

As the economy slowed and firms hit by a global downturn stopped hiring, the jobless rate has increased, reaching a record high in February of 12.5 percent for those under 30.

The top 10 percent of earners account for nearly a half of overall income -- the highest ratio in Asia -- according to a study by the International Monetary Fund published this year.

Instead of "dragons from a ditch" people now talk of "dirt spoons" for those stuck in low-paid jobs with bleak prospects and "gold spoons" for those born to rich and well-connected families.

"Given how this scandal unfolded, how can I can tell my 15-year-old daughter: 'study hard, then you can be successful?'" office worker Kim Hwa-Young, 45, said at a recent anti-Park rally.

"I can't let my daughter live in a country like this... and tens of thousands of parents gathered here must feel the same," Kim said.
SCOTTSBLUFF  Rafa Diaz has faced more challenges in his 23 months, than many people do their entire lives.

Rafa has been fighting stage 4 neuroblastoma since he was diagnosed six months ago and is doing so with courage, said his mom, Nicole Hanjani-Diaz.

Neuroblastoma is a type of cancer that affects immature or developing nerve cells.

We were in total shock, Hanjani-Diaz said. We had no idea. He had a CT scan done at Regional West in Scottsbluff and they found a tumor in his nose. They had us go to Denver that same day.

Once in Denver, they got the news that Rafa had neuroblastoma. What followed was a whirlwind of tests and procedures. The results revealed that little Rafa also had a large tumor in his abdomen, and the cancer was in his bone marrow.

As a parent, you think, Thats never going to happen to my kid, its so rare, thats never going to happen, Hanjani-Diaz said. But it can and it does.

Hes had a really rough start. But hes so strong and resilient he just takes everything in stride and keeps going. Hes amazing, and hes handling it better than any adult would.

Rafas journey has been a long and arduous one. Hes undergone six rounds of chemotherapy and major surgery and returned home on Thanksgiving after receiving a bone marrow transplant.

Hes had more procedures than I can keep track of, his mom said, and hes just 23 months old now.

The chemotherapy and the bone marrow transplant have played havoc with Rafas immune system. Days after he returned home on Thanksgiving, he started running a fever and had diarrhea. The family returned to the hospital.

Rafa had an infection in his belly and was fighting off two viruses.

This is so common unfortunately, Hanjani-Diaz said. Your kid will have a major procedure, and then youre out of the hospital for a little while, and then in a couple of days you are back with a fever. Its just non-stop. This hospital has become our second home, because we have spent so many days here.

Now, after his bone marrow transplant, his immune system is gone, so whenever he goes out, Rafa has to wear a thick mask.

Next week, he will start radiation treatments, which will target three areas where residual cancer remains: his belly, his skull and his nose.

Even with all that Rafa has been through, he finds a way to smile and laugh and be a toddler, his mom said.

He just gets through it as best he can, and then as soon as hes feeling better again, hes running around playing, and you never would have guessed that hed just gone through something horrible, his mom said.
U.S. airlines were ecstatic earlier this year when it was announced that commercial flights would resume to Cuba after more than 50 years, with one executive at a major carrier calling it almost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Yet as U.S. airlines began flights last week to Havana, the long-awaited travel surge to Cuba was already in doubt.

Citing weak demand, American Airlines trimmed plans for almost a quarter of its flights to Cuba early next year. And in a potentially crippling blow, President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to rescind new relaxed policies with the island nation, leaving the future of travel there in limbo. Already, Trumps comments have prompted some travelers to accelerate plans to visit Cuba before his inauguration or to delay them until he makes his policies clear.

People are afraid Trump is going to close the border again, and then it will be impossible to go there, said Alexandre Chemla, founder of Altour, the largest independently owned U.S. travel agency. Its a wait-and-see situation because of Trump and everything he said.

American Airlines decision isnt related to Trumps potential pullback from Cuba, said Matt Miller, an American spokesman, noting the carrier implemented its cut the weekend before the presidential election.

The uncertainty represents a stark turnaround from March when U.S. airlines sought permission to fly almost 60 daily round trips to Havana, triple the 20 daily frequencies authorized under the agreement between the U.S. and Cuba. They also applied for 10 daily round trips to each of nine other destinations on the island.

That followed President Barack Obamas executive orders last year clearing the way for travel agents and the public to book direct flights to the communist nation as long as travelers qualify under 12 accepted reasons for a visit, such as educational activities or visiting family. A U.S. trade embargo continues to impose conditions on travel and commerce.

Eight airlines, including American, began initiating service to Havana last week, United leading the way with the first flight on Tuesday from Newark, New Jersey, to Havana. A total of 500 flights to the city are expected to have been completed by year-end, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Flights to smaller Cuban cities began earlier this year.

Any cutback to Cuba flights isnt likely to hurt the airlines business in a material way.

When U.S. carriers sought permission earlier this year to offer flights to Cuba, Southwest Airlines Co.s chief commercial officer, Bob Jordan, said, The pent-up desire to be able to travel to Cuba is tremendous after decades without commercial service.

I wouldnt call this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but its pretty close, he said at the time.

In Americans application for flights, Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker boasted that his airline had flown more U.S.-Cuban charter flights than any other carrier over the last 25 years. That means that American is ready on day one to offer the benefit of a full schedule of reliable frequencies to Cuba, Parker said.

Now, his airline is the first to backtrack. It will cut daily round-trip flights between the U.S. and Cuba to 10, from 13, starting in mid-February because of lower-than-expected demand, Miller said. The company also will fly smaller jets on two routes, he said.

Other carriers, including Delta Air Lines and Spirit Airlines, said bookings so far are in line with expectations. Southwest declined to comment.

Airlines have kept fares low to fill seats, said Paul Berry, spokesman for Spirit, known as an ultra-discount carrier. When fares are as low as ours, that means theres a lot of capacity, Berry said.

Olga Ramudo, owner of Express Travel in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables, said she expects other airlines to follow Americans lead and reduce service. Theres too much seat capacity, she said, particularly since Cuba lacks the kind of hotel and transportation infrastructure that U.S. travelers generally expect.

On Monday, days after the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro, Trump reiterated on Twitter a campaign pledge that he will terminate Obamas new trade policies with the island nation unless it agrees to a better deal.

Erika Richter, spokeswoman for the American Society of Travel Agents, said tighter restrictions could hurt a range of business interests in addition to airlines.

We are trying to keep things as they are, where Americans have a right to travel anywhere on the globe, she said.
The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services mistakenly released two inmates on parole within the past few months, the department said Saturday.

The inmates both were returned to state custody during the week, officials said.

The errors prompted a review of all paroled and discharged inmates, said Scott Frakes, the departments director.

I have ordered staff to conduct a review of all similarly situated cases to ensure that sentences for those who are currently in custody are accurate, he said.

The two inmates who were released are Marcus Epp and Robert Munsen. Epp was sentenced on April 21 for felony third-degree domestic assault, plus third-degree assault and theft by shoplifting, both misdemeanors. Because the misdemeanor charges were entered with a minimum term, the department said in a press release, Epp was deemed eligible for parole at the end of October and released on Nov. 18.

Epp shouldnt have been released until April 2017, a department spokeswoman said.

Munsen was sentenced on May 11 for possession of a controlled substance, a felony, and attempted possession of meth, a misdemeanor. Like Epp, his misdemeanor charge was incorrectly entered with a minimum term. He was paroled on Oct. 28. Munsen shouldnt have been released until January 2017, the department spokeswoman said.

The department said the Nebraska Board of Parole is not responsible for the calculation or interpretation of sentences.

Officials didnt find evidence that Epp or Munsen had committed new crimes while out on parole, the department said.
Ralston Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief Kevin Eischeid and Rescue Chief Kim Eischeid like to keep the city safe together. The Eischeids are the first married couple to hold chief positions at the department at the same time.

The Eischeids grew up around fire stations, with Kevins dad, Joe, being the fire chief at Ralston for three years. Kims father was a member of the Bellevue Fire Department for 30 years.

The Ralston department is where Kevin and Kim first met. Both have been members for nearly nine years. They married in August 2013.

The couple have three children. Caleb, 16, and Caitlin, 14, are from a previous relationship of Kims. Together, they have son, Jackson, 2.

Kim and Kevin have held a variety of positions at the department. Kim has been president, rescue captain and rescue chief. Kevin has been vice president, fire captain, training captain and assistant fire chief.

Kevin decided to put his hat in the ring this year to become fire chief after Carrie Wagner stepped down. In November, Kevin and Kim were named to their current positions.

As the rescue chief, Kim is in charge of all emergency medical service calls, meaning the Eischeids oversee the two major components of the department.

Fire is him and rescue calls are mine, Kim said.

The couple both have full time jobs. Kim is an overnight respiratory therapist at Nebraska Medicine and Kevin works for Fire Guard, a company that checks to make sure various businesss fire systems are up to code. They dont work a lot of shifts together at the department, but when they do, they enjoy the time together.

We try to spend some time down here, Kim said. Last week, we got takeout and caught up on our shows.
A Texas man died Saturday after the sports car he was driving crashed into the back of a parked police cruiser in Council Bluffs, police said.

The wreck occurred about 3:30 p.m. on southbound Interstate 29 near 25th Street, police said. The driver, Bertram Ellis, 72, of Houston, was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where he was pronounced dead. He drove a 2005 Honda S2000 into the rear of the cruiser in which Officer Josh Horner was sitting, police said.

Horner was injured and taken to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, where he was listed in serious condition Saturday night. He was later released from the hospital, a spokeswoman said Sunday.

Horner, 39, is a seven-year veteran of the Council Bluffs department.
Capt. Kyle Kellett proves you can fly a big ugly bus and still do heroic things in the Air Force.

The 2005 graduate of Papillion-La Vista South High School was one of two Air Force C-17 airlift pilots to swoop undetected into war-torn Yemen  at night, in bad weather  to evacuate American troops and cargo from a U.S. special operations forces airfield.

For the March 2015 mission, the crews of Reach 870 and Reach 871, commanded by Kellett and Capt. Buddy McNeal, received the Lt. Gen. William H. Tunner Award as the most outstanding airlift crew in the U.S. Air Force that year.

Through an Air Force spokesman, Kellett declined an interview about the flight. But the 62nd Airlift Wing at McChord Air Force Base, Washington  to which he was assigned at the time  released an unclassified description of the mission to The World-Herald.

With an ethnic civil war raging in Yemen, Defense Secretary Ash Carter had ordered all U.S. personnel out of the country. On short notice and with no time to plan an instrument flight route, the crew members had to fly over international waters at low altitude to avoid detection, using night-vision goggles.

Kellett performed a short-distance assault landing on an austere field lit only with infrared lights. Then he had to roll quickly to the end of the runway and make a tight 180-degree turn, in worsening weather.

The approach was extremely hazardous and was only successful because of the quick thinking and modification by Captain Kellett, according to the report on the mission.

Kelletts aircraft was quickly loaded with troops and cargo and took off, and Reach 871 followed soon after. The two C-17s evacuated 70 people and 158,000 pounds of gear. Hours later, militants overran the abandoned airstrip.

It was only due to the skill, courage, and tenacity of Reach 870 and 871 that this mission was successful, the report said.

Kellett and McNeal accepted the award, presented by the Air Force Association, at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in September.

Kelletts brother, Justin, is also an Air Force airlift pilot, flying C-5 Galaxy jets. The two are stationed at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, according to a July article on the bases website.
Langone to Trump: It's great to honor job-saving promises, but the US is a free economy

Republican billionaire businessman Ken Langone told CNBC on Friday that Donald Trump should not make a habit of pressuring companies to keep jobs in the United States.



This week, Trump traveled to Indiana to tout the deal he helped cut to keep a United Technologies (UTX)-owned Carrier plant in Indianapolis open, preventing about 1,100 jobs from going to Mexico.

The deal drew mixed praise at best, with even one Trump ally, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, criticizing the real estate mogul for indulging in 'crony capitalism.'

At the press conference following the announcement, Trump promised to make it "very, very" difficult for companies to ship jobs abroad.



"Trump has to understand, and he will no doubt about it, ... we don't have a managed economy. We don't say to companies you can't go and you won't go. That's scary," the co-founder of Home Depot (HD) said Friday on "Squawk Box."

A managed economy refers to economies in nations such as China that control growth and business practices at the governmental level, instead of allowing the free market to guide them.

"He took a little situation, a thousand jobs, and he made it a symbolism of honoring his word," Langone said. "I hope we don't take any more out of that yesterday than that."



Yet not to be outdone, the president-elect on Friday took aim at Rexnord, an industrial supplier based in Milwaukee. The company recently announced plans to move a bearing plant, and its 300 jobs, from Indianapolis to Mexico, drawing a rebuke from Trump.

Langone said he was encouraged that Trump is not going to forget about the promises and issues he focused on during the campaign that got him elected president.



Before endorsing Trump, Langone first supported New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and then Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the Republican race.

--Reuters contributed to this article.













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CENTRAL CITY, Neb.  Two teenage girls were pronounced dead on the scene of a rollover wreck early Saturday in Merrick County.

Cheyenna Urbauer and Shania Rivera died early Saturday morning as a result of a one-vehicle accident in Merrick County.

Jack Sheard, marketing and communications coordinator for Grand Island Senior High, confirmed the identities of both girls on Sunday afternoon. He said Cheyenna was a senior at Grand Island Senior High School while Shania is a senior at another high school after transferring from Senior High.

Merrick County Sheriff John Westman said the two teens werent wearing seat belts.

Sheriffs deputies were called at 1:53 a.m. to the area of B Road between Third and Fourth Road in rural Merrick County.

A 2008 Dodge Avenger was traveling eastbound on B Road when it overcorrected after running off the road. The Avenger then rolled multiple times before coming to a rest in the south ditch, the Sheriffs Office said. The driver and a passenger were ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene.

Drugs and alcohol weren't considered to be factors in the crash.

Sheard said counselors from the school district's crisis response team were available.

The Merrick County Sheriffs Office was assisted by the Nebraska State Patrol, Chapman Fire and Rescue, and Grand Island Rural Fire and Rescue in investigating the crash scene.
In recent days, the transition focus has been on President-elect Donald Trumps retreat from some high-profile campaign stances and his personnel choices, including some unseemly public infighting over whether former critic Mitt Romney should be secretary of state.

But the more important aspect of the transition for Trumps long-term success may be the extent to which his team and congressional Republicans can craft viable legislative proposals to implement the policy changes that he promised would spur economic growth and make America great again.

Trump himself signaled in his revised 100-day agenda that he realizes this may prove harder than his sweeping campaign rhetoric suggested. He stressed using his executive authority to spur energy production and crack down on visa violators and excluded such high-profile promises as repealing and replacing Obamacare, building a wall to stop illegal immigration from Mexico and enacting a massive job-creating $1 trillion infrastructure upgrade program.

In each area, Trump could confront significant differences with congressional Republicans, who developed their own legislative proposals in hopes of having a GOP president to help enact them.

Potentially contentious areas include:

 Infrastructure. Its crucial to Trumps hope of creating millions of jobs and spurring economic growth. But GOP lawmakers are concerned about the cost, reflecting their long-held belief that new spending programs should be totally funded.

Senate Democrats like the idea better but plan to fight a rumored version that would finance some $1 trillion in upgrades to roads, bridges, tunnels and airports with tax credits designed to encourage contractors to undertake needed projects. Some Republicans would prefer to confine new tax breaks to a tax reform bill.

Ron Klain, a former top aide to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, warned Democrats that Trumps tax credit proposal was a trap to get support for a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors because there was no guarantee it would fund any new projects.

 Obamacare. Trump pledged to ask Congress on Day 1 to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare. GOP lawmakers are champing at the bit, having voted some 60 times in recent years to repeal the landmark Affordable Care Act.

Selecting Rep. Tom Price as secretary of health and human services puts a strong voice for repeal in the Cabinet. But Trump complicated matters when he said he might keep popular but costly provisions requiring insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions and let parents cover their children until age 26. That raises the question of helping insurance companies pay their costs if the programs revenue-raising sections are killed.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, say theyll fight any effort to scrap Obamacare and, with 48 votes, they may be able to force a compromise on replacing it. Some Republican governors are reportedly concerned about the political impact of depriving 22 million constituents of their health care.

Adding to the potentially politically incendiary mix, Price backs fellow House Republicans trying to partially privatize Medicare, a program Trump said he would protect.

The outcome is murky, but lawmakers might end up revising the ACA over a two- or three-year period, rather than eliminating it.

 Immigration. Trumps repeated promise to build a great wall to block immigration and make Mexico pay the tab may find favor in neither Congress nor Mexico.

And in a post-election interview, Trump seemed to back off building a wall that is impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, noting there could be some fencing in what might become a less dramatic expansion of the current combination of physical and electronic barriers along the 1,989-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

 Tax reform. This remains the likeliest area for action within Trumps first six months because congressional Republicans have already done substantial work on possible legislation. Most pending proposals would simplify the current tax laws and reduce taxes for all, with the biggest breaks going to corporations and the wealthiest taxpayers.

But some analysts fear the revenue loss from Trumps tax plan would balloon the deficit, even using dynamic scoring by which GOP sponsors can claim that economic growth will offset most of it.

Trump vowed to increase annual economic growth, below 2.5 percent for the past decade, to 4 percent, a level not achieved since the 1997-99 dotcom boom. And he promised to create 25 million new jobs, setting a clear target to measure his success.
The Nebraska Legislature will see considerable turnover when it convenes in January. Seventeen of the 49 lawmakers will be freshmen. Thats a third of the membership.

The Legislature also will be electing a new speaker and nine new committee leaders.

Churn in the legislative membership has become commonplace at the State Capitol during the term-limits era. As these newly elected legislators prepare to take office, here are some principles of proven value for consideration:

 Not too fast, not too slow. The Legislature needs to strike a practical middle ground in how quickly it moves major legislation. Because its a single-chamber body, the Legislature should avoid moving important proposals forward hurriedly.

Deliberation and negotiation are vital in resolving complex state issues. Consider state aid to public schools. The school aid formula is notoriously complex. The interests of Nebraska public school districts  small, midsized and large, rural and metro  vary widely.

Theres no way to adjust the aid formula in a responsible way unless lawmakers take time to hear from an array of Nebraska stakeholders and then negotiate carefully in an effort to balance the interests of the different school groups.

The advice that U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry has given Don Bacon, the incoming congressman for Nebraskas 2nd District, also has value for incoming members of the State Legislature. Fortenberry recommended not rushing into making commitments to support other members initiatives. Bacon said he appreciated that guidance: I think its good to hold your powder dry a little bit and make sure you get both sides.

Even as the new state senators try to avoid rushing things, they also need to be careful how often they resort to bringing movement to a halt through filibusters.

Its generally going to be difficult to get the 33 votes (out of 49) needed to end a filibuster, since the incoming Legislature will be divided rather evenly among conservatives, liberals and swing votes.

By party label, the officially nonpartisan Legislature will have 32 Republicans and one conservative-leaning Libertarian, along with 15 Democrats and one left-leaning independent.

 Look beyond your clique. Nebraska lawmakers understandably look to colleagues from their own party or philosophical persuasion, but legislative effectiveness depends on being able to work with a wide range of colleagues. Such an approach has the bonus of producing better-designed legislation that takes into the account the diversity of interests across the state.

 Dont shirk committee work. Some of the most important work in the Legislature is done in committee: analyzing proposals, deliberating over them, amending them. But in every legislative session, some senators fail to hold up their end. Theyre slackers when it comes to committee work, putting an unfair burden on their conscientious colleagues.

 Its not all grand issues. Most of the work of a state senator doesnt involve sweeping, big-picture topics. The majority of bills involve small-scale items. Nonetheless, many of the proposals have value because they arise from Nebraskans real-world concerns and needs  perhaps a problem faced by a volunteer fire department, or maybe an issue that created headaches for a school district.

 The importance of trust. Over the years, one of the proven secrets for legislative effectiveness, regardless of party or philosophy, is an ability to earn trust from a broad range of colleagues. By contrast, when a lawmaker comes across as manipulative and self-serving, support from colleagues proves difficult to attain, and the lawmakers district is saddled with an ineffective representative.

 Separate branch of government. Theres no reason the Legislature and the Governors Office should automatically be at loggerheads. At the same time, theyre separate branches of government. The Legislature has a duty to scrutinize executive-branch proposals closely rather than rubber-stamp them, working to produce the soundest legislation possible.

Nebraska lawmakers next year will represent a wide range of views and interests, but they all have a common interest in keeping the process on track. These principles promote that key goal.
The writer is author of The Politics of Deception: JFKs Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Civil Rights and Cuba. He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

There is a safe somewhere in the Central Intelligence Agencys headquarters in Langley, Virginia, that very likely contains a sort of tribute to Fidel Castro. Its a Cohiba, the cigar favored by the Cuban leader, dusted with one of the worlds most lethal poisons  botulin toxin.

Merely putting one in the mouth would do the job, John Earman, an inspector general of the CIA, wrote in 1967. By job he means assassination.

Under orders from Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, the CIA devised numerous plots to kill Castro. The revolutionary turned communist survived White House enmity for half a century.

The Cohiba was uncovered after CIA Director Richard Helms ordered Earman to get the truth behind rumors in the press of the assassination attempts. Earmans little-noticed 1967 report was finally made public in 1998.

The toxic stogie was the work of Dr. Edward Gunn, chief of medical services of the CIAs operations division. Gunns career defied the Hippocratic pledge: First, do no harm.

At the dirty tricks division, according to Earmans report, Gunn was Dr. Do Harm.

In 1961, Gunn had prepared a box of 50 poisoned cigars, meant to land on Castros desk in Havana. They were never delivered.

The Cohiba that remained in the agencys permanent repository was a matter of some pride for the doctor. Although six years old, it was still 94 percent effective, the inspector generals report said. It could still have caused Castro a quick and horrible death.

Gunn devised other attacks. In 1960, the CIA hired two certified mobsters  Sam Giancana of Chicago and Johnny Roselli of Las Vegas, the report said. Both patriots refused the $150,000 CIA assassination fee. But they balked at blasting Castro during a speech in Revolutionary Square. They insisted on poison that would be slipped by their Havana agent into Castros teacup.

Gunn had trouble with the poison pill. Instead of instantly dissolving, it was still there after a night in a water glass.

When tested, it failed to kill the guinea pigs. Finally, Gunn managed to send a monkey to a screeching death. Although the pill arrived in Havana, Giancana reported his agent got cold feet.

Kennedys failure to overthrow Castro in the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco produced constant Republican attacks on his leadership. It resulted in what the inspector generals report termed severe pressure by Kennedy to eliminate Castro.

Once more, Giancana and Roselli were recruited, and once again Gunn provided the means. This time, the poison was inserted in a pencil with a secret compartment carved by the good doctor. Once more, Havana agents failed.

By 1963, Desmond Fitzgerald had taken charge of the CIAs Cuban Task Force. Fitzgerald became renowned at Langley for the laughter his schemes produced. They never got out of the lab.

There was the midget submarine for planting explosives in a sea mollusk near Castros favorite skin-diving area.

And a plot to dust the interior of a skin-diving suit with bacteria that would cover his body in Madura-foot tumors and another to infect his underwater oxygen system with tuberculosis bacteria.

The fruitless and, in retrospect, often unrealistic plotting should be viewed in that light, Earman wrote.

The final attack was planned  but never carried out  in 1963 after one of Castros closest associates was approached by the CIA. He was Maj. Roland Cubela Secades, a bearded student revolutionary.

According to his CIA handler, Nestor Sanchez, Cubela hoped for American recognition as Castros successor once his former comrade was dispensed with. He asked for explosives and automatic weapons with telescopic sights to do the job.

As a physician, Cubela said, he could devise other methods, as well. Gunn helped out.

In his CIA lab, Gunn carved out the guts of a Paper Mate ballpoint pen. Inside, he placed a syringe so fine that Castro would feel only a slight nick as poison was injected.

Cubela was not impressed with Gunns handiwork when Sanchez delivered it to him in a Paris hotel room. Even so, he placed it in his pocket. Cubela said he would devise his own poison for the syringe.

It was Nov. 22, and as Sanchez and Cubela walked downstairs to the hotel lobby, they learned that Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas. According to Sanchez, Cubela was rocked by the news.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Castros would-be assassin asked his CIA handler.
Seat belts on buses not an easy call

I am a school bus driver for Centura Public School in central Nebraska. I want to share a different perspective on mandatory school bus seat belts (Seat belt bill aims to improve bus safety, Nov. 23 Public Pulse):

 What do I do when my bus is filled with smoke from an electrical fire, and I have anywhere from 25 to 50 or more passengers in seat belts to evacuate?

 Will my riders ages 5 to 17 orderly board the bus and systematically fasten their seat belts? (Doubtful!)

 If I have an emergency on or near a railroad crossing, do I have time to evacuate my passengers who may have trouble getting their seat belts unfastened?

 I have many distractions and hazards when I am driving, such as intersections, slow-moving vehicles, unruly passengers or inconsiderate drivers. Now I have to police seat belt usage, as well?

 Say I have the unfortunate situation where my bus is in a swollen creek. Which passengers do I help out of their seat belts first?

These are a few points I hope State Sen. Robert Hilkemann and other senators will consider. I encourage them to interview bus drivers or, better yet, ride some of the routes.

It would be wise for those in favor of school bus seat belts to at least broaden their thinking by getting back on the school bus to observe.

Tim Mohanna, Cairo, Neb.

Killing filibuster would have consequences

Nebraska State Treasurer Don Stenberg displays an alarming lack of foresight in his call for the U.S. Senate to eliminate the filibuster (Congress should eliminate filibuster, Nov. 28 World-Herald).

Only eight years ago, the voters gave control of the presidency and both houses of Congress to the Democratic Party. Before too many more years pass, they may well do so again.

If the Republicans in the Senate follow Stenbergs advice and abolish the filibuster, we cant expect the Democrats to restore it once theyve returned to power. With no filibuster to keep them in check, we can expect them to enact a battery of social programs, tax increases and aggressive restrictions on our personal and economic freedom.

Before we support an increase in the power of any governmental body, we should ask ourselves how our worst political enemies would use that increased power. I hope that our senators will show more wisdom than Stenberg and will think through the consequences of removing this curb on Congress power to interfere with our lives.

William Flack, Kearney, Neb.

Lawmakers get paid to make decisions

Nebraska State Sen. Laura Ebkes Dec. 1 More Commentary piece about the need for a Taxpayers Bill of Rights is ideological claptrap.

Taxpayers are not a protected class. We pay taxes because we live or do business in Nebraska, and our rights are identified in the Nebraska Constitution.

Ebkes gripe is not about rights but the level of taxation. Taxes are the result of legislative decisions made at all levels of government to match needs with funding available. To suggest that a mathematical equation should replace decision-making about funding levels is an attempt to escape legislative responsibility.

Yes, matching needs and funding is a difficult process. If Ebke does not want to participate in that process, she should get out of the Legislature.

Charles Keene, Bellevue

Goodwill board shirked responsibility

I want to thank The World-Herald for its continuing reporting on Omaha Goodwill. All the time I was reading the first reports of exorbitant pay to too many administrators, I was wondering, Where is the oversight in all of this? The fact that some or all of the board members see little or no problem with what was going on confirms that they need to go away as well. ASAP.

And now the no-bid contracts awarded to companies whose executives sit on the Goodwill board? Where does it end?

The stink on this thing continues to grow. Get rid of all the profiteers and the head-in-the-sand ostriches on the board. They have failed the mission of Goodwill and those it seeks to serve.

Tom Rodino, Omaha

Popularity doesnt equal morality

Nebraskans were decisive in their choice to maintain the death penalty, and it is now our duty . . . to carry it out. So states our governor, who contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to reinstate capital punishment (Lethal injection protocol would allow secrecy, Nov. 29 World-Herald).

One of the first things I learned in philosophy class in college many years ago is that the majority is not necessarily right. If Adolf Hitler had asked the German people to vote on exterminating the Jews, and the vote had passed, would we say, Well, OK, then. So long as the people voted it.

I think not.

The members of the Nebraska Legislature studied the issue of capital punishment. Many members changed their position on capital punishment through listening and learning the facts. Our senators abolished the death penalty for the good of Nebraska.

Now our governor and other prison officials want to veil this heinous procedure in secrecy? This is abominable!

The state should never be allowed to kill except in defense. Never as punishment. And never veiled in secrecy.

Marylyn Felion, Omaha

Make death penalty cheap, quick

The people have spoken, and Nebraska will retain the death penalty. I oppose the death penalty from both a moral standpoint and an economic one, but, since the issue has been decided, lets get on with it.

Lethal injection is a waste of time, energy and money. The state will not be able to get the required drugs. If the drug protocol is changed, then the state will undoubtedly face legal challenges.

If Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is so intent on carrying out an execution, then he should focus on the quickest and easiest way to accomplish it. The state should switch the method of execution to firing squad.

A federal judge rejected arguments that it is cruel and unusual punishment. An Alabama state senator has introduced a bill to use a firing squad.

If the firing squad isnt to the governors liking, why not the gas chamber using nitrogen asphyxiation? Its a process that uses no toxic or poisonous chemicals. The University of Nebraska uses it to euthanize rats for biology labs. If its good enough for animals with their zealous ASPCA representation, then why not for death row?

I urge the governor to work with the Legislature to enforce the death penalty in the quickest and least expensive way. If were going to waste money on the death penalty, can we just waste the least amount possible, please?

Nathan Rice, Omaha

Millions of Americans may lose insurance

Protecting the future of the Affordable Care Act is among the most pressing issues our new federal leaders are examining. Nebraskas congressional delegation clamors to do away with it, but, as of yet, none of them has explained how to make sure 20 million Americans who have health insurance because of Obamacare dont lose that coverage.

Not one of them has explained how to make sure that the nearly 100,000 Nebraskans who cant get coverage at all will be able to get insurance.

Our recent election did not change the harsh reality for people who lack health insurance in this country. What is the plan from the president-elect and Congress for the millions who will need sustainable, affordable health insurance now provided by the Affordable Care Act?

This is a question I think everyone should consider at this critical time. Contact your elected officials and ask them this. They owe us clear, detailed answers.

Nolan Boyd, Omaha

Say it aint so

Everyone likes a joke but, really! Putting the court jester (Sarah Palin) in charge of the Department of Veterans Affairs?

William Looman, Omaha

Jane Seymour thanks Omaha

Recently I was invited to attend the screening of my movie Somewhere in Time at the Joslyn Art Museum, as part of the 39th Omaha Classic Film Event, produced by Bruce Crawford.

The highlight of the evening for me was the opportunity to meet the many fans of this movie in such an elegant setting. I enjoyed introducing the film and sharing a few personal behind-the-scenes memories and moments with the audience.

By all accounts the evening was a sold-out success. My congratulations to all on a wonderful and enjoyable event in Omaha, and for providing such a memorable experience to a dedicated following!

Jane Seymour, Westlake Village, Calif.
The wet, slushy snow that fell Saturday created slick roads in the Omaha area, leading to several traffic crashes, including one that severely injured two people.

Omaha police stopped taking reports of accidents that did not involve injuries about 1:15 p.m. because of the high number of crashes. People were encouraged to exchange information and contact their insurers.

Police resumed taking reports about 8:50 p.m.

Shortly before 3 p.m., police said, a crash occurred at westbound Interstate 80 leading to the I-480 northbound on-ramp. Police said two people were outside their disabled Chrysler Pacifica on the right shoulder of the on-ramp, unloading items from the rear cargo area, when the driver of a northbound Dodge Durango lost control of the vehicle. The Durango struck the two people, a man and a woman, both of Omaha. Both were taken to the Nebraska Medical Center for treatment.

Police said the man, Miguel Ramirez, 28, had severe injuries to both his legs, which had to be amputated. He was listed in critical condition at the hospital. The woman, Hesbeidy Rodriguez, 34, had severe injuries to one leg, which was amputated at the hospital. She was listed in serious but stable condition.

The front-seat passenger of the Durango, Rosabla Salinas-Vazquez, 51, also was transported to the Nebraska Medical Center with minor injuries to her legs.

The driver of the Durango was identified as Vincente Loera, 22, of Omaha. He was not injured. Police said he was driving too fast for conditions and failed to move over for a disabled vehicle.

City street maintenance crews didnt pretreat streets because the forecast called for rain, said Austin Rowser, Omahas street maintenance engineer. Crews werent scheduled to come in until 6 p.m., Rowser said, but after snow started to fall Saturday morning, they had to come in at noon.

Originally, we were expecting maybe a mix of rain and snow, but temperatures stayed cold enough to where it was all snow, said Dave Fobert, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Valley.

Jennifer Zeppelin, a KMTV meteorologist, said a storm system in Texas pushed the moisture into eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.

Zeppelin said today and Monday should be dry, with above-average afternoon highs. A high in the mid-40s is expected for today. The high Monday could approach 50, she said.

Tuesdays high for the Omaha area is expected to be 31. Wednesdays high will reach only 21, said Barbara Mayes, a weather service meteorologist.

Theres a chance of precipitation Wednesday, but the forecast shows everything remaining south of Omaha, Mayes said.
Anxious moments for supporters as Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest

Chennai

oi-Anusha

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa suffered cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and was rushed to the Critical care unit in Chennai's Apollo hospital. Before the official confirmation from the hospital came, scores of AIADMK workers and Jayalalithaa supporters landed outside the hospital that has turned into a fortress.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest around 4.30 PM on Sunday but Apollo hospital issued an official statement only by 9.15 pm. The statement was issued after speculations on her health condition spread like wild fire.

[Also Read: Tamil Nadu on high alert after Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest]

Senior ministers and bureaucrats rushed to the hospital soon after news of her health condition became public. All police stations including district headquarters have been alerted. Additional police deployment was reported from Apollo hospital.

[Also Read: Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest, shifted to CCU]

The Tamil Nadu DG has cancelled his scheduled tour to Madurai. The in-charge governor is flying down from Mumabi to Chennai immediately. Home Minister Rajnath singh has spoken to the governor who is headed to Chennai.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, December 4, 2016, 22:46 [IST]
Doctors from AIIMS to assist in treating Jayalalithaa who suffered cardiac arrest

Chennai

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

A team of doctors from AIIMS will reach Chennai tomorrow to assist in the treatment of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayallithaa who suffered a cardiac arrest today. The team of doctors will reach Chennai on Monday and will assist doctors at the Appolo Hospital in treating the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.

Meanwhile there is heavy police deployment outside the Appolo Hospital where Jayalalithaa is admitted. A huge crowd has gathered outside the hospital after news of the CM suffering a cardiac arrest spread. There were anxious moments as scores of her followers reached the hospital. Heavy security was deployed. Heavy security has been deployed outside the hospital.

[Also Read: Anxious moments for supporters as Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest]

Meanwhile union health minister, J P Nadda called the Appolo Hospital and checked on the CM's health. The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee tweeted, "Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with the governor of Tamil Nadu, Vidyasagar Rao and sought an update on Jayalalithaa's health.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, December 4, 2016, 23:23 [IST]
Jayalalithaa put on heart assist device

Chennai

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister who suffered a cardiac arrest today has been put on a heart assist device. The Appolo Hospital where she has been admitted says that she is on an extracorporeal membrane heart assist device.

[Also Read: Doctors from AIIMS to assist in treating Jayalalithaa who suffered cardiac arrest]

The hospital also says that she is being treated by experts and critical care specialists. The hospital also said that Dr Richard Beale from London has also been consulted and he has concurred with the line of treatment being given by the cardiologists and pulmonologists.

Scores of her followers have landed outside the Appolo Hospital, Many were seen praying for her speedy recovery.

There is heavy police deployment outside the hospital after news regarding her cardiac arrest was made public. The top ministers and bureaucrats rushed to Appolo hospital after hearing the news.

OneIndia News
Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday dampened speculation that Republicans would turn their attention to a major overhaul of the Medicare program for seniors next year after repealing the Affordable Care Act. He insisted that President-elect Donald Trump would honor his campaign commitment to leave Medicare and Social Security unscathed.

In an appearance on the ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Pence indicated that Trump was sticking to his pledge first made in April 2015 to prevent congressional Republicans from doing a big number on Social Security and Medicare. Trump at that time insisted that such a move would be unfair to the millions of Americans who regularly pay into the retirement and health care systems assuming that they would receive full benefits when they finally retire.

Related: GOP Cuts in Medicare May Be Next After Dismantling Obamacare

We cant do that, Trump said at that time

Asked today about renewed calls from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price (R-GA) and others to privatize Medicare into a voucher-style system, Pence replied that Trump hasnt changed his position and that a Medicare overhaul is not on the table.

Well, look. I think President-elect Trump made it very clear in the course of the campaign that as president, were going to keep our promises in Social Security and Medicare, he said.

But Pence indicated that Trumps pledge wouldnt necessarily extend to the Medicaid program for 65 million low-income and disabled Americans. He said that theres a real opportunity for major savings by converting Medicaid from an entitlement to block grants to the states  a move that would give state officials far more latitude to set eligibility requirements and impose cost-saving measures.

Related: Ryan Declares GOP Has a Mandate to Enact Sweeping Changes

Pence, the governor of Indiana, touted changes that were made in his own state since the advent of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. For example, Indiana obtained a waiver from the federal government to require beneficiaries to make a monthly contribution to health savings accounts equal to two percent of their income in order to continue to receive full benefits. Other states have initiated reforms including stricter work requirements for able-bodied beneficiaries.

Story continues

We want to give states even greater flexibility in innovating and creating the kind of health care solutions that work for their population, he said.

Pence said that Trump and congressional Republicans would make good on their long-standing promise to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act right out of the gate after Trump is sworn in as the 45th president January 20. House and Senate GOP leaders are hard at work planning to dismantle Obamacare under arcane budget reconciliation rules that will enable the Senate to block a Democratic filibuster and approve the legislation with a simple majority.

The Republican-controlled Congress approved similar legislation last January but it was vetoed by President Obama. With Trump in the White House, the legislation is certain to be enacted within weeks of Trump taking office.

However, Pence was vague on the crucial question of how long it would take the new administration and GOP-controlled Congress to devise a replacement for Obamacare without stripping tens of millions of Americans of their health care coverage. Some senior Republicans in the House and Senate have predicted that it could take as long a two to three years to enact replacement legislation that reflects the GOPs free-market ideas.

Related: Medicare Unveils Big Changes in How It Makes Payments

Trump said recently during an interview with CBSs 60 Minutes program that the repeal and replacement of Obamacare would be done seamlessly and simultaneously. While that clearly will not be possible, Pence insisted that there would be no change in the president-elects stated approach

There will be an orderly transition away from this disastrous policy, Pence said. But the first thing we have to do is pry the enormous weight of Obamacare off the national economy. We think that will create tremendous economic growth in businesses large and small, and then setting an orderly transition process in place to capture the power of the free market.

The president-elect has been very clear  we want to give the American people more choices, the ability to buy health insurance across state lines, these health savings accounts, but doing that in a way that doesnt upset the apple cart or create anxiety among Americans about their health care.

Pences insistence that Medicare reform will not be part of Trumps ambitious legislative agenda heading into the new year, his statement by no means will be the final word on the matter.

Related: Pelosi Warns Trump and Ryan Are Overplaying Their Hands on Medicare

Ryan had tenuous relations with Trump throughout the campaign but fully embraced the billionaire businessman after his surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton Nov. 8. The House speaker described the election as a mandate to enact sweeping changes, even though Trump trailed Clinton in the popular vote by more than two million.

Last week Ryan told reporters he is determined to pursue major changes in Medicare next year, regardless of warnings from senior Senate Republicans that he and others might be biting off more than they can chew.

Ryan contends that reforming Medicare and Medicaid to assure the programs long-term financial viability must be made part of any move to replace the Affordable Care Act, which has provided health insurance coverage for more than 20 million Americans. For years, Ryan has promoted plans to convert Medicare to a premium-support system in which seniors are provided with fixed amounts of money or vouchers to purchase coverage in the private market.

Ryan included variations of this approach in past GOP budget plans when he was chair of the House Budget Committee, and then this year he highlighted that approach in his Better Way proposals for revamping federal health care and insurance programs. The House speaker stresses that his voucher-style approach would not impact current retirees or people nearing the retirement age, but is designed to steer future retirees into less expensive private health insurance.

Related: Democrats Gear Up for the Fight Over Medicare Changes

We are going to have to do things to preserve and shore up this program, he said Thursday, according to the Washington Post. The reforms that weve been talking about here  for many years are reforms that do not affect the benefits for anyone in or near retirement. But for those of us who are in the younger generations, the X generation on down, it wont be there for us if we stay on the current course.

Senate and House Democratic leaders already are bracing for a possible political showdown on Medicare next year, and have warned Ryan and other GOP leaders that they would be courting political disaster if they follow through with their threat. While both parties have sought to cut spending on Medicare in the past to offset the cost of other programs, efforts to make fundamental changes to the system have been met with staunch opposition from Democrats, seniors advocates such as AARP and liberal activists.

We say to our Republicans that want to privatize Medicare: Go try it. Make our day, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said last week.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest, shifted to CCU

Chennai

oi-Anusha

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalithaa has suffered a cardiac arrest. She is being attended to by a cardiologist a release from the Apollo hospital where she is being treated said. She is being monitored by a team of experts, the release from Apollo, the release also states.

The release comes just a few hours after AIADMK party workers had claimed that she had completely recovered. After the TN CM suffered a cardiac arrest, she was immediately shifted to the critical care unit.

[Read more at:   ..   -  ]

Earlier security was increased outside the hospital where the CM is being treated. Scores of party workers too rushed to the hospital after hearing the news that their leader had been shifted to the CCU.

Reports also suggested that the Tamil Nadu Governor, Vidyasagar Rao will fly into Chennai at 10.30 PM today. Additional policemen were deployed at Apollo Hospital late Sunday evening after rumours of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister being shifted to Critical Care Unit started spreading like wildfire. AIADMK party cadre and supporters made a beeline outside the hospital.

[Read more:    ]

[Read more:  ,      ]

OneIndia News
Tamil Nadu on high alert after Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest

Chennai

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

There is heavy security outside the Apollo hospital where the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is being treated after suffering a cardiac arrest. The entire police strength including companies of the Armed Reserve and Tamil Nadu Special police have been mobilised as a precautionary measure.

Union Home Minster meanwhile called Tamil Nadu Governor, Vidyasagar Rao and sought an update on Jauyalalithaa's health. He told the Governor to keep him updated on her health status.

[Also Read: Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest, shifted to CCU]

Tamil Nadu has been placed under high alert. Several state ministers, the chief secretary and top bureaucrats have rushed to the hospital. The Director General of Police T K Rajendran who was in Madurai for a review meeting also rushed to Chennai. An emergency meeting had also been called to review the situation.

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Story first published: Sunday, December 4, 2016, 22:29 [IST]
20 injured in MP bus-truck collision

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Sagar (Madhya Pradesh), Dec 4: At least 20 persons were injured when the bus they were travelling in collided with a truck in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar town, police said on Sunday.

The bus passengers were heading towards Bhopal for training in state government welfare schemes.

"The bus was heading to Bhopal when it collided with a truck near Sihori. Over 20 persons were injured in the accident. They have been sent to the government dispensary. None was seriously injured," M.S Jagat, Inspector at Sihori Police Station told IANS.

The Madhya Pradesh government had estimated that seven lakh people from all over the state would come to the training programme organised in Bhopal's Jamburi ground. Buses to bring them to Bhopal and refreshments were also arranged by the state government.

IANS
Take a look at EWS flats at Kalkaji to be inaugurated by PM Modi [Photos]

For beneficiaries of EWS flat a gift from PM Modi like none other

End terrorism for stability: Modi

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

New Delhi, Dec 4: Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed on the need to end terrorism to ensure stability in the region. Speaking at the Hear of Asia summit at Amritsar, Lunjab, Modi said that it is everyone's collectibe responsibility to fight terror.

Pakistan Premier's foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz along with foreign ministers of four countries on Saturday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who told them that it was important to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability in Afghanistan and the region.

Prime Minister Modi welcomed the Foreign Ministers and stressed it was the collective responsibility of all those in the region to work together to help Afghanistan out of its current difficulties, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

The Prime Minister stated that his several interactions with both the common people of Afghanistan and the country's leadership had convinced him that the Afghan people were tired of the continuing violence and terrorism.

Prime Minister Modi stressed on "the need to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability, security and development in Afghanistan and our region," Swarup said.

In this context, the Prime Minister hoped that discussions in the Ministerial Conference today will produce good results.

Agreeing with the Premier on the need to end violence in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministers shared Prime Minister Modi's view that Afghanistan's stability, security and prosperity are integral to the region's, Mr Swarup said.

"They greatly appreciated the continued commitment and engagement of India and its leadership for these ends. The Foreign Ministers warmly thanked India for hosting the Conference and expressed confidence that all friends of Afghanistan will work together for realising the aspirations for peace and development," he said.

OneIndia News (With Agency inputs)
Viral video: How two-storey building being shifted 500 feet away to make way for expressway

Heart of Asia: Amritsar Declaration calls for elimination of terror

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Amritsar, Dec 4: An international conference on Afghanistan here on Sunday called for immediate elimination of terrorism to help the war-ravaged country in its political and economic transition.

The Amritsar Declaration, issued after the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in this Punjab city near India's border with Pakistan, "recognises terrorism as the biggest threat to peace" and demanded "immediate end to all forms of terrorism".

Citing the declaration, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who chaired the meeting in the absence of ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, said: "We remain concerned by high level of violence in Afghanistan caused by Taliban, terrorist groups including Al Qaeda, Daesh (Islamic State) and its affiliates."

"We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, including dismantling of terrorist safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial and logistical support for terrorism."

IANS
Are you awake?: EAM Jaishankar recalls when he got a call from PM Modi at midnight

Indias help is with no strings attached: Ashraf Ghani at Heart of Asia Summit

News

oi-Lisa

By Lisa

Amritsar, Dec 4 President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani jointly inaugurated the session of the sixth Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

President Ghani began his speech by saying that, "India's help is with no strings attached."

Afghan President in his address said that, Pakistan has pledged 500 million dollars for Afghanistan's development, this amount Mr. Sartaj Aziz can be spent to contain extremism. Sartaj Aziz is Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Ashraf Ghani further added that, "We need to identify cross-border terrorism and a fund to combat terrorism".

He further added that, "Amritsar enforces the value of restoring connectivity which is so crucial for the overall growth and economic prosperity of Afghanistan."

President Ghani during his speech stressed on terrorism and said that, "A key Taliban leader has himself admitted to getting sanctuary in Pakistan."

President Ghani expressed his concern with regards to terrorism by saying that about 30 terrorist groups, as named by the UN, are trying to establish a base in Afghanistan.

President Ghani lavishly praised India and said that, "The project of Chabahar Port between India, Afghanistan and Iran is very important to us for connectivity."

He concluded by saying that, "PM Modi, your words assure Afghan people of support of 1.25 billion Indian people. Your assistance will expand historic bond between the two nations."

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, December 4, 2016, 13:00 [IST]
Kashmiri politicians silent about Pak: Jitendra Singh

India

oi-PTI

Jammu, Dec 4: Kashmiri politicians can speak anything against India but they they had no courage to say a word against the separatists and Pakistan, Union minister Jitendra Singh today said.

Without naming former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, Singh criticised him for his remarks that Nagrota attack was a "result of statements" made by various union ministers against Pakistan.

"I don't think such type of a childish statement need any response, but unfortunately the people who say that statements from India or the ministers of India provoke Pakistan,... to launch terrorist attacks, I wish they had such courage to say a single word against Pakistan and its supporters living in India or the those who support terrorism", Singh told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

"The Kashmir centric politicians cannot do that because they know it is the vibrant democracy of India with its large heart that they can speak anything and if they utter a word against Pakistan or against separatists, the same can put them in distress", Singh said.

Speaking to party workers in Anantnag on December 1, Omar Abdullah had said, "The Nagrota attack is a result of statements made by various ministers against Pakistan".

Seven soldiers including two officers were killed and three terrorists were eliminated when terrorists' disguised in police uniform attacked an army camp in Nagrota area in the outskirts of Jammu on Tuesday.

Earlier, while speaking at a function, Singh said drive against black money will ultimately benefit the farmer and enrich the agricultural and rural economy of India. The money added to state exchequer will eventually go to those sections of society which were so far being held to ransom as a result of black money hoarded by a few.

He said, "Narendra Modi is the only Prime Minister, who could have taken this decision (demonetisation) because of his impeccable honesty, sincerity and courage of conviction, with no vested interest whatsoever or nothing to hide.

PTI
Manmohan headed a "corrupt regime", has no right to slam demonetisation: BJP

India

oi-PTI

Bengaluru, Dec 4: BJP today hit out at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over his criticism of demonetisation, saying he "lacks credibility" for such an attack as he himself headed the most "corrupt regime ever".

"Manmohan Singh attacking this government for fight against black money lacks credibility. He himself in his 10 years' regime, had not only failed in tackling black money, but is seen as heading the (most) corrupt regime ever in this country. He was responsible for accumulation of black money," BJP General Secretary Muralidhar Rao told reporters here.

Attacking the government over demonetisation in the Rajya Sabha, Singh had on November 24 said the step was "a case of organised loot and legalised plunder" and reflected a "monumental management failure".

Rao said, "I don't value (Singh's criticism) because he is a failed leader, who is attacking a government and a leader who is performing and taking fight against black money to its logical end."

Responding to a question, Rao said the long queues at ATMs and banks besides currency crunch would disappear by December 30.

"That's what Honourable Prime Minister has said. It may take some more time for the economy to become normal," he said.

Rao also said people, including farmers, who have been affected by demonetisation, would be "rewarded" in the next year's budget. He said: "You will have a new budget in which all the suffering sections will get rewarded..."

PTI
BRO Recruitment 2022: Check details for 328 vacancies, last date and salary details here

Caught on camera: Woman, child flung into air as car hits the bike

March in support of demonetisation held in Pune

India

oi-PTI

Pune, Nov 4: Hundreds of people today took part in a march here, which was carried out in the support of the Centre's demonetisation move.

The march, organised in the morning by Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Kakade, started from Deccan Gymkhana area and concluded at the Council Hall.

"The decision of demonetisation will have positive effects on the Indian economy in future and Rs 9 lakh crore have been deposited in banks post the demonetisation move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Kakade, also a well-known developer, said.

"To support PM Modi's fight against black money and corruption, the march was organised here, which saw hundreds of persons in attendance," he said.

Modi on November 8 had announced his government's decision to demonetise the Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes.

PTI
J-K CM pays rich tributes to Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah

India

oi-PTI

Srinagar, Dec 4: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today paid rich tributes to founder of opposition National Conference and former chief minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on the eve of his 111th birth anniversary.

In her message, Mehbooba said the National Conference founder was a visionary in his approach who would always be remembered for taking many revolutionary steps, including introduction of Single Line Administration in the state.

Mehbooba prayed for eternal peace for the late leader. Son of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and National Conference (NC) president, Farooq Abdullah, while paying tributes to the "Sher-e-Kashmir" said his struggles and sacrifices for the dignity of this state and its people need to be emulated to take it out of the throes of divisive politics and sinister plans of political disempowerment.

"Sher-e-Kashmir's life was a valiant story of selfless leadership. He fought for the political rights and dignity of his people till his last breath. He chose prison over power for his people and it is this sense of sacrifice and courage that needs to be instilled in our youth for the future of our State," the NC president said.

"Sher-e-Kashmir's call for inclusiveness and secularism needs to be heard in every town and village in the State today at a time when political forces are trying their best to divide the people of the State on the basis of region and religion," he said.

In his message, NC working president Omar Abdullah said, "Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah's legacy denotes the State's high traits of pluralistic ethos and inclusiveness."

"He nurtured and strengthened this characteristic and cemented the bonds of love between various sections of the society and different regions of the State," Omar said.

He added that Sher-e-Kashmir's ultimate goal was the political and economic empowerment of the common man and the equitable development of the state.

"His vision of Naya Kashmir encompassed holistic and comprehensive development of all sections and all regions of the State without any favour or discrimination," Omar said.

PTI
"Lets hope every business is equally incentivized to keep Americans working in America"

Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on Friday criticized Donald Trumps deal to keep Carrier jobs in Indiana, warning that it could lead to crony capitalism.

Let's hope every business is equally incentivized to keep Americans working in America, Palin wrote in a column published Friday on the Young Conservatives website.

The deal--orchestrated by Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is still governor of Indiana--gave the manufacturing company $7 million in state economic incentives, in exchange for keeping about 1,100 jobs in Indiana. Carrier still plans to move about 1,300 jobs to Mexico, Bloomberg reported.

Palin, who was an early Trump supporter, said she is happy for the Carrier employees who will now keep their jobs, but she expressed concern about the precedent set by this agreement.

When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent, she wrote.

Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people's free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.

Trump has touted the Carrier deal as a victory, visiting the companys plant in Indianapolis this week to warn that other companies will face consequences if they move jobs overseas.

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.com
Microsoft rolls out over 70 offers to IITians this year

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 4: Technology giant Microsoft has offered more than 70 jobs across different campuses of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) this year for its India and international operations.

"We have offered more than 70 jobs across different IIT campuses this year. This is for India as well as global posts in the US  over 20 of the 70 jobs offered are international posts," Microsoft India Senior Director HR Rohit Thakur told PTI.

He added that Microsoft is among the top 3 recruiters at IIT this year. "Microsoft has always been committed to hiring and retaining the best talent in the industry.

For us, campus hiring is a crucial source of talent, and we engage with the country's top educational institutes to hire bright and passionate youth," he said.

He added that IIT is one the best breeding grounds for top-grade technocrats not just in India, but worldwide. "Our drive at IITs this year is in keeping with our increased focus on R&D and engineering excellence as we move towards becoming a cloud and services organisation," he said.

PTI
Modi, Ghani hold bilateral talks; focus on trade, security

India

oi-PTI

Amritsar, Dec 4: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani today held bilateral talks focusing on a range of key issues including boosting trade and investment, India's reconstruction activities in the war-ravaged country and ways to strengthen defence and security partnership.

The issue of firming up an air cargo service pact between the two countries is understood to have figured in the talks which will give India a leverage in Afghanistan as Pakistan continued to deny transit link through its territory. Ghani arrived here last evening to attend the Heart of Asia  Istanbul Process conference which began here yesterday.

In the meeting, Modi assured Ghani of India's continued support for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan. Also, Afghanistan is learnt to have sought enhanced supply of military hardware from India. Afghanistan has been trying to revamp its military to fight the resurgent Talibans after drawdown of NATO forces began nearly two years back. Sources said both India and Afghanistan were keen to finalise the air cargo agreement as soon as possible and that the broad contours of the pact were already finalised. India and Afghanistan have been exploring various connectivity projects for greater two-way trade.

In May, India, Iran and Afghanistan had signed an agreement to set up a trade and transport corridor with Chabahar in Iran as the hub with an aim to develop a transit corridor.

The sea-land route of Chabahar Port was designed to bypass Pakistan and the project was seen as India's effort to counter China's plan to develop Gwadar port in Pakistan. Afghanistan was very keen on deeper defence and security cooperation with India and there were indications that Ghani may press for ramping up supply of arms and military hardware from India though Pakistan would be unhappy if there was closer Indo-Afghan military cooperation. Last week, India had given to Afghanistan the last of the four military helicopters.

India has trained hundreds of Afghan security personnel but has been adopting a cautious approach in providing weapons as it did not want to antagonise Pakistan. Afghanistan has also been seeking India's assistance in making functional Soviet-era helicopters and transport aircraft which were not in flying condition.

India has a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and is implementing projects worth USD 2 billion to help rebuild the country's infrastructure. India has been supporting an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of peace and reconciliation, and advocating the need for a sustained and long-term commitment to Afghanistan by the international community.

PTI
Viral video: How two-storey building being shifted 500 feet away to make way for expressway

Narendra Modi calls for support against terror at Heart of Asia Summit

News

oi-Lisa

By Lisa

Amritsar, Dec 4 In an oblique reference to Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi while speaking at 6th ministerial Heart of Asia Summit urged action against those who support and finance terror and endanger peace in the entire South Asian region.

In a conference being attended by being leaders from south and central Asia and several western countries PM said, "We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks. Support for peace alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action."

"Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters...."

We should all work to build stronger positive connectivity between Afghanistan and other countries of the region: PM @narendramodi  PMO India (@PMOIndia) December 4, 2016



Prime Minister ended his speech by saying that, "As India implements its additional commitments, we are open to work with other like-minded partners for the development of Afghanistan."

[Read:      ]

With Pakistan being represented at the two-day conference by its de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz, Modi said mere action against "forces of terrorism" was not enough and the world also needed to act against "those who support, shelter and finance them".

OneIndia News
From being a victim of terrorism to exploring global solutions: India praised at UN's Counter Terrorism meet

Nepal's Constitution bill registering an important step: India

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 3 Terming the registering of the Constitution amendment bill in Nepal's Parliament as an "important step", India today said it will continue to extend all support to the country for its peace and stability and hoped that ongoing efforts would be concluded successfully.

"Our consistent position has been that peace, stability and progress of Nepal is in the interest of both India and Nepal," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

He said India has therefore been supportive of initiatives of the Nepalese government to meet the aspirations of all sections of its society through dialogue and constitutional processes.

"As part of the ongoing efforts, the registering of a Constitution Amendment Bill in the Nepali Parliament on 29 November 2016 is an important step," Swarup said. "We hope that all sides will remain closely engaged and the ongoing efforts would be concluded successfully," he said.

Swarup reiterated that as a "close and friendly" neighbour of Nepal, India will continue to extend all support for Nepal's peace, stability and accelerated economic development in accordance with the priorities of the people and government of that country.

Seeking to end the year-long political crisis over the new statute, Nepal government earlier this week registered the Constitution amendment bill in Parliament to address the grievances of the agitating Madhesi parties and other ethnic groups.

However, Nepal's Madhesi Front, an alliance of parties representing Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, has refused to back the Constitution amendment bill, saying it was not acceptable in its current discriminatory form.

Nepal has also witnessed anti-government protests against the Constitution amendment bill.

PTI
Never faced gender discrimination in TV, politics: Smriti Irani

India

oi-PTI

Mumbai, Dec 4: Union Minister and former actress Smriti Irani says she is extremely proud of the fact that she never came across any gender bias while working in TV or performing her job in day-to-day politics or government.

Irani became a household name after playing Tulsi in her long-running and popular TV soap "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi". She then quit TV and entered politics, where she joined BJP and later became a Union Minister. "Let me very proudly say that as a television actor, I never ever saw any gender bias. I've been in various roles in TV, writer, producer, associate director.

In politics, during my organisational roles, I have never seen gender bias, within my organisation." Irani says there are days when the slightest sexist remarks she gets is on the basis of being a woman or being called "an actor once upon".

"Today when I am a Minister, I think the best way to deride a woman is to say 'oh you're a woman'. If you can't defeat them on the merit of the case, then I get it slightly that either I am a woman or an actor once upon." Irani, 40, was speaking at a panel discussion on 'No Tulsi in the Aangan - Changing gender roles in film' at the Times LitFest, last evening. Irani says though a few people tried to demean her, people at large raised their voice against sexism.

"One or two people who have tried, have got immense amount of negative feedback from people at large. Because the citizen does not support that kind of negative approach. "I take a lot of pride in the fact that the people at the end of the day, who I serve as a Minister, judge an MP or a Minister on the basis of their work not because they're a man or a woman."

The actor-turned-politician believes it is a huge compliment to the country that despite some people trying to pull down women, female leaders have held important positions. "It is a huge compliment to our country that we have a female speaker in the House, female Opposition leader, that we had a female Prime Minister and a President. That says a lot about our country."

PTI
Police must bring guilty to book: Swaraj on US woman gang rape

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 3: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today said she has spoken to Delhi's Lt Governor and told him that police should bring the guilty involved in the gang rape of an American tourist to book.

In a series of tweets, Swaraj said, "I have seen the media reports about gang rape of an American tourist in Delhi in March this year", adding that she has spoken to Lt Governor Najeeb Jung and told him that police should register a case and bring the guilty to book.

"I have also asked Indian Ambassador in US to contact the victim and assure her that we will not spare the guilty," she said. A rape case was registered today on the complaint of the US woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by a group of men at a five-star hotel in Connaught Place, police said.

They said the "severely traumatised" victim returned to her home without lodging any complaint. Last month, she contacted Delhi Police through an NGO and inquiry was initiated in the matter.

PTI
Taxi fares in Karnataka: Here is all you need to know about AC, non-AC cab fares and waiting charges

Taxi driver stabbed to death over Rs. 10

India

oi-Madhuri

By Madhuri

Lucknow, Dec 4: A Taxi driver was allegedly beaten to death by the passengers after a heated argument over a sum of Rs 10 broke out in Uttar Pradesh's Banda district on Saturday.

The victim has been identified as Munna, a taxi driver. The police said two of the accused have been arrested in connection with the case, Mayaram Verma, ASP said.

According to reports, Munna was carrying passengers to another village when the altercation broke out and the youth began raining blows on him over the money, resulting in his death on the spot. Preliminary probe revealed that the three youth, who were involved in the brutal incident fled immediately from the spot after committing the gruesome act, but the Police managed to arrest two people.

A case of murder has been registered at the local police station against the three youth in the case.

OneIndia News
Explained: Why did the ECI freeze the symbol of the Shiv Sena

Not just future of Sena but democracy at stake, says Uddhav

Uddhav, Rajnath call on Bhagwat

India

oi-PTI

Nagpur, Dec 4: Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray today met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat here.

Thackeray, who arrived here this morning, drove to the RSS headquarters where he met Bhagwat.

Their meeting lasted for about an hour. What transpired between the two leaders is not known, but Sangh sources claimed it was a courtesy call by Thackeray, whose party is an ally in the BJP-ruled coalition at the Centre and Maharashtra.

Later, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also met Bhagwat. Singh and Thackeray among other politicians were here to attend the wedding of Union minister Nitin Gadkari's daughter.

The Winter session of Maharashtra Legislature is beginning here from tomorrow, which is likely to be a stormy one with the Opposition expected to raise the issue of demonetisation and its impact on common man. The Sena has been critical of the implementation of the Centre's demonetisation drive.

PTI
Watch: PM Modi arrives in UAE to offer condolences on former president Sheikh Khalifa's demise

UAE, Japan look forward to stronger bilateral relations

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Dubai, Dec 4 United Arab Emirates (UAE) Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan met with his Japanese counterpart Kentaro Sonoura in Abu Dhabi to discuss ways of bolstering strategic relations between the two countries, media reports said.

The two ministers exchanged views about the latest regional and international developments, Xinhua news agency reported.

The visit by the Japanese minister and his delegation reflects the eagerness of both countries on boosting bilateral relations to serve the interests of the two states and peoples, Al-Nahyan said.

Meanwhile, Japanese minister lauded the UAE's "prestigious regional and international position", stressing his country's keenness on promoting relations with the UAE to serve the common interests of both countries.

IANS
US cautions crackdown in Myanmar could radicalise Muslims

International

oi-PTI

Washington, Dec 3 It's a scene straight out of Myanmar's dark past: a military offensive waged beyond world view that forces ethnic minority villagers from the smoldering ruins of their homes.

The US government, a key sponsor of Myanmar's democratic transition, says a security crackdown that has displaced tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims and left an unknown number dead risks radicalizing a downtrodden people and stoking religious tensions in Southeast Asia.

The military moved in after armed attacks by unknown assailants on police posts along the border with Bangladesh in October.

The attacks in Rakhine State were a possible sign that a small number of Rohingya were starting to fight back against persecution by majority Buddhists who view them as illegal immigrants although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

The top US diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Russel, is critical of the military's heavy-handed approach and says the escalation of violence risks inciting jihadist extremism in the country also known as Burma.

He is also calling on neighboring countries, such as Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, to resist the urge to stage protests that could further stir religious passions.

Assistant Secretary of State Russel told The Associated Press that, "if mishandled, Rakhine State could be infected and infested by jihadism which already plagues neighboring Bangladesh and other countries."

The plight of the Rohingya, once characterized by the UN as the world's most friendless people, has attracted the attention of Muslim extremists since a spike in intercommunal violence in Rakhine in 2012 that left hundreds dead and forced more than 100,000 into squalid camps.

The Somali-born student who launched a car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University this week reportedly protested on his Facebook page about the killing of minority Muslims in Myanmar.

And last weekend, Indonesian authorities arrested two militants who were allegedly planning to attack the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta. It has also raised hackles in the political mainstream.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak, facing domestic pressure over an investment fund scandal, is reportedly planning to attend a protest in his religiously moderate country this weekend condemning the military operation in Myanmar.

Daniel Sullivan at the advocacy group Refugees International said increasing numbers of Rohingya are fleeing across the land border to Bangladesh, and the spike in violence could set off another exodus by sea.

AP
Republican President-elect Donald Trumps decision to fish in Democratic waters for a possible cabinet member or two is smart politics.

He is considering Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a former governor from a major coal-producing state for an opening as energy secretary. And he invited Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, a major booster of both renewable and fossil fuels, for a chat on Friday afternoon at Trump Tower in New York. She, too, is supposedly in the running to head the Department of Energy or the Interior Department.

Related: Return of the Neocons--Trump's Surprising Cabinet Candidates

Trump likely will win kudos for bipartisanship in considering a couple of Democrats for high office, although Gary Cohn, president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, reportedly is also in contention for the energy secretary slot. Trump is also playing a clever game of scrambling the 2018 Senate campaign by threatening to lure a couple of popular Democrats out of the race to enhance his partys chances of picking up their seats.

Heitkamp issued a statement late Friday saying that she had a thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion with Trump that lasted over an hour, covering topics such as the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, energy infrastructure and the future of coal production. I look forward to working with him and all of my colleagues in Congress -- both Republicans and Democrats -- to reach results for North Dakota and the country, she added.

Manchin and Heitkamp have two important things in common: They are centrist Democrats in increasingly red states that went overwhelmingly for Trump in the election. And they are among two dozen Democrats who will be facing reelection in 2018 unless they drop out before then.

Republicans lost several seats in last months election and currently hold a 51 to 48 seat advantage. Assuming a Republican wins the Louisiana runoff election scheduled for Dec. 10, that would leave Republicans with a 52-to-48 seat edge. That would pad the GOPs lead a little, but they would still be well shy of a 60-vote super majority that is essential in getting just about anything done in the upper chamber.

Story continues

Related: Trump the Populist Could Have the Wealthiest Cabinet in History

If Manchin or Heitkamp were to leave the Senate to join the Trump administration, it would be a blow to the struggling Democrats that likely would leave one or the others seat more vulnerable to a GOP takeover, either in the short run or two years from now.

In the case of Heitkamp, a new North Dakota state law would require the scheduling of a special election early next year to fill her vacancy. In light of Trumps strong showing in the state, with 63 percent of the vote, the environment would seem conducive to a Republican winning that seat. Heitkamp barely won four years ago by one percentage point as Republicans gained power in the state.

Meanwhile, Manchin would likely be succeeded by another Democrat chosen on an interim basis by a Democratic governor, Earl Ray Tomblin. However, theres no telling whether his replacement would match Manchins experience and political savvy in retaining the seat two years from now.

That would leave the Republicans just six or seven seats shy of the supermajority they need to surmount a Democratic filibuster.

Related: In First Step Toward Eliminating Obamacare, Trump Names Tom Price to HHS

With the Democrats in the unenviable position of having to defend 25 seats to just eight for the Republicans in 2018, the prospects are fairly good that the Senate GOP will emerge from that election with a commanding majority. Of those 25 endangered senators, 13 are from states that Trump captured or nearly won, according to an Associated Press analysis. Among those states are Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Five other Democrats are from states that Trump carried by19 percentage points or more  including Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

Ward Baker, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP's political organization, told the AP that Democrats facing reelection in two years should be terrified.

This fact might help to explain why congressional Republican leaders are predicting that it will take two or more years to devise a replacement for Obamacare after the GOP makes good on its vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act as one of its first actions in January. The congressional Republicans will have no trouble next month using arcane budget reconciliation rules to pass the Obamacare repeal legislation with a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate.

However, they will have to follow regular order in the future to adopt comprehensive legislation to supplant the existing law. And that means they will need at least 60 votes in order to invoke cloture and break a Democratic filibuster.

Related: Ryan Declares GOP Has a Mandate to Enact Sweeping Changes

There is no way, of course, of knowing what the political landscape will look like a year or two from now, after Trump takes charge and presses his agenda of mass deportation of illegal immigrants, building a wall along the southern border, repealing Obamacare and so on. And historically, the party that wins control of the White House suffers losses in Congress in the following mid-term election.

Trump rewrote the political playbook in 2016  defying all expectations -- and he may reap additional political clout two years from now by helping his party increase its margin in the Senate and House. But Larry J. Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, cautioned that theres no way of predicting voters moods after they get a two-year dose of Trumps policies and personality.

Lets remember, Trump lives dangerously and he cant even hit 50 percent favorability now, Sabato said in an email late last week. If Trump is very unpopular in 2018, theres very little chance the GOP will hit 60.

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The informed shall celebrate 11-9 as a day of peace to commemorate the day we almost went to war with Russia [but didn't]. Coincidentally, it is the inverse of 9-11. It was the day after Election Day, 2016, a day of contention for some, but a day of relief for others. Obviously the Trump supporters rejoiced, but even some members of the Trump opposition were relieved. Regardless of political opinions, it was a day of de-escalation between the United States and Russia. The conflict most Americans never even knew about almost caused WWIII.

My fellow Americans seem to be oblivious to the super-power dick measuring contest and how close we recently came to having an armed conflict with Russia. Some knew but buried their heads in the sand like ostriches in denial. The few people who were paying attention and didn't hide from the truth were detested and ridiculed as mad men. These Gnostics may very well be crazy, crazy like a fox on acid. Let us be attentive. Personally, I pay attention to many sources of information. But to remain credible to a larger audience, I try to focus on citing news that was reported by the MSM (mainstream media). That being said, the MSM might report on 'the big story,' but they often bury it under the hype or use misdirection to spin their own narrative. In this article, I cited former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern (consortiumnews.com). Consortiumnews may not be MSM, but McGovern's credentials give the article clout. Regardless of the source, I encourage others to take all information with a grain of salt. It is up to all of us to interpret the evidence using cross examination and logic.

Some deductive reasoning is necessary for us to scrutinize the actions of the United States government. The U.S. has a scorched-earth policy with Russia. This is not only a breach of the Geneva Convention, but it's also a high stakes game of Nuclear Roulette. The United States has been putting sanctions on Russia (and its trading partners) left and right, claiming that we're suppressing Russian expansion. The problem is not with Russian expansion, but with American expansion. At the Malta Summit, George H. W. Bush promised Mikhail Gorbachev that the United States would not take advantage of the Soviet withdrawal, and there would be no expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe [1]. We broke that promise, and Russia is now almost entirely surrounded by NATO countries. We currently support (and most likely, we also set up) the fascist coup d'e'tat government in Ukraine, which was founded after the Euromaidan Revolution overthrew a democratically elected government in 2014 [2]. Unlike Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine, the Yatsenyuk coup favors globalization. This is beneficial to the American aristocracy, but it's detrimental to Russia, not to mention the vast majority of Americans (Ukrainians are deeply divided on the issue). Our regime change policies and the backing of fascists in the name of 'democracy' are not limited to Ukraine, nor are they anything new (Cambodia; Guatemala; Nicaragua; Afghanistan-Mujahadin; Taliban; Iraq; Libya). These policies often have a much greater negative impact than the dictators themselves did. In 2012, Hillary Clinton challenged the legitimacy of Putin's leadership. Putin is no angel, but he's better than GIGADEATH.

Had she won the election, Clinton planned on creating a no-fly zone in Syria. If Russian planes were to continue to occupy that air space, it would have been considered a declaration of war. There are people in our government who no longer believe in MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). These fools subscribe to the notion of NUCLEAR PRIMACY [3]. Basically, it means that [they think] we can start a nuclear war with minimal collateral damage. Take a minute to let that sink in, MINIMAL COLLATERAL DAMAGE. When he first took office, President Obama claimed that he wanted to see a world without nuclear weapons, and he was given a Nobel Peace Prize. Now that it's Obama's last year in office, he wants to invest a TRILLION DOLLARS to modernize our nuclear arsenal over the next thirty years [4]. If we were not already heading towards another Cold War (or worse), we most definitely are now. Also, take the MSM narrative that our European allies aren't pulling their weight with NATO. In other words, our European allies are not being aggressive enough.

Meanwhile, shortly before the election, Russia left a nuclear security pact, citing US aggression [5]. Then, they moved missiles capable of carrying a nuclear payload to the edge of NATO territory (opposite of our missiles) [6], and Putin called for all Russian officials to return home [7]. Joe Biden was interviewed by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press just before the election. There, Biden propagated the narrative that Russia hacked the DNC to influence our election. He said that we can match anything the Russians can throw at us and that we were sending a message to Putin. Chuck Todd asked if the public would know about the contents of this message, and Biden dismally replied, "Hope not." The day after Hillary lost the election, the tensions between the U.S. and Russia deescalated. The day should go down in history and be celebrated as a day of peace.

The MSM claims Russia was meddling with our election, and that they were behind Guccifer2.0 hacking into the DNC. They very well could be behind it (Russia did bug us with 'the thing'), but a child could hack into the DNC. Hell, Team Bernie got past the firewall by accident (or at least it was contained to four staff members who were subsequently fired). The Sanders campaign came forward without getting caught, but they were still severely punished when the DNC withheld voter data at a crucial point in the primaries [8]. Regardless of whether or not Russia was involved with the DNC hack, there was obvious misdirection perpetrated by the MSM. This was done to conceal the evidence of collusion between the MSM and the DNC to perpetuate the status quo (elitism), WHICH WAS NEVER DENIED. The same thing probably happens with the GOP, but there is no evidence to support this theory (yet).

Perhaps Russia did meddle with our election. And maybe it was for the better. If you're reading this and feeling like, "Where was I during all of this?" you are not alone. But let us not repeat the mistakes of the Holocaust. Now is not the time to be complacent, silent, or even polite. WAKE UP AMERICA! And keep your damn head out of the sand. 11-9, NEVER FORGET!

[1] click here

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"Soldier. Veteran. Surfer. Member of Congress. Doing my best to be of service."

Congresswoman Gabbard with Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II (center right) and supporters

U.S. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's (D-HI) Twitter handle is an accurate summation of the unpretentious woman who stood before 400 Veterans and Water Protectors at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. It was a frigid Dakota Saturday night, and you could have heard the proverbial pin drop echo against the metal walls as she addressed the crowd. Gabbard served two tours of duty in the Middle East, and she continues her service as a Major in the Army National Guard. In 2005 she completed a 12-month tour in Iraq, where she served in a field medical unit as a specialist with a 29th Support Battalion medical company. Gabbard was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal at the end of the tour.

The vets were proud to have one of their own in a visible leadership role. It was written on their faces and obvious in the occasional tear that was quickly wiped away.

A compassionate embrace

In a show of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux, Congresswoman Gabbard is joining thousands of veterans from across the United States who have come to Standing Rock and the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation to protest the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The pipeline, if approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, would cross under the Missouri River and threaten not only the water supplies of Standing Rock, but also that of the Cheyenne River Sioux to the south.

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See original here

By Amy Goodman, Denis Moynihan



'In over 1,000 minutes of national broadcast television airtime devoted to all the campaigns, Donald Trump received 327 minutes, or close to one-third of all the campaign coverage. Bernie Sanders received just 20 minutes.'

(Image by (Photo: Robert Crouse-Baker/flickr/cc)) Details DMCA



We hadn't seen Bernie Sanders in Philadelphia since last July, when he watched his primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, win the Democratic Party's nomination. Sanders joined the "Democracy Now!" news hour this week at the historic Philadelphia Free Library for a wide-ranging discussion. "I am deeply concerned about the future of American democracy," Sanders told the enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd.

Millions of Americans voted for Sanders in the primaries. He transformed the 2016 U.S. presidential election, inspiring and engaging people with a progressive vision for the future, with little help from the media.

The networks have engaged in endless "mea culpas" in the election's aftermath, contrite about their reliance on faulty polls. Rarely do you hear a news personality on television admitting that they failed miserably in covering the Sanders campaign. The U.S. media effectively iced out a major-party candidate who consistently held the largest rallies, even without a media megaphone.

Donald Trump received blanket coverage. His every move, every tweet, almost all his speeches were covered across the networks. The U.S. corporate media made candidate Donald Trump. Estimates of the free airtime he received vary from $1 billion to as high as $3 billion.

What about Bernie Sanders? The Tyndall Report analyzed major-network campaign coverage in 2015. In over 1,000 minutes of national broadcast television airtime devoted to all the campaigns, Donald Trump received 327 minutes, or close to one-third of all the campaign coverage. Bernie Sanders received just 20 minutes. Hillary Clinton got 121 minutes of campaign coverage, six times the amount Sanders received. "ABC World News Tonight" aired 81 minutes of reports on Donald Trump, compared with just 20 seconds for Sanders.

After President Barack Obama leaves office, Sanders may well become the most powerful Democrat in the country, even though he is not technically a Democrat, but an independent socialist. His success has catapulted him into the Democratic leadership of the Senate.

"I accept this responsibility as outreach chair with a lot of trepidation, but also with excitement. The current approach clearly is not succeeding, and we need a new approach ... to create a 50-state strategy. That means we start playing ball in states that the Democrats have conceded decades ago. But more importantly, we create a kind of grass-roots party, where the most important people in the party are not just wealthy campaign contributors, but working people, young people, people in the middle class."

It is also why he is supporting Keith Ellison's candidacy to be chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. Ellison is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and also happens to be the first Muslim member of Congress. I asked Sanders what he did to warrant a full 20 seconds of coverage on ABC, and he threw his head back, laughing out loud.

"We had the misfortune of actually trying to talk about the problems facing America and providing real solutions," he said, offering his take on the media's failure. "Trump was tweeting out about how ugly or horrible or disgusting or terrible his opponents were, in really ugly terms. Perfect for the media. That is a great 12-second sound bite. But to talk about why the middle class is in decline or why we have massive levels of income and wealth inequality can't be done in 12 seconds. And second of all, it's not something that they are, frankly, terribly interested in."

While the media may not have been interested in Sanders' message, the voters were. Despite the media blackout, Sanders won 23 primary contests and 46 percent of the pledged Democratic delegates.

Sanders cautions against maligning all Trump supporters. "It would be a tragic mistake to believe that everybody who voted for Donald Trump is a 'deplorable.' They're not. These are people who are disgusted, and they are angry at the establishment. And the Democratic Party has not been clear enough, in my view, about telling those people ... that we are on their side."

Bernie Sanders has transformed his campaign into a group called "Our Revolution," to continue organizing. "Where we are now is in a difficult moment," he summed up as our Philadelphia conversation was ending. "But throughout history, serious people have fought back. ... Think about 120 years ago. There were children working in factories, losing their fingers. People fought back. They fought to create unions. Think about the women's movement. Think about the civil-rights movement. Think about the gay-rights movement. Think about the environmental. Think about all of the hurdles that those folks had to overcome. ... Nobody in this room or in this country has a right to say 'I give up.' You've got to jump in and start fighting."

Bernie Sanders has spent his life fighting for progressive causes. As the world braces for the Trump presidency, Sanders shows no signs of slowing down.
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall has certainly acquired the firsthand experiences and knowledge gained through interviews to deliver some interesting insights about the "bottom-up" information revolution. Whereas the old 'top-down' systems created stove-pipes and excessive secrecy that blocked information sharing and led to the 'failure to connect the dots' before 9-11, the bottom-up approach should be the main fix. Kall's concept would seem to interface equally well with the founding fathers' idealism in setting forth their democratic theory of governance as with the realism that makes the multi-sourced, bottom-up Wikipedia work. As someone who shares my support of both government and corporate whistleblowing -- which is nothing more than encouraging greater horizontal sharing of information, I commend Rob Kall's important work on this topic."



Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and named one of TIME Magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002)
From Consortium News

When Fidel Castro died on Nov. 25 at the age of 90, we lost one of the most remarkable leaders of the Twentieth Century. No other head of state has so steadfastly stood up to the United States and survived.

Castro practiced a unique form of internationalism. Nelson Mandela credited Cuba with helping to bring down the system of apartheid in South Africa. Cuba fought with the revolutionaries in Angola. And Cuba regularly sends doctors to other countries and provides foreign nationals with free medical education.

As Nelson Valdes noted in 2013, Castro, together with others, "shaped a foreign policy and national movement around the fundamental concept of national sovereignty, yet devoid of any self-centered nationalism." He added, "This unique form of national self-determination incorporated other countries on an equal footing. In fact, national sovereignty and solidarity had precedence over ideology." Thus, Valdes wrote, "Cuba has aided countries, despite the economic and political differences they may have."

In 1953, in what is considered the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, Castro, his brother Raul and more than 100 other rebels mounted a failed attack against the Batista regime at the Moncada Barracks. Castro was arrested, tried, sentenced to 15 years in prison and released in an amnesty deal two years later.

At his trial, Castro famously said in his defense, "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me."

U.S. Inference in Cuba

The U.S. economic embargo was initiated in 1960 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in response to a memorandum written by L.D. Mallory, a senior State Department official. Mallory proposed "a line of action that makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government."

Cuba turned to the U.S.S.R. for assistance, which supported the Cuban Revolution until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1962, in response to the stationing of U.S. nuclear missiles in Turkey, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. After a tense standoff, Khrushchev and U.S. President John F. Kennedy negotiated a withdrawal of the missiles from both Cuba and Turkey.

The economic blockade continues to this day. It is an illegal interference in the affairs of the Cuban people, in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Charter of the Organization of American States. Every year for 26 consecutive years, the United Nations General Assembly has called on the United States to lift the blockade, which has cost Cuba in excess of $ 1 trillion.

U.S. meddling in Cuban affairs did not start in 1959. Since 1898, when the United States intervened in Cuba's war for independence, the U.S. government has tried to dominate Cuba. The United States gained control of Guantanamo Bay in 1903, when Cuba was occupied by the U.S. Army after its intervention in Cuba's war of independence against Spain.

Cuba was forced to accept the Platt Amendment to its constitution as a prerequisite for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Cuba. That amendment provided the basis for a treaty granting the United States jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay.

The 1903 agreement gave the United States the right to use Guantanamo Bay "exclusively as coaling or naval stations, and for no other purpose." A 1934 treaty maintained U.S. control over Guantanamo Bay in perpetuity until the United States abandons it or until both Cuba and the United States agree to modify it. That treaty also limits its uses to "coaling and naval stations."

None of these treaties or agreements gives the United States the right to use Guantanamo Bay as a prison, or to subject detainees to arbitrary detention or torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, which have been documented at the prison.

Castro, who called the Guantanamo base "a dagger plunged into the heart of Cuban soil," refused to cash the rent checks the U.S. government sends annually. "An elemental sense of dignity and absolute disagreement with what happens in that portion of our national territory has prevented Cuba from cashing those checks," he noted. The United States, according to Castro, transformed the Guantanamo base into a "horrible prison, one that bears no difference with the Nazi concentration camps."

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Rally against the Dakota Access Pipeline

(Image by Fibonacci Blue) Details DMCA



WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Yankton Sioux Tribe (the "Tribes") announced today that they have requested the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights call on the United States to adopt precautionary measures to prevent irreparable harm to the Tribes, their members, and others resulting from the ongoing and imminent construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline ("DAPL"), and from the harassment and violence being perpetrated against people gathered in prayer and protest in opposition to DAPL.

According to the filing, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the "Corps"), an agency of the U.S. government, failed to adequately assess potential environmental and social impacts of the project in its role as issuer of the numerous permits necessary for construction of DAPL, including authorization to drill beneath the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. The filing alleges that both U.S. law and international law require that the Corps carry forth its permitting assessment in consultation with potentially affected indigenous peoples. The filing further alleges that because the Corps disregarded the Tribes' consistent and continuing objection to construction of the pipeline, the Tribes face irremediable harm to sacred and historical sites and resources, including the waters of the Missouri River.

The filing also raises grave human rights concerns surrounding threats, harassment and injury sustained by people peacefully praying and protesting in defense of the waters and the Tribes' rights. The filing alleges that such conduct by police, military and private security guards and the failure of the U.S. government to protect the protesters constitutes a severe violation of the protesters' rights to life, physical integrity and personal liberty, security, health, protection against arbitrary arrest, and freedom of association and assembly.

The Tribes' request seeks the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to call on the Government of the United States to protect the rights of the Tribes by denying the easement allowing construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe; complete a full environmental impact statement in formal consultation with the Tribes; and immediately take all actions necessary to guarantee the safety of those engaging in peaceful prayer and protest concerning DAPL, as well as several other measures to ensure the rights of indigenous peoples are protected.

"Tribal concerns and treaty rights have been disregarded and ignored under the pretext of the 'letter of the law for far too long," said David Archambault II, Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. "Our people have tolerated this kind of treatment for over 200 years and enough is enough. It is time the United States finally and consistent with its legal and international obligations fully recognize our right to be treated like human beings and as sovereign nations."

Robert Flying Hawk, Chairman of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, said "Our status as sovereign nations is recognized internationally, as it exists outside of any constructs propagated by the United States. As indigenous nations, we are standing strong in our conviction to protect the human rights of our people including advancing those interests in an international forum."

Faith Spotted Eagle, Chair of the Ihanktonwan Treaty Steering Committee, said "Endangering human and water security is a violation of international human rights. Our treaties are international law and are entitled to respect as such. Beyond that, we are constantly under corporate attack on our cultural and natural resources and spiritual life ways, We are being robbed of treaty lands and it must be stopped."

The Tribes brought the filing collectively. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is represented by Earthjustice and the American Indian Law Clinic at the University of Colorado Law School. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Yankton Sioux Tribe are represented by Fredericks Peebles & Morgan LLP. A group of tribal representatives has been invited to testify at a hearing by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on December 9 at 10:15 a.m. These representatives will hold a press conference following the hearing.

What: Hearing on the Human Rights Situation of Indigenous Persons in the Context of Projects and Extractive Industries in the United States

Who: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of the United States

When: December 9, 2016, 10:15 to 11:15 a.m.

Where: Padilha Vidal Room (TL Level), GSB Building of the Organization of American States, 1889 F Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006

Councilman Chad Harrison, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

Chairman Harold Frazier, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe

Faith Spotted Eagle, Yankton Sioux Tribe

Chairman Robert Wayne Flying Hawk, Ihanktonwan Nation (Yankton Sioux Tribe)

Contact:

Sue Evans | sue@nwmediaallies.com |

Nicole Ducheneaux | nducheneaux@ndnlaw.com |

Martin Wagner | mwagner@earthjustice.org | 510-917- 0434

Carla Fredericks | carla.fredericks@colorado.edu | 917-593- 0194
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By Ted Sickinger and Jeff Manning

State and federal law enforcement agents hoped for a confession.

But Seattle energy consultant Martin Shain wasn't playing ball.

Agents from the Oregon Department of Justice and the FBI investigating an Oregon solar power project last September persuaded another player in the case to telephone Shain in hopes he would incriminate himself. Agents wanted Shain to admit he forged two documents key to receiving $11.8 million in state subsidies.

As agents secretly listened in, feeding questions to the caller, Shain was defiant.

"They got their project," Shain said. "They're built to specs. They operate. They're perfect. No one gives a (expletive). They're trying to find a fall guy and it makes me sick to my stomach."

Not only did the agents fail to get their confession, they may have jeopardized one of the most significant criminal cases Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has filed during four years in office. Shain asked a judge Thursday to dismiss the forgery charges, alleging the phone call amounted to prosecutorial misconduct.

Seattle energy consultant Martin Shain, left, and then Gov. John Kitzhaber talk with Chris Maples, former president of Oregon Institute of Technology, at the ground-breaking ceremony for Oregon's Solar By Degrees program in August of 2011.

Jim McDermott, Shain's lawyer, contends the phone call was an attempt to interrogate Shain without his lawyer present, a violation of his constitutional rights because the state had been informed Shain was represented by counsel.

Ken Lerner, a Portland criminal defense attorney not involved in the case, said the circumstances look clear-cut to him. "That is misconduct. It's a violation of his assertion of right to counsel."

Though Lerner couldn't say whether it was serious enough to dismiss the charges, he said there might be grounds for suppressing any evidence obtained.

The Justice Department declined to comment Friday, other than to say it "will oppose the motion in court, where we believe this case should be tried."

Whether or not Shain's motion gains traction, the filing provides a rare glimpse inside a criminal investigation, including the hardnosed tactics employed by investigators and the bitter anxiety of the suspects in their crosshairs. Along with his motion to dismiss, McDermott included investigators' summary of their interviews with Bob Simonton, a former employee of the Oregon University System, as well as a transcript of the secretly recorded phone call that Simonton made to Shain.

Shain's lawyers also filed a second motion to dismiss the charges, claiming the Justice Department filed its case after the statute of limitations had expired.

Shain was indicted in August on two counts of first-degree forgery after an 18-month investigation by the state and the FBI into a $24 million project that built six large solar arrays on university campuses across the state.

The Solar by Degrees program was Oregon's signature renewable energy project. State leaders, including then-Gov. John Kitzhaber, crowed about the green energy and jobs that would flow from solar arrays at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls and three campuses within the state university system.

The projects were completed in 2013 and 2014. But investigators launched their inquiry in March 2015, after The Oregonian/OregonLive revealed that backers had submitted phony documents to qualify for $11.8 million in state tax credits.

The forgery charges hang on two documents submitted to the Oregon Department of Energy in September 2012 to obtain an extension of the project's eligibility for state tax credits. To get that extension, backers needed to prove construction was underway by April 15, 2011.

The documents included an invoice claiming the project's initial developer, RedCo, spent $14,200 in early 2011 on equipment at seven separate sites. The second document was a letter carrying the signature of RedCo's Chief Executive Officer Ryan Davies, claiming $210,000 in expenditures in 2011, including construction activity in the first quarter of the year.

Officials at the Energy Department failed to do even cursory checks on the documents. They granted the requested extension almost immediately.

The Oregonian/OregonLive's reporting revealed that the company allegedly supplying the foundations didn't exist and that none of the projects was under construction in early 2011. The CEO, Davies, said he never sent or signed the letter in question: "This is obviously some fraudulent behavior on somebody's part."

According to Oregon law, a person is guilty of forgery if he or she makes or alters a written instrument with intent to defraud, or delivers with the same intent a written instrument known to be false.

Shain's lawyer says his client doesn't dispute that the documents are phony. But he said Shain denies creating them or submitting them to the Oregon Department of Energy. McDermott also said state employees don't remember the meeting when the documents were delivered.

However, Shain told The Oregonian/OregonLive in January 2015 that he had delivered the proof of construction to the state in person. He also describes the meeting he had with two employees at the agency during the September 2015 phone call recorded by investigators.

"I remember saying we have lots of information -- what all do you need?" Shain told Simonton. "And they said these are fine, and they pulled two or three pieces of paper off the table and they said, 'Great.'"

Simonton and Shain were in regular contact before and after the article was published and the state announced its investigation, according to the FBI's summary of its interviews with Simonton.

Simonton told investigators he forwarded an email from The Oregonian/OregonLive to Shain on Jan. 27, 2015, that included the forged documents as attachments. After the article was published, Simonton told investigators he called Shain to confront him. Shain claimed the tax credit extensions were granted on more than just the documents mentioned in the article.

The state has no such information in its files.

In April 2015, Simonton told investigators, the two met for about two hours at Simonton's home in Utah and "discussed what they should say if they were confronted about documents related to the projects," according to the newly disclosed FBI documents. During the meeting, Simonton told investigators, Shain "continually deflected Simonton's direct questions" related to the phony invoice and letter.

In August 2015, after both had been contacted by investigators, they met again in Utah. Shain, the FBI notes say, was "visibly upset and nervous about the situation" and repeatedly mentioned other documents that he had submitted as proof of construction.

The September 2015 phone call transcript shows two men under considerable strain. Both Simonton and Shain talk of the emotional toll and the injustice that their prized solar project should become the subject of a criminal investigation. Simonton has not been charged with anything.

"I have no more energy, no more heart, no more soul to put into this," Shain told Simonton on the call. "It's bled me dry. I can't eat. I can't sleep. They've ruined my career. They've ruined everything."

Simonton expresses sympathy but continues to push Shain for information on the documents. Shain repeatedly avoids direct answers to those questions.

Simonton: "It's all coming down from this stupid letter from RedCo, or allegedly from RedCo, 'cause the FBI is saying that, you know, this isn't Ryan Davies's signature. They analyzed it. And Ryan Davies is telling them, 'That's not my signature. I didn't sign that letter.' So where'd the letter come from, then, if not Ryan Davies?"

Shain: "Bob. You know what? I cannot recollect the overflow of documents with the project. I mean that was, that was ...

Simonton: "But this is an important one. This is the one that..."

Shain: "I get that... If the legislative intent says you had to have spent money on site, there are many, many, many examples of that."

Simonton: "And do you have documentation?"

Shain: "Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And what I cannot understand other than a newspaper writer pointing to one piece of paper and an agency going whoa, whoa whoa...you know, we're not culpable. This is all we got. And otherwise we have no comment..."

Shain: You know, I hope, Bob, I hope that they are listening in to this conversation. Shame on me for having this conversation. I hope they're listening because we did everything we were supposed to do and everything we were asked to do by the administrative authorities..."

Simonton: "You need to tell me, Martin, did you have anything to do with creating this letter?"

Shain: "NO. NO. NO. And we have so much information to show all of the work and the costs that was expended. Never mind the (expletive) letter. That's one piece of paper out of hundreds that they could have pulled off the table."

Before publishing its investigation in February 2015, The Oregonian/OregonLive asked Shain to provide any other documentation showing the projects were under construction in early 2011. His emailed response: "I was unable to locate any salient files that had not been provided, either via email or subsequently, in person."

Shain's lawyer has filed a separate motion to dismiss based on the state's failure to file the forgery charges within the three-year statute of limitations.

The timing of the article gave state investigators more than six months to investigate and pursue charges before that deadline came up. But 18 months went by before he was indicted by a Marion County grand jury.

The state argues that the statute was extended because Shain lives in the Seattle area. Prosecutors are relying on statutory language that says the clock does not tick "any time the accused is not an inhabitant of or usually a resident within this state."

But Shain's lawyer argues that the purpose of that language is to extend the statute if a suspect tries to elude prosecution by going into hiding. That wasn't the case with Shain, he argues.

"The Oregon Department of Justice's many lawyers and investigators had ready access to Mr. Shain in Oregon during the entire three-year statutory period," said McDermott. "The out-of-state statutory extension applies only to suspects who purposefully remain out of state to avoid an investigation."

Tung Yin, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, said awareness of the statute of limitations is pretty basic, law-school-101 stuff, and missing the filing deadline is tantamount to legal malpractice.

The state also has filed a civil case against Shain looking to recover the $11.8 million, plus damages. Shain was paid more than $2.4 million by the solar developer who took over from Redco, SolarCity. That's about 10 percent of the project's total costs.

"For five years of work of my entire staff," Shain told Simonton on the call. "We were lucky to survive. We didn't make (expletive). I've paid myself a dollar an hour, if I look at it."

- Ted Sickinger

503-221-8505; @tedsickinger

- Jeff Manning

503-294-7606; @JeffmanningOre

Oregonian correspondence with Shain and Simonton

- Shain 1/08/15

- Shain 1/26/15`
medicine

The Senate this week will take up the 21st Century Cures Act, which includes billions of dollars for new medical research and fighting the opioid addiction crisis. But its most controversial sections aim to streamline the drug approval process for medicine makers.

(Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images )

The political media may be focused on Donald Trump's Twitter feed and the lobby of his building in midtown Manhattan. But over on Capitol Hill, Congress is passing legislation.

And a bill that will head to the Senate in the week ahead could have far-reaching implications for drugmakers, companies that creative medical devices and investors.

The wide-ranging, 1,000-page bill, called the 21st Century Cures Act, is described as the biggest health care reform legislation since the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

It includes billions of dollars for new medical research and fighting the opioid addiction crisis. But its most controversial sections aim to streamline the drug approval process for medicine makers.

Critics of the current Food and Drug Administration approval process say it's slow, cumbersome and expensive, delaying innovative medicines from the market and inflating their cost to patients and insurers.

Among the changes in drug trials, the bill would lower the bar for indicating a medicine's effectiveness. It would also allow drug trials with fewer people and simplify studies. The upside, supporters argue, include cheaper experiments and faster approval. The risks are less exhaustive studies on a drug and its potential dangers.

It's no surprise drugmakers like the legislation.

Major medicine makers always are on the hunt for the next blockbuster drug -- the next Prozac, Lipitor or Viagra, for instance.

Those drugs represented billions of dollars of profits for their makers and shareholders when they were released and under patent.

Opponents of the bill worry that lowering the bar for scientific evidence necessary to bring a new medicine to the market presents a public health risk.

Pharmaceutical shareholders should know their investments are only as strong as a company's pipeline of new, and profitable, medicines. The speed of that pipeline may change considerably in the week ahead.

--Tribune News Servce
Hundreds of National Guard armories across the country have been contaminated with lead dust.

Here's what you should know as a parent:

Q. How much time would a child have to spend in a contaminated armory to face health problems?

A. Children age 6 and younger are the most vulnerable because their bodies are still developing. Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a researcher at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C., said it's difficult to quantify the precise risk to a child who visits a contaminated armory just once. But frequent visits could leave substantial levels of lead in the blood, he said.

Q. Is there a safe level of lead in children's blood streams?

A. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says no level is safe. It has gradually lowered the blood level it considers high, from 20 micrograms per deciliter of blood to the current standard of 5 micrograms per deciliter. Health officials treat children with lead levels of 70 micrograms per deciliter or more as a medical emergency. The level in adults is 100 micrograms per deciliter.

Q. When levels are too high, what happens?

Toxic Armories

Every time a soldier pulled the trigger inside a National Guard gun range, a bullet cast off bits of lead. The Guard's neglect allowed the toxic dust to spread outside the range, endangering families who attended weddings, school sleepovers and Cub Scout meetings in America's armories.

READ THE SERIES

A. In children, lead can lower IQs, cause behavioral problems, a loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, abdominal pain and vomiting. It can also damage the kidneys, bone marrow and hearing. Small children - 6 and younger - face the biggest threat along with pregnant women, who can pass lead to the fetus. Lead in adults can cause hypertension, renal failure, gout and chronic encephalopathy. Very high levels can lead to a coma and even death.

Q. How can I find out whether the National Guard armory my family visited (or plans to visit) has a lead problem?

A. First: Know that we are interested in hearing about your experience. Second: We've created a searchable database containing inspection reports from hundreds of armories. Facilities most likely to be contaminated are older buildings containing active or former indoor gun ranges, but lead dust has turned up in other armories where weapons are cleaned and stored. Even armories that stopped being used by the National Guard a long time ago sometimes contain lead dust, testing by The Oregonian/OregonLive found.

Q. What if my local armory isn't in the database?

A. The National Guard in some states didn't answer our request for inspection records. Other states reported the results but didn't provide documentation. Still others have performed new inspections since answering our original public records requests. In our searchable database, you'll find contact information for each state's top military official, the adjutant general. Any armory containing a former gun range is supposed to be inspected every year. Ask the adjutant general for the latest inspection status and documents for armories in your town.

Q. Should I be worried if I worked in an armory as an adult?

A. If the armory was contaminated, there is a risk that you might have taken lead home on work clothing, exposing your family members. As for your own health, the greatest hazards are for people who worked cleaning active firing ranges. However, others have become sick. Civilian workers at a converted armory in Helena, Montana were evacuated in 2013 after lead contamination was discovered. One woman's lead level was 8 micrograms per deciliter a year after leaving. That's enough to decrease kidney function, raise blood pressure and create tremors in the hand, according to a sweeping federal review of lead research.

Q. How long does lead stay in the system?

A. Lead enters the bloodstream, goes to organs where it does damage and ends up stored in the bones and teeth. The half-life of lead varies from about a month in blood, four to six weeks in soft tissue about about 25 to 30 years in bones.

Q. At what level do health officials get involved?

A. In Oregon, all blood lead tests, regardless of the result, are reported to Oregon Health Authority, which works closely with county authorities. The Multnomah County Health Department gets involved when a child has a level of 5 micrograms per deciliter of blood. It works with the family to identify the source of the lead and counsel them on ways to reduce exposure. Children typically are exposed to lead through dust, soil and paint. Grants are available to moderate- and low-income families to reduce lead paint hazards. Contact the county's lead line at 503-988-4000 or go to leadline.org for more information.

Q. What is the medical treatment for children with lead poisoning?

A. Health officials recommend chelation therapy when lead levels in children reach 45 micrograms per deciliter of blood. Chelation therapy usually involves taking a pill or drinking a solution that helps to flush the lead in blood out of the body. It's an extreme measure and should only be undertaken under the guidance of a health care professional because the therapy strips the body of all other minerals. They need to be replaced to ensure proper cell function.

Q. What precautions can parents take at home?

A. Parents who live in homes built before 1978, and especially before 1950, should be aware of lead paint risks. They should avoid do-it-yourself renovation projects unless they know how to do them safely. They should hire lead-certified contractors. People who live in homes built between 1970 and 1985 should have their water tested for lead. In Multnomah County, free water testing kits are available. Call 503-988-4000 or go to leadline.org.

Q. What sort of test should a child get?

A. The only way to determine whether a child has been poisoned by lead is through a blood test.

Q. Should I get my child tested?

If the child was exposed to high lead levels or you fear you child might have been exposed, get them tested.

-- Lynne Terry contributed to this report
SELL THE ELLIOTT: The Oregon State Land Board should sell the Elliott because it is an underperforming endowment asset for schools. The board has a fiduciary obligation to maximize revenue, and timber management is no longer profitable.

However, the sale process being used by the board is poorly designed. Instead of selling the property to the highest bidder, the board is refusing to take any bids at all. The board has decided that the Elliott will be worth exactly $220.8 million on Dec. 31, and anyone who dares to offer one dollar more will be rejected.

Moreover, the board has placed four "public benefit" restrictions on prospective owners, including prohibitions on ever cutting more than one-third of the timber. This lowers the market price of the property.

The value of the Elliott State Forest to schools is much larger than it appears because endowment assets are managed for the long term. For instance, assume that the Elliott were sold for $350 million in a pure auction, no strings attached. Further assume that the proceeds were invested in a manner similar to the Public Employees Retirement System fund, and had average annual returns of 7.5%, which is the target rate for PERS.

After 50 years, the investment would be worth $13 billion; but after 100 years, it would be worth $487 billion.

Do school funding advocates have a better idea for raising $487 billion? If not, they should support an auction sale of the Elliott.

John A. Charles, Jr.

Southwest Portland

Charles is president and CEO of the Cascade Policy Institute

KILL THE SALE: Thank you for weighing in against the sale of the entire Elliot State Forest in your Editorial of November 27.

As I understand it, the golden rule of endowment management is never to touch the principal. While the inherent values of a native forest will be lost forever if the forest is sold off and converted to a plantation, Oregon's financial gain will evaporate in mere days.

The State Land Board appears to be making this rash decision almost purely out of spite towards environmental advocates, and that is deeply disturbing.

Gov. Brown and the Land Board should kill the proposed sale immediately.

Eric Taylor

Williams
OWYHEE.JPG

The Owyhee Wild and Scenic River, managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, in southeast Oregon, flows north to connect with the Snake River.

(Courtesy the Bureau of Land Management)

Two separate fights to protect two extraordinary patches of Oregon have in recent months escalated as President Barack Obama's term comes to a close. That's because he could, by the authority Congress granted to him in a far less populous time, singularly issue sweeping protections to the Owyhee Canyonlands in southeastern Oregon and the Cascade-Siskiyou Mountains in southwestern Oregon and northern California.

The drive to limit development and resource use in both areas makes sense but for different reasons. Oregonians will never get back the lightless skies at night or the lonely beauty of ancient, eroded terrain cut through by wild rivers in the Owyhee if given over to mining or highway-building. Separately, Oregonians risk losing some of the site-specific, mind-bending biodiversity that makes the forested Cascade-Siskiyou realm a delicate universe requiring limits on use.

But Obama should say no to designating national monument status to the 2.5-million acre Owyhee Canyonlands. And he should say yes to doubling the already successful Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.

Selective wilderness designations, river protections and broad prohibitions on mining would be strategic, consequential steps Congress could take to protect the Owyhee Canyonlands, the largest undeveloped expanse of land in the lower 48 states. Significantly, doing so would ensure that an economically vital and long-established ranching culture goes unthreatened by monument designation.

A scene from the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Southern Oregon.

By contrast, in the more populated realm anchored by Ashland and Medford, the fish-bearing waterways and exotic flora that make the Siskyous distinct face potential threat from fragmented lands and warmer temperatures from climate change. Immediate monument expansion would connect fragmented lands within and outside the monument, offering lifelines to potentially marooned species, and help preserve what the 2000 presidential decree called an "ecological wonder ... of rare and beautiful species of plants and animals, whose continued survival ... depends upon its continued ecological integrity."

Few dispute that President-elect Donald Trump might bring to the nation a different ethic about development and land use, and it remains true that roughly half of Oregon is owned by the federal government and run by agencies such as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. While most folks in rural Harney County and surrounding areas objected to the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, simmering resentments across the American West about public lands management came to the fore. So Oregon must have a voice in deciding what's right for the extraordinary landscape that Oregonians call home. That means the Owyhee and the Siskyous warrant bolstered protections only by actions that honor on-the-ground sentiment, essential to declaring shared destiny and preserving democracy.

Years ago Idaho withstood fears that its Owyhee lands would win monument designation and dodged it by creating 518,000 acres of protected wilderness. It has worked well, among other things limiting mechanized uses of sensitive lands.

Oregonian editorials

reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom.

are Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung, Mark Katches, John Maher and Len Reed.

To respond to this editorial:

Post your comment below, submit a

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If you have questions about

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contact Laura Gunderson,

editorial and commentary editor,

at lgunderson@oregonian.com

or 503-221-8378.

But Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley in June proposed legislation that would shield more than 2 million acres of the Owyhee Canyonlands from mineral exploitation, including oil and gas drilling. It was a clear call to leave the ground the way it is and do so in such a way that supports farmers and ranchers who work in an environmentally sustainable fashion. They should press Congress to approve the legislation while citing a report released just last month from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries showing plenty of untapped riches beneath the surface in southeastern Oregon.

Both senators, meanwhile, have deferred to Obama on monument designation, preferring to make known the Oregon sentiments on all sides of the issue. Yet both have been supportive of expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, even as some logging- and ranching-based voices in the region claim they are unheard.

Presidents are twitchy in their monument designations, which can sharply limit access while altering ecologies and firefighting techniques. Bill Clinton created eight monuments in his last three days of office. Obama has made several already. His interior secretary and former REI chief, Sally Jewell, has advocated wise stewardship of public lands, and her counsel will count in the weeks ahead. But any presidential decree affecting Oregon must reflect this modern reality: Oregon's public lands conform to contemporary uses while honoring the communities rooted in them. Owyhee needs wilderness, river protection and mining-prohibition legislation -- but no monument decree. The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, meanwhile, should build upon its success with expansion that will ensure its vitality.

-The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board
3301

Clatstop County District Attorney Josh Marquis argues the question of cost is irrelevant in the death penalty debate. Even if it's abolished, he says, defense attorneys would drive up costs fighting other sentences.

(Beth Nakamura / 2011)

Josh Marquis

In its November 20th editorial, The Oregonian devoured hook, line, and sinker, two more studies churned out by academics and legal experts who think they know what's best for the public.

The "study," undertaken last fall, claimed seeking the death penalty costs a lot of money. It is pretty clear the inspiration for this particular argument came from Nebraska state lawmakers' move last year to repeal the state's death penalty. The sole issue was cost. Yet two weeks ago, Nebraskans, who rarely use the Oregon-born initiative process, voted 61 percent to 39 percent to over-rule the legislature and reinstate the death penalty.

We've already had this discussion many times. In Oregon, there have been seven votes on the death penalty, the last in 1984. And while Nebraska may be considered a "red state," voters in California -- a state as famously liberal as Oregon - rejected outlawing capital punishment by an 8-point margin, up from the 4-point margin in a 2012 refusal to abolish the death penalty.

The public doesn't need another study or more discussion. People understand what is driving up the costs of capital punishment, and it isn't prosecutors. It's the direct result of defense attorneys spending as much as possible on as many witnesses and experts - literally from across the globe - to represent their clients. It's the direct result of dragging out, for as long as possible, as many appeals as possible when a killer's guilt isn't in doubt.

The studies cited by The Oregonian are an attempt to reduce justice to dollar signs. That's easy to do when you're sitting in a law office or ensconced on a college campus. Try putting a dollar sign on the cost of human suffering when it's your loved one who has been cruelly murdered, and the murderer not only gets to enjoy life but also has a fan club of educators and legal experts wrapping him in compassion.

End the death penalty, and watch what happens to the cost of defending a killer facing life without parole. Defense attorneys will employ the same extravagant tactics to fight a different ultimate punishment. We know this because they already spend huge amounts on non-capital murders.

Beyond that, the budgets of prosecutors -- like the office I've managed (financially and otherwise) for more than a quarter century - have no cost attributable to seeking a death sentence. Unlike the defense, we don't get extra staff or funding.

The public sees through the deliberate, almost malicious, efforts by death penalty opponents to bully drug manufacturers into refusing to make appropriate drugs available to prisons. These are the same drugs that veterinarians use when our pets are given a humane death, yet opponents argue that these drugs are cruel.

The public craves justice, not vengeance. They understand how wrong it is when a man like Gary Haugen can rape and kill a woman, then speak on her behalf when he says he was motivated to kill her because she was in favor of abortion. Even then, Haugen was given a chance to redeem himself in prison and go free. Instead, he killed a fellow inmate he thought had informed on him.

When former Gov. John Kitzhaber and death penalty opponents lined up with Haugen, they weren't taking the high road. In the most arrogant and callous manner, they were forcing their sanctimony on victims who can't talk back.

If death penalty opponents insist on continuing this discussion, it's time for the public to call them on it. Let's talk about the real reason the United States has the death penalty: The people want it, and we get to vote on it.

Share your opinion

Submit your essay of 600 words or less to commentary@oregonlive.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification.

"Every European country abolished the death penalty in the teeth of overwhelming popular support for it," notes New York Law School criminal law professor Robert Blecker in his book, "The Death of Punishment." As he points out, "It's European elites who overwhelmingly oppose the death penalty. They've also managed to abolish life without parole, allowing mass murderers like Norwegian Anders Breivik to be sentenced to 21 years for killing 77 people."

To which America's death penalty opponents would likely reply, "Yes, but think of the money they're saving."

True justice costs money.

Joshua Marquis has been the District Attorney of Clatsop County since 1994. He has prosecuted and defended death penalty cases and is one of the authors of "Debating the Death Penalty," published by Oxford University Press.
By George Will

WASHINGTON -- The word "inappropriate" is increasingly used inappropriately. It is useful to describe departures from good manners or other social norms, such as wearing white after Labor Day or using the salad fork with the entree. But the adjective has become a splatter of verbal fudge, a weasel word falsely suggesting measured seriousness. Its misty imprecision does not disguise, it advertises, the user's moral obtuseness.

A French court has demonstrated how "inappropriate" can be an all-purpose device of intellectual evasion and moral cowardice. The court said it is inappropriate to do something that might disturb people who killed their unborn babies for reasons that were, shall we say, inappropriate.

Prenatal genetic testing enables pregnant women to be apprised of a variety of problems with their unborn babies, including Down syndrome. It is a congenital condition resulting from a chromosomal defect that causes varying degrees of mental disability and some physical abnormalities, such as low muscle tone, small stature, flatness of the back of the head and an upward slant to the eyes. Within living memory, Down syndrome people were called Mongoloids.

Now they are included in the category called "special needs" people. What they most need is nothing special. It is for people to understand their aptitudes, and to therefore quit killing them in utero.

Down syndrome, although not common, is among the most common congenital anomalies at 49.7 per 100,000 births. In approximately 90 percent of instances when prenatal genetic testing reveals Down syndrome, the baby is aborted. Cleft lips or palates, which occur in 72.6 per 100,000 births, also can be diagnosed in utero and sometimes are the reason a baby is aborted.

In 2014, in conjunction with World Down Syndrome Day (March 21), the Global Down Syndrome Foundation prepared a two-minute video titled "Dear Future Mom" to assuage the anxieties of pregnant women who have learned that they are carrying a Down syndrome baby. More than 7 million people have seen the video online in which one such woman says, "I'm scared: what kind of life will my child have?" Down syndrome children from many nations tell the woman that her child will hug, speak, go to school, tell you he loves you and "can be happy, just like I am -- and you'll be happy, too."

The French state is not happy about this. The court has ruled that the video is -- wait for it -- "inappropriate" for French television. The court upheld a ruling in which the French Broadcasting Council banned the video as a commercial. The court said the video's depiction of happy Down syndrome children is "likely to disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices."

So, what happens on campuses does not stay on campuses. There, in many nations, sensitivity bureaucracies have been enforcing the relatively new entitlement to be shielded from whatever might disturb, even inappropriate jokes. And now this rapidly metastasizing right has come to this: A video that accurately communicates a truthful proposition -- that Down syndrome people can be happy and give happiness -- should be suppressed because some people might become ambivalent, or morally queasy, about having chosen to extinguish such lives because ...

This is why the video giving facts about Down syndrome people is so subversive of the flaccid consensus among those who say aborting a baby is of no more moral significance than removing a tumor from a stomach. Pictures persuade. Today's improved prenatal sonograms make graphic the fact that the moving fingers and beating heart are not mere "fetal material." They are a baby. Toymaker Fisher-Price, children's apparel manufacturer OshKosh, McDonald's and Target have featured Down syndrome children in ads that the French court would probably ban from television.

The court has said, in effect, that the lives of Down syndrome people -- and by inescapable implication, the lives of many other disabled people -- matter less than the serenity of people who have acted on one or more of three vicious principles: That the lives of the disabled are not worth living. Or that the lives of the disabled are of negligible value next to the desire of parents to have a child who has no special, meaning inconvenient, needs. Or that government should suppress the voices of Down syndrome children in order to guarantee other people's right not to be disturbed by reminders that they have made lethal choices on the basis of one or both of the first two inappropriate principles.

George Will's email address is georgewillwashpost.com.

(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group
In Portland's parade of protests against President-elect Donald Trump, it's becoming more challenging for demonstrators to distinguish themselves.

The Portland Women March Against Hate on Saturday, however, managed to do that.

It featured live music, an hour and a half of speeches and a march through downtown streets that showed off more creative and colorful signs than have been displayed at previous anti-Trump marches. The event concluded with emcee Adriane Ackerman offering directions about how to remain involved in community activism.

The Fallen Angels Choir set the tone as the opening act for the event that drew nearly 1,000 people to Director Park. The six-voice choir put a political twist on holiday standards. ("Jingle coins, jingle coins, jingle in the till. Our taxes we have never paid and we never will!" or "Build the wall with steel and wire, fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. If they jump we'll build it higher, fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.")

They were followed by speakers including Portland Commissioner-elect Chloe Eudaly, clean air activist Mary Peveto; Rut Martinez-Alicea, multicultural center coordinator at Portland Community College; Rebekah Katt Brewis, executive legal director, PDX Trans Pride; and Donna Maxey, a retired Portland Public Schools teacher and administrator of 20 years who founded the organization Race Talks.

"We won't make the same mistake the next time around," Eudaly, the eighth woman to ever serve on the Portland City Council, said to cheers. "Portland will remain a sanctuary city ... our representatives at the local, state and federal levels are already working on legislation to help Portland weather the storm."

People in the audience offered a variety of reasons to spend a few hours of their Saturday afternoon outside in chilly temperatures under leaden skies.

"I feel it's really important for all of us to be vigilant," said Jean Kempe-Ware of Portland. "There is so much at stake in our country."

Julie Bryan Bosworth attended with three friends who, like her, are active in the pro gun safety group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

"There are so many ways that hate is expressed in our country," Bosworth said. "And to see it increasing in any way over the last month is just so scary and something all of us need to stand up against. As part of Moms Demand Action, we want to make sure that guns are never in the hands of the wrong people. That people who own guns are responsible gun owners. And we're working toward common sense gun legislation."

Pam Davidson sat on a bench near the speakers holding her 8-month-old grandson with her 4-year-old granddaughter nearby. Davidson, of Warren, said her daughter, Liz Thorne of Northeast Portland, came up with the idea for all of them to attend.

"It's important that they grow up knowing that we can make a change in the world," Davidson said of her grandchildren.

Thorne, who pushed a stroller carrying her son, said "for me its important to be here just to stand with my fellow women on the street. ... I want to show my kids we're in a place that supports everybody and loves everybody."

The march traveled streets that have been popular routes for previous protests - only this time the organizers obtained a permit and prearranged for police patrols and street blockages. From Director Park, the marchers took to the street, chanting and walking south on Southwest Ninth Avenue, east on Salmon Street, north on Fourth Avenue, west on Oak Street, south on Broadway Avenue, west on Taylor for about a block before reaching Park Avenue and Director Park.

Traffic in cross streets was only temporarily disrupted as marchers filled the width of the street and the procession stretched about a block and a half. Shoppers, diners and others stopped what they were doing to watch the march pass by, punctuated by chants such as "nasty women get things done," "we're women united, we'll never be divided," "women's rights are human rights" and "we're women, we're loud, united and we're proud."

--Allan Brettman

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman
A pair of 3D printers churn away inside a lab at Digital Trends' downtown office while a drone hovers in midair. A closet down the hall is crammed with every kind of gadget, from TVs to high-end irons.

Employees play with the most coveted electronics, pulling them apart in search of unique features or fatal flaws. A couple dozen reviewers sit silently, typing up the results while another flies down the hall on an electric skateboard.

From its Portland headquarters in the U.S. Bancorp Tower, Digital Trends has a rapidly growing presence online and an expanding profile in the treacherous landscape of electronic media.

Founded a decade ago, Digital Trends' rise parallels the introduction of smartphones, drones and virtual reality. Little known in its hometown, the company prospered as the nation developed an abiding hunger for the latest electronic devices.

Privately held Digital Trends forecasts more than $30 million in revenue this year and has attracted overtures from some of the nation's largest digital publishers, including CNN and - reportedly - Conde Nast.

Supported entirely by ads, Digital Trends has thrived in the fiercely competitive online media market by offering advertisers access to a population of well-heeled readers, eager to buy. It cultivates an "aspirational" tone for older millennials.

"We make it easy to digest," said co-founder Dan Gaul, 43. "That's the whole thing. We don't want to scare people away."

Digital Trends traces its roots to 2001, and a wedding near Portland. A guy who worked at Office Depot was showing off an advanced model of a new cell phone, catching the attention of two guests on either side of him in the buffet line.

As the Office Depot guy faded back into the wedding party with his phone and plate of food, Gaul and his future co-founder, Ian Bell, introduced themselves to one another and began hashing over a shared fascination with gadgets.

At the time they were low-level employees at different tech companies in different states. It took another five years for them to start the business, initially in the suburbs, and five years beyond that for Digital Trends to begin taking off.

"We were just a couple of guys atop a furniture store in Lake Oswego," said Bell, now 40.

In its early years Digital Trends was little more than a hobby, a way for Bell and Gaul to get by while playing around with cool stuff. They acknowledge they didn't know how to run a business, didn't understand online advertising.

So they went to Silicon Valley, meeting with venture capitalists to assess what they'd built and what it could become. They weren't looking for investors, Bell and Gaul say, but advice on how to run a business.

"We started to think on a broader scale," said Bell, the company's chief executive.

While online news sites rely increasingly on Facebook to propagate their work, Digital Trends gets most of its traffic from search engines. The people doing those searches are typically looking for reviews of high-end digital gadgets, the kind of shopper advertisers are desperate to reach.

So instead of standard banners, Digital Trends sells customized ad formats directly to its advertisers and charges a premium. Bell calls it "big, out-of-the-box stuff that companies are willing to pay for that you can't get from programmatic or automated ad networks."

University of Oregon journalism professor Seth Lewis said Digital Trends' appeal to advertisers extends beyond its ad format or its consumer-friendly topic. He credits the Portland company with investing in website design, video presentation and creating a smart, consistent voice for its readers.

"All of these things speak to a certain degree of quality that in turn makes it appealing to consumers and appealing to advertisers," Lewis said.

In the long run, though, Lewis said that any website that depends entirely on ad revenue is vulnerable to the proliferation of ad-blockers and other features that could obscure or minimize the impact of digital advertising.

"There are forces at work online that are pushing against advertising," he said.

Digital Trends says it isn't worried, but Bell and Gaul allow that they're watching the market carefully.

"We're always paranoid," Bell said. "You can't bootstrap a business and not be paranoid."

Digital Trends employs roughly 100 across the company, slightly more than half in Portland. Its top editor and some top writers are in New York, but Bell and Gaul said Oregon remains the heart of the operation.

They hire writers out of Portland State, Oregon State and elsewhere and puts them through a "boot camp" for writing online - what draws an audience, what types of posts connect, how to make an appealing online video.

Online tech guides are hot right now. The New York Times bought gadget site The Wirecutter in October, and online tech news site Recode reported Conde Nast offered $120 million last summer for Digital Trends. (Note: Conde Nast shares corporate ownership with The Oregonian/OregonLive.)

Digital Trends won't confirm the offer, but says it's had several other bids over the years, including one from CNN, which has periodically syndicated Digital Trends' reviews. It does have one outside investor - an Australian named Simon Clausen, known for building a company called PC Tools, who put $3 million into the Portland business.

The website is consistently profitable, according to the company. So Bell and Gaul say they'd only consider a deal that came with a high degree of autonomy.

"We get calls all the time," Bell said. "No real interest, unless it's the perfect fit."

-- Mike Rogoway

mrogoway@oregonian.com

503-294-7699

@rogoway
CANNON BALL, N.D. -- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday that it won't grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota, handing a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters, who argued the project would threaten a water source and cultural sites.



North Dakota's leaders criticized the decision, with Gov. Jack Dalrymple calling it a "serious mistake" that "prolongs the dangerous situation" of having several hundred protesters who are camped out on federal land during cold, wintry weather. U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer saying it's a "very chilling signal" for the future of infrastructure in the United States.



The four-state, $3.8 billion project is largely complete except for the now-blocked segment underneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said in a news release that her decision was based on the need to "explore alternate routes" for the pipeline's crossing.



"Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it's clear that there's more work to do," Darcy said. "The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing."



The company constructing the pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, had said it was unwilling to reroute the project. It and the Morton County Sheriff's Office, which has done much of the policing of the protests, didn't have immediate comment.



U.S. Secretary for the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement that the Corps' "thoughtful approach ... ensures that there will be an in-depth evaluation of alternative routes for the pipeline and a closer look at potential impacts."



Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault didn't immediately respond to messages left seeking comment.



The federal government has ordered people to leave the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, encampment on Army Corps of Engineers' land by Monday. But demonstrators say they're prepared to stay, and authorities say they won't forcibly remove them.



Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Department of Justice will "continue to monitor the situation" and stands "ready to provide resources to help all those who can play a constructive role in easing tensions."



"The safety of everyone in the area - law enforcement officers, residents and protesters alike - continues to be our foremost concern," she added.



A group that had planned to camp overnight in Portland's Holladay Park in solidarity with the pipeline protests said they would instead hold a celebration Sunday and not stay overnight.



"While we acknowledge this is a great victory and a celebration, we know this is just one battle in a huge war against fossil fuels," said Jacob Bureros, an organizer for Direct Action Alliance, the Portland group that organized the camp-in. "All this energy we've been able to garner, all this energy that's been poured out, we're going to use it to bring more attention to major indigenous struggles throughout the world."



Earlier Sunday, an organizer with Veterans Stand for Standing Rock said tribal elders had asked the military veterans not to have confrontations with law enforcement officials, adding the group is there to help out those who've dug in against the project.



About 250 veterans gathered about a mile from the main camp for a meeting with organizer Wes Clark Jr., the son of former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark. The group had said about 2,000 veterans were coming, but it wasn't clear how many actually arrived.



"We have been asked by the elders not to do direct action," Wes Clark Jr. said. He then talked about North Dakota authorities' decision to move away from a key bridge north of the encampment by 4 p.m. Sunday if demonstrators agree to certain conditions, saying the National Guard and law enforcement have armored vehicles and are armed.



"If we come forward, they will attack us," Clark said. Instead, he told the veterans, "If you see someone who needs help, help them out."



Authorities said they'll move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge if protesters stay south of it and come to the bridge only if there is a prearranged meeting. Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in the late October conflict that led to several people being hurt, including a serious arm injury.



"The question was asked if we would consider pulling back from the Backwater Bridge," Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said in a Saturday news release after a conversation between law enforcement and the group's organizers, "and the answer is yes! We want this to de-escalate."



Protesters also are not supposed to walk, ride or fly drones north of the bridge, Laney said. Any violation will "will result in their arrest," the statement said.



The bridge blockade is something that Archambault has been asking to be removed, the Bismarck Tribune reports , and something he said he would to talk to Dalrymple about when they meet in person. A date for that meeting hasn't been set.



Veterans Stand for Standing Rock's GoFundMe.com page had raised more than $1 million of its $1.2 million goal by Sunday -- money due to go toward food, transportation and supplies. Cars waiting to get into the camp Sunday afternoon were backed up for more than a half-mile.



"People are fighting for something, and I thought they could use my help," said Navy veteran and Harvard graduate student Art Grayson. The 29-year-old from Cambridge, Massachusetts, flew the first leg of the journey, then rode from Bismarck in the back of a pickup truck. He has finals this week, but told professors, "I'll see you when I get back."



Steven Perry, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran who's a member of the Little Traverse Bay band of Odawa Indians in Michigan, spoke of one of the protesters' main concerns: that the pipeline could pollute drinking water. "This is not just a native issue," he said, "This is an issue for everyone."



Art Woodson and two other veterans drove 17 hours straight from Flint, Michigan, a city whose lead-tainted water crisis parallels with the tribe's fight over water, he said.



"We know in Flint that water is in dire need," the 49-year-old disabled Gulf War Army veteran said. "In North Dakota, they're trying to force pipes on people. We're trying to get pipes in Flint for safe water."



On Monday, some veterans will take part in a prayer ceremony in which they'll apologize for historical detrimental conduct by the military toward Native Americans and ask for forgiveness, Clark said. He also called the veterans' presence "about right and wrong and peace and love."



-- The Associated Press

Staff Writer Elliot Njus contributed to this report.
A respected communications executive will deliver the keynote address to graduates during commencement exercises at Saginaw Valley State University.

Jan Botz, an SVSU alumna who previously served as chief communications officer for Dow Corning and as vice president of public affairs and communications at the University of Notre Dame, will speak at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 16 and again at 11 a.m. Dec. 17 in ONeill Arena.

Commencement exercises for graduates in the colleges of business and management and health and human services will be held Friday evening. Students completing degrees in the colleges of arts and behavioral sciences; education; and science, engineering and technology will take part in the ceremony scheduled for Saturday morning.

The graduating class consists of 685 students who are expected to complete degrees, including 623 individuals who have indicated that they intend to don regalia and march in the ceremonies. The class includes 554 who will receive bachelors degrees, and 131 who will receive masters or education specialist degrees.

As is tradition, SVSU President Don Bachand will congratulate each graduate as he or she crosses the stage.

A 1974 graduate of SVSU, Botz majored in sociology and English. She was a reporter and later editor of The Valley Vanguard and served in student government. Botz later earned a masters of business administration degree from Central Michigan University.

Botz is passionate about the value of liberal arts to corporate organizations. In 2013, she established the Botz Fellowship at SVSU to help liberal arts students gain corporate experiences via internships. She also serves on SVSU Foundation Board of Directors and is a past member of the Alumni Board and the Board of Fellows. Botz received the universitys Distinguished Alumni Award in 1998.

Botz began her career at The Saginaw News. After several years as a reporter and an editor, she moved on to the Dow Corning Corp., where she held positions of increasing responsibility in various business and communications roles in the U.S. and Europe for some 30 years. Botz retired after seven years as chief communications officer and transitioned to higher education as vice president of public affairs and communications at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. While in South Bend, she served as a member of the board and the executive committee of WNIT, the northern Indiana PBS station.

In 2012, Botz formed her own communications consultancy firm. She currently works as program director of the conference board for two executive peer groups and conducts the annual corporate communications conference. Botz was a decade-long member of The Conference Boards Corporate Communications Strategy Council, serving as chair for several years.

A member of the Friends Board of Wisconsin Public Television, based in Madison, she also belongs to the Arthur W. Page Society for communications executives.
Two readers contacted the Daily News this past week with concerns that demonstrate why the media is facing serious credibility problems with the public.

The first person called the newspaper to share concerns about biased articles being written by Associated Press writers. As an example, he pointed to an article with the headline, Trump charges, without evidence, millions voted in election illegally.

That is an example of the type of political writing that comes out of the national media today. Rarely are facts simply presented; analysis is thrown in because the writers see themselves as experts in their fields.

Perhaps in this case the reader was not just upset by the opinionated headline, but also by the fact that the national media doesnt do a serious investigation into Trumps charges of voter fraud but will spend countless hours on a frivolous recount effort by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. It is easy to see the double standard.

The second person wrote an email to complain about an editorial we wrote concerning the impact of fake news on the election. The reader had some good points, one in particular was that fake news is not just a right wing problem. For example, a story in the Los Angeles Times told of a professor who put together a list of false new sources. The only problem with the list is that it included real news sites such as Red State, The Blaze and Independent Journal Review, all conservative news sites. These sites were included on the list because the professor did not agree with their stories, not because the reporting was false.

One columnist even threw Fox News into the mix, again because it is a right-leaning news source. Meanwhile, left-leaning news sources such as MSNBC, Huffington Post, Mother Jones and the like were not deemed fake news sites. Another easy to see double-standard.

We recently read a journalists comment on an Editor & Publisher article that was attempting to explain what the press needs to do going forward after the Trump victory. As the journalist stated, the article missed the point and really showed how the media does not get it when it comes to regaining the trust of the public. Here are some of the journalists thoughts:

The people really dont care who owns the paper. They care about who is writing the news, and if the reporters and editors can be trusted to be fair and unbiased, even if it is reporting what we may not always want to share, such as Trumps economic message appealing to women and minorities rather than a constant barrage of criticism without recognizing and reporting on the appeal as well.

We share the candidates platforms, report on their spending, their rallies, we pepper them with questions about policy and issues, and we leave our own bias off the printed page. We continue to miss the point by making comments like The cure for fake journalism is an overwhelming dose of good journalism. The only good journalism is unbiased journalism. If we believe we provided good journalism in the last election cycle, or believe our criticisms didnt go far enough, we are already doomed. Until we learn that lesson, expect journalism to continue to be the villain rather than the hero. Unbiased reporting is what the people are desperately seeking, and we are not providing it.

We concur, and want Daily News readers to know if they have concerns about bias in our reporting, an editors ear is only a phone call away.
Do you want to know why Donald Trump is our president-elect?

Its simple really.

People are tired of being disrespected.

It seems that people in the places of power have lost track of who they are serving. That starts at the top, with President Barack Obama, and filters down through to those who have any amount of control over those who need service.

Need an example? Let me give you two, one national and one personal.

In Massachusetts, the tiny liberal arts school Hampshire College, and I mean that in its size and by the latest action of its board and administration, decided that it would remove the U.S. flag while it, in President Jonathan Lashs words, delved deeper into the meaning of the flag and its presence on our campus.

One would think fully formed adults, who are in positions to influence thousands of students who are entering adulthood, would know the meaning of the U.S. flag and would welcome its presence on the campus, even as it discussed any greater value.

This is not the first controversy involving the flag at Hampshire College. The day after the election, students lowered it to half-staff, then others burned it on the eve of Veterans Day. Afterward, the college decided to fly it at half-staff, but then removed it when some were upset with that.

The college should know that a flag is to be flown at half-staff only by the action of a president to mourn the death of prominent government figures and/or by governors for mourning the loss of state officials. To do otherwise and without authority is to further trivialize the meaning of this gesture of respect.

While I understand that there are people like Colin Kaepernick out there who believe that the flag represents some baser instincts of humans, it remains that thousands of people have died and many millions have fought to uphold the greater ideals that the American flag represents. It is my opinion that universities and colleges should represent those people as well as the coddled masses.

Hampshire College has failed in this duty, and in its service to all its students.

Instead, it has chosen to represent a minority of like-minded people who seek to control the discussion in this country, much like other schools nationwide. It is any wonder then that Donald Trump, with all his faults, could garner millions of votes railing against such a system with nary an idea of how to change it?

It makes sense then that hundreds of veterans protested at the college in what one described as a peaceful demonstration of freedom and a show of solidarity and respect for the flag and for veterans.

The personal example occurred Monday. I need a physical to take a scuba diving class so I stopped by the office of the only doctor Ive seen since moving back to Midland in 1980. Since I havent been in need of his services in years, thank God, the office staff told me I would need to re-apply for service.

No consultation with the doctor. No discussion on how long I have been associated with the practice. Just a piece of black-and-white paper stuck in my hand. Never mind the thousands of dollars paid over the years for care of four kids and a wife, as well as my own. Never mind that trying to get health care in this day and age is scary, even if you are comfortable with your provider.

No, thank you.

I am voting, but this time with my feet. And those feet are moving me down the road.

Ralph E. Wirtz is the former managing editor of the Daily News and is a freelance writer in Midland.
Truth, civility, and honesty took a hard beating in the brutal 2016 election season but global trade, the campaigns daily whipping boy, actually grew in the July-September quarter.

Moreover, reports the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, an international group that tracks trade, the late summer surge means global trade may rise over the year as a whole.

That rise, of course, could end during a Trump administration if the president-elect honors any of the anti-China, anti-NAFTA, anti-TPP, and anti-T-TIP promises that became the bedrock of his Make America Great Again stump speech. Since his win, Trumps anti-trade tone has moderated but no one believes it has completely faded.

Farmers and ranchers, who pollsters say voted overwhelmingly for Trump, remain wary because 20 percent of all U.S. farm production is sold overseas. In 2015, U.S. agriculture exported $133 billion of bulk commodities and food to over 100 countries around the world. (American ag exports topped $150 billion in 2014, a record.)

Even more worrisome is that Trumps toughest trade talk is aimed at deals that involve our very best food buyers  Canada and Mexico (the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA), China (that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, isolates), and the European Union, or EU, (through the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or T-TIP).

These four customers  Canada, China, Mexico, and the EU  bought, respectively, $21 billion, $20 billion, $18 billion, and $12 billion of U.S. ag exports in 2015. Thats a staggering 53 percent of all American farm and ranch goods sold abroad.

That fact bears repeating: 53 percent of all 2015 U.S. ag exports went to just four buyers now in the crosshairs of the incoming Trump White House because of what he calls the worst trade deal ever, NAFTA, and two other, all-but-dead regional deals, T-TIP and TPP, that he says are terrible.

Trump isnt alone in condemning current or pending trade deals. Not long ago, one presidential candidate openly complained that NAFTAs shortcomings were evident when signed and we must now amend the agreement to fix them.

That candidate was Barack Obama in 2008, recalls Timothy Wise of the Small Planet Institute, in a Nov. 22 blog post on BillMoyers.com. Obamas failure to amend or fix NAFTA, Wise adds, helped Trumps anti-trade message gain traction on his opponent, Hillary Clinton, an Obama acolyte.

NAFTA does have shortcomings, says Wise: weak environmental and labor standards, outdated regulations for immigration, and rules that empower corporations to sue nations over actions that impede profits to name but a few. Will President Trump fix those problems?

No, believes Wise, because Trumps trade view, as he often said throughout the campaign, is America first. In NAFTA, that means a nationalist version of anti-worker, pro-corporation trade deal which will be a disaster for the working class Americans who gave him their votes.

If that NAFTA stance becomes the Trumps template for other trade negotiations, disaster awaits American farmers and ranchers who export 75 percent of all the cotton they grow, 50 percent of all their rice and wheat, over 40 percent of all soybeans, and nearly 25 percent of all pork.

In short, we have an ag policy  for better or worse  built on trade. As such, trade isnt just a big deal to most farmers and ranchers, its the whole deal. Anti-trade rhetoric might be red meat to blue-collar voters but it wont go down well with cash-paying foreign food buyers that the U.S. ag sector has grown absolutely dependent on.

Still, it would be a serious mistake to sell this president-elect short. Sixteen Republican challengers and one cant-lose Democratic opponent made that mistake in just the last year. All were vanquished, most easily.

So, when Donald Trump says hes going to renegotiate Americas rotten trade deals, expect him to try. Then pray he quickly learns that American ag exports arent rotten and theyre not broken.
BLOOMINGTON  Whoever killed Pam Zimmerman did not force their way into her Bloomington office, but stayed around after the attack to move furniture in search of shell casings from the bullets that fatally wounded her, according to details of the crime scene disclosed in new court filings in the murder case against her ex-husband.

Kirk Zimmerman is charged with killing his former spouse in November 2014 in her east side Bloomington office where she worked as a financial planner and certified public accountant.

In a series of newly-filed motions, defense lawyer John Rogers has challenged portions of the state's potential evidence against the 58-year-old suspect, including the results of gun shot residue tests and statements Zimmerman made to police hours after his ex-wife was found.

A search warrant request from Bloomington Police Detective Michael Johnson three months after the murder  filed as part of a defense motion  reveals new details of what led police to check on the victim and what two of Pam Zimmerman's friends found when they arrived at her office.

One of Pam Zimmerman's neighbors, Julie Koh, contacted police on Nov. 4, 2014 after she received a call from the victim's fiance, Scott Baldwin, who was concerned that he was unable to reach her by phone from his home in the Chicago area.

Zimmerman's teenage children told Koh that their mother had not come home the previous night, according to the court documents, and one of Zimmerman's daughters used a GPS application on her cell phone to search for her mother's phone. Police located the phone in a pile of leaves near Felton Place and Robinson Street.

In the meantime, Koh went to Zimmerman's office at 2103 E. Washington St. and found the victim's car in the parking lot. Kol met Ina Hess, the victim's office manager, and the two went inside to find the light off and blinds closed, according to the warrant filing that is part of the newly-filed defense motions.

The two women found Pam Zimmerman, 53, lying on the floor behind the reception desk, still dressed in the clothes she was wearing when Hess left work at 4:30 p.m. the previous day, Johnson stated in an affidavit filed with the search warrant.

Zimmerman had suffered four separate gunshot wounds  one in the head, two in the torso, including one in the back, and one in the arm.

Police think the killer spent some time after the shooting looking for shell casings and may have found three of the four, state the court documents. The detective noted that only one 9 mm shell casing was found and one bullet was recovered from the back of the chair in the reception area.

The phone line in the reception area also had been cut.

An analysis of Pam Zimmerman's cell phone by Bloomington police indicates the device was removed from her office around 6:15 p.m.  45 minutes after a meeting with her final client of the day, narrowing the time of death to sometime between 5:30 and 6:15 p.m. Nov. 3, according to police.

Missing along with her phone and wallet were two handsets for the office telephone and a desktop calendar. The handsets were later found several blocks away near Grove Street and Fairview Drive. The search request stated that what appeared to be small blood stains were found near an unlocked rear door of the office.

Koh and other neighbors interviewed by police in the days after the murder described a rocky end to a troubled marriage between the Zimmermans. One woman recalled that Kirk Zimmerman had tried to buy a home directly behind his ex-wife, but ended up moving two blocks away when the purchase fell through, according to information contained in the search warrant.

The tense relationship is expected to be a key element of the state's case against Zimmerman, a former State Farm systems worker. The couple sparred after the divorce was finalized over financial issues related to expenses for their children. Court records filed by the state allege that Zimmerman made insulting remarks about his former spouse, causing her to tell friends she feared for her safety.

Pam Zimmerman and Baldwin met on an online dating site in August 2014 and became engaged two months later. She posted their plan to marry on social media on Nov. 1, 2014  two days before she was killed.

Baldwin told detectives he exchanged text messages with her around 1:25 p.m. on Nov. 3, but received no reply to messages he sent at 9 p.m. and several times later that night.
Nations are built on trust. When people trust their leaders, they work hard and remain contentious. But when leaders are constantly betraying the masses and do nothing in order to fulfill their basic requirements, then a national economic and social crisis begins.

Daily Express shared the video of a Venezuelan girl who was delighted to find toilet papers in Peru's local market. The girl could be seen dancing and jumping in the video after finding meat and other commodities in the shop as well.

Venezuelan people have been facing severe difficulties in their lives due to the economic crisis in the country. People had nothing to eat and they had to wait in long lines to get basic food items. They had to move to neighboring countries to find suitable solutions to their everyday needs.

Columbia and Peru were approached by many Venezuelans as conditions were far from adverse in Venezuela. Even though there have been protests in Venezuela and people are asking for their rights, the Latin American nation's President Nicolas Maduro denies any kind of problem in the country.

According to PanamPost, President Nicolas Maduro said in an interview that there is no shortage of anything in the country and petroleum prices declination has not affected the people of Venezuela. He didn't talk about the lack of medical care and the food that has been prevailing for several months and even resulted in multiple deaths. In some instances, people were reportedly seen eating from garbage bins.

Maduro told that the government has been working on the development of the country and there's no shortage of food or books as local government units are working hard to provide for the Venezuelans.

Moreover, Maduro stressed that the economic war is from the inside and in these times, armed forces and their officials have more responsibility than before. He also highlighted that the government has made a "superhuman effort" to address the crisis.
Colombia had always been struck by poverty, crimes, killings and drug cartels. There has been always a war going on and the guerilla forces were always active. Columbian people had lived in terror for a very long time. People were killed and threatened. and some little kids had witnessed all that with so much going through their minds.

Just recently Columbian congress made a peace deal with left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ( FARC). The Atlantic shared the stories of Colombian children who have lost their parents or have seen them getting threatened by the guerilla forces. Even after everything is fine and secure, the children still can't believe that they would actually be free.

Wilson Munoz, a teacher at The Antonio Garcia's School asked the children to introduce themselves on the first day. Mayerly Rodriguez said that she is happy now that she is free but still can remember the times when her father was approached by the guerilla forces and they wanted to recruit her siblings.

Experts say that war can have the deepest effect on the children's brain development. American Psychological Association says that children who remain under the effects of horrible events could become violent and have separation anxiety. The war has almost ended in Colombia but there's still a lot to be done.

In order to get people to talk and feel better about themselves, many programs have been initiated. One such program is Education Bogota. It offers services for parents and children in terms of education, health, management and also asks for complaints and solutions to their problems.

The administration could also be reached in case of any queries. Gabriela Bucher, the county director for the charity Plan International, says that these workshops help children to express their fears and feelings through an artistic medium. By drawing and painting, little children push out what's inside their minds that bother them.

Jose Luis Campo, the country leader of the children charity Benposta, said that if these children are given proper education and care, they could achieve a better life. So, what do you think can help children ease the trauma they had experienced the multi-generation war in Colombia? Sound off below.
Should a simple fitness check be part of your check-up? Smoking, obesity, and high blood pressure are not enough as an indicator of someone's risk of heart disease and early death. Also including a pure fitness, specifically, aerobic or cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) check during your check-up is highly recommended. According to the report from The New York Times, aerobic fitness is a measure of how well your body can deliver oxygen to tissues, in other words, "reflection of overall physiological health and function, especially of the cardiovascular system."

Past studies showed that relatively low aerobic fitness is linked with a significantly increased risk of heart disease and premature death. In fact, even being out of shape may represent a greater risk of developing heart disease than having a poor cholesterol profile, Type 2 diabetes, a history of smoking or a high body mass index.

In 2013, American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology released new guidelines for assessing someone's risk for heart disease but in the criteria, aerobic fitness is not included as a risk factor. The agencies were worried that the treadmill tests needed to measure aerobic fitness were complicated and costly. Then again, American Heart Association decided to research about all of the available studies about fitness, heart health and life spans and also looks into the question of whether eligibility could be determined accurately and cheaply, without everyone needing to undergo a treadmill test. From that, the advisory board was asked to decide whether aerobic fitness should become a new vital sign.

Professional Heart Daily delivered new statements saying that Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) reflects the body's ability to transport oxygen during sustained physical activity that can potentially improve CRF, it also predicts other health outcomes, including cancer, surgical risk, dementia and Alzheimer's disease, depression, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, it provides independent and additive morbidity and mortality data that, when considered with traditional risk factors, significantly improves CVD risk prediction.

Authors determined that newly developed equations and simple calculators could provide reliable, valid estimates of fitness. In some cases, Doctors could use a few keystrokes to determine someone's fitness, instead of ordering a treadmill test. From the resulting scientific statement, Steven Blair, a professor of exercise science and epidemiology at the University of South Carolina and co-chairman of the scientific committee said that the it "strongly supports" the use of cardiorespiratory fitness as a vital sign and "an important measure and predictor of health."

Even though the statement is only a recommendation and does not change the current formal heart disease risk calculations, it went through a peer-review and a separate review and endorsement by the standing scientific advisory board for the American Heart Association. Still, statement's authors are hoping that it will have an immediate and lingering impact.

Leonard Kaminsky, co-author of the statement, stated that "In general, I think that doctors understand that cardiorespiratory fitness is important." But many physicians "consider it to be relatively less important than other risk factors," he continues. "Hopefully this scientific statement will be a resource and give them confidence in the solid evidence base for cardiorespiratory fitness as a vital health measure."

Another statement co-author, Dr. Chip Lavie said that "It would be an excellent idea" for everyone to learn his or her current, estimated aerobic fitness level and how it compares to age-matched averages."

Authors are serious with their concern that they even recommended us to use an online fitness calculator developed by Dr. Kaminsky and others. Dr. Lavie suggested us to take the resulting estimate of your eligibility age to your next medical appointment and discussing it with your physician.


Tom Price, an orthopedic Surgeon, made his draft of law about a thing that can counter the Obamacare thus being the first lawmaker that created draft about it. Being a doctor, Price Proposal give much more focus to the doctors freedom and not mainly for protections of the consumer o the patient.

In his proposal it was stated there that a consumer couldn't easily blame a doctor for some malfunctions in which result the doctor can protect themselves, the law primary's motion is that is that changing the course of a health law and making a free marketing law that would benefit the both parties. It likely said that in this law the taxes will be offered the individual people and would only increase as the time pass by. And with this law proven that if a doctor follows the guidelines and proof himself that he do his best for the operation, then a patient can't point a finger to a physician with his law the less the taxes being paid but a higher freedom for the doctors. It was likely said that or stated that being Senate and a doctor gives him much more power thus being the representative the organization of the doctors according to an article in The New York Times.

But according to Mr. Elmendorf on an interview that that law would be a one sided law thus creating risks for our economy. Because the law itself is and has it's on weakness because many or the poor sickest people would expect low insurance but the government itself can't provide.

About that according to an article in Los Angeles Times, After six years of waiting for the Republicans can now get a chance of trashing Obamacare Law. But based on the analysis it would hard for Donald Trump to reel this law due to this law satisfies the needs of all the patient thus creating phenomena that would affect its society due to this law. In which relation other senates suggested that they should not replace it rather like the time pass by creating legislation that would be beneficiaries of both party even it's not a significant change to prevent havoc.




These two pictures show our Boundless Way revealing its heart. The first picture is from today of forty of us marking the end of our annual Rohatsu or Bodhi Day celebration sesshin (to touch the heart-mind, an intensive Zen meditation retreat) at the Boundless Way Temple in Worcester, Massachusetts. The temple in Worcester is the first real estate to be owned by a member community of Boundless Way Zen, the Zen project to which I give my heart and energy. Me, I think of the temple as our mother ship.

The second picture is of our nine transmitted teachers who were there to witness as Dr James Cordova received denbo transmission from our current school abbot Melissa Myozen Blacker. It was a powerful moment for me for many reasons. Not least as James is Melissas first full Dharma successor, and she is my first heir. This led me to a revery considering who we are and how we have come to be the Boundless Way. What follows is that reflection.

The great project of Zen is awakening. Boundless Way Zen is committed to that project with the fulness of our being. We have given a lot of attention to how we can best foster the project, exploring what is important, sorting out what is less so, exploring our practices, and our relationships. We formulated our mission to cultivate Zen in the West with three points: 1) Establishing and supporting local sanghas. 2) Training dharma teachers and practice leaders. and 3) Providing sesshin and other intensive training opportunities. And now some years into it we can see the contours of an emerging Zen style, a Zen that is both authentic and Western.

It all started some fifteen or sixteen years ago. As with many important things it is hard to put a finger on precisely when to say it began. Or, even the precise moment when those events took place. Still, there are some markers. Boundless Way was created when three independent sitting groups, Spring Hill Zen in Somerville, Henry David Thoreau Zen Sangha in Newton, and the Worcester Zen Community came together as the leaders of those communities, Josh Bartok, Melissa Blacker, David Rynick, and I threw our lot in with each other. We had been working together informally for a while. But it became something more focused sometime in 2004 or 2005, when as David Rynick recalls, I came to visit him and Melissa and proposed that the three of us join together and create a new organization. A lot has happened since that meeting eleven or twelve years ago.

While I was more senior, each of us had teaching credentials, and Melissa, David and I were the founding teachers working collaboratively. Josh, while himself not yet a teacher was from the beginning making leadership contributions, and we all cherished the energy of the Spring Hill sangha and saw Joshs contributions as critical to our emerging vision, including as just one example becoming principal editor for our liturgy.

Melissa had previously studied for some twenty years with the independent teacher Richard Clarke who had been early on associated with Philip Kapleau and taught in his Rochester style. David was a senior student of George Bowman who had been the first person authorized as a teacher by Seung Sahn of the Kwan Um School of Zen, but was now teaching independently, as well. Josh Bartok had previously been a student of Daido Loori. And, me, I had originally studied with Jiyu Kennett and had been ordained a Soto priest by her and received her Dharma transmission in 1971, then studied for many years with John Tarrant as well as a few other Diamond Sangha teachers, and in 2005 received Inka Shomei from him.

Although already leading groups Melissa and Josh both formally took me on as their teacher, while David finished his formal training with George Bowman. Melissa, David, and I joined together as the guiding teachers council, all of us sitting regularly together and from before even the beginning of our being Boundless Way, began offering sesshin, three, five, and seven day intensive meditation retreats. In 2006, I fully authorized Melissa and David received the first step in his authorization from George Bowman. In 2011, George gave David his final transmission in the Korean Rinzai line. In the same year I ordained David a Soto Zen priest.

And then in 2012 I authorized Josh, and with that our guiding teachers council was then four. As I see it this was our second founding, a critical moment for our sangha ranking with the purchase of what would become the Boundless Way temple, as a major step in our maturing. Melissa, David, and I had to let go of a very deep intimacy wed grown to enjoy as the guiding teachers, and open ourselves to Josh as a full equal. Now, the reality was wed been for some time three plus one, so the step into a full four was not as hard as this might sound. But, it was hard. And it was critical. And, it turned out to be magic, enriching each of us, and our increasingly beloved Boundless Way. I gave Melissa Inka in 2010. And in 2016 I gave David and later that same year I gave Josh Inka.

Our project as Boundless Way was to create an authentic Zen transmission within a Western expression. Along the way our understanding of the critical practices gradually matured. Today we principally offer the ancient Zen disciplines of just sitting, called shikantaza by Dogen, and koan introspection.

And here just a pause. While this reflection is largely about the institution and particularly leadership and teaching, the purpose of this project is awakening. And those other things are all about supporting our full exploration of who we are as we are. To come into Zen is not about the leadership aspect. It is about practicing, opening ourselves, digging deep, diving deep, and with that living lives of care and respect and possibility.

That acknowledged, my thoughts here are about the institution and our leadership, particularly our spiritual leadership. Here we have begun to see something take shape unique to who we are. Our general style of spiritual direction has been enriched by Melissas education and practice as a counseling psychologist specializing in grief and trauma, and her extensive experience and 20 year close affiliation as a core faculty person with Jon Kabat-Zinns Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. David also had a solid grounding in mindfulness, although it was his experience with experimental education and organizational leadership development, and later life coaching skills that would prove critical for us. And Joshs influence is born, in part, from his ongoing exploration of the role of nondual faith, true entrusting, and deep acceptance in Zen, informed by his study of Shin Buddhism with Tai and Mark Unno, as well as his editorial work with scores of diverse Dharma teachers on hundreds of Buddhist books. Melissas, Davids, and my own close associations with American Unitarian Universalism, inclined us to create as flat a hierarchy as we felt reasonable while still conveying an authentic Zen practice with genuinely empowered teachers. This association with the UU world has also led us to be concerned with how our spiritual lives manifest in the world and a number of us fit comfortably or for some uncomfortably within the warm embrace of Engaged Buddhism.

Along the way bylaws were created, and we incorporated as a religious organization. Also, mindful of how ethics and accountability had been largely ignored in the early history of Zen in the West, including within our own lineages, and terribly hurting many people, we created a practical ethics code that has become a template for a number of Zen communities. Gradually various practice communities emerged until we came to be about a dozen groups ranging throughout New England. And now, as our mission to the Western barbarians we have a California branch, the Blue Cliff Zen Sangha which I guide together with Jan Seymour-Ford and Chris Hoff is the youngest affiliate of Boundless Way. In addition to our official Boundless Way network weve forged close ties with other teachers and communities, particularly in Ohio, Connecticut, and Nebraska.

We also decided to fully embrace the Soto Zen priesthood that I had received through Jiyu Kennett, although revisioning the training expectations, stepping away from requiring a monastic experience, although supporting it when appropriate to the students life, family, and work and substituting as a hard expectation a rigorous experience with retreat, assuming a minimum of a year of sesshin days (nine or ten hours of meditation a day) as well as engaging the Harada Yasutani Soto reform of the Hakuin Takujo koan curriculum  itself slightly modified through an appreciation of the koan system developed by Seung Sahn. Following our own peculiar lights we have in some ways come to look similar to the White Plum Asanga, but definitely with our own flavor and systems of accountability.

Our lay teachers train over many years through many sesshin and that koan program. Our ordained training program is a work in progress, although it also has at its center those same sesshin and koan introspection  with somewhat different focus for each individual, some more resonant with shikantaza, while others more aligned with koan study. At first we simply saw ordination as ministry, a path of service. But, over these past few years we have come to see there is something else within it. Ordination has taken on a quality for us that is mysterious, and has qualities that look a lot like Christian third order societies. We are following our hearts into something powerful and compelling, even as we are unclear as to precisely where it is taking us, but it is looking like some kind of non celibate religious order. Without having the numbers in front of me as I write, Id hazard we have about twenty priests.

Guided by our senior teachers council our Boundless Way has continued to grow, in depth, and breadth. And we have engaged the larger Zen and Buddhist world as it is emerging here in the West, particularly North America. Our first four core teachers have all contributed to the literature of Zen practice here in the West writing and editing books as well as contributing to all the principal Buddhist journals. Melissa, David, Josh, and I have all been active in the American Zen Teachers Association. James Cordova has been active with the American Lay Zen Teachers Association. And I have been active with the Soto Zen Buddhist Association.

Im in awe of what has emerged in a scant fifteen years. In addition to the Boundless Way Temple, our sangha includes the Greater Boston Zen Center, Benevolent Street Zendo, Boundless Way DownEast, Boundless Way Zen Northampton, Boundless Way Zen of Westchester, Bright Sea Zen, Henry David Thoreau Zen, Joseph Priestly Zen Sangha, Morning Star Sangha, Mustard Seed Sangha, and of course, the baby, our Blue Cliff in Long Beach.

Our style offers a three step transmission. We authorize both lay people and priests as teachers. As with Zen in the West transmitting the Bodhisattva ordination system derived from Japan it isnt always clear what the difference between a layperson and a priest is. Elsewhere here I speak of how were exploring ordination and its meanings for us. So, just the quickest thought on lay practice. In the last analysis for me there is only Zen practice, although it may take on different focus in our lives at different times.

The first step in transmission is Denkai, or precepts transmission, which for priests is full ordination and for both priests and lay people authorization to take personal students, to give the precepts, and do all teaching functions, save one. They do not have authority to make new teachers. That comes with the second, or full authorization, denbo. We use the traditional Sanmatsu (the three things) transmission documents of Soto Zen to mark these occasions. The only difference is that only priests receive the kiragami (bits of paper) documents which are largely concerned with liturgical matters. Although we have begun discussing passing on non liturgical parts of this collection to our lay teachers.

Denbo is the most important of the authorizations. At that point someone is considered a free actor and the transmission cannot be revoked. Although one could be dismissed from the organization and the teacher who gave transmission could express regret, the authorization is tied into the great mystery of Zens transmission. And one more important point.

Once someone has been given denbo the senior guiding teachers may nominate that person to also become a senior guiding teacher of Boundless Way. But that can only occur through election by the Leadership council, itself the elected governing board of Boundless Way, which includes teachers and lay representatives.

The third step in transmission is Inka Shomei, formal recognition of realization. While one is fully an independent teacher with Denbo, out of respect for the special transmissions we received through John Tarrant and George Bowman, and which are specifically associated with completion of formal koan study and full independence as masters of that discipline, we continue the tradition of Inka. For us it becomes a marker of stability in teaching and at this point, at least, occurs at the discretion of the transmitting teacher a minimum of three years after denbo.

We also have flattened the structures for leadership, authorizing people at less than transmitted levels. We draw titles for these teachers from the Kwan Um, calling them dharma teachers and senior dharma teachers. These are mature practitioners who have taken on various leadership roles in our community, and for the senior dharma teachers usually includes authorization to do practice interviews and sometimes koan instruction  although still under the guidance of transmitted teachers.

At this writing we have nine transmitted teachers, and one more in the final steps toward formal authorization. We have four denkai teachers, Steve Wallace, Kate Hartland, Bob Waldinger, and Diane Fitzgerald. Today James Cordova received denbo, joining our four seniors all of whom also have inka, Melissa Blacker, David Rynick, Josh Bartok, and me. Steve, Kate, and James are lay teachers. Michael Fieleke, one of our priests, will be receiving denkai sometime in the next six months.

In addition to having non-transmitted teachers, we have included other innovations for our transmitted teachers. While we maintain the tradition of a single teacher authorizing a single student, we have embraced the principal of communal responsibility modeled by the Kwan Um school, and up to this point everyone who received denkai or denbo within Boundless Way has been endorsed by all the other transmitted teachers.

Anticipating the denbo ceremony the leadership council elected James Cordova to our senior guiding teachers council, effective with the transmission ceremony. So, now as five, and actually as both Kate and Diane are in the process which will soon lead to their receiving denbo and therefore will both be eligible to be elected to the guiding teachers council, if it isnt already so, we will soon be too big to continue this practice in its current form and have begun discussing how we might best go forward, perhaps with any three or five teachers doing the endorsement.

Our commitment to work with each other is so important, and is probably the secret. Through our commitment we support and protect each other from the inherent dangers of being a spiritual leader. And, frankly, for us to acknowledge with that commitment comes hard work, which we now have done for years. And it continues. It means we have all had to do the personal work necessary to stay in relationship. It has been our ongoing commitment to be present to each other as we really are, and our willingness to deal with what arises that has made it work so far. And, for the future it is critical to keep extending the invitation to others. This I find very important to our way.

This is the Boundless Way. It is the Boundless Way for our teachers, and it is the Boundless Way for all of us who desire to walk the way with authenticity. And so we continue to engage in conversation and reflection, and hope as we seem to continue to grow, that what we offer remains healthy, transparent, and authentic  combining the ancient traditions which we revere and living fully into our contemporary culture.

And while we are still growing, still finding the fulness of what we are and what we can offer, I believe even now we are well placed and prepared to be of use as the storm rages.

I am so grateful.

James Myoun Ford

Boundless Way Zen

4 December 2016

(The first version of this reflection was written in the afternoon of the 4th of December, while at Logan Airport in Boston waiting to return to California following the Rohatsu sesshin. Numerous edits and some substantial revisions followed over the next two days. This has changed what was written sufficiently, that Ive decided to give it a new title.)
Patna: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Members of Parliament Subramanian Swamy, who was in Patna on Saturday to attend a seminar on the 'Possibility of Construction of Ram Mandir under the Constitution', said there was a great likelihood the court would side with those who were looking forward to build Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

"Even the Allahabad Court agrees that Ayodhya was the home to Ram Lala. We hope to have the Ram Temple ready by next Diwali," Swami said.

The BJP MP further said that the DNA of Hindus and Muslims were the same.

"Physically there is no difference between Hindus and Muslims; they both look alike. What is different is the way we choose to express our faith. Lord Ram is the epitome of the symbol of our faith and our Muslim brethrens need to appreciate it and help us rebuild temple in Ayodhya," he said.

As reported, the Supreme Court is scheduled to commence hearing on Ayodhya Temple on January 4.

On demonetization, Swamy questioned the sanity of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for opposing demonetization move by the Modi administration.

"Mamata Banerjee needs medical attention," he said adding the IQ of Rahul Gandhi, Congress General Secretary, was no better than the IQ of a Class IV student.

Praising the demonetization move, Swami said he wished the implementation of it would have been done in a more effective way.

"I wish the ATMs had been properly calibrated before the new notes were brought in the machines. The government should also have printed more Rs. 100 notes to deal with the sudden change," he said adding in view of the changes in the nation's monetary system, the government should give the common man an income tax exemption for a period of six months.
OPEC deal: Iran turns the tables on Saudis

12/03/16

By: Ebrahim Fallahi, Tehran Times

After months of talks and rounds of meetings, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) finally sealed a deal on November 30 for a production cut, marking a turning point in the organization's history. A deal which everyone believed had very little chance of success, is now done and the organization agreed to cut production by about 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), or about 4.5 percent of current production, to 32.5 million bpd.

Two months ago in Algiers an agreement was outlined based on which the OPEC and non-members were obliged to cut their productions in order to stabilize the market. The idea received waves of skepticism from the very first moments.

With Iran's tensions with its arch-rival Saudi Arabia at highest and with Russia not in accordance with the organization regarding any cuts in its production the chances of the real implementation of the agreed looked quite dim.

rivals duel

On one hand, Saudi Arabia with a long history of having the final say in the organization suddenly saw its position threatened by Iran, and on the other hand, unshackling from years of sanctions imposed by the West, Iran did not accept another imposition on its production level.

The kingdom which was trying to maintain authority and saving its shattering economy at the same time, insisted on an old offer, to cut production only if Iran freezes at current levels.

Finding their proposal refused by Iran, Saudis played the "threat" card in an OPEC's ministers gathering, hinting that they might walk away from the negotiations. They expected a desired response from Iran but apparently Tehran was willing to take the risk; the country did not withdraw its position.

And finally to the world's amazement, the kingdom surrendered to Iran's will. In OPEC's 171st meeting, Saudi Arabia agreed to fully adhere to 'Algiers Accord'.

Iran not only was exempted from the cuts, the country even managed to win the right to increase its production by 90,000 barrels per day, while Saudis agreed to cut 500,000 barrels from their current production level.

Turning tables

But what was the real story behind this outcome?

A few days before the November meeting, Algerian Oil Minister Noureddine Buterfa visited Iran to convince the country regarding a 1.2 million bpd cut, a proposal for a 4.5 percent cut for each country was handed to Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh during this visit.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia whose economy was under pressure from low oil prices and faced the fact that Iran had the upper hand in the current situation, saw itself with no choice but to go with the flow.

Of course, Russia played a significant role mediating the accord to the point that they even agreed to cut their production by 300,000 bpd to encourage others.

Accordingly, Iran agreed to the terms proposed by Algiers under the condition that the cut should be applied to its highest production level which was recorded in 2015.

The country argued since all OPEC members were producing at their highest levels at the time of the discussions, so Iran's cut must be calculated for its highest production rate. Iran had recorded its highest production level of 3.975 million bpd in 2015 which left the organization with no choice but to agree with the proposal and letting the country to even raise its current production level by 90,000 bpd in order to 4.5 percent cut to be applied fairly to all countries.

Iran turned the tables on Saudi Arabia and unlike all other OPEC members the country managed not only to keep its current production level but also to raise it. The Iranian oil minister believes that this success has been a result of a healthy diplomacy, when all members put economic interests before raising controversial political issues.

Based on the agreement, Iran's average crude production level for the first half of 2017 will be 3.797 million barrels and according to the country's oil minister, $10 billion will be added to Iran's oil income.
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Kofax has a handful of multi-platform apps to help you alter and annotate PDFs. Standard is likely the one best suited for most needs, and is the software well be exploring in this review.
CANNON BALL, N.D.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday that it wont grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota, handing a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters, who argued the project would threaten a water source and cultural sites.

North Dakotas leaders criticized the decision, with Gov. Jack Dalrymple calling it a serious mistake that prolongs the dangerous situation of having several hundred protesters who are camped out on federal land during cold, wintry weather. U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer saying its a very chilling signal for the future of infrastructure in the United States.

The four-state, $3.8 billion project is largely complete except for the now-blocked segment underneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said in a news release that her decision was based on the need to explore alternate routes for the pipelines crossing.

Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, its clear that theres more work to do, Darcy said. The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.

The company constructing the pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, had said it was unwilling to reroute the project. It and the Morton County Sheriffs Office, which has done much of the policing of the protests, didnt have immediate comment.

U.S. Secretary for the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement that the Corps thoughtful approach  ensures that there will be an in-depth evaluation of alternative routes for the pipeline and a closer look at potential impacts.

Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault didnt immediately respond to messages left seeking comment.

The federal government has ordered people to leave the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, encampment on Army Corps of Engineers land by Monday. But demonstrators say theyre prepared to stay, and authorities say they wont forcibly remove them.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Department of Justice will continue to monitor the situation and stands ready to provide resources to help all those who can play a constructive role in easing tensions.

The safety of everyone in the area  law enforcement officers, residents and protesters alike  continues to be our foremost concern, she added.

Earlier Sunday, an organizer with Veterans Stand for Standing Rock said tribal elders had asked the military veterans not to have confrontations with law enforcement officials, adding the group is there to help out those whove dug in against the project.

About 250 veterans gathered about a mile from the main camp for a meeting with organizer Wes Clark Jr., the son of former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark. The group had said about 2,000 veterans were coming, but it wasnt clear how many actually arrived.

We have been asked by the elders not to do direct action, Wes Clark Jr. said. He then talked about North Dakota authorities decision to move away from a key bridge north of the encampment by 4 p.m. Sunday if demonstrators agree to certain conditions, saying the National Guard and law enforcement have armored vehicles and are armed.

If we come forward, they will attack us, Clark said. Instead, he told the veterans, If you see someone who needs help, help them out.

Authorities said theyll move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge if protesters stay south of it and come to the bridge only if there is a prearranged meeting. Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in the late October conflict that led to several people being hurt, including a serious arm injury.

The question was asked if we would consider pulling back from the Backwater Bridge, Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said in a Saturday news release after a conversation between law enforcement and the groups organizers, and the answer is yes! We want this to de-escalate.

Protesters also are not supposed to walk, ride or fly drones north of the bridge, Laney said. Any violation will will result in their arrest, the statement said.

The bridge blockade is something that Archambault has been asking to be removed, the Bismarck Tribune reports , and something he said he would to talk to Dalrymple about when they meet in person. A date for that meeting hasnt been set.

Veterans Stand for Standing Rocks GoFundMe.com page had raised more than $1 million of its $1.2 million goal by Sunday  money due to go toward food, transportation and supplies. Cars waiting to get into the camp Sunday afternoon were backed up for more than a half-mile.

People are fighting for something, and I thought they could use my help, said Navy veteran and Harvard graduate student Art Grayson. The 29-year-old from Cambridge, Massachusetts, flew the first leg of the journey, then rode from Bismarck in the back of a pickup truck. He has finals this week, but told professors, Ill see you when I get back.

Steven Perry, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran whos a member of the Little Traverse Bay band of Odawa Indians in Michigan, spoke of one of the protesters main concerns: that the pipeline could pollute drinking water. This is not just a native issue, he said, This is an issue for everyone.

Art Woodson and two other veterans drove 17 hours straight from Flint, Michigan, a city whose lead-tainted water crisis parallels with the tribes fight over water, he said.

We know in Flint that water is in dire need, the 49-year-old disabled Gulf War Army veteran said. In North Dakota, theyre trying to force pipes on people. Were trying to get pipes in Flint for safe water.

On Monday, some veterans will take part in a prayer ceremony in which theyll apologize for historical detrimental conduct by the military toward Native Americans and ask for forgiveness, Clark said. He also called the veterans presence about right and wrong and peace and love.

Associated Press writers Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
SANTIAGO, Cuba (AP)  Cuban President Raul Castro said Saturday that his government will prohibit the naming of streets or public monuments after his brother Fidel in keeping with the former leaders desire to avoid the development of a personality cult.

The younger Castro told a crowd gathered to pay homage to Fidel Castro in the eastern city of Santiago that the countrys National Assembly would pass in its next session a law fulfilling his brothers desire that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected.

Fidel Castro, who died Nov. 25 at 90, kept his name off public sites during his time in office because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a cult of personality. In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto Che Guevara have become common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths.

Raul Castro spoke at the end of a second massive rally in honor of Fidel as Cuba neared the end of its nine-day public mourning. Castros ashes arrived Saturday afternoon in Santiago, ending a four-day journey across Cuba that began after a massive rally in Havanas Plaza of the Revolution.

Thousands of people welcomed the leaders remains to shouts of Fidel! I am Fidel! Then hundreds of thousands gathered in Santiagos Revolution Plaza Saturday night, cheering speeches by the heads of state-run groups of small farmers, women, revolutionary veterans and neighborhood watch committee members.

The event was attended by Bolivian President Evo Morales, Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, along with former Brazilian presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva.

Castros ashes will be interred Sunday morning in Santiagos Santa Ifigenia cemetery, ending the official mourning period.

Mourning for Castro has reached near-religious peaks of public adulation across Cuba since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba. Huge crowds have been shouting his name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes from Havana to Santiago.
Updates number of dead and names of 7 victims

OAKLAND  The death toll in the Oakland warehouse fire climbed to 36 Monday with more bodies still feared buried in the blackened ruins, and families anxiously awaited word of their missing loved ones.

The building that went up in flames was known as the Ghost Ship, had been carved into artist studios and was an illegal home for a rotating cast of a dozen or more people, according to former denizens who said it was a cluttered death trap with few exits, piles of wood and a mess of snaking electric cords.

If you were going there for a party, you wouldnt be aware of the maze that you have to go through to get out, said Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of the couple who ran the warehouse.

The death toll was expected to rise, as crews using buckets and shovels slowly made their way through the building, finding victims where they least expected them, Alameda County Sheriffs Sgt. Ray Kelly said.

Less than half of the charred remains of the partly collapsed structure had been searched as of Sunday afternoon, Kelly said.

When we started this investigation, if you had told us that you would have 33 victims, we wouldnt have believed you, Kelly said. I dont know how many people are left in there.

Oakland officials identified seven victims on Sunday. They ranged in age from 22 to 35, and all but one lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are: 22-year-old Cash Askew, 35-year-old David Clines, 35-year-old Travis Hough, and 32-year-old Donna Kellogg, all of Oakland; 25-year-old Nick Gomez-Hall, of Coronado; 30-year-old Sara Hoda, of Walnut Creek; and 32-year-old Brandon Chase Wittenauer, of Hayward.

Officials said they had identified an eighth victim, but they were not releasing the name because the person is 17 years old.

Other victims include 17-year-olds and people from Europe and Asia and range in age from their teens to 30-plus years old, Kelly said.

Anxious family members who feared the worst gathered at the sheriffs office to await word on their loved ones. They were told they may have to provide DNA samples to help identify remains.

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As many as 100 people were there for a party Friday night when the fire broke out just before midnight. Fire officials were still investigating the cause of the blaze, but they said clutter fueled the flames, there were no sprinklers inside and few exits to escape.

Boudreaux identified the operators of the Satya Yuga collective as Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison. She had a falling out with Almena when she convinced Allisons parents and sister about a year ago that the warehouse was a dangerous place for the couples three children to live.

Michael Allison of Portland, Oregon, the father of Almenas partner, Micah Allison, said the couple had a troubled relationship. Michael Allison and other family members were able to persuade his daughter, Micah, to go to a drug rehabilitation center in 2015, but Almena talked his way into the rehab center, and convinced Micah Allison to leave with him, Michael Allison said.

The familys three children had lice and needed new clothes, prompting family to call child-protective services, said Michael Allison, who wept as he talked. But Almena and his partner eventually were able to win custody of the children back and cut off all communication with Michael Allison, the father said.

Whenever I could, I would to talk to (Micah Allison) to get away from him because I knew he was dangerous from day one, he said. All of that has now been proven.

Almena did not immediately respond to emails or phone numbers associated with him. Authorities declined to talk about the manager, saying they were focused on recovering the bodies and consoling families.

No one answered a call to a number for Micah Allison.

A man identified as Derick Ion posted a Facebook message early Saturday, saying, Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound. He drew rebukes online from others who said he was warned the building was unsafe.

The couple rented out five recreational vehicles and other nooks on the ground floor as living spaces. A rickety makeshift staircase led to a second floor where concerts were held. Former residents said there frequently was no electricity or running water.

Oakland planning officials opened an investigation last month after repeated complaints from neighbors who said trash was piling up and people were illegally living in the building zoned as a warehouse. An inspector who went to the premises couldnt get inside, said Darin Ranelletti, of the Oakland Planning Department.

The city had not confirmed people lived there, but a former resident, Shelley Mack, said she had been lured in part by reasonable rents in a region beset with a housing shortage and exorbitant leases driven by the tech boom.

To a first-time visitor, the labyrinth of uniquely designed spaces was stunning, said Alastair Boone, a University of California, Berkeley student who arrived at the party with five friends around 11 p.m.

Boone said she had just received a tour of the property and stepped outside when someone yelled, Fire!

In a couple of minutes there were flames coming out of the windows and black smoke was just billowing out of the house, she said.

Some of the people who got out were crying and others stood silently in shock as firefighters arrived to put the flames out.

Online records listed the buildings owner as Nar Siu Chor. The Associated Press could not locate a telephone number for her Saturday. Efforts to reach her at other Oakland addresses associated with her were not successful.

Melley reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Olga Rodriguez, Tim Reiterman and Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco, and Jonathan J. Cooper, Terry Chea and Janie Har in Oakland contributed to this report.
RIVERSIDE

Frank Verano, who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, will share his story at 2 p.m. Dec. 10 at the March Field Air Museum, 22550 Van Buren Blvd. Verano joined the U.S. Navy on Oct. 24, 1940, and was aboard the USS Detroit when it was attacked.

Admission is $10 for guests ages 12 and older, $5 for children ages 5-11 and free for children ages 4 and younger.



Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Saul Anshen will discuss his experiences as a WWII bomber pilot when the Inland Empire Aviation Roundtable meets at 7 p.m. Dec. 14 at the March Field Air Museum, 22550 Van Buren Blvd.

Related: How 97-year-old survived, fought bought at Pearl Harbor

Anshen, 96, was an Army private in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.&He went on to fly 50 missions with the 459th Bomb Group of the 15th Air Force. The event is free.

NORCO

Two veterans and victims of the Pearl Harbor attack will be at the 10th annual Pearl Harbor ceremony at the Naval Weapons Station in Norco.

Norco Mayor Kevin Bash in an email said the first patients to arrive at the newly opened Naval Hospital in Norco, in February 1942, were injured men from that Dec. 7 attack.

The remembrance event will begin at 10 a.m. at 2300 Fifth St. Information: 951-768-8981.

LONG BEACH

The Long Beach Historical Society will share stories of Navy heroes through an exhibit that will touch on the impact Pearl Harbor had on Long Beach.

Dubbed, Long Beach Remembers Pearl Harbor: A Year That Changed the City, the exhibit will launch with a reception at 6 p.m. Dec. 7, at the Historical Society of Long Beach, 4260 Atlantic Ave.

Tickets are $75. For more information, call 562-424-2220 or email hslb.org.

LONG BEACH

The city of Long Beach will hold a memorial, Lest We Forget, at 9 a.m. in the Civic Center Plaza outside City Hall.

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, Historical Society President Niki Tennant, and California Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Vito Imbasciani, will be among the speakers.

The Dec. 7 event is free, and parking will be available at the lot at Third Street and Cedar Avenue.

VICTORVILLE

The Southern California Logistics Airport is hosting a ceremony Dec. 7 to unveil a restored F-4 Phantom Fighter Jet  an event aimed to unite the community on Pearl Harbor Day.

It took airport employees and volunteers about two years to restore the jet, which was left behind following the closure of the George Air Force Base.

Volunteers who restored the jet will be honored at the ceremony, which will be outside the Southern California Logistics Airport office at 18374 Phantom West.

Parking will be available in the lot adjacent to the office.
More than 400 students and professors at UC Riverside are asking administrators to make the university a sanctuary campus in response to President-elect Donald Trumps vow to ramp up deportations.

Colleges locally and nationally are rallying around the idea of sanctuary campuses, a loosely defined concept that means schools will do nothing to help the federal government in any organized effort to deport undocumented immigrants who are college students or employees.

RELATED: California colleges sing out: We dont like Trump

Pitzer College President Melvin L. Oliver, for example, announced Wednesday, Nov. 30, that the Claremont campus would be designated as a sanctuary campus.

The online petition at UC Riverside  directed to Chancellor Kim Wilcox and other administrators  is moving forward despite the University of California systems releasing a statement Wednesday, Nov. 30, that announced its campus police departments will not cooperate with law enforcement agencies looking to arrest those who have broken federal immigration laws.

In a statement, UC President Janet Napolitano said the university system, felt it necessary to reaffirm that UC will act upon its deeply held conviction that all members of our community have the right to work, study and live safely and without fear at all UC locations.

UC Riverside officials have not directly addressed the petition, but in a Thursday message to students and staff, Wilcox said Napolitanos message is wholly consistent with our campus core values of inclusion and non-discrimination.

The letter provides a clear framework for supporting undocumented students moving forward, and we will continue to work hard to ensure that all members of the Highlander community feel safe now, and in the years to come, Wilcox said.

Devra Weber, associate professor of history at UC Riverside, drafted the petition and said it complements the University of Californias statement in support of undocumented students. The signatures will be presented to the UCR administration, Weber said.

Weber noted the historic role of sanctuaries as places of protection during civil rights struggles in the U.S., and in the 1980s to shelter refugees from Central America.

While Sanctuary does not have legal standing, it does have a moral insistence, Weber said via e-mail.

As of Friday the UCR petition had about 410 signatures that included professors and students in a range of departments, from ethnic studies and English to mathematics and political science.

Jennifer R. Najera, associate professor of ethnic studies, signed the petition and said calling a university a sanctuary is important because it shows the support for undocumented students comes from administrators, faculty and staff.

It helps students feel safe to know there are professors who they feel are on their side to protect their interests, Najera added.

The petition lists its concerns over hate crimes targeting immigrants, religious groups, women, and the LGTBQ community. It calls for the university to protect emails, phone calls, and other materials from use by law enforcement.

It also asks the university to develop specific plans to protect students.

UC Riverside student Muhammad Sohail signed the petition. He said that as an immigrant refugee from Pakistan, he knows how difficult it is for people to enter the United States legally.

Some members of my own family have been at some point undocumented and unsafe in this country, he said. As a naturalized citizen, I use my privilege to speak out for undocumented students who feel unsafe in their own homes and skin.

Staff writer Roxana Kopetman contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9462, amolina@scng.com, or on Twitter @alemolina
I didnt see the first text message from a House colleague, or the second from my staff. Then the texts flooded in. As I read texts and news alerts about what was unfolding back home on Dec. 2, 2015, my walk from the House floor back to my office turned into a run. I had just voted in favor of a procedural motion to allow debate on a bill to keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists. It failed.

When I reached my office, my first instinct was to verify the details and get home as soon as possible. I briefly spoke with San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan to confirm that the suspect was at large and that victims were still being treated. That was all I needed to know. I took the first flight back to Los Angeles, which left that afternoon.

I fly between L.A. and Washington, D.C., twice a week, so its become somewhat routine. There was nothing routine about this flight. It was the longest five hours of my life and I just couldnt seem to get home fast enough. The loneliest part was the two-hour drive from LAX to the San Bernardino command center. My mind raced back and forth about what awaited me and what my role would be. There isnt a rule book for a member of Congress when a tragedy like this strikes your community.

At first I wasnt sure what my role should be  what could I possibly do to bring people comfort in a time like this? So I did what any person does to help those they care about in times of crisis: I consoled and reassured them in every way I could. I stood beside them at memorials, I prayed with them at interfaith vigils, I sat with them in hospitals and I grieved with them at funerals. I realized that the most important part I could play was to be a source of strength and support  to be present in the community asking questions and helping people rebuild.

When President Obama traveled to San Bernardino, I joined him aboard Air Force One. We discussed the work that needed to be done to ensure victims and first responders were adequately cared for. First Lady Michelle Obama and I talked about the victims families, particularly about the children of victims who would grow up without mothers and fathers. Times like this put everything in perspective. I wasnt a congressman having a conversation with the first lady about my constituents. We were two parents sick with sorrow over what lay ahead for those children.

As we reflect on San Bernardino one year later, we should look at the tenacity of our region. We did not let this tragedy define us or divide us. Were not whole yet; its OK to admit that we are a work in progress. In the months and years to come, we should be judged by how we honor those we lost and how we support survivors as they continue to heal. And I will fight to make sure survivors and their loved ones, as well as our law enforcement community, have access to the resources they need to recuperate.

Moving forward, we also have an obligation to remind those who use San Bernardino as a talking point that this isnt their story to tell. We are more than a one-liner in a debate. Our struggles are real and our determination to recover should be revered, not boiled down for political fodder. It is our story to share and our ending to write.

Congressman Pete Aguilar, D-San Bernardino, represents the 31st District.
The Ashanti Regional Police Command has extended an invitation to the executives of the New Patriotic Party for assistance to trace vehicles allegedly seized by the military for carrying weapons.



The police say preliminary investigation into the allegation of arms stockpiling made by the NPP has failed to establish the facts. The Police have thus asked the NPP to name the police station where the incident was reported and identify the house where the arms were lodged.



However, the Regional Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Mohammed Tanko, told TV3 they would liaise with the 4BN Brigade in Kumasi, which was said to have custody of the said weapons. Executives of the NPP in Kumasi at a news conference Friday alleged the military in the region impounded large cache of weapons allegedly from a known member of the National Democratic Congress in the Ashanti Region.



They claimed the weapons were seized from the said NDC man, Cobson of Asuoyeboah SSNIT Flats with house number AH 2015S Thursday night following a tip-off by some NPP agents.

Source: 3news









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President John Dramani Mahama says the continuous growth of indigenous Ghanaian firms like Zoomlion Ghana Limited and others have become the envy of many people to the extent that they want those businesses to fall.



According to the President, even many of his party supporters and sympathizers harbor the feeling that Zoomlion Ghana Limited and some other thriving businesses in the country are owned by members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).



Therefore, making those businesses to survive and keep on expanding their frontiers under the governing NDC will be detrimental to their course, hence, the need to wipe them off from the system.



Addressing thousands of workers of Zoomlion Ghana Limited and other subsidiaries of the Jospong Group of Companies at the Trade Fair Center in Accra on Friday, December 2, 2016, President Mahama said some Ghanaians were so bitter about the survival of Zoomlion Ghana Limited and other firms that they approached the late President John Evans Atta-Mills and himself to collapse those businesses.



The history of our country is replete with businesses going down because government has changed. We will like to label our indigenous businessmen with a political paint brush. So, the person is running his business and we say oh he is an NPP businessman or an NDC business man or he is a CPP or GCPP businessman. And so when government changes, it is like you must run down all these businesses that are not on your side.



Dr. Siaw Agyepong had started his business when we came into government. He established it under the illustrious administration of President John Agyekum Kufour. And so, by the time we came into office, his company had spread quite across the country.



Thank God for the life of Prof. Mills and thank God that Prof. Mills thinking and I were on the same wavelength. When we came into office, there were many on our side that believed that Zoomlion was an NPP company and must be killed. That it had become a monopoly in the waste management sector and that we that we do things to open up and other businesses should come in.



But Prof. is very principled and determined person with my support said he (Dr. Agyepong) is a Ghanaian businessman and he is employing Ghanaians. It is the responsibility of the government to provide employment to our people and so whether he is red, green, or black as far as he is providing jobs in the economy, his business must thrive and continue, noted President Mama.



He said his belief in Ghanaian businesses have seen protected a number of such firms over the last couple of years.



As President, I believe strongly in the Ghanaian indigenous business persons. Our companies if they get the right support, they can prove themselves. That is what my government has been determined to do, he noted.



He added For me when it comes to Ghanaian businesses, Im colour blind  Im politically blind. It doesnt matter who you are. As far as you are a Ghanaian and contributing to the growth of the economy, you have a right to do your business and earn profit.

Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email:[email protected]









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The Minister of Communication, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah has admonished electorates particularly those in the strongholds of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), to vote massively for President John Dramani Mahama for a renewed mandate to move the country forward.





According to the Spokesperson for the President, a vote for the opposition NPP would erode the countries feat.

If we vote for all-die-be die, the country retrogress but due to the love we have for our country, we are going to cast a good ballot. We will cast a good ballot at where the elephant is (stronghold of the NPP) for the country to move forward

He said about 700,000 Ghanaians are expected to be employed next year only in Youth Employment module and Railways sector to reduce the unemployment situation.

The Communication Minister was addressing a mammoth regional rally Saturday at Koforidua, organized by the Ruling National Democratic congress to crown the campaign activities in the region ahead of the December 7 polls.

Dr. Omane Boamah accused the NPP of attempt to mar this years election with pockets of violence.

He however assured Ghanaians that, President John Dramani Mahama,who is the Commander In-Chief of the Ghana Armed forces will do his possible best to protect the peace of the country as the country strives for total transformation.

Dr Omane Boamah said about 700,000 Ghanaians are expected to be employed next year only in Youth Employment module and Railways sector.

The rally, held at Koforidua Jackson pack was attended by supporters of the party from across the 33 constituencies in the region.

The rally was also attended by the Minister of Finance, Seth Tekper, Minister of communication, Dr.Edward Omane Boamah, General Secretary of NDC Johnson Asiedu Nketia as well as Parliamentary candidates of the party in the region.

Source: kasapa









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Were tired of the massive obstacles young Australians are forced to overcome on the way to property ownership, but shit, were almost saltier bout the stream of bad takes on this generation-defining issue.

A new piece, published today in the Courier Mail, shows why.

Titled Young property millionaires share their tips on how to break into real estate, the article was published to Facebook with *this* piece of rage-clickable copy:

Splendid. Throw it on the avo-pile, folks. Weve been fucking it up this whole time.

However, apart from that lil tidbit, nearly every other aspect of the article shows why it, uh, really cant be done by just anyone.

Well say right now that building a property portfolio takes nous. It takes clever investment and an eye for opportunity. Its an achievement. But some inherent advantages just cant be glazed over.

Speaking to readers under 35, the piece opens by saying chances are you are well acquainted with the feeling of despair stoked by auctions in Melbourne and Sydney.

It continues, saying the homes often go to cashed-up investors or your parents (who may or may not be buying the property for you, depending on your good fortune).

The foreshadowing is so severe, its essentially a silhouette.

The piece provides mini-profiles on a series of investors, including the aforementioned Jade Hamilton. it says the 27-year-old investor has a property portfolio thats expected to hit $5M in value.

The tale of how she did it  remember, that was the hook of the article  is totally absent, apart from the advice do your research and dont give up.

Standing in for any further explanation is another quote, where she says I have been around [property] my whole life, as my Dads a builder and my parents have built up their portfolio from nothing and now own a 184-home rental community.

Hmm.

The piece hones in on another investor, Sydneys Stephanie Brennan. She owns nine properties with a value of $3.1M. Her advice?

There are more ways than one to enter the property market and if the way youre pursuing isnt working then try another approach, such as not limiting yourself to your home country or state.

So, essentially, if youre having trouble buying in a major capital city, tough shit. In an earlier piece, Brennan also advised buyers to nab an investment property and negative gear the hell out of it, before even considering living in their own home.

FWIW, her mother acted as guarantor on the first property she bought. That $60K contribution negated any need for Brennan to contribute a deposit. She also received a $50K inheritance, which she used to buy property in Scotland.

Feeling inspired yet? Okay, moving on.

Melbourne-based Raghav Goel comes next. The 28-year-old, whose 14-property portfolio is worth a casual $20M, says recognising limitations in experience and knowledge is crucial and its best to work with experts at the very beginning.

Fortunately for him, his grandfather is a resort developer, so that guidance on property may have been a lil easier to come by. Oh, hes also currently focusing on lofts, cause hes well aware people looking to move on from apartment living cant afford full townhouses.

Grand.

The piece closes with Nicholas Smedley, 33, whose current $3B portfolio  yeah, billion  catapulted from a $5M property portfolio.

The bloke actually admits how much harder it is for people in 2016 to do what he did in his early 20s, saying there were far less banking regulations than there are today, so theres no doubt its harder to do it than when I started.

He also didnt offer any advice whatsoever on cracking the property market, just common-sense tips on what properties you should look for if you can already afford it.

Also, minor detail: Smedleys dad, Peter Smedley, was chief of the Colonial Group until 2000, which was bought by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia for $8.5B. In a 2007 piece, their family home was described as a $7 million Toorak mansion.

To reiterate: the article does indeed present a story for all the whingeing young people who say it cant be done.

It goes like this:

Be born. Have parents who, by merit of their financial standing or handle of the property market, can either guide your investments or provide a legitimate safety net. ???? Profit.

Problem fucking sorted.

Source: Courier Mail.

Photo: Brendon Thorne / Getty.
Muso Jess Origliasso has issued a passionate and personal call for Australia to fully embrace the Safe Schools program.

Origliasso, one half of the Veronicas and other half to Ruby Rose, issued the statement via Instagram following todays pro-Safe Schools rally in Brisbane.

In it, she writes that the death of Tyrone Unsworth hit too close to home, and that the homophobic bullying he endured happened at a school that I grew up 2 minutes from.

Kids, like Tyrone are bullied & and made to feel like outcasts for their sexual or gender diversity and interests. Bullied to a point that he felt his only option was to leave this life. My heart breaks to know my best friends growing up were exactly like Tyrone, but that I couldnt help him.

She describes meeting Unsworths grandmother, who can be seen embracing Origliasso in the photo, and that she told me he was a fan of my music.



I, like many others, wish I could have known Tyrone, and done anything to make sure he was still here today.

Her answer to what could be to done to prevent similar tragedies is, quite rightly, the widespread adoption and support of the Safe Schools program.

Please Australia, its time to do more. Tyrone should still be here with us today. If only we had schools and legal rights that show all LGBTIQA+ youths, and bullies that the LGBTQIA+ community, and their diversity is as normal as a diverse choice in music.

Truth.

Read Origliassos full statement below, and our take on adopting the Safe Schools program right here.

Source and photo: Jessica Origliasso / Instagram.
Authorities in Oakland, California now fear that up to 40 people may have been killed after a fire broke out in a warehouse that was hosting a late-night dance party.

Initially, nine people were confirmed dead, but a full search of the premises had to be delayed after the warehouse roof collapsed, with dozens still missing inside.

A local police spokesman confirmed that the coroners department is preparing to accept up to 40 bodies, warning that a lot of casualties are to be expected following the incident.

Bob Mule, an artist who lives in the warehouse, said that he smelled burning in the building and heard a nearby occupant shouting out for help, and the premises quickly filled up with smoke.

It was too hot, too much smoke, I couldnt see him, he said. I had to get out of there. I hope hes okay  I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke. I couldnt get the fire extinguisher to work.

One unnamed woman who did not attend the party but has four friends still unaccounted for told local media: I dont have high hopes  weve just spent the night calling hospitals and listening to police scanners.

Musician Aja Archuleta, who was due to perform on the night, survived the blaze, and told local media:

There were two people on the first level who had spotted a small fire that was growing quickly. It was a very quick and chaotic build, from a little bit of chaos to a lot of chaos  I have lost 20 friends in the past 24 hours.

The cause of the fire is not yet clear, but local media reports suggest that most of the deaths occurred on the second floor of the converted warehouse, where a concert was being held.

The second floor reportedly had only one point of entrance, and witnesses say it was connected to the first floor by a makeshift staircase constructed out of wooden pallets.

Oakland fire chief Theresa Deloach Reed said of the blaze:

It must have been a really fast-moving fire  I dont know where the fire started, but I do know that the way the building was situated made it difficult for people to escape. It was filled end to end with furniture, whatnot, collections. It was like a maze almost.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not yet confirmed whether any Australians were present at the event.

Source: Fairfax.

Photos: Elijah Nouvelage / Getty.
PITTSBURGH -- Hundreds of Santas, elves, reindeer and even some bananas came out to cause a little ruckus while spreading joy in the city Saturday.

Some of the most unique costumes we spotted were a Santa and Sandor "The Hound" Clegane mashup, a gingerbread cookie warrior and a trio dressed as Kevin McCallister and burglars Harry and Marv from "Home Alone."

The 12th annual Pittsburgh Santarchy bar crawl brought characters to the Strip District before they hopped aboard a boat to the North Shore, then trekked back to Market Square. The event ends at midnight after dirty carols atop Mount Washington.

Throughout the bar crawl, Santas were encouraged to offer presents to others. Indeed, many participants had sacks full of candy or other gifts to hand out.
Bowe Bergdahl

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is seen leaving a courtroom after a pretrial hearing in Fort Bragg, NC., Monday, Nov. 14, 2016. Bergdahl faces a military trial in 2017 on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after walking off his post in Afghanistan in 2009.

(AP Photo/Jonathan Drew)

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the former prisoner of war who's accused of endangering comrades by walking off his post in Afghanistan, is asking President Barack Obama to pardon him before leaving office.

White House and Justice Department officials on Saturday said Bergdahl had submitted copies of the clemency request seeking leniency. If granted by Obama, it would allow Bergdahl to avert a court-martial trial scheduled for April where he faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, the latter of which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held captive by the Taliban and its allies for five years. The Obama administration's decision in May 2014 to exchange him for five Taliban prisoners being held at the U.S prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, touched off a firestorm of criticism, with some Republicans accusing Obama of jeopardizing the safety of a nation for a deserter. Lawmakers expressed outrage that the Obama administration did not give Congress a 30-day notice about transferring the detainees to Qatar, as required by law.

President-elect Donald Trump was particularly critical of the prisoner deal during the presidential campaign, describing Bergdahl as a "no-good traitor, who should have been executed." Trump has at times held up an imaginary rifle as if he were taking aim at Bergdahl and declared at a Las Vegas rally in October that "30 years ago, he would have been shot."

Bergdahl's lead defense lawyer, Eugene Fidell, declined to comment Saturday. Fidell previously described Trump's comments as prejudicial, threatening "my client's right to a fair trial."

Bergdahl's disappearance and the possibility that he might face light punishment angered many in the military, given that his fellow soldiers took considerable risks to search for him. Bergdahl has said he walked off his post because he wanted to cause an alarm and draw attention to what he saw as problems with his unit.

His request to Obama was confirmed by White House and Justice Department officials who were not authorized to discuss the matter by name.

The New York Times first reported Bergdahl's request for a pardon.
Ballot

An attorney for Green Party candidate Jill Stein said late Saturday evening that the campaign would bring their effort to launch a Pennsylvania recount to federal court.

(The Patriot-News, file)

UPDATE: Jill Stein takes recount fight to federal court

An attorney for Green Party candidate Jill Stein said late Saturday evening that the campaign would bring their effort to launch a Pennsylvania recount to federal court.

Earlier in the day, the recount effort appeared to be scuttled by a $1 million bond requirement handed down by the state's Commonwealth Court. That court had scheduled a 10 a.m. hearing in the case that's now canceled.

"Make no mistake - the Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania," said Jonathan Abady, who's leading Stein's recount efforts, in a written statement. "We are committed to this fight to protect the civil and voting rights of all Americans."

Abady said the campaign would file for emergency relief in federal court on Monday, "on constitutional grounds."

"Over the past several days, it has become clear that the barriers to verifying the vote in Pennsylvania are so pervasive and that the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem that we must seek federal court intervention," he said, in a statement sent shortly before midnight.

The Stein camp's original Commonwealth Court petition cited problems with the state's electronic voting system that a computer scientist believes could make it vulnerable to hackers. Others include the computer hacking of the Democratic National Committee and "discontinuity" between pre-election public opinion polls and the final result.

At the same time that the statewide appellate court was considering that petition, a number of county boards of election were considering local recount efforts. Philadelphia County launched a partial recount of 75 of the county's 1,686 voting precincts on Friday.

The GOP and the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump have said there's no evidence of hacking or other irregularities in the voting system. Stein's recount efforts, they said, could delay the certification of Electoral College members who are scheduled to cast their votes on Dec. 19.

Last month, Trump won a majority of votes in the electoral college although he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by more than 2 million votes.

In addition to Pennsylvania, Stein has launched recount efforts in Michigan and Wisconsin.
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police lights.jpg

Multiple police agencies in Lebanon County are looking for a 36-year-old man with a cut hand who walked away from a health facility in West Cornwall Township.

(file)

A search for an Amish man with a severely cut hand who walked away from a mental health facility in Lebanon County Saturday afternoon ended hours later when he was found at a Harrisburg area truck stop.

Multiple police agencies in Lebanon County had been looking for Brandon D. Schmidt, 36, of Clarksdale, Mississippi, after he left the Green Pastures facility in West Cornwall Township, according to a police news release issued Saturday. The news release did not specify how Schmidt was injured other than to say he cut his left hand.

Schmidt was not considered dangerous, but police wanted to find him because he was bleeding profusely when he abandoned the facility. Police had asked members of the public to call 911 if they spotted him.

Schmidt left the facility about noon and was last spotted walking west on Old Mine Road toward Colebrook in South Londonderry Township at 1:30 p.m.

Police notified reporters that he had been located at 8:47 p.m. Cornwall Police Chief Bruce D. Harris said Schmidt apparently hitchhiked into the Harrisburg area, where he was dropped off at a truck stop. From there, Schmidt contacted his wife and parents, Harris said.

The facility that Schmidt abandoned is a special mental health facility next to Philhaven on South Butler Road intended to cater to the unique needs of the Amish. Construction began in 2005 of the $400,000 facility, according to Lancasteronline.

The Amish community provided all the materials and labor for building the home, which has electricity and running water, but no television or other modern amenities, according to the newspaper.

UPDATE: This article was updated after police found the missing man.
Soldiers from Company A, 104th Brigade Engineering Battalion conduct explosive demolition training Saturday afternoon at Fort Indiantown Gap. The company traveled from their armory in West Orange New Jersey for their weekend training in explosives.
SUNBURY - A veteran Sunbury police corporal has been suspended with pay pending the outcome of an investigation initiated by state police.

Mayor David L. Persing said he is unaware of the specific allegations against Cpl. Jamie Quinn.

Administrative Police Chief Timothy S. Miller Sunday described it as a criminal investigation but declined further comment until he has the opportunity to speak with state police commanders at the Stonington barracks.

An item state police requested from Sunbury was delivered to Stonington late Friday afternoon, but the commanding officers had left, he said. Miller would not say what the item was.

State police initiated the investigation; it was not something the city referred to them, Persing said.

It is unrelated to the internal investigation into an allegation that Quinn, a member of the force since 1995, refused to comply with a direct order from Capt. Steve Bennick.

That investigation is nearing completion, Miller and Persing said.

In October, Quinn filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission accusing the city of gender discrimination. She is Sunbury's only female officer.

The commission has yet to serve Sunbury officials with the document in which she accuses the city of wanting to exclude females from supervisory positions in the police department.

She specifically cited the Sept. 12 promotion of Bennick from patrolman to captain without requiring him to test for the position.

Miller responded at the time that rank is considered management and civil service testing is not required.

Quinn in the past filed several sexual harassment claims against the city.
Jill Stein,Jill Stein Campaign

FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2016 file photo, Green party presidential candidate Jill Stein meets her supporters during a campaign stop at Humanist Hall in Oakland, Calif.

(AP Photo/D. Ross Cameron, file)

A court case seeking to challenge Donald Trump's victory in Pennsylvania through a statewide recount is over, according to the attorney who filed the case last week.

The grassroots effort could not afford the $1 million bond that was required by the court, said Larry Otter, the Bucks County attorney who filed the case on behalf of Jill Stein, who ran as the Green Party candidate for President of the United States.

The bond "gave us one million reasons to reconsider our decision," Otter told PennLive Saturday night. "I was told to pull the plug."

A hearing scheduled for Monday has been cancelled, Otter confirmed.

The filing was unprecedented, Otter acknowledged, and several rulings handed down by the court late Friday erected hurdles too high for the campaign to overcome.

"It was something that had never been tried before," Otter said. "You take your chances."

The campaign had sought a $25,000 bond for the case, and other side pushed back with a request for $10 million. The judge settled on a $1 million bond, which was out of reach for the petitioners, who are "regular citizens of ordinary means," Otter wrote in his court filing to withdraw the case.

The death of the case, however, doesn't spell the end of all efforts in the state to question the final Presidential election results. There are still precinct-level recounts being sought in various counties.

Stein's campaign lamented the judge's bond ruling as "shameful," and promised a "major announcement" about the recount on Monday, according to a news release issued Saturday night. Her campaign is still pursuing statewide recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin.

"Pennsylvania has by far the messiest recount process of the three states, and one of the worst state election laws in the nation," according to Stein's news release. "Donald Trump has tried to use its antiquated laws and decentralized and bureaucratic election system to his advantage to block the recount."

Republicans in Pennsylvania issued their own news release Saturday night after news broke about the withdrawal of the case. They had previously said the case was without any merit.

"Ms. Stein and her supporters should now withdraw the few scattered recounts that they filed in Pennsylvania as they clearly have no chance of changing the results and that it was done for media attention," the state GOP release said. "The November 8, 2016 election produced a clear winner, Donald Trump, and the actions of Ms. Stein and her supporters to create the fear of chaos by making baseless accusations of the hacking of voting machines in Pennsylvania were an insult to all Pennsylvania voters."

One of the chief factors cited Otter's original petition included problems with the state's electronic voting system that a computer scientist said could make it vulnerable to hackers. Others include the computer hacking of the Democratic National Committee and "discontinuity" between pre-election public opinion polls and the final result.

The state's top elections official, Secretary of State Pedro Cortes, a Democrat, previously said that there was no evidence of any sort of cyberattacks or irregularities in Pennsylvania's election.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump won in Pennsylvania by about 71,000 ballots, or about 1 percentage point, over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Because he won the state's popular vote, he walked away with the state's 20 electoral votes. That lead has since narrowed to 49,543 votes, according to the state Secretary of State website.

No Republican had won Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988, and no Democrat has won the White House without winning Pennsylvania since Harry Truman in 1948, according to the Associated Press.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein drew fewer than 50,000 votes, according to the Associated Press, but nevertheless is leading the recount charge.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was updated with the latest election figures and information from news releases from Stein and the state GOP.

Praecipe for Discontinuance by PennLive on Scribd

BOND Order Filed by PennLive on Scribd
By Charlie Gerow

We've heard from the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that "elections have consequences."

There are few places where those consequences will have more impact than in the federal judiciary.

The power of the federal courts extends to virtually every area of everyday life, from the rights of criminal defendants to Obama's "clean air" regulations, the power of labor unions, abortion rights, immigration and how elections are conducted.

With life terms and tremendous power, federal judges shape and mold the fabric of American life in numerous ways.

The seat of recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia has been on the front pages for months. Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland has not been acted upon by the U.S. Senate for eight months, nearly doubling the previous record.

Some conservatives enjoy grumbling about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but they owe him a word of high praise and thanks for not allowing Judge Garland to ascend to the nations's highest court.

Instead President Trump will have the opportunity to nominate someone who will interpret the Constitution according to the way it was actually written.

It's very likely that President Trump will also have the opportunity to further shape the direction of the Supreme Court through other nominations.

Two of the Justices are already in their eighties and Justice Breyer is not far behind.

But the biggest consequence of the recent elections on the judiciary will not be with the high-profile seats on the Supreme Court. It will be with the federal courts of appeal and the district (trial) courts beneath them.

The U.S. Courts of Appeals are the final stop for the vast majority of federal appeals.

These courts handle some 30,000 cases each term.

In contrast, the Supreme Court only heard about 75 cases in the current term, down significantly from the already paltry 100 to 150 they have heard recently.

Even though between 7,000 to 8,000 cases are filed with the Supreme Court each term, the Court only grants certiorari, agreeing to hear the case, in the most significant constitutional cases.

Barack Obama used the consequences of his two electoral victories to dramatically alter the character of the federal judiciary, shifting the balance of power away from Republican appointees and filling vacancies with left-leaning jurists.

When Obama took office Republican-nominated jurists controlled nine of the 12 Federal Courts of Appeal. They now have four.

That's about to change. There are almost 50 Obama appointments to the federal bench currently awaiting Senate confirmation.

Those expire when Congress adjourns.

They will become Trump appointments. Additionally, another nearly 50 federal appellate judges became eligible for senior status during Obama's Administration.

Many will now step down from full-time service or resign, thus creating opportunities for appointment by President Trump.

There are two vacancies in the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals of which Pennsylvania is a part, and six seats in U.S. District courts within Pennsylvania.

President-elect Trump has promised to appoint jurists in the mold of Justice Scalia. That's great news.

Justice Scalia was an "originalist" who believed, and brilliantly argued, that cases should be decided based upon the meaning of the text at the time it was enacted, not through some look into the psyche of the Framers to determine their "intentions."

During the campaign candidate Trump announced a list of some of the specific jurists he'd consider nominating to the Supreme Court. The vast majority, if not all, are "originalists."

Included in the potential appointees is Judge Thomas Hardiman, a Pennsylvanian currently serving as a Judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

More recently, the Tump transition team has reiterated that the president-elect intends to appoint judges "who are committed to interpreting the Constitution and laws according to their no-original meaning."

As the president-elect has characterized it, "The Constitution as it was meant to be."

How quickly and easily the new president will be able to return the direction of the courts to a more strict interpretation of the Constitution will depend how how effective he is at kick starting the engines that power the vetting and nomination process and how quickly the Senate moves.

All indications on both fronts are very positive. The Senate leadership appears anxious to help restore a proper path for the federal judiciary.

Senate Democrats may have unwittingly played into the hands of Republicans hoping to speed up the process.

Back in 2013 they opted for the "nuclear option," requiring only a simple majority, rather than the 60 percent ordinarily necessary under Senate Rules, for all judicial nominations except the Supreme Court.

In the category of "being careful of what you wish for," that power-play may now haunt Senate Democrats seeking to derail conservative appointments.

Although the federal courts never took center stage during the campaign, the issue was always very near the surface.

Having Hillary Clinton further stack the courts with leftist judges sent a chill down the spine of even reluctant Trump voters.

They understood the far-reaching and long-lasting implications of the next round of judicial appointments.

Those will now be made by a man who promises to deliver what they wanted.

Republican strategist Charlie Gerow is the CEO of Quantum Communications in Harrisburg. His column appears on Sundays on PennLive.
beer taps art.jpg

By Frank C. Sluzis

The sweeping changes to Pennsylvania's liquor laws ushered in during the 2015-2016 legislative session are historic, but the march to modernize the Keystone State's paternalistic alcohol laws should not end with the close of session on Nov. 30.

Frank C. Sluzis (PennLive file)

More liquor law reform is not only needed - it may be all that can save Pennsylvania's rich tapestry of quaint, family-owned bars and licensed restaurants.

These beloved establishments bring charm and character that can't be found in cookie-cutter chain restaurants. And they depend on their long-held Pennsylvania liquor licenses as the centerpiece of their business plans.

But Act 39 brought wine-to-go to supermarkets and beer sales to convenience stores, leading many mom-and-pop establishments to feel more pressured than ever to sell their liquor licenses.

Act 39 has created new, deep-pocketed demand for liquor licenses among both supermarkets, which can now sell both beer and wine, and convenience stores, which can sell beer.

This demand is already driving up liquor license prices. If left unchecked, these market forces could push many mom-and-pop establishments to sell, as their liquor licenses become far more valuable to sell, than to hold.

Demand vs. supply

Recently, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board held its first liquor license auction - and the numbers were staggering. Forty "lapsed" liquor licenses were put up for bid. Of those, 37 "dead" licenses received bids. (The only licenses that didn't were a pair in Cameron County and one in Delaware County.)

The rest went like hotcakes. Of these 37, all but six of the winning bids, not surprisingly, came from chain supermarkets or chain convenience stores.

Sheetz was the highest bidder on 15 - with four of its bids topping $300,000. Giant Foods was the highest bidder on 11 - including four bids over $500,000 and another just under that amount. Additionally, Giant Eagle and Turkey Hill were the highest bidders on two each, and Weis Markets made the winning bid on one.

The PLCB's dead license sale was supposed to satiate the added demand created by Pennsylvania's liquor law reforms. Instead, the auction's stunning bids reveal just how badly many mom-and-pop establishments could soon be priced out of the state's liquor license market, now dominated by major supermarket and convenience store chains.

More reforms needed

Clearly, the lapsed license auction created under Act 39 won't be enough to satisfy demand. Neither will allowing "E" license (beer only) holders to convert to "R" licenses (restaurant liquor) for a $30,000 fee. And the PLCB's planned auctions for any additional lapsed licenses in coming years won't do the trick, either.

Act 39 didn't go far enough in addressing the liquor license market imbalance its reforms have created.

It's now next to impossible for a small restaurant owner who desires a liquor license to compete with big-money bids from major companies. Moreover, mom-and-pop establishments already holding licenses will soon feel pressure to sell -- especially if a deep-pocketed chains makes an offer they can't refuse.

Having invited big supermarket and convenience store chains into the wine and beer business, Pennsylvania now must to create a new class of liquor license for these entities. This will restore balance to the state's liquor license market, easing the competition for R-class restaurant licenses that keep so many small bars and family eateries in business.

Your favorite Italian restaurant down the street that sells a nice bottle of wine with dinner was never meant to compete with the likes of Wegmans.

This new class of liquor license would level the playing field once again. Supermarkets wishing to sell wine and beer, and convenience stores wanting to sell beer, would bid and compete for this new class of license among themselves.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania's rich tapestry of bars and restaurants would see market conditions return to pre-Act 39 normalcy.

Pennsylvania still needs a sensible, straightforward means of protecting smaller, family-owned bars and restaurants from being priced out of the market -- especially in those counties where liquor license demand is greatest.

Yes, Pennsylvania was right to reform its antiquated liquor laws. But now, it must get those reforms right.

Frank C. Sluzis, an attorney for Scaringi & Scaringi, is the former chief prosecutor for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's Nuisance Bar program and past assistant counsel to the PLCB Attorney.
A crowd gathers in celebration at the Oceti Sakowin camp after it was announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers won't grant easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D., Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. (AP Photo/David Goldman)


A phone call between Putin and Iranian

President Rouhani smoothed the way.



How Putin, Khamenei and Saudi prince got OPEC deal done

Russian President Vladimir Putin played a crucial role in helping OPEC rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia set aside differences to forge the cartel's first deal with non-OPEC Russia in 15 years.

Interventions ahead of Wednesday's OPEC meeting came at key moments from Putin, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, OPEC and non-OPEC sources said.

Putin's role as intermediary between Riyadh and Tehran was pivotal, testament to the rising influence of Russia in the Middle East since its military intervention in the Syrian civil war just over a year ago.

It started when Putin met Saudi Prince Mohammed in September on the sidelines of a G20 gathering in China.

The two agreed to cooperate to help world oil markets clear a glut that had more than halved oil prices since 2014, pummeling Russian and Saudi government revenues. Oil prices are up 10 pct this week topping $53 a barrel.

The financial pain made a deal possible despite the huge political differences between Russia and Saudi over the civil war in Syria.

"Putin wants the deal. Full stop. Russian companies will have to cut production," said a Russian energy source briefed on the discussions.

In September, OPEC agreed in principle at a meeting in Algiers to reduce output for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis.

But the individual country commitments required to finalize a deal at Wednesday's Vienna meeting still required much diplomacy.

Recent OPEC meetings have failed because of arguments between de facto leader Saudi Arabia and third-largest producer Iran. Tehran has long argued OPEC should not prevent it restoring output lost during years of Western sanctions.

Proxy wars in Syria and Yemen have exacerbated decades of tensions between the Saudi Sunni kingdom and the Iranian Shi'ite Islamic republic.

BRINKMANSHIP

Heading into the meeting, the signs were not good. Oil markets went into reverse. Saudi Prince Mohammed had repeatedly demanded Iran participate in supply cuts. Saudi and Iranian OPEC negotiators had argued in circles in the run-up to the meeting.

And, then, just a few days beforehand, Riyadh appeared back away from a deal, threatening to boost production if Iran failed to contribute cuts.

But Putin established that the Saudis would shoulder the lion's share of cuts, as long as Riyadh wasn't seen to be making too large a concession to Iran. A deal was possible if Iran didn't celebrate victory over the Saudis.

A phone call between Putin and Iranian President Rouhani smoothed the way. After the call, Rouhani and oil minister Bijan Zanganeh went to their supreme leader for approval, a source close to the Ayatollah said.

"During the meeting, the leader Khamenei underlined the importance of sticking to Iran's red line, which was not yielding to political pressures and not to accept any cut in Vienna," the source said.

"Zanganeh thoroughly explained his strategy ... and got the leader's approval. Also it was agreed that political lobbying was important, especially with Mr. Putin, and again the Leader approved it," said the source.

On Wednesday, the Saudis agreed to cut production heavily, taking "a big hit" in the words of energy minister Khalid al-Falih - while Iran was allowed to slightly boost output.

After the meeting, the usually combative Zanganeh avoided any comment that might be read as claiming victory over Riyadh.

"We were firm," he told state television. "The call between Rouhani and Putin played a major role ... After the call, Russia backed the cut."

IRAQ LAST-MINUTE HITCH

But OPEC would not be OPEC without a last-minute quarrel threatening to derail the deal. Iraq became a problem.

As ministerial talks got underway, OPEC's second-largest producer insisted it could not afford to cut output, given the cost of its war against Islamic State.

But, facing pressure from the rest of OPEC to contribute a cut, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi picked up the phone in front of his peers to call his prime minister, Haider al-Abadi.

"Abadi said: 'Get the deal done'. And that was it," one OPEC source said.

Rania El Gamal, Parisa Hafezi and Dmitry Zhdannikov / additional reporting Alex Lawler and Ahmad Ghaddar; editing by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Richard Mably / Reuters / Dic. 01, 2016
Peru to pay dearly if it eliminate Odebrecht contract - junior partner



Peru would face 'huge sum' if it scraps Odebrecht contract

PARACAS, PERU

Petroleumworld.com 12 05 2016

Odebrecht SA's junior partner on a natural gas pipeline project in Peru told Reuters Friday that the government would have to pay $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion in compensation if it decides to rescind the current contract as financing is stuck on corruption concerns.

Resuming construction on the $5 billion project could take up to three years if the Odebrecht-led group misses a January financing deadline and the government holds a new auction, said Mario Alvarado, corporate general manager of Peruvian construction group Grana y Montero.

Grana controls a 20 percent stake in the pipeline project, Spanish energy company Enagas SA 25 percent, and Odebrecht - a Brazilian construction conglomerate ensnared in Brazil's biggest ever corruption scandal - 55 percent.

In an interview on the sidelines of a business summit, Alvarado said he is still optimistic Odebrecht will be able to find a company to replace it on the project - a condition of banks that would provide a $4.1 billion loan for construction.

A deal that Odebrecht struck with U.S.-based Sempra Energy collapsed last month after Peru refused to strip an anti-corruption clause from the contract that Sempra said would leave it on the hook for any corruption by Odebrecht.

Alvarado said Grana and Enagas were working hard to find a solution that would allow them to avoid losing the contract, a scenario that he said "would do great harm to the country."

"We'll recover our capital, the contract stipulates that. That's not the problem," Alvarado said. "The government would have to pay a huge sum, between $1.2 and $1.4 billion, to the banks and to all of us" who have invested in the project.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who has promised to fight widespread graft while pushing out new infrastructure projects, has said he will not budge on the anti-corruption clause.

Kuczynski's government has also said that if the pipeline consortium cannot secure financing in January it would quickly find a new operator after tweaking the current contract, which was designed during the government of former President Ollanta Humala.

Odebrecht won the contract in 2014 after its sole competitor was disqualified the day of the auction. The bid is under investigation in Peru and prosecutors have accused Humala of taking illicit funds from Odebrecht, which they both deny.

Grana bought its stake in the project from Odebrecht for $215 million in 2015. Alvarado said it has plans to build some $4 billion in projects in coming years, excluding the pipeline.












Prince Harry visits Guyana rainforest community on Caribbean tour

Guyana: between Venezuela and Suriname











Between 1780 and 1813, Guyana changed hands between the Dutch, French and British.



Guyana was home to the 1978 Jonestown massacre - a mass suicide by more than 900 members of the People's Temple religious sect led by Jim Jones. Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America.Between 1780 and 1813, Guyana changed hands between the Dutch, French and British.Guyana was home to the 1978 Jonestown massacre - a mass suicide by more than 900 members of the People's Temple religious sect led by Jim Jones.

Prince Harry's Caribbean tour











These are Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines



The visit marked the 50th anniversary of independence for Barbados and Guyana



In Antigua and Barbuda, Prince Harry also marked the 35th year since independence





Prince Harry visits Guyana rainforest community on Caribbean tour - BBC News

The prince has visited six countries where the Queen is head of stateThese are Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the GrenadinesThe visit marked the 50th anniversary of independence for Barbados and GuyanaIn Antigua and Barbuda, Prince Harry also marked the 35th year since independence

3 December 2016BBC NewsPrince Harry has visited the heartland of Guyana and explored its rainforest on day 14 of his Caribbean tour.The prince was welcomed to the village of Surama in the Iwokrama Forest with a feathered headdress, before he watched a cultural dance around a pole.He met rangers to learn about the steps being taken to protect the rainforest and the benefits of eco-tourism.Prince Harry later visited a school and the Kaieteur Falls - one of the world's largest freefall waterfalls.On the penultimate day of his Caribbean tour, the prince took a flight to the Iwokrama International Centre which has a close link to the Prince of Wales, who has been its patron since 2000.He then visited Fairview Amerindian Village to pay his respects to its elders, as well as going to the local school.The prince was also taken to an open-air community hall, where he was given presents including a painting of traditional homes.He gave a speech which praised the people of the remote community, saying: "My father told me what an amazing time he had here, when he was far younger and had far more hair."The positive thing you are doing here. It's incredible. Your leadership is so important to ensure the protection of this place."The final stop of the day was the Kaieteur Falls, which has a drop of 820 feet - five times as high as Niagara Falls. Earlier in the week, the prince met Barbados's biggest star, Rihanna, when the pair sat side by side at a celebratory concert. They also both took part in a HIV test to highlight World Aids Day in Bridgetown.
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By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  A last-ditch effort in the Senate to block or delay rule changes that would expand the U.S. governments hacking powers failed, despite concerns the changes would jeopardize the privacy rights of innocent Americans and risk possible abuse by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden attempted three times to delay the changes, which will take effect on Thursday and allow U.S. judges will be able to issue search warrants that give the FBI the authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, potentially even overseas. His efforts were blocked by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senates second-ranking Republican.

The changes will allow judges to issue warrants in cases when a suspect uses anonymizing technology to conceal the location of his or her computer or for an investigation into a network of hacked or infected computers, such as a botnet.

Magistrate judges can currently only order searches within the jurisdiction of their court, which is typically limited to a few counties.

In a speech from the Senate floor, Wyden said that the changes to Rule 41 of the federal rules of criminal procedure amounted to one of the biggest mistakes in surveillance policy in years.

The government will have unprecedented authority to hack into Americans personal phones, computers and other devices, Wyden said.

He added that such authority, which was approved by the Supreme Court in a private vote earlier this year, but was not subject to congressional approval, was especially troubling in the hands of an administration of President-elect Trump, a Republican who has openly said he wants the power to hack his political opponents the same way Russia does.

Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana also delivered speeches voicing opposition to the rule changes.

The U.S. Justice Department has pushed for the changes to the federal rules of criminal procedure for years, arguing they are procedural in nature and the criminal code needed to be modernized for the digital age.

In an effort to address concerns, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell wrote a blog post this week arguing that the benefits given to authorities from the rule changes outweighed any potential for unintended harm.

The possibility of such harm must be balanced against the very real and ongoing harms perpetrated by criminals  such as hackers, who continue to harm the security and invade the privacy of Americans through an ongoing botnet, or pedophiles who openly and brazenly discuss their plans to sexually assault children, Caldwell wrote.

A handful of judges in recent months had dismissed evidence brought as part of a sweeping FBI child pornography sting, saying the search warrants used to hack suspects computers exceeded their jurisdiction.

The new rules are expected to make such searches generally valid.

Blocking the changes would have required legislation to pass both houses of Congress, then be signed into law by the president.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz, editing by G Crosse)
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By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters)  Jurors in South Carolina weighing homicide charges against a white former policeman who fatally shot a fleeing black motorist last year were to resume deliberations on Monday after earlier declaring they were deadlocked, with one panelist holding out against a conviction.

On Friday, their third day of deliberations, the jurors twice informed the judge that they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the murder case against ex-North Charleston patrolman Michael Slager, 35.

His shooting of 50-year-old Walter Scott after an April 2015 traffic stop was captured in a bystanders cellphone video, and intensified debate in the United States over racial bias by police.

Jurors first indicated they were stuck on Friday afternoon. Judge Clifton Newman told them they had a duty to make every reasonable effort to reach a unanimous verdict and instructed them to continue their deliberations.

The foreman, who is the only black person on the panel of 12, later said an impasse remained with one juror in disagreement with all the others.

The holdout juror, who the foreman identified as someone other than himself, presented Newman with a rare note explaining his position.

I cannot in good conscience consider a guilty verdict, the juror wrote. At the same time, my heart does not want to tell the Scott family that the man who killed their son, brother and father is innocent, the juror added.

But jurors afterward said further deliberation could prove fruitful if the judge provided more explanation of the law. They agreed to return on Monday and try again to reach a consensus.

Newman said he would declare a mistrial if no verdict was reached and retry the case later with a different jury.

Last year, two juries deadlocked on a murder charge against a white former Eutawville, South Carolina, police chief accused of killing a black man in 2011 after an argument about a traffic ticket issued to the mans daughter.

In the case against Slager, prosecutors charged him with murder, but jurors have the option of finding him guilty of voluntary manslaughter if they decide Slager killed Scott in the heat of passion after provocation rather than with malice.

They could acquit Slager if they believe he acted in self-defense. The jury heard four weeks of testimony from more than 50 witnesses.

Prosecutors repeatedly showed the video in court, saying the footage proved Slager was not in danger when he fired eight shots at the fleeing Scott, hitting him with five bullets.

Slager said he did not know at the time that Scott was unarmed. The ex-cop testified he felt total fear after the motorist grabbed his stun gun during a scuffle.

Relatives of Scott and Slager were in court all day Friday. Attorneys for the Scott family said outside the courthouse they remained optimistic of a conviction.

Justice is still coming. Well see it Monday, lawyer Chris Stewart said. Sometimes it takes awhile.

(Reporting by Harriet McLeod; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)
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The following post, written by The Rev. Robert A. Franek, is a part of Politicus Policy Discussion, in which writers draw connections between real lives and public policy.

On Wednesday, March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Judge Garland is widely respected and previously received bipartisan support. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley among others has chosen not to do their job and give Judge Garland a hearing and a vote.

Now nearly nine months later there is still no hearing, still no vote, and still no replacement for the vacancy on the high court. The failure of Senate Republicans to do their job is placing undue stress on the Supreme Court and their ability to do their job, ultimately in service to the country and its citizens, who elected President Obama twice entrusting him with the responsibility to nominate justices should a vacancy occur.

The denial of a hearing and a vote on President Obamas nominee because it is an election year is no excuse. It is blatant obstructionism. And sadly, it has been par for the course throughout Obamas presidency.

There are three branches of government and Congressional Republicans have managed to impede the work of all of them. This is supposedly in the interest of working for the people. However, its only the corporate people whose interests are really in mind.

In the weeks since the election, the party and people that have worked tirelessly to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama, fought his every major policy position, wasted endless votes on repealing the Affordable Care Act, and failed their constitutional duty to give Judge Garland a hearing and vote, are calling for unity under President-elect Donald Trump.

Not only are they calling for unity, they are demanding we the people give him a chance, despite his lifetime record of chances to show the moral character desirable in the leader of the free world. It is not lost on anyone with a memory that this is something that President Barack Obama was never given. More than ironic this is duplicitous.

Justice has not only been denied to a worthy Supreme Court nominee and the work of the high court. It continues to be denied to the American people.

Congressional Republicans who embraced demands for the president to show his birth certificate and have now failed to require their own presidential nominee (now elect) to show is tax returns, have been spectacularly negligent in addressing wage inequality and raising the stagnant poverty-entrapping minimum wage to one that makes affording the basics of life possible.

Making America safe is supposed to be a high priority for the Grand Old Party, however, not at the cost of upsetting the NRA and the gun lobby. Despite the widespread support for common sense gun control legislation including among NRA members, little is being done by Congress to address the epidemic of gun violence, except perhaps to make it possible for more people to have more guns in more places like airports and daycare centers, as the Ohio GOP is pushing. Evidence shows more guns in more places makes us all less safe. But lets not mess with our Second Amendment rights. By the way, has anyone taken notice of the shredding of the First Amendment and its protections by the incoming Trump administration? Well the free press, the right to speak and assemble, and practice ones faith must not be on the same level as owning a firearm, right?

All this will matter little, however, if the planet becomes uninhabitable. The failure to take climate science seriously among Republicans in framing policy could be a disaster that cannot be undone. The praise of this anti-intellectual bias is quite concerning since these are the people who are determining the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. But the lack of outrage over lead-poisoned water and decrepit pipes in Flint, Michigan, tells the world how much they care.

Nevertheless, as pressing as these issues are, the country is now faced with addressing voter suppression and important election recounts in multiple states to assure the integrity of our election system. I fear to know how many people, especially minorities, were denied justice on election day because they were not able to cast their vote and have it counted correctly.

There is a long way to go in the fight for justice. Having Judge Garland on the Supreme Court could have helped in this fight now and in the years to come.

Who knows who the nominee for the Supreme Court will be from the President-elect, who is filling his cabinet and key leadership positions with white supremacists, wall street insiders, and those who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act and privatize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. One thing seems to be clear, it is not going to be someone near as qualified or respected as Judge Merrick Garland.
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After being repeatedly pushed, vice president-elect Mike Pence fell apart and could not offer any proof before finally admitting that Trumps voter fraud claims are just an opinion.

Video:



ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos

Transcript via ABCs This Week:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But why is it refreshing to make false statements?

PENCE: Look, I dont know that that is a false statement, George, and neither do you. The simple fact is that

STEPHANOPOULOS: I know theres no evidence for it.

PENCE: There is evidence, historic evidence from the Pew Research Center of voter fraud thats taken place. Were in the process of investigating irregularities in the state of Indiana that were leading up to this election. The fact that voter fraud exists is

STEPHANOPOULOS: But can you provide any evidence  can you provide any evidence to back up that statement?

PENCE; Well, look, I think hes expressed his opinion on that. And hes entitled to express his opinion on that. And I think the American people  I think the American people find it very refreshing that they have a president who will tell them whats on his mind. And I think the connection that he made in the course

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether its true or not?

PENCE: Well, theyre going to tell them  hes going to say what he believes to be true and I know that hes always going to speak in that way as president.

Stephanopoulos press Pence repeatedly for proof, and with each go around the vice-president elect crumbled a little more until he admitted that in Donald Trumps opinion there was voter fraud. However, Donald Trumps opinions are not facts.

Notice how the vice-president elect repeatedly tried to change the subject when asked for evidence. Pence and Trump have been inaccurately citing Pew for months.

When FactCheck.org checked Trump and Pences citation of Pew, they found, Trump accurately quoted from the report, Inaccurate, Costly and Inefficient: Evidence That Americas Voter Registration System Needs and Upgrade. But the report did not allege the 1.8 million deceased people actually voted. Rather, Pew said that it is evidence of the need to upgrade voter registration systems.

If Pence is looking for evidence of voting irregularities, why would he be looking in his home state of Indiana? Trump and Pence won Indiana, so if there were voter fraud, it would most likely be for Pence.

The ticket that a handful of voters in a few swing states will be putting in the White House doesnt believe in facts. Every single journalist should push the incoming administration for facts because Trump and Pence dont believe in facts, and when they are pressed, they fall apart.

The last administration that didnt believe in facts got the nation into a war of choice in Iraq. Pence and Trump have the capacity to do the same or worse if they continue to choose not to be bound by facts and truth.
The Associated Press is reporting that a source close to the Trump transition says that the President-elect is considering other candidates for the post of Secretary of State than "front-runners" Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Other names in the mix are retired General David Petraeus and Tennessee Senator Bob Corker. Those are the four names mentioned by Kellyanne Conway as the "top four" this past Friday. Now it appears there is a new name under consideration, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman.In evaluating the fitness of General Petraeus to serve as Secretary of State one has to consider his misdemeanor conviction for mishandling classified information. Edward Snowden is claiming that there is a two-tiered system of justice in the U.S. because General Petraeus disclosed classified information to Paula Broadwell that was classified at a much higher level that what Snowden hiself disclosed.That the information Petraeus passed to Broadwell was more highly classified than what Snowden released is entirely correct. But there is a significant difference. Ms Broadwell did not publish or disclose any of that information. Petraeus retrieved the book of code-word documents he gave to Broadwell three days later. The damage done to the national security by what General Petraeus did was very minimal while what Mr. Snowden did seriously damaged that national security. The two are not comparable in the harm done to the United States.However, that doesn't change the fact that what General Petraeus did should disqualify him from serving in any government position where any level of security clearance is required. No one convicted of disclosing of classified information to any unauthorized individual should ever be again allowed access to classified information.As to Rudy Giuliani, his fitness for the position is tenuous at best. Especially in light of his foreign business ties. The conflicts in interest in the Oval Office are more than enough to mire the Trump administration in that morass without adding another set at Foggy Bottom.I do not believe that Mr. Trump will appoint Mitt Romney as his Secretary of State. I'm not entirely convinced that S.E. Cupp's theory that this is a set-up, but it is a possibility. Their views on a number of issues are not the same. Would he abandon his positions and take up those of the man he called "a fraud" is an interesting question.But based on relevant experience and knowledge; while admitting I am probably not going to like or approve of anyone Donald Trump nominates to serve in his Cabinet, I believe the best of the bunch is Senator Bob Corker. He has been the Chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee for the past two years and a member of that committee before then. He's honest enough to have said for the record that the problems in the Middle East pre-date the Obama Administration. He also likened the 2003 War in Iraq to "...taking a big stick and beating a hornet's nest" which is a fairly accurate analogy.Jon Huntsman, Jr. is also worth of consideration. His tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore and then later to China gives him valuable diplomatic experience in a part of the world that will be crucial to determining the course of the next four years.In the end, it seems obvious that Donald Trump, with the behind-the-scenes guidance and counsel of Mike Pence will set the agenda and the tone, no matter who is the boss at Foggy Bottom.
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Contrary to what the mainstream press has been selling, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, said that Republicans are also calling his office and demanding that Congress investigate Trump.

Video:

.@REPCUMMINGS #DemBootCamp-style says public needs to put pressure on elected officials to investigate Trump #AMJoy https://t.co/kXl1kTC2zD  AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) December 4, 2016

During an appearance on MSNBCs A.M. Joy, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said, Our phone has been ringing off the hook. In fact, when they call Chaffetzs office trying to get them to do the right thing, that is constituents from all over the country. They then send them over to our office. Some kind of way the public has to put pressure on their congressman. And by the way, these calls are coming not only from people who supported Hillary Clinton, but theyre also coming from people who supported Mr. Trump. And these people basically who want government to be fair, and thats what we are looking for. Joy, I promise you, were going to fight this with everything we have.

There is a great deal of public unease that crosses partisan lines over Donald Trumps conflicts of interest. A responsible legislative branch that was interested in fulfilling the constitutional duties would take a long and hard look at President-elect Trumps conflicts of interest. A legislative branch that wasnt completely blinded by partisanship would believe that they owe it to the American people ensure that the president is not entangled in financial conflicts of interest.

The Republican Party has no interest in exploring the potential damage that Trumps conflicts could cause, which is why it will be up to all Americans who are worried about Trumps conflicts of interest and lack of transparency to stand up and demand an investigation.

Its not only Democrats who are demanding an investigation. The resistance is spreading, as Americans of all stripes want Congress to do their jobs and investigate Donald Trump.
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The incoming Trump administration is considering violating the law by not submitting a budget for 2018.

Forbes reported, The Trump administration is seriously thinking about not submitting a budget to Congress next year. Although the Congressional Budget Act requires the president to submit the fiscal 2018 budget to Congress between January 2 and February 6, Trump could easily say that it was the responsibility of the outgoing Obama administration to comply with the law before the new president was sworn in on January 20.

A violation of the Congressional Budget Act is not a criminal offense, but it would signal that the Trump administration intends to be the least transparent White House in decades.

If Trump refuses to submit a budget, no one will know what his spending priorities are, and more importantly, he wont have to defend his economic projections or make any of the math add up. By not submitting a budget, Trump will dodge any fiscal accountability for his plans.

One can easily imagine a future where Trump doesnt submit a budget but instead tweets false information and fuzzy math to try to make his policies add up.

The incoming Trump administration would provide Congress with any guidance as far as spending and priorities are concerned. The former party of fiscal responsibility has become a crowd that isnt going to try to balance the national checkbook.

The American people should prepare for Republicans to spend money like it is going out of style to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

The man who as a candidate wouldnt release his tax returns and his medical records, might not as president release a budget.

All of this is completely in character for an administration that may go down in history as the perfect description of a lawless regime.
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Though the clock is falling back, fun is still springing up all around the Lowcountry. Immerse yourself in Scottish heritage at the Charleston Scottish Games and Highland Gathering, head to Summerville for the Timrod Library's 125th birthday, or spend a night with friends celebrating Charleston Beer Week. Read moreMy Charleston Weekend: Beer, Bagpipes, and a Birthday Bash
Paul Bowers is an education reporter and father of three living in North Charleston. He previously worked at the Charleston City Paper, where he was twice named South Carolina Journalist of the Year in the weekly category.
If youve been unfortunate enough to endure a flood caused by nature or human error, but fortunate enough that your home survived, its at the top of your list of worries: mold. Its why you have to act immediately to haul out all the contents, rip out carpets and even walls: to prevent the  Read moreEditorial: The simple first step to solving the insidious problem of mold in SC colleges
Breaking story -- news release from U.S. Army (Army Corps of Engineers) :

The Department of the Army will not approve an easement that would allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, the Army's Assistant Secretary for Civil Works announced today.

Jo-Ellen Darcy said she based her decision on a need to explore alternate routes for the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing. Her office had announced on November 14, 2016 that it was delaying the decision on the easement to allow for discussions with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose reservation lies 0.5 miles south of the proposed crossing. Tribal officials have expressed repeated concerns over the risk that a pipeline rupture or spill could pose to its water supply and treaty rights.

"Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it's clear that there's more work to do," Darcy said. "The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing."

Darcy said that the consideration of alternative routes would be best accomplished through an Environmental Impact Statement with full public input and analysis.

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The Dakota Access Pipeline is an approximately 1,172 mile pipeline that would connect the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas in North Dakota to an existing crude oil terminal near Pakota, Illinois. The pipeline is 30 inches in diameter and is projected to transport approximately 470,000 barrels of oil per day, with a capacity as high as 570,000 barrels. The current proposed pipeline route would cross Lake Oahe, an Army Corps of Engineers project on the Missouri River.
As a non-native Texan, for years the only thing I associated with Waco was David Koresh.

That was before Chip and Joanna Gaines entered my living room.

The quirky couple needs no introduction: They are only the stars of one of the most popular reality shows on cable TV, HGTV's "Fixer Upper."

For an hour each week, the Gaineses help a Waco family buy a dilapidated old house (usually for a song) and then proceed to transform it into an absolutely beautiful home, full of rustic charm and unpretentious warmth.

There's a dramatic reveal, and the new homeowners usually cry.

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While it's a formulaic presentation, "Fixer Upper" has enjoyed unparalleled success.

The show's ratings are through the roof; the Gaineses have been able to parlay their popularity into multiple businesses and product lines; and the couple's Waco store has become a central attraction of the city's downtown.

But "Fixer Upper" isn't simply good TV.

The Gaineses' popularity certainly benefits from Joanna's unique aesthetic, but the real magic behind the show's success is Chip and Joanna themselves.

They are just so darn likable.

Why?

Because it's evident throughout the show that they not only like their work, they genuinely like each other  a rare quality in reality TV couples.

They spend at least half of each program playfully teasing each other and talking about their brood (they have four beautiful young children).

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The Gaineses are also conservative Christians.

In interviews they openly discuss how faith guides their decisions about family, the show and public life.

"Even today with the opportunities that are coming our way," Joanna told People magazine, "I need (God's) guidance. Otherwise I'd say yes to everything."

And while not emphasized in the show, the strength and importance of their faith are subtly conveyed through their interaction with their clients and affection for each other.

Which is probably why some many people love the show.

It's also why the Gaineses have become a target.

This week, Kate Arthur, a BuzzFeed reporter, decided she needed to inform the world about the views of the Gaineses' pastor, Jimmy Seibert  specifically his opposition to same-sex marriage.

This unsurprising fact (Seibert is a pretty typical evangelical leader) inexplicably prompted Arthur to inquire, "So are the Gaineses against same-sex marriage?"

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Arthur admittedly can't answer this question, since the Gaineses have never made it a point to discuss their beliefs on this topic, yet somehow for her, speculation about their personal feelings becomes not only relevant but newsworthy.

"The word for BuzzFeed publishing this garbage is harassment," writes Gabriel Malor, a Washngton, D.C., attorney and blogger who also happens to be gay.

Famous Christians possibly believing what other Christians are known to believe is hardly grounds for feature news articles.

It's worth noting that such teachings are part of the theologies of many religions, including Catholicism and Islam.

Since the Gaineses have never used what is arguably a tremendous public platform to articulate their beliefs about gay marriage, it's safe to assume it's not something they feel compelled to address.

And their status as public figures doesn't give anyone the right to demand they reveal their beliefs, either.

Federalist writer Hans Fience explains, "Liberal fans of 'Fixer Upper' are in full-blown panic mode after learning that people they've fallen in love with are, by their own rules, unlovable."

It's as if one alleged belief of the couple and the religion of which they are a part eclipses everything else about them.

That doesn't sound particularly liberal.

And it should hardly be a reason to attack the Gaineses, much less to stop watching their show.

Cynthia M. Allen is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday said the Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, spoke out of ignorance when he accused the present government of illegally overdrawing the countrys central consolidated account.

The account, domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria, was said to have been overdrawn to the tune of N4.7 trillion by the Buhari administration, an act the traditional ruler said contradicted Section 38 (2) of the CBN Act.

CBN claims on the FGN now tops N4.7 trillion  equal to almost 50 per cent of the FGNs total domestic debt, Mr. Sanusi said. This is a clear violation of the Central Bank Act of 2007 (Section 38.2) which caps advances to the FGN at 5 per cent of last years revenues.

Mr. Sanusi also attacked the federal governments plan to borrow $30 billion from foreign lenders to fund the budget and build infrastructure. He said no one will lend Nigeria money at a time it is operating five different tiers of foreign exchange rates.

Mr. Buhari responded through his media aide, Garba Shehu, on Saturday night, saying the former CBN governor doesnt have his facts as far as those issues are concerned.

The president admitted that he ordered a massive borrowing from the CBN, but said the limit had not been pushed.

The issue in CBN, that government has overdrawn its Central Consolidated Account is true, but the overdrawing is within limits.

The overdraw does not exceed 1.5 trillion. It is incorrect to say, as he did that the account was overdrawn by 4.5 trillion, he said.

The response was posted by Mr. Shehu on his Twitter page, and he said the government still had sufficient fund in the treasury single account to clear its loan from CBN.

But even assuming that he was correct. This is a govt that has money in excess the amount he mentioned in the Treasury Single Account, TSA.

It is just like you, a bank customer operating two accounts, one in the red & the other, well funded to the point that it can at any time wipe the indebtedness on the other, Mr. Buhari said.

Would any bank manager lose their sleep over this?

Mr. Sanusi had been attacking the Buhari administrations economic policies for a while.

On August 24, a week before Nigeria officially slipped into recession, the emir blamed the economic crisis on the incoherent policies of the federal government, and warned that Mr. Buhari may end his reign in the same manner as President Goodluck Jonathan.
Nigeria recorded significant reduction in economic losses occasioned by flood in 2016 even though the volume of water surpassed the one that caused massive flooding in 2012, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has said.

The Director, Disaster Risk Reduction Department of NEMA, Alhassan Nuhu, made this known while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria in Nairobi.

Nuhu said that while economic losses in 2012 amounted to N2.5 trillion, in 2016 it was much less, but he did not provide the figure.

He also said that the number of displaced persons was less than a million in 2016 compared to 2.3 million persons in 2012 and that less than 100 people died in 2016 as against 360 persons in 2012.

Furthermore, he said that the total number of people affected in 2016 was less than one million compared to seven million in 2012.

Going by the statistics, Mr. Nuhu said that Nigeria was moving in the positive direction in the implementation of the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

The Sendai Framework is a 15-year, voluntary, non-binding agreement which recognizes that the state has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders including local government, the private sector and other stakeholders.

It is the successor instrument to the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015), building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters. It is the outcome of stakeholder consultations initiated in March 2012 and inter-governmental negotiations held from July 2014 to March 2015.

This is the message of the Sendai Framework  reduction in the number of people dead, reduction in the number of people affected, reduction in the quantum of economic losses and reduction of damage to critical infrastructure.

Increasing the level of governance for disaster risk, increasing the level of support and collaboration between one another and improved level of early warning system.

So, if you look at the key indicators, of Sendai Framework, Nigeria is moving positively.

According to him, increased synergy among NEMA, NIMET and Hydrological Services Agency, is part of the success story.

I remember we had a task team of the three key organisations; we also had a mechanism for coordinating with the states and local governments with NEMA as the coordinating agency.

We had critical collaboration with the SEMAs (State Emergency Management Agency) and the Local Government Emergency management Committees.

So, it is a collaborative work of everybody including relevant ministries  health, agriculture, water resources, women affairs and environment.

All have played one role or the other to ensure that we have this marked improvement.

The director said that NEMA, through its DRR platform, was committed to sustaining the recorded success in the seven targets of the Sendai Framework and its four priority areas.

He listed the four priority areas as risk knowledge, risk governance (improving the attitude of government towards reducing risk), risk financing and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to Build Back Better in recovery rehabilitation and reconstruction.

On the first priority area, Mr. Nuhu said that NEMA, with UNDP support, was on the verge of completing a risk identification exercise.

The exercise, he explained, was to enable Nigeria to know the hazards confronting the country and the risk they posed.

On the second priority, he said that NEMA was bringing together relevant stakeholders and linking them to states.

In terms of risk financing, which is the third priority area, the director said that the establishment of the Ecological Fund stood Nigeria out, describing the initiative as a wonderful example that should be emulated by other AU member states.

The Ecological Fund is what put Nigeria ahead of other countries. NEMA has leveraged on the fund to develop plans that should be developed and also to make contingency stockpiling to be able to respond and have an elaborate response mechanism.

He, however, said that NEMA would also take advantage of the Africa Risk Capacity Programme (ARCP) which has set aside a pool of funds that governments could access when disaster happens.

He noted that since the insurance industry in Africa is largely under-developed and massively under-utilised, the ARCP provides a fantastic opportunity for risk transfer.

He said that in order to be able to access the fund, NEMA had assembled critical stakeholders at a workshop in Abuja to identify the strategies required.

So, very soon, apart from the financing from the government, Nigeria will also be able to access the pool of funds provided by the ARCP, Mr. Nuhu said.

(NAN)
The raging feud between a former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, and the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, has yet exposed expanding cracks in the ruling All Progressives Congress and deep-seated suspicion among its leaders.

In a recent interview with Zero Tolerance, an in-house magazine of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Abubakar accused Mr. El-Rufai and the pioneer Chairman of the Commission, Nuhu Ribadu, of betraying him, even though he brought them into the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo in which Mr. Abubakar was vice president.

Mr. El-Rufai responded swiftly to Mr. Abubakars claims in the interview. He not only accused the former vice president of having a record of spewing outright lies and innuendo against him, he linked the claims to Mr. Abubakars alleged ambition to run for president in 2019.

A few days later, Muhammadu Abdullahi Sugar, another chieftain of the APC, re-enacted he war against Mr. El-Rufai and other chieftains of the party.

He warned President Muhammadu Buhari to be careful with Mr. El-Rufai and former Governors Rabiu Kwankwaso and Danjuma Goje, alleging that they were betrayers.

Messrs. Kwankwaso and Goje, both serving senators are also members of the APC.

The spat between Messrs. El-Rufai and Abubakar came a few weeks after two of the partys

leaders openly engaged in verbal punches that suggested a threat to the partys unity.

In September, the National Chairman of the APC, John Odigie-Oyegun, and a national leader of the party, Bola Tinubu, similarly confronted themselves publicly over the partys governorship primary election in Ondo State.

Mr. Tinubu cast the first stone.

In a statement, he accused Mr. Odigie-Oyegun of playing an undignified role in forwarding the name of Rotimi Akeredolu to INEC as the partys candidate in the November 26 Ondo State governorship election, despite the recommendation of the Appeal Panel that a fresh primary be held.

He demanded the resignation of the national chairman for duping the party and INEC.

Mr. Oyegun not only denied Mr. Tinubus allegation of corruption against him, he described it as reckless and baseless.

For many however, the war of words between the two party leaders, was shocking.

Mr. Tinubu it was, who supported Mr. Odigie-Oyegun as national chairman in 2014 above another Edo man, Tom Ikimi, considered an outsider because of his previous membership of the PDP.

Alarmed by his rejection, Mr. Ikimi, who

hosted most of the meetings that led to the merger of four opposition parties  to become APC  in his Abuja home, scurried out of the party and rejoined the PDP.

Yet, Mr. Odigie-Oyegun and a fellow member of the NWC of the APC, Timi Frank, have had to publicly engage in verbal punches.

Mr. Frank, the partys youthful deputy national publicity secretary, repeatedly taunted the 77-year-old national chairman, describing him as incompetent.

For him, Mr. Odigie-Oyegun has mismanaged the party, warning that except something urgent is done, the situation could lead to the implosion of the party in no distant time.

Watchers of the APC believe that Mr. Franks bitterness against the national chairman stemmed from his failure to become the substantive spokesperson of the ruling party.

Since its former spokesperson, Lai Mohammed, was named the nations information and culture minister, Mr. Frank, an ally of Mr. Abubakar, has never hidden his desire to step up and speak for the party.

But Mr. Odigie-Oyegun and some members of the NWC have done everything to block him from realising the ambition.

The national chairman insisted that in the absence of a spokesperson, he (Odigie-Oyegun) and the National Secretary of the APC, Mai Bunu, would speak for the party and not Mr. Frank who they perceive as not only controversial but always taking positions not in line with party directive.

Apart from open quarrels between the leaders of the APC, there are other that have characterized the ruling party lately.

Since it assumed power at the centre some 18 months ago, the three-year old party has increasingly come under tension, both at the national and state levels, which is capable of leading it to disastrous electoral outing in the future.

Crises at the national level and state chapters

The emergence of Messrs. Saraki and Yakubu Dogara, as the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively, and their deputies against the wishes of the party, was the first major crisis that hit the party after it took over power at the centre.

The party had in a mock election picked Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila to contest for the positions in the June 9 election of the officers of the national Legislature.

It also picked George Akume and Mohammed Monguno, as their deputies.

The party is yet to recover from that disappointment.

Indeed, many attribute Mr. Sarakis arraignment at the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged corruption and false asset declaration to his perceived rebellion against the party.

The senate president himself already alluded to this.

It was the first time a serving senate president, who is also the number three man in the country, would be arraigned.

The PDP block of the party, to which Messrs. Saraki and Dogara belong, is still livid.

Kawu Baraje, who led some PDP members, including five governors and lawmakers to the APC in 2013, said the worst would happen if the senate president is removed.

Mr. Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, were also arraigned in court for allegedly forging the senate rule that brought them to power on June 9.

At the moment, no fewer than 12 state chapters of the party are having unresolved crisis.

They include Adamawa, Kogi, Bayelsa, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Kaduna and Kano.

However, those of Kaduna and Kano, both in the north western zone, appear more intense as they repeatedly reverberate at the national level.

In Kaduna State, the hostility between the governor and the senator representing the central district of the state, Shehu Sani, has continued unabated.

The animosity between the two political gladiators in the state began shortly after the APC took over in Kaduna and has led to a split of the party with members queuing behind them.

In the neighbouring Kano, there is also a raging feud between Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and his predecessor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, now a serving senator. Mr. Ganduje had served as deputy to Mr. Kwankwaso while in power.

The governor made desperate moves to undermine Mr. Kwankwasos influence in the state chapter of the APC by sacking some loyalists of his predecessor from his government and also ensuring the removal of others from the state executive committee of the party.

One of the victims is the Secretary to the State Government, Rabiu Bichi.

Complaints over lack of patronage

Also, there appears to be a feeling of discontentment among the APC faithful over lack of patronage by the federal government.

Many members who worked for the party at different levels feel abandoned and are grumbling that some persons have hijacked the Buhari administration, hence appointments go to people unknown to the party.

Some feel Mr. Buhari has not adequately settled party members with appointments, especially those who worked for the party during the 2015 presidential campaign.

Interestingly, the presidents wife, Aisha, leads the pack.

A few months ago, apparently frustrated, she blamed the president for giving appointments to those strange to the party just as she threatened not to back her husband if he decides to seek re-election.

The president does not know 45 out of 50 of the people he appointed and I dont know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years, the First Lady told BBC in an interview.

Some people are sitting down in their homes folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or a ministerial position.

Buhari Vs Tinubu

It is safe to conclude that the former Lagos governor is the issue in APC or even the Nigerian politics having played a significant role in the merger of four parties into the APC three years ago.

The parties were Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressives Change, All Nigeria Peoples Party, and a section of the All Progressives Grand Alliance.

A section of the then ruling PDP later fused into the new APC thus forming the fifth block that make up the party.

Mr. Tinubu mobilised resources, energy and manpower to successfully bring the parties together to oust the PDP from power at the centre.

However, there are speculations that there is a cold war between Messrs. Buhari and Tinubu.

Although, Mr. Buhari has since dismissed the speculations, a presidency source said it has to do majorly with political patronage.

Apart from Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and a few others Mr. Tinubu nominated into the Buhari administration, the president rejected ministerial nominees of the former Lagos governor.

Mr. Tinubu has also been having it rough with the partys national leadership, which has refused to do his bidding. He could not have his way in Kogi and Ondo states where the leadership of the party frustrated the bid of his allies to become governors.

James Falekes bid to succeed the late Abubakar Audu as the governorship candidate of the party in Kogi was frustrated by the party, which went for Yahaya Bello, who is now the governor.

It was messier in Ondo. The party in concert with some forces frustrated his spirited battle to get the primary that produced Mr. Akeredolu cancelled.

The failure to get Olusegun Abraham the partys flag in Ondo prompted Mr. Tinubus letter accusing Mr. Odigie-Oyegun of sell-out.

Matters came to a head when Mr. Tinubu boycotted the partys November 19 rally in Akure. Apart from him, three southwest APC governors, namely Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo) and Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos) shunned the event where Mr. Buhari presented the partys flag to Mr. Akeredolu.

Although none of the absentee south west governors gave reasons for staying away from the event, Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State, who chaired the Ondo APC Governorship Campaign Council, explained a few days later that they sent in their apologies.

He also claimed Mr. Tinubu was absent at the rally due to ill-health.

Perhaps, Mr. Lalong was merely labouring to play down the discontentment in the ruling party.

Just three days after the Plateau state governor spoke, Tokunbo Afikuyomi, a former senator faulted his claim.

Mr. Afikuyomi, a political ally of Mr. Tinubus, said the former governors medical trip to the US at the time the rally held did not mean he was sick, thus further fuelling the belief that he (Tinubu) had not reviewed his position on Mr. Akeredolu.

Mr. Tinubu has however since congratulated the governor-elect apparently in a bid to unite the party. Mr. Buhari admitted that the unity was threatened over the Ondo saga.

The spokesperson of the APC in Lagos State, Joe Igbokwe, told PREMIUM TIMES that though he was not are aware of any cold war between Mr. Buhari and Mr. Tinubu, the former governor has not been fairly treated by the party, especially in resolving the issues arising from the two states.

But the Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu, said the former Lagos governor and the south west zone have been sufficiently patronized by the Buhari administration.

Mr. President did not forget what they are bringing to the table. The vice president is not a spare tyre in this government, he has enormous powers. The south west is one of the greatest beneficiaries of appointments, Mr. Okechukwu told this newspaper.

The president has appointed five special advisers and three of them are from the south west. They have ministers in strong ministries. So unless anybody is talking about his household, the southwest has had its fair shares.

Atikus Presidential Ambition

A major source of tension in the ruling party is the quest of some of its members to run in future elections.

Although, the 2019 elections are still over two years away, there are speculations that some APC members will challenge Mr. Buhari to the contest.

Mr. El-Rufai alluded to this in his recent exchange with Mr. Atiku.

The former vice president came third in the 2014 APC presidential primary election which Mr. Buhari won.

Mr. El-Rufai may just be right as there are pointers to the plan by Mr. Abubakar to enter the presidential contest again.

In August last year, the former vice president reportedly held a meeting with political soul mates in Dubai as a prelude to reviving his presidential ambition.

Mr. Abubakar was to deny the report of the meeting, explaining that he was in Dubai on medical ground.

He said the reports were sponsored by political opponents to cause distraction for Mr. Buhari whose administration he said should be supported by true APC faithful.

Apart from the Dubai saga, there are speculations that Mr. Abubakar has been meeting with some APC members and even PDP members to prepare grounds for the 2019 presidential contest.

The declaration of support by the government of Mr. Abubakars home state, Adamawa, has further fuelled the conjecture that he would join the race.

At the flag-off of the construction of Girei-Wuro Bokki road, Abba Jimeta, Chief of Staff to Governor Jibrilla Bindow, said all elected and appointed officials in the state would work for Mr. Abubakar as soon as he declared his intention to contest the presidential election.

The entire Adamawa state government is firmly behind the former Vice President; wherever he (Atiku) goes, the state government is behind him, he said in presence of his principal, who did not protest it.

From the governor to the deputy governor, the Secretary to the state government, Commissioners, the special advisers and special assistants and all other political appointees and members of the State House of Assembly are behind Atiku Abubakar.

Mr. Jimeta praised the former vice president for doing well for the economy of the state and the nation, saying, Such an important figure in Adamawa State, we as a government have nothing to pay him back, than to support all his political ambitions and to give him our support if he declares to run for any political office.

Although, the governor has since denied the statement, describing it as wrong, mischievous, evil and unwarranted, the message seems to have sunk in the political circles.

Mr. Abubakars had never hidden his desire to occupy the nations topmost political office since he joined politics in 1989.

In 1993, he sought to contest for president on the platform of the defunct Social Democratic Party but came third in the primary behind Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe.

In 2007, he had made efforts to succeed Mr. Obasanjo on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party on which ticket they came to power in 1999.

He dumped the party for the newly-floated but now defunct Action Congress to run for the office but lost to former President Umaru YarAdua.

In 2011, the returned to the PDP and ran against former President Goodluck Jonathan in the primary and lost.

Mr. Abubakars desire to return to the ring may be justified. He will be 72 in 2019. Should he decide to wait till 2023, he may be too old at 76 to run.

Analysts however say if he decides to run he might receive support from Mr. Tinubu with whom he has reportedly settled his political differences.

Suggestion that both might work together against a common enemy emerged when the former vice president, a few months ago, backed Mr. Tinubus vituperations against Mr. Oyegun.

Mr. Abubakar had charged the party to promote the rule of law and due process in the conduct of its affairs, noting that they were germane to its unity and stability.

But the quest by the former vice president to contest might hit a dead end. Not only do some members of the party view him as too ambitious, others are simply not comfortable with him.

They easily recall the role he played in the Obasanjo administration when he almost hijacked that administration as the former president was junketing around the world.

Mr. Obasanjo sweated to secure the PDP ticket for a second term as Mr. Abubakar had brought the powerful governors to his side.

But Mr. Okechukwu dismissed Mr. Abubakars desire to run against Mr. Buhari.

Atiku is only trying to enrich our democracy, Mr. Okechukwu said. I dont see anybody as a threat to the president.

A former governor of the old Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, condemned Mr. Abubakars speculated plan to run again.

It is not surprising that he wants to run again because it is politics based on self-interest, Mr. Musa told PREMIUM TIMES.

Yet, Mr. El-Rufai is not completely dislocated from the plan to run for president himself.

Although he claimed to have a granite support for Mr. Buhari, there are speculations that he would enter the race if the president declines to run for second term.

Threats of implosion and plans to float a new party

There are speculations that some members of the party are already planning to pull out for two reasons.

First is that Mr. Buhari would be given automatic ticket by the partys leadership if he shows interest in seeking a second mandate.

The second is the inherent impunity in the party as noticed in the PDP, which some believe led to its defeat in the 2015 election.

Indeed, Mr. Tinubu has several times been associated with such plan.

But Mr. Igbokwe, a close associate of the former governor, debunked the claim.

He told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr. Tinubu has no plan to leave the APC.

There is no plan to leave the party. It cannot be true. It took us 31 years to get the progressives in this country to power. You dont form a party and abandon it. You have to stay there and resolve the internal contradictions.

Although, we need to put our house in order. We should quickly come together to do the things we are expected to do. The president has to bring the party together, Mr. Igbokwe said.

Mr. Musa said he does not see the APC surviving as a united party to contest the next election.

As long as the negative state of the nation continues, the party cannot survive, especially because it does not have the capacity to correct anything.

But Mr. Okechukwu says the crisis in the ruling party is not as deep as it is being painted in the media.
Concerned about global politics surrounding procurement of sophisticated arms from western countries, Nigerian Air Force is expecting arrival of war-planes and helicopters from Pakistan and Russia to boost its fleets.

The Chief of Air Staff, Sadique Abubakar, made the disclosure at a breakfast briefing with editors of online media in Abuja at the weekend.

Mr. Abubakar said: I want to say that we have been enjoying support from other countries. (Sometimes arm procurement) is shrouded in a lot of politics. Unfortunately, Im not a politician, so I cannot be able to say much on that. But what I can tell you is that right now as I speak to you, we are expecting the Pakistani Chief of Air Staff in Nigeria soon. Pakistan has accepted to sell ten trainer airplanes. And that is why the Pakistan Chief of Air Staff is coming for the induction ceremony which is going to take place in Kaduna.

We are really getting support from many countries. Similarly, we have trained so many people in Pakistan, China. In the US, we have pilots that are training right now. We have other pilots that have just finished training from the United Kingdom. We have additional pilots that are training in South Africa. We have more pilots that are training in the Egyptian Air Force and so many other places including RussiaWe are really getting support, he said.

On the competence of Nigerian fighter pilots, Mr. Abubakar said In the last 18 months, we have flown almost 3000 hours with no incident. In terms of competence I can tell you that the Nigerian Air Force pilots are amongst the most competent. Because the training curriculum is very clear. And that is why now in the Air Force you look at the wings, pilots wear wings. We have categorized the wings according to their skill levels. We also organize simulation training for our pilots, we organize evaluation visits where pilots are evaluated without any notice. We have also sent over 700 personnel of the NAF to different parts of the world to train and acquire the skills required for them to be effective.

Mr. Abubakar said the air force is currently assisting the Nigerian Army and Navy in the North and South in countering criminal activities of terrorists and militants through operational strategy, air interdictions strategy and soft-core strategy. He explained that the main objective is to create an enabling environment for the ground and surface forces, to be able to operate with little or no hindrance.

He continued: Another sub-strategy under this is the reactivation of airplanes. We have embarked on the reactivation of airplanes and today as I speak to you we are on the thirteenth aircraft. What I mean by reactivation is that aircrafts that were not in involved in any fight before the coming of the present federal government; they were parked before but are today part of the fight.

The thirteenth aircraft as I speak to you is being worked upon in Yola and we are hoping that before the end of this month that airplane will be flying. When you train, you must reactivate the platform to be used in flying.

The Air Force boss also claimed there was no helicopter crash in Makurdi. Explaining the incident involving Agusta AW 101 helicopter handed over to NAF by President Muhammadu Buhari, he said: What happened in Makurdi was not a crash. Immediately we received the aircraft from the Presidency, we took one of them to Kaduna to paint it into desert camouflage. They removed the seal of the President and painted it into a combat machine.

When they finished the painting, they were supposed to go to Maiduguri but they needed to go to Makurdi to pick certain things before proceeding to Maiduguri. So the aircraft took off from Kaduna, landed perfectly in Makurdi. They were just taxiing to go and park when the incident happened. I dont want to pre-empt whatever investigation that is going on.

Those same pilots were the ones that picked the 21 Chibok girls that were moved out in the night and brought them back to Maiduguri and from Maiduguri to Abuja. So accidents happen and we are investigating to find out why it happened and we will make it public when we get the picture of what really happened.

The Air Marshall also disclosed that the welfare of officers in the Air Force have been improved upon through provisions of accommodation, agricultural programs, housing schemes and other welfare packages. He added that people in host communities are also beneficiaries of its services through the provisions of health facilities, water boreholes, schools and skill acquisitions centres.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday said the reports by local and international humanitarian agencies detailing the high level of deprivation in the war-ravaged north-east Nigeria were exaggerated.

The president said the United Nations and other private humanitarian groups are deliberately hyping the level of the crisis for financial gains.

The reproach came two days after the United Nations warned that more than five million victims of Boko Haram face serious food shortages in the coming year.

A projected 5.1 million people will face serious food shortages as the conflict and risk of unexploded improvised devices prevented farmers planting for the third year in a row, causing a major food crisis, the U.N. Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator, Peter Lundberg, said in a statement Friday.

Mr. Lundbergs alert followed a similar one issued by a sister agency, UNICEF, in September.

UNICEF, which focuses on humanitarian assistance for children and mothers, said more than two million people remained trapped in Boko Haram-controlled areas while about 400,000 children were at risk of acute malnutrition.

The agency said more than half of the children could die within 12 months unless urgent measures were taken by the concerned authorities.

But in a statement signed by his media aide, Garba Shehu, Mr. Buhari faulted the findings of the UN and also added some non-governmental organisations raising concerns about looming food crisis for the victims of the seven-year-long insurgency.

We are concerned about the blatant attempts to whip up a non-existent fear of mass starvation by some aid agencies, a type of hype that does not provide a solution to the situation on the ground but more to do with calculations for operations financing locally and abroad, the president said.

The president highlighted contradictions in some of the claims made by different humanitarian groups about the crisis.

In a recent instance, one arm of the United Nations screamed that 100,000 people will die due to starvation next year. A different group says a million will die.

So while local and international humanitarian responders including the United Nations have done an immeasurable amount of effort filling in the gaps wherever they existed, it is not true as these reports have indicated that 100,000 or even a million people will die because the government is unable to provide care at the camps.

This country has a responsible government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, which is doing a lot to bring relief to the displaced people, the statement said.

While acknowledging a decline in socio-economic activities of the people of north-east, Mr. Buhari said his administration is making efforts to resolve the crisis and improve the living conditions there.

There can be no doubt that the effect of the Boko Haram terrorism and their occupation of communities and destruction of houses, infrastructure and means of livelihood has been manifested in the decline of socio-economic activities throughout the North-East.

Arising from this, farming, pastoralism, trade, exchange of goods and services and social interaction among the people have negatively been impacted leading to the displacement of more than two million people, mostly women and children. Consequently, there is death, there is hunger and there is poor nutrition.

The Nigerian government which has been making the most efforts in the entire endeavour will continue to work closely with the local and international response groups to overcome this humanitarian crisis. At this time when the focus is gradually shifting to towards rehabilitation, reconstruction, resettlement, recovery and the dignified return of IDPs back home, we can do with all the support out there in the donor community, the statement said.

But in the interim, the president warned that humanitarian agencies should desist from continuing to blow the situation out of proportion for financial gratification.

We do not, however, see the reason for the theories and hyperbolic claims being made ostensibly to draw donor support by some of the aid agencies.

The situation on the ground, as it exists, provides sufficient motivation to all well-meaning donors to come and do a decent part.

The hype, especially that which suggests that the government is doing nothing is, therefore, uncharitable and unnecessary, Mr. Buhari said.
Following last weeks decision by a Court of Appeal in Lagos that Adeyemi Ikuforiji must face fresh trial over N500 million money laundering charges, the former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly has challenged the ruling at the Supreme Court.

In a notice of appeal filed before the Lagos Division of the Appeal Court, Mr. Ikuforiji and his personal assistant, Olabode Atoyebi, who was charged along with him, are asking the apex court to set aside the ruling of the Appeal Court.

In the notice, the appellants described the courts decisions as unreasonable, unwarranted, and not supported by the evidence and material on record.

The appellants urged the Supreme Court to uphold their no-case submission as upheld by a Lagos Division of the Federal High Court headed by Ibrahim Buba on September 26, 2014, and dismiss the appellate courts decision.

The appellants further stated that more grounds of appeal would be filed upon receipt of the certified true copy of the Court of Appeal ruling.

The appellate court had in a unanimous judgment set aside the verdict of the trial judge, Mr. Buba, and declared that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had made out a prima facie case against the accused.

In the lead judgment delivered by Justice Biobela Georgewill, the court also ordered that trial should start de novo (afresh) before another judge other than Justice Buba, in light of the far-reaching findings already made by him.

Other members of the three-member panel include Side Bage and Ugochukwu Ogakwu.

Mr. Buba had discharged Messrs. Ikuforiji and Atoyebi of a 56-count charge of conspiracy and laundering the sum of N500 million belonging to the Assembly.

The offences, according to the EFCC, contravenes the provisions of Sections 15 (1d) and 16(1d) of Money Laundry Act, MLA, 2004 and 2011.

The trial Judge, who discharged the Speaker and Mr. Atoyebi, while ruling on a no-case submission filed by the accused persons held that the EFCC failed to establish a prima-facie case against them.

Dissatisfied with the ruling, the EFCC through its counsel, Godwin Obla, filed the Notice of Appeal dated September 30, 2014.

Mr. Obla asked the Court of Appeal to hold that Justice Buba erred in law when he held that counts two to 48 were incompetent because they were filed pursuant to Section 1(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004 which was repealed by an Act in 2011.

The EFCC further argued that the lower court erred in law when it held that the provisions of Section 1 of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004 and 2011 only applied to natural persons and corporate bodies other than government.

The commission also submitted that the trial judge erred in law when he held and concluded that the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses supported the innocence of the respondents.

Justice Georgewill in his lead judgment held that the offences created by Section 1 of the MLA 2004 and 2011 respectively were strict liability offences.

The judge also said that their proof does not depend on the purposes the money was used for if the amount was above the threshold stipulated by law.

Regrettably, the court below went on a voyage of its own, discussing cash payment of million made to the Super Eagles in Brazil, even without any scintilla of evidence before it, instead of remaining focused on the issue at hand.

Does the fact that all persons likely to have committed a particular alleged offence have not been prosecuted become a reason for the court to decline jurisdiction of one of them being prosecuted? certainly not.

I consider many of the issues raised so randomly by the court below as irrelevant and inconsequential to the just determination of the question before it, which is, whether the appellant made out a prima facie case.

Very worrisome to me, is the attitude of the court below, considering between the decision of this court and its own decision on which one to follow, even when its attention was called to the decision of this court.

I find this attitude quite bizarre and not in sync with judicial attitude toward the time honoured doctrine of stare decisis. It is pure rascality, impertinence and disregard for judicial hierarchy in this country.

In light of my finding above, I have no difficulty resolving the sole issue for determination in the negative against the respondents in favour of the appellant.

I hold firmly therefore, that the appeal has merit and ought to be allowed; the ruling of the lower court is hereby set aside, Justice Georgewill held.
The General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM), Daniel Olukoya, on Saturday insisted that the church is the legitimate owner of the land on which its headquarters is situated at Magboro, Ogun State.

Speaking during the December edition of the churchs monthly Power Must Change Hands programme at the popular Prayer City, Mr. Olukoya said the church has relevant documents to back its claim on ownership of the land.

MFM is the rightful and legitimate owner of its prayer city located along the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway, Magboro, Ogun, Mr. Olukoya said at the churchs event tagged Receiving The Anointing of Fire.

A High Court in Ogun State had ruled that the sprawling land on which the church, as well as its higher institution, Mountain Top University, is sitting on, rightfully belongs to the Adejonlu family.

The ruling, delivered last May, and recently obtained by SaharaReporters, declared the family as the genuine owners of the land.

But Mr. Olukoya said MFM bought the land in question twice: first from the land owners and also from the Ogun State Property and Investment Company (OPIC).

MFM has been using this land for the past 18 years and has obtained the Certificate of Occupancy(C of O) from the Ogun State Government, he said.

He urged MFM worshipping community both in Nigeria and abroad not to entertain any fears regarding the internet rumour making the rounds regarding the genuine ownership of the land.

Indifferent church

After the court ruling in the legal battle that lasted 13 years, R. O Sadik, the Adejonlu family lawyer, wrote several letters to Mr. Odukoya for negotiation and settlement, according to SaharaReporters.

In one of the letters, the family listed their demands such as a measurement of the size of the land on which the Prayer City sits on and a payment of N5 million per plot and an immediate payment of 40 percent of the total cost of the acreage agreed upon.

Mr. Sadik told SaharaReporters that all his letters had been met with indifference by both the church and Mr. Olukoya, adding that the owners could decide to enforce the courts decision and take full possession of the land.

We have written to Dr. Olukoya over 10 times, and it is like he is not ready for settlement, SaharaReporters quoted Mr. Sadik as saying.

He set up a committee, which was headed by Pastor Alewi to look into the matter and our follow-up investigation shows that the report of the committee has got to Dr. Olukoya. But we have not heard any positive comment from him.

In fact, his body language does not suggest he is ready to pay any money for the land belonging to my client.

On Saturday, Mr. Olukoya maintained that the said land and all the properties on it  including the Prayer City and the university  belong to MFM.

He warned those claiming otherwise to desist from it, warning that, It is dangerous to fight the MFM or its members.
At least 500 Nigerians die of HIV/AIDs daily, with an average new infection of 600 people every day, says Sani Aliyu, Director General, National Agency for the Control of AIDs, NACA.

Mr. Aliyu gave the figure during an interview with the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, about HIV/AIDs, aired on Saturday night.

He said although the country has achieved great heights with the support of government and the international community, a lot of help is still needed from private individuals to address the challenges posed by the existence of HIV/AIDs in Nigeria.

Mr. Aliyu noted that Nigeria is still the second most affected country with HIV/AIDs, globally behind South Africa. He called on government and stakeholders to ensure increased education of the girl child and women empowerment as a means of addressing the challenge.

He added that the global theme for this years event to mark the World AIDs day, Hands up for HIV/AIDs prevention, was adjusted for Nigeria, to match with the countrys current prevalence rate of 3 per cent.

You know that for Nigeria the topic for this year is not hands up; when you say hands up you are giving up. Its hands on for us in Nigeria, said Mr. Aliyu.

About 72,000 adolescents are reportedly living with HIV in Lagos State, officials have said.

Also according to the Borno States coordinator for HIV/AIDs, no fewer than 5,000 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in 27 camps in the state are currently living with the virus.
Private universities have helped to restore the otherwise eroded integrity in our university system and also stabilize it, Olurotimi Ajayi, the Vice-Chancellor, Crawford University, Igbesa in Ogun State, has said.

The university administrator said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria while commenting on the role of private universities in the tertiary education in Nigeria.

Mr. Ajayi said that private universities had helped to stabilise tertiary education in the country due to its modus operandi in maintaining conflict-free academic calendars.

If we look at the operations of private universities, you will hardly find all those conflicts that exist in the public universities such as industrial unrests, students violence and others.

Faith-based universities do not tolerate indiscipline of any form or corruption. I think the change mantra started with our private universities because we trained our undergraduates in the fear of God, he said.

The don said that this was what the larger society was in dire need of at present, adding that a Godly graduate would never involve himself in economic sabotage such as corruption.

It is pertinent to note that only Godly and responsible graduates can give this country the required change that we are talking about and this is the core pursuit of the faith-based universities, he said.

Mr. Ajayi, a professor of Environmental Physics from the University of Ibadan, said that the country could only attain greater height if products from its tertiary education are Godly.

What do you expect from a graduate that had gone to the university to become a gangster, rapist and manifesting all sorts of delinquencies? They will become a problem to the nation.

They are not only a moral burden onto the country they will also become economic saboteurs, he said.

He said that giving children education was not enough; it must be complemented with

the fear of God which he said the private universities were championing.

Our public universities are plagued with cultism, gangsters, alcoholism, rapists and other youthful exuberances. How can graduates produced under this unhygienic academic become the leaders of tomorrow?

Faith-based universities are not just interested in academic excellence but also producing corrupt-free-minded graduates, he said.

Mr. Ajayi said that before the advent of private universities, the quality of graduates produced by some tertiary institutions, were at their lowest ebb.

But private universities had helped to provide the necessary competition, he said.

Sometimes around 1980s, when there were no private universities, the landscape of the university system was on the slope because only the federal and state governments were shouldering the responsibility.

With growth in population and increasing demands for tertiary education, there came different degree-milling centres in form of satellite campuses all over the country.

It became apparent that the population of youths qualified to receive university education could not be met by the existing universities then.

During the military administration, the funding of universities was abysmally low and the standard of education was fallen drastically.

The universities then, in order to augment their meagre subventions, resulted to setting up satellite campuses, he said.

Mr. Ajayi said that the degrees awarded by the mushroom satellite campuses then almost ruined the educational system adding that private universities came as an intervention.

He said that part of the gains of private universities was a healthy competition, quality assurance, and sound academic excellence.

The faith-based Crawford University, Igbesa, was established in 2015, by the Apostolic Faith Church Mission.

(NAN)
The Lagos State Police Command have arrested two men for allegedly stuffing N1.5 million abandoned by fleeing armed robbers into their private parts.

Adegoke Adewale and Ganiyu Idowu were caught on Thursday evening by the operatives of the Rapid Response Squad, the police said in a statement on Sunday.

The police said they were in hot pursuit of three armed robbers who had allegedly snatched N3 million from a yet to be identified bank customer in Oshodi.

The suspects, whom the police described as Agberos (area boys), among other miscreants had pretended they were assisting the police in the chase before the fleeing robbers ditched their loot.

The robbers after being chased by the police dropped their loot in a compound, which the suspects stole and stuffed into their private parts, the statement said.

The police said the robbers, who carried out their operation with a motorcycle, were armed with short pistols and one of them was arrested while the two others escaped on foot.

The suspects as well as the recovered loot have been transferred to Makinde Police Station in Oshodi, the statement said.

Also recovered along with the loot were 3 cheque booklets of Diamond and Zenith Banks, several signed cheques and counter signed cheque leaves.

Reacting to the incident, the Lagos State Police Spokesperson, Dolapo Badmus, said the police would apprehend the fleeing robbers.
The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, said on Sunday that it has conveyed a total of 1,460 bags of assorted food items to the 80,709 Nigerian refugees that were forced by Boko Haram into Cameroon.

NEMA had said that at least a documented 240,000 Nigerian refugees had fled into Cameroon, Chad and Niger in the wake of Boko Haram insurgents rampage and seizure of communities.

The relief agency had last week said in a report that it has recorded the return of 29,581 Nigerian refugees from Cameroon.

The report came months after the news that Cameroon planned to repatriate at least 56,000 Nigerian refugees. NEMA said it acted upon a federal government directive to deliver the food relief in Cameroon for the purpose of feeding the refugees who are mostly from Borno State.

The spokesperson of NEMA, Sani Datti, said in a statement on Sunday that most of the refugees are camped in Minawao town and other locations in the far north region of Cameroon.

He said the delivery was made by a team of NEMA officials led by the relief agencys Director of Search and Rescue, S. Muhammad, who represented the Director General of NEMA, Muhammad Sidi.

Mr. Datti said the officials handed over the items to officials of Cameroon for onward presentation to the United Nations High Commission for Refugee (UNHCR) which has been managing the camp.

The Director General said NEMA will continue to liaise with the Government of the Republic of Cameroon to ensure that all Nigeria refugees are living in good condition.

The team also appealed to youth in the camps to desist from using drugs and urged them to always be of good character and be good ambassadors of our country.

Some youth in the camp were recently arrested for drug use.

A Cameroon official who received the items, Menguene Marie, was said to have appreciated the Nigerian government for the timely gesture.

Similar appreciation was expressed by the vice chairman of the Nigerian refugees, Ashigar Mohammed from Bama Local Government Area of Borno State, who also called for immediate repatriation of refugees.

We have been in Minawao camp for three years, we do have regular feeding, have school and hospital, but we want leaders of our communities back home to visit us, he said.

The delivered food comprised 650 bags of rice, 300 bags of Guinea corn, 200 bags of millet, 150 bags of beans, 10 bags of groundnut, 50 bags of flour, 50 bags of sugar and 50 bags of salt. Others include 100 cartons of tinned tomato, 50 cartons of bouillon cubes, 150 cartons of spaghetti, 150 cartons of bath soap and 50 cartons of vegetable oil.
Adapted from a recent online discussion.

Question: My sister (step) and I get along great and have a lot of fun together ... as long as our parents arent around. When my mom and her dad are there, she is snarky, mean, easily offended, easily offensive, and its awful.

Weve been talking about planning a vacation for all of us with my young son to Disney World and its already gotten contentious. A very large part of me wants to suggest that we break this up and just go to Disney with me, my sister and my son. But if my parents go they will pay, and I cant really afford to go on my own. My sister could definitely afford to pay for all of us, but I dont think I should ask for that.

Any advice? This is so so obviously a bad idea, but I dont know how to pull this off without lots of hurt feelings. I guess I can just go with it and put up with the sniping and anger in exchange for a free trip to Disney? Ugh.  Family Vacation Disaster

Answer: The most obvious Option 1 is to back out of the trip. Say youre not comfortable being paid for and would like to postpone until you can save up for it. Two missions accomplished: getting out of this trip and uncoupling the train from your parents. Three missions, if you count the whole independence thing.

Option 2 is to be more straightforward with your sister: I dont know if youve noticed the same thing, but we seem to get along better when the parents arent around. Could be interesting  but you have to be careful not to lay the blame on her.

Option 3 is to go on the trip as planned, but with a different attitude toward your sister. Someone who acts the way you describe is obviously stressed. Can you think of why? Can you find empathy? Can you help? Or maybe just, can you get away when it gets bad?

Even if you go with Option 1 or 3, file away 2 for another time. The underlying tension? rift? competition? between you that corrupts your time with your parents is begging to be addressed.

Question: Re: Family Vacation Disaster: My sibling and I have a similar dynamic  we get along much better when theres no one around to see it. I think its hard not to fall into bad patterns from childhood.

I try to remind myself of this dynamic beforehand, and not rise when sibling starts sniping. And since there are certain types of comments that sibling tends to make, Ive asked my parents to be on the lookout as well, to help diffuse the situation, because I know I dont always react well. In our case, I think its driven by my siblings insecurities tied to how this sibling thinks we are perceived by our parents and others, intentionally or otherwise. Even though I generally think our parents have done a good job of not labeling us, to a certain extent it happens anyway just because were so different.  Anonymous

Answer: Thank you. It can also help to appreciate, openly, what is different about her; think of it as changing cause to change the effect.

Email Carolyn Hax at tellme@washpost.com or write her c/o The Washington Post, Style Plus, 1150 15th St., NW, Washington, DC 20071.
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.




BATH, England, December 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

A Farm Full Of Festive Knits

Paddy the goat is leading the herd this Christmas! He is modelling his hand knitted Christmas jumper to let the UK know how they can help make a positive difference to farmers trying to escape poverty in Africa.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161202/445155 )



He was photographed at the St James City Farm in Gloucester, where he lives, looked after by hard working volunteers Cathy and Ryan.

The animals' jumpers were hand knitted by knitwear designer Elise Hurcombe. She used over 50 balls of wool to create the jumpers and describes this as one of her most unusual commissions! "I have never made a jumper for a goat before! Fitting the jumpers was quite something, the goat is very cheeky but seemed to enjoy the limelight!"

UK charity Send a Cow is encouraging people to move away from traditional gifts this festive period and instead purchase a gift which can make a tangible difference to the lives of some Africa's poorest people. The charity has over 30 virtual gifts to choose from, including goats (33), calves (55) and chickens (8).

This year, Send a Cow is aiming to sell 20,000 gifts, sold through its Christmas catalogue, which can be used across their projects in seven African countries.

Simply select the animal of your choice from the website, make the donation and you will then be sent an ecard or gift pack. Your gift then provides a future for families and whole communities.

Jessica Kabuiso from Uganda is one of the farmers that works with Send a Cow. She was unable to provide enough food or send her children to school and described her life as 'miserable'. The cow she was given changed her life and the money she made from selling the milk gave her family a future. "First I used my money to send the children to school. Then I saved. Then I bought solar power. This has made a huge difference," says Jessica.

SOURCE Send a Cow
ABU DHABI, UAE, December 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

- H.E. Eng. Suhail Mohamed Faraj Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy, United Arab Emirates, among top speakers -

The Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit will make its Middle Eastern debut in Abu Dhabi this week, convening global financial leaders and investors who are moving markets, driving economies and making deals that will shape the future financial landscape.



"Abu Dhabi joins London, Hong Kong and New York as the latest global financial center to host this event. It's a reflection of our commitment to the region and furthers the expansion of our media operation in the UAE and the Middle East announced earlier this year. We're pleased to have been able to work closely with Abu Dhabi Global Market to bring you this event, which highlights Bloomberg's commitment to comprehensive, forward-looking global coverage of the financial industry," says Justin B. Smith, CEO, Bloomberg Media.



Taking place at the Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi at Al Maryah Island on Wednesday, Dec. 7, the invitation-only Summit, proudly sponsored by Mubadala, will gather global influencers for a day of conversation, networking and cross-border thought leadership on issues such as the far-reaching implications of Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election, the rise of powerful sovereign wealth funds, the urgent work to diversify carbon economies, and investment opportunities throughout the region and across the world.





Speakers include:

H.E. Eng. Suhail Mohamed Faraj Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy, United Arab Emirates

H.E. Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh, Chairman, Abu Dhabi Global Market

Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Minister for Petroleum, Nigeria

Wale Tinubu, Group CEO, Oando

Mark Mobius, Executive Chairman, Templeton Emerging Markets Group

Arif Masood Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive, The Abrajj Group

Seif Fikry, CEO, Afkar Capital

Sheila Patel, CEO, International Goldman Sachs Asset Management

H.E. Mohamed Ali Rashed Alabbar, Executive Chairman, Emaar Properties





"The Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit features the top market leaders and business executives driving the global financial system today and spotlights the investment opportunities and risks on the horizon and beyond. I'm confident the conversations, informed by Bloomberg's unparalleled data and analyses, will provide keen insights to help attendees navigate the investment landscape in 2017," says Reto Gregori, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg, who will open the Summit Wednesday morning.



The day's discussions will be led by several of the region's senior Bloomberg editorial team, including Riad Hamade, Managing Editor Middle East and North Africa, Bloomberg; Tracy Alloway, Bloomberg Markets Executive Editor; Javier Blas, Chief Energy Correspondent, Bloomberg; and Claudia Maedler, Bureau Chief UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, Bloomberg. Also helping lead the summit will be Jason Kelly, Bloomberg's New York Bureau Chief and Executive Editor for Global Television, and Erik Schatzker, Bloomberg Television.



The Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit is the centrepiece of a multi-platform editorial initiative that leverages Bloomberg's unparalleled breadth of media resources, including print, digital, television and radio platforms to bring one-of-a-kind conversations with newsmakers and financial leaders on the trends and opportunities encountered across the global economy. The event is produced by Bloomberg LIVE, the company's global events business.



Ends/



For more information on the programme and speakers, please visit bloomberglive.com



Watch the Summit live at Bloomberg.com/live/Europe or enter LIVE on the Bloomberg Terminal.



Follow the conversation on Twitter via @BloombergLIVE and #BMarkets2016

About Bloomberg



Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company's strength - delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately - is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service. Bloomberg's enterprise solutions build on the company's core strength: leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively. For more information, visit bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

For media enquiries, please contact:



Catrin Thomas

Corporate Communications, Bloomberg L.P.

cthomas106@bloomberg.net

+44-(0)-7917-000-808



Aashti Bawa

FTI Consulting

Aashti.bawa@fticonsulting.com

+971-(0)4-437-2103



SOURCE Bloomberg Media
PORTO, Portugal and HATFIELD, England, December 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

FOR EMEA MEDIA ONLY - NOT FOR SWISS/AUSTRIAN/US JOURNALISTS

Zebinix (eslicarbazepine acetate) provides a high retention rate, reduction in seizure frequency and seizure freedom with a favourable adverse event profile and an improved global clinical impression of change (CGI-C) and severity (CGI-S) when used as adjunctive therapy in people with partial onset (focal) seizures with or without secondary generalisation, according to the ESLADOBA study presented today at the American Epilepsy Society (AES) Houston, US.[1]

Eslicarbazepine acetate is indicated in the European Union as adjunctive therapy in adults with partial-onset seizures with or without secondary generalisation.[2]

The two-year, multi-centre, non-interventional, prospective cohort study included 52 patients (18 years) at 12 neurology departments in Portugal with partial onset (focal) seizures insufficiently controlled with one anti-epileptic drug (AED), who had initiated eslicarbazepine acetate as adjunctive treatment. The primary endpoint was the retention rate, defined as the proportion of patients remaining on eslicarbazepine acetate treatment at the end of follow up. Secondary endpoints included the proportion of responders (patients with at least 50% reduction in seizure frequency compared to baseline), proportion of seizure-free patients and the change in frequency for partial seizures with or without secondary generalisation.[1]

In the ESLADOBA study, the retention rate was 73.0% (95% CI, 61.0-85.2). The responder rate and the rate of seizure freedom were 71.1% (95% CI, 56.7-85.5) and 39.5% (95% CI, 24.0-55.0), respectively. The seizure-free rate found in secondarily generalised seizures was 94.7% at final assessment. The median relative reduction in seizure frequency between baseline and final assessment was 82.2% (the mean time between initial and final assessment was 7.8 months).[1]

A reduction in epilepsy severity was observed in 42.1% of patients and 73.6% of patients had their epilepsy "much improved" or "very much improved" and there were no cases where epilepsy was considered to be worse, according to the global clinical impression of change (CGI-C) and severity (CGI-S), which was recorded by neurologists.

In this study, 23.1% (n=12) of patients experienced at least one adverse event and 19.2% (n=10) had at least one AE that was judged to be related to the study drug; 3.9% (n=2) had at least one serious adverse event. The majority adverse events were classified as mild to moderate intensity (n=14) and (n=9) were classified as severe.[1] Five patients were withdrawn from the study due to AEs.

"The ESLADOBA study shows that once-daily, adjunctive eslicarbazepine acetate showed good retention rates and elicits a significant reduction in seizure frequency in patients with partial onset seizures not sufficiently controlled with monotherapy," comments Dr Joao Chaves, Neurologist, Santo Antonio Hospital, Centro Hospitalar Porto.

"Data recorded in routine clinical practice is vital to help inform our understanding of how treatments work in the real world. These findings suggest effective seizure control and favourable tolerability of eslicarbazepine acetate adjunctive treatment in this setting," Patricio Soares-da-Silva, Director of Research & Development, Bial, Porto, Portugal.

"These data underscore our commitment to support people with epilepsy to better manage their condition and live their lives to the full. We are encouraged by these data and will ensure that eslicarbazepine acetate continues to play an important role in the treatment of epilepsy for the thousands of people in Europe who live with the condition," comments Neil West, Vice President, Global Neurology Business Unit, Eisai.

Notes to Editors

About Zebinix (eslicarbazepine acetate)

Eslicarbazepine acetate is a voltage-gated sodium channel blocker. It selectively targets the slow inactivated state of the sodium ion channel (which have been implicated in the pathogenesis of epilepsy), preventing its return to the active state, and thereby reduces repetitive neuronal firing.[3] Further, eslicarbazepine acetate does not inhibit potassium efflux, which may reduce the potential for repetitive neuronal firings.[4] The efficacy of eslicarbazepine acetate was demonstrated in an initial proof-of-concept phase II study[5] and three subsequent phase III randomised, placebo controlled studies in 1,049 people with refractory partial onset seizures.[6],[7],[8]

Eslicarbazepine acetate is currently marketed in Europe and Russia by Bial and Bial's licensee, Eisai Europe Limited, a European subsidiary of Eisai Co., Ltd. under the trade name Zebinix or Exalief. In the United States and Canada eslicarbazepine acetate (tradename Aptiom) is marketed by Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc., under an exclusive license from Bial.

About Epilepsy

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological conditions in the world, affecting approximately 6 million people in Europe, and an estimated 50 million people worldwide.[9],[10] Epilepsy is a chronic disorder of the brain that affects people of all ages. It is characterised by abnormal discharges of neuronal activity which causes seizures. Seizures can vary in severity, from brief lapses of attention or jerking of muscles, to severe and prolonged convulsions. Depending on the seizure type, seizures may be limited to one part of the body, or may involve the whole body. Seizures can also vary in frequency from less than one per year, to several per day. Epilepsy has many possible causes but often the cause is unknown.

About Bial

Founded in 1924, Bial's mission is to discover, develop and provide therapeutic solutions within the area of health. In recent decades, Bial has strategically focused on quality, innovation and internationalisation.

Being the partner of choice for many pharma companies, Bial is strongly committed to therapeutic innovation, investing more than 20% of its turnover in Research and Development (R&D) every year.

Bial has established an ambitious R&D programme centred in neurosciences, cardiovascular system and allergic immunotherapy. The company expects to continue to introduce new medicines and vaccines to the market in the next years, strengthening its position worldwide and accomplishing the company's purpose of "Caring for your Health."

For more information about Bial, please visit http://www.bial.com .

About Eisai Co., Ltd.

Eisai Co., Ltd. is a leading global research and development-based pharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan. We define our corporate mission as "giving first thought to patients and their families and to increasing the benefits health care provides," which we call our human health care (hhc) philosophy. With over 10,000 employees working across our global network of R&D facilities, manufacturing sites and marketing subsidiaries, we strive to realise our hhc philosophy by delivering innovative products in multiple therapeutic areas with high unmet medical needs, including Oncology and Neurology.

As a global pharmaceutical company, our mission extends to patients around the world through our investment and participation in partnership-based initiatives to improve access to medicines in developing and emerging countries.

For more information about Eisai Co., Ltd., please visit http://www.eisai.com

References

1. Chaves J et al. Seizure control and tolerability of eslicarbazepine acetate as adjunctive therapy in adults with partial-onset seizures in routine clinical practice - ESLADOBA Study. Presented at American Epilepsy Society 2016

2. Zebinix (eslicarbazepine acetate) Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) - Available at: http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/EPAR_Product_Information/human/000988/C500047225.pdf Accessed November 2016

3. Hebeisen S, et al. Eslicarbazepine and the enhancement of slow inactivation of voltage-gated sodium channels: a comparison with carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine and lacosamide. Neuropharmacology. 2015; 89:122-35

4. Soares-da-Silva P, et al. Eslicarbazepine acetate for the treatment of focal epilepsy: an update on its proposed mechanisms of action. Pharmacol Res Perspect. 2015; 3:e00124

5. Elger C, et al. Eslicarbazepine acetate: A double-blind, add-on, placebo-controlled exploratory trial in adult patients with partial-onset seizures. Epilepsia.2007; 48:497-504

6. Elger C, et al. Efficacy and safety of eslicarbazepine acetate as adjunctive treatment in adults with refractory partial-onset seizures: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group phase III study. Epilepsia. 2009;50:454-63

7. Ben-Menachem E, et al. Eslicarbazepine acetate as adjunctive therapy in adult patients with partial epilepsy. Epilepsy Res. 2010;89(2-3):278-85

8. Gil-Nagel A, et al. Efficacy and safety of 800 and 1200 mg eslicarbazepine acetate as adjunctive treatment in adults with refractory partial-onset seizures. Acta Neurol Scand. 2009; 120:281-87

9. Epilepsy in the WHO European Region: Fostering Epilepsy Care in Europe. Available at: http://www.ibe-epilepsy.org/downloads/EURO%20Report%20160510.pdf Accessed November 2016

10. Pugliatti M, et al. Estimating the cost of epilepsy in Europe: A review with economic modeling. Epilepsia. 2007:48(12):2224-33

December 2016

Zebinix-EU0093

SOURCE Eisai
This immunotherapy modifies a patient's own immune T cells, extracted and engineered to potentially seek and destroy the patient's leukemia cells. The CHOP researchers reported on the first global, multicenter clinical trial of these cells and on a separate single-center trial, the first to use a version of these cells carrying a "humanized" protein more similar to human proteins.

In both trials, the patients were children and young adults who had relapsed after previous leukemia therapies, and/or had persistent (refractory) disease.

CHOP pediatric oncologist Stephan A. Grupp, MD, PhD, director of CHOP's Cancer Immunotherapy Frontier Program, co-moderated the ASH session on advances in immunotherapy for ALL at which these findings were presented. At this session, he reported results from the first global, multicenter trial of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, of which he is the lead investigator.

This study, sponsored by Novartis, is a global registration trialone that will provide data to submit to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), requesting approval for clinical use. It has enrolled 81 patients at 25 centers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia. Among the 50 patients who have received a single dose of the T cells, designated CTL019 cells, 41 patients (82 percent) had a complete response (that is, no detectable leukemia cells) within one to three months after treatment.

As in previous, single-center trials, the immunotherapy stimulated a sometimes severe side effect called cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which the researchers successfully managed, following an existing protocol. CRS can present as a flu-like illness with high fever and muscle aches, and can extend to requiring ICU-level care.

"Our results in this first international clinical trial are similar to what we saw in our single-center trialsin both the safety profile and high levels of effectiveness," said Grupp. Novartis aims to apply for FDA approval in 2017.

The research reflects an ongoing collaboration between Grupp, his colleagues in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania led by Carl H. June, MD, a co-author of the current study, and Novartis, the sponsor of the trial.

During the same ASH session, CHOP pediatric oncologist Shannon L. Maude, MD, PhD, presented findings from a pilot phase 1 study of "humanized" CAR T cells in 36 children and young adults with relapsed and refractory ALL. In this study, researchers modified CAR T cells to carry a CAR protein more similar to human protein than is the murine (mouse) protein used in CTL019 and other CD19-targeted CAR T cell treatments.

This trial, conducted at CHOP, is the first to use these humanized CAR T cells, called CTL119 cells. Of the 36 patients, 14 had previously been treated with murine CAR T cells. Some had shown no response, some relapsed after an initial response, and in some the CAR T cells did not persist well. Another 22 patients in the trial had not received previous CAR T cell treatment.

At one month after treatment, 30 patients showed a complete response, including 57 percent of those previously treated with murine CAR T cells, and 100 percent of the CAR-naive patients. At a median follow-up of seven months, 24 patients remained in remission. CRS occurred in 33 patients, but was mild in most patients, and was successfully managed in all.

"These CTL119 results are consistent with the high remission rates we have seen with CTL019," said Maude. "It is also encouraging that patients previously treated with CD19 CAR T cells could respond to humanized CTL119."

In 2012, Novartis acquired exclusive rights from Penn to CTL019. Several scientists from Novartis and Penn Medicine are co-authors of the abstracts presented by Grupp and Maude. Both Grupp and Maude are consultants to Novartis, and Grupp receives research funding from Novartis.

About Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals, and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 535-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu

Contact: Natalie Virgilio

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Office: (267) 426-6246

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161202/445149

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161202/445150

SOURCE The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Related Links

http://www.chop.edu


NEW YORK, Dec. 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Safra National Bank of New York announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Bank Hapoalim's private banking business in Miami. The agreement covers qualifying clients and their relationship management teams who are focused on high net worth clients across Latin America.

This acquisition is a logical extension of Safra National Bank of New York's private banking business for Latin America, where it has been providing premier private banking and financial services to high net worth clients for more than 30 years. With this transaction, Safra National Bank of New York and its subsidiary, Safra Securities, LLC, further strengthen their private banking business and the global wealth management capabilities of the J. Safra Group.

Jacob J. Safra, Vice-Chairman of Safra National Bank, commented:

"We are determined to play a leading role in the consolidation of the private banking market. Our capital strength, family ownership and 175 years of experience give us great flexibility to do such transactions."

Simoni Morato, CEO of Safra National Bank of New York, said:

"We look forward to welcoming the clients and employees of Bank Hapoalim in Miami to our organization. Bank Hapoalim's private banking business in Miami fits perfectly with the strategic vision of the J. Safra Group and Safra National Bank of New York, and we are confident we will add immeasurable value to clients."

The acquisition is expected to be completed during the course of the first quarter of 2017, subject to regulatory clearance. Financial terms are not disclosed.

For more information please contact:

J. Safra Group

The J. Safra Group (the "Group"), with total assets under management of over USD 194 billion and aggregate stockholders equity of USD 15.4 billion, is controlled by Joseph Safra. The Group consists of privately owned banks under the Safra name and investment holdings in asset based business sectors such as real estate and agribusiness. The Group's banking interests, which have over 160 locations globally, are: Safra National Bank of New York headquartered in New York City; J. Safra Sarasin, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland; and Banco Safra, headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil; all independent from one another from a consolidated supervision standpoint. The Group's real estate holdings consist of more than 200 premier commercial, residential, retail and farmland properties worldwide, such as New York City's 660 Madison Avenue office complex and London's iconic Gherkin Building. Its investments in other sectors include, among others, agribusiness holdings in Brazil and Chiquita Brands International Inc. With deep relationships in markets worldwide, the Group is able to greatly enhance the value of businesses which are part of it. There are more than 28,000 employees associated with the J. Safra Group.

SOURCE J. Safra Group
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Havana, Nov 30 : Cuban President Raul Castro paid tribute to his brother Fidel Castro with a speech recounting all the historical milestones that they lived through together.

Raul recounted the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the dramatic "special period" and many moments that he shared with Fidel in a speech in the iconic Revolution Square in the Cuban capital, Efe news reported on Wednesday.

This was Raul Castro's first public speech since his televised announcement on November 25 on the death of his 90-year-old brother, who stepped down from power 10 years ago owing to a failing health.

Raul, who began his speech with sincere gratitude for the Cuban people, the Communist Party and the Castro family, said that Fidel "devoted his entire life to solidarity".

He said that the late leader "led a socialist revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble, and became a symbol of the anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, anti-imperialist struggle".

"His vibrant words resonate today in this square," said Raul before evoking some of the historic events that took place in the iconic location where thousands gathered to bid their late leader farewell.

In the same square the Cuban leader had ratified the Agrarian Reform Law, one of the first major economic measures undertaken after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

There they also adopted the first and second Havana Declarations in 1960 and 1962, which reaffirmed the island's sovereignty and its relationship with the erstwhile Communist Soviet Union and China.

Raul recalled how they were together in one of the buildings flanking the Square during the explosion of the French weapons freighter La Coubre in 1960 which left 101 dead in the Havana harbour.

And the night in 1967 when the Revolution Square hosted a solemn evening of tribute to Che after his assassination in Bolivia.

Castro also spoke about the toughest phase of the "special period", when Cuba plunged into a profound economic crisis after the fall and break-up of the Soviet Union.

He hailed the spirit of the youths who came to pay tribute and swear allegiance to the ideas and work of the Commander in Chief of the Cuban revolution.

"Until victory always!" (Hasta la victoria siempre!) the Cuban President said with a broken voice, amid multitudinous cries of "I am Fidel" and "Raul, friend, the people are with you."
Agartala, Nov 30 : The body of Naik Chittaranjan Debbarma, killed in a terror attack in Jammu, will be brought to Tripura on Thursday for cremation at his native village with full state honours, officials said on Wednesday.

"The body of Debbarma, 36, will be brought here on Thursday and taken to Khowai, 80 km north of Agartala, by road to his native village Paglabari (in western Tripura)," Khowai Sub-Divisional Magistrate Prasun Dey told IANS over phone.

Tripura's Forest and Rural Development Minister Naresh Jamatia, Khowai District Magistrate Apurba Roy, senior Army and security officials will be present at the cremation.

Seven soldiers, including two officers, were killed on Tuesday after suicide bombers armed with guns and grenades stormed a military base at Nagrota near Jammu.

Three attackers were gunned down. Three more militants died in a shootout with security forces near the International border with Pakistan.

The Debbarma family and their relatives and neighbours in Paglabari plunged into gloom after the news of his death reached the tribal-dominated village late on Tuesday night.

Naik Debbarma is survived by his wife Namita, aged parents and two children aged 11 and seven. His elder brother Arun Debbarma retired from the Army in March.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, in a condolence message, said his government expressed solidarity with the bereaved family.

"Our brave Tripura soldier Chittaranjan Debbarma was martyred while protecting our country. We stand with his family in tough times," Sarkar said.

"We are shocked to hear the news. We are also very proud of him. He attained martyrdom while fighting for the nation," Sarkar added.

Chittaranjan Debbarma is the second security personnel from the area killed in a militant attack in Jammu and Kashmir within a week.

Earlier, 34-year-old Border Security Force Havildar Sambhu Satmura was killed in a landmine blast along the India-Pakistan border at Jamia Wali Gali of Sawjian sector in Poonch district on November 22.

Satmura, a resident of Agartala's Subhasnagar locality, was posted with the F Company of BSF's 107 Battalion.
New Delhi, Nov 30 : The queues outside the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are getting longer as banks are not accepting the old Rs 1,000 notes printed before 2005.

Manish Mathur's eight pre-2005 Rs 1,000 notes were rejected by the Indian Bank at Sector 19 in Noida, near Delhi.

"The bank refused to accept the notes with silver colour security thread," Mathur told IANS. "The bank said these notes were printed before 2005 and they can't take them. They asked me to go to RBI."

Mathur, like others facing the same problem, wondered how these notes were legal tender before Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised all 500 and 1,000 rupee notes on November 8.

Arjun Sharma, a businessman in east Delhi, told IANS that his 25 pre-2005 Rs 1,000 notes were returned by the State Bank of India at Krishna Nagar in east Delhi on Wednesday.

"This is nothing but harassment," Sharma said. "These banks make a new rule every day."

Bank officials refused to comment on the issue, saying they were simply following RBI guidelines.
New Delhi, Nov 30 : Policy think-tank NITI Aayog on Wednesday constituted a Committee of Chief Ministers and experts to script an action plan and draw up a roadmap to implement the digital payment systems across the country.

"The Committee will examine and implement measures for promoting the use of digital payment systems across the country and usher in transparency, financial inclusion and a healthy ecosystem," said an official statement here.

With Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu as its Convener, the Committee has Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Puducherry Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy and NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya as its members.

NITI Aayog Chief Executive Amitabh Kant will be the Member Secretary.

Sources said that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had also contacted Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and requested them to become members of the Committee, but both leaders declined.

Kumar has supported the government's move to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Five experts from diverse fields will assist the Committee as special invitees in formulating the action plan and preparing the roadmap to implement the digital payments systems with the participation of people across the country.

The experts are former UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani, Boston Consulting Group Chairman Janmejaya Sinha, netCORE Managing Director Rajesh Jain, iSpirit Co-Founder Sharad Sharma and IIM-Ahmedabad Professor (Finance) Jayant Varma.

The committee's terms of reference say it will identify the global best practices for implementing an economy primarily based on digital payments and their adoption in the Indian context.

It will outline measures for rapid expansion and adoption of the digital payments systems like cards (debit, credit pre-paid), digital wallets or e-wallets, internet banking, Unified Payments Interface and banking applications.

"The Committee shall evolve an action plan to reach out to the public with the objective of creating awareness and help them understand the benefits of such a switchover to digital economy," said the statement.

Other terms include preparing a roadmap for the administrative machinery in the states to adopt digital modes of financial transactions and to identify and address the bottlenecks and indicate solutions for moving towards a digital payments economy.

It will also associate key stakeholders to implement steps for a digital economy, delineate and adopt its measures and address any issue not in the terms of reference, noted the statement.

The committee will be free to devise its own procedures for conducting business, meetings and setting up of sub-groups.

"Digitisation of payments will enable financial inclusion by overcoming physical barriers and enhance access to financial services. It will also enable financial transactions, transparency and plug leakages," the statement added.

The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) was set up on January 1, 2015, with the Prime Minister as its ex-officio Chairman, for a bottom-up approach and to make the country move towards cooperative federalism.
Agartala, Dec 1 : The body of Naik Chittaranjan Debbarma, who was killed in a terror attack near Jammu on Tuesday, was brought to Tripura on Thursday for cremation on Friday.

The cremation will take place with state honours in his village.

The body was received at the Agartala airport by West Tripura Additional District Magistrate and Collector Sanjoy Chakraborty, Sub-divisional Magistrate (Sadar) Samit Roy Chowdhury and army officials.

The body was brought in an Indian Army aircraft.

Seven soldiers, including two officers, were killed on Tuesday when suicide bombers stormed a military base at Nagrota near Jammu. Three attackers were gunned down.

Debbarma, 36, who joined army's engineering wing in 1998, is survived by his wife Namita, aged parents and two children aged 11 and 7 years.

In a condolence message, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said the government expressed solidarity with the soldier's family.

"Our brave Tripura soldier Chittaranjan Debbarma was martyred while protecting our country. We stand with his family in tough times," Sarkar said.

Earlier, 34-year-old Border Security Force Havildar Sambhu Satmura was killed in a landmine blast along the Indo-Pakistan border in Poonch district on November 22. Satmura was a resident of Agartala.
Moscow, Dec 2 : An unmanned Russian cargo spaceship heading to the International Space Station broke up over Siberia due to an apparent malfunction, reports quoted the Russian space agency on Friday.

The Progress MS-04 cargo craft broke up on Thursday at an altitude of 190 km over the remote Russian Tuva region in Siberia that borders Mongolia, Roscosmos said in a statement, ABC news has reported.

It said most of spaceship's debris burnt up as it entered the atmosphere but some fell on Earth over what it called "an uninhabited area".

Locals reported seeing a flash of light and hearing a loud thud west of Kyzyl, more than 3,600 km east of Moscow, the Tuva government was quoted as saying.

The Progress cargo ship had lifted off on schedule from Russia's space launch complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to deliver 2.5 metric tons of fuel, water, food and other supplies.

It was set to dock with the space station on Saturday.

Roscosmos said the craft was operating normally before it stopped transmitting data a few minutes after the launch.

The Russian space agency has not described the malfunction, saying its experts were looking into it.

This was the third botched launch of a Russian spacecraft in two years.
Khowai (Tripura), Dec 2 : Thousands of villagers on Friday bid a tearful adieu to an Indian Army soldier, Chittaranjan Debbarma, who was killed in a terror attack on an army camp near Jammu on Tuesday.

Men, women and children had assembled in huge numbers at the cemetary when Debbarma's last rites were performed at Gaishing Para, 80 km north of Agartala.

Naik Debbarma, 36, a Christian by faith, was laid to rest with full military honours in the presence of his father Madhusudhan, 84, mother Sanchani, 79, wife Namita and two children aged 11 and 7 years.

State Forest Minister Naresh Jamatia, and senior civil, army and security officials were present.

The body of the soldier was flown to Tripura on Thursday -- two days after he and six of his colleagues were killed in a gun battle with militants at an army camp in Nagrota, 15 km from Jammu.

Debbarma joined the army's engineering wing in 1998. A few months ago, he was transferred to Nagrota military base from West Bengal's Kanchrapara.

"He called us when the terrorist attacked the military camp. He told us to pray for him. He was saying that he might be killed as the militants encircled the camp. After a minute, the phone went silent. We called back many a time but...," slain soldier's wife Namita said.

"He came home in June this year and told us that he would come home next month. We were keenly waiting for him. But got only his mortal remains."

Debbarma's elder brother Arun retired from the army in March this year.

He is the second Tripura man in services killed in a militant attack in Jammu and Kashmir within a week.

Earlier, 34-year-old Border Security Force (BSF) Havildar Sambhu Satmura was killed in a landmine blast along the India-Pakistan border in Poonch district on November 22.
Kolkata, Dec 2 : A large amount of withdrawn currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations were recovered from a canal here on Friday morning, police said.

"We recovered hoards of old currency notes amounting to more than Rs 50,000, from beside the Kestopur Canal (in northeast Kolkata's Baguihati area) on Friday morning," said Baguihati police station sub-inspector Tapas Kumar Sil.

"Most of the currency notes were torn to pieces. It seems someone threw them into the canal as they have become useless post the demonetisation," he said.

Officers of Baguihati police station have seized the old notes and the Reserve Bank of India has been informed about the incident.
Abuja, Dec 2 : Praising Morocco's decision to regain its place within the African Union (AU), Nigeria has described it as a "welcome development".

"This is a welcome development," Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama told MAP.

"Morocco is an important country," he said, adding that "it is not in the interests of either the African Union or Morocco" that the North African country remains outside the regional organisation.

Morocco, a country that has achieved a high level of economic development, has a great contribution to make towards development efforts in the continent, Onyeama said.

King Mohammed VI arrived in Abuja on Thursday on an official visit to Nigeria in the third stage of a tour that also took him to Ethiopia and Madagascar.
Beijing, Dec 3 : At least 17 people were confirmed dead and many others remained trapped following an explosion at a coal mine in China's Mongolia region on Saturday, authorities said.

The explosion occurred around midday at Baoma Mining Co. Ltd. in the city of Chifeng, Xinhua news agency quoted sources with the regional work safety authority as saying.

The local government has launched a search and rescue operation.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.
Jakarta, Dec 3 : A plane with 16 police personnel on board crashed in the waters off Batam island in western Indonesia on Saturday, rescuers said.

The M28 Skytruck plane, owned by Indonesian police, lost contact with flight authorities while flying over the waters off Batam island, Xinhua news agency reported.

The plane was enroute from Pangkal Pinang city to Batam island in Kepulauan Riau province, Xinhua quoted Marsudi, spokesman of the national search and rescue office, as saying.

According to locals, the wreckage of the aircraft was found at around 12.20 p.m. in the waters off Batam island.
Seoul, Dec 4 : The streets of central Seoul were filled with protesters demanding the resignation of South Korea's President Park Geun-hye over a corruption scandal, media reports said.

On Saturday, thousands of people began a peaceful march on the Gwanghwamun avenue -- the main and largest gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace -- for the sixth consecutive day and raised signs and banners calling for the impeachment of Park, Efe news agency reported.

Protesters plan to end the march in the vicinity of the Presidential Blue House, where police have established a cordon within a radius of 100 m and the demonstrators will remain in the streets with candles until evening.

The three opposition parties filed an impeachment motion on Saturday, to be voted on by Parliament on December 9.

The vote requires support from at least 28 deputies from the ruling Saenuri party to be passed.
New Delhi : The London policeman, a member of the modern world's first professional law and order enforcement force, has long been a model for his counterparts and a subject for crime novelists. However, the crime-solving skills of Scotland Yard's finest were initially not very high and amateur sleuths -- Sherlock Holmes, for example -- easily upstaged them, though not for very long.

But while Holmes and his biographer didn't have much regard for their official colleagues' acumen, they acknowledged their bravery. "Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard..." wrote Dr Watson in "The Adventure of the Red Circle".

Less than two decades later, in another set of tales, their capability is beyond reproach. The British Ambassador in Paris seeks Scotland Yard detectives when a subordinate is found murdered. Two are dispatched, who solve the case, arresting the murderer and securing a confession in 10 days flat, and are ready to go home. They are taken to meet the envoy who, informed they are leaving, splutters: "You've had to give the case up?" Told of their success, he says: "Thank heavens I sent for you."

This could be because these tales -- among the first police procedurals -- were written by a policeman himself, and a remarkable one. Sir Basil Home Thomson (1861-1939) was also a colonial administrator, prison governor, intelligence officer, writer -- and one of the first victims of an alleged sting.

After Eton, he went to Oxford, but left after two terms due to "depression" and spent the next two years farming in the US. Joining the Colonial Service, he spent about a decade in Fiji and Tonga. Back in Britain, he was called to the Bar, but chose to become Deputy Governor of Liverpool prison and spent a decade in prison administration.

In 1913, Thomson became Assistant Commissioner "C" (Crime) of Metropolitan Police, or head of the CID at New Scotland Yard. When World War I broke out, the CID was MI5's enforcement arm, and Thomson led its fights against spies (he personally interrogated Mata Hari) and Irish and Indian revolutionaries. In 1919, he was also made overall charge of all intelligence agencies, but two years later, removed without explanation. Thomson, writing for nearly a quarter century now -- about his experiences in South Pacific ("South Sea Yarns") in policing and counter-intelligence ("Queer People", re-titled "Odd People" in modern reprint), now turned to crime fiction.

In 1925, came a volume of stories -- and he was arrested for "public indecency" in a London park. His defence was not helped by his vague explanations about why he met the woman and he was fined five pounds (however, there are many questions about the case -- the woman was a prostitute and her fine was paid by a journalist). But, two years hence, Thomson was back in action, advising on Siamese police reforms.

It is crime fiction that accounts for most of his two-dozen-odd books and the most engaging are the eight-installment Richardson series (all appearing within four years) with their varied premises, unique characters, and maintaining suspense with plenty of red herrings, twists and turns, but all in a brisk, sparkling style.

The crimes are mostly murder, usually with robbery and later drugs, around England, as well as France, solved through collecting clues and evidence, interrogating suspects, and checking alibis.

The focus is on hard work -- as a team. "Real life is quite unlike detective fiction; in fact, in detective work fiction is stranger than truth. Mr Sherlock Holmes, to whom I take off my hat with a silent prayer that he may never appear in the flesh, worked by induction, but not, so far as I am able to judge, by the only method which gets home, namely organisation and team work," he wrote in "Odd People".

The series features a remarkable career progression for the hero, who begins as a beat constable in "Richardson's First Case" (1933) but impresses superiors with his quick thinking to be taken into the CID, is soon an inspector and ends up Chief Constable. However, not much is told about his background, save that he is Scottish, and finds his wife in his sixth outing ("Who Killed Stella Pomeroy?").

And he is not always in the thick of things. In "The Case of the Dead Diplomat", it is his better French-speaking sergeant who plays a bigger role, while in his last two outings -- "The Milliner's Hat Mystery" and "A Murder is Arranged" -- Richardson only guides his subordinates. In quite a few, young publisher Jim Milsom also lends a hand.

A classic of "Golden Age Crime", the series is a treat for those fond of mental puzzles in bygone eras and after long unavailability, easily and reasonably obtainable online (less than Rs 50 each).

(Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )
New Delhi, Dec 4 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday greeted Indian Navy personnel on the occasion of Navy Day.

"Navy Day greetings to all navy personnel & their families. We cherish the vital role of the navy & salute the bravery of our navy personnel," Modi said in a tweet.

Navy Day is celebrated on December 4 every year to celebrate the Indian Navy's achievements and commemorate the sacrifices made by their personnel.
Amritsar, Dec 4 : Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday unambiguously named Pakistan for promoting terrorism and said no amount of financial assistance can help stabilise the war-ravaged nation if "support to terrorists" from the neighbouring country continued.

Ghani, in his blunt remarks at the inaugural function of the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan', said military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists.

"The state-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. A Taliban figure said recently if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last for more than a month," Ghani said at the two-day event here on the development of Afghanistan, which is also being attended by Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz.

The Afghan President thanked Pakistan for its pledge to donate $500 million for reconstruction of the war-ravaged nation but, directly addressing Pakistan's top diplomat, said: "I hope, Mr. Aziz, that you use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan."

Ghani shared India's concern on cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan and said the world needed to fight the "menace".

"Afghanistan suffered the highest number number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable. Some (countries) still provide sanctuary for terrorists."

The President said he didn't want to engage in a blame game at the event in this Punjab city that was being attended by leaders from south and central Asia and several western countries.

He said he wanted clarification on what is being done to "prevent the export of terror".

Modi, in his address, all but named Pakistan for supporting and financing terrorism, and urged the world to act against the forces that endanger peace in the entire South Asian region.

"We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks. Support for peace alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action," Modi said.

"Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters...."

Modi said mere action against "forces of terrorism" was not enough and the world also needed to act against "those who support, shelter and finance them".

Ghani earlier appreciated India's unconditional support for the economic development of Afghanistan and said the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and his country was very important for regional trade and connectivity.

He spoke about India's assistance in the construction of Salma dam -- officially called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam -- that was inaugurated on June 4, 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Ghani in Herat province of that country.

The President said the Chabahar port development project "is very important for connectivity and commerce".

India and Iran signed a bilateral agreement in May 2016 to refurbish the port on the Gulf of Oman that is expected to provide an alternative route for trade between India and Afghanistan.

Thanking India for further assistance of $1 billion, the Aghan President said: "An air corridor will also be soon launched and will improve trade ties.

"Some 20,000 Afghan students are studying in India. These students go back and help transform and reconstruct Afghanistan."

He said India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached.

"There are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan. We thank India for that."

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
New Delhi/Kanpur, Dec 4 : After serving the Indian armed forces in various capacities, the German-origin, India-made twin-turboprop Dornier Do-228 aircraft is soon expected to don the colours of flag carrier Air India to boost regional connectivity.

The aircraft, best known for its specialist roles of surveillance, transport, search and rescue, has been found fit by the national passenger carrier to provide ferrying services under the country's ambitious regional connectivity scheme (RCS) christened as UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik).

According to two senior officials with the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Air India has shown interest in at least two civilian versions of the 19-seater aircraft.

"Air India has shown interest in the Dornier aircraft. This has sprung from the fact that the aircraft has a very low operational and maintenance cost," a senior HAL official told IANS on condition of anonymity.

"Even in terms of the overall off-the-shelf price and lifecycle costs, the aircraft is far too competitive to its closest rivals, not to mention the proven track record of the aircraft with the Indian armed forces," the official told IANS on the phone from Kanpur, where the aircraft is manufactured under licence.

The official elaborated that though due diligence has been conducted by Air India, the two parties are yet to enter into a formal agreement for purchasing the two aircraft.

"We are currently manufacturing two Dornier aircraft for civilian roles which will be ready by the mid of next year," the official said.

The twin-turboprop, high-wing aircraft has been used for different purposes, such as VIP transport, surveillance, air observation, air ambulance services, cargo and logistics support, and maritime surveillance.

Last year, the aircraft had received regulatory approval from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for a civilian role in accordance with the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR 21G).

The aircraft originally manufactured by RUAG -- a Swiss technology major -- is being license manufactured by HAL since the 1980s at its Kanpur facility.

Air India, which will participate in the upcoming reverse-bidding round for allocation of RCS routes on December 5, is said to have selected the aircraft for its low-operational cost.

This may be the second innings of the aircraft in civilian role after it had served the few civil aviation players more than two decades ago.

"Operating a small aircraft with lesser number of seats jacks up the total operational cost manifolds. So an aircraft with an overall low operational and maintenance cost is best chosen for these types of operations," an Air India official said.

The UDAN scheme envisages enhancing air passenger traffic in the country by stimulating demand on regional routes.

The operations under the scheme are intended to provide air connectivity to unserved and remote routes, with airfare being capped at Rs 2,500 for an hour's journey of around 500 km.

The allocation of routes under the scheme will be based on a reverse bidding mechanism, with selected airlines getting a VGF (viability gap funding), apart from various other financial concessions for a period of three years.

While the central government is expected to provide concessions in the form of reduced excise duty and service tax, the state governments will have to lower the VAT (value added tax) on air turbine fuel (ATF) to one per cent or less.

Besides, the state governments would not charge on security and fire services, and electricity, water and other utilities would be provided at concessional rates.

On their part, airport operators will not impose landing and parking charges and terminal navigation landing fees. They would also offer discounts on route navigation facility charges.

As per another HAL official, "Last year, the HAL board sanctioned the production of two civil Dornier aircraft. HAL intends to operate these from its own airport at Nashik."

Last month, the Union cabinet had approved the purchase of 12 Dornier aircraft for the Indian Navy for Rs 2,500 crore.

Currently, HAL is manufacturing 16 Dornier aircraft for various customers, including the IAF. In 2015, the HAL had bagged an order for 14 Do-228 aircraft for the IAF.

(Rohit Srivastava can be contacted at rohit.s@ians.in and Rohit Vaid can be contacted at rohit.v@ians.in)
Amritsar, Dec 4 : Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday unambiguously named Pakistan for supporting cross-border terror and shared Prime Minister Narendra Modi's concern over the threat that has endangered "peace in the entire South Asian region".

Ghani and Modi spoke in the presence of Islamabad's top diplomat Sartaj Aziz, who appeared shocked with the Afghan President's blunt remarks at the inaugural function of the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' held in this Punjab city near India's border with Pakistan.

While Ghani was unequivocal in asserting that Pakistan was the source of cross-border terror in his country, Modi didn't name any nation but urged the world to act against "those who support, shelter, train and finance" terrorists.

The Afghan President said the Pakistan military was selective in fighting terrorists and sought to know what was being done to "prevent the export of terror".

"The state-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. As Mr. Kakazada, one of the key figures in the Taliban movement, recently said if they didn't have sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," Ghani said.

He directly addressed Aziz, Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief, and said no amount of financial assistance can help stabilise the war-ravaged Afghanistan if "support to terrorists" continued from the neighbouring country.

Ghani thanked Pakistan for its pledge to donate $500 million for Afghan reconstruction but said: "This fund, Mr. Aziz, could very well be used for containing extremism because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people."

"Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable. Some (countries) still provide sanctuary for terrorists."

Modi was not as blunt as his Afghan guest. The Prime Minister, however, called for collective will to fight terrorists.

"We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks. Support for peace alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action," Modi said.

"Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters."

The conference, attended by representatives of over two dozen countries and international groupings, was aimed at finding ways to help Afghanistan, battling decades of unending war, in its political and economic transition.

Modi emphasised that bilateral and regional commitments of assistance for Afghanistan's development must continue and increase. He said India's commitment to the country was "absolute and unwavering".

Ghani earlier appreciated India's unconditional support for the economic development of his country and said the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and Afghanistan was very important for regional trade and connectivity.

He spoke about India's assistance in the construction of Salma dam -- officially called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam -- that was inaugurated in June by Modi along with Ghani in Herat province.

The President said the Chabahar port development project "is very important for connectivity and commerce".

India and Iran signed a bilateral agreement in May 2016 to refurbish the port on the Gulf of Oman that is expected to provide an alternative route for New Delhi-Kabul trade.

Thanking India for further assistance of $1 billion, the Aghan President said: "An air corridor will also be soon launched and will improve trade ties.

(Vishal Gulati can be reached at vishal.g@ians.in)
Agartala, Dec 4 : Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar on Sunday met the family members of Chittaranjan Debbarma, who was killed in a terror attack on an army camp near Jammu on November 29.

"The Chief Minister visited the residence of Debbarma at Gaishing Para and talked to his wife Namita, parents and other relatives," a Khowai district administration official said. Gaishing Para is 80 km north of Agartala.

The official said that the Chief Minister, accompanied by Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council Chairman Ranjit Debbarma, asked the Khowai District Magistrate and Collector to take up all relevant matters of the slain soldier with the Indian Army authorities for their immediate resolution.

"Our brave Tripura soldier Chittaranjan Debbarma was martyred while protecting our country. We stand with his family in their tough times. The state government would always stand by them," Sarkar later told the media.

Two officers and five army soldiers, including Debbarma, were killed last Tuesday when terrorists stormed a military base at Nagrota near Jammu. Three attackers were also gunned down.

Debbarma's last rites were performed at Gaishing Para village in West Tripura with full military honours and in the presence of thousands of villagers and his family members.
Amritsar, Dec 4 : An international conference on Afghanistan here on Sunday called for immediate elimination of terrorism to help the war-ravaged country in its political and economic transition.

The Amritsar Declaration, issued after the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in this Punjab city near India's border with Pakistan, "recognises terrorism as the biggest threat to peace" and demanded "immediate end to all forms of terrorism".

Citing the declaration, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who chaired the meeting in the absence of ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, said: "We remain concerned by high level of violence in Afghanistan caused by Taliban, terrorist groups including Al Qaeda, Daesh (Islamic State) and its affiliates."

"We strongly call for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, including dismantling of terrorist safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial and logistical support for terrorism."
Amritsar, Dec 4 : India scored a major diplomatic victory over its rival neighbour after an international conference on Afghanistan here on Sunday named Pakistan-based terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, as grave threats to peace in the South Asian region.

The resolution, called Amritsar Declaration, adopted at the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in this Punjab city near India's border with Pakistan, said it was "concerned by the gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan, in particular, and the region".

The declaration said that among other terror groups propagating "high level of violence" were "the Taliban, Daesh (Islamic State) and its affiliates, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida ... Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan ... and other foreign terrorist fighters".

"Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region", the joint declaration demanded "an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism".

Citing the declaration, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who chaired the meeting in the absence of ailing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, said the document "strongly" called for "concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, including dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the Heart of Asia region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terrorism".

Jaitly said terrorism was the "core" of deliberations and "at the centrestage" of the Afghan conference that was also attended by Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz.

The mention of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation is an Indian diplomatic victory over its western neighbour -- accused of using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy since decades.

Indian efforts to include names of the terrorist groups, the Lashkar and Jaish, in the Goa Declaration of the October Brics summit had failed after China allegedly scuttled the move.

New Delhi alleges that the Lashkar and Jaish have been enjoying financial and logistical support from the Pakistan government and its agencies and were being used as tools to disrupt peace in India. Pakistan denies this.

Jaitley said that for India the issue of connectivity for Afghanistan was also important. "The focus area for India is developing infrastructure in Afghanistan. Housing and skill development are also on our agenda."

The two-day ministerial conference, which concluded on Sunday, was attended by delegations from 14 participating countries, supporting countries and international organisations - 45 in all.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
New Delhi, Dec 4 : A youth was found stabbed to death near a school here on Sunday morning, police said.

The body was found near the private school in Sangam Vihar of south Delhi by passers-by, who informed police. It was identified as of Feroze, 19, who helped his father in their automobile workshop in the same area.

The youth was missing from on night and family members searched for him but without any success, his uncle Dilshad told IANS.

He said Feroze was involved in a fight with some local youth over some issue and they could be involved in the crime.

According to police, it seemed Feroze was attacked with a sharp-edged instrument like the one used for breaking up ice-blocks. "We have found multiple stab wounds at his body and sent it to AIIMS for post mortem examination in AIIMS," said an officer, adding investigations were on and nearby CCTV camera footage was being examined to identify the murderers.
Amritsar, Dec 4 : An international conference on Sunday named Pakistan-based terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as grave threats to peace in the region after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani unambiguously dubbed the neighbour as a terror sanctuary, sharing India's concern over cross-border violence.

In a major diplomatic victory for India, the joint resolution adopted at the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' said among other terror groups propagating "high level of violence" were "the Taliban, Daesh (Islamic State) and its affiliates, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaida ... Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan...".

Also called the Amritsar Declaration, the resolution said participating countries and groupings were "concerned by the gravity of the security situation in the region" and demanded "an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing".

Earlier, Ghani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in the presence of Islamabad's top diplomat Sartaj Aziz at the start of the summit held in this Punjab city near India's border with Pakistan.

While Ghani was unequivocal in asserting that Pakistan was the source of cross-border terror in his country, Modi didn't name any nation but urged the world to act against "those who support, shelter, train and finance" terrorists.

Aziz appeared shocked with the Afghan President's blunt remarks.

Ghani said the Pakistan military was selective in fighting terrorists on its soil and sought to know what was being done to "prevent the export of terror".

"The state-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. As Mr. Kakazada, one of the key figures in the Taliban movement, recently said if they didn't have sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," he asserted.

Directly addressing Aziz, Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief, the President urged Islambad to fight militants rather than giving financial assistance to his country ravaged by decades of war and terrorism.

Ghani thanked Pakistan for its pledge to donate $500 million, but said: "This fund, Mr. Aziz, could very well be used for containing extremism because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people."

"Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable. Some countries still provide sanctuary for terrorists."

Modi was not as blunt as his Afghan guest.

"We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks. Support for peace alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action," the Prime Minister said.

"Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters."

Aziz rejected the allegations and said it was unfair to blame Pakistan for rising terrorist violence in the region.

"It's simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view," said the diplomat who advises Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on foreign policy issues.

The conference, attended by representatives of some 14 countries and international groupings -- 45 in all -- was to find ways to help Afghanistan in its political and economic transition.

The strong remarks against Pakistan and the mention of the terror outfits in the declaration came as India has mounted pressure on Islamabad, asking it end terrorism emanating from across the border.

It is seen as India's victory in seeking to diplomatically isolate Pakistan, a neighbour accused of using terrorism as a foreign policy instrument for decades.

Indian efforts to include names of the terrorist groups in the Goa Declaration of the October Brics summit had failed after China allegedly scuttled the move.

New Delhi alleges that the Lashkar and Jaish have been enjoying financial and logistical support from the Pakistan government and its agencies and were being used as tools to disrupt peace in India. Pakistan denies this.

Islamabad has been objecting to what it calls New Delhi's interference in Afghanistan aimed to disrupt Pakistan's western border regions.

But Modi said Indian assistance to Afghanistan would continue as its commitment was "absolute and unwavering".

Ghani appreciated India's unconditional support and said the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and Afghanistan was very important for regional trade and connectivity.

He spoke about India's assistance in the construction of Salma dam -- officially called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam -- that was inaugurated in June by Modi along with Ghani in Herat province.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
Chennai, Dec 4 : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and is being treated by a team of specialists at Apollo Hospitals, the hospital said.

In a statement issued here, the hospital said: "She is being treated and monitored by a team of doctors including cardiologists, pulmonologists and critical care specialists."

It is learnt Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao is returning here on Sunday night from Mumbai.

The evening saw hectic activity at Apollo Hospitals with senior officials and others assembling there.

Some of the AIADMK cadre assembled outside the hospital broke down on hearing about the news and were fervently praying for her well-being.

The 68-year-old AIADMK supremo was admitted to the hospital for treatment of fever and dehydration on September 22.

The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection, and put her on respiratory support.

According to Apollo Hospitals, a team of specialist doctors -- cardiologists, respiratory physicians, consultants for infectious diseases, diabetologist and endocrinologist -- treated her.

Recently Apollo Hospitals Chairman Pratap C. Reddy told media that Jayalalithaa is returning to normalcy and all her vital organs are functioning well.

She was shifted out of Intensive Care Unit as there were no health complications, he had said.

Reddy also said Jayalalithaa can go home whenever she decides to do so.
Panaji, Dec 4 : Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee have been rattled by the sudden demonetisation decision, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Sunday, adding that it had made "thousands of crores of rupees" from a chit fund scam, useless overnight.

"The demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes may have upset Mayawati, Mamata and Mulayam, but it has not upset the Bharatiya Janata Party. Those who have looted thousands of crore through chit funds will be upset anyway," he said, obviously hinting at the Saradha chit fund scam which rocked West Bengal which was exposed in 2013.

"They did not keep it in 100 rupee notes, but in 1,000 rupees notes. Suddenly, the loss of losing thousands of crores of rupees in one night was such, that a Chief Minister started accusing the army of taking over a state," he said at a poll rally in Siolim assembly constituency.

He also said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's charge against the army robbed him of his night's sleep.

"You must have seen it day before yesterday. It disturbed my sleep at night. I checked, but the army said that we have informed them (state government). We gave them letters, discussed with them. They even gave us the locations. Then I slept," he said.
Vienna, Dec 4 : Austria's far-right candidate Norbert Hofer has conceded victory to independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen in the presidential election, his campaign manager said on Sunday.

The Austrian presidency is largely ceremonial but the vote had been seen as a sign of how well populist candidates might do in upcoming elections in the European Union, BBC reported.

The result is sure to be welcomed by establishment parties and officials in the EU.

The election was a re-run of May's poll which suffered irregularities.

Former Green Party head Van der Bellen had a clear lead, according to projections.

France, the Netherlands and Germany all face elections next year, in which anti-mainstream and anti-immigration parties are gaining ground.

Hofer had campaigned on an anti-immigration platform amid disquiet in Austria at an influx of refugees.

He had also suggested Austria could follow Britain's vote to leave the EU with a referendum of its own but later appeared to row back, suggesting changing the bloc into a purely economic association.
Amritsar, Dec 4 : Sartaj Aziz, Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and his delegation, who came to attend the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process conference on Afghanistan's peace process on Sunday were denied permission to visit the historic Golden Temple here.

Sources here said given that Sunday, December 4, also being Guru Tegh Bahadur's Martyrdom Day, the shrine was crowded.

"Apart from difficulties in ensuring security of VVIPs and VIPs, their (Pakistan delegation's) visit to Golden Temple today would have caused inconvenience to a large number of devotees," a source said.

On Saturday, after the senior officials' meeting of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process conference on Afghanistan's security and economic development, participants visited the Golden Temple after lunch.

On Saturday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani also made the trip to the holy shrine with Modi also distributing "langar" to devotees.

The sources said that two rounds of visits to the Golden Temple by VVIPs and VIPs were organised on Saturday.

"The Pakistan delegation's request for visit to the Golden Temple today was carefully looked into," a source here said.

"Given the aforementioned factors, it was not found feasible to organise adequate security for the delegation at such a a short notice."
Mumbai, Dec 4 : Shoojit Sircar's critically-acclaimed "Pink" bagged as many as four awards, including for the Best Film, at the 23rd Star Screen Awards 2016 here on Sunday.

While megastar Amitabh Bachchan received the Best Actor award for the film, Aditya Bannerji got the Best Editing award and Ritesh Shah got the Best Dialogue award for "Pink".

Actress Alia Bhatt received the best actress award for "Udta Punjab".

One of the highlights of Star Screen Awards 2016 was Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan coming together to host the event. However, the show's first segment was hosted by Karan Johar and Karan Singh Grover.

As evergreen beauty Rekha was bestowed with the Lifetime achievement award. Actress Sonam Kapoor did a special performance on Rekha and the veteran actress also enthralled audience with a performance on a popular old song.

The Critics Choice For Best Actor award went to Sushant Singh Rajput for "M.S. Dhoni - The Untold Story" and the Critics Choice For Best Actress went to Swara Bhaskar for "Nil Battey Sannata".

Several Bollywood celebrities attended the award function including Alia, Varun Dhawan, Kriti Sanon, Bipasha Basu, Harshvardhan Kapoor, Huma Quereshi, Sonam, Divya Khosla Kumar among others.
Chennai, Dec 5 : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa was in a critical condition after suffering a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and is being treated by a team of specialists at Apollo Hospitals where she has been admitted since late September.

Crowds thronged the hospital while top leaders and common people across India prayed for her well-being and recovery.

"The Apollo TN CM #Jayalalita is critical.multi speciality team @hospitalsapollo trying everything including ecmo.praying for her recovery," tweeted Apollo Hospitals Managing Director Sangita Reddy.

Earlier, the hospital said, in a statement: "The Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, Greams Road, Chennai, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening. She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts including cardiologists, pulmonologist and the critical care specialists."

It later said in a tweet that she "is on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and is being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists".

"Dr Richard Beale from London has also been consulted and he has concurred with the line of treatment by our cardiologists & pulmonologists," it said in another tweet.

In a later tweet, the hospital said: "The Hon'ble CM is the beloved leader of the masses. Please join us in praying for her speedy recovery. #GodblessAmma #Jayalalithaa."

Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao, who has additional charge of the state, returned from Mumbai and visited the hospital to enquire about her condition.

While a large police contingent was deployed at the hospital, reports said that security was being stepped up across the state.

State ministers, senior officials and others gathered at the hospital, as did a huge crowd of AIADMK cadre, many of whom broke down while others fervently prayed for her recovery. Some tried to enter the hospital premises but were restrained.

President Pranab Mukherjee wished Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

"Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery," said a post on the President's official Twitter account.

DMK chief M. Karunanidhi and his son and party leader M.K. Stalin also took to Twitter to convey their wishes for her speedy recovery.

"Wishing #jayalalithaa Hon CM of TN a speedy recovery, Let her be healthy soon," tweeted Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

"Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon," said Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on his official Twitter handle.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern over the health of her Tamil Nadu counterpart, and wished her a speedy recovery.

"Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her," tweeted Banerjee.

"Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health. Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery!" posted Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, while his Rajasthan counterpart Vasundhara Raje tweeted: "Prayers for the speedy recovery of Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji. May she get recover soon."

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad tweeted: "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Let's all pray for her."

The 68-year-old Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital for treatment of fever and dehydration on September 22. The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection, and put her on respiratory support.

Recently Apollo Hospitals Chairman Pratap C. Reddy told media that Jayalalithaa is returning to normalcy, and had been shifted out of Intensive Care Unit as there were no health complications. She could go home whenever she decides to do so, he had said.
The author presents a progressive interpretation of debris drift map in the area of the Oceanic crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. In the meantime, the surface and underwater searches, according to the ATSB, who led the search, reported no results for wreckage of aircraft. Models of MH370 debris drifts, being consistent with a general oceanic currents direction, are partially in agreement with satellite data and known debris chronology.

The authors research utilizes experimental approaches in the study of possible alternative crash locations for the missing MH370 aircraft. There has been a controversy regarding the site of the accident of the MH370. Recent findings suggest in a review that there could be two possible debris crash sites.

The author centered his experimental simulation on the possibility of debris transport across the North Indian Ocean to explain the unique flaperon appearance at Reunion Island. The simulations, by mapping experiments, use a graphical visualization of a possible conveying exchange for the North Gyre debris. The traced simulations, according to the examinations, have an inclination towards the coast of South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, and India, that is in agreement with the debris discovered in 2016.

Findings recently indicate that fragments and wreckage debris of the MH370 flight were located near the coast of Madagascar at Reunion Island. During 2016, new debris fragments were reported off the coast of South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Madagascar. A simulation study demonstrates that there could be two possible impact sites for the crash of flight MH370.

In the study, Lev Vozchikov (http://file.scirp.org/pdf/OJAppS_2016022615425842.pdf) showed that the probable debris crash sites of MH370 could be the Indian coast or the Australian coast. The simulations and assumptions were based on drift satellite observation of ocean currents in the Indian Ocean.

Experimental simulation map results given in the article centered on the current, satellite pointed underwater location search approach. The first debris was found in 2015 off the coast of Madagascar - Reunion Island.

In the experimental simulation conducted by the author, varied comparisons of the start point made on the South and North Gyre prototypes, which allowed for the actual computation and boosting of the explanations underlying mappings of debris drift.

The advanced calculations on the NASAs Oceanic Drift Ship simulator as made in the 2014-2015 seasons range successfully proved the positive results from the drawings developed.

The simulated computation was based on the interval statistics of oceanic debris transport - the cyclical flow of ocean currents, the surface winds of the marine region, and the data observed regarding the location of the flaperon. The time lag between the data of the accident, - March 08 2014 and the appearance of the flaperon at the Reunion Island, - 2015 was considered as the constant in the regression analysis or the simulation analysis. The graphical mapping of two alternative start points of the debris crash could be obtained from the simulation/regression satellite observer analysis. These two sites are the West Indian coast and the West Australian coast.

Drifter (flaperon) examination in a simulation resumes the possibility of traces leading to the coast of South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, and India. New debris was discovered there by 2016, confirmed later as being from MH370, in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Madagascar, which supported the precision assumptions of experimental research to forecast marine debris appearance. We can definitely conclude from the summary of the article debris appearance off the Indian Coast.

The study interval statistics indicated the strong possibility the North Indian Gyre was transporting the debris from the point of the crash. These assumptions were based on correlation data of the time of arrival of debris and the speed of the North Indian, and South Indian gyre. Initially, the search operations were based off the coast of Australia. However, the alternative methods of search based on simulation and interval statistics indicated that the site of the crash could have been the start points of North Indian Gyre.

The derived simulations off the Bengal Bay and the Australian coast traced back to the Reunion Island. It was definite that the location of the alternative points was on the seventh arc, and this in comparison indicates a possible reliable prediction as the start point. The study depicted from the summary indicates that the debris drift was closer to the Indian coast. Two points were necessary to execute to emulate the experimental graphical map. A resulting map is the best approximation known at this time.

Although the inferential statistics indicated the possibility of a North Indian gyre, the statistical analysis carried out through time-series analysis followed the transport of debris based on ocean current movements observed in the North Indian Gyre and South Indian Gyre.

Experimental study depicted in the summary of the tracing showed that the wreckage drift was closer to the Indian coast. From the previous research published in OJAppS journal, there was no consensus regarding debris schedule, since the factual knowledge proved the presence of five debris pieces on the coast of Africa.

Author contact

Special Transportation, STA

Lev Vozchikov

Phone: 1-203-602-9958

Key Words:

Transport, debris, drift, MH370, prognosis
Dallas 100 It was an honor to be recognized among other entrepreneurs and celebrate innovation in our community, - Tom Bronson, President and CEO

This week, Granbury Solutions was honored as part of the Dallas 100 Entrepreneur Awards. Co-founded by the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship in 1990, the Dallas 100 Awards is an annual event that identifies and honors the 100 fastest-growing privately held companies in the Dallas area. For 26 years, the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship at the SMU Cox School of Business and the Dallas 100 sponsors have celebrated the innovative spirit, determination and business savvy of area entrepreneurs.

To be eligible, companies must be headquartered in the Dallas area and had to have been in business for three or more years with sales between $500,000 and $75 million in 2013. Granbury Solutions was formed in 2010 by bringing together some of the hospitality industrys leading technologies to provide small business owners with affordable and modern tools for success. Granbury now serves other entrepreneurs across the restaurant, wine, and retail industries with a suite of technology products.

It was an honor to be recognized among other entrepreneurs and celebrate innovation in our community, said Tom Bronson, President and CEO of Granbury. Entrepreneurship is something we see in our own clients every day, and we recognize the passion and drive it takes to be successful in todays competitive landscape.

Granbury was also recognized this year as a member of the Inc 5000 and one of the top 10 Fast Tech companies in north Texas by Tech Titans.

About Granbury Solutions

A leading provider of technology to the wine, pizza, delivery, specialty coffee, quick serve and casual dining markets, Granbury Solutions provides the Thr!ve Point-of-Sale, Coffee Shop Manager, and vinSuite technology solutions. Granbury also serves the specialty retail market with its Nova point-of-sale division. Learn more about Granbury Solutions at http://www.granburyrs.com.
The Stevie Awards, recognized internationally as The Worlds Premier Business Awards, awarded Monica Eaton-Cardone, the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Chargebacks911, first-place for Innovator of the Year for Women in Business and the silver award for Female Executive of the Year.

The 2016 Stevie Awards were announced at a dinner gala in New York City, and the nations represented at the ceremony included Argentina, Australia, Canada, Croatia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, South Africa, Spain, UAE, United Kingdom and the United States.

Winning just one Stevie Award wouldve been a tremendous honor, but capturing both a gold and a silver is a very humbling experience, said Ms. Eaton-Cardone. Im so grateful to our entire team of hard-working, dedicated professionals. Their commitment to excellence is what makes Chargebacks911 so special  and because of their success, eCommerce is now safer and more affordable for merchants and consumers. I truly believe were making the world a better place.

Chargebacks911 is a Tampa-based business that is dedicated to helping online merchants eliminate chargeback fraud and resolve transactional disputes. Founded in 2011, the company manages over 200 million transactions every month and has 400+ worldwide employees, with corporate offices throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. The company can be found online at chargebacks911.com.

The judges were effusive in their praise of Ms. Eaton-Cardone and Chargebacks911. Their comments include:

An advocate for professionalism and whats right. A proactive, innovative leader, making a difference and delivering results.

Terrific blend of driving growth, strategy, and giving back.

Solid business results through operational excellence.

Real commitment, passion, and innovation demonstrated.

Your accomplishments are many, but I commend you for the team that you are creating and the culture which will allow you to continue to grow exponentially. Your volunteer work is inspiring

Monica exemplifies the modern, success business woman.

For interview opportunities with Chargebacks911 co-founder and COO Monica Eaton-Cardone about eCommerce, public policy and/or business advice, please contact Scott Pinsker at s.pinsker(at)chargebacks911(dot)com or 727.871.3204.

About Chargebacks911: Founded in 2011, Chargebacks911 is the first global company fully dedicated to mitigating chargeback risk and eliminating chargeback fraud. As industry-leading trailblazers and innovators, Chargebacks911 is credited with developing the most effective strategies for helping online merchants maximize revenue and fight fraud. Accomplishments include:



Chargebacks911 manages over 200 million transactions every month

Over one million chargebacks have been successfully fought

Up to 92 percent of chargeback fraud recovered in 45 days or less

Chargebacks911 provides the industry's only win-rate and ROI guarantee

Chargebacks911s innovative solutions and exemplary customer service has earned a vast array of prestigious awards and honors, including The Stevie Award for Best Business-to-Business Product, Entrepreneur Magazines Best Companies list, and the 2016 Lions Den Winner for Best Industry Solution

Chargebacks911s unparalleled category-experience and ISD technology quickly identifies the true source of chargebacks; recovers lost revenue; mediates disputes; safeguards the merchants reputation; monitors transactions 24/7; and helps proactively prevent future fraud. A division of Global Risk Technologies, Chargebacks911 is headquartered in Tampa Bay, Florida, with offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. To learn more about Chargebacks911, please visit chargebacks911.com or call 877.634.9808.
WHAT

Dr. Bruce McCandliss, a renowned scholar on developmental cognitive neuroscience, will deliver a lecture titled Early Education and the Brain: Making Novel Connections as part of the American Educational Research Associations Centennial Lecture Series. The event is open to the public.

McCandliss, a professor and head of the Educational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Stanford University, will discuss new insights into the connections between brain science and early educational success. Early elementary school is a time of remarkable transformations in cognitive skills that become the pillars of intellectual growthincluding literacy and mathematical abilities. It is also a time of remarkable challenge for educational systems that struggle to serve the needs of learners in carrying out these transformations successfully. Developmental cognitive neuroscience provides a unique vantage point for understanding these transformations, by linking specific cognitive functions to brain circuitry in the mind of a young learner.

McCandliss 20-to-30-minute long lecture will be followed by a discussion moderated by Linda Shaw, Education Editor at The Seattle Times. During the discussion, several experts will comment on McCandliss talk and join him in fielding questions from the audience.

AERAs Centennial Lecture Series is a series of six education research lectures held across the country as part of the associations centennial celebration.

WHO

Bruce McCandliss is the head of the Educational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Stanford University where he is a professor in the Graduate School of Education and the Department of Psychology (by courtesy). His research uses the tools of developmental cognitive neuroscience to study individual differences and educational transformations in key cognitive skills such as attention, literacy, and mathematics. He was a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE) for his work in linking early literacy interventions to brain mechanisms. Read More.

WHEN

Tuesday, December 6, 2016, at 6 p.m. PST

Reception to follow

WHERE

Benaroya Hall

200 University St.

Seattle, WA

TO RSVP

To RSVP to attend the lecture visit http://www.aera100.net/bruce-mccandliss.html.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Visit http://www.aera100.net/cls.html.

Social Media

The hashtag for the AERA Centennial Lectures is is #AERALectures.

About AERA

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning. Founded in 1916, AERA advances knowledge about education, encourages scholarly inquiry related to education, and promotes the use of research to improve education and serve the public good.

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP)  Dave Kinzer's music class is jamming to the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Matishyahu  on ukulele.

The 15-year veteran teacher told the (Springfield) State Journal-Register that his students at Springfield's Ball Charter School stay focused on lessons because they are busy with the instruments in their hands.

Kinzer was awarded a $2,200 grant to purchase 27 of the four-string instruments.

The teacher focuses on an instrument each year. He says he might ditch the recorder, xylophone or piano in the future because of the kids' strumming success.

Students were hesitant at first but soon joined in when they realized they could change chords and strum.

Sixth-grader Mario Garcia-Perez says his favorite song is the Beatles' "Paperback Writer." He says the ukulele is easier and more fun than he imagined.
A showdown looms as thousands of veterans from around the country head to North Dakota to shield Dakota Access Pipeline protesters from police.

The plan by an unarmed citizens militia, called Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, coincides with North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymples order to evacuate a protesters camp near the pipeline construction site in Cannon Ball, N.D., south of Bismarck.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which leases the lands for grazing, has also ordered the camp closed to all public access as of Monday. Both said the threat of approaching winter weather to public safety required their action.

The Corps of Engineers has said it wont forcibly roust the camp, which has grown to an estimated 10,000 people. However, if campers stay, it is at their own risk, officials said. Temperatures can fall to the single digits during the day and below zero at night in winter. Snow and strong winds also arrived this past week.

Emergency services to the camp will not be guaranteed under the Dalrymples evacuation unless approved case-by-case by the state Highway Patrol or the Morton County sheriff.

Protesters say they will stay, and about 2,000 veterans are expected to arrive Sunday to join the fight by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its allies against the pipeline.

The $3.8 billion oil pipeline through four states is finished except for the last portion, where it would cross under the Missouri River, less than a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Developer Energy Transfer Partners of Houston has yet to obtain the easement it needs from the Corps of Engineers to cross under the river and finish the project.

A fight over the easement is tied up in federal court, and the company has said in federal court documents that it cant finish the project on schedule by Jan. 1 as it promised in long-term contracts to shippers. The company says it is losing about $2.7 million a day as the project is delayed, and its shippers may cancel their contracts.

No construction or drilling work has begun on either side of the river, said Gary Sanders, the sheriff of Emmons County, across the river from the protest camp. The only people on site at the drilling pads are security personnel, as Energy Transfer Partners waits for the easement to allow drilling under the river, Sanders said. Its a waiting game.

In a Facebook post, the veterans' group outlined one possible tactic: to walk in an unbroken line shoulder to shoulder through police to reach the drill pad for the pipelines crossing under the river and encircle it.

Some fear more violence as confrontations have escalated, most recently Nov. 20 when police clashed with demonstrators, sending 26 people to the hospital.

I have always considered the police to be friends, but to be on the front lines that Sunday night was the closest I have ever been to war, said Victory Lonnquist, of Seattle, who has been working as a volunteer medic at Standing Rock since summer.

About 300 people were treated for chemical contamination and hypothermia after being tear-gassed, hit with pepper spray and rubber bullets and sprayed with fire hoses in freezing weather.

Lonnquist said she fears worse to come.

I am worried someones going to die, Lonnquist said. I wouldnt have said that two weeks ago. But being on that bridge and watching them purposely give us hypothermia not once but for six hours, I would grab a patient by the jacket and just crunch through a sheet of ice.  It scares me, what could come.

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock will take its direction from tribal elders, said Marshal Hunter, of Seattle, who coordinated veterans leaving for North Dakota. We are there to be peaceful, and there to be nonviolent, Hunter said.

Police have said demonstrators have been aggressive, militant, broken the law by trespassing, vandalism, arson and thrown rocks, and damaged a bridge when they burned vehicles.

I think most people would agree with the ideology of trying to protect the water, said Sanders, the sheriff. But trying to enforce your ideology with committing acts of crime, trespassing, arson, vandalism is not acceptable. There is not an issue with peaceful protest. Because someone doesnt agree with your ideology, it doesnt give you the right to commit crimes.

But, Hunter said the show of force against demonstrators is way out of line.

Its morally wrong and a terrible repetition of things that have happened in the past to Native Americans by people under the color of government, he said.

Veterans participating are instructed to bring no weapons or ammunition and to remain nonviolent no matter what happens.

The Morton County Sheriffs Office wont discuss its tactics or the equipment it intends to deploy if there is a clash. In the past, it has called in reinforcements from Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming in addition to cities and counties throughout North Dakota to defend the pipeline project.

The state borrowed $7 million this past for policing demonstrations against the pipeline, on top of the $10 million it has already spent.

However, the county sheriff is unlikely to use any more officers from outside the state, according to Cecily Fong in the Sheriffs Department, in part because of political pushback in some of the states that have provided law enforcement, she wrote in an email to The Seattle Times.
Indian international broadcaster Powervision TV has chosen Facilis Technologys TerraBlock shared storage system to establish non-linear workflows.

Throughout this project, Facilis worked closely with its primary Indian channel partner, Wecom Global.Established in 2010, Powervision TV is a satellite TV channel with its own studio complex and playout station based in Tiruvalla in Southern Indias Kerala State. The Powervision Channel is known for its Christian Devotional programmes, which are broadcast 24/7 in over 100 countries throughout Asia, Australia, Europe and America.Wecom Global was recruited by Powervision TV to consult and assist with the channels transition from tape- to file-based workflows. The key drivers for this infrastructure upgrade were a need for increased speed, efficiency and productivity within its post-production and producer approval procedures.Working closely with Powervision TVs in-house engineering team, Wecom designed and integrated a workflow which sees a Facilis TerraBlock 24/EX12 32TB storage system supporting a network of eight Avid edit suites.After careful evaluation of several companies, we selected Wecom Global to assist us through this strategically important technology migration, explained Bimal Ambrose, senior editor and technical manager at Powervision TV. They advised that we install Facilis TerraBlock and their consultancy has proved valuable. The system was installed this June and the workflow has operated efficiently and reliably since day one.
Khaama Press, November 29, 2016

The Taliban militants executed at least two militants including a woman in North of Afghanistan

Local officials in northern Jawzjan province said the two individuals were executed in Aqcha district.

Provincial police chief Abdul Hafiz Khashi said the militants stormed into the house of the victim and murdered the two individuals including the woman.

He said the militants managed to flee the area after killing the couple. The latest incident involving the murder of the couple in Jawzjan comes as there has been there has been there has been a sharp rise in violence against women in the country.

A young girl in Kabul was shot by me of her relatives in Kabul last week.

At least three women were shot dead by unknown gunmen who were riding a motorcycle in western Herat province of Afghanistan around two weeks ago.

The officials said the main motive behind the murder is not clear and search operation is underway to arrest the perpetrators.

Earlier, a woman shot by her in-laws family after she attempted to elope with her love in Ghor province of Afghanistan. Taliban militants group has not commented regarding the report so far.
Basic firearm rules are pretty straight forward: treat every firearm as though it were loaded; always point the muzzle in a safe direction; be sure of your target and whats beyond it; keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.

Our deer hunting tradition is shared with our friends and our family, said Megan Wisecup, hunter education administrator for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Practicing safe hunting techniques is important to make sure we all get home at the end of the day.

Wisecup said self-inflicted injuries and property damage continue to be prominent.

Those incidents could be avoided by simply following the basic rules of firearm safety and ensuring there is a safe backdrop prior to taking a shot. Hunters need to remember that it is illegal to discharge a firearm within 200 yards of a building inhabited by people or livestock or a feedlot unless the owner or tenant has given their consent. It is also illegal to discharge a shotgun shooting slugs or a pistol or revolver on or over a public roadway, she said.

Hunters tend to get fixated on their target and when a deer is running they forget about their surroundings. Look beyond your target and clearly identify the target before taking the shot, Wisecup said. You must be certain you have a clear, safe shot. Never point your firearm at anything you do not want to shoot.

That advice can help to prevent self-inflicted wounds as well.

Wisecup encouraged hunters to wear plenty of blaze orange and to discuss the hunting plan with everyone in the group.

You want to be seen from all sides in the woods, she said. It is also important to discuss the hunting plan that will outline the role for each person and where they will be during the hunt. Plan your hunt and hunt your plan. It is critical to communicate with your hunting partners to ensure everyone knows where each other is at all times.

In 2015, there were six deer hunting related incidents in Iowa during the two shotgun seasons: five personal injuries and one property damage.
AFP, December 2, 2016

Taliban fighters publicly hanged a university student after accusing him of killing a senior intelligence officer.

The militia took Faizul Rehman, a fourth-year student at Kabul Polytechnic university, from his car as he traveled home to visit his family in the Chak district of Maidan Wardak province, about 60km west of the capital Kabul on Thursday.

"They hanged him on Friday in front of [the] public. Local elders tried to mediate to release him, but they failed," Abdul Rehman Mangal, a spokesman for the governor of Maidan Wardak, told AFP news agency on Saturday.

"They accused him of killing Mullah Mirwais, the head of their intelligence in the area," he said.

The Afghan interior ministry confirmed the execution and said they had launched an investigation "to arrest and punish the perpetrators of this criminal act".

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said they were investigating the case.

Since their ouster in 2001, the Taliban have executed people they accuse of spying for foreign or Afghan forces, and have staged public stonings or lashings of those found to have committed adultery, or had sex outside marriage.
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Q: What is the 21st Century Cures Act?

A: As Americans we are blessed to live in a free society that bestows inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to its citizenry.

For me, it is an honor to represent Iowans in the United States Senate and I take seriously the incredible responsibility to make sure that our government works for the people, not the other way around.

Throughout my years of public service, I have made it a priority to listen to Iowans so that I have the benefit of your views when crafting public policy for public benefit. I very much appreciate when Iowans take the time to participate in representative government to influence and shape decisions that will impact their lives and livelihoods.

An issue that generates overwhelming participation and strong opinion among Iowans from all walks of life is advocacy for medical treatments and cures for chronic and terminal illnesses, debilitating diseases and mental and behavioral health issues that impact the daily lives of loved ones.

As a fiscal conservative and champion for good government, I work to make sure the federal spigot doesnt shower limited resources down the drain. Instead, good stewardship demands that tax dollars are used wisely and effectively to advance medical science and improve the delivery of health care and patient outcomes.

The Cures Act has been in the works for three years and includes broad-based input from patient advocacy groups, doctors, public health officials, medical researchers and policymakers to help get treatments and cures to patients quickly and safely.

Q: How will this bill help Iowans?

A: The $6.3 billion Cures Act is good news for patient care. It would inject the views of patients into the drug approval process and accelerate the regulatory process to bring treatments and cures to the market more quickly.

Modernizing clinical trials, boosting funding for mental health care, expanding opioid painkiller abuse, prevention and treatment programs and encouraging the use of electronic health records systems will strengthen and improve patient health in America in the 21st century.

For Iowans, it will open up opportunities for our teaching hospitals and research institutions to secure federal grants to help deliver new scientific discovery and medical innovation. Specifically, it authorizes $1.8 billion for cancer research and $3 billion for biomedical research.

Local communities crippled by a growing surge in painkiller addiction may benefit from $1 billion authorized to prevent and treat opioid and heroin abuse and overdose. Im also glad my longstanding efforts to improve mental health parity will continue to grow with specific provisions that will expand research, treatment and care for mental illnesses and disorders. Finally, the Cures Act extends provisions for community hospitals I have long championed to support the delivery of health care to patients living in rural America.

Q: Which provisions of the sweeping legislation did you influence before final passage?

A:A few years ago, I secured into law a tool that sheds light on payments between health care providers and pharmaceutical companies. My Physician Payments Sunshine Act created an open payments database that lists industry payments to doctors. And so I withheld my support for the 21st Century Cures Act until a provision watering down the open payments provision was rescinded.

With sky-rocketing prescription drug prices and unaffordable health care costs, we need to foster more transparency, not less, when it comes to medical discovery and delivery of care.

Im also glad my bipartisan efforts to strip an Obamacare penalty against small businesses that provided assistance to their employees to help with insurance premiums and health care expenses was included in the Cures Act. Employer-sponsored health coverage has become an unaffordable option for about 60 percent of small businesses. And yet, smaller employers who want to help their employees were stymied by an outrageous IRS regulation that would penalize those who reimbursed employees for health care costs with tax-preferred contributions.

Small businesses that participated in the reimbursements could be fined up to $36,500 per employee each year.

This misguided IRS rule will be rolled back with passage of the Cures Act.

The House overwhelmingly passed the Cures Act 392-26 and I will vote in the Senate to send the bill to the presidents desk.
County clerk rejects false claims from far-right activist, candidate

Richard Gallardo said the county registrar of voters should not infringe upon residents' rights to observe elections.
FOREST CITY  Lights danced up and down a 30-foot Christmas tree in the middle of Heritage Park of North Iowa last week.

A few feet away, more lights twinkled in an arch leading to a forest of decorated Christmas trees. Still more lit up one of the parks buildings like a Christmas present.

The lights were part of Heritage Parks first Holiday Tour of Lights.

The light display opened Nov. 25 and will run through Dec. 24.

Were talking thousands and thousands of lights, said Dawn Arispe, Heritage Park director.

The giant ornament bulbs on the ground by the 30-foot Christmas tree contain over 300 lights apiece. Each of the evergreen trees is covered in 12 strands of lights.

Weve become masters of light sets, Arispe said of she and her husband, Doug.

The pair first had the idea for a tour of lights when they moved into the park last year.

The project slowly took shape over the past year as sponsors were added and the logistics of lighting up the entire park were worked out.

Doug would sit down and sketch something like how would this look, Arispe said.

She drove around the park with her daughter, Peyton, to figure out where everything would go.

She had some great ideas. We incorporated those into Candy Land, Arispe said of one of the buildings. Giant lollipops line the sidewalk and twinkling candies dangled from the roof.

An enchanted forest of decorated Christmas trees fill another area on the other side of the park. Arispe said the idea for the forest came from a community meeting earlier this year.

A number of volunteers started putting up the lights throughout the past few weeks. Arispe and her husband spent their days and nights finishing up the light displays and tweaking things as the winds picked up.

The light display just opened Thanksgiving weekend, but Arispe is already planning next years event.

Were planning to make it bigger each year, she said.

That will only come, she said, with the help of sponsors and the community.

The only way this could be done was through sponsors and their donations, Arispe said.

The tour of lights will be open from 6-9 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday through Dec. 18. The park will also be open from 6-9 p.m. from Monday, Dec. 19, to Saturday, Dec. 24.

A freewill donation will be collected at the gate. Money collected will be distributed between youth organizations and Heritage Park.

A warming house will also be open every night serving cocoa, cider and treats. Various youth and other organizations will man the warming house each night. Arispe said money raised that night will go back to their organization.

Cars should enter the park through the entrance off B14.

You can drive through the park or walk through the enchanted forest and then drive through, Arispe said.
Pakistan Premiers foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz along with foreign ministers of four countries on Saturday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who told them that it was important to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability in Afghanistan and the region.

The foreign ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Slovakia, which holds the European Union Presidency this month, along with Pakistan Prime Ministers Foreign Affairs Advisor Aziz called on Modi ahead of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process on Afghanistan in Amritsar.

Prime Minister Modi welcomed the foreign ministers and stressed it was the collective responsibility of all those in the region to work together to help Afghanistan out of its current difficulties, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

The prime minister stated that his several interactions with both the common people of Afghanistan and the countrys leadership had convinced him that the Afghan people were tired of the continuing violence and terrorism.

Prime Minister Modi stressed on the need to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability, security and development in Afghanistan and our region, Swarup said.

In this context, the prime minister hoped that discussions in the Ministerial Conference will produce good results.

Agreeing with the Premier on the need to end violence in Afghanistan, the foreign ministers shared Modis view that Afghanistans stability, security and prosperity are integral to that of the region, Swarup said.

"They greatly appreciated the continued commitment and engagement of India and its leadership for these ends. The foreign ministers warmly thanked India for hosting the Conference and expressed confidence that all friends of Afghanistan will work together for realising the aspirations for peace and development," he said.

Aziz also attended a dinner where he exchanged pleasantries with PM Modi.

Aziz was earlier scheduled to arrive in India on Sunday but came a day early due to prevailing weather condition. Almost the entire northern India has been affected by thick fog for the last two days, delaying flights and train operations.

Aziz advanced his visit after he was informed about the weather condition, sources said.

There was no clarity on whether there will be a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the conference but the possibility of any such meeting appeared bleak.

Interestingly, in a goodwill gesture, Aziz sent a bouquet to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, extending his 'sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery' from illness.

Swaraj, undergoing treatment for renal failure, is not attending the Heart of Asia conference and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will head the Indian delegation at the ministerial deliberations.

Aziz, who arrived here on a special flight, was received at the airport by Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit.

Pakistan and India had held a meeting during last years Heart of Asia Summit in Islamabad during which both countries had agreed to start a Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue which was to cover all outstanding issues. The resumption of the dialogue could, however, not take place due to the Pathankot terror attack in January this year.

Meanwhile, Pakistani media took note of the handshake and exchange of niceties between Modi and Aziz at Amritsar amid deadly border skirmishes and rhetoric.

The Express Tribune under the front page headline -- Aziz-Modi handshake sets off media frenzy -- wrote that after months of war rhetoric and deadly border skirmishes, Indian and Pakistani officials exchanged niceties and set the media abuzz on Saturday.

With a broad smile on his face, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook hands with Pakistans Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz at a banquet he had hosted for the participants of the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, it reported.

The paper reported that Modi also asked about the health of his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif who had recently undergone open heart surgery in a London hospital.

Aziz conveyed 'good wishes' to the Indian leader on behalf of Sharif.

The Dawn reported that Aziz was received by Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit and the joint secretary of Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

'Sartaj Aziz also sent a bouquet to Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at her residence, extending his sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery,' it said.

The News International reported that Modi shook hands with Aziz and inquired after the well-being of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from him.

Aziz said Nawaz Sharif is well and he has also expressed good wishes for him, it further reported.

It also reported that Aziz sent a bouquet to Swaraj at her residence extending good wishes for her speedy recovery.

Pakistan was unanimous that no meeting between Pakistani and Indian officials on the sidelines was expected due to the ongoing bilateral tension.

'Contrary to Indian media reports, no actual talks took place during the banquet. Nonetheless, the customary handshake after months of belligerence and hostilities set off media frenzy in both countries, according to the Express Tribune.
Pakistani Prime Ministers Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had a brief interaction in Amrtisar on Saturday night, amid intense strain in Indo-Pak ties in the wake of Nagrota terror strike and intensified cross-border firing in Jammu and Kashmir.

Aziz and Doval had a short informal chat after foreign ministers of five countries called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday night in a group. The call on by the foreign ministers preceded an official dinner attended by representatives of almost all countries participating in the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar.

While Indian sources said Aziz and Doval 'had a stroll for about 100 feet' at the venue of the dinner 'Sada Pind', a heritage village, Pakistani officials maintained that they had a 'meeting'. However, it is not known what transpired during their conversation.

When asked, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup only said, "There was no meeting. This is to categorically state that there was no pull-aside or a bilateral meeting between the two (Aziz and Doval)."

India had already made it clear that it will never accept continuing cross border terrorism as the new normal in bilateral ties with Pakistan while asserting that talks cannot take place in an atmosphere of continued terror.

Tensions between the two countries escalated after the cross border terror attack on an army base in Nagrota in Jammu.

IMAGE: NSA Ajit Doval and the Advisor of Pakistan's Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in Amritsar on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo
The Tamil chief minister suffered a heart attack on Sunday evening.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was said to be critical late on Sunday night after she suffered a cardiac arrest in the hospital where she was admitted over two months ago.

"The honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening," said a statement issued by Apollo Hospital, where she was admitted on September 22.

"She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists," Chief Operating Officer and head of transformation of Apollo Hospital Dr Subbaiah Viswanathan said in the statement on Sunday.

Dr Richard Beale from London has also been consulted and concurred with line of treatment by our cardiologists & pulmonologists, the hospital said.

Around midnight, Apollo Hospital's Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy tweeted: "The Apollo TN CM #Jayalalita is critical.multi speciality team @hospitalsapollo trying everything including ecmo.praying for her recovery."

Soon after the Apollo statement came, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and enquired about Jayalalithaa's health.

Rao, who is also Governor of Maharashtra, rushed to Chennai from Mumbai and went to the hospital. The governor was at the hospital for some time, after which he went to the Raj Bhavan past midnight.

Ministers and top police officials also rushed to the hospital and held informal consultations on the situation.

Heavy deployment of police was made at the hospital on Greams Road where thousands of supporters of Amma (mother), as she is fondly called by her supporters, and AIADMK cadre had gathered on hearing the news.

In a communication to ADGPs of Enforcement, CB-CID, Economic Offences Wing and Crime wings, the Director General of Police's office asked them to "mobilise all the officers in the rank of SPs and police personnel of other ranks of Enforcement, CBCID, EOW and Crime completely and they should report" to SPs and Commissioners of Police at 7am.

"They should report in full uniform with their vehicles for law and order bandobust duty until further orders," it said.

President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK leader M Karunanidhi, his son and opposition leader K Stalin, Union Ministers, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Chief Ministers and a host of leaders expressed concern over Jayalalithaa's health condition and wished her speedy recovery.

Meanwhile, home ministry officials are in constant touch with Tamil Nadu government officials and assessing the situation.

The central government will provide all assistance to the Tamil Nadu government if any help is required, sources said.

Nine companies of the Rapid Action Force have been put on standby to be immediately airlifted from various places in the country to Tamil Nadu, if needed, senior officials said. Each RAF company consists of around 100 personnel.

Sources indicated that the chiefs of two central paramilitary forces -- Central Reserve Police Force Director General K Durga Prasad and Central Industrial Security Force DG O P Singh -- could be sent to Tamil Nadu to supervise security deployment, if any need arises.

Large number of AIADMK supporters thronged Apollo Hospitals on Sunday night. Heavy police deployment has been made in and around the hospital.

Police were seen controlling the stream of people to prevent any untoward incident even as they blocked the main road leading to the hospital.

Barricades have been set up in the vicinity of the hospital and police presence could be seen in arterial roads near the hospital.

Many women, who gathered near the main gate of the hospital, could be seen praying fervently for the well-being of their 'Amma' (as Jayalalithaa is fondly called by AIADMK cadres, meaning mother).

"I only hope to hear good news about Amma's health. Right now, we are very tense. I got the news about her heart attack one hour back and just arrived here," an AIADMK cadre told PTI.

Some of the women held photographs of Jayalalithaa and raised slogans "Amma vaazhga, Puratchi thalaivi vaazhga!! (Long live Amma, Long live the revolutionary leader)."

Last week Apollo Hospitals Chairman Dr C Pratap Reddy announced that Jayalalithaa was doing well and speaks using a valve attached to the tracheostomy tube as she continues to get treatment.

Whole body physiotherapy was being done, Dr Reddy had said, adding that she was normally recuperating after being in bed for several weeks and would herself decide when to go home.

Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration.

The hospital, which had been issuing bulletins on her health status, later said she was being treated for infection with respiratory support, among others.

Earlier on Sunday, AIADMK spokesperson C Ponnaiyan told reporters that a three-member expert team from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, had said she had completely recovered.

"The AIIMS doctors visited the hospital yesterday and after examining her health, they shared the good news with us that Amma has completely recovered," he had said.

The chief minister, Ponnaiyan said was doing physical exercises, undergoing physiotherapy, and was having food on her own besides advising officers on issues related to government and party activities.

In May the 67-year-old Jayalalithaa led the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to a resounding victory in the state assembly elections,
Under severe attack over terrorism emanating from its soil, Pakistans Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz on Sunday hit back saying it is simplistic to blame one country even as he raked up the issue of strain in Indo-Pak ties at the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan.

Aziz asserted his attending the meet despite escalation along the Line of Control was testimony to Pakistans unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and expressed unhappiness over cancellation of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit in Islamabad in November, terming it as a setback to regional cooperation.

He did not mention the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

Noting that Pakistan was aware about serious challenges being faced by Afghanistan, Aziz said, The first and foremost in our view is continuing violence and acts of terrorism claiming scores of human lives. This needs to be addressed urgently and effectively through collective efforts.

The security situation in Afghanistan is very complex. It is simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view.

His response came after India and Afghanistan hit out at Pakistan for sponsoring and supporting terrorism and called for resolute action against terrorists as well as their masters.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who jointly inaugurated the annual ministerial conference in Amritsar along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, directly hit out at Pakistan for launching an undeclared war against his country and demanded an Asian or international regime to verify Pak-sponsor terror operations.

In his address at the HoA conference, a platform for Afghanistan's transition, Aziz said, My participation in the event, despite escalation on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary with India, is testimony to Pakistans unflinching commitment for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region.

I look forward to meaningful deliberations today towards this objective, he said and pressed for a politically negotiated settlement of the Afghan issue.

Observing that regional cooperation plays an important role in ensuring political stability and promoting economic cooperation, he said postponement of the SAARC Summit scheduled in Islamabad in November was a setback to these efforts and undermined the spirit of regional cooperation.

SAARC is an important forum, not only for promoting regional cooperation but also for the improvement of relations, he said.

India had pulled out of SAARC Summit, citing cross-border terror strikes emanating from Pakistan. Afghanistan and other SAARC countries had also sought cancellation of the eight-nation meet on the grounds that there was incitement of terrorism in the region.

Aziz said the peace process for talks between the Afghan government and Taliban has not yet produced positive results and Pakistan has been making serious efforts for facilitating the peace talks.

In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led Afghan-owned process, he said.

He said Pakistan deeply values the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process in promote Afghanistans connectivity with neighbouring and regional countries for durable stability in Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces have firmly and bravely stood their ground in repulsing militant and terrorist attacks. The international community has reiterated its commitment of support to Afghanistan in the areas of security and economic development up to 2020.

The government and people of Pakistan stand in complete solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development in Afghanistan.

We would do whatever we can to help achieve this objective, he said.

The conference is being attended by over 30 countries, including Russia, China, and the United States.

The Afghan Government has also signed peace agreement with Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA). The implementation of this peace deal can serve as a model for talks with other insurgent groups in future, he said.

Calling for enhanced regional connectivity to stimulate economic development, he said Pakistan was building its national rail, road and energy transmission network to meet with the growing regional transport needs.

The focus is on modern, state of the art infrastructure including through the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

There is immense potential for connecting our transportation and energy infrastructure with Afghanistan, and other countries of West and Central Asia, he said.

He said Pakistan was committed to enhancing facilitation for transit of Afghan goods through Pakistan.

We believe the two sides need to work together for extension of and improvements in the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement, he said.

The postponement of the SAARC Summit scheduled in Islamabad in November 2016 was a setback to these efforts and undermined the spirit of regional cooperation.

He voiced hope that the deliberations would be constructive and focused on the efforts for lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan, which is our shared objective.

Pakistan also welcomes the invitation of Azerbaijan to host the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia process in 2017 and looks forward to its active participation in this Conference, he said.

IMAGE: Sartaj Aziz, left, Pakistani Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs talks with Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Khonsari during a group photo session before the inauguration of the 6th Heart of Asia Conference. Photograph: PTI Photo
GRAFTON  At the age of 35, Darlo Koster, of Grafton, had a massive heart attack and was given three to five years to live. That was 25 years ago.

Today, Koster, age 61, is living one beat at a time.

Heart disease has been a part of Kosters life, from the time his mother passed away from a heart attack when he was a sophomore in high school to his daughter having open-heart surgery when she was 6 months old.

They said my moms heart exploded in her chest, said Koster.

For Koster, his first heart attack occurred when he was 35 and living in Arkansas.

I broke my back, and I couldnt take the cold, said Koster. So my wife and I moved to Arkansas. We had just moved there. We didnt even have the telephone hooked up, and the state had an ice storm.

Koster said he and his first wife knew they were going to be iced in, so they decided to cook a big turkey.

I saw that golden brown, pulled it off, took a bite and was sick to my stomach.

He knew it was his heart.

My wife couldnt get up the hill, out of the drive, to get to a phone, because of the ice, said Koster. While having a heart attack, I got the Honda four-wheeler up the hill, so she could go to the neighbors to call the ambulance.

However, the ambulance wouldnt come because of the ice storm, but two deputies made the trip to get Koster to the hospital.

As they say, That Golden Hour during a heart attack was 10 hours too late for Koster.

By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost 75 percent heart function, he said. Thats when they told me I had three to five years to live.

I have people ask why Im not bitter because of this happening so young, said Koster. I tell them Ive been given 25 years I didnt I think I was going to have. How can I be bitter?

That was the first heart attack.

He just recently had his third pacemaker/defibrillator implanted.

The last couple of years I have been going downhill, said Koster. Besides being on my third pacemaker, Ive had three ablations of the heart to help with the beating of my heart.

Ablation of the heart is a procedure that destroys or burns any abnormal tissue from inside the heart.

Just when I would try to recoup from one procedure, I would have another procedure, then recoup and then another procedure, said Koster. Its been that way this entire year. Ive spent half the year in the hospital in Mason City.

Koster sees a cardiologist at Mercy Medical Center of North Iowa. I see Dr. Ross in St. Ansgar. I owe my life to him.

Koster and his wife, Cathy, have discussed the option of a heart transplant with a team from the University of Minnesota. However, due to his current instability, his A-positive blood type and his age, a transplant isnt an option.

The most recent pacemaker/defibrillator inserted is a three-wire defibrillator, however, during the procedure, only two wires were able to be hooked to his heart.

I woke up during the procedure, said Koster. I was in a lot of pain. They gave up because I was on the table too long.

A week later, one of the wires pulled off his heart and had to be reattached.

Although given two options to consider, Koster said he told his doctor, I just needed some time to recoup. I wanted to wait until after the holidays.

He was told that was a risk he was choosing to take.

His options are to have a highly-risky operation which would connect the third wire to his heart and then have one more ablation of the heart.

Koster is planning to have both procedures once he has had a chance to recuperate.

Cathy said, Its been quite a lifestyle change this past year. He is one to be outside all the time and now, especially the last couple of weeks, he cant.

Its been a big, drastic change.

You have to give up lots of little things, said Koster. Like coffee and salt.

The doctors are doing everything they can to prolong life, he said. Thats their job. I appreciate that.

However, there is a lot more to life than being alive. Its about quality and quantity. What they (the doctors) are doing isnt an exact science. God is in control.

Koster said his wife and family have kept him going through all of this.

However, Im getting tired. There hasnt been much quality the last eight or nine months, he said. Its amazing what the heart can put up with.

They say, You can die in a heartbeat. However, mine is the lack of one.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, keen to meet Donald Trump, may visit Washington, DC next month for the oath-taking ceremony of the United States President-elect, media reports said on Sunday.

Speculation about the visit comes after telephonic conversation between Sharif and Trump last week.

Sources here said Special Assistant to Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi is leaving for the US on Sunday to finalise the schedule of the visit.

Prime Minister House sources said a proposal regarding the Sharifs participation in the oath-taking ceremony of the new US president is also on the cards but nothing has been finalised so far.

'Invitations are usually issued to the heads of states and governments on such occasions. The option to respond positively to any such invitation once received is under consideration,' a source close to the prime minister was quoted by Express Tribune as saying.

Fatemi would stay in Washington for 10 days and would meet the Trump team as well and discuss the ways to strengthen the bilateral ties between Pakistan and US. He would brief the team about the role Pakistan played in the war on terror and Pakistan's policy towards Afghanistan and India.

According to media reports, Pakistan Foreign Office has been trying to arrange a possible visit of Sharif to Washington, DC where Trump will assume charge of the Office of the President of the United States on January 20.

Sharif has expressed his desire to attend Trumps oath-taking ceremony, another media report said.

The Pakistani Embassy in WashingtonDC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen. It was reported that the Sharif may leave for the US on the January 18 or 19.

The decision of Sharifs US visit hinges on the possibility of a meeting with Trump. Analysts say that it will be a major breakthrough if a meeting is actually realised, the reports said.

Trump has already set up a provisional team, encouraging foreign leaders and officials to visit his headquarters in New York for familiarisation meetings.

Sharif is said to have given special instructions to Fatemi who would meet the US Congress members and Senate and seek their support and cooperation for better ties with the new US administration.

The advisor would also meet the US think tank members and would brief them on Pakistans efforts for peace in the region. Fatemi would also highlight the 'Indian atrocities' in Kashmir and ceasefire violations by Indian security forces on Line of Control and Working Boundary, sources said.

Meanwhile, The News International reported that Sharif could undertake the important visit of the US in the first quarter of the next year.

'The arrangement would be worked out through diplomatic channels soon after assuming the office by President Trump, it reported.

It further said that Pakistan has decided to maintain its ties with the United States on the cardinal principle of mutual respect while addressing each others concerns in a dignified manner once the new administration of Donald Trump is at the helm of affairs in Washington, DC it said.

The Foreign Office is tight-lipped about the mission of Fatemi and chances of the visit of Prime Minister Sharif to the US.

During their conversation last week, Trump had described Sharif as a terrific guy and offered to play any role in helping Pakistan address its problems.
MASON CITY  The city has spent nearly $380,000 on various aspects of its downtown redevelopment plan and is committed to spending at least $250,000 more.

The majority of the costs so far  $356,000  involves design and engineering expenses and other costs related to the proposed parking ramp that would be next to a proposed hotel, according to city Finance Director Kevin Jacobson.

We have local option sales tax (LOST) funds designated for $1.2 million for the parking ramp project, he said. The current costs are covered with the first of three $400,000 transfers from LOST.

In November 2015, the City Council unanimously approved the sale of $4.56 million in general obligation bonds to go toward the parking ramp.

The bonds would be used largely for the construction of the ramp when that comes forward, said Jacobson.

City Administrator Brent Trout explained, The design of the parking ramp had to be completed in time to allow for us to issue plans and specs to receive bids on the project, and to stay in line with the hotel construction timeline in the development agreement.

The design is complete and ready to be released once the hotel construction is ready to start, Trout said. The parking structure construction can be completed in the same time frame as the hotel construction.

Another expense incurred by the city is almost $22,800 in legal fees for the development agreement in connection with the overall downtown project. Trout said there was legal work done for the hotel, mixed-use project and the music pavilion.

The hotel plan was derailed last week when the developer, Philip Chodur of G8 Development, San Diego, defaulted on his agreement with the city. He failed to meet three deadlines to start construction because he could not come up with the financing.

The hotel plan is not dead, according to Trout, who said city officials are looking at other ways of making it happen.

The hotel and parking ramp are two pieces to the $36.2 million Our Mason City Renaissance project, for which the city is seeking $10 million in state funding through the Iowa Reinvestment Act.

In addition to the hotel and parking ramp, the plan includes a retail/residential building in which Chodur is the developer, a music pavilion and an ice arena/multipurpose center.

The city has already been pre-approved for $7.1 million in state funds, but increased its request to $10 million when more state money became available.

But the hotel is a key element to the citys proposal because $10 million in private investment is required to be eligible for the state money  and the hotel fulfills that requirement.

Trout has been reporting regularly to the Iowa Economic Development Authority, which oversees the Iowa Reinvestment Act funding, on the progress of Mason Citys plan.

The city has also committed $250,000 to a related project  the move of the Younkers Home Store in Southbridge Mall from its present location to the space formerly occupied by the Cinema V movie theaters. Trout said payment on that will be made when the project is done.
Lebanon: Information on national ID cards, individual and family registers, and drivers licenses, including purpose of documents, application and issuance procedures, procedures for correcting errors; whether errors in these documents are common and whether there are issues with fraud (2012  July 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 22 July 2016 Citation / Document Symbol LBN105581.E Related Document(s) Liban : information sur les cartes d'identite nationale, les registres individuel et familial ainsi que sur les permis de conduire, y compris sur l'utilisation prevue de ces documents, les procedures de demande et de delivrance, et les procedures permettant de corriger les erreurs; information indiquant si les erreurs sont courantes dans ces documents et s'il y a des problemes de fraude (2012-juillet 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Lebanon: Information on national ID cards, individual and family registers, and drivers licenses, including purpose of documents, application and issuance procedures, procedures for correcting errors; whether errors in these documents are common and whether there are issues with fraud (2012  July 2016), 22 July 2016, LBN105581.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843f4b74.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

The information in the following Response to Information Request was provided by an official at the Embassy of Canada to Lebanon in Beirut in correspondence with the Research Directorate.

1. National ID Cards

The issuing authority of the National ID Card is the Lebanese Ministry of Interior and Municipalities, Directorate of Civil Census (Canada 14 July 2016). The Ministry of Interior and Municipalities started distributing the new model of the Lebanese National ID Card in 1996 (ibid.). The format of the National ID Card is standardized throughout the country (ibid.). Information on the card includes: the holder's name; surname; father's name; mother's name and surname; place of birth; date of birth; cardholder's signature; photo; sex; marital status; date of issue; registry number; village; province; district; name, signature and seal of registry officer (ibid.). A sample of the document, along with a translation, was provided by the Canadian official and is attached to this Response (Attachment 1).

1.1 Application Procedures for Adults

Applications are available from the Mayor's office, the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities and at all district police stations (ibid.). Applicants are required to submit the following documents:

One passport size photo with a white background

Old ID or original or copy of the Individual Civil Extract

Completed application that is available at the [office of the] Mayor. The application must be signed and fingerprinted (only one finger, usually the thumb)

The application must be submitted at the Ministry by the Mayor of the applicant's Civil Census location

The Mayor in turn will submit the application on behalf of the applicant

The processing time is two months

The fee is 5000 Lebanese Pounds (LBP) [C$4.25] (ibid.).

1.2 Application Procedures for Minor Children

Applications for minor children require the submission of the same documents as an adult individual with one exception: the minor must be accompanied by the father or guardian when completing the application at the Mayor's office as the adult will sign on behalf of the minor and no fingerprints are required (ibid.). Children's photos can be included on the ID card once the child reaches three years of age (ibid.). It is mandatory to submit a new application along with a fingerprint for all children over the age of 15 years old and a new ID will be issued to the individual (ibid.).

1.3 Whether a Third Party Can Apply for this Document

A third party cannot apply on behalf of an individual: Lebanese citizens must be physically present in Lebanon to complete the application at the Mayor's office and the individual's fingerprint must be placed on the application in front of the Mayor (ibid.).

1.4 Photograph Requirements

The photograph for an ID card application is usually taken at any photo studio or shop and the individual must bring it in person to the Mayor's office in order to complete the application (ibid.). The Mayor then confirms whether the individual completing the application is the same person as featured in the photo (ibid.).

1.5 Purpose for Which the National ID Card Is Issued and Used

The National ID Card is recognised as an official document and is used as legal proof of an individual's identity (ibid.). It is used for the following purposes:

healthcare (hospitals/clinics/insurance companies);

for passport and driving license acquisition;

financial institutes (banks, credit acquisition);

educational purposes (schools and universities);

employment;

police record;

travel, when validating the Lebanese traveller's passport and/or ID, and can be used for entry into the country when a Lebanese traveller has dual citizenship and is only carrying their non-Lebanese passport; the card can also be used to enter Syria and Jordan as there are no visa requirements for Lebanese citizens

car accidents and insurance claims (ibid.)

1.6 Procedures for Correcting Errors in the Document

In order to correct any information that was incorrectly included on the National ID Card, the individual must complete an application, which is located and must be filed at the Mayor's office (ibid.). The Mayor, upon receiving the application, indicates on the application both the error and the correction (ibid.). The Mayor then attaches the ID card that requires correction to the application along with the applicant's Individual Civil Extract (ibid.). The application is sent to the individual's civil census and once the correction has been completed, the new ID will be forwarded to the Mayor's office and the applicant can collect it there (ibid.).

1.7 Procedures for Updating the Document After Marriage

Following a marriage, women are required by law to update the information on their ID cards to reflect that they are now married, and as such, are required to submit a new ID application to the Mayor's office, at which time they must indicate that their marital status is now "married" and provide a Family and Individual Civil Extract [see section 2] showing their new Civil Registry number (ibid.). By law, the National ID Card must always reflect the current marital status of the individual (ibid.).

2. Individual and Family Registry Documents

The issuing authority for individual and family registry documents is the Directorate General for the Personal Status, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior and Municipalities (ibid.). Individual and family registry documents [Individual Civil Extracts and Family Civil Extracts] follow a standard format throughout the country (ibid.). However, they are handwritten rather than printed by means of a computer or electronic device, and therefore do not all have the same handwriting (ibid.). Information on the Individual Civil Extract includes the district, quarter or village of residence and register number, as well as the individual's name and surname, father's name, mother's name and surname, place and date of birth, religion [1], family status, and sex (ibid.). Information on the Family Civil Extract includes the district, place of the register, number of the register, and each person in the family's full name, father, mother, place and date of birth, religion, sex, marital status and notes (ibid.). A sample of these documents, along with their translations, was provided by the Canadian official and is attached to this Response (Attachments 2 and 3).

2.1 Application Procedures for Adults

Applications for individual and family registry documents are to be completed and submitted to the Civil Census office, along with two passport size photos that are certified and signed by the Mayor (ibid.). The documents may be issued the same day, particularly if the Civil Census offices are not overworked (ibid.). Alternatively, an individual may submit the application at LIBANPOST (the post office) along with two photos that are certified and signed by the Mayor, who will indicate the name of the individual on the back of the photo along with the individual's civil registry number and his religion (ibid.). The processing time through LIBANPOST is one month (ibid.).

Lebanese citizens residing outside Lebanon may apply at a Lebanese embassy abroad, who in turn would send their applications to the Directorate General for the Personal Status to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) via a diplomatic bag (ibid.).

2.2 Application Procedures for Minor Children

The father or guardian of a minor may submit the request on their behalf, using the same application and submitting the same documents as for adults (application and certified photos) (ibid.). The minor is not required to be present in person (ibid.).

2.3 Whether a Third Party Can Apply for this Document

A third party, such as a direct relative, the mayor, or a lawyer may apply to obtain individual and family registry documents (ibid.).

2.4 Photograph Requirements

A photo is required on an Individual Civil Extract, but not on the Family Civil Extract, as the Family Civil Extract contains biographic information on the individual, his wife (or wives in the cases of Muslim marriages where a man may be married to a maximum of four women at the same time), children, and parents of both the husband and his wife (ibid.). Newborn babies may be issued an Individual Civil Extract without a photo, "but the preference is to include a photo" (ibid.).

2.5 Purpose for Which Registry Documents Are Issued and Used

The Individual Civil Extract and Family Civil Extract are documents used as proof of identity and may also be used for processes such as the issuance of Lebanese citizenship, school registration, employment, requests for Police Certificates, university registrations, issuance of driving licenses, marriages, and divorces (ibid.).

2.6 Procedures for Correcting Errors in Registry Documents

Errors are corrected at the Civil Census office in the individual's district (ibid.). The individual must present themselves along with the document that requires correction at the Civil Census office and submit a request for a new Extract (ibid.). The same process can be requested by a third party, however, it is not uncommon for the Civil Census office to "insist on seeing the individual in question" in person (ibid.). As such, it is considered best practice for an individual to go in person to the Civil Census bureau in his/her district (ibid.).

3. Driver's Licenses

The issuing authority for driver's licenses is the Directorate General for the Internal Security Forces (ISF), which operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities (ibid.). The format of the driver's license is standard throughout the country (ibid.). A sample of the driver's license was provided by the Canadian official and is attached to this Response (Attachment 4).

Lebanese Driver's Licenses are divided into 6 categories:

Category "1": Driving licenses issued for motorbikes

Category "2": Driving licenses issued for touristic and/or transport vehicles that do not exceed a total weight of 3500 kg.

Category "3": Driving licenses issued for transport vehicles that exceed the total weight of 3500kg and is less than 10K kilograms and vehicles that are known as buses that carry 20 seats.

Category "4": Driving licenses issued for transport vehicles that exceed a total weight of 10K kilograms and buses that have more than 20 seats.

Category "5": Driving licenses issued to drive special equipment/machines, such as agricultural vehicles and general works.

Category "6": Driving licenses issued for tourist cars and buses, special motorbikes to carry person or those vehicles that are driven by persons of special needs. Note that these special vehicles must be registered under the name of the person of special needs. Note that this category is divided into two sub categories:

Private: to drive one's own private car.

Public/Taxi: the driver in this category may collect remuneration for the service they are providing. (ibid.)

3.1 Application Procedures for Adults

Applications are submitted at the "Traffic Administration, Vehicles and Machinery" department at the Directorate General for the ISF, which has offices in the major cities of Lebanon (ibid.). The application consists of completing the personal information of the driver, his or her residential address, the category that the driver wishes to enrol in, and the applicant must indicate whether the license will be used for private or public driving (ibid.).

Drivers must undergo a driving test; the dates of the tests are announced by the Directorate (ibid.). The test consists of two stages: a theory test and a practical test (ibid.). Drivers must provide a police record that shows they have no convictions that may prevent them from driving (ibid.). Applicants must be healthy enough to drive the kind of vehicle noted on their driving license (ibid.). Driving licenses are not issued to non-residents, alcoholics or drug addicts (ibid.). Driving licenses may be taken from the driver by a court order if the driver commits a felony related to dangerous driving or an accident (ibid.). All drivers requesting a driving license under categories 1, 2, 5 and 6 must be 18 years of age or older (ibid.). All drivers requesting a driving license under categories 3 and 4 (private or public) must be 21 years of age or older (ibid.).

3.2 Application Procedures for Minor Children

Although not applicable on a regular basis, driver's licenses may be granted to minors between 14 and 16 years of age (ibid.). The minor needs to submit proof that "he needs to drive to and from home and school due to serious hardship," and has no other means to get back and forth to school (ibid.). All drivers under the age of 18 are required to attend a comprehensive driver's program either at their high school or at a professional driving institute and must also take in-car driving lessons with a certified instructor (ibid.).

3.3 Whether a Third Party Can Apply for this Document

Without providing details, the official indicated that a third party may apply to obtain a driver's license on an individual's behalf (ibid.).

3.4 Photograph Requirements

A 4.3 X 3.5cm photograph, signed and certified on the back by the mayor, confirming the identity of the driver, is required for the application, which the driver must provide (ibid.).

3.5 Procedures for Correcting Errors on a Driver's License

In order to make a correction to the driver's license, the driver may go in person to the "Traffic Administration, Vehicles, and Machinery" department office that issued the driving licence and complete a form indicating the error (ibid.). In addition, a notarised representative may do so on behalf of the driver, especially from a "driving license certified bureau" (ibid.).

4. Issues with Errors and/or Fraud

Regarding errors in identity documents, the Canadian official stated, "[e]rrors are not that common and in case an error occurs, it is the responsibility of the holder to report the error and aim at correcting it with the office in charge" (ibid. 15 July 2016).

Concerning the issue of fraudulent documents, the official indicated that it is possible to find fraudulent identity documents, especially during elections, but that "it is not very common" and "it is extremely rare to find fraud on identification documents on a daily basis" (ibid.). The same source indicated that fraud in employment records was more common (ibid.).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Note

[1] In 2009, a decree was issued indicating that every Lebanese citizen is free to "cross out his/her religious identity from all official documents, and replace it with a slash sign (//)" if he/she desires to do so (Canada 14 July 2016).

References

Canada. 15 July 2016. Embassy of Canada to Lebanon in Beirut. Correspondence from an official to the Research Directorate.

_____. 14 July 2016. Embassy of Canada to Lebanon in Beirut. Correspondence from an official to the Research Directorate.

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Embassy of Lebanon in Ottawa.

Internet sites, including: ecoi.net; Factiva; Lebanon - Embassy of Lebanon in Ottawa, Embassy of Lebanon in Washington, DC, Ministry of Interior and Municipalites; UN - Refworld.

Attachments

1. Lebanon. N.d. Ministry of Interior and Municipalities. Sample of National Identification Card.

2. Lebanon. N.d. Ministry of Interior and Municipalities. Sample of Individual Civil Extract.

3. Lebanon. N.d. Ministry of Interior and Municipalities. Sample of Family Civil Extract.

4. Lebanon. N.d. Ministry of Interior and Municipalities. Sample of Driver's License.
Lebanon: Whether a Lebanese citizen who did not fulfill his military service prior to the abolition of compulsory military service faces any consequences; whether a conscientious objector could be considered a reservist who could be called to serve (2010-2015)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 20 January 2016 Citation / Document Symbol LBN105403.E Related Document(s) Liban : information indiquant si un citoyen du Liban qui n'a pas accompli son service militaire avant l'abolition du service militaire obligatoire risque d'en subir des consequences; si un objecteur de conscience pourrait etre considere comme un reserviste et etre appele a servir (2010-2015) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Lebanon: Whether a Lebanese citizen who did not fulfill his military service prior to the abolition of compulsory military service faces any consequences; whether a conscientious objector could be considered a reservist who could be called to serve (2010-2015), 20 January 2016, LBN105403.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843f5694.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Failure to Complete Compulsory Military Service

Information on the treatment of individuals who failed to complete military service before the abolition of compulsory military service was scarce among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a senior fellow with the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), whose research focuses on the Lebanese Armed Forces, stated that "Article 8 of Law number 655," issued in 2005, abolishing mandatory military service beginning two years after the issuance of the legislation, "stipulates that the prosecution against the defaulters of  military service will stop and all sanctions and judgements will be dropped immediately upon the issuance of the present law and the defaulters will be rehabilitated" (Senior Fellow 15 Jan. 2016).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a senior analyst with the Middle East/Mediterranean Program at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, who has a research specialization in Arab military structures and the Lebanese army, stated that individuals who "avoided" service prior to 2007 "need to be legalized with the military justice system" and to her knowledge, "simply returning to Lebanon without clarifying the situation could lead to legal repercussions" (Senior Analyst 18 Jan. 2016). The same source expressed however, that to her knowledge, there is no formalized system for doing so, but that the Lebanese Embassy should be made aware of the individuals' status before returning to Lebanon (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

For further information on the treatment of individuals who failed to complete military service before the abolition of compulsory military service, see Response to Information Request LBN103353.

2. Conscientious Objection and Reservists

Information on conscientious objection and reservists in the Lebanese Armed Forces was scarce among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a professor of political science at the University of Otago, who specializes in the politics of the Middle East, including publications on the history of Lebanon, stated that to his knowledge, there was no right to conscientious objection during the mandatory military service period (Professor 7 Jan. 2016). Sources similarly state that there is no legal provision for conscientious objection in Lebanon (WRI 1 Apr. 1998; Senior Analyst 18 Jan. 2016). A 2012 report published by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on conscientious objection to military service states that in 2002, 16 Member States, including Lebanon, stated that "they did 'not recognize the universal applicability of conscientious objection to military service'" (UN 2012, 17). The Senior Fellow similarly indicated that Lebanon "does not recognize the right of conscientious objection to military service" (15 Jan. 2016). The same source further stated that, prior to the abolition of military service, "the only restriction  was a gender restriction  Lebanese women were not included in the mandatory military service" (ibid.).

According to the Professor, to his knowledge, a conscientious objector could not be considered a reservist if he never completed any compulsory service (Professor 7 Jan. 2016). The Senior Analyst similarly stated that those who avoided service prior to 2007, or the "post-2007 generation" that did not serve, "are not part of the reservists" (18 Jan. 2016). The source further indicated that individuals that had served "are reservists until they are 40" and that "professional soldiers and warrant officers leave at 53 and officers at 64" (ibid.). According to the Senior Fellow, an individual "cannot be compelled" to join the current Lebanese Armed Forces reserves as "service is voluntary" (15 Jan. 2016). Further and corroborating information on reservists could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Professor of political science, University of Otago. 7 January 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Senior Analyst, Middle East/Mediterranean Program, European Union Institute for Security Studies. 18 January 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Senior Fellow, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). 15 January 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

United Nations (UN). 2012. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Conscientious Objection to Military Service. [Accessed 7 Jan. 2016]

War Resisters International (WRI). 1 April 1998. "Country Report and Updates: Lebanon." [Accessed 14 Jan. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies; Lebanese Center for Human Rights; Lebanon - Embassy in Ottawa; Middle East Center, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Professor of politics and international studies, SOAS University of London.

Internet sites, including: Al-akhbar; Al-monitor; Amnesty International; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Center for Strategic & International Studies; Chr. Michelsen Institute; Conflict Studies Research Centre; Conscience and Peace Tax International; The Daily Star Lebanon; ecoi.net; Factiva; Freedom House; Human Rights Watch; International Crisis Group; Jane's Intelligence Review; Lebanese Center for Human Rights; Lebanon - Lebanese Armed Forces; Middle East Eye; Naharnet; The New York Times; Small Arms Survey; Strategic Studies Institute; United Nations - Refworld; US - Department of State, The Law Library of Congress.
Lebanon: Military service obligations in South Lebanon for a young Shiite in 1999 and 2000; whether military service would have been required in the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) or the South Lebanon Army (SLA) during these years

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 22 December 2015 Citation / Document Symbol LBN105387.E Related Document(s) Liban : information sur les obligations relatives au service militaire dans le Sud du Liban pour les jeunes chiites en 1999 et en 2000; information indiquant si le service militaire dans les Forces armees libanaises (Lebanese Armed Forces - LAF) ou l'Armee du Liban Sud (South Lebanon Army - SLA) etait obligatoire pendant ces annees Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Lebanon: Military service obligations in South Lebanon for a young Shiite in 1999 and 2000; whether military service would have been required in the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) or the South Lebanon Army (SLA) during these years, 22 December 2015, LBN105387.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843f61d4.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Overview

Sources indicate that Israel and the Israeli-backed SLA [an "Israeli auxiliary militia" (UN 14 Oct. 2006)] occupied southern Lebanon (The Guardian 8 Feb. 2000; US 23 Feb. 2000; Human Rights Watch 1999). Israel reportedly established the occupied buffer zone in 1985 (ibid.; The New York Times 5 June 2000; ADL n.d.a). Sources state that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and SLA withdrew from the occupied zone in May 2000 (The Guardian 24 May 2000; Jane's Intelligence Review 26 Sept. 2000; The LA Times 24 May 2000).

According to a press release by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a "civil rights and human relations agency" that combats anti-Semitism (ADL n.d.b), the occupied zone was approximately 9 miles wide (ibid. n.d.a). The Guardian reports that in the "early 1980s," the "SLA, strongly reinforced by Israeli military 'advisers,' had established control of the land south of the Litani river - roughly 10% of the country" (8 Feb. 2000). According to Human Rights Watch, the areas occupied included "over one hundred villages and towns that are part of Lebanon's provincial administrative districts of Tyre, Bint Jbail, Marjayoun, Hasbaiya, the Western Beka', and Nabatiyeh" (Human Rights Watch 1999). According to The Los Angeles Times, the Israeli army headquarters was located in Marjayoun (24 May 2000). The New York Times reports that the second largest Israeli base was located in Bint Jbail (23 May 2000).

Sources state that members of Hezbollah began to occupy southern Lebanon after the departure of the SLA and Israeli forces (The LA Times 24 May 2000; The New York Times 23 May 2000; Freedom House 1999).

2. Military Service Obligations

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a professor of political science at the University of Otago, with a specialization in the Middle East, including Lebanese history, stated that between 1998 and 2000, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) would have had a 12 month conscription for men over 18 years of age and that "service with the LAF was technically required" (1 Dec. 2015). The US Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1999 similarly states that "[a]ll males between 18 and 21 years of age in Lebanon are subject to compulsory military service" (US 23 Feb. 2000, Sec. 2d). Sources, including the Professor, indicated the following exceptions: university students, those who resided outside of Lebanon for five or more years (Professor 1 Dec. 2015; Australia 21 Dec. 2006), those who are the only male child in the family, married or had a brother who already completed his compulsory military service (ibid.). For information on the end of the practice of mandatory military service in the LAF, see Response to Information Request LBN103352.

To the Professor's knowledge, there was "no LAF presence in the occupied zone" (1 Dec. 2015). According to a September 2000 article in Jane's Intelligence Review, after the withdrawal of the SLA and IDF, the "Lebanese security presence in the south [was] minimal" (26 Sept. 2000). The BBC similarly reported in late May 2000 that "[t]he Lebanese Government is reluctant to deploy the army in the south" (BBC 26 May 2000). According to a 1999 report by Freedom House, "Lebanon had by year's end only apportioned some police and army personnel to towns and villages within the former security zone" (Freedom House 1999).

According to the Professor, while it would have been possible and "technically required at some point" to serve in the LAF, the individual "would have had to leave the [occupied] zone," and to the Professor's knowledge, the individual would not have been allowed to return (1 Dec. 2015). According to sources, the SLA would pressure young men to join them (UN 14 Oct. 2006; The New York Times 5 June 2000; Professor 1 Dec. 2015), including through the use of "duress and even abduction" (ibid.). Sources indicate that the SLA expelled people from the occupied zone (US 23 Feb. 2000; Human Rights Watch 9 Nov 1999), including for suspected activities of relatives and for refusing to serve in the SLA (ibid.; UN 14 Oct. 2006).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Anti-Defamation League (ADL). n.d.a. "Israel's Withdrawal from Lebanon." [Accessed 3 Dec. 2015]

Anti-Defamation League (ADL). N.d.b. "About the Anti-Defamation League." [Accessed 3 Dec. 2015]

Australia. 21 December 2006. Refugee Review Tribunal. "Lebanon." RRT Research Response. [Accessed 16 Dec. 2015]

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 26 May 2000. Christopher Hack. "Analysis: Lebanon's Fragile Peace." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2015]

Freedom House. 1999. "Lebanon." Freedom in the World 1999. [Accessed 30 Nov. 2015]

Freedom House. 1998. "Lebanon." Freedom in the World 1998. [Accessed 30 Nov. 2015]

The Guardian. 24 May 2000. Suzanne Goldenberg. "Chaos and Humiliation as Israel Pulls out of Lebanon." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2015]

The Guardian. 8 February 2000. Derek Brown. "What is Happening in Lebanon." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2015]

Human Rights Watch. 9 November 1999. "Civilian Expulsions from South Lebanon Continuing." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2015]

Human Rights Watch. 28 July 1999. "Civilians Summarily Expelled from Israeli-Occupied South Lebanon." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2015]

Human Rights Watch. 1999. "III. The Occupied Zone: An Overview." [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]

Jane's Intelligence Review. 26 September 2000. "Post-Israel Stability in South Lebanon." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2015]

The Los Angeles Times (LA Times). 24 May 2000. Marjorie Miller, John Daniszewski and Tracey Wilkinson. "Israel Leaves South Lebanon After 22 Years." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2012]

The New York Times. 5 June 2000. Susan Sachs. "South Lebanon Now Reaps a Harvest of Bitterness." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2015]

The New York Times. 23 May 2000. William A. Orme Jr. "Israel's Buffer Strip in South Lebanon Collapsing." [Accessed 1 Dec. 2015]

Professor of Political Science, University of Otago. 1 December 2015. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

United Nations (UN). 14 October 2006. UNHCR. "For Teachers - Ages 12-14 Civic Education: Activity Sheet: Stop the Use of Child Soldiers!" [Accessed 3 Dec. 2015]

United States (US). 23 February 2000. Department of State. "Lebanon." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 1999. [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Associate Professor, International History, London School of Economics and Political Science; Associate Professor, Political Science and International Relations, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Director, Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, Tufts University; Foundation for Human & Humanitarian Rights Lebanon; Professor of Political Science, Florida Atlantic University.

Internet sites, including: Amnesty International; The Daily Star Lebanon; ecoi.net; Factiva; Foundation for Human & Humanitarian Rights Lebanon; Haaretz; International Crisis Group; Israel - Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Lebanon Wire; The Times of Israel; UN - Refworld; War Resisters' International.
OSAGE  Within a few months, Osage Municipal Utility will be one step closing to providing fiber-optic internet to its customers.

The first phase of the project involves bringing a fiber-optic trunk line to the city of Osage through the purchase of its own fiber-optic trunk line from a Minnesota company, yet to be disclosed by the utility or its general manager, Josh Byrnes.

Byrnes hopes to see the project completed in the spring of 2017.

By owning our own trunk line, we are able to reduce the cost of purchasing bandwidth, he said, and to also begin planning for fiber-to-the-home projects.

It will also allow us another tool in the economic tool box.

During a recent discussion with the Mitchell County Board of Supervisors, Byrnes stated that once the trunk line entered the north edge of Mitchell County, it would follow a 22-mile path, beginning at State Line Road, continuing in the right-of-way of Highway 218 to 440th Street and then on to Hickory Avenue and back to Highway 218.

However, in order to bring the line to Osage, the utility had to hire R & S Fiber Optic Services LLC to complete the project design and layout.

Byrnes added while the trunk line would be going through the city of St. Ansgar, OMU is not looking to expand services in St. Ansgar or any other part of the county being serviced by OmniTel Communications.

Several years ago, Omnitel brought fiber-optic services to most of Mitchell County, except for the city of Mitchell, through which this trunk line would pass, as well as along Red Ball Road, giving the utility the option to provide the service to those specific areas.

Byrnes said he had previously contacted OmniTel regarding the companys future plans of providing the service, which Byrnes said they had no interest in doing.

Although OMU is not necessarily expanding services to others in Mitchell County, Byrnes said, there are opportunities for others to purchase bandwidth from our trunk line and expand those opportunities.

We are really focused on our public purpose of supplying service to our existing customers.

In regards to the overall cost and savings of the project to an OMU customer, Byrnes said, This is really a wild card at this point in time. It is hard to nail down any sort of long-term savings, as this is simply phase one of a multiple-phase project.

We are simply getting connectivity to Osage and build out from there. There are going to definitely be opportunities for savings to our rate payers long term. Even more important is the dependability of services moving forward. Its hard to put a price on that.

In speaking with the supervisors, Byrnes said with the increase in bandwidth and connectivity, Osage could be the gateway for connectivity to other parts of the state.

We could have the most connected city and county in the state of Iowa.

Byrnes said between Osage and OmniTel Communications, We would be providing them a redundancy in fiber optic connectivity.

This is bigger than just bringing fiber to Osage. This is about making Osage global. This is about recruiting our alumni to come back home and work globally from Osage. This about economic development for the community of Osage.
Nigeria: Situation and treatment of members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), including arrest and prosecution; whether the Nigeria Police Force pursue people who use bribes to flee detention and who have no charges against them (2013-July 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 20 July 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105577.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur la situation des membres du Mouvement pour l'actualisation de l'Etat souverain du Biafra (Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra - MASSOB) et le traitement qui leur est reserve, y compris les arrestations et les poursuites; information indiquant si les forces policieres du Nigeria recherchent les personnes qui utilisent des pots-de-vin pour etre liberees et qui ne font l'objet d'aucune accusation (2013-juillet 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Situation and treatment of members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), including arrest and prosecution; whether the Nigeria Police Force pursue people who use bribes to flee detention and who have no charges against them (2013-July 2016), 20 July 2016, NGA105577.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843f77e4.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. MASSOB Factions and Name Change

In his 2015 article on Biafra separatism, Nnamdi Obasi, Senior Analyst on Nigeria at the International Crisis Group, states that

[i]n recent years, MASSOB has fractured and, on 30 November 2015, a major faction tried to expel [its leader Ralph] Uwazuruike, alleging he had compromised the secessionist cause and pocketed some 100 million naira [NGN] [approximately C$454,266] of the group's funds. (International Crisis Group 4 Dec. 2015)

Media sources similarly report that Uwazuruike was removed from the organisation for allegedly embezzling NGN 100 million from the organization (Daily Post 1 Dec. 2015; Nigerian Watch 1 Dec. 2015).

Sources indicate that Uchenna Madu was named the new leader of MASSOB (ibid., Daily Post 1 Dec. 2015). However, according to a December 2015 article in Nigerian newspaper, the Daily Post, Uwazuruike dismissed his alleged expulsion from the group, insisting that he remained the leader of MASSOB (ibid. 5 Dec. 2015). The Vanguard, a Nigerian newspaper, states that "Uwazuruike and Madu led factions have been engaged in a war of words claiming to have expelled each other's faction from the Movement" (Vanguard 22 Feb. 2016).

Nigerian media sources report that on 6 December 2015, Uwazuruike announced a change in the name of MASSOB to Biafra Independent Movement (BIM) (This Day 6 Dec. 2015; Daily Post 6 Dec. 2015; Vanguard 6 Dec. 2015). However, other sources indicate that Uwazuruike formed a MASSOB faction called BIM following his alleged suspension from MASSOB (ibid. 22 Feb. 2016; WANEP 21 Jan. 2016, 2; Senior Lecturer 15 July 2016). According to sources, Uwazuruike stated at a news conference that the name change was due to the what he claimed was the "'introduction of violence'" to the group's activities (This Day 6 Dec. 2015; Vanguard 6 Dec. 2015) by actors he described as "'disgruntled dissidents'" (ibid.), or, a "faction sympathetic to Nnamdi Kanu" (This Day 6 Dec. 2015). The Vanguard notes that Uwazuruike publically declared that this was "'at variance with the non-violen[t] stance of MASSOB over the years'" (Vanguard 6 Dec. 2015). However, according to Nigerian newspaper, This Day, Uwazuruike also called for the release of Nnamdi Kanu (6 Dec. 2015). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a senior lecturer at Covenant University in Nigeria, who specializes in Biafra separatist movements, explained that after falling out with MASSOB (under Uwazuruike) due to "ideological differences on the ways Biafra can be restored," Nnamdi Kanu founded the group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) [1] (Senior Lecturer 15 July 2016). The same source explained that Kanu's arrest [in October 2015 (WANEP 21 Jan. 2016, 2)] sparked protests by his supporters in IPOB, and that the Madu-led faction of MASSOB joined such protests in solidarity (Senior Lecturer 15 July 2016). For information on MASSOB leadership and structure in 2009, see Response to Information Request NGA103197.

2. Treatment by Authorities

International Crisis Group states that in 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan listed MASSOB as an "'extremist group' threatening Nigeria's security" (4 Dec. 2015). According to sources, in a March 2016 interview, the Nigerian president Muhammudu Buhari told Al-Jazeera that agitation for Biafra independence in Nigeria would not be tolerated (Vanguard 6 Mar. 2016; Newsweek 7 Mar. 2016). International Crisis Group also reports that the chief of the Nigerian Army "vowed to 'crush' any threat to the country's unity and territorial integrity" (4 Dec. 2015). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

According to the Senior Lecturer, arrests of MASSOB and other pro-Biafra activists are "rampant" in Nigeria, adding that "[a]ny time [MASSOB] planned to engage in rallies, marches, commemoration and other activities, [they] often result in clashes with security operatives ending up in the arrest and detention of MASSOB members" (Senior Lecturer 15 July 2016).

2.1 Incidents of Arrests and Violence

According to an article by a Nigerian news website 247 Nigeria News Update, in 2013, when numerous corpses appeared in the Ezu River in Anambra State, MASSOB alleged that their members had been killed and dumped by Nigerian security forces (247 Nigeria News Update [2013]). The Senior Lecturer similarly stated that when approximately 30 bodies were discovered in the river, "MASSOB claimed [they] were their members, arrested and detained by Nigerian security operatives, but never prosecuted for any offences" (Senior Lecturer 15 July 2016). 247 Nigeria News Update indicates that a Senate Committee report that examined the case could not establish the identities of the 19 victims or the perpetrators (247 Nigeria News Update [2013]).

Sources report that in September 2015, 50 Uwazuruike-led MASSOB members were arrested when police stormed Uwazuruike's house in Imo State (Daily Post 7 Sept. 2015; Senior Lecturer 15 July 2016).

According to the US Department of State's Overseas Security Advisory Council's (OSAC) 2016 Crime and Safety Report for Nigeria, in 2015, members of IPOB and MASSOB held "several protests" in Nigeria (US 15 Apr. 2016, 4). The report states that "[t]he protests mainly centered on the arrest of the groups' leadership as well as their dissatisfaction with perceived inequality against the Igbo community" (ibid.). Sources indicate that the demonstrations began after Nigerian authorities arrested IPOB's leader Nnami Kanu (International Crisis Group 4 Dec. 2015; Senior Lecturer 15 July 2015) in October 2015, whom Madu's MASSOB faction supports (ibid.). According to the International Crisis Group, the protests involved "over 10,000 people in some cities" (4 Dec. 2015).

The Vanguard reports that on 2 December 2015 in Onitsha, Anambra State, nine protesters and two police officers were killed (3 Dec. 2015). International Crisis Group similarly indicates that the month-long demonstrations turned violent on 2 December when "at least" eight protesters and two policemen were killed (7 Dec. 2015).

2.1.1 Biafra Independence Anniversary, 30 May 2016

According to sources, during a protest that erupted on the anniversary of Biafra independence [2] on 30 May 2016, the Nigerian Army shot and killed five members of MASSOB and IPOB (Newsweek 31 May 2016; Premium Times 31 May 2016) while wounding eight and arresting nine others (ibid.). Two police officers were also killed during the protest (ibid.; Newsweek 31 May 2016).

International Crisis Group reports that on 30 May 2016, during clashes between pro-Biafra separatists and security forces in several cities in South East Nigeria, at least 20 people were killed (1 June 2016). In its reports on the 30 May events, Amnesty International (AI) states that on 29-30 May 2016, the Nigerian military opened fired on "pro-Biafra supporters" and members of IPOB, and "[a]fter visits to hospitals and morgues, [AI] has confirmed  that at least 17 people were killed and nearly 50 injured. The real number is likely to be higher" (AI 10 June 2016).

Sources report that on 30 May 2016 in Ebonyi state, 200 police officers raided a primary school where the MASSOB members gathered to celebrate the anniversary of Biafra independence, and according to a local MASSOB leader, 320 members, as well as clergymen, were arrested (Daily Post 31 May 2016; Premium Times 30 May 2016b). The Vanguard indicates that the Ebonyi state police laid charges against 92 MASSOB members that were arrested during "their anniversary celebration in the state" (31 May 2016). According to an article in the Daily Trust, a Nigerian newspaper, 101 MASSOB members who were arrested on 30 May 2016 in Ebonyi were granted bail on 31 May 2016 (Daily Trust 1 June 2016). The article further states that 88 of the 92 arrested members are facing charges of "conspiracy, belonging to unlawful society, membership of unlawful group and possession of items with inscriptions calling for the declaration of Biafra nation" (ibid.).

According to sources, 40 MASSOB and BIM members were arrested on 30 May 2016 while gathered in a church in Nsukka, Enugu State (Vanguard 30 May 2016; Premium Times 30 May 2016a). The same sources cite information provided by the Nigerian police as stating that "no fewer" than 13 presumed MASSOB and BIM members were arrested in the Enugu state (ibid., Vanguard 30 May 2016a). According to 1 June 2016 article by the Daily Trust, the 13 arrested MASSOB and BIM members were granted bail (1 June 2016). Further information on the status of the cases could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

3. Pursuit of Persons who Use Bribes to Flee Detention Without Charge

According to the Senior Lecturer,

[i]t is a fact that the police engage in wanton arrests of MASSOB and other pro-Biafran activists who are most of the time not prosecuted but are released on bail after some money has been paid even though police bail in Nigeria is not supposed to cost money. (Senior Lecturer 15 July 2016)

The same source added that while he was not aware of any reports of police pursuing persons who were released from detention after paying a bribe, "report[s] abound of indiscriminate arrests of MASSOB and other pro-Biafra activists who negotiate their freedom by paying bribe to the police and other security operatives in Nigeria" (ibid.). Corroborating information on specific MASSOB related instances of bribery to obtain release could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

According to the US Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015,

[p]olice routinely detained suspects without informing them of the charges against them or allowing access to counsel and family members; such detentions often included solicitation of bribes. Provision of bail often remained arbitrary  Numerous detainees alleged police demanded bribes to take them to court hearings or to release them. (US 13 Apr. 2016, 10)

A 2014 report by AI on treatment of detainees in military and police custody in Nigeria similarly states that the "police often detain people, sometimes in large dragnet operations, as a pretext to obtain bribes, alleging involvement in various offences ranging from 'wandering' (loitering) to robbery" (AI 2014, 6). An article in a Nigerian newspaper Peoples Daily, based on an investigation conducted by a journalist who "visited several police stations in Lagos and its environs," indicates that despite the fact that bail is free in Nigeria, "officers won't stop asking for money to release detained persons in their custody" (Peoples Daily 19 June 2015). The article includes interviews with persons and their relatives who were not charged with a crime but were asked to pay for bail, including one person who indicated that "'[t]he police officer refused to charge me to court but I was asked to bail myself with 50,000 [NGN] [approximately C$ 229]'" (ibid.). The article cites another interviewee as stating that "'[w]e paid 6,000 [NGN] [approximately C$ 28] to the police to release our son, even [though] the officer cannot establish his crime'" (ibid).

Further information on instances of police pursuing people who had used bribes to flee detention and who had no charges against them could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. For information on treatment of MASSOB members by authorities before 2011, and whether the Nigerian police pursued people who used bribes to flee detention, please refer to Response to Information Request NGA103912.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Notes

[1] The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) is a "leading Regional Peacebuilding organization" with national networks comprising over 500 organizations in West Africa (WANEP n.d.). In its policy brief on pro-Biafra protests in Nigeria, WANEP states that IPOB is a pro-Biafra movement and cites its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, as indicating that it was founded in London in 2012 (21 Jan. 2016, 2).

[2] According to the Newsweek article, "[o]n May 30, 1967, former Nigerian military officer Odumegwu Ojukwu declared a region of southeast Nigeria to be independent, naming it the Republic of Biafra and sparking a bloody three-year civil war" (31 May 2016).

References

Amnesty International (AI). 10 June 2016. "Nigeria: Killing of Unarmed Pro-Biafra Supporters by Military Must Be Urgently Investigated." [Accessed 8 July 2016]

Amnesty International (AI). 2014. 'Welcome to Hell Fire.' Torture and Other Ill-treatment in Nigeria. [Accessed 8 June 2016]

Daily Post. 31 May 2016. Seun Opejobi. "Biafra Day: Ebonyi Police Invades Prayer Session; Arrests Pastors, 320 MASSOB Members." [Accessed 11 July 2016]

Daily Post. 6 December 2015. Sylvester Ugwuanyi. "Uwazuruike Renames MASSOB." [Accessed 30 June 2016]

Daily Post. 5 December 2015. Emmanuel Uzodinma. "I Remain MASSOB Leader - Uwazuruike Laughs Off Expulsion." [Accessed 7 July 2016]

Daily Post. 1 December 2015. Ameh Comrade Godwin. "MASSOB Leader, Uwazuruike Expelled for Allegedly Embezzling N100m." [Accessed 7 July 2016]

Daily Post. 7 September 2015. Sylvester Ugwuanyi. "Police Arrest 50 MASSOB Members in Uwazurike's House." [Accessed 7 July 2016]

Daily Trust. 1 June 2016. Nabob Ogbonna and Tony Adibe. "Courts Grant Bail to 101 MASSOB Members in Abakaliki, Enugu." [Accessed 11 July 2016]

International Crisis Group. 1 June 2016. CrisisWatch No. 154. [Accessed 12 July 2016]

International Crisis Group. 4 December 2015. Nnamdi Obasi. "Nigeria's Biafran Separatist Upsurge." [Accessed 30 June 2016]

Newsweek. 31 May 2016. Conor Gaffey. "'There's No Smoking Gun.' A Pro-Biafra Group Denies Claims of Carrying Arms." [Accessed 11 July 2016]

Newsweek. 7 March 2016. Conor Gaffey. "Buhari: Nigeria 'Will Not Tolerate' Biafra Agitation." [Accessed 13 July 2016]

247 Nigerian News Update. [2013]. "How Ezu River 19 Were Killed, by Senate [Accessed 20 July 2016]

Nigerian Watch. 1 December 2015. "Massob Expels Its President Ralph Uwazuruike for Embezzling N100m of Its Funds." [Accessed 7 July 2016]

Peoples Daily. 19 June 2015. "Finishing Friday, June 19, 2015." [Accessed 12 July 2016]

Premium Times. 31 May 2016. Gbolahan Adediran. "Why Protesting MASSOB, IPOB Members Were Killed - Nigerian Army." [Accessed 30 June 2016]

Premium Times. 30 May 2016a. Gbolahan Adediran. "Police Arrest 13 Pro-Biafra Activists in Enugu." [Accessed 11 July 2016]

Premium Times. 30 May 2016b. James Eze. "Biafra Day: Police Storm Prayer Session, Arrest Pastors, 320 MASSOB Members in Ebonyi." [Accessed 11 July 2016]

Senior Lecturer, Covenant University. 15 July 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

This Day. 6 December 2015. Amby Uneze. "Nigeria: Uwazuruike Renames MASSOB, Now Biafra Independent Movement." [Accessed 30 June 2016]

United States (US). 15 April 2016. Department of State, Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC). Nigeria 2016 Crime and Safety Report: Lagos. [Accessed 7 July 2016]

United States (US). 13 April 2016. Department of State. "Nigeria." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015. [Accessed 7 July 2016]

Vanguard. 31 May 2016. Peter Okutu. "Biafra: Police Charge 92 MASSOB Members to Court in Ebonyi." [Accessed 11 July 2016]

Vanguard. 30 May 2016. Chinenyeh Ozor. "Police Arrests 40 MASSOB Members at Nsukka Church." [Accessed 11 July 2016]

Vanguard. 6 March 2016. Nwabueze Okonkwo. "Biafra Will Not Stand, Buhari Vows." [Accessed 8 July 2016]

Vanguard. 22 February 2016. Ugochukwu Alaribe. "Stop Parading Yourselves as MASSOB Members; Uchenna Madu Tells Uwazuruike, Others." [Accessed 7 July 2016]

Vanguard. 6 December 2015. Chidi Nkwopara. "Biafra: Uwazuruike renames MASSOB." [Accessed 30 June 2015]

Vanguard. 3 December 2015. "9 Killed as Pro-Biafra Protests Turn Bloody." [Accessed 10 July 2016]

West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). 21 January 2016. West Africa Early Warning Network (WARN). Bukola Ademola-Adelehin and Osarieme Amas-Edobor. The Nigeria State and the Biafra Question: Threats to or Opportunities for National Cohesion? [Accessed 12 July 2016]

West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 13 July 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Amnesty International Nigeria; International Crisis Group; MASSOB; Network on Police Reform in Nigeria; Nigeria National Network Coordinator, West African Network for Peacebuilding; Postdoctoral Research Associate, Princeton University.

Internet sites, including: Africa Confidential; ecoi.net; Factiva; Freedom House; Human Rights Watch; Indigenous People of Biafra Government; IPOB; International Business Times; Interpol; IRIN; Naij.com; Nigeria - National Human Rights Commission, Nigerian Army; The Nigerian Voice; Radio Biafra; United Nations - Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Refworld, Reliefweb; World Igbo Congress.
Nigeria: Situation of the Eggon ethnic group, including treatment by society, armed groups and state authorities (2011-June 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 8 June 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105540.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur la situation du groupe ethnique des Eggon, y compris le traitement reserve par la societe, les groupes armes et les autorites de l'Etat (2011-juin 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Situation of the Eggon ethnic group, including treatment by society, armed groups and state authorities (2011-June 2016), 8 June 2016, NGA105540.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843f9124.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Overview

Two sources indicate that the population of the Eggon is estimated to be more than 200,000 people (Professor of history 30 May 2016; Joshua Project n.d.). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a professor of history at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, who has researched the Middle Belt region of Nigeria but is not a specialist on the Eggon, stated that, because ethnicity was not a criteria in the 2006 census, there is no official estimate of the population of the Eggon (Professor of history 30 May 2016). The same source added that in the 1991 census, there were approximately 140,000 Eggon in Nigeria (ibid.). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, a "comprehensive reference work cataloging all of the world's known living languages" (Ethnologue n.d.), similarly notes that there were 140,000 Eggon speakers in 1990 (ibid. 2016). Sources indicate that the Eggon ethnic group speaks the Eggon language (Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013; Professor of history 30 May 2016), which includes different dialects depending on the "clans and settlements" (ibid.).

Sources indicate that the Eggon mainly reside in Nasarawa [Nassarawa] state (Joshua Project n.d.; Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013; Professor of history 30 May 2016). According to the Professor, there are also some Eggon people living in parts of the states of Kaduna and Benue, as well as in Abuja, part of the Federal Capital Territory (ibid.). Other sources report that the Eggon are found in the Lafia, Akwanga, Nasarawa-Eggon districts of Nasarawa state (Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013; Joshua Project n.d.) as well as in the Keffi district (ibid.). However, the Nigerian news source the Daily Trust notes in an article published in 2013 that there are Eggons "spread across all zones of the [Nasarawa] state" (Daily Trust 20 May 2013). Sources indicate that the Eggon language is spoken in the Nasarawa state Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Nasarawa, Akwanga, Lafia, Awe and Obi (Nasarawa n.d.; Ethnologue 2016), as well as in Nasarawa Eggon, Keana, Keffi, Kokona, Karu and Toto LGAs (ibid.).

In terms of physical appearance, the Professor of history said that the Eggon do not look different from other Nigerians, but the "older generations used to have distinct tribal marks and marks of lizards, birds and other objects on their necks, arms and belly" (Professor of history 30 May 2016). Further information about distinguishing physical characteristics of Eggon could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

The Professor of history indicated that the Eggon are "mainly traditionalists" in terms of religion, but that "Islam and Christianity is gaining ground among them" (ibid.). Agence France-Presse (AFP) states that the Eggon are divided between Muslims and Christians, but also have "a history of links to pagan movements" (AFP 9 May 2013).

In a paper about Muslims in Nasarawa state, Dr. Sa'adatu Hassan Liman and Dr. Abubakar S.I. Wakawa [1], both lecturers at Nasarawa State University, indicate that Nasarawa state has a population of approximately 1.8 million people and is "extremely diverse," with more than 18 different ethnic groups recognized as "proper indigenes" of the state, including the Eggon (Liman and Wakawa Jan. 2012, 3). According to the website of Nasarawa state, Eggon is one of 29 "first languages" spoken in the state (Nasarawa n.d.).

Some sources indicate that many of the Eggon in Nasarawa state are "sedentary agriculturalists" (Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013) or "farmers" (Vanguard 10 Feb. 2013; IWPR 23 Feb. 2015).

1.1 Ombatse Movement

Sources indicate that some Eggon have formed a group called the Ombatse, which means "time has come" in the Eggon language (Reuters 9 May 2013; IHS Global Insight 10 May 2013; Daily Trust 20 May 2013). According to the Daily Trust, the group became visible in 2012 and has over 50 branches throughout Nigeria, particularly in "Eggon land" (ibid.). Some sources describe the Ombatse as a "cult" (Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013; Reuters 9 May 2013; IHS Global Insight 10 May 2013), including the Nasarawa state governor (ibid.). A 2013 article published by the Daily Trust refers to Ombatse as "an Eggon spiritual group" (Daily Trust 20 May 2013). Sources indicate that the Ombatse aim to rid Nigeria of vices, such as adultery and alcohol consumption (ibid.; AFP 9 May 2013; IHS Global Insight 10 May 2013). According to IHS Global Insight, a global forecasting company that provides "economic, financial, and political coverage" of countries and industries (IHS Global Insight n.d.), Nasarawa state police have said that the Ombatse have been involved with "forced conversion" of Christians and Muslims, and that this has become "increasingly aggressive" (ibid. 10 May 2013). According to the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, DC-based organization that has a "network of indigenous experts in more than 50 different countries to conduct research and analysis on terrorism" (Jamestown Foundation n.d.), "[t]he Ombatse cult is based on traditional forms of worship practiced by the Eggon ethnic group" and the movement

has embarked on a violent campaign of moral and spiritual reform implemented through forced conversions, though the campaign also draws on currents of political frustration and perennial disputes with semi-nomadic herders like the Fulani, who use the same land as sedentary agriculturalists like the Eggon. (ibid. 17 May 2013)

Sources indicate that the Ombatse is a "militia" (Reuters 9 May 2013; IWPR 23 Feb. 2015) or "ethnic militia" (Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013). According to the Professor of history, the Eggon formed the Ombatse cult with the alleged purpose of protecting themselves from attacks by other groups, such as the Fulani, Alago and Migili [Migli], but other groups in the region claim that the Ombatse is used to "terrorize them" (Professor of history 30 May 2016). Sources report cases in which the Ombatse have instigated violence against other groups in Nasarawa (IWPR 23 Feb. 2015; AFP 9 May 2013). Some sources report allegations that the Ombatse have a political agenda (Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013; Daily Trust 20 May 2013; AFP 9 May 2013), such as aiming to secure a governor of Eggon ethnicity (ibid.; Daily Trust 20 May 2013). Sources indicate that the Ombatse was banned by Nasarawa state authorities in 2012 (ibid.; Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013).

2. Treatment by Society and Armed Groups

Sources indicate that the Eggon have complained of being mistreated by other ethnic groups, including the Fulani (The Herald 5 Sept. 2013; Professor of history 30 May 2016), the Alago (ibid.; Leadership 24 June 2012) and the Migili (Professor of history 30 May 2016; Daily Trust 29 Nov. 2014).

2.1 Clashes with Fulani

Several sources report that there is a problem with ethnic violence between the Eggon and Fulani in Nasarawa state (Vanguard 10 Feb. 2013; Daily Trust 20 May 2013; IWPR 23 Feb. 2015). The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), an organization that supports local reporters, citizen journalists and civil society activists in countries in conflict and crisis (IWPR n.d.), explains that, in addition of ethnic differences, access to scarce resources, such as grazing and water, are factors in the violence between nomadic pastoralists and farmers in Nasarawa (ibid. 23 Feb. 2015). According to the African News Agency (Agence de presse africaine, APA), the Eggon and Fulani have been in conflict since 2010, "leading to bloodletting and loss of property and destruction of Eggon villages" (APA 21 Oct. 2012). Nigerian Tribune similarly reports that the Fulani have carried out "serial attacks" on Eggon communities (24 Sept. 2014). The Daily Trust states in a 2014 article that "in recent months," hostilities between the Eggon and Fulani had impacted at least 40 communities in Lafia, Obi, Keana, Doma, and Nasawara Eggon (Daily Trust 29 Dec. 2014). The same source states that "[h]undreds have been killed, while thousands have migrated to urban centres and neighbouring states of Plateau, Benue and Taraba" (ibid.).

Sources report that several clashes between the Fulani and Eggon occurred in Nasarawa state between 2012 and 2014, including the following:

In October 2012, Fulani herdsmen allegedly raided 3 villages in the Giza development area, killing 13 people, including 9 Eggon farmers (APA 21 Oct. 2012).

In February 2013, 30 people were killed and several others wounded in a clash between Fulani and Eggon in Randa village, near Kwandere (Vanguard 10 Feb. 2013). Police were deployed to the area, but the attack continued (ibid.).

In a memorandum submitted to the Judicial Commission of Enquiry [2], Eggon communities in the Barkin Abdullahi District (BAD) of Lafia and its surroundings accused "'Fulani mercenaries'" of killing 22 people and burning 139 homes, 10 shops and a hospital in multiple villages in this area in February 2013 (The Herald 5 Sept. 2013).

In August 2014, approximately 60 people died in fighting between Fulani herdsmen and ethnic Eggon farmers in Nasawara state (AI 25 Feb. 2015, 277; IWPR 23 Feb. 2015). According to the IWPR, the attack on the Fulani village of Alingani in Nasarawa state was supported by the local Ombatse group and more than 80 houses and properties were destroyed (ibid.).

In September 2014, Fulani "mercenaries" attacked Kampani, Agbolagu and Fadama-Bona, three Eggon communities in the Eggon LGA, and shot 45 people (Nigeria Tribune 3 Sept. 2014). Later in the same month, 10 people were killed and houses were burnt when approximately 300 "Fulani mercenaries" attacked Gidan-Gambo, an Eggon community in Lafia LGA (ibid. 24 Sept. 2014).

In November 2014, Fulani herdsmen carried out twin attacks in Likygegba, in Arikya, and Agwan-Mangoro in Lafia LGA, killing over 32 people and injuring several others (Nigerian Tribune 10 Nov. 2014). The attack was reportedly in reprisal for an Eggon militia attacking the Gwayaka and Tungan-Dauda communities the day before (ibid.).

Later in November 2014, an armed group believed to be Fulani raided Alakyo, a village outside Lafia; the spiritual leader of the Ombatse and the village head of Alakyo were believed to be killed, and a shrine was destroyed (Daily Trust 24 Nov. 2014). The fighting also spread to Fadaman Bauna and Doka, two other Eggon settlements in Akura (ibid.).

Daily Trust indicates that in December 2014, the Eggon and Fulani "entered a pact to end the ethnic hostilities," which was initiated by the House of Representatives member for Lafia/Obi (ibid. 29 Dec. 2014). Further information about the pact and its implementation could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

In 3 June 2016 correspondence with the Research Directorate, an assistant professor of criminology and socio-legal studies at the University of Alberta, who specializes in Nigeria but not on the Eggon, stated that Fulani herdsmen are "a genuine threat to the Eggon vis-a-vis their livelihood and increasingly, [their] lives," and that Fulani attacks have "escalated in the last few months" (Assistant professor of criminology 3 June 2016). He explained that the Fulani's "[r]oving cattle destroy the farmland of whole communities and families with impunity" (ibid.).

2.2 Clashes Between the Eggon and Other Groups in Nasarawa State

Media sources report on the following clashes between the Eggon and Alago ethnic groups:

In June 2012, there was a clash between the Eggon and the Alago communities in Assakio, in the Lafia LGA of Nasarawa state, that killed at least 30 people, injured thousands, and destroyed property (Leadership 24 June 2012). The fighting was reportedly caused by a unilateral decision of the Alago traditional leader to increase land rent for farmers cultivating the community land (ibid.).

In September 2013, there were additional clashes between the Eggon and Alago ethnic groups in Nasarawa state, resulting in 31 killings, the destruction by arson of 1,300 homes and the displacement of people into refugee camps (ibid. 23 Sept. 2013; Xinhua 20 Sept. 2013). The President deployed troops to quell the violence (ibid.; Leadership 23 Sept. 2013).The fighting reportedly happened in the Obi LGA and the Assakio area of Lafia East LGA (Xinhua 20 Sept. 2013).

Sources report incidents of violence between the Eggon and other groups, including:

According to Amnesty International (AI), in November 2014, 40 people were killed in clashes between the Eggon and Gwadara ethnic groups over a piece of land (AI 25 Feb. 2015, 277).

The Daily Trust reports that, in November 2014, three people were killed in an attack on a Migli community, which the community blamed on the Ombatse (Daily Trust 29 Nov. 2014).

Sources indicate that there were clashes between the Eggon and other groups in the Nasarawa state capital Lafia in November 2014, which included clashes between the Eggon and the Kambari (Leadership 19 Nov. 2014; Daily Trust 18 Nov. 2014) and the Eggon and the Gwandara (ibid.). According to Nigerian Abuja-based newspaper Leadership, 12 people were killed and over 30 houses were burnt in fighting between the Eggon and the Kambari, before soldiers arrived (19 Nov. 2014). According to the Nigerian newspaper Premium Times, Eggon residents were fleeing Lafia "in droves" and heading towards Nasarawa Eggon LGA and Akwanga LGA (18 Nov. 2014).

2.3 Treatment Outside of Nasarawa State

The Professor of history stated that if Eggon people relocate to other areas of Nigeria, "they may have the issue of indigeneship to contend with": it may be difficult for them to get jobs or occupy political offices in states to which they are not indigenous (Professor of history 30 May 2016). The assistant professor of criminology similarly stated that,

[t]he Eggon may face serious problems while attempting to settle in other parts of the country, particularly if they are farmers. Land may be unavailable to them and exclusion in terms of employment (in a country with high unemployment rates) is a real possibility. (Assistant professor of criminology 3 June 2016)

For further information on ethnicity in Nigeria, the issue of indigeneship, and the ability for ethnic groups to relocate to areas where they are not indigenous, see Response to Information Request NGA104216.

3. Treatment by Authorities

According to the Professor of history, within the last 15-18 years, the Eggon have complained of discrimination by state political leaders who came from outside their area (Professor of history 30 May 2016). The same source further stated that the Eggon "have complained of neglect, persecution and harassment in terms of provision and maintenance of infrastructure and job[s] as well as deliberate sponsorship of armed attacks on them" (ibid.). In contrast, in correspondence with the Research Directorate, a professor of history and international studies at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria, who has conducted work on ethno-cultural conflict in Nigeria, said that the Eggon "are in control of most issues in Nasarawa state," and receive "government patronage with prominent Eggons as Ministers" in the government (Professor of history and international studies 31 May 2016). He stated that they have "very good work opportunities, heathcare and educational systems" and he gave the opinion that they are not a marginalized group (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

In their memorandum to the Judicial Commission of Enquiry, reported on in the Herald, Eggon community members in the BAD region near Lafia faulted the Nasarawa state government for not taking "'proactive measures'" to protect them against violence in February 2013 and for releasing 28 "suspected mercenaries" who had been arrested following the attacks (The Herald 5 Sept. 2013).

In May 2013, the Ombatse reportedly "ambush[ed]" dozens of police officers in a community located approximately 10 kilometres outside Lafia (Reuters 9 May 2013; IHS Global Insight 10 May 2013; AFP 9 May 2013). The number of police officers killed ranges among sources from 30 (ibid.; Jamestown Foundation 17 May 2013) to as many as 95 (ibid.). Media sources indicate that the police officers were deployed to the area to arrest the leader of the Ombatse (Reuters 9 May 2013; IHS Global Insight 10 May 2013) for alleged forced conversions of Muslims and Christians in the area (ibid.). According to the Daily Trust, 17 suspects of Eggon ethnicity were arrested in connection with the event (Daily Trust 20 May 2013).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Notes

[1] Dr. Sa'adatu Hassan Liman is a lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Nasarawa State University and Dr. Abubakar Sadiq Idris Wakawa is a lecturer in the Department of Languages and Linguistics at the same university (Liman and Wakawa Jan. 2012, 1).

[2] According to the Herald, a Nigerian digital newspaper and magazine (The Herald n.d.), the Judicial Commission of Enquiry was "probing the killing of over 50 security personnel at Lakyo village in Nasarawa State" (The Herald 5 Sept. 2013). See section 3 of this Response to Information Request for information about Ombatse involvement in the killing of law enforcement officials in Alakyo village in May 2013.

References

Agence de presse africaine (APA). 21 October 2012. "At Least 13 Die in Inter-Ethnic Violence in Northern Nigeria." (Factiva)

Agence France-Presse (AFP). 9 May 2013. Aminu Abubakar. "Gunmen from Nigeria Cult Kill 30 Police in Ambush." [Accessed 26 May 2016]

Amnesty International (AI). 25 February 2015. "Nigeria." Amnesty International Report 2014/15: The State of the World's Human Rights. [Accessed 25 Feb. 2012]

Assistant professor of criminology, University of Alberta. 3 June 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Daily Trust. 29 December 2014. Hir Joseph. "Fulani, Eggon in Pact to End Hostilities." (Factiva)

Daily Trust. 29 November 2014. Hir Joseph. "Militia Kill Three Members of One Family in Nasarawa." (Factiva)

Daily Trust. 24 November 2014. Hir Joseph. "Nasarawa Bloodbath - the Inside Story." (Factiva)

Daily Trust. 18 November 2014. Hir Joseph. "Alakyo Violence Spreads to Lafia." (Factiva)

Daily Trust. 20 May 2013. Hir Joseph. "Ombatse - Profile of Deadly Cult Group." (Factiva)

Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 2016. 19th ed. "Eggon." Edited by M. Paul Lewis, Gary F. Simons and Charles D. Fennig. Dallas: SIL International. [Accessed 1 June 2016]

Ethnologue: Languages of the World. N.d. "About the Ethnologue." [Accessed 1 June 2016]

The Herald. 5 September 2013. Tobi Adeyeye. "Nassarawa Killings: Eggon Accuse Fulani Mercenaries of Killing 22 People, Burning 150 Houses." [Accessed 26 May 2016]

The Herald. N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 7 June 2016]

IHS Global Insight. 10 May 2013. Fred Saugman. "'Cult' Gunmen in Nigeria Kill at Least 46 Police Officers." (Factiva)

IHS Global Insight. N.d. "About IHS Global Insight." [Accessed 6 June 2016]

Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). 23 February 2015. Edegbe Odemwingie. "Grazing Routes to Ethnic Bloodshed." [Accessed 26 May 2016]

Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). N.d. "What We Do." [Accessed 7 June 2016]

Jamestown Foundation. 17 May 2013. Andrew McGregor. "Ombatse: Nigerian Religious Cult Joins War on the State in Central Nigeria." Terrorism Monitor. Vol. 11, Issue 10. [Accessed 26 May 2016]

Jamestown Foundation. N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 2 June 2016]

Joshua Project. N.d. "Eggon in Nigeria." [Accessed 26 May 2016]

Leadership. 19 November 2014. "Latest Adamawa Village Attack - 10 Soldiers, Scores of Insurgents Killed." (Factiva)

Leadership. 23 September 2013. "Al-Makura Confirms Death of 31 People, Burning of 1,300 Houses in Nasarawa Crisis." (Factiva)

Leadership. 24 June 2012. Donatus Nadi. "The Bloodbath that Disfigured Two Nasarawa Communities." (Factiva)

Liman, Sa'adatu Hassan and Abubakar S.I. Wakawa. January 2012. Muslims of Nasarawa State: A Survey. Nigeria Research Network (NRN), Oxford Department of International Development, Oxford University. [Accessed 26 May 2016]

Nasarawa State. N.d. "Languages of Nasarawa State." [Accessed 30 May 2016]

Nigerian Tribune. 10 November 2014. "Again, Fulani Herdsmen Kill 32 in Nasarawa." (Factiva)

Nigerian Tribune. 24 September 2014. "Fulanis Invade Eggon Community in Nasarawa Kill 10 People, Set Houses Ablaze." (Factiva)

Nigerian Tribune. 3 September 2014. "Forty-five Feared Killed in Nigeria Attack in Nasarawa." (Factiva)

Premium Times. 18 November 2014. Muhammad Ahmad. "Fresh Fighting Erupts in Lafia, Nasarawa - One Feared Killed." (Factiva)

Professor of history, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. 30 May 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Professor of history and international studies, University of Ilorin, Nigeria. 31 May 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Reuters. 9 May 2013. "Nigeria Ambush Kills 46 Police, Blamed on Local Cult." (Factiva)

Vanguard. 10 February 2013. Abel Daniel. "Community Clashes in Nigeria's Nasarawa State Claim 30 Lives." (Factiva)

Xinhua News Agency. 20 September 2013. Olatunji Saliu. "31 Killed in Nigeria Ethnic Violence." (Factiva)

Additional Sources Consulted

Internet sites, including: Africa Center for Strategic Studies; ecoi.net; Factiva; Human Rights Watch; Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa; Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre; IRIN; Minority Rights Group International; Nigeria - National Population Commission; UN - Refworld; US Institute of Peace.
Nigeria : information sur la situation des femmes celibataires qui vivent seules a Abuja, y compris leur capacite a obtenir un emploi et un logement; la menace de violence; les services de soutien qui leur sont offerts (2015-juin 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 30 June 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105523.EF Related Document(s) Nigeria: Situation of single women living alone in Abuja, including ability to access employment and housing; threat of violence; support services available to them (2015 - June 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria : information sur la situation des femmes celibataires qui vivent seules a Abuja, y compris leur capacite a obtenir un emploi et un logement; la menace de violence; les services de soutien qui leur sont offerts (2015-juin 2016), 30 June 2016, NGA105523.EF, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843f98f4.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Direction des recherches, Commission de l'immigration et du statut de refugie du Canada, Ottawa

1. Situation des femmes celibataires

Dans une communication ecrite envoyee a la Direction des recherches, un agent principal de programme specialiste de la sante de la reproduction, des objectifs de developpement durable et des questions de genre au Centre de proposition legislative de la societe civile (Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre - CISLAC) au Nigeria, a affirme que certains groupes ethniques toleraient plus les femmes celibataires que d'autres, mais que, en general, on considerait que la place d'une femme au Nigeria se trouvait [traduction]  aupres de son epoux  (17 juin 2016). Le Conseil des droits de l'homme des Nations Unies signale que, au Nigeria, les femmes se marient en moyenne a 18 ans alors que les hommes se marient en moyenne a 27 ans (Nations Unies 16 juin 2016, paragr. 13).

Selon l'agent principal de programme du CISLAC, toutes les categories de femmes celibataires, soit les femmes jamais mariees, les veuves et les divorcees, sont [traduction]  maltraitees a divers degres par la societe  a Abuja (CISLAC 17 juin 2016). De meme, un membre de l'International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) [1] au Nigeria, qui a egalement deja ete presidente de l'organisation, a declare que les femmes qui vivent seules a Abuja font l'objet de [traduction]  reprobation  (membre 20 juin 2016).

Dans une communication ecrite envoyee a la Direction des recherches, la directrice generale du Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC), ONG dont la mission consiste [traduction]  [a] promouvoir et a proteger les droits de la personne et les droits des femmes, l'equite entre les sexes et la bonne gouvernance en renforcant l'autonomie de la societe civile et en favorisant l'acces a la justice et la primaute du droit  (CIRDDOC s.d.), a affirme que le fait pour une femme de ne pas avoir d'homme dans sa vie, que ce soit parce qu'elle est veuve ou divorcee, nuira a sa [traduction]  capacite a avoir acces a des ressources et a des services  (ibid. 18 juin 2016). Cependant, la meme source a ajoute que, comme Abuja est une ville [traduction]  diversifiee , les questions comme l'origine ethnique et la religion n'ont pas une grande incidence sur la capacite d'une femme a y vivre seule (ibid.).

La membre de la FIDA a explique que la corruption institutionnelle est tres presente a Abuja et que l'economie de la ville [traduction]  repose en grande partie sur le favoritisme dont fait preuve le gouvernement ; l'acces aux emplois bien remuneres et au logement est limite, car seules quelques personnes ont un droit de regard sur ces questions (membre 20 juin 2016). La meme source a aussi explique que, si une femme celibataire veut obtenir un logement et un emploi a Abuja, elle doit surmonter de [traduction]  nombreux obstacles ; par exemple, des [traduction]  "intermediaires"  qualifies et non qualifies solliciteront ses faveurs sexuelles (ibid.). Elle a ajoute que les femmes de la classe ouvriere qui vivent seules peuvent etre la proie d'hommes d'age moyen qui estiment qu'elles sont [traduction]  en etat de manque sur le plan affectif et sexuel  (ibid.).

1.1 Logement

D'apres l'agent principal de programme du CISLAC, les femmes celibataires a Abuja sont victimes de [traduction]  discrimination  lorsqu'elles tentent d'obtenir un logement, car elles sont considerees comme des [traduction]  debauchees qui vont necessairement attirer des voyous dans le quartier  (CISLAC 17 juin 2016). La membre de la FIDA a ecrit que [traduction]  [l]es femmes de la classe moyenne se heurtent a de graves prejuges de la part des proprietaires qui habitent sur place  a Abuja, parce que ceux-ci croient qu'elles vont [traduction]  probablement occuper le logement qu'ils leur louent de maniere excessive en accueillant des femmes sans abri ou des hommes venus les voir a des fins percues comme illicites  (membre 20 juin 2016). L'agent principal de programme du CISLAC a aussi signale que certaines femmes celibataires [traduction]  deviennent la proie d'hommes qui [offrent] de les aider a se loger jusqu'a ce qu'elles soient installees et qui finissent par les agresser sexuellement  (CISLAC 17 juin 2016). La directrice generale du CIRDDOC a explique qu'on considere souvent que les femmes non mariees a Abuja ne sont pas [traduction]  respectables  et que les proprietaires ne sont pas toujours disposes a leur faire signer un bail parce qu'ils preferent avoir affaire a des hommes (CIRDDOC 18 juin 2016). Selon la meme source, les femmes celibataires a Abuja, en particulier celles qui ont peu d'instruction, sont considerees comme des [traduction]  "prostituees"  (ibid.).

Dans un rapport sur la situation au Nigeria, le Conseil des droits de l'homme des Nations Unies ecrit que, [traduction]  [d]ans l'ensemble, les femmes ont moins de pouvoir sur les biens comme les maisons ou les terres et sont donc plus vulnerables sur le plan economique  (Nations Unies 16 juin 2016, paragr. 14). On peut lire dans le meme rapport que, d'apres le Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2013 publie par la Commission nationale de la population (National Population Commission), 18 p. 100 des femmes au Nigeria possedent une maison et 15 p. 100 possedent une terre, que ce soit seules ou avec d'autres personnes, ce qui represente moins de la moitie du pourcentage d'hommes qui sont proprietaires d'une maison et d'une terre (ibid., paragr. 13). Selon Freedom House, les femmes appartenant a certains groupes ethniques n'ont pas le droit d'heriter d'une propriete en raison des regles de droit coutumier (Freedom House 2016). Le journal nigerian The Guardian a cite les propos du directeur national d'ActionAid, organisation qui lutte contre la pauvrete, pour le Nigeria, qui a dit que le taux de pauvrete etait plus eleve chez les femmes que chez les hommes au Nigeria et que celles-ci avaient un acces limite aux biens et aux terres (The Guardian 9 mars 2015).

1.2 Emploi

L'agent principal de programme du CISLAC a fourni les renseignements suivants concernant la capacite des femmes celibataires a obtenir un emploi a Abuja :

[traduction]

[L]es femmes a Abuja doivent surmonter de nombreux obstacles pour obtenir un emploi. En raison de leur vulnerabilite, elles sont des proies faciles pour ceux qui veulent profiter d'elles sexuellement ou financierement. Un homme promet a une femme celibataire de lui trouver un emploi de choix si elle a des relations sexuelles avec lui ou lui donne beaucoup d'argent. Les cas de ce genre sont nombreux (CISLAC 17 juin 2016).

Au dire de la membre et ancienne presidente de la FIDA, les femmes a Abuja, quels que soient leur etat matrimonial, leur niveau d'instruction, leur origine ethnique et leur classe sociale, font face a [traduction]  [d']enormes difficultes au regard des affaires qui etaient "initialement" reservees aux hommes  (membre 20 juin 2016). On peut lire dans les Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015 publies par le Departement d'Etat des Etats-Unis qu'il est [traduction]  courant [au Nigeria] d'exiger des faveurs sexuelles en echange d'un emploi  (E.-U. 13 avr. 2015, 35). On peut aussi y lire que

[traduction]

[d]es groupes de defense des droits des femmes ont signale que le Conseil de la protection de l'environnement d'Abuja [Abuja Environmental Protection Board] avait place des femmes en detention sous pretexte de retirer les travailleuses du sexe des rues de la capitale. Des militants affirment que le Conseil a ensuite oblige les femmes a acheter leur liberte, ou a avouer qu'elles s'etaient prostituees et a suivre un programme de readaptation (ibid.).

L'agent principal de programme du CISLAC a affirme que de nombreuses femmes qui s'installent a Abuja ont peu de soutien financier et doivent faire tout ce qu'elles peuvent pour survivre, y compris possiblement se prostituer (CISLAC 17 juin 2016).

D'apres Freedom House, [traduction]  [l]es femmes font l'objet de discrimination dans le domaine de l'emploi et se voient souvent confier des postes inferieurs  (Freedom House 2016). Il ressort egalement des Country Reports 2015 que les femmes subissent [traduction]  beaucoup de discrimination sur le plan economique  (E.-U. 13 avr. 2015, 35). La meme source precise que la loi ne contient aucune disposition interdisant la discrimination fondee sur le sexe dans les processus d'embauche et n'exige pas la parite salariale entre les hommes et les femmes (ibid.). Selon le directeur national d'ActionAid, dont les propos ont ete cites dans le Guardian, les femmes au Nigeria sont aux prises avec des problemes comme [traduction]  le chomage, le sous-emploi, le travail non remunere et l'absence de securite d'emploi  (The Guardian 9 mars 2015).

1.3 Situation des veuves

Dans une communication ecrite envoyee a la Direction des recherches, la directrice de Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD), une ONG internationale etablie au Royaume-Uni qui s'associe avec des ONG de pays en voie de developpement pour [traduction]  eliminer la discrimination et la violence  envers les veuves (WPD s.d.), a affirme que la capacite d'une veuve a obtenir un logement et un emploi a Abuja dependrait en partie du groupe ethnique auquel son defunt epoux et elle appartiennent, ainsi que de sa classe sociale, de son niveau d'instruction et de la question de savoir si elle est issue d'un milieu urbain ou rural (ibid. 20 juin 2016). La directrice a ajoute que certaines veuves pouvaient etre [traduction]  tres vulnerables  et que, malgre les dispositions legislatives adoptees pour proteger les droits en matiere d'heritage et de terre, de nombreuses veuves font l'objet de [traduction]  pratiques traditionnelles prejudiciables , comme [traduction]  l'heritage de la veuve, le remariage force, le levirat, la privation des droits en matiere d'heritage, l'appropriation de biens [et] l'eviction  (ibid.). Elle a egalement explique que, pour ces raisons, une veuve pouvait se retrouver dans [traduction]  une situation d'extreme pauvrete et sans abri , de sorte qu'elle est forcee de mendier et de se prostituer pour survivre (ibid.). De plus, elle a souligne que les pensions etaient limitees et que, [traduction]  en raison de la corruption, il [etait] difficile d'avoir acces aux services de soutien  (ibid.).

2. Menace de violence

Des sources font etat du fait que les femmes qui vivent seules a Abuja sont victimes de harcelement sexuel et d'actes de violence (CIRDDOC 18 juin 2016; CISLAC 17 juin 2016; membre 20 juin 2016), y compris de voies de fait (ibid.). La directrice generale du CIRDDOC a explique que les femmes celibataires etaient vulnerables a la violence et au harcelement sexuel parce qu'on considere qu'elles [traduction]  ne beneficient pas de [la] protection d'un homme  (CIRDDOC 18 juin 2016).

Selon le Conseil des droits de l'homme des Nations Unies, au Nigeria, pres de 30 p. 100 des femmes ont ete victimes de violence physique au moins une fois depuis l'age de 15 ans, et 7 p. 100 ont ete victimes de violence sexuelle (Nations Unies 16 juin 2016). Des sources font remarquer que les cas de viol sont [traduction]  frequents  au Nigeria (E.-U. 13 avr. 2016, 32; Freedom House 2016) et que [traduction]  peu [d'entre eux] sont signales et donnent lieu a des poursuites  (ibid.). Il ressort des Country Reports 2015 que les peines infligees aux personnes declarees coupables de viol et d'agression sexuelle [traduction]  etaient variables et souvent legeres  en 2015 (E.-U. 13 avr. 2016, 32).

D'apres l'Observatoire des situations de deplacement interne (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre - IDMC), la majorite des personnes deplacees a l'interieur du Nigeria sont des femmes et des enfants, et [traduction]  leur securite physique est menacee de diverses facons et leur liberte de mouvement est restreinte  (IDMC 9 dec. 2014). La meme source souligne que les femmes et les filles, en particulier celles issues de menages diriges par une femme ou un enfant, [traduction]  risquent davantage de faire l'objet de [violence fondee sur le sexe] par suite de leur deplacement  dans des camps et des communautes d'accueil (ibid.).

3. Services de soutien

La membre et ancienne presidente de la FIDA a declare qu'il n'existait aucun refuge reserve aux femmes celibataires a Abuja, bien que le ministere de la Condition feminine (Ministry of Women's Affairs) gere un refuge pour femmes battues (membre 20 juin 2016). La directrice generale du CIRDDOC ne connaissait non plus aucun organisme ni aucune ONG a Abuja qui aidait les femmes celibataires a trouver un logement (CIRDDOC 18 juin 2016).

La membre et ancienne presidente de la FIDA a ecrit que le Conseil national pour les societes de femmes (National Council for Women Societies) avait annonce le lancement d'une initiative en 2015 visant la conclusion d'un accord avec des banques pour construire des logements qui devaient appartenir particulierement a des femmes, mais, en juin 2016, le projet avait [traduction]  peu avance  (membre 20 juin 2016). Parmi les sources qu'elle a consultees dans les delais fixes, la Direction des recherches n'a trouve aucun renseignement additionnel ni aucun autre renseignement allant dans le meme sens.

La directrice generale du CIRDDOC et l'agent principal de programme du CISLAC ont affirme que les femmes celibataires qui demenagent a Abuja pourraient avoir besoin d'un reseau social dans cette ville pour obtenir un logement (CIRDDOC 18 juin 2016; CISLAC 17 juin 2016) ou un emploi (ibid.). La membre et ancienne presidente de la FIDA a aussi fait observer que le reseau social jouait [traduction]  un role important  a Abuja (20 juin 2016).

Pour obtenir de plus amples renseignements sur les femmes qui sont a la tete d'un menage et qui ne beneficient pas du soutien d'un homme ou de leur famille, y compris dans les grandes villes du Nord et du Sud du Nigeria, et sur leur capacite a trouver un logement et un emploi, veuillez consulter la Reponse a la demande d'information NGA103907.

Cette reponse a ete preparee par la Direction des recherches a l'aide de renseignements puises dans les sources qui sont a la disposition du public, et auxquelles la Direction des recherches a pu avoir acces dans les delais fixes. Cette reponse n'apporte pas, ni ne pretend apporter, de preuves concluantes quant au fondement d'une demande d'asile. Veuillez trouver ci-dessous les sources consultees pour la reponse a cette demande d'information.

Note

[1] La FIDA est une ONG internationale qui a pour mission de [traduction]  promouvoir le bien-etre des femmes et des enfants ainsi que les principes et les objectifs des Nations Unies sur le plan juridique et social  (FIDA s.d.). La FIDA jouit d'un statut consultatif aupres des Nations Unies (ibid.).

References

Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC). 18 juin 2016. Communication ecrite envoyee a la Direction des recherches par la directrice generale.

Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC). S.d.  About Us . [Date de consultation : 23 juin 2016]

Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC). 17 juin 2016. Communication ecrite envoyee a la Direction des recherches par un agent principal de programme.

Etats-Unis (E.-U.). 13 avril 2016. Department of State.  Nigeria . Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015. [Date de consultation : 23 juin 2016]

Freedom House. 2016.  Nigeria . Freedom in the World 2016. [Date de consultation : 22 juin 2016]

The Guardian. 9 mars 2015. Emeka Anuforo, Victoria Ojugbana et Tobi Awodipe.  Empowerment Critical to Poverty Eradication - ActionAid . (Factiva)

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). 9 decembre 2014. Elizabeth J. Rushing et Joe Read. Nigeria: Multiple Displacement Crises Overshadowed by Boko Haram. [Date de consultation : 22 juin 2016]

International Federation of Women's Lawyers (FIDA). S.d.  Who We Are?  [Date de consultation : 27 juin 2016]

Membre et ancienne presidente, International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) Nigeria. 20 juin 2016. Communication ecrite envoyee a la Direction des recherches.

Nations Unies. 16 juin 2016. Conseil des droits de l'homme. Report of the Special Rapporteurs on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Including Its Causes and Consequences on their Joint Visit to Nigeria. A/HRC/32/32/Add.2. [Date de consultation : 22 juin 2016]

Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD). 20 juin 2016. Communication ecrite envoyee a la Direction des recherches par la directrice.

Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD). S.d.  Widows for Peace through Democracy . [Date de consultation : 23 juin 2016]

Autres sources consultees

Sources orales : ActionAid; African Women's Lawyers Association; avocat; Mothers and Marginalized Advocacy Centre; professeur, University of Kansas; Project Alert on Violence Against Women; Women's Rights Watch Nigeria.

Sites Internet, y compris : ActionAid; CLEEN Foundation; ecoi.net; Factiva; Human Rights Watch; IRIN; Nations Unies - Refworld; Nigeria - Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development; Organisation de cooperation et de developpement economiques (OCDE).
Nigeria: Situation of single women living alone in Abuja, including ability to access employment and housing; threat of violence; support services available to them (2015 - June 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 30 June 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105523.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur la situation des femmes celibataires qui vivent seules a Abuja, y compris leur capacite a obtenir un emploi et un logement; la menace de violence; les services de soutien qui leur sont offerts (2015-juin 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Situation of single women living alone in Abuja, including ability to access employment and housing; threat of violence; support services available to them (2015 - June 2016), 30 June 2016, NGA105523.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843f9b24.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Situation of Single Women

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a Senior Program Officer specializing in reproductive health, SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] and gender at the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) in Nigeria, stated that some ethnic groups are more tolerant of single women than others, but that generally a woman's place is thought to be "beside her husband" in Nigeria (17 June 2016). The UN Human Rights Council indicates that the average marriage age in Nigeria is 18 years for women, and 27 years for men (UN 16 June 2016, para. 13).

According to the CISLAC Senior Program Officer, all categories of single women -never married, widowed and divorced- face "varying degrees of abuse from society" in Abuja (CISLAC 17 June 2016). Similarly, a member and past President of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) [1] in Nigeria, stated that women who live alone in Abuja face "stigma" (Member 20 June 2016).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Executive Director of the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC), an NGO with the mission "[t]o promote and protect human rights and women's rights, gender equity, and good governance through the empowerment of civil society and the promotion of access to justice and rule of law" (CIRDDOC n.d.), stated that not having a man in her life, whether due to divorce or being a widow, affects a woman's "ability to access resources and services" (ibid. 18 June 2016). However, the same source noted that, since Abuja is a "melting pot," issues such as ethnicity and religion do not have a big impact on a woman's ability to live on her own there (ibid.).

The member of FIDA explained that Abuja has a high level of institutional corruption and its economy is "largely driven by government patronage;" there is limited access to well-paid jobs and housing, as these are in the hands of only a few people (Member 20 June 2016). The same source further stated that for a single woman to access housing and employment in Abuja, she must go through "multiple barriers," such as being solicited for sexual favours by skilled and unskilled "'middle-men'" (ibid.). She also noted that working-class women who live alone may be preyed upon by middle-aged men who view them as "emotionally and sexually needy" (ibid.).

1.1 Housing

According to the CISLAC Senior Program Officer, single women in Abuja face "discrimination" when attempting to access housing because they are viewed as "loose women that are bound to attract hooligans to the neighborhood" (CISLAC 17 June 2016). The member of FIDA stated that "[w]omen of middle class earnings face serious bias from live-in landlords" in Abuja, who view them as "likely to over-populate their rented homes by bringing in female squatters or entertaining male visitors for perceived clandestine reasons" (Member 20 June 2016). The CISLAC program officer further indicated that some single women "fall prey to men who [offer] to help lodge them until they settle in but [the men] end up sexually abusing them" (CISLAC 17 June 2016). The Executive Director of CIRDDOC explained that unmarried women in Abuja are often not viewed as "respectable" and landlords are not always willing to sign leases with them, preferring instead to deal with men (CIRDDOC 18 June 2016). According to the same source, single women in Abuja, particularly those with a low education, are viewed as "'prostitutes'" (ibid.).

Reporting on the situation throughout Nigeria, the UN Human Rights Council states that "[o]verall, women have less control over assets like houses or land and thus are exposed to heightened economic vulnerability" (UN 16 June 2016, para. 14). The same source indicates that according to the National Population Commission's Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2013, 18 percent of women in Nigeria own homes and 15 percent own land, either jointly or on their own, which is less than half the percentages of men owning homes and land (UN 16 June 2016, para. 13). According to Freedom House, women from some ethnic groups do not have rights to inherit property due to customary laws (Freedom House 2016). The Nigerian Country Director of ActionAid, an anti-poverty organization, was quoted in the Nigerian newspaper The Guardian as stating that women in Nigeria face higher rates of poverty than men, and lack access to capital and land (The Guardian 9 Mar. 2015).

1.2 Employment

The CISLAC Senior Program Officer stated the following information concerning the ability of single women to access employment in Abuja:

women in Abuja face a lot of challenges in terms of getting employment. Their vulnerability makes them easy prey to those who either want to extort them sexually or financially. You find someone promising to secure choice jobs for single ladies on the grounds that they sleep with them or give them so much money. There are many examples of such. (CISLAC 17 June 2016)

According to the member and past President of FIDA, regardless of marital status, level of education, ethnicity and social class, women in Abuja face "huge challenges in spheres that are seen to be 'originally' roles reserved for men" (Member 20 June 2016).

The US Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015 states that there is a "common" practice of "demanding sexual favours in exchange for employment" in Nigeria (US 13 Apr. 2015, 35). The same source reports that

[w]omen's rights groups reported that the Abuja Environmental Protection Board took women into custody under the pretext of removing commercial sex workers from the streets of the capital. According to activists, the board then forced women to buy their freedom or confess to prostitution and undergo rehabilitation (ibid.).

The CISLAC Senior Program Officer indicated that many women who relocate to Abuja have little financial support and have to do whatever they can to survive, which may include prostitution (CISLAC 17 June 2016).

According to Freedom House, "[w]omen experience discrimination in employment and are often relegated to inferior positions" (Freedom House 2016).

Country Reports 2015 similarly indicates that women are subject to "considerable economic discrimination" (US 13 Apr. 2015, 35). The same source notes that the law does not include provisions against gender-based discrimination in hiring processes and does not mandate equal pay for men and women (ibid.). According to the ActionAid Country Director, as quoted in the Guardian, women in Nigeria face problems with "unemployment, under employment, unremunerated work and lack of job safety and security" (The Guardian 9 Mar. 2015).

1.3 Situation of Widows

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Director of Widows for Peace Through Democracy (WPD), a UK-based international NGO that partners with NGOs in developing countries to "eliminate discrimination and violence" towards widows (WPD n.d.), stated that, regarding the ability of widows to access housing and employment in Abuja, it would depend, in part, on the ethnic group of the widow and her deceased husband, as well as social class, education, and whether they are from an urban or rural background (ibid. 20 June 2016). The same source stated that some widows may be "very vulnerable," and that, despite legislation enacted to protect rights to inheritance and land, many widows are subject to "harmful traditional practices," such as "widow inheritance, forced remarriage, levirate, deprivation of inheritance rights, property grabbing, [and] chasing off" (ibid.). She further explained that these factors may leave a widow "in extreme poverty and homelessness," causing them to resort to begging and forced prostitution for survival (ibid.). In addition, she noted that there are few pensions and "corruption makes access to support services problematic" (ibid.).

2. Threat of Violence

Sources state that women who live alone in Abuja are subject to sexual harassment and violence (CIRDDOC 18 June 2016; CISLAC 17 June 2016; Member 20 June 2016), including battery (ibid.). The CIRDDOC Executive Director explained that single women are vulnerable to violence and sexual harassment because they are seen as being "without [the] protection of a man" (CIRDDOC 18 June 2016).

According to the UN Human Rights Council, in Nigeria, nearly 30 percent of women have experienced physical violence at least once since the age of 15, and 7 percent have experienced sexual violence (UN 16 June 2016). Sources indicate that rape is "widespread" in Nigeria (US 13 Apr. 2016, 32; Freedom House 2016), with "low rates of reporting and prosecution" (ibid.). Country Reports 2015 indicates that sentences for people who are convicted of rape and sexual assault "were inconsistent and often minor" in 2015 (US 13 Apr. 2016, 32).

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), the majority of internally-displaced people in Nigeria are women and children, and they "face a range of threats to their physical safety and restrictions on freedom of movement" (IDMC 9 Dec. 2014). The same source indicates that women and girls, particularly those in female- and child-headed households, face "a greater risk of GBV [gender-based violence] as a result of their displacement" in both host communities and camps (ibid.).

3. Support Services

The member and past President of FIDA stated that there are no shelters specifically for single women in Abuja, although there is one shelter for battered women operated by the Ministry of Women's Affairs (Member 20 June 2016). The CIRDDOC Executive Director was also not aware of any agencies or NGOs in Abuja that help single women to obtain housing (CIRDDOC 18 June 2016).

According to the member and past President of FIDA, the National Council for Women Societies announced an initiative in 2015 to arrange with banks to develop housing properties specifically to be owned by women, but, as of June 2016, the project had "not progressed much" (Member 20 June 2016). Further and corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

The CIRDDOC Executive Director and the CISLAC Senior Program Officer stated that single women relocating to Abuja may require a social network within Abuja in order to access housing (CIRDDOC 18 June 2016; CISLAC 17 June 2016) or employment (ibid.). The member and past President of FIDA similarly noted that social networking plays "a big role" in Abuja (20 June 2016).

For further information on the situation of women-headed households without male or family support, including in large northern and southern cities in Nigeria, and their ability to access housing and employment, see Response to Information Request NGA103907.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Note

[1] FIDA is an international NGO whose mission is to "promote the welfare of women and children and the principles and aims of the United Nations in their legal and social aspects" (FIDA n.d.). FIDA has consultative status with the UN (ibid.).

References

Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC). 18 June 2016. Correspondence from the Executive Director.

Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC). N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 23 June 2016]

Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC). 17 June 2016. Correspondence from a Senior Program Officer.

Freedom House. 2016. "Nigeria." Freedom in the World 2016. [Accessed 22 June 2016]

The Guardian. 9 March 2015. Emeka Anuforo, Victoria Ojugbana and Tobi Awodipe. "Empowerment Critical to Poverty Eradication - ActionAid." (Factiva)

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). 9 December 2014. Elizabeth J. Rushing and Joe Read. Nigeria: Multiple Displacement Crises Overshadowed by Boko Haram. [Accessed 22 June 2016]

International Federation of Women's Lawyers (FIDA). N.d. "Who We Are?" [Accessed 27 June 2016]

Member and past President, International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) Nigeria. 20 June 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

United Nations (UN). 16 June 2016. Human Rights Council. Report of the Special Rapporteurs on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Including Its Causes and Consequences on their Joint Visit to Nigeria. A/HRC/32/32/Add.2. [Accessed 22 June 2016]

United States (US). 13 April 2016. Department of State. "Nigeria." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015. [Accessed 23 June 2016]

Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD). 20 June 2016. Correspondence from the Director.

Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD). N.d. "Widows for Peace through Democracy." [Accessed 23 June 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: ActionAid; African Women's Lawyers Association; Lawyer; Mothers and Marginalized Advocacy Centre; Professor, University of Kansas; Project Alert on Violence Against Women; Women's Rights Watch Nigeria.

Internet sites, including: ActionAid; CLEEN Foundation; ecoi.net; Factiva; Human Rights Watch; IRIN; Nigeria - Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); UN - Refworld.
Nigeria: Requirements and procedures to obtain a voter card; information on voter cards, including appearance, features; issuing authority and place of issuance (2012-June 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 13 May 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105486.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur les exigences et la marche a suivre pour obtenir une carte d'electeur; information sur la carte d'electeur, y compris sur son apparence et ses caracteristiques; information sur l'autorite responsable de la delivrance et lieu de delivrance (2012-juin 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Requirements and procedures to obtain a voter card; information on voter cards, including appearance, features; issuing authority and place of issuance (2012-June 2016), 13 May 2016, NGA105486.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843fb624.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Voter Registration

According to the information available on the website of Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigerians are qualified to register to vote if they are: citizens 18 years of age and older who have established an "ordinary residence" in a ward or a Local Government Area (LGA) where they wish to vote and are "not subject to any legal incapacity to vote" (Nigeria n.d.f). According to the same source, a citizen can register as a voter in the ward or LGA either where they reside or where they are gainfully employed; indigenous people may vote within the ward or the LGA from which they originate (ibid.). According to INEC, a person "may choose to travel to his LG[A] or state of origin to register" (ibid.).

Article 10 of the Electoral Act, 2010, titled Continuous Registration, indicates that the requirements for a voter to register are as follows:

 there shall be continuous registration of all persons qualified to be registered voters.

Each applicant for registration under the continuous registration system shall appear in person at the registration venue with any of the following documents-

birth or baptismal certificate;

national passport, identity card or driver's license; or

any other document that will prove the identity, age and nationality of the applicant. (ibid. 2010)

According to Section 1 of the Electoral (Amendment) Act (No. 2), 2011, INEC stops registering voters 30 days before a general election is held (ibid. 2011). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a senior programme coordinator with the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), a Nigerian NGO that "works to strengthen democratic governance and citizens' participation in Nigeria" (PLAC n.d.), stated that Nigeria uses a Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) system, which involves "the periodic registration of voters in the period immediately preceding the general elections so as to prepare the Register of Voters" (PLAC 22 Apr. 2016). According to the same source, "INEC conducts the CVR ahead of elections and has done this after the general elections [1] in 2015, for the Kogi, Bayelsa Governorship elections, as well as the Area Council Elections in the FCT [Federal Capital Territory] in 2016" (ibid.).

According to INEC's website, voter cards are obtained from a registration centre where a person registered as a voter (Nigeria n.d.f). According to a 2015 report on voter registration for the 2015 general elections by INEC, there are 119,973 registration centres across the country (Nigeria 13 Jan. 2015). A list of Registration Area Centres can be found on the INEC website (ibid. n.d.d).

2. Temporary Voter Cards (TVC)

According to INEC, TVCs were issued for the 2011 general elections, and were also used in subsequent elections (Nigeria n.d.e, 4). In his book on electoral processes in the Commonwealth countries, Carl W. Dundas, a retired senior official of the Commonwealth Secretariat who has led electoral support missions to Nigeria (Commonwealth Oral History Project 10 Feb. 2015), writes that from 15 January to 7 February 2011, INEC conducted a new voter registration of all eligible voters in Nigeria for the 2011 general elections, which included the collection of fingerprints (Dundas 2014, 89). Following its observation mission of the 2011 Nigerian General Elections, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), a Washington-based NGO that supports the development of democratic institutions in the world (NDI Dec. 2012, 2,5), published a report indicating that "INEC re-registered all voters using a biometric data system that included a photograph and a complete set of fingerprints. INEC successfully registered 73,528,040 Nigerians in approximately three weeks" (ibid., 7). According to INEC's principles of operation for the 2011 voters' registration, a document published in 2010 preceding the 2011 general elections, "[e]ligible voters will queue in single file at a polling unit for registration in sequence. When it is the voters turn, their textual data will be captured accurately, fingerprints scanned, picture taken and temporary voters ID printed" (Nigeria 4 Oct. 2010, 4). According to the INEC report on voter registration, each registrant was given a unique Voter Identification Number (VIN) (ibid. 13 Jan. 2015).

According to a 2013 press briefing by the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a Nigerian election monitoring coalition with over 400 member organisations (TMG n.d.), "most" eligible voters were issued TVCs during registration exercises preceding the Anambra state governship elections in November 2013 (TMG 10 Sept. 2013, 5). Further information on the issuance of TVCs could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

Regarding the appearance and security features of the TVC, INEC indicates that TVCs used during the 2011 elections were "cold-laminated" (Nigeria 7 May 2013). The Nigerian website GoVote.ng, which provides information to voters and is supported by the Ford Foundation, states that a "PU number" is found on the top right of the TVC (Govote.ng n.d.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. A sample of a TVC, obtained from the INEC website, is attached to this Response (Attachment 1).

Further information on the appearance and features of TVCs could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

3. Permanent Voter Cards (PVC)

According to the Nigeria's Minister of Information, "following the successful conduct of the nationwide voters registration exercise in 2011, INEC proposed to print 73.5 million permanent voter cards to replace the temporary cards it issued during the last voters registration exercise" (TVC News n.d.). Sources indicate that INEC began the roll-out of PVCs in 2012 (VoA 25 Mar. 2015; IFES n.d., 2). In a statement issued in May 2014, INEC reports that PVCs were to be used for the first time during the 2014 governorship elections in Ekiti state [held on 21 June 2014] and in Osun state [held on 9 August 2014] (Nigeria 20 May 2014). According to the statement, TVCs would no longer be accepted during these governorship elections (ibid.). Information provided on INEC's website indicates that between 7 and 9 March 2014, the Commission distributed PVCs in Ekiti and Osun states to persons whose biometric data, including a record of at least two fingerprints, were captured during the 2011 pre-election voter registration (Nigeria n.d.g). The same source reports that a voter registration exercise for new voters in the states of Ekiti and Osun was also conducted from 12 to 17 March 2014 (ibid.).

According to a factsheet on voter cards prepared by INEC for the 2015 general elections, PVCs replace TVCs, and "only voters who have their PVC will be allowed to vote in the 2015 general elections" (ibid. n.d.b). The same source indicates that INEC "produced PVCs for the 68,833,476 persons in the biometric Register of Voters ahead of the March 28th and April 11th, 2015 general elections" (ibid.).

3.1 Procedures to Obtain the PVC

According to the INEC's Guidelines for Permanent Voter Card Distribution 2014, a person is eligible to receive a PVC if he or she

has registered before

is in the register of voters displayed

has a temporary voter card (TVC)

has lost his/her TVC but his/her identity can be confirmed.

Is physically present at the collection centre. There shall be no collection of PVC by proxy. (Nigeria n.d.a, 2)

The Guidelines state that PVCs will be distributed at the Polling Units and "[t]hose who are unable to collect their PVC during the specified period shall  collect theirs from the INEC office in the LGA" (ibid., 2). According to information available on the INEC website, in order to collect the PVC an individual must present their TVC (ibid. n.d.c, Question 77). If an eligible voter is no longer in possession of their TVC but their name is included in the voters' register, they will be required to fill out an attestation form in order to collect the PVC (ibid., Question 78).

3.2 Appearance and Features

According to information provided on the INEC website, a voter card contains the following information:

The voter's name

The name of the state the voter is registered in

The name of the LGA

The Registration Area/Centre and code

The voter's Identification number. (Nigeria n.d.f)

A factsheet on the PVCs prepared by INEC also indicates that

[t]hese cards have many components and specialized features (e.g. base substrate, security printing, personalization, lamination and chip embedding), and it is designed with an average life span of ten (10) years.

The PVC has an embedded chip that contains all the biometrics of a legitimate holder (including fingerprints and facial image).  The PVC has security features that are not easily susceptible to counterfeiting. (ibid. n.d.b)

According to the INEC's manual for the 2015 elections, on election day, the PVC and fingerprints of voters were to be verified with card readers (ibid. Jan. 2015, 32). A sample of the front page of the PVC as shown in INEC's Publication of the Register of Voters for the 2015 General Elections is attached to this Request (Attachment 2).

4. Voter Registration Fraud

According to INEC, TVCs were "fragile" and "susceptible to abuse" for manipulating elections (Nigeria 7 May 2013). INEC identified 870,000 duplicate applications in the 2011 register of voters (ibid. n.d.e).

According to the EU Election Observation Mission report on the 2015 general elections in Nigeria, "EU experts observed the [voter registration] process to be cumbersome, crowded, and marred by technical and staffing issues, with very few registrants presenting any documentation proving identity and age" (EU July 2015, 16). The same source states that of the 11,464,690 new voters that INEC registered before the elections, the Commission removed 1,551,292 registrations that were either duplicates or did not meet biometric standards (ibid.). A 2015 report on the biometrics verification exercise conducted by INEC during 2011 and 2015 voter registration revealed cases of the same individuals registering to vote under different names (Nigeria 13 Jan. 2015).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Note

[1] The 2015 general elections included the presidential and National Assembly elections, which took place on 28 March 2015 and the gubernatorial elections, which occurred on 11 April 2015 (EU July 2015, 10).

References

Commonwealth Oral History Project. 10 February 2015. Sue Onslow interviewing Carl Dundas. [Accessed 20 Apr. 2016]

Dundas, Carl W. 2014. Electoral Essays and Discourses. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse.

European Union (EU). July 2015. European Union Election Observation Mission. Final Report. Federal Republic of Nigeria. 2015. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2016]

Govote.ng. N.d. "PVC Pickup Location." [Accessed 27 Apr. 2016]

International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). 2015. IFES Nigeria Post-Election Survey, July-August 2015. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2016]

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). December 2012. 2011 Nigerian Elections. Final Report. [Accessed 18 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. 8 January 2016. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). "INEC Begins CVR in FCT on Wednesday, 13th January." [Accessed18 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. 13 January 2015. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Chidi Nwafor. Publication of the Register of Voters for the 2015 General Elections. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2016]

Nigeria. January 2015. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Manual for Election Officials 2015 (Updated Version). [Accessed 18 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. 20 May 2014. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). "Re: 'A Case for e-Card Readers.'" [Accessed 18 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. 7 May 2013. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Kayode Robert Idowu. "The Economics and Logic of INEC's Programmes." [Accessed 20 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. 2011. Electoral (Amendment) Act (No.2), 2011. [Accessed 13 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. 4 October 2010. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Revalidation Request for Quotation INEC-2010-VR-RFQ002A. [Accessed 20 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. 2010. Electoral Act, 2010. [Accessed 13 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.a. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Guidelines for Permanent Voter Card Distribution 2014. [Accessed 20 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.b. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Factsheet on Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and Card Readers. [Accessed 13 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.c. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). "Frequently Asked Questions." [Accessed 18 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.d. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). "Registration Area Centres Nation Wide." [Accessed 18 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.e. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). "Report on the 2011 General Elections." [Accessed 20 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.f. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). "Voters Information." [Accessed 12 Apr. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.g. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Kayode Robert Idowu."Matters Arising from Ekiti & Osun PVC Distribution, Continuous Voter Registration." [Accessed 18 Apr. 2016]

Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC). 22 April 2016. Correspondence from a senior programme coordinator to the Research Directorate.

Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC). N.d. "About PLAC." [Accessed 18 Apr. 2016]

Transition Monitoring Group (TMG). 10 September 2013. Text of Media Briefing on Presentation of Report on Continuous Voter Registration in Anambra State Addressed by the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), at TMG Secretariat Abuja, Nigeria on Tuesday, September 10, 2013. [Accessed 20 Apr. 2016]

Transition Monitoring Group (TMG). N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 20 Apr. 2016]

TVC News. N.d. "Nigeria's FG Approves N2.117bn for INEC to Acquire 33.5m Permanent Voter Cards." [Accessed 20 Apr. 2016]

Voice of America (VoA). 25 March 2015. Abdulwahab Muhammad and Chris Stein. "Will Voter Card System Prevent Election Fraud? Nigerians Are Wary." [Accessed 22 Mar. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: European Union - Delegation of the European Union to Nigeria and ECOWAS; International Foundation for Electoral Systems; Member of European Parliament; Nigeria - the Electoral Institute, High Commission in Ottawa, Independent National Electoral Commission; Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room; Nigerian Bar Association; Open Society Foundations; Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre; Professor of political science, Delta State University; Professor of political science, University of Ibadan; senior lecturer, Department of Political Science, Nasarawa State University; Stakeholder Democracy Network; Transition Monitoring Group; US - Agency for International Development.

Internet sites, including: BBC; Canada - Global Affairs, High Commission in Nigeria; the Commonwealth Secretariat; ecoi.net; Factiva; Freedom House; Go Vote; Nairaland; NigeriaElections.org; Parliamentary Centre; Premium Times Nigeria; UN - Refworld; US - Department of State; Vanguard.

Attachments

1. Nigeria. N.d. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). "Voters Status." [Accessed 22 Mar. 2016]

2. Nigeria. 13 January 2015. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Chidi Nwafor. Publication of the Register of Voters for the 2015 General Elections. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2016]
Nigeria: Oaths and rituals for infidelity among Yoruba Christians in Lagos; consequences for refusal; state protection (2014-March 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 15 March 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105465.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur les serments et les rituels lies a l'infidelite chez les chretiens yourubas a Lagos; les consequences du refus; la protection offerte par l'Etat (2014-mars 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Oaths and rituals for infidelity among Yoruba Christians in Lagos; consequences for refusal; state protection (2014-March 2016), 15 March 2016, NGA105465.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843fbfd4.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Oaths and Rituals for Infidelity Among Yoruba Christians

In a telephone interview with the Research Directorate, a professor of African religious traditions and African and African American Studies at Harvard University described oath-taking for infidelity as "not a Christian practice" (23 Feb. 2016). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a representative of the Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC), a Catholic organization associated with the Diocese of Ijebu-Ode in Ogun State [which borders Lagos State] that promotes sustainable and integrated human development (JDPC n.d.), stated that, in Christian marriages, there are no "prescribed oaths or rituals" associated with infidelity (29 Feb. 2016). In a telephone interview with the Research Directorate, a representative of the Centre for Women Studies and Intervention (CWSI), an Abuja-based women's rights NGO founded in 1999 and which is run by nuns (Global Fund for Women n.d.), who has worked in Yoruba land for two years, and spoke based on her own experience, indicated that within the Yoruba, oaths and rituals for infidelity are not common among Christians (CWSI 18 Feb. 2016). Similarly, in a telephone interview with the Research Directorate, a professor of comparative religions at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, who has conducted research on the role of Yoruba women in religion, stated that Christian families do not engage in oath taking practices (24 Feb. 2016).

In contrast, in a telephone interview with the Research Directorate, a professor of history at Brock University who has written on gender and Yoruba traditional practices stated that, although it is rare, oath taking for infidelity does occur among Yoruba Christians and in some churches, as some traditional religious practices are integrated into the church (25 Feb. 2016). Similarly, sources report that oaths and ritual practices for infidelity occur among those who adhere to traditional religious practices (Professor of comparative religions 24 Feb. 2016; CWSI 18 Feb. 2016). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a doctoral candidate at Murdoch University, Australia, with a research focus on education and social inequalities, development policies and administration, widowhood and gender studies, human rights and social justice, and who has researched gender relations in southwestern Nigeria, also stated that

[i]mposing rituals for infidelity is uncommon among Christian members in Yorubaland, but there is a popular belief among some Yoruba people that "igbagbo ko ni kama soro" (Being a Christian does not deter one from performing rituals). There are many Yoruba people (Christians) who still believe in the heritage of oaths and rituals for infidelity. (25 Feb. 2016)

Similarly, in correspondence with the Research Directorate, an associate professor of philosophy at Howard University who has expertise in African philosophy and religions noted that, among the various denominations of Christianity in the Yoruba areas of southwestern Nigeria, the more standard denominations, such as the Catholic, Baptist or Anglican churches, are unlikely to engage in oath-taking for infidelity (Associate Professor 2 Mar. 2016). The same source indicated, however, that som e of the many independent churches in Nigeria, whose religious doctrine blends Christianity and Indigenous African religions, do engage in oath-taking for infidelity (ibid.). The Associate Professor further stated that it is not always possible to determine whether a church "adopts 'standard' or non-standard Christian practices" based on its name alone, and it is necessary to investigate the specific rituals of the independent church in question (ibid.).

2. Descriptions of Rituals and Oaths for Infidelity

The Professor of history stated that, specifically in reference to Christian oaths and rituals for infidelity, the woman will be made to kneel in the church and asked to put her hand on the Bible, sometimes very late in the evening, in order to receive the "aura of the oath" (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016). The same source noted that in some churches, the ritual takes the form of a "blood oath," a practice in which the woman or the husband is cut, and the woman must then swear on the blood (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

More generally, among the Yoruba in Nigeria, sources indicated that oaths or rituals for infidelity take a variety of forms (doctoral candidate 25 Feb. 2016; Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016). Similarly, the Professor of comparative religions stated that "the exact form of the oath varies from family to family" (Professor of comparative religions 24 Feb. 2016). Sources further noted that such oaths are only imposed on women, not on men (ibid.; Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016; CWSI 18 Feb. 2016).

The Professor of comparative religions described a ritual that occurs in traditional society in which the woman takes an oath to prove her innocence following an accusation of infidelity, and then drinks a potion; if it does not have an effect within 7 days, she is innocent, but if it does, she is deemed guilty (Professor of comparative religions 24 Feb. 2016). Similarly, the CWSI representative mentioned an infidelity ritual that occurs in traditional society that involves the drinking of a potion (18 Feb. 2016).

According to sources, an infidelity oath can involve a woman swearing to her marital faithfulness at a shrine (JDPC 29 Feb. 2016; doctoral candidate 25 Feb. 2016; Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016), at "a divina or in front of a medicine man or woman" (ibid.), or "at the bank of a river or stream" (JDPC 29 Feb. 2016). Sources also indicated that oaths are sworn for various reasons, including the prevention of infidelity (Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016; Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016), a promise to be faithful as a newlywed wife (JDPC 29 Feb. 2016), or to prove innocence after an accusation of infidelity (Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016; Professor of comparative religions 24 Feb. 2015; Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016). Sources noted that oaths are administered by the chief priest (JDPC 29 Feb. 2016); a traditional priest (CWSI 18 Feb. 2016); or, among Christians, by a pastor or priest (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016).

Sources reported that when taking the oath, the woman will be told the consequences of infidelity (ibid.; Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016; CWSI 18 Feb. 2016). Sources noted that the following consequences may be mentioned by the person administering the oath as part of a Yoruba infidelity ritual:

death of the woman (Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016; CWSI 18 Feb. 2016);

illness of the woman (ibid.; Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016);

death of the woman's husband (JDPC 29 Feb. 2016);

death or illness of her family (CWSI 18 Feb. 2016);

death of the woman's children (ibid.; JDPC 29 Feb. 2016) or losing her children (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016); and

infertility (ibid.).

The Professor of history indicated that the impact has an emotional and psychological impact on the woman as it "makes her believe that something more powerful is controlling her" (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016). He gave the example that if the woman's child falls ill following the oath, depending on her education level and belief-system, "she will believe it is because of her" (ibid.). Similarly, the CWSI representative indicated that if the woman is of traditional belief, she may believe that what happens in the period subsequent to the oath is "the result of the oath" (18 Feb. 2016).

3. Authority for Imposition

According to the Professor of history, a woman's husband must agree to the imposition of an infidelity oath (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016). According to the Professor of comparative religions, the husband's family can ask for an infidelity ritual to be performed, but "the husband must agree to the imposition" (24 Feb. 2016).

The CWSI representative stated that, "frequently," family members of the husband, often his sisters, request an oath for infidelity to be administered, sometimes as an excuse to expel the wife from the family (CWSI 18 Feb. 2016). The same source also indicated that a husband would not allow to the administration of this oath if he is against it, "unless he is afraid of his family" (ibid.). Similarly, the doctoral candidate noted that, based on his view, although the decision for the imposition of an oath lies with the husband, he may be influenced by his family or friends, particularly if they are "fervent in the traditional religion" (doctoral candidate 25 Feb. 2016). The same source noted that in the Yoruba tradition, a woman not only marries her husband but his family as well, and it is therefore "possible" for an oath to be imposed by the family of the husband (ibid.). According to the Professor of history, an oath may be imposed by a woman's in-laws if the husband lives outside of Nigeria (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a senior lecturer of African traditional religion and cultural studies at Adekunle Ajasin University in Nigeria, in Ondo State in South-Western Nigeria, who has written on Yoruba religious practices, indicated that "in a situation where the husband could not handle the matters, it is the community leader/chief that will impose such [an] oath/ritual for infidelity" (Senior Lecturer 22 Feb. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

According to sources, the societal status of both the woman who is facing the imposition of an oath of infidelity and of the person seeking to impose the oath, influence whether an infidelity ritual is performed (doctoral candidate 25 Feb. 2016; Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016; Professor of African religious traditions 1 Mar. 2016).

The CWSI representative stated that since "high-class paramount leaders" make the laws around these practices, an oath of infidelity is less likely to be imposed if the woman is the daughter of "a big man in society" (CWSI 18 Feb. 2016). The Professor of African religious traditions stated that "it is very unlikely" that an "upper class man" would impose an oath for infidelity, "even if he is aware of the wife's infidelity" (25 Feb. 2016).

However, according to the doctoral candidate, given that female infidelity is seen to bring shame to a family's name, if the husband's father is the Chief Priest or herbalist in a community, the woman may be more susceptible to the imposition of an oath (25 Feb. 2016). The Senior Lecturer similarly noted that if the husband is from "the royal family, a community leader, or a reputable politician," the chances of a woman being subjected to an infidelity oath are higher (22 Feb. 2016).

4. Prevalence

Sources indicate that the imposition of oaths and rituals for infidelity is "rare" (Professor of comparative religions 24 Feb. 2016), "not very common at all anymore" (Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016), or "no longer very common" (Senior Lecturer 22 Feb. 2016). The Professor of African religious traditions indicated that the practice is less common in urban centers (Professor of African religious traditions 1 Mar. 2016), and happens in the rural and traditional areas (ibid. 23 Feb. 2016). According to the Professor of history, those who engage in infidelity rituals "live in the countryside, are lower class, poor, often with little or no education" (Professor of history 5 Feb. 2016). He further gave the view that a woman who is an engineer or a lawyer would not be forced to submit to an oath (ibid.). The Professor of comparative religions similarly noted that ritualistic practices are rare among educated and wealthy people in urban areas, but that they are "more common among less educated, poorer families in rural areas" (24 Feb. 2016).

4.1 Prevalence in Lagos

The Professor of comparative religions stated that it is rare for rituals associated with infidelity to happen in a large city such as Lagos (24 Feb. 2016). The doctoral candidate stated that in Lagos, as a result of modernization, the importance of rituals and oaths has "diminished significantly" (doctoral candidate 28 Feb. 2016). Sources indicated that although it is rare for oaths to be imposed in metropolitan areas such as Lagos, sometimes families from the city travel to the countryside to administer infidelity rituals (ibid.; Professor of comparative religions 24 Feb. 2016).

Information on specific cases of the imposition of infidelity oaths in Lagos or South Western Nigeria could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

5. Refusal

According to the Professor of history, "a woman does not have to submit to an oath if she does not want to" (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016). The same source indicated that if the woman is Christian and the oath is imposed on her at the church, she may decide to leave that church (ibid.). However, he also stated that Nigerian women have been known to submit to the oath to avoid things such as social stigmatization and family conflict, lengthy and complicated divorce procedures, losing economic support and housing, or domestic abuse (ibid.). The Professor of history further stated that refusal is "not possible" for a woman in the countryside where there is "a lot more pressure," and it is more difficult to evade her in-laws than in the city (ibid.).

Without providing details, the CWSI representative stated that, "traditionally," a woman accused of infidelity will not refuse to take an oath, unless "she is a convinced Christian" and has the support of her church community, or if she is willing to "face the consequences" of refusing (CWSI 23 Feb. 2016).

Sources indicated that, should a woman refuse to submit to an oath of infidelity, she may incur the following consequences:

ostracism, as the woman is socially labelled as an "infidel" (doctoral candidate 25 Feb. 2016); or because the community sees refusal to take the oath as an admission of guilt (CWSI 23 Feb. 2016);

the end of her marriage (Professor of comparative religions 24 Feb. 2016);

economic dispossession and "abject" poverty (doctoral candidate 25 Feb. 2016);

loss of housing (ibid.);

threats, attacks or harassment, and sexual violence (ibid.); and

domestic abuse and physical violence by the husband (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016).

6. Protection

6.1 State Protection

According to the doctoral candidate, cases related to oaths for infidelity are "rarely" reported to the police or relevant authorities for reasons such as fear of "victim-blaming," accepting of oaths and rituals as "normal," or police "apathy" (doctoral candidate 25 Feb. 2016). The same source stated that it is "difficult" for women to obtain protection against ritual practices because "ritual matters are expected to be handled privately" with issues such as lack of evidence, legal pluralism, and sex discrimination contributing to a lack of protection (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

The Professor of African religious traditions stated that a Nigerian woman "cannot trust the police in this matter. It is not a matter of the law or the police. The police would only complicate matters, and take the money [and] do nothing" (23 Feb. 2016). According to the CWSI representative, should a woman choose to report harassment resulting from the imposition of a ritual, the police "would tell [her] to go home, as this is considered a family matter" (18 Feb. 2016). Similarly, the JDPC representative indicated that the police treat most cases of infidelity as domestic matters, and would urge those involved to solve them "outside of the police station or court system" (29 Feb. 2016).

In contrast, the Senior Lecturer stated that "in the past, [reporting an oath to the police] was never done, but in recent times, as a result of the modern judicial system, such matters could be taken to the police or court of law" (22 Feb. 2016). Similarly, the CWSI representative noted that while the police are still unresponsive to ritual cases, educated women, especially lawyers, "cannot easily be tossed about by the police or society" as awareness on this issue is growing (18 Feb. 2016). According to the doctoral candidate, it is rare for cases in rural areas to be reported to the police, but some educated women from the elite may attempt to report it (25 Feb. 2016).

The Professor of history indicated that, even though a woman can report harassment associated with rituals to the police, the status of the husband influences whether or not the police would respond to her claim (Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016). According to the Professor of history, the woman will receive little support from law enforcement authorities if the husband is a police officer or if he or someone in his family is an influential person with the resources to "get the police on their side" (ibid.). The same source stated that if the woman herself is educated, more influential, and wealthier than her husband and his family, she can get an injunction or restraining order against her husband, or file for and obtain a divorce and child support (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

Information on specific cases of women reporting an imposition of an infidelity oath to the police between 2014 and 2016 could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

6.2 Alternative Sources of Protection

The Professor of comparative religions indicated that a woman who is subjected to an oath of infidelity against her will can go to the church for protection, provided she is Christian (24 Feb. 2016). Similarly, the CWSI representative indicated that, in some cases, a woman can obtain protection from community denominations such as the Anglican or Catholic churches (18 Feb. 2016). The Professor of African religious traditions indicated that a woman may sometimes turn to a pastor for protection and, in some cases, the pastor can offer to take a woman's confession as an alternative to an infidelity ritual (Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016). The same source added that "if the husband is not a member of the church, then the pastor will not have any influence over the situation" (ibid.). Similarly, the Professor of comparative religions stated that intervention by the church "will not work" if one side of the family is Christian and the other side is not (24 Feb. 2016).

Sources report that women have more access to sources of protection in urban than in rural areas (doctoral candidate 28 Feb. 2016; Professor of history 25 Feb. 2016). Sources also indicated that women can also seek assistance from the king (Professor of comparative religions 24 Feb. 2016; Professor of African religious traditions 23 Feb. 2016) or the eldest in her own family (ibid.). The Professor of comparative religions explained that in traditional communities, a woman can appeal to the king if she has been falsely accused, or refuses to obey her in-laws, and request that he appeal to them (24 Feb. 2016). The Professor of African religious traditions expressed the opinion that the advice of the king or of the eldest of the woman's family "would most likely be... to 'just take the oath' because if she is innocent, she has nothing to fear" and gave the view that a woman in such a situation "would have nowhere to go" (23 Feb. 2016). For information on kings and chieftains in Yorubaland, refer to Response to Information Request NGA104602. The Professor of history indicated that, in the cities, a woman may seek assistance from social networks such as her husband's or her own friends, NGOs, women's organizations, her own family, if they are influential, or her community church (25 Feb. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Associate Professor of philosophy, Howard University, Washington. 2 March 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Centre for Women Studies and Intervention (CWSI). 23 February 2016. Correspondence from a representative to the Research Directorate.

Centre for Women Studies and Intervention (CWSI). 18 February 2016. Telephone interview with a representative.

Doctoral candidate, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia. 28 February 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Doctoral candidate, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia. 25 February 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Global Fund for Women. N.d. "Centre for Women Studies and Intervention." [Accessed 1 Mar. 2016]

Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC). 29 February 2016. Correspondence from a representative to the Research Directorate.

Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC). N.d. "Vision, Mission and Concern." [Accessed 1 Mar. 2016]

Professor of African religious traditions, and African and African American studies, Harvard University. 1 March 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Professor of African religious traditions, and African and African American studies, Harvard University. 23 February 2016. Telephone interview.

Professor of comparative religions, University of Ilorin, Nigeria. 24 February 2016. Telephone interview.

Professor of history, Brock University. 25 February 2016. Telephone interview.

Senior Lecturer of African traditional religion and cultural studies, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Nigeria. 22 February 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Assistant Professor specializing in religions in Africa, University of Vermont; Committee for the Defence of Human Rights; Human Rights and Justice Group; Lecturer of sociology, University of Ibadan; Nigeria - Nigeria Police Force; Professor of African studies, anthropology and history, University of North Carolina; Professor of anthropology, Afroamerican and African studies, University of Michigan; Professor of anthropology and international development, University of Sussex; Professor of political science, Brooklyn College; Professor of the history of art and black studies, Amherst College; Professor of sociology, Stonybrook University; Reader in African studies, University of Birmingham; Research Fellow, University of Birmingham.

Internet sites, including: Africa Confidential; Afrik.com; AllAfrica.com; Amnesty International; BBC; The Daily Times; Daily Trust; ecoi.net; Factiva; The Guardian; Human Rights Watch; The Independent; Minority Rights Group International; The Nation; National Daily; National Mirror; Nigeria - Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Lagos State Government; Nigerian Tribune; Norway - Landinfo; Punch; Radio France internationale; The Sun; This Day; UN - Refworld, UN Development Programme, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Women; US - Department of State; University of Leiden - African Studies Centre; Vanguard.
Nigeria: The capacity of Boko Haram to pursue individuals who relocate to another region or city, such as Lagos (2013-March 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 11 March 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105451.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur la capacite de Boko Haram de pourchasser des personnes qui se reinstallent dans une autre region ou une autre ville, notamment Lagos (2013-mars 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: The capacity of Boko Haram to pursue individuals who relocate to another region or city, such as Lagos (2013-March 2016), 11 March 2016, NGA105451.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843fd214.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Overview

Sources indicate that Boko Haram [Jamaat Ahl al-Sunna il-Dawa wal-Jihad (Group of the Followers of the Prophet for Propagation and Jihad), Wilayat Gharb Afriqiyah (West Africa Province) [1]] is an Islamist militant group that is primarily active in northern Nigeria (Jane's Intelligence Review 25 Nov. 2015; US 10 June 2014, 6; ISS Oct. 2015, 17). For an overview of Boko Haram and their activities in northern Nigeria, see Response to Information Request NGA105320.

Sources describe Abubakar Shekau as the leader of Boko Haram (START Jan. 2015, 15; US June 2015, 341) or the leader of the "largest faction" of Boko Haram (International Crisis Group 3 Apr. 2014, 22). Sources describe Boko Haram as having multiple factions (ibid.; ISS Oct. 2015, 19; Jane's Intelligence Review 25 Nov. 2015). According to Jane's Intelligence Review, "[s]ince at least 2013, Boko Haram has operated as three or four geographically separate autonomous factions with the loosest of operational ties, under a variety of leaders of whom ... Shekau is by far the best known" (ibid.). The Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), an organization that aims "to advance human security in Africa through evidence-based policy advice" (ISS n.d.), reports that "[r]ather than a single hierarchical structure, Boko Harem is a complex of factions, cells and groups that owe limited allegiance to Abubakar Shekau and his core group of followers" (ISS Oct. 2015, 19). In a report on Boko Haram, the US Congressional Research Service (CRS), a group that provides "non-partisan, objective and authoritative analysis to the US Congress" (US 1 Mar. 2016), reports that Boko Haram's organizational structure is "often described as diffuse" and that some analysts suggest that the group is "susceptible to fracturing" (ibid. 10 June 2014, 3).

Sources indicate that Boko Haram has a Shura Council (International Crisis Group 3 Apr. 2014, 18; Assistant Professor 7 Mar. 2016; START Jan. 2015, 15), whose members have responsibility for specific geographic or functional cells of Boko Haram (ibid., 15-16). According to a report on Boko Haram by the US-based National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) [2], individual cell commanders of Boko Haram "have some ability to act unilaterally in an opportunistic manner, without direct orders from Shekau" (ibid., 16). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, an assistant professor of law at Syracuse University, who is also an associate researcher at the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, stated that Shura members have "limited" face-to-face contact with one another, "which allows local actors greater maneuverability" (Assistant Professor 7 Mar. 2016). Sources estimate Boko Haram's membership to be several thousand fighters (US June 2015, 342; The Globe and Mail 28 Feb. 2015).

2. Capacity of Boko Haram to Track Individuals

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Research Director of START, who has conducted desk and field research on Boko Haram, stated that the capacity of Boko Haram to pursue individuals who relocate to other areas of Nigeria is the greatest in the northeast region (Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe), with "diminishing capacity" moving away from this region (START 2 Mar. 2016). The same source stated that, in her opinion, the ability of Boko Haram to track down an "average citizen," such as someone who fled one of the cities that Boko Haram captured in 2014 or 2015, is "doubtful, even in the northeast" (ibid.). She explained that "while they have intelligence capabilities, they are not that advanced nor are they likely to use them for this purpose" (ibid.). Furthermore, the Research Director stated that Boko Haram does not have "the cyber sophistication to track individuals through hacking electronic systems," and their ability to track average citizens "would depend largely on word of mouth" (ibid.).

Regarding the types of individuals Boko Haram might pursue and target, the Research Director said that

[t]hey are most likely to track and target relatively high-status individuals, such as local government area officials (many of whom have fled either to Maiduguri or Abuja) or religious elites. These individuals have a public profile that makes it harder for them to blend in with local populations, and the nature of their activities (such as meeting with constituents, leading religious services) also creates vulnerabilities for them. (ibid.)

She noted that Boko Haram has targeted elites as far away as Abuja (ibid.).

The Assistant Professor stated that Boko Haram's tracking capabilities are "hard to assess," as the group "appears to be going through some sort of rebuilding process" (Assistant Professor 7 Mar. 2016). The same source noted that Boko Haram has greater reach in northern states, from Maiduguri to Plateau State to Kano State (ibid.). He stated that the types of individuals Boko Haram targets include senior military and police officers, school teachers, "especially ones that deem to promote an education system that the group rejects," and community activists (ibid.).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a senior fellow at the New York-based think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), who specializes in Nigeria, stated that Boko Haram is "decentralized and local" and "does not appear to have the interest or capacity to go after an individual outside the northeast-except for former Boko Haram operatives who crossed the current  leadership" (CFR 1 Mar. 2016). The senior fellow stated that the other types of individuals Boko Haram targets include government officials, police, military, and religious leaders, "particularly Muslim leaders who oppose Boko Haram" (ibid. 9 Mar. 2016). However, he indicated that there is no evidence of Boko Haram tracking down people beyond their area of operation in the northeast and north-central region of Nigeria (ibid.).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a specialist in African affairs at the CRS said that Boko Haram has cells that operate across North and Central Nigeria (US 1 Mar. 2016). The same source stated that, in 2013, Boko Haram "appeared to conduct a purge" of people who aligned with the splinter faction Ansaru, which demonstrated the ability of Boko Haram to reach across areas of northern Nigeria (ibid.). However, she also noted that she was not in a position to say to what degree Boko Haram operatives might pursue someone beyond the area in which their cell operates (ibid.).

The CRS specialist said that there have been "widespread reports of retributive violence against fighters who have defected from Boko Haram" (ibid.). ISS reports that, in March 2015, Boko Haram released a video showing the "apparent beheading" of two men who were allegedly hired by the government to spy on them (ISS 8 May 2015). According to the same source, the "authenticity of the video has not been confirmed, but its message is chilling: anyone who is seen to assist the authorities [against Boko Haram] will be severely punished" (ibid.). START reports that Shekau "has ordered the 'death penalty' for anyone who did not follow his orders and has killed defectors" (START Jan. 2015, 16).

Two sources indicate that Boko Haram has attacked internally displaced people (IDPs) (ibid. 2 Mar. 2016; CFR 9 Mar. 2016). According to the senior fellow, there have been Boko Haram attacks on IDP camps, but he noted, "I believe intended victims were anyone in the camps," rather than attacks targeting individuals (ibid.).

2.1 Capacity in Southern Nigeria, Including Lagos

The START Research Director was not aware of any targeted attacks by Boko Haram on individuals in the South, and that there have been "very few attacks in general" by Boko Haram south of the Middle Belt states [3] (START 2 Mar. 2016). Likewise, the CRS specialist in African affairs stated that Boko Haram's capacity in the South is "limited," and that there "seldom seems to be activity south of Abuja" (US 1 Mar. 2016).

Regarding Boko Haram's capacity to track individuals in the South, the Assistant Professor stated,

I suspect that the group's reach is probably weak in the Southern parts of the country mainly because (1) the South is predominately Christian; (2) the South is predominantly Igbo (the Hausa and Fulani, which are largely Muslim, dominate northern Nigeria); (3) it is not easy for one ethnic group to move to another region, as they would stick out (they would not speak the local languages, know the local customs, etc.). The princip[al] ethnic group in Lagos are Yaruba, and there are Christian and Muslim Yarubas. (Assistant Professor 7 Mar. 2016)

The CFR representative stated that Boko Haram is "almost entirely inactive in Lagos" (CFR 1 Mar. 2016) and has "only carried out a single operation" there (ibid. 9 Mar. 2016). The CRS specialist reported that recent Boko Haram activity in the South consisted of an attack on a fuel depot in Lagos in June 2014, and a "few isolated incidents" in 2015 between the police and alleged Boko Haram members in Akwa Ibom and Ebonyi (US 1 Mar. 2016).

IHS Global Insight reports that in 2014, Nigerian authorities arrested more than 1,000 suspected Boko Haram militants in in the southern states of Rivers, Imo, Bayelsa and Abia (IHS Global Insight 1 Aug. 2014). The Assistant Professor indicated that the Nigerian government introduced "expansive security measures" in Abuja and Lagos, making it harder for Boko Haram to operate there (Assistant Professor 7 Mar. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

3. Targets of Assassinations

The START Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which contains open-source information on over 140,000 terrorist attacks throughout the world from 1970 to 2014 (START n.d.b), has information on 20 assassination attacks attributed to Boko Haram between 2013 and 2014, resulting in the deaths of approximately 78 individuals (ibid. n.d.a). Of these attacks, the majority occurred in Borno state, but there were also assassination attacks in Kaduna, Kano, Gombe, Nasarawa, and Sokoto states (ibid.). Targets of the assassination attacks include village heads, district leaders, the leader of the opposition party, an Islamic scholar, the Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria, government officials and leaders, emirs, members of the political parties All Progressives Congress (APC) and People's Democratic Party (PDP), and police officers (ibid.).

Reports of assassination attacks in Lagos or other southern states could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Notes

[1] According to Jane's Intelligence Review, Boko Haram was "rebranded" as Wilayat Gharb Afriqiyah ("'West Africa Province'," or "Islamic State in West Africa") after the main faction of the group, led by Shekau, declared allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in March of 2015 (Jane's Intelligence Review 25 Nov. 2015).

[2] START is based at the University of Maryland and is supported, in part, by the US Department of Homeland Security (START Jan. 2015). START aims to "improve understanding of the origins, dynamics and social and psychological impacts of terrorism" (ibid.).

[3] According to World Watch Monitor, a media site that "reports the story of Christians around the world under pressure for their faith" (World Watch Monitor n.d.), Nigeria's "'Middle Belt'" region is "the handful of states straddling the pre-colonial line dividing Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north from its Christian south" (ibid. 13 July 2015).

References

Assistant Professor of law, Syracuse University. 7 March 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). 9 March 2016. Telephone interview with a senior fellow.

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). 1 March 2016. Correspondence from a senior fellow to the Research Directorate.

The Globe and Mail. 28 February 2015. Geoffrey York. "How Not to Fight Extremism." (Factiva)

IHS Global Insight. 1 August 2014. "Boko Haram Militants' Evolving Strategy in Nigeria Opens Up New Fronts, as Risk of Suicide Bombings Rise." (Factiva)

Institute for Security Studies (ISS). October 2015. Jakkie Cilliers. Violent Islamist Extremism and Terror in Africa. [Accessed 1 Mar. 2016]

Institute for Security Studies (ISS). 8 May 2015. Uyo Salifu. "Fighting Boko Haram - Why Nigeria Needs a Cohesive Witness Protection Programme." (Factiva)

Institute for Security Studies (ISS). N.d. "How We Work." [Accessed 1 Mar. 2016]

International Crisis Group. 3 April 2014. Curbing Violence in Nigeria (II): The Boko Haram Insurgency. [Accessed 1 Mar. 2016]

Jane's Intelligence Review. 25 November 2015. Omar Mahmood. Rebranded Boko Haram Threatens West Africa. [Accessed 1 Mar. 2016]

START, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland. 2 March 2016. Correspondence from the Research Director to the Research Directorate.

START, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland. January 2015. Boko Haram: An Assessment of Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and Policy Options. [Accessed 1 Mar. 2016]

START, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland. N.d.a. "Search Results: 20 Incidents." (Global Terrorism Database) [Accessed 2 Mar. 2016]

START, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland. N.d.b. "Overview of the GTD." (Global Terrorism Database) [Accessed 4 Mar. 2016]

United States (US). 1 March 2016. Congressional Research Service (CRS). Correspondence from a specialist in African affairs to the Research Directorate.

United States (US). June 2015. Department of State. Country Reports on Terrorism 2014. [Accessed 29 Feb. 2016]

United States (US). 10 June 2014. Lauren Ploch Blanchard. Nigeria's Boko Haram: Frequently Asked Questions. [Accessed 29 Feb. 2016]

World Watch Monitor. 13 July 2015. "Are Nigeria's 'Middle Belt' Christians Victims of Ethnic Cleansing?" [Accessed 11 Mar. 2016]

World Watch Monitor. N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 11 Mar. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: assistant professor of political science, University of Southern Illinois Edwardsville; Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre; Jamestown Foundation.

Internet sites, including: Amnesty International; Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point; ecoi.net; Factiva; Freedom House; Human Rights Watch; Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre; Jamestown Foundation; Perspectives on Terrorism; United Nations - Refworld.
Nigeria: Application and enforcement of the May 2015 ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) (May 2015-January 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 25 January 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105404.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur l'application et l'execution de la loi interdisant la mutilation genitale des femmes (MGF), adoptee en mai 2015 (mai 2015-janvier 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Application and enforcement of the May 2015 ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) (May 2015-January 2016), 25 January 2016, NGA105404.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843fdf44.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Overview

Sources report that in May 2015, the President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, gave assent to a bill that became The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (VAPP), which includes, among other things, a ban on female genital mutilation [FGM] (The Guardian 26 May 2015; Daily Independent 25 May 2015).

Article 6 of the VAPP Act states that

The circumcision or genital mutilation of the girl child or woman is hereby prohibited.

A person who performs female circumcision or genital mutilation or engages another to carry out such circumcision or mutilation commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 4 years or to a fine not exceeding 200,000 [Nigerian Naira (NGN)] [approximately C$1,438] or both.

A person who attempts to commit the offence provided for in subsection (2) of this section commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 2 years or to a fine not exceeding 100,000 (NGN) [approximately C$716] or both.

A person who incites, aids, abets, or counsels another person to commit the offence provided for in subsection (2) of this section commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 2 years or to a fine not exceeding 100,000 (NGN) [approximately C$716] or both. (Nigeria 25 May 2015)

A complete copy of the VAPP Act is attached to this Response.

Sources report that the 2015 ban on FGM is the first nationwide Nigerian "commitment" to eradicate the practice (The Huffington Post 8 June 2015; Christian Today 10 June 2015). A brief on the VAPP Act drafted by the Centre for Health Ethics Law and Development (CHELD), a Nigeria-based think-tank that conducts research and analysis on health policy "from legal, social and ethical perspectives" (CHELD n.d.), similarly states that prior to the VAPP Act, "there was no general [FGM] legal prohibition throughout the country" (ibid. 2015).

According to sources, FGM was already prohibited in some Nigerian States before the passage of the VAPP Act (The Huffington Post 8 June 2015; Thomson Reuters Foundation 29 May 2015; CHELD 2015). An article published in the Nigerian newspaper This Day specifies that the state of Edo enacted a ban on FGM in 1999 and that "other states including Rivers, Ogun, Osun, Cross River and Bayelsa" followed suit (28 May 2015). According to the same source, Nigerian states faced difficulties in enforcing FGM bans prior to the enactment of the VAPP Act and consequently, saw the practice "gain increased acceptance" (ibid.). For additional information on FGM in Nigeria before the VAPP Act was enacted, please refer to Response to Information Requests NGA105120 and NGA103520.

2. Application and Enforcement of the FGM Ban Under the VAPP Act

Information on the application and enforcement of the FGM ban under the VAPP Act was scarce amongst the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

In a "synopsis" of the VAPP Act, available on the website of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law, the Women's [also spelled Women] Aid Collective [WACOL] [1] notes that VAPP's application is restricted to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja (WACOL n.d.). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Regional Director for Africa of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) [2] stated that "currently, the applicability of the VAPP Act outside the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Abuja is a matter of legal debate" (ICRW 7 Jan. 2016). Sources state that Nigeria's federal government expects that the 36 Nigerian states will pass a comparable law (ICRW 7 Jan. 2016; WACOL n.d.), and that 13 states have thus far enacted related legislation (ICRW 7 Jan. 2016). A November 2015 article published in Lagos-based newspaper The Guardian, cites the Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Child Health Advocacy Initiative (CHAI) [3] as indicating that until the completion of the legislative process within the 36 Nigerian states, the VAPP Act "is a mere paper document outside the Federal Capital Territory [FCT]" (The Guardian 19 Nov. 2015). Corroborating information could not be found among sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

According to a September 2015 article published in the Lagos-based newspaper Vanguard, FGM still occurs in six Nigerian states, including the state of Imo (9 Sept. 2015). An October 2015 article published by This Day also states that that the practice of FGM "continues to thrive" and that several thousand girls and women are subjected to the practice despite its illegality (This Day 23 Oct. 2015). Corroborating information could not be found among sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

The Regional Director for Africa of the ICRW stated that "evidence of [the VAPP's] enforcement since it came into force has not yet emerged" and that "[t]he most significant impact [of the law] has been in the form of publicity" (ICRW 7 Jan. 2016). According to the same source however,

[c]riminalisation of entrenched cultural practices has its limitations. While legal safeguards are an important step towards ending FGM, they are not enough to eliminate it. Ending violence against women and girls requires investment, not just laws written in statute books. (ibid.)

Corroborating information could not be found among sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Notes

[1] WACOL is a Nigerian NGO that provides assistance to "women and young in need" (WACOL 3 Oct. 2015) and contributed to the "drafting [] and legislative advocacy" of the VAPP Act (ibid. n.d.).

[2]The ICRW works with partners to "conduct empirical research, build capacity and advocate for evidence-based, practical ways to change policies and programs" with the mandate of advancing gender equality in the developing world (ICRW n.d.).

[3] The CHAI is a Lagos-based NGO whose aim is "to promote child survival in Nigeria" (CHAI n.d.).

References

Centre for Health Ethics Law and Development (CHELD). 2015. "The Violence Against Person's (Prohibition) Act: A CHELD Brief." [Accessed 8 Jan. 2016]

Centre for Health Ethics Law and Development (CHELD). N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 13 Jan. 2016]

Child Health Advocacy Initiative (CHAI). N.d. "About." [Accessed 11 Jan. 2016]

Christian Today. 10 June 2015. Monica Cantilero."Female Genital Mutilation Still a Problem in Nigeria Despite New Law Banning It." [Accessed 22 Dec. 2015]

Daily Independent [Lagos]. 25 May 2015. "Nigeria: New Nigerian Law Outlaws Female Circumcision, Forceful Ejection of Widows." [Accessed 11 Jan. 2016]

The Guardian [Lagos]. 19 November 2015. Lola Alonge, Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Child Health Advocacy Initiative (CHAI). "How to End FGM Nigeria." [Accessed 18 Dec. 2015]

The Guardian [Lagos]. 26 May 2015. Mohammed Abubakar and Kanayo Umeh. "Nigeria: Jonathan Signs Two Bills Into Law." [Accessed 11 Jan. 2016]

The Huffington Post. 8 June 2015. Eleanor Goldberg. "Nigeria Bans Female Genital Mutilation, But Advocates Say There's Still More Work To Do." [Accessed 22 Dec. 2015]

This Day. 23 October 2015. Martins Ifijeh. "A Stubborn Culture." (Factiva)

This Day. 28 May 2015. Martins Ifijeh. "Genital Mutilation: Will Nigeria Enforce the Law." (Factiva)

International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). 7 January 2016. Correspondence from the Regional Director for Africa to the Research Directorate.

International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). N.d. "Who We Are." [Accessed 13 Jan. 2016]

Nigeria. 25 May 2015. Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, 2015 [VAPP]. [Accessed 22 Dec. 2015]

Thomson Reuters Foundation. 29 May 2015. Josef d'Urso. "FGM Campaigners - Nigeria Ban Welcome, But Work Not Over." [Accessed 22 Dec. 2015]

Vanguard. 9 September 2015. Chidi Nkwopara. "Six States in Nigeria that Still Practice Female Genital Mutilation." [Accessed 11 Jan. 2016]

Women ['s] Aid Collective (WACOL). 3 October 2015. "About Us: Wacol." [Accessed 15 Jan. 2015]

Women ['s] Aid Collective (WACOL). N.d. "Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, 2015, Nigeria : Synopsis by Women's Aid Collective (WACOL)." [Accessed 22 Dec. 2015]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Centre for Health Ethics Law and Development; Inter-African Committee on Traditional Harmful Practices; Nigeria - Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development; United Nations - United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Population Fund, UN Women; Women Aid Collective; Women Arise for Change Initiative; Women's Consortium of Nigeria; Women's Rights Watch.

Internet sites, including: 28 Too Many; African Journal of Reproductive Health; AllAfrica; Association for Reproductive and Family Health; The Authority; Center for Women Studies and Intervention; Daily Post; Daily Trust; ecoi.net; Equality Now; Global Fund for Women; The Guardian [UK]; Intact Network; International Business Times; The Nation; Nigeria - Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Justice; The Nigerian Observer; The Punch; Reprohealthlaw; UN - Office of the High Commission for Human Rights; Voices4Change Nigeria.

Attachment

Nigeria. 25 May 2015. Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, 2015 [VAPP]. [Accessed 22 Dec. 2015]
Nigeria: Whether a Commissioner of Oaths or a notary public would notarize a statement or swear an affidavit in which an individual admits to being bisexual or homosexual, or to knowing of someone's sexual orientation; documentation taken by police upon arrest for same-sex activity (2014-December 2015)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 7 January 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105379.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information indiquant si un commissaire a l'assermentation ou un notaire public legaliserait une declaration ou signerait un affidavit dans laquelle ou lequel une personne reconnait etre bisexuelle ou homosexuelle, ou etre au courant de l'orientation sexuelle d'une autre personne; information sur la documentation recueillie par la police a la suite d'une arrestation pour relations sexuelles entre personnes du meme sexe (2014-decembre 2015) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Whether a Commissioner of Oaths or a notary public would notarize a statement or swear an affidavit in which an individual admits to being bisexual or homosexual, or to knowing of someone's sexual orientation; documentation taken by police upon arrest for same-sex activity (2014-December 2015), 7 January 2016, NGA105379.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843fe8d4.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Affidavits Regarding Sexual Orientation

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, sources gave the view that it is not a standard practice in Nigeria for a Commissioner of Oaths to swear an affidavit regarding a person's gender or sexual orientation (Population Council 14 Nov. 2015; QA 1 Dec. 2015; CIRDDOC 18 Nov. 2015), or for a notary public to do so (ibid.; Population Council 14 Nov. 2015). Two sources stated that they have no knowledge of instances in which a person would have a need to obtain such an affidavit within Nigeria (QA 1 Dec. 2015; CIRDDOC 18 Nov. 2015).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a representative of the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC) of Nigeria, an independent non-profit organization that protects and promotes human rights and women's rights, including through activities such as research, litigation, counselling, and legal advising (CIRDDOC n.d.), explained that "it would be strange" for a person to swear to an affidavit about sexual orientation because these are crimes in Nigeria and would "amount to ... reporting himself or herself to the law" (ibid. 18 Nov. 2015). Similarly, in correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Country Director for Nigeria of the Population Council, an organization that conducts research on HIV prevention, care, and treatment responses among vulnerable groups, including men who have sex with men (MSM) (Population Council n.d.), stated that

[h]igh levels of homophobia and the criminalization of same-sex practice and relationships would prevent LGBT individuals or allies from swearing such an affidavit with a Nigerian notary public/commissioner of oaths. They would likely fear outing (which can lead to loss of family, friends, work, education), violence, arrest, blackmail and extortion. The Nigerian notary public/commissioner of oaths may also refuse to participate in such an activity due to the same homophobia and criminalization. (14 Nov. 2015)

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Organizational Director of Queer Alliance Nigeria (QA), a "youth-led human rights and health advocacy organization for Nigerian citizens marginalized on the basis [of] sexual orientation and gender identity," stated that "affidavits are not used in Nigeria for things [such] as swearing to ... being homosexual" and gave the view that the "embarrassment and stigma associated with getting such [a] document deter people from obtaining it" (QA 1 Dec. 2015). He said that there is no "need for this particular kind of documentation in the country, since there are no benefits to claim using" such documents within Nigeria (ibid.).

In reference to whether an LGBT person's family member would seek to obtain an affidavit about that person's sexual orientation, the CIRDDOC representative gave the opinion that the situation would be the same as that of an individual seeking one, and that this would be unusual and amount to reporting that person to the law (18 Nov. 2015). The Country Director of the Population Council stated that family members would likely be "unwilling" to swear to such an affidavit due to criminalization and homophobia, but may be more willing "if the LGBT individual/ally is guaranteed absolute confidentiality or security" (14 Nov. 2015). The QA Organizational Director similarly stated that families of an LGBT person "first want to save themselves the embarrassment and stigma associated with homosexuality" and would thus avoid obtaining or swearing to such an affidavit (1 Dec. 2015).

2. Documentation by Police Upon Arrest for Same-sex Activity

According to the QA Organizational Director, when arresting a person for same-sex activities, police obtain a signed statement from the individual admitting their same-sex activities, which carries the stamp of the police station, the prosecuting or investigating officer and that of the station commander or divisional police officer (1 Dec. 2015). The Country Director for the Population Council similarly stated that, based on information received by partner organizations,

[u]pon arrest and detention, the police would usually demand/request the victim to write a statement explaining his/her activities that led to the arrest (this statement most times is [obtained] under duress), and this is filed with other information or facts, e.g., printed suggestive photos, chats, etc., documented against the victim as evidence.

Usually, the statement ... is signed by the victim and the arresting officer or the [officer] in charge of the case  the signature may be ... handwritten ... or stamp. Such documents are kept at the police station and not given to the victim (Population Council 16 Dec. 2015)

The QA Organizational Director similarly stated that

[t]he signed statement obtained by the police is not provided to the victim. People are not compelled to give statements. But most statements collected are collected under duress.  [T]he statement can be used as evidence in a court of law and by the police as it usually carries the signature of the victims. These statements are usually obtained at the point of detention through interrogation. (6 Jan. 2016)

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC) Nigeria. 18 November 2015. Correspondence from a representative to the Research Directorate.

Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC) Nigeria. N.d. "About CIRDDOC Nigeria." [Accessed 15 Dec. 2015]

Queer Alliance Nigeria (QA). 6 January 2015. Correspondence from the Organizational Director to the Research Directorate.

Queer Alliance Nigeria (QA). 1 December 2015. Correspondence from the Organizational Director to the Research Directorate.

Population Council. 14 November 2015. Correspondence from the Country Director for Nigeria to the Research Directorate.

Population Council. 16 December 2015. Correspondence from the Country Director for Nigeria to the Research Directorate.

Population Council. N.d. "Key Populations at Risk for HIV." [Accessed 29 Dec. 2015]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Legal Defense Assistance Project; The Initiative for Equal Rights; Women's Health and Equal Rights Initiative.

Internet sites, including: Amnesty International; ecoi.net; Human Rights Watch; UN - Refworld.
Nigeria: The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), including objectives, structure, activities, relations with other Biafran independence groups, and treatment by authorities (2014-October 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 10 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105658.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur le Peuple indigene du Biafra (Indigenous People of Biafra - IPOB), y compris sur ses objectifs, sa structure, ses activites, ses relations avec les autres groupes independantistes biafrais, et le traitement que les autorites reservent a ses membres (2014-octobre 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), including objectives, structure, activities, relations with other Biafran independence groups, and treatment by authorities (2014-October 2016), 10 November 2016, NGA105658.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5844003b4.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Overview

Sources describe the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as a "separatist" organization (BBC 15 Dec. 2015; International Crisis Group 4 Dec. 2015) or as a "secessionist" group (Jamestown Foundation 16 Sept. 2016; BBC 18 Dec. 2015). Sources indicate that Biafra is a region in the south east of Nigeria [1] (International Crisis Group 4 Dec. 2015; Newsweek 7 Dec. 2015). Newsweek indicates that the region is "mainly populated by the Igbo [Ibo] ethnic group" (7 Dec. 2015). Sources indicate that from 1967 until 1970, Nigeria fought a civil war against Biafran secessionists, in which more than one million people died (BBC 18 Dec. 2015; AFP 31 May 2016). Agence France-Presse (AFP) cites Uchenna Madu, the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), another pro-Biafra group, as stating that the objective of pro-Biafran groups, including MASSOB and IPOB, is "a separate homeland for the Igbo people" (10 Apr. 2016).

BBC reports that young people who belong to secessionist groups such as IPOB are mainly ethnic Igbos who "feel they have been discriminated against by those in power" (18 Dec. 2015). Similarly, according to the International Crisis Group, the activities of Biafran separatist groups, including IPOB, are "an attempt to attract attention and spending from the central government,  based on a cocktail of longstanding and recent economic and political grievances" (4 Dec. 2015). In an article on the Biafra secessionist movement in the Journal of Research in National Development, O. O. Thompson, C. C. Ojukwu and O. G. F. Nwaoegu, academics from the Department of Communication and General Studies, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, state that IPOB's grievances are that they have been "politically, socio-economically, and culturally marginalized in the Nigerian project" (Thompson et al. June 2016, 1).

According to an April 2016 AFP article, IPOB was founded by Nnamdi Kanu (10 Apr. 2016). Thompson et al. describe IPOB as "a faction" of MASSOB (June 2016, 1). For further information on MASSOB, including its relations to IPOB and IPOB's origins, see Response to Information Request NGA105577 of July 2016.

Without providing further details, International Crisis Group indicates that Kanu "fell out" with the former leader of MASSOB in 2009, and "emerged as the leader of IPOB in 2012" (4 Dec. 2015). An IPOB statement cited in an article of the Nigerian branch of News24, a South African "digital publishing house" (News24 n.d.), indicates that Kanu was formally given the "mantle of leadership of IPOB by the High Command of the Biafran Army," in Enugu on 30 May 2014 (ibid. 28 July 2016).

International Crisis Group states that IPOB "has a strong following among the Ibo in Rivers State, particularly in its chief city, Port Harcourt" (4 Dec. 2015). A January 2016 article in The Guardian describes IPOB as a "small" group (15 Jan. 2016). Further and corroborating information about the size of IPOB could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

1.1 Other IPOB Groups

The website of the Customary Government IPOB states that they are a movement "to help Biafrans achieve self-determination within the framework of [the] law" through "diplomacy, civil rights activism (human right[s] movement), mass media, political and every other legitimate process" (Customary Government IPOB n.d.a.). The website further states that under the customary government law administration, the Supreme Council of Elders (SCE) is the governing body of IPOB and is led by Chief Justice Eze Ozubu (ibid.). In an article by the Guardian (Nigeria), Dr. Dozie Ikedife, is named as the "Deputy Chairman, Supreme Council" of IPOB (28 Sep. 2016). According to its "policy statement," the SCE "ostracized" Kanu and his followers in May 2014 in response to a call for violence from "some of the pro-Biafran activists led by Mr. Nnamdi Kanu" (Customary Government IPOB n.d.b.). A July 2016 article on the Nigerian website of News24, cites a statement from IPOB distancing itself from the Customary Government IPOB and Ikedife, stating that "there is no such thing as Customary Government of Biafra" and that IPOB currently only consists of "freedom fighters" with Kanu as its leader (28 July 2016). Further and corroborating information about the SCE Customary Government IPOB, and its relations with the Kanu-led IPOB, could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

In August 2016, an article in Vanguard, a Nigerian newspaper, reported that "the Re-branded Indigenous People of Biafra" (TRIOPOB) [TRPOB] broke away from the Kanu-led IPOB because IPOB's position was too "defeatist" (Vanguard 24 Aug. 2016). Vanguard also reports that TRIOPOB said it would make a public denunciation of a secessionist Biafra in Abuja and instead pursues "the spirit and intent of Biafra" within Nigeria (ibid.). Today, a Nigerian digital newspaper, reports that IPOB claims that Department of State Services (DSS) [2] created fake splinter groups of IPOB (Today 8 Sept. 2016). Additional information on these splinter groups could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

2. Leadership and Structure

2.1 Nnamdi Kanu

Sources state that Nnamdi Kanu is the leader of IPOB (AI 24 Feb. 2016; BBC 18 Dec. 2015; News24 28 July 2016). Sources report that Kanu was arrested in October 2015 (AFP 10 Apr. 2016; AI 24 Feb. 2016; Vanguard 13 Aug. 2016). Sources indicate that Kanu is a dual British and Nigerian citizen (Thompson et al. June 2016, 8; Vanguard 31 Mar. 2016; The Guardian 15 Jan. 2016), who lived in London and was arrested during a visit to Nigeria (ibid.). According to Amnesty International (AI), Kanu was charged with "criminal conspiracy, managing and belonging to an unlawful society and intimidation" in October 2015, and charged with "treason" in December 2015 (AI 24 Feb. 2016). According to Vanguard, Kanu was charged with "six-counts of treason" (13 Aug. 2016). Sources report that a court in Abuja ordered Kanu's release in December 2015, but that he was not released (AI 24 Feb. 2016; BBC 18 Dec. 2015). The BBC indicates that the police said he was not released because they were "still investigating his alleged involvement in terrorist activities" (ibid.). Similarly, in a May 2016 article, AFP states that "the government has repeatedly refused to release [Kanu] despite several court rulings granting him bail" (31 May 2016). In October 2016, sources report that IPOB filed a lawsuit with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court to fight Kanu's continued detention (This Day 5 Oct. 2016; Vanguard 5 Oct. 2016).

2.2 Other Leaders

Media sources cite the following people as holding positions in IPOB:

Anayo Chukwu-Okpara, spokesman (AFP 31 May 2016; Al Jazeera 1 June 2016);

Mr. Emma Powerful, Media and Publicity Secretary (The Advocate 5 Oct. 2016; National Mirror 8 Oct. 2016); and

Emma Nmezu and Clifford Iroanya, spokespersons (The Sun 3 Oct. 2016).

Further and corroborating information about the leaders and structure of IPOB could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

3. Links with Other Groups

A 23 September 2016 article in the Nigerian Tribune, a Nigerian newspaper, refers to an "IPOB/MASSOB coalition" (23 Sept. 2016). Additional information on the IPOB/MASSOB coalition could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. Sources report that IPOB has expressed support for the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) (Jamestown Foundation 16 Sept. 2016; Vanguard 25 June 2016; Newsweek 27 May 2016). Media sources describe the NDA as a "militant group" in the Niger Delta (BBC 2 June 2016; IBTimes 19 June 2016). Newsweek reports that, according to an independent researcher, there are "operational links" between the NDA and IPOB, but the extent of the links is unclear (27 May 2016). Sources report that the NDA have called for Kanu's release from government detention and threatened to shut down oil plants unless Kanu was released (IBTimes 19 June 2016; Newsweek 30 May 2016). In addition, the NDA has "avowed support" for Kanu (ibid. 27 May 2016). For further information on the NDA, see Response to Information Request NGA105595 from August 2016.

4. Activities

The International Crisis Group indicates that IPOB is "the main group coordinating the recent 'free Kanu and restore Biafra' agitation" (International Crisis Group 4 Dec. 2015). The same source reports that "Kanu has strongly endorsed violence as an instrument for resuscitating Biafra" (ibid.).

Sources indicate that Kanu is also the director of Radio Biafra (ibid.; AI 24 Feb. 2016). The International Crisis Group describes Radio Biafra as "an unlicensed station urging violent struggle to achieve independence for Biafra," and states that it broadcasts "highly provocative messages laced with misinformation, hate speech and anti-Nigeria derision" (ibid.). Jane's Intelligence Review indicates that the Nigerian government called Radio Biafra a "'seditious pirate radio station' that broadcast unsavoury hate messages" (19 Nov. 2015). An AFP article also describes it as a "pirate" station where Kanu was "alleged to be broadcasting 'seditious messages' against Nigeria" (AFP 10 Apr. 2016). Sources indicate that Radio Biafra broadcasts from London (BBC 30 Nov. 2015; International Crisis Group 4 Dec. 2015).

Sources indicate that there is a video uploaded on YouTube showing that, in the World Igbo Conference in the US in September 2015, Kanu solicited weapons for Biafra from the Igbo diaspora (ibid.; BBC 30 Nov. 2016). However, in a March 2016 article, Jane's Intelligence Review states that Biafran separatists, including both IPOB and MASSOB, "have no capacity to carry out well-planned security operations"(2 March 2016). Corroborating information on IPOB's capacity for violence, or violent activities, could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

In April 2016, AFP reports that the Nigerian secret police accused IPOB of killing 55 people whose bodies were found buried in a forest in Abia state, which included 5 Hausa-Fulani residents who the government accused IPOB of abducting (AFP 10 Apr. 2016). The same article cites a spokesperson of MASSOB denying the allegations with regards to IPOB, stating that "IPOB and MASSOB are non-violent organizations" (ibid.).

Sources report that IPOB and its members were involved in the following:

"A series of protests  across the country" in "recent months" against the government's detention of Kanu and demands for a separate state for the Igbo (AFP 10 Apr. 2016). According to Jane's Intelligence Review since the arrest of Kanu on 18 October 2015, "demonstrations have taken place in several major cities in southeastern Nigerian states where the Igbo ethnic group is in a majority, as well as in the Rivers state capital of Port Harcourt" (19 Nov. 2015);

issuance of a statement, in conjunction with MASSOB, in March 2016, demanding that all "Fulani herdsmen" retreat to northern Nigeria, as "their safety [could] no longer be guaranteed" because MASSOB and IPOB "can no longer tolerate the systematic killing of our people and invasion of our land in the name of cattle grazing" (Vanguard 7 March 2016);

ordering a "sit-at-home" protest in states in the South East to demand Kanu's release from detention, in which residents were ordered to stay home on 23 September 2016 (Nigerian Tribune 23 Sept. 2016; The Sun 24 Sept. 2016). Sources report that in most areas of the south-east people did not follow the order (ibid.; Nigerian Tribune 23 Sept. 2016). Nigerian Tribune notes that the order affected the "commercial and academic activities in Onitsha," and that markets, banks and schools were closed (Nigerian Tribune 23 Sept. 2016). The Sun states that the cities of Onitsha and Nnewi in Anambra state "were shut down" as a result of IPOB's order (The Sun 24 Sept. 2016).

5. State Response and Treatment

International Crisis Group reports that the authorities' response to Biafran separatist activities, "initially" was restrained, although they broke up rallies and arrested "scores" of people, including the filing of charges against 137 pro-Biafran people as of 1 December 2015 (International Crisis Group 4 Dec. 2015). However, the same source reports that on 2 December 2015, the police shot at protesters and clashes between pro-separatist protesters and police led to the deaths of "at least eight" protesters and two policemen (ibid.). In September 2016, AI stated that "[o]n several occasions security forces have used excessive force against pro-Biafran activists who have attended protest marches across south-eastern Nigeria, or who have attempted to do so" (AI 28 Sept. 2016). AI notes that it has "documented cases of arrest, enforced disappearance, and often killing of supporters and members of various pro-Biafran groups in the region" (ibid.). AI also states that "scores" of Biafran independence supporters are in detention "for attempting to hold or participating in peaceful assemblies," many of them since January 2016 (ibid.).

Sources report that, according to the police, on 30 May 2016, in the city of Onitsha in Anambra state and the city of Asaba in Delta state, ten people were killed during protests to mark the anniversary of the start of the 1967 Biafra war when police officers opened fire on members of IPOB (AFP 31 May 2016; Al Jazeera 1 June 2016). However, sources report that, according to an IPOB spokesperson, "at least 35 members of the group were killed in Onitsha" (ibid.; AFP 31 May 2016). Sources report that the police claim that they shot at protesters after IPOB members fired at them, a claim IPOB denied (ibid.; Al Jazeera 1 June 2016). AI states that evidence gathered during an on-the ground investigation indicates that, during commemoration activities for Biafra between 29 and 30 May 2016, the Nigerian military opened fire on members and supporters of IPOB, as well as on bystanders, at three locations in the town of Onitsha, Anambra state, and that after an investigation, AI "confirmed" that this resulted in "at least" 17 deaths and 50 injuries (AI 10 June 2016). According to AI, the information they gathered "indicates that the deaths of supporters and members of IPOB was the consequence of excessive, and unnecessary use of force" (ibid.).

AI notes that, between August 2015 and May 2016, there were "at least five similar incidents in Onitsha alone[,] where the police and military shot unarmed IPOB members and supporters" (ibid.). AI reports that the military open fired on peaceful IPOB supporters and protesters, and that "killings and mass arrests" of members and supporters by joint military and police operations happened in October, November and December 2015 (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

Sources report the following state responses to IPOB activities:

On 17 December 2015 in Onitsha, the military killed five IPOB supporters who were celebrating the court order for the release of Nnamdi Kanu (AI 10 June 2016; BBC 18 Dec. 2015). BBC reports that the police said that "shots were fired after officers were attacked," but an IPOB co-ordinator said the demonstrators were unarmed (ibid.).

AI reports that in February 2016, the military used "excessive force" to disperse a peaceful gathering of IPOB supporters in a school compound in Aba, killing "at least" 9 people and injuring "many more" (10 June 2016). Similarly, Vanguard reports that three Nigerian human rights organizations (the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Intersociety, and the South East Based Coalition of Human Rights Organizations) sent a letter to the Nigerian Minister of Defence alleging that, on 9 February 2016, the Nigerian military killed 22 and injured over 30 unarmed IPOB members who had gathered in a school in Aba for a "prayer/meeting," and that the military dumped 13 of the bodies in a borrow pit in Aba state (20 Feb. 2016).

In September 2016, the police arrested 12 IPOB members in a market in Enugu for allegedly calling for the market to be shut down for a sit-at-home protest of one day (P.M. News 20 Sept. 2016; Nigerian Tribune 20 Sept. 2016).

In September 2016, in response to IPOB's call for the sit-at-home protest, the Commissioner of Police in Imo stated that police "would arrest and prosecute any IPOB member if their actions lead to breach of security and public peace" (P.M. News 21 Sept. 2016). The Sun, a Nigerian weekly newspaper, reported that, on 23 September 2016, the day that the sit-at-home protest occurred, there was a "heavy presence" of police at "every strategic point, particularly at the Asaba end of the River Niger Head Bridge which is the entry point from the eastern part of the country (The Sun 24 Sept. 2016).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Notes

[1] According to International Crisis Group, Biafra does not currently exist as a distinct unit in Nigeria and

the separatists are not clear about how they see the territory of the "new Biafra". Some claim it would include all areas inhabited by people of Ibo descent, including parts of the oil-rich Niger Delta to the south and Benue state to the north, but the other peoples of these regions vehemently oppose inclusion in any new Biafra. Other separatists say a restored Biafra would be limited to the five core Ibo states - Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo - referred to administratively as Nigeria's "South East Zone". (International Crisis Group 4 Dec. 2015).

[2] According to an AFP article, the DSS is "Nigeria's domestic spy agency" (AFP 31 May 2016)

References

The Advocate. 5 October 2016. "BIAFRA: IPOB Takes Nnamdi Kanu's Case to ECOWAS." (Factiva)

The Advocate. 30 September 2016. "Recession: Ohonaeze Opposes Sale of National Assets." (Factiva)

Agence France-Presse (AFP). 31 May 2016. Joel Olatunde Agoi. "Nigeria: Ten Dead as Biafra Anniversary Turns Bloody." [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016]

Agence France-Presse (AFP). 10 April 2016. Joel Olatunde Agoi. "Nigeria: Nigeria Blames Biafra Group After Dozens Found in Shallow Graves." [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016]

Al Jazeera. 1 June 2016. "Nigeria: Deaths Reported at Pro-Biafra Rallies." [Accessed 6 Oct. 2016]

Amnesty International (AI). 28 September 2016. "Nigeria: Crackdown on Journalists and Assault on Protests Shrinking Civic Space." [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016]

Amnesty International (AI). 10 June 2016. "Nigeria: Killing of Unarmed Pro-Biafra Supporters by Military Must Be Urgently Investigated." [Accessed 4 Oct. 2016]

Amnesty International (AI). 24 February 2016. "Nigeria." Amnesty International Report 2016: The State of the World's Human Rights. [Accessed 4 Oct. 2016]

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 2 June 2016. Chris Ewokor. "The Niger Delta Avengers: Nigeria's Newest Militants." [Accessed 20 Oct. 2016]

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 18 December 2015. "Nigeria Police Shoot Biafra Supporters." [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016]

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 30 November 2015. "Letter from Africa: Should New Calls for Biafra Worry Nigerians?" [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016]

The Cable. 5 September 2016. "Okah Accepts to Work for IPOB Splinter Groups, Says Biafra Secession Impossible." [Accessed 19 Oct. 2016]

Customary Government Indigenous People of Biafra. N.d.a "Government Structure." [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016]

Customary Government Indigenous People of Biafra. N.d.b."Policy Statement." [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016]

The Guardian. 15 January 2016. Emannuel Akinwotu. "Why Nigerian Protesters Still March to Radio Biafra's Explosive Beat." [Accessed 4 Oct. 2016]

The Guardian (Nigeria). 28 September 2016. "No Going Back on Biafra, Ikedife Tells Government." [Accessed 6 Oct. 2016]

International Business Times (IBTimes). 19 May 2016. "Niger Delta Militants Vow to Shut Oil and Gas Plants Unless Nnamdi Kanu, Sambo Dasuki Released." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

International Crisis Group. 4 December 2015. Nnamdi Obasi. "Nigeria's Biafran Separatist Upsurge." [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016]

Jamestown Foundation. 16 September 2016. "Nigeria Expands its 'War on Terrorism' to the Niger Delta." Terrorism Monitor. Vol. 14, Issue 18. [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Jane's Intelligence Review. 2 March 2016.. "Biafran Separatist Demands Linked to Hijacking of Oil Tanker Suggest Willingeness of Nigerian Militants to Co-operate." Jane's Country Risk Daily Report. [Accessed 11 Oct. 2016]

Jane's Intelligence Review. 19 November 2016. "Repeated Protests in Nigeria by Supporters of Biafran Republic Raise Death and Injury Risks in Southeastern States." Jane's Country Risk Daily Report. [Accessed 11 Oct. 2016]

National Mirror. 8 October 2016. Eric Elezuo. "IPOB Insists FG Must Appear Before ECOWAS Court." (Factiva)

News24. 28 July 2016. Tony Smart. "IPOB Accuses the APC of Forming Parallel Biafra Government." [Accessed 19 Oct. 2016]

News24. N.d. "We Are 24.com." [Accessed 19 Oct. 2016]

Newsweek. 31 May 2016. Connor Gaffey. "Nigeria: Niger Delta Avengers Threaten 'Bloody' Attacks as Buhari Plans Visit." [Accessed 31 May 2016]

Newsweek. 27 May 2016. Connor Gaffey. "Who Are the Niger Delta Avengers, Nigeria's New Oil Militants?" [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Newsweek. 12 July 2015. Connor Gaffey. "What Is Biafra and Why Are Some Nigerians Calling for Independence." [Accessed 7 Nov. 2016]

Nigerian Tribune. 23 September 2016. "Biafra: IPOB Sit-at-Home Order Disrupts Commercial Activities in Onitsha." (Factiva)

Nigerian Tribune. 20 September 2016. "Police Arrest 12 IPOB Members in Enugu." (Factiva)

P.M. News. 21 September 2016. "Police Warn Biagra Agitators in Imo." (Factiva)

P.M. News. 20 September 2016. "Police Arrest 12 IPOB Members in Enugu." (Factiva)

The Sun. 3 October 2016. Jeff Amechi Agbodo. "Biafra: Kanu Not Charged with Treason Felony - IPOB." (Factiva)

The Sun. 24 September 2016. Uche Atuma. "Sit-at-home Order: Onitsha, Nnewi Shut-Down." (Factiva)

This Day. 5 October 2016. David-Chyddy Eleke. "Kanu: IPOB Goes to ECOWAS Court for Justice." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Thompson, O.O, C.C Ojukwu, and O.G.F Nwaorgu. June 2016. "United We Fall, Divided We Stand: Resuscitation of the Biafra State Secession and the National Question of Conundrum." Journal of Research in National Development. Vol. 14, No. 1. [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016]

Today. 8 September 2016. Lawrence Chime. "DSS Making Money from FG for Creating Splinter Biafra Groups - IPOB." [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard. 5 October 2016. Chimaobi Nwaiwu and Ifunanya Ozougwu. "BIAFRA: IPOB Takes Nnamdi Kanu's Case to ECOWAS Court." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard. 21 September 2016. Nwabueze Okonkwo and Francis Igata. "Biafra - Rights Group Writes UN over Alleged Buhari's Interference in Kanu's Case." (Factiva)

Vanguard. 8 September 2016. Emma Amaize. "Biafra Factions, TRIBOB, RENIPOB Unite, Say No More Burning Of Biafra Flag on Oct 1." [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard. 24 August 2016. Emma Amaize. "Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB Splits." [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard.13 August 2016. Ikechukwu Nnochiri. "BIAFRA: I Am Ready to Negotiate with FG - Kanu." [Accessed 5 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard. 25 June 2016. Nwabueze Okonkwo. "Biafra: IPOB Disowns Anti Niger-Delta Avengers Group." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard. 31 March 2016. Ikechukwu Nnochiri. "I'm a British Citizen, Ask Buhari to Release Me; Nnamdi Kanu Tells UK." [Accessed 20 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard. 7 March 2016. Emeka Mamah et al. "Biafra: IPOB Replies Buhari, Says 'We Would also Not Tolerate Nigeria'." [Accessed 14 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard. 20 February 2016. Nwabueze Okonkwo. "Biafra: Human Rights Organizations Uncover 13 Corpses in Borrow Pit in Aba." [Accessed 20 Oct. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral Sources: International Crisis Group; IPOB; Professor of anthropology, Brown University; three Senior Lecturers from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta who authored a paper on the Biafran separatist movement.

Internet sites, including: Africa Confidential; Africa Research Bulletin; The Biafra Telegraph; The Biafra Times; CNBC; ecoi.net; Factiva; Federation internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme; Freedom House; Human Rights Watch; Institute for Security Studies; Institute for War and Peace Reporting; IPOB; IRIN; Journal of Human Rights Studies; Minority Rights Group International; Nigeria - Ministry of Interior, Police Force, State Security Service; Political Handbook of the World; Punch; Radio France international; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Stanford University - Mapping Militant Groups; Transparency International; UN - Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Refworld, WOMEN, Development Programme; US - Department of State.
Nigeria: Prevalence of fraudulent national identity cards; state efforts in response, including effectiveness (2014-October 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 22 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105657.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur l'usage repandu des fausses cartes d'identite nationales; les efforts de l'Etat pour y remedier, y compris leur efficacite (2014-octobre 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Prevalence of fraudulent national identity cards; state efforts in response, including effectiveness (2014-October 2016), 22 November 2016, NGA105657.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584401144.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Overview

According to sources, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) [1] is in charge of producing the National Electronic Identity Card (BBC 24 Feb. 2015; Nigeria n.d.c), which is also known as the "National Identity Smart Card" (ibid.; MasterCard 8 May 2013). Sources indicate that the National Electronic Identity Cards is being produced in collaboration with MasterCard (ibid.; BBC 24 Feb. 2015). The BBC states that prior to the 2014 launch of the National Electronic Identity Card, Nigeria did not have a unified national system to record identity data (24 Feb. 2015). In October 2012, Biometric Update, a website publishing "news, analysis, and research about the global biometrics market" (Biometric Update, n.d.), quoted the Director of NIMC as stating that "Nigeria lacks a comprehensive database for its citizens as 75 percent of the available identity documents are fake or self-issued" (ibid. 1 Oct. 2012). In 2013, Vanguard, a daily Nigerian newspaper (Vanguard, n.d.), similarly cited the Director of IT and Database at NIMC as indicating that "75 percent of identity cards in Nigeria are counterfeits without any form of verification or authentication while over 100 million Nigerians have no official identity at all" (ibid. 6 Mar. 2013).

According to Vanguard, in July 2015, the Director-General of NIMC announced that the system managing the data for the National Electronic Identity Cards had become functional (ibid. 23 July 2015). The same source further quotes the Director-General in August 2015 as stating that seven million Nigerians had been registered (ibid. 25 Aug. 2015). In an article published in October 2015, Vanguard cites the Director-General as indicating that 10 million Nigerians had obtained a National Identity Number (NIN) from the enrollment exercise (ibid. 30 Oct. 2015). In September 2016, sources reported that the NIMC developed a plan to outsource the personalization and printing of national identity cards to private printing companies, due to the backlog of unprinted cards (Nigerian Tribune 4 Sept. 2016; Today.ng 6 Sept. 2016). Media sources report that in September 2016 the Director-General of NIMC stated that more than 11 million unique data sets have been recorded in the National Identity Database and that one million national identity cards have been printed, of which more than 400,000 cards have been issued to cardholders (ibid.; Nigerian Tribune 4 Sept. 2016).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a lawyer working at a firm in Lagos indicated that, based on his personal knowledge in the fields of employment and immigration law, the National Smart Card Scheme of 2014 has not been fully implemented as only approximately 7 million people [or around 1 percent of the Nigerian population] have been registered (Lawyer 26 Oct. 2016). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a senior associate at a law firm in Abuja stated that the "Federal Government has not issued an alternative directive to stop the recognition of the old [n]ational ID card" (Senior Associate 31 Oct. 2016). The same source explained that the old national identity cards "remain a valid identity validation exercise until the new Identity Management System ha[s] made the required penetration in Nigeria" (ibid. 31 Oct. 2016). In contrast, the lawyer stated that the older identity cards are "no longer valid as a means of identification," because of the unique features of the new National Electronic Identity Card (Lawyer 26 Oct. 2016). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, the NIMC Director General and Chief Executive Officer indicated that "the National Identity Management System (NIMS) and the eID Card scheme have, as of 2014, been fully implemented (Nigeria 18 Nov. 2016). The same source explained that "older [n]ational [i]dentity [c]ards that were produced prior to the National eID Smart Card Scheme were deemed not valid as [of the] 1st day of September 2015" (ibid.).

2. Security Features of the National Electronic Identity Card

According to the BBC, the National Electronic Identity Cards are equipped with "Match-On-Card technology," which links an individual's fingerprint with a profile stored on an embedded chip (BBC 24 Feb. 2015). ZDNet, a website that covers news and analyses on trends in information technology (ZDNet n.d.), similarly indicates that the National Electronic Identity Card has a chip that stores the biometric data of the cardholder (ibid. 29 Aug. 2014). Data stored on the identity cards includes:

Fingerprints (BBC 24 Feb. 2015; MasterCard 8 May 2013; Nigeria 18 Nov. 2016);

A picture of the face (ibid.; MasterCard 8 May 2013; CNN 25 Sept. 2014)

An image of the iris (ibid.; ZDNet 29 August 2014; Nigeria 18 Nov. 2016);

Age and place of birth (CNN, 25 Sept. 2014); and

Digital signature (MasterCard, 8 May 2013).

The Guardian Nigeria quotes the Acting Director of Defence Information as stating in September 2015 that the national identity card has over 18 security features, some of which are "not visible to naked eyes" (The Guardian Nigeria 23 Sept. 2015). The Senior Associate likewise explained that the National Electronic Identity Card has "nothing less than 18 security features backed by a managed Public Key Infrastructure" (Senior Associate 31 Oct. 2016).

According to the BBC, the National Electronic Identity Cards can be utilized for tasks other than personal identification due to "Public Key Infrastructure technology that allows for document signing, non-repudiation and encryption" (BBC 24 Feb. 2015). Sources state that the card is also used as a form of payment (ibid.; CNN 25 Sept. 2014; MasterCard 30 June 2015) and as a travel document (BBC, 24 Feb. 2015; Nigeria, n.d.a.). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a representative of the EU agency Frontex [2] stated, based on information from the Frontex Training and Frontex Risk Analysis Unit, that "as far as Nigeria is a member of ECOWAS [the Economic Community of West African States], a Nigerian ID card might be accepted as a travel [document] within this region, but it is not accepted in the EU" (Frontex 27 Oct. 2016). When asked whether the National Electronic Identity Card can be used as a travel document, the NIMC Director General and Chief Executive Officer explained that

It can presently be used for regional travel where a visa is not required. The full details for implementation are still under discussions with the Nigerian Immigration Service as part of the harmonization and integration drive of the Federal Government of Nigeria. (Nigeria 18 Nov. 2016)

Concerning the ID document's ability to be used as a method of payment, sources state that the card uses MasterCard's prepaid technology and that it is certified by way of chip and PIN (BBC 24 Feb. 2015; MasterCard 8 May 2013). MasterCard indicates that the chip hosts the national identity data and prepaid payment functionality, which is secured by authenticating biometric data (ibid. 2013). The BBC quotes the Division President for Sub-Saharan Africa at MasterCard as stating that the computer chip that is embedded in the card "protects against the creation of counterfeit cards" and "protects cardholders from fraud" (BBC 24 Feb. 2015). Likewise, in a press release, MasterCard noted that the payment function of the card helps the government of Nigeria to "minimize fraud and corruption" (MasterCard 30 June 2015). ZDNet quotes MasterCard's business head for West Africa as indicating that "MasterCard does not handle the biometric data" and that they are "strictly confined to the payment technology on the chip" (ZDNet 29 Aug. 2014).

According to the lawyer, state authorities have put various measures in place to combat the creation of fraudulent ID cards, including: biometric data registration; issuance of unique NINs; online verification through authentication and verification clearing house (AVCH); and the verification through fingerprint reading devices (Lawyer 26 Oct. 2016). The lawyer further explained that:

To a very large extent these securities features are very effective and ha[ve] made it difficult for fraudulent cards to be produced under the new scheme. From experience, what is happening is that people are attempting to produce fake identity cards but because of the inherent security measures[,] which include online verification and finger print reading devices, the fake cards are easily identified and destroyed. (26 Oct. 2016)

3. Fraudulent National Identity Cards and Responses From The State

The Representative of Frontex explained the difference between fraudulent documents and forged documents, based on information gathered from the Frontex Training and Frontex Risk Analysis Unit:

"[i]t is quite difficult to detect a fraudulent Nigerian ID card because in this case you should check the provided document during the application process of the ID card. To detect a forged Nigerian ID card is easier as this can be compared with a specimen of the card (looking at printing techniques and other security features.)" (27 Oct. 2016).

In an interview with the Research Directorate, a Police Public Relations Officer with the Nigeria Police Special Fraud Unit indicated that [i]n terms of the old national identity cards that were produced prior to the new National Electronic Identity Cards, there are definitely fraudulent national identity cards in circulation (Nigeria 27 Oct. 2016).

The lawyer explained that:

Fraudulent registration was possible under the old identity card regime as registration was basically manual so it was easy to duplicate cards. However, under the new scheme, because registration involves biometrics data capture and the issuance of a unique personalized National Identity Number upon registration as well as several other security features, it is difficult to reproduce or duplicate [the new card,] but rather what you have is fake National Identity Cards. (Lawyer 26 Oct. 2016)

When asked whether fraudulent national identity cards are available or in circulation, the NIMC Director General and Chief Executive Officer stated that

To the best of our knowledge, the new National Identity Card has not yet been successfully cloned and there have been no reports of any counterfeits in the field. (Nigeria 18 Nov. 2016)

3.1 Fraudulent Production Centres and Fake Agents

On the fraud alert page of its website, the NIMC warns of "fraudsters posing as [NIMC] Agents or Staff" (Nigeria n.d.b). Likewise, Daily Post, a daily Nigerian newspaper (Daily Post n.d.), reports in September 2014 that NIMC has warned against the existence of individuals who falsely claim to be staff of NIMC and that there are unauthorized centres providing national identification number enrollment services (ibid. 22 Sept. 2014). The same article quotes the Deputy Director of Corporate Communications at the NIMC as stating that there have been business centres that "use banners bearing the NIMC or Presidential logos" and "charge eligible applicants for pre-enrollment, making applicants believe they are paying for the NIN or the National e-ID Card" (Daily Post 22 Sept. 2014).

Leadership, a daily Nigerian newspaper (Leadership, n.d.), reports in November 2014 that there are fake agents claiming to work for firms outsourced by NIMC who have defrauded "hundreds of Lagos residents" (ibid. 16 Nov. 2014). The same source indicates that the fake agents have charged residents 300 Nigerian Naira (NGN) [C$1.27] and have requested a driver's license, international passport, or other source of personal identification to complete the "registration" process (ibid.). According to Leadership, fake agents have been spotted in Berger, Oshodi, 2nd Rainbow in Festac, Obalende and Lekki Phase 1 in Lagos (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

Media sources report that, in September 2015, the Nigerian army identified a business centre in Maiduguri, Borno, that was producing counterfeit national identity cards, among other documents, for Boko Haram (Daily Post 19 Sept. 2015; The Guardian Nigeria 17 Sept. 2015). Sources report that the two business operators were arrested (ibid.; Daily Post 19 Sept. 2015).

3.2 State Efforts in Response

The Police Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Police Special Fraud Unit explained that individuals who produce fraudulent documents in offices that tend to operate underground are referred to as "document vendors" (Nigeria 27 Oct. 2016). The same source stated that the Nigerian police does not tolerate the operations of document vendors (ibid.). According to the Police Public Relations Officer, the police routinely arrest document vendors, conduct investigations, and prosecute those involved in forgeries (ibid.). The source further explained that the police notifies the public about such cases, and cautions them not to "patronize document vendors" (ibid.).

Vanguard quotes the Director-General of the NIMC as stating that their agency works "to ensure that [the] proliferation of data, fraudulent activities and cases of insecurity among other[s] are addressed in the shortest possible time" (Vanguard 23 July 2015). On its website, NIMC explains that the NIN and the national identity card are free of charge and that one is only able to obtain the NIN and the national identity card at the NIMC Enrolment Centres (Nigeria n.d.b).

Similarly, sources report that a statement issued by the Acting Director of Defence information in September 2015 provides that the only agency authorized to register and issue a national identity card is NIMC (Codewit World News 25 Sept. 2015; The Guardian Nigeria 23 Sept. 2015). Sources further indicate that the Acting Director stated that military authorities had issued a "red alert" in September 2015, warning against "prevailing incidences of unauthorized production of the national identity card" (ibid.; Codewit World News 25 Sept. 2015. The Guardian Nigeria reports that the Acting Director urged "members of the public to report any attempts by unauthorized persons to issue cards similar to the national identity cards to security agencies" (The Guardian Nigeria, 23 Sept. 2015).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Notes

[1] The NIMC was established by the National Identity Management Commission Act 2007 and is responsible for "carry[ing] out the enrolment of citizens and legal residents as provided for in the Act, [c]reat[ing] and operat[ing] a National Identity Database, [and] [i]ssu[ing] Unique National Identification Numbers to qualified citizens and legal residents" (Nigeria n.d.c). It is also in charge of "issu[ing] a National Identity Smart Card to every registered person 16 years and above, [p]rovid[ing] a secure means to access the National Identity Database so that an individual can irrefutably assert his/her identity [Person Identification Verification Services (PIVS) Infrastructure]" (ibid.).

[2] Frontex is the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which has the mission of "promot[ing], coordinat[ing] and develop[ing] European border management in line with the EU [European Union] fundamental rights charter and Integrated Border Management" (Frontex n.d).

References

Biometric Update. 1 October 2012. Raze Machan. "100 Million Nigerians To Be Registered in New Biometrics Database." [Accessed 19 Oct. 2016]

Biometric Update. N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 26 Oct. 2016]

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 24 February 2015. Tom Jackson. "The Card Aiming to End Nigeria's Fraud Problem." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Cable News Network (CNN). 25 September 2014. Alex Court. "Branding Nigeria: Mastercard-Backed I.D. is also a Debit Card and a Passport." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Codewit World News. 25 September 2015. Chika Ebuzor. "Defence Headquarters Raises Alarm over Fake National IDs." [Accessed 14 Oct. 2016]

Daily Post. 19 September 2015. "Military Discovers Boko Haram Business Centre W[h]ere Fake National Identity Cards are Made." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Daily Post. 22 September 2014. "NIMC Warns Nigerians over Fake National Identity Number Centres." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Daily Post. N.d. "About." [Accessed 21 Oct. 2016]

Frontex. 27 October 2016. Correspondence from a Representative to the Research Directorate.

Frontex. N.d. "Mission and Tasks." [Accessed 2 Nov. 2016]

The Guardian Nigeria. 23 September 2015. NAN. "DHQ Alerts on Circulation of Fake National Identity Cards." [Accessed 21 Oct. 2016]

The Guardian Nigeria. 17 September 2015. NAN. "Army Arrests Producers of Fake National ID Cards for Boko Haram Terrorists." [Accessed 21 Oct. 2016]

Lawyer, The Law Crest LLP, Lagos. 26 October 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Leadership. 16 November 2014. Chima Akwaja and Samuel Abulude. "National ID Card: Fake NIMC Agents Defraud Nigerians - Investigation." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Leadership. N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 24 Oct. 2016]

MasterCard. 30 June 2015. "Nigerian National e-ID Card Wins Award for Financial Inclusion." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

MasterCard. 8 May 2013. "Mastercard to Power Nigerian Identity Card Program." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

MasterCard. 2013. "Nigeria National ID Card (NID)." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Nigeria. 18 November 2016. National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). Correspondence from the Director General and Chief Executive Officer to the Research Directorate.

Nigeria. 27 October 2016. Nigeria Police, Special Fraud Unit. Interview with the Police Public Relations Officer.

Nigeria. N.d.a. National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). "The e-ID Card." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.b. National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). "Fraud Alert." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Nigeria. N.d.c. National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). "About Us." [Accessed 24 Oct. 2016]

Nigerian Tribune. 4 September 2016. "Private Firms to Handle Personalising, Printing of e-ID Cards -NIMC Says 11 Million Nigerians Registered in National Database. 400,000 e-ID Cards so far Issued, it Adds." [Accessed 2 Nov. 2016]

Senior Associate, Omaplex Law Firm, Abuja. 31 October 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Today.ng. 6 September 2016. "NIMC Enrols 11m Nigerians on National Identity Database." [2 Nov. 2016]

Vanguard Nigeria. 30 October 2015. Emmanuel Elebeke. "Only 10m Nigerians so far Captured in National Identity Project - Onyemenam." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard Nigeria. 25 August 2015. Levinus Nwabughiogu. "National Identity Card to Complement Voters Card - Buhari." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard Nigeria. 23 July 2015. "National Identity Management System is Now Functional, Says D-G." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard Nigeria. 6 March 2013. Prince Osuagwu. "NIMC: Nigeria Ready To Capture Citizens' Accurate Identity Data." [Accessed 19 Oct. 2016]

Vanguard Nigeria. N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 21 Oct. 2016]

ZDNet. 29 August 2014. Adam Oxford. "Nigeria Launches New Biometric ID Card - Brought To You By Mastercard." [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

ZDNet. N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 21 Oct. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Advocaat Law Practice, Lagos; International Organization for Migration, Nigeria; INTERPOL; MasterCard; Nigeria - Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, High Commision in Ottawa, Federal Ministry of Interior, Nigerian Defense Headquarters.

Internet sites, including: All Africa; Amnesty International; ecoi.net; Europol; La Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme; Freedom House; Human Rights Watch; International Crisis Group; INTERPOL; IRIN News; Minority Rights Group International; The Nation; Nigeria - National Identity Management Commission (NIMC); Radio France Internationale; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; The Sun News Online; Transparency International; UN - Development Programme, Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, Refworld; Reliefweb, UN Women; US - Department of State.
Nigeria: Whether lawyers or barristers notarize a statement or swear an affidavit in which an individual admits to being bisexual or homosexual, or to knowing of someone's sexual orientation (2014-October 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 18 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105653.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information indiquant si les avocats certifient une declaration ou signent un affidavit dans laquelle ou lequel une personne reconnait etre bisexuelle ou homosexuelle, ou admet connaitre l'orientation sexuelle d'une autre personne (2014-octobre 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Whether lawyers or barristers notarize a statement or swear an affidavit in which an individual admits to being bisexual or homosexual, or to knowing of someone's sexual orientation (2014-October 2016) , 18 November 2016, NGA105653.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584401b14.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

Sources indicate that lawyers and barristers can swear affidavits (Population Council 24 Oct. 2016; TIERs 24 Oct. 2016; Legal Practitioner 24 Oct. 2016) and notarize statements (Population Council 24 Oct. 2016; Queer Alliance Nigeria 27 Oct. 2016). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a legal practitioner in Nigeria, who is also a barrister and the Secretary of the Interfaith Diversity Network of West Africa [1], noted that for barristers, only those who are qualified as a notary public "are allowed to notarize statements [or] affidavits" (24 Oct. 2016). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Organizational Director of Queer Alliance Nigeria, "a human rights, health advocacy and support group for the LGBTI community in Nigeria" (QAYN n.d.), said that to be qualified to notarize statements and swear affidavits, the lawyer needs to be called to the Bar for at least seven years and appointed by the Chief Justice of the country (Queer Alliance Nigeria 27 Oct. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

For information about whether a Commissioner of Oaths or a notary public would notarize a statement or swear an affidavit in which an individual admits to being bisexual or homosexual, or to knowing of someone's sexual orientation, see Response to Information Request NGA105379 of January 2016.

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Executive Director of The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs), a Nigerian-based NGO founded in 2005 that works to "protect and promote the human rights of sexual minorities nationally and regionally" (TIERs n.d.), stated that their organization has "never heard or had any case or experience where a lawyer is needed to notarize or swear an affidavit regarding someone's sexual orientation" (ibid. 24 Oct. 2016). Similarly, in a telephone interview with the Research Directorate, the Country Director for Nigeria of the Population Council, an organization that conducts research "to address HIV and AIDS among key populations" in Nigeria (Population Council n.d.), stated that due to stigma, it would be "very unusual" for a lawyer or barrister to notarize a statement or swear an affidavit within the context of someone admitting to being bisexual, homosexual or of knowing of someone's sexual orientation (ibid. 24 Oct. 2016).

The Organizational Director of Queer Alliance Nigeria stated that it could be "dangerous" for someone to request this service if the person was "dealing with a lawyer [who] is not familiar with LGBT issues" (Queer Alliance Nigeria 27 Oct. 2016). He further stated that

because the letter needs to be notarized, the possibility of an external body reading the letter may arise[,] which endangers the person requesting the service from the lawyer. I think lawyers are obliged to protect the interest of their clients, so it would [be] ethically wrong for a lawyer to disclose the situation of a homosexual to an external body. The case might be different if the lawyer is mandated by court to produce such information. (ibid.)

The legal practitioner expressed the opinion that it would be unlikely that a Nigerian barrister or lawyer would "freely" swear to an affidavit related to someone's "non-conforming sexual orientation" and that doing so would come at a "high risk" to the barrister or lawyer (Legal Practitioner 24 Oct. 2016). The legal practitioner explained that:

[d]ue to the climate of homophobia in the country, it would be dangerous for someone to request such a service from a lawyer or a barrister even though lawyers/barristers are bound by confidentiality. This is because the sentiments of dislike and hate towards LGBTQ persons, may undermine the professional confidentiality clause.  according to the provisions of the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, a lawyer/barrister will be required to report such a client to the authorities[,] otherwise, the lawyer/barrister is liable to some jail term for having such knowledge and not reporting [it]. This equally includes where the person admitted to engaging in same-sex sexual relations. (ibid.).

The Executive Director of TIERs stated that due to the fear experienced by many LGBT persons in Nigeria, the possibility of someone requesting such a service from a lawyer is "limited" (TIERs 24 Oct. 2016). The same source explained that, although lawyers are bound by confidentiality, including if someone did something against the law, due to social prejudice, many lawyers would fear being "tagged" or associated with same-sex sexual orientation, or supporting what "seems [to be] illegal" (ibid.). The Country Director of the Population Council stated that "lawyers are meant to be bound by confidentiality, but that, due to the climate of homophobia, people are cautious" (Population Council 24 Oct. 2016). The same source explained that "[f]or a lot of Nigerians, same-sex relations is something alien. People do not know how the lawyer will react or who the lawyer is linked to" (ibid.). Furthermore, the same source stated that "[t]he lawyer may have links to the police" (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

For further information about the requirements and procedures for the issuance of affidavits, different types of affidavits and the availability of fraudulent affidavits, see Response to Information Request NGA104978 of November 2014.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Note

[1] The Interfaith Diversity Network of West Africa is a "regional network of activists, faith-based individuals, LGBTQI persons, advocates and individual activists working for inclusion of diverse persons to create a world governed by respect and dignity" (Legal Practitioner 24 Oct. 2016; Erasing 76 Crimes 16 Sept. 2016) that was established in 2016 and includes members from Nigeria, Togo, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Liberia (ibid.).

References

Erasing 76 Crimes. 16 September 2016. Colin Stewart. "New W. African Interfaith Group Fights Anti-LGBTI Bias." [Accessed 26 Oct. 2016]

Legal practitioner. 25 October 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Legal Practitioner. 24 October 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Population Council. 24 October 2016. Telephone interview with the Country Director for Nigeria.

Population Council. N.d. "Overview." [Accessed 26 Oct. 2016]

Queer African Youth Network (QAYN). N.d. "Queer Alliance Nigeria. Who We Are." [Accessed 17 Nov. 2016]

Queer Alliance Nigeria. 27 October 2016. Correspondence from the Organizational Director to the Research Directorate.

The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs). 24 October 2016. Correspondence from the Executive Director to the Research Directorate.

The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs). N.d. "Who We Are." [Accessed 26 Oct. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre; Committee for the Defence of Human Rights; International Center for Advocacy on the Rights to Health; National Human Rights Commission; Queer Alliance Nigeria; two law firms based in Nigeria.

Internet sites, including: Committee for the Defence of Human Rights; ecoi.net; Factiva; International Center for Advocacy on the Rights to Health; National Human Rights Commission; Queer Alliance Nigeria; UN - Refworld.
Nigeria: Whether it is required by hospitals in Lagos State to list the father on a birth certificate or whether the name of the father can be left blank (2014-October 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 7 October 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105637.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information indiquant si les hopitaux dans l'Etat de Lagos doivent inscrire le nom du pere sur l'acte de naissance ou si l'espace peut etre laisse en blanc (2014-octobre 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Whether it is required by hospitals in Lagos State to list the father on a birth certificate or whether the name of the father can be left blank (2014-October 2016) , 7 October 2016, NGA105637.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584402354.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

Information on whether hospital authorities are required to provide the father's name to local registrars of births and deaths in Nigeria for the purpose of birth certificate creation could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. However, the following information may be useful.

According to the US Department of State's Country Reciprocity Schedule for Nigeria, birth certificates have been issued by the National Population Commission since 1992 (US n.d.). The Reciprocity Schedule specifies that birth registration is compulsory in Lagos State; the same source adds that "the local government" that issued the certificate needs to be contacted directly to obtain records dating from after 1979, while certified copies of records 1979 and earlier can be obtained at the Lagos State Ministry of Health in Ikeja (ibid.). The Reciprocity Schedule also states that "[a]lternatively, acceptable identity/parentage documents are infant baptismal certificates and hospital or maternity clinic records of birth" (ibid.).

Concerning the registration of births, Article 7 of the 1992 Births, Deaths, Etc. (Compulsory Registration) Act reads that

 the birth of every child born in Nigeria shall be registered by the registrar of births and deaths for the area in which the child was born [appointed by the National Population Commission] by entering in a register kept for that area such particulars concerning the birth as may be prescribed  (Nigeria 1992)

Detailing the persons responsible for registering births, Article 8(b) of the Act states that

[i]t shall be the duty of the following persons to give information either orally or in writing concerning a birth, that is-



(b) in respect of a birth in a hospital, health centre, maternity or nursing home or other like institution-

the medical officer in charge of such institution; or

any person authorised by him in that behalf. (ibid.)

According to Article 9 of the Act, which specifies the persons who are to provide information on a birth to the registrar,

[i]t shall be the duty of-

(a) the doctor, midwife or any other medical attendant, village maternity assistant, nurse, traditional birth attendant, other than a person in or attached to the institutions referred to in section 8 of this Act;



to give information concerning a birth to the registrar in the area in which the child was born. (ibid.)

Article 12 of the 1992 Act also provides the following information concerning the registration of the birth of a child out of wedlock:

Notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this Act, in the case of a child born out of wedlock, no person acting as father of the child shall be required to give information concerning the birth of the child and the registrar shall not enter in the register the name of any person as the father of the child except-

(a) at the joint request of the mother and the person acknowledging himself to be the father of the child and in which case that person shall sign the register together with the mother; or

(b) at the request of the mother on production of-

a declaration in the prescribed form made by the mother stating that the said person is the father of the child; or

a statutory declaration made by that person acknowledging himself to be the father of the child. (ibid.)

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Nigeria. 1992. Births, Deaths, Etc. (Compulsory Registration) Act. [Accessed 30 Sept. 2016]

United States (US). N.d. Department of State. "Nigeria Reciprocity Schedule." [Accessed 30 Sept. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Agbowa General Hospital; Alimosho General Hospital; Apapa General Hospital; General Hospital Lagos; Ifako Ijalye General Hospital; Ikeja Medical Centre; Lagoon Hospitals Apapa; Lagos Island Maternity Hospital; Lagos State Government Secretariat; Lagos State University Teaching Hospital; Nigeria - Ministry of Health, National Population Commission of Nigeria; Sunrulere General Hospital; two doctors in Lagos State; two representatives of the Lagos State Ministry of Health.

Internet sites, including: AllAfrica; The Authority; Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative; Germany - Consulate General in Lagos; GlobaLex; International Centre for Nigerian Law; Lagos State - Ministry of Health, Residents Registration Agency; Lexadin; Nairaland; Nigeria - Ministry of Health; This Day; UN - Children's Fund, Refworld; US - Embassy in Nigeria.
Nigeria: Prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM), including ethnic groups in which FGM is prevalent, particularly in Lagos State and within the Edo ethnic group; consequences for refusal; availability of state protection; the ability of a family to refuse a ritual practice such as FGM (2014-September 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 13 September 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105628.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur la frequence de la mutilation genitale des femmes (MGF), y compris sur les groupes ethniques ou la MGF est courante, particulierement dans l'Etat de Lagos et au sein du groupe ethnique des Edo; les consequences du refus; l'acces a la protection de l'Etat; la possibilite pour une famille de refuser une pratique rituelle telle que la MGF (2014-septembre 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM), including ethnic groups in which FGM is prevalent, particularly in Lagos State and within the Edo ethnic group; consequences for refusal; availability of state protection; the ability of a family to refuse a ritual practice such as FGM (2014-September 2016), 13 September 2016, NGA105628.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584402ce4.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Prevalence of FGM

1.1 Overview

Sources report that Nigeria has the largest number of instances of FGM [also known as female circumcision or genital cutting] in the world, due to its large population (Leadership 6 Feb. 2016; Borgen Magazine 19 Feb. 2014). Some sources state that over 40 percent of Nigerian women are subjected to FGM (ibid.; ICIR 7 Feb. 2015). Other sources indicate, however, that the prevalence rate is between 25 and 27 percent of women in the country (UN 21 June 2016; IBTimes 26 May 2015; The Guardian 20 May 2015). Sources further specify that the reported 25 percent prevalence rate applies to women between the ages of 15 and 49 (UN 21 June 2016; The Guardian 20 May 2015). A 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey administered by the National Population Commission of Nigeria similarly indicates that about one in four women between 15 and 49 in Nigeria have been circumcised while "'[t]raditionalists' women have the highest proportion with 35 percent" (Nigeria June 2014, 345).

According to the Survey, "thirty-two percent of urban women are circumcised, as compared with 19 percent of rural women" (ibid., 348). The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) office in Nigeria states that the practice of FGM varies "according to the level of poverty and education of girls and their mothers" (UN 21 June 2016). The Survey also reports that

[f]emale circumcision is less prevalent among women with no education and those in the lowest wealth quintile. For instance, about one in three women with a primary education or higher are circumcised, as compared with only 17 percent of women with no education. Similarly, 17 percent of women in the lowest wealth quintile are circumcised, compared with 31 percent in the fourth and highest quintiles (Nigeria June 2014, 348).

Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

According to the Survey, FGM "[i]s practiced in many societies in Nigeria and is present throughout the country" (Nigeria June 2014, 345). Sources report that the prevalence of FGM varies within different regions of Nigeria (UN 21 June 2016; IBTimes 26 May 2015). According to sources, FGM is practiced most widely in the southern part of the country (ibid.; Leadership 6 Feb. 2016; US 13 Apr. 2016, 33). Sources report that the prevalence rate of FGM among adult women is 77 percent in the south, 68 percent in the southeast, and 65 percent in the southwest (ibid.; Leadership 6 Feb. 2016; Borgen Magazine 19 Feb. 2014).

Nigerian daily newspaper Vanguard states that "there are about six states in Nigeria that still practice female genital mutilation" (Vanguard 9 Sept. 2015). An article published on the website of the UNFPA Nigeria indicates that "the practice of FGM is mainly prevalent in 6 high burden States - Ebonyi, Ekiti, Imo, Lagos, Osun, and Oyo" (UN 21 June 2016). According to sources, Osun, Ebonyi, and Ekiti are states which experience a "high prevalence" of FGM with 77 percent, 74 percent and 72 percent of women subject to the practice, respectively (Nigeria June 2014, 348; Punch 7 Feb. 2016). For its part, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), an independent, non-profit Nigerian news agency (ICIR n.d.), cites an unsourced Nigerian demographic study as indicating that the rate of prevalence is 80 to 90 percent in Osun State (ICIR 7 Feb. 2015).

According to UNFPA Nigeria, the practice of FGM varies among ethnic groups in the country (UN 21 June 2016). The 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey states that female circumcision is experienced more commonly by Yoruba women (55 percent), followed by Igbo women (45 percent) (Nigeria June 2014, 349). According to the same source, the prevalence of FGM within other ethnic groups is as follows: 19 percent among the Hausa, 13 percent among the Fulani, 13 percent among the Ibibio, 11 percent among the Ijaw/Izton, 3 percent among the Kanuri/Beriberi, 0.4 percent among the Igala, and 0.3 percent among the Tiv (ibid.). The Survey also reports that the prevalence of FMG is 13 percent among other, non-identified, groups, and 14 percent among women whose ethnicity is unknown (ibid., 348).

1.2 Lagos State

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a representative of the Centre for Women Studies and Intervention (CWSI), an NGO based in Abuja which works to eliminate harmful cultural practices such as FGM through advocacy and public awareness campaigns (CWSI n.d.), stated that the practice of FGM in Lagos state, notably around the areas of Ikorodu, was "very high" (CWSI 2 Sept. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. In contrast, a professor of religion at Ilorin University in Nigeria who specializes in Nigerian cultural practices, expressed doubt that FGM is widely practiced in a "metropolitan" state such as Lagos (Professor of religion 8 Sept. 2016). The source noted that "FGM is not prevalent in Lagos at all" (ibid.). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a professor of African history at Brock University, whose research interests include religion and gender relations in Nigeria, similarly stated that Lagos is "urban" and "western," adding that "residents of Lagos could refuse FGM. They are simply too far away from their ancestral towns/villages and from familial pressure" (Professor of African history 9 Sept. 2016). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Ibadan, whose research interests include Nigerian social issues like FGM, similarly expressed the opinion that "Lagos is the most modernized and the most legally developed state in Nigeria" (Lecturer 9 Sept. 2016).

According to Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust, "[p]reliminary findings by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) lists Osun, Ekiti, Oyo, Ebonyi, Imo and Lagos as having on average 61% of women subjected to female genital mutilation" (Daily Trust 25 Mar. 2016). The 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveyfound a prevalence rate in Lagos State of 34.8 percent for women between 15 and 49 years of age (Nigeria 2013, 350). However, in contrast, ICIR cites a lawyer affiliated with the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices (IAC) as stating that, within Lagos, "'we have not really found a place where it is done, except places where you have migrants from other ethnic group doing it secretly'" (ICIR 7 Feb. 2015). According to the Professor of African history, "FGM [in Lagos State] is dying out" (9 Sept. 2016). The Lecturer likewise stated that

[w]hile very reliable data may not be readily available due to common data gaps in Africa, experiences and observations suggest there has been drastic reduction of FGM in Nigeria and much more in Lagos. This reduction is certainly expected to be so due to increasing education, enabling laws and advocacy in Lagos by the government and civil societies. Residents of Lagos are expected to adhere to the policies and laws regardless of the state of origin. (Lecturer 9 Sept. 2016)

1.3 Edo Ethnic Group

A 2009 peer-reviewed article by David Osarumwese Osifo and Iyekoretin Evbuomwan in the African Journal of Reproductive Health describes the Edo as "the main ethnic group in Edo State" (Osifo and Evbuomwan Mar. 2009, 18). The Professor of religion stated that the Edo originate from, and predominantly reside in, Edo State (Professor of religion 8 Sept. 2016). The source added that "any Edo person in Lagos is working there[,] not an indigene" (ibid.). The Professor of African history indicated that the Lagos metropolitan area is "nearly 200 miles away from [the] Edo heartland" (9 Sept. 2016). However, a doctoral candidate at Murdoch University, whose research interests include gender relations in Nigeria, stated that there are long standing socio-cultural and historical connections between the Edo and Lagos, such as intercultural marriages, noting that Edo people have been present in Lagos as early as the 17th century (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016).

FGM is described as "a widely embraced" practice among the Edo (Osifo and Evbuomwan Mar. 2009, 18). According to the doctoral candidate, FGM procedures play "a central role in the socialisation of Edo people, as well as their host community. Generally speaking, it is a ritual practice that prepares young girls for womanhood and marriage" (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016).

The Professor of religion noted that "any ritual practice for an Edo person should normally occur in Edo state, not in Lagos" (Professor of religion 8 Sept. 2016). The doctoral candidate likewise stated that "[p]ressures may easily be mounted on Edo people living in Edo State or nearby states to comply with such ritual practice as the custom demands due to proximity to home towns" (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016. The CWSI representative stated that among the Edo, the practice is subject to family beliefs and may vary depending on individual families (CWSI 2 Sep. 2016). The representative added that "[t]he Edos that believe in female genital mutilation will carry it [out] on their children no matter where they are living [in or out of Edo State] (CWSI 2 Sep. 2016). According to the Professor of African history, "there is no compulsion that a child must take part in ritual practices in Edo society" (Professor of African history 9 Sept. 2016). The source further noted that Edo State banned FGM in 1999 under the "Female Circumcision and Genital Mutilation (Prohibition) Law" (ibid.). Further and corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

2. Societal Attitudes

According to sources, FGM is a "deeply" engrained cultural practice (UN 21 June 2016; IBTimes 26 May 2015; ICIR 7 Feb. 2015). The doctoral candidate stated that despite a "vigorous offensive against the observance of traditional ritual practices in Southern Nigeria (Lagos, Edo and so on) by Islam and Christianity," as well as pressures to "uphold the tenets of modernity  die-hard supporters of the ritual practices  have survived in Lagos and wherever they may be in the country" (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016). The same source added that

it is incumbent on both woman and man, either from the same or different ethnic groups (especially in the Southwest, Southeast and South-South) to socialise their children according to the traditions of their home towns since they know the appropriate ritual practice is part of the ways their children can prove they are rightful members of their mother's and father's kin groups or home communities. (ibid.)

Nigerian newspaper Leadership also cites a gender specialist at UNFPA Nigeria as stating that

people in high prevalence communities are wary of moves to eradicate a practise that has been in place for eons, and are apprehensive of being ostracized for differing from a norm that is believed to stand as a mark of "decency" of a female, boost the fertility nature of girls, and serve as a rite of passage for girls, amongst others. (Leadership 6 Feb. 2016)

The same source further quotes the gender specialist as adding that the drive to stop the practice is hindered by

a disbelief in the existence of an actual harm to those who this practice is carried out on. In some of these areas, because FGM has been ongoing for generations, some have come to believe that it is a religious requirement and are suspicious of motives to set aside the practice when they do not recognise the negative impacts it has on women. (ibid.)

According to the CWSI representative, "those who practice [FGM], do it [for] various reasons basically tied to superstition and some belie[f] that the girls will never be able to get married within her culture because she will be thought promiscuous" (CWSI 2 Sept. 2016). However, the same source added that in some cases, the motives behind FGM are economic, "because when this is performed on a young girl/woman as the case may be, it is an opportunity for her parents to receive gifts from neighbours" (ibid.). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

3. State Protection and Recourse

Without providing details, sources report that in cases of refusal to take part in ritual practices, it is possible to turn to state actors and civil society organizations (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016; Professor of African history 9 Sept. 2016), as well as religious institutions as a means of protection (Lecturer 9 Sept. 2016). According to the Lecturer, women seeking recourse against a forced FGM procedure may seek assistance from the police, the Lagos State Ministry of Social Welfare, the Office of the Public Defender, numerous NGOs, churches/mosques, and community leaders (ibid.). The doctoral candidate added that it is possible to seek counselling from traditional rulers, priests, and pastors (Doctoral Candidate 9 Sept. 2016). However, according to German political research foundation Bertelsmann Stiftung [1], "[c]oncerning women and girls, in particular of lower [socio-economic] status, the State still lacks the capacity to protect them against violence, including  female circumcision and abuse by customary law" (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2016, 9). Freedom House states that while laws against FGM exist in Nigeria, the practice remains "widespread, with low rates of reporting and prosecution" (Freedom House 2016). According to the US Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015, FGM has been banned in 12 states (US 13 Apr. 2016, 42). Sources note the existence of laws in Lagos State which concern the practice of FGM (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016; ICIR 7 Feb. 2015). However, according to ICIR, "even in states that have enacted legislation against it [FGM], the laws are weak in and most times not even implemented" (ibid.). Further information concerning the implementation and practice of state-level FGM prohibition laws could not among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

Sources indicate that a new national law banning FGM [The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) (VAPP) Act] came into force in 2015 (UN 21 June 2016; Leadership 6 Feb. 2016; The Guardian 20 May 2015). For information on the application and enforcement of the 2015 ban FGM, see Response to Information Request NGA105404 of January 2016. Country Reports 2015 notes that "[u]ntil adoption by the states, however, the provisions of the VAPP Act are only applicable to the FCT [Federal Capital Territory]" (US 13 Apr. 2016, 32). ICIR reports that as of February 2015, only Edo, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Ondo, Osun, Ogun, Cross River, and Bayelsa had passed the law (ICIR 7 Feb. 2015). Country Reports 2015 adds that despite the federal law, the federal government took no legal action to curb the practice (US 13 Apr. 2016, 34). Sources report that activists feel that the new law by itself is not sufficient to eliminate the practice as to do so necessitates a cultural change (Christian Today 10 June 2015; The Huffington Post 8 June 2015). According to the doctoral candidate, efforts "are somewhat concerned with surface occurrences rather than underlying processes - especially in rural areas in Lagos State" (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016).

4. Ability of a Family to Refuse a Ritual Practice Such as FGM and Consequences for Refusal, Particularly in Lagos State and Among the Edo People

The Lecturer expressed the view that in Lagos State, "parents should have enough ability and freedom to refuse children's' participation in any ritual regardless of state of origin" and that "parents within Lagos should be able to refuse demands or pressure to circumcise their children if they so desire" (Lecturer 9 Sept. 2016). According to the Professor of religion, "a parent['s] consent [is] important for any ritual on a child in Lagos" (Professor of religion 8 Sept. 2016). The Professor of African history likewise stated that residents of Lagos can refuse FGM, explaining that

[t]he difference is in the scale of western influence. Lagos is more urban and more western than Edo society. Also inter-ethnic marriages are more popular in Lagos than in Edo towns and this serves as a moderating influence on the more conservative cultural practice. (Professor of African history 9 Sept. 2016)

The same source added that

more educated, more informed, and more economically independent wom[e]n have better means of refusing FGM whereas a non-educated woman or one who lives in the rural area is more susceptible to cultural pressure. (ibid.)

The doctoral candidate also expressed the view that he did not believe "that pressures are mounted on parents who reside in Lagos city in terms of allowing their children to undergo genital mutilation or otherwise" (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016). However, the same source stated that

it is possible for the family members to mount pressure on the father or mother in order to preserve their cultural values. And the occurrence of genital mutilation may go unnoticed by the appropriate authorities due to fear of what may likely happen to their child if [the] do not perform the ritual for her. In fact, in some areas in Lagos a person who has not undergone FCM rites may not be viewed as a full adult no matter the age. (ibid.)

According to the CWSI representative, "[t]aking part in ritual practices is subjective" (CWSI 2 Sept. 2016). She gave the view that some rituals are part of cultural identity, but "do not conform to a Christian faith", adding that "any parents that [practice the Christian religion] will never allow their children to partake in ritual[s] considered devilish or harmful to human persons or repugnant to natural justice," although some may feel peer pressure to take part in such activities (CWSI 2 Sept. 2016). The same source added that "intergroup relationship[s]" sometimes affect one's ability to refuse FGM, and cited the example of a "family where the [grandmother] from the wife's side would carry out this act unknown to the father of the victim" (CWSI 2 Sept. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

According to the doctoral candidate, "there may be consequences of refusing to take part in FGM practice among the mother's or father's kin groups or home communities (either in Lagos or Edo). That always happens in the private sphere" (Doctoral Candidate 8 Sept. 2016). The Professor of African history stated that that "[i]n a conservative family a refusal could lead to withdrawal of family/communal support" and that "poor women risk neglect by their husbands" (9 Sept. 2016). The Lecturer also indicated that consequences for refusing to take part in FGM within Lagos State or by members of the Edo ethnicity could include ostracism, stigmatisation and blackmailing, denial of intracultural benefits and physical abuse (Lecturer 9 Sept. 2016). According to the CWSI representative stated that consequences depend on the underlying beliefs behind the practice of FGM (CWSI 2 Sept. 2016). She explained that,

[i]f their reason is that any young girl who is not cut will be promiscuous, it will be difficult for girls who refused to be cut within that culture to find a husband because they will be looked upon as women who will not have control over their feelings. If their reason is that while delivering a baby and the clitoris touches the head of the baby, that the baby will die, then no man from that culture will want to marry a women whose babies will be dying at birth. (ibid.)

The same source indicated that while there are laws at the national level and in some states to protect girls or women who refuse to take part in FGM, she expressed the doubt that many would have the courage "to take their parents or grandparents to court", explaining that "[t]hese are the persons who demand compliance of the practice in culture[s] where it is the norm" (CWSI 2 Sept. 2016).

Further information on the ability to refuse Edo rituals, including in Lagos, could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

For further information on consequences for refusal of ritual practices, see Responses to Information Requests NGA105601 of August 2016 and NGA105465 of March 2016. For information on domestic violence, including in Lagos, see Response to Information Request NGA104980 of November 2014.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Note

[1] Founded in 1977, the Bertelsmann Stiftung is a German philantropic foundation whose "objective is to promote research and understanding in the areas of religion, public health, youth and senior affairs, culture and the arts, public education and career training, social welfare, international cultural exchange, democracy and government, and civic engagement" (Bertlsmann Stiftung n.d.).

References

Bertelsmann Stiftung. 2016. "Nigeria Country Report." Bertelsmann Stiftung's Transformation Index (BTI) 2016. [Accessed 1 Sept. 2016]

Bertelsmann Stiftung. N.d. "Principles." [Accessed 8 Sept. 2016]

Borgen Magazine. 19 February 2014. Adama Dickson Salami. "Prohibiting Female Genital Mutilation in Nigeria." [Accessed 1 Sept. 2016]

Centre for Women Studies and Intervention (CWSI), Abuja. 2 September 2016. Correspondence from a representative to the Research Directorate.

Centre for Women Studies and Intervention (CWSI), Abuja. N.d. "Legal Activities of CWSI." [Accessed 6 Sept. 2016]

Christian Today. 10 June 2015. Monica Cantilero. "Female Genital Mutilation Still a Problem in Nigeria Despite New Law Banning It." [Accessed 1 Sept. 2016]

Daily Trust. 25 March 2016. Ruby Leo and Judd-Leonard Okafor. "Nigeria: Female Genital Mutilation - Recalling the Agonising Pain." [Accessed 6 Sept. 2016]

Doctoral candidate, Murdoch University. 8 September 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Freedom House. 2016. "Nigeria." Freedom in the World 2016. [Accessed 13 Sept. 2016]

The Guardian. 20 May 2015. Stella Mukasa. "Nigeria's Bill Targeting FGM Is a Positive Step, but Must Be Backed by Investment." [Accessed 2 Sept. 2016]

The Huffington Post. 8 January 2016. Eleanor Goldberg. "Nigeria Bans Female Genital Mutilation, but Advocates Say There's Still More Work to Do." [Accessed 1 Sept. 2016]

International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR). 7 February 2015. Abiose Adelaja Adams. "Scarred For Life." [Accessed 6 Sept. 2016]

International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR). N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 7 Sept. 2016]

International Business Times (IBTimes). 26 May 2015. Lora Moftah. "Nigeria Bans Female Genital Mutilation: African Powerhouse Sends 'Powerful Signal' About FGM with New Bill." [Accessed 2 Sept. 2016]

Leadership. 6 February 2016. Suzan Ironsi. "Accelerating the Abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation in Nigeria." [Accessed 2 Sept. 2016]

Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Ibadan. 9 September 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Nigeria. June 2014. National Population Commission. Demographic and Health Survey 2013. With the financial and technical assistance of ICF International. [Accessed 30 Aug. 2016]

Osifo, David Osarumwese and Iyekoretin Evbuomwan. March 2009. "Female Genital Mutilation Among Edo People: The Complications and Pattern of Presentation at a Pediatric Surgery Unit, Benin City." African Journal of Reproductive Health. Vol. 13, No. 1. [Accessed 8 Sept. 2016]

Professor of African history, Brock University. 9 September 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Professor of religion, University of Ilorin. 8 September 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Punch. 7 February 2016. "UNICEF Laments High Rate of Female Genital Mutilation in Osun, Ebonyi." [Accessed 6 Sept. 2016]

United Nations (UN). 21 June 2016. UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Nigeria. "An Activist's Story of FGM." [Accessed 30 Aug. 2016]

United States (US). 13 April 2016. Department of State. "Nigeria." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015. [Accessed 30 Aug. 2016]

Vanguard. "Six States in Nigeria that Still Practice Female Genital Mutilation." [Accessed 31 Aug. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Publications: An Institutional Survey of Female Genital Mutilation in Lagos, South-West, Nigeria; Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Sexual Functioning of Married Women in Oworonshoki Community, Lagos State, Nigeria; Mothers' Perceptions of Female Genital Mutilation.

Oral sources: Assistant professor of religion, University of Birmingham; Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre; Committee for the Defence of Human Rights; Development and Peace Commission, Catholic Diocese of Ijebu-Ode; lecturer, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Lagos; professor of African Religious studies, Harvard University; professor of comparative religion, University of Ilorin; senior lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Lagos; senior lecturer, Obafemi Awolowo University; senior lecturer in African traditional religion and cultural studies, Adekunle Ajasin University; UN - Children's Fund (Lagos State Field Office), Population Fund in Nigeria; Women's Health and Equal Rights Initiative.

Internet sites, including: 28 Too Many; African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights; AllAfrica; Amnesty International; Asylum Aid; Dawodu.com; ecoi.net; Edoworld.net; Factiva; International Center for Research on Women; Lagos State Government; Nairaland Forum; The Nation; Nigeria - Federal Ministry of Women Affairs & Social Development; Pambazuka News; Safe World for Women; Terre des femmes; UK - Department for International Development, Home Office; UN - Refworld, UN Population Fund; YOHAIG.
Nigeria: Whether there are Yoruba ritual practices where a wife must have sexual relations with her father-in-law while pregnant with her first child to ensure a long life for the father-in-law, husband, and child; consequences for refusal; options to obtain a restraining order without the help of the police (2006-August 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 23 August 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105601.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information indiquant s'il existe un rituel yorouba dans le cadre duquel une epouse doit, pendant sa premiere grossesse, avoir des relations sexuelles avec son beau-pere afin d'assurer une longue vie a celui-ci, a son epoux et a son enfant; information sur les consequences d'un refus; les moyens d'obtenir une injonction sans l'aide de la police (2006-aout 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Whether there are Yoruba ritual practices where a wife must have sexual relations with her father-in-law while pregnant with her first child to ensure a long life for the father-in-law, husband, and child; consequences for refusal; options to obtain a restraining order without the help of the police (2006-August 2016), 23 August 2016, NGA105601.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584403ab4.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

Information on the subject heading of this Response was scarce among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a professor of comparative religious studies at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, who has researched and published on Yoruba religion and culture, stated that, to her knowledge, there are no ritual practices where a wife must have sexual relations with her father-in-law while pregnant with her first child (Professor 3 Aug. 2016). The same source added that, "it should be noted that some families have peculiar rituals which may be linked to their lineage experiences" (ibid.). Without providing further information, the Professor also indicated the following:

A wife may refuse to participate in this ritual, but the consequences include divorce and/or denial of child custody. If a woman seeks the protection from the police when faced with such a ritual, the police will "likely treat it as a domestic issue which is to be settled at home," unless she hires a lawyer to file a legal complaint on her behalf. NGOs are another potential source of assistance, but they are constrained by the lack of resources. Obtaining a restraining order without the help of the police can be done "through legal practitioners" (Professor 3 Aug. 2016). Corroboration for the information provided by the Professor could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. For further information on domestic violence, including state response and protection orders, see Response to Information Request NGA104980 of October 2014.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Reference

Professor of comparative religious studies, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. 3 August 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Associate Professor of philosophy, Howard University; Center for Women Studies and Intervention; Professor of anthropology, University of California Los Angeles; Professor of Yoruba studies, University of Lagos; Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Obafemi Awolowo University; Senior Lecturer of comparative religion and African religions, Obafemi Awolowo University; Senior Lecturer of comparative religious studies, University of Ilorin; Senior Lecturer of sociology of religion, gender and religion, and African religion, Obafemi Awolowo University; Women's Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative.

Internet sites, including: Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Centre; BBC; CNBC; ecoi.net; Factiva; Federation internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme; The Guardian; Human Rights Watch; IRIN; The Journal of International Social Research; The Nation; Nigeria - National Human Rights Commission; Nigerian Tribune; Norway - Landinfo; Premium Times; Punch; Radio France internationale; The Sun; This Day; UN - Refworld, Reliefweb; US - Department of State; Vanguard; Women's Health and Action Research Centre; Women's Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative.
Nigeria: Information on the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), including areas of operation, objectives, and activities; state efforts to respond (2015-August 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 15 August 2016 Citation / Document Symbol NGA105595.E Related Document(s) Nigeria : information sur les Vengeurs du delta du Niger (Niger Delta Avengers - NDA), y compris leurs zones operationnelles, leurs objectifs et leurs activites; information sur les mesures prises par l'Etat pour intervenir (2015-aout 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Nigeria: Information on the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), including areas of operation, objectives, and activities; state efforts to respond (2015-August 2016), 15 August 2016, NGA105595.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584405074.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Overview

Sources published in June 2016 indicate that the Niger Delta Avengers are the "latest" Nigerian "militant" armed group (IB Times 20 June 2016; BBC 2 June 2016). The Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), a Maryland-based think tank that advances "international maritime peace and security" (CIMSEC n.d.), states that the NDA originates in the Warri South West Local Government Area in Delta state (ibid. 14 June 2016). Corroborating information could not be found amongst the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

Sources also indicate that since the beginning of 2016, the NDA have been attacking oil installations in Nigeria (ibid.; ISS 7 June 2016). According to the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington based policy institute focused on providing information about "societies which are strategically or tactically important to the United States and which frequently restrict access to such information" (Jamestown Foundation n.d.), the NDA "[have] claimed responsibility for increasingly frequent attacks on oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta" (ibid. 13 June 2016). Sources report that assaults by the NDA have contributed to a reduction in oil production to its "lowest" level (CNBC 20 May 2016; RFI 26 May 2016) in about 20 years (ibid.; Vanguard 15 May 2016). Sources report that, due to the NDA's attacks on Nigerian oil installations, oil production dropped to 1.65 million barrels per day (ibid.; BBC 2 June 2016), compared to an expected production of 2.2 million barrels per day (ibid.).

1.1 Leadership and Membership

Sources report that there is little known information on the NDA leadership (Punch 31 May 2016; The Economist 25 June 2016b) or how they are funded (ibid.). The New York-based digital news publication, International Business Times (IBTimes), reports that "there are several and contrasting claims on whom is behind the NDA" (20 June 2016). The BBC reports that even though it is not known who officially leads the group, a Colonel Mudoch Agbinibo, which can also be a pseudonym, "has been signing the press releases on behalf of the NDA" (2 June 2015). According to The Economist, an "old kingpin known as 'Tompolo'" [Government Emuokpolo or Ekpemupolo], who is currently sought by the Nigerian police, has been pointed to as their leader (30 June 2016). Sources indicate that Tompolo is a former commander of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) (IBTimes 20 June 2016; Jamestown Foundation 13 June 2016). Sources indicate that Tompolo has denied having links with the NDA (IBTimes 20 June 2016; The Economist 30 June 2016). The Economist reports that the NDA also denies links with Tompolo (ibid.). For additional information on the MEND, see Responses to Information Request NGA103789 of August 2011 and NGA103271 of October 2009.

The Economist reports that "many" of those who join the NDA are former fighters from the MEND (The Economist 30 June 2016). The article indicates that these fighters are reportedly "irritated" due to the reduction of payments that were arranged for them to disarm during the 2009 amnesty deal that ended previous violence in the Delta region (ibid.). However, CNBC states that, according to experts on the region, it is unclear if the NDA is made up of former militants of MEND, or if they are "an entirely new organization" (CNBC 20 May 2016). Sources indicate that the NDA has been critical of former militants (ibid.; ISS 7 June 2016) for kidnapping, killing soldiers, "allegedly enriching themselves after the 2009 amnesty program" (CNBC 20 May 2016), and for accepting payments from the government (ISS 7 June 2016). Sources also indicate that the NDA reportedly describe themselves as "young," "educated" (ISS 7 June 2016; CNBC 20 May 2016), "'well-travelled,'" and "'better armed and more civilized than past militants'" (ibid.). Newsweek also reports that the NDA has disavowed links with MEND (9 June 2016).

1.2 Size and Support

According to the Jamestown Foundation, even though the NDA "appears to be a relatively small insurgency," their activities show "a high degree of sophistication" (13 June 2016, 7). Similarly, CNBC cites an analyst from Stratfor, a US-based geopolitical intelligence firm (Stratfor n.d.), as stating that the NDA does not appear to be "a huge group," but that they seem "very effective" (ibid. 20 May 2016). The Economist indicates that the militants "probably number just a few hundred men" adding that their numbers are "fast-swelling" (The Economist 30 June 2016).

The Economist reports that "many" residents of the Niger Delta are sympathetic to the NDA after the national government cancelled pipeline security contracts that had been given to locals, reduced payments to ex-fighters by 70 percent, and proposed an oil-law amendment that would scrap royalties for local communities (ibid. 25 June 2016a). The Jamestown Foundation also indicates that the NDA is mostly made up of "angered" residents of the Niger Delta with the "continuing failure" of the government to redistribute oil wealth (13 June 2016, 7). CNBC reports that the NDA have "at least tacit support from some locals in the delta," and quotes an analyst and former US foreign service officer with experience in Nigeria as saying that local residents view the NDA as "'part bandit and part Al Capone, [and] part Robin Hood'" (CNBC 10 June 2016). The same source quotes the Stratfor analyst as saying that the NDA

[a]ppear to be attempting to generate solidarity with other parts of the Niger Delta that have historical grievances with oil companies  [claiming] their members come from different ethnic groups and regions and [evoking] the plight of the Ogoni [ethnic group], whose lands have been ravaged by crude pollution (ibid.).

1.3 Links with Other Groups

In May 2016, Newsweek cited an independent Nigeria-based conflict researcher as stating that there are operational links between the NDA and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), although "the extent of these connections is not yet clear" (Newsweek 27 May 2016). Sources report that the NDA has demanded the release of the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kamnu (ibid.; Premium Times 13 June 2016), for whom the NDA has "proclaimed support" and who is in detention facing treason charges (Newsweek 27 May 2016). The Premium Times, an Abuja-based newspaper, reports that in June 2016, the NDA demanded that the governors of seven different states free all pro-Biafran activists held in their custody or risk attacks on police, military and government offices (13 June 2016). IBTimes reports that members of the pro-Biafran movement have claimed affiliation with the NDA (20 June 2016). Similarly, Vanguard, a Nigerian daily newspaper, reports that the IPOB has stated that it regards the NDA that it is "solidly behind" the NDA (25 June 2016). For further information about the Biafra independence movement, including the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and IPOB, see Response to Information Request NGA105577 of July 2016.

2. Areas of Operation

Sources report that the NDA has carried out attacks in the Niger Delta region (Jamestown Foundation 13 June 2016, 6; BBC 22 July 2016; Vanguard 15 May 2016). Specifically, sources report activities by the NDA in the following locations:

Warri, Delta State (Newsweek 9 June 2016; Vanguard 11 June 2016);

Warri South West Local Government Area, Delta State (ibid.);

Gbaramatu Kingdom, Delta State (The Advocate 26 July 2016);

Akwa Ibom State (The Independent 26 July 2016; International Crisis Group July 2016; This Day 26 July 2016a), specifically in Nsit-Ibom (ibid.; The Advocate 26 July 2016);

Bayelsa State (Vanguard 11 June 2016; International Crisis Group July 2016); and

Rivers State (ibid.).

3. Objectives

Sources indicate that the NDA's objectives are not clear (CNBC 10 June 2016; Jamestown Foundation 13 June 2016). However, according to CIMSEC, the NDA has the following "military and political objectives":

Cripple the Nigerian Economy ('Operation Red Economy')

Force the government to negotiate on their demands in a 'sovereign national conference'

Re-allocation of Nigerian ownership of oil blocs (in favour of Niger Deltans)

Autonomy/self-determination for the Niger Delta. (CIMSEC 14 June 2016)

The Jamestown Foundation reports that NDA's demands posted on their website vary from redistribution of oil wealth to the Delta region, to calls for its autonomy (13 June 2016). Similarly, CNBC reports that the group "seems to demand greater ownership of oil resources" for people living in the Delta region, as well as an environmental clean-up and compensation for damages "inflicted" by oil producers (20 May 2016). The BBC quotes an militant leader who "fights alongside" the NDA as stating that, through their actions, they seek to claim their rights, to bring development to their communities, and to control the oil resources (22 July 2016). A consultant of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), an African organization focusing on enhancing human security through research, police advice, training and technical assistance (ISS n.d.), quotes the NDA website as stating that "the struggle of the [NDA] is a genuine affront [sic] to ensure that the Niger Delta is developed in proportions that are only measurable with the immense wealth from our region and our environment remediated to its original state" (ibid. 7 June 2016). Sources report that the group also wants the continuation of amnesty program payments for former militants (CNBC 20 May 2016; The Economist 30 June 2016).

4. Activities

Sources report that the NDA has indicated that their actions target oil facilities and not people (ISS 7 June 2016; AFP 6 June 2016). Agence France-Presse (AFP) quotes a statement posted in the NDA website responding to another militant group's call to arms as indicating that the "we must desist from any life-threatening actions that will derail our genuine struggle for our people. All groups are hereby discouraged from indulging in harassing oil workers and soldiers... The war is on oil installations" (ibid.). Sources further indicate that, according to posts on the NDA website, the NDA has rejected kidnappings as a modus operandi (Jamestown Foundation 13 June 2016; RFI 26 May 2016).

Vanguard reports that the NDA carried out "[no] less" than 16 attacks between 10 February and 9 June 2016 (11 June 2016). The International Crisis Group states that the NDA claimed "at least fourteen attacks on oil and gas installations" between 1 and 24 July 2016 (July 2016, 7). Sources indicate that the NDA claimed an attack in February 2016 on a subsea Shell pipeline that shut down its Forcados export terminal (AFP 21 May 2016; Reuters 17 Apr. 2016 Vanguard 15 May 2016). In May 2016, sources reported that the NDA bombed the main electricity line to Chevron's Escravos oil facility, shutting down all of their on-shore activities (The Guardian 26 May 2016; Reuters 26 May 2016).

Sources further report on NDA attacks against oil facilities, including:

On 1 July 2016, a Nigerian National Petroleum Company pipeline was bombed in Warri (Newsweek 27 May 2016; Reuters 3 July 2016).

On 9 June 2016, an Eni oil pipeline was bombed (Vanguard 11 June 2016).

On 3 June 2016, the NDA attacked pipelines run by Shell and Eni, an Italian oil company (Wall Street Journal 5 June 2016).

On 18 May 2016, a gas pipeline run by Eni was bombed (AFP 21 May 2016; CBNC 20 May 2016).

5. State Response

Sources report that, as a response to the activities of the NDA, the Nigerian government has deployed more troops to the Niger Delta region (CNBC 10 June 2016; The Wall Street Journal 5 June 2016), from the north of the country where they are battling the Islamist insurgency Boko Haram (ibid.). The Wall Street Journal reports that the military contingent includes a group of US-trained troops with surveillance planes to assist in locating the NDA (ibid.).

Media sources report the following actions by state authorities against the NDA:

On 29 May 2016, in a confrontation with the NDA, the Nigerian military killed an "unknown" number of militants, preventing an attack on an oil pipeline in two communities in the Brass area of Bayelsa State (Vanguard 30 May 2016);

On 1 July 2016, the State security services announced that they had arrested two NDA members who were planning to attack an oil production facility (Premium Times 2 July 2016). The NDA reportedly denied the arrests on its website (ibid.);

On 20 July 2016, Punch, a Nigerian newspaper, reported that the Nigerian Navy stated it had arrested a person on 11 July 2016 believed to be a "major logistic supplier" for the NDA (20 July 2016a). The IBTimes reports that the NDA denied the arrest (21 July 2016);

On 20 July 2016, Punch reported that the Delta State Police arrested a bishop for allegedly financing the NDA and harbouring their weapons (20 July 2016b);

On 26 July 2016, a "highly placed security source" interviewed by Nigerian newspaper This Day, stated that there were a "'series of arrests of NDA members'" including some of their commanders (The Advocate 26 July 2016).

Additional information on these actions could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

The Jamestown Foundation states that, "despite reported arrests, government efforts to crackdown on militancy and prevent attacks have proven ineffective" (13 June 2016, 8). According to CNBC, the NDA "[takes] advantage of the Delta's complex, creek-filled terrain to stay one step ahead of the Nigerian soldiers chasing them" (CNBC 20 May 2016). The Wall Street Journal reports that, although the military posted troops around a Chevron facility that had been threatened by the NDA, the NDA managed to bomb two pipelines nearby to refineries (5 June 2016).

Sources report that the Nigerian government has stated that it was open to negotiating with the NDA (The Wall Street Journal 5 June 2016; Newsweek 7 June 2016; CNBC 10 June 2016). Media sources reported in July 2016 that the government stated it was engaged in negotiations with the NDA (Rhythm FM Radio qtd. in BBC 27 July 2016; This Day 26 July 2016b) through security agents and oil companies in the area (ibid.). Sources report that the NDA has reportedly denied the existence of these negotiations (ibid.; Rhythm FM Radio qtd. in BBC 27 July 2016).

The Wall Street Journal further reports that in response to the NDA's activities, the government has announced a "clean-up operation" for oil pollution in the Delta region to win the support from the Delta residents, and has said that it is "working as quickly as it can to repair the damage" to the oil infrastructure (5 June 2016). CNBC reports that the government has also started a dialogue with state and local leaders to address their grievances (10 June 2016). Additional and corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

The Advocate. 26 July 2016. "Avengers Blasts NNPC Gas Pipeline in Akwa Ibom Again." (Factiva)

Agence France-Presse (AFP). 6 June 2016. "New Niger Delta Militant Group Warns of Widespread Attacks." [Accessed 8 July 2016]

Agence France-Presse (AFP). 21 May 2016. "Nigeria Beefs Up Security After Oil Installation Attacks." [Accessed 5 August 2016]

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 27 July 2016. "Nigeria Insists It Is Negotiating With the 'Real' Niger Delta Militants." (Factiva)

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 22 July 2016. Martin Patience. "Why Nigeria's 'Avengers' Are Crippling the Oil Sector." [Accessed 5 Aug. 2016]

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 2 June 2016. Chris Ewokor. "The Niger Delta Avengers: Nigeria's Newest Militants." [Accessed 8 July 2016]

Centre for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC). 14 June 2016. Dirk Steffen. "Who Are the Niger Delta Avengers?" [Accessed 5 Aug. 2016]

Centre for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC). N.d. "About Us/Membership." [Accessed 5 Aug. 2016]

CNBC. 10 June 2016. Tom DiChristopher. "Nigeria Faces 'Almost Impossible' Fight Against 'Niger Delta Avengers'." [Accessed 15 July 2016]

CNBC. 20 May 2016. Tom DiChristopher. "'Niger Delta Avengers': Who They Are, and What They Want." [Accessed 15 July 2016]

The Economist. 30 June 2016. E.A.D.W. "Who Are the Niger Delta Avengers?" [Accessed 23 July 2016]

The Economist. 25 June 2016a. "Nigeria and Its Militants: Avengers Unite!" [Accessed 21 July 2016]

The Economist. 25 June 2016b. "The Niger Delta Avengers: Danegeld in the Delta." [Accessed 21 July 2016]

The Guardian. 26 May 2016. Ruth Maclean. "Niger Delta Avengers Militants Shut Down Chevron Oil Facility." [Accessed 5 Aug. 2016]

The Independent. 26 July 2016. "Nigerian Militants Claim Attack on Pipeline." (Factiva)

Institute for Security Studies (ISS). 7 June 2016. Simon Allison. "Boko Haram May Not Be Nigeria's Biggest Threat." [Accessed 15 July 2016]

Institute for Security Studies (ISS). N.d. "How We Work." [Accessed 29 July 2016]

International Business Times (IBTimes). 21 July 2016. Ludovica Iaccino. "Niger Delta Avengers Deny Nigerian Navy Arrest of Supplier As Oil-pipeline Attacks Continue." [Accessed 5 Aug. 2016]

International Business Times (IBTimes). 20 June 2016. Ludovica Iaccino. "Pro-Biafrans Claim Niger Delta Avengers Link: Who Is Behind Group that Halted Nigeria's Oil Production?" [Accessed 29 July 2016]

International Crisis Group. July 2016. "Nigeria." Crisis Watch. [Accessed 3 Aug. 2016]

Jamestown Foundation. 13 June 2016. Jessica Moody. "The Niger Delta Avengers: A New Threat to Oil Producers in Nigeria." Terrorism Monitor. Vol. 14, No 12. [Accessed 15 July 2016]

Newsweek. 9 June 2016. Conor Gaffey. "Nigeria: Niger Delta Avengers Reject Dialogue with Government." [Accessed 25 July 2016]

Newsweek. 7 June 2016. Conor Gaffey. "Nigeria Is Prepared To Talk to Niger Delta Militants." [Accessed 25 July 2016]

Newsweek. 27 May 2016. Conor Gaffey. "Who Are the Niger Delta Avengers, Nigeria's New Oil Militants?" [Accessed 25 July 2016]

Punch. 20 July 2016a. "Niger Delta Avengers' Major Logistics Supplier Arrested." [Accessed 21 July 2016]

Punch. 20 July 2016b. "Police Quiz Bishop for Allegedly Sponsoring Avengers." [Accessed 5 Aug. 2016]

Punch. 31 May 2016. "Dialogue with Niger Delta Avengers Not An Option - Army." [Accessed 21 July 2016]

Premium Times. 2 July 2016. Samuel Ogundipe. "Niger-Delta Avengers Denies Arrest of Its Members, Dares SSS to Parade Suspects before Reporters." [Accessed 5 Aug. 2016]

Premium Times. 13 June 2016. "Niger Delta Avengers Issues 'Last Warning' to Seven Nigerian Governors." [Accessed 15 July 2016]

Radio France Internationale (RFI). 26 May 2016. "Nigeria: qui sont les Vengeurs du delta du Niger?" [Accessed 15 July 2016]

Reuters. 3 July 2016. Tife Owolabi and Alexis Akwagyiram. "Niger Delta Avengers Group Claims Five Attacks in Nigeria's Southern Delta." [Accessed 21 July 2016]

Reuters. 26 May 2016. Ulf Laessing and Tife Owolabi. "Nigeria Minister Wants Delta Grievances Addressed As Chevron Attacked" [Accessed 5 August 2016]

Reuters. 17 April 2016. Tife Owolabi. "Nigeria Pipeline Saboteurs Vow Further Niger Delta Attacks." [Accessed 5 Aug. 2016]

Stratfor. N.d. "About Stratfor" [Accessed 3 Aug. 2016]

This Day. 26 July 2016a. "Several Children Reported Missing As NNPC Pipeline Explodes in Akwa Ibom." (Factiva)

This Day. 26 July 2016b. "Ijaw Youths - Govt Preparing Grounds for Invasion of Niger Delta." (Factiva)

Vanguard. 25 June 2016. Nwabueze Okonkwo. "Biafra: IPOB Disowns Anti-Niger Delta Avengers Group." [Accessed 29 July 2016]

Vanguard. 11 June 2016. "Militants Threaten To Attack Govs, Make 7-point Demand, Including Defreezing Tompolo Bank Accounts." [Accessed 15 July 2016]

Vanguard. 30 May 2016. Emma Amaize et al. "Shootout in Niger Delta Creeks As Troops Kill Militants, Avert Attack on Oil Pipeline." [Accessed 15 July 2016]

Vanguard. 15 May 2016. "Who Are the Niger Delta Avengers?" [Accessed 15 July 2016]

The Wall Street Journal. 5 June 2016. Drew Hinshaw and Sarah Kent. "'Niger Delta Avengers' Sabotage Oil Output." [Accessed 21 July 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Internet sites, including: Amnesty International; Current History; ecoi.net; Factiva; Foreign Affairs; Human Rights Watch; Institute for War and Peace Reporting; IRIN; Jane's Intelligence Review; Norwegian Peace Research Institute; Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre; Stanford University - Mapping Militant Organizations; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute; Transparency International; United Nations - Refworld; United States - Department of State; University of Maryland - Minorities at Risk Project; The Warri Post.
Saudi Arabia: Circumstances under which the government revokes citizenship, including effect on children and spouses; possibility of reobtaining citizenship (2014-September 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 3 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol SAU105625.E Related Document(s) Arabie saoudite : information sur les circonstances dans lesquelles le gouvernement revoque la citoyennete, y compris sur les repercussions sur les enfants et les epoux; la possibilite d'obtenir de nouveau la citoyennete (2014-septembre 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Saudi Arabia: Circumstances under which the government revokes citizenship, including effect on children and spouses; possibility of reobtaining citizenship (2014-September 2016), 3 November 2016, SAU105625.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584405b04.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Legislation

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a lawyer at the Jeddah based Law Firm of Hassan Mahassni who specializes in commercial litigation, including international transactions, stated that the Saudi Arabian Citizenship System is the current legislation regulating citizenship in Saudi Arabia (Lawyer 25 Oct. 2016). According to the same source, the provisions of the Saudi Arabian Citizenship System concerning revocation of citizenship are currently applied (ibid.). The Saudi Arabian Citizenship System and its Executive Regulationare attached to this Response (Attachment 1). The lawyer further indicated that the following Articles of the Saudi Arabian Citizenship System were modified:

22, by Royal Decree No. (m/4) of 1969;

9, 12, 14, 17, 21, 26, and 27, by Royal Decree No. (m/54) of 2004; and

16, by Royal Decree No. (m/16) of 2007 (Lawyer 25 Oct. 2016).

Without providing further details, the lawyer indicated that Articles 7 and 21/6 of the Executive Regulation were also amended (ibid.). In a telephone interview with the Research Directorate, the lawyer further stated that, to her knowledge, no official English translation of the amended legislation is available (ibid. 27 Oct. 2016). Corroborating information on the amendments to these articles could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. An English translation of the amended articles as provided by the lawyer is attached to this Response (Attachment 2).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a legal consultant at a law firm based in Riyadh, who holds a doctoral degree in private international law and practices in Islamic Sharia law matters, as well as government and private contracts, indicated that the Saudi Citizenship System was established by the Royal Order No. 5604/20/8 in 1954 and amended according to the Royal Decree No. M/4 in 2004 (Legal consultant 25 Oct. 2016). According to the same source, the law's implementing rules were established by a resolution issued by the Minister of Interior in 2005 (ibid.).

2. Revocation of Saudi Citizenship

According to the lawyer, "revocation and withdrawing of the Saudi Citizenship are [extremely] rare" (25 Oct. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

The legal consultant indicated that

[r]esolutions related to deprivation of the Saudi citizenship  are normally issued by the competent executive authority without any intervention on the part of the judicial authority. (25 Oct. 2016)

Additional and corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

2.1 Consequences for the Spouse and the Children

The lawyer provided the information in the following paragraph.

The "individuals under his sponsorship" referred to in Article 23 of the Saudi Citizenship System are the individual's wife and children under the age of 18. Children 18 years of age or older are not subject to Article 23. No definition of the "good behaviour" mentioned in Article 23 is provided by Saudi law, but it can mean, for example, that the children did not take part in the scheme to fraudulently obtain Saudi citizenship (Lawyer 27 Oct. 2016). Proving the occurrence of "good behaviour" is "subject to the discretionary powers of the authorities" (ibid. 25 Oct. 2016). Corroborating information on the information provided by the lawyer could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

3. Regaining Saudi Citizenship

The legal consultant stated that,

[i]f a Saudi national abandons his citizenship as a result of acquiring a foreign citizenship, after he has obtained the required consent, the Council of Ministers shall be entitled to order the recovery of his Saudi citizenship pursuant to a well-reasoned application wherein he expresses his desire to recover his Saudi citizenship. (Legal consultant 25 Oct. 2016)

Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

According to the lawyer, Saudi law "does not postulate a situation whe[re] the decision of revocation/withdrawing the Saudi [c]itizenship is appealable before court" (Lawyer 25 Oct. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

According to the lawyer, "outcomes of citizenship application[s] by wives and children who had lost their [Saudi] citizenship because their sponsor (husband or father) lost it" are not published (ibid. 27 Oct. 2016). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Lawyer at the Law Firm of Hassan Mahassni, Jeddah. 27 October 2016. Telephone interview.

Lawyer at the Law Firm of Hassan Mahassni, Jeddah. 25 October 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Legal consultant, Riyadh. 25 October 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Saudi Arabia. 1954. Saudi Arabian Citizenship System. [Accessed 18 Oct. 2016]

Saudi Arabia. 1954 (amended). Saudi Arabian Citizenship System. Translation of amended Articles, and provided to the Research Directorate by the lawyer.

United States (US). 13 April 2016. Department of State. "Saudi Arabia." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015. [Accessed 18 Oct. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia; three immigration lawyers in Jeddah; The Institute for Gulf Affairs; two international trade lawyers in Ryadh.

Internet sites, including: Amnesty International; Arab News; ecoi.net; Factiva; Freedom House; Human Rights Watch; Saudi Daily Record; Saudi Gazette; UN - Refworld; US - Department of State.

Attachments

Saudi Arabia. 1954. Saudi Arabian Citizenship System. [Accessed 18 Oct. 2016]

Saudi Arabia. 1954 (amended). Saudi Arabian Citizenship System. Translation of amended articles, and provided to the Research Directorate by the lawyer.
Saudi Arabia: Situation of Bidoons, including ability to obtain a passport; whether a person born to a Saudi mother and Bidoon father can obtain Saudi citizenship, and would be issued a Saudi passport as a minor (2014-June 2016)

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 6 June 2016 Citation / Document Symbol SAU105539.E Related Document(s) Arabie saoudite : information sur la situation des Bidounes, y compris sur leur capacite a obtenir un passeport; information indiquant si une personne nee d'une mere saoudienne et d'un pere bidoune peut obtenir la citoyennete saoudienne et se verrait delivrer un passeport saoudien si elle est mineure (2014-juin 2016) Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Saudi Arabia: Situation of Bidoons, including ability to obtain a passport; whether a person born to a Saudi mother and Bidoon father can obtain Saudi citizenship, and would be issued a Saudi passport as a minor (2014-June 2016), 6 June 2016, SAU105539.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584406344.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Situation of Bidoons

According to sources, in the context of Saudi Arabia, the term "Bidoon" refers to stateless people, including the descendants of nomadic tribes who failed to register for Saudi nationality in the past (US 13 Apr. 2016, 29; AFP 18 July 2013). In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a US-based researcher specializing in statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa, who is also a former University of Michigan fellow with the UNHCR office in Amman, stated that Bidoons are considered "illegal residents" by the Saudi government and are not eligible for Saudi citizenship (Researcher 26 May 2016).

Sources report that Bidoons in Saudi Arabia are "marginalized" and remain the "poorest" segment of the Saudi population (IOS n.d.; US 13 Apr. 2016, 29). According to the researcher, Bidoons in Saudi Arabia face "widespread discrimination," including in accessing employment (Researcher 26 May 2016). The US Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015 indicates that the Saudi government "sometimes" denied Bidoons access to education and employment, but that "[i]n recent years, the Ministry of Education encouraged them to attend school" (13 Apr. 2016, 29).

2. Identity Documents

Sources state that Bidoons are issued identity documents, known as "black cards" (AFP 18 July 2013; Researcher 26 May 2016). According to the researcher, the government began to issue these "temporary resident cards" approximately in 2009 (ibid.). Country Reports 2009 also indicate that during that year, Bidoons were issued with "five-year residency permits" (US 11 Mar. 2010, Sec. 2d). A 2013 article on the situation of Bidoons by Agence France-Presse (AFP) also reports that "black cards" with a validity period of 5 years are issued to Bidoons in Saudi Arabia (18 July 2013).

Country Reports 2015 states that these residency permits are issued to Bidoons in order "to facilitate their social integration in government-provided health care and other services, putting them on similar footing with sponsored foreign workers" (US 13 Apr. 2016, 29). The AFP similarly reports that the black card provides them with a social security number that in turn grants access to services (18 July 2013). The researcher specified that only Bidoons who possess the black card "should be able" to access some government services, including "some" educational institutions, and "some" employment; she added that the black card enables them to open "a single bank account" (26 May 2016). However, the AFP article reports that cardholders are not entitled to own property (AFP 18 July 2013).

According to the AFP, "many" stateless persons do not have a black card (ibid.). Sources indicate that the renewal of the black card can take months (ibid.; Researcher 26 May 2016), and that there have been instances where the process can last up to five years (ibid.).

Sources report that in 2014, the Saudi General Directorate of Passports began to issue "special" identity cards to Bidoons (Gulf News 12 Aug. 2014; US 13 Apr. 2016, 29, 30). Without providing further detail, Country Reports 2015 states that the card entitles its holders to "additional government services similar to those available to citizens" (ibid., 30). Similarly, a 2014 article in the Gulf News, an English-language newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), quotes an official from Saudi Arabia's General Directorate of Passports as saying that "[t]he cards ease all procedures and give their holders special benefits as if they were Saudi nationals" (Gulf News 12 Aug. 2014). Further information on these cards could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

2.1 Ability of Bidoons to Obtain Saudi Passports

Sources report that Bidoons in Saudi Arabia are not able to obtain passports (IOS n.d.; US 13 Apr. 2016, 29) or to travel abroad (ibid.). The researcher stated that Bidoons who are in possession of a black card would not have a passport, but they may be able to apply for a travel document (Researcher 26 May 2016). However, the source indicated that such a travel document may not give them the right to return to the country (ibid.). Further and corroborating information on travel documents for Bidoons could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

3. Ability of a Person Born to a Saudi Mother and a Bidoon Father to Obtain Saudi Citizenship

Article 7 of the Saudi Arabian Nationality Regulations, 1374 [1954], as amended by the Royal Decree No. 20 of 12/11/1379 [1960], states the following:

A Saudi is the person who is born inside or outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia whose father is a Saudi national; or whose mother is a Saudi national and father of unknown nationality or without nationality; or who is born inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and his parents are unknown  (Saudi Arabia 1954)

In its 2014 report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Saudi government states that following further amendments to the Saudi Arabian nationality law, which was introduced with the Royal Decree No. M/54 of 29/10/1425 [2004] and the "amended implementing regulations" of that law, Article 7 of the Saudi Arabian nationality law states that a person born "to a Saudi mother and a stateless father or a father of unknown nationality  shall be a Saudi national" (ibid. 8 Apr. 2015, para. 93). An article on Saudi nationality that was published in an academic journal on comparative law highlights that according to Saudi law, Saudi mothers can pass their nationality to their children only if the father is stateless or of unknown nationality (Belarbi 2012, 799). Similarly, according to the the UNHCR 2013 submission to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Universal Periodic Review for Saudi Arabia, "under the [Saudi] nationality law, women are able to confer their nationality to their children in cases where the father is stateless or of unknown nationality" (UN Mar. 2013, 1).

3.1 Implementation of Article 7 of Saudi Arabian Nationality Regulations

In their chapter on nationality legislation in North Africa, published in a book on citizenship studies, Laura van Waas, the manager of the statelessness programme at Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands, and Zahra Albarazi, a researcher within the same program (Van Waas and Albarazi 2014, xi, xx), state that in several Middle Eastern countries, including in Saudi Arabia, "safeguards against childhood statelessness are either lacking or not implemented" (ibid., 208). Similarly, the researcher noted that the provision in Saudi law granting citizenship to persons born to Saudi mothers and stateless fathers "is a commonly used safeguard in the legislation of many countries in the Arab region" but one that is often not implemented in practice (26 May 2016). Country Reports 2015 states, without providing further detail, that a child of a Saudi mother and a stateless father is one of the categories of persons who "may be born stateless" in Saudi Arabia (US 13 Apr. 2016, 29). The researcher expressed the opinion that due to the problems that Bidoons face with accessing documents, a person born to a Saudi mother and a stateless father may face problems proving the status of the stateless parent, which would negatively impact their claim to citizenship (26 May 2016). Further and corroborating information, including instances of children of Saudi mothers and stateless fathers obtaining Saudi citizenship, could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Agence France-Presse (AFP). 18 July 2013. Assad Abboud. "Saudi But Stateless: Born on the Margins of Society." [Accessed 3 June 2016]

Belarbi, Houari. 2012. "La loi de la nationalite arabe saoudienne du 23 septembre 1954 et son application au regard des conventions internationales." Revue internationale de droit compare. Vol. 64, No. 3. [Accessed 6 June 2016]

Gulf News. 12 August 2014. Habib Toumi. "Saudi Arabia's Stateless Given Special Cards." [Accessed 26 May 2016]

International Observatory on Statelessness (IOS). N.d. "Saudi Arabia." [Accessed 26 May 2016]

Researcher. 26 May 2016. Correspondence with the Research Directorate.

Saudi Arabia. 8 April 2015. Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 44 of the Convention. Combined Third and Fourth Periodic Reports of States Parties Due in 2011. Saudi Arabia. CRC/C/SAU/3-4. [Accessed 6 June 2016]

Saudi Arabia. 1954 (amended 1960). Saudi Arabian Nationality Regulations, 1374 H. [Accessed 24 May 2016]

United Nations. March 2013. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Submission by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees For the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' Compilation Report - Universal Periodic Review: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. [Accessed 20 May 2016]

United States (US). 13 April 2016. Department of State. "Saudi Arabia." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015. [Accessed 25 May 2016]

United States (US). 11 March 2010. Department of State. "Saudi Arabia." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009. [Accessed 1 June 2016]

Van Waas, Laura, and Zahra Albarazi. 2014. "Transformation of Nationality Legislation in North Africa." Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies. Edited by Engin F. Isin and Peter Nyers. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Adala Center; associate professor, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich; Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights; PhD student in sociology, University of California, San Diego; professor of anthropology, American University in Cairo; professor of anthropology, University of California, Davis; research associate, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford; researcher, Institut francais du Proche-Orient; Saudi Arabia - embassy in Ottawa, General Department of Passports; UN - High Commissioner for Refugees regional representative in Saudi Arabia.

Internet sites, including: Al Jazeera; Amnesty International; Canadian Centre for Statelessness; ecoi.net; Equality Now; European Network on Statelessness; Deutsche Welle; Factiva; Human Rights First; Human Rights Watch; Keesing Reference Systems; King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies; Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American University; International Organization for Migration; Open Society Foundations; Pew Research Center; Refugee International; Tilburg University; UK - Home Office; UN - Children's Emergency Fund, Gender Index, Refworld, ReliefWeb; US - CIA World Factbook, Library of Congress; Women's Refugee Commission.
Saudi Arabia: Exit procedures and documents required for resident foreigners who leave the country; exit visas and their appearance; whether the Iqama is cancelled when a resident leaves the country; whether someone holding a valid Iqama can return to the country after leaving; whether foreign workers who are forced to retire can remain in the country.

Publisher Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Publication Date 15 January 2016 Citation / Document Symbol SAU105398.E Related Document(s) Arabie saoudite : information sur les procedures de sortie et les documents requis pour les etrangers residents qui quittent le pays; les visas de sortie et leur aspect; information indiquant si l'Iqama est annule lorsqu'un resident quitte le pays; si les detenteurs d'Iqamas valides peuvent retourner au pays apres l'avoir quitte; si les travailleurs etrangers qui sont contraints de prendre leur retraite peuvent demeurer au pays Cite as Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Saudi Arabia: Exit procedures and documents required for resident foreigners who leave the country; exit visas and their appearance; whether the Iqama is cancelled when a resident leaves the country; whether someone holding a valid Iqama can return to the country after leaving; whether foreign workers who are forced to retire can remain in the country., 15 January 2016, SAU105398.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584407184.html [accessed 3 November 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.

Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa

1. Exit Procedures

1.1 Exit/Re-Entry Visa

According to sources, in order to exit and re-enter Saudi Arabia, the traveller must possess an exit/re-entry visa (CDHR 6 Jan. 2016; US 21 Nov. 2014) [sometimes called an exit/re-entry permit (Canada 6 Jan. 2016; EUI and GRC 2014, 6)] from the Ministry of Interior (Canada 6 Jan. 2016; US 21 Nov. 2014). In a telephone interview with the Research Directorate, the Director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR), a "non-profit educational organisation" that gathers, analyses and distributes information on human rights issues in Saudi Arabia (CDHR n.d.), stated that all visas are issued by the Saudi government and the sponsor is responsible for initiating the process for their workers (6 Jan. 2016). The US Department of State travel information report for Saudi Arabia similarly states that sponsors "must request exit or exit/re-entry visas on [their employees] behalf" from the Saudi Ministry of Interior Passport Office (US 21 Nov. 2014).

In correspondence with the Research Directorate, a representative from Helen Ziegler & Associates Inc., a Toronto-based company that specializes in recruiting healthcare staff for hospitals in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait (Helen Ziegler & Associates n.d.), stated that as long as an individual possesses an "'exit/re-entry' visa," their Iqama [residency card (US n.d.)] remains valid (6 Jan. 2016). According to the Director, the issuance of an exit/re-entry visa is dependent upon "the sponsors' satisfaction with their expatriate employee's performance and compliance with Saudi laws," and even if a visa has been issued, the sponsor or government "could cancel the visa after the employee has left" (CDHR 6 Jan. 2015). The source also stated that there is "no judicial oversight or recourse available for the employee" (ibid.). According to a 2014 report produced by the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute (EUI) [1] and the Gulf Research Center (GRC) [2], the sponsorship system in Saudi Arabia is

both administered and regulated by the [Ministry] of Interior. In practical terms, this means that the institution that grants migrant workers their residency rights is the same one that enforces those decisions without outside intervention by the courts or other governmental bodies. (EUI and the GRC 2014, 4)

Corroborating information on visas that have been cancelled by the sponsor or by the government could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

Sources state that there are "single" and "multiple" exit/re-entry visas (KFUPM n.d.b; Emigra Worldwide n.d.b). Emigra Worldwide, a global immigration consulting firm with offices in 14 countries (Emigra Worldwide n.d.a), further states that the type of visa issued "depends upon the nationality and profession" of the employee (ibid. n.d.b). The same source states that once the visa is obtained, it must be used within the stated validity period, otherwise the company will pay a penalty (ibid.). According to sources, the exit/re-entry visa is valid for six months from the date of departure (KFUPM n.d.b; EUI and GRC 2014, 6). A document produced by King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), located in Dharan (KFUPM n.d.a), indicates that for international staff, the validity of both single and multiple exit/re-entry visas is "subject to Iqama Expiry (Maximum 180 days from the day of departure)" (KFUPM n.d.b).

According to Emigra Worldwide, if an expatriate leaves permanently on an exit/re-entry visa, rather than on a final exit visa, they may be unable to apply for a Saudi visa in the future (Emigra Worldwide n.d.b.). Arab News, "Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper" (Arab News n.d.), cites the Director of Public Relations at the Passport Department, Col. Mohammad Al-Saad, as stating that expatriates who leave Saudi Arabia on exit/re-entry visas and fail to return before they expire "will be banned from re-entering the Kingdom for 3 years" (Arab News 4 June 2015).

1.2 Final Exit Visa

Sources state that foreign workers leaving Saudi Arabia must possess a final exit visa (Human Rights Watch 15 Nov. 2015; Emigra Worldwide n.d.b; UK 25 Mar. 2013) and that the issuance of exit visas is controlled by the employees' sponsor (India n.d; AI July 2014, 52; EUI and the GRC 2014, 7). Emigra Worldwide indicates that "all unpaid traffic fines, electricity bills, phone bills, etc." must be settled "well in advance" of an expatriate's departure in order for them to be able to leave the country (Emigra World Wide n.d.b). A document produced by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office for UK nationals working in Saudi Arabia similarly notes that in order to obtain a final exit visa, applicants must settle "all debts and fines," transfer any vehicles, cell phones, lines of credit, and close their Saudi Arabian bank accounts (UK 25 Mar. 2013). Sources state that in addition to possessing a final exit visa, the employees Iqama must be relinquished prior to leaving the country (Arab News 18 Jan. 2014; KFUPM n.d.b; PSCCQ n.d., 9). According to the representative from Helen Ziegler & Associates Inc., if a foreign worker leaves Saudi Arabia with an "'exit only' visa," it means that the foreign worker has completed his or her contract and the Iqama "becomes invalid" (Helen Zeigler & Associates Inc. 6 Jan. 2016).

According to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, fingerprints are taken at the airport, and linked to the individuals' visa, upon entering and exiting Saudi Arabia (UK 25 Mar. 2013). A document produced by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) states that "[s]ince all expatriate workers are now finger-printed on arrival, it is not possible to leave Saudi Arabia without a sponsor's clearance" (India n.d.). The Saudi Gazette, an English-language daily newspaper, similarly reports that fingerprint registration is mandatory for issuing both exit/re-entry and final exit visas (15 Dec. 2014).

According to Emigra Worldwide, the final exit visa is stamped in the passport with a "separate piece of paper stapled to the passport" (Emigra Worldwide n.d.b). The Saudi Gazette cites a spokesman from the Saudi Passport Department [Jawazat] as stating that after a boarding pass has been issued, immigration officers check the validity of the passport and visa, and then stamp the passport for departure (10 Dec. 2015).

According to sources, upon the issuance of a final exit visa, the employee must leave within 60 days (US n.d.; EUI and GRC, 7). According to the KFUPM document, the individual must depart "on the authorized date" (KFUPM n.d.b).

1.2.1 Appearance

For a copy of a final exit visa, see the attachment to this Response. Further information on the appearance of exit visas could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. The appearance of exit/re-entry visas could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

2. Retirement

Information on the ability of non-Saudi nationals to retire in Saudi Arabia was scarce among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response. According to the representative from Helen Ziegler & Associates Inc., if an employee wishes to work past the age of 60, they must re-apply to work each year; otherwise, they must leave the country when their work permit expires (Helen Ziegler & Associates Inc. 7 Sept. 2015). The Director stated that foreign workers are unable to retire in Saudi Arabia and that there is "no retirement system or benefits for migrant workers" (CDHR 6 Jan. 2015). Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Notes

[1] The European University Institute (EUI) is an "international centre for doctorate and post-doctorate studies" in economics, history and civilization, law, and political and social sciences, located near Florence, Italy (EUI n.d.).

[2] The Gulf Research Center (GRC) is a non-profit organization that conducts research on political, economic, security, environmental, and science and technology issues in the Gulf States (GRC n.d.).

References

Amnesty International (AI). July 2014. Exploited Dreams: Dispatches from Indian Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia. [Accessed 30 Dec. 2015]

Arab News. 4 June 2015. Saeed Al Khotani. "3-year Ban for Violating re-Entry Visa." [Accessed 6 Jan. 2016]

Arab News. 18 January 2014. MD Rasooldeen. "Expats 'Must Surrender Iqama Ahead of Final Exit.'" [Accessed 30 Dec. 3015]

Arab News. N.d. "About Us." [Accessed 7 Jan. 2016]

Canada. 6 January 2016. "Travel Advice and Advisories for Saudi Arabia." [Accessed 6 Jan. 2016]

Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR). 6 January 2016. Telephone Interview with the director.

Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR). N.d. "About CDHR." [Accessed 7 Jan. 2016]

EmigraWorldwide. N.d.a. "About Us." [Accessed 7 Jan. 2016]

EmigraWorldwide. N.d.b. "Saudi Arabia Country Profile." [Accessed 30 Dec. 2015]

European University Institute (EUI). N.d. "About the EUI." [Accessed 7 Jan. 2016]

European University Institute (EUI) and Gulf Research Center (GRC). 2014. Maysa Zahra. The Legal Framework of the Sponsorship System of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait: A Comparative Examination. [Accessed 6 Jan. 2016]

Gulf Research Center (GRC). N.d. "GRC Overview." [Accessed 7 Jan. 2016]

Helen Ziegler & Associates Inc. 6 January 2016. Correspondence from a representative to the Research Directorate.

Helen Ziegler & Associates Inc. 7 September 2015. Correspondence from a representative to the Research Directorate.

Helen Ziegler & Associates Inc. N.d. "About Helen Ziegler & Associates." [Accessed 7 Jan. 2016]

Human Rights Watch. 15 November 2015. Saudi Arabia: Steps Toward Migrant Workers' Rights. [Accessed 30 Dec. 2015]

India. N.d. Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. Advisory for Workers Seeking Employment in Saudi Arabia. [Accessed 30 Dec. 2015]

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM). N.d.a. "Contact Us." [Accessed 13 Jan. 2016]

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM). N.d.b. "Issuance of Residence Permit (New Iqama)." [Accessed 6 Jan. 2016]

Prince Sultan Cardiac Center - Qassim (PSCCQ). N.d. Personnel Department. New Staff Guide and Information Sheet. [Accessed 7 Jan. 2016]

Saudi Gazette. 10 December 2015. Ibrahim Alawi. "Egyptian's Claim to Have Left Jeddah Airport Without Passport Rebuffed." [Accessed 6 Jan. 2016]

Saudi Gazette. 15 December 2014. "Fingerprinting Declared Compulsory in Saudi Arabia." [Accessed 6 Jan. 2016]

United Kingdom (UK). 25 March 2013. Foreign & Commonwealth Office. "Guidance: Living in Saudi Arabia." [Accessed 30 Dec. 2015]

United States (US). 21 November 2014. Department of State, Passports & International Travel. "Saudi Arabia." [Accessed 6 Jan. 2016]

United States (US). N.d. Department of State. Teaching English in Saudi Arabia. [Accessed 6 Jan. 2016]

Additional Sources Consulted

Oral sources: Audhali Law Firm; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Ottawa; Magrath LLP; The Law Firm of Mohamed Al-Sharif; Mohammed S. AL-Ghamdi Law Firm in Association with Fulbright & Jaworski.

Internet sites, including: Al Arabiya; ecoi.net; Factiva; India - Embassy of India Riyadh; Keesing's Document Checker; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington DC, Passport Department; Magrath LLP; Overseas Filipinos Worldwide (OFW) Empowerment; UN - Refworld.

Attachment

Copy of Final Exit Visa. Sent to the Research Directorate by a representative at Helen Ziegler & Associates Inc.
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.
Why court docs for Delphi murder suspect Richard Allen are sealed

Court records in the case of a man charged in the killings of Abigail Williams and Liberty German have been sealed. Experts explain why.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says that the $500 million that Pakistan has pledged for reconstruction of Afghanistan would be better spent on fighting terrorism.

Speaking at an international conference on December 4, Ghani said that "some states provide sanctuary and tolerate" terrorist networks.

"As a Taliban figure said recently, if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," Ghani said.

Ghani was speaking in the northern Indian city of Amritsar at the Heart of Asia conference aimed at stabilizing conflict-torn Afghanistan.

Ghani said his country "suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable."

According to the United Nations, there were 11,002 civilian casualties in total in the Afghan conflict last year, the highest level yet recorded in the country.

Afghan officials blame Pakistan-based militant groups for the escalating violence, including a series of deadly attacks in the capital, Kabul.

Pakistan says it is itself a victim of terrorism.

Based on reporting by dpa, Reuters, dawn.com, and the BBC
Russian forces have launched suicide drones on targets in eastern and central Ukraine, the Ukrainian air defense reported, as heavy fighting continues in the east.

"Twelve out of 13 [loitering] munitions were destroyed by [the Ukrainian] anti-aircraft defense in the eastern and central regions of the country," the military said in a message on Telegram.

The air defense said six drones were shot down in eastern Ukraine and another six were destroyed in the central part of the country.

Russia has been targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian objectives with missile, drone, and artillery attacks for weeks amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has driven Russian troops out of the northeast and pushed them back in the east and southeast.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on November 2 that authorities in the capital were preparing more than 1,000 heating points throughout the city in case its district heating system is disabled by continued Russian attacks.

Russia launched missiles into several Ukrainian cities on October 31, including Kyiv, as the Kremlin continues its relentless assault on Ukrainian critical infrastructure in the hopes of wearing down its population's will to resist.

Water and electricity supplies were all but cut off for hours in Kyiv before being restored on November 1, but officials warned that power rationing would continue to be necessary in the capital.

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, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Klitschko wrote on Telegram on November 2 that city authorities were considering different scenarios due to missile attacks.

"The worst one is where there will be no electric power, water, or district heating at all," he said. "For that case, we are preparing over 1,000 heating points in our city."

Missile and drone attacks have damaged at least 40 percent of Ukraine's energy infrastructure and have already briefly left large parts of Kyiv without power and water.

Nine regions were experiencing power cuts, authorities said.

"We will do everything we can to provide power and heat for the coming winter," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his regular address late on November 1. "But we must understand that Russia will do everything it can to destroy normal life."

In the central Cherkasy region, a drone hit an infrastructure objective on November 2, said regional Governor Ihor Taburets in a message on Telegram.

Taburets said that two other drones that targeted Cherkasy were shot down. He said no injuries were reported.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat on November 1 warned that Kyiv does not have an effective means of defense against Iranian-made ballistic missiles, which Russia is likely planning to deploy north of the Ukrainian border.

Ihnat told a news briefing that it would be theoretically possible to shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, but it would be very difficult to do it "with the means that we have in our arsenal today."

The Washington Post reported last month that Iran had agreed to supply Russia with surface-to-surface missiles, citing sources in U.S. security agencies

The Ukrainian military said Russian troops continued shelling the eastern city of Bakhmut, a target of Russia's armed forces in their slow advance through the Donetsk region.

There was fierce fighting near Bakhmut, as Ukrainian forces held back Russian assaults on two other areas in Donetsk, around Avdiyivka and Uhledar.

With reporting by Reuters and AP
Welcome back to The Farda Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that tracks the key issues in Iran and explains why they matter. To subscribe, click here.

I'm RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari. Here's what Ive been following during the past week and what Im watching for in the days ahead.

The Big Issue

Iran has accused two female journalists who covered the hospitalization and funeral of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini -- whose death in the custody of Tehran's morality police triggered protests across the country -- of being U.S. spies and the "primary sources of news for foreign media."

The accusations came in a joint statement by the feared intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Intelligence Ministry, which identified the two journalists, Nilufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who are being held in Tehran's Evin prison, by their initials. The statement claims the journalists were trained abroad. It also says the protests that have shaken Iran were planned by the CIA along with other foreign intelligence services, including the British and Saudi spy agencies as well as Israel's Mossad.

The statement was met with fear and anger by Iranian journalists and their colleagues, who pushed back against the accusations. Senior editors of Hamedi's Sharq daily and Mohammadi's Hammihan dismissed the charges and said the journalists were only doing their jobs. "Our journalist and our newspaper.....acted within the framework of the journalistic mission," said Mehdi Rahmanian, editor of the reformist Sharq, while Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the editor of Hammihan, said the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency and other news agencies had similar reports that included more details. More than 500 journalists, photographers, and other media workers demanded the release of their colleagues while calling on officials to allow the free flow of information.

Separately, Tehran's Journalist Association said that based on the statement by the Iranian intelligence agencies, journalism should be banned because "the normal activity of journalists has been cited as evidence of a crime." For its part, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists dismissed the charges against the two journalists as "conspiracy theories," adding that it will hold Iranian leaders accountable for any harm done to the journalists.

Why It Matters: The spying accusations against Hamedi and Mohammadi are a major escalation of state pressure on the media, which is already facing a severe crackdown and tough censorship. The spying charges leveled against the two carries the death penalty. According to the CPJ, more than 45 journalists and columnists have been arrested in the current crackdown. The French media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Iran has become the world's biggest jailer of female journalists in the course of the current crackdown.

Meanwhile, reports have emerged that France-based Iranian journalist Vahid Shamsoddinnezhad, who had traveled to Saghez to cover the aftermath of Amini's death for the European TV channel Arte, has been in jail since September 28.

What's Next: The judiciary has not officially charged the two journalists with spying. The pushback from the Iranian press and journalists and international pressure could be instrumental in clearing the two journalists of the accusations.

Stories You Might Have Missed

Iranian authorities secretly buried the body of RFE/RL's Radio Farda broadcaster Reza Haghighatnejad at a location near Shiraz after seizing his body upon repatriation to Iran for burial. Haghighatnejad, 45, died of cancer in Berlin on October 17. His body was flown to Iran on October 25. His family was not allowed to see the body or participate in his burial. Radio Farda obtained a video of Haghighatnejad's gravesite , where the anthem of the current mass protests in Iran, Shervin Hajipur's Baraye, was heard in the background. The U.S. State Department has called on Iran to release Haghighatnejad's body and said the episode showed the extent the Iranian government will go to intimidate the press.

at a location near Shiraz after seizing his body upon repatriation to Iran for burial. Haghighatnejad, 45, died of cancer in Berlin on October 17. His body was flown to Iran on October 25. His family was not allowed to see the body or participate in his burial. Radio Farda obtained , where the anthem of the current mass protests in Iran, Shervin Hajipur's Baraye, was heard in the background. The U.S. State Department has called on Iran to release Haghighatnejad's body and said the episode showed the extent the Iranian government will go to intimidate the press. Iran has arrested rapper Toomaj Salehi, who had expressed support for the anti-govenment protests in Iran. Security authorities announced that the rapper was arrested on October 30 while attempting to flee the country. Salehi's uncle denied the claim, saying his nephew was arrested in the southwestern province of Chaharmahal Bakhtiari. Salehi was also detained last year over lyrics he wrote that condemn state repression, the killings of protesters, poverty, and injustice.

What We're Watching

Iran saw a surge in protests last week when thousands of people marked 40 days since the death of Mahsa Amini in state custody. In Amini's hometown of Saghez, a massive crowd gathered at the cemetery where the young woman is buried. Many walked to the cemetery amid reports that authorities had blocked the roads leading to Amini's resting place. Mourners also gathered last week at the grave of 16-year-old Nika Shahkarami near the western city of Khorramabad, 40 days after she was killed in the brutal state crackdown amid reports that security forces had opened fire to disperse mourners while also making arrests.

Why It Matters: The memorial ceremonies for those killed by security forces have energized the protest movement by fueling more anger with state repression. The establishment has responded with force. More protests could erupt as Iranians mourn those killed by security forces.

Thats all from me for now. Dont forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have.



Until next time,



Golnaz Esfandiari



If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Wednesday.
A U.S. Army sergeant charged with desertion for leaving his combat post in Afghanistan in 2009 has asked President Barack Obama for a pardon.

The White House confirmed on December 3 that Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl had asked for the presidential pardon before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20.

Trump made critical comments about Bergdahl during his presidential campaign, calling him "a no-good traitor who should have been executed."

Trump also has criticized a 2014 prisoner swap that won Bergdahls release after five years as a prisoner of Afghanistans Taliban.

The 30-year-old Bergdahl is facing a court-martial with a possible life sentence.

The White House did not comment on his pending case or what Obamas response would be to the request for the pardon.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
Russia's FSB security service says it has killed a leader of the Islamic State (IS) militant group during a raid in Russias North Caucasus region of Daghestan.

In a statement issued on December 4, the FSB said it had killed Rustam Aselderov and "four of his close associates" during a raid on a private house near Daghestans capital city of Makhachkala.

The statement said authorities found "automatic weapons and a large amount of ammunition and explosives" at the house during the December 3 raid.

Aselderov, who used the name Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Qadari, was named by the IS as the so-called "emir" of what the militants have declared as a new Caucasus province.

But he had been known to Russian security officials as an active member of terrorist groups in Daghestan since 2012.

Aselderov pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in December 2014.

The FSB said Aselderov organized two bomb attacks in the southern Russian city of Volgograd that killed 34 people in 2013 when he was fighting as the leader of the so-called Caucasus Emirate extremist group.

Those attacks included an attack on Volgograds train station by a female suicide bomber on December 29, 2013, that killed 18 people and another suicide bombing that killed 16 people on a Volgograd trolley bus the following day.

The FSB has linked Aselderov to two car blasts on the Astrakhan-Makhachkala highway in May 2012 that killed 14 people and injured more than 120.

The FSB also accused Aselderov of trying to organize a foiled attack by two female suicide bombers that was meant to take place on Moscow's Red Square on New Year's Eve in 2010.

Washington named Aselderov as a "foreign terrorist fighter" in 2015 and imposed sanctions against him.

In October, Russia announced that it was offering a 5 million ruble reward -- about $78,000 -- for information that would help authorities locate Aselderov.

It was not immediate clear whether an informant had provided information to Russian security officials about Aselderovs whereabouts in exchange for the reward money.

With reporting by AFP and TASS
Iranian cities were again the scene of anti-government protests and at least one strike on November 2, despite a warning from authorities to end the demonstrations.

Videos published on social media show protests in different cities as the outcry that erupted in mid-September after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody continues.

Local sources reported gatherings in the western Iranian city of Sanandaj, where people chanted, "Death to the dictator," a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Meanwhile, Kolbarnews, a group that monitors the Kurdish-inhabited areas of western Iran where Amini was from, reported on November 2 that shopkeepers from Sanandaj had started a general strike.

The protests took place despite a warning from the commander of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Hossein Salami, who told Iranians that October 29 was the last day of the riots."

Since Aminis death on September 16, thousands have been demonstrating across the country against the clerical establishment.

Videos continue to emerge on social media showing evidence of the governments violent response to the protests -- a crackdown that the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights says has left at least 277 people, including 40 children, dead.

On November 1, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network and Hengaw, two groups that monitor the human rights situation in Kurdistan Province, published a video from CCTV cameras in the western Iranian city of Baneh that shows the moment a citizen was shot at by armed security forces.

Kurdistan Human Rights Network and Hengaw say that these videos are related to the killing of Mutalib Saeid Piro, who died of a gunshot wound on October 27.

In the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, lawyer Mustafa Nili announced the arrest of several fellow lawyers who represented people detained during the recent protests.

Nazanin Salari, Bahar Sahraian, Mahmoud Taravatroy, and Amin Adel Ahmadian are among the detained lawyers.

Earlier in May, the Shiraz Revolutionary Prosecutor filed a court case against Taravatroy and Salari for defending members of the Baha'i community and issued a summons for trial against them on charges of assembly and collusion against national security.

Meanwhile, the family of Iranian activist Hossein Ronaghi expressed concern over the civil rights leader's health condition.

On November 1, Hossein Ronaghi's father announced that he had managed to meet his son after 38 days in prison. In a video, Ronaghi says that his son is on a hunger strike and that his health is deteriorating.

He also says that the interrogator of the case spoke to him insultingly and threatened three times to kill his son.

Videos of the security forces' presence in two neighborhoods of Tehran -- Ekbatan and Chitgar -- in the west of the Iranian capital have been published showing agents using loudspeakers to threaten residents.

In one of the videos, security officers use sexual profanities in response to the chanting of women.

In another video, one of the security agents tells the residents through the loudspeaker that they are ready to behead their own women and children in defense of the state.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda
A series of joint events by Russia and China on cybersecurity has prompted speculation that Moscow is looking to the architect of the Great Firewall of China for inspiration on how to censor and otherwise regulate the Internet. But it's a two-way street, and Beijing is learning from Moscow, too, says Andrei Soldatov, co-author of the book Red Web: The Struggle Between Russias Digital Dictators And New Online Revolutionaries.

RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Mark Krutov spoke to Soldatov about Russian-Chinese cybercooperation and its possible implications.

RFE/RL: How did Russian-Chinese cybercooperation come about?

Andrei Soldatov: At some point in the fall of last year, it became fairly clear that the system of [domestic] control over the Internet that was built by the Kremlin starting in 2012 was ineffective and that its objectives were not being met. From that moment, there were some fairly chaotic steps, such as a series of jail terms given to bloggers. Those steps, in the end, led to the emergence of new players from fairly unexpected quarters who proposed closer partnership with China as the solution.

We believe that the key agreements were reached at some point in December 2015 at a conference attended by [Prime Minister] Dmitry Medvedev and Fang Binxing, the main architect of the "Great Firewall of China." As a result of these agreements, in April in Moscow there was the first China-Russia cyberforum, and in the following months it gradually became clear what shape the partnership was taking.



RFE/RL: Is the cooperation bilateral in nature?

Soldatov: I would begin by saying that, firstly, we are talking here foremost of bilateral cooperation. Because Russia is not just taking from China, but China is also taking from Russia.

For instance, we [Russia] have the League Of Internet Security, a kind of quasi-independent organization of volunteers who patrol the Internet on a voluntary basis. Fang Binxing created a similar organization in March this year, effectively copying the League Of Internet Security but in the Chinese context. China only just passed new legislation on cybersecurity in November, in which there is an article about localizing data on Chinese territory, and it is very similar to Russian legislation in this sphere.

If we talk about what Russia is taking from China, then we are primarily talking about work on the development of a new, second phase of the Internet-filtration system. Because the current system is not very effective. In practice, we have a very primitive system that can only block websites and webpages. Now, specialists of the League of Internet Security are thinking how to move to a second phase that will allow them to search for content -- a method of filtering that is being used in China.

Another line of cooperation is the control over domain names and, most likely, the use of domain names as an instrument that allows for better controlling global corporations. In March, China demanded that foreign companies receive local domain names if they want to work in China. As a result of the Russian-Chinese forum, a "road map" was passed, and the issue of domain names and control over domains was one of only two points that effectively were included in the road map. A joint Russian-Chinese working group was created for specialists of the two countries to discuss what they should do about domain names.



And finally, lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the Russian system of control over the Internet was never very technologically advanced, and now China is seen as a country that could supply technology. Already in August it was clear there had been talks between Russian telecommunications-equipment manufacturers and Chinese manufacturers like Huawei and Lenovo. The talks concerned the licensing of Chinese manufacturing in Russia specifically to carry out the "Yarovaya law" [Russian federal legislation expanding authorities' cybercollection powers, signed into law in July 2016]. A path of import substitution has been proclaimed, and we are talking foremost about the need to replace Western telecommunications technologies with Russian ones. But when it's all said and done, we will have substituted Western technology for Chinese.



RFE/RL: Currently in Russia virtual private networks (VPNs) can be used to bypass Internet censorship. What would happen if the China model were implemented in Russia?

Soldatov: First of all, the Chinese model of control is a lot more effective at controlling tools to get around censorship. That's why the Chinese Internet is considerably slower than the Internets of other countries. There is the problem of access precisely because various VPN services are blocked fairly effectively.

What's more, China has a fairly successfully developed methods by which the Internet can be blocked in the territories of certain regions. So if a bureaucrat wants, a certain region can simply be switched off. And your website will simply not be visible on certain territories.

There is another important step that is being actively tested in China. Russian bureaucrats don't really know what to do with smartphone messengers that use end-to-end encryption. Because technologically this [end-to-end encryption] is a good resolution, and even if you have control of the company or have its servers on your territory, the encryption still wont allow you to read the messengers that are sent because they are sent between two people.

What they are trying to do in China -- and this has already been tested in the Xinjiang Uyghur region -- is not an attempt to decrypt messengers but to identify the devices where these messengers or VPN services are installed. These devices are simply disconnected from the cell network.

In fact, it's not the case that the Chinese have learned well how to break all these systems. You simply are disconnected and your smartphone becomes a useless instrument that receives a single text message: "Go to the nearest police station." And that's it, you can't use it anymore. In this area, China is ahead of Russia.
Russia appears to have intervened to curtail a new push by the Abkhaz opposition to force the resignation of Raul Khajimba, the de facto president of Georgias breakaway Republic of Abkhazia.

According to a statement posted early on December 4 by Abkhazias main opposition party, the Amtsakhara (Keep the Home Fires Burning) union of veterans of the 1992-93 war that culminated in Georgia's total loss of jurisdiction over the region and its de facto independence, Aslan Bzhania, a co-founder of the Bloc of Opposition Forces, has been detained at the Russian border with the breakaway region and taken to Sochi police headquarters.

Amtsakhara said he had been shadowed by police over a two-day period and repeatedly brought in for questioning.

Speaking at an Amtsakhara congress in Sukhumi on November 30, Bzhania had called on Khajimba to step down voluntarily in light of his failure to deliver on the promises he made in the run-up to his election as president in August 2014 following the forced ouster by his Coordinating Council of then-President Aleksandr Ankvab.

Since early 2015, Amtsakhara, which is a member of the Bloc of Opposition Forces, has repeatedly accused Khajimba of failing to deliver on his preelection pledges to unify a polarized society, form a government of national unity, launch constitutional and judicial reform, and use the substantial subsidies Abkhazia receives from Russia (7.7 billion rubles, or $113.94 million in 2016) to kick-start economic growth and thereby reduce unemployment, which is estimated at 70 percent. Russia recognized Abkhazia as an independent sovereign state in August 2008; only a handful of other countries have followed suit.

That litany of complaints largely duplicates the rationale adduced by the Coordinating Council in May 2014 for ousting Ankvab.

Criticisms of Khajimbas perceived failings, together with allegations of official corruption, incompetence and mismanagement, figured prominently in resolutions adopted at two successive Amtsakhara congresses in May and October 2015. Delegates at the latter congress unequivocally demanded that Khajimba resign, which he refused to do.

Then in early March 2016, a separate 46-person initiative group set about collecting signatures in support of its demand to hold a nationwide referendum on holding a preterm presidential ballot as the only legitimate and constitutional way of replacing Khajimba.

Khajimba was initially dismissive of that initiative, which he said "will not change anything." After the organizers amassed almost twice the required minimum number of signatures in support of their demand, he nonetheless scheduled the referendum for July 10, despite what he termed the threat it posed to domestic political stability. The opposition lobbied unsuccessfully for the date -- coinciding with the height of the summer tourist season  to be postponed. In the event, partly as a result of intimidation by government and local officials, voter turnout was reportedly just 1.23 percent of the region's 132,885 registered voters, and the referendum was declared null and void.

The November 30 Amtsakhara congress marked a new attempt to pressure Khajimba to step down. The estimated 1,000 members present adopted a resolution calling on him to do so by December 15. In the event that he fails to do so, they plan to convene a traditional mass gathering of citizens to demand his resignation, in line with Article 2 of the Republic of Abkhazia constitution, which reads: "Democracy shall be the basis of state authority in the Republic of Abkhazia. The bearer of sovereignty and the only source of authority in the Republic of Abkhazia shall be its people -- the citizens of the Republic of Abkhazia. The people shall exercise authority directly or through their representatives."

The congress was attended by three prominent political figures who had previously not openly aligned with Amtsakhara. One was Sergei Shamba, who served first as foreign minister then as premier under Ankvabs predecessor, Sergei Bagapsh, and now heads the former ruling party Yedinaya Abkhazia. That party, together with the National Front of Abkhazia for Justice and Development, the Party of Economic Development of Abkhazia (headed by Beslan Butba, who resigned in frustration after serving briefly as premier under Khajimba), and the public organizations Apsadgyl and A Just Abkhazia, addressed an open letter to Khajimba in May calling on him to create a government of national unity.

Speaking last month at a meeting Khajimba convened with various non-opposition parties, Shamba had said openly that "there are obvious reasons why society is dissatisfied." At the same time, he warned against any attempts to act unconstitutionally, lest Abkhazia become "a banana republic" where power changes hands only via a coup detat.

The others were Leonid Lakerbaya, chairman of the public organization Aytayra, who had served as prime minister under Ankvab; Major-General (retired) Raul Lolua, a co-founder of the public organization Abkhazia Is Our Home, whom Khajimba had fired as interior minister in May 2015; and Almas Djapua, chairman of Aynar, which one Ukrainian commentator recently characterized as "the party of unemployed youth."

On December 1, the day after the Amtsakhara congress, Khajimba flew to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin noted the "complicated" political situation in Abkhazia and warned Khajimba that further financial aid to Abkhazia will be contingent on preserving political stability by exclusively legal means.

Whether Khajimba asked for Russian cooperation in detaining Bzhania is not clear. Bzhania had placed second in the preterm presidential ballot of August 2014 with just a few hundred votes less than Khajimba. He declared in his address to the Amtsakhara congress that he is ready to sign a formal statement guaranteeing that in the event that Khajimba does step down, he will not put forward his candidacy in the preterm presidential election that follows.
At least 12 people, including nine members of a children's acrobatics team, have been killed in a road collision in eastern Siberia, Russian officials said.



Regional officials in the city of Khanty-Mansiysk said in a statement on December 4 that a bus carrying 29 children and three accompanying adults was rammed by a truck.



The children were returning to their hometown of Nefteyugansk from a competition in another city.



It was not immediately clear whether the truck driver was among those killed in the collision.

It was also not immediately clear whether weather conditions contributed to the collision. Temperatures in the area are around -17 Celsius.

Later on December 4, Rusian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the families of those killed in a phone call to Natalya Komarova, the head of the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous area.

Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Putin ordered "all necessary assistance" to be given to the families of those killed and injured.

Based on reporting by TASS, rt.com, and AP
Polls have closed in Uzbekistan, where voters are choosing who will be the countrys next president after Islam Karimov, the autocrat who ruled the Central Asian nation for a quarter-century until his death three months ago.

Acting President Shavkat Mirziyaev, who had been the countrys prime minister since 2003, is widely expected to win a five-year term in the election.

The Central Election Commission announced that almost 87 percent of the 20 million-plus electorate took part in the poll.

The commission also said preliminary results would be announced on December 5, amending an earlier statement that results would be released soon after the polling stations closed.

Mirziyaev, accompanied by his wife, cast his ballot in a Tashkent polling station in the morning.

Russian journalist Viktoria Panfilova, a reporter for the Moscow-based newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, told RFE/RL's Tajik Service from Tashkent that Mirziyaev did not speak to the press.

"The front-runner in this election, [acting Uzbek President] Shavkat Mirziyaev, voted very early in the morning, she said. He arrived with his family but did not give any statements at the polling station. We can simply say that he showed his family for the first time."

The 59-year-old Mirziyaev has said that he intends to largely follow the political course of Karimov.

There are three other candidates on the ballot: Khatamjon Ketmanov of the Peoples Democratic Party, Sarvar Otamuratov of the Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival) Democratic Party, and Nariman Umarov of the Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party.

All three support the government.

Ketmanov and Umarov ran in a 2015 presidential election that critics described as a sham organized to secure a fourth term for Karimov, who had prolonged his power through a series of votes that were condemned as undemocratic by Western states and observers."The format for Uzbek elections has not changed since Karimov's death," Kamoliddin Rabbimov, an Uzbek political analyst who lives in France, told AFP on December 4. "If anything, efforts have been made to ensure other candidates are even more obscure because Mirziyaevs stature among the population is not yet what Karimov's was.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) deployed observers in Uzbekistan to monitor the election process but has not yet commented on the fairness of the polling.

No post-Soviet election in Uzbekistan has been deemed democratic and fair by monitors from the OSCEs Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

Karimov, who became Uzbekistans Communist Party chief in 1989 and ruled with an iron fist as president after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, tolerated little dissent and eliminated almost all political opposition within the nation of about 30 million.

The government said he died on September 2, at age 78, after suffering a stroke.

Mirziyaev was made acting president six days after Karimovs death was announced -- circumventing a constitutional process under which the upper parliament house speaker is supposed to take charge.

If the result of the December 4 election is a foregone conclusion, what is less clear is whether the president will ease the authoritarian rule imposed by Karimov or veer from his policies -- and to what degree.

Journalist Panfilova said that public hopes for change are high.



"[People in Uzbekistan] expect some easing in business, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, she said. They expect that the country will be more open."

A loyal lieutenant to Karimov for two decades -- first as a regional governor and then as prime minister -- Mirziyaev has been described by former associates as a strict boss with a violent streak.

Critics dismiss as populist campaign ploys some of his recent efforts to force bureaucrats to answer to the people and resolve their problems, such as a hotline to the president and a demand that local leaders meet with their constituents.

But some Uzbek dissidents living abroad have high hopes that he will implement economic reforms, allow more freedom at home, and open ex-Soviet Central Asias most-populous country more to the outside world.

In a speech on his first day as acting president, Mirziyaev said Uzbekistan would continue the policy of not joining any international military alliances and not hosting any foreign military bases, along with not stationing its troops abroad.

Uzbekistan, a major grower of cotton and a producer of natural gas, borders volatile Afghanistan and lies in a strategic region where Russia, China, and the West vie for influence. It is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia and China, but pulled out of the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for the second time in 2012.

In the September 8 speech, Mirziyaev also said that strengthening ties with neighboring Central Asian states is "the main priority' for Uzbekistan's foreign policy -- and has won praise for apparent steps in that direction.

Within days of Karimovs death, Uzbekistan released four nationals of neighboring Kyrgyzstan and withdrew policemen from a border area disputed by the two countries.



On September 23, Tajikistan announced that the two countries had agreed to resume flights between their capitals, Dushanbe and Tashkent, which were suspended in 1992.



And media in Kazakhstan have reported that the Uzbek and Kazakh governments are close to reaching a deal on the long-standing issue of border demarcation.



The developments have sparked hopes that unlike Karimov -- who was seen as throwing up obstacles to regional cooperation -- the new leadership is eager to take a softer line towards neighbors.



Another unknown is how much influence other powerful former allies of Karimov -- such as longtime national security chief Rustam Inoyatov and Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov, who is also finance minister -- will wield behind the scenes.

Mirziyaev was formally nominated for president by the Liberal Democratic Party, the largest political party in Uzbekistan.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the December 4 ballot, a runoff will be held between the top two candidates.

With reporting by TASS and Azernews
A vigil held Friday night for George Carrington III, a high school senior and father-to-be who was shot and killed a week earlier in North Richmond, capped off a violent week in the city.

Four others  Alton Neal, Tychelle Johnson, Javar Mayo and a man who was killed early Saturday and has yet to be identified by police  also were slain in separate shootings in the past week and a half, bringing the total number of homicides in 2016 to 59. The oldest among those who have been identified was 37; the youngest was Carrington at 17. Between the victims, they had at least six children. Carringtons son, who bears his fathers name, was born Monday.

Our community is hurting, said Richmond School Board Chairman Jeffrey Bourne, who spoke at Carringtons vigil before inviting the teens mother and father to walk across the stage at Thomas Jefferson High Schools graduation in June and accept their sons diploma. Weve got to take it back ourselves. The police cant do it alone. The schools cant do it alone. No parent should have to go through this.

With still almost a month to go, 2016 is the deadliest year the city has seen since 2006, when Richmond logged 81 murders. Seventeen more people have been lost to violence this year than in all of 2015, amounting to a 40 percent increase.

The increase is dramatic, said community activist Charles Willis, who led Carringtons vigil. Its extremely disappointing because we have a lot of work to do in Richmond, said Willis, executive director of United Communities Against Crime.

For the past decade, the city has seen relatively low numbers of homicides with totals hovering in the low 40s to high 30s. That followed 20 years in which slayings neared or exceeded 100 per year.

In 2006, under the leadership of former Police Chief Rodney Monroe, a mentor of current Chief Alfred Durham and who installed a community policing strategy here, and newly elected Commonwealths Attorney Michael N. Herring, the police and prosecutors teamed up to target the citys soaring homicide numbers.

The very next year, homicides dropped a record 33 percent, which at the time was a 26-year low. In 2008, murders fell again by 42 percent to the lowest total since 1963.

But in 2016, the total has risen to almost alarming rates.

In 2006, we and the police department agreed to focus our resources on murder, Richmonds No. 1 crime problem, said Learned Barry, deputy Richmond commonwealths attorney.

It worked, for a time. So why the increase now? Guns, Barry said.

In the last year, there doesnt seem to be any way we can get people to stop getting and using guns anymore, Barry said. He said a staffing shortage among patrol officers hurts the departments ability to seize guns being carried illegally.

Gun violence accounts for more than 90 percent of the homicides this year.

The Richmond Police Department has a sworn strength of 750 officers, but only has about 656 available, according to numbers Durham provided to the City Councils public safety committee last month when he asked for money to hire more officers.

Despite the department being so understaffed, the Major Crimes homicide unit, which investigates homicides as well as other crimes such as rape and robberies, has fared well, officials said. With 15 detectives and four sergeants, the unit is fully staffed.

But the relentless violence this year has taxed the detectives, who work nearly around the clock in the first 72 hours of a homicide and long hours for months afterward as they follow the case all the way through the court system.

On Wednesday, a team of detectives was in court for a murder trial from a homicide earlier this year. They began their day around 9:30 a.m. in court until 12 hours later when they were called to the scene of a double shooting in South Richmond. They found Javar Mayo, 24, of the first block of Lombardy Street, in the drivers seat of a car that had pulled onto the curb in the 100 block of East 33rd Street. He had suffered a gunshot wound and was taken to a local hospital, where he died Thursday night.

Then at 1:38 a.m. Thursday, the same detectives were called to a second double shooting, in which a woman, Tychelle Johnson, 25, of the 1400 block of Jennie Scher Road, was killed. Shes the mother of three, according to neighbors.

Detectives worked the case through Thursday morning, getting a few hours of sleep, and were back at it that afternoon.

The fifth recent victim was shot early Saturday, about 100 yards from the apartment where Johnson was found just days earlier. Police said they did not suspect the killings were related.

Earlier last week, detectives were in the East End looking into the death of Alton L. Neal, 37. He was shot and killed in the 2000 block of Fairfield Avenue.

Antonio L. Morris, 27, of Chesterfield County, was arrested Wednesday by the U.S. Marshals Service Regional Fugitive Task Force in Neals death. Morris was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit murder.

Timothy Smith Sr., who lives next door to Neal and cuts the familys grass, said Neal was a good father to his young son and daughter.

I saw a good man, Smith said of Neal.

Smith saw Neal driving his moped out of the neighborhood a couple of hours before he was killed.

He was a human being, said Smith, noting the senseless violence that took Neals life, and hes no longer here because of a gun.

Two days earlier, the same detectives began investigating Carringtons killing. He was found shot to death near an overturned white Buick sedan in the 600 block of Milton Street in the Providence Park neighborhood. The vigil was held near a severed telephone pole, where his body was discovered.

Police have charged 17-year-old Ishmael D. Brown with murder but have not yet apprehended the teenager. He lives near where Carrington was shot, a detective said.

Were going to handle this, Richmond police detective Greg Russell assured Carringtons mother, Virnita, and family at the vigil.

They work hard, Capt. James Laino, who leads the Major Crimes unit, said of his detectives. They are keeping up with the increase.

He noted that they have cleared just more than half  32 of the 59 homicides this year  by arrest. The national average is 64 percent, but clearance numbers are constantly shifting, Laino said.

Every case is as important as the last and the next, he said. The detectives of Major Crimes understand who they are working for: their families, and the families of the victims, and all Richmond residents.

Laino said the recommended average caseload for a homicide detective nationwide is about three cases per year. Richmond detectives are investigating anywhere from three to six homicides at a time, Laino said  and those are just from this year. One team is handling all four homicides from last week. Cases that are not solved within the year roll over until they are handed to the Cold Case division, also housed in the Major Crimes unit.

Though Major Crimes has not felt the effects of the department-wide shortage as acutely as other divisions, such as patrol, Laino said those officers play a major role in solving homicides, as well as in crime prevention.

Barry, whose office works closely with detectives from the beginning of their investigations, said detectives and prosecutors have the capacity to keep up the pace and quality with the current investigations. But there will be a point when resources will run out.

If we go back to the days of 100 killings, we dont have the resources to handle that, he said. We could use a whole lot more patrol officers. They are the ones who catch the gun cases and get them off the street. After the murder, its too late.

Barry said the city could experience between 50 and 60 homicides a year without restricting the flow of guns. He called it the new normal.

I still feel confident that the sky is not falling, Barry said. But its getting cloudy.

Willis, of United Communities Against Crime, said its going to get worse before it gets better.

We have to be vigilant about teaching conflict resolution and violence prevention, Willis said. We cant police our way out of it. I commend the chief on wanting more officers, but Id like to hear more about violence prevention  more so than preparing for more violence.

We have folks who are taking violent actions because of disagreements, he said. Thats nonsense. Because were going to disagree on a lot of things. Theres no need to pick up a gun.

Willis knows this first-hand. His youngest son has a trial set for next week in Henrico County on gun-related charges.

City Councilwoman Ellen F. Robertson, a friend of the Carrington family, said she lives just two blocks from where he was killed.

I dont like blood on the streets, Robertson said. This affects us all. Weve got to find other ways to resolve our conflict. ... This is not a solution.
A number of Henrico County officials will participate in a town hall forum to provide updates about ways the school division has worked to address schools that are struggling academically and answer questions from parents and other community members.

The town hall comes about a month after the Virginia Board of Education released the last of its accreditation ratings for the year. Seven schools in Henrico were denied state accreditation  the first time in the divisions history that more than one of its schools failed to meet the states benchmark for student achievement.

The event, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Varina High School, will feature the School Board and Board of Supervisors representatives for the Fairfield and Varina districts  the two areas in the county where schools that were either denied or given partial accreditation are largely concentrated. The county manager, schools superintendent, several principals and other school division officials will also take part, according to a news release.

Our No. 1 hope is to have a very productive dialogue, said schools spokesman Andy Jenks. We hope to be up front about what were doing well and where there is more work to be done.

Jenks said the forum will provide an opportunity to highlight positive trends in schools that may have barely fallen shy of accreditation. Despite the record number of state accreditation denials, school division officials point to gains made in individual subject areas at various schools including higher pass rates at Ratcliffe Elementary School for language arts, higher pass rates at Elko Middle School for science and social studies, and a jump in science pass rates at Montrose Elementary School.

For elementary and middle schools to earn full accreditation, students must earn pass rates of at least 75 percent on English reading and writing SOL tests, and at least 70 percent on assessments in math, science and history. In addition to those passing rates, high schools also must achieve student graduation thresholds to be fully accredited.

Schools can have a rating other than fully accredited for only three consecutive years. If the school isnt fully accredited in the fourth year, the state denies accreditation or the district can apply for a status of partially accredited: reconstituted school.

John Montgomery, the School Board member representing Varina, said in addition to sharing information specific to individual schools with parents, hes looking forward to hearing suggestions on how the division can improve.

It is a community effort, Montgomery said. This is all hands on deck to addressing these shortcomings in schools.

Here is a partial list of public officials who will participate in the town hall forum, according to a Henrico schools news release:
A Virginia school district has pulled copies of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from classrooms and libraries while it weighs whether it should permanently ban the American classics because of the books use of racial slurs.

In response to a formal complaint from a parent, Accomack County Public Schools Superintendent Chris Holland said the district has appointed a committee to recommend whether the books should remain in the curriculum and stay in school libraries. District policy calls for the formation of the committee  which can include a principal, teachers and parents  when a parent formally files a complaint.

The parent, Marie Rothstein-Williams, made an emotional plea at a School Board meeting Nov. 15, saying the works had disturbed her teenage son, a biracial student at Nandua High School on Virginias Eastern Shore.

Im not disputing this is great literature, Rothstein-Williams said. But there is so much racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you cant get past that, and right now we are a nation divided as it is.

School libraries and curriculum are frequent culture-war battlegrounds, and it is common for parents to object to books that many consider classics but that also contain offensive language or mature themes.

Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the book most often targeted for removal from school classrooms and libraries among the titles the American Library Association tracks. To Kill a Mockingbird, the Harper Lee classic set in 1936 Alabama, is also high on the list of works that people seek to remove from schools. Both books liberally use a derogatory word for blacks.

A Montgomery County, Md., student in 2006 appealed to the school board to toss a lesson about the N-word that was meant to prepare students for reading Mockingbird.

A Fairfax County mother launched a campaign in 2013 to remove Toni Morrisons Beloved from classrooms because its portrayal of an escaped slave included bestiality, a gang rape and an infants murder. Parents also have objected to some modern childrens literature such as the popular Harry Potter series, saying it promotes occultism.

James LaRue, director of the American Library Associations Office for Intellectual Freedom, said he understands the challenge of teaching books laced with language that is deeply upsetting to some. But he said schools should approach such works carefully instead of throwing them out. He said teachers can avoid having students read the works aloud, for example, and talk to them about the historical context in which they were written.

Removing the books from classrooms and libraries is censorship, he said.

America is still deeply uncomfortable with its racial history, LaRue said. He said hiding the books  which many consider seminal works of American literature  amounts to forgetting history.

In her remarks to the Accomack School Board, Rothstein-Williams said she understands that the works are considered classics but worries that they teach students it is OK to use racially charged words. Rothstein-Williams did not respond to a request for comment.

What are we teaching our children? Were validating that these words are acceptable, Rothstein-Williams told the board. They are not acceptable.

She urged the board to consider the appropriateness of the books given the polarization of issues about race. The tiny Accomack County School District, on the northern end of Virginias Eastern Shore along the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, educates about 5,000 students, 37 percent of whom are black.
Ralph Northam, the all-but-official Democratic nominee for governor, was in Roanoke this past week, talking about opioid addiction, a problem that has deadly resonance, particularly in the surrounding western Virginia countryside, a Republican bulwark.

Its a political issue thats gripped both parties. The morning Northam got his headline, Ed Gillespie, the perceived front-runner for the GOP nomination, released remarks on the opioid crisis to a conservative womens organization in Washington.

Northam, however, may have a unique perspective on this calamity, which recently spurred an emergency declaration by the state health commissioner. Northam is a physician; specifically one who mends broken children as a pediatric neurologist.

Northam apparently would be the first licensed practitioner of the healing arts elected governor of Virginia, a state that typically installs as its leaders lawyers, business executives, soldiers, planters  even newspapermen.

Add Northams quiet style  who wants to be examined by a yammering, highly caffeinated doctor?  as well as his dynastic rural roots  hes a judges son from the marshy flat lands of the Eastern Shore and graduated from Virginia Military Institute in the Blue Ridge Mountains  and you have, by contemporary standards, a mold-breaking candidate.

This is not to say that boring is beautiful. It is to suggest that, for Virginia voters, it may come as a welcome change.

Since Barack Obama, who was more cult figure than candidate, broke the four-decade Republican presidential win streak here in 2008, Virginians have been overwhelmed by candidates at the statewide level who were either small-bore television characters (Think: Bob McDonnell as mid-1970s local anchorman) or high-decibel pitchmen (Think: Terry McAuliffe as carnival barker) or celebrity ideologues (Think: Ken Cuccinelli as Elmer Gantry with principles).

The exception was Creigh Deeds, the 2009 Democratic nominee for governor.

Like Northam, Deeds is a low-key country kid, occasionally awkward in public but capable of rollicking wit. Unlike Northam, Deeds, who is from the peaks of Bath County, was damaged goods. He was narrowly defeated for attorney general four years earlier by the Republican who would crush him for governor: McDonnell, whose national ambitions would be snuffed out by a corruption scandal.

Even in a political environment instantly shaped, reshaped and re-reshaped by social media, substance should not be subordinated to style.

Style is the means by which a politician conveys substance. That Northams style  his bedside manner?  recalls a comfortable old shoe perhaps allows him to more easily address uncomfortable issues: enduring economic dislocation that complicates, among other things, the opioid epidemic; McAuliffes high-handedness with a hostile Republican legislature; an uncertain state budget made more so by the profligacy of Democrats and Republicans; and a health care solution beyond the stalled Medicaid-financed expansion of Obamacare pushed by McAuliffe.

All this could be easier for Northam. His day job in medicine  Northam is temporarily leaving his practice to campaign full time for governor  is all about the uncomfortable: the combat wounded he treated as an Army doctor during the Persian Gulf War and the children in his care at a Norfolk teaching hospital where the hardest cases are commonplace.

Perhaps this will heighten voter curiosity about Northam, affixing a distinction that allows him to naturally stand out in a race that  along with the only other gubernatorial election next year in New Jersey  could be an early referendum on the Republican whom Virginians rejected for president, Donald Trump.

With its emergence, almost overnight, as a swing state prized by both parties, Virginia has had a chance to consider up-close  beyond Obama, who twice won here  presidential candidates distinguished by flash, sizzle, novelty or history: Trump, the billionaire star of a reality show before taking to the political stage, and Hillary Clinton, the first woman nominated for the presidency by a major party.

Republicans are offering this for governor on a lesser scale.

Gillespie, who could charitably be described as aloof from Trump, is quite literally the practiced professional talker. He amassed millions of dollars hawking special interests in D.C., the Trump-labeled swamp in which Gillespie qualifies as a well-fed alligator. Theres Corey Stewart, the fired Trump Virginia chairman who can out-Trump Trump with his capacity for inflammatory, if not outrageous, anti-immigrant philippics.

Even rough-hewn Frank Wagner has a bit of glitter, though it may be fools gold. A state senator from Virginia Beach, a vote-rich battleground, Wagner has established himself in Richmond as a handsomely financed handmaiden of Dominion, carrying legislation  signed by McAuliffe  that exempts until 2020 the electricity giant from regulatory oversight and from returning excessive profits to its customers.

The remaining Republican candidate, Rob Wittman, recalls Northam: a taciturn Chesapeake Bay guy, innately moderate but accommodating of noisier, influential fringe interests that can reduce Republicans and Democrats to caricature. For Wittman, its the anti-tax tea partiers, property rights-protecting libertarians and just plain angry Trumpsters. For Northam, its the gun-control absolutists, the more outspoken abortion activists and business-hostile environmentalists.

Because Northam has the nomination sewn up, these elements of the Democratic coalition wont require as much maintenance and care as those that will help decide the Republican nomination in an open-to-all primary in June.

This is an opportunity for Northam to begin positioning himself now for the general election in November, reaching to independents and nominal Republicans whose votes hell need to offset those hell lose because of an enduring problem for Democrats: that because so many of them are federally oriented, preoccupied with presidential and congressional elections, they ignore critical state contests.

That includes the 2017 elections that could set the partisan template for Virginia government into the 2030s.

The next governor will sign or veto the next legislative redistricting plan in 2021. Should Republicans still control the House of Delegates and Virginia Senate at that time, only a Democratic governor would stand between them and another decade of Republican dominance, despite demographic trends that favor Democrats. A Republican governor would happily accommodate his partys legislative majority.

But first things first.

Northam, who was born in the countryside, practiced medicine in the city and argues for sensibilities prized in the suburbs, has a chance to talk to voters in all three settings virtually unchallenged by the GOP. And he can do so in their language.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
STERLING  In an industrial area of Dulles International Airport where cargo is handled, four travel-weary dogs walked circles in a grassy patch after a two-day, transcontinental journey from South Korea.

By early Friday evening, they were put back into their crates and loaded into a van bound for the Richmond SPCA, where they will eventually be placed for adoption. They were to be joined by two more groups of dogs arriving on later flights.

The 14 dogs destined for Richmond were rescued from a dog meat farm in South Korea, where they would have been prepared for slaughter  up to 2.5 million dogs in the country each year meet that fate, said Robin Starr, CEO of the Richmond SPCA.

Dogs like this that have been saved from this fate are incredibly fortunate, Starr said. Were just so happy to get to be a part of saving their lives.

Since 2014, when Humane Society International began working to end the dog meat trade in South Korea, 540 dogs from the country have been brought to the U.S. and Canada, said Matt Gray, Virginia state director at the Humane Society of the United States.

Rescued dogs have been taken to several shelters in Virginia, including facilities in Roanoke, Alexandria and Arlington.

The Richmond SPCA has previously sheltered dogs displaced by natural disasters elsewhere in the country, but the dogs that arrived Friday were the first brought from overseas.

The dogs are raised for human consumption, making them larger in size. Because there isnt a market in South Korea for large dogs as pets, Gray said they are transferred to the U.S.

According to Humane Society Internationals website, dogs bred at these farms often suffer from disease and malnutrition and are subjected to daily neglect or even deliberate cruelty.

The dogs headed for Richmond were rescued from a meat farm in Jeonju, South Korea, and were sheltered, vaccinated and quarantined in Daegu and Isla before being flown to San Francisco and, eventually, Dulles, according to the Richmond SPCA.

Abbey Howarth, a spokeswoman for the Richmond SPCA, said she was told by Humane Society representatives that Korean officials found the dog meat farm to be operating illegally and ordered it to close after the officials were tipped off by neighbors.

Starr said the group of dogs consists of nine males and five females, including a mother and her litter. Its unlikely the dogs, most of whom are a year or two old, are any breed that we would recognize, she said.

The dogs first few days in the country will entail veterinary and behavioral checks. There was also talk of naming the dogs, perhaps after South Korean cities or Korean pop stars.

Starr said she expects some of the animals to be ready for adoption in about a week or so.

When we save the lives of animals that were really facing not only short lives of utter misery but then a terrible death, nothing could be more central to the accomplishment of that, she said.
Bienvenida

Estimados amigos,



Les doy cordialmente la bienvenida a este Blog informativo con articulos, analisis y comentarios de publicaciones especializadas y especialmente seleccionadas, principalmente sobre temas economicos, financieros y politicos de actualidad, que esperamos y deseamos, sean de su maximo interes, utilidad y conveniencia.



Pensamos que solo comprendiendo cabalmente el presente, es que podemos proyectarnos acertadamente hacia el futuro.



Gonzalo Raffo de Lavalle



Las convicciones son mas peligrosos enemigos de la verdad que las mentiras.

Friedrich Nietzsche



Quien conoce su ignorancia revela la mas profunda sabiduria. Quien ignora su ignorancia vive en la mas profunda ilusion.

Lao Tse



There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin



You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

Warren Buffett



No soy alguien que sabe, sino alguien que busca.

FOZ



Only Gold is money. Everything else is debt.

J.P. Morgan



Las grandes almas tienen voluntades; las debiles tan solo deseos.

Proverbio Chino



Quien no lo ha dado todo no ha dado nada.

Helenio Herrera



History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

Karl Marx



If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Sun Tzu



We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.

Paulo Coelho
German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron (AIXG) said that it will explore with its Chinese suitor after President of the United States blocked the acquisition of the U.S. of Aixtron by Grand Chip Investment GmbH, an indirect subsidiary of Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund LP .

"The bidder and Aixtron are evaluating the impact of the Order on the conditions to be fulfilled under the takeover offer and will coordinate with the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to examine the consequences of the Order on the takeover process," Aixtron said in a statement.

It added the presidential order was limited to Aixtron's U.S. business and did not prohibit the acquisition of Aixtron shares and American depositary shares by GCI.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that the parent company of United Airlines has agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle charges in a case where shareholders wound up footing the bill so a public official could get more convenient flights.

According to the SEC's order instituted, United reinstated a nonstop flight between Newark, N.J., and Columbia, S.C., at the behest of David Samson, the then-chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who sought a more direct route to his home in South Carolina. The route previously experienced poor financial performance and was canceled by Continental Airlines prior to its merger with United, and a preliminary financial analysis conducted after Samson began privately advocating for the route's return revealed it would likely lose money again.

Nevertheless, the SEC's order finds that United officials feared Samson's influence could jeopardize United's interests before the Port Authority, including the approval of a hangar project to help the airline at Newark's airport. The company ultimately decided to initiate the route despite the poor financial projections. The same day that United's then-CEO approved initiation of the route, the Port Authority's board approved the lease agreement related to the hangar project. United employees were told "no proactive communications" about the new route.

According to the SEC's order, United circumvented its standard process for initiating new routes, and no corporate record at United accurately and fairly reflected the authorization to approve the money-losing flight route from Newark to Columbia. The route ultimately lost approximately $945,000 before it ceased again roughly around the time of Samson's resignation from the Port Authority.

Samson has pleaded guilty to bribery in a criminal case announced in July by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey. United entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney and paid $2.25 million.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
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
The city reached an agreement on Friday with Airbnb regarding a lawsuit the company filed after Governor Cuomo signed a law that made thousands of the New York City listings on the website illegal.

"We very much see this as a material step forward for our hosts," Airbnb spokesperson Peter Schottenfels wrote in a statement. Quoting from the settlement, Schottenfels wrote that Airbnb and the city would "work cooperatively on ways to address New York City's permanent housing shortage, including through host compliance with Airbnb's One Host, One Home policy."

Airbnb threatened to sue the city in September after state lawmakers passed a bill making it illegal to advertise entire home rentals for less than 30 days on Airbnb in June. The state's Multiple Dwelling Law meant it was already illegal to temporarily rent out entire apartments for less than a monththe new bill, which Cuomo signed into law in Octobermade it illegal for renters to advertise these already-illegal listings and imposed up to $7,500 in fines for lawbreakers.

The company filed a suit against the state, New York City, and Mayor de Blasio which argued that the new regulations were too vague and violated the federal Communications Decency Act because they held Airbnb liable for content created by third partiesthe hoststhat were posted on the website. In November, the company dropped its suit against the state but continued to pursue legal action against the city. They notably hired Gibson Dunn, a law firm that has, among other things, represented the people trying to get rid of the Prospect Park West bike lane and defended Chris Christie in Bridgegate.

Airbnb initially accused the city of targeting both the website itself and working- and middle-class hosts who rent out parts of their own homes. However, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal said in October that the city would primarily prosecute commercial operators who use Airbnb to convert multiple apartments into rotating rentals for tourists.

"The Office of Special Enforcement understands what their goal is," Rosenthal said. "They weren't set up to pick off individual tenants."

After the settlement was reached, the city again clarified the real target of the regulations. "As Airbnb knows, this state law does not target their company," de Blasio spokesperson Melissa Grace told Politico. "Instead, it provides the City with an additional tool to use against those seeking to turn permanent homes into illegal, short-term stay hotels. The city will enforce this and other existing laws against bad actors, and appreciates the additional enforcement powers this new tool provides to protect New Yorkers and visitors from unsafe conditions."

In November, Airbnb announced its One Host, One Home policy, which states that New York City hosts can only advertise one listingthe home in which they liveon the website for short-term rentals. When hosts try to list more than one entire apartment for less than 30 days, they'll get an error message preventing them from doing so. The company says they're also actively removing listings that violate this policy.

Rosenthal told Politico that the lawsuit is "a win for everyone."

"I expect the city will now get down to the important business of enforcing the law against the serial lawbreakers on the site who turn out affordable housing into illegal hotels," she said.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  France committed $30 million toward protecting cultural heritage sites during wartime on Saturday, a first step in the creation of an international fund aimed at preventing destruction like that carried out by Islamic State militants.

French President Francois Hollande announced the contribution during a conference jointly organized by France and the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi. Backers of the Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage conference hope to attract an initial $100 million for the fund.

In coordination with UNESCO, it aims to prevent or stop destruction of historical sites, fight trafficking of stolen artifacts and pay for the restoration of sites damaged by war.

They also seek to create a network of sites around the world where artifacts endangered by fighting or terrorism could be temporarily stored for safekeeping.

"What we have to do today, and what we have managed to do, is to ensure the future of what is precious to humanity," Hollande told dignitaries gathered at an ornate beachside hotel in the Emirati capital. "It is already late."

Islamic State militants have deliberately stolen or destroyed cultural artefacts in areas they've seized, including the destruction of the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra, and the looting of the Mosul museum.

Just last month, Iraqi forces retook the 13th century B.C. Assyrian capital of Nimrud, south of Mosul, from the militant group. They found intricate reliefs smashed into pieces.

The conference was the centerpiece of Hollande's two-day visit to the Emirates. He arrived Friday, a day after surprising France by announcing he would not seek a second term as the Socialist candidate in next year's presidential election.

France has built increasingly strong ties to the seven-state Emirates federation over the years. Cultural outreach is a key pillar of that effort, including the establishment of a satellite campus of the renowned Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi a decade ago.

Workers are still putting the finishing touches on a much-hyped branch of the Louvre art museum, which will be the centerpiece of an ambitious cultural district on Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island.

The project has faced repeated delays that have pushed its opening back by years, and it has attracted criticism from human rights campaigners over the treatment of migrant workers involved in its construction. It is now expected to open sometime next year.

Hollande paid a visit to the Louvre site Saturday morning before meeting with French expatriates based in the Emirates. He briefly addressed his decision to not seek re-election at the latter stop, saying he would continue to drive France forward "within the framework of its ideals and values" until he steps down in May.

Hollande was also meeting with French troops during his trip.

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy opened France's first military base in the Persian Gulf in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, in 2009. The outpost includes facilities for air, naval and ground forces.

France has long seen the Emirates as a key potential customer for its Rafale fighter jet, though negotiations have dragged on for years without a deal being reached. The plane is built by French defense contractor Dassault Aviation.

No deal was announced Saturday.

Qatar, which like the Emirates is part of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, agreed to buy 24 Rafales at a cost of $7 billion last year. And in September, India signed a nearly $9 billion deal to buy 36 of the delta-winged fighters jets, far fewer than the more than 100 earlier envisioned.

A squadron of French Rafales is based at the Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi. They have been taking part in the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
Time sure flies. It doesnt feel like it was that long ago when the then Chief Executive Officer of the Bluesky Pacific Group, Aoee Adolfo Montenegro, signed a contract to roll out a new submarine cable in the Pacific.

In fact it was exactly a year ago when it happened. We said at the time it was an exciting development for the simple reason that if they are able to get it up and running, there is every possibility internet access for Samoa would be a lot, lot cheaper.

We dont need to tell you about the importance of the internet, its become a part of us that we simply cannot live without.

Getting back to Aoee and Bluesky, this time last year, it had signed with Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, to roll out a new submarine cable system, called Moana Cable, spanning more than 9700km across the Pacific. The system as we were told then was to link New Zealand and Hawaii via Samoa and American Samoa, making it the first long-haul submarine cable in the Pacific region.

The Moana Cable we were also told promised the latest innovative 200 Gbit/s transmission technology, with ultimate capacity between Hawaii and New Zealand of 20 Terabits-per-second (Tb/s).

Obviously, Aoee was an excited man at the time.

Moana Cable is an important part of Blueskys vision of connecting our Pacific communities around the world, he said. For the Pacific islands, it is important to tap into a digital highway between the larger markets to gain the benefit of economies of scale.

In this instance the digital highway is Moana Cable, connecting New Zealand and the U.S.A. Cost effective and reliable telecommunications bring significant benefits to education, commercial, medical and governmental activities and play a vital role in economic and social development.

We couldnt agree more.

In this day and age, we need world-class telecommunications capabilities to be able to keep up with the rest of the world.

But there is a snag.

Firstly Aoee is no longer the Chief Executive Officer of Bluesky. He was abruptly sacked earlier this year when it was revealed that Blueskys parent company, Amper SA, was selling its South Pacific business to Amalgamated Telecoms Holdings (A.T.H) of Fiji.

On the front page of the newspaper you are reading, it has been revealed that A.T.H has now made a deposit with Amper SA, honouring its intension to buy Bluesky.

According to Bluesky Samoa Country Manager, Alex Abraham, the sale process is progressing quite well.

There is a regulatory process to go through and at this process I understand its progressing, he said. There is no official update of when the transition will be done but everyone is looking forward to the change.

In the meantime, Mr. Abraham said Bluesky Samoa remains positive the sale is a step in the right direction.

There will be a lot of synergies between the two businesses with the joining of the two companies therefore bringing benefits back to Samoa, he said. He added that there is an opportunity for A.T.H, which runs Vodafone in Fiji, and Bluesky to share skills and knowledge.

If you keep yourself restricted you dont see it, Mr. Abraham said the opportunities. But if you keep your eyes open, there are a lot of things that we can do together.

Well Mr. Abraham has got a point. And good on him for being positive.

But just think of how time flies and how things can quickly turn.

Think of poor Aoee who made all those grand promises this time last year as the man in charge of Bluesky and how he has quickly disappeared from the scene and will probably be soon totally forgotten on these shores.

A case of here today gone tomorrow alright.

The question is, where does the sale leave the Moana Cable? Will they still go ahead with it or has the plan now been scrapped?

Lets wait and see.

In the meantime, have a fabulous week Samoa, God bless!
Fiji-government owned company Amalgamated Telecom Holdings Ltd (A.T.H) has made a deposit with Amper SA, to buy its South Pacific business  including Bluesky Samoa.

This was confirmed by Bluesky Samoa Country Manager, Alex Abraham, who told the Samoa Observer the sale process is continuing but he does not know when the transaction is likely to be completed.

I understand that a deposit has been made by A.T.H. to the parent company in Spain, Mr. Abraham told the Samoa Observer.

There is a regulatory process to go through and at this process I understand its progressing. There is no official update of when the transition will be done but everyone is looking forward to the change.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Amper had accepted a US$79million (T$182m) offer from A.T.H to buy its business  including the Bluesky offices in Samoa, American Samoa and throughout the Pacific.

In a statement Bluesky Samoa's chief commercial officer Sanjeewa Perera confirmed that Amper and A.T.H had began the negotiations.

"The strong performance of Bluesky Pacific Group operations in American Samoa, Samoa, New Zealand and Cook Islands has attracted the attention of key telecom operators in the region such as ATH," the statement said.

"A potential acquisition is subject to agreement by the parties on price, terms of acquisition and regulatory approvals.

"Bluesky fully supports its parent company's decision to explore this opportunity and is involved in the discussions to ensure the best commercial decision is made not only for Amper SA and Bluesky Pacific Group operations, but also for its existing local investors, customers and community."

According to Mr. Abraham, Bluesky Samoa remains positive that the sale is a step in the right direction.

He hopes there will be a lot of synergies between the two businesses with the joining of the two companies therefore bringing benefits back to Samoa.

The Country Manager said there is an opportunity for A.T.H, which runs Vodafone in Fiji, and Bluesky to share skills and knowledge.

If you keep yourself restricted you dont see it, Mr. Abraham said the opportunities.

But if you keep your eyes open, there are a lot of things that we can do together.

Bluesky Samoa is part of the Bluesky Pacific Group, which is a regional telecommunications group, with its companies providing fixed line, mobile, broadband and I.P.T.V services to consumers in American Samoa, Samoa, New Zealand and Cook Islands.

Bluesky Communications was the first company to launch in American Samoa in July 1999. From its beginnings as a mobile phone company, Bluesky then expanded to also being an internet service provider and then acquiring the local cable TV operator in American Samoa in 2009.

Since then Bluesky and the services offered has grown to what it is today.

Bluesky operates the only submarine fibre optic cable connecting Samoa and American Samoa to Hawaii.
In many ancient religions and metaphysical philosophies, sunspots are seen as either the harbinger of miracles or the after-effect of human suffering.

In Martin Zimmermans mystical fable Seven Spots on the Sun, the dark solar storms represent both good and evil.

Zimmermans 90-minute time-hopping drama, which plays through Saturday, is the first show of InnerMission Productions second season at Diversionarys black box theater. Since it moved into the University Heights space in fall 2015, the company has produced an impressive string of intimate, thought-provoking dramas, and Seven Spots on the Sun adds to its luster.

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Seven Spots takes place in San Ysidro, not the city in San Diegos South Bay but a poor village in an unnamed Central American country. Its the story of how a brutal, four-year war with no real good guys can destroy the lives, souls and hope of its people.

Even when the sunspots appear and a miracle occurs, its power is used for both healing and merciless revenge. Its a bleak but powerful story thats well told by director Carla Nell and her nine-member cast.

The actors sing and dance in a tribal, ritualistic way, glide between English and Spanish and use their hands and mouths to create the sounds of village life and war, including the percussion of bombs, the howl of the wind, the cries of womens grief and the labored breath of the dying.

Shaun Tuazons evocative scenic design, a war-torn mix of corrugated tin, broken glass, graffiti and glowing handprints, closes in on the actors and the audience, who sit just a few feet from the action.

Jorge Rodriguez gives a haunting but reserved performance as Moises, the overwhelmed doctor of San Ysidro, who loses his faith in humanity and ultimately his moral compass after an army sergeant kidnaps and kills his beloved wife, Belen. In her bright, high-spirited performance as the pineapple-loving Belen, Sandra Ruiz balances Rodriguezs dark depths.

Jennifer Paredes and Bernardo Mazon create fiery sparks and tension as Monica and Luis, a young couple in a neighboring town whose lives tragically intersect with that of Moises and Belen.

To better provide for his wife and future child, Luis joins the army and over four years slowly disintegrates. Every time he returns on leave to the increasingly distraught Monica, he is missing more of his soul and his physical body (he cuts off infected and injured fingers and toes rather than take time away from battle to heal).

The war also takes its toll on San Ysidros cowardly, drunkard priest Eugenio, played with a timid shamefulness by Miguel Gongora Jr. He finds his courage only after the war, when a plague sweeps the country and hes forced to face his fears and failings. Elizabeth Jimenez, Danielle Levin, Robert Malave and Markuz Rodriguez co-star as the townspeople, a Greek chorus and sound effects.

Seven Spots is a complex play, with several scenes presented out of order and a fair amount of dialogue in Spanish. It takes close attention to weave it all together, but it rewards in the end, even though that end is an unhappy one.

InnerMissions season continues in March with Deanna Jents Falling, Johnna Adams Gideons Knot in May, and Adam Gwons musical Ordinary Days in August.

Seven Spots on the Sun

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Through Dec. 10.

Where: InnerMission Productions at Diversionary Theatres Black Box, 4545 Park Blvd., University Heights.

Tickets: $25 (discounts available)

Phone: (619) 324-8970

Online: innermissionproductions.com

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
CITY COUNCILS

DEL MAR

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The Del Mar City Council is scheduled to meet in closed session for the city managers job evaluation at 5 p.m. Monday in Suite 100 (the former Pilates studio) at 2010 Jimmy Durante Blvd. In regular session at 6 p.m., the board will consider a 4 percent merit increase for the city manager based on his performance evaluation, and will hold a hearing on three separate appeals of the Planning Commissions judgments of blocked views from specific units in the Del Mar Woods Condominium Complex, and appropriate view restoration actions for trees/vegetation at 110 Stratford Court. The council is also set to consider adopting an urgency ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium on short-term rental housing within the city.

ESCONDIDO

The Escondido City Council is scheduled to meet in closed session to discuss labor negotiations and litigation at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in City Council Chambers, 201 N. Broadway. In open session at 4:30 p.m., the council will hold a hearing to consider a rent increase application by Greencrest Mobilehome Park of $6.58 per month for 66 rent-controlled spaces.

OCEANSIDE

The Oceanside City Council will meet in closed session at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Council Chambers, 300 N. Coast Highway, to discuss labor negotiations and real estate. In open session at 5 p.m., the council will consider issuing special tax refunding bonds not to exceed $10.5 million; a conditional use permit for a wine-tasting room at 216 N. Coast Highway; and ordinances setting rate increases for wastewater users, water users and external water providers.

POWAY

The Poway City Council will meet in special closed session to consider litigation at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Council Chambers, 13325 Civic Center Drive. In regular session at 7 p.m., the council will hold a public hearing on extending the citys interim urgency ordinance temporarily banning marijuana dispensaries, cooperatives, collectives and retail business, and prohibiting outdoor marijuana cultivation. The council will also discuss awarding a contract for boiler replacement for the 1907 Baldwin Steam Locomotive; will receive a report on the first quarter budget; and will hold an economic development strategic plan workshop.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS

BONSALL

The Bonsall Unified School District board is scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Bonsall Community Center, 31505 Old River Road.

CARDIFF

The Cardiff School District board is scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. Thursday in the district auditorium at 1888 Montgomery Ave.

CARLSBAD

The Carlsbad Unified School District board is scheduled to meet at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at the district office, 6225 El Camino Real, to swear in its newly elected trustees, immediately followed by a closed session to discuss a liability claim. At 6 p.m. in open session, the board will elect its officers, confirm its 2017 meeting schedule, and approve the establishment of several clubs at Sage Creek High School, including a themeless Club Club for students who dont feel they fit in with other school clubs. The board will also approve its First Interim Financial Report, and discuss topics to open negotiations with the Carlsbad Unified Teachers Association.

FALLBROOK

The Fallbrook Union Elementary School District board will meet at 6 p.m. Monday in Room 106 of the district office, 321 N. Iowa St., when it will elect new officers and confirm its 2017 meeting calendar. The board will also hear a presentation on Live Oak Elementarys STEM Lab and Team Advantage Intervention Program, and will approve the First Interim financial report that the district is fiscally sound.

SAN DIEGUITO

The San Dieguito Union High School District board is scheduled to meet in closed session to discuss personnel issues at 6 p.m. Thursday at the district office, 710 Encinitas Blvd., Encinitas, and in open session at 6:30 p.m.

SOLANA BEACH

The Solana Beach School District board is scheduled to meet in closed session at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the district office, 309 N. Rios Ave., to discuss litigation and labor negotiations. In open session at 6:30 p.m., the board will swear in its new board members, elect officers, and approve its 2017 calendar; and hold a hearing on the 2017-18 bargaining proposals with the Solana Beach Teachers Association and the 2016-17 bargaining proposals with the Solana Beach Association of Support Professionals. At 8 p.m. the board will meet as the Public Financing Authority, when it will elect officers and confirm its 2017 meeting schedule.

VALLEY CENTER

The Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District board is scheduled to meet in closed session at 5 p.m. Thursday in the Valley Center High School Media Center, 31322 Cole Grade Road, and at 6 p.m. in regular session.

VISTA

The Vista Unified School District board is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Morris Vance Community Room, 200 Civic Center Drive.

laura.groch@sduniontribune.com
On Wednesday, Americans will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But its not the date of Dec. 7, 1941, thats emblazoned in Jim Crosbys memory.

The 84-year-old Carlsbad retiree better remembers Jan. 4, 1942. Thats the day Japanese troops took the 9-year-old Crosby and his parents from their home in the Philippines to an internment camp, where they and thousands of others would spend the next three years behind a fence topped with shards of broken glass.

Inside the Santo Tomas Internment Camp, families endured extreme overcrowding and near-starvation and they lost all they owned.

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Jim Crosby, right, with his father, Ralph, in about 1939, two years before they were forced into an internment camp in the Philippines. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune )

Today, the retired electrical engineer said he has only good memories of the Philippines, where his parents stayed after the war.

Although hundreds of internees died from starvation and a few by execution, Crosby said his recollections are filtered through the softer lens of childhood. Thanks to his parents protectiveness, reassurances and ingenuity, he always had enough to eat, his days were filled with activity and there was no shortage of interned children to play with.

My parents always seemed to just roll with it, he said, adding that as a child he didnt understand the dangers of camp life. For me at first, it just seemed like a grand adventure.

Just hours after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese bombers also attacked Manila, the Philippines capital city. Crosbys parents, Canadian-born Ralph and San Francisco-bred Flora, had moved there in 1924 and Ralph Crosby ran six gold mines that employed hundreds of Filipinos. As wealthy expatriates, the Crosbys pampered their only child, Jim.

I think the phrase raised with a silver spoon describes it best, he said. The ex-pats had their country clubs, their new houses, lots of servants and even drivers.

Although the attack was a surprise, there had been rumblings of trouble for months. Because of escalating tension with Japan, U.S. Embassy employees in Manila sent their families back home to the States just weeks before. But the 5,000-strong expatriate community didnt flinch.

Japan had invaded China many years before, but the expats didnt ever expect that Japan would cross the United States. They were wrong, he said.

When the bombing began, Crosbys father built a bomb shelter at their house, which was about four miles outside Manila, and they went on with their lives.

I wasnt concerned, he recalled. The bombs were noisy but it didnt affect us. Life carried on. We still went to the country club on the weekends.

But within a week, the Japanese landed in Manila and by Christmas, the expats were trapped on the islands. On Jan. 3, a Japanese officer with impeccable English knocked at their door and advised them to be ready to go in 24 hours. They were told to pack a suitcase with enough clothes and canned food to last a maximum of three weeks. In his suitcase, Crosby also packed a brownie camera, assuming he could buy film at the camp when he arrived.

The camp was the abandoned campus of the University of Santo Tomas, about five miles away. In the first months, there were 4,700 internees, mostly American and British, with some Australians and Norwegians. About 700 were children.

When the internees own food supplies ran out, the Red Cross came in, but the meager rations they provided  mostly rice and waterleaf (an iron-rich green)  led to dramatic weight loss among the internees. By the end of the war, the internees were subsisting on just 730 calories a day. Most lost a quarter to half of their body weight. Records show nearly 400 deaths, mostly from starvation.

For the first two years, the Japanese commandant allowed local Filipinos to bring supplies to the internees. The Crosbys mine employees delivered extra food, mattresses and clothing, as well as the rudimentary materials the family used to build a shanty outside the universitys main building. After the supplies were cut off and food grew scarce, a black market emerged. Crosbys mother traded her 2-carat diamond ring for a 2-pound bag of kidney beans, and his father wrote a $4,000 IOU for a one-pound can of powdered milk.

The camp was run by a committee of internees overseen by the Japanese commandant. At first, Crosbys father worked for the committee but then transferred to the garbage pit-digging crew because he could earn more credits to buy food. Crosbys mother, appalled at the lack of sanitation in the camp, joined the all-female toilet cleaning crew, who kept the camp disease-free.

Within three weeks, the interned schoolteachers set up classes again in the universitys chemistry labs. Every subject was taught except American history, which was forbidden by the Japanese.

Crosby didnt much enjoy going to school, but it passed the time. He said he often despaired that the internment would never end. For distraction, he and his buddies played cops and robbers for hours.

We didnt have any guns, so wed take the long beans from acacia trees and cut them up into little pieces and throw them at each other, he said.

The committees rules were strict and, when broken, had severe consequences. Five men attempted to escape the camp and four were caught and executed. Cameras were also forbidden, so Crosby secretly smashed his brownie camera and buried the parts, having never taken a photo.

Radios were also forbidden, but a few engineers secretly salvaged parts from the commandants radio and built their own. Thats how they knew the tide of the war was turning against the Germans and Japanese. In September 1944, the first U.S. planes began flying over Manila on bombing runs. Crosby and his friends could watch from the rooftop of the main university building.

One of my favorite memories was seeing a bomb hit a (Japanese) heavy cruiser in the harbor and it blew up with a very loud bang. It was pretty spectacular, he said.

That Christmas day, Allied planes dropped leaflets assuring the end was near. And on Feb. 3, 1945, American tanks rolled up to the gates to free them at last.

That was the happiest moment of my life, Crosby said.

After the war, the 12-year-old Crosby and his mom took a troop ship back to San Francisco while his father stayed to rebuild his business. They returned to Manila a year later and Crosby finished high school there. Then he returned to the U.S. for good to attend college and build a career in the magnetic tape industry. In 1956, he met his wife, Laurene. Now residents of the La Costa Glen retirement community, theyve been married 60 years and have two daughters.

Upon reflection, Crosby has a dim view of war and mixed feelings about internment camps. He admits that the Japanese may have been right to intern the American and British expatriates in the Philippines because they wouldve taken up arms against them. But hes not an advocate of internment camps on U.S. soil. He opposed the American internment of Japanese-Americans and immigrants during World War II, and has concerns about the idea of interning Muslims or Mexican immigrants in the future.

Yes, I do think it could happen again, he said. When something sudden happens, theres a certain amount of hysteria. I thought the Japanese internment (in the U.S). was a big mistake. It shouldnt have happened.

Pearl Harbor 75th anniversary  On Now Pearl Harbor survivors relive the infamous day 12:34 On Now Pearl Harbor Veterans visit Hawaii elementary school 0:43 On Now 104 years young On Now Aircraft Warning Service Volunteer recounts her experience in after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor 2:40 On Now Returning WWII relics to Japan 3:10 On Now USS Pearl Harbor 3:11 On Now Video: Remembering Pearl Harbor: Mary Lou Mawhiney 3:14

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
While researching the case of a San Diego sailing couple brutally murdered on Palmyra Island in 1974, retired L.A. deputy public defender Tom Bucy, made a surprising discovery.

A law school student in Hawaii had written an article about handling a bag containing the skull of one of the victims in the spring of 2009 during a classroom lecture by an FBI agent.

Bucy was amazed that the remains of slain sailor Eleanor Muff Graham remained unclaimed in FBI storage so long after the trial instead of receiving a proper burial, and he vowed to do something about it.

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Graham and her husband, Malcolm Mac Graham, had disappeared on Aug. 29, 1974, after sailing about 970 miles south from Hawaii to the Palmyra atoll. The home port for their sailboat, the Sea Wind, was a marina on Shelter Island, and they were well known in the San Diego sailing community.

Shortly after the Grahams disappearance, an ex-convict and his girlfriend were arrested for stealing the Sea Wind, but they werent charged with murder until a traveling sailor stumbled across Muffs remains on the Palmyra beach in 1981. Her broken and bleached bones were spilling out of a half-buried metal chest that apparently had washed ashore.

Her husbands body, presumed to have been dumped at sea, has never been found.

The ex-con, Buck Duane Walker, and his girlfriend, Stephanie Stearns, had arrived at Palmyra in their shabby, poorly stocked boat while the Grahams were anchored there.

Walker was tried first, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for Muffs murder, thanks, in part, to the testimony of a fellow inmate to whom hed made a jailhouse confession. Suffering from terminal cancer, he was paroled in 2007 and has since died.

While Walker was represented by a public defender, Stearns, from a well-to-do family, was defended by high-profile attorney Vincent Bugliosi, Charles Mansons prosecutor. She was acquitted.

The trials were big news nationally and, especially, in San Diego.

Muff Graham, formerly Eleanor LaVerne Eddington, had grown up here.Her mother, Rose King, and sister, Peggy Faulkner, of San Diego, were quoted in media coverage of the murders. Bugliosis book identified an older sister, Dorothy Young, of La Mesa.

As Bucy, a graduate of San Diegos Cal Western School of Law, did research for his own book on the high-profile murder and what he believes to be Stephanie Stearns role in it, he hardly expected to discover that the Hawaii FBI still had custody of Muffs remains 28 years after Stearns acquittal.

I would really like to see her bones interred in San Diego, said Bucy, who is endeavoring to create a fund to bring them here for a proper burial. This was the Grahams home port and several of Muffs family are interred in this area.

He plans to contact sailors up and down the West Coast in hopes of generating interest in the idea. The couple had no children, and he has been searching for close relatives.

Bucy, who now lives in Canada, earlier had tracked down Macs sister, Mary, who was once married to the late hydroplane boat racer Bill Muncey, of La Mesa. She had moved to Seattle, and since has died.

Her son, Dorian Graham Muncey, 58, Macs nephew, said he was shocked to learn his aunts bones were being passed around in a law class. Were concerned that Muff needs to be taken care of in a dignified manner, he said, and supports Bucys proposal.

Bucy contacted FBI officials in Honolulu, informed them of his plan, and they agreed not to dispose of the bones until he can interest sailors or others to take up a collection for the transfer. He has already approached the San Diego Yacht Club, which declined to get involved.

Bucy hopes this months publication of his e-book, Final Argument, will renew interest in the case. In it, he rebuts some of the trial analyses put forth in Bugliosis 1991 book, And the Sea Will Tell, later the subject of a TV miniseries. In several instances, transcripts of the trial reveal testimony that differs from that recited in Bugliosis book, Bucy contends.

Muff was a wonderful gal, he says. She had a terrible premonition that she would die a horrible death. That premonition, which she had shared with others before her voyage, turned out to be terribly true.
Todays In Depth story is about the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Staff writer John Wilkens talks about the story and San Diegos role in keeping alive the memory of what happened on Dec. 7, 1941.

Q: Why does Pearl Harbor matter?

A: It dragged the United States off the sidelines and into World War II, and the sacrifices and resolve during that four-year conflict, both abroad and at home, helped create an idea of America thats lasted for more than seven decades. Many of our values, much of our international standing, a fair amount of our popular culture  they were all shaped by the war.

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Q: How many survivors of the attack are left?

A: Nobody has a firm number, but under 2,000 nationwide, according to various estimates. San Diego has 19 in its local survivors association, which has long been one of the largest and most active in the country. The attack also affected more than just the service members. San Diego is home to spouses and children of Pearl Harbor veterans who were in Hawaii at the time, as well as people who were civilians there. A lot of lives changed that day.

Q: What is special about this years anniversary?

A: Seventy-five is a nice round number, and we tend to pay more attention to the big anniversaries. This year has more poignancy because its expected to be the last major one that survivors will be attending in any kind of numbers. Theyre all in their 90s or 100s now. Many of them have spent decades trying to ensure that the U.S. remembers what happened at Pearl Harbor, and what happened after, and they feel an extra urgency this time.

Q: Do they really think Pearl Harbor will be forgotten?

A: It may feel like a silly idea right now, with all the media attention to this anniversary. You cant go to a supermarket without seeing special editions of magazines devoted to Pearl Harbor. It will be all over the newspapers, the internet, TV and radio this week. At least four new books have been published about it.

But when you talk to the veterans, they dont fear that Dec. 7 in some distant future will be just another day on the calendar. They worry about military and national-security complacency, that the nation will be attacked again on its own soil, resulting in a huge loss of life. They believe in the old saying about those who forget history being doomed to repeat it. They took no pleasure in being right when 9/11 happened.

And they wonder, as older generations often do about younger ones, whether the country will be willing and able to make the sacrifices necessary to unify and move forward in the aftermath of sudden and frightening calamity.

Q: Will there be more Pearl Harbor stories this week?

A: Staff writer Peter Rowe has one coming Monday about a Pacific Beach mans effort to honor the wishes of his late father, a Pearl Harbor veteran, by repatriating relics that belonged to a Japanese Zero pilot. Hes also writing one for Wednesday about San Diego in the week after the attack, and will be aboard San Diegos USS Midway Museum that day, reporting on the memorial ceremonies there.

Photographer Howard Lipin and I will be traveling to Hawaii for several days of reporting on the anniversary, capturing what it means to the San Diegans who will be there.
Dr. Bob Carter still remembers that day from medical school.

He listened as a mentor neurosurgeon met with a patient suffering from a malignant brain tumor. When asked how long the patient had to live, the surgeon didnt give a number. He instead went over treatment options for that individual and emphasized his close supervision of the case.

After the visit, in my naive student way, I asked why we didnt provide a figure, Carter recalled. (He) said one of the worst kinds of disservice we can do is to take away a patients hope with a statistic.

Hope that despite often bleak statistics on life expectancy, any person with a cancerous brain tumor might beat the odds.

View the photo gallery: Brain surgery at UCSD's Thornton Hospital

Hope that while a cure remains elusive, innovative therapies will extend the length and quality of life for patients.

Hope that amid a dire prognosis, medical experts and community benefactors will offer the afflicted as much comfort and dignity as possible.

I always want to be honest and upfront: Many of our patients face difficult odds, Carter said. But they have faith in us, and we are continuing to make advances in the areas of research, diagnosis, surgery and oncology.

After a brain surgery on July 9 for a woman in her 70s, Dr. Bob Carter speaks to members of her family who were waiting at Thornton Hospital for an update. Carter is chair of the neurosurgery department at UC San Diego. / photo by Charlie Neuman  U-T

These days, Carter is harnessing those advances to spread cautious hope as chair of the growing neurosurgery department at the UC San Diego Health System. So are his neurology counterparts nationwide  from the local Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare networks to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas and the far-flung Mayo Clinic system.

Also in the mix are a select number of biotech companies pursuing new ways to detect, isolate and shrink brain tumors. These firms include Blaze Bioscience in Seattle  which is developing fluorescent dyes that make tumor cells glow a certain color  and Tocagen of San Diego, whose virus-based technology for killing tumor cells is showing promise in clinical testing.

In another sign of progress, a small but expanding circle of nonprofit groups has raised money for more brain-tumor clinical trials beyond what the government funds, patient support groups, even grants to cover mortgage payments and fill up gas tanks for families in financial distress.

Over and over, brain tumor patients find that theyre underrepresented and feel lost in the mix of diseases vying for the publics attention. Its our hope to make their paths clearer, less stressful and more inspired, said Connie Reeves Campbell, who co-founded the San Diego Brain Tumor Foundation after her 54-year-old husband, Dennis, died in 2000 after battling a brain tumor.

Carter, Campbell and others focused on this topic have come into my life in a deeply personal way.

Im writing about them not because brain tumors affect anywhere close to the number of people with cancers of the breast, lung, prostate and colon, which together make up about three-quarters of all cancer cases in the United States.

Its also not because the field has a revolutionary therapy; in fact, experts agree that we have only first-generation knowledge of this subject.

My concerns about brain tumors, particularly those that form in adults, emerged because my best friend  my soul sister  was recently diagnosed with one. As she dealt with tumor-related seizures, underwent surgery and continues recovering, Ive felt helpless in finding a solution to the root cause of her illness.

Websites, videos and journal studies keep raising the following point: The public lacks awareness of brain tumors even though these masses of abnormal cells are so complex and, too frequently, deadly.

So with this story, Im highlighting the issue in hopes that it will spread the word about the ground gained against brain tumors, the challenges that remain and the difference that greater public support can make in achieving future breakthrough treatments.

Resource limitations

This year, the United States is estimated to have more than 68,000 new diagnoses of brain tumors.

About one-third of the growths will be malignant, and most of those cases will end in death within five years. Highly aggressive tumors can kill in several months.

Worse, some tumors that start as benign can later turn cancerous for no clear reason.

This MRI scan shows an ependymoma tumor invading the base of a teenagers brain. / image courtesy of UC San Diego

The countrys system for tallying brain tumors has improved over the years, but is still limited in key ways.

Congress passed the National Cancer Act in 1971, requiring all states to collect certain details about every new cancer patient. Included in this legislation were malignant brain tumors, said professor Jill Barnholtz-Sloan at Case Western Reserve Universitys School of Medicine in Cleveland. Shes a brain tumor genomics researcher and a specialist in applying statistical analysis to biology.

It took until 2004 for the federal government to mandate data collection for benign brain tumors.

Today, hospitals report their cases of primary brain tumors  those that originate in the brain, versus metastasizing from a cancer elsewhere in the body  to each states Central Cancer Registry. All 50 states then submit the information to a program thats part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The system has its limits.

The National Program of Cancer Registries doesnt give a comprehensive picture. It lacks comparisons by geographic region, race and ethnicity, for example, said Barnholtz-Sloan, who also advises the American Brain Tumor Association.

A more detailed analysis is available through a registry coordinated by the National Cancer Institute, but the program surveys only about a quarter of the U.S. population.

A lot of the cancer registries would love to have more money to increase the scope and sophistication of their work, Barnholtz-Sloan said. So public advocacy would go a long way in urging the government and philanthropists to raise their funding.

Similarly, the medical communitys knowledge of what causes brain tumors also is limited.

Researchers have identified more than 150 types of brain tumors.

But theyre not sure why these clumps appear in the first place, why some have a neatly round shape while others are tangled masses that burrow into healthy brain tissue, why certain ones grow slowly over 10 to 20 years while others quickly explode in size.

They theorize that a slew of factors may be involved: hormones, physical trauma, other environmental conditions, gender (women are more likely to get brain tumors), links to certain medical conditions, radiation and genetics.

Signs of progress

Carter, the UC San Diego neurosurgeon overseeing treatment of my friends tumor, readily confirms the knowledge gaps in his field.

Then just as readily, he goes over the advancements.

When Carter started performing surgeries in the 1990s, he stretched out a measured thread to gauge the length of his incisions. Today he uses not only magnetic resonance imaging that shows the size and location of a tumor, but also 3-D mapping of the brain done right in the operating room.

This combination allows neurosurgeons to more precisely deal with, among other things, arteries and veins that run a couple of millimeters away from a tumor. It also enables them to meticulously plot the trajectory of their incisions to avoid spots in the brain that govern crucial functions such as speech and motor movements.

When UC San Diegos Jacobs Medical Center opens next year in La Jolla, it will feature a first for the county: intraoperative MRI, which makes it possible to image the brain via a scanner during surgery so doctors can, in real time, see whether it has shifted or how much of the tumor remains. This technology is a distinct advantage compared with doing an MRI after a surgical site in the skull has been sewn up.

In addition, Carters team and those at some other hospitals nationwide have added laser ablation to their arsenal.

The technique is another weapon against tumors that are hard to remove. It involves sending laser energy directly into a targeted area, where it causes the temperature to rise and kills off tumor cells.

Dr. Jamey Skillings is chief medical officer for the biotech company Tocagen in San Diego. / photo by Nancee E. Lewis * U-T

Research-oriented medical centers, including UC San Diego, are even experimenting with viruses to shrink malignant brain tumors. Theyre collaborating with Tocagen, headquartered in Mission Bay, on clinical trials for this technology.

The companys therapy employs a virus to deliver a gene to cancer cells. The gene then produces an enzyme that turns an antifungal medication  which is taken orally  into a chemotherapy drug to kill those cells.

Studies have shown temporary shrinkage in the worst brain tumors. Now Tocagen is eyeing the use of its treatment on less aggressive tumors, plus how to combine its product with other drugs to boost overall effectiveness.

No one should die of cancer, said Tocagen chief medical officer Dr. Jamey Skillings, citing the companys motto. If we cant eradicate the most aggressive tumors, we hope to turn them into a chronic disease rather than a death sentence.

Customized treatment

Also envisioning the day when the most potent brain tumors become highly manageable over a lifetime  similar to current treatments for HIV  is Dr. Betty Kim of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.

Like Carter at UC San Diego, Kim is both a neurosurgeon and lab researcher.

She earned her doctorate in biomaterial engineering, but decided to focus exclusively on brain tumors partly because one of her cousins suffered from a high-grade glioma  a severe diagnosis. She spends about half of her time seeing patients, and the other half leading a lab team of seven people.

Her staffs experimental pursuits fall into two categories:

 Imaging: Tapping the power of a million-dollar microscope, Kim can observe how tumors behave in mouse brains. She can track how their abnormal cells behave in real time  over days, weeks and months. In contrast, standard tumor analysis involves growing a tumor in an animal, then examining the mass after that creature has died.

We are trying to scrutinize the tumor right during its progression, and trying to manipulate various elements to see what treatments might work best, Kim said.

This includes efforts to better understand the blood-brain barrier, a force-field-like barrier of cells that has blocked most chemotherapy drugs from entering the brain.

 Personalized medicine: One of the biggest trends in modern medicine is personalized or precision medicine, where scientists try to tailor a treatment to each specific patient. This may involve coaxing an individuals stem cells to ramp up the immune system or decoding that persons genome to find mutations linked to a brain tumor.

Kim and her fellow neurosurgeons are convinced that every brain tumor is unique. Even within a single tumor, there can be many types of cells depending on each part of the mass.

Among her projects, Kim aims to build on the handful of biomarkers discovered in her field  genetic indicators in a tumor that predict how it might behave. One example is MGMT, a biomarker that forecasts how well or poorly a patient will respond to chemotherapy for the most common type of malignant tumor.

Kims research is largely underwritten by the federal government. But that wasnt the case when she first entered the field, which is generally neglected by pharmaceutical corporations because a limited patient population means low profit potential.

She jump-started her lab work last year with a $50,000 grant from the American Brain Tumor Association.

I wouldnt be able to do anything without the financial support of the foundation, and then taxpayer-funded agencies today, Kim said. Public awareness is huge. It will get policymakers attention, and that will help patients and their families in the end.

A part of the tumor being removed (white area) during a July 9 operation at Thornton Hospital is displayed on a surgical microscopes monitor. Working from left to right are: surgical technician John Hardin, Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg and Dr. Bob Carter. / photo by Charlie Neuman * U-T

Why do it?

On a recent day, Carter sat in his office at UC San Diego, speaking with me about the issues mentioned in this story.

About how he switched from studying the genetics of prostate cancer to neurosurgery after watching a tumor removal for the first time  beholding the procedures technical skill and beauty.

About his interest in brain tumors because of, not despite, the vast frontier of challenging research thats still uncharted.

About the importance of having a wide-ranging team of caregivers for a patient, from bench scientists, surgeons and oncologists to nurses, radiologists and home-health specialists.

I sat and listened to the excited tones of his voice. It made complete sense to me when he said:

Sometimes in life, theres a moment when you know that youve found what youre meant to do. For me, its to bring the most benefit, best quality of life and greatest comfort to my patients.  I have one of the best jobs in the world.

Heading out from Carters office, two emotions welled up in me.

Inspiration.

And hope.

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A new report on traffic stops in San Diego revealed that police sometimes treat black and Hispanic drivers differently than white drivers  particularly after a stop has been made  mirroring the findings of other studies from around the country.

Those studies, including some released this year, have attempted to provide data-driven evidence to support or refute what many minority communities say has long been a problem: that they are disproportionately targeted and harassed by police.

Most police departments, including San Diegos, maintain that the vast majority of officers do their jobs with integrity and without overt bias against members of any particular race or ethnicity. But some law enforcement officials have also acknowledged that unconscious bias is a factor and are now taking part in enhanced training that aims to address it.

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A recent study by researchers at Stanford University  led by Jennifer Eberhardt, an expert on racial bias and its consequences  analyzed data from more than 28,000 traffic and pedestrian stops in Oakland between April 2013 and April 2014 and found police there were far more likely to stop and search African-Americans than white people.

In North Carolina, where a study focused on traffic stops by Durham police, researchers found that black male drivers were more likely to be pulled over than whites, but there was no disparity among women drivers. In Connecticut, where researchers looked at vehicle stops throughout the state, the data showed black or Hispanic drivers were more likely to get pulled over and searched than white drivers.

The city of San Diego paid researchers at San Diego State University $62,500 to examine traffic stop records by police over a two-year period and found that black drivers were stopped more often than whites in 2014 citywide.

The disparities were more pronounced when the data was limited to drivers under the age of 25. They were not present in the 2015 data or when both years were analyzed together, the report says.

Data from both years showed that black and Hispanic drivers in San Diego were more likely to be searched after a traffic stop than whites but were less likely to be found with contraband.

Justin Nix, a Kentucky-based researcher who focuses on policing, said the findings from the San Diego study were consistent with previous research in this area, and the methodology used in the study appeared to be sound.

I think its very well done, said Nix, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisville. I trust their findings. Theyre very transparent about things like missing data and the way they carried out their analyses.

According to the report, 19 percent of the nearly 260,000 traffic-stop records analyzed were missing at least one piece of information.

Nix said the challenge for any researcher working with this kind of data is to get an accurate estimate of what the citys driving population looks like, given that in a large city like San Diego, where people use multiple modes of transportation, the driving population isnt likely to match the residential population.

To tackle that problem, SDSU researchers used a still relatively new technique called the veil of darkness, which assumes police are more likely to be able to see a drivers race in the daylight than at night.

Since 2006, the veil-of-darkness approach has been employed in fewer than 10 studies around the country, including those conducted in Oakland, Durham and Connecticut, that attempted to answer questions about whether officers were engaging in racial profiling.

They chose a well-established benchmark and they executed it well, Nix said of the San Diego study. He said he had used a variant of the technique in his own research.

But the veil of darkness has its limitations. Nix pointed out that the approach doesnt account for the possibility that police officers might be able to see a drivers race or ethnicity at night because of street lights and the headlights on their own patrol vehicles.

Theres an assumption that (the researchers) make, but you always have to make assumptions with these methodological choices, he said.

Robert Taylor, a professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas, also commended San Diego State for using the technique and agreed the study lines up with much of the existing research, including his own. But he said numbers alone dont provide a complete picture of why people are stopped and searched.

Taylor, who spent seven years as a police officer in Portland, Ore., said some of the disparities may have to do with overall stop rates in communities where crime rates are higher. He said officers conduct more stops and searches in some areas, even if they dont result in arrests, as a means to protect the law-abiding citizens who live there.

These types of techniques are aimed at quelling problems in neighborhoods, Taylor said, adding that hes spoken to many people in minority communities who support those efforts.

Although he acknowledged that tension exists between police and communities of color in some parts of the country, he said news reports have inflated that idea in recent years when covering protests that followed police shootings of black men.

Taylor said he would be much more interested in the San Diego study if it reflected results that differed significantly from whats being seen around the country. He noted a study by statistician Greg Ridgeway that analyzed data from the New York City Police Department. In 2006, the department stopped a half-million pedestrians for suspected criminal involvement.

The study found that 89 percent of those stops involved non-whites, suggesting evidence of large racial disparity.

Thats not whats coming out of (the San Diego) report, Taylor said.

At a meeting Wednesday of the City Councils Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee, several community members said the studys findings, for the most part, reflected their own experiences.

This is information that Ive lived my whole life, said Armand King, a native San Diegan who is black. He thanked the city officials who pushed for the study to be completed but said he didnt need it to know that racial bias in policing is real.

Just stop, he said. Stop racial profiling. Stop it.

Eddie Price, 56, of El Cajon balked at the idea that members of the public should strive to better understand the relationship between the community and the Police Department, as had been suggested at the meeting.

This is not the communitys problem. Were the victims.  The Police Department. The Police Department needs to own this whole issue, said Price, who is black.

Among the recommendations listed in the SDSU report was that police acknowledge the existence of racial and ethnic disparities and continue to work against them through enhanced training that focuses on implicit bias and other concepts.

Implicit bias has become a buzzword in the field over the last few years, said Nix, the University of Louisville professor. It think that the science does suggest that its real, and I think that police need to come to terms with it.

San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman was asked by council members Marti Emerald and Todd Gloria if she would acknowledge that people of color have been treated differently at times by officers in her department. She referred repeatedly to broader remarks she had made earlier in the committee meeting, drawing some groans from the audience.

Every human being has bias, Zimmerman said. We have to make sure that whatever bias every human being, and that includes police officers, has that it does not interfere with our fair and impartial policing.

She said the department already participates in enhanced training and is expected to add more of it in the coming months.

The chief said through a spokesman Friday that she would support studies like the most recent one being done in the future, and that the department will comply 100 percent with Assembly Bill 953, which sets new state requirements on collecting traffic-stop data that will go into effect next year.

Jen Lebron, a spokewoman for San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, said the city has no plans for additional traffic-stop studies at this time. The SDSU study is available on the citys website, and additional data is expected to uploaded later.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield
Theres fresh reason to worry about hackers invading your privacy and making a grab for your money and health records.

At the very moment hacking is expanding exponentially, analysts said, there are hundreds of thousands of cybersecurity jobs left unfilled in the U.S. The extent of this problem is the subject of debate; the estimated tally of vacancies ranges from 100,000 to 350,000, with as many as 45,000 in California.

The cybersecurity industry does not have the best track record when it comes to quantification, said Stephen Cobb, a senior researcher in the San Diego office of ESET, a digital security company.

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A lot of the blame is being placed on academia for failing to train large numbers of students with the targeted skills. Industry and government officials are being criticized as well for failing to define their needs more clearly  a key component for helping colleges solve the labor shortage.

Cybersecurity also has an image problem. The field pays well, but many computer-science students would rather create new products and technologies for Apple and Google than design and operate systems that spot, resist and mitigate a widening variety of attacks.

Computer science is sexy. Cyber isnt, said P.K. Agarwal, regional dean of Northeastern Universitys Silicon Valley campuses, which teach cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity can be a high-stress job where you can get fired if things go wrong, and no one pats you on the back if there were no problems overnight, he added.

The staffing shortage is serious enough that The next president should  train 100,000 new cybersecurity practitioners by 2020, the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity said on Dec. 1.

The shortage also means youll see more things like the Tesco attack, which targeted bank accounts (in England), and a greater risk to health-care records and everyday devices like your phone, said John Callahan, director of cybersecurity programs at the University of San Diego. In the digital age, this is potentially the greatest period of risk that consumers have ever faced.

Theres special concern about ransomware, a type of malicious software that hackers can use to remotely take control of computers, including those in automobiles. In most cases, victims have paid money  from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars  to regain control. For example, hackers carried out such an attack against Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in February, forcing the hospital to pay $17,000 in ransom.

The U.S. Justice Department estimates there are about 4,000 attempted ransomware attacks each day against individuals, companies and the government, and that many of them are successful.

Based on FBI statistics, bank robbery in the U.S. is a $40 million a year problem, whereas cyber criminals using ransomware are making over $200 million per quarter, said Cobb at ESET.

And while a handful of bank robbers are shot dead every year, there are no reports of cyber criminals ever being killed in the commission of a crime, he added.

The federal government and the military began to significantly ramp up their efforts to fight cyber attacks about a decade ago. Security firms and a wide range of companies did the same.

The results have been mixed.

Analysts said most cyber attacks, including some pretty sophisticated ones, are blocked or minimized. But hackers have quickly adapted to every method used to stop them, leading to damaging and embarrassing breaches amid an ongoing game of cat and mouse.

Earlier this year, hackers stole digital spying tools thought to belong to the super-secret National Security Agency. Hackers also stole data from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clintons campaign in an apparent attempt to influence the presidential election.

In late November, a hacker disabled the fare system for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, forcing it to give commuters free rides until proper operations were restored.

Experts said these kinds of intrusions underscore the need to develop a huge professional class of cyber professionals  and to market the field as a noble and dynamic domain where well-regarded, highly valued specialists defend precious assets and protect the publics safety.

Some people think of cyber as the I.T. guy, which is wrong, said Callahan at the University of San Diego.

While the staffing estimates vary, analysts agree on the huge need for qualified workers in the cyber industry.

Northeastern Universitys Agarwal estimates there are 100,000 of these unfilled jobs nationwide. Peninsula Press, a journalism program at Stanford University, puts the figure at 209,000. Cyber Seek, an industry-government coalition, said the number could be about 350,000 when including positions that require at least some cyber abilities.

The job descriptions range from security analysts to network engineers to software developers to risk managers. Some lower-level positions pay as much as $70,000 per year, and management positions can hit $235,000 or higher.

Universities are beginning to rush in with training programs  including USD, which now offers a masters degree in the field, and San Diego State University, whose homeland security program deals heavily with cybersecurity.

Experts are eager to see the applicant pool widen, and theyre looking for specific types of candidates.

The best cybersecurity professionals think like criminals, said Domini Clark, an Idaho-based recruiter at the recruiting company Decision Toolbox. The joke in the industry is that superstars have an evil bit in the code of their personalities. They know better than to have a high-profile online presence. Paranoid is too strong a word, but they tend to be hyper-cautious and some take pride in operating in stealth mode.

Those people tend to be coveted, so low-ball employment offers just dont work.

(Some) companies are doing lip service, not willing to fund the important roles that are necessary for the growing security issues, said Kirsten Bay, chief executive of the firm Cyber adAPT in Half Moon Bay. There is a desperate need for technologists who can speak at both the engineering and board levels, candidates who can understand technology and yet speak to the business case for security.

Clark at Decision Toolbox agrees, noting: About half of cybersecurity professionals are contacted by a recruiter at least once a week. If you post a standard H.R. job description of duties and requirements, it will wash out among all the other background noise  (Candidates) want to do intriguing work that is varied and unique. Let them use their devious creativity to your companys advantage.

RELATED

How to protect your web connected devices from hackers

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
Tweets by President-elect Donald Trump made front-page news three times last week in the U-T.His comment that he had fallen short in the popular vote because millions had cast ballots illegally received A1 play Monday with a New York Times story.

His tweet that people who burn the American flag should perhaps lose their citizenship or spend a year in jail was the basis for a front-page Times story Wednesday. Then he tweeted that he would separate himself from his business operations, which resulted in another A1 Times story Thursday.

The tweets received big coverage nationwide, as many of his tweets did throughout the campaign. Some in the media are saying news organizations and others need to cool it.

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In a Nov. 19 article titled Stop Being Trumps Twitter Fool on the Politico Magazine website, Politicos senior media writer Jack Shafer wrote that real news is obscured when people and the media respond en masse to Trumps tweets.

Washington Post political reporter Aaron Blake disagrees. He wrote a Nov. 29 piece headlined Why We Cant  and Shouldnt Ignore  Donald Trumps Tweets.This is the president-elect of the United States, Blake wrote. The job comes with the so-called bully pulpit, and what he says matters and will be the subject of debate no matter what the mainstream media does. Everything he says reverberates. It doesnt matter if he says it on Twitter or at a news conference; either way its going to be consumed by tens of millions of people, and the media has an important role to play when it comes to fact-checking and providing context.

The stories in the U-T sought to do that, although the piece on voter fraud seemed overzealous, labeling Trumps claim baseless in the lead. The story on the flag-burning tweet noted the Constitution does not allow the government to expatriate Americans against their will, and the Supreme Court has ruled that flag-burning is symbolic speech protected under the Constitution. And the story on separating himself from his businesses included perspective from legal and ethics experts weighing in on what Trump would have to do to avoid conflict of interest.His method of communicating is a huge break from the past.

As U-T veteran news editor Mitch Weinstock put it, Covering Trump is to venture deep into uncharted journalistic waters.

So far, via tweets, he has promised to separate himself from his business empire, threatened to cut diplomatic relations with Cuba, made false claims about millions of illegal votes and suggested that flag burners be punished and possibly lose their U.S. citizenship, Weinstock said.But there is one simple thing to keep in mind. When the president-elect makes a statement  even if its only a tweet  its newsworthy. In Trumps case, since he has not made himself available to the press, his tweeted pronouncements represent the only hint of whats going through his mind.Even though he is reducing complicated subjects into tiny soundbites they represent the closest thing we in the media have to policy statements.

I apply the same news judgment I would to a statement given by any other world leader, Weinstock said. But, because Trump communicates in tweets, Im required to expand his 140-character communiques into stories that include context and note if the president-elects statements are based in reality.

For example, calling attention to the fact that his claim that he would have won the popular vote had it not been for millions of illegal votes was completely unsubstantiated. Or to note that Trumps tweet declaring that he will separate himself from his businesses to avoid conflicts of interest has been met by skepticism from business-ethics specialists and rejected by the Office of Government Ethics.

Weinstock will frequently combine multiple news service reports to produce a single story.

Rebecca Coates Nee, associate professor in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at SDSU, provided some perspective on coverage:

The media are obligated to cover Trumps tweets just as they would a press release or press conference. That means if the president-elect tweets something that could be considered newsworthy, that tweet should be covered. Fewer than 20 percent of the population use Twitter, so many people do not have access to what he is saying on the platform. For now, his tweets are generally newsworthy because they give the public insight into what he is thinking about as he is on the verge of becoming president and where he plans to take his administration, she said.

In the long term, I do not think the media need to cover every tweet that he sends, however. Reporters would not cover everything he says in a news conference. Clearly, the president-elect plans to use social media to reach the public directly and possibly bypass the mass media.

After awhile, many of the tweets likely will cease to be newsworthy, unless they represent a policy position, Coates Nee said.

Id like to hear from readers. If you were a reporter or editor, how would you handle Trumps tweets? Email readers.rep@sduniontribune.com.
State Sen. Joel Anderson visited a recent Ramona Rotary Club luncheon meeting, giving members insight into state politics and updates on legislation, and presenting a certificate of recognition to a longtime Rotary member.

Anderson honored 96-year-old Don Owen of Ramona for his outstanding community service and 60 years of perfect attendance at Rotary meetings.

The senator also invited his constituents to his Annual Holiday Legislative Open House to be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, at Toyota of El Cajon, 965 Arnele Ave. in El Cajon. The event keeps growing in attendance, he said, and will highlight positive things that are happening in the 38th District that he represents. Music, food, the opportunity to share ideas to improve state government and a chance to meet other local officials will all be part of the event.

Its a lot of fun. Its a very festive evening, said Anderson, who later noted, None of its paid for by taxpayers.

Anderson also shared how support and letters from his constituents have helped him in moving legislation forward. He presented copies of two senate bills, SB 1057 which he authored, and SB 2, which he coauthored.

SB 1057: Andys law; state-level counter-terrorism would allow victims of terrorism and their families to recover damages and attorneys fees from those who facilitate acts of terrorism.

The bill is named after Private William Andy Long, who was killed in June 2009 in Little Rock, Ark., when a Jihadist terrorist shot two U.S. Army soldiers outside a recruiting office. According to Anderson, several states have passed Andys Law but there is no avenue in California for victims of terrorism or their families to seek civil damages against those who carried out terrorism acts.

SB 2: Protecting Veteran Halls would preserve property tax exemptions for Congressionally-chartered, nonprofit veterans service organizations, such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, allowing them to remain open to serve the many needs or our veteran population.

According to Anderson, many veteran halls are not receiving the property tax exemptions for portions of their property that have social purposes and this is leading many halls to run a deficit or even shut down.

Lets honor these people who served our country, he said.

Anderson also talked about his internship program and said his office couldnt run at the rate it does without the interns. Theyre always out in the field, he said.

One of his interns, Brittany Poler, was at the meeting, attending with members of Interact, Rotarys service club for students at Ramona High School.
The Army Corps of Engineers is halting construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe announced on Sunday.

Most of the 1,172-mile-long pipeline has already been constructed. A small section that was slated to run under the Missouri River in southern North Dakota, located a mile from the Standing Rock reservation was not yet underway due to massive protests from residents and activists who worried about the pipeline's adverse environmental effects, proximity to the reservation, and location on stolen Native land.

Instead of allowing construction to continue, the Army Corps of Engineers will "be undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes," chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement.

"The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and all of Indian Country will be forever grateful to the Obama administration for this historic decision," Archambault said. He also thanked the tribal youth who initiated the protests against the pipeline, which began in April, and the "millions of people around the globe" who expressed support for their cause.

"The Army's announcement underscores that tribal rights reserved in treaties and federal law, as well as Nation-to-Nation consultation with tribal leaders, are essential components of the analysis to be undertaken in the environmental impact statement going forward," U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement.

Since April, thousands of protesters from more than 300 indigenous tribes across the Americas, as well as non-Native demonstrators, have been camped out on the site. Beginning in September, contractors from a private security firm armed with mace and guard dogs began to attack protesters on the site. Various protesters have been arrested at the site, including Democracy Now! reporter Amy Goodman.

"With this decision, we look forward to being able to return home and spend the winter with our families and loved ones, many of whom have sacrificed as well," Archambault said. "We look forward to celebrating in wopila, in thanks, in the coming days. We hope that Kelcey Warren, Governor Dalrymple, and the incoming Trump administration respect this decision and understand the complex process that led us to this point."

Although protesters are celebrating the announcement, an attorney for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has warned that the Trump administration could overturn the decision.

Financial disclosure forms filed by President-elect Trump in May show that he owned between $15,000 and $50,000 in stock in Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline. Trump also listed $100,000 to $250,000 in stock in Phillips 66, which controls a quarter share of the pipeline.

Trump's stock in the pipeline is thus one of the many conflicts of interests his administration faces. Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, donated $3,000 to Trump's campaign and an additional $100,000 to a Trump-supporting PAC and $66,800 to the Republican National Committee.

"They [Energy Transfer Partners] can sue, and Trump can try to overturn," attorney Jan Hasselman told the Guardian. "But overturning it would be subject to close scrutiny by a reviewing court, and we will be watching the new administrator closely."
During the last Afghan civil war, rival strongmen fought military battles over boys they desired, wrecking neighborhoods and lives with their violent lust.

Some of those warlords later became U.S. allies in the fight against the Taliban, making the custom of bacha bazi  boy play  their dirty secret of the international counterinsurgency campaign.

Now, an American Green Beret who refused to look the other way is fighting to save his Army career. Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland, a decorated special-operations soldier, beat an Afghan militiaman who kidnapped a 12-year-old boy and chained him to his bed as a sex slave.

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As with corruption, the opium trade and other social ills that are pervasive in Afghanistan  one of the poorest, most war-torn countries in the world  U.S. military commanders are in a dilemma. They find the rampant sexual abuse of children repugnant, but they also need the help of local commanders and tribal leaders in the ongoing war against the Taliban and terrorist groups.

Army policy dictated that U.S. soldiers should report criminal behavior to local authorities and let them handle it. But the local government was corrupt and ineffective, Martland said in a signed statement.

Our (Afghan Local Police) were committing atrocities and we were quickly losing the support of the local populace. The severity of the rapes and the lack of action by the Afghan government caused many of the locals to view our ALP as worse than the Taliban. If the locals resumed supporting the Taliban, attacks against U.S. forces would have increased dramatically, he said.

Martland, an 11-year veteran and a Bronze Star recipient for valor in combat, was formally reprimanded for assaulting the Afghan Local Police commander in 2011 in Kunduz province. Gen. Christopher Haas, then-commander of Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command Afghanistan, called Martlands behavior unprofessional and inexcusable.

After an inquiry, the Army ruled that Martland would be involuntarily discharged from the Army no later than Nov. 1.

Capt. Daniel Quinn, Martlands team leader who helped pummel the local police commander, was also pushed out of the service.

U.S. politicians and other supporters rallied on their behalf, appalled by what they consider to be cultural sensitivity training gone wrong or venal political expediency. The controversy has cast a spotlight on bacha bazi, which is a centuries-old custom in the rural fiefdoms of the Pashtun south, one that was rooted in a culture of extreme segregation of the sexes mixed with the callousness of poverty and war.

Seeking to clear Martlands record, the Family Research Council delivered more than 130,000 petition signatures to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

After lobbying of defense officials, congressional scrutiny and front-page coverage in The New York Times that quickly attracted more than 2,000 reader comments, Martland was this month granted a 60-day extension for a new appeal.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, wrote several letters to Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Martlands defense and provided character references.

To say that youve got to be nice to the child rapist because otherwise the other child rapists might not like you is one of the stupidest things Ive ever heard  totally insane and wrong, Hunter said in one.

Martland had a moral necessity to intervene against a child rapist who was supported by U.S. trainers and tax dollars, and he did so in a way that was misrepresented by Army leadership, Hunter added.

Charles is an elite warrior, and hes exactly the type of person we need and want defending this country. He did the right thing when he confronted the Afghan commander for kidnapping and raping a young boy  and it wasnt the first time he encountered this kind of situation, Hunter told The San Diego Union-Tribune. I have every reason to believe that Charles status will be restored, because there is no way that our Defense Department or the Army will put a child rapist and corrupt commander above one of the best soldiers serving today.

Martland, now a senior instructor for Army Special Forces, wants to reclassify as a medic and continue his otherwise exemplary Army career. If his latest appeal is rejected, he will be booted out and owe the Army $3,000, he said.

In an Oct. 6 letter to Hunter, Martland complained of a gag order and said the Army was being hypocritical for drumming him out of the service even as it claimed to take sexual misconduct in its own ranks seriously.

The Army still has a tremendous opportunity to make the right decision and show the country that its values are in line with the values of the American people it serves, Martland wrote.

The Afghan boys mother, who was beaten by the police commander, brought her son to the American base for medical attention.

Martland conceded in a Jan. 19 statement to the Army that he was absolutely wrong for striking the police commander, but after hearing about the incident, I felt that morally we could no longer stand by and allow our ALP to commit atrocities.

The Afghan provincial chief of police called a linguist who worked with the Americans and asked why Afghan Local Police commander Abdul Rahman had been punched and pushed.

According to a statement by Quinns linguist, Abdul Rahman did not think that abusing a child sexually warranted any discussion.  (He) was laughing and joking about the incident, and he exaggerated his injuries and the reaction of the Americans.

The linguist also said when the provincial police chief found out why Rahman had been beaten, he was appalled and told him he should be dismissed, arrested and put away for life.

A special operator on the U.S. team said it had been struggling for months with complaints from villagers about the Afghan Local Police it mentored, including accusations of sexual assault and rape.

We were the sole U.S. entity that was responsible for the training, arming and empowering this local police force. Thus, right or wrong, the criminal actions and abuses of power by these Afghan men were a reflection of the (team), the special operator said in a statement collected by Hunter.

We realized the disgusting behavior often displayed by the local Afghans contradicted our own morals. Although these cultural differences were understood, it did not make them any easier to accept or less vile. ... There was never an acceptance by any of the (team) members that we would ignore the pleas of the innocent to basic human decency. We took it personally, said the operator, who remains on active duty.

Retired Staff Sgt. Kevin Flike is a former Green Beret who served two tours with Martland in Afghanistan. He described Martland as a ferocious soldier, a humble patriot and an incredible man and friend.

When Flike was shot in the abdomen, he lost part of his colon, fractured his hip and was permanently disabled by nerve damage. Martland checked on him often and helped him perform physical therapy. If it were not for people like SFC Martland, I would not be where I am today, Flike said.

Afghanistan has been continuously at war since 1978  during a communist coup, the Soviet invasion, civil war, a Taliban takeover and the ongoing U.S.-led occupation. During more than three decades of violence, pederasty and gang rapes of boys sometimes resulted in gruesome injuries, such as punctured bowels, and even death.

Although girls are kidnapped from their homes and raped as well, increasingly so during the social upheaval of wartime, families are often more fearful that their boys  who are free to roam in public  will catch the eye of a powerful man.

The purchase of a beloved boy with effeminate, beardless looks between ages 9 to 16 is a status symbol in some circles. Although the practice is not mainstream, the sexual abuse of boys made to dress as girls and entertain commanders is a well-known subculture.

The chai tea boys, as they are sometimes called, were the subject of the best-selling novel The Kite Runner, as well as the documentary by journalist Najibullah Quraishi titled The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan.

Sexual abuse of children is illegal in Afghanistan, but bacha bazi has been difficult to eradicate. The practice seems to be growing more prevalent in the north, spreading beyond the southern stronghold of the Pashtun tradition in Kandahar, where women live in extreme seclusion from men.

In the most conservative areas, some men consider women as being useful for childbearing and fellow men as being for pleasure. Among mujahideen fighters hiding in the mountains without women and families, homosexuality became more socially acceptable.

Some commanders grew so powerful during the wars that they were untouchable by the law, and some families grew so poor that they felt forced to sell one boy into sexual slavery so the others could eat, said Breshna Aziz, an instructor of Afghan culture and languages at San Diego State University.

It is not regular people doing this. It is warlords who are practicing that. Its not our culture. Its not our religion. Its just those people taking advantage of their power, said Aziz, who trains Marines deploying to Afghanistan on Afghan customs.

Ironically, the Taliban militants infamous for their repression of women also cracked down on bacha bazi, which is taboo according to Islam and mainstream Afghan culture.

The Afghan government signed an agreement with the United Nations three years ago pledging to eradicate bacha bazi and other forms of sexual violence against children, but many feel powerless against the child predators.

Everybody is afraid of them. That is one reason nobody does anything. Even if someone gets arrested, the next day they come out of jail because of the corruption. And then what do they do? They go back to that family who reported them and kill all of them, said Aziz, who was born in Afghanistan and travels there regularly, working as a journalist.
MANCHESTER PRESERVE Trail head: From Interstate 5, exit at Manchester Avenue, heading east for about one mile. You must turn right to continue on Manchester when it intersects with El Camino Real, which continues straight. Manchester Preserves parking area is just before Manchester and Trabert Ranch Road. There is also a northern entrance into the preserve off Landquist Drive. Length: The several trails span about three to four miles if you wandered around the entire preserve. The main trail is about two miles round-trip. Allow at least an hour. Difficulty: Easy to moderate.

Just a mile east of Interstate 5 in Encinitas lies the Manchester Preserve, a 123-acre open space that offers several miles of trails through coastal sage scrub and chaparral.

There are three or four trails (depending on how you connect them) that pass through a gently sloping canyon and rise along steep and eroded canyon walls to some fine vistas.

The main trail follows a major power line, and the preserve is in the middle of suburban development, so although youre not in deep backcountry, its a remarkably pristine place to hike.

Manchester Preserve was established in 1996 when The Techbilt Cos., a large residential development firm in Southern California, proposed the establishment of the Manchester Mitigation Bank.

Techbilt selected The Center for Natural Lands Management to own and manage the preserve in perpetuity. While the center, a nonprofit conservation organization based in Fallbrook, owns and manages this preserve, the city of Encinitas has an easement over the trails, which means that the city maintains them.

Manchester Preserve supports coastal sage scrub, southern maritime chaparral and willow woodland and is home to the endangered species of the coastal California gnatcatcher bird, San Diego thornmint (a tiny funnel-shaped, two-lipped, light violet flower that blooms in spring) and Orcutts hazardia (a native shrub that blooms in late summer and early fall).

Signs urge hikers to stay on the trails to help protect the habitat.

Manchester Preserves trails are open to hikers, bicyclists and horseback riders, but no motorized vehicles of any kind are allowed. Dogs are welcome but must be on leashes.

When I was there in March, a fellow hiker warned me that a rattlesnake was leisurely lying across one of the trails. Such a hazard is a good reason to keep your dogs on leashes. Be aware that while rattlesnakes hibernate during the cold fall and winter months, they awaken during the warm months of March and April.
A man fatally shot his former girlfriend and her mother before killing himself in a Warner Springs double murder and suicide last week, a sheriffs official confirmed Monday.

Friends of one of the women found Sadie Stockalper, 28, and her 63-year-old mother, Felice Howard-Vinnard, dead in their home on Chihuahua Valley Road, off state Route 79, about 6:40 p.m. Friday, sheriffs homicide Lt. John Maryon said.

The daughters 52-year-old ex-boyfriend, Steven Keith, was also found in the home suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken in an ambulance to a landing zone to be picked up by a medical helicopter, but he died before the chopper took off.

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Investigators believe Keith shot Stockalper and Howard-Vinnard three times each in the upper body before shooting himself in the head, Maryon said Monday. A semi-automatic handgun was found in the house.

Micki Stockalper Plummer, Stockalpers aunt, said Keith began living at the home several months ago. He would regularly have downtime between welding jobs, she said, and during his most recent lull, the two women said he could stay with them.

Shortly after, though, Stockalper ended the relationship. They had been broken up for at least a month before her death, the aunt said, and Keith was living in another dwelling on the property.

Stockalper Plummer had met Keith many times and said she was shocked when she was told of the killings.

It would never have crossed my mind to ask if she or Felice felt safe, she said.

Both women were well-loved in the small, close-knit community of Warner Springs.

Stockalper graduated from Warner High School. She worked at The Hideout Saloon, a bar off state Route 76, where she wore many hats, including, at times, greeter, server, cook and manager. But her true love was cooking, her aunt said. About six years ago, she started a restaurant in the community called Sadies Homestyle Restaurant. Tragically, her aunt said, it burned down.

Recently, Stockalper had started a food delivery business. She made organic meals, growing many of the ingredients herself, and delivered them to residents in her recognizable Volkswagen bus. She had been cooking mere hours before her death, her aunt said. Her van was already loaded with meals.

I cant tell you how many people have independently used the word luminous because she was such a bright force, Stockalper Plummer said of her niece. That kid could have done anything.

Although Howard-Vinnard wasnt a sister-in-law by marriage, since she and Stockalpers father had divorced, she was very much a part of the family, Stockalper Plummer said. Howard-Vinnard spent much of her time with her two daughters, one who lives in San Francisco. The mother was artistic and incredibly creative.

Were devastated, the aunt said. You read about these things in the news and it never dawns on you that this could be your family. And then it was.

A nature-inspired memorial for both women will likely be held in two weeks. For more information, visit the events Facebook page.
LAKE CITY, S.C.  Graham Farm in Lake City was transformed into a colonial village and battleground this weekend as part of the second American Heritage Festival.

The living history event was started to highlight colonial South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War. Graham Farm was used by Francis Marion as a place of refuge from the incessant search for him and his men by Banastre Tareton. American Heritage director Paul Graham inherited the farm about seven years ago.

Graham organized the festival as a way to keep the memory of the war alive. This years event featured a colonial village, battle re-enactments, live music, historical presentations and a display of lights, among other things.

We had a ton of people at the colonial village. The re-enactment was fantastic. Everybody really enjoyed that, Graham said. We had close to 500 people in one day (Saturday).

The nearly 500 people who attended the festival Saturday was almost equal to the total weekend attendance last year, Graham said. This years festival began Friday evening and will end Sunday afternoon.

The word is starting to get out there, and were happy about that, Graham said.

People of all ages turned out for the event. Melissa Ransome, 11, was one of the younger people at the festival.

Its very, very fun, she said. Its fun to just explore around on the fields.

Erick Nason is the commander and re-enactor coordinator for the Second South Carolina re-enactment group of American Continentals. He said the festival is a nice way to end the year and his group has enjoyed it.

Were not only doing the re-enactments, were trying to put on a colonial Christmas theme so folks could see what Christmas was like, Nason said. Our unit did operate in this area. We actually used this farm. Its nice to go to the areas this unit actually participated in.

This weekend, Nason and his unit stayed on Graham Farm for the duration of the festival. At night, they slept in colonial-style tents, cooked meals over fires during the day and sat next to the fires to keep warm.

I think that people who do this really enjoy being out, and they really enjoy history, and it is nice to re-enact it and to feel like youve gone back in time, said Ding Denlinger, another re-enactor at the festival.

Denlinger said she has participated in colonial re-enactments for more than 25 years. At this years festival, she brought along her slip-decorated earthenware pottery, which was on display and for sale.

Denlinger said the American Heritage Festival is a great thing.

I think a lot of the parks and stuff had their funding cut, and a lot of people arent doing this as much, Denlinger said. Itd be really nice to have another event here. A lot of people know Camden, but itd be nice to have one here.

The American Heritage Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today. Scheduled events include the colonial Christmas village, marsh tacky horses, cannon demonstrations, a revolutionary battle re-enactment, and a historian presentation. A full listing of events can be found at theamericanheritagefestival.com. Graham Farm is at 843 McCutcheon Road, Lake City.
The first time Emma Stone hosted Saturday Night Live, the politician everyone was talking about was Jimmy "The Rent Is Too Damn High" McMillan. The second time, it was Rick Perry. And now we've got someone who combines McMillan's showmanship instincts with Perry's razor sharp intellect. Anyway, the La La Land star did a terrific job hosting the show for a third time, committing to every sketch with a twinkle in her eye.

In the ten-to-one sketch, Stone was the perfect Virgin Mary, who gets increasingly aggravated by the visitors (some of whom you might also recognize from the Bible) barging in, uninvited, just after she's given birth in a barn. She also played a mother in a commercial for a Fisher-Price toy for, well, for boys who are more sensitive than the usual ones.

During the monologue, Stone likened SNL to "high school," revisiting interactions with the cast (Vanessa Bayer is a great mean girl). In the recurring, "Theatre Showcase" segment, Stone, Aidy Bryant (Stone's actual high school classmate) and the rest of the well-meaning but clueless drama club kids take on today's issues, promising that all proceeds from the show will go towards Standing Rock to help get "Native Americans the pipeline that they want." Pete Davidson continued his stretch of playing high school students, this time by playing a kid whose postersincluding Stone as a ditzy pinup with a love of hot dogscome to life to explain how important math and staying in high school are.

Michael Che sounded off on the federal ban on smoking in public housingChe grew up in projects on the Lower East Sidein Weeknd Update while Leslie Jones gave her thoughts on relationships and Bayer reprised her "Rachel" from Friends, with the real Jennifer Aniston making an appearance.

A video posted by Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) on Dec 3, 2016 at 9:48pm PST

Click through for the sketches, including an office cleaning crew with insight into Santa Claus and a commercial for that holiday staple, the Christmas Candle. Next week's host is John Cena with musical guest Maren Morris; December 17 sees Casey Affleck and Chance the Rapper. Chance, btw, is asking for help on what he should perform.
When Donald Trump said climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese, 7 out of 10 Americans knew better than to believe it, according to a recent survey. And his positions on the environment are well known, including campaign promises to boost the use of coal, kill the Environmental Protection Agency, cancel the Paris climate deal, and cut U.S. payment to United Nations climate change programs.

"The presidency may be changing," Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, told Seeker. "But the threats posed by runaway climate change and unsustainable resource-use remain."

Activists are doing more than protesting. They're suing the government, raising millions and funding and promoting companies that produce renewable energy.

Last month a U.S. District Judge allowed a climate case against the government to go forward that was initiated by a group of children - ages 9 to 20. Their suit alleges climate change inaction on the part of the federal government, and former NASA researcher and aclimate scientist James Hansen joined the suit last year in support of his granddaughter.

RELATED: Here are 5 Simple Ways to Put the Brakes on Climate Change

"Get the school kids - and their teachers - involved," said Dr. Tim Barnett, a research marine physicist at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. "It will take a national movement to beat the energy industry influence."

Billionaire environmentalist and philanthropist Tom Steyer is employing a time-tested method of exerting influence: spending boatloads of money. "We have always been willing to do whatever is necessary," Steyer said to Reuters when asked how much he was willing to spend fighting Trump's pro-drilling and anti-regulation platform.

Steyer's political action group, NextGen Climate, is organizing volunteers, accepting donations and taking political action to combat climate change and support the transition to a clean energy economy.

According to NextGen, President Obama took an important step forward last week, as he intends to block new offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean in the next five-year plan, at the urging of environmentalists. The action group is calling on Obama to go even further in the last weeks of his presidency by permanently protecting the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans from hazardous offshore oil drilling.

"A majority of Americans voted against President-elect Trump's vision of the future last week," Heather Hargreaves, vice president of NextGen Climate, told Seeker. "Since Election Day, thousands of Americans have signed up to volunteer."

Entrepreneurs from around the world recently gathered at the Meaning conference in Brighton, UK, to discuss how businesses can influence positive change. Post-Trump climate change policy was, of course, a much-discussed topic. Good Energy CEO Juliet Davenport pointed to crowdfunding as a way for small businesses to get funded in markets where large corporate players may dominate.

"Today, the crowdfunding model gives you huge freedom that lets you loose from the traditional city funding or government innovation funding. Then you can start playing with new business models and new ideas."

WATCH: Why Do People Still Deny Climate Change?
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The highest point of San Franciscos Bayview hill had been a mound of dirt with a rusty old sundial for years now.

But Saturday, community leaders and elected officials at local and state levels celebrated the reopening of the new and improved Hilltop Park at La Salle Avenue and Whitney Young Circle.

Now, the giant 70-foot sundial at the top of the hill shines a bright golden yellow, the dirt hill has been replaced with bright green grass, and the old skate park  celebrated as the citys first skate park  has been revamped by the Tony Hawk Foundation.

The $6.7 million renovation was funded in large part under AB31, pushed by state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, in an effort to bring open land and space to children in all areas of the city.

Every single child, irrespective of who you are, where you are from, the hue of your skin, your ZIP code, and yes, your legal status, deserves access to land and space, de Leon told the crowd.

A number of groups came together, from the local Parks 94214 organization and the Trust for Public Lands to the state Department of Parks and Recreation, to fund the project.

Jeffrey Miller, a landscape architect on the project, looked at the final product of the four-year design plan with pride.

It was just two big sand pits, he said Saturday morning, staring at the sun-and-moon-themed childrens play areas and the concrete slide that has been there from the parks beginnings in the 1970s.

The old park, built under then-Mayor George Moscone in 1978, had been in disrepair for years, said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the citys Recreation and Park Department.

Ginsburg was excited to show off every inch of the improved 3-acre park.

Wow. Look at this place. Look at this place, Ginsburg, emcee for the event, told his audience. This place is off the hook. This is one of the best parks in San Francisco.

Jenelle Mitchell, who brought 3-year-old son Darrin to the event, agreed.

This is really awesome, she said as her son begged to go higher on his swing. The kids needed something to do.

Earlier, Darrin had screamed at the top of his lungs as he went down one of the concrete slides, using a cardboard box as a makeshift sled.

Mom, look at these houses! shouted 10-year-old Aliyah Hopkins, getting an up-close look at the neighborhood from one of the parks telescopes.

I feel like Im surrounded by nature, she said. Its fun.

Her mother, Gigi Hill-Hopkins, is a director of the YMCA in Bayview, and remembers roller-skating in the old skateboard bowls back in the 70s.

I was born and raised here. This is my stomping area, she said. This was a place where everyone could come and just have fun.

It seems it is again, and Supervisor Malia Cohen, who represents the area, says the plan is to revitalize even more local parks.

Gilman Playground was improved over the summer, McLaren Park is in the midst of improvements, and one of the more ambitious goals is to transform the India Basin shoreline into a public space.

For a long time, the southeast neighborhoods have suffered. These days are gone, Cohen told the crowd. Every park in D-10, every park in the southeast of San Francisco, will be clean, will be safe, and will be a fun place.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
Theyre artists. Theyre musicians. Theyre performers.

And they were among the missing on Saturday, the day after a deadly fire ripped through an Oakland warehouse filled with partygoers.

Tied together through the Bay Areas close-knit techno arts community, dozens had converged for a night of drinking and dancing at an underground rave inside a converted warehouse that served as an artists live-in wonderland.

Many were students and service workers holding restaurant and retail jobs while trying to break through as entertainers, sustaining a creative culture thats become scarce in the Bay Area as economic prosperity increasingly prices out the arts scene.

These were not drugged-out, raving kids, They were talented. They worked hard, said Dylan Gallagher, part of Berkeley-based synth pop duo vverevvolf, who had performed with some of the musicians at Fridays event, like Nicole Denalda Renae and Ben Runnels of Introflirt. This is more than just a loss. Its frustrating, as weird as that sounds. They had so much potential.

Thirty people were confirmed dead in the blaze, though their names were yet to be released. The death toll was expected to grow.

Micah Danemayer, 28, was doing a light show for the party and he and his girlfriend, Alana Jen Kane, were among the missing late Saturday afternoon, according to Danemayers friend and bandmate Devyn Fordyce, 26.

Ive never met anybody so passionate, not only for his own art and music but for everyone elses, Fordyce said by phone Saturday afternoon after trying to go to work but leaving early because he was distressed. I just really, really hope hes just asleep somewhere.

Danemayer and Fordyce had recently started an electronic music band, Red Cellar, playing synthesizers to create improvised rhythmic noises. Their first real gig is supposed to be in January.

Jason McCarty, 36, also hadnt been heard from by late Saturday afternoon.

The sound artist, whose stage name is Dilatedears, came to California from Iowa in 2005 to get his masters degree at San Francisco Art Institute and never looked back, according to his girlfriend, Grace Lovio.

Hes really connected to the Bay Area art scene, she said by phone Saturday afternoon, before boarding her flight to the Bay Area from France, where she is studying at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

The two spoke Friday, but McCarty didnt mention that he was going to the show. On Saturday, Lovio saw his name on a list of people who were unaccounted for being circulated online. McCarty didnt return her calls.

I just feel kind of hollowed out. I just really love him and just cant imagine Im just kind of scared, she said.

Michela Gregory, among the missing Saturday afternoon as well, is a student at San Francisco State University studying child development, while holding a job at Urban Outfitters on Fillmore Street in San Francisco.

She went to Fridays show with her boyfriend, Alex Vega, something the two often do together, according to her parents.

Im in shock, said her father, David Gregory, who was in Oakland on Saturday to try to learn the whereabouts of his daughter at the sheriffs substation where the Red Cross was set up. Im hoping for a miracle.

Pete Wadsworth, 38, was another who couldnt be located Saturday, according to friends. He was among a dozen or so people who lived at the burned-out arts space, known as the Ghost Ship.

He was like my big brother. He took very good care of me. He was a sweetheart, said Tammy Tasoff, a 29-year-old student at UCSF.

Wadsworth was the entrepreneurial type, Tasoff said, and his latest venture was trying to start a cannabis salsa company. He previously worked with drones.

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.

Since moving from Boston about three years ago, Wadsworth had taken an interest in art, making sculptures at the warehouse, Tasoff said.

Vanessa Plotkin, a third-year sociology student at UC Berkeley, went with her roommate to downtown Oakland and likely stopped at the rave, too, said family members who had been texting her about her plans to go to a party and hadnt heard from her since 11 p.m. Friday.

Were beside ourselves, said Gary Plotkin on Saturday night from their home in Lakehood (Los Angeles County). This is just like a nightmare. I cant believe this.

Alex Ghassan was also unaccounted for, according to his friend Vikram Babu. The noted video and music producer, who has recently done work for KQED and the Oakland Museum, is considered a driving force in Oaklands arts scene.

He would attend parties like this because thats how you network as a creative, said Babu, reached by phone late Saturday afternoon. Thats how you find interesting people who are sticking it out here despite expensive housing and sky-high rent.

Much of Ghassans work reflects upon the economic and artistic struggles of the black community. He has come to know many longtime Oakland residents, Babu said, and has supported those trying to preserve the citys culture and diversity amid gentrification, like several at Saturdays show.

These were musicians and artists trying to give more meaning to their life than what this economic climate has designed for them, Babu said. Its a small creative community here.

Chronicle staff writers Erin Allday and Rachel Swan contributed to this report.

Kimberly Veklerov, Jenna Lyons, Jill Tucker and Kurtis Alexander are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com, jtucker@sfchronicle.com, kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov, @jennajourno, @jilltucker, @kurtislexander
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If the stars line up, Mayor Ed Lee could break ground within months on the two signature projects for which he hopes to be remembered  the Warriors arena in Mission Bay and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on Treasure Island.

Having cleared the last serious legal hurdle after a court victory last week, the Warriors are finalizing approvals for the 18,500-seat arena, and the first shovel could turn early next year, with completion expected in time for Lee to cut the ribbon before the 2019-20 season.

Now comes the fun part, said Warriors spokesman P.J. Johnston. This is where the vision becomes the reality.

The Mission Bay Alliance and other opponents who raised questions about the environmental impact of the arena could still take their challenge to the state Supreme Court, but legal experts say the 3-0 vote in favor of the project at the Court of Appeal last week pretty much seals the deal.

In any event, the Warriors feel secure enough to move ahead.

In the meantime, its coming down to crunch time in the competition between San Francisco and Los Angeles to land George Lucas $1 billion legacy museum. In the next two weeks, both cities will submit letters of intent firming up their obligations and responsibilities  in other words, their best offers.

For San Francisco, that includes ensuring that Treasure Islands master developer  a joint venture led by Lennar Corp. and Wilson Meany Sullivan  turn over 4 acres on the southeast corner of the former naval base for the Lucas museum, accelerate work to shore up the man-made island and provide ferry service from downtown.

With a usually divided Board of Supervisors already on board and no major environmental hurdles standing in the way, officials are cautiously optimistic Lucas and his museum board will pick the dramatic Treasure Island location over Los Angeles already crowded Exposition Park.

It seems to be going smoothly from our end, said Adam Van de Water, the mayors point man on the Treasure Island project. We are doing our due diligence and hoping for the best.

Lucas and his museum board are expected to make the call Jan. 6.

Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

Ladys choice: When Jerry Brown gave the surprise nod for attorney general to Los Angeles Rep. Xavier Becerra, insiders turned their gazes to check the reaction of Browns chief of staff, Nancy McFadden.

After all, McFadden had been on everyones short list as a leading contender to fill out the term vacated by Kamala Harris election to the U.S. Senate.

In fact, McFadden had held several long and deep conversations with the governor about being appointed attorney general and the challenge of mounting a statewide election campaign in two years. Ultimately, McFadden demurred and suggested to the governor that he consider Becerra.

However, another source who spoke to the governor tells us Brown had indicated as far back as August that he wanted to name a Latino to the attorney generals job if the seat opened. At the time, however, Bacerra wasnt considered because it was fully expected he would be joining Hillary Clintons administration, either as chief of staff or as a Cabinet member.

Last months election changed everything, and what followed was a series of long phone conversations between Becerra and Brown.

The decision to appoint him had to be made more quickly than the governor expected when Becerra announced he was making a bid to become the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and Becerra felt it would be unfair to everyone for him to be seeking two jobs at the same time.

That all went down in the final 48 hours, before the announcement, said one source close to the selection process.

Incidentally, the big loser in the play may have been state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who has already raised $3 million for a run for attorney general in two years  he now faces an uphill climb.

Golden state: With Donald Trump threatening to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities that protect undocumented immigrants, the Oakland City Council doubled down Tuesday.

Not only did the council approve a resolution reaffirming Oaklands refusal to cooperate with the feds when it comes to identifying immigrants in the U.S. illegally, but it also called on Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature to declare California a state of refuge for immigrants.

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.

A nice political move, but California already has the Trust Act, a bill authored in 2013 by then-San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano that prohibits local law enforcement from detaining immigrants longer than necessary for minor offenses so that federal immigration authorities can take custody of them.

In other words, pretty much the definition of sanctuary city.

At this point, from what we hear, the governor and legislature are content to sit tight and avoid any further saber rattling.

We dont know what the Trump administration is going to do, but we dont want to make any premature moves, said San Francisco Assemblyman David Chiu.

But then if Trump does find a way to strip federal funds from California, lawmakers already are eyeing ways to cope, including raising state income taxes on wealthier residents, essentially offsetting the federal tax cuts the new president is pledging.

As for Oaklands effort?

We are here for our local residents, and we are not going to sell them down the river, said Councilman Dan Kalb, who joined in the unanimous vote.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross
Their voices were heard.

The Chronicles front page from Dec. 4, 1964, covers the arrests of around 800 free-speech protesters on the UC Berkeley campus.

The University of California went through a day of crisis yesterday with mass arrests, faculty protests and massive student demonstrations, the story read.

In all, 801 demonstrators were removed from Sproul Hall on the Berkeley campus  many of them by force  and taken to jail, read The Chronicle report by Michael Harris and Don Wegars. By late last night several hundred had been released on bail.

Mario Savio led the protest against the restriction of political speech and the gathering drew together thousands. Speeches were made. Joan Baez led students in song. It was peaceful.

At around midnight, however, Gov. Edmund Brown Sr. gave consent for local authorities to make the arrests, and a majority of the 800 protesters were taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin and thrown behind bars.

Weeks later, the university acted on its threats to press charges against some of the protesters. This action sparked a larger demonstration, and soon the university was forced to acquiesce to many of the movements demands.

Its Peanuts: Charles Schulzs Lucy and Linus make a rare appearance on the front page in a one-panel comic heralding the countdown of the Christmas buying season. Charlie Brown was probably already at a department store buying a scarf and aviator goggles for his best bud.

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 every day for 366 days. Library director Bill Van Niekerken and producers Kimberly Chua, Alexandra Irving and Jillian Sullivan contributed to the project. Tim ORourke is the executive producer and editor of SFChronicle.com. Email: torourke@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TimothyORourke

(Click to enlarge)




Living amidst violence rapidly constricting hope for a safer, sustainable, more equitable, and happier community and nation, what is to be done?There's more to be done than I can envision or perhaps even imagine. People who suffer -- whether for being different, for trying to control their bodies, for randomly encountering some gun fetishist, from climate disruption, or simply for lacking cash -- need to be cared for. In some places and moments, some people have to raise a ruckus in the streets.But also, what experience with actual, existing U.S. political power has taught me: in the mid-term elections in the fall of 2022, there are some contests that are vital. Here is a useful list of articles to help you figure out which elections are most important.Or hit me up about volunteer and paid opportunities to join campaigns in Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania: jan.uhreno@gmail
When newly elected President Donald Trump took his family to a restaurant for dinner without telling the public recently, the press flipped out. A chorus of complaints swelled across the land, and apoplexy ensued among the news media.

He didnt tell us!

Hes supposed to let us know!

Thats not how its done!

We should have come along and sat outside while he ate steak!

Journalists and editorial writers pilloried Trump for leaving home and traveling five blocks to a restaurant. Those same reporters, along with editors and news executives, issued thoughtful pleas about the importance of documenting a chief-executive-to-bes movements.

Im not here to defend the president-elects behavior or suggest that his unwillingness to play by traditional rules of engagement with the press is not a big deal. Im a newspaper reporter, after all. And as the City Hall reporter for the only newspaper in McComb, Miss., I hardly find it remarkable when the mayor travels the three blocks from his office to the Dinner Bell restaurant without first notifying me.

I am here instead to suggest  from deep and unusual personal experience  that the news media and everyone else might do well to prepare for a lot more breaking of protocol.

I was the personal aide, a.k.a. body man, to a governor of California who at the time of his election was one of the five or six most famous people on Earth. Like Donald Trump, Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed himself an outsider, a nonpolitician. His first campaign, like Trumps, was a circus, with the sheer force of his persona flattening most criticisms and every opponent.

Im rich, so Im not beholden to special interests, he said. Ill fix a broken system, he said. Trumps drain the swamp sounds a lot like Schwarzeneggers blow up the boxes.

There is of course a vast difference of scale between a president and a governor, even a superhuman governor like Schwarzenegger. A governor isnt responsible for national defense and doesnt negotiate treaties with other countries. A governor doesnt tend to travel in a 50-vehicle motorcade with an ambulance in it. A governor doesnt have access to nuclear codes.

But I believe there are lessons to be learned from Schwarzeneggers behavior as governor that will help us understand Trumps as president, at least based on how he has conducted himself in the weeks since his election.

Early in the Schwarzenegger era  like Trump, even before he took office  calls of Its always been done this way began to be tossed about.

Youll have to be in the Capitol every day to meet staff and legislators. Youll have to be here to sign bills. Thats how its done.

One thing people didnt press the governor to do was move his family from Los Angeles to Sacramento. California was at the time one of just a handful of states with no governors residence. That and Schwarzeneggers four school-age children gave him a pass on the relocation bit.

Instead, he took up part-time residence in a two-bedroom hotel suite across the street from the state Capitol. Several nights a week, he slept in one bedroom, I in the other. The manly man Republican action hero and the fortysomething gay Democrat were an odd couple, if ever there was one.

What must people think ... the two of us living here like this? he said one night as he switched off the lamp in our living room before heading to his bedroom. But I dont believe he fretted much about what people thought, about his living arrangements or anything else.

It took awhile, but Schwarzenegger chipped away at Its always been done this way until the Sacramento apparatchiks got it through their heads that the governor could do business sitting by his swimming pool 400 miles from the Capitol if he wanted to. Staff could fly to Los Angeles, their rolling suitcases, jammed with legislation, in tow. The mountain, it turned out, could indeed come to Muhammad.

In August 2004, less than a year after Schwarzenegger took office, he agreed to speak at a high-ticket Bush-Cheney fundraiser in Santa Monica. Our advance people and the California Highway Patrol team warned, Governor, the Secret Service says you have to be there 30 minutes ahead of the president or they wont let you in. Theyll shut down access.

Relax, Schwarzenegger said, just as I heard him say several times a day for the seven years he held office. Lets go to Starbucks. There were few things Schwarzenegger liked less than sitting and waiting. No hanging was a mantra.

But Governor, the Secret Service ...

Starbucks. Do you really think theyll keep me out? And he was right. He knew the power of his celebrity. Starbucks was a frequent tool for the killing of time, and the California Highway Patrol protective detail learned quickly to research Starbucks locations when plotting routes between events.

There is shorthand for a politicians unplanned events or stops on a tour. An OTR, or Off the Record, is an unscheduled stop. There was the OTR at an H&M store in Philadelphia, where Schwarzenegger had seen interesting scarves in the window when driving past.

What are you doing here? the lady behind him in the checkout line asked.

Buying scarves.

Makes sense, she said.

OTRs are easier when you have your own airplane that wont take off without you, as the governor did.

Then there was the Jet Ski OTR in Miami Beach. We were there for a conference on climate change, but, as at most conferences, Schwarzenegger didnt attend every panel, plenary and roundtable.

Lets get some Jet Skis.

Uh, youre supposed to be in the reception at 3.

Relax.

Several staff members had to make quick trips to the hotel gift shop for swim trunks; others of us knew enough to have packed apparel for every Florida eventuality. It had to be an odd picture, Schwarzenegger and his posse traipsing across the sand to the surf, flanked by a team of plainclothes highway patrolmen in dark suits. It happened that we were crossing a topless beach, but if the rest of the posse was titillated, I was not.

More times than I can count, the governor visited construction sites or industrial centers where hard hats were required.

Not gonna happen, he would say, not breaking stride, to the man waving a hard hat in front of him.

But its required! By then it was too late.

He acquiesced only once in the headwear department, though it wasnt with a hard hat. At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance center in Jerusalem, a yarmulke is required when you enter the Hall of Remembrance to view the Eternal Flame. That time, the governor knew better than to quarrel.

Schwarzeneggers reluctance to commit to schedules or events until the last minute sometimes meant squads of CHP officers sitting and waiting to cover every possible scenario. Teams gamely stationed themselves everywhere he was scheduled to go, or where he might go when he made up his mind. And if he decided not to go, then the team drove or flew home, depending on how far away it was.

I made a wasted trip once myself. I had been dispatched to Idaho to set up a retreat for the governors senior staff in his vacation home. But as soon as I landed in Boise, I received an email telling me to come back to California. The retreat was off. I hustled across the airport and made it onto a plane leaving just a few minutes later, but that was a $700 ticket on the states dime.

Despite Trumps thumb-your-nose approach to the traditional ways of doing things, I dont think well see him in H&M buying $5 scarves. But he could if he wanted to. And like the H&M visit, I dont expect to see President Trump Sea-Dooing anytime soon. But one never knows.

One thing we can expect from President Trump is that its always been done that way wont get us very far. We wont like everything he does, but we shouldnt be surprised when he defies protocol. After all, breaking the rules of presidential campaigns is what got him elected.

Clay Russell is a reporter for the McComb (Miss.) Enterprise-Journal and prides himself on his nonlinear life path. A former professional chef, he lives with his husband and two cats in Americas Deep South. He wrote this commentary for Zocalo Public Square. To comment, submit your letter to the editor http://bit.ly/SFChronicleletters.
What youll see: A wet start to winter at Mount Tamalpais is recharging Cataract Creek and its lush canyon full of miniature waterfalls. It has already rained 16 inches there, six times more than at this time last year (2.68 inches).

Location: The Laurel Dell Trailhead is located on the west flank of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, on a coastal ridge roughly 6 miles above Stinson Beach to the west, and about a half mile above Cataract Creek Canyon to the east.

When you get there: The parking for the Laurel Dell Trailhead is not a designated state park lot. It is free, smaller than at Rock Spring, Pantoll or East Peak, and with access to watershed land managed by the Marin Municipal Water District, you can bring your dog. The trailhead is at the gate across Laurel Dell Fire Road.

The hike: From the gate (elevation 1,940 feet), the fire road descends quickly into Cataract Creek Canyon, turns left near the creek and in 0.8 of a mile reaches the Laurel Dell Picnic Area (1,640 feet). You will then see a fork on the left for the Cataract Trail. Turn left and you will quickly arrive at Cataract Falls. This is a series of cascades that glow like diamonds. For many, this completes the trek; 1.8-mile round trip, 300-foot climb on the way out.

Extend the hike: To enjoy all the pools, drops and cascades along Cataract Creek, continue down the canyon 0.8 of a mile to the Helen Market Trail. Turn right to descend to an elevation of 700 feet for gorgeous views across Alpine Lake. You eventually turn right on the Marsh Creek Trail to complete the loop; roughly 8-mile round trip, 1,200-foot descent and then climb.

Trail rules: Hikers and leashed dogs permitted. Mountain bikes OK on fire road. Pack out trash from picnic site.

Cost: Parking and access are free at Laurel Dell and Rock Spring; $8 at Pantoll, Bootjack and East Peak.

Map: Mount Tam (trail map), $10.95, Tom Harrison Maps, (415) 456-7940, www.tomharrisonmaps.com.

Contact: Marin Municipal Water District, (415) 945-1195; www.marinwater.org; Mount Tamalpais State Park, (415) 388-2070, www.parks.ca.gov; Friends of Mount Tam, www.friendsofmttam.org.

How to get there

From San Francisco: Take Highway 101 north over the Golden Gate Bridge and continue 4 miles to Marin and the exit for Highway 1/Stinson Beach. Take that exit and continue west for 1 mile to the stoplight at a T Intersection for Shoreline Highway/Highway 1. Turn left on Shoreline Highway and drive 2.6 miles to the Panoramic Highway. Bear right on the Panoramic Highway and drive 5.2 miles to Pantoll Road. At Pantoll, bear right on Pantoll Road and go 1.4 miles to Rock Spring (parking is directly ahead, across intersection) and a T intersection with Ridgecrest Boulevard. Turn left and drive 1.4 miles to parking and trailhead (look for a gated fire road) on the right.

Note: Additional parking at Rock Spring with a trail that leads 1.1 miles down Cataract Canyon to Laurel Dell picnic site.

Distances: 7 miles (curvy) to Stinson Beach, 14 miles from Sausalito, 22 miles from downtown San Francisco, 27 miles from Novato, 31 miles from Berkeley, 32 miles from Pacifica, 47 miles from Walnut Creek.

 Tom Stienstra
Theyre artists. Theyre musicians. Theyre performers.

And they were among the missing on Saturday, the day after a deadly fire ripped through an Oakland warehouse filled with partygoers.

Tied together through the Bay Areas close-knit techno arts community, dozens had converged for a night of drinking and dancing at an underground rave inside a converted warehouse that served as an artists live-in wonderland.

Many were students and service workers holding restaurant and retail jobs while trying to break through as entertainers, sustaining a creative culture thats become scarce in the Bay Area as economic prosperity increasingly prices out the arts scene.

These were not drugged-out, raving kids, They were talented. They worked hard, said Dylan Gallagher, part of Berkeley-based synth pop duo vverevvolf, who had performed with some of the musicians at Fridays event, like Nicole Denalda Renae and Ben Runnels of Introflirt. This is more than just a loss. Its frustrating, as weird as that sounds. They had so much potential.

Thirty people were confirmed dead in the blaze, though their names were yet to be released. The death toll was expected to grow.

Micah Danemayer, 28, was doing a light show for the party and he and his girlfriend, Alana Jen Kane, were among the missing late Saturday afternoon, according to Danemayers friend and bandmate Devyn Fordyce, 26.

Ive never met anybody so passionate, not only for his own art and music but for everyone elses, Fordyce said by phone Saturday afternoon after trying to go to work but leaving early because he was distressed. I just really, really hope hes just asleep somewhere.

Danemayer and Fordyce had recently started an electronic music band, Red Cellar, playing synthesizers to create improvised rhythmic noises. Their first real gig is supposed to be in January.

Jason McCarty, 36, also hadnt been heard from by late Saturday afternoon.

The sound artist, whose stage name is Dilatedears, came to California from Iowa in 2005 to get his masters degree at San Francisco Art Institute and never looked back, according to his girlfriend, Grace Lovio.

Hes really connected to the Bay Area art scene, she said by phone Saturday afternoon, before boarding her flight to the Bay Area from France, where she is studying at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

The two spoke Friday, but McCarty didnt mention that he was going to the show. On Saturday, Lovio saw his name on a list of people who were unaccounted for being circulated online. McCarty didnt return her calls.

I just feel kind of hollowed out. I just really love him and just cant imagine Im just kind of scared, she said.

Michela Gregory, among the missing Saturday afternoon as well, is a student at San Francisco State University studying child development, while holding a job at Urban Outfitters on Fillmore Street in San Francisco.

She went to Fridays show with her boyfriend, Alex Vega, something the two often do together, according to her parents.

Im in shock, said her father, David Gregory, who was in Oakland on Saturday to try to learn the whereabouts of his daughter at the sheriffs substation where the Red Cross was set up. Im hoping for a miracle.

Pete Wadsworth, 38, was another who couldnt be located Saturday, according to friends. He was among a dozen or so people who lived at the burned-out arts space, known as the Ghost Ship.

He was like my big brother. He took very good care of me. He was a sweetheart, said Tammy Tasoff, a 29-year-old student at UCSF.

Wadsworth was the entrepreneurial type, Tasoff said, and his latest venture was trying to start a cannabis salsa company. He previously worked with drones.

Since moving from Boston about three years ago, Wadsworth had taken an interest in art, making sculptures at the warehouse, Tasoff said.

Vanessa Plotkin, a third-year sociology student at UC Berkeley, went with her roommate to downtown Oakland and likely stopped at the rave, too, said family members who had been texting her about her plans to go to a party and hadnt heard from her since 11 p.m. Friday.

Were beside ourselves, said Gary Plotkin on Saturday night from their home in Lakehood (Los Angeles County). This is just like a nightmare. I cant believe this.

Alex Ghassan was also unaccounted for, according to his friend Vikram Babu. The noted video and music producer, who has recently done work for KQED and the Oakland Museum, is considered a driving force in Oaklands arts scene.

He would attend parties like this because thats how you network as a creative, said Babu, reached by phone late Saturday afternoon. Thats how you find interesting people who are sticking it out here despite expensive housing and sky-high rent.

Much of Ghassans work reflects upon the economic and artistic struggles of the black community. He has come to know many longtime Oakland residents, Babu said, and has supported those trying to preserve the citys culture and diversity amid gentrification, like several at Saturdays show.

These were musicians and artists trying to give more meaning to their life than what this economic climate has designed for them, Babu said. Its a small creative community here.

Chronicle staff writers Erin Allday and Rachel Swan contributed to this report.

Kimberly Veklerov, Jenna Lyons, Jill Tucker and Kurtis Alexander are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com, jtucker@sfchronicle.com, kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov, @jennajourno, @jilltucker, @kurtislexander
A look at some other nightclub and music venue fires that have exacted terrible death tolls in crowded conditions:

October 2015: A blaze at the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, Romania, killed 64 people and injured nearly 150 others. The fire erupted during a rock concert by the band Goodbye to Gravity. A spark from the bands pyrotechnic show ignited the foam ceiling, erupting into flames.

January 2013: A fire killed more than 200 people at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil. Investigators said soundproofing foam on the ceiling caught fire and released poisonous gases that quickly killed those attending a university party.

December 2009: About 152 people died when a blaze broke out at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia. It started when an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches.

December 2004: In Buenos Aires, a fire killed 194 people at the crowded Cromagnon Republic club after a flare ignited ceiling foam. Club owner Omar Chaban was sentenced to 20 years in prison for causing the deadly fire and for bribery.

February 2003: A fire at the Station nightclub in Warwick, R.I., killed 100 people and injured more than 200 others. Fireworks being used by the band Great White set fire to flammable foam inside the club.

December 2000: A fire that was blamed on a welding accident killed 309 people at a disco in the central Chinese city of Luoyang.

March 1996: A fire at the Ozone Disco Pub in Quezon City, Philippines, killed 162 people. A large proportion of the victims were students partying to mark the end of the academic year.

March 1990: An arson attack at the Happy Land nightclub in the Bronx borough of New York City killed 87 people. It started when a man angry with his girlfriend threw gasoline on the clubs only exit and set it on fire, and then jammed down the metal front gate so people were trapped.

May 1977: A fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Ky., killed 165 people and injured more than 200.

November 1942: The deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history killed 492 people at Bostons Cocoanut Grove club. The fire led to new requirements for sprinkler systems and accessible exits.

April 1940: A fire ignited the decorative Spanish moss draping the ceiling of the Rhythm Night Club in Natchez, Miss., killing 209 people. The windows had been boarded up to prevent people from sneaking in.
CANNON BALL, N.D.  So far, the hundreds of protesters fighting the Dakota Access pipeline have shrugged off the heavy snow, icy winds and frigid temperatures that have swirled around their large encampment on the North Dakota grasslands.

But if they defy this weeks government deadline to abandon the camp, demonstrators know the real deep freeze lies ahead, when the full weight of the Great Plains winter descends on their community of nylon tents and teepees. Life-threatening wind chills and towering snow drifts could mean the greatest challenge is simple survival.

Im scared. Im a California girl, you know? said Loretta Reddog of Placerville (El Dorado County), a protester who said she arrived several months ago with her two dogs and has yet to adjust to the harsher climate.

The government has ordered protesters to leave federal land by Monday, although its not clear what, if anything, authorities will do to enforce that mandate. Demonstrators insist they will stay for as long as it takes to divert the $3.8 billion pipeline, which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe believes threatens sacred sites and a river that provides drinking water for millions of people.

The pipeline is largely complete except for a short segment that is planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir. The company doing the building says it is unwilling to reroute the project.

For several months, the government permitted the gathering, allowing its population to swell. The Seven Council Fires camp began growing in August as it took in the overflow crowd from smaller protest sites nearby. It now covers a half square mile, with living quarters that include old school buses, fancy motorhomes and domelike yurts. Hale bales are piled around some teepees to keep out the wind. Theres even a crude corral for horses.

Increasingly, more permanent wooden structures are being erected, even though the Army Corps of Engineers considers them illegal on government property. The Standing Rock Sioux insist the land still belongs to their tribe under a nearly 150-year-old treaty.

Last week, the camp near the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers was shrouded in snow, much of it compacted by foot and vehicle traffic. Temperatures hovered in the 20s. This weeks forecast calls for single digits and subzero wind chills.

Reddog said she has confidence in the camp community. Everybodys really stepping up and taking care of each other, she said.
Names and faces

KLJ, an engineering, surveying and planning firm, has hired Roselyn Perrigo in its Helena office.

Perrigo is a project assistant. She earned an associate degree in legal support-administration. Perrigo has 12 years of experience.

KLJ currently has 23 office locations throughout North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming and Florida. For more information about KLJ, www.kljeng.com

Awards and honors

D&D RV Center named to top 50

RVBusiness magazine recently named local dealership D&D RV Center, LLC, located at 806 Stanley St. in Helena, as one of its 2016 Top 50 RV Dealers in North America.

We are very proud of this award as our entire staff has worked hard to be the best we can be. We are thrilled to be the only RV dealer in Montana to be honored in the Top 50 said Mark Rispens, GM of D&D RV Center, LLC.

RVBusiness asked recreation vehicle manufacturers to nominate dealers across the United States and Canada who exemplify best practices and excellence in their field. Nominees were invited to fill out comprehensive applications describing business aspects including customer service and satisfaction, employee training, financial planning, marketing and community involvement. An independent panel of industry experts convened at the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Ind., the unofficial RV Capital of the World, to select the RVB Top 50 from nominated dealers who submitted applications.

The 2016 class of RVBusiness Top 50 dealers were honored at a Nov. 9 awards reception in front of an all-industry audience of about 400 during the 2016 RV Dealers Association International Convention/Expo at Ballys Las Vegas.

For more information about D&D RV Center, LLC, visit www.ddrvcenter.com.

News and notes

Health Information Exchange topic of meeting

The Montana Medical Association along with the Montana Governors Office and eight other partners, are calling a meeting of the states top health care decision makers in Helena, Dec. 6-7.

This meeting will bring together key stakeholders committed to the successful launch of a Health Information Exchange Organization in Montana. These leaders will engage in straightforward conversations about the unique legal, technical, and governance challenges that arise during the creation of a health information organization.

National expert, David Kendrick, M.D., MPH, FACP, of MyHealth Access Network will facilitate Decembers meeting. Kendrick is the principal investigator and CEO of MyHealth Access Network, a successful nonprofit health information network located in Oklahoma.

Targeted work groups will be tasked with performing detailed analysis on six areas critical to a sustainable Health Information Exchange Organization. These work groups will focus on clinical use Cases; finance and business models; governance; privacy and security; quality; and technology.

Health care decision makers can register to attend the meeting by visiting www.mmaoffice.org.

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There is no charge for items appearing in the Business Briefcase. Items are run on a space-available basis, and we reserve the right to edit and use information as we see fit.

The deadline is Tuesday at noon to be considered for publication the following Sunday.
BUTTE -- With their fingers seemingly always on the pulse of history, most Butte residents won't be surprised to learn their city once boasted a Chinatown that rivaled those of New York and San Francisco.

But soon people all over the world will get a chance to peek behind the curtain of Mining City history.

The Pekin Noodle Parlor, a 105-year-old Chinese restaurant at 117 S. Main St. in Uptown Butte, is being featured in an exhibit at the Museum of Food and Drink in New York City.

The exhibit is called "Chow: Making the Chinese American Restaurant," and according to the museum's executive director Peter Kim, it will be the museum's first cultural exhibit.

"We knew we wanted to tell a cultural story simply because food is such a key part of how we identify ourselves culturally," said Kim. "So we started looking at a lot of possibilities for that, and we realized that there was something really extraordinary about Chinese-American restaurants."

Kim said the exhibit is intended to be a sensory experience where patrons can not only read and view history  they can also taste it. It includes a cooking studio where visitors can learn culinary techniques and sample chef-designed dishes in addition to an art installation called "Curtain of Many," made up of 7,250 takeout boxes. There's also a working 1,500-pound machine that dispenses freshly made fortune cookies containing messages submitted by people all over the world.

So how did the Pekin become an exhibit among Brooklynites?

Kim said museum staff wanted to find restaurants whose history intersected with the history of Chinese Americans. They came across the Pekin, he said, which is often touted as the oldest continuously operating Chinese restaurant run by the same family in the United States.

The family who has kept the Pekin running since 1911 is the Tams.

Today Jerry Tam operates the Pekin, but the restaurant is still owned by his father Ding Kuen Tam commonly known as "Danny Wong"  who took over operations in the 1950s from his great uncle Hum Yow.

Family's history

But the family's history doesn't end there.

According to a 2011 addition to the Congressional Record, the first Tam family member to set foot in America came in the 1860s.

Tam went over the family history with The Montana Standard Wednesday afternoon.

In the Pekin's kitchen, he sliced onions as he explained that the restaurant's sweet-and-sour is brown and not red like it is in most Chinese-American establishments because his forerunners didn't have access to red food coloring or ketchup.

An entrepreneur in his own right, Tam lived as a fashion designer in New York City for several years. There he attended Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology and even had a brief stint on Lifetime's "Project Runway" in 2008.

A native of Butte, Tam moved back to the Mining City in 2009 because, he said, his mother, Sharon Chu Tam, was getting sick. He started helping out at the restaurant and sifting through the basement and archiving old odds and ends he found in the building's underbelly.

With the help of archivist Ellen Crain, in 2011 the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives collaborated with Tam to put on an exhibit. The archives sent a few artifacts from the 2011 exhibit to New York for "Chow" along with an oral history featuring Tam's father. Items sent to NYC include photographs, woks, utensils, menus, advertisements, Chinese wicker baskets, and vintage soy and vinegar bottles imported from China, among others.

Ultimately, Tam said, he'd like to set up a walking museum in the Pekin's lower levels.

"The basement here is literally where keno might have been invented," he continued. "We have keno tickets that are in Chinese characters."

The building itself was constructed in 1909 and went through many incarnations  including serving as a gaming parlor, Tam said.

It resided in the heart of Butte's Chinatown and was also, among many uses, an herbal medicine shop, tea- and coffee-distribution site, a mercantile, and noncommercial bathhouse, boasting two old-school claw-foot bathtubs.

Looking back

Butte historian Dick Gibson, meanwhile, says outsiders are often surprised to learn Butte once had a Chinatown.

"Generally speaking, they're blown away," said Gibson.

Like many of the immigrants who arrived in Butte, the Chinese came to stake their claim on The Richest Hill on Earth. Many arrived during the Gold Rush, but by the time it was over in the late 1800s, a healthy population remained. They opened businesses, started families, and established a burgeoning population that reached a height of 2,500 during the 1910s, Gibson said.

But life wasn't always easy for those who left their homes in China.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 put limits on immigration from China and was concurrent with organized boycotts of Chinese businesses.

An anti-immigrant sentiment was palpable in the air in the late 1800s, Gibson said, which was partly due to economic anxieties: fear of an immigrant population traveling to the United States to take American jobs.

"They wanted to protect their wages," said Gibson, explaining that the unions were often the driving force behind the boycotts in Butte.

This history did not go unnoticed by Kim and museum staff.

"When you dig into it, you realize there's this extraordinary story of hardship, adaptation, entrepreneurship behind all of these restaurants," said Kim. "It was really a difficult period for them living under exclusion  but they managed to hold on by opening these restaurants and by creating a venue that appealed to non-Chinese diners."

Gibson agreed.

"That's one reason why the Chinese population in Butte thrived," said Gibson. "They were not just catering to the Chinese community. They were catering to Butte."

Americanized food

Today there are 50,000 American Chinese restaurants in the United States that boast a uniquely American cuisine that you would be hard pressed to find in China, Kim said.

"You can go into nearly any town in the country and you'll find one," said Kim.

"In general we want people to appreciate the importance of food and how it connects to the world around us," said Kim when asked why it's important to preserve the past through the vehicle of food.

"In a broad sense, I think this exhibition will help people think about what food means to them personally and how it reflects their own cultural identity. And secondly, looking back at history is always valuable because it informs the present, and there's a lot of debate right now about what it means to be an American."

But preserving the past doesn't just happen on a global level  it happens on the individual level in the form of family memories.

"My dad's 83, and the restaurant is still doing very well, so I'm going to just see it through with him," said Tam when asked if he's ever thought of going back to New York.

Tam described his father as a hardworking man who has kept the restaurant going for more than 50 years.

He added that he's excited the restaurant is part of the New York exhibit and that he's heard countless Montanans share their memories of coming to the Pekin, which adds to the tapestry of Mining City history.

"It kind of gives people a remembrance that my dad has worked his whole entire life to provide Chinese food to this community, and I want him to feel very proud," said Tam.
In a week, Commissioner Mike Murrays 24 years gatherings will be cleared from his office to prepare it for the arrival of Lewis and Clark Countys newest commissioner.

Gone will be the stacks of papers and manila folders filling the heavy oak table that serves as his desk.

So too will be the parking meter that was a gift from Helena city commissioners when he left after two years to become a county commissioner in 1993. Murray ran for city office on removing downtown parking meters in response to complaints from shoppers.

The map decorating a wall of his office on the third floor of the City-County Building will be taken down as will all else thats found a place there during his tenure so the office can be cleaned and painted.

Murray didnt file for re-election  a decision that Helen, his wife of 52 years whom he met at Carroll College, and he made together. Now that hes 75, the job of preparing for the twice weekly meetings has become more tedious, he said, than even five years ago.

As you get older, you have to put more effort into it. As a kid I didnt believe that but Ive come to understand that, unfortunately, he said and laughed.

His day starts at home shortly after 7 a.m. to review what will be discussed at the 9 a.m. meeting each Tuesday and Thursday. County staff may hear from him shortly after 8 a.m. if he has questions. The 100 to 150 emails will get his attention too. By 8:45 a.m. hell be at his desk, prepared for whats soon to come down the hall where the commission meets.

County commission meetings start promptly at 9 a.m.

Please remove your hats and stand, please, he said to begin Thursdays meeting as everyone rose for the Pledge of Allegiance.

He is this years chairman, a duty that rotates among the three commissioners. His voice is soft as he welcomes, some by name, those who have come to speak.

He will be in the office until 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. finishing what didnt get done earlier in the day or to begin preparing for the next days work.

Evening meetings add to the workday, but this is to be expected and Murray calls it part of the job.

Arriving home long after suppers been waiting can also come with being a county commissioner, he said. Had he not had to be at these meetings, the time would have been spent at home with the children who today are grown and on their own. Phone calls now allow him and Helen to talk to their children and grandchildren every weekend to remain a part of their lives.

Despite the demands hes appreciative of the trust thats been placed in him and said People have been generous enough with me to give me four terms as a county commissioner.

Im very grateful that people have given me the opportunity to serve them.

And with this chapter of his life about to conclude, he paused to reflect and said And Im not sad its over. Im grateful for the experience that Ive had.

Its the best job in the world.

Concern for others

Murray was born in Helena at St. Johns Hospital. World War II summoned his father, Roger, from him and his mother, Opal. During the war years, his mother who was a practical nurse lived with the families for whom she was caring. Murray was raised during his youngest years by his grandmother, Mary, who ran a boarding house in Clancy.

Roger was injured during his service in the Army Air Corps and after his return the family moved to Helena. He made a living buying and selling mines and was involved in politics. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor under the Progressive Partys banner.

Opal worked different jobs in Helena and was a cashier at some before ultimately becoming manager of the state liquor store where she retired. Roger died in 1955 as Murray, 13, was preparing to enter high school. Opal raised him and help set his course in life.

My mother wanted me to be successful in whatever career I choose, he said.

At age 17 he enlisted in the Army Reserves and upon his return from active duty Opal suggested he attend Carroll College. He lived at home during those years.

His embrace of the Democratic Party came from his mother, who was involved in unions and lost a state job because of a change in administration in 1955, and from his fathers participation in politics.

Roger and Opal taught him honesty, the ability to work and respect for the down-trodden, primarily the low income or people who were having personal problems. Both my mother and father were involved in working with those people.

I credit my desire and life-long expectations to help people, the down-trodden, to what I learned as a child, he said.

Serving the needy

Murray was teaching at a private school in Las Vegas when he and Helen moved back to Montana for him to take a job teaching at the state prison in Deer Lodge.

Newly married and expecting their first child, Helen didnt want to raise her family in Las Vegas. But after two years teaching at the prison, Murray applied to be the director of Rocky Mountain Development Councils Head Start program in Helena.

The administrative training he received there from Judith Carlson, RMDCs executive director, allowed him to succeed her in leading the organization.

She also taught him patience and how to work with staff, he said and explained these have all been skills that have served him well.

During his time at RMDC he helped implement grants that Carlson obtained. The daily dinner club that was created at RMDC -- one of 19 pilot projects nationwide -- eventually was adopted by Congress to become todays Meals on Wheels program for the elderly.

I had staff that was extraordinary and through their good work our program was very successful, Murray said.

The importance of this program is clear to Murray who explained its an essential service that provides recipients with both nutritional meals each day and helps break the isolation that some live with each day.

I think thats critical, but its one way that particular program checks on the health and welfare of individuals in our community and is the reason that the county should be funding that program as we do.

The Retired Senior Volunteer Program that was initiated at RMDC came during his tenure as director as did the Foster Grandparent Program.

Murray moved to a health planning position with another organization and then to a state job assisting in drug rehabilitation, which led him to become the first administrator for the states alcohol and drug abuse division.

The treatment network with services in every Montana county -- some counties offer in-patient services but all provide out-patient care -- remains essentially in place today, he said.

Putting experience to work

The jobs he held, he said, allowed him to see the communitys needs. His ownership of Action Print in Helena proved to be the catalyst for his entry into public service.

Murray ran and won a seat on the city commission in response to customer concerns with parking tickets while shopping downtown. As a city commissioner he championed for removing parking meters.

Downtown Helena was also in a time of transition where professionals were moving in and shopping there was waning, he noted.

His choice to run for county office came after he saw that county commissioners had time during the day to prepare for their meetings. He also came to recognize the importance and opportunities county government provided.

The ability to make county government work has been a draw to me, Murray said.

What impressed me and still does about county government is were the only unit of government that has all three powers of government.

We have administrative, legislative and quasi-judicial. And if we see something isnt working or something is wrong or if a constituent points it out to us and we believe that theyre correct, that its an issue that needs to be changed, county government has the ability to do that.

And we can change county government to meet the needs of our constituents even though were limited to those powers delegated to us by the state Legislature, he said.

Representing the public

Being a county commissioner is to be accessible.

Ive enjoyed the people, the constituents that Ive had and the people I work with, he said.

And people dont hesitate after church or at the grocery store or the barber shop to give you their opinion and tell you whats working and what they dont think is working so well. So youre available to people in your daily life, seven days a week no matter where you are.

People are generally respectful if they encounter you in public settings or in phone calls at the office or at home, Murray said and noted that his home phone number is listed on his business card -- a practice adopted by the other two commissioners.

Working with other county commissions, some more than others, has been what he said was the most enjoyable part of his job because of their professionalism.

The commission I happen to be working with at the moment is probably the most enjoyable, he added.

He paused before saying there isnt much about the job he dislikes other than the offensive attitude of a few constituents.

They arent happy to see me, dont like the job I do, dont see a need to help me do better in their eyes. And that goes with the job, I think.

It happens to everybody that makes decisions. Not everybody likes the decisions that you make. And the key for me has been, in making decisions, when I go home at night am I at peace with the decision I made and can sleep at night without second-guessing the decision I made.

Decisions may be final after leaving the office that day but theres reflection that night at home, he added.

Those few decisions that he said he isnt pleased with and regrets are decisions he declined to share.

While he and his greatest critics would share a common opinion, that each other is wrong and agreed to disagree, he said, we see each other as human beings trying to do the right thing.

Murray called his seat with fellow commissioners at the head of the commission meeting room an honor and a responsibility.

I dont find a need to remind myself that I put my pants on one leg at a time just like every other human being in the county, Murray said. I dont see myself generally with all that power although as needed Im aware it exists. Power has not become an addictive drug to me.

Camaraderie of the commission

Murray characterized himself as outspoken at times.

I try to let primarily my peers know where I stand rather than staff, he said and praised the countys staff.

If I look good its because the staff has enabled me to look good through their good work, he added.

He kids with his fellow commissioners, Andy Hunthausen and Susan Good Geise, and characterizes theirs as a grand relationship.

This commission, more so than other commissions, is able to banter back and forth with each other because we enjoy each other, he said.

Hunthausen and Geise share his view.

I kid Murray all the time, Geise said in her office after a commission meeting.

To serve on this commission you have to have a pretty good sense of humor, she continued and said that Murray and Hunthausen had to do the commissions work without benefit of a third commissioner for about six months until her appointment in 2013.

Murray is the consummate commissioner who understands the institution and so when I got appointed to the commission, Murray got me aside and told me It is my job to make you the best commissioner I can possibly make you. If you succeed, I will have succeeded.

It is this countys best interest that you succeed, and I will do everything in my power to make that happen. And he never once backed away from that, she said.

His corrections to her were quiet and unobtrusive, she recalled.

There will never be another like him. I doubt that we will ever see another commissioner who will serve for 24 years. Thats an astonishing record.

He loves the people in this county, she added.

Yes, I tease him a lot, and I will miss that. Hes been nothing but aces to me.

The help that Geise received from Murray and Hunthausen was also extended by Murray to Hunthausen when he was newly elected. He described Murray as a fatherly figure who had the confidence of experience.

You could rely on his experience. Hes been there, done that, Hunthausen said.

I see him as one of my greatest mentors on the job. Its meant a lot to me. And hes been a friend.

Hunthausen learned of the importance of the office to the community through Murray and said Ill always be grateful and appreciative.

We have a good time teasing about the things that are important to him, Hunthausen said.

Murray has been a constant on the commission, he continued and added For a long time well be talking about certain things that remind us of him.

Hes really laid a foundation for excellence in our county.

Matter of priorities

The banter has helped Murray keep a perspective on the commissions work.

It has enabled me to go with the saying dont take life too seriously. Youre not going to get out of it alive, he explained.

This is among the advice he will bring to an upcoming Montana Association of Counties training for new county commissioners.

What I want to reinforce with commissioners is you dont take issues personally. Its easier said than done. We have to be able to understand that they cant be personal or losing (votes) will drive you crazy.

Effectiveness as a commissioner also hinges on being able to gauge how fellow commissioners plan to vote on an issue and choosing whether to join them, he said. The ability to move on after losing a vote is also crucial.

Murray said he hopes his legacy will be one that includes a responsible county budget and his concern for public lands.

I dont believe the forests are as mismanaged as other people tend to say. I think the foresters we have serving Lewis and Clark County are excellent people dedicated to their jobs and do a fine job given the limitations they have and the lawsuits that people are free to file against them every time they have a timber sale, he said

Also important to him is ensuring the federal government makes its full annual payment to counties nationwide thats intended to compensate them for the property taxes that are not paid on federal lands in those counties.

Over the years Ive become convinced that theres a better way to fund local government other than property taxes. And I dont have an answer to that but intend to work on that in my retirement, he said.

Hed also like to be remembered as having tried to be fair and for being a reasonable commissioner.

Murrays view of himself is that of another county resident, a family man devoted to his wife, pleased with his life and thankful for what his church has taught him.

Even still, he sees his legacy as ephemeral, much like water in a bucket closing back upon itself once a hand is removed from it. Instead, he looks to others on the commission to continue the work on behalf of county residents.

I believe the things that are important to me are important to Lewis and Clark County and the residents of Lewis and Clark County, he said.

Hopefully my career has not been Mike Murrays agenda but an agenda representing the constituents and people in Lewis and Clark County.

Im honored when people feel the need to call me commissioner and encourage them to use my first name that my mother gave me and was good enough for growing up in Helena. Its progressed from Mikey to Mike. I encourage people to be on a first-name basis with me, he said.

I appreciate the respect when its appropriate in chambers but other than that I was born Mike, Im leaving as Mike. Thats my name.
Its been a year since I jumped the fence and left Back at the Ranch for Open Range. I havent ranged as far as planned -- yet -- but I did make it to the flourishing town of Deidesheimersburg. Chances are youve been there too.

Actually, since thats a bit unwieldy, the wise pioneers of the town used their heros first name and called it Philipsburg. Philip Deidesheimer, a German Jewish engineer, made the extraction of silver from the Granite Mine possible. Even his first name caused some debate, as early newspapers often spelled it with two ls and a German-speaking friend tells me it should have been one l and two ps.

That is really a minor matter compared with the legends of the frequent disappearance of his namesake town. According to one old newspaper, in 1867, Philipsburg had 1,500 people, 250 houses, six general stores, one newspaper, two doctors, and in 1868 the population was -- two. Since by July, 1868, Philipsburg area ores were being shipped to New York, Wales and Prussia, this seems highly unlikely.

Nearby, the ups and downs of the Granite Mine, the Black Pine and others are inextricably linked to the towns history. Some of the mines were principally silver and manganese, some were gold. I was led down one wrong path when I tried to find out why martial law had been declared at the Granite Mine in 1892. Turns out there was a gold mine of the same name in the Wallace, Idaho area. For that matter, my parents worked a lead and silver mine called the Hope with a marked lack of success, while Philipsburgs Hope Mine was a bonanza.

In any case, though the district was unaffected by the Idaho unrest, it wasnt as fortunate in the nationwide Panic of 1893. A recently published book describes how the price of silver dropped and on Aug. 1, the Granite Mine closed. Within 36 hours, the entire population of Granite, some 3,000 people, came streaming down the mountain, carrying their belongings with them in wagons and wheelbarrows. Even so, in 1894, the town directory listed a population of 700, including a jeweler, shoemaker, saloon, tinsmith, a millinery shop, lawyer, Western Union, another saloon, baker, blacksmith, a few more saloons. Clearly, Philipsburg had a lot in common with Mark Twain, who -- when a newspaper prematurely printed his obituary -- remarked, Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

My research took me (record-wise, at least) to Idaho, Wales, Prussia, New York and Elliston, all of which did their bit to enlighten or confuse me, but the real surprise was finding myself in Nevada with Philip Deidesheimer and the Cartwrights on the Ponderosa ranch. According to the 1959 episode of Bonanza, miners were dying daily in the unsafe mines of the Comstock. The Cartwrights (who just happened to have timber for sale) backed a young German engineer, Philip Deidesheimer, who had devised a new way of timbering the unstable underground mines to protect miners in the event of cave-ins. Called square-set timbering, it was allegedly inspired by a beehive.

Despite surviving a dramatic cave-in thanks to the new timbering, the hard-hearted mine owners were going to refuse to use the system, as they didnt want to pay the engineer a royalty for a design he would hold the patent on. Whether that part of the episode is true or not, it is a fact that he did not patent it, believing that human lives were worth more than a patent.

We often call Philipsburg P-burg. After reading his biography (minus Hoss and Adam) Ive been thinking that his inconveniently long name could still be honored, if we rename the town D-burg.

Lyndel Meikle lives in the Deer Lodge area.
Trying to improve the interface between the criminal justice and mental illness treatment system has some parallels between touching two hot electrical wires while chewing on batteries. Even if youre successful, its going to be an incredibly difficult and painful process. However, this interface is critically important to public safety and civil liberties. Its a life and death issue with millions upon millions of dollars at stake in both taxpayer investment and potential legal liabilities. The only option that is more painful than doing something is doing nothing.

Lee Newspapers published a front page article this week describing the lawsuit filed in District Court in Helena. In that suit, a woman who was criminally committed to Montana State alleges that she was sexually assaulted and impregnated in late 2011 by another patient at the psychiatric facility. The woman is seeking $1.5 million in damages to help care for the child who is being raised by the plaintiffs mother.

While I do not have any details on this womans allegations, it is a fact that Montana State Hospitals forensic unit was dangerously overcrowded and underfunded for years. It is not much of a logic leap to say this lawsuit is a direct consequence. At the same time period, the State of Montana was also sued by the ACLU for failing to properly care for the psychiatric needs of offenders at Montana State Prison who should have been in the overcapacity forensic unit of Montana State Hospital.

NAMI Montana presented a buffet of potential options to revise the existing Montana institution infrastructure to safely and effectively care for those with mental illness who have been incarcerated. The list is described in depth at this link, https://goo.gl/VsEpfF. The options included building a forensic hospital in Boulder and converting the existing Montana State Hospital into a forensic facility. None of these options got any traction with the Legislature, community leaders, union representatives, or anyone else involved.

Gov. Steve Bullock tackled the issue by asking the 2015 Legislature to expand Montana State Hospitals existing forensic unit. The operations of that unit were funded, but the new construction was not. The Legislative session ended without a workable option. It looked like the dangerous overcrowding would continue until the usual daily tragedies blew up into something even more horrible which would result death and a string of lawsuits.

Fortunately, Gov. Bullocks administration figured out another way. They were able to rent a facility from Community, Counseling and Correctional Services, Inc., a nonprofit based in Butte, and convert it into a forensic unit. It would be an understatement to call that solution controversial, but in my opinion there was no other option. Every other plan had failed. There is already a lawsuit for the new forensic facility, but still it is important to remember that we are somewhere around Plan F on this issue and no one has a workable Plan G.

Legislative leaders have threatened to unravel Gov. Bullocks solution to the overcrowded forensic unit. I understand their frustration. I also wish that state and community leaders had found a workable, consensus solution to this controversial issue. However, Ive worked on this issue for years, and I think the probability of finding that solution is lower than the probability of finding Bigfoot taking selfies with tourists at Yellowstone Park.

This womans lawsuit hints at the obvious dangers to shutting down the new forensic unit and going back to the overcrowded and dangerous status quo. There is also one un-obvious danger of reopening this issue. The time and resources going into examining fixes for Montanas public institutions should be focused on the current festering problem that is threatening to become a crisis -- the burgeoning population of people with Alzheimers and dementia patients Montana State Hospital.

Montana State Hospital is not designed as an Alzheimers and dementia treatment facility, yet it has become a magnet for people whose conditions and behaviors are too severe for traditional treatment in their communities. Thats the problem that we will be reading horror stories about three years from now if our leaders do not begin working on a solution today.

Matt Kuntz, J.D., is the executive director of NAMI Montana.
WASHINGTON -- It is a sign of how secretive the new administration plans to be that when Donald Trump spoke last week with the Pakistani prime minister, Americans learned what was discussed not from their president-elect but from the oppressive Pakistani government's Ministry of Information.

Luckily, ministry Press Release No. 298 -- Pakistan's official "readout" of the phone call -- so perfectly captured the president-elect's way of speaking that there can be little doubt it is close to a verbatim account. It is 193 words of unintentional literary genius:

"Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif called President-elect USA Donald Trump and felicitated him on his victory. President Trump said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif you have a very good reputation. You are a terrific guy. You are doing amazing work which is visible in every way. I am looking forward to see you soon. As I am talking to you Prime Minister, I feel I am talking to a person I have known for long. Your country is amazing with tremendous opportunities. Pakistanis are one of the most intelligent people. I am ready and willing to play any role that you want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems. It will be an honor and I will personally do it. Feel free to call me any time even before 20th January that is before I assume my office.

"On being invited to visit Pakistan by the Prime Minister, Mr. Trump said that he would love to come to a fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people. Please convey to the Pakistani people that they are amazing and all Pakistanis I have known are exceptional people, said Mr. Donald Trump."

What made Trump's conversation with Sharif all the more terrific, amazing, tremendous, fantastic and exceptional was that only days earlier, a member of Trump's transition team had told journalists in India that Trump is in favor of legislation declaring Pakistan a "terror state." The promise was huge news on the subcontinent.

The contradictory messages to the nuclear-armed arch rivals tells us something about how Trump operates: He tells whoever is listening to him exactly what that person wants to hear. How else could he spend the entire campaign whipping up crowds in fear of a corrupt global elite led by Goldman Sachs -- and then, after securing victory, stock his administration with Goldman Sachs bankers?

It's tempting to wonder how our pleaser president-elect's other conversations would be described if we got verbatim "readouts" in the style delivered by Pakistan's Ministry of Information:

Paul Ryan

President-elect USA Donald Trump said House Speaker Paul Ryan, as I am talking to you Speaker, I feel I am talking to a person I have known for long. Your proposal to privatize Medicare is amazing, with tremendous opportunities. I am ready and willing to play any role that you want me to play.

Nancy Pelosi

Donald Trump felicitated Nancy Pelosi on her victory in Democratic caucus election. You are doing amazing work to stop Medicare from being privatized, which is visible in every way. All Democrats I have known are exceptional people, said Mr. Donald Trump.

Mitt Romney

President Trump USA said Mr. Mitt Romney you have a very good reputation. I am looking forward to see you soon as secretary of state.

Rudy Giuliani

On being invited to visit with Mr. Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Trump said that he would love to have as secretary of state this fantastic person, fantastic mayor of fantastic people.

Benjamin Netanyahu

President Trump said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it will be an honor to address and find solutions to the outstanding problem of the Iran nuclear agreement. I will personally do it.

Ali Khamenei

President-elect USA Donald Trump called Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and felicitated him on his fantastic nuclear agreement. Please convey to the Iranian people that they are amazing, said Mr. Donald Trump.

Gregory Hayes

Mr. Trump said United Technologies Corp. Chief Executive Gregory Hayes, your company is amazing, with tremendous opportunities to get billions of dollars of defense contracts, plus $7 million in tax breaks, to keep 1,069 Carrier jobs in Indiana. You are one of the most intelligent companies.

Enrique Pena Nieto

All Mexicans I have known are exceptional people, said President-elect USA to Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto. Mr. Donald Trump said because of Mexico's terrific work Carrier is still sending 1,300 jobs to Mexico, a fantastic country of fantastic people.

Vladimir Putin

You are a terrific guy, said Mr. Donald Trump. Feel free to call me any time. It will be an honor.

Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post.
ALEPPO, Syria  The Syrian army ordered rebels in Aleppo to leave the city or face inevitable death Sunday, as a series of air strikes on the neighboring Idlib province killed at least 50 people, including several children.

Aleppo shook from the sound of explosions throughout the day as pro-government forces, including foreign fighters dispatched from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, pounded the citys opposition neighborhoods in the east.
DECATUR  Employers in Decatur, like others across the country, are taking a wait-and-see approach to figure what changes need to be made as a result of possible federal changes to rules for overtime pay of certain employees.

A Nov. 22 ruling by a federal judge in Texas blocked the implementation and enforcement of revisions to U.S. Department of Labor regulations that were released in May. The regulation under the Fair Labor Standards Act would shrink the exemption allowing employers to skip overtime pay for salaried administrative or professional workers who make more than $23,600 per year.

The proposed change would have made workers earning less than $47,500 per year eligible for overtime pay, with the threshold adjusted every three years to reflect changes in average wages.

Employers need to recognize this is temporary, said Mirinda Rothrock, Greater Decatur Chamber of Commerce president. Until a final decision has been made, they don't have to implement changes. They have more time.

Rothrock said how much more time has yet to be determined. With the presidential transition, the proposal reportedly faces more uncertainty.

The Obama administration has said the current threshold is out of date and hasn't been changed in decades, but Republicans have criticized the plan.

Many employers had begun to figure out what they would need to do and were planning to implement the changes as would have been required by the anticipated Dec. 1 deadline, she said.

They already started the process, Rothrock said. Now, it's a wait and see.

Those employers will need to decide whether to continue with the changes they were planning, suspend the changes or roll back the changes pending further legal developments, Rothrock said. The goal for employers will be to make sure employees are classified correctly with different factors determining whether they're eligible for overtime pay, Rothrock said.

The Chamber has been communicating with its members about the changes with a Lunch and Learn session in July and by sending recent updates. Rothrock said the Chamber will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available.

She hopes businesses that haven't been aware of the possibility to make changes will take notice and begin considering what might need to be done when the issue is resolved.

For now, the previous threshold remains in effect. The change would have potentially affected more than 4 million workers nationwide.
Page Content

The theme for International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) to be observed internationally on Saturday, 3 December is: Achieving 17 Goals for the Future We Want.





This theme notes the recent adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the role of these goals in building a more inclusive and equitable world for persons with disabilities.





This years objectives include assessing the current status of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and SDGs and laying the foundation for a future of greater inclusion for persons with disabilities.





The observance of the 2016 IDPD coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the adoption of the CRPD  one of the most quickly and widely ratified international treaties put forth by the United Nations to date.





Today, the world population is over seven billion people. More than one billion people, or approximately 15 per cent of the world's population, live with some form of disability. 80 per cent live in developing countries.

A disability is a condition or function judged to be significantly impaired relative to the usual standard of an individual of their group.

The term is often used to refer to individual functioning, including physical impairment, sensory impairment, cognitive impairment, intellectual impairment, mental illness, and various types of chronic disease. This usage has been described by some disabled people as being associated with a medical model of disability.

The Collective Preventive Services (CPS), a government department under the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour, calls on the Sint Maarten community to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to all aspects of society, on an equal basis with others, as well as to identify and eliminate obstacles and barriers to accessibility.

People with disabilities are at much higher risk of violence: Children with disabilities are almost four times more likely to experience violence than non-disabled children; Adults with some form or disability are 1.5 times more likely to be a victim of violence than those without a disability; and adults with mental health conditions are at nearly four times the risk of experiencing violence.





Factors which place people with disabilities at higher risk of violence include stigma, discrimination, and ignorance about disability, as well as a lack of social support for those who care for them.

The aforementioned information is being shared as part of CPSs annual calendar of public health observances with the objective of increasing awareness, education in order for the community to have a greater understanding of persons living with a disability.

CPS joins public health agencies and private sector organizations around the globe in working together to remove barriers of inclusion for persons with disabilities in order for them to be empowered to participate fully in societal life, and being able to make contributions to their entire community.

Accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities are fundamental rights recognized by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and are not only objectives, but also pre-requisites for the enjoyment of other rights.

The Convention (Article 9, accessibility) seeks to enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life and development.

Since 1992, the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) has been celebrated annually on 3 December around the world.

For information you can call CPS 542-2078 or 542-3003.
DECATUR  A 36-year-old female Hardee's employee was counting money in the safe behind the front counter when a man allegedly walked behind the counter, grabbed cash from her hand, injuring her, and fled the scene.

Within about seven minutes, Decatur police arrested Herman Taliaferro, a 47-year-old parolee, three blocks away in the 700 block of North Dunham Street. He is being held without bond in the Macon County Jail, facing a felony charge of robbery.

A 25-year-old female Hardee's employee told police she saw Taliaferro in line, watching the other employee as she counted money in the safe.

Herman then walked behind the counter and she attempted to stop him, but he pushed her out of the way in order to get to the safe, said a probable cause affidavit by Decatur patrol officer Ryan Wicks. Herman then pushed (the 36-year-old woman) backwards and forcefully ripped the money she was holding out of her hand and fled the store.

A third employee told police she saw Taliaferro begging people for money behind the store, before he entered. She then heard the other women exclaiming, no, no! When she went to the front of the restaurant she saw the 36-year-old woman on the floor and Herman running out the north doors to the lobby with cash in his hand.

When Taliaferro was taken into custody by officers, he had just $20 in $1 bills in his possession. Two of the Hardee's employees identified him as the suspect who just robbed the restaurant.

Taliaferro confessed that he grabbed the money from the employee and fled the store. He told police that he forcefully grabbed the money out of (the victim's) hand and fled the store, Wicks wrote in his statement.

The woman who had the money ripped from her hand suffered an abrasion and laceration to her hand.

Taliaferro, who has 14 criminal convictions, including six felonies, was released from prison June 17, after serving two years of a four-year sentence for a theft conviction. That was his sixth prison sentence since he was first sent to prison in 1991 for aggravated battery/great bodily harm.

In the case that most recently sent him to prison, Taliaferro grabbed a $10 bill from a 79-year-old woman's hand as she stood inside the Wendy's restaurant, 102 E. Pershing Road, about 11 a.m. June 14, 2014, according to a police affidavit. The victim was standing with three other senior women when Taliaferro grabbed her money.

Talieferro is due in court for his preliminary hearing Wednesday.
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ACT's federal politicians have charged taxpayers more than $650,000 in the first six months of this year, new reports reveal.

Expenditure reports for current and former MPs between January and June 2016 released by the Department of Finance this week showed Liberal senator Zed Seselja lodged the biggest bill with taxpayers of the ACT's four MPs in Parliament.

Liberal senator Zed Seselja says the budget contains "massive investment" in Canberra. Credit:Graham Tidy

Senator Seselja spent $187,039 in the first half of this year, with more than $110,000 of that on office expenses alone.

Fenner MP Andrew Leigh was close behind, costing taxpayers $178,899, followed by Gai Brodtmann with $174,525 and Senator Katy Gallagher with $114,482.
Canberra police seized drugs but said they were satisfied with the behaviour of thousands of revellers who poured through the gates at Spilt Milk music festival on Saturday.

More than 20,000 music-lovers rocked out to music acts including recent ARIA award-winner Flume, Gang of Youths and Violent Soho at Commonwealth Park for 12 hours from 11am.

Police maintained a strong presence at the festival. Credit:Rohan Thomson

ACT Policing said officers targeting drug use and anti-social behaviour maintained a high visibility presence at the festival.

A spokeswoman said police confiscated a small amount of drugs and placed two festival-goers into protective custody for being drunk.
NORMAL  The rise of fake news on the internet and its spread through social media is nothing short of a cyber war in the eyes of Nathan Carpenter, who watches social media trends for a living.

It's essentially a cyber propaganda war, said Carpenter, assistant director of convergent media at Illinois State University's School of Communication.

People need to be more questioning, better-informed consumers of information, he said.

James Plath, a professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University agrees.

There's an old Wendy's commercial that asked, 'Where's the beef?' It's time (for) the consumers have to start asking that again, said Plath, who teaches journalism and is adviser to the student newspaper.

The issue of fake news has drawn increased national attention in the wake of a presidential campaign in which many fake news stories reported erroneous information about both candidates, President-elect Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Google and Facebook have announced plans to combat the problem through restrictions on advertising, according to Reuters.

Two of the fake news creators who were uncovered by reporters for The Washington Post and National Public Radio said they thought their "stories" were so outlandish that they wouldn't be believed, and those who repeated the stories could be discredited.

Instead, the stories were repeatedly shared  in at least one case by Trump's own campaign manager. That made-up story claimed protesters were paid to be at Trump rallies.

Another fictional story, from the nonexistent Denver Guardian, carried the headline, FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leak found dead in apparent murder-suicide. That was shared more than half a million times, noted Carpenter.

The Facebook platform lends itself to this kind of deception, Carpenter said, because every single story looks the same.  It looks legitimate until you go to the website.

Some of the websites have misleading names that make them look legitimate, such as nbc.com.co.

They're deceptive for a reason, said Plath.

Although ideology might influence the sharing and sometimes the creation of phony stories, another motivator for the creators is the revenue they receive for each click on their page that has advertising.

Paul Horner, the 38-year-old, who created the paid-protester story, told the Washington Post he considers his writings to be satire rather than fake news.

But, Plath said, when someone sees a news satirist such as John Stewart or Stephen Colbert on television, they can see their tongue firmly in cheek. Something is lost when it's in print, he said.

One reason people are so quick to share the bogus stories is because they fit what the reader wants to believe  Carpenter calls this confirmation bias.

We have to confirm and reaffirm our world view by sharing, Carpenter said. The stories we share create a certain persona for us.

Added Plath, The gullibility factor is partially a response to the polarization of America.

While there have been calls to do something about the spread of fake news, Carpenter said, It's not in the interest of democracy to say, 'Here's what we should censor and here's what we shouldn't censor.' 

Instead, people need to be more skeptical and check stories before just glancing at a headline and sharing, said Carpenter.

What's going to turn it around is newspapers have to go back to doing what bloggers can't and that's investigative reporting, said Plath.
James Hughes, 50, of Jerrabomberra, was riding his "pride and joy," a restored Ducati 900S2, when he hit a pothole on Oallen Ford Bridge while riding to the coast on October 4, 2015. The hit a pothole was one metre wide, split in two areas and took up "most of the lane," officer in charge of the investigation, Constable Jessica Walsh told the inquest. In final submissions on Friday, counsel assisting the Coroner, Timothy O'Donnell, said that based on evidence, Ms O'Sullivan would have "little difficulty finding that the condition of the northern approach to Oallen Ford bridge substantially contributed to the death of James Hughes." "It is evident ... that the road's surface should never have deteriorated to the extent that it did," Mr O'Donnell said. He detailed a Roads and Maritime Service investigation concluding that the council had not maintained the road safely or warned motorists about the condition.

RMS investigator Greg Wright also found that the council did not record or promptly investigate earlier complaints about the road's condition by motorists. Further, it had not acted upon advice from the council's works supervisor and inspection officer, Chris Brassel, on September 22, 2015 that the bridge approaches should be "made safe" as soon as practicable. Mr Wright also concluded the council had not used an "appropriate method of repair" when potholes appeared within days and weeks of the road's opening on September 11, following the new bridge's construction. "This isn't a matter where one person is to blame or where one mistake was made," Mr O'Donnell said. "It is a number of errors, as has been demonstrated by Mr Wright and a number of witnesses in this inquest, and it's the accumulation of these errors that ultimately failed Mr Hughes on October 4."

"Gross failing" Hughes family solicitor Ian Bradfield said his clients recognised and appreciated the council's concessions of systemic failings that led to Mr Hughes' death. "The mayor and general manager [Warwick Bennett] expressed their condolences and apologies to the family over the luncheon break and they accept that as genuine," he said. But he branded the accident a "gross failing" by the council, which had a "fundamental responsibility to ensure its roads were safe and for checks and balances to be in place". Mr Bradfield argued the council should have had a reasonable expectation Oallen Ford Road would be heavily used that long weekend. Further, it had evidence that trucks were exceeding the road's 15 tonne limit, causing wear and tear to its surface through braking on the decline.

The inquest had heard audio of a council works meeting about the road on October 1. In it, then works coordinator (assets and design) David Ellison warned that the road was "f---king failing." Mr Bradfield described this as a "significant statement" that was not acted upon. He argued there were "failings" in the road's construction, internal reporting on its state, reviews of the thoroughfare following completion, and in public complaint handling. "It is not the perfect storm...It is cumulative failure and error and it's our submission you can't put any other blush on it," Mr Bradfield said. "It was a recipe for disaster and the disaster occurred. The result is that James Hughes is no longer here."

Council acknowledges 'failures' But barrister Mark Cahill said the council accepted there were failings. The mayor, general manager and four directors had attended the inquest every day. "They are here because they acknowledge there are lessons to be learnt. Indeed, they have already learnt them and substantial changes have been made," he said. Mr Cahill told Ms O'Sullivan it was the greatest of regrets that the changes did not occur with "sufficient alacrity to prevent the tragedy." But he argued the events should be placed in context.

"It is conceded that there were a series of failings that led to that repair not being done," Mr Cahill said. Mr Cahill outlined several council procedural changes implemented since the fatality. These included an overhaul of the customer request management system; stricter internal reporting and road monitoring; higher grade duties, ensuring someone was acting in roles during leave; and depot consolidation to improve communication. Outside the inquest, Ms Pearce said she accepted and appreciated the council's apology and the efforts to improve procedures. "It's been really hard," she told The Goulburn Post.
Adani's $21.7 billion Carmichael coal mine project has secured the final state and federal government approval for a railway line and construction worker's camp.

Queensland's Coordinator-General approved the project's application for a rail line into Abbot Point as well as the temporary construction of a worker's camp ahead of Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani's arrival into north Queensland on Tuesday.

The Carmichael Mine is Australia's largest mining project and proposes to ship enough coal through the Abbot Point Coal Terminal to India to generate electricity for 100 million people.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is expected to speak with Mr Adani on Monday amid mounting speculation the federal government will contribute $1 billion for the railway line.
There is "no history" of any large supermarket beating smaller discount supermarkets on price, a former Aldi executive says.

German discount chains Aldi and Lidl have begun putting up prices in Britain for staples such as bananas and milk. Their milk price is now on par with the big four chains, Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Tesco, according to investment research firm Sanford C. Bernstein.

Aldi aims to be 20 to 25 per cent cheaper on a basket of groceries than Woolworths and Coles. Credit:Ben Rushton

"It's a watershed moment," Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne told Bloomberg recently. "It just goes to show the amount of pressure Aldi and Lidl have been put under by the large supermarket chains."

But Paul Foley, who helped Aldi set up in Australia and now runs a retail consultancy in Austria, described the comparisons as nonsense.
Close to a third of Australian workers are missing out on $3.6 billion a year in superannuation entitlements and many do not even realise they are being short-changed, a new report reveals.

The analysis of Tax Office and Australian Bureau of Statistics data suggests rogue employers are dodging compulsory superannuation payments. It also suggests the Tax Office is not proactive in identifying employers who are failing to make super contributions on behalf of employees who are unaware they are being dudded.

Employers are required to contribute 9.5 per cent into the super account of every employee over the age of 18 who earns at least $450 per month.

The new analysis by Industry Super Australia and construction industry superannuation fund Cbus, shows that up to 2.4 million or 30 per cent of workers are losing up to four months of entitlements valued at $1489.
Airbnb said it has agreed to drop a lawsuit against New York City challenging a law imposing penalties on people who post short-term apartment rentals in the company's biggest US market.

In exchange, regulators won't seek to punish the company itself, said Linda Rosenthal, a state assembly member from Manhattan who has led the effort against Airbnb. Officials have said that the law was never intended to go after Airbnb directly anyway.

Airbnb does a legal about-face in New York. Credit:Ryan Stuart

Ms Rosenthal described the settlement as a full capitulation by the company. "This is an astounding about-face on the part of Airbnb, which clearly recognised that this was a foolhardy and frivolous lawsuit," she said in a statement.

Peter Schottenfels, a spokesman for Airbnb, said the settlement will mark the first time the company would be working together with New York City to cut down on illegal activity. "We look forward to using this as a basis to finding an approach that protects responsible New Yorkers while cracking down on illegal hotels that remove permanent housing off the market or create unsafe spaces," he wrote in an email.
It all sounded so seductive until he found a newspaper article about a cashed-up high-tech executive en route to a recruitment seminar. He read, to his horror, that the city of his dreams was so boring that you couldn't find a bar open after 3 am and he thought "stuff that, I'm staying put". Max Fischer Scarborough Having retired to Port Macquarie two years ago I returned to my apartment on the corner of College and Oxford Street for a week between tenancies ("My modern, high-rise home is not all it's cracked up to be", December 3-4). The beautiful view over Hyde Park masks the legions of homeless that now sleep rough there. Skateboarders take over the area around the war memorial with scant regard for the solemnity of the location. The noise of modified cars exhausts, deafening music and screaming drunks seems to be immune from police intervention. Who gives a damn? Apparently, no-one in authority. Mike Powter Port Macquarie

Land tax figures, please It is clear that a number of policy changes are needed to assist with housing affordability including changes to negative gearing and stamp duty and of course an increase in supply. But can we please move it along and see some figures? For example, how would a land tax work? Would it only be for domestic property? And what would it cost the owner of an apartment in Bankstown versus the owner of a house on Pittwater at Palm Beach? I, for one, a home owner, would be happy to pay a reasonable land tax if it got rid of the inequitable and overpriced stamp duty arrangements we have in NSW.



Dennis Fardy Newport Abbott waits as clock ticks for waffling Turnbull I used to feel sorry for Malcolm Turnbull, surrounded as he was by a horde of supremacist vultures. ("Turnbull's year of living quite disappointingly", December 3-4). I felt that the eagle wasn't being permitted to fly. But no more. He has proven to be a hollow man, lacking the moral courage and desire to face up to the Coalition nasties and incompetents. As his political scaffold is being erected he waffles on endlessly, and the carefully plotted resurrection of Tony Abbott seems inevitable.

Bert Candy Lemon Tree Passage Your editorial says the Prime Minister deserves a solid majority so he can deliver on his potential. But after 15 months of his leadership, voters have become uncertain about his potential and what he wants to achieve. With a typical barrister's facility, Turnbull has been able to argue opposing cases with equal conviction, as demonstrated by his pre-leadership support for a carbon tax. As he said in his year-end speech in Parliament, Australians are weary of politicians saying one thing and doing another. Facile eloquence without practical results is of little benefit. An appropriate comment on his report card would be "excellent debating skills, but inadequate achievement". The Prime Minister's current polling reflects this assessment, and the situation is not helped by the fuzziness of the government's agenda for 2017. James Moore Kingsgrove If a week is a long time in politics, then what to say about a year of a weak PM?



Edward Loong Milsons Point

Engulfed by tragedy, moved by beauty Why did Elizabeth Farrelly's article make me emotional ("Beauty is a necessity, not an afterthought," December 3-4)? Why, when she listed as worthy of appreciation "a rose, a Rembrandt, a winding street at dusk," was I so moved? Perhaps it's because of the daily distress experienced from digesting the news of terrible suffering by the millions damaged and displaced by wars, of those displaced by trying to reach the safety of our privileged country, by the growers of our food and agriculture facing more and more extreme weather conditions along with the victims of fire and floods, by the US election results, and by the small efforts of Clover to beautify her city pitted against other forces. There is so much to be disheartened by, and yet still so much for which to be thankful. Our garden, modest, is simply a thing of great beauty. The new growth in spring, the surprise reappearance of that which one planted and forgot  the roses, maples, crabapples, oaks and the miracle of tiny coloured petals. So much beauty, offering so much for which to be thankful. Elizabeth Farrelly also makes my "grateful" list. As do books. As does Feldenkrais. Look it up.

Robyn Nevin Sutton Forest Hypocritical Bishop So, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has secretly ordered a review of the generous allowances and entitlements paid to federal government employees when they're on overseas postings, to see if they pass the "pub test" ("Diplomats' allowances on the chopping block as Julie Bishop orders review", December 3-4). Is this the same do-good minister who handed Australian taxpayers an expenses bill of $839,000 for the first six months of 2016, and senior government member who is "too busy" to complete its promised review of the lifetime free Gold Pass for former politicians? Pots and kettles; a pox on all their hypocritical houses.

John Richardson Wallagoot More abuse victims The bravery of Rebecca Taylor in publicly confronting the sexual abuse by her stepfather has shed a thin ray of light on a scourge which many children endure regularly, and some daily ("Taking back control", December 3-4).



While the work of the royal commission has performed a commendable and very valuable role in revealing the extent of child sexual abuse in institutions, another is needed into the extent of this evil within families, to allow others like Rebecca Taylor to lance the boil which has been hidden from public sight for far too long.



Tony Re Georges Hall Art that takes our breath away The reference in Louise Schwartzkoff's article to the Arthur Streeton's painting Blue Pacific aptly describes the impression this painting makes in its current surrounds ("Shock of the blue", December 3-4).



On a recent visit to London I went to the National Gallery and did a double take when I saw the Streeton. While not familiar with that particular painting, I would know a Sydney summer sky anywhere. It was an unexpected delight to encounter it so far from home. The painting was tucked into a corner but drew attention to itself with its bold blue and bright light. It will be interesting to see what Londoners make of whole rooms filled with scenes of our sunshine.



Michelle Cooper Turramurra

In John McDonald's critique of nude art from the Tate, there is one body in the collection that doesn't get a mention ("Shapely body at work", December 3-4). It is Henry Moore's Falling Warrior. Moore served in World War I and his studio was bombed in World War II. His work was influenced by war. In the current wars dead bodies have become a daily statistic. By all means let us celebrate art that captures the body beautiful, along with art that exposes today's madness that is destroying it. Reg Wilding Wollongong Motorists not beholden to cyclists James Gray tries to perpetrate the myth that cyclists subsidise drivers (Letters December 3-4). But he ignores the contributions to revenue made by drivers using their vehicles: fuel excise, GST on fuel, purchases, repairs, services, etc. Add in tolls, parking fees, and revenue from regulations, and the contribution is far above the cost of building and maintaining roads.

It is cyclists who are heavily subsidised by drivers. Special bike lanes, beneficial rules and the one-sided demand for extra separation to be provided at the cost to drivers are just a few examples. They even avoid being registered so they can be identified and insured for when they cause crashes and injuries. I suggest an annual $10,000 nuisance tax for cyclists. Michael Lane St Ives James Gray may well have a point about cyclists paying general taxes that support road construction. But how about them paying for a compulsory "Green Slip" to cover the costs of accidents they cause? Accidents are not always down to motorists, especially on footpaths.



Denis Suttling Newport Beach Uneven school funding

How is it that a private school has $15 million to splurge on a new building and still receive generous government funding? ("Government sells historic home to private school", December 3-4) Public school enrolments are surging in the Botany Bay area. Yet when a private school decides it would like to establish a new school in the area the government is happy to sell off a property that could have been used to deal with the overflow from public schools. Nola Tucker Kiama Christensen photo whips up feelings Thank God George Christensen has realised that, on any measure, he's no Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister ("Christensen revels in the photo that broke the internet", December 3-4). I was heartened when he said "I won't be doing that sort of photo shoot again."



Mukul Desai Hunters Hill If I could see George Christensen wearing tight leather shorts while holding his whip, I would cross the border just so I could vote for him.



Malcolm Harper St Ives

Please, no more photos of George Christensen in his S&M gear in your paper. How could you do this to such a loyal reader? I can't get the image out of my mind now. Surely the article could have run without that terrible sight. Maryan Glaister Buderim Qld Clearly, George Christensen isn't so much a "complex character" as a character with a complex. Peter Fyfe Erskineville More than a bit rude
There is no compelling case to cut funding to "over-funded" private schools and redistribute the money to disadvantaged schools, Labor education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek says.



In an interview with Fairfax Media, Ms Plibersek said it was "absolutely the right decision" for the Gillard government to promise that no school would be worse off under the Gonski funding reforms - a commitment that a Gonski review panelist, Ken Boston, says blew out the cost of the reforms and entrenched inequalities between schools.

The Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, has said he has "deliberately" not made the same promise, leaving room to cut funding for some schools in a new funding deal from 2018 onwards.



The Grattan Institute released a report this week calling for the federal government to freeze funding to schools classed as over-funded and redistribute the money to schools which are below their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) - the funding benchmark at the heart of the Gonski model.

Asked whether funding should be redistributed from wealthy to low-income schools, Ms Plibersek said: "People find it a compelling thing to talk about but I think it misses the point entirely.

"You're talking about a very small number of schools.
Cheryl Paradella was only just keeping her head above water, managing a demanding full-time teaching job while caring for two children with multiple disabilities.

"It's like walking on eggshells, you just don't want to upset the applecart," she said.

"How do you try to keep the peace and lead a normal life, whatever normal is? I only managed because I had good support from respite services."

Her 18-year-old son has Asperger syndrome and Tourette syndrome while her 17-year-old daughter also has Asperger syndrome and a complex mental health disorder.
Leading plumbers fear many of Melbourne's new apartment buildings pose a legionella bacteria risk due to their energy-efficient "warm water" systems.

The plumbers' concerns come as documents show Victoria's building regulator took nine months to exercise its power to demand a solution for the legionella risk in the warm-water system of North Melbourne's George apartments.

The systems store water at lower temperatures than traditional units and have become popular in recent years as developers seek to achieve six-star energy efficiency ratings. They rely on solar-powered boosters to heat water on the way to residents' shower heads.

But the cooler temperature for storage of between 25 to 40 degrees can encourage the growth of legionella bacteria, while solar energy does not always achieve high enough temperatures to kill it off.
BLOOMINGTON  Whoever killed Pam Zimmerman did not force their way into her Bloomington office.

The killer stayed around after the attack to move furniture in search of shell casings from the bullets that fatally wounded her, according to details of the crime scene disclosed in new court filings in the murder case against her ex-husband.

Kirk Zimmerman is charged with killing his former spouse in November 2014 in her east side Bloomington office where she worked as a financial planner and certified public accountant.

In a series of newly filed motions, defense lawyer John Rogers has challenged portions of the state's potential evidence against the 58-year-old suspect, including the results of gunshot residue tests and statements Zimmerman made to police hours after his ex-wife was found.

A search warrant request from Bloomington police detective Michael Johnson three months after the murder, filed as part of a defense motion, reveals new details of what led police to check on the victim and what two of Pam Zimmerman's friends found when they arrived at her office.

One of Pam Zimmerman's neighbors, Julie Koh, contacted police Nov. 4, 2014, after she received a call from the victim's fiance, Scott Baldwin, who was concerned that he was unable to reach her by phone from his home in the Chicago area.

Zimmerman's teenage children told Koh that their mother had not come home the previous night, according to the court documents, and one of Zimmerman's daughters used a GPS application on her cellphone to search for her mother's phone. Police located the phone in a pile of leaves near Felton Place and Robinson Street.

In the meantime, Koh went to Zimmerman's office at 2103 E. Washington St. and found the victim's car in the parking lot. Koh met Ina Hess, the victim's office manager, and the two went inside to find the light off and blinds closed, according to the warrant filing that is part of the newly filed defense motions.

The two women found Pam Zimmerman, 53, lying on the floor behind the reception desk, still dressed in the clothes she was wearing when Hess left work at 4:30 p.m. the previous day, Johnson stated in an affidavit filed with the search warrant.

Zimmerman had suffered four separate gunshot wounds  one in the head, two in the torso, including one in the back, and one in the arm.

Police think the killer spent some time after the shooting looking for shell casings and may have found three of the four, state the court documents. The detective noted that only one 9 mm shell casing was found and one bullet was recovered from the back of the chair in the reception area.

The phone line in the reception area also had been cut.

Koh and other neighbors interviewed by police in the days after the murder described a rocky end to a troubled marriage between the Zimmermans.

The tense relationship is expected to be a key element of the state's case against Zimmerman, a former State Farm systems worker and Maroa-Forsyth High School graduate. The couple sparred after the divorce was finalized over financial issues related to expenses for their children.
The federal government's digital transformation agenda could become just another way of cutting costs and reducing services, now the public service's takeover of the project is complete, according to Internet Australia.

The peak web users group sounded the warning after the Prime Minister's technology guru, Paul Shetler, resigned after just six weeks in his new job.

Former head of the Digital Transformation Agency, Paul Shetler.

Labor has also been critical of the Digital Transformation project, saying it is concerned the Digital Transformation Agency, formerly the Digital Transformation Office, was struggling to keep its top managers from leaving.

Mr Shetler was hired in July 2015, to great fanfare, as the head of the Digital Transformation Office, the Prime Minister's pet public service project that was supposed to help use technology to transform federal government service delivery.
The nation's agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines regulator will be lucky to hold on to 10 of its 103 scientists under Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's plan to move the agency to Armidale.

An internal government document outlining the "strategy" behind the forced relocation has been made public after the Senate ordered Mr Joyce to publish documents analysing the effects of, and transition plans for, the change.

Forced relocation: Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce.

A cost-benefit analysis previously released shows the change could cost $26 million in moving costs and remove up to 189 jobs from Canberra, costing the ACT economy an estimated $157 million.

The relocation strategy was released after cabinet approved the move last week and Mr Joyce said the move and timeframe were "locked in".
A look of disappointment swept across Andrew Vassett's face as his VCE results flashed up on the computer screen.

"Oh, I don't know how I feel about that," the former Viewbank College student muttered through his fingers.

That was exactly one year ago.

As the class of 2016 nervously wait for their VCE results to be released next Monday, we caught up with last year's year 12 students to see how their lives were panning out.
40 people have been charged with drug offences in a police operation during the first two days of Subsonic Music Festival.

Police attended the grounds of the electronic music festival at Riverwood Downs, Monkerai with sniffer dogs from Friday to Sunday.

On Friday, police arrested and charged 17 people who were allegedly found in possession of illicit drugs, and three others who were charged with supplying a prohibited drug.

Police said they were "disappointed" the festival attendees continued to ignore drug warnings on the event's second day, where a further 20 arrests were made.
Staff at NSW's Land and Property Information protested against the government's privatisation plans in June. Credit:Public Service Association Gary Ulman, president of the Law Society of NSW, is demanding the government repeal the legislation allowing the lease of the land titles registry  an efficient, innovative and income-generating monopoly that keeps sensitive details of who owns what land. "The registry is a precious asset of the state and its real value lies in its sustained integrity and the role it has in supporting the property market and the wider economy," he said. Land and Property Information keeps the official record of land ownership in NSW. It issues the Certificate of Title. Credit:Land and Property Information NSW "The UK government saw the light. It realised there were IT risks, risk of fraud, risk of corruption, and it didn't make good economic sense to have a one-off cash grab."

Under a privatised system, titles would continue to be guaranteed by the government and any loss as a result of fraud or error could be compensated via the Torrens Assurance Fund (TAF) - funded by a $4 levy on every dealing. Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian with Premier Mike Baird. Credit:Louise Kennerley The guarantee is the hallmark of the Torrens title system and allows homeowners to have confidence in their land ownership, currently negating the need for title insurance, as commonly seen in the US. But Mr Ulman said the reassurance was of little comfort. "Anybody who loses a title has to make a claim on the TAF after having exhausted their legal rights, meaning they're going to have to first expend enormous amounts of money," he said.

"The TAF is a fund of last resort." The Law Society told Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian back in September the LPI "belongs wholly within government", warning the 35-year lease could lead to "a loss of public confidence in the land titling system ... the damage may be irreparable ... and the skills required to maintain and operate the system may have been lost". Mr Ulman was also dubious about the promise to limit price rises by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), embedded in legislation passed in September "at lightspeed". "In parallel with the legislation is the concession deed, which also governs the contractual arrangements between the government and whoever the operator is and that has no parliamentary oversight," he said. "So the government is capable of changing the terms under which the concession is operated if down the track an approach is made by the operator to increase fees."

Competition watchdog in talks Rod Sims, chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said it was in ongoing talks with NSW and South Australian governments about privatising their land registries. He has previously said he was losing faith in privatisation of monopoly infrastructure, with the governments' focus on maximising sale proceeds "severely damaging our economy" and "increasing prices". "It only works when either you privatise it into a competitive market or where you've got appropriate regulatory arrangements," Mr Sims told Fairfax Media. "We need it to be done properly so that the long-term interests of consumers are uppermost."

The government said there will be safeguards such as minimum service levels, penalties, and step-in and termination rights, to maintain the integrity of the system. "The NSW government takes consultation with stakeholders, including the Law Society of NSW, very seriously  we consulted widely before finalising the enabling legislation and continue to consult stakeholders," Ms Berejiklian said. "Our priorities during this process are maintaining the confidence of the NSW public in the titling system and promoting improvements, innovation, investment in technology and increased efficiency." Calls for transparency After two attempts in two years, the British government ditched its privatisation plans last month, saying its registry "should focus on becoming a more digital data-driven registration business, and to do this will remain in the public sector".
Sydneysiders face further delays to the completion of the $2.1 billion light rail line along George Street in the central city, and other stretches of the route in the eastern suburbs, amid backroom squabbles between the state government and contractors.

Just days after a scathing report into the project, it can be revealed the project has also been plagued by the exit of senior managers charged with overseeing construction, and hold ups to the completion of final designs.

More than 13 months after construction began, sections of the line along the busy arterial route of George Street remain far from finished  even though deadlines for the work were extended in September.

Work on George Street has been dogged by the discovery of utility cables under the roadway, holding up construction of the line and leaving little sign of progress for shopkeepers and pedestrians.
The jailed leader of the Brothers For Life gang was able to get his hands on a NSW detective's home address and had allegedly been shopping around a contract to have the officer killed.

Police believe Farhad Qaumi, 34, had also been trying to find out the addresses of three other detectives, who worked on the investigation that brought down his violent street gang.

Farhad Qaumi is led from court in May 2006. Credit:Peter Rae

Qaumi is currently on trial in the NSW Supreme Court for the murder of construction industry figure and standover man Joe Antoun in Strathfield in December 2013.

Qaumi, the former Blacktown chapter leader, was recently convicted of a string of violent offences - including manslaughter and conspire to murder - following a mammoth criminal trial.
The chance of rain today is 100 per cent. But it seems we'll have a break after this morning's shower; forecasters reckon there'll be more storms in the south-west this afternoon before widespread storms this evening. It will be partly cloudy and 30 degrees in the city and 33 in Parrmatta.

Boulevard of broken deadlines

Last week a damning audit found the state government's $2.1-billion George Street light rail was beset by poor planning.

Today Fairfax reveals the project is being plagued by delays, squabbles between the state government and contractors and a threat from the City of Sydney to withhold nearly $50 million in funding.
Abortion will continue to be illegal in Queensland for now, with debate on crucial reforms set to be held in 2017.

Independent member for Cairns Rob Pyne introduced two private member's bills which would remove abortion from the Criminal Code.

Abortion won't be removed from the Criminal Code in 2016.

Earlier this year, Mr Pyne said he hoped to see one or both of his bills pass before the end of 2016.

"I'd certainly hope for everyone's sake that we can resolve the matter before Christmas," Mr Pyne said in October.
Work on the multimillion-dollar Eagle Farm Racecourse redevelopment is yet to resume two months after the tragic death of two workers, with subcontractors owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Two small business owners say they could be out of business before Christmas, blaming claimed debts of more than $100,000 each to one of the project's major contractors, Landfill Logistics.

The Brisbane Racing Club and principal contractor Criscon stepped in to pay small amounts to some contractors directly but it's understood they were refusing to foot the bill a second time for money already paid to earthworks company.

BRC CEO Dave Whimpey said he was sympathetic but the club had paid every submitted claim and had no contract with the embattled company.
This has probably not, in fact, been the worst year in the history of American journalism.

But youll forgive me if it feels that way just the same.

It was, after all, a year in which the country firmly entered the post-factual era, led by an incoming president who has no time for intelligence reports, yet is a devotee of a conspiracy website that claims symbols on a pizza menu are used by pedophiles to send messages. This same guy spent much of the year castigating journalists as dummies, slime, disgusting, lame, sad and the lowest form of life, all of it eaten up by mobs that snarled and snapped at the traveling press corps, who stood penned up at his rallies like that goat lowered into the Tyrannosaur paddock in Jurassic Park.

So yes, a grueling year. And it seems to me, in this season of thanksgiving, that the best way to end that year is to thank my reporter colleagues for all they do to inform a nation that, increasingly, chooses not to be informed.

Lest you think I sprain my arm to pat my own back, I hasten to say that the above does not refer to me. Though I do occasional reporting, I am not a reporter, but a columnist. A political cartoonist I once met described people like us as professional reactors. That is, a thing happens, real reporters gather the facts of that thing, and then we opine upon those facts.

Everybody opines, of course. But sometimes, we forget that the information upon which we do so does not simply produce itself. The facts upon which both the barstool philosopher and the columnist rely, the facts Sean Hannity mangles and Donald Trump simply ignores, come to us through the efforts of men and women who dig for them, who work phones, finesse sources, burrow into transcripts, ask powerful people impolite questions.

And sometimes, die.

Worldwide, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that more than 1,200 journalists have been killed since 1992. According to Reporters without Borders, 81 were killed last year alone.

The United States has been largely spared those outrages. Yet they provide a chilling context for the anti-media frenzy so gleefully generated by the incoming president.

Not that news media were universally beloved before he came to town. In a nation of stark political polarization, claims of bias  a word too often defined as, that which is mean (though not unfactual) toward my preferred candidate or ideology  have made media-bashing the fastest growing sport in America.

Some of it is certainly deserved. Sometimes, news media are too timid, too obsessed with ephemera. And, yes, biased.

But then, there is this:

On Sept. 11, an army of police and firefighters famously rushed toward the danger. Less well-remembered is the army of reporters who did the same. My former colleague, Elinor J. Brecher, was one of them. Ellie might be five feet tall if she jumped. She might weigh 110 pounds if she tied cinder blocks to her feet.

Yet, there she was, this small woman, down there in the wreckage of the World Trade Center with the rescue workers and survivors, gathering the news. From time to time, I re-read the powerful and evocative essay she wrote about it as a reminder of what my colleagues do.

That is, they go where the story is, even if thats dangerous, even if it defies self-preservation. And they produce the facts that help those of us who still want to, to comprehend our world.

As journalisms hard year draws to a close, I think that deserves my gratitude. Frankly, it deserves yours, too.

CORRECTION: A recent column on the effort to recount ballots in the 2016 election misstated the date of a Donald Trump tweet, which was Sunday, Nov. 27. The reference to the Inuit people living in Bethel, Alaska, was also incorrect. The Inuit make their home much closer to the Arctic Circle.
An ambulance spokesperson has described Gold Coast "Candyman" Travers Beynon as "a drain on resources" after an extravagant party on Saturday night to which paramedics were called multiple times.

Queensland Ambulance Service spokesperson Michael Augustus said paramedics attended the Helensvale mansion six times in less than three and a half hours, including for a woman who had been bitten by a spider.

Mr Beynon announced he was throwing a Seven Deadly Sins party on Instagram on November 16, but not all of the party-goers lasted the night.

Paramedics treated a 23-year-old woman who had been bitten by white tail spider, but did not take her to hospital after she said she would seek medical attention by herself in the morning.
A toddler has been pulled from a backyard pool in a "near drowning" south of Brisbane.

Paramedics said the girl, believed to be aged one or two, was conscious when they arrived at the Daisy Hill address, after swallowing a lot of water about 2.40pm.

Paramedics were called to a near drowning at Daisy Hill

Queensland Ambulance Service Brisbane clinical deployment supervisor Wayne Loudon said the child was crying but didn't need to be revived.

He said there were varying reports of the girl's age.
A woman wanted for questioning over the alleged shooting murder of a Gold Coast father has handed herself in two days later.

Her lawyer said she was previously too upset to give a statement to police.

Police interview witnesses at the scene of a shooting at Carrara, on the Gold Coast. Credit:Carrie Greenbank/Nine News

Police had been publicly calling for help to find 31-year-old Renee Moseley since 18-year-old Taylor Ruatura allegedly killed Jason Boyd on Friday with a gun, the lawyer claimed, belonged to the deceased.

The pair's lawyer, Michael Gatenby, said his client was only wanted to give a witness statement.
A Dutch backpacker was one of two men rescued from a capsized yacht off North Stradbroke Island, but the drama hasn't dented his sense of humour.

"Australia wants to kill me! Drop bears, everything, now a rock," Max, 23, joked to reporters.

Water Police raced to a stricken yacht off North Stradbroke Island on Sunday, after the vessel hit rocks in the early hours of the morning. Credit:Queensland Police Service

The 70-year-old skipper of the yacht, the Clair De Lune, and Max jumped from the 12m vessel after it struck Flat Rock and it sank on Sunday morning.

They were pulled from the water by Water Police after jumping into the water as the yacht started taking on water.
Tens of thousands of vulnerable Victorians could miss out on critical dental treatment unless the Turnbull government extends funding to affordable dental programs, the health sector and Victorian government have warned.

There are two federal schemes that fund dental treatment for children and vulnerable adults, but both expire at the end of the month.

There are concerns over federal funding for access to public dental spots. Credit:iStock

In April the Turnbull government said it would establish a new $2.1 billion scheme, to be set up through legislation, to replace the schemes. But the laws have not passed Parliament, which has finished for 2016, throwing the sector into uncertainty.

The Victorian Healthcare Association and Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy have both written to federal Minister Sussan Ley urging for the current scheme to be extended.
Three people have escaped unharmed after a house was shot at in Melbourne's south-east.

Police were called to George Street, Murrumbeena shortly before 8am on Sunday after shots were reportedly fired at a home where the three people were sleeping.

Credit:Luis Ascui

Windows at the front of the house were damaged but nobody was injured in the incident, believed to have occurred between 4.30am and 5am.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The centre-left candidate handily defeated his far-right challenger in Austria's presidential election on Sunday, boosting the political establishment in Europe as it sought to contain the fallout of Donald Trump's victory in the United States and thwart the spread of nationalism.

The far-right Freedom Party's Norbert Hofer conceded defeat on his Facebook page less than 30 minutes after polls closed and following projections showing a surprisingly strong lead for Alexander Van der Bellen. The 72-year-old elder statesman and former Green Party politician was winning by 53.6 per cent to 46.4 per cent. Though hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots were set to be counted on Monday, they were expected to heavily favour Van der Bellen.

The result was an unexpectedly strong victory for Austria's beleaguered political establishment, which had begged the nation to reject Hofer and rob the momentum from populists following Trump's win.

"I'm incredibly sad that it didn't work out," Hofer posted on his Facebook page. "I congratulate Alexander van der Bellen and ask all Austrians to stick together and work together. We are all Austrians, no matter how we acted at the ballot box."
A photo released by Taiwan's Presidential Office shows President Tsai Ing-wen speaking with Donald Trump in Taipei on Friday. Credit:AP To the extent that world powers do or don't get on, and that upstart leaders make their calculations in the context of a framework of global protocols and alliances that at times are demonstrably weird and incomprehensible, a measured approach to altering that imperfect status quo is essential  because every quid has its quo. But in the mystical, gossamer-like fiction of global diplomacy, Trump seemingly has no regard for how his words will be interpreted, or how they might condition negotiations and crisis management in the future. He doesn't seem to appreciate that what he says inevitably will be factored in as implicit or explicit US foreign policy. Tsai Ing-wen, flanked by National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu, left, and Foreign Minister David Lee, speaks with Donald Trump on Friday. Credit:Taiwan Presidential Office/AP There was an expectation that Moscow or Beijing would test Trump in his first days in the Oval Office. But here, Trump has beaten them to the punch, with a provocation that builds a floor of distrust and strategic tension into a vital relationship even before he formally takes office.

Some of these tests are calculated - like the Hainan Island incident, in the first months of the George W. Bush presidency, when China detained the crew of a US Navy EP-3 surveillance aircraft after a midair collision with a Chinese aircraft; and in Obama's first months, when China confronted US surveillance ships in the South China Sea. Donald Trump and Nigel Farage: sidestepping protocol, Trump recommended his buddy as UK ambassador to Washington. Credit:Twitter @Nigel_Farage Others are accidental and homemade  like the three-minute nightmare, late in the Carter presidency, when a computer malfunction falsely led Washington to believe that a series of intercontinental ballistic missiles were heading towards the US. If Trump thinks he can wing it, so too will other world leaders. A Chinese base under construction on Mabini (Johnson) Reef, one of the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Credit:New York Times

Just as he tried to ingratiate himself with Russia's Vladimir Putin during the election campaign, whatever he said in a phone exchange to new Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was interpreted in Manila as an invitation to the White House, for a leader who happily sanctions the extrajudicial killing of thousands of suspected drug dealers and who dismissed Obama as "a son of a whore". Trump's apparent acceptance of a similar invitation from Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif revealed no regard for antagonistic relations between Islamabad and New Delhi  and Washington's delicate balancing between them; in casting Kazakhstan's corrupt and oppressive leader Nursultan Nazarbayev as a "fantastic" miracle-maker, Trump lacked subtlety; and in suggesting that London appoint Brexit leader Nigel Farage as its ambassador to Washington and telling Prime Minister Theresa May "if you travel to the US you should let me know", he showed himself to be diplomatically tone deaf. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, left, meets top Chinese parliamentarian Zhang Dejiang in Beijing in October. Credit:AP In his world outlook, Trump stumbles naively between where he wants to build hotels and where, and on what terms, the American flag should be planted. It's no accident that he is yet to nominate a secretary of state; that he doesn't bother with intelligence briefings; and that he thinks it's more useful to have his daughter or son-in-law by his side than to get a State Department briefing before taking calls from or meeting with world leaders. In the course of the campaign, Trump angrily branded Beijing as a currency manipulator and a land-grabbing bully bent on cheating the US. And on the same day that he took the call from Taiwan, he met with John Bolton, a former US ambassador and a candidate to be his secretary of state, who demands stronger US support for Taiwan and a more confrontational US approach to China's expansionist policies in the South China Sea.

Any ructions in the Sino-US relationship could spell trouble for cooperation over thorny diplomatic issues such as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's belligerent conduct. Credit:AP Writing in The Wall Street Journal in January, Bolton said: "The new US administration could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department; upgrading the status of US representation in Taipei from a private 'institute' to an official diplomatic mission; inviting Taiwan's president to travel officially to America; allowing the most senior US officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business; and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition." Even as a considered policy positioning, Trump's Taiwan call is being faulted. If China and other world powers see Trump as a buffoon, that's how they will treat him  and in that there'll be consequences. "I don't know whether Trump and his advisers understood the unprecedented nature of this phone call, or how much he debated the effect this may have with his advisers beforehand," Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at the Asia Society's Centre on US-China Relations, told The Guardian. "But the issue of whether or not they knew is hugely important. It helps determine how much trust and respect Americans, and governments around the world, should have in Trump and his team's competence in handling US foreign policy  if he and his team didn't know this would cause a stir, then they deserve less respect and trust.

"It's far more worrying for global stability if Beijing believes that Trump and his advisers just didn't understand US policy towards Taiwan. If [the Chinese] view this as a blunder, they could decide to move quickly to exploit Trump's inexperience and incompetence in foreign affairs, and Obama's lame-duck status." Arguing that China would judge the call as historically provocative, Evan Medeiros, a former Asia director at the White House National Security Council, told the Financial Times: "Regardless if it was deliberate or accidental, this phone call will fundamentally change China's perceptions of Trump's strategic intentions for the negative. With this kind of move, Trump is setting a foundation of enduring mistrust and strategic competition for US-China relations." Beijing's public response to Trump's Taiwan call is being judged as tempered - it has lodged an official complaint with Washington but there's a sense that it also wants to let the President-elect off the hook by blaming Taiwan. Charging that Taiwan had acted "pettily", Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi insisted: "The One China principle is the foundation for healthy development of Sino-US relations  we don't wish for anything to obstruct or ruin this foundation." But Chinese commentators are more critical.
Beirut: The Islamic State summoned commanders and affiliate organisations to Iraq to choose a successor to their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, citing people it didn't identify.

The Observatory, a British-based monitoring organisation, reported the planned meeting on its website.

The information couldn't immediately be independently verified and calls to the Observatory by Bloomberg News seeking further information weren't answered.

There have previously been unconfirmed reports, including in March 2015 and June 2016, that Baghdadi was seriously wounded in air strikes carried out by US-led coalition forces. The air strikes have targeted Islamic State's top military commanders since the group declared a caliphate in areas of Syria and Iraq two years ago.
Rome: Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he will resign after his government lost a referendum on constitutional reform by a wide margin on Sunday, opening the door to renewed political instability in Italy.

With exit polls showing about 59 per cent of Italians had voted against his plans to rein in the power of the Italian Senate, the prime minister said he would hand his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella on Monday local time.

"I have lost," Renzi said in a televised statement. "We gave the Italians an opportunity to change, but we didn't succeed."

Renzi, who had promised to resign if his flagship project was defeated, addressed the nation at around midnight Sunday (10am Monday AEST). He said the 'No' camp won "extraordinarily clearly".
Fake news is on people's radar like never before, due to speculation about what role it may have played in the past election. And not a moment too soon; the lack of media literacy in this country is becoming an epidemic -- one that, like so many other public health threats, is particularly harmful to children.

Recently, researchers at Stanford University's History Education Group began to measure what they call "civic online reasoning," which they define as the ability to judge the credibility of information viewed while on electronic devices.

The Group administered 56 tasks designed to evaluate understanding of the reliability of news sources to middle school, high school and college students -- in both well-resourced and under-resourced schools -- across 12 states.

What the researchers found comes as no surprise to anyone who spends time with young adults who have had digital devices in their hands since toddlerhood:

"Overall, young people's ability to reason about the information on the internet can be summed up in one word: bleak," reads the study's executive summary. "We would hope that middle school students could distinguish an ad from a news story. By high school, we would hope that students reading about gun laws would notice that a chart came from a gun owners' political action committee. And, in 2016, we would hope college students, who spend hours each day online, would look beyond a .org URL and ask who's behind a site that presents only one side of a contentious issue. But in every case and at every level, we were taken aback by students' lack of preparation."

The authors conclude that our ability to harness the power of the free flow of information is threatened by media illiteracy and "will depend on our awareness of this problem and our educational response to it. At present, we worry that democracy is threatened by the ease at which disinformation about civic issues is allowed to spread and flourish."

Unfortunately, the skill of media literacy is a narrow one that is possessed mostly by people in the media. We cannot expect parents to teach their children skills like understanding that "native advertising" and "sponsored content" on a legitimate news site are not independently reported news without a hidden agenda if the parents themselves don't understand that there is a distinction.

And expecting the educational system to craft a response to this major blind spot in current education curricula for tomorrow's voters and citizens is practically out of the question.

A 2015 study on the necessity of media literacy for teachers found that "Media literacy remains perhaps the most important addition to current teacher education, even if it must be 'slipped in' with the rest of the curriculum [because] requiring an entire course in media literacy in undergraduate teacher education may not be feasible at many colleges and universities with teacher preparation programs."

As a teacher, I have seen countless students who could not spot the differences between reliable sources and plain propaganda. But, worse, I've seen numerous examples of teaching materials that have included outdated (and therefore incorrect) news articles, handouts produced by for-profit organizations looking for future customers, and untold numbers of videos from sources that were clearly produced by organizations with strong political agendas.

These things jump out at trained journalists, but it's sort of unfair to bash teachers for presenting such materials to their students as trustworthy and factual when teachers can't spot the inconsistencies and were never taught how to do so.

"When we began our work we had little sense of the depth of the problem. We even found ourselves rejecting ideas for tasks because we thought they would be too easy. Our first round of piloting shocked us into reality," the Stanford History Education Group study declares. "Many assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally savvy about what they find there. Our work shows the opposite."

They believe that awareness is the first step in demonstrating the link between digital literacy and citizenship in order to "mobilize educators, policymakers, and others to address this threat to democracy."

But public education institutions move glacially while those who use technology to push their agendas evolve quickly to disguise their bias by making it look like impartial content.

Realistically, today's citizens are on their own in learning how to spot fake news But there is a way to start: Study the URL to see if you recognize it, or if it has other letters after the dot-com. Then take a quick look at some of the headlines. This can tell you a lot.
Santiago de Cuba: Tens of thousands of Cubans packed into a public square here on Saturday, joining dignitaries to bid farewell to revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in the city where his ashes will be entombed.

Cuban President Raul Castro was set to commemorate the legacy of his older brother, who died on November 25 aged 90.

His ashes were set to be interred near the remains of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti in a cemetery in the eastern city.

Drawn in a trailer behind an olive green army jeep, Castro's ashes have made a 1000-kilometre journey in which hundreds of thousands of Cubans, many chanting yo soy Fidel - "I am Fidel" - have lined roadsides and plazas for a final tribute.
Helsinki: Three women - a local politician and two journalists - were shot dead with a rifle in front of a restaurant in the small Finnish town of Imatra near the Russian border, police said on Sunday, local time.

One of the women was the chair of the town council and the two others were local reporters. Tiina Wilen-Jappinen was member of the Social Democrats.

Police in the town of 28,000, said a 23-year-old local man with a record of violent crime was detained at the scene but the motive for the killings remained unclear.

"At the moment, it looks like the victims were chosen at random," Detective Inspector Saku Tielinen told a news conference.
A Syrian army tank is seen in front of a wall bearing the legend "Aleppo is the capital of culture" in the east Aleppo neighborhood of Tariq al-Bab. Credit:AP UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said more than 100,000 people may still be in the rebel-held area. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that reports on the war, said it could be as many as 200,000 people. Russia, which has assumed a pivotal role in Syria since it deployed its air force there 15 months ago, said the withdrawal of all rebels would "normalise life" in eastern Aleppo. Destroyed buildings are seen as a man and his son implant vegetable in the village of al-Amrieh, south of Aleppo. Credit:AP "We are immediately ready to send out military experts, diplomats to Geneva in order to agree mutual actions with our American colleagues to ensure the pullout of all the rebels without exclusion from eastern Aleppo," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

There was no immediate comment from the United States, which has backed some of the rebel groups fighting Dr Assad, including Free Syrian Army factions fighting in the Aleppo area. A Syrian soldier passes by Syrian women displaced with their families from eastern Aleppo. Credit:AP Long outgunned by the Syrian military, Russia's air force and militias that include Lebanon's battle-hardened Hezbollah, the rebels say they have been abandoned to their fate by foreign governments including the United States. Three years after the CIA began secretly shipping lethal aid to the rebels, fears that a Trump administration will abandon them have left tens thousands of opposition fighters weighing their alternatives. Federica Mogherini, right, European Union representative for foreign affairs, and United Nations envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura during a news conference in Rome on Saturday. Credit:ANSA via AP

Among the options, say US officials, regional experts and the rebels themselves, are a closer alliance with better-armed al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups, receipt of more sophisticated weaponry from Sunni states in the Persian Gulf region opposed to a US pullback, and adoption of more traditional guerrilla tactics, including sniper and other small-scale attacks on both Syrian and Russian targets. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the rebels, saying: "We have no idea who these people are." "They've been fighting for years, and they've managed to survive," one US official said on condition of anonymity. "Their opposition to Assad is not going to fade away." "There will be significant reputational costs with our allies in the region if we abandon support of the moderate opposition," said congressman Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. He said the question is "whether our Gulf allies can count on us or they can't, whether the Iranians are going to be given free rein or they won't".

With no good options, the rebels have been holding talks with Russian officials which they say had produced agreements including the departure of all jihadist fighters from Aleppo. The aim was a ceasefire where FSA rebels would stay in the city. But Zakaria Malahifji, the head of the political office of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim faction, said Mr Lavrov's comments had "cancelled everything" and the meetings in Turkey had "almost come to a halt". Russia has acknowledged contacts with the rebels but given no details of the talks in Turkey. The Syrian army has vowed to take back the whole city from rebels. Plumes of smoke The Observatory and a Syrian army source said government forces had advanced further, capturing the Tariq al-Bab area.

The rebels said the assault on Tariq al-Bab had been repelled. Fierce clashes were underway in the Aziza area, near the city's airport, as rebels sought to repel another attempted advance, a rebel official said. At least seven plumes of smoke were seen rising from rebel-held areas of the city on Saturday morning and the sound of jets could be heard overhead, a Reuters witness in government-held western Aleppo said. The Observatory said at least three people were killed in an air strike on the al-Shaer neighbourhood of eastern Aleppo. The Observatory also reported that rebels shot down a Syrian war plane over Aleppo, killing the two pilots on board. Reuters could not obtain Syrian military confirmation of the report. Speaking at a conference in Rome, Mr De Mistura indicated eastern Aleppo could fall by the end of the year.

"I was feeling it would be a terrible battle ending up by Christmas/New Year. I hope the battle will not take place, that there will be some type of formula," he said. In apparent reference to the talks between Russian and rebel officials, Mr De Mistura said "informal negotiations" had reduced the level of fighting in eastern Aleppo - a comment rebel officials dismissed as out of touch with reality. European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, speaking in Rome, said she was certain Aleppo's fall would not end the war, and there would be other military escalations. Loading "This will only make things worse and, by the way, I am convinced the fall of Aleppo will not end the war. We will have other military escalations," she said.
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The Vietnam War ended more than 40 years ago, but it continues to claim soldiers lives. Nearly every spring new names are etched into the black granite walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., that pays tribute to the more than 58,000 service members who lost their lives.

Jim McGough is one of them. As a 19-year-old infantry soldier, McGough was with his unit near the Laotian border in 1971 when they came under fire. A grenade exploded nearby, shredding his feet and lower legs. McGough was taken by medevac to Okinawa, where he underwent surgery, including a transfusion to replace the blood he had lost. Unable to wear army boots after the injury, he was shipped back to the States, where he married his high school sweetheart, Sheryl Isaacson, and they settled down near their hometown of Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Twenty years passed before McGough, who worked in magazine advertising sales, learned that he had hepatitis C, a blood-borne viral infection that attacks the liver and can cause scarring called cirrhosis and liver cancer. The virus only was discovered in 1989, and routine testing of the blood supply began shortly afterward. It was about that time that McGough, a regular Red Cross blood donor, learned he had been infected. Hed never been an intravenous drug user or gotten tattoos, common routes of infection, so the McGoughs figured he must have contracted the virus when he had the blood transfusion in Japan.

Veterans are more than twice as likely to have hepatitis C as members of the general population, studies have found. The virus is significantly more common among Vietnam era veterans than those of any other service era.

McGough went to a liver specialist, who found no damage. The standard treatment at the time, a combination of the drugs interferon and ribavirin, had debilitating side effects. So Jim and Sheryl, who had two daughters, decided not to do anything.

We were having a great time, said Sheryl, now 62. Were going, No big deal. When youre young, youre invincible.

In his late 40s, Jim started to show signs of liver damage. About that time, he and Sheryl took a trip to the nations capital, and visited the Vietnam Memorial. He thought it was magnificent, Sheryl remembers, and told her, If this thing kills me, I want to get my name added.

In January 2014, the virus did kill him. Jim had gone through the interferon treatment but couldnt shake the disease and finally succumbed to liver cancer.

In order to have their names added to The Wall, Vietnam veterans have to meet criteria established by the Department of Defense. Many of the 376 names that have been added since the memorial was completed in 1982 are people who died during the war or shortly afterward but whose records were misplaced, for example, or who were overlooked for other reasons. Their deaths generally must be the result of injuries sustained during the war in Vietnam or a defined combat zone. A number of causes of death dont qualify, including exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange or similar chemicals, illness or suicide related to post-traumatic stress disorder, diabetes, cancer and heart attack.

They reject far more than they accept, said Tim Tetz, director of outreach for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which founded the memorial and is responsible for adding new names to it.

In McGoughs case, at the bottom of a box in their basement he and Sheryl found a handwritten note from a nurse in Okinawa ordering a blood transfusion for Jim the day after he was wounded. That was the documentation they needed to prove his disease was service related so he could qualify for veterans disability benefits. Later, after his death and a lengthy application and evaluation, adding McGoughs name to the memorial also was approved.

In addition to Jim McGough, seven names were inscribed in 2016. Theres not much room left to add more names, Tetz said, at least not long ones. Theres space for one more long name, he said, fewer than 20 medium-length names and a basically unlimited number of short ones. Its an issue that the National Park Service is wrestling with, according to Tetz.

In 2013, the first of a number of pricey new drugs was approved by the Food and Drug Administration that cure hepatitis C in as little as eight weeks with few side effects. Yet the price tags for a course of treatment, which can exceed $84,000, created financial challenges for programs like the Veterans Health Administration. But with additional financial support from Congress, the VHA has reduced the number of vets who are eligible for treatment from 145,000 to 71,000, said Dr. David Ross, director of the HIV, Hepatitis, and Public Health Pathogens Programs at Department of Veterans Affairs.

It was too late for McGough, though, who died just weeks before the drug came on the market.

I can hardly bear to watch those commercials, said Sheryl. Its just heartbreaking.
NEW DELHI (AP)  Indian police are investigating hackers who infiltrated Twitter accounts belonging to the opposition Congress party and sent out a barrage of abusive posts.

The hackers targeted the party's main Twitter account and that of party vice president Rahul Gandhi, posting racist and homophobic slurs in expletive-laden messages, party spokesman Randeep Surjewala said Thursday.

They also attacked the party's website and servers, and threatened to publish private emails of Congress members, Surjewala said. The posts were quickly deleted.

The Indian government minister in charge of information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said he asked Twitter to remove the offensive tweets. Congress party leader Kapil Sibal urged the government to ensure better online security.

New Delhi police said they were investigating and had asked Twitter to provide details of the hackers, including their IP address.
A guide to voter rights in Indiana. What you need to know before you cast a ballot
Katelyn McClaugherty, 2, wears her moms jacket to stay warm as she walks across the Canyon Lake Dam on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016 for Jingle for a Cause.
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The final three satellites in the Air Force's 10-satellite WGS constellation include a digital channelizer that will boost capacity by enabling the satellite to use bandwidth more efficiently.

WASHINGTON  The U.S. Air Force's first upgraded Wideband Global Satcom satellite is ready for a planned Dec. 7 launch, Air Force officials told reporters during a press call-in Tuesday (Nov. 29).

It's the eighth WGS satellite in the military's communication constellation, first launched in 2007. It's also the first to carry an upgrade that will allow it to carry more traffic than previous WGS satellites.

Despite having launched similar satellites before, Walter Lauderdale, the WGS-8 mission director at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), said the team is taking time for all necessary precautions.

"Just like each human being is a unique individual, each rocket is unique as well," he said.

WGS-8, like all but the first WGS satellites, will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket.

The satellite is already encapsulated inside its fairing, awaiting launch from Complex 37 at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Officials are shooting for liftoff between 6:53 p.m. and 7:42 p.m. EST.

Thomas Becht, SMC's deputy director for MILSATCOM Systems, said WGS features "broadcast, multicast, and point to point connections anytime at anywhere around the world" as well as supporting "X- and Ka- band communications simultaneously and seamlessly connect the two bands."

It will also feature several spot beams that will aid in cutting through jamming attempts.

The satellite costs an estimated $425 million, but will provide 45 percent more bandwidth than previous WGS satellites.

That's due to a digital channelizer that more efficiently handles communications. According to information from WGS prime contractor Boeing, the channelizer divides uplink bandwidth into 1,900 sub-channels, providing communications more routes for transmission. The Air Force added $111 million to Boeing Satellite System's contract in 2012 to add the digital channelizer to WGS-8 and WGS-9. The new channelizer will also be included on WGS-10, which the Air Force ordered from Boeing around the same time for roughly $340 million.

"We see the information age has resulted in an explosion of communication needs for everybody," said Rico Attanasio, the director of Boeing MILSATCOM programs. "For our armed forces, wideband communications are necessary for the people that defend the United States."

Two more WGS satellites are planned for launch, bringing the constellation total up to 10 by 2019. Each satellite is designed with a 14 year service life.

Becht said the Defense Department is "kicking off an analysis of alternatives" to see what the next step in military satcom might be after WGS concludes, which could include purchasing communication services from private companies.

"There is an enormous demand from the warfighter for satellite communications," he said. "Unfortunately 10 dedicated satellites isn't enough to meet that demand."

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
Shaheed El-Hafed, Dec. 4, 2016 (SPS) - Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Amina Mohamed arrived Sunday in the Sahrawi refugee camps on an official working visit to the Sahrawi Republic.

The Kenyan Minister of Foreign Affairs was greeted at Tindouf airport by Minister of Water Resources and Environment, Ibrahim Mokhtar, and she is expected to be received in the Wilaya of Boujdour, Sahrawi refugee camps, by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohamed-Salem Ould Salek, and members of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front and the SADR government.

The visit of the Kenyan minister constitutes "a unique opportunity to continue regular consultations between the two countries on regional and international issues of common interest, particularly those of peace and security in Africa", and it also considered a confirmation of Africans to stand by the just struggle of the Saharawi people and promote the position of the Sahrawi state as a founding member within the African Union.

Kenya and the Sahrawi Republic have close relations of friendship and solidarity, especially the continuous support of Kenya to the just struggle of the Sahrawi people for self-determination and independence. (SPS)

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Bir Lehlou, 4 December 2016 (SPS)  President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, sent Sunday a message of congratulations to H.E. Mr. Adama Barrow, on his election as President of the Islamic Republic of Gambia.

On behalf of the Government and people of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, it gives me great pleasure to address this message to your Excellency to express our most sincere congratulations and best wishes on your election as President of the Islamic Republic of Gambia and to wish you every success in your new mission, said the President of the Republic in his message.

Your election is a testament to the great confidence that the Gambian people have in you to guide them towards the attainment of more development, progress and prosperity. It will certainly open a new page in the history of Gambia that will enable her to contribute actively, along with other African Union states, to tackling the pressing challenges faced by our continent.

I would like to take this pleasant opportunity to transmit to your Excellency our strong resolve to consolidate our bilateral relations and to boost them to the highest possible level in the interests of our two brotherly African peoples and the peoples of our continent, added the President of the Republic. (SPS)

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Boujdour (refugee camps), Dec 4, 2016 (SPS) - The Kenyan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms Amina Mohamed, expressed Sunday her country's support for the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and independence, after a warm welcome organized in her honor at the headquarters of the National Union of Saharawi Women (UNFS) in Boujdour, Sahrawi refugee camps.

Ms Amina Mohamed, a candidate for the Presidency of the Commission of the African Union, said that her access to this post would be an extension of the policy pursued by Ms Dlamini-Zuma in favor of the Saharawi people's right to self-determination and independence.

Ms Amina Mohamed said she was "very moved by the warm welcome given to her by the Saharawi women", stressing that "the cohesion and organization she has witnessed are the guarantor of the victory of the Sahrawi people ".

For her part, the Governor of the Wilaya of Boujdour, Ms Fatma Balla said she was proud to welcome in her wilaya Kenyan Minister of Foreign Affairs Ms Amina Mohamed, stressing that "this visit represents a lot for the Sahrawis".

UNFS Secretary-General Ms Fatma Elmehdi praised the visit, reviewing the Sahrawi women's activism and their role in the struggle of the Saharawi people, as well as the Moroccan violations against the Sahrawis and Particularly women in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

She finally wished success to the guest of the Saharawi people in her candidacy for the presidency of the AU commission.

Ms. Amina Mohamed also attended the screening of a documentary about the repression and flagrant violations of human rights committed by Morocco against the defenseless Saharawi civilians in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

The Kenya Minister of Foreign Affairs will visit the Sahrawi museum of resistance, before being received by the Saharawi Coordinator with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), Mr. Mhamed Khaddad in Shaheed El-Hafed.

The Kenyan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms Amina Mohamed, arrived Sunday morning in the Saharawi refugee camps, on an official working visit to the SADR, during which she will meet with the Sahrawi authorities, it should be recalled. (SPS)

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Boujdour (Refugee Camps)- Kenya's Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed reiterated Sunday, in the Saharawi refugee camp of Boudjedour, her country's support to the Saharawi cause, calling for holding, as quickly as possible, the referendum on Western Sahara people's self-determination.

In a statement upon her arrival in the headquarters of the Saharawi Women's Union, Kenya's foreign policy chief said "the support for her candidacy to head the African Union Commission is likely to continue outgoing President Dlamini-Zuma's efforts in favour of Western Sahara people's cause."

"Kenya has been one of the first countries to support the Saharawi cause," Amina Mohamed said, citing the historic decisions taken at the Summit of Nairobi in 1981.

"The Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is an African Union's full member," she stressed.

Addressing Saharawi women, Amina Mohamed said "you have shown to the whole world that women are able to manage, to supervise and organise," stressing the right of all peoples to freely express their will.(SPS)

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A young man who was viciously stabbed to death in west London has been named by police as teenager Khalid Safi.

The 18-year-old, who was living in Southwark, was knifed in the heart after a fight broke out between two men in Acton at 6.30pm on Thursday.

Police are hunting for the driver of a car, believed to be a minicab, which pulled up on Victoria Road  the scene of the stabbing  at around 6.30pm.

Detectives think there are still more people with information who are yet to come forward and reiterated their appeal for help.

They believe Mr Safi  who has yet to be formally identified  had links to Wembley as well as Peterborough and Walsall.

A row of police cars near the student halls in North Acton after the stabbing / @mikeolliston

Police want to find the driver of a silver or light-coloured Mercedes Vito people carrier  or a similar model  which pulled up outside the Holiday Inn. It is thought to be a minicab.

Detective Chief Inspector Sam Price, who is leading the investigation, said: "There were a lot of people in the area of Victoria Road at the time of the incident and whilst we have spoken with the woman we had previously appealed for, I believe that not everyone has come forward at this time.

"I am continuing to appeal for anyone who witnessed the fatal stabbing or moments leading up to it to contact officers in the incident room.

A forensic officer examines the scene in North Acton / Lucy Young

"We are particularly keen to speak to the driver of a silver or light coloured people carrier, or similar, parked briefly outside Holiday Inn in Victoria Street at approximately 6.30pm the night of incident.

If you are this person, or know who this person is, please contact us and help our investigation.

"I would urge anyone who can assist our investigation to contact us."

Police at the scene of the stabbing in North Acton / Lucy Young

Mr Safi was found by paramedics suffering from stab injuries. He was rushed to hospital where he died a short time later.

A post-mortem examination on Friday gave the cause of his death as a stab wound to the heart.

Anyone with any information concerning this incident is asked to call the police incident room on 020 8721 4054.

To give information anonymously contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.
A local council chief and two journalists have been shot dead outside a restaurant in a town in south-eastern Finland, police said.

A 23-year-old local man has been detained for questioning.

The victims, all women, were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant late on Saturday in Imatra, moments before a police patrol car arrived at the scene, said police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki.

Police said two of the women were in their early 50s and one was in her 30s

Shooting: The local mayor is believed to be among the victims / AFP/Getty Images

Local council chief Tiina Wilen-Jappinen is believed to be among the victims.

The women were shot multiple times in the head and torso with a rifle.

Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the suspect had a criminal record, including for violent incidents and theft but declined to identify him or give more details.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."

Investigators will question him later Sunday.

The suspect arrived outside the restaurant in his car and shot the three women as they stepped out of the restaurant.

He then waited in the car until police arrived and accompanied officers silently and peacefully, police said.

Imatra, which has 28,000 inhabitants, is about 140 miles (230km) east of the capital, Helsinki.

"We decided to open a crisis centre after the shooting occurred right in the middle of the town near restaurants and nightclubs," said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District.

"There were people there when it happened. In such a small place, it's quite a huge incident and many people were shocked."
A group of north London parents are set to march on Downing Street to demand action for a British-Iranian woman who has been detained in Iran.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was jailed on unspecified charges after being arrested at Tehran Airport in April, whilst she and her baby daughter Gabriella visited family.

She faces a five-year sentence whilst Gabriella, who is being looked after by her grandparents, is not able to return to her father Richard Ratcliffe as her passport was confiscated.

After it was revealed that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was suffering from increasingly poor health  both physically and mentally  the group of furious parents organised Monday's march to demand the family is reunited for Christmas.

Jailed: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella

The protesters will deliver a letter calling for the West Hampstead mums release to Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

The march, organised by community groups, will also take Christmas presents and a card for Gabriella, now two-years-old.

The Ham & High has previously reported that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had become unwell after going on hunger strike and had written a goodbye letter to her husband.

Held: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was seized with her baby daughter Gabriella

It is thought she may be a bargaining tool and Mr Ratcliffe believes it is in connection with a debt owed to the Iranian Government by the UK.

Gabriella: The toddler turned two without either of her parents there / Azadeh Fatehrad

There might be complex international negotiations in the background," Anna Behrmann, a protester, said.

"But at the heart of the tragedy is a mother who has been locked up in an Iranian jail and taken from her two-year-old daughter.

Our government should be seen to be doing more!

"I'm really glad to have the chance to march for Nazanin, after following the story for so long.

The march will depart from Green Park Tube station at 10:30am on Monday.
B oris Johnson has said there is no reason why Britain should pay "large" sums to the Euopean Union to continue trading with the bloc after Brexit.

The idea that Britain may continue to pay for tariff-free access to Europes internal market after Brexit has been mooted in recent days.

But speaking on the BBCs Andrew Marr show on Sunday the Foreign Secretary said a decision had not yet been made and all suggestions were "pure speculation."

Asked to comment on Brexit Secretary David Davis suggestion in the commons on Thursday that the Government could be willing to pay to maintain access to the single market Mr Johnson said:

Government 'would consider paying for single market access post-Brexit'

"That is something that obviously David Davis is considering. It doesn't mean that a decision has been taken.

Mr Johnson, who led the official Leave campaign, said he would support paying in to European programmes like the Erasmus student exchange scheme and the Horizon research programme.

He added however: "I see no reason why those payments should be large."

Stressing the benefits of Brexit Mr Johnson added: "I do believe that as a result of Brexit we will be able to take back control of the money that we currently give to Brussels.

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"Very large sums of money will be coming back to this country which will be capable of being spent on priorities such as the NHS. That will be one of the outcomes of Brexit."

The Foreign Secretary, who has said Britain would "probably" have to leave the EU customs union, acknowledged the UK would have to come out of the common tariff area if it wanted to strike its own free trade deals with non-EU countries.

He said: "You can't do free trade deals unless you come out of the common commercial policy, the common tariff area.

That is a different thing from somehow remaining within the zone where there is currently free movement of goods and services."
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B oris Johnson shut down a live TV interview pub quiz after appearing to become lost for words when asked to name the South Korean president.

The Foreign Secretary appeared to squirm before fleeing the Sky News interview, telling host Dermot Murnaghan we are not getting into a pub quiz about leaders around the world.

The presenter launched into the unexpected quiz live on TV, asking Mr Johnson the same questions he had fired at the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, in September.

He asked Mr Johnson to name the French Foreign Minister and the president of South Korea.

Mr Johnson said: If you want to have a pub quiz, Dermot, Ill be very happy to meet you in the pub.

But the French foreign minister is mon ami, Jean-Marc Ayrault.

But the bungling ex-Mayor of London appeared to be tongue-tied when asked who is the South Korean leader.

After a pause Mr Johnson said: We are not getting into a pub quiz about leaders around the world and Im going to, with great respect, invite you out to the pub, Dermot, so that we can take these conversations further.

'Bye bye there to the Foreign Secretary': Boris Johnson cuts short the interview after being challenged. / Sky News

I have a terrible feeling that if I keep answering you, you will keep coming back with more.

Have a good morning, see you.

He then appears to move away from the camera.

Labour politician Emily Thornberry accused Mr Murnaghan of sexism after the presenter fired questions at her.
T he Government goes to the Supreme Court on Monday in a bid to appeal a controversial Brexit court ruling.

Britains most senior judges are being asked to overturn a High Court ruling made last month stating the Prime Minister must allow Parliament to vote before triggering Article 50.

The ruling infuriated Brexiteers who believed the ruling could give MPs a chance to block the process of Britain leaving the EU.

Now 11 Supreme Court justices - a record number to sit on an appeal - will listen to government lawyers try to appeal the ruling.

Justices of the Supreme Court leave the Supreme Court in Parliament Square. / Reuters

If the appeal is unsuccessful, and any potential further appeal to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also fails, the Government's plans for Brexit could be thrown into disarray.

The Supreme Court has already stressed that its judges will only be concerned with questions of law and not making political decisions.

The High Court ruling was won by Gina Miller, 51, an investment fund manager and philanthropist who was selected to bring the case.

The Attorney General said: "The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum provided for by an Act of Parliament.

"The Government is determined to respect the result of the referendum.

"The Government's case is that it does have legal power to trigger Article 50 on the timetable set out by the Prime Minister. We do not believe another Act of Parliament is necessary."

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Additional reporting by Press Association.
A far-right politician who was in the running to be Austrias next president has been defeated.

Right-wing populist Norbert Hofer conceded defeat to left-leaning Alexander Van der Bellen after his presidential hopes were dashed in a poll on Sunday.

Mr Van der Bellen, the former head of the Greens, won 53.5 per cent of the vote while Mr Hofer received 46.4 per cent.

Mr Hofer - who is anti-migrant and anti-EU - conceded defeat within minutes and congratulated his rival.

This years election in Austria has been watched by countries across the EU as an indicator of the growing Euroscepticism across the continent.

Left-wing: Supporters of the left-leaning candidate Alexander Van der Bellen hold a sign reading 'Thank God'. / AFP/Getty Images

France, Germany and the Netherlands will all face elections next year which could be dominated by debate over the EU.

In a Facebook post Mr Hofer said he was endlessly sad and added: I would have been happy to take care of our Austira.

The final result will not be official until all the votes are counted on Monday but officials said the rest of the ballots will not change the outcome.

Mr Van der Bellen is pro-European Union and represents liberal to left-of-centre views while Mr Hofer comes from the Eurosceptic anti-migrant Freedom Party.
A French town has been ordered to take down a statue of the Virgin Mary after a court ruled it violated the country's ban on religious symbols in public space.

Officials in Publier, in eastern France, have been given three months to remove the statue or face a fine of 100 euros (80) a day.

In response to the ruling, the towns mayor, Gaston Lacroix, said he would try to move the statue to private land.

The figure, which stands in a park overlooking the waters of Lake Geneva, was erected in 2011 and has already been the subject of controversy as it was paid for with public funds.

The ruling has sparked criticism on social media with critics arguing it violates freedom of expression.

Jacques Clostermann, a politician from southern France, tweeted: "I think I have a very open mind, but I can't stand this new tyranny"

Another user wrote:"Building tyranny, either we suffer it or we fight against it like the Cristeros. No alternative."

France has a long history of the separation of church and state.

Religious symbols are banned from public space under the 1905 laicite, or state secularism, law.

In 2011 it became the first country in Europe to ban women from wearing face-covering veils in public spaces.

Earlier this year the country was embroiled in a bitter debate about whether Burkinis should be banned on French beaches.
P rince Harry has visited a childrens home in the Caribbean founded by religious sect the 'Moonies' on the last day of his exotic Royal tour.

The British High Commissioner to Guyana defended the choice of the prince's trip and described the work done there as amazing.

Harry spent an hour touring the Joshua House Children Centre in Georgetown, Guyana - an institution run by Gladys Accra of the Unification Church, also known as the Moonies.

The centre works to care for youngsters who have been abused, neglected or living in poverty.

Prince Harry in Georgetown, Guyana, on the last morning of his visit to the Caribbean. / Getty Images

In the past the so-called Moonies sect - named after its founder Sun Myung Moon - faced accusations of brainwashing and scamming its followers.

But Greg Quinn, Britains High Commissioner to the country, said: What is she doing? She's helping 50 kids who would otherwise not have a great standard of life - what she and her husband and her family have done is amazing.

Chatting: Speaking with youngsters at the children's centre. / Getty Images

"I find it hard to question what she's doing in any way because she's doing very good work."

The prince is at the end of his 15-day trip around the Caribbean which saw him take a HIV test with Rihanna in Barbados and release baby turtles into the sea.

Mingling: Britain's Prince Harry talks to a woman about her hair. / REUTERS

The visit saw Harry interacting with some of the 50 children, aged seven to 17, who are referred to the centre by a child protection programme if they are at risk from issues including abuse, neglect or poverty.

Mass weddings: Thousands of couples take part in a ceremony in 2013, after Moonies founder Moon Sun-Myung passed away. / Getty Images

He held a question and answer session with some of the teenagers, and when asked what it is like to be a prince, he replied: "Good and bad, there's lots of privileges of course you get from when you're born, but with privilege comes responsibility."

The Moonies sect was well known for its mass wedding ceremonies  of which Mrs Accra and her husband Clifford took part.

Kensington Palace declined to comment.
T he death toll in the fire which ripped through a late-night rave in California has risen to 24.

Officials said they expect to find more bodies as the search continues  with a significant number of people still missing.

Only 20 per cent of the building has so far been searched after fire crews worked through the night to clear debris. The search for bodies is likely to continue for another 48 hours.

The converted warehouse known as the Ghost Ship, in Oakland, California, was being used to host a dance party when the fire broke out at 11.30pm on Friday (7.30am on Saturday UK time).

Smouldering: The warehouse after it was destroyed by fire. / AFP/Getty Images

It is so far unclear what caused the fire in the building. Officials believe there were between 50 to 100 guests inside at the time.

Tragic: Genevieve Griesau, who has four friends reported still missing. / EPA

Former residents who lived at the warehouse said the building had few exits and a makeshift staircase.

Sergeant Ray Kelly of Alameda County sheriffs department said the blaze could have been sparked by a cigarette.

He said people either escaped from the building or died inside, where the only way down from the second story was via a stairwell made of wooden pallets.

Sgt Kelly added: We know there are bodies in there that we can't get to - that have been seen but not recovered.
I often use this space to write about topics that really get me revved up, and this week is no different. Three days ago Star-Herald staff members wrote two opinion pieces about how important the U.S. Constitution is and that we are a nation of laws, none more important than the First Amendment.

The topic we brought up, because it has been in the news constantly for the past several weeks, was burning of the American flag in protest. Man, did we take it on the chin! On social media we were called flag burners. We were accused of condoning the burning of the American flag.

Our two columns came about because President-elect Donald Trump said people who burn the American flag should lose their citizenship and go to jail. The problem with Trumps statement is that the Supreme Court already ruled on this topic and said it is not a crime and that burning the flag was protected protest under the First Amendment.

Both our columnists said in so many words that burning a flag was inappropriate. I am still puzzled how that would lead to people calling us flag burners. One columnist pointed out that in January, Trump will take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Well, the Court has ruled flag burning is Constitutional; burning it is not a crime.

Personally, I think the Supreme Court got it wrong. Most everyone in the Star-Herald thinks the same thing. Our columnist, Irene North, said she has no desire to burn the flag, but she would defend the rights granted in the First Amendment. Folks, we dont want to change the First Amendment. I would like the court ruling to change, but dont mess with the First Amendment. It is the cornerstone of our country.

Our second columnist, Spike Jordan, served in the Marines in Afghanistan and speaks of the many flag-draped coffins he witnessed being loaded onto cargo planes. Those marines died for something, something we call the Constitution, which affords us the rights and freedoms we have. He writes, They made that sacrifice so that we can continue to express our freedoms in whatever way we choose. He goes on to write burning an American flag is stupid and disrespectful.

How our readers thought we at the Star-Herald were condoning flag burning is beyond me. What we were saying is that President Trump should not mess with the First Amendment, which is the very foundation of what America is. We are free to worship as we want, free to say what we want, free to gather and peacefully protest our government, and the press is free to write about all of it.

I dont know of a single Star-Herald employee that thinks burning an American flag is appropriate at any time. The argument is not with the Star-Herald. It is with the Supreme Court.

Folks, we make our living working under the protection of the First Amendment. You can falsely accuse us of being flag-burners under those same rights given to you under the First Amendment. But for those who would do so, I would ask, Did you do the research on the history of flag burning? We did. Did you research the multiple court cases that have gotten us to this point? We did. Did you read the columns and see that neither one approved of the act of flag burning and went to great lengths to explain the Supreme Court's process.

Hey, Spike Jordan, our U.S. Marine columnist had it right. It is stupid and disrespectful, but unfortunately, according to Justice Scalias deciding vote, it is not a crime. Ironically, Scalia also said, If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king. As much as flag burning disgusted him, (and us) he said it was protected in the First Amendment and free speech shall not be abridged.

Well, Donald Trump is not a king either. He is our next president who must uphold the Constitution. And as I wrote earlier, even though I think the Supreme Court got it wrong, well use the last drop of ink to protect the rights you and I have under the First Amendment.

The question I have for you; did the Supreme Court get it right when they ruled American flag burning was protected under the First Amendment?
By Jennifer Froetschel, DS Public Affairs

When you stepped inside a building in Accra, Ghana, you were greeted by an American flag and a photo of President Obama. It wasnt the U.S. Embassy, however.

It was not operated by the United States government, but by figures from both Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings and a Ghanaian attorney practicing immigration and criminal law. The "consular officers" were Turkish citizens who spoke English and Dutch.



One of several buildings used by the disrupted fraud ring in Accra, Ghana. (U.S. Department of State photo)

For about a decade it operated unhindered; the criminals running the operation were able to pay off corrupt officials to look the other way, as well as obtain legitimate blank local documents to be doctored or counterfeited.

This past summer the assistant regional security officer investigator (ARSO-I) at the real U.S. Embassy in Accra, in cooperation with the Ghana Police Force, Ghana Detectives Bureau, and other international partners, shut down this fake embassy.



Exterior of the legitimate U.S. Embassy in Accra, Ghana (U.S. Department of State photo)

This investigation is a small part of the broader Operation Spartan Vanguard" initiative. "Operation Spartan Vanguard" was developed by Diplomatic Security agents in the Regional Security Office (RSO) at U.S. Embassy Ghana in order to address trafficking and fraud plaguing the U.S. Embassy and the region.

During the course of another fraud investigation in "Operation Spartan Vanguard" an informant tipped off the ARSO-I about the fraudulent document operation, as well as a fake Netherlands embassy operating in Accra.

After receiving the tip, the ARSO-I, who is the point person in the RSO shop for "Operation Spartan Vanguard" investigations, verified the information with partners within the Ghanaian Police Force. The ARSO-I then created an international task force composed of the aforementioned Ghana Police Force, as well as the Ghana Detective Bureau, Ghana SWAT, and officials from the Canadian Embassy to investigate further.

The investigation identified the main architects of the criminal operation and several satellite locations (including a dress shop and an apartment building) used for operations. The fake embassy did not accept walk-in visa appointments; instead, they drove to the most remote parts of West Africa to find customers, advertising their services through flyers and billboards to cultivate customers from Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, and Togo. They would shuttle the customers to Accra, and rent them a room at a hotel nearby. The Ghanaian organized crime ring would shuttle the victims to and from the fake embassies. Locating the document vendor within the group led investigators to uncover the satellite locations and key players.

When the task force conducted raids, they arrested several suspects and collected evidence that included a laptop computer; cell smart phones; counterfeit identity documents; and 150 lost, stolen, or purchased passports from 10 countries. A small number of these passports contained expired U.S. visas. The criminals would either chemically wash and doctor expired visas or use them as a blueprint in an attempt to create counterfeit visa foils. The fraud ring sold these expired and counterfeit visas and other false identification documents (including bank records, education records, birth certificates, and others) for a cost of $6,000.

The dress shop acted as both a front for the operationit was open to the general public for alterations and the purchase of dressesas well as housing some of the document production. It was purported to house an industrial sewing machine they would use to re-create the binding on the fake passports.

During the raid on the dress shop the corrupt Ghanaian attorney lied to Ghanaian detectives by telling them they were not allowed to access the shop because it was involved in an additional court case.

The "additional court case" was determined to be fallacious, but it bought enough time for corrupt officials to arrange for bail for members of the organized crime group so that they could move the document production facility outside of Accra. Many of the documents also were exported elsewhere in Africa and to Europe through the dress shop.

Several suspects remain at large, but Ghanaian police have warrants for their arrest and plan to pursue them. The investigation and search for the Turkish organized crime group is ongoing.

After the operation was complete, both Interpol and the Bureau of Consular Affairs were sent the information collected to enter into their databases. At the request of the Ghana Police, DS Computer Forensic Lab will be assisting with forensic evaluation of the computer equipment seized in the operation.

Successful interagency operations like this are an essential part of investigating and stopping the well-connected criminal networks perpetrating passport and visa fraud. The regional security officer in Ghana reports that as a result of this and other raids in Operation Spartan Vanguard, the export of fraudulent documents have decreased by 70 percent in West Africa, criminal leaders no longer have the political cover they once had, and multiple other investigative avenues have opened to DS and other law enforcement partners, and this is only the beginning.


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With one hand holding a bottle of champagne and the other an oversized certificate declaring him the winner of $1 million from Publishers Clearing House, Bruce Saunders stood on the front porch of his western Davie County Monday and rattled off a list of things he plans spend his spend money on  medical bills, fixing his lawnmower and helping family members.
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MASCOUTAH  Inside the 35-degree North Bay Produce warehouse at MidAmerica Airport last week, bundled-up workers unpacked blackberries harvested in Mexico less than two days earlier, pulling out the less-desirable fruit and placing the good berries into containers ready to be shipped to grocery stores.

Tim Cantwell, the airports director, continues to push for a bigger plan that has been in the works for years of where such produce could end up  in China. And on the passenger air side, the airport is readying for an uptick in flights on Allegiant Airlines, its only airline.

Hes also keeping up the drumbeat to lure other airlines to bolster the airport, which has been heavily subsidized by St. Clair County taxpayers since it opened in 1997. At the time, Lambert-St. Louis International Airport was flush with Trans World Airlines flights, and officials thought the region could use another airport to absorb the spillover.

But MidAmerica struggled to attract service and sat empty for the first two years before landing its first airline. Then in 2009, Allegiant suspended all service there after a 3-year run with flights to Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla. Allegiant said at the time that its decision was prompted by competitive influences and weakened market demand.

It resumed passenger flights from MidAmerica, a joint-use airfield with Scott Air Force Base that is 25 miles from downtown St. Louis, in late 2012. Now Allegiant flies to six locations from the airport, five of which are in Florida, and Cantwell said another destination could be added next year.

Come April, service to Destin/Fort Walton and Sanford/Orlando will increase to five days a week from the current two, and Punta Gorda/Fort Myers and St. Petersburg/Tampa each increases to three days a week, also from their current two. Service to Las Vegas and Jacksonville, Fla., is set to stay at two flights each week.

Cantwell is looking beyond passenger flights to bolster activity at the airport. Its tenants already include a Boeing manufacturing facility, which he said has 120 full-time employees working in two shifts. Hed like to get a flight school there so members of the military can use their benefits to learn to fly. And the produce warehouse on its grounds is a critical part of getting an international trade route started.

Im starting a trade route, not a hub, he said. He envisions that route running between Chinas Ningbo Lishe International Airport and Latin America, using the Mascoutah airport as a key link. The Chinese airport, which is located about 100 miles south of Shanghai, and MidAmerica signed a strategic cooperation memorandum in 2012 to work together to establish the air cargo route and to introduce an incentive program to encourage air carriers to start new air routes for passenger and air cargo service.

Cantwell touts the 36,000-square-foot refrigerated warehouse already in operation on airport grounds, and its workforce of why such a plan could work.

He said there is no timeline on when that could happen.

Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo., and longtime critic of MidAmerica, said there are too many trade routes that can take advantage of huge amounts of cargo capability in cities like Dallas, Detroit and Atlanta, for MidAmerica to be competitive.

Theres nothing that would behoove a Chinese carrier to fly into Mascoutah, he said.

Meanwhile, the airport is celebrating that more passengers are using the airport and its four gates for vacation travel.

On Thursday, those ready to hop a plane included Rob and Kristie BeSore of Fenton, and their three kids, who were headed to Orlando for a long weekend at Walt Disney World. The couple surprised their children with the trip that morning, and had booked round-trip tickets for less than $200 each.

Theyd looked at flights on other airlines through Lambert but said they saved money by going to MidAmerica.

The price out of Allegiant was much, much better, said Rob BeSore, moments before boarding.
FENNIMORE  Same story; different community.

I walked away with that feeling two weeks ago after spending time at the Southwest Wisconsin Business and Education Summit, where I spoke to teachers, counselors and administrators from school districts in seven counties as well as some of the regions business owners and managers.

The conversation that immediately followed sounded a lot like whats happening in Madison these days around the personalized pathways project in the citys public schools.

Education leaders in Madison say they want to reach students who dont automatically fit into a college-bound track or who know little  if anything  about career choices. Likewise, the crowd on hand in Fennimore seemed ready for a different approach.

They talked about exposing students to career opportunities at a much earlier age, beginning in middle school versus waiting until high school. They discussed the difficulties of connecting with businesses that might want to open their doors to students, but which feel hamstrung by child-labor laws and other perceived barriers to apprenticeships.

They discussed counselors who are so tied up with behavioral issues or standardized testing that precious little time is left to talk with students about career choices. They talked about the need for more school Career Days and release time for teachers to meet with business leaders on their own turf.

Perhaps most telling, they discussed the role of parents who might think a traditional college route is the only road to be followed by their sons and daughters  often because they arent aware of other opportunities close to home.

The conversation at Southwest Technical College in Fennimore is not unlike whats happening in communities across Wisconsin, where educators, business people and others are worried about meeting workforce needs in an era when demographics threaten to crimp the states economic growth.

Unless current trends change somewhat dramatically, Wisconsin will be home to more adults who are retired than who are working within 15 years. Keeping more young people engaged and exploring careers close to home is part of the answer.

That goal is reflected in the Madison School Districts personalized pathways program, which is scheduled to start for high school students next year. At its core, its a way to get students thinking about what they do after graduation long before the diploma is granted.

It also aims to engage students who otherwise might not get a degree, especially if they fail to see the connection to a career. While Madison high schools graduate 90 percent of their students, losing 10 percent is an unwelcome price for a society that needs all of the contributing citizens it can produce.

The Madison districts first announced pathway will be health care, a field where economists predict a growing number of jobs over time. Future pathways will likely include other fields.

Some parents fear the Madison pathways project will constitute tracking or discourage students from taking electives that otherwise broaden their experience, but the program design doesnt suggest thats the case.

Nor should the pathways approach get in the way of students who are bound for a four-year college or university. In fact, it could help them by combining real-world experience and advanced placement courses.

Kids often dont know what they dont know. They may be exposed only to what they see at home or what they hear from friends. Efforts such as the Madison pathways project could introduce young people to careers in information technology, manufacturing, building trades and much more.

In a state that needs all the talented workers it can get, its worth a try.
Until an undocumented immigrant killed a San Francisco woman in 2015, there was little to distinguish Donald Trumps stand on immigration issues from those of the other candidates in the crowded GOP primary field. He latched onto the murder of Kathryn Steinle like a pit bull, using sanctuary cities to frame the issues of illegal immigration and border security that rocketed him to prominence.

The irony is that Trumps condemnation of sanctuary cities like San Francisco really differs little from the policies of President Barack Obama, whose efforts to crack down on criminal immigrants led to the capture and deportation of nearly 2 million people. Both men want Americas cities to end policies of non-cooperation with federal immigration officials.

Leaders of cities around the country are standing in defiance of Trump and his pledges to crack down on illegal immigration. Theyve also defied the Obama administration, arguing that local police have no business or jurisdiction enforcing federal laws and asserting that U.S. immigration policies unjustly punish people whose only crime is to be in this country without proper authorization. No Missouri cities are on the sanctuary cities list. As immigrant-friendly as St. Louis should be, this is a fight it should steadfastly avoid.

While the vast majority of undocumented immigrants are hard workers trying to improve the lives of their families, theres no question that some seriously dangerous individuals are using the others as a screen. Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez is one of them.

Lopez-Sanchez was a five-time deportee who already had seven felony convictions by the time he shot and killed Steinle along San Franciscos Pier 14 waterfront walk in 2015. He had no business being on any American street. He had been arrested but released, despite a federal detainer request, weeks before by San Francisco authorities.

That this clearly hardened criminal had used the U.S.-Mexico border as a revolving door provided exactly the kind of ammunition Trump needed to adopt illegal immigration as his campaign theme.

About 500 cities have a range of sanctuary policies regarding immigrants. Some cities and counties refuse to detain anyone suspected of being an undocumented immigrant unless the federal government provides a warrant and agrees to pay jail costs. Others refuse to submit the names of arrestees to a federal database designed to quickly identify immigration status.

These cities refused to do it under Obama, and theyre doubly defiant about cooperating with the Trump administration.

Their stand could prove costly. Trump has a number of options to withhold billions in federal funding from cities that refuse cooperation. All Americans lose when law enforcement falls prey to political gamesmanship.

The fact that the nation is so deeply split on how to address this problem underscores how badly broken the immigration system is.
While living in Chicago 20 years ago, Liz Perry happened upon a natural pet product store in her neighborhood. She totally hit it off and became friends with the owners of the small, two-person business and began helping out once a week with checking in orders and arranging the store. At first, Perry was unaware she was cultivating an interest for her own future business, Nutzy Mutz & Crazy Catz.

A while later, the owners of the Chicago store asked Perry to take care of their animals and the running of the store while they went on a two-week vacation. They did not have employees and knew they could trust Perry.

I figured Ill know  Ill either want them to come back fast, or Ill know I want to open my own store, said Perry.

Things went so well Perry knew that opening her own store was what she wanted to do. However, it was 10 years before it would happen.

As a sales manager for a large company, Perry traveled from Sunday until Thursday night. She would start the week out in New York and end the week in Los Angeles.

I didnt know where I was, Perry recalled. I would just get in a cab and theyd ask, Lady, where do you want to go? Id answer, Where am I? They were like, What do you mean? Im like, Which city am I in? I had no idea! It was getting to be a little nuts!

Being newly married, she proposed a new job situation to the owner of the company so she could be home more. He replied she was doing great at her job and should keep doing what she was doing. It was then that she knew it was time to open her own store.

Perry opened her natural pet product store, Nutzy Mutz & Crazy Catz, on Dec. 10, 2006, at 330 W. Lakeside St. Two years later, she opened a second location at 555 S. Midvale Boulevard. Due to limited space in the stores, they only sell food for dogs, cats and chickens, and toys and accessories for mostly dogs and cats.

The merchandise at Nutzy Mutz & Crazy Catz is from companies that are as sustainably sourced as possible. A big seller is raw dog and cat food that comes from grass-fed, humanely-raised animals. Sweaters, collars, other accessories and toys are either made in the USA, or bought from Fair Trade companies.

Not all items in the Nutzy Mutz & Crazy Catz stores are for pets. They also sell lawn ornaments and bird houses made from repurposed oil drums made in Mexico. In the Midvale store, there is a human table with items such as jewelry, coasters and cuffs made by local artists.

Perry has always loved animals and currently has three dogs, six cats, and two lofts of about 30 rescue homing pigeons at her Waterloo home. She also supports and is involved with Dane County Friends of Ferals, Heartland Farm Sanctuary and the pigeons and chickens on the rooftop of Madison Childrens Museum. Her own rescue causes include Urban Chicken Network  Connecting Peeps, Re-Homing Pigeons and a rescue group for roosters.

Nutzy Mutz & Crazy Catz is a neighborhood-centric small business. Many of her customers, and employees, are from the neighborhoods where the stores are located.

I love all of my customers, everybody is so great. Its not even a customer relationship, its more like  a family. Sounds crazy, but its a really close network of people. There are no jerks, Perry said. Its great to be able to be around so many wonderful people.
NEW YORK, Dec. 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Safra National Bank of New York announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Bank Hapoalim's private banking business in Miami. The agreement covers qualifying clients and their relationship management teams who are focused on high net worth clients across Latin America.

This acquisition is a logical extension of Safra National Bank of New York's private banking business for Latin America, where it has been providing premier private banking and financial services to high net worth clients for more than 30 years. With this transaction, Safra National Bank of New York and its subsidiary, Safra Securities, LLC, further strengthen their private banking business and the global wealth management capabilities of the J. Safra Group.

Jacob J. Safra, Vice-Chairman of Safra National Bank, commented:"We are determined to play a leading role in the consolidation of the private banking market. Our capital strength, family ownership and 175 years of experience give us great flexibility to do such transactions."

Simoni Morato, CEO of Safra National Bank of New York, said:"We look forward to welcoming the clients and employees of Bank Hapoalim in Miami to our organization. Bank Hapoalim's private banking business in Miami fits perfectly with the strategic vision of the J. Safra Group and Safra National Bank of New York, and we are confident we will add immeasurable value to clients."

The acquisition is expected to be completed during the course of the first quarter of 2017, subject to regulatory clearance. Financial terms are not disclosed.

For more information please contact:

J. Safra GroupThe J. Safra Group (the "Group"), with total assets under management of over USD 194 billion and aggregate stockholders equity of USD 15.4 billion, is controlled by Joseph Safra. The Group consists of privately owned banks under the Safra name and investment holdings in asset based business sectors such as real estate and agribusiness. The Group's banking interests, which have over 160 locations globally, are: Safra National Bank of New York headquartered in New York City; J. Safra Sarasin, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland; and Banco Safra, headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil; all independent from one another from a consolidated supervision standpoint. The Group's real estate holdings consist of more than 200 premier commercial, residential, retail and farmland properties worldwide, such as New York City's 660 Madison Avenue office complex and London's iconic Gherkin Building. Its investments in other sectors include, among others, agribusiness holdings in Brazil and Chiquita Brands International Inc. With deep relationships in markets worldwide, the Group is able to greatly enhance the value of businesses which are part of it. There are more than 28,000 employees associated with the J. Safra Group.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/safra-national-bank-of-new-york-acquires-bank-hapoalims-private-banking-business-in-miami-300372526.html

SOURCE J. Safra Group
By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Peace talks between the Colombian government and Marxist insurgent group the National Liberation Army (ELN) will begin only after a simultaneous release of a politician held by the guerrillas and two imprisoned rebels, an ELN leader said.

Colombia's second-largest leftist rebel group and the government of President Juan Manuel Santos have agreed to begin peace negotiations in Ecuador, part of Santos' efforts to end a 52-year conflict that has killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions.

But despite more than two years of preliminary talks, formal negotiations were this month postponed until January. The government has said the group must release ex-lawmaker Odin Sanchez, held in the jungle province of Choco, and stop attacks against oil infrastructure.

"We agreed that all the liberations which have yet to take place will be done simultaneously and ahead of the start (of talks)," Israel Ramirez, head of the ELN's negotiating team and better known by his nom de guerre Pablo Beltran, told Reuters by phone.

"The same day our two are pardoned, Mr. Sanchez will be free," said Ramirez.

Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize this year for his efforts to end the civil war.

Ramirez, a member of the ELN's central command, did not name the two rebels he said should be released. The government said this week they will only be pardoned if they are legally eligible.

"We agreed they will happen simultaneously to eliminate mutual distrust," Ramirez said. He ruled out a unilateral ceasefire until an agreement is reached with the government at talks.

Ramirez also denied any division regarding the peace talks within the 2,000-strong ELN, which is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.

Larger rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, late last month signed a revised peace deal with the government, after an initial agreement was rejected in a public referendum. The fraught negotiations between the two sides lasted four years.

As with the FARC talks, Colombians should not expect a short process with the ELN, Ramirez said.

"To do it well you have to do it with calm and a lot of caution. I don't mean they will be eternal conversations, but you can't end a half-century conflict in a couple of weeks," he said.

The group will for now not halt extortion against mining and oil projects, Ramirez said.

Under a peace deal, the rebels would seek power as a political party in alliance with other leftist groups, he added.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
After months of war rhetoric and deadly border skirmishes, Indian and Pakistani officials exchanged niceties and set the media abuzz on Saturday.

With a broad smile on his face, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook hands with Pakistans Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz at a banquet he had hosted for the participants of the Heart of Asia conference at Radisson Blu Hotel in Amritsar.

The Indian premier also asked about the health of his Pakistani counterpart who had recently undergone open heart surgery in a London hospital. Aziz conveyed good wishes to the Indian leader on behalf of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Contrary to Indian media reports, no actual talks took place during the banquet. Nonetheless, the customary handshake after months of belligerence and hostilities set off media frenzy in both countries.

Aziz reached India earlier than scheduled to avoid fog in the morning as a Pakistani diplomat had warned that poor visibility could delay dozens of flights to western Indian cities, including Amritsar. High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit received Aziz at the airport.

According to official sources, India has so far shown no willingness to hold dialogue on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference aimed at stabilising Afghanistan, while the Pakistani delegation, too, has not reached out to Indian officials.

Aziz will attend the conference, jointly chaired by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Prime Minister Modi on Sunday. Pakistan will share details of the assistance it will provide to Kabul for the development of different sectors and will also talk about the grants it will give to Afghanistan.

As many as 40 countries are attending the conference. Aziz is due to hold a news conference after the conference today (Sunday).

At his weekly news briefing, the Foreign Office spokesperson said Pakistan was attending the Amritsar conference because it was committed to contributing towards all efforts and initiatives aimed at bringing peace and stability in Afghanistan.

While Islamabad is open to any constructive engagement with Delhi on the fringes of the conference, officials said Pakistan decided to go to Amritsar to convey a clear message to the outside world that it was Delhi, not Islamabad, which was creating impediments in the way of regional peace.

President Ghani and Premier Modi will be meeting in Amritsar for the Heart of Asia conference. Officials said the two countries are likely to announce an air cargo service to help increase trade that both say is stymied because of their frayed political relations with Pakistan.

Officials say the focus of the air cargo service is to improve landlocked Afghanistans connectivity to key markets abroad and boost the growth prospects of its fruit and carpet industries while it battles a deadly Taliban insurgency.

Read more: Sartaj Aziz arrives India to attend Heart of Asia moot

Currently, Afghanistan depends on the port of Karachi for its foreign trade. It is allowed to send a limited amount of goods overland through Pakistan into India, but imports from India are not allowed along this route.

Afghan director general for macro fiscal policies Khalid Payenda said the potential for trade with India, the largest market in the region, was far greater than allowed by land and so the two countries had decided to use the air route.

That would be air cargo between Afghanistan and India. We have a lot of potential for trade on both sides. On our side, its mostly fruit and dried fruit and potentially through India to other places for products like carpets and others.

He said that a joint venture involving an Afghan and an Indian cargo firm would be set up and that the two governments were working to set up infrastructure at Kabul and Delhi airports.

An Indian government source attending the meeting in Amritsar said air cargo route details were still being worked out and could include Kandahar as a point of origin for shipping fruit directly to India.

Indian foreign ministry official Gopal Baglay, who oversees Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, said several proposals were being discussed to improve Afghanistans trade and transport links. There have been very many ideas on how to enhance connectivity, overcome current challenges and also expand the trade basket, he said.
Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz held a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar (Sunday).

They discussed matters relating to lasting peace, stability and development in Afghanistan.

Sartaj Aziz is in Amritsar, India, to represent Pakistan at the Heart of Asia Conference on Afghanistan today.

Indian Prime Minister and Afghan President will jointly inaugurate the conference being attended by around 40 foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 participating countries.

Aziz will also address the conference with focus on regional cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours and the efforts for durable peace in the war-ravaged country.

Earlier, Adviser Sartaj Aziz attended a dinner hosted for the visiting dignitaries. On this occasion, he shook hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to High Commissioner Abdul Basit, Prime Minister Modi expressed well wishes for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Talking to the media, Abdul Basit said Adviser Sartaj Aziz during the meeting of participants after dinner reiterated Pakistans commitment for peace and stability in Afghanistan and expressed the support for every effort to be made for the purpose.

High Commissioner said the Adviser had also a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarief during the dinner.

Heart of Asia Summit was launched in 2011 with the objective to boost economic and security cooperation.
Prime Minister s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz has said on Sunday that despite of Indias aggressive behaviour on Line of Control (LoC) and Working Boundary, Pakistan has attended the conference.

Addressing Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar, Aziz said that instead of leveling allegations concentration should be on positive actions.

He said that peaceful resolution to all the longstanding issues is the only way forward for regional cooperation and connectivity.

He stressed the need for evolving a joint and purposeful strategy for lasting peace in Afghanistan.

Read more: Sartaj Aziz calls on Afghan President Ghani in Amritsar

The Adviser said Pakistan is ready to extend every kind of cooperation for lasting peace in Afghanistan. He said Afghanistan should avoid leveling false and baseless accusations on Pakistan.

Pakistan has played a significant role in establishing peace and prosperity in Afghanistan and will continbue to do so in the future, he affirmed.

He said Pakistan had laid down the foundations of Heart of Asia Conference with the collaboration of Turkey some six years ago.

Earlier, Sartaj Aziz held a meeting with Indian Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

During the meeting, matters pertaining to bilateral interest came under discussion.

Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz also met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the Conference.

Matters pertaining to durable peace and stability in Afghanistan were discussed during the meeting.
Pakistans High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit Sunday said peace could not prevail in South Asia without the resolution of Kashmir dispute. The lingering issue of Kashmir was the root cause of tensions between India and Pakistan and it must be resolved according to the wishes of Kashmiris, he said while talking to media on the sidelines of Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar, India.

Pakistan, Basit said, had always favoured dialogue with India but on equal terms. He, however, added that Pakistans desire for talks should not be misconstrued as its weakness.

He said Pakistan had been rendering sacrifices for last 35 years for durable peace in Afghanistan. The brunt borne by Pakistan (in the fight against terrorism) after 9/11 incident in the United States was known to all, he added.

Replying to a question, the high commissioner said the joint declaration of Heart of Asia (HoA) Conference was a positive development.

Pakistan was already making integrated efforts to eliminate terrorism and all the participant countries of the HoA Conference should work together for durable peace in the region, he added.

Terming the meeting between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Advisor to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz positive, he expressed the hope that the leadership of both the countries would resolve the mutual issues by sitting together in coming days.

Hurling accusations against Pakistan would not help stop bloodshed and violence in Afghanistan, he added.

Basit said for the first time that the name of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was mentioned in the declartion of HoA Conference. The entire TTP leadership was in Afghanistan and the Afghan authorities and other stakeholder countries should take action against them, he added.
Completely ignoring Pakistans cooperation, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani adopted the tone of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Heart of Asia Conference today (Sunday).

Speaking at the 6th Heart of Asia ministerial conference in Indian city of Amritsar, Ghani refused to accept Pakistans 500 million dollar aid for Afghanistan development and said that they dont need Pakistans help.

We need to identify cross-border terrorism and a fund to combat terrorism. Pakistan has pledged 500 million dollars for Afghanistans development, but we dont need it. Use the amount Mr Sartaj Aziz to contain terrorism in your country, he said.

Ashraf Ghani said that Afghanistan faces severe security threats due to which there is a dire need to focus on durable peace and stability.

Heart of Asia is meeting at time of great opportunity in significant threats for Afghanistan for Asia-wide and global implications, he said.

About 30 terrorist groups, as named by the UN, are trying to establish a base in Afghanistan.The country suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable, Ghani emphasized.

Raed more: Sartaj Aziz calls on Afghan President Ghani in Amritsar

He highlighted the role of the projects and agreements signed among India, Iran and Afghanistan.

Trilateral agreement signed between India, Iran and Afghanistan is major step in transforming Afghanistan from land-lock country to a land-bridge state. The project of Chabahar Port between the three countries is very important to us for connectivity, he said.

Indias support to Afghanistan aimed at improving peoples life and is transparent with no strings attached. PM Modi, your words assure Afghan people of support of 1.25 billion Indian people. Your assistance will expand historic bond between the two nations, added Ghani.

NARENDRA MODIS REMARKS

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Amritsar enforces the value of restoring connectivity which is so crucial for the overall growth and economic prosperity of Afghanistan.

Our words and actions remain focus on building, strengthening and securing Afghans territory and its citizens from external threats. Our gathering today re-affirms the commitment of the international community to durable peace & lasting stability in Afghanistan, said Modi.

Modi urged that all the countries should demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terrorism.

Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters, he reiterated.

We also plan to connect Afghanistan with India through an air transport corridor, he announced.

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz is representing Pakistan in the two-day summit.

Earlier, the Indian Prime Minister and Afghan President jointly inaugurated the conference, being attended by around 40 foreign ministers and dignitaries of 14 participating countries.

Indian Foreign Minister (FM) Arun Jaitley welcomed the delegates at the summit. Leaders attending the summit also posed for a family photograph.

The HoA initiative was launched in 2011 with the objective to boost economic and security cooperation. Its members included Afghanistan, Pakistan Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The Heart of Asia Process initiative has the support of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Finland, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Britain and the United States.
When Donald Trump takes office, he says, one of his first acts will be to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade deal with 11 other nations. Farmers and factory owners are dismayed. Chinas thrilled. What does that tell you about the wisdom of Trumps decision? Lets unpack it:

The point of TPP is to knock down trade barriers and create stronger, fairer business relationships with a group of countries that make up 40 percent of the global economy. TPP would increase the exports of corn, pork, machinery and other products to member countries such as Japan. Give American exporters the opportunity to compete, and chances are they win.

Thats how our country rolls. Thats why so many of our neighbors already have jobs that depend on robust global trade. TPP, which requires congressional approval, would help America, and Americans.

China, potentially the single most important trade partner with the U.S., chose not to join TPP at inception, a gamble that suddenly looks shrewd. The Chinese proposed their own, looser Asia-Pacific trade federation of 16 nations, not including the U.S. The alternate pact, known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, doesnt have the potential firepower of TPP, so the notion hasnt meant much to American interests. But if Trump effectively kills TPP (the agreement is worth little without U.S. participation), then Chinas trade gambit takes center stage  as does Chinas ability to dictate the future terms of globalization.

This is why the death of TPP would be such a travesty: Trade is more than a two-way street. Its a vehicle for defining and nurturing relationships, making it a crucial element of the post-Cold War global competition for economic and political influence. America has done well in that competition.

TPP would knock down tariffs, quotas and burdensome red tape. It would set rules governing intellectual property, establish principles for labor rights and address the unfair competitive advantages held by government-owned companies. Overall, TPP would bind the United States more closely to other member nations, and do so in a way that promotes democratic, free-market ideals. TPP countries, besides the U.S. and Japan, are Canada, Australia, Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, Vietnam and Brunei....

If TPP is kaput, China gets a free hand to sidle closer to its proposed RCEP trading partners, which include the nations of Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. This is a good opportunity for China to be more powerful on the global stage starting with economics, and to gain a larger voice, Zou Zheng-fang, an economics professor at Chinas Renmin University, told The Wall Street Journal.

... What will China do with its larger voice? Not a lot to promote American goals and interests. Nothing to nurture democracy. And absolutely zip to create jobs in the U.S.

Trump made attacks on trade, and TPP in particular, a big part of his campaign. His argument, that global trade is robbing America and is to blame for the loss of factory jobs, is politically powerful. Its also simplistic, and wrong. The U.S. is already an integral part of the global economy. Trade juices economic growth for all nations because it allows them to specialize in what they do best and buy everything else from others, often at cheaper prices. While Trump blamed trade for the loss of American manufacturing jobs, the truth is most of those positions didnt migrate to China or Mexico. Most disappeared because American factories continually improve their productivity.

During the campaign, Trump badgered Carrier, the Indiana manufacturer, for deciding to move as many as 2,000 jobs to Mexico. Last Tuesday, Trump declared victory: Carrier agreed to preserve more than 1,000 jobs in the state, reportedly in exchange for economic incentives. Thats tremendous news for those workers, but it does nothing to position the United States to compete and win in the global economy. Presidents, even ones who think of themselves as consummate dealmakers, cant spend their time in office traveling the country negotiating expensive government incentives to save jobs.

Once in the White House, we hope Trump refocuses on the big picture to help make American companies as profitable and vibrant as they can be. That includes bringing down tax rates to give business owners a level playing field with companies overseas. It also means giving those employers every incentive to invest in jobs and growth here. And it includes accepting the idea that Americas future prosperity and security will be assured by embracing global trade, not backing away.
On Thanksgiving, Donald Trump called for unity and healing over the divisions in America.

Almost everyone can agree this is desperately needed. But how are we supposed to do that when we dont listen to the other side?

I am a climate advocate, so what hope does Trump have to reach me when he puts Myron Ebell in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency and plans to cut NASAs climate research? Those types of actions mean I will never support him because, in my view, he is essentially putting human civilization on hospice care.

Some readers may think I'm a crazy environmentalist whose views can be easily discarded. The problem is when we ignore and deny even recognizing others views, whatever they are, those issues will continue to fester and grow. Thats partially how we got to 2016. We cant just incorporate the ideas of our "team" anymore.

Climate change is an issue that should be unifying as the effects present risks to everyone. If we are meant to come together, we should start by healing the physical place in which we all live, the United State of America.

-- Pete Kechele, Madison
The hirers of a Wicked Campers van seen in Mount Maunganui Saturday night drove off when they saw photos were being taken of the paint job depicting a bikini clad woman on one side an embracing couple on the other.

Public complaints about the van hire companys scenes and slogans earlier this year resulted in the Office of the Chief Censor banning three of the companys messages iin April, saying they met the criteria for objectionable publications.

The international van rental company was raising the ire of the public with slogans that were deemed to promote drugs and violence.

The ban came on the back of the avalanche of complaints and Associate Minister of Tourism Paula Bennetts campaign against the vans saying slogans which promoted drug use and sexual violence "totally overstep the mark.

If Wicked Campers, an Aussie brand, continue to use the banned slogans it will face a fine of up to $200,000 for each offence.

Wicked Campers sexist slogans also caused offence in Australia. Queensland took action against the vans in November, introducing legislation revoking the registration of commercial operators who refuse to remove offensive slogans from their vehicles.

The SunLive reader who sent in the photos didnt give their name, but says the vans paint job raised a few eyebrows.

The paint job on the passengers side appears to have been partly painted over.
Blog_North Syracuse Robbery 1.JPG

Just before 9:30 a.m. Sautrday a man wearing a ski mask walked into the NBT Bank at 700 N. Main St. in the village of North Syracuse. The man demanded cash from a teller.

(North Syracuse police)

The robber left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash, got into a dark 4-door Lincoln sedan and drove north on Main Street and then south on Route 481.

NORTH SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Authorities are looking for help from the public in identifying a suspect who robbed a bank Saturday morning in Onondaga County.

At 9:25 a.m. a man wearing a ski mask walked into the NBT Bank at 700 N. Main St. in the village of North Syracuse. The man demanded that a teller out money in a bag. The robber did not show a weapon, but implied he had one, police said.

The robber left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash, got into a dark 4-door Lincoln sedan and drove north on Main Street and then south on Route 481.

The suspect is believed to be a 6-foot-tall white man weighing 200 pounds. He wore blue jeans, dark shoes and a multi-colored hooded sweatshirt.

North Syracuse police said they are working with the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office on the bank robbery investigation.

Police asked anyone with information about the robbery or who recognizes the suspect vehicle to contact 315-425-2333 or email tips@northsyracuseny.org. Tips can also be sent by texting TIP411 (847411) in the "to" field and TIPNSYR in the body of the text.
Donald Trump,Betsy DeVos

President-elect Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos shake hands at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J., Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016.

(Carolyn Kaster / AP)

Paula Dwyer writes editorials on economics, finance and politics. She is co-author, with former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, of "Take On the Street."

By Paula Dwyer | Bloomberg View

Ever since President Jimmy Carter created the U.S. Department of Education in 1979, conservatives have been trying to abolish it. Rick Perry, the Texas governor who in a 2011 presidential debate couldn't remember all the U.S. agencies he wanted to shutter, had total recall over one -- the Education Department.

Will conservatives finally get the job done? Donald Trump, who also calls for the agency's demolition, will be in the White House, and Republicans have a majority in Congress. Betsy DeVos, an activist for school vouchers and critic of public education, has been nominated for education secretary.

Before answering that question, let's run down what the department does. Its discretionary budget is all of $68 billion. Of that, $22 billion is for Pell Grants, awarded in amounts up to $5,800 to 8 million financially needy college students. If the department disappears, some other body would still need to determine eligibility for the grants and ensure their proper distribution.

Even Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would keep the Pell Grants -- under the Treasury Department -- after ditching the Education Department. The grants, after all, work much like the vouchers conservatives love: Students who meet the criteria receive federal funds to attend the public, private or for-profit school of their choice.

The Education Department also oversees $1.3 trillion in student loans. That means evaluating student and family finances, giving out the money and getting it back with interest. Abolishing the agency wouldn't eliminate the need for a bureaucracy to perform these tasks, or to oversee a private contractor's work.

Another of the department's jobs is distributing $15 billion in Title I funds to school districts that serve disadvantaged children. The districts, in return, must meet performance criteria such as lower dropout rates and higher graduation numbers. The agency distributes an additional $13 billion to 5 million students with physical and mental disabilities.

Without the federal money, states would have to come up with these funds, yet some will surely have other priorities besides educating low-income and disabled kids. The same goes for many of the smaller federal programs that help schools in rural areas, expand early-childhood education, recruit and train teachers, offer computer-science classes and the like.

The department also enforces federal anti-discrimination laws, including the Title IX requirements to treat the sexes equally. Because Title IX applies only to colleges that receive federal funding, ending federal-education spending might also spell the end of Title IX.

A less-appreciated but no less vital role for the agency is the collection of national data on education outcomes, teacher training and the effectiveness of research grants. Left to their own devices, some states might decide not to collect data, or they may gather it in 50 different formats, making it impossible to judge achievement or compare progress between states.

Sometimes the Education Department is credited with (or blamed for) things it didn't do. At his rallies, Trump's call for the end of Common Core standards on the grounds they are a federal boondoggle drew almost as many huzzahs as his pledges to "build the wall." But the standards, which cover English language arts and math only, were drawn up by teachers and state education chiefs and were adopted by 42 states voluntarily.

The U.S. never mandated their use, though it certainly encouraged them by giving states an advantage when applying for federal grants if they adopted standards like Common Core. This made some teachers, parents and states feel like the standards were being foisted on them, complaints that candidate Trump ran with.

(The results so far, however, aren't what Trump would have us believe: Improving test scores may be a sign that Common Core is working. Even some vocal proponents of ending Washington's influence over education, like William Bennett, Reagan's education secretary, support the standards.)

Overall, conservatives see the Education Department, like Obamacare, as a symbol of federal intrusion and wasteful spending. But Trump and other critics often overlook the fact that Republican presidents oversaw some of the biggest federal expansions over schools.

President Ronald Reagan's 1981 report, "A Nation at Risk," written by his education secretary, Terrell Bell, raised alarms over the poor state of public schools; it led to increased federal spending and oversight. President George W. Bush's 2002 No Child Left Behind law vastly expanded federal involvement in K-12 education, which punished and rewarded school districts based on test results.

No Child Left Behind officially ended this week with the issuance of final rules that put its replacement, the Every Student Succeeds Act, into force. The new law gives states more flexibility to set their own education standards, but that may not matter to DeVos, who, if confirmed, may try to rewrite the rules even as she seeks to get rid of the agency she will run.

But like education secretaries before her, it's an open question whether DeVos would really devote much time to getting rid of her Cabinet-level job, especially when she has the bully pulpit she has always wanted to push vouchers, charters, school choice and other causes that she and her husband, billionaire businessman Dick DeVos, have long championed.

Some of what the department does meshes with the agenda of Trump and DeVos, including spending $350 million to expand charter schools. If she and the president-elect really want more school choice and voucher programs, isn't a federal thumb on the scale the best way to push them?

So back to the original question: Will the new Republican president and the Republican Congress finally kill the Education Department? I would bet no.
Blog_National Weather Servic(2).JPG

The National Weather Service is expecting most of the snow to fall after 10 p.m. Sunday. This could make roads slippery for the Monday morning commute.

(National Weather Service)

The National Weather service is warning drivers to stay cautious Monday morning, as a few late-night inches of snow could make the roads hazardous.

The snowfall should begin between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Sunday, continuing into the early morning hours of Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

Central New York is expected to get anywhere between 1 and 3 inches of snow over the next few days, with spots in Oneida, Herkimer and Lewis County possibly seeing as much as 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service.

Most of it will be coming down between the Sunday night to Monday morning period, the service states.

The National Weather Service is estimating 1 to 3 inches of snowfall for most of Central New York. While this may not seem like much, the overnight timing is the main concern, according to the service.

While a maximum of 3 or 4 inches may not seem like a big deal to people who saw a strom that left more than 18 inches of snow during a single night in some places only two weeks ago, the weather service has still issued a hazardous condition warning for most of central New York and portions of northeast Pennsylvania.

Because the snow will be falling overnight, authorities are worried it may cause slippery roads that could affect those with morning commutes on Monday, the service states.

The rest of the week is expected to be relatively clear, but the temperature is supposed to drop significantly toward the end of the week with a high of 30 on Friday and 29 on Saturday, according to the service.

Lake effect snow is a possibility, but it's still too early to tell.

Reporter Kira Maddox covers crime and safety for Syracuse.com. She can be reached anytime: Email | Facebook | Twitter
This all-female smoker was a little unpolished, but nonetheless enjoyable. Firstly, considering the equivalent Footlights shows are packed to the rafters, it would have been nice if the show had drawn a larger audience. Some of the performers seemed a little awkward in the quiet theatre and even if jokes are funny, a depleted audience will struggle to offer enough support to help nervous comedians settle into a comfortable rhythm. The stilted feel this gave many of the acts was not helped by the fact they often relied heavily on notes. That said, routines were still consistently funny, and there was a comfortable, informal feel to the show which is a rare find at comedy shows; I never felt that performers were trying to impress me with their comedy, more like they were sharing funny stories as the might do with a friend, which was refreshing.

MC, Callie Vandeweile, was warm and welcoming and her attack on serious Marxists shrewdly intelligent. Originally from America, Trump was an obvious source of comedy, but Vandeweile did well to avoid overdone jokes on the subject. In fact, all the performers worked well at drawing comedy from typical sources but offering a fresh perspective.

Miz Hashimotos engagement with George Orwell and his boring diary was one of the funniest moments of the night. She executed her references to the diary, and her own attempt to recreate it through listing her google search history perfectly to create a delightfully absurd moment in her routine. Other contemporary references such as WikiHows advice for someone trapped in a cave and her parents great newspaper race touched on this silliness and exhibited the same sharp talent for comic delivery.

Charlie Stokes energetic performance was slightly less structured than the others, but she worked well to create comedy out of her moments of distraction and diversion. There was a sincerity to her comedy which, again, is rare in the Cambridge smoker circuit. I particularly enjoyed her account of a nightmarish plane journey to New Zealand which was told with an apt comic outrage.

The final act of the night, Isa Bonachera, was undoubtedly the best. Her act was rounded into a comic persona which exposed some of the disunity in the other comedians. Absurd and outrageous one-liners provoked consecutive eruptions of laughter from the audience and Bonachera fell much more easily into an almost hypnotic listing rhythm.

The smoker was an amusing night exhibiting the wit of four very talented women, and I hope it retains its place on the ADC stage. Doubtlessly, a bigger audience, and perhaps a greater array of acts, would inject the energy needed to lift this show to the comedic heights it warrants.

7/10
Google refreshed its Daydream View VR device with two new colors, crimson and snow, expanding the number within the virtual reality headset range to three variants.

When the device was unveiled last October, it only had the Slate coloring.

New Colors, Same VR Technology

The new colored headsets will not come with different or improved hardware specifications. Both variants are similar to the standard version under the hood as well as in terms of pricing as all devices retail for $79.

Both colors are also available for free for customers who will purchase any Google Pixel phone and have received the promotional code.

They are also now available at Google Store and buyers can expect the handsets to be delivered by Dec. 8.

At this point, the Slate and the Crimson variants seem the most attractive options. Owning the snow, which will probably look quite at home in the coming winter, would prove to be a chore. While it is all right for the device to get hand washed, the white color could easily show acquired dirt and even stains.

Daydream View VR

If you are new to Daydream VR, it is Google's own take on virtual reality. Although it is not as powerful as other VR rigs like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, it offers an excellent VR experience by using a Daydream-ready smartphone.

At present, the technology only supports few devices such as any of the latest Google Pixel handsets as well as the ZTE Axon 7 and the Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe. The Moto Z and Moto Z Force could also fit the bill. What is awesome about this particular device is that an additional battery module  through its MotoMods feature  can allow players to experience VR for hours on end.

Certainly, Daydream View will still work with some premium devices that do not necessarily have all the required hardware components. These include the Nexus 6P and the Samsung Galaxy S7. These handsets can still run Daydream VR but since they lack specific sensors, some features will not be enabled or the Cardboard VR mode will kick-in in some instances.

Daydream VR also requires Android 7.0 Nougat.

Initial Hands-On Daydream Review

Early Daydream View VR reviews have been largely positive so far. Some drawbacks, which consumers should remember based on hands-on experiences include the difficulty of fully enjoying VR for users who have poor eyesight. This means you will have to wear the VR headmount with your glasses on. Some of these report that images appear blurry and, therefore, unusable.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Joint Working Party has announced the official names and symbols of the chemical elements formerly known as 113, 115, 117 and 118. The proposed names and symbols were announced back in June and were approved on Nov. 28 after a five-month public review.

The elements complete the seventh row of the Periodic Table. The discoverers, who come from Japan, the United States and Russia, were given the right to propose the names and symbols.

Official Names And Symbols For New Elements

According to tradition, the four elements have been named in honor of a scientist or a geographic area.

Element 113, which was previously given the name ununtrium with the symbol Uut, is officially named nihonium, and its periodic symbol is Nh. Discoverers from Japan's RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science proposed the name, which comes from the word Nihon - "Japan" in their mother tongue.

Elements 115, 117 and 118 were previously designated the names ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium, with the respective symbols Uup, Uus and Uuo. The collaboration team in charge with their criteria fulfillment review and the permanent names and symbols proposed the names moscovium with symbol Mc for element 115, tennessine with symbol Ts for element 117 and oganesson with symbol Og for element 118.

Moscovium, tennessine and oganesson were discovered by scientists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States.

Moscovium is named after the region of Moscow in Russia where the JINR is based, and tennessine honors the U.S. state Tennessee, which is home to scientific institutions conducting research on superheavy elements.

Oganesson, meanwhile, is named in honor of Professor Yuri Oganessian, a Russian nuclear physicist known to be a prolific element hunter who was instrumental in discovering some of the heaviest elements now in the periodic table - including oganesson.

It is a great honor for me, Oganessian said, as well as a measure of my input into the science of the superheavy elements.

Public Review

The IUPAC announced the verification of the discoveries of the new elements in December 2015, noting that these elements complete the seventh row of the periodic table.

The discoverers were then invited to propose permanent names and symbols, which were announced in June for public review. During the review period that ended on Nov. 8, people gave comments and suggestions as well as raised concerns about the proposed names and symbols. Some of the questions were about how the element names were pronounced and translated into other languages.

Professor Jan Reedijk, the president of IUPAC's inorganic chemistry division, thanked the general public for participating in the process.

"Overall, it was a real pleasure to realize that so many people are interested in the naming of the new elements," he said. "For now, we can all cherish our periodic table completed down to the seventh row."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are long gone, but that does not mean that the holiday shopping season is over. It is actually just starting for some customers, and so retailers such as Best Buy will continue to release offers as the month goes on.

Best Buy has announced the Special Edition Tech sale, its latest promotion that features limited edition variants of some of the most popular products currently in the market.

Best Buy Special Edition Tech Collection

The Special Edition Tech sale of Best Buy begins on Dec. 4, and will only be available for a limited time. In addition, there are only limited quantities for the products offered in the collection, and not all of them are available in all physical and online stores.

Here are the items that are included in the promotion:

Shinola Magnolia Edition Red Belt Runwell Turntable for $2,499.98

The premium turntable by Detroit's Shinola is ready to be used right out of the box to deliver high-quality audio. It is only available at Magnolia Design Centers in Best Buy stores.

Lenovo Yoga 910 Laptop With Glass Lid for $1,599.99

Units of the special edition of Lenovo Yoga 910 are individually numbered, with the laptop featuring an Intel Core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD, in addition to its unique glass lid.

DJI Phantom 4 Special Edition Black Model for $1,199.99

The special edition black model of the DJI Phantom 4 drone is only available through Best Buy. The drone comes with auto take-off, obstacle avoidance and return home features, and is capable of taking 4K ultra HD video recordings.

Pro-Ject Audio Systems Debut Carbon Esprit SB Turntable Special Beatles 1964 Edition for $649.98

This turntable commemorates the legendary 1964 U.S. tour of The Beatles, with enhanced components and graphics that are based on the tickets that were sold for the tour.

Beats Studio Wireless Unity Edition In U.S.A, Canada And Mexico Flag Colors for $379.99

Beats released a limited production run of its wireless headphones that featured the flag colors of the United States, Canada and Mexico, and Best Buy is offering them as part of the Special Edition Tech sale.

Harry Potter 8-film Blu-ray Steelbook Collection for $129.99

This collection includes all eight movies in the Harry Potter franchise, in Blu-ray and Digital HD formats. Each title in the series is encased in a premium metal collector's case.

Kate Spade Scallop Fitness Tracker In Bazooka Pink for $98

The Bazooka Pink color of the fitness tracker is only available through Best Buy, adding more personality to the stylish device that is able to collect information on the wearer's distance traveled, steps taken, calories lost and sleep accumulated.

Tumi Aston Wrap Folio for Surface Pro for $79.99

This protective accessory, which can be used for the Surface Pro 3 and Surface Pro 4, comes in an Elve Earl Grey color and can only be purchased through Best Buy.

Team Liquid Razer DeathAdder Chroma Elite Mouse and Goliathus Mouse Mat for $69.99

The package is a perfect gift for gamers, with the mouse featuring adjustable sensitivity and programmable buttons and the mat featuring a slick and speed-enhancing surface.

South Park Collectible Figurines for $39.99

Included in the package of collectible figurines from South Park are The Coon, Professor Chaos and Mysterion.

Best Buy is offering free shipping for Special Edition Tech deals and other items, with no minimum purchase required, until Dec. 24 through its online store. Customers should definitely take advantage of the offer, as the items in the collection make for some great holiday gifts for friends, family or even yourself.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A dentist at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wisconsin has put at risk the health of hundreds of veterans because of his failure to follow standard infection control procedures.

Nearly 600 Veterans Possibly Exposed To Infectious Diseases

Victoria Brahm, acting medical director at the hospital, revealed on Tuesday, Nov. 29 that 592 veterans who received care from the dentist have possibly been exposed to several types of infectious diseases. The affected patients can receive free screenings for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

Brahm said that a dental assistant reported in November that the dentist had not cleaned the equipment properly, which prompted an investigation. Although the dental equipment may have been cleaned, the cleaning procedure did not meet VA standards.

The dentist had one assistant most of the time but a replacement assistant noticed and reported the issue.

VA Standards For Using Dental Equipment

Brahm revealed that the dentist was using his own equipment, cleaning and reusing it, which violates the VA's standards that require the use of sterile and disposable dental equipment.

"He brought in his own burrs and cleaned them with Virex solution salt and a wipe, which is nothing we endorse," Brahm said.

Brahm also said that the dentist purposefully violated VA regulations since he had used the hospital's facility appropriately during all the orientations.

"He knew exactly what he was doing, and preferred to use his own equipment against procedure," Brahm said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan condemned the fact that while the unidentified dentist was removed from patient care, he still works in an administrative role.

"The individual in question has not even been fired ... this demonstrates once and for all that the VA needs a complete overhaul so that our veterans finally get the care - and the respect - they deserve," Ryan said.

The VA has referred the case to the criminal office of Inspector General to be assessed for possible criminal charges. The dentist's assistant who did not come forward is also being investigated for not reporting the issue.

Lapses In Disinfection Protocols Can Cost Lives

There have been several instances in the past when patients were possibly exposed to dangerous pathogens because of lapses in cleaning and disinfection protocols. In January this year, nearly 300 patients who underwent colonoscopy in a Massachusetts hospital were possibly exposed to hepatitis and HIV because of inadequate measures used in cleaning the endoscopes.

In October last year, four patients died of bacterial infection that they acquired from infected medical equipment used on them during surgery.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Apple has written a letter to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration telling that new companies entering the auto industry should be given the same rights as established companies. This letter hints that Apple has the rumored iCar in the works.

Apple's Letter To NHTSA

Apple's letter to the NHTSA indicates that the company still has plans of testing autonomous cars.

"Apple uses machine learning to make its products and services smarter, more intuitive, and more personal. The company is investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation," says the letter written by Steve Kenner, the director of product integrity at Apple.

It is worth noting that Kenner used to work as the global director of automotive safety at Ford. According to a MacRumors report, it remains unknown when Kenner joined Apple. However, Kenner's LinkedIn profile still shows him as a Ford employee.

Kenner's letter to the NHTSA also suggests that new entrants in the industry should be given the same opportunity as established car companies. Apple highlights that existing carmakers do not have to pursue exemptions to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards when trying to test cars on public roads because of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.

However, new players such as Google do not enjoy the same right per the FAST Act.

Can NHTSA Modify The FAST Act?

The NHTSA cannot make amendments to the FAST Act; however, it can update the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy to bypass any requirement for exemptions, which would help road testing of cars by new companies such as Apple.

Apple's Interest In Developing Electric Cars Dubbed iCar

Apple is well known for making iPhones, iPads, iMacs and other tech-related products. Although the company is highly valued in the tech industry, it has minimal knowledge of making cars. Rumors of Apple developing a car have been surfacing for several months.

Apple's car development team is said to be working under Project Titan, which is rumored to staff more than 1,000 engineers.

In October 2015, Elon Musk, the CEO of electric car company Tesla, also alleged that Apple was poaching Tesla engineers in the company's ambition to develop an electric car. This suggests that Apple is keen on developing an iCar.

However, a previous Tech Times report noted that Apple's interest in the car industry has reduced and the company is now focusing more on the software side than manufacturing autonomous vehicles.

Apple has remained secretive on the development of the iCar and only time will tell if and when the company officially confirms the Apple-branded car.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The ice of Pluto is a two-lobed formation on its surface which has sparked the interest of researchers ever since NASA's New Horizons discovered it back in 2015. One of the two lobes, the western one, has been subjected to more scientific attention due to its mysterious formation and the types of ice it hosts.

The lobe was named Sputnik Planitia informally, and it is a deep basin containing carbon monoxide, methane and frozen nitrogen. The lobe appears to be opposite to the dwarf planet's tidally locked moon and various scenarios have been formulated in regard to its formation.

Pluto's Ice Formation

What all of the theories have in common is the idea that the formation is an impact basin, which was created while a smaller body stroke Pluto with extraordinarily high speed. A new research conducted at the University of Maryland, however, suggests that the ice was formed early in Pluto's history, which would place its attributes as evolutionary consequences.

The research was published, Dec. 1, in the journal Nature, suggesting that the ice cap formed early, and not due to an impact.

The researcher used a model that he developed himself and explained that the original location of Sputnik Planitia may have been due to the dwarf planet's bizarre climate. Another contributing factor could be the spin axis tilted by 120 degrees, which is rather unusual, especially when compared to Earth's axis, whose inclination only reaches 23.5 degrees.

Pluto's Early Formation And Charon

The researcher analyzed the temperatures, discovering that the 30 degrees north and south latitudes were the coldest places on Pluto, when averaged over its 248-year orbit. According to this study, these spots were way colder than the poles, which could mean that ice formed as part of a natural process around these latitudes.

This discovery places the icy center of Sputnik Planitia, located at 25 degree north altitude, as a natural formation instead of a occurrence due to an impact with an external object.

This new theory proposing weather instead of impact as a cause of lobe formation places the shift of Pluto's center of mass at around the same time that Charon's gravitational force slowed the dwarf planet's rotation. When this happened, Pluto had equal chances of facing Charon or as far away from it as possible, as a result of several million years of progressively becoming tidally locked.

The new paper does not require the existence of an ocean on Pluto, but it never argued against such a possibility, either.

"There is an ocean-free path to explaining the key features of Sputnik Planitia. But while Pluto need not have an interior ocean, conversely, nothing in my study argues against such an ocean," noted Douglas Hamilton, professor of astronomy and lead author of the paper, in an email to Seeker.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Thai activist arrested for alleged defamation of new king on Facebook

A student was arrested by the Thailand police on Saturday after sharing a profile of newly installed King Maha Vajiralongkorn on Facebook by the Thai-language service of the BBC.

Jatupat Boonpattararaksa was arrested in north-eastern Thailand and charged under the countrys lese-majeste law with royal insult under Article 112 of Thailands criminal code in the city of Khon Kaen. Apparently, this is the first arrest under the countrys tough lese-majeste law since King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun took the throne on Thursday, succeeding his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died at the age of 88 in October.

Article 112 says anyone who defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent or the regent will be punished with up to 15 years in prison.

Jatupat is a prominent pro-democracy activist of Dao Din, a small student organization that has held public protests against Thailands military government and disobeying its orders.

Police Colonel Jaturon Trakulpan, a superintendent in north-eastern Chaiyaphum province, said, We caught him at a temple.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, a rights group representing Jatupat, accuse the military-backed government of using the royal defamation law as a way of cracking down on opponents.

Even, social media users have questioned why Jatupat was targeted by police in view of the fact that some 2,000 other Facebook users also shared the BBC link.

This post was shared many times. We question why he was singled out, Anon Chawalawan of iLaw told Reuters. It might be because he has a history of staging anti-junta protests.

International rights groups and some Bangkok-based Western diplomats have criticized Thailands harsh sentences for lese-majeste convictions.

Last year, two people received record jail sentences of 25 and 30 years respectively for Facebook posts were considered insulting to the monarchy.
The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moros, received with honors his peer from Guinea Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, on... | Read More
BANGKOK, 2 December 2016: Kasikorn Research Centre says a THB15,000 tourism tax break effective this December should generate an additional income of THB2,000 to THB4,000 million for domestic tourism.

The banks think-tank unit said domestic tourism was crucial for the countrys economy and the market should generate around THB800,000 million, or a share of 5.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP).

The Cabinet approved, Tuesday, a tourism stimulus package that offers Thai citizens a THB15,000 tax break.

It kicks in when travellers purchase a domestic tour package, or hotel accommodation, during December and can be claimed in annual tax returns filed in late March for 2016.

The measure came into effect Thursday, 1 December and expires at the end of the year.

Travellers can only base their tax claim against official invoices and billings for travel and hotel services that are registered.

The Cabinet also agreed to reinstate hotel accommodation as a tax deductible item until the end of this year after the ruling expired 31 December, last year. The maximum deduction is also THB15,000 per person and must be supported by invoices from hotels that are registered to offer hotel services.

Travellers have the right under the two schemes to deduct up to THB30,000 from their 2016 tax returns.

The bank estimates that the stimulus measure would help to generate an additional income for domestic tourism of around THB2,000 to THB4,000 million compared the same period last year when no tax breaks were available.

The centre forecasts that tourism revenue could reach THB82,000 to
Public Service Commission Chairman Scott Angelle was supposed to walk away with the race for Acadianas 3rd Congressional District seat.

But the anti-establishment mood of the electorate has given political newcomer Clay Higgins a real shot at winning Saturdays election to replace U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, who left to unsuccessfully run for the U.S. Senate.

Both Republican campaigns have released polls that show their candidate on top, but the surveys are within a margin of error that also could give the nod to other fellow.

In the Nov. 8 primary, Angelle, a political fixture in Louisiana for the past 30 years, led the 10-candidate field with 91,374 ballots or 29 percent of the vote  less than the 30-40 percent margin that was expected of him.

Higgins, an internet sensation but political novice, was right behind with 84,809 votes or about 26 percent of the total cast in the primary.

The runoff contest has been mean by any definition.

Super PACs, which are legally forbidden from coordinating with the candidates they support, have flooded media markets with personal attacks on their opponents.

Voters have learned about Higgins problems with child support, former wives and former employers  allegations he calls exaggerated and taken out of context  from a Super PAC favoring Angelle.

Acadiana television viewers are hearing that Angelle didnt support President-elect Donald Trump, gave contracts to family members and sits on the board of a company the PSC regulates  all of which Angelle calls lies  courtesy of a Super PAC headed by U.S. Sen. David Vitters former chief of staff.

The larger dynamic in the race, however, may be the throw the bums out mood of the electorate, said John M. Couvillon, of JMC Analytics and Polling in Baton Rouge. Angelles resume of public service from police juror to state agency head to interim lieutenant governor to chairman of the utility regulating board may actually work against him.

With an economy based on rice and sugar cane farming augmented by worker bees extracting oil and natural gas, southwest Louisiana has a strong working class tone in terms of politics, said Couvillon, who worked on the successful campaign to elect Republican Mike Francis to a Public Service Commission seat that overlaps much of the congressional district.

A generation ago they would have supported Edwin Edwards and John Breaux. Now theyre voting conservative Republican, Couvillon said.

Buffeted by layoffs in the energy industry because of low prices, voters are in an anti-incumbent mood. I see the race between outsider Clay Higgins and establishment candidate Scott Angelle, he said.

Angelles campaign disagrees.

Scott is an outsider, willing to fight the Washington establishment," said Ryan Cross, Angelle's spokesman. "But people also want someone who can get results. Theyre looking for someone with the character and the experience to get results.

The campaigns internal polls show that while the vote is close, Angelle leads by double digits in the two segments of the population mostly likely to actually go vote: women and seniors.

Mathematically, a candidate can win the 10-parish 3rd District, which stretches along the coast from the Atchafalaya Swamp to the Sabine River, by polling strong in the urban centers of Lafayette and Lake Charles, Couvillon said.

Higgins is strongest in the rural parishes. If the turnout is high in those parishes and Higgins can cut into Angelles dominance in Lafayette and Lake Charles, hell win, Couvillon said.

Higgins' campaign manager, Chris Comeaux, said Higgins is sending direct mail flyers to Lake Charles that should start arriving to voters there on Monday.

The Secretary of States office is projecting that only 35 percent of registered voters will vote in the runoff, compared to the 67.8 percent turnout on Nov. 8.

The winner will be the one who can get their voters to the polls Saturday, said Donald Hains, who managed the campaign of Republican congressional candidate Gus Rantz, a Lafayette businessman making his first foray into politics.

Angelle has deep political roots in Acadiana, a sophisticated team and a group of supporters who turn out for near every election, Hains said.

Higgins benefited from voters who have a history of only voting occasionally, but made the trek Nov. 8 to vent their anger at the establishment by voting for both Trump and Higgins. Political pros cant predict how traditionally low-participation voters will act now that Trump is not on the ballot, he said.

The big question is whether these voters are one and done, in which case Scott wins, or are they motivated enough to come out again, in which case Clay Higgins has the advantage, Hains said.

A U.S. Army veteran from New Orleans, who was brought up in St. Tammany Parish, Higgins sold cars in Baton Rouge and Texas before embarking on a career in law enforcement.

Part of his duties with the St. Landry Parish Sheriffs Office included Crime Stoppers, a usually dull segment run on local television news asking for members of the public help to solve cases. Higgins take was a little different in that he called out suspects by name and threatened violence if they didnt turn themselves in. His segments were watched by hundreds of thousands of viewers on You Tube.

But he left that job after St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz asked Higgins to tone it down. His personal life has been the subject of numerous commercials run by Super PAC supporting Angelle.

Higgins, who admits to a checkered past, says he straightened out his life after becoming a born-again Christian. Nevertheless, he also says, that says the incidents are taken out of context and spun into "vicious lies" by the former Jindal aides now surrounding Angelle.

Comeaux, Higgins campaign manager, said Higgins supporters are working class folk who have been divorced, understand the complexities of child support, and struggled to pay the bills. The attacks have only served to underline that Higgins is one of them and, for lagniappe, to remind them to that another election is in the offing, he said.

Angelles weakness is more than Higgins ability to tap into an atmosphere that new blood is needed in Washington, Comeaux said. At least part of Higgins support is coming from Republicans angry at Angelle for not endorsing U.S. Sen. David Vitter in the 2015 gubernatorial runoff.

In his run for governor, Angelle moved from little-known politician to third place  challenging Vitter, the presumptive favorite.

Vitter had been hammered in Super PAC commercials and blog news sites about his cell phone number being found in high-end Washington, D.C. prostitution ring. In the final debate before voters headed to polls, Angelle launched the most pointed attack: We have a stench that is getting ready to come over Louisiana, if we elect David Vitter as governor.

The state Republican Party considered, but rejected, an effort to censure Angelle for not endorsing Vitter.

A Super PAC called Make Louisiana Great Again and headed by Kyle Ruckert, Vitters former chief of staff, spent $152,067 on Dec. 1 to run commercials slamming Angelle.

It's crooked Washington politicians trying to help another crooked politician. People with a very distinguished track record of lying ... and I wont let these lies stand, Angelle said in a statement Saturday.

Angelle said he voted for Donald Trump in the primary election, but noted Higgins could not because he didnt register as Republican until seven months ago.

Angelle also said the PSC does not regulate the pipelines owned by the company on whose board he sits. He said he requested the Ethics Board to clear a St. Martin Parish project, which he had nothing to do with, before hiring an architectural firm in which his sister-in-law held an 8 percent interest.
Over Sharon Weston Broome's two decades in the state Legislature, she developed an interest in children and families, victims of domestic violence and anti-abortion issues.

She's touted her leadership on these topics and in the Legislature in general in her run against Republican Bodi White, a longtime legislative colleague, to become Baton Rouge's next mayor. But Broome's long tenure in state politics has also been the foundation of some the most pointed attacks on her, particularly the accusation that her north Baton Rouge district stagnated during her time at the Capitol.

Broome and her supporters disagree, saying her former role as pro tempore of both the House and Senate show her readiness to take the helm of the city-parish. Longtime friend and state Sen. Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb said Broome's calm demeanor made her well-regarded as a legislative leader.

"What makes you a leader in the Legislature is when you can fight for something or against something, and after doing it, you still have respect and like each other," said Dorsey-Columb, D-Baton Rouge.

+3 Broome invokes decades as north Baton Rouge legislator in mayoral bid By the time the mayoral votes are all counted, Sharon Weston Broome will have been on the ca

Two of pieces of legislation she is most proud of bookended her legislative career. As a freshman Democratic state representative in 1992, she created a Saturday Academy sponsored by the state and based in churches where children could receive extra tutoring and mentorship on weekends.

The Saturday Academy taught spiritual values, conflict resolution, cultural awareness and other life skills that Broome said gave kids a productive learning environment out of school. While the law that created the academy is still on the books, the state has not financed it for years.

More than two decades after creating the Saturday Academy, Broome, by then in the state Senate, sponsored and passed legislation that she called a "game changer" for domestic violence victims. Her 2015 law barred landlords from kicking out domestic violence victims in some cases after they were attacked in their homes.

The law also made it easier for victims to break their leases to escape from their abusers and gave landlords the authority to toss out abusers identified by courts or the state welfare agency. Passing the bill involved many revisions along the way.

"It was a really hard fought battle in the committee process, I tried really hard to bring folks to the table and we eventually came up with a system that protected the victims of domestic violence but also protected the landlords as well," Broome recalled.

Broome's legislative record related to her homebase of north Baton Rouge has been the focus of much of the critiques lobbed at her during the campaign so far. The most enduring criticism has focused on what was long a key institution in her district: the former charity hospital, Earl K. Long Medical Center, which served uninsured people in the region.

Both White and former Republican mayoral candidate John Delgado have pointed at Broome as partially responsible for north Baton Rouge's current dearth of emergency health care, a big complaint from residents over the past year. They've focused on the closure of Earl K. Long, and White tied the closure of the hospital in 2013 to the shuttering of Baton Rouge General's Mid City's emergency room in 2015.

Broome countered by saying she did everything she could to help the aging charity hospital in a losing battle after Gov. Bobby Jindal took office in 2008 and wanted to create public-private partnerships for hospital care of the poor.

The physical plant of Earl K. Long had been in trouble, and at risk of losing accreditation, long before it closed in 2013. Broome said she thought in 2005 that Gov. Kathleen Blanco would build a new, replacement hospital for it.

Broome sponsored a resolution in 2005 to request that Earl K. Long's replacement be located in north Baton Rouge, as there were already whispers that a new hospital might be built near Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Baton Rouge General in south Baton Rouge.

After Jindal took office in 2008, Broome voted against closing Earl K. Long. But she's taken heat for a 2009 resolution that she sponsored in support of the eventual public-private partnership between the LSU, the state and Our Lady of the Lake, which now has the state's contract to treat the poor in Baton Rouge.

The resolution acknowledged that the state could not afford in 2009 to replace the north Baton Rouge facility and supported creating a trauma center and teaching hospital at Our Lady of the Lake in south Baton Rouge for the overall benefits it would bring to the city.

Broome defends the resolution as her attempt to maintain control over the deal and pointed out its language about the importance of urgent care and primary care in north Baton Rouge.

"They look at the title and then people say, 'Oh, she closed the hospital,'" Broome said. "It was already a done deal. This was to protect the patients, to protect the faculty and to protect the working people of this community."

+11 How realistic are mayoral candidates' plans for BRPD? The Baton Rouge Police Department is one of the most frequent topics on the mayoral campaign

Broome's votes on crime legislation have also come under scrutiny during the campaign. White has tried to portray Broome as being soft on crime with three votes: a 2014 vote against increasing prison sentences for heroin dealers; a 2007 vote against making armed robbery convicts ineligible for parole; and a 2014 vote to reduce the amount of time some criminals had to serve before being eligible for parole hearings.

Broome said she voted against increasing the prison time for heroin dealers  which is now state law  because the previous penalties were strict enough and government was already in financial straits after spending so much money on incarceration.

Jindal eventually vetoed the 2014 bill to allow some violent criminals to be eligible to file parole applications after serving 75 percent of their sentence, instead of 85 percent of their sentence. Still, Broome said she voted for the bill in part because it had bipartisan support and had a wide group of collaborators on both the left and right. She also pointed out that White did not vote on the 2014 bill, as he was recorded absent in the vote count.

Finally, she said the state's already tough penalties for those convicted of armed robbery meant that there was no need to remove their parole eligibility as well.

For a Democrat, one of the most striking aspects of Broome's legislative career is her social conservatism on issues ranging from evolution to abortion. In 2001, she sponsored a resolution that originally targeted Charles Darwin and accused him of racism for writings about superior and inferior races, adding that Adolf Hitler embraced those views. The resolution asked the Legislature to "reject the core concepts of Darwinist ideology that certain races and classes of humans are inherently superior to others, and does hereby condemn the extent to which these philosophies have been used to justify and approve racist practices."

A different version of the resolution eventually passed that did not mention Darwin, and instead asked the Legislature to deplore racism and the concept that certain races and classes of humans were superior to others. Broome said she wrote the resolution after meeting with a group of people who were concerned about racism, and that she agreed to author it when they asked her to.

Broome said her legislative record shows her "pro-life belief from the womb to the tomb." Like White, her Republican opponent, she received a 100 percent rating on the Louisiana Right to Life Federation's cumulative score card from 2008 to 2015.

She has also sponsored some of the state's highest-profile laws restricting abortion, including a 2010 law requiring women to receive ultrasounds before abortions and then a 2012 law requiring that the health care provider performing an ultrasound make the fetal heartbeat audible.

Broome said she was inspired to write the bills "to make sure women have as much information as possible before they make that decision." It's one area where she and Dorsey-Colomb have disagreed. Dorsey-Colomb voted against both bills but said their enduring friendship showed Broome's commitment to being respectful of others who politically disagree with her.

Broome also said her legislative record showed her commitment to helping Baton Rouge as a whole. She was one sponsor of the 2009 tax break that helped developer Mike Wampold build the Renaissance Hotel out of half-built Jimmy Swaggart Ministries dorms on Bluebonnet Boulevard.

She received a 56 percent score from the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry's 2008 to 2009 cumulative score card, though her score dropped to 30 percent by 2015, when LABI gave the majority of legislators low grades. Still, she said the Renaissance Hotel tax increment financing is the type of incentive she wants to bring to other parts of Baton Rouge if she wins the mayor-president runoff election on Dec. 10.

"As mayor, I am going to be having some very serious meetings with people from the business community, people from the philanthropic community, with developers  there is now a universal recognition, I believe, that we cannot invest in one area of town and not recognize the interconnectedness we have," she said.
The East Baton Rouge Parish school system has formally asked the Louisiana Department of Education to recalculate report cards it recently issued to the district and to 82 of its schools.

+3 See how Baton Rouge-area schools, districts rank, grade in latest Louisiana scores The Baton Rouge area can lay claim to the top four public school districts in Louisiana afte

Specifically, school system officials question the state education department's decision to toss the scores of nearly 1,000 students for the purpose of calculating progress points, a factor in grading schools.

The main reason for tossing the scores is that the students involved changed schools in Baton Rouge during the 2015-16 school year.

The state tacks on as many as 10 progress points to the performance scores of schools or districts that meet a state threshold. Performance scores range from 0 to 150 points. On Nov 17, the state released 2015-16 scores for all public schools and school districts in Louisiana. Progress points account for about 7 percent of the scores but are enough to propel a school or district a full letter grade up or down.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, however, said the agency has not changed how it picks students to include in determining progress points and is not sure why East Baton Rouge is objecting.

Currently, and in previous years, when progress points are calculated, students who transferred from one district school to another district school between Oct. 1 and the date of testing are excluded from the calculation of progress points, said Bridget Devlin, chief of staff for the agency.

East Baton Rouge Parish, the second-largest school district in Louisiana, received the full allotment of 10 progress points for three years running but failed to earn any for the 2015-16 school year. That failure caused the districts annual performance score to drop by 6.3 points; the state as a whole fell 5.8 points for similar reasons. East Baton Rouge remains rated a C, while the state dropped from a B to a C.

The school system's performance score fell even though it grew in five of the six other areas measured. If progress points had never existed, East Baton Rouge Parish would have grown 3.6 points, while the state as a whole would have grown 4.2 points.

Progress points, or failure to earn them, also affect individual schools.

Eighty-two schools in the East Baton Rouge Parish system got report cards this year. Forty-five of them, more than half, failed to earn progress points in 2015-16, while only 36 failed to earn them the year before.

Progress points, originally called bonus points, have been controversial since they first went into effect for the 2012-13 school year.

Supporters say progress reports are important in order to give schools credit for solid student academic growth even if their overall achievement remains low. Critics say the points are susceptible to manipulation and introduce too much uncertainty into school grades.

Michelle Clayton, deputy superintendent for the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, has raised a different concern about how the state decides which students it includes and which ones it drops from its student growth database.

The database includes public school students across Louisiana and their individual growth targets as determined by a complicated statistical method called Value-Added Modeling, or VAM.

Every year, students are assigned a baseline score based on past performance, along with an estimate of how much their standardized tests scores are likely to grow that year. When students exceed their growth target, educators get credit for their better-than-predicted improvement, for "adding value" to that students education beyond what would be expected.

Louisiana launched VAM to evaluate teacher preparation programs. In 2010, the Legislature expanded its use to teacher evaluations. In 2012, the state Department of Education expanded its use yet again to calculate progress points.

To earn even a single progress point, much less 10, 50 percent-plus of the students in a given school or a district who were previously performing below grade level  or nonproficient  must beat their VAM-generated growth targets.

In 2014-15, East Baton Rouge Parish schools barely topped that 50-percent threshold and only in English, not in math. Out of nearly 3,900 nonproficient students that year, the improved English scores of just 63 students were enough to put the school system over the top and deliver it all 10 progress points.

In 2015-16, East Baton Rouge Parish fell just below the midpoint in English and a bit further behind in math. Consequently, the school system earned zero progress points. If just 56 of those students had done a bit better in English, the school system would have likely received all 10 progress points.

Clayton, the deputy superintendent, is raising concerns about both the effect of and the legal basis for the state's practice of removing students who transfer after Oct. 1 when it comes to progress points. She noted that 662 students in the third through eighth grades taking the English test had their scores removed, nearly 10 percent of all test takers. In math, the scores of 885 students were removed, or just under 12 percent.

Louisiana's VAM database has been dropping those students since it was used only for teacher evaluation. Continuing to drop those students in determining progress point may contradict a long-standing state policy, entitled inclusion of students," Clayton said.

That policy says the test scores of all students enrolled on Oct. 1 who takes a test within the same school district, though not necessarily the same school, shall be included in the district performance score." Unlike progress points, post-Oct. 1 scores are kept, not dropped, when it comes time to add up an assessment index, another part of a school or district's score.

Clayton is also seeking a recount of about 274 English and 170 math scores in grades three to eight that were dropped for other reasons.

Devlin with the state Department of Education said that state was cleared to use its VAM database as is in judging schools when it obtained a series of waivers from the federal 2002 No Child Left Behind Act starting in May 2012.

How to revamp Louisiana public school letters grades a bubbling controversy Controversy began brewing Monday on how far the state should go to revamp the way long-debat

With the December 2015 passage of a new federal education law, Louisiana has been compelled to review how it grades schools and students. Growth, as measured by systems like VAM, is likely to become a bigger part of the school accountability puzzle.

State Superintendent John White has released a draft of a new grading system that would use a new progress index to replace progress points. Student growth would be calculated for all students, not just nonproficient ones, and rolled up into the new index. They would account for 25 percent of a schools performance score, up from 7 percent currently.

"We strongly encourage anyone who has comments on the draft framework to email ESSALouisiana@la.gov," Devlin said.
In Louisiana, old populism has died, replaced by a new form that creates problems for Democrats it once served.
Suncorp Group is trying to emulate the success of Apple Stores with new financial services outlets that attempt to make going to a bank more like visiting a top retailer.

As all banks look to reinvent the branch, the financial conglomerate is going further on Monday, opening a "concept store", which it says is influenced by top global retailers in its physical design, and approach to customers.

Suncorp Group chief executive Michael Cameron says banks will need to create branches that are more like retail outlets. Credit:Jessica Hromas

The store, in Parramatta's Westfield complex in Sydney, does not have teller desks or fixed machines, with staff using laptops to work over Wi-Fi.

Instead, it has "zones" targeting activities where people inevitably need a bank or insurer  buying a house being an obvious one.
If Treasury wants to start acting more like economists than accountants, a good place to start would be to urge its political masters to seize on the opportunity presented by the school funding "compact" proposed by the Grattan Institute.

Treasury advice would be much improved if it switched its approach to the budget from helping the politicians cook up some quick cuts to government spending to a more medium-term focus on achieving better value for the taxpayers' dollar through greater efficiency and effectiveness.

The policy quagmire of school education is crying out for Treasury's guiding hand.

A more medium-term approach allows greater scope for micro-economic considerations to be incorporated into decision making.

The policy quagmire of school education is crying out for Treasury's guiding hand. It's hard to believe that school funding is still dogged by century-old sectarian rivalry between the public, Catholic systemic and independent school systems.
"We're going to have a lot of phone calls to companies that say they're thinking about leaving this country, because they're not leaving this country," Mr Trump said on December 1 at the Carrier plant in Indiana. President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence during a visit to the Carrier factory in Indianapolis on Thursday. Credit:AP Mr Trump claimed credit for the Carrier deal, which will see Indiana state officials give United Technologies $US7 million worth of tax breaks to encourage the company to keep the 1100 jobs at its Indianapolis plant. However the air-conditioner maker will still send an estimated 1,300 jobs to Mexico. The deal does nothing to prevent other employers from shipping work out of state and has been criticised by Democrats and Republicans alike, who call it corporate welfare.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who attacked US trade policy in his race against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Mr Trump's deal with Carrier set a "very dangerous precedent" of having taxpayers subsidise multi-billion dollar corporations to "beg them" to keep jobs in the country. On Friday night, Mr Trump took to Twitter to criticise a second firm, Rexnord, over plans to move production to Mexico. Rexnord, an industrial supplier based in Milwaukee, announced plans back in October to move a bearing plant  and its 300 jobs  from Indianapolis to Mexico. Company representatives on Saturday did not respond to a request for comment on Mr Trump's tweet.

However Mr Sanders on Saturday challenged Mr Trump over Rexnord. Mr Sanders supports tougher policies on corporations for outsourcing. During the presidential campaign, Mr Trump frequently pilloried Carrier for planning to move production to Mexico as he appealed to blue-collar voters in the Midwest, including in Indiana, whose governor, Mike Pence, is the vice-president-elect. It is unclear what steps would have to be taken by federal authorities before Mr Trump could penalise individual companies shifting jobs abroad.

It is also not clear if American companies currently manufacturing products abroad  such as his daughter Ivanka's company  would be affected by the new tariffs. On the election trail, Mr Trump espoused an aggressively protectionist stance toward international trade, and his skepticism of the benefits of globalisation resonated with many middle-class voters who bore the brunt of its downside. But since his election, his advisers have softened some of his most heated rhetoric. Mr Trump's pick for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross both said that they would pursue bilateral trade agreements with other countries but remained wary of sweeping regional deals. Mr Ross also said that blanket double-digits tariffs on goods from Mexico and China  which many economists warned could spark a damaging trade war  would only be used as a last resort. But Mr Trump's comments on Sunday indicate that he is not backing away from one key pledge: to punish companies that take jobs offshore.
Mike Baird's favourite song on the first album he bought was Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode: "All the things you do to me, And everything you said, I just can't get enough, I just can't get enough."

The album was called 1982 with a Bullet. This, however, is 2016 - and many voters have had just about enough of the Premier.

Premier Mike Baird has edged up in the polls after a terrible year. Credit:Daniel Munoz

A year ago the Herald noted how Mr Baird had survived the ICAC-related political donations setbacks of 2014 to enjoy a trouble-free 2015. Many were saying he was the best politician in the country  or rather, as it turns, out, the city. He won voters over on electricity privatisation, had Sydney expanding and delivered a resounding election victory. The coalition secured 54.3 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

But this has been the Baird government's annus horribilis. The coalition had been level pegging 50-50 on a two-party preferred basis in late August with the once unknown Labor leader Luke Foley, according to Fairfax-ReachTEL polling. Mr Baird lost his Deputy Premier Troy Grant after the Nationals were thumped in the Orange by-election last month even following a rescue attempt that involved scrapping the ban on greyhound racing. The poor sales job on the original ban and forced local council mergers had caused too much damage.
On the surface, there is little wrong with Australia's update to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre on the Great Barrier Reef, released on Friday. It sets out how the nation is progressing on steps promised to prevent the reef's world heritage status being officially listed as "in danger"  a label that would have been a major embarrassment to the government, and hurt a $6 billion-a-year tourism industry. Of 151 "actions" promised last year, the government says 32 have been completed and another 103 are on track.

The government gets a tick for banning the dumping of industrial dredging spoil in area. But the Queensland Parliament has failed to introduce promised laws to reduce tree-clearing, which would help stop sediment being eroded into rivers and swept onto the reef. The Labor state government tried, but was blocked by the Coalition and crossbench.

This needs to be rectified, but it is not the major problem with the update. As The Age reported in a recent series, the reef is suffering its worst year on record. At least 22 per cent of its coral cover has died, including an average of 67 per cent of coral on the shallow reefs north of Port Douglas. Saving the wounded national icon requires drastic action.

Though welcome, the actions outlined in the update  and last year's 2050 long-term sustainability plan, which it is based on  are insufficient.
Donald Trump won the Electoral College (though not the popular vote) on the strength of overwhelming support from working-class whites, who feel left behind by a changing economy and society. And they're about to get their reward - the same reward that, throughout Trump's career, has come to everyone who trusted his good intentions. Think Trump University.

Yes, the white working class is about to be betrayed.

The evidence of that coming betrayal is obvious in the choice of an array of pro-corporate, anti-labour figures for key positions.

In particular, the most important story of the week - seriously, people, stop focusing on Trump Twitter - was the selection of Tom Price, an ardent opponent of Obamacare and advocate of Medicare privatisation, as secretary of health and human services.
Hating Sydney is a tendency historically restricted to those who did not live here. We liked our city and they hated ours, and those who live here, for being so beautiful.

Now the haters walk among us, and those who join the anti-Sydney wailing bandwagon find no exaggeration beyond the pale, no hyperbole unworthy of sharing, no fact unable to be trumped by a feeling of ill-will. If you can't buy a neat scotch in the bar of your desire at 2am, this city is stuffed.

Among the gloom-leaders is Fred Schebesta, described on his tech company's website as "an author, blogger, award-winning digital marketer, media commentator, mentor and active member of the start-up community". He is also, if he does say so himself, "one of the nation's most respected entrepreneurs".

I can think of a few other descriptors for a man with such self-regard, but let us hear out the argument of this winner of awards, as told to the Herald for a story claiming Sydney was too boring and expensive for the young and creative.
Australia's environmental sector wants the Turnbull government to explain its plans for significant changes to major programs, including savings of more than $350 million from axing the Green Army - Tony Abbott's much-hyped employment project.

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg all but confirmed reports on Monday that the government's Expenditure Review Committee had decided to kill off the program in this month's budget update, saying savings were required from across government.

Established after Mr Abbott's 2013 election victory, the Green Army was designed to use the manpower of up to 15,000 unemployed young people, aged 17 to 24, for conservation projects in every state and territory.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he wouldn't comment on the project's demise before the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook statement, due on December 19.
It's been called a "miracle" university, founded just 25 years ago and now ranked in the world's Top 50. How did the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology do it?

"We credit feng shui," jokes the university's president, Professor Tony Chan.

He's talking about the favourable energy flows the ancient Chinese art of feng shui would attribute to HKUST's spectacular location, on a mountainside overlooking the bay half an hour out of Hong Kong's CBD.

As global competition for the best STEM students and the new generation of tech entrepreneurs heats up, HKUST has Australian talent firmly in its sights.
Controversial Independent MP Billy Gordon has defended himself over reports he continues to owe thousands of dollars in child support and may have misled parliament.

The former Labor member told the Parliament in March 2015 that he had dealt with outstanding child support and tax issues.

Cook MP Billy Gordon has defended himself against outstanding child support reports.

But on Sunday, News Corp reported the Australian Taxation Office and the Child Support Agency had received complaints about his his approach to child support, including that he owed more than $16,000.

CSA correspondence to Mr Gordon's former partner reportedly showed Mr Gordon's taxable income at $74,195, rather than his MP base salary of $155,621.
Sarah Christian has always been a small business leader at heart but it's taken her until the age of 33 to go out on her own, and this time it's personal.

The Sydney-born entrepreneur's latest venture is called The Beautiful Hair Boutique and it provides wigs and hair pieces for women experiencing balding.

Sarah Christian of Mosman has had alopecia since she was 7 years old. Credit:James Brickwood

Christian, who has lived with alopecia (a spot baldness immune disease) since she was 7, derived the concept from her own shoddy experiences.

"Personally when I had gone to places before to get wigs, they felt very much like a costume store, or on the other hand you felt like you were walking into a clinic and you were hidden away. Just because they don't have hair that grows out of their hair, doesn't mean they want to be hidden away. I wanted them to feel like it was [a] high-end boutique," she says.
While the alleged perpetrator no longer teaches at Camberwell Grammar School, Fairfax Media can reveal that he is still a registered teacher and volunteers at a children's camp organisation.

Camberwell Grammar principal Paul Hicks said the school had been co-operating with police.

"Our school will always offer our care, support and assistance to anyone who comes to us with a concern from the past, and we will encourage them to contact the appropriate authorities  including the police," he said.

"As a school, our first priority is for the safety and welfare of all our students, past and present. We take our responsibility for the safety of students in our care very seriously, and we are constantly vigilant in taking steps to protect them."

Another former student said that when he was at school, another boy confided in him that he had been abused by the same teacher.
Premier Daniel Andrews has called on judges to heed community fears about crime when sentencing violent criminals.

But the Law Institute of Victoria's president-elect, Belinda Wilson, said it was crucial the judiciary remained independent of government.

Daniel Andrews' government says it has no plans to change the entitlements system. Credit:Justin McManus

Mr Andrews made his comments after The Age revealed on Saturday that no judges had applied minimum sentences in Victoria, except on appeal, for a variety of violent crimes.

Statutory minimum sentences, more commonly known as mandatory sentences, have been in place for certain violent crimes since 2013. However, the laws have provisions that allow judges to take "special reasons" into account to bypass mandatory sentences that apply for some crimes.
A father-of-four who died after collapsing with thunderstorm asthma has been remembered as an "amazing and loving man".

Sam Lau, 49, suffered a severe asthma attack following the November 21 storm that has claimed eight lives and left one person in a critical condition in intensive care.

Mr Lau spent eight days in the Austin Hospital's intensive care unit before passing away on November 29.

Originally from China, Mr Lau moved to New Zealand at the age of 20.
As police continue to search for the thief who stole a car with a sleeping toddler in the back, the stranger who rescued Joseph has spoken about how she found him abandoned in a laneway whimpering and asking for his 'mummy'.

Three-year-old Joseph was taken from his family's East Victoria Park driveway on Friday as his parents unloaded their Subaru after returning from a holiday around 1.50pm.

Caroline Baker found Joseph abandoned in a laneway carpark. Credit:Nine News Perth

The offender jumped into the running vehicle and reversed it out of the driveway, smashing through a closed fence to get away  sparking an unprecedented manhunt through Perth's southern suburbs.

Joseph was found unharmed two hours later by Perth mother, Caroline Baker, who told Nine News Perth she could not believe her luck when she spotted the stolen vehicle less than one kilometre from her house.
Protestors on the forecourt of Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen It might be effective, but it has also been widely criticised. A United Nations report last year found Australia was systematically violating the international convention against torture for holding asylum seekers in dangerous and violent conditions on Manus Island. The hard-line approach to refugees came under the spotlight once again this week after protesters glued their hands to a railing while drowning out question time in federal Parliament. On Thursday, they unfurled a "close the bloody camps now" sign on the front of Parliament House and dyed the parliament's pond a blood red. Australia's offshore immigration detention centre on Manus Island. Credit:Andrew Meares Just days before, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton had admitted that not all 1600 refugees still in detention on Manus Island and Nauru would be re-settled through the deal inked with the United States in November.

While some of those detained on Manus and Nauru continue to wait in limbo, more than 16,000 kilometres away, many of their compatriots in Europe are watching nervously. Australia's Ambassador to Germany, Lynette Wood. Credit:Eryk Bagshaw Constantin Schreiber, a German broadcaster and Middle East expert, says any German shift towards an Australian system is more than just getting tough on borders  even the open discussion of such an idea by mainstream political parties signals a shift in the society's perspective on refugees. "Most Germans would associate Australia with koala bears and kangaroos, but in the last few years we have also seen these horrifying pictures of people on remote torture islands," he says outside the German parliament, the Bundestag. Refugees Basel Mutlark, 31, from Syria and Faraidoon Wasal from Aghanistan a former NATO interpreter, both are training to be wind farm technicians in Germany Credit:Eryk Bagshaw

The message has gotten through to the tightly connected networks of the international refugee community in Germany. "All the people that try to go to Australia have to be on small islands," says Basel Mutlark, a 31-year-old father of two from the flattened Syrian city of Homs, who recently lost his mother to a bomb blast. "Unhuman things happen to these people." A demonstration against immigration, organised by the Alternative for Germany party in Erfurt. Credit:AP So successful has the marketing of Australia's immigration policy become that none of those preparing to shiver through a sub-zero German winter in valleys filled with ship containers would countenance a move towards the Torres Strait, nor their friends or families still left at home. They are terrified that an Australian-style immigration solution will permanently separate them from their loved ones planning to come to Germany, particularly those still trapped by war in Syria and Iraq.

Yazidi refugee Renda Barakat, 11, with Majid Dhalriaiyam, 17, from Afghanistan outside a snow-covered refugee shelter in Germany. Credit:Eryk Bagshaw Meanwhile, the changing perception of asylum seekers in Germany is taking its toll. "In Syria I had the perfect life, I have my work, I have my wife, nobody looked at me like I am low level," Mutlark says. He remembers the abuse he received after what many have labelled the turning point in Germany's attitude to refugees, the New Year's eve Cologne attacks, where dozens of women were repeatedly groped by migrants. Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, the disused airport of Nazi Germany, where more than 1000 refugees are being housed. Credit:Eryk Bagshaw "Now they look at you," he tears up. "I run away from terrorism, not to be a terrorist here," he says.

The 31-year-old engineer, like thousands of other refugees, is re-training as a wind-farm technician at Hamburg's Acacia Campus, a cold, damp job on the North Sea that will power Germany's insatiable demand for renewable energy. Mhadeya is establishing a start-up in Hamburg to encourage older Germans to rent out their empty properties to refugees. Credit:Eryk Bagshaw It's one of the many integration efforts the private sector is willing along, keen to get its hands on young, enthusiastic talent in a country that is looking to support the future of an ageing population. Start-ups such as Hamburg-based Leethub are working with refugees to help them try to innovate their ways out of shelters. Mother-of-five Mhadeya, who asked not to use her surname, has been living in a shelter for the past year. The PhD student is running a program to encourage refugees to renovate thousands of Hamburg's empty homes so they can be used for refugee rental accommodation instead of sitting as empty private investments. Isobel Hardtie runs refugee programs with Syrian refugee Hamdi Al Kassar, a TV presenter who fled Syria last year. Credit:Eryk Bagshaw

"You need a future too," she says. "It's not only clothes, food, you need to be able to look ahead." In Berlin, former Syrian TV presenter Hamdi Al Kassar runs tours for locals and tourists to see Berlin through a refugee's eyes, featuring the local sim-card shop. "The one thing we all need is data to talk to our family at home," he says as he flicks through his smartphone a year after fleeing a war-torn Damascus. "Don't ever ask a refugee for their phone number, because the cheaper sim cards give us lots and lots of data, but no calls." Frank Kuhne, editor at Germany's largest children's book publishers Carlsen. Credit:Eryk Bagshaw Despite the prodigious efforts of many, such as architecture writer Andreas Tolke who transformed his 120-square-metre apartment and Armani couch into a makeshift bed to host and educate hundreds of refugees over the past year, Mutlark, Mhadeya and Al Kassar are the exception on the streets of Berlin and Hamburg, where many have struggled to adapt and crucially, learn German. "In the beginning it was 'everyone is a doctor'," says Dr Birgit zur Nieden, a refugee researcher from Humboldt University. "But as the right took hold, the threat to lower-skilled jobs changed this sentiment."

The language barrier has meant the optimism of Merkel's initial pitch to the nation - of thousands of older professionals flooding into Germany - is battling against a tide of pessimism and segregation. "They are giving up," says Gul Matic, the social co-ordinator at Die Johannieter Camp in Hamburg. "What was meant to be six weeks in the shelters has become one year and two months, how do you explain this to people?" "All the energy they had in the beginning. I want to learn German, I want to do this and this  and now its like, for what?" Even the most left-wing of politicians say the fate of Germany's great show of generosity now lies in the youngest of its new migrants. "If integration is going to be successful, it needs to start at the bottom, where up to 60 per cent of kindergarten children have a migrant background, 85 per cent in the city," says Michael Gwozd the Deputy leader of the Greens in Hamburg.

The refugees now filing into schools around the country have made this language barrier, which already existed with the large Turkish and Eastern European communities, all the more present. One of the largest book publishers in Germany, Carlsen, knew this when it distributed 200,000You are Welcome, picture books in Farsi, Kurdish and Arabic for free to every camp in Germany. "You have to learn how to live, but we need to know how you live," says editor Frank Kuhne. Now Carlsen is forging ahead with plans to use the technology savvy refugee community to help jump the language hurdle, distributing books about German and refugee cultures. Smartphones will be able to scan the books to be read aloud in 26 different languages. Even with the efforts of the likes of Carlsen, observers remain sceptical that Germany will be able to hold out against anti-immigration sentiment. Elections, due before October next year, loom as the great temperature gauge. In September, Merkel's Christian Democrats were beaten by the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany in local elections in her home state.

German author Hatice Akyun is concerned the refugee debate will become the dominant theme of a divisive campaign. "In this whole discussion about refugees, facts don't matter," she says. "Everyone operates on a 'until you can prove it's wrong, it's right' model". "Even if you prove they can be responsible for economic success, that is very hard to explain to the working class." For the sake of children like Renda, she hopes that can change. Tapping her feet nervously on the snow outside the shelter in Hamburg, Renda's thoughts drift to the bike she used to ride through the vibrant community that once existed near Mosul, where Yazidis, Christians and Muslims worked side by side. There, now only ruin, isolation and suspicion remain in a vacuum of terror left by Islamic State.
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
Diversification is the key to reducing risk in a portfolio. Holding stocks across business sectors allows the superior performance of stocks in hot sectors to counter balance poorer performance in stocks not doing as well.

Sounds good enough but some studies indicate it takes a portfolio of 25-30 stocks to achieve a maximum level of risk reduction. Others claim one can get by with fewer than 25 to 30 but the task of researching, selecting, and then monitoring portfolio performance is simply too arduous a task for many retail investors.

There are three ways investors with neither the time nor the temperament for self-directed investing can diversify their investments:

1. Managed Funds2. Exchange Traded Funds (ETF)3. Listed Investment Companies (LIC)

The primary differences between managed and exchange traded funds are where you buy them and fees charged. Managed funds are typically offered by financial service providers or directly through fund companies. Exchange traded funds can be bought and sold on the open stock market with lower fees. Both passive and active products are offered in most markets, with passive funds tracking an index while active funds have professional managers buying and selling for the portfolio with a goal of outperforming the market. Here in Australia there are currently less than ten actively managed ETFs, known as ETMFs (Exchange Traded Managed Funds.)

Listed Investment companies are similar to ETFs with a key difference beneficial to investors. Exchange Traded Funds are structured as trust vehicles while LICs are structured as companies. In effect, when you buy into an ETF or ETMF you are buying units in the trust as opposed to buying stocks in an LIC. Therefore, while both trade openly on the ASX, LICs are subject to the reporting and governance requirements of corporate structured entities. For the investor, this means more transparency and less effort following the stock due to the disclosure requirements mandated by the ASX.

There is another difference that make LICs a more attractive option for some investors. Trusts are open-ended, meaning should a horde of new investors come calling the ETF simply sells them the additional units. LICs are closed, meaning that same horde will drive up the price of the stock due to the fixed supply. What this means is there are times when an LIC may be trading at a premium or discount to its net asset value (NAT  which is the total value of all portfolio assets the entity holds, minus liabilities, divided by shares outstanding.) As the following 16 March graph from Bloomberg shows, the price of an ETF tends to stay very close to its NAV, which is not the case with an LIC.



The implication here should be obvious  there are times when the stock of an LIC is available at a bargain price for long term investors.

Despite their differences, the three vehicles for instant diversification share the same core underlying philosophy. If you have searched the business descriptions of various ETFs or LICs, you should recognize the following statement:

 invests in a range of sectors, such as energy, materials, industrials, consumer staples, banks, property trusts, telecommunications, healthcare, information technology and utilities  in order to maximize long-term returns to shareholders through a balance of capital and dividend growth.

Investing in such a wide array of business sectors may minimize risk but common sense and simple math suggests it also can maximise mediocrity. The hope of any actively managed investment vehicle is that the managers can pick enough winners to offset the losers or mediocre performers to come out with a positive overall return.

Over time the strategies employed by these providers have evolved and now many have narrowed their investment targets. There are ETFs and LICs that focus exclusively on specific countries or entire geographical regions; others that focus on high growth companies; others restricted to large caps or small caps; and still others focused on a broad business sector, like energy.

There are two recent LIC entries on the ASX that exemplify the shift to a more refined and narrow investing focus. One is Blue Star Alternative Investments (BLA). This companys unique approach to diversification is to invest in a variety of assets other than traditional stocks. While investing strictly in private endeavors sounds strange, the results this company has produced since it began trading on the ASX are far superior to the tried and true approach of the majority of ETFs and LICs. Blue Sky listed on the ASX on 24 January of 2012, closing its first trading day at $0.95. The BLA share price as of the close on 1 December of 2016 was $7.25, an increase of 663%.

Australian Foundation Investment Company (AFI) has been in business since 1927 and focuses on a broadly diversified portfolio of Australian blue chip stocks. The following price movement chart compares AFI with newcomer BLA.



AFIs ten year annualised rate of return is 5.59%. The best performing LIC on the ASX over the last decade is Carlton Investments (CIN), specialising in established, well managed Australian listed entities that are anticipated to provide attractive levels of sustainable income and also long term capital growth and in companies that enable a high portion of income to be received as fully franked dividends. Carltons 10 year return is 9.17%. Here is how Carlton compares to BLA over the last five years.



While Blue Sky has yet to withstand the test of time, its rate of return since its beginnings is 16.7%. The group certainly is off to a good start, especially for a business that does not buy ASX listed stocks for capital growth and rising dividends. So what do they buy?

Blue Sky is a holding company for four fund management groups, each focusing on a different alternative asset.

1. Blue Sky Private Equity (BSPE) Pty Limited operates as a private equity and venture capital firm, investing in a wide range of businesses based on growth potential, regardless of sector.

2. Blue Sky Private Real Estate Pty Limited (BSPRE) develops and manages both residential and commercial real estate. Earlier in the year BSPRE announced a joint venture with Goldman Sachs in the purchase of a student accommodations provider  The PAD  with plans to add to PADs facilities for student housing in Australia and New Zealand. Construction began in Melbourne and Adelaide in mid-November with the company announcing its entry into the US market through a joint venture with Atlanta based Student Quarters.

3. Blue Sky Investment Science Asset Management Pty Ltd (BSISAM) is a global hedge fund that takes both long and short positions in equities, fixed income, currencies, and commodities.

4. Blue Sky Water Partners Pty Limited (BSWP) focuses on real assets in water, including investing and managing water entitlements, water and agricultural infrastructure, and expansion capital for Agribusiness.

5. Blue Sky Alternative Access Fund listed on the ASX in June of this year under the CODE BAF, focusing strictly on alternative investments.

The Blue Sky Alternatives Access Fund Limited (The Alternatives Fund) is a listed investment company mandated to invest in a diversified portfolio of alternative assets managed by a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Sky Alternative Investments Limited (Blue Sky). BAF is now the parent company of BLA.

BLA reported a 57% profit increase for FY 2016 and has a 54.8% two year earnings growth forecast along with a projected increase in dividends over two years of 41.4%. On the company website Blue Sky has an intriguing graph to support its strategic approach.



Another interesting recent LIC IPO to consider is Bailador Technology Investments (BTI). The company debuted on the ASX on 17 November of 2014 with a first trading day closing price of $0.96. Since then the stock price has risen a modest 12.5% to its current level of $1.08.

Bailador may be an example to support the belief that investors are wary of LICs that invest strictly in non-listed equites. That is what Bailador does but they focus on promising areas within the technology sector  software, Internet, mobile, data, online market places and telecommunications-related businesses

Bailador does not take positions in start-up companies, focusing instead on companies with exemplary management that are already generating revenues between two and ten million dollars. Bailador has only been in business since 2010 and is interesting enough to attract the attention of ASX investment group Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Co. Ltd (SOL) that currently has a 20% stake in Bailador.

Here are the nine companies in Bailadors portfolio:

 DocsCorp  a hybrid desktop/cloud provider of four document management products serving 3,500 customers and 250,000 end users. The company has 32% annual revenue growth with 80% of that coming from outside Australia.

 Click Loans Group  a financial technology company offering online home loans and mortgages.

 Rezdy  provides online booking software for professionals in the travel and tourism industry. The company operates as a software as a service business and has 1,600 customers. The software platform has generated $1.2 billion in bookings, with 50% of that coming from outside Australia.

 Stackla  another software as a service (SAAS) provider of aggregated social media marketing services across multiple sites. The companys average annual return since its founding in 2012 is 260%. In FY 2015 more that 60% of company revenue came from outside Australia.

 Straker Translations  provides 24/7 cloud based translation services from 80 source languages to 120 target languages. The companys revenue growth for FY 2015 was 45%, with revenues reaching NZ$8.0 million. In early November Straker management announced its intention to go public.

 iPRO Solutions  offers its customers a live 24/7 web-based data verification portal of vendor, supplier and employee information.

 SiteMinder  provides cloud-based SaaS solutions for hotel management. The company has more than 18,000 hotel customers in 160 countries around the world. The company has twice been included in the BRW Fast 100 List of Australias fastest growing companies.

 Standard Media Index  has developed an aggregator platform for media agencies to track advertising expenditures. The company has been successful enough in Australia for its founder to move to New York to crack the media market in the US.

 Viocorp  provides a video platform for publishing and broadcasting media content via the web, IPTV, and mobile devices. Viocorp is expanding into Asia and currently serves both the corporate/government and media sectors here in Australia.

Bailador might not be setting the house afire like Blue Sky, but the stock price is outperforming the venerable AFI. Heres the chart.



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The 75th anniversary commemorations of the dastardly Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor seem to be a great gift to the Alt-Rights xenophobic nationalists. That Day of Infamy  December 7, 1941  seemingly confirms fears of treacherous foreigners while evoking nostalgia for the Greatest Generations war-winning whitebread America. But history demands we Shift Center, remembering that in World War II democratic decency defeated dictatorial demagoguery.

In fact, using Americas involvement in the Second World War to rationalize bigotry betrays the memory of the 416,800 who died fighting Nazi and Japanese racism, including Pearl Harbors 2,403 martyrs. In that spirit, just as most tourists visiting Pearl Harbor today end by visiting the decommissioned battleship the USS Missouri, this years anniversary ceremonies should end by honoring the values Missouri, its captain William McCombe Callaghan, and America represent  epitomized by Callaghans gracious, unexpected gesture, of honorably burying at sea the kamikaze pilot who tried killing Callaghan and his crew on April 11, 1945.

Decades later, many discount just how much Americans hated the Japanese  and how justified the hatred was. Japanese warplanes starting bombing Pearl Harbor just minutes after Japanese diplomats entered the State Department, pretending to negotiate. Japanese soldiers butchered 300,000 Chinese in the 1937 Rape of Nanking, ultimately murdering as many as eight million people, following what scholars call the Three Alls Strategy Sanko Sakusen: kill all, burn all, loot all. Japanese officers reputedly ate the flesh of captured American pilots. Japanese soldiers tortured Americans in Prisoner of War camps and on the brutal Bataan death march of 1942. American war posters warned against THE JAP BEAST AND HIS PLOT TO RAPE THE WORLD. That American hatred and distrust did have a darker sideracist incitement and imagery that culminated in the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans.
Moose! Moose! Weve got three moose on the right!

Warren Redfearn beamed with excitement as he directed the passengers attention toward the wildlife idling beside the Aurora Winter Train. A stream of oohs and ahhs followed as the 40 or so people on board shifted their weight to the right side of the caboose.

Warren let out a big smile and took a sip of his coffee. Youd think that after four decades as an Alaska Railroad conductor, a couple of wild moose wouldnt excite him anymore. But youd be wrong.

I love my job and I dont plan on retiring, the 62-year-old told me as the Aurora began its once-a-week 12-hour, 350-mile trek from coastal Anchorage to deep in the Alaskan interior. I dont do it for the moneyI do it for the people.

And people there are.

Over two million tourists flocked to the Last Frontier State in 2015 and a whopping 750,000 of them decided their great northern getaway wasnt complete without a ride on the Alaska Railroad.

Although you wouldnt guess it by riding the comfort-centric Aurora, tourism isnt Alaska Railroads primary business. As the nations last full-service railroad, the AR is responsible for hauling much of the states freightcommodities like lumber, heavy machinery, and hazardous materials. Most of that cargo is connected in some way or another to Alaskas colossal gas and oil industry.

Falling oil revenue, though, has put a strain on the states budgetand reduced demand for ARs heavy-transport services. Tourism dollars, on the other hand, have proven more resilient, offering a cushion of support for the volatile local economy.

The vast majority of ARs non-commercial transports are foreign and Lower 48 travelers looking to maximize their visit to a land twice the size of Texas. For most, the comfortable and exceedingly bright summer is the obvious time of year to explore some of Americas most remote vistas.

There are a few visitors though, that opt for the extreme.

Of the 750,000 people who rode the train last year, Id guess 99 percent were summer passengers, Warren told me as our four-car caravan slowly churned past a legion of fluffy evergreens. Behind them, a row of black and white mountains pierced the sky, turning the backdrop into a real-life snow globe.

These kind of views are unrivaledliterally. Thats because when the nights grow long and the temperatures fall, the Alaska Railroad shuts down four of its five routes, leaving the mighty Aurora the only engine on the tracks.

For winter visitors looking to take an express trip through the Alaskan wildernessand catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights in the processthis train is the only game in town. And while their numbers are diminished, off-season tourists are no less amped to ride the rails.

We wanted to see as much of Alaska as possible, one retired American couple told me as we stood on the exposed platform linking two train cars. The chilled air turned our breath to steam as we took turns snapping photos of the passing snow-covered scenery. Weve been able to visit lots of places but Alaskas been on our list for a long, long timeand to do it in the winter, the woman said, pausing to take in a passing mountain, thats even better.

As we made our way through the Alaskan interior, passing by Wasilla, the tiny town of Talkeetna, and the gorgeous Denali National Park, we received a quick overview of not just the local landscapes but the colorful personalities that have made their lives in this isolated countryside.

Dr. Seuss house! Coming up on the Dr. Seuss house! Warren exclaimed suddenly.

Dr. Seuss? I asked.

Yeah! Were not actually allowed to call it that, but, well, youll see what I mean. This guy wanted an unobstructed view of Denali, so he built this tower.

Indeed, the structureofficially called Goose Creek Towerlooked like something straight out of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It jutted above the tree line, like a stack of warped, whimsical boxes teetering on collapse.

The owner, designer, and builder is one of Alaskas top trial lawyers, Phillip Weidner. He took a simple plan to build a two-story log cabin and transformed it into a fanciful (and functional) tribute to Alaskan creativity.

Then theres author Mary T. Lovel, who moved to Alaska with her husband and four children in the early 1960s to try their hand at homesteading. The family had no experience with subsistence living when they settled a remote patch of Alaska serviced by the railroad. Fifty years later, Mary and her husband, Clyde, are still living off the land and regaling travelers with stories of what life was like during the early days of statehood.

The couple are a regular fixture on the Aurora route and when time permits, Warren likes to stop the train to pay the two a visit. As we approached their home, Warren waved for them to come out and chat with the passengers.

Clyde made his way down the snowy path, sporting paint-covered trousers and a ruffled shirt beneath an unbuttoned coat.

I wasnt expecting company! he chuckled as he grew closer, dragging a small cart loaded with copies of Journey to a Dreama book Mary penned about her familys experiences living in Alaska.

Mary followed behind, smiling warmly. She sat down in a lean-to near the tracks and beckoned the group over. A few passengers bought a copy, others asked questions or posed for pictures in front of the couples bright blue housewhich, in a town with population of two, is lovingly referred to as Sherman City Hall.

Soon, the crackle of Warrens radio sounded and we were back on board.

The rest of the trip washed by, a limitless sea of angles and colors floating across the horizon, each view more serene than the next.

The Aurora pulled into its final destination of Fairbanks a few hours later. Passengers began swapping contact information with promises to share photos and reconnect.

You guys have been so much fun! Warren laughed as he made his way down the aisle, Even more fun than normal!

The next day, Warren and his crew would need to get up early and do the Aurora route again, taking a fresh group of passengers back the way we had come. One couple reminded him before departing that they had booked round-trip tickets.

Well then Ill see you tomorrow! he exclaimed.

I thought about the returning couple for a minute. Would spotting some moose or passing by a snow-capped mountain still be exciting, having just done it the day before? But, as I stepped off the train and said goodbye to our conductor, I realized I was missing the point.

Warren had ridden the Aurora a million times and it was clear he loved it more with every journey. As long as he was on board, everything would be exciting.
BERLIN  It was, once again, unpredictable.

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For 11 months, the dragged-out hope that Austria would not be the first European country to elect a right-wing populist head of state has rested on the scraggy shoulders of the retired economics professor and former Green Party leader Alexander Van der Bellen. Today, it looks like he has finally come through.

Van der Bellen had already won the run-off vote in May, but after the defeated far right Freedom Party complained about the mishandling of absentee ballots, the constitutional court ruled that the election had to be held again.

And once again, the far rights candidate Norbert Hofer seems to be accepting his defeat graciously. I am eternally sad that it didnt work. I would have liked to take care of our Austria, he posted on Facebook at 5.30 pm today.

On Friday evening, Van der Bellens team held their last event in Lloonbase 36, an old factory-turned-event hall. A brass band took the stage and alpine images were projected on the wall, as if to play down the post-industrial chic of the location choice. Then, Pepi Reich, the conservative mayor of Van der Bellens hometown held a speech where he assured the crowd that Van der Bellen really does love his country.

It all seemed to serve as a meek rebuttal to the mudslinging that took place in the final presidential debate the day before. Hofers name-calling (he had previously slandered Van der Bellen as a communist and a freemason) reached a new low when he suggested that Van der Bellen had once been a Soviet spy. This is the most hurtful thing I have heard in a long time, replied Van der Bellen.

Van der Bellen had hoped that Trumps brash victory in November would serve as a wake-up call for Austria. Hofer has a very similar position to Trump (he is anti-establishment, anti-immigrant and anti-refugee), though when asked how he fundamentally differs from the US-president elect, Hofer joked, I have a different haircut.

Thats the Hofer style  smooth and easy-going, irrespective of the Glock-26 that he carries with him. Some, like Austrian actor Josef Hader, called him a kerzlschlucker (a candle-swallower  someone who masks their inner rage with piousness), but lots of Austrians thought he was young and dashing.

Hofers camp had anticipated that if millions of Americans were willing to publicly support a populist, then Austrians must be ready to do so as well. And so, Van der Bellens success is soothing for Europe, where Germany, the Netherlands and France will be holding elections next year.

That Austria, of all places, should have been the first European country to elect a right wing populist head-of-state, certainly raised eyebrows. Vienna is regularly voted one of the worlds most livable cities and there is pride about the fact that some of the social housing complexes have rooftop swimming pools here.

But then there are areas like Simmering, a former village that lies in the outskirts of the capital, which have been looking more downtrodden in the past decade. But although Hofer has gotten some of his best results for Vienna in Simmering, the mood there this Saturday seemed devoid of excitement or hope.

One young man, who studies at the citys university and works at a mulled wine stand on weekends, expressed little sympathy with his Hofer voting neighbors. Seriously, some Austrians just moan and moan. They do not know how good they have it here. Now they are just worried that refugees will come and take some of this funding. Still, he admitted, I am left and I am struggling to vote for someone as far left as Van der Bellen.

One of the biggest fears of Hofers win, was that as president (an otherwise mainly ceremonial position), he would make use of his right to dismiss the government and perhaps even appoint Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, as chancellor. Obviously he wont be doing that now. But regardless of this lose for Hofer; the Freedom Party is still likely to do well in upcoming regional elections and in 2018s general election.

Strache, openly aggressive and hotheaded with an elusive Neo-Nazi past, is not considered as dashing a populist as Hofer. In the center of Vienna, some posters of Hofer have been vandalized with Hitler mustaches, others with Straches initials, HC.

A few weeks ago, Strache posted a picture of Van Der Bellen on Facebook and typed that the 72-year-old had, forgotten to shave half of his upper lip, adding, what else will he forget? This nasty post was not to the taste of some of his followers, though. They thought it was childish and one of them wrote, Mr Strache, we bid you not to harm Mr Hofer with such unprofessional comments.

Yet as surveys indicate that half of Austrians have lost trust in print media, Straches Facebook page, which is followed by one in eight Facebook user in Austria, stands at the heart of the Freedom Partys web of alternative new sources. In interviews, Hofer frequently cited the blog unzensuriert.at, which is run by Walter Asperl, a member of both the Freedom Party and the Viennese Academic League Olympia, an organization notorious for its connections to right-wing extremism.

Meanwhile, one joke at the liberal news channel oe24 is that, compared with Van der Bellens long, occasionally rambling, answers, one cant help admiring how proactive the Freedom Partys PR team has been  apparently they called the channel several times a day to pitch stories like Mrs Hofer is going shopping later.

Journalists in Vienna are reportedly sharing rumors that Breitbart is looking for contacts in Austrias far right media scene. The site has already taken an interest in Austrian politics. One of the stories that Breitbart seemed to like was when right-wing extremists stormed a performance of the play, Die Schutzbefohlenen, on a night where refugees from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan were performing it.

That night, around 30 people entered the theatre to throw fake blood into the crowd, scatter flyers that read multiculturalism kills and push and hit members in the audience and actors on stage.

The Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinik, who wrote the play and has been criticizing Austrias politics since the seventies, already swore to leave the country in 2000 should the Freedom Party get elected to the ruling coalition. This time, before the presidential election, she made no such statement. Maybe because the real trouble is just getting started.
Five months before Operation Squatter, a tall, thin soldier lay grumpy and immobile in a Cairo hospital bed. The 25-year-old officer had been brought into the Scottish Military Hospital on June 15, 1941, paralyzed from the waist down. A letter to his mother from the War Office stated that he had suffered a contusion of the back as a result of enemy action.

This was not, strictly speaking, true. The injured soldier had not set eyes on the enemy: he had jumped out of a plane, without a helmet or proper training, ripped his parachute on the tail and plummeted to earth at roughly twice the recommended speed. The impact had knocked him out and badly injured his spine, leaving him temporarily blinded and without feeling in his legs. The doctors feared he would never walk again.

Even before his parachuting accident, the officers contribution to the war effort had been minimal: he lacked the most basic military discipline, could not march straight, and was so lazy his comrades had nicknamed him the Giant Sloth. Since being posted to Egypt with the British commando force, he had spent much of his time in Cairos bars and clubs, or gambling at the racecourse. The nurses at the hospital knew him well, for he frequently popped in during the morning, whey-faced and liverish, to request a blast from the oxygen bottle to cure his hangover. Before his parachute jump landed him in the hospital, he had been under investigation to establish whether he was malingering and ought to be court-martialed. His fellow officers found him charming and entertaining; his senior commanders, for the most part, regarded him as impertinent, incompetent, and profoundly irritating. On completing officer training, he had received a blunt appraisal: irresponsible and unremarkable.

Lieutenant David Stirling of the Scots Guards was not a conventional soldier.

The writer Evelyn Waugh, a fellow officer in the commando force, came to visit Stirling about three weeks after his admission to the hospital. Waugh had been misinformed by the matron that one of Stirlings legs had already been amputated, and he would likely lose the other. I cant feel a thing, Stirling told his friend. Embarrassed, as Englishmen tend to be when faced with disability, Waugh kept up a steady stream of meaningless small talk, perched on the edge of the bed, and studiously avoided the subject of his friends paralysis. Every so often, however, he would sneak a surreptitious glance to where Stirlings remaining leg ought to be, and whenever he did so Stirling, with extreme effort, would wiggle the big toe of his right foot. Finally, Waugh realized he was being teased, and hit Stirling with a pillow.

You bastard, Stirling, when did it happen?

Minutes before you came. It takes a bit of effort, but its a start.

Stirling was regaining the use of his legs. Others might have cried for joy; for Stirling, however, the first sign of his recovery was an excellent opportunity to play a practical joke on one of Britains greatest novelists.

It would take two more weeks before Stirling could stand upright, and several more before he was able to hobble about. But during those two months of enforced inaction he did a great deal of thinkingsomething that, in spite of his reputation as a feckless gadabout, he was rather good at.

The commandos were intended to be Britains storm troops, volunteers selected and trained to carry out destructive raids against Axis targets. Prime Minister Winston Churchill had decided that the ideal theater in which to deploy the commandos would be North Africa, where they could conduct seaborne raids against enemy bases along the Mediterranean coast.

In Stirlings unsolicited opinion, the concept was not working. Most of the time the commandos were inactive, awaiting the order for a great assault that never came; on the rare occasions when they were deployed, the results had been disappointing. The German and Italian troops fully expected to be attacked from the sea, and were primed and waiting. The commando forces were simply too large and cumbersome to launch an assault without being spotted; the element of surprise was immediately lost.

But what, wondered Stirling, if the combat troops attacked from the opposite direction? To the south, stretching between Egypt and Libya, lay the Great Sand Sea, a vast, waterless expanse of unbroken dunes covering 45,000 square miles. One of the most inhospitable environments on earth, the desert was considered by the Germans to be virtually impassable, a natural barrier, and they therefore left it largely unprotected, and entirely unpatrolled. This was one sea the Hun was not watching, Stirling reflected. If mobile teams of highly trained men, under cover of darkness, could be infiltrated onto the enemys desert flank, they might be able to sabotage airfields, supply depots, communications links, railways, and roads, and then slip back into the embracing emptiness of the sand sea. A commando force several hundred strong could attack only one target at a time; but a number of smaller units, moving quickly, raiding suddenly and then retreating swiftly, could destroy multiple targets simultaneously. The opportunity to attack the enemy in the rear, when he least expects it, is the pipe dream of every general. The peculiar geography of North Africa offered just such a possibility, reflected Stirling, as he lay half paralyzed in his hospital bed, trying to wiggle his toes.

Stirlings idea was the result of wishful thinking more than expertise; it had emerged not from long hours of reflection and study, but from the acute boredom of convalescence. It was based on intuition, imagination, and self-confidence, of which Stirling had plenty, rather than experience of desert warfare, of which he had none. But it was an inspired idea, and the sort of idea that could only have occurred to someone as strange and remarkable as Archibald David Stirling.

Excerpted from Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre. Copyright  2016 by Ben Macintyre. Published by Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Ben Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times of London and the bestselling author of A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, and Agent Zigzag, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of his work.
Farting, breaking wind, cutting the cheese, or gas. The English language has numerous words for flatulence and this is even before we devolve into the subcategories that make up the genre. Whatever you call it, farting is a taboo act, but it is also a source of fascination. Its not for nothing that there is a popular childrens book series called Fart Squad or that the preview of the most recent installment of the Alvin and the Chipmunks dynasty led with the punchline, Sorry, pizza toots. Today farting is something for which we perfunctorily ask forgiveness, but in the past it has been the subject of legislation, the cause of wars, and even theologized. We might think of farts as trapped gas, but the history of farting is more than just hot air.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, farting has a spiritual side. Manichaeism, a dualistic religion popular in late antiquity that at one time counted St. Augustine among its members, actually held that farts were the act of freeing divine light from the body. Manichaeism may have been, as scholar Robin Lane Fox has noted, the only world religion to have believed in the redemptive power of farts, but they werent the only ancient group to give the phenomenon a great deal of thought. In addition to laying the foundations of trigonometry, the philosopher Pythagoras was concerned that a person might fart out his or her soul. As classicist Andrew Fenton wryly observed, this can explain why they steered clear of beans. Given that the soul (pneuma) was breath and a fart a kind of breath, the explanation makes a lot of sense.

The ancient fear of farting is justified when we consider the surprising number of the storiesthat is, more than noneabout wars provoked by farts. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, a fart set off a chain of events that led to a revolt against King Apries of Egypt. The repercussions were even worse in first-century Jerusalem: The historian Josephus tells us that an irreverent Roman soldier lowered his pants, bent over, and spoke such words as you might expect upon such a posture. The incident took place shortly before the Passover and caused a riot that led to the deaths of 10,000 people.
When I was little I knew nothing about the story of my father's life. I was the youngest of three children. As far as I could see, I had a father like everyone else's, who always taught me to obey the law. At home he never talked about his earlier life, when he'd been a forger. There was one episode, however, that should have made me think. One day I got a poor grade at school. I was absolutely determined to conceal it from my parents. I decided to forge my mother's signature; I'd never have dared to try and copy my father's, it's absolutely impossible to forge. I practiced for a long time on draft paper before setting about it carefully. Later on my mother happened to come across my notebook and immediately realized that the signature was forged. I really got yelled at. Ashamed of myself, I took refuge in my bed. When my father arrived home from work, he came to my bedroom. Expecting the worst, to be hauled over the coals as never before, I hid under the blankets. He sat down on the side of the bed, my notebook in his hand, and simply burst out laughing. He laughed so much he couldn't stop. Puzzled, I poked my head out of the sheets. Looking at me with a big smile on his face, he declared, But at least you could have made it a better one, Sarah. Look at this signature, how tiny it is! Then he went away, laughing uproariously.

I couldn't say precisely when I knew. There was never a family gathering at which our father announced, Children I have something important to tell you. It just happened as time passed. When I was very young, I liked to keep my ears pricked to hear what the grown-ups were talking about. I heard it said that he'd been in the Second World War, the Algerian War. But to my little girl's mind, being in the war meant to be a soldier. I found it difficult to imagine my father, a pacifist and non-violent, with a helmet and rifle. Later on, books were published in which his name was mentioned; then there were documentaries in which he agreed speak. Eventually, once I was grown-up, I naively thought I knew more or less everything there was to know. I couldn't imagine it would take me several years to gather together and compile all the elements of his biography. There were so many memories to be called up, people to be found, places to be visited.

A lot of travel was needed to find my father's former comrades. The ones I wanted to question were scattered all over the world. One was in Portugal, another in Algeria, yet others in Israel, in Switzerland, in Italy, in the United States, in Latin America  Some were missing, already deceased. It was a matter of urgency to collect as many accounts as possible before there were no more witnesses left. I realized that time had suddenly started to fly. My father was no longer young; he was about to celebrate his seventy-eighth birthday. I was twenty-four, and I'd just had my son, Alec. All this triggered something in my mind: for the first time I realized my father wasn't immortal. The birth of Alec brought its share of joy and wonder, but also this fear: was Alec going to have the time to get to know his grandfather? If that didn't happen, would it be up to me to tell him the story of that remarkable life?

Alec was babbling away in his stroller when I walked to my father's to ask him if he would like me to write the book. He gave his approval immediately. When I was back home, he called me. There was one question bothering him. Sarah, do you know if there's a statute of limitation? It was the first thing he wanted to know: did he still risk going to prison, despite the thousands of lives he'd saved? For every time he'd gone to the aid of an oppressed people, he had been breaking the law. At best he risked being sent to prison for his commitment to these causes, at worst condemned to death, and that explains why it took so many years for him to agree to reveal his secrets.

We arranged to see each other every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. I warned him, You'll have to answer all my questions, even those that will take you back to past events that are painful. Are you really sure you want to share all that with me? He agreed enthusiastically. However, the first session turned out to be a disaster. Concerned not to lose the least detail of our conversation, I'd brought a Dictaphone. As soon as I turned it on, my father's voice was transformed. It became hesitant, too low, almost inaudible. He answered my questions with stock replies or a simple Yes, No, It wasn't quite like that, or mere grunts. At the end of the day I had no usable information. I told myself we'd never get there. At the next session I decided not to turn on the Dictaphone. And, as if by magic, it loosened his tongue, his normal voice returned. I realized that the Dictaphone, that simple, inoffensive mike, unwittingly suggested to him the idea of a police interrogation. As if in his eyes I'd become a Gestapo officer. Putting technology to one side, I went out and bought some school notebooks, in which I would record our conversations during a whole year of interviews. Little by little our relationship changed from father and daughter to that of confidants.

What struck me most in the course of our discussions was his feeling of being responsible for the lives of others and guilt at having survived. They are feelings he has retained throughout his life and which doubtless explains why he continued to forge papers for thirty long years, at the cost of all sorts of sacrifices. For sacrifices there were, and many of them. Financial sacrifices for, in order not to be a mercenary, he always refused payment for his forged papers, with the result that he was always broke; sacrifices in his relationships, for his double life caused many break-upshis repeated unexplained absences made his partners think he wasn't truly involved or was even being unfaithful, and eventually left him; family sacrifices, since long before he married my mother, Leila, he had two grown-up children by an earlier marriage  I was very little and had just arrived in France when my father introduced me to my half-sister and half-brother. Unfortunately he hadn't been able to bring up these earlier children, who were thirty years older than me, the way he would have liked. My sister told me that he once disappeared for two years without sending any news, nor even saying goodbye. They often thought he was dead, sometimes that they'd been abandoned. They had no idea that his long silence was aimed at protecting them. Now I could better understand why my father didn't really like talking about the past. And I realized how fortunate I had been to have a dad, a dad who was there.

The book, the culmination of many years of work, came out in France in 2009. In the meantime I had returned to my work as an actress and scriptwriter. My father and I were happy and excited to see the book published, yet we were gradually overcome with a feeling of melancholy. For us, moving on from such a marvelous venture was like having to say goodbye. It was painful. We had become accustomed to our little rituals, had shared our secrets over the past few years  And what was going to happen now?

I didn't know then, but a new story was about to begin, a story as rich and beautiful as the previous one. The book had a tremendous reception, which took us by surprise. It sold very quickly in the bookstores, and we were very much in demand with the press. There were laudatory portraits in the national and regional media, appearances on television and radio, reports on the TV news. I was asked to give a video-recorded talk on TEDxParis, which also contributed to the great buzz the book created. There followed one translation into a foreign language after another: Italian, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and now English. We traveled around all those countries, met readers, booksellers, journalists. We haven't stopped spending time together, precious time, and the adventure of the book continues to this day. We regularly go to schools and colleges, where my father speaks. That's what he prefers above all: passing on his knowledge. The first time he addressed a hundred or so pupils of sixteen to seventeen, he was very moved by their empathy and attention at an age when people are often unruly. You could have heard a pin drop in the hall. They were completely absorbed in the story he was telling them, asking astonishingly pertinent questions. On the way home my father said, Did you see how attentive they were? I'd never have thought young kids could be interested in an old dinosaur like me. I pointed out to him that those kids were exactly the same age as he'd been when he joined the Resistance, which made it all the more easy for them to identify with him.

During book signings and meetings with readers quite a few people came along with old forged papers that had belonged to their parents or grandparents to see if, by chance, they happened to have been made by my father. These people confided in us, hoping to discover some chapters of their own family history through ours. We listened to so many stories, met so many remarkable people, that there would be no point in even trying to go into them all here. Among the questions I was repeatedly asked, I have chosen one directly concerning the process of writing which I would like to answer here: Why is the book written in the first person, as if my father were relating his own story, while I wrote it myself? In fact I started the manuscript in the third person and in the past tense. But, after having developed several chapters, I got stuck in the narrative, incapable of continuing. It wasn't the well-known writer's block, since I knew exactly what I wanted to write. I was paralyzed. For months on end, with no idea why, the very thought of sitting down at my computer made me feel ill. I decided to take a break and devote myself to other activities. The weeks passed, and I still couldn't find a solution to my problem; I was starting to have serious doubts about my ability to complete the project. That is, until the day I realized that talking about my father in the past tense was as good as writing his obituary in advance. So while he was there in front of me, very much alive, replying to my questions, I had the feeling I was pushing him into his grave. I had a revelation: I had to let him speak! I deleted all my work and started from the beginning again, using the first person, giving him a voice.

On October 1, 2015 my father turned ninety. His life today, together with my mother, is a world away from the torments he suffered during his years underground. He's happy to be a husband, a father and a grandfather. And particularly active for his age  For since the publication of the book he's started out on a new career. I've already mentioned the personal sacrifices he had to make. There is one that I've omitted. Refusing payment from the resistance networks that he served throughout his life, he made his living as a photographer in various fields: postcards, advertising photos, but also photo reportage on industry (the coal mines of the North, the French sugar refineries ). He took numerous photographs of works of art for exhibition catalogues and posters as well. And he was the regular photographer for the painters who were the precursors of kinetic art such as Antonio Asis, Jesus Soto, Carmelo Ardenquin, Yacov Agam  As a specialist for giant-format photography he produced photos for film sets for Trauner, the designer for Marcel Carne, Rene Clair

Alongside this work he continued to take, for his own satisfaction, thousands of artistic photographs in the hope of exhibiting them one day. He developed the rolls of film and stored them in shoe boxes that he piled up on top of each other, without ever printing out the photos, because he had neither the time nor the financial means, so that no one has ever seen his work. Thousands of negatives hidden in boxes, what a waste! There are irreparable sacrifices, but this was not one of them, and it was perhaps not too late to start out on a career as a young photographer, even though he was over eighty. He finally decided to print his photos and unveil his artistic work with, as his favorite subject, a view of the world in chiaroscuro where the protagonists are workers, secret lovers, dealers in secondhand goods, real or pretend models, dislocated dolls, bearded hobos  From the flea market of Saint-Ouen to the neon lights of Pigalle, he has captured the looks, the solitary silhouettes, the lights, the elegance and the fringes, everything that goes to make up his universe. With the support of friends we have arranged several exhibitions at cultural organizations and Parisian galleries. His unpublished photos have had a great success. It was extremely moving to see him talking about his photos with other photographers, recognized by his equals (of which he was the doyen, of course).

Today my son is twelve. When I was his age, while my friends dads were reading them Grimm's fairy tales to get them to sleep, my father was telling me stories about very ordinary heroes. These unassuming heroes had such a strong belief in their ideals that they managed to realize them when it seemed impossible. These heroes had no army behind them. In general they were just a handful of men and women of conviction and courage. At the time I didn't know that it was his own story my father was telling me. I did, however, understand what he was trying to pass on to me through these part-metaphorical, part-biographical stories. They are the stories that I tell my son today to help him always believe in his dreams.

Excerpted from Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forgers Life by Sarah Kaminsky and Adolfo Kaminsky. Copyright 2016 by Sarah Kaminsky and Adolfo Kaminsky. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, DoppelHouse Press.

Sarah Kaminsky is a French actor, screenwriter, and author. She was three years old when she immigrated to France with her father, Adolfo, who is of Russian Jewish origins, carrying an Argentinean passport, and with her mother, Leila, a Tuareg Algerian. Sarah Kaminsky is currently employed as a screenwriter at several production companies in France. She lives in Paris.
Donald Trump is still the president-elect of the United States and Alec Baldwin is still playing him on Saturday Night Live. And this weeks cold open brought us inside a Trump security briefing where the easily-distracted Trump couldnt help but retweet a high school boy named Seth.

He's 16, he's in high school, and I really did retweet him, Baldwins Trump said. Seriously, this is real. As his advisers tried to fill him in on the situation in Syria, Trump continued, God, Seth seems so cool. His Twitter bio says he wants to make America great again.

According to Kate McKinnons Kellyanne Conway, Trump tweets so much in order to distract the media from his business conflicts and the scary people in his cabinet, but in Trumps words the real reason is because his brain is bad.

As the adults in the room continued to admonish Trump for his incessant tweeting, he disputed the fact that it was preventing him from focusing on his work. I was elected 25 days ago and already unemployment is at a nine-year low, millions and millions of people have health care and Osama bin Laden is dead, he said. Next I'm going to do what I promised my whole campaign and I'm going to build that swamp.

Informed about his upcoming dinner with Mitt Romney, Trump asked, Can we at least have a picture of us together where he looks like a little bitch? Finally, Trump requested the presence of his chief strategist Steve Bannon and in walked death himself. Live from New York, its Saturday Night! they said in unison.

Since the election, Baldwin has expressed at least some misgivings about continuing to portray Trump as president-elect and potentially president in 2017. If hes going to stay on board with SNL, they are going to have to find a stronger satirical angle than this.
Since she lost the presidential election to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has made just a handful of public appearances, once at a charity gala in Washington D.C. and the other to deliver a UNICEF award to Katy Perry in New York City last week . Otherwise, the only glimpses weve received of the newly-reclusive Clinton have been in selfies with supporters who apparently found her roaming around the woods near her Chappaqua house.

This week, Saturday Night Live took the next logical step and turned her into Bigfoot. In The Hunt for Hil, two brave souls traveled into the woods of Westchester County to search for the most elusive legend of all, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

First, they spoke to an eyewitness who had seen something blonde, about 5 6, who seemed like it kind of wanted some time to itself. They tracked her by laughing into the wilderness and hearing a response back. They decided to lure her towards them with a clipping of an article about Jill Steins Wisconsin recount .

And we thought this would be the last we saw of Kate McKinnons Hillary Clinton on SNL.
The ever worsening polarization of American politicsdemonstrated and accentuated by the Trump victoryis now an undeniable fact of our daily life. Yet rather than allowing the guilty national parties to continue indulging political brinkmanship, we should embrace a strong, constitutional solution to accommodating our growing divide: a return to local control.

Such an approach would allow, within some limits, local constituencies to follow their own course, much as the Founding Fathers suggested, without shaking the fundamentals of the federal union. Localism, as I label this approach, would address the sentiments on both right and left by reversing the consolidation of central power in Washington.

What Americans across the political spectrum need to recognize is that centralizing power does not promote national unity, but ever harsher division. Enforced central control, from left or right, polarizes politics in dangerous ways. The rather hysterical reaction to Trumps election on the left is a case in point, with some in alt-blue California calling for secession from the union. Had Clinton and the Democrats won, we would have heard other secessionist sentiment, notably in Texas.

This is no way to maintain a United States. Under Obama, conservative states resisted ever expanding federal executive power; now its the progressives turn to worry about an overweening central state. Some blue states are already planning to go on their own in such areas as health care and somewhat less plausibly, immigration. Progressives may also face potential federal assaults on such things as legal marijuana by a now GOP-controlled central government.

Do people want Washington to rule everything? The real issue is not the intrinsic evil of government itself, but how we can best address societys myriad problems. For decades, many progressives have embraced an expansive central government as the most effective method of changing society for the better. Yet it is far from clear that most Americans prefer that alternative. A rough majority in November cast their votes for either Trump, who attacked President Obamas executive orders, or libertarian Gary Johnson, a candidate with an even stronger localist tendency. Since 2007, the percentage of people who favored expanding government has dropped from 51 to 45 percent.

In contrast, localism is widely embraced by a broad majority of the American public. By 64 percent to 26 percent, according to a 2015 pollAmericans say that they feel more progress on critical issues take place on the local rather than the federal level. Majorities of all political affiliations and all demographic groups hold this same opinion.

The preference for localism also extends to attitudes toward state governments, many of which have grown more intrusive in recent years. Some 72 percent of Americans, according to Gallup, trust their local governments more than they do their state institutions; even in California, where executive power has run riot, far more people prefer local control to that of Sacramento.

Critically, millennials, notes generational analyst Morley Winograd, generally favor community-based, local solutions to key problems. Indeed, a recent National Journal poll found that less than a third of millennials favor federal solutions over locally-based ones. They are also far less trusting of major institutions than their Generation X predecessors.

Any party, right or left, that wishes to expand federal power will face broad political headwinds. Roughly half of all Americans, according to a 2015 Gallup poll, now consider the federal government an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens; in 2003, only 30 percent felt that way. The federal bureaucracy is held in such low regard that 55 percent of the public says ordinary Americans would do a better job of solving national problems.

The election of Trump and his deplorables is leading more progressives, after years of cheering on President Obamas ever increasing policy of rule by decree, to seek ways of preserving their own progressive bubble. Cheerleaders for Barack Obamas imperial presidency, such as The New Yorker, are now embracing states rights with an almost Confederate enthusiasm. There are increasing plans to promote new progressive measures, for example on energy as a means to counter the nefarious, anti-planetary intentions of the new monarch.

Yet in reality, progressivism and localism are hardly incompatible. The progressive Justice Louis Brandeis invoked the notion that the states, not the federal government, should serve as laboratories of democracy, empowering them to try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

This more decentralized progressive approach was also expounded by David Osborne in his 1990 book, Laboratories of Democracy. Notably, Osbornes book featured a foreword by the then-governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. The future president praised pragmatic responses to key social and economic issues by both liberal and conservative governors. Such state-level responses, he correctly noted, were critical in a country as complex and diverse as ours.

Localism also has fans among grassroots leftists. Some embrace the ideal of localism as a reaction against globalization and domination by large corporations. For example, grassroots progressives often support local merchants and locally produced agricultural products. Some have adopted localist ideas as an economic development tool, an environmental win, and a form of resistance to ever-greater centralized big business control.

Yale Law professor Heather Gerken makes the case that progressive social causes like racial integration, gay marriage, marijuana legalization, and others have historically tended to be adopted first at a local level before spreading to other areas. Gerken argues that its necessary for cities and states to have these powers so that local cities upon a hill of social reform can be allowed to flourish and lead by example.

With Trump and the GOP ensconced in Washington for a likely four more years, more progressives can be expected to adopt Gerkens strategy. Longtime Washington insiders such as Brookings Bruce Katz already have made a strong pitch for a supplanting federal control with a regional approach. Although this usually leads to the dominance of regions by well-connected urban elites, Katzs approach at least leaves smaller cities and towns free to govern themselves.

President-elect Trump needs to recognize there is no great clamor to replace one imperial president for another. The authoritarian tendencies of some of his key allies, notably Senator Jeff Sessions, to perhaps overturn state marijuana, abortion and gay rights measures would simply extend, in different fields, the pernicious federalization of daily life. This is not exactly a consistent message for a party that often promotes itself as the voice of liberty and local choice.

We have already seen some harbingers of right-wing centralism on the state level, notes analyst Aaron Renn, where conservative state legislators contravene the progressive agenda of their core cities. Already in some states such as North Carolina and Texas, conservative legislatures have overturned actions adopted by certain cities on issues as diverse as transgender bathrooms and fracking. A better solution would be to allow blue places to reflect their values on as many issues as possible, while granting to conservative places the same right.

When it comes to preserving the character of our communities, there is often no red or blue. We choose places for their character and, if they need to change, this is preferably shaped along the lines favored by local residents. What may be fine with residents of Portland or Brooklyn does not necessarily work for people in suburban reaches of Dallas, Houston, or, for that matter, New York. As far as I am concerned: vive le difference!

Localism, of course, is not a panacea for all issues, some of which are indeed better addressed on a larger scale. And some basic rights need to be protected from local overreach. But overall, nothing is more basic to the American identity than, whenever feasible, leaving control of daily life to local communities, and, as much as practical, to individuals and families. Effective policy can only be shaped where there exists a common civic culture of shared values, something far more evident today on the local than the national level.

In his drive to make America great again, the new president needs to revitalize our flagging democracy not by doubling down on federal power but by empowering local communities to determine whats best for them. Anything else gives us a choice between ideological despotisms that can only enrage and alienate half of our population by forcing down their throats policies they cant abide, and, in most cases, should not be forced to accept.
Since Fidel Castros death, speculation about the future of U.S.-Cuba relations under President-elect Donald Trumps administration has been intense. Will Trump continue President Obamas opening, as many urge, or will he work to bring it to a halt following the advice of anti-Castro critics like senators Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez and Ted Cruz?

After Castros death, Trump released a statement saying that Fidel Castro was a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. He went on to say he hoped Castros death would mark a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally have the freedom they so richly deserve. He concluded that his administration will do all it can to ensure that the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty. Later, he tweeted that if Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate that deal.

Both sides in the debate say they want to advance Cubas transition from communism to democracy. The question is what strategy is the right one?

On one side are those like Admiral James Stavridis, who acknowledges that Cuba under Fidel Castro was a harsh dictatorship. While he has no illusions about this, unlike left-wing apologists, he argues that the current U.S. embargo, or blockade as Castro called it, only empowered Fidel to keep that lack of progress in place. Therefore, he defends Obamas moves to open Cuba up as correct. He knows that for the present, Raul Castro, whom he calls Fidels less talented brother, will be able to use the states tools of repression to maintain tight control of the populace.

However, he believes that Fidels passing is symbolically important; he was the one most identified with the countrys broken economy and repression. If Raul wants to, he can move slowly to open the economy. That, of course is a big if. But nevertheless, the Admiral argues that the United States should continue to engage with Cuba, should lift the embargo, and makes a case that doing so will affect Cuba in ways that achieve U.S. objectives.

William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University, points out that there has been not one deal, but rather, a series of agreements. Whatever easing up has taken place in Cuba, he claims, came from reduced tensions between the two nations, and not because of political concessions demanded by the United States. Thus, if the Trump administration makes new demands for concessions, It wont get them far.

In The New Yorker, veteran foreign correspondent Jon Lee Anderson, author of a biography of Che Guevara who is now writing one of Fidel Castro, writes that the appointment of Mauricio Claver-Carone to Trumps transition team at Treasury does not bode well for those who want Obamas course to continue. Claver-Carone has been critical of Obamas policy, writing an op-ed arguing that Obama has made a bad situation worse in Cuba.

Anderson notes that the Brookings Institutions Ted Piccone postulates that Trump might freeze commercial relations with Cuban state-owned enterprises and move to enforce new travel rules. At present, anyone can go to Cuba by simply checking a list of approved categories and no one asks for proof that is what the traveler will do on the island. Anderson, however, argues that if Trump follows such a harsh policy, he will enrage Cuban nationalists who will take umbrage at such pressure, and if Trump simply cancels Obamas executive orders and agreements, he would immediately torpedo a diplomatic breakthrough that took years of talks with Cuba to attain. That, many observers add, would give more power to Cuban old-line communists who like Fidel, do not approve of the opening.

But what the supporters of Obamas deal miss is that when it took effect and Obama went to Cuba to witness the opening of the U.S. embassy that had been closed by Castro for decades, he essentially gave the Cuban regime what it asked for (except formally ending the embargo, which only Congress can do) without requiring them to take small steps, such as releasing all remaining political prisoners and putting a stop to the current weekly short-term arrests of dissidents. Nor did Obama even ask that the dreadful treatment of the political prisoners in its jails be put to an end. Human Rights Watch, hardly a right-wing organization, portrays the situation in Cuba in these words:

Prisons are overcrowded, unhygienic, and unhealthy, leading to extensive malnutrition and illness. More than 57,000 Cubans are in prisons or work camps, according to a May 2012 article in an official government newspaper. Prisoners who criticize the government or engage in hunger strikes and other forms of protest are subjected to extended solitary confinement, beatings, restrictions on family visits, and denial of medical care. Prisoners have no effective complaint mechanism to seek redress.

Since Obamas concessions, in fact, the state of democracy in Cuba has gotten worse, and the arrests and imprisonment of dissidents have increased. Moreover, the very limited market reforms instituted by Raul Castro have been scaled back, rather than extended.

So the critics of the deal, including Trump, are right in claiming that since it began two years ago, it has failed to produce any major changes, aside from an influx of American tourists and the money they spend, which largely goes to military and government-owned hotels.

As Claver-Carone observes in the Miami Herald: Since that Dec. 17, 2014, announcement, theres been little to celebrate. Political repression in Cuba is at historic highs; emigration has risen to levels not seen since the 1994 flight of rafters; violations of religious freedom have increased tenfold; and the rate of growth of the so-called emerging private sector (cuentapropistas) has turned negative.

But this does not necessarily mean that he and the other critics are correct when they argue Trump should rescind by executive order all the changes put into effect by Obama when he gets into office.

The fact is that if he attempted that, Trump would be opposed not only by liberals and leftists who harbor sympathy with the Castro regime and tend to believe that any repression in Cuba was the fault of the United States embargo, but by major elements in the American corporate community. Too much has been done to return to the years before the opening.

Jet Blue and American Airlines, soon to be joined by United Airlines, are making direct flights to Cuba from the U.S. six times a day. Also, now permitted are tours of Cuba by ships especially built to circle the island with American visitors abroad. Major cruise lines have already gained permission to make Cuba one of the stops on their Caribbean routes. In addition, Master Card is now allowed to be used by American citizens while in Cuba, and direct telephone service with the States has been instituted. With scores of tours from every major U.S. tourist agencies scheduled two years in advance, already paid for by American citizens, cancellation of all the new arrangements would be more than difficult.

Finally, businesses as well as farmers who are anxious for trade with Cuba and have been lobbying for it for many years will mount even more pressure to continue with the opening. Trump, a businessman above all, will certainly not be immune to hearing out their arguments. It is hardly surprising that in 1990, Trump sent representatives of his hotel groups to Cuba to explore the possibilities for a Trump property there, even though to do so was a violation of the embargo.

These facts do not mean that the United States under a Trump administration should merely continue to leave policy as is. I believe that the embargo, contrary to the advice of Admiral Stavridis and many others, should not be lifted by Congress. To do that would leave the United States with absolutely no leverage when negotiating with Raul Castro. The United States, for example, should demand that wages paid to Cuban workers in hotels that are part American-owned should be in dollars and the actual salary paid directly to the workers. Now, even if an American hotel group pays a Cuban worker a few hundred dollars a week, the amount is given to the Cuban government, which then pays that worker $20 in worthless Cuban pesos.

Negotiators should also demand that the Cuban government expand its limited market reforms, allowing businesses to thrive and providing Cubans with the hope and opportunities they have been deprived of. As The Washington Post wrote in a stinging editorial, Cubas severe economic problems led Raul Castro to agree to a reform, one that was too eagerly reciprocated by President Obama, and was an initiative that brought in more U.S. dollars and tourists but no relief from stifling and frequently violent repression of speech, assembly and other basic human rights. To lift the embargo would be to continue along the path of appeasing Raul Castro, giving him the biggest prize that the regime has always sought, again without asking anything in return.

True, Fidel Castro always could blame the embargo as the reason for Cubas very dire straits. But even if Raul Castro continues to make that argument, it will ultimately fall on deaf ears. The Cuban people already know that it was the command Soviet-style economy, as well as Fidel Castros many crazy schemes like working around the clock in 1970 to achieve a 10 million ton sugar crop in one year, that has produced the sad state in which its citizens now live. As for inequality coming to an end, Castro during his lifetime attained that goal by making the entire population equally poor (except for his own family and other apparatchiks), and no Soviet subsidies in the past or the cheap oil provided during the Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela could create prosperity.

Raul Castro is hardly a Cuban Mikhail Gorbachev, who began perestroika in the Soviet Union and political and economic reforms that led to the USSRs total collapse. He supported and was enforcer of his brothers most horrendous policies, and his tepid reforms were simply an attempt to keep things from boiling over and exploding. The model he would like is akin to Chinas market capitalism, while keeping both the one-party state that does not allow for dissent or any movement that could lead to real political change and democracy.

But the critics are wrong to want to put an end completely to the new opening. Keeping U.S. tourists coming to Cuba does provide dollars for the regime, but it also gives the Cuban people an example of a spirit of democracy. Americans engaged in dialogue will make quite clear that democracy is far preferable to the communist regimes repressive policies. If Cubans are finally allowed to freely travel to the United States for a visit, that too will give them a direct example of how free the United States is, how political debate exists and how any current administration can be publicly criticized and attacked, and they will get a taste of what freedom is. Eventually, the Cuban people will force a real opening, and the long-awaited fall of the Cuban communist state will begin to take place.
President-elect Donald Trumps surrogates on Sunday defended his controversial phone call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, which critics say threatens to cause a rift with China and upend decades-long diplomatic protocol.

Trump and his advisers have said the call was initiated by the Taiwanese government, and that the conversation does not signal a change in the U.S.s one-China policy in which the U.S. government does not formally recognize that of Taiwana policy that originated in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter officially declared Beijing as the governing body of China.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, said it was merely a courtesy call among dozens of other calls made and received by Trump since the election.

There is a great sense of enthusiasm and optimism among world leaders, Pence insisted Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press, and the calls are a reflection of the tremendous energy that is behind Trump's election and foreign policy, which he described as having broad shoulders.

The Chinese government views Taiwan simply as a rogue state, and has insisted on a one-China policy as part of its diplomatic dealings with other nations. The vast majority of nations choose to recognize Beijing as the sole government of China. Trumps decision to take a call from Taiwans leader suggests a new foreign policy approach in which the president overlooks long-term norms in favor of a policy on the fly.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to the Trump transition team, downplayed the significance and potential ramifications of the conversation between the two leaders.

It was just a phone call at this point. It signals the fact that he accepted a congratulatory call, Conway said on Fox News Sunday, acknowledging that the U.S., China and Taiwan all have different points of view with respect to the call.

When he is sworn in as president and commander-in-chief in a little over a month, Chris, he will make clear what the fullness of his plans are, but people shouldnt read too much into it.

Conway said Trump is routinely briefed on foreign affairs, and that they were always aware of the one-China policy.

Officials at the State Department have indicated that neither Trump nor a member of his transition team has consulted with the department in advance of the president-elects phone calls with world leaders.

Chinas foreign minister, Wang Yi, called the conversation a small trick, and said it was unlikely to affect U.S. policy. The Chinese Foreign Ministry later issued a formal complaint with the U.S. over the phone call, calling Taiwan inseparable from Chinese territory.

We urge the relevant side in the U.S. to adhere to the one-China policy, abide by the pledges in the three joint China-U.S. communiques, and handle issues related to Taiwan carefully and properly to avoid causing unnecessary interference to the overall China-U.S. relationship, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.

Others, like former top White House aide Dan Pfeiffer, said simply: Trump got played like a fool.

According to Trumps staff, Trump and Tsai discussed the close economic, political, and security ties exists [sic] between Taiwan and the United States.

A report last month suggested that Trump was looking to expand his business interests in Taiwan, fueling more claims of a conflict of interest between his soon-to-be role as president and his decision-making power as chief executive of the Trump Organization.
If Donald Trump keeps all his campaign promises, thousands of churches could disappear.

Thats according to Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, who heads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, an evangelical group with more than 40,000 affiliated congregations.

The very viability of our churchesthese are our church members, he said. Youre talking about shutting down churches. If you would ever deport 11, 12 million people, you would shut down so many Latino churches. And I mean so many in thousands, without any hyperbole.

Adventthe four weeks before Christmas Day, when Christians traditionally light Advent candles in church and prepare to celebrate Christs birthis supposed to be a season of hope, peace, and joyful anticipation. But for many Hispanic Christians, Advent this year comes with fear and deep uncertainty. Thats because less than a month after celebrating the birth of Jesus, a new man will come into their lives: Donald Trump. For churches and other faith communities with undocumented members, mass deportations mean empty pews and parentless kids.

It isnt clear how many people Trump will deport and whether he will direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to target people who havent committed serious crimes. We just dont know. So churches that minister to people without papers will spend this Christmas season hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

And for many of these congregations, the specter of mass deportation isnt theoretical. Rodriguez is the senior pastor of the New Season Christian Worship Center in Sacramento, California, and said his congregation includes many undocumented members. Though the church doesnt keep tabs of its members legal status, on some Sundays its particularly noticeable. During Obamas first term, Rodriguez said, he would sometimes notice dozens of members coming to church late, and all at once, on certain Sunday mornings.

The ICE people would come in and sweep an entire neighborhood, Rodriguez said, so they would call each other and text each other and say, Dont go out! Dont go out!

After the raids finished, people headed to church.

We live that, Rodriguez said.

After Obama changed his immigration enforcement priorities, there werent Sundays like that, he added. But the Trump administration could mean a reversal, or worse.

So Rodriguezs group has been helping churches around the country prepare for changes that could gut them. They host weekly conference calls on preparing for the Trump presidency with megachurch pastors, pastoral associations, and denominational leaders. Interest in those conference calls was far greater than his group initially expected, he said.

We do zero political analysis on the call, he said. Its just pastors saying, Pastor Sam, what do we do next? Is he going to deport our people?

One thing can pastors do: tell their members, from the pulpit, what to do if ICE shows up at their homes. Jessica Dominguez, an immigration attorney based in Studio City, California, works with churches in Rodriguezs group to help pastors know what to say.

My team and I consider it a calling to keep immigrant families informed about their rights, and work daily on purpose to keep families together, she said in an email to The Daily Beast. I consider it a blessing to work closely with pastors all over the nation to ensure that our community is informed about their rights.

And some churches in Los Angeles are considering hosting undocumented immigrants facing deportation, on the assumption that ICE agents wont enter churches to track them down. In the 1980s, many Christian churches protected Central American refugees from deportation as part of what was called the Sanctuary Movement. That movement still exists, and will likely be reinvigorated if Trump substantially increases deportations.

Alison Harrington, the pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, is involved with the movement, and said that in recent years, her church has housed two people to keep them from being deportedone for 28 days and another for 461 days. She said she knows of 16 people total who have hidden from immigration agents in churches since 2014. Her church helped launch the sanctuary movement when it first started back in the 1980s, and now works with churches prepared to shelter immigrants.

Its in our DNA as a congregation, she said. This is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be people of faith in the borderland.

Before the election, Harrington said, she knew of 200 churches that had officially promised to shelter immigrants. After the election, an additional 250 pledged to be available if needed.

Harrington said her church also looks to help immigrant rights groups in other ways: by hosting meetings where groups teach immigrants about their legal rights, by providing free childcare at those meetings, and sometimes just by offering them office supplies.

By offering a copier for people to make copies of training materials, you begin to build a relationship of trust, she said. And from that relationship, youre able to do more radical work when the time comes.

Sometimes that means going to the desert. The No More Deaths group, sponsored by the Tucson Unitarian Universalist Church, sends volunteers to areas with border crossings to give migrants food and water, and to provide first aid, in hopes of keeping people from dying while they try to cross the border. The group also does search-and-rescue projects if they learn about migrants who are lost from their groups and in danger. Thats according to Emrys Staton, who works with the group and is director of Pastoral Care and Justice Ministries for Phoenixs Unitarian Universalist Congregation. The group, which also documents abuse of migrants by border patrol agents, has about 50 core members in Tucson and Phoenix, he added, and has worked with thousands of volunteers over the years.

The election of Trump is taken very seriously as far as what that could mean for the border, Staton said, and No More Deaths has taken steps to start increasing our capacity to take a lot more volunteers, and ensure we have as much presence in the desert as possible.

At the core of it, we just believe that all humans have inherent worth and dignity, all people, he added, and we see that if people are moving across the planet, moving aroundwhether its for a better life or just because they want to move, whatever the reason is, they should be able to do that, and at least they shouldnt be put through a situation where its extremely deadly, dangerous, and abusive.

No More Deaths isnt the only immigrant ministry gearing up for more demand in the Trump era. In Little Rock, Arkansas, Mosaic Church hosts a ministry that provides low-cost, pay-what-you-can immigration counseling to undocumented people. The pastor of that church, Mark DeYmaz, told The Daily Beast that the ministry currently works with 500 immigrants, and has seen a substantial increase in requests for help since Trumps win. His church has many undocumented members, he added.

Every now and then you just find out, he said. Its not like were looking for it, but naturally if youre living among people you learn some things sometimes.

They serve and they lead, he added.

One member of DeYmazs church, who is undocumented, told The Daily Beast that attendees there worry about deportations under Trump but take comfort in their faith.

For me, Gods got everything in control, he said. Im trusting God. And its a little bit scary.

Hope is not placed in a man or a woman, whoevers in the White House, whatever party is in power at any given moment, DeYmaz added. Its not based on the rhetoric of the times or whatever, its rooted in your faith in God. And what we see in our people is that faith mitigates their fear.

And churches dont stop working when deportations happen. Rodriguez said his Sacramento congregation has protocols in place for when members get deported. If the deported person has a child, he said, his wife will go to the kids school to break the news. Then they will help the child find a relative or friend to stay withpreferably a U.S. citizen or legal resident. And people from the church contact the child every weekday for at least six months, he said, and help the child get to church. Children whose parents are deported become top targets for gang recruitment, Rodriguez added.

They say, Your mom and dad are not here. Were your mom and dad. Well take care of you, he said. And we want to prevent that. Its a battle on all fronts.

For the time being, Rodriguez said he hopes Trump will clarify his plans regarding deportations and commit to only removing dangerous criminals. In the meantime, his church will keep helping kids who lose their parentsas in the case of a 14-year-old girl whose mom was recently deported. That kind of loss challenges peoples faith, he added.

This girls going, why did God permit this to happen? he said. This 14-year-old girl. So Ive lived this out: What do we tell the 14-year-old girl? For us, its not like a story, someone elses narrative; its part of who we are. The immigration struggle is part of who we are.
Right-Wing Fumble Outside Bidens Democracy Speech

NOT SENDING THEIR BEST

A mere six activists showed up.
Rum with a Celtic touch from Boilermaker

Boilermaker Drinks Company has released what it claims to be the first white rum produced in Scotland, SeaWolf, at Ogilvy Spirits in Angus.

SeaWolf, 41% ABV, 500ml, launched on December 1, 2016. It has been created by Mike Aikman and Jason Scott, the duo behind Edinburgh bar Bramble, and Gavin Ferguson who co-founded Scottish independent wine merchants Vino Wines.

The trio has formed Boilermaker Drinks Company with the ambition of producing a portfolio of Scottish spirits distilled at their own distillery. 18-months in the making, SeaWolf is its first launch. It will have a limited first run, with only 300 bottles being made available before the end of the year.

Mike Aikman says: Rum is a massive player in the cocktail world. However, when we started looking around for a British brand, we realised that very few brands are distilled here and so SeaWolf was born. Unlike gin which we feel is reaching saturation point in the market, British rum is about to have its time in the spotlight and we aim to be at the forefront of this.

Taking its name from the Native American term for killer whales, the name makes a subtle nod to both Britains naval links with rum importation, but also the pods of sea wolves that are found dotted around the Scottish coastline today.

Its clear medicinal-style bottle is an extension of the companys contemporary outlook, with the whale illustration adding an artisan touch.

The fermentation of the cane molasses is done at low temperature for four weeks using both rum and champagne yeasts which gives this drink its flavour profile.

Aikman continues: Scotland is not the ideal climate to be making rum in but we love a challenge so we set about developing a full-flavoured rum good enough to work well straight and as a base for cocktails. It had to have character, flavour, mouthfeel and body which can be difficult with an unaged spirit but we hope weve delivered on all aspects.

SeaWolf has been on sale since December 1, 2016 at www.vinowines.co.uk/seawolf-premium-white-rum.html at an RRP of 29.99 and in the on-trade at Bramble, The Last Word and Lucky Liquor Co.

4 December 2016 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, editorial assistant
Enjoy music, art and more this weekend in Southeast Iowa

Your guide to getting off the couch and out the door this weekend in Southeast Iowa.
The death toll from a fire that tore through an electronic music show in Oakland soared to 33 on Sunday, and criminal investigators are looking into how a warehouse that allegedly had been converted into an artistic and performance space without permits could have become such a death trap.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said Alameda County District Attorney Nancy OMalley had activated a criminal investigation team in response to the blaze, which happened in a building that officials said had city permits only for use as a warehouse. Teresa Drenick, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, said an arson task force was also looking into the fire.

Numerous witnesses have said people were living in the structure at 31st Avenue and International Boulevard, known as the Ghost Ship. They described a tangled and makeshift interior that turned exit routes into a deadly, confusing maze as the flames spread Friday night.

Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton of the Oakland Fire Department said workers using excavators and other heavy equipment Saturday night had combed through 35 to 40 percent of the building, and were finding bodies spread throughout the debris. She described an arduous  and emotionally difficult  process.

Literally bucket by bucket, in a thoughtful, mindful and compassionate way, she said. It was quiet. It was heartbreaking.

Officials said it would be days before the entire disaster scene could be searched and that they expected the number of dead to rise further. The confirmed death toll exceeds that of the Oakland Hills firestorm in 1991, which killed 25 people.

Alameda County Sheriffs Sgt. Ray Kelly said people who think they might have a lost a loved one to the fire should start preserving DNA samples, such as hair from brushes, to help with identification because of the extent of damage to the remains. Its a terrible thing to say that, but thats what we have to do here, he said.

On Sunday night, the county coroners office released the names of seven dead adults, and San Francisco school officials said an eighth known victim was a 17-year-old boy who attended the Ruth Asawa School for the Arts.

Kelly said the dead included the son of a deputy for the Alameda County Sheriffs Office  the agency in charge of recovering and examining bodies recovered from the tragic scene.

The deputys son and the others who died were among dozens of people who attended the music show late Friday at the two-story Ghost Ship. The cause of the fire is not yet known.

The building was a warren of subdivided spaces, and the stairway from the first to second levels was a twisting structure of nailed-together wooden pallets and other bits of wood. Survivors described the narrow stairway as a bottleneck for those trying to escape the fire that broke out shortly before 11:30 p.m. Friday.

Fire officials said they had arrived at the blaze within three minutes of learning of it. But as more details of the fire spilled out, it became clear that most of the partygoers had mere moments to flee for their lives.

Chris Nechodom was on the first floor and wondered at first if the smoke that spread through the Ghost Ship was part of the show. All too quickly, it became apparent it wasnt.

I noticed the smoke and thought, Is that a fog machine? Then people were running frantic, said Nechodom, 30. I looked to the back. and it was just from wall to wall, the ceiling was on fire.

It was just kind of spreading to the front slowly. And it was kind of like a swooping down, so the back was on fire.

He added, I turned around and saw a bunch of people coughing, not sure which way to go. We all start shuffling to the front  were getting low. We get to the front and theres a few people yelling and screaming, so I start helping, yelling and screaming like, This is where the front entrance is! Follow our boys  come here, come here!

All day long, the worried and the curious flocked to the hulking ruins of the Ghost Ship and several nearby impromptu memorials of flowers and candles to share memories, hopes and anguish. Some were certain their friends or loved ones never made it out of the show. Some stared at the ruins or flowers and cried.

City inspectors said they had opened an investigation Nov. 13 into allegedly illegal conversions at the building, and had tried to walk through the structure on Nov. 17 but were unable to. City officials have not explained what inspectors did, if anything, after Nov. 17 and have not specified why they could not check the building that day.

Josh Howes, whose former fiancee, Donna Kellogg, died in the fire, said he knew the Ghost Ship building well, being an artist himself. He was not surprised that the fire had spread so quickly and completely. The artists who lived and worked there had come up with a hodgepodge of creations from mostly scavenged objects, he said, but fire hazards were everywhere.

That place was 100 percent trash  beautiful, amazing trash, Howes said. That place was the most perfect beautiful bonfire.

The twisting staircase to the second level was literally made out of kindling, Howes said.

Several recreational vehicles were parked on the ground level, and most of the complex was an obstacle course of handcrafted bedrooms, studio caves, lounging areas and art displays, with propane tanks hanging here and there and precarious light fixtures beaming as artwork. Avant-garde artists from all over the Bay Area considered it a haven for low-income creativity in the mold of other makeshift warehouse complexes, but many added that the potential danger was never a big mystery.

Ibrahim Price walked over to the ruins from his home three blocks away and said he might have been at Fridays show if he hadnt been thrown out of a party at the Ghost Ship and punched by its bouncer a month ago in a dispute over someones girlfriend.

I swore Id never come back here to this place, said Price, 23. A month later, look what happened. This whole thing is really unnerving. Im just grateful for life. I could easily have been there.

Sgt. Kelly said Sunday that he was sure more bodies would turn up as additional areas of the collapsed structure are cleared of huge chunks of concrete, melted metal and charred wood.

Its a wrenching process, he said. Officials must talk with each family of the dead, and we cried with them, Kelly said.

As far as pinning down the cause of the blaze, Battalion Chief Drayton said, We dont believe weve even gotten close to the origin of the fire.

The fire began during a performance by the electronic music troupe Golden Donna 100% Silk. Joel Shanahan, the musician from Madison, Wis., who performs as Golden Donna, the partys headline act, was confirmed to be safe by associates who posted the news on social media. Local musicians also performed on the bill, and some of them were among those unaccounted for.

Shanahan declined requests for comment, but the production company for his tour, a Los Angeles outfit called 100% Silk that is owned by Amanda and Britt Brown, posted this notice on Facebook: What happened in Oakland is an unbelievable tragedy, a nightmare scenario. Britt and I are beside ourselves, utterly devastated. We are a very tight community of artists and we are all praying, sending love and condolences to everyone involved and their families.

Evan Sernoffsky and Kevin Fagan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com, kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron, @EvanSernoffsky

Finding details

on loved ones

and ways to help

Those who have information about missing people or are searching for relatives after Friday nights fire should contact the Alameda County coroners office at (510) 382-3000.

Sites raising money for victims and survivors:

Gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/ghost-ship-fire-residents-support

Oakland As and Oakland Raiders: https://www.youcaring.com/oaklandfirevictimsfrom130531staveinoakland-706680#mlb-oakland

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts: https://www.youcaring.com/firevictimsofoaklandfiredec232016-706684
WESTPORT  Superintendent of Schools Colleen Palmer believes the greatest threat to education is a potential reduction in long-term funding, she said Tuesday in a talk at the Westport Rotary Club.

President-elect Donald Trumps selection for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, supports publicly funded voucher programs that enable children to attend private schools and is an advocate of charter schools. During her time at Capitol Region Education Council, Palmer co-authored an application for Achievement First Public Charter Schools in Hartford.

Rotarian Jeff Wieser asked Palmer how this transition will affect Westports schools and students.

Good public education is good public education, Palmer said. And I know theres a broad brush right now. What about magnets? What about charters? What about traditional? Im not so sure thats the argument. I think the argument really comes down to the funding.

Budgetary concerns are at the forefront of most superintendent meetings Palmer attends in the state. Over a million dollars in state Educational Cost Sharing aid to Westport schools was slashed in a late effort to balance the state budget, and Palmer is skeptical Westport will receive any of the original $2 million going forward.

I am not confident the other part of that is going to remain. Connecticut has severe fiscal challenges ahead of it. Theyre talking about a billion-dollar deficit for next year, Palmer said.

The school districts budget for this year is coming in at around 4.1 percent over the previous year, Palmer said, saying labor is 80 percent of the contract of any education budget.

The only way you would really reduce your budget is you start reducing your headcount. So theres this pressure, theres a real pressure, and Im so mindful of this, she said.

Palmer emphasized the school districts guiding principles and how they will serve the community to combat issues like bullying. The standards are: being socially and emotionally aware, sincere kindness, principled thought and action and a constant state of learning.

Discussing cyber-bulling, that disrupts school on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Palmer said the district owns those issues. Those factors make it even more imperative to work on the culture of the community, she said.

@chrismmarquette; cmarquette@bcnnew.com
NORWALK  New details have surfaced in the controversial plans to build a new neighborhood school in South Norwalk.

Norwalk Superintendent Steven Adamowski revealed that the new neighborhood school would have to be an intradistrict magnet school, meaning South Norwalk would house two magnet schools in the coming years.

The announcement came at the latest Board of Education Facilities Committee meeting where a demographic study, conducted by Milone and MacBroom consultants, revealed that creating a purely neighborhood school (accepting students from a 0.25 mile radius) at either the Nathaniel Ely campus or the current Columbus Magnet School would not allow the school to meet its state-mandated minority student population requirement.

Its now clear from the demographic analysis that we would need both schools to be intradistrict magnets in order to meet the racial balance guidelines, Adamowski said.

This is a major conclusion that was unknown even a few weeks ago.

The school district is looking to build a school in South Norwalk, as it is currently short by roughly 750 seats, with that figure expected to grow to over 1,000 by 2025. That growth, Adamowski has said, is centered in South Norwalk.

To make matters worse, nearly 400 kids are already stationed in 15 portable trailers that are nearing the end of their designed lifespan.

So, in order to move forward with plans for a new school in South Norwalk, Milone and MacBroom consultants presented options for how, through becoming an intradistrict magnet school, it could meet the states racial balance requirement.

The districts current average minority makeup, according to the state, is 69 percent. Milone and MacBroom consultants said that number can vary up to roughly 20 percent at each school within the district in accordance with the law. That means a South Norwalk neighborhood school could be as low as 49 or up to 89 percent minority students.

The first option to meet that goal would be to limit the amount of neighborhood students who would attend the school to roughly 290 students. A total of approximately 185 students would then be pulled in from across the district and, assuming they are racially representative of the district, the school would be at 84.6 percent minority, 0.4 percent under the 85 percent cap.

The second option would be to create a larger neighborhood attendance zone that would capture roughly 405 neighborhood students. A total of 65 students, who are greater than 80 percent non-minority, would need to be pulled in from throughout the district. That would leave the school at exactly 85 percent minority.

State Rep. Bruce V. Morris, D-Norwalk, was at the meeting and took issue with the idea of the committee only trying to attain the minority maximum allowed by law.

Among other issues, he said the district may have to change the number of students from other places in the district who get into the school each year in order to make sure the numbers are exactly right.

He also expressed concerns over moving a larger population of mostly minority and potentially impoverished students into one school.

What Im suggesting, Morris said, is that this board seriously consider that if youre going to take a look at a model where you're going to really take and increase your density of population of kids that are poor into a school that is going to continue to be largely poor and of color, that we are putting something in place now to make certain that there are additional resources there to make certain that those kids could be successful.

Mike Barbis, chair of the Facilities Committee, said the idea behind aiming for the highest number of minority students allowed is to keep the school as much of a neighborhood school as possible.

Officials from Norwalk Public Schools presented the two original options for a new school in South Norwalk in October.

The first option included building a K-8 school next to the existing building on the Nathaniel Ely campus and then moving Columbus Magnet School to that location. The school would hold up to 450 students and could be completed by the 2020-21 school year. Columbus Magnet Schools current building would then be renovated into a pre-K-5 South Norwalk neighborhood school that would hold up to 450 students and could be completed by the 2023-24 school year.

The second option was to build a 450-student, pre-K-5 South Norwalk neighborhood school at the Nathaniel Ely site that could be completed by the 2020-21 school year. That school would then be used as a swing space for students at Columbus Magnet School for two years, while that building would be renovated into a K-8 school that could hold 450 students. The neighborhood school would then be populated, and the Columbus Magnet students returned to their renovated building for the 2023-24 school year.

Either options neighborhood school would now be a magnet-neighborhood school and include a population of students from the neighborhood and a population from the rest of the district.

Results of a survey sent out by the school district following the release of those plans showed that a majority of the Norwalk community  including self-identified South Norwalkers  want a K-8 magnet school built on the Nathaniel Ely campus.

Moving forward, Adamowski said he would look at developing robust programs to draw in families from the rest of the district into the South Norwalk school in order to meet the racial balance, taking into account the results of the surveys.

The Facilities Committee will have one more meeting to make a decision and finalize its plans before presenting them to the full Board of Education at its Dec. 20 meeting.

The board is expected to bring the plans to a full vote Jan. 17.

KSchultz@thehour.com; 203-354-1049; @kevinedschultz
NORWALK  Connecticut Department of Transportation officials will explain how they arrived at their preferred replacement design for the Walk Bridge during a public information meeting at The Maritime Aquarium on Monday evening.

The meeting is set for Dec. 5 at The Maritime Aquarium IMAX Theater, 10 North Water St. Doors will open at 6 p.m. A presentation will start at 6:30 p.m., according to the DOT.

DOT representatives will discuss the results of an analysis that was undertaken as the department considered design alternatives to replace the existing 120-year-old bridge.

The presentation will provide attendees with detailed information on how design alternatives for the replacement of the Walk Bridge were narrowed down and the criteria used to shape the selection of appropriate structure types to be carried forward in the (impact report), the DOT said in a statement.

The meeting will begin with an open forum where attendees can speak one-on-one with DOT representatives. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

Push for fixed bridge

According to the DOT, more than 70 design concepts were evaluated and screened to identify feasible alternatives. No-build, rehabilitation, and fixed and movable-bridge alternatives were all considered before arriving at three feasible options.

Some residents have questioned why the DOT has put forward a 240-foot vertical-lift bridge  costing an estimated $460 million  as its preferred replacement option. They maintain the department prematurely dismissed replacing the Walk Bridge with a fixed structure, or simply repairing the existing bridge.

Why is it so difficult for us to comment on the DOT estimates for a fixed bridge, wrote Robin Penna, co-owner of A.J. Penna & Son Construction, Inc., which stands to be displaced from Goldstein Place by the project. The entire project can be done for under $1 million and still enhance the current structure.

Penna cites an Emergency Repair and Reliability Report prepared for the DOT after the Walk Bridge failed to open and close properly on several occasions in spring 2014.

As part of the report, a Short Term Action Team convened by DOT Director James P. Redecker studied the reasons for the failures and laid out immediate, short- and long-term repairs to make the bridge more reliable. The repairs totaled $897,000.

Although the repairs were made, DOT officials do not consider them a solution for a bridge that carries approximately 200 trains and 125,000 passengers over the Norwalk River every day and has long outlived its 100-year lifespan.

Continued maintenance cannot guarantee bridge safety and proper functioning for an appropriate length of time to justify the cost, according to the DOT. The new bridge, currently under design, will provide safe and reliable rail service with increased efficiencies of rail transportation while improving navigational capacity and dependability for marine traffic passing beneath the bridge.

Mayor Harry W. Rilling said representatives from city departments and the law firm of Halloran & Sage LLP are evaluating the Walk Bridge project on behalf of the city.

I have a design team in place that is looking at the possible kinds of designs that would make it an iconic structure, Rilling said. I believe weve vetted out rather thoroughly the fixed bridge versus the movable bridge. The fixed-bridge option is not much less expensive, its not going to be any less disruptive and its going to shut down a navigable waterway.

Comment period to close

Mondays meeting comes as the DOT prepares to close its public-comment period (Dec. 9) on the Environmental Assessment/Environmental Impact Evaluation outlining the environmental and others impacts of the roughly $1 billion bridge replacement project. The project also will create a dockyard and upgrade tracks and catenary lines.

Rilling said his comments will be incorporated into a letter prepared by the citys law department for submission to the DOT. Last month, Corporation Counsel Mario F. Coppola asked elected officials and representatives of city boards and commissions to prepare written responses to the impact report.

My comments refer mainly to the economic impacts on our local businesses, the impact on our Grand List and the impact on the construction as it relates to the infrastructure and how it will affect the ability to navigate around the community, the impact on some of the residents in the Walk Bridge area and how we have to mitigate any noise issues, Rilling said.

The Norwalk Harbor Management Commission on Wednesday evening discussed and afterward approved its written response as prepared by Geoffrey Steadman, planning consultant for the commission.

Its illogical and inappropriate to make a Finding of No Significant Impact when the project has been segmented, when they acknowledge they dont know all the impacts and that they havent developed any mitigation measures yet, Steadman said. It doesnt have enough detail on the project impacts and mitigation measures.

After the public-comment period closes Dec. 9, the DOT may issue a Finding of No Significant Impact or proceed with further review by preparing an Environmental Impact Statement.

Anthony Mobilia, NHMC chairman, described the impact report as sketchy and lacking information.

They gave, I would say, maybe lip service to the costs of each bridge design, Mobilia said. Whats not included is the effects or costs to the city after the bridge is built. Maybe one design could be cheaper but at the other end, its going to cost the city much more money in the long term. But thats not spelled out in the document.

The DOT hopes to start the Walk Bridge replacement in mid-2018. The department has announced lane closures along parts of East Avenue and Gregory Boulevard next week to accommodate the investigation of underground utilities related to the bridge replacement project.

Information about the bridge replacement project can be found at http://www.walkbridgect.com.

rkoch@hearstmediact.com
BROKEN BOW  Local beef: its whats for lunch in Broken Bow Public Schools.

After testing done in October, students, staff and faculty were served their first school meals that consisted of local Custer County beef. The change is part of a Nebraska Cattlemens Association program, Nebraska Beef in Schools, which aims to implement local beef and ag education in schools. The program will run on local beef donations from ranchers.

Scott Reynolds, coordinator of the Nebraska Beef in School Lunch program in Broken Bow, said around the beginning of the school year, Superintendent Tom Bailey approached him about starting the program. Reynolds, a Nebraska Cattlemen member, said he loved the idea of putting locally grown and raised food in the schools, as well as providing more education on where that food comes from. He said one would think the youth in the area would understand where the food in the agricultural area comes from.

But I dont think thats the case, Reynolds said.

Reynolds said the beef is processed by Steak Master in Elwood, a USDA inspected facility. He said the only stipulation for implementing the local beef in schools is that it has to be processed at a federally inspected place, which he said isnt a problem since the entire process still happens within the state.

Before the program was implemented, the school received USDA Grade A beef from the government through Lunchtime Solutions. Bailey said there was nothing wrong with that beef, but its now nice to know that this beef is coming from local residents.

The school needs about 10 to 13 beef for the school year, Reynolds said. So far, two beef have already been processed, including one last week. Four more have already been committed to be donated, as well as money already donated for processing costs. That brings the current total to six beef that the school has already or will use. Reynolds said the program also helps save the school money: an estimated $25,000 to $30,000 per school year.

The beef gets made into hamburger patties and ground beef for the cooks to use. Reynolds said students know when theyre eating local beef patties on a given day because they are square instead of the traditional round shape.

The word Ive heard is that the kids are excited when they see the square hamburgers, Reynolds said.

Its not just the kids that enjoy it, Bailey said. The adult staff and faculty enjoy the local beef, too.

Its very tasty, of course, and fresh, but I think the overall community really enjoys the fact that were providing local beef, Bailey said.

The school is still looking for beef donors or those who want to donate money toward providing beef or covering processing costs, but the community has been very supportive of the program. The program recently received a Cargill grant, which will be put toward processing costs.

Reynolds said with Custer County being a top beef producer, he said the program offers the community a great opportunity.

For education, Reynolds said he hopes students can soon go on tours of local packing houses or feed lots and learn how technology is implemented in those places.

Were hoping to implement that more through the FFA program, Reynolds said.

Above all, Reynolds said implementing Custer County beef in Broken Bow schools brings the community together.

Its a way to show our community pride; that we are proud of the product we raise and that wed like to have our kids eating more of it, Reynolds said.
WASHINGTON  Twenty-five years ago  December 1991  communism died, the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union disappeared. It was the largest breakup of an empire in modern history and not a shot was fired. It was an event of biblical proportions that my generation thought it would never live to see. As Wordsworth famously rhapsodized (about the French Revolution), Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/ But to be young was very heaven!

That dawn marked the ultimate triumph of the liberal democratic idea. It promised an era of Western dominance led by a pre-eminent America, the worlds last remaining superpower.

And so it was for a decade as the community of democracies expanded, first into Eastern Europe and former Soviet colonies. The U.S. was so dominant that when, on Dec. 31, 1999, it gave up one of the most prized geostrategic assets on the globe  the Panama Canal  no one even noticed.

That era is over. The autocracies are back and rising; democracy is on the defensive; the U.S. is in retreat. Look no further than Aleppo. A Western-backed resistance to a local tyrant  he backed by a resurgent Russia, an expanding Iran and an array of proxy Shiite militias  is on the brink of annihilation. Russia drops bombs; America issues statements.

What better symbol for the end of that heady liberal-democratic historical moment. The West is turning inward and going home, leaving the field to the rising authoritarians  Russia, China and Iran. In France, the conservative partys newly nominated presidential contender is fashionably conservative and populist and soft on Vladimir Putin. As are several of the newer Eastern Europe democracies  Hungary, Bulgaria, even Poland  themselves showing authoritarian tendencies.

And even as Europe tires of the sanctions imposed on Russia for its rape of Ukraine, President Obamas much touted isolation of Russia has ignominiously dissolved, as our secretary of state repeatedly goes cap in hand to Russia to beg for mercy in Syria.

The European Union, the largest democratic club on earth, could itself soon break up as Brexit-like movements spread through the continent. At the same time, its members dash with unseemly haste to reopen economic ties with a tyrannical and aggressive Iran.

As for China, the other great challenger to the post-Cold War order, the administrations pivot has turned into an abject failure. The Philippines has openly defected to the Chinese side. Malaysia then followed. And the rest of our Asian allies are beginning to hedge their bets. When the president of China addressed the Pacific Rim countries in Peru last month, he suggested that China was prepared to pick up the pieces of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, now abandoned by both political parties in the United States.

The Wests retreat began with Obama, who reacted to (perceived) post-9/11 overreach by abandoning Iraq, offering appeasement (reset) to Russia and accommodating Iran. In 2009, he refused even rhetorical support to the popular revolt against the rule of the ayatollahs.

Donald Trump wants to continue the pull back, though for entirely different reasons. Obama ordered retreat because hes always felt the U.S. was not good enough for the world, too flawed to have earned the moral right to be the world hegemon. Trump would follow suit, disdaining allies and avoiding conflict, because the world is not good enough for us  undeserving, ungrateful, parasitic foreigners living safely under our protection and off our sacrifices. Time to look after our own American interests.

Trumps is not a new argument. As the Cold War was ending in 1990, Jeane Kirkpatrick, the quintessential neoconservative, argued that we should now become a normal country in a normal time. It was time to give up the 20th-century burden of maintaining world order and of making superhuman exertions on behalf of universal values. Two generations of fighting fascism and communism were quite enough. Had we not earned a restful retirement?

At the time, I argued that we had earned it indeed, but a cruel history would not allow us to enjoy it. Repose presupposes a fantasy world in which stability is self-sustaining without the United States. It is not. We would incur not respite but chaos.

A quarter-century later, we face the same temptation, but this time under more challenging circumstances. Worldwide jihadism has been added to the fight, and we enjoy nothing like the dominance we exercised over conventional adversaries during our 1990s holiday from history.

We may choose repose, but we wont get it.
In one of the more bizarre twists in this incredibly bizarre year, Donald Trump now questions the legitimacy of ballots cast in an election that he won.

Faced with a recount in Michigan that he opposes, but that is almost certain to confirm his victory, Trump has once again taken to Twitter to rail about a rigged system  though apparently its rigged only in the states he lost.

What he really seems to be responding to is the fact that, though he is the president-elect, Hillary Clinton bested him by more than 2 million votes in the popular tally. That fact has Democrats responding as well, arguing that the Electoral College system should, as Sen. Barbara Boxer proposes, be abolished, or as Sen. Bernie Sanders proposes, be re-examined.

We beg to differ.

Suppose presidential candidates engaged in a national election instead of one focused on the outcome in each state: The airwaves would be even more inundated with ads in a campaign waged almost entirely in the media. As it is now, candidates have to learn about and respond to whats going on in the vastly diverse states of the nation, and in their vastly diverse populations.

Its no accident that the last time Congress debated abolishing the Electoral College, after the nail-biter 1968 election, some of the strongest voices of opposition came from the few African-American House members and from Jewish organizations lobbying from the outside. Though Jews make up only 2 percent of the American population, an insignificant number on a nationwide ballot, the number climbs to 5 percent in all-important Florida  enough to swing the state.

That story is replicated in state after state with different groups. African-Americans might be only 13 percent of the population, but their votes gave Barack Obama his 2012 margin of victory in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Michigan. Georgia, now considered solidly Republican, might soon be in play because of the 29 percent of the voters there who are black.

The growing political clout of Latinos has been much heralded, but they are still only 12 percent of eligible voters nationwide. Its their strength in states like Nevada and Colorado that made them a force to be reckoned with in this election, a force that could turn Arizona and Texas from red to purple the next time around.

That fluidity is another characteristic of the Electoral College system. Battleground states in one or two campaign cycles can become safe states for one party or the other in later contests.

Look at bright-blue California  it voted Democratic only once between 1952 and 1988. Or vivid-red West Virginia, which was one of the handful of states to go for the Democratic nominee in 1980 and 1988. And Hillary Clintons solid blue wall crumbled this time around. The ups and downs of the system are such that both parties have, at different times, been alleged to hold an Electoral College lock.

Its because of the Electoral College that shifting demographics result in shifting outcomes. Its the ultimate defense against the tyranny of the majority that the Founders feared. Designed to protect small states against domination by large ones, it has come to protect smaller population groups from larger ones.

Thats not just true in terms of people, its also true in terms of policy. Had the 2016 campaign been waged only in the densely populated coastal states that can determine the popular vote, would the aggrieved voices of the out-of-work and out-of-sorts voters of the rust belt been heard? Donald Trump is right that he paid attention to their pain while Hillary Clinton took those voters for granted, ignoring them while focusing on turning out minorities and young people.

In 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election, then-senator-elect Clinton called for the abolition of the Electoral College, adding: We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago. Thats certainly true. But its also true that as Alexander Hamilton wrote then of the system devised to choose a president, If the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent ... It was also particularly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.

This year weve had enough tumult and disorder. We dont need to tinker with the method of electing our presidents to give us more, even if the winner calls it a rigged system.
WASHINGTON  We all know Donald Trump loves the Second Amendment (guns). But the First Amendment? Not so much.

Its really simple, as most precious things are, reading, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Yet the notoriously thin-skinned Trump, our president-elect, is threatening to blackball reporters who write things he doesnt like, including things that are true. He hasnt had a press conference since he was elected. He disdains the protective press pool that has, until now, accompanied the president-elect and the president to let Americans know what is going on. For example, on 9/11, the press was there to report to the nation President George W. Bushs response. When President Ronald Reagan was shot, the press was there to report what happened.

Trump has also vowed to change libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace ... we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because theyre totally protected.

For half a century, the Supreme Court has held that public figures, such as the president, cant prove libel against news outlets unless the public figure can prove actual malice, knowing what was printed was false. Trump would change that, if he could.

Without a free press, there is no democracy. Thomas Jefferson famously said: Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

But Trump loathes the Constitution in other ways, too.

For example, the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Trump wants to reintroduce waterboarding of suspected terrorists, thus opening the door for foreign governments to torture American prisoners. He also said hed kill innocent relatives of suspected terrorists, including children.

Thats not to mention that in 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a constitutional right to protest by burning the flag, as odious as most of us find that act. But Trump tweets: Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag  if they do, there must be consequences  perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!

Scary stuff, folks. Has this man, who next month will swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, read it? He says yes but also expressed admiration for Article XII. There are seven.

Does he know we have a constitutional right to free exercise of religion? He proposed that Muslims be banned from this country. Or, in a refinement, Muslims from some countries, to be named later. Early on, until he was rightly ridiculed, he wanted to ban American Muslim soldiers serving their country in war from returning home. His appalling fight with Gold Star parents of an American Muslim who died for his country shows he cant curb his tongue.

After the terrorist attacks in Paris, Trump said the U.S. government should close mosques. He explained, Were going to have no choice. Some really bad things are happening. Substitute mosques with synagogues or temples or churches, and see what you think.

All this would also violate the 14th Amendment with its Equal Protection Clause, forbidding the government from depriving individuals from equal protection of the laws.

Trumps fights with judges indicate he doesnt understand the constitutional purpose of an independent judiciary. And he will likely be nominating a number of Supreme Court justices.

His supporters say, Oh, he doesnt really mean what he says. How do we know? We are about to inaugurate a man who tweets out inflammatory statements, and we have no idea which ones he means and which he says for fun on the spur of the moment.

His supporters insist, Oh, just give him the benefit of the doubt. He is going to be president.

Well, yes, he is. But that is no reason to roll over and let him say  or do  whatever he wants if it is unconstitutional. He must be held accountable, every day, in every way, for all he says and does.
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Linkedin Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, December 3 2016

Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono and running mate Sylviana Murni may have to scrap their promise to disburse Rp 1 billion (US$74,197) for each neighborhood unit (RW) in the capital per year in a bid to lure voters.

The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) is currently examining the pairs campaign promise, saying it may constitute an administrative violation.

The commission launched an investigation after the Jakarta Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) reported the possible campaign violation.

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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, December 3 2016

Social media activist Septiaji Eko Nugroho is among those who have grown irritated over the spread of hoaxes forwarded by contacts in messaging app groups.

Septiaji said he was familiar with the adverse impacts of hoaxes and fake news, which are responsible for driving political polarization, on social media.

He has seen friends, colleagues and others exit chat groups over the spread of incendiary rumors. The spread of hoaxes on social media is out of control. Friendships can be ruined, families can become disharmonious and some friends at work can grow uncomfortable with each other, he said

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post)  Sat, December 3 2016

Words & PhotoS Jerry Adiguna

Qienabh Tappii, a 28-year-old representing Jakarta who wore a figure-hugging, iridescent metallic gown, triumphed over more than 30 other contestants in November to be crowned Miss Waria Indonesia 2016. She will represent Indonesia at an international pageant to be held in Thailand next year. Waria is the Indonesian word for transgender, a term for people whose sense of their gender is different from their sex at birth.



Im very happy, I feel like I want to cry, said Qienabh, standing next to a 2-meter-tall gold and red trophy while cradling a smaller one.



Tonight is the beginning of my struggle for my rights as a waria, she said. I want waria to be accepted, appreciated and understood in our society, and to be equal with other Indonesians. I will work really hard to achieve it.



About 200 people filled the small theater for the finale of the high-energy showcase of idealized feminine beauty. Thirty-four transgender women vied for the title, competing over three days, though four dropped out because they feared the event might be disrupted.



Aside from Miss Transgender, the slew of other titles up for grabs included most sexy, most intelligent and most beautiful skin.



The successful staging of the pageant was an important morale booster and self-affirmation for a community that is increasingly under siege.



Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim nation, is often held up as practicing a moderate form of Islam. But that reputation for tolerance has been undermined in the past year as the media and religious and political leaders stoked prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, framing them as a threat to the nation.



It was in part a backlash against the worldwide advance of LGBT rights, and in particular the success of the gay marriage movement in the US and the high-profile battles there over whether transgender people can use the public bathrooms of the gender they identify with.



Indonesias conservatives want to push LGBT people back to the margins of society and deny them legal rights. It is an agenda that has capitalized on low levels of awareness in a society where open discussion of sexuality is often frowned upon. But it also clashes with the traditions of some cultures in ethnically diverse Indonesia that have for centuries allowed space for different genders and sexual identities.

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Linkedin Rain Chudori (The Jakarta Post)  Sat, December 3 2016

There is a nightingale in Olivers room. It is a dark, gentle and curious creature. The nightingale is flying across the room, landing on top of a book of poems, on a neatly folded womans autumn coat, and finally on Olivers shoulder. Yet, however much the nightingale tries, it cannot capture Olivers attention, who was now carefully taking out a handful of red roses wrapped in newspapers, does not realize the predicament that the nightingale was in. What the nightingale wanted was, more than anything, Olivers love. But the nightingale was only a nightingale, made out of a single strand of a womans hair. The nightingale was almost a woman, but not quite complete.



Oliver had heard the story of the nightingales as a child. His mother had read it to him from The Book of Kindliness before he went to sleep. He knows that nightingales only come to those in need. He has seen their presence by the window of his friends, his neighbors, his relatives, even his mother.



The nightingale arrived one morning, when Oliver opened his window to clear out the cigarette smoke from the night before. The girl he loved had just broken his heart, and as she delivered her strange, ambiguous reasons, she was smoking her usual menthol cigarettes, and rather than acting with decency, she did not open the window or made use of the ashtray that he had bought just for her. He gathered her cigarettes with faded red lipstick wrapped around the tips, and after momentarily considering whether or not he should keep them, Oliver decided to flush them down the toilet so that he would not look for them in the trashcan when he begins to long for her. He knows he is prone to sentimentality, and that is why his apartment is filled with objects from the past that he cannot bear to part from. He realizes that his apartment is filled with smoke, and gathering his heavy, broken self, he opens the window for fresh air. That is when the nightingale arrived.



The nightingale waited for Oliver to acknowledge her, but the young man stayed quiet. So the nightingale began to sing. It was a small delivery, so sweet and pious, that Oliver momentarily forgot that the night before, the girl he loved had confessed how she had never loved him, and that besides the strong odor of menthol cigarettes and cheap floral soap in his apartment, she had also left a few of her belongings, which he had had to mail to her. And then he remembered all of this, and he carried himself back to his bed, where he had slept next to her but not quite held her because she had never let him, and drifted off to a deep sleep, hoping that the smoke will be gone by the time that he wakes up.



The smoke had disappeared when he woke up in the afternoon, but the nightingale had stayed. The nightingale had watched over Oliver, studying the pale face of the dark-haired young man, that it would have to nurse until he found love, or peace, whichever came first. When the nightingale saw that he was having nightmares, it sang a lullaby to him until his breathing became steady and continued to sleep peacefully. Of course, he did not know this. He only felt that the pain deep within him had momentarily subsided.



One night, the nightingale left its tree and returned to the sky where the nightingale knew God would be. The nightingale found God planting a handful of trees across a valley.



Dear God, the nightingale said, Assign me to another person, someone who needs me more, someone in the face of war, someone who holds a bowl of alms, someone whos body is failing, someone who needs my voice.



Why, dear nightingale? God said, We are given the burden that we have the capacity to bear. You are but a young and innocent nightingale, I cannot send you to poverty or war or illnesses before you understand love.



Love? the nightingale said. What is that?



It is the curse that you have to heal Oliver from. It is the desire to have and to be with a person, completely. And this curse, unlike war or poverty or illnesses, does not manifest itself through the body, but through the heart.



From then on, the nightingale would wake Oliver up just after the sun has risen. In the beginning, he would lie on his back, stare at the ceiling and start reminiscing about the girl who had broken his heart. He caressed the side of the bed that she used to lie on on those wintry nights. Oliver had made only a single phone call to let the university know that he would be absent for a few weeks due to increasing asthma attacks. The nightingale felt disappointed by Olivers abandonment of the world, how he no longer paid attention to the books and papers on his table, how he ignored all telephone calls, how he let every letter that arrived go unopened.



So one morning, the nightingale came into his room, which was always filled with the smell of clove cigarettes and aftershave. He flew gently above Olivers head, barely touching him, but creating enough movement to stir him from sleep. It reminded Oliver of his mothers hand caressing his head to wake him up, so he suddenly sat up, expecting to find his mother sitting by his bed. Instead, he found the nightingale.



Where did you come from? he asked the nightingale, smiling for the first time in months. He did not feel sad from his mothers absence, but amused that after all this time, he still had a memory of her. The nightingale landed on his shoulder. Oliver looked out the window and caressed the nightingale timidly with his index finger. When the nightingale showed no sign of flying off, he continued stroking her wings.



Why didnt you come when my mother died? The nightingale could not answer this, so instead, the nightingale sang another song. From then on, he would sit up in his bed every morning and listen to the nightingales songs. Then, he would prepare a warm breakfast, not forgetting to place small fruits and berries by the windowsill for the excited nightingale. Perhaps longing for someone to talk to, or perhaps because of the calming presence of the nightingale, Oliver started telling the nightingale everything: his thoughts on the news, his unfinished research, his childhood, his mothers illness which took her away when he was 5, his fathers illustrious career as an historian until his death of old age and all of his romantic failures.



The young woman he was in a relationship with had decided to leave him in the beginning of their winter semester, he told her. She was tired of him, she said, of his slowness, his resistance to spontaneity and his deliberate kindness. These, for Oliver, were strange, ambiguous reasons to leave someone for. Oliver was strong-willed, he liked routines and familiarity, he wanted everything to be clear and within reason. He had followed his fathers footsteps to become a history professor. He receives good grades and even works as a teaching assistant. The problem was he had always fallen for girls who seemed only to have a past. He wanted to fix them, but in the end, they broke him. Now, all he wished for was not for her return, but that she had stayed a little bit longer, at least until the semester was over. For him, that was the most difficult part from the whole thing. His heartbreak was wrongly timed.



The nightingale understood this and never interrupted Oliver, who, as he talked, would stare off into an empty space as he smoked his clove cigarettes.



One night, a nightingale appeared on the branches of a tree next to the window of the apartment next to Oliver.



Hello, the nightingale said to the new inhabitant.



Hello there, the inhabitant said. Its quite cold here.



Yes, it has been for the past few weeks, the nightingale replied. The nightingale curiously tried to look into the window of Olivers neighbor, but it was dark, and all it could see was the outline of a sleeping young man.



What were you sent for? the nightingale asked.



He is dying, the neighbors nightingale said.



And he knows this? the nightingale asked.



He knows, the neighbors nightingale said. And what are you here for?



Some kind of longing, the nightingale said.



And he knows?



No, the nightingale said.



Oliver didnt notice the presence of the nightingale by his neighbors window, and went about his life as usual.



One night, Oliver was woken up, not by the nightingale, but by a commotion in the hallway of his building. Oliver rose from his bed and opened the door of his apartment to find several men in white uniforms. The nightingale was also curious, until it saw the neighbors nightingale preparing to leave.



What happened?



He died, the neighbors nightingale said.



Im sorry.



The neighbors nightingale bowed his head as a gesture of farewell and flew off into the sky, leaving behind its feather by the neighbors windowsill. Oliver returned to his bed and sat. One of the apartment residents told him that his neighbor, who, like him, had been a student and a teaching assistant in the science faculty, had taken his life. He had watched the men in white uniforms carry his neighbors body on a stretcher. It almost seemed like he was only asleep. He thought about this until he too fell asleep underneath the luminous moon.



The next morning, Oliver woke up with a sense of contentment in his heart, and as he sat up in bed, he decided that he would return to the university. He had his breakfast and had a warm shower, and as the nightingale watched Oliver slowly shave his face, the nightingale felt a deep sorrow within its chest. The nightingale could not understand why this was so for it should have felt happiness for having helped Oliver return to the world. The nightingale sang mournfully as Oliver gathered his books and paper into his briefcase, wore his winter coat and locked the apartment door behind him. For the rest of the day, the nightingale waited for Oliver to come home.



One evening, Oliver didnt come home at the usual time. The nightingale watched for the door to open, for the crack of light from the hallway, for Olivers tall, firm body to appear, but he didnt appear until after midnight. The nightingale heard the sound of his keys being turned, and then from the crack of light in the hallway, it saw two figures. The figures were Oliver and a young woman with long, black hair and an almost translucent skin. The pair moved together, his hand holding hers, his leg between hers, his fingers tangled in her hair, his lips locked onto her lips, until in the dark, he managed to find the door to his bedroom. The pair collapsed into his bed, like he does alone every night, and produced sounds, movements, pleasures, that the nightingale had never seen before, until finally, it seemed that they have had enough, with the world and with each other.



They were still holding each other when they woke up. They were half-dressed, and so the nightingale was spared the pain of having to see the young womans beauty. That morning, Oliver displayed his deep affection for the woman. He folded her clothes on top of a towel and placed it outside of his bathroom while she showered. He made her breakfast and gave her the bigger portion of the toast, the eggs, the cup of coffee. Then, when they were both ready, he kissed her forehead and they left the together. Ever since the woman lived in Olivers apartment, they always kept the windows closed, for she could not stand the evening breeze. So the nightingale stopped singing, and Oliver himself did not notice the nightingales silence. Until one day, the woman woke up and opened the window.



This nightingale is always by your window, she said to Oliver, who was still half-asleep. The nightingale was surprised and flew off to a higher branch.



Yes, it has accompanied me for the past few months. Funny, it hasnt sang in a while. Sing for her, my friend, Oliver said. The nightingale flew toward an even higher branch. The woman laughed kindly and walked back toward the bed.



That night, the nightingale left its tree and returned to the sky where the nightingale knew God would be. The nightingale found God creating a storm above a valley.



Dear God, the nightingale said. Transform me into a person. Tear me apart and place my soul in an unborn woman. Make my hair dark and my body translucent.



Why, dear nightingale? God said, We are given the burden that we have the capacity to bear. You are but a young and innocent nightingale, I cannot send you to love before you understand poverty or war or illnesses.



But what about Oliver?



It is the curse that you have to heal from. You have to learn to let go of the desire to have and to be with a person, completely. And this curse, unlike war or poverty or illnesses, does not manifest itself through the body, but through the heart.



There is a nightingale outside of Olivers room. It is a dark, gentle and curious creature. The nightingale is flying around the window, landing from branch to branch, brushing the leaves with its wings. Yet, however much the nightingale tries, neither Oliver nor the woman sleeping next to him can hear the nightingales song. What the nightingale wanted was, more than anything, Olivers love. But the nightingale was only a nightingale, made out of a single strand of a womans hair. The nightingale was almost a woman, but not quite complete. The nightingale finally landed on a branch. Inside, the room was dark and warm, and the nightingale could see a pair of sleeping figures. And then, the nightingale flew toward the glass window.

***

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, December 4, 2016

Acting Jakarta Governor Sumarsono has lambasted the organizers of a mass gathering in Jakarta on Sunday for allowing participants to bring political party attributes to the event, which was held alongside the citys weekly Car Free Day.

In order to protect public convenience, we want CFD to be free from any political activities and attributes, Sumarsono said on Sunday in a statement.

On Sunday morning, the Golkar Party and NasDem Party organized the so-called Kita Indonesia (We are Indonesia) event in an effort to promote tolerance among the nations diverse population.

The event was held from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Jl. Jenderal Sudirman and Jl. MH Thamrin, during which cultural performances from various provinces, including Bali, East Java, North Sumatra and East Kalimantan, were presented on 10 stages.

(Read also: Setya Novanto, Surya Paloh stand up for diversity after anti-Ahok rally)

The Jakarta Post observed that most participants of the event were wearing Golkar and NasDem attributes, with some bringing along flags and banners bearing the parties names.

According to Jakarta Gubernatorial Decree No. 12/2016 on the Car Free Day Program, Car Free Day should not be used for any political and anti-SARA campaigns. SARA stands for ethnicity, religion, race and social groups.

The Sunday event has been interpreted as a move to address escalating political and religious tension in the country, after more than 500,000 Muslims gathered at the National Monument (Monas) in the capital on Friday to push for the arrest of Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama for alleged blasphemy.

The Christian governor sparked uproar among Islamic groups after he made a comment about a Quranic verse during his visit to Thousand Islands regency in late September. (adt/hwa)
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Linkedin Robert Burns (Associated Press) Simi Valley, California  Sun, December 4, 2016

The American military, along with its international partners, will need to remain in Iraq even after the expected defeat of the Islamic State group, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Saturday.

Carter said the United States and its coalition partners must not stop after completing the current campaign to expel IS from Mosul.

He said the militants are on a path to lasting defeat.

"But there will still be much more to do after that to make sure that, once defeated, ISIL stays defeated," he said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.

"We'll need to continue to counter foreign fighters trying to escape and ISIL's attempts to relocate or reinvent itself. To do so, not only the United States but our coalition must endure and remain engaged militarily."

"In Iraq in particular, it will be necessary for the coalition to provide sustained assistance and carry on our work to train, equip and support local police, border guards and other forces to hold areas cleared from ISIL."

He did not say how long this continued US military presence might be necessary or how many troops would be required. At any rate, those decisions are likely to fall to the Trump administration after it takes office in January.

In describing recent Pentagon actions to put a stranglehold on the Islamic State worldwide, Carter said the Obama administration has directed the secretive Joint Special Operations Command to prioritize destroying the militant group's ability to conduct attacks in the West.

Carter said that in his final weeks in office he is focused on ensuring a smooth transition to his successor. Earlier this week, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he intends to nominate retired Marine Gen. James Mattis to be his defense secretary.

Carter congratulated Mattis, who is a former commander of US Central Command overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I've worked with Jim for many years, he's a friend, and I hold him in the highest regard," Carter said. He made no mention of the aspect of the Mattis selection that has drawn the most attention: the fact that his nomination will require legislation by Congress to exempt Mattis from a legal prohibition on a retired military officer serving as secretary of defense before he has been out of uniform for a minimum of seven years. Mattis retired in 2013.

Carter made his remarks at the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
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Linkedin Fadli (The Jakarta Post) Batam, Riau Islands  Sun, December 4, 2016

A joint search and rescue (SAR) team has found the body of a passenger from a police plane that crashed into the sea near Senayang, Lingga regency, Riau Islands, on Saturday.

Riau Islands Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Saptono Erlangga said the body was found in an incomplete state.

We have found the first victim, he said on Sunday.

The M-28 Skytruck airplane, which carried 13 passengers, had departed from Pangkal Pinang, Bangka Island, for Batam, Riau Islands, before it crashed at about 10 a.m.

Lingga regency is located north of Batam and can be reached in four hours by ferry.

A SAR team involving personnel from various institutions, including the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) and the Indonesian Navy, has been deployed to locate the passengers of the ill-fated plane with support from 16 ships, two helicopters and a plane. (hwa)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, December 4, 2016

In an apparent move to tone down the countrys escalating political and religious tensions, the Golkar Party and NasDem Party on Sunday organized a mass gathering in Jakarta to promote tolerance amid diversity.

The so-called Kita Indonesia (We are Indonesia) event was held from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Jl. Jenderal Sudirman and Jl. MH Thamrin, alongside the weekly Car Free Day program.

Thousands of people attended the event, during which cultural performances from various provinces, including Bali, East Java, North Sumatra and East Kalimantan, were presented on 10 stages.

NasDem executive Taufik Basari denied the event was aimed at countering a recent series of rallies organized by conservative Muslim groups to demand the arrest over alleged blasphemy of Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who is seeking reelection.

At the same time, however, he said: We want to remind the public that we are a pluralistic nation and encourage public and political figures not to disseminate hatred.

Taufik also serves as a spokesperson for Ahoks campaign team.

On Friday, more than 500,000 people flocked to the National Monument (Monas) square in Central Jakarta to join a mass prayer pushing for Ahoks arrest.

Ahok, a Christian and Indonesian of Chinese descent in a Muslim-majority country, has sparked uproar among Islamic groups after he made a comment about a Quranic verse during his visit to Thousand Islands regency in late September.

Golkar and NasDem, along with the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Hanura Party, are backing Ahok in the upcoming gubernatorial election, to be held on Feb, 15. (adt/hwa)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, December 4, 2016

Supporters of gubernatorial candidate Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama retook the public stage on Sunday with a mass gathering in Jakarta to call for unity amid growing pressure from conservative Muslim groups to push for the arrest of the incumbent governor over blasphemy.

NasDem party chairman Surya Paloh expressed hope of national unity in his oration at the event, which saw thousands of people flock to Jl. Jenderal Sudirman and Jl. MH Thamrin to attend the so-called Kita Indonesia (We are Indonesia) event.

We would not reach our national goals if we keep [accusing each other of blasphemy]. Our biggest evils are not ethnic and religious differences, but rather stupidity and poverty, he said.

Golkar Party chairman and House of Representatives Speaker Setya Novanto shared a similar view.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo made a good move by blending in with the rally crowd for the Friday prayer. I hope this peaceful meeting can further cool down the tension, he said, referring to a large-scale rally on Friday that saw more than 500,000 people gather around the National Monument (Monas) in Central Jakarta to join a mass prayer pushing for Ahoks arrest.

Ahok, a Christian and Indonesian of Chinese descent in the Muslim-majority country, has sparked uproar among Islamic groups with a comment about a Quranic verse in a speech delivered on his visit to Thousand Islands regency in late September.

Golkar and NasDem, along with the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Hanura Party, are backing Ahok in the upcoming gubernatorial election, to be held on Feb. 15. (adt/hwa)
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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, December 4, 2016

City-owned bus company PT Transportasi Jakarta (Transjakarta) will summon one of its operators to give an explanation following a report that it rented out Transjakarta buses to transport participants to a mass political gathering on Sunday.

"We will question [the operator] to discover the details of the incident so that we have accurate information," Transjakarta president director Budi Kaliwono told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Transjakarta, Budi said, had received a number of complaints from residents who reported that one of its buses had been used to take participants of the so-called Kita Indonesia event to Jl. Jenderal Sudirman, the location of the event, from Senen, Central Jakarta.

Earlier that day, a photo showing two Transjakarta buses transporting participants of the event, organized by the Golkar Party and NasDem Party, also went viral. One of the buses photographed had a note indicating that it was transportation for NasDem Party members and supporters.

Budi said that to maintain the neutrality of the city-owned public transportation company, Transjakarta buses must not be rented out for political events.

He further explained that the company would likely impose sanctions on the operator, from fines to cancellation of its contract. (hwa)
First, there was the endless presidential campaign, the daily, ugly slog through the mud of Hillary lied! and Grab them by the pussy, the compulsive visits to 538.com, the circular arguments on Facebook and Twitter, the depressing reality that this  this sour, angry, nationally televised sandbox tantrum  was the method by which a country that elected Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln was going to pick its next president.

Then there was the gut punch of election night itself, the lung-crushing spectacle of watching Hillary Clintons blue Upper-Midwestern firewall crumble in a wave of white working class fear. Late that night, after the networks had called Pennsylvania for Donald Trump and it was finally, irrevocably over, I turned to my mother, who was visiting from out of town, and said, I dont know my own country anymore.

More than anything Trump has said or done in the days since, that moment stays with me. I may be the walking embodiment of the coastal urban elite, but my parents both grew up in a small Southern mill town, where I spent long stretches of my childhood. Ive traveled America from end to end, visiting every state but Maine and Alaska, and I spent three formative years living in Richmond, Va., where statues of Confederate generals line the streets to this day. I thought I knew America, warts and all. I thought I understood its essential decency. On November 8, I learned that I did not. Its a shock from which I may never fully recover.

All this has made reading nearly impossible. On November 7, I was reading, of all things, Larry Tyes Bobby Kennedy. On November 9, I set it aside. I just could not read another goddamn word about Jack Kennedy facing down Mississippis segregationist governor Ross Barnett, or Bobby Kennedy shaking off the agony of his brothers murder to run first for the Senate and then for the presidency as a liberal firebrand. On November 7, all that was taking place in a country I knew and loved. On November 9, the book might as well have been set on Mars for all I could make sense of it.

After several days of staring dumbstruck at the news and my Facebook feed, I picked up Jo Bakers A Country Road, a Tree, a fictionalized treatment of Samuel Becketts life in France during World War II. A book club I belong to was reading it, and my plan, honestly, was to fake it. I had read Deirdre Bairs Samuel Beckett: A Biography, so I knew the outlines of the story and could talk knowledgeably about the central conceit of Bakers novel, which is that Becketts desperate escape from the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied Paris is the unstated plotline of his famously plotless play Waiting for Godot. I could barely read the newspaper, much less a whole novel, but in this case I figured I wouldnt have to.

Then I read the books opening line: The tree stirred and the sound of the needles was shh, shh, shh. I was sitting on the living room sofa when I read this, surrounded by student papers, my laptop open to The New York Times website, which still, two days after election night, read TRUMP TRIUMPHS in all caps. All that fell away, and I was halfway up a tree in Ireland hearing the branches sway in the breeze. I didnt know precisely where that tree was, or who was sitting in it with me, but I didnt care. I was a grown man in despair invited, for an instant, to inhabit the mind of a boy hiding in a tree, listening, alert to the music of the world. The boy swung a knee over the branch, I read, heaved himself up, and shifted round so that his legs dangled. The scent of the larch cleared his head, so that everything seemed sharp and clear as glass.

Do you know what a larch tree smells like? I dont either, not really. But I smelled it then. For nearly a year, I had been stuffing my head with useless crap  turnout predictions of Hispanic voters in Florida, Bernie Sanderss legislative record in Congress, federal law as it relates to the handling of classified government materials. Now I settled back into the sofa, smelling larch needles, and my head cleared just a little, just enough to keep on reading.

All the time I read A Country Road, a Tree, I shifted between two competing states of being, a pre-Trump reader and a post-Trump one. The pre-Trump reader in me had read enough Beckett to know that he would almost certainly regard Bakers novel as so much sentimental bollocks. One of the more charming quirks of Becketts extraordinarily quirky personality was that he dismissed his work in the Paris Resistance, for which he later was awarded the Croix de Guerre, as mere Boy Scout stuff.

More importantly, by stripping plot from his postwar plays like Waiting for Godot and novels Malone Dies and The Unnamable, Beckett called into question the very notion of the dramatic hero. In a conventional narrative, plot is driven by the heros desire to achieve some essential objective. The more consuming this desire is, the more absorbing the story. You can argue, as some do, that Vladimir and Estragon, the bickering central figures of Waiting for Godot, are heroic in their desire to wait for the elusive Godot, that for them inaction is a kind of heroic action, but as decades of baffled theatergoers can tell you, thats hardly the kind of action most audiences expect.

The Samuel Beckett of A Country Tree, a Road is, by contrast, every inch a traditional dramatic hero. The book begins with Beckett in Ireland listening to the radio broadcast of Neville Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in September 1939. He could easily wait out the war in safety at home, but he is in love with a Parisian woman, Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil, and just as importantly, he is creatively stymied and believes he can write only in Paris. When Beckett tells his mother that he plans to return to France, she asks witheringly: And what possible use do you imagine you would be?

This line functions like a witchs curse that gives the hero his purpose: For the rest of the novel, Beckett struggles to be of use. Disgusted by his inaction as his friends are rounded up by the Germans, he joins the Resistance and, like magic, the very traits that made him useless  his introverted personality, his stubbornness, his savant-like gift for arranging random words and numbers into patterns  make him an ideal Nazi saboteur. Over and over, in crisis after crisis, others panic or give in to hunger and fear while Beckett calmly saves the day with a resourceful decision or a well-timed joke.

Once, on the run from the Gestapo, he and Suzanne get lost in a dark alleyway, and Beckett suggests they flip a coin to decide which direction to go. What good would that do? Suzanne asks.

He shrugs, takes the cigarette off her. Itd be something. Itd be a start. Hardly. So, well stay here, then. He takes a drag and settles down against the wall. Shut up, she says. Idiot. You break my feet, you know? He shuffles his shoulders, chilly brick against his back. You know, I like this alleyway. I think we could be happy here. Oh, Ive had enough. Come on!

Surely, Beckett would hate all this. Surely, he would see that, in translating his life into fiction, Baker has turned him into an Ernest Hemingway war hero: laconic, mordantly funny, graceful under pressure. And just as surely, that would drive up him the wall. One of the hallmarks of the postwar European avant garde was an almost reflexive resistance to the bourgeois morality that drives most conventional narrative. In occupied Paris, in the concentration camps, in besieged Leningrad, it was who you were  Jew, Gypsy, enemy alien  not what was in your heart that saved your life or ended it. And when it wasnt that, more often than not, it came down to dumb luck.

Had I read A Country Road, a Tree before the election, I would have said it was an enjoyable read, gorgeously written and historically fascinating, but also at a certain level a load of sentimental bollocks. But the election of Donald Trump on a wave of white aggrievement changed the way I read A Country Road, a Tree, as I suspect it will change the way I read and understand everything in the years to come. For one thing, I have felt so damn useless since Election Day, so gutless and impotent, and so I was primed for a good, old-fashioned bollocksy tale of a self-involved artist who, faced with the great evil of his time, finds within himself hidden reservoirs of courage and moral purpose.

More than that, though, what I found restorative in Bakers novel, so deeply necessary, was its beauty. Ours is an ugly, angry age, and this ugliness is reflected in our politics. Once, America turned out leaders who inspired the world, but can you think of a single memorable line from either side in the 2016 presidential campaign that wasnt an insult or a threat? We have gone from a public oratory that gave the world, We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and I have a dream, to one that has given the world, I will build a wall on the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it.

A Country Road, a Tree resists all this, not by arguing against it, but simply by being beautiful. Baker writes beautifully, but she also cares about beauty, sees the intrinsic value in it. Its there in that first line about the boy in the tree listening to the swaying larch branches saying shh, shh, shh, and its there 279 pages later in books quietly moving final scene in which a war-weary Beckett returns to his Paris apartment and settles down to write:

In silence and in solitude, he folds open his new notebook. He flattens out the page. He dips his pen into the ink, and fills it, and wipes the nib. The pen traces its way across the paper. Ink blues the page. Words form. This is where it begins.

There is no way to know what the next four years will bring, but whatever happens, it is safe to say its not going to be pretty. I, for one, plan to remain engaged politically, to write letters, make phone calls, sign petitions, and commit acts of civil disobedience, if none of those other things gets results. I continue to believe, Electoral College be damned, the America I know and love is still out there, strong as ever.

But in the meantime, amid all that struggle and rancor, we cant forget to make a place for beauty. Were going to need it, now more than ever.

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How area lawmakers voted on some of the key laws enacted this year
People place flowers near the scene of a warehouse fire Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, in Oakland, Calif. A deadly fire broke out during a rave at the converted warehouse in the San Francisco Bay Area. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson)
Ivanka Trump, daughter of President-elect Trump, looks out of an elevator as she arrives at Trump Tower during a recent visit.
DRACUT  The staff and students at Joseph A. Campbell Elementary School are working hard to put kindness into action in three practical ways this holiday season.

Last month, the school started collecting broken or unwanted crayons that will be donated to the Crayon Initiative (http://thecrayoninitiative.org), a nonprofit organization that remanufactures crayons and donates them to hospital learning or enrichment programs. To date, the school has collected more than 60 pounds of crayons.

At the same time, gently used coats started arriving for the annual warmth drive sponsored by Antons Cleaners. That effort runs through January and will provide nearly 100 coats to local families in need.

Finally, the school is collecting canned-food items ahead of Thanksgiving and donating them to the Dracut Food Pantry. The school hopes to collect a total of 628 items  one for each student and staff member.

This is all part of putting the core values of our Community of Caring efforts into action, said Sue McLean, the schools nurse.

McLean delivers the donated coats to Antons cleaners each week. She also presented the Crayon Initiative idea to Principal Chris Snyder. The hope is to find new and unique ways to positively impact the Dracut area.
BOSTON  A Dracut attorney pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Tuesday to two counts of filing false tax returns and failing to pay more than $192,000 in federal taxes.

While operating his law firm in Dracut, John F. Paczkowski, 73, embezzled and misappropriated $630,000 in funds that clients had entrusted him with, according to a statement from the U.S. District Attorneys Office.

He used some of that money for his own expenses and failed to report the income on his 2009 and 2010 tax returns, the statement said.

Paczkowski is scheduled to reappear in court Feb. 16, 2017, for his sentencing hearing. He faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison, one year of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.
BILLERICA  Nine area school districts have plenty to be grateful for this holiday season, thanks to the Valley Collaborative special-education school.

After a positive audit from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Valley Collaborative is projecting it will return more than $1 million to its nine member districts in the coming year.

Five years ago, the collaborative  then called the Merrimack Special Education Collaborative  generated negative publicity for misusing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. But under Executive Director Chris Scott, the collaborative has initiated reforms and returned to solid financial ground.

This is a huge amount of money we can return to our member districts, and we didnt raise tuition rates to do it, Scott said at the Billerica location Monday. Weve made sure theres no waste anywhere, making real cost savings.

The focus has been on our kids and sending money back to our member districts, she added.

Last year, Valley Collaborative gave back about $250,000 to its districts  Billerica, Chelmsford, Dracut, Westford, Tewksbury, Tyngsboro, North Middlesex Regional, Groton-Dunstable, and Nashoba Valley.

This year, the collaborative is on its way to returning between $1 million and $1.5 million, Scott estimated.

Our expenses are trending down because of the sound financial decisions weve made, she said. Before, there were eight different facilities, but weve condensed to four, making our footprint a lot smaller.

The collaboratives annual rental costs in 2014 were close to $1.5 million because of the legacy from the previous, scandal-ridden leaders. Today, rental costs have been reduced to $400,000.

In addition, the transportation and travel budget has gone from $633,000 in 2014 to $104,000 this year. There used to be 65 vans, but that has been sliced to 44 vans.

Weve eliminated the waste, Scott said.

Tuition and therapy costs have remained the same since 2011 for districts. Theres been a significant increase to student programming, while administrative and operations costs have continued to trend downward.

It really starts with her (Scott), as far as where our focus is, said Sean Glavin, director of finance and operations. Student-based decisions is our focus.

Meanwhile, the collaborative has received a finding-free financial audit for the third year in a row.

Also, Valley Collaborative received a positive, 92 percent compliance rating with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Educations coordinated program review. This is to check that the collaborative is in compliance with all state and federal laws. There are only some minors things to fix, Scott reported.

Its fantastic, said Billerica Superintendent Tim Piwowar, chair of the Valley Collaborative board. Its amazing how far the collaborative has come over the last few years. Its a credit to the leadership who has really put kids at the center of everything they do.

It has been more than five years since the state Inspector Generals Office dropped a bombshell of a report, alleging that John Barranco, former director of MSEC and Merrimack Education Center (MEC), wined and dined local school superintendents and picked up the tab for their lavish hotel rooms, Boston Harbor cruises, and trips to Florida and the Kentucky Derby.

But Barranco and the former superintendents have not been charged for a scheme in which they allegedly misused close to $40 million of taxpayer money.

Follow Rick Sobey on Twitter and Tout @rsobeyLSun.
Top photo, City Manager William Taupier addresses Lowell High School demonstrators on the steps of City Hall. (Dave Brow / The Sun / 1978); second photo from the top, Lowell High School demonstrators on the steps of City Hall. (Richard Hunt / The Sun / 1978); middle left, construction sign in front of Lowell High School addition. (Michael Maher / The Sun / 1979); bottom left, steel structure of Lowell High School addition. (Robert Wallace / The Sun / 1980); middle right, construction worker moves a steel beam into place during the construction of Lowell High School addition. (Arthur Pollock / The Sun / 1979); bottom right, Construction of pool that went in with Lowell High School addition. (Michael Pigeon / The Sun / 1980)
Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai, in his eloquent Urdu-rich Hindi, thanked India for being with Afghanistan through thick and thin.

Ye mohabbat, ye mehmanawaazi...'' he said, adding that, Main chahta hoon ki Hindustan aur Afghanistan ki dosti abaad rahe, mazboot rahe.'' He later said in English, You've shared your bread with us, you've supported us in very difficult circumstances, I thank you.''

Karzai was addressing a joint press conference with Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley at the conclusion of the Heart of Asia meet in Amritsar on Sunday evening.

Elaborating on the Amritsar declaration, Jaitley said that it was the first time in the six Heart of Asia conferences held so far that the declaration recognised terrorism as the biggest threat to peace and stability in Afghanistan and called for stopping all the safe havens for terror [in the region]. For the first time, a Heart of Asia Declaration expressed concern at the violence caused in Afghansiatan and the region by terrorist groups like Al Quaeda, Daesh, LeT and JeM.''

Jaitley said that the tone was set at the inauguration by Prime minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and all the 45 delegations of countries and organisations at the meet made statements on terrorism and the threat it imposed to stability.

The declaration calls for an early meeting to discuss the strategy to combat terrorism, as proposed by Afghanistan.

Jaitley said that the choice of Amritsar as the venue was deliberate. Just as Amritsar is the hub of connectivity in the country, Afghanistan aspires to be one for the region, connecting Central Asia and also being a connector between Europe and Asia.

Jaitley said that the three big issues of the conference were countering terrorism, providing Afghanisatan connectivity to strengthen economic activities and development.

Meanwhile MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that there was no bilateral between Pakistan's National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval. This means that the impasse in India-Pakistan ties continues.

The next ministerial conference of Heart of Asia will be hosted by Azerbaijan in 2017.
Pakistan is geographically located between India and Afghanistan. On Sunday, while inaugurating the ministerial deliberations of the Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar, the leaders of both the countries together succeeded in literally sandwiching Pakistan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while talking about building geography of peace in Afghanistan, indirectly indicted Pakistan. We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear,'' he said, adding Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity...the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them.

Modi further emphasised that Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani was more direct. Pointing out that Pakistan is offering a 'sanctuary' to terrorists, he said, As Mr Kakazada, one of the key figures of the Taliban, movement recently said, if they did not have sanctuary in Pakistan, they would not last a month. We need intense dialogue and engagement.

Ghani proposed that the money Pakistan was pledging to the Heart of Asia initiative could be used for ending terrorism instead. Pakistan has generously pledged $ 500 million for reconstruction of Afghanistan. This fund, Mr (Sartaj) Aziz, could very well be used for containing extremism because without peace, any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people. We have to balance the opportunities and the threats. I am confident that focused, deliberate and systematic efforts can enable us to win a world and to make Afghanistan and Asia secure.

On the contrary, Ghani was all praise for the Indian help, which he said was impressive in scale and system of delivery. He called the Indian assistance transparent and without strings attached. There are no hidden agreements and secret conditions. It is convergence of interests and values of two states...Your words, assuring the Afghan people of the support of 1.4 billion strong Indian people, have been quickly matched by deeds, as demonstrated by your pledge of one billion dollars of new developmental assistance.''

Aziz, who arrived in India a day before schedule (reportedly to avoid fog related delays) spoke of the need for constructive efforts towards regional peace instead of playing the blame game. He also suggested that Pakistan should not be singled out, given the escalation of violence in Afghanistan as well.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa, who has been undergoing treatment at Apollo hospital in Chennai for over two months, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

The 68-year-old leader who heads the AIADMK, the ruling party in the state, "is being treated and monitored by a team of doctors including cardiologists, pulmonologists and critical care specialists," the hospital said in a statement.

Soon after the Apollo statement came, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao who rushed to Chennai from Mumbai and visited the hospital. Rao, who spent 14 minutes in the hospital, left without meeting the media, though an official announcement was expected from him. Rao is the Governor of Maharashtra and is holding the additional charge of Tamil Nadu.

Giving further details on Jayalalithaa's health condition, the hospital said on Twitter that the chief minister was on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and was being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists.

Our prayers are with her and we hope she will recover soon. We request all of you to pray for her good health and well being. #GodblessAmma, it said.

In another tweet, it said Dr Richard Beale from London had also been consulted and that he had concurred with the line of treatment by their cardiologists and pulmonologists.

Police on high alert

Security has been beefed up as scores of party workers have thronged the hospital on Greams Road after the news of her health broke. Our correspondent says that the situation in front of the hospital is very tense with anxious party workers and 'Amma' loyalists shouting slogans like "Amma vaazhga, Puratchi thalaivi vaazhga!! (Long live Amma, Long live revolutionary leader)." Some of the party workers tried to break the barricades and enter the hospital.

Amma for all she was, AIADMK women cry. Tears rolling down their cheeks @TheWeekLive pic.twitter.com/ui7w49QsCH  Lakshmi Subramanian (@lakhinathan) December 4, 2016

While a large police contingent was deployed at the hospital, reports said that security was being stepped up across the state. Tamil Nadu DGP has asked all police officers and personnel to report for duty by 7 am on Monday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people not to spread panic. Let's together Pray for the Wellness of Amma who's being treated at Apollo hospital for Cardiac Arrest. #jayalalithaa, he said on Twitter.

All top ministers and several political leaders in the state have already reached the hospital. Setting political rivalry aside, DMK President M.Karunanidhi and Treasurer M.K.Stalin wished Jayalalalithaa a speedy recovery.

The latest development came days after the hospital announced that the chief minister had fully recovered and could be discharged at anytime.

Apollo Hospitals Chairman Dr C. Prathap Reddy had recently said Jayalalithaa was in good health and was speaking using a valve attached to the tracheostomy tube.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital with fever and dehydration on September 22. The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection and put her on respiratory support.

In early November, Jayalalithaa had issued a signed statement in which she said she had a "rebirth" because of prayers of the people.

(With inputs from Lakshmi Subramanian)

Wishes pour in
Kapu joint action committee leaders from all 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh met in the presence of Kapu leader Mudragada Padmanabham and have decided to increase pressure on the Chandrababu Naidu government, who had promised to provide reservation in education and jobs for the Kapu community. The committee has announced a phased protest plan from December 18 to January 26.

This time though, they plan to be a tad civil and so the first phase will start with the Kapu activists wearing black ribbons and hitting steel plates with spoons during their lunch time. From December 30, in the second phase, Kapu leaders will start submitting representations to all elected representatives in the state right from the sarpanch to MPs.

On January 9, widespread candle light vigils will be held and in the final phase, Mudragada and other leaders will launch a Kapu Satyagraha Padyatra' from Ravulapalem to Antarvedi. The distance will be less than 75 kms but these areas are the heart of Kapuland.

The elder of the group, Mudragada Padmanabham, has made it clear that he would not take permission for this rally. He said, "We are not going to apply for police permission as padayatras are being taken out by all political parties. Why should Kapus alone be asked to obtain prior permission?"

Padmanabham was scheduled to lead a 'Satyagraha Padayatra' in East Godavari district. But, as a safety measure, the elder leader was put under house arrest and the protest was foiled even as thousands of police personnel were rushed from Kadapa, Chittoor, Kurnool and Krishna districts to the Konaseema region on November 15.

The first agitation by Kapus, seeking Backward Classes category, had turned violent at Tuni on January 31 -- protesters went on the rampage and set fire to a passenger train, a police station, besides police and private vehicles.

The state then constituted a BC commission to look into the demands of reservation by the Kapu community. The commission has not still submitted its report much to the anguish of Padmanabham. The pressure on the government has now become two fold, ever since the Power Star and president of Jana Sena party Pawan Kalyan, announced that he would conduct praja darbars across the state to initiate discussion on the reservation policy.

PK is also a Kapu. Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister said, "The TDP Government is committed to the socio-economic empowerment of all BCs. I will ensure injustice is not done to any of them."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday held a bilateral meeting here before the commencement of the Heart of Asia ministerial conference.



Beginning together before the #HeartofAsia Ministerial. PM @narendramodi and President @ashrafghani hold an important bilateral meeting pic.twitter.com/BiNN7SMTB9  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) December 4, 2016

"Beginning together before the Heart of Asia Ministerial. PM Narendra Modi and President Ashraf Ghani hold an important bilateral meeting," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.



Modi and Ghani would jointly inaugurate the ministerial deliberations at the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process conference, which would see participation of over eight foreign ministers and other dignitaries of 14 participating countries.
Pakistan Prime Minister's adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, on Sunday met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. They discussed ways to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference. Both Ghani and Aziz had arrived here on Saturday.

The bilateral meeting came amid Afghanistan expressing its anguish over Islamabad's not-so cooperative approach towards the peace process in the war-ravaged country.

Afghan government has also been critical of Pakistan over rising terror attacks on Afghanistan by militant groups operating from Pakistani soil.

"They discussed prospects of peace, development and stability in Afghanistan," a Pakistani source said.

Ahead of the conference, Afghanistan had called terror emanating from Pakistan as the "greatest threat" to regional peace and stability and pressed for adopting a regional counter-terror framework at the Heart of Asia conference to effectively deal with terrorism.

The Heart of Asia -- Istanbul Process was launched in 2011 and the participating countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The platform was floated to encourage security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours.
Demonetisation has revealed the dark side of India. A day after reports came from Kolkata on how a middle-aged man was left unattended after he collapsed while standing in an ATM queue leading to his tragic death, a similar story is reported from Tamil Nadu where a 70-year-old man died after collapsing at a bank even as officials and other customers continued their job.

Image courtesy: Youtube

The incident reportedly happened at an Indian bank office at Papanasam in Thanjavur.

A video shared by The News Minute on Youtube reveals the shocking case of human apathy as Subramaniam, a farmer, was seen lying on the floor while others were busy with their tasks.

According to police, Subramaniam and his wife Thaiyalnaygi had gone to the bank at 9:30 am on Saturday to withdraw money. They said Subramaniam collapsed after suffering a cardiac arrest.

The video shows Subrmanian lying on the lap of his wife while people walking past him without even bothering to extend a helping hand. Although an ambulance was called, he had succumbed by the time it reached. A bank official said Subramaniam's account had a balance of around Rs 17,000.

In another shocking incident, a 52-year-old man, who was standing in a queue in front of an ATM at Bandel in Hooghly district of West Bengal, died on Saturday as he was left unattended for an hour after collapsing and falling on ground.

Scores of deaths have been reported across the country after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the decision to scrap high-value notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 leading the country to a big currency crisis.
The ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro arrived in Santiago de Cuba, where he will be laid to rest in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery on Sunday.



The final leg of his funeral procession travelled the last 120 km between the city of Bayamo to Santiago de Cuba on Saturday, the place known as the 'Heroic City' for "its decisive contributions" to the complete independence of the Cuba, Xinhua news agency reported.



The caravan also crossed some of the city's key spots, including the former Moncada Barracks, now a school, on which Castro led a failed attack against the army of dictator Fulgencio Batista in July 1954.



At 7.00 pm on Sunday a massive ceremony will be held in the city's Antonio Maceo Revolution Square, where Fidel's younger brother and Cuban President Raul Castro will address a crowd of mourners and dignitaries.



On Sunday, concluding nine days of national mourning, Castro will be buried in the historic Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where lies the hero of Cuba's national independence, Jose Marti.


As Donald Trump is all set to take charge as the president of the United States, his wife Melania Trump has decided to defy the convention and remain at Trump Tower in New York instead of moving to the White House. The next First Lady wants to stay in the city until her son has finished the school year.

However, her decision has not gone down well with the New Yorkers who want her to pack her bags and leave the city. A petition signed by over 100,000 people has asked Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and City Mayor Bill De Blasio to refuse to pay to protect Donald Trumps wife.

According to a report in the CNN, protecting Trump and his family is costing New York City more than $1 million a day. It says this cost won't drop significantly once Trump moves to the White House because the president-elect has indicated that he wants to visit home regularly.

Trump's family is currently staying at a luxury penthouse in the 58-story skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Melania wants to stay there until late spring or early summer when their 10-year-old son Barron's private school in Manhattan breaks for the summer.

If this decision has been made, between the two of them they should be the ones to pay for it. Not New York taxpayer dollars that could be used on roads, schools, transit, sanitation, new jobs and other expenses that the city has, says the petition.

A Washington Post report says Melanias decision to not to live in the White House, at least for now, appears unprecedented. Nearly every first lady has taken up residence there.
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Sparks of Life Providing Crucial Support to Jewish Parkinsons Patients

By: Sandy Eller

Lakewood resident Rabbi Moshe Gruskin was in Detroit on a 2009 fundraising trip the first time someone suggested he might have Parkinsons disease.

The concerns were raised by a doctor friend who was worried by the way the then 58 year old Rabbi Gruskin was walking, but a neurological examination was inconclusive. Instead, the neurologist suggested that Rabbi Gruskin start taking medications given to Parkinsons patients and if the regimen provided relief it would prove that Rabbi Gruskin had Parkinsons.

Rabbi Gruskin took the neurologists advice with a healthy dose of skepticism and chose to avoid medication. But four years later, Rabbi Gruskins children intervened and insisted that he pay a visit to Dr. Stanley Fahn, a world class New Jersey neurologist and an expert in movement disorders.

He took one look at me and said right away, Yup, you got it, no question, recalled Rabbi Gruskin.

An incurable, neurodegenerative brain disorder that typically progresses slowly, Parkinsons affects more than 10 million people worldwide, according to the Parkinsons Disease Foundation. Those who suffer from Parkinsons can experience motor symptoms including tremors, stiffness, balance issues and slowness of movement as well as other non-motor issues such as mood swings and sleep disorders. More than 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinsons each year and because of its disproportionately high occurrence in Eastern European Jews, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Research recently launched a study to investigate the high prevalence of Parkinsons in that demographic.

As luck would have it, Dr. Fahn was not just Rabbi Gruskins doctor but also the organizer of the World Parkinson Congress, an international conference held every three years that brings together scientists, physicians, health care professionals, caregivers and those with Parkinsons to discuss cures and best treatment practices for the disease. Rabbi Gruskin noticed a flyer for the upcoming 2013 conference to be held in Montreal while at Dr. Fahns office and the first spark for his future organization was kindled.

I used to go fundraising in Montreal so I decided I could hit two birds with one stone, said Rabbi Gruskin. My son and I could go to the congress and the rest of the time I could do fundraising.

The conference provided Rabbi Gruskin with a fountain of information on living with Parkinsons. He came home with a plan to incorporate a 50 minute exercise program into his weekly routine, which has been found to be beneficial to Parkinsons patients. Rabbi Gruskin enlisted his childrens help to make sure that he didnt slack off on days when his enthusiasm waned.

The exercise brings up my mood and I have a feeling of accomplishment, reported Rabbi Gruskin. When I finish I am ready to take on the day.

Hoping to make the most of the post-conference momentum, Rabbi Gruskin decided to contact support groups for Jewish Parkinsons patients and was stunned to discover that none existed. Undaunted, he elected to start his own.

Everyone seems to know a friend or a relative who has Parkinsons and there is no question that it is more prevalent than ever, said Rabbi Gruskin. It was crazy that no one was doing anything.

Sparks of Life, a non-profit organization to help Jewish community members with Parkinsons, was officially launched this past March with a watchful eye towards the September 2016 World Parkinson Congress in Portland, Oregon.

The congress only happens every three years and is an opportunity to see that there are things that you can do, that is research being done and that people are very passionate about it, explained Rabbi Gruskin. You leave there with a new burst of energy and I really wanted to get something going.

While Rabbi Gruskins main objective was making arrangements for Jewish participants at the congress, he also organized Sparks of Lifes first event in June, an evening of support in Lakewood for Parkinsons patients.

My board thought it was a pipe dream and expected maybe two or three or even five people, recalled Rabbi Gruskin. I was hoping for 20. But 100 people showed up.

Buoyed by the events success, Rabbi Gruskin turned his attention to the upcoming three day conference scheduled for the end of September. It took five weeks to make the necessary arrangements but Rabbi Gruskin was able to offer daily minyanim and kosher food for conference attendees.

At the 2013 congress there were three frum people, reported Rabbi Gruskin. Me, my son and a lady from

Teaneck. This time, out of 3,700 people, we had 28 people coming from Portland, Long Island, New York, Lakewood, Chicago, Israel and Australia.

Being able to make the conference accessible to the Jewish community was extremely gratifying to Rabbi Gruskin. What makes this conference unique is that so many people who have Parkinsons are there with their caregivers and they can talk to doctors and researchers who are the best in their field and speak to them and ask questions, noted Rabbi Gruskin. Everyone gains so much and gets a better understanding of what Parkinsons is because they are getting information straight from the source.

Currently, Rabbi Gruskin is busy planning more events for Sparks of Life in Lakewood and Brooklyn. Ultimately he hopes to create a gym with therapists, Parkinsons libraries, a 24 hour hotline, respite programs for caregivers and more.

We want to make a Chai Lifeline for the person who has Parkinsons and their caregiver, said Rabbi Gruskin. That is my goal.

Rabbi Gruskin has also been in communication with interested parties in Monsey and in Israel and hopes that like its name suggests, his organization will continue sending out even more life-giving sparks.

I would love down the road to have branches in Los Angeles in Chicago but Rome wasnt built in a day, said Rabbi Gruskin. I can only hope that the Ribono Shel Olam should give me the kochos and the health to be able to do it.

Sandy Eller is a freelance writer who writes for numerous websites, newspapers, magazines and many private clients. She can be contacted at [email protected]
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Sara Leah is an adorable, smiling toddler. At one and a half years old, she loves to do the things that most babies do: play with toys, scribble with a crayon, explore her surroundings on little feet that have just discovered the miracle of walking About two weeks ago, instead of exploring in her familys makeshift apartment, she learned to explore the hallways of the hospital.

CLICK HERE to help this family

Sara Leah lives with her parents Peretz and Zelda R., and her three older siblings in a Jerusalem home that would not be considered average by any definition. The place they call home is actually just an underground storage room, and the family of six has gotten used to living in the shabby, cramped, freezing cold space, as this is the most they can afford.

To try and get an idea of what their home is like, see if you can picture the following: Zelda has no oven, so heats up whatever food she can in a toaster oven they received years ago. When the children want to see whats going on outside, they take turns looking out the one window that was hastily installed at some point. When the rain leaks in, Peretz does his best to creatively devise ways to keep it out. But despite his efforts, the frigid water gets through, drenching the floor and saturating the walls and ceiling. The mold is everywhere, and the result is a mildewy, dark, wet and arctic home in which to raise a family.

Even though the R. family has accepted their living quarters as livable they have never been acceptable by any means (the conditions would shock most people) and for Sara Leah the home is now life- threatening. Just two weeks ago she was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma (a cancer occurring most often in infants and young children) and any form of mold or germ is a lethal danger to this very sick child. The doctors made the startling diagnosis after a month of Sara Leahs recurring high fevers and other symptoms. Until that point Peretz and Zelda found themselves constantly dropping their other children off at their grandparents home at a moments notice, in order to rush Sara Leah to the hospital to get some care for their sick baby.

By the time the disease was detected, it had already spread to multiple locations throughout her little body, so five sessions of aggressive chemotherapy were scheduled to begin right away. Each round lasts 3 days, during which Peretz and Zelda take turns staying with Sara Leah in the hospital. This is in addition to the spontaneous hospitalizations and antibiotics she needs the minute her temperature rises above 100 degrees. A port was surgically inserted into her chest in order to administer medications. Zelda and Peretz themselves have become experts at doing this too, as they are required to give Sara Leah separate injections of antibiotics twice a week and an immune system booster.

One must try to imagine the chaos this situation has thrown the family into. Despite their ambitious efforts to support themselves (Zelda has a part time job and Peretz gets whatever work he can, including tutoring and washing the shul floors) the R. family was already severely struggling, financially. But now there is no home life at all, as it has turned into a whirlwind of appointments and hospitalizations. Neither parent has been able to go back to work. The living space, already run down, is in worse condition than ever. The older children rarely see their parents or baby sister. If they are lucky to get a day or two together, the minute someone coughs or sneezes, they must separate immediately.

CLICK HERE to help this family

Doctors do not know what Sara Leahs prognosis will be. They hope the chemotherapy treatments will attack the main mass of the cancer, and subsequent surgeries will remove the roots. They dont yet know if her bone marrow has been affected but if it were (G-d forbid), a transplant would be required.

This is a heartbreaking story on several levels so we are turning to you with a request for your urgent, generous help. Getting the R. family out of their terrible apartment is paramount, and though we have found an appropriate place for them to move to, we cant get them out until we raise the funds for moving expenses. With $10,000 we will cover costs of the move, the difference in monthly rental fees for a year, and basic appliances for the home. Their high transportation costs and last minute taxis to emergency hospital visits are overwhelming the family, so money raised will help with that, too. With your donation, we can take care of all of these, doing our best to save this childs life.

There is one more thing, an additional request: Please say a tefilla for the family of Zelda and Peretz, and of course, for sweet Sara Leah bat Zelda.

CLICK HERE to help this family

Milkas Fund, founded and managed by Yad Eliezer is a safe and secure way of donating money to help individuals with compassion and enable them to live a life with their problems solved.
Irans President Hassan Rouhani demanded Sunday that U.S. President Barack Obama not sign an extension of U.S. sanctions, saying the bill is a violation of a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

On Thursday the U.S. Senate voted to extend the Iran Sanctions Act by 10 years. Speaking in an open session of Irans parliament Sunday, Rouhani said Obama is obliged to let the sanctions expire.

The nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers lifted a variety of international sanctions in exchange for limitations on the Iranian nuclear program. However the U.S. still maintains its own separate set of sanctions, which will expire on Dec. 31 if Obama does not sign the extension into law.

Rouhani promised a prompt response from Iran if the U.S. sanctions are extended.

We are committed to an acceptable implementation of the deal but in response to non-commitment, violation or hesitation in its implementation, we will act promptly, he said.

(AP)
Jerusalem: Authorities on Sunday morning 4 Kislev received a report of an Arab male who posted to Facebook that he plans to carry out a suicide attack. Bchasdei Hashem authorities learned that the man was in the area of the Hebrew University Campus in Givat Ram.

After a search of that area the suspect was BH taken into custody.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The infamous Arbeit macht frei gate stolen from Dachau in 2014 has been located, in Norway. Arrangements are in the works to have the gate returned to German authorities.

It is reported police were acting on an anonymous tip, reporting the gates condition is fine. A replica was constructed last year which was installed and used to mark the 70th anniversary of the camps liberation by US troops in 1945.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The death toll from a fire that tore through a warehouse hosting a late-night dance party jumped to 30 on Sunday as firefighters painstakingly combed through rubble for others believed to still be missing.

Only a fraction of the charred remains of the partly collapsed structure had been searched, and crews clearing debris were expected to find more bodies as they advanced, Alameda County Sheriffs Sgt. Ray Kelly said.

Anxious family members who feared the worst gathered at the sheriffs office to await word on their loved ones. They were told they may have to provide DNA samples to help identify remains.

The building known as the Ghost Ship had been carved into artist studios and was an illegal home for a rotating cast of a dozen or more people, according to former denizens who said it was a cluttered death trap with few exits, piles of wood and a mess of snaking electric cords.

If you were going there for a party, you wouldnt be aware of the maze that you have to go through to get out, said Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of the couple who ran the warehouse.

As many as 100 people were there for a party Friday night when the fire broke out just before midnight. Fire officials were still investigating the cause of the blaze, but they said clutter fueled the flames, there were no sprinklers inside and few exits to escape.

Boudreaux identified the operators of the Satya Yuga collective as Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison. She had a falling out with Almena when she convinced Allisons parents and sister about a year ago that the warehouse was a dangerous place for the couples three children to live.

The couple rented out five recreational vehicles and other nooks on the ground floor as living spaces. A rickety makeshift staircase led to a second floor where concerts were held. Former residents said there frequently was no electricity or running water.

Oakland planning officials opened an investigation last month after repeated complaints from neighbors who said trash was piling up and people were illegally living in the building zoned as a warehouse. An inspector who went to the premises couldnt get inside, said Darin Ranelletti, of the Oakland Planning Department.

The city had not confirmed people lived there, but a former resident said she had been lured in part by reasonable rents in a region beset with a housing shortage and exorbitant leases driven by the tech boom.

Shelley Mack said she wasnt told the residence was illegal until after she moved in a couple years ago and stayed for four to five months, paying about $700 a month. She said she was instructed to tell visitors it was a 24-hour workspace for artists and when outsiders or inspectors planned to visit, residents would scurry to hide clothes and bedding.

Its like a horror house. Just horrors in there, she said.

Authorities declined to talk about the manager, saying they were focused on recovering the bodies and consoling families.

(AP)
Lurking in the shadows: Financial fraud is now being committed on an industrial scale

The financial services industry has major reputational issues.

Woeful customer service, poor products, boardroom greed and more besides.

But there is a bigger problem bubbling away that the industry needs to tackle head on unless it wants customer confidence to plunge to new depths. It is fraud.

As our special report this week highlights, financial fraud is now being committed on an industrial scale and the fraudsters have the upper hand.

The Mail on Sunday believes financial services companies must do much more to protect customers from these criminals.

It means spending money on bulletproof IT systems and devoting more resources to tracking down the fraudsters so that they can then be incarcerated.

Over the coming weeks, we are going to shine the spotlight on this financial cancer in the hope that companies start upping their game.

They need to do more to protect our personal details and our money from fraudsters.

Insurers need to keep publishing claims statistics

Protection insurance should be an essential part of every household's financial armoury.

Although nobody buys it in the hope of making a claim, its role is to provide a financial comfort blanket if illness or, God forbid, death strikes.

The insurance comes in many shapes and sizes  and is sometimes offered as a company perk.

But its purpose, whether it is dressed up as critical illness, income protection or life insurance, is to pay an income  upfront or on a regular basis.

In a crisis, it can help pay the mortgage and keep the household finances ship-shape.

In theory, its purchase is a no-brainer. But, frustratingly, it remains an acquired taste. Some families prefer to spend their money on life's pleasures, gambling on the fact they will be lucky and escape serious illness during their working lives.

Others refuse to buy it because they do not trust an insurer to pay up in their hour of need.

In recent years, most (not all) insurance companies have started publishing claims statistics to head off criticisms that they are tardy over claims. Such openness is welcome.

Outrage: Hein Pretorius lost a leg but received nothing

But sadly, it now seems some are having second thoughts about revealing all.

They want to go back in time, shut up shop and stop publishing claims statistics  all because of nasty consumer focused journalists like myself.

They argue they are damned if they publish claims data  and damned if they don't.

They do not get the praise they deserve for claim uphold rates of more than 90 per cent with journalists more interested, they say, in championing the cause of the ten per cent whose claims have been rejected.

So why bother disclosing the information?

They are both right and wrong. They are right in stating that newspapers such as The Mail on Sunday will always champion those who have had a claim rejected because of some pernicious clause tucked away in the bowels of a policy's terms and conditions.

It's what we do for a living, batting for the underdog against faceless institutions.

So, yes, they cannot win. Last January, I wrote about Hein Pretorius. He lost a leg in a road accident, only to be told by his insurers that his claim would be declined because he had not lost the required two legs.

It was a decision which quite rightly sparked outrage and showed the insurance industry in a bad light.

It was absolutely right to highlight his shoddy treatment. Where insurers are wrong is in thinking that by going back to the bad old ways, protection insurance will somehow become a more compelling financial product. It will not.

In going back underground on claims, I am sure the insurers would look to reject more claims than they currently do.

It is no coincidence that claim rejections for group critical illness cover (offered via employers) are twice those of individual cover. Why? Because group claims data is not published by most individual insurance companies.
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.

R.P. writes: I drew a sum from my pension last year and was told that although this was taxed at source, I would be due a rebate after the financial year ended.

Separately, Uniform Tax Credits contacted me about a possible refund for tax relief due on the cost of laundering my company uniform. I signed up thinking this would be a bit extra and I received refunds totalling 63.

I also received more than 700 as a refund of tax overpaid on my pension. This had nothing to do with Uniform Tax Credits, but the company took 207 in fees.

Savings: Tax relief can be claimed for the cost of cleaning work uniforms

You were going to get the 700-plus anyway. All Uniform Tax Credits (UTC) did was submit a claim to your tax office that won refunds of 63  and then it charged you 207, leaving you worse off than if you had never heard of them.

The company's website promotes services for claiming tax reliefs linked to work clothing. It told you: 'If you wear a uniform or company T-shirt, polo shirt, etc, at work and wash it yourself then you may be able to claim an allowance against your taxable income.'

There is no mention of other tax reliefs and UTC had no hand in claiming the refund of tax overpaid on your pension.

So, I asked Michael Byfield, a director of the Swansea-based company, how he could justify charging 207 for clawing back 63 from the taxman.

He told me: 'We try to offer an efficient and cost-effective service to our customers and we take their satisfaction seriously.'

Including an administration fee, you paid it a total of 220. In the interests of goodwill, Byfield explained, he has refunded this amount to you.

That is an excellent outcome. But here is a little tip. Tax offices do not want to be flooded with receipts for washing powder, or calculations of how much hot water it takes to clean a uniform.

Sensibly, Revenue & Customs has for many years operated a flat rate expenses scheme linked to the type of work people do.

This covers any costs involved in buying or cleaning a uniform or protective clothing, or even tools needed for a particular occupation.

Your flat rate is 60 a year, which means you do not pay tax on this amount of your pay. Now your tax office has your claim on file, it should be carried forward for as long as you wish.

Sorry, but you still have to pay student loan  at 80

Take note: The Student Loans Company refunded 151 now it wants the money back

A.H. writes: I am 80 years old and to my disappointment I no longer work. Three years ago, after paying off my student loan, I noticed that loan repayments were being taken from my pension.

I queried this and the Student Loans Company informed me I had overpaid and it refunded 151.

Now it wants the money back, saying there has been a mistake. I feel I am not obliged to return it as I have its earlier letter saying I owe nothing.

In 2014, the Student Loans Company wrote saying: 'You will be pleased to know your student loan has been repaid in full.' In fact, this was wrong.

Your income did dip below the minimum level at which loan repayments start to be collected and because of this it refunded 151 it had recently collected.

But the company explained to me: 'Unfortunately, a "paid in full" letter was incorrectly issued to Mr H and we apologise for any confusion this may have caused.'

When it realised its error and found that your income was now above the threshold, the SLC told you it wanted to resume collecting repayments.

If the company were a bank or similar business, I would expect it to accept its own mistake and write off the money, particularly in view of your age and retirement.

But the loan scheme was set up by the Government and it is legally obliged to demand its money, which is collected by your tax office. A bad, sad situation, but unless your income drops again, the SLC is entitled to its slice.

This refund was well worth the energy

J.I. writes: Last February, my contract with Extra Energy Limited was transferred to Green Star Energy and meter readings were sent to both companies with a request for a final statement from Extra Energy.

During the following months, I sent seven further requests without reply.

I asked the Energy Ombudsman Service to intervene and it successfully obtained a final bill, showing 50 would be repaid in July. No refund has arrived. Can you assist?

On the back burner: The Energy Ombudsman Service obtained a final bill, showing 50 would be repaid in July

The bad news is that for a small supplier, Extra Energy notches up a startling number of complaints.

According to Citizens Advice, in the first three months of this year  while you were switching supplier  Extra Energy attracted 1,682 complaints for every 100,000 customers.

This was more than double the ratio for the next worst supplier. The company admitted its customer service failed to keep pace with the expansion of its gas and electricity business.

Now some good news. When I asked Extra Energy what had gone wrong with your refund, staff checked the figures again.

Managing director Ben Jones told me: 'The Ombudsman asked Extra Energy to refund the customer 50, but having reviewed the account ourselves, we have found the correct amount of credit is 143.'

On top of this, Extra Energy is waiving exit charges and adding 100 as a goodwill gesture.

You have confirmed that 243 has landed in your bank account  an excellent outcome.

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
Resistance: BT boss Gavin Patterson

Plans to legally separate BT from its Openreach arm to improve broadband provision in the UK could be blocked by Brussels in a move likely to spark anger among BT's rivals.

Telecoms regulator Ofcom said last week that it would begin moves to force a legal separation, but investment bank Goldman Sachs pointed out that the European Commission would have to approve Ofcom's plan.

The bank predicted that Brussels would create considerable obstacles.

Goldman Sachs said: 'We expect a high hurdle rate for EC approval of the plan.

'There is no precise definition of market failure and proportionality that Ofcom cites as driving its desire for legal separation as a remedy.

'But they would likely need to be viewed as extreme for the EC to approve Ofcom going beyond standard regulatory remedies.'

Ofcom is calling for full legal separation of BT from Openreach after it concluded that BT could favour its own retail broadband arm when making strategic decisions about Openreach.

BT is resisting Ofcom's terms, saying that such a move could affect BT pensioners and drawing attention to the fact that it has obligations to shareholders to retain control of the business.

The broadband arm operates the wires and other hardware used to provide broadband on behalf of BT and rivals including Sky and TalkTalk.

BT's competitors claim Openreach provides slow speeds and a poor service.

BT said: 'We put forward proposals in July that we believe are fair and sustainable and that meet Ofcom's objectives.
Royal Bank of Scotland is set to pay out hundreds of millions of pounds to settle legal claims dating back to the financial crisis.

The bank is expected to announce within days that it has reached a settlement out of court with City institutions that bought shares in RBS just months before it collapsed.

The claims against RBS  which is still majority owned by the taxpayer  date back to 2008 when it raised 12 billion issuing new shares to investors.

Paying out: The bank is expected to announce within days that it has reached a settlement out of court with City institutions

Following the banking crisis  which saw RBS shares collapse in value and taxpayers inject 45billion to stabilise the bank  many investors claimed the prospectus for the fund-raising had failed to include material information about the state of RBS's finances, including its exposure to 'toxic' sub-prime investments, and so misled investors into overpaying for the shares.

Claims against RBS brought by various investors total 4billion.

The settlements, under which RBS is not expected to admit any liability, are likely to amount to hundreds of millions of pounds and RBS has set aside about 800million to cover risks posed by the legal cases.

RBS declined to comment on whether a deal was imminent but said: 'We have always been clear that the bank is open to exploring an out of court settlement, consistent with our legal obligations.'

A director of one institution involved in the claims said he expected a settlement 'within a few days,' though others cautioned that finalising details could yet delay a announcement.

Investment groups expected to settle with RBS this week include Legal & General, M&G Investments, Aviva, Standard Life Investments and Scottish Widows  owned by Lloyds Banking Group.

Details of the payouts are unknown but one source close to Scottish Widows said it expected its settlement to amount to up to 50million.

The sums will benefit policyholders at Scottish Widows and other institutions whose investments included the RBS emergency fundraising. The RBS Shareholder

Action Group, which represents a number of other City firms but also 27,000 private investors who bought shares in the same fundraising, is not part of the settlements expected this week.

That group's claim differs in that as well as suing RBS, it has named former directors including ex-chief executive Fred Goodwin.

Its claim is due to come to trial next March and expected to last at least six months. The group declined to comment.

The looming settlement comes after a turbulent week for RBS. The bank has announced it is closing 86 branches as many customers abandon branch banking for the internet and smartphone apps.

Customers at nine RBS sites in Scotland and 77 NatWest branches in England and Wales were told on Thursday of the closure plans, which include nine branches designated as 'last in town' leaving those communities without a local bank.

RBS highlighted that all of those closing branches were within a few hundred yards of a Post Office branch where banking services are available.

Les Matheson, chief executive of retail banking at RBS, said the closures are an inevitable result of the digital revolution as transactions in branches had fallen by 45 per cent in the past five years, while mobile banking had soared with 4.5million RBS customers now using an app.

Earlier last week RBS emerged as the one bank to fail stress tests designed by the Bank of England to establish whether UK banks have enough capital to weather a new financial and economic crisis.

The test imagined a fresh global crisis, but added in a severe slowdown in China, making it the toughest test yet applied to UK banks.

RBS has submitted a plan to the Bank of England to bolster its capital buffers by raising a further 2billion.
High street fashion chains Warehouse, Oasis and Coast are being eyed by a number of private equity groups after their Icelandic owners put the brands up for sale.

The retail outlets  known as Aurora Fashion Group  have been put under 'strategic review' with sources suggesting a price tag of as much as 100 million.

The chains were once owned by Icelandic retail group Baugur, which collapsed  along with its bank Kaupthing  in the financial crisis of 2009. The British brands ended up in the hands of the bank's administrators.

On the table: The sale would include the high street chain Oasis

The chains are being sized up by a number of private equity firms, including turnaround group Alteri, according to several sources in the retail industry.

One said it was likely they would be sold as a group because the firms share many head office operations which would be difficult to separate before a sale.

Kaupthing's administrators plan to retain control of UK retailer Karen Millen, although it is thought that it could also be put up for sale  perhaps as early as next year.

Meanwhile, there were growing rumours last week of interest in the House of Fraser department store chain following the departure of its chief executive Nigel Oddy.
Crisis: BHS has finally gone into liquidation, with former owner Philip Green saying he is owed millions

Hopes of a solution to the BHS pension crisis before Christmas were fading last night as Philip Green's advisers and pension regulators clashed over the state of negotiations.

As the stores group was finally placed into liquidation on Friday and a fresh row broke out over 35million Green claims to be owed by the failed business, relations between the two sides appear to be worsening.

One source said a courtroom battle over the pension shortfall could be looming with both parties now preparing their cases.

The impasse was laid bare last night in a strongly worded statement by The Pensions Regulator which appeared to suggest the future security of the fund remained a key concern.

A spokesman said it had made clear 'for many months' what was required but was still waiting for a 'credible proposal'.

A source close to the deal, who asked not to be identified because the talks had reached a sensitive stage, said he was 'surprised by the regulator's comments'.

The source said a 'fully funded cash offer' had been placed on the table and the regulator's stance was 'confusing'.

On Friday a fresh row emerged over 35million which Green's advisers claim he is owed by the old BHS business, but which is being disputed by the liquidators FRP Advisory.

It is believed the 35million is included in the calculations by Green's advisers of his proposal for the pension deficit. The Pension Regulator is understood to be looking for 350million from Green.

Green has insisted any arrangement to plug the BHS pension deficit and funded by him remains voluntary.

But last month The Pensions Regulator issued Warning Notices to him, his family company Taveta and Dominic Chappell, who bought the department store chain from Green last year for 1.

At the time, sources said they were hopeful of solving the crisis before the end of the year  an outcome which would have put pensioners' minds at rest.

Many future BHS pensioners are facing a 10 per cent cut in payouts. Hopes the row would all be over by Christmas now seem increasingly remote.

The Pensions Regulator spokesman said: 'It remains open to all subjects of the Warning Notices to approach us at any time to resolve this matter through a comprehensive and credible proposal in the interests of scheme members. Our door remains open.'

But he added 'we are yet to receive a credible and comprehensive proposal'.

But the source said: 'A fully cash funded proposal has been made to the regulator. How they consider this not credible is somewhat confusing.'

However, the regulator responded: 'Any settlement offer we accept has to be robust enough to stand the test of time.

'We will not accept bad deals that are not good enough for members and which could create a greater financial burden on the Pension Protection Fund.'

Another source said they beilieved a pension deal this year was 'unlikely considering what still needs to be worked through'.

BHS collapsed in April only a year after Green sold it, leading to the loss of 11,000 jobs and leaving a 571 million deficit.

In June, Green told MPs in a Parliamentary hearing he would sort out the scheme. However, no deal has been forthcoming and the tycoon was repeatedly seen aboard his new 100 million yacht over the summer, which prompted a torrent of adverse publicity.

Work and Pensions Committee chairman Frank Field MP has repeatedly said Green should take personal responsibility for the pension deficit, much to Green's irritation.

A deal would keep the scheme out of the Pension Protection Fund and reduce the impact on future payouts compared with the provisions of the PPF.

Chappell, a three-times bankrupt, was arrested last month as part of a tax investigation into his family firm Swiss Rock which had received payments from BHS. He has not yet been charged.

The Serious Fraud Office is also conducting preliminary inquiries in order to consider whether to launch a formal investigation.

Both sides in the pension row said talks are continuing despite the starkly conflicting views.

Proposals have also been put forward to buy out the majority of small pension holders who would receive a one-off cash lump sum and reduce future liabilities.

The ultimate deadline for Pensions Regulator enforcement action is on March 1, which would trigger the next stage of The Pension Regulator's action.

It is understood that setting up a standalone structure for the fund that would be viable in the long-term without the possibility of future funding is at the heart of the discussions.

One source close to the talks said the hoped-for deal would 'draw a line' clearly separating the BHS fund from Green's Arcadia business and its pension scheme.

The option of a rapid turnaround of the situation has not been ruled out, even though sources said that it appeared increasingly unlikely.
Send For Help, the largest lone worker protection firm in the world, almost doubled turnover last year to 6.1million and is on course for 7.8million in 2017.

Founders James Murray, 43, and Will Murray, 39  the sons of technology entrepreneur Jan Murray, who launched PC World  operate the business through two subsidiary brands, Skyguard and Guardian24.

Their key-fob sized GPS safety device and apps are linked to an alarm receiving centre at the firm's base in Epsom, Surrey, which is staffed round the clock.

Response: The firm protects 100,000 lone staff

Chief executive James said: 'We sold our firm selling digital memory cards and printer cartridges in 2009 and were looking for other things to do.

'This was around the time of the emergence of smartphones, and we came up with the idea of protecting lone workers through an app.

'The NHS was the biggest target and we've grown that part of the business. More than 100 NHS Trusts are clients.'

The firm also serves 150 local authorities, 200 housing associations, and hundreds of commercial organisations, from Tesco to Travelodge, British Gas and Boots.

It works with more than half of the UK's police forces helping to protect domestic abuse victims.

James said: 'People have had heart attacks and pressed the button on the device and got the emergency services to them. We've had mental health workers under attack. We have numerous examples of where it has genuinely saved lives.'

Many clients prefer their device to a smartphone as it has a longer battery life.

Workers can also be reassured via the device when help is on its way. 'We work closely with a Chinese manufacturer who helped us develop the technology. We're constantly improving it,' said James.

He added: 'My father funded the firm, but it is generating a lot of cashflow now, so we're profitable and self-sufficient.
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Fucking Stats NO! I do not want to know how many thousands of people read my shit. And NO! I don't want to know who!
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By William Lewis

We have now seen a return of college student street demonstrations, in some ways similar to the street demonstrations of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The strongest uprisings of the earlier period were primarily directed at stopping the Vietnam War. In many cases, college administration buildings were taken over by demonstrators. Occasionally the office of the college president was occupied. That situation happened at Columbia University. The earlier development began as a student call for free speech at the University of California, Berkeley. This situation spread to more colleges, especially in the northeast part of our country.

Today the student rebellion has begun as a protest against the results of this years presidential race. There is little likelihood that the results of the election can be changed.

The recent student demonstrations began in Oregon. Most of the students involved marched in the streets. It wasnt like in earlier times when the student population carried our their rebellions on college campuses.

As I indicated, there is little, if any chance, that the presidential results can be changed.

In 1968 the most serious events of the violent student anti-war group were the demonstrations at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. It is expected that next year there will be a massive demonstration at the presidential inaugural. Hopefully, it will not get out of hand.

During the election Hillary Clinton received considerably more votes than Donald Trump. At present it stands at two million more votes, but Donald Trump won the Electoral College, and that is what chooses our president under the Constitution.

There has been talk of replacing the Electoral College with popular votes and that would require a Constitutional amendment. It is doubtful that that can be accomplished any time in the foreseeable future. The smaller states would oppose it because under popular vote New York and California could dominate the election with their huge populations.

This past year we have had the most unusual election in American history for president. It is interesting to see how this will play out during the next four years. We will see how Trump can deliver on some of his campaign promises, especially in creating a large number of jobs and making trade agreements more favorable to the United States. It will be good to see how these matters will play out.

The next four years will be an interesting interlude in how our American government progresses.
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By Gina Martinez

St. Johns is officially a Catholic Relief Services Global Campus.

St. Johns President Condrado Bobby Gempesaw signed a memorandum of understanding establishing the university as a Global Campus of Catholic Relief Services Monday at the St. Thomas More Church on campus. Students, faculty and staff attended the gathering. Carolyn Y. Woo, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Service, was also in attendance.

CRS is the official humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to assist the poor, respond to major emergencies and fight disease around the world. According to CRS, it has helped over 100 million people in more than 100 countries.

CRS and St. Johns have worked together for nearly 10 years. In 2014 a chapter of CRS Campus Ambassadors was launched. The program helps prepare undergraduates to address global poverty and injustice. In 2016, CRS collaborated with St. Johns at the universitys Poverty Conference.

St. Johns will be the 10th CRS Global Campus in the United States.

This is a comprehensive and longstanding relationship that only happens because people work at it and are passionate about it, Woo said. Our work is a privilege and we take our work very seriously.

After the signing, Woo delivered an academic lecture Cry of the Earth and Cry of the Poor She praised CRSs work helping to educate refugees worldwide.

There are 65 million refugees out there and half of them are children, she said. If we handle this problem well, and we welcome this generation, we will have the largest generation of peace builders.

Juliana Lombardo, a student at St. Johns is excited about the new agreement.

It really shows how connected we are to the world as a Catholic university, she said Its a wonderful chance for St. Johns students to use the collective resources of the two institutions to spread Catholic social teaching around the world.

Rev. Bernard M. Tracey, executive vice president for Mission and interim vice president for Advancement and University Relations, believes the new agreement will expand the schools horizons.

The partnership between CRS and the university will enhance both our educational and our service approach to looking at things from a global perspective, he said It enables us to do more in the academic and service arenas as well, creating meaningful opportunities for both faculty and students.
Times' Game of the Week Preview: No. 7 Beaver Area vs. No. 10 Deer Lakes

Beaver enters the WPIAL Class 3A playoffs riding high after closing the regular season strong. Up next: Deer Lakes for had coach Cort Rowse's Bobcats.
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Fargo, N.D.

The head of North Dakota's emergency management services says the state is prepared to respond to Dakota Access pipeline protesters who may need help during a winter storm or some other crisis.

State Homeland Security Director Greg Wilz said it would be a "huge challenge," especially during a mass evacuation, but his office has winter shelter plans in place and various agencies are ready to respond.

"The bottom line here is, if we are in a situation of life and limb, we are going to be humane in anything and everything we do," Wilz said. "We aren't going to let somebody out there freeze. So if they start evacuating en masse looking for shelter  which I highly suspect will happen  we would take care of that."

The government has ordered hundreds of protesters to leave the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires camp, on federal land in southern North Dakota by Monday, although demonstrators say they're prepared to stay until changes are made to the route of the four-state, $3.8-billlion pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and others say the pipeline north of the reservation could pollute drinking water and threatens sacred sites.

The North Dakota Department of Transportation and Morton County Highway Department will be key players in any evacuation plans, Wilz said, noting that those agencies worked to keep roads clear around the protest site during a recent storm that dumped more than a foot of snow.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement Friday that the Department of Justice has offered community policing resources to local law enforcement as "winter begins to take hold." "Our first concern is the safety of everyone in the area  law enforcement officers, residents and protesters alike," Lynch said.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said Lynch contacted him by phone Friday to discuss the situation.

"While I appreciate the Attorney General taking the time to reach out to me, neither assistance for law enforcement nor a timeline for resolution was offered," Kirchmeier said in a statement. "I hope the dialogue continues, but it's time for more actions from the federal government, not more words."

The North Dakota National Guard is prepared to help with any emergencies, said Jeff Zent, spokesman for Gov. Jack Dalrymple. The Republican governor issued a "mandatory evacuation" Monday for the main encampment, though he said no one would be forcibly removed.

Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney again encouraged protesters to heed both the governor's order and the federal government's request to leave the land. But, he said at a news conference Saturday, that authorities won't be "moving on that camp" on Monday or "in the future."

Officers at the staging area and traffic control points have temporary warming houses, cold-weather gear and other winterization measures, said Rob Keller, spokesman for the Morton County Sheriff's Department.
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Albany

Michael Rice says he left Europe for the United States on one of the last refugee boats in 1941. His aunt died in Auschwitz, and he still remembers his 13 Jewish classmates who would later be killed in the death camps.

Fatima Esat was born under apartheid in 1965 in Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe. In 2000, she became a U.S. citizen.

The two have at least one thing in common: They are extremely concerned for the future of the country they've adopted as home.

Rice and Esat joined more than 200 people who gathered in Townsend Park in Albany to oppose the Ku Klux Klan, which had its own gathering  reportedly a "victory rally" for President-elect Donald Trump  planned for later in the day in Caswell County, near the North Carolina-Virginia border.

"I think I'm still in denial," Esat said of Trump's proposed Muslim registry and the rise of Islamophobia in America. "I just cannot fathom how any person could think this way." Esat, a Muslim, said she wished more people could come to understand the social justice aspects of Islam. That, she said, is a central tenet of her belief and the overall religion.

The Albany rally, organized by the Capital District Coalition Against Islamophobia, brought together a diverse chorus of voices. Rice's own story of escape from Nazism was followed by a fiery speech from Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, who praised her city's tolerance of Muslims, the LGBT and other disenfranchised minority groups before turning her attention to Trump's now-infamous tape of him bragging about grabbing women by the genitals.

"I am not an object," said Sheehan, Albany's first woman mayor. "I am not someone you can just grope."

Rice, meanwhile, drew parallels between Adolf Hitler's use of militancy to drive economic populism and America's own military-industrial complex. He also said the election of Trump proved that "white America has failed to confront systemic racism" and disowned what he called modern-day slavery in the form of mass incarceration.

When Trump was a candidate for president, he was endorsed by white supremacist and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. Despite calls from the Anti-Defamation League, Trump was slow to distance himself from Duke's racism and initially claimed he knew nothing about Duke and his beliefs.
Business activity in Greece remains plagued by sluggish state services, high taxes, red tape and even corruption, a report by the Foundation for Economic & Industrial Research (IOBE) - undertaken as part of the international study Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) - confirmed this week.

Essentially what the report shows is that prospective entrepreneurs in the country must often double their efforts to get a business started, as opposed to counterparts in more advanced and innovation-based countries.

Study results show that a mere 14.2 percent of respondents, as opposed to 20 percent in 2014, predict business opportunities in the country over the coming six months. The figure is among the lowest worldwide, and indicative of the depressed economic juncture in the country, in tandem with the uncertainty that was rife throughout much of 2015, Greece's "annus horribilis".

Based on the findings of the GEM study, half of the new business ventures that began in Greece in 2015 required capital exceeding 30,000 euros, a figure that is nearly double the average European figure of 16,400 euros. The figure is even higher than the sum required in so-called high-income countries, where the average is 24,000 euros.

Additionally, new Greek companies with business activity aimed at foreign markets need an even greater sum as startup capital, calculated at 66,000 euros -- a little more than double the European average of 32,000 euros.

In terms of financing, various vehicles are used, especially with the maturity of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) funding programs over recent years, with 44 percent of respondents saying they have exploited some form of subsidization via state-run EU programs, as opposed to 24 percent of respondents on a Europe-wide level.

In a more traditional form of funding, 35 percent of respondents said they turned to family members for startup capital, up from 24 percent in so-called "innovation-based" countries.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
The Metropolitan Archbishop of Kalavrita and Aegialias Anmvrosios penned an open letter to prime minister Alexis Tsipras on Thursday, condemning him for comparing the Greek Revolution of 1821 with the Cuban civil war of 1959, which he called a national crime and disgrace, and criticizing the extravagance of the premiers unnecessary trip to Cuba in his post script.

In one excerpt, he said: As reported in the media, you uttered the following blasphemous words: Freedom or Death was the slogan of the Greek Revolution in 1821. Patria o muerte [Homeland or death], the slogan of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. In other words, you equated the Greek Revolution of 1821 of almost 400 years of slavery endured by our ancestors at the hands of our Turkish conquerors with the Cuban revolution, which was an internal, communistic revolution of a few Cuban communists and their leader Fidel Castro against Batista, the president of the country, and their Cuban compatriots.

The Metropolitan Archbishop also characterized the eulogy of Mr. Tsipras in Cuba as criminally wrong, while as for Comandante Fidel Castro, he pointed out, among other things, he became known for his immorality, given that he erotically embraced several hundred women.

However, Amvrosios also chastized himself, saying that during Alexis Tsiprass swearing-in ceremony, he had greeted him with the words: Hello, fine young prime minister.

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
By PTI: Dubai, Dec 4 (PTI) Two Indian and three Bangladeshi workers were killed while seven others injured today in a bus accident here.

The accident took place early this morning at Al Rabat road towards Al Garhoud after a company bus carrying 19 staff collided with a bus, the Khaleej Times reported.

Police rushed to the site of the accident and shifted four people, who sustained moderate to minor injuries.

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"Dubai Police was informed about the accident around 5am (local time), after which the patrol and rescue teams rushed to the site. Four workers died on the spot while another seriously injured worker died in the hospital succumbing to his injuries," police said.

They did not provide the details of the victims.

Elaborating on the rescue operation, police said the rescuers lifted the workers, trapped in the bus at the back after the collision, used hydraulic cutters to make an opening in the bus, the report said.

According to some witnesses, the bus suddenly swerved and was hit by a truck. PTI AJR ASK AJR

--- ENDS ---
Telegraph published the following expert guide to the best boutique hotels in Santorini, including the top places to stay for caldera views, infinity pools, spas, great food and a romantic vibe:

Canaves Oia Hotel, Santorini

Canaves (named for the kanaves, which were medieval wine cellars dug into Santorini's volcanic strata) is a caldera-view establishment. The style is Cycladic sculpted white on steroids, with scant colour accents. The infinity pool overhead is big compared to the usual ones at cliffside resorts here. Superior suites in both wings have private plunge-pools or a whirlpool tub outside. Rain showers are ubiquitous, as are king-sized beds (except in the most 'basic' Classic suites). The 45 square-metre river-pool suites in both wings, aimed at honeymooners, are particularly intriguing.

Grace Santorini

Grace Santorini is a stunning boutique hotel in a half-dozen tiers overlooking the caldera. Expect a champagne and cool-facecloth welcome, and food set aside for late arrivals. It's hip, modern and edgy. Common areas in grey and white, with neon-lit accents; same palette for rooms, minus the neon, plus cushion colour-splashes. Main infinity pool is very long, good for serious swimmers.

Avaton Resort & Spa

Interiors are cutting-edge modern. Laura the manageress, and her whole team are ace for bookings, recommendations and general helpfulness. The stunning grotto-spa is a highlight, with a massage room for couples (the dominant clientele at Avaton), sauna, steam room, cold plunge pool for afterwards and a heated hydromassage pool. Breakfast is ordered off a tick-menu the night before, served to your quarters or poolside at set quarter-hour time slots.

Katikies, Santorini

Infinity pools which blend into the sky, a candle-lit rooftop restaurant and tranquil white-washed cottages set into a cliff overlooking the volcanic Caldera and Aegean Sea make this a dreamy escape for honeymooners and romantics. Built into cliffs, the hotel's cubist-style cottages cascade down the hillside and are interlinked by a series of bridges, steps and pools.

Afroessa, Imerovigli, Santorini

In a variation on the usual local cliffside cave-house conversion, this is partly an adapted kanava, or wine cellar, from the 18th century, turned into accommodation only during the 1990s. In two units, you can still see the original wine collection basins, left in situ under glass panels. Service is willing, both from the owners and seasonal staff. There's a reasonably secluded (but unheated) pool next to the pleasant, pastel-shaded bar in the main communal area.

Iconic Santorini

To enhance privacy and service levels, Iconic is never full  only 12 of the 20 rooms are bookable at any given moment, unless you're a wedding party hiring the whole place. Decor throughout is Mediterranean beach-house, predominantly white and earth tones, with cushions as colour accents. Staff are friendly, with any reasonable request fulfilled in a jiffy. There's a tiny gym, and small spa which squeezes in a pool and couple's massage room; gym use is not allowed during spa treatments.

Atrina Traditional Houses, Santorini

Atrina Canava 1894 is a small cliffside hotel with exceptional service and appealingly quirky units. The name commemorates the year the current owner's great-grandfather bought land here and dug two kanaves (wine cellars). The striking volcanic-rock-walled pool area contrasts with the dazzling white exterior. There are nine suites or studios, all unique; five 'houses' (though these take only two adults); and one villa. Three have private whirlpools out front: Xenonas, Atrina Villa and Dimitris.

Voreina Gallery Suites, Santorini, Greece

The 'Gallery' part of the name denotes the original art on the walls of every suite, donated by past resident artists; this rotates over time and won't necessarily match what you see on the website. Design throughout is contemporary without being too in-your-face. As the name Voreina ('northerly' in Greek) implies, its on the quiet northern edge of Pyrgos, one of the most interesting of Santorini's inland villages, with narrow lanes to stroll and a Venetian summit kastro (castle). The views make a nice change from the caldera-edge cliche: stretching north over farmland to Fira and Firostefani, fetchingly illuminated by night.

Esperas Traditional Houses

Mock-troglodytic and Cycladic vernacular architecture combine to pleasing effect at this hotel. Expect excellent staff: excursion arrangements (some room rates include them) and restaurant recommendations are arranged with aplomb. Theres a big dug-out unheated pool, suitable for proper swimming. Here youll have the best sunset views in the village from your own terrace.

Kapari Natural Resort, Santorini

Kapari Natural Resort consists of five three-century-old troglodytic houses, plus nine 2009-built ones, cascading over three levels. There are no sharp edges anywhere here; even the restaurant loo has fountain-bowl sinks. Ochre and buff are the predominant hues, extending to polished-cement floors, with matching soft furnishings. From galleried Premium Room 201, you can gaze at Skaros castle-rock without leaving bed; downstairs there's a walk-in wardrobe, bathroom with rain shower, and proper living room with a decorative fireplace. Spa Premium category rooms have a guaranteed private balcony or terrace, plus indoor whirlpools.

Enigma Apartments and Suites, Santorini

Enigma Apartments and Suites manage to appeal both to loving couples and family groups, no mean trick on Santorini where caldera-view establishments are 10 a penny. Staff, especially manageress Khrysoula, are top, good about looking after early flight arrivals  you'll probably get breakfast to revive and early access to your room. There are hot tub suites, and there's fairly good privacy on the terraces, screened from next door by a solid wall and some climbing plants.

Astra Suites, Santorini

The multilingual staff are clued up and proactive without being intrusive; manager George has been here for two decades. A fair-sized caldera-edge pool has day-beds and wooden loungers. Courtesy rooms are available for late departures, and there is a small spa with hammam, sauna and treatment room. Breakfast is brought to your terrace, and lunch is room or poolside service. The dinner-only restaurant has a less snacky menu, offering such dishes as mylokopi (aka shi drum or ombrina fish) en papillote and lobster risotto, plus creative salads and desserts.

Aenaon Villas, Santorini

Aenaon is an ancient Greek word for perpetual or endless  as in the views from here. This is not so much a hotel as a members-only resort, distinguished by ultra-crisp architectural lines and superlative service levels. Proprietor Yiorgos is a retired civil engineer who designed the whole complex himself. Its Cycladic but definitely tending to minimalist. A medium-sized infinity pool sits on the on the caldera side. But its mostly the warmth of Yiorgos and his wife Alexandra, and their helpful staff, effective yet invisible as one guest put it, that makes the experience.

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
Iran and Romania signed an agreement to build a 1,000-MW power plant near the Iraqi border with an investment of up to $700 million, of which 70 per cent will be sourced by the Romanians and the rest by Iran, a report said.



The plant is intended for electricity exports to Iraq, a government official was quoted as saying in the Iran Daily report, which cited Irna.



Iran is currently exporting some 1,500 MW of electricity to Iraq while the capacity is being expanded to increase this figure to 2,000 MW, the report said.
Ooredoo, a major telecom group in the region, said its senior management team was recognised with the Best Executive Team Award for the Telecom Sector at the Arab Best Awards 2016, held in Marrakesh, Morocco.



The Arab Best Awards aim to celebrate leadership and excellence in three main areas  government and leadership; business excellence; and sports, social and community contribution.



The general secretary Mohammed Mubarak Al Mohannadi opened the awards with a speech praising the winners for their on-going efforts in improving lives and opening opportunities across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.



Ooredoo received the award for its decisive management style that has seen the company transform itself over the past three years since its launch in 2013. In particular, the company was recognised for its data experience leadership across its footprint in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia, said a statement from Ooredoo.



The company today offers 4G services in eight markets around the world, supported by incredible content and easy-to-use apps, it said.



After receiving the award, Sheikh Saud Bin Nasser Al Thani, group CEO, Ooredoo, said: "We are proud to win the award, as a recognition of the hard work and clear vision that Ooredoo has delivered over the past few years."



Al Thani attended the Morocco event as part of a delegation that included Waleed Al Sayed, deputy CEO, Ooredoo Group.



I dedicate this award to our hard-working colleagues operating everywhere, and give our customers a firm commitment that this award will push us to greater heights, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Kanoo Information Technology (Kanoo IT), a top IT and technology solutions provider in Bahrain, has partnered with Bin Faqeeh Real Estate Investment Company to implement a tailor-made business operations and controls IT solution.



The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution, Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 is a complete business management software that works with existing Microsoft products, such as Office, O365, Azure and Windows, to integrate an organisation's data and processes into a unified system.



Also part of the comprehensive solution is Kanoo IT's own K Business Suite, which consists of a number of mobile, cloud and BI-compatible platforms. These include kBPM, an engine to automate processes and achieve set targets, and kPayment Gateway, which can be integrated with any online payment service. Kanoo IT will also develop a mobile application and website, as well as a property management system for Bin Faqeeh.



"Kanoo IT solutions are designed to address each client's industry-specific issues," said Kanoo IT director Waleed Kanoo. "A strong integrated software solution will help Bin Faqeeh maintain communication between various departments and assist with business development and strategic planning."



Bin Faqeeh chairman, Faisal Faqeeh said: "Bin Faqeeh is expanding rapidly through some of the country's most important real estate developments. A comprehensive IT solution like this will serve as a backbone for our operations, streamlining our business processes and ensuring that we continue to grow.  TradeArabia News Service
Dassault Aviation will present its expanding line of large-cabin long range Falcon business jets at the Middle East & North Africa Business Aviation Association (MEBAA) show and exhibition, which opens on December 6 at Dubai World Central, Air Show Site.



The presentation will include Dassaults recently introduced ultra long range Falcon 8X, which is making its first showing in the Middle East, and the ever popular 4,000 nm/7,410 km Falcon 2000LXS twinjet.



The first Falcon 8X delivery to a Gulf customer took place in mid-November 2016, following its certification by the UAE's GCAA.



The delivery of a Falcon 8X to a regional operator  barely a month after the entry into service of the first aircraft  says a lot about the important role the Middle East is expected to play in the success of our new flagship, said Renaud Cloatre, International sales director for the Middle East Region. The aircrafts first showing at the MEBAA in Dubai is also expected to generate a great deal of excitement among Gulf operators.



Like the Falcon 7X, Dassaults most popular offering in the region, the 8X is expected to be a big seller in the region, where operators value the exceptional combination of range, cabin comfort and operating efficiency. The Middle East Falcon fleet has nearly doubled in the last seven years, to over 70 aircraft, and continues to grow despite the softness of the current global market.



The 6,450 nm/11,945 km Falcon 8X was certified by EASA and the FAA in June and entered service on October 5, 2016. In addition to the UAE, the 8X was also recently approved by the civil aviation authorities in Brazil and approval in China is expected shortly.



Falcon 8X Even Better than Announced



The Falcon 8X comes to the market with fully mature system capabilities demonstrated during a month-long global proving trial campaign earlier this year. A few key performance parameters, such as take off distance and cabin noise, have even surpassed design objectives. In fact, the soundproofing improvements engineered into the 8X make it even quieter than the Falcon 7X, the industry benchmark in aircraft sound levels.



In addition to the quietest cabin and the most advanced digital flight control system in business aviation, the 8X features the largest selection of standard cabin configurations of any large business jet. It will be available with a wide range of cabin options, including an onboard shower; a large entryway that can serve as a fourth cabin section, notably as a full lounge bar; and a super spacious aft VIP suite.



The 8X will also come with a range of cockpit options, including Dassaults new FalconEye Combined Vision System, the first Head Up Display to combine synthetic and enhanced vision capabilities, and a new integrated Electronic Flight Bag solution, Falcon Sphere II, that will greatly reduce the time and effort necessary to prepare and manage business jet missions.



Derived from the popular Falcon 7X, the Falcon 8X will offer the greatest range and the longest cabin of any Falcon, allowing it to fly non-stop from New York to Dubai, Dubai to Adelaide, or Chicago to Jeddah. It will also share the 7Xs exceptional operating economy and short-field performance.



New Falcon 8X operators in the region also benefit from a full package of services put together by Dassaults global product support organization to assist them in taking delivery of their new Falcon. The service package is customised to individual operator needs and starts well before the aircraft arrives in customer hands.





Falcon 2000LXS Equipped with FalconEye CVS



The 4,000 nm/7,410 km Falcon LXS, the newest addition to the 2000 line, offers a short-field capability comparable to smaller midsize and super midsize business jet models but with a far better range and comfort level. It can land at 90 per cent of its maximum takeoff weight, allowing it to hop from city to city and then leap across the ocean without having to stop and refuel, and is certified for steep approach, which permits it to serve restricted airfields like London City Airport.



The Falcon 2000LXS was recently certified for use with Dassaults revolutionary FalconEye Combined Vision System.



Reinforced Product Support Network



Dassault continues investing in the Gulf to improve and expand its regional product support network. Falcon customers can rely on an Authorized Service Center, spares distribution center and regional sales office in Dubai and an Authorized Service Center and technical office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. These regional facilities are backed by a growing global support network staffed by some 1,700 Dassault engineers, experts and technicians.



Customers in the region also benefit from Falcon Response, Dassaults comprehensive new AOG support service offering. This service is designed to whisk spare parts, repair tools and Go Team specialists 24/7 around the globe in the event of an aircraft on ground (AOG) situation and is backed up by two Falcon 900 aircraft that customers can also use for alternative lift - an industry first. - TradeArabia News Service
By PTI: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Dec 4 (PTI) At least 53 people have been killed after two separate explosions rocked coal mines in northern China, the latest mine accident in the worlds top coal producing nation.

An explosion took place yesterday at Baoma Mining Co Ltd coal mine in north Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region that killed 32 people, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.

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There were a total of 181 people working underground at the time of the accident, and 149 workers managed to get above ground, it said.

So far 268 policemen and 119 rescuers and medical staff have been rushed to the accident site.

This is the second big mine accident in China this week.

In a separate incident, twenty-one workers trapped in a coal mine in China after an explosion at a private coal mine in Qitaihe City, northeast Heilongjiang provinceon November 30 were confirmed dead yesterday while search is on for one person.

State television CCTV reported the workers could not be reached by rescuers due to presence of poisonous gases and insurance firms began contacting the families of the trapped workers to settle claims.

Initial enquiries showed that the blast was an accident and that the mine was unlicensed, police said.

Chinese police had arrested the owner of the private coal mine and three managers yesterday, the emergency rescue headquarters said. PTI KJV CK AMS AKJ AMS

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Patna, Dec 3 (PTI) Nine persons, including a woman, have been arrested and 1,900 litres of spiced alcohol and 1,500 litres of domestic brew seized by police from various areas here today.

Altogether 1,900 litres of spiced alcohol was seized from areas under Dhanarua and Bihta Police Stations, a statement from the office of Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj said.

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In Dhanarua Police Station area, 1,500 litres of domestic brew was seized, it said, adding nine persons including a woman have been arrested in connection with the seizures.

The statement also said 50 brew manufacturing units were destroyed.

The campaign followed strict warning by the SSP to officers in-charge of police stations that action will be taken against them in case of any lacunae regarding stopping liquor manufacture and sell in their areas.

Yesterday also 120 bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL), 396 litres of spiced liquor and 650 pouches of domestic brew were seized from different places in the district. PTI SNS NN NSD

--- ENDS ---
The head cabin crew of Air India flight AI 191 was offloaded because her dress was 'dirty' and not properly ironed. It took the airlines an hour and 45 minutes to get her replacement on board.

By Anindya Banerjee: The Air India Mumbai-Newark flight took off nearly two hours behind its scheduled time for a bizarre reason.

The head cabin crew of Air India flight AI 191 was offloaded because her dress was 'dirty' and not properly ironed. It took the airlines an hour and 45 minutes to get her replacement on board.

The 1.30 am flight finally took off at 3.13 am on Saturday.

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More details awaited

--- ENDS ---
BJP President Amit Shah's letter to party MPs and MLAs to submit their bank transaction details carries a form which reads just like an IT-declaration form.

On November 30, BJP chief Amit Shah circulated a letter, received by legislators individually, asking them to furnish details of transactions, including deposit & exchange, in old notes.

By Siddhartha Rai: The letter sent by BJP president Amit Shah to all party legislators asking them to furnish details of bank transactions and account details also carries a form that appears similar to an 'income-tax declaration form'.

Mail Today has a copy of the letter and the 'form' with it which seeks financial details of legislators and their dependents.

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The move is designed to show that seeking the details was not merely a stunt to silence the opposition after the demonetisation move and the BJP is serious on combating corruption within the party.

Following instructions from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the party supremo, on November 30, sent a letter to party legislators individually, in which he sought details of monetary transactions using old notes for the period between November 9, when demonetisation of high denomination notes took effect, and December 30, when the scheme for depositing old notes in bank accounts will end.

The details sought include exchange of old notes as well as the amounts deposited in banks in the old and now illegal tender.

ALSO READ | AAP hits out at PM Modi's demonetisation again, says Amit Shah converted black money through land deals

WHAT THE LETTER SAYS

The letter comes attached with a form that closely resembles an Income Tax declaration form. It is titled: "Declaration of Cash Deposited/Exchanged (of old 500 and 1000 currency notes) By Members of Parliament/Legislative Assembly", and asks the members to submit the details and send it back to Shah in a sealed envelope by January 1.

After an initial set of general queries such as name and address along with the House to which the member might belong, the form continues to ask for the following: amount of cash deposited in banks/post offices during the reference period; name of the bank or post office, branch address, account number and description of the account; and then sources from which the money was financed (personal savings or other sources). In the same way, the form proceeds to ask for details of the currency exchanged.

The form also notes that "details may be provided in respect of member or his/her spouse or by any of his or her dependent children who have no separate means and are fully dependent on the member".

"The honourable Prime Minister had on Tuesday requested all legislators to furnish details of their accounts to the party while talking of political probity. You too have to encourage electronic exchange," Shah addressed the party law makers in the letter.

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ALSO READ | PM Modi asks his MPs and MLAs to submit bank transaction details

MODI ASKED BJP MPs, MLAs TO SUBMIT BANK TRANSACTION DETAILS

Earlier, in a move to silence critics and the Opposition, who have been protesting the government's note ban move citing cash shortage affecting transactions across the country, the Prime Minister had asked all BJP MPs and MLAs to submit their bank transaction details to Shah on January 1.

The Opposition voiced concerns over the sluggish implementation of the move, with thousands of ATMs across the country drying up and long queues in front of operational ones.

Modi had announced the move in the BJP parliamentary party meet which took place in the Parliament last Tuesday. However, the move did not cut much ice with the Opposition, which alleged that if the PM is really serious about dispelling the allegation that some people were tipped off about demonetisation before it was announced, he should have asked his leaders to submit their account details from September onwards to examine the matter.

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West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had said Modi too should disclose his account details.

Also read: Demonetisation: 50 per cent tax on unaccounted deposits, 85 per cent if caught

--- ENDS ---
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 4

Organisers of the Festival of Sikh Music, being held in Singapore, have invited city-based paper artist Gurpreet Singh to be part of the art exhibition. Art and culture events, based on principles of Sikh spiritual ideologies, are displayed at the exhibition.

Gurpreet, who is a paper artist, has created miniature replicas of several Sikh buildings of historical importance. He will be exhibiting a 10 by 10 ft replica of the Golden Temple, made out of paper. The art exhibition is one of the pre-events scheduled to be held before the music festival.

Gurpreet will be participating at the international event for the second time. I went to the festival with my religious art work in 2014 and exhibited 10 of my miniature paper models. This time Ill exhibit the replica of Golden Temple, which has LED lights fixed for illumination, said Gurpreet. He will be accompanied by his student Kuldeep Singh.

The festival is attended by over 10,000 Sikh representatives from across the world, he added.
The performance of the outgoing Municipal Corporation Chandigarh was not quite satisfactory. The City Beautiful is headed to become a Smart City, But the main problem of dirt and garbage, thrown on the streets, continues to humiliate the citizens. The MC has failed to collect and dispose of household garbage despite the bragging by the councillors. We are paying Rs 80 per month to private sweepers for the disposal of our household garbage when it is the duty of the MC to do so for free. It is a matter of shame. Moreover, the problem of stray cattle and stray dogs continue to threaten vehicles and two-wheeler drivers on roads, risking their lives. Even public parks are not spared where children, women and men, young and old, visit daily. The new MC must take these two issues very seriously and spare residents the trouble of facing private collection parties.

RK Kapoor, Chandigarh

Adhere to poll code

The elections to the Municipal Corporation are to be held soon in Chandigarh. The last five years of the MC were satisfactory, though various lapses were noticed during the period. The new MC team must be geared up to keep the city clean as planned and free from traffic chaos. The heritage status of the city monuments like Capitol Complex and the upkeep of other important buildings will require their attention. The traffic congestion on roads needs immediate solution like the one taken for a flyover at Tribune chowk. Parking of vehicles is another sore issue which the new MC has to sort out at the earliest. The MC also needs to keep the city free from pollution from the GHG, polythene and other solid waste. Supply of water is another requirement which the MC needs to take care of for the increasing population in the city. Last but not the least, the parties must adhere to the election code of conduct during the campaigning and fight polls without defacement of public property, liquor and money.

Wg Cdr Jasbir Singh Minhas (retd), Mohali

Contestants should list priorities

The time has come to elect and induct the new councillors in the Municipal Corporation. The contestants should list their priorities for the development of the smart city. The city needs clean public toilets in parks and markets. The drainage system needs improvement during the monsoon, the carpeting of roads should be undertaken only during the night, and the upkeep of government hospitals and dispensaries should be ensured. Steps should be taken to check the dengue menace. Trees which obstruct traffic signals should be pruned.

Nikita Kapur, Chandigarh

Keep voters informed about development work

Municipal Corporation elections are round the corner. Councillors in the fray should make their targets public. Vendors are to be allotted sites, the traffic chaos needs to be streamlined, supply of water needs to be improved, solar street lights should be introduced and stray dog menace needs attention. On the revenue front, the priority should be to auction the parking lots to augment the development work. Every councillor must apprise the voters about the development work once in three months.

Harish Kapur, Chandigarh

No promise which cant be fulfilled

The candidates should only make promises which can be fulfilled. The voters should not be promised the moon. During the election days, jumleybazi should be avoided by all parties to maintain peace. Despite the performance of the last House  nothing praiseworthy has been achieved. Without going through individually, it may be pointed out that the works started were not completed satisfactorily. They failed to convince the Centre on the issue of Metro rail which can be implemented without disturbing the topography of City Beautiful.

Bharat Bhushan Sharma

Councillors should submit quarterly reports

It has been observed in the past that after electing the councillor, they do not mix with the residents except for a few approached by the residents with their suggestions and complaints. The main problems of each area are cleanliness, lighting, sewerage and water. I would suggest that telephone numbers of each department must be advertised in newspapers and in case of non-compliance, the official concerned should be penalised. It has also been observed that official telephones are either out of order or the officials do not attend to them. More important point is that elected representative must submit their report regarding the performance of their area quarterly. It has also been observed that some officials do not care to attend complaints of the residents seriously. As a result, they have to run from pillar to post.

Tarlok Singh, Manimajra

Dont make promises that are not practical

Barely a few days are left for the MC poll. The polls are usually fought on the basis of local issues. But things have changed. There is a growing feeling that representatives are not bothered about local issues. Political goals are more important for them. There may be some exceptions but in most cases, the peoples representatives are cut off from reality and fail to address people issues, remaining busy with their internal fights. They always try to brush aside the concern of residents. Some of them have a non-cooperative attitude. Councillors should not make promises which are not practical. They should keep their faith in public as the people of the city are looking for a positive change.

Vidya Sagar Garg, Panchkula

Voters should have the right to reject option

The councillors have failed on all fronts and past experience depicts that they are only power hungry. In the coming elections, candidates either change their wards or make their spouses contest the elections. It means tickets are not being given to the deserving candidates. Rather, persons who have a say in the party are being given tickets. They are destroying the basic structure of Le Corbusier's Chandigarh. The voters should choose the "right to reject" option to make the parties learn a lesson so that the power hungry candidates do not dare to come forward to contest.

Mashwinder Singh

Elect educated persons as councillors

The present dispensation in the Municipal Corporation has not been able to do much in fulfilling the aspirations of the people on the development front mostly because the final powers are vested in the hands of the bureaucracy and not with the Mayor. The Municipal Commissioner, as the senior bureaucrat , is not answerable to the electorate, and does not often appreciate the priority and urgency of a work on the ground. Many of the councillors who are semi-literate and answerable to the electorate, do not have enough clue to push things at a faster pace. The remedy therefore lies in electing educated persons as councillors, so that the Mayor, finally elected out of these councillors, is a person who can hold on his own in front of an IAS commissioner. Gone are the days when a matriculate Mayor could deliver, but not anymore.

SC Luthra, Manimajra

Everyone should play their democratic role

As per reports, the role of the rivals remained not very encouraging throughout their tenure. Instead of stressing upon greater achievements, time was wasted only to show their superiority over each other. Thus, many projects could not mature. Uncivilised, spontaneous behavior, resorting to throws and blows, was a shameful act on the part of the elected representatives. Now it is up to the citizens to choose again the existing members or to change them for better ones. But it is obvious that everyone has to play their democratic duty, hoping for the best in the next term.

Surinder Paul Wadhwa, Mohali

Parties come and go, problems remain

The last tenure of the MC Chandigarh was a failure, time was wasted and the decorum of the House tarnished due to unparliamentary behaviour. Timely action was not taken to check diseases like dengue/chikungunya which snuffed out many lives. But their agenda of study tours remained in the forefront. Also, with the disclosure of the date of implementing the code of conduct, the political party in power took full advantage towards the fag end, to lay foundation stones of new projects, to inaugurate half completed works without associating the local councillor, thus spending money on unproductive works to appease the voters and create a vote bank. The party in power will also take credit for the recent demonetisation of currency. Though its aim is good, the implementation part is a failure, putting every citizen of the country to unnecessary harassment in one or the other way. Ever since the inception of the MC, no party has provided a viable solution to the residents for their problems. Their agenda in the coming election, therefore, would remain the same: criticism and mudslinging.

AS Ahuja, Chandigarh

Form a grievance redressal cell

As the MC elections are round the corner, residents should vote intelligently and honestly without being driven by any caste or religious consideration. Because finally, it is only the work done by the candidates elected that convinces the electorate to vote for him. Sanitary conditions in the city should be improved. A grievance redressal cell should be formed and the problems should be resolved on a regular basis. Water and electricity woes should be dealt with seriousness during the summers. Proper drainage and road maintenance tasks should be taken up prior to the monsoon to avoid inconvenience to the general public.

Rashi Srivastava, Chandigarh

Councillors should take quick decisions

The Municipal Corporation has failed to generate revenue and manage car parking in the city. Councillors should be transparent, accountable, responsive and upright and should object to wrongdoing. They should take quick decisions for the efficient functioning of the Municipal Corporation. They should have vision and the political will to generate revenue for the development of the city. They should streamline car parking on priority basis and improve the quality of work in various projects, leaving no scope for corruption.

Col Balbir Singh Mathauda (retd), Chandigarh

Assure permanent resolution to problems

Among the issues which have not been taken seriously for resolution by the Municipal Corporation during the current term are proper maintenance of parking lots and encroachment of public properties. Though both the issues came to the notice of the corporation on many occasions, the authorities failed every time to resolve these for good. Therefore, these issues remain pending. I am sure that candidates will again make promises during the election campaign of permanently resolving all pending issues.

Balbir Singh Batra, Mohali

Give verdict in favour of one party

The outgoing Municipal Corporation has left the citizens disappointed for not deciding on time on issues like parking contractor in various markets, multistoried parking at shopping centres and issue related to traffic chaos resulting in loss of crores besides causing inconvenience to the public. The political parties need to address the problem of garbage disposal, devise action plan for industry, chalk out a mission for City Beautiful, banquet hall and more multistoried parking, planning of overbridges and underpass to control traffic chaos and commit to the voters an immediate solution of need-based difficulties after the new civic body is elected. The term of the Mayor must be extended to more than a year so that development projects can be completed in the city. The citizens should also give a verdict in favour of a single party for the smooth running of the House and facilitate an immediate decision on the pending projects.

Sukhpal Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 4

The process to bring the existing dealers in the ambit of GST has begun here.

The Department of Excise and Taxation has received the provisional user ID and password for its existing dealers that will now be sent to the business entities concerned. A dealer will use these provisional user ID and password to login into the GST portal (gst.gov.in) and submit the details. On successful submission of the details, the GST registration would be allotted to the dealer for functioning under the GST regime.

The shifting process is an important step and the Department of Excise and Taxation, Chandigarh, has urged the dealers to take active part in the process, so the GST TIN can be allotted to the 18,000 registered dealers in Chandigarh.

The department will be sending the provisional user ID and password to the dealers through e-mail. The dealers are being instructed to update their email IDs and mobile numbers after visiting the website etdut.gov.in.

The provisional GST user ID and password are also available on the dealer dashboard on etdut.gov.in for download.
MK Bhadrakumar

IF India was hoping to corner Pakistan on the issue of cross-border terrorism at the Heart of Asia conference on December 3-4 in Amritsar, that has been overtaken by the telephone conversation between US President-elect Donald Trump and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif on Friday, which dramatically shifts the kaleidoscope reflecting the sequence of elements in the Hindu Kush.

During the US presidential election campaign, Trump hardly spoke on Afghanistan. But he amply made up for it in the conversation with Sharif, giving some clues on how his mind is working on the US strategy. Interestingly, Trump is yet to speak with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. In fact, Sharif is the only South Asian leader other than PM Modi with whom Trump has interacted on phone.

The conversation with Sharif was scheduled just before the announcement came regarding Trumps choice of Gen James Mattis (retd) as the next US Defence Secretary. Without doubt, the Pakistan military leadership and ISI would have substantial institutional memory over Mattiss personality and professional outlook. (The tough-talking, erudite General is popularly known as Mad Dog.) Indeed, Mattis will be remembered in no small part in the GHQ of the Pakistan military in Rawalpindi and the ISI establishment in Islamabad as the then one-star General who was handpicked by the Pentagon in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to amass forces for the US invasion of Afghanistan.

With Mattis in charge, Task Force 58, a large marine air-ground task force, got into Kandahar province on November 25, 2001. He effectively oversaw the deepest insertion of the Marines into a combat zone in US military history. Over 1,000 Marines were in Kandahar within a week of the mission, which heavily depended on back-up provided by the ISI and the Pakistan military. Gen Pervez Musharraf was ruling Pakistan at the time.

A decade later, during 2010 to 2013, Mattis returned to the region as the head of the US Central Command in overall charge of Americas wars in Afghanistan and Iran  and against the Al-Qaeda. The call of duty took Mattis to Rawalpindi to cogitate with Gen Ashfaq Kayani, a quiet General who was also an expert on asymmetric warfare against superpowers.

Trump appears to have had a substantive conversation with Sharif. His office in New York said the two leaders had a productive conversation and that the President-elect hoped for a strong working relationship between the two countries. Trump looked forward to a lasting and strong personal relationship with Sharif.

On the other hand, Sharifs office in Islamabad emphasised that Trump paid fulsome praise to him. Trump was quoted as saying, I am ready and willing to play any role that you (Sharif) want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems. Now, that is a very big statement, given the tortuous history of the subcontinent. Pakistan is getting a jumpstart in its dealings with the incoming Trump presidency. This is one thing.

Of course, we get some useful markers here on the likely directions of Trumps approach to Afghanistan. At its core, the strategy will not be of a retrenchment. Trump is not about to order the withdrawal of US troops. Mattiss record on Afghanistan and his co-authorship of the famous COIN strategy for the US military would suggest that he will be an advocate of negotiations with the Taliban from a position of strength, which means that insurgents (and their mentors) are left in no two minds about the futility of attempting a takeover in Kabul.

Trumps grit to fight terrorism is not in doubt. At a victory rally in Ohio on Friday, he asserted, We will destroy ISIS. We will partner with every nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism. Clearly, therefore, Pakistan enjoys a key role in Trumps strategy to fight terrorist groups in Afghanistan. It is entirely conceivable that during Fridays phone conversation, Trump typically came down full-throttle stressing the high importance he attaches to relations with Pakistan. The period of drift in the US-Pakistan ties, characteristic of recent Obama years, is ending. The relationship may revert to the traditional mode of intense engagement between the two countries. The Ohio statement suggests that Trump may also avail of Chinas influence.

However, it also was during Mattis term as the chief of the Central Command that the US-Pakistan relationship began going into a death spiral. The year 2011 turned out to be a fateful period. In mid-January, a CIA contractor by name Raymond Davis, whom Pakistanis suspected to be on covert mission, was arrested in Lahore and was kept in custody till mid-March, ignoring even an intervention by President Obama seeking his release. Hardly six weeks after Daviss release the biggest-ever crack in the US-Pakistan ties appeared with the SEAL commando raid on Osama bin Ladens compound in Abbottabad. Finally, the year ended on a rather bloody note when on November 26, US jets and helicopters entered Pakistani airspace in the border region of Salala in the tribal areas and slaughtered 28 Pakistani soldiers and wounded 10 others.

The relations never quite recovered after that. Pakistan retaliated by closing NATOs transit routes, and despite Mattiss attempts, the blockade continued for several months until July next year when the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was persuaded to render apology. Suffice it to say, Mattis can be trusted to have a profound insight into the root causes of terrorism in the Af-Pak region. It was during Mattiss tenure in the Central Command that the then outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral Mike Mullen famously alleged at a Congressional hearing that the Haqqani network is a veritable arm of the ISI.

Loser is a favourite expression of Trumps. He once said, There are people  I categorise them as lifes losers  who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as Im concerned, if they had any real ability, they wouldnt be fighting me. He is also heard saying, Believe me. Youll never get bored with winning. All in all, therefore, a valiant attempt has been made by Sharifs office to present Trump as a jolly good fellow. But then, Trump timed his conversation with Sharif just before making the all-important announcement regarding Mattiss nomination. Trump intends to shake off Obamas ennui in dealing with this exasperating frenemy. But he is also making an offer of re-engagement that Pakistan cannot refuse.

The writer is a former ambassador
VAGUE outlines of a Donald Trump foreign policy are becoming discernible. In a remarkably clear-headed statement of priorities the President-elect has declared that he will pursue a new foreign policy and that he wants stability, not chaos because we want to rebuild our own country. It is time. In other words, as American President he would not be investing the United States vast resources in elusive transformation in foreign lands. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments, he declares. This suggests a definite departure from the interventionist tradition and record of the United States, under both the Republican and the Democratic Presidents. President Bill Clintons place in history was defined by intervention in Kosova; President George Bush sent the world topsy-turvy with his post-9/11 crusade; and President Obama encouraged and abetted democratic revolutions in the whole of Levant, which resulted in the departure or destabilisation of established regimes and brought in its wake the ISIS.

Donald Trump promises not to scratch this interventionist itch. This is a welcome change, that too from a man who had all these months portrayed himself as a bully and a busy-body. Not being from the establishment Trump has the political clout and sanction to junk the intellectual theology that informed American interventions oversees. All these decades the foreign policy elites in the United States arrogated to themselves a burden and an obligation to make the world safe for democracy. Each country was to be induced and, if necessary, coerced, to become a replica of Jeffersonian democracy  irrespective of its cultural and historical contexts. This arrogance contributed to turmoil, intrigue and instability in country after country.

Trumps rhetoric suggests that he is not exactly enamored of the my way or the highway syndrome. Yet rather incongruently he has surrounded himself with a number of former military men. He has announced that he will be putting a retired General, James Mattis known by a charming sobriquet of Mad Dog  in charge of the Pentagon. He is yet to name a Secretary of State. The Trump Presidency carries with it the threat of a muscular foreign policy without being woolly or idealistic. This return of realpolitik is to be welcomed.
No one should be surprised that a chargesheet has been filed against Capt Amarinder Singh in a Ludhiana court so close to the elections. This is a political setback for the Congress. The party had come to rely excessively on the supposed mass appeal of Capt Amarinder Singh. The IT Department case has been in the making since 2011 and has not come as a surprise. The Congress leadership must be aware of the consequences and must have factored in the NDA governments capacity to time it in such a way as to inflict maximum political damage. Whether or not it is Finance Minister Arun Jaitley playing vendetta politics, the BJP has the satisfaction of being clever in using its powers for an electoral advantage.

As Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singhs track record was not entirely unblemished. He is saddled with a multi-crore Ludhiana city centre scam case. The Enforcement Directorate is probing a case against him registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to look into the trail of the scam money. In October the Punjab Vigilance Bureau filed a cancellation report in the infamous Amritsar Improvement Trust land scam, giving a clean chit to the Punjab Congress president. This provoked the Captains political opponents to dub it a result of tacit understanding with the Badals.

Though the practice of slapping vindictive cases against political opponents is not uncommon in this country, every politician charged with abuse of power takes refuge under the same vendetta politics umbrella. Virbhadra Singh and Bhupinder Singh Hooda have taken this line of defence. The cases against in-or-out-of-power politicians should be fast-tracked, especially now that legislators stand disqualified on a jail term of more than two years. The IT Department will have to explain why it took so long to file the case. Clearly, the timing is politically dictated.
Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Faridabad, December 4

The district is getting only 21 per cent of the required cash on daily basis, resulting in cash crunch even after 25 days of demonetisation.

Though the authorities have claimed of having re-calibrated around 90 per cent of the total 661 ATMs in the district, it is reported that only 285 of these have been made functional. These ATMs are able to provide cash for only one-two hours daily, it is revealed. I could withdraw money on the fourth day of my attempt, claimed Varun, a resident.

More than half the ATMs remain non-functional or closed due to various problems, which include non-availability of cash or non-caliberation, it is claimed. More than 75 ATMs in the city havent been working since since demonetisation.

Admitting acute crunch, Inder Mohan Sharma, Lead District Manager, said efforts were on to make all ATMs functional. He said the district was getting only Rs 32 crore for disbursal to banks and ATMs on daily basis against the required demand of Rs 150 crore. The problem was likely to get resolved to some extent after receipt and disbursal of the new Rs 500 denomination currency note, which was still to begin. The implementation of cashless transaction may take some time, said an official.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Chandershekhar has instructed the officials concerned to ensure opening of bank accounts of all industrial workers for payment of their salary by the due date.

DC visits ATMs to hear users woes

Sonepat: Following complaints of irregularities at ATMs, Sonepat Deputy Commissioner KM Pandurang inspected a number of ATMs in many localities of the town on Saturday. He interacted with customers standing in queue and sought reports on cash availability. He directed bank officials to entertain a person with only one ATM card each time. He directed them to keep ATMs updated as well. There should not be any inconvenience to the bank customers, he asserted. The Deputy Commissioner urged customers as well as supervisors at ATMs to use only one card at a time so that other persons standing in queue could withdraw cash.

Lets go cashless: CM

Karnal: Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today said people were enthusiastic following demonetisation and they would witness overwhelmed results soon. He was here to attend a social programme. Interacting with media persons, he urged the people to adopt a cashless system. The people had welcomed the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demonetise high-denomination currency, he reiterated. The people can make transactions easy through e-wallets, ATMs, debit cards, credit cards and other methods, he said. Asked about the pulling up of the police team investigating the Murthal rape cases by High Court, he said the matter was in court. TNS

IAF man held with Rs 11 lakh cash

Rohtak: The district police have arrested Air Force employee Paramjit, a resident of Bahu Akbarpur village in the district, with currency notes worth about Rs 11 lakh. The police has registered a case and informed the Income Tax Department. A police spokesman said a car was signalled to stop for at a check-post. However, the driver sped away. The police personnel manning the naka immediately flashed a wireless message following which the car was intercepted by a police team. The occupant of the car was identified as Paramjit, an Air Force employee . A sum of about Rs 11 lakh in cash in the form of currency notes of Rs 2,000, 1,000, 500, and 100 etc was found but Paramjit could not give any satisfactory reply. Rohtak SSP Rakesh Arya said the Air Force man had been arrested and a case registered against him. TNS
Shiv Kumar Sharma

Tribune News Service

Yamunanagar, December 4

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has directed a surgeon of a private hospital and Oriental Insurance company Limited, Yamunanagar, to jointly pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation and Rs 10,000 as litigation expenses to legal heirs of a complainant.

We partly allow the complaint and direct the respondents No. 2 and 3 to pay a lump sum of Rs 1 lakh jointly and severally to the legal heirs of the complainant in equal shares and further pay Rs 10,000 as litigation expenses, stated Ashok Kumar Garg, president of the forum, in his recently delivered decision.

According to information, Mehar Chand (now deceased) of Nalagarh Majra, Jagadhri, approached Rameshwar Dass Memorial Hospital, Jagadhri, for the removal of stones from the gallbladder on July 21, 2009.

The complainant deposited Rs 6,000 with the hospital before laparoscopic operation that day. Immediately after operation, Dr Rajeev Airon, the doctor treating him, stated that it was a difficult case and not of laparoscopic, but he had successfully done it.

He also stated that in the CT scan, the size of the stone was not clearly visible.

The complainant was also informed that there was no problem withthe laparoscopic operation and no open surgery was done.

After operation, the complainant deposited Rs 9,000 more with thehospital.

The complainant was surprised to find a catheter with a bag attached to the stomach. It was represented by the doctor that the same was for draining out the bile.

This raised suspicion in the complainants mind. The treating doctors continued proclaiming success of the operation whereas the health of the complainant was deteriorating.

The complainant was brought for treatment to the PGI, Chandigarh. Later, he died.

The forum directed the doctor and the insurance company (as the said doctor is insured with the said insurance company) to pay the compensation to Mehar Chands legal heirs.
By PTI: mobile phone as their wallet and there was no need to use cash. "People will not forgive the corrupt, the country has to be rid of all ills during the past 70 years," he said. Modi reminded BJP volunteers and party workers once again of the governments assurance that things will ease up after a period of 50 days. "I had said there will be hardships for now, but things will improve. You might have to stand in queues to withdraw money, but its essential to eliminate corruption," he said, and cited instances of parents doling out heavy sums for admission of their children in schools and for higher studies. On shortage of currency notes, Modi suggested use of plastic money and to go cashless. "There are 40 crore smartphones in the country today. Everything is available on mobile banking, net banking and through credit and debit cards. You just need to download an app on your phone, and for 40 crore people, everything is possible without visiting a bank or standing in queues," he said. Modi also hit out at those saying people were resisting change or were technologically challenged, saying "they should remember that the same people elected a new government by pushing a button."

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"Some people have lost glow on their faces... earlier they used to chant money-money, now they are chanting Modi-Modi," he said. He said to eradicate poverty from country, it has to be removed first from big states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Modi cited the example of Madhya Pradesh to highlight the efficiency of BJP rule. "Madhya Pradesh was considered a Bimaru state. But the people of MP gave BJP a chance. The state government there, led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has transformed the state. Today, Madhya Pradesh is a shining example of efficiency," he added. PTI SAB SMI SKC RT

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Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 4

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh was on an inauguration spree today at Sunni in his own home Assembly segment of Shimla rural, dedicating Rs 1.83-crore new science block building of government senior secondary school, Sunni, hospital quarters and opened cooperative bank and other projects to people.

The Chief Minister also inaugurated a newly constructed building of police station, completed with an outlay of Rs 71.63 lakh, and type-IV quarters of the Civil Hospital. He opened the renovated premises of the Himachal Pradesh State Co-operative and new branch of the bank at Jalog online from Sunni branch, which is the 219th branch of the bank in the state.

The Chief Minister inaugurated a branch of Rural Development Bank and laid the foundation stone of a nagar panchayat building, to cost Rs 70 lakh, at Sunni.

Virbhadra distributed wheel chairs and stretchers at the Civil Hospital and track suits donated by State Bank of India to all children of Bal Ashram, Sunni. He dedicated two coolers and two water purifiers donated by SBI to Government Senior Secondary School, Sunni.

Addressing a gathering, he announced upgrade and refurbishment of the school stadium of GSSS, Sunni, and directed the co-operative bank to install a water cooler in Bal Ashram.

The Chief Minister listed development works done in Shimla rural assembly segment in the last four years.

He said the bank had hi-tech and ultra modern facilities, fulfilling a long-pending demand of the people of the area. The Chief Minister congratulated bank chairman Harsh Mahajan for opening maximum branches of the bank in rural areas and making record profit.

Mahajan said the bank had received permission from the RBI to open 22 new branches and two extension counters and all the branches, barring a few, would be opened in far-flung and rural areas of the state.
Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 4

Ultrasound machines will now have a tracker which will monitor and record every click of the machine to check female foeticide, the reason behind the declining child sex ratio (especially in the border districts).

To begin with, trackers will be put on the ultrasound machines in three border districts of Una, Kangra and Hamirpur, where the situation is more grim.

It will be a pilot project, which will be later extended to all districts in a phased manner. The declining child sex ratio, especially in the areas bordering Punjab and Haryana, is a constant cause of worry for the state government.

We will soon be going ahead with the tracker installation as we are clear that anyone resorting to illegal means to abort a female foetus will not be spared, said Kaul Singh Thakur, Health and Family Welfare Minister. He revealed that some doctors from the department had already undergone training at Indore to use these trackers and keep record of the machine.

The cost for installing one machine will work out to be about Rs 30,000. In case of a government hospital ultrasound machine, the total cost will be borne by the Health Department and in case of the private sector, the cost will be shared. The experiment was started by the Madhya Pradesh Government to keep a check on the declining child sex ratio despite objection by private clinics.

There are a total of 258 ultrasound machines operating in Himachal  86 in government hospitals and health institutions. The shortage of radiologists has resulted in about a dozen ultrasound machines in government hospitals being non-operational.

The child sex ratio is the lowest in Una district with Haroli having the lowest percentage. The easy availability of ultrasound facility in Hoshiarpur, Nangal, Ropar, Pathankot and Panchkula areas in Punjab and Haryana has led to the termination of female foetus easily. Health officials from Himachal, Punjab and Haryana have now joined hands to ensure that that there is a check on the illegal activity and strict action is taken under the PNDT Act.

The officials pointed out that rather than waiting for the census, they were collecting data from the health officials annually so as to have the block-wise child sex ratio figure and special emphasis could be laid on the 20 blocks with the lowest ratio.
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 4

The newly appointed Northern Command chief has asked soldiers to remain alert along the Line of Control for any eventuality. He also urged the soldiers to maintain pressure on militant groups in the Valley.

On his maiden visit to the Valley just a couple of days after taking over the reins of the Udhampur-based Northern Command, Lt Gen Devraj Anbu reviewed the security along the LoC and hinterland.

The Northern Command chief arrived in Srinagar yesterday for a two-day tour, an Army spokesman said.

In Srinagar, Lt General Anbu was briefed by Chinar Corps Commander Lt Gen JS Sandhu on the overall security situation and major operational, logistical and administrative aspects pertaining to the 15 Corps.

During his two-day visit, Lt General Anbu visited the frontier areas of Baramulla, Uri and Kupwara where he was briefed by the GOCs of Baramulla and Kupwara divisions and other local commanders on all measures taken by the Army along the LoC to rebuff any misadventure from across, the spokesman said.

During his interaction with officers and men on the ground, the Northern Command chief lauded their high levels of operational preparedness, vigil and morale and exhorted them to remain alert for any eventuality, the spokesman added.

The General Officer Command-in-Chief also visited the hinterland formations at Sharifabad and Awantipora where he was given an account of the ground situation.

The Commander urged all to sustain the pressure on all terrorist groups operating in the Valley and also to continue with the humanitarian initiatives to help the civil administration in alleviating the problems of the people. He appreciated the synergy being maintained amongst all security agencies which, he said, was the most critical aspect of counter-terrorist operations, the spokesman said.

Lt General Anbu assumed the charge of the Northern Command on December 1.
Arun Joshi

Many security experts have been scratching their heads and drawing fancy conclusions that Pakistan-based groups attacked the Nagrota army unit on November 28. Sure enough, Pakistan-based groups, whether Jaish-e-Mohammad or Lashkar-e-Toiba, were behind the attack. The style of the attack and the consequences that the attackers left behind pointed towards that only. That is the easiest armchair conclusion from the attack site by the armchair experts, who perhaps visited Kashmir as sponsored tourists at one point or the other.

It was a little surprising when Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar spoke about the scope for improvement in security as some sort of lethargy had set in over a period of time.

Had any of the ordinary mortals suggested that, even remotely, his patriotic credentials would have been shred to pieces. When the truth is spoken, it should be heard. That would help in devising a proper and effective response. So far that has been missing.

Where was the lethargy on the part of the men who fought terrorists at an Army unit in Nagrota, or anywhere else?

The Nagrota attack told us a story of the absence of some vigil somewhere, especially after the September 18 attack at an Army base in Uri, in which 20 soldiers lost their lives. The commanders hate to listen to the term security lapse.

The Army can never go wrong anywhere at any point of time.

The laxity lay in the bureaucratic set-up in New Delhi. It did not move at all on a security audit report sent from Jammu and Kashmir.

The government had sent a report by the Multi-Disciplinary Agency team, constituted on January 15, to undertake a complete security audit of all vital establishments and installations in Jammu and Kashmir. The panel was to complete this task by January 21. And it did meet the deadline.

The reference point was the early January attack at the Air Force base in Pathankot, Punjab, less than 5 km from the

border of this state as the crow flies.

It was an important decision for multiple reasons: one, it concerned the most sensitive border state in the country battered by Pakistan-sponsored terrorism for over 26 years. This is another matter that former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah squarely blamed New Delhi for creating a political issue in Kashmir by breaking promises over decades. According to him, Pakistan neither invented nor created this issue. He has taken the reference of the current unrest, but he has ignored how Pakistan hailed militant leader Burhan Wani, who died in an encounter as a martyr. A black day was observed there on July 20. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had described him in his address at the United Nations General Assembly as a young leader of Kashmir who was brutally murdered by the Indian forces.

Moreover, Omar contradicted what he had stated at New York University, where he had blamed Pakistan for exporting arms, ammunition and militants into the Indian part of Kashmir.

Secondly, Kashmir has never seen real peace since 1947  after Pakistan tribesmen invaded the state with clear assistance and support of the Pakistani army. Thirdly, the state has witnessed a series fidayeen attacks on Jammu- Pathankot highway since 2001. Combined with drug trafficking and arms smuggling, the state is faced with multiple challenges.

But the laxity listed in the report was never addressed by the quarters concerned. So why blame lethargy when it comes to Nagrota alone.
Amarjot Kaur

From the top popularity ratings of Binaca Geetmala to an era that defines music by the number of likes on YouTube, Anandji, 86, of Bollywoods famous music composer duo Kalyanji-Anandji has a rather interesting take on the evolution of Bollywood music. At Hotel Hyatt Regency, to be a part of Three Legends By Vibrations Group at the Tagore Theatre on Sunday, the veteran music composer said that he is visiting the city for the third time. While many his age would flinch at the terribly repetitive, but a ceremonious question about their take on present Bollywood music, Anandji aced it with his witty one-liners and anecdotes which elaborated on the now-and-then version of Bollywood. Of present-day songs in Bollywood, he says, These days everybody is interested in gimmicks, which pretty much are a reflection of a trend that is repetitive in nature, and not much attention is paid to the content of the songs. Perhaps that is why most of the songs made these days have a shelf life of a week or so.

The basic item

Considering that item numbers that objectify women is a continuing trend that became more direct, popular, and in-your-face with songs like Munni Badnam and Shiela ki Jawani, a mention of songs like Husan Ke Lakho Rang, Laila, and Aao Na Gale Lagao Na, finds Anandji defending his era all so fiercely, yet with a smile on his face. He says, The words in those songs were so subtle, they imply something, but not so directly as songs these days do.

Going global

Not many know, but Americas DJ Shadow in 1998 introduced to a young Western audience to Kalyanji Anandjis songs through an album titled Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars and Sitars and in 2005, The Black Eyed Peass Dont Phunk with My Heart used music pieces from two of their songs, Ae Naujawan from the 1972 film Apradh and Yeh Mera Dil from the 1978 film Don, which won the American hip-hop group a Grammy Award. When asked about the remix culture popularised by the west in the 90s and Bollywoods global reach, Anandji has his qualms about issues regarding copyrights and royalty. When Black Eyed Peas won Grammy for the song, they gave me both, credit and money for it. I feel that one cannot do anything about the monopolisation of music in Bollywood and the royalty issue too, but I hope that changes. I feel bad when people use my songs and remix them without giving me any money for it. Its like being a wife whose husband is liked by many women. Its complimenting, and threatening at the same time, he quips.

Of times gone by...

That Anandji composed songs for more than 150 Bollywood films, he did want to become a hero first. Oh! But I was short. In those days a hero had to be tall, but these days bollywoods accepting of heros like Aamir Khan and Salman Khan who are short. I guess I was born in the wrong era. However, I am glad that I chose music over acting, for we could operate from air-conditioned studios while actors cried foul shooting outdoors, he laughs.

Nevertheless, Anandji shared an interesting rapport with all actors and would often pull pranks on them. You know Dev Anand would have a his signature step injected in all songs, as did Shashi Kapoor, so out of fun both, Kishore and I though well give them songs that wont allow them to use their signature steps. So we gave Dev Anand a song called Nafrat Karne Wale, which was too plain and slow, and for Shashi Kapoor, we composed a song Kabhi Raat Din, where he couldnt even lift a hand, laughs Anandji.
Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 3

Demonetisation has brought the life of students, especially those staying in hostels, at a crossroad leading many of them to cut down their expenses.

Shivam, an engineering student living in a hostel, said managing routine financial affairs had become really difficult after the demonetisation. I have cut my expenses down to a great extend and have been spending only on the things of utmost importance, he said.

Gulkirat Kaur, a hosteller at PAU, said she was able to deposit the old currency with the bank, but could not withdraw the new one.Left with no other option, I have to ask my parents to get me the new currency. It is not possible for me to stand in long queues as I have to attend my classes at the university, she said.

Another hosteller from a local college said: We used to eat out during afternoons because the hostel mess is closed by the time we get free from our lectures. Now we have to rush to have our lunch since we cannot afford to spend much after demonetisation.
Simran Sodhi



Tribune News Service



Amritsar, December 4

The Heart of Asia (HOA) Conference on Sunday saw India and Afghanistan come together on the issue of terrorism. In a diplomatic victory for India, the Amritsar Declaration issued at the end of the conference named Pakistan-based terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), as grave threats to peace in the South Asian region.

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India had tried and failed to get these groups mentioned in the Goa Declaration issued at the end of the BRICS Summit in Goa.

Significantly, the much anticipated India-Pak pull aside on the sidelines of the conference did not happen but on the contrary, Afghanistan had some harsh and blunt words in store for Pakistans support of terrorism.

The day started on a bad note for Pakistan with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani lashing out at Pakistan even while Sartaj Aziz, Pakistans de-facto foreign minister was in attendance. Ghani snubbed a $500 million pledge from Pakistan for development projects in Afghanistan, saying Afghanistan 'needs aid to fight terrorism'.

We need to identify cross-border terrorism and a fund to combat terrorism. Pakistan has pledged $500m for Afghanistan's development. This amount can be spent to contain extremism," Ghani said as Aziz listened in.

Also read:

Pak media notes Modi-Aziz handshake in Amritsar

Aziz day early for Amritsar meet

"Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable... Some still provide sanctuary for terrorists. As a Taliban figure said recently, if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," Ghani said.

In contrast, when it came to talking about Indias support to Afghanistan, Ghani expressed his appreciation and said the relationship is based on shared values and beliefs.

India stood shoulder to shoulder with Afghanistan on the issue of terrorism and though Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not name Pakistan, his emphasis was very much in that direction.

Terrorism and externally-induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity, Modi said.

The PM went on to add that silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

While the snub from Afghanistan was out in the open for Pakistan, from India there was no great warmth or reciprocity for Pakistans desire for resumption in dialogue.

Officially, India maintained that there was no pull aside or bilateral between Aziz and National Security Adviser (NSA) on the sidelines of the conference. Sources, however, confirm that Aziz and Doval did shake hands and had a brief conversation during the HOA dinner Saturday.
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 4

The Heart of Asia (HOA) Conference today saw India and Afghanistan come together on the issue of terrorism. The conference adopted the Amritsar Resolution naming Pakistan-based terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), as grave threats to peace in region..

India had failed to get these groups mentioned in the Goa Declaration adopted at the end of the BRICS Summit in Goa in October this year. Significantly, the much anticipated India-Pakistan bilateral on the sidelines of the conference did not take place.

President Ashraf Ghani lashed out at Pakistan even as Sartaj Aziz, Pakistans de facto foreign minister, looked on. Ghani snubbed a $500-million pledge by Pakistan for development projects in Afghanistan, saying Afghanistan needs aid to fight terrorism.

He said they needed to identify cross-border terrorism and a fund to combat terrorism. Pakistan has pledged $500 million for Afghanistans development. This amount can be spent to contain extremism, Ghani said. Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year... Some still provide sanctuary to terrorists. As a Taliban figure said recently, if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldnt last a month, Ghani pointed out.

Appreciating Indias help, he said the relationship with the country was based on shared values and beliefs.

Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not name Pakistan, his emphasis was clearly in that direction. He said resolute action was needed not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them.

Asserting that terrorism and externally induced instability posed the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity, he went on to say that silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

Modi asked the international community to demonstrate a strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

Snubbed by Afghanistan, Pakistan did not find much warmth from India for its desire to resume dialogue. Officially, India maintained there was no pull-aside or bilateral between Aziz and National Security Adviser AK Doval. Sources said they did shake hands and had a brief conversation at the HOA dinner last night. The meet was attended by delegates from 45 countries and international organisations.
Chandigarh, December 4

One more soldier died in Saturdays ambush on a military convoy in Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday, taking the death toll in the incident to two.

The Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang is believed to have been behind the attack.

We believe it to be handiwork of Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang militants who have some presence in Tirap district, a defence spokesman said.

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One soldier died on Saturday. Eight more are wounded.

It was the third attack on security personnel in the area close to the border in the past 15 days. On November 19, a combined team of the NSCN-K and the United Liberation Front of Assam had carried out an ambush on Army personnel in Tinsukia district, killing three soldiers.

On November 26, the United National Liberation Front of Western South East Asia ambushed a group of 21 Para commandos in Manipur, injuring five.  Agencies
Amritsar, December 4

Pakistan today claimed that its Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz was not allowed to visit the Golden Temple and speak to Pakistani mediapersons at the hotel where he was staying, even as India said it was done due to security considerations.

Sources in the Pakistani High Commission said Aziz had planned to visit the Golden Temple but was not allowed citing security concerns.

Aziz, who arrived here last evening, wanted to interact with Pakistani mediapersons who accompanied him at the Radisson Blue hotel, the venue of the Heart of Asia conference, but was not given permission by security personnel, the sources said.

Indian government sources said the permission was not given considering his security.

"Security was very tight. Permission was not given due to security reasons. Security of our guests is paramount. India ensured no untoward incident took place," they said.

There was a tiff between Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit and security personnel at the hotel after they denied Pakistani journalists entry to the venue.

After security personnel denied permission for Aziz's interaction with the Pakistani media at the conference venue, the Pakistani High Commission planned the interaction at another hotel but that too was not allowed, the Pakistani High Commission sources said.

Later, Basit spoke to the Pakistani media. Aziz left for Pakistan by a special aircraft around 8 PM.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had visited the Golden Temple yesterday, while Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visited it today.

Apparently, the parents of Hamid Ansari, who is at present lodged in a jail in Pakistan, were waiting for a meeting with Aziz at the Golden Temple.

Mumbai-based Fauzia Ansari and her husband Nihal had come here, hoping to request Aziz to release their son from prison, who has already completed his jail term.

Hamid, an IT engineer and MBA degree holder, had gone to Kabul on November 4, 2012 from where he reached Pakistan allegedly to meet a Pakistani girl he had been in touch with through e-mails.  PTI
What you need to know about the Cooper at Wylie showdown Friday
With people in Bengaluru mostly avoiding to go for a haircut during November, small stand-alone salons are now ready to embrace the digital way provided there is seamless electricity 24X7.

By Nolan Pinto: Rahul and Aryan were glad when the month of November got over. After getting their salary, they immediately went for haircut. These youngsters fresh out of college and working in the BPO sector always go to their regular small stand-alone salons in their locality. Ever since demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1000 notes took place, they were in short supply of small change. Getting a haircut then was totally out of the question since they had to prioritize what was important.

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This is the case for many Bengalureans who wanted to get a haircut in November but could not since they were out of small change and salons also did not have change for Rs. 500 notes and some stopped accepting them as well. Rakesh, a small time hotelier India Today met was all smiles today. He tells us that his mother and wife shooed him out of the house with a Rs 100 note and told him to get a haircut and shave done. 'So after a month I am getting a haircut and shave and I am happy,' he said to us.

In the Central Business District, a small stand-alone salon that has been in existence for decades has suffered a 50 per cent drop in business. When the decision to scrap the old Rs 500 and 1000 notes was announced, many of their customers would come with the scrapped notes after getting a haircut and shave done for Rs 110. The barbers at the salon somehow managed to provide change but in a few days time, they too had no more left.

But for the bigger brands such as Bounce salon and spa in the city, business took a 25 per cent hit in spite of having card swipe machines. An employee on condition of anonymity said that their customers normally pay for smaller services in cash and this is where they found it difficult.

Subramanium who works in a stand-alone salon is all for demonetization and a cashless economy. But he has absolutely no idea how to use a card swipe machine and accept payments online. He says, "To do all this first there should be constant electricity supply. Bengaluru has a major power problem. If there is no electricity, will customers wait till it comes back? First let them rectify this and then everything will be possible."

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Washington, December 4

Days before his visit to India, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said on Sunday that the defence relationship between the world's two largest democracies had never been closer.

"The US-India defence relationship is the closest it's ever been. Through our strategic handshake  with America reaching west in the rebalance, 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 like never before," Carter, who would be in India next week, said in his address to the Regan National Defence Forum in Simi Valley, California.

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The outgoing US defence secretary's last overseas trip includes Japan, India, Israel, Bahrain, Italy and the UK.

"We also have a technological handshake  as the US-India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, or DTTI, grasps hands with Prime Minister Modi's Make in India campaign  that's helping our countries move toward more diverse co-development and co-production of weapons systems," he said.

As he begins his last overseas tour from the Asia Pacific region, Carter reflected on the rebalance strategy of President Barack Obama.

"It will ensure DoD continues to help provide the security necessary for that consequential region  which is home to nearly half the global population and nearly half the global economy  to remain a place where everyone can rise and prosper for decades to come," he said.

"That's been American policy and practice since the end of World War II more than 70 years ago. Regardless of what else was going on at home or in other parts of the world  during Democratic and Republican administrations, in times of surplus and deficit, war and peace  the United States has remained economically, politically, and militarily engaged in the Asia-Pacific," he said.

The US, he said, has long taken a principled and inclusive approach, and collaborated with a network of regional allies and partners to enable security and uphold important principles like resolving disputes peacefully; ensuring countries can make choices free from external coercion and intimidation; and preserving the freedom of overflight and navigation guaranteed by international law.

"Because we did so, out of the rubble of World War II, economic miracle after miracle has occurred. Think about it...first Japan, then Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia rose and prospered, and today, China and India are doing the same," he said.

That progress has produced incredible changes in the region: populations are growing, education has improved, freedom and self-determination have spread, economies have grown more interconnected, and military spending and cooperation are growing, he added.  PTI
Chennai, December 4

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has been put on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device by expert doctors and critical care specialists at Apollo Hospitals.

Dr Richard Beale, professor of intensive care medicine, from London was also consulted and he has concurred with the line of treatment by our cardiologists and pulmonologists, said Apollo Hospitals.

Doctor from the All-India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, will leave for Chennai tomorrow to assist in treatment.

Union Health Minister JP Nadda spoke to the Apollo Hospital chairman and inquired about the Tamil Nadu Chief Ministers health. In the meantime, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to state Governor C Vidyasagar Rao.

The Chief Minister was admitted to Apollo Hospital on September 22. On November 13, in an address to her party workers, Jayalalithaa said she had taken rebirth and she was waiting to resume her duties after complete recovery.

The AIADMK on November 19 tweeted Jayalalithaa had been shifted from the ICU to the normal ward. On November 17, AIADMK spokesperson C Ponnaiyan said that Amma, as she is popularly referred to by her party cadre, was healthy and absolutely fit to attend to her political and government activities.  ANI

Ammas birth

Jayalalithaa Jayaram was born on February 24, 1948, in Mysore as Komalavalli in a Tamil Iyengar family A native of Srirangam, Trichy, her parents were not rich; her father died when she was two years old. Her elder brother JayaKumar died in early 90's

Schooling

She studied at Bishop Cotton Girls' High School in Bangalore and later moved to Tamil Nadu and studied at Sacred Heart Matriculation School (popularly known as Church Park Presentation Convent) in Chennai. After matriculation, she was very keen on doing law. but dropped out

Stardom

She has acted in English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telgu, Malayalam movies and made her Bollywood debut through Izzat, in which she was paired opposite Dharmendra. She has acted in more than 100 films

Politics

She joined AIADMK and in 1984, became RS member. After MGR death in 1987; she won the elections to the Tamil Nadu Assembly in 1989. After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991, Jaya and the Congress joined hands, won and Jaya became CM

Leaders' reaction

Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery.  Pranab Mukherjee, President

I wish Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa completely recovers soon.  M Karunanidhi, DMK president

Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon.  Rahul Gandhi, Cong V-P

I desire that the intensive treatment being given to the Chief Minister yields fruit and that she recovers soon.  K Stalin, Tamil Nadu oppn leader

Very concerned about the health of Jayalalithaa Ji. Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her.  Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal CM

Feeling bad to know abt da critical condition of TN CM Selvi Jayalalitha. Praying for her speedy recovery and quick response 2 the treatment (sic).  M Venkaiah Naidu, union minister

Very upsetting news about Hon.CM of Tamil Nadu, Selvi.Jayalalitha suffering a cardiac arrest. Prayers for her speedy recovery.  Nirmala Sitharaman, union minister
Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 4

The process to select the Director of PGI in Chandigarh, Indias premier medical teaching and research institute, has come in for some serious questioning with concerns being raised over the propriety of shortlisting two of the three finalists.

Leading the questioning is none other than a senior member of the PGI institute body and Lok Sabha MP of the ruling NDA alliance Prem Singh Chandumajra, who has sought a review of the selection process citing lapses.

Among the three contenders for the top slot (in the order of merit) are Dr Anil Bhansali, Head of Endocrinology Department, PGI; Dr Meenu Singh, Professor, Paediatrics and Professor in charge of the Telemedicine Centre, PGI, and Dr Jagat Ram, Head of Department, Ophthalmology, PGI.

A major concern relates to the seniority of the shortlisted candidates. While Dr Jagat Ram is the seniormost among PGIs around 110 professors, Dr Bhansali is 27th and Dr Meenu Singh a distant 52nd. The panel of finalists which the PGI Directors search and selection committee approved and the institute body later ratified placed Dr Ram last and Dr Bhansali and Dr Singh in the first and second positions, respectively.

Earlier, during the selection process, the panel had eliminated out of contention two senior PGI professors Digamber Behera and Arvind Rajvanshi, who, according to the institutes seniority enlisting, are higher than even the three finalists.

The Health Ministry, when contacted, said the PGI Directors selection was not based on seniority and merit and suitability were the only criteria. PGI doctors, however, mention how prior to 2011 when Dr YK Chawla was appointed Director, seniority always carried a premium in selections and all institute heads were from among the seniormost faculty.

Interviews for PGI Director were introduced in 2011, to the surprise of many considering that no interviews have been held to date for the selection of Directors of AIIMS.

Asked why the selection criteria for heads of AIIMS and PGI, both set up under Acts of Parliament, should differ, a ministry official said as per the Department of Personnel and Training guidelines, a search and selection committee has to be set up to select the directors of both these autonomous institutions and this panel is free to evolve its own selection criteria. We respect the committees wisdom, said the official.

He gave the same reason (of the committees freedom) to answer why the PGI Directors selection committee this year decided to drop the practice of marking applicants as against 2011 when applicants were granted weightage during interviews.

This years selections were purely based on a personal interview with no marking. Many applicants saw this omission as a major compromise on objectivity.

The PGI Directors search panel this year has also been challenged for its lack of representation to an SC/ST member. In its reply to the National SC Commission which the PGI SC/ST Association has petitioned, Ministry Director Rabindra Prasad argues that the search and selection committee was set up by the PGI institute body as per procedures under the PGI Act.

Ministry officials further argue that no SC/ST members representation is required in a search committee posts with less than 10 vacancies. The Tribune, however, has access to a June 4, 2010 DoPT circular which says that such representation is desirable if not mandatory.

There are other concerns regarding the PGI Directors search and selection committee this year. Chaired by Health Secretary CK Mishra, the committee has former DG, ICMR, VM Katoch and a privately practising heart specialist, Shridhar Dwivedi, among members.

Minutes of the panels meeting held in Delhi on October 20 to interview 26 candidates for the post reveal that Dr Katoch had nominated Dr VK Sharma, Head, Dermatology, AIIMS, for the job. Though the minutes confirm that Dr Katoch recused himself from the interview of this candidate, eyebrows are being raised about why it was absolutely necessary to have Dr Katoch on the panel.

Asked if it would not have been fit for Dr Katoch to decline the search panel membership, a ministry official said, There is no such requirement. When the nomination happened, Dr Katoch didnt know he would be invited to the committee. Theres no cause for worry since the said applicant has not been shortlisted.

That said, ethical concerns remain. DoPTs July 30, 2007 circular encourages infusion of new experts on selection panels and discourages repetitions. The circular says, The tendency to rely on the same experts for recruitments over long periods should be avoided. Dr VM Katoch was also a member of the search committee which selected YK Chawla as the PGI Director in 2011.

Questions are also being asked in the medical fraternity about whether Dr Shridhar Dwivedi is senior enough to select the PGI Director, a post equivalent to Secretary, Government of India. The DoPT circular says members of committees should ideally be either equal to or above the rank for which the selection is being made. Dwivedi was Dean at the University College of Medical Sciences, a Delhi government institute, and would naturally have a lower grade pay than PGI Director. The ministry, however, cites his eminence for his presence on the panel.

Now, about the selection process. Applicants for the PGI Directors post received two communications. The first asked them to be present at the Health Ministry headquarters in Delhi from 2.30 pm onwards on October 20. The second, two days later, said applicants should also prepare five slides (two on personal achievements and three on their vision for PGI).

This shows the selection committee was experimenting with the selection criteria. They interviewed 26 applicants between 3 pm and 9 pm that day. Many of us were asked to rush our presentations. One wonders how, in the absence of objective criteria, the committee could have fairly evaluated 26 candidates merely on their presentations in a span of six hours! wonders one of the candidates.

Eventually, the search committee approved a panel of three candidates which the PGI institute body ratified on November 3. The panel stands referred to the Appointments Committee of Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister for final selection.

Serious lapses have meanwhile come back to haunt the selection process, as also flagged by Chandumajra in his letter to the PMO and Health Minister JP Nadda.

Picture this: PGI Directors recruitment rules require an extensive administrative experience in running an institution as head or running a department as head. Dr Meenu Singh, a finalist, is not HoD. She is only Professor in charge of Telemedicine Centre, PGI, which is not a department. Ministry officials, however, insist, Dr Singh is eligible. They dont explain how.

The first finalist Dr Anil Bhansali was issued an advisory note in 2006 following a vigilance inquiry which established that he had purchased an instrument (CT Status Instrument) from Bayer Diagnostic India and allowed its use in his department lab while being HoD. The case was closed but its unclear if the vigilance advisory note to Dr Bhansali was mentioned in his ACC proforma mandated to be filled for an applicant. The proforma requires past records of vigilance penalties to be mentioned even if cases have been closed.

Secondly, Dr Bhansali was among the authors of a 2013 research paper which attracted allegations of unethical practice. Allegations were brought by a PGI doctor and the PGI ethics committee held one of the authors Pinaki Dutta, Dr Bhansalis junior in the Endocrinology Department, guilty. Dr Bhansali happened to be corresponding author of this paper published in the journal Endocrine.

Again, in May last year, another PGI doctor Nandita Kakker complained to the then Dean Savita Malhotra against unethical research practices. She alleged that authors of a paper published in the European Journal of Endocrinology concocted the results. Among these authors were Dr Bhansali and Dr Dutta. Nothing has been established in this complaint so far. Kakkers complaint read, Ive been part of unethical research practice without my knowledge. This paper was published without my knowledge but with my name in it... Entire result is concocted.

When contacted, Dr Bhansali admitted to the vigilance inquiry saying it was only about a procedural and not a financial lapse. The complaint was against HoD, Endocrinology, and not against me. I happened to be HoD. It was about the department not securing the Directors permission to purchase a certain instrument. It was procedural, nor financial. After that inquiry, I became HoD.

The Ministry said Dr Bhansali had received vigilance clearance and was therefore called for the interview. On allegations of research fraud, Dr Bhansali told TNS, There are none against me.

It remains to be seen who is chosen as the PGI head.

Dr Jagat Ram has the distinction of receiving 24 awards, 11 of them international. Dr Bhansali, for his part, led the upgradation of the PGI Endocrinology Lab to a state-of-the-art facility which makes Rs 4 crore annually. He led the establishment of the diabetic foot lab, besides stretching registration timings for patients to 4 pm.

Dr Meenu Singh was briefly heading The National Institute of Nursing Education at PGI. Though not head of Pediatrics, she leads two units: paediatric pulmonology and infectious diseases. She also heads the ICMR Advanced Centre for evidence based child health.

Major concerns & Health Ministry responses
Islamabad, December 4

Pakistans media on Sunday took note of the handshake and exchange of niceties between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan prime minister's advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz at Amritsar amid deadly border skirmishes and rhetoric.

Aziz reached Amritsar last evening to attend the Heart of Asia conference, instead of this morning apparently to dodge early morning fog.

The change of schedule provided a subtle opportunity for a handshake and exchange of pleasantries with Modi who hosted a banquet for the delegates.

The Express Tribunes front-page headline said, Aziz-Modi handshake sets off media frenzy", and wrote under it: "After months of war rhetoric and deadly border skirmishes, Indian and Pakistani officials exchanged niceties and set the media abuzz on Saturday".

"With a broad smile on his face, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook hands with Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz at a banquet he had hosted for the participants of the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar," the article said.

The paper reported that Modi also asked about the health of his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif who had recently undergone open-heart surgery in a London hospital.

Aziz conveyed "good wishes" to the Indian leader on behalf of Sharif.

The Dawn reported that Aziz was received by Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit and the joint secretary of Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

"Sartaj Aziz also sent a bouquet to Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at her residence, extending his sincere good wishes for her full and speedy recovery," it said.

The News International reported that Modi shook hands with Aziz and inquired after the well being of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from him.

"Aziz said Nawaz Sharif is well and he has also expressed good wishes for him," it further reported.

It also reported that Aziz sent a bouquet to Swaraj at her residence extending good wishes for her speedy recovery. Pakistan was unanimous that no meeting between Pakistani and Indian officials on the sidelines was expected due to the ongoing bilateral tension.

"Contrary to Indian media reports, no actual talks took place during the banquet. Nonetheless, the customary handshake after months of belligerence and hostilities set off media frenzy in both countries," according to the Express Tribune.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained following the Uri terror attack in September that killed 19 Indian soldiers.  PTI
New Delhi, December 4

The government probe into the recent killing of Sikh youth Rawail Singh in Afghanistans Jalalabad has hinted at personal rivalry as the cause for the murder.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj gave this information in a recent letter to BJP national vice-president Avinash Rai Khanna, who had requested her for a probe into the murder. Khanna shared the letter with The Tribune, which had earlier highlighted the case.

Swaraj said the government was aware of a number of incidents against Sikhs and other minority communities in Afghanistan and was taking them up with the Afghan government. The government is trying to frame policies in such a manner as to offer maximum support to such communities should they choose to relocate to India, she said in the letter.

Replying to Khanna, Swaraj said: Rawails killing initially looked like a case of militant action but was later found to be the result of a quarrel with another Sikh man Charanjit Singh. Rawail had objections to Charanjits association to an Afghan national police guard, Khan Mohammad. On the day of the murder, Khan Mohammad had come to Rawails house and after an altercation took him away in a vehicle.

The ministers letter adds that Rawail was shot dead by Khan Mohammad who later dumped his body about 15 km from Jalalabad city.  TNS
Amritsar, December 4

The holy city of Amritsar has turned into a fortress as top dignitaries are attending the two-day Heart of Asia conference here, with several roads remaining blocked with police barricades and the traffic being diverted from alternative routes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani arrived here last evening to inaugurate the Conference.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

There was a thick security blanket on all the VVIP routes, including Hyatt hotel at G T Road, where the Afghanistan President is staying, and Circular Road where Modi is staying at Taj hotel. Hotel Radisson, the venue of HOA conference, is located on Airport Road. All these roads were blocked for movement of the general public.

Traffic jams at many places in the city was reported last night as people got stuck up owing to the VVIP movement on several routes.

Simranjit Singh, a timber merchant said, With some dignitaries visiting Golden Temple, normal traffic was suspended for general public which caused inconvenience to many.

Several business establishments on the route had to close in the evening yesterday for more than three hours due to security point of view. Even all link roads and junctions were blocked and traffic was badly affected. Visitors to the historic Jallianwalla Bagh also faced barricades on roads leading to these locations.  PTI
Manu Punjabi is expected to return to the Bigg Boss 10 house after a couple of days, according to his fiancee Priya Saini.

By India Today Web Desk: Manu Punjabi, who left the Bigg Boss house on Friday late night after his mother's demise, will be back to the show after a couple of days, reports The Times of India.

Manu's mother Sujata Punjabi, who was staying with Manu's brother Amar Punjabi in Jodhpur and was in her 70s, suffered a cardiac arrest on Friday night and was declared brought dead.

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Also read: Bigg Boss 10 Weekend Ka Vaar: Mona and Manu's real life partners question their relationship on the show

Priya came to know about the tragic incident at around midnight--after coming back from the shoot of Weekend Ka Vaar episode. She then requested the makers to let Manu come out, so that they could be with their family in Jodhpur. "It's a difficult time for us, especially for Manu, as he was extremely close to his mother," she told the daily.

Priya, however, confirmed Manu's return to the BB 10 house after a couple of days. "Yes, he would be returning after few days."

Also read: BB 10 contestant Manu Punjabi is OUT of the house, and the reason of his exit is really sad!

In the last season, Keith Sequeira also left the house after his brother's death, but later joined the housemates after a couple of days.

May god give strength to Manu and his family to cope with the loss.

--- ENDS ---
Tribune News Service

Bamiyal (Pathankot), Dec 3

Border Security Force personnel foiled an intrusion bid after it shot dead a Pakistani intruder near the Dinda border out post (BoP) in Bamiyal sector of forward areas of Pathankot district.

The intruder was killed after he came close to the border fencing on the Indian side and did not heed to warnings. The area was close to the Punjab-Jammu and Kashmir border, said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rakesh Kaushal.

The incident is being co-related to yesterdays search operation after a man had allegedly spotted a group of militants in Pathankot, just near the HP-Punjab border.

1-kg narcotics seized

Chandigarh: The BSF on Saturday seized a packet of a substance suspected to be heroin from a field near the International Border under the Barreke border outpost area in Ferozepur sector. Based on specific information regarding concealment of narcotics in fields ahead of the fence near the International Border a special search operation was carried out, he said.  PTI
Gurdeep Mann

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 4

Kulwinder Kaur, a 24-year-old orchestra dancer married barely 15 months ago, was shot dead during celebratory firing by a drunk baraati  believed to be the son of a commission agent  at a marriage hall in Maur Mandi late last night, with a bullet piercing her right temple.

A wailing Bittu Kumar, the deceaseds husband and a sound artiste, said he saw a man pull the trigger and the gun falling from his hands.

A three-minute video of the function shows Kulwinder joining her colleagues on stage barely a minute before being shot.

Kulwinders relatives, who rushed to Maur Mandi, were told by the police that the body had been shifted to a Talwandi Sabo hospital. When we reached Talwandi Sabo, we were told the body was at Maur hospital. We returned to Maur only to be told the body was lying at the Bathinda Civil Hospital, said a bewildered Bittu.

Alleging harassment, he said the police had yet to arrest the accused person. They claim they are too busy making security arrangements ahead of the Sarbat Khalsa and for the Deputy CM's visit, he said.

Angry with the police, the deceaseds relatives blocked the Bathinda-Goniana road outside the Bathinda Civil Hospital for an hour. Local orchestra groups too held a protest.

A case has been registered.
Gurdeep Singh Mann

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 4

Despite a ban on carrying firearms in marriage palaces, a 24-year-old orchestra dancer was allegedly shot dead by an drunk man at Ashirwad marriage palace, Maur Mandi, in the district late on Saturday night.

A video of the incident that was posted on social media sites shows a man who is dancing and holding a .12-bore rifle fires in the air when a bullet pierces through the head of the dancer, indentified as Kulwinder Kaur.

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Meanwhile, police said they have registered a case against four persons, including two friends of the accused and the owner of the banquet hall.

The accused is on the run. We are trying to trace him and have registered a case under IPC's Section 302, a police official said.

Three dancers were on the stage and Kulwinder Kaur had joined them a minute before she collapsed after being hit by the gun shot.

The video, which revealed the face of the man who fired the shot, also showed children dancing beside another man who continuously fired with a revolver.

Various orchestra groups in Bathinda held a protest and blocked the road outside the Bathinda Civil Hospital on Sunday in protest against the incident.  With ANI inputs
Chandigarh: The Punjab Congress has expressed concern over ECs warning of more drugs and liquor in the state polls in the wake of demonetisation. Election Commissioner OP Rawat has warned that cash might replace liquor, drugs and gold in the Assembly elections. It is a serious matter, said PPCC leaders Preneet Kaur, Brahm Mohindra and Nirmal Singh. Only the imposition of the Presidents Rule in the state could ensure free and fair elections, they said, urging the EC to immediate steps on the matter. tns
Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 3

Nearly a month since the governments demonetisation drive, the citys Industrial Estate, Industrial Focal Point and several other areas are witnessing signs of cash stress not seen by most industrialists before.

Industrial production in bicycle and bicycle parts, hosiery, hand tools and the auto component industry is down by 50-70 per cent. Consequently, labour is being laid off in large numbers.

Migrant labourers pack their bags, courtesy demonetisation

Amritsar:

Construction workers, painters out of job

Move on currency hits rural economy hard, labour denied payments

The workers are either thronging labour mandis in search of minor contractual jobs or returning home. The labour rush at the railway station and the bus halt near Sangeet Cinema in the Industrial Area is proof.

On Friday, leading bicycle manufacturer Seth Industrial Corporation laid off 700 daily-wagers. The situation is grim. I have cut down production by 70 per cent. There are no buyers and no backflow of money from retail sales. My monthly salary bill is Rs 1 crore. The government allows me to withdraw only Rs 50,000 a week, which translates into Rs 2 lakh a month. It is a hassle to even get this amount. The labourers wont accept old currency notes. So, we have no option but to relieve the labour employed on a temporary basis, says KK Seth, owner of the corporation and chairman, Federation of Industrial and Commercial Organisations.

SC Ralhan, a prominent hand-tool manufacturer, says they cant force the labourers to open bank accounts. Sixty per cent of the workforce is illiterate and does not want to open accounts. Since no money is available and labour unrest is simmering, many units are relieving the daily-wagers. For those retained to keep the production going, we are making arrangements for ration on credit, he says. Estimates show that the bicycle industry and the steel industry have cut down production by 70%, the hosiery and textile by almost 60% and the hand tools and auto parts by 40%. With salaries to be paid on the seventh, the industry is quickly relieving temporary employees.

Known for its resilience  be it post the economic meltdown of 2008 or the flight of industry to tax-exempt hill states  the cash crunch may either see a new business model taking shape, with all transactions accounted for, or it may simply herald the demise of thousands of medium, small and mini enterprises (MSMEs).

Badish Jindal, president of the Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association, says small industries with a turnover of less than Rs 10 lakh were working through cash transactions and have now been forced to shut shop. Narinder Miglani, who is in hosiery business, says 70-80% of production has been cut in 13,000 hosiery units as there are no fresh orders.
Deepti Verma

Tribune News Service

Dera Baba Nanak, December 4

December 5 and 6 are special days for the Indian Army and Dera Baba Nanak (DBN), but special is not exactly what this strategic border town in Gurdaspur district feels 45 years after those Battle Honour days in 1971.

It was on the night of December 5, 1971, that the Armys Dera Baba Nanak Brigade was ordered to capture a crucial bridge to deny a launch pad to the Pakistan army. It met with heavy resistance during the offensive in the enemy territory, but the bridge was captured by 5.15 am. As a tribute to the valour displayed (10 soldiers were martyred), Dera Baba Nanak Day is observed on the two days every year.

A border fence has come up since, there are new fortifications, but like the fog that hangs heavy over the agricultural fields, theres a heavy feeling one gets in the area.

It is reflected in the conversation of a small crowd on a mound right next to the border fencing. Can you see Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara? Wheres the durbeen (binoculars)? a tourist asks. There is a collective guffaw when the Border Security Force guard says, It was stolen a few days ago. They strain their eyes for a glimpse of the shrine across the border, but the fog makes the task difficult.

The way to the darshan sthal is through a BSF check-post, where each visitor is required to register before being allowed to go about a kilometre further down.

Devotees gather at the raised platform  dedicated to the sangat by the BSF in 2008  to catch a glimpse of the place associated with the first Sikh Guru in what is now Pakistan through a pair of binoculars, which is missing. A high observation post is manned by BSF men nearby. Diagonally opposite is a similar post, with a Pakistani flag fluttering over it.

A local resident points to a passage leading to the other side of the border towards Kartarpur Sahib, about 4 km away. Eh nai khulna chaahe jehri marzi government aajave (This corridor wont open no matter which government comes), he says.

This reality of being so close and yet so far is an issue that rankles for the faithful, but Dera Baba Nanak also seems to have accumulated over the years a lack of faith in the States desire to bring change. And that perhaps has resulted in complacency that could be amusing to a visitor  like the sight of a motorcycle left idling in a corner of a street with a strange contraption attached at the back. It can ferry anything and everything: cauliflower in dozens, kids, some men or whatever they can pick as a utility.

At the core, however, is a wryness that brings out the emptiness of the place  in the routine of its residents deprived of good roads, a college, adequate transport facilities, in shops that continue to sell war souvenirs, plastic dolls and toy guns, rarely seen in semi-urban villages.

Yet, like several residents, Gurpreet Kaur comes up with this: Rabb da ditta sabb kuchch hai (God has given us everything). Theyve stopped complaining; it has no meaning, elections or no elections.

Today, the town revels in its bounty of cauliflower and a good paddy season. Allow us unhindered access to Kartarpur Sahib and give us a good school and college, well manage the rest, says a youth, pillion-riding on a motorbike that also ferries vegetables. Dera Baba Nanak awaits that day.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 4

The Shiromani Akali Dal on Sunday announced a list of four candidates for the Punjab Assembly elections. With these four candidates SAD has announced 82 candidates in two lists so far and now just 12 of the total 94 candidates  that the party will field  are left.

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As per the list, MLA from Baba Bakala Manjit Singh Manna will be partys candidate from Sri Hargobindpur.

Chief Parliamentary Secretary Des Raj Dhugga won from this constituency in the last elections. Talking to The Tribune, Dhugga said he will contest as an Independent and called it an act of suppressing the Dalit leaders. He also alleged that Cabinet minister Bikram Singh Majithia was instrumental in denying him ticket.

Agriculture Minister Tota Singhs son Barjinder Singh aka Makhan Brar will contest from Moga. He was president of the Moga Municipal Council. He also served as chairman of Punjab Health Systems Corporation.

Last time, the seat was won by Joginder Pal Jain, who had won it on a Congress ticket later joined Akali Dal and again won the seat in a by-election. Jain had already announced that he wont contest the coming Assembly elections.

Dr Dalbir Singh Verka will be SAD nominee from Jandiala Guru. He is an MBBS doctor and also served as Commissioner of Right to Service Commission.

Malkit Singh has been fielded from Baba Bakala.

In the seat-sharing agreement between SAD and BJP, Akali Dal contests from 94 seats and BJP from 23 seats.
Manas Dasgupta in Ahmedabad

Gujarat farmers are keeping their fingers crossed. After 20 days of no banking since district central co-operative banks were barred from transacting any business, they still dont know when the central government-promised loan from NABARD will trickle down. Their rabi crop sowing is already delayed by about a fortnight. When will the crops be sown and how will the farmers and their cattle survive all these days, asks Gujarat Khedut Samaj secretary Sagar Rabari.

Gujarats farming community is probably the worst hit because the state has a strong network of co-operatives. These banks play a very important role in rural areas where over half of the farmers are account holders in co-operative banks.

About 15-20% farmers in the state still do not have any bank account and deal only in cash. They will have to wait till the cash reaches the near pre-demonetization level.

Senior BJP leaders, including the one-time close aide of PM Modi and the chairman of the National Federation of State Co-operative Banks Dillip Sanghani has already expressed his anger. And so has Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani. Yet the Reserve Bank of India has refused to reverse its order banning these banks from either exchanging or depositing now-defunct notes. The account holders are allowed to withdraw from their accounts but that is only in name, no cash has reached the rural co-operative banks since the demonetization. Last week Sanghani met Modi in Delhi informing him about the farmers woes. And Rupani personally took up the matter with finance minister Arun Jaitley and the RBI governor Urjit Patel, but nothing has happened.

The farmers could not clear the old loan as they have mostly the defunct notes, the manager of a co-operative bank pointed out. They are in a fix over meeting their daily household expenses, including arranging fodder for their cattle. We also do not know when the money sanctioned by NABARD will reach the villages, said a bank manager.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, December 4

The media to be effective should be inclusive, represent diversity of thoughts and work to promote rights of minority communities. These views were expressed by speakers at a workshop on the Role of NGOs, Media and Judiciary in protecting and promoting Minority Rights organised by the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK) with the support of the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs at Saharanpur on Saturday. Fifty participants, including mediapersons, representatives of Supreme Court, policymakers, academicians, practitioners, civil society organisations and representatives from communities, attended the workshop.

Dr Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor of Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad, presented a paper. He stated in the paper that Collective rights are needed to establish the preconditions of not only individual right to culture, but also individual right to live with dignity and respect in the way the concept of recognition defines respect.

Dr Yogesh Pratap Singh, Deputy Registrar, Supreme Court of India, stressed the role of media in the promotion of the rights of minorities. He said, To be effective, journalism must be inclusive and reflect the composition, concerns and views of the whole community, and be accountable. Hence, journalists should develop sources which represent the diversity of thought, feeling and experience of the people they serve.

Chairperson NGO PRAGATI and advocate Pallavi Bahuguna said, There is need of generating awareness among the minorities. Avdhash Kaushal, chairperson of RLEK, said, It is essential for every individual to respect and abide by the rights of the minorities so that society develops in a holistic manner.

Journalist Shahid Zubedi said, Serious homework should be done while reporting about minorities. It is the duty of the media to be independent and fair. Such discussions on the rights of the minorities can only be organised in India as our Constitution gives us independence to voice our concerns and talk freely. This cannot happen in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

Assistant Registrar (Research) Dr Nachiketa Mittal said, Minority rights are very pluralist in nature. They have a multi-dimensional approach. Within religious minorities there are pockets that need to be addressed. There are many issues social, economic and political in nature that need to be addressed.

The main objective of the workshop was to promote a dialogue and discussion on the issue of minority rights and how relevant actors could effectively partake in the process of protecting and promoting the rights of the minorities.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, December 4

The Uttarakhand Congress has decided to counter the disinformation campaign launched by the BJP against the government. Central BJP leaders and Union government ministers had been campaigning extensively in the state ahead of the Assembly elections.

The policy planning cell of the Congress would lauch an elaborate campaign to blunt the onslaught of the BJP and educate people at the grass-roots level about the achievements of the state government.

Suryakant Dhasmana, senior vice-president and chairman of the policy planning cell of the Congress, stated this while addressing mediapersons here yesterday. He said, The BJP has embarked upon a malicious campaign of slander and misinformation against the government.

He alleged that the Central government ministers were touring the state and trying to defame the state government. The party policy planning cell would train the grass-roots party workers in both Garhwal and Kumaon to counter the slanderous campaign of the BJP.

After the training of block-level workers, two regional-level workshops would be held in both regions for office-bearers and party spokespersons. The dates of these programmes would be announced in consultation with party president Kishore Upadhyay, he said.

Dhasmana said the BJP had launched a negative campaign but the Congress would highlight the achievements of the government. He asked BJP leaders to explain the contribution of the Narendra Modi government to the reconstruction of Kedarnath, which he had claimed before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, or anything else that he (Modi) had done for Uttarakhand during his two-and-half-years rule.

Dhasmana added the BJP won all five Lok Sabha seats in the state but the NDA government still did nothing for Uttarakhand. Instead the Central government tried to hinder development by curtailing Central grants.

The Congress would highlight the failure of the demonetisation move, which has put common people in trouble while black money hoarders were going scot free. The common people in Uttarakhand would punish the BJP for its failure on all fronts, he added.
German beauty Elena Kazan has been voted out after spending just a week in the house.

By India Today Web Desk: German-Russian actress Elena Kazan got eliminated today after spending just a week in the Bigg Boss house. The Agent Vinod actress hardly had any presence on the show, and that could be the reason of her getting lesser votes than other nominated contestants.

Elena speaks fluent Hindi since she has travelled widely across India. She debuted in cinema with a Bengali movie called clerk opposite Prosenjit Chatterjee and went on to do movies like Agent Vinod, Gandhi to Hitler, Prague, Aasma among other projects.

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Also read: 5 things you should know about BB 10's wild card entry Elena Kazan

Among the nominated contestants, Bani Judge was the first to be declared safe on Saturday's Weekend Ka Vaar episode. The remaining contestants that were still in danger zone were-Elena Kazan, Rahul Dev and Jason Shah.

While Rahul Dev's strong fanbase must have saved him from elimination, Jason was clearly more popular than Elena. We feel Elena could have played better. We weren't expecting her to give up so easily in the Dome task, when she was pitted against Nitibha. Also, she was hardly seen interacting with others. Partly, because she was in the challenger's room all this while.

Bad luck, Elena! We hope to see you in more Bollywood movies now.

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BD Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, December 4

There are rumours that veteran Congress leader ND Tiwari and his son Rohit Shekhar may join the BJP in the absence of an assurance of party ticket from the Lal Kuan Assembly seat in the Assembly elections next year. This also means that efforts by Chief Minister Harish Rawat to bring the father-son duo around have come to a naught.

Rohit Shekhar is keen to claim the political legacy of his father in his native Kumaon region and wants to contest the coming Assembly poll from Lal Kuan where Tewari has a considerable support. Both had met party national president Sonia Gandhi but did not get any firm assurance about ticket.

There were rumours that they could join the BJP during the public rally of BJP national president Amit Shah in Kumaon on December 7.

In order to placate Tiwari and his son, Chief Minister Harish Rawat, who had been a bitter political rival of Tiwari, named Rohit Shekhar as one of the vice-presidents of tje Uttarakhand Swatanatra Sangram Senani Evam and Uttardhikarti Parishad (a body of freedom fighters and their next of kin).

Rohit Sekhar was not impressed by the decision and termed it as an attempt by the Chief Minister to fool them. He charged Harish Rawat with making fun of the veteran leader by offering a position without a government order (GO).

It is merely an effort to win brownie points, as the Chief Minister has issued the information to the media without issuing a government order and taking approval from me, as is the process the government follows in such cases, said Rohit Shekhar while speaking with mediapersons at Haldwani today.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister cautioned Tiwari and his son not to join the BJP as the opposition party only wants to exploit them for political purpose. Rohit Shekhar should be aware of the fate of former Union Cabinet minister KC Pant, who left the Congress to join the BJP and was humiliated in his last days of his life, he said in Haldwani.

Election game plan

There are rumours that ND Tiwari and his son Rohit Shekhar can join the BJP during the rally of BJP national president Amit Shah in Kumaon on December 7.

Both had met Congress president Sonia Gandhi but did not get any firm assurance about ticket from Lal Kuan.

Rohit Shekhar is not impressed with Harish Rawats decision to appoint him one of the vice-presidents of the Uttarakhand Swatantarta Sangram Senani Evam and Uttardhikarti Parishad.

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Santiago De Cuba, December 4

Fidel Castros ashes were buried alongside national heroes in the cradle of his revolution today, as Cuba opens a new era without the communist leader who ruled the island for decades. Capping a week of tributes and rallies, Castro was laid to rest near the mausoleum of 19th century independence icon Jose Marti and comrades of his rebellion in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba.

A small group of guests attended the ceremony, which was closed to the public, after a jeep pulled the cedar urn into the Santa Ifigenia cemetery as thousands lined the streets, chanting viva Fidel! There were no speeches. It was very simple. There were just the ashes that were interred, the family, the government and officials, French Environment Minister Segolene Royal said after the hour-long funeral. Castro died on November 25 at age 90.

Yesterday, his brother and successor, President Raul Castro led a massive, final rally in his brothers honour at Santiagos Revolution Plaza, leading the crowd in a pledge to uphold socialist ideals.  AFP
SANTIAGO (Cuba), December 3

President Raul Castro led tens of thousands of Cubans on Saturday in a pledge to defend the socialist legacy of his brother Fidel Castro, who died last week aged 90 and will be interred in the city where they launched the Cuban Revolution.

But Fidel Castro's image will not be immortalised with statues nor will public places be named after him, Raul Castro said, in keeping with his older brother's wishes.

"This is the unconquered Fidel who calls us with his example," the president, dressed in his four-star general's uniform, told a crowd that had burst into chants of "I am Fidel".

"Yes, we will overcome any obstacle, turmoil or threat in the building of socialism in Cuba," the 85-year-old Castro said in a speech before Santiago's packed central plaza.

His ashes will be entombed near the remains of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti in a simple ceremony beginning on Sunday at 7 am (1200 GMT), concluding nine days of national mourning.

Raul Castro was joined on the stage by leftist foreign dignitaries and the Cuban political leadership to bid farewell to the man known to most Cubans as "El Comandante"  the commander  or simply "Fidel."

"The loss of El Comandante does not mean we will go stagnant," said Ansel Hechavarria, 61, a mechanic hoisting a large Cuban flag just before the 90-minute ceremony began. "We are going to continue his legacy."

After two days of events in Havana, Castro's funeral cortege departed on a three-day, 600-mile (1,000-km) journey east, retracing the route that the triumphant, bearded rebels took upon overthrowing the US-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Rejecting 'cult of personality'

Raul Castro said "millions" had come out to pay tribute.

Crowds have greeted the caravan along the whole route, with volunteers sprucing up bridges and houses with fresh paint in Castro's honor.

Castro's critics have kept a low profile during the official nine-day mourning period that ends Sunday, but dissident writer Yoani Sanchez took to Twitter to criticise the hagiographical tributes.

"The reality has gone from 'delirious' to 'hallucinatory,' like a nightmare that does not end and worsens if we turn on the TV," she said.

Although billboards with Castro quotes stand throughout the country and his portrait hangs from numerous government buildings and in private homes, there are no statues or landmarks named after him.

"The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality," Raul Castro said, adding that a law banning such homages would be presented to the National Assembly when it meets later this month.

With his brother at his side, Castro began his revolution on July 26, 1953, with a failed assault on the Moncada barracks in the eastern city of Santiago.

He went on to build a Soviet-sponsored Communist state 90 miles (145 km) from the United States and survived a half century of US attempts to topple or kill him.

Castro's socialist government survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, but at the cost of more than a decade of great economic hardship that was relieved by the largesse of his political disciple, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

"In the unipolar world, the one of transnationals that arose after the fall of the socialist bloc, the permanent lesson of Fidel is that, yes, it can done, man is capable of overcoming the most difficult conditions," Raul Castro said.

Over the past two decades, a clutch of leftist governments rose to power in Latin America inspired by his ideas and fierce opposition to the United States. Several have now been defeated at the ballot box.

High-profile friends of Castro, including Bolivian President Evo Morales and former Brazilian Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, arrived for the evening sendoff.

Lula was a close ally of Cuba when he was president from 2003 to 2010, as was his successor Rousseff until she was impeached this year.  Reuters
ANKARA, December 2

Iran threatened on Friday to retaliate against a US Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, saying it violated last year's deal with six major powers that curbed its nuclear programme.

The ISA was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran's energy industry and deter its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. The extension was passed unanimously on Thursday.

US officials said the ISA's renewal would not infringe on the nuclear agreement, under which Iran agreed to limit its sensitive atomic activity in return for the lifting of international financial sanctions that harmed its oil-based economy.

But senior Iranian officials took odds with that view.

Iran's nuclear energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, who played a central role in reaching the nuclear deal, described the extension as a "clear violation" if implemented.

"We are closely monitoring developments," state TV quoted Salehi as saying. "If they implement the ISA, Iran will take action accordingly."

The diplomatic thaw in swing between Washington and Tehran over the past two years looks in jeopardy with US

President-elect Donald Trump taking office next month. He said during his election campaign that he would scrap the nuclear agreement.

Iran's most powerful authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had already warned in November that an extension of US sanction would be viewed in Tehran as a violation of the nuclear accord.

"Iran has shown its commitment to its international agreements, but we are also prepared for any possible scenario. We are ready to firmly protect the nation's rights under any circumstances," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said in comments reported by state news agency IRNA.

Retaliation

The US Senate vote was a blow to pragmatist Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who engineered the diplomatic opening to the West that led to the nuclear deal, and may embolden his hardline rivals ahead of presidential election next year.

Khamenei and his hardline loyalists, drawn from among Shi'ite Muslim clerics and Revolutionary Guards, have criticised the deal and blamed Rouhani for its failure to deliver swift improvements in living standards since the lifting of international sanctions in January.

It was not immediately clear what form any eventual retaliation for the US Senate vote might take.

Lawmaker Akbar Ranjbarzadeh said Iran's parliament would convene on Sunday to discuss a bill obliging the government to "immediately halt implementation of the nuclear deal" if Obama approves the ISA, the Students News Agency ISNA reported.

Another lawmaker quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency said Iran's parliament planned to discuss a bill that would prevent the government purchasing "American products".

Such a bill could endanger deals such as US planemaker Boeing's tentative accord to sell passenger jets to Iran, upgrading a fleet long deteriorating due to sanctions.

The White House had not pushed for an extension of the sanctions act, but had not raised serious objections. Some congressional aides said they expected President Barack Obama to sign the extension.

The ISA had been due to expire on December 31. Lawmakers said the extension would make it easier for sanctions to be reimposed if Iran violated the nuclear settlement.

Influential Friday prayer leaders, appointed by Khamenei, strongly denounced the ISA extension and called on the government to take action, according to IRNA.

Trump described Iran in campaign speeches as the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism and dismissed the nuclear accord as "one of the worst deals I've ever seen negotiated".  Reuters
Rome, December 4

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi voted today in a constitutional referendum that has put his future on the line, divided Italy and raised fears of political and economic turmoil across Europe.

Renzi, who has vowed to quit if he loses, was counting on a last-minute turnaround in voter sentiment to win backing for his proposals to streamline Parliament and centralise some powers currently held at regional level in the name of more effective and stable government.

Have you decided how you are going to vote, Prime Minister?" a woman voter cheekily asked Renzi as he turned up at a voting station in his home town of Pontassieve near Florence. "Now I'm thinking about it!" Renzi quipped back before spending 10 minutes standing in line to register his vote.

Opposition parties have denounced the proposed amendments to the 68-year-old constitution as ill-considered and dangerous for democracy because they remove important checks and balances on executive power.

Spearheaded by the populist Five Star Movement, the biggest rival to Renzis Democratic Party, the No campaign has also sought to capitalise on the Renzi's declining popularity, a sluggish economy and the problems caused by tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Italy.

God willing its over. A new era starts tomorrow I hope, said Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Northern League, after voting in Milan. Former PM Silvio Berlusconi, who belatedly backed the No side, was also out early as the interior ministry reported brisk morning voting.

By midday nearly one in five of the 47 million Italians entitled to vote today had cast their ballot. Polls close at 11 pm (local time) with the result, anxiously awaited across Europe, expected in the early hours of Monday.

If Renzi goes, some market turbulence is inevitable. Analysts fear an investor confidence crisis that could derail a rescue plan for indebted banks, triggering a financial crisis across the eurozone.  AFP
London, December 4

In a grim prognosis, renowned British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that the human race today is facing the most dangerous time in its history.

Noting that the planet is in crises, the 74-year-old Cambridge professor said the world is facing huge environmental and technological challenges and needs to unite and work together to protect the humanity.

We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans. Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity, he said.

We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it, Hawking wrote in a recent op-ed for The Guardian.

Commenting on the global political shifts, Hawking attributed the rise of US President-elect Donald Trump and Britains Brexit vote to a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by their leaders. It was, everyone seems to agree, the moment when the forgotten spoke, finding their voices to reject the advice and guidance of experts and the elite everywhere, Hawking said.

He also warned that artificial intelligence and increasing automation will decimate middle class jobs and worsen inequality, and risks creating significant political upheaval. He, however, said the challenges can be overcome if the elites unite and learn from the past.  PTI
By PTI: scam

New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) Four years after registering a preliminary enquiry, CBI has registered a fresh case in coal scam against Prakash Industries alleging cheating in the allocation of Chotia coal block during the NDA governments tenure in 2003.

Based on a complaint by former Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit and others in 2012, the Central Vigilance Commission had directed CBI to register the case but it remained a preliminary enquiry till now.

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In its FIR, CBI has alleged its probe brought out facts against Prakash Industries which are offences punishable for criminal conspiracy and cheating under Indian Penal Code.

The FIR registered on Friday says Coal Ministry had issued allocation letter to Prakash Industries on September 4, 2003 for the allocation of Chotia Coal Block for expansion of its sponge iron plant in Champa, Madhya Pradesh (now in Chhattisgarh) with certain conditions.

The company did not respond to a query sent on email seeking reaction on the development.

The agency alleged the company made "false claims" about production figures of its sponge iron plant in several of its communications to the Coal Ministry while applying for the block. The company had first applied in 1993.

Later, on November 26, 2011 and January 22, 2012 it informed Coal Ministry that it was producing 4.25 lakh tonnes of sponge iron per annum, the FIR alleged.

However, in a letter on January 22, 2003, the company claimed it had acquired highest capacity in 2001-02 with 2.74 lakh tonne as compared to 1995-96 when the production was 1.59 lakh tonne.

It said the plant is expected to achieve figures of 2.9 lakh tonne in 2002-03, hence captive coal block be allotted to It thus proving that claims made by it in 2001 and 2002 to be false, the CBI FIR alleged. More PTI ABS ZMN AAR

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(Editor's note: Janice Mosley has been found/contacted following the Nov. 30 article in the BA Ledger. The family military dog tag of Joseph C. Gunter is being sent from Italy to Broken Arrow for Mosley to have).

Janice Mosley of Broken Arrow, if you are out there, a group from Italy is trying to reach out to you to return a family members dog tags from World War II.

The Broken Arrow Ledger was contacted by Maurizio De Angelis to try and unite dog tags or what could be old metal bag tags for a duffle bag of Joseph C. Gunter.

It seems the tags were found near an Italian business. De Angelis has done much research on the Gunter family only to discover a relative that had a Broken Arrow address.

Without knowing if Mosley is still in Broken Arrow, De Angelis said she has lived between Olive and Aspen just south of 91st street.

Gunter served in the Army as evidenced by his 1978 Mississippi grave marker.

De Angelis appears sincere in his quest to return the tag, but only wants to make sure it is going to the right relative. He contacted the Ledger as a last resort.

If Mosley is still in Broken Arrow, she can contact the Ledger at 918-259-7509 or come by the office at 510 W. Atlanta Court. The Ledger will turn over the research from De Angelis and a way to contact him.
Mayor-elect G.T. Bynum, a native son of Tulsa with a family tree of mayors, wasnt born a politician.

On Monday, Bynum will become Tulsas 40th mayor. Those 39 before him include cousin Bill LaFortune, grandfather Robert LaFortune and great-great grandfather R.N. Bynum.

Despite the pedigree, he wasnt born to be mayor, city councilor, father, lobbyist, college-student president, caddy or professional-wrestling buff.

According to his family and friends, Bynum became those things through genuine interest, learning to focus and following lessons learned from those around him.

Part of the story can be found in a number of jobs Bynum held from a fairly young age. One of his first jobs was cleaning behind the counter at a local Braums. Others included maintenance worker at St. John Medical Center and caddy at Southern Hills Country Club.

In high school, G.T. sold knives for Cutco by going to peoples homes and giving demonstrations, said his mother, Suzie Bynum. One of his early sales meetings was with my parents. G.T. was demonstrating the ability of a particular knife by cutting through rope and cut off the end of his thumb. My dad said blood was everywhere, but he made the sale.

Another part of the story is Bynums evolving interest in politics and community involvement.

He started in politics, ironically, by volunteering for Mayor Dewey Bartletts first campaign, at that time a run for Tulsa City Council.

From there, Bynum went from Cascia Hall Preparatory School to Villanova University, where he became class president.

After college, he served as a staffer for U.S. Sens. Don Nickles, from 2000 to 2005, and Tom Coburn, from 2005 to 2006, before returning to Tulsa, starting a family and a business and being elected to the City Council.

His return to Tulsa and his time on the council are well-documented. But through his familys eyes, the earlier years are more fascinating.

Suzie Bynum, mom

He loved Mr. Rogers. We got him a little coat for Thanksgiving or Christmas. On his own, hed go get the coat with the little hanger. Hed take it off and button it up, and we have him on video singing along.  He was only about 3, I think. He still thinks the world of Mr. Rogers.  G.T. was a dork.

Suzie Bynum didnt see her son as a future mayor of Tulsa when he was younger, unlike a 1977 Tulsa World birth announcement headlined Mayor Gets A Grandson that reads, George T. Bynum 4th will have lots of tradition going for him if he ever decides on a political career in Tulsa.

I didnt see him as the mayor when he was little, Suzie Bynum said. Not until about a year ago did I see that.

An early clue, though, was a fascination her son had with the Childhood of Famous Americans book series for children that featured biographies of historical figures, she said.

Her son was obsessed with the series, especially the ones on U.S. presidents.

He had all the presidents, she said. Thats what he wanted for birthdays. He wanted to get those paperback books. Hes always loved history.

Another collection he had was representations of the Statue of Liberty, which he would show off to anyone interested.

One day he took a table out to the sidewalk in the front yard and set up all of his Statue of Liberty things, Suzie Bynum said. He had made a 5-foot-tall Statue of Liberty cutout and colored it.

Given the evidence, even a loving, doting and proud mother like Suzie Bynum couldnt cut it any other way: G.T. was a dork.

Im just so excited for G.T., she said. Im just so proud of him. Whether he had won or lost, I would still be so proud.

Dr. Jay Phoenix, cousin and best friend

We would do stupid little stuff and get in trouble as kids. But he was always the one making us do the right thing.

Dr. Jay Phoenix, a doctor at St. John Medical Center, was born six months after his cousin, Bynum, and the two have been friends ever since.

He was hugely into wrestling, Phoenix said, referring to professional wrestling heroes of the 1980s like Jake The Snake Roberts, The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan.

Everyone in our age group knew about it, Phoenix said. But he knew everybody. He had all the action figures.

Bynums favorite pro wrestler? Macho Man Randy Savage. No one did it better, if you ask Bynum. The late Randy Savages performance at Wrestlemania III, when Bynum was 9, is still second to none.

The fascination with wrestling, which lasts to this day, even got physical between Phoenix and Bynum.

He would do all these wrestling moves on me, Phoenix said. He would all of a sudden put me into some hold. I didnt know how to respond to it. He can still just rattle out stuff. We were on our big Thanksgiving family dinner, and he started talking about wrestling with our cousin.

Going to school with Bynum through high school, Phoenix said Bynum struggled early on as a student.

He wasnt the most motivated student, Phoenix said. There were always things  like he was an Eagle Scout  anything he was interested in he did very well.

Phoenix said all the teachers loved him but were critical of his focus on schoolwork.

In high school, Bynum joined the debate team, which Phoenix said changed him in the academic sense and focused his education.

Hes always managed to make things that look really difficult on the outside seem like hes achieving them as a matter of course, Phoenix said. I know theres a hell of a lot of work on the inside, but from the outside he made it (becoming mayor) look like it was always going to happen.

When they were 15, both worked as caddies at Southern Hills Country Club.

That was one of the worst jobs I ever had, Phoenix said. Wed sit there all day  7 a.m. to 1 or 1:30 p.m.  Wed sit there and just joke around the whole time waiting for something to happen.

For Phoenix  and he expects it was the same for Bynum  the caddying job was a motivator to consider what they wanted to do later in life.

As much as it was maybe the worst job either of us had, it was motivating, Phoenix said.

Phoenix doesnt remember any particular moment that indicated Bynum was destined to become mayor, but he said the time in high school when Bynum got involved in debate seemed to set him in that direction.

His trajectory doesnt surprise me at all, he said. The debate stuff was the first time when things really clicked for him.

Robert LaFortune, grandfather and former mayor of Tulsa

My father was very involved civically. I became that way. So G.T. grew up in an environment being accustomed to the familys interests there.

Former Mayor Robert LaFortune, Bynums grandfather, said theres no secret recipe to his familys success in politics.

In fact, he said, Bynum showed an early interest that he himself never had.

I didnt work in any campaigns before I ran for street commissioner, LaFortune said. They (friends encouraging him to run) said, Youre an engineer. Why dont you run for street commissioner? I said, Well, OK. Ill try it. 

LaFortune was Tulsas street commissioner before he ran and won the Mayors Office from 1970-78.

LaFortune, who served as Bynums campaign chairman, said campaigns have changed drastically since his time, and he credits Bynum with generating a modern political career that LaFortune wouldnt have done as well at.

Coffees here and lunches there, LaFortune said. You did a lot of personal politicking, so to speak. There wasnt any Facebook. There wasnt email.

Bynum is special among the rest of the politicians in the family, he said, including Bynums cousin, former Mayor Bill LaFortune.

G.T. was active in different campaigns early, LaFortune said. He worked in Dewey Bartletts (first) campaign.

He worked in a bunch of earlier campaigns. That came as an interest of his own.

Phoenix said Bynum, like all the former mayors grandchildren, idolized LaFortune, but even more so.

You saw it all the time how much respect people had for him (LaFortune) in public, Phoenix said. That always meant a lot to me, but for G.T., he learned a lot from that.  I think that was a great influence on him.

But LaFortune claims no credit, saying his own interest came from his father, and theres no pressure for the family to get involved in politics.

Theres no expectation that certain people are going to develop this kind of interest, LaFortune said. I think those things just kind of happen because of the interest that people have.
OKLAHOMA CITY  With all but one statewide elected office in Oklahoma to be an open seat in 2018, the election cycle already was shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated and hotly contested in recent history.

But now with several of the states rising GOP stars jockeying for spots in the new Donald Trump administration, the political waters are becoming even murkier.

The biggest statewide prize in the 2018 election is Oklahomas governorship, since Republican Gov. Mary Fallin is term-limited. But with speculation swirling that Fallin will take a post in the Trump administration, Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb, a Republican already viewed as a strong candidate for governor in 2018, would assume the post and the power of incumbency in 2018 if Fallin leaves before her term is completed.

It certainly puts you in a very enviable position, said Republican political consultant Neva Hill. You always look at any race and handicap it, and he comes to the table with a pretty strong ledger with everything lined up pretty well for him, at least at the starting block.

Lamb, a former state senator who has spent the past six years as lieutenant governor, declined to be interviewed for this story. But the ex-U.S. Secret Service agent has long been discussed as a likely candidate for governor in 2018.

Lamb already has more than $1 million in his campaign war chest, and his job routinely takes him all over the state to visit with civic and business groups.

Another potential Republican candidate for governor in 2018  Attorney General Scott Pruitt  met with Trump last week and also is being discussed for a possible federal appointment. Pruitt also has declined requests for interviews since returning from his meeting with Trump.

With the election still two years away, its unclear who will emerge as candidates in 2018. Well-known Tulsa attorney Gary Richardson, who put more than $2 million of his own money into a run for governor as an independent in 2002, told The Associated Press last week he is seriously considering running as a Republican in 2018.

On the Democratic side, two potential candidates confirmed last week to the AP that they would not run for the post  former U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, the last Democrat to hold a seat in Oklahomas congressional delegation, and former state Rep. Joe Dorman, who won 41 percent of the vote against Fallin in 2014 despite being heavily outspent.

Oklahoma House Minority Leader Scott Inman, a Del City Democrat who terms out of the House in 2018, said he also is taking a serious look at the governors race and believes a Democrat can win in Oklahoma.

Whether you have a kid in the public schools, a parent in a nursing home or youve tried to access a hospital in rural Oklahoma, by all measures and accounts, the last six years for middle-class families in Oklahoma have been a disaster, Inman said. And I think that presents the opportunity for a middle-of-the-road Democrat, who focuses on the state and not on hyper-partisan ideology, to be successful.

History suggests the party that controls the presidency fares poorly in governors races in Oklahoma.

President Bill Clintons victory in 1992 was followed by Republican Frank Keatings gubernatorial win in 1994. President George W. Bushs wins in 2000 and 2004 were followed by Democrat Brad Henrys wins in 2002 and 2006. And President Barack Obamas victories in 2008 and 2012 were followed by Fallins wins in 2010 and 2014.

And even if Lamb takes over for a departing Fallin before her term is up, the power of incumbency might not be the best thing for him, said Keith Gaddie, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma.

Incumbency is an advantage for state legislators. Its an advantage for congressmen, Gaddie said.

Its not an advantage for governors. Governors get re-elected based on things being good or things being bad.

If we dont turn things around in this state in the next 24 months, hes the incumbent governor who owns the fiscal mess that is Oklahoma.
Hollywood actors have lashed out at filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci and Marlon Brando for shooting the infamous rape scene in Last Tango in Paris, without the consent of actress Maria Schneider.

By PTI: Actors Chris Evans, Jessica Chastain have lashed out at a recently resurfaced interview in which Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci admitted the rape scene in the movie was filmed without the consent of its lead actress Maria Schneider.

In a recently viral video interview from 2013, Bertolucci confirms that Schneider, who died in 2011, did not know about the rape scene which she shot with Marlon Brando, and that the graphic nature of the scene in the erotic drama was improvised on set, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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ALSO READ: Last Tango in Paris- Director Bertolucci admits Bardon-Maria's rape scene NOT consensual

ALSO READ: It's a boy for Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis

"Id been in a way horrible to Maria because I didnt tell her what was going on. Because I wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress," Bertulocci said in the clip.

Celebrities voiced their outrage of the resurfaced news on Twitter.

Chastain said of the revelations, "To all the people that love this film- youre watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick."

To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick. https://t.co/qVDom2gYf6 Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) December 3, 2016

While, Evans tweeted that Bertolucci and Brando "should be in jail."

"Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage," he tweeted.

Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage https://t.co/uvaLogvv7I Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) December 3, 2016

Actress Anna Kendrick acknowledged that Schneiders lack of knowledge of the scene prior to the shooting day was nothing new.

"Ms Schneider stated this several years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes)," she tweeted.

@colliderfrosty @ChrisEvans Ms Schneider stated this several years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes). Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) December 3, 2016

Actress Rachel Wood also reacted with disgust on the micro-blogging site.

"This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The two of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok," she tweeted.

I second that. This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The 2 of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok. https://t.co/Ft4SArjcgd #EvanRachelWould (@evanrachelwood) December 3, 2016

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Last Tango in Paris was critically lauded but surrounded in public controversy. The films director was put on trial for obscenity in Italy after the release of the film.

Copies of the film were destroyed at the time and Bertolucci was served with a four-month suspended sentence in prison and denied his civil (including voting) rights for five years.

Last Tango in Paris earned Brando a best actor Oscar nomination and Bertolucci a best director nomination.

Here's the video:

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Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it.





I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends.





More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it.





The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity.





About me:

I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS.

Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line).

Age: 42

Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed.





I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it).
President Petro Poroshenko had a meeting with Prime Minister of Poland Beata Szydo.

The parties discussed ways to further develop bilateral trade-economic relations, cooperation in oil and gas and energy sectors and enhance border cooperation, the press service of the Head of State reported.

In the course of the meeting, the parties noted the importance of holding the session of the Intergovernmental Ukraine-Poland Commission for Economic Cooperation in early 2017, as well as continuation of Ukraine-Poland intergovernmental consultations headed by the Prime Ministers.

The parties agreed to enhance Ukraine-Poland cooperation in defense sphere that will be facilitated by the Intergovernmental Agreement on Defense Cooperation.

The Prime Minister of Poland expressed support for the continuation of the policy of sanctions against Russia.

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While CJI Thakur has said that the retired judges are not being provided with a 'dignified place to live', top-level sources in the Union law ministry claim that the judges refuse to shift to any place smaller than the ones they lived in while still in office.

By Harish V Nair: Several top-level positions in nearly two dozen law commissions and tribunals have few takers among retired judges due to unavailability of entitled accommodation - yet another ground for discord between the judiciary and the government.

While Chief Justice TS Thakur has thrown his weight with the retired judges, saying that they "are not being provided with a dignified place to live", top-level sources in the Union law ministry claim that the reluctance to shift into any accommodation smaller than the ones the judges occupied while in office shows "wrong attitude".

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The two arms of the state have been blaming each other over delays in appointments to higher courts.

ALSO READ | Centre, Chief Justice TS Thakur lock horns on Constitution Day over appointment of judges

'WHERE DO WE GET BUNGALOWS OF THEIR LIKING'

"Where do we get bungalows of their liking for them?" a high-level functionary in the ministry said, requesting anonymity.

Legal tribunals and commissions are mostly headed by retired judges of high courts and Supreme Court who, on accepting the appointment, are entitled to Type 7 or Type 8 accommodation, comprising four or five bedrooms, servant quarters, lawns and garage.

"In a year, many Supreme Court and high court judges are given post-retirement jobs as chairman of various tribunals and commissions. The priority of such accommodation is to posts like Law Commission and NHRC chairmen. Apart from them, it is very difficult to provide such a facility for any other authority," said the ministry functionary.

Also read | CJI slams Modi government: We have vacant court rooms but no judges; no one wants to head tribunal

Also read | Ravi Shankar Prasad questions TS Thakur about posts of more than 4,000 subordinate judges lying vacant

SPARKS FLEW ON NOVEMBER 26

The matter first came to fore on November 26, when speaking at the Constitution Day function, CJI Thakur lashed out at the government on the issue, saying refusal to provide them a "place to live" was one reason why several retired judges were refusing to accept the posts in tribunals and commission resulting in them lying vacant.

"I am at pains in persuading my colleagues who are demitting office to accept these appointments," Thakur said.

"They are declining because the government is not ready even to do the bare minimum of providing them a dignified place to live. There is no home."

The CJI argued if a retired judge of the Supreme Court is asked to take up an assignment after retirement for half the salary he was earlier getting, "and you don't give him a decent place to live in, why should he bother?" adding that a judge can as well go to a "flat of his choice and do some arbitration and consultation work which is more lucrative".

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In its response to the CJI's accusation, Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that it was not possible to provide every retired judge with bungalows of the same size as that of sitting judges.

While the ministry agrees that many of them may be entitled to Type 7 or 8 type accommodation, it said such bungalows could not be provided due to severe shortage.

"There are about six dozen tribunals and commissions and they require about 220-222 houses," the ministry functionary said.

ALSO READ | Courts vacant, government sitting on appointments of judges: Supreme Court

'DEMANDS UNFAIR'

"How can they insist that they be given the same type of bungalow which they held as a judge? When the President of India demits office, from that imperial building he has to shift to a simple type house. What if he too says that I need a house akin to the Rashtrapati Bhawan?" the functionary said.

Sources said there is no problem or delay in providing accommodation to judges of the Supreme Court and Delhi high court as 76 bungalows are in the 'judges pool' but to provide highcategory bungalows to exjudges attached to tribunals and commissions.

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Out of the nearly 625 bungalows in the top categories (Type-7 & Type-8) in central Delhi, only 305 are available under the 'general pool' to meet the demand for housing Union ministers, secretaries, heads of constitutional authorities and ex-ministers awaiting accommodation from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha as per their entitlement.

This category also takes care of demand of some institutions while 18 have been allotted to chairpersons and members of commissions and tribunal. Till recently, there was no separate quota for chairpersons and members of tribunals and commissions, and therefore, they were getting accommodation from the 'general pool', ministry officials said.

Also read | CJI Thakur slams Modi govt, says strong judicial system will tempt investors

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By PTI: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Dec 4 (PTI) Chinas top securities regulator has condemned some asset managers for their "barbaric" leveraged buy-outs by using illegal funds after some of the recent incidents of high-profile acquisitions were reported in the country.

"You have been barbarians and ultimately become robbers in the industry, and that is unacceptable," Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said yesterday during a meeting of the Asset Management Association of China, a self-regulatory body that oversees private funds.

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Any attempt to acquire a majority stake in a listed firm using funds from questionable sources is crossing the line, Liu was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.

Acquisition backed by insurance funds will inevitably affect the target companys share price, and could threaten the corporate governance structure, he said.

"Funneling public funds into leveraged acquisition means ordinary investors will ultimately bear the risks, underscoring this is absolutely not financial innovation," he said.

His criticism is seen as partly alluding to recent instances of high-profile A-shares acquisitions, including a bid by property developer China Evergrande Group to acquire 14.07 per cent shares of its peer China Vanke Co. Ltd. with 36.27 billion yuan (USD 5.26 billion), the report said. PTI KJV KJ KUN KJ

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Labor shortage in Canada's agricultural sector, which have already doubled over the past decade, is expected to double again by 2025, according to a report.

The report, "Sowing the Seeds of Growth: Temporary Foreign Workers in Agriculture," was based on the findings from a three-year agriculture labor market research project conducted by the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council.

The persistent demand for agricultural workers poses a challenge for the sector, with a large portion of the farmland predicted to lie fallow unless a robust migrant worker program is launched.

According to the study of the Conference Board of Canada, the number of unfilled jobs may reach 113,800. Problems with recruitment and retention contributed to the growing labor shortage in the sector, as well as the aging workforce, rural location of operations, and the negative perception about working in the sector.

"A growing labor gap in agriculture is being driven by a combination of circumstances, including an aging workforce, large seasonal fluctuations in employment, the rural location of many operations, and negative perceptions about working in the sector," said the study.

The study also reported that paying Canadian workers more or buying more machines will not eliminate the sector's need for temporary foreign workers.

Currently, 12% of the country's agricultural workforce are migrant workers, filling about three-quarters of the labor gap. During peak seasons, the sector needs about 100,000 or 30% more workers than at seasonal lows.

The latest government data indicated that 177,704 migrant workers were given work permits in 2014. It included 45,281 agricultural workers and 41,002 lower-skilled workers, many of which were on farm work.

The survey showed that 40% of the farm operators said that the physicality of the work is a factor to the falling labor retention.

Last year's record revealed that farm workers put in an average of 44.8 hours per week, compared with other sectors' average of 35.9 hours. Aside from the working hours, the workers in the sector receive below-average pay. Farm workers made an average of $684 a week, significantly lower than $923 received by all other sectors.

"Many farm operators reported that overtime, fatigue and stress for existing workers was a major outcome of labor shortages. In other words, long hours appear to be both a result of and a contributor to the labor shortages being experienced in agriculture," said the report.

With Australian and American operators also actively recruiting migrant workers, Canada faced a competition for low-skilled farm workers. Farm operators in the country cannot increase the wage to be offered to workers as the prices of their products are generally set with a ceiling.

The country's existing immigration programs were also found to not be helpful in answering the needs of the sector.

"With federal immigration policy geared toward higher skilled labor, there is limited facilitation for permanent residency for lower skilled occupation, even though agriculture has a critical need for these workers," the study noted.

Aside from easier access to permanent residency for migrant farm workers, the study also recommended a "trusted-employer" program.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, fined the local branch of Standard Chartered Bank, which is headquartered in London, 5.2 million Singapore dollars ($3.6 million) for "significant lapses" in customer due diligence measures and controls and for involvement in 1MDB fund. .

Regulators also fined the Singapore branch of private bank Coutts 2.4 million Singapore dollars ($1.7 million) for inadequate customer due diligence on "politically exposed persons." Coutts is winding down its Singapore operations after the Royal Bank of Scotland sold it to Union Bancaire Privee last March.

Singapore's actions result from findings of a multinational probe into allegations that people close to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stole more than $1 billion from 1MDB, or 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

"The control lapses stemmed from inadequacies in policies and procedures, insufficient independent oversight of front office staff, and a lack of awareness of money laundering risks among some bank staff," the monetary authority said in a statement.

In February, Singapore authorities said they had "seized a large number of bank accounts" in connection with the Malaysian fund probe.

Regulators are expected give a final update on their findings in early 2017.

The monetary authority also said it planned to impose a 10-year ban on conducting banking business and functions on a former Goldman Sachs executive.

Tim Leissner led Goldman Sachs' Singapore branch until February although he moved to Hong Kong in 2011. He managed three 1MDB bond issuances from 2012 to 2013 and issued an unauthorized reference letter to a financial institution in Luxembourg last June.

The authority said Leissner falsely claimed the bank had conducted due diligence on businessman Low Taek Jho, who is close to Najib's family.

It said it was working with foreign "regulatory authorities" to investigate Goldman Sachs' role in the bond transactions for 1MDB.

Goldman Sachs said it discovered the violation of its own standards in January, "took steps to separate Mr. Leissner from the firm," and reported the problem to regulators in several places, including Singapore.

Leissner's attorney said he had not received any notices or been questioned by the Singapore Monetary Authority.

"Prior to today, Mr. Leissner had not heard of any contemplated regulatory action by the MAS and had not been contacted by the MAS or given any opportunity to respond to the MAS regarding the allegations raised in the notice," Marc S. Harris of the Scheper Harris & Kim law firm in Los Angeles, California, said in a statement.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) receives ADBs Country Director in Viet Nam Eric Sidgwick yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo Thong Nhat

Addressing a ceremony marking 50 years since the birth of the ADB and 20 years since an ADB resident mission was established in Viet Nam in December, 1993, the PM said that the date had a fundamental role in the partnership between the ADB and Viet Nam.

Ever since then, the two of us have signed agreements to carry out more than 160 projects worth about US$16 billion, Phuc said.

ADB projects in Viet Nam are very diversified and effectively implemented, aiming to support inclusive and sustainable development in the country.

ADBs Country Director in Viet Nam Eric Sidgwick said that ever since the organisation was founded in 1966 with Viet Nam one of the founding members, the ADB mobilised and invested some $250 billion in infrastructure, research and knowledge sharing to build prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.

Since resuming operations in Viet Nam in 1993, the ADB has worked closely with the Vietnamese Government to reduce poverty and support sustainable economic and social development during the nations transition from centrally planning to a market-oriented system, Sidgwick said.

The organisation over the two decades worked with the Southeast Asian country to train 35,000 teachers, build more than 5,000km of national and provincial roads, and install some 1,400 megawatts of renewable energy.

We also helped to upgrade some 2,000km of national power transmission lines and provided key water supply to some 265,000 households, Sidgwick said.

ADB is committed to continue serving the region and to work with all members countries to expand and leverage not just financing but also exchanges of knowledge, expertise and technology to help meet the new, and in many cases more complex challenges ahead.

PM Phuc expressed wishes that ADB would continue its support to the country, especially in regional co-operation frameworks like the Mekong sub-region, the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Co-operation Strategy or the CLMV (Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Viet Nam) to connect the regional economies and to adapt to climate change.
The construction of west Africa's biggest gas pipeline, linking Nigeria's energy-rich south to consumer markets on the region's coast - Benin, Togo and Ghana - began in 2005, with deliveries starting five years later. (Photo: AFP/Florian Plaucheur)

Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said in a government video posted on Twitter on Friday that the pipeline would "go along the coast from West Africa - Nigeria - all the way up to Morocco and into Europe eventually".

"That's a very big and important project for us," Onyeama added, without giving further details.

The construction of west Africa's biggest gas pipeline, linking Nigeria's energy-rich south to consumer markets on the region's coast - Benin, Togo and Ghana - began in 2005, with deliveries starting five years later.

Onyeama's comments came as Morocco's King Mohammed VI wrapped up a two-day visit to Abuja, where he met with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Moroccan media reported that the pipeline extension topped the agenda in the talks, with the Economie-Enterprise website reporting that the two countries would sign a memorandum of understanding shortly for the "highly ambitious project estimated at several billion dollars".

The Telquel.ma website said the work would see the pipeline extended "towards Morocco, passing through Dakar".

Algeria held talks with Nigeria as far back as 2002 for a similar pipeline crossing the Sahel region, but ultimately the Algerian government was unable to finance the project.

Major oil exporter Nigeria also has huge untapped gas resources - the largest proven reserves in Africa and the seventh largest globally.

But its energy-rich Niger Delta area is frequently hit by attacks by militants seeking a fairer distribution of the nation's resource wealth, including assaults on pipelines that seriously dented oil and gas production in 2016.
The private sector is crucial to building a standardised vocational training system by 2020, thus improving the quality of human resources to regional and world standards.  Photo hanoimoi.com.vn

The event, held by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), the French Development Agency (AFC) and UNESCO in Viet Nam, aims to call for stronger involvement of the private sector in the efforts.

According to the MOLISA, there are about 2,000 vocational training facilities nationwide, half of which are owned privately.

In past years, the Party and State have allocated considerable resources for vocational training, while issuing various policies to support the work, including the Law on Vocational Training in July 2015 and the Strategy for Vocational Training Development from 2011-20.

Major objectives of the strategy include planning vocational training facilities based on sector, region and locality, with priority given to non-State newly-established facilities.

The strategy also encourages foreign-funded facilities, while calling for the engagement of the private sector in the field and diversifying resources for the expansion of vocational training.

Participants pointed to a number of shortcomings in Viet Nams vocational training, including poor capacity of training facilities, especially in management, as well as loose co-ordination between training facilities and businesses.

They stressed the need for stronger engagement of private firms to increase the competitiveness of vocational training facilities.

They suggested the Party and State hold public-private dialogues to strengthen the role of trade associations and the business community in vocational training.

It is necessary to build training programmes towards renovation and modernisation to suit market requirements, while designing support policies for non-State facilities, according to participants.
Party leaders want Priyanka to take the plunge at the earliest but the final decision lies with Priyanka, herself.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh has stressed upon the need for Priyanka Gandhi to enter active politics soon in order to revive the prospects of the party which is presently battling PM Narendra Modi's "Congress Mukt Bharat" onslaught.

Speaking exclusively to India Today in Patna on Sunday, Singh said the party leaders wanted Priyanka to take the plunge at the earliest but added that the final decision laid with Priyanka, herself.

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"It depends upon Priyanka whether she wants to jump into active politics ahead of 2019 general elections or not but the party wants that she should enter active politics at the earliest," said Digvijay Singh, Congress General Secretary.

When Singh was questioned on the delay which was taking place in announcing Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi the complete charge of the Congress party and be made anointed party President, Singh assured that a formal announcement was on the cards.

"Formal announcement regarding Rahul's elevation as Congress President will take place soon," said Digvijay Singh.

Singh also dispelled reports that the Congress party was apprehensive of handing over the baton of the Congress to Rahul Gandhi at this juncture. He said Rahul was already looking after all the work within the Congress.

"No one is apprehensive over handing charge to Rahul Gandhi. He is already looking after all the work. Sonia Gandhi has given all the work of the party to Rahul already," said the Congress General Secretary.

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NY: Paul Arteta on Why He Should Be Elected as Sheriff for Orange County

On November 8, voters of Orange County, New York will not only be asked to elect representatives for the New York State Assembly, and the future Governor and Lt. Governor, and other elected roles, but will also be asked to elect a new County Sheriff. Paul Arteta, currently the Deputy
Music Time in Africa is VOAs longest running English language program. Since 1965, this award-winning program has featured pan African music that spans all genres and generations. Ethnomusicologist and Host Heather Maxwell keeps you up to date on whats happening in African music with exclusive interviews, cultural information, and of course, great music -- including rare recordings from the Leo Sarkisian Library of African Music.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told an international conference held in the northern Indian city of Amritsar that the Taliban insurgency in his country would not survive without support from Pakistan and called for the setting up of a fund to combat extremism.



Referring to an upsurge of violence in his country by militant groups, the Afghan leader said, "Some still provide sanctuary in support or tolerate these networks. As Mr. (Mullah Rahmatullah) Kakazada, one of the key figures in the Taliban movement recently said if they did not have sanctuary in Pakistan, they would not last a month."



Afghanistan's ties with Pakistan have come under strain as it grapples with increased militant attacks. Pointing out that his country had suffered the highest number of civilian casualties and military related deaths last year, Ghani said this "was unacceptable."



In his remarks at the conference, Pakistan's top foreign ministry official, Sartaj Aziz, said the security situation in Afghanistan is complex and it is "simplistic" to blame one country for the recent upsurge in violence. Aziz called for "an objective and holistic view."



The "Heart of Asia Conference" is an initiative launched in 2011 for encouraging economic and security cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbors. Delegates from over 20 countries including Pakistan's top foreign policy official, Sartaj Aziz, attended the conference.

Terror took center stage at the meet as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also underlined his concerns about support that terrorism derives in the region.

Modi did not directly name Pakistan, but called for resolute action to fight "not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them." He said terrorist violence endangers not just Afghanistan but the entire region.

India also blames Pakistan for supporting terror groups that conduct violent attacks in the country. Pakistan denies the charges, and points out that it is also a victim of terror attacks.



Afghan leader Ghani proposed an Asian and international regime, "whatever is acceptable, particularly to our neighbor Pakistan to verify cross frontier activities." He also called for a fund to combat extremism.



Referring to a $500 million pledge from Pakistan for development in his country, the Afghan President said the money could instead be used to fight terror.



"This fund Mr. Aziz could be very well used for containing extremism because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people," Ghani said.



A resolution adopted at the end of the conference acknowledged that terrorism derives support in the region and stated: "We demand an immediate end to terrorism as well as support to it, including financing of terrorism," the resolution said.



On the sidelines of the conference, India and Afghanistan decided to take steps to set up air cargo link to boost Kabul's connectivity with key markets.



It will help increase trade from the landlocked trade that is restricted due to political hostilities between India and Pakistan. At the moment Kabul can send a limited goods overland through Pakistan into India, but imports from India are not allowed along this route.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia peace conference in Amritsar in Indias northwest Punjab state Sunday to discuss bilateral and regional issues.

Ghani and Modi jointly opened the sixth Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process initiative, which was launched in 2011 to promote Afghan peace efforts.

Reuters news agency reports that foreign ministers and delegates from about 30 countries, including United States, Russia, China and Pakistan, are attending the two-day conference to discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan.

India and Afghanistan are planning to set up an air cargo service to help increase trade that both say has been stymied because of their tense political relations with Pakistan, which lies between them, officials from both countries said Saturday.

The cargo service will aim to improve blocked Afghanistan routes to key markets abroad and boost the growth prospects of its fruit and carpet industries while it fights the Taliban insurgency.
Austrias anti-immigrant candidate, Norbert Hofer, has failed in his bid to become the countrys first far right leader since World War II, in an election seen as a test for the strength of populist movements in Europe.



The former aeronautical engineer, who campaigned on an anti-establishment, anti-immigrant, anti-EU platform, conceded defeat to his environmentalist opponent, Alexander Van Der Bellen, who ran as an independent.

Media projections said Van der Bellen won with 53.3 percent of the vote, compared to Hofers 46.7 percent, a victory that Van der Bellen said is a signal of hope and change to all the capitals of the European Union.

Hofer had been poised to become the EUs first far-right leader, as unease became evident in the country in the wake of a migrant crisis that has seen tens of thousands of Muslims seek asylum in Austria.



In Vienna on Sunday night, Hofer went before reporters at the citys Hofburg Palace and pledged to keep up his efforts to ensure that the more than 46 percent of Austrians who voted for him were not ignored. We are not done, he said.

Asked by VOA what message these elections had sent to the establishment, Hofer replied, Look at me. I will fight for the next elections.



The polls outcome was despite a campaign dominated by anger over issues of Muslim immigration, the financial burden of refugees and migrants who are collecting benefits from Austria's welfare system, and Europe's wave of terrorist attacks over the last year, following the start of the migrant crisis.



Some voters on Sunday lamented the bitter divisions that the race exposed.



This election in general is tragic, said Eva, a voter who cast her ballot in Viennas first district. Its very tragic because we were having another person, Hofer, who speaks more for the old way of thinking, of pushing people against each other and is more in a rightist direction, in a fascist direction, like Hitler.

Sunday's poll was held after the results of an earlier vote on May 22 had Van Der Bellen ahead of Hofer by 31,000 votes. Austrias constitutional court annulled the results due to vote counting irregularities.



The campaign, one of Austrias longest, was marked by anger.



A newspaper headline described it as an Election of Hate, reflecting pent-up frustrations among Hofers rightist supporters, and fear and bitterness among his leftist detractors who have labeled him a Nazi for his anti-immigration stance in the face of Europes migrant crisis that saw more than 1 million refugees and migrants enter Europe last year, many of them through Austria.



Analysts say Hofer sought to benefit from the anti-establishment mood sweeping across the U.S. and Europe that has been partly inspired by Britains decision to leave the European Union and the victory of Donald Trump in the United States.



The trend perplexed Florian, a voter in central Vienna.



Even though this is the most peaceful time ever and people have the most money ever, there seems to be an uncertainty and thats why they are prone to fall for the promises that the rightist movements give, Florian said after casting his ballot Sunday.



More than 90,000 people applied for asylum in Austria last year, a figure that causes concern in a nation whose population is less than 9 million.



The sentiments also have been spurred on by terror attacks in Belgium and France  all of which have happened since the start of last years migrant crisis.



Even though youre scared, you cannot look away and say ok, we dont want to do have anything to do with this. We have a history in Austria regarding this and thats why I think we have the responsibility to stand up together with the rest of the world and if they dont go along, we have to lead as an example, Florian, a Van Der Bellen supporter, said.

Hofers campaign posters across central Vienna were defaced with swastikas and mustaches that made Hofer resemble Adolf Hitler.



The Nazi connotation was especially sensitive given Austrias history in the last century. The country was the birthplace of Hitler and was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938.



Hofers younger supporters include members of Austrias Identitarian movement, a group that opposes multiculturalism. 27-year-old Martin Sellner, a member, said his opposition to Muslim immigration is based on concerns that Muslims eventually may outnumber native Austrians and overwhelm their culture, and not on xenophobia or racism.



Analysts said that while Van der Bellens margin of victory appeared to be wide, a strong showing by those who oppose or at least question Austrias immigration policies cannot be ignored by the new leadership.
Former Cuban President Fidel Castro is dead at the age of 90. His communist government survived a U.S.-backed invasion of Cuban exiles, a superpower missile crisis, assassination plots and decades of U.S. economic sanctions. But Castro lived long enough to see Washington announce the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations with Havana and the subsequent visit by a U.S. president to the island in March 2016. VOA's Bill Rodgers has this profile of the man.
The refugee deal forged by the European Union and Turkey in March appears to be on the verge of collapse. But in a small Greek community, Skala Sikamineas, as deeply affected as any by these new arrivals, the resolve to help newly arrived refugees has not been weakened.
President Obama will give his final speech about U.S. counterterrorism strategy Tuesday at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, the White House announced.

The base is the headquarters for the U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Central Command, the units in charge of Special Operations elements of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Obama plans to meet with active-duty service members stationed at MacDill, including members of special ops teams who have played key roles in counterterrorism efforts during his presidency.

Since taking office, Obama has increased the U.S. reliance on special forces to address extremist threats with a limited U.S. footprint.

The visit will allow Obama to elaborate one last time on reforms he implemented to keep the U.S. safe during his presidency, as well as express his gratitude to the special operations forces, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Some material for this report came from the Associated Press.
By Himanshu Mishra: A fire broke out at Delhi's Udyog Bhawan today, which houses different ministries. Some smoke was noticed by the CISF duty personnel at around 9:00 pm in the room no 126-C, Udyog Bhawan of Shri Vishvajit Sahay, Joint Secretary, Department of heavy Industry.

The fire wing was intimated and CISF personnel staying in the Udyog Bhawan barrack along with the fire personnel of the CPWD were the first responders, who extinguished the fire with the help of fire extinguishers. About 4 fire tenders and PCR vans were rushed at the spot from the nearby fire stations and extinguished the fire completely in about an hour.

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The whole corridor was in full of smoke and the room has also got damaged. The probable cause of the fire was overheating of the printer, as per sources. No injury has been reported in this incident.

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Pakistani opposition political parties are expressing outrage after a hard-line cleric of a banned terror group with links to the Taliban and al-Qaida won a legislative seat in the countrys most populous province.

Rest in pieces National Action Plan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party and son of slain Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, said in a tweet, referring to Pakistans counterterrorism initiative.

Masroor Nawaz Jhangvi, son of a Sunni militant groups slain founder, won the Jhang district by-election for a seat in the Punjab Assembly on Thursday.

Jhangvi defeated candidates fielded by Pakistans three largest political parties, including the ruling Muslim League.

Jhangvis father helped lead a wave of sectarian violence in Pakistan in mid-1980s.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an offspring of the sectarian group he led, has ties to the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaida and most recently Islamic State militants. The group has been linked by law enforcement to high-profile attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Effective speaker

Following in his fathers footsteps, Jhangvi works through fiery speeches to incite sectarian violence in a nation ripe for and hard-hit by sectarian terror for the past three decades.

Jhangvis election came days after Mohammed Ahmad Ludhianvi, a leading member of another banned group, was allowed by the Lahore High Court to participate in the election. He then withdrew in favor of Jhangvi.

Ludhianvis bank accounts in Pakistan have been frozen because of his links to sectarian terror groups.

Dozens of extremist groups have been banned in Pakistan, but many are able to operate under various aliases. Pakistans English newspaper, The Nation, reported this year that more than 500 candidates backed by banned groups made their way into Punjabs local governance system.

Analysts say Jhangvis election is a blow to the countrys anti-terror efforts.

The election result from Jhang is a question mark over the effectiveness of the National Action Plan, Pakistan-based security analyst Hasan Askari told VOAs Deewa service.

Terror crackdown plan

The National Action Plan, a counterterrorism initiative started by the government in January 2015, aims to crack down on terror networks. But analysts and opposition politicians say the initiative is loosely enforced. Individuals who have been on a terror watch list, and whose bank accounts have been frozen because of their links to terror groups, should not be allowed to make laws for the country, they say.

Somebody who should have been behind bars is going to be in the Provincial Assembly instead. How did the Election Commission clear his nomination? asked Pashtun politician Bushra Gohar.

Punjab remains a harbinger for militant groups, and critics say the government is not doing enough to curb them.

The ruling Muslim League has been accused of having close ties with several banned militant groups in Punjab province.

The Muslim League has a soft corner for some groups, and it looks like some sort of political bargaining has taken place, Pakistans former secretary of the interior, Tasneem Noorani, told VOA.

The Muslim League denies the accusation.

Jhang is a special case, and Jhangvis victory does not represent the overall atmosphere in the country, Sadiq Farooq, a Muslim League member, told VOA.

Path to more power

But the provincial election result could pave the way for the extremist group to gain more power in the area, said Pakistani politician Abida Hussain, a former ambassador to the United States.

Jhangvis victory will help his organization win the national assembly seat in the [upcoming] election, she said.

The repercussions of the Jhangvi victory could be felt in Washington, where U.S. lawmakers have long criticized Pakistan for its leniency toward terrorists.

Its going to be very alarming in Washington, said Washington-based journalist Anwar Iqbal. Pakistan is claiming that it is winning the war on terror but this [Jhangvis win] proves otherwise.
Donald Trumps team downplayed the significance of the president-elects telephone conversation with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, with which the United States has had no formal diplomatic ties since 1979.

This was a courtesy call, said Vice President-elect Mike Pence Sunday on ABCs This Week program. Its a little mystifying to me that President Obama can reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba in the last year and be hailed as a hero for doing it, and President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from the democratically-elected leader in Taiwan and its become something of a controversy."

Trumps tweet on Friday announcing a telephone conversation with President Tsai stoked questions as to whether he intends to alter Americas longstanding acknowledgement of Beijings One China policy that precludes any official recognition of Taiwan.

But, while saying the controversy is overblown, Pence did not dispute that Trump intends a more assertive U.S. posture towards China on trade and other matters.

Hes going to fight for American jobs, and were going to stop losing to China and other countries, the vice president-elect said.

Trump was blunt about China during the campaign.

We have a $500 billion trade deficit with China, Trump said in May while seeking the Republican presidential nomination. We cant continue to allow China to rape our country, and thats what they are doing. Its the greatest theft in the history of the world.



So far, China is conveying a restrained response to the Trump-Tsai phone call.

It was just a stunt by Taiwan, said Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi. It will not change the international bedrock of the One China policy. It will not change the One China policy that the United States has adhered to for years.

Despite no formal ties, the United States and Taiwan have cooperated on military matters for decades. Whether Trump intends to expand the boundaries of that relationship as part of his promise to get tougher with China likely will remain a mystery until he assumes office next month.

No U.S. president or president-elect had such contact with a Taiwanese leader since Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.



In the 1979 U.S.-China Joint Communique, the U.S. recognized Beijing as the sole legal government of China, acknowledging the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.

Chinese state media said that Trump's "inexperience" led him to accept the call, but warned that breaching the one-China policy would "destroy" relations between Washington and Beijing.

Trump seemed bemused by the reaction to the call, saying on his Twitter account, "Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

Over China's objections, U.S. President Barack Obama a year ago authorized a $1.83 billion sale of defensive weapons to Taiwan, including two frigates, amphibious assault vehicles, and anti-aircraft and anti-ship systems.



Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
Tens of thousands of Indonesians rallied Sunday in the center of the capital Jakarta, calling for tolerance and unity after massive protests by conservative Muslims against the citys minority Christian governor.

The crowds filled a major traffic circle in the heart of the city and sprawled into its main thoroughfares.

The demonstrators waved We Are Indonesia signs and a giant red-and-white national flag was held aloft by hundreds of people.

Rallies rock capital

The capital of Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim nation, has been rocked in the past month by two major protests against Gov. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who is being prosecuted for alleged blasphemy. Hardline Muslim groups are demanding his immediate arrest. Police say his detention is not necessary and have called for the respect of the legal process.

A demonstration against Ahok on Friday drew at least 200,000 people. An anti-Ahok protest on November 4 attracted at least 100,000 people and turned violent, with one dead and dozens of protesters and police injured.

Sundays rally coincided with a weekly car-free morning in Jakarta when a central artery of the city is handed over to pedestrians for a few hours.

Leaders call for unity

National leaders of political parties under the pro-government coalition behind President Joko Jokowi Widodo, an ally of Ahok, delivered short speeches on the importance of keeping the ethnically diverse nation united.

We have to fight to materialize the aims of our independence. That will not happen if we are scattered, blaspheming, humiliating each other and no longer trust each other, Surya Paloh, chairman of the National Democratic Party, said from the main stage.

Our main enemies are stupidity and poverty. Therefore we ask the current government to work harder and always consistently with the peoples aspirations, Paloh said.

Blasphemy is a criminal offense in Indonesia and punishable by up to five years in prison.
Syrian rebel commanders in war-ravaged Aleppo say they will not surrender the city's eastern sector to Russia-backed government forces, despite a government offensive that threatens to drive out opposition fighters after a four-year occupation.

"I asked the factions. They said, 'We will not surrender,' " said commander Zakaria Malahifji in comments Saturday to Reuters. He spoke from Turkey, where a select group of rebel leaders was reported to be holding secret talks with Russian envoys on the monthslong Aleppo crisis.

"There is no problem with corridors for civilians to leave, but we will not leave the city," Malahifji said.

Malahifji spoke hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready for talks with Washington to, in his words, "ensure the withdrawal of all rebels without exception from eastern Aleppo."

Lavrov's remarks came after a meeting Friday in Rome with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Further talks between the two diplomats were set for next week in Geneva.

Offensive in eastern Aleppo

Meanwhile, Syrian warplanes and artillery on Saturday again pounded eastern Aleppo, where observers said an alliance of Syrian and Russian forces, their Shi'ite Hezbollah allies and Shi'ite Iranian militia has seized 60 percent of the sector since mid-November.

Syria's state-run news agency carried photos Saturday of Defense Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij leading government officials on an inspection tour of government military positions established since ground forces intensified their push into the east early last week.

Nearby, monitors from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce clashes and airstrikes in a half-dozen contested eastern neighborhoods. The observatory also said rebels seeking to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad fought back with with rocket fire and mortar.

Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be trapped in Aleppo, despite a huge uptick of refugees fleeing the combat in the past 10 days.

Monitors estimate 18,000 civilians have moved into government-controlled western Aleppo, and nearly 9,000 others into a Kurdish-controlled district, since government troops breached the northeast perimeter of eastern Aleppo early last week.

U.N. special envoy Stefan de Mistura, speaking Friday at a Rome conference on humanitarian aid to Aleppo, said he expected eastern Aleppo to fall to government forces by the end of the year, without a negotiated settlement.

De Mistura said he expected a "terrible battle" in the coming weeks. "I hope the battle will not take place, that there will be some type of formula" to end the onslaught, he said.
Russian news reports say security forces in Russias North Caucasus region have killed a rebel chieftain with ties to Islamic State extremists.

The RIA Novosti news agency identified the suspect as Rustam Aselderov, also known as Abu Muhammad, and said he was one of five militants killed near Makhachkala, the capital of the Republic of Dagestan. The Tass news agency described the Russian security sweep as ongoing and said it was to resume Sunday morning.

In a statement from the Federal Security Service, once known as the KGB, authorities described Aselderov as the ringleader of provincial Islamic State operations. It also linked the group to two separate suicide bombings in the Russian city of Volgograd that killed more than 30 people in December 2013.

The reports offered no further details.

Islamist rebels from Dagestan, which lies immediately east of the Republic of Chechnya, are known to have traveled to join Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria. Last year the jihadist organization declared it had established a franchise in the North Caucasus.

Russia fought two wars against Muslim separatists in Chechnya in the first two decades after the Soviet Unions collapse in 1991. An uneasy calm has largely prevailed in the region since the end of the second conflict in 2009.

However, Al-Qaida-linked terrorists continue to call on jihadists from the largely Muslim North Caucasus to attack targets in Russia in response to Moscows bombing campaign in the Syrian civil war, in support of embattled President Bashar al-Assad.
President-elect Donald Trump's telephone call with Taiwan's president on Friday broke decades of U.S. diplomatic policy in the region and brought a quick objection by China, but several Republican members of Congress have applauded Trump's decision to accept the call.

"I would much rather have Donald Trump talking to President Tsai [Ing-wen] than to Cuba's Raul Castro or Iran's Hassan Rouhani," Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted Saturday. "This is an improvement."

Cruz, one of Trump's main challengers and critics during the Republican presidential nominating contests this year, was referring to President Barack Obama, who has spoken to both Rouhani and Castro.

China said earlier Saturday that it had lodged an objection to the telephone conversation Trump had with Taiwan's president.

"We have already made solemn representations about it to the relevant U.S. side," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "It must be pointed out that there is only one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory."

Trump brushed aside nearly four decades of diplomatic protocol Friday to speak with Tsai. The U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, however, approved of the phone call, saying in a statement, "I commend President-elect Trump for his conversation with President Tsai Ing-wen, which reaffirms our commitment to the only democracy on Chinese soil.

"I have met with President Tsai twice and I'm confident she expressed to the president-elect the same desire for closer relations with the United States," he said.

Arizona Representative Matt Salmon told The Hill he applauded Trump for "making a strong statement" with the telephone conversation. "I commend [President-elect] Trump for reaching out to the democratically elected president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen," he said in his statement to the newspaper.

Salmon, head of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, attended Tsai's inauguration, according to The Hill.

'Small trick by Taiwan'

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday that he hoped Beijing's relationship with Washington would not be interfered with or damaged by the telephone call.

China's foreign minister characterized the conversation as "just a small trick by Taiwan."

China claims democratically ruled Taiwan is part of its territory and has never renounced the use of military force to bring the island under Beijing's control.

Trump had been widely criticized Friday for calling the Taiwanese leader, but responded to his critics in a message on his Twitter account, saying, "The president of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency."

Later, Trump said on Twitter that it was "interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

When asked Saturday about Trump's Twitter message that said Tsai had been the one to initiate the call, Tsai spokesman Alex Huang said that "both sides agreed ahead of time before making contact."

The White House said it was not told about the call until after it had happened.

'That's how wars start'

Some Democrats questioned Trump's departure from decades of U.S. diplomatic policy.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on Twitter that it was Trump's right to shift policy and strategy, but "what has happened in the last 48 hours is not a shift. These are major pivots in foreign policy w/out any plan. That's how wars start."

Senior Trump aide Kellyanne Conway dismissed such criticism, saying the call did not necessarily indicate a change of policy, according to the French news agency AFP.

When questioned Friday whether the president-elect was aware of what U.S. policy has been on Taiwan, she told CNN, "President-elect Trump is fully briefed and fully knowledgeable about these issues on an ongoing basis, regardless of who is on the other end of the phone."

The State Department declined to comment about whether it had been notified or asked to brief the transition team on current U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan prior to the phone call.

"Our job is to offer support, whether that's in terms of facilitation, translation or context, which we have done and will continue to do," State Department spokesman John Kirby said Friday.

"But the degree to which it's utilized is really for the transition team to decide, and it's really more appropriate for them to speak to," Kirby added.

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee who was named by Trump as White House chief of staff, met with Tsai in October 2015 while leading a Republican delegation to Taiwan.

Game-changer?

Experts said the conversation between Trump and Tsai showed a clear break with the so-called pivot to Asia and could be a "game-changer."

"While one phone call certainly can't replace a clear strategy for Asia or the rest of the world, President-elect Trump has shown guts in shaking up the status quo on foreign policy issues that are of supreme importance," said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington public policy research group.

John Bolton, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during former President George H.W. Bush's administration, met Friday with Trump. Bolton, who emerged as a contender for the next secretary of state, had advocated for "an upgrade" of Taiwan's relations with the U.S.

"The new U.S. administration could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department; upgrading the status of U.S. representation in Taipei from a private 'institute' to an official diplomatic mission; inviting Taiwan's president to travel officially to America; allowing the most senior U.S. officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business; and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition," according to a commentary article Bolton wrote for The Wall Street Journal this year.

Criticism on Carrier deal

Earlier in the week, heating and air-conditioning company Carrier said it received a $7 million tax-break package from the Midwestern state of Indiana and a promise from Trump to improve the U.S. business climate in return for the firm's pledge to keep about 1,000 jobs in the U.S.*

Carrier had announced earlier this year that it was planning to move about 1,400 jobs to Mexico. But now Carrier apparently has agreed to save the jobs of about 1,000 Indiana workers, following talks with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is still Indiana's governor.

However, Sarah Palin, who strongly supported Trump during his campaign, condemned the deal on Friday, AFP reported.

"When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent," Palin wrote on the website Young Conservatives. "We support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail."

Palin is a favorite of the far-right tea party movement, which values limited government and conservative values.

VOA's Nike Ching at the State Department and Bill Ide in Beijing contributed to this report.

* Editors note: President-elect Donald Trump and the Carrier Manufacturing Corporation claim that more than 1,000 jobs will remain in Indiana thanks to a deal struck between the incoming administration and Carrier.But several news organizations, as well as the head of the union representing many Carrier workers, say the actual number of jobs saved is around 800.VOA attempted to verify how many jobs were preserved, however the public relations department at United Technologies Corp., Carriers parent company, is not accepting questions from the media.
Former U.S. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is turning to a federal court in her effort to recount the state of Pennsylvania's ballots from the recent presidential election that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was widely expected to win, but lost to billionaire businessman Donald Trump.

Stein dropped her attempt to have Pennsylvania recount the votes after a state judge ordered her to post a $1 million bond.

Jonathan Abady, lead counsel to Stein's recount efforts, said in a statement, "the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem," that "we must seek federal court intervention."

One of Stein's lawyers informed a Pennsylvania court in a filing about her decision to withdraw her recount attempt that "Petitioners are regular citizens of ordinary means. They cannot afford to post the $1,000,000 bond required by the court."

Stein is expected to ask a federal court Monday to aid her in recounting the Pennsylvania ballots.

She has also mounted campaigns to recount the votes in Michigan and Wisconsin.

President-elect Trump has called Stein's recount push a "scam" and has engaged lawyers in all three states to thwart her efforts.

Stein stands to gain little from a recount, since she won only one percent of the popular vote.

She has raised about $7 million for the recount effort and other associated costs.

A statement on Stein's website said the recount effort was not meant to help Clinton. Rather, the website said the move "is about protecting our democracy."

Election experts say there is almost no chance the election results would be overturned. But with Clinton's national lead in the popular vote now more than two million, any changes to the vote count in her favor could heighten the debate over the legitimacy of Trump's stunning upset win.

U.S. presidential elections are not decided by a national popular vote. Instead, they are decided by individual races in the 50 states and the national capital city, Washington, with each state's importance in the overall outcome weighted by its population. Winning presidential candidates have to amass a majority of 270 votes in the 538-member Electoral College based on the state-by-state results, with the vote winner in each state winning all of that state's electoral votes, in most all cases.

By winning numerous states by relatively narrow margins, Trump won in the Electoral College, 306-232. Clinton would need to prevail in all three of the recount states to reverse the outcome.
Syrian monitors say at least 21 people, including several children, were killed Sunday in airstrikes southwest of Aleppo, as Russia-backed Syrian forces press a region-wide offensive against rebels seeking to topple the Damascus government.

The tally of wounded was not clear late Sunday, but monitors from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll likely will rise as rescue workers probe the wreckage at a marketplace in the the Idlib provincial town of Kafr Nabl, about 100 kilometers southwest of Aleppo.

Monitors also reported government helicopters dropping barrel bombs on a nearby rural town in southern Idlib, and an observatory statement said at least six additional people were killed.

Russia announced in November that it was resuming airstrikes in Idlib and Homs provinces in support of the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

In Aleppo, meanwhile, heavy fighting was reported Sunday in the city's eastern sector, as government forces and their Russian allies pushed deeper into territory occupied by rebels for the past four years.

Monitors reported government fighters seizing two more neighborhoods Sunday, pressing an offensive that gained momentum last week, when government fighters breached the rebel-defended northeast perimeter of eastern Aleppo.

Deeper push feared

By Saturday, monitors said the government had gained control of about 60 percent of eastern Aleppo, with some analysts predicting the entire sector could revert to government control by the end of the month.

Despite those predictions, Syrian rebel commanders in the eastern sector said Saturday they will not surrender to government forces - a pronouncement that increases the likelihood of a major and decisive battle for the eastern sector in the coming weeks.

Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be trapped in eastern Aleppo, despite a huge uptick of refugees fleeing the combat zone since mid-November for the relative safety of government-controlled western neighborhoods.

United Nations special envoy Staffan de Mistura, speaking Friday at a humanitarian conference in Rome, said he anticipated a "terrible battle" in Aleppo's east in the near future.

"I hope the battle will not take place... that there will be some type of formula" to end the onslaught, he said.
Forty-six countries including the U.S., China and European Union nations failed Sunday to agree on a list of "environmental goods" like solar-powered air conditioners or LED light bulbs that could be targeted for lower tariffs.



The two-day meeting at World Trade Organization involved a bid to agree on reducing tariffs on over 200 environment-friendly goods worth around $1 trillion in trade annually, part of a process that EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom called important "to show that trade and the environment can go hand in hand.''



She and several other officials said China's presentation of a late list of goods to include threw a monkey wrench into the weekend negotiations. The talks amounted to just a step in a broader process on the Environmental Goods Agreement that was already facing uncertainty about how the administration of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will approach it.



"In the last seconds, China proposed a list that was not studied enough,"Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Many countries, they have concerns about the list."



Zeybekci cited other concerns about sustainable-development lumber between Canada and New Zealand on one side and Japan and Taiwan on another.



The United States and the European Union, who chaired the talks, said in a joint statement that envoys would return home to consider the next steps, but did not provide any timetable.



"We tried really hard,"Malmstrom told reporters, adding that all negotiators were leaving "with clear determination to do this deal ... This is important for the environment, for the climate, for our moral obligation to show that trade can deliver after the Paris and Marrakech agreements"to help fight global warming.



One senior negotiator said the last-ditch Chinese effort, which affected priority items for many other nations, came even as China has been trying to position itself as a leader on environmental issues. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the talks, said China's new list - which was lopsided in favor of its own priorities - came in at 11 a.m. on Sunday when others had already agreed upon many other points.



"All delegations had some of their red lines moved in or moved out in a way that it was impossible to deal with in a couple of hours,"Malmstrom said, referring to China's proposal.
U.S. military veterans spoke with tribal leaders on Saturday about their shared interest in blocking a multibillion-dollar pipeline project near a Native American reservation, with as many as 3,500 veterans joining protests at the site.

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock members aim to form a human barrier in front of police to assist thousands of activists who have spent months demonstrating against plans to route the Dakota Access Pipeline beneath a lake near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

The group of veterans, including members already gathered at the site, will also finish building a barracks and mess hall near where they constructed a headquarters at the Oceti Sakowin camp about 8 kilometres (5 miles) north of the small town of Cannon Ball.

"Men and women who fought for our nation are now standing up for the first occupants of this land. They're saying enough is enough," said David Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, in an interview. "It's symbolic for us."

He said the veterans intended to avoid violence as they supported their protest over the $3.8 billion pipeline, which opponents see a threat to water resources and sacred sites.

Violent confrontations have flared near the route of the pipeline, with state and local law enforcement using tear gas, rubber bullets and water hoses on the protesters, even in

freezing weather.

Some 564 people have been arrested, the Morton County Sheriff's Department said.

"I felt it was our duty and very personally more of a call of duty than I ever felt in the service to come and stand in front of the guns and the mace and the water and the threat that they pose to these people," Anthony Murtha, 29, a Navy veteran from Detroit, said on Friday at the Oceti Sakowin camp.

State officials on Monday ordered the thousands of protesters now present to leave the snowy camp, which is on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land, citing harsh weather, but on

Wednesday they said they would not enforce the order. The temperature in Cannon Ball is expected to fall to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 Celsius) next week.

The 1,885-kilometer (1,172-mile) pipeline project, owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, is mostly complete, except for a segment planned to run under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River.

Protesters, who refer to themselves as "water protectors," have been gearing up for the winter while they await the Army Corps decision on whether to allow Energy Transfer to tunnel under the river. The Army Corps has twice delayed that decision.

"Regardless of what happens with this pipeline, we now know that with unity and with prayer we can make a stand," Archambault said. "I don't think the federal government or corporate world is going to continue to encroach on our lands after this time."
Delhi Police today arrested six persons including two minors in connection with an armed robbery in Najafgarh locality of Delhi.

By Tanseem Haider: Delhi Police on Sunday arrested six persons in connection with a murder in Najafgarh area on December 2. Police said that the incident took place near Chhawla stand near Najafganj.

Two boys had come to the shop of Ashok Kumar and assaulted him. Kumar told police that when he raised alarm his neighbor Sanjay Kumar, who owns a fruit cart, rushed to help him.

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According to the police the accused panicked seeing Sanjay and began firing indiscriminately. Sanjay who suffered bullet injuries collapsed soon after, while Ashok suffered minor injuries. However, upon seeing the two injured, the accused fled from the spot on Ashok's scooter.

Following the incidents locals rushed to the spot and informed the police. The police formed several teams to investigate the matter. Upon investigation it was found that Ashok's former employee Amit Singh was involved in the incident.

Also read: Delhi Police arrests four persons involved in armed robbery

Amit was sacked by Ashok after he allegedly misappropriated funds. The police arrested Amit, his aides Divakar and two minors from near Dichaon Bus depot after they received a tip off about their whereabouts. The police also recovered fire arms and two scooters from the accused. Police said that they also recovered Rs 10,995 that the accused stole from Ashok's shop.

The accused have been identified as Padam, a resident of Aman Vihar Police Quarters, Dhyan Singh resident of Nawada Bazar, Najafgarh, Sachin resident of Nangloi, Delhi, Divakar resident of Nangloi, Delhi and two Juveniles apprehended.

Amit told the police that he carried out the attack to take revenge after being sacked by Ashok. He had lured five others who were in need of money to carry out the attack. Police said that Amit told the other accused that they could steal huge cash in new currency from Ashok's shop.

Also read: Daylight robbery attempt foiled in Delhi's Khichripur area, 1 held

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The Syrian conflict has uprooted more than five million Syrians who have fled to neighboring states and Europe to maintain resistance against President Bashar al-Assad or to escape the airstrikes and barrel bombs, as well as fighting in their war-torn country. With the balance of battlefield power swinging possibly irreversibly in favor of the Assad government, theyre asking what the future holds for them.

Rebel fighters and opposition activists and politicians can only picture a bleak "Syria-less" future for themselves. They and their families face the prospect of long-term exile, they say, arguing they won't ever be able to return as long as Assad remains in power.

What would I demand to go back? Not to be arrested again? asked Barry Abdulattif, an opposition activist currently based in southern Turkey. He said he wouldnt be able to trust any amnesty offers - if any were made - by a victorious Assad regime.

All the activists I know are of the same opinion, he added.

In dozens of interviews VOA has had in the past few weeks with Syrians based outside Syria, those active in the rebel militias or the political opposition and civil society organizations, or who have relatives connected, are the most adamant in saying they wont be able to return to Syria if the five-year-long uprising against Assad fails, as looks increasingly likely.

Syrian NGO and relief workers, too, say theres no future for them while Assad is in Damascus or his Baath party is in control.

They would risk detention and worse if they returned to territory controlled by Assad, they say.

In my case, if Assad remains in power, I wouldnt be able to visit Assad-controlled areas because I would either be thrown into prison for the rest of my life or would become another name on the international lists of victims and the disappeared, said Mohammad Noor, whose family has been trapped in a northern Syria town still controlled by the Islamic State terror group.

His fear of being detained or worse if he returned is hardly unfounded. In May, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, claimed that more than 60,000 people had been killed through torture or died in dire humanitarian conditions inside Syrian government prisons since the uprising erupted against President Assad. The group said the numbers were obtained from Syrian government sources.

And a year ago, Human Rights Watch published a report that backed up the infamous Caesar photographs - a photo cache documenting the deaths in custody of more than 28,000 people who opposed or were suspected of opposing the Assad government. The Caesar photographs, which were smuggled out of Syria, came to public attention in January 2014.

Aside from the risks to life and limb, many in the opposition say they couldnt contemplate living in a country ruled by Assad on moral grounds - a conviction thats only deepened with time during a conflict that has seen scorched-earth bombing of rebel-held towns and alleged chemical warfare use.

How could I live in a country ruled by Bashar al-Assad. Hes responsible for destroying more than half of Aleppo, killing a half-a-million Syrians and forcing millions of others to flee the country or their homes? queried an activist who uses the name Khudur. I cant return and live in a country ruled by a criminal? he added.

Khudur, who has worked also for international relief agencies inside insurgent areas of Syria, is currently studying in a European city, having lost hope Assad can be ousted and deciding he has to get on with his own life.

For Bassam al-Kuwaitli, a well known figure in political opposition circles and the managing director of a Syrian-staffed research and marketing firm in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, living in Syria again under Assad would be too bleak a prospect.

With Assad in power, theres no hope of any real change in Syria, and where there is no hope there will be no future, he said. I can never return, he added.

The biggest question for neighboring countries and for European governments who fear another huge migration wave is what will most Syrian refugees decide to do in the event of an Assad victory over the rebels; a prospect brought closer by the dire military position of the insurgents in Aleppo.

The governments of neighboring countries had planned for - or at least hoped - that the Syrian refugee crisis would be short-lived and that most of the refugees would return to their homes. It has been only in the past year that the Turks have started begrudgingly to develop plans for what to do with the two million Syrians currently in Turkey.

Opinion is divided about whether most will return or stay where they are in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq or further afield. Bassam al-Kuwaitli draws a rough distinction between Syrians linked to the militias and opposition, and ordinary refugees who fled to escape bombing and fighting, or who lost their homes and livelihoods.

When it comes to ordinary Syrians, he suspects most of those in Europe or the U.S. will not return, but those living in camps and refugees in surrounding countries will be more tempted to return due to lack of options.

Medya, an opposition activist whos on an Assad government wanted list and cant return, agrees that many ordinary war refugees may go back, if the shelling and airstrikes stop. Based out of southern Turkey, she adds: Many of them never understood why we started this in the first place and all that matters for them is the bread they eat and how to get it.

But much will depend on two key factors. First, how events unfold in Syria, if Assad does manage to roll up the bulk of rebels forces in Aleppo and the neighboring province of Idlib. And second, on the attitude the neighboring states subsequently adopt to the Syrian refugees.

If the regime survives, then it will become even more sectarian after, suspects Khudur. By this he means the regime, which is dominated by Assads minority Alawite sect - a Shiite offshoot - will be even more discriminatory against Sunni Muslims. Most Syrian refugees are Sunni Muslims. The sectarianism of the regime will determine how many refugees or few of them return, he reckons.

Then they won't go back, unless the host countries start deporting them back, he adds.

That may start to happen soon, some refugees and diplomatic observers worry. In Lebanon, 1.5 million Syrian refugees fear what the October election by the Lebanese parliament of Michel Aoun to the countrys presidency will mean for them. Aouns Free Patriotic Movement - a Christian party - is allied with Hezbollah, which is helping to prop up President Assad.

Attitudes toward the Syrian refugees have been hardening in Lebanon. In his inaugural speech last month Lebanons new president vowed to send the Syrian refugees back to their country. The issue of the Syrian refugees should be resolved as soon as possible, he said, characterizing them as a security threat to Lebanon.

Even so, whatever happens in Lebanon, hundreds of thousands and even millions of Syrians will likely remain for the foreseeable future as refugees outside their home country. And the fear among Western diplomats and refugees themselves is that they will end up like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians - a resented and dispossessed Sunni Muslim Diaspora beholden to the begrudging charity of others and increasingly feared as a source of regional instability.
Gambia's president of more than 22 years conceded defeat Friday in the country's presidential election, vowing to step down after results showed him with a surprising loss.

State media broadcast a phone call in which President Yahya Jammeh told opposition candidate Adama Barrow that he wanted to hand over power graciously and vowed not to contest the results.

Jammeh congratulated Barrow for his "clear victory" and praised the elections as "transparent" and "rig-proof." He also said, "Allah is telling me my time is up," and added he would move to his farm after leaving office in January.

Reporter Alpha Jallow told VOA that crowds of people gathered to dance in the streets of the Gambian capital, Banjul, Friday in celebration of Barrow's victory.

Gambia's Independent Electoral Commission announced earlier Friday that Barrow won 263,000 votes, or 45 percent of the total, while Jammeh took 212,000 votes, about 36 percent. A third candidate, Mama Kandeh, won 17 percent.

Barrow, 51, represents a coalition of seven opposition parties that challenged Jammeh in Thursday's election.

Ruled since 1994

Jammeh, also 51, has ruled the tiny West African nation since taking power in a military coup in 1994. He won four subsequent elections that critics said were neither free nor fair and supported a 2002 constitutional amendment that removed presidential term limits. He once said he could rule Gambia for "a billion years."

Rights groups have often accused Jammeh of having political opponents and journalists either arrested or killed.

Amnesty International said in a statement Friday that the new administration would have an obligation to "transform the human rights situation in Gambia, freeing political prisoners, removing repressive laws and entrenching newly found freedoms."

Gambia is a former British colony that occupies a narrow sliver of land surrounded by French-speaking Senegal. About 880,000 Gambians were eligible to vote in Thursday's poll, which took place under a complete communications blackout, including social media platforms.

The president, who had predicted he would win the vote, had said that no protests would be allowed after the election.
Photo: 2016 Getty Images

Aasif Mandvi has had enough of President-elect Donald Trumps ceaseless Twitter tirades against, well, just about every random thing under the sun. In a new essay for the New York Times, Mandvi wrote about how Trump should give the same amount of time and energy on social media to condemning hate groups as he does to other trivial matters, such as certain Broadway musicals and late-night programs. When the president-elect wants to unleash his disapproval, or his thin skin has been ever so slightly bruised, the people responsible can be sure to find themselves on the receiving end of a Twitter barrage like none other. Thats what I want to see now, and I wont settle for less, Mandvi wrote. The American people deserve to see Mr. Trump attack these hate groups and the people perpetrating hate crimes in his name the way he attacked the cast of the Broadway hit Hamilton, the cast of Saturday Night Live, the television personality Rosie ODonnell, Gold Star families, the New York Times, Miss USA, the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, women accusing him of sexual misconduct, protesters and the I.R.S.

Mandvi is particularly keen on Trump speaking through his Twitter account as opposed to the press, as he believes Trump is never disingenuous on social media. We dont want a pro forma apology extracted out of him reluctantly by a reporter, Mandvi wrote. We want him to feel so hurt and angry about Nazis using his name that he is up tweeting at 3 a.m. So let me ask you, Mr. Trump  the cast of Hamilton are worth a tweet storm, but you cant muster even one tweet against neo-Nazis yelling Hail Trump? Nothing? At this point, who even knows.
I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army:

T

I

P

S

1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army
The PWD has chalked out a plan to ease traffic in Delhi. It has revived the controversial 2.5 kilometre-long tunnel project that will link Nizamuddin Bridge to Lodhi Colony.

The 2.5 km-long tunnel will start at the exit point of Nizamuddin Bridge and open up at Lodhi road. It is expected to ease congestion on Bhairon Marg and at Ashram Chowk.

By Shashank Shekhar: In order to ease the traffic on Ring Road by connecting east Delhi to south, the public works department (PWD) has revived the controversial 2.5 kilometre-long tunnel project that will link Nizamuddin Bridge to Lodhi Colony.

According to senior officials in PWD, the move is in sync with the Union government's National Highway-24 expansion plan and aims at reducing travel time and to decongest Ashram Chowk and Bhairon Marg.

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The project was initially proposed during the Sheila Dikshit government but was shot down as it was a threat to substantial green cover and world heritage site Humayun's Tomb.

PWD officials confirmed to Mail Today that the project's revival plan has been taken up with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to integrate the tunnel with Delhi-Meerut Expressway. A senior PWD official said the road is necessary to ease severe traffic congestion on Bhairon Marg and the Ashram area.

ALSO READ | Foggy days ahead, Delhi traffic police issue winter guidelines

THE PROJECT

The tunnel is expected to start at the exit point of Nizamuddin Bridge and open up at Lodi road.

It will be around 2.5-km long if constructed as a straight road. An in-principle approval was received for the project by the Delhi government and PWD is in the process of appointing a feasibility consultant to assess topography and soil type.

"This is still at a planning stage. As the Centre plans of widening the NH-24, which starts from Nizamuddin Bridge, so we thought of giving an additional option for the motorists coming from east Delhi to directly go towards south using this tunnel," a senior officer said. This tunnel will begin from Nizamuddin Bridge and connect it to Lodhi Colony via Humayun's tomb-Neela Gumbad. "Since the Lodhi Colony and the NH 24 are in one symmetrical line, it increases the possibility of the project," the officer added.

For traffic moving towards New Delhi from east Delhi, there is either a right turn at the end of Nizamuddin Bridge from where the route to Lodhi Road is via Bhairon Marg and then onto Mathura Road, or a left turn which takes one either to the Barapullah elevated road or towards Ashram.

Both routes are roughly six-km long.

The proposed tunnel road will cut down the time taken to reach Mathura Road and reduce congestion on adjoining routes.

ALSO READ | John Kerry gets a taste of Delhi traffic after rains throw it out of gear

PET PROJECT OF PM MODI

The Delhi-Meerut expressway is the pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the PWD is hoping to bank on the same to ensure that the project can be expedited. PWD officials said that once constructed the tunnel and flyover will aid in protecting the Humayun's Tomb from vehicular emissions.

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Officials, however, also added that while the project had previously been floated in 2006 and 2007, the lack of NOCs from ASI and Delhi Zoo led to the project being shelved. Initially the proposal was shot down due to widespread protests over the chances of felling 5,000 trees, disturbance to zoo animals and additional 12,000 vehicles every hour on Lodi Road due to the project.

"The Barapullah was conceived after the tunnel project was shelved. However, once again feasibility of the project is being checked, and it is already in the first phase of Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure. (planning & engineering) Centre (UTTIPEC)," said an official. He added that once approved, the project will be completed within 24 months.

"We are also mulling construction of another flyover from Bhairon Marg towards Ashram Chowk, which will make the existing flyover into two-way fully functional flyover," he said.

He added that the department is also in talks with NHAI to integrate the entire project with the existing plan of constructing the Delhi-Meerut Expressway.

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ALSO READ | Delhi Traffic Police provides 2 green corridors for transport of live organs

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Those planning to shop at Wacos Richland Mall with to the arrival of the holidays may not realize it has added three new stores since December of last year, and the Shoe Department store has expanded and relocated to an area near the food court on the Sears-anchored end of the 708,000-square-foot retail center.

New arrivals include H&M, which bills itself as one of the worlds largest fashion retailers and took 21,000 square feet next to Forever 21; Francescas, which sells womens dresses, shoes and accessories and took space next to Victorias Secret; and Earthbound Trading Co., which sells clothing, home accessories, and gift and novelty items and which now occupies the former Vanity location inside the mall at Waco Drive and State Highway 6, marketing director Brad King said.

An eatery called Greek Grill is another relatively new tenant at Richland Mall, and the Chinese Relax Station that operates in the traffic area of the mall will move into a space of its own near Bealls, possibly as early as this week, said King, adding the mall is talking with at least two other prospects to lease space in the center.

King said the stores and Greek Grill have signed long-term leases and are not seasonal additions that routinely arrive this time of year.

The future of the Aeropostale store in the mall remains uncertain. It advertised a 70 percent discount on all merchandise during the Black Friday weekend as part of a store-closing sale in the wake of Aeropostales Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. But Fortune.com is reporting a consortium of buyers may rescue up to 230 of Aeropostales 800 locations.

Shoppers may have noticed that Forever 21 has opened a second location in the Waco market, the new one now operating at Central Texas Marketplace.

The marketplace version is one of the chains new F21 Red stores that offers deeper discounts than those of traditional Forever 21 sites.

Baylor entrepreneurs

Baylor Universitys entrepreneurship program in the Hankamer School of Business continues to make waves nationally.

In 2007, it was ranked 23rd in the nation by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review. A year later, the program moved up to No. 12 nationally. And in 2009, it cracked the top five for the first time. And it has never left, according to a report released last week by the school.

For the eighth straight year, Baylor entrepreneurship is ranked among the top-five undergraduate entrepreneurship programs; this year, Baylor sits at No. 5.

During the past five years, Baylor entrepreneurship graduates have started almost 300 companies and collectively raised about $30 million in funding. Every undergraduate professor in the program has started, bought and/or run his or her own business, and more than 150 individuals work with students through a mentoring program.

Programs that the school says help it stand apart from other colleges and universities include Accelerated Ventures, a two-semester experience that enables students to create real companies with actual products and services, while also receiving revenue; the Institute for Family Business, which studies and promotes family-owned companies; and something called i5, an interdisciplinary program that introduces students to the growing market in China, according to information provided by Baylor.

Those wanting more information about entrepreneurship at Baylor may visit baylor.edu/business/entrepreneurship.

New Waco food truck

A new food truck called The Blasian Asian has opened at Franklin Avenue and University Parks Drive to serve authentic Cambodian food prepared by Chavrat Chevy Dubose, a native of Cambodia who moved to Waco from Seattle, Washington, with her husband, Michael Dubose.

Our first day of business was Tuesday, and it actually went very well. I think word had gotten around about our food trailer, which is pretty exotic. A lot of people were taking pictures of it, said Michael Dubose, who was transferred to Waco by his previous employer, Terex, which has announced it will close its Waco operations.

Dubose said he quit the company before the announcement, saying he wanted to support his wifes efforts to open a food trailer.

He said Chavrat craved authentic Cambodian food, could not find it in Waco but did locate the ingredients she needed to prepare entrees herself. Those who sampled her dishes encouraged her to open a place of her own, Dubose said, adding she took their words to heart and proceeded to open The Blasian Asian.

The biggest shock upon moving to Waco about 18 months ago was feeling the heat on a 103-degree day, something I had not experienced in 20 years, Michael Dubose said.

He said The Blasian Asian will operate from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, closing Sunday and Monday for cleaning and replenishing.

Legends Crossing

Traffic on State Highway 6 near Legends Crossing, the upscale development near Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center that serves as home to Saltgrass Steakhouse and Chuys, among other occupants, may have noticed the moving of earth adjacent to Douglass Nissan of Waco, formerly Waco Nissan.

Ryan Cash, a sales manager at the dealership, said the facilitys main entrance was at the rear when the Douglass family acquired the car store.

We have decided to create a new main entrance, and we also are developing 50 to 60 additional parking spots for our used-car inventory, Cash said in an interview Friday. We hope to have the job finished in about a month. The weather has been a little annoying, but we have a crew out there as we speak.

Chamber mixer

The public is invited to a mixer Tuesday at the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce offices at South Third Street and Franklin Avenue downtown.

Aaron Cox, representing the Texas Association of Business, will provide a preview of the 85th Texas Legislative Session, which begins in January, and how it may impact business in Central Texas. Those attending also will learn about the chambers agenda for getting its priorities in front of lawmakers.

The program, called Pinot, Pizza & Policy, will last from 5 to 7 p.m. Those planning to attend the free event are asked to notify the chamber, but reservations are not required. For more information, call Jessica Attas, the chambers director of public policy at 757-5631, or email jattas@wacochamber.com.

Come early to mingle, with the presentation beginning at 5:15 p.m., Attas said in a prepared statement, adding, You will have time to educate yourself and engage in conversation and policy analysis as you continue to position your business for excellence.

Logans bankruptcy

Logans Roadhouse, a Tennessee-based chain that operates a location in Central Texas Marketplace, announced it has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The reorganization plan allowed the company to reduce its debt from about $400 million to just over $100 million, according to a prepared statement.

The restaurateur closed 34 underperforming locations. Wacos will remain open, though Logans has adopted new policies that may impact it. The chain said it has adopted a revised menu with a return to the restaurants most popular items from years past.

It also said it would focus on streamlining operations and improving customer service. It has launched a major integrated marketing effort highlighting core favorites such as steaks, ribs and yeast rolls, according to the statement.

Logans also reportedly will invest more to attract and keep staffers through training, development and compensation packages.

Logans currently has 195 company-operated and 26 franchised restaurants in 20 states. It said it is saving $4 million annually through renegotiating leases and contracts.
Donald Trump won the election and will be president the next four years. Regardless of what people think of him, or the manner in which he conducted himself during the campaign, he won the electoral vote and defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, as well as minor candidates, using the election system now in place.

I havent the time or inclination to protest the election or its winner. As a citizen and voter, I will continue to follow the rule of current law and combat the mans policies I disagree with, as is customary under the First Amendment.

In four years, well do it all again.

I dont know what kind of president Trump will be, which is both unsettling and a little exciting. Hes not like anything weve seen, at least not in my lifetime. But I do know one thing: Our country is headed to the political right over the next four years. And thats not such a bad thing.

If you spend any time behind the wheel, you know driving in a straight line isnt really possible. The road may be straight, but youre constantly making little adjustments with your steering wheel to keep the car between the lines (or the ditches on some roads). Its never a straight path to move forward. Thats America in a nutshell. Outgoing President Obama steered us to the left over the past eight years. Before that, President George W. Bush had us veering to the right for eight years. Bill Clinton pushed us left during his time, after Reagan and George H.W. Bush had us veer right.

Thats really what the election was about  adjusting the wheel and keeping this country between ditches as long as we can.

Its been 26 days since Trump beat Clinton, capping one of the most divisive elections in modern history. The swing states proved to be Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which Trump won by a combined total of 107,000 votes. But those three states were worth 46 Electoral College votes and swung the election. Trump beat Clinton in the Electoral College vote, 306-232. Not a landslide but certainly a comfortable margin. Clinton is winning the popular vote, still to be finalized.

Since the election Ive reviewed Trumps stances on issues  at least those I could find. Ive also been searching for common ground. As I wrote in the spring, Trumps agenda will most certainly be tempered by Washington. Saying you will do something when you get to Washington, and actually getting it done, are two very different things. Even with Republicans in control of both chambers in Congress, nothing is a given for the new president.

The next president wants to build a wall on our southern border. I support that. Im less concerned with immigration than I am with the fact that Mexico is basically a failed state. So it makes sense to erect a 1,900-mile barrier of some sort down there. Maybe its a wall, maybe its a fence. Maybe its a moat full of alligators. Ill let the folks in charge work that one out. It just needs to be a whole lot harder to cross that border than it is now.

Trump also found traction in tough talk on trade. While I dont share his belief that trade is evil, or solely responsible for the decline in American manufacturing jobs, hes right to insist on penalties for companies that move jobs from this country in search of cheap labor. There must be an incentive to make things here and employ Americans. That incentive can be a carrot or a stick. Trump won, so he gets to decide which.

As for the election itself, lets reel in the rhetoric just a little bit. Trumps election is hardly a watershed moment in American history. Incumbents overwhelmingly won re-election in state after state. Trumps unconventional candidacy and bare-knuckle campaign tactics turned as many people off as they mobilized  evidenced by the low turnout rate and razor-thin margin in the swing states he won. Voter turnout was down from 2012 and 2008 nationwide, as well as here in McLennan County.

So how did Trump win? He beat the only candidate he could, Hillary Clinton. The Democrats sold out to a 2016 Hillary run the day Obama took office in 2009. They never developed a bench, they never changed their message and they overlooked critical voting blocs that had traditionally voted with them.

Consider this: Clinton defeated Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders 54-46 percent in delegates decided by the primary process this year. Her larger margin of victory was provided by non-elected superdelegates who favored Clinton 602-48. Maybe thats what Trump was talking about when he said the election was rigged.

Clinton thus took a divided party into the Democratic National Convention and emerged from it with little momentum. Her past  justified or not  finally caught up with her. America has said no to the idea of her being president twice. She lost to a well-organized, little-known senator from Illinois eight years ago in the Democratic primary and again to an anti-establishment con man who tapped into just enough disillusionment at the right time and in the right places.

She was the perfect opponent for a candidate like Trump.

So President-elect Trump takes the wheel next month and we start moving the country back to the right for a while. Were still moving forward. Were still between ditches. But for our sake, I hope the man recognizes how low those shoulders really are in this day and age.
The morning after the Trib published an editorial warning that Medicare might well be targeted for privatization by the Trump administration despite Donald Trumps many months of campaign vows to protect this popular entitlement program, an anonymous caller left a message suggesting we give the president-elect a chance. Many Trump supporters plead this. Fair enough  except Trump himself continues to send out wildly conflicting, often disturbing messages.

And that begs constant vigilance by Americans who cherish this constitutional republic and fellow citizens well-being. We frankly wonder if Congress is up to the task.

One didnt have to wait long for proof of Trumps political schizophrenia. That very evening in Ohio, at the start of his much-touted victory lap to states that supported his remarkable presidential bid, he quite commendably called for national unity and even championed the notion of Americans loving one another. Much of this was voiced while reading from a teleprompter.

In short, Trump was on message. We dont know whose message, but somebodys message.

But at the very same Cincinnati event, Trump reverted to more familiar form whenever he went off script, turning the crowd into a mob, encouraging chants of Lock her up in regard to his vanquished Democratic opponent  hardly the traditional model of an honorable candidate elevated to the highest office in our land. He took unnecessary cheap shots at Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the lifelong Republican and devout Christian who refused to support Trump out of principle. Trump seemed to revel in the boos from his adoring crowd.

Trump even took time during all this to belittle independent presidential candidate and former CIA operative Evan McMullin as a nobody. (Ironically, some counted McMullin as the only real Republican on the Election Day ballot.) Finally, Trump spent several minutes attacking the nasty, dishonest press. Of course, attacking the press has long been an easy applause line.

So this guy deserves a chance? Is this what he calls national healing? Is this what he believes will mend deep wounds left by an ugly campaign unprecedented in vileness and unsubstantiated facts? Gloating? Bullying?

Yes, we are happy that Trump (or rather the state of Indiana) managed to keep many Carrier furnace plant jobs in the United States, even if it was through what tea-party types once upon a time labeled corporate welfare  $7 million in tax breaks for Carrier. (Tea-party hero Sarah Palin on Friday branded this crony capitalism.) Even more remarkable was Trumps admission on Thursday that he had forgotten he had promised to keep Carrier jobs in the United States till somebody on TV reminded him of it.

Trump said he didnt think of it as a campaign pledge so much as a euphemism.

Should people worry then that President-elect Trump might well have forgotten another pledge about, say, protecting Medicare? We believe Americans should be able to take candidates and office-holders at their word. Certainly, Hillary Clinton had a problem with the truth. So are Trumps promises to be ascribed instead to euphemisms when theyre ignored, broken or dismissed? This means applying very inconsistent standards to different politicians. It means neatly excusing some of any and all accountability.

This newspaper was among the very first in the nation to urge citizens to rally around the president-elect. We hope the real-estate magnate and reality TV star is a huge success as president. But success in leadership means sending a clear, consistent and sincere message  and encouraging unity and prosperity while lobbing mean-spirited zingers and insults that only further rile a sorely divided nation where most Americans voted for the losing candidate is no prescription for long-term presidential success.
Subramanian, was a farmer who worked as a daily labourer in neighbhouring farmlands in Vazkai village at Thanjavur.

By Pramod Madhav: A 70-year-old farmer died at Thanjavur while waiting in queue to withdraw money from the bank.

Subramanian, was a farmer who worked as a daily labourer in neighbhouring farmlands in Vazkai village at Thanjavur.

Subramanian visited the Indian Bank, Paapanasam branch to withdraw money on Saturday but had to wait as there was long queue ahead.

Also read:

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Labourers bare brunt of demonetisation as factory owners unable to pay workers

After waiting for a long period, Subramaniam fell unconscious on the ground. His wife, Thaiyalnayagi not knowing what to do, panicked and asked for help around. Unfortunately, the crowd waiting in the queue didn't come for their aide but someone made a call to the ambulance service.

But by the time, the ambulance arrived, Subramaniam passed away. It was a sorrowful scene to see Subramanian's wife sitting with her dead husband on her lap under the loan counter.

What is more shocking is that, the bank was packed with people but nobody came to help the old couple, not even the bank staff.

Also read:

The good and bad of demonetisation

Demonetisation effect: Food cart vendors outside ATMs witness rise in sales

--- ENDS ---
In a Facebook post, this 18-year-old described how three drunk white men started abusing her and later on tried to remove her hijab.

By India Today Web Desk: A 18-year-old Muslim girl was attacked on a New York city subway while she was going back home from her college.

In a Facebook post, Yasmin Seweird described how three drunk white men started abusing her and later on tried to remove her hijab. "I was harassed on the subway last night and it was just so dehumanizing I can't speak about it without getting emotional", Yasmin wrote.

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Yasmin, who was born in Brooklyn to Egyptian immigrant parents, studies in Manhattan and said that no one on the train came to help her during the incident.

Also read: US Mosques receive letter saying Trump will do to Muslims what Hitler did to Jews

"Three white racists ripped the straps off my bag and attempted to yank my hijab off my head. I was so helpless and felt defenseless", the post read.

The men kept yelling President-elect Donald Trump's name and shouted offensive slurs such as "look it's a fucking terrorist", "go back to your country", "take that rag off your head".

When she asked the men to stop bothering her, they laughed it off and continued harassing her. Yasmin even moved to the end of the train but they followed her and asked her to "take that thing off"(her hijab).

Also read: In US, a campaign to rope in a million Muslims against Donald Trump

She mentioned in her Facebook post which has gone viral that "Trump America is real and I witnessed it first hand last night!".

Read the full Facebook post here :

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Seksi sadece eglenmek icin yasayabilirim. Yalarm o an hem de deliler gibi. Denizli escort oldugu zaman prezervatif kullandrrms kadnlar, bana ne? Ben yarag prezervatif denen o poset varken yalayamam. O ...Devam icin tklaynz
In a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make in India programme in defence sector, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba had on Friday announced that naval LCA did not meet his force's requirements and it would look for a foreign-made plane.The DRDO, however, would continue to work on it.

By Ajit Kumar Dubey: Despite the Navy junking the aircraft carrier version of the home-grown Light Combat Aircraft, the DRDO would continue working on the plane to develop it into a naval variant of the indigenous fifth-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).

In a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make in India programme in defence sector, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba had on Friday announced that naval LCA did not meet his force's requirements and it would look for a foreign-made plane.

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"Despite the Navy junking our project, we would go ahead with developing the Naval LCA as a technology demonstrator. We will use the experience and learning for developing it into a fifthgeneration fighter plane," DRDO officials told Mail Today.

The DRDO is already working on the proposed Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft which will have the capabilities and strength of a fifth generation fighter and we would develop a naval variant of the plane using the experience of working on Naval LCA, they said.

EXCLUSIVE: Navy chief's saying aircraft's naval version did not meet timeline 'hurtful', says LCA Tejas director

NAVY TO SCOUT GLOBAL MARKETS

The Navy has been given permission by the Defence Ministry to scout global markets for an aircraft carrier-based fighter aircraft for its future requirements. The Naval LCA made its maiden flight in April 2012 and two prototypes are currently undergoing flying as part of the development.

The DRDO and Navy have also created a 'Shore-based Test Facility' for the development of the Naval LCA at the INS Hansa naval air base in Goa and the aircraft had been recently tested there.

"We will seek aircraft elsewhere which can operate on the aircraft carrier," Lanba had announced on Friday.

THE Navy currently operates Russian MiG-29K fighters from the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and which will also fly from the first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) Vikrant once it enters service.

The MiG-29Ks were procured by India with the INS Vikramaditya and it is the only country in the world to operate the aircraft. Its maker Russia also does not use it in its Navy. A second IAC weighing 65,000 tonnes is currently in the design phase and the Navy Chief said that they would soon approach the government for approval. The Navy has also, so far, promised to help DRDO in developing its fifth-generation AMCA aircraft.

The IAF was also earlier reluctant to buy the LCA but due to continuous pressure by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, the Air Force agreed to buy around 80 more planes from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, making it into a success story.

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Exclusive: Navy chief ticks off Mamata, says there should be no issues with military exercises

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Public hospitals, social housing and palliative care services are ripe for privatisation, outsourcing and other reforms to inject greater competition into what have been public sector monopolies, the Productivity Commission has found.

But the influential commission also warned against excessive attempts to harness the free market, citing the disastrous experience of opening up government loans to private vocational education providers.

Treasurer Scott Morrison says Australia must confront the "air of unreality" about its budget challenge. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Of 26 services it assessed, the commission identified only five as being best-suited to more competition: end-of-life care, human services in remote Indigenous communities, public dental services, public hospitals and social housing.

Others, such as disability services, jails, residential aged care and schools, could potentially benefit from reform but should be left alone for the time being, it urged.
Donald Trump has earned his reputation for recklessness over many months. But not everyone is convinced his bumpy entry into Asian strategy in the form of a rare phone conversation with Taiwan's leader spells dangerous anarchy in Asia.

Rather, some believe, Trump's call with Tsai Ing-wen sends a much-needed signal to Beijing that the unquestioned protocols that allow it to launch a diplomatic protest over a simple phone call between two democratically elected leaders no longer apply.

That will raise the temperature and countries in the region including allies such as Australia need to be ready for that. But some experts believe that creating some doubt in Beijing's mind is in the best interests of the region.

China has been in a favourable groove. It has steadily put its stamp on the South China Sea without challenge. It has marginalised Taiwan. It has smoothed things over with the Philippines just months after the devastating arbitral decision that sided with Manila. It has kept ASEAN neutered.
There was little doubt broadcaster Lisa Wilkinson thought she was doing the right thing by her Today Show colleague, friend and fellow journalist Karl Stefanovic when she leapt to his defence during an interview a few days ago.

Wilkinson pulled no punches while chastising sections of the media for their reporting on Stefanovic's highly-publicised shock marriage breakdown, parting ways from Cassandra Thorburn and moving out of the family home three months ago after what we, the public, had been lead to believe were 21 blissful years.

Naturally, the question everyone was asking was "why?", yet Wilkinson was "disgusted" by her peers in the media for having the temerity to ask it.

Indeed Wilkinson and Stefanovic are not above discussing the travails of other high-profile people's personal lives, a recent example being Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Such stories are the fodder which fuels breakfast television chit-chat, but when it comes to Stefanovic, Wilkinson told her old magazine pal Mia Freedman: "There's a lot of rubbish out there at the moment, a lot of lies."
Clinton shot plenty of selfies with supporters throughout the campaign, of course. But while it may have been energising for supporters to catch her at a planned stump speech, it's a bizarre thrill for them to spot her unexpectedly scampering through a pastoral setting. Many who have crossed her path pass on morsels of wisdom from Clinton: "Don't be discouraged, never give up," one woman says she told her at the grocery. "We must stay strong together no matter what," relayed another. But the real message is in the visuals. In each photograph, Clinton smiles warmly. Her face is free of makeup, her hair undone. She wears practical layers - leggings, turtlenecks, patterned fleeces, fun scarves. After the knockdown, drag-out battle of the campaign, the images suggest she has, unexpectedly, found peace. She has cast off the militaristic coats, the pantsuit uniform, the helmet hairdo and the mask of TV news makeup that she wore as Hillary Clinton, embattled Democratic hopeful and Republican villain. Now she presents as a recently retired woman living her best life. There is a larger Democratic fantasy being enacted here. The smiley sightings project an idea of enclaves - perhaps deep in the woods of Chappaqua, or in the stacks of an indie bookstore - where the fear and depression felt by many after the election does not loom. The Huffington Post called it a "peaceful alternate universe."

If the woman who bested Trump as a debater, and in the popular vote, can put on a brave face and head out on a brisk hike, these selfies say, then perhaps there is hope for her supporters, too. One woman who encountered Clinton in the woods tagged her selfie with the hashtag #lightfollowsdarkness. At Quartz, the writer Lux Alptraum read a feminist political message into the selfies. Clinton's "makeup free look," she wrote, is "one last middle finger to the patriarchy." She added, "If there's any silver lining to this election mess, it's that after 40 years of scrutiny and stricture, Hillary Clinton is finally, triumphantly, human again." Off-putting to some - especially those who feel Clinton pulled the party to the centre, only to lose - is that the selfies, and the commentary swirling around them, telegraph an attitude of almost religious reverence for Clinton. They reek of the blinkered Democratic worldview that saw Clinton as so qualified, deserving, even destined for the presidency that prospective challengers ought to clear the way of her path to the nomination. And following her stunning loss, they present Clinton as innocent of blame for the country's new direction. Writing in the leftist labor publication In These Times, Kathleen Geier critiqued the "pro-Clinton media bubble" that's rushed to enshrine the candidate post-election, while continuing to ignore the legions of voters who hold a "far less rosy view."
Protesters have disrobed, partially, to push for the right to strip off completely on some of Queensland's beaches.

Noosa's Alexandria Bay has been an unofficial nude beach for decades but fines issued to skinny-dipping bathers regularly generate controversy.

Australian Sex Party Queensland secretary Robin Bristow gets a bit cheeky at a nude beach protest.

In November's latest escalation, police confirmed they'd been patrolling the national park surrounded beach and had fined 11 men in recent weeks.

According to the Australian Sex Party, which organised the protest, about 40 people gathered outside Noosa Police Beat in "various states of undress" on Saturday to fight for the right to enjoy the beach in the buff.
Helsinki: Queensland is set to host an offshoot of Europe's massive Slush start-up conference with hopes the event, also an X-factor-style talent quest for inventors, will become the "Ibiza of tech" for the Asia Pacific. Called "Myriad," the event is the brainchild of Estonian Martin Talvari, formerly of Slush, and Australian entrepreneur Murray Galbraith. The pair have been heavily backed with more than $2 million in funding by the Queensland Government through 2019, but Talvari said this was only the beginning.

"Anyone can run an event. This is about catalysing a movement. If people think we are building just another tech conference we've already failed," he said.

While start-up culture encourages failure early and often, Slush is nothing but a straight up success story. It began in 2008 with just six entrepreneurs in Finland creating meet-ups with like-minded inventors through professional "speed dates" and "inspirational talks."

But when the six handed Slush over to the Aalto University student community in 2011, the conference doubled in size every year until 2014, drawing industry heavyweights to its stage including big names from giants like Spotify, Tindr, LinkedIn, Flickr and Skype. In 2016 it reached its "critical mass" with 17,500 attendees, including 2336 start-ups, 1146 investors and 610 local and international journalists.
Rome: British physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking has been hospitalised in Rome for checks after not feeling well but his condition is not believed to be serious, a spokesman said.

Hawking, 74, who was in Rome to attend a conference at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and met Pope Francis on Monday, was taken to Rome's Gemelli hospital on Thursday night.

Pope Francis greets physicist Stephen Hawking during an audience with participants at a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, at the Vatican on Monday. Credit:AP

Both the spokesman and a Vatican source said Hawking, who suffers from motor neurone disease, was not believed to be in serious condition. The Vatican source said plans for Hawking and his entourage to leave Saturday had not been changed.

Hawking, author of A Brief History of Time, speaks through a computer and travels with a staff that includes two nurses. He gave a talk at the Vatican on November 25 on the origin of the universe.
By PTI: Sambalpur (Odisha), Dec 4 (PTI) Eight persons, including a country liquor baron and a bank employee, were arrested here and more than Rs 1.42 crore in both new and scrapped currency notes seized from them.

"Of Rs 1,42,91,500 cash seized last night, Rs 85,62,000 was in new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 currency notes, while Rs 25,29,000 was in demonetised banknotes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations," Sambalpur Superintendent of police Akhilesvar Singh said.

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The remaining amount was in Rs 100 and other smaller denominations, he said.

Those arrested have been identified as country liquor baron Zeyarat Ali (59), his three sons, Md. Qazzafi (35), Riffat Ali (33) and Sabtin Ali (31), Public Relation Officer of the main branch of SBI here Rashmiranjan Rout (36), his elder brother Pankaj Kumar Rout (43), Kapil Jhajharia (37) and Rabi Trivedi (40).

Acting on a tip-off, police intercepted a vehicle near Dhanupali Chawk here and found Zeyarat Ali and his three sons in the car. During search, huge amount of cash in bags was recovered, police said, adding two firearms were seized from them.

During questioning, police came to know about the involvement of Rout and his elder brother. Later, they also came to know about involvement of two agents, Kapil Jhajharia and Rabi Trivedi, they said.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the cash belonged to Zeyarat Ali. It was brought here for exchange, police said.

"Some more people are also involved in the case. Probe is on and the Income Tax Department has been informed about the seizure," the SP said. PTI CORR SKN MD NSD

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Washington: US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, charged with desertion for walking away from his combat post in Afghanistan in 2009, has asked President Barack Obama for a pardon, the White House said on Saturday.

Mr Obama will relinquish office on January 20 to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who made caustic comments about the sergeant during the presidential campaign that drew complaints from Bergdahl's defence team.

Trump savaged Bergdahl as "a no-good traitor who should have been executed" and criticised the prisoner swap in 2014 that won his release.

Bergdahl, 30, is facing a court-martial with a potential life sentence on charges of desertion and endangerment of US troops after he walked away from his post in Afghanistan. He was captured by the Taliban and became a prisoner for five years.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) Police have apprehended an engineer and his five associates, including two juveniles, in connection with a murder-cum-robbery case after they fled with Rs 80,000 in new notes in southwest Delhis Najafgarh area.

A PCR call was received at 8 PM about a murder-cum- robbery case near Chhawla stand in Najafgarh area.

Both the victims were rushed to a nearby hospital where one of them, identified as fruit-seller Sanjay Kumar, was declared dead, while another person, businessman Ashok Kumar, was critical and undergoing treatment, police said.

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Ashok told police told that he was leaving for home from his shop when two boys assaulted him and tried to snatch his bag containing Rs 80,000 in new notes.

Sanjay rushed to help him and he was injured when the robbers shot at them in panic. A bullet pierced through the neck of Sanjay and he collapsed on the spot, while Ashok sustained bullet injuries on his neck and shoulder.

The robbers fled with his scooty and cash bag. During investigation, the employees who had worked in the past at Ashoks shop were questioned. On the basis of technical surveillance and local inputs, Dhyan Singh was detained.

He had been sacked by Ashok last year over his habit of stealing money from the shop. Thereafter, he wanted to settle score with him, said DCP (Southwest) Surender Kumar.

He made his five friends, including the two juveniles, part of the plan. He told them that huge cash in new currency notes can be looted from the victim, the officer said.

"Dhyan confessed to plotting the entire robbery, on his tip off, a trap was laid near Dichaon bus depot and other accused Padam, Divakar, Sachin and two juveniles were apprehended. Police have also recovered the victims scooty and firearms used in robbery," he said.

Police have also recovered the robbed cash amounting to Rs 11,000 from the accused.

"It has been found that both the juveniles apprehended in this case, had also been apprehended in February 2016 in a case of attempt to murder and robbery when they hit a businessman in Nihal Vihar," he said.

Padam alias Chintu, one of the assailants, had completed his engineering degree from a private college in Vikaspuri but did not get a job. He left his family and started living with other accused, police said. PTI SLB SMN

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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Dec. 01, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 01, 2016 | 06:23 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Construction is under way on a new $3.2 million Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Baptist Health Paducah, with completion expected in early 2017.



The NICU, which started in 2011 in a section of the nursery on the hospitals second floor, will almost triple in size when it moves into a new 8,000-square-foot wing on the second floor of Medical Park 2.



The unit began with six beds and is now licensed for 14 beds. In its nearly six years, the availability of this service in Paducah has had a significant emotional and economic impact on more than 1,000 families, said William A. Brown, hospital president. Without it, they would have had to relocate to cities two or three hours away for weeks, sometimes months, missing work and their families during a critical time in their lives.



As beneficial as the NICU has been for those families, Edward ONeill, MD, University of Louisville-affiliated neonatologist serving the Paducah NICU, said the unit has outgrown its space.



Our limited space means families have been unable to stay in the room with their babies. After mothers were discharged from the hospital, they did not even have adequate private space where they could feed their babies, Dr. ONeill said. Our new space will allow for more privacy and bonding during this critical time in their new babys life, and, because it is being designed especially for this purpose, it will be more convenient and comfortable for families during these extended stays.



The NICU has special equipment and trained staff to care for babies born up to three months early, weighing as little as two pounds.



Since babies in the unit are sensitive to sound, light and color; every detail of the new NICU is designed to improve their brain growth and development, as well as reduce the risk of infection, for the best outcomes. For example, floor materials dampen the noise of footsteps; sinks, hand dryers and pull curtains are quiet; and windows are covered with sheer and room-darkening shades. Even the artwork has been chosen for the proper stimulation.



Our babies require special equipment to acclimate to their new environment, said Lisa Parnell, PhD, Mother & Baby Care nursing director. They need quiet time to grow and mature.



The new NICU will include:



+ Six private rooms for the most critical babies, with enough space for parents to remain close to their babies and sleep in the rooms. Two of these six rooms will be large enough for twins or triplets.



+ Six private midsized rooms for less critical babies, offering recliners and gliders for parents comfort.



+ Six additional bays for babies needing observation, with curtain privacy. Placement depends on the babys condition, Dr. ONeill said. Some will be brought in for observation; others may be improving and preparing to go home.



+ Special rooms for breastfeeding, including a breast milk preparation room and a private lactation room. This space also will accommodate a donor breast milk program.



+ Rooms for respiratory and physical/occupational therapists. They not only assist in the newborns treatment, but also train the family to meet any special care needs when they take their baby home. They have been serving the current NICU from other quarters in the hospital, but this will allow them to be on-site at all times.



Brown said Baptist Health is known as the baby hospital because 1,400 babies are born there each year  four times more than anywhere else in the region - but about 15 percent of them need NICU services.



Babies have been important to us since 1953, when the first baby was born within four hours of the hospitals opening our doors, he said. We are delighted to make these improvements for our young families. Our mission is to demonstrate the love of Christ with them, whether they are celebrating the happiest moments of their life or needing us at a critical time.



Anyone interested in making a year-end donation for the NICU may send it to the Baptist Health Foundation Paducah, 2501 Kentucky Ave., Paducah, Ky. 42003 or phone 270-575-2871.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 03, 2016 | 11:08 PM | PADUCAH, KY





Tammy Thompson, public relations coordinator at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, was elected board secretary to the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) Board of Regents, during a board meeting in Versailles on Friday.Thompson, a staff representative on the KCTCS Board of Regents, will fill the vacancy created by Regent Betsy Flynn's term expiration in September 2016. She will serve as secretary through June 30, 2017.Thompson, who has worked at WKCTC since 1993, was elected by KCTCS staff members during a special election to fill four vacant board positions in 2015. A McCracken County resident, Thompson received an associate in applied science degree in 1989 from Paducah Community College (now known as WKCTC) and a bachelor's degree in radio and television from Murray State University in 1991. Prior to accepting the position as public relations coordinator in 2009, Thompson worked as a television producer/director for WKCTC's television department for 16 years.During Friday's meeting, the board received positive results from KCTCS's annual independent financial audit for the fiscal year 2015-16. The opinion issued by Crowe Horwarth LLP was an "unmodified opinion," the highest opinion offered by public accounting firms. KCTCS has received an unmodified opinion every year since its inception in 1998."We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this audit," said KCTCS Board of Regent Chair Marcia L. Roth. "It clearly demonstrates KCTCS' commitment to strong stewardship and fiscal responsibility, which is key to accomplishing our role in fueling the state's economy by being the primary provider of workforce training and providing Kentuckians with a clear path to finding a job."
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Murray police warn of prowlers in several neighborhoods
By PTI: Visakhapatnam, Dec 4 (PTI) The Eastern Naval Command (ENC) today paid homage to service personnel who made the supreme sacrifice in various actions, including the 1971 War, to mark the Navy Day.

A floral wreath was placed by ENCs Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Vice Admiral HCS Bisht at the Navy War Memorial on Beach Road here, a Defence release said.

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Wreaths were also placed by President Navy Foundation Vice Admiral VK Namballa (Retd), District Collector Praveen Kumar, Visakhapatnam Commissioner of Police, T Yoganand.

They were joined by 100 NCC cadets who also paid their respects to the martyrs, it added.

A 50-man Guard of Honour was paraded on the occasion, and on arrival, the Commander-in-Chief proceeded to the War Memorial in slow march with the wreath bearers marching in front. The Guard performed the Salami Shastra followed by Shok Shastra and the Commander-in-Chief placed the floral wreath.

While the bugler sounded the Last Post a two minute silence was observed.

In the evening a large number of people witnessed the naval operational display at RK Beach where Union Minister for Civil Aviation P Ashok Gajapathi Raju was the chief guest.

Sky diving, helicopters demonstrations, search and rescue operations by helicopters and illuminations of the warships and fireworks enthralled the citizens. PTI CORR NRB AQS SRE

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By Gaurav C Sawant: Pakistan's undeclared war on Afghanistan has intensified in 2016, despite engagement, Ashraf Ghani, President of Afghanistan said today. Hitting out at Pakistan sponsored terror without mincing his words, Ghani accused it of providing safe sanctuaries and support to terror networks.

"As Kakazada, one of the key figures in the Taliban movement recently said, if they did not have sanctuary in Pakistan, they would not last a month," Ghani said in his inaugural address at the Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar.

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A stunned Sartaj Aziz, advisor to Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif heard Afghanistan expose Pakistan sponsored terror in the region and contrasting it with India's `no strings attached' support to the development of Afghanistan.

"We propose an Asian and international regime, whatever is accepted, particularly to our neighbour Pakistan to verify cross frontier-activities. We do not want a blame game. We want verification," he said.

Also read: Heart of Asia conference: How PM Modi didn't name Pakistan but cornered it on terrorism

There was more humiliation in store for Pakistan as President Ghani spoke of the $500 million aid that Pakistan promised Afghanistan for its development saying, "Pakistan has generously pledged $500 million for reconstruction of Afghanistan. This fund Mr Aziz, could very well be used for containing extremism because without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people."

PRAISE FOR INDIA

In contrast, President Ghani heaped praise on India for genuine support in rebuilding Afghanistan. "The Afghan-India friendship dam at Salma, generating 42 megawatts of power and storing 650 cubic metres of water will bring light and improved lives to the people of Herat," he said.

The Afghanistan president also talked about the tri-lateral agreement signed in Tehran between India, Iran and Afghanistan on the port of Chabahar that would transform Afghanistan from a landlock to a land bridge country. Afghanistan also thanked India for the additional one billion dollar assistance for skill development.

The highlight was the soon to be launched air cargo corridor, overcoming Pakistan's road block to the India-Afghanistan trade along the land route. "The agreed cargo air corridor to be soon launched will give Indian and Afghan consumers and producers unimpeded access to each other's products and services," Ghani said appreciating India's aid as transparent and no strings attached. "There are no hidden agreements and secret conditions." he added.

Watch the video here:

Also read: Son lodged in Peshawar jail, parents appeal to Sartaj Aziz

--- ENDS ---
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 04/12/2016 (2159 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Forget partisan blue and orange. Saturday, red and green took over as the Manitoba legislature hosted its festive open house.

During the annual event, people were invited to tour the Christmas-decorated building, meet with MLAs and learn more about the provincial government.

Santa hats bobbed through the crowd of a few hundred people while different musical acts  including the Murdoch MacKay Collegiate jazz band, Sisters by Choice, Honeycomb: Sweet Adelines ladies a cappella quartet, Wing and a Prayer, Colleen Furlan and the MLA choir led by Speaker Myrna Driedger  performed on the legislative buildings grand staircase. Ross the Magician and Art City craft tables entertained kids. Fort Rouge MLA Wab Kinew wore a bright green Rudolph sweater. Children in sparkling holidays dresses and suits waited for candy canes and photos with Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Pallister as eagerly as they would to see Santa at the mall.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Premier of Manitoba Brian Pallister and Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen leave the house after question period at the Manitoba Legislature.

Pallister acted the part of Santa Claus, shaking hands, giving hugs and posing for photos in front of an elaborately decorated Christmas tree. When the jolly old elf himself stopped by, the premier took a break from the long line of people winding outside his chambers to meet and take a photo with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Merry Christmas, everybody, Pallister said in his opening comments.

We live in the most beautiful province in the most beautiful country in the world. This time of year, I think its very important to remind each other of how many blessings we have.

For some, Helen Counanes said, those blessings include a stable government. The former St. James-Assiniboia School Division teacher has hosted international students for the last 12 years. This year, she brought the two boys staying with her to the open house.

Im here to learn another culture and see how it is here in Canada, Paulo Souza said.

The 16-year-old Sturgeon Heights Collegiate student said he came to Winnipeg from Brazil four months ago and wanted to see how Manitobas government differs from Brazils.

Counanes said its especially important for people who might have unstable governments back home to see how governments can work.

They need to know some of our laws and whats allowed, and then they can compare what their governments are like, she said.

Theyll get a chance, hopefully, to see what a stable government is and how welcoming it is, because were a multicultural community here. Were all the same.

Thirteen-year-old Jordi Ecriva Estevan, the other student staying with Counanes, will return home to Valencia, Spain a few days before Christmas, but both boys will get to experience some local holiday traditions. Counanes said theyll take part in an early Greek Christmas and gift exchange, and Paulo will celebrate his birthday later this month and see traditional Epiphany celebrations in the new year.

They get the whole gamut, Counanes said, smiling.

Locals learned more about the provincial government, too. Tour guides explained the purposes of different rooms and the architectural styles of the building itself.

Usually, everything is locked up. Not today, one woman on a tour said.

Today, its all transparency.

danielle.doiron@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @dmdoiron
Afghanistan is the permanent chair for the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process, while the host country is the co-chair.

By India Today Web Desk: India is hosting the Heart of Asia conference, sixth in the series, for the first time.

Afghanistan is the permanent chair for the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process, while the host country is the co-chair.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani today held a bilateral meeting.

India says a basket of six confidence-building measures would be discussed during the conference.

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Here are the updates:

We also plan to connect Afghanistan with India through an air transport corridor: PM Modi

Our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistan's development needs must continue and increase: PM Modi

Support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough, it must be backed by a resolute action: PM Modi

Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity: PM Modi

On India's part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering: PM Modi

We should all work to build stronger positive connectivity between Afghanistan and other countries of the region: PM Modi

We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear: PM Modi

Our gathering today re-affirms the commitment of the international community to durable peace and lasting stability in Afghanistan: PM Modi

Amritsar enforces the value of restoring connectivity which is so crucial for the overall growth and economic prosperity of Afghanistan: PM Modi

Pleasure to jointly inaugurate the session of 6th Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia with friend and partner Afghanistan President: PM Modi

PM Narendra Modi addresses 6th ministerial conference of Heart of Asia.

Ghani asks Pakistan to verify cross-frontier and terror activities.

Top Taliban leader admitted to Pakistan's terror role: Ghani

Rising terrorism is our main concern: Ashraf Ghani

India's support aimed at improving people's life: Ghani

There are billions of historic bonds between India and Afghanistan: Ghani

India's support to Afghanistan unconditional: Ghani

Ghani thanks Obama, US security assistance: Ghani

The project of Chabahar Port between India, Afghanistan and Iran is very important to us for connectivity

Chabahar Port a major step to transform Afghanistan: Ashraf Ghani

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani thanks India for hosting the summit.

There is much to be done to tackle challenges like terrorism and radicalism: Salahuddin Rabbani, Afghan Foreign Minister

--- ENDS ---
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 04/12/2016 (2159 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One reason Chancellor Angela Merkel has failed to persuade Germanys European Union partners to open their doors to refugees was eastern Europes intransigence.

Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia led the resistance to a collective resettlement effort. This recalcitrance has much to do with the failure of those countries to integrate their biggest ethnic minority: the Roma.

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has released a report on the Romas situation, based on thousands of face-to-face interviews in the nine countries with sizable Roma populations. All of these are eastern and southern European states, six of them post-Communist. Most of Europes six million Roma live in those countries.

JACQUES BRINON / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Roma children play in their makeshift camp set up next to the Boulevard Peripherique that surrounds Paris.

The survey found 80 per cent of them live below these states already-low poverty thresholds, a third have no running water, and one in 10 have no electricity. The employment rates for men and women are 34 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively, and two-thirds of Roma people between the ages of 16 and 24 neither work nor attend school. Roma kids tend to drop out early, and even if they dont, they are likely to be held back in lower grades more often than their non-Roma peers.

Previous surveys of European Roma showed similar levels of poverty, unemployment and poor education. One reason is discrimination, which they say they encounter when looking for work, dealing with schools or seeking medical treatment.

In the latest FRA survey, 26 per cent of respondents reported at least one incident within the last year. Thats less than in the 2008 survey, which only included residents of seven countries, but showed 47 per cent of Roma felt theyd been subjected to discrimination in the preceding 12 months. Opinion surveys, including the latest Pew Global report on attitudes toward minorities in Europe, show the Roma are viewed less favourably than Muslims and far less favourably than Jews.

Many Europeans claim the Roma dont want to integrate. In September, Radka Maxova, a Czech legislator, said the Roma dont go to work and are parasites on our social system, and if they are poorly integrated and in the majority, then residents who are doing their best to uphold our standards and meet their work obligations are not absolutely understood by that group and are oppressed by them.

Ordinary citizens who live next to the Roma (which means, in most cases, they cant afford to move away) are even more vehement in accusing them of not wanting to integrate. Indeed, various branches of Roma have preserved their distinct languages and cultures; they dress differently and mostly interact within their communities. They are the Other.

That, of course, is what many Europeans say about Muslims, too. The Pew survey taken last summer states Hungary has one of the highest percentages of people who say Muslims in their country want to be distinct  76 per cent. Hungary barely has any Muslims, but the Roma account for as much as 10 per cent of the population. Experiences of hard-to-assimilate minorities appear to get conflated.

That may well be the case in other eastern European countries where Muslims are few but Roma populations are large. Ivan Krastev, the Bulgarian political scientist who heads the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, wrote earlier this year, riffing on Merkels We can do it slogan:

The failed integration of the Roma also contributes to eastern Europes compassion deficit. East Europeans fear foreigners because they mistrust the capacity of their society and state to integrate the others already in their midst. In many east European countries the Roma are not simply unemployed but unemployable because they drop out of school very early and fail to acquire the skills needed for the 21st-century job market. It was the failure of Roma integration that makes east Europeans believe that their countries cannot do it.

The truth is eastern European national governments and the EU bureaucracy have no idea how to integrate the Roma. In the last century, the Soviet Union banned their nomadic way of life and forced them to take jobs and accept a fixed abode. It didnt work: Soviet Roma continued travelling and forming traditional communities. The EU has opted for the soft approach, focusing on subsidies, education and working with civil society to raise awareness.

So far, results have been hard to pin down.

Many northern European countries, which have been the most open to Muslim immigrants so far, havent had this frustrating experience: They have relatively few Roma. Besides, their previous integration record with Muslims, such as Turkish guest workers in Germany, has been far more satisfactory. That may explain why Germans and Scandinavians were surprised when eastern Europeans, who had fled Communist countries, didnt want to show more solidarity to refugees.

A lot of Europes current troubles stem from peoples ignorance of whats going on next door, just across a transparent national border. This lack of mutual understanding is a bigger threat to the EUs cohesion than populism or economic disparity.

 Bloomberg
You might have thought about it, heard it. A lot. You might have even felt it: Dictionary.coms word of the year is xenophobia.

While its difficult to get at exactly why people look up words in dictionaries, online or on paper, its clear that in contentious 2016, fear of otherness bruised the collective consciousness around the globe.

The Brexit vote, police violence against people of color, Syrias refugee crisis, transsexual rights and the U.S. presidential race were among prominent developments that drove debate  and spikes in lookups of the word, said Jane Solomon, one of the dictionary sites lexicographers.

The 21-year-old site defines xenophobia as fear or hatred of foreigners, people from different cultures, or strangers. And it plans to expand its entry to include fear or dislike of customs, dress and cultures of people with backgrounds different from our own, Solomon said in a recent interview.

The word didnt enter the English language until the late 1800s, she said. Its roots are in two Greek words  xenos, meaning stranger or guest, and phobos, meaning fear or panic, Solomon added.

The interest was clear June 24, within a period that represents the largest spike in lookups of xenophobia so far this year. That was the day of Brexit, when the UK voted to leave the European Union.

Searches for xenophobia on the site increased by 938 percent from June 22 to June 24, Solomon said. Lookups spiked again that month after President Obamas June 29 speech in which he insisted that Donald Trumps campaign rhetoric was not a measure of populism, but rather nativism, or xenophobia, or worse.

Solomon added that chatter about xenophobia goes well beyond the spikes.

It has been significant throughout the year, she said. But after the EU referendum, hundreds and hundreds of users were looking up the term every hour.

Robert Reich, who served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was President Clintons labor secretary, felt so strongly about xenophobias prominence today that he appears in a video for Dictionary.com discussing its ramifications.

I dont think most people even know what xenophobia is, Reich, who teaches public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an interview. Its a word not to be celebrated but to be deeply concerned about.

Solomons site, based in Oakland, Calif., started choosing a word of the year in 2010, based on search data and agreement of in-house experts that include a broad swath of the company, from lexicographers to the marketing and product teams to the CEO, Liz McMillan.

The word and the sentiment reflect a broader mournful tone to 2016, with Oxford dictionary editors choosing post-truth as their word of the year, often described in terms of politics as belonging to a time in which truth has become irrelevant.

I wish, Solomon said, we could have chosen a word like unicorns.
Senior members of Cotter High Schools Speech Team began their season early by competing at a National Speech and Debate qualifying event in Northbrook, Ill. on Nov. 19 and 20.

The team did well against tough competition. Although no one made finals, there were a number of rounds where Cotter students placed second, third and fourth, among the nations top speakers, many of whom have been competing every weekend across the nation since September.

This was their first representation at a NSDA Qualifying Event in over a decade, though this spring Noah French competed at the National Catholic Forensic League Tournament in Sacramento, Calif.

Speakers included Zoey Aune and Maddie Walters in program oral interpretation, Steve Hadaway and Jacob French in extemp speaking, Noah French in dramatic interpretation and David French in oratory.

Congratulations to all on this great accomplishment.
The following editorial appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Friday, Dec. 2:If you overlook the details  as many of Donald Trumps supporters seem happy to do  the decision by United Technologies Corp. to keep 800 factory jobs in Indiana instead of shipping them to Monterrey, Mexico, ranks as a symbolic victory for the president-elect.

Certainly Trump thinks so. On Thursday he took a victory lap at the Carrier furnace factory in Indianapolis, one of two plants United Technologies planned to close in the Hoosier state. He portrayed the decision as a triumph for his personal, hard-nosed negotiating style. The visit was his first public appearance since his election Nov. 8.

During the campaign, Trump seized on the Carrier plant as a prime example of the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. The message resonated with blue-collar voters in Midwestern states who swept Trump to his upset victory.

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly blasted the companys plans to move more than 2,000 Indiana jobs to Mexico. Carriers Indiana workforce earned an average of $20 an hour, and those in Mexico earn about $3 an hour. Trump had vowed to impose steep tariffs on Mexican-made air conditioners if the plants moved.

His election gave Trump considerable leverage. Carrier is just one of the many companies under the United Technologies umbrella, and it didnt need trouble with the new administration when, for example, the company tried to sell its Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines to the Pentagon and foreign buyers. So it was willing to deal: It wont move 2,100 jobs to Mexico. It will move 1,300. Trump can claim a 38 percent victory.

The Indianapolis plants workforce will be trimmed to 800. Wages may be cut. Two hundred engineering and administration staffers who werent going to Mexico in the first place will be retained. The 700 workers at the Huntington, Ind., plant that makes electronic controls are out of luck.

Todays announcement is possible because the incoming Trump-Pence administration has emphasized to us its commitment to support the business community and create an improved, more competitive U.S. business climate, the company said in a statement. The incentives offered by the state were an important consideration.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Indiana, whose governor, Mike Pence, is vice president-elect, will kick in $7 million in tax breaks over 10 years. Given that Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has offered $100 million incentive packages to big manufacturers, Carrier might have been better off moving to Mexico, Mo.

Since 2000, the United States has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs, so keeping 800 of them is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But its a big victory for 800 families, and least a small victory for Trump. But bribing companies with incentives that Indiana taxpayers ultimately must pay is neither a fair nor a sustainable industrial policy.
Under severe attack from India and Afghanistan for sponsoring terrorism in both the countries, Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif's Advisor Sartaj Aziz refused to take the blame at the Heart of Asia conference.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Reiterating that his country "is committed to lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region", Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz on Sunday said only one country cannot be blamed for rising terrorist violence in the region.

"The first and foremost in our view is continuing violence and acts of terrorism claiming scores of human lives. This needs to be addressed urgently and effectively through collective efforts," Aziz said at the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia Conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan' in this Punjab city near India's border with Pakistan.

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READ| Amritsar declaration recognises terrorism as biggest threat to peace, names Lashkar, Jaish

"It's simplistic to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence. We need to have an objective and holistic view," Aziz said at the two-day conference.

PAKISTAN UNDER SEVERE ATTACK

Earlier, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, in his blunt remarks in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, unequivocally named Pakistan for promoting terrorism in the region.

Aziz said Pakistan had "been making serious efforts for facilitating peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban that have not yet produced positive results".

WATCH:

"We need to make an objective evaluation of our efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan," Aziz said.

PAKISTAN FOR TALKS WITH TERRORISTS

Aziz said his government stood in solidarity with the elected government and people of Afghanistan in furthering the objective of peace, stability and development.

"In our view, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and all our efforts should be to achieve a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-led Afghan-owned process."

READ| India, Afghanistan speak in one voice, condemn terror at Heart of Asia conference

Advocating the need to promote connectivity across the borders, the diplomat said Pakistan was committed to enhancing facilitation for transit of Afghan goods through Pakistan.

"We believe the two sides need to work together for extension of and improvements in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement. In this context, let me emphasize that peaceful resolution of outstanding disputes will further improve prospects of regional cooperation and connectivity."

ALSO READ|

How PM Modi didn't name Pakistan but cornered it on terrorism

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The Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities has awarded a 2016 Building Full Lives in the Community Technical Assistance Grant to Green Valley Enterprises, Beaver Dam.

The grants provide technical and financial assistance to support the organizations in providing services and supports that are individualized; full of choices; and built around the dreams and aspirations of individuals. Organizations will learn how to establish services that support individuals full lives in the community by flexibly combining customized employment with individualized community integrated activities.

The boards full lives effort shows that people with disabilities are like anyone else, said Beth Swedeen, BPDDs executive director. Their jobs are important to them, but so is being part of their community through volunteer work, recreational activities, getting together with friends and other activities. These grants equip organizations to provide supports across community settings so that people with developmental disabilities can work, live, and participate fully in their communities. Last years grant recipients already are making huge changes in their communities. We are so excited to be able to offer this new round of funding, and look forward to exciting work with these new partners.

The Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities is charged under the federal Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act with advocacy, capacity building and systems change to improve self-determination, independence, productivity, and integration and inclusion in all facets of community life for people with developmental disabilities.

For more information see http://www.wi-bpdd.org. To learn more about Green Valleys various programs call 887-4282.
No charges have been filed one year after investigators descended on a prison for the states most serious teenage offenders to question employees about allegations of child abuse, sexual assault, public misconduct and other potential crimes.

Federal authorities say theyre continuing the investigation into the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls by reviewing detailed documents and interviews obtained during and after the Dec. 5, 2015, raid.

State officials and lawmakers say they havent been briefed on the timetable for the completion of the investigation, which has been headed by federal authorities for nearly a year.

I dont know what theyre doing or what their schedule is, said John Paquin, administrator for the state Department of Corrections division of juvenile corrections. And a DOC spokesman said the FBI and U.S. Attorneys Office, which is handling a review of the allegations, hasnt told department officials where the investigation stands.

They havent really shared much with us, said DOC spokesman Tristan Cook.

Wisconsin Department of Justice spokesman Johnny Koremenos also said state investigators havent been involved in the investigation since the FBI took over in February. The state had launched its own investigation in early 2015.

After the FBI insisted, on Feb. 2, 2016, on taking over the investigation of conduct of certain DOC guards and employees who worked at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, DOJ has only served in an assistance role, Koremenos said.

Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, said the lack of disclosure in the investigation has made it difficult to know what changes  if any  to juvenile corrections need to be made through legislation. But he also said he understands the review takes time.

Its always frustrating when you have a question and cant get the answer, Wanggaard said. Its frustrating, yes, but I understand the process.

U.S. Attorney John Vaudreuil said the investigation is certainly continuing, and that federal investigators are still wading through a mountain of interviews and information.

Vaudreuil said investigators are putting together a database of events and victims from which to build a case. If charges are necessary, they will bring the case to a grand jury, he said.

We are very, very carefully going through all the facts and allegations, he said.

Leonard Peace, spokesman for the FBI, said the investigation was ongoing and could not comment further.

Secret investigation

On Dec. 5, 2015, dozens of state investigators arrived at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls juvenile detention facility in Irma to interview staff as part of a secret John Doe probe of a number of accusations including child neglect, tampering with public documents, intimidation of victims, use of pepper spray to cause bodily harm and intimidation of witnesses.

The raid made public allegations that had been under investigation by state officials since early 2015, though complaints about an unsafe environment at the prison were raised at DOC and to Gov. Scott Walker as early as 2012.

Since the raid, several staff members have either resigned or been fired, and nearly every DOC official paid to oversee the facility  including the DOC secretary  has quit or changed jobs. DOC officials declined last week to provide a full accounting.

In the wake of the investigation, DOC has required prison guards to be properly trained in use of force and wear body cameras, required trained medical staff to dispense medication and required DOC officials to review every injury inmates receive.

The Lincoln County Sheriffs Departments involvement with the youth prison also has increased since DOC began implementing changes. Lt. Timothy Fischer said the number of incidents deputies responded to at the prison has nearly doubled since 2015. So far this year, the department has responded to 178 incidents at the Irma facility  up from 96 in 2015, Sheriffs Office figures show. The records also show that in 2014, deputies responded to just one incident.

It could be an actual increase in crime, or it could be more reporting  it could be a plethora of reasons, Fischer said.

Kenneth Streit, a UW-Madison Law School professor who specializes in criminal justice, said the 2016 spike in calls is certainly due to the 2015 visit from federal investigators, after which DOC would more frequently call in the sheriffs department so that there would always be a third party documenting the case and therefore reduce conflict of interest.

A spokesman for DOC did not respond to a request for comment.

While DOC has put forward a number of structural changes and Paquin said a significant number of the facilitys current staff has been hired since the investigation began, current and former DOC staff have said the specter of federal charges still hangs over their heads.

From my perspective it would be nice to move past that, said Paquin. We have nothing really or very little to say about it. I can tell you the FBI, they had three agents on site in January for 45 minutes and theyve not gone back.

Some Democratic lawmakers and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett have called for the closure of the Irma facility, but Cook, the DOC spokesman, said DOC Secretary Jon Litscher is committed to making the current facility work.
AmerisourceBergen Corporation sources and distributes pharmaceutical products in the United States and internationally. Its Pharmaceutical Distribution segment distributes brand-name and generic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter healthcare products, home healthcare supplies and equipment, and related services to various healthcare providers, including acute care hospitals and health systems, independent and chain retail pharmacies, mail order pharmacies, medical clinics, long-term care and alternate site pharmacies, and other customers. It also provides pharmacy management, staffing, and other consulting services; supply management software to retail and institutional healthcare providers; and packaging solutions to various institutional and retail healthcare providers. In addition, this segment distributes plasma and other blood products, injectable pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and other specialty products; provides other services primarily to physicians who specialize in various disease states, primarily oncology, as well as to other healthcare providers, including hospitals and dialysis clinics; and offers data analytics, outcomes research, and additional services for biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company's Other segment provides integrated manufacturer services, such as clinical trial support, product post-approval, and commercialization support; specialty transportation and logistics services for the biopharmaceutical industry; and sells pharmaceuticals, vaccines, parasiticides, diagnostics, micro feed ingredients, and various other products to customers in the companion animal and production animal markets, as well as demand-creating sales force services to manufacturers. AmerisourceBergen Corporation was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
The following companies are subsidiares of Cigna: Accredo Health Group, Accredo Health Incorporated, Alegis Care, Allegiance Life & Health Insurance Company, Allegiance Re, American Retirement Life Insurance Company, Benefits Management Corp., Bravo Health Mid-Atlantic, Bravo Health Pennsylvania, Brighter, CareAllies, CareCore National LLC, Central Reserve Life Insurance Company, Ceres Sales of Ohio, Choicelinx, Cigna & CMB Life Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Apac Holdings Limited, Cigna Arbor Life Insurance Company, Cigna Beechwood Holdings, Cigna Behavioral Health, Cigna Behavioral Health of California, Cigna Behavioral Health of Texas, Cigna Bellevue Alpha, Cigna Benefits Financing, Cigna Brokerage & Marketing (Thailand) Limited, Cigna Cedar Holdings, Cigna Chestnut Holdings, Cigna Corporate Services, Cigna Data Services (Shanghai) Company Limited, Cigna Dental Health, Cigna Dental Health Plan of Arizona, Cigna Dental Health of California, Cigna Dental Health of Colorado, Cigna Dental Health of Delaware, Cigna Dental Health of Florida, Cigna Dental Health of Illinois, Cigna Dental Health of Kansas, Cigna Dental Health of Kentucky, Cigna Dental Health of Maryland, Cigna Dental Health of Missouri, Cigna Dental Health of New Jersey, Cigna Dental Health of North Carolina, Cigna Dental Health of Ohio, Cigna Dental Health of Pennsylvania, Cigna Dental Health of Texas, Cigna Dental Health of Virginia, Cigna Elmwood Holdings, Cigna Europe Insurance Company S.A.-N.V., Cigna European Services (UK) Limited, Cigna Finans Emeklilik ve Hayat A.S., Cigna Global Holdings, Cigna Global Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Global Reinsurance Company, Cigna Global Wellbeing Holdings Limited, Cigna Global Wellbeing Solutions Limited, Cigna HLA Technology Services Company Limited, Cigna Health Corporation, Cigna Health Management, Cigna Health Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Cigna HealthSpring, Cigna Healthcare Holdings, Cigna Healthcare Mid-Atlantic, Cigna Healthcare of Arizona, Cigna Healthcare of California, Cigna Healthcare of Colorado, Cigna Healthcare of Connecticut, Cigna Healthcare of Florida, Cigna Healthcare of Georgia, Cigna Healthcare of Illinois, Cigna Healthcare of Indiana, Cigna Healthcare of Maine, Cigna Healthcare of Massachusetts, Cigna Healthcare of New Hampshire, Cigna Healthcare of New Jersey, Cigna Healthcare of North Carolina, Cigna Healthcare of Pennsylvania, Cigna Healthcare of South Carolina, Cigna Healthcare of St. Louis, Cigna Healthcare of Tennessee, Cigna Healthcare of Texas, Cigna Healthcare of Utah, Cigna Holding Company, Cigna Holdings, Cigna Holdings Overseas, Cigna Hong Kong Holdings Company Limited, Cigna Insurance Middle East S.A., Cigna Insurance Public Company Limited, Cigna Insurance Services (Europe) Limited, Cigna Intellectual Property, Cigna International Corporation, Cigna International Health Services, Cigna International Health Services BVBA, Cigna International Health Services Kenya Limited, Cigna International Health Services SDN BHD, Cigna International Services, Cigna International Services Australia Pty. Ltd., Cigna Investment Group, Cigna Investments, Cigna Korean Chusik Hoesa, Cigna Laurel Holdings, Cigna Legal Protection UK Ltd., Cigna Life Insurance Company of Canada, Cigna Life Insurance Company of Europe S.A.- N.V., Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York, Cigna Life Insurance New Zealand Limited, Cigna Linden Holdings, Cigna Magnolia Holdings, Cigna Myrtle Holdings, Cigna Nederland Alpha Cooperatief U.A., Cigna Nederland Beta B.V., Cigna Nederland Gamma B.V., Cigna Oak Holdings, Cigna Palmetto Holdings, Cigna Poplar Holdings, Cigna Sequoia Holdings, Cigna Spruce Holdings GmbH, Cigna Taiwan Life Assurance Company Limited, Cigna Walnut Holdings, Cigna Willow Holdings, Cigna Worldwide General Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Worldwide Insurance Company, Cigna Worldwide Life Insurance Company Limited, CignaTTK Health Insurance Company Limited, Connecticut General Corporation, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, CuraScript Inc., E-2 CIGNA CORPORATION - 2018 Form 10-K, ESI Mail Pharmacy Service Inc., ESI Partnership, ESI Resources Inc., Express Scripts Holding Company, Express Scripts Inc., Express Scripts Pharmaceutical LLC, Express Scripts Pharmacy Inc., Express Scripts Strategic Development Inc., FirstAssist Administration Limited, Firstassist Insurance Services Ltd, Great-West Healthcare of Illinois, Grown Ups New Zealand Limited, Health-Lynx LLC, HealthSource, HealthSpring, HealthSpring Life & Health Insurance Company, HealthSpring of Alabama, HealthSpring of Florida, HealthSpring of Tennessee, KDM Thailand Limited, LINA Financial Services, LINA Life Insurance Company of Korea, Life Insurance Company of North America, Loyal American Life Insurance Company, MCC Independent Practice Association of New York, Manipal Cigna Health Insurance Company Limited, Medco Containment Life Insurance Company, Medco Health Services Inc., Medco Health Solutions Inc., NewQuest, NewQuest Management Northeast, Olympic Health Management Services, Oz Parent, PT Asuransi Cigna, Provident American Life and Health Insurance Company, Qualcare, Qualcare Alliance Networks, Qualcare Captive Insurance Company Inc. PCC, Qualcare Management Resources Limited Liability Company, RHP (Thailand) Limited, Scibal Associates, Sterling Life Insurance Company, Tel-Drug, Tel-Drug of Pennsylvania, Temple Insurance Company Limited, United Benefit Life Insurance Company, Verity Solutions Group, Zurich Insurance Middle East, and eviCore 1 LLC.

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YEREVAN, DECEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS. Spokesperson of MoD Armenia Artsrun Hovhannisyan has detailed on the agreement of the creation of Armenian-Russian joint military corps. In an interview with reporters in Tavush Province Hovhannisyan told that no new unit will be created by the new agreement. Here we are talking about the units of the Russian military base located in Armenia which will be joint by the 5th Armenian Corps under some particular circumstances, Armenpress reports Hovhannisyan saying.

He added that Major General Andranik Makaryan will be the commander of the Corps in peace times, while in case of a war the issues of commandership and management will be decided by the Supreme Commanders of both states.
By PTI: Dhaka, Dec 4 (PTI) A Hindu temple was vandalised and three idols of deities were today destroyed by some miscreants in Bangladeshs northern Netrokona area, weeks after over 10 temples of the minority community were attacked in the Muslim- majority nation.

The incident came to light after people of Mymensinghorohi village in Netrokona sadar upazila of Pabna district found the doors of Sharifpur Kali temple in Aminpur open this morning.

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Upon entering the temple premises, the residents noticed smashed bits and pieces of the temple architecture and three idols. Three broken idols ? one of deity Kali and another of Shiva ? were found lying about 600 feet away from the temple, Dhaka Tribune reported.

Immediately, police was informed after which an investigation was launched.

"We visited the site and have collected evidence of the vandalism. We have started the investigation and have found that the temple doors were not locked. We are looking for the people who are behind this heinous act," Netrokona sadar police Officer-in-Charge (OC) Shahnur-e-Alam said.

Netrokona Additional District Magistrate Abdul Matin visited the site and said the responsible parties will be identified and punished accordingly.

Netrokona Superintendent of Police Joydeb Chowdhury said officers have reached the site.

"We are treating the case with priority. A group with vested interests may have carried out the crime to disrupt communal harmony," the SP added.

Meanwhile, Badal Ghosh, secretary of the temple committee, demanded immediate arrest of the attackers.

In October last week, miscreants set on fire at least six houses of Hindus in a predawn attack in Brahmanbarhia districts Nasirnagar, the place where at least 15 temples and more than 20 houses were vandalised after a Facebook post deemed offensive to Islam sparked outrage in the country.

A cyber cafe owner was arrested on November 28 for allegedly masterminding attacks on Hindu temples and houses earlier this month.

The attacks on several Hindu temples in Bangladesh were carried out under a well orchestrated plan aimed at grabbing lands of the minority community, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had said.

The statutory NHRC said their initial investigation into the attacks on several Hindu temples and households in the central Brahmanbarhia districts Nasirnagar indicated that they were pre-planned. PTI CPS AKJ CPS

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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.
Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. It facilitates the processing of payment transactions, including authorization, clearing, and settlement, as well as delivers other payment-related products and services. The company offers integrated products and value-added services for account holders, merchants, financial institutions, businesses, governments, and other organizations, such as programs that enable issuers to provide consumers with credits to defer payments; prepaid programs and management services; commercial credit and debit payment products and solutions; and payment products and solutions that allow its customers to access funds in deposit and other accounts. It also provides value-added products and services comprising cyber and intelligence solutions for parties to transact, as well as proprietary insights, drawing on principled use of consumer, and merchant data services. In addition, the company offers analytics, test and learn, consulting, managed services, loyalty, processing, and payment gateway solutions for e-commerce merchants. Further, it provides open banking and digital identity platforms services. The company offers payment solutions and services under the MasterCard, Maestro, and Cirrus. Mastercard Incorporated was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Purchase, New York.
The Foreign Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Slovakia, which holds the European Union Presidency this month, along with Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Aziz called on Modi ahead of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process on Afghanistan.

By Press Trust of India: Pakistan Premier's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz along with foreign ministers of four countries called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who told them that it was important to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability in Afghanistan and the region.

The Foreign Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Slovakia, which holds the European Union Presidency this month, along with Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Aziz called on Modi ahead of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process on Afghanistan.

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Prime Minister Modi welcomed the Foreign Ministers and stressed it was the collective responsibility of all those in the region to work together to help Afghanistan out of its current difficulties, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

Also read:

PM Modi serves langar at Golden Temple in Amritsar, offers prays at shrine

The Prime Minister stated that his several interactions with both the common people of Afghanistan and the country's leadership had convinced him that the Afghan people were tired of the continuing violence and terrorism.

Prime Minister Modi stressed on "the need to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability, security and development in Afghanistan and our region," Swarup said.

In this context, the Prime Minister hoped that discussions in the Ministerial Conference will produce good results.

Also read:

Will find way to let poor retain Jan Dhan deposits: PM Narendra Modi

Agreeing with the Premier on the need to end violence in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministers shared Prime Minister Modi's view that Afghanistan's stability, security and prosperity are integral to the region's, Swarup said.

"They greatly appreciated the continued commitment and engagement of India and its leadership for these ends. The Foreign Ministers warmly thanked India for hosting the Conference and expressed confidence that all friends of Afghanistan will work together for realising the aspirations for peace and development," he said.

Also read:

Heart of Asia: Sartaj Aziz arrives in Amritsar; to meet PM Modi, Afghan president

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Hilltop Holdings Inc. provides business and consumer banking, and financial products and services. It operates through three segments: Banking, Broker-Dealer, and Mortgage Origination. The Banking segment offers savings, checking, interest-bearing checking, and money market accounts; certificates of deposit; lines and letters of credit, home improvement and equity loans, loans for purchasing and carrying securities, equipment loans and leases, agricultural and commercial real estate loans, and other loans; and commercial and industrial loans, and term and construction finance. This segment also provides treasury management, wealth management, asset management, check cards, safe deposit boxes, online banking, bill pay, trust, and overdraft services; and estate planning, management and administration, investment portfolio management, employee benefit accounts, and individual retirement accounts, as well as automated teller machines. The Broker-Dealer segment offers public finance services that assist public entities in originating, syndicating, and distributing securities of municipalities and political subdivisions; specialized advisory and investment banking services; advice and guidance to arbitrage rebate compliance, portfolio management, and local government investment pool administration; structured finance services, which include advisory services for derivatives and commodities; sells, trades in, and underwrites U.S. government and government agency bonds, corporate bonds, and municipal bonds, as well as mortgage-backed, asset-backed, and commercial mortgage-backed securities and structured products. This segment also provides asset and liability management advisory, clearing, retail, and securities lending services. The Mortgage Origination segment offers mortgage, jumbo, Federal Housing Administration, Veterans Affairs, and United States Department of Agriculture loans. Hilltop Holdings Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
The following companies are subsidiares of TE Connectivity: 999 Arques Corp., ABB ENTRELEC terminal block business, ACC Telecommunications, ADC Chile Limitada, ADC Communications (SEA) Pte. Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Holding Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Ltd., ADC Communications Hong Kong Limited, ADC Telecommunications Equipment (Shanghai) Co., AMP Amermex, AMP Products Pacific Limited, AMP Taiwan B.V., AMP Trading B.V., AMP de Venezuela, Acalon Holdings Limited, Advanced Fiber Products LLC, Advanced Fiber Products Limited, Advanced Tube Technologies, AdvancedCath, AdvancedCath Technologies, Alpha Technics, American Sensor Technologies, Betatherm (R&D) Limited, Brantner Holding Company, Brantner and Associates, Butterfly Management SAS, C.S. Tyco Decisive Inc., C.S. Tyco Dependable Inc., C.S. Tyco Durable Inc., C.S. Tyco Reliance Inc., C.S. Tyco Resolute Inc., C.S. Tyco Responder Inc., CII Guardian International Limited, Cablotec GmbH, Carrier Kheops Bac SAS, Catheter and Disposable Technology, Celis Eletrocomponentes Ltda., Cima de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Clarebury Pty. Ltd., Codenoll Technology Corporation, Communication Expert International Investments Limited, Compagnie Deutsch Distribution SAS, Compagnie Deutsch SAS, Comtec Systeme GmbH, Connecteurs Electriques Deutsch SAS, Corcom, Corcom West Indies Limited, Cotsworks LLC, Creganna, Creganna Captial Holding Ireland Unlimited Company, Creganna Finance (US) LLC, Creganna Finance Ireland Limited, Creganna Luxembourg SARL, Creganna Medical Devices, Creganna Medical Pte. Limited, Creganna Medical Technology Unlimited, Creganna Medical s.r.l., Creganna Regulatory, Creganna Solutions Limited, Creganna Solutions Unlimited Company, Creganna Tactx Singapore Limited, Creganna Unlimited Company, Cregstar Bidco Limited, Critchley Group Limited, Crompton Instruments (South-East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Deutsch, Deutsch Connectors Hong Kong Limited, Deutsch Connectors Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Connectors Trading (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Finance SAS, Deutsch GB Limited, Deutsch Group SAS, Deutsch India Power Connectors (Pvt) Ltd, Deutsch Israel Ltd., Deutsch SAS, Deutsch Servicios S. de R.L. De C.V., Deutsch Subco Limited, Deutsch UK, F.A.I. Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, First Sensor, Grangehurst Enterprises Pty. Ltd., Hirschmann Car Communication, Hong Kong Sensors Technologies Limited, Howard A. Schaevitz Technologies, Intercontec Connector System (Shanghai) Co., Intercontec Produkt GmbH, Intercontect Pfeiffer Industrie-Steckverbindungen GmbH, Jaquet North America, Jaquet Technology Group AG, Kemex Holding Company, Kenabell Holding Limited, LADD Distribution LLC, LADD Distribution Limited, LSA, MEAS Asia Limited, MEAS Europe SAS, MEAS France SAS, MEAS Ireland (Betatherm) Limited, MEAS Norway AS, MEAS Shenzhen Limited, MEAS Switzerland S.a r.l., MEAS US Holding, MP&E, Measurement Specialties, Measurement Specialties (Chengdu) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd. Production Branch, Measurement Specialties Foreign Holdings LLC, Measurement Technology (Chengdu) Ltd., Medical Engineering & Design, MicroGroup, Morlynn Ceramics Pty. Ltd., Nikkiso-Therm Co., PT KRONE Indonesia, PT. Tyco Electronics Indonesia, Pfeiffer GmbH & Co KG, Pfeiffer Verwaltungs GmbH, Polamco, Polamco Limited, Potter & Brumfield de Mexico, Precision Interconnect LLC, Precision Subsea AS, Precision Wire Components, Precision Wire Holding Company, Produxx, RAYCHEM-RPG Private Limited, Raychem (HK) Limited, Raychem (Shanghai) Trading Ltd, Raychem China Limited, Raychem Dominicana S.A., Raychem Industries BVBA, Raychem International LLC, Raychem International Manufacturing LLC, Raychem Juarez, Raychem Limited, Raychem Ltd., Raychem Pacific Corporation, Raychem Saudi Arabia Limited, Raychem Shanghai Cable Accessories Ltd, Raychem Technologies Limited, Rochester Wire and Cable LLC, SEACON Advanced Products LLC, Seacon (Europe) Limited, Seacon Global Production, Seacon Produtos e Servicos Opticos e Eletricos Ltda., Sensitive Object, Servo Interconnect Limited, Shanghai CII Electronics Co., Shenzhen Century Man Communication Equipment Co., Sibas Electronics (Xiamen) Co., TCN Holding (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., TE Connectivity (Barbados) SRL, TE Connectivity (Denmark) ApS, TE Connectivity (HKZ) Holding Limited, TE Connectivity (Kunshan) Company Limited, TE Connectivity (Netherlands) Holding S.a r.l. - Irish Branch, TE Connectivity (Schweiz) Management AG, TE Connectivity (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Argentina S.R.L., TE Connectivity Australia Pty Ltd, TE Connectivity Colombia S.A.S., TE Connectivity Connectors (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Distribution (Thailand) Limited, TE Connectivity EMEA Holding GmbH, TE Connectivity Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity HK Limited, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen E-Finance branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. (Ireland Branch), TE Connectivity Holding International S.A., TE Connectivity Inc., TE Connectivity India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A., TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Ireland Limited, TE Connectivity LATAM Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM I S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Limited, TE Connectivity MOG Europe S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Inc., TE Connectivity MOG Sales GmbH, TE Connectivity Manufacturing (Thailand) Company Limited, TE Connectivity Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., TE Connectivity Morocco SARL, TE Connectivity Nederland B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Poland II) Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Turkey) B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Phoenix Optix Inc., TE Connectivity Seacon Phoenix Inc., TE Connectivity Sensors Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity Services India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Solutions GmbH, TE Connectivity South Africa Proprietary Limited, TE Connectivity Spain, TE Connectivity SubCom S.L.U., TE Connectivity SubCom Spain Holding S.L.U., TE Connectivity Technology Solutions Limited, TE Connectivity Tunisia Sarl, TE Connectivity ULC, TE Connectivity US Group Holding Inc., TE Connectivity Vietnam Holding Company Limited, TYCO Electronics Polska Sp.z.o.o., TYCO SUBMARINE SYSTEMS INC., TacPro, Tactx Medical, Taicang Speed & Spin Sensors Co., Taliq Taiwan Limited, Tappat Engineering Pty Ltd, TechDevice Costa Rica Limitada, TechDevice Holdings, TechDevice LLC, The Whitaker LLC, Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, TyCom Holdings II SA, TyCom Networks (Peru) S.A., Tyco Electronics (AMP Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Holding Limited, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics (Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Kunshan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Tyco Electronics (Qingdao) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Schweiz) Holding II GmbH, Tyco Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Tyco Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Suzhou) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Zhuhai) Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Guangdong Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Italia Products S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Italia S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Korea Co., Tyco Electronics AMP Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Qingdao Ltd., Tyco Electronics AMP Shanghai Ltd., Tyco Electronics Austria GmbH, Tyco Electronics Belgium EC BVBA, Tyco Electronics Brasil Ltda., Tyco Electronics Canada ULC, Tyco Electronics China (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Componentes Electromecanicos Lda., Tyco Electronics Corby Limited, Tyco Electronics Corporation, Tyco Electronics Czech s.r.o., Tyco Electronics Del Peru S.A.C., Tyco Electronics EC Trutnov s.r.o., Tyco Electronics EC Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Tyco Electronics Eta Limited, Tyco Electronics Finance Alpha GmbH, Tyco Electronics Finance S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Finland Oy, Tyco Electronics France SAS, Tyco Electronics Germany Holdings GmbH, Tyco Electronics Group S.A., Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (French Branch), Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (Ireland Branch), Tyco Electronics H.K. Limited, Tyco Electronics Hellas MEPE, Tyco Electronics Holding Corp., Tyco Electronics Holding France, Tyco Electronics Holding S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited, Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited Taiwan Branch, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 1 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 2 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 3 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hungary Termelo Kft, Tyco Electronics Idento, Tyco Electronics India (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Industrial Y Comercial Chile Limitada, Tyco Electronics Integrated Cable Systems LLC, Tyco Electronics Ireland Limited, Tyco Electronics Israel Ltd., Tyco Electronics Italia Holding S.r.l., Tyco Electronics Japan G.K., Tyco Electronics Lambda, Tyco Electronics Latin America Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics Manufacturing Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Mexico, Tyco Electronics Middle East FZE, Tyco Electronics Motors Ltd, Tyco Electronics NZ Limited, Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Germany Holding) S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar China) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands Holding B.V., Tyco Electronics Norge AS, Tyco Electronics Philippines, Tyco Electronics Precision Engineering Ltd., Tyco Electronics Printed Circuit Group LP, Tyco Electronics RIMC Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics RUS OOO, Tyco Electronics Raychem GmbH, Tyco Electronics Raychem Korea Limited, Tyco Electronics SIMEL SAS, Tyco Electronics Saudi Arabia Limited, Tyco Electronics Services GmbH, Tyco Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC, Tyco Electronics Svenska AB, Tyco Electronics Svenska Holdings AB, Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Co., Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Ltd., Tyco Electronics Tecnologias S. de R.L. de C.V., Tyco Electronics UK Holdings Ltd, Tyco Electronics UK Ltd., Tyco Electronics UK Ltd. (Kenya Branch), Tyco Electronics Ukraine Limited, Tyco Electronics Uruguay S.A., Tyco Electronics Verwaltungs GmbH, Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems B.V., Tyco Electronics de Venezuela, Tyco Elektronik AMP Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Tyco Global Networks Ltd., Tyco Iberia, Tyco International Services GmbH, Tyco Networks (Argentina) S.R.L., Tyco Networks (Italy) Srl, Tyco Networks (Netherlands) B.V., Tyco Networks Iberica, Tyco Submarine Systems, Tyco Submarine Systems C.A., Tyco Submarine Systems de Argentina S.A., Tyco Telecommunications Ltd., Wema Americas LLC, Wema Automotive System Private Limited, Wema Environmental Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies Ltd., Wema System AG, Wema System AS, Wema System Hong Kong Limited, Wema System Production and Distribution HK Limited, Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Businesss, and motec Montage GmbH.

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Box, Inc. provides a cloud content management platform that enables organizations of various sizes to manage and share their content from anywhere on any device. The company's Software-as-a-Service platform enables users to collaborate on content internally and with external parties, automate content-driven business processes, develop custom applications, and implement data protection, security, and compliance features to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, internal policies, and industry standards and regulations. It offers web, mobile, and desktop applications for cloud content management on a platform for developing custom applications, as well as industry-specific capabilities. As of January 31, 2022, the company had approximately 100,000 paying organizations, and its solution was offered in 25 languages. It serves financial services, health care, government, and legal services industries in the United States and internationally. The company was formerly known as Box.net, Inc. and changed its name to Box, Inc. in November 2011. Box, Inc. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in San Francisco Bay Area, California.
Everest Re Group, Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance and insurance products in the United States, Bermuda, and internationally. The company operates through Reinsurance Operations and Insurance Operations segments. The Reinsurance Operations segment writes property and casualty reinsurance; and specialty lines of business through reinsurance brokers, as well as directly with ceding companies in the United States, Bermuda, Ireland, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The Insurance Operations segment writes property and casualty insurance directly, as well as through brokers, surplus lines brokers, and general agents in Bermuda, Canada, Europe, South America, Canada, Chile, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The company also provides treaty and facultative reinsurance products; admitted and non-admitted insurance products; and property and casualty reinsurance and insurance coverages, including marine, aviation, surety, errors and omissions liability, directors' and officers' liability, medical malpractice, mortgage reinsurance, other specialty lines, accident and health, and workers' compensation products. In addition, it offers commercial property and casualty insurance products through wholesale and retail brokers, surplus lines brokers, and program administrators. Everest Re Group, Ltd. was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
The following companies are subsidiares of Molina Healthcare: Aetna & Humana - Medicare Advantage, Affinity Health Plan, AmericanWork Inc., Better Health Network, Camelot Care Centers Inc, Children's Behavioral Health Inc., Choices Group Inc., College Community Services, Dockside Services Inc, Family Preservation Services Inc., Family Preservation Services of Florida Inc., Family Preservation Services of North Carolina Inc., Family Preservation Services of Washington D.C. Inc., Family Preservation Services of West Virginia Inc., Florida NetPASS LLC, Hclb Inc., Magellan Complete Care, Maple Star Nevada Inc., Maple Star Oregon Inc., Mercy CarePlus, Molina Clinical Services LLC, Molina Healthcare Data Center Inc., Molina Healthcare of Arizona Inc., Molina Healthcare of California, Molina Healthcare of Florida Inc., Molina Healthcare of Georgia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Molina Healthcare of Iowa Inc., Molina Healthcare of Louisiana Inc., Molina Healthcare of Maryland Inc., Molina Healthcare of Michigan Inc., Molina Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Molina Healthcare of Nevada Inc., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico Inc., Molina Healthcare of New York Inc., Molina Healthcare of North Carolina Inc., Molina Healthcare of Ohio Inc., Molina Healthcare of Oklahoma Inc., Molina Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Molina Healthcare of Puerto Rico Inc., Molina Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, Molina Healthcare of Texas Inc., Molina Healthcare of Texas Insurance Company, Molina Healthcare of Utah Inc., Molina Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Washington Inc., Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin Inc., Molina Holdings Corporation, Molina Hospital Management LLC, Molina Information Systems LLC dba Molina Medicaid Solutions, Molina Medical Management Inc., Molina Pathways LLC, Molina Pathways of Texas Inc., Molina Youth Academy, NextLevel Health Illinois, Pathways Community Corrections Inc., Pathways Community Services LLC, Pathways Community Support of Texas Inc., Pathways Health and Community Support LLC, Pathways Human Services LLC., Pathways of Arizona Inc., Pathways of Delaware Inc., Pathways of Idaho LLC, Pathways of Maine Inc., Pathways of Massachusetts LLC, Pathways of Oklahoma Inc., Pathways of Washington Inc., Providence Community Services, Providence Human Services, Raystown Developmental Services Inc., The Game of Work LLC, The RedCo Group Inc., Total Care Medicaid plan, Transitional Family Services Inc., Unisys -Health Information Management, and YourCare Health Plan.

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By PTI: agenda

New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) Anti-terror cooperation, sharing of intelligence inputs and how to jointly check cross border smuggling will dominate the Indo-Bangladesh Home Secretary level talks beginning tomorrow.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and his Bangladesh counterpart Mozammel Haque Khan and their teams will engage in intense discussions for two days for strengthening the anti terrorism mechanism, sharing of information about terrorists and terror groups.

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Growing activities of dreaded terror group ISIS in Indian subcontinent, increased presence of Jehadi groups in Bangladesh and some Indian states and how to jointly tackle them will be discussed threadbare, official sources said.

Both sides are expected to flag the menace of smuggling of cattle, narcotics and arms through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border and is expected to find out ways to check them.

Bangladesh may press for Indian cooperation in nabbing its most wanted criminals, especially those who were involved in war crimes and assassination of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Both sides are expected to exchange notes about developments and investigations following the July 1 terror attack at a cafe in Dhaka. Bangladesh has been on edge ever since the terror attack.

India started acting against controversial Mumbai-based Islamic preacher Zakir Naik after he came under the scanner of the security agencies when Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star reported that one of the perpetrators of the terror attack in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.

The Islamic orator is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.

Naik is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects. The Mumbai-based preacher who is abroad, has not returned to India ever since the controversy came to light. PTI ACB RG

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) India and Russia are likely to sign the General Framework Agreement (GFA) on Kudankulam units 5 and 6 by this month.

"Leaders of the two countries (Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin) had set a deadline to sign the General Framework Agreement for units 5 and 6 by the end of this month. The work is on and we are trying to stick to deadline," a top official of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) said.

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The joint statement, during Putins visit to India this year, had stated that the two countries will try to complete the GFA by the end of the year.

Negotiations for the contract are still on and details are being worked out by Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and Rosatom, nuclear power agency of Russia.

Work on the ground breaking ceremony for unit 3 and 4 was held early this year.

The agreement for the project was inked by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988, but the actual work started only in 1997.

The unit 1 and 2 of Kudankulam plant were built at a cost of Rs 20,962 crore. A major share of power generated in the plant goes to Tamil Nadu, followed by Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry. Unit 1 was started in October 2013, while the second unit was connected to grid in August this year.

Unit 3 and 4 of the Kudankulam are expected to be commissioned by 2022-23.

The Russian built Water-Water Energetic Reactor (VVER) reactor Kudankulam unit 1 and 2 are the largest power generating stations in the country. After all the units (1-6) of the plant are commissioned, the nuclear park will have the power generating capacity of 6,000 MW. PTI PR SRY

--- ENDS ---




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Monique Earle

By: Tanya Malhotra

(Scroll down for video) A woman was arrested after police learned that she hired a hitman to kill her former boyfriends new girl.

Police in New Hampshire, arrested the woman after she hired someone to torture and kill her love rival.

Claremont police chief Alexander Scott said that 20-year-old Monique Earle, has been charged with a class A felony crime to commit a murder.

Scott said that Earle, who had been staying at a homeless shelter, asked a friend of another resident to find someone who is willing to kill her former boyfriends new girlfriend.

The woman called the Claremont police. They set up an undercover sting operation, in which one undercover officer pretended to the person who was willing to carry out the murder.

Earle wanted the ahitmana to kidnap the woman, rape and torture her for a few days before killing her.

Earle showed the ahitmana Facebook photos of the woman to make sure he kidnaps the right person. She also showed him where the victim lived and where she worked.

She then offered to hand the hitman her Juicy Couture purse and she offered to pay him another $500 on a later date.

Earle was arrested on a charge of felony solicitation to commit murder. She is being held on $100,000 bail.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) India and Russia are likely to sign the General Framework Agreement (GFA) on Kudankulam units 5 and 6 by this month.

"Leaders of the two countries (Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin) had set a deadline to sign the General Framework Agreement for units 5 and 6 by the end of this month. The work is on and we are trying to stick to deadline," a top official of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) said.

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The joint statement, during Putins visit to India this year, had stated that the two countries will try to complete the GFA by the end of the year.

Negotiations for the contract are still on and details are being worked out by Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and Rosatom, nuclear power agency of Russia.

Work on the ground breaking ceremony for unit 3 and 4 was held early this year.

The agreement for the project was inked by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988, but the actual work started only in 1997.

The unit 1 and 2 of Kudankulam plant were built at a cost of Rs 20,962 crore. A major share of power generated in the plant goes to Tamil Nadu, followed by Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry. Unit 1 was started in October 2013, while the second unit was connected to grid in August this year.

Unit 3 and 4 of the Kudankulam are expected to be commissioned by 2022-23.

The Russian built Water-Water Energetic Reactor (VVER) reactor Kudankulam unit 1 and 2 are the largest power generating stations in the country. After all the units (1-6) of the plant are commissioned, the nuclear park will have the power generating capacity of 6,000 MW. PTI PR SRY MAV

--- ENDS ---
New Food Hygiene Rules Introduced For Takeaways in Wales

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Dec 4th, 2016

New rules have introduced in Wales to ensure takeaways promote food hygiene ratings on publicity materials.

From 28 November 2016  the third anniversary of the introduction of the statutory Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) coming into force in Wales, takeaway food businesses will be required to publish a bilingual statement on certain hardcopy publicity materials.

If a takeaway leaflet or menu shows food for sale, the price and a way of ordering the food without visiting the premises, it will also have to include a statement which will remind customers they can check the hygiene rating of the business on the FHRS website:

Wales was the first country in the UK to introduce a statutory food hygiene rating scheme in November 2013 when the Food Hygiene Rating (Wales) Act 2013 made it mandatory for food businesses to display their food hygiene rating on their premises.

Since the introduction of the scheme there has been a positive impact on hygiene standards in Wales. Over 94% of food businesses in Wales now have a generally satisfactory rating or higher (3 or above).

Cllr David Kelly, Lead Member for Planning and Public Protection, said: The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme has gone from strength to strength since it was first introduced and has been a key factor in driving up food hygiene standards.

For further information please visit Food.gov.uk.
Wrexham to Host Series of Entertaining & Informative Family Friendly Science Lectures

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Dec 4th, 2016

Over 30 live science demonstrations will feature in a family-focused lecture about the use of light in modern-day technology and everyday life.

Chemistry and Light, on Wednesday 14 December from 6.30pm-9pm, is one of three science presentations being hosted by Wrexham Glyndwr University in the run up to Christmas.

The talks have been organised in collaboration with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the Learned Society for Wales (LSW).

Swansea Universitys Dr Peter Douglas is hosting the Chemistry and Light talk, which will use science experiments to show the importance of photochemistry in modern-day life.

Oil recovery and spectroscopy are the themes for two daytime talks earlier in the month.

Kicking off the lecture series, on Wednesday December 7 Durham Universitys Professor H Chris Greenwell will lead the talk Enhanced Oil Recovery  Nano-scale understanding, maximising oil field recovery.

The event takes is being held from 1.45pm-3pm at Wrexham Glyndwr Universitys main campus on Mold Road, Wrexham.

Chemistry in-vacuo  Suck it and see!, on Friday December 9 from 1.45pm-3pm, looks at the subject of spectroscopy, under the guidance of Professor Peter Licence from the University of Nottingham.

An additional event in 2017 rounds off the series of lectures supported by the RSC and the LSW.

Professor Jackie Akhavan from Cranfield University will visit Wrexham Glyndwr University from 1.45pm-3pm on Thursday 2 March to deliver a talk on Explosives: The past, present and future.

Andy Cairns, events logistics officer at Wrexham Glyndwr University, said: Wrexham Glyndwr University is proud to bring this series of events to North East Wales in conjunction with the RSC and the LSW.

The university is passionate about its links to both science and the community and were looking forward to providing families and individuals alike with a programme of events which is both entertaining and informative.

You can book on to the Chemistry and Light talk on Wednesday 14 December, free of charge, here.

For all other events, reservations can be made via the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Two women are charged in the death of a 7-year-old boy who was starved, burned with cigarettes, beaten and whipped.

Court records show Trevion Winningham weighed 44 pounds and injured from head to toe when he died Tuesday.

On Saturday, 44-year-old Etter Hughes and 47-year-old Mary Martinez were charged with child neglect resulting in death and other counts. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports (http://bit.ly/2g5e8aB ) Trevion's 9-year-old brother told police Martinez routinely beat them. He's hospitalized with injuries.

Court records don't list an attorney for either woman.

Police say Hughes agreed to take Trevion and his brother from their mother in August. They moved in with Martinez, where the boys were subjected to torture and starvation.

Hughes has a prior neglect conviction after a baby was tortured in her home and died.
By PTI: From Aditi Khanna

London, Dec 4 (PTI) An Indian-origin student has sued Oxford University for "boring" teaching which allegedly resulted in him getting a second class degree and in turn led to loss of earnings in his career as a lawyer.

Faiz Siddiqui studied modern history at Brasenose College at the university and accuses its staff of "negligent" teaching of his specialist subject course on Indian imperial history, which led to him getting a 2:1 back in 2000, the High Court in London heard this week.

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A judgement is expected later this month.

Siddiquis barrister Roger Mallalieu told the judge that the problem came down to four of the seven staff teaching Asian history being on sabbatical leave at the same time during the 1999-2000 academic year, The Sunday Times reported.

Siddiqui believes he could have had a high-flying career as an international commercial lawyer if he had not got lower grades.

He singled out the "boring" standard of tuition that Siddiqui had received from David Washbrook, an expert on the history of southern India between the 18th and 20th centuries.

Mallalieu claimed that the eminent historians teaching had suffered from the "intolerable" pressure of the staff shortages on the course.

"There is no personal criticism of Washbrook. Our target is on the universitys back for allowing this to happen," Mallalieu told the court.

Siddiqui, who trained as a solicitor after college, suffers from depression and insomnia, which he links to his "disappointing examination results", and has said he has a "fundamental inability to hold down any professional day job for any significant length of time".

Oxford University argues that the claim is baseless and should be struck out because of the number of years that have passed since Siddiqui graduated.

Julian Milford, the universitys barrister, denied that Siddiquis case had any substance but admitted that "circumstances were difficult" during that year.

Siddiquis legal team claims he is "only one of a number of students who no doubt have proper cause for complaint against the university in relation to this matter". PTI AK AMS

--- ENDS ---
Far from the worries of demonetisation and also away from the laws, Malana village in Himachal Pradesh lives on hashish as the World's top stoner destination.

Tourists from around the world find their way to Malana in search of hashish, whose production is legally banned in India. (Photo: AP)

By AP: For hundreds of years, the tiny village was just a speck lost amid the grandiose mountains of the Indian Himalayas.

Nestled at 2,700 meters (8,859 feet) between the higher reaches of the lush Kullu Valley, Malana used to be a four-day hike from the nearest road. Its laws, tradition says, were laid down by the village god Jamlu.

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People elected their own parliament and disputes were settled in their own court. Villagers would run in terror if an outsider showed up.

READ| RBI to issue new Rs 20, Rs 50 notes; old notes to remain legal tenders

MALANA IS STONER DESTINATION

But Malana is hidden no more. For centuries, the villagers have been growing the plant that has made Malana one of the world's top stoner destinations, and a battleground -at least symbolically - for India's haphazard fight against "charas," the black and sticky hashish that has made the village famous.

A man prepares 'charas'- a black and sticky hashish.(Photo: AP) A man prepares 'charas'- a black and sticky hashish.(Photo: AP)

In 1985, the Indian government gave in to international pressure and banned the production and consumption of cannabis.

Possession of a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of charas - a THC-rich extract derived from rubbing out the resin from freshly cut marijuana buds - is punishable by a minimum 10 years' imprisonment.

READ| Amritsar declaration recognises terrorism as biggest threat to peace, names Lashkar, Jaish

TRADITIONAL VEGETATION

In the sleepy mountainous states of North India, marijuana has grown indigenously for hundreds of years.

Cars move on the narrow shabby road cut along the steep slope near Malana.(Photo: AP)

Local lawmakers and officials say the plant is part of their tradition and empathize with people in steep, remote villages who consider cannabis the only cash crop they can grow in harsh weather and geographic conditions.

Maheshwar Singh, a local lawmaker and the descendent head of the royal family of Kullu, said a look at the old tax books shows that the plant was legally cultivated and sold for decades before India's drug law.

"It was a multipurpose plant for these people," said the burly, cheerful 67-year-old, pointing out the local usage of hemp fibers in making ropes and traditional "pula" slippers that continue to be the only footwear allowed for pilgrimages.

Maheshwar Singh, a local lawmaker and a descendent of the former royal family of Kullu.(Photo: AP)

FAR FROM GOVERNMENT SCHEMES

The people of Malana have to haul ration and wood for kilometers (miles) to get it into the village.

Though a shabby road has cut the arduous trek to only an hour and a ropeway is being used to transport heavy cargo, the villagers still spend half the year collecting essentials from nature.

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The other half is spent in hibernation as the bitter winter buries the village under snow.

Every morning, Gori Massi slowly starts the trek to her field, sometimes singing to herself as she walks up a rocky trail. Walking at a pace of a 20-year-old, the wrinkles on her face and hands are the only indication of her age; she is 80.

Gori Massi sings and dances on the way to work in her cannabis field in Malana village(Photo: AP)

It will take her an hour to get to her plants that are hidden far away from the village near the forest line. She will sit there all day, curing high-potency marijuana buds and rubbing them between her palms to juice out the resin that smears her hands black.

After collecting about 20 grams (0.71 ounces) of gooey hashish that would fetch her anywhere between USD 50 to USD 150, she decides to call it a day. And prays the police spare her fields this year.

"Wheat and other grains don't grow on this land," Massi said. "Nothing else grows here. We have to live like that, and whatever plants we do have are cut down by the police. What can we do?"

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THE 'FAMOUS' MALANA CREAM

The aromatic "Malana Cream" - a variety of oily hash produced in the village from higher-potency plants with hybrid seeds - has earned legendary status among pot smokers around the world.

Consumed mostly with tobacco, in a joint or a chillum, the pungent hash has found its way into coffee shops in Amsterdam and won the High Times Cannabis Cup at least twice.

A local villager smokes a joint of hashish at the village square.(Photo: AP)

In India, this fame has meant an influx of foreign and local tourists into Parvati Valley, a group of mountains around the Parvati River near Malana, that has grown each year in the past decade.

VISITORS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

"It's just become a destination for international cool people, stoners, hikers," said Florent Dupont, 32, as he sipped tea and rolled a joint in a guesthouse.

"People know they can get the freshest, nicest product," the filmmaker from France added.

French filmmaker Florent Dupont at a guesthouse in Malana.(Photo: AP)

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The valley is teeming with young Israelis, many draped in colorful shawls and wearing their hair into ropey dreadlocks, who come for a therapeutic experience after years of military service.Singh said it is this frenzied popularity of local hashish that has exploded the cultivation of cannabis in the valley.

DESPITE BAN 12,000 KG PRODUCTION

In 2016, the local government estimates 240 hectares (593 acres) of land in the region was used for cannabis cultivation, producing more than 12,000 kilograms (26,455 pounds) of hashish.

The real numbers are much higher as plants are grown on steep edges of high mountains that are impossible for the police to reach.

A marijuana bud in a field at Malana village.(Photo: AP)

While the rising demand and price of charas has benefited the villagers, it has also led to a slight increase in prosecutions and prompted the government to send machete-wielding police and forest personnel on long treks to destroy a small percentage of the marijuana fields.

'POLICE SHOW THE WAY'

Villagers claim they have an understanding with local officials, who tell them to push their fields away from the village and into forest land, where they cannot be prosecuted for a field that's not on their land.

Elderly villagers sunbathe at the village square.(Photo: AP)

Police strategy has mainly focused on destroying cannabis fields on forest land. The few villagers who have been arrested and are serving time for trafficking have been picked up in cities like New Delhi, Chandigarh and Goa.

But it is impossible to destroy mountains full of weed. Singh, who has visited Malana several times during election campaigns and is revered by inhabitants because of his royal lineage, said the government needs a different approach to tackle the problem.

A government forest worker destroys fully grown marijuana plants.(Photo: AP)

"I feel they have a reason to stick to that plantation because that is the only way they can earn their living," Singh said. "The government of India had made a policy that they would be provided some alternative employment. But that we have not been able to do."

A man displays a freshly prepared drop of charas.(Photo: AP)

THEIR OWN TRADITION

In Malana, Massi's middle-aged son Jabe Ram is preparing to take a statue of the village god Jamlu on a pilgrimage across the daunting mountain of Rasol to bathe it in holy water in a temple in the neighboring valley. It will take him five days to return. One man from each household in the village must accompany him, as is tradition.

Local villagers prepare to take a statue of the village god Jamlu on a pilgrimage in Malana.(Photo: AP)

It means they will be five days away from the fields and rubbing. But Ram isn't worried; the harvest season will go on for another few weeks.

"They want us to completely stop growing marijuana. But we keep sowing it," Ram said. "If the government helped us in some way and protected us from hunger and cold, we would maybe consider stopping. Obviously, we are not going to go hungry. Even if we have to go to jail for it, so be it."

Malana village stands in the higher reaches of the Himalayas.(Photo: AP)

--- ENDS ---
Days of incitement are not a good time for irony and satire, Anas Abu Dabas has recently found out. Abu Dabas, a journalist and social activist from the Bedouin city of Rahat, wrote two critical posts on Facebook several days ago, mocking all those who rejoiced over the fire raging in Israel

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In the first post, he protested the ignorance and unawareness of Arabs living outside of Israel, who are praising and glorifying God for the fact that our country is being burned.

Its remarkable how the brain can stop thinking and become such an idiotic thing, he wrote.

Sunday's special cabinet meeting in Haifa. Elected representatives rushed to stain an entire public of citizens as terrorists (Photo: EPA)

Up to this point, according to Judge Alon Gabizon, Abu Abas was still entitled to remain a free man. The problem started with the second post, in which he unfortunately used ironic and satirical language. His literary choice cost him dearly: His text was too sophisticated and too difficult to crack for the police translators, who completely misunderstood his intention.

The judge found it difficult to interpret as well. He ruled that what Abu Dabas had written was enough to establish a reasonable suspicion, at this stage, of incitement and damage to the states security and put him under arrest.

One who writes on the internet must carefully consider what he writes, the judge noted. "Moreover, he must carefully consider how the things he writes will be understood.

Thats solid advice, but if the police were to act according to the standards set by the judge to define an act of incitement, the courts would be filled with all those who wrote inciting comments against the Arab populationusing clear, unsophisticated, non-satirical and unironic language.

This case may serve as evidence that judges do not live in a void and that their rulings are influenced by the public atmosphere.

Abu Dabas arrest is not incidental. It is in line with the worldviews of Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who sees the raging incitement online as responsible for all terror attacks and for any harm caused to Jews. If it were not for Facebook and Google, the country would be calm for at least 40 years. According to Erdan, the important thing is not what happens in the reality of the Jewish-Arab conflict, but what people write about it on social media. He reiterated this view in a special cabinet meeting convened in Haifa, when he stated that it all begins with online incitement.

Online incitement is a problem that should be handled by the law, but the more important problem of incitementwhich has long-term ramifications that are much worse than the damage caused by the recent fires, and which will need more than a Supertanker to put out its flames of hateis the one which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some of his ministers and coalition members are part of.

These elected representatives rushed to stain an entire public of citizens as terrorists. According to the education minister and the prime minister, This is not an incidental spate of firesthis is a nationalistic wave of terrorism caused by fire terrorists.

These fire terrorists are Arab citizens, some of whom were victims of the fires, others helped their Jewish neighbors in Haifa, in Abu Gosh and in other places. It is a public whose leadership firmly condemned those who started some of the fires and called for strict punishment.

But while the prime minister, the education minister and other ministers used every opportunity to declare that the fires were the result of a nationalistic wave of terrorism, they avoided declaring just that in the latest cabinet meeting.

Declaring that the fires were acts of terrorism would mean that the damages citizens suffered as a result of the fires would have be paid by the state rather than by insurance companies. So the incitement apparently continues as long as it pays off politically. It stops as soon as a financial price has to be paid for it.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani is demanding that US President Barack Obama not sign an extension of US sanctions, saying the bill is a violation of a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

On Thursday the US Senate voted to extend the Iran Sanctions Act by 10 years. Speaking in an open session of Iran's parliament Sunday, Rouhani said Obama is "obliged" to let the sanctions expire.

The nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers lifted a variety of international sanctions in exchange for limitations on the Iranian nuclear program. However the US still maintains its own separate set of sanctions, which will expire on December 31 if Obama does not sign them into law.

Rouhani promised a "prompt response" from Iran if the US sanctions are extended.
By PTI: Amritsar, Dec 4 (PTI) Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Khonsari today visited the Golden Temple, the holiest Gurdwara of Sikhism, taking time off from the Heart of Asia conference.

Zarif spent around 10 minutes at the Harmandir Sahib, popularly known as Golden temple, where a large number of people greeted him.

When asked about strain in ties between India and Pakistan, Zarif only said Iran was ready to work with both the countries.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had visited the Golden temple yesterday evening.

The temple premises here were decorated with lights and flowers in view of scheduled visits of Modi and foreign dignitaries. PTI MPB SAI

--- ENDS ---
A United Arab Emirates-based company is contracted to help build warships for the Israeli Navy, Yedioth Ahronoth has learned.

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As part of a large-scale deal signed with German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp , which also included the purchase of three submarines, Israel bought four Sa'ar 6-class corvette warships in 2015.

The warships, that among other things will be entrusted with the protection of Israel's gas rigs, will be partly built by Abu Dhabi MAR, the leading shipbuilding company in the Persian Gulf.

The company's CEO is French-Lebanese businessman Iskandar Safa, who owns 30 percent of its shares via the Beirut-based Privinvest Holding Group. The remaining 70 percent belong to UAE-based Al Ain International Group.

A corvette warship, the kind bought by Israel

In 2009, Abu Dhabi MAR and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems began talks on a long-term cooperation agreement, which was signed in April 2010.

As part of the agreement, Abu Dhabi MAR was to buy ThyssenKrupp's civilian shipyards, while the two companies will have a "50-50 strategic partnership" in the military shipbuilding sector.

However, in mid-May 2011, ThyssenKrupp surprisingly announced that the strategic cooperation had failed and that its agreement with Abu Dhabi MAR was canceled.

Before the cancelation of the agreement, however, ThyssenKrupp sold its civilian shipyard HDW Gaarden in Kiel, Germany to Abu Dhabi MAR in 2011.

Then, when the civilian shipbuilding business was struggling, the Kiel shipyard started catering to the military sector as well.

In March 2015, two months before the deal between the Israeli Navy and ThyssenKrupp was announced, the shipyard, which changed its name after the sale to Abu Dhabi MAR Kiel, changed its name again to German Naval Yards.

Media reports suggested the Arab name was in the way of the deal with Israel and was consequently changed. These reports have not been officially confirmed, however.

German Naval Yards Kiel confirmed to Yedioth Ahronoth that it is "being used as a subcontractor for ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. Its role in this deal (with the Israeli Navy) is to contribute to the engineering of the vessel and build it in the Kiel shipyard. The shipyard was in contact with the Israeli side only through ThyssenKrupp."

Israel's Defense Ministry said in response: "The contract for the acquisition of the warships was signed with a German company, with the direct involvement of the German governmentwhich even funds a third of the deal. Ahead of the deal signing, the Director of Security of the Defense Establishment checked with German government officials to ensure no classified information from the project is given to unauthorized bodies. It's important to note that the German shipyard only builds the hull of the warships, with the rest of the systems being installed in Israel."

On Friday, it was reported that the Iranian government has shares in ThyssenKrupp , and has made some 2 million euros over a decade off dividends
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tightened his hold on Fatah and shut out a key rival, according to unofficial results Sunday of leadership elections in the movement which has dominated West Bank politics for decades.

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The election comes at a time of intense behind-the-scenes battles among senior Fatah members to succeed Abbas once the 81-year-old decides to step down. However, Abbas has given no sign that he plans to retire from the presidency or his top jobs in Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

On Saturday, more than 1,300 Fatah delegates confirmed Abbas' continued Fatah leadership role by acclamation and elected 18 members of the movement's top decision-making Central Committee.

Abbas speaking at the Fatah special conference (Photo: AFP)

Unofficial results indicated that top vote getters were Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian uprising leader jailed by Israel, and Jibril Rajoub, a former West Bank security chief. Both are seen as potential Abbas successors, and their strong showing could improve their eventual succession bids.

While Abbas cemented his control over the movement, the re-election of party stalwarts and Abbas loyalists is bound to affirm Fatah's public image as a stale, aging movement that has failed to deliver on Palestinian dreams of statehood and is out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Palestinians.

Fatah, the oldest Palestinian party, held its first congress in seven years at a time when Abbas is seeking to quell dissent in the face of internal rivalries.

Casting his ballot on Saturday afternoon, Abbas, who has not publicly designated a successor, called the process "democratic and transparent."

According to a recent poll, two-thirds of Palestinians are dissatisfied with Abbas and want him to resign.

The 1,400 delegates voted at Abbas's Ramallah headquarters in the West Bank and also in the Gaza Strip where several dozen were stranded after Israel refused them passage through its territory to Ramallah.

The congress also elected 80 members of the Fatah Revolutionary Councilthe party's parliamentwhile 40 additional council members will be directly appointed.

Founded in 1959, Fatah is the backbone of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which the international community considers the representative of all Palestinians.

Abbas was elected president in 2005 for what should have been a four-year term.

But there have been no elections since then, and with his hold on power drawing increasing internal dissent, observers say he is seeking to ready a successor.

Fatah special conference in Ramallah (Photo: AFP)

Social networks and some local news media during the week published names of candidates in the vote who they say have prior approval from Abbas and were therefore guaranteed election even before polling began.

Abu al-Hija denied the allegations.

At the opening session on Tuesday, members re-elected Abbas party head by consensus.

Observers see the reduced number of delegates eligible to votedown from more than 2,000 in 2009as part of a move to exclude Dahlan supporters.

Dimitri Diliani, elected to the Fatah Revolutionary Council in 2009, has said he was not invited to the congress like dozens of others because "we bring a different voice."

He said a planned press conference at a refugee camp near Ramallah on Tuesday with those recently dismissed from the party had been called off after threats "from the security services," including death threats.

The previous congress in 2009 brought into the ruling bodies veterans of the Palestinian security services such as Dahlan, Jibril Rajoub and the hugely popular Marwan Barghouthi, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison.

The congress comes with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014.

Abbas told the congress on Wednesday he remained committed to dialogue with Israel but that it would not come at the expense of Palestinian principles.

"We are saying to the Israeli people that we want peace that conforms to international resolutions, but it is your government who does not," he said.

Israel must "recognize that settlements are illegal," he said, adding that "our hand will remain extended for peace."

That policy enjoys consensus support in Fatah, which renounced violence several years ago. The rival Hamas Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip pursues a policy of armed conflict with Israel.
Former top officials in Israel's defense establishment have called for an investigation into Israel's deal with ThyssenKrupp after reports emerged that the Iranian government holds shares in the German-based conglomerate, raising concerns Israeli moneyand possibly classified information as wellwill make its way to Iranian hands.

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The government-owned Iran Foreign Investment Company (IFIC) owns nearly five percent of ThyssenKrupp's shares. Despite that, Israel's Defense Ministry said it does not know of any Iranian involvement in the company.

"The State of Israel and the defense establishment should have known there was an Iranian fund that holds shares in the shipyard company," former Mossad director Danny Yatom said on Saturday.

The INS Rahav (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office)

"If the Israeli defense establishment was surprised to learn that the Iranians have a share of the company's holdings, this is a failure that requires an examination," he added. "I hopeand believeall of the relevant steps have been taken to ensure no information leaked (to the Iranians)... they need to check if Israeli moneythe IDF's money that was invested in the submarinesended up in Iran."

According to former minister and intelligence officer Rafi Eitan, the concern that classified information may have leaked to Iran is a significant one. "If the submarines are installed with secret systems developed in Israel, which I'm assuming they are, then obviously there's a risk that information leaked," Eitan said.

He explained that for an advanced navy such as Iran's "such information is worth its weight in gold."

"If they were exposed to secret information from the Israeli Navy, this is a failure that (Israel) needs to get to the bottom of," Eitan concluded.

Former Navy and Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon noted that "stockholders should not be exposed to secret information. Even so, if any sensitive information gets to an enemy of the State of Israelthat's a serious problem."

Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, the Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs at the Defense Ministry, clarified on Saturday that "Iran is not selling submarines to Israel," but added that Tehran's involvement in ThyssenKrupp should be examined.

"At the end of the day, you buy from the shipyard. I wasn't aware of the Iranian involvement, but it is not a major involvement. If it were up to Iran, we wouldn't have a single submarine. Its involvement is minor and we need to look into it," Gilad said.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad (Photo: Sasson Tiram)

The deal, he stressed, was done with the German government, "and there are strict confidentiality agreements included in the construction of the submarines, which allow to build them while protecting Israel's security."

Reports over the weekend indicated that the IFIC has made some 2 million euro over a decade off dividends from ThyssenKrupp.

MK Erel Margalit (Zionist Union), a member of the Joint Committee for the Defense Budget, has asked for an emergency committee discussion on the topic.

He also asked that the Knesset's Finance Committee is convened to reexamine a deal signed with ThyssenKrupp to build four Sa'ar 6-class corvette warships, which reports on Sunday morning indicated will be built in part by the UAE-based shipbuilding company Abu Dhabi MAR

"Those who stand to gain from these deals are (Prime Minister) Netanyahu's friends and Iran," Margalit said. "Netanyahu's private interests once again trample and undermine national interests."

MK Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union) called for a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the topic, while fellow party member Nachman Shai raised many questions: "The more information comes to light about the submarine deal, the more it appears crazy. Was Israel aware of the Iranian involvement in the German company? Did Israel examine in advance what were the security implications of building a strategic vessel of immense importance at a shipyard whose owners, even in part, are its enemies? Is Iran now in on Israel's secrets concerning weapons that, among others, are aimed against it?"

MK Ofer Shelah (Yesh Atid), a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, noted that the acquisition of the submarines was "a reasonable decision and within the purview of the prime minister's responsibilities. But the urgency in closing the deal, the fact it was presented to the German chancellor before being approved by the cabinet, and mostly the clear conflict of interests in the fact a close associate of the prime minister is benefitting from the dealall of these raise suspicions among the public that something here is wrong."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a forum of coalition party leaders on Sunday afternoon that the state would ask the High Court of Justice to delay the evacuation Amona by 30 days to allow time for the establishment of structures to absorb the outpost's residents.

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During the conference, it was also decided that the the Regulation Bill, which aims to legalize outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian land, would be postponed for its first Knesset reading and vote from Monday to Wednesday.

The development comes a day after a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bayit Yehudi Leader Naftali Bennett took place on Saturday night during which the two discussed the advancement of the Regulation Bill and possible solutions to the Amona crisis.

The meeting, which lasted more than four hours, aimed to solve the problem which threatens to erode the coalition's stability as it searches for a solution ahead of the bills first Knesset reading and vote.

During the discussion on the intimately related issues, about which the two have locked horns for weeks, a number of potential options were explored to settle the Amona crisis, with its court-ordered evacuation fast approaching despite the governments request for its posponement. However, the talks resulted in no final agreement and the Prime Ministers Office issued a statement promising that the issue would be discussed on Sunday.

Naftali Bennett and PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Amil Salman)

To that end, Netanyahu told ministers during his opening remarks at Sundays cabinet meeting that work is still underway to find a practical solution to Amona which would ensure both the protection of settlements while upholding the authority of the courts.

We are working many hours to find a responsible solution to the matter of Amona and for similar cases for the future. We are working to arrive at an agreed upon solution, he said. I expect from all the ministers and MKs to respect it. We are operating cautiously and quietly to guard both the communities (in the West Bank) and the courts.

Despite the Regulation Bill receiving approval in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation in mid-November and passing its preliminary reading in the Knesset shortly thereafter by a 58-50 majority ruptures resurfaced after Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon stated his refusal to lend support to the bill in its current format and Bayit Yehudis insistence that it not be brought to the vote in the absence of a solution to Amona.

Coalition officials said Saturday night that heavy pressure is being exerted on the Bayit Yehudi party to forfeit its insistence that Clause 7 remain in the draft bill since it demands a retroactive solution to a problem on which the courts already ruled and therefore potentially constitutes an assault on its authority. In the meantime, Bennett has shown no willingness to budge.

Kahlon and Netanyahu (Photo: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

There is no agreement regarding the Regulation Bill for communities in Judea and Samaria and Amona, Bennett tweeted on Saturday night. We expect the Regulation Bill to pass the Knesset plenum on Monday as required by the coalition agreement.

Despite having voted for the bill in the preliminary reading, Kahlons position stems fromt of his pre-stated insistence that the High Court of Justices decision not be undermineda condition upon which his support hinged. Clause 7 therefore, represents a major stumbling block.

In accordance with the demand that assurance be given to this effect, Coalition Chairman David Bitan, one of the chief architects of the proposed bill announced publicly: As chairman of the coalition I declare that the legislative process will not harm the High Court of Justice. With this statement the coalition managed to secure Kahlons blessing, paving the way for its passing in its preliminary reading.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked MK Bezalel Smotrich (Bayit Yehudi) to leave his office on Saturday night over comments the MK made against the prime minister.

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Smotrich arrived at the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday night to join a planned meeting between his party leader Naftali Bennett and Netanyahu regarding the Regulation Bill, which could retroactively legalize Jewish outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

"You said that I wasn't right wing and that I wasn't reliable, so don't come here," Netanyahu told Smotrich, who promptly left.

MK Bezalel Smotrich and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky, Amit Shabi)

In an interview with left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, Smotrich said: "I'm sorry, but unfortunately Netanyahu is not right wing. Until Netanyahu arrived at the scene, it was clear both in Israel and in the world that there was a right wing and a left wing. When the left is in government, you could talk about dividing the country. When the right is in government, you can't talk about that.

"Then Netanyahu came and created the false impression that there's consensus between the right and the left about the two-state solution. It's not true, and it causes great damage to the State of Israel's positions and interests.

"I meet with American Congressmen who tell me, 'Do you want me to be more holy than the pope? Your prime minister calls for a two-state solution, so you want us to be more right wing than him?'"
DUBAI - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani demanded on Sunday that US Pesident Barack Obama block an extension of sanctions passed by the US Congress, saying Tehran would otherwise "firmly respond."

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In a speech to parliament, Rouhani denounced legislation passed by the US Congress to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years as a violation of Tehran's nuclear deal with six major powers. The deal curbs Tehran's nuclear program in return for the lifting of international financial sanctions.

"America's president is obliged to exercise his authority by preventing its approval and particularly its implementation ... and if this gross violation is carried out we will firmly respond," Rouhani said in the speech, carried live by state television.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (Photo: EPA)

President Obama is expected to sign the legislation into law, the White House said on Friday.

The US Congress move was a blow to Rouhani, a pragmatist who engineered the diplomatic opening to the West that led to the nuclear deal.

US officials have said the ISA renewal would not infringe the nuclear agreement. US lawmakers have also said the ISA extension would make it easier for sanctions to be quickly reimposed if Iran contravened the nuclear deal.

On Sunday, 264 lawmakers in Iran's 290-seat parliament issued a statement calling on the government to implement counter measures, including relaunching nuclear enrichment halted under the atomic deal, the official news agency IRNA reported.

The diplomatic thaw between Washington and Tehran over the past two years looks in jeopardy with US President-elect Donald Trump taking office next month. He said during his election campaign that he would scrap the nuclear agreement.

Last month, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that the extension would be viewed in Tehran as a breach of the nuclear accord and threatened retaliation.

Khamenei and his hardline loyalists have criticised the deal and blamed Rouhani for his government's failure to deliver swift improvements in living standards since sanctions were lifted in January.
Leaflets calling on IDF soldiers and policemen to disobey commands to implement the evacuation of the Amona outpost this month are being distributed throughout the West Bank among soldiers by residents and supporters of the outpost.

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According to the Judea and Samaria Police Division, a number of youngsters were observed on Sunday afternoon distributing such flyers at the Tapuah Junction urging the soldiers to refuse to carry out evacuation orders. Two minors aged 14 and 17 were arrested on suspicion of incitement to disobey an order.

The flyers shows an illustration of an IDF commander ordering a soldier to evacuate Amona, with the soldier refusing to do so. Above the caricature reads:

Tell your friends and commanders now that you will not be an accomplice

Soldier/policeman, the State of Israel has decided to destroy a community in Israel. Security forces, of which you are a part, have been chosen to carry out the demolition. This decision harms the values of the people of Israel.

This decision harms you. It is in your hands to choose not to be a collaborator in destruction, it is in your hands not to harm the people of Israel and the Torah of Israel. Tell your friends and commanders now that you will not be an accomplice to this order, it implores its readers.

Youth building makeshift structures perparing to resist evacuation (Photo: Reuters)

A defense lawyer representing the two minors arrested from the organization Honenu which provides legal assistance to right-wing activists, issued a statement on the arrests: A 14-year-old minor sitting here was threatened with a beating by policemen. He was denied the presence of his parent in the investigation as if he were a terrorist, the statement read.

The police have crossed the line. The Police Central Unit arrested a 14 year old for distributing flyers among soldiers? Fidel Castro is dead and we are not in Russia, the lawyer quipped. It is permitted for civilians to express their opinions even if it is contrary to the outlook of the police and the High Court of Justice. The shutting of mouths must be immediately stopped.

Amona is set to be evacuated on December 25 but may be brought forward. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bayit Yehudi Leader Naftali Bennett have yet to reach an agreement on how to resolve the problem, dozens of youngsters showed up at the outpost and are expected to resist the evacuation.

Wooden buildings constructed in Amona (Photo: AFP)

During a party forum leaders conference, it was decided that the vote for the Regulation Billseeking to legalize outposts built on private Palestinian landwhich is supposed to be brought for its first reading in the Knesset on Monday, would be delayed again until Wednesday.

During the meeting, Netanyahu announced that the state would ask the High Court to delay the evacuation for another 30 days to allow time for the construction of temporary structures for the Amona residents removed from the outpost.

The youngsters who arrived at the outpost in a show of solidarity have begun building makeshift buildings to house more protesters wishing to show up to oppose the move. We are here until the end, said one of the youths. I came with a bag for a few days and I intend to spend the nights here with my friends. We will continue to construct these buildings in Amona so that there will be a place for all those who want to come but hopefully we wont have to use them and Amona will stay where it is."
A member of Women of the Wall was attacked by an ultra-Orthodox woman last week during prayers to mark the new Jewish month.

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Video of the incident shows the ultra-Orthodox woman trying to strangle Rachel Cohen Yeshurun until other women pulled them apart.

Women of the Wall (WOW) is a multi-denominational feminist organization in Israel whose goal is to secure the rights of women to pray at the Western Wall according to their faith.

The altercation at the Western Wall (:  )

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For 27 years now, several dozen women gather at the Western Wall to pray at the beginning of the Jewish month.

Like every month, the WOW on Thursday encountered loud resistance by several ultra-Orthodox women who loudly protested against the prayer.

"They do this using protest signs and ear-splitting whistles that they use to disrupt the prayer," said one of the WOW members. "Today, one of them has taken it one step further and strangled one of the members of the organization."

"I felt immense pain in my ears because of the whistling that continued throughout the entire prayer, so I went to ask the protesters to stop blowing their whistles and allow us to pray in peace," recounted Cohen Yeshurun, who is one of the organization's board members. "But that didn't happen. Instead, they pushed me, and one of them took that opportunity to strangle me."

Ultra-Orthodox protester trying to strangle Rachel Cohen Yeshurun (Photo: Mona Mor)

She went on to say that "beyond the personal pain of not being allowed to pray in peace, and beyond the physical pain, I feel that the act of strangling symbolizes the efforts to silence women at the Western Wall."

WOW Director Lesley Sachs asserted that "the fact that the Western Wall rabbi and his representatives do nothing against the ultra-Orthodox protesters who are disgracing the Kotel with their whistles, gives them a 'green light' to increase the level of violence against Women of the Wall, and the attack was a direct result of that."

Illegal body search

Members of the organization also claimed that "the Western Wall rabbi applies any measure possible against them," and said some of them were illegally searched at the entrance to the Western Wall plaza to ensure they weren't carrying any Torah books.

"We live in a world in which Jewish women have to undergo humiliating body searches to prevent them from reading from the Torah, just because the Israeli government allows the most extreme elements to exclude, discriminate against and silence women at the Western Wall," Sachs said.

She argued that "the instruction to subject us to a body search is another step down the slippery slope leading to the creation of a Halacha state. This is an insult to Jewish women, and it seriously violates the principle of gender equality and the freedom of religion each and every Israeli has.

"Body search today and the threat of imprisonment tomorrow will not deter us from continuing the fight for a saner form of Judaism in the State of Israel, one without religious coercion."

WOW say subjecting them to body search is illegal because "according to the law, security guards have the authority to conduct a body search only to protect public security or when there is concern for terror activity," said Orly Erez-Likhovski, the organization's legal counsel. "This is definitely not the case in this situation."

Western Wall rabbi: Efforts made to prevent violence

The office of Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz said every effort is being done to separate the ultra-Orthodox protesters and Women of the Wall. Rabinowitz's office further said the protesters who use whistles to disrupt the prayer are asked to stop and that their actions are being documented. Barriers put from the Dung Gate to the Western Wall's security area, the office said, were put there to separate WOW from the ultra-Orthodox protesters.

"After consulting with security officials and with the full coordination of the police, several steps have been taken this morning meant to prevent altercations and disturbances of the peace andheaven forbidviolence at the Western Wall plaza," Rabinowitz's office said.

"We welcome the success of this activity in preventing violence at the Western Wall, and regret the repeated attempts every month of unnecessary provocation. The prime minister must be given the time to look for an appropriate solution, which would preserve the sanctity of the Western Wall and prevent violence in the plaza."

Last month, the original WOW group and the Center for Women's Justice petitioned the High Court of Justice to rule that they have a right to read from the Torah at the Western Wall plaza and to order the lifting of the ban on bringing private Torah books into the holy site.

The petition also demands the state for compensation for discriminating against them, claiming "the state has sacrificed the right of women to read from Torah books at the Western Wall."

A plan approved by the government in January was supposed to resolve the issue after agreements were reached between the ultra-Orthodox and the liberal movements. Two months later, however, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the reexamination of the plan after the ultra-Orthodox reneged on the agreements.
ALEPPO -- The Syrian army on Sunday ordered rebels in Aleppo to leave the city or face "inevitable death," as a series of airstrikes on an opposition-held town elsewhere in the country killed 21 people, including three children.

Pro-government forces have been pushing deeper into besieged eastern Aleppo, taking back neighborhoods the rebels have held since 2012. The opposition has buckled after months of siege and waves of devastating airstrikes, and could soon be driven from Syria's largest city. It would mark their biggest defeat since the conflict began in 2011.

Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Samir Suleiman told The Associated Press in Aleppo that government forces would "continue fighting until they restore stability and security to all neighborhoods." He said the army has already retaken more than half the neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo, and that special forces would lead the battle in the narrow streets of the city's historic district.
MIAMI -- A prisoner from Yemen at the Guantanamo Bay detention center has been released and sent to the West African nation of Cape Verde for resettlement.

The Pentagon says the release announced Sunday of Shawqi Awad Balzuhair lowers the number of prisoners held at the US base in Cuba to 59. Twenty of those remaining have been approved for release.

Balzuhair has been held at Guantanamo without charge since October 2002 following his capture along with several other suspected al-Qaida militants in Karachi, Pakistan. A US government review board determined he was a "low-level militant" and approved his release in 2016.

The US does not send prisoners back to Yemen because of the civil war and had to find another country to accept him. Cape Verde accepted another prisoner in 2010.
Beloved Amma, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, is critical after suffering from a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

By PTI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was said to be critical late tonight after she suffered cardiac arrest in the hospital where she was admitted over two months ago.

"The honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening," said a statement issued by Apollo Hospital where she was admitted on September 22.

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"She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists," Chief Operating Officer and head of transformation of Apollo Hospital Dr Subbaiah Viswanathan said in the statement.

ALSO READ | Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest puts Chennai on edge, Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar leaves Apollo without a word on Amma's health

Late around midnight, Apollo Hospitals Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy tweeted: "The Apollo TN CM #Jayalalita is critical.multi speciality team @hospitalsapollo trying everything including ecmo.praying for her recovery."

Soon after the Apollo statement came, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and enquired about Jayalalithaas health.

Rao, who is is also Governor of Maharashtra, rushed to Chennai from Mumbai and went to the hospital.

Ministers and top police officials also rushed to the hospital and informal consultations on the situation.

Heavy deployment of police was made at the hospital where thousands of supporters of 68-year-old Amma and AIADMK cadre had gathered on hearing the news.

Police force has been put on alert throughout the state and all personnel have reportedly been asked to report to tehir respective stations by the morning. President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK leader M Karunanidhi, his son and opposition leader K Stalin, Union Ministers, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Chief Ministers and a host of leaders expressed concern over Jayalalithaas health condition and wished her speedy recovery.

Earlier in the day, AIADMK spokesperson C Ponnaiyan told reporters, "The AIIMS doctors visited the hospital yesterday and after examining her (Jayalalithaas) health, they shared the good news with us that Amma (as Jayalalithaa is fondly called by AIADMK cadre, meaning mother) has completely recovered."

Ponnaiyan said the Chief Minister was doing physical exercises, undergoing physiotherapy, and was having food on her own besides advising officers on issues related to government and party activities.

Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration. The hospital, which had been issuing bulletins on her health status, had later said she was being treated for infection with respiratory support, among others.

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Apollo Hospitals Chairman Dr C Prathap Reddy had recently said Jayalalithaa was in good health and was speaking using a valve attached to the tracheostomy tube.

Whole body physiotherapy was being done, he had said, adding that she was normally recuperating after being in bed for several weeks and would herself decide when to go home.

--- ENDS ---
RICHMOND -- Once an employee of the powerful CIA, Jeffrey Sterling now sits behind bars at a federal prison in Colorado. He bides his time by reading and writing and working at the facility's recreational center.

Nearly two years after Sterling was found guilty of leaking government secrets to a reporter, the 49-year-old maintains that he is innocent. Sterling is now pinning his hopes for an early release on a federal appeals court, which will soon consider whether to reverse his convictions.

"I continue to have hope that the truth will come out," said his wife Holly Sterling, who travels to the prison from their home in Missouri once a month to visit her husband. Sterling is serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence at an all-male prison that also houses former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and ex-Subway spokesman Jared Fogle.
It's hard not to be impressed when 14-year-old Assaf Yasour and his parents talk about how he dealt with the amputation of both his hands; they speak with an exceptional amount of courage, willpower and optimism as they take on the challenge of trying to raise the one million shekels that they need to pay for the complicated surgeries that Assaf has been through and the bionic hands that will permit him to lead an independent life.

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The terrible accident happened two and half years ago when Assaf, then 12 years old, was playing with his friends in a field in their hometown of Alonei HaBashan in the eastern Golan Heights. When Assaf tried to pry free a ball that had become lodged in the box of an electrical pole, he was severely electrocuted and fell.

His father, Lior, recounted, "When I reached the scene, I saw that the situation was extremely serious. I saw that his fingers were crushed and out of place. There wasn't even any blood because everything was burnt. There were open fractures, and two forearm bones were protruding. I stood behind Assaf while the paramedics treated him. I leaned over him and told him, 'Assaf, no matter what, I'm with you.'

Lior and Assaf Yasour (Photo: Effi Sharir)

"There were two serious things: the injuries to his arms and the danger to his life. In the first stage, they dealt with life. It was a miracle that Assaf was alive.

"Nobody understands how his heart survived. He also fell from a height of four and half meters, and nothing happened to him. There was a large transformer inside the electrical box that it's enough just to lightly touch it and be burnt, but luckily he didn't touch it. He also had the presence of mind to call his friends to get a medic."

Assaf's parents tried to raise the money they needed for fitting prosthetics before they travelled with him to the US for his operations, but they were afraid that failing to get it done before the school year began in September would have meant that Assaf would have had to wait until next summer. So they made a payment plan and brought Assaf to the States.

Their Israeli insurance only covers prosthetic hooks, but they wanted to give their son the bionic hands due to his preference for a more biological look. Lior said, "The hand is very functional: He ties shoes with it, eats with it, gets dressed, carries out all his daily activities, types on the computer. Practically, he does everything important."

Lior said that friends expressed their condolences in such a dreary manner that it seemed as though someone had died. He said then to his wife, Ravital, "'This situation is crazy; let's act like crazy people. Let's decide that this is the best thing to have happened to us.' When you say that for the first time, it's weird, but with time it starts to make sense. It's the best thing that we've done because we're able to believe and understand that the sky's the limit for Assaf. Otherwise, we wouldn't have made it."

After many long months in an American hospital, Assaf made another step forward and started learning at a religious high-school yeshiva in Rehovot, far from his parents. His father explained that Assaf wanted to go to school in that area, as his friends were all going to boarding schools. Lior and Ravital decided to accede to their son's request so that he would not be isolated in their small village while his friends left for school. At his school, he enjoys drawing and tae kwon do.

Those who would like to contribute financially to the Yasours can do so via Jgive.
ALEPPO -- Syrian first responders say at least 20 people have been killed in a presumed Russian or government airstrike on a rural market in the rebel-held Idlib province.

Ahmad al-Sheikho of the Syrian Civil Defense, volunteers who work in insurgent-held areas, says 37 others from the village of Maarat al-Nouman were taken to hospitals after Sunday's raid, some in grave condition.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 18 people were killed, including several children.

Russia's military announced last month it was resuming airstrikes on the northwestern Idlib province and central Homs province in support of the government.

An earlier airstrike on the nearby rebel-held village of Kafranbel killed at least 21 people.
HELSINKI -- A gunman in Finland killed a local town councilor and two journalists in an apparent random shooting in a small town's nightlife district, police said Sunday. A local man was detained on suspicion of murder.

The chairwoman of the Imatra town council and two female reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant around midnight Saturday, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said. Police said two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her mid-30s.

Police detained a 23-year-old suspect who didn't resist arrest. He had allegedly fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle, authorities said.

Detective Superintendent Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the suspect had a criminal record that included violent incidents and theft, but declined to identify him.

"There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didn't know each other," Tielinen said. "All indications are that he chose his victims randomly."
The former president of the Nazareth District Court, retired Judge Yitzhak Cohen pleaded guilty on Sunday to sexual harassment in a plea bargain that has sentenced him to community service, subject to the consent of the probation service.

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Cohen was accused of sexually harassing a court employee with whom he worked in 2014.

The state is seeking a punishment of community service and compensation to the victim in the amount of NIS 2,500. It also seeks to accept the recommendation of the probation service regarding the number of hours that Cohen should serve. The prosecution will to a non-conviction, subject to the probation service's recommendation.

Yitzhak Cohen (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Cohen retired two years ago after an investigation was opened against him for sexual offenses and tax fraud. A statement from him stated that he had decided to resign after tough deliberation during the continuation of his investigation "and out of consideration for the benefit of the district court, which is dear to his heart."

Investigators from the National Fraud Unit collected testimony from five women, each of whom complained of a separate incident. Three of the complainants' cases were beyond the statute of limitations. Then-Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and then-Supreme Court President Asher Grunis decided to cancel Cohen's candidacy for the Supreme Court.

During the investigation, other judges were investigated who admitted that they had known about Cohen's alleged improper conduct, but they had not reported him because his alleged victims were afraid to damage their positions at work.

The affair has drawn to a conclusion now, with Cohen standing and declaring in court that he "recognizes and admits the indictment."
A Chilean court has rejected lawsuits filed in the South American country against three current or former Israeli Supreme Court justices for endorsing the construction of the West Bank separation barrier and the seizure of lands and the property on them from Palestinians.

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Chile's Palestinian Federation filed a war crimes lawsuit last week against current Justices Uzi Vogelman and Neal Hendel and retired Justice Asher Grunis, who was president of the court in 2012-2015.

Justice Uzi Vogleman (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the stretch of barrier, built on land the international community considers occupied, has separated them from properties and farmland. The group argues that Chile's international agreements allow for suits involving crimes against humanity committed in other countries. But in their ruling, the judges said they did not have the authority to intervene in another country's court decisions.

A Chilean-Palestinian woman who owns land in the Cremisan Valley, which is near Bethlehem, had also filed a lawsuit.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman earlier said the federation's lawsuit had no legal basis.

Chile's Palestinian community is among the worlds largest, with about 350,000 immigrants and their descendants.

Israel says the barrier built beginning in 2002 is needed to keep out Palestinian attackers. Palestinians call the structure an illegal land grab because it frequently juts in and out of the West Bank, placing occupied territory claimed by the Palestinians on the "Israeli" side.

The International Court of Justice, the UN's highest judicial organ, in 2004 issued an advisory opinion saying the barrier was illegal.
From President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK chief M Karunanidhi, DMK leader Stalin to Union ministers, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Lalu Prasad Yadav- all tweeted wishing Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

By India Today Web Desk: Various leaders from across the political parties have expressed concern over Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's health and wished her a speedy recovery.

From President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK chief M Karunanidhi, DMK leader Stalin to Union ministers, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Lalu Prasad Yadav- all tweeted wishing Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

DMK President M. Karunanidhi, the arch rival of Jayalalithaa, and Tamil Nadu opposition leader K Stalin wished Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

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DMK leader K Stalin tweeted: "I desire that the intensive treatment being given to the Chief Minister yields fruit and that she recovers soon."

President Pranab Mukherjee also expressed concern over Jayalalithaa.

Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery #PresidentMukherjee; President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 4, 2016

ALSO READ | Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest puts Chennai on edge, Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar leaves Apollo without a word on Amma's health

Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu tweeted, "Feeling bad to know abt da critical condition of TN CM Selvi Jayalalitha. Praying for her speedy recovery and quick response 2 the treatment (sic)."

Feeling bad to know abt da critical condition of TN CM Selvi Jayalalitha. Praying fr her speedy recovery and quick response 2 the treatment. M Venkaiah Naidu (@MVenkaiahNaidu) December 4, 2016

Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi also wished for Jayalalithaa's speedy recovery.

Praying for Jayalalithaa ji's quick recovery. I hope she gets better very soon; Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) December 4, 2016

Chief Ministers from across the states also wished for Jayalalithaa's speedy recovery.

Very concerned about the health of Jayalalitha Ji. Like my friends in Tamil Nadu, I am praying for her speedy recovery. May God bless her; Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) December 4, 2016

Got to know about Tamil Nadu CM #Jayalalithaa ji's health.Maharashtra prays for her speedy recovery ! Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) December 4, 2016

Former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav also expressed concern over Jayalalithaa's health.

In a tweet, he said "Totally worried about the health of #Jayalalithaa Ji. Wishing and Praying for speedy recovery. Lets all pray for her."

Jayalalithaa is reported to be critical after suffering from a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening. She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists. A team of doctors from AIIMS has also been rushed to the Apollo Hospital in Chennai.

Hundreds of supporters and AIADMK partymen have gathered outside the Apollo Hospital and are praying for their beloved Amma's speedy recovery.

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ALSO READ | Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest, said to be critical

Click here to watch the video

--- ENDS ---
Santiago de Cuba: Fidel Castro's ashes were taken to a cemetery on Sunday in the shelter of his revolution.

Cuba opens a new era without the communist leader who ruled the island for decades.

After a week of tributes and mass rallies, a jeep pulled the cedar urn into the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba as a crowd chanted "viva Fidel!"

Castro died on November 25 at age 90, will be attributed to rest during a simple ceremony near the mausoleum of 19th-century independence hero Jose Marti, said his brother and successor, President Raul Castro.

The funeral ceremony closed to the public.

In honour of Castro, his brother Raul Castro led a massive and final rally at Santiago's Revolution Plaza on Saturday, leading the crowd into a pledge to uphold the socialist ideals.

"In front of Fidel's remains ... We swear to defend the fatherland and socialism," Raul Castro said.

"He demonstrated that, yes we could, yes we can, yes we will overcome any obstacle, threat, turbulence in our firm resolve to build socialism in Cuba," he said.

Fidel Castro had been sidelined as the matter of his own fate due to his emergency intestinal surgery a decade ago, he still remained a towering figure in Cuba.

Castro was deeply respected by supporters for the free health care and education he spread across the island and vilified by protesters who saw him as a brutal dictator.

Castro's dying wish was that no statues be erected in his memory and no streets or building be named after him.

Castro was an omnipresent figure in the lives of Cubans,

"The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality," Raul Castro said.

Cubans often encouraged by the government and flooded the streets to pay acute tribute to Castro, chanting "I am Fidel!"

His obsequies end a nine-day period of mourning and his ashes were taken across the Caribbean country this week.

"I am very sad because we have lost a father," said Marta Loida, a 36-year-old university professor sitting on the ground and holding a picture of Fidel Castro after Raul's speech.

The state media called Castro the "eternal comandante

Cubans were advised to go to schools and other public buildings to sign an oath of loyalty to Castro's revolution.

"I trust Raul because Raul is Fidel's brother. Fidel taught him everything," said Irina Hierro Rodriguez, a 23-year-old teacher at yesterday's rally
Amritsar: Sartaj Aziz, the foreign affairs advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday met Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar during which they discussed ways to bring peace and stability in the war-ravaged country.

A Pakistani source was quoted by PTI that the two leaders discussed prospects, development and stability in Afghanistan.

The bilateral meeting between Aziz and Ghani came amid Kabul expressing its anguish over Islamabad's not so cooperative approach towards the peace process in the Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan government has been critical of Pakistan over rising terror attacks on Afghanistan by militant groups operating from Pakistani soil.

Ahead of the Heart of Asia ministerial conference, Afghanistan had called terror emanating from Pakistan as the greatest threat to regional peace and stability and pressed for adopting a regional counter-terror framework at the Heart of Asia conference to effectively deal with terrorism.

Sartaz Aziz is leading the Pakistani delegation to the meeting that focuses on regional cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours to improve connectivity and tackle security threats in the war-torn country.
Helsinki: An armed assailant in a small Finish town on Sunday shot dead three women, including a local council official when they were leaving a restaurant, police said.

The municipal council head and two local journalists were also killed on Saturday night in the town of Imatra by a man who was swiftly arrested, SST news agency said.

A police official said, the 23-year-old suspect, who was armed with a shotgun, already had a record of violent crime.

The suspect was interrogated on Sunday but the motive for the attack remained unclear and the attacker could have picked his victims at random, investigators said.

Finland has relatively low crime rates compared to other European nations but it has one of the biggest gun ownership rates in the world.

It was confirmed by the town mayor Pertti Lintunen that the victim was social-democrat council leader Tiina Wilen-Jappinen, who was in her 50s.

The names of the murdered journalists were not revealed.

Imatra is a small lakeside town of 17,000 people in southeastern Finland, just a few kilometres from the Russian border.

A "Small Arms Survey" carried out by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, found Finland fourth in the civilian gun-ownership ranks behind the United States, Yemen and Switzerland.

Imatra authorities said via the internet that psychological support was being made available to local residents.
Three of Australias closest neighbours - Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste (East Timor) - are assessed as fragile.

The OECDs States of 'Fragility 2016: Understanding Violence' report identifies 56 countries or regions as being fragile based on how exposed they are to risks like economic shock, youth unemployment, disease, corruption, crime and violence.

THREE of the world's most fragile countries are on Australias doorstep, according to a new report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development that implores the international community to maintain its aid commitments.

PNG is rated as more fragile than countries that have endured recent coup attempts such as Egypt, Libya and Burkina Faso.

The report calls on the international community to provide adequate, long-term development assistance for these countries and focus funding on the real drivers of fragility. It also wants countries to develop better financing strategies.

According to the report, PNG and Timor-Leste are more vulnerable to political risks, while the Solomon Islands most substantial vulnerability is to environmental and health risks.

Together with Indonesia, these three countries represent the largest four recipients of Australian aid. PNG was given $554.5 million in 2015-16, the Solomon Islands $175.9 million and Timor-Leste $95.3 million.

Despite ongoing conflict from West Papuans over Indonesian rule, Indonesia was not deemed fragile by the OECD.

Although the Australian government has cut the aid budget in recent years, the cuts have not significantly affected allocations to these countries.

In the 2014-15 budget, which reduced spending by $650 million, there was an increase in the outlay to PNG.
Doctors today said that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has recovered and that she will return home soon.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has been hospitalised since September 22.

By India Today Web Desk: Doctors today announced that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is recovering well and will soon return home.

"Our leader Jayalalithaa has recovered well, doing physiotherapy exercise. Soon she will be back to resume her duties," said CR Saraswathi from AIADMK.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo hospital on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration.

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Her failing health led to a chaos in the state.

Several persons responsible for spreading false information about the CM's health were detained by the police.

DMK chief M Karunanidhi, admitted to a private hospital here for further treatment of a drug- induced allergy, is likely to be discharged in one or two days, Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said today.

Also read:

As Jayalalithaa remains in hospital, storm brews in Tamil Nadu's political cup

Jayalalithaa turns 68: Supporters get 'Amma is everything for us' tattoos

Plea on Jayalalithaa's health, interim CM rejected by Madras High Court

--- ENDS ---
Amritsar: Addressing the 6th Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference in Amritsar on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for "resolute action" not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them.

In a clear message to Pakistan, PM Modi said silence and inaction will only embolden terrorists and their masters.

In his address at the 6th conference of Heart of Asia, a platform to help Afghanistan in its transition, PM Modi said the growing arc of terrorist violence is posing the gravest threat to the region.

Here are the important statements made by the PM:-

- "Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity. And, the growing arc of terrorist violence endangers our entire region. As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough."

- "It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them," the PM said in an obvious reference to Pakistan.

- "Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Third, our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistan's development and humanitarian needs must continue and increase," the Prime Minister said.

- The Prime Minister said there was a need to demonstrate strong and collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear.

- Expressing India's strong commitment to Afghanistan's transition, Modi said, "On India's part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering."

- "The welfare of Afghanistan and its people is close to our hearts and minds."

- He also called for an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process to bring stability to the country.

- He was speaking after jointly inaugurating the annual Ministerial conference here along with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani which is being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz along with representatives of around 30 countries.
Gurdaspur: The government is planning to install high-tech laser walls and other advanced systems at the India-Pakistan border to check infiltration from across the border, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju said here on Sunday.

The work in this regard will be completed in a year, he added.

He made the announcement during a visit to Qadian town in the district to pay tributes to Saheed Ram Parkash on his 25th martyrdom anniversary.

The "laser walls" will be monitored by Border Security Force (BSF) which guards the international border in J&K, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

He said a dozen "laser walls" have been already made operational along the International Border in Punjab.

The decision to install laser walls was taken by BSF two years ago, the minister said.
Amritsar: Pakistani Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had a brief interaction.

They had a short informal chat after Foreign Ministers of five countries called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a group on Saturday night.

The call on by the foreign ministers preceded an official dinner attended by representatives of almost all countries participating in the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference.

While Indian sources said Aziz and Doval "had a stroll for about 100 feet" at the venue of the dinner 'Sada Pind', a heritage village, Pakistani officials maintained that they had a "meeting". However, it is not known what transpired during their conversation, as per PTI.

When asked, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup only said, "There was no meeting".

During the dinner, Aziz exchanged pleasantries with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The tension between two countries is under strain in the wake of Nagrota terror strike and intensified cross-border firing in Jammu and Kashmir.

India had already made it clear that it will never accept continuing cross-border terrorism as the 'new normal' in bilateral ties with Pakistan while asserting that talks cannot take place in an atmosphere of "continued terror".

Meanwhile, combating terrorism was at the centre-stage of HoA conference which sent a clear message to Pakistan, holding terror and violent extremism as the biggest threat to peace, but could not firm up a regional framework proposed by Afghanistan to effectively deal with the menace.

After the two-day deliberations, attended by 40 countries including major regional and global powers and blocs, the HoA, a platform to help Afghanistan in its transition, issued the Amritsar Declaration which called for dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in the region, as well as disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terror networks.

Held in the backdrop of number of cross-border terror attacks on India and elsewhere, the HoA expressed serious concern over gravity of the security situation in Afghanistan and in many parts of the region, holding that united efforts are required to contain terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Taliban, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, IS and its affiliates, TTP, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah and other foreign terrorist groups.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: India and Bangladesh will hold their home secretary-level talks on Monday with terrorism, smuggling and regional security high on agenda.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Mozammel Haque Khan will lead the respective sides in the meeting.

The two-day talks will focus on anti-terror mechanisms, information sharing and cross-border smuggling, among other issues.

Citing official sources, PTI reported that the meeting would discuss the presence of different jihadi groups in the region and ways to tackle them.

The meeting would also discuss ways to curb the menace of cattle, narcotics and arms smuggling through the porous borders of the two countries.

Bangladesh may also seek India's help in nabbing its most wanted criminals, as well as those involved in the assassination of its founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
New Delhi: The 6th Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference is taking place in Amritsar on Sunday. Here are all the LIVE updates:-

- Time has come for concrete action against terror infrastructure and those support it: Afghan Prez Ashraf Ghani tells HOA meet in Amritsar.

- Afghan Prez Ashraf Ghani accuses Pakistan of launching an "undeclared war" on his country by covertly supporting several terror networks.

- Afghan Prez Ashraf Ghani says there are no hidden deals in India's growing engagement in his country.

- Focus is on modern, state of the art infrastructure including through China Pak Eco Corridor: Sartaj Aziz

- Pak is building its national rail & energy transmission network to meet with growing regional transport needs: Sartaj Aziz at Heart of Asia

- Amritsar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi emplanes for Delhi after addressing the inaugural session of 6th Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia

- Parliament building in Kabul represents our strong commitment to Afghanistans democratic future: PM Modi

- Herat India-Afghanistan dam aka Salma dam that was launched a few months ago will help revive economic activity for the people there: PM Modi

- We also plan to connect Afghanistan with India through an air transport corridor: PM Modi

- Our bilateral and regional commitments of material assistance for Afghanistans development needs must continue and increase: PM Modi

- Not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter and finance them: PM Modi

- As such, support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by a resolute action: PM Modi

- Terrorism and externally induced instability pose the gravest threat too Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity: PM Modi

- On Indias part, our commitment to our brave Afghan brothers and sisters is absolute and unwavering: PM Modi

- We should all work to build stronger positive connectivity between Afghanistan and other countries of the region: PM Modi

- Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters: PM Modi

- A key Taliban leader has himself admitted to getting sanctuary in Pakistan: Dr. Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan President

- We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear: PM Modi

- PM identifies four key issues in supporting Afghanistan, beginning with an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned & Afghan-controlled process

PM identifies four key issues in supporting Afghanistan, beginning w/ an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned & Afghan-controlled process pic.twitter.com/rDaHaU7M76  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) December 4, 2016

- Our gathering today re-affirms the commitment of the international community to durable peace and lasting stability in Afghanistan: PM Modi

- Our words and actions remain focus on building, strengthening & securing Afghans territory and its citizens from external threats: PM Modi

- Pleasure to jointly inaugurate the session of 6th Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia with friend and partner Afghanistan President: PM Modi

- PM Narendra Modi addresses the inaugural session of 6th Heart of Asia conference

- Afghanistan suffered the highest number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable: Aghan president Ashraf Ghani

- India's help is with no strings attached: Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani Heart of Asia

- Heart of Asia is meeting at time of great opportunity in significant threats for Afghanistan for Asia-wide and global implications: Dr A Ghani

- India's support to Afghanistan aimed at improving people's life and is transparent with no strings attached: Afghanistan Pres. Ashraf Ghani

- The project of Chabahar Port between India, Afghanistan and Iran is very important to us for connectivity: Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani

- Amritsar: Afghan President Dr.Ashraf Ghani speaking at 6th Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia

- There is much to be done to tackle challenges like terrorism and radicalism: Salahuddin Rabbani, Afghan Foreign Minister at Heart of Asia conference

- Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley welcomes delegates at Heart of Asia summit in Amritsar

- Amritsar: Leaders attending Heart of Asia summit pose for a family photograph

A new energy for the #HeartofAsia family. PM @narendramodi and President @ashrafghani take a group picture before the inaugural event pic.twitter.com/tYcmNOAe5V  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) December 4, 2016

- Amritsar: PM Narendra Modi holds bilateral talks with Afghan President Dr. Ashraf Ghani

Beginning together before the #HeartofAsia Ministerial. PM @narendramodi and President @ashrafghani hold an important bilateral meeting pic.twitter.com/BiNN7SMTB9  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) December 4, 2016

- Amritsar: Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz meets Afghanistan President Dr. Ashraf Ghani

- Amritsar: Pakistan PM's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz met Afghanistan President Dr. Ashraf Ghani (pic source: Pak media)

Amritsar: Pak PM's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz met Afghanistan President Dr. Ashraf Ghani #HeartofAsia (pic source: Pak media) pic.twitter.com/ueB1Vt4oTI  ANI (@ANI_news) December 4, 2016

- Pakistani Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz is representing Islamabad at the Ministerial conference

- The annual conference is taking place amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan in the wake of the audacious terror attack on Nagrota army base and there was no clarity on an Indo-Pak bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the conclave.

- India had already made it clear that it would never accept continuing cross-border terrorism as the "new normal" in bilateral ties with Pakistan while making it clear that talks cannot take place in an atmosphere of "continued terror".

- At the senior officials' meeting, Afghanistan, which has also been facing increased attacks from terror groups operating from Pakistan, pushed for a regional counter-terror framework.

- Ahead of the conference, both India and Afghanistan had called terror emanating from Pakistan as the "greatest threat" to regional peace and stability, and both the countries are set to press hard for adopting the counter-terror framework at tomorrow's deliberations. .

- The Conference will discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan.

- The theme for this year's conference is 'Addressing Challenges, Achieving Prosperity'.

- At the Ministerial Conference, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will lead the Indian delegation in place of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who is unwell.

- Heart of Asia process was launched in 2011 from Istanbul.

- Elaborate security arrangements have been made for the event in Amritsar.

- Eleven Companies of Para Military forces and more than five thousand policemen have been deployed in the city to ensure smooth conduct of the conference.

- Earlier, on Saturday, senior officials of the Heart of Asia process discussed finalising the Amritsar Declaration and adopting the Regional Counter Terrorism Framework drafted by Afghanistan.

- Afghanistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai chaired the meeting with Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar.

- Senior officials of all 14 countries and representatives of 17 supporting nations deliberated on a vast range of issues including strategies for eliminating terrorism and enhancing Afghanistan`s connectivity and trade.

- As Afghanistan faces the resurgence of Taliban, a conference of major regional and global powers began on Saturday in Amritsar to explore ways to effectively deal with threat of terrorism in the region, its complex security matrix and help the war-ravaged nation in its transition.

- Being attended by nearly 40 countries and leading groupings like the European Union, the annual conference of the Heart of Asia -- Istanbul Process is deliberating on various challenges facing Afghanistan, including revival of a peace process in the conflict-ridden country.

- On Saturday, senior officials of all 14 countries, including India, China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan, and representatives of 17 supporting nations were deliberating on a vast range of issues facing the region including its complex security scenario and dealing with threat of terrorism, radicalisation and extremism.

- Issues like enhancing Afghanistan's connectivity with South and Central Asian countries to boost trade were being discussed at the senior officials' meeting which was co-chaired by India's Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Hikmat Khaleel Karzai.

- Pakistani Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz is representing Islamabad at the Ministerial conference on Sunday which will be jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

- The annual conference is taking place amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan in the wake of the audacious terror attack on Nagrota army base and there was no clarity on an Indo-Pak bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the conclave.
Imphal: A month-long blockade of two key highways in Manipur by a Naga group has hit construction works in the state, it has been reported.

The prominent United Naga Council (UNC) had called for the blockade of the National Highways No.2 and No.53 on November 1 to protest against the state's move to create two new districts of Sadar Hills and Jiribam.

The NSCN-IM is currently holding negotiations with the Centre.

The UNC has accused the Ibobi Singh government of not consulting Nagas, who inhabit the areas, before deciding to upgrade them as districts.

Various construction works, including the construction of checkposts near the border with Myanmar, have been stopped because of the blockade.

State officials said that the prices of building materials have almost doubled due to the drop in supplies.

The Nagas also have been demanding that they no longer want to stay "under the communal government of Ibobi".
Kolkata: Ashish Ray, researcher and grandnephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, on Sunday claimed that he has incontestable evidence with him to prove that Bose died in an air crash in Taiwan in 1945.

"There are three reports which clearly state that Bose had died in the air crash in 1945 and did not have the opportunity to enter the Soviet Union," Ray said, while demanding that the ashes in the Renkoji temple should be brought back to India.

Earlier, two reports by the Japanese government have stated that Netaji had died in the Taiwan air crash whereas another report which is lying with the Russian state archives clearly mentions that Netaji didn't have the opportunity to enter the erstwhile Soviet Union on 1945 or afterwards, Ray said.

"He was never held as a prisoner in USSR," he added.

Ray, however, maintains that Netaji might have plans to move to Russia after the World War II as he had always believed that Moscow would support his cause to liberate India from the then British rule.

"Netaji Bose felt that Japan would not be able to protect him as it had surrendered," Ray said.

Coming to contrary views on the issue, Ray urged the Indian government to conduct a DNA test of the ashes in the Renkiji temple.

"For how long can we be in denial, irrespective of so much evidence which points towards his death in the plane crash. We have accounts of six or seven persons, including Habibur Rehman. I think if possible a DNA test of the ashes in Renkiji temple should be done and the ashes should be brought back to India," he said.
Mumbai: Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi has slammed former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah.

Abu Azmi has rejected Omar Abdullah's contention that Pakistan can`t be blamed for the unrest in the Kashmir Valley.

"State-sponsored terrorism in the region has to be laid at Islamabad`s doorstep," Azmi said.

"People from Pakistan who trespass the border, provoke the youth of Kashmir, who had faced atrocities in the past, are the same culprits who promote terrorism in the country," Azmi added.

Azmi told ANI that Pakistan is fully responsible for destroying peace in Kashmir, even though the government is unable to deliver justice to Muslims of Kashmir.

Azmi, who is the president of the Maharashtra unit of the Samajwadi Party, suggested that the Instrument of Accession agreement done at the time of independence should be followed properly by the Indian and Pakistan governments and Kashmiris should get their rights.

Azmi cautioned the regimes that there should not be any instance where wrong action takes place and the nation faces a negative reaction as a result.

He asserted that governments need to be soft on Kashmiris and then only it can help in solving the long standing issue.Abdullah earlier in the day criticised the Centre for failing to take concrete measures to curb the unrest in Kashmir post the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani and said that it would be a "grave mistake" to always blame Pakistan and turning a blind eye to internal issues.

"Simply blaming Pakistan for the present situation, then, it would mean that we don`t have to do anything to prevent the unrest, which I think would be a grave mistake. We need to have talks internally, we need to solve this political crisis and until we are conscious of this reality, I don`t think we can take any concrete action," Omar told reporters here.

Omar`s remarks came days after he reprimanded incumbent Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for the prolonged unrest in Kashmir and asked the latter to take responsibility for the same.
Bhubaneswar: The Odisha police on Sunday confiscated at least Rs 1.4 crore and arrested eight persons in connection.

At least Rs 14,291,000 (one crore forty three lakh) were recovered from the accused out of which Rs 8,562,000 (approx. 80 lakh) are in form of new currency notes.

The accused were carrying Rs 80 lakh in Rs 2,000 notes and the remaining amount in Rs 100 and Rs 500 denominations.

Two pistols, five live rounds have been recovered from their possession, media report said.
By Ashraf Wani: On his maiden visit to the Valley just a couple of days after taking over the reins of the Udhampur based Northern Command, Lt Gen D Anbu arrived in Srinagar yesterday for a two days tour to review the security in 15 Corps.

He was briefed by the Chinar Corps Commander Lt Gen JS Sandhu in Badami Bagh Cantt on the overall security situation and major operational, logistical and administrative aspects pertaining to the Corps.

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During his two day stay, Gen Anbu visited the frontier areas of Baramulla, Uri and Kupwara where he was briefed by the GOsC of Baramulla and Kupwara Divisions and other local commanders on all the measures taken by the Army along the LC to beat back any misadventure from across. During his interaction with officers and men on ground, the Army Commander lauded their high levels of operational preparedness, vigil and morale and exhorted them to remain alert for any eventuality.

"SUSTAIN PRESSURE ON TERRORISTS"

The General officer, also visited the hinterland formations at Sharifabad and Awantipur where he was given a first-hand account on the ground situation. Complimenting the troops for their utmost professionalism, the Army Commander urged all to sustain the pressure on all terrorist groups operating in the Valley and also to continue with the humanitarian initiatives to help the Civil Administration in alleviating the problems of the people. He appreciated the synergy being maintained amongst all the security agencies which he said was the most critical aspect of counter terrorist operations.

Lt Genl D Anbu who had assumed the charge of Northern Army Commander on December 1 extended his greetings to the Awaam of Kashmir and reiterated Army's commitment to their well-being at all times.

--- ENDS ---
Chandigarh: In a shocking incident, a pregnant woman dancer was killed in a firing incident during a wedding in Punjab's Bathinda on Saturday evening.

Kulwinder Kaur was shot in the stomach while performing on stage and died on the spot.

A case has been registered against a man called Billa.

The incident took place at Aashirwad Marriage Palace in Maur Mandi town.

Kaur, who was reportedly two months pregnant, fell on the stage even as her colleagues and orchestra troupe continued their performance.

Only moments later they realised that she had collapsed, as per media reports.

Kulwinder's body was sent to the civil hospital. She was declared dead on arrival.

Some reports said that the woman died in celebratory firing. But Kulwinder's husband Harjinder Singh has a different version.

NDTV quoted him as saying, "They had been asking her to get off the stage and join them... but she refused... so they shot her."

Meanwhile, a video, being circulated on social media, shows her getting shot and collapsing to the ground.

On the other hand, Daljeet Singh (SHO) said, "Accused is on the run, we are trying to trace him."

(With Agency inputs)
Chennai: Hours after AIADMK said that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister would soon resume her duties, Jayalalithaa suffered cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

She is being treated and her health is being monitored by experts, including, cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists.

The news was confirmed by party's official Twitter page, which also tweeted Apollo Hospitals' press release.

Puratchi Thalaivi Amma suffered a cardiac arrest this evening, Amma is being treated & her health is being monitored by experts.  AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) December 4, 2016

Puratchi Thalaivi Amma being treated and monitored by a team of experts including Cardiologists, Pulmonologist & Critical care specialists.  AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) December 4, 2016

Apollo Hospitals press release on Puratchi Thalaivi Amma's health. pic.twitter.com/2FpRJSDQat  AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) December 4, 2016

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao regarding her health. Also, Union Health Minister JP Nadda spoke to Apollo Chairman and enquired about Tamil Nadu CM's health.

On the other hand, President Pranab Mukherjee tweeted:

Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 4, 2016

Just few hours back, AIADMK had said that AIIMS experts had confirmed that Jayalalithaa had "completely recovered" and would return home soon.

"The AIIMS doctors visited the hospital yesterday and after examining her (Jayalalithaa's) health, they shared the good news with us that Amma (meaning mother as Jayalalithaa is fondly called by AIADMK cadres) has completely recovered," party spokesperson C Ponnaiyan had told reporters, as per PTI.

Ponnaiyan had added that Jayalalithaa was doing "physical exercises" and was eating food on her own and advising officers on issues related to government and party activities.

"Specialists from Mount Elizabeth hospital (Singapore) are also providing physiotherapy to her," he had said.

The 68-year-old AIADMK supremo was admitted on September 22.

She had complained of fever and dehydration.

The hospital had been issuing bulletins on her health status and had said that the Tamil Nadu CM was being treated for infection.

Earlier, on November 13, the official Twitter handle of AIADMK had issued a statement by Jayalalithaa wherein she had said, "I have taken a rebirth with the prayers of party cadres and people. What can harm me when I have your love. I am waiting to completely recover and resume my work for people."

I have taken a rebirth with the prayers of party cadres and people - Puratchi Thalaivi Amma.  AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) November 13, 2016

What can harm me when I have your love. I am waiting to completely recover and resume my work for people - Puratchi Thalaivi Amma.  AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) November 13, 2016

(With Agency inputs)
Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of playing politics over Armed forces.

He said that the Army was present in some toll plazas in the state to study the carrying capacity of the roads in case of mass Armed forces movement.

"The other day I was listening to the statement by a Chief Minister of one state. Army had gone (to that state) for routine survey. Every year once or twice, they visit the states to study the vehicle carrying capacity of the road. This is done considering the preparedness to move the armed forces," the Defence Minister said without naming Banerjee during the 'Vijay Sankalp' rally at Goa's Mayem constituency.

"These forces don't move in a group of 100-200, they are 10,000-15,000 in numbers and for such movement at-least 500 trucks are required. Therefore, the Army always check(s) the carrying capacity of the road. Also they (Army) checks how many lorries (trucks) are available in the nearby villages. This is their annual exercise," he added.

Explaining Army's presence at the toll posts, Parrikar said, "they were standing at toll post because the vehicles stop there. If Army wants to ask any information, it can be sought there. I don't know what the Chief Minister felt. When I was about to go to sleep, the television started flashing (the statement) that Army has taken over," as per PTI.

"I inquired (with the Army), they informed me that the proper communication has been made with the state government. Originally the Army was supposed to conduct that exercise on November 28, 29 and 30, but since 'Bharat Bandh' was declared on November 28, we were requested to shift it to December 1 and 2," he added.

"I can understand the grief (she suffered) due to demonetisation but why should Army be involved in politics. You will never find Army involved in politics. That day I witnessed what is political frustration," the former Goa CM said.

On December 1, presence of Army personnel at toll plazas in West Bengal triggered a row with Banerjee remaining at the state secretariat overnight in protest, asking was it an "Army coup", drawing a stinging condemnation from the Centre which said the remark showed her "political frustration".

She had accused the Centre of creating a situation 'worse than Emergency'.

However, refuting her allegations Northern Command had said that Army taking over toll plaza in Kolkata was incorrect.

They had tweeted:

Army conducting routine exercise with full knowledge & coord with WB Police. Speculation of army taking over toll plaza incorrect @adgpi  EasternCommand_IA (@easterncomd) December 1, 2016

(With Agency inputs)
Beirut: Air strikes on a village of Syrian province of Idlib on Sunday killed at least 21 civilians along with three children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which earlier reported an initial toll of 14, said dozens more had been injured in the strikes on the village of Kafr Nabal.

It said that the airstrikes have been carried out by a Russian warplane.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

Russia denies that its strikes have caused civilians casualties.

Russia began a military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad in September 2015, saying it was carrying out strikes against "terrorists".

In November, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian forces had begun a 'major operation' targeting Idlib and Homs provinces.

The northern Idlib province is mostly controlled by a powerful rebel alliance known as the Army of Conquest, which groups Islamist factions with jihadists of the Fateh al-Sham Front, formerly Al-Qaeda`s Syrian affiliate.

Most of Homs province is controlled by the Syrian government, but small parts of the countryside in the region are controlled by a range of rebel groups.

Kafr Nabal gained fame in the early years of Syria`s conflict for the creative, topical and sometimes humourous placards and banners carried by protesters at weekly demonstrations against the government.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests before spiralling into a complex, multi-front war.
Vienna: Austrian far-right leader Norbert Hofer conceded defeat in the presidential polls held on Sunday.

Hofer, who led the anti-immigration and anti-Islam Freedom Party (FPO), lost the election to former Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen.

"I am infinitely sad that it didn't work out," Reuters quoted Hofer as saying in a Facebook post an hour after the polls ended.

Sunday's election was a re-run of a May vote that was overturned due to counting irregularities, the report said.

Citing a projection by pollster SORA, the report said Van der Bellen had a lead over Hofer by 69 percent of votes.

The exit poll showed Van der Bellen bagged 53.3 percent of votes while Hofer 46.7 percent.

"Should this projection really be true, at which point we can be pleased, it is a good day for Austria," Reuters quoted Van der Bellen's campaign manager Lothar Lockl as saying.

Hofer had made clear he would take bold steps if he wins, including calling for referendums on a range of issues.
Oakland: The toll in a massive fire at a building here in California has risen to 24 on Sunday. The inferno broke out during a weekend dance party.

Rescue teams have recovered 24 bodies from the building and the death toll is expected to rise, authorities said.

The names of the victims would be released "in the coming hours" after their families were notified, Reuters quoted Sergeant Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, as saying.

In regards to the amount of people that are still missing, yes, its a significant number, Kelly said.

Melinda Drayton, battalion chief at the Oakland Fire Department, said rescuers have been able to search only 20 percent of the building in the past 12 hours.

The cause of the fire is yet to be determined.
Baghdad: The Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Saturday killed at least four people and nine others injured in a car bomb explosion, a government statement said.

The incident took place on when the Iraqi security forces and allied US-led coalition forces are carrying out a major offensive to dislodge IS group from its stronghold of Mosul.

On Saturday afternoon when a booby-trapped car detonated at a crowded area near a government building in the central district of Shawaka, Xinhua news agency cited the statement of the Baghdad Operations Command.

The blast destroyed many civilian cars and caused damages to several buildings in the vicinity, said police source.

So far no Islamic organisation has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Islamic state militants have carried out a series of counter-attacks by suicide bombers and car bombings in different parts of Iraq since the Mosul offensive started in mid-October.

The city has been under Islamic sate control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.


Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to visit United States in January next year for the oath-taking ceremony of President-elect Donald Trump, a media reports said on Sunday.

Report about the Pakistan Prime Minister's visit to US comes after telephonic conversation between Sharif and Trump last week.

Sources here said Special Assistant to Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi is leaving for the US today to finalise the schedule of the visit.

Fatemi would stay in Washington for ten days and would meet the Trump team and discuss the ways to strengthen the bilateral ties between Pakistan and the US. He would brief the team about the role Pakistan played in the war on terror and Pakistan's policy towards Afghanistan and India.

According to media reports, Pakistan Foreign Office has been trying to arrange a possible visit of Sharif to Washington where Trump will assume charge of the Office of the President of the United States on January 20.

Sources say that Sharif has expressed his desire to attend Trump's oath taking ceremony.

The Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC has also started making requisite efforts to make this happen. It was reported that the Sharif may leave for the US on the January 18th or 19th.
Amritsar: Pakistan prime minister's foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz was not allowed to visit the Golden Temple on Sunday due to security considerations.

He was also not allowed to speak to Pakistani mediapersons at the Radisson Blue hotel where he was staying, PTI reported citing government sources.

Aziz arrived here on Saturday evening to attend the Heart of Asia conference.

"Security was very tight. Permission was not given due to security reasons. Security of our guests is paramount. India ensured no untoward incident took place," the report said citing official sources.

There was a tiff between Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit and security personnel after they denied Pak journalists' entry to the venue, it said.

Aziz left for Pakistan by around 8 pm.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited the Golden Temple on Saturday. Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visited it today.
Shikha and hubby Karan Shah are vacationing in Thiruvananthapuram, ahead of the latter's birthday.

By India Today Web Desk: It's holiday time for Kumkum Bhagya's Alia. The gorgeous actress is spending some relaxed moments with hubby Karan Shah on the beaches of Thiruvananthapuram these days.

Guess, what the occasion is? Well, apparently Karan is turning a year older, and the couple will be bringing in his birthday in the picturesque Kerala.

In a pic posted on Instagram, the birthday boy is seen taking a nap, while the wifie goes click-click. Wearing a multi-coloured bikini and a beach hat, Shikha sure looks like a million bucks.

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For the uninitiated, the lovely couple tied the knot on May 1 this year in a traditional Gujarati wedding. Karan is a pilot by profession and the two met for the first time in a gym. The couple honeymooned in Australia and Fiji. Shikha also took a short break from Kumkum Bhagya post her wedding, but was soon back on the show.

Here's wishing a very happy birthday to Karan!

--- ENDS ---
Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg's minority government had until Monday to secure majority support from its centrist allies in parliament, the Christian Democrats and Liberals, to pass its 2017 finance bill

Norway's right-wing government narrowly avoided collapse Saturday after a last-minute deal was agreed in negotiations for the 2017 budget, which had threatened to bring down the ruling coalition.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg's minority government had until Monday to secure majority support from its centrist allies in parliament, the Christian Democrats and Liberals, to pass its 2017 finance bill.

But a solution was found after talks stretched into the weekend, Solberg told a press conference.

"You have to give and receive to reach unity, which is exactly what we've done," she said.

Saturday's compromise included an extra 6 billion kroner (670 million euros) for climate and environmental measures, family policy, education and research and rail transport, according to Norwegian media.

The talks had been thrown into crisis on Tuesday when the Liberal Party announced its withdrawal from the budget negotiations, unhappy with a lack of measures to combat climate change.

In its draft budget, the government had proposed to raise the price of diesel by 0.35 kroner (4 euro cents) per litre and that of petrol by 0.15 kroner per litre, while at the same time giving motorists other tax breaks. Presented as non-negotiable, the proposal had fuelled anger among the Liberals.

The government suggested that the measures would still appear in the budget, without giving further details.

Without a last-minute compromise, the government would have been forced to call a vote of confidence in parliament. A defeat would have triggered negotiations to form a new government, potentially led by the opposition Labour party.

The Norwegian constitution does not allow for early elections, with the next legislative vote scheduled for September 11, 2017.
People with disabilities take part in an anti-austerity rally in central Athens

Eurozone finance ministers meet Monday as far apart as ever on the debt relief measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund for it to back their bailout programme for Greece.

The IMF played a key role in two massive rescues for Greece but baulked at a third in 2015, worth 86 billion euros ($92 billion), warning that Athens would never get back on its feet unless its debt mountain was cut outright.

The fund is obliged to only lend to countries that can repay and its head, former French finance minister Christine Lagarde, has faced accusations that she bent the rules in the two previous bailouts to help save the eurozone.

Europe's largest economy Germany insists meanwhile that Greece must meet all its commitments on spending cuts and tax hikes before measures to reduce a debt mountain equal to some 180 percent of annual economic output can be considered.

"We are going around in circles," one EU official said, as an end-of-year deadline to resolve the impasse looms large.

The situation is further complicated by differences within the 19-nation single currency bloc. France for example -- where public finances are far from healthy -- believes Athens should be cut some slack.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and French President Francois Hollande agreed Saturday that "a deal on a technical level is needed by (Monday) and measures for debt relief by the end of the year are imperative".

- More austerity 'impossible' -

During a May review, the European Union and IMF agreed to start discussions on debt relief by end-2016 if Athens met its reform pledges.

The issue turns on a key figure -- 3.5 percent, the primary balance, or the surplus on the public finances before debt repayments, that Greece is supposed to reach.

The target is very high -- and most countries do not even come close -- but Germany and other eurozone hardliners believe it is the only way to solve the issue once and for all, even if Greece has to take additional austerity measures to get there.

Story continues

For the IMF, that option is totally unrealistic -- an economy with an already unsustainable debt burden cannot be expected to tighten the screws further.

A source close to the negotiations suggested the Washington-based lender might appear to go along, "just to show how impossible it is".

Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem told European lawmakers that debt relief measures would be discussed Monday in the hopes of persuading the IMF to sign on to the bailout.

"The IMF has a point that running a primary surplus of 3.5 percent of GDP for a very long time is a huge thing to ask and we need to be realistic here," Dijsselbloem said.

- Germany warns off Commission -

It will be against this backdrop that finance ministers will also discuss a recommendation by EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici that after years of hugely unpopular austerity, it is now time to ease off the fiscal brakes and boost growth.

The austerity drive has stoked growing anti-EU sentiment, likely to get a fresh airing in votes Sunday in Italy and Austria which will likely colour Monday's talks.

Moscovici -- another former French finance minister -- said governments with strong enough finances could boost spending by an average 0.5 percent of GDP to bolster a modest recovery.

His plea got a blunt rebuff from Germany's hardline Wolfgang Schaeuble, who in the 2015 cliff-edge bailout negotiations famously suggested it would be simpler for all concerned if Greece just left the eurozone.

"The role of the Commission is to ensure member state budgets... meet European rules," Schaeuble told the Bundestag.

"That is the role of the Commission, to ensure that the eurozone remains stable, that the euro currency remains strong," he said.
By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: On the eve of the winter session of Maharashtra legislature, the Opposition and government indulged in a 'cartoon' war. Addressing a press conference in Nagpur, leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil launched a scathing attack on the BJP led government in the state.

Criticising the government for not fulfilling promises, Patil compared the state government with cartoon character Doraemon. "This government is like Doraemon cartoon and the public has become Nobita. The way Doraemon takes Nobita away from reality and shows him unfulfilling dreams, the same is being done by this government with the public," Patil said.

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Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was, however, quick to respond to the cartoon jibe. "The government is fully capable of providing justice to commoners. We were expecting that the Opposition will put forth their points seriously, however, they still seem to be entangled in Doraemon and Pokemon. They have not matured yet," said Fadnavis in a press conference.

Also read: CM Fadnavis woos Tamilians in Mumbai rally, hails Tamil literature and culture

"In the recent local body elections, it has been 'Har Jagah Phool Khila hain', so the Opposition has become 'Mowgli'," quipped Fadnavis.

Earlier, in the day the Opposition boycotted the customary tea party hosted by the chief minister. Leader of the Opposition in the legislative council, Dhananjay Munde said, "The demonetisation has caused immense difficulties to farmers, labours, common man, poor people and traders all alike. We will be demanding compensation for the loss they have borne...".

The two-week winter session of Maharashtra legislature is likely to be stormy, particularly over the issue of demonetisation.

Also read: Income Tax department rejects black money disclosures of over Rs 2 lakh crore

--- ENDS ---
President-elect Donald Trump struck a deal with Carrier to keep about 1,100 jobs in Indiana in exchange for $7 million in state tax incentives over 10 years

President-elect Donald Trump's threats to retaliate against US companies planning to shift operations overseas constitute a new risk for multinationals, but may not sway those already planning to offshore jobs.

Trump threw down the gauntlet on Thursday at a campaign-style rally after striking a deal with Carrier to keep about 1,100 jobs in Indiana in exchange for $7 million in state tax incentives over 10 years.

"Companies are not going to leave the United States any more without consequences. Not going to happen," Trump told the cheering crowd.

"They can leave from state to state, and negotiate deals with different states, but leaving the country will be very, very difficult."

The president-elect did not offer details on how he planned to pressure companies to keep jobs in the United States, but tweeted Sunday that there "will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units etc., back across the border."

In an early Sunday morning tweet storm, the president-elect fired off six back-to-back posts on the topic, promising that "The U.S. is going to substantially reduce taxes and regulations on businesses."

"Any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the U.S. without retribution or consequence, is WRONG!" Trump tweeted.

One obvious lever Trump could use would be the removal of government contracts. That could make companies that work in defense, public works and public services especially vulnerable to retribution.

"Boeing, for example, would have to play ball if it wants its government contracts renewed," said one expert who requested anonymity.

Trump coupled the threat with a promise to make the United States a better place for business by cutting taxes and streamlining regulations.

"There are a lot of plans already in place," said Hal Sirkin, a manufacturing expert at the Boston Consulting Group.

Story continues

"CEOs are following the news closely and trying to figure out what all of this could mean for their businesses."

- Will threats work? -

Some companies said Trump's broadside was not sufficient to compel a change in plans, although Trump advised them Sunday via Twitter to "Please be forewarned prior to making a very expensive mistake! THE UNITED STATES IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS."

Caterpillar announced in March 2015 it plans to shutter a plant in Joliet, Illinois that makes oil pumps and valves, and move 230 jobs to Mexico.

"We are continuing to execute on the previously announced plan on the stated timeline," said Matt Lavoie, a spokesman at Caterpillar.

Food giant Mondelez International also signaled it would proceed with plans to relocate hundreds of jobs from an Oreo cookie plant in Chicago to Mexico.

"We have not had any contact with the new administration," said Mondelez spokeswoman Laurie Guzzinati, adding that the Chicago baker remains an "important part of our manufacturing network" and that it continues to make Oreos at three US factories.

Not far from Trump's victory celebration at Carrier in Indiana, the industrial companies Rexnord, CTS Corp. and Manitowoc Foodservice all plan to shift activities overseas from the Indianapolis area.

Manitowoc opted to close a plant in Sellersburg, Indiana due to a decline in demand for soda-drink dispensers, which had been made there, a spokesman said. Most of the 87 jobs are being moved to Tijuana, Mexico.

"The wind down of the plant is proceeding according to our original schedule," Manitowoc spokesman Rich Sheffer said. "Yesterday's speech did not include anything specific enough for us to reconsider our plans."

Trump's plans drew mixed reviews, with United Auto Workers Union President Dennis Williams offering accolades.

"We should use this opportunity to start running a commercial: If it's not built in America, don't buy it," Williams said.

But the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an industry-labor alliance, offered tempered praise. It noted that Friday's jobs report showed a decline of 4,000 manufacturing jobs in November and called for a crackdown on "unsavory" policies of trade partners.

"While on balance, I believe this week's Carrier deal was worth doing, it isn't a practical job creation policy moving forward," alliance president Scott Paul said.

Senator Bernie Sanders said Trump's plans were a losing proposal, in part because Carrier will still transfer 1,000 jobs to Mexico. Trump failed to save all 2,100 jobs, as he promised, Sanders said.

Carrier "took Trump hostage and won," Sanders said in an op-ed in The Washington Post.
An Airbus A340 plane, which was initally for former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was sold to Turkish Airlines for 78 million dollars

A plane originally intended for Tunisia's toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been sold to Turkish Airlines, Tunisair said Sunday, six years after it was grounded following his ouster.

The Turkish firm bought the Airbus A340 for 181 million dinars ($78 million), Tunisair spokeswoman Amal Bourguiba said, without giving a date for the sale.

The A340 had arrived in the French airport of Bordeaux in the autumn of 2010 to be equipped for Ben Ali's use, but a popular uprising in Tunisia toppled the dictator early the next year.

Tunisair, in a statement later on Sunday, said it had obtained a good price, compared with the 250 million dinars paid in 2009 to order the plane, and said it would save on the parking costs in Bordeaux.

According to French daily Sud-Ouest, Ben Ali -- who now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia -- only used the plane once to test it before it was outfitted.

Tunisair put the plane on the market in January 2012, saying it had been outfitted with a living room and bedroom "to suit the travel needs of a head of state".

Another Airbus A340 -- this one luxuriously furnished for slain Libyan president Moamer Kadhafi -- has also been grounded for years at the French airport of Perpignan.

The plane, which a Kuwaiti firm was once interested in buying, still in theory belongs to Libya, a country that has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 revolt that toppled and killed Kadhafi.
By Sarah Marsh SANTIAGO, Cuba (Reuters) - Now that Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro is dead, one of his most prominent critics says he sees big economic and political changes to the one-party Communist system, perhaps within four years. Jose Daniel Ferrer, who leads the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), the country's largest dissident group, says he does not expect Communist rule to crumble quickly but that change will surely come. "We will have more repression in the short term," Ferrer told Reuters, predicting President Raul Castro would tighten government control in order to stave off demands for political reform after his elder brother Fidel's death on Nov. 25. "But in the medium term, the regime will continue to weaken, and the people will become ever more audacious, protesting shortages and necessities that we experience every day," Ferrer said. "In the middle of this period comes the end of the system." He was speaking at his hilltop headquarters in the southeastern city of Santiago de Cuba shortly before Castro's ashes arrived there to be interred on Sunday. Santiago is the cradle of the revolution that brought the Castros to power in 1959 and it remains largely loyal because they brought health and education to a population with a large concentration of Afro-Cubans that had previously suffered discrimination. It is, however, also home to UNPACU. Ferrer's two-storey home in the Altamira district of Santiago was bustling with activity in the past few days with UNPACU members downloading foreign news broadcasts and checking on the whereabouts of colleagues reported to have been detained ahead of Castro's funeral. Fidel Castro led Cuba for almost half a century before falling ill in 2006 and handing power to his brother Raul. Since then, the younger Castro has introduced market-style reforms allowing private businesses and agreed a detente with the United States, fueling a tourism boom. But low wages, rising prices and limited opportunities in an economy still dominated by the state have made many Cubans hungry for faster reforms. Raul Castro has allowed Cubans a little more Internet access and he released dozens of political prisoners under deals with the United States and the Roman Catholic Church, but otherwise has done little to ease the Communist Party's grip on power. Castro, who is 85 and due to retire in 2018, led tens of thousands in making a pledge on Saturday night in Santiago to defend the socialist system he built with his brother. CLANDESTINE ACTIVITY Several other dissidents interviewed by Reuters said they also expect tighter controls in the short term, but foresaw economic and political openings over the next few years. Ferrer congratulated U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for describing Fidel Castro as a "brutal dictator" but said it would be bad if Trump unwound outgoing President Barack Obama's measures that improved U.S. relations with Cuba. Cuba's Communist government accuses the dissidents of being mercenaries of the United States and routinely detains activists for short periods on charges such as disorder. Long prison sentences, however, have been rare in recent years. Most Cubans view dissident leaders with skepticism even if they would like to see more reforms. Ferrer, 46, said his funding came largely from Cuban-Americans, including from his brother. He denies direct U.S. government financing. A former fisherman, Ferrer was one of 75 people rounded up in a 2003 crackdown know as Cuba's "Black Spring," and he spent eight years in prison until he was released in a deal brokered by the Catholic Church in 2011. He then formed UNPACU and it quickly became Cuba's most emboldened opposition group, staging anti-government demonstrations while few others dare. UNPACU leaders say they have created a space for dissent in Altamira, where the group even runs a kiosk selling subsidized food. It continues to publish anti-government material but Ferrer says the movement's numbers are down about 50 percent in the last three years to around 3,000 people due to harassment and detentions that make membership a gruel ling experience. In a country where only 5.6 percent of homes have access to the internet, UNPACU each week distributes 1,000 to 1,500 DVDs of dissident music videos and political messages, along with news and documentaries. "This is our principal weapon," Ferrer said, brandishing a DVD. Ferrer said about 70 percent of the group's members are in eastern Cuba, historically known as the birthplace of political change from the war of independence from Spain to Castro's revolution. "Rebellious yesterday, hospitable today, heroic forever," is Santiago's official slogan. Ferrer admitted to unconventional methods in the early days to convince Cubans to complain publicly. "We would put three or four activists on a street corner, talking about the news of the day, like the football World Cup," he said. "Eventually the activists would bring the conversation to the topic they wanted people to opine on, and at that point, another two would come over with a camera. We realized if it was a group of men, there was nothing better than to send a pretty female journalist along." The group also combines activism with help repairing homes and providing subsidized or free food for the elderly and ill in places where government programs are failing, he said. "We have to get them to trust us first," he said. (Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Kieran Murray)
By Jussi Rosendahl HELSINKI (Reuters) - A local politician and two journalists, all of them women, were shot dead with a rifle in front of a restaurant in the Finnish town of Imatra, police said on Sunday. The Southeastern Finland Police Department said it suspected a 23-year-old local man drove to the scene around midnight on Saturday, took a hunting rifle from the trunk of his car and fired four or five shots. The suspect, who has criminal record of violent offences, was detained at the scene. The motive for the killings remained unclear. "It looks like the victims were chosen at random," Detective Inspector Saku Tielinen told a news conference, adding that a political motive seemed unlikely. Victim Tiina Wilen-Jappinen was chairwoman of Imatra City Council. The other two women were journalists from a local newspaper, the police said. "She (Wilen-Jappinen) was liked, nice and bright person. This is truly shocking," Mayor Pertti Lintunen told the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat's online version. The gun was a permitted hunting rifle but it did not belong to the suspect, police said. Finland shares an 833-mile (1,340 km) border with Russia and has sought exceptions from proposed European Union restrictions on firearms, citing defence needs. Around 28,000 people live in Imatra. "Finland is one of the safest countries in the world, but unfortunately acts like these are still possible even here," Prime Minister Juha Sipila said in a statement. (Editing by Larry King)
By PTI: Kuala Lumpur, Dec 4 (PTI) Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak today criticised the Myanmar government and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi over the "ethnic cleansing" of the minority Rohingya community in its Rakhine state.

Addressing a mass rally in solidarity with the ethnic Rohingya community at Titiwangsa Stadium here, Najib signed a giant banner to protest what he called "ethnic cleansing" of the minority muslim race in Rakhine in Myanmar.

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He said, Malaysia would continue to pressure its ASEAN counterpart to settle the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.

He also called on Indonesia and its President Joko Widodo to stand with Malaysia against Myanmar on the issue.

Myanmar had warned Najib against attending the rally, saying that doing so would breach ASEANs policy of non-intervention with neighbouring countries.

"I dont care!" declared Najib to the audience, consisting mostly of ruling UMNO party and opposition PAS members.

"Do you expect me, a leader of over 30 million people to close my eyes? To stay silent? I will not! "Someone tell Myanmar that the Asean Charter also protects human rights. They cannot just interpret whatever they like," he said.

Najib also criticised Suu Kyi, for not meeting with diplomats to discuss the Rohingya crisis.

The prime minister said he had sent Foreign Affairs Minister Anifah Aman to Nay Pyi Taw to meet Suu Kyi, only to be told she was only willing to meet to discuss bilateral affairs, but not the Rohingya. "Whats the point of a Nobel Peace Prize?" he said to a riled-up crowd.

"We want to tell Aung San Suu Kyi enough is enough," he said.

Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as citizens, though some of them have resided in the country for several generations.

Using satellite imagery from Myanmars western Rakhine state, rights group Human Rights Watch recently found mass destruction in ethnic Rohingya villages and called for an urgent UN investigation into alleged abuses.

Malaysia has over 56,000 Rohingya and Myanmar refugees registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, with thousands more undocumented. PTI JB AJR AKJ AJR

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10-year-old Kenyan girl, Gladys Chelagat, became the youngest known mother in Africa to give birth on June 27, 2015.

Gladys Chelagat

The young girl was allegedly impregnated by her 60-year-old caregiver who took care of her since childhood. According to doctors, Chelagat gave birth to her baby weighing 2.8kg at Kericho District Hospital in Kenya though a cesarean section.

The social media sphere was agog when the picture of her holding the baby in her arms started flying around.

Wow! What a world.

Source: Legit.ng
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By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) In a bid to eliminate open defecation from the national capital, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia today inaugurated 495 community toilets across the city and announced that DUSIB will achieve its target of setting-up 10,000 community toilets by March 31 next year.

Sisodia along with Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain, DUSIB CEO VK Jain and other senior officials visited community toilets at Z-Block, Loha Mandi, Naraina Industrial Area, Chander Shekhar Azad Colony and Wazirpur Industrial Area to inaugurate the toilets in Jhuggi Jhompri Bastis of these areas.

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This will help people living in slums to ease out with dignity and make their bastis open defecation free zones, Sisodia said.

The community toilets are located in Wazirpur, Model Town, Moti Nagar, Jangpura, Kamla Nehru Camp, Kirti Nagar, Jeevan Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Matiala and Timarpur.

"To eradicate poverty, we have to ensure cleanliness. Contractors should ensure that the cleanliness of these toilets is maintained at all times. By March 2017, Delhi should be firmly on track to ensure it is free of open defecation," Jain said.

Jain said that the main aim is to provide the people with a good service and these toilets will be shown under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

DUSIB has also launched a drive to improve the quality of maintenance, repair and upgradation of the existing toilets in JJ Bastis by constructing new toilets at the rate 1 seat for 30 persons as per Swachh Bharat Mission norms. PTI PKS BUN AYP

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The two leaders held a bilateral meeting today on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference.

PM Modi with Ashraf Ghani at the Heart of Asia conference.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani today held a bilateral meeting in Amritsar and discussed aspects of strengthening counter-terror cooperation.

"The two leaders discussed several aspects of the close and friendly relations between the two countries," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a tweet.

He said the leaders also reviewed the progress on recent decisions to deepen bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

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"The two leaders noted with satisfaction the prospects for bilateral relations and agreed that both countries would continue to work harder for further strengthening them," Swarup said.

ALSO READ: Heart of Asia conference: How PM Modi didn't name Pakistan but cornered it on terrorism

Cross-border terrorism has caused immense suffering

Later, Modi and Ghani jointly inaugurated the ministerial deliberations at the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process conference, which would see participation of over eight foreign ministers and other dignitaries of 14 participating countries from south and central Asia and several western countries.

Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz is also attending the two-day meet.

Swarup said both leaders exchanged views on the common threat of terrorism, especially the cross-border nature of the scourge which had caused immense suffering to the people of India and Afghanistan.

ALSO READ: Are India, Pakistan talking? Ajit Doval 'meets' Sartaj Aziz on dinner table

"In this context, the two leaders agreed to strengthen counter-terror cooperation between the two countries, and enhance coordination at the UN and other relevant fora."

Convergence of values and interests

They also agreed to operationalise the additional amount of $1 billion for bilateral cooperation, especially in capacity building, skill development, infrastructure building and connectivity linkages, including through a possible air corridor between India and Afghanistan to overcome obstacles to promotion of bilateral trade, Swarup tweeted.

Ghani noted the convergence of values and interests as exemplified in the strategic partnership.

ALSO READ: Ashraf Ghani at Heart of Asia: Pakistan shelters terrorists, Taliban testifies

Recalling his visit to the Golden Temple along with Modi, Ghani said it was a moving experience.

The Prime Minister expressed the hope that the ministerial conference would be successful in promoting greater cooperation among all concerned for peace, stability and security and development of Afghanistan.

ALSO READ: India, Afghanistan speak in one voice, condemn terror at Heart of Asia conference

ALSO WATCH

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A day after Narendra Modi served at the community kitchen, the Golden Temple management stated that he was the first prime minister to do so.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Narendra Modi distributed food to devotees at the Golden Temple in Amritsar on Saturday night. With this, he became the first Prime Minister to serve the community kitchen, or langar, at the holiest of Sikh shrines in this Punjab city.

"Modi is the first prime Minister who served the devotees in the Golden Temple," Gurbachan Singh, Chief Information Officer at the shrine said on Sunday.

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It was the Prime Minister's first visit to the shrine and he was accompanied by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani. The visit came on the sidelines of the 6th Heart off Asia-Istanbul conference on Afghanistan.

READ| Air India flight delayed over cabin crew's 'dirty' dress

'ALL PMs VISITED BUT NONE SERVED BEFORE'

Gurbachan Singh said that though almost every Indian Prime Minister has visited the Harmandar Sahib, the sanctum sanctorum, to pay obeisance and offer prayers, none had so far participated in the distribution of food in the community kitchen.

On Saturday night, when Modi entered the dining hall, "he suddenly started serving the devotees", Gurbachan Singh said.

WATCH:

READ| India beat Pakistan to lift Women's Twenty20 Asia Cup

The shrine's main dining hall is the 24-hour community kitchen where an estimated 100,000 devotees are fed traditional meals on peak days.

The official remembered that almost all former Prime Ministers visited the temple. Indira Gandhi, VP Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, HD Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Manmohan Singh, to name a few, he recalled.

"In fact, Manmohan Singh visited the Golden Temple many times as Prime Minister," Gurbachan Singh said.

PM Narendra Modi at Golden Temple.

READ| Ashraf Ghani at Heart of Asia: Pakistan shelters terrorists, Taliban testifies

MODI SPENT 40 MINUTES

PM Modi, donning a woollen cap, spent more than 40 minutes in the Golden Temple, which is spread over 15 acres.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) provided a volunteer force inside the shrine during Modi's visit while security officials in plain-clothes were accompanying the high-security VIP visitors.

WATCH: In Pics: PM Modi serves 'langar' at the Golden Temple in Amritsar

Foreign leaders who have visited the shrine include then Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in November 2009. British monarch Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Phillip visited the Golden Temple in October 1997.

WATCH:

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It is well known that South Africas game prices are directly tied to how well the Rand is doing internationally.

With the Rand hit by both politicking at home and abroad, its become clear that prices could once again change.

We sat down with AWXs Tex Hartog to discuss exactly what causes game prices to increase and decrease in South Africa.

In some cases where the product is purchased in dollars, its been far more difficult for publishers to assist considering the massive devaluation of the rand against that currency for an extended period, said Hartog.

Very often, our territory still seen as an emerging market for video gaming, just doesnt buy the volumes required to assist with a feasible price break.

Given that you purchase your stock well in advance, how badly will the last few weeks affect South African game prices going forward?

Well, that depends on when local suppliers have to pay for their product, and if that had to happen over the spike or not.

Often, forward cover is purchased that allows for a more stable price point for a period, but this is only functional for a limited period and can also have the inverse effect. If forward cover is bought at the wrong time, even if the rand strengthens, games will still have to be purchased from the publisher at that higher forward cover rate.

Gaming prices tend to be stable and gradually increase or decrease, if there is devaluation of the rand for an extended period (a month or two), then gamers should expect to see prices change.

How will these changes effect everyday South African gamers?

I think at the end of the day, its a difficult situation for all involved.

Gamers can only afford games at a certain price point, retailers are expected to match that price point and need to sell a specific volume for the product range to remain viable. Local distributors and publishers have to continually work together and negotiate certain pricing structures so that the product remains feasible for all.

Just know that we all want gaming prices to be lower, as that means affordable pricing for gamers, more games can be played and better sales are possible for retailers and distributors.

Now read: Publishers who are lowering their game prices in South Africa this holiday season
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Tinubu and Makarfi's PDP is expected to make its debut in Nigeria's political circle

- The party is said to already in its formative stage, pushed harder to meet its March 2017 target by the outcome of the Ondo election

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former Vice-president Atiku Abubakar are said to be leading the formation of the new mega party

The date for the emergence of the proposed mega party being reportedly created by top chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Atiku Abubakar and Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been revealed.

READ ALSO: Presidency HEAVILY lashes Emir Sanusi for talking without facts

According to reports in Punch on Sunday, December 4, all things being equal, the party should make its debut by the end of March 2017, just about two years before the next general election in 2019.

It quoted a source as saying that the mega party is already in its formative stage and is being seriously worked on following the outcome of the Ondo election where APCs Rotimi Akeredolu, backed by President Buhari, won the polls.

The source said: The mega party is still at a formative stage but I can tell you we are making steady progress.

With what happened in Ondo, you will agree with me that the cabal around the President, including a governor from the North-Central, and some ministers, has hijacked the party structure.

They have shown more than once that they want to frustrate Tinubu and Atiku out of the APC. These are tested politicians, who have no plans of retiring any time soon.

READ ALSO: (PHOTOS) Sokoto breaks record in northern Nigeria with this project

The picture will become clearer before the end of the first quarter of next year (March 2017) because some of our people believe that if we come out now, the cabal will use executive powers to frustrate us. Others feel it is better to let Nigerians know but our leaders are meeting at home and abroad. We are waiting for them.

Punch also quoted a PDP chieftain as saying: We are working on the plan to form a mega party, but we may adopt any of the existing parties, if the government thwarts our efforts.

Meanwhile, the APC crisis in Kaduna deepened on Saturday, December 3, after suspended member of the party Senator Shehu Sani representing Kaduna central senatorial district accused the governor of the state Nasir El Rufai of being behind an attack on his campaign office.

Source: Legit.ng
Dr Bola Kuforiji-Olubi, Nigeria's former minister of Commerce and Industry, has died aged 80.

Ex-minster Dr Bola Kuforiji-Olubi has died aged 80, she reportedly died on Saturday, December 3.

The Punch reports that the ex-minister died on Saturday morning, December 3, in Lagos.

READ ALSO: Ex-Minister Gbadamosi dies at 73

Dr Olubi was born September 28, 1936. The former ICAN president graduated from the University of London in 1963. She was appointed the first female chairman of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) in 1984.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, December 5, commiserated with the family of a former Minister of Commerce and Industry, Chief Bola Kuforiji-Olubi, who died on Saturday at the age of 80.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, in a statement said Buhari who recently received the former minister and first female Chairman of the United Bank of Africa at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, also extended heartfelt condolences to the government and people Ogun State, the banking industry, Kuforiji-Olubis friends and professional colleagues over the loss.

The statement read, President Buhari recalls that during his October 20 meeting with the banking and accounting guru, where he congratulated her on her 80th birthday, she was warm and hearty.

He affirms that the then first female President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, served her nation and humanity with all her God-given strength and talent, noting that the multiple professional, national awards and fellowships she received were well deserved.

As a distinguished economist and manager who scored many firsts in breaking the glass ceiling in both private and public services, the President believes that Otunba Kuforiji-Olubi will be remembered for redefining the place of womanhood in Nigerias development and inspiring others.

President Buhari prays that the Almighty God will grant her eternal rest, and also comfort all her loved ones.

Olubi recently visited President Muhammadu Buhari to thank him for his contribution to her successful career.

She said that it was Buhari as a military Head of State that appointed her the first female Chairman of United Bank for Africa.

Olubi, recently visited President Muhammadu Buhari to thank him for his contribution to her success.

She said that it was Buhari as a military Head of State that appointed her the first female Chairman of United Bank for Africa.

She said: Having turned 80, I looked at my life and made a list of those who contributed to what I have become in my life and the name of President Muhammadu Buhari came topmost on the list.

Dr Olubi visits President Muhammadu Buhari at Aso Rock.

This is why I am here to pay my respect and thank him, she said.

In the same vein, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Sunday expressed shock and sadness over the death of Dr Kuforiji-Olubi.

Governor Ambode in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Habib Aruna, described Dr. Olubi as a distinguished businesswoman, banker, economist and accountant, who cut her teeth in the corporate world.

Dr. Olubi was a woman of many firsts; she wrote her name in gold in the banking industry and was a pace-setter and leader in banking, manufacturing and entrepreneurship not only in Nigeria but also in Sub-Saharan Africa.

It was not surprising that she was a proud and well-deserved recipient of National honours, fellowships, awards and honorary degrees from within and outside the country, Governor Ambode said.

The Governor said Dr. Olubis legacies would continue to be a source of inspiration to the younger generation.

Governor Ambode also prayed for the peaceful repose of her soul, urging her family to draw strength from the legacies she stood for while she was alive and the fact that she was a devout Christian.

On behalf of my family and the people of Lagos state, I want to express our heartfelt condolence to the family of Dr. Olubi, on this great and irreparable loss

I had always admired her demeanor. She was a woman of true character, substance and quiet nobility. We will sorely miss her, he said.

Source: Legit.ng
By PTI: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Dec 4 (PTI) Concerned about the deadlock over amending Nepals Constitution, President Bidya Devi Bhandari today called for an all-party meeting to discuss the current political situation.

The meeting with the political parties represented in Legislature-Parliament will take place later today.

"President Bhandari has been concerned with the latest political development," a source was quoted as saying by the Republica Online.

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"She has called an all party meeting in a bid to seek a political solution to the current imbroglio," it said.

Rastriya Janamorcha Nepal Chairman Chitra Bahadur KC said the President called him to be present for the discussion.

The meeting has been called at a time when the political parties are sharply divided over the constitution amendment bill registered in Parliament.

Bhandari has been urging the top leaders of the major the parties to bail the country out of the current political deadlock through consensus.

The Madhesi Front last week refused to back the Constitution amendment bill, saying it was not acceptable in its current discriminatory form.

The Constitution promulgated last year could not be implemented due to the agitation by the Madhesis.

The Madhesi parties and ethnic groups have been demanding more rights and representation for the marginalised people.

Re-demarcation of the provincial boundaries and citizenship issue are the two major demands put forth by the Madhesis.

The Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, launched a six-month agitation from September last year to February this year in which more than 50 people were killed. The agitation had also crippled the landlocked countrys economy as supplies from India were blocked. PTI SBP KUN AKJ KUN

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A lone gunman shot dead three women, a local official and two journalists, in an attack in a small town in Finland, a country with one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world. Police said on Sunday they believed the 23-year-old suspect, who was swiftly arrested after the night-time shooting on Saturday, acted alone and initial indications were that there was no political or extremist motive. The attack took place as the women were leaving a restaurant in the southeastern lakeside town of Imatra near the Russian border, and police said they may have been targeted at random. Investigators identified the victims as the head of the municipal council and two local reporters for the Uutisvuoksi newspaper, the STT news agency said. A police statement said the women had died at the scene after being shot at close range, sustaining gunshot wounds to the head or torso. The suspect, a local man, did not put up any resistance to his arrest and the weapon was found in the boot of his car. The gun belonged to an unidentified person who had a hunting licence, police said, indicating that the inquiry would seek to establish how it was in the suspect's possession. Finland enjoys relatively low crime rates compared to other European nations but, with many Finns keen hunters, it has one of the biggest gun ownership rates in the world. - Town in shock - The violence shocked Imatra, a small town of 27,500 people in southeastern Finland which lies just a few kilometres (miles) from the Russian border. Outside the restaurant where the shooting took place several makeshift memorials were set up with dozens of candles and other items including a rag doll in a woolly hat. In a posting on its website, the town council said it had set up a counselling facility for residents affected by the bloodshed. The suspect, who already has a record for violence, was interrogated by police on Sunday but his motive remained unclear. "Nothing demonstrates that he came (specifically) to kill these three women," Saku Tielinen, head of the investigation, told a news conference. There was no initial indication that the triple murder was "linked to political issues or extremism", police said, adding that they were not looking for any other suspects. Imatra mayor Pertti Lintunen confirmed to STT that Tiina Wilen-Jappinen, the local council's Social-Democrat leader who was in her early 50s, was among the victims. The names of the two journalists, one of whom was of a similar age while the second was in her mid-30s, were not released. "I'm very shocked. This is incomprehensible and it shouldn't happen. Something like this is inexplicable," said Lintunen. Finland has seen several deadly shootings over the past decade, all by young men. Figures in the Small Arms Survey, carried out by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, found Finland to be fourth in the civilian gun-ownership ranks, behind the United States, Yemen and Switzerland. In November 2007, eight people were killed in a high school north of the capital Helsinki by an 18-year-old who later killed himself. Less than a year later, a 22-year-old shot and killed 10 people, nine students and a teacher, in a classroom at a cooking school in the western city of Kauhajoki before also committing suicide. And in May 2012, two people were killed and seven more wounded after a shooting near Helsinki by another 18-year-old. The attacker is currently serving life in prison.
The Philippines has asked Bangladesh to share details of its investigation into an $81 million cyber-heist from the Bangladesh central bank after the proceeds ended up in Manila, the finance department said Sunday.

The money was shifted electronically from the Bangladesh central bank's account with the US Federal Reserve to a Manila branch of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp, from where it was funnelled into local casinos in February.

Officials from both countries met in Manila last week to discuss efforts to recover the rest of the funds.

The Bangladeshi delegation thanked the Philippines for returning $15 million, the finance department said in a statement.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and other Philippine officials "strongly recommended that Bangladesh share with the Department of Justice and the Anti-Money Laundering Council the results of their investigation into the cyber-heist," the statement added.

This would help speed up recovery efforts in the courts, it added.

"The Bangladesh officials said progress has been made in the investigation and that it would send the government whatever updates they have on the probe," the department added.

Last month the Philippines said it had launched criminal proceedings against six Filipino bankers accused of failing to stop the laundering of the money.

The complaint also cited the Filipino respondents' alleged "deliberate refusal to know the unlawful origins of the funds".

No one has been arrested in the Philippines over the heist but the government has recovered the $15 million, some of it from a Manila-based casino operator who has pledged to cooperate with the criminal enquiry.

The brazen cyber-heist highlighted how the Philippines' banking loopholes have made the corruption-prone nation a destination for dirty money.

Philippine law exempts casino transactions from scrutiny by the country's anti-money laundering council unless a case has been filed in court.
(Bloomberg) -- With her precedent-breaking conversation with Donald Trump, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is betting that a little recognition from the incoming U.S. leader was worth the risk of backlash from China.

The telephone call Friday, which lasted for a little more than 10 minutes, was the closest a Taiwanese president has come to getting formal U.S. recognition since it established relations with the Communist government in Beijing almost four decades ago. With it, Tsai drew global attention to the democratically run islands increasing isolation in the shadow of a rising China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory that can be retaken by force.

Still, the move raises the threat of retribution from China, which has been ratcheting up pressure on Tsai since her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Partys landslide election win in January. Beijing focused its anger over the call on Tsai rather than Trump, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissing the call as a little trick pulled off by Taiwan.

It might earn Tsai Ing-wen a round of applause now, but itll be detrimental to Taiwans development in the long run, said Jin Canrong, an associate dean of the Renmin Universitys School of International Studies in Beijing and an adviser to Chinas national legislature. Taiwans destiny is much more intertwined with the mainland than the U.S., especially economically.

Trump hit back at criticism over the call Sunday, asking on Twitter whether China would ask permission before moving to devalue the yuan or build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea. I dont think so! he wrote, in a tweet that suggested the incoming administration viewed the various tension points as interlinked.

Earlier, Vice President-elect Mike Pence told NBCs Meet the Press that the conversation was just a moment of courtesy, and that Trump would roll out his foreign policy agenda after Jan. 20. Even so, Taiwanese local media including the Taipei-based Liberty Times reported Monday that Tsai may meet Trump staffers face to face during a stopover in New York in January.

Story continues

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang declined to comment on Trumps comments at a regular briefing on Monday, saying recognition of one-China was the basis for any diplomatic relations. On the Taiwan-related issue, our position is known to all, and I think Trumps transition team is also very clear on that, Lu said.

For more about Trumps yuan comments click here

The call gives Tsai a foreign-policy win as she struggles with domestic setbacks. Her approval rating sank to 26 percent last month, down from 47 percent in June shortly after she took office.

Its a positive thing, Lin Mao-sen, a 59-year-old taxi driver in Taiwan. This lets people know Taiwan exists, that we are a free and self-ruling country. Most people in the world only know of the Peoples Republic of China, they dont know theres a Republic of China.

A sputtering economy is among Tsais most-pressing concerns. The government said last month that the Taiwanese economy was expected to grow 1.87 percent next year, lagging the 2.6 percent growth that economists projected for South Korea, another export-dependent economy.

For an explainer on Taiwans diplomatic tightrope, click here

Although China and Taiwan have never ended the civil war that led to their 1949 split, theyve forged deep economic bonds and the island sends roughly 40 percent of its exports across the Taiwan Strait. Tsais predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, signed 23 agreements on everything from direct flights to allowing investment in each others financial sectors.

Those deals were based on Mas acceptance that both sides belong to one-China, which has also been the long-standing policy of the U.S. Tsai, however, refused to accept that pre-condition. Beijing has responded by using its economic and diplomatic clout to punish her.

Since Tsais election, China has cut off a formal line of communication with the island. Tourist arrivals from the mainland have plummeted. Beijing got Kenya, Malaysia and other governments to send Taiwanese fraud suspects to the mainland for prosecution, despite a mutual legal assistance agreement signed by Ma.

More Pressure

Alexander Huang, an assistant professor at Tamkang University in New Taipei City, said Tsais call with Trump brought global attention to Taiwans isolation.

The world was talking about Taiwan the whole weekend, Huang said. Of course, China may put more pressure on Taiwan. Taiwan should keep building a good relationship with U.S. while continuing express goodwill to China."

Beijing looked to keep the call from escalating into a crisis before Trump takes office in January. Chinese state media took aim at Tsai instead.

For any out-of-line move made by Tsai Ing-wen, the mainland has ability to punish every of them, and should exercise these capabilities without any hesitation, the Global Times, a state-run tabloid known for its nationalist views, said in an editorial Saturday. Taiwan authorities will pay for whatever effort they make to alter the status quo.

The Communist Party passed in 2005 a law authorizing attack to prevent secession, a threat that still hangs over the island. But China benefits from closer ties, which advance its ultimate goal of reunification. It must be careful not to appear too aggressive and alienate more Taiwanese, who public opinion polls show overwhelmingly favor the status quo.

China has many tools to pressure Taiwan that stop short of direct military action. Tourism numbers could be reduced further. The Peoples Liberation Army Air Force could make more incursions across the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing could lure away the last 22 countries that still have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In March, China officially established ties with the West African nation of Gambia, which once recognized Taiwan. Chinese delegations have recently made contact with officials from the Taiwanese allies of Panama and the Vatican.

Beijing loves provocations to rationalize moves it wanted to take anyway -- I can imagine lots of them, said June Teufel Dreyer, a University of Miami political science professor and former commissioner on the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission. I hope that the Trump transition team has foreseen this and given Taiwan its assurances that President Trump will stand behind the country.

(Updates with Chinese foreign ministry statement in seventh paragraph.)

--With assistance from Ben Brody Ros Krasny Alexis Leondis and Kevin Hamlin To contact the reporters on this story: Ting Shi in Hong Kong at tshi31@bloomberg.net, Debra Mao in Taipei at dmao5@bloomberg.net, Argin Chang in Taipei at achang153@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Brendan Scott, Andy Sharp

2016 Bloomberg L.P.
In October 2016, hundreds of the worlds biggest and most popular websites in the U.K. and the U.S.  including Twitter, eBay, Reddit and Spotify  were the subject of several waves of a massive DDoS attack that rendered the sites inaccessible for thousands of people throughout the day.

Many people referred to the disruption caused by the DDoS attacks as an internet shut down, and openly wondered what exactly a DDoS attack is. How does a DDoS attack happen anyway, and how does it manage to cause such lengthy global internet outages?

Well, a distributed denial of service attack  commonly known as a DDoS attack  is an illegal hacking activity that takes down an online service and makes it unavailable by overwhelming it with web traffic from multiple sources. Hackers can buy a week-long DDoS attack for as little as $150 on the black market, TrendMicro Research reports (PDF). These malicious individuals often target websites and other computer systems for revenge, extortion, activism or even competitive brand damage.

Interestingly, DDoS attacks are relatively simple to implement, but notoriously difficult to defend against. They are among the most potent tools in a cyber criminals arsenal that can take even the most protected computers offline, from banks systems to SaaS applications and ecommerce websites.

What is a DDoS Attack?

DDoS attacks exploit the power of a network of tens of thousands of compromised computers, known as a botnet, to flood a websites servers with page view requests. This overload of page requests renders legitimate traffic unable to get through. When an internet server is dealing with an overload, it is unable to respond to most normal queries, making it impossible for internet browsers to access the websites.

Attacks on Domain Name Service (DNS) providers or hosts are typically more effective than targeting a single website because hundreds of sites rely on them to direct traffic. DNS hosts such as Dyn, the provider that was hit in the aforementioned DDoS attack, are central to the operation of the internet.

DNS providers operate the internets address book. They ensure that website addresses (domain names) such as www.yourwebsitename.com are routed and make it to the correct site. If a DNS provider goes offline, then domain names powered by that provider are not routed to a website, meaning they fail to load web pages. Dyn, for example, powers some 3,500 enterprise customers including Netflix, LinkedIn, TripAdvisor and CNBC among many others, according to information on its website.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the 2016 DDoS attacks against Dyn, but experts said they were simple enough to have been carried out by mischievous teenagers rather than malicious state-sponsored attackers. Even amateur hackers can scan for vulnerable websites and computer systems using easily available software, and turn thousands of them against a single target.

How to Protect Your Website against DDoS Attacks

Estimates by Incapsula Inc., a cloud-based website protection service, indicate DDoS attacks can cost businesses up to $40,000 per hour that their websites are offline. A sharp increase in poorly-secured connected devices such as smart webcams, thermostats and televisions have also vastly increased the number of vulnerable systems that can be victims of (or tools for) DDoS attacks in recent years.

In order to protect your website and gadgets from distributed denial of service attacks, make sure you always download the latest security updates. Also, make sure your devices are protected with an up-to-date anti-virus software program, such as Kasperskys Security Scan or Norton 360. Most popular anti-virus programs can even scan your computer to see if it is part of a botnet.

Moreover, use routers and firewalls that can help stop simple ping attacks on your business website, while also providing automatic rate limiting and traffic shaping. Where possible, also buy excess bandwidth with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) that can handle various spikes in website traffic.

If you use WordPress platform to manage your website, install beneficial security plugins like WordFence and Bulletproof Security. Additionally, utilize dedicated software that can act as a buffer for your website against DDoS attacks. CloudFlare, for example, offers protection against DDoS attacks of all forms and sizes, and DdoS Protector can help block DoS attacks within seconds with multi-layered protection.

Finally, dont go out looking for trouble. Hackers love a good challenge and will attack your website if tested. If you get a threatening message or comment, just delete or ignore it. And dont advertise your website where it is not appropriate, such as hacker forums.

Remember any website is vulnerable to a DDoS attack so you need to be cautious always.
By Davide Barbuscia DUBAI (Reuters) - Banque Misr , one of Egypt's biggest lenders by assets, is raising a five-year syndicated loan guaranteed by the country's central bank, sources close to the situation said. The bank has mandated ADIB Capital and Credit Suisse to arrange the transaction, which was launched to syndication in the second half of November. ADIB Capital is the investment banking arm of Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank's Egyptian subsidiary. The loan, an amortising facility, is expected to be about $350 million and offers a margin of around 500 basis points over the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), said one of the banking sources. Banque Misr officials could not be reached by telephone, and the bank did not reply to an emailed request for comment. The fact that the loan is guaranteed by the central bank is a positive factor for banks which could participate in the loan, the sources noted, adding however that the proposed five-year maturity was unusual for financial institutions, which generally raised syndicated loans with shorter tenors. The presence of Credit Suisse as one of the arrangers indicates that the lead banks have the capacity to underwrite and hold a large part of the requested amount, so the deal should not have trouble reaching completion, one of the bankers said. Banque Misr raised a $250 million, three-year loan in December last year, offering a margin of 290 bps over Libor. (Editing by Andrew Torchia)
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It wasn't so long ago that South Carolina governor Nikki Haley described Donald Trump as "everything a governor doesn't want in a president". Trump fired back, on Twitter: "The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!" It came as a surprise, then, when Trump, now President-elect of the United States, picked Haley (the daughter of Indian immigrants) to serve in his Cabinet as ambassador to the United Nations. And that Haley accepted.

Haley's nomination erodes "stereotype portrayals" of Trump, says Ronen Sen, a veteran diplomat who served as India's ambassador to the US. Sen says it undermines critics' arguments that Trump will usher in a phase of US isolationism and downgrade the post of the US ambassador to the United Nations; that he will deepen socio-political divisions; that he is against non-white immigrants; and that he has a deep-seated bias against women.

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The US Senate must confirm the nomination before Haley can pack her bags for New York City. Haley already has the distinction of being the first Indian-American female governor of a US state. Sumit Ganguly, the Tagore professor of Indian cultures and civilisations at Indiana University, says Trump can now fend off some of his critics through his appointment of a "prominent, thoughtful, telegenic Indian-American Republican woman". He adds: "The fact that she is an up-and-coming player in the (Republican) party does not hurt either."

While it is true that Haley adds a dash of diversity to Trump's team-so far dominated by middle-aged white men-there is a political consideration to her nomination as well. When Haley heads to the United Nations, her deputy in South Carolina, Lt Gov. Henry McMaster, will step into her old job. McMaster was an early supporter of Trump and his ascent to the post of governor would be a reward from a president-elect who places high value on loyalty.

In a statement announcing Haley's nomination, Trump described her as a "proven deal-maker". The pick "is essentially a nod by president-elect Trump to the value of consensus-building and diplomacy when it comes to foreign affairs", says Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow on South Asia at the Heritage Foundation. "By designating someone who was a critic of him during the election campaign, Trump has demonstrated that he is open to bringing a greater diversity of opinions into his policymaking circle. Haley will not be a 'yes woman'."

It is Haley's dearth of foreign policy experience, however, that has raised some eyebrows. "Has she any foreign policy experience? No. Does it matter? It depends upon what issues come up at the UN," says C. Christine Fair, associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. "In my view, she is the most benign of the appointments so far, most of whom range between being outright sociopaths, like Trump himself, and simply mendacious. I'll take 'smart but unprepared' over the nuts he has selected so far for the gallery of rogues known as his Cabinet."

As a former critic of Trump's, Haley could also temper radical positions that the next president may adopt. On the campaign trail, Trump provided a wealth of clues to such positions right from his support for waterboarding to a proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Ganguly says it's too early to tell whether Haley can play a moderating role. "Much depends on Trump's willingness to grant her suitable leeway in shaping policies and her relationship with the yet-to-be-named secretary of state," he says. Fair was particularly impressed that Haley brought down the Confederate flag-seen by critics as a racist symbol-at the state house in South Carolina after a white supremacist killed nine black church members in Charleston on June 17, 2015.

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Haley's story is one of the quintessential American dream-but one also touched by racial prejudice. The daughter of immigrants from Punjab, Nimrata Nikki Randhawa was born in South Carolina. At the age of five, she was disqualified from a pageant in hometown Bamberg because she didn't fit into either of the categories-Little Miss White Bamberg or Little Miss African-American Bamberg. The Randhawas were the only Indian-American family in a town of a little over 3,000 people.

Haley beat the odds to win her first election to the state house in 2004 after being told she didn't stand a chance because her father is a turbaned Sikh. In 2010, Haley was elected governor following a campaign marred by a Republican state senator's description of her as a "raghead" (a racial slur referring to Arabs or Muslims). She was re-elected in 2014. Haley's husband, Michael, a captain in the South Carolina Army National Guard, served in Afghanistan. Raised a Sikh and later baptised a Methodist, Haley has publicly expressed pride in the fact that she is the daughter of Indian immigrants. Her father, Ajit Randhawa, was a biology professor at Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina; her mother, Raj, ran a gift shop. At 13, Haley's first job was keeping the books at the family store. After graduating from Clemson University with a degree in accounting, she helped turn the family business into a multi-million dollar operation.

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"From our point of view, there is the additional satisfaction of Haley being the first-ever Indian-American to be appointed to a cabinet-level post by any US president," says Sen. While noting Haley's comfort with her Indian roots, he adds: "Her sole allegiance is to the stars and stripes and that is as it should be."

Light in the darkness

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Kamala Harris, the first Indian-American to enter the Senate, will be a torch-bearer for the defeated Democrats

Kamala Harris is no stranger to tearing down barriers. She was the first woman, first Indian-American, and first African-American to serve as San Francisco's district attorney and later as California's attorney-general. On November 8, she became the first-ever Indian-American to be elected to the United States Senate.

The daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, she is a Democrat. On November 8, while fellow Democrat, Hillary Rodham Clinton, stumbled in her bid to become the first female US president, Harris was busy making history again. Her parents, Shyamala Gopalan and Donald J. Harris, met as graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley. They divorced when Harris was five. In an interview with CQ Roll Call over the summer, Harris recalled that her mother had a saying: "You may be the first to do many things, make sure you aren't the last."

Kamala Harris

Harris is one of a record five Indian-Americans who were elected to the US Congress on November 8 (see Indians on the Hill). Till then, only three Indian-Americans had ever been elected to the Congress. Like Harris, the four others to be elected are all Democrats; all won seats in the House of Representatives. Pramila Jayapal made a bit of history herself by becoming the first Indian-American woman to be elected to the House. She represents Washington state. Raja Krishnamoorthi was elected from Illinois, Ro Khanna from California, and Ami Bera re-elected from California.

Asian-Americans, who include Indian-Americans, are the fastest growing demographic group in the US, according to the Pew Research Center. The slim representation of Indian-Americans in public office has stood in stark contrast with the noteworthy professional success of the community.

Speaking to supporters on election night as results came in showing Trump on his way to winning the presidency, Jayapal said her victory could be a "light in the darkness". At her victory party, where the mood was similarly subdued, Harris exhorted supporters to be vigilant in the fight for civil rights, justice, and equality. "Do not throw up your hands when it is time to roll up your sleeves and fight for who we are," she said. "We need to work to ensure that leaders reflect the people they are supposed to represent, and until we achieve that full representation, I think we should understand we are falling short of the ideals of this country," Harris told CQ Roll Call.

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FARMINGTON  Many youngsters open a lemonade stand as something fun to do on a lazy summer day  and maybe make a little spending money on the side.

Keely Stockham, now 15, opened her stand more than six years ago because she wanted to make a difference.

She succeeded.

The Farmington teenager recently won a state philanthropy award for raising more than $17,500 for cancer research over six years  much of it from that lemonade stand.

Earlier this month, the Farmington High School sophomore was presented with the Outstanding Teen in Philanthropy Award from the New Mexico Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. A ceremony was held on National Philanthropy Day on Nov. 2 in Albuquerque.

When I first started the lemonade stand, I didnt expect it to get recognition, said the 15-year-old. I never expected to get any praise for it. I just wanted to make a difference.

Stockham started the lemonade stand in 2010 after her aunt, Jenny Lee Jones, was diagnosed with leukemia. Shortly after, the teenagers mother, Elizabeth Stockham, donated her bone marrow to Jones.

I decided I didnt want anyone else to go through what my aunt went through, Stockham said.

Stockham chose to donate proceeds from the lemonade stand to the American Cancer Societys Relay for Life of San Juan County.

On the day she opened the stand in July 2010, a small number of visitors purchased 50-cent cups of lemonade outside Stockhams home on North Orchard Avenue.

That low turnout made her realize she needed to spread the word about the lemonade stand. She told friends about the stand, and her parents sent emails and posted on Facebook about the fundraiser. Stockham has also been interviewed by a Farmington radio station, and The Daily Times wrote about her efforts.

Since that first fundraiser, several businesses, organizations and community members have donated each year to Stockhams lemonade stand. She has also enlisted help from her friends and relatives over the years to run the stand.

In 2014, the lemonade stand raised its largest amount to date, $4,585.

Were very proud of her, Elizabeth Stockham said of her daughter. Weve never seen a child with such determination.

The teen has operated the lemonade stand at her home until last year, when the Dental Studio at 2401 E. 30th St. allowed Stockham to operate the fundraiser in its parking lot. She raised $3,701 in three days.

This summer, Stockham did not run a lemonade stand because she was enrolled in a summer course. But she was still able to raise $500 through donations.

It was Stockhams work with the lemonade stand that led Farmington High teacher Erin Gockel to seek her out to form the schools Key Club.

Gockel taught Stockham in sixth and eighth grades at Tibbetts Middle School and remembered her as a responsible and motivated leader. Stockham was also president of the National Junior Honor Society when she was in eighth grade.

I saw her leadership skills blossom, Gockel said.

As Key Club president, Stockham leads the clubs meeting at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday before school starts. She has helped organize the clubs yearlong project, which involves members volunteering at ECHO Food Bank on Tuesday afternoons.

I think (the lemonade stand) started me on a path of wanting to give as much time to my community, Stockham said.

Stockham said she plans to continue operating the lemonade stand until she graduates from high school and leaves for college. She then plans to pass down the lemonade stand to a fellow volunteer, fourth-grader Lauren Anderson.

I realize that Lauren is going to be the one that takes it because she really likes to help out and really wants to do it, Stockham said.
ROSWELL, N.M.  Authorities say a family secret turned into a police investigation over Thanksgiving when a woman came home with a baby that wasnt hers.

Roswell police spokesman Todd Wildermuth says the investigation began that weekend when a woman called police to report she suspected the baby her 30-year-old sister brought home didnt belong to her.

Police later learned the baby belonged to relatives of the woman in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where the actual mother of the baby had filed a child abduction report.

New Mexico officials took the baby and later gave the baby to Mexican authorities.

But Wildermuth says it turned out that the childs mother filed a false report because she was embarrassed about giving up her baby.

Nobody was charged and Wildermuth said he doesnt know whether the baby is back with the mother yet.
Diane Dimonds series on court-appointed guardians is horrifying for any of us who are concerned about protecting our loved ones rights and independence as they get older.

Her series has served as a reminder that we must strengthen our long-term care system and support the 40 million people in our country who are family caregivers for seniors and people with disabilities who need assistance to live as independently as possible in their homes and communities.

Family caregivers work hard every day balancing caregiving with their personal and professional lives. But they need more than our acknowledgment; they need our support.

Every year family caregivers provide $470 billion worth of unpaid care, surpassing our nations total Medicaid funding for both health care and long-term care services.

Families want to provide that care, but they also do it because it is necessary.

Many people who need care cannot afford to pay for services that would help them remain independent, but they have just enough money to be ineligible for Medicaid and the support services it would provide. So their families fill in the gaps where they can, keeping their family member out of a high-cost nursing home.

I share that experience as a caregiver to my mom. I know the value of what family caregivers do, how they manage their daily responsibilities with the medical, emotional, physical and financial needs of their loved one. I also know there arent enough of us; we have a critical, growing shortage of family and paid caregivers in our country.

In 2010, there were seven potential caregivers for every person older than 80. By 2030  when one in five Americans will be 65 or older  that ratio is projected to drop by almost half, to four to one. In New Mexico, the fastest growing segment of our population is people older than 65.

We must make a national investment in long-term care. And we need to grow a workforce that will help meet the needs of our population.

I have introduced the National Care Corps Act, which is one tool to shore up the system and our caregivers.

The National Care Corps Act would place trained volunteers in communities to provide non-medical care that supports family caregivers and those receiving care.

Creating a national service program is one strategy for enabling people to live as independently as possible while also supporting the millions who provide care on their own. This legislation will also provide volunteers with benefits, including educational awards, so they can further their careers and spur growth in a health care workforce that is in dire need of expansion. Through Care Corps, we will promote volunteerism and supplement the hard work of paid caregivers.

I can imagine the relief I would feel if someone visited my mom every day, drove her to medical appointments, read to her and listened to her stories. That kind of relationship  independent from the people she pays to perform tasks and the daughter who cares for her  could be incredibly meaningful for all of us.

I can envision volunteers gaining insight into the lives of seniors and people whose lives have been shaped by disabilities. Care Corps would give people an opportunity to build intergenerational relationships, creating space for a level of understanding and connection that is rare today.

This volunteer-caregiving concept is gaining support across the country; a broad range of organizations focused on the needs of caregivers, seniors and individuals with disabilities have endorsed Care Corps. More than 50 congressional members are serving on a new bicameral, bipartisan caucus that I co-founded to raise awareness about the need to support caregivers, create an environment conducive to reaching bipartisan solutions and build a sense of urgency to act.

I am eager to work with my colleagues in the next Congress so we can support our caregivers who give of themselves to protect and care for their loved ones.
Year after year, Albuquerque Public Schools has produced poor student proficiency rates for the majority of its 80,000-plus students, and poor graduation rates that give high school students just better than a 50-50 shot at getting a diploma on time. Yes, there have been years when some individual school grades and student grade-level performance results have inched up  giving taxpayers, employers, parents and students the hope that maybe, just maybe, APS has turned a corner.

And then the district hits another brick wall, one it has built itself. And that raises the question of whether APS is too big to ever succeed.

And if it is time to finally break it up.

Last week, the nations 31st-largest school district slammed into another dead-end, earning its second consecutive D grade from the state Public Education Department. The district grades, just like school grades and teacher evaluations, are based primarily on student improvement. All APS has to do to score well is ensure its students make academic progress in a school year and leave a grade better than the day they came in.

Other districts do it  this year Los Lunas Public Schools, Capitan Municipal Schools and Melrose Public Schools all worked hard and climbed from Ds to Bs. Animas Public Schools, Cloudcroft Municipal Schools, Corona Municipal Schools, Dora Municipal Schools, Grady Municipal Schools and Texico Municipal Schools all earned As.

It is bad enough that APS flatlined from 2012 to 2014, earning a C each of those three years. It is worse yet that the district dropped to a D last year and this year because not enough of its students took the federally mandated/state selected standardized test.

Federal law requires that 95 percent of public school students take an accountability measure aligned to their curriculum  perhaps the most valuable component of the old No Child Left Behind Act that took away the ability for schools to hide the lack of progress among poor, minority, special education or academically challenged students. New Mexico uses the Partnership for Assessment and Readiness for College and Careers, and it adds up to less than two days total of testing per child. Yet last year the district entrusted with educating almost a third of all New Mexico K-12 public school students created an opt-out kit for parents who dont want their students to take the PARCC.

Begging the question: what doesnt APS want its parents to know?

Perhaps its that things are not improving academically for APS students. Back in 2005-2006, before school letter grades and the PARCC, when students took the Standards-Based Assessment, APS as a district did not make adequate yearly progress. Less than half of the districts students were at grade level in math and barely half were at grade level in reading.

A new student assessment and new school and district report cards havent changed that. This school year barely one fifth of APS students are at grade level in math and less than one-third are at grade level in reading  about the same as last year.

A total of 44 of APS 158 schools are struggling so much they earned a special status  strategic, focus or priority  that mandates increased monitoring and assistance from the state, depending on how low their student achievement is. The district has just one school in reward status, meaning it is among the top 5 percent of schools in the state.

And what did the APS administration have to say about the abysmal showing? The silence was as disappointing as it was deafening. Despite having 18 people on its leadership team as well as three people in its communications office, the day the district grade was released APS administrators could not be reached for comment on the ratings.

Days later, APS was vocally bemoaning getting a D because not enough of its students took the PARCC. Its a lesson in you reap what you sow, considering the district handed students and parents an opt-out playbook.

And its a lesson in finally not beating your head against a wall that wont move and trying something different.

In 2002, the New Mexico Legislature passed HB 153, a bill sponsored by then-Rep. James Taylor, a South Valley Democrat, that set up a public vote to break any school district bigger than 35,000 students into at least three smaller districts. It passed the House 56-10 and the Senate 26-14, and was supported by no less than then-Senate Majority Leader Manny Aragon and amended by then-Senate President Pro Tem Richard Romero, both Albuquerque Democrats. Taylor summed it up with the Legislature has spoken: Albuquerque Public Schools is a mess, its too big and it needs to be broken up.

In the end, then-Gov. Gary Johnson vetoed the bill and voiced a concern about creating three new layers of bureaucracy with corresponding costs. But he added in his executive message that It is clear that the Albuquerque public school system must undergo a major reformation to meet the educational needs of all Albuquerque public school students.

Similar moves to break up APS have been proposed in subsequent years, and while Rep. David Adkins, R-Albuquerque, had expressed interest in carrying a similar bill in the 2017 session, he is currently in the throes of a recount. It is unlikely new House Majority Leader Sheryl Williams Stapleton  an Albuquerque Democrat who makes $71k a year as APS occupational education coordinator  would allow any move against the district to gain traction. Should one be introduced, she needs to finally recognize her 21 years of blatant conflict of interest in voting on legislation that affects her employer and thus her livelihood and recuse herself.

There is cold comfort in the constancy of inaction, lack of accountability and responsiveness, as well as poor student achievement at a district that devours $1.3 billion in tax dollars annually. Yet Johnson made an important point that Albuquerque taxpayers certainly do not need a version of the Las Vegas-West Las Vegas school districts (C and D grades this year, respectively) that amount to community jobs programs.

While bigger isnt better in the case of APS, more isnt better in Las Vegas. Any split would need to be thoughtfully and carefully crafted.

Yet APS taxpayers, parents and students do need a district that is not too big to listen, too big to collaborate and too big to succeed. They need an APS administration thats engaged in improving student outcomes.

And if it takes a break-up to get that, so be it.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

Avoiding the bright New Mexico sunshine completely may do us more harm than good, according to a new study co-authored by a University of New Mexico researcher.

The public health message about sun exposure needs to change, the study recommends, with more emphasis on the bodys need for sunlight.

For those of us living in one of the nations sunniest states, New Mexicans obtain beneficial vitamin D from sunlight even in winter, unlike people who live in the northern half of the U.S., said Dr. Marianne Berwick, a UNM professor of internal medicine.

The trick is, how do we balance the benefits of sun exposure against the risk of harmful overexposure to ultraviolet radiation?

The key is to spend time in the sun, but not enough time to get a sunburn, which leads to a higher risk for dangerous melanoma.

As for sunscreen, the study says excessive use of sunscreen could result in possible Vitamin D deficiency. Berwick defined excessive use as slathering on large amounts of sunscreen with a sunprotective factor, or SPF, of 30 or higher.

People have many different skin types, and some people can tolerate more sun exposure without risking harmful sunburns. But nearly everyone has some tolerance for sunlight.

You can be out for a certain amount of time without harming yourself, said Berwick, who often carries a parasol when she walks outdoors for extended periods.

Health officials for decades have warned Americans to cover up  wear long sleeves, hats, etc.  in sunlight to guard against skin cancer, but that message is too simplistic and may be harming us, Berwick says. Instead, we need to modify the message, she said.

I think people can handle slightly more complex ideas, she said.

Public health authorities in the U.S. are currently advising that human sun exposure be reduced, the study said, even as the CDC warns that 32 percent of Americans suffer from insufficient vitamin D.

The study, based on an examination of decades of research about the risks and benefits of sun exposure, was published Nov. 19 in the journal Dermato-Endocrinology, which is available online without a subscription.

Insufficiency of vitamin D may be linked to a long list of illnesses, including bone disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and a variety of cancers, including skin cancer, it said. Lack of vitamin D is most strongly linked to colon cancer, Berwick said.

The link between melanoma and sun exposure is two-sided: non-burning sun exposure is associated with a reduced risk of melanoma, while sunburns are associated with a doubling of the risk of melanoma, the study said.

In New Mexico each year, about 400 people are diagnosed with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, and about 60 die of the disease, according to the state Department of Health. The rate of new melanoma cases was 13.5 per 100,000 in 2013, which was lower than the U.S. rate of 20.7 per 100,000 that year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About a third of Americans dont get enough vitamin D, which the body makes from ultraviolet radiation in sunlight, as well as nutritional sources.

The association between sun exposure and reduced cancer mortality in North America was identified in the 1960s, the study said. In the 1980s, vitamin D was identified as a possible protective factor from cancer.

But instead of pursuing further benefits of sun exposure, scientific inquiry focused on the health risks of sun exposure, especially melanoma and other kinds of skin cancer, it said.

By way of background, the study notes that the incidence of melanoma increased 23-fold from 1935 to 2012.

At the same time, the share of Americans who work indoors increased from 25 percent in 1910 to 75 percent in 2000.

The study recommends that fair-skinned people who tan only minimally can obtain required vitamin D by spending about 15 minutes in the sun with face, arms and legs exposed, two or three times a week at midday from May through October.

People with darker skin require more time in the sun to produce required vitamin D and have lower risk of non-melanoma skin cancer.

The good news for New Mexicans is that we dont have to wait until spring to benefit from sunshine.

Like others who live in the southern half of the U.S., New Mexicans get enough UV radiation year-round to produce vitamin D, Berwick said.

We get vitamin D from sun even in winter, she said.
Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

WASHINGTON  They blew it.

Thats the indisputable consensus about major U.S. polling firms that failed to predict Donald Trumps improbable win over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. As historians and political analysts study the election for years to come, some of their research will undoubtedly center on how and why so many national polling firms failed to accurately predict the result.

One polling company that got it right  at least as far as New Mexico was concerned  is Research & Polling Inc., which conducts polls for the Journal. A Journal Poll published three days before the Nov. 8 election showed Clinton with a five-point lead in the state. The Democratic nominee eventually won the state by an eight-point margin.

The Journal asked Brian Sanderoff, president of Research & Polling, why so many of his colleagues missed the mark and why the vote shaped up the way it did.

Journal: What happened? How could so many pundits and pollsters be so wrong?

Sanderoff: Prior to the election, most experts agreed that Donald Trump had a very narrow path to victory. Besides needing to win the battleground states that were close but trending in his direction, such as Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, Trump had to also win some Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to pull off an upset victory. The polls said that wouldnt happen, but Trump defied the polls and won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, catapulting him to a surprising win.

Journal: What were some underlying factors contributing to Clintons loss that the polls didnt pick up on?

Sanderoff: FBI Director James Comeys announcement 11 days before the election that he was reopening the investigation about Clintons email enabled Trump to get back into the race. But the underlying weakness of the Clinton campaign that ultimately cost her the election was her inability to relate to white working-class voters regarding their frustrations and insecurities about many things, especially the nations stagnant economy. The polls did not pick up on the extent of this anger, which ultimately led to Clintons defeat in many Midwestern and Rust Belt states.

Journal: Clinton supporters are quick to note that the Democratic candidate actually won the popular vote. What is the significance of that from a polling perspective?

Sanderoff: As it turned out, the nationwide polls were not that far off the mark in measuring support levels for the presidential candidates. Although Clinton lost the Electoral College, she won the popular vote by (unofficially) 2.5 million votes, or a margin of 1.9 percent over Trump. Although these national polls were somewhat close to the actual popular vote, they tended to overestimate Clintons support.

The nationwide polls receive most of the media attention, but its state-by-state polls that really matter, given the way we elect our presidents through the Electoral College. And it was these statewide polls, in many battleground states, that underestimated Donald Trumps support, thus creating a false impression that Hillary Clinton was going to skate to victory on election night. The inaccurate polls created a false sense of optimism for the Clinton campaign, thus impacting how they focused their resources in the Midwest and Rust Belt. For example, insufficient time and money was spent in Michigan and Wisconsin. Further, Clinton nearly lost Minnesota, even though no one realized it was even going to be competitive.

Journal: Much has been made of voter reticence to admit to supporting Trump, one of the most unorthodox presidential candidates in history. Did this affect the polling, in your estimation?

Sanderoff: We have all heard stories about this election causing great tension among families, friends and co-workers as voters expressed their opinions about the candidates. Perhaps a few percent of the Trump supporters were reluctant to tell the pollsters of their support for him, and instead, were more likely to not participate in the survey or said that they were undecided. Given the closeness of this election, it only takes a few percent of the voters to change the outcome of the election.

There is a second possible explanation for the systematic undercount of Trumps support. Although polls are pretty good at measuring public opinion, they are less capable of gauging voter turnout. In the general election, many of the young Bernie Sanders supporters never embraced Clinton in an enthusiastic manner, thereby impacting voter turnout among this key Democratic-leaning group. And while Clinton received a high proportion of the African-American and Hispanic vote, these groups did not turn out at the rate that they did for Barack Obama. Lower-than-expected participation rates among these groups could partially explain why the polls overestimated Clintons support.

Journal: Some have drawn parallels with the Brexit vote, in which England voted to withdraw from the European Union earlier this year. What do you make of that?

Sanderoff: It is not difficult to find some parallels between the recent Brexit election in England and the Trump victory in the United States. In both nation s, there were populist movements spearheaded primarily by working-class whites, who were concerned about their respective nations immigration policies and the economic uncertainty brought about by globalization. The threats of open borders and free trade policies created fear in the minds of these voters. In both the Brexit election and U.S. presidential election, the clout of these anti-elite, populist movements were largely discounted by the establishment, and there was shock and awe on the day after the election, when it became clear that the polls were wrong and the populist movements prevailed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This populist insurgency is also occurring in other European countries, such as France.

Journal: Trump used some harsh rhetoric during the campaign regarding Mexican immigrants and immigration policies in general. How did this affect his support levels among Hispanic voters?

Sanderoff: Well, Hillary Clinton won the Hispanic vote by very large margins. However, according to exit polls, Trump actually received 2 percentage points more support among Hispanics compared with Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. I have spoken to many American-born Hispanics, especially Hispanic Republicans, who were not as offended by Trumps immigration rhetoric as pundits assumed. Also, some Hispanics had different priorities, such as the economy, and were willing to look the other way on Trumps immigration stances.

Journal: What about Catholics?

Sanderoff: Obama won the Catholic vote in both 2008 and 2012. However, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by seven percentage points among Catholics, according to exit polls. It was primarily the white Catholics who voted for Trump by large margins, whereas Hispanic Catholics tended to favor Clinton. Trumps vow to appoint a pro-life Supreme Court justice may have helped him among conservative Catholics.

Journal: Paid political advertisements, especially on television, seemed to have less impact this election cycle compared with past elections. Why do you think that is?

Sanderoff: Donald Trump used paid television advertising much less than his opponents, both in the Republican primary and the general election. For example, Jeb Bush spent tens of millions of dollars on political ads during the Republican primary and got nowhere fast. Donald Trumps unorthodox style enabled him to attract a ton of free TV media, both on the network and cable news programs, as well as on social media such a Twitter. He rewrote the book on how to communicate with voters.
Editors note: The Journal published a five-part investigative report from Sunday, Nov. 27, through Thursday, Dec. 1, about the problems and heartache in the states elder Guardianship system.

Today, some possible solutions.

Copyright  2016 Albuquerque Journal

It wont be easy to overcome budget challenges and opposition from entrenched interests. Earlier efforts have failed. But judges, lawyers, aggrieved family members and others agree there are ways to fix some of the flaws in New Mexicos guardianship system as outlined in a five-part Albuquerque Journal series.

Here are some of their suggestions to cure an ailing system that can make inheritances disappear, fracture families and take away the elder persons dignity and freedom.

 Curb excessive secrecy  except for medical information protected by federal law. Time and time again, people critical of the system say transparency would be the best deterrent. Responding to the Journal series, retired District Judge Anne Kass of Albuquerque told the Journal she believes, We need to have a really profound conversation between privacy and secrecy and develop a better way of measuring it  (deciding) when its OK and when it isnt.

 Give aggrieved family members a meaningful forum to air their complaints  a forum that can hold accountable the paid professionals in the guardianship industry.

 Family members should be involved, not shut out of the wards life. Instead of labeling family members as in conflict or upsetting to the elder and curbing their visits, guardians and conservators should include them in the elders everyday decisions. Rep. Conrad James, R-Albuquerque, says the process of isolating the senior is the first step of abuse in these cases.

 Elevate the evidentiary requirement for an elder to be declared incapacitated and make sure all family members are heard. Require the elderly person to actually appear in court and be questioned by the judge unless it is physically impossible.

 Require specific training and issue state licenses for guardians and conservators. New Mexico has more licensing requirements on the books for hairdressers and landscapers  because there are none for guardians and conservators. If a court appointee is going to manage cases with complex medical or financial issues, they should show they are qualified in those fields.

 The Legislature needs to recognize the problem and approve additional court funding. Judges need sufficient resources to monitor the growing number of guardianship cases. As described in the Journal series, the program currently runs on the honor system with little or no auditing or oversight of how appointees spend the wards money.

 Get the elder persons wishes preserved on video with family members present.

 Judge Kass urges families to find their own answer to the question of what to do with an ailing mom or dad. Encourage some kind of a reconciliation process, she said, where you bring family members together as opposed to allowing the adversarial process to continue and perpetuate the fight.

 What can a cohesive family do to protect itself? Dr. Sam Sugar, founder of Americans Against Abusive Probate Guardianship, counsels family members to work hard at finding their own out-of-court resolutions. As he put it, Never even consider guardianship or hiring an attorney.

Sunshine

Unlike those of most states, New Mexicos guardianship system is steeped in secrecy. Courts here routinely sequester proceedings, citing vaguely written sections of the states Uniform Probate Code, and order all participants to remain mum about the case to protect the privacy of the elder person. Critics say this lack of transparency quashes legitimate concerns and allows judges and attorneys to ignore both family members and important legal documents prepared by the elder, such as wills, estate plans and powers of attorney.

One Albuquerque lawyer who is representing a family in a guardianship drove the point home.

There are bad things happening. Even if theyre legal, they are bad things, he said. The societal cost of this secrecy is too damn high.

Retired Judge Kass says that when she read some of the comments from guardian system insiders quoted during the Journal series, What popped into my head was: the code of silence and how inbred this thing is with the people who work in it. She added, From my perspective, self-regulation doesnt work, has never worked and can never work.

Judges and others say the secrecy is necessary to protect a wards privacy, especially on medical issues. Families dont disagree with limited protection, but doing virtually everything in secret only serves to alienate those closest to the elderly person  the people who are more familiar with their parents desires than any court-appointed stranger could ever be.

Legislative attempts

New Mexico lawmakers have been aware of the problematic system for years. The Legislature established work groups to study the programs shortcomings in 2008, 2009 and 2012. The result? No changes were made.

In the summer of 2013, Sen. Jerry Oritz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, sponsored a measure to establish a task force to look into complaints made by family members whose elderly loved ones had been declared incapacitated by the court, had their civil rights terminated and had been placed under court-controlled guardianship.

Ortiz y Pino had heard complaints about the system  charges of financial impropriety on the part of guardians and conservators, allegations that elder wards of the court were being isolated from their children, claims that wards were being seriously overmedicated by caregivers  but the task force focused only on three areas of conflict:

1. Families wanted more access to information about decisions the court appointees were making on behalf of the ward of the court so they could evaluate their parents care.

2. Because court appointees and all the service providers they hire are paid out of the elders accounts, family members wanted guardians and conservators to be more accountable to them. They wanted to know more about how their parents money was being spent to ensure against stranger exploitation.

3. And finally, there was confusion about who had decision-making authority after the death of a protected person if no family member stepped forward.

When the 16-member task force was appointed, interested family members and groups like the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse were stunned to learn they would not have a seat at the table. The panel was populated, primarily, with state bureaucrats and those who worked in the for-profit elder care industry.

In the end, the task force decided that the Uniform Probate Code, which was written in 1978, needed no changes except a minor clarification about the after-death process. The panel was firm in its decision not to require for-profit guardians, conservators and trustees to provide additional financial information to family members.

Not all family members will have the best interests of the protected person in mind, the final task force report said, particularly when such family members may stand to gain from the estate  upon (the wards) death.

Marcia Southwick of the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse told the Journal, Thats the most insane conclusion Ive ever heard.

There are people who make tons of money off these estates  and they dont even have to tell the heirs where their inheritance is going? Completely insane.

Ortiz y Pino says opposition to any change is fierce.

What we ran into, frankly, was that anytime we got into guardianship issues the attorneys who deal with probate in the state went ballistic  they did not want us to even open the door.

Court help

Ortiz y Pino agrees courts need more resources and recalled efforts undertaken in 2008, led by then-Chief Judge of the 2nd Judicial District Ted Baca, to get legislative funding for a program to study guardianship cases.

Judge Baca told the Journal he had a volunteer group of lawyers audit about 60 ongoing guardianship cases and discovered problems with, 25 to 35 percent and maybe more, of them. The 2008 review, Judge Baca said, revealed enough cases that we realized we should take it as an alarm. Wards were living in dilapidated surroundings without enough nourishment, some had been abandoned by their guardians and others had died and there was no way to discover what happened to their assets, the judge said. For three or four years the court tried to get the Legislature to appropriate $250,000 for a larger study but the funds were never approved. Baca said the goal was to show the need for a statewide office to oversee all guardian cases. More than eight years later there is still no such office.

Training

Equally incomprehensible to critics is the fact that a hairdresser or landscaper needs more certification and licensing to operate in New Mexico than a guardian/conservator. Advocates for changing the system want to make it mandatory for those who control others lives and estates  sometimes multimillion-dollar estates  to be trained and certified in financial planning, social work and elder care and licensed by the state to work within the guardianship system.

Guardian/conservators frequently are tasked with managing complex portfolios of investments, dealing with a wards multiple real estate properties or overseeing an elderly person suffering from chronic medical problems. Yet the state requires no specialized training for a court appointee in any of those categories.

Higher standard

An Albuquerque woman whose mother was under guardianship for the last two years of her life wants to see changes in the requirements for how guardianships are established.

Her sister first petitioned the court and was successful in getting a guardian and conservator named. Unfortunately, the judge acted without learning that the petitioner had a police record and other profound family issues. The woman interviewed believes judges should require mandatory background checks on those who bring guardian petitions. And she  like many other concerned relatives  wants judges to listen to all sides in a dispute, not just to the version given by the person who made it to the courthouse first.

Each and every allegation made by the petitioner must be accompanied by clear and convincing evidence, the woman told the Journal. There must be a full evidentiary hearing where anyone familiar with the alleged incapacitated person is allowed to speak  under oath.

No one would agree more with that suggestion than Mary Darnell, a primary subject of the Journals five-part series. In the guardianship petition filed by an attorney for Marys eldest sister, numerous allegations were made accusing Mary, their mothers primary caregiver, of negligence and financial self-dealing.

Mary and two other siblings insisted the charges were not true but say the judge never allowed Mary to defend herself. And without ever speaking to the 78-year-old Blair Darnell, the judge signed off on court documents that immediately referred to her as an incapacitated adult.

In addition, the three youngest Darnell children say they were never alerted to the fact that there was going to be a hearing to decide their mothers future. It was all done on an emergency basis. Several other adult children who spoke to the Journal also said initial guardianship proceedings for their parent were held without their knowledge.

Thats despite state statutes that require adult children of potential wards be given 14 days notice of a guardianship hearing. Another statute requires that serious consideration be first given to appointing a family member as guardian before any outside, for-profit company or person.

Critics say those laws are too often ignored.

Promises

Mary Darnell says she promised her mother that she would work to change the guardian system that controlled their lives for five years. A persons wishes need to be honored, Mary said, a reference to her parents will and estate plans. She insists there has to be a way to prevent an estate from being decimated  in Blair Darnells case, from $5 million to $750,000 in her last five years despite the fact she had both a trust fund and social security income.

When you are dealing with other peoples money and assets, Mary said, there has to be strict oversight  (and) that responsibility falls to the judge who presides over your case.

If a judge doesnt require appointees to write accurate reports or submit professional accounting then, as the Darnells youngest daughter put it, The families are just out of luck.

Mary also believes there must be a way to preserve an elder persons sense of freedom even in the face of diminished mental capacity.

Financial oversight

One recommendation from Ortiz y Pinos 2013 task force that family members firmly support is appropriation of additional money to the courts so they can more effectively review conservators and trustees annual financial reports  something that never happened.

Many families complained to the Journal about the liquidation of assets that primarily went to pay appointees and caretakers fees. And in some cases, even when judges specifically ordered a conservator to provide a more complete accounting to families, relatives of wards say the order was ignored with no repercussions.

Several children of deceased wards suggested there should be a cap on lawyer, guardian and conservator fees, perhaps based on a pre-set percentage of the estate.

As for the frequently heard complaint about cronyism  that petitioning attorneys currently are allowed to recommend who should be appointed to lucrative guardian, guardian ad litem, court visitor or conservator positions and judges routinely accept those suggestions  critics of the current system were unanimous that practice should be abolished in favor of random selection from a pool of qualified candidates.

After reading the Journals report, retired Judge Kass expressed surprise.

In my court the quickest way to make sure somebody didnt get appointed as a guardian was for one side to recommend them, she said, I always kept control over it.

Waiver

Every family member and advocate for change interviewed by the Journal was firmly opposed to the Waiver of Liability document heirs must sign before their inheritance is distributed. They want the waivers eliminated.

The waiver protects the court appointee assigned to manage the wards finances from any and all liability for actions taken in (his/her) capacity as conservator and trustee. Once the family signs the waiver, legal recourse against the conservator becomes virtually impossible, even if they believe they have proof of malfeasance.

The daughter of a ward told the Journal that despite her suspicions of thousands of dollars in questionable burial costs and other financial improprieties with her mothers estate, she was forced to sign such a waiver if she wanted her inheritance check.

She called the process court-sponsored blackmail.

Forum for redress

Marcia Southwick of Santa Fe established the popular Facebook page called Boomers Against Elder Abuse a few years ago, and it now boasts more than 150,000 members. As one of three directors of the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse, she suggests a strong state disciplinary board where family complaints are taken seriously and published for all to see. Only when the secrecy of the system is lifted, she said, can citizens know if there are multiple complaints against a court appointee and disciplinary action or criminal charges can be pursued.

Southwick would also like families and wards to be given another venue in which to ask for guardianship relief. As it stands now, Families are sent back to the same courts with the same attorneys who did this to them in the first place.

Relatives of wards who spoke to the Journal say their repeated complaints to outside entities  the district attorney, attorney general, law enforcement and the disciplinary board that oversees ethics complaints for lawyers  went nowhere.

Protect yourself

What can a cohesive family do to protect itself?

Dr. Sam Sugar, founder of Americans Against Abusive Probate Guardianship, urges families to avoid lawyers and guardians and work hard at finding their own out-of-court resolutions. He also wants retirees to understand that there are geographic zones within retirement states (like New Mexico) that are at a higher risk of unwanted guardianships than other places.

Elaine Renoire, another director at the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse, suggests a mandatory, videotaped family meeting at which the parents lay out their legal documents, share their wishes for division of their estate and answer any questions from their children. At the end of the meeting, Renoire suggests, all family members sign an agreement not to challenge the estate plans and if they do, they automatically forfeit their inheritance. This kind of evidence, gathered when parents are of sound mind, could be helpful in convincing a judge of the true desires of a potential ward.

Isolation

Rep. Conrad James, R-Albuquerque, introduced a bill this past legislative session addressing one of the issues with the current guardian system.

Guardians now have the power to ban visits from adult children and longtime friends if its determined the visit will upset the ward or expose them to physical harm. Critics charge that conclusion is reached way too often and frequently aimed at those who have questioned guardian actions.

James bill would have curbed the nonvisitation practice. The proposal passed in the House but died in the Senate.

James told the Journal that although he did not seek re-election, he will get another legislator to introduce the bill in January when the Legislature reconvenes.

I believe  isolating seniors from their family is the first step of abuse in these cases, he said.

And finally

Critics point out there is a statute in New Mexico declaring it a felony for anyone to unlawfully take $20,000 or more from an elderly person. Enforce this. Professionals who egregiously overcharge or fail in their duties (causing monetary losses to the elder or the heirs) should be held accountable.
LAS CRUCES  Authorities are investigating an officer-involved shooting Friday that left a Las Cruces veteran dead.

Josh Dunne, identified by a person who was at the scene, was killed in the shooting at Sleep Inn, 2121 S. Triviz Drive.

Dunne, 36, a graduate student studying social work at New Mexico State University, was a veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Las Cruces Police Department issued a news release early Saturday stating the preliminary investigation indicates that officers were trying to make contact with a man who was believed to be thinking about committing suicide and who had barricaded himself in a third-floor room at the hotel.

The news release did not identify Dunne by name.

Officers attempted to negotiate with the man for several hours beginning at around 5 p.m. Friday, police said.

Eventually, the Las Cruces Police Departments SWAT and Hostage Negotiation teams were activated but the subject remained uncooperative, the release stated.

Shortly after 10:30 p.m., police said, shots were fired and the man was struck at least once. He was transported to Memorial Medical Center where he died.

No officers were injured during the incident, police said.

Two LCPD officers have been placed on administrative leave which is standard procedure when officers fire their duty weapons.

The Officer-involved Incident Task Force includes investigators from New Mexico State Police, the Las Cruces Police Department, Dona Ana County Sheriffs Office and New Mexico State University Police.

Dunne, who had a wife and son, spoke to the Sun-News in October about receiving a therapy dog  a black Labrador named Sawyer  from Americas VetDogs.

Sawyer joined the family in August and after a few months, Dunne called it life-changing, saying the dog helped him deal with anxiety and crowds.

I waited nearly two years to get him, Dunne said. And it has changed my life so much. He wakes me up from having nightmares. He goes and gets my wife, and hell put his head in my lap when I need comforting.

Friends are organizing a candlelight vigil for Dunne at 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4, at the Health and Social Services building on the NMSU campus.



2016 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

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The government of India has decided to provide incentives to all DMs/DCs to promote digital payments for day-to-day transactions.

By Himanshu Mishra: NITI Ayog's CEO Amitabh Kant has asked all the district commissioners and magistrates to work on the objective of transition to digital platform.

The government of India has decided to provide incentives to all DMs/DCs to undertake information, education and communication activities to promote digital payments for day-to-day transactions.

The government has announced an incentive of Rs 10 to each DC/DMs for every individual, who has transited to digital platform and has undertaken at least 2 successful transactions, by one of the five prescribed methods.

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The Centre is immediately transferring Rs 5 lakh per district as seed money based on population.

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By PTI: Amritsar, Dec 4 (PTI) India today said Pakistan High Commissions concern over withdrawal of salaries by a bank had nothing to do with the government as it was an issue between the mission and the banking entity.

At the same time, official sources said here that the matter has been resolved.

"As far as we understand, the matter was between Pakistan High Commission and a private banking entity. It had nothing to do with the government and has been resolved," official sources said.

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Pakistan had lodged a protest with India over its diplomats in the High Commission in New Delhi allegedly not being allowed to withdraw their salaries, which is paid in US dollars, by the bank.

Asserting that not allowing its officials to withdraw their salaries was in breach of Vienna Protocol, Pakistan had threatened that in case the matter was not resolved soon, it may consider retaliatory action against salary disbursal for Indian diplomats there.

RBL Bank, an Indian private bank, holds the salary account of the Pakistan High Commission staff.

"We are not allowed to withdraw our own salary. It is not a demonetization issue. It appears that it is done more at the instructions of the Indian government," a senior Pakistan High Commission official had said.

Diplomats can draw their tax free salaries in dollars and only have to give reason for the withdrawal beyond USD 5,000.

According to Pakistan High Commission officials, they are not being allowed to withdraw their salaries and have been asked for letters of purpose for withdrawal of any dollar amount.

Incidentally, demonetization has led to a sharp spike in demand for dollars and other foreign currency, making it scarce. PTI MPB IKA

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CLEVELAND: Researchers from the Angie Fowler Adolescent & Young Adult Cancer Institute at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital (UH Rainbow) will present data focused on improving clinical outcomes for pediatric hematologic disorders at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). The meeting, held from December 3 to 6, 2016, in San Diego, California, gathers a global community of more than 20,000 hematologists to share education and research on the most pressing topics in hematology.

Ashish Gupta, MBBS, MPH, a pediatric hematology fellow at UH Rainbow, will share results from one of the largest quality controlled retrospective studies of children with acquired aplastic anemia. The data makes a compelling case for the pediatric hematology community to revisit the current treatment algorithm for this rare disease.

Known as an "orphan" disease due to the low incidence of occurrence, pediatric acquired aplastic anemia affects approximately 2 to 4 children out of every million each year. The small population makes robust outcomes research difficult to come by. Dr. Gupta and colleagues collected 10 years' worth of data about more than 5,000 children with acquired aplastic anemia from the quality-controlled Pediatric Health Information Systems (PHIS) database to analyze the effectiveness of the current treatment algorithm and compare it to the effectiveness of newer therapeutic approaches. The PHIS database includes data from 45 U.S. children's hospitals.

"Today, if a child with aplastic anemia has a matched related donor, we recommend proceeding with bone marrow transplant," said Dr. Gupta. "If no such optimum donor exists, as is true for almost 80 percent of children, immunosuppressive therapy (IST) is the standard of care, despite high rates of disease recurrence following treatment conclusion. As the outcomes of matched unrelated donor transplant options have improved, we wanted to know if patients with aplastic anemia were also experiencing better long term outcomes compared to immunosuppressive therapy, which is known to have high failure rates. Incidence of complications with bone marrow transplant also increases with delay in transplant."

Through extensive data analysis, the research team found that outcomes were comparable between matched related bone marrow transplant and matched unrelated donor transplants. Interestingly, common post-transplant complications such as graft versus host disease or graft failure were actually lower for patients who underwent a transplant from a matched unrelated donor.

"Children particularly tolerate transplants better than adults," added Dr. Gupta. "It is reasonable to recommend matched unrelated donor transplants in place of IST if a suitable donor is available."

Dr. Gupta's presentation appears as part of the ASH Poster Session (Abstract 2395) entitled Outcomes Research-Non-Malignant Conditions. Another UH Rainbow presenter, Irina Pateva, MD, pediatric hematology/oncology at UH Rainbow and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, will present findings in red blood cell transfusions for critically ill children as part of the Basic Science and Clinical Practice in Blood Transfusion Poster Session. Additionally, UH Seidman Cancer Center physicians will present data on five additional clinical research topics in adult hematology and oncology.

"ASH is one of the premier meetings for all hematologists," said Jignesh Dalal, MD, Director, Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant at UH Rainbow and Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "The pediatric hematology team at UH Rainbow is world-class and focused on improving outcomes for all children. Selection to present at this meeting reflects this fact and will greatly enhance the body of knowledge we use to care for children around the world."

UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital Presentations at ASH

2395 Hematopoeitic Stem Cell Transplant in Aplastic Anemia: Is It Time to Revise the Treatment Algorithm

Ashish O. Gupta, MBBS, MPH

Session: 903. Outcomes Research--Non-Malignant Conditions: Poster I

Saturday, December 3, 2016, 5:30 PM-7:30 PM

Hall GH (San Diego Convention Center)

3851 Effect of Red Blood Cell Transfusions on Clinical Outcomes in Critically Ill Children

Irina B. Pateva, MD

Session: 401. Basic Science and Clinical Practice in Blood Transfusion: Poster III

Monday, December 5, 2016, 6:00 PM-8:00 PM

Hall GH (San Diego Convention Center)

###

About University Hospitals

Founded in 1866, University Hospitals serves the needs of over 1 million patients per year through an integrated network of 18 hospitals, more than 40 outpatient health centers and 200 physician offices in 15 counties throughout northern Ohio. The system's flagship academic medical center, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, located on a 35-acre campus in Cleveland's University Circle, is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The main campus also includes University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation; University Hospitals MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. UH is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research programs in the nation, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopedics, radiology, neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, digestive health, dermatology, transplantation and urology. UH Cleveland Medical Center is perennially among the highest performers in national ranking surveys, including "America's Best Hospitals" from U.S. News & World Report. UH is also home to Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals - part of The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development. UH is the second largest employer in northern Ohio with 26,000 employees. For more information, go to UHhospitals.org.
Editor's note: This story was first published in Dec. 2016, when the results of this study were presented at the American Society of Hematology's annual meeting. It has been updated to reflect the researchers' publication on Monday of their results in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The published paper shows that about 70 percent of patients with the most common adult leukemia had their tumors shrink or disappear following an experimental immunotherapy based on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. The researchers also found that measuring genetic traces of cancer cells taken from bone marrow biopsies might be a better indicator of prognosis than the standard lymph node scan.

The 24 patients had undergone most standard therapies available to them and yet their chronic lymphocytic leukemia had come back strong. Almost all of them had been treated with a newly approved, targeted drug called ibrutinib; data from other studies show that most patients whose disease progresses after ibrutinib treatment do not survive long. The majority of the 24 had chromosomal markers in their leukemia cells serve as predictors of a bad response to most standard therapies, said Dr. Cameron Turtle of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

But most of these patients, who were enrolled in a small, early-phase trial, saw their advanced tumors shrink or even disappear after an infusion of genetically engineered immune cells. Turtle, one of the studys leaders, first presented these results in December at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in San Diego.

In the trial, participants disease-fighting T cells were removed from their blood and genetically engineered in a lab at Fred Hutch to produce an artificial receptor, called a CAR, or chimeric antigen receptor, that empowered them to recognize and destroy cancer cells bearing a target molecule called CD19. After patients received chemotherapy, the CAR T cells were infused back into their bloodstream to kill their CD19-positive cancers.

While all 24 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL, received the experimental therapy, the study authors focused on the results in a subgroup of 19 patients who received particular chemotherapy regimens and doses of CAR T cells the researchers now prefer, based on recent data in other groups of patients on the trial.

Fourteen of 19 experienced a partial or complete regression of their disease in their lymph nodes. And of the 17 who had leukemia in their bone marrow when they enrolled on the trial, the marrow became cancer-free in 15 after they received CAR T cells.

Its very pleasing to see patients with refractory disease respond like this, Turtle said. The research team had seen very good responses [to the same CAR T-cell therapy] in acute lymphoblastic leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, so we hoped responses would be good in CLL too.
When dawn breaks on Christmas Day, Eileen Davies will be in the milking parlour  because cows dont recognise 25 December as a national holiday.

Once the milking is done and the cows and sheep have been fed, there will be little time for a breather. Eileen has another flock to tend to.

Otherwise known as the Reverend Canon Eileen Davies, she is a priest and the Church in Waless rural life adviser for the Diocese of St Davids.

See also: Vicar wins award for contribution to rural community

Eileen grew up on a smallholding in the Carmarthenshire hamlet of Llanllwni, less than a mile from the dairy farm of Gwndwm that she now runs with her husband, Dyfrig, and 19-year-old son, Owain.

Her parents werent particularly religious. My father was a once-a-year worshipper and my mother went once a month.

But Eileens faith was nurtured by a neighbour who took her to Sunday school every week. She was very religious, I was overawed by the example she set, Eileen recalls.

Lifelong ambition

So much so that, aged just nine, she declared that the grown-up Eileen would become a vicar and dairy farmer, even though the Church in Wales didnt ordain women at the time.

That prophecy came true 12 years ago when, at 40, she was ordained. We had a woman deacon here at Llanllwni and she asked me if I had considered becoming a priest.

When Dyfrig and I discussed it, he said he had seen it coming for a long time and was very supportive.

Eileen embarked on a part-time theology course. Although the tutorials were delivered locally, there were residential weekends and summer schools.

These always seem to fall on Royal Welsh Show week. I did sometimes mitch off the final day to go to the show! she now confesses.

TV break

She is now parish priest to Llanerchaeron, Cilau Aeron, Dihewyd and Mydroilin  a role she combines with her rural life adviser role, which she was offered after the bishop spotted her on a TV programme about farming.

He said that anyone who was prepared to appear on S4C and put her hand up a cows backside had the qualities to be an adviser on rural matters!

Personal touch

The role keeps the clergy in touch with what is happening in rural areas. She can connect with farmers because, in her words, she speaks their lingo. She is a well-known figure at livestock markets, sales and shows.

Farmers know I am there and that, if there is an issue they want to discuss, we can go to the mart cafe to have a chat over a cuppa  or I will drop by the farm to see them.

Eileens clerical collar gives her that authority. Once you are wearing that dog collar, they recognise what you stand for. But when Im at home Im just Eileen Gwmdwn, or when Im with the YFC Im Eileen Llanllwni.

Listening is often more important than giving advice. Once a person has had the opportunity to speak to someone who is willing to listen, they realise that there is someone out there who cares for them, explains Eileen, who is also secretary of Tir Dewi, an organisation that supports farmers in west Wales.

If you have their confidence and trust, they will share their problems. More often than not, they are able to solve their own problems, but they havent been able to see the wood for the trees.

I wont have all the right answers, but I might know someone who does so I can point them in the right direction.

Desperate situation

On top of financial worries, bovine TB is casting a long shadow over the lives of the farmers Eileen comes into contact with in this corner of west Wales, and she sits on the South Wales TB Eradication Board.

I have recently visited farmers who have never had TB on their farms and they are getting it for the first time.

One farmer sells pedigree bulls and, because he is on stop, everything has had to be put on hold.

Farmers are in a desperate situation because they havent got enough feed to carry extra stock that they hadnt anticipated having.

Farmers are proud of their stock. If you took dairy cows out of my husbands life, it wouldnt be long before I was burying him. I think in the general pecking order the cows come first then me and Owain, before the sheep, I hope!

And depressed milk prices are also responsible for the low mood among farmers. With a herd of 80 pedigree Holsteins, Eileen is only too aware of the challenges created by two years of low prices.

Strong faith

From my priestly perspective I have a strong faith and, even though it is shaken every now and then and given a dust down, I have a faith that I can lean on when Im at a low ebb. For many people that isnt the case.

As well as the dairy herd  and 120 followers  Eileen and her family have a flock of 400 Texel sheep. Owain, who is studying agriculture at Gelli Aur College as well as working on the farm, also has a small flock of Poll Dorsets.

YFC has played a big part in Eileens life  she was once chairman of the Carmarthen Federation.

Every priest should have YFC public speaking training. It is a wonderful way to communicate your message. Perhaps it is not what you say but how you preach. It has given me the confidence to go out and do what I do today.

Celebrating the good times

Although Eileen meets farmers when they can be at their lowest ebb, there are also opportunities to come together at times of celebration.

A highlight this year was a harvest festival held at Carmarthen martground to raise funds for Carmarthenshires year as feature county of the Royal Welsh Show.

Eileens pulpit was the auctioneers rostrum and the service was held in the cattle ring. We had 300 people there, people are still talking about it, says Eileen, who organised the event and took the service.

We managed to get people there who perhaps might not have come to church or chapel, even though it was a religious service. It demonstrates that you dont have to put religion in a box.

There was a similar response to a tractor run she held in her parish on Rogation Sunday.

Dyfrig and I both drove there on a tractor and Dyfrig warned me not to be disappointed if not many people turned up, but we had 70 tractors and several hundred people.

We had organised enough food for only around 70 so we were frantically rushing around raiding our fridges. We werent quite feeding the 5,000 but it felt like that!

Heart of the community

Although rural congregations are dwindling, the church has a vital role to play in agricultural communities, not least because the church building is often the only public facility left in a country village, with the closure of schools, shops and pubs. Eileen says their use by the community should be encouraged.

I am all for opening the church doors. If you have a church vestry or a church hall, they can be used for so many different things. We held a curry night recently.

If you get people to cross that threshold and they can see that we dont bible-bash them but that we do offer the hand of friendship then perhaps they will come back.

Christmas might well be that occasion. On Christmas Eve, Eileen takes midnight Eucharist followed by a glass of mulled wine and mince pies.

Everyone enjoys themselves, if they dont leave with a smile on their faces I havent done my job properly.

I enjoy Christmas, but it is important for people to appreciate that the food on their tables on Christmas Day is there because of farmers and they have to tend to their stock on that day as if it is any other day.

Eileen somehow finds time to cook the turkey lunch for the family gathering. Then its back out into the parlour to milk the cows.

I really enjoy that part of the day. Then hopefully, when all the farm work is finished, there will be time to put my feet up.
Hundreds of farmers are still waiting to receive emergency funding to restore agricultural land, a year after Storm Desmond devastated large parts of rural Northern England.

The winter floods struck on 4 December 2015, with intense rainfall hitting farming communities in Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland, Yorkshire, County Durham and Greater Manchester.

Two thirds of surveyed Cumbrian farmers suffered damage to riverbanks, over half were left with gravel deposits on their land while more than 700 sheep were killed by flood waters, says the NFU.

See also: Advice to help you protect your farm during flooding

The Farming Recovery Fund was set up and around 1,100 applications were made, worth more than 9m, to cover activities such as drain and boundary repairs and reseeding.

However, NFU deputy president Minette Batters said it was extremely frustrating that hundreds of farmers were bracing themselves for another winter while still waiting for funding to help recover from the previous one.

Storm Desmond and the subsequent flooding brought devastation to farming businesses and many are still feeling the effects, she said.

Farmers have faced months of uncertainty over access to the flood recovery fund, piled on top of delays to their annual farm payments. This is totally unacceptable and must be resolved as a matter of urgency.

Scotland and Northern Ireland had their farming recovery funds done and dusted by the middle of 2016. So why are so many farmers in England being forced to wait for their emergency funding?

The Rural Payments Agency created some delays when processing the original applications. But we appreciate that they are still waiting to receive claims from affected farmers, partly due to the high level of evidence farmers are required to submit.

A review is urgently needed to improve the process for when this fund is inevitably needed again.

Grants of up to 20,000 following flood damage were available to farmers in Cumbria, Lancashire and Northumberland, Yorkshire, County Durham and Greater Manchester.

It is understood that EU rules mean Defra must see invoices for work before the government is able to pay out any funds from the Farm Recovery Fund.

Defra said 1,000 applications were approved by the Rural Payments Agency and some 4.4m had been paid out to date. A Defra spokesperson said:

The government has invested 300m in helping communities recover from last winters floods  this includes almost 4.4m paid out to farmers to complete flood repairs.
By PTI: Panaji, Dec 4 (PTI) Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said army was present in some toll plazas in West Bengal to study the carrying capacity of the roads in case of mass armed forces movement and accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of playing politics over the forces.

"The other day I was listening to the statement by a Chief Minister of one state. Army had gone (to that state) for routine survey. Every year once or twice, they visit the states to study the vehicle carrying capacity of the road. This is done considering the preparedness to move the armed forces," Parrikar said without naming Banerjee during the Vijay Sankalp rally at Goas Mayem constituency.

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"These forces dont move in a group of 100-200, they are 10,000-15,000 in numbers and for such movement at-least 500 trucks are required. Therefore, the Army always check(s) the carrying capacity of the road," he said.

"Also they (Army) checks how many lorries (trucks) are available in the nearby villages. This is their annual exercise," said the Defence Minister.

Explaining Army?s presence at the toll posts, Parrikar said, "they were standing at toll post because the vehicles stop there. If Army wants to ask any information, it can be sought there."

Parrikar also said, "I dont know what the Chief Minister felt. When I was about to go to sleep, the television started flashing (the statement) that Army has taken over."

"I inquired (with the Army), they informed me that the proper communication has been made with the state government. Originally the Army was supposed to conduct that exercise on November 28, 29 and 30, but since Bharat Bandh was declared on November 28, we were requested to shift it to December 1 and 2," he added.

"I can understand the grief (she suffered) due to demonetisation but why should Army be involved in politics. You will never find Army involved in politics. That day I witnessed what is political frustration," the former Goa Chief Minister said.

Parrikar further accused that many politicians were in grief because "those who had stocked money as a preparedness towards election, their money has became useless overnight due to demonetisation".

On December 2, presence of army personnel at toll plazas in West Bengal triggered a row with Banerjee remaining at the state secretariat overnight in protest, asking was it an "army coup", drawing a stinging condemnation from the Centre which said the remark showed her "political frustration". PTI RPS NRB RG

--- ENDS ---
Kumasi experienced its first edition of a Jazz filled night yesterday at the Crystal Rose Ambassador Hotel.

The show which was organised by Kumasi's event powerhouse, ICommerce Events, saw an amazing crowd of patrons from all walks of life.

Kumasi Jazz Nights obviously lived up to its billing and was a totally unique experience.

The show was hosted by Mr. Frank Boateng (Jazzy Boat), host of Jazz and Soul on Ultimate106.9fm and an excellent performance by Empire Jazz Band. The night was fun filled and a delightful experience for those who attended the event.

In an exclusive interview with the CEO of ICommerce Events-Dr Kwasi Baffour Gyimah,he expressed his gratitude to patrons for making the event a successful one.

Im very excited with the turnout and I want to say that, this wont be the first or last. We are coming up with something big, he remarked.

Story: Richard Owusu
Actress Naa Ashorkor, has kicked start a campaign aimed at encouraging reading amongst school children. The campaign, dubbed Aspire to Bee is a spelling competition geared towards encouraging pupils to engage in productive extracurricular activities and most importantly expand their vocabulary.

Speaking at the maiden edition of the campaign held at the Pokuase 1&2 Methodist School, the award winning actress indicated that the initiative was as a result of her deep passion to hear young children speak and express themselves in flawless English.

She added that her choice of the school was as a result of a disturbing experience shared by one of her siblings during her time as a national service personnel at the school. Recounting the experience, the actress who also doubles as the host of popular radio show The Zone on Starr 103.5FM, indicated that her sister noticed a disturbing trend in the way her pupils expressed themselves in English after they were all unable to write an apology letter.

This sparked a light bulb moment that ignited a passion in her to embark this campaign. Addressing parents and pupils at the event, the Local Manager for the area, Very Rev. Kwame Amoah Mensah , expressed his gratitude towards Naa Ashorkor and hoped that the event would be one in the series of many other events that will help his pupils improve their English speaking skills. He added that the initiative will go a long way to facilitate writing in both internal and external examinations.

After three competitive rounds consisting of spelling, forming sentences and identifying common images

The winner, Eric Asare a pupil from the Pokuase 2 Methodist School, took home a Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary, 2 Enid Blyton story books, a collection of story books from EPP Books, 20 Cowbell branded exercise books, a package consisting of a water bottle, shirt, hat and bag from donated by MTN Pulse, an MTN branded school bag, 3 packs of Special Drink and a box of cowbell products.

Helena Ekpe also from the Pokuase 2 Methodist School, who came in second took home a Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary, 3 story books donated by MTN, Enid Blyton story books, 10 Cowbell branded exercise books, a package consisting of a water bottle, shirt, hat and bag from donated by MTN Pulse, 2 packs of Special Drink and a box of cowbell products.

Josephine Yaotse a student of the Pokuase 1 Methodist School, who came in third took also took home a Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary, 2 story books, 5 Cowbell branded exercise books, a package consisting of a water bottle, shirt, hat and bag from donated by MTN Pulse, 1 pack of Special Drink and a box of cowbell products.

In an era where the reading culture amongst students of school going age is dwindling, efforts such as the Aspire to Bee initiative should be encouraged as a way of whipping up and inculcating the spirit of reading in children of school going age.

This initiative was sponsored by Cowbell, MTN Pulse, EPP Books, MTN Foundation, Special Drinks, Awake Mineral Water and Dreamoval Foundation.
Philip Gbeho

04.12.2016 LISTEN

Philip Gbeho, the man who composed the independent Ghana's national anthem was paid three thousand pounds for his effort.

The adoption of the anthem was one of the last rites after the lowering of the Union Jack, the flag of England.

Until the adoption of the new anthem, all citizens of the Gold Coast went by the British's 'God Save The Queen' anthem.

He was paid the amount as his copyright for the piece of music during the first week of September 1957 shortly after independence.

The gentleman was a Music Master at Achimota School and entered the competition for interested persons to submit their works for consideration. He beat them all and was paid an additional one hundred pounds for emerging the winner. There were four final contestants after a shortlisting exercise.

The cheque for the three thousand one hundred pounds was paid to Philip Gbeho at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Accra on September 5, 1957.

The transfer of the copyright was signed by the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr. Kweku Baako on behalf of the government and Mr. Philip Gbeho.

He was reported to have said in an interview shortly after the event that, I regard the composition as my masterpiece and something from inspiration. I do not know how I did it myself.

Mr. Gbeho was not only a musician but a person interested in the politics of the times. He showed particular interest in the referendum on the issue of French Togoland.

He spoke a lot about it; some aspects of it were captured in the Daily Graphic.

He is reported to have said that the issue had occupied the attention of Ewes in both French and British administrations.

Mr. Philip Gbeho said the referendum, for all that I know, aims at separating the Ewes on the French side permanently from their brothers in the Gold Coast and British Togoland.

For him therefore the referendum was no solution to the Ewe problem adding the Ewes from the beginning have only one aim, that is, to live together as one tribe. The barriers separating us and making us French Togoland, Ewes, British Togoland are artificial and are not in our interest. Our fathers have always condemned these lines of demarcation and the imperial powers certainly know about all our grievances in this matter.

He said the struggle over the British Togoland was an effort to unite the Ewes under a single administration. That struggle is now over and we are now awaiting the results of the UNO in November or December. Of course, British Togoland will receive independence with the Gold Coast: if that happens then three quarters of Ewes will be permanently united.

The problem about the Ewes is not for the political parties to solve but for the people themselves to address.

The French, he said, only took over what formed French Togoland after the First World War: the decision having been taken at a colonial dinner table.

The late Casely Hayford, he recalled, through the National Congress of West Africa fought the issue from the Gold Coast to No. 10 Downing Street but did not achieve his objective.

The aim of the French to absorb the Ewes in French Togoland into the French Empire, he said, is unacceptable.

The referendum, he continued falls short of the aspirations of the Ewes. Let us therefore return to the aims of the All-Ewe Conference which seeks the unification of the entire Ewe country under a single administration. I must make it clear that by single administration the All-Ewe Conference had in mind the British Administration in the Gold Coast.

He paid tribute to the British people for making it possible for the people of the Gold Coast to become self-governing.

I wish to mention people like Maclean, Guggisberg and Fraser. They could have planned to let the Gold Coast remain forever a colonial territory or another South Africa, he said.

He said the Ewes have watched the two sides and prefer the British segment which is being almost ruled by Africans. At the moment, the Ewes in French Togoland are not free to express their views in public without incurring the displeasure of the ruling authorities.

Ewes in French Togoland, he said, at the time must aim at following the rest of the Ewes wherever they may be. In fact that was our aim when we were fighting for the removal of the artificial barriers in Eweland through the All-Ewe Conference.

A Daily Graphic cutting of the 50s is the source of the foregone.

By A.R. Gomda


Statement by the High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini and Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica on the Presidential Elections in The Gambia:

In presidential elections on 1 December, Gambian voters have expressed their will to see a change of leadership. The European Union wishes to commend the commitment of the Gambian population to democratic principles.

President Jammeh's swift acceptance of the result is a further signal of strengthening democracy in The Gambia.

The European Union stands ready to fully support the President elect, Mr. Adama Barrow, his future government and the Gambian people on the path of democratic reforms, which Mr. Barrow has outlined in his election campaign.

The European Union reconfirms its commitment to remain at the sides of the Gambian people to build sustainable and inclusive development.
President Jacob Zuma has congratulated government, business, labour and all South Africans after three major credit rating agencies kept South Africas sovereign debt credit rating status above junk status.

We congratulate Team South Africa particularly government, business and labour for ensuring that the countrys sovereign debt credit rating status is not downgraded to junk status. Unity in action and hard work have paid off against a very volatile global economic climate.

Working together as government, business and labour we can overcome the current economic challenges and we must continue working hard and creatively to reignite growth so that jobs can be created for our people, the President said.

President Zuma further assured international investors that South Africa remains an important and strategic investment destination.
Press Statement

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

December 3, 2016

I congratulate the people of The Gambia for their peaceful and democratic presidential election on December 1. We also congratulate President-elect Adama Barrow on his historic victory, which will mark the first democratic transfer of power in the country, and we look forward to working with him as he helps to usher in a new era in The Gambia.

I also commend President Jammeh for respecting the results and for agreeing to peacefully transfer power to the president-elect. We are grateful to the Independent Electoral Commission for its transparent and efficient management of the electoral process.

We call for unity and calm during this transition period, and urge the Gambian government to respect the rights of citizens to freely assemble and express their views on the election results.

The United States and The Gambia share long-standing ties and we look forward to working together to promote democracy and governance, respect for human rights, and economic and social development.
The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland, has welcomed the election results in The Gambia.

She warmly commended the leadership and people of The Gambia for the profoundly significant and democratic transition they have initiated in their country.

The Secretary-General said, "On 1 December, Gambians demonstrated Commonwealth values of peace, tolerance and respect for diversity and differing views, as they exercised their democratic franchise, and clearly and confidently charted their own path for the country's future. We congratulate The Gambia for the example it has set."

The Secretary-General further remarked, "When The Gambia left the Commonwealth in 2013, heads of government, meeting in Colombo that year, noted this decision with regret, and looked forward to the countrys eventual return. Like every close knit family, our Commonwealth doors remain open."
The countdown to the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections has virtually come to an end. The December polls will be the 8th general elections of the Fourth Republic of Ghana since the promulgation of the 1992 Constitution.

It is refreshing to learn that Ghanas democracy has survived seven successful elections since the last military government ended in 1992. This is no mean achievement for a developing country like Ghana and the Africa at large.

As a matter of fact, the road map to democracy did not come on a silver platter. This is because the leadership of this country has suffered series of political turmoil and instability between 1966 and 1992.

In most African countries, elections are characterised by violence, chaos and conflicts; a situation that hampers development and creates tension on the continent.

Once again, the people of Ghana are on the threshold of electing political leaders to steer the affairs of the country for the next four years. Why should every election season create fear and undue tension among us?

Since politics is about mobilising people for development through governance, I wonder why political activities seems to be doing more harm than good in our part of the world.

Not long ago, we recorded incidents of clashes between the supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the National Patriotic Party (NPP). We have come a long way as a democratic nation; therefore, much is expected of us.

We should not allow partisan politics to divide us on tribal, religious or ethnocentric grounds. In fact, political divisiveness mustnt tarnish the hard won reputation of our nation, since Ghana is touted as a beacon of democracy in Africa.

The impact of the media

The significance of the media, as the fourth estate of the realm, cannot be downplayed as regards our democratic dispensation. The media deserves commendation for its various roles, including public education and awareness ahead of the December polls.

Admittedly, the media acts as a watchdog under democratic elections and, thus, safeguarding the transparency of an electoral process. Simply put, a free, fair and transparent election is practically impossible without the media.

In spite of the immense contribution of the media, the influx of newspapers, radio and television broadcasters have the tendency of truncating the impact of the mass media in promoting peace, human rights and nation building.

On the day of the elections, many will be glued to their radio and television sets for updates from the various polling stations. For that reason, much will be expected of our selfless correspondents.

It is therefore incumbent on the press to demonstrate a high sense of professionalism, accuracy and impartiality in the course of their duty.

The erroneous impression that, bad news sells should not be entertained during and after the elections. The media should be circumspect and report from a neutral perspective, and should not be used a tool of inciting chaos or violence.

Furthermore, the media should not be quick to declare the winner of the presidential race, until the Electoral Commission has announced the election results.

The sovereignty of voters

According to the Constitution of Ghana, every citizen of 18years or above and of sound mind has the right to vote and is entitled to be registered as a voter for the purposes of public elections and referenda.

The electorate forms a major stakeholder in deciding the future of a country, since the sovereignty of choosing a leader lies in their hands. Basically, elections are held to afford the citizenry the opportunity to vote for their preferred candidate.

The General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Pastor Mensa Otabil, hit the nail on the head when he cautioned Ghanaians to elect the best presidential candidate in the interest of country, since our vote can influence the destiny of Ghana.

Pastor Otabil also entreated the electorate to take personal charge of their vote, and not to exchange them for money, gift or any other physical items.

In recent times, vote buying has become phenomenal in our body politic. No amount of money or gift is worth your vote. Some politicians may appeal to your conscious with all sort of gifts, but dont sell your future.

Fellow Ghanaians, lets exercise our franchise peacefully by observing all the electoral rules and regulations. Do not foment trouble; avoid partisan politics at the polling station; maintain a distance of not less than 500metres from the polling station; and remain sober.

Road map to peaceful elections

In the spirit of unity, the seven candidates contesting the 2016 presidential slot have signed a peace declaration ahead of the general elections. The Accra Declaration is the road map for a peaceful election.

The move was a step in the right direction. It is also an indication that Ghana is keen on sustaining its reputable image as a beacon of peace and democracy in Africa.

In the face of the fierce competition, the civil society organisations, associations, religious bodies and some supporters of the major political parties have demonstrated that Ghana is poised for a smooth election.

The flag bearers of the various political parties should not be over-confidence of their victory. Eventually, Ghanaians will elect a President and 275 parliamentarians, so the defeated candidates must accept the choice of the majority.

In any case, the court is the appropriate quarters of seeking redress. The security agencies should be not spare law breakers as we undertake this crucial exercise.

Lets take cue from neighbouring countries like Cote dIvoire that suffered electoral conflict few years ago. We have to allow a peaceful electoral process to prevail. I am confident that Ghana will emerge winner at the end of this competitive contest.

ASP James Annan

Prisons Headquarters

Ghana Prisons Service

[email protected]

3. This Is The Beauty Of Democracy That Party Supporters Must Emulate

2. A Section Of The Electorate Waiting In A Queque To Cast Their Vote

4. We Don't Need Violence Like It Happened In Kenya

5. After All The Two Major Political Leadeers Are Not Enemies

6. Partisan Politics Is About Idealogy, And Not Divisiveness

7. Ghana To Decide On 7th December

8. The Security Agencies Demonstrating Their Readiness To Counteract Troublemakers
Like many young seekers I have always known and taken Gandhi as an inspiration just as some African liberators like Nelson Mandela did. I have on some occasions quoted him.

The movie, 'The Great Debaters' cites him as an icon of civil disobedience.

However, my admiration for Gandhi took a turn in June 2016 when a friend told me about Gandhi's 'racist' part. It was as revealing as it was breaking. He quoted his source to be one of our lecturers and said the lecturer even questioned why his statue should be erected at the premier university.

We were then returning from lectures and we had realized that the occasion that brought people to the University of Ghana and caused some sections of the roads leading to the quadrangle to be blocked as we saw on our way to lectures was the unveiling of Gandhi's statue.

Earlier, I have read somewhere that the Indian president will be on campus to deliver a lecture. I had planned going because he was to speak on a youth related topic. But knowing how sandwich programmes are structured I dared not attempt any extracurricular activity.

Indeed that days revelation startled me. Mahatma Gandhi a racist? But coming from a political science student and attributed to a renowned political science lecturer I did not argue further.

Then and there I knew I had one of two options. To read for myself or to let time reveal such knowledge. Indeed time has tested the revelation even to the extent that Gandhi might fall and die a second time.

Like some time ago this demand is not coming from students. It's from the university's own professors. It cream of scholars and intellects.

By this one can confidently tell that the statue is an imposition and that consultations were not done. Perhaps as an ugly aftermath of India's benevolence to Ghana. At least one can easily think of their dashed cathedral. I mean the seat of Ghana government, the flagstaff house. It is also obvious that an animal farm situates within the academia. And in an environment where we are all looking up to give this country the leadership it deserves it is thus clear there is the lack of it or just an iota of it.

What is interesting in this whole saga is in the rumours that the University leadership at a point 'fiercely contested the efforts of one department to name its blocks after some eminent professors.

For me the debate as to whether Gandhi should fall or not to fall is one that sits deeply within our moral aspirations as a nation and a continent. It is a matter of where we want to place our moral values within the context of leadership and in the history of our political struggles.

For me the only extremism we must tolerate is the one in solely defence of liberty as Barry Goldwater posits. And so if Gandhi's 'racial extreme' has no relation to the struggle then he obviously has no merit in black history and for that matter the University of Ghana.

Nelson Mandela is documented to have told his then wife Winnie that his freedom as an individual cannot come at the cost being paid. Indeed Winnie Mandela despite her contributions to the struggle remains a controversy in South African history. Seekers are torn between placing Winnie's excesses above or below her contributions to the apartheid struggle.

In a 2010 BBC post by John Thynne captioned ''Can Winnie Mandela's heroism outshine her crimes?'', one Mathatha Tsedu is quoted to say of Winnie Mandela; "I think history will view her as a complicated personality with a streak of leadership....who had a flawed personality that resulted in an atrocity being committed, that became a shame on every one of us occupying any position of leadership in this country."

And so for me no matter what we do history will forever view Gandhi as a racist and a hero. But as to which one should outshine the other is a matter of where you belong. I am a moralist and thus belongs to those who say Gandhi must fall.
By India Today Web Desk: After Afghanistan President Ashraf Wani hit out at Pakistan for providing sanctuary to terrorists, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too called for an united effort to combat regional terrorism at the Heart of Asia conference today.

While the Prime Minister did not name Pakistan but his repeated references to terrorism were not lost on anyone.

Here is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on terrorism at the conference today:

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ALSO READ: Heart of Asia conference: Modi, Ghani hold bilateral talks, Pakistan terror on agenda

Six times Narendra Modi spoke on terrorism at the conference We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear. Support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough. It must be backed by a resolute action not just against forces of terrorism but also against those who support, shelter and finance them. Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters. Need of the hour is to build on gains of the last 15 years because at stake is not just Afghanistan's future, but peace and stability of region. Terrorism and externally-induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity. Outlining his peace plan for war-ravaged Afghanistan, Narendra Modi said what the country needs is "development in place of need, security in place of terrorism".

ALSO READ: Ashraf Ghani at Heart of Asia: Pakistan shelters terrorists, Taliban testifies

ALSO READ: Heart of Asia: Talks begin with focus on tackling terror under shadow of India-Pakistan tension

ALSO WATCH

--- ENDS ---
If you ask me I will say the Americans went too low in their campaigning. This was not expected of a matured democracy. What is even intriguing is that it went beyond the corridors of the contenders to include the fourth estate of every nation-the media.

I for one can say that the president elect Trump was the most victimized and vilified.

The outpouring we are witnessing is largely due to the acrimonious consequent of such an electoral campaigning.

The protest will seem strong enough to even influence the transition. It is obvious things that needed not to be done were done just to secure votes.

Bartolini has said competition is a central aspect of democracy. However for competition to be democratic it must be contestable. According to him contestability focuses on the fairness of the political contest between political actors. Which obviously beyond the abuse of incumbency also includes character defamation, personality attacks, racial remarks and the use of extremist language.

The media most of which were anti-trump and had all their polls go in favor of Hillary have extended their anti-Trump agenda to the protests and are doing well to spin and give it a concern treated coverage.

Truth be told if Donald had lost I wouldn't have been surprised to see similar protests. That's the beauty of democracy and perhaps America with all its experience and matured institutions may be telling Ghanaians to ready for anything particularly in as much as it falls within the tenets of the constitution.

I am also glad President elect Trump has acknowledged this beauty.

But that has not prevented me from wondering what would have happened if America was like any other African country? Even to say Ghana which is much touted as a cradle of democracy in Africa.

To hear protestors chant an elected president to not being their president will have likely turn a bloody scene.

And this where I blame Hillary and the outgoing White House officials. They had all the chance to unite America and rally Clinton supporters behind the Trump presidency. The very moment Hillary's campaign manager told supporters to retard instead of coming straight to concede I knew there would be disaster.

It is as if Americans have suddenly become ignorant of their own electoral system?

The American situation opens new frontiers for political science research particularly with regards to political campaigning language and it effect on the outcome of an election and for that matter consolidating electoral outcome. That is only if it has not been explored already.

It also challenges Ghana to be cautious in its campaigning. Particularly in the heat to the polls and the need to tone down on personality attacks. Knowing very well the only determinant of a free and fair elections is not only the activities during elections but also before and after.

In all I still love the Americans for who they are. The outcome of their protests seem to not axe Trump despite their messaging. They are rather bent on shifting Trumps policy stands and shape him to be the ideal American president while another side seems to force him to work out his statements within seconds. The latter you can think of the middle school kids chanting build the walls.

And on the issue of the prophesy I dare say that God is not man to be mocked. It may be true because I read a confirmation of it in a devotion but like they say God reveals to redeem. Again the way of the Lord can be tempered but only for a while.
Accra (AFP) - Ghana is internationally renowned for being a peaceful country on a continent scarred by ethnic clashes, dictators and crime. So what's its secret?

In the days before the hotly contested presidential vote on December 7, Rastafarians in the West African country say they have the answer.

"It's because we've put Ghana first before everything," said Martin Quarpong, a Rastafarian in his late 30s wearing a green and orange tie-dye shirt with his hair in a black head-wrap.

"We see ourselves as one people and we think about our future."

Despite their dreadlocks and love of tie-dye, in many ways the ubiquitous Rastafarian community in Ghana embodies the country's commitment to peace.

Their message of one love isn't so different from that of ordinary Ghanians on the street who pride themselves on respecting each other -- and the democratic process.

"Rastafarians contribute a lot during and after election time. Everything we do is peace, peace, peace," Quarpong told AFP in Ghana's coastal capital of Accra.

"We should accept the winner in good faith, and let them know they should put Ghana first."

Quarpong sells clothing at the beachside Rising Phoenix hotel, where a reggae rendition of White Christmas is softly playing in the background.

A black and white portrait of the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, a Rastafarian idol, is painted on the wall beside posters advertising a "Peace in Ghana" concert featuring local reggae stars Ras Kuuku and Jah Wyz.

Just because Quarpong believes in peace over politics doesn't mean he won't vote.

In fact, peace is why he'll be casting a ballot next Wednesday.

"Yes, of course I will vote. I have to as a patriot," Quarpong said.

"It's not compulsory, but it's necessary."

'Perfect harmony'

As the heated campaign enters its final stretch, there is an increasing call for peace in Ghana, where its reputation for stability has made it an attractive destination in Africa for investors.

Ghana's presidential candidates -- including front runners Nana Akufo-Addo and incumbent John Mahama -- last week signed a declaration "against electoral violence, impunity and injustice."

After signing the accord, Mahama said "our democracy and progress is too precious to be gambled away on a quest to attain or hold onto power."

Unlike fellow West African nation Nigeria, plagued by ethnic rivalry and suspicion, Ghana at independence emphasised unity.

In his 2012 autobiography, My First Coup d'Etat, Mahama wrote that even the motto of his illustrious Accra boarding school, Ut Omnes Unum Sint (That All May Be One), reflected that principal.

"You can play a tune of sorts on the black keys only; and you can play a tune of sorts on the white keys only; but for perfect harmony, you must use both the black and the white keys," said one of the school's founders James Aggrey, who Mahama quotes in the book.

Rastafarians give credit to the "Big six", Ghana's founding fathers, for entrenching peace.

"If you know Nkrumah, you know everything, Ghana is a motherland," said Kwaku Akupleca, a 32-year-old wearing a silver ring shaped as a marijuana leaf.

Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana's liberation movement from British colonialists, becoming the country's first democratic head in 1957 and a hero of the Pan-African movement that championed black unity.

"We've seen the light," Akupleca said, speaking at Labadi beach in Accra.

"We are very humble and peaceful. We feel like protecting humanity."

'Rasta wonderland'

This inclusive attitude has allowed Rastafari to carve out a space for themselves in Ghana, home today to many different branches, including the Bobo Shanti and The Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Some 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Accra lies Kokrobite, a town described as a "Rasta wonderland" that is a magnet for Rastas in the region and across the Atlantic from the United States and Jamaica.

This year, local media reported that the Rastafari Council of Ghana held its first-ever national conference, with a focus on repatriating "brothers and sisters."

In 2013, Bob Marley's widow Rita was named an honorary citizen of Ghana.

Jamaican reggae legend Marley himself is regarded as a prophet in the Rasta community.

Not everyone sees eye-to-eye with the Rastafarians, but most can agree that a peaceful Ghana is better for all.

"When you have peace it's better than riches, you can be rich without peace of mind," Akupleca's friend Kwaku Francis said.

"It's all about peace and love, that's our motto."
I will want to begin with a shout out to all our hard working farmers for their extraordinary role in helping us keep body, soul, and spirit together all year round. Despite the numerous troubles of your daily lives and tough-talking politicians throwing you under the bus more often than they lift you up, you remain unperturbed, unshaken and optimistic about what the future holds for you and your children. You still manage to lift yourselves up every morning with renewed spirits, clean up your sweat with wipes that look no better than the leaves on your farms and get back to tilling the soil knowing that the lives of your families and our country depend on your work.

We are days away from what is probably the noisiest election of my lifetime. This is the third election that will see me take a seat in the front row as a key follower of pre-election campaigning and a qualified voter. And if youve been paying attention over the years like I have, you will realize that a lot of what you are seeing and hearing today, you have seen and heard before ahead of previous elections. Sometimes with a little tweaking of the texts, other times said in a lot more passionate tone, but most of the times cast in the exact words you heard them four or eight years ago.

Now lets talk about the Agric focused plans and policies of our major political parties for the next four years as we go into the December 7 election. A sector whichs condition breaks my heart because it is hard to come to terms with why although more than 55 percent of our population are engaged in farming, one in every five children under five years suffers from malnutrition, and we still spend $1.5 billion every year importing food (sadly, foods that we produce enough of or have the right environment and capacity to produce enough of in this country). I have been following the policy discussions ahead of the polls but Im yet to be convinced that anything will change by the time the next election cycle is due in 2020.

Is a Green Revolution coming?

I am amazed that more than 50 years after the popularly christened Green Revolution transformed agricultural production across the world at a remarkably admirable pace, those two words have found their way back into political manifestos in 21st Century Ghana, virtually cast in the same old impossible to crash fashion. The ideas around transforming agriculture have changed all over the world but ours havent. Its as if our country has stood still despite changing times, no one has grown older or smarter, no fresh food production challenges have emerged, the environment has not deteriorated, nor has our population grown.

So, more than half of the countrys workforce is currently engaged in agriculture for their livelihood as small-scale farmers. But we still have political leaders promising to make the Agric sector attractive to the youth if they win power against the counsel of Central University Chancellor Rev. Dr. Mensa Otabil. Dr Otabil said in church the other day, "I believe that a nation should not be encouraging everybody to be farmers. I don't think we need more than 5% of Ghanaians as farmers. All we need to do is to do it well so a few people can produce for all of us. The politicians promise to attract more young people into farming is clearly a rhetoric from many years ago they keep spitting out repeatedly without thinking through it.

Now, academics basically describe the Green Revolution as various technology transfer initiatives including the application of chemicals like fertilizers to agriculture, mechanization and breeding of high yielding crop varieties between the 1950s and 1970s that exponentially increased food production and saved many from hunger. The governing party in its manifesto says the NDC Government will launch a Green Revolution aimed at doubling the output of staple crops, particularly grains and tubers by 2025 The goal will be driven by facilitating the acquisition of land banks to support commercial agriculture activities; introducing high-yielding, disease-resistant seeds; Making the most efficient use of existing irrigation facilities; and using GIS to map out soil structures and their chemical composition for the various MMDAs to support districts and, where appropriate, regional specialization in staple food production.

Come to think of it. Ghanas forest reserve currently stands at about 1 million hectares compared to about 100 years ago, when it was more than 8 million hectares. This sharp degradation has mainly been the result of several human activities including farming. So which other more lands does government plan to clear to support commercial Agric activities? Havent we cleared enough forests already? Of course, we need improved seeds. But every year, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) releases tens of improved varieties of our major staples onto the market. What would change with what the NDC is promising us? They dont tell us.

Make efficient use of existing irrigation facilities? Which facilities are we talking about here? Next year will be 40 years since the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority was set up with the sole mandate to formulate, develop and implement irrigation and drainage plans for all year round agriculture production in Ghana. The proudest achievement of the authority is that less than 10 percent of farms in the country are irrigated. The rest continue to rely on rain-fed agriculture. So which irrigation facilities will be made more efficient? Now we want to map soils for regional specialization of crops beyond 2016. As if we dont know already which parts of the country are good for which crops? Green Revolution is coming indeed.

Then, there is the NPPs manifesto which doesnt do us much good either. It talks about increasing subsidies on fertilizers, seeds, and agro chemicals; implementing block farming, setting up schemes to attract youth into farming and so on. And then the famous one village, one dam policy. Has anyone on their agric team bothered to find out why the famous revived Aveyime Irrigation Project in the Tongu area of the Volta Region is collapsing despite the farming communities sitting right beside the River Volta which has more than enough water to flood all farms in West Africa all year round? Associated costs like the price of electricity to pump the water have made the project so unsustainable that farmers are forced to rather leave their crops at the mercy of the weather than rely on it. Most likely because no one thought through that idea of reviving the scheme a bit more carefully before implementing it.

The missing link

Over the last three years, in my line of duty, I have had the honour of touring all four corners of this country to speak to ordinary farmers about what the challenges they face are. I think that is an important point to make because in the words of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, if you want the real stories, you have to go to where people live. That is where you get the best sense of how people are thinking and how they are doing. And I can report that the biggest challenge farmers point out they face above all the others remains getting their produce to the market at competitive prices which they can raise a family on. Like in Mafi Adikpe in the Central Tongu District where more than half of all the cassava they produce every year rots. http://www.myjoyonline.com/business/2016/March-14th/lack-of-processing-equipment-causing-cassava-loss-in-central-tongu-district.php

Just yesterday, I met a farmer from the Savelugu District in the Northern Region who told me he has more than 250 bags of rice that he produced two years ago with a GH17,000 cedis loan from the Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF), stuck in his warehouse with no market for them. And a lot of those who have these heart-wrenching stories to tell are not far away rural people. They are our neighbours and family friends. Including the husband of the woman you buy tomato from in the market; the father of your favourite kenkey seller who despite her high level of intelligence has to hawk on the street to survive because daddys earnings as a fisherman could not support her secondary education; and probably, that foot soldier who will not mind killing himself to ensure NDC or NPP wins power. In fact, this country loses more than $400 million annually through post-harvest losses, mostly at the farm gates, so you can imagine how many such farmers are suffering because of the absence of a market for their produce.

Fixing this problem requires more than just constructing additional roads and building processing factories and establishing storage facilities. These constitute scratches on the surface of the problem, not fixing it. What is needed is a well thought through, government initiated, private sector led policy that would encourage the springing up of well-established produce marketing companies that will buy foodstuff from farmers at fair prices and either sell them to urban residents, processing companies or export them. Thats all you need to do.

Make no mistake, agriculture is lucrative. This is evident by how food prices continue to soar in this country with passing time. But farmers who produce the food remain poor because the middlemen and processors and everyone else know how to milk the system for better returns, except the farmer. Once the farmer starts getting good money for his labour, you dont have to give him fertilizer subsidy, he will buy it himself. You dont have to import tractors for him, he will have enough money to rent or buy one. You dont have to set up a Youth in Agric Program and channel resources opaquely through there unaccountably. The youth will go into farming on their own because they know you will earn your crust when its all done. This idea is not new. It is the same philosophy that has driven the popularity of both small and big businesses across this country for decades. From the communications center operators to the space-space vendors to the springing up of banks in every nook and cranny of this country.

Its the same idea behind the Ghana Commodity Exchange project which President John Mahama himself launched earlier this year and both parties manifestos mention briefly, but unfortunately, looks like they have abandoned the idea in their campaigning for more flowery promises of goodies which they think will rather draw the votes. Political expediency, you may call it. Unless that difficulty with the lack of market and fair prices for farmers produce is fixed, no other intervention will matter. We may well forget that a so-called green revolution is coming from 2017. It will be a hoax for a long time to come. May God bless our farmers. And bless our homeland Ghana.

By Joseph Opoku Gakpo
The second phase of the special voting exercise is expected to start at 7:00am today, [Sunday], December 7, in all designated Polling Stations across the country.

The first day of the special voting exercise on Thursday, December 1, recorded a turnout rate of 72.69 percent representing 92,231 of 126,875 registered persons, according to provisional figures from the Electoral Commission (EC).

Hundreds of early voters, mostly security personnel, in the various regions, queued at polling stations across the country on Thursday, but could not cast their ballots during the exercise.

Some persons were notified they were supposed to vote outside their original constituencies and were thus turned away by the Returning Officers.

Following this, the EC, at an emergency Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting on that evening, decided to extend the special voting exercise to today, December 4, to allow persons who couldn't vote to do so.

The Commission has also reminded that persons whose names are on the special voters list will not be allowed to vote on Wednesday, December 7, and must take the opportunity to do so now.

This extension will be for persons whose names were included in the earlier special voters list or the updated one provided to political parties.

Persons who transferred their votes and whose names appeared on the special voters list, but could not vote on December 1, 2016, were also factored into the extension.

Persons who did not transfer their votes, but whose names appeared on the special voters list in the constituency where they are registered to vote, comprise the final category of persons expected to benefit from the extension of the special voting.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
The second phase of the special voting exercise is currently underway in all designated polling stations across the country.

The first day of the special voting exercise on Thursday, December 1, recorded a turnout rate of 72.69 percent representing 92,231 of 126,875 registered persons, according to provisional figures from the Electoral Commission (EC).

Volta Region

Citi News' Volta Regional correspondent, Norbert Akpabli said about 4,813 voters are expected to cast their ballot today in the Volta Region.

He said in the Ho constituency specifically, 771 voters are expected to exercise their franchise.

Norbert said the exercise started in Ho Central at 7 am this morning and so far 10 people have cast their ballot.

The returning officer, Moses Gemeh told Citi News the process has so far been smooth and calm with all the necessary logistics available.

He however said two cases of missing names have been recorded.

These people, according to him, came to the polling station but could not find their names in the list.

Ashanti Region

Citi News' Ashanti Regional correspondent who was reporting from the Nhyaieso constituency, Hawa Iddrisu said the EC is expecting about 353 voters to cast their ballot but was quick to add that only 25 had been able to register.

According to her, about three officials could not vote because their names are not on the register though they returned to their original constituencies to cast their ballot.

They were sure that their names were suppose to be on the register but it surprises them that this is second time they are coming meaning they cannot vote.

Central Region

In the Central Region, a police officer who travelled from Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region to his original constituency, Saltpond could not find his name in the register.

I was here the last time and they said my name was not in the register so I went back and they asked me to come and vote today. I was here and I still cannot find my name in the register.I spoke to the EC officer and he told me that it is a general problem but I dont understand.

Northern Region

Citi News Northern Regional correspondent, Karim Nagtogmah who was reporting from the Tamale Central constituency said majority of police officers who visited the polling station to vote were turned away because they were not at the original constituencies where they registered.

It appears majority of the security personnel who have come here have been turned away. With assurance that those who could not exercise their franchise last Thursday will be given the opportunity to vote today, they have come only to realise that they have to get back to the original areas or centres or constituencies where they registered in 2012.

Speaking to Citi News, the NDC Tamale Central Constituency Secretary,Mohammed Hafis said some of them failed to obey the ECs instruction hence the reason why they are being turned away.



By; Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Reports from across the country indicate that personnel from the security agencies are still being turned away from special voting polling centres but the Electoral Commission (EC) but the Commission has called for calm saying persons who cannot find their names in their respective constituencies registers will be able to vote to on December 7.

The Director of Communications at the EC, Eric Dzakpasu explained to Citi News that, if your name is on the special voters list, go to you constituency and vote there. But where you name is not on the special voters lists, you will have to vote on the 7th of December.

Director of Communications at the EC, Eric Dzakpasu

According to him, the police hierarchy have been informed, they know and they are making arrangements to deploy such people to their various constituencies to work on election day so they can also vote.

There have been a myraid of issues that have plagued the second phase of the special voting.

Citi News correspondent in the Effia Constituency in Western Region reported for instance that the updated register there had names of people who were not even registered in that constituency but were able there and able to vote despite their polling station codes not matching. But those originally there still couldn't find their names on the list.

Describing some of these reports, as confusing, Mr. Dzakpasu said, we have to go back to basics and find out exactly what is happening because what has been present is very complex and cannot be addressed in a single statement.

Speaking to the possible reasons for the challenges, he added that, either their names were not presented or the names were presented but their details in terms of the polling centre code were not accurate.

Regional Updates

Volta Region

Citi News' Volta Regional correspondent, Norbert Akpabli said about 4,813 voters are expected to cast their ballot today in the Volta Region.

He said in the Ho constituency specifically, 771 voters are expected to exercise their franchise.

Norbert said the exercise started in Ho Central at 7 am this morning and so far 10 people have cast their ballot.

The presiding officer, Moses Gemeh told Citi News the process has so far been smooth and calm with all the necessary logistics available.

He however said two cases of missing names have been recorded.

These people, according to him, came to the polling station but could not find their names in the list.

Ashanti Region

Citi News' Ashanti Regional correspondent who was reporting from the Nhyaieso constituency, Hawa Iddrisu said the EC is expecting about 353 voters to cast their ballot but was quick to add that only 25 had been able to register.

According to her, about three officials could not vote because their names are not on the register though they returned to their original constituencies to cast their ballot.

They were sure that their names were suppose to be on the register but it surprises them that this is second time they are coming meaning they cannot vote.

Central Region

In the Central Region, a police officer who travelled from Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region to his original constituency, Saltpond could not find his name in the register.

I was here the last time and they said my name was not in the register so I went back and they asked me to come and vote today. I was here and I still cannot find my name in the register.I spoke to the EC officer and he told me that it is a general problem but I dont understand.

Northern Region

Citi News Northern Regional correspondent, Karim Nagtogmah who was reporting from the Tamale Central constituency said majority of police officers who visited the polling station to vote were turned away because they were not at the original constituencies where they registered.

It appears majority of the security personnel who have come here have been turned away. With assurance that those who could not exercise their franchise last Thursday will be given the opportunity to vote today, they have come only to realise that they have to get back to the original areas or centres or constituencies where they registered in 2012.

Speaking to Citi News, the NDC Tamale Central Constituency Secretary,Mohammed Hafis said some of them failed to obey the ECs instruction hence the reason why they are being turned away.



By; Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
04.12.2016 LISTEN

The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has announced that 92,231 out of the 126,875 Special Voters were able to cast their ballots last Thursday December 1, 2016 at the various polling stations across the country.

The processes were characterized missing names of security personnel, EC officials, party agents and the media but the EC indicates that the figure that turned up represents 72.69 percentage of total turn out.

A statement issued by Mr Eric Kofi Fleming Dzakpasu, the EC Head of Communications, gave the regional breakdown of special voters as follow; Ashanti; 15,474 out of 19,710, representing 78.51, Greater Accra; 16,474 out of 25,273, represents 65.18 per cent; Volta; 9,672 out of 14,485, representing 66.77 per cent, Central; 7,451 71.93 out 10,358, representing 72.93 per cent, and Western; 4,747 out of 7,016, representing 67.66 per cent.

The rest are Eastern; 9,286 out of 12,995, which is 71.46 per cent, Brong Ahafo; 10,721 out of 13,716, representing 78.16 per cent, Northern; 10,245 out of 13,134, representing 78 per cent, Upper East; 6,327 out of 7,254, representing 87.20 per cent and Upper West; 1,828 out of 2,934, representing 62.30 per cent.

We wish to emphasize that the above figures are provisional at this stage



#Election2016 SPECIAL VOTING TURNOUT FIGURES pic.twitter.com/kJ3y0Gb3Kd  Electoral Commission (@ECGhanaOfficial) December 3, 2016
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) will on Sunday hold its national campaign rally to climax months of vigorous campaign ahead of Wednesday's polls.

The programme themed The Battle is the Lords will take place at the forecourt of the Ghana International Trade Fair Center in Accra at 11 a.m.

Dignitaries expected to address the function include, former President John Agyekum Kufuor; NPP flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; Vice Presidential Candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and the partys Acting National Chairman, Freddie Blay.

The rally will be attended by all parliamentary candidates of the party, district, regional and national executives of NPP as well as sympathizers.

The party is expected to use the opportunity to tell Ghanaians why it is the most viable and reliable party to be considered in next week Wednesdays polls.

Nana Akufo-Addo has stated three things that differentiate flagbearer of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), President John Mahama from him.

More soon...

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The Police Administration is putting in place measures to ensure their personnel who have been unable to vote in the first and second phase of the special voting exercise are able to vote on December 7, the day of the general elections.

This is according to the Electoral Commission (EC) which was been calling for calm as more security personnel are being turned away from polling centres across the country.

The Head of Communications at the Commission, Eric Dzakpasu confirmed to Citi News that, the police hierarchy have been informed, they know and they are making arrangements to deploy such people to their various constituencies to work on election day so they can also vote.

Clarifying the directives of the Commission for the special voting, Mr. Dzakpasu explained that, if your name is on the special's voters list, go to your constituency and vote there. But where your name is not on the special voters lists, you will have to vote on the 7th of December.

Speaking to the possible reasons for the challenges, he noted that, either their names were not presented or the names were presented but their details in terms of the polling centre code were not accurate.

Sunyani: Soldiers turned away right before deployment

It is as yet unclear if the same arrangement is being made for military personnel as Citi News Duke Mensah Opoku reported from the Sunyani that some soldiers at the Liberation barracks were turned away right before their deployment across the country.

Some soldiers came from as far as the army barracks in Takoradi, Western Region. The commanding officers were unable to confirm if the deployment schedules would be reviewed to allow the soldiers to vote in December 7.

The deployment kits ready for the soldiers

According to him, some of the disgruntled soldiers threatened to take away the ballot boxes if they were disenfranchised.

But this did not go down well with some of the commanding officers who duly sanctioned the frustrated soldiers.

But this did not go down well with some of the commanding officers who duly sanctioned the frustrated soldiers by taking them to the guard room.

This extension was intended for persons whose names were included in the earlier special voters list or the updated one provided to political parties.

Persons who transferred their votes and whose names appeared on the special voters list, but could not vote on December 1, 2016, are also factored into the second phase.

Persons who did not transfer their votes, but whose names appeared on the special voters list in the constituency where they are registered to vote, comprise the final category of persons who were expected to benefit from the extension of the special voting.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
04.12.2016 LISTEN

Kwesi Pratt Jnr., the Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, who lives off the supposed generosity, but in fact the thievery of, President Mahama and the NDC, has like all other NDC people with insight into the evil machinations by Charlotte Osei to rig the election, come out to issue some completely stupid statements.

From a publication on Ghanaweb under its General News of Saturday 3 December 2016, he says and I quote, the tsumani of victory for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) will cause a lot people especially in the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to suffer severe heart problems.

Make sure our medical facilities are up and doing; all nurses are at post. In fact, will should tell the Cuban government to give us more doctors because a number of people who are going to suffer heart attacks out of disappointment will be massive

The underlying web link takes one to the full story.

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Brace-yourselves-for-heart-attacks-after-results-declaration-Pratt-tells-NPP-49204

I have got a leading member of the Mahama Must Go movement who is currently touring the Central region and he has a different story to tell. The support for Nana Akufo Addo and NPP is massive in the regions he has been to. Therefore, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. like his lazy colleague, the self-styled pollster Ben Ephson who is indeed a human parasite, of course a stomach politician, are talking crap.

They are aware of the plots by President Mahama and the NDC colluding with Charlotte Osei and her outfit to rig the election for them but mind them, we shall resist them.

The special voting that took place on Thursday 1 December 2016 bears evidence to how far that nasty Chairlady of the Electoral Commission, Mrs. Charlotte Osei, has gone with her plans to rig the election for the NDC.

God will surely negate their plans. All the machines they have set up at an undisclosed address/location in Accra to rig the election, the weapons they have been carting to the NPP strongholds to cause mayhem, the bribes they have been giving to people and the voter-cards buying spree the NDC have embarked on with the specially war-dressed soldiers or the criminals in army uniforms that they are sending to the polling stations in the NPP strongholds to threaten people, all go to inform Kwesi Pratt Jnrs decision.

The suffering Ghanaian masses will not accept any stupid declaration of election results by Charlotte Osei. I hope she will not dare repeat her silly plot as done on the special voting day where she replaced the special voters list to intentionally disenfranchise many a special voter.

NPP will have more votes from the Volta region this time around than ever before. The Voltarians are equally suffering the economic and financial hardships brought to bear upon Ghanaians by the thievery masterminded, orchestrated and perpetuated by President Mahama.

Shall the lightning of the sky strike dead whoever tries to rig the election for President Mahama and the NDC, be it Mrs. Charlotte Osei, a soldier, a macho man etc.? Shall the fatal wrath of God descend upon Mrs. Charlotte Osei, anyone from the Electoral Commission, any polling station agent or Electoral presiding/returning officer, security agent etc. that tries to rig the election in favour of President Mahama and the NDC by nature of their actions, activities, commissions or omissions? Amen!

The wind of change is blowing to clear out President Mahama same as the Gambian President Yahya Jemaah has been booted out of the presidency by the Gambian people.

Lest I forget, that criminal calling himself Dr. Hassan Ayariga, who was rejected in his presidential bid, goes about saying that Nana Akufo Addo is an expired commodity. Be that as it may, he was not disqualified in his presidential bid unlike that young Hassan Ayariga, a commodity that could never sell for the rot it was.
By PTI: Srinagar, Dec 4 (PTI) With educational activities in Kashmir picking up after remaining suspended for over four months due to the unrest, private schools in the Valley are following separatist-issued protest calendar by remaining open only during the relaxation period over the weekend.

Students are happy to resume their class-work, which was affected by the continuous shutdown following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces on July 8.

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The schools went on a two-week summer holiday on July 1 but could not resume functioning due to the unrest.

The separatists, spearheading the agitation since Wanis killing, have been issuing weekly protest programmes against the civilian killings in the unrest and in support of their demand for right to self-determination.

They have also announced periodic 15-hour relaxation in the strike on few days of the week, with two full days of relaxation on Saturdays and Sundays.

Since the November 16 announcement of weekend relaxation by the separatists, private schools in the Valley decided to resume class-work on these two days, as education in Kashmir was hit hard by the unrest, with schools and colleges, including government-run institutions, remaining closed for over four months with no or minimal activity.

"It feels good to be back at school. I was getting tired sitting idle at home without any class-work or studies. It has affected us but we should remain focused now," Zia-ul-Islam, a student at a private school here, said.

Kashmir remains abuzz with activity on the weekends as shops, business establishments and fuel stations open in the early hours while public transport plies on all roads from the morning on these two days. Most of the private educational institutions have also been functioning over the weekend since the announcement of relaxation in the strike, though government-run schools have not followed the separatists announcements.

Private Schools Association of Kashmir (PSAK) has asked the schools to ensure 100 per cent attendance of students and teachers during the relaxation period.

"Students are going through a hard phase. We have decided to help them in every possible way. Our entire staff will work overtime during the relaxation period to help the students," PSAK chairman G N Var said.

He said the association would ensure that schools remain open on Saturdays as well as Sundays.

There is no hesitation among the parents as well to send their children to schools on the weekend.

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"As the schools remain open only on weekends, I do not see any reason not to send my children to their schools. Saturday and Sunday are full relaxation days. Public transport remains available, private cars can ply without any fear of stone-pelting, so students can reach their school without any hassles," Javaid Ahmad, a resident of old city, said. (MORE) PTI SSB SAI

--- ENDS ---
The 2016 flag bearer of the Progressive Peoples Party, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom on Friday inspected the site for the commencement of work for a water project meant for 12 communities in the Ofoase-Ayirebi constituency.

The water project which will be situated in Etwereso is being financed by Dr Nduom who was approached for help by the PPP parliamentary candidate, John Obiri Yeboah due the lack of potable water for communities in that area.

Speaking at the Etwereso chiefs palace, Dr Nduom noted that the water project is happening due the lobbying ability of John Obiri Yeboahcontesting for Member of Parliament on the ticket of the Progressive Peoples Party.

I am not from Etwereso or any of the towns around here, but I know almost all the challenges facing the constituency because you own son John Obiri Yeboah has been able to articulate the problems to me. He is bold and fearless in the pursuit of good things for this area. Remember I am doing the projects from my own pocket, as a fellow opposition leader, so imagine the entire Ghana purse in my hands, what cant I do?.

I keep telling you that you have a jewel in Obiri Yeboah, he is able to talk to authority in a very respectful way but very assertive way when he knows the right thing ought to be done, so please support him to go to parliament so that he can also help you out of your misery.

On his part, the chief of Etwereso Nana Ofosu Kwabi thanked Dr Nduom for such a benevolent gesture and stated his unflinching support for his election come December 7. I sit before you all here, and declare that my people and I will vote for Dr Nduom and John Obiri Yeboah. This is because the many things we put before them they have accomplished them. Latest is the provision of water for 12 communities for which Etwereso is is ample evidence of their abilities.

I will liken this to the proverbial miracle in the bible where the people were served good wine after being fed with not so good wine. We have suffered in the past even though we voted for some people, so we are supporting you to go so you can come back and help us.

The water project will serve 12 communities within the Etwereso area that will be linked together by underground pipes and a water treatment facility that will distil the water for safe consumption.

Dr Nduom used the opportunity to visit some communities within the Ofoase-Ayirebi constituency where he sold his message of jobs, jobs and jobs to the people who came to listen to him. The communities visited includes Abenase, Ofoase and Ayirebi where he received a rousing welcome from the constituents.
Nsawam Medium Security inmates say they are disappointed the various political parties have not offered any policy to improve their conditions.

They say this form of neglect from people seeking to lead the country is unhealthy for the nation since they are expected to present a comprehensive policy to lead all Ghanaians.

Prisoners across the country will be taking part in next week Wednesday's election to elect the next President of the country as well as a Member of Parliament (MP).

The Electoral Commission (EC) registered at least 2,276 inmates across the country ahead of the polls. At least 15,000 prisoners are expected to cast their ballot.

In 2010, the Supreme Court upheld the rights of inmates to cast their ballot in the general elections in pursuant to Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution.

Following the ruling, then President John Mills in November 2011 announced during the inauguration of the Ankaful Maximum Security Prison in the Central Region that the EC will be well-resourced to register prisoners to vote in the 2012 elections.

However, the resources were not provided, resulting in the Commission's inability to register the inmates for the 2012 election.

In compliance with the Supreme Court ruling, Constitutional Instrument (C.I 91), 2016, which regulates the registration of voters for December general elections, made provisions for the inmates.

But the inmates say the political parties have forgotten about them and they are unhappy about this.

More soon...

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim
With the general elections on December 7 days away, former Attorney General, Martin Amidu, has made one last plea to the electorate to protect the public purse and ensure that embattled businessman, Alfred Woyome, pays back the GHc 51 million.

According to him, voting the John Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) out of office will remove the shield preventing Mr. Woyome from refunding the money.

In a video message, Mr. Amidu held that the technical process of the law had been used to ensure that he was not able to orally examine Mr. Woyome before the election day.

He had been granted permission by the Supreme Court to orally examine Mr. Woyome. But Mr. Woyome's lawyers filed an application at the Supreme Court seeking to suspend the court's decision to allow the oral examination.

Mr. Amidu has, however, reminded the people of Ghana that the constitution provided them with one important chance to ensure that this President [Mahama] does not have the opportunity ever again to protect his lootee, Woyome, from refunding their unconstitutional loot.

He warned that if President Mahama was retained in office, we cannot get our GHc 51.2 million GHc Back because he will continue to protect Woyome.

As citizen vigilante, I have done everything I could to compel Woyome to pay back the money he owes the people of Ghana, he said.

Now I ask that you use Ghana's democratic process to stand up for what is right and to protect the public purse from being plundered with impunity by the incumbent government whose conduct has been found to be unconstitutional, alongside the likes of people like Alfred Agbesi Woyome, Mr. Amidu implored.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
By Ken Sackey/Benjamin Mensah, GNA

Accra, Dec. 4, GNA - Some members of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) have reminded Ghana to be guided by her previous peaceful elections and, as such, cannot disappoint Africa in the December 7 polls.

'Ghana bears the torchlight of democracy and the entirety of Africa is looking to the country again to show to the continent that it holds in high esteem the credentials of peace, understanding and tolerance in elections,' the legislators said.

Speaking to journalists at the end of a four-day training workshop in Accra, the legislators urged political leaders to accept the verdict of Ghanaians in the forthcoming elections.

Mr McHenry Venaani, an opposition leader from Namibia, said Ghana had a history of peaceful transition of power from a ruling government to an opposition party in 2000 and 2008, which was a plus to the country's democratic credentials.

'We, therefore, expect that Ghana would go through this year's election in a free, fair and peaceful manner,' Mr Venaani said, and urged politicians to accept and respect the will of the people.

He called on political leaders to eschew abusive language that could create tension and violence during and after the election.

Dr Phenyo Butale from Botswana commended Ghanaians for demonstrating in previous elections that they are able to organise free, fair and peaceful elections.

'This year's election is another opportunity for Ghanaians to once again showcase their rich democratic laurels,' Dr Buitale said adding that the PAP and Africa as a whole expected Ghana to go through the elections without scratches.

The result-based management training was organised by the PAP and facilitated by the African Centre for Parliamentary Affairs.

Mrs Vivian Abii, the Head of Human Resources and Administration of the PAP, said the training had equipped the members with the requisite skills to conduct their work more efficiently in their respective parliaments.

Besides, she said, it would improve the performance and ensure more efficiency and accountability from the PAP.

Members were taught how to organise their programmes in a specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (SMART) manner.

The Pan-African Parliament, also known as the African Parliament, is the legislative body of the African Union which held its inaugural session in March 2004.

The PAP exercises oversight, advisory and consultative powers and its seat is in Midrand, South Africa.

GNA
04.12.2016 LISTEN

By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Dec. 4, GNA - The Phase Two of the Special Voting of Election 2016 is proceeding across the country for staff of the Electoral Commission (EC), media professionals and members of the security forces who were unable to vote in the phase one on December 1.

Some 34,644 special voters, who will perform electoral duties on December 7, were unable to cast their votes due to operational hiccup.

The EC, at an emergency Inter-Party Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting on Thursday, December 1, therefore agreed with the political parties that the Special Voting exercise be extended to Sunday, December 4, in all the 275 constituencies.

The EC said out of a total 126,875 special voters, about 92,231 representing 72.69 per cent successfully voted on December 1.

The Commission said new ballot boxes would be used for Sunday's voting.

Sunday's extended Special Voting closes at 1700 hours and the ballot boxes would be secured by the political parties with their seals and kept in police armouries in each constituency.

The Special Voting ballot papers will be counted and declared alongside the main election after the close of polls on December 7.

In this year's general election Ghanaians will be electing 275 members of Parliament to serve for a four-year term.

Seven candidates are contesting the Presidential election and they are Mr Ivor Kobina Greenstreet of the Convention People's Party (CPP), former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings of the National Democratic Party (NDP); President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC); and Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, Progressive People's Party (PPP).

The rest are Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, New Patriotic Party (NPP); Dr Edward N. Mahama, People's National Convention (PNC) and Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah, an Independent Candidate.

GNA
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Dec. 4, GNA - Ghana's democratic peace and unity is vital, hence all and sundry must do the right thing to secure this, Reverend Professor Emmanuel Asante, the Chairman of the National Peace Council (NPC), has said.

He urged Ghanaians to support and work together with the seven presidential candidates, the Electoral Commission, civil society organisations and the security forces to ensure a peaceful and credible election.

Rev. Prof Asante made the appeal in Accra during the signing of the 'Accra Declaration' by the seven presidential candidates contesting the December 7 polls.

The historic event was facilitated by the Institute of Democratic Governance, under the auspices of the NPC and the National House of Chiefs.

The signing of the 'Accra Declaration' was presided over by Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood and witnessed by Rev. Prof Asante and the President of the National House of Chiefs, Torgbe Afede XIV.

Rev. Prof Asante said the 'Accra Declaration' was anchored on the Kumasi Peace Pact which was a declaration against violence, impunity and injustice during the 2012 General Election.

He said the Kumasi Peace Pact served as the bedrock to the peaceful management and resolution of the changes that occurred over the results of the 2012 Presidential Election.

'It was a public manifestation of the commitment of our political leaders to the freedom and justice, peace and unity and prosperity of this beautiful nation of ours,' he said.

He urged stakeholders including the presidential candidates, the EC, civil society organisations, the diplomatic community, the security agencies, and Ghanaians in general to ensure that this election becomes the most peaceful and credible ever witnessed in Ghana.

'Ghana's democratic peace and unity is vital and let's all do the right thing to secure this,' he said.

Torgbe Afede XIV said leadership was not an end in itself but must be used to address the development needs of the people to make it relevant.

He urged all Ghanaians to safeguard the peace and stability of the nation.

Dr Ibn Chambas Mr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, the United Nations Special Representative for West Africa and the Sahel, urged all stakeholders to renew their trust in governance institutions such as the EC, the judiciary and the security forces.

He said Ghana's enviable position as a beacon of democracy, peace and stability in Africa must be maintained and improved upon.

By signing the 'Accra Declaration' candidates committed themselves towards maintaining the peace before, during and after the December polls as contained in the agreement of Re-affirmation against Electoral Violence, Impunity and Injustice.

All the presidential candidates signed the Accra Declaration with the exception of Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom of the Progressive People's Party, who was represented by his running mate, Mrs Brigit Dzogbenuku.

They are Ivor Kobina Greenstreet of the Convention People's Party, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, National Democratic Party, President John Dramani Mahama, National Democratic Congress and Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo, New Patriotic Party.

The rest are Dr Edward Nasigre Mahama of the People's National Convention and Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah, an Independent Candidate.

Among the high profile dignitaries that graced the occasion were ECOWAS Chairman President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson of Liberia, former President Rawlings, former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, while former President John Agyekum Kufuor was represent by his Special Aide, Mr Frank Agyekum.

Others were the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for West Africa and Sahel, Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambers, Dr Josephine Ojiambo, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and Mrs Charlotte Osei, Chairperson of the Electoral Commission.

GNA
By Francis Ameyibor, GNA

Accra, Dec. 4, GNA - Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL) remains the biggest Oil Marketing Company (OMC) in the country in terms of both market share and number of stations.

'This is despite stiff competition from the over 80 other OMCs. GOIL currently has a market share of 17.5 per cent which is slightly higher than that recorded last year.

'This is particularly significant taking into consideration the fact that the company commanded a market share of 13.44 per cent at the end of December 2014,' Mr Patrick Akpe Kwame Akorli, the GOIL Group Chief Executive Officer, said in Accra.

Mr Akorli, addressing stakeholders at the company's end-of-year award and dinner, said: 'GOIL is particularly proud to have played a critical role in stabilising the market since the implementation of price de-regulation in 2015'.

He explained that GOIL continues to make strides despite a challenging environment especially as indicated in the fall in consumption in the oil marketing industry by about 5 per cent.

Mr Akorli said the nation's foremost indigenous OMC this year had attained fuel sales growth by 6.2 per cent; Lubricants and LP Gas sales increase by approximately 14.1 per cent and 83.2 per cent respectively compared to the same period last year.

'Over all GOIL is likely to meet 92.8 per cent of the target in 2016,' Mr Akorli, who received the CIMG Marketing Man of the Year, stated.

On the achievements of GOIL, Mr Akorli said GOIL had been rewarded by the Ghana Investment Promotions Centre's Ghana Club 100 as the Second Best Company; the Best Listed Company on the Ghana Stock Exchange and the Largest Company for the year 2015.

'We also won the Ashanti Business Excellence Awards 2015 again as a result of our successes, the well-recognised Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) affirmed GOIL as the 2015 Petroleum Company of the Year while I was named as the Marketing Man of the Year.

'Our Bulk Oil Distribution Company GO Energy, also won the Bulk Distribution Company (BDC) Company of the year at the recently organised Oil and Gas Awards.

'We dedicate these awards to the visionary Chairman and Board of Directors, colleague management members and the entire hardworking staff some of whom we are recognising tonight.

'These awards will spur us on to achieve even more successes in the coming year,' he said.

Mr Akorli also acknowledged some of the operational challenges confronting the industry key among them being the increasing cost of doing business especially the hikes in rents, licenses, permits and fees by industry regulators and landlords.

'This is against the backdrop of stagnant margins due to intense competition,' he said.

Mr Akorli acknowledged the support from the Ministry of Petroleum especially the Minister, Mr Armah Kofi Buah and the Chief Director, Prof. Thomas Akabzaa as well as the rapport between GOIL and other regulatory institutions such as the National Petroleum Authority, Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana National Fire Service and Urban Roads among others.

He thanked GOIL's cherished customers and patriots who continued to support itwith their purchasing power adding; 'we are indeed grateful'.

The GOIL end-of-year award and dinner was graced by Mr Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance, Professor William Asomaning, GOIL Board Chairman; and Barimah Azumah Nelson, GOIL Brand Ambassador.

Distinguished staffs who had worked between 10 and 35 years were given awards whilst GOIL Filling Stations with exemplary services over the period were also acknowledged. GNA
By Lydia Asamoah, GNA

Accra, Dec. 4, GNA - The First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, has urged beautician associations to unite for a collective bargaining power that would allow them to push for their holistic well-being.

'The current situation does not give you collective bargaining power to properly lobby government and other satellite organisations for the benefit of your members,' she said.

Mrs Mahama was speaking at the eighth graduation ceremony of the Greater Accra Regional branch of the National Association of Beauticians and Hairdressers (NABH).

The ceremony, on the theme: 'Growing Business for the Next Generation,' saw about 100 graduands receiving certificates.

While congratulating the graduands for their resilience in going through the three-year training successfully, Mrs Mahama said their success depended on their ability to locate and take up the opportunities the industry offered.

She said the graduands could be able to identify opportunities by being disciplined, determined and focused.

Mrs Mahama advised the graduands to be professional since the beauty industry was a very competitive one, adding that their acts of politeness towards their clients would not go unnoticed.

She said the Government had declared small and medium scale enterprises, to which the beauticians belonged, as a top priority in its job creation and economic transformation strategy and had put up measures to develop the sector to drive economic growth.

She said the beauty industry had the potential to accelerate growth and generate revenue to match many traditional sectors of the economy.

In the United States the beauty industry contributes over $52 billion annually to the economy, she said, adding that with the programmes government had put in place Ghana would soon reap the significant revenue from the industry.

Mrs Mahama said: 'The government believes that creating the enabling environment for the youth to set-up their own businesses by equipping them with the required skills and information is the only way they can pull themselves out of poverty. This, the government is fully aware, would improve the quality of their lives, that of their families and the country at large'.

She said the government would, in the coming years, increase the allocated funds to the Youth Enterprise Support (YES) programme, currently giving support to scores of young entrepreneurs who had also employed many of their colleagues.

The First Lady said the Lordina Foundation would continue to contribute to the under privileged in the society including offering programme of support for artisans.

Mrs Joyce Lamptey, National President of the NABH, said over 800 apprentices had been trained this year to enable them to become responsible citizens of the nation.

Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, pledged government's commitment to retooling and equipping the national vocational training organisations so they could offer the best training for the youth.

Nana Oye Lithur, the Minsiter of Gender, Children and Social Protection, advised the graduands to espouse the values of truth, honesty, dedication and hard work in their professional trade as government made resources available to cushion them.

The First Lady later donated hair dryers, hand dryers, sterilizers, wig stands and trolleys to the Association to be presented to the graduands as start-up tools.

GNA
04.12.2016 LISTEN

By Laudia Sawer

Kpone, Dec 4, GNA - The Ghana Aids Commission (GAC) has advised persons living with HIV/AIDS to stick to their medications instead of seeking cure from unverifiable sources.

Dr Angela El-Adas, Director General of the Ghana Aids Commission, gave the advice in a statement read on her behalf by Miss Rita Afriyie, Technical Coordinator for Greater Accra, Technical Support Unit, during the Greater Accra Region's commemoration of the World Aids Day at Kpone.

The theme for the celebration was: '90-90-90 providing comprehensive integrated services for all towards an HIV-free generation'.

Dr El-Adas stated that affected persons should not allow themselves to be swayed by stories and claims of a cure for HIV.

She stressed that the responsibility and mandate of persons living with HIV was to stay on the drugs prescribed by their care givers.

She reminded them that there were many series of tests that substances must be subjected to before a claim of cure can be made.

'The Ghana Aids Commission, along with the MOH and the FDA will be most proud to support the announcement of such findings. Until then, every researcher must be astute and stay within the ethics of research rather than sensationalism', she added.

Touching on Ghana's theme for the celebration, she explained that the 90-90-90 meant that by 2020, at least 90 per cent of all infected with HIV would have tested to know their status.

Also 90 per cent of those tested HIV positive and know their status would be put on anti-retroviral treatment and 90 per cent of persons on treatment would achieve viral suppression by the year 2020.

She noted that this year marked the first year when Ghana and the global community signed onto the 90-90-90 targets to be achieved towards ending AIDS in 2030.

Dr El-Adas announced that Ghana was entering 2017 with a new Act for the GAC which has make provision for sanctions against people who stigmatize and discriminate against persons who live with HIV.

Mrs Patience Ami Mamattah, Kpone-Katamanso District Director of Health, giving the situational report of the disease for the area, said the District provides HIV\AIDS testing services at 16 health facilities in the area.

Mrs Mamattah indicated that this year, 2,556 pregnant women were tested out of which 27 tested positive while a total of 1,437 other residents were also tested out of which 148 turned out to be positive.

She however mentioned that the district does not have the needed infrastructure and equipment required to provide needed care for HIV patients.

She said due to the lack of diagnostic facilities such as chemistry analyzer and CD4 count machine in the District, most positive clients were unable to start treatment

Mr Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, Greater Accra Regional Minister, in a speech read on his behalf, noted that through targeted prevention strategies, over the past five years, the region's HIV prevalence has been sustained below two per cent.

Mr Afotey Agbo added that the annual AIDS related deaths have also been reduced by 43 per cent while 50 per cent reduction of HIV transmission from mother-to-child had been achieved with 81 per cent of women now receiving prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services.

He announced that Ghana on October 1, this year begun the implementation of the 'Treat All' policy in four high disease burden regions comprising of the Greater Accra Region, Eastern, Western and Ashanti Regions.

'Under the treat all regime, everyone who tests positive to HIV will be put on treatment', he stated adding that it was a step-up from the previous policy where one's CD4 count had to be 500 or lower before having access to treatment.

GNA
By Agnes Ansah, GNA

Accra Dec. 4, GNA - The Coalition of Muslim Organizations in Ghana (COMOG) has urged all stakeholders in the December 7 elections to promote credible and peaceful polls through their actions.

The stakeholders involved include the Electoral Commission (EC), security agencies, political parties, the media, parents and the youth.

The actions of these will 'help promote peace and boost citizens' confidence in the electoral process', Hajj Abdel-Manan Abdel-Rahman, the chairman of COMOG said.

'It will also ensure credible outcomes, as well as strengthen the country's democratic system', he said.

Mr Abdel-Rhaman said although Ghana had established a distinguished electoral record since the return to multiparty democracy, each election had seen flares and accusations of electoral malpractices, hence the need for the advocacy.

'Our democracy which includes peace and security, inclusive development and respect for human rights and rule of law also pivots on the elections,' he observed.

He said as the country moved towards another general election, the EC should guard against any activity that will raise eyebrows.

'The security agencies should also ensure that any culprit found to tamper with the election process that will affect the credibility of the poll should be treated as a criminal and must not consider the political affiliation of such persons,' he added.

The COMOG Chairman also called on the media to be fair in their reportage and avoid sensationalism.

He cautioned parents and Muslim youth not to allow themselves to be used for electoral malpractices.

'It is our right as Ghanaians to vote for any political party of our choice but it should be devoid of any action that will offend the emotions of others', he stated.

GNA
Urjit Patel, who took over as the RBI Governor in September, is presently in possession of the deputy governor's flat in Mumbai.

By PTI: RBI Governor Urjit Patel gets a little over Rs 2 lakh as salary and has not been provided with any supporting staff at his residence, the central bank has said.

Patel, who took over as the RBI Governor in September, is presently in possession of the bank's flat (deputy governor's flat) in Mumbai, it said.

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"No supporting staff has been provided to the present governor, Urjit Patel, at his residence. Two cars and two drivers have been provided to the present governor," RBI said in reply to an RTI query.

ALSO READ: Why RBI relaxed withdrawal limit for some? 5 points that explain the decision

The bank was asked to provide details of remuneration given to former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and incumbent Patel. For the month of October -- the first full month Patel was in office as governor -- Patel got Rs 2.09 lakh as his salary, the same amount drawn by Rajan as his August salary.

Rajan demitted office on September 4, and was given Rs 27,933 as remuneration for four days. Rajan assumed the charge of RBI Governor from September 5, 2013 at a monthly salary of Rs 1.69 lakh. His salary was revised to Rs 1.78 lakh and Rs 1.87 lakh respectively during 2014 and March 2015.

ALSO READ: Urjit Patel breaks silence on demonetisation, says RBI taking steps to ease people's pain

Rajan's salary was hiked to Rs 2.09 lakh from Rs 2.04 lakh in January this year, the RTI reply said. Rajan was provided with three cars and four drivers.

"One caretaker and nine maintenance attendants were posted as supporting staff in the bungalow provided by the bank to the former governor Raghuram Rajan at Mumbai," RBI said.

The Centre has recently declined to share details on appointment of Patel and other candidates shortlisted for the top post in the central bank saying these are "cabinet papers" and cannot be made public. Patel was on August 20 named as RBI Governor.

ALSO READ: RBI Governor lauds PM Modi's bold step, says high denomination misused for financing terror

ALSO WATCH

--- ENDS ---
By Kwamina Tandoh, GNA

Accra, Dec.4, GNA - A three-day training seminar on the Practice, Jurisdiction, Procedure, and Jurisprudence of the Community Court of Justice, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has been organised for judges and lawyers in Ghana.

Justice Micah Wilkins Wright, the Vice President of ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, said the seminar was an outreach programme of the court designed to create awareness and enlightenment on its establishment, existence and operations as a forum of rescue and refuge for the ordinary people of member stat

He said: 'This seminar is engaging the legal community of Ghana with a view to providing you with the enlightenment that will in turn enable you to provide proper and adequate guidance and legal support to your clients or persons appearing before your courts or persons requiring legal assistance.'

Justice Wright said the court was seen as a refuge to bring the desired reliefs being sought by citizens, especially when they could not get appropriate redress and justice in domestic courts of their home countries.

He said citizens also needed to know that the complains had to be against a member state of ECOWAS or an institution of the community and that it was not a proper forum to hear suits against other individuals who may be responsible for acts of violations of the human rights of other citizens.

'Our court does not exercise jurisdiction over individuals as defendants," he said.

He said the court was established as part of the integration process of ECOWAS in line with its vision 2020, thus moving away from a community of states to a community of people.

Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, in a goodwill message, pledged the co-operation of Ghana for the stabilisation and strengthening of the Community Court to enable it to achieve its objectives.

She said Ghana, as one of the member states, was committed to ensuring the observance of law, the principles of equity, the interpretation and application of the provisions of the Revised Treaty and all other subsidiary legal instruments adopted by member states.

Mr Kwasi Prempeh-Eck, the Director of the Ghana School of Law, urged the participants to implement what they had learnt to advocate justice for the people.

GNA
Former Presidents of Nigeria and Tanzania, Olesugun Obasanjo and Benjamin Mkapa have called for a free and fair election in Ghana.

The two former Presidents in a joint statement appealed to political leaders to ensure that their deeds do not inflame anger and acrimony during the elections.

We believe that all Ghanaians, particularly Ghanaian political leaders share our view that no single life is worth losing in an election for any leader to claim victory or to be a looser.

We will therefore appeal to all leaders in all walks of life, but particularly political leaders to ensure that by words, deeds or actions, they do not inflame the ambers of anger, distrust, mistrust, abuses, insults, acrimony and other tendencies that can mar the election process in the immediate preparations, during and after the elections, the statement signed by the two Presidents said.

They believe that the rules, regulations and the legal processes provided in the electoral laws of Ghana are good enough if observed by all parties to ensure peaceful and credible elections in Ghana on the 7th of December 2016.

They further stated that if there are grievances, such grievances will be pursued through the legal processes established by law without resorting to violence, acrimony, and disturbances by any individual, political party, or group of individuals.

The statement from the two former Presidents is below

An Appeal for Peaceful, Free, Fair, and Credible Elections in Ghana

As concerned leaders in our different countries and in Africa, we believe that it is appropriate and fitting at this point in the process of democratic dispensation in Ghana and for the coming elections to express our good wishes and brotherly solidarity for all the people of Ghana for a peaceful, free, fair and credible elections. We believe that all Ghanaian leaders from all political parties will do nothing to impede or adversely set back the democratic process in Ghana.

We believe that all Ghanaians, particularly Ghanaian political leaders share our view that no single life is worth loosing in an election for any leader to claim victory or to be a looser. We will therefore appeal to all leaders in all walks of life, but particularly political leaders to ensure that by words, deeds or actions, they do not inflame the ambers of anger, distrust, mistrust, abuses, insults, acrimonies and other tendencies that can mar the election process in the immediate preparations, during and after the elections.

We believe that the rules and regulations and the legal processes provided in the electoral laws of Ghana are good enough if observed by all parties to ensure peaceful and credible elections in Ghana on the 7th of December 2016.

We are pleased to learn that all the political leaders in particular have come together and agreed to a peace accord, and to keep to the terms of the accord and code of conduct that will ensure no violation of the rules, regulations and laws of the elections, and that all the leaders will abide by the ruling of the Electoral Commission of Ghana. If there are grievances, such grievances will be pursued through the legal processes established by law without resorting to violence, acrimony, and disturbances by any individual, political party, or group of individuals. This is the best way to advance democracy in our fledgling democratic dispensation in Africa and particularly in Ghana.

We wish all our brothers and sisters in Ghana very peaceful, free, fair, credible and fully participatory elections to continue to set a good example of sustainable political stability for the rest of Africa.

Benjamin Mkapa Olusegun Obasanjo

Former President of Tanzania Former President of Nigeria



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline,com/Ghana

Follow @EfeAnsah
The Parliamentary candidate for the National Democratic Party for the Atwima Mponua constituency, Bright Asiamah has defected to the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Bright Asiamah in a statement said his prospects of becoming a Member of Parliament look bleak because the party lacks the necessary clout to advance his course hence his decision.

Shamefully the NPP now controls all our operations in the Ashanti Region, they direct, manage and even finance our programmes and activities particularly in the Zongos and NDC strongholds.We initially thought we were forming a political party, little did we know it was just another branch of the NPP.

Today there is no NDP.What we have can be best described as NDP, which is a disgraceful marriage between the NDP and the NPP. For me and my followers, we have lost hope in this arranged marriage by our mother without our input.By this I officially step down NDP Parliamentary Candidate for Atwima Mponua Constituency, he said.

The latest defection to the NDC follows several others including a defection by the Progressive People's Party's candidate for Kwabre East Constituency Grace Affram to the NDC.

Members of various parties have defected to the NPP ahead of the upcoming election. In September, over 800 supporters of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) defected to the NPP. The defectors were from three communities comprising Kumbung-Kukuo Yipeli-Naayili and Duli Zugu.

They organized a rally at Duli Zugu, where the NPP's Parliamentary Candidate for the Kumbungu Constituency, Iddrisu Muqtar Dems and other party bigwigs from the Northern Region, officially welcomed them to the party.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @EfeAnsah
The Police administration has assured that no officer will be disenfranchised in Wednesday's presidential and parliamentary elections.

The Director of the Police Public Affairs, Superintendant Cephas Arthur told Citi News, the administration will ensure all personnel are able to exercise their franchise.

To this end, he said the Inspector General of Police has instructed all Regional, Divisional and District Commands to devise a plan to ensure all personnel who were unable to vote during the special voting exercise do so on election day.

Superintendent Cephas Arthur.

Citi news checks from polling stations across the country today, showed registered voters who submitted their names to take part in the special voting exercise were turned away again because their names were not in the register. Similar challenges were recorded on Thursday, December 1, 2016, when the exercise took place.

The EC subsequently set today, December 4, 2016, for those who could not vote to do so after meeting with the political parties and top hierarchy of the security services. However, it seemed a number of the special voters would be disenfranchised because they couldn't find their names in the register.

The Electoral Commission's Director of Communication, Eric Dzakpasu in a Citi news interview, called for calm and further assured those who cannot vote would be able to do so on Wednesday.

Superintendent Arthur also added police officers in the various regions apart from the Greater Accra Region will be deployed to areas in their home regions such that these people could move to their polling stations and vote and at the same time have enough people to replace them.

According to him, only a small percentage of officers in the Greater Accra Region would be deployed to the various regions to man the polls. He, however, said any officer who has been deployed outside Accra but has not been able to vote would be replaced.

There are police officers who are going to work in Accra who have already voted. That's why the commanders have been tasked to devise such an arrangement which will ensure that those who did not get the opportunity to vote today on the 7th and at the same time have enough personnel to perform the duties.

By: Eugenia Tenkorang/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @eugeniatenkoran
Tunis (AFP) - A plane originally intended for Tunisia's toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been sold to Turkish Airlines, Tunisair said Sunday, six years after it was grounded following his ouster.

The Turkish firm bought the Airbus A340 for 181 million dinars ($78 million), Tunisair spokeswoman Amal Bourguiba said, without giving a date for the sale.

The A340 had arrived in the French airport of Bordeaux in the autumn of 2010 to be equipped for Ben Ali's use, but a popular uprising in Tunisia toppled the dictator early the next year.

Tunisair, in a statement later on Sunday, said it had obtained a good price, compared with the 250 million dinars paid in 2009 to order the plane, and said it would save on the parking costs in Bordeaux.

According to French daily Sud-Ouest, Ben Ali -- who now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia -- only used the plane once to test it before it was outfitted.

Tunisair put the plane on the market in January 2012, saying it had been outfitted with a living room and bedroom "to suit the travel needs of a head of state".

Another Airbus A340 -- this one luxuriously furnished for slain Libyan president Moamer Kadhafi -- has also been grounded for years at the French airport of Perpignan.

The plane, which a Kuwaiti firm was once interested in buying, still in theory belongs to Libya, a country that has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 revolt that toppled and killed Kadhafi.
04.12.2016 LISTEN

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) last Friday, launched a mobile clinic dubbed Dr. Dr. NDC for free health screening for residents of Bibiani in the Bibiani/Anhwiaso/Bekwai district of the Western Region.

Dr. Catherine Deynu, the Deputy National Women Organiser who launched the program said the introduction of the free health screening was to prove that the NDC as a social democratic party cares about the wellbeing of Ghanaians, especially residents in deprived.

It is all about the health of our people. You know, our president, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, is so much concerned about the health of Ghanaians that he vowed to build regional hospitals in all the ten regions and to the district level with polyclinics."

"The President didnt end there. He went further to the various communities to build CHPS compounds for them."

He didnt end there. He brought the Onuador Van that would go to places where there is none immediately to be taking care of the people before the CHPS compounds would be opened at those other places as well," Dr. Deynu, who is also the founder of the Dr. Dr. NDC, said.

According to her, Dr. Dr. NDC" free health screening is part of the Changing Lives, Transforming Ghana agenda, adding , "We are following the footsteps of our father, President John Dramani Mahama, to make sure this agenda is achieved. "

"You know, of late, you would realise people at the age of 40, 30, 35, they are no more. Some maybe out of ignorance, they have hypertension or there is just an avoidable cause that would lead them to death. So, we check it; we identify those things; we advise them on what to do.

She explained that, the focus is to offer free medical services to those people who turned out for the opportunity and expressed the hope that residents will embrace it.

The exercise she added, is not just about organising a screening in one big community but to offer real opportunity for the deprived persons to benefit healthcare.

Its not just about screening people but, then, we advise them. Many are very thankful today for this exercise because they got to know they have hypertension," Dr Deynu said.

The NDC Deputy National Deputy Organizer noted that taking free health service to the doorsteps of deprived folks in rural communities is nothing new in Ghana.

Over two thousand residents of Bibiani town and its environs turned out at the Regional Minister Residence where the launching took place to access the free healthcare.

The beneficiaries were educated and screened on diabetes, malaria, hypertension and the importance of living a healthy life.

The Western region launch was the last of the regional launching of DR. DR NDC in all the ten regions, but Greater Accra and the Ashanti regions received more benefits most of the constituencies are covered.

Photo 1[1]
The wife of NPP Vice Presidential Candidate Samira Bawumia has urged Ghanaians to remember the hardship they have been through under the NDC's 8-year reign when they vote on Wednesday.

Speaking at the NPP's grand finale rally on Sunday, Mrs. Bawumia indicated that voters will prove to President John Mahama that they do not have short memories.

"When we pick the ballot paper on Wednesday, we will remember that various stages of completion means a bare ground with sign post under NDC," she jabbed.

She was referring to the 123 community SHS the government had promised to complete.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) held a final rally at the Trade Fair Centre to round up their campaign ahead of the polls on Wednesday.

Speakers at the rally took jabs at the ruling government as they wooed the hearts of voters across the country through the rally.

Samira Bawumia who in recent times has become a thorn in the flesh of the incumbent government did not waste the opportunity offered her.

"When we pick the ballot paper on Wednesday, we will remember the 8 years of corruption, we will remember the arrogance of the NDC government...the insults to the then striking doctors, teachers and nurses," Mrs Bawumia slammed.

Playing up the damaging impact of the erratic power supply which has improved recently, Samira Bawumia urged the thousands who had gathered at the venue to vote massively for the NPP.

Fellow Ghanaians in the Central Region, the NDC said the Komenda Sugar Factory would solve the unemployment problem in the region but have all the youth in the area been employed? she quizzed and urged them to vote out an "incompetent NDC."

The wife of the renowned Economist finally charged Ghanaians in Zongo communities across the country to vote massively for the NPP to experience the change the party has promised.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Akosua Asiedua Akuffo | [email protected]
04.12.2016 LISTEN

By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Dec. 4, GNA - The University of Ghana's West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) has been commended for its initiative towards enhancing food security in Ghana and the West African sub-region.

Mrs Mona Quartey, a Deputy Minister of Finance, commended WACCI for being one of the most outstanding Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) in the training of plant breeders.

Speaking at the sod-turning ceremony for the construction of a multipurpose building for WACCI at Legon, Mrs Quartey said economic growth was driven by new ideas and discoveries that resulted in better products and more efficient technologies.

She said: 'With a rapid transforming labour market, the ACE Project is appropriate at this time for ensuring that Ghana's tertiary education meets acceptable international standards through research and partnership among global tertiary institutions towards the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals.'

She said it was envisaged that WACCI would not only address the brain drain syndrome but also have graduates trained locally to embark on research to support the agricultural sector.

Mrs Eunice Ackwerh, the Senior Education Specialist, World Bank Country Office, said the Bank had noted with satisfaction the achievements of WACCI in attracting students from the West Africa sub-region and beyond; with regional students accounting for 66 per cent of enrolment.

Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, the Director of WACCI, said the new building, estimated to cost 2.4 million dollars, would be completed in 18 months.

He said the facility would house offices, lecture rooms, a bioinformatics platform, a seed science laboratory, a tissue culture laboratory, library and conference rooms.

Prof. Danquah said the completion of the building would lead to the scaling up of world-class PhD training in Plant Breeding and MPhil in Seed Science and Technology.

Prof Danquah said since its inception WACCI had enrolled 98 PhD students from 16 West, East and Central African countries and had graduated 35 highly qualified plant breeders.

"As a result of the outcome of students PhD research projects, national crop improvement programmes have been revived in the sub-region,' he said.

He said currently the programme had students from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Kenya, Senegal, Sudan, Malawi, Togo and Uganda.

Prof. Danquah said WACCI is expected to graduate, in July 2017, a record number of 18 PhD students in plant breeding.

Prof Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, commended WACCI for its continued success saying the University Management would put in place necessary measures to ensure its sustainability.

He appealed to government to allow the public universities maintain and use their Internally Generated Funds (IGFs) for their development projects.

Prof Mohammed Salifu, the Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education, who represented the Minister of Education, said Ghana hosted three of the 22 ACEs in nine West and Central African countries.

The University of Ghana has two of these Centres - WACCI and the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens- with the third, Centre for Water and Environmental Sanitation, at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Under the ACE Project, the World Bank is making available a grant of eight million dollars to be disbursed intermittently to each centre.

WACCI was established in June 2007 with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa to train 40 Plant Breeders at the PhD level at the University of Ghana.

The Centre now has evolved into the largest PhD in Plant Breeding education programme in Africa, having enrolled 98 PhD students from 16 countries and graduated 35 who are at the forefront of developing high yielding and climate-smart varieties of staple crops.

GNA
By George-Ramsey Benamba, GNA

Accra, Dec. 4, GNA - Reverend Father Precious Nutsugah, Assistant Parish Priest of the Martyrs of Uganda Catholic Church, Accra, on Sunday attributed anxiety and fear surrounding the Wednesday polls to lack of trust among Ghanaians.

"People are entertaining fear and anxiety to go and vote on Wednesday because we don't trust each other, but I can assure you that with prayers and the brotherliness we have exercised over the years, nothing will happen, go out and vote for leaders of your choice," he said.

Rev. Nutsugah, whose sermon centred on Wednesday's polls, said because Ghanaians did not trust each other they were always afraid of something sinister and encouraged the public to go out to make meaningful choices that would determine the future of the coming generations.

"Why will people be afraid of selecting their own leaders? All is because of the way we conduct our activities, but irrespective of that fear, God will show the way," he said.

Rev. Nutsugah, however, warned the youth to avoid any act that would disturb the peace of the country.

He said although Ghana had for the past years received and accommodated refugees from Togo, Liberia and The Ivory Coast, 'they would reject Ghanaian citizens if we engaged in untoward behaviours in the Wednesday polls.

"We have only one Ghana and we should, therefore, not be deceived that if we create problems here our neighbouring countries will receive us, for they may not be generous as we were towards them."

Rev. Nutsugah said Ghanaians had lived with candidates contesting the Wednesday Presidential and Parliamentary Elections and it should not be a difficulty selecting them through voting.

He said Ghana had earned an enviable reputation since 1992 on account of her successful elections and the international community would, therefore, 'focus on this our dear country once again, a situation that calls for restraint."

Rev. Nutsugah advised all contesting political parties and independent candidates to educate their supporters against engaging in incidents that could mar the beauty of the polls and taint Ghana's reputation in the international world.

Amidst singing Catholic and Ghanaian patriotic songs, the Vatican Choir of the church wielded miniature Ghanaian flags to demonstrate the oneness of Ghanaians in this election time.

GNA
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening and is said to be critical. Hundreds of supporters, including AIADMK partymen, have gathered outside the Apollo hospital, and are praying for Amma's health.

By India Today Web Desk: Hours after doctors in Apollo Hospital declared that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had recovered and that she would soon be returning home, the beloved AIADMK leader , popularly known as Amma, suffered a heart attack.

The Apollo Hospital in Chennai, where Jayalalithaa is being treated, said in a press release that after suffering the cardiac arrest, she was in a critical condition. Jayalalithaa has been in hospital since September 22 when her condition deteriorated suddenly.

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Jayalalithaa is presently on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygentaion is a method of providing oxygen for the body when someone's lungs and/or heart are not able to supply oxygen on their own.

An emergency cabinet meet was held inside the Apollo Hospital soon after the news about Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest broke. However, no statement was issued by the AIADMK leaders.

ALSO READ | Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest, said to be critical

TAMIL NADU GOVERNOR VISITED APOLLO, BUT LEFT WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING

Meanwhile, upon hearing news of Jayalalithaa's condition, Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao reached the Apollo Hospital to check on the Chief Minister's condition.

However, contrary to expectations that he would address the press, he just folded his hands and left the hospital premises without saying a word on Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's health.

As news of Jayalalithaa's deteriorating health spread, the Tamil Nadu DGP issued a fax statement ordering deployment of a huge police force outside the Apollo Hospital in Chennai to keep the situation under control. The anti-riot control police has also been placed on stand-by.

HERE ARE THE LATEST UPDATES :

Anna University registrar issued a statement around 4 am today that all the university exams will be conducted as per the schedule. Earlier, the university had cancelled the exams which were scheduled for today.

Tamil Nadu DGP asked all police officers to report by 7 am today.

According to sources, Jayalalithaa's niece Deepa was not allowed to see Amma inside the Apollo hospital. She came out saying that the police asked her not to speak.

Hundreds of supporters, including AIADMK party men, have gathered outside the Apollo Hospital in Chennai and are praying for Jayalalithaa's health.

Political leaders from across the parties wished for the speedy recovery of Jayalalithaa. Stalin, Karunanidhi, Sonia Gandhi- all tweeted expressing concern about Jayalalithaa's health and wishing her a speedy recovery.

Union Health Minister JP Nadda contacted the Apollo hospital and enquired about Jayalalithaa's health.

Many political leaders expected to visit Apollo Hospital today to check on Jayalalithaa's health.

Heavy police forces deployed outside Apollo Hospital in Chennai.The Chennai DGP ordered all the SPs to rush to the Apollo Hospital immediately.

Paramilitary forces have been kept on stand-by keeping the law and order in purview. Five teams of CRPF from Hyderabad and Bengaluru are ready and maybe asked to rush to Apollo if the situation demands.

Doctors from AIIMS, Delhi rushed to Apollo and are expected to reach Chennai today morning.

Security has been beefed up at the Apollo Hospital, Chennai. More barricades have been deployed outside the hospital.

Jayalalithaa is presently on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device and being treated by a team of expert doctors and critical care specialists.

Dr Richard Beale from London has been consulted and he has concurred with the line of treatment by our cardiologists and pulmonologists, Apollo Hospital tweeted.

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Apollo Hospital issued a statement regarding her health around 11 pm on Sunday saying that she is currently being attended by a battery of doctors including cardiologists.

Statement released by Apollo Hospital. (Source: Twitter)

Puratchi Thalaivi Amma suffered a cardiac arrest this evening, Amma is being treated & her health is being monitored by experts. AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) December 4, 2016

President Pranab Mukherjee has also tweeted in support of Jayalalithaa's health, wishing for a speedy recovery.

Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recovery #PresidentMukherjee President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 4, 2016

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ALSO READ | Jayalalithaa critical: Stalin, Karunanidhi, Pranab Mukherjee wish Amma a speedy recovery

Earlier, the doctors had announced that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is recovering well and will soon return home.

"Our leader Jayalalithaa has recovered well, doing physiotherapy exercise. Soon she will be back to resume her duties," said CR Saraswathi from AIADMK.

Supporters outside Apollo hospital in Chennai break down as they hear about TN CM Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest this evening.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo hospital on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has also spoken to Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, asking him to rush to Chennai.

Supporters outside Apollo hospital in Chennai break down as they hear about TN CM Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest this evening.

--- ENDS ---
By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: Bangladesh is expecting the signing of water sharing agreement of Teesta in the upcoming India tour of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

On Saturday, she said, "India is our ally state and we are working together for a long time. We have been able to agree on different issues already and Bangladesh expects that the pending issues with India will be resolved gradually," she said.

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Talking about India's support in great Liberation War of Bangladesh, Hasina said, "We cannot forget the contribution of India in our Liberation War. She said, we are grateful to India. We will resolve the issues of the two countries and we are hoping to sign the Teesta Treaty this time."

Talking about the Hungary tour that created fresh momentum in the bilateral relations between the two countries, she said that Hungary supported Bangladesh during the Liberation War and also recognised it after the independence. Bangabandhu signed agreements with them but the relations downturned after the bloodshed of 1975. Also read: Talks and terror cannot co-exist: Sushma Swaraj "I think the visit has renewed the momentum in the relations between Hungary and Bangladesh," she added.

In the briefing, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasin said, "Our government placed very easy terms for the telecast of Indian channels in Bangladesh. But India is not allowing any Bangladeshi channel to be telecasted there by imposing tough conditions. Work is going on under the supervision of Information Minister in this regard and it will be resolved quickly."

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is visiting to India on December 17 for two days. Last time she visited India on a bilateral tour was in 2010.

WHAT INDIA-BANGLADESH NEED TO DISCUSSDuring Sheikh Hasina's last visit in 2010, 50 joint manifestos between the two countries were declared. Initiatives have been taken to resolve the problems one by one in last six years based on the joint declaration. Problem like border crisis has been resolved. But one issue that still remains a reason of conflict for the two countries is Teesta Treaty.

Though, this time the main objective of her India tour is to give special honour to the families of Indian martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the Liberation War of Bangladesh, reports suggest that the treaty might eb signed.

New Delhi has taken special initiatives on the issue and trying to find an acceptable solution, confirmed Diplomatic sources.

Also read

India-Bangladesh ties strengthen; PM Modi assures Sheikh Hasina full support in combating terror

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-- This week, Peru hosts the Asia  Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, also known as APEC, and is attended by political leaders, businessmen and international figures.It's such an important event for Peru that we can explain in three main points: the topics brought up at this summit, the countries committed and the benefits as members of this forum.As a host of APEC 2016, Peru has chosen as its general theme "Quality Growth and Human Development", proposing an strategy that aims to facilitate quality and equitable growth in the region, focusing on social and individual progress as central objective to this effort.Among the personalities arriving for this event, we can name the Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg who arrived last night at 23h07, he went through immigration registration. In the middle of a strong police guard, he left Jorge Chavez Airport heading to the Westin Hotel of San Isidro.The Facebook CEO has a tight schedule for this Saturday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC). Zuckerberg will host the conference entitled "Connectivity Revolution" at 9:00 a.m. Then he will hold a meeting with President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, and Ministers Jaime Saavedra and Martin Vizcarra (Vice-president)He will also talk with Chilean President Michelle Bachellet. After this he will have lunch and hold a meeting with his social network team.On the other hand, the American president, Barack Obama gives a speech to the young leaders of Latin America at the Catholic University. The US president arrived in Lima on Friday night to participate in the APEC 2016 leaders summit and this Saturday, around noon, met the Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.During his keynote address, Obama assured that he and his country, although no longer president, will remain partners for Latin America. He also said he will work to create young leaders working for the future of their countries and against climate change.This event will be held from Nov. 19th to Nov 20th, in Lima  Peru. As tour operators, we consider this event a great opportunity to show the best of our country and will contribute to the development of responsible tourism and our local economies.Visit us at http://www.machupicchu- explorer.com/
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-- Welcome to Yallah-Shop.com (http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2FYallah-Shop.com%2F&h=bAQF94bbR&s=1)  the Lebanese online marketplace.We connect people and products  opening up a world of poss...MissionGreat ValueWe offer competitive prices on our 1000 plus product range.Local DeliveryWe ship All over Lebanon including all locations. Whether you live in West, North, South or East, or even close to the Lebanese borders, We will make sure to deliver your item on time.Safe PaymentPay with the world's most popular and secure payment methods or choose to pay cash on delivery once the item reaches your doorstep.Shop with ConfidenceOur Buyer Protection covers your purchase from click to delivery.24/7 Help CenterRound-the-clock assistance for a smooth shopping experience.Shop On-The-GoDownload the app and get the world of YallahShop at your fingertips.We offer 100% worldwide Original Brands for the best prices in the Market.Our Services include and not limited to: Home & Outdoor, Electronics, laptop & Accessories, Mobile Accessories, Video Gaming, Fashion & Accessories, Wedding Gadgets, Baby Products & Sport Wears.
An eclectic collection of prize-winning poetry of various forms

By: New Generation Publishing

WORDS FOR ALL SEASONS cover

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-- ISBN #978-1785077760Rex Andrews is a versatile poet, much-travelled scholar and creative teacher of language and literature whose poetry is constantly exploring different forms, styles, subjects and emotions."Words for all Seasons" is dedicated to a barrister, a bishop and an editor of Punch.John Morthimer Q.C., the RT. Rev. Geoffrey Powell and writer Alan Coren were judges for the 1998 Cancer Research Campaign Competition. When they awarded the poemfirst prize of 3000 entries worldwide, their unexpected encouragement was the spur for writing the majority of poems in this anthology.Subsequent prize-winning poems include(free verse),(Chaucerian roundel),(extended Clerihew),(rhyming stanzas), and(Spenserian stanzas). Additionally in this anthology the sonnet, haiku, tanka, somonka, cinquain, villanelle, clerihew, sestina and threnody are all represented - their styles ranging from comic to tragic, from satiric to elegiac and from parodic to poignant.Rex Andrews was born in London in 1931 and is a poet, teacher and former Editor of theFounder of the MGMT Trust to promote education for international understanding, cooperation and peace at the London Institute of Education, he has held fellowships with the BBC and SOAS (the School of Oriental and African studies) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.As UK Chair of the World Education Fellowship (WEF), member of the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction (USA) and lecturer for the British Council, he has contributed to numerous international conferences including lecturing in Japan, India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Holland and the Philippines. These commitments have continued since retiring from full-time lecturing in the UK and moving to France where he was able to represent the WEF in the Paris headquarters of UNESCO.After raising four children, he and his wife have now acquired two rewarding grandchildren and four 'adopted' French ones. In a small but historic French village far away from the chalk-face (and the interactive whiteboard!), they both have more time for thinking and creativity and particularly for writing poetry, articles and books.She was there again todayIn the corner where we pile the newspapersweaving from her own entrails a silver dream,a rent-free home and a cost-free supermarket:a filigree kingdom meeting all her needs.Anchored by one gossamer guy line to a water-pipe,by another to the plaster-peeling wall,she makes her funicular descent,sails wisely over stark headlinesand lands gracefully by chanceon a crumpled map of Europe.Scotland, her landing place, evokes no interest.Dry-shod she strides the Channeland saunters idly on a dusty tour of cities Paris, Geneva, ViennaThen, just as nonchalantly, Grozny, Kosova, ChernobylAn accomplished spinster, she knows nothing of widows,takes no toll of orphans.No folk-memory tells her how her ancestorstransformed the fortunes of Mohammed,Robert the Bruce,Frederick the Greatand others in their wakeAustria, Prussia, Scotland, Syria,kingdoms and dynasties- meaningless marks on the page to an octopod travellerwith serious preoccupations.Suddenly she scuttles purposefully westdevours a stranded flyand deftly swings aloft.She'll never know how much can hangupon a gossamer thread:how many living,and how many dead.This book is also available from Amazon.com at:New Generation PublishingTel. 01234 712 064E-mail: info@newgeneration-publishing.com
The true story of an amazing trip around the world in a Salar 40

By: New Generation Publishing

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-- ISBN #978-1909039070Tony and Audrey Walter are like thousands of other amateur sailing couples, just ordinary people living a normal life but one of them had a dream. The book is an illuminating and compassionately written account of their voyage round the world in a Salar 40. Each chapter includes an account of both Audrey and Tony's own individual thoughts and observations. They visited many countries and various idyllic and exotic islands that most people only dream about. Their portrayal of this conjures up images of the varied lives people lead, from paradise to absolute hell. They experienced numerous gales including a force ten off the Great Barrier Reef and many gear breakages while on passage hundreds of miles from land. Their sometimes unusual and resourceful methods of remedying the various situations are well documented throughout. An encounter with armed pirates off the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden and how they escaped more serious consequences is also a terrifying yet enlightening tale. It was initially Tony's dream to sail around the world but it soon became a challenge for them both. This is the true story of how they achieved it.Tony Walter before retiring was a lecturer in engineering at Highbury College in Portsmouth, his dream since 12 years old of sailing round the world in a small boat was as far off as ever. When he was made redundant, he thought, life is not a rehearsal, as far as we know, you only get one chance at it, if we don't do the dream now, we never will.Audrey Walter started the world of work as a window dresser in a large Portsmouth department store, when that finished she went into hospitality in various hotels.He and Audrey bought an old 1971 Laurent Giles designed Salar 40 in Greece, sailed it back to UK, spent 3 years refitting the boat and set off from Port Solent in Portsmouth, UK in 2007 to "Sail Their Dream".The book is written by both of them and describes their adventure in realistic terms, the good and the bad get equal mention. How they repaired broken rigging, torn sails and dealt with engine problems thousands of miles from land, escaped an incident with pirates in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia and survived a force ten gale off the Great Barrier Reef near Australia is enlightening.The incredible landfalls and different highlights at each location, wonderful people living of the land and sea, their sense of humour and acceptance of just living brings it all to life.Originally it was Tony's dream, but it became a challenge for both of them. https://www.amazon.co.uk/ gp/customer- reviews/RVLQW7XS6VQV... ) An excellent read that is both entertaining and informative (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/RVLQW7XS6VQV9/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00AEA7U7M)By stingray ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/ gp/pdp/profile/ A8DTY627WPM33/ ref... ) on 5 October 2012Format: Paperback (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leap-Faith-Audrey-Walter/product-reviews/1909039071/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_fmt?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&sortBy=recent&formatType=current_format)Verified Purchase (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leap-Faith-Audrey-Walter-ebook/product-reviews/B00AEA7U7M/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_rvwer?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=avp_only_reviews&sortBy=recent)An enthralling story of adventure written in a very entertaining style with two different perspectives from a husband and wife crew. This is a story written from the heart that gives a real feel for what it is like to spend two years at sea travelling around the world. You cannot help but admire their courage and resilience as amateur sailors experiencing the problems, perils and dangers of a long sea voyage as they faced an enormous and enduring challenge. Highly recommended for anyone who has a love of adventure and the sea. Essential reading for anyone contemplating a similar challenge of sailing around the world.(https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R3NOPUFRZNZIY9/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00AEA7U7M) Living the dream (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R3NOPUFRZNZIY9/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00AEA7U7M)By Rekall101 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pdp/profile/A3NAIPRQJUKU8E/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pdp?ie=UTF8)on 11 September 2012Format: Paperback (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leap-Faith-Audrey-Walter/product-reviews/1909039071/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_fmt?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&sortBy=recent&formatType=current_format)A really excellent read. There is nothing better than a tale which can inspire and this book has inspiration in spades. It is genuine, real life example of ordinary people overcoming obstacles, hardships and problems a-plenty to achieve their dream. I took away one very simple lesson from this book, if you can dream it, you can do it!https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leap-Faith-Tony-Walter/dp/1909039799This book is also available in paperback from Amazon at:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leap-Faith-Audrey-Walter/dp/1909039071The e-book version can also be download from:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leap-Faith-Audrey-Walter-ebook/dp/B00AEA7U7MNew Generation PublishingTel. 01234 712 064E-mail: info@newgeneration-publishing.com
The newest Maruti Suzuki SUV on offer, the new Vitara Brezza has managed to create a new record. It is the first ever SUV from Maruti Suzuki to achieve sales of over 1.75 lakh and that too in just 18 months.

This huge demand has resulted in waiting period to be at up to 6 months even today, when it has been over 18 months since the car was launched. Pending delivery orders stand at over 1 lakh units as of today.

The hugely successful compact SUV is offered in six trims, all powered by 1.3-liter diesel engine mated to a five-speed manual gearbox, Maruti Vitara Brezza claims to deliver a mileage of 24.3 kmpl. The engine onboard delivers max power of 90 PS and peak torque of 200 Nm.

Key features on offer with the Maruti Vitara Brezza are dual tone exterior colours, projector headlamps with LED DRLs, stylish 16 inch alloys, keyless entry, start / stop button, Smartplay infotainment system with smartphone integration, reverse parking display, navigation, and Apple Carplay.

Maruti Vitara Brezza Dealer Launch

Maruti has already confirmed the launch of a petrol Brezza, which is expected to be launched next year. This motor will be a 1.4 liter unit, which is also seen on board the Ciaz and Ertiga. Along with that, there is also a possibility that AT variant of Brezza is in the making for India, after it made its debut earlier this year in Indonesia.

Vitara Brezza is not the only successful car Maruti Suzuki has launched in recent years. Baleno has already proved its mettle in the Indian market while the newly launched Ignis and Dzire have also had a promising start.

Also Read  Maruti Vitara Brezza Review

Vitara Brezza wholesale numbers:
Could heart muscle that's been damaged by a heart attack be prompted to repair itself?

Researchers with UT Southwestern Medical Center's Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine are launching clinical trials to find out. The trials will look at whether a type of mechanical pump called a ventricular assist device can create an environment that results in regeneration of heart cells.

"Research at UT Southwestern over the past five years was the first to show that the heart muscle in mammals can actually regrow in the early days of life. This ability stops, in part because of the work load that the heart has to do, and we believe that taking away that load by using ventricular assist devices will reactivate this regenerative ability of the heart," said Dr. Hesham Sadek, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and with the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 5.7 million people have heart failure, which is the inability of the heart to pump enough blood to keep up with the demands of the body, but does not mean the heart has stopped working. There are no current treatments to regenerate heart muscle.

"We are looking at a specific and accessible strategy to reawaken the regenerative ability of the adult heart," said Dr. Sadek, who holds the J. Fred Schoellkopf, Jr. Chair in Cardiology.

A ventricular assist device (VAD) is a mechanical pump used to support heart function and blood flow in people who have weakened hearts, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The device takes blood from a lower chamber of the heart and helps pump it to the body and vital organs, just as a healthy heart would, according to the NHLBI. A small tube carries blood out of the heart into a pump, while another tube carries blood from the pump to the blood vessels, which deliver the blood to the body.

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UT Southwestern is establishing a Ventricular Assist Device Program through which the clinical trials will be conducted. The first series of clinical trials will be conducted with patients who currently have or will be getting VADs implanted to treat heart failure. Each trial will use a different measure to assess heart regeneration. The initial trial, which is currently enrolling patients, will use a nuclear imaging modality to assess heart mass. Eventually, the researchers expect to complete six or seven trials that assess the ability of VADs to promote heart regeneration and to discover biomarkers of the process in VAD patients. For more information on the clinical trials, email Email.

The clinical trials build on previous research in Dr. Sadek's lab that found that heart muscle in newborn mammals is capable of regeneration, much like skin and bone are capable of regeneration throughout an animal's life. But cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells, lose that ability in the days following birth due to the high-oxygen environment of the beating heart.

"Dr. Sadek has brought an exciting new perspective to the clinical problem of heart disease. He has obtained evidence indicating that placing a heart on a VAD can active a regenerative response and create new cardiac muscle cells," said Dr. Eric Olson, Director of the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine and Chairman of Molecular Biology.

"The opportunity to bring cutting-edge advances in science to our patients with advanced heart failure who require LVAD support is truly exciting and we hope will lead to major advances in the care of such patients in the future," said Dr. Mark Drazner, Medical Director of the Heart Failure, LVAD, and Cardiac Transplant program.

UT Southwestern has played an integral role throughout the relatively short history of VAD therapy and in the devices' rapidly evolving technology. UT Southwestern participated in the landmark clinical trial (REMATCH) that led to FDA approval of the first left ventricular assist device for destination therapy and was the only North Texas center to participate in the HeartWare Bridge-to-Transplant trial, which was completed in 2012 and led to FDA approval of the device. UT Southwestern was among the first in the nation to implant a new, smaller-sized VAD to help a muscular dystrophy patient.

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In 2015, Dr. Sadek, Dr. Pradeep Mammen, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Integrative Biology, and others found that long-term use of ventricular assist devices induces regeneration of heart muscle by preventing oxidative damage to cardiomyocytes.

"This work suggests that by reducing the load on the heart, a pathway for myocyte cell division that has been silenced by high demand can be turned back on. These trials are the clinical translation of that finding in the lab," said Dr. Olson, who holds the Pogue Distinguished Chair in Research on Cardiac Birth Defects, the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Science, and the Annie and Willie Nelson Professorship in Stem Cell Research.

UT Southwestern established the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine in 2014 with a $10 million endowment gift from the Hamon Charitable Foundation to further research into the relatively new field of regenerative medicine. The Center's goal is to understand the basic mechanisms for tissue and organ formation, and then to use that knowledge to regenerate, repair and replace tissues damaged by aging and injury. The Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine is providing the funding for the VAD heart regeneration studies.

UT Southwestern collaborators include Dr. Mark Drazner, Professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Director of the Heart Failure, LVAD, and Cardiac Transplantation Program, and Clinical Chief of Cardiology, who holds the James M. Wooten Chair in Cardiology; Dr. Mammen, who is with the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine; and Dr. Matthias Peltz, Associate Professor of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery. Additionally, the UT Southwestern researchers will be working with Washington University and the University of Utah, two of the largest VAD programs in the country, to recruit patients for the clinical trials.

VAD/Heart Regeneration Timeline 1998-2001: UT Southwestern is one of 20 medical centers in the REMATCH trial comparing ventricular assist devices (VADs) to standard care for heart failure patients. Patients with VADs do significantly better.

Feb. 2011: Work by Dr. Hesham Sadek, Dr. Eric Olson and others showing the ability of the neonatal mouse heart to regenerate is published in Science.

April 2014: Cell publishes research by the Dr. Sadek and others showing that oxygen metabolism causes damage to DNA in heart cells, which shuts down their ability to regenerate.

May 2014: UT Southwestern announces the formation of the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine thanks to a $10 million gift from the Hamon Charitable Foundation to focus on tissue and organ regeneration research.

Jan. 2015: A small study by Dr. Sadek, Dr. Pradeep Mammen and others showing that long-term VAD use leads to heart muscle regeneration is published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Sept. 2016: The first patient is enrolled in a series of clinical trials at UTSW studying the ability of VADs to lead to heart regeneration.
Open office plans are becoming increasingly common in the workplace -- offering a way to optimize available space and encourage dialogue, interaction and collaboration among employees. However, a new study suggests that productive work-related conversations might actually decrease the performance of other employees within earshot -- more so than other random, meaningless noises.

The results of the study, led by Takahiro Tamesue, an associate professor at Yamaguchi University in Japan, will be described during the 172nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the 5th Joint Meeting with Acoustical Society of Japan, being held Nov. 28-Dec. 2, 2016 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In their work, the researchers investigated the impact of meaningless and meaningful noises on selective attention and cognitive performance in volunteers, as well as the degree of subjective "annoyingness" of those noises.

The experiments were based on the so-called "odd-ball" paradigm -- a test used to examine selective attention and information processing ability.

"In the odd-ball paradigm, subjects detect and count rare target events embedded in a series of repetitive events. To complete the odd-ball task it is necessary to regulate attention to a stimulus," Tamesue explained. Tamesue's laboratory focuses on improving auditory environments by analyzing the physiological and psychological effects of noise.

In one trial, a visual odd-ball paradigm, subjects observed pictures flashing on a PC monitor as meaningless (for example, a pseudo voice-noise consisting of a pink noise with a spectrum closely resembling that of speech) and meaningful sounds (male and female speech) were played to both ears through headphones. The most frequent image -- appearing 20 percent of the time -- was 10 x 10 centimeter-square green image; the most infrequent was a red square. The subjects had to count the number of times the red image flashed on the screen over a 10-minute period. In a second trial, an auditory odd-ball paradigm, the subjects had to detect and count an infrequently played noise -- a 2,000-Hertz tone -- amid a series of 1,000-Hz tones. At the end of the trial, the subjects also rated their level of annoyance at each sound, on a seven-point scale.

During this and other experiments, the subjects' brain waves were measured through electrodes placed on their scalp. In particular, the researchers looked at two parts of the electroencephalograph (EEG) waveforms generated during the trials. The first, the so-called N100 component of event-related potentials (ERPs, brain responses caused by particular sensations, thoughts or motions), peaks about 100 milliseconds after a stimulus is presented. The second, the P300 component of ERPs, peaks around 300 milliseconds after the presentation of a stimulus.

"The N100 is thought to represent the activation of neural assemblies involved in the analysis of incoming sensory information," Tamesue said. "The P300 is thought to reflect the resolution of uncertainty or the perceptual decision that an expected signal has occurred. The peak amplitude and latency of this component is related to selective attention and working memory."

The study revealed that more meaningful noises, such as music and conversation, had a stronger effect on levels of subjective annoyance than meaningless noises -- and led to a greater decline in performance on cognitive tasks involving memory or arithmetic tests. In addition, when meaningful noise such as speech was presented to the subjects, their EEG measurements showed large reductions in the P100 and P300 components, indicating that selective attention to cognitive tasks was influenced by the degree of meaningfulness of the noise. The effect was most pronounced during the auditory odd-ball paradigm test.

The experiments suggest that when designing sound environments in spaces used for cognitive tasks -- such as the workplace or schools -- it is appropriate to consider not only the sound level, but also meaningfulness of the noise that is likely to be present, Tamesue said. "Surrounding conversations often disturb the business operations conducted in such open offices. Because it is difficult to soundproof an open office, a way to mask meaningful speech with some other sound would be of great benefit for achieving a comfortable sound environment," he said.
It's a familiar request in the digital age: one of your friends on social media has a friend who wants to be your friend. Frequent linking among friends of friends can cause a rapid increase in social network connectivity.

A new theoretical model shows that networks evolve very differently depending on how often these "second neighbor" connections occur. The work could offer a better understanding of how dense networks form.

Networks -- like those based on social media or internet connections -- are often characterized by their degree, which is the number of links per member, or node. Previous models of networks have tended to focus on sparse networks in which the degree remains finite as a network grows.

By including friend-of-friend interactions in their model, Renaud Lambiotte (University of Namur, Belgium), Paul Krapivsky (Boston University), and Uttam Bhat and Sid Redner (both Santa Fe Institute) could control the link density of the network.

"It's an incredibly simple model that can produce both sparse and dense networks," says Redner, a Santa Fe Institute professor.

In their recent paper published in Physical Review Letters, the researchers constructed a general network evolution in which every new node links to one target node already in the network, as well as to each of the neighbors of the target (that is, friends of friends), with copying probability p. The likelihood of each of these "copying" steps turns out to be the crucial factor in how the network evolves.

If copying is unlikely, the network evolves into a sparse, skeleton-like framework. But when the copying probability is greater than 1/2, the network becomes dense, with the number of links growing faster than the network itself. This "densifying" behavior has been observed in real world data, such as research paper citation lists, internet router maps, and other networks.

The researchers also investigated multiple-node connections, such as triangles that consist of three mutually-linked nodes. They found that the triangle count grew faster than the network for a copying probability greater than 2/3. In fact, they discovered an unlimited number of these growth transitions related to copying.

"It's kind of exotic, but cool, that such a generic model has all these transitions in it," Redner says.

If similar transitions are identified as real networks evolve -- like those in social media -- the model's copying mechanism could be an allegory for many real friend-of-friend interactions. The model may also offer a way to study the role of triangles and other so-called "cliques" as information or diseases spread in a population.
By PTI: London, Dec 4 (PTI) In a grim prognosis, renowned British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that the human race today is facing the "most dangerous" time in its history.

Noting that the planet is in crises, the 74-year-old Cambridge professor said the world is facing huge environmental and technological challenges and needs to unite and work together to protect the humanity.

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"We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans. Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity," he said.

"We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it," Hawking wrote in a recent op-ed for The Guardian newspaper.

Commenting on the global political shifts, Hawking attributed the rise of US President-elect Donald Trump and Britains Brexit vote to a "cry of anger" by people who felt they had been "abandoned" by their leaders.

"Whatever we might think about the decision by the British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by their leaders," he wrote.

"It was, everyone seems to agree, the moment when the forgotten spoke, finding their voices to reject the advice and guidance of experts and the elite everywhere," Hawking said.

He also warned that artificial intelligence and increasing automation will decimate middle class jobs and worsen inequality, and risks creating significant political upheaval.

"The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining," he said.

He, however, said the challenges can be overcome if the elites unite and learn from the past.

"We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humanity," Hawking said. PTI MRJ AKJ MRJ

--- ENDS ---

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Together with colleagues from the University of Copenhagen, Matthew Pelowski and Michael Forster from the Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods at the University of Vienna have observed the influence of social and financial contextual information on the pleasures of art. The focus was on the question whether the purchase price, the prestige of a gallery or the socioeconomic status and educational status of other persons have an influence on the personal taste.

We like what experts or peers like -- and what is expensive

During the study, students assessed a series of paintings according to personal pleasure. Before the presentation, the participants learned that certain social groups had already seen and evaluated the works before them. These included either peers (fellow university students), experts (museum curators at respected museums), or a group of similarly aged university dropouts who were currently unemployed and long-time social security recipients. The results were then compared with a control group that had evaluated the images without social context information.

"Results showed that when participants thought that either experts or their peers liked a painting, they also liked it more," says Pelowski. "However, when they thought that the unemployed dropouts didn't like a painting, participants went in the opposite direction and said that they liked it more."

In a second study, the researchers also showed that telling participants the (fictitious) sales price of a painting at an art auction, significantly changed the way they rated art. Very low prices made participants like art less, very high prices made them like art more.

Art is used to show allegiance to desirable social groups

"These results provide empirical support for a 'social distinction' theory, first introduced by the French Sociologist and Philosopher Pierre Bourdieu," explains Pelowski. "According to how we use our evaluation and engagement with art in order to show allegiance to, or distance ourselves from, desirable or undesirable social groups." Both studies also have important implications for museums, suggesting that the context can affect how we see art.
Even if they don't understand the words, infants react to the way their mother speaks and the emotions conveyed through speech. What exactly they react to and how has yet to be fully deciphered, but could have significant impact on a child's development. Researchers in acoustics and psychology teamed up to better define and study this impact.

Peter Moriarty, a graduate researcher at Pennsylvania State University, will present the results of these studies, conducted with Michelle Vigeant, professor of acoustics and architectural engineering, and Pamela Cole professor of psychology, at the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan joint meeting being held Nov. 28-Dec. 2 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to capture real-time information about the brain activity of children while they listening to samples of their mothers' voice with different affects -- or non-verbal emotional cues. Acoustic analysis of the voice samples was performed in conjunction with the fMRI data to correlate brain activity to quantifiable acoustical characteristics.

"We're using acoustic analysis and fMRI to look at the interaction and specifically how the child's brain responds to specific acoustic cues in their mother's speech," Moriarty said. Children in the study heard 15 second voice samples of the same words or sentences, but each conveyed either anger, happiness, or were neutral in affect for control purposes. The emotional affects were defined and predicted quantitatively by a set of acoustic parameters.

"Most of these acoustic parameters are fairly well established," Moriarty said. "We're talking about things like the pitch of speech as a function of time... They have been used in hundreds of studies." In a more general sense, they are looking at what's called prosody, or the intonations of voice.

However, there are many acoustic parameters relevant to speech. Understanding patterns within various sets of these parameters, and how they relate to emotion and emotional processing, is far from straight forward.

"You can't just talk to Siri [referring to Apple's virtual assistant] and Siri knows that you're angry or not. There's a very complicated model that you have to produce in order to make these judgements," Moriarty explained. "The problem is that there's a very complicated interaction between these acoustic parameters and the type of emotion  and the negativity or positivity we'd associate with some of these emotions."

This work is a pilot study done as an early stage of a larger project called, The Processing of the Emotional Environment Project (PEEP). In this early stage, the team is looking for the best set of variables to predict these emotions, as well as the effects these emotions have on processes in the brain. "[We want] an acoustic number or numbers doing a good job at predicting that we're saying, 'yes, we can say quantitatively that this was angry or this was happy,'" Vigeant said.

In the work to be presented, the team has demonstrated the importance of looking at lower frequency characteristics in voice spectra; the patterns that appear over many seconds of speech or the voice sample as a whole. These patterns, they report, may play a significant role in understanding the resulting brain activity and differentiating the information relevant to emotional processing.

With effective predictors and fMRI analysis of effects on the brain, the ultimate goal of PEEP is to learn how a toddler who has not yet developed language processes emotion through prosody and how the environment effects their development. "A long term goal is really to understand prosodic processing, because that is what young children are responding to before they can actually process and integrate the verbal content," Cole said.

Toddlers, however, are somewhat harder to image in an fMRI device, as it requires them to be mostly motionless for long periods of time. So for now, the team is studying older children aged 6-10 -- though there are still some challenges of wriggling.

"We're essentially trying to validate this type of procedure and look at whether or not we're able to get meaningful results out of studying children that are so young. This really hasn't been done at this age group in the past and that's largely due to the difficulty of having children remain somewhat immobile in the scanner."
Poorly maintained air conditioning systems cause mold or other bacteria to spread; they often also generate drafts and are costly to operate. An alternative technology that uses ceiling panels covered in special heat-conducting film operates well below the dew point. Designed by Fraunhofer researchers, the system offers hygienic cooling even in tropical climates, and uses up to 70 percent less energy. The multifunctional system will be launched at the BAU trade fair from January 16-21, 2017 as part of the Fraunhofer Building Innovation Alliance's special show, "Fraunhofer CityLaboratory -- creating living spaces."

There is not a breath of wind outside, while inside the air conditioning is running at full blast. Cooling and heating account for some 32 percent of global energy consumption, and some 30 percent of CO2 emissions. Climate change is driving an increase in cooling requirements -- and a related health risk: if air conditioning systems are not properly maintained, mold develops inside the equipment and in air ducts. This affects people's immune systems just as drafts can. Europe is seeing the spread of a healthier, more efficient form of air conditioning: active systems that are built into ceilings, walls, and floors. Like the radiators in a central heating system, they have (cold) water flowing through them. Such climate control components quickly reach their operating limits, however: if cooled surfaces reach the dew point, condensation forms on them -- just like it does on a glass of cold lemonade.

Comfortable temperatures with minimal energy consumption

Researchers at Fraunhofer IBP have developed innovative technology that prevents condensation: a special heat-conducting polymer film. When applied to multifunctional ceiling panels, it has the same effect as insulating glass and allows the panels to function well below the dew point without condensation forming. "Our system is unique in the world," says Alexander Buff, a scientist at Fraunhofer IBP in Rosenheim. The concept was funded by the Fraunhofer Venture Group (see link below), and a patent is pending. Now a team of six, the scientists have been awarded level I EXIST start-up research funding from the German Federal Ministry of Economy and Energy. The team's Clear Sky Cooling project is currently being spun off from Fraunhofer under the name Interpanel GmbH, with Alexander Buff as its CEO, and the multifunctional cooling and heating system will be available from mid-2017.

Multifunctional, upgradable modules

What makes the technology special is that it avoids the problem of the dew point, and it is multifunctional. Around two square meters in size, the modules can be combined flexibly. As efficient LED lighting panels, they save energy. With its acoustic activation, the system simplifies interface planning. High-density modularity reduces the system's overall size and saves on installation time. Sheets of film are individually printable and easy to replace. The long-lasting modules can be taken down and re-installed elsewhere.

Ceilings fitted with the system achieve much the same refreshing effect as a starry sky on a warm summer night: once the sun goes down, the air feels pleasantly cool because the clear, cold night sky draws away the heat, causing an instant drop in perceived temperature. The ceiling panels work according to the same physical principle: their cooled surfaces absorb the heat given off by people in a process that is direct, noiseless, and free of drafts. Ceiling panels can be cooled at the push of a button or by means of a motion sensor, and in around three minutes they generate a pleasant ambient climate in the room beneath them -- as beneath a cool night sky. Because it circumvents the problem of the dew point, the system can also be used in open spaces such as industrial workplaces or open-plan offices. Instead of causing cold air to swirl around in a space, the panels absorb the naturally radiated heat only where comfort is needed. Such zonal usability makes Clear Sky Cooling particularly energy-efficient. It is especially suited for use in health-related environments such as hospitals, physiotherapy centers, and fitness studios, as well as in open-plan offices, conference centers, and manufacturing facilities. The system works independently of surrounding drafts and humidity, and so its operation is nearly safe and maintenance-free.
International research involving a Monash University scientist is using new computer models and evidence from meteorites to show that a low-mass supernova triggered the formation of our solar system.

The research is published in the most recent issue of leading scientific journal Nature Communications.

About 4.6 billion years ago, a cloud of gas and dust that eventually formed our solar system was disturbed.

The ensuing gravitational collapse formed the proto-Sun with a surrounding disc where the planets were born. A supernova -- a star exploding at the end of its life-cycle -- would have enough energy to induce the collapse of such a gas cloud.

"Before this model there was only inconclusive evidence to support this theory," said Professor Alexander Heger from the Monash School of Physics and Astronomy.

The research team, led by University of Minnesota School of Physics and Astronomy Professor Yong-Zhong Qian, decided to focus on short-lived radioactive nuclei only present in the early solar system.

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Due to their short lifetimes, these nuclei could only have come from the triggering supernova. Their abundances in the early solar system have been inferred from their decay products in meteorites. As the debris from the formation of the solar system, meteorites are comparable to the leftover bricks and mortar in a construction site. They tell us what the solar system is made of and in particular, what short-lived nuclei the triggering supernova provided.

"Identifying these 'fingerprints' of the final supernova is what we needed to help us understand how the formation of the solar system was initiated," Professor Heger said.

"The fingerprints uniquely point to a low-mass supernova as the trigger.

"The findings in this paper have opened up a whole new direction of research focusing on low-mass supernovae," he said.

In addition to explaining the abundance of Beryllium-10, this low-mass supernova model would also explain the short-lived nuclei Calcium-41, Palladium-107, and a few others found in meteorites.

Professor Qian said the group would like to examine the remaining mysteries surrounding short-lived nuclei found in meteorites. The research is funded by the US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Physics.

Professor Heger and a new Monash Future Fellow, Dr Bernhard Mueller, also study such supernovae using computational facilities at the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.
A US-based news website contacted nine of the most prominent firms to ask if they would sell their services to help create a national Muslim registry.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Of the nine major tech giants, including Facebook, Apple and Google, only Twitter has declined to help if US President-elect Donald Trump seeks to create a national Muslim registry, a media report said.

US-based news website The Intercept said it contacted nine of the most prominent firms to ask if they would sell their services to help create a national Muslim registry -- an idea recently refloated by President-elect Donald Trump's transition team -- and only Twitter said no.

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Only three companies answered

"We contacted nine different firms in the business of technology, broadly defined, with the following question: 'Would [name of company], if solicited by the Trump administration, sell any goods, services, information, or consulting of any kind to help facilitate the creation of a national Muslim registry, a project which has been floated tentatively by the President-elect's transition team?'," the report said.

ALSO READ: Donald Trump changes his tune on climate change, jailing Hillary Clinton

After two weeks of calls and e-mails, only three companies provided an answer and only one said it would not participate in such a project.

Google, Facebook, Apple, IBM, IT giant SRA International and Canada-based Information technology consulting company CGI did not provide any answer to the query. Management consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton declined to comment.

ALSO READ: Non-committal Trump may push China to work with India in fighting climate change

Twitter cites its policy

Twitter said "No", and a link, which states as company policy a prohibition against the use, was shared on the website.

The link read: "To be clear: We prohibit developers using the Public APIs and Gnip data products from allowing law enforcement -- or any other entity -- to use Twitter data for surveillance purposes. Period."

Microsoft returned with an answer saying, "We're not going to talk about hypotheticals at this point."

ALSO READ: Explained: Why Trumponomics will triumph

A link to a company blog post states that "we're committed to promoting not just diversity among all the men and women who work here, but...inclusive culture" and that "it will remain important for those in government and the tech sector to continue to work together to strike a balance that protects privacy and public safety in what remains a dangerous time".

Asking very little of companies

The Intercept cleared that the story was not written to say that the companies which did not reply to the request for a comment or declined to comment, were tacitly endorsing the Trump agenda in general or a Muslim registry in particular.

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"Still, it is asking very little of today's tech companies to prompt them to go on record as unwilling to help create a federal list of Muslims -- or so one would very much hope," the report noted.

ALSO READ: Donald Trump credits Twitter, Facebook for electoral victory

ALSO READ: Rights group monitoring reports of attacks on US minorities since Trump win

ALSO WATCH

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The weekend after the election, Dave Chappelle took the stage on Saturday Night Live and nailed the feeling that so many stunned progressives had failed to put to words: America has done it. Weve actually elected an Internet troll as our president. A hilarious statement, both because it was so true and because it was such a relief to hear somebody say it.

For many in the United States, these are devastating times. Now more than ever, the country needs its comedians  truth-tellers who can hold a mirror up to society and reflect its horror and absurdity. To perform this critical role, they must be outsiders, must have themselves suffered at the hands of the world they draw on for material.

The Daily Shows host Trevor Noah more than fits this bill. His compelling new memoir, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, recounts the years before he found fame as a comic and landed one of the top jobs in America. And it reminds us all how to recognize when racism runs riot.

For Noah, humour made the difference between survival and soul-crushing despair.

Born during apartheid, to a black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father, his very existence was illegal  proof of interracial sex that was forbidden by law. His rebellious mother was forced to hide him in his grandmothers house in Soweto, away from police and the prying eyes of informant neighbours. Noah couldnt be seen in public with either parent. He had to call his father Robert for fear someone would overhear if he said Dad and walk on the other side of the street from him. His mother, meanwhile, recruited a mixed race friend to accompany them to the park, pretending to be her sons nanny.

In any society built on institutionalized racism, race-mixing doesnt merely challenge the system as unjust, it reveals the system as unsustainable and incoherent, Noah writes. Race-mixing proves that races can mix  and in a lot of cases, want to mix. Because a mixed person embodies that rebuke to the logic of the system, race-mixing becomes a crime worse than treason. If theyd been caught, Noah would have been placed in an orphanage, his parents arrested or fined.

Added to all of that were the indignities of growing up in extreme poverty after apartheid fell in 1994; having to push his mothers ancient car to school when they ran out of gas mid-trip; eating caterpillars to stave off hunger; living in his mechanic stepfathers garage, working every day and sleeping in cars every night; wearing clothing several sizes too big because there was no money to buy new things every time he grew.

Plus: the hustling poor people everywhere need to do to get by. Flipping stolen goods. Bootlegging music, throwing block parties, eating cheap street food, learning to stretch every last dollar. Acquiring multiple languages (Noah speaks six!) to talk people down, cross racial lines, bond, protect oneself. I learned to use language like my mother did, he notes. I would simulcast  give you the program in your own tongue.

And then, of course, there was the violence: police shooting up Noahs computer at a DJ gig in the townships, having to jump out of a moving minibus with his mother and infant brother after its driver threatened to kill them, an alcoholic stepfather who terrorized the family and eventually shot his mother in the head.

Lying in the hospital, his mother Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah, who survived the attack, urged him to look on the bright side: Now youre officially the best-looking person in the family. Noah writes, I was bawling my eyes out and laughing hysterically at the same time.

His fierce mother, a woman who gives and gives and gives, is the true hero of this book. While Noahs father now lives in Switzerland, his mother still lives in South Africa, not far from the man who shot her. She was determined to give her son more than just survival. Against all odds, she gave him hope. And humour.

She made the brutality of life bearable with her tenacious heart, brave spirit and sharp wit. And now her son will do the same for his adopted country.

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Theres no shortage of elaborate and wild Westworld theories on the web, but star Jimmi Simpson, who plays William, says he hasnt seen anyone accurately figure it out.

I dont spend all that much time online but I feel like Ive been forwarded quite a few things and I havent seen anyone nail this, says Simpson of the many fan-written hypotheses for Sundays season 1 finale.

There are a lot of people coming close to some elements, but as far as the actual machine thats happening at the end, I think people will be refreshingly surprised and pleased.

HBOs hit sci-fi series is set in a futuristic high-tech, Western-themed amusement park where guests pay top dollar to live out fantasies alongside androids dubbed hosts. Simpson and Ed Harris are among the cast members who play the guests, while Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton and James Marsden are among those who play hosts.

The Canadian Press spoke with Simpson about the series, which was created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, who got a best screenplay Oscar nomination for the mind-bender Memento and also penned Interstellar, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises with his brother Christopher. The husband-and-wife team also serve as executive producers along with Lost creator J. J. Abrams, among others.

CP: Fan theories are going wild ahead of Sunday and some are wondering if there will be another twist, or a cliffhanger. But youve said that everything will be answered. Can you elaborate on that?

Simpson: Its just not something Jonah and Lisa and J.J. were making up as they went along. I think sometimes people are used to a concept being introduced on television and then they see people respond to certain things and they add some new twists and people like it, so they do more stuff like that. This is not that show.

This is a story and a narrative that Jonah and Lisa have created already, and so all of these twists and turns are part of their grand execution to deliver their story the way they think it would be best delivered.

So I think at the end of this season, its the end of a chapter and theyre prepared for it and I think they really kill it and they satisfy, I would say, at least most of all the things youre wondering. And then they do this wonderful thing and they just flick on this light and now youre seeing a future as well, but theyre not making you wait for the questions youve already been asking.

CP: See a future  so were entering a new timeline?

Simpson: Well, when I say future, its not specific in timelines but its like you see whats going to be happening next in this story. (He laughs) Dont trick me.

CP: Youve said the creators have always known how the series will end. Do you know?

Simpson: No. They gave us just each a piece of information as it was happening while we were shooting . . . I think it really netted them some beautiful work from the actors having to pay attention only to what the scene was at hand.

CP: Did you have your own theories as to what was happening with William, and were you right when you read the finale?

Simpson: I was probably more uninformed to the future of this character than anything Ive ever played, so every single turn for William was a revelation to me.

Each thing was kind of shocking and I couldnt believe that they were happening to me as an actor, whos been so happy to make his living just being this weird guy who jumps into a scene once in a while.

About halfway through, I had the suspicion as to where William was headed and I asked and their faces were shocked that I had figured anything out. And then they said, Just stop talking about it. So they were really amazing at sweetly denying us information.

CP: Everybody is asking you whether William is the Man in Black. I know you cant answer that.

Simpson: For sure.

CP: But fans have gone to great lengths to compare the two of you, even posting side-by-side photos of your faces. What do you think of that attention and detailed analysis of yourself?

Simpson: Its very strange to see my face split-screened with literally an icon of mine. Mr. Harris has just levelled me creatively with everything hes done and so its very surreal. But I also am aware that everything is temporary.

I think in a few months well all be doing different things and everybody will be focused on hopefully other things. But right now, its a really nice experience to have people responding to a work not only that I feel relatively proud of but just as a whole, the show I believe in very much.

I think Jonah and Lisa have made this push to make television more thoughtful and more pertinent and Im amazed that I get to be a part of this experience.

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Washington wines are on fire right now  for good reason. That states lush, saturated reds and creamy, satin-rich whites compare closely with those of California at a fraction of the price. And dialed-in, value-conscious wine lovers know it. The LCBO sold about $9 million worth of Washington wine last year, up 65 per cent over the previous year  and the upward trend shows no sign of slowing. I sampled a slew of wines from this state to find you five of the best. Because, you know, Ive got your back.

2014 Columbia Crest Grand Estates Chardonnay, Columbia Valley (LCBO 462846 $17.95 available in store and online)

From grapes grown in the dry Columbia Valley during the very warm 2014 vintage comes this full-bodied, barrel-fermented Chardonnay. Wafting aromas of creme brulee lead to a generous, tongue-coating attack of richness. The tropical fruit core of pineapple and mixed citrus glazed with allusions of caramelized sugar, warm nutmeg and toasted oak offer instant appeal. This is a gutsy but well-balanced little number that goes very well with fettuccine alfredo, chicken Caesar salad and your favourite cable-knit sweater on a chilly autumn evening.

Score: 88

2013 Seven Falls Cabernet Sauvignon, Wahluke Slope, Washington (Vintages 360222, released Nov. 26, $20.95 in store only)

The Wahluke Slope  one of the warmest, driest sub-regions in the state  produces gorgeously ripe, deeply-fruited red wines, and this bottle is a fine example. Expect plush aromas and favours of black cherry, blackcurrant liqueur, plum, vanilla, cedar and chocolate that are intricately woven together. And the extra-dense, brushed flannel texture from the finely grained tannin holds the flavour in place for ages. Pour it with roasted, salted meat for a real treat.

Score: 90

2014 Columbia Crest H3 Cabernet Sauvignon, Horse Heaven Hills, Washington (Vintages Essential 210047 $19.95 in store and online)

When you taste this, you wont be surprised that its the best-selling wine from Washington in Ontario. From Horse Heaven Hills, a sub-region known for making suave, seamless wines, this rich red offers more concentration, complexity and length than most sub-$20 Cabernet Sauvignon wines. Lashings of super-ripe red and black berries shot through with cocoa, granite, toasted oak, black tea, and red and black licorice keeps you riveted. This smooth sipper works as well as solo with maybe a few nuts as it does with hearty braised dishes.

Score: 91

2014 The Pundit Syrah, Columbia Valley, Washington (Vintages 462945, released Nov. 26, $39.95)

Chateau Ste. Michelle in Washington collaborated with Rhone valley winemaker Michel Gassier and French enology consultant Philippe Cambie to create this crazy good, Rhone-esque red. Sun-drenched and delicious, this big red tastes dense, deep and dark with savoury underpinnings. Broad yet silky flavours of salted chocolate, bonfire, black earth and damson unfurl slowly and taper toward suggestions of black olive, tobacco leaf, allspice and clove on the finish. This well-priced pour is drinking well now but can improve for up to 20 years if properly cellared. Drink with rib steak and potatoes.

Score: 93

2013 Col Solare, Red Mountain, Washington (Vintages 20487, $99.95 in store only)

Col Solare on Red Mountain  owned by Marchesi Antinori of Tuscany and Chateau St. Michelle of Washington  shows the majesty that can be teased from the vines of the region. Instantly mouthcoating, polished, and almost liqueur-like, this bottle has so much going on  cassis, cocoa, tobacco, freshly turned earth, cherry pie, black plum puree, pipe tobacco and more. The layered flavours taste harmonious, the structure is superbly balanced, and the effect: swoonworthy. Its drinking well now but will improve for another 40 years if properly cellared. Drink it with roast beef.

Score: 96

Carolyn Evans Hammond is a Toronto-based wine writer. She is also a London-trained sommelier and two-time bestselling wine book author. Reach her at carolyn@carolynevanshammond.com .

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Last weekend, after a busy day at the Ontario Medical Association council meeting, physician Elana Fric-Shamji settled in for a meal with some of her colleagues.

Dinner attendees described the 40-year-old doctor and mother of three as being in a vibrant, joyful mood. She told entertaining stories, shared her excitement over a recent joke tweet of hers that went viral and was published in media outlets.

And she volunteered some difficult news: She had filed for divorce the previous day.

She openly discussed her impending divorce and chose to look at it as a new beginning,  said Darren Cargill, a fellow doctor also attending the OMA council weekend, where she was happy and even giddy at times.

Six days later, at a press conference late Friday night, Toronto police announced Fric-Shamjis body had been found near the underpass of a bridge beside the West Humber River in Vaughan.

Her husband  the father of her kids and a neurosurgeon with Toronto Western Hospital  has been charged with first-degree murder.

Mohammed Shamji, 40, made a brief court appearance at Old City Hall Saturday morning. Dressed in a white prison jumpsuit, Shamji stood in the prisoners box looking nervous and solemn. At one point, he glanced over his right shoulder to family members seated in the gallery.

He was remanded into custody until his next court appearance Dec. 20. Shamjis lawyer, Liam OConnor, declined to comment.

The couples children are currently with Fric-Shamjis mother, according to police.

Toronto homicide investigator Det.Sgt. Steve Ryan told reporters police have spoken to witnesses and believed there had been an altercation in the couples home.

The discovery of the body came after Fric-Shamji was reported missing; her mother had reportedly not heard from her since Wednesday, and she didnt show up to work at Scarborough General Hospital on Thursday or Friday morning. Shamjis husband did not report her missing, according to police.

On Thursday afternoon, York Regional Police were called to a bridge beside the West Humber River where the body of a woman had been discovered. A post-mortem autopsy in Toronto Friday confirmed Fric-Shamjis identity.

According to police, she was strangled and suffered blunt force trauma of some kind.

Friday night, at a coffee shop near Lakeshore Rd. E. and Highway 10 in Mississauga, Mohammed Shamji was arrested without incident. Early Saturday, police had sealed off the couples North York home as they awaited a search warrant.

Repeatedly described as a brilliant physician by colleagues and friends, Fric-Shamji was on staff at Scarborough hospitals family practice teaching unit.

Fric-Shamji went to the University of Ottawa for medical school after which she received a masters of public policy degree from Duke University in North Carolina. At the Family Medicine Teaching Unit, her research interests were womens and preventative health, and family and community medicine.

Mohammed Shamji is an assistant professor of surgery with the University of Torontos faculty of medicine, and a specialist in spinal surgery. According to his biography, he is a graduate of several prestigious university programs, including Yale University, and completed his neurosurgery residency program at the University of Ottawa.

As news of Fric-Shamjis death spread Saturday, Ontarios medical community was sent reeling. In a statement Saturday, OMA President Virginia Walley described her as a talented family physician who was active in many efforts to improve the health-care system.

Ontarios doctors are a close-knit community, and we are all stunned  At this time, our thoughts and prayers are with her family, her friends, and her colleagues, Walley wrote.

I most recently spoke to her at our (OMA) fall council, where she enthusiastically discussed her work to help advance the interests of physicians and their patients.

Dr. Nadia Alam, who knew Fric-Shamji through a doctors online network and their mutual involvement in the OMA, said her death has been met with widespread shock and grief.

She was a big part of various physician Facebook forums, so many docs knew of her, if not her directly. And many enjoyed her sense of humour and kindness, Alam said.

Lindsay Bisset, a fellow doctor whose kids attend the same school as the Shamji children, described her as passionate about her children, her work and her physical fitness.

She adored her kids and was a terrific mom. The type who believes in family time together and was very connected with her kids, Bisset said.

She had a witty, silly side, too. In medical school, she was a dynamo, remembered fellow student Maggie Gordon, and she could get away with swearing and making jokes that just brushed the edge of appropriate.

Both Fric-Shamji and her husband were avid social media users, often posting photos of each other and accolades about professional accomplishments. In April, they travelled to Dubai for a spine surgery conference Mohammed Shamji was attending.

Thank you Dubai for your beautiful architecture, tasty food, exotic desert, and kind people. It was a trip of a lifetime. Now onto the most wonderful place of all  home, Fric-Shamji wrote on a photo posted online.

The pair also often posted about their mutual love of fitness, particularly running and the practice of Jiu-Jitsu. On a photo from earlier this year depicting her husband in his Jiu-Jitsu uniform, Fric-Shamji wrote: Two-striped Dr.Mo - can break your neck and then FIX it!

Brendan Byrne, a friend of Fric-Shamji who described her as brilliant said the photos suggest you cant believe everything you see.

We never really know what goes on behind closed doors or the facade of a happy selfie, he said.

Dr. Daisy Fung, an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Alberta, said a tight-knit, across-Canada group of physicians are now arranging a memorial. They are hoping to arrange a trust fund for the three children and a GoFundMe page.

We hope to do something in her memory, and all those women affected by domestic violence, Fung said. We are all deeply saddened and shocked at this tragedy and our concern also lies with her mother and her three beautiful children.

Sonia Elliott said she was a former patient of Fric-Shamjis when she operated a new family doctor practice, which Elliot believes the doctor did to be more available for her family.

She was a conscientious doctor who had a way with kids, coming across as a type A personality and a mother who was very family oriented.

Elliot said she was disappointed at the very sudden announcement that Fric-Shamji was closing her practice to move to Toronto for her husbands new job.

Clearly a lot of work had gone into mounting this very young practice so a sudden dissolution seemed strange to say the least. And it was at that point that it was hard not to consider, even briefly, what the balance in their relationship was like, she wrote in an email to the Star.

Dr. Lesley Barron, an Ontario general surgeon, met Fric-Shamji for the first time last weekend, at the OMA council where she was a Toronto district delegate.

Fric-Shamji struck Barron as lovely, intelligent and funny, and Barron noticed she had also been really active in terms of bringing forward motions at the council meeting.

At dinner, the two discussed work, patients and Fric-Shamjis pending divorce.

We discussed that sometimes divorce is a good thing, Barron said. She said a weight was lifted off her now she had decided to go ahead with leaving her husband.

With files from Brennan Doherty

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SANTIAGO DE CUBA, CUBAA couple of young boys are trying to fly a kite above the cracked asphalt of a crooked road that slashes through the barrio of Los Olmos.

Their toy is crafted from a shred of a plastic garbage bag and two sticks. It wont lift off the ground. Theres not a hint of wind, for one thing.

Youths in do-rags loll on rickety stoops, smoking and drinking mango juice. A woman smacks her little girl across the head for darting in front of a taxi, its tires squealing to avoid hitting the child. Old men play cards on overturned crates. Pretty teenage girls sashay past in body-hugging minidresses. An ancient hunchbacked lady sweeps the doorstep of her shack  walls and roof made of corrugated tin  using a straw broom.

If one were to go inside these houses, past the porches of weathered and splintered wood, youd find toilets made from buckets, rooms sweating mould, bare light bulbs where the electric current flickers on and off, pieces of junk furniture, little decorated shrines to indigenous religions and grinding poverty.

Some 22,000 people reside in this overwhelmingly black barrio in the northeast sector of Santiago de Cuba, a city  second largest in Cuba  closer geographically and culturally to Haiti and the Dominican Republic than Havana.

The interminable death march  death roll  of Fidel Castro will skirt the edges of Los Olmos at dawn on Sunday, hauled finally to Cementerio Santa Ifigenia for interment of his ashes at the conclusion of a nearly 900-kilometre odyssey across the length of the island nation.

Its been a nine-day spectacle, carefully orchestrated by the government as thousands upon thousands have paid tribute to the late El Comandante, lining the route throughout, cheering on cue, weeping on cue (the skeptical observer increasingly inclined to believe) for foreign media photographers. But especially for the national TV crews  government controlled, of course  whove documented every inch of the procession, transmitted live around the clock.

Theres no getting away from the tableau, at least on Cuban television, although each day of the four-day trek  Castros urn placed atop a footlocker-sized coffin, encased in glass, towed by a military jeep where white-gloved generals take turns riding  has been Fidel Groundhog Day, the testimonials from mourners eerily similar, as if reading from a script distributed by the regime.

But the encomiums are thin on the ground in Los Olmos. They frankly have scarcely taken notice. And no government-commandeered buses have wound through the barrio to pick up spear carriers of the revolution as stagecraft backdrop.

Only the Afro-Caribbean music that normally thumps and thrums in these neighbourhoods  Los Olmos is host to the most vibrant and sensuous annual Carnival celebrations, but also day-to-day dance-crazy  has been dialed down to observe a government edict for the period of lament. Nobody wants to draw the wrath of the states eyes-and-ears everywhere surveillance.

Here, the general attitude towards Castro is  indifference. He was irrelevant to their existence through half a century of ham-fisted rule, as an icon anyway  though his rigid communist orthodoxy has shaped their lives from the cradle to the grave. In a country of relentless impoverishment  the consequence of Marxist economics and a U.S.-led boycott that turned Castro to first Moscow as benefactor (sugar-for-oil) and then Venezuela (sugar-for-oil)  the denizens of Los Olmos are at the very bottom of the have-not pile.

I had nothing a week ago, before Fidel died, I have nothing now, Ill have nothing next week and next month and next year, said Alberto (only first names are being used in this column, to protect individuals from possible retribution), a 67-year-old former baker, now subsisting on a $12-monthly pension.

The great revolutionary claimed to be colour-blind and certainly Castro welcomed fighters of all ethnicities to an insurgency that began here, in Santiago, after The Bearded One descended as full-blown guerrilla commander from hiding in the nearby mountains of the Sierra Maestra. But blacks in Cuba largely comprise the grunt-work class, as victimized by racial prejudice and class-pecking here as anywhere else. Castro admitted in his quasi autobiography, My Life: The Revolution, over and above the rights and guarantees achieved for all its citizens of whatever ethnic background or origin, has not had the same success in its fight to eradicate the differences in social and financial status for the black population of the country. Blacks dont live in the best houses; you find that they still have the hardest, most physically wearing and often worst-paid jobs and that they receive much less help from their family members no longer in Cuba, in dollars, than their white compatriots.

Those dollars, by the way, are whats keeping the Cuban economy afloat today.

My children go to school for free, their uniforms are given to us by the government, says Rosaria, 38, who grabs patchwork employment at a local hairdresser. So they can read, as can I, where my mother could barely write her name. That still doesnt mean theyll have any kind of a future. Theyll grow up here in Los Olmos and theyll probably die in Los Olmos.

The colossal failure of Castros revolution is that he proclaimed to be doing it for them  for salt-of-the-earth peasants and bottom-of-the-heap working-class Cubans, though he was probably not thinking of descendants of slaves when he made those epic speeches. Land redistribution didnt help barrio dwellers from Havana to Santiago one iota. They live still in decrepit housing that should be condemned. They have no access to upward mobility and, indeed, upward mobility is the antithesis of equality for all, though Castros own family and cronies have parcelled out the privileges of jobs and status in a nation where 80 per cent of the economy is still controlled by the government.

The future? says 19-year-old Lisandra, bursting out in laughter. Well, Monday Im going to a dance club because Im sick of all this quiet. I dont really look ahead much because theres nothing to see.

Such commentary wasnt heard Saturday, in the eight-bars-and-out dirge of Castros leave-taking, the procession passing by the museum which used to be the Moncada Barracks  site of Castros first revolution gambit on July 26, 1953, a complete cock-up that resulted in the capture of Fidel and brother Raul, trial, conviction and imprisonment, their release after two years negotiated through the Catholic Church  the same church later forbidden from formally celebrating Christmas for three decades.

With dignitaries and heads of state again gathering to sing the tyrants praises, it was all I AM FIDEL! and REVOLUTIONARY YESTERDAY, HERO FOREVER! and self-congratulation for Santiago as the cradle of the revolution.

It had been sympathetic people from this region  where nascent independence also began in the 19th century  who kept the ragtag rebels alive through two years of privation after Castro landed on the coast in 1956, with younger brother Raul and Che Guevara, following liberation misadventures in Mexico.

It was from Santiago de Cuba, where the rebels received food and armaments. From Santiago, that the revolution drew its lifeblood and support, growing from barely two dozen fighters to a force of irregulars numbering 20,000 adept at the tactics of guerrilla warfare as government troops surrendered and changed sides by the thousands. Santiago, where, on Jan. 1, 1959, Castro first appeared publicly to proclaim the revolution a triumph before rolling on, seven days later, to Havana.

That is the Revolutionary Road that the Caravan of Freedom  distilled in Castros ashes  has retraced this past week.

But in miserable Los Olmos, they dont give much of a damn.

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A frustrated Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants police to enforce the law and criminally charge illegal marijuana dispensaries  even though weed legalization is looming.

People are right now breaking the law, Trudeau told the Stars editorial board on Friday.

We havent changed the laws. We havent legalized it yet. Yes, we got a clear mandate to do that. Weve said we will. Weve said were going to do it to protect our kids and to keep the money out of the pockets of criminals.

But the spread of storefront dispensaries  scores of which have popped up on Toronto streets this year  is clearly a concern to the prime minister.

Its a situation that is frustrating and I can understand peoples frustration on this, Trudeau said.

The promise we made around legalizing marijuana was done for two reasons  that I was very, very clear about: one, to better protect our kids from the easy access they have right now to marijuana; and, two, to remove the criminal elements that were profiting from marijuana, he said.

We believe that a properly regulated, controlled system will achieve both of those measures. But we havent brought in that properly regulated, controlled system because its important that we do it right in order to achieve those two specific goals.

That new regime will be unveiled next spring. The blueprint for the legislation is a report by former deputy prime minister Anne McLellans task force of medical and legal experts, which be released within days.

Until the new law is enacted some time in 2017, Trudeau stressed the current prohibition stands.

So, I dont know how much clearer we can be that were not legalizing marijuana to please recreational users, he said.

I mean, that will be a byproduct. We recognize that that is something thats going to happen when it happens, but its not happened yet.

While Trudeau said he had not yet pored over the McLellan panels report, he has clearly been thinking about the age limits for recreational marijuana use.

Its been highlighted many times that the effect of cannabis on the developing brain is particularly problematic, the prime minister said.

Im not going to venture too much further into the science but I think there is a consensus that, yes, perhaps up until 21 or 25 its not as good as past that age. But I have a sense that the worst damage is in the 12-, 13-, 14-year-old range, he said.

Trudeau emphasized Ottawa would work hand in glove with the provinces, which suggests there could be different age limits across the country.

The federal drinking limit is set at 18 but if provinces want to make it 19  as a few have  it can be 19.

Currently, marijuana is legal for medicinal purposes with a prescription from a medical doctor.

It can only be supplied by the 36 Health Canada-licensed producers and delivered by registered mail or homegrown in small amounts.

Storefront dispensaries that claim to be supplying medicinal marijuana are not federally licensed and are breaking the existing law.

Asked what municipalities could do to deal with the scourge of such pot shops, Trudeau did not mince words: You can enforce the law.

Police, however, have been trying to do that in places like Toronto and Ottawa, with raids of dispensaries, but with middling effect.

Because the federal law will eventually be amended, some entrepreneurs appear willing to risk fines as a cost of doing business before outright legalization.

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BEIRUT  Its too dangerous to bury east Aleppos dead in the daylight. So when night falls, an imam slips out to the latest mass grave, conducting the briskest of rites and thanking God that the skies have stayed silent.

With Syrian President Bashar Assads warplanes circling and ground troops closing in, Aleppos rebel-run districts are in such chaos this week that no one can count the dead.

We cant keep up, said Ibrahim Abu Laith, a volunteer with the White Helmets civil defence group. Were having to choose who we find and who we dont.

Syrias 5 -year war has proved so difficult to track that the United Nations said last year that it had stopped counting casualties at the half-million mark. Yet the scale and ferocity of the bombardment in east Aleppo since the start of a pro-government offensive on Nov. 15 has posed documentation challenges unseen in this war.

Last week, the opposition-run health directorate put the death toll at 508. Despite daily bombardment, there has been no update since.

Syrian warplanes, artillery and mortar rounds pounded areas in eastern Aleppo on Saturday drawing rebel rockets, as government troops gain new ground in the shrinking opposition-held enclave.

After four years of holding nearly half of the divided city, rebel fighters have been increasingly squeezed into the centre of the eastern enclave. Government and allied troops, including Lebanese, Iraqi and Iranian fighters, have concentrated their fight on the northeastern part of the enclave, swiftly taking new districts since their offensive began last week. Another front on the southern outskirts of the city has been slower, as rebel fighters push back government advances there.

The advances have caused massive displacement. The UN estimated that more than 31,000 have already fled their homes, either to government or Kurdish areas, or deeper into the besieged enclave. The fighting has also intensified the rebel shelling of government-held areas in Aleppo.

The state broadcaster al-Ikhbariya said precise operations by government and allied troops aim to rout out terrorists, which is how the government refers to all armed opposition groups.

The sound of war prevailed in the city early Saturday. Warplanes made several runs overhead, drawing what appeared to be rebel machine-gun fire toward the aircraft.

The Russian Interfax news agency report quoted an unnamed Syrian military official as saying that a light ground attack aircraft, L-39 jet, was shot down near Aleppo, and its crew was killed. The opposition Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said two pilots were killed when rebel fighters targeted the aircraft as it approached an Aleppo airport to the east of the city.

While a local morgue records what details it can, the knock-on effects of a government siege mean many deaths go unrecorded. Casualties are treated across family basements and old fruit stores, and without enough gasoline to take bodies for autopsy, many people now opt to take them straight for burial.

Crippled by shortages, even the White Helmets choose their rescue missions carefully  wasting too much gas to reach one blast site could rob them of the chance to save more lives at another.

When they do venture out, the rumble of warplanes can swiftly abort an operation. This weekend, Laith said that he heard whimpers from the rubble as his team scrambled away.

When you hear someone alive but reach them dead, that is the hardest part, he said. Broken buildings across east Aleppo could still hide dozens of bodies, according to the local health directorate.

Some have been torn apart by followup airstrikes.

The head of Aleppos White Helmets branch watched last week as two women combed a body bag for signs of their loved ones. Suddenly, the mother cried out and reached for a leg. She said he was her husband. She knew his jeans, Ammar al-Selma said.

Then her companion recognized a watch. All that was left of her son was his arm, Selma said. Were bringing in body parts at this stage.

The UN humanitarian chief warned Wednesday that east Aleppo is becoming one giant graveyard.

Already the cemeteries are full, local officials say, and shallow graves are spreading throughout public parks as families try to bury their dead quickly.

But even that is a gamble. As a government advance through northeast Aleppo sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing Sunday, a young nurse, Modar Sheikho, narrowly escaped the artillery shell that killed his brother. His fathers death followed swiftly  hit by a bomb as he searched for a burial plot.

The only remaining option is the local councils nighttime ritual, venturing out in a quiet moment to bury the days remains.

You know, it is not our job to bury people. But if we dont, no one else will, said Abo Jaafar, an east Aleppo coroner.

Where we used to bury one man, we lay down entire families now, he said. We dig and we dig. It never ends.

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JAKARTA, INDONESIAIndonesian rescuers on Sunday recovered body parts in the sea where a police plane with 13 people aboard is believed to have crashed the previous day.

The light aircraft lost contact Saturday on the way to the island of Batam, which is near Singapore, after taking off from an island off the southeast coast of Sumatra. All those aboard, including five crew and eight passengers, are feared dead, officials said.

The M28 Skytruck plane is believed to have plunged into 24-metre-deep waters, said National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo.

He told a news conference that remains, probably of the victims, were found in the area where villagers earlier retrieved a seat and a bag containing a cellphone and police documents. He added that an oil spill was also found in the area.

TV footage showed police uniforms and other clothing also were retrieved from the sea.

In Batam, local police chief Brig. Gen. Sambudi Gusdian quoted witnesses as saying they saw the plane explode after it crashed into the sea off Lingga district.

Search teams involving Indonesias navy, customs office and maritime police, as well as aircraft from Singapore, were scouring a 518-square-kilometre (200-square-mile) sea area for the wreckage of the aircraft, Soelistyo said. Divers also were deployed.

It was at least the second air accident in Indonesia in just over a week. On Nov. 24, a Bell 412 EP helicopter from the Indonesian army crashed in Indonesias part of Borneo island, killing three and leaving one missing.

Indonesia, a sprawling archipelagic nation of more than 250 million people, has been plagued by transportation accidents in recent years, from plane and train crashes to ferry sinkings.

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SANTIAGO, CUBAFidel Castros ashes were interred in a private ceremony Sunday morning, ending nine days of mourning for the man who ruled Cuba for nearly half a century.

The military caravan bearing his remains in a flag-draped cedar coffin left the Plaza of the Revolution in the eastern city of Santiago at 6:39 a.m. Thousands of people lined the two-mile route to Santa Ifigenia cemetery, waving Cuban flags and shouting Long live Fidel!

Photographs taken by Cuban state media showed that the interment was presided over by Castros younger brother and successor, President Raul Castro, who wore his green military uniform as he placed the older mans ashes into what appeared to be a niche in his tomb, a simple, grey, round stone about 15 feet high. The niche was then covered by a plaque bearing the single name, Fidel.

Those in attendance included Castros wife, Dalia Soto del Valle, other members of his family and presidents Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, among others.

The gathering appeared to last about 90 minutes and took place entirely out of the public eye after Cuban officials made a last-minute cancellation of plans to broadcast the start of events live on national and international television. International media were barred from the event.

The tomb stood to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiagos Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.

Before the funeral ended, martial music could be heard outside the cemetery, where Ines de la Rosa was among the mourners gathered. She said she would have liked to watch the interment on television, but we understand how they as a family also need a bit of privacy.

Fellow mourner Elena Vinales said she wasnt surprised that the images of the event were not broadcast. It seems to be a family moment, she said.

The decision to keep the final farewell private came the morning after Raul Castro announced that Cuba would prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after his brother, and bar the construction of statues of the former leader and revolutionary icon, in keeping with his desire to avoid a cult of personality.

The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality and was consistent in that through the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected, Raul Castro told a massive crowd gathered in the eastern city of Santiago.

He said that Cubas National Assembly would vote in its next session on the law fulfilling the wishes of his brother, who died last week at 90. The legislature generally holds a meeting in December and under Cubas single-party system, parliament unanimously or near-unanimously approves every government proposal.

Fidel Castro, who stepped down in 2006 after falling ill, kept his name off public sites during his near half-century in power because he said he wanted to avoid the development of a personality cult. In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto Che Guevara became common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths.

Mourning for Castro has been fervent and intense across the country since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba, where huge crowds have been shouting Castros name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes.

All of us would like to put Fidels name on everything but in the end, Fidel is all of Cuba, said Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a 70-year-old retired economist. It was a decision of Fidels, not Rauls, and I think he has to be respected.

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HELSINKIA gunman in Finland killed a local town councillor and two journalists in an apparent random shooting in a small towns nightlife district, police said Sunday. A local man was detained on suspicion of murder.

The chairwoman of the Imatra town council and two female reporters were gunned down in a pedestrian area outside a restaurant around midnight Saturday, police spokeswoman Heli Jamsen-Turkki said. Police said two of the victims were in their early 50s and one was in her mid-30s.

Police detained a 23-year-old suspect who didnt resist arrest. He had allegedly fired four or five shots, hitting his victims in the head and torso with a hunting rifle, authorities said.

Detective Superintendent Saku Tielinen, who is leading the investigation, said the suspect had a criminal record that included violent incidents and theft, but declined to identify him.

There is no indication of a political motive. It seems the gunman and victims didnt know each other, Tielinen said. All indications are that he chose his victims randomly.

The suspect arrived outside the restaurant in his car and shot the three women as they stepped out of the restaurant during a busy Christmas party evening. He then waited in the car until police arrived and accompanied officers silently and peacefully, police said.

Tielinen said investigators would question him later.

Hundreds of people lit candles and placed them Sunday in the bloodied snow outside the restaurant in Imatra, a southeastern town of 28,000 about 230 kilometres (140 miles) east of the capital, Helsinki.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto conveyed his deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims, saying the killings shocked all of Finland. Prime Minister Juha Sipila said the government would consider new security measures pending the results of the investigation.

Finland is one of the most secure countries in the world, but even so these sorts of incidents unfortunately are possible here too, Sipila said.

Social welfare officials provided support to victims families and to witnesses of the incident.

We decided to open a crisis centre after the shooting occurred, said Saara Raudasoja, a spokeswoman for the South Karelia Social and Health Care District. In such a small place, its quite a huge incident. Many people were shocked.

In Finland, a country of 5.4 million with strong hunting traditions, there are 650,000 officially recognized gun owners but homicides with guns are unusual. After two deadly school shootings in 2007 and 2008, gun laws have been tightened.

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"They (Government and RBI) should act and get Indian notes printed outside, there are several bodies that can do that," said Adi Godrej.

By Devina Gupta: Its week four for the demonetization drive and for the Reserve Bank of India its a war against time.

With a massive task to replace over 15 lakh crore worth of old currency notes in 500 and 1000 denomination, the central bank is working round the clock to deliver the new notes.

Interestingly even as the nation is pitching in for India first policy to crackdown on the blackmoney with this bold move, the new notes being printed are not 100 percent made in India.

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India Today accessed insider details of RBI printing press, currently there are 4 currency printing press running full steam with three shifts and no lunch breaks for the staff.

Two currency printing press operated directly under RBI are part of Security Printing and Mining Corporation of India (SPMCI) in Dewas (MP) & Nashik (Maharashtra). In Nashik 90 lakh notes are being printed each day on 2 lines, where priority is being given to smaller denomination notes of 500 rupee.

In Madhya Pradesh, Dewas printing mill has 3 lines and around 90 lakh notes of 500 rupee denominations are being printed each day.

The other two are operated by RBIs subsidiary Bharatyia Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private limited (BRBNPL) in Mysuru (Karnataka) and Salboni (West Bengal) both shelling out 4 cr pieces of 2000 rupee notes.

Here is the catch, around 16 million tonnes of paper is being rolled out by a mill in Hoshangabad but due to unprecedented demand, now paper is being sourced from United Kingdom as well. Sources in the RBI have told India Today that around 16 million tonne of paper is being imported from the UK. That's not all, RBI is even sourcing the specialized security thread used in new notes from centres across Italy, Ukraine and UK.

The new note that you will have is not completely Indian made. Due to high demand we are sourcing paper roll in 50:50 ratio from UK and Hoshangabad. Even security thread is outsourced to Ukraine, UK and Italy??, said a senior official in RBI.

Interestingly, the intaglio ink used to print the notes is supplied from Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim and Rajasthan but its also produced abroad and then sources from local centres.

Each batch of notes takes 8 days to print and we can't waste time sourcing our materials", said a senior official in RBI on condition of anonymity.

Recently Adi Godrej, Chairman of Godrej Group told India Today mooting the idea of printing currency abroad to meet the shortfall after 86% of Indian currency was declared illegal by the government.

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"They (Government and RBI) should act and get Indian notes printed outside, there are several bodies that can do that", said Adi Godrej.

According to sources, in the recent past RBI did opt to print entire Indian currency abroad in 1997 when Bimal Jalan took over from Rangarajan as the RBI Governor. There was a shortfall of notes which required signature of the new Governor. New notes were sourced from UK, Canada, America and Germany at an estimated cost of over $90 million. But soon after security concerns were raised over counterfeiting and giving information access to foreign printing center. So for now RBI is banking on its own strength to print the entire new currency, but will it meet the December 30th deadline set by the Government to restore order?

"Even if all the printing lines work in an ideal scenario with no misprinting or damaged notes in 3 shifts, it will take atleast 5 months for cash supply to normalize. Till then, we will continue to see the shortage", said Vipin Malik former Director, Central Board, Reserve Bank of India.

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ROMEItalian Premier Matteo Renzi announced he will resign Monday after suffering a stinging loss in a reforms referendum, triggering immediate calls from a populist party and other opposition forces for elections to be held soon.

The Nos have won in an extraordinary clear-cut way, Renzi told reporters in Rome about an hour after polls had closed in Sundays balloting.

I lost and the post that gets eliminated is mine, Renzi said. The governments experience is over, and in the afternoon Ill go to the Quirinal Hill to hand in my resignation to President Sergio Mattarella.

Leaders of the populist 5-Star Movement, which is led by comic Beppe Grillo, joined the chorus for early elections. The 5-Stars are the chief rivals of Renzis Democrats and are anxious to achieve national power for the first time.

With ballots counted from nearly half of the polling stations, the No votes were running at nearly 60 per cent to 40 per cent for the Yes votes on reforms Renzi claimed were vital to modernize Italy.

Mattarella as head of state would have to decide whether to accept any resignation. Renzi is expected to be asked to stay on at least until a budget bill can be passed later this month and to shepherd a months-long electoral reform process.

Opposition leader Matteo Salvini, of the anti-immigrant Northern League, hailed the referendum as a victory of the people against the strong powers of three-quarters of the world.

Many had read the referendum as an outlet for growing anti-establishment, populist sentiment in Europe.

The self-assured Renzi late last year pledged to offer his resignation if the referendum on overhauling a good part of the 1948 Constitution went down to defeat.

That was months before Britains David Cameron had made his ill-fated bet on the referendum on whether the U.K. should stay in the European Union. He lost that bet.

In Italy, the referendum was required because the reforms were approved by less than two-thirds of Parliament. But Renzi raised the stakes, turning the referendum into a virtual plebiscite on himself, when he pledged to quit if Italians turned their back on reforms to streamline the Senate and give the central government more powers at the cost of the regions.

Some opposition leaders started clamouring for early elections after Renzis reform measure went down to defeat.

We are ready to vote as soon as possible, Salvini told reporters.

Renzi had been hoping to survive the rising populist forces that have gained traction across Europe.

Some of Renzis political opponents were hoping to tap into the populist sentiment that has been gaining ground with the U.K. vote in June to leave the European Union and the U.S. presidential victory last month by billionaire political outsider Donald Trump.

A Yes vote would have strengthened Renzis 2 and a half-year-old government, giving it impetus to complete its five-year term and time to prepare for elections in 2018, while a No vote favoured early elections sometime next year.

During the referendum campaign, the risk of political instability in Italy, Europes fourth-largest economy, triggered market reaction, with bank stocks sinking and borrowing costs on sovereign debt rising.

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VIENNAAlexander Van der Bellen, who preached moderation and tolerance, won Austrias presidential election Sunday over right-wing populist Norbert Hofer, according to preliminary results that showed Van der Bellen convincingly ahead despite pre-vote polls showing them neck and neck.

Austrian right-wing candidate Norbert Hofer has conceded to his left-leaning rival in the countrys presidential election.

Hofer says in a Facebook post that he is endlessly sad about his loss, adding, I would have been happy to take care of our Austria.

Hofer conceded as preliminary results showed Alexander Van der Bellen ahead with 53.3 per cent of the vote compared to Hofers 46.7 per cent. Those figures may change, but election officials say the margin is big enough to guarantee Van der Bellens victory.

Hofer congratulated his rival and urged Austrians to stick together and to work together.

While the final result will not be official until absentee votes are counted Monday, officials said the outstanding ballots will not change the outcome, even if the percentages of what the candidates won may vary.

The Austrian presidents functions are largely ceremonial and past elections have merited little attention outside the country because they were decided between mainstream candidates. This time, though, the contest was different because the vote Sunday was seen as an indicator of how well euroskeptic candidates will do elsewhere in the EU next year.

Van der Bellen is pro-European Union and represents liberal to left-of-centre views while Hofer comes from the euroskeptic anti-migrant Freedom Party. Hofers campaign message has varied from hard-line when talking to Freedom Party supporters to more moderate when trying to woo undecided voters disenchanted with the political establishment.

Sundays election was a rerun from May, which Van der Bellen won by less than 1 percentage point. It was re-held following a court ruling after Hofers Freedom Party claimed widespread irregularities.

Van der Bellen on Sunday noted the outsize attention the election in Austria was receiving.

What happens here today has relevance for all of Europe, he said before casting his ballot.

Other populist politicians in the EU who want their countries out of the bloc were supportive of Hofer ahead of elections they will face next year. Both far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen of France and anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders in the Netherlands tweeted their support.

Hofer opted for a soft tone as he voted Sunday.

I want to commit myself to changing this union in a positive way. And I dont want Austria to leave the European Union, that I have to say very clearly, Hofer said Sunday in his home village of Pinkafeld, south of Vienna. (But) our strength is not to be an amorphous entity, our strength is diversity, a diverse European Union.

His comments reflected his partys modified message. With most Austrians critical of the EU but not to the point of wanting to leave it, the Freedom Party no longer suggests that Austria would be better off without Brussels. Instead, it is pushing for an EU of loosely allied members mostly sharing economic ties instead of a close political union.

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WASHINGTONVladimir Putin wants to make Russia great again. For that, he may need a hand from Donald Trump.

For the Russian president, relief from crippling sanctions is a gateway to the ultimate goal of establishing Russia as the political and economic equivalent of the United States. And the U.S. president-elect, who extolled Putins leadership during the campaign and called for a tempered approach to U.S.-Russia relations, may be a conduit to achieving that.

Despite Russias denials that it tampered in the U.S. election or even took sides, Trumps victory has been greeted as a win of sorts for Moscow, too, by members of Putins own United Russia party.

It turns out that United Russia won the elections in America, Viktor Nazarov, the governor of Omsk, Russia, declared in a radio interview.

Long before Trump was on the radar of American voters, Russia had deep interests in the outcome of elections around the world. But 2016 presented a unique window.

Motivated by years of sanctions and decades of post-Soviet setbacks, the Russians were keen to pounce; the race for the White House, plagued by party infighting and scandal, was easy bait.

Putin was seriously impacted by the sanctions because it targeted his closest friends and now they think Trump is going to change that, said Robert Amsterdam, an international attorney with Russian clients.

U.S. intelligence agencies said in October they are confident that the Russian government hacked the emails of U.S. citizens and institutions, including political organizations, and handed them over to DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks for distribution. Hacked Democratic National Committee emails in July, indicating that DNC leaders were favouring Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primaries, prompted the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Weaponizing information is really about who gets to write the truth, who gets to write the narrative and who benefits from that narrative  and that is incredibly powerful, said Laura Galante, director of intelligence analysis at cybersecurity firm FireEye, Inc.

Russia has sought to put itself on an equal footing with the U.S. since the collapse of the Soviet Union, extending its territory where it can, countering U.S. military action and positioning itself as a rival to the worlds biggest economy.

But its ambitions suffered a setback in 2014 when the Obama administration authorized sanctions against sectors of the Russian economy, including financial services, energy, mining and defence. The administration also sanctioned people in Putins inner circle accused of undermining peace in Ukraine. Add to that falling oil prices and a weak ruble, and Russias economy was shackled.

The impact has been extensive. Russias sovereign wealth fund had $87 billion in assets in December 2013, according to the Russian Finance Ministry. As of June 1, it was down to $38 billion, following sell-offs by the Russian government to make up for budget deficits. U.S. trade with Russia tumbled to $23 billion in 2015, from about $34 billion the previous year.

Sanctions that impede Russias ability to acquire equipment for Arctic offshore drilling are of particular concern because they hold the key to Russias rapid expansion in that sector.

Lifting restrictions on exports of technology, software, things that really help their energy industry extract oil and gas would be the top priority, said Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Centre on Sanctions and Illicit Finance at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.

Production is dwindling over time, so theyre going into new, offshore, deep-water drilling in the Arctic and so on, and to do that, they really need Western technology, he said.

Sanctions relief is important to Russias broader objective of superpower status, shown by its bullish Syria policy. Syrias Russian-backed military made major gains in rebel-held eastern Aleppo in recent days and rebel resistance appeared to be crumbling. While Moscow and Washington are continuously at odds over Syria, the Obama administration has not imposed any Syria-related sanctions.

Trumps promise of closer co-operation with Russia has created worries that the U.S. will have diminished leverage. He said during the campaign that under his leadership the U.S. might not come to the defence of some NATO members if Russia were to attack them, indicating he would make that decision based on whether those Baltic republics have fulfilled their obligations to us.

But Trumps positions are hard to assess because hes often stepped away from his more controversial proposals. Trumps choice as defence secretary, retired Gen. James Mattis, has called Russias aggression in Ukraine a problem much more severe, more serious than Washington and the European Union are treating it.

Putin and Trump spoke soon after his victory and a statement from Trumps transition team said the president-elect told Putin he looked forward to a strong and enduring relationship. Observers caution that Putins interests are self-motivated and Russias incentive to interfere in U.S. politics wont go away with Trumps victory.

Its not that Putin is against the Democratic Party, Zilberman said. Hes more against the United States and (for) whatever may push Russian interests.

He added: Theres nothing saying that next time they wont hack Republicans and expose Trump administration emails if it benefits them.

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GENEVAForty-six countries including the U.S., China and European Union nations failed Sunday to agree on a list of environmental goods like solar-powered air conditioners or LED light bulbs that could be targeted for lower tariffs.

The two-day meeting at World Trade Organization involved a bid to agree on reducing tariffs on over 200 environment-friendly goods worth around $1 trillion in trade annually, part of a process that EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom called important to show that trade and the environment can go hand in hand.

She and several other officials said Chinas presentation of a late list of goods to include threw a monkey wrench into the weekend negotiations. The talks amounted to just a step in a broader process on the Environmental Goods Agreement that was already facing uncertainty about how the administration of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will approach it.

In the last seconds, China proposed a list that was not studied enough, Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci told The Associated Press on Sunday. Many countries, they have concerns about the list.

Zeybekci cited other concerns about sustainable-development lumber between Canada and New Zealand on one side and Japan and Taiwan on another.

The United States and the European Union, who chaired the talks, said in a joint statement that envoys would return home to consider the next steps, but did not provide any timetable.

We tried really hard, Malmstrom told reporters, adding that all negotiators were leaving with clear determination to do this deal ... This is important for the environment, for the climate, for our moral obligation to show that trade can deliver after the Paris and Marrakech agreements to help fight global warming.

One senior negotiator said the last-ditch Chinese effort, which affected priority items for many other nations, came even as China has been trying to position itself as a leader on environmental issues. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the talks, said Chinas new list  which was lopsided in favour of its own priorities  came in at 11 a.m. on Sunday when others had already agreed upon many other points.

All delegations had some of their red lines moved in or moved out in a way that it was impossible to deal with in a couple of hours, Malmstrom said, referring to Chinas proposal.

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Most Canadians tourists, lying on the Varadero beach in Cuba, would likely be blissfully unaware of the strong influence Cuba has played in the relationship between Canada and the U.S, a legendary relationship, now under the microscope of President-elect Donald Trump.

Tourists would likely not remember the tension that existed between former PM John Diefenbaker and John F. Kennedy in 1962, as Diefenbaker hesitated to accede to Kennedys request to put the Canadian military into high alert when Russian nuclear missiles were discovered in Cuba. The resulting frantic and frightening 13-day show down between Russia and the U.S. rattled the world.

Our ties with both countries are special. Canadas diplomatic relations with Cuba, established in 1945, remained even after the Cuban revolution in 1959 when Canada and Mexico were the only countries in the hemisphere not to break relations. Those ties were deepened in the 1970s with Pierre Trudeaus historic visit and his subsequent friendship with Fidel Castro.

The United States and Cuba parted diplomatic ways in 1961, but while Canadas friendship created unease in Washington, our independent foreign policy did not prevent a unique bilateral friendship between Canada and the U.S.  two sovereign states that enjoy the worlds longest undefended border. That border is a visible sign that no matter the personalities of the respective leaders or differences in policies of the two governments, Canadians and Americans will get along.

But once more, there is a potential obstacle between a future president of the United States and the prime minister of Canada. And once more, Cuba is inadvertently, playing a part.

It is unfortunate because, momentarily, it appeared the U.S., Canada and Cuba, might finally be working in tandem. During Prime Minister Harpers tenure, two years of secret talks hosted by Canada (but not with our participation) and the Vatican helped to facilitate a historic rapprochement between President Obama and President Raul Castro in December 2014, as they announced joint agreements in a variety of sectors. Obama later visited Cuba on March 21 of this year.

However, with the election of Donald Trump, the carefully negotiated alliance is under stress. In a Tweet, during the election, Trump threatened that if Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal. Trudeau and his ministers wisely avoided any untoward comments on the campaign, knowing full well that no country wants the interference of another country when deciding their own electoral fate.

Much is at stake for the Canada-U. S. alliance. Our two countries have traditionally been the worlds largest trading partners, although just recently Canada has been eclipsed by China. Nevertheless, nearly 9 million U.S. jobs depend on Canada for trade and investment. Furthermore, the Canadian ambassador to Washington raised eyebrows when he announced the Liberal government would be happy to renegotiate NAFTA, in response to another of Trumps tirades.

In spite of wide differences in policies, it seemed to be business as usual.

But then, Fidel Castro died, just days after Trudeaus Cuban visit. A foreign leaders death is generally a pro forma announcement from the White House or the PMO. But not in this case. While Obama did issue a formal statement, both Trump and Trudeau deviated from the norm.

Trump tweeted, Fidel Castro is dead! Certainly one of the most unconventional of the president-elects tweets. He also issued a statement calling Castro a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades.

Meanwhile, Trudeau released an official statement, including unexpected sentiments that might have been better expressed in a personal condolence letter, but not in an announcement on behalf of the country. As well, Trudeaus belated acknowledgement of Castros history as a repressive dictator unfortunately left the PM open to global criticism.

So, where do we go from here? As we enter the new Trump-Trudeau era, will we be able to safeguard our important Canada-U. S. relationship? Will Trump reopen a battle with Cuba, as he is doing on other fronts? If so, could Canada become collateral damage? Could Cuba be used as a proxy for disagreements with Canada?

In Havana, on Nov. 15, Justin Trudeau said, For me, election results in the United States wont change the strong relationship that is a friendship and a partnership between Canada and Cuba.

Food for thought as you relax on that Cuban beach this winter.

Penny Collenette is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa and was a senior director of the Prime Ministers Office for Jean Chretien.

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So there you are, crushed in a hot, crowded room, cursing your friend who tempted you there. Suddenly you emerge from a trance-like state 10 minutes later. The crowd begins to applaud hysterically. You realize you have been captured by the most precious commodity in political life, a charismatic leader.

Popular social psychologists, like Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis, drawing on the work of academic giants, like Daniel Kahneman and Stephen Pinker, have begun to scratch the surface of how these strange intuitive processes operate within us. We all recognize the moments  I saw her across the room, and I knew ... , There was just something about him ...   but we remain mystified by them.

What makes head over heels instant attraction, or falling for a charismatic leader, even more mysterious is that your new love, may not have grabbed me. My irresistible new political hero might leave you cold. But there are some people, who by an unknown mix of genes, looks, and presentation, will win the attention and affection of a large majority of the people in any room they enter, before they say a word.

On the last night of a political mission to Cuba, Ed Broadbent and I were summoned to a secret location to meet with the comandante of the Cuban revolution. For nearly three hours, I was wowed by one of the most charismatic personalities I had ever met. Exhausted from a seven country schedule, struggling with dysentery, and skeptical about a man I saw as responsible for a great deal of unnecessary death in Central America and hardship in Cuba, I was nonetheless stunned by the power of his charm and personality. Thirty years later I remember the detail of the late-night meeting and am as mystified by it now as I was then.

As valuable as charismatic appeal is in winning a revolution or an election campaign, it has a brutal downside. Few human beings can move through their lives as the object of constant adoration without it twisting their judgment, and making them unwisely hostile to critics. You dismiss colleagues cautions and you are blind to your own missteps. Fidel exiled Che Guevara, his only equally charismatic competitor. He was saved from a likely ignominious end by his brother Raul pushing him into retirement. An increasingly erratic Margaret Thatcher was deposed by those closest to her.

Canada has had more than its share of prime ministers endowed with the ability to charm the birds out of the trees. Few have succumbed entirely to the hubris that often comes with such gifts  but several have flirted dangerously close to that fall. One might hope our current prime minister takes the necessary lessons from his fathers near humiliation, in his first re-election bid. And listens to the wisdom of the charismatic statesman about to leave the American political stage.

The worlds most powerful nation now must hold its breath that a leader whose sole preparation for the presidency was reality television and real estate sales  mere celebrity as opposed to any apparent driving conviction  can be constrained from fatal strategic gaffes. American political and media analysts allowed their contempt for the man and his message to blind them to the political meaning of tens of thousands of Americans, every few days for more than a year, coming out to wait in four-hour lines to hear the same menu of fables, slogans, and slurs. That is pure charismatic politics.

Placing Trump as a figure of the same charismatic appeal as an Obama or a Kennedy may turn many stomachs, but the evidence is hard to challenge. No organization, little money, no political experience, no believable ideas, and massive opposition from every corner of American politics and most of the media and he still wins nearly half of every Americans vote! Yes, he rode a wave of anger, but McCain and Romney failed using similar messages. Sadly, Trumps triumph is proof of the dark side of charismatic political leadership.

Would Fidel have been a less brutal leader if he had not been gifted with daily proof of his genius by the constant adulation around him? Would Donald Trump have been a less emotionally fragile and heartless boss if he had ever stepped outside the bubble of his privileged life, endured and learned from tough critics?

As a caution about political celebrity, Bob Rae likes to quote Isaiah Berlins aphorism about failing to challenge pride, Dont forget, every man still puts his pants on one leg at a time ... Every charismatic leader needs someone they trust absolutely, to remind them of that each morning. Its not a conversation one can imagine a Reince Priebus or a Steve Bannon having with the president-elect.

Robin V. Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and a Broadbent Institute leadership fellow, was an NDP strategist for 20 years.

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All parties in the Ontario legislature have done the right thing by unanimously adopting a set of reforms to tighten up the provinces system of campaign fundraising.

The new law isnt perfect. But it will bring some order to a political fundraising culture that was getting out of control, with cabinet ministers out filling party-mandated quotas for bringing in cash.

From now on, corporate and union donations will be illegal, as they are at the federal level and in many other provinces. Ministers, MPPs, candidates and senior staff wont be able to attend cash-for-access fundraisers. And annual contribution limits will be significantly lower  cut from $10,000 for individuals to just $1,200.

At the same time, third-party interest groups will be forbidden from spending more than $100,000 on advertising during election periods, and $500,000 in the six months preceding a campaign. That will curb the influence of these groups on the outcome of elections.

Its all good, although the Liberal government could have pushed things further by, for example, clamping down on fundraising by ministers and MPPs by phone or email. Nonetheless, its the biggest change in Ontarios fundraising rules in decades and deserves applause.

The new Ontario rules have another consequence: they highlight once again how federal fundraising practice has fallen seriously out of step with evolving practice in other jurisdictions.

It took the Wynne government time to agree that cash-for-access fundraisers were outdated and unseemly. Reporting by Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn, in particular, exposed the fact that cabinet ministers were on a gruelling fund-raising circuit, meeting quotas as high as $500,000 a year to top up Liberal party coffers.

But the Liberals did finally agree to ban the practice, with the support of both opposition parties at Queens Park.

Their federal Liberal cousins should learn from that example. Overall, federal rules on fundraising are quite tight, with no corporate or union donations allowed and annual contribution limits of about $1,500.

But theres a glaring hole in the system, one the Trudeau Liberals are using to raise large amounts of money for the party. Ministers, and the prime minister himself, are turning up regularly at cash-for-access events across the country. Its perfectly legal, but its a tawdry, ongoing spectacle that is eroding the governments reputation for high ethical standards.

Its even worse since, as we have written before, the prime minister is allowing all this to happen in blatant contradiction of guidelines he issued to his ministers as they were sworn in last fall.

Trudeau told his ministers not to let anyone buy influence, and to abide by the principle that there should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians and political parties.

On Friday, during a visit to the Stars editorial board, the prime minister continued to defend having ministers attend $1,500-a-ticket fundraising events. You have to be pretty cynical to imagine a government could be bought off for that kind of money, he said.

At the same time, though, he left the door open a crack for change down the line. He noted that it took the Ontario Liberals a while to be persuaded that cash-for-access should be banned. With that ban now going into effect, he said, well see if thats something that would be useful at the federal level.

The sooner the federal Liberals come to that conclusion, the sooner they will stanch the damage to their reputation. It would be good for them  and, more importantly, good for our national political culture.

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Re: Liberals OK two pipelines, Nov. 30

Liberals OK two pipelines, Nov. 30

I feel a sense of betrayal as a result of the decision by the Trudeau government to permit the new Kinder Morgan pipeline to be constructed.

Canada promised at COP21 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by the year 2030. How can this be done if we increase the extraction and sale of petroleum products? Even former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney has said that the world cannot safely continue to exploit fossil fuels.

What does the commitment that Canada made in Paris count for? Is the promise made in 2015 just as valuable as the one made in Kyoto, and later abandoned by the Harper government?

The Trudeau governments previous decision to move Canada away from the use of coal for the generation of electricity was a move in the right direction. The decision on Kinder-Morgan is a 180-degree reversal of that positive policy. How is it that carbon dioxide from the burning of coal is a threat to the environment while carbon dioxide from the burning of petroleum products is not?

Yes, I feel a sense of betrayal. I had hoped that this government actually would be different. However, I now see that old-style economic exploitation in the oil patch continues to trump environmental concerns.

Allan Baker, Scarborough

A recent poll by Abacus Data show that 3 out of 4 Canadians back Justin Trudeaus plan to support pipelines and the environment. However fringe groups like Stand Earth plan to protest with acts of civil disobedience. Only in a dictatorship can a minority impose their will on the majority. Fortunately we Canadians live in a democracy.

Larry Prout, Peterborough

In explaining his approval of the two pipelines, Prime Minister Trudeau said that we must maintain a balance between the environment and the economy. His thinking is wrong  the economy and the environment arent separate; one depends on the other.

If you were building a house, would you aim to balance the foundation and the walls? No; in order to last, the walls (and the rest of the house) depend on a strong foundation. Likewise, a long-lasting, sustainable economy will depend on a strong, healthy environment; bringing more oil out of the ground will further undermine that foundation.

Geoff Dean, Surrey, B.C.

Big clouds of dirty polluted smoke coming from the bitumen oil sands are covering the sky over Ottawa. The decision to allow the construction of two new pipelines (Line 3 replacement pipeline is a new pipeline) and the present one for liquefied natural gas in British Columbia will increase dramatically emissions coming from the single most polluting industry in Canada, the fossil fuel industry.

Trudeaus climate change policy is bogus and he knows it. The political game is over; we know now what he stands for.

Rene Ebacher, Toronto

Watching Trudeaus announcement of the approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and Enbridge Line 3 pipeline, I felt like I was watching an outtake for a satire show: make an decision that is devastating to the environment while repeatedly asserting that this decision reflects care and commitment to the environment. I hope that Canadians are not so easily fooled.

These pipeline decisions dramatically overshadow any potential climate reduction benefits of the meagre carbon price; they dishonour Canadas promise of meaningful reconciliation with indigenous peoples; they send a signal to the world that Canada simply doesnt care about climate justice, as island states are decimated, drought is becoming endemic, oceans are dying, species are going extinct.

Across the country, Canadians must mobilize to say no to Kinder Morgan, no to Enbridge (Line 9 as well as Line 3), no to Petronas, no to arctic drilling, no. Waking up, speaking up, and standing together is the only way we can hope to say yes to our childrens futures, yes to any chance of preserving whats left of the wellbeing of all species, yes to a hope of security and stability for communities around the world.

Rebecca Weigand, Toronto

Hoping for the best but planning for the worst requires all discussions and decisions on oil pipelines to assume that leaks are inevitable, environmentally damaging, and very costly to clean up.

One wonders, therefore, whether it has occurred to anyone in the oil industry, or government, to engineer for inevitable pipeline failure by using what could be called a prophylactic solution? This would require an oil pipeline to course through a larger conduit pipe, like a sleeve. In the event of an internal pipe leak, sensors installed on the sleeve pipe would detect, collect and contain the leaked oil.

To be sure, this solution would be more expensive than a single pipe, but probably less expensive than millions of dollars in clean-up costs. With such a system, machinery would be dispatched to the location of the leak, siphon out the leaked oil, then return it to the core pipeline for redistribution.

More important than cost, however, is the security afforded by an outer, prophylactic conduit. It would protect our precious environment by averting the contamination of drinking water, streams and rivers. It might even appease pipeline opponents.

Salvatore (Sal) Amenta, Stouffville

I have been a reader of the Star since the 1960s (the Toronto Daily Star). I have supported your paper and made it my primary news source. But I have to express my absolute dismay at the lack of coverage by your paper, and frankly every other mainstream media outlet, both paper and electronic, of the atrocities happening at Standing Rock, South Dakota. Unarmed, peaceful protesters are being brutalized by police and when I read through my Saturday Star there was not so much as a mention.

I am very aware of the power of the media to focus public attention on an event and given the Liberal governments predicament with regard to Kinder Morgan, I am really surprised you folks havent been very closely reporting on Standing Rock as a precusor to the potential for the same types of protest happening in Canada should the government support Kinder Morgan.

Do your jobs. Be journalists. Keep people informed about the abuse of rights and people in the Dakotas.

Anne Murphy, Toronto

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are currently protesting against the transportation of oil by pipeline as well as by rail. There have also been protests against the production of nuclear generated electricity, coal fired generators, windmill farms, and new hydroelectric damns. What are these protesters going to use for energy to heat their homes, run their cars, make their plastic goods, if they are successful in their protests? Just asking.

David L. Shanoff, Toronto

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For decades, scientists have tried unsuccessfully to create an artificial molecule that emulates the oxygen-carrying function of human red blood cells.

In the early and mid-2000s, a stream of companies -- among them Biopure, Alliance Pharmaceuticals, Northfield Labs and even Baxter -- tested "human blood substitutes" for use in life-saving situations like trauma accidents or the battlefield where donated blood was unavailable. These efforts failed due to oxygen delivery and safety problems. After the blowups, there was little money to invest in new blood substitutes. The field was largely abandoned.

Today, a group of researchers led by Dr. Allan Doctor, a physician and transfusion medicine specialist at Washington University in Saint Louis, are trying to (pardon the pun) resuscitate blood substitutes with a new nanotechnology-based, artificial red blood cell that very early animal studies suggest may overcome the problems that killed off older products.

The donut-shaped artificial cells, called ErythroMer, are one-fiftieth the size of human red blood cells. A special lining and control system tied to changes in blood Ph allows Erythromer to grab onto oxygen in the lungs and then dispense the oxygen in tissues where it is needed.

The new artificial cells are also designed to sidestep problems with vasoconstriction, or narrowing of blood vessels. Vasoconstriction caused by older human blood substitutes led to increases in blood pressure, heart attacks and kidney problems.

Erythromer is freeze dried and reconstituted with water when needed. It can also be stored at room temperature. The formulation makes it ideal for military and civilian trauma personnel.

Doctor and his colleagues are presenting this weekend some promising, proof-of-concept data on Erythromer from mouse and rat studies at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting.

"The design of Erythromer is focused on surmounting the barriers that prevented progress with or stopped other blood substitutes in their tracks," said Doctor. "We may find new barriers and obviously we don't know what those are yet, but I think we've hurdled the two main barriers, which are vasospasm and oxygen release."

Last January, Doctor formed a new company, Kalocyte, to advance development of Erythromer. Academic research grants have funded Kalyocyte's animal research and formulation work to date. The company is in the process of applying for additional funding from the Department of Defense, which if granted, will finance new studies in larger animals and additional work to better understand Erythromer's safety and how the product is cleared from the body.Last January, they formed a new company, Kalocyte, to advance development of Erythromer. To date, Kalocyte has been funded by small academic and government grants.

The safety problems encountered by preceeding blood substitutes still hang over Kalocyte's development of Erythromer.

"It's going to be a very challenging regulatory process even if we demonstate that we solved past problems," said Doctor. "There is a clear memory for the major investment that people put into in the blood substitutes and nothing came from them."

Moving Erythromer into human clinical trials is still 8-10 years away, said Doctor.

Adam Feuerstein writes regularly for TheStreet. In keeping with company editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, although he owns stock in TheStreet. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. Feuerstein appreciates your feedback; click here to send him an email.
Post Holdings, Inc. operates as a consumer packaged goods holding company in the United States and internationally. It operates through five segments: Post Consumer Brands, Weetabix, Foodservice, Refrigerated Retail, and BellRing Brands. The Post Consumer Brands segment manufactures, markets, and sells branded and private label ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal and hot cereal products. It serves grocery stores, mass merchandise customers, supercenters, club stores, natural/specialty stores, and drug store customers, as well as sells its products in the military, ecommerce, and foodservice channels. The Weetabix segment primarily markets and distributes branded and private label RTE cereal, hot cereals and other cereal-based food products, breakfast drinks, and muesli. This segment sells its products to grocery stores, discounters, wholesalers, and convenience stores, as well as through ecommerce. The Foodservice segment produces and distributes egg and potato products in the foodservice and food ingredient channels. It serves foodservice distributors and national restaurant chains. The Refrigerated Retail segment produces and distributes side dishes, eggs and egg products, sausages, cheese, and other dairy and refrigerated products for grocery stores and mass merchandise customers. The BellRing Brands segment markets and distributes ready-to-drink (RTD) protein shakes, other RTD beverages, powders, nutrition bars, and supplements. It serves club stores, food, drug and mass customers, and online retailers, as well as specialty retailers, convenience stores, and distributors. Post Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1895 and is headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri.
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LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES CHILE LIMITADA, NALCO INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO INVESTMENTS U.K. LIMITED, NALCO ISRAEL INDUSTRIAL SERVICES LTD, NALCO ITALIANA HOLDINGS S.R.L., NALCO ITALIANA MANUFACTURING S.R.L., NALCO ITALIANA SrL, NALCO KOREA LIMITED, NALCO LIMITED, NALCO MANUFACTURING BETEILIGUNGS GMBH, NALCO MANUFACTURING LTD., NALCO NETHERLANDS B.V., NALCO OSTERREICH Ges m.b.H., NALCO OVERSEAS HOLDING B.V., NALCO PAKISTAN (PRIVATE) LIMITED, NALCO PHILIPPINES INC., NALCO PORTUGUESA (QUIMICA INDUSTRIAL) UNIPESSOAL LDA, NALCO PWS INC., NALCO SAUDI CO. LTD., NALCO TAIWAN CO. LTD., NALCO TWO INC., NALCO U.S. HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO UNIVERSAL HOLDINGS BV, NALCO WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS LLC, NALTECH INC., NANOSPECIALTIES LLC, NLC PROCESS AND WATER SERVICES SARL, Nalco (BN) SDN BHD, Nalco (China) Environmental Solution Co. 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In one experiment, people were shown a picture of a curvy object and one of a spiky object. Ninety-five per cent of those who were asked which of two made-up wordsbouba or kikibest corresponded to each picture said that bouba fit the curvy object and kiki the spiky one. Other work has shown that so-called front-vowel sounds, like the i in mil, evoke smallness and lightness, while back-vowel sounds, as in mal, evoke heaviness and bigness. Stop consonantswhich include k and bseem heavier than fricatives, like s and z.

the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat.

Perhaps Tronc thought it was being boldly unconventional, but ignoring rules that may originate in human instinct is foolish. Tronc wants to seem light, fast, forward-looking, and unburdened by the media industrys past, but its back-vowel sound and its leaden k ending sonically convey something heavy, slow, and dull.

About this season last year, this Kat reported on his brand of the year"Cofix", the name of an Israeli-based company that sells a variety of products at one fixed price. Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, this Kat will this time recognize arguably the most bizarre rebranding for 2016.The dubious winner is the formerly-known Tribune Publishing Company, the third-largest newspaper publisher in America, being the owner of such newspapers as the(this Kat ever so fondly remembers receiving daily to his apartment door a copy of theover 40 years ago) and the. But the name Tribune is no more. In its place, the rebranded moniker is tronc, being short for Tribune online content, as part of what the company describes as refashioning itself as a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content. So what is wrong with tronc? As the poet wrote let me count the ways.This Kat first considered whether the word tronc might also be the name of a character in something likeor? It seems not. But it does turn out that tronc is a dictionary word, meaning (in a hotel or restaurant) a common fund into which tips and service charges are paid for distribution to the staff. As such, it is one of those words which, from the trademark law point of view, can be descriptive with respect to some goods or services and arbitrary to others. As for a content curation and monetization company, the word is on its face arbitrary (although this Kat cannot recall all the instances in which he has been asked by a trademark examiner whether the mark in question is an acronym for something more descriptive). However, it is highly unlikely that a consumer will connect between tronc and the Tribune online company.So, once we have agreed that the mark is arbitrary, lets move from the pure trademark law aspects to consider what makes a brand good. On this point, James Surowiecki ofmagazine has offered some insights in his November 14th piece , Whats in a Brand Name? Surowiecki begins by recalling the Platonic dialogue, and the difference of view between Cratylus and Hermogenes over whether there is sometimes a connection between meaning and sound. The field of phonetic symbolism has sought to describe circumstances when this might be the case.Surowiecki writes thatAs Wikipedia observes, [t]he defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark vowels because they are perceived as sounding darker than the front vowels. The focus is on so-called phonemes , described as beingThis line of research has discovered that dark beers do better, brand-wise, if the name contains a back vowel. Frosh for ice cream, graced by a big, creamy vowel, did better than Frish for the same product. On that basis, Haagen-Dazs comes in for special praise a double back vowel emphasized by a nonsensical umlaut. Other findings include that alliteration and vowel repetition are good and that the letters X and z are more likely to be remembered and connote speed and fluidity. For multinational companies seeking a single brand across borders, the fact that at least some of the observed phonemic relationships are consistent in various languages is of particular interest. Against this backdrop, Surowiecki observed that--Surowieckis criticism is, all things considered, unequivocal but measured. Consider that a satirist named John Oliver is reported by Wikipedia to have described tronc as the sound an ejaculating elephant makes." This Kat tends to agree with the thrust of the criticism about "tronc"(although he has no first-hand knowledge about elephants) and he can only musehow did a company whose raison d'etre is dealing with words get it so wrong?
Plains GP Holdings, L.P., through its subsidiary, Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., owns and operates midstream energy infrastructure in the United States and Canada. The company operates in two segments, Crude Oil and Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs). The company engages in the transportation of crude oil and NGLs on pipelines, gathering systems, and trucks. As of December 31, 2021, this segment owned and leased assets comprising 18,300 miles of crude oil and NGL pipelines and gathering systems; 38 million barrels of above-ground tank capacity; and 1,275 trailers. It engages in the provision of storage, terminalling, and throughput services primarily for crude oil, NGLs, and natural gas; NGL fractionation and isomerization services; and natural gas and condensate processing services. As of December 31, 2021, this segment owned and operated approximately 74 million barrels of crude oil storage capacity; 28 million barrels of NGL storage capacity; four natural gas processing plants; a condensate processing facility; nine fractionation plants; 16 NGL rail terminals; four marine facilities; and 110 miles of pipelines. As of December 31, 2021, this segment owned 15 million barrels of crude oil and 2 NGL linefill; 3 million barrels of crude oil and 1 NGL linefill in pipelines owned by third parties and other inventory; 640 trucks and 1,275 trailers; and 3,900 NGL railcars. The company offers logistics services to producers, refiners, and other customers. PAA GP Holdings LLC operates as a general partner of the company. Plains GP Holdings, L.P. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company, provides banking, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: Consumer Banking and Lending; Commercial Banking; Corporate and Investment Banking; and Wealth and Investment Management. The Consumer Banking and Lending segment offers diversified financial products and services for consumers and small businesses. Its financial products and services include checking and savings accounts, and credit and debit cards, as well as home, auto, personal, and small business lending services. The Commercial Banking segment provides financial solutions to private, family owned, and certain public companies. Its products and services include banking and credit products across various industry sectors and municipalities, secured lending and lease products, and treasury management services. The Corporate and Investment Banking segment offers a suite of capital markets, banking, and financial products and services to corporate, commercial real estate, government, and institutional clients. Its products and services comprise corporate banking, investment banking, treasury management, commercial real estate lending and servicing, equity, and fixed income solutions, as well as sales, trading, and research capabilities services. The Wealth and Investment Management segment provides personalized wealth management, brokerage, financial planning, lending, private banking, and trust and fiduciary products and services to affluent, high-net worth, and ultra-high-net worth clients. It also operates through financial advisors. Wells Fargo & Company was founded in 1852 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
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.
ONEOK, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in gathering, processing, storage, and transportation of natural gas in the United States. It operates through Natural Gas Gathering and Processing, Natural Gas Liquids, and Natural Gas Pipelines segments. The company owns natural gas gathering pipelines and processing plants in the Mid-Continent and Rocky Mountain regions. It also gathers, treats, fractionates, and transports natural gas liquids (NGL), as well as stores, markets, and distributes NGL products. The company owns NGL gathering and distribution pipelines in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado; terminal and storage facilities in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois; and NGL distribution and refined petroleum products pipelines in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, as well as owns and operates truck- and rail-loading, and -unloading facilities connected to NGL fractionation, storage, and pipeline assets. In addition, it operates regulated interstate and intrastate natural gas transmission pipelines and natural gas storage facilities. Further, the company owns and operates a parking garage in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma; and leases excess office space. It operates 17,500 miles of natural gas gathering pipelines; 1,500 miles of FERC-regulated interstate natural gas pipelines; 5,100 miles of state-regulated intrastate transmission pipeline; six NGL storage facilities; and eight NGL product terminals. It serves integrated and independent exploration and production companies; NGL and natural gas gathering and processing companies; crude oil and natural gas production companies; propane distributors; municipalities; ethanol producers; and petrochemical, refining, and NGL marketing companies, as well as natural gas distribution and electric generation companies, producers, processors, and marketing companies. The company was founded in 1906 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
For critics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, this may turn out to be problematic because it is being described as a victory for Iran over its chief regional adversary. As the Daily Mail pointed out on Thursday, this was certainly the talking point adopted by the Iranians themselves, with Iranian newspapers putting forth such slogans as failure of Riyadhs oil diplomacy.

Collectively, OPEC will be reducing its oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day, thereafter setting a ceiling of 32.5 million. However, in the coming six months, Iran will actually be allowed to marginally increase its production, in line with its longstanding demand that the Iranian oil industry be permitted to return to the self-reported levels from prior to the period of US-led sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program.

After those sanctions were suspended under the Iran nuclear agreement, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Irans oil output climbed at a rate that had not been anticipated by most analysts. However, in the midst of talks over OPEC production cuts, which began in earnest in April, the Iranian production figures began to level off just below the amount that Tehran declared to be its pre-sanctions output.

The most recent figures place Irans daily oil production approximately 80,000 barrels below the four million barrel figure it had been pushing. The Islamic Republic will now be allowed to continue expanding its operations until its apparent daily output averages have increased from approximately 3.2 million barrels to 3.975 million.

Before Wednesdays meeting at OPEC headquarters in Vienna, the Saudi Energy Minister had declared his acquiescence to the essential Iranian demand, according to Reuters. This seemed to greatly increase the last-minute expectations for an agreement, although Khalid al-Falih also insisted that the oil market would begin to recover regardless, simply because progress had been made in recent months.

But the success of the Vienna talks led to a roughly 10 percent jump in prices, which collapsed from well over 100 dollars per barrel in 2014 to 13-year lows around 30 dollars in February of this year, before recovering to only about half of their prior value. The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran was one major factor in the persistently depressed prices, as the Saudis absorbed losses in order to continue competing against Irans quest to claim large shares of the market.

The new agreement will presumably allow Iran to continue that question, but only over the short term or in very small increments. Meanwhile, the Iranian claim of victory in this negotiations is somewhat undermined by Tehrans failure to extract more serious concessions from Riyadh. In the days just before the Vienna meeting, the Iranians had begun to insist that Saudi Arabia cut its oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day, in order to bring it in line with the output figures that had been in place before Iran came under sanctions. But after Wednesdays agreement, the Saudis had only maintained their initial offer of 500,000 barrels per day in cuts.

Ultimately, the agreement can perhaps most accurately be characterized as a stop-gap measure in the economic conflict between the two regional rivals. Claims of complete victory on either side would be short-sighted and rhetorical, and as such it is more than likely that the conflict, in both its economic and its political dimensions, will continue for the foreseeable future.


A finale scene from the Washington Ballets The Nutcracker. (Theo Kossenas/media4artists/Courtesy of the Washington Ballet)

A Nutcracker is only as good as its kids are cute.

This most popular of ballets, loved far and wide, and for many, the only ballet they may ever see, rests not on the strength of its ballerina but on the cleverness and adorability of its least-experienced and littlest dancers. Invariably, whether we are talking about big or small Nutcrackers, it is up to the youngest cast members to tell the ballets story of resilience through creative play. It is primarily the children onstage who generate the festive atmosphere.

I was thinking about this as I watched the Washington Ballets Nutcracker on Friday, the opening of the companys annual run at the Warner Theatre. Septime Webre, who created this version of the holiday ballet in 2004 while serving as the Washington Ballets artistic director, is a masterful choreographer of children. His production bubbles over with dozens of young students, who contribute most of the shows considerable humor and vibrancy. Julie Kent, who recently took over from Webre as artistic director, has retained Webres production, set in the late 19th century in a Georgetown mansion, with characters drawn from U.S. history. Performances continue through Dec. 24.

Of course, the professional company members are spotlighted here as well, though this production at times feels too hectic for them to shine. On opening night, Maki Onukis Sugar Plum and Rolando Sarabias Cavalier proved the exception. They transformed the second act with their clarity and care; from the first moments of their duet it felt as if we had been whooshed into a different land, with a whole new culture and mannerisms. This was no longer fast-paced Webreville, but a realm of high civility, where the slowing down and thoughtful consideration between the two dancers was also a generous gift of pleasure for the audience.

Venus Villa as the Snow Queen and Jonathan Jordans Snow King produced a similarly elevating effect. Villas fluid legato and her palpable warmth of expression were especially lovely.



The snow scene from the Washington Ballets The Nutcracker. (Theo Kossenas/media4artists/Courtesy of the Washington Ballet)

However, the best choreography is reserved for the children, especially in the battle scene. This is Webres triumph, a riveting collision of dolls, mice, soldiers, rats and rabbits (okay, Valley Forge Bunnies) that keeps moving in a variety of interesting ways but never slips into mayhem. And its largely driven by the youngsters. The soldiers are the showstoppers. In all the years Ive seen this production, ever since its premiere, Ive never ceased to be astonished by the shifting, musical formations these high-stepping little ones create as they peel off into rows, wheel around in step, split and regroup with the precision of close-order drills. They do Tchaikovsky proud. (A note to ticket-buyers: this production uses a recorded version of the score.)



Children punctuate this Nutcracker from beginning to end, as snow angels, clowns and various bugs and meadow creatures. They are truly the heart of the ballet, as well they should be, and they are the chief source of interest. Kudos to them, their teachers, parents and especially to the childrens ballet masters, who might be best-served by some of that champagne being passed around onstage in the first acts Christmas Eve party. Santa, be good to them.

The Washington Ballet performs The Nutcracker through Dec. 24. Visit www.washingtonballet.org.


THE DISTRICT

Five-year sentence in drug, gun case

A District man was sentenced Friday to five years in prison after making a deal with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to three federal counts of possessing drugs and an illegal gun.

Renold A. Payne, 30, pleaded guilty in September after D.C. police found him with 32.9 grams of cocaine, 13.8 grams of cocaine base and an illegal, loaded .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol after authorities pulled over his 2004 Acura TSX near midnight Sept. 25, 2015, in a traffic stop on Montana Avenue NE.

 Spencer S. Hsu

Ivy City shooting victim identified

A man fatally shot Thursday night in Northeast Washingtons Ivy City neighborhood has been identified as a 45-year-old from Southeast, D.C. police said.

Timothy Pretlow died at an area hospital shortly after the shooting, which occurred just before 7:30 p.m. in the 1800 block of Capitol Avenue NE. Police said he was shot several times.

[Two shot, one fatally, in Northeast Washington]

A Hyattsville man was also shot in the incident. Police said he suffered a graze wound to the back and a wound to the left hip. He was treated at an area hospital.

No arrests have been made.

 Peter Hermann

MARYLAND

Prince Georges man found shot dead

A man was found shot outside a home in Prince Georges County on Saturday, and police are investigating his death as a homicide.

Just before 7 a.m., police were called to check on a person in the 4700 block of Mann Street, which is just east of the District near Sheriff Road NE. Officers found an adult man suffering from a gunshot wound to his upper body lying on the ground outside a house, Prince Georges police spokesman Cpl. Lamar Robinson said.

The victim was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Robinson said the victims name would be released after his family members are notified.

 Dan Morse

VIRGINIA

Elderly Fairfax man dies after house fire

An 82-year-old man died in Fairfax County on Saturday after being rescued from a burning house, authorities said. The victim was the only person inside the residence.

Firefighters were called just before 4 p.m. to the 3700 block of Logan Court, where they saw smoke coming from all sides of a single-family home, said Anthony Barrero, deputy chief of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.

The firefighters were able to get the man out and take him to a hospital, where he died, Barrero said.

The cause of the blaze remains under investigation. The deputy chief said a cat inside the house also died.

 Dan Morse
higher education Yale panel weighs in on naming issues A Yale University panel declared that the school should consider renaming buildings on campus only in exceptional circumstances and ensure that any removal of a name does not have the effect of erasing history. The report from the Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming opened the door for Yale to revisit a controversial decision not to rename a residential building, Calhoun College, that commemorates a prominent 19th-century advocate of slavery and white supremacy. John C. Calhoun, a Yale graduate, was a U.S. senator from South Carolina and a vice president who provided powerful political support for the preservation and expansion of slavery in antebellum America. His name was given to Calhoun College in 1931.  Nick Anderson

For-profit education

For-profit colleges see surprising growth

Nearly a half-million people are borrowing $5 billion a year to pursue advanced degrees from for-profit colleges and universities, even as the industry is reeling from investigations, lawsuits and the collapse of prominent players, according to a study from the Center for American Progress.

The findings are striking for an industry that has watched enrollment in its certificate, associates and bachelors programs slide as the economy recovered and government scrutiny intensified. Policy analysts at the center worry, though, that the industry is thriving in a segment of higher education that operates largely in the dark.

 Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
One of my grandsons participated in a lottery this past spring. No, he didnt buy a Powerball ticket. Hes only 5. But like millions of American children, his name was entered in a raffle to decide his educational future.

He was competing with 59 other students for 24 coveted spots at a new Mandarin dual-language immersion program at his South Pasadena, Calif., public school. If an administrator picked his name out of a hat, he was in. If not, he would have to join the regular class.

I rarely hear complaints about this. Making key decisions with coin flips or drawings is part of American culture. We think it is a fair way to distribute limited resources. Lotteries are common in deciding who gets into oversubscribed programs such as charter or magnet schools.

But my son Joe, my grandsons father, doesnt like this system at all. He made school enrollment lotteries the subject of one of his weekly columns about California for the Zocalo Public Square website and several newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle. When it comes down to who gets precious educational resources, he wrote, schools as a matter of policy and law leave much to chance. . . . Weve come to use lotteries and formulas, so that our officials can avoid the work of deciding who deserves resources and so that the rest of us Californians can avoid reckoning with our collective failure to support public education.

That reminded me of my column about the lottery used by South River High School in Anne Arundel County to decide admission to its STEM magnet program. Parents told me that because the magnet students get higher grade points than regular students for the same grades, they have an advantage in winning scholarships and getting into selective colleges just because they won a raffle. By contrast, the school district lets anyone into its best high school courses, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate.

[Luck got these students into a magnet program, and access to better grade points]

Until I read Joes piece, I had not thought about lotteries as denying students the education they deserve. This is usually not considered unjust. Selective colleges, for instance, reject thousands of applicants just as qualified as the ones they admit, but few complain about the randomness of that process. Courts say lotteries are not discriminatory, because their impacts fall on unlucky applicants arbitrarily, without being influenced by ethnicity or gender.

Joe suggests that the courts may take another look at this. He quoted a recent dissenting opinion by California Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Tino Cuellar. If a policy infringes on a fundamental right such as education, Cuellar said, arbitrariness seems a poor foundation on which to buttress the argument that the resulting situation is one that should not substantially concern us.

Critics of charter schools dont complain much about their lotteries. What bothers them is that being required to apply for admission may exclude parents whose children would benefit but who dont understand how the system works. An article on the website Great Schools quotes parenting expert Bryan Hassel on getting into good schools: If it truly is a purely mechanical system, such as a lottery, then the most important strategy is to make sure that you get things in on time. But lotteries should take some blame. Children are denied what they need by bad luck as well as by parents being ill-prepared.

My grandson was lucky to have two well-informed journalist parents who had no trouble with the paperwork. The gods of good fortune smiled on him again at the Mandarin magnet class lottery. His was the 16th name pulled out of the hat.

He liked hearing his name shouted out in a public place. Under the rules, his younger brother is also guaranteed placement in the program. I am happy for them, but are we right to make access to some of our best educational resources so much a matter of chance?
Vicky Somma holds the ornament she designed and 3-D printed for the Christmas tree in Virginias Executive Mansion. The piece, depicting Occoquans historic Rockledge Mansion, is the towns official representative on the tree, which is decorated with baubles from across the state. (Jonathan Hunley for The Washington Post)

History meets technology in Occoquans contribution to the governors Christmas tree in Richmond this year.

For the second holiday season in a row, the Executive Mansion, official residence of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), worked with the Virginia Municipal League and the Virginia Association of Counties to solicit tree ornaments from the states counties, cities and towns.

And, like last year, Occoquans ornament was made by town resident Vicky Somma, who crafted a model of a historic building using a 3-D printer. In 2015, Sommas subject was the Mill House Museum. This year, it was Rockledge Mansion, which sits on a hill across from the museum.

We have a huge artist population here, so it was very much an honor to do an ornament again this year, Somma said.

The Occoquan Business Guild commissioned Somma to make the ornaments both years, and she chose to model Rockledge based on the theme for McAuliffes tree, Home for the Holidays.

Somma spent three days designing the ornament, which took more than four hours to print. Its subject, Rockledge Mansion, was built in 1758 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. (Jonathan Hunley for The Washington Post)

Rockledge is probably the most notable home in Occoquan, Somma said Tuesday, two days before McAuliffes holiday open house at the Executive Mansion.

Rockledge, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is now a wedding and event venue. But it was built in 1758 as a Georgian-style stone house for industrialist John Ballendine. Ballendine was a friend of George Mason, and he hired William Buckland, who built Masons home at Gunston Hall, to design the Occoquan residence, according to Rockledge owner Lance Houghton and a town timeline from the Occoquan Historical Society.

Somma, a 41-year-old computer programmer, is a third-generation Occoquan resident, and shes been interested in 3-D printing for nearly three years. She got hooked on the phenomenon when she was nursing her youngest son, Dyson, whos now 3, and a friend was selling glass lockets.

The idea was that the customer would buy a locket and charms to put inside it that tell your story, Somma said. A big part of her story at the time was breast-feeding, but she couldnt find a breast-feeding charm. So she decided to make one.

With 3-D printing, youre not bound to buy what someones decided to mass-produce, Somma said. You can pick your little niche interests and make what you want to make.

A few months later, one of her Christmas ornament designs won acclaim.

In late 2014, Somma was one of five winners of the 3-D Printed Ornament Design Challenge held by the Smithsonian Institution, the White House, and the science and tinkering website Instructables. In that contest, she designed an ornament that ended up on a Christmas tree in the White Houses East Wing.

It was inspired by one of her husbands favorite places: Ryan Somma loves the Main Reading Room in the Library of Congresss Jefferson Building.

Actually, when I made this ornament, I didnt think that it was going to be enough to win the White House, but I thought it was going to be enough to impress my husband, Vicky Somma said.

The Rockledge ornament, on the tree in the Executive Mansions main ballroom, is made of gray plastic. Somma spent about three days designing it, and printing a copy of the creation takes four to five hours.

The high-tech crafter sells her wares online in an Etsy shop named TGAW 3D; as of late last week, she had sold 37 copies of the Rockledge ornament thats on McAuliffes tree.

Like the customers who made those purchases, LaVerne Carson, president of the Occoquan Business Guild, said the organization was pleased with Sommas Rockledge work.

Oh, my gosh, yes, said Carson, who owns a Christmas shop called the Golden Goose. Its beautiful.

As for Houghton, he said that although his name is on the deed to Rockledge, he considers himself just a steward of the historic property.

So I thought that the ornament would be a way of sharing the house with, you know, people far and wide, he said.

Visitors can tour the Executive Mansion and see the Christmas tree and ornaments from localities across the state. For more information, see executivemansion.virginia.gov.
On May 16 at 10:13 a.m., a text message popped up on Keith Coopers phone: Bring me da toaster to the Door.

D.C. police say toaster is street slang for gun, and, according to court documents, Cooper responded by giving a silver .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun to a man who came to his Southeast Washington home. The weapon was loaded with 14 bullets.

Two hours later, authorities said, that gun was used in a shootout that left more than a dozen shell casings on the street. No one was injured, but two more shootings occurred that day along the Benning Road corridor. Coopers mother was one of two people slain.

On Monday, Cooper is set to be sentenced after pleading guilty to possessing ammunition that police found in his home after his mothers death.

Police have long struggled to curtail retaliatory attacks. On Monday, prosecutors will urge a federal judge to look beyond what normally is a routine case and consider a neighborhood beset by gun violence and feuding street crews who contributed to a threefold increase in homicides in Ward 7 in the first part of 2015.

No one has been arrested in the death of Coopers mother, the second slaying or the shootout.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Gripkey argued in a sentencing memorandum filed in federal court in the District that the ammunition Cooper had is but a piece of a larger picture that demonstrates the danger he poses to the community.

Coopers attorneys argue that punishment should not be based on what they contend is speculation. We just cant confine people because were just uncertain about whats going to happen in the future, defense attorney Danielle C. Jahn said in a recent court hearing. And its improper. And its  frankly, I think its illegal.

Defense lawyers say that the seven months Cooper has spent at the D.C. jail is sufficient punishment. They say he was stabbed above the eye during a fight and has spent much of his time alone in a cell for 23 hours a day. A judge denied his request to attend his mothers funeral after prosecutors said the U.S. Marshals Service could not adequately safeguard the defendant, those at the viewing and funeral, the community. . . . The defendants release simply poses too great a danger.

Another defense attorney, A.J. Kramer, wrote in a court document that the conditions of his confinement have been and continue to be unduly harsh.

The Benning Road corridor, which slices through parts of Northeast and Southeast Washington, is in one of the Districts most volatile areas. Its epicenter is at East Capitol Street and Benning Road, at a Metro station and shopping center. In early summer, authorities said they seized 88 pounds of heroin in raids along the strip, shipped from India and Nigeria.

[Man, woman fatally shot hours part in killings police believe are linked]

Court documents say that authorities think Cooper contributed to the areas drug woes by dealing from his mothers house, a contention his attorneys deny. Prosecutors cited texts found on his phone that they described as indicative of drug deals. Cooper and others hung out at a laundromat.

The May 16 shootings occurred just blocks from the laundry. After the man, who is not named in court documents, retrieved the handgun from Coopers house, police said, he confronted a man named Twon, a rival of Cooper, a few blocks away on B Street SE.

According to the mans account, Twon fired once at him and he returned fire. He then threw the gun and empty magazine into a sewer. Police have not found the gun, although they said Cooper had a photo of one that resembled it on his cellphone.

About 45 minutes later, police said Tayvon Devonte Cummings, 22, was fatally shot on a gravel road behind a gas station across the street from the laundromat. Police have said it is unclear whether Cummings was the target.

[Residents along Benning Road live in fear of violence]

But police have been clear that they think the shooting that killed Cummings is linked to the slaying of Coopers mother, Tracey Louise Cooper, 45, nearly three hours later. She was gunned down as she carried groceries into her house on 48th Street SE.

Law enforcement officials have said they are investigating whether Coopers assailant may have thought someone close to her was involved in Cummingss slaying.

Cooper told homicide detectives that Twon killed his mother, and then threatened to kill him and his relatives, according to court documents. Two days later, police arrested Cooper on a threat charge. A D.C. Superior Court judge released him pending trial.

Federal authorities arrested Cooper again, this time on charges related to guns, ammunition and drugs police said they found during a search of his home. The drug charge was dropped when lab tests revealed that a substance thought to be heroin was fake.

Gripkey, the federal prosecutor, argued in court that jailing Cooper was imperative to keeping the neighborhood safe. Referring to the killing of Tracey Cooper, he said, That goes to the possibility of retaliation and the possibility . . . this murder might be related to the alleged drug activities of Mr. Cooper or his associates.

Gripkey said Cooper is not someone who was innocently working a regular job and his mother gets gunned down.

Kramer, one of Coopers attorneys, said in court papers that his client suffered significant medical and mental health issues that led to emotional outbursts, including the threats. He said that Cooper and his mother were close and that his father was killed when Cooper was a child.

Coopers other attorney, Jahn, has in court papers accused prosecutors of gaming the system to keep her client imprisoned. With no evidence of drug dealing, the lawyer wrote, its only because they have the phone and they have this homicide investigation, and theyre trying to stop the violence . . . thats what this is all about.
This summer, Sen. Menendez supported the bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran, as well as imposing the current sanctions, set forth by the deal.

This is not the first time that Sen. Menendez has taken a stand against Obamas administration. He has previously called it weak, referring to the handling of countries, such as Syria, Russia, and Cuba.

Sen. Menendez expressed his opinions to Fox News, stating that his party does not care for his foreign policy views. This is about the fervent belief its in the national interest and security of the United States to have more sanctions, he added.

Last year, his views have even earned him an investigation  he was accused of favoring a donor and a friend by voicing his allegations.

Sen. Menendez said that he is sticking by his views, no matter what the repercussions might be. There have been attempts to punish me for what Ive said about the administrations policy on Iran and Cuba. I dont intend to be intimidated by another branch of government.

Since the new election, it appears that Sen. Menendez has become increasingly bold about voicing his views, criticizing the policies of Obamas government. He said he doesnt plan to be intimidated by the new president. I have always been willing and able to find ways to work with both Democratic and Republican administrations for the betterment of our nation, Sen. Menendez said. That will continue to be the case with our next president.

And he is not alone in the fight  last year, the conservative Republican Sen. Ted Cruz supported Menendezs foreign policy views. Sen. Cruz stated that Menendezs views had encouraged Obamas government to retaliate against him.

Sen. Cruz commented further: The coincidence is troublingthat that very week [when Menendez opposed the Iran deal] is when the Justice Department announces theyre moving forward with criminal prosecutions. Sen. Cruz went on to explain: It raises a suggestion to other Democrats that if you dare part from the Obama White House, a criminal prosecution can be used potentially for political retribution.

As well as opposing Sen. Menendezs views, the Obama administration has also expressed negative views about the new measures that the Senate unanimously approved on Thursday. However, the administration said that the bill would be signed by President Obama. This means that Obama will be able to renew the sanctions against Iran that are already in place for another ten years.

The officials from Iran have, of course, been incredibly angry in relation to the vote, and other measures, where trust has been breached about Irans plans for producing nuclear weapons and being a state supporter of terrorism.
A zoning dispute has broken out after a man asked to sell guns out of his home in this Mount Airy neighborhood. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Mike Wonsala lives in a tree-lined Maryland subdivision about 40 miles north of Washington. Its where the exburbs meet the country.

Its also the perfect place, he says, to sell guns.

Its just a passion, he said. It just happens to be profitable, and I need a license to do it.

Wonsalas passion, however, has run afoul of neighbors in Mount Airy who say they dont want anyone selling guns out of a residential property in their neighborhood  a house near a school bus stop, no less.

But Wonsala said he doesnt want to run a typical gun store. He specializes in the restoration and sale of older weapons  guns from the Civil War, the World Wars and the Korean War.

Michael Wonsala (Courtesy of Michael Wonsala )

These pieces are considered by most as works of art, he said in a news release to the community, explaining his proposed business.

In public testimony and an online petition thats garnered more than 180 signatures, many in the town of about 10,000 residents are objecting, saying Wonsala is simply aiming to sell modern weapons, or at least will open up the neighborhood to those who want to.

My friends with guns would never buy one off the Internet at somebodys house, said Rachel Price, a real estate agent who lives down the street and called Mount Airy an old school, Norman Rockwell little town. She added: I cant imagine what kind of people this would attract.

Selling guns legally out of a residence, it turns out, is a complicated business. Dealers need a federal firearms license, and they cant get one without showing that their place of business is appropriately zoned. Wonsalas quiet street in Mount Airy isnt.

So, rather than open up shop in Mount Airys business district, Wonsala sought to amend the towns zoning ordinances in a process that began 15 months ago, creating an exception to allow the sale, transfer, or restoration of firearms in some residential areas, as the proposed legislation explains.

[Maryland is one of the states where a watch-list gun ban failed]

Wonsala defended his plan, creating his own online petition, titled  Let Freedom Ring while Allowing Small Businesses to Thrive! He noted his experience in the field as the second-generation owner of a gun business he inherited from his father, which he previously operated in New Jersey.

The downtown Main Street in Mount Airy, Md. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

With Michaels tenure in the industry coupled with his NJ residential business platform, he is confident he can comply with the towns ordinance and meet the needs of the community, his news release said.

Wonsala said his shop would be open by appointment only, comparing it to home salons and tax services. He noted that other people in the area have such licenses.

Its not like were taking a giant leap, he said.

Community members, however, are worried not just about Wonsala but about what other armories might come to town if a zoning change is made.

This is not just about one man, said neighbor Jen Stukey. Somebody could set up next to me and sell semiautomic weapons  as many as they want, as much as they want. This is the rezoning of our whole residential area.

Another person raising objections to Wonsalas plan is Susie Bailey, co-owner of the Gun Shack, the only gun dealer located in downtown Mount Airy, besides Walmart, she said.

Bailey said shes not worried about the competition Wonsala might bring. And shes not worried that rejecting Wonsalas request would infringe upon the Second Amendment.

It doesnt have to do with guns; it has to do with it being a business, she said. Its not like its going to be Avon.

Bailey also expressed concern about the security necessary to keep gun shops safe from thieves.

If Im a thug, who am I going to rob first? she asked. Im going to go to this guys house. . . . Were going to take everything hes got and be on [Interstate] 70 before anybody knows about it.

Wonsala said security concerns were unfounded.

My house will be safer and more secure than a typical home of a gun owner or anyone else, he wrote in an email.

Ahead of a Monday town council vote on the ordinance, members of Mount Airys five-member council said they were keeping an open mind, even if they were skeptical of the proposal.

Council member Bob King said hes lived in Mount Airy for 25 years. Hes not questioning anyones right to own firearms  he owns firearms himself, he said. A gun business among homes, however, was a different matter.

Theres no way they can appear side by side in the same neighborhood, he said. He added: I know it sounds like I made up my mind. I really havent.

Council member Jason Poirer wrote in an email that people hear guns and automatically assume the worst. He said residents had many prior opportunities to raise concerns about the proposed zoning change.

The National Rifle Association declined to comment.

Jen Pauliukonis, the president of the advocacy group Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence, said she was not aware of a similar business in the state.

Theres no one saying a gun shop shouldnt be up and running, that a small-business owner shouldnt be able to run their business, she said. But were saying this shouldnt be where families are.
BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO DEMOCRATS

House Democrats are making efforts to keep their younger, newer generation engaged. As House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) faced down her most serious leadership challenge last week (one-third of nearly 200 Democrats voted for a different leader), she proposed changes aimed at elevating newer members. Pelosi proposed opening leadership positions typically held by lawmakers with decades of experience to members with three terms or fewer. These changes arent just smart politics to stay in power: They are necessary to help try to fill a Democratic leadership vacuum that has become increasingly apparent since the election. An aging Democratic leadership will need to find ways to elevate newer members quickly, and Pelosi took steps toward that this week.

BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO REPUBLICANS

Donald Trump saved hundreds of jobs in Indiana. Never mind that it came from a company whose owner does big business with the government (and ostensibly wanted to curry favor with the new president), nor that several hundred jobs is a drop in the bucket for U.S. job growth. And never mind that most economists agree that keeping manufacturing jobs from going overseas is not a sustainable growth model, since most of those jobs have already left. Whats important for Trump is that he got a huge public relations victory in a region of the nation that helped boost him to the presidency. Its a victory Trump can (and probably will) lean on when his presidency hits inevitable economic roadblocks.

 Amber Phillips
WASHINGTON

Former POW Bergdahl asks Obama for pardon

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the former prisoner of war who is accused of endangering comrades by walking off his post in Afghanistan, is asking President Obama to pardon him before leaving office.

White House and Justice Department officials said Saturday that Bergdahl had submitted copies of the clemency request. If granted by Obama, it would allow Bergdahl to avoid a military trial scheduled for April in which he faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The misbehavior charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Bergdahls defense team said that if the pardon is not granted, it will expand its legal strategy to the new administration by filing a motion arguing that President-elect Donald Trump violated his due process rights with scathing public comments about the case.

The pardon request to Obama, first reported by the New York Times, was confirmed by White House and Justice Department officials speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the matter.

Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held captive by the Taliban and its allies for five years.

The Obama administrations decision in May 2014 to exchange him for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prompted criticism that included some Republicans accusing Obama of jeopardizing the nations safety. Some lawmakers were outraged that the administration did not give Congress a 30-day notice about transferring the detainees, as is required by law.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump was Bergdahls most vocal critic, saying repeatedly the soldier is a traitor. who would have been executed in the old days.

 Associated Press

Fire engulfs buildings in Cambridge, Mass.: Firefighters were struggling to put down a large fire that jumped from one building to another across a densely-populated neighborhood in Cambridge, Mass., on Saturday. Heavy flames engulfed residential buildings and several automobiles. Authorities said two police officers and one firefighter were hurt but that no residents had been injured.

Sandy Hook group starts safety campaign: A group formed by families who lost children in the Sandy Hook school shooting, in Newtown, Conn., has started a public-service campaign designed to teach people to recognize the warning signs in someone who may be contemplating gun violence. The PSA can be viewed on YouTube.

 From news services
Veterans who participated in 2014s Walk Off the War hike along the Appalachian Trail stopped at the nearby Boulder Crest Retreat. (Amanda Voisard for the Washington Post)

Last fall, Shaun Durfey and five other veterans sat in a circle and drew their family trees. Durfey, a 29-year-old former Marine, had served three tours in the Middle East. Upon his return to the States, hed been given a host of medications for insomnia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and he had spent hours at a Veterans Affairs hospital talking about the wartime deaths of friends. But his doctors had never probed his family history, which included painful memories of childhood neglect. Now, Durfey was being asked to speak openly about these experiences.

 Theres no shame in the bad parts of your life,  Durfey recalled members of the group telling him.  Just lay it out. So I did. Then the vets gathered around a bonfire and burned their family trees. It was a symbolic pledge to stop the trauma, Durfey said. I felt like I was starting my life anew.

Durfey had left his wife and four children in Michigan to attend the Warrior PATHH (Progressive and Alternative Training for Healing Heroes) at Boulder Crest Retreat, a 37-acre private facility in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Since it opened in 2013, more than 112 combat vets have participated in the free, week-long Warrior program. Another 2,400 veterans, spouses and caregivers have visited the center for family stays and workshops.

[She found relief for PTSD with a different kind of therapy. But does it really work?]

Boulder Crest is not the only post-deployment retreat for service members, but its founders say they believe they have hit upon a unique approach for addressing combat trauma: Its a program aimed at encouraging personal growth that eschews medication. And they say they believe it is superior to the classical psychological interventions typically practiced by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Boulder Crest founder Ken Falke  a Navy veteran who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 1989 parachute jump  says standard therapies for depression rely too much on medication. He prefers meditation, outdoor activities and small-group discussions. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

In many ways, the Boulder Crest approach is designed as a contrast to VA. Instead of visiting a doctors office, participants spend a week outdoors  kayaking, hiking, riding horses and shooting arrows. Activities and group discussions are led not by clinicians but by other combat veterans. And instead of medication, exposure therapy and cognitive processing therapy, vets explore their family histories, examining why they enlisted in the first place.

The Warrior PATHH uses Transcendental Meditation to teach stress and anger management; yoga and hiking to promote a healthy lifestyle and address physical ailments; solo kayaking trips to encourage reflection; and archery to teach patience and focus. Through small-group discussions, journaling and creative exercises (such as creating a family tree), vets explore how to incorporate soldiering skills such as tenacity, teamwork and organization into their professional and family lives.

Together, these methods are meant to facilitate post-traumatic growth, or PTG  based on the idea that with the right tools, survivors can emerge as people who are stronger, happier and healthier than they were before the traumatic event occurred.

[Long after his Vietnam tour, a soldier joins comrades on the Wall]

An outcome

PTG is not a clinical approach but rather an outcome. Its the direct result of struggling with the aftermath of trauma, said Richard Tedeschi, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who has studied PTG for more than 30 years, in trauma survivors, bereaved individuals, victims of violent crime and veterans.

Research suggests that PTG is a real phenomenon, but its unclear why some people experience it and some do not. Theres also no proven method for making PTG happen,which has created some skepticism about how much it really helps. Tedeschi said he believes Boulder Crest may have found a way, and he has designed a study to test it. Along with former Army psychologist Bret Moore, Tedeschi will track 50 Boulder Crest participants for the next two years. Standard interventions for PTSD have understandably focused on reducing distress symptoms, Tedeschi said. Now were trying to focus on trauma survivorship.

The man behind Boulder Crest is Ken Falke, a former Navy explosive ordnance-disposal (EOD) technician and master chief petty officer, who served in Bosnia in 1998 and made several trips to Afghanistan and Iraq as a civilian contractor between 2003 and 2010.

Boulder Crest Retreat has hosted more than 112 veterans for free, week-long programs since it opened in 2013. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Over the past decade, Falke visited scores of wounded EOD veterans at VA facilities around Washington through a nonprofit he and his wife founded in 2007. He was dismayed by how many of them were struggling. The current treatments for PTSD arent working for combat veterans, he said.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, between 11 and 20 percent of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have PTSD in a given year. But a 2015 study reported that while robust evidence supports the effectiveness of exposure therapy and cognitive processing therapy, 60 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seen in routine clinical care failed to begin or dropped out of PTSD treatments. And up to 50 percent of those who did follow through fail to show clinically significant improvements.

Falke is especially critical of what he said is too much reliance on medication by standard therapies for depression. That, he maintains, prevents veterans from confronting the underlying issues of PTSD demons head on  demons that, he says, are often from childhood and combat.

[Doctors are reaching past the symptoms of mental illness to fix the circuits that breed them]

Falkes doubts about therapies driven by medication come from his own experience after a traumatic brain injury and broken back that he said he suffered during a 1989 parachute jump. My relief came from holistic treatments, especially chiropractic, he said. I value alternatives to Western medicine because of this.

When Shaun Durfey arrived at Boulder Crest, he says, he was taking high dosages of five medications prescribed by VA doctors but still was shut down, isolated from family and friends.

Exposure therapy  which asks trauma survivors to talk about an event over and over, thereby lessening its emotional power  had had only mild success, he said, in reducing his PTSD symptoms.

Everything from the VA was about my [military] service, he said. At Boulder Crest, they dug down into what was hurting you, brought that out and complemented it with activities that bring you down from being so wound up.

A year later, Durfey is off four of the drugs and takes the fifth, for knee pain, only as needed. He sees his VA therapist intermittently. Im closer with my wife. Im feeling emotions  joy, sadness, good and bad. Thats from the tools [Boulder Crest] gave me, he said.

When Daniel Traeder returned home from his third combat tour as a Special Operations dog handler in 2006, he said, he approached each day as if he were still deployed, on edge and aggressive. On his way to work, Traeder, 48, would get into altercations with other drivers. It was like I was in Baghdad looking for IEDs, he said.

Still, he was not motivated to seek treatment. I always denied having an issue, he said. He was also skeptical of the VA: Ive always known the VA exudes benign neglect and not to go there unless you have to, he said. When Traeders marriage threatened to unravel, a friend recommended Boulder Crest.

During the Warrior PATHH, Traeder was told that ancient Greek soldiers would walk through a labyrinth before battle and lay down objects linked to home when they reached the center of it. After battle, they walked the labyrinth again, put down their weapons and picked up the symbols of home. It wasnt until Traeder traversed a replica of one of those Greek mazes at Boulder Crest that he started making sense of his behavior. We never dropped our swords, never dropped our shields, he said.

[Report: More than half of mentally ill U.S. adults get no treatment]

Tedeschi said many of the veterans he has worked with come from families where theres not a lot of affection or theres abuse or instability. Such individuals, he said, are more likely to suffer from PTSD after a traumatic experience.

Tedeschi said these vets are also more likely to re-enter civilian life without confidence or connection or feeling understood. The Boulder Crest emphasis on exploring ones past, he said, lets them see the whole picture of this and make sense of the struggle. Once they [do], its easier for them to see what to do next.

In addition, vets are encouraged to see their military experiences and skills as useful in civilian life. In combat, you have to protect other people and rely on other people. You have to be persistent. You have to get organized and be ready. And all of these habits and approaches to a mission can be useful in the civilian world, Tedeschi said.

The archery portion of the Warrior PATHH program, which requires the same focus as shooting a gun, resonated with Traeder, for example, because he had grown up bow hunting. Instead of thinking of the weapon as a way to kill an enemy, as one might about a gun, it gives me a reason to go out into the woods and be quiet, he said. You can do it for a positive reason, rather than for killing someone.

Finally, Boulder Crest tells veterans they must carry their preparedness and leadership skills from the battlefield to the home front. Be the leader our nation needs you to be, Falke said. Do something for someone other than yourself or even your family.

Boulder Crest officials said 95 percent of combat vets who have participated in their Warrior PATHH program continue to participate in the monthly video chats that help Boulder Crest keep track of their emotional health and keep them focused on setting and accomplishing goals. Four of the five veterans interviewed for this article said their relationships with their spouses and children have improved and that theyre less reliant on medication. They said that they draw on the support of fellow PATHH members through monthly video chats.

Durfey has participated in these sessions since the retreat. In addition, the vets from his PATHH group have a more informal online forum, where they post about their lives and struggles. If someones in trouble, well talk about it, he said.

Still, the PTG philosophy has its critics. Some people worry that the emphasis on growth creates unreasonable expectations of trauma survivors. What if people dont feel healthier, more optimistic or closer to their families after a week at Boulder Crest? What if they need to continue psychotherapy and medication? A 2015 study in the journal Clinical Psychological Science found that in a sample of soldiers who spent time in Iraq, the more perceived growth five months postdeployment was associated with more post-traumatic stress 15 months postdeployment.

[The worlds smartest computer will help treat 10,000 veterans with cancer]

Some skepticism

Iris M. Engelhard, the studys lead author and a professor of clinical psychology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said that some scientists have argued that [self-perceived growth] may involve illusory and self-deceptive aspects and represent avoidant or defensive coping, which may impede recovery.

Falke agreed that PATHH isnt for everyone  including, for example, veterans with drug addictions. Weve had people come through who needed a lot more work, and we recommended they go to an inpatient facility or rehab, he said. About half of those who come to Boulder Crest are enrolled at VA, he said, and they seek out his program because their government-sponsored care isnt working.

Tedeschis study of the Boulder Crest approach wont conclude until June 2018. It will track participants mental health using both traditional measures of symptom reduction (sleep, appetite and prevalence of flashbacks) and measures of PTG, such as whether vets say they have seen their relationships improve, have set new priorities and feel more appreciation for life.

To Durfey, the results for him are already clear.

He is extremely appreciative of his VA doctors, but he said even his psychiatrist noticed a difference in him after the Warrior PATHH.

What the VA was trying to do with all their meds and their therapy, I did in five days at Boulder Crest, he said.

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Such commentary is typical of the skeptical approach that the Republican Party has taken to President Obamas relatively conciliatory approach to Iran policy. The Republican congressional majority was unified in objecting to the Iran nuclear agreement, which led to the suspension of economic sanctions and which was approved by the narrowest of margins in Congress, with Democrats relying on filibuster rules.

However, the vote tallies on the ISA reauthorization clearly indicate that even supporters of the Obama administrations nuclear agreement and overall foreign policy are in favor of keeping congressional pressure on the Islamic Republic. CNN also quoted Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, as saying that the reauthorization was important to maintaining a credible threat of the snap-back of those sanctions in the event that Iran is found to be cheating on the deal.

President Obama has disputed this, insisting that the ISA reauthorization was unnecessary, as the executive branch would have sufficient authority to re-impose those measures unilaterally. It is not known, however, whether the disagreement between the president and Congress will lead to a presidential veto.

The nearly ubiquitous congressional support for the bill will make it easy for the legislature to override the veto. However, the Washington Post notes that it could be possible for the president to issue a pocket veto, if legislators leave the Capitol for recess before the 10-day window for the presidents signature expires. This is an unlikely scenario, but a last-resort option for the Obama administration if it is sufficiently committed to obstructing the ISA.

Regardless of the accuracy of President Obamas account of executive authority over the sanctions, it is difficult to imagine how the expiration of the ISA would benefit American enforcement measures. Presumably the only reason for Obama to oppose the reauthorization and possibly veto the highly popular bill is out of fear that the Iranians will be sufficiently offended by its passage that they will take retaliatory action and threaten the very life of the nuclear agreement.

Indeed, Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have repeatedly threatened such action, after making it clear that they would regard sanctions reauthorization as a violation of the spirit of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But on Thursday, the Weekly Standard pointed out that lawmakers from both parties had categorically rejected this rhetoric. It quoted Cardin as saying of the alleged American violations, Iran is making this up. These problems dont exist.

Cardin added that the reauthorization of sanctions did not constitute new actions against Iran. The JCPOA prevents Western powers from imposing new sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program, but the sanctions described by the ISA are not new and would, in any event, remain suspended according to executive authority. Furthermore, the JCPOA does not suspend sanctions related to non-nuclear issues such as Irans human rights violations and support for international terrorism. Neither does it prevent the US from impose new sanctions in response to credible reports of violations in these areas.

Indeed, the Obama administration acknowledged this fact when it imposed new sanctions on companies and individuals connected to the Iranian ballistic missile program, soon after the JCPOA was implemented in January. That initiative was taken in response to the test-firing of ballistic missiles by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, in apparent violation of United Nations resolutions barring Iran from work on weapons capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

These and other provocative moves by the IRGC and the Iranian regime help to underscore McConnells comments about the need for a congressional response to ongoing Iranian misbehavior. For the majority leader and other critics of Obamas foreign policy, the reauthorization of the ISA is one way of showing the Iranians that the US is serious about the enforcement of existing provisions, and that there will be consequences for violations by the Iranian regime.

This message is sure to seem even more essential to those critics as more information continues to emerge about Irans provocative gestures toward the West and its efforts to exploit the post-nuclear political climate in order to expand its influence throughout the broader Middle East. One example of this information came from Agence-France Presse on Thursday, when it reported that expert analysis had been carried out on weapons that were previously seized by Australian and French ships.

Many of the more than 2,000 weapons displayed hallmarks of Iranian design, and the shipments appeared to be en route to Somalia, from which they would likely have been transported to Yemen, when Iran is backing the Houthi rebellion against President Abed Rabu Mansour Hadi. The analysis also identified weapons that had apparently been obtained from North Korea and from Russia, potentially tying those Iranian allies to what the AFP described as an arms pipeline into Yemen.

Whats more, American lawmakers may find that there is even greater need for deterrence of these sorts of activities now, as President-elect Trump prepares to take office in January and implement a considerably more hardline policy toward Iran. The Algemeiner reported on Thursday that the Iranians may be ramping up their arms smuggling activities in an effort to arm their foreign terrorist proxies before the US presidential transition is completed.

The same report highlights the fact that many critics of the Islamic Republic consider its imperial expansion in the Middle East to be of primary foreign policy concern. This concern may be a guiding principle for some of those US lawmakers who have prioritized the reauthorization of the ISA, regardless of President Obamas wishes. But the nearly universal support for the bill also includes lawmakers who support the Iran nuclear deal in its current form and have generally accepted Iranian compliance with it. Their votes of support suggest that even full compliance would not be considered sufficient cause to relinquish any of the USs current leverage over Tehran.
Correction: An earlier version of this editorial misstated Gen. James N. Mattiss rank.

NEWS THAT retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis will be nominated as defense secretary prompted a chorus of hosannas from his fellow former officers and the military analyst community. A studious but tough leader who led some of the hardest fighting the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who served as overall commander of the Middle East region, Mr. Mattis is one of the best-regarded generals in the modern history of the Marine Corps, according to military historian Max Boot. Mostly left unsaid in such encomiums was the hope that a man Donald Trump called a true generals general will steady the incoming president, whom Mr. Mattis already appears to have persuaded to reconsider the value of torture.

This is not to suggest that the Senate should quickly set aside concerns about appointing a recently retired general officer to head the Defense Department. Since 1947, such appointments have been proscribed; currently ex-generals must have been out of service at least eight years to be eligible, while Mr. Mattis retired only in 2013. This is more than an issue of protocol: The principle of civilian control over the military is fundamental to U.S. democracy. So is the idea that the officer corps will remain outside of partisan politics.

Mr. Trump has already dented these norms by appointing as his national security adviser former Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who after being pushed out of his post at the Defense Intelligence Agency became a bitter adversary of both the Obama administration and the Pentagon brass. Though he never emulated Mr. Flynns open partisanship, Mr. Mattis, too, is known to have differed with the Obama White House over Iran policy; it has been reported that his term as chief of Central Command was shortened as a result.

Two other former generals and an admiral are said to be on Mr. Trumps short lists for national-security-related Cabinet positions. That creates the disturbing potential for an administration dominated by ex- men, including several who in one way or another differed with the previous president. No one should welcome such a blurring of the boundaries between the U.S. military and civilian spheres.

That said, there is a tradition of former generals, such as Brent Scowcroft or Colin Powell, serving presidents with honor, and the Senate set a precedent for waiving the defense rule when it approved George C. Marshall for the secretarys job in 1950. The extreme circumstances of the Trump presidency-to-be  including a commander in chief who is both ignorant of military and international affairs and prone to impulsiveness  strengthen the case for a Mattis exception.

Though a hawk on Iran  like Mr. Flynn and other incoming national security officials  Mr. Mattis wisely believes there is no going back on the nuclear agreement with Tehran and that it should be enforced rather than abruptly discarded. As a former senior official at NATO, he might be expected to resist any steps that would dismantle or damage the alliance, or discount the threat posed by Vladimir Putins Russia.

Like a number of former chiefs of Central Command, Mr. Mattis empathizes, perhaps excessively, with former clients such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; he also absorbed the tired view that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Israeli settlement construction in particular, are central to the Middle Easts troubles. Like all of Mr. Trumps national security appointees thus far, he appears to have scant experience of Asia or other regions outside the Middle East and Europe. Thats an argument for a secretary of state with broader knowledge of the world.
PRINCE GEORGES County Council member Mel Franklin (D-Upper Marlboro) was reportedly on his way home at 11:30 p.m. Nov. 21 when he crashed his county-owned vehicle into another vehicle, according to police who charged him with drunken driving. It is not known where Mr. Franklin had been, whether he had been on county business or why he apparently walked away from the accident scene. Also unclear is why Mr. Franklin was even allowed to use a county vehicle, considering that he previously had crashed two other ones assigned to him. What is clear is that this Prince Georges politician has some serious issues that need to be addressed.

Foremost is whether Mr. Franklins conduct makes him fit to serve in public office.

Mr. Franklin, who is now in his second term and has been touted as possible successor to County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, has offered no comment on the latest accident, refusing to return calls. He faces criminal charges, having allegedly been found with a blood alcohol concentration greater than the legal limit. As his attorney and county officials pointed out, he is entitled to a legal process. But his failure to provide any explanation for his actions or use of government property is simply not in keeping with the obligations of a public official. At the very least, there should have been some expression of sympathy for the two people who were taken to the hospital after their car was rear-ended; thankfully, they have been discharged.

The seriousness of an incident in which someone could have been killed and the county held liable is underscored by the revelation of two previous accidents within the span of months in 2012 involving Mr. Franklin and government vehicles. According to The Posts Arelis R. Hernandez, these were never reported to the public. In one incident, Mr. Franklin slammed into the back of another vehicle, totaling the county-owned SUV he had been driving. That time, his carelessness cost taxpayers $33,171.92 to replace the wrecked auto, plus nearly another $7,000 to compensate the driver of the other car who claimed Mr. Franklin initially identified himself as a police officer.

Mr. Franklin is not the first Prince Georges council member to get into trouble driving a county car; council member Karen R. Toles (D-Suitland) was caught going more than 100 mph on the Beltway in 2012. Mr. Baker said his administration has tightened executive use of county vehicles, but doesnt police the legislature. Other Washington area jurisdictions have more stringent policies on the use of vehicles. It is time for Prince George's to get in step by eliminating a perk of office that serves no public good.
President-elect Donald Trump might have broken with four decades of diplomatic protocol by speaking to Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen on Friday. But the phone call should not have come as a complete surprise.

Some critics portrayed the move as the thoughtless blundering of a foreign policy novice, but other experts say it appears more calculated, planned in advance to signal a new, robust approach to relations with China.

Trump, of course, made standing up to Chinas rape of the U.S. economy one of his central campaign messages, and since his election win he has signaled his disdain for the conventions that govern political and diplomatic life in Washington.

Several leading members of his transition team are considered hawkish on China and friendly toward Taiwan, including chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Indeed, advisers explicitly warned last month that relations with China were in for a shake-up.

1 of 35 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Heres a look at Trumps administration so far View Photos President-elect Donald Trump faces a challenge as he prepares for his move to the White House: selecting the men and women who will fill his administration. Caption The men and women the president-elect has selected for his Cabinet and White House team. Scott Gottlieb, nominee for commissioner of FDA President Trump is set to nominate Scott Gottlieb, a conservative physician and businessman with deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry, to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a White House official said. Courtesy of American Enterprise Institute/via Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.

[China blasts petty Taiwan phone call with Trump]

In an article for Foreign Policy titled Donald Trumps Peace Through Strength Vision for the Asia-Pacific, Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray called Taiwan a beacon of democracy in Asia and complained that its treatment by the Obama administration was egregious.

The article, flagged to China experts as a significant policy blueprint, described Taiwan as the most militarily vulnerable U.S. partner anywhere in the world and called for a comprehensive arms deal to help it defend itself against China.

Fridays phone call does not necessarily mean that will happen, but it does look like the first sign of a recalibration by a future Trump administration, experts say.

It was planned weeks ahead by staffers and Taiwan specialists on both sides, tweeted Julia Famularo, a research affiliate at the Project 2049 Institute, an Arlington-based think tank, adding that she had spoken to someone with direct knowledge.

The goal was to address and amend counterproductive protocols that prohibit direct contact between the U.S. president and Taiwans leader, she wrote.

Of course both sides agreed ahead of time before making contact, Alex Huang, a spokesman for Tsai, told the news agency Reuters.

The call looks like an attempt to test the waters of a new approach before Trump becomes president, experts said: After the inauguration, a similar move would have had more serious diplomatic ramifications.

This was a planned action by the incoming president-elect and was neither ad hoc or done without deliberation, said Christopher Balding, an associate professor at the HSBC Business School in Shenzhen.

This is clearly part of some strategy by the incoming Trump administration about how they plan to treat China and Taiwan, he added, calling it a bold and potentially risky move that clearly shifts policy priorities.

[China may find Trump just as unpredictable as America has]

Chinese state media initially reacted with glee to Trumps election success, reflecting a widely held view that he would not pressure Beijing on human rights, while being open to pragmatic dealmaking.

Those assumptions could be wide of the mark, with Navarro and Gray also recommending more pressure on China over wild child North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program, experts say.

The 10-minute phone call is thought to be the first time that a U.S. president or president-elect and a Taiwanese leader have spoken since the late 1970s, and Chinas Foreign Ministry lodged a complaint with the United States on Saturday.

The United States formally recognized the government in Beijing as representing China in 1978 and endorses the idea that there is only one China. It ended official relations with Taiwan the following year but retains unofficial ties with the island territory, which has become a thriving democracy in recent decades.

[As Trump prepares for office, concerns about Chinese trade intensify]

While Democrats reacted in horror at the phone call, warning of potentially dangerous destabilization of ties with China, Republicans reacted more positively, not surprising in light of their partys 2016 campaign platform.

As a loyal friend of America, Taiwan has merited our strong support, including free trade agreement status, the timely sale of defensive arms including technology to build diesel submarines, and full participation in the World Health Organization, International Civil Aviation Organization, and other multilateral institutions, the document said.

Chinas behavior has negated the optimistic language of our last platform concerning our future relations with China, it added, complaining of the brutal crushing of dissent, heightened religious persecution and a preposterous claim to the entire South China Sea.

Beijing blocks Taiwan from taking part in almost all international bodies, including the global civil aviation body: Tsais office said she had told Trump during the phone call that she hoped the United States would continue to support more opportunities for Taiwan to participate in international issues.

She will have some sympathetic ears in the White House.

Priebus is reported to have visited Taiwan with a Republican delegation in 2011 and in October 2015, meeting Tsai before she was elected president. Taiwanese Foreign Minister David Lee called him a friend of Taiwan and said his appointment as Trumps chief of staff was good news for the island, according to local media.

Edwin Feulner, a Trump adviser and founder of the Heritage Foundation think tank, visited Taiwan in October and met Tsai, the China Post reported.

Meanwhile, John Bolton, a Trump ally and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, visited Trump Tower in New York for undisclosed reasons on Friday, according to Politico.

He wrote in a Wall Street Journal article in January that the United States should consider playing the Taiwan card against China, to force it to abandon its South China Sea claims.

If Beijing isnt willing to back down, America has a diplomatic ladder of escalation that would compel Beijings attention, he wrote, suggesting receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department, upgrading the status of U.S. representation in Taipei to an official diplomatic mission, inviting Taiwans president to travel in an official capacity to the United States and ultimately possibly restoring full diplomatic recognition.

That approach would strike horror in the minds of foreign policy experts, but the idea that Trump should be congratulated by the democratically elected leader of Taiwan did not meet universal condemnation.

On Twitter, Daniel Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute said it should be applauded by friends of freedom everywhere.

Famularo tweeted that when Chinese President Xi Jinping met Tsais predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, in 2015, it was called a historic breakthrough, while the Trump-Tsai phone call has been labeled a crisis. If we argue Obama demonstrated bold thinking by reaching out to Iran & Cuba, why cant we call a democratic partner?, she added.

Former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman told Fox & Friends that even Beijing was not making a big deal about the call.

Having lived in Taiwan twice and having lived in China once, theres a little too much hyperventilating about this one, he said. But the issue should be this  does Taiwan deserve a little more space? We share values, they have a big economy, we trade, they have a civil society that is large and robust and mature, and we ought to be giving them a little more space.

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An Uzbek woman casts her ballot at a polling place during the presidential election in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Sunday. Uzbekistan is to elect a new president after the death of Islam Karimov, who had served as head of state since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. EPA/RASHID KARAMURZAYEV POOL PHOTO (Rashid Karamurzayev/EPA)

Uzbeks went to the polls Sunday in the first election since the death of longtime autocratic leader Islam Karimov. In a sign of continuity with his quarter-century of authoritarian rule, the vote seemed to have only one possible outcome.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, a veteran politician who has served as the nations prime minister since 2003, was poised to win Sunday evening, with the elections commission in the Central Asian nation of 31 million reporting more than 70 percent turnout by 5 p.m.

Mirziyoyev will become just the second president of Uzbekistan since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Karimov, who died of a stroke in September, ruled the country virtually unopposed, and often brutally, for 27 years.

Mirziyoyev emerged from a circle of Karimovs close political confidants, and even before Sundays balloting appeared to have been chosen as the next president. The speaker of Uzbekistans senate, next in the line of presidential succession after Karimov, stepped aside to allow Mirziyoyev to become acting president until the election.

The presidential campaign was lackluster, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. All candidates refrain from criticizing the government or each other, and claim to target distinct segments of the electorate, its report read.

Mirziyoyev has made some tentative steps to show that his rule may not be as severe as under Karimov, who jailed his political opponents and in particular cracked down on Muslim groups under the pretense of battling Islamism. In one case, he was accused of ordering several prisoners to be boiled alive.

Last month, Mirziyoyev granted amnesty to Samandar Kukanov, an Uzbek political activist who had become one of the worlds longest-held political prisoners, according to Human Rights Watch. Kukanov had been in prison since 1993.

Mirziyoyev has indicated that he may relax tensions with Uzbekistans neighbors and will consider economic reforms for the countrys overregulated economy.

At the same time, he is known as a harsh administrator who has been responsible for overseeing Uzbekistans cotton harvest, when the government mobilizes millions of Uzbek citizens to work in the fields.

Under Karimovs rule, Uzbekistan dodged the instability that befell neighboring countries such as Tajikistan after the fall of the Soviet Union, but it ultimately receded into isolation and poverty. Karimov, who was called Papa for short, secured benefits from the United States in exchange for the use of an air base as a staging point for the invasion of Afghanistan.

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Europes embattled political establishment lost another round Sunday in its effort to thwart the anti-elite movement, as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned after voters rejected his constitutional reforms. But a center-left presidential candidate in Austria handily defeated his far-right challenger.

The thorough rejection of Renzis referendum to streamline lawmaking was a significant boost for the countrys surging populist forces just weeks after Donald Trump prevailed in the United States. Renzis loss also risks unleashing financial upheaval in Europes third-largest economy as Italys weak banks struggle to contain the fallout.

But the surprisingly strong presidential victory in Austria for an elder statesman formerly of the Green Party suggested there were still some limits to a wave of anti-elite anger that began in June with Britains vote to leave the European Union and continued with Trumps victory last month.

A populist takeover of Italy is still an uncertain prospect, since Renzis center-left Democratic Party remains in control of Parliament and national elections do not have to be called until 2018. But much will depend on the makeup of the next government and how anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic parties capitalize on their success.

I have not managed to reach victory, an emotional Renzi said early Monday, conceding defeat at the Palazzo Chigi, his official residence. My government ends today.

Austrian presidential candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, a former leading member of the Greens Party, celebrates as election returns show him leading in the race. (Matthias Schrader/AP)

With 90 percent of ballots counted, 60 percent of voters rejected the reform, a drubbing that far outpaced opinion polls ahead of the referendum.

Viewed narrowly, Sundays vote was actually in favor of the status quo, since the constitution will now remain unchanged. But the referendum to streamline the political system and diminish the role of the Senate long ago turned into a broader vote of confidence in Renzi, the youthful, Twitter-loving leader who portrayed himself as a lone warrior against Euroskeptic forces. Renzi, who took office in February 2014, always struggled to budge unemployment and improve the economy.

The lead opposition to Renzi, the insurgent Five Star Movement, ran a spirited campaign against the prime ministers reforms, joining forces with an unlikely cross-section of allies, including some in Renzis own party. Many establishment politicians also questioned whether the reforms truly made sense as the country contends with grim prospects for growth and a wave of migration from Africa. Some said the changes were poorly written and, by removing checks on the prime ministers power, could actually enable populists should they ever win the countrys top job.

Italy, which has had 63 governments in the past 70 years, is no stranger to political chaos. What comes next will depend partially on Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who is charged with picking a new person to try to form a government, as well as with deciding whether to hold early elections. Elections are a key demand from the Five Star Movement, which is running a close second to Renzis party in the polls.

There may also be economic consequences, with Italys shaky banks teetering amid the uncertainty. The euro dropped 1 percent against the dollar in early Asian trading following Renzis resignation, but many financial analysts cautioned against panic.

In the wake of Renzis resignation, Italys mainstream political parties are likely to change voting laws to make it more difficult to rule without a wide coalition, diluting the possibility that an insurgent force could seize power in the next elections . That would be a further check against the Five Star Movement, although it would also further entrench Italys general political dysfunction.

Renzis anti-establishment opponents were trying to capitalize on a wave of skepticism about the ability of elites to deal with globalization and the long, painful effects of the economic crisis that started nearly a decade ago. Trumps victory last month cheered the Five Star Movement, an insurgent anti-euro force that has support on the left and the right.

Today the arrogance thats remained in power these last years has lost, said Luigi Di Maio, who is expected to be the partys candidate for prime minister in the next election. So ends the era of shortcuts and tweets.

Sundays votes in Austria and Italy captured the extent to which Europeans are as politically polarized as Americans, split on issues including immigration and free trade.

In Austria, the far-right Freedom Partys Norbert Hofer conceded the election on his Facebook page less than 30 minutes after polls closed; projections showed a surprisingly strong lead for independent Alexander Van der Bellen. The 72-year-old statesman and former Green Party politician was winning by 53.3 percent to 46.7 percent with nearly 100 percent of the votes counted.

The result was an unexpectedly clear victory for Austrias beleaguered political establishment  one suggesting that the aggressive tactics and Trump-style campaign deployed by the Austrian far-right may have hurt more than they helped.

Sundays election, in fact, was a rerun of one in May in which Hofer lost by 31,000 votes, a result he successfully contested. His defeat on Sunday by a far larger margin, observers said, may suggest European voters unease with the comparisons of their politicians to Trump. It also seemed to rob the momentum from far-right leaders in France and the Netherlands who have called Trumps victory part of a new world order they hope to join in elections next year.

Following Hofers concession, he and Van der Bellen exchanged a long handshake for photographers in the Vienna studios of Austrian state broadcaster ORF. Van der Bellen credited his victory to a broad movement backing freedom, equality and solidarity. His campaign manager, Lothar Lockl, saw the margin as evidence of a push against the nationalist tide by moderates.

A movement could be evolving here, which is not only for Austria, but can also bring about a change of attitude in the whole of Europe, he said.

The race for the presidents ceremonial role held high stakes. The position is constitutionally ambiguous, yet Hofer, who has decried Muslim immigration and free trade, vowed to beef it up  setting up a clash with the center-left government and the European Union. Freedom Party supporters on Sunday had hoped for a Trump bump  but it bumped the wrong way.

The Trump bump could always go either way, said Reinhard Heinisch, a political scientist at the University of Salzburg. The fact is, Trump is not very popular in Austria.

Hofers campaign in Austria seemed to echo Trumps, with far-right outlets spreading damaging fake news and Hofer and his surrogates taking aim at red herrings such as his opponents health. There were more allegations of dirty tricks on election day.

On Sunday, Austrias domestic intelligence service launched an investigation into a mass text message that stated that only Hofer voters should show up because polling stations were overcrowded. Van der Bellen supporters, the text said, should instead vote Monday  although polls would be closed by then, according to the Austrian daily Der Standard.

The race was perhaps more important as a bellwether of post-Trump voter trends in Europe, where nationalists are poised to stage potent 2017 campaigns in France, Germany and the Netherlands. A Hofer victory would have potentially signaled the new electability of the far right. Indeed, the Freedom Party sought to leverage Hofers guy-next-door demeanor that seemed to take the bite out of his harshest condemnations, such as that Islam is not part of Austria.

Still, while portraying himself as the face of a reformed far right, he persisted in courting a more extreme base. For instance, he wore a cornflower lapel pin  a symbol of German nationalism also used by the Nazis. Hofer on Sunday called for national unity following his defeat. Yet within his party, the attacks were already flying. The Freedom Partys powerful chairman, Heinz-Christian Strache, accused Hofers opponents of running a massive fear campaign, saying Green Party supporters of Van der Bellen had painted Hofer as a Nazi.

Faiola reported from Berlin. Stefano Pitrelli in Rome and Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin contributed to this report.

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US Secretary of State John Kerry at a summit in Rome on Friday. On Sunday, he warned that Israels settlements on the West Bank are an obstacle to peace. (Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images)

Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Sunday that Israel is heading to a place of danger because settlement growth is eroding chances for a two-state solution and peace with the Palestinians.

Using unusually blunt language at the Saban Forum, an annual symposium on Israel at the Brookings Institution, Kerry said he had been pushing uphill with the Israeli government because a majority of the ruling coalition does not support a two-state solution.

Theres a basic choice that has to be made, Kerry said, noting that since the Oslo agreement of 1993 the Jewish settler population in the West Bank has mushroomed from 110,000 to almost 400,000. That is: Are there going to be continued settlements, is there going to be continued implementation of the settlement policy, or is there going to be a separation and the creation of two states?

The Israelis have been fearful that President Obama in the waning days of his term will lay out binding parameters for two states  one Israeli, one Palestinian. The outline could be in the form of a United Nations resolution, a forceful option, or a detailed speech that could more easily be dismissed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus coalition partners have failed to heed his admonition to not provoke Obama. Education Minister Naftali Bennett, for example, has declared that the era of the Palestinian state is over, and has pushed to annex 60 percent of the West Bank where Jewish settlers live.

Kerry said the Obama administration has not yet decided whether to spell out its vision, though he said the United States will continue to veto U.N. resolutions that it deems as reflecting anti-Israel bias. Kerry acknowledged that the Palestinians bear a share of the blame, including inciting violence and schools that foster hatred against Israelis.

In his remarks, Kerry effectively laid out some details that he said already have been discussed regarding how a Palestinian state could exist while Israels security is ensured. He said Israelis, Jordanians, Egyptians, Americans and Palestinians could work together to maintain border security using drones and electronically monitored fences. In the event of an incident, Israeli troops stationed nearby could swoop in on helicopters within six minutes.

Nobodys talking about a turnover today, he said. Its going to take years of work to evolve. It has to happen with the assurance youre not turning the West Bank into Gaza.

Speaking about an hour after Netanyahu addressed the group by satellite, Kerry rebutted the Israeli prime ministers argument that the heart of the stalemate is not Jewish settlements but the Palestinian refusal to recognize the Jewish state.

Leaders in Israel are fond of saying settlements are not the cause of the conflict, he said. I am not contending they are. But I cannot accept the notion they dont affect the peace process, that they arent a barrier to peace.

He suggested the obstacle was deliberate in concept: If you have a whole bunch of people who are strategically locating outposts and settlements in an area so that there will not be a contiguous Palestinian state, they are doing it to be an obstacle to peace.

Kerry noted that later this week the Israeli parliament will vote on whether to legalize dozen of outposts in the West Bank that are considered illegal because they have been built on private Palestinian land. The Israeli high court has ordered that the military must evacuate and demolish a Jewish settlement called Amona in the West Bank, home to about 40 families, for just that reason.

Netanyahu has called the legislation needlessly provocative, but Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday that Israel should wait until President-elect Donald Trump takes office to decide the illegal outposts fate.

In his remarks to the Saban Forum, Netanyahu said peace could be advanced through a regional effort using our new relationships in the Arab world to get the Palestinians to the table.

But Kerry said that was wishful thinking.

There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world, he said. That is a hard reality.

William Booth in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas casts his vote at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in the city of Ramallah on Sunday. Abbas's Fatah party held a vote for members of its ruling bodies that ensured his continuing leadership. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

For beleaguered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his aging coterie of loyalists, this was showtime.

Over the past six days, their Fatah political movement convened its long-overdue party congress, hoping to halt its slide in popularity at home and abroad by assuring people that the octogenarian Abbas and the old guard can lead the Palestinians toward a better future.

Abbas emerged Sunday night in firm control of his party, which nominally rules the Palestinian villages and towns of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He nimbly sidelined rivals and blocked renegades who supported an exiled challenger.

Abbas and his allies took 16 of 18 seats up for election on the Fatah Central Committee. Abbas will appoint three more of its 21 members.

The delegates in their leather jackets and gray suits waved checkered scarfs and sang revolutionary songs for the Palestine TV cameras, but Abbass success means a continuation of the status quo.

In a two-hour speech to the delegates Wednesday, Abbas said that the way to achieve Palestinian aspirations is by international diplomacy, not armed struggle.

Although he praised Palestinian prisoners jailed for attacking or killing Israelis, he called for an intifada of brains.

Whether this will be enough to satisfy the younger generations who have grown tired of Abbas and the stalemate of almost 50 years of Israeli military occupation is unclear.

Months of sporadic, directionless, suicidal violence by Palestinian youths, who attacked Israeli soldiers and civilians with kitchen knives and family cars, did nothing to advance Palestinian national aspirations.

The average age of outgoing Fatah Central Committee members is almost 70. Several members are in their 80s. Two have died in office. A frequent complaint is that there is no space for new blood in Palestinian political life  and no elections.

Israels military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, warned last week that 2017 wont be a stable year for the Palestinian Authority.

The Fatah party congress, which ended Sunday, was the closest thing to democracy that Palestinians have seen in recent years  and it wasnt especially democratic.

The 1,400 delegates voted unanimously to reelect Abbas, 81, as leader of the party, guaranteeing that he will rule until he dies or resigns or decides to hold long-overdue elections.

In October, complaining of fatigue, Abbas was hospitalized for cardiovascular surgery. There was speculation that Fatah might soon name a deputy who could serve as successor or an interim president if Abbas dies or falls ill. It didnt happen at the congress.

His reelection to head Fatah was no surprise. Delegates were hand-picked. Party members who support his archrival, the upstart Mohammed Dahlan, were purged from the lists.

Dahlan, 53, a former chief of security in Gaza and protege of Yasser Arafat, now lives in exile in the United Arab Emirates after he was kicked out of Fatah in 2011. He was accused of corruption and defamation, charges he denies. With backing from patrons in the Persian Gulf, Dahlan has been plotting his comeback. In an interview with The Washington Post late last year, Dahlan branded Abbas a failure.

Abbas has been under pressure by the Arab Quartet of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to allow Dahlan back into the West Bank.

Abbas told them to mind their own business.

Abbass spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said the conference marked a victory of the Fatah movement over the conspiracy, by which he meant Dahlan and his supporters, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The conference was originally scheduled to be held in Bethlehem but was moved to the walled government compound in Ramallah. The news media was mostly kept at arms length and Palestinian security forces fanned out, setting up road blocks to check vehicles and stopping ousted Fatah members from staging a news conference at the Qalandia refugee camp.

A weak Fatah is a weak Palestinian movement, said Jihad Tomali, a leader in the al-Amari refugee camp who was ousted by Abbas for his support of Dahlan.

Tomali said that the divisions between Hamas and Fatah, and Fatah and Dahlan, were hurting the Palestinian cause.

Abbas has no authority to fire me, he said. We are not working in a company owned by Abbas. We are in a revolutionary movement.

Democratic institutions in the West Bank are moribund. The Palestinian National Council, which is supposed to convene every two years, has not sat in two decades. The Palestinian Legislative Council, which serves as the parliament, has not been in session since 2006, when Hamas won elections.

Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, after it threw Fatah out of the coastal enclave. The Islamists have fought three disastrous wars with Israel since then. Fatah and Hamas are forever vowing to reconcile but never quite manage to do so.

Abbas and Fatah dominate the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is granted sole power to negotiate peace with the Israelis, as well as the Palestinian Authority, which runs the security apparatus and municipal affairs for the 40 percent of the West Bank not under complete Israel military control.

For Abbas, questions of legitimacy loom, both among Palestinians and Israelis. Abbass four-year elected term as president ended in 2009. His fiercest critics have begun to deride him as a king or a dictator.

At a conference in Washington on Friday, Israels defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said Abbas has no real legitimacy to be the Palestinian leader. He keeps postponing the elections again and again.

Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli leaders have decried Abbas as a weakling, an inciter, a rejectionist. Lieberman said Abbas isnt a partner for a final status peace agreement.

Abbas and the Palestinian leadership face daunting challenges. The peace process with Israel has collapsed. The military occupation of the West Bank marks its 50th anniversary next year. Israeli leaders are hoping President Trump gives them a free hand to construct Jewish settlements on land that the Palestinians want for a future state.

Two-thirds of the population in the West Bank tell pollsters that Abbas should resign. In student body elections at West Bank universities, the Islamist militant group Hamas has defeated the more moderate Fatah faction.

Supporters of Abbas say that surveys and student elections dont reflect reality.

The presidents legitimacy is uncontested by the Palestinian people, said Husam Zomlot, a strategic adviser to Abbas. If he were to run on behalf of Fatah tomorrow, Abbas would win by a landslide.

Read more

Exiled Palestinian leader calls Abbas reign a failure

Man without a plan: Palestinians dont hate Abbas, but theyre tired of him.

Did Obama just sign the last waiver before Trump moves embassy to Jerusalem?

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

Sufian Taha in Ramallah and Ruth Eglash in Bethlehem contributed to this report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered something of a backhanded compliment to Donald Trump on Sunday, saying the U.S. president-elect is smart enough to understand that hes going to shoulder a whole new level of responsibilities come January.

To the extent that he was able to achieve success in business, this shows that hes a smart person, Putin said in snippets of an interview with broadcaster NTV set to be aired in full Sunday evening. And if hes a smart person, that means that he will totally and quite quickly understand the different level of his responsibility [as a statesman]. We presume that he will act based on this position.

Trump has said that he wants to establish better relations with Putin, particularly in international security. While that presents opportunities for the Kremlin, Putins remarks also signaled concerns, voiced by insiders, that Trump could be an unpredictable partner.

Putin called Trump talented and colorful during the U.S. election campaign (Trump said Putin had called him a genius, thanks to a mistranslation), but the Kremlin has been reserved in its praise since Trump won the presidency last month. Putin did not mention the president-elect in a speech to lawmakers last week, during which he brushed off accusations that Russia had meddled in the U.S. elections.

[Russia has been in contact with Trump team over Syria, senior diplomat says]

1 of 35 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Heres a look at Trumps administration so far View Photos President-elect Donald Trump faces a challenge as he prepares for his move to the White House: selecting the men and women who will fill his administration. Caption The men and women the president-elect has selected for his Cabinet and White House team. Scott Gottlieb, nominee for commissioner of FDA President Trump is set to nominate Scott Gottlieb, a conservative physician and businessman with deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry, to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a White House official said. Courtesy of American Enterprise Institute/via Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.

In his full remarks, Putin highlighted the difference in responsibility for Trump as a businessman and as a head of state.

Trump was a businessman and an entrepreneur, Putin said in the interview, which also touched on international affairs, including the war in Syria. Now hes a government official, now hes the head of the United States of America, one of the leading countries of the world, one of the worlds leading economies, one of the worlds leading military states. To the extent that he was able to achieve success in business, this shows that hes a smart person. And if hes a smart person, that means that he will totally and quite quickly understand the different level of his responsibility. We presume that he will act based on this position.

During the interview, Putin also said that the global balance of power is changing and that attempts to establish a unipolar world have failed.

Read more

Inside Trumps financial ties to Russia and his unusual flattery of Vladimir Putin

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Syrian men displaced from east Aleppo last month wait at a security checkpoint on Sunday to be able to return to their homes in the citys Hanano district. ( Hassan Ammar /Associated Press)

The Syrian army on Sunday ordered rebels in Aleppo to leave the city or face inevitable death, as airstrikes on neighboring Idlib province killed at least 50 people, including several children.

Aleppo shook from the sound of explosions throughout the day as pro-government forces, including fighters dispatched from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, pounded the citys opposition neighborhoods in the east.

Rebel defenses have buckled after months of siege and waves of devastating airstrikes, and the opposition could soon be driven from Syrias largest city.

It would mark their biggest defeat since 2011, when a government crackdown against dissent sparked a civil war. Rebels swept into Aleppo in 2012. The governments fortunes changed after the Russian air force intervened in September 2015, allowing the government to begin to reconquer it.

Brig. Gen. Samir Suleiman, an army spokesman, said that the army has retaken more than half the neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo and that special forces would lead the battle in the narrow streets of the citys historic district.

On Sunday, government forces captured large swaths of the Qaterji, Maysar and Karm al-Turab neighborhoods, bringing their eastern flank to within less than half a mile of the citadel that anchors the center of the city. The citadel has remained under government control throughout the conflict.

The United Nations estimates that more than 31,000 people have fled their homes since pro-government forces began advancing inside eastern Aleppo one week ago.

Russian or government jets, meanwhile, were thought to be behind raids on Idlib province on Sunday, including two airstrikes that hit rural markets and killed dozens, activists said.

The Syrian Civil Defense first responder group said 52 civilians were killed in raids across the province.

The fear was clear on everyones face. There were limbs and bodies all over the ground, said Ahmad al-Sheikho of the Civil Defense, who said he arrived at the Maarat al-Numan marketplace 10 minutes after it was struck.

The market at Kafranbel, a village seven miles away, was bombed a few hours earlier.
Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd on Sept. 16. (Photo: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)

Their bad! Maksim Chmerkovskiy and fiancee Peta Murgatroyd got kicked out of their first Lamaze birthing class on Saturday, December 3, and the papa-to-be documented the moment with a short clip to Instagram.

Baby, what just happened? Chmerkovskiy, 36, asks Murgatroyd, 30, in the video. What did we do? The pregnant Dancing With the Stars pro giggles as she responds, Our first Lamaze class.

PHOTOS: Famous Celebrity Pregnancies: Baby Bump Hall of Fame

Chmerkovskiy gives the camera a raised eyebrow before he explains, We got kicked out because Peta was misbehaving and not listening to anything. At this, Murgatroyd can be heard laughing in the background.

Thats what happens. This babys gonna be a disaster, Chmerkovskiy, who is also a DWTS pro, concluded. He added a tad more detail in his caption.

Lamaz class wentinteresting, he wrote. @petamurgatroyd was the worst student in class, but I dont blame her cause it was a million hours long and weve been shown waaaaaaaay too much stuff! My hair is indicative of the stuff weve witnessed. #traumatized #NothingToHashtag.

PHOTOS: TV Pregnancies: How Stars Worked Around Their Baby Bumps

The dancers first announced that they are expecting their first child together in May. (The duo got engaged last December after the Ukraine native got down on one knee during a performance of Sway at the Olympia Theater in Miami.)

PHOTOS: Before They Were on Dancing With the Stars!

I think shes going to be an amazing mom, Chmerkovskiy told Us at a DWTS event in September. Were going to look back on this process and say we had one of the easiest pregnancies.

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A star in Argentina since at least Tango Feroz, Fernan Miras has gone behind the camera to direct The Heavy Hand of the Law, produced by Fernando Sokolowicz, one of Argentinas most established producers. It is a showcase for two things which so many Argentine movies so often do well: Trenchant comedy and eliciting fine performances from consummate actors, here including Dario Grandinetti, star of Pedro Almodovars Talk to Her and Julieta.

The laugh-out-loud humor comes despite the fact that the film is based on a true case that was an outrageous case of police negligence and bigotry. In The Heavy Hand of the Law, Gloria Soriano, a public defender, is appointed as counsel for the defence of the Gringo Gomez, a man so ignorant he does not know what homosexuality is. He is accused of raping a mentally-handicapped member of his village community in the Argentine sticks. Both men are from Argentinas humblest social strata. Gloria herself, after an accident, has a heavy limp. The case is written off as one village idiot raping another. But Soriano believes in her profession, senses Gomez is innocent, that this is a case of consensual sex. Against all the odds  the judge is a friend of the powerful prosecuting lawyer  she sets out to prove this. Variety chatted with Fernan Miras at Ventana Sur after a private screening of the movie.

Set in 1983, under Argentinas ghastly Junta, The Heavy Hand of the Law records a legal defence in the face of huge difficulties. It seems so singular that it has to be based on true events.

Yes. The other co-writer Roberto Gispert is a lawyer, and he showed me the real case. All lawyers have cases they laugh about. They showed us a lot of police files with a lot of mistakes, extraordinary misspellings. This was the first reason for our interest. What I remembered most was the picture of the Manfredo, the supposed victim, where he was put on all fours re-enacting the supposed crime. You never put a victim in a specific position and take a picture. But they did.

But it was a real picture of Manfredo?

Yes. You dont put a woman with her legs open for a picture [after alleged rape]. Why? What was the reason? At first it was just a file, which lawyers laughed about. My co-writer was especially interested in the victims. How the system deals with the victims. Im interested in real stories. I felt it was a good excuse to make a film mostly because it was a small case, not like those against pharmacy companies. A small case in a small town.

Weight has two very Argentinian things. The writing and dialogue, the latters black humor. Why the comedy? This is in many ways a tragic case.

You can watch the hardest things of life if you laugh a little about them. Roberto and I talked to a lot of lawyers and judges. One of the first people we ran into was a woman lawyer not Gloria but a friend who said: Ive been a lawyer for twenty years and Ive never defended an innocent person.

Which you put into the film

Yes. We have an image of justice as something meaningful. But the only thing that is true is what you can or cannot prove. The other key point for me was the vocational aspect of being a lawyer. Researching for the film, we asked lawyers: Why did you start to study law? Some answered along the lines of: I was very young and I believed in justice. Others had forgotten why. That was for me the most important thing about the story. Public defenders also have the additional problem that theyre saturated by work, working for the poor classes.

That can be seen in the office which Gloria shares with her colleague, played by Dario Barassi. The files piling up on their desks; and that the reason most people visit the office is to use their toilet.

The piles are much higher in real life than in the movie.

You have some very good character actors such as Dario Grandinetti and the lawyer for the prosecution  Maria Onetti, who starred in Lucrecia Martels The Headless Woman, which competing at Cannes in 2008. How did you select them?

They asked me to be in the movie. At the time, for instance, Dario was going to star in Pedro Almodovars Julieta. He asked to read the screenplay, took a flight to Madrid, and phoned me from there to say he was in. I was very moved.

What do you think drives Gloria to spend so much time defending Gringo Gomez?

When she sees that the professor she so admired at university has become the prosecuting lawyer, the opposite of her ideal, that motivates her even more. I think this happens in a lot of professions.

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We're sorry America, but for many of you, your deepest, darkest nightmare has finally come true: the questionably coherent reality television star of white nationalist dreams has officially become leader of the free world. Donald Trump is president.

It's been less than a month since Trump won the election, and Americans everywhere are looking for signs of hope and reassurance. Sure, there's no data to support a theory of hope (just spend a nanosecond on Trump's Twitter, before closing your eyes very tight). But there are writers and comedians on Twitter who can provide something close to it, and remind you that there are other caring, reasonable people out there  sort of like you.

SEE ALSO: Everyday household objects more qualified for public office than Trump's cabinet

Below is a list of people to follow on various social platforms who can help you survive the next four years.

If just want someone to tell you it's going to be OK (without lying)

1. Van Jones

Van Jones might be best known as the astute CNN commentator who popularized the term whitelash, but in recent weeks the pundit has unofficially become the nation's de facto therapist. His most recent three-part video series interviewing Trump supporters made reaching across the aisle seem actually plausible, and he was one of the few liberal pundits to successfully predict Trump's rise.





If you need to be reminded you that there are still rational, compassionate, not-Steve Bannon conservatives out there

2. Evan McMullin

McMullin, the former House GOP policy director who ran against Trump in the 2016 election, has been loudly denouncing the PEOTUS for embracing his party's extremist white nationalist fringe.

Remaining silent now is allowing the Party of Abraham Lincoln to drift towards the Party of David Duke. https://t.co/JGEllCQZ3Q  Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) November 23, 2016

3. Ana Navarro

Navarro, a conservative and CNN contributor, has been lashing out at her party for the past year, inspiring some of the best GIFS and tweets of this election, or any election, ever.

Story continues

4. David Frum

Frum, senior editor at The Atlantic, is a moderate neoconservative who is so eminently rational and clever it almost makes neoconservatism seem  cool?

If flag-burning merits loss of citizenship, what should be the penalty for a Nazi salute by a Trump supporter?  David Frum (@davidfrum) November 29, 2016

If you need to know that there's still love in this world

5. DeRay McKesson

DeRay, a leading activist in the Black Lives Matter movement, produces a Twitter feed that is simultaneously full of grief, critique, and meaningful calls to action. He's best known for tweeting "I love my blackness, and yours," but there's so much more like it.

Sleep well, y'all. Remember to dream.  deray mckesson (@deray) December 1, 2016





If you want to know if you'll still have a job in four years

6. Paul Krugman

The New York Times columnist, economist and on-the-nose curmudgeon carefully and methodically debunks each one of Trump's obscene assertions about the economy with  get ready for it  actual facts.

Another metric: Trump would have to do one Carrier-sized deal a week for 30 years to save as many jobs as Obama's auto bailout  Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 30, 2016





If you want to take down Trump and build a brand-new beautiful world (or something)

7. Rebecca Solnit

The author best known for Men Explain Things to Me (think: mansplaining) doesn't have a Twitter account but does have an active Facebook following, where she shares calls to action and deeply empathetic essays that remind you why you want to make those calls in the first place.

8. Representative Keith Ellison

The progressive Congressman is gunning to become the next head of the DNC. Anyone who's anyone (dorks) are watching Ellison to see what kind of vision he has planned for the party.

My plan for the DNC:https://t.co/stLKdNIOIA  Rep. Keith Ellison (@keithellison) December 1, 2016

If you want to spend the next four years laughing in a subtle-yet-depressed way

9. OhNoSheTwitnt

The comedian who delivered some excellent masturbation jokes in the pre-Trump era has now dedicated herself full-time to witnessing the (potential impending) apocalypse around us so we don't have to.

Hopefully Trump won't accept the results of the election if he wins.  (((OhNoSheTwitnt))) (@OhNoSheTwitnt) November 9, 2016

10. Maura Quint

Her feed isn't all Trump (thank God) but when she goes there, she doesn't let go.

I'd rather see someone burn the flag in an act of protest than wear it to the beach over their crotch thinking that was an act of respect  maura quint (@behindyourback) November 30, 2016

11. Kumail Nanjiani

The actor and comedian from Silicon Valley and Portlandia carefully balances despair with more despair.

This is the first time in our lives that fighting Nazis doesn't require a time machine.  Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) November 22, 2016

12. Dave Itzkoff

Of course, the world is imploding around you  but you're not the only one who sees it. Itzkoff, and this Kermit GIF, does too.

Mr. Trump, acts of hate are being committed in your name around the country!

TRUMP: ...

They might recount an election you won"

TRUMP: pic.twitter.com/3yqluEJFqU  Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) November 27, 2016





If you just really need someone to cut through the bullshit. All of it.

13. Joy Reid

Say what you will about MSNBC, but commentator Joy Reid has committed her Twitter feed/full life to exposing each and every one of Trump's lies, hypocrisies, and wild allegations. Nothing seems to pass by her. (Truly nothing. She's on Twitter a lot).

Trump claims the world will "respect us again" despite the fact that under Obama respect for the U.S. is high while the world loathes Trump.  Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) December 2, 2016

14. Jon Favreau

Favreau was Obama's chief speechwriter from 2005 to 2013 and is now host of the podcast "Keepin' it 1600." Don't believe that tiny bit of good news about Trump that the rest of the world has on blast? He doesn't either.

The most bizarre part about "nasty woman" is that it came during an answer about the Social Security Trust Fund.  Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) October 20, 2016

15. Julia Ioffe

Columnist and Politico writer Julia Ioffe will, thankfully, never force you to find the silver lining.

IDEA: What if you could strip someone of their citizenship for their tweets?  Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) November 30, 2016





If you're a teensy weensy bit concerned that our planet is on its way to hell

16. Neil deGrasse Tyson

The celebrity astrophysicist (who ever thought there would be such a thing?) has more than 6 million followers and is the voice of reason in a world of climate change deniers.

#IDreamOfAWorld where Politicians are scientifically literate, empowering them to make informed decisions that affect us all.  Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 27, 2016

If you lack the words to describe what you're feeling right now

17. Merriam-Webster

Sure, it's a dictionary. But language is inherently political, and the mysterious talented ghost who runs Merriam Webster's Twitter right now has done some of the best subtweeting of the election season.

'Fascism' is still our #1 lookup.



# of lookups = how we choose our Word of the Year.



There's still time to look something else up.  Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) November 29, 2016





If you want to know if what Trump is doing is legal (it's probably not)

18. Laurence Tribe

The liberal scholar and constitutional law professor at Harvard who has argued before the Supreme Court dozens of time should be far more popular than Alan Dershowitz, but sadly isn't.

Sad lesson: Trump knows how to use optics to create counterproductive illusions; Obama assumed reality counts more than image https://t.co/rR1hHsNIYC  Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) December 1, 2016

If you're in that "angry caps lock tweetstorm" kind of mood

19. Judd Legum

Legum, an editor at Think Progress and master tweeter, has crafted some fine tweetstorms (and real pieces of journalism, blablabla) that can fulfill all your primitive, rage-tweeting desires.





3. But Trump has skills. His biggest skill is PROJECTING AN IMAGE OF SUCCESS, whatever the reality  Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 1, 2016

If you just want to check in and make sure feminism is still alive

20. Lindy West

West, the hilarious Guardian columnist best known for her relationships with trolls, will remind you that, no, feminism isn't dead, it's just really sad right now and needs some space, okay?

anyone else having this problem where you can't watch children's media about girls being bold & fearless & having hope w/o sobbing like baby  Lindy West (@thelindywest) November 29, 2016

21. Brittney Cooper

Brittney Cooper, founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, might not be the most active tweeter, but every story she writes and collective post she shares is worth your full attention.

I know most of you don't have words. I don't either. But I found a few for this hard day. https://t.co/2nX9Y9lSoj  Brittney Cooper (@ProfessorCrunk) November 9, 2016

22. Roxane Gay

If you don't know about Roxane Gay, now you do. Gay, author of Bad Feminist and a sometimes columnist for The New York Times, dissects human emotions like no one else.

Anyway here is the segment. https://t.co/LXkvJK8LQY  roxane gay (@rgay) November 23, 2016





If humans are being too horrible right now and the only thing that can give you peace is a barnyard animal

23. Goats of Anarchy

This goat is just like you  a sad, frightened creature who only feels happy in a duck costume. Get a goat costume, or better yet, get this Instagram account.

Today, Polly and her duck suit captured the attention of media outlets all over the world. You may have seen her story... it's been everywhere! In light of that, I thought I would bring back her duck videos that we took while visiting @tractorsupply. Is there no duck emoji? A video posted by Goats of Anarchy (@goatsofanarchy) on Nov 25, 2016 at 5:15pm PST

RELATED: These are the most shocking quotes to come out of Trump's 60 Minutes interview
millennium tower san francisco

On November 25, new satellite images revealed that San Francisco's Millennium Tower can be seen sinking from space.

The 58-story luxury condo skyscraper has sunk 16 inches and tilted two inches since it opened in 2009. Recent data provided by the European Space Agency suggests the building will continue to sink at a rate of two inches per year.

That's double what engineers earlier estimated, according to an AP report.

The building has been embroiled in scandal for months now, as its developers, homeowners, and city officials hunt for people to blame.

Still, Millennium Tower is unlikely to keel over anytime soon, in part because it's sinking too slowly to take anyone by surprise. The building's developers, Millennium Partners, hired engineers to drill holes around the building in order to test soil samples and figure out why the tower is sinking and what can be done to prevent it from sinking further.

The cause of the building's problems remains cloudy.

Millennium Partners argues the city's construction of an adjacent transit center caused the tower to sink, while the city agency, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, blames the building's "inadequate foundation." The building sits on packed sand, rather than bedrock.

millennium tower; transbay transit center

The biggest cause for concern is the looming possibility of an earthquake.

For years, scientists have warned that the Bay Area is overdue for a devastating earthquake. Predictions became more dire this fall when movement was detected in a seismic zone at the fault's southern tip.

Millennium Tower sits on land that is prone to liquefaction, the process by which loose sand and silt behaves like a liquid in the event of an earthquake. The seismic activity causes water pressure in the sediment to increase and grains of sand to lose contact with each other, the US Geological Survey (USGS) explains. The soil may give out under large and heavy structures.

Story continues

Oftentimes, the solution for tall buildings built in liquefaction zones is drilling down to bedrock. Millennium Tower's neighbors, the $1.1 billion Salesforce Tower and the luxury high-rise 181 Fremont, are both anchored to bedrock. They're still under construction.

Millennium Tower doesn't face a unique problem  much of San Francisco is prone to liquefying. A liquefaction-susceptibility map from the USGS highlights high-risk areas in red and moderate-risk areas in yellow.

usgs map san francisco liquefaction susceptibility

Gregory Deierlein, director of the John A. Blume Earthquake Center at Stanford University, told The San Francisco Chronicle in an investigation published in August that while the building's movement is cause for concern, he doesn't consider the sink or tilt a safety issue.

"I would be concerned for my investment," Deierlein said, explaining that a shifting building could cause minor annoyances ranging from cracks in the walls to elevator malfunctions.

Patrick Shires, who owns an engineering company outside San Jose and has worked in the field for 40 years, warned the building's residents in May that their problems are still far from over.

Shires said Millennium Tower will "most likely" sink an additional eight to 15 inches in the coming years, according to The Chronicle. The building could dip 31 inches total.

The building's developers maintain that the building remains structurally sound.

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By Sanjeev Miglani AMRITSAR, India (Reuters) - Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday that the Taliban insurgency would not survive a month if it lost its sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan, urging its neighbor to take on militant groups on its soil instead of giving Kabul financial aid. Ghani's remarks, made at an international conference in the northern Indian city of Amritsar not far from the border with Pakistan, suggested tensions were rising with Pakistan after Ghani attempted to improve relations with Islamabad when he took office in 2014. Pakistan said while violence had increased in Afghanistan , blaming another country for it didn't help. Violence has spread around Afghanistan and the Taliban's ability to conduct coordinated high profile attacks in the capital Kabul has piled pressure on Ghani's Western-backed government to provide better security to a war weary people. Last year, Afghanistan suffered the highest number of civilian casualties and military related deaths in the world, Ghani told the Heart of Asia conference aimed at getting regional players together to help stabilize his country. "This is unacceptable... Some still provide sanctuary for terrorists. As a Taliban figure said recently, if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," he said. Analysts say Pakistan has historically backed the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against the influence of arch-rival India, with whom Pakistan has fought three wars, in its backyard. Pakistan denies this and instead said it is itself a victim of terrorism and that fighters of the Tehrik-i-Taliban, one of the main groups carrying out attacks inside Pakistan, were operating from Afghanistan. Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's top foreign policy adviser, said it was true that there had been an upsurge in violence in Afghanistan. "We need to have an objective and holistic view rather to blame one country," he told the conference. The number of people displaced by conflict in Afghanistan this year has surpassed half a million people, the United Nations reported last month, the highest number since it began compiling such statistics in 2008. On top of the Taliban, Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks targeting minority Shi'ites in Afghanistan where sectarian violence has been rare. Ghani said there were 30 militant groups identified by the UN that were trying to establish a base in Afghanistan. "I don't want a blame game, I want clarifications on what is being done to prevent the export of terror," Ghani said, calling it an undeclared war on Afghanistan. "We thank Pakistan for their pledge of $500 million assistance for reconstruction of Afghanistan. I hope you use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan." Pakistan had made the pledge earlier this year. Ghani's remarks, the strongest in recent months, come as India has simultaneously mounted pressure on Pakistan to end what it too calls cross-border terrorism in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said regional players had to act against not only the militants but their sponsors. "It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them." Islamabad has rejected the Indian allegations and said it was ready to hold talks with India on the dispute over Kashmir, but no talks are planned with Aziz while he is in Amritsar, Indian officials said. (Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Eric Meijer)
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused Pakistan Sunday of waging an "undeclared war" and said Taliban insurgents battling his government would not last a month without sanctuary in the neighbouring state.

Ghani also urged Pakistan to spend around $500 million pledged in aid for Afghanistan to tackle extremism instead.

"Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan on bilateral and multilateral basis, the undeclared war... not only has not abated but also intensified during 2016 with special intensity," Ghani said.

"One of the key figures in the Taliban movement recently said if they didn't have a sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," he added.

The Taliban were toppled from power by a US-led invasion in 2001 and have battled the Kabul government and its foreign allies since.

Afghan officials accuse Pakistan of supporting the Taliban and continuing to provide sanctuaries on its soil in hopes of maintaining influence in Afghanistan.

The Afghan leader was speaking at the sixth ministerial conference of the Heart of Asia -- Istanbul Process, a dialogue on ways to encourage security, political and economic cooperation among Afghanistan and its neighbours.

Delegations from more than a dozen countries including Pakistan, China, Russia, Turkey and Iran attended the conference in the northern Indian city of Amritsar on Sunday.

They discussed challenges to the long-term growth and stability of the war-torn country.

India, the fifth largest bilateral donor to Afghanistan, has been a key supporter of Kabul's government and has poured more than $2 billion into the country since the Taliban were toppled.

- 'Threat to peace' -

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday promised his country's support for peace while also indirectly criticising Pakistan's role in the region.

"Terrorism and externally-induced instability pose the gravest threat to Afghanistan's peace, stability and prosperity," he said.

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"It (support for peace) must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them," Modi added, hinting at Pakistan.

The declaration issued at the end of the conference by the participating nations emphasised the need for a collective approach towards tackling terrorism in the region, particularly Afghanistan.

"Acknowledging the support that terrorism derives in our region, we demand an immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it, including financing of terrorism," the statement said, identifying several well known local "terrorist groups" including the Taliban, the Haqqani network, Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, among others.

Both the Indian and Afghan leaders in recent months have vocally blamed Pakistan for its support for groups and individuals behind attacks in their countries.

Pakistan -- the historic backer of the Taliban -- has long been accused of supporting the insurgents in Afghanistan, especially with attacks on Indian targets in the country.

Last December Modi inaugurated Afghanistan's new parliament complex in Kabul, built by India at an estimated cost of $90 million.

A few days after his visit militants launched a 25-hour gun and bomb siege near the Indian consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

And in March Taliban militants fired a barrage of rockets at the parliament complex.

In an earlier bilateral meeting Modi and Ghani discussed a range of issues including improved connectivity, trade, investment and terrorism.

Ghani, in his address on Sunday, said they had reached agreement on an air cargo corridor between the two countries.

The strained ties between India and Pakistan have impeded any progress on land transport links between India and Afghanistan.

The two countries also recently signed a three-way transit agreement with Iran to develop the southern Iranian port of Chabahar.

The deal, bypassing Pakistan to connect Iran, India and Afghanistan to Central Asia, is expected to boost economic growth in the region.
Alec Baldwin has offered to stop doing his impersonation of Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live if the president-elect releases his tax returns.

Baldwins offer came via Twitter shortly after midnight on Sunday after Trump sent a tweet critical of SNL in general and Baldwins portrayal of him in particular.

@realDonaldTrump Release your tax returns and I'll stop.

Ha  ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 4, 2016

The question of Trumps tax returns has been an issue since the start of his presidential campaign in June 2015. Trump has bucked political tradition by refusing to allow the public a deep look at his financial history. That prompted investigative reports into the track record of Trumps businesses and his personal foundation.

In October, the New York Times reported that Trump recorded a $916 million business loss in 1995 that likely allowed him to avoid paying income taxes for as much as 18 years. In September, the Washington Post reported on the Donald J. Trump Foundations history of accepting donations from outside sources but making few charitable grants of its own.

The latest episode of SNL opened with Baldwin playing Trump goofing off and focusing on retweeting messages from random people while attending a security briefing. SNL trouper Kate McKinnon, who spent most of the year playing Trumps Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, limned Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.

The sketch ended with Trump calling for his chief strategist, the controversial former Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, who was portrayed as a cross between the Grim Reaper and Darth Vader.

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Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f306402%2ftrump-twitter-alec-baldwin

It's Sunday, which means the internet is coming to terms with the future president of the United States in yet another feud with Saturday Night Live.

Alec Baldwin performed another spot-on impression of Trump on the show Saturday evening, mocking the president-elect for his recent actions on Twitter, Trump's preferred form of communication.

After the show bashed Trump for tweeting, Trump then hate-tweeted about the show, proving the exact point the skit was trying to make.

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

But Baldwin isn't the type to just let some bully talk smack without dishing it back, so he tweeted that he would gladly stop his Trump impersonation if Trump simply releases his tax returns.

...@realDonaldTrump



Release your tax returns and I'll stop.

Ha  ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 4, 2016

Here's the bit that Trump is referring to:

During the election Trump refused to release his tax returns despite pressure from both Republicans and Democrats, citing an ongoing audit by the IRS. In October the New York Times released records from Trump's tax returns in 1995, which show that he may have avoided paying taxes for up to 18 years after reporting a $916 million loss.

Of course this isn't the first time Baldwin and Trump exchanged words on Twitter over SNL; just last month Baldwin called out Trump for a similar tweet where Trump complained about "equal time" even though he already had won the election.

...@realDonaldTrump

Equal time?

Election is over. There is no more equal time. Now u try 2 b Pres + ppl respond. That's pretty much it.  ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) November 20, 2016

Meanwhile Alec's brother Stephen decided to how his support for Trump on Twitter on Sunday. Stephen previously stated during the election that his brother's portrayal of Trump isn't funny.

Mr President @realDonaldTrump

God is with you !

Thanks so much for your willingness to serve our Nation.

Blessing 2U & VP @mike_pence  Stephen Baldwin (@StephenBaldwin7) December 4, 2016

BONUS: Did Trump orchestrate the 'Hamilton' debacle to distract us or is life just a distraction?
Alec Baldwin reprised his impersonation of Donald Trump in another Saturday Night Live cold open, poking fun at the president-elect's frequent activity on Twitter.

Baldwin's Trump couldn't stop himself from retweeting random supporters in the middle of a national security briefing at Trump Tower.

"God, Seth seems so cool," he said after retweeting a high school teenager (played by SNL's Pete Davidson), "His twitter bio says he wants to make America great again."

Kate McKinnon, as Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, attempted to cover up for the distracted president-elect: "There is a reason Donald tweets so much. He does it to distract the media from his business conflicts and all the scary people in his cabinet."

"That's not true," Baldwin's Trump replied, clarifying, "My brain is bad."

Kenan Thompson and Alex Moffat, playing two of Trump's aides, pleaded, "Mr. Trump, please stop retweeting all these random, real people. You're not getting any work done."

Trump interjected, "That's not true. I was elected 25 days ago and already unemployment is at a 9-year low, millions and millions of people have health care, and Osama Bin Laden is dead."

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad

- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

Turning his attention back to the security meeting, Baldwin's Trump tried to address international issues in Pakistan ("Should I text them?") and North Korea ("Should I call them?") before McKinnon's Conway rushed him off to attend a dinner with Mitt Romney.

"Do I have to?" Trump whined. "Then can we at least have a picture of us together where he looks like a little bitch."

Trump's dinner meeting with Romney, his potential pick for secretary of state, sparked a social media frenzy when a photo of the pair made rounds on the internet. In the image, Romney's face is that of Chris Christie's Super Tuesday "hostage" expression, which also went viral on Twitter.

Story continues

Shortly after SNL's cold open aired, Trump himself tweeted in response to Baldwin's impersonation of him, writing that it "can't get any worse." Baldwin, who has engaged in Twitter feuds with the president-elect in the past, tweeted back: "Release your tax returns and I'll stop."

Emma Stone hosted the Dec. 3 episode with musical guest Shawn Mendes.

This article originally appeared in THR.com.
Alec Baldwin reprised his impersonation of Donald Trump in another Saturday Night Live cold open, poking fun at the president-elect's frequent activity on Twitter.

Baldwin's Trump couldn't stop himself from retweeting random supporters in the middle of a national security briefing at Trump Tower.

"God, Seth seems so cool," he said after retweeting a high school teenager (played by SNL's Pete Davidson). "His twitter bio says he wants to make America great again."

Kate McKinnon, as Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, attempted to cover up for the distracted president-elect: "There is a reason Donald tweets so much. He does it to distract the media from his business conflicts and all the scary people in his cabinet."

"That's not true," Baldwin's Trump replied, clarifying, "My brain is bad."

Read more: Donald Trump, Mitt Romney Dinner Spurs Social Media Frenzy

Kenan Thompson and Alex Moffat, playing two of Trump's aides, pleaded, "Mr. Trump, please stop retweeting all these random, real people. You're not getting any work done."

He responded, "That's not true. I was elected 25 days ago and already unemployment is at a nine-year low, millions and millions of people have healthcare and Osama Bin Laden is dead."

Turning his attention back to the security meeting, Baldwin's Trump tried to address international issues in Pakistan ("Should I call them?") and North Korea ("Should I text them?") before McKinnon's Conway rushed him off to attend a dinner with Mitt Romney.

"Do I have to?" he whined. "Then can we at least have a picture of us together where he looks like a little bitch?"

Emma Stone hosted the Dec. 3 episode with musical guest Shawn Mendes.

Trump's actual dinner meeting with Romney, his potential pick for secretary of state, sparked a social media frenzy when a photo of the pair made the rounds on the internet earlier in the week. In the image, Romney's face is that of Chris Christie's Super Tuesday "hostage" expression, which also went viral on Twitter.

Story continues

Shortly after SNL's cold open aired, Trump himself tweeted in response to Baldwin's impersonation of him, writing that it "can't get any worse." Baldwin, who has engaged in Twitter feuds with the president-elect in the past, tweeted back: "Release your tax returns and I'll stop."

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad

- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

...@realDonaldTrump

Release your tax returns and I'll stop.

Ha- ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 4, 2016

On Monday morning, Trump again addressed criticism aimed at his tweeting.

"If the press would cover me accurately & honorably, I would have far less reason to 'tweet,'" he posted on Twitter. "Sadly, I don't know if that will ever happen!"

If the press would cover me accurately & honorably, I would have far less reason to "tweet." Sadly, I don't know if that will ever happen!

- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 5, 2016

Dec. 5, 11:10 a.m. ET: Updated with Trump tweet.
Jean-Claude Biver, Alec Monopoly

Photo: Getty Images

Mysterious artist Alec Monopoly unveiled a 50ft Wall "Tag" on the exterior of Mondrian Hotel Miami for Tag Heuer.

Mondrian Miami

Photo: Getty Images

Named by Tag Heuer as their new Art Provocateur, Monopoly was joined by Tag Heuer CEO Jean Claude Biver and select invited insiders including hip-hop artist Fat Joe to be the first to lay eyes on the up until now secret project.

Fat Joe, Alec Monopoly, Jean-Claude Biver,

Photo: Getty Images

The installation can be viewed through Art Basel by global art connoisseurs and locals until next Nov. 30 while a week long Tag Heuer pop-up shop and gallery will be open to public for the duration of Art Basel.

The event was followed by a celebratory private dinner that featured Alec Monopoly, creating a one-of-a-kind painting live and an after party at the same location.

Alec Monopoly

Photo: Getty Images

Alec Monopoly's face is always hidden behind a bandana to preserve his anonymity, but what is he famous for? The artist owes his fame to the character who shares his name. Mr. Monopoly, the diminutive and debonair banker that he depicts in different scenarios.

"When I started out, I did my graffiti in New York," Monopoly said. "The city was a huge source of inspiration."

In 2008, he quit the Big Apple for California. This was the year that the financial markets crashed. The finance world experienced its darkest days, and this found its echo in Monopoly's work, and his career took off.

Story continues

"This was my way of making a statement about what was happening," he said.

Alec Monopoly

Photo: Getty Images

Since then, he has depicted the little banker in every conceivable situation. His rich, colorful works using this character, known throughout the world, are filled with humor. Monopoly has also started recontextualizing other icons of popular culture such as Scrooge McDuck and Richie Rich.

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Andrea Arnold's Cannes-bowing hit American Honey scooped the top prizes at the British Independent Film Awards, held Sunday evening in London with Absolutely Fabulous' Jennifer Saunders on hosting duty.

The drama won four awards, including best British independent film, best director, best actress for newcomer Sasha Lane and outstanding achievement in craft for cinematographer Robbie Ryan.

Under the Shadow, Babak Anvari's celebrated Farsi-language horror pic, was close behind with three awards, winning debut director and best screenplay gongs for Anvari as well as best supporting actress honors for nine-year-old Avin Manshadi. The film is the U.K.'s submission for the foreign-language Oscar race.

Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake - which also featured the camera skills of Ryan and edged out American Honey to snag the Palme d'Or at Cannes - collected best actor honors for Dave Johns, while his co-star Hayley Squires claimed the most promising newcomer title.

Elsewhere on the night, Oscar-tipped Moonlight scooped up the best international independent film award; best supporting actor honors went to Brett Goldstein for the comedy Adult Life Skills (which also earned writer-director Rachel Tunnard the inaugural debut screenwriter prize); Camille Gatin won the the breakthrough producer award for The Girl With All the Gifts; and Notes on Blindness walked away with the best documentary award.

Read more: Ken Loach's Cannes Winner 'I, Daniel Blake' Tops 2016 BIFA Nominations
DEL MAR, Calif. (AP) -- Annals of Time darted through a narrow opening in mid-stretch and overhauled stablemate Beach Patrol nearing the wire to win the $300,000 Hollywood Derby for 3-year-olds by 1 1/2 lengths at Del Mar on Saturday.

Ridden by Javier Castellano, Annals of Time ran 1 1/8 miles on turf in 1:47.73 and paid $13.80, $7 and $4.60.

Beach Patrol returned $5.20 and $4 as the 7-2 second choice. Frank Conversation was another half-length back in third and paid $10.60 to show.

New York-based Chad Brown finished 1-2 in the Grade 1 race. His other entrant, 7-2 favorite Camelot Kitten, was seventh.

Annals of Time had just one win in three career starts before traveling to the West Coast for his first start outside New York.

The victory was worth $180,000.

In the $200,000 Bayakoa Handicap for older fillies and mares, 1-2 favorite Vale Dori won by three lengths.

Ridden by Hall of Famer Mike Smith, Vale Dori ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:44.79 and paid $3, $2.40 and $2.10. The 4-year-old filly is trained by Bob Baffert.

Wild At Heart returned $4 and $3.40, while Moyo Honey was another three-quarters of a length back in third and paid $10 to show in the Grade 2 race.

The victory, worth $120,000, increased Vale Dori's career earnings to $454,943, with five wins in 10 starts.
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Apple Inc is wading in to the debate over regulation of self-driving cars, declaring it is excited about the potential for automated transportation and calling on U.S. regulators not to restrict testing of such vehicles.

A five-page letter from Steve Kenner, Apple's director of product integrity, to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is the company's most comprehensive statement yet about its interest in self-driving vehicle technology. The Nov. 22 letter followed more than a year of industry speculation about the computer and iPhone maker's plans for expanding into transportation.

"The company is investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation," Kenner wrote.

"Executed properly under NHTSA's guidance, automated vehicles have the potential to greatly enhance the human experience  to prevent millions of car crashes and thousands of fatalities each year and to give mobility to those without."

Apple urged regulators not to impose too many restrictions on testing of self-driving cars, saying "established manufacturers and new entrants should be treated equally."

Since software would decide what actions to take in potentially dangerous situations, Apple said certain areas need special attention. These include the implications of algorithmic decisions for the safety, mobility and legality of automated vehicles and their occupants, ensuring privacy and security in design, and the impact of the cars on employment and public spaces.

Some analysts forecast millions of jobs will be lost once self-driving cars largely replace truck, taxi and Uber drivers, and eliminate the need for most vehicle repairs, insurance adjusters and other functions.

Apple's letter was prompted by its heavy investment in machine learning and autonomous systems, company spokesman Tom Neumayr said in an emailed statement.

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"There are many potential applications for these technologies, including the future of transportation, so we want to work with NHTSA to help define the best practices for the industry," he said.

In September, the Obama administration proposed guidelines for the development of self-driving cars in a 15-point "safety assessment," calling on automakers to voluntarily submit details of their systems to regulators.

Apple executives have been coy about their interest in cars. Chief Executive Tim Cook has suggested that Apple wants to move beyond integration of Apple smartphones into vehicle infotainment systems.

But Apple has never confirmed reports last year that it was hiring automotive industry engineers and designers to develop a driverless electric car, or that those efforts have been sharply scaled back this year.

Other companies pursuing self-driving cars include Alphabet Inc's Google unit, Ford Motor Co, Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), Daimler AG, Tesla Motors Inc and General Motors Co.

Apple has reportedly held talks about investing in British automaker McLaren Technology Group, but McLaren downplayed speculation that Apple had proposed an investment.

Apple joins a range of automakers and tech companies that have raised concerns about the proposed National Highway Traffic Safety Administration policy on self-driving cars, and plans by California state regulators to make complying with the safety assessment mandatory.

An auto trade group in November urged the incoming Trump administration to conduct a "comprehensive regulatory review" of all regulations and actions since Sept. 1, including the Obama administration's guidance on self-driving vehicles.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Richard Chang)
Tim Cook

Apple may have stopped disclosing its overall advertising expenditure this year, but third-party data offers an interesting insight into how much it spends on digital ads  and how that compares to rival Samsung.

Data given exclusively to Business Insider by advertising intelligence and competitive tracking platform Pathmatics shows Apple spent $97 million on display, mobile, and video ads in the US in the year to November 30, 2016  outspending Samsung's $80.4 million outlay.

And if you exclude the Samsung products where Apple doesn't compete  like TVs, refrigerators, laundry, memory and business solutions  Apple outspent its rival by 179%.

Pathmatics works by using web crawlers to ping ads, identify formats, and work out how they were bought. The analysis only covers digital display and video ads  so it doesn't include social or search spend (the latter of which is where most brands spend the majority of their digital budgets). This data is also third-party and isn't independently verified by Samsung or Apple.

However, it still offers a fascinating insight into how the pairs' spending racks up.

apple samsung overall

The data also shows that Apple's total digital spend dropped by 16.3% year-on-year, whereas Samsung increased its budget by 49.2%. This appears to mirror Apple's 10-K, in which the company said its 1% decrease in selling, general, and administrative costs in 2016 compared to 2015 was "was due primarily to lower discretionary expenditures and advertising costs."

How Apple and Samsung spend their digital budgets online differs wildly, according to the Pathmatics data.

More than three quarters (76%) of Apple's digital ad spend went on video ads, 22% went on desktop display, and just over 1% went on mobile.

Meanwhile, Samsung leaned more heavily towards desktop, placing 73% of its overall spend there. Around a fifth (20%) of its budget went towards video and 7% went on mobile.

Diving down further, the Pathmatics data shows that almost all of Apple's budget went towards direct deals with publishers, whereas Samsung opted to use third-party ad networks, exchanges, and trading desks too. Direct deals often come at a premium, which could be one reason why Apple is outspending Samsung.

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apple impression share

Gabe Gottlieb, CEO of Pathmatics, said: "With 100% of Apples budget allocated to direct deals with publishers, its obvious brand integrity and ad safety is a key concern to one of the markets biggest advertisers. Safe guarding your brand isnt exclusively a burden for major spenders however, everyone from big retailers to small ecommerce operators need transparency to ensure their campaigns are being executed as promised.

The chart below from Pathmatics shows how Apple and Samsung's digital ad spend varied month-on-month over the last year, according to the Pathmatics data. You can see a big peak from Apple in October ($22 million in that month alone), when it announced the new MacBook Pro and shortly after it began selling the iPhone 7 in mid-September. Both companies also splurged on digital ads in June.

apple samsung historical comparison

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Australian Top Models Instagram message about natural hair is one that every girl should read

At this point its well known that being a woman of color in the modeling industry is hard. Trying to find your place in an industry that creates a beauty standard that doesnt include you is not easy. This week there was a lot of praise for the black models who wore their natural hair at the Victorias Secret Fashion Show. In the midst of that conversation, former Australias Next Top Model contestant Duckie Thot posted an Instagram comment about the challenges that she faces as a model of color. The post mainly focuses on the decision to wear her natural hair in a recent photoshoot.

The post has gotten over 17,000 likes and over 1,200 comments since it was posted and has gone viral. Australian company Dinosaur Designs asked Thot to wear her natural hair. Because of previously negative experiences (she mentions having to cornrow her own hair during her Top Model run because none of the hairstylists knew how) she was understandably hesitant. Eventually, at the urging of her agent she agreed.

The photoshoot and Thots natural hair came under a bit of apparent shade from fellow model Winnie Harlow. In a Snapchat post, Harlow posted a picture from the Dinosaur Designs shoot captioned LMFAO WHAT ARE THOOOOSEEEEE. Thot does also address Harlows words in the post. Its not fun being bullied for something you cant control and to have a top model woman of color who I thought encouraged acceptance and self love call me out for rocking my natural hair, isnt cool at all,

While Thot does mention one instance of the challenges she faces in the fashion industry, that barely scratches the surface. In a recent interview with Teen Vogue she goes into more details about her struggles. Believe it or not, a lot of the time makeup artists or even hair stylists, theyve never worked with a girl with my complexion or hair texture. I do my part to make sure they properly do theirs, she explained.

And shes not the first to do so either. Model Jourdan Dunn recently tweeted about the struggles models face with inadequately prepared stylists

I swear some people need to learn how to do black hair/skin  Jourdan Dunn (@missjourdandunn) October 3, 2011

Victorias Secret model Leomi Anderson tweeted a similar frustration.

Why is it that the black makeup artists are busy with blonde white girls and slaying their makeup and I have to supply my own foundation  Leomie Anderson (@Leomie_Anderson) February 17, 2016

But despite all of the negativity, Thot remains positive that the industry can move past this. By constantly challenging and pushing at [these discrepancies] I hope we will eventually make a difference. Hear, here, Duckie.

The post Australian Top Models Instagram message about natural hair is one that every girl should read appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Austrian voters Sunday rejected far-right leader Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration Freedom Party, electing environmentalist Alexander Van der Bellen as president, projections indicated.

The result, if it holds, reaffirms the results of Mays balloting, in which Hofer narrowly lost with 49.65 percent of the vote. The result was overturned when irregularities were found in the counting of mail-in ballots.

Hofer, 45, who conceded based on early projections indicating he was behind by 7 percentage points, ran on an anti-immigration, anti-Islam platform.

Van der Bellen, 72, known informally as Sascha, said his election has implications far beyond Austria.

What happens here today has relevance for all of Europe, he said before the vote-counting began. The election was seen as a barometer on euroskeptic candidates elsewhere and comes as Italy is deciding on constitutional reforms.

https://twitter.com/vanderbellen/status/805361714472648704

The Austrian presidents job is largely ceremonial, but Hofer had made it clear he wanted to have a hand in policy, threatening to dismiss a government that raises taxes and calling for voter input on a wide range of issues.

Earlier Sunday, Hofer tried to reassure the country he was not a radical and accused Nigel Farage, leader of the U.K.s far-right Independence Party, not to interfere in Austrian affairs, rejecting Farages call for a referendum on Austrias membership in the European Union, the Telegraph reported.

An Auschwitz survivor Friday pleaded with Austrian voters not to elect Hofer.

Its the humiliation of others, the demonization of others, that alarms me the most, said the 89-year-old woman identified only as Gertrude.

We have already seen that scenario. Like the Jews: They had to clean the streets. The Viennese men, women and children, stood by and laughed. Look at that! Hahaha! they said. And thats what theyre trying to bring out in people again.

WVR2QaMjVRs

Like Donald Trump in the United States, Hofer attracted support from disillusioned, working class voters.

Story continues

Van der Bellen is professor emeritus at the University of Vienna where he served as dean of economics.

Van der Bellin had the backing of Chancellor Christian Kern, and like him is a former Green Party leader. Conservative voters had accused the president-elect of pandering to the left.

"I don't want that Austria becomes the first country in western Europe led by a populist right-wing, pan-Germanic fraternity member," he said during a debate ahead of Mays overturned election. Hofer called him a fascist green dictator.

In their final debate before Sundays election, Hofer intimated Van der Bellen had spied for the Soviet Union during the Cold War, citing a book by a former security official.

"That is the most appalling thing I have heard in a long time," Van der Bellen said. "If I had known about these claims in the book we would have sued. ... It's ridiculous."

Van der Bellen admits to two weaknesses: cigarettes and Donald Duck comics.

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Vienna (AFP) - Fans affectionately call him "the professor" -- and in the end Alexander Van der Bellen gave a lesson in election campaigning by fighting off the far-right to become Austria's new president.

He will have earned some new friends among other EU leaders too after Sunday's ballot re-run, in which he blocked Freedom Party rival Norbert Hofer from becoming Europe's only far-right head of state.

But it has not all been plain sailing. Van der Bellen -- also known as "Sascha", a nickname that nods to his Russian roots -- was decried by critics as a "green dictator".

The former Greens party leader, who ran as an independent, struggled to convince many conservative voters who accused him of pandering to the left.

Hofer seized upon the sentiment and repeatedly denounced his adversary as a "communist" or even a Cold War spy for the Soviet Union -- claims Van der Bellen dismissed as "ridiculous".

Back in May, the pro-European liberal nonetheless managed to beat Hofer by a paper-thin margin in the run-off, which was then annulled over procedural irregularities.

At 72, the grey-haired economics professor often cut a wooden and somewhat dishevelled figure next to the smooth-talking gun enthusiast Hofer, 45.

If "Hofer is the offensive attacker who knows he can only score if he's not too aggressive, Van der Bellen comes across as a nice, older gentleman," political expert Peter Hajek said.

This has been Van der Bellen's main selling point to try and sway undecided Austrians.

- 'Green dictator' -

Van der Bellen was born during World War II in Vienna to an aristocratic Russian father and an Estonian mother who fled Stalinism.

The arrival of the Red Army a year later forced the family to escape to the southern state of Tyrol, where Van der Bellen spent an "idyllic childhood".

He studied economics at the University of Innsbruck and finished his PhD in 1970 before going on to become dean of economics at the University of Vienna.

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Van der Bellen's trademark professorial manner has often riled Hofer.

"I'm talking about Europe: E-U-R-O-P-E. Never heard of it?" Van der Bellen taunted his opponent during a TV duel.

"My God, the schoolmasterliness, Herr Doctor Van der Bellen," an agitated Hofer shot back.

Controversially, Van der Bellen vowed not to swear in FPOe chairman Heinz-Christian Strache as chancellor if the poll-leading party wins the next general election scheduled for 2018.

The remark, which Van der Bellen later rowed back on, prompted Hofer to call him a "green dictator".

- Not smoking is 'torture' -

Critics have also accused Van der Bellen of being a "turncoat" because he was a member of the Social Democrats before joining the Greens in the early 1990s and eventually becoming their president.

Under his leadership, the Greens went on to achieve record results, but he quit after the 2008 election when the party lost votes for the first time in almost 10 years.

"I have made my way from being an arrogant anti-capitalist to a generous left liberal", he once said.

As Austrian president, he dreams of a fence-free "United States of Europe".

An outspoken supporter of gay marriage, the divorced and recently remarried father-of-two has received strong backing from celebrities, artists and the country's top politicians.

Despite his austere appearance, he has also many young fans who organised big dance raves in his support.

Van der Bellen will be Austria's second-oldest head of state at the time of his election.

His age, combined with a heavy smoking habit, have repeatedly raised questions about his health.

In late August, Van der Bellen was forced to dispel cancer rumours by releasing his medical records proving he had "wonderful lungs".

He insisted he had no intention of giving up smoking. "I once quit for four months... but why should I torture myself at my age!" he said.
Vienna (AFP) - Austria's Norbert Hofer likes to come across as Mr. Nice Guy but if he wins Sunday's election, he will become the EU's first far-right president.

The mild-mannered 45-year-old, a gun enthusiast who has walked with a cane since a 2003 paraglider accident, is a key figure in the anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe). Behind the smile, he is a true-blue ideologue and no fan of the European Union.

The aeronautical engineer turned politician, a father of four, was born into a middle-class family as the son of a local councillor from the centre-right People's Party.

He joined the FPOe's local branch in 1994 and became party secretary two years later, before turning close advisor to party leader Heinz-Christian Strache, successor to the controversial Joerg Haider.

It was Hofer, together with chief FPOe strategist Herbert Kickl, who persuaded Strache to tone down the party's often aggressive anti-foreigner message and to focus on issues like inequality too.

Together with a savvy use of the internet, the strategy paid off. The FPOe scores over 30 percent in polls ahead of the next general election, scheduled for 2018, with voters deserting the more mainstream parties.

It also helped Hofer -- with the slogan "unspoilt, honest, good" -- top the presidential election first round in April with 35 percent and knock out the two government-backed candidates.

In a runoff against independent ecologist Alexander Van der Bellen in May, he lost by just 31,000 votes. But the FPOe cried foul, securing this Sunday's re-run because of irregularities.

- Protect the borders -

Immigration has not been a major issue in Hofer's campaign. Instead he focused on themes like wanting more Swiss-style direct democracy and economic reforms.

While data show his core support to be among working class men without a school diploma, and in rural areas, he has also won backing right across Austrian society.

But despite the softer image, the FPOe remains the natural party for the considerable section of society uncomfortable with globalisation and issues like gay marriage and, most of all, immigrants.

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And Hofer panders to this, albeit mostly in moderate tones, calling for Austria's borders to be "protected" and warning against the "dangers of a wrong immigration policy".

Islam "has no place in Austria" since it poses a danger to the country's Judeo-Christian and humanist values, he told a young Austrian Muslim on a talk show in May.

Unguarded comments also show a sharper side. Van der Bellen is a "communist", he said on November 11, and no Muslims work in caring for the elderly -- both claims wildly inaccurate.

He is an honorary member of a pan-Germanic student fraternity that according to its founding charter rejects the "historically incorrect fiction of an 'Austrian nation'".

Hofer, like other FPOe members, has also on occasion worn a cornflower, used by banned Austrian Nazis in the 1930s to identify each other. He insists it's for the pretty blue, the FPOe's colours.

And while Hofer may strike a more moderate tone, his party does not. Strache recently called German Chancellor Angela Merkel "the most dangerous woman in Europe" and warned of impending "civil war".

Analyst Thomas Hofer (no relation) said that the candidate has toned down the party's message because the FPOe's base is not enough to win over enough voters to win the presidency.

But don't be fooled, he said. "He is the one who is responsible for the current FPOe programme. Of course he has the same policy issues as... Strache," the expert told AFP.

- 'Europe of fatherlands' -

Hofer also is deeply critical of the European Union, at least in its current "centralised" form. "If Austria wasn't a member and wanted to join, I would vote 'No'," he has said.

He wants a "Europe of fatherlands" and a referendum on Austria's EU membership -- if Turkey joins the bloc or if Brussels takes too much power from member states.

What all this will add up to as president remains to be seen.

Since 1945, Austria's president has performed a largely ceremonial role, but the constitution gives the head of state considerable powers -- untapped so far -- including to fire the government.

"You'll be amazed what's possible," Hofer said in April, a comment he later disavowed but which his opponents have made much of.
A humble rail worker who shot to fame for pulling a suicidal man off train tracks was honoured by Bangladesh authorities Sunday, as footage of his heroism went viral.

Railway lineman Billal Hossain Mazumder, 50, put his life on the line last month by dragging 34-year-old Mohammad Mamun out of harm's way as a train approached.

"I hoisted the red flag to signal the driver to stop the train, but within an instance, I realised it would be too late," Mazumder said.

"I knew I might die but I also knew if I didn't try to save him, a young stranger's face would haunt me for the rest of my life," Mazumder told AFP.

CCTV footage of the entire incident went viral on social media with hundreds of Bangladeshis, many from abroad, applauding Mazumder for his heroic act.

The father of four, who earns less than $100 a month, said he did not have time to consider his own welfare when he jumped on the tracks to save Mamun.

"I would do it again... life is precious. No one should commit suicide even in the face of unbearable pain," said Mazumder.

Bangladesh's railway minister Mujibul Haque called Mazumder a "hero" at a ceremony in Dhaka and rewarded him with a 100,000 taka ($1,250) in cash for his gallantry.

"He has set an example for mankind and made us truly proud," the minister said, assuring Mazumder that his son would be given a job at the railway department.

Railway accidents are common in Bangladesh where some 40 percent of around 2,500 rail crossings are unmanned and exposed to fatal accidents.

In the last six years 152 people were killed in railway accidents. In addition, scores of people, mostly drug addicts, chose railway tracks to take their own lives.
US News

Bergdahl seeks pardon from Obama to avert desertion trial

U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the former prisoner of war whos accused of endangering comrades by walking off his post in Afghanistan, is asking President Obama to pardon him before leaving office. White House and Justice Department officials said Saturday that Bergdahl had submitted copies of the clemency request seeking leniency. If granted by Obama, it would allow Bergdahl to avert a military trial scheduled for April where he faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The misbehavior charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. If the pardon isnt granted, Bergdahls defense team said it will expand its legal strategy to the new administration by filing a motion arguing President-elect Donald Trump violated his due process rights with scathing public comments about the case. Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held captive by the Taliban and its allies for five years. The Obama administrations decision in May 2014 to exchange him for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prompted criticism that included some Republicans accusing Obama of jeopardizing nations safety. Some lawmakers were outraged that the administration didnt give Congress a 30-day notice about transferring the detainees, as required by law.
Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump derided the use of data and technology tools for his presidential campaign -- but those techniques might well have propelled him to victory.

Trump's stealth digital campaign, thrown together hastily in the final months of the campaign, allowed the Republican billionaire to fine-tune his message and reach voters in crucial Rust Belt states that gave him an Electoral College majority.

During the primaries, Trump dismissed as "overrated" the kinds of data analytics and "micro-targeting" successfully used by President Barack Obama.

But after winning the nomination, he quietly developed a digital strategy led by a political neophyte, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and a data company whose parent firm worked on the Brexit campaign.

In the final stages of the race, Trump relied on insights generated by Cambridge Analytica, the US unit of British behavioral marketing firm SCL, that allowed his campaign to reach voters in the key states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that delivered his majority over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"We built an algorithm that generated top cities to reach the highest concentration of persuadable voters," said Matt Oczkowski, head of the data science team for the Trump campaign at Cambridge Analytica.

"That intelligence was being updated and shared daily. This campaign had to be far more surgical because Hillary Clinton outspent this campaign by double."

The digital efforts involved "thousands of variations" of messages that were targeted based on voter profiles to platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat or Pandora radio, Oczkowski said.

Cambridge Analytica said its 4,000 different online ads for Trump were viewed 1.5 billion times by millions of Americans.

The data science team could glean information about users to deliver pitches "based on the issues they care about," Oczkowski said.

- Voter turnout -

While many factors contributed to Trump's win, data analysts from both parties said a major element was determining who would turn out to vote.

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"The linchpin to understanding this election was based on the ability to understand who a likely voter was," said Oczkowski.

"The main reason we were hired was to quantify the Trump effect," and to quantify "how unique this candidate was."

Tom Bonier, CEO of the consultancy TargetSmart that worked with Democratic candidates, agreed that understanding turnout was a key factor in 2016.

"If there is an Achilles heel in analytics, it is predicting turnout," Bonier said.

"The models do a great deal in predicting how people are going to vote, but have a hard time predicting who is going to vote."

Trump's digital strategist tapped by Kushner was Brad Parscale, head of a Texas-based marketing firm who was new to politics.

Parscale's lack of experience may have played to his advantage, said Chris Wilson, CEO of WPA Research, who led digital strategy for Senator Ted Cruz's presidential bid.

"There's a lot of value in going into a campaign knowing what you don't know," Wilson said.

"The Clinton team knew what it would take to motivate an Obama voter and assumed the same approach would work, and it didn't."

- Digital targeting -

Effective digital targeting involves gathering data from various online and offline sources to match voters to their profiles on Facebook and other platforms.

"I can take a predictive model of a potential Trump voter that I can match to Pandora, and match it to the kind of music they listen to and target them on Snapchat based on the filters they use," Wilson said.

A report by Bloomberg/BusinessWeek said the Trump campaign used micro-targeting to deliver negative messages on Facebook -- reminding them of Clinton's comments and "super predators" seen as disparaging to African-Americans -- in an effort to depress turnout.

Oczkowski said negative ads were "a very small part of our strategy" and that "most of our focus was to reach our voters."

He added that the campaign did only a small amount of "psychographic" profiling because of the limited time frame it had to work in.

The company said it was able to review and update ads on a daily basis to reach undecided voters, who were divided into 12-15 subgroups for "highly-targeted" messages.

"Our cutting-edge digital capabilities allowed the campaign to reach voters more effectively than ever before, and at a fraction of the cost spent by the Democratic candidate," Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix said in a statement.

Wilson said that there is no evidence that negative ads and posts depressed turnout, and that such efforts "are more likely to do the opposite" by energizing supporters.

Bonier said there appeared to be a slight drop in turnout of black voters in key states, but that it was not clear if this was due to Trump's ads or other factors.

"It's difficult to draw too many lessons from this particular campaign, this was such a unique race," Bonier said.

"We did see some new tools emerging, Snapchat was one of them, but I think agility is the lesson, the ability to adapt to the changing landscape."
By Edward Taylor

MUNICH, Dec 5 (Reuters) - BMW will test autonomous vehicles in Munich next year as it seeks to keep up with ride-hailing firms like Uber, which have spent billions on pay-per-use personal transport.

The German carmaker will have about 40 vehicles with self-driving functions in Munich's inner city and then expand the project to other cities, BMW executives said on Friday.

"There is a trained test driver behind the wheel of every car," Klaus Buettner, BMW's Vice President in charge of Autonomous Driving said.

Uber's rapid growth has prompted BMW to consider how autonomous vehicles may help them accelerate their own push into pay-per-use transport.

Software and technology companies like Lyft, Juno and Uber have shaken up the traditional auto industry business model of selling cars by offering customers an alternative to vehicle ownership through smartphone-based ride-hailing services.

Now traditional car companies are expanding their own ride-hailing schemes, while investing in self-driving technology.

"Ride hailing is nothing more than manual autonomous driving," Tony Douglas, Head of Strategy for BMW's mobility services said. "Once you dispense with the driver you have a license to print money."

BMW has already made significant progress expanding into the market for car sharing by introducing pay-by-the-minute services like ReachNow in Seattle, Douglas said.

"We had 14,000 people sign up in 4 days, in a market already served by Zipcar, Uber, Lyft and Car2go," Douglas said.

"Someone else spent the money to educate the market and then we came in with a cool product. We will not be the largest, but we can be the coolest," Douglas said.

BMW plans to use not just its expertise making premium vehicles, but also its ability to manufacture, own and manage fleets of premium vehicles.

"Uber and Lyft do not operate their own fleets of cars. Owning the fleet means you can make offers that Lyft and others are unable to provide. For example providing car sharing for a specific community only," BMW's Chief Executive Harald Krueger said.

(Editing by Alexander Smith)
Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Brazilians marched in cities across the country Sunday, protesting against corrupt politicians and fears that Congress will try to scupper a huge anti-graft probe.

Dressed overwhelmingly in the green and yellow national colors and waving the Brazilian flag, thousands of demonstrators massed on a beachside avenue in Rio's posh Copacabana and outside Congress in the capital Brasilia.

The biggest gathering was in the center of the financial powerhouse Sao Paulo, where police put the crowd at 15,000.

The peaceful protests expressed support for Operation Car Wash, a probe that has uncovered mass embezzlement by politicians and top executives at the state oil company Petrobras and other businesses.

"Car Wash -- protected by the people," read a placard in Rio carried by a man wrapped in the Brazilian flag.

Demonstrators were furious over a vote earlier this week by the lower house of Congress -- where many deputies are themselves suspects in criminal probes -- to weaken a long-planned anti-corruption bill, and over the intimidation of judges and prosecutors.

The vote, which took place while most Brazilians slept during the early hours of Wednesday, prompted prosecutors from the Car Wash case to threaten resignation.

In Rio, protesters lauded Sergio Moro, the judge heading Car Wash cases, chanting: "Moro, fighter for the Brazilian people!"

"We trust in Moro," read placards in Sao Paulo.

- President's ally -

Latin America's biggest country has been in turmoil all year.

Car Wash revelations have already brought down major political and business figures, the economy is in its worst recession in decades, and the leftist president Dilma Rousseff was impeached in August, replaced by center-right veteran Michel Temer, triggering nationwide tensions.

The protesters' main target on Sunday was the powerful Senate speaker, Renan Calheiros, who made a failed bid this week to get the upper house to quickly confirm the lower chamber's controversial corruption bill.

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A key Temer ally, Calheiros also faced a Supreme Court ruling this week ordering him to stand trial on multiple corruption charges.

"Renan out!" and "Lock Renan up!" the crowd chanted in Brasilia, where protesters performed a mock funeral march with a coffin inscribed "corruption."

In Rio, comedian Marcelo Madureira told the crowd from a sound truck that the street pressure that had helped push out the unpopular Rousseff would now bring more change to Brazil.

"Every time we've taken to the streets we've won," he said. "And what is the scalp we want most now? We want the head of Renan Calheiros."

- Temer in hot water -

Temer's office issued a statement praising the demonstrators and promising that the authorities "are always attentive to the demands of the Brazilian population."

However, the unrest could spell bad news for Temer, who came to power with an agenda to put a broken country back together.

The uproar around Calheiros is only the latest in a series of scandals engulfing Temer's allies and ministers, reducing his credibility just when he is starting to push through painful economic austerity measures.

Globo newspaper columnist Gerson Camarotti said that although Temer is not a target at present, he's spooked by Brazilians' return to the streets.

"Right now, there's a perception that the main target of the demonstrations is the Senate president, Renan Calheiros," Camarotti wrote. "But there's a private recognition that this wave of protests could rapidly reach the president of the republic."

Sao Paulo protester Paula Suarez, an artist who came wearing a yellow shirt, said Brazilians are in no mood for compromise.

"We were in the street to support impeachment, but the politicians can't relax," Suarez, 51, said. "They should know we'll stay in the street against them all."

"We want popular protests in the street to bring real change for Brazil," said her friend Marilene Nicolossi, 65.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain could pay in to some EU programmes after Brexit but the government will take back control of its own money and will no longer spend large amounts in Brussels, Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday. Businesses, investors and opposition lawmakers are clamouring for clarity on the government's negotiating position before it triggers the formal exit procedure from the European Union by the end of March. Last week, Brexit minister David Davis said Britain could pay into the EU budget to get access to the bloc's single market of 500 million customers, easing fears that the government is heading for a "hard Brexit" involving a clean break with the bloc. But Johnson, speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr television programme, declined to confirm whether that was a priority for the government, saying ministers were considering several options. "I've always thought that there were aspects of EU cooperation ... where actually ... to be part of that in the future might be a good idea, certainly would be a good idea if it involved paying in," Johnson said, referring to the Erasmus student exchange programme and Horizon programme for research. "(Paying in for single market access) is obviously something that David Davis is considering. That doesn't mean that a decision has been taken." "The crucial thing to understand is very large sums of money will be coming back to this country which ... could be spent on priorities like the NHS (national health service)," said Johnson, who campaigned for Britain to leave the EU on a "battle bus" that had written on its side: "We send the EU 350 million a week, let's fund out NHS instead." Johnson has been criticised for saying the health service could benefit to such a large extent and since then has found some of his comments made during the campaign have come back to haunt him. Several EU officials have questioned whether they can trust him, and some opposition lawmakers have accused him of putting one of the most complicated negotiations since World War Two in jeopardy by making unscripted comments. Brexit spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, called on the government to offer parliament more clarity on its plans. "The government must put its basic plan before parliament so we can discuss it, at the moment ... we are all going through trying to find fragments of evidence as to what approach they are going to take," Starmer said. "There are two very different versions of our future. One is an isolated hard Brexit, the other is a collaborative, cooperative Brexit. That's the one the Labour Party has to fight for." But Johnson said the government was being clear in its aims and said from his experience, officials he had met appreciated his honesty. "Seriously, what I find is that people do appreciate frankness and they do appreciate people saying what they think as much as possible," he said. "What I have genuinely found in the last few months is that the mood amongst our European friends ... has really changed and they are starting to see the positive possibilities." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Susan Fenton)
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will travel to Bahrain this week for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council that she hopes will cement stronger ties with Middle Eastern countries as Britain leaves the European Union. May, who was appointed prime minister shortly after Britain voted to leave the EU at a June referendum, has waged a charm offensive abroad, trying to sell her goal of making the country a leader in trade after Brexit. "As the United Kingdom leaves the EU, I am determined to forge a bold, confident future for ourselves in the world," May said in a statement before the meeting which brings together the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. She will meet the leaders for dinner on Tuesday and address the plenary session on Wednesday. "There is so much we can do together - whether it is helping one another to prevent terrorist attacks, Gulf investment regenerating cities across the UK or British businesses helping Gulf countries to achieve their long-term vision of reform." Human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, have called on May to raise concerns at the meeting in Bahrain, where they accuse the government of attacking the rights to free expression, assembly and association. "If your government is serious about its commitment to encouraging reform and dialogue, you should use this influence to press the government of Bahrain to put an immediate stop to this repression," they said in a statement. In her statement, May said the way to help on human rights was to engage "with these countries and working with them to encourage and support their plans for reform". "So I hope my visit will herald the start of a new chapter in relations between the United Kingdom and the Gulf." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Christchurch (New Zealand) (AFP) - Retired US astronaut and the second man to walk on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, was recovering after his medical evacuation from Antarctica but is not yet able to return home, his manager Christina Korp said Sunday.

"He still has some congestion in his lungs so has been advised not to take the long flight home to the States and to rest in New Zealand while it clears up," Korp said in a statement.

Aldrin, 86, was evacuated to a hospital in Christchurch on Friday after experiencing health problems while on a trip to the South Pole.

"He now holds the record as the oldest person to reach the South Pole. He'll be insufferable now," Korp quipped in a tweet.

Aldrin said his primary interest in visiting the South Pole was to experience and study conditions similar to life on Mars and to speak to National Science Foundation staff based in Antarctica.

"I didn't get as much time to spend with the scientists as I would have liked to discuss the research they're doing in relation to Mars," he said in a statement released from his hospital room.

"My visit was cut short and I had to leave after a couple of hours. I really enjoyed my short time in Antarctica and seeing what life could be like on Mars."

But Aldrin said he was now looking forward to being home by Christmas, as he continues his quest for a permanent settlement on Mars.

Aldrin's South Pole visit adds to his exploration achievements which include a space walk during the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, walking on the moon in 1969, going down to see the Titanic in 1996 and visiting the North Pole in 1998.
Im a sucker for those videos of flash mobs that pop up on YouTube or Facebook. A flash mob takes place in some kind of public space  a city square, a shopping mall, a train station. Suddenly, someone starts to sing, or dance, or play an instrument, and then others join them and within minutes, the area is transformed into a sea of smiling faces and clapping hands. Suddenly, there is community! When its over, everyone goes back to whatever they were doing, but with a smile on their face, a song in their heart and a lighter step. I get a lump in my throat every time I watch one of these videos.

There was even a sort of flash mob in Auburn on Thanksgiving weekend. On Saturday night, after the parade, people gathered in the city parking lot to sing Leonard Cohens beautiful Hallelujah.

I think theres something important going on here. These events happen because of a real need to be together. People crave community in a world that is increasingly private. We watch movies from home rather than go to theaters, we download books rather than go to the library, and we exercise on home treadmills rather than go to the gym. We order things from Amazon, get money from machines and pump our own gas. We can easily go through our days without talking to other people.

While we cant deny the convenience of modern technology, we are missing something important, too. We are losing the ability to engage with people on a personal level. We have fewer opportunities to talk and listen to people face to face. Even though social media connects us to others, it also lets us choose whom we listen to, and it is far too easy to surround ourselves with voices like our own.

And with this silo effect comes a loss of civil discourse. The recent election shows how far weve fallen in our ability to talk respectfully with each other. It is too easy, with the anonymity of screen names, to talk in ways we wouldnt face-to-face.

This fall, the Wednesday Noon Discussion Group at my church read Parker Palmers "Healing the Heart of Democracy" and discussed how Americans can reclaim the political process to improve our ability to live and work together. Palmer says, Democracy demands that we become engaged with the other as well as with our own kind, with the stranger whose viewpoint, needs, and interests are likely to be different from our own. He acknowledges, however, that engaging with people who are different creates tension because it forces us to live with the contradictions that run counter to our own convictions. But it is living in that tension that opens us up to new understandings of ourselves and the world, enhancing our lives and allowing us to enhance the lives of others.

Palmer is a believer in the power of the potluck, as well as in many other ways we can bring people together to listen, to talk, and to get to know each other. The more we do to break down the silos we have created, the more we will grow in our ability to live and work with people who are different than ourselves.

We are fortunate in Auburn to have places where we do gather. We have Auburn Public Theater, the YMCA, First Fridays, the permaculture park, festivals and Wegmans. We will soon have a new Play Space downtown. And we have churches.

My church, Westminster Presbyterian, makes it a priority to be a place where diverse people are welcome. We offer opportunities for intentional discussion and respectful listening. We have weekly adult forums, book discussions and Bible studies. We value questions as much as we do answers, and believe that wisdom is often revealed through the many voices in a group, rather than through one voice alone.

Churches today follow the model of the early churches, which brought together diverse people from all walks of life. The early Christian church celebrated the differences of its members, recognizing that people have different gifts but that, together, they make up the body of Christ. The followers of Jesus were the poor, the outcasts, the educated, the wealthy, the Jews and the gentiles. You are invited, during this Advent season, to seek out the community you will find at any of Auburns churches, and enjoy the weekly flash mob of worship.
By Rory Carroll and Curtis Skinner

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - A fire that roared through a warehouse dance party in Oakland, California, killed more than nine people and left at least two dozen others missing and feared dead inside the gutted building, officials said on Saturday, as anguished friends and relatives awaited word of their fate.

The cause of the blaze and precise number of casualties remained undetermined hours after flames engulfed the two-story, structure that occupied about half a city block and housed a cluttered warren of artists' studios, craft booths, antiques and furniture.

The blaze started at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday in the city's Fruitvale district, a mostly Latino, blue-collar area that is also home to many artists living and working in converted lofts.

Oakland and Alameda County officials said they expected to find more victims once the burned-out ruins of the building were fully shored up and recovery crews were able to safely comb through the structure's charred interior.

City Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed, said the blaze marked the worst single-structure fire she had seen in her career. Mayor Libby Schaaf called it a "devastating scene."

Shaken friends of the missing huddled at a nearby pub waiting for word on possible victims, while about a dozen others gathered at a neighborhood sheriff's station seeking news.

I dont have high hopes, said a woman with four friends among the missing, declining to give her name. Weve just spent the night calling hospitals and listening to police scanners.

Parents and others shared contact information on a Facebook page and asked anyone with information about the missing to call. "ANY information please!" wrote a woman looking for her son.

Nine fatalities were initially confirmed, and authorities were "expecting the worst" as they sought to account for "a couple of dozen" people who were reported missing, Sergeant Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the county sheriff, told an afternoon news conference.

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He later clarified that at least two dozen people remained unaccounted for Saturday night besides the nine victims whose remains were initially found and recovered from the rubble. Those bodies were transported to the coroner's bureau for identification.

He said an additional, unspecified number of bodies have since been spotted in the compromised structure but had not been reached.

Many of the victims were young people in their 20s or 30s, authorities said.

Drone aircraft equipped with thermal-imaging technology were sent inside the gutted structure looking for any signs of life, but none was found, Kelly said.

Deputy Fire Chief Mark Hoffmann said about a dozen people survived the blaze. Kelly said "several dozen" people who had been unaccounted for earlier had been found safe.

HISTORY OF COMPLAINTS

The dance party, featuring electronic music performances, took place on the second floor of the building, which had just two exits. A single makeshift staircase inside appeared to have been constructed from pallets.

The warehouse roof collapsed onto the second floor of the building during the fire, according to authorities, and portions of the second floor caved in on the first story.

Authorities said they did not suspect arson, but investigators want to find out if the building had a history of building code violations.

The city had received complaints about unpermitted construction at the building and opened an investigation, but an inspector failed to gain access to the structure in November and the inquiry remained open, according to the city's buildings and planning chief, Darin Ranelletti.

He said the city was aware of reports that people were living there, but no permits had been issued for habitation. It was unclear, he said, whether special permits would be needed for the artists who had set up shop inside.

Video footage posted on social media showed flames shooting from the structure, which was adorned with elaborate graffiti and colorful murals, as fire vehicles pumped plumes of water and heavy smoke engulfed the neighborhood.

'LIKE A CONCRETE KILN'

Authorities have said they did not know how many people were at the party or how many lived on the premises.

But one eyewitness, who said he left the party to buy liquor and returned to find flames shooting from the second floor, said on Twitter that he saw about 60 to 70 people in the building.

"It was an inferno," Seung Y. Lee recounted in a post on his verified Twitter account.

Lee, who declined an interview, tweeted that the entire first floor was "covered in wood - antiques, furniture, etc. Beautiful but labyrinthine." He also described the wooden stairway as rickety and hazardous.

A Facebook event page showed 176 people planned to attend the party.

Ben Koss, an Oakland resident and musician, told Reuters he was on his way to the party with friends and arrived late to find smoke billowing from the warehouse moments before firefighters arrived.

"We tore down a fence so people could get out, but nobody came out," he said. "It was like a concrete kiln."

A few dozen mourners assembled Saturday night at the Church of the Chimes, about 7 miles (11 km) from the fire scene, to offer prayers for the dead and missing.

(Additional reporting by Peter Henderson in Oakland, Dan Whitcomb and Sue Horton in Los Angeles, Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida, and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Writing by Frank McGurty and Steve Gorman; Editing by Tom Brown and Mary Milliken)
Laval (Canada) (AFP) - Welcomed with open arms -- some even received coats from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself -- the Syrian refugees who arrived in Canada a year ago are now facing their share of difficulties.

Among them, 50-year-old Fahed Fattouh came with his wife and their two children after they fled the war-battered city of Aleppo via Beirut in 2012.

They made it to Canada on an airlift organized by the government in December 2015, some of the 35,000 Syrians who have resettled here over the past year.

The family has been making ends meet until now thanks to financial aid from Fattouh's brother-in-law, who has lived in Quebec for 25 years.

A urologist and forensic pathologist by training, Fattouh has had to start again from scratch.

"I have 25 years' experience but I can't work," he says. "I don't know what to do."

As the family's sponsor, the brother-in-law made a commitment to the government to cover his relatives' needs for a year. The cost of housing, food and administrative services comes to around about Can$30,000 ($22,600).

Fattouh, his wife Jouli and their two children -- 11-year-old Sparta and 8-year-old Adeeb -- live in a furnished apartment in Laval, in the suburbs north of Montreal.

"Canada is the only country in the world that permits its citizens to adopt refugees," says Stephan Reichhold, director of a coalition of around 100 groups that help immigrants resettle in Quebec.

For many of them, he added, the thirteenth month -- when they must start to fend for themselves -- is a source of profound financial anxiety.

Not for Fattouh, however, who is counting on his brother-in-law's continued generosity.

"Money is important, but it is okay," he says.

His biggest problem is finding work.

- 'Systemic problem' -

To practice medicine in his new home country, he would have to retake at least five years of medical school and then pass three exams because the Quebec medical bar does not recognize his degrees.

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"There is a systemic problem in Quebec in terms of recognizing equivalences and achievements that is well known," Reichhold says.

So Fattouh has regretfully given up on practicing medicine in Quebec -- which, paradoxically, doesn't have enough family physicians to meet the population's demands.

He plans to spend a year or two training as a paramedic to receive government assistance finding a job that is not protected by a professional guild.

His wife Jouli, 42, also wants to get training so she can land a job as a teacher at a daycare center.

"Among the refugees, there are many professionals, people who must say farewell to the possibility of finding work at the level they had in Syria before the civil war," Reichhold says. "That is what is so difficult."

- 'A country of the future' -

Fattouh has devoted the past seven months to learning French -- Quebec's official language -- at a free adult education center near his home.

"French is very difficult," he says, speaking the language fluently despite some imprecision in his use of words.

At the Laurier skills development center in Laval, 700 immigrants and refugees -- including 120 Syrians -- are learning the language along with him.

"They are very motivated," director Heather Halman says.

It helps that people in Quebec are "very nice," Fattouh says.

"They don't feel like strangers."

His children, Sparta and Adeeb, who are integrated in regular classes at school, already express themselves easily in French.

Between a quarter and a third of Syrian refugees are children, Quebec's immigration minister Kathleen Weil tells AFP.

"It's the children who already master the language well," she says. "They represent our future."

Despite the difficulties of getting settled, Fattouh says he's happy to be in Canada for his children's sake.

"Canada, it's a country of the future," he says. "They will do whatever they want."

Sparta would like to be a lawyer when she grows up, and Adeeb, a policeman.

Although he's uncertain about the future, Fattouh says, it's most important "to follow the children and life."
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing needs a smaller army that has the structure and combat capability to succeed in modern warfare. China has the world's largest military and second largest military budget after the United States, but Xi plans to reduce its force by 300,000 soldiers, or some 13 percent, and focus on combat effectiveness, Reuters reported Saturday.

"This is a major, inevitable change," Xi, chairman of the country's Central Military Commission, said during a military reform conference last week. "We must seize the opportunity and make breakthroughs."

China has flexed its military muscles in recent years during disputes with the U.S. and its neighbors over control of the East and South China Seas, both important shipping routes. Xi's latest remarks on China's military strength comes days after Beijing held a flight test of 10 ballistic missiles in November in what state media called a "display of force."

Xi, however, said modern warfare depends on information and technology, not just manpower. China's ambitious modernization efforts includes aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles.

"There have been new changes in terms of the military's size, structure and formation, which features smaller in size, more capable in strength, modularization and multi-functionality, with scientific factors playing bigger roles," Xi said.

China's massive army of 2.3 million active service members and 1.1 million reserves has long been a major global force, even when Beijing has opted for fewer soldiers. The People's Liberation Army had more than 3 million in active service in 1992. In contrast, the U.S. military has about 1.4 million active service members.

"China is building a modern and regionally powerful military with a limited but growing capability for conducting operations away from Chinas immediate periphery. The question of how the United States should respond to Chinas military modernization effort is a central issue in U.S. defense planning and foreign policy. Congress decisions on this issue could affect U.S. defense strategy, budgets, plans, and programs, and the U.S. defense industrial base,"a congressional report from March states.

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By Luis Jaime Acosta BOGOTA (Reuters) - Peace talks between the Colombian government and Marxist insurgent group the National Liberation Army (ELN) will begin only after a simultaneous release of a politician held by the guerrillas and two imprisoned rebels, an ELN leader said. Colombia's second-largest leftist rebel group and the government of President Juan Manuel Santos have agreed to begin peace negotiations in Ecuador, part of Santos' efforts to end a 52-year conflict that has killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions. But despite more than two years of preliminary talks, formal negotiations were this month postponed until January. The government has said the group must release ex-lawmaker Odin Sanchez, held in the jungle province of Choco, and stop attacks against oil infrastructure. "We agreed that all the liberations which have yet to take place will be done simultaneously and ahead of the start (of talks)," Israel Ramirez, head of the ELN's negotiating team and better known by his nom de guerre Pablo Beltran, told Reuters by phone. "The same day our two are pardoned, Mr. Sanchez will be free," said Ramirez. Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize this year for his efforts to end the civil war. Ramirez, a member of the ELN's central command, did not name the two rebels he said should be released. The government said this week they will only be pardoned if they are legally eligible. "We agreed they will happen simultaneously to eliminate mutual distrust," Ramirez said. He ruled out a unilateral ceasefire until an agreement is reached with the government at talks. Ramirez also denied any division regarding the peace talks within the 2,000-strong ELN, which is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. Larger rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, late last month signed a revised peace deal with the government, after an initial agreement was rejected in a public referendum. The fraught negotiations between the two sides lasted four years. As with the FARC talks, Colombians should not expect a short process with the ELN, Ramirez said. "To do it well you have to do it with calm and a lot of caution. I don't mean they will be eternal conversations, but you can't end a half-century conflict in a couple of weeks," he said. The group will for now not halt extortion against mining and oil projects, Ramirez said. Under a peace deal, the rebels would seek power as a political party in alliance with other leftist groups, he added. (Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
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Lyle Denniston, Constitution Dailys Supreme Court correspondent, examines the upcoming debate about a congressional waiver needed to allow retired Marine General James Mattis to serve as Defense Secretary.

THE STATEMENTS AT ISSUE:

There shall be a Secretary of Defense, who shall be appointed from civilian life by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate: PROVIDED, That a person who has within ten years been on active duty as a commissioned officer in a Regular component of the armed services shall not be eligible for appointment as Secretary of Defense.

Retired Marine General James Mattis,

 Excerpt from the National Security Act of 1947, creating a new Department of Defense. This restriction on who could be named Secretary was later changed to read: A person may not be appointed as Secretary of Defense within seven years after relief from active duty as a commissioned officer of a regular component of an armed force.

It is hereby expressed as the intent of the Congress that the authority granted by this Act is not to be construed as approval by the Congress of continuing appointments of military men to the office of Secretary of Defense in the future. It is hereby expressed as the sense of the Congress that after General Marshall leaves the office of Secretary of Defense, no additional appointments of military men to that office shall be approved.

 Excerpt from an act of Congress passed in September 1950, to enable President Harry Truman to name General of the Army George C. Marshall to be Defense Secretary. That is the only time the restriction has been set aside.

While I deeply respect General Mattiss service, I will oppose a waiver [to allow him to serve as Secretary of Defense]. Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception to this rule.

 Public statement by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Democrat, on December 1, after President-elect Donald Trump announced the selection of a retired Marine general, James Mattis, to be Secretary of Defense. Senator Gillibrand is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has oversight over the nations military. She chairs its Subcommittee on Personnel. General Mattis retired from the Marines three years ago, so is ineligible to head the Pentagon unless Congress specifically grants permission.

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WE CHECKED THE CONSTITUTION, AND

Civilian control of the military is one of the oldest traditions of Americas constitutional government. It actually predates the Constitution itself; it very likely began in March 1783, when General George Washington deftly headed off a planned military takeover of the government  the episode known as the Newburgh conspiracy. Disgruntled members of Washingtons Continental Army were deeply upset over the governments failure to pay the troops, and a faction was bent on marching on Philadelphia to seize the government. Washington quietly stifled the plan.

Four years later, in crafting the new Constitution, the founding generation wrote civilian control of the military into the basic document, by giving the president the role as commander in chief of the armed forces and giving Congress the power to declare war and to provide military funding.

Congress showed its continuing respect for that tradition when it created the new office of Secretary of Defense in 1947 when it replaced the War Department with a new Department of Defense. It stressed that the Secretary was to be chosen from civilian life. It explicitly provided that no military officer could hold that job until after being separated from the service for a period of years (initially ten years, later seven).

Although Congress, in waiving that restriction for the widely popular selection of George C. Marshall to lead the Pentagon in 1950, had strongly opposed any repetition of it, the lawmakers clearly do have the authority to grant a new waiver to accommodate President-elect Trumps choice of a Marine general, out of service too recently to be otherwise eligible.

Perhaps just as historically important as George Washingtons thwarting of a military coup detat in 1783 was President Trumans firing of General Douglas MacArthur in April 1951, during the Korean war. Trumans policy was designed specifically to limit that military operation to the Korean peninsula alone, but MacArthur sought to widen the conflict to include China.

Citing the Truman limited-engagement policy, the President told the American public in a speech that a number of events have made it evident that General MacArthur did not agree with that policy. I have therefore considered it essential to relieve General MacArthur so that there would be no doubt or confusion as to the real purpose and aim of our policy.

Although Truman did not explicitly cite the principle of civilian control of the military, it was evident that he had no doubt of a Presidents power to choose the generals to implement what their civilian superiors intended for military policy, on the ground and in the larger strategic context. After issuing his order to dismiss MacArthur, Truman later said, he went to bed and slept soundly, confident that he had done the right thing.

The decision, though, was deeply unpopular. Trumans approval rating dropped to 23 percent, and it never recovered. Leaders of Congress scorned Truman and praised MacArthur. In fact, Congress gave him the forum of a joint session of Congress, and the general responded with lengthy remarks, seeking to justify his keen desire to have led a military campaign against China. He was interested only in victory, he said, and had been denied that chance. He ended his remarks with the still-familiar refrain, old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

Not once in his remarks did he acknowledge the supremacy of civilian control of military strategy, but in closing my military career before he had planned to do so, he implicitly acknowledged that Truman had had the last word on the subject.

This history will reemerge as the Senate, for the only the second time in history, debates whether it is prepared to again allow a President to have a general as the Pentagons leader.

Legendary journalist Lyle Denniston is Constitution Dailys Supreme Court correspondent. Denniston has written for us as a contributor since June 2011 and he has covered the Supreme Court since 1958. His work also appears on lyldenlawnews.com.

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Watching campaign managers Kellyanne Conway and Robby Mook deliver a dignified post-mortem of the traumatic presidential election on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, it was hard not to wish that the network had broadcast the far more raucous exchange that had occurred Thursday at Harvard. As was widely reported, the opposing campaigns' top strategists had erupted into a raucous verbal brawl that would have made for far more entertaining viewing.

Still, the program hosted by Jake Tapper was fascinating, with Conway exuding the languorous, satisfied air of a cobra that had just swallowed a large mongoose whole, and Mook displaying distinct signs of PTSD.

There weren't exactly any revelations in the edited discussion, with Mook largely blaming Clinton's loss on the "head winds" of FBI director James Comey's letters to Congress and the leaking of Democrat operatives' hacked e-mails. Conway, not surprisingly, ascribed the failure to Clinton herself, describing her as a "joyless candidate" as opposed to Trump's "happy warrior." It's good to know that the chief qualification for commander in chief is apparently the ability to have a swell time.

"He gets his oxygen from being out with the people," Conway enthused about the president-elect. Now that Trump has embarked on his unprecedented "Victory Tour," his doctors might want to make sure he doesn't hyperventilate.

Read more: Alec Baldwin's Trump Can't Stop Tweeting During National Security Briefing on 'SNL'

Conway disagreed with Mook's claim that Russia had been responsible for the hacked e-mails, apparently not trusting the word of more than a dozen U.S. intelligence agencies. It provided an interesting forecast of a Trump presidency in which he'll apparently be taking those daily intelligence briefings with a grain of salt. Later, she did reluctantly concede, "We're not pro-foreign government interference," which in the new, Trumpian world counts as a reassuring statement.

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Asked whether Trump would continue his habit of tweeting after assuming office, Conway said that Twitter was "a very good platform to transmit his messages," which is true since most of them barely have the intellectual depth to fill 140 characters.

"Is that really presidential behavior?" Tapper pressed.

"He's the president-elect, so that's presidential behavior," she replied. It uncomfortably brought to mind Richard Nixon's famous comment during his interview with David Frost: "If the president does it, that means it is not illegal."

"I hope the truth doesn't get lost or sacrificed," commented Mook, apparently unaware that we've just gone through, as Tapper put it, "a post-factual election." He also vigorously complained about the relentless focus on Clinton's e-mails, claiming that it was the "most overhyped, over-reported and over-litigated story in the history of electoral politics" and going on to complain about the "fake news" propagated by such outlets as Breitbart News, whose former head happens to be Steven Bannon, the new White House chief strategist.

"I'm not attacking him personally," Mook hastily added, suddenly realizing the inherent danger.

"The biggest piece of fake news in this election is that Donald Trump couldn't win," Conway testily countered, saying that the news media all but made the claim that Trump "takes the wings off butterflies" (Wait, he doesn't?).

Read more: Donald Trump Attends Lavish Costume Party in Midst of Ongoing Transition Meetings

Mook admitted that Clinton regretted her comment that half of Trump's supporters were a "basket of deplorables," with the ever-snappy Conway interjecting, "She regretted getting caught!"

Asked if the Clinton campaign had rejoiced after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, Mook claimed that there had been "no popping of champagne bottles," which only lent credence to Conway's claim that Clinton was a joyless candidate. (Seriously, if you can't celebrate the release of a tape in which your opponent brags about grabbing women "by the pussy," maybe you should think about becoming more of a "happy warrior.")

Why hadn't Bernie Sanders been asked to be Clinton's running mate, Tapper inquired. "It's a great question," Mook replied, which was his way of sarcastically saying, "Thanks a lot, Jake." He went on to deliver platitudes about the need to select a vice-president "who you can see as a partner" and with whom you would have "chemistry."

"I would like to publicly thank Bernie Sanders for his effect on our campaign," Conway gleefully announced, further twisting the knife already firmly embedded in Mook's midsection. She went on to admit that if Sanders had been on the ticket, Clinton would have been far harder to beat.

Oh, sure. Now she tells us.
Santiago de Cuba (Cuba) (AFP) - French Environment Minister Segolene Royal, representing her government at a tribute for Fidel Castro in Cuba, defended the late communist leader's human rights record, questioning whether the regime imprisons dissidents.

The former socialist presidential candidate called Castro a "monument of history" and a "symbol of a very deep friendship between Cuba and France."

She spoke to reporters in Santiago de Cuba before a massive rally in the eastern city late Saturday. Castro will be buried at the city cemetery on Sunday.

"Thanks to Fidel Castro, Cubans reclaimed their territory, their lives, their destiny. They were inspired by the French revolution without experiencing the terror that took place during the French revolution," she said.

Asked about the human rights violations denounced by the United Nations and dissidents, Royal said the island had "religious freedom" and "freedom of conscience."

"There is a lot of disinformation," said the number three official of French President Francois Hollande's government.

Acknowledging that there are "always positive and negative" moments in history, she said "we know that here, when you ask for a list of political prisoners, there is none. Show me the lists of political prisoners, and then we can do something about it."
By Andreas Kroner

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Boerse's (DB1Gn.DE) chief executive has sought to reassure Frankfurt over its merger with London Stock Exchange Group (LSE.L), saying the German regulator will retain power over the exchange when it becomes part of a larger London-based group.

Carsten Kengeter told the Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce in a letter seen by Reuters that the markets watchdog for the regional state of Hesse, where Deutsche Boerse is headquartered, will ensure that the exchange invests enough in Frankfurt.

The owner of the Frankfurt stock exchange is obliged by law to support the development of Frankfurt as a centre for securities trading and Hesse's market watchdog has yet to give its view on the planned merger.

Deutsche Boerse has to lobby hard for the $30 billion merger agreed in March to create a European trading powerhouse amid opposition from Hesse lawmakers and regional industry bosses against plans to set up the joint holding company in London, even after Britain's vote to leave the European Union.

The Hesse regulator will still be able to "act effectively" with sanctions including rescinding the holding's voting rights in the Frankfurt exchange, Kengeter's letter said.

"This applies entirely irrespective of the UK headquarters of the HoldCo or of any repercussions from Brexit," the CEO said in response to questions from the Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce.

Deutsche Boerse has invested a substantial amount in the state of Hesse over the past five years and would "continue to actively develop our infrastructure operated out of Frankfurt".

A spokeswoman for Deutsche Boerse said the CEO saw no possibility ahead of the legal closure of the deal to amend shareholder-backed plans to base the new holding company in London.

The European Commission is scheduled to decide by Feb. 13 on the antitrust approval of the deal, which can be extended once the exchanges offer any remedies.

(Writing by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)
"I don't get roles like [Lion], ever," Dev Patel told The Hollywood Reporter during the Actor Oscar Roundtable. "To be able to say such words of gravitas and not be pandering to someone else, or playing a sort of tech geek. It was a transformative journey."

In the film, Patel tells the true story of a man separated from him Indian family as a boy and adopted by Australian parents (played by Nicole Kidman and David Wenham).

"It's something I could relate to about someone who's suppressed his culture and a part of himself for a while to try and fit in, and then all of a sudden having those memories come back. When I first went to India for Slumdog [Millionaire] (Patel's breakout role in the Oscar winning Danny Boyle film) it was a light bulb moment, and those cliches I had of the country and the people, it of kind was all dispersed straight away."

More roundtables featuring actresses, screenwriters, songwriters, documentarians, directors, composers and producers will continue throughout February in print and online. Tune in to new episodes of Close Up With 'The Hollywood Reporter' starting Jan. 15 on Sundance TV, and look for clips at THR.com/topic/roundtables with full episodes on THR.com after broadcast.
On Saturday, Donald Trump attended a costume party on Long Island, New York, which was hosted by the Mercer family. The Mercers were one of Trumps biggest donors to his campaign, contributing $2 million to a pro-Trump super PAC, according to Politico.

Touted as the Villains and Heroes party, the invitation featured a sword-wielding centurion crouching in an ancient ruin, facing down a serpent-haired Medusa, according to Bloomberg.

Trumps motorcade arrived at the party at 8:35 p.m. And when Trump was asked who he was dressed as, he pointed to himself and mouthed the word Me, according to Politico. He did not make it clear, however, if he was dressed up as a villain or hero.

His campaign manager Kellyanne Conway had her own idea of which category the Republican president-elect fit into at the event. Dressed as Superwoman, Conway took to Twitter and wrote, Honoring the ultimate hero at the Mercer Heroes and Villians party on Long Island. Crowd thrilled w/ surprise!

RELATED VIDEO: Donald Trump Goes on Friday Hiring Spree in Presidential Transition

Hedge fund tycoon Robert Mercer is at the helm of the Mercer family, and his daughter Rebekah  who is in charge of the familys political efforts  now sits on Trumps transition team executive committee.




Donald Trump and Barack Obama

President-elect Donald Trump's victory on Election Day has put some of President Barack Obama's hallmark achievements in jeopardy.

Trump has come out strongly against almost all of the top initiatives Obama spent eight years working on  the Asia pivot, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, Obamacare, and the Iran nuclear deal  and they're fragile enough that Trump could reverse course fairly easily.

"You have an outsider president being replaced by the most outsider candidate ever elected," Ian Bremmer, a geopolitical analyst and president of the Eurasia Group, told Business Insider via email.

"There's nothing like one upsmanship, big league, to destroy your legacy."

Iran nuclear deal

Trump has called the Iran deal one of "the worst deals ever made by any country in history" and threatened to rescind or renegotiate the agreement that gives Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbing its nuclear program.

"Trump has repeatedly slammed the deal as being a bad deal  the assumption is that hes going to do something," Jonathan Schanzer, a Middle East expert who is a vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider after the election.

Schanzer also admits that given Trump's ambiguity on the subject, it's "extremely difficult" to anticipate how negotiations would play out.

After the election, Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called on Trump to stick to the agreement. And in June, before Trump had officially become the Republican nominee for president, Zarif said Iran would reject any attempt from the US to renegotiate the deal.

It "is not an Iran-US agreement for the Republican frontrunner or anybody else to renegotiate," he said. "It's an international understanding annexed to a [United Nations] Security Council resolution."

Bremmer said he's skeptical about whether Trump will actually upend the deal. But even if he didn't, his administration will likely dilute the image of the Iran nuclear deal as a bright spot in Obama's presidency.

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China Obama

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Asia pivot

While much of Obama's foreign policy doctrine has been consumed by wars in the Middle East, a pivot to Asia was supposed to be a prominent part of Obama's legacy.

But since Obama's final trip to Asia as president turned out to be a bit of a disaster, that legacy looks to be uncertain.

And Trump winning the presidency means that Obama's controversial trade deal is likely dead in the water.

"Trump's victory kills the [Trans-Pacific Partnership] and replaces it with 'America First,'" Bremmer said. "China sees this as its moment to seize primary leadership in Asia."

The Trans-Pacific Partnership would lower tariffs for 12 countries around the Pacific, not including China. Obama was hoping to get the deal through Congress during the lame-duck period before he leaves office, but that now seems highly unlikely.

Trump is also unlikely to continue Obama's pivot to Asia, considering his campaign-trail rhetoric about putting American interests above all else.

Obamacare protest

Obamacare

On the campaign trail, Trump often expressed the desire to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as Obamacare.

He has called Obamacare a "total disaster" and promised to replace it with "the finest healthcare plan there is."

But since the election, he has softened that position, saying he'd be open to amending it instead.

And in any case, even Republican leaders admit that repealing the Affordable Care Act would be difficult.

"Domestically there's much more of Obama's legacy that will stay intact, likely including some piece of his most controversial policy, Obamacare," Bremmer said.

Alex Lockie contributed to this report.

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President-elect Donald Trump has been expressing his displeasure over Alec Baldwins impersonation of him on Saturday Night Live throughout the current season and, apparently, this week he even decided to try watching SNL as it aired live.

The experiment went predictably bad.

Halfway through the episode, Trump once again took to Twitter to air his grievances against the show. He called it unwatchable, totally biased and not funny, before taking particular exception with Baldwins performance.

Also Read: 'SNL': Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump Retweets Randoms Instead of Working

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live  unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

There is some irony in Trump complaining on Twitter about Baldwins appearance on SNL this week in particular. The cold open was all about Trumps propensity to retweet people that the President-elect probably shouldnt be retweeting, like teenagers and people who have liberalism is a mental illness in their Twitter bios.

Kellyanne Conway, who is also regularly impersonated (albeit far more sympathetically) on SNL by Kate McKinnon, recently asked CNNs Chris Cuomo why anybody cares that Trump complains about SNL on Twitter all the time.

Also Read: Kellyanne Conway Defends Trump's Twitter Attacks on 'Hamilton,' 'SNL': 'Why Do You Care?' (Video)

Why do you care? Conway asked Cuomo on Nov. 21. Who is to say that he cant do that, make a comment, spend five minutes on a tweet and making a comment and still be the president-elect?

Youre assigning malice, youre assigning wrongdoing to him, where it doesnt exist, Conway said.

Related stories from TheWrap:

'SNL': Watch Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump Retweet Randoms Instead of Working (Video)

Story continues

John Cena, Casey Affleck to Make 'SNL' Hosting Debuts This Month

'SNL' Star Pete Davidson Says 'F You' to Donald Trump Over Criticism

Kellyanne Conway Defends Trump's Twitter Attacks on 'Hamilton,' 'SNL': 'Why Do You Care?' (Video)
Donald Trump tweeted that Saturday Night Live is unwatchable and totally biased, after Alec Baldwin impersonated him in a cold open sketch mocking his tweets.

Saturdays episode featured Baldwin as the president-elect constantly distracted by his Twitter feed during a national security briefing. The sketch opened in a classroom, where a high school student named Seth was retweeted by Trumprecalling Trumps real retweet of a 16-year-old named Seth, who attacked CNN over its coverage of Trumps false claim that millions of people voted illegally.

In an attempt to defend her boss, Kate McKinnons Kellyanne Conway said Trump tweets so frequently to distract the media from his business conflicts and all the very scary people in his cabinet.

Trump disagreed that he could be so tricky.

Actually, thats not why I do it, he said I do it because my brain is bad.

The sketch continued from there, as Trump retweeted random people while aides tried to deliver security briefings.

Trumps critique of the episodehis second over the past two episodesdrew a response from Baldwin asking the president-elect to release his tax returns.
Donald Trump warned U.S. companies of retribution or consequences, such as a massive tariff, if they leave the country.

In a series of early morning tweets Sunday, Trump said companies with offshore factories would face a 35% tax on products they want to sell back in the U.S.

The U.S. is going to substantialy [sic] reduce taxes and regulations on businesses, but any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its products back into the U.S. without retribution or consequences, is WRONG! the president-elect wrote. There will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units, etc., back across the border.

The proclamations came after Trumps intervention with Carrier, who decided to keep about 1,000 jobs in Indiana instead of moving them to Mexico. Carrier will receive economic incentives worth $7 million, in a deal negotiated by Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the current governor of Indiana. Despite the Carrier deal, the company still plans to close a plant in Huntington, Indiana, moving about 700 jobs to Mexico.

The U.S. is going to substantialy reduce taxes and regulations on businesses, but any business that leaves our country for another country,  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the U.S.   Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

without retribution or consequence, is WRONG! There will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies   Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units etc., back across the border. This tax will make leaving financially difficult, but..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

these companies are able to move between all 50 states, with no tax or tariff being charged. Please be forewarned prior to making a very   Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

expensive mistake! THE UNITED STATES IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has referred two maritime inspection officials to trial for their role in the capsizing of a migrant ship that led to the death of over 200 earlier this year, state news agency MENA reported on Saturday. A boat carrying about 450 people capsized off Egypt's northern coast in September. Some 202 bodies were subsequently recovered from the sea and 169 people rescued. The largest Arab nation has said it is committed to developing a strategy to combat what has turned into a growing smuggling industry along its northern seaboard. It passed a law in October aimed at curbing human trafficking. Egyptian authorities arrested four crew members just after the boat capsized in September and opened an investigation. MENA said prosecutors ordered two inspection officials at the Egyptian Authority for Maritime Safety - a government agency - to trial after their investigation concluded that the inspectors colluded with the ship's captain to allow it to operate without a valid license. The officials were not named. A growing number of migrants have tried to cross to Italy from the African coast, particularly from Libya, where people-traffickers operate with relative impunity. But boats have increasingly departed from Egypt. (Reporting by Mostafa Hashem and Amina Ismail; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
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In the NASA plan to deal with a killer asteroid destroying the world, the first people to learn about it likely find out via text message.

Seriously.

If a killer asteroid on a path to striking Earth were discovered, the first word of its existence would likely come in the form of a text or an emailpreliminary information about the space rock, sent out to a group of less than 12 scientists.

At that stage, researchers wouldn't know much about the size and trajectory of the errant space rock, but that'd change quickly. They'd start hurriedly gathering observations of the object, likely first spotted by one of the large survey telescopes constantly looking out for this kind of thing.

And then, they'd get to work.

SEE ALSO: Meteorite impact zone in Australia may be the largest ever discovered

There's a small but very real possibility that, one day, a city-leveling (or even: planet-obliterating) asteroid could hit the planet. A major asteroid strike could cause wide swaths of regional damage, everything from broken windows to toppled buildings, a disaster that could range from a local tragedy to a global-scale event.

And while the odds of an asteroid striking Earth are extremely low (a 5,000-foot asteroid is only expected to hit the Earth about once every 1 million years), NASA does, in fact, have a plan of action, in case an errant space rock were making its way towards us. And theyin conjunction with FEMArecently staged a run-through of what would happen if they did find a dangerous asteroid speeding toward our planet.

NASA and FEMA officials during the run through.

Image: The Aerospace Corporation

"It is critical to exercise these kinds of low-probability but high-consequence disaster scenarios," FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said in a statement. "By working through our emergency response plans now, we will be better prepared if and when we need to respond to such an event."

When a survey discovers what could be a new near-Earth object (NEO), it gets logged with the Minor Planet Centeran organization that acts as a clearinghouse for discoveries of relatively small new objects in the solar systemin a public forum.

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If a newfound object does look like it's on a course that'd bring it near Earth in the next six days, the Minor Planet Center's system sends out an automated text message or email to a select group of people at the center and NASA.

That, explained NASA's planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson, is when they get alerted as to "any possibility that a newly discovery could be on an impact trajectory," he explained to Mashable in an interview.

Seeing asteroids, killer or not

The alerts can set off a flurry of follow-up observations.

Once logged, amateur astronomers and people using large telescopes can train their own tools on the part of the sky to gather more data about the possible object, attempting to confirm its size and orbit.

Usually "...when we get further observations, the possibility of an impact disappears or the possibility of a very close approach disappears," Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center said.

As it turns out, Earth isn't that large of a target. And while there are plenty of asteroids, it's very rare for a relatively large one to enter our atmosphere.

If the asteroid actually looks like it has a chance of striking the planet, though, NASA notifies the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and then soon after, issues a press release to inform the public.

NASA and the Minor Planet Center have to come to an agreement about whether any given space rock will hit the planet before they go wide with a statement about the NEO, Williams said.

Because of that caution, you'll probably hear about the possibility of an asteroid impact before any kind of press release from NASA.

"Since the work is all done in the open, the observations and orbits are available over the internet if you know where to look," explained Johnson. "Folks on the internet would probably be talking about it before we get to the point where we can put a public notice out."

Because all of the orbital maps, trajectories and coordinates are already available to scientists around the world, there's inevitably going to be chatter about it on Twitter, Reddit, and all the other usual suspect-forums before an official announcement about the asteroid's collision course is made.

NASA also keeps an eye out for the future of Earth. The space agency plots out expected orbits for each NEO found togive or takeabout 100 years in the future, in order to see if the space rocks might make any close brushes with our planet, at any point.

How to move an asteroid

Scientists have mapped the orbits of about 90 percent of NEOs about 1 kilometer or larger, and they are hoping to map that percentage of objects 140 meters or larger.

This kind of orbital mapping is more than just scientifically interesting.

Scientists want as much lead time as possible in order to help protect Earth from the worst effects of an asteroid strike.

NASA's also been looking into ways of deflecting an asteroid, should it come dangerously close to our planet.

Engineers have floated everything from shooting lasers at the asteroid to going full Armageddon (and yes, actually blowing it up) as ideas that could help deflect it. While nothing's been tested in space yet, theoretically, these devices could keep Earth safe by nudging rogue asteroids or comets out the way.

NASA and the European Space Agency are collaborating on a new mission concept called the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), which would test whether an asteroid can be moved by an impactor.

If it works, this method could be used to help divert an actual NEO should a dangerous one come near our planet.

But for now, we'll just have to keep an eye on the sky, wait, and hope for the best.
By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) - Europe's trade negotiator blamed China on Sunday for scuppering a global environmental trade deal by submitting impossible late demands at World Trade Organization talks aimed at scrapping import tariffs on exports worth more than $1 trillion.

"China came in with their list, bringing in totally new elements of perspective, which was very late in the process," European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told Reuters.

The change of U.S. president also puts a big question mark over the future prospects for a deal.

European resistance to Chinese bicycle imports has also been a stumbling block, although Malmstrom said bicycles had become totemic for China and nobody else, and the agreement went far wider, adding that the EU had "quite cheap bicycles already".

Malmstrom was co-chair of the talks, which aimed to cut costs for environmentally beneficial goods by removing trade tariffs applied to them, with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, who declined to comment as he left.

"Had that (China's list) come earlier we could have worked on this. But now this made it impossible to find an agreement, we were too far away from each other," Malmstrom said.

China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that China had made great efforts to show the flexibility needed to effectively solve the participants' core concerns, but the meeting failed due to "differences on key issues".

U.S. Ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke told reporters: The United States worked hard to find a creative path to a successful EGA agreement. Unfortunately not all participants were ready to contribute to success.

WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said it was disappointing that talks had not succeeded but many delegations were strongly committed to getting a deal and hoped for success in 2017.

Malmstrom said she had no idea what U.S. President-elect Donald Trump thought about environmental matters, but she hoped the United States would be "on board". Any deal would need the backing of countries responsible for about 90 percent of the trade in the products, so a U.S. absence would kill the talks.

Story continues

But the participants, who include Canada, Japan, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand, have not yet decided which products should be part of the hoped-for Environmental Goods Agreement.

The discussion included products for clean and renewable energy, energy efficiency, controlling air pollution, managing waste, treating waste water, monitoring the quality of the environment, and combating noise pollution, the WTO said.

(Editing by Jason Neely and Alexander Smith)
Brussels (AFP) - Eurozone finance ministers meet Monday as far apart as ever on the debt relief measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund for it to back their bailout programme for Greece.

The IMF played a key role in two massive rescues for Greece but baulked at a third in 2015, worth 86 billion euros ($92 billion), warning that Athens would never get back on its feet unless its debt mountain was cut outright.

The fund is obliged to only lend to countries that can repay and its head, former French finance minister Christine Lagarde, has faced accusations that she bent the rules in the two previous bailouts to help save the eurozone.

Europe's largest economy Germany insists meanwhile that Greece must meet all its commitments on spending cuts and tax hikes before measures to reduce a debt mountain equal to some 180 percent of annual economic output can be considered.

"We are going around in circles," one EU official said, as an end-of-year deadline to resolve the impasse looms large.

The situation is further complicated by differences within the 19-nation single currency bloc. France for example -- where public finances are far from healthy -- believes Athens should be cut some slack.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and French President Francois Hollande agreed Saturday that "a deal on a technical level is needed by (Monday) and measures for debt relief by the end of the year are imperative".

- More austerity 'impossible' -

During a May review, the European Union and IMF agreed to start discussions on debt relief by end-2016 if Athens met its reform pledges.

The issue turns on a key figure -- 3.5 percent, the primary balance, or the surplus on the public finances before debt repayments, that Greece is supposed to reach.

The target is very high -- and most countries do not even come close -- but Germany and other eurozone hardliners believe it is the only way to solve the issue once and for all, even if Greece has to take additional austerity measures to get there.

Story continues

For the IMF, that option is totally unrealistic -- an economy with an already unsustainable debt burden cannot be expected to tighten the screws further.

A source close to the negotiations suggested the Washington-based lender might appear to go along, "just to show how impossible it is".

Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem told European lawmakers that debt relief measures would be discussed Monday in the hopes of persuading the IMF to sign on to the bailout.

"The IMF has a point that running a primary surplus of 3.5 percent of GDP for a very long time is a huge thing to ask and we need to be realistic here," Dijsselbloem said.

- Germany warns off Commission -

It will be against this backdrop that finance ministers will also discuss a recommendation by EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici that after years of hugely unpopular austerity, it is now time to ease off the fiscal brakes and boost growth.

The austerity drive has stoked growing anti-EU sentiment, likely to get a fresh airing in votes Sunday in Italy and Austria which will likely colour Monday's talks.

Moscovici -- another former French finance minister -- said governments with strong enough finances could boost spending by an average 0.5 percent of GDP to bolster a modest recovery.

His plea got a blunt rebuff from Germany's hardline Wolfgang Schaeuble, who in the 2015 cliff-edge bailout negotiations famously suggested it would be simpler for all concerned if Greece just left the eurozone.

"The role of the Commission is to ensure member state budgets... meet European rules," Schaeuble told the Bundestag.

"That is the role of the Commission, to ensure that the eurozone remains stable, that the euro currency remains strong," he said.
By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. tech giants including Facebook (FB.O), Twitter (TWTR.N), Google's (GOOGL.O) YouTube and Microsoft (MSFT.O) will have to act faster to tackle online hate speech or face laws forcing them to do so, the European Commission said on Sunday.

The European Union (EU) executive's warning comes six months after the companies signed up to a voluntary code of conduct to take action in Europe within 24 hours, following rising concerns triggered by the refugee crisis and terror attacks.

This included removing or disabling access to the content if necessary, better cooperation with civil society organizations and the promotion of "counter-narratives" to hate speech.

The code of conduct is largely a continuation of efforts that the companies already take to counter hate speech on their websites, such as developing tools for people to report hateful content and training staff to handle such requests.

However, a report commissioned by EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova showed that compliance with the code is far from satisfactory, the commission said.

"In practice the companies take longer and do not yet achieve this goal. They only reviewed 40 percent of the recorded cases in less than 24 hours," a Commission official said.

"After 48 hours the figure is more than 80 percent. This shows that the target can realistically be achieved, but this will need much stronger efforts by the IT companies."

The Commission said it may enact laws to force swifter action.

"If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months," Jourova told the Financial Times.

Her spokesman confirmed the comments.

Jourova's report showed an uneven pace across the 28-country bloc, with the removal rate of racist posts in Germany and France above 50 percent, but just 11 percent in Austria and 4 percent in Italy.

EU justice ministers will meet in Brussels to discuss the report on Thursday. They are also expected to ask the companies to clarify issues including taking down "terrorist propaganda" and helping provide evidence to convict foreign fighters.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Alexander Smith)
DailyFX.com -

EUR/USD Set for Volatility with Italian Referendum, ECB Rate Decision in Sight

Fundamental Forecast for EUR/USD: Neutral

- Italian constitutional referendum today (December 4) looks likely to fail; if it does, weakness in EUR/USD could see it break its cycle low of 1.0462 set in March 2015.

- In such an event, EUR/USD looks increasingly likely to break consolidation streak to downside, setting up a move towards 0.9500 in 2017.

- Dont forget the European Central Bank rate decision on Thursday  although, much of it has already been discounted by markets.

In what will likely be viewed as another watershed moment for the Euro-Zone, the Italian constitutional referendum on Sunday, December 4, represents the start of what should be a volatile week for EUR/USD. Between the Italian referendum and the European Central Bank rate decision on Thursday, traders should have a lot of opportunity on both the long and short side of the market. Implied volatility for EUR/USD had increased considerably through the end of last week, with 1-week implied vol going from 9.55% the day after the US Presidential elections to 17.41% on December 2.

Needless to say, excitement is expected around the two high rated events for the Euro this week, particularly Sundays referendum. Before the polling blackout period went into effect, No leads by about 5%, with about 23% of the electorate undecided. So, while the referendum passing isnt of the question, its looking increasingly unlikely.

Chart 1: Final Two Italian Constitutional Referendum Polls

EUR/USD Set for Volatility with Italian Referendum, ECB Rate Decision in Sight

What matters to traders, of course, is how will markets react? Traders should begin to look to their newsfeeds right when markets open at 17 EDT/22 GMT on December 4. While exit polls will be released earlier than this time, they have been historically inaccurate, missing badly on the Berlusconis chances in 2008 and on the Democratic Partys chances in 2013. As such, we thinking waiting until the official polling results come out starting after 22:45 GMT may be the safest way to obtain referendum results. A litmus test may prove to be Milan, which has historically (for decades) leaned to the right; yet it views Italian PM Renzi favorably, recently electing a major who supports Renzis center-left policies. If Milan swings back to the right, then Renzi  and his desire for a Yes result  would be probably be in trouble.

Story continues

Chart 2: EUR/USD Weekly Chart (June 2014 to December 2016)

EUR/USD Set for Volatility with Italian Referendum, ECB Rate Decision in Sight

While a No outcome would feed into the growing mindset that economic populism is sweeping the Wests advanced economic democracies, it would more or less keep the current political system in Italy in place; the status quo would persist. Markets might act worried initially, selling EUR/USD and Italian equities in the neighborhood 1-3% and 2-4% on the results. EUR/USD could move to test the 1.0462 cycle low established in March 2015. Particular attention should be paid to Italian banks, which are in focus given the significant amount of non-performing loans (NPLs) on their books, and that Monti dei Paschi is in the midst of a debt-to-equity swap. Steeper losses seem unlikely.

In the event of a No outcome, EUR/USD weakness would likely result, but a run towards parity given the scope of the referendum seems minimal. Even in the event of Renzi resigning and with new elections resulting, political gridlock would remain, preventing any significant reform  including legislation to take Italy out of the Euro, if say the Five Star Movement came to power in the next elections. Conversely, the scope for lasting EUR/USD gains in the event of a Yes outcome seems limited as well  theres simply too much political risk elsewhere on the horizon. Markets will remain as worried they are about elections in France, the Netherlands, and Germany next year; or these concerns will get worse.

Moving into the latter half of the week, the ECB meeting is expected to bring about significant changes to the ECBs bond-buying program. At a minimum, the ECB will announce a six-month extension, extending the duration of its QE operations from March to September 2017. Any downside from this announcement has already been priced-in to the Euro, by our estimates; the formal recognition of this policy adjustment itself should have little impact on the Euro.

To ensure smooth implementation of its policies, the ECB will likely make an adjustment to its deposit floor threshold or capital key allotment. As a reminder, the ECB allots its bond buying based on the capital key. What is the capital key? The capital of the ECB comes from the national central banks (NCBs) of all EU member states. According to the ECB, the NCBs shares in this capital are calculated using a key which reflects the respective countrys share in the total population and gross domestic product of the EU.

As such, it's no surprise that Germany - as the country with the largest capital key contribution - has seen the belly of its yield curve (3Y-7Y) drift into negative territory, below the ECB's -0.40% deposit level - the threshold at which the ECB no longer purchases bonds in its QE program. While scarcity is not a concern now, the fear of liquidity issues down the road are significant enough that the ECB wants to act now to eliminate said speculation.

Likewise, beyond extending its QE program, the ECB will either: remove the limiting parameter of -0.40% on its bond buying; or discard the capital key variable. In the first case, German yields would like move lower the fastest; in the second, peripheral yields like in Italy and in Spain. If the ECB doesnt, the odds of the Euro rallying on Thursday will increase as markets speculate that the ECB isnt delving deeper into its extraordinary policy-loosening toolkit. CV

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Rome (AFP) - Italians voted in huge numbers Sunday in a high-stakes constitutional referendum that will decide the fate of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and has left the rest of Europe braced for the fallout.

Renzi, who has vowed to step aside if he loses, was counting on a last-minute turnaround in voter sentiment to win backing for his proposals to streamline parliament and centralise some regional powers in the name of more effective and stable government.

Turnout was very high by Italian standards, with 57.24 percent of voters having cast their ballots by 7 p.m. (1800 GMT), according to the Interior Ministry.

Nearly two thirds of the electorate had voted in some parts of prosperous northern Italy but the turnout was much lower in the south -- a pattern which was seen as a potential boost to the premier's survival hopes.

Renzi was in jovial mood as he cast his vote in his native Tuscany.

"Have you decided how you are going to vote, prime minister?" a female voter cheekily asked outside a voting station in his home town of Pontassieve, near Florence.

"Now I'm thinking about it!" Renzi, 41, quipped back before spending 10 minutes queuing to register his vote.

Opposition parties have denounced the proposed amendments to the 68-year-old constitution as dangerous for democracy because they remove important checks and balances on executive power.

- Pencil controversy -

Spearheaded by the populist Five Star Movement, the biggest rival to Renzi's Democratic party, the "No" campaign has also sought to capitalise on Renzi's declining popularity, a sluggish economy and the problems caused by tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Italy from Africa.

"God willing it's over. A new era starts tomorrow I hope," said Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Northern League, after voting in Milan.

Five Star leader Beppe Grillo, who had urged Italians to follow their gut instincts, used his voting appearance to joke about some voters' claims that the pencils being used to vote meant ticks on the ballot papers could easily be rubbed out.

Story continues

"Us oldies knew what to do in this digital age. I sucked the pencil and it was working," the comedian told reporters in Genoa.

Outside a polling station in Rome, business owner Raffaele Pasquini, 37, told AFPTV he was voting "Yes" in the interest of his two-year-old son.

"We are voting to try and change a country that has been stalled for far too long."

Turnout in Rome may have been affected by the vote coinciding with the local football derby match.

Matteo Rossi, 25, voted "Yes" before heading to the Stadio Olimpico to watch his side, Roma, beat arch rivals Lazio 2-0.

"I hesitated but when you look at the people who are for 'No', I couldn't be with them," he told AFP.

Fellow fan Guido wasn't planning to vote. "For me, the important thing today is what happens inside this stadium."

- Turmoil feared -

Polls close at 11 p.m. (2200 GMT) with a reliable projection of the result not expected until the early hours of Monday.

If Renzi goes, some short-term market turbulence looks inevitable. Some analysts fear a deeper crisis of investor confidence that could derail a rescue scheme for Italy's most indebted banks, triggering a wider financial crisis across the eurozone.

If he wins, Italy's youngest ever prime minister could be emboldened to accelerate promised reforms in areas such as public administration, the judicial system and education.

"If we miss this chance it won't come back for 20 years," Renzi warned voters before campaigning was suspended at midnight on Friday.

Up until polls were banned on November 18, the "No" camp was leading comfortably -- but with a quarter of the electorate undecided.

After the Brexit vote and Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election, populism has been a factor, and Grillo's Five Star would see a "No" vote as its stepping stone to government.

But the campaign has also caused many voters to reconsider the merits of a much-loved constitution, crafted in the aftermath of World War II and the bitter experience of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's disastrous rule.

Under the proposed reform, the Senate, currently a body of 315 directly-elected and five lifetime lawmakers, would have only 100 members, mostly nominated by the regions.

The chamber would also be stripped of most of its powers to block and revise legislation, and to unseat governments.

Other envisioned changes involve transferring some regional powers to the national government, making it easier to get major infrastructural works approved, and abolishing a costly policy agency in Rome.
Washington (AFP) - David Petraeus, the army ex-general who resigned in disgrace as head of the CIA, said Sunday that he's paid for his mistakes and is ready to become Donald Trump's chief diplomat.

Petraeus has interviewed with the president-elect and is on the short list to become the new president's secretary of state.

"I have acknowledged for a number for years that five years ago I made a serious mistake, I acknowledged it, I apologized for it, I have paid a heavy price for it, and I have learned from it," Petraeus said on ABC News.

The 64-year-old scholar-warrior, who masterminded the widely credited surge in Iraq from 2008-2010, has a depth of experience in world affairs unmatched by any of the other candidates known to be under consideration.

But in 2012 he resigned from the CIA after showing classified material to his mistress and biographer Paula Broadwell.

In 2015 he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials, and was put on two years' probation and fined $100,000.

"I made a false statement at that time I did not think it was false," Petraeus told ABC.

Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, Trump's running mate Mike Pence confirmed that Petraeus is a finalist for the job, along with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, ex-UN ambassador John Bolton, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Republican senator Bob Corker.

Pence, who praised the general as "an American hero," said that Petraeus "made mistakes and he paid for this mistakes."

Trump "will factor the totality of general Petraeus's career in making this decision," Pence added.

Petraeus's scandal however could pose a problem for getting Senate approval, and would expose Trump to accusations of hypocrisy after he savaged Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail for mishandling classified emails as secretary of state.

Petraeus disclosed "information that was far more highly classified than I ever did," and yet never "spent a single day in jail," said Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who lives in exile in Russia, in an interview with Yahoo! News.

In 2013 Snowden leaked thousands of classified documents in 2013 revealing the vast US surveillance of private data put in place after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The 33-year-old is wanted in the United States on charges of espionage and theft of state secrets that could land him up to 30 years in jail.
Come back to Yahoo News on Monday to watch the full clip of Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Courics exclusive interview with Edward Snowden.

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric, Edward Snowden says that former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus  who is under consideration to become President-elect Donald Trumps secretary of state  disclosed information that was far more highly classified than I ever did and yet never spent a single day in jail.

The fugitive former National Security Agency contractor told Couric that Petraeuss case is evidence that We have a two-tiered system of justice in the United States, where people who are either well-connected to government or they have access to an incredible amount of resources get very light punishments.

Snowdens comments came in an exclusive interview with Couric in Moscow at a crucial moment for him. His lawyers in the United States, fearing that a Trump administration will take an unyielding hard line against him, are seeking either to get him a last-minute pardon from President Obama or to negotiate a plea bargain that would allow him to return to the country without spending a significant amount of time in federal prison for disclosing tens of thousands of classified government documents.

Related: In exile, Edward Snowden rakes in speaking fees while hoping for pardon

Asked by Couric what sort of plea bargain he might accept, Snowden, who is charged with multiple felonies for theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, argued that there were cases where the government goes, This person was acting in good faith. They were trying to do right by the American people. But they did break the law. No charges are ever brought, or theyre brought very minimally.

Snowden did not cite any examples, but he immediately brought up Petraeus. Perhaps the best-known case in recent history here is Gen. Petraeus  who shared information that was far more highly classified than I ever did with journalists, he said. And he shared this information not with the public for their benefit, but with his biographer and lover for personal benefit  conversations that had information, detailed information, about military special-access programs, thats classified above top secret, conversations with the president and so on.

Story continues

Slideshow: Katie Couric interviews Edward Snowden: A look behind the scenes >>>

When the government came after him, they charged him with a misdemeanor, Snowden continued. He never spent a single day in jail, despite the type of classified information he exposed.

Snowdens remarks about Petraeus are likely to infuriate the retired four-star generals supporters in Congress and elsewhere. Petraeus did plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge in April 2015 for mishandling classified information, receiving two years probation and a $100,000 fine. Court documents in the case show that he turned over a black book of highly classified code word documents  including the identity of covert officers and notes of National Security Council meetings  to Paula Broadwell, a biographer with whom he was having an affair.

But the factual basis for his plea also states that he retrieved the information from Broadwell three days later. Government officials have said that Broadwell, who was never charged, didnt use the information in her book about Petraeus and that none of the information he disclosed to her was ever made public. (Petraeus made that same point in an interview Sunday on ABCs This Week. While acknowledging that he made a false statement to the FBI about his disclosure to Broadwell, he added that the FBI in the agreement acknowledged that nothing that was in my journals that I shared  certainly improperly  ended up in the biography or made it out to the public. I think thats a fairly significant point.)

Snowden, by contrast, disclosed tens of thousands of highly classified NSA documents to multiple journalists, who published them and caused what U.S. intelligence officials have consistently said was harm to national security, in part by making it more difficult for the NSA to intercept the communications of terrorist groups. The damage done to our national security is profound, said California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, after the panel released a three-page executive summary of a report on Snowden in September. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., the chair of the panels subcommittee on the NSA and cybersecurity, added: His actions harmed our relationships around the world, endangered American soldiers in war zones, and reduced our allies collective ability to prevent terrorist attacks.

Snowden, in his interview, also cited Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as an example of two-tiered justice. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March 2013, Clapper denied to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that the NSA was collecting information on U.S. citizens  a claim that was later disproved by the release of one of the classified documents that Snowden disclosed.

When we had the most senior intelligence official in the United States, Gen. James Clapper, who lied to the American people and all of Congress on camera, under oath, in the Senate, in a famous exchange with Ron Wyden, he wasnt even charged, Snowden said. But giving false testimony to Congress under oath, as he did, is a felony. Its typically punished by three to five years in prison.
Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Fierce fighting shook east Aleppo on Sunday as Syrian government forces pressed an assault that has seen them retake control of more than half of the former rebel stronghold.

President Bashar al-Assad's army is nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of Syria's second city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syria's opposition its worst defeat of the country's five-year civil war.

On Sunday, heavy fighting was underway in the Myessar district and elsewhere on the outskirts of newly recaptured neighbourhoods in the east.

Syrian state television showed what it said was live footage from the front line, with its correspondent crouched by a building as explosions were heard in the distance and warplanes screeched overhead.

The Syrian army holds more than 60 percent of east Aleppo after seizing the Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood on Friday night and making additional advances on Saturday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor.

"The army now aims to advance and take control of Shaar district and the surrounding districts to force the rebels to withdraw toward the southeastern neighbourhoods," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The army issued a statement overnight urging Syrians from northeastern Aleppo "to return to their homes after the Syrian Arab Army restored security and stability to those districts and state institutions began rehabilitation work."

- Exodus of civilians -

On Saturday, several hundred people took advantage of the resumption of government buses from west to east to check on homes long abandoned in territory formerly held by rebels.

But the level of destruction in many places meant people were able to do little more than check whether any possessions could be retrieved from ravaged homes.

"This is all we found, this photo of my niece. It is precious to us, and we found a copy of the Koran, so we brought that too," said Um Yayha, 55.

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The army began its assault on the east in mid-November, pounding rebel-held neighbourhoods with air strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire.

The assault has killed at least 311 civilians, including 42 children, according to the Observatory.

Rebel fire on the government-held west of Aleppo has killed 69 civilians, including 28 children, in the same period, the monitor says.

The government advance has prompted an exodus of civilians, with some fleeing south to remaining rebel-held territory and up to 50,000 heading to areas controlled by the government or Kurdish forces.

Russia, a staunch ally of the Syrian government, said Sunday it had delivered 30 trucks of aid to Aleppo.

"It is important for Russia that people do not starve, that the people feel that they are needed both by the Syrian government and by Russia," Russian official Nikolai Ponomaryov told journalists in Aleppo.

East Aleppo has been under government siege since July, with international aid stocks exhausted and remaining food supplies dwindling.

Russia says it is not participating in the offensive in Aleppo, though its forces are continuing to wage the aerial campaign they began in September 2015 elsewhere in the country.

- Strike kills 21 civilians -

Last month, Moscow said it was beginning a "major operation" in the northwestern Idlib and central Homs provinces.

Idlib is largely controlled by a rebel alliance that includes former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, while Homs is mostly under government control but includes pockets of rebel territory.

On Sunday, the Observatory said at least 21 civilians, including three children, were killed in an apparent Russian air strike on Kafr Nabal in Idlib.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, and several rounds of talks have failed to produce a deal to end the fighting.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura on Saturday warned of a "creeping, ongoing guerilla (war) and no reconstruction" unless peace talks resumed.

On Sunday the opposition High Negotiations Committee urged the international community to "take immediate action to stop the bombing and massacres targeting several areas in Syria and Aleppo in particular."

Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson meanwhile said regime advances in Aleppo were not a "victory for Assad" as many Syrians would continue to reject his rule.

"The best outcome is for President (Vladimir) Putin and the puppets that he supports to get to the negotiating table and do a deal that moves Syria away from the Assad regime," he said.
Firefighters put out a long-burning fire at the Qayyarah oil fields, south of Mosul, on Saturday, December 3.

The city is in Iraqs Nineveh province, once controlled by Islamic State, who booby-trapped the area on their way out. Improvised explosive devices and bombs were planted by the militant group in the vicinity of the well and the roads leading to it, a spokesman for Iraqs Ministry of Oil told Hamrin News.

This video show various views of oil well 39, where fires were put out on Saturday.

At least six of nine burning oil wells at the Qayyarah site had been put out as of September, Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported, quoting Iraqi officials. Credit: YouTube/Rudaw Media Network via Storyful
Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - For much of the past four years, taking a bus between the two sides of Syria's divided second city Aleppo meant an arduous, and sometimes dangerous, 10-hour road trip.

But on Saturday, the trip took just half an hour, as buses travelled directly from the government-held west to recently recaptured neighbourhoods in the east.

At least 10 buses made the trip from west to east, after the army seized 60 percent of the former rebel stronghold in east Aleppo.

People packed every seat and all the standing room on each vehicle for a chance to go back.

"I haven't been to my house for almost six years," said Hala Hassan Fares, on one bus with her husband and son.

"Our house is totally burned, but we're going to see my father, who is 80 years old," she told AFP.

"He stayed behind there, with my sisters and other relatives."

Many of the buses were adorned with pictures of President Bashar al-Assad, as well as the flags of Syria and the regime's staunch ally Russia.

Passengers pressed their faces against the glass to catch glimpses of neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.

At times they spotted homes they recognised, the building of friends or relatives, but in other moments they exclaimed in horror at the magnitude of the destruction.

- Cratered road -

Once the country's economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the war that has killed more than 300,000 people since it began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

In the year after rebels seized east Aleppo in 2012, residents could travel intermittently through a checkpoint in the central Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, though government buses stopped running.

But by 2014, even that route was closed because of persistent sniper fire, and the only way to go from one side of the city to the other was via a circuitous 10-hour trip on private buses.

That route went through territory held by the government, Islamic State group, and rebels.

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On Saturday, the green state bus company buses travelled exclusively through government-held territory, starting at the Razi bus stop in central Jamiliyeh neighbourhood and arriving 30 minutes later in the newly recaptured Masaken Hanano district in eastern Aleppo.

The route was still precarious, with the road dotted with craters and lined in some areas with overturned, burnt out vehicles.

In Masaken Hanano, explosions could still be heard as the government pushed its offensive to recapture all of Aleppo.

Despite the bumpy journey, Fares was happy to be on one of the first buses going east.

"It's true that there are lots of potholes in the road and that makes my stomach hurt, but to me it feels like the smoothest journey ever," she said smiling.

- Finding ruined homes -

At the wheel of the bus was driver Abdullah al-Ali who did his best to navigate the difficult route with his overstuffed vehicle.

"It should be fine, other buses are ahead of us," he said, as he drove through a series of six checkpoints along the route.

At the first and last checkpoints, both manned by government soldiers, the bus and its passengers were inspected.

"I'm so happy for these people going back to check on their homes," he told AFP.

"I felt their happiness... they were so eager to get on the buses whether sitting or standing, so that they could go and see their homes."

The scene at the other end was not an easy one for many families, who arrived to find massive destruction of the sort that has been wrought throughout east Aleppo during the years since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Rubble was strewn across streets, the facades of buildings ripped away, windows gone, and interiors destroyed by flames or weather, or picked through by looters.

Um Yayha, 55, found little left at her home after arriving with her brother and husband.

"There were more of us standing than sitting on the bus. We stood the whole way," she said carrying a large photo.

"This is all we found, this photo of my niece. It is precious to us, and we found a copy of the Koran, so we brought that too."

"There were a few other things in the house, but all of them needed to be thrown away."
Kiev (AFP) - Five Ukrainian police were killed by friendly fire in a tragic accident in which officers mistook colleagues for burglars, officials said Sunday.

Three burglars initially escaped the crime scene amid a gunfight between different security forces, although they were later detained.

"Last night a devastating tragedy took place that killed five police officers," Anton Gerashchenko, a lawmaker and advisor to the interior ministry, wrote on Facebook.

The regional police force confirmed the incident, while President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Twitter that "the causes of this painful tragedy must be investigated and all the guilty must be punished."

The deadly mix-up came as special police staked out a "dangerous gang of burglars" in the small town of Knyazychy, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) east of Kiev, Gerashchenko said.

Two undercover police from the criminal investigation department were watching the scene as special police prepared to detain the gang.

"But a tragic series of chance events ruined the plan," Geraschenko said.

A burglar alarm went off in a house nearby, prompting the arrival of the State Guard Service -- a police force that protects property -- whose officers promptly detained the two undercover police.

The special police officers then mistakenly thought the burglars had captured their undercover colleagues and opened fire.

A firefight between the special police and the National Guard officers lasted just a few minutes but killed five.

"Two State Guard Service officers, two undercover police and a KORD special police officer were killed," Gerashchenko said.

The gang of three burglars fled the scene but were detained as they travelled back to Kiev.

The Prosecutor-General's Office has launched an investigation.
Its been 23 years since Jeff ODonnell published his book about Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugates killing spree in December 1957 and January 1958. So, as you can imagine, ODonnell was taken aback when a TV producer called him to ask about it.

That was in March.

It totally came out of the blue, said the 63-year-old Hastings insurance agent and author, who wrote Starkweather: A Story of Mass Murder on the Great Plains (J&L Lee Co.).

The TV producer told him Investigation Discovery was working on an episode of A Crime to Remember and wanted to use him as an expert. The show flew him to New York City for a three-hour, on-camera interview.

They sent me a list of 100 questions that potentially would be covered in the interview, he said. I had about two weeks to study up for it.

That was beneficial, he said, because I didnt even have the book any more.

A Crime to Remember: Teenage Wasteland will air at 8 p.m. Tuesday on Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable) channel 138. Itll repeat at 11 p.m. Tuesday and 3 p.m. Dec. 11.

Now in its fourth season, A Crime to Remember is the Investigation Discovery network's two-time Emmy Award-winning series that dramatizes headline-grabbing crimes from the 1930s to the 70s.

The tagger for the one-hour program on Starkweather reads: When two love-struck, sex-crazed teenagers embark on a killing spree in Lincoln, Nebraska, it will fall to one local sheriff to put the brakes on this nightmare of a joy ride.

ODonnell, who also has written a series of Westerns, said he wrote the true-crime book because the Starkweather story fascinated him.

My dad was a grade school principal in Beatrice and he would tell stories about parents coming to school armed to get their kids, he said. I also need to find out for myself if Caril was a hostage or a willing accomplice. That was what motivated me to write the book.

In the end, he said, he believes she was a willing accomplice.

The spree left 11 people dead and ended when the two were arrested on a Wyoming highway.

The author has not seen the finished product and admitted to being really nervous because he doesnt know how much the show will use of him, if he performed well or if they believe the conclusions he came to in the book.

But I may sell some more books because of it, he said, noting copies are available online through Amazon.

News and notes

* The Hayley Atwell-fronted Conviction (ABC), which also featured Nebraska Wesleyan graduate Emily Kinney, and the medical drama Pure Genius (CBS) did not receive orders for more episodes beyond the original 13. Notorious, meanwhile, saw its 13-episode order cut to 10. That doesnt bode well for all three new dramas. I dont expect any of them to get renewed.

* ABC will move Quantico, which stars Priyanka Chopra, from Sunday to 9 p.m. Mondays when it returns Jan. 23 from its midseason hiatus. It takes over the time slot vacated by Conviction when it wraps up its first (and possibly only) season.

* BBC One has renewed its popular drama Call the Midwife, which airs on PBS in the United States, for seasons seven, eight and nine. Midwifes holiday special is tentatively scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Christmas Day on PBS. The network will begin season six most likely in late March as its done with the previous two seasons.

* This is interesting: TVLine reported that author Anne Rice is working with her son Christopher to develop a TV pilot and series outline from her best-selling book Interview With a Vampire, saying on Facebook over the years you all have told me how much you want to see a Game of Thrones-style, faithful rendering of this material. Well, I have heard you. I have always heard you. What you want is what I want.
Cisco (Carlos Valdes) is getting a full Vibe costume on The Flash.

Valdes was filming scenes for an upcoming episode in downtown Vancouver on Saturday, Dec. 3. And it seemed that it wasnt an ordinary shooting day for Valdes, as this was the first time he was spotted wearing a full Vibe costume in an outdoor filming location.

Based on the photos captured by YVRShoots, Ciscos Vibe costume is made of leather of different colors. While the costumes dominant color appears to be black, some parts of it are red and yellow. The sleeves and the upper chest portion of the costume are quilted, reminiscent of the outfit of the Prime Earth version of Vibe in the comics.

Its also far different from the costume of Ciscos Earth-2 doppelganger, Reverb, whose outfit is much simpler and only has two tones.

In a snapshot, Valdes is also seen wearing a pair of shoes that matches the design of his super-powered gloves. Does that footwear also have exciting features? Only time will tell.

In addition to Valdes, Grant Gustin (The Flash), Keiynan Lonsdale (Kid Flash) and Violett Beane (Jesse Quick) were also spotted in the same filming location. An unidentified actress wearing a leather long-sleeved top and a pair of fitted combat pants was also seen with the actors on the set.

The exact sequence they were shooting was unclear, but a fan who was on the set at the time wrote on Twitter that the actors were part of an action scene involving Savitar and Grodd.

An all-new episode of The Flash airs on Tuesday, Dec. 6 at 8 p.m. EST on The CW. Check out the full synopsis for Season 3, episode 9, titled The Present, below:

With Alchemy (Tom Felton) and Savitar still looming threats, Barry is unable to focus on the Christmas holiday, and especially his relationship with Iris (Candice Patton). Determined to stop Savitar, Barry goes to Earth-3 to get advice from Jay Garrick (John Wesley Shipp). Wally wants to help Barry fight Savitar and reveals that hes been training with H.R. (Tom Cavanagh), which doesnt go over well with Barry. As Cisco faces his first Christmas without his brother Dante (Nicholas Gonzalez), old wounds are reopened.

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Carlos Valdes as Cisco

Photo: The CW

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The Full House home might become a Full House attraction and were already planning to visit

This past May, a house in San Francisco went up for sale. This wasnt just any house, mind you. This was the Tanner house from Full House. You know, just one of the most iconic houses in television history. The price tag was not cheap. But that didnt stop Jeff Franklin, the creator of Full House, from purchasing the building for a whopping $4 million.

As Jeff Franklin told the Hollywood Reporter:

The house came on the market and really, I just thought, I have to buy this house. Im so sentimental about the house. Its great to have the house in our Full House family and be able to preserve it for the fans. [] Seriously, I love owning this house.

Jeff Franklin wants to share the Full House love with the rest of us, so hes making some changes to the place. The front door is being repainted, back from seafoam green to its iconic Full House red so the hundreds of fans who drop by every day can take snaps in front of it.

Hes also going to redecorate the digs so it looks like the Tanners still live there. So next time youre in San Francisco, you will be able to stop by 1709 Broderick St. in San Franciscos Lower Pacific Heights and take ALL the 90s nostalgia selfies.

The awesomeness doesnt stop there. Franklin is hoping to shoot the third season of the Netflix reboot Fuller House INSIDE the actual Tanner house.

No one has allowed us to shoot in that house since we did our very first stock shoot back in April of 87. Our audience has watched the same cars drive by that house now for 29 years. Its going to be really nice to see some new cars drive by the house.

And Franklin has a SUPER fun idea re: how to celebrate Full Houses 30th anniversary, which falls on September 22nd, 2017.

That will be around the time that all of my construction will be done, so I hope to bring the cast up to the house and have a big slumber party here so people can drive by and actually see the Tanner family living there for one whole day, he explained. That would be pretty fun.

No word yet re: whether fans can actually go INSIDE the house at any point. But Franklin seems pretty set on renovating this house to give the fans what they want. We have faith that hell do right by us TGIF fangirls.

The post The Full House home might become a Full House attraction and were already planning to visit appeared first on HelloGiggles.
ATHENS, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Political uncertainty in Europe has created fresh momentum for a "comprehensive and permanent" solution to the Greek debt crisis before the year ends, a government spokesman said on Sunday.

Euro zone finance ministers will meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss short-term debt relief for Greece, and Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble said it must implement reforms instead of hoping for further debt forgiveness.

Greece remained optimistic for a final debt deal, however, just as Italians are voting on a constitutional referendum on Sunday and a victory for the opposition 'No' camp may push the euro zone towards fresh crisis.

"Everyone realises that Europe cannot stand a rekindling of the Greek crisis, when there are issues with Italy and amid a pre-election period in many European countries," Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told Athens 9,84 radio.

"The general uncertainty which prevails in Europe - which is both political and financial - creates ... a momentum for a comprehensive and permanent solution for the Greek issue."

Athens has received three international bailouts since 2010 and its debt, at about 180 percent of GDP, is still the highest in the euro zone.

Talks between Athens and its official creditors as part of a bailout review have hit a snag on labour reforms including reviving collective bargaining on minimum wage and mass layoffs, in a country where unemployment stands at 23 percent.

Differences also remain over a projected fiscal gap in 2018, when Greece's programme ends, and on energy reforms.

The EU and the International Monetary Fund are at odds over the country's fiscal targets after 2018. The IMF, which has yet to decide if it will participate in Greece's bailout programme, says the target is unrealistic unless Athens is granted significant debt relief and adopts more austerity measures now.

"We've made clear that there is no chance we'll accept what the IMF demands on (austerity) measures and labour reforms," Tzanakopoulos said, calling on EU partners to support Greece.

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Germany, Europe's paymaster, wants the IMF to join the programme but says Greece does not need further debt relief.

Finance minister Schaeuble urged Athens to implement reforms: "If Greece wants to stay in the euro, there is no way around it - in fact completely regardless of the debt level," he told Bild am Sonntag in an interview on Sunday.

Tzanakopoulos said targets beyond 2018 could be discussed after medium- and long-term debt relief measures were outlined. A second Eurogroup meeting could seal the deal, he said.

The latest deadlock has sparked talk of early elections in Greece. The government has dismissed the rumours.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
The Green Party refused to back down in its efforts to initiate a state-wide recount in Pennsylvania. The campaign announced late Saturday it is switching its strategy in the swing state, seeking the help of federal courts instead of state courts.

The campaign announced it would seek an emergency federal court order Monday, hours after dropping a case in the state court. The case was dropped after the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania asked for a $1 million bond.

Make no mistake  the Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania, recount campaign lawyer Jonathan Abady said in a statement. We are committed to this fight to protect the civil and voting rights of all Americans. Over the past several days, it has become clear that the barriers to verifying the vote in Pennsylvania are so pervasive and that the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem that we must seek federal court intervention.

Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein who is spearheading the recount effort said on Twitter: PAs election law and recount process raise serious questions about due process and whether fundamental democratic rights are protected.

The judges outrageous demand that voters pay such an exorbitant figure is a shameful, unacceptable barrier to democratic participation, Stein reportedly said. No voter in America should be forced to pay thousands of dollars to know if her or his vote was counted.

Stein had filed petitions for a recount in Michigan and Wisconsin as well. The recount effort was launched after reports surfaced alleging discrepancies with voting machines. While Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by a slim margin in Michigan, he won Wisconsin by 22,177 votes and Pennsylvania by about 49,000 votes.

Trump Clinton

Photo: REUTERS/CARLO ALLEGRI/CARLOS BARRIA

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The results of all three battleground states must be overturned in order for Clinton to win the presidency but this change is unlikely. Trump won 306 electoral votes surpassing the 270 needed to win the election. On the other hand, Clinton has won more than 2.5 million popular votes. The former secretary of state won 65,152,112 popular votes, compared to Trumps 62,625,928.

The Clinton campaign is supporting the Green Party-led recount effort but several aides believe the effort is a waste of resources.

Believe me if there was anything I could do to make Hillary Clinton the next president of the United States I would, Clinton ally and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said. But this is a big waste of time.

Meanwhile, Trump and his supporters have made attempts to halt the recount in the three states calling the effort a scam.

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Washington (AFP) - A Guantanamo Bay detainee from Yemen was transferred to the Cape Verde islands off Africa's west coast, the Pentagon said Sunday, bringing the number of inmates remaining at the camp to 59.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, about 780 inmates have been housed in the US military-run facility in Cuba, which President Barack Obama had vowed to close during his administration.

According to the Pentagon, detaining inmate Shawqi Awad Balzuhair was no longer "necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States."

The United States and Cape Verde governments ensured that the transfer was "consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures."

Obama's administration is in a race against the clock to find host countries willing to take in the detainees before the end of his mandate on January 20.

The president failed to honor his pledge to permanently close the prison camp, but is determined to leave as few prisoners as possible before stepping down from office.

According to a New York Times database, Balzuhair was captured on September 11, 2002 in Karachi by Pakistani forces participating in an assault on Al-Qaeda militants. He was accused of preparing attacks against US forces in Karachi.

Balzuhair was recommended for transfer in July.

"The United States is grateful to the government of Cabo Verde for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," the Pentagon said.

Guantanamo is a US naval base carved out land on the tip of southeastern Cuba that has been under US control for more than a century. The administration of George W. Bush opened a prison there to hold terror suspects.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington police said on Sunday they detained a man wielding an assault rifle who entered a pizza restaurant that was the target of fake news reports it was operating a child abuse ring led by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her top campaign aide.

An unidentified 35-year-old man was being held for questioning after police were called to the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington near the Maryland border, said Aquita Brown, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department in the nation's capital.

Brown said no shots were fired and there were no injuries.

A Reuters witness at the restaurant with his one-year-old child said it was crowded when the gunman entered, with many families dining.

It was unclear whether the man was aware of the internet postings about Comet. Police said there was no active investigation of child abuse allegations there.

Last month, various media outlets, including the Washington Post and New York Times, reported on internet postings that had sparked death threats against the owner of the restaurant. The attack on Comet was considered an example of how fake news reports that proliferated during the election year impacted people's lives.

The police department said in a statement that it is "monitoring the situation and aware of general threats being made against this establishment."

"Weve directed the staff to notify MPD should they receive specific threats or have concerns about their safety."

The Reuters witness who was inside Comet at around 3 p.m. ET said he was paying his bill when he saw a man entering the restaurant's front door. "It appeared to us he had a long rifle with him. We scattered," he said.

The restaurant began to empty and some staff also exited, according to the witness.

A police department tweet later stated, "Suspect armed w/assault rifle taken into custody."

(Reporting By Richard Cowan; Editing by Mary Milliken)
At UNL, Joshua Valdez majored in French and Russian but also studied German and Spanish. As part of the universitys 16 Fulbright winners this year, Valdez is teaching English at an academy catering to aspiring Olympic athletes in Kazan, Russia. A 2011 graduate of Gering High School, Valdez said he believes he is the first American many of his students have met. Unconcerned about veiled accusations against Russia interfering in the U.S. election, Valdez said he is more concerned about the implications of a Trump presidency with regard to Russias actions in Syria, the Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine and against NATO.

My experience is a bit different than what is typical in Russia. Kazan is an anomaly within Russia, in that half of its population is Russian and the other half is Tatar. This creates an interesting balance of half Christianity and half Islam, half churches and half mosques in the region. It is great because everybody gets along so peacefully. Religion here, in my experience, is never a problem. They coexist so well within this culture.

I have had a few instances in which I have been asked to comment on the election, and generally, those who do ask are, as you might guess, fans of Trump and fans of Vladimir Putin; they are almost always men, as well. They are never belittling in their requests, just more curious. I know many who stayed up to see the results on Election Day. I did prompt my students to ask me any questions they may have about the results, telling them that though it may be an uncomfortable topic, it is an important one. However, the majority of my students are athletes, and honestly do not care too much about the results.

It is worth noting that, being a region heavily influenced by Islam, no one I have talked to has heard of Trump's rhetoric against their religion, which of course isn't necessarily their fault. They can only be as informed as their media allows; and just like in many cases in America, it's becoming harder to find unbiased and credible news sources.

We were advised not to overtly speak about such matters, because you never know who you will offend here, and for those who do care about such matters in Russia, they do predominately prefer Donald Trump. Right or wrong, I do not believe this speaks to their culture. I cannot stress that enough. I have met many people here in Kazan. What I have not met are racists, misogynists or bullies. Their ideals in regard to this matter are formed by a mixture of their own politics and their own media.

I have met many Europeans here, predominately British. Speaking with them on the matter is entirely different in that their views tend to be to the left on the political spectrum -- much more so than in Russia. From them I have had a few elbow jabs and laughs at my expense, as I am the only American in the area. A quick snap about "Brexit" usually helps, but for the most part I have to just absorb those laughs and hope for the best these next four years.

In explaining the victory, I keep it unbiased and bipartisan -- much like my own beliefs. I believe the trouble comes when we let subjective feelings get in the way of what's objectively right. So, I show the red states and blue states, I explain how the Electoral College works, and I explain to them that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, and Donald Trump won the electoral vote. That is the extent of it, and I let them form their own opinions. We were not sent here to change their minds or influence their culture. We are sent here to show them ours, the good and the bad, and that's what I do -- inform.

Regarding the people of Russia, their primary concern is with U.S-Russian relations in which they also believe Trump would be the better option. They do not discuss as much the political ramifications in international affairs such as Syria, the Crimea, etc. It is not covered extensively by their media, and it's not as much on the radar for the Russian people as for the American people. So, what I say, I say in my own opinion, and not that of the Russian people, who by and large choose not to discuss possible anti-Putin politics.

The only real concern I have is that Putin is a much more polished and experienced politician. The going theory behind those who favor Trump is that he would foster a better relationship with Russia than Clinton would. While I do not necessarily dispute this, I believe it puts the U.S. at risk when it comes to leverage in political discussions and agendas, with Putin perhaps having a more experienced upper hand. Clinton, though she would not foster better relations with Putin in my opinion, would be a better match in international political discussions. So both candidates leave the Russians wanting.
The pace of U.S. health care spending picked up slightly last year, reaching a total of $3.2 trillion or $9,990 per person in the country. While a number of factors were at play, the increase was largely due to expanded coverage of individuals who signed up for Obamacare or who took advantage of a major expansion of Medicaid, according to a new study released on Friday.

The new analysis from the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimated that health care spending grew at a rate of 5.8 percent in 2015, less than a percentage point increase from the previous year. Viewed as a share of the entire U.S. economy, health care spending last year constituted 17.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product, up from 17.4 percent in 2014.

Related: Democrats Gear Up for the Fight Over Medicare Changes

Coverage expansions that began in 2014 as a result of the ACA helped increase the percentage of the population with health insurance from 86.0 percent in 2013 to 90.9 percent in 2015, according to a summary of the report. This expansion of coverage continued to affect health spending growth in 2015.

The findings were published online by the journal Health Affairs.

The report comes at a time when President Obamas signature health care program is under its greatest threat yet. President-elect Donald Trump and House and Senate Republican leaders have vowed to push through legislation in January to repeal much of Obamacare and replace it in the coming years. GOP critics have long denounced the subsidized health insurance program for being too costly, for driving up premiums and out of pocket and for imposing onerous regulations and mandates on individuals and businesses.

The new report acknowledges that while overall health care costs have increased after five years of historically low growth, Obamacare has substantially raised the rate of insured Americans from 86 percent in 2013 to 90.9 percent in 2015. The expansion of Obamacare coverage, including millions who acquired insurance for the first time through an expansion of the Medicaid program in more than 30 states and the District of Columbia, continued to impact health spending growth in 2015.

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According to the report, the biggest driver of rising health care cost was accelerated spending for private health insurance, which climbed by 7.2 percent to $1.1 trillion. At the same time, hospital care costs rose by 5.6 percent to $1 trillion and clinical services costs rose by 6.3 percent to $635 billion.

Related: Two Big Reasons Prescription Drug Prices Are So Much Higher in the US

Moreover, Medicare spending on the elderly reached $646.2 billion, a 4.5 percent increase over the previous year. Meanwhile, Medicaid expenditures for the poor totaled $545.1 billion in 2015, a 9.7 percent increase.

Amid concern about soaring prescription drug prices and gouging by manufacturers, the report found that spending on prescription drugs rose 9 percent to $324 billion last year. That constituted one out of every 10 dollars spent on healthcare.

Although the 2015 spending growth of 9.0 percent was slower than the rate of 12.4 percent in 2014, growth in prescription drug spending was faster than that of any other service in 2015, the report stated. Recent rapid growth is attributed to increased spending on new medicines, price growth for existing brand-name drugs, increased spending on generics, and a decrease in the number of expensive blockbuster drugs with expiring patents.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
The incoming presidential administration has women concerned about access to contraception.

In fact, Planned Parenthood of Illinois has seen appointments for IUDs  an implantable form of birth control that can last for a certain amount of years  up 82% since the election, The Chicago Tribune reports.

The Affordable Care Act covers the device, as well as other forms of contraception like birth control pills. But with Republican lawmakers interested in repealing the act, future coverage is now less certain.

So Amino, a consumer healthcare company, compiled data from 620,000 women with insurance to find out how much getting an IUD  specifically the Mirena, a hormonal device that lasts up to five year  costs in every state, looking at the median procedure cost.

It's important to note that for some, the cost might be entirely covered, while others might be on the hook for some parts of the procedure. The median prices ranged anywhere from $187 in Rhode Island to $736 in Alaska.

mirena costs w_ ACA

Here's how much it might cost without the ACA. With the cost of the device added back in, the price gets to be more than $1,000 in most states.

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One of the most notorious scenes in cinema history, the Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider butter rape scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, is making headlines once again, 44 years after the film's debut.

In a recently resurfaced video interview from 2013, Bertolucci confirms that Schneider, who died in 2011, did not know the details of the rape scene ahead of time, and that the graphic nature of the scene was improvised on set.

"We were having, with Marlon, breakfast on the floor of the flat where I was shooting. There was a baguette, there was butter and we looked at each other and, without saying anything, we knew what we wanted," the director said then. "I had been, in a way, horrible to Maria because I didn't tell her what was going on."

Bertolucci said he felt guilty about how he treated Schneider, but does not regret the scene.

Nothing in the resurfaced video is news as the director has been very vocal about his filming of the scene and how it affected Maria Schneider in multiple interviews over the years, most recently during a press tour for his last film Me and You, during which the YouTube video interview was shot.

Bertolucci expressed roughly the same sentiment in a 2013 interview with The Telegraph: "No, I don't feel guilty, but when she died I thought, God, I'm so sorry that I can't apologize for what Marlon and I did with that scene and we decided not to tell her. Her sense of humiliation was very real, but I think what really offended her was that she didn't feel she'd been allowed to prepare for the scene as an actress. But I wanted her reaction as a person, not as an actress."

Celebrities voiced their disgust at the resurfaced news on Twitter. Jessica Chastain said of the revelations, "The director planned her attack. I feel sick," while Chris Evans tweeted that Bertolucci and Brando "should be in jail." Ava DuVernay wrote, "As a woman, I am horrified, disgusted and enraged by it."

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See more reactions below.

To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick. https://t.co/qVDom2gYf6

- Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) December 3, 2016

I second that. This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The 2 of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok. https://t.co/Ft4SArjcgd

- #EvanRachelWould (@evanrachelwood) December 3, 2016

Inexcusable. As a director, I can barely fathom this. As a woman, I am horrified, disgusted and enraged by it. https://t.co/voGRhafy9K

- Ava DuVernay (@ava) December 4, 2016

Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage https://t.co/uvaLogvv7I

- Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) December 3, 2016

@AnnaKendrick47 @colliderfrosty had no idea. Woulda felt rage then too. They should be in jail.

- Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) December 3, 2016

Anna Kendrick noted that Schneider's lack of knowledge of the scene prior to the shooting day was nothing new. "Ms Schneider stated this several years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes)," she tweeted.

"I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script, but at the time, I didn't know that," Schneider said in a 2007 Daily Mail interview.

She continued, "Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie,' but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears.  I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol - I wanted to be recognized as an actress and the whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown."

Schneider added, "I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci."

The actress claims that the late Brando also felt taken advantage of by Bertolucci, so it was easy to imagine how the experience affected the young actress. "Marlon said he felt raped and manipulated by it and he was 48," she said. "And he was Marlon Brando!"

It's also well known that Schneider, who struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues, has blamed the infamous film for the downhill trajectory of her life. She went on to star in renowned films including Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger, but said she was unable to get past the notoriety that came with starring in Bertolucci's film.

Last Tango in Paris was critically lauded but surrounded in public controversy. Bertolucci was put on trial for obscenity in Italy after the release of the movie. Copies of the film were destroyed at the time and Bertolucci was served with a four-month suspended sentence and denied his civil (including voting) rights for five years. Last Tango earned Brando a best actor Oscar nomination and Bertolucci a best director nomination.

Read more: Rome Film Fest: Bernardo Bertolucci on Directors Being Voyeurs
Several celebrities took to Twitter on Saturday to express disgust over the recent uncovering of a 2013 video in which Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci admits he and Marlon Brando conspired against then-19-year-old actress Maria Schneider to film a rape scene. In the well-known scene, Brandos character used a stick of butter as lubricant to simulate sex.

I had been, in a way, horrible to Maria because I didnt tell her what was going on, Bertolucci said.

Reports of the incident sparked outrage from many in and outside of Hollywood. Some called for the director to be stripped of his awards, or to be prosecuted.

To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick. https://t.co/qVDom2gYf6  Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) December 3, 2016

To all the people that love this film- youre watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick, Jessica Chastain tweeted.

Evan Rachel Wood retweeted Chastains comments, adding, I second that. This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The 2 of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok.

I second that. This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The 2 of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok. https://t.co/Ft4SArjcgd  #EvanRachelWould (@evanrachelwood) December 3, 2016

Chris Evans wrote, Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage, which prompted a response from Anna Kendrick.

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Ms Schneider stated this several years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes), Kendrick tweeted back, referring to an interview Schneider did with the Daily Mail before she died in 2011.

Many online readers were confused by Fridays Elle magazine report, which initially dug up the video, for not clarifying whether the sex between Brando and Schneider was simulated. According to Schneider, it was fake, but that didnt make her any less surprised by Bertolucci and Brandos behavior.

I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, Schneider told the U.K. paper. After the scene, Marlon didnt console me or apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take.

Selma director Ava DuVernay, one of the industrys most outspoken advocates for womens rights, condemned the inexcusable incident on social media.

As a director, I can barely fathom this, she wrote. As a woman, I am horrified, disgusted and enraged by it.

Related stories

'Last Tango in Paris' Rape Scene Was Not Consensual, Director Bernardo Bertolucci Admits
An "ingrained culture of torture" has taken root among security forces in Fiji, an Amnesty International report released Monday claimed of the popular tourist destination.

Ten years after a 2006 coup brought commander Voreqe Bainimarama to power, the military remains in control of a justice system that allows torture and other ill-treatment to go unpunished, the report said.

It claimed uniformed officials in Fiji have inflicted severe beatings, rape and other sexual violence on victims, as well as highlighting attacks by police dogs and shootings.

"Not only do the security forces know that torture is taking place, they have stood in the way of accountability," said Kate Schuetze, Amnesty's Pacific researcher and author of the report "Beating Justice: How Fiji's Security Forces Get Away with Torture".

"While the Fijian authorities have ratified the UN Convention Against Torture and pledged to end this cruel practice, it will remain an empty gesture until decisive action is taken," she added.

Bainimarama, who became the elected prime minister of Fiji two years ago, admitted in a recent speech that the culture of "buturaki", or beating, was deeply ingrained in parts of the Fijian psyche.

"We have long had a culture in Fiji of people resorting to violence," he said.

"Whether it is against women in the home, instilling discipline in our children or the police attempting to extract confessions from criminal suspects."

Bainimarama said Fiji had never had a state-sanctioned policy of torture, but admitted to "isolated instances of individuals or groups from the disciplined forces acting in an undisciplined way and resorting to acts of torture and other forms of punishment".

Whatever may have occurred "in the relative turmoil of the past", human rights abuses of any kind were legally and morally unacceptable, he added.

Amnesty detailed five instances where it said people were beaten to death, succumbing to injuries sustained while in custody.

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They included robbery suspect Vilikesa Soko, a 30-year-old father-of-three, who Amnesty said was "beaten, raped and killed" in August 2014.

It quoted a leaked autopsy report saying Soko died of a blood clot in his lung, caused by multiple traumatic injuries, including to his rectum and penis.

In January 2007, two people died from injuries after they were beaten by military officers.

In both cases, the officers served only one month of four-year sentences imposed.

"In Fiji, accountability for torture is the exception rather than the rule," Schuetze said.

"This amounts to a climate of near-impunity. It is the result of the fact that torture is poorly defined in law, immunity is granted, there are few legal safeguards, and there is no independent oversight."
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Before the "Ghost Ship" became the a scene of a deadly fire in Oakland, California, the building was an artist workspace and a makeshift boarding house.

The 4,000-square-foot converted warehouse contained an elaborate maze of slapdash living quarters, artist studios, junk storage and an open space for late-night dance parties, like the one that drew up to 100 people on Dec. 2.

SEE ALSO: California sports teams tweet support and donate after fatal Oakland party fire

Big colorful rugs and well-worn sofas filled the rooms, while a vast collection of pianos, guitars, turntables, paintings and other objects you might find in an antique store lay scattered around the loft-like interior, according to pictures on Ghost Ship's website.

A photo, taken from Ghost Ship's Tumblr page, shows the warehouse's interior before the deadly fire.

Image: Oaklandghostship.com

A rotating cast of a dozen or more tenants carved out living quarters among piles of driftwood and a network of electrical cords. The operators of the artist colony, Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison, reportedly charged residents enough to cover the warehouse rent, pay their own living expenses and fund parties.

Since the building was zoned as a warehouse, not residential space, the illegal tenants were instructed to tell visitors it was a 24-hour artist workspace, according to former residents.

Taken at ghostship just a few weeks ago. It's so horrifying to think of how temporary each of our lives are, and how close we are to death at any given moment. My heart is aching for everyone there. Hug your friends they might not be here tomorrow. #oaklandfire #ghostship  A photo posted by Plamen Nikolov (@nik0_p) on Dec 3, 2016 at 3:25pm PST

We lived in the #oaklandwarehouse #oaklandfire #oakland #satyayuga #ghostship #RipPete #oaklandwarehousefire #eastoakland A photo posted by Biscuit (@goldenlikeabiscuit) on Dec 3, 2016 at 2:37pm PST

The concrete structure could be dark and freezing inside, as electricity was stolen from neighbors and often didn't work, residents said. Ghost Ship also didn't have running water, and neighbors complained of trash piling up outside.

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But for all its quirks, the building was foremost a quarter-block-long fire hazard.

To reach the makeshift second floor, where Friday's concert was held, visitors had to walk up a stairway made partially of shipping pallets. Another staircase led to a boarded up door.

"If you were not familiar with the building and the way that it was, if you were going there for a party, you wouldn't be aware of the maze that you have to go through to get out," Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of the couple who ran the warehouse, told the Associated Press.

Image: OAKLANDGHOSTSHIP.COM

Fire officials said the building didn't have any sprinklers inside, and all the clutter-filled nooks served as kindling.

About 50 to 100 people were believed to be inside the building on Friday when a three-alarm fire broke out at 11:32 p.m., according to Oakland city officials. The roof of the building collapsed onto the second floor, forcing firefighters to temporarily halt their search and rescue operations early Saturday morning.

#breaking: Devastating news. At least 9 dead, dozens missing and injured following #Oakland warehouse fire. Shot this video of firefight. pic.twitter.com/d8xGL2l9lq  Tim Jue (@timjue) December 3, 2016

At least 33 people died in the fire, the Oakland Fire Department confirmed Sunday. Dozens of people may still be missing, although fire officials said some individuals initially reported as missing have been located.

In Facebook groups and in a Google Doc, relatives and friends sought help tracking down loved ones who might've been at Friday's Ghost Ship party.

Facebook also engaged its safety-check feature for the Oakland fire.

"Last night's fire was an immense tragedy," Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement Saturday. "Our focus right now is on the victims and their families and ensuring that we have a full accounting for everyone who was impacted by this tragedy."

Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.
Irans President Hassan Rouhani urged President Barack Obama not to sign an extension of U.S. sanctions against Tehran, calling the bill a violation of the Iran nuclear deal. He also warned the U.S. of a prompt response if the sanctions were extended.

U.S. senators overwhelmingly voted Thursday to extend U.S. sanctions on Iran for ten more years. The bill was then sent to Obama who is expected to sign the bill targeting Tehrans energy, military and banking sectors, the White House said Friday.

The bill, which if not extended will expire Dec. 31, was first put in place in 1996 and has since been extended and added to. While the signing of the nuclear deal between Iran, U.S. and six other world powers lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, Washington still maintains its personal set of sanctions.

Rouhani, during an open session of Irans parliament Sunday, said Obama was obliged to let the sanctions expire.

We are committed to an acceptable implementation of the deal but in response to non-commitment, violation or hesitation in its implementation, we will act promptly, he reportedly said.

Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said: The U.S. president has agreed within the framework of the nuclear deal that he would use his authority to prevent the legislation and enforcement of any measures in violation of the deal, such as the recent act by the Congress.

The White House, however, does not believe the sanctions will affect the nuclear pact.

We believe the Iran Sanctions Act extension is not necessary, but we also believe it won't interfere with the Iran deal, spokesman Eric Schultz reportedly said Friday.

Ali Akbar Salehi, chief of Irans Atomic Energy Organization, said Friday of Irans potential response to the extension of sanctions: We will definitely make no emotional decisions but will make a decision based on prudence, vigilance and wisdom.

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Celebrating Sinterklaas in traditional Zwarte Piet blackface. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Its not only in America that the nationalist, populist debate is raging onward  as exemplified in this years U.S. presidential elections. Theres plenty of a similar nature going on in the rest of the world. Take the Dutch holiday tradition of so-called Black Pete, for example. Known in his native Netherlands as Zwarte Piet, the holiday character has been a winter tradition in the country for some time, and in recent years the tradition has been met with protest and cries of racism  as one would imagine for any character traditionally portrayed in blackface, with Afro wigs, golden earrings, and bright red lips.

While fans of Black Pete claim the portrayal is not racist and should be preserved as part of tradition, this recent video from Vox.com takes a look at some of these consistent arguments for maintaining a celebration that a fast-growing number of people feel is harmful, racist, and long overdue for a change.

The video disputes the two strongest claims for maintaining a Black Pete character in celebrations: thats its ancient tradition and that its not a racist portrayal of a black man, but rather just someone covered in soot.

Zwarte Piet has been a holiday tradition in the Netherlands since the 1850s. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The video points out that Black Pete is, in fact, a relatively recent development among holiday legends. While Sinterklaas stems from stories of St. Nicholas harkening back to the Middle Ages, Zwarte Piet was a modern invention, stemming from a story book from the 1850s, at a time when slavery was quite active in Dutch colonies. And the character was specifically created to represent a Spanish Moor slave.

Sinterklaas, based on St. Nicholas, is celebrated every year in the Netherlands. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In the stories, one of Zwarte Piets jobs was punishing naughty kids by hitting them with a switch or kidnapping them in a knapsack to take them back to Spain.

If you have eyes and a little heart, you would know that this is wrong, says Jerry Afriyie, a Zwarte Piet protester. What we are fighting is institutional racism approved by the government, approved by the police, approved by professionals, approved by schools, everywhere. Its so much embedded in the whole society that it makes it very difficult to bring changes to it, and everyone is using their power to suppress us, and its very difficult.

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Despite the pushback, and even some violence around protests, it appears that parts of Dutch society are ready to move on from the practice. Amsterdams Sinterklaas Party, for the first time this year, will eschew blackface and instead feature a new more inclusive spin on Black Pete, namely Chimney Pete. This character will actually have soot on his face and drops the unnecessary  if you claim the character isnt blackface  grossly exaggerated lips, earrings, and Afro accessories.

As Pam Evenhuis, spokewoman for Amsterdams festivities, points out in the Vox video, Bear in mind the objectives  to have smiles on the faces of the children, to be happy.

Despite a seeming willingness to change, many experts and followers of the topic fear that the backlash against the changes could be even more harmful than allowing Black Pete to exist as is. As Anna P.H. Guerts, a teacher and researcher in Dutch Studies in the U.K., explains:

A large part of the Dutch public, as well as the political establishment, including Prime Minister Mark Rutte, have responded to criticism with outright denial. They refuse to let their fond memories be tinged with the hateful epithet of racism. Anger at the suggestion that their childhood friend might be a racist fantasy has been running so high that riot police had to be on standby for this years opening of the festive season.

It remains to be seen if Chimney Pete will be able to successfully replace the old childhood friend in blackface. But this years festivities should be a sign of things to come, no matter the outcome.
ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would resign following a stinging defeat on Sunday in a referendum over his proposals for constitutional reform.

"The experience of my government ends here," Renzi said in a televised address to the nation after early voting results suggested his 'Yes' camp may have lost the referendum by as much as 20 points.

Renzi said he took full responsibility for the "extraordinarily clear" defeat and that on Monday afternoon he would convene his cabinet and then hand in his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella. (Reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.
Donald Anton Holm, 83, of Lincoln, passed away November 28, 2016. Born August 9, 1933, to Anton and Margaret Holm in Omaha. Received his bachelor's degree from Omaha University, graduated from Grandview Theological Seminary with a ministerial degree and was ordained as a Lutheran pastor.

He served three Lutheran congregations in Michigan, and then returned to Nebraska where he received his master's and Ph.D. degrees in Educational Psychology, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. While in grad school, served as assistant to the pastor at American Lutheran Church and Sheridan Lutheran churches in Lincoln.

He also served as pulpit supply for numerous churches in rural Nebraska. Later, he held various leadership positions at Martin Luther Homes in Beatrice. He finished his career serving congregations in Lyons and Rosalie. He enjoyed a long retirement cruising the oceans and the country in a large RV.

Survived by his loving wife, Ann Louise, and his two children, Peter and Mary, as well as three beloved grandchildren.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Monday December 5, at First Lutheran Church 1551 S. 70th. Memorials should be made in the name of Donald Holm to Tabitha Foundation/The Cove House.
Rome (AFP) - Matteo Renzi's time as Italy's prime minister appeared to be over Sunday as exit polls indicated voters had overwhelmingly rejected constitutional reform proposals on which he had staked his future.

The reformist premier had vowed to quit if he lost the vote on proposals to streamline parliament and the first exit polls indicated he had been left with little other option.

Polls for national broadcaster Rai and the La7 television channel both called the vote decisively for the No camp. Their surveys put the winning margin at an average of 56.7 percent to 43.3.

Almost 70 percent of the electorate turned out to vote, first reports from polling stations indicated, underlining the stakes after Renzi's resignation pledge turned the vote into a de facto referendum on his leadership and record.

The projected result was in line with what opinion polls had been indicating up until November 18, after which the media were banned from publishing survey results.

Renzi was due to make a statement at his Palazzo Chigi official residence around midnight, aides had said prior to the polls closing.

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

The defeat and Renzi's likely departure will plunge Italy in a new phase of political uncertainty and possible economic turmoil.

Presuming Renzi does step down, President Sergio Mattarella will be charged with brokering the appointment of a new government to run Italy until the next general election, which has to take place by the spring of 2018.

- Call for early elections -

The main opposition parties went into the vote insisting that there should be early elections if the proposals -- curtailing the size and powers of Italy's Senate and transferring powers from regions to the national government -- were defeated.

Renzi had gone the final weekend of the campaign insisting he could still win voters around.

And during the day his hopes were raised as turnout in the prosperous north of the country far exceeded that in the south -- a pattern which was seen as a potential boost to the premier's survival hopes.

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But it appeared in the end that voters on both sides were equally energised, leaving the balance of forces much as it had been at the start of the campaign.

Opposition parties denounced the proposed amendments to the 68-year-old constitution as dangerous for democracy because they would have removed important checks and balances on executive power.

Spearheaded by the populist Five Star Movement, the biggest rival to Renzi's Democratic party, the "No" campaign also capitalised on Renzi's declining popularity, a sluggish economy and the problems caused by tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Italy from Africa.

Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Northern League said Renzi should resign immediately and called for early elections.

"God willing it's over. A new era starts tomorrow I hope," he had said earlier in the day.

- Populist victory -

The No vote represents a major victory for Five Star leader Beppe Grillo, who had urged Italians to follow their gut instincts.

But Renzi's backers believed they were voting for overdue change.

Outside a polling station in Rome, business owner Raffaele Pasquini, 37, told AFP he had voted "Yes" in the interest of his two-year-old son.

"We are voting to try and change a country that has been stalled for far too long," he said.

Some short-term market turbulence looks inevitable in the wake of the vote.

And some analysts fear a deeper crisis of investor confidence that could derail a rescue scheme for Italy's most indebted banks, triggering a wider financial crisis across the eurozone.

After the Brexit vote and Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election, the No vote is likely to be interpreted as another victory for populist forces and a potential stepping stone to government for Grillo's Five Star.

But the campaign was not just about popular discontent with the state of Italy. Many Italians of a similar political bent to Renzi had deep reservations about the proposed changes to the constitution.

Under the proposals, the second-chamber Senate, currently a body of 315 directly-elected and five lifetime lawmakers, would have been reduced to only 100 members, mostly nominated by the regions.

The chamber would also have been stripped of most of its powers to block and revise legislation, and to unseat governments.
Tyra Banks turns 43 on Dec. 4, which unofficially doubles as a national celebration of fierceness. The Patron Saint of Smizing might be a year older, but she otherwise seems immune from any side effects of aging, as she continues to look stunning.

This has been a momentous year for the former Americas Next Top Model host. It started with her surprising announcement that shed had a baby boy, York Banks Asla, via surrogate.

Photos of Bankss first child were not shared on social media until July, when we got a good look at the back of him on Instagram. Banks shared the pic to celebrate the historic moment when Hillary Clinton became the first woman to accept a major partys presidential nomination.

A photo posted by Tyra Banks (@tyrabanks) on Jul 28, 2016 at 8:28pm PDT

But motherhood isnt slowing down Bankss legendary fierceness. A quick look through her Instagram will prove that shes still got the Look.

Check out how Lisa Rinna and other aging stars are flaunting their bikini bods, below:
Its double the love for Jensen Ackles and Danneel Harris Ackles!

The Supernatural star announced the news on Instagram Saturday after his son and daughter were born on Friday, Dec. 2.

Danneel, JJ and I are excited to announce the birth of our twins Zeppelin Bram and Arrow Rhodes, Ackles wrote alongside a photo of Dr. Seuss Thing 1 and Thing 2. They were born early yesterday morning. Everyone is doing great! #twinning.

Zeppelin and Arrow join the couples 3-year-old daughter, new big sister Justice Jay, A.K.A. JJ.

Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Babies newsletter.

A rep for the actors, who tied the knot in Dallas in May 2010, confirmed they were expecting a son and daughter exclusively to PEOPLE in August.

Doublemint here we come! Harris Ackles, 37, captioned an Instagram shot of five pairs of boots, each corresponding to a member of their family.

Ackles, 38, and his now-wife began dating in 2006 shortly before the release of their film Ten Inch Hero, becoming engaged three years later.

The twosome each starred on their own CW television series: One Tree Hill for Harris Ackles, and Supernatural for Ackles, on which he still stars as one half of the Winchester brothers alongside costar Jared Padalecki.

RELATED VIDEO: Jensen Ackles and Danneel Harris Ackles are Expecting Twins!

The newest additions to the Ackles family are in for one fun dad. In 2015, the actor took to Twitter to share his reasoning behind joining Instagram shortly after posting a sweet photo of himself and then-2-year-old JJ.

In an effort 2 squash some posers, my daughter is helping me start an Instagram profile, he wrote. Chk it out. Hint: its just my name.




The publication of an oral history of Jon Stewart's time on The Daily Show has brought the former host back into the spotlight, and he continued to offer profound insights into the news media and politics during a New York Times talk earlier this week.

New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik interviewed Stewart and Chris Smith, author of The Daily Show (The Book): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests about Stewart's more than 16 years at the helm of the Comedy Central show. But the comedian also talked extensively about the recent election outcome and how 24-hour news networks covered the presidential campaign.

He also quickly shot down arguments that his version of The Daily Show was responsible for either Hillary Clinton's loss or Donald Trump's win, with dueling online articles just days after the election claiming that if Stewart was still hosting the Comedy Central series, Clinton would have won and that he and the show's legacy helped elect Trump. Stewart looked dumbfounded at both assertions before offering some sarcastic quips about the show's great political influence.

"We were the destroyers of men and creators of empires. I think that generally is satire's role and has always been: the rise and fall of civilization at our whim," he said facetiously, jokingly adding, "I would have probably allowed Hillary to come a little closer in the Rust Belt, but I still think I would have given Michigan to Trump. I had a little something going on where I was going to give [Al] Gore Florida. There was a bit we had planned that was going to hand Florida to Gore."

But in all seriousness, Stewart says he doesn't think satire has that much influence, something he hopes the book illustrates.

Read more: 'Daily Show' Oral History: Jon Stewarts Ruthlessness, Steve Carells Motorcycle and 8 Other Reveals From the New Book

"I think of one of the lessons of this book and what we're talking about is to put satire and culture in its proper place - that controlling a culture is not the same as power. And that while we were all passing around really remarkably eviscerating videos of the Tea Party  that we had all made great fun of  [they were] sitting off a highway at a Friendly's taking over a local school board," Stewart said. "And the lesson there is, as much as I love what we did and I liked it, there is a self-satisfaction there that is unwarranted, unearned and not useful."

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Beyond that, he doesn't think U.S. media outlets, specifically 24-hour news networks like CNN and Fox News, are responsible for Trump's win, despite his issues with them.

"Trump didn't happen because CNN sucks," Stewart said. "CNN just sucks. He happened because that's the push and pull of this nation at all times. It's a push and pull between nativism and a more inclusive multicultural approach. It's a country that writes in its founding document all men are created equal but only white men who own property can vote. That's the earliest contradiction, and we've been fighting that battle ever since."

He added that the Brexit vote proves his point that it's not as though if the news media "had done a better job, this country would've made a better choice," praising the BBC's approach to coverage.

Stewart tackled the phenomenon of fake news, saying he was "enjoying this idea," but he argued thatinformation isn't just invented by a Macedonian teenager, criticizing hyperbolic headlines. And he objected to the relentless focus on Trump's tweets instead of investigating his vague criticism of NAFTA, for instance.

"What's the biggest story today? Donald Trump tweeted that he won the popular vote and flag burners should lose their citizenship. [It's] just some f - ing thing he tweeted, and it's dominating the 24 hours," Stewart said. "But does anyone here understand what NAFTA is and what it did and what it meant to jobs because everyone seems to feel like that was the lever by which the election was won or lost. But if you watch the 24-hour news networks, you have no idea what that means. Or what is it? How many jobs were lost? Were jobs gained? Watch the post-election analysis. Everyone's talking about NAFTA and working-class whites. That seems to be the most important issue now in the entire election. If you were to look back on the election coverage, I would love to know how much of it was geared towards letting people understand, even, forget about NAFTA - what are trade agreements? What do they even mean? What does it mean when Donald Trump says, 'This is a disaster.' Is it a disaster? What is it? Or is automation really at issue with a lot of these job losses? What's the balance?"

Read more: Jon Stewart Talks Donald Trump's Election Victory, Hypocrisy in America on 'CBS This Morning'

Stewart also characterized the difference between CNN and Fox News as the distinction between "weathermen" (CNN, reporting on events as they happen, according to Stewart) and "climate scientists" (Fox News, Stewart argued).

"[Fox News understands] that they have an intention and their entire system is focused on creating a methodology to make that intention resonate and to be able to articulate it explicitly and to place that out there," he explained. "It's a brilliant plan. CNN is just like, 'He tweeted about the flag!' Zoom. 'We're losing our citizenship!' Zoom. And they're not paying attention. Fox, though, is standing behind them. They're an organization that understands how to control weather and climate. Whereas the other one just thinks, 'Who was that guy who was Trump's manager? The one that got fired? Hire him.' The only ones who don't know that are CNN. CNN are like, 'We don't know what happened here?' It's like, 'We threw a ball and you ran after it.' What do you mean you don't know what happened?  It's one of the reasons why Fox anchors are so good at what they do. They're empowered from the top to express editorial authority. If you watch those shows, you are watching people express to you what they feel is important, where they place emphasis. You are watching people conduct information percussively with amplification and different rhythms.  That's why [Chris] Wallace was such a great debate moderator, because he's been trained in the art of editorial authority. The greatest thing that [Roger] Ailes did was he devalued editorial authority from any organization but his own."

The Daily Show host also argued that news organizations can stop the spread of fake news by being more careful about what they report.

"Rumor becomes fact becomes canon really quickly in this system at a speed that you can't imagine," Stewart said. "What happens is someone creates a conspiracy theory on the web and then news organizations cite a website that is in no way credible for that piece of information and they put it on their news site and later on, five days later, when somebody is doing a story about that and they do a search, that comes up but what doesn't come up is the annotation of where that came from and where the source was so that piece of information has been laundered. It's free-floating. And that gets placed into a story about that subject without the qualifying radioactive isotope that tells you it's from a bullshit source and then it goes on. And from now on, whenever anyone does a story about that - credible places, not credible places - that piece of information is now accepted as fact and passed around and used as an example of something real that has happened. If the news organizations really want to tackle fake news, they need to look at where they are aggregating their information. Stories that were sent from a Macedonian teenager to grandmothers' email accounts didn't sway this election. News organizations that lost their credibility and authority because they were not careful enough about introducing toxic and poisoned information and laundering it into a system devalued the authority of real supposed news sources to the point where people are frustrated enough to elect a man who stands for what he stands for."

Read more: Jon Stewart Goes to His Post-Election Happy Place on 'Full Frontal'

Stewart also criticized the media for focusing too much on political campaigns instead of "governance," forcing people to choose sides in an endless contest that leads to deep divisions.

"If a campaign is too long, the fault lines between different tribes in our societies solidify," he said. "And those lines harden to the point where you can't get past that. This country needs time to decompress and have make-up sex. Because what you become is just teams. And the campaigns are just too long."

Stewart argued that people shouldn't demonize those who supported the person they oppose, insisting, "Not everybody that voted for Trump is a racist."

"I don't give a f - what any of you say to me," he continued. "You can yell it at me, you can tweet it at me. They're not all racists. Or they're not giving tacit support to a racist system. We all give tacit support to exploitative systems as long as they don't affect us that badly."

Stewart pointed to the many people who own iPhones as an example of his point. "Guess how those are made, guess who makes them?  It's not different, we all do that. All of our shit stinks and getting beyond that takes incredible work," he added. "This has to stop. This idea that we're all ... that our team is perfect and the other team is demons. And this is not like a 'Kumbaya, let's all get along.' Let's f - ing fight, but let's fight with precision and integrity, and not with just demonization. And I'll say this, I know a lot of first responders. I spent a lot of time in that community. A shitload of them voted for Trump. The same people that voted for Trump ran into burning buildings and saved whoever the f - they could no matter what color they were, no matter what religion and they would do it again tomorrow. So, if you want to sit and tell me that those people are giving tacit approval to an exploitative system  I say, 'OK, and would you put your life on the line for people who aren't like you? Because they did.'"

Read more: Critic's Notebook: Jon Stewart Hilariously Riffs on Election in 'Stand Up for Heroes' Show

As for advice for those worried about Trump's policies, Stewart urged people to rally around those who would be most affected.

"There will be real ramifications to this election," he said. "Who are the vulnerable people? Where are the vulnerable societies? And not in tweets, in practice, in reality. If he tries to deport DREAMers, then that's where everyone has to go, to protect them. If he tries to make a Muslim registry, then everyone has to go there and help them. You have to find the people that are going to be most in jeopardy, I think, and put your attentions on them because now it's about reality."

Stewart went on to argue that despite his jokes leading up to the election that this would be the last one, Trump "can't ruin everything."

"We're still the same country," he said. "Obama didn't change and fix everything, and Trump can't ruin everything. If we're that vulnerable to one guy  that guy? That's how we're going out? This incredible experiment in liberty and democracy that we fought and died for is going to go out with that guy? That can't be how this story ends."
Jonah Hill after the crash. (Photo: AKM-GSI)

Jonah Hill was involved in a car accident in downtown Los Angeles that left his ride very banged up. Luckily, the 32-year-old actor appeared to be uninjured, TMZ reports.

According to the outlet, Hill was driving on Saturday when his black Audi was by hit another vehicle. An onlooker tells PEOPLE that the actor was alone when the accident took place.

In photos from the incident, the passengers side of the black Audi Hill was driving was caved in and dented after the crash. It also appears the airbag on that side of the car was deployed.

The other car involved suffered extensive damage to the front of the vehicle.

TMZ reports that the War Dogs star left the scene in an Uber without receiving any medical attention.

An onlooker tells PEOPLE that Hill appeared shaken after the incident. You could see he was upset and nervous, the source said.

The source added that it appeared that the other driver was at fault and had been trying to make a turn when Hill had the right of way when the crash occurred. The onlooker says tow trucks took the cars away and police arrived on the scene but the Los Angeles Police Department told PEOPLE that there was no evidence of a police report filed regarding the incident.

A representative for Hill was not immediately available for comment.
Here come the supermodels!

Some of the most beautiful women in the world stomped the runway at the 2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, held at the Grand Palais in Paris.

The show, which airs on CBS Monday, will showcase the wild, out-of-this-world designs by the popular lingerie brand. Models this year included iconic VS Angels such as Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima and Lily Aldridge, as well as rising stars like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner.

Victoria's Secret Models

Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

So just how much as these models worth? Launch the slideshow above to see which of the Victoria's Secret models are bringing home the biggest paychecks.







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On NBCs Meet the Press this morning, Kellyanne Conway hit back against accusations that her boss and coworkers on the Donald Trump transition team are sore winners. Im going to hit back on that, Conway told MTP host Chuck Todd. Im an incredibly gracious, humble person. Let me tell you something, every single media outlet, including this one, on good days ignored us and on bad days knocked us.

Conway, sounding a bit like, well, a sore winner, was on the program with Hillary Clinton pollster Joel Benenson to rehash Thursdays angry post-mortem Harvard University showdown between the Trump-Clinton strategy teams.

On MTP, Benenson dismissed notions that Trump has earned a voter mandate, noting that the President-elect lost the popular vote. Conway felt otherwise: Were the ones who understood America.

Despite such differences, though, todays MTP showdown had little if any of the rancor on display at Harvard, the audio of which went viral largely due to the smack talk of Team Clintons Jennifer Palmieri: I would rather lose than win the way you guys did, she said, charging that the Trump campaign provided a platform for white supremacists.

Do you think I ran a campaign where white supremacists had a platform?, an infuriated Conway demanded. Youre going to look me in the face and tell me that?

Conway and Benenson were much kinder and gentler today, with Todd ending the segment by congratulating the two for their low decibels. This is called The Full Jersey, Conway said, explaining that she and Benenson share a homestate. Were both Jersey guys and gals.

New York, Kellyanne, corrected Benenson. New York.

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Donald Trump Blames Media For His Twitter Tirades

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SANTA BARBARA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 5, 2016 / UCSB Foundation's avid supporter, Kenny Slaught has recently congratulated the school on receiving the distinguished award on his blog at KennySlaught.com by posting, The University of California Santa Barbara announced on May 26, 2016 that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations grant winner.

David Low, a professor in UCSB's Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project titled "Strategy for development of enteric pathogen-specific phage". Lows research focuses on a new way to deal with serious bacterial pathogens that are becoming resistant to many once-powerful antibiotics. According to Kenny Slaught, He will engineer phage to selectively target and destroy several pathogenic bacteria to prevent enteric diseases in infants."

David Low was awarded his bachelors degree in biology from UC San Diego, his masters degree in microbiology from San Diego State University and his Ph.D. in cellular biochemistry from UC Irvine. As a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University he conducted research in molecular microbiology in the lab of Stanley Falkow, now a professor emeritus in microbiology and immunology. Low joined the UCSB faculty in 1998 after 13 years as a professor at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2013 and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003.

In 2011, Guillermo Bazan, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was one of the winners of the GCE grant. Bazan's award was for the study of how semiconducting molecules that penetrate the membranes of living organisms can facilitate the conversion of wastewater into energy. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was interested in the possibility of using this technology to alleviate the emerging worlds problem with sanitation, which presents a significant health hazard and negatively impacts peoples dignity.

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http://kennyslaughtnews.com

Founder of Investec Real Estate Companies, Kenny Slaught has been in the industry for more than four decades. A dedicated investment strategist, he manages more than 3 million square feet of property throughout California. With total transactions valued above $1.2 billion, Investec has grown to become one of Santa Barbaras leading real estate firms. An avid philanthropist, Mr. Slaught is involved with many non-profit and community organizations, including Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation and the Music Academy of the West. Contributing to the benefit of youth in the area, he dedicates considerable time to these and other worthy causes.

Kenny Slaught - Founder & President of Investec Real Estate Companies: http://kennyslaughtnews.com

Kenny Slaught - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KennethSlaught

Kenny Slaught  Kenny Slaught's blog: https://kennyslaught.wordpress.com

Contact Information:

KennySlaughtNews.com

www.kennyslaughtnews.com

Kenny@kennyslaughtnews.com





Source: Kenny Slaught
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Havana (AFP) - Mobsters, poisoned cigars, exploding seashells, a contaminated diving suit: The CIA's imagination ran wild in its plots to assassinate Fidel Castro.

As the late Cuban leader's ashes are laid to rest in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba on Sunday, his cause of death remains a closely-guarded state secret.

Castro claimed he was the target of some 600 assassination plots, but it appears likely that it was simply old age that finally felled the death-defying communist leader. He was 90 and no longer president when he died on November 25.

CIA documents and a report by the US Senate's Church Committee in 1975 reveal plots that were cooked up by spooks, including some that never left "the laboratory phase."

- Depilate 'The Beard' -

Some early schemes didn't even involve murdering Castro and seemed more like elaborate high school pranks.

The Church Committee said that from March to August 1960, "the CIA considered plans to undermine Castro's charismatic appeal by sabotaging his speeches."

One idea involved spraying Castro's broadcasting studio with an LSD-like chemical, but it was rejected because the drug was "unreliable."

The agency's Technical Services Division (TSD) treated a box of cigars with a chemical that produced temporary disorientation, hoping Castro would light up a stogie before a speech and make a fool of himself.

The committee also found a scheme "to destroy Castro's image as 'The Beard' by dusting his shoes with thallium salts" -- a strong depilatory that would cause his famous facial hair to fall out.

The plan was to put the substance in Castro's shoe in case he put them outside his hotel room's door to be shined while in another country, but the Cuban leader cancelled the trip.

- Lethal cigar -

The Church Committee's report found "concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965."

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A box of Castro's favorite cigars was treated with "a lethal botulinum toxin so potent that a person would die after putting one in his mouth," the Church Committee said.

The cigars were delivered to an unidentified person in February 1961, but "the record does not disclose whether an attempt was made to pass the cigars to Castro."

- Mobsters -

In 1960, the CIA recruited mafia figures to kill Castro and offered $150,000 if they succeeded.

The agency considered gunning down Castro in a "gangland-style killing," but the mobsters suggested a more discreet method: Slipping a poison pill in Castro's food or drink.

The TSD made a pill containing botulinum toxin, which was given to a Cuban official, Juan Orta.

But after several weeks of attempts, Orta apparently got "cold feet" and abandoned "the assignment," according to a CIA memo.

The poison pill plot was revived after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, but it was abandoned again in 1963.

- Explosive mollusk -

In 1963, the chief of Task Force W, the CIA section handling covert Cuban operations, asked his assistant to see if "an exotic seashell, rigged to explode" could be placed in a location where Castro went skin diving, according to the committee.

The TSD explored the idea but determined it was "impractical."

- Contaminated diving gear -

The CIA considered having James Donovan, a US lawyer who was negotiating with Castro the release of Bay of Pigs prisoners, deliver a "contaminated" diving suit to Castro.

The TSD dusted the inside of a suit with a fungus that would cause a chronic skin disease known as Madura foot. The lab also contaminated the breathing apparatus with tubercle bacillus.

But the poisoned gear never left the lab.

- Poison Pen -

A CIA official gave a high-ranking Cuban official codenamed AM/LASH, who wanted to "eliminate" Castro, a poisonous ballpoint pen rigged with a hypodermic needle "so fine that the victim would not notice its insertion," the committee said.

AM/LASH, later identified as Major Rolando Cubela, was unimpressed, saying the CIA could have "come up with something more sophisticated than that."

A CIA official said he could not remember whether the Cuban threw away the pen or kept it, but AM/LASH stated that he would not take it to Cuba.

In a historical coincidence, the pen was delivered on November 22, 1963 -- the day US President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas.
North Koreas Kim Jong Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju made a rare joint public appearance at an air combat training competition, state media reported Sunday. This is Ris first public appearance in over seven months.

Kim watched the competition and gave field guidance to the Korean People's Air Force and Defense (KPAF) as his wife looked on, state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Sunday. The report, however, did not mention when the event took place.

Kim reportedly praised the KPAFs performance and told them they must be always be prepared to launch an attack against an enemy when such an order is issued. He also added that the air force must lead the Korean Peoples Army through enemy ranks.

Ri was last seen in public on March 28 this year and her absence had sparked rumors of pregnancy while some said she may have had a serious falling out with the North Korean leader.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyos Waseda University who studies Pyongyang leadership, said in October: There have also been reports of instability in Pyongyang and even of several attempted attacks, including by factions in the North Korean military, against Kim last year. It is possible that Ri has not appeared in public because she is being closely guarded.

Ri married Kim in 2012 and the two have at least one child together. She is believed to be 27 years old and some reports claimed Ri was a former member of the countrys Unhasu orchestra and had performed for Kim in 2010. Other reports said her family belonged to the countrys political elite and her mother was the head of the gynecology department at a local hospital.

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Arbil (Iraq) (AFP) - Kurdish restrictions on the movement of goods are harming the recovery of Iraq's Yazidi minority, which was targeted for genocide by the Islamic State group, Human Rights Watch said Sunday.

It said restrictions imposed by the autonomous Kurdish government "disproportionate to any possible security considerations are causing unnecessary harm to people's access to food, water, livelihoods, and other fundamental rights."

It said the restrictions affected the Sinjar area, the main hub of the Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority whose unique faith is despised by jihadists.

The area is theoretically under the authority of the central government in Baghdad but it is largely controlled by the forces of the autonomous Kurdish region.

"The KRG should be working to facilitate access to Sinjar for the hundreds of Yazidi civilians wishing to return to their homes, not adding more barriers to their recovery," HRW said.

It said it had not been able to find a single farmer who had been granted a permit to take his produce to the Kurdish region.

HRW said the Kurdish authorities argued they were concerned about the activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The separatist rebel group, which is also present in neighbouring Turkey, has long had bases in northern Iraq but stepped up its presence there after IS swept through the region in 2014.

It is outlawed by Ankara, which is the closest ally of the Iraqi Kurdish region's leadership.

According to HRW, there were around 360,000 Yazidis in the Sinjar area before 2014, 90 percent of whom were displaced by the violence. Very few have returned.

The United Nations says IS committed genocide against the minority, which is neither Arab nor Muslim and faces continued isolation.

Thousands of Yazidis were massacred when IS took over the Sinjar area in August 2014 and thousands of Yazidi women abducted and turned into sex slaves.
By Diego Ore and Sarah Marsh SANTIAGO, Cuba (Reuters) - President Raul Castro led tens of thousands of Cubans on Saturday in a pledge to defend the socialist legacy of his brother Fidel Castro, who died last week aged 90 and will be interred in the city where they launched the Cuban Revolution. But Fidel Castro's image will not be immortalized with statues nor will public places be named after him, Raul Castro said, in keeping with his older brother's wishes. "This is the unconquered Fidel who calls us with his example," the president, dressed in his four-star general's uniform, told a crowd that had burst into chants of "I am Fidel." "Yes, we will overcome any obstacle, turmoil or threat in the building of socialism in Cuba," the 85-year-old Castro said in a speech before Santiago's packed central plaza. His ashes will be entombed near the remains of Cuba's independence hero Jose Marti in a simple ceremony beginning on Sunday at 7 a.m. (1200 GMT), concluding nine days of national mourning. Raul Castro was joined on the stage by leftist foreign dignitaries and the Cuban political leadership to bid farewell to the man known to most Cubans as "El Comandante" - the commander - or simply "Fidel." "The loss of El Comandante does not mean we will go stagnant," said Ansel Hechavarria, 61, a mechanic hoisting a large Cuban flag just before the 90-minute ceremony began. "We are going to continue his legacy." After two days of events in Havana, Castro's funeral cortege departed on a three-day, 600-mile (1,000-km) journey east, retracing the route that the triumphant, bearded rebels took upon overthrowing the U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959. REJECTING 'CULT OF PERSONALITY' Raul Castro said "millions" had come out to pay tribute. Crowds have greeted the caravan along the whole route, with volunteers sprucing up bridges and houses with fresh paint in Castro's honor. Castro's critics have kept a low profile during the official nine-day mourning period that ends Sunday, but dissident writer Yoani Sanchez took to Twitter to criticize the hagiographical tributes. "The reality has gone from 'delirious' to 'hallucinatory,' like a nightmare that does not end and worsens if we turn on the TV," she said. Although billboards with Castro quotes stand throughout the country and his portrait hangs from numerous government buildings and in private homes, there are no statues or landmarks named after him. "The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality," Raul Castro said, adding that a law banning such homages would be presented to the National Assembly when it meets later this month. With his brother at his side, Castro began his revolution on July 26, 1953, with a failed assault on the Moncada barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. He went on to build a Soviet-sponsored Communist state 90 miles (145 km) from the United States and survived a half century of U.S. attempts to topple or kill him. Castro's socialist government survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, but at the cost of more than a decade of great economic hardship that was relieved by the largesse of his political disciple, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. "In the unipolar world, the one of transnationals that arose after the fall of the socialist bloc, the permanent lesson of Fidel is that, yes, it can done, man is capable of overcoming the most difficult conditions," Raul Castro said. Over the past two decades a clutch of leftist governments rose to power in Latin America inspired by his ideas and fierce opposition to the United States. Several have now been defeated at the ballot box. High-profile friends of Castro, including Bolivian President Evo Morales and former Brazilian Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, arrived for the evening sendoff. Lula was a close ally of Cuba when he was president from 2003 to 2010, as was his successor Rousseff until she was impeached this year. (Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Tom Brown and Mary Milliken)
The fourth annual Gifts of Hope market at First Lutheran Church offers an alternative to holiday gift shopping Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 9 to 1 p.m. At the market, shoppers can cross off a gift from their to-do list and support global or local causes.

Sunni Richardson, Director of Discipleship at First Lutheran Church says the market is grounded in the churchs belief to love thy neighbor.

If God welcomes and loves us, then in turn were called to do the same thing in response to Gods love, she said.

She says the Lutheran congregation has welcomed a number of refugee and immigrant populations into their church and says that loving thy neighbor extends further than Lincoln, Nebraska.

Were beginning to see our neighbors in a whole different way than we did before, which is good she said.

Along with this message, Richardson says the market is also trying to say that theres more to the holiday season than materialism.

Well still give gifts, she said. But how do we give a different kind of gift -- a gift with a cause?

Thats the question that the market answers.

The market includes:

* Gods Global Barnyard or the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) Good Gifts, which offers the opportunity purchase an animal to help a struggling family with hunger and poverty.

* Tanzania Health Projects, which allows the gift giver to sponsor a nursing student or help build a house for health in Tanzania.

* Olivewood Crafts from Modern Palestine, selling Christmas ornaments, key chains and wooden nativity sets that are crafted by schoolchildren in Palestine. The proceeds go back to help fund the school.

* Lincoln Food Bank BackPack Program, the funds raised through this gift will go toward three sponsored Lincoln Elementary Schools and Lincoln High School to help feed students and alleviate child hunger in Lincoln.

* The Weaving Project from Burma, selling textiles created by the Lincoln Karen population and supports immigrants and refugees from Burma and Lutheran Family Services. The Karen group from Burma will show their weaving talents at the market on Sunday.

* Gift a goat to a Kenyan orphan infected with HIV/AIDS in someones name. Dr. Kay Rockwell, a member of the First Lutheran congregation, started this program with Shadrack Matuku Musyoka of Kitui, Kenya. Together they gather the funds and purchase and distribute the goats to the neediest HIV positive families in Voo, Kenya.

* Purchase Olive Oil from the Mount of Olives and the proceeds made from sales will go back to Augusta Victoria Hospital, providing medical services to people in need.

* Lastly, coffee, tea and chocolate thats fair and equally traded.

Richardson says theres a gift for everyone at the market. She says her father was a hog farmer, so the logical gift would be to gift him a donation of a hog to someone in need. For her sister-in-law who is a nurse, she gifted her something to support the medical field.

You know youre doing some really positive Christmas shopping and making a difference, said shopper Diane Reece who left the market with a number of goodies: including fair trade coffee, chocolates, ornaments to support the Palestinian school and a framed weaving by the local Karen community.
On the anniversary of Martin Van Burens birthday, Constitution Daily looks at the man who helped to create our modern two-party political system, well before he became eighth President.



There has been a bit of a renaissance of interest in perhaps the hairiest of presidents, Martin Van Buren. But theres more to Van Buren than whiskers and a three-part name. Van Buren is an important historical figure, but not as a President. It was Van Buren who mastered the political system in New York State in the generation after the Founding Fathers.

His hard work and guile, coming from modest roots, created a template for modern political parties. And his role as Andrew Jacksons most-trusted political ally was critical in creating the first modern political party, the Democratic Party in 1832, and fostering an environment for an active opposition, the Whig Party.

In short, we can give Van Buren some of the credit, or blame, for the two-party political system that has dominated American politics for nearly 200 years.

And then, in 1837 it all fell apart for Van Buren, who had a rocky, at best, four-year run as president, succeeding Jackson. He was routed in a re-election attempt in 1840 by the clean-shaven William Henry Harrison, as Van Buren inherited and worsened a four-year economic depression caused by Jacksons fiscal policies.

The man who was the most powerful political operative in the United States in 1836 was not a big factor in politics after 1841, except for a two brief runs at recapturing the White House and an effort to undermine his own political party in 1848.

So how did Van Buren master the political system, only to become an ineffective president?

Van Buren was born on December 5, 1782, and he grew up listening to political arguments at his fathers tavern in Kinderhook, New York. Among the guests at the tavern, which was between Albany and New York City, were Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Too poor to attend college, Van Buren gained an apprentice position at a legal office, and worked his way through the rough-and-tumble New York political system with agility and tact.

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He was admitted to the bar in New York in 1803 at the age of 21, and he was courted by Burr, among others, as a political operative. Van Buren sided with DeWitt Clinton (and not Burr) and then opposed him.

Van Buren was a strong believer in the Jeffersonian ideas of limited national government and states rights, and he strongly opposed the Federalist Party. He also had the ability to form backroom political alliances and turn out the vote, when needed.

To defeat Clinton, Van Buren built a political party machine called the Albany Regency. His machine won out over Clinton by 1821 by learning how to control office appointments and political conventions, without breaks within their ranks.

In 1821, Van Buren was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. He arrived in Washington as the head of the political party that controlled the biggest state in the union. But Van Buren couldnt unite a deeply divided Democratic-Republican Party that fielded four candidates for president in 1824.

Van Buren backed William Crawford, who had strong Jeffersonian principles, in the 1824 race, and when John Quincy Adams (the son of the Federalist president John Adams) won the disputed election over Jackson, Van Buren quickly sided with Jackson and led the effort to form a coalition that would become the Democratic Party.

The 1828 election gave Van Buren the chance to use his organizational skills to help get Jackson elected. More than 800,000 new voters took part in the election, and Van Buren also won election as New Yorks governor. He left that post to become Jacksons secretary of state, a position that had been usually reserved for politicians who would run for the White House.

Van Buren became a key member of the Jackson cabinet and then he became Jacksons running mate as vice president in 1832. In the second Jackson administration, Van Buren was involved in the presidents battles with Henry Clay and Nicholas Biddle over banking policy, which led to the formation of an opposition party called the Whigs.

Jackson had endorsed Van Buren as his successor for several years, and in 1836, Van Buren ran for president against three regional Whig opponents. Thanks to the organizational skills of Van Burens Democratic Party, he gained more votes than Jackson had in 1832 (although he had a smaller number of electoral votes).

He also reportedly said later in life that his two happiest moments were winning the White House and then leaving it after four years in office.

The Van Buren presidency is considered average, at best, by historians. The deep financial crisis triggered by Jacksons fiscal policies led to the new president receiving the nickname Martin Van Ruin.

The Panic of 1837 started about two months into Van Burens only term in office. Bankruptcy, unemployment and food riots followed. Van Buren was philosophically opposed to federal government intervention, although he lobbied for an independent treasury. But he was committed to seeing through Jacksons policies.

Van Buren was never able to escape the blame for an economic recession that lingered into the 1840 election season. This time, the Whigs got behind one candidate (Harrison), used the Democrats political tactics during the campaign season, and routed Van Buren in the November election.

After the 1840 defeat, Van Buren slowly faded away from the American political scene. He was unable to capture the 1844 Democratic presidential nomination after former President Jackson threw his support behind the little-known James K. Polk.

Van Buren didnt have a role in the Polk administration and he again sought the presidential nomination in 1848, but his anti-slavery position was shunned at the partys convention. Van Burens supporters walked out of the convention and formed their own party, the Free Soil Party, with the intent of disputing the hopes of Lewis Cass, the Democratic nominee from Michigan.

The tactic worked. The Free Soil Party didnt win any electoral votes, but it kept the Democrats from winning 48 electoral votes in New York and Massachusetts, which was enough to swing the election to the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. The election also ended Van Burens political career, after he helped to undermine the party he had created.

In later years, Van Buren spent time with his family, wrote an autobiography, and posed for a few photographs.

The popular image of Van Buren sporting gigantic muttonchops sideburns was taken between 1855 and 1858 by the famed photographer Mathew Brady, as Brady was seeking to publicize his New York studio. Van Burens official presidential portrait was also painted later in his life. The official 1828 portrait from New York state (commissioned for his brief term as governor) shows a red-headed Van Buren sporting much-shorter facial hair.

Whether Van Buren, or John Quincy Adams, was the first president to have excessive facial hair is a debate for another day.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

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10 little-known facts about President Theodore Roosevelt
Mike Pence said there was nothing to read into regarding Donald Trumps phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, calling the conversation a courtesy call on NBCs Meet the Press.

She reached out to the President-elect, and he took the call from the democratically elected leader of Taiwan, Pence told host Chuck Todd, noting the call on Friday was one of more than 50 Trump has held with world leaders since winning the election.

The leaders of the U.S. and Taiwan have not spoken directly since 1979, when the U.S. restored diplomatic relations with Beijing. The diplomatic community was stunned by the call, but Trump has downplayed it, noting that the U.S. sells Taiwan military equipment.

The phone call between Trump and the President of Taiwan angered China, whose Foreign Minister called the move a small trick by Taiwan, according to Hong Kongbased Phoenix TV. Pence said the Chinese government had no reason for concern, and that Trumps transition team would probably not reach out to officials there to calm the diplomatic waters.

The waters here seem like a little bit of a tempest in a teapot, Pence said, later adding, I think most Americans and frankly most leaders around the world know this for what it was. And its all part and parcel. I think youre going to see in a President Donald Trump a willingness to engage the world but engage the world on Americas terms.
The Daily Beast

GettyRussia announced Wednesday that it views Norways work with other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as provocative, warning that Norways efforts to bolster its military in response to Russias invasion of Ukraine this year will likely be the death knell for Oslo-Moscow relations moving forward.Oslo is now among the most active supporters of NATO's involvement in the Arctic, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Wednesday, according to TASS. We cons
Lincoln City Libraries is hosting the Thinking Money educational exhibit for young adults and their parents Dec. 15 through Jan. 23.

The opening reception begins at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 15 on the first floor of Bennett Martin Public Library, 136 S. 14th St. Sessions on budgeting, building credit, preventing senior fraud, identify theft and healthy eating on a budget will be offered at library locations Dec. 17 through Jan. 15.

The workshop schedule includes the following sessions:

* Dec. 17, 2 p.m., Bennett Martin Public Library: Budgeting to Reach Your Goals and Reduce Stress  Jennifer Davidson from the Nebraska Center for Economic Education will present an informal session on creating and using a budget to make shopping -- especially during the holidays -- less stressful.

* Dec. 28, noon, Bennett Martin Public Library: Teen Budgeting Bonanza  Teenagers will compete to see who can stretch their budget the furthest and achieve the perfect meal. No money is necessary, lunch will be provided and space is limited. Call 402-441-8546 to register.

* Jan. 7, 10 a.m., Walt Branch Library, 6701 S. 14th St.: Give Yourself Credit  Dr. Tammi Fischer, Nebraska Council on Economic Education, will discuss how understanding credit plays an important role in lending. Participants should bring a smart phone or mobile device with internet access.

* Jan. 9, 6:30 p.m., Eiseley Branch Library, 1530 Superior St.: Preventing Senior Fraud  Ryan Sothan from the Nebraska Attorney Generals Division of Consumer Protection will share ways for seniors and their families to arm themselves with tools to guard against consumer fraud.

* Jan. 14, 11 a.m., Bennett Martin Public Library, fourth-floor auditorium: Healthy Eating on a Budget  Becky Barnard, Nebraska Council on Economic Education, will share healthy recipe ideas and shopping and budgeting tips and give a cooking demonstration with samples. During this session, children are invited to the fourth floor conference room to listen to a story with a financial theme while their caretakers attend the workshop.

* Jan. 15, 2 p.m., Gere Branch Library, 2400 S. 56th St. and Jan. 18, noon, Bennett Martin Public Library: Protecting Your Identity Between Work and Play  Ryan Sothan from the Nebraska Attorney Generals Division of Consumer Protection will give an all-ages presentation explaining how identify theft occurs and what to do when it happens.
By Aziz El Yaakoubi RABAT (Reuters) - Moroccan authorities have arrested a suspected militant accused of acting as an intermediary between Islamic State commanders and a cell dismantled by French authorities last month, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday. France said late last month it had foiled a possible attack after detaining seven people, including some who had been in the ranks of Islamic State in Syria. "For his mission (the suspect) met Islamic State messengers on the Turkish-Syrian border and he received instructions ... to pass on to the group that has been arrested on French soil," the Moroccan ministry said in a statement. The suspect was supposed to travel to France via Germany using a forged passport, the ministry added. It gave no details about the suspect but a security source told Reuters he was a Moroccan national who lived in Spain. "When he saw that the group was arrested in France he came to Morocco from Turkey and was arrested at the airport when his plane landed," said the security source, who declined to be named. France said the seven people, who are of French, Moroccan and Afghan origin and are aged 29 to 37, were taken into custody after an eight-month operation that ended with the DGSI internal intelligence agency laying a trap. The arrests in France came a year after a state of emergency was imposed to counter a wave of Islamist attacks and at a politically sensitive time ahead of next spring's presidential election in which security will be a major theme. Morocco's Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), the judicial part of the Moroccan domestic intelligence service, often announces it has broken up militant cells accused of plotting inside and outside the kingdom. Hundreds of fighters from Europe and Maghreb states such as Tunisia and Algeria have joined Islamist militant forces in Syria. Some are threatening to return and create new jihadist wings in their home countries, security experts say. The Moroccan government has said it believes around 1,500 Moroccan nationals are fighting with militant factions in Syria and Iraq. About 200 have been jailed after returning home and some 500 have been killed in battle. (Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Gareth Jones)
By Jackie Cai and Jake Spring

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - China's wealthiest shoppers are spending at home again, roused from a three-year slumber by a weaker yuan, lower prices and a crackdown on overseas sales agents - a welcome boost for the world's luxury brands.

China's rich make up almost a third of the world's luxury shoppers, up from only 2 percent around the turn of the millennium. They are a driving force for global luxury, even after a slight dip this year when fewer traveled abroad, in part due to militant attacks in Europe.

For the past three years, a crackdown on corruption and ostentation by President Xi Jinping dampened sales: big names such as LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, shuttered stores, particularly in second- and third-tier cities.

In 2016, however, fashion houses, jewelers and buyers say that is changing, as China tries to shift away from an economy driven by heavy investment in infrastructure and encourages consumers to shop.

Burberry, Gucci-owner Kering, and Tiffany have all reported an uptick in their most recent China earnings, striking a note of optimism as the industry enters its critical weeks between the Christmas rush and Chinese New Year.

"Everyone is benefiting from more traffic at the Chinese (luxury) shops," said Bruno Lannes, a Shanghai-based partner with consultancy Bain. It estimates a four-percent increase in mainland China sales after three years of decline.

"Some brands in China are expecting 2016 to go back to their peak in 2012, though the mix is different. I expect some brands will beat that record," Lannes said.

SHOPPERS FOR HIRE

On the streets of Shanghai and Beijing, shoppers say they are, indeed, splashing out more often at home.

The depreciating yuan means the currency doesn't buy as much abroad, while luxury brands such as Chanel have moved since last year to narrow once huge differences between prices in China and overseas.

At the same time, the government has cracked down on daigous, shoppers-for-hire who trade off that price imbalance and buy goods more cheaply overseas for mainland Chinese.

Story continues

"Some brands price their products in China closer to the overseas markets, such as Chanel," said Emma Yu, a 32-year-old housewife exiting a Cartier store while shopping for a handbag in Shanghai's financial district. "If there's only a few thousand yuan difference, I would just buy it at home."

Another shopper outside a Louis Vuitton store in central Shanghai, an accountant at a multinational who gave her surname as Lu, said she was also buying more at home, especially if not traveling.

"I definitely bought more luxury items at home than in the past since last year - a lot more - because it's convenient to buy things here," she said, standing with a friend as she compared a $5,700 purse she had bought with one in the shop window.

BEARING FRUIT

Mainland China has been seeing positive sales for a while, Johann Rupert, chairman of Compagnie Financiere Richemont, told investors last month.

"It seems that the Chinese government's intent to promote growth through consumption rather than just investment is bearing fruit," Rupert said.

Richemont, the owner of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and a dozen other luxury brands, reported "marked" October sales growth in mainland China in its presentation to investors.

Kering, owner of Gucci and Saint Laurent, reported Asia Pacific sales were up 24 percent in the third quarter as many Chinese buyers stayed home. Burberry reported a double-digit increase in China in the second quarter, excluding the impact of changes to its offerings in Beijing.

Local brands have benefited less, analysts say. A spokesman for jeweler Chao Tai Fook said sales in greater China stabilized in September and October compared to declines in the previous two quarters.

The picture is also less rosy in Hong Kong, once the prime destination for Chinese shoppers wanting to avoid the hefty taxes of mainland without requiring extensive travel. Even so, after drops of over 20 percent a year in the last two years, sales have stabilized, analysts and luxury companies said.

Mainland shoppers willing to splash out abroad, and wanting a more original high-end experience, prefer to go to Japan, Europe or even Macau, said Mariana Kou, an analyst at investment bank CLSA. Tax incentives are no longer enough.

"Hong Kong has become a bit boring," Kou said.

(Additional reporting by Clara Ferreira Marques in SINGAPORE, Donny Kwok in HONG KONG and BEIJING newsroom. Editing by Bill Tarrant.)
Vienna (AFP) - Austria's Norbert Hofer, who swiftly conceded defeat in an election Sunday in which he was bidding to become the EU's first far-right president, is an ideologue and no fan of the bloc.

The mild-mannered 45-year-old, a gun enthusiast who has walked with a cane since a 2003 paraglider accident, is a key figure in the anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe).

It was Hofer, together with chief FPOe strategist Herbert Kickl, who persuaded party leader Heinz-Christian Strache to tone down the party's often aggressive anti-foreigner message and to focus on issues like inequality too.

Together with a savvy use of the internet, the strategy paid off. The FPOe is currently scoring over 30 percent in polls ahead of the next general election, scheduled for 2018, with voters deserting the more mainstream parties.

It also helped Hofer -- with the slogan "unspoilt, honest, good" -- top the presidential election first round in April with 35 percent and knock out the two government-backed candidates.

In a runoff against independent ecologist Alexander Van der Bellen in May, he lost by just 31,000 votes. But the FPOe cried foul, securing this Sunday's re-run because of irregularities.

The aeronautical engineer turned politician, a father-of-four, was born into a middle-class family as the son of a local councillor from the centre-right People's Party.

He joined the FPOe's local branch in 1994 and became party secretary two years later, before turning close advisor to Strache, successor to the controversial Joerg Haider.

- Protect the borders -

Immigration was not a major issue in Hofer's campaign. Instead he focused on themes like wanting more Swiss-style direct democracy and economic reforms.

While data show his core support to be among working class men without a school diploma, and in rural areas, he has also won backing right across Austrian society.

But despite the softer image, the FPOe remains the natural party for the considerable section of society uncomfortable with globalisation and issues like gay marriage and, most of all, immigrants.

Story continues

Hofer pandered to this, albeit mostly in moderate tones, calling for Austria's borders to be "protected" and warning against the "dangers of a wrong immigration policy".

Islam "has no place in Austria" since it poses a danger to the country's Judeo-Christian and humanist values, he told a young Austrian Muslim on a talk show in May.

Unguarded comments also show a sharper side. Van der Bellen is a "communist", he said on November 11, and no Muslims work in caring for the elderly -- both claims wildly inaccurate.

He is an honorary member of a pan-Germanic student fraternity that according to its founding charter rejects the "historically incorrect fiction of an 'Austrian nation'".

Hofer, like other FPOe members, has also on occasion worn a cornflower, used by banned Austrian Nazis in the 1930s to identify each other. He insists it's for the pretty blue, the FPOe's colours.

And while Hofer may strike a more moderate tone, his party does not. Strache recently called German Chancellor Angela Merkel "the most dangerous woman in Europe" and warned of impending "civil war".

Analyst Thomas Hofer said that he had toned down the party's message because the FPOe's base was not enough to win over enough voters to win the presidency.

But don't be fooled, he said. "He is the one who is responsible for the current FPOe programme. Of course he has the same policy issues as... Strache," the expert told AFP.

- 'Europe of fatherlands' -

Hofer was also deeply critical of the European Union, at least in its current "centralised" form. "If Austria wasn't a member and wanted to join, I would vote 'No'," he has said.

He wants a "Europe of fatherlands" and a referendum on Austria's EU membership -- if Turkey joins the bloc or if Brussels takes too much power from member states.

Since 1945, Austria's president has performed a largely ceremonial role, but the constitution gives the head of state considerable powers -- untapped so far -- including to fire the government.

"You'll be amazed what's possible," Hofer said in April, a comment he later disavowed but which his opponents have made much of. Now Austria will never know what he meant.
mike pence

Vice President-elect Mike Pence attempted to tamp down criticism of President-elect Donald Trump's call on Friday with the President of Taiwan, the first call between the leaders of both countries since 1979.

In favor of its relationship with China, the US government does not maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan because of a decades-long dispute between the island and China over governance of Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.

In several interviews Sunday, Pence described the conversation between Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen as "nothing more than a courtesy call," noting that it was "one of more than 50 telephone calls that the president-elect has taken from and made to world leaders."

"She reached out to the president-elect and he took the call from the democratically elected leader of Taiwan," Pence said on "Meet The Press."

He added: "I think most Americans, and frankly most leaders around the world, know this for what it was. And it's all part and parcel. I think you're going to see in a President Donald Trump a willingness to engage the world but, engage the world on America's terms."

Pence argued that President Barack Obama also broke foreign policy norms by visiting Cuba, though Obama's detente with the island nation was the result of years of planning and negotiation between the two countries.

"To be honest with you, the waters here seem like a little bit of a tempest in a teapot. I mean, it's striking to me that President Obama would reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba and be hailed as a hero. And President-Elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan and it becomes something of a thing in the media," Pence said.

The vice president-elect also suggested that China should not have been upset over the call, repeating his claim that the US will "deal with policy" after Trump takes office.

"I would just say to our counterparts in China that this was a moment of courtesy. The president-elect talked to President Xi two weeks ago in the same manner that was not a discussion about policy. And we're going to be preparing after January 20 to advance now what will be President Trump's agenda on the world stage, and we'll deal with policy at that time.

Story continues

For its part, China also publicly downplayed the call, yet appeared to deliver a warning to Trump about making overtures to Taiwan.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi characterized the call as "just a small trick by Taiwan," but the country lodged a formal complaint with the US over the call.

"The one-China policy is the cornerstone of the healthy development of China-US relations, and we hope this political foundation will not be interfered with or damaged," Yi said.

Friday's call quickly garnered criticism from many Democrats, as well as some US foreign-policy experts. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, criticized Trump on Twitter for not anticipating diplomatic blowback.

"What has happened in the last 48 hours is not a shift. These are major pivots in foreign policy w/out any plan. That's how wars start," Murphy tweeted.

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VIENNA, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Novartis Chief Executive Joe Jimenez has played down suggestions the Swiss drugmaker could bid for Swiss biotech group Actelion, which is in talks with U.S. healthcare group Johnson & Johnson about a transaction.

Asked by Swiss Sunday newspaper SonntagsBlick whether Novartis could emerge as a white knight, he said: "We have always said that we will concentrate on complementary acquisitions in the range of $2 billion to $5 billion." He did not elaborate.

Actelion is worth nearly $20 billion at Friday's closing price.

Jimenez said Novartis was still gauging what impact President-elect Donald Trump could have on the U.S. healthcare system and was watching what his priorities would be.

"Less has been invested in the United States in recent years, probably because of high corporate taxes. If these are now cut, as is being signalled, that is certainly positive," he said.

He said Novartis should have intervened earlier and more decisively at its Alcon eyecare business, which Novartis bought in 2010 and had flourished until 2014, when innovation waned.

"We are disappointed that the turnaround is taking so long but I am convinced that the new management will get the job done. As far as the future of the business is concerned we are keeping all options open," he was quoted as saying.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by Francois Murphy)
VIENNA (Reuters) - Novartis Chief Executive Joe Jimenez has played down suggestions the Swiss drugmaker could bid for Swiss biotech group Actelion, which is in talks with U.S. healthcare group Johnson & Johnson about a transaction.

Asked by Swiss Sunday newspaper SonntagsBlick whether Novartis could emerge as a white knight, he said: "We have always said that we will concentrate on complementary acquisitions in the range of $2 billion to $5 billion." He did not elaborate.

Actelion is worth nearly $20 billion at Friday's closing price.

Jimenez said Novartis was still gauging what impact President-elect Donald Trump could have on the U.S. healthcare system and was watching what his priorities would be.

"Less has been invested in the United States in recent years, probably because of high corporate taxes. If these are now cut, as is being signaled, that is certainly positive," he said.

He said Novartis should have intervened earlier and more decisively at its Alcon eyecare business, which Novartis bought in 2010 and had flourished until 2014, when innovation waned.

"We are disappointed that the turnaround is taking so long but I am convinced that the new management will get the job done. As far as the future of the business is concerned we are keeping all options open," he was quoted as saying.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by Francois Murphy)
The operator of the converted warehouse in Oakland, Calif., where a fire broke out during a dance party on Friday night, killing at least 33 people, has been widely criticized over his initial response to the tragedy.

Everything I worked so hard for is gone, Derick Ion Almena wrote in a Facebook post early Saturday morning. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound  its as if I have awoken from a dream filled with opulence and hope  to be standing now in poverty of self worth.

Almenas post was met with immediate backlash from Facebook users for omitting any mention of the victims.

Not one mention of the people burned to death in your death trap building, one wrote. You are a real piece of work.

All you worked on? What about those who have died? wrote another. I lost two very close and dear friends in the fire and all you seem to care about is whatever material stuff you owned, which can be replaced unless the lives your death trap has taken.

Derick Ion Almena (Facebook)

Lawyer up, buddy, another comment read. Youre going to need it.

A Facebook message to Almena was not immediately returned.

Almenas initial response to the fire. (Facebook)

Officials expect the death toll to rise, as just 20 percent of the charred remains of the 4,000-square-foot building, known as the Ghost Ship, have been searched.

Former tenants described the space to the Associated Press as a tinderbox with few exits, a rickety makeshift staircase, piles of driftwood and a labyrinth of electrical cords.

A Tumblr page with photos taken inside the warehouse prior to the blaze seems to confirm that description.

If you were not familiar with the building and the way that it was, if you were going there for a party, you wouldnt be aware of the maze that you have to go through to get out, said Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of Almenas, told the AP.

Slideshow: Fatal warehouse fire in Oakland >>>

It was just a labyrinth of little areas, Oakland Fire Department operations chief Mark Hoffmann told reporters.

Story continues

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Almena lived on the second floor of the warehouse with his wife, Micah Allison, and children, who were staying at a hotel during the Friday event.

Allison declined to talk about conditions at the warehouse in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, including whether there was a sprinkler system or if people lived there.

Im not going to speak to anybody about that kind of stuff, Allison said. Im going to have to speak to my lawyers before I answer any questions.

Darin Ranelletti, interim director of the citys planning and building department, told the paper that the warehouse had been under investigation to determine whether it was being illegally used for housing.

We had reports that people were living there, but were still trying to confirm them, Ranelletti said.

The daughter of the warehouses owner said that the building was leased for studio space  and not for living.

Nobody lived there, Eva Ng told the Los Angeles Times. It was an art collective.

Ng said she had asked her leaseholders about reports of people living there but had been reassured no one was.

They said sometimes some people worked through the night, she said. But that is all.

According to Oakland Alameda County court records, Almena was arrested in mid-January and spent two days in jail for receiving stolen property. On Jan. 25, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to 36 months probation.

In a Facebook post on Aug. 30, Almena invited fellow artists to the Ghost Ship, which he had also called Satya Yuga.

Satya Yuga once again spins the riddle trick of twisted wood and bone, he wrote. The living offering of our sacred seat, new fusions of unprecedented beauty. Shadowed and familiar  Our Ghost Ship. In this time, crashed upon the shore of Babylon. Resurrected as a tattered temple tethered to impossible promises and broken truths  an invitation to seduce wandering lovers and desperate characters. Come sit with us. Sip Chai with us. As honored guests. And friends. To witness our fantastic and tender existence.
Dec. 4, 1936

Auburn folks who have some broken or discarded toys at home can help in the good work by notifying one of the Meaker stores. A Meaker driver will call for the toys and take them to the Hose 3 firehouse in Clark Street, where the firemen will fix up such articles as are in need of repair. The articles donated will be distributed in accordance with a carefully prepared list in time for Christmas to bring happiness to many Auburn youngsters.

Last year, nearly 1,000 toys were repaired by Auburn firemen and found their way to more than 500 Auburn kiddies.

Dec. 4, 1961

(Pictured)

KLEIBER GRABS BALL  Paul Kleiber, husky Auburn center, reaches high into the air to grab a rebound in Saturday's game at Waterloo. Behind Paul is Ronnie Bobbett (21) who contributed 10 points, and under the basket is Chauncey Johnson. Waterloo rallied in the last four seconds to nose out the Maroons, 55-53.

Dec. 4, 2006

The usually quiet library was filled with the sounds of celebrations  and sad goodbyes. Countless patrons, former employees and friends lined up to hug or shake hands with Seymour Public Library director Stephen Erskine on Sunday at his retirement party. Despite the growing queue, ever the gentleman, Erskine took his time with people, greeting them with a How do you do? and thanking them for coming.

Dec. 4, 2011
Johnathon Kurth and five others died in the crash after his Honda Accord struck a tree. The car had been traveling 100 mph moments before the crash, police said Monday.
Paris Hilton

Photo: World Red Eye

An Art Basel tradition, Paris Hilton hosted the launch of Galore magazines Art Issue at WALL Miami fRIDAY, with a DJ set that had guests dancing and snapping away, including "#RichKids of Beverly Hills" star Dorothy Wang and Ezra J. William who received CBD lollipop edibles swag bags.

Ezra J. William, Dorothy Wang

Photo: World Red Eye









Making a fashionably late entrance at 2:30 a.m., the heiress posed for photos, and, of course, selfies. Not much for words, Paris hyped up the crowd by blowing kisses and dancing to her own mixed tracks.

Paris Hilton

Photo: Galore

Paris graces the cover of Galore magazines Art Issue, available on newsstands now. In the mag, she opens up about people's misconceptions about her.

If someone hasnt met me yet, they automatically have their misconceptions about me," she told Galore. "As soon as I am in a boardroom in front of them talking about my business, they immediately know Im not the dumb blonde they thought I was.

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SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (Reuters) - Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's chief arms buyer, said on Saturday he was hopeful that a proposed three-year block buy of Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets, expected to generate large savings, would go ahead."I can't say what's in the final budget, but I'm very hopeful that the block buy will proceed as planned, Kendall told Reuters at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in southern California.

Kendall said Pentagon officials had debated postponing or scrapping the block buy, which would cover more than 400 aircraft and includes purchases by the U.S. military and other countries participating in the F-35 program, until after operational testing and evaluation had been completed.

The Pentagon's chief weapons tester, Michael Gilmore, has long argued about the need to test the planes before buying and building larger quantities.

The Pentagon and its international buyers have pushed hard for the block buy to help drive costs lower via bigger economies of scale.

Partners counting on the "block buy" include Norway which is banking on saving about $50 million (400 million Norwegian kroner) when it buys 12 F-35 warplanes from Lockheed in the proposed group purchase.

News that the bundled purchases were likely to continue come after tense negotiations between Lockheed and the government about the latest F-35 contracts.

In November, negotiations on buying the ninth batch of F-35 warplanes broke down and the government imposed a contract on the U.S. arms maker after more than a year of negotiations had failed to culminate in a suitable agreement. Ultimately, the DOD priced the 57 jets in ninth batch of F-35s at $6.1 billion.

In a statement at the time, Lockheed said it was disappointed the contract had not been mutually agreed.

Scrapping the block buy, which covers fiscal years 2018 through 2020, would have been another blow to the F-35 program, and allies counting on the deal to lower production costs.

Lockheed and its key partners, Northrop Grumman Corp, Pratt & Whitney and BAE Systems, are developing and building three variants of the F-35s for the U.S. military and 10 allies including: Britain, Australia, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, Israel, Japan and South Korea.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Mike Stone; Editing by Eric Meijer)
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (Reuters) - Raytheon Co is making progress on a long-delayed program for new ground control stations for next-generation GPS satellites, although it is lagging a remedial schedule agreed with military officials, the Pentagon's chief arms buyer said.

"It's actually making progress," Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall told Reuters during the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in southern California.

"They've lost some schedule from what we had targeted for them, but not a dramatic amount. I believe they will get there."

Kendall said he would meet Raytheon Chief Executive Tom Kennedy for another high-level quarterly review of the program next month.

Kendall decided in October to continue work on Raytheon's Operational Control System (OCX) program after a mandatory live-or-die review triggered when the program breached critical cost thresholds earlier this year.

At the time, Kendall said he concluded the program was needed for national security and there were no alternatives that offered acceptable capability to meet requirements at less cost.

Raytheon has vowed to continue working closely with the Air Force and the Pentagon to ensure the success of the program, which saw costs increase sharply due to increased cybersecurity equipment and other technical issues.

Kendall's latest comments were more upbeat than in July, when he told reporters that Raytheon's work on the program was "a mixed bag", showing progress in some areas but continuing problems in others.

The Pentagon earlier this year said the estimated cost of the OCX program has rise 16.3 percent, or $586.4 million, to $4.2 billion in 2015, even before a two-year delay that would further inflate costs.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Retired Gen. David Petraeus admitted he made a very serious mistake in sharing classified information with his biographer when he was CIA director, adding that it would be up to the Senate to decide whether it should confirm or disqualify him should President-elect Donald Trump nominate him to be secretary of state.

Five years ago I made a very serious mistake, Petraeus said in an interview with ABCs This Week With George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. I acknowledged it. I apologized for it. I paid a very heavy price for it. And Ive learned from it.

Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in April 2015 for mishandling classified information, receiving two years probation and a $100,000 fine. Court documents in the case show that he turned over a black book of highly classified code word documents  including the identity of covert officers and notes of National Security Council meetings  to Paula Broadwell, a biographer with whom he was having an affair.

His interview with This Week came the same day Yahoo News published an interview with Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor turned fugitive whistleblower, who said Petraeus disclosed information that was far more highly classified than I ever did and yet never spent a single day in jail.

We have a two-tiered system of justice in the United States, Snowden told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric in Moscow, where people who are either well connected to government or they have access to an incredible amount of resources get very light punishments.

In 2013, Snowden was charged with multiple felonies for theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act after leaking tens of thousands of classified documents that exposed the U.S. governments mass surveillance programs.

Petraeus pointed out that none of the classified information he disclosed to Broadwell was ever made public.

Nothing that was in my journals that I shared  certainly improperly  ended up in the biography or made it out to the public, he told Stephanopoulos. I think thats a fairly significant point.

Story continues

Exclusive: Snowden: Petraeus leaked far more highly classified secrets than me

Before the interview, Politico reported that Team Trump planned to closely review Petraeus appearance on This Week to see how he handles questions about his past that are bogging down his prospects for nomination and could prevent his confirmation.

If Trump were to pick Petraeus, it would come with a deeply ironic twist: During the campaign, Trump railed at Hillary Clinton for mishandling sensitive material while serving as secretary of state.

Another issue potentially weighing down Petraeus is his probation. According to one condition of a plea agreement, it appears Petraeus would need to get permission from a probation officer to leave North Carolina to fulfill his duties as secretary of state.

The defendant shall notify the probation officer within 72 hours of any change in residence or employment, read a court judgment, which was shared on Twitter by USA Today reporter Brad Heath. The defendant shall not leave the Western District of North Carolina without the permission of the Court or probation officer. Travel allowed for work as approved by U.S. probation office.

A probation officer would have the right to search Petraeus personal and office computers without a warrant.

The defendant shall submit his person, residence, office, vehicle and/or any computer system including computer data storage media, or any electronic device capable of storing, retrieving, and/or accessing data to which they have access or control, to a search, from time to time, conducted by any U.S. Probation Officer and such other law enforcement personnel as the probation officer may deem advisable, without a warrant, the document read.

Terms of Petraeus probation. (U.S. District Court/Western District of North Carolina)

This has led some political analysts to suggest Trump would have to pardon Petraeus before any confirmation hearings could begin.

There would be several problems with his confirmation, Fox News Andrew Napolitano said last week. At the time of his guilty plea, he admitted to taking federal government property. That would bar him from holding a federal office.

Trump is said to be considering at least four other candidates for secretary of state: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said Sunday that the secretary of state search has broadened beyond those finalists, but declined to offer additional names.

Gen. Petraeus on whether he voted for Donald Trump: "I don't voteI've truly tried to be apolitical." #thisweek https://t.co/VG7NXprOj9  This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 4, 2016

Petraeus acknowledged Sunday that he may be unique among the crop of candidates for secretary in that he didnt vote for Trump.

I dont vote, Petraeus said. I also did not support him nor did I oppose him, nor did I support or oppose any other candidate. Ive truly tried to be apolitical.
Manila (AFP) - Philippine Vice-President Leni Robredo announced Sunday she would quit President Rodrigo Duterte's cabinet after being told to stay away from its meetings, and said there was a plot to oust her as his deputy.

Robredo did not say who was behind the alleged plot to remove her as vice-president.

But she cited "major differences in principles and values" with Duterte, such as over the rash of extrajudicial killings during his "war on drugs" and the hero's burial he granted for dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

In the Philippines the president and vice-president are elected separately. Duterte and Robredo come from rival parties.

"I had been warned of a plot to steal the Vice-Presidency. I have chosen to ignore this and focus on the job at hand. But the events of recent days indicate that this plot is now being set in motion," Robredo said in a statement on her Facebook page.

"I will not allow the Vice-Presidency to be stolen. I will not allow the will of the people to be thwarted," despite leaving the cabinet, she said.

"We received a text (SMS) message last Saturday from Cabinet Secretary (Leoncio) Evasco, relaying the Presidents instruction... for me 'to desist from attending all Cabinet meetings starting this Monday, December 5'."

"This is the last straw, because it makes it impossible for me to perform my duties," Robredo said.

She had been appointed to the cabinet as a housing official.

- Foreign criticism -

Duterte's war on drugs has claimed thousands of lives and sparked international criticism, including from key ally the United States and the UN.

He has struck back by calling US President Barack Obama a "son of a whore" and UN chief Ban Ki-moon a "fool".

Duterte's spokesman Martin Andanar, interviewed on ABS-CBN television on Sunday, confirmed Robredo's departure from the cabinet and cited "irreconcilable differences".

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Regarding the alleged plot to unseat her from the vice-presidency, Andanar said: "If there is a plot, that plot did not come from the camp of the president."

"Tomorrow, let us see if the president actually accepts her resignation (from the cabinet)," he added.

Evasco confirmed separately that he had sent Robredo a message, telling her not to attend further cabinet meetings on the instructions of Duterte.

He said there was no order to strip Robredo of her housing position.

Duterte won presidential elections in May after pledging to kill tens of thousands of drug suspects, warning that otherwise the Philippines would turn into a narco-state.

Since he assumed office, some 4,800 people have been killed by police or unidentified attackers.

Other differences cited by Robredo were the government's moves to bring back the death penalty, to lower the age of criminal liability to nine and "sexual attacks against women".

She did not specify which attacks but Duterte and his supporters have often used accusations of sexual misbehaviour and other insults against female critics.

In the May elections for the vice-presidency, Robredo, 51, narrowly defeated Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, the son and namesake of the dictator who died in exile in 1989.

However Marcos Jnr, a key ally of Duterte, has a pending election protest which argues he was the real winner.

Robredo, originally a lawyer for the disadvantaged, rose to fame as the wife of respected cabinet member Jesse Robredo.

When her husband died in a plane crash in 2012, public clamour encouraged her to enter politics.
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine government wants Bangladesh to share the findings of its investigation into how unknown hackers pulled off one of the world's largest cyber bank heists, to help speed up recovery of the stolen funds.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, who last week met with a Bangladesh delegation, said Manila "strongly recommended" Dhaka share the results of its investigation. He assured the visitors the government was doing it everything it could to find Bangladesh's missing money. Cyber criminals tried to steal nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Bank in February and made off with $81 million via an account at the New York Federal Reserve. That money was transferred to four accounts with false names at one RCBC branch in Manila before vanishing.

"We are pursuing the lawsuits on your behalf as vigorously as we can," Dominguez was quoted in a statement as telling the delegation.

Bangladesh Bank has declined to disclose the findings of its own inquiry, saying it wanted to deny perpetrators knowledge of the investigation.

Most of the money was laundered through Philippine casinos. About $15 million recovered from a gaming junket operator has been returned to Bangladesh, with a further $2.7 million frozen.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who had earlier pledged the stolen money would be returned, canceled a meeting with the Bangladesh team because of "pressing matters".

Asked if the findings of the probe would be shared with the Philippines government, Bangladesh's ambassador in Manila, John Gomes, said: "No one asked us anything yet."

But Philippine central bank deputy governor Nestor Espenilla said Manila had received an assurance from Bangladesh it would provide an "initial update" since the investigation was not yet finished.

Bangladesh has said it wanted RCBC, or the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC), to compensate it for its losses, but RCBC refuses to pay and has said the Bangladesh central bank was "negligent".

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Bangladesh's Law Minister Anisul Huq last week said RCBC should shoulder the burden for accepting stolen funds.RCBC was fined a record one billion pesos ($20 million) by the Philippine central bank for its failure to prevent the movement of the stolen Bangladesh money through its bank. Huq said paying that fine was tantamount to accepting culpability.

An anti-money laundering body last month filed charges against five RCBC officials in connection with the theft.

No arrests have been made despite investigations by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Interpol, Bangladesh police and authorities in the Philippines.

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Martin Petty and Eric Meijer)
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippines Vice President Leni Robredo announced on Sunday she would resign from her cabinet post, citing "major differences" with President Rodrigo Duterte and suspicions that a plot was underway to unseat her from the number two job. Robredo is refusing to step down as vice president but said she decided to quit as Housing Secretary after receiving a text message from another minister, telling her on Duterte's behalf to "desist from attending all cabinet meetings" from Monday. The president and vice president are elected in separate contests in the Philippines and Robredo was not Duterte's running mate. "I had been warned of a plot to steal the vice presidency. I have chosen to ignore this and focus on the job at hand," Robredo said in a statement. "But the events of recent days indicate that this plot is now being set into motion," she said, describing her cabinet exclusion as "the last straw". Robredo gave no details of the alleged plot. Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco confirmed in a radio interview he sent the text message, citing Robredo's "irreconcilable differences" with Duterte. Robredo said she had clashed with Duterte over his policies, including his war on drugs, which has killed over 2,000 people in the past five months, and his push to reinstate the death penalty. She has not been shy about criticizing him, including over his "improper" public remarks about her appearance and private life. Robredo, 52, a former lawyer and social activist, said she joined the cabinet because she believed helping the poor was one thing she and Duterte could agree on. "From the very beginning, the president and I had major differences in principles and values," she added. Robredo came from the party of previous president, Benigno Aquino. She defeated by a narrow margin Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the son and namesake of the late dictator overthrown in a 1986 revolt. Her election in May was dogged by allegations by Marcos Jr that the vote count was rigged to ensure the Robredo's Liberal Party had a stake in Duterte's executive. Robredo was especially critical of last month's burial of his father at a "heroes' cemetery", saying it was an insult to the memory of those who suffered under the martial law Marcos imposed in 1972, in what was one of the darkest chapters of Philippine history. Duterte supported the burial of Marcos, who was widely accused of brutality and plunder and enriching his cronies and family, which remains influential in politics. (Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
The ailing chief minister of southern India's Tamil Nadu state, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, Sunday suffered a cardiac arrest only days after she handed many of her responsibilities to a deputy because of illness.

"CM (Jayaram), who is undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals, suffered a cardiac arrest this evening," doctor Subbaiah Viswanathan from the hospital said in a statement to the Press Trust of India news agency.

"She is being treated and monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists," the statement added.

The hospital gave updates about the chief minister's health in a series of tweets, also asking all to pray for her "good health and well being."

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee too wished for her speedy recovery. "Distressed to hear about CM Jayalalithaa suffering a cardiac arrest, my prayers for her speedy recover," he posted on Twitter.

The hugely popular chief minister of Tamil Nadu, a former movie star, was admitted to hospital on September 22 suffering from fever and dehydration and is on respiratory support.

Authorities have said little about the state of the 68-year-old's health after several of her supporters resorted to self-harm when she was briefly jailed in 2014 on charges of corruption.

Charismatic Jayalalithaa enjoys huge popularity in Tamil Nadu, where fans know her simply as "Amma" (Mother) thanks to a series of highly populist schemes and election-time freebies including electric blenders, goats and small amounts of gold.

Over the last few weeks, her fans and ardent supporters have resorted to extreme steps while praying for her good health and speedy recovery.

Some have performed sacrifices to try to change her fate. Recent images in the local media at the time showed scores of children with metal arrows piercing their cheeks holding her pictures as they prayed for her recovery.

Soon after reports of her cardiac arrest, local news channels showed images of her supporters, particularly women, crying publicly and gathering in their hundreds outside the hospital for an update on her health.

The minister's latest medical setback comes only days after her team of doctors and senior leaders from her regional party talked about her recovery and return to active political duties in the next few days.
Lisbon (AFP) - A Qatar Airways jet made an an emergency landing at a Portuguese military base in the Azores islands Sunday after heavy turbulence injured passengers.

The Boeing 777, bound from Washington to Doha, was re-routed during a storm to the Azores, a Portuguese territory in the North Atlantic, and landed at the Lajes Air Base.

Officials and witnesses said the plane had dropped steeply in altitude, hurling several passengers out of their seats and causing one traveller to suffer heart trouble.

"All the passengers were taken to a hotel in the evening and are due to depart on Monday morning," said an airbase spokesman, adding that several people onboard had "suffered light injuries during the turbulence".

"There was a medical emergency as one of the passengers had a cardiac complaint during the turbulence," a civil protection official in the Azores said. "He was hospitalised along with two other passengers."

Azad Essa, an Al Jazeera journalist who was on board, tweeted: "Some passengers bleeding after flung in the air, hitting the ceiling + landing in the aisles after plane suddenly lost altitude."
Accra (AFP) - Ghana is internationally renowned for being a peaceful country on a continent scarred by ethnic clashes, dictators and crime. So what's its secret?

In the days before the hotly contested presidential vote on December 7, Rastafarians in the West African country say they have the answer.

"It's because we've put Ghana first before everything," said Martin Quarpong, a Rastafarian in his late 30s wearing a green and orange tie-dye shirt with his hair in a black head-wrap.

"We see ourselves as one people and we think about our future."

Despite their dreadlocks and love of tie-dye, in many ways the ubiquitous Rastafarian community in Ghana embodies the country's commitment to peace.

Their message of one love isn't so different from that of ordinary Ghanians on the street who pride themselves on respecting each other -- and the democratic process.

"Rastafarians contribute a lot during and after election time. Everything we do is peace, peace, peace," Quarpong told AFP in Ghana's coastal capital of Accra.

"We should accept the winner in good faith, and let them know they should put Ghana first."

Quarpong sells clothing at the beachside Rising Phoenix hotel, where a reggae rendition of White Christmas is softly playing in the background.

A black and white portrait of the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, a Rastafarian idol, is painted on the wall beside posters advertising a "Peace in Ghana" concert featuring local reggae stars Ras Kuuku and Jah Wyz.

Just because Quarpong believes in peace over politics doesn't mean he won't vote.

In fact, peace is why he'll be casting a ballot next Wednesday.

"Yes, of course I will vote. I have to as a patriot," Quarpong said.

"It's not compulsory, but it's necessary."

- 'Perfect harmony' -

As the heated campaign enters its final stretch, there is an increasing call for peace in Ghana, where its reputation for stability has made it an attractive destination in Africa for investors.

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Ghana's presidential candidates -- including front runners Nana Akufo-Addo and incumbent John Mahama -- last week signed a declaration "against electoral violence, impunity and injustice."

After signing the accord, Mahama said "our democracy and progress is too precious to be gambled away on a quest to attain or hold onto power."

Unlike fellow West African nation Nigeria, plagued by ethnic rivalry and suspicion, Ghana at independence emphasised unity.

In his 2012 autobiography, My First Coup d'Etat, Mahama wrote that even the motto of his illustrious Accra boarding school, Ut Omnes Unum Sint (That All May Be One), reflected that principal.

"You can play a tune of sorts on the black keys only; and you can play a tune of sorts on the white keys only; but for perfect harmony, you must use both the black and the white keys," said one of the school's founders James Aggrey, who Mahama quotes in the book.

Rastafarians give credit to the "Big six", Ghana's founding fathers, for entrenching peace.

"If you know Nkrumah, you know everything, Ghana is a motherland," said Kwaku Akupleca, a 32-year-old wearing a silver ring shaped as a marijuana leaf.

Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana's liberation movement from British colonialists, becoming the country's first democratic head in 1957 and a hero of the Pan-African movement that championed black unity.

"We've seen the light," Akupleca said, speaking at Labadi beach in Accra.

"We are very humble and peaceful. We feel like protecting humanity."

- 'Rasta wonderland' -

This inclusive attitude has allowed Rastafari to carve out a space for themselves in Ghana, home today to many different branches, including the Bobo Shanti and The Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Some 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Accra lies Kokrobite, a town described as a "Rasta wonderland" that is a magnet for Rastas in the region and across the Atlantic from the United States and Jamaica.

This year, local media reported that the Rastafari Council of Ghana held its first-ever national conference, with a focus on repatriating "brothers and sisters."

In 2013, Bob Marley's widow Rita was named an honorary citizen of Ghana.

Jamaican reggae legend Marley himself is regarded as a prophet in the Rasta community.

Not everyone sees eye-to-eye with the Rastafarians, but most can agree that a peaceful Ghana is better for all.

"When you have peace it's better than riches, you can be rich without peace of mind," Akupleca's friend Kwaku Francis said.

"It's all about peace and love, that's our motto."
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By Rory Carroll

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - A fire that devastated an Oakland, California, loft building during a weekend dance party has taken at least 33 lives and the toll will likely rise, authorities said on Sunday, as criminal investigators joined recovery teams at the charred ruin.

Firefighters in Oakland, east of San Francisco, found the remains of nearly three dozen victims as they sifted through the debris-filled shell of the two-story converted warehouse being used by an artists' collective.

The cause of the fire was still undetermined, officials said. Arson is not suspected but investigators want to find out if the building, which was often used for musical performances, had a history of code violations.

Mayor Libby Schaaf said the Alameda County District Attorney's Office activated its criminal investigation team at the fire scene. A representative of the prosecutor's office is monitoring the recovery process, she said, adding she was not authorized to say if a criminal probe was under way.

The mayor said the city's first priority was finding the victims and supporting the families. "We have delivered the unacceptable and horrific news of losing a loved one to seven of our families."

The blaze, which erupted about 11:30 p.m. on Friday, already ranks as the deadliest in the United States since 100 people perished in a 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire.

As of Sunday evening, only 35 to 40 percent of the building had been searched, said Sergeant Ray Kelly, spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. He said some of the victims were under 18 years old, although most were in their 20s and 30s.

The recovery operation was delayed for hours as the roof collapsed onto the second floor and in some spots, the second story had fallen onto the first, making it unsafe to enter.

The warehouse, which served as a base for the Ghost Ship Artists Collective, was one of many converted lofts in the city's Fruitvale district, a mostly Latino area where rents are generally lower than in the rest of Oakland.

(Additional reporting by Tim McLaughlin in Chicago; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Vienna (AFP) - After an ugly and deeply polarising presidential campaign in normally tranquil Austria, whooping and relief on one side Sunday night was matched by disdain and anger on the other.

Independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen had already won the contest once, back in May -- the election had to be held again because of procedural problems -- so in theory the 72-year-old could do it again.

But a lot has happened since May to boost the confidence of populists like his far-right rival Norbert Hofer, not least Britain's shock decision in June to leave the EU and Donald Trump's US election victory last month.

"Today I was totally surprised because after Trump and Brexit I was really not sure what this meant for Austria," diplomat Wolfgang Pietrisch, 69, said at Van der Bellen's election party.

"I was hugely surprised and my confidence, which was rather low in the past couple of days, went up -- skyrocketed," Pietrisch told AFP.

At the same event, artist Natalia Nadasma, 21, said that Brexit and Trump had motivated many activists to make sure that the Austrian election wasn't yet another political shock.

"A lot of people from civil society decided to be active, to go onto the streets in order to convince people to vote for liberalism, to vote for openness, to vote for diversity," Nadasma said.

Student David Sheata, 20, said he had been worried that after being asked to vote no fewer than three times this year -- and for what is a largely ceremonial job -- voter fatigue would set in.

But not a bit of it. The result was "a big surprise because we all thought that Hofer will win because Austrians lost their trust in the election process. But now, after the first result, we are very happy."

In fact, according to Van der Bellen, turnout was around 75-76 percent -- higher than in May.

Political analyst Peter Hajek said that Van der Bellen's supporters did a good job in the past few weeks getting people out to vote.

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Campaigners used Brexit and Trump to say to people "if you don't want to end up also wondering what happened, then go out and vote, and vote Van der Bellen," Hajek said.

Sandra Edelmann, 30, a corporate consultant waving a rainbow flag and wearing a "Fan der Bellen" T-shirt, said she had never given up hope.

"I believed and hoped that Austria would be clever enough to vote Van der Bellen, and they were," she told AFP.

"In the last 11 months I have been very active in the campaign. Last night I was in the pubs til 2:00 am, talking to people, motivating them," said social worker Christoph Krottmayer, 35.

"I am very relieved. It was all worth it. Later I think I might cry out of relief."

- 'Appalled and shocked' -

But amongst Hofer's supporters, the disappointment was huge for those hoping he would be able "get rid of the dusty establishment", as the candidate put it.

"I think it's clear that not a lot is going to change in Austria," said Johannes Huebner, 60, a lawmaker from Hofer's anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe).

"Van der Bellen as president will provide a certain security for both parties in the government that they can just carry on as before."

Herbert Kickl, the FPOe's general secretary and chief strategist, put a positive spin on Hofer's defeat, saying it would make the party stronger ahead of the next parliamentary elections, due in 2018.

"Norbert Hofer closed the gap with the main representative of this whole system, giving us a sustainable gain that we can use for our political movement but also for possible parliamentary elections," he said.

For the most part, Hofer supporters were hard to find at FPOe headquarters on Sunday night. But on the internet, where the party has an immense presence, the anger was palpable.

"I am just appalled and shocked!" said Regina Sassmann, one of almost 700 people to react to FPOe leader Heinz-Christian Strache's post-election post on Facebook. "Austria has voted for its own downfall! Well done!"

"I am really thinking about leaving this country for good," bemoaned Manfred Stadler. "I can predict that pretty soon we will be betrayed by the EU and overrun by radical refugees. I can't be bothered wasting my energy and my money."
Russell Simmons and Danny Simmons hosted the 7th Annual Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series finale party Thursday during Art Basel Miami Beach 2016.

The raved-about annual event featured a mix of celebrities, musicians, socialites, designers and art influencers, who mingled and sipped artfully crafted Bombay Sapphire cocktails while dancing to music spun by Jermaine Dupri.

A$AP Rocky and "American Honey" actress Sasha Lane both made an appearance at the finale event for the first time. The two began to chat as they both realized they were stopped in front of the same piece of artwork, which had them mesmerized.

Last years creative mentor, Rosario Dawson, brought her mom with her this year as she returned for the third year to show her continued support of the program.

Other notable attendees included model Nicole Banner, Rocky Barnes, Timo Weiland, Kristen Taekman and celebrity chef Travis London. The event took place in the transformed garage space at 11 11 Lincoln Road.

Russell and Danny Simmons announced Philadelphias Darius Frank as the Grand Finale Winner, at of 16 finalists, at the 7th annual Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series competition. An annual collaboration between Bombay Sapphire and Simmons Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, the North American search for the next big name in visual arts involved thousands of online submissions and a series of regional gallery events. For the first time this year, New York nonprofit arts organization Creative Time made a splash at Basel as honorary judge where the winner will go on to collaborate on a groundbreaking public arts project scheduled to be unveiled in spring.

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Moscow (AFP) - Russia's FSB security service said Sunday it had killed an "emir" of the Islamic State group in a raid in the volatile North Caucasus.

The FSB said in a statement that "among the neutralised bandits was the head of the Caucasus region's branch of the Islamic State Rustam Aselderov, and four of his close associates."

The FSB said that 35-year-old Aselderov was involved in blasts in the southern Russian city of Volgograd which killed 34 in 2013. He was fighting for another Caucasus insurgent group at the time. It also linked him to twin car blasts in Dagestan in 2012 that killed 14 and injured at least 120.

The FSB said he also organised a foiled attack that was to take place on Moscow's Red Square on New Year's Eve 2010 involving two female suicide bombers.

The warlord pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in December 2014, the first major militant to do so in the Caucasus.

IS named Aselderov, also known as Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Qadari, the governor of a new Caucasus province.

IS has since claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on police in Dagestan.

Aselderov previously fought with the local Caucasus Emirate insurgent group, taking over as leader of its Dagestan branch in 2012, the FSB said.

In 2015 the US Department of State imposed sanctions on Aselderov as a "foreign terrorist fighter" after the jihadist group appointed him leader of its North Caucasus franchise.

Russia in October offered a 5 million ruble ($78,000) reward for information on Aselderov's whereabouts.

The FSB said a joint operation with the interior ministry had cornered Aselderov and his fighters in a private house in the city of Makhachkala, where they found "automatic weapons and a large amount of ammunition and explosives."

The Russian North Caucasus is one of the major sources of foreign jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq.
Donald Trump widened his search for Washington's next top diplomat as he pursued his own unorthodox brand of foreign policy with a Twitter broadside aimed at China.

The US president-elect's senior aide Kellyanne Conway said he would take "a very full slate of meetings" on Monday to fill the remaining cabinet positions, including secretary of state.

America's friends and foes alike are keenly awaiting his choice, hopeful that it will offer clues to the direction US policy will take after he is sworn in on January 20.

Based on Trump's Twitter activity on Sunday, relations with America's top trading partner may be headed for a downturn as he accused Beijing of currency manipulation and military expansionism.

"Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?" he demanded, adding: "I don't think so!"

The taunt came two days after Trump risked seriously offending China by accepting a call from the Taiwanese president, heralding the prospect of a trade battle between the world's largest economies.

China was a frequent target of Trump's during his presidential campaign and every sign points to his taking an aggressive line.

- Trade war threat -

US politicians often accuse China of artificially depressing its currency, the renminbi, in order to boost its exports -- its value has fallen by around 15 percent in the past two-and-half years.

Trump has vowed to declare China a "currency manipulator" on the first day of his presidency, which would oblige the US Treasury to open negotiations with Beijing on allowing the renminbi to rise.

With China holding about a trillion dollars in US government debt, Washington would have little leverage in such talks, but the declaration would harm ties and boost the prospect of a trade war.

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Already on Friday, Trump had courted Chinese anger by accepting a congratulatory call from Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen.

China regards self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification, and any US move implying support for independence would gravely offend Beijing.

Trump's incoming vice president, Mike Pence, played down the call's significance, describing it as a courtesy, and said any new policy on China would be decided after his inauguration.

However, The Washington Post reported Sunday that the call had been in the works for weeks, intended to signal a major shift in US policies toward Taiwan and China. The article cited people involved in planning the call.

China has responded cautiously to the call, with state media putting it down to Trump's "inexperience".

It is not yet clear whether Trump intends to recruit someone with greater diplomatic experience for the State Department role, but he has run the rule over several high-profile candidates.

Four names have been in circulation for weeks: former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and retired army general and ex-CIA chief David Petraeus.

But now more suggestions have begun to emerge.

"It is true that he's broadened the search," Conway told reporters at Trump Tower in New York.

Trump's former campaign manager said the eventual nominee must be ready to "implement and adhere to the president-elect's America First foreign policy, if you will, his view of the world."

Former Utah governor and ambassador to Beijing Jon Huntsman is also in the mix, according to CNN, while other reports said Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson and Republican Senator Bob Corker are under consideration.

"That list is expanding because... there is not a finite list of finalists," Conway said.

- Petraeus is keen -

Petraeus, who resigned in disgrace as head of the CIA in 2012 after he was caught sharing secrets with his mistress, said he has paid for his mistakes and is ready to work for Trump.

The 64-year-old scholar-warrior, who led the widely-praised "surge" in Iraq from 2008 to 2010, has a depth of experience in world affairs unmatched by the other known candidates.

He pleaded guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials after sharing Afghan war logs with his lover. He was put on two years' probation and fined $100,000.

Pence praised Petraeus as "an American hero" on NBC's "Meet the Press," adding that he "made mistakes and he paid for his mistakes."

Trump, he added, "will factor the totality of general Petraeus's career in making this decision."
Holiday engagement season is upon us, with the month of December a popular time of the year to pop the big question. For those who are considering proposing during the final weeks of 2016, it's a good time to assess and make certain that a ring is the desired style and shape for a partner.

I think its important to find something that theyre not just going to love today  or for the holiday season  but forever, Forevermark diamond expert Kristen Trustey told International Business Times in a phone interview. Its really important to pay attention to personal style. Is she classic? Is she edgy? Is she whimsical? Is she romantic? Really think about the long-term and think about what she is going to love forever.

When it comes to the price tag, roughly 75 percent of men and 83 percent of women said an engagement ring doesn't need to cost more than $5,000, a recent survey from ethically sourced online jewelry retailer Brilliant Earth found. Only 9 percent of men and 5 percent of women would spend more than $10,000 on a ring.

"Comparison shopping is the answer. The price of jewels really varies  and thats before we turn our attention to their platinum settings. Find the smartest deal by visiting several jewelry stores and hunting online for baubles like the one you want. Ask a million questions, consult knowledgeable pals, and go slow," the New York Times' recommended in a January guide to ring shopping.

A classic, more traditional ring is always a safe choice. For a classic ring style, I would say find a shape of diamond and make it all about the diamond, Trustey said. A classic solitaire band will really highlight that and show it off, its super timeless.

But don't be afraid of something extra sparkly.  If she is the type of person who is into the holidays, going for something with a little extra sparkle couldnt hurt to be in the theme of the holidays. I would suggest a halo of pave-set diamonds, Trustey said.

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FMR00005-CU

Photo: Courtesy of Forevermark

Fancy shapes are any diamond shapes other than round style. These include oval, pear, cushion, heart and marquise shapes.

People are looking for something thats unique. Brides today dont want a ring that looks like all of their friends, Trustey said. I think fancy shape diamonds are a really great way to do that.

Custom-designed rings are also a good call for those who are bold. If you are someone who likes to take risks, then I think going the custom route is always interesting. Finding first that perfect diamond then finding a jeweler that you trust to craft the perfect setting for the diamond puts an individual twist on it, as well, Trustey said.

pear-shape-33617291_2ct_v

Photo: Tiffany.com

When it comes to trends, Trustey recommended unusual details. I think unexpected details like East-West settings have become really popular. Its a way to make it a little more special and a little more unique," she said.

Some brides are also looking for a responsibly sourced diamond. In terms of the holidays, you can look at that as the gift that gives back, Trustey said. I think it is important, especially around the holidays. I think the holidays are a really good time to reflect on whats important and to give back, too.

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Selena Gomez went out in her PJs and looked like a dream

Celebrities where pajamas outside! Just like us! Who hasnt gone to the grocery store, class, or the movies, wearing pjs hoping no one noticed? OK, well maybe not just like us. Because Selena Gomez wearing PJs to go out on a Friday night in Santa Monica is out of this world. Unlike us, these pjs were stylish and expensive. On her mall trip Selena wore $420 silky printed pajamas by Olivia von Halle, along with a sheer black duster and some super tall heels.

A pony tail and red lipstick compliment her chill look. Because she can look super glam rocking whatever she wears. An eyewitness told E! News that she got a bite to eat at a Mexican restaurant with a friend before going shopping at the Third Street Promenade and finally heading to a recording studio.

Still look BOMB with pjs pic.twitter.com/G20c9BtIZB  Selena Gomez News (@wwwselenagomez8) December 3, 2016

Selena Gomez is no stranger to looking effortlessly fabulous. She has a history of looking amazing in everything from power suits to ball gowns. And now she can add lounge wear to her style repertoire. Were jealous, but we cant hate on same great casual style.



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Mixed feelings about this PJs trend.... Love how selG put the look together tho #fashion #inspiration @selenagomez pic.twitter.com/URC9Fk8kbJ  Gaby (@gabydi106) July 25, 2016

She also isnt a stranger to looking amazing while wearing pjs out in public. In 2015, Selena wore navy blue and white pjset while in Paris along with red heels. Hopefully this means that pajamas will become the new chic, and no one will judge us for going to grab milk in our sleep wear.

The post Selena Gomez went out in her PJs and looked like a dream appeared first on HelloGiggles.
By Ernest Scheyder and Terray Sylvester

CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) - In the back reaches of the Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp, U.S. military veterans, armed with saws, hammers and other tools, are quietly building barracks, an infirmary and a mess hall.

Despite the bitter cold and an evacuation order from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the veterans hope to erect enough space to house at least several hundred peers making their way into the Oceti Sakowin Camp here in Cannon Ball.

Veterans interviewed by Reuters gave a plethora of motives for traveling here. Some felt it was their patriotic duty to defend protesters, especially since Native Americans have historically had an active presence in the U.S. military.

For others, coming here offers a sense of purpose they have lacked since returning to civilian society. For all, the camaraderie with those who have also shared military service was important.

"Our commitment has not expired because we took off the uniform," said Charles Vondal, 51, an Army veteran and Native American from Turtle Mountain, N.D. "We understand what it means to put our lives on the line."

The response last month to a call for 2,000 veterans to act as a barrier between activists and law enforcement was much swifter than expected - with organizers having to stop accepting volunteers.

The veterans arriving say their presence will make it less likely that police will resort again to aggressive tactics, after water cannons and tear gas were used on a group of protesters in sub-freezing temperatures two weeks ago.

More than 500 activists have been arrested over the last several months.

I felt it was our duty to come and stand in front of the guns and the mace and the water and the threat that they pose to these people," said Anthony Murtha, 29, from Detroit, who served in the U.S. Navy from 2009 to 2013.

Local law enforcement said the specter of having thousands of military-trained veterans in the area was of concern, but they were not expecting any melees.

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"If (veterans) come to this area and they want to protest peacefully, if that's what they want to do and have their voice heard, then there's absolutely no issues with that," Kyle Kirchmeier, sheriff for Morton County, North Dakota, where the pipeline is routed, said in an interview Saturday.

Some veterans groups are unhappy with those coming to support the protesters, saying they are standing up for illegal behavior. They also note that many law enforcement officers are veterans. North Dakota's state veterans coordinating council, in a letter last week, asked the veterans who want to stand with the protesters not to come.

"We don't want to see veterans facing down veterans," said Lonnie Wangen, commissioner of North Dakota's Department of Veterans Affairs.

But veterans at the camp say pictures and video of water hoses used against Native Americans spoke to their concern of heavy-handed tactics used by law enforcement.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to grant a permit for Energy Transfer Partners to drill under Lake Oahe, a reservoir that is part of the Missouri River.

This one-mile stretch represents the last unfinished portion of the line in North Dakota, which will stretch as far as Illinois.

Native Americans serve at a high rate in the armed forces, according to data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. A 2012 report showed more than 150,000 veterans of Native American descent. U.S. Defense Department data as of 2014 put Alaskan/Native American service members at more than 24,000.

"It's symbolic for people who stood up for this nations freedom to stand up for the first inhabitants of this nation," said Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, on Saturday.

Veterans Stand With Standing Rock, which organized this weekend's rally and other events, has warned veterans they could experience flashbacks to combat experience.

Were under constant surveillance with helicopters and planes flying over. There is a military boundary with barbed wire, said Angie Spencer, 34, a clinical psychologist from Seattle who has worked with veterans.

The surroundings, she said, mean counselors are vigilant for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

On Friday, the rally organizers met with law enforcement on the Backwater Bridge, the site of two of the most heated confrontations between police and protesters in the last several weeks. They said they were there to protest peacefully.

The chances that the pipeline will be stopped at this point seem slim. President-elect Donald Trump last week voiced support for the project, which has been delayed twice since September by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Opposing the pipeline, standing with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, was an opportunity to again find a personal mission, some said.

You kind of lose your purpose when youre out (of the military)," said John Nelson, 25, from San Diego, who spent seven years in the Navy. "I think thats why its so easy for so many veterans to jump on board."

(Reporting By Ernest Scheyder and Terray Sylvester; Additional reporting by Alicia Underlee Nelson in West Fargo, N.D.; Writing by David Gaffen and Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Chris Reese)
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the media has worked itself into a panic about the rise of fake news on social media. Reporters have examined the subject from dozens of angles -- profiling misinformation peddlers from California to the Caucasus, analyzing how hoaxes spread, raising red flags about media literacy, and much more.

But all this focus on fake Facebook news obscures a much bigger story about the way social media -- the endless public opining and sharing of information -- is reshaping politics. Even if you've never given much thought to its meaning, you've probably heard someone say "the medium is the message," the famous dictum of media theorist Marshall McLuhan.

But what does that mean, and what does it mean specifically for the 2016 election? A possible answer can be found in the work of Walter J. Ong, a Jesuit priest and a former student of McLuhan's at St. Louis University. In his most famous work, "Orality and Literacy," Ong examined how the invention of reading and writing fundamentally changed human consciousness. He argued that the written word wasn't just an extension of the spoken word, but something that opened up new ways of thinking -- something that created a whole new world.

Before the invention of writing, knowledge existed in the present tense between two or more people; when information was forgotten, it disappeared forever. That state of affairs created a special need for ideas that were easily memorized and repeatable (so, in a way, they could go viral). The immediacy of the oral world did not favor complicated, abstract ideas that need to be thought through. Instead, it elevated individuals who passed along memorable stories, wisdom and good news.

And here we begin to see how the age of social media resembles the pre-literate, oral world. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other platforms are fostering an emerging linguistic economy that places a high premium on ideas that are pithy, clear, memorable and repeatable (that is to say, viral). Complicated, nuanced thoughts that require context don't play very well on most social platforms, but a resonant hashtag can have extraordinary influence. Evan Spiegel, the chief executive officer of Snap Inc., grasped the new oral dynamics of social media when he told the Wall Street Journal: "People wonder why their daughter is taking 10,000 photos a day. What they don't realize is that she isn't preserving images. She's talking."

In "Orality and Literacy," Ong laid out several key differences between the oral and literate worlds, and through these, you can see why someone like Donald Trump would thrive in this new oral context. Here are a few examples:

--In the oral world, thoughts and expressions were, in Ong's words, "aggregative, not analytic," -- which is to say that language was formulaic. Ong, who studied ancient oral epics like "The Odyssey" as well as pre-literate traditions that survived into the modern age, wrote that old masters of the oral tradition preferred to speak of "not the soldier, but the brave soldier; not the princess, but the beautiful princess; not the oak, but the sturdy oak." That sounds familiar, right? Thus with Trump, it was never "Ted Cruz," "Marco Rubio," or "Hillary Clinton"; it was "Lyin' Ted," "Little Marco" and "Crooked Hillary." These endlessly-repeated epithets packed extra information into small, instantly-memorable packets.

--Oral culture rewards redundancy, because when an audience can't go back and consult a text, speakers must guard against distraction and confusion. Repetition is one useful technique, and Trump is a master of it. Consider the remarks he made during a March debate: "I'm a leader. I'm a leader. I've always been a leader. I've never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they're going to do it. That's what leadership is all about." Oral traditions are all about hammering the point home.

--Because all communication in a pre-literate culture takes place face to face, there's a greater emphasis on verbal jousting. Of course, aggression and argumentativeness are key to Trump's communication style.

None of this is totally novel in politics, of course. Politicians have always had slogans. Repetition is a standard rhetorical technique. And in general, the political world has always valued the ability to make a good speech.

Furthermore, the world is still an extremely long way from eliminating classical, written literacy. We can still look up something in a dictionary or Wikipedia. You can still experience solitude, getting lost in the deep stacks of a library, meticulously poring over authoritative documents word for word. But as information gets more social -- taking on the immediate, short-form characteristics of Facebook and Twitter -- it acquires more qualities of the oral world. And that lends itself particularly well to politicians who think and communicate like Donald Trump.
The Netflix sci-fi drama Sense8 is getting ready to rub elbows with the likes of Charlie Brown, Bing Crosby and the California Raisins. Thats right, a Sense8 holiday special is on its way. Oh, also that promised second season too.

Sense8: A Christmas Special is set to premiere on December 23rd (sensible considering the date of the holiday) with season 2 makes its debut on May 5, 2017. According to Deadline, the two-hour Christmas special follows the central characters as they weave in and out of each others lives finding deeper connections, learning darker, more desperate secrets about one another and struggling to identify with more than just oneself. Basically, something a tiny bit heavier than the fare of a Michael Buble special, if you will.

Interest in the new batch of episodes (holiday special and non) goes beyond just curiosity with where the characters go. Series co-creator Lilly Wachowski is taking time off and will not be writing or directing any of the new episodes. As a result, this is the first time Lana has worked without her sister. Will there be any noticeable difference without Lillys creative presence co-navigating the project? Well get our first assessment before the new year.

(Via Deadline)
Slik cofounder Stefan Stokic

Most high school kids don't spend time thinking about enterprise software or sales lead generation.

But if you're Stefan Stokic, a 15-year old high school sophomore from Jackson, Mississippi, that's part of your every day language  and perhaps, the idea for a future rocketship startup.

In fact, Stokic already has a startup called Slik, cofounded by fellow 14-year old student Soroush Ghodsi, and is connected with a bunch of high-profile Silicon Valley investors who are closely following their budding careers.

"I think most kids have this assumption that anything has to start when youre 18," Stokic told Business Insider. "They block the idea that this is actually possible."

Cold messaging Chris Sacca

Stokic learned how to code when he was 10 and started following the tech scene from about two years ago.

But it was only in January when he really got involved with VCs, after cold messaging Lowercase Capital's billionaire founder Chris Sacca on Twitter.

.@Mazzeo @jacksondahl Saw an idea for Lowercase on Twitter a few days ago and had a free day from school.. https://t.co/pFwwPjl1fl cc @sacca  Stefan Stokic (@StefanStok) January 19, 2016

His tweet included a link to a website he made that listed all the job openings at Lowercase's portfolio companies. The idea came while watching Sacca and his fellow VC Matt Mazzeo on Periscope talking about the need for their firm's jobs page. Without asking, Stokic just fired up the page overnight. And moments after sending the tweet, he received a response from both Sacca and Mazzeo.

"It was surreal at first, and then youre like, 'oh, wow, this actually means something now," Stokic says.

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Stokic was soon hired as an intern at Lowercase, and worked on a number of different projects so far. Through his work at Lowercase, he says he also got to know other VCs like Homebrew's Hunter Walk and Haystack's Semil Shah.

Sacca was so impressed by Stokic that he even mentioned his story in a recent interview, while giving advice for young adults. He said:

"The most successful and ambitious people out there know to create value before asking for anything in return. You want to get my attention? Start doing some of my work...Two months ago, a 15-year-old in Mississippi overheard me say on Periscope that I wished our firms web site had a Jobs page. So, without reaching out to us at all, he just went ahead and built one.

...Well, guess which venture capital firm that gets thousands of resumes a year now has a 15-year-old intern routinely helping us with projects? Distinguish yourself through your hustle and your initiative."

15-year-old @TheStefanStokic had a day off school so he coded this up without even asking us first. Pure hustle. https://t.co/vPhCDNWEjg  Chris Sacca (@sacca) January 19, 2016

'Slik'

At Lowercase, Stokic got to work with his cofounder Ghodsi (who lives in Waterloo, Canada, and already knew Stokic through Twitter conversations). Ghodsi started coding at 9, and previously had experience building his own stock trading app and a startup that collected and analyzed company data.

They soon realized they shared a common interest in data analytics and artificial intelligence, so they decided to launch Slik, an automatic email prospecting app.

"We do a bunch of scraping to find emails publicly used. Since we have hundreds of thousands of confirmed emails, we can find patterns in that data to know what the most common email patterns are for specific roles or company types, through our algorithm. We also have third party resources that help with our verification," Ghodsi tells us about Slik.

Chris Sacca

Slik officially launched only about a month ago. But Stokic claims it's already generating about $4,000 in revenue and has over 1,500 users. The startup is bootstrapped at this point but they plan to raise money and hire soon.

Perhaps what's more impressive is their understanding of the cloud business and knowledge of the tech industry. They casually use language like "annual recurring revenue" and "artificial intelligence in the B2B space," while calling out Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison as their favorite leader.

"I think in the B2B space, Ellison really maneuvered it well and outplayed his competitors, which is something I really do respect," Stokic says.

130-hour weeks

Both Stokic and Ghodsi are running Slik while going to school. They say they each work almost 130 hours a week, including school time. Grades are fine, they claim, getting straight-A's and passing advance math classes with ease.

"Its not the complexity of school, its more about the time. We need a lot of coffee," Ghodsi says.

Slik cofounder Soroush Ghondsi

What keeps them going is the potential they see in artificial intelligence and how it could improve enterprise software.

"In the sales space, theres so much menial tasks that could be automated and improved that are still done by humans today. It's just a huge space we want to tackle," Ghodsi says.

When you're as talented as Stokic or Ghodsi, skipping college would be an option. But Ghodsi says they don't agree with "the whole Peter Thiel rhetoric that college is bad for everyone," and that it's a choice they'll make when the time comes.

Still, both founders said they'd like to see more high school kids take initiative and reach out to famous people if they want to get in the field early on.

"If you dont reach out, youre never going to have the opportunity," Stokic says. "You dont have much to lose, especially when youre just starting out. Just go out and try to get something done."

NOW WATCH: The 3 worst things you do when you wash your face  according to a dermatologist





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While Emma Stone is a superstar of young Hollywood at age 28, her Saturday Night Live companion this weekend was even younger. Shawn Mendes made his SNL debut at just age 18 on Saturday night, as the musical guest alongside host Stone.

He started things off at the piano with "Mercy," the latest single from his second album Illuminate, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 back in September. Blue and white lights lit the stage as Mendes made his way from behind the keys to center stage after the first chorus, earnestly emoting his way through the midtempo number.

For his second song, he chose "Treat You Better," the first single from Illuminate. While his fans are very familiar with the song -- which hit the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 -- Mendes took some liberties with the melody and showed off some very elastic vocal skills.

Watch both performances below:
Cass County Sheriff Paul D. Laney accused Dakota Access pipeline protesters of attempting to exploit veterans during a press conference on Saturday, December 3.

We have received very concerning intel that an element within the protest movement wants to exploit vets with PTSD, arm them, and try to trigger their PTSD and turn them aggressive, said Laney. Besides being horrible, and wrong, it could be dangerous, and deadly.

Laney didnt cite any specific evidence for his claim, which was swiftly rejected by protesters. Credit: YouTube/Morton County North Dakota via Storyful
By Yun Hwan Chae and Nataly Pak SEOUL (Reuters) - As protesters march through Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul, the center stage of huge weekly demonstrations calling for South Korean President Park Geun-hye to step down, nearby restaurants hustle to prepare for a busy night. Many bars and restaurants in the area, home to government offices and near the presidential Blue House, have been doing roaring business well into the night when the protests are held every Saturday. The boom is a relief for neighborhood restaurants after a new anti-graft law in September limited the value of meals that could be accepted by civil servants. Saturday's protest calling for Park to resign over an influence-peddling scandal was the largest yet, with organizers putting the total number of participants at 1.7 million, while police say the crowd at its peak totaled 320,000. The demonstrations taking place for six straight weekends have been festive and peaceful, with parents bringing children and protesters putting flower stickers on police-bus barricades. It's a contrast to violent anti-government protests South Korea has seen in the past, when activists hurled rocks at police lines and were sprayed with pepper gas. "We've prepared three to four times more than usual and set up seven more tables outside," said Cho Joung-suk, owner of Gwanghwamun Yeontanjib, a restaurant specializing in grilled eel. Nearby, protesters chanted "Park Geun-hye step down now!" and "We are the owners of the country!" Activists marched to within 100 meters (yards) of the Blue House, one holding up a red sign reading "Arrest Park Geun-hye". Cho, who usually shuts the restaurant on weekends and closes by midnight on weekdays, said that last week she had customers until around 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. Kim Min-sung, a student who sat for South Korea's high-stakes university entrance test two weeks ago, was at his third protest. "I had been studying for the past couple of months but I felt that I had to come out and protest after the exam as the situation had become serious," he said, taking a break at a restaurant specializing in South Korea's famous chicken and beer, or "chimaek", combination. LED CANDLES, SELFIE STICKS The anti-Park demonstrations have featured rappers and musical actors taking the stage in Gwanghwamun Square, while protesters carrying LED candles cheer with synchronized waves. In small alleyways, vendors were selling street food, selfie-sticks and the candles. While many business owners are profiting from the protests, the political crisis helped push consumer sentiment to a nearly 7-1/2 year-low in November. Some merchants say the demonstrations have been disruptive to their business. Park, whose approval rating stands at just 4 percent, according to a poll released on Friday, has refused calls to step down immediately. Last week, she asked parliament to find a way and a timeline for her to leave office, but the opposition plans to bring an impeachment motion to a vote on Dec. 9. Park is accused of colluding with her long-time friend Choi Soon-sil to enable her to meddle in government affairs. Seo Young-pyo, a resident of Jeju Island, 450 km (280 miles) south of Seoul, came to Saturday's protest with his 18-year-old daughter. "It's not that there is less passion outside of Seoul or on Jeju Island. But Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul is the center of Korean society and there is a lot to see and learn," he said. As Saturday night wore on, protesters took breaks for hearty meals and talked politics over drinks. Many joined long queues to use public toilets. Kim Song-ryul, owner of Geosung Hof, a chimaek restaurant, said the carnival-like mood was a key driver of stepped-up business. "There are families with young children in strollers who come to the protests and drop by our restaurant. The festive atmosphere really is a change from the past where there was violence," he said. The recent rise in weekend sales has been a boost for many business owners in Gwanghwamun whose core trade of serving office workers was squeezed by the anti-graft law that limits the value of a meal that can be accepted by a civil servant to 30,000 won ($25.72). Still, Kim, owner of the chicken and beer restaurant, has mixed feelings about the unexpected bonanza. "If our sales rose due to good business every day, I would feel better. But to be honest, I don't feel that great about the entire situation," he said. (Editing by Tony Munroe and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
By James Macharia JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African President Jacob Zuma has asked the High Court to set aside a report by an anti-corruption watchdog that called for a judicial inquiry into alleged influence-peddling in his government, the president's office said on Saturday. While stopping short of conclusive findings, the report by the Public Protector watchdog has increased political pressure on Zuma by calling for an investigation into whether he, some cabinet members and some state companies acted improperly. Political analysts say Zuma's scandal-ridden leadership has been weakened further by the allegations in the report. They have rattled financial markets and spurred efforts by some in Zuma's own party and in the opposition to unseat the president. The president's spokesman, Bongani Ngqulunga, said Zuma had lodged an application on Friday "for a review of the report". Zuma -- who has previously described the report as "unfair" in parliament -- wants the court to send the report back to the watchdog for further investigations and says its author had no right to call for a judicial inquiry, court papers showed. The watchdog's report, released on Nov. 2, focused on allegations that businessman brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta had influenced the appointment of ministers. Zuma and the Gupta brothers have denied the accusations. The report -- which Zuma had sought to block through the courts before it was released to the public -- called for a judicial inquiry be set up by the president and for a judge to be appointed by the chief justice within 30 days of its release. Zuma, 74, has repeatedly denied accusations of corruption since taking office in 2009. "VULNERABLE" The official opposition leader and head of the Democratic Alliance, Mmusi Maimane, criticised Zuma's "ill-conceived attempt" to set aside the report and said in a statement his party would oppose the court application. Analysts said the report had unsettled Zuma. "The report has unnerved the position of the president," said Daniel Silke, a director at Political Futures Consultancy. "Zuma is fighting for his political life. The report left him more vulnerable and open to contestation for his position." Earlier on Saturday Zuma tried in a statement to reassure foreign investors about South Africa's economic prospects, describing South Africa as "an important and strategic investment destination". All three major rating agencies have maintained South Africa's investment-grade status, granting the president some respite amid the increased political pressure. But with the economy seen growing by only half a percent this year and unemployment near record levels, the rating agencies have warned that the political tensions surrounding him could derail efforts to boost economic growth. Zuma faced censure this week from some party officials who asked him to resign, but a majority of his African National Congress' (ANC) national executive committee backed him. Zuma will face the ANC's integrity commission this weekend following the persistent allegations of corruption and poor election results, the party has said previously. (Editing by Gareth Jones)
By Lisa Baertlein and Gayathree Ganesan

(Reuters) - Starbucks Corp co-founder Howard Schultz will step down as chief executive to focus on new high-end coffee shops, handing the top job to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Johnson, a long-time technology executive.

Schultz, who will become executive chairman in April 2017, said he would focus on building ultra-premium Reserve stores and showcase Roastery and Tasting Rooms around the world as well as setting the brand's "social impact agenda" that includes sending employees to college and recruiting veterans.

Starbucks had signaled the change in July, but its shares fell 3.6 percent to $56.41 in extended trading on Thursday, as investors recalled the company's decline after Schultz handed over the reins in 2000. He returned in 2008.

"Having him step down as CEO raised the anxiety level," said Stephens analyst Will Slabaugh, who said that Schultz is the heart and soul of the brand, its entrepreneurial leader and its savior.

"We're in a much better position on every level," said Schultz, who returned for his second stint as CEO in the depths of the "Great Recession," when Starbucks' stock was trading below $10. Late last year, it hit an all-time high above $60. Schultz has put Starbucks in the national spotlight, asking customers not to bring guns into stores and urging conversations on race relations.

Many of the campaigns have generated controversy, but analysts have not seen a hit to financial results and the efforts have raised the profile of the coffee company and cemented Schultz's status as a national figure.

"The idea that he's replaceable, I think that's erroneous," said Bill Smead, CEO of Smead Capital Management in Seattle, which owns Starbucks shares. He compared the change to the retirement of long-time McDonald's Corp CEO Ray Kroc, who turned a handful of hamburger stands into the world's biggest restaurant company.

The announcement on Thursday also came as investors worry about the restaurant industry's stubborn traffic declines. Starbucks has held up better than most, but it has not been immune.

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Johnson is a former technology executive who became president and chief operating officer at Starbucks in March 2015.

Johnson has been on the Starbucks board since 2009 but most of his career was in the technology industry. He was the chief executive of Juniper Networks Inc from September 2008 to January 2014 and prior to that held several senior positions at Microsoft Corp.

On a conference call after the announcement, analysts pressed the company on timing and whether, with Schultz stepping aside, senior management still had the "merchant gene."

"Not having retail experience could be a problem over time," said Howard Penney, an analyst at Hedgeye Risk Management.

"I'm not leaving the company and I'm here every day," said Schultz, whose office is connected to Johnson's.

Traffic at established Starbucks cafes fell in the last quarter, which Johnson has attributed to a change in the company's loyalty program, and Starbucks forecast a mid-single-digit rise in 2017 same-store sales.

The company dismissed speculation that Schultz could be preparing for a new career in politics.

"He has no plans to run for political office, as he has said many times, and will remain with the company as Starbucks executive chairman, focusing on premium coffee," a spokeswoman said.

(Reporting by Gayathree Ganesan and Siddharth Cavale in Bengaluru; additional writing by Peter Henderson; Editing by Bill Rigby and Jonathan Oatis)
A petition to elect Hillary Clinton as president and keep Donald Trump from being sworn in as commander in chief is winning over the internet. Trump won 306 electoral votes to Clinton's 232, but she is the popular vote winner, with 65,259,681 votes to his 62,692,056.

"Donald Trump has not been elected president. The real election takes place Dec. 19, when the 538 Electors cast their ballots  for anyone they want. We are calling on 'Conscientious Electors' to protect the Constitution from Donald Trump, and to support the national popular vote winner," the Change.org petition reads. At least 4,726,395 supporters had signed it as of Sunday morning.

A website supporting the anti-Trump effort includes a section titled "The Danger of Donald Trump" that declares "Donald Trump represents a unique threat to our Republic and our Constitutional system of government." It states reasons such as "He would be the only president in American history who has never held public office," "He has encouraged violence at his rallies" and "He has advocated violating international treaties," among others.

"Trump is unfamiliar with the duties of his office or the processes of government, and he is inexperienced and impulsive. He is truly unfit to be Commander in Chief," the site states.

The founder of the petition said he knows it's unlikely Trump will be blocked from becoming president, but he had to express his reservations about the election results. He is urging the electors who will vote this month under the Electoral College system for president to keep Trump out of the White House. Electors are chosen by party officials and are not required to vote for the candidate selected by the most voters in his or her state. But most do.

"Yes, I think it's a longshot, but I also think we're living in strange times," Daniel Brezenoff, who created the petition, told The Associated Press. "If it was ever plausible, it's this year."

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Wild weather on December 3 left a trail of destruction across Queensland with several supercell storms moving into the state from New South Wales in the late afternoon.

The ABC reported the a teenager was struck by lightning during the thunderstorm. Energex reported the storms knocked out power for about 37,000 homes across the state. About 1,600 homes also experienced outages in Brisbanes CBD.

This video shows a supercell above Beaudesert in Queenslands south-east. Credit: YouTube/flipsterAU via Storyful
Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 46 people in opposition-held parts of Syria Sunday, a monitor said, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.

Syria's government is waging an offensive to recapture all of second city Aleppo, and it has so far captured more than 60 percent of eastern districts that fell to rebels in 2012.

In Idlib province, in northwest Syria, at least 26 civilians were killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Kafr Nabel, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

An eyewitness told AFP warplanes hit several places in the town, including a market.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

The group said 18 people were also killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Maaret al-Numan, where an AFP photographer saw rescue workers and residents trying to pull survivors from rubble at a market.

The monitor reported two additional deaths, one in an earlier strike on Maaret al-Numan and another in Al-Naqir, also in Idlib.

It said six civilians, four of them children, had been killed in a government barrel bomb attack on the town of Al-Tamanah in the same province.

Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad's government, began a military intervention in support of Damascus in September 2015.

Moscow says it is targeting "terrorists" and has dismissed reports of civilian casualties in its strikes.

- Army advances in Aleppo -

In east Aleppo, government forces advanced against rebels, taking three neighbourhoods and pushing into a fourth, state media and the Russian defence ministry said.

The army and allied forces are nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of the city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syria's opposition its worst defeat in the five-year civil war.

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State television said late Sunday the army had captured the districts of Karm al-Tahan and Myessar and advanced into the Qadi Askar neighbourhood.

The Russian defence ministry said regime forces had also taken the district of Karm al-Katurji.

Rebels are increasingly under pressure in the remaining southeastern districts they control.

State news agency SANA said the air force was dropping leaflets over rebel-held areas urging "militants to abandon their weapons and... allow civilians and the sick and wounded to leave".

Damascus says rebels are preventing civilians from leaving the east and trying to use them as human shields.

But tens of thousands of residents have fled the east as the army has advanced, with some heading south to remaining rebel territory and others going to areas under government or Kurdish control.

The east has been pounded with air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire.

At least 311 civilians, including 42 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the government assault began, the Observatory says.

- Nothing but rubble -

Rebel fire on west Aleppo in the same period has killed 69 civilians, including 28 children, it says.

On Sunday, the bombardment of rebel districts was so fierce it shook buildings in the west as well as in the east, AFP correspondents on both sides said.

The Observatory said a woman and two children were killed in the eastern neighbourhood of Fardos in government artillery fire.

The latest assault has added to the massive destruction in east Aleppo, which has seen some of the worst violence in the conflict that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

The army has encouraged residents to return to recently recaptured neighbourhoods, but many who have ventured across to see their old homes have found nothing but rubble.

"This is all we found, this photo of my niece. It is precious to us, and we found a copy of the Koran, so we brought that too," said Um Yayha, 55.

The Russian defence ministry also said Syrian government forces took control of the town of Al-Tal outside Damascus after a local truce.

"More than 500 rebels from the Fateh al-Sham Front have left Al-Tal for Idlib over the last days with 1,500 family members," it said, referring to Al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate.

Despite international outcry over the conflict, successive attempts to end it have failed.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura on Saturday urged a return to negotiations, warning of a "creeping, ongoing guerilla (war) and no reconstruction" unless peace talks resumed.
Opinion polls tell us that 70 percent, 80 percent and even 90 percent of Americans believe our political system is broken and theres nothing we can do about it.

This year, however, the supposedly impossible happened in South Dakota, a solidly red state where the political deck is heavily stacked against political reform. A grass-roots citizens movement scored an improbable victory to make South Dakota the first state in a decade to adopt public funding of future political campaigns.

It was a David versus Goliath fight that pitted a citizens group called TakeitBack.org against Americans for Prosperity, the richly financed political organ of conservative Kansas billionaires Charles and David Koch, as well as the states Republican Party establishment.

The revolt was launched by Rick Weiland, who ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in 2014 and lost, and his friend, Drey Samuelson, a veteran of 28 years as Capitol Hill chief of staff for former Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson. Samuelson gave up on Washington and came home to push for reform.

It is not possible to change the system in Washington, Samuelson told me. Theres too much anger, theres too much hyper-partisanship. The only way were going to change Congress, in my opinion, is by changing the states and forcing Congress to change.

Weiland and Samuelson are prairie populists whose campaign is a handbook for reformers. They spent 18 months carefully stitching together a coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans intent on re-engaging South Dakotans in direct democracy. Local and national good government groups  including the South Dakota Farmers Union, Represent.us and the League of Women Voters  helped TakeItBack.org collect 100,000 signatures to put three reform measures on the ballot.

One initiative proposed a nonpartisan primary system to give voice to South Dakotas 115,000 political independents (22 percent of the voters). A second measure called for gerrymander reform to break the partisan, GOP Legislatures monopoly on mapping legislative districts. (Democrats do it too in other states.) TakeItBack proposed an independent commission  three Republicans, three Democrats, three independents.

The most sweeping proposal, Initiated Measure 22, proposed a package of reforms: establishing a South Dakota ethics commission, lowering limits on PAC contributions in state elections, increasing transparency on state campaign donations and empowering average voters by setting up a $12 million state fund to give voters $100 each in democracy vouchers to donate to candidates of their choice.

You actually get to take your tax dollars back and invest them in candidates that you think are going to do your bidding in the state capital  make the person running for office less dependent on the $1,000 check writer, Weiland said. It levels the playing field.

Inevitably, the reform package kicked up a storm. Americans for Prosperity, rallying political allies including the South Dakota Farm Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce, warned voters in waves of radio ads and direct mail that scheming politicians want to use our tax dollars to pay for their political campaigns.

South Dakotas Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard and the states two Republican senators, John Thune and Mike Rounds, derided the reformers as disgruntled Democrats trying to change the political rules because they kept losing elections.

But TakeItBack.orgs traditional shoe-leather, retail politics gave it grass-roots appeal. It had its mailers and radio ads, but it also sent a team of college and graduate students door-to-door. Weiland visited small and medium-sized towns, stirring up local media coverage and endorsements as he worked small groups in Main Street cafes, diners and stores.

Social media was critical. One Facebook post that reached 68,000 viewers showed 28-year-old Army veteran Justin Otoski telling how he came back from duty in Afghanistan and was disgusted by the partisan warfare in U.S. politics.

I feel like I came back from a combat war zone to a political war zone, and its just frustrating, Otoski said. Our politicians care more about winning for the party, winning for themselves, rather than winning for America, doing whats best for their constituents.

On election day, the two simpler proposals  for gerrymander reform and a nonpartisan primary  were defeated. But the big ticket item, IM 22 won a slim 52 percent majority. That put South Dakota into a special group with four other states that have robust systems of public funding for election campaigns  Arizona, Connecticut, Maine and Minnesota.

The next test is whether other states  especially the 26 that give citizens the power of ballot initiatives  learn South Dakotas lesson: Fundamental reform can be won, even in red states, if people organize well at the grass roots.

What South Dakota shows is that politics is too precious to be left to the politicians.
Aung San Suu Kyi must step in to prevent the "genocide" of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, Malaysia's prime minister said Sunday as he mocked the Nobel laureate for her inaction.

Addressing a 5,000-strong rally in Kuala Lumpur, Najib Razak said the Myanmar government must stop the bloody crackdown in its far west that has sent thousands of Rohingya fleeing, many with stories of rape, torture and murder.

Whats the use of Aung San Suu Kyi having a Nobel prize?" Najib asked a raucous crowd.

We want to tell Aung San Suu Kyi, enough is enough... We must and we will defend Muslims and Islam," he said as supporters chanted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greater").

"We want the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) to act.

"Please do something. The UN do something. The world cannot sit and watch genocide taking place," said Najib.

More than 10,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, the United Nations said on Wednesday, escaping a bloody army crackdown in the north of Rakhine state.

Arrivals in Bangladesh have told AFP horrifying stories of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmar's security forces.

Myanmar has denied allegations of abuse, but has also banned foreign journalists and independent investigators from the area.

Muslim-majority Malaysia has recently upped its criticism of Myanmar for its handling of the crisis.

Last month it summoned the Myanmar ambassador, while around 500 Malaysians and Rohingya marched to the embassy in the Malaysian capital carrying banners denouncing the "genocide."

A senior minister has called on ASEAN, the ten-country Southeast Asia bloc, to review Myanmar's membership, while a strongly worded statement from the foreign ministry Saturday accused Myanmar of engaging in "ethnic cleansing."

But analysts said Sunday the issue is a convenient smokescreen for Najib, who is fighting allegations he took part in the looting of billions of dollars of public cash through state fund 1MDB.

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Both he and the fund deny any wrongdoing.

James Chin, director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania, told AFP that Najib "is there (at the rally) to boost his standing as an Islamic leader," with a general election looming.

"Najib is looking for anything to make him look good and the Rohingya issue is simply a tool," said Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia politics expert with Turkey's Ipek University.

She added that if Najib's government really cared for the Rohingya, they would "reexamine their own treatment of the community within Malaysia."

Malaysia might be a beacon for Rohingya fleeing Myanmar but many have said they end up in a precarious and stateless limbo and suffer a new kind of marginalisation.
Austrians voted in a tight presidential race Sunday, electing Alexander Van der Bellen, an independent candidate backed by the Green Party, over Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the right-wing Freedom Party. More here.

In Italy, voters participated in a referendum on constitutional reform. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has vowed to resign if the measure fails. More here.

California officials say the death toll in a fire in Oakland Friday night could rise. Nine people have been confirmed dead. More here.

The ashes of former Cuban President Fidel Castro were interred in a private ceremony early Sunday in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, ending a four-day procession across the country. More here.

Were live-blogging the news stories of the day below. All updates are in Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5).

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
UPDATE: 7 p.m. EST  President-elect Donald Trump unleashed a Tweetstorm Sunday, criticizing China, a move certain to exacerbate Beijings diplomatic pique engendered by Trumps telephone conversation last week with the president of Taiwan.

Trump took issue with the formal protest lodged by China.

He also attacked Chinas moves in the South China sea.

Original story

Donald Trumps cadre of spokespeople tried Sunday to downplay the president-elects diplomatic faux pas in accepting a congratulatory phone call from the president of Taiwan, emphasizing it was a courtesy call, not a major change in U.S. policy toward China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Saturday China had lodged a formal complaint over the call between Trump and Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen, the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

The 10-minute call was the first conversation between a U.S. president or president-elect with the president of Taiwan in nearly 40 years. Trump earlier had talked with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"It must be stated that, there is only one China and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory, and the government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government that represents China. Those are all facts recognized by the international community," Geng said, calling the one-China policy the foundation of U.S.-China relations.

"We urge relevant U.S. side to honor the commitment to the one-China policy as well as the three Sino-U.S. joint communiques, and cautiously and properly handle Taiwan-related issues to avoid any unnecessary disturbance to the bigger picture of the Sino-U.S. relations," he added.

Taiwan declared its independence from the mainland in 1949, but China considers the island a rogue province.

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Top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said on several of the Sunday morning talk shows that it was just a phone call and Trump is well aware of U.S. policy toward China.

People shouldnt read too much into it, she said on Fox News Sunday.

Tsai Ing-wen

Photo: Jorge Adorno/Reuters

Vice President-elect Mike Pence said it was just a courtesy call.

It's a little mystifying to me that President Obama can reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba in the last year and be hailed as a hero for doing it and President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from a democratically elected leader in Taiwan and its become something of a controversy, he said on ABCs This Week in reference to Obamas efforts to normalize relations with Cuba.

Trump Chief-of-Staff Reince Priebus also downplayed the significance on CBSs Face the Nation.

Much of Trumps campaign rhetoric was devoted to bashing U.S. trade relations with China, saying the United States has gotten a raw deal and pledging to turn that around, suggesting high tariffs should be reimposed. He also has suggested China be labeled a currency manipulator and threatened to bring trade cases against Beijing before the World Trade Organization.

Cato Institute scholar Scott Lincicome argued in the Federalist every one of Trumps beliefs about international trade and its impact on U.S. jobs is wrong. Though Trump blames Chinese manufacturing for a loss of U.S. factory jobs, Lincicome argues those jobs have been lost to robots and computers  and they wont come back, no matter how high the tariffs  which Congress would have to approve. He also noted imposing tariffs would be a violation of WTO rules, giving China a case against the U.S., and hurt U.S. exports to China, the countrys third-largest market.

As far as the yuan goes, Lincicome noted the Chinese actually are trying to keep their currency from falling, not rising, as Trump has charged.

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By John Whitesides WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump, fresh off a deal to keep nearly 1,000 U.S. jobs in the country, will decide whether to intervene with other companies to keep them from moving jobs overseas "on a day-by-day basis," Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on Sunday. Pence said the deal Trump reached last week to keep Carrier, a unit of United Technologies Corp, from shipping jobs to Mexico from an Indiana air conditioner plant showed the incoming administration would confront U.S.-based firms when needed and use a carrot-and-stick approach to keep them from offshoring jobs. The Carrier deal included $7 million in tax breaks to encourage United Technologies to keep the jobs in Indiana. On Twitter early Sunday morning, Trump also revived his campaign threat to slap a 35 percent tariff on imports of products made by companies that have moved production out of the United States. "Please be forewarned prior to making a very expensive mistake," Trump said, telling companies that moved jobs overseas would face "retribution or consequence." Trump has pledged to lower the corporate tax rate and roll back federal regulations to create a better climate in the United States for businesses. Trump is sending a message to businesses considering moving overseas that "things are really changing," Pence said on ABC's "This Week" program. "He is going to put on the table all the tools that are going to take away the advantages of companies that for far too long have been pulling up stakes, leaving American workers behind," Pence told ABC. Asked if Trump would now pick up the phone to call other companies considering shipping jobs overseas, Pence said "the president-elect will make those decisions on a day-by-day basis." Trump's incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said he expected the president-elect would be burning up the phone lines to warn companies to keep jobs at home. "I would not be surprised if he wasnt on the phone with all of these companies, as many as he can to encourage them to stay, stick it out," Priebus told Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends." Trump, who made his pledge to keep manufacturing jobs from fleeing the country a centerpiece of his campaign, already has warned another company, Rexnord Corp, an industrial supplier based in Milwaukee that plans to move a bearings plant and its 300 jobs from Indiana to Mexico. "Rexnord of Indiana is moving to Mexico and rather viciously firing all of its 300 workers. This is happening all over the country. No more!" Trump said on Twitter on Friday. Pence said the incoming administration was committed to living up to Trump's campaign pledge to keep manufacturing jobs at home. "We're going to create trade policies that take away the advantages that these multinational corporations have had in moving jobs overseas now for decades," he said. "It's just the beginning. Stay tuned. Be ready," Pence said on NBC's "Meet the Press." (Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
US President-elect Donald Trump fired a Twitter broadside at China on Sunday, accusing the Asian giant of currency manipulation and military expansionism in the South China Sea.

The taunt came two days after Trump risked offending Beijing by accepting a call from the Taiwanese president, and heralded the prospect of a trade battle between the world's largest economies.

China was a frequent target of Trump's during his presidential campaign and, as he prepares to take office next month, every sign points to his taking an aggressive line with Beijing.

"Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?" he demanded, adding: "I don't think so!"

China is the United States' largest trading partner, but America ran a $366 billion deficit with Beijing in goods and services in 2015, up 6.6 percent on the year before.

US politicians often accuse China of artificially depressing its currency, the renminbi, in order to boost its exports -- its value has fallen by around 15 percent in the past two-and-half years.

Trump has vowed to formally declare China a "currency manipulator" on the first day of his presidency, which would oblige the US Treasury to open negotiations with Beijing on allowing the renminbi to rise.

With China holding about a trillion dollars in US government debt, Washington would have little leverage in such talks, but the declaration would harm ties and boost the prospect of a trade war.

China charges an average 15.6 percent tariff on US agricultural imports and nine percent on other goods, according to the World Trade Organization.

Chinese farm products pay 4.4 percent and other goods 3.6 percent when coming into the United States.

On Friday, Trump courted Chinese anger by accepting a congratulatory call from Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen.

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China regards self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification, and any US move implying support for independence would gravely offend Beijing.

Trump's incoming vice president, Mike Pence, played down the significance of the call, describing it as a courtesy, and said any new policy on China would be decided after his inauguration.

China responded cautiously to the call, with state media putting it down to Trump's "inexperience."
President-elect Donald Trump's controversial telephone conversation with the leader of Taiwan was just a "courtesy call," US Vice President-elect Mike Pence said Sunday.

"It was nothing more than taking a courtesy call from a democratically elected leader," Pence told ABC's "This Week" program, speaking about the Friday call between Trump and Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen, which broke decades of US diplomatic policy and risks creating a serious rift with China.

Washington cut formal diplomatic relations with the island in 1979 and recognizes Beijing as the sole government of "One China" -- while keeping friendly, non-official ties with Taipei.

China regards self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification, and any US move implying support for independence -- even calling Tsai "president," as Trump did in a tweet announcing the call -- prompts grave offense in China.

Trump "took the call, accepted her congratulations and good wishes and it was precisely that," Pence said.

Pence was asked directly if there were any implications for the "One China" policy.

"We'll deal with policy after January the 20th," he said, referring to the day that Trump takes office.

Chinese state media said that Trump's "inexperience" led him to accept the phone call, but warned that any breach of the "One China" stance would "destroy" Sino-US relations.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said that her boss "is well aware" of Washington's "One-China" policy.

"It was just a phone call at this point. It signals the fact that he accepted a congratulatory call," Conway said.

"I know China has a perspective on it. The White House and State Department probably have a perspective on it. Certainly Taiwan has a perspective on it. The president-elect's perspective is he accepted a congratulatory call.

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"When he's sworn in as commander-in-chief, he'll make clear the fullness of his plans. But people shouldn't read too much into it," she said.

Since his surprise November 8 victory Trump has accepted congratulatory calls from numerous leaders, including the prime ministers or presidents of Israel, Singapore, Japan and China, Conway said.

Trump "is not out there making policy or announcing new policy prescriptions worldwide. He's merely taking phone calls," Conway said.

"We know about 'One China.' He knows about 'One China.' He's routinely briefed on these matters. That just is what it is," she added.
New York (AFP) - President-elect Donald Trump's threats to retaliate against US companies planning to shift operations overseas constitute a new risk for multinationals, but may not sway those already planning to offshore jobs.

Trump threw down the gauntlet on Thursday at a campaign-style rally after striking a deal with Carrier to keep about 1,100 jobs in Indiana in exchange for $7 million in state tax incentives over 10 years.

"Companies are not going to leave the United States any more without consequences. Not going to happen," Trump told the cheering crowd.

"They can leave from state to state, and negotiate deals with different states, but leaving the country will be very, very difficult."

The president-elect did not offer details on how he planned to pressure companies to keep jobs in the United States, but tweeted Sunday that there "will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units etc., back across the border."

In an early Sunday morning tweet storm, the president-elect fired off six back-to-back posts on the topic, promising that "The U.S. is going to substantially reduce taxes and regulations on businesses."

"Any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the U.S. without retribution or consequence, is WRONG!" Trump tweeted.

One obvious lever Trump could use would be the removal of government contracts. That could make companies that work in defense, public works and public services especially vulnerable to retribution.

"Boeing, for example, would have to play ball if it wants its government contracts renewed," said one expert who requested anonymity.

Trump coupled the threat with a promise to make the United States a better place for business by cutting taxes and streamlining regulations.

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"There are a lot of plans already in place," said Hal Sirkin, a manufacturing expert at the Boston Consulting Group.

"CEOs are following the news closely and trying to figure out what all of this could mean for their businesses."

- Will threats work? -

Some companies said Trump's broadside was not sufficient to compel a change in plans, although Trump advised them Sunday via Twitter to "Please be forewarned prior to making a very expensive mistake! THE UNITED STATES IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS."

Caterpillar announced in March 2015 it plans to shutter a plant in Joliet, Illinois that makes oil pumps and valves, and move 230 jobs to Mexico.

"We are continuing to execute on the previously announced plan on the stated timeline," said Matt Lavoie, a spokesman at Caterpillar.

Food giant Mondelez International also signaled it would proceed with plans to relocate hundreds of jobs from an Oreo cookie plant in Chicago to Mexico.

"We have not had any contact with the new administration," said Mondelez spokeswoman Laurie Guzzinati, adding that the Chicago baker remains an "important part of our manufacturing network" and that it continues to make Oreos at three US factories.

Not far from Trump's victory celebration at Carrier in Indiana, the industrial companies Rexnord, CTS Corp. and Manitowoc Foodservice all plan to shift activities overseas from the Indianapolis area.

Manitowoc opted to close a plant in Sellersburg, Indiana due to a decline in demand for soda-drink dispensers, which had been made there, a spokesman said. Most of the 87 jobs are being moved to Tijuana, Mexico.

"The wind down of the plant is proceeding according to our original schedule," Manitowoc spokesman Rich Sheffer said. "Yesterday's speech did not include anything specific enough for us to reconsider our plans."

Trump's plans drew mixed reviews, with United Auto Workers Union President Dennis Williams offering accolades.

"We should use this opportunity to start running a commercial: If it's not built in America, don't buy it," Williams said.

But the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an industry-labor alliance, offered tempered praise. It noted that Friday's jobs report showed a decline of 4,000 manufacturing jobs in November and called for a crackdown on "unsavory" policies of trade partners.

"While on balance, I believe this week's Carrier deal was worth doing, it isn't a practical job creation policy moving forward," alliance president Scott Paul said.

Senator Bernie Sanders said Trump's plans were a losing proposal, in part because Carrier will still transfer 1,000 jobs to Mexico. Trump failed to save all 2,100 jobs, as he promised, Sanders said.

Carrier "took Trump hostage and won," Sanders said in an op-ed in The Washington Post.
Farmers, doctors, lawyers, students, teachers, veterans and other concerned citizens poured into the Standing Rock Indian Reservation last week. Our caravan left Lincoln before dawn on Thanksgiving morning, proud to be carrying donations from people in Lincoln and Omaha -- coats, blankets, tents and food completely filling our pickup and box trailer.

We passed through the treeless winter plains of North and South Dakota, geese flying high in the sky on their way south. Hay bales spotted the landscape and, for a moment, I imagined them as buffalo, dotting the rolling hills in numbers as great as they once were. Horses grazed peacefully in low-lying areas.

Further north, we passed signs directing travelers toward the Lewis and Clark Trail and a small but mighty burial ground, the South Sioux Vet Cemetery. Finally, we caught up with the Missouri River on its southern swerve through the center of the border between North and South Dakota. Here, it was swollen out of its natural banks into Lake Oahe, a massive reservoir created when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Oahe Dam near Pierre.

There was no evidence of the encampment until we crossed over a hill, and then it filled the river valley before us like a sunset. The first thing I made out was a flat wheel turning in the wind on top of a long pole. I would learn this was a traditional Sioux windmill, and with a small bank of solar panels, it powered a phone-charging station. Hundreds of white tipis came into view, and still more modern tents.

By the end of our stay on Saturday, The Associated Press would report that there were 9,000 people in the seven camps making up the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Despite its size, the camp was silent when we arrived except for the sound of trucks like ours rumbling in with supplies for the winter. Signs outside read No Alcohol and No Weapons. The gatekeeper said to us, Welcome home.

We entered the largest of the seven camps, Oceti Sakowin (oh-CHE-tee shah-KOH-wee), which means Seven Council Fires, and found a camp fully aware of and preparing for the harsh realities of a North Dakota winter. People worked in kitchens, dining areas, medical stations, a legal information area, even a radio station.

Essential services operate out of sturdy canvas tents, some with stovepipes poking out of built-in roof holes. Many of the tents are military, perhaps donated by some of the hundreds of veterans who have gone to stand and be counted among the water protectors. During our brief visit, we put up a 33-by-16-foot Army tent donated in Lincoln, establishing a warm, welcome space for anyone who comes after us, especially Nebraskans in need of direction or a break from the cold. We saw license plates from 35 states, plus Ontario, Canada, and several Native American nations. The central avenue of the camp is lined with dozens and dozens of Native flags from 240 tribes.

Seeing such an impressive cross-section of people who likely disagree about many things but have come together to fight the oil pipeline that would cross under the Missouri River really put the target of their protests in perspective. The Standing Rock and those who stand with them are fighting not only for their culture but for everyone under threat from the pipeline being built by Energy Transfer Partners in collaboration with the Army Corps of Engineers. Tipis and Coleman tents stand side by side peacefully along the rivers edge.

But videos show water protectors on the front lines being hit with pepper spray, tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets. Both sides blame the other for the violence. I spent Thanksgiving in a pickup, but I was not prepared to lose an arm or an eye. Many people in the camp are, and they head to the front with goggles, gas masks and what body armor they can improvise tucked into backpacks or beneath clothing, collectively hoping to show they mean to protest peacefully. Everyone who participates in an action must abide by rules handed down by elders of the Standing Rock Sioux, chief among them: No Weapons or What Could Be Considered Weapons, and We Are Non-Violent.

Legend has it that the Standing Rock name comes from a large boulder that rose out of the Missouri River and created a whirlpool in its wake. Stones caught in the pool long enough became spherical, and people would retrieve them and consider them sacred. Today, that standing rock is under water in the center of the lake created when the Corps of Engineers built the Oahe Dam.

The Standing Rock Sioux are once again on the front line of an infrastructure project that threatens their land. This time, it looms over us all. We must stand together in the presence of a large and obvious threat to our water and our way of life.

Mni wiconi (MIN-ee wa-CHO-nee). Water is life.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's phone conversation with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday, which prompted a diplomatic protest from China, was simply a "courtesy call," Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on NBC on Sunday. Asked whether any shift in policy should be read into the call, Pence said: "I don't think so." The call with Tsai was the first by a U.S. president-elect or president with a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979. "This was a courtesy call. The democratically elected president of Taiwan called to congratulate the president-elect," Pence said. China's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it has lodged "stern representations" with what it called the "relevant U.S. side," urging the careful handling of the Taiwan issue to avoid any unnecessary disturbances in ties. Pence said he was not aware of any contact between the Trump transition team and the Chinese government since Friday, and did not expect Trump's team would reach out this week to ease tensions with China, which claims Taiwan as its own. Pence said the call was similar in nature to one between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping after the Nov. 8 election. "I think I would just say to our counterparts in China that this was a moment of courtesy. The president-elect talked to President Xi two weeks ago in the same manner. It was not a discussion about policy," Pence said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Trump lambasted China throughout the U.S. election campaign, pledging to label the country a currency manipulator on his first day in office. Asked on ABC's "This Week" whether Trump would make good on that pledge, Pence said decisions on policy would come after Trump takes office on Jan. 20. "It will be for the president-elect to decide whether he implements that policy after the inauguration," Pence said. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton and John Whitesides; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
Ankara (AFP) - Turkish authorities on Sunday charged six people over a blaze in a dormitory building that killed 11 schoolgirls last week, state media reported.

Among those charged and placed under arrest pending trial were the dorm manager as well as the head of an association linked to the religious body that owns the building and two board members, the Anadolu news agency said.

An adult tutor was also killed in the fire that ripped through the dorm on Tuesday in the southern Adana region, which officials said was likely caused by an electrical fault.

About 24 people were injured, including eight adults, as they tried to escape the blaze which tore through the building's wooden interior.

The agency said a total of 14 people had been detained over the fire but six have been released to "judicial control", the equivalent of probation.

The dormitory is said to have belonged to a religious Sunni Muslim sect known as the Suleymanci.

After the fire, the government came under attack by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) which accused it of failing to properly fund student digs, forcing poor families to use accommodation run by religious communities.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey is taking steps to allow commerce with China, Russia and Iran to be conducted in local currencies, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, the government's latest effort to shore up the tumbling lira.

In a speech to flag-waving crowds in the central city of Kayseri, Erdogan also said that Prime Minister Binali Yildirim would bring up the issue with Moscow during a forthcoming trip to Russia.

Erdogan has called on Turks to cash in their foreign exchange holdings and buy lira to stem the Turkish currency's decline. The lira has lost a fifth of its value this year, hit by a resurgent dollar and widening concern about a crackdown following the July 15 failed coup.

(Reporting by Yesim Dikmen; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Susan Fenton)
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish authorities arrested four people on Sunday in connection with a fire at a dormitory in the southern Adana province that killed 11 schoolgirls and one other person, state media reported. The four, who were arrested pending trial, included the manager of the dormitory and the head of an affiliated foundation, Anadolu Agency reported, citing a judiciary source. Reuters was not immediately able to reach anyone for comment at the local court. The fire in the town of Aladag on Tuesday swept through the two-storey dormitory, causing the roof to collapse. Twenty-four people, many of them schoolgirls, were injured. The government has said an electrical fault may have been the cause of the fire. Opposition politicians have complained of lax regulation and criticized an education policy that has seen a growing number of such dormitories set up to house poor students from villages where there are no state schools. Local media said the dormitory was run by one of the several religious movements in Turkey that operate such facilities. Earlier this week police issued warrants to detain 14 people for questioning in connection with the fire. (Reporting by David Dolan; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
The current Dakota Access pipeline route will be denied, the U.S. Army announced on Sunday, in a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and activists against the construction.

Assistant secretary for civil works Jo-Ellen Darcy confirmed the decision on Sunday, and said it was based on a need to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing. Work on the controversial pipeline will halt so the Army Corps of Engineers can conduct an environmental-impact study to look at possible alternative routes for the 1,170-mile project.

Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, its clear that theres more work to do, Darcy said in a statement. The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.

Thousands of Native American and environmental activists have protested the building of the pipeline for months, saying it violates the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and will add to detrimental climate change. In recent months, protests have escalated in violence as authorities have attacked demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets and water hoses.

We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps., the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and to do the right thing, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted that he appreciated Obama for listening to the activists.

In 2016, we should not continue to trample on Native American sovereignty, he wrote. And we should not become more dependent on fossil fuels.

In 2016, we should not continue to trample on Native American sovereignty. And we should not become more dependent on fossil fuels.  Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 4, 2016

In a statement, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell commended the Army for its decision.

The thoughtful approach established by the Army today ensures that there will be an in-depth evaluation of alternative routes for the pipeline and closer look at potential impacts, as envisioned by NEPA, she wrote. The Armys announcement underscores that tribal rights reserved in treaties and federal law, as well as Nation-to-Nation consultation with tribal leaders, are essential components of the analysis to be undertaken in the environmental impact statement going forward.
Kampala (AFP) - Abducted by gunmen as a 10-year-old boy on his way to school, Dominic Ongwen rose to become one of the most feared commanders in Uganda's brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

The former child soldier, now in his early 40s, goes on trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday for crimes committed in Uganda, including keeping sex slaves and recruiting child soldiers.

Ongwen, known as the "White Ant", is the first leader of the brutal Ugandan rebel army led by the fugitive Joseph Kony to appear before the ICC, created to try the world's worst crimes.

The son of school teachers, he was abducted as a child before being forced into the rebel army and allegedly becoming a willing perpetrator of violence.

He rose swiftly through the LRA ranks, quickly being singled out for his murderous loyalty and tactical ability and taking command of one of the army's four brigades.

Ongwen is accused of carrying out massacres, rapes, mutilations and abductions in quick and lethal raids.

Ongwen's men -- with trademark dreadlocks, mismatched uniforms and AK-47 rifles fitted with bayonets -- also allegedly carried out thousands of abductions of children.

Boys were taken to be soldiers or porters, girls were taken as sex slaves or drafted into military ranks as fighters.

- Punishment raids -

The LRA fighters were also notorious for punishment raids where they would slice the lips and ears off victims as a grim calling card.

Under the leadership of self-proclaimed prophet Kony, the LRA is accused of kidnapping tens of thousands of children during its nearly three-decade long insurgency.

Prosecutors told a January hearing in the ICC that Ongwen was the "tip of the spear" of the group that has sown terror across several countries in central and eastern Africa.

Between 2002 and 2003, Ongwen is thought to have directed bloody campaigns in northern Uganda that butchered or abducted thousands.

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He is also accused of playing a central role in revenge attacks on civilians in the troubled Democratic Republic of Congo.

In recent years, however, he was reportedly sidelined after falling out with Kony over his execution of another commander.

Hailing from the northern Ugandan district of Gulu, Ongwen was known "as much for his volatile nature as his bravery", according to the LRA Crisis Tracker, which monitors the rebels.

Years of psychological trauma are also said to have taken their toll, with Ongwen earning a reputation for flying into murderous rages.

Wanted by the ICC for almost a decade, Ongwen surrendered to US special forces in the Central African Republic in January 2015 after Washington offered a $5-million (4.4-million-euro) reward for his capture.

Mark Kersten, a London-based academic focusing on international justice, has described Ongwen as "both a victim and a perpetrator of international crimes" and said efforts to prosecute him could raise difficult questions.

"When is a victim a perpetrator and a perpetrator a victim? The line is much more murky than we tend to assume," he said.
Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) (AFP) - Uzbekistan voted Sunday to choose a successor to late strongman Islam Karimov, with long-serving premier Shavkat Mirziyoyev expected to score a comfortable victory against weak opponents.

The Central Electoral Commission in the ex-Soviet authoritarian republic said almost 87 percent of the 20 million-plus electorate had voted, an hour before polling stations closed at 1500 GMT.

Mirziyoyev, who was appointed prime minister in 2003, became interim president following Karimov's death in September from a stroke at the age of 78.

Representing the same Liberal-Democratic Party that Karimov stood for in the last presidential vote in 2015, he faced three other challengers in a bid to secure a five-year term.

But analysts noted that the other candidates were not critical of Mirziyoyev nor the regime in the country bordering Afghanistan where Beijing, Moscow, and Washington all vie for influence.

"The format for Uzbek elections has not changed since Karimov's death," said Kamoliddin Rabbimov, an Uzbek political analyst who lives in France.

"If anything, efforts have been made to ensure other candidates are even more obscure because Mirziyoyev's stature among the population is not yet what Karimov's was," he told AFP.

"Uzbekistan has its own specific take on democracy. There will be no surprises here."

Karimov's 27-year reign began in 1989 at the tail-end of the Soviet era, and was often criticised for extreme abuses of human rights.

- 'Everything has changed' -

In the run-up to Sunday's poll, Mirziyoyev, 59, created an online forum for public complaints and pledged to prioritise economic reforms as many Uzbeks struggle to eke out a living.

The election commission published a series of glowingly optimistic quotes attributed to voters about the poll.

"I realised the importance of my voice in the future development of the country which made me proud," student Sevara Foziljonova was quoted as saying on the commission website.

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"There was a time when we had to agree with everything," the CEC quoted 106-year old World War II veteran Badal-bobo Khuramov as saying, referring to the Soviet era.

"Now everything has changed," said the man the commission described as a grandfather to "around 50 grandchildren".

As premier for 13 years, Mirziyoyev was regularly touted as a potential successor to Karimov, along with current deputy prime minister Rustam Azimov and Karimov's eldest daughter Gulnara Karimova.

But businesswoman-cum-popstar Karimova, 44, has been reportedly under house arrest in the country since 2014 after publicly feuding with her mother and her younger sister Lola.

Neither Karimova nor her two children attended the strongman's September funeral and her eldest son Islam Karimov Jr, who lives in London, called on authorities to prove she was alive and well in a recent interview with the BBC.

With her situation at home unclear, Karimova is also the subject of a multi-year corruption probe targeting Western telecoms firms that US and European investigators say paid her billions of dollars in bribes to secure access to the national market.

- Inching out of isolation? -

Under Karimov, Uzbekistan enjoyed mostly cordial relations with foreign powers active in the region but kept all of them at arm's length while regularly threatening smaller neighbours Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The country with the region's largest army exited a Moscow-led security bloc in 2012.

In 2005, it ejected US forces from a military base used for Afghanistan operations over Washington's human rights criticisms.

Mirziyoyev was quick to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Karimov's death and last month hosted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, with whom Karimov enjoyed patchy relations.

"Under Karimov, Uzbekistan withdrew into itself, to its great cost, and this may be the main difference under Mirziyoyev," said analyst Rabbimov.

"The policy of not joining military blocs and hosting bases may remain, but I think Uzbekistan will begin to participate in more international initiatives. He will see the country can't survive in isolation."
You may think you are prepared for a post-truth world, in which political appeals to emotion count for more than statements of verifiable fact.

But now it's time to cross another bridge - into a world without facts. Or, more precisely, where facts do not matter a whit.

On live radio Wednesday morning, Scottie Nell Hughes sounded breezy as she drove a stake into the heart of knowable reality:

"There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, of facts," she declared on "The Diane Rehm Show" on Wednesday.

Hughes, a frequent surrogate for President-elect Donald Trump and a paid commentator for CNN during the campaign, kept on defending that assertion at length, though not with much clarity of expression. Rehm had pressed her about Trump's recent evidence-free assertion on Twitter that he, not Hillary Clinton, would have won the popular vote if millions of immigrants had not voted illegally.

(The apparent genesis of Trump's claim was Infowars.com, a site that traffics in conspiracy theories and is run by Alex Jones, who says the 2012 massacre of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, was a government-sponsored hoax.)

What matters now, Hughes argued, is not whether his fraud claim is true. No, what matters is who believes it.

"Mr. Trump's tweet, amongst a certain crowd, a large - a large part of the population, are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some - in his - amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies, and there's no facts to back it up."

Yes, it's a fact: I heard it live, as did Rehm, Politico's Glenn Thrush, and The Atlantic's James Fallows, who wrote about it, citing a recording of the show.

One might be tempted, though, to dismiss it as one woman's opinion: Maybe Hughes, the political editor of RightAlerts.com, was just having a hallucinatory day.

But at a high-profile event the next evening, two other Trump surrogates echoed this sentiment. Ousted Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, speaking during an election post-mortem at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, blamed journalists for - yes - believing what his candidate said.

"You guys took everything that Donald Trump said so literally," said Lewandowski, who was another ill-advised CNN hire. "The American people didn't. They understood it. They understood that sometimes - when you have a conversation with people, whether it's around the dinner table or at a bar - you're going to say things, and sometimes you don't have all the facts to back it up."

Yes, Corey, but Trump is not a guy at a bar; he was the Republican nominee for president of the United States and will pretty soon be the leader of the free world, such as it is.

So, how should Trump's statements during the campaign have been covered? Should reporters have added something like this in the second paragraph of every news story? "Trump probably didn't mean that he would appoint a special prosecutor/build a wall/deport millions of immigrants. His statements are not meant to be taken literally but rather as broad suggestions of a feeling he was experiencing on a particular day."

There was more from the Harvard event. When CNN's Jake Tapper asked Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway about the same election-fraud claim discussed above - specifically whether disseminating misinformation was "presidential" - it was clear that she and Hughes got the same memo.

"He's the president-elect, so that's presidential behavior," Conway said, using mind-bending pseudo-logic, reminiscent of the Nixonian "when the president does it, that means that it's not illegal."

These surrogates' disdain for facts should not be surprising, given Trump's own casual relationship with verifiable truth.

It's time to dust off your old copy of "1984" by George Orwell and recall this passage: "The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink."

And be vigilant.
On Martin Van Burens birthday today, Constitution Daily wants your opinion on which historic president sported the best facial hair ever.

presidents375

And it is a legitimate historic question, since a sitting U.S. president hasnt worn sideburns, a beard, a mustache, or muttonchops in early 1913, when William Howard Taft left office.

There is some debate over which leader was the first to adopt the 19th century trend of facial hair. John Quincy Adams and Van Buren are shown in images after their presidency with considerably big sideburns.

Adams was in office between 1825 and 1829, and some contemporary images show him with no sideburns or very modest ones. Van Buren images from his time in office, from 1837 to 1841, show the diminutive Van Buren with modest sideburns (and not the famously bushy ones featured in the famous Mathew Brady image of Van Buren).

Most U.S. presidents between 1836 and 1912 had some form of facial hair. The most famous example of hirsuteness happened in 1860, when an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell wrote the Republican presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, and told Lincoln he would win the election if he grew a beard (which he did).



If you cant see the poll in the upper part of this story, click this link.

General Ulysses S. Grant went Lincoln one better when he became president in 1869; Grant became the first president with a full beard. Starting with Grant, nine of the next 10 presidents had facial hair (William McKinley was the exception). But after Woodrow Wilson replaced Taft in 1913, a century has passed without whiskers in the White House.

Here is the list of facial hair styles from historic presidents. You can vote in our poll above and ask your online friends to take part in the hairy exercise.

John Quincy Adams

Martin Van Buren

Abraham Lincoln

Ulysses S. Grant

Rutherford Hayes

James Garfield

Chester Arthur

Grover Cleveland

Benjamin Harrison

Theodore Roosevelt
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A winter storm warning is in effect for an unlikely place: tropical Hawaii.

The National Weather Service has issued a warning for the Big Island's Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa volcanoes through Sunday night.

Around 2 feet of snow has already fallen on the volcanoes' peaks, and another 6 to 12 feet are expected throughout Sunday above 11,000 feet.

Time-lapse footage near Mauna Kea's summit captured wind gusts and thick snow piling up near the elegantly named Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

SEE ALSO: Hawaii's bees are now protected under U.S. Endangered Species Act

The peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa both rise more than 13,000 feet above sea level, and both volcanoes get snow each year.

But three feet of snowfall is still exceptionally high for the Big Island's volcanoes.

Last week's snow stems from an upper-level area of low pressure that is bringing deep moisture into the Hawaiian islands and lowering snow levels enough to reach the peaks, the Weather Channel reported. This second round of snowflakes is the result of a separate upper-level system.

Dark pink circles show the winter storm warning for Hawaii's Big Island as of Sun, Dec. 4, 2016 at 11:14:04 a.m . HST. Green indicates a flash flood watch. The light pink circles indicate small craft advisories.

Image: national weather service weather forecast office

For the rest of Hawaii, flash flood warnings remained in effect for Sunday afternoon.

The National Weather Service said a combination of deep tropical moisture and an unstable airmass might lead to heavy showers and thunderstorms across the island state. Downpours could cause streams to quickly overflow and lead to flash flooding, weather forecasters warned.
Before you dismiss President-elect Donald Trumps latest Twitter tirade against Alec Baldwin, consider the actors response to the soon-to-be world leader.

Trump called Baldwins now famous impersonation of him sad on Saturday night, saying on Twitter that the actors bit on NBCs Saturday Night Live just cant get any worse.

Also Read: Donald Trump Seethes on Twitter While Watching 'SNL' Live

To that, Baldwin responded:

@realDonaldTrump Release your tax returns and Ill stop.

Ha  ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 4, 2016

But the actor also retweeted a link to an August article from The Atlantic that compared Trump to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, highlighting a quote from the piece:

Mussolinis rise to power also exemplifies another authoritarian trait America has seen during this campaign: The charismatic leader who tests the limits of what the public, press, and political class will tolerate. This exploration begins early and is accomplished through controversial actions and threatening or humiliating remarks toward groups or individuals. Its designed to gauge the collective appetite and permission for verbal and physical violence and the use of extralegal methods in policing and other realms.

Also Read: 'SNL': Watch Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump Retweet Randoms Instead of Working (Video)

Baldwin is not alone in raising alarm bells over Trumps ostentatious statements, many of which he tweets for his 16.6 million followers to see.

An article published by Salon on Sunday said that the president-elects public scorn of satire like that employed by Baldwin is part of a strategy to control the media. Democracy depends on a free and independent press, which is why all tyrants try to squelch it, wrote Robert Reich, one of the countrys leading experts on work and the economy, and a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. They use seven techniques that, worryingly, President-elect Donald Trump already employs, he said, outlining them as:

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1. Berate the media 2. Blacklist critical media 3. Turn the public against the media 4. Condemn satirical or critical comments 5. Threaten the media directly 6. Limit media access 7. Bypass the media and communicate with the public directly.

Also Read: Donald Trump's Chin Mocked in Hilarious Internet Memes (Photos)

Indeed, its not enough to bemoan or even sharply criticize Trumps freewheeling tweets if you want to effectively oppose him, argued Luigi Zingales in a recent New York Times piece that compared Trump to another controversial Italian figure: Silvio Berlusconi. Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition, wrote Zingales. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconis popularity.

Piggybacking on that thought, New York Magazine consulted with protest experts for a tutorial on how to strategically voice opposition to a Trump-led administration: 1. Trump can be useful as a galvanizing force, but keep things focused on whatever your particular issue is, wrote Jesse Singal. 2. Make everyone who is interested in your cause, or who exhibits curiosity about it, feel welcome.  3. Stay nonviolent.

So before going on a knee-jerk, Trump-style Twitter tirade against the president-elect the next time he riles you up  like this woman just did  think about the fact that it may very well be the response that Trump wants to elicit.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Donald Trump Mocks ABC News' Martha Raddatz for 'Crying' on Election Night (Video)

Where Are These Trump Voters Getting Their Fake News? They Aren't Sure (Video)

When Donald Trump Met Rosa Parks (Photo)

12 Marvel Movie Stars Against Donald Trump (Photos)
George Stephanopoulos

George Stephanopoulos grilled Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday over President-elect Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally.

In an interview on "This Week," the ABC anchor brought up Trump's baseless claim, asking Pence if it "was responsible for a president-elect to make false statements like that?"

Pence repeatedly attempted to support Trump by citing a Pew Research study which found that voter registration systems needed to be updated. But Stephanopoulos countered by saying the study's author said there's still no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

"What is historic here is that our president-elect won 30 to 50 states. He won more counties than any candidate on our side since Ronald Reagan," Pence said.

He added: "And the fact that some partisans, who are frustrated with the outcome of the election and disappointed with the outcome of the election, are pointing to the popular vote, I can assure you, if this had been about the popular vote, Donald Trump and I have been campaigning a whole lot more in Illinois and California and New York."

Stephanopoulos pushed back, saying he was "not questioning" Trump's victory but asking if Pence believes "it's [Trump's] right to make false statements."

"It's his right to express his opinion as president-elect of the United States," Pence said. "I think one of the things that's refreshing about our president-elect and one of the reasons why I think he made such an incredible connection with people all across this country is because he tells you what's on his mind."

"But why is it refreshing to make false statements?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"I don't know that that is a false statement, George, and neither do you," Pence said.

" I know there's no evidence for it," Stephanopoulos replied.

Pence wasn't the only top official from the incoming Trump administration pressed about the president-elect's voter fraud claims.

Appearing on "Face The Nation," incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said "it's possible" millions of people voted illegally, adding that estimates of false votes are "all over the map."

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Priebus characterized Trump's claims as evidence that the president-elect was "challenging conventional thought."

"I think he's done a great job. I think the president elect is someone who has pushed the envelope and caused people to think in this country, is not taking conventional thought on every single issue," Priebus said.

Watch Pence on 'This Week' below:

Mike Pence defends Trump's unsubstantiated claim of "millions" of illegal votes: "His right to express his opinion" https://t.co/EY0fcvVG8D pic.twitter.com/8ErKQ8Xe4n  This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 4, 2016

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President-elect Donald Trump attacked NBCs Saturday Night Live over its portrayal of him and his itchy Twitter finger early Sunday morning, calling the show unwatchable and totally biased  and Alec Baldwins impersonation of him sad.

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live  unwatchable! Trump tweeted, perhaps proving the sketchs point. Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just cant get any worse. Sad.

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live  unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

A Missouri woman, Danielle Muscato, delivered an epic, profanity-laced response that went viral.

You are the president-elect, she tweeted. Pick your f***ing battles, man. You are embarrassing yourself.

Muscatos response to Trump. (Twitter/@DanielleMuscato)

Over the next two hours, Muscato, who describes herself as an atheist-civil rights activist-musician and trans woman, proceeded to trash Trump for not paying attention to more important issues. Her tweets were shared thousands of times by Trumps critics.

Baldwins impression isnt Sad,' she tweeted. You know whats sad? In 7 [weeks] youll be responsible for 330 [million] lives & you cant think of anything better to do than tweet [about] a comedy show. You know that actual lives are at stake, right? Youre pathetic.

Last month, Trump told CBS 60 Minutes that he would be very restrained in his use of Twitter as president but will reserve the right to use it as a method to combat what he perceives as negative stories about him.

Im going to be very restrained, if I use it at all, Trump said.

Hes since used the social media platform to attack the New York Times, protesters burning the American flag, the popular vote count, the cast of Hamilton and, now, SNL.

This is not a joke, Donald, Muscato continued. Dont you have anything better to do? Are you so narcissistic that a PARODY is your priority?
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Sometimes you just need to let it all out in string of more than 30 tweets.

President-elect Donald Trump continued his reoccurring Saturday night ritual of watching Alec Baldwin impersonate him on Saturday Night Live before angrily tweeting his dislike for the show and Baldwin's portrayal.

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

While this may seem typical for Trump, many were angered that he would pay so much attention to a comedy show that has a history of poking fun at the country's president, especially when there are so many more important issues to take on at this time. While any tweet Trump sends out is bound to get a variety of responses, Danielle Muscato's string of tweets deserves special recognition.

Muscato, who describes herself in her Twitter bio as an atheist, civil rights activist, musician and a trans woman, unleashed over 30 tweets directed at Trump in response to his SNL jab.

Jesus fucking Christ, @realDonaldTrump. You are the president-elect. Pick your fucking battles, man. You're embarrassing yourself.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

But it didn't end at SNL; she encouraged her fellow Americans to call out Trump for his lies and stand against racism, bigotry, homophobia and hate crimes that have spiked since the election. The tweets have since amassed Muscato with over 200,000 likes and thousands of new followers.

@realDonaldTrump Baldwin's impression isn't "Sad." You know what's sad? In 7 wks you'll be responsible for 330m lives & you can't think of  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump (cont) anything better to do than tweet abt a comedy show. You know that actual lives are at stake, right? You're pathetic.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump This is not a joke, Donald. Don't you have anything better to do? Are you so narcissistic that a PARODY is your priority?  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump Do you know how many trans people were murdered since Election Day? Do you know how many veterans killed themselves?  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump Do you know how many children went to bed tonight without enough food to eat? Do you even care? What is *wrong* with you?!  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump No, of course you don't know those things. You don't even know what a "blind trust," and you call yourself a businessman.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump You're pathetic. You ran for prez for attention. You are a fake,a fraud. You never wanted to win anyway; we can all see it.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump You are not fooling anyone. You're scared, and overwhelmed, and you have absolutely no idea what you're doing. And it shows  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump You think we're all too polite, too aghast, to call you out. I see through you, Donny. I'm calling you out. You're a joke.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump With every fiber of my being, I am disgusted by you. And you know what the real secret is? You're disgusted by you, too.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump That's why you surround yourself with gold, and beautiful women that you objectify. You know you're a loser, so you try to  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump make yourself feel better, feel successful, authoritative, with things, and money. You are an impostor. You are a fraud.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump make yourself feel better, feel successful, authoritative, with things, and money. You are an impostor. You are a fraud.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump I'm ashamed of you. The world is ashamed. You spout NONSENSE, millions of illegal voters?! Even you don't believe itabsurd  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump Do you think we're stupid? You think we don't know what you're doing? Trying to control the narrative, get your followers..  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump ..to distrust the media, the polls, news reporters, so that they must turn to YOU for what's true, what's real? There's a  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump ..name for that. It's "propaganda." We know what you're doing. We will not allow you to suppress votes with this nonsense.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump We will not allow you to trample our civil rights! We will not allow you to destroy the progress we've made! WE WILL RESIST  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

When @realDonaldTrump "lies," acknowledge and call out as propaganda! When he tests boundaries, acknowledge and call out as fascism! #RESIST  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

We CANNOT "wait and see." @realDonaldTrump is telling us, here and now, what he is going to do. BELIEVE HIM.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

"Millions" of "illegal" votes is not a claim about reality, despite @realDonaldTrump's pretense. It is a warning; a threat. Pay attnRESIST!  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

.@realDonaldTrump=TELLING US he'll suppress votes. Our democracy is at stake. We cannot wait,let him enact policy, then whineWe must resist  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump tweets so we forget that his kids will run his company in a "blind trust" (!) while sitting in on diplomatic meetings.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump tweets so we forget that he is stacking his cabinet with the very same people he promised to remove from his influence.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump tweets so we ignore that he's clueless at governance. The more outrageous his tweets, the harder it is for us to keep up.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump We see you, Donald. We know exactly what you're doing & it's not working on us. You're a disgrace & you should be ashamed.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump The next 4 years will be brutal for me & my fellow civil rights activists. Not all of us will survive. But we will #RESIST.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump We will #RESIST til racist police are imprisoned. We will #RESIST til FULL equality for womenWe will #RESIST. We are ready  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump We will #RESIST until abortion is accessible to everyone who needs it. Until LGBTQ are safe & healthy, until PoC are safe.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump You can fight us on itand you are, and you will. But you will lose. Because history is on our side. We may not live to see  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

@realDonaldTrump but we know we will win. We will fight you every step, so be ready. You can't stop progress, no matter how hard you try.  Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) December 4, 2016

Here's the SNL clip that prompted this whole thing.

Story continues

Mashable has reached out to Muscato for additional comments.

BONUS: Did Trump orchestrate the 'Hamilton' debacle to distract us or is life just a distraction?


Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty

Always a show stopper, Adriana Lima absolutely slayed in an emerald green velvet gown at Madonna's: An Evening of Music, Art, Mischief and Performance to benefit Raising Malawi at Faena Forum in Miami.

The Brazillian beauty's floor-length dress was slashed all the way from the ground to her hip, emphasizing her mile-long, toned legs and her tiny ankle tattoo. The model paired her jewel toned dress with an architecturally interesting gold necklace, large pearl and gold earrings, and a bold red lip on her full lips. Her long dark hair was slicked back off of her flawless face, showing off her trademark blue eyes.

Lima attended the event hot off of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show catwalk in Paris, where the model, accompanied by Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid, Martha Hunt, Lily Aldridge and strutted their stuff. Lima made sure to Instagram some cute behind the scenes pics for her devoted global following of her and her VS pals.

RELATED: See the Sexiest Looks from the 2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

Backstage  A photo posted by Adriana Lima (@adrianalima) on Dec 2, 2016 at 3:23pm PST

THATS A WRAP THANK YOU EVERYONE  A photo posted by Adriana Lima (@adrianalima) on Nov 30, 2016 at 2:51pm PST

ME AND MY GURL @marthahunt  A photo posted by Adriana Lima (@adrianalima) on Nov 28, 2016 at 8:52am PST

HELLOOO  A video posted by Adriana Lima (@adrianalima) on Nov 28, 2016 at 8:55am PST

VIDEO: Adriana Lima Best Beauty Looks
Photo credit: Getty

From ELLE

Katy Perry, one of Hillary Clinton's most visible celebrity campaigners, was among the most devastated on election night, she wrote in a new candid Instagram post-her most personal since the campaign ended. "I left [NYC, where the Clinton election party was held] covered in a blanket of sadness and despair because for me, and I imagine others, the results triggered a lot of dormant fears and emotions to the surface. I feared that we were not ever going to see the light of justice or fairness. I felt vulnerable, confused and frightened like a child."

Perry then addressed the reality of her activism-and what'll happen to it when Donald Trump takes office in January. Consider it her advice on what to do, should you feel the same way:

From the outside it probably looks as though I've always had a 'voice.' Truth is, I have never had one like I have found in the past year. I have a found a new voice, a more determined voice. I grew up sheltered, suppressed and kept silent for fear of giving the wrong answer. I would reveal my poor education. Or I was just scared. Hillary helped me see that we're all in this together, no matter where we come from, what color we are, or what status and education we have or don't have. Hillary lit a fire inside of me that burns brighter and brighter every day, and that fire will NEVER be put out.

Feelings of despair still come in waves, but now more than ever I am MOTIVATED to fight against social injustice and to promote equality and kindness as best I know how, through my art and influence. I am continually inspired by her strength and how she continues to rise like the Phoenix she is, every time.

It's funny, sometimes people who disagree with me just say, "Shut up and sing." Boy, will I do so in a whole new way... next year. Hell hath no fury like a woman REBORN.

Clinton appeared with Perry earlier this week at the UNICEF Snowflake Ball, where Perry was honored. "I broke down and wept watching her take the stage," Perry admitted.

Story continues

Since the election, Perry has used her Instagram to rally the Trump Resistance, advocating for Standing Rock and Planned Parenthood specifically.

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F7HW66 Subway train, Manhattan, N.Y.

(Credit: Alamy)

UPDATE: Yasmin Seweid has been charged with falsely reporting a hate crime. Yahoo News has full coverage.

New York City police are seeking more information about men who harassed a young woman in a hijab on the subway this week. Yasmin Seweid, an 18-year-old business student, was verbally harassed by the men as she waited for a train on the platform, according to the New York Daily News.

The three men were reportedly yelling Trump and called Seweid a terrorist as they followed her onto a 6 train in New York Citys east side. As the men continued to harass Seweid, the incident turned physical when they grabbed at her bag and attempted to pull off her head scarf. Seweid was surprised and saddened that no one on the train came to her aid. She took to social media to voice her feelings:

I was harassed on the subway last night and it was just so dehumanizing I cant speak about it without getting emotional. Three white racists ripped the straps off my bag & attempted to yank my hijab off my head. They yelled such disgusting slurs at me, I was so helpless and felt defenseless. Look its a f***ing terrorist, go back to your country, take that rag off your head, and so many more. Trumps name was repeatedly said & it finally clicked in my head. No matter how cultured or Americanized I am, these people dont see me as an American. It breaks my heart that so many individuals chose to be bystanders while watching me get harassed verbally and physically by these disgusting pigs

Her father, Sayeed Seweid, was also disappointed in the lack of support and empathy from other commuters. Nobody even offered to help an 18-year-old girl, he told the Daily News. You offer help  it doesnt matter the race, religion, or the country. Yasmin Seweid is of Egyptian heritage and was born in Brooklyn. I was born and raised in this country, she told the New York City paper.

She reported the incident to the NYPD, but no arrests have been made at this time.

According to the Daily News, NYPD has recorded 34 bias crimes between Nov. 8 and Nov. 27, an increase over the 13 similar crimes reported in 2015.
Surely many Nebraskans, whether they live on farms or in towns and cities. would agree with Jordan Dux of the Farm Bureau that Congress should have a real working alternative if it repeals the Affordable Care Act.

Theres reason to worry.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters last week, My personal belief  and nothing has been decided yet  I would move through and repeal and then go to work on replacing. I think once it is repealed you will have, hopefully, fewer people playing politics.

McCarthy said the repeal could set a date in the future for the repeal to take effect. Sen. Deb Fischer several days suggested that it might take two or three years before repeal was fully complete.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, outlined a similar process, according to the Associated Press, with a repeal vote followed by "a multiyear transition into the replacement."

Winning approval for a replacement could be problematic, considering that Democrats in the Senate could filibuster a replacement. (Repeal theoretically could be accomplished in the Senate through a tactic known as budget reconciliation, which requires only a majority vote.)

Winning approval for a replacement in the House could also be a challenge, given the fractious nature of the Freedom Caucus. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said at a news conference by the caucus after the election that Americans would still be way better off if Congress repealed the ACA without replacing it.

Dux has a more realistic view.

A complete and total disruption in the health insurance marketplace and completely turning over the entire system again without a real working alternative is just a complete nonstarter with us, Dux said. You just cant completely turn the table over again unless you have something to replace it.

President-elect Trump did not provide any specifics during the campaign, merely promising something terrific.

Trumps choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price, however, introduced several detailed plans as a member of Congress. Generally they included elements such as incentives for people to contribute to Health Savings Accounts, allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines and age-adjusted tax credit.

Replacing the ACA with a workable plan is particularly important in rural states like Nebraska. Almost 40 percent of farm and ranch families purchased health insurance through marketplaces created by the six-year-old law.

Repealing the current law prior to crafting a replacement on such a complex issue would be something trying to make a parachute on the way down after jumping out of the plane. We shudder at the thought of watching Congress working under such circumstances.
Evan is a new PSA spot released this week, seemingly telling the story of a budding high school romance. But theres more to the story than that.

Since it was launched on YouTube Dec. 2, the video has had nearly 1.5 million views as of this writing. Although it displays the hallmarks of quality storytelling, particularly in a genre of advertising that often gets short shrift when it comes to budgets and production (compared with car commercials, lets say), its the ending that has everyone talking.

The storyline features a romantic angle on the surface. We follow Evan in his search for a mysterious pen pal, with whom hes been sharing comments back and forth, scribbled on a table in the school library. And by the time Evan finds out whom hes been connecting with, it appears to be too late.

Well let you take a couple of minutes to watch:

The spot is part of the nonprofit organization Sandy Hook Promises Know the Signs campaign. It appears to be effective, at least in inspiring engagement and views. If the tone and tenor of most of the comments on the Sandy Hook Promise YouTube account is any indication, however, it is highly unlikely this video spot will do anything to bring rational discourse to the topic of gun violence  particularly in schools.

Nicole Hockley, managing director of the organization, spoke about the goals for the campaign. When you dont know what to look for, or cant recognize what you are seeing, it can be easy to miss warning signs or dismiss them as unimportant, she told Adweek. That can lead to tragic consequences. Hockleys son Dylan was one of the children killed at the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012.

This month marks four years since the massacre. Sandy Hook Promise, based in Newtown was started by a group of family members who lost loved ones that day. Its mission is to prevent gun-related deaths due to crime, suicide and accidental discharge so that no other parent experiences the senseless, horrific loss of their child.

According to its literature, nearly 35,000 Americans are killed by gun violence annually, and nearly 80,000 suffer gun-related injuries. The group hopes to shed some light on signs of violence and help people understand how to prevent bloodshed, particularly in the case of young people and children.
Photo: Philadelphia Police Department

Philadelphia police recently released footage of what may be the best-dressed instance of vandalism of the year, so far. And it turns out the destroyer of private property is an attorney named Duncan Lloyd, who just happens to work for the city.

Lloyd was caught on surveillance footage, sporting a smart blue blazer and what appears to be an ascot, and carrying a glass of wine. He and an accomplice were caught spray-painting F*** Trump on the exterior wall of a fancy grocery store in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia. No additional wardrobe or props should be required to fulfill a more apt stereotype of a liberal, yuppie hater of Donald J. Trump.

Photo: Philadelphia Police Department

The local office of the Republican Party summed up the situation quite well when it released a statement:

YES our statement on a CITY ATTORNEY vandalizing Chestnut Hill grocery w.anti Trump graffiti is worth a read: pic.twitter.com/InMEKj71Tc  Philly GOP (@PhillyGOP) November 30, 2016

If the image of an upper-middle-class city attorney clad in a blazer and sipping wine while vandalizing an upscale grocery store with an anti-Trump message strikes you as perhaps the most bourgeois sight imaginable, thats because it is.

Philadelphia GOP Chairman Joe DeFelice continued the statement by calling for the firing of Lloyd, who is currently (at the time of this writing, at least) employed as an assistant city solicitor for Philadelphia.

Did the extra glass of Shiraz [editors note  How do we know it was Shiraz?] give him some sort of delusional confidence that there are no cameras on Germantown Ave? The taxpayers should be entrusting exactly none of our faith into this man. He should be fired from our citys law department immediately.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kinney told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Lloyd remains employed for the time being. Its still working out. Its certainly hateful and inappropriate and unacceptable, the mayor said. But people are human beings, and they make mistakes, and its a dumb mistake.

Story continues

While most local GOP supporters on social media appear to be calling for Lloyds head on a platter (with or without the ascot), a scant few recommended some level of leniency:

@PhillyGOP @Richzeoli I don't know. I think the glass of wine and ascot almost make it forgivable.  Cranky Gordon (@CrankyGordon) November 30, 2016

According to the police, the damage to the building is estimated at between $3,000 and $10,000.

Since the 2016 presidential election, reports of vandalism, harassment, violence, and property damage have occurred at an alarming rate on both the anti- and pro-Trump sides, but this may the first one wrapped in an ascot.
Microsofts annual 12 Days of Deals promotion is back, so if you missed out on any of the companys Black Friday and Cyber Monday Windows and Xbox deals you still have a chance. Just like in previous years, each day will offer you a different deal thats going to be valid for one day only.

DONT MISS: A 75-year-olds excellent Tweet may be the only good thing in 2016

The 12 Days of deals sale starts on December 5th and contains plenty of exciting deals on Windows 10 and Xbox One products. Theres even a VR deal that you should check out:

12/5: Save up to $1,000 on select Intel-powered PCs, starting at $199.

12/6: Only $199 for a Lenovo Ideapad 110 laptop (save $100).

12/7: Save up to 50% on select Xbox One games, now $19.99.

12/8: Save $250 on Surface Pro 4 with Intel Core m3 and 128GB SSD (now $649), plus free sleeve.

12/9: Save up to 70% on select Windows 10 tablets, now starting at $49.

12/10: Save up to $250 on Windows Premium Collection devices, starting at $499.

12/11: Buy select Xbox controllers and get a $25 Microsoft Store gift code.

12/12: Save $50 and get 2 free games with select Xbox One consoles, plus save big on Xbox accessories and games.

12/13: Get a $100 Microsoft Store gift code with purchase of HTC VIVE or Oculus Rift.

12/14: Save up to $1,000 on select gaming PCs, starting at $799.

12/15: Save up to 40% on select Dell PCs, starting at $199.

12/16: Save up to $200 on select Surface Pro 4, plus get a free Type Cover (up to $359 value).

Check out Microsofts full 12 Days of Deals offer at this link.

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See the original version of this article on BGR.com
This is a momentous time for our electors. They have the ability to restore our nation to the sanity we need in order to thrive in the 21st Century. Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election by amassing 306 electoral votes. On December 19, electors will cast their electoral votes to make Trumps victory a reality or they you can cast their votes for the person who won the popular vote and has repeatedly shown her impressive fitness for the job of President, Hillary Clinton.

Since becoming president-elect, Donald Trump has proven what millions of Americans had already feared, that he was an unstable individual who is totally unsuited to be president. So far, he has retweeted a completely false claim that millions of votes were cast by individuals living in the country illegally, repeatedly charged that the media are out to get him, refused to hear daily security briefings and promoted denying citizenship to those who have the free speech right to burn the American flag. In just a few short weeks, Trump has proven his instability, a trait our country cannot survive for the next four years. Please become a part of the dozens of electors across the country who will vote to restore predictability, stability and sanity to the office of President of the United States by voting for Hillary Clinton on December 19.
In the isolation of a first-floor room in the state Capitol, a steady march to the bottom line is quietly unfolding.

Eight men and women are seated around a big conference table under fluorescent lights in this stark cave with its window blinds drawn.

Decisions are being made with collaborative conversation, and interaction is spinning around the room.

Gov. Pete Ricketts is one of the people at the table, and he is building what clearly emerges during the next two hours as an austere 2017-19 state budget proposal while also driving spending cuts during the remainder of the current fiscal biennium.

All of that is in response to the siren alarm of sharp reductions in anticipated state revenue as Nebraska's ag economy continues to struggle with low commodity prices.

There are executive budget staff members and state agency staff members at the table, men and women, some in suits, some in shirtsleeves, all armed with facts and figures.

Ricketts pores over budget binders line by line, leaning forward to study items, diving deep into detail, asking questions, leading a collaborative search for spending reductions.

Matt Miltenberger, his chief of staff, sits to his right. Across the table is Gerry Oligmueller, his state budget administrator.

A big computer screen is used occasionally to drill down on detail.

The language is "budget constraints," and exchanges between budget staff members and state agency leaders are informal, with moments of good-natured-yet-firm challenge and an occasional burst of laughter from the governor.

Ideas and alternatives fly through the air and land on the table.

"My inclination is," Ricketts says at one point, and another decision is sealed.

Two hours later, two agencies have their marching orders, which they helped devise.

Austere is not a word Ricketts embraces during a sit-down in the governor's office two days later. He prefers flat.

"This will be a flat budget," he said. "There are not opportunities to grow."

"We will live within the revenue forecast," Ricketts said. And that means cutting the current state budget that ends next June 30 while constructing a lean 2017-2019 budget proposal.

The Department of Correctional Services will be an exception, the governor said. Its budget will grow as the state addresses long-neglected needs.

Tax increases were not considered as an option to address the declining revenue estimate, Ricketts said. Efforts to continue to reduce taxes will remain on the table.

And budget reductions will have the impact of continuing to reduce government, he said.

"We're looking for ways to run our operations more effectively, and we're trying to shrink the size of government," the governor said.

"We definitely are checking the growth of government."

Ricketts noted that growth in the state budget during his first two years in office dropped from 6.5 percent to 3.6 percent. His own 2015-17 budget proposal to the Legislature had recommended 3 percent growth, he noted.

"It will be flat next biennium," he said.

Ricketts acknowledged the University of Nebraska, with its heavy reliance on the state tax-supported general fund, will be particularly impacted.

"I have alerted President (Hank) Bounds and I know he's looking at this. The university is going to have to make cuts," the governor said.

"I appreciate that he wants to be a partner in growing Nebraska by building the University of Nebraska. But the university has got to make tough decisions."

His own budget approach, the governor said, is to "have state agencies (under his control) be much more of a part of these conversations" about spending reductions.

"What can you live with? What can you do? I expect them to own it."

The university is not under the governor's control; it is governed by the Board of Regents.

"I can just say these are the financial realities," Ricketts said.
Like a holiday family gathering, three Auburn theater groups will team to present a classic Christmas tale in the heart of the city this season.

"Scrooge: The Musical" takes place Friday, Dec. 9, through Sunday, Dec. 11, at Auburn Public Theater. The show, a 1992 adaptation by Leslie Bricusse of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," finds the downtown venue collaborating with Auburn Players Community Theatre and Cayuga Community College's Harlequin Productions. It boasts a cast of more than 40 Auburn-area performers ages 4 to 70 and, in the director's chair, a relative newcomer to the area in Bill Daugherty.

A native of Missouri, Daugherty spent decades working in show business in the New York City area. He began teaching about 20 years ago in New York University's CAP21 program, with pupils that included Anne Hathaway, Kristen Bell and Matthew Morrison. The program eventually brought him to the Auburn area via the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival. Falling in love with the area, and feeling ready to quiet down, Daugherty bought the historic Orrin W. Burritt Mansion in Weedsport and began performing and directing with the Auburn Players two years ago.

Bricusse's show, inspired by the 1970 Albert Finney musical film "Scrooge," is something Daugherty has dreamed about staging for years, he said. After a few dramatic productions with the Players, Daugherty interpreted his permission to direct a musical as a sign the company trusted him. The show is more expensive than the typical Players production, he said, and continues the company's recent effort to include more performers that influenced September's award-winning "Almost, Maine."

Though uncommon, the Players' partnership with Harlequin and APT to present "Scrooge" came about organically, Daugherty said. He wanted to stage the musical in a more intimate venue, and not only did Auburn Public Theater meet that need, but it also offered the show a central downtown location. Daugherty has found directing the show's large cast on the theater's tight stage a rewarding creative challenge, as well. Audience members should be prepared for the cast to bring the show's 19th-century London off the stage and into the house, the director cautioned.

Rather than "A Christmas Carol's" more cartoonish iterations, "Scrooge" embraces Dickens' intentions to explore man's dark side with a ghost story, Daugherty said. Bob Miller's miser Ebenezer isn't an evil man, the director said, but one warped by misfortune and heartache. The actor's grasp of the origins of the cold-hearted character earned him the role at his reading, Daugherty said.

"(Miller) brought a vulnerability to Scrooge. He wasn't afraid to drop the facade of caricature and this bad, parsimonious creature. He showed humanity, which I loved," Daugherty said. "He understands the makeup of the broken man that lives inside of Ebenezer Scrooge, and he does a really nice job of learning how to repair that."

Like always in "A Christmas Carol," the audience sees Scrooge's transformation through ghostly visits from former partner Jacob Marley (Thames Nolan) and the Ghosts of Christmas Past (Jennifer Derbyshire), Present (Bob Frame, also the show's technical director) and Future (John Exner, who also plays nephew Fred). But in "Scrooge," that story is also told through music.

"When Marley comes to haunt him, the story this show tells is helping to guide Scrooge toward self-discovery, instead of scaring him into being the good guy," Daugherty said. "It's revealed through song and story."

Among the show's best voices, Daugherty said, is Ryan Persampieri as Tiny Tim. The "exceptional" younger members of the "Scrooge" cast were off-book before anyone else in the show, the director said, and the young, sickly Cratchit is among their brightest stars.

"Our Tiny Tim is angelic and he has the voice of a Vienna choir boy," Daugherty said. "He's going to break every heart in the house."
Peter Oster graduated from UNL in May with degrees in Russian, global studies, political science and history. He is teaching English at science, technology, engineering and math-focused high schools in Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan, after previously studying abroad in Russia. Oster consults and manages events with Kyzylordas American Corner, a U.S. Embassy-sponsored program, and studies with two Russian tutors several hours each week. He is a 2012 graduate of Millard West High School.

My first time in Russia during the summer of 2014 was when the civil war in Eastern Ukraine became most violent, and U.S.-Russia relations strained as a result. Some of the biggest sanctions were enacted then, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine happened. I remember watching the news over breakfast with my host family, and when the screen would turn to reporting on fighting in Ukraine, sanctions, the fallen airliner, there was always an uncomfortable silence. One of our study program providers first instructions to us was to not discuss politics.

However, I found that it was not difficult to talk about politics with Russians, as theyre just as curious about the U.S. as Americans are curious about Russia, if not more so. There was always agreement about the clear delineation between our countries governments and its people; while the former may fight, the latter may still get along.

During my second summer in Russia in 2015, Donald Trump declared that he was running for president. Not only did every American I know discount Trumps viability as a candidate, but every Russian did as well. It was difficult for anyone to take him seriously. One thing, though: while Russians didnt then have much to say about Trump, they did not like Hillary Clinton. It was clear to them that Clintons foreign policy would be a continuation of Obamas antagonism toward Russia. I think that more or less reflected the Russian publics general position toward the candidates until Election Day.

Where I am at in the country, Kazakhs attitudes were more positive toward Clinton. In general, the more people seemed to know about Trump -- especially about his comments toward Muslims, as Kazakhstan is a Muslim-majority country -- the more negative their attitudes were. My colleagues in Kazakhstans two largest cities, the capital city of Astana, and Almaty, reported that on average people there favored Trump. I hypothesize this is because Russian media and language is more prominent in those places than in southern Kazakhstan where I am. Some rationalize that what is good for Russia is good for Kazakhstan, since the countries are much closer economically and diplomatically.

I was shocked on Election Day, and throughout the day several of my well-meaning Kazakh colleagues (an ethnic Russian among them) messaged or called me to congratulate you on your new President Trump. I wasnt sure how to respond. Like most Americans (especially those who did not vote Trump), it took awhile to make sense of it all. The Kazakhs I know were surprised as well but to a lesser degree.

I was asked to present on the elections and the American political system to Kyzylordas American Corner because of my knowledge as a political science major and experience as a former intern in Congress (Rep. Brad Ashford of Nebraska's 2nd District) and in the Nebraska Legislature (Omaha Sen. Rick Kolowski). In my presentation, I explained how demographics and social conditions led to Trumps victory, including how many Americans wanted change in the political system despite Trumps major missteps, and how many people simply did not trust Clinton as a politician despite her experience. Talking about how the Electoral College works, even the Kazakhs agreed with many Americans that it doesnt make sense that a candidate can win the popular vote and still lose.
The following is a list of people named in criminal complaints that The Journal Times received Monday Nov. 28 through Friday, Dec. 2

Municipalities are listed as they appear on the criminal complaint. To see jail photos of suspects visit www.journaltimes.com/gallery. Throughout the week, The Journal Times includes information from criminal complaints. Read them at: journaltimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/

Anthony M. Brown, 1300 block of Virginia St., Racine, hit and run causing injury.

Elijah J. Coulter, 1900 block of English St., Racine, burglary of a building or dwelling.

Carlos Gonzalez Jr., 1900 block of State St., Racine, robbery with use of force, battery, and obstructing an officer.

Brian J. Hardy, 1600 block of State St., Union Grove, aggravated battery of an elderly person, strangulation and suffocation, resisting an officer, and disorderly conduct.

Deangelo V. Herron, 2200 block of Lawn St., Racine, possession of marijuana, obstructing an officer, possession of a firearm by a felon, carrying a concealed weapon, and bail jumping.

Ramone L. Jones, 2000 block of Carmel Ave., Racine, possession of marijuana.

Chad P. McCloskey, 3400 block of Fifth Ave., Racine, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of a firearm by a felon, carrying a concealed weapon, operate a motor vehicle while revoked, and possession of narcotic drugs.

Kevin Palomino, 600 block of Waverly Drive, Elgin, Ill., possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Thomas R. Petrick, 8900 block of Fish Hatchery Road, Burlington, possession with intent to deliver or manufacture marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Erin M. Roy, 1700 block of Douglas Ave., Racine, personal identity theft for financial gain, possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Levi G. Ruohonen, 4500 block of Valley Road, Racine, homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle while having prior intoxicant-related conviction/revocation, and operating while intoxicated causing injury.

Tracy S. Scott, 500 block of 12th St., Racine, disorderly conduct, second degree recklessly endangering safety, and use of a dangerous weapon.

Johnny M. Walrup Jr., 1800 block of Roosevelt Ave., Racine, bail jumping, and operate a motor vehicle while revoked.

Michael A. Wright Jr., 3200 block of Indiana St., Racine, manufacture/deliver cocaine.

Bailey S. Davis, 10200 block of Northwestern Ave., Franksville, bail jumping.

Efrain R. Felix Jr., 2000 block of Center St., Racine, disorderly conduct, domestic abuse assessments.

Edgar L. Grace, 200 block of Jones St., Racine, disorderly conduct, domestic abuse assessments.

Dorothea A. Hebb, 1000 block of N. Memorial Drive, Racine, disorderly conduct, domestic abuse assessments.

John J. Jackson, 3700 block of W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, obstructing an officer, and criminal trespass.

Sharon McNair, 700 block of Randolph St., Racine, criminal damage to property, and disorderly conduct.

Caleb J. Phillips, 7200 block of Lone Elm Drive, Racine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana.

Stacy M. Roushia, 5400 block of 52nd St., Kenosha, retail theft, and bail jumping.

Jaivier E. Spumante, 500 block of 11th St., Racine, disorderly conduct, obstructing an officer, and bail jumping.

Jeremie J. Walrup, 1200 block of Carlisle Ave., Racine, disorderly conduct, domestic abuse assessments, and obstructing an officer.

Michael L. Williams, 18000 block of Locust St., Lansing, Ill., obstructing an officer, resisting an officer, battery, criminal damage to property, and disorderly conduct.

Gabriel C. Bernal, 1100 block of Grove Ave., Racine, bail jumping.

Dajon D. Daniel, 1000 block of Mayfair Drive, Racine, attempt first degree intentional homicide.

Gino R. Falbo, 1400 block of Lombard Ave., Racine, manufacture/deliver cocaine, and manufacture/deliver marijuana.

Kenny J. Ignasiak, 8400 block of Raynor Ave., Franksville, possession of narcotic drugs, operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, possession of drug paraphernalia, disorderly conduct, and obstructing an officer.

Gerell Q. Shaw, 300 block of 11th St., Racine, manufacture/deliver cocaine, possession with intent to deliver/distribute a controlled substance on or near a park, and maintaining a drug trafficking place.

Benjamin L. Verstynen, 1700 block of Douglas Ave., Racine, possession with intent to deliver LSD, possession with intent to deliver psilocin or psilocybin, possession with intent to deliver cocaine, possession with intent to deliver or manufacture marijuana, possession of a controlled substance, maintaining a drug trafficking place, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Michael A. Wright Jr., 3200 block of Indiana St., Racine, manufacture/deliver cocaine.

Cory S. Christiansen, 500 block of 18th Ave., Union Grove, receiving stolen property, bail jumping, and attempt theft.

Gordon M. Dummer, 7800 block of Christy Circle Drive, Franksville, disorderly conduct.

Tyler Werlein, 300 block of Smith St., Burlington, battery, domestic abuse assessments, and disorderly conduct.

Damien L. Flores, 1900 block of Erie St., Racine, operate motor vehicle while revoked.

Ryan K. Saylor, 9200 block of Auburn Court, Mount Pleasant, operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.

Duane L. Zwicke, 1000 block of 115th St., Pleasant Prairie, operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.

Rae L. Brayden, 2000 block of 60th St., Kenosha, possession with intent to deliver LSD, and possession of marijuana.

Edwin Delgado, address unknown, third degree sexual assault.

Javonte R. Hunter, 1400 block of Warwick Way, Mount Pleasant, manufacture/deliver cocaine, possession with intent to deliver/distribute a controlled substance on or near a school, possession of cocaine, and maintaining a drug trafficking place.

Don D. Jones, 2900 block of 54th St., Milwaukee, possession with intent to deliver or manufacture marijuana.

Anthony R. Price, 300 block of Mill St., Union Grove, bail jumping, manufacture/deliver heroin, possession with intent to deliver heroin, possession with intent to deliver/distribute a controlled substance on or near a park, and maintaining a drug trafficking place.

Antonio W. Roberts, 2500 block of 15th St., Milwaukee, armed robbery with use of force, and possession of a firearm by a felon.

Juan C. Robles Jr., 1800 block of 53rd St., Kenosha, incest, and child enticement.

Gregory J. Rowlette, 4300 block of Harding Road, Kenosha, felony personal identification theft for financial gain, and resisting an officer.

Michael A. Wright Jr., 1600 block of Monroe Ave., Racine, hit and run causing injury, recklessly endangering safety, attempting to flee or elude an officer, and manufacture/deliver cocaine.

Douglas H. Potter, 8800 block of Maple Drive, Caledonia, obstructing an officer, and disorderly conduct.

Gage R. Rios, 3400 block of Indian Trail, Racine, possession of marijuana, and resisting an officer.

Christina M. Dukes, 4000 block of Erie St., Racine, substantial battery, bail jumping, and disorderly conduct.

Zavon Q. Luckett, 800 block of Eighth St., Racine, disorderly conduct, domestic abuse assessments, bail jumping, battery, false imprisonment, and child neglect.

Jaylen M. McCrary, 11300 block of S. Ada St., Chicago, Ill., second degree sexual assault.

Camila M. Gomez, 100 block of 22nd Ave., Kenosha, disorderly conduct, and knowingly violating a harassment restraining order.

Kymarteze L. Howard, 3800 block of Green St., Racine, disorderly conduct, and resisting an officer.

Larico M. Sutton, 3500 block of 49th St., Milwaukee, obstructing an officer.

Fontaine Walker, 100 block of E. Chambers St., Milwaukee, retail theft.

Frank L. Bates, 1100 block of Riley Court, Racine, operate a motor vehicle while revoked.

Adam V. Carver, 6000 block of 240th Ave., Salem, operate a motor vehicle while revoked.

Anthony Adams, 1200 block of S. Memorial Drive, Racine, battery, domestic abuse assessments, bail jumping, disorderly conduct, hit and run causing injury, resisting an officer, and obstructing an officer.

Terrell A. Banks, 4300 block of Swan Ave., St. Louis, Mo., possession with intent to deliver cocaine, possession with intent to deliver other schedule 1 controlled substances, and resisting an officer.

Javoeni D. Henry, 200 block of N. Memorial Drive, Racine, possession of marijuana.

Rhys D. McCoy, 2700 block of N. 12th St., Milwaukee, manufacture/deliver heroin.

Fredrick D. Morris Jr., 1200 block of Erie St., Racine, possession with intent to deliver or manufacture marijuana, and possession with intent to deliver/distribute a controlled substance on or near a school.

Jozett L. Patterson, 900 block of Villa St., Racine, battery, disorderly conduct, bail jumping, theft of moveable property, operating a motor vehicle without owners consent, and personal identity theft for financial gain.

Collins A. Smith, 2400 block of Mount Pleasant St., Racine, disorderly conduct, domestic abuse assessments.

Anne D. Verdiguel, 600 block of Ostergaard Ave., Racine, retail theft.

Michael T. Brown, 500 block of Sheraton St., Jackson, Minn., operate a motor vehicle while revoked.

Javoeni D. Henry, 3400 block of 19th St., Racine, operate a motor vehicle while revoked.
RACINE COUNTY  Business owners who have been meaning to replace that aging HVAC system or boiler have a new way to do it.

The Racine County Board has approved joining a statewide energy efficiency group that gives county business owners long-term financing for improvements to their facilities.

The Property Assessed Clean Energy Commission helps facilitate loans to business owners for various components of a building, like lighting, windows, insulation, boilers, compressors, motors and HVAC systems.

By installing more efficient equipment, those businesses save money on their utility bills, said Jason Stringer, program manager of PACE Wisconsin. They also save money on their operating costs and expenditures because they dont have to pay as much to maintain equipment. They use those savings to retire the debt.

Stringer said PACE loans have ranged from as little as $25,000 to upwards of $11 million, depending on the scale of the project.

Ive seen a lot of examples with PACE financing where the projects paid for the initial capital costs two to three times over, Stringer said. What were talking about is enhancing that business profitability, boosting its value and making it more efficient.

The County Board unanimously approved joining the commission, which comes at no cost to the county, at its meeting Tuesday.

Before the vote, resident David Rhoads told the board the program would be an enormous tool in the toolbox for companies that cant afford up-front costs but would ultimately save money.

I see buildings in Downtown Racine that would be greatly enhanced as they are rehabbed and redeveloped if they had extra money available for the kinds of things that in the long run will save them money and make their business sustainable, said Rhoads, who works with the Racine Sustainable Business Network.

Interested business owners should go to the PACE website, pacewi.org, to find more information on lenders and contractors.

The program is available for property owners with commercial buildings, Stringer said, adding that could include nonprofit organizations. Its not yet available in Wisconsin for homes.

Racine joins 10 other Wisconsin counties part of the PACE Commission.

Were just getting started and were looking to scale this program up so that it becomes a driver of economic development, Stringer said.
RACINE  Using standardized tests to measure the skills and academic performance of students has long been a requirement of public school districts.

But a review of the testing in the Racine Unified School District reveals that assessments required in the districts elementary and middle schools goes beyond what is mandated by the state and federal government.

Unified states that the extra tests are encouraged by federal law and needed to accurately gauge progress and areas of improvement.

But the Racine Educational Association believes the sheer amount of testing required of students in certain grades has gotten excessive, and it wants to start a conversation with the administration, teachers, students and parents about better approaches.

To get an exact picture of testing in the district, the teachers union recently submitted an open records request to the district, seeking precise information on the time and resources devoted to testing and test preparation.

Requirements

Some kind of standardized testing of public school students in Wisconsin has been required since at least the 1980s. Initially, the state and federal government only required students in certain grades to be tested, but in the past decade or so, some testing has been required or at the very least encouraged in every grade.

Today, the state requires students in 4-year-old kindergarten through second grade to take a single literacy screener. In grades 3-8, the state and federal government requires students be tested once a year in math and English language arts. All of the tests in grades K-8 are conducted on a computer. A very small percentage of students  those in dual language programs, English language learners, and students with severe learning disabilities  take different tests.

The state also requires high school students in grades 9-11 be tested at least once a year to prepare them for college entrance exams.

Unified follows those requirements, but also mandates additional testing: two more math and English screenings for students in kindergarten through second grade, and three more math and English screenings for students in grades 3-8.

For the district, the additional Measures of Academic Progress assessments, which can add between 50 minutes and 3 hours of testing per year depending on grade level, are an effective way to track student progress.

One of the federal requirements of ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) is that we monitor progress, said Jacquelyn Moga, Unifieds executive director of assessment.

Measuring progress

The district used to only administer the MAP test twice a year. It started requiring a third session during the 2014-2015 school year.

Administering the test three times a year gives teachers better benchmarks of how they and their students are doing, especially since it provides results almost instantly, Moga said.

The district must wait until the following year to find out the results of the Wisconsin Forward exam. Although the third MAP exam is given close to the end of the school year, between late April and mid-May, it can provide information to teachers looking to plan their lessons for the following school year, Moga noted.

The test also adapts to each students level of learning, she added, giving a clear picture what students can do, not just what they cant.

They start at grade-level-like questions. Once they start answering questions, the assessment is going to go to lower-level questions if they are unable to answer the previous question correctly. It will continue to do that to get down to as low of a level that questions can go, Moga said.

While periodic gauging of student progress is important, uniform exams  adaptive or not  may not always give a true picture of a students actual skills, REA President Angelina Cruz maintains.

While she believes screeners like the MAP test can be valuable, there are other ways to measure learning in the classroom. She also noted that ESSA encourages districts to study how much seat time is being devoted to such tests to see if adjustments should be made.

It is a fallacy to believe that 100 percent of kids can gain 100 percent achievement on 100 percent of every tested academic area, Cruz said. We are dealing with human beings that are complex, and they bring to school different issues with them. They are not widgets.

Starting a conversation

At a recent Unified School Board meeting, about a half-dozen teachers expressed frustration with amount of testing. Some said a lack of computer skills among students made the testing difficult, while others said it took away from needed instruction time.

Cruz said parents and taxpayers should also know the cost of such testing. The districts 2016-17 budget includes $168,888 to pay the Northwest Evaluation Association, the entity that develops the MAP test.

The whole purpose of the testing audit is to open up that conversation between the district and teachers and parents, and look at what is actually required, what is actually useful to teaching and learning, and where we can make reductions in things that are really impacting our kids in a way that is not physically, or emotionally or academically healthy, Cruz said.

Once the union receives the testing audit, it hopes to hold a public forum to gain input about testing from the community.
RACINE  Racine Art Museum Executive Director Bruce Pepich can only think that most Racine residents have stepped foot in Wustum Museum at least once in their lives.

A not-so-bold claim being that Wustum, 2519 Northwestern Ave., is celebrating its 75th anniversary of free admission and art classes for the public.

Its a tradition that has seen renowned artists and average joes testing their artistic abilities or enjoying an exhibit at the historic museum.

I think of the multiple generations of families that have come through the museum, Pepich said. I know people my age who still have the artwork they made in the Racine Unified show from when they were a kid. It was big deal then to take down adult work and put up a kids work.

Since Jeannie Wustum bequeathed her home, 13-acre plot and fund to the City of Racine in 1938 and opened as a museum in 1941, Wustum has opened its doors to the public to culminate an art scene in Racine.

Over the years, Wustum has seen success from funding and hosting nationally acclaimed and local exhibits. This led to Wustum being accredited by the American Alliance of Museums in 1986 putting it among 5 percent of all museums in the country that have the accreditation.

Not only has Wustum offered free admission for years at the museum and opened the doors for the Racine Art Museum, Wustum has been an outlet for artists of all experiences with the free classes offered there.

It was just amazing to see the museum take that kind of foothold in the community, Pepich said. Wustum is like the community family room where you can hang out and get your hands a little dirty and do something you are really enthusiastic about.

Community outreach

Dedication to the community started when original director Sylvester Jerry opened classes to the public at all times of day and opened the museum with free admission. Pepich said it was a way to get the community involved and inspired through easy accessibility to art.

Inspired by Jerrys lead, Pepich has continued the tradition of free admission and classes at Wustum since assuming the executive director role in 1981. This can be seen through the creation of programs such as SPARK!, a programs that offers art experiences for people with memory loss and their caregivers, and maintaining the largest contemporary craft collection in the nation as of 2012, according to Pepich.

Under Pepichs tutelage, Wustum and RAM appear to draw in bigger crowds each year, and many of them from out of the county.

Pepich said 67 percent of visitors at the museum come from out of the county with 29 percent of those coming from out of the state.

Youre not just going to get off the Interstate and be in downtown Racine in five minutes, Pepich said. People make a commitment to come all the way from Milwaukee, Illinois to see our exhibits.

A large part of the draw from the outside is the national praise the museum has received for hosting national exhibits. That and the regular shows such as the annual Wisconsin Watercolor exhibit draw in big crowds.

The increased traffic that the museum draws is also a plus for the local businesses, Pepich said.

People come for a visit and then go to lunch or go grab a cocktail or you go shopping, Pepich said. It has such a positive economic impact on the community.

Celebrating the future

Celebration is the key word for Wustum for its anniversary year.

The proceedings kicked off with a party Nov. 16 and Pepich said they will have similar events throughout the year.

A 75th anniversary for a cultural institution doesnt come around every day, Pepich said. It just doesnt happen that often.

Showcasing history is the other focus of the celebration. The first show will be another anniversary for the museum when it hosts its 50th annual Watercolors Wisconsin exhibit starting Dec. 12.

Other exhibits will be hosted at Wustum including a historical section which include historical pictures of Wustum and its collection.

RAM will also support the celebrations. There are currently watercolor painting on display from the collection. All the paintings on display were part of a Watercolors Wisconsin show.

Another exhibit, Wustum Generations, will go up this winter and into the spring. This exhibit will showcase artists who have left a historical impact on the museum in various ways.

Were honoring the people who helped make this very special and successful place by presenting work of theirs that weve collected, Pepich said. It honors these people and us by keeping their story fresh and active. That is the really fun part of putting this together.
Do you hear what I hear?

Its not the prancing and pawing of each tiny hoof, but it raises quite a racket deep in the heart of the City Hall Annex, where the sounds of wrapping and packaging toys, books and board games is in full holiday mode.

It is, of course, the operations center for Toys for Tots and the volunteers there are busy preparing gift packages and distributing them to needy area families  and, yes, theyre still taking applications, until Tuesday, for this years Christmas distributions.

Oh gosh, theyre amazing, Pete Waselchuk, the Toys for Tots coordinator, said Thursday as he supervised some of the 150 volunteers who repair toys and games and put them together by age group for the packages for Racine are boys and girls.

We couldnt do it without them, said Waselchuk, who has headed up the toy project for about eight years now after he retired as longtime Caledonia fire chief.

Toys for Tots is a Racine tradition that dates back to 1929, when a group of Racine Boy Scouts decided to do a good deed for the holiday and began what has grown over the years to become the Tex Reynolds Toys for Tots program.

The purpose of the Scouts good deed that year was to make sure that no child would wake up on Christmas morning without finding something under the tree  a goal that has remained at the heart of the tradition to this day.

It is a daunting task from the collection of new and gently used toys, dolls, books, bikes, game boards and other toys at the Annex and at fire houses and drop-off stations, to the repair work, the packaging and the final distribution  a process that begins each year in January and lasts until the last parcel is given out in December.

Waselchuk said this years distributions have already begun and the final gift packages will go out on Saturday to an estimated 600 families and about 1,500 boys and girls.

Those holiday gifts to area children are made possible by the continued support of the Empty Stocking Club, which is funded each year by generous donations from Journal Times readers.

The Scouts effort that first year was soon taken over by the Good Fellers, a group of civic-minded people who then coordinated the operations and began an annual drive to raise funds to sustain it. That effort was headed up first by longtime Journal Times columnist Tex Reynolds, and then for more than 30 years by former Journal Times Circulation Director Don Karkow.

In todays Journal Times, you will find an Empty Stocking Club donation envelope to help put a smile on the face of a youngster on Christmas morning  just as those Racine Scouts intended.

The Journal Times will publish the names of donors as the Empty Stocking Club list grows, or you can choose to make your donation anonymously.

Give what you can. It will gladden your heart and brighten Christmas Day for hundreds of area boys and girls.

Merry Christmas.
Many years ago, as a young serviceman stationed at the Great Lakes Training center in Illinois, I was selected to be a guest for Thanksgiving at a host family's dinner. I had an opportunity to enjoy a Thanksgiving away from home with the James Haas family of 324 Dekoven Ave. in Racine, Wisconsin.

Not only did the Haas family allow me to share their Thanksgiving, but they included three other sailors as part of their holiday feast. Mr. and Mrs. Haas had three daughters and a son, and with all of us sitting around the table, the conversation was about where we were from and how we began our military careers and there was praise of our commitment to our country.

The Haas family owned and operated a pharmacy in Racine, and the family members showed us how proud they were of our military. The gathering of the Haas family and four members of the U.S. Navy who had never met each other before Thanksgiving day in 1969 is a tribute to the character of this great country.

During the troubled times of the Vietnam War, when this country was torn and many of our combat veterans were spending Thanksgiving in a horrible place, the Haas family made four sailors from the Great Lakes Training Center made me feel at home. I will never forget that day and will always be thankful for the blessings of Thanksgiving 1969.

James H. Gray

Dalton, Pa.
ELBRIDGE  The man pulled unconscious from a burning Elbridge home on Thursday died, his wife said Friday night.

Scott Dombroski, 43, was found by firefighters in his home at 980 Schapp Road and taken to the hospital suffering from severe smoke inhalation and burns to 20 percent of his body.

His wife, Diana Sleiertin, posted on Facebook Friday night that he passed away. Among the messages she posted was one saying that Dombroski donated his eyes and tissues.

"I loved my Scott with all my heart and soul," Sleiertin wrote. "He will live on in my heart and now through his gift to others."

Fire rescue crews found Dombroski, 43, on the second floor of the house, and he was transported via ambulance to University Hospital in Syracuse in critical condition.

The property is the location of MaxMan Reptile Rescue, which cares for exotic animals such as snakes and lizards and does education presentations throughout the region. Sleiertin said her reptiles were killed and also the couple's dog, Diesel, and cat, Salem.

"My husband, my hero, tried to put out the fire and save our animals," Sleiertin wrote.

The home is owned by Robert Sleiertin, of Rhode Island. Diana Sleiertin operates the reptile rescue.

She and Dombroski met in 2011 when Sleiertin visited a haunted house in Clay run by Dombroski and his family. They were married at a Fulton haunted house on Halloween in 2015.

New York State Police and Onondaga County Fire Investigator Ron Ryan are investigating the fire.
Prez Bhandari urges parties to resolve dispute over constitution amendment

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari has urged the political parties to move forward by resolving the dispute seen in the constitution amendment.
Australian charged with murder over death of French tourist

Police in Australia have charged a 35-year-old man with murder after the death of a French tourist in the Northern Territory.
China builds road up to Tiptala Bhanjyang

China has extended its road connectivity up to the Nepal-China border point at Tiptala Bhanjyang in Olangchungola, Taplejung.
Cuba: Crowds pay last respects to Fidel Castro in Santiago

Cuban President Raul Castro has led final tributes to his brother Fidel at an event in the city of Santiago.
Dr Agrawal appointed new IoM dean

Dr Jagadish Agrawal, the newly appointed dean of the Institute of Medicine, is a neurologist at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH).
Give and take

A practical solution would be to pass the amendment bill without changing federal boundaries and go for polls
Government to launch farm equipment rental service

The government has planned to start a farm equipment rental service to help farmers boost output by using expensive modern machines.
Indian embassy enquires about legal status of IC notes in Nepal

The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu has queried the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) about the legal status of Indian banknotes in circulation in Nepal amid confusion over whether the Indian government would allow Nepalis to exchange banned Indian notes with legal tenders in Nepal.
Indian envoy advises Morcha to accept amendment bill

Indian Ambassador Ranjit Rae on Saturday invited the top brass of the Samyutka Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) for a lunch meeting during which he, according to Morcha leaders, enquired about the concerns of the Madhes-based parties and advised them to take ownership of the constitution amendment bill.
UNION SPRINGS  A veteran of the United States Navy and the National Guard, Paul Luziani still remembers how veterans were treated after the Vietnam War. And, he said, it still hurts.

"I wasn't in Vietnam, but I remember the treatment that those guys got when they got back," he said. "Honestly, they were treated like (garbage.)"

So when Luziani and several other veterans received homemade Quilts of Valor Saturday at a ceremony in Union Springs, he said it meant a lot to be recognized once more for their service.

"It's a way for people to show appreciation to honor vets like they should be," he said.

Luziani was one of 11 veterans from Cayuga County to receive a so-called Quilt of Valor at the Scipio Baptist Church Saturday afternoon, something a handful of women craft to honor veterans in the area.

Lynne Mulcahey, a member of Quilters of the Finger Lakes, said there are eight to 10 women who have sewed special quilts for more than 200 veterans.

"We keep busy and we keep out of trouble that way," she said, laughing. "And we just want to be sure that (the veterans) get recognized."

According to Mulcahey, the idea of quilting for local veterans came about when Auburn native Cindy Gunderson sewed a quilt for her son who served in Iraq.

"Cindy said, 'We need to make them for the guys,' so that's what got us started," Mulcahey said, noting that the women donate their own time and money to the project. "And a lot of the veterans that came back from Vietnam got no recognition and were not treated well, and we felt that they should be."

For the past four years, the Quilters of the Finger Lakes have sewed hundreds of quilts  each one slightly different from the other  as part of the national Quilts of Valor Foundation.

Still, this year there was a push to make as many quilts as possible, Mulcahey said, not only to honor veterans, but to honor Gunderson as well.

"We lost Cindy this year to cancer so it's been a real big effort to make as many quilts as we could," Mulcahey said. "She was instrumental in this."

And as Luziani pointed out after the ceremony, hugging his quilt to his side, the quilts go beyond a simple recognition of service.

"This is just another way to heal that wound," he said.
International Day of Persons with Disabilities observed

Minister for Health Gagan Thapa on Saturday expressed his commitment to take necessary initiatives to endorse the act related to persons with disabilities.
Jhumka inmates lack access to heath care

Five hundred inmates have been suffering from various diseases in the eastern regional prison in Jhumka, Sunsari, according to the data of the jail administration. There are 1,531 inmates in the prison.
Nepals Constitution amendment bill an important step: India

India on Saturday welcomed the registration of Constitution amendment bill in Nepal's Parliament describing it as an "important step".
Oakland fire: Dozens feared dead in club night blaze

Dozens of people are feared dead after a fire broke out during a rave at a converted warehouse in Oakland, California.
Oppositions obstruct parliament for third time

Five political parties, including the main opposition CPN (UML) obstructed the parliament meeting on Sunday.
Tika R Pradhan is a senior political correspondent for the Post, covering politics, parliament, judiciary and social affairs. Pradhan joined the Post in 2016 after working at The Himalayan Times for more than a decade.
Protest against constitution amendment bill

Different students' unions and youth organisations have protested against the constitution amendment bill registered by the government in the parliament even on Sunday. They have organized different agitating programmes in front of the various government campuses urging to withdraw the bill soon for few days.
Protests against boundary revision continue

Butwal, the flashpoint of the ongoing protests against the proposal to split Province 5, remained shut on the fourth consecutive day on Saturday.
Remembering Solidarity

When I landed in Warsaw on the first leg of my Europe tour, the sun was shining which is rare in this part of the world.
Seeking another path

There is a logic in the Hindu philosophy that if your possession is whole, it will neither be less nor more than the whole: even if you take the whole out from the whole, the remainder is still whole. Let me quote the Sanskrit couplet:
Gulf News (New York) - General Motors Co., Chrysler Group and Nissan Motor Co. boosted US sales in August by more than analysts estimated as shortages of smaller cars tempered industry gains. GM deliveries rose 18 per cent to 218,479 cars and light trucks, Detroit-based GM said in an e-mailed statement. Chrysler sales surged 31 per cent and Nissan climbed 19 per cent.

US vehicle sales ran at a 12.1 million seasonally adjusted annual rate in August, Autodata Corp. said, matching the average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Shortages of cars such as Ford Motor Co.'s Focus and inventory constraints for Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. limited industry gains from an 11.5 million sales pace a year earlier.

"I wouldn't say anyone is jumping up and down about these numbers because they are just meeting our more moderate expectations," Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive in Lexington, Massachusetts, said. "This is the third year of auto sales not being up where the US market should be, but the economy is just not letting us get there."

The US averaged annual sales of 16.8 million vehicles from 2000 to 2007, according to Autodata. The pace of US auto sales averaged 12.5 million light vehicles in the first half before slowing to 12.2 million in July.

Toyota drops

Deliveries at Toyota fell 13 per cent to 129,483, according to a statement. Sales of Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles were expected to drop 11 per cent, the average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales for Honda declined 24 per cent, the company said on its website. The average of four analysts' estimates was for a 25 per cent decline.

Honda's US sales slid more than 20 per cent for the fourth straight month.

GM's Chevrolet Cruze benefited from lingering shortages of small cars such as Toyota's Corolla and Honda's Civic after the March tsunami and earthquake in Japan disrupted production. GM and Ford said sales of their Cruze and Focus compacts could have been higher with more inventory.

Cruze ended August with 33 days supply, said Don Johnson, vice-president of US sales, less than the industry standard of about 60 days. Ford also was constrained by inventory of Fiesta subcompacts, said Ken Czubay, its US sales chief.

Focus and Fiesta

"We expect to be able to close the gap between supply and demand on Focus and Fiesta," Czubay said yesterday on a conference call. "There is little doubt in our minds that Focus and Fiesta sales will grow as inventory is normalised."

GM's sales increase beat the 17 per cent average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Chrysler topped six analysts' average estimate for a 16 per cent rise, and Nissan exceeded four analysts' average estimate of 18 per cent.

Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan, reported an 11 per cent increase in light-vehicle sales, less than the average of seven estimates for a 15 per cent gain. Deliveries of Focus dropped 8.9 per cent to 14,093.

Sinking consumer confidence and tempered projections for economic growth has prompted at least a dozen analysts to lower estimates for light-vehicle deliveries for this year and next.

Confidence among US consumers plunged in August to the lowest level in more than two years, the New York-based Conference Board said on Tuesday. The US economy may grow by less than 3 per cent through 2013, helping keep the unemployment rate above 8 per cent during that span, the Congressional Budget Office said in an August 24 report.

Comforting results

"We're all trying to get our arms around the recovery," Paul Ballew, chief economist for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., said in a phone interview. "Auto sales results are comforting because they're in line with the fact that we're probably not seeing a double-dip. Demand is inching up a bit."

Hyundai Motor Co.'s August deliveries increased 9.1 per cent to 58,505 vehicles, the company said in a statement. Kia Motors Corp. said in a statement its August sales rose 27 per cent to 41,188. Combined sales for the two Seoul-based partners, which operate separately in the US, totaled 99,693, behind only GM, Ford, Chrysler and Toyota for the month.

GM's momentum

GM's Cruze deliveries climbed to 21,807, almost four times the year-earlier sales of the Cobalt compact that it replaced last year. Cruze was the top-selling compact car for the fourth- straight month and exceeded 20,000 deliveries the last five months.

"GM has been on a bit of a roll," Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive officer of auto researcher Edmunds.com in Santa Monica, California, said in a telephone interview. "The inventory shortage at Toyota and Honda has created an opportunity for everybody and they're not letting it slip by."

Inventories are rising for GM outside of vehicles like Cruze and the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain sport-utility vehicles. Vehicle stock on dealer lots rose by about 19,000 to 556,884 cars and light trucks, with full-size pickup inventories increasing by about 3,200 trucks to 212,520.

"The market may be concerned that GM is playing chicken' with the macro-environment and could get caught out with large production cuts and/or price discounting should the underlying market not recover as GM appears to have anticipated," Adam Jonas, a New York-based analyst at Morgan Stanley, said yesterday in a research note.

Light vehicles

Industrywide light-vehicle deliveries may rise to 12.7 million cars and light trucks this year, the average of 18 analysts' estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The average estimate in April was for 2011 sales of 13 million light vehicles.

Sales may climb to 13.6 million in 2012, the average of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. Of the analysts surveyed, 13 have reduced their estimates from earlier this year.

Nissan used the better availability to drive "aggressive sales promotions," Brian Johnson, a New York-based analyst at Barclays Capital, wrote in an August 25 report. Nissan brand sales rose 22 per cent to 82,517, Katherine Zachary, a spokeswoman, said in a phone interview. Deliveries of its Infiniti luxury brand fell 4.3 per cent to 9,024.

Nissan began the month with 54 days supply of cars and trucks, according to Himanshu Patel, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst. Toyota had 34 days supply of vehicles, while Honda had 27, Patel said in an August 29 report.

No payments for 90 days

Chrysler, majority owned by Fiat SpA, ran a no payments for 90 days promotion for some buyers of 2011 and 2012 Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram models in August.

Grand Cherokee, Compass and Wrangler models propelled the Jeep brand to a 58 per cent increase. Chrysler sold 130,119 vehicles in August compared with 99,611 a year ago.

Volkswagen AG's namesake brand sales climbed 10 per cent to 25,232, according to an e-mailed statement. Deliveries of its Jetta compact sedan surged 36 per cent to 14,500. The brand is on target to reach 328,000 sales in the US, Frank Trivieri, vice-president of sales, said on a conference call.

Hurricane Irene interfered with auto deliveries in states that represent about 30 per cent of the total US sales, said Paul Taylor, chief economist at the National Automobile Dealers Association.

"About 3,000 units were left on the table last month, because of the storm," Al Castignetti, Nissan's vice-president of US sales, said in a phone interview. GM, which said it may have lost about 1,000 sales due to the hurricane, will offer buyers $500 (Dh1,840) toward a new-vehicle purchase or lease in affected disaster areas.
Sickle cell anaemia a major threat in Tharu community

Sickle cell anaemia, a hereditary disease in which the patients red blood cells become stiff and abnormal sickle- or crescent-shaped, has been a major health threat for the Tharus living in the western Tarai districts.
Killeen, TX (76540)

Today

Cloudy skies with a few showers after midnight. Low near 65F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies with a few showers after midnight. Low near 65F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
No

Yes, a light case

Yes, two or more light cases

One serious case

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SEATTLE  Ardine Williams, one of the lead recruiters for Amazon.coms fast-growing cloud computing unit, knows well the technical skills and can-do attitude veterans bring to the table.

But she also knows, first hand, how hard it is to make those first steps in the civilian world.

As a captain in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the 1980s, she had done specialized telecommunications work and data analysis.

But in her first real foray into the private sector she found herself selling clothes at Gymboree, which as a young mother returning from Kuwait she joined because they had a great discount in kids clothes.

I really felt like I was lost, Williams, 55, said in an interview.

Now, after three decades and a successful career in pharmaceuticals and technology, she leads efforts to staff up Amazon Web Services, an Amazon division that has more than 6,000 jobs open worldwide, in the midst of a veritable war for talent among technology titans.

She wants to open the door to as many veterans as she can who are a great fit, she says, for the company.

In a speech last month at Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Seattle, Williams, who is AWS vice president for global talent acquisition, told attendants that you and those you lead have built skills in the military that companies like mine are after.

They find careers at Amazon, and add incredible value, she said. Your mission-driven, results-oriented approach is exactly what my team seeks in candidates.

Seattle-based Amazon says it has hired more than 10,000 veterans in the past five years, and vows to hire more than 25,000 veterans and military spouses in the next five. If Amazon keeps growing at the pace its led in the past few years, therell be plenty of space to absorb them, not only in cloud computing, but also in logistics and warehouse operations.

Theres what a company spokeswoman calls a very active affinity group of veterans dubbed Amazon Warriors; and there are even a sizable number of recruiters with military backgrounds who make incorporating former service members a priority.

About two dozen of these recruiters met recently at a happy hour, a monthly event that they have baptized Commanders Call, in honor of the gatherings they saw in service. There they socialize, reinforcing what is a growing community of Amazonians with military experience, and exchange tips on how to help new hires adapt to life in corporate America. For example, some veterans making the transition are confused by health care, 401(k) options or that they can negotiate a salary, one of the recruiters said.

The companys pledges come against a backdrop in which many large U.S. businesses have made incorporating veterans a top priority, a policy that has resulted in relatively low unemployment levels for former military.

Examples abound, from software giants Microsoft and Uber to Starbucks. The coffee behemoths CEO, Howard Schultz, even co-authored a book about veterans.

But a divide remains between those emerging from the armed forces and their new civilian employers and co-workers, given the small percentage of the U.S. workforce that has any experience in the military.

A survey by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation found that human-resources staffers often lack sufficient knowledge about military service or the skills acquired during that time, and that 44 percent of veterans left their first civilian job within the first year, which they often took hurriedly to make ends meet.

Williams managed to overcome the difficulty of the transition to military life because, as she puts it, her father goaded her into leaving her retail gig for a real job. His advice: Take a job that you know how to perform and take it from there, even if you feel youre overqualified for it.

She found a spot as a technical writer at a pharmaceutical company. That soon opened the door to marketing, venture-capital work, executive roles in mergers and acquisitions, then to the top echelons of Intels human-resources department.

In 2014, a few months after retiring from the chipmaker, she was lured by AWS to help lead its gargantuan recruiting operations.

Its incredibly difficult, she said of that first step into a civilian life. There are jobs in the military that very easily match civilian jobs. There are others who have no translation at all. How do you navigate the first transition is key.

Amazon has several initiatives in the works to help with that first move. AWS works with Camo2Commerce, an organization that seeks to connect veterans transitioning out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord with jobs and career development.

In May, the company said it would train, free, 10,000 active-duty service members, as well as veterans and military spouses, in cloud-computing skills through online courses that can lead to certifications.

The company also offers a 10-week internship to armed-forces personnel on active duty about to transition out of the service.

As Williams puts it, not everyone will be able to luck into a satisfying career path the same way she did. Times are different now. Helping transitioning service members bridge that gap is important, rather than leaving it to happenstance, she said.
LE SUEUR, Minn.  Customers cant get enough of Cambrias quartz countertops, and the million-square-foot production facility here is racing to keep up. Under bright lights and high ceilings, churning machinery fuses quartz crystals into heavy slabs and polishes them until they shine.

This facility is short 40 production workers. It took months to find all the workers for a new assembly line added earlier this year  even after Cambria boosted entry-level wages from $16.66 to $18 an hour. The labor shortage is costing the company some $3.8 million per month, said Marty Davis, the companys president and CEO.

Employers across the country, from manufacturers in rural Minnesota to hospitals in New York City, are having trouble filling jobs. It now takes about 28 workdays to fill the average job vacancy, compared to about 24 days, on average, in 2007.

The declining unemployment rate has made it more difficult for employers to find workers, but its still tougher than it should be given the current jobless rate. Since the recession ended, the number of job openings has increased faster than the number of new hires.

The usual explanation offered by business and education groups is that too few Americans have the right skills for the openings. The way to close this skills gap, they say, is to improve job training and more closely align higher education to employment.

But this solution, promoted by politicians as the way to help workers left behind by globalization and automation  both major challenges for the country in the 21st century  is too simplistic.

Throwing more public dollars at education and training wont be enough to connect willing workers to open jobs. In many places, employers are also setting wages too low, defining qualifications too narrowly, or not recruiting widely enough. Many people who are eager to work cant because they lack transportation, or dont have anybody to watch their children during the workday.

Besides, a lot of the open jobs that employers are struggling to fill right now dont require any education or training beyond high school.

I think (the) skills gap has run its course. Its overhyped and overrated, said Janice Urbanik of Partners for a Competitive Workforce, the umbrella organization for workforce efforts in the Cincinnati area. I dont think its the only factor, and to some extent its not even the primary factor.

President-elect Donald Trump made restoring lost manufacturing jobs a centerpiece of his campaign. He says he will bring back jobs by cutting taxes, rolling back regulations and renegotiating trade deals. His position on education and training for displaced workers is unknown.

Its true that over the past 30 years, education and skill requirements for jobs have been rising, as a Pew Research Center study recently found. (The Pew Charitable Trusts funds both the Pew Research Center and Stateline.)

But that long-term shift doesnt totally explain why jobs have been sitting open since the Great Recession ended. The U.S. hasnt experienced the massive wage growth youd expect from a shortage of workers, although wages did start rising last year. Many economists say that if there were a shortage of workers, wages would be going up more.

They say the lack of wage growth proves the U.S. has a demand problem  not enough good jobs  rather than a supply problem  not enough skilled workers. The idea that all we need to do is train workers is fundamentally an evasion of a profound social challenge, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said during a panel discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution last year in Washington, D.C.

National employment numbers provide a broad overview of the labor market, but they are too murky to explain why employers cant fill certain jobs. The closer you get to the local level, the clearer it becomes that multiple factors hold back hiring, and that those factors differ by job, industry and location.

The national skills gap notion is a fallacy, because theres no national labor market. There are regional labor markets, said Lesley Hirsch, director of the New York City Labor Market Information Service. Regional labor markets have slightly different dynamics depending on the industry mix and the types of workers there.

The head of Minnesotas Labor Market Information Office, Steve Hine, knows this well. Twice a year, Hines staff surveys a cross section of Minnesota companies to ask them about their openings. In 2012 and 2013, it followed up with employers looking for workers in health care, engineering, manufacturing and information technology  fields supposedly suffering from a skills gap.

When hiring was difficult, employers gave multiple explanations for it. In 2013, for example, Minnesota manufacturers said two-thirds of all their openings were hard to fill, but that only 14 percent of positions remained open purely because applicants didnt have the right education and training.

Instead, most employers had a hard time filling jobs because of a mix of factors. A lack of applicants with the right skills was one reason. But there were many others, including location, low wages and undesirable shifts.

The job is not that specialized, one manufacturer said of a position it had trouble filling. The problem was finding someone willing to live in a small town and work long hours for low pay.

In the past year or so, as the economy has improved and fewer people are out of work, companies have ramped up recruiting.

Cambria has been pulling out all the stops to lure people to its two facilities in southern Minnesota. It has thrown pizza parties for the engineering club at the nearby state university, added paid internships, raised wages, and started offering English classes to Spanish-speaking production workers  a move the company hopes will retain those workers and prepare them for promotions.

The companys top leaders dont understand why theyre still having trouble hiring. Brian Scoggin, Cambrias executive vice president of operations, said the facilities in rural Minnesota face one obvious problem: there just arent that many people living nearby. But population density cant be the only factor, because Cambrias Toronto facility has some of the same problems.

Skills gaps are a problem for some positions, and the Greater Mankato area  and regions like it around the country  has pulled together to create new associate degrees and postsecondary certificate programs for those jobs. One associate degree that should help Cambria teaches students to fix automated assembly lines.

And Minnesota, like many other states, is trying to help students choose college programs and plan their careers by collecting and publishing data on earnings after graduation.

Many of Cambrias open jobs dont require much education, however. The overwhelming majority of open production jobs across south central Minnesota dont require a college degree, in fact. Nor do almost two-thirds of openings statewide.

Despite the Legislatures goal of ensuring that 70 percent of state residents have a college degree or certificate, Hine says that Minnesota may have more college graduates than it has jobs for them. Hirsch says the same of New York City, which has more people with a two-year degree or some college experience than jobs with those education requirements.

For Cambria, another barrier to recruitment may be its company culture. Some current and former employees describe low morale, particularly on the production floor, and say managers should spend more time listening to their low-level employees.

Regina Dallman, 43, lasted eight months working 12-hour shifts as a crane operator at Cambrias Le Sueur plant. She admits she wasnt a perfect employee  she has wrestled with drug addiction  but she thinks low-level workers would stick around longer if they felt more valued.

Scoggin could not comment on Dallmans specific complaints, but he said poor attendance is a problem at the plant. The shift schedule  two or three 12-hour workdays, followed by two or three days off  doesnt work for everyone. A lot of people, Im sure, would rather work Monday through Friday, he said.

In the years to come, Hine expects it to be tougher for employers to fill all kinds of jobs in Minnesota. Were just not going to have the workforce growth that weve been used to over the past 50, 60 years, he said. Minnesotas labor force is already somewhat smaller than it was a year ago, he said.

Nationally the labor force will grow more slowly in coming years than in the past. In Minnesota, baby boomers are leaving the workforce faster than millennials are entering it, a common pattern across the aging Frost Belt. In fact, over the past five years, in most of the country, the working-age population has shrunk.

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

I think we are going to see shortages across the wide spectrum, Hine said, including jobs that dont require college degrees, such as home health aides, personal care assistants and restaurant staff.

These are the jobs that people are getting worried about, are noticing are going unfilled. But theyre not well-paying, he said. And they dont provide a good, stable income and career opportunities.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Pressure from a shrinking labor force should spur companies to recruit more widely, lower their requirements and make their jobs more appealing. In Mankato, which has a 2.8 percent unemployment rate, employers are doing more to recruit underemployed immigrants from Somalia and Sudan.

Another solution might be breaking out of traditional gender roles. Urbanik said most of the manufacturers and construction companies she works with employ few, if any, women. Shes been helping them broaden their recruiting and create better work environments for mothers.

Employers can be set in their ways, Urbanik said, and may be blind to how the communities around them are changing. They like to go after the kids who grew up on farms, she said of her employer partners in Cincinnati. But there are fewer and fewer farm kids in the area these days.

Urbanik also plans to spend more time convincing employers that raising wages, improving shift schedules, and creating opportunities for advancement will pay off. Benefits such as paid leave and transportation assistance help, too. Only 59 percent of the jobs in the Cincinnati region are accessible by public transportation, she said.

In rural Minnesota, a weekly stipend to cover the cost of gas has helped Dallman, the former Cambria worker, stay enrolled in a welding course organized by the South Central Workforce Council. A lenient landlord gives her extensions on her rent, which has allowed her to scale back to part-time work while she studies.

A person may have a skills deficit, but also have child care and transportation issues, Urbanik said. Whats lost in the national skills gap debate, she said, is how integrated employment issues are.

I think (the) skills gap has run its course. Its overhyped and overrated. I dont think its the only factor, and to some extent its not even the primary factor.Janice Urbanik, Partners for a Competitive Workforce in the Cincinnati area
Aaron Tourville and Stephanie Averbeck opened A&S Clothing Co. on Nov. 26 at 506 Main St. in downtown La Crosse, selling what Tourville describes as unique, affordable womens fashions.

We have clothing, jewelry, handbags and accessories like scarves and socks, he said.

Tourville said he and Averbeck decided to open the store because we thought there was a need.

Averbeck had been shopping on boutique-type retailer websites for things that often werent available in the area, he said. A&S Clothing Co. will focus on things that other local stores dont carry.

Another reason they opened the store is, Tourville said, Weve seen La Crosse becoming kind of a boom center for retail-type things. Before opening A&S Clothing Co., he was helping his sister, Addie Tourville, at her addiecakes gourmet cupcake shop downtown. He has a bachelors degree in business administration with a management emphasis, from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Both of A&S Clothings owners have experience working in retail stores.

Store hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday. The stores grand opening will be Jan. 14.

For more information, call 608-615-1101 or visit www.aandsclothingco.com or the stores Facebook page.

Marybeth Buswell opened Inspire  Staging & Design in October in Suite 3 in a professional office building at 1523 Rose St. on the North Side of La Crosse.

Inspire provides home staging and redesigning services, Buswell said. It will offer free home staging classes (the first one will be at 6:15 p.m. Dec. 7 at Inspire) intended for anyone thinking about selling their house, on methods of preparing to showcase the homes best assets, impress buyers and sell quickly for the highest price.

Inspire also will consult with individual customers on how to prepare their house in the areas that will make the biggest difference within their budget.

Inspire also offers ideas for anyone interested in decorating their house or redesigning a room with some pieces that bring them inspiration with a fresh, new look, Buswell said. She has items people can buy for that purpose, or as gifts.

Buswell plans to hold an open house at Inspire from 3 to 7 p.m. Jan. 11. She also is a Realtor with Cindy Gerke & Associates.

For more information, call Buswell at 608-487-3047 or visit Inspires Facebook page.

The Aeropostale teen clothing store in Valley View Mall closed last week.

The Aeropostale chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May, when it had about 800 stores open. At that time, it announced an initial store closure list of 113 U.S. locations, as well as all 41 of its stores in Canada.

The La Crosse store, which closed Tuesday, wasnt on the initial store closure list.

The company said in May that it would move ahead with a smaller store base, and increased operating efficiencies.

In September, a consortium that includes shopping mall operators Simon Property Group and General Growth Properties Inc. bought Aeropostale. The consortium promised to keep about 230 U.S. stores open, as part of its $234 million bid.
PITTSBURGH  The first expansion of federal overtime rules in more than a decade meant raises of up to 5 percent for many workers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. It meant other employees could, for the first time, count their hours and receive more pay for extra hours worked.

But the changes, which UPMC had planned to take effect last weekend, were abruptly put on hold by the health system.

UPMC is not alone.

Many businesses across the country are taking similar actions after a federal judge in Texas last week issued a nationwide injunction that blocks a rule on overtime eligibility from taking effect on Thursday.

In May, federal officials expanded overtime eligibility for millions of more Americans  one of the Obama administrations landmark labor policies and the first federal expansion of overtime since 2004.

In his ruling last Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant sided with the 21 conservative states and business groups that filed motions in opposition to the rule.

Pending a final decision on the rule from the courts, many employers say they will keep their payrolls the same.

Rather than make the changes now and then have to make further or perhaps reverse these changes in the future, we are going to place our planned changes on hold and wait until the final determination has been made, wrote John Galley, UPMCs chief human resources officer, in an email to hospital presidents and other UPMC leaders.

A spokeswoman for UPMC on Monday confirmed the companys decision to put the raises on hold, but declined to comment further.

The ruling is a major setback for worker advocates, still reeling from the upset election this month of Donald Trump that threatens to upend many of President Barack Obamas policies. But the decision also marked a victory for advocacy groups that characterized the overtime rule as government overreach and provides some relief for employers that were scrambling to meet the deadline.

The delay effectively gives Trump, who takes office in January, an opportunity to take a shot at undoing the rule. Though he has not yet indicated a specific stance on overtime, Trump has said rolling back Obama administration regulations is key to stimulating economic growth.

Under the rules in question, certain salaried workers making up to $47,476 a year would qualify for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. Currently, only workers making up to $23,660 a year qualify  excluding an estimated 4 million managerial workers nationwide that could qualify for overtime pay for the first time.

To comply, employers would be required to either track hours and pay overtime to newly qualified workers or raise salaries above $47,476 to keep them exempt. Along with retail business groups, nonprofits and social service organizations expressed concerns that they would have to lay off workers or sacrifice services because their revenue, based largely on Medicaid funding, would not proportionally increase after the rule went into effect.

Roughly two-thirds of workers across 4,000 disability providers nationwide would qualify for overtime, according to a study by the American Network of Community Options and Resources, a Washington, D.C., group advocating for disability service providers.

To cover five hours of overtime a week, service providers in total would pay $1.05 billion.

To raise salaries to the new threshold, providers would pay $1.87 billion.

The group insisted it supports a wage increase for its workforce, which suffers from widespread vacancies, and is pushing for legislation in Congress to increase Medicaid funding temporarily for the next three years to help cover costs.

Still, many providers have reported keeping their plans intact, said Gabrielle Sedor, chief operations officer for the group, which scheduled an emergency call with its members on Friday.

Most of them, because theyve already prepared and communicated the changes to their employees, feel like they really dont have a choice but to go forward, Sedor said. Its a morale issue. Its doing what you said you would do. But its very tricky.
Donald Trumps campaign succeeded in part because he promised to correct the corruption that is emblematic of Washington. He likely did not expect to win the presidency, and now faces the enormity of what he wished for. He will have a solid Republican Congress, but it is powerfully entrenched in both the Senate and the House, and many of these legislators are the very people he spoke of when he pointed his finger at corruption.

Any number of those who are now flocking to flatter Trump will ultimately do all that they can to use him to advance themselves, and at any expense to Trump. Who can he trust except his family and a few long-time friends? Who in the Republican establishment? Even his vice presidential running mate is part of that establishment. Should he trust Mike Pence? President-elect Trump will soon find himself as alone and fighting for his life as Obama. Good luck, President-elect Trump.
Macy Williams knows what it is like to grow up with an autistic sibling. Because of that experience, she wants to help other families with spe
Five centuries ago, Christians in Europe who hoped to go to heaven knew they might first have to spend a few thousand years in a fiery purgatory, where they would be purified of their outstanding sins.

It was not a pleasant thought, but the Catholic Church offered some hope: A cash offering to the local priest could buy an indulgence certificate, entitling the believer to a shorter purgatory sentence.

In practice, the money often went into the pockets of corrupt church officials and their political allies. So in 1517 a German monk named Martin Luther decided to protest the practice. On or about Oct. 31 of that year, he publicly presented 95 handwritten theses against the sale of indulgences.

Luther expected only to prompt a debate within Christian circles, but with that act he sparked a revolution. The Protestant Reformation that followed his protest upended the political and ecclesiastical order across Europe.

For the upcoming 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the Minneapolis Institute of Art has mounted an exhibition that chronicles Luthers life and work. One of the objects on display is an actual 16th century indulgence chest, complete with iron plates, heavy hinges and five separate locks. People wishing to purchase an indulgence dropped their coins in a slot on the top of the box.

It was meant to be shut tight, says Tom Rassieur, who curated the MIA exhibition.

More than 400 artworks and historical objects are on display in the exhibition, including some of Luthers personal possessions and archaeological artifacts from his personal residence in Eisleben, Germany. Many of the items have not been displayed outside Germany before, and the exhibition as a whole is the most comprehensive collection of Luther-related objects ever assembled in one place.

When we were contacted by museum officials in Germany, says MIA director Kaywin Feldman, our number one question was, How can we make this the best Luther show ever? 

The exhibit makes clear that Luthers spectacular success was in large part a propaganda phenomenon. His broadside against Catholic Church practices might have gone unnoticed were it not for the introduction a few decades earlier of a new technology: the printing press. Luthers challenge to church authority was incendiary, and German printers immediately recognized a hot property.

As an entrepreneurial venture, they set the 95 Theses into type, printed them and reproduced them, says Rassieur. When they saw how rapidly they were selling, they made copies and copies and copies. It went viral.

The MIA exhibit includes several versions of the printed theses, including a pocket-sized edition just four pages long. One copy was printed in Basel, in present-day Switzerland, not more than two months after Luther posted his own handwritten version.

That means Luthers words had already reached out hundreds of miles, Rassieur says. When Luthers ideas started to spread, there was no way they could be stopped. No one knows how many copies of the 95 Theses were printed, but Rassieur says there were probably thousands and thousands, given the number of editions that were immediately produced.

As with the Internet centuries later, Luther showed how a new information technology could change the world.

From Rome, orders were put out for Luther to be put on trial, presumably to be burned at the stake for heresy. He went into hiding. But he was never apprehended, and ultimately he became the most famous preacher of his day.

Among the items in the MIA exhibition is the actual pulpit from which Luther gave his last sermon.

The structure is more than 20 feet tall, with a sounding board overhanging the rostrum like a roof. The pulpit had never before left the church in Eisleben where it was located, and moving and installing it in the Minneapolis museum was the most daunting challenge the curators faced.

As with the printed versions of the 95 Theses, the pulpit has major symbolic significance. It was Martin Luther who introduced the idea of a sermon or homily as a central part of the Christian worship service.

Previously, youd go to church, and the emphasis was on the Eucharist, Rassieur says, the blessing of the bread and the wine. The priest would mostly be at the altar, with his back to the congregation, murmuring words in Latin, a language the worshippers would not understand.

Luther changed things. He had the priest get up in a box and stand in a very visible place, addressing the congregation and speaking to them in plain language, in their native tongue. His whole philosophy was that you had to return to the word of God.

As someone who challenged authority and introduced a peoples Christianity, Luther was a transformative figure in modern European history. He was also highly divisive, however, and he was personally responsible through his teachings and writings for the promotion of anti-Semitism. After originally reminding his followers that Jesus and his apostles were themselves Jewish and advocating outreach to the Jewish community, Luther concluded the effort was not likely to result in widespread Jewish conversions.

At the end of his life, he went bonkers, says James Reston Jr., author of Luthers Fortress: Martin Luther and His Reformation Under Siege. He wrote increasingly anti-Semitic tracts which later got used by the Nazis.

The dark phases of Luthers life are well documented in the MIA exhibition. The curators were assisted by an interfaith advisory committee, and some of Luthers most hateful writings are prominently displayed in the exhibition, including a copy of his infamous tract On the Jews and Their Lies.

Luther for a time was seen as a heroic figure in Germany, says Tomoko Emmerling, a curator at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Germany, and a coordinator of the German side of the exhibition. Now we know more about his dark side. Theres no intention to heroize him. We try to get an objective picture and see him as the person he was.

Luther for a time was seen as a heroic figure in Germany. Now we know more about his dark side. Theres no intention to heroize him. We try to get an objective picture and see him as the person he was. Tomoko Emmerling, curator at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Germany and coordinator of the German side of the exhibition
Professor fatally stabbed, student arrested: LOS ANGELES  A graduate student arrested on suspicion of stabbing to death the professor who oversaw his work at the University of Southern California was being held on $1 million bail Saturday. David Jonathan Brown, a 28-year-old brain and cognitive science student, was arrested in the Friday afternoon attack in the heart of the Los Angeles campus. His mentor, Bosco Tjan, was killed inside the Seeley G. Mudd building, where he runs an intensive lab that studies vision loss.

Supreme Court hears cases about use of race in redistricting: WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court is returning to the familiar intersection of race and politics, in a pair of cases examining redistricting in North Carolina and Virginia. The eight-justice court is hearing arguments Monday in two cases that deal with the same basic issue of whether race played too large a role in the drawing of electoral districts, to the detriment of African-Americans. The claim made by black voters in both states is that Republicans packed districts with more reliably Democratic black voters than necessary to elect their preferred candidates, making neighboring districts whiter and more Republican.

Duterte says Trump wished his drug crackdown success: MANILA, Philippines  President Rodrigo Duterte said Saturday Donald Trump wished his deadly crackdown on illegal drugs would succeed during a telephone call, and he assured the U.S. president-elect the Philippines would maintain its ties with America  a departure from Dutertes hostility toward the Obama administration. Duterte called to congratulate Trump late Friday in their first talk that was described by an aide of the Philippine president as very engaging, animated conversation in which both leaders invited each other to visit his country.

Syrian and allied troops advance in besieged Aleppo: ALEPPO, Syria  Syrian warplanes, artillery and mortar rounds pounded areas in eastern Aleppo on Saturday drawing rebel rockets, as government troops gain new ground in the shrinking opposition-held enclave. After four years of holding nearly half of the divided city, rebel fighters have been increasingly squeezed into the center of the eastern enclave. Government and allied troops, including Lebanese, Iraqi and Iranian fighters, have concentrated their fight on the northeastern part of the enclave, swiftly taking new districts since their offensive began last week. The advances have caused massive displacement. The U.N. estimated that more than 31,000 have already fled their homes.
I read the La Crosse Tribunes editorial last week, "Politicians shouldn't draw political boundaries" (Nov. 27). I could not agree more. It needs to be the voters who choose their representatives, not the other way around.

For years I have fought to take politics completely out of the process. Ive introduced legislation with my Republican colleague from Green Bay, Rep. Reid Ribble, to establish an independent, bipartisan redistricting commission to redraw congressional district lines once every 10 years. Our neighbors in Iowa use this model, and it has worked very well for them.

A few weeks ago, a three-judge federal panel took action to fix the problem by ruling that the districts drawn by the Republican Party in 2011 are unconstitutional and illegally partisan. While this is an important step in the right direction, it doesnt solve the true problem. We need to take politics completely out of the process, which means Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Legislature need to put the people of Wisconsin first, not their own jobs.

Keeping the redistricting process the way it is now would be like, if during a Packers vs. Bears game, we allowed the Bears to choose the referee. What Packer fan would find that fair?
Im almost embarrassed to compare our citys libraries with those of two small, south-central Wisconsin towns, but here goes. Before I moved to La Crosse, I lived in Sauk City. As a village trustee for a few of those years, I served on the library board. I cant ever recall considering reducing the number of hours the library would be open to the public. Rather, we agonized about how we could expand the library building, given its confined footprint due to previous expansion and the fact that it was not foundationally suited to be two stories. Our sister village, Prairie du Sac, also operated a full-time library. If we could keep two full-time libraries open for a combined total of a little more than 6,000 residents, why cant La Crosse keep three full-time libraries open for 50,000 residents?
A trio of new businesses, Elevated Shredding, Strides2Thrive and Papercrete Creations, is helping companies comply with government document regulations and people with disabilities find jobs.

The three businesses are the brainchildren of Jen Green and Joe Vance. Green is a former teacher and Vance has worked with and cared for people with disabilities for a number of years.

The two created Strides2Thrive to help residents with disabilities learn important job skills, such as arriving on time, dressing appropriately and how communicate with coworkers and bosses.

The company, which is waiting for its last few government reviews, will provide classes and day care for at least 12 people with disabilities who are looking to enter the workforce.

Because our classes are so small, we can meet the clients at their need level, Green said. Some of them may need help on how to start the job process, some may already have job experience but might need help with communication skills. We can do that.

Green and Vance hope to open Strides2Thrive by the beginning of the new year.

In order to give those job trainees on-the-job experience, Green and Vance created Elevated Shredding and Papercrete Creations. Elevated Shredding provides local businesses with a local, mobile source for secure document shredding. Papercrete manufactures lightweight planters and gift items out of recycled paper and concrete.

The two companies offer a variety of job opportunities and skill for those with disabilities, Green said. For example, Elevated will need a receptionist, salespeople, record keepers and warehouse workers. Green and Vance went with a shredding company for on-the-job training for their clients because its a successful model thats been used in other areas of the country. They hope to have at least 50 percent of Elevated and Papercretes workforce be made up of their Strides2Thrive clients. Every employee will be paid a real wage, Green said.

Elevated also provides an essential local service to local businesses, Green said. Most of the document shredding companies that provide services to Flagstaff businesses are from the Phoenix area. These companies pick up the documents from Flagstaff businesses and then transport them back to their warehouses in Phoenix where theyre shredded. This can pose a security risk to local businesses, an accident could scatter documents with sensitive customer information, such as Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, health and financial records, all over the highway.

There is also the cost of transportation fees to transport the documents, which can add up quickly. Green pointed out that most companies out of Phoenix charge about 99 cents per pound for shredding services, Elevated charges about 50 cents per pound. Costs vary depending on how many documents need to be picked up and how far the business has to drive. Elevated can also train a companys employees on regulations regarding the safe and secure destruction of sensitive documents.

Elevated Shredding has a specially designed truck that can shred sensitive documents on-site, Vance said. An Elevated employee simply drives the truck to the customers office, a secure bin with the sensitive documents is rolled out to the truck and, with a push of a button, the truck picks up the bin in an enclosed shaft and dumps the documents into an automatic shredder mounted inside the truck. The shredded documents are pushed into a locked cargo hold in the truck by an automatic auger. The truck can hold about 9,000 pounds of shredded paper.

Customers can even watch the documents be shredded in the truck, Vance said. The truck has several cameras that record every part of the destruction of the documents, including the shredder and the auger. A live feed of the shredding can be viewed on a video monitor on the side of the truck. This is helpful for a number of companies that are required by law to watch the destruction of sensitive documents in person, he said. Elevated can also provide a certificate of destruction for a company.

Elevated also offers a pickup service for residential and commercial customers. Customers can rent a secure bin from the company, drop their sensitive documents in the bin and then call Elevated to pick up the bin when its full. The bins range in size from about the size of a small wastepaper basket to a curb-side garbage can. Each bin locks to prevent sensitive documents from being removed from the bin. The company also offers several grey and black console models that blend in with most office furniture.

For customers who dont have a lot of sensitive documents or dont need a monthly shredding service, Elevated offers paper shredding bags. The bags come in two sizes, one that can hold 35 pounds of paper and one that can hold 70 pounds. The customer purchases the bags at Elevateds office on Huntington Drive, takes them home or to their office, stuffs them full of paper and then returns them to Elevated. The bags are dropped into the truck shredder.

All of the shredded documents are compacted by a machine at Elevates headquarters into giant bricks, Vance said. It takes about 5,500 pounds of paper to make one of the giant bricks. The bricks are then sold to companies like SCA Tissue, which recycles them into new paper products.

Some of the shredded paper is saved for Vance and Greens third business, Papercrete Creations. Papercrete mixes pulped shredded paper with concrete to create lightweight concrete planters, candy dishes, candle and incense holders and other gift items that are sold locally.

Green and Vance also hope to help the community in other ways. Elevated is holding a special charity shred event from noon to 3 p.m. Dec. 10 at the Flagstaff Mall. That day, the company will shred documents for free for each person that brings a new unwrapped toy or offers a donation for the Northern Arizona Law Enforcement annual toy drive.
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand  Buzz Aldrin had an unexpected bedside visit from NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman on Saturday as he continued to recover in a New Zealand hospital from his medical evacuation from the South Pole.

Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, posted a picture of himself with Newman on Twitter. Aldrin, who was wearing pajamas and sitting up in bed, was giving a thumbs-up sign, as was Newman.

I had a surprise visitor this morning. My longtime friend ... She beat me to the South Pole by one day, Aldrin wrote.

Newman also posted some pictures on Twitter of Aldrin sitting up in bed and gesticulating, with a tray of food and juice in front of him.

Aldrin, 86, was visiting Antarctica as a tourist when he fell ill this week. He was flown to Christchurch from McMurdo Station, a U.S. research center on the Antarctic coast.

Tour company White Desert said Aldrin has fluid in his lungs, but was responding well to antibiotics. His manager Christina Korp, who accompanied him, said he was in good spirits.

As Aldrin recovers, she said on Twitter, I did want to let people know that he did make it to the South Pole which was his objective. Thnx for prayers!

Korp said on Twitter shed told Aldrin he now holds the record as the oldest person to reach the South Pole, according to the National Science Foundation.

Hell be insufferable now, she wrote.

She said the evacuation had been grueling. She posted side-by-side photos of Aldrin  one on a stretcher giving a thumbs-up with a purple knit cap on his head, another in a hospital bed, on oxygen and with an IV in his left arm.

Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first men on the moon, on July 20, 1969. Armstrong died in 2012.

Just three weeks ago, Aldrin was at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the unveiling of a new astronaut exhibit. The ceremony coincided with the 50th anniversary of his launch with Jim Lovell on Gemini 12, the last of the two-man Gemini flights. Both were present and looked as energetic as usual.

Aldrin has crisscrossed the globe in recent months and years, pushing hard for human exploration of Mars and promoting space and science education. His latest book, No Dream Is Too High: Life Lessons from a Man who Walked on the Moon, came out in April. He also teamed up with the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida, now home to the Buzz Aldrin Space Institute. Aldrin lives in nearby Satellite Beach, Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral and its launch pads.

We wish Buzz a speedy recovery, the London-based White Desert said in a statement.

Aldrin was part of an Antarctica sightseeing tour, along with son Andrew. The elder Aldrin was clearly excited about his adventure to the bottom of the world: South Pole here I come! he said via Twitter on Nov. 28. The group departed Tuesday from Cape Town, South Africa, on a trip that was supposed to last just over a week. Doctors agreed an evacuation was prudent after Aldrins condition deteriorated, according to his staff in Florida.

The National Science Foundation helped provide the air lift via a ski-equipped LC-130 cargo plane from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to McMurdo, and then on to New Zealand on another plane.
An information-only discussion was held about adult family homes within the Tomah city limits at the citys Nov. 14 Committee of the Whole meeting.

The reason for discussion was a number of concerns expressed to councilwoman Mary Ann Komiskey, District 1, by her constituents regarding the amount of police activity at the residences, particularly those at 620 and 622 W. Veterans Ave.

An adult family home is a place where three to four adults, not related to the operator, reside and receive care, treatment or services above the level of room and board. It may include up to seven hours per week of nursing care per resident. City administrator Roger Gorius said the homes are regulated by the state.

We really have no jurisdiction over the homes ... theyre monitored by the state and, as such, the responsibility for the operation lies at that level, he said.

Tomah police chief Mark Nicholson said the licensing of the homes, of which Tomah has six or seven, is done through the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

Residents, Nicholson said, come from every age group with various medical conditions.

The residents that live there can be elderly, they can be persons with developmental disabilities, they can have mental illness, physical disabilities and persons with substance-abuse problems, he said. They are not, if Im understanding correctly, allowed to do actual rehab at these facilities, but at these facilities ... if you were to walk into them, its just like walking into somebodys house.

At each location there are four bedrooms with four people living in each of them, Nicholson said.

Over the past two years police have responded to at least 37 calls at 620 W. Veterans Street and 13 at 622 W. Veterans St., Nicholson said.

Some of the calls were for disturbances between the residents, disturbances between the residents and staff, residents leaving, false fire alarms, welfare checks, mental health issues, damage to property and theft reports. The majority of them were not legitimate calls for law enforcement service, Nicholson said.

A large portion of them are simply house rules  you cant have your cigarettes in your bed, you cant take the doors off, youre being too loud, he said.

He said many of the calls were merely "to say we need police officers right now.

Nicholson said he has spoken with owner Valerie Smith a couple of times about the calls regarding house rules, and for the past two months the number of calls appears to have decreased.

In essence we let them know that were not your dad when one of your residents is acting up  were not going to show up, he said. If theres a crime thats occurring, if theres a fight thats occurring, if theres a theft thats occurred, absolutely were going to respond.

Komiskey said other concerns her constituents brought to her attention regarded the residents themselves  some were seen wandering around then later asking for someone to help them find their way home, trespassing, removing no trespassing signs and one report of an adult family home resident urinating in someone elses yard.

So there is concern, she said. There are young children around there, and the parents are concerned and I dont blame them.

Nicholson said some of the residents are court-ordered to be at the homes, but most are not  so if a person living in one of the homes walked away, theres not much law enforcement can do.

Its kind of like if a relative calls and says you walked away from the house and youre not supposed to be out of the house, he said. We dont have the authority to pick somebody up and take them back to the house.

No action was taken from discussion; however, the council will look into whether or not the city has the ability to make a determination of the effect of the facility on health, safety and welfare of city residents.

Councilman Eric Prise, District 5, said it could lead to the closure of the facility, based on information provided to the council members about adult family homes.

In number 7, section 62, that talks about after the first licensure of the adult family home or community living agreement, and every year thereafter the common council may make a determination of the effect of the facility on health, safety and welfare of city residents, he said. Unless there is something that were misunderstanding here, the facility could even cease operation within 90 days after a judicial review.

Councilman Mike Murray, District 3, said its good to have discussion about the adult family homes for the education for everyone  the council, the community and the facility owner.

I think its also a good time for education for members of the community and surrounding area that when youre dealing with people with mental illness and people with developmental disabilities, there may be some abnormalities as to behavioral process, he said. Its a learning process for everyone, its about acceptance, its about recognition of there is acceptability in this area, tolerance in this area, but also expectations for everybody involved.
For fans of compelling and hip live dramas, musicals and even puppets, Theatrikos Theatre Company will reach into the genre grab bag for the upcoming 2017 season.

Opening with Neil Simons Rumors, and running into works by top-drawing writers, cult classics and two Studio Series productions, this season treads any which way but lightly. For the Artistic Committee, which selects each presentation, the trick was to lend a little something to every theatre goer.

TheatriKIDS, too, will follow a similar formula as the young casts work through Shakespeares collection to the acclaimed musical comedy, Spamalot and Stage Buddies presentation of The Aristocats.

Call 774-1662 or visit Theatrikos.com for a full schedule and to purchase season passes.

Rumors by Neil Simon. February 3-19.

At a large townhouse, the Deputy Mayor of New York has just shot himself. Tis only a flesh wound, however, and the host lies bleeding in the other room while his wife is nowhere in sight  right before the couples 10th wedding anniversary. His lawyer and wife must get their stories straight before the other guests arrive. As confusions and miscommunications mount, the evening spins off into farcical hilarity.

The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl. April 7-23.

One Pulitzer darling, The Clean House, a 2005 finalist for the prize, offers duality in this whimsical and poignant look at class, comedy and the true nature of love. For one couple, Lane and Charles, cleanliness is in their job description as doctors, and should be for their housekeeper, Matilde, too. However, shes more interested in crafting jokes, and as we learn, comedy is at the center of each characters life until Charles confesses hes found a soulmate in another woman.

The Graduate, adapted by Terry Johnson; based on the Novel by Charles Webb. June 2-18.

The classic story of Mrs. Robinson and young mans quests to have her, this 1960s novel turned cult-hit film flies in the face of young love. Benjamins sexual odyssey takes a hit in this first-edition stage adaptation that premiered in London in 2000 with the indomitable Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson.

STUDIO SERIES: Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Nora and Delia Ephron. July 7-9.

Based on the bestseller by Ilene Beckerman, this play is a literary ensemble describing the physical varieties: pieces about women and memory covering the fabric of our lives  especially clothes. We learn of prom dresses, buying bras, hating purses and why we only wear black. But above all: mothers.

Avenue Q, the Musical by Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez. August 4-20.

Since its debut on Broadway in 2003, Avenue Q has become an unstoppable force. Winner of the Tony Triple Crown for best musical, score and book, this laugh-out-loud musical tells the timeless story of a recent college grad named Princeton who moves into a shabby New York apartment deep in Alphabet City. The residents are extraordinary, yet he and his pals struggle to find their life-bound duties with humor and call-backs to other famous puppets.

Over the River and through the Woods by Joe DiPietro. October 6-22.

You can take the family out of New Jersey, but will Jersey ever leave the family? Nicks a single guy; parents retired to Florida  but that doesnt mean they ever left their birthplace in heart or spirit. Nick still joins his grandparents for Sunday dinner, though he tries to break the news hes found his dream job far from them. Scheming to keep Nick around, Frank, Aida, Nunzio and Emma pull out all the stops  including inviting the beautifully single Caitlin OHare to dinner.

STUDIO SERIES: RED by John Logan. November 10-12.

Mark Rothko, abstract genius of the 20th century, has just been commissioned to work out the biggest prize in the history of modern art in this 2010 Tony Award-winning play. Rothko, with his assistant Ken, works on a series of murals for New Yorks famed Four Seasons Restaurant. Over two years, the visionary faces the possibility that his crowning achievement could also become his greatest foil, and the audience is along for this searing ride.

Its A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, adapted by Joe Landry. December 1-17.

With the help of an ensemble that brings a few dozen characters to the stage, George Bailey contemplates suicide on the merriest of days: Christmas Eve. This classic charmer of lifes spoils is told through a 1940s radio broadcast, harkening back to the time when TVs were sparse or non-existent and we hung on every word from a single speaker miles away.
COLLECTIVE MADNESS



Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
NEW YORK (AP)  Three weeks out from a presidential election result that left them deeply dejected, many liberals now say they've been roused to action in new ways, from making donations and volunteering to considering political runs themselves.

Around the country, even as protests have waned, Democrats say the sting of loss has left an impact unlike any past race, stirring previously passive citizens to push beyond their initial tears and angry Facebook posts following Donald Trump's win. Though post-election fervor has spurred conservatives to action as well, the gut-punch of a presidential loss has particularly energized those on the left.

Brad Goar, a 56-year-old from Jupiter, Florida, made a flurry of moves he saw as constructive responses. He donated to Planned Parenthood and upped his monthly gift to Bernie Sanders' organization; he joined the American Civil Liberties Union and began volunteering at an organization that helps undocumented immigrants. He even invited a couple who voted for Trump to join him and his husband at their home for drinks, appetizers and some airing of electoral differences, which was mostly cordial all around.

"I've never gotten my butt out of the chair before," Goar said. "But I see this as a dangerous turning point."

As some, like Goar, reached out to understand the political opposition, others have hoisted a sign in protest for the first time. Some have felt so rattled they say they're making more life-altering changes.

Brooke Streech, a 44-year-old Phoenix woman, is in the latter camp, having told her boss two days after the election that she would be quitting her job in finance. Her last day is Jan. 3, and while she isn't entirely sure what comes next, she's just certain she wants to be doing something that feels more meaningful.

Streech has weathered a divorce, and both her parents are sick with cancer. She isn't even a Democrat, but she found Trump's candidacy revolting and his victory among the greatest tragedies of her life. Even as she struggles to find her footing on what to do now, she feels she's been stirred like never before.

"It woke me up in a new way," she said. "I can only describe it as a moment of clarity."

Kerry Johnson, a 41-year-old New York woman, described it in almost identical terms. After getting over the shock and rage, she began a checklist of things she hopes serve as both a counter to Trump's rise and a reaffirmation of goodness in the U.S. She scheduled a platelet donation and is planning to take part in a planned women's march in Washington; she spent Thanksgiving helping at a shelter for women and children and is looking for longer-range volunteer opportunities. She says she's always considered herself "good-intentioned" but has been motivated to act in new ways.

"There is definitely an opportunity to play your role and move us forward," she said.

On the winning side, Republican dominance in state legislatures has some conservatives rallying for a constitutional convention to consider amendments on congressional term limits or a balanced federal budget. Trump's victory is seen as possibly inspiring a new breed of candidates who ride populism to political office. And some conservative organizations including the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group, and Californians for Population Stabilization, which seeks to curtail immigration, have seen spikes in donations since Election Day.

"The national talk is all of a sudden, people are becoming aware that immigration is maybe too high," said John Milliken, a 71-year-old in Westlake Village, California, who was spurred to donate to CAPS, as the California immigration reform organization is known. The retired pilot said even though he had voted for Trump "with a clothespin over my nose," he's found the president-elect has roused him and fellow conservatives to action in a way previous Republicans haven't.

For now, though, as Republicans revel in victory, it's often Democrats like Jasmin Chavez who are stirred to action. Chavez, is a 20-year-old sophomore at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland, who fell asleep on election night before the presidential vote had been called, and woke up to Trump taking the stage in his victory speech. She thought it was a nightmare. Now, the naturalized U.S. citizen from El Salvador, who voted for Clinton in her first presidential election, has seen more students become interested in the League of United Latin American Citizens chapter she leads on campus, and she feels emboldened in her dream to one day run for Congress.

"I'm feeling very optimistic," Chavez said. "We've just got to be ready."

After the election, Tim Hammill, a 36-year-old in Bridgeport, Connecticut, said he felt as if he didn't recognize his country. He thought he didn't know 10 people who would vote for Trump, but his Facebook feed began filling with celebratory posts from all sorts of friends and acquaintances. He launched a blog, "My Life in Trump's America," and vowed to have conversations with those on the other side in hopes of better understanding them.

"I want to do anything I can to make sure the feeling I felt on election night and the next day never happens again," he said. "If we want to move forward and be less of a divided country we have to have these conversations. We have to talk to people who don't agree with us on everything."

Similar stories stream in across the U.S., often from younger Americans.

In Philadelphia, 25-year-old Keith Mui attended a forum on how to run for public office that drew so much post-election interest that the event ran up against fire-code restrictions and had to put people on a waitlist. In Los Angeles, 14-year-old Amellia Sones organized a Ventura Boulevard protest with a handful of high school classmates and others where she waved a "Stop the Hate" sign above her head. And in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Nicola Shackman-Ryden, a 22-year-old college senior, has begun organizing a community service campaign she hopes will bring students in touch with locals of differing political opinions.

"We're trying to find a way to actually unify this country," Shackman-Ryden said.
A report about a new public opinion survey shows that a ten-year-long period of Africans demanding democracy has recently ended, and such demands have been declining since then in the 16 countries the survey has regularly examined.

The report is called Do Africans Still Want Democracy? It was written by Afrobarometer, an African, non-partisan research network. Researchers spoke with people in 36 African nations about their political beliefs.

Robert Mattes wrote the report. He is a political studies professor and the director of the Democracy in Africa research group at the University of Cape Town. He is also a visiting scholar at Princeton University. He says he wanted to know if Africans want to live in a democracy or if they prefer military rule, one-party rule or a strong man who does not have to worry about elections and legislators. The survey found overall support for democracy was 46 percent.

and that is a significant downturn from our last surveys -- which we did in 2013, 2014 -- in which support for democracy in Africa, or demand for democracy, had reached a high point of 51 percent.

Mattes says the survey found that the more educated people are, the more likely they are to support democracy.

They use new media at high rates (and) they engage with the political process. And they often have a more procedural view of democracy -- they learned about it in school as elections, about legislatures, about representation, about rights and liberties.

Mattes says people support a democracy only if it helps them economically and politically. And he says support for democracy depends upon elections being free and fair.

where elections are seen by people as completely aboveboard and with a high level of public integrity, demand has maintained or even increased. But where large (a) large percentage of the people have doubts about the integrity of the election, demand for democracy has dropped precipitously.

Professor Mattes says a countrys political system can be harmed if a political party refuses to accept the results of an election.

The survey found the demand for democracy is higher in urban areas and among those with a high school or university education. Middle-class business people and professionals and those who work in offices also had a higher level of support for democracy.

That is the group we think have been rising in Africa over the last five to 10 years with the sustained growth that many countries had. People with a job are much more likely to support democracy than people who are partially employed or unemployed.

The report notes that Africa is far more democratic than it used to be. It says more than half of all Africans today live in functioning multiparty electoral democracies that are demonstrably freer than were the military or one-party regimes that previously dominated the continent.

Im Marsha James.

VOA Correspondent Joe de Capua reported this story from Washington. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

downturn  n. a situation in which something (such as business or economic activity) decreases or becomes worse (usually singular)

engage with  phrasal verb to give serious attention to (someone or something)

procedural  adj. describing a series of actions that are done in a certain way or order; an established or accepted way of doing something

aboveboard  adj. open, honest and legal

integrity  n. the quality of being honest and fair

precipitous  adj. happening in a very quick and sudden way

sustain  v. to provide what is needed for (something or someone) to exist, continue, etc.

regime  n. a form of government
Lilly Alfonso is one of the top fashion designers in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi.

Alfonso has shown her creations at fashion shows in London, Paris and Amsterdam. Her clothes are now being sold at stores in South Africa. She is using individuals in Britain and the United States to sell her products in those countries.

Lilly Alfonso hopes her creations will be sold throughout the world within five years. When a VOA reporter went to see the designer, she was on the telephone.

They (are) wanting 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, so I will send you the sizes right away after this

Alfonso says she has loved the world of fashion since she was six years old.

Every time I, I look(ed) at any cloth that is there for me, quickly I would want to change to what I like. Pretty much, I would cut a hand, or make it short. I would be almost half-naked most of the time. I used to get into trouble...

She opened her own tailoring business. And in 2010 she was named best designer at a fashion show in Lilongwe.

So that motivated me more to say Everything is possible. The person who invented the car, even the plane, he had to start with a dream. What would stop me?

Her business is growing. Alfonso employs 30 people in her fashion design center. She buys some of the material she uses in her clothing from disabled weavers in Malawi.

She also offers free training to young designers, like student Mphatso Chilaga.

Now Im having this experience, how to draw models -- really like (in a) professional way, how models are supposed to be drawn, how prints are drawn and printed, how you can study material, how you can determine a color on a person by comparing with their complexion if it would suit them or not.

But her success has brought problems. She says she must now deal with people who are copying her designs.

Im John Russell.

Lameck Masina reported this story from Lilongwe, Malawi. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

fashion  n. the business of creating and selling clothes in new styles

naked  adj. not wearing any clothes; not covered by clothing

tailor  v. to make (clothing that is measured to fit a particular person)

motivate  v. to give (someone) a reason for doing something

fabric  n. woven or knitted material; cloth

weave  v. to make something (such as cloth) by crossing threads or other long pieces of material over and under each other

complexion  n. the color or appearance of the skin especially on the face

suit  v. to be attractive on (someone)
The United States Air Force has a shortage of mechanics to provide support for its fighter airplanes.

VOA recently reported that the Air Force has 725 fighter pilots less than the 3,500 it is permitted to have. It is training about 135 more fighter pilots this year than in 2014. But it will be a long time before they are ready for action.

Pilots must train for years -- at a cost of millions of dollars -- before they have enough experience to fly fighter jets.

The fighter pilot shortage is happening at a time when private airline companies are adding pilots. Private airlines pay more and their pilots spend less time away from home.

Two Air Force generals told VOA that the military is still able to meet the demands for fighter jet support. But they added that unless more pilots choose a career in the Air Force, the service will soon be unable to meet the demands of top commanders. They warn that this could possibly affect both U.S. troops and civilians.

But even if the Air Force can train and keep jet fighter pilots, it must have enough mechanics to maintain the jets. And right now it has a shortage of more than 3,000 of these maintainers.

Mechanics at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in the state of Virginia have much work to do. They help keep F-22 Raptor jets flying. They also work on the T-38 Talon -- a jet that is about 50 years old and must often be repaired.

This Air Force fighter pilot says the mechanics work hard.

Maybe once a day to once every other day well bring back a jet that needs, has some kind of issue that needs to get fixed by our maintenance before it can get launched back up. So even at night when were not flying, theyre workin' on the planes and making sure that theyre ready to go for the next day.

This senior airman is one of the mechanics.

We all understand that the whole (do) more with less is, is happening, but I mean it, regardless, jets have to fly. So were gonna make it happen, but yeah there's, theres definitely pain in that process.

Air Force Lieutenant General John Cooper works on ways to train and keep pilots and mechanics.

We were livin', you know, on the edge with our maintainers for a long time, but we were able to accomplish the mission.

Now, General Cooper says budget cuts have made his job much harder. But he says the Air Force has begun enlisting and training new fighter jet mechanics. And he says if the budget does not get smaller, the shortage will end in 2021.

Im Christopher Jones-Cruise.

VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb reported this story. 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

mechanic  n. a person who repairs machines (such as engines) and keeps them running properly

maintain  v. to keep (something) in good condition by making repairs, correcting problems, etc.

living on the edge  expression very close to something such as success or failure

accomplish  v. to succeed in doing (something)

mission  n. a specific military or naval task
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. Albert Einstein
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline Sunday, calling instead for alternatives for the pipeline to be considered.

Dakota Access Pipeline will not be built under Lake Oahe

Standing Rock Sioux have said a rupture could damage their water supply

Protests over project have gone on for months

The move is a victory for pipeline protesters and the Standing Rock Sioux, who have demonstrated against the pipeline project for months.

In a statement Sunday, the Corps said the pipeline would not be built under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir that provides water for the Standing Rock Sioux.

"Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it's clear that there's more work to do. The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing."

The tribe has expressed repeated concerns that a pipeline rupture or spill would threaten the tribe's water supply and cultural sites. While the pipeline was not supposed to cross onto tribe property, the Standing Rock says construction would disturb tribal burial sites on that land.

The Corps said alternative routes would be best reached through an Environmental Impact Statement with full public input and analysis.

Tense and sometimes violent protesters have gone on for months in the Cannon Ball area. Last month authorities sprayed water on protesters in freezing temperatures. Human rights groups have condemned tactics used by law enforcement.

The federal government has ordered people to leave the main protester encampment by Monday.

Demonstrators have said they are prepared to stay. Authorities say they won't forcibly remove the protesters.

Meanwhile a group of hundreds of veterans arrived at the protest site on Sunday to stand with the Standing Rock protesters. The Veterans for Standing Rock group will join the camp on federal land.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,172-mile pipeline that connects the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas in North Dakota with a crude oil terminal near Pakota, Illinois. The pipeline is projected to transport about 370,000 barrels of oil per day.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.


I got drawn off-sides by the president-elect Tuesday morning. The ref threw a red, white and blue penalty flag. It was, of course, on fire.

Maybe you havent seen it, because youre not on Twitter or dont watch CNN, lucky you. But Donald Trump wants to criminalize the burning of the American flag  a year in jail or loss of citizenship or both, because there must be consequences. His communications director, Jason Miller, followed up by going on TV to insist that flag burning should be illegal, end of story.

Except, of course, its not. Donald Trump is wrong. Tremendously wrong. Big-league wrong. Unconstitutionally wrong.

All because Gregory Joey Johnson, a man from Atlanta, came to Dallas in the summer of 1984 and helped set fire to the American flag in front of City Hall during the Republican National Convention.

Apparently, frighteningly, the president-elect is looking to crack down on protesters like those at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where, early this month, a student is alleged to have burned a flag in protest of Trumps election. The man who will be president is unaware that theres nothing more patriotic than dissent.

I called Johnson on Tuesday morning to talk about the flashbacks sparked by that tweet. I wasnt alone; there was a long line of media members in front of me. But when he found out the call was from Dallas, I got bumped to the front.

This was not out of nowhere, Johnson said when I got him on the phone. As I said back then, its a sick and dying empire desperately clutching to its symbols. I still believe that. People are saying this (tweet) is a publicity stunt. Its not. This is vulgar.

Guess its time to hit the history books.

Cant say for sure where I was or what I was doing on Aug. 22, 1984, but I vividly remember my folks turning on the local news that night and watching a pack of punks protesting their way through downtown Dallas during the Republican National Convention, then in full swing at the convention center. I had some friends from high school whod gone to City Hall that day to cavort in the anarchy, because thats what you did when you were 15 and you had a mohawk, sleeveless tees and a skateboard covered in Jodie Fosters Army and Black Flag stickers.

Any excuse to make some noise, raise some hell and spray-paint some circle As on downtown windows.

On the news that night was some footage of a flag being burned on the City Hall plaza and cops rounding up 96 protesters they said were getting too rowdy during the so-called Corporate War Chest Tour through downtown. All were charged with disorderly conduct. (That flag, as it turned out, had been waving in front of the Mercantile Bank Building until it was removed by protesters.)

It wasnt until three days later that this newspaper revealed three people had been jailed for the flag burning  the desecration of a venerated object, which is how state law read at the time.

The whole statute  desecration of a venerated object  raised the flag to the status of a religious icon, Johnson said. Thats what Trump is trying to make it  something above reproach, above criticism.

Johnson and other protesters were looking at a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. He was 27 at the time and belonged to the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade; hes still very much a revolutionary  the word is part of his email address.

Johnson, who was represented by the ACLU Dallas chief Stan Weinberg and Doug Skemp, maintained he hadnt set the flag on fire. An undercover Dallas vice cop said he had. No matter, said Johnsons attorneys, who argued that flag burning was constitutionally protected by the First Amendment. Then-assistant district attorney Mike Gillett disagreed; he said Johnsons actions had offended the entire nation.

It took a Dallas jury all of two hours to wrestle with that constitutional question.

After a four-day trial in December 1984, a six-person jury slapped him with the maximum sentence allowed by law for the Class C misdemeanor: a year behind bars and that $2,000 fine.

He was remanded into custody for a few hours, then bonded out by people who were outraged by the outcome of my criminal trial in Dallas, Johnson said.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tossed the jurys verdict on the grounds that flag burning was symbolic speech and protected by the U.S. Constitution. But the state wouldnt let it rest and appealed in 1989 all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court  which, by a 5-4 vote, sided with Johnson. The justices who said flag burning was lawful were William Brennan, Anthony Kennedy, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun and Antonin Scalia, whom Trump once called a great judge.

The hard fact is that sometimes we must make decisions we do not like, Kennedy wrote. We make them because they are right, right in the sense that the law and the Constitution, as we see them, compel the result. And so great is our commitment to the process that, except in the rare case, we do not pause to express distaste for the result, perhaps for fear of undermining a valued principle that dictates the decision. This is one of those rare cases.

And if all this seems like ancient history, it is not.

Over the summer, Gregory Johnson was arrested in Cleveland, outside the Republican National Convention, for burning a flag. He and 15 others were charged with, among other things, aggravated arson, aggravated disorderly conduct and inciting violence. Most of those charges were dropped. But Johnson is still facing a trial for allegedly assaulting two people during the RNC.

At least one of those guys is affiliated with Infowars, the conspiracy-theory-peddling website run by Alex Jones  the Trump supporter who says the Sept. 11 terror attack, the Oklahoma City bombing and the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., were all inside jobs.

Jones actually posted video on July 20 in which one of the alleged victims admitted assaulting Johnson. You know, because he burned the flag. Which is completely constitutional.

They came to interfere with my First Amendment rights, Johnson said when we spoke Tuesday, then claimed to be victims.

The Trump agenda in a nutshell. Youve been warned. Again.
New Delhi: After a sudden surge in deposits in Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts showed up various inconsistencies, the government on Sunday again cautioned such account holders not to allow their deposits to be misused in the wake of the 8 November demonetisation move.

"Investigation being conducted by the Income Tax Department across India into the sudden surge in cash deposits in Jan Dhan accounts have revealed various inconsistencies," a Union Finance Ministry release here said.

"Undisclosed moneys of approximately Rs 1.64 crore deposited by persons who have never filed returns of income being below the taxable limits, into their Jan Dhan accounts have already been detected at Kolkata, Midnapore, Ara (Bihar), Kochi and Varanasi.

"Rs 40 lakh has been seized from one such account in Bihar," it said

"Undisclosed income so detected will be brought to tax as per the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961, apart from other actions depending upon the outcome of investigations," it added.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged Jan Dhan account holders to hold on to the black money deposited by elements seeking to launder ill-gotten wealth.

"I want to tell holders of Jan Dhan accounts that they should not withdraw this money. Write to me if someone intimidates you. I am trying to figure out how it (the money) can come to you," Modi said on Saturday at a public meeting in Moradabad, in Uttar Pradesh.

Over 25 crore Jan Dhan accounts for financial inclusion have been opened in the country as on November 25 last.
President-elect Trump doesn't try to get "tough" on Walmart by threatening import taxes on their goods not made in the USA. It will cost taxpayers a somewhat larger sum than the $7 million awarded to Carrier (UTC) that the working folks in Indiana will have to cough up to save all those thousands of jobs (1,100 at last count, including 300 jobs that were not headed to Mexico).

A long list of companies may soon have their hand out to get saved by government incentives. Will we as American taxpayers soon have to pay to bail out companies that are paying workers $20-30+ dollars an hour vs. $3 an hour in Mexico? Or should UTC worry about making more than $58 billion per year? How much money does a corporation really need to make to keep people employed or is their biggest concern how much return their stockholders get?
New Delhi: It is a heinous crime to hang one's wife to death but a husband cannot be convicted without any reliable evidence, a Delhi court has said while acquitting a man and his family members in a murder and dowry death case.

The court freed the man, his father and two sisters, all residents of east Delhi, saying there was no cogent evidence that the woman was subjected to cruelty or harassment for demand of dowry.

"While it is proved that husband being the companion in the house ought to be able to explain as to the circumstances under which his wife was found lying hanged in the bedroom but there also exists an obligation on the part of the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused beyond all reasonable doubt...

"Undoubtedly, it is a social and heinous crime to have the wife hanged to death but without any proper and reliable evidence, the court cannot by itself justify its conclusion of murder by the husband," Additional Sessions Judge Sanjeev Kumar Malhotra said.

While the victim woman used to stammer and was having hearing disability, her husband was deaf and dumb.

The court absolved the four accused of the charges under sections 304B (dowry death), 498A (subjecting woman to harassment by husband and in-laws), 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.

The court said prosecution has failed to prove its case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt, benefit of which must go in favour of the accused.

According to prosecution, the couple got married in May 2006, and the woman was found hanging in her matrimonial house in April 2008.

The complaint was lodged by the victim's father at Kalyanpuri Police Station against her husband and in-laws on the allegations that she was harassed by them for dowry which led to her death.

The court said except for demand of motorcycle which was alleged to have been made after one-and-a-half month of the marriage, there are no specific allegation in respect of demand of dowry or harassment by the accused.

It noted that the prosecution witnesses said that the demand for motorcycle was withdrawn as the woman's husband could not get driving licence due to his hearing and speaking disabilities.
To the editor:

This is an open letter to the white (Caucasian) fellows who live in USA and are hateful toward "different" fellows.

Have you forgotten that your ancestors, who were white, were once considered as the immigrants? Native Americans were here for years way before white people started to arrive here.

Have you forgotten the reasons why your ancestors, who were white immigrants, moved to USA, the land of freedom and opportunities? People, who are "different" from you, had the same reasons why they moved to USA.

Have you forgotten how the Native Americans felt and experienced when white people moved to USA and kept taking over their lands? White people were cruel and deceptive toward them for many years.

Have you forgotten that during several influxes of immigrants and refugees from Europe, there were concerns about the increasing numbers of "social defects, vagrants and criminals" and those blamed were immigrants and refugees?

Have you forgotten how millions of people with African, Asian, Hispanic and Native American heritages have helped, served and worked for you? Didn't they make America great?

I am white. My husband is white. My ancestors from Ireland moved to USA during the time of potato famine. My other ancestors from Switzerland moved to USA because they looked for better education for their boys, who were deaf. The ancestors of my husband moved to USA for better job opportunities. How were our white ancestors, who were the immigrants, different from current immigrants?

DAISY CARTWRIGHT

Flagstaff
Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday said if BJP is voted to power in Goa for another term, it would work to increase "happiness index" of the coastal state.

"We (BJP) performed well in the social sector and also built the infrastructure in the state. But there is one thing still left to be achieved. I had a dream of infrastructure development, social development but the ultimate target is to increase the happiness index of the state," he said.

The former Goa Chief Minister was addressing BJP's "Vijay Sankalp" rally at Bicholim. BJP is holding these rallies to shore up support ahead of the Assembly elections in the state due next year.

"Money (alone) does not give you satisfaction. Happiness index is now being discussed worldwide. I had mentioned it in my (state) budget presented in 2001. Until people are satisfied and contented, we cannot claim we have done enough for the state," he said.

"To do this (increase happiness index), I require your support. Last time (during 2012 polls) 21 BJP legislators were elected and this time we want at least 25-26 BJP legislators," Parrikar said.

Despite a ban on mining industry (imposed by the Supreme Court, later revoked), nobody committed suicide in Goa because the BJP government extended support to the affected people, he said, talking about the post-2012 elections period.
Panaji: Congress in Goa today said Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's statement on "Happiness index" was aimed at masking "failures" of the BJP-led government in the poll-bound state. Parrikar, addressing BJP's Vijay Sankalp rally in Bicholim last evening, had said if his party was voted back to power in Goa, it would work towards increasing 'Happiness index' of the state.

Reacting to the statement, Congress Goa spokesman Sunil Kawathankar said, "Before speaking on increasing Happiness index, let Manohar Parrikar define what is Happiness index and the methodology to measure it."

"We know Parrikar is an IITian, but he cannot always use terminologies which will mask their (BJP-led) government's failures," he added. At the rally, Parrikar had said, "We (BJP) performed well in social sector and also built infrastructure in the state, but the ultimate target is to increase Happiness index of the state."

The former Goa Chief Minister said, "Money (alone) does not give you satisfaction. Happiness index is now being discussed worldwide.

To do this, I require your support (in election). "Last time (2012 Goa polls), 21 BJP legislators were elected and this time we want at least 25-26 BJP legislators," he said.

Goa will got to polls early next year. The United Nations takes into account GDP per capita, life expectancy, social support and freedom to make life choices as indicators of Happiness index.
Washington: President-elect Donald Trump has reacted to a comedy sketch that mocked his penchant for sending tweets  by sending a tweet.

Trump again lambasted the show "Saturday Night Live," on which he is played by actor Alec Baldwin.

But whereas on other occasions Trump has tweeted his criticism the next morning, this time he fired away before the show ended.

"Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad," Trump wrote.

Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

In the latest sketch, Trump is gently chided by aides for sending retweets, one from a high school student, during a national security briefing. Actress Kate McKinnon's Kellyanne Conway, a Trump strategist, said the president-elect tweets a lot to "to distract the media from his business conflicts and all the very scary people in his cabinet." But Trump as played by Baldwin said, "actually that's not why I do it. I do it because my brain is bad." After Trump's tweet, Baldwin himself tweeted: "Release your tax returns and Ill stop. Ha."
BEIRUT As Syrian government forces advanced into Aleppo's rebel-held al-Sakhour district, Hasan al-Ali said he faced the choice of staying put and being caught by the army, or fleeing into a shrinking rebel enclave under relentless bombardment.A father of three children, he opted for the latter, though food, fuel, water and medicine are running critically low in rebel-held areas, such is his fear of the Syrian government that insurgents have been trying to unseat for more than five years."I didn't take anything with me. I took the kids, ran to my car, and left... We took the decision at the final hour, because the army could have swooped in at any moment," the 33-year-old said, speaking in eastern Aleppo. For Ali and thousands of others in the areas that fell to the army in recent days, the danger and deprivation of east Aleppo seem a safer bet than the imprisonment or enlistment into the military that they fear if they moved to government areas.But as some fled deeper into Aleppo's remaining rebel districts, others decided instead to risk a perilous crossing of the front lines into government-held parts of the city, seeing it as a safer option than staying with the outgunned rebels."I hope Syria will return to the way it was, and people get back security and peace like before," said Abed al-Salam Ahmad, who crossed to the government sector with his wife and six daughters after their house was hit by a shell. The former construction worker said conditions were so bad that even animals would not endure them, and that inhabitants were badly treated by east Aleppo's rebels - something the rebels deny. His family fled at dawn, braving gunfire as they crossed the front line.He spoke to Reuters TV at a disused cotton factory in Aleppo's Jibreen area, one of two former industrial facilities opened by the government to receive the displaced. The divergent paths chosen by Ali and Ahmad illustrate the terrifying choices that have faced civilians fleeing one of the most ferocious battles of the Syrian war, with President Bashar al-Assad poised for his biggest triumph of the conflict so far.Both the rebels and the government have accused each other of manipulating Aleppo residents' fears to their own advantage.The military say rebels spread false reports of government abuses to deter people from leaving rebel areas. Rebels in turn say that people who speak of mistreatment by insurgents after fleeing their territory are acting out of fear of authorities.

STARVATION

Since the army swept through the northern part of the rebel enclave a week ago, capturing several large, populous districts, at least 30,000 people have fled across the front lines from the rebel areas, the U.N.'s relief coordinator OCHA said. Thousands of others - the numbers are more difficult to calculate because international bodies are not present in rebel-held east Aleppo - retreated further into the insurgents' sector, including to the dense quarters of the Old City. OCHA estimates 5,000 had been displaced within eastern Aleppo.The U.N. envoy for Syria said on Saturday there may still be more than 100,000 people in rebel-held areas. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it could be as many as 200,000.For those remaining in districts held by rebels, conditions are worsening, aggravated by the shortage of basic goods and the constant danger of bombardment in civilian areas and fighting near the quickly shifting front lines."We had a lot of starvation. They were giving us every day or two days a bag of bread, so five loaves of pitta bread," said a woman who gave the name of Um Ali, or 'Ali's mother', who had fled to the government sector from her home in Jeb al-Qubba district.

After the army has finished checking the identity papers of her and her family, she hopes they can move in with her brother in a western district of Aleppo that is in government hands.Many of those who chose to remain in rebel areas believe that checks of identity papers are a prelude to mass arrests, torture and extrajudicial killing, citing previous media reports of such action - all dismissed by Damascus as fabricated.The Observatory said on Wednesday the government had detained hundreds of people. A Syrian military source denied that, and said that while identities were being checked, nobody was being arrested. Khalil Halabi, 35, a pharmacist from al-Shaar district near the new front line, moved with his wife and children to the rebel-held Old City after what he described as 11 days of escalating bombardment. "The destruction is indescribable - the limbs, burnt limbs. Buildings collapsed and were burned down, mosques were destroyed completely," he said.

"We lost a lot of people... through barrel bombs and rockets. Some of them died and some of them were permanently injured," he said. Others from his district fled in the other direction, seeking shelter in government areas. ESCAPE

For the people Reuters spoke to in Aleppo, the decision to leave home, even in the face of such deprivation and after a war that began in Syria in 2011 and arrived in their city in 2012, came as a wrench. Mahmoud Zakaria Rannan, a tailor from the city's Sheikh Najjar neighbourhood who has six children and owned a small shop, said his family finally decided to leave after he was wounded when their house was shelled."I had been in my home for 40 years, was I going to leave it in one day?" he said. The family went to the Sheikh Khudr district and then to the Old City. But as clashes continued, they decided to join his brother in government-held Adamiya. "We have kids, and I'm injured... so we had to walk very slowly," he said. His journey included a two-hour trek through the city starting at 4 am. "There was a big group with us. They even fired on us at the airport highway."Some of those trapped inside the rebel sector may still be hoping to escape through a deal between rebels and the government, such as those that allowed thousands to leave Daraya near Damascus for insurgent-held Idlib after years of siege. "I will go to another area, I'll take my family and seek refuge in another area, a liberated area that doesn't have the regime. I have no trust at all in the regime to stay in its areas," said Ali. (Reporting by a multimedia team in western Aleppo and stringer in eastern Aleppo,; Writing by Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall; Editing by Tom Perry and Dominic Evans)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Jakarta: Authorities have recovered body parts and debris in waters where an Indonesian plane carrying police went missing, officials said on Sunday, raising fears over the fate of the flight's passengers and crew.

The M28 Skytruck plane carrying 13 people lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday during a flight from Pangkal Pinang, Bangka Belitung province to Batam in the Riau Islands province in western Indonesia.

Airplane seats and suitcases along with body parts were recovered by fishermen off Riau Islands Saturday afternoon rescue officials told AFP.

"We sent three body bags last night, the body parts were not intact, they are now in the Bhayangkara hospital in Batam," said Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency.

He added that search and rescue efforts would continue for another week.

Indonesia has a poor aviation safety record and has experienced several air disasters recently.

But Indonesia's police insisted today that the plane was in good condition and the pilot was experienced.

It was carrying five crew and eight passengers.

Last week, an Indonesian army helicopter crashed on Borneo island leaving three crew dead, while in November a cargo plane crashed in Papua region killing four.
Mosul: The Iraqi government on Sunday sent truckloads of food, heating oil and drinking water to residents of areas retaken from the Islamic State group in and around the northern city of Mosul as more civilians streamed out of the city amid intense fighting between the militants and troops.

Diaa Sallal, the top relief official at the Ministry of Immigration and Displaced, told The Associated Press that the supplies were being delivered to the towns of Bartella and Qayara, east and south of Mosul respectively, as well as the outlying Mosul neighborhoods of Ekhaa First and Ekhaa Second.

Sallal, reached by telephone in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, gave no further details.

The government launched a campaign to retake Mosul from IS in October. The fighting has caused shortages of vital supplies like Clean drinking water , according to the UN and Iraqi officials.

On Sunday, heavy fighting flared up in the eastern sector of Mosul, with both sides exchanging heavy gunfire from rooftops in the Shaimaa neighborhood. IS militants, meanwhile, shelled the district with a heavy barrage of mortars, according to an AP team that witnessed the battle.

Scores of families braved the fighting, leaving their homes and fleeing IS-held districts for the relative safety of the Shaimaa and Entissar neighborhoods, both retaken by government troops, or camps for the displaced at a safe distance outside the city.

Hamdan al-Abed, an 18-year-old Shaimaa resident, broke down in tears at the sight of members of the Iraqi special forces in his neighborhood and later recounted the brutality of the group in Mosul, which was captured by the militants in June 2014.

"We couldn't resist them, we didn't have weapons and they would kill anyone against them," he told the AP. "When the security forces approached our neighborhood, all the Daesh fighters fled with their families deeper inside Mosul," he said, using an Arab acronym for the group.

Fighting in Mosul has been mostly focused in the part of the city east of the Tigris River, with the special forces deployed there progressing slowly due to the spirited resistance of IS and fears over the safety of civilians. There are an estimated 1 million civilians inside the city, Iraq's second largest and the last major urban center still held by IS in Iraq.
By Saif Hameed and Ulf Laessing

| BAGHDAD/BARTELLA, Iraq

BAGHDAD/BARTELLA, Iraq Islamic State fighters retreating in the face of a seven-week Iraqi military assault on their Mosul stronghold have hit back in the last two days, exploiting cloudy skies which hampered U.S.-led air support and highlighting the fragile army gains.In a series of counter-attacks since Friday night, the jihadist fighters struck elite Iraqi troops spearheading the offensive in eastern Mosul, and attacked security forces to the south and west of the city.On Sunday two militants tried to attack army barracks in the western province of Anbar. Police and army sources said the attackers were killed before they reached the base.Iraqi officials say they continue to gain ground against the militants who still hold about three-quarters of the country's largest northern city which is Islamic State's last major urban stronghold in Iraq. One military source said the militants had taken back some ground, but predicted their gains would be short-lived. "We withdraw to avoid civilian losses and then regain control. They can't hold territory for long," the source said. But the fierce resistance means the military's campaign is likely to stretch well into next year as it seeks to recapture a city where the jihadists are dug in among civilians and using a network of tunnels to launch waves of attacks.This has prompted fears among residents and aid groups of a winter food, water and fuel supply crisis for the million residents still in Islamic State-held areas of the city, and calls to speed up operations."Daesh (Islamic State) still controls our neighbourhood, and the Iraqi forces have not taken a single step forward in three weeks. We're in despair," said a resident in Mosul's southeastern district of Intisar, where the army's Ninth Armoured Division has struggled to make gains."My family and I have been sleeping under the concrete stairs in our house for a month now, afraid of the random bombardment between the Iraqi forces and the Daesh elements," he told Reuters by telephone.'NO FIGHTING'

The capture of Mosul, the largest city under control of Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, is seen as crucial towards dismantling the caliphate which the militants declared over parts of the two countries in 2014.Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi'ite militiamen are participating in the assault on Mosul that began on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international military coalition.A Reuters reporter in Bartella, about 10 km (6 miles) east of Mosul, saw tanks and army trucks heading towards the city on Sunday. Mud caused by recent rains was hindering movement and there was less artillery fire than in recent days."For the past two days there was almost no fighting," said a man who gave his name as Suleiman, who had fled Mosul.A spokesman for the Counter Terrorism Services (CTS) who have been leading the Iraqi army advance in Mosul denied any let-up in the overall campaign."The operation is continuing on all fronts - there's no halt on any front," spokesman Sabah al-Numani told Iraqi television.

Iraqi commanders say they have killed at least 1,000 Islamic State fighters. A government adviser estimated the jihadist group now had about 4,000 fighters in Mosul.The military has not given figures for its own casualties. The United Nations said last week nearly 2,000 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed across Iraq in November - a figure which Iraq says was based on unverified reports.The elite CTS units and the armoured division have captured around half of the eastern side of Mosul, which is split down the centre by the Tigris river.A U.S.-led coalition has bombed four of the five bridges across the river, aiming to stem a flow of suicide car bombers from the west, targeting the army in the eastern neighbourhoods.TANKS STRUGGLE

Officers say Islamic State has deployed more than 650 car bombs since the campaign started on Oct. 17 but say the pace of attacks has fallen off.The militants, who have dug in and prepared their defence since seizing Mosul in mid-2014, have also struck with volleys of mortar bombs and used a network of tunnels to target soldiers. In the Intisar district, the tanks of the armoured division deployed there have struggled to adapt to close-quarter urban warfare, and commanders have summoned infantry reinforcement, an officer told Reuters.Commanders also hope to stretch Islamic State defences more thinly, by opening new fronts inside the city.The head of the police rapid response forces, stationed a few miles south of Mosul on the west bank of the Tigris, told Iraqi television on Saturday evening his units were awaiting orders to advance north towards the city.First they must take control of the Islamic State-held village of Albu Saif, the last obstacle before reaching Mosul airport on the southern edge of the city.A military statement said the army had captured on Sunday three villages near the town of Shirqat, further south from Mosul and close to the sites of two attacks on Friday night by Islamic State fighters which killed 12 people.Police and army sources said eight policemen were killed in Shayala village, north of Shirqat in one of the Friday night raids. Four other members of the security forces were killed at the same time in the village of Naml, south of Shirqat.The army on Sunday was advancing slowly on the east bank of the Tigris, across the river from Shirqat, towards the Islamic State-held town of Hawija, the sources said. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Omar Fahmy in Cairo; Editing by Pravin Char)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Italians went to the polls Sunday in a constitutional referendum on which reformist Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has staked his future.

Whatever the outcome of a vote being anxiously watched in capitals across Europe and carefully scrutinised on trading floors around the world, it will lead to change.

If the centre-left Renzi's proposals to streamline a 68-year-old parliamentary system are voted down, he has vowed to resign.

That would usher in a period of political uncertainty and potential economic turmoil for the country and its European Union allies.

The most apocalyptic scenarios involve a crisis of investor confidence causing the failure of a rescue scheme for Italy's most indebted banks, triggering a broader crisis across the eurozone.

But markets last week, while jittery, appeared to have discounted that risk.

If Renzi wins, the country's youngest ever prime minister will be energised in his bid to transform Italy.

Critics say Italy will have been deprived of democratic checks and balances put in place in the aftermath of World War II following the disastrous rule of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Victory for Renzi will mean a new mandate to pursue reforms he sees as key to unshackling Italy's creativity from the influence of a self-serving political caste that has exploited institutional weakness to stymie change.

"If we miss this chance it won't come back for 20 years," he warned voters before campaigning was suspended at midnight on Friday.

The populist factor

Italians appear to realise how much is at stake.

Voters, who have been known to head to the beach rather than the ballot box when less important referendums have fallen on a sunny day, have spent weeks passionately embracing the pros and cons of the proposed reforms.

A bumper turnout looks like the only prediction anyone can make with any certainty, as polls have been banned since November 18.

Up until then the "No" camp was leading comfortably -- but with a quarter of the electorate undecided, Renzi is counting on a silent majority of shy reformers to pull off a surprise turnaround.

After the Brexit and Donald Trump victories, populism has been a factor, and the Five Star Movement led by comic Beppe Grillo would see a "No" vote as its stepping stone to government.

But the campaign has also sent many voters back to their high school textbooks to reconsider the merits of a much-loved constitution, producing an invigorating national discussion that has recalled Scotland's 2014 independence referendum more than the rhetorically-charged Brexit or US presidential debates.

Renzi wants to drastically scale back the size and powers of the parliamentary second chamber, the Senate.

Under his proposed reform, a body of 315 directly-elected and five lifetime lawmakers will become one with only 100 members, mostly nominated by the regions.

The body would also be stripped of most of its powers to block and revise legislation, and to unseat governments.

Other envisioned changes involve transferring some regional powers to the national government, making it easier to get major infrastructural works approved, and abolition of a costly policy agency in Rome.

A referendum on Renzi

Inevitably in light of his pledge to stand down should he lose, the vote has also become something of a referendum on Renzi's personality and record after just over 1,000 days in office.

"I'm voting yes because I want Italy to change. I don't like it as it is now," said Rome market trader Marina Marabitti.

But in a reflection of how the campaign has gone, her vote was set to be cancelled out by the man she works alongside six days a week.

"I would be for 'Si' (Yes) if it was not for Renzi. I can't stand him," said Giancarlo Sallusti.

Nearly 51 million Italians are entitled to vote, including four million expats who, reports suggest, could help Renzi defy the odds.

Polls opened at 7 am (0600 GMT) and were scheduled to close at 2200 GMT, with a reliable result not expected until the early hours of Monday.
Al-Ahram Weekly, by Doaa El-Bey. Excerpt, read on here.

An Al-Jazeera documentary about compulsory military service in Egypt heightens tensions between Cairo and Doha, writes Doaa El-Bey

Al3asaker, a documentary by Al-Jazeera focusing on the lives of Egyptian conscripts beginning their compulsory military service began to stir controversy even before it was screened on Sunday.

Al-Jazeeras documentary is part of Qatars psychological war against Egypt, an attempt to incite army conscripts against their commanders, says professor of political science Tarek Fahmi.

The documentary claims to tell the story of young Egyptian men as they prepare for military service, and addresses how they are treated during their time in the army.

What we need to remember, says Fahmi, is that it is only a film and there are plenty of other movies since the 1970s that have portrayed the army in a more negative light.

Mohamed Hegazi, former assistant to the foreign minister, believes the documentary provides a perfect example of how the media has become a vehicle for exercising political pressure, disseminating false information and attempting to erode national unity.

We need no more evidence that this satellite channel, which for several years has daily devoted hours of its schedule attacking Egypt, is part of a malicious campaign to fragment and divide the Middle East along sectarian and ethnic lines and undermine the nation-state, Hegazi told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Rakha Hassan, former assistant to the foreign minister, believes it is no coincidence the documentary was broadcast against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Egypt and Qatar.

Most recently tension has been exacerbated because of Egypts clear stand on the Syrian issue. Egypt supports a political solution that protects the integrity of Syrian territory while Qatar supports the opposition, especially Al-Nusra Front, a group that has been designated a terrorist organisation, he says.

Fahmi agrees with Hassan that the decision to broadcast the documentary now is linked to the dwindling possibility of meaningful reconciliation between Egypt and the Gulf states, with the exception of the UAE and Kuwait.

The airing of the documentary prompted many in the Egyptian media to launch attacks against Al-Jazeera and Qatar.

In an article in Al-Watan newspaper Emadeddin Adeeb wrote that the documentary was an example of Qatars absurd hostility to Egypt which will cause harm to Doha on the long run.

Other media and public figures regarded the documentary as offensive and demanded the government take immediate and strong retaliatory action.

MPs called for the Qatari ambassador to Egypt to be expelled, a demand widely echoed on Twitter.

A handful of commentators adopted a more measured tone, criticising the virulence of the media attack and asking why the authorities were so concerned about a one-sided documentary broadcast on a satellite channel.

Hassan stresses that life for conscripts is no bed of roses and their training is often harsh, especially at time of heightened conflict. He also points out that the documentary is biased and lacks the balance needed by any serious media programme.

It was clearly made to be the vehicle for a political message. Its goal is not to document or simply state the facts.

Fahmi sees the film as part of a concerted campaign, and it is the Egyptian army that Al-Jazeera has in its crosshairs. On the same day the film was screened, he notes, there was yet another article on the Egyptian army on Al-Jazeeras website.

Tensions with Qatar first surfaced under Hosni Mubarak as Doha attempted to extend its diplomatic influence in the Middle East, including in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They grew when Doha adopted a policy of close cooperation with Islamist movement Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hizbullah in Lebanon.
By John Whitesides

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump, fresh off a deal to keep nearly 1,000 U.S. jobs in the country, will decide whether to intervene with other companies to keep them from moving jobs overseas "on a day-by-day basis," Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on Sunday.Pence said the deal Trump reached last week to keep Carrier, a unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), from shipping jobs to Mexico from an Indiana air conditioner plant showed the incoming administration would confront U.S.-based firms when needed and use a carrot-and-stick approach to keep them from offshoring jobs.The Carrier deal included $7 million in tax breaks to encourage United Technologies to keep the jobs in Indiana. On Twitter early Sunday morning, Trump also revived his campaign threat to slap a 35 percent tariff on imports of products made by companies that have moved production out of the United States."Please be forewarned prior to making a very expensive mistake," Trump said, telling companies that moved jobs overseas would face "retribution or consequence."Trump has pledged to lower the corporate tax rate and roll back federal regulations to create a better climate in the United States for businesses. Trump is sending a message to businesses considering moving overseas that "things are really changing," Pence said on ABC's "This Week" program.

"He is going to put on the table all the tools that are going to take away the advantages of companies that for far too long have been pulling up stakes, leaving American workers behind," Pence told ABC.Asked if Trump would now pick up the phone to call other companies considering shipping jobs overseas, Pence said "the president-elect will make those decisions on a day-by-day basis."Trump's incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said he expected the president-elect would be burning up the phone lines to warn companies to keep jobs at home.

"I would not be surprised if he wasnt on the phone with all of these companies, as many as he can to encourage them to stay, stick it out," Priebus told Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends."Trump, who made his pledge to keep manufacturing jobs from fleeing the country a centerpiece of his campaign, already has warned another company, Rexnord Corp, an industrial supplier based in Milwaukee that plans to move a bearings plant and its 300 jobs from Indiana to Mexico."Rexnord of Indiana is moving to Mexico and rather viciously firing all of its 300 workers. This is happening all over the country. No more!" Trump said on Twitter on Friday.

Pence said the incoming administration was committed to living up to Trump's campaign pledge to keep manufacturing jobs at home."We're going to create trade policies that take away the advantages that these multinational corporations have had in moving jobs overseas now for decades," he said."It's just the beginning. Stay tuned. Be ready," Pence said on NBC's "Meet the Press." (Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
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The children of Ron and Rita Woodall would like to recognize their parents as they celebrate 50 years of marriage this year.

Ronald Woodall and Rita Garcia were both born and raised in Twin Falls, Idaho and were married on January 22nd, 1966 at the home of Eva Woodall. They have since resided in their hometown, raising three children together.

Ron was the used car manager at Bill Workman (later Roy Raymond) Ford, before owning/operating his own car lot, Quality Motors, for 20 years. Rita worked at Osco Drug and Buttrey Food and Drug for 25 years before retiring from the College of Southern Idaho after 15 years.

They were active members of the Idaho State Snowmobilers Association for many years and have been active members of the West Magic Lake Dam Fools Recreation Club since 1992. Over the years, they have enjoyed traveling, camping, ATVing, and snowmobiling, and spending time with their grandchildren.
Idaho voter turnout in November election hit record numbers

NAMPA (AP)  Idaho voter turnout hit record numbers in last months election, beating the previous high during the 2012 presidential election.

The Idaho Press-Tribune reports that final election results posted by the Idaho Secretary of State showed 710,877 people cast ballots on Nov. 8. More than three-quarters of Idahos 936,529 registered voters took part in the election.

Ada County chief deputy clerk Phil McGrane says the strong turnout shows efforts in the last four years to get voters to the polls earlier paid off.

He says new locations set up by Ada County this year for early voting attracted an additional 27,000 voters and helped eased traffic at the countys main election office.

Canyon County also had a large turnout at the polls. About 89 percent of the countys 84,351 registered voters cast their ballots last month.

Nevada man, 76, dies after stranded in cold near Idaho line

MOUNTAIN CITY, Nev. (AP)  Elko County sheriffs deputies have found the body of a 76-year-old Mountain City man who apparently died while walking in the cold after his pickup truck slid off the road about 10 miles south of the Idaho line.

The sheriffs office said in a statement Thursday that Lee Chambers official cause of death has not been determined but there were no signs of foul play and its reasonable to assume that hypothermia was a factor.

Chambers family reported him missing Tuesday. Authorities found his white Ford F-150 pickup and his dog on Wednesday afternoon but had to suspend an air and ground search due to darkness.

The Elko Daily Free Press reports the county search and rescue crew found his body Thursday morning about three-fourths of a mile outside of Mountain City.
TWIN FALLs  On Wednesday, November 16, the FFA South Magic Valley District met at the CSI Fine Arts building for their annual District Leadership Conference.

Twin Falls, Kimberly, Buhl, Castleford, Filer, Hansen, Murtaugh, and Jerome all competed in various competitions and participated in the leadership workshops.

In Creed speaking, a freshman from each school memorizes the FFA Creed and recites it in front of a panel of judges. At the end, they are asked a question about the Creed and must answer on the spot. Gloria Telles of Murtaugh placed 3rd, Grace Loman of Castleford placed 2nd, and Karsen King from Filer placed 1st and will be representing the South Magic Valley District at State in April.

Opening and Closing Ceremonies is a chance for each chapter to show their ability in reciting the seven parts of the ceremonies of the meetings. The Filer team was 3rd, Kimberly was 2nd, and Jerome was 1st.

In Job Interview, a mock interview is set up with resumes, letters of recommendations, cover letters, and thank you notes at the end. Each competitor chooses an occupation they wish to apply for and go through the process as if they really were applying for a job. Jeromes Alyssa Hansten placed 3rd, Filers Raychel Sheen placed 2nd, and Castlefords Makaela Scott placed 1st and will be competing at State.

The Greenhand test is a knowledge test for freshmen on general FFA knowledge, the history of FFA, people in FFA, and more. Karson King of Filer had the 3rd highest score, Zane Barckholtz of Filer 2nd, and Madison Parker of Filer 1st. As a team, Murtaugh placed 3rd, Jerome 2nd, and Filer 1st.

After the competitions, the students were split into three different groups and rotated through various workshops. Rob Lowe from the Idaho Department of Agriculture talked with the attendees about the many job opportunities they have in agriculture and the steps needed to be taken to achieve that goal.

Retired State Officer Clancy Johnston explained how everyone has faced trials and been a victim. He goes on to tell of what makes it ones own story is how he/she reacts to the situation.

Finally, the District Officers lead their own workshops, using the metaphor of a tree to describe leadership.

The next FFA event for the South Magic Valley District will be the Agronomy and Dairy Foods competitions Wednesday, December 14 at CSI.
TWIN FALLS  The Buhl man who shot and killed himself in August when police crashed into his car during a frantic pursuit from Kimberly to Twin Falls was the chief suspect in an attempted gas-station robbery a day prior, recently unsealed police records revealed.

Roger David Vulgamore, 24, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after fleeing police Aug. 16, Twin Falls County Coroner Gene Turley said the day after the chase.

Police records obtained this week by the Times-News show that on Aug. 16, the day of the deadly pursuit, a judge issued a $250,000 warrant for Vulgamores arrest after detectives learned he was the man who attempted an Aug. 15 robbery at KJs Super Store on Blue Lakes Boulevard North.

The four-door sedan Vulgamore was driving matched the description of the car used in the attempted robbery, but the night of the chase, as officers swarmed the crash scene, police would not confirm if Vulgamore was the suspect in the robbery.

The recently unsealed records show police used eye-witness testimony, surveillance footage, Vulgamores associates and previous contacts with Vulgamore to determine he was the suspected robber.

Police responded to KJs, 1612 Blue Lakes Blvd. N., about 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 15, for the report of an attempted robbery. Two store employees told police the suspect repeatedly showed off a revolver tucked into his pants and demanded large bills, but he fled empty-handed when the women threatened to call 911.

After reviewing surveillance footage from the robbery, several Twin Falls officers identified the suspect as Vulgamore based on previous interactions with him. The lead detective on the case then obtained a photo lineup, and both store employees picked out Vulgamore as the suspect. An inmate at the Twin Falls County Jail who police believed was Vulgamores associate also identified him positively from the surveillance footage and said Vulgamore has been carrying around a .357 revolver.

With that information, police consulted with the Twin Falls prosecutors office and determined they had enough information to charge Vulgamore with the attempted robbery. On Aug. 16, a judge signed the $250,000 arrest warrant as the SWAT team was going to look for Mr. Vulgamore and apprehend him.

Its still unclear how the pursuit began Aug. 16  records related to the chase are still sealed  but police scanner traffic the day of the chase indicated Kimberly Police began pursuing Vulgamore shortly before 5:50 p.m. Twin Falls County sheriffs deputies and Twin Falls police also became involved in the chase, which ranged from as far west as Washington Street and as far north as Pole Line Road before coming to its bloody conclusion on Carriage Lane South.

There, as Vulgamore neared a dead-end south of Clyde Thomsen Park, a police SUV crashed into the back of his sedan using a pursuit intervention technique, commonly called a PIT maneuver. As officers rushed toward the car, Vulgamore shot himself.

Vulgamore was alive when he was taken to St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center. The coroner said he was kept on life-support until his organs could be donated, and he died surround by family.
TWIN FALLS  A Twin Falls woman in search of her boyfriend who stopped texting her, found the man in bed with another woman and then viciously attacked her boyfriends lover, punching and kicking the victim so brutally she broke the victims nose and opened a cut on her head that required 10 staples, police said.

Alicia Marie Hernandez, 24, was arraigned Friday in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court on a felony count of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm.

Police say Hernandez attacked her victim in the pre-dawn hours Oct. 29 at a house party on Washington Street South, though Hernandez told investigators she only hit the other woman out of fear she would be attacked.

The victim, named only by her initials in the criminal complaint, said the attack happened about 2:30 a.m., court documents said. The victim said she was in a bedroom at the party making out with a man when Hernandez began banging on the windows and doors.

The victim said Hernandez then came inside the house and began punching her in the face and head, and when the victim fell down, Hernandez kicked her repeatedly, court documents said. Other people at the party came in to break up the fight and the victim ran to the kitchen where a friend tended to her injuries, but the attack reportedly still wasnt over.

Hernandez then came into the kitchen, grabbed (the victim) by her hair and hit her in the head several times, causing a large laceration to her scalp which later required ten staples to close, a detective wrote in a sworn affidavit.

The victim went to the emergency room to be treated for her injuries and reported that she also suffered a broken nose which would require corrective surgery in order to prevent breathing problems in the future, the detective wrote. Officers also observed bruising and swelling on her upper lip, nose and left eye.

Hernandez voluntarily went to the Twin Falls police department to be interviewed, where she told officers she was searching for her boyfriend at the house party because he stopped texting her earlier that night, court documents said. Hernandez said she found her boyfriend in bed with the other woman but only struck her in self-defense out of fear the other woman would attack her.

A warrant for Hernandez was issued Nov. 18 and she was arrested the day after Thanksgiving. The same day, she posted $5,000 bond and is out of custody awaiting a Dec. 9 preliminary hearing.
TWIN FALLS COUNTY

FELONY SENTENCINGS

Jessica May Speth, AKA Jessica May Chatelain, 36, Hazelton; Grand theft, $245.50 costs, $100 DNA, eight years penitentiary, three years determinate, five indeterminate, 161 days credited, sentence suspended, four years supervised probation, apply to drug court. Malicious injury to property charge dismissed.

Angela Dawn Silva, 44, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $285.50 costs, $500 public defender, $100 DNA, $1,507.20 restitution, four years penitentiary, two determinate, two indeterminate, credit for time served, sentence suspended, three years supervised probation.

Juan Antonio Regules, 29, Twin Falls; violation of a domestic protection order, $197.50 costs, $500 fine, $75 public defender, 90 days jail, 88 suspended, two days credited, six months supervised probation.

Adela Flores Vega, 42, Buhl; grand theft, $245.50 costs, $100 DNA, $17,419.81 restitution, 14 years penitentiary, five determinate, nine indeterminate, 83 days credited, 365 days retained jurisdiction.

Mathew McKay Miller, 30, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $285.50 costs, $100 DNA, $60 workmans comp. program fee, four years penitentiary, two determinate, two indeterminate, credit for time served, sentence suspended, three years supervised probation.

Steven Jack Johnson, 61, Kimberly; DUI excessive second or subsequent offense, $290.50 costs, $500 public defender, $100 DNA, five years penitentiary, two determinate, three indeterminate, seven days credited, sentence suspended, 120 days jail, three years supervised probation, drivers license suspension.

Virgil Keith McCabe; 43, Twin Falls; DUI second offense within 15 years, $290.50 costs, $100 DNA, 10 years penitentiary, four determinate, six indeterminate, five years drivers license suspension upon release from prison.

Mario Zavala Tinoco, AKA Mario Zavala-Timoco, 42, Jerome; DUI third or subsequent offense, $290.50 costs, $500 public defender, $100 DNA, 10 years penitentiary, two determinate, eight indeterminate, three days credited, sentence suspended, 120 days jail, drivers license suspension with two years interlock device to follow, three years supervised probation.

Richard Lee Roadcap Jr., 56, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $285.50 costs, $500 public defender, $60 workmans comp. program fee, seven years penitentiary, three determinate, four indeterminate, 19 days credited, sentence suspended, three years supervised probation.

Harold Eugene Nero, 49, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $285.50 costs, five years penitentiary, two determinate, three indeterminate, 64 days credited, sentence to run consecutive to Ada county cases.

Jessica Jean Milan, 31, Placer, California; $285.50 costs, $500 public defender, $100 DNA, four years penitentiary, one determinate, three indeterminate, 166 days credited.

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

Ryan Scott Mchan, 23, Twin Falls; DUI, $300 fine, $202.50 costs, one day jail credited, 180 days restricted drivers license, 12 months supervised probation. Driving without privileges, amended to invalid drivers license, $68.59 fine, $157.costs.

Spencer Allen Brown, 33, Burley; DUI second offense, $1,000 fine, $600 suspended, $202.50 costs, 180 days jail, 170 suspended, credit for time served, 365 days drivers license suspension, 24 months supervised probation, one year interlock device.

Damir Sutkovic, 24 Twin Falls; DUI second offense, $1,000 fine, $1,000 suspended, $202.50 costs, $75 public defender, 180 days jail, 175 suspended, two days credited, guilty withheld sentence, 365 days restricted drivers license suspension, 24 months supervised probation, one year interlock device, attend court alcohol school and victim impact panel.

Samantha Ann Marie Willetts, 25, Jerome; DUI excessive, $1,000 fine, $1,000 suspended, $202.50 costs, 180 days jail, 175 suspended, two days credited, guilty withheld judgment, 365 days restricted drivers license, 24 months supervised probation, one year interlock device, attend victim impact panel and court alcohol school.

Hugo Ascon-Cante, 44, Jerome; DUI second offense, $1,000 fine, $800 suspended, $202.50 costs, 180 days jail, 170 suspended, one day credited, 365 days drivers license suspension, 24 months supervised probation, one year interlock device, attend victim impact panel and court alcohol school. Driving without privileges, $500 fine, $400 suspended, $172.50 costs, $75 public defender.

Shawn Timothy Houser, 39, Twin Falls; DUI second offense, $1,000 fine, $800 suspended, $202.50 costs, $75 public defender, 180 days jail, 169 suspended, 11 days credited, 365 days drivers license suspension, 24 months supervised probation, one year interlock device, attend victim impact panel and court alcohol school.

Bobby Lee Mairel, 33, Kimberly; DUI, $500 fine, $300 suspended, $202.50 costs, $75 public defender, 90 days jail, 70 suspended, 20 days jail, 180 days restricted drivers license, 12 months supervised probation, attend victim impact panel and court alcohol school.

Codi Louann Jacobson, 27, Twin Falls; $500 fine, $300 suspended, $202.50 costs, 90 days jail, 90 suspended, guilty withheld sentence, 180 days restricted drivers license, 12 months probation with six months to be supervised, attend court alcohol school and victim impact panel.

Heraclio Garza Nevarez, 21, Buhl; consume or possess open container of alcoholic beverage by driver, $100 fine, $187.50 costs, 30 days jail, 30 suspended, guilty withheld judgment, eight hours work detail, 180 days restricted drivers license, 12 months probation with six supervised, attend victim impact panel and court alcohol school. DUI, $500 fine, $300 suspended, $202.50 costs, 180 days jail, 180 suspended.

Tyson Lee Jones, 34, Twin Falls; DUI, $500 fine, $300 suspended, $202.50 costs, 180 days jail, 178 suspended, two days credited, 180 days restricted drivers license, 12 months supervised probation, attend victim impact panel and court alcohol school.

William Edward Selelyo, 70, Twin Falls, DUI second offense, $500 fine, $300 suspended, $202.50 costs, 180 days jail, 170 suspended, one day credited, 365 days drivers license suspension, 24 months supervised probation, one year interlock device, attend victim impact panel and court alcohol school.

Andy Christian Victor, 29, Twin Falls; DUI second offense, $1,000 fine, $1000 suspended, $202.50 costs, 180 days jail, 175 suspended, two days credited, guilty withheld judgment, 365 days restricted drivers license, 24 months supervised probation, one year interlock device, attend victim impact panel and court alcohol school. Obstructing an officer or resisting arrest, $500 fine, $400 suspended, $157.50 costs, 90 days jail, 88 suspended, credit for time served. Driving without privileges charge dismissed. Attempting to flee or elude a police officer in a motor vehicle charge dismissed.

DIVORCE CIVIL FILING

Angelita Perea v. Robert Perea

Amy Sapien v. Hugo Almaraz-Valencia

Megan Embretson v. Brandon Embretson

Corey Melton v. Debra Melton

Heather Hopkins v. John Hopkins
ALBION  Because she's not working at the moment, Dannielle Ryals has Medicaid coverage that will allow her to get surgery for a disease that has afflicted her since she was young.

The Albion woman wants to go back to work, and her boss is holding her job open for now, but when she does she will probably lose her coverage. She can't keep it if she makes more than $650 a month, she said, and she pulls in a little more than $1,000 a month at a gas station and convenience store in Albion.

So Ryals expects to be back in the "Medicaid gap" after her surgery and return to work.

Adults who don't qualify for Medicaid but whose incomes are too low to get tax credits to buy health insurance on the state exchanges originally were expected to get Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act. But in 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the ACA's mandate that all states expand Medicaid coverage to everyone making up to 138 percent of the poverty level; that left it up to the states whether to expand the program, and Idaho hasn't.

Like others around Idaho, Ryals is waiting and hoping.

A majority of people in the "gap" are employed but with lower-paying jobs that don't provide coverage, in industries like restaurants, construction and child care, according to a presentation the pro-expansion group Idaho Voices for Children provided to lawmakers in August. An estimated 78,000 adults statewide fall into this group, including an estimated 724 in Cassia County (almost 6 percent of the county's adults) and 976 in Minidoka County (8.5 percent).

Ryals has endometriosis, a condition where tissue that is supposed to grow inside the uterus grows outside of it, and she needs surgery periodically to treat it. After getting passed to several doctors  one thought the underlying problem was a bowel issue  she is now waiting for her surgery.

Ryals has three children. Her husband is looking for work, but he has health problems of his own  high blood pressure and arthritis. He has worked in farming and construction, but having to take time off due to his health has been a consistent problem, Ryals said. One of his last employers, who was also their landlord, docked his pay when he went to the doctor.

"He'd take hours off his final paycheck," Ryals said. "It was basically a punishment for being sick."

The family gets food stamps, but the allotment went down from $648 to $576 a month last time they re-certified, because at the time they had income coming in. That isn't the case now, though.

"For the most part, I've been decreasing my meals, and thankfully the kids are at school during the week, so that helps," Ryals said.

She started a GoFundMe page in late November to raise money to keep the electricity on and to buy firewood to heat their home. Her usual supplier, who sold the family wood at $100 a cord, ran out, and she faces paying $200 to $250 a cord now.

"I don't know what we're going to do for Christmas if I don't get back to work soon," she said.

Idaho lawmakers have debated for several years whether to expand Medicaid, do something else, or do nothing. Generally speaking, Democratic lawmakers have favored expanding Medicaid. Republicans have opposed it for a variety of reasons, including concerns about growing the federal debt, or how much it could cost the state in the future, or opposition to asking taxpayers to pay for other adults' health care.

Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter put forth a state-funded primary care plan at the beginning of the 2016 session, but it died in the Legislature, with critics from the right concerned about the cost and about creating a new social program, and critics from the left supportive of Medicaid expansion instead, which would have provided more coverage. A plan to apply for a Medicaid expansion waiver from the federal government, which would let the state implement a state-designed program with federal funds, came out toward the end of the session but died when the Senate and House deadlocked.

What the state is going to, or could, do now is even more uncertain after the November election. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to repeal and replace the ACA, a goal of congressional Republicans for years. While it is unclear what exactly would replace it if they succeed in this, there is a good chance Medicaid expansion, at least in the form it was being discussed during the Obama presidency, wouldn't be an option anymore. Traditional Medicaid could end up looking quite different; Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have proposed giving Medicaid money to states as a block grant.

Toni Lawson, vice president of government relations for the Idaho Hospital Association, suspects repealing the ACA is going to be harder than people think, given how many other states have already expanded Medicaid. She said she hopes whatever Idaho does, its something coordinated that encourages collaboration between providers, rather than piecemealing small programs in a way that makes a future comprehensive solution more difficult.

The truth of the matter is, regardless of the outcome of the election, we still have thousands of Idahoans who cant afford coverage and we need to find a way to deal with that, she said.

A group of Idaho lawmakers who studied the issue over the interim wrapped up in late November by recommending "a policy to provide health care of some kind to the gap population should be enacted by the 2017 Legislature." But it decided against including much more specific recommendations on how this should look.

The work group did recommend that, if the Legislature opts to expand Medicaid, it should include a sunset clause if federal policy changes, and that any state-funded solution should include a primary and preventive care component and be paid for out of the state's general fund and the Millennium Fund.

Lawson said she's glad the lawmakers on the working group now know more about the issue, but she is worried the Legislature could pass something that addresses just primary care, which wouldnt cover things such as surgeries and injuries.

One concern we have (is) there seem to be a number of legislators who think that by simply addressing primary care, we will have solved the coverage issue, Lawson said. And that just, unfortunately, will still leave people in a coverage gap who are vulnerable to lifes happenings.

The IHA is one of the organizations that is part of the Close the Gap coalition that has lobbied for Medicaid expansion. The group put out a statement in late November saying it is still committed to ensuring health coverage to those who lack it.

"Moving forward, Close the Gap will monitor and evaluate well-intentioned proposals and remain focused on gaining affordable, comprehensive coverage options for all Idahoans," the group said in a release.

Like everyone, Ryals doesn't know what will happen. Trump, she noted, has said he would repeal Obamacare and reduce other social programs. Ryals said she has no problem with restricting welfare benefits  she believes people ought to work for what they have  but there should be something for people who have chronic conditions, or who work but can't get coverage.

Ryals said even having just primary care coverage would help her, because she would be able to monitor her condition more consistently and reduce the likelihood of ending up in the emergency room with a massive bill.

"Keeping an eye on something, you're less likely to have surgery," she said. "You're more likely to have a better way of life if you can see your doctor regularly."
TWIN FALLS  What federal immigration and trade policy will look like in 2017, and how they will affect the dairy industry in Idaho, are still big question marks.

But the head of the Idaho Dairymens Association hopes some of the regulatory policies and appointments coming out of the Trump administration will be better for his industry than Obamas.

Bob Naerebout said he's glad a Republican president will both appoint the next Region 10 Environmental Protection Agency administrator and fill any upcoming federal judicial vacancies. He pointed to the ag security or ag gag law  as its supporters and opponents respectively called it  banning secret taping on farms. Idahos state law was overturned in court, but a similar law in Wyoming has been upheld.

Judges do make a difference, Naerebout said. Different judge, different ruling.

Naerebout is also glad that Donald Trumps win means the EPAs waters of the United States rule, a clean-waters rule extending federal environmental protections to streams and wetlands that flow into navigable rivers, is likely dead. Many agricultural groups opposed the rule.

Mr. Trump has made commitments that the rule would not go into effect, he said. Well watch what he does on that rule.

Immigration and trade were two major campaign issues for Trump  he ran against free trade and in favor of taking a hard line on illegal immigration  and his policies on both could have major implications for Idaho agriculture.

Their policies and actions they take in those fields will greatly affect the vitality of rural Idaho, Naerebout said.

Many workers in Idaho agriculture are immigrants, both legal immigrants and refugees and undocumented ones. And Naerebout said competition from imports is much less of an issue for his industry than being able to access foreign markets  about 15 percent of dairy products produced in Idaho are exported.

Negotiated trade deals are extremely important to our industry, he said.

Naerebout said the U.S. could have done a better job with both the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was passed under President Bill Clintons administration, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was negotiated under Obama but has not been ratified by the Senate. Naerebout said the Canadian market, for example, is still closed to Idahos dairy exports under NAFTA, and under the TPP's terms the Japanese market is not as open to American dairy as he would like. However, the Dairymen's Association did support the TPP despite these misgivings.

Trump has said the TPP will not move forward in its current form, and he criticized both the TPP and NAFTA frequently during the campaign.

With local unemployment so low, Naerebout said, any changes in immigration or refugee policy that reduce the size of the labor pool will hurt his industry. Dairy work is year-round, and the current agricultural visa programs are seasonal, which would make it even tougher to replace anyone were federal laws or enforcement priorities to change without addressing this. Naerebout said foreign-born workers are important not only in agriculture but in sectors such as construction, food processing and the service industry.

They contribute greatly to our community both in diversity and work force development, Naerebout said.

Naerebout said he expects to see immigration legislation in Congress this year, and his group will work to make sure rural Idahos interests are represented.
TWIN FALLS  The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is proposing a big fee hike, but even if it passes, people who buy a fishing or hunting license next year will be able to keep paying today's price as long as they continue to buy a license every year.

The list of legislative proposals that the governor's office has reviewed and approved for the department to advance to the Legislature in January includes a roughly 20 percent increase in fees for most Idaho resident fishing and hunting licenses, tags and permits.

However, there is also a proposal for a "price lock": Someone who has a 2017 license before 2018 licenses go on sale on Dec. 1, 2017, will  if they continue to get a hunting or fishing license every year  pay the current price for at least five years.

"Current revenue does not allow for restoration of program cuts such as to fish stocking, which impacts sportsman opportunity," department officials wrote in the fiscal note, or the statement of fiscal impact attached to a bill, justifying the requested price increase. "Without adjustment or incentive for sportsmen to buy a license each year to enhance revenue, there will be continued erosion of management and programs important to sportsmen and to other economic sectors, such as private landowners affected by wildlife depredation or businesses reliant on hunting, fishing and trapping."

How much more money a fee increase would bring in depends on how many hunters and anglers take advantage of the "price lock" and how many people buy a license in 2018 who didn't have one the year before. Fish and Game expects about half of the people who buy licenses would benefit from the price lock and the yearly revenue boost would be $1.64 million to $2.74 million.

Sharon Kiefer, Fish and Game's deputy director for programs and policy, compared the idea to the "tuition lock" Idaho State University is trying this year, which lets incoming freshmen lock in their tuition for four years.

"We've kind of spoken to our colleagues across the nation, and no one else has really tried this approach," she said.

Kiefer said the department would, if the "price lock" passes, monitor its fiscal effect and whether it changes license buying.

"We would have to evaluate and, with the governors office and Legislature, determine the efficacy of this approach relative to costs that will undoubtedly rise, so we cannot state at this point that this approach would be 'indefinite' but certainly in effect for at least five years if the bill were to pass," she said.

If it passes, this would be the first time resident fees have gone up since 2005, and the first time nonresident ones have since 2009. A request from Fish and Game to raise fees in 2014 stalled due to a political fight between commissioners and some legislators who wanted to add amendments forcing the Fish and Game Commission to approve auction tags, bonus points and the sale of landowner tags.

Forrest Andersen, a hunter and the manager of Washington Street Pawn in Twin Falls, said he is fine with paying more as long as the money goes toward needs like catching poachers and protecting wildlife habitat rather than administrative expenses. Idaho is probably one of the cheapest places in America to hunt right now, he said, and he understands that putting conservation officers in the field costs money.

Show us what youre going to do with the money, he said. "I don't mind paying more if you're going to enforce the laws (and) catch the poachers, absolutely."

If lawmakers approve the fee increase, Kiefer said, some areas the department would likely look to focus on include beefing up the landowner wildlife depredation program to help protect private lands; restoring resident hatchery program cuts due to increases in the cost of fish food; modernizing the hatcheries to increase production; increasing funding for the Access Yes! program, which opens up some private lands for hunting and fishing; addressing deferred maintenance in wildlife management areas; and restoring some enforcement operating funds.

"We did not 'pre-load' any new revenue expectation from the fee bill into our FY18 budget submitted to the Governor," she said in an email. "If the bill passes, we would need to work with the Governors office and the Legislature on a trailer bill in 2017 for additional spending appropriation and/or request new appropriation in our FY19 budget."

While the resident fee increases are probably the change that will affect the most hunters and anglers in the Magic Valley, there are a few other bills Fish and Game plans to seek to pass next year.

The department proposes creating a grizzly bear tag, setting the fees the same as moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goat tags, and adding grizzly bears to some relevant sections of state code. Yellowstone's grizzlies are on track to be removed from the endangered species list, which means their management will become the responsibility of state agencies in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

Fish and Game's total budget request for 2017-18 is for $102.3 million, down about $4 million from 2016-17. The governor can still change the budget request before presenting it to lawmakers in January. There are a few reasons the budget has gone down, Kiefer said; one big one is that there are only 26 payrolls to make this year. There was an extra week in this years budget, making for 27 payrolls.

Another, she said, is that the department had to catch up on vehicle maintenance out of this years budget, which wont be the case next year.
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When the Idaho Legislature convenes for its 2017 session in January, it will look broadly similar to a year ago  but a bit more Republican.

Republicans already had a supermajority in both the House and the Senate, but in the November elections they went from holding 56 to 59 of the Idaho House's 70 seats, and from 28 to 29 in the Senate.

Nationally, things will be much different, with a Republican president to be inaugurated Jan. 20. Donald Trump's policies will likely mark a radical departure from the Obama administration's in many respects.

For one, Trump has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and with both houses of Congress under Republican control this could be doable. This has already changed the conversation in Idaho over providing health care coverage for people in the "Medicaid gap." Congress could debate significant changes to the ACA while the Legislature is in session, throwing into question whether Idaho Medicaid expansion, the preferred solution of the Democrats and of advocates for health-care groups and the "gap" population, will even be an option given possible changes on the federal level.

Despite this, many of the issues the Legislature will grapple with will be the same ones it always deals with  taxes, budgets and the competing financial needs of the state's many departments.

Here, we highlight just a few of the issues that will come up, mostly in Boise but also in Washington, D.C., by talking to Idahoans who will be directly affected by the outcomes  a teacher advocating better school funding; a woman facing charges for treating her sick daughter with cannabis; a woman with a chronic condition who struggles to get treatment; a city manager who wants to be able to ask voters for a local option sales tax; the head of a dairy association who is waiting to see how Trump's campaign promises will translate into policy that affects his industry; and a hunter with an interest in the Idaho Department of Fish and Game budget.

Some of these things are guaranteed to play out. The state has to pass an education budget and a Fish and Game budget, for example, and health care will certainly be a subject of debate in Boise although the outcome is hard to predict. Others are uncertain or unlikely to change.

This isn't a comprehensive look; certainly, other issues will come up that aren't touched on here.

We'll all see in January.
TWIN FALLS  If Kelsey Osborne could write Idaho's laws, she would allow medical marijuana.

I think a lot of people get benefits from cannabis use, whether its from seizures, or cerebral palsy, or anything like that," she said last week.

Osborne was speaking outside a Twin Falls courtroom, where she had just left an initial appearance on a misdemeanor charge of injury to a child for giving her 3-year-old daughter, Madyson, a smoothie with marijuana butter. Osborne says the butter helped treat the seizures and hallucinations Madyson was suffering after going off the antipsychotic medication Risperidone.

Osborne has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial in February. Her lawyer, Thomas Curl, said they plan to argue Osborne's conduct wasn't injury to a child because her daughter was not hurt. Marijuana use might be an offense against the state, Curl said, but that doesn't make what Osborne did child injury.

"I don't believe there's any way possible I could have injured my daughter by doing anything I did," Osborne said. "If anything, I helped her."

Her case has drawn wider attention to marijuana laws in Idaho, a state which is holding the line on cannabis's illegality and bucking the liberalization or even legalization trend followed by many states, including some of its neighbors.

"Kelsey's story definitely shows the failure of prohibition in Idaho," said Serra Frank of Boise, who founded Moms for Marijuana International after she started to use marijuana more than a decade ago to treat chronic pain caused by a bladder condition.

Frank was in Twin Falls last week with about a dozen other people to support Osborne at her court appearance; they held a small protest outside after court. Frank is facing charges herself in Boise for trying to smoke a joint on the Capitol steps on Jan. 1; she plans to do the same thing Jan. 1, 2017.

Given the Legislature's and governor's stances against it, there's not much reason to think recreational marijuana will be legal in Idaho anytime soon. However, the Legislature did pass a bill in 2015 to give people a way to possess cannabidiol oil, which doesn't contain enough THC to cause a high and which some people take to treat seizures. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter vetoed it.

In 2017, though, Idaho could again see legislation to allow CBD oil, as well as possibly allowing other nonpsychoactive formulations such as lotions containing marijuana. Wayne Hoffman, head of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a conservative group that usually focuses on issues that involve reducing the size and scope of government, said last week he has heard from several lawmakers interested in introducing a bill; he wouldn't yet say whom.

Theyre concerned that the state of Idaho  considers their (constituents') ailment and the treatment of their ailment as a crime against society, Hoffman said. These are legislators that are very concerned about the well-being of their constituents, and they want to do something about it.

The IFF recently released a film, Hope Vetoed, about a young man in Salmon who started to use CBD oil to treat his seizures after other medications failed, and Hoffman wrote a column urging lawmakers to rethink the states marijuana laws. The IFF's advocacy drew the attention of the marijuana magainze High Times.

Hoffman hopes the experiences of other states that have legalized CBD oil will help persuade lawmakers here.

You dont see problems occurring in the states where CBD oil use is legal, Hoffman said. We can use that to further bolster our contention that this is a policy that generally helps people.

Marijuana has been illegal in the U.S. for a long time, although in recent years many states have been relaxing these laws. A growing number allow medicinal or recreational marijuana use, or both. Nevada on Jan. 1 will become the third state bordering Idaho to allow recreational marijuana, due to a ballot measure passed in November. Idaho is now one of seven states that doesn't allow any use of cannabis in any form  Utah and Wyoming, which forbid marijuana otherwise, do allow CBD oil.

Lawmakers here have taken the opposite stand. In 2013, they passed a resolution affirming their "opposition to efforts to legalize marijuana for any purpose in the State of Idaho," with the Republicans overwhelmingly in favor and the Democrats split.

House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, said he doesn't have any reason to believe legislators' overall views have changed on the issue since then.

"I think it's going to be a long time before the Legislature in Idaho approves recreational marijuana," he said.

Bedke said he is against legalizing recreational marijuana use, although he would keep an open mind about medicinal marijuana if it is prescribed by a doctor.

"But self-prescription, I think, is folly," he said.

Frank said she focuses her efforts on changing public opinions, not influencing lawmakers.

"We've given up on the legislators," she said.

The cannabidiol bill the Legislature passed in 2015 wouldn't have legalized the oil outright but would have made it an affirmative defense against a criminal charge that you had the oil to treat your or your child's severe seizures. Otter vetoed it and instead signed an executive order to let up to 25 children take CBD oil as part of a study. In his veto message, Otter said he sympathized with the families of children with seizure disorders who had advocated for the legislation, but he said the claims it would help were "more speculative than scientific." He cited opposition from law enforcement and from his own Office of Drug Policy and Department of Health and Welfare.

The legislation "ignores ongoing scientific testing on alternative treatments," Otter wrote. "It asks us to trust but not to verify. It asks us to legalize the limited use of cannabidiol oil, contrary to federal law. And it asks us to look past the potential for misuse and abuse with criminal intent."

Otter's views on marijuana have evolved over the years  he expressed support for allowing recreational marijuana when he ran for governor in 1978 and for allowing medical use in 2006, as Reason magazine wrote in a recent article.

"In the decade since he was last quoted (in Reason), he has seen the problems other states have experienced since legalizing marijuana," Otter spokesman Jon Hanian told the libertarian magazine in an email. "He has heard stories from some of his colleagues in the Western Governors Association about how legalization, in their states, is not the panacea they first thought it would be."
TWIN FALLS  Idaho legislators haven't given the state's non-resort communities much reason to think they can levy local option sales taxes anytime soon. But Twin Falls' city manager says the city should at least be able to ask local voters the question.

"I believe that all cities and counties should have the right to ask their citizens how they want to be taxed," Twin Falls City Manager Travis Rothweiler said.

The Legislature historically has been reluctant to raise taxes  or, to be more precise in this case, to pass a law that would give voters in more cities and counties the option of raising taxes. And after this year's election the already supermajority-Republican body got a bit more conservative and more Republican than it was before.

"I am not aware of any proposal that will come forward this legislative session," Rothweiler said. "I haven't heard of a single group or association that's going to ask the Legislature to ... consider local option tax."

Rep. Stephen Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, told the crowd at a fundraiser during his re-election campaign this fall basically the same thing  that the House Revenue and Taxation Committee is split at least 2-to-1 against the idea, making it unlikely to go anywhere even if someone were to bring a bill.

Hartgen said he would look at any bill before making up his mind. But he said many lawmakers view local option taxes as a form of "taxation without representation" for shoppers from outside coming into a community, and they worry about creating price disparities between communities.

Under current law, a handful of "resort cities" such as Ketchum and Stanley can, if the voters approve, levy an extra sales tax above and beyond the state's. Other cities cannot. Rothweiler believes his city should have the same option.

Twin Falls is the regional hub, with tens of thousands of nonresidents coming in every day to work and shop, and Rothweiler said the city's taxpayers pick up some of the costs of providing them services. For example, in 2015 about half of misdemeanor arrests in Twin Falls were of nonresidents, and Rothweiler said the 2016 numbers are on about the same track.

If schools can ask voters to levy an additional property tax, Rothweiler said, it makes sense to let other levels of government do the same with sales taxes.

Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, introduced legislation in the past to allow other local governments to levy local option sales taxes, but the money would have to be designated for a specific purpose. Rothweiler said he favors this approach, because using it to support regular government options would create a hole in the city's budget when the economy goes south and people start to spend less.

If Twin Falls had a local option tax, Rothweiler said, the community would have to discuss how to use it, but his priority list would include money to expand the city's trail system, a larger regional park that could serve as a community draw, a recreation center and public transportation. There has also been talk of using local option tax money to build a convention center.

The money, he said, would help "fund and achieve those projects that always seemed a little out of our reach."

Rothweiler said one estimate is that an additional tax of one-quarter of 1 percent would bring in a couple of million dollars a year in Twin Falls.

"We know a lot of goods and services," he said, "are procured within our city's borders."
TWIN FALLS  Its the warm-and-fuzzy time of year, so Idaho Power Co. wants to offer a way people can bring comfort to someone they love.

This holiday season, the company offers a gift option where people can pay someones Idaho power account by phone or mail. You will need to know the customers name, service address and a specific dollar amount you want to pay.

Its the perfect gift for someone who may need a little help or would just appreciate having one less bill to pay during the holidays, Maggie Brilz, Idaho Power customer service manager, said in a release. It may be for a young adult, a family just starting out or a grandparent on a fixed income. Were happy to help make that gift payment possible.

The gift can remain anonymous if desired. Customer account information, including outstanding balance, will not be shared with the gift-giver.

To make a gift payment by mail, write a check to Idaho Power and indicate Gift Payment on the memo line. Include a note with your contact name and phone number, the name and address of the person receiving the gift payment, and how much you want to donate. Also indicate whether youd like the payment to remain anonymous, of if you would like Idaho Power to send an acknowledgement letter to the customer.

Payments may be mailed to: Idaho Power, Attention: Gift Payments, P.O. Box 7866, Boise, Idaho 83707.

To pay by phone using a check or credit/debit card, call 1-800-488-6151. Make sure you have your card number, expiration and zip code for debit or credit cards, or a routing and checking account number for checks. Also know how much you want to pay.

Phone payments will have a $2.85 fee charged by a third-party vendor.

Any customers in need of energy assistance can also call to ask about payment plans or local assistance  or visit idahopower.com/energyassistance.
Betty Lou Morton, 88, of Burley, died Friday, December 2, 2016, at Cassia Regional Hospital in Burley. The funeral is pending and will be announced by the Rasmussen Funeral Home of Burley.

Lester S. Fonley, 79, of Twin Falls, died Friday, December 2, 2016 at Twin Falls Center. Arrangements are pending Serenity Funeral Chapel Life Celebration Center & Cremation Services of Idaho, Twin Falls.

Marilyn Bray Whiting, 69, of Burley, died Saturday, December 3, 2016, at Cassia Regional Hospital in Burley. Funeral arrangements will be announced by the Rasmussen Funeral Home of Burley.

Clarence Bert Covey, 61, a resident of Gooding, passed away on Saturday, December 3, 2016 at his home in Gooding. Funeral arrangements are pending and will be announced under the direction of Demaray Funeral Service  Gooding Chapel.

Edwin Lee Stevens, 80, a resident of Gooding, passed away on Saturday, December 3, 2016 at his home in Gooding. Funeral arrangements are pending and will be announced under the direction of Demaray Funeral Service  Gooding Chapel.
This appeared in Saturdays Washington Post.

The principles of tax reform, individual or corporate, are clear: Congress should improve efficiency by levying lower rates on a broader base of income; that is, with a minimum of incentive-distorting loopholes and deductions. Reform should encourage economic growth but mitigate income and wealth inequality. The resulting revenue should enable the federal government to meet public needs without adding to the national debt.

The last time the political stars aligned to produce such legislation was 1986. The tax code has accumulated new inefficiencies and irrationalities since, notwithstanding many reform proposals by Republicans, Democrats and even some bipartisan coalitions over the years. Now the GOP sweep of the White House and both chambers of Congress may set the stage for the most extensive rewrite of taxation since thenone that, unlike the 30-years-ago version, which was bipartisan, the Republican Party will dominate.

President-elect Donald Trump and his team are sending mixed signals. During the campaign, he put forward an irresponsible plan to slash revenue by an estimated $620 billion per year (roughly 19 percent of fiscal 2015 receipts) over 10 years, with no credible offset in the form of spending cuts.

Meanwhile, the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers would experience an average tax cut of nearly $1.1 million, while households in the middle fifth of the income distribution would receive an average tax cut of $1,010, according to the Tax Policy Center. On Wednesday, however, Trumps choice for secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, spoke reassuringly, but cryptically, of middle-class relief with no absolute tax cut for the upper class. Rate cuts for the rich could be offset by eliminating itemized deductions, such as the break for mortgage interest or state and local taxes, Mnuchin said, though most experts say that wont actually work for the rates Trump proposed.

Possibly the Trump camp is moving toward the somewhat more plausible blueprint laid out by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in June. It would reduce federal revenue by a mere $3.1 trillion over 10 years, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis. This is better than Trumps plan, but still hardly fiscally responsible absent big spending cuts to federal programswhich the GOP also proposes, but which are notoriously harder to pass than tax cuts. Meanwhile, most of the House GOP plans benefits would accrue to the well-to-do, in part because the plan eliminates whats left of the estate tax, one of federal laws few modest restraints on wealth inequality.

Recently, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said he wants reform to be revenue neutral, albeit as measured by dynamic scoring, i.e., accounting for revenue due to projected economic growth. That, too, was a welcome note of relative moderationbut even under fairly robust dynamic scoring, the House GOP plan still costs the government $2.5 trillion over 10 years, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Come 2017, a Republican president and Congress could use their powers to rewrite the tax code in accordance with the standard set in 1986. For now, they seem bent on cutting taxes massively for those who least need the helpat the risk of greater debt, cuts in vital services or both.
It would be really nice if Donald Trumps current and potential conflicts of interest could be justified as good for America, after all. As a political scientist who is generally skeptical of good government crusades and of broad definitions of public corruption, Id love to be able to offer a defense of Trump on those grounds  just as I can offer a defense of old political machines.

Alas, no dice.

Trump isnt building a party machine. Why does that matter? With everything else going on, why would we want a Tammany Hall in addition to Trump Tower? Because Trumps conflicts of interest arent justified even by the democratic theory most open to politicians enriching themselves. A weaker version of democracy could lead him and his followers to ignore or excuse what cant be justified.

The best defense of public officials who pocket money for themselves came from a Tammany Hall politician, George Washington Plunkitt, in 1905. Plunkitt, as the Atlantics Yoni Appelbaum points out, argued that graft can be beneficial if the incentives are correctly aligned so that politicians seek to profit personally from those things their constituents like. But Appelbaum is wrong to see some connection here to Trump, who isnt promising a Plunkitt-style bargain at all.

Plunkitts famous distinction is between what he calls honest graft and the dishonest variety.

Honest graft, he wrote, consisted of profiting from inside information about what the government was going to do anyway:

My partys in power in the city, and its goin to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, Im tipped off, say, that theyre going to lay out a new park at a certain place ... I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood.

For Plunkitt, everyone is better off. The public is well-served because it gets the improvements it wants. The politicians make money off the deal. And because theres money in politics, people who will be good at providing constituents with what they want will go into public service. Yes, theres an expense (Plunkitt naturally charges the city more for the land than it would have had to pay its previous owners), but it beats having a polity run either by noble-minded but incompetent reformers or by bureaucrats who have little connection to citizens.

So why cant Trump fit into this mold? The answer boils down to parties and the electoral incentive.

In the Plunkitt model, the system works overall because the political party organizes it. The people who run the party know their place, and contribute back to the party if they succeed. Ambition is channeled through the party, which can reward the talented and ensure their success.

The talented are defined by their ability to win votes  and not just in the short run. The party, as an institution, cares about its long-term success, too.

So a politician who profited from public-works projects that hurt the party  a park located in the wrong place, or a bridge that fell down  wouldnt last long in Plunkitts Tammany. Without those tangible benefits, the graft would do neither the party nor the politician, who needed both renomination and reelection, any good.

Trumps situation is entirely different. Trumps properties arent strategically placed to capitalize on what the government would be doing anyway to benefit citizens. They are, from this perspective, randomly placed, without any reason to believe that whats good for the nation will be good for Trumps bottom line. His foreign holdings in particular appear to be quite unconnected with any possible benefit for voters back home.

So, for example, if Trump decides to move ahead with closer ties to Cuba and, in anticipation of doing so, he buys a location for a casino, that might fit Plunkitts honest graft. But if he chooses to make a country an ally based on how it will affect his existing holdings, that would not be fine  because theres no reason to believe the incentives between Trumps pocketbook and the interests of the U.S. are aligned.

Instead of reflecting Plunkitt, Trump evinces political attitudes that are more a bizarre offshoot of Woodrow Wilsons ideas about democracy. Wilson was an enemy of machine-style parties. He had disdain for the idea that a thick layer of party, press and groups of all sorts have an important place between politicians and rank-and-file voters.

Instead, Wilsonian politicians, and especially Wilsonian presidents, believe they have an almost mystical bond with the people. The danger is that since the mystical connection is a myth, Wilsonian presidents tend to believe that the people are demanding whatever the president wants.

Most, or perhaps all, of the modern presidents have had at least some Wilsonian tendencies. Recent presidents, from Ronald Reagan through Barack Obama, were nevertheless anchored by their political parties. Trump is not. Nor does he appear to draw from any other democratic tradition (putting aside whatever non-democratic influences he draws on).

Trumps rallies (and he is scheduling new ones now) appear to work for him as the way of tuning in to that connection, just as Wilson barnstormed to build support, in his own mind at least, for the changes in policy he would seek. In my view, it is quite Wilsonian to crusade against corruption (Drain the swamp!) without even recognizing the possibility of ones own ethical issues.

The Wilsonians have won the argument in our popular culture, and to a fair extent in our political institutions. I wish someone prominent would speak up for Plunkitt-style politics  but thats going to be a hard sell in the time of Trump.
The Americian Association of University Women is a non-partisan nationwide organization of women and men who advocate for issues that are important to women and families. The membership of AAUW Idaho and its six branches  Boise, Coeur d'Alene, Long Valley, Moscow, Orofino, and Pocatello  represents a diversity of cultural and professional backgrounds as well as political party affiliations. Our branch members have been active in community and advocacy activities in Idaho since 1909. We are united in our opposition to bias and bigotry based on gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation.

Our disappointment with the outcome of the presidential election is not because of the political party that president-elect Donald Trump represents. Our disappointment is with the positions he has taken on many issues that could adversely affect women, families, and underrepresented minorities. AAUW members are active citizens at the local, state, and national level. AAUW Idaho's Statehouse Lobby Corps has been and will continue to be involved in advocating for legislation that improves the lives of women and families. Conversely, we will vigorously oppose legislation that may negatively impact them.
In response to the Nov. 23 Lewiston Tribune editorial reprinted in the Times-News, I must say it would take several letters to address all the foolishness contained therein. First, stop whining about Trump's immigration stand. He only wants America to follow the immigration laws established by our government, don't you?

The gist of the remainder of the article was in favor of ignoring the laws of our country by allowing the illegal aliens to stay here for fear of the collapse of our agricultural community. You're advocating adherence to only those laws convenient to you. That's a great legacy to pass on to our young people. Incidentally, calling an illegal immigrant an undocumented immigrant is like calling a drug dealer an unlicensed pharmacist.

Here's a novel idea: Of the 3.8 percent state-wide unemployed, let's assume only 5 percent, or 3,000 people, are physically and mentally able to do farm work. Prospective employers can administer a standard pre-employment drug test, which is common practice today. Any who fail the test forfeit any and all welfare benefits, are given a blanket, and taken to the soup kitchen. The remainder are given proper training and a job. Those who don't want to work, join the drug users.

Out-of-state unemployed people could be invited to fill the remaining job openings, using the same qualifying criteria. Those who fail or refuse will be shipped back home. The last paragraph asked why anyone in the agricultural community would want to vote for Trump. That's easy. If they didn't , they'd get Hillary. Now I assume your porch lights are on, but is anyone home?

Robert Jones

Twin Falls
Sponsored by the Baytown-West Chambers County Economic Development Foundation and Lee College Center for Workforce and Community Development, the Baytown-West Chambers County Industrial Expansion Symposium on Friday explored the impact of plant expansions on industry, community and local economy, and the state of the workforce, infrastructure, transportation, development challenges and emerging opportunities in Baytown and West Chambers County. Speakers represented Air Products, Chevron Phillips, Covestro, Enterprise Products, ExxonMobil, Port of Houston, Greater Houston Partnership, Texas DOT, Jacobs, Turner Industries, Houston Methodist San Jacinto Hospital, AmeriPort, Katoen Natie and TGS Cedar Port as well as representatives from Chambers County, Harris County, Baytown, Mont Belvieu and Lee College.
Despite a strange outburst of misleading and often outright false headlines from major news outlets on Saturday night declaring that Jill Stein had abandoned her recount effort in Pennsylvania, the real story turns out to be quite the opposite. After Pennsylvania tried to hit her with a concocted $1 million bond just to hear her case, she announced a different strategy instead. Its one which has just as much chance of working. And shell be announcing it on Monday  in front of Trump Tower.

Pennsylvania state law mandates an automatic statewide recount if the winning margin is 0.5% or smaller. The state originally posted vote totals showing Donald Trump winning the state by well over one percent of the vote. But thanks to subsequent revisions from various precincts in the state, Trump now holds a statewide lead of just 47,603 votes, giving him just a 0.8% margin.

Jill Steins new strategy, which is buried in the seventh paragraph of an eight paragraph Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper article (which happens to have a wildly misleading headline), is to begin trying to force county level recounts in Pennsylvania in order to bring the margin down to the 0.5% threshold. She only needs to get precincts to correct their numbers such that Trumps lead shrinks by another 20,000 votes, which is entirely reasonable considering that various counties have already shaved more than 23,000 votes off Trumps supposed lead simply by correcting some of their own errors. Rather than backing down, Stein is going full throttle on Monday.

Even as Donald Trump continues to hole himself up inside Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, largely hiding from the public and only communicating through Twitter posts that may not even be coming from him, scores of protesters have remained outside the building. On Monday, Jill Stein will be holding a press conference outside Trump Tower in order to announce her new Pennsylvania recount strategy, which weve outlined above. This comes even as the major news outlets continue to incorrectly claim that shes abandoned her PA recount effort. If you enjoy Palmer Report, consider making a contribution:
Cooperation relations between Morocco and Nigeria which have been hibernating for many years are getting off to a flying start with the historic visit King Mohammed VI is paying to Nigeria.

As is the case whenever the Moroccan monarch makes trips to African countries, the Royal visit highlighted by the signing of some 16 agreements, including two deals providing for the setting up of mega projects in the African country.

On Saturday, King Mohammed VI and his host President Muhammadu Buhari presided over in Abuja the launch ceremony of a project to construct a regional gas pipeline which will link gas-rich Nigeria to Morocco going through several other west African countries and stretching up towards Europe.

A statement read out during the ceremony pointed out that following the talks the two heads of state held on the sidelines of the COP22 in Marrakesh in November and in Abuja during the Kings current visit, Morocco and Nigeria agreed to study and take concrete measures for the construction of a regional gas pipeline which will link Nigeria and several other west African countries to Morocco.

As a major project meant to boost regional economic integration, the pipeline will be designed with the participation of all concerned parties with the aim of speeding up electrification projects in the whole region, serving as a basis to set up a competitive regional market for electricity, likely to be connected to the European energy market, and to develop integrated industrial hubs in the sub-region in sectors such as industry, food-processing and fertilizers, explained the statement, relayed by MAP news agency.

According to the statement, the ultimate goal is to draw foreign capital, improve the competitiveness of exports and spur local processing of natural resources to make them available for national and international markets, in addition to creating business opportunities for manufacturers and investors.

This south-south platform will step up structural transformation of the regions national economies, put all the region on the path of a stronger growth, the statement said, adding that the two heads of state agreed to set up a joint coordination body tasked with supervising this large-scale project.

In a government video posted on Twitter, the Nigerian Foreign Minister said the pipeline would go along the coast from West Africa  Nigeria  all the way up to Morocco and into Europe eventually.

Thats a very big and important project for us, Onyeama stated.

On Friday, the two heads of state presided over the signing ceremony of an agreement to build a fertilizers plant in Nigeria, giving thus substance to a win-win partnership between the two countries.

The new plant will be built by OCP, Moroccos state-owned phosphates company, and will benefit the whole agricultural value chain in Nigeria, making fertilizers available for farmers at competitive prices.

The project is part of Nigerias endeavors to diversify its economy by fostering the agricultural sector as the country was severely battered by the fall of oil prices.

The two countries signed 14 other agreements providing for developing industrial clusters in the sub-region in a variety of sectors.
Elections in the United Kingdom and United States have generated high emotions and big headlines in recent months, but theres another vote taking place that also warrants our attention.

As you read this column, Italian voters are at the polls deciding the fate of a constitutional referendum proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. While the subject seems technical, the votes outcome carries big implications not only for Italy but also for Europe and countries beyond.

Like the UKs vote on Brexit (British exit from the European Union), Italys referendum pits the ruling party against the countrys leading anti-establishment bloc and a number of mainstream parties whose leaders oppose the referendum and/or Renzi himself.

Complicated politics are nothing new for Italys famously splintered and often contentious political factions. But because the referendum has the potential to further shake up the status quo, all of Europe and many Americans are watching the situation carefully.

Italy has suffered lackluster growth and high unemployment for decades, a predicament made worse by the 2008/2009 global financial crisis and recession. Italys banks hold high levels of bad debt and are among the most vulnerable to collapse in Europe. Public debt, at 130 percent of GDP (or economy), is the worlds third-highest.

Renzi is Italys third successive non-elected prime minister. He views Italys sclerotic political system as a barrier to reforms he and other observers believe are needed to put Italys economy on a sounder path for future growth. His constitutional proposals would weaken the power of the Senate and regional governments and strengthen the ruling partys hold on power.

But Renzi has made the referendum as much a confidence vote in his leadership as on the controversial constitutional overhaul he proposes. And polls  as much as they can be believed these days  suggest he may lose this vote.

If he loses, he has said hell resign and leave politics, although recent statements cast some doubt on his intentions. Even if Renzi stays, Italys already fractious politics will be in greater turmoil than ever, potentially putting its economy and financial system in an even more precarious state. And that prospect does not bode well for Italy, Europe, or the Euro currency.

Italy is the European Unions fourth-largest economy and the Eurozones third-largest. Italys bank stocks have lost about half their value this year alone, and investors continued fleeing in the days before the vote  clear indicators of just how weak Italys banks are considered by outsiders. Bank failures could hurt the wider economy.

Strict Eurozone rules have so far blocked Renzis efforts to inject public funds into Italys banks, and post-election political turmoil will make it even harder to attract private funding to put the financial sector  and thus the economy  on stronger footing.

Moreover, increased political and financial instability in the event of a no vote would likely strengthen Italys euro-skeptic Five Star Movement and its leader, a former comedian. Just seven years old, the Five-Star Movement has become Italys largest opposition grouping (its leaders refuse to call it a party), and it now holds two important mayoral posts, in Rome and Turin.

Although the immediate repercussions of a no vote in Italy arent as great as the UKs Brexit vote, the last thing Europe needs now is more uncertainty and instability. Anti-establishment, anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise in Europe, as in America; and far-left and far-right parties have gained ever bigger voting shares in recent elections.

These previously fringe parties may be at opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they are united by a common antagonism toward the European Union and the Euro currency. The far-right National Party in France is pressing for a referendum on continued EU membership, as are parties in other countries.

And then theres Russia. An increasingly activist and unpredictable Vladimir Putin has been working to divide the countries of Europe and NATO, which until now have been unified in supporting U.S.-led economic sanctions against Russia following its seizure of Crimea and incursion into Ukraine.

Putins actions (those that we know of) have included cyber-attacks on small Baltic States and support for anti-establishment parties throughout Europe. He would love nothing more than to drive a wedge between Europe and America and to weaken economic sanctions now in place.

National elections in 2017 are approaching in Austria, the Netherlands, France, and Germany, raising the prospect of additional gains by euro-skeptic, non-traditional parties. Any further weakening of Europes political center will pose challenges for European cohesion and the Western alliance.
Chris Shook, the new dean of the School of Business Administration at the University of Montana, was sleeping in a monastery in Spain last fall at the age of 53, trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life.

Shook was walking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage popular among people worldwide as a retreat for spiritual growth. He was on sabbatical from his previous job as a professor of business management at Auburn University, but he knew he didnt want to commit to more years there. Somewhere along that long walk, he decided that a career in administration was his true calling.

Going into administration is the way to make the biggest difference in peoples lives, he said. I could write more articles or teach more classes, but that has a pretty limited impact.

Meanwhile, longtime dean Larry Gianchetta retired from UM last June after 41 years at UM. So, Shook got a call from a professional headhunter because his resume matched what UM was looking for. He had served as the chair of Auburns Department of Management and been the director of the schools Lowder Center for Family Business and Entrepreneurship, among other accolades.

And so here I am, Shook said. I just had to convince my wife and daughters.

For him, the main challenge is increasing the schools revenue  and that means attracting more out-of-state students and hitting up potential donors.

He said his job is going to be much easier because the school has such a great reputation and good academics that make it attractive to potential students and alumni.

Our school does some really great things, but nobody really knows about it, he said. Its really frustrating. Were trying to get our message out there."

For instance, he was talking to alumni at the governors barbecue earlier this year and was surprised at how little people know about the School of Business Administration. The school is ranked No. 1 in the conference for business schools and has the highest first-time pass rate for its CPA exam in the Northwest. He said people dont know that 80 percent of the schools students have internships before they graduate, and 82 percent have jobs or are admitted to graduate school within 90 days of graduating.

We have a really strong foundation of people, he said. The faculty and staff are phenomenal.

Shook acknowledged that although the schools enrollment had stayed steady since 2012, the SoBA has financial challenges because it has to suffer budget cuts due to precipitous campus-wide enrollment declines.

Even though our enrollment stayed the same since fiscal year '12, we kept getting our share of the cuts, he said. Thats just how they do it. So its a challenge. And the things we have to do to stay accredited are expensive. We have to offer services that other people dont.

Shook said that one of his strengths is not being afraid to talk about how great he thinks the school is or asking donors for money. He joked that hes been called shameless.

The greatest thing that Ive found is that the alumni love the school and appreciate what the school did for them and they want to help, he said. But a lot of them have not been asked before. Philanthropy has not been a big emphasis in Montana or at the university historically as it has been at other schools.

Shook said that the humble culture here may play a part in why students across the country dont know much about UMs successes.

There is one big difference between Colorado, where I grew up, and Montana that Ive noticed, he said. In Montana nobody wants to brag. Its like this ethos of we are who we are and you should know, but that wont work anymore. High school students need to know that we are the best school in Montana and why. Were doing a disservice to them when we dont tell them. Im not from here so I feel at ease to just brag.

"But its not bragging if its true. If youre ranked No. 1 in the state, why would you not say that?

Shook said that meeting with donors is a huge part of his job right now.

Im a little bit more of an external dean than I had anticipated because our financial situation is not great, he said. I can sleep on planes now. I never used to be able to sleep on planes. And its not like were forcing anyone to do anything. They all want to help. You just tell them whats going on here.

He said he believes Tom Crady, UMs new vice president for enrollment management and student affairs, is the right man for the job.

Shook  easily recognizable because of his colorful, unique eyeglasses  has sort of shaken things up with his presence on campus with his innovative ideas, his propensity to speak his mind.

One of his first moves was to institute a Dean for a Day contest in which a student got to trade places with him and sit in on a faculty meeting and a donor meeting. Meanwhile, he attended all the students classes. He got the idea after meeting with every member of the staff and faculty, when internship coordinator Kathleen Tarkalson suggested it.

It was really fun, he said. What I wanted to do was drive traffic to the web page. What were trying to do is get the information out in a more timely manner. So we had finalists do videos and Eduardo Hidalgo won. So I went to the frat house for lunch, and he did a great job. He even asked for money at the donor lunch, so he got the full range of experiences.

Looking forward, Shook said hes excited about the opportunities facing the school. He believes that he can help the SoBA attract both more in-state and out-of-state students.

When I visited campus, the sense of excitement for SoBAs future was palpable, and I am looking forward to strengthening and building on the foundation by working with other units on campus, the local, state and national business communities, and alumni and friends, he said.
I suppose there have been other poems about a baby's first look at and into the world, but they couldn't be more touching than this, by Faith Shearin, who lives in West Virginia, and whose most recent book is "Orpheus, Turning" from The Broadkill River Press.

Sight

Go north a dozen years

on a road overgrown with vines

to find the days after you were born.

Flowers remembered their colors and trees

were frothy and the hospital was

***

behind us now, its brick indifference

forgotten by our car mirrors. You were

revealed to me: tiny, delicate,

your head smelling of some other world.

Turn right after the circular room

***

where I kept my books and right again

past the crib where you did not sleep

and you will find the window where

I held you that June morning

when you opened your eyes. They were

***

blue, tentative, not the deep chocolate

they would later become. You were gazing

into the world: at our walls,

my red cup, my sleepless hair and though

I'm told you could not focus, and you

***

no longer remember, we were seeing

one another after seasons of darkness.
Are you looking for a way to clear your overdue library fines while also creating a positive impact on your community? If so, you are cordially invited to participate in Food for Fines, the Missoula Public Librarys food drive that runs from Sunday, Dec. 4, to Sunday, Dec. 11, at the main library and its branches.

The idea behind Food for Fines is simple: Just bring in a canned or packaged food donation for the Missoula Food Bank and we will waive all of your overdue fines. However, please note that Food for Fines can only be used to waive your overdue fees, and cannot be used to waive fines for any lost, damaged, or stolen items on your account, or for any Interlibrary Loan fees on your account.

The Food Bank is specifically looking for donations of certain foods including canned tuna and canned meat, other canned items including vegetables, soups, and beans, peanut butter, cooking oil, oatmeal, as well as pasta, rice, and whole grain cereal. The Food Bank cannot accept homemade items, noncommercial canned or packaged items, alcoholic beverages or drink mixes, open or used items, or rusty or unlabeled cans.

Call the library at 721-2665 for more information.

Literary Trivia

Bookworms stretch their intellect with other bibliophiles for a night of brain bustling fun during Literary Trivia, a family-friendly trivia night that occurs from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 4, at Zootown Brew, located at 131 W. Broadway in downtown Missoula. Trivia questions are based on literature or related aspects, and prizes will be awarded to the top three teams.

World Wide Cinema

Spend the night absorbing a foreign flick when the library hosts the December installment of World Wide Cinema on Friday at 7 p.m. in the Large Meeting Room. This months feature is the South Korean film Sea Fog. Lower level doors will be open from 6:45 to 7:15 p.m.

We Have It: Staff Reviews

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger (Amulet Books, 2010) Call Number: JMID ANGLEBERGER

This is a delightful sleeper. The cover and overall appearance of this book suggest a goofy, slight, middle-grade jaunt of a book. There is plenty of goofiness, and the book is a quick easy read. But there is a subtlety and layering of reality that would entertain adults as well as young readers.

Tommy, the primary narrator, opens the book with the big question: Is Origami Yoda real? The first answer is of course hes real  hes a real finger puppet made out of a real piece of paper. But the bigger question is: can he really know things, and see the future, and  most important to Tommy  give advice that is unerringly accurate?

The book is told as journal entries by Tommy and his fellow classmates, with doodles by Kellen, and scathingly rational critiques by Harvey. The kicker in this simple story is that Dwight, the school oddball and loser who designed Origami Yoda, wears Yoda on his finger, and delivers advice in a mediocre imitation of Yodas voice. Considering Dwights general ineptitude, it seems impossible for any of Yodas remarkably sound advice to come from this puppet-wearer.

This innocent novel (which is the first in a series) will surprise and enchant many readers with its weaving together of a humorous depiction of middle-school melodrama, the arc of Tommys infatuation with a classmate, and the wonderful mystery of Dwight.

Reviewed by Dana McMurray

Hot Happenings

MakerSpace offerings

Computer Electronics: 3-6 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays.

Do you have an interest in the Arduino platform? Come in and try out this and other electronics platforms during Computer Electronics time.

Community Creative Writing Workshop: 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The Community Creative Writing Workshop is an open, drop-in environment focusing on the creative writing workshop process.

Open Hours: 3-6 p.m. Tuesday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday.

Open Hours allows visitors to explore the resources of the MakerSpace, learn how to use its equipment, or to work on a project of their choice.

Watercolor Painting Class: noon-2 p.m. Friday.

Drop-in watercolor painting class for any level, featuring an individual approach for skill, and a group focus for subject and compositional techniques. Open to those ages 18 and up.

Computer Classes

Computer Fundamentals: 6-7 p.m. Monday.

Learn about the various components of a computer, managing your desktop, and how to open programs. No experience necessary.

My iPad and My iPhone: 12:30-1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

An introductory class for iPad and iPhone users who would like to become more comfortable with their devices. We will cover basic functions and navigation.

Registration is required to attend MPLs computer classes. Call 721-2665 to secure your spot.
MISSOULA  Jacob Bachmeier wasnt old enough to open the campaign bank account when he announced his bid for House District 28 last year. Neither was his high school friend and campaign manager, Daniel Almas.

I couldnt get a bank account because I was 17, Bachmeier said. We went to the bank on his 18th birthday so we could file our initial paperwork.

When the teen Democrat is sworn in as a representative for Havres House District 28, he will be the youngest serving state officeholder in the country. His 19th birthday is in January, making him just a few months too old to break national and state records set by officials who had been so young they could not vote for themselves in the primaries.

Montana has elected several legislators on the edge of 20 or just past it.

Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney was 22 when he started his first legislative term in 1977, former Secretary of State Bob Brown was 22 when he entered the 1971 session, this years state auditor candidate Jesse Laslovich entered the 2001 Legislature at 19, and former Laurel Rep. Sarah Laszloffy was 21 at her 2013 swearing-in. The youngest Montanan to serve in state office was Jack Uhde of Kalispell, who turned 18 a few weeks before his 1976 election to the House.

It is often difficult for college students or people early in their careers to commit the time to serve, especially in states with annual legislative sessions. But Montana's 90-day sessions every two years make it more manageable for people from a wider variety of careers and ages to serve.

In 2015, the average age of a Montanan was 48, while the average age of a legislator was 57. Millennials held 6 percent of legislative seats that year although they accounted for 29 percent of the state population, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Bachmeier is too young to even be considered a millennial. Nonetheless, he believes he is capable and his voice is valuable.

My perspective as a freshman in college is really important in making sure other generations understand what were going through, he said, calling his election an important step in encouraging more people his age to engage in governance. Young people can know if they want to run for office they can and that they can win. Their voice can be heard and they can make an impact.

CHANCE MEETING

Bachmeiers first bid for public office arguably started with a chance meeting in the grocery store parking lot.

Until a few months ago, Bachmeier had worked as a bag boy at Gary & Leos IGA in Havre. There, he carried out groceries for Greg Jergeson, a longtime state senator and Democrat from Chinook who was in the middle of his final campaign in 2014.

Youre Senator Jergeson, arent you? Bachmeier recalled saying.

Yes, I am, Jergeson responded.

Im a fan, Bachmeier said, talking himself into a volunteer position on Jergesons campaign.

As we got better acquainted, I found out his great-grandfather and I had served together in the Legislature, Jergeson said.

Charles Rex Manuel was elected to the House in 1973. Jergeson joined the Senate in 1975. In 1987, the Fairfield Democrat asked a favor of Jergeson: Would you pick my granddaughter to be a page? He did. It was Bachmeiers mother, who would later become a public school teacher.

Many teens worked with Jergeson's campaigns over the years. He often shared advice first given to him by his own mentor, Francis Bardanouve of Harlem, one of the states longest-serving legislators. Jergeson turned 24 years old just a few days before starting his first legislative session in 1975, setting the record as the states youngest senator. When he later spoke to high school government classes or worked with teen volunteers like Bachmeier, Jergeson encouraged them to consider running for office while they were still young.

Jake is the only one to take me up on it, he said.

Bachmeier saw no reason to wait.

Im impatient, he said, chuckling. I have these ideas. Whats the use in waiting 20 or 30 years to express those ideas?

He volunteered with Jergesons failed 2014 campaign and later was elected vice chair of the Hill County Democratic Party. He attended state officer conventions and learned more about the partys work statewide. He filled a spreadsheet with the names of legislators he admired, links to news stories about their work and contact information so he could call them later.

In 2015, he approached Almas in the hallway at Havre High School and asked him to be his campaign treasurer. Although Bachmeier knew Almas had little interest in politics beyond voting, he had known him since preschool and respected his work ethic.

Hes going to be my campaign manager when I run to become governor, Bachmeier joked, sitting with Almas in a study room at Montana State University Northern where they both are students.

Ill probably be his campaign manager again, but I dont know if Ill get much more into politics than that, Almas said. We dont have the exact same political views.

Its not so much a stark difference, but on some issues theres a couple degrees of difference, Bachmeier said. Im pro-gun but I would say hes more pro-gun than I am.

Im more of a moderate conservative and hes more the moderate liberal so there is that little space there where we do butt heads, Almas agreed.

Looking at the national landscape, Bachmeier wishes more politicians would be consensus-builders as he hopes to be. He also is frustrated by people who do not respect public offices if their candidate loses, something he saw with President Barack Obama and now president-elect Donald Trump.

This country has become increasingly divided over the years, and Im not that old, he said. When I was 6 years old watching George Bush and John Kerry debate, they respected each other. They had a level of decorum. Even when one lost, the parties came together on some issues and got things done.

One recent day, Bachmeier stopped by his grandparents house to talk about his early interest in politics.

Hello, Representative, Vickie Jacobsen said, walking toward the door for a hug. Well, did you have a busy day?

Yeah, nonstop. I was up pretty early this morning, Bachmeier said, explaining he woke up at 5 a.m. to do homework, took calls from colleagues about bills he might carry and spent hours doing research about the issues.

As Jacobsen went into a nearby room, her husband Cliff said, Shes a typical grandma. She's got a mementos stack."

SHARING STORIES

She returned with selections from her scrapbook file. As each piece was passed around the dining-room table, Bachmeier's grandparents and parents, Randy and Christine, shared stories.

Vickie Jacobsen held a class photo of 8-year-old Bachmeier in a red, button-up shirt, tie and glasses. She says he wanted to dress like "Mr. Politician" every day.

When he was 5 years old, a book about the presidents was at the top of his Christmas wish list. Around the same time, he started studying a scrapbook about his great-grandfather, Manuel. He plans to keep the thick tome of newspaper clippings and photos in his Helena desk.

Cliff Jacobsen held a Havre Daily News photo of Bill Clinton speaking at a March 2008 rally during Hillarys first presidential bid. Bachmeier had been standing at the back of the MSU-Northern gymnasium. When people in the packed crowd realized he wanted an autograph, they passed the 10-year-old over their heads and set him down at the railing near the stage's edge before the former president entered the room. The autograph now hangs on his bedroom wall.

His parents said they were not surprised when he told them about his plan to run for the Legislature. But they did worry.

I was telling Randy, Weve got to figure out a way to get Jacob to not do this because its brutal. Politics can be brutal, his mother said. We talked for a couple minutes and just shook our heads. No. No. Theres just no stopping him. Hes going to do it. This is what he was born to do.

He woke up earlier and went to bed later so he could fit homework around campaign duties. He sometimes answered emails from the press during class rather than doing course work. Bachmeier said campaign volunteers were ages 16 to 65 and together they knocked on thousands of doors in the district with almost 10,000 residents. After a long day, he recharged by spending time with his four younger sisters or his older brother, taking trips to the park or wrestling.

Cliff Jacobsen said so many campaign signs filled his garage that there was no room left for his car.

I just thought he must be crazy. And I literally thought that way for quite a while, he said, turning to look at Bachmeier as he spoke. I thought you had zero chance. But the closer it got, especially after the primaries, there was a point, about six weeks before the election, I thought, That kids gonna get in.

In May, Bachmeier received 656 votes, beating his primary opponent, former English professor Will Rawn, by 100 votes.

The New York Times ran a photo showing Bachmeier and Almas celebrating the win, pumping fists in the air. Young Bernie Sanders supporters in Florida who also were running for office saw the photo and invited Bachmeier to join their Facebook group. It turned out that he already knew one of them from a massive multiplayer online role-playing game in which thousands of teens run a mock federal government.

In real life, Bachmeier campaigned on three core issues: education, infrastructure and public lands. Improved access to mental health care became a fourth plank of his platform as he started to talk with community members about three high school friends who had each attempted suicide. He met with Jergeson to refine his talking points ahead of a public debate with incumbent Republican Stephanie Hess. This would be different than all the debates he won in high school competitions.

The stakes are a lot higher, he said. Its easy to get up in front of a room of people and give a speech when theres not going to be any real consequences. With politics, youre dealing with real people.

Last month, Bachmeier unseated Hess, securing 2,231 votes to her 1,943. Again, a Havre Daily News photographer captured the moment. Bachmeier stood on the Hill County Courthouse steps cheering as Almas shook an open bottle of sparkling cider.

In Helena one afternoon last month, Bachmeier sat at his desk in the House, a seat in the middle of the right section near the front. While talking about how he was inspired by his great-grandfather, he swiveled his chair and pointed to a desk in the row behind him, No. 36.

He sat in that very desk right there, the one on the end there.

Bachmeier reflected on his first caucuses at the Capitol and his first days of training.

Theres a lot of learning to do yet," he said. I definitely would like to term-out in the House. Whether I want to run in for another office in the future, its too early to say."
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A Montana fire crew member assigned to the Maple Springs fire in North Carolina died there last week, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced Saturday

Darryl Elden Vielle, 51, of Browning, was found dead in his room at the Phillips Hotel in Robbinsville, North Carolina, on Wednesday, according to the BIA. CPR was administered, but initial reports indicate he had died several hours earlier, according to a release from the Blackfeet Nation.

A cause of death was not immediately determined. An autopsy has been scheduled.

Vielle was part of an eight-person camp crew - responsible for distributing supplies to firefighters, loading trucks and maintaining Incident Command buildings - assigned to the Maple Springs fire Nov. 10. More than 300 personnel are assigned to the fire in the Nantahala National Forest, which has burned nearly 35,000 acres, according to InciWeb.

The Blackfeet Nation mourns the loss of Darryl and asks for prayers for his family, said Blackfeet Tribal Chairman Harry Barnes in a release issued Saturday. Throughout our history, members have stepped up in service to family, tribe and country. Darryl is an example of that call to service and this unfortunate turn of events does not lessen his answering the call.

Vielles remains were scheduled to arrive in Missoula on Sunday and receive an honor escort, provided by the Blackfeet Fire Management Team, from St. Ignatius to Browning on Monday.
The way forward for the University of Montana requires "inspirational leadership" from a new president and also collaboration among constituents  solutions from all who are dedicated to the flagship campus, according to two members of the Montana Board of Regents.

"Now is the time for everybody  for everyone who cares deeply about the University of Montana  to move forward in a positive way," said Regent Fran Albrecht, of Missoula, who challenged people to help UM move forward.

Last week, the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education announced UM President Royce Engstrom would step down Dec. 31 and a search would begin in the spring semester to bring in a new leader by July 1. Sheila Stearns, who served as commissioner of higher education from 2003 to 2012, will serve as interim president.

Paul Tuss, the regent chairman, said he is eager to hear from community members on the subject of new leadership at UM.

"I just don't want to short-circuit that process," Tuss said.

On Friday, one day after the announcement that change is imminent, Albrecht, Tuss and Commissioner Clayton Christian also briefly addressed the reason the decision to seek a new president came about now rather than earlier, even though enrollment has dropped for six years and the related budget concerns are not new.

"Everything is a lot more complex than what it seems from the outside," Albrecht said.

The regents were seeing positive shifts at UM, she said. UM brought on Vice President for Enrollment and Student Affairs Tom Crady, and the president made other changes in the cabinet "that were the right direction."

"And now, we are ready for the next phase, and the timing is right," she said.

In an email provided by the deputy commissioner for communications, Christian said his office decided the time was ripe. He did not address the reason his office didn't act sooner in searching for a different leader.

"It was a very deliberative, not reactive, decision," Christian said. "We are still relying on the UM administrative team and the UM faculty, staff and students to chart the path of this great university."

Tuss said he isn't sure the change came about after too long a wait, either.

"Certainly, through consultation with my colleague regents and the commissioner, now seemed to be the right time to make this move," Tuss said.

Deputy commissioner of communications Kevin McRae said the commissioner of higher education supervises the UM president. As such, he said, the commissioner has the power to notify the president that his annual contract will not be renewed.

Administrators such as the president must receive notification before Jan. 31 of each year, he said.

"If you don't receive notice of non-renewal, then your contract terms roll forward one year with the exception of any salary changes that the board might approve," McRae said.

Engstrom's contract runs through the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2017, so he will be paid all his salary and benefits through that date, he said. He did not have a copy of the current contract. The Missoulian has requested it.

The regents play a role in hiring a president, per state statute, but they don't play a direct role in employment termination, McRae said. However, he said the commissioner consults with board leadership on his decisions.

***

The new president will face challenges on multiple fronts.

UM needs to reverse an ongoing enrollment drop  24 percent of full-time students since 2010  and satisfy the budget and program expectations of state higher education officials. By some accounts, it also must remedy its branding and demonstrate that it's a thriving institution, not one in decline.

Albrecht and Tuss offered their hopes for the type of leadership a future president will provide and the effort that may take place to put the campus on sure footing.

"I think the University of Montana can emerge stronger than ever. That's a quote you can probably take home," Albrecht said.

She said the Commissioner's Office is consulting with advisers around the country about helping UM. Enlisting a "turnaround" agent  an expert at righting a listing organization  as well as public relations expertise are on the table.

"We are well aware that every step we take is really critical, and we're being careful in this discernment knowing that this is a pivotal moment," Albrecht said.

She said the regents and Commissioner's Office want to be thoughtful about their strategies, as well as expeditious. Christian has affiliations with national higher education boards and experts, and Albrecht said his office is receiving much support and advice.

"We will use the advisement of different firms to assist with that, (firms) who have worked with similar universities across the nation," she said.

Although UM needs help, Albrecht also said she sees much opportunity for a new president. The university has a rich heritage, a long history of first-rate faculty, and strong research, and she said a new president will capitalize on those gems.

"The right leader, I believe, has the opportunity to be a catalyst, to provide dynamic leadership to move the university into a great place," Albrecht said.

The campus will hold listening sessions to learn the attributes the community wants to see in a new president.

Albrecht shared some of the qualities she believes are important. UM's next president should be dynamic, visionary and strategic; the person should understand the "critical importance of interdisciplinary work across campus."

The leader should also understand how UM is relevant to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds and age groups.

"That leader has to understand the unique partnerships between economic development, developing the whole person, and responding to a student's unique needs," Albrecht said. "That person also has to have integrity and has to be able to make difficult decisions while bringing leadership together across the campus community  and across the region, for that matter."

Recruiting a president to tackle all the issues that need to be addressed at UM seems like a tall order, but Albrecht said institutions of higher education are struggling across the country. And new leaders will break the traditional mold and offer innovative strategies and a new blend of skills.

"It includes somebody who also has a business mind," she said.

The next UM president should understand academics, but also the economic implications of education and the need for a university to operate in a global context, she said. The person must also understand how to prepare students for society's quickly changing needs.

"Today's classrooms have to be much more dynamic and provide that application in a different way to different learners who are serving different needs in our community," Albrecht said. "So it's an exciting time, but it takes a different kind of leader."

Tuss said he said he would like to see a president who can provide "inspirational leadership." That quality is important at the top of any organization, he said, public or private, academia or not.

"I think somebody that exhibits the characteristics of inspirational leadership is critically important at every level," Tuss said.

In other words, he said, the person must relate on that level with myriad constituents, the student body, alumni, faculty, staff, political leaders.

Friday afternoon, President Engstrom sent a gracious note to the campus community expressing his thanks to people and his hope that UM will continue to offer students the best education.

"As Mary and I begin our transition out of the presidency, I want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of you for these past six wonderful years," he said.

Engstrom said the people at UM are the most passionate with whom he's ever worked, and he thanked those who had sent messages of support and encouragement.

"I will leave the office with nothing but warm feelings for the entire university," he said.

Engstrom also asked the campus to lend its support to interim Stearns and the commissioner, both "good friends and colleagues."

"Many important decisions and opportunities lie ahead, and I am confident that, working together, UM will continue along its path to greatness, a path that focuses on providing students with the best education possible, that produces some of the most impactful research and scholarship anywhere, and that contributes to the strengthening of our communities locally and world-wide."

He closed: "Go Griz!"
In an announcement that came as a shock to many, Missoulians learned this week that Royce Engstrom will be stepping down as president of the University of Montana at the end of this month.

Engstrom has led the university for the past six years through the most turbulent times in its history. He was hired as provost at UM in 2007 and was well aware of the crisis he was stepping into; it was one of the factors that made him a superior hire.

And he has done an admirable job navigating the university through the sea change it has experienced over the past six years. He has managed to maintain the highest possible academic quality, apparent in the numerous national and even international awards earned by students and faculty at the University of Montana. He has helped bring in record private donations to bolster a variety of programs both foundational and innovative. And perhaps most importantly, he oversaw a sustained, comprehensive  and meaningful  response to a rape crisis that badly tarnished the institutions reputation.

If everything else were forgotten, Engstrom should be remembered for tackling that crisis head-on, for working with the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to create exacting new standards for sexual assault prevention, reporting and response that became the national model for other colleges and universities to follow.

Engstrom has followed this with a series of difficult decisions, weighing how best to make budget cuts in the wake of continually declining enrollment. He reconfigured his administration to make enrollment a priority, and similarly, sought to prioritize funding in a way that makes sense for the university now and in the future.

***

Because of the tremendous challenges UM has faced  and Engstrom has fought  over the past half a dozen years, it may not be immediately clear to all that Engstrom was in fact the right leader at the right time. He was.

However, it is also evident that he is not the right leader for the university in the future. UM needs a change agent to help make it a relevant, attractive option for the students of tomorrow. That will require someone more tough-minded and dynamic than the quiet, thoughtful academic that Engstrom is.

As Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian said in a prepared statement, "a change in leadership direction is the right step for UM going forward."

The Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education will help the university launch a national search for a new president immediately. The search and selection process must be as open to the public and as transparent to students, staff, faculty and the wider community as possible. Promisingly, plans are already being made to hold a number of on-campus listening sessions for the public to weigh in with the search committee. Our vested interest in the fortunes of our university make our participation in the selection process paramount.

It is absolutely essential that the University of Montanas next president build on the solid ethical foundation Engstrom has put in place. The president must be willing to be held accountable to the university community, to Missoula and to the Montana taxpayers funding this public institution, and the only way to truly ensure accountability is to share information  even unflattering information  promptly and freely.

The other side of that means listening to the public, even and especially including criticism of certain unpopular decisions. Engstrom, for one, certainly got an earful over his proposed budget cuts, including the loss of some 200 full-time equivalent positions.

Staff and faculty at the University of Montana have a responsibility here too. Helping to position UM for the future will mean making hard choices about what to cut and what to keep. Simply saying "no" to every proposed change won't do.

***

The next university president must be able to develop a plan that maintains high academic standards and renews confidence in its ability to meet the changing demands of higher education. The new leaders must be willing to adapt that plan according to constructive feedback from the Montana University System and the public, and be able to communicate the universitys adaptive strategy.

The Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education and the Board of Regents have pledged to provide continual support in helping university leadership analyze its strengths and weaknesses and determine how best to reposition itself to make the most of its educational mission.

In the meantime, Sheila Stearns will act as the interim president while a new president is being found. A former commissioner of higher education, Stearns is deeply familiar with the University of Montana and with higher education in Montana overall. She was formerly chancellor of UM Western, UM's alumni association director and vice president for university relations. Once she takes over as interim president, Commissioner of Higher Education Christian will supervise the chancellors of Montana Tech and UM Western, and the dean of Helena College, so that Stearns may focus her attention on the Missoula campuses.

If all goes according to plan, and with enough community participation and support, a new UM president may be in place as soon as July 1, 2017. Hopefully, students, staff, faculty and all Montanans will join in welcoming the next president, and in pledging to do our utmost to help that person build the brightest possible future for the University of Montana.
OVANDO  Among the edible gingerbread houses, face painting, and horse-drawn carriage rides, the children whose families flocked to Ovando on Saturday for the 15th annual Old West Christmas Fest were clearly anticipating one thing  the arrival of Cowboy Claus.

Cowboy Claus, a close relative and devoted assistant of Santa Claus, was scheduled to visit the quaint town around 1 p.m., and anxious children and parents alike gathered around the main road, despite the freezing whether, and looked ahead to see if they could spot a Christmas saint. For a few moments, the town seemed completely silent.

There he is, a child gasped, pointing down the road at a man whose features resembled Santa, but whose hat and boots screamed cowboy. Cowboy Claus was right on time, and children grinned as he rode his Haflinger horse, Saint Nicholas, slowly down Highway 200 into town.

What a festive little Montana town, Cowboy Claus said to the scores of people watching, as Saint Nick came to a stop. Ill be in the museum to visit with children  and merry Christmas, everyone.

Cowboy Claus was the first of many to enter the Brand Bar Museum, a small, warm building dating back to 1892 thats packed with historic photos and trinkets. On Saturday, the museum was festively decorated, and Cowboy Claus stood in the corner with a lit Christmas tree and a saddle. Cowboy Claus did it a little differently than his cousin, Santa, and kids who wanted to request something for Christmas had to saddle up for photos.

Cowboy Claus, who is copyrighted in the state of Montana, specializes in rural children who have different Christmas wants, according to Ovandos Organizer of Frivolous Affairs, Kathy Schoendoerfer.

When they want ponies or ropes, Shoendoerfer said, he knows what kind. Then he reports directly back to Santa.

Shoendoerfer said Cowboy Claus has been coming to Ovando, and only Ovando, since 2001, and people from around the state come to see him. Some people come in from around the nation, and Shoendoerfer said Cowboy Claus was once even interviewed by a reporter from Chicago.

Were a very small town in the middle of nowhere, Shoendoerfer said. And towns like this have a tendency to just dry up and go away. We refuse to let that happen.

Kids of all ages saddled up next to Cowboy Claus to say theyd been good and ask for those special Christmas gifts  guinea pigs, ponies, horses, skateboards, dolls and dollhouses, to name a few. One girl even asked for a piano. Thatll be a full sleigh load, Cowboy Claus replied with a laugh.

Some children werent sure about Santas cousin and others, like 2-year-old Shea ORiordain, detested the saddle. O'Riordain broke out in a screaming fit when his father, Terry ORiordain, tried to place him on the saddle next to Cowboy Claus for a photo. That didnt stop his parents from snapping shots of the horrified child.

I hate to tell you this, Ovando Organizer Schoendoerfer laughed to the child, but this photo will come back and haunt you when youre 18.

ORiordains parents said the family has been coming to Ovando from Missoula to see Cowboy Claus for years, and all of their kids, other than Shea, adore the trip.

Prior to the arrival of Cowboy Claus, the Blackfoot Cattlewomen hosted the Bite of Ovando Cook Off, in which culinary masters competed to make the best meatballs, according to Terry Sheppard, treasurer of the Ovando Historical Society. Sheppard, like the other Old West Christmas Fest volunteers, was looking forward to taking part in the meatball tasting and judging.

Outside the museum were free sleigh rides, a tent serving doughnuts, and Tom Black, who was teaching brave participants to throw axes at a target painted on a log. Black, who has been throwing knives, hatchets and meat cleavers professionally for years, said people are always nervous to throw an ax at first, but end up enjoying it.

I do this with people out at Paws Up and they love it, Black said. Its something not everyone does anymore.

Black said he recently taught Kobe Bryant and the Real Housewives of New York City to throw axes. They loved it.

Still, with all the food and fun outside, the museum was packed with families ready to see Cowboy Claus, whose own son and grandson came from Helena to see him, just like everyone else.

"One of the first years I did this, a lady stopped me and said, We came all the way from Kalispell just to see you, Cowboy Claus said. And that sealed the deal for me. This is a big thing for a lot of people.
Erich Bloch, who helped develop the IBM mainframe computer that, more than any other machine, propelled the world into the digital age, and who then shepherded the internet into broader use as director of the National Science Foundation, died on Nov. 25 in Washington. He was 91.

The cause was complications of Alzheimers disease, his daughter, Rebecca Rosen, said.

Mr. Bloch became a computer processing pioneer after arriving in the United States in 1948 as a Jewish refugee who had been orphaned by the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. He went to work for IBM four years later.

In 1964, he made his signal achievement at the company when he transformed computing by introducing the System/360, the foundation for the modern concept of an operating system that would host a variety of computer programs.

The system enabled IBM to dominate the computer market for a quarter-century and provided the technology that now lets consumers bypass bank tellers with A.T.M.s and make travel reservations from home.
Nicht Ihr Computer? Dann konnen Sie fur die Anmeldung ein Fenster zum privaten Surfen offnen. Weitere Informationen
Describing what goes on at Synesis7 isnt an easy task.

But if you ask company founder and Chief Executive Officer Allen Ellmaker what goes on at his Butte-based company you might get an answer that goes a bit like this: Synesis7 takes large amounts of client data and converts it into a standardized format.

For instance, the company can take maintenance data from an airplane, automate its conversion using software, and use it to create a technical manual.

Today the company does mostly contact work with the U.S. Navy Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), but according to Ellmaker, getting his company to where it is today wasnt easy.

In fact, Synesis7 almost didnt happen.

Back in the early 2000s, Ellmaker was getting the company off the ground, and he had just been handed his first contract with NAVAIR, to the tune of $5 million, but there was a problem: he didnt have the capital to follow through on the contract. He had depleted his resources just to get the contract signed, Ellmaker said.

Although Ellmaker grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, he always had an affinity for the northern mountain states. So when it seemed as though his vision of starting his own data conversion company was in jeopardy, he called then Butte Local Development Executive Director Evan Barrett  whom he knew through prior projects with other companies  who said he would offer a financial package to the company if Ellmaker promised to locate his business in Butte.

Months later, with a BLDC loan in hand and also loans from the Urban Revitalization Agency and Granite Mountain Bank, Ellmaker set up shop on Alaska Street in Uptown Butte.

Today the company boasts 27 employees  and three of them are Ellmakers children.

His daughter Holly Smith is the director of human resources and administration, while his son Andrew Ellmaker is director of technology and engineering services. Meanwhile, daughter Heidi Kessler wears several hats in the company.

The longest stop weve ever been in is Butte, said Smith, explaining how the family moved around a lot before Synesis7 got started.

Before coming to Butte, Ellmaker held a variety of roles in companies that led the way in data conversion.

After spending three years in the Army after graduating high school, Ellmaker attended Florida State University, where he received a degree in business with an emphasis on management information systems.

His first job was with Electronic Data Systems, founded by none other than former presidential candidate Ross Perot.

Ellmaker said EDS managed data systems for its clients, including banks, Blue Cross and Blue Shield and various federal agencies.

Eventually EDS was brought by General Motors, which sold it to Hewlett-Packard, where Ellmaker worked as a software engineer, among other roles.

Pure and simple Ive always been involved in systems, software development and systems integration, said Ellmaker. [But] the big break for me was I ended up with Northern Telecom, which became Nortel.

Ellmaker said in the 1980s Northern Telecom was the first company to come up with a digital switch for the central offices of telephone companies.

They were three or four years ahead of the competition, and when they did that, their growth was amazing.

Ellmaker moved up in the company, becoming a member of the corporate strategic planning department of one of its divisions, but eventually decided to launch his own business, thus sowing the seeds for Synesis7.

It was always in my blood to want to go out on my own, said Ellmaker.

Currently Synesis7 deals in government contracts, but Ellmaker and Smith said they want to commercialize their products and sell them to the private sector by the end of 2017. The two said they believe the move will help the company expand.

As for living in Butte, Smith and Ellmaker said theyre living the good life.

Ellmaker noted that by locating outside a hub like Silicon Valley or New York, hes being going against the grain of industry thinking.

However, locating in a mountain state has come with a few challenges  after all, it takes a certain kind of individual to pack his or her bags and move to Butte to work for Synesis 7  but it also comes with benefits.

For one, Ellmaker said, in Montana hes been able to get to know his congressional delegation, which he said wouldnt be possible in other parts of the country.

But perhaps the greatest benefit, he said, is the support hes received.

You build relationships with people who want you to succeed.
Last week, I got the chance to chat with Allen Ellmaker, winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year award from the Butte Local Development Corporation (BLDC), and the chief executive officer of Synesis7.

Ellmaker spent a career in information analytics  from Electronic Data Systems, now owned by Hewlett-Packard, to Northern Telecom.

In the early 2000s, Ellmaker earned a contract with the Navy Air Systems Command for information and data transformation services. Around that time, Ellmaker decided to set up residence in Butte and has been here since. Synesis7 now brings in millions of dollars in annual contracts to the community.

After an initial smaller contract, the client (was) happy  and soon we found ourselves in the (data) conversion business, said Ellmaker, because of our performance, the trust we gained with the Navy Air Systems Command, we started getting more and more contracts, more task orders.

We gradually started performing software engineering and development to various sections of the Navy through another prime contractor  including prototyping for the V-22 Osprey, Ellmaker continued.

Most of Synesis7s work involves logistics for the government.

To give you an idea on how large logistics is, over the total life cycle of any given program (aircraft), 75 percent of the cost is in logistics, which includes maintenance, said Ellmaker.

Utilizing proper technology to improve logistics drives down costs for public and private entities. For example, Uber is just a logistic company that connects riders with drivers. Because of their technology, Uber can offer lower rates than their traditional taxi equivalent in densely populated areas where large numbers of drivers and riders complicate logistics.

For many companies, theres so much data involved, and none of it has been integrated, and thats what we aim to do, said Ellmaker.

Synesis7 developed proprietary software that parses and transforms a variety of diverse data sources. Afterwards, it can output the parsed data in whatever format needed by the client. In common terms, Synesis7 helps companies understand and utilize their data. A simplified example of data conversion is transforming a written document to a digital Word document.

An important aspect of the information technology industry is that it can be performed anywhere. Ellmaker and his family moved to Butte through the help of the BLDC, but they have brought millions of federal funding back into our economy.

The knowledge and experience needed to aggregate and transform large-scale data is substantial, but because these skills are difficult to acquire, your value as a contributor is exponentially higher. Thus, the right talent will thrive anywhere, including here in Montana.
MISSOULA  Outgoing Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau said Friday she may apply to be the next president of the University of Montana.

"I think I have the qualifications and the vision, and I think it's an exciting opportunity," Juneau said.

Juneau is completing her second term as state superintendent. In November, the Democrat lost the race for U.S. House of Representatives against Congressman Ryan Zinke, the incumbent Republican.

Thursday, the Montana Commissioner of Higher Education asked UM President Royce Engstrom to depart on Dec. 31 and said a national search will take place spring semester for a permanent president. Former Commissioner of Higher Education Sheila Stearns will serve as interim president starting January 1.

The same day the Commissioner's Office announced Engstrom's departure, Juneau's supporters started signing an online petition calling for the outgoing superintendent to be named the next University of Montana president.

"With the news that Royce Engstrom is stepping down, Montana has the opportunity to catch a rising star in Denise Juneau," reads the petition at change.org.

Juneau has a law degree from the University of Montana. She received her English degree from Montana State University and a master's degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Tyler Gernant of Missoula said he launched the petition calling for a "dynamic leader" at UM. Gernant is elected clerk and recorder/treasurer for Missoula County, but he took action as a private citizen.

"My wife and I had long thought that Denise would make a great university president, but obviously Royce was there," said Gernant, a Democrat.

Engstrom's departure opens the door for Juneau to fill the job, he said, and she is "uniquely qualified for that position." Gernant said Juneau has been pushing up graduation rates as superintendent while UM's enrollment has been falling.

Montana Board of Regents Chairman Paul Tuss said he would welcome Juneau's application  along with those of other interested candidates. As superintendent, Juneau has served as an ex officio Board of Regents member representing kindergarten through 12th grade, and Tuss said she served admirably for eight years.

"Certainly, we would welcome her and other people that are interested to serve in this capacity, but most assuredly, we will indeed be conducting an exhaustive national search for this very important position," Tuss said.

Gernant, who lost a bid for the U.S. House in 2010, agreed a national search should take place. He said he did not believe instating Juneau would be a consolation prize after losing a statewide election as much as an opportunity to put a qualified person at the helm.

As an elected officer, Gernant also said UM has a vital economic role in the community. The petition estimates that the increased graduation rates pushed by Juneau's Graduation Matters initiative translate into an estimated $6 million boost to the Montana economy.

"As declining enrollment has hit the university, it's also hit Missoula," Gernant said. "So having a very dynamic leader in that position I think would help boost our economy as well."
Help needed for lunches for homeless

Help the Homeless/We Deliver distributes lunches every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 1 to 3 p.m. to Buttes homeless and less fortunate populations at designated locations around Butte.

Donations of money and food are needed to help sustain the program, according to Action Inc., which oversees the program.

If you are in need of the service, or if you would like to help, call either Clarisa Hogart at 406-782-4436 or Steve Fournier at 406-533-6878.

Service honors Armed Forces

DILLON  A service honoring military personnel starts at noon Wednesday, Dec. 7, at the St. James Episcopal Church, 203 E. Glendale, Dillon.

Anyone who wishes to thank and pray for those serving and who have served in the Armed Forces is welcome to attend. Details: 406-683-2735.

Standard seeks WWII vet photos

This year marks the the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. In honor of those who served in World War II, The Montana Standard is publishing a special gallery of images of local veterans who served at any time during the war.

If you or one of your family members served, send your photos to webmaster@mtstandard.com along with your name and phone number by Dec. 5. Also include a brief description of the photo, including the service member's branch of service, rank, and their assignment during the war.

PBS show in Deer Lodge airs Monday

MISSOULA  The Montana PBS series Backroads of Montana will celebrate its silver anniversary with the special presentation Why We Love Backroads: Fans Celebrate 25 Years, airing at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5, on Montana PBS.

The anniversary special was recorded Nov. 17 at the restored Rialto Theatre in Deer Lodge in front of an audience of friends and fans.

People will learn how the television program has made a difference for viewers from around Montana through special anniversary clips.

Pizza is topic at kids story time

Story time at the Butte Public Library, 226 W. Broadway St., starts at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec 6, in the children's room.

The subject is pizza, and youngsters will listen to books, sing songs, and do a Pringles taste test. All ages are welcome. Details: Cathy at 406-723-3361.
Too often healthcare gets wrapped up in political debate while forgetting the actual needs of people. The reality is that there are people hurting and they deserve help. My family and I know this all too well. Just over a month ago, my mother-in-law passed away after a long battle with Alzheimers. Consuelo was an amazing, brilliant woman. She was appointed by President Eisenhower as Honorary Consul to Peru, she was one of the most kind, hospitable people Ive ever known and she raised an amazing daughter that embodies all of her best qualities. Her battle with Alzheimers had a true impact on me. The reality is that healthcare is not simply a debate. Its real people, real needs and they deserve a system that cares for them.

Since coming to Congress, healthcare has remained at the forefront for Montanans. Whether its skyrocketing premiums, problems with Obamacare, or lapses in care, its obvious that the status quo isnt working. Our country must create a system that helps the most vulnerable while incentivizing solutions. As a freshman member, Ive made it my mission to accomplish these goals. With a Republican Congress and Democrat President, my focus has been on policies that highlight our commonalities, and Ive focused my attention on three bills:

-- First, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA): Montana and America have been struck with opioid and heroin addiction. Often times, good people are lured in by prescription drugs and then hooked into a vicious cycle of dependency. This comprehensive bill creates a task force of agencies to identify best practices for prescribing pain medication and establishes specialized grants for local governments, tribes, nonprofits and care centers. These investments will help protect, treat, and heal our neighbors.

-- Second, the 21st Century Cures Act: This bill is designed to help accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of new treatments and cures while solidifying Americas standing as the medical innovation capital of the world. There are 10,000 known diseases, but we only have cures for 500 of them. This bill specifically targets research and development for the deadliest cancers, brain disease, and drug research. Its imperative that we make critical investments so patients and families can be spared the devastating news of an incurable disease.

-- Third, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act: Mental illness affects all segments of society. Nearly 10 million Americans have serious mental illness, but too many go without treatment as families struggle to find care for loved ones. This bill makes critical investments in care, increases hospital space for mental health patients, incentivizes early detection and suicide prevention programs, and prioritizes rural care and telemedicine.

After hearing from Montanans and based on my own familys experience, I was thrilled to support and help introduce each of these bills. They will help the most vulnerable; those who are truly in need. In July, we scored a major victory when CARA was signed into law. Resources are already flowing into Montana to combat the drug abuse problem.

This year, the House overwhelmingly passed the Mental Health Reform package and the 21st Century Cures Act, but both sat idle in the Senate because of Harry Reids gridlock. That is unacceptable, but we remained persistent. We took another swing at the ball and this past week we packaged the two bills together, passed them again and now they await action in the Senate. I hope my Senate colleagues support these common sense reforms and get them to the Presidents desk.

When I came to Congress, I never wouldve guessed Id end up championing healthcare reforms. My 23 years in the Navy prepared me for many tasks, but healthcare wasnt at the top of the list. However, one thing it did teach me was teamwork is always the best way to accomplish a mission. After my familys experience, Ive been inspired to action. This was a true team effort, one that I was proud to support in every way I could. This is just the beginning. As we look toward the next Congress, I hope we continue reaching across the aisle in the spirit of progress.

-- U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke is a Republican from Montana.
The last time a large flock of geese were killed by the awful waters of the Berkeley Pit, it took less than a month for ARCO to tell us they had been poisoned  not by the lake of battery acid in our backyard, but by a grain fungus they had eaten before arriving in Butte.

They rolled out an official report they had commissioned at Colorado State University, blaming an acute aspergillosis infection. Until independent findings were made public, showing they had actually burned to death from the inside out, the official position of the company was the birds had coincidentally died on the toxic water after looking for a place to weather a lethal tummy ache.

This time we will never know the full extent of the carnage because the walls of the Pit are too unstable and the likelihood of collapse too great, to even get a craft out on the water to collect the carcasses. The Berkeley, once the ultimate expression of how far the people of this community were willing to go to keep the dream of Butte alive, has been neglected by those entrusted with that sacrifice to the point it has become a destabilized killer.

This is what happens when the powers that be, whether in government or business, think they are smarter than the people who live with their decisions.

Without an informed public in the secret proceedings, the consent decree that governs the Pit has had no accountability for almost a decade and a half. The waters have risen, the walls have collapsed, and the futile rifle shots are still ringing out, trying to flush the doomed birds off so they can die someplace out of the public eye.

Now there is an opportunity before Judge Haddon to at least make sure the public is part of the discussion for the tailings dumps, every bit as dangerous as the Pits murderous waters, which remain in our community. EPA, BP and all the other parties complicit in trying to keep the public out of the negotiating process, are once again asking us to trust their word, judgment, and company sponsored science.

Hopefully Judge Haddon realizes that had we relied on their word and science 21 years ago, this week there would have been thousands of dead birds in Butte, just more unfortunate victims of a bad dinner eaten somewhere north of the Mining City.
As many know, the residents of Butte have suffered a recent setback as they work toward an effective remediation of the Berkeley Pit. That setback is not a concrete loss, but a semantic one -- a statement from Atlantic Richfields lawyer Kyle Gray asserting that public access to ongoing litigation would make settlement pretty much impossible.

If we had the community in a room, together, and Ms. Gray had made that statement before a crowd, I can only hope it would have drawn a collective gasp. Her dismissal implicates us all.

We the people have been made out to be the root of every problem. It is a tempting narrative. By definition the worst and best live among us, and so we have been incrementally trained to see ourselves as unpredictable, our neighbors as untrustworthy, our mirror image as a blur of chaos and confusion.

In the context of a global culture, we are even more overwhelmed by ourselves. The Internet has spread our consciousness so thin that we feebly generalize multitudes in an effort to find common reference. This is a fallacy. We the people cannot think of ourselves as one thing, least of all the de-facto root of obstruction writ large. It is yet another line in the narrative that degrades the public intelligence and strips us of individuality, community, and power.

The people of Butte deserve transparency, and any dismissal of that right must be roundly rejected by all. We the myriad public are one.

-- Ken Grinde, Missoula
Remember Richard Nixon? He told us he was not a crook. But because of Watergate he had to resign. We got Gerald Ford. He had trouble falling down and had the misfortune of the bribes of Spiro Agnew. Oh yes, and he pardoned Richard Nixon. Then Jimmy Carter. A nice smile but what did we get? Peanuts! We got the Iran hostage situation and big oil prices. Then Ronald Regan. Some still think his administration was a bad movie. He supplied weapons to our enemies. He had more documented corruption than any other President. Then George H.W. Bush. He left with over a trillion dollar debt. Many didn't like his appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. We got bushwacked with the economy for the middle class. Then Bill Clinton. Many didn't like his NAFTA treaty. He failed to sign the landmine treaty. We got a lot of cliches and caginess from Clinton. Then another Bush. George W ... Many still remember his blunder with hurricane Katrina. We got an illegal unneeded war. The economy went down the drain and he left us with over a 13 trillion dollar debt. Then Barrack Obama. Unity went out the window. The nay sayers had no respect and would not work with Obama. He sent more troops into Afghanistan. What about Obamacare?
The county has worked tirelessly trying to help the cash-strapped MSE industrial complex stay alive, but some options floated by others are questionable or troublesome, says Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive Matt Vincent.

We have spent countless hours doing everything we can to try to get MSE out from under this debt, and we are continuing to do that as recently as today, Vincent said Thursday, a day after news broke that a $5.2-million loan keeping MSE afloat was on the market.

Vincent said the options could not include the county buying that debt.

It wouldnt be a good thing for us to do, nor is it anything we are allowed to do, he said.

He also said suggestions the county try to buy the facility just south of Butte raise serious legal questions and would be a bad game to get into. Theres concern among some officials that it would lead to other private entities in Butte seeking county bailouts.

But Dave Palmer, who won election as chief executive last month and will take office in January, said Friday he wants to explore all county options. They include the possibility of outright purchasing MSEs buildings and industrial machinery so they stay put, he said.

MSE employs about 50 engineers and staff who help clients research and develop products and industrial processes through engineering, drafting, prototyping, testing, and other means. It also provides laboratory and research and development services.

Although its high-paying jobs are at stake, so are the sites industrial test bays, laboratory, cranes, and other high-tech and heavy-duty equipment. Although much of it is idle now, a big fear is it could all be sold for scrap, losing any chance to lure future investors and companies.

Those fears took on more urgency when a $5.2-million loan MSE had with Philipsburg-based Granite Mountain Bank went on the market Monday. It was part of an original $5.6-million loan made in 2010 to keep MSE and its facility alive.

The loan was backed by some guarantees from the federal government, but over the past five years, MSE has only managed to make interest-only payments  and just doing that has required more outside financial help.

Whoever buys the loan could do any number of things with it, including foreclosing on MSE if it cant make payments and selling the 53-acre site and its buildings and heavy industrial machinery.

There is a Dec. 21 deadline for prospective buyers to submit bids.

Complicating matters, MSE is three years delinquent on its property taxes and owes more than $330,000 in payments, penalties, and interest, according to county records. It owes another $79,757 this year, with the first half due Dec. 15.

If nothing is paid, the county will be obligated to take action early next year that could lead to a tax deed and the county putting the property up for a tax sale, officials say. MSE could avoid that by simply paying its 2013 tax bill, however.

Numerous entities have been trying to save MSE, including its owners  the Montana Economic Revitalization and Development Institute  as well as business leaders, county officials, and the Butte Local Development Corp.

The countys efforts have been extensive, Vincent said, and included establishing something similar to a new tax-increment financing district that includes MSE. Property taxes raised from new developments in the district can be reinvested on projects to benefit the area.

Vincent said there also might be circumstances or steps that could lead to MSE's delinquent taxes eventually being forgiven.

But Butte-Silver Bow trying to purchase the debt is off the table, Vincent said, in part because it would be similar to a move the county made in 1998.

It set aside more than $2 million that year to use as potential backing on bonds for a proposed private tram to the Our Lady of the Rockies statue on the East Ridge. Commissioners repealed the financial backing in 2014 because  as it turned out  the county did not have authority to pledge collateral to back bonds for such projects.

Some people have suggested that the countys tax-increment finance industrial district, or TIFID, loan money to the new district that includes MSE so it could purchase the site.

That is something that has been suggested by people outside of the local government, Vincent said.

The only way that could be considered as an option is if the new tax district served as a short-term holding party, Vincent said, and someone would come in and take it off our hands and reinvest in it.

But Vincent said county officials arent entirely sure even that is allowed, and local government would be going down a real dangerous slope by taking steps to buy the site because of precedents it could set.

Palmer, who defeated Vincent in the Nov. 8 election, said he met with MSE officials and its owners and wants to explore every way possible to help. He needed to research possibilities more, he said, but they could include trying to hold off sale of the $5.2-million note or looking for ways to buy the equipment and machinery at the site.

It would be a shame, he said, if someone bought the site and salvaged it and scrapped the whole place.
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CANNON BALL, N.D.  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday that it won't grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota.
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
We can look forward to many opportunities to boost our economy through pro-growth policies and regulatory relief under a unified Republican government. Still, as this year draws to a close, a number of important victories are helping to set the stage for greater growth.

On the day before Thanksgiving, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its finalized requirements for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which meet the levels set by Congress.

Over the past few years, the EPA has proposed lower volume requirements for biofuels despite record harvests showing supply is not a problem.

To achieve American energy independence, we must utilize every available energy source. Ethanol and other biofuels provide more options for consumers and help lower prices at the fuel pump. It is encouraging to see the EPA following Congresss lead and opening the doors to higher biofuel production.

President-elect Donald Trump has expressed his support for the RFS, so more opportunities to grow our domestic energy production are likely to come. Under the Trump administration, I am hopeful we will also see movement on my bill to expand the existing waiver of EPA regulations related to the Reid vapor pressure of motor vehicle fuel to include E15.

Though E10 received this waiver decades ago, the same relief has not yet been extended to E15. These regulations prevent many retailers from selling E15 during the summer months when fuel demand is highest. Considering E15 is cheaper and less volatile than E10, there is no reason not to make it available to more retailers and consumers.

Arbitrary regulations have also caused hardships for rural health providers. At the end of November, the House passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which included my provision requiring the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to report on the economic and staffing impacts of physician supervision requirements on Critical Access Hospitals.

Rural providers know best which procedures can be safely performed in their facilities, but the heavy hand of the federal government makes it more difficult for these professionals to serve their patients. Based on discussions I have had with hospitals across Nebraskas Third District, I expect MedPACs findings will make a strong case for repealing the physician supervision rules outright and ensuring quality care remains accessible to rural Americans.

In November, the Obama administrations regulatory agenda suffered a major setback when a Texas judge issued a preliminary injunction against the Department of Labors overtime rule, originally scheduled to take effect December 1. This onerous red tape raises the threshold under which salaried employees qualify for overtime pay from $23,660 to $47,476 per year and sets it to increase every three years. I continue to oppose this executive overreach and have cosponsored legislation to overturn the rule.

Many Nebraskans, both employers and employees, have expressed deep concern to me about potential cuts to hours and wages resulting from these regulations. Employers are understandably confused about how to implement the new requirements and ensure compliance. With the Texas courts ruling, the rule is on hold and can be modified or blocked by the Trump administration.

As we prepare for the new administration, we should not lose sight of the groundwork being laid now to help build a stronger economy and more opportunity for all.
FirstRand closed the Guptas bank accounts because it suspected they were being used for money laundering, the banking group said in a High Court affidavit.

The Sunday Times reported that the affidavit was the first to be filed in the Pretoria High Court in response to an application from Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

Gordhan wants the court to declare that the government has no authority to intervene in the decision by the big four banks  Absa, FNB, Nedbank, and Standard Bank  to no longer do business with the Guptas.

In the affidavit, FirstRand CEO Johan Burger wrote that they terminated the business relationship because of the associated reputational and business risks.

Burger said they have an obligation to comply with international best practices, as it is expected from the SA Reserve Bank.

Apart from its obligations under South African law, FirstRand also has to keep UK and US regulations in mind  due to transactions and counter-party relationships not being limited to South Africa.

The full report is available in the Sunday Times of 4 December 2016.

Now read: Gordhan drops Gupta nuclear bomb to stop corruption
The Oppenheimer family has accused Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba of being captured by the Guptas, following his rejection of an application by the family for international flight permissions at its private air terminal.

This is according to a report in the Sunday Times.

The application is part of a move to boost a seven-star terminal for the ultra-rich at OR Tambo International Airport.

The Oppenheimers filed court papers this week stating that Gigaba must review and set aside his decision.

Gigaba launched a counterattack, calling the allegations borderline racist and that he is being thrown under a convenient Gupta bus.

The Gupta family did not respond to the allegations as they could not access the relevant court documents, stated the Sunday Times.

Fight for international flights

The terminal in question at OR Tambo was built by the Oppenheimers aviation company Fireblade.

In granting it permission to host international flights, it wants foreign dignitaries and celebrities to use the terminal without having to go through the main airport building.

Fireblade says Gigabas approval is vital for financial viability, stated the report.

The Sunday Times stated that the family appeared to have won Gigabas support after the minister said he signed a letter of approval for the terminal in January.

In October, Gigaba made a U-turn and said he had rejected the application.

The decision was reportedly based on security concerns raised by Denel and the need for public consultation.

There may be other commercial firms who may want to provide the exact same service, perhaps at rates that are more favourable to the state, stated Gigaba.

The Oppenheimers said the rejection is irrational and based on errors in law. The accusation of the minister being captured by the Guptas was also put forward.

The family said they have addressed all security concerns and received approval from the necessary border control authorities.

It was previously reported that the Guptas tried to use their influence over Denel to hijack the luxury terminal project.

The full report is in the Sunday Times of 4 December 2016.
Archived Results for Sunday, December 4th, 2016

Older Page 1
Contact: McCrory Communications

McCrory Communications govpress@nc.gov

Governor Pat McCrory and First Lady Ann McCrory will celebrate the 2016 Christmas and holiday season by hosting the annual Holiday Open House at the Governor's Western Residence in Asheville. The Open House will be held from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 3 and on Sunday, December 4. The public is invited to attend and admission is free.Brinda Caldwell-Ramsey, Director of the Community Enrichment Programs at A-B Tech Community College, Savannah and Samantha Ferguson, Taylor's Greenhouse, Yellow Branch Pottery, Bee Global, The Buncombe County Farm Bureau Women's Committee and others helped to decorate the residence with trees and rooms representing themes of western North Carolina. Governor McCrory and First Lady Celebrate the Holidays with Open House at the Western ResidenceAttendees will be able to enjoy specially-prepared holiday treats, and arts and crafts.The 6,000 square foot home and open pavilion on 18 acres of wooded grounds serves as a retreat for North Carolina governors and their families. It is also a meeting venue for various local, civic and cultural groups.Shuttle service to the Residence on Saturday will be provided from the parking lot of First Baptist Church, located at 5 Oak Street, Asheville, N.C.Shuttle service on Sunday will be provided from 300 Executive Park, Asheville, N.C. The last shuttle to the Residence will depart at 4:30 p.m. on both days.In the event of inclement weather, the Holiday Open House will be cancelled. Please call (828)747-9962 for weather updates. For detailed information on the Open House or rental of the Governor's Western Residence, please contact Trish Smothers at (828)747-9962.
"Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life."

Suspected Jihad in Ohio

Trump Muslim Refugee Plan

In the midst of the creation of the new government to be installed on Jan. 20, 2017, Ohio State University police officials identified a young Islamic Somali man as Monday's attacker who - while originally labeled a shooter - used an automobile and a butcher knife to assault eight people on the campus of the renowned school of higher learning.During the presidential election cycle, now President-elect Donald Trump had promised he wouldTrump also called forAccording to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population.Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showingand 51% of those polled,Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won't convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.The lone suspect in the Ohio State University attack that left 9 people wounded was finally identified as 18-year-old Abdul Razak Ali Artan after Americans were kept waiting for hours to hear the perpetrator's "pedigree" which is police jargon for parts of identity such as name, age, nationality, address, occupation, etc.According to campus law enforcement officials, Artan drove the vehicle into number of pedestrians at Ohio State University. The suspect jumped out of the car and began stabbing several people with what some claim was a butcher knife, while others IDed the weapon as a machete.A total of nine people were injured by either the car striking them of the suspect cutting them. A campus cop, responding to the active crime scene shot and killed the attacker, according to the OSU police spokesperson.Local and federal officials are refusing to say what might have motivated the attack, and gave no details about the assailant, including his identity and whether he was a student at the university.Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until the country's representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population.Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showingand 51% of those polled,Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won't convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.Mr. Trump stated during his campaign against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton,
President-elect Donald Trump's victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton was the result of a number of actions that the news media chose to ignore, but the American people still discovered. For example, an overwhelming number of law enforcement fraternal and labor organizations broke ranks from the rest of the unions to endorse candidate Trump. That included the federal officers with the U.S. Border Patrol, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and the nation's largest police union representing local and state police, the Fraternal Order of Police with more than 300,000 members and affiliates.Now many cops are urging President Trump and his Attorney General to rescind Executive Order 13688 which was meant to decrease the protection of police officers by reducing their self-defense capabilities. The goal was to appease rioters, activists and certain politicians who felt threatened by police officers based on "how they looked."Last year, President Barack Obama pushed his administration to implement his executive order to take away certain weapons and equipment away from local police and sheriff departments throughout the nation in reaction to police anti-riot tactics in which they utilized military-style vehicles and weapons.According to 13688, high-tech weapons, equipment and vehicles are to be confiscated from law enforcement agencies across the country by the Obama administration despite the country's sheriffs and lawmakers complaining that the equipment is more than ever necessary to protect communities from violence including incidents perpetrated by jihadists who are expected to attempt a repeat of attacks occurring in France, Belgium and other countries.Sheriffs such as Arizona's Joe Arpaio and Wisconsin's David Clarke have complained that losing armored vehicles and other equipment that are defensive not offensive will place police officers and sheriffs' deputies, in addition to their communities, at risk from violent crime, riots and terrorism.argues Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama.Rogers explained that President Obama had issued Executive Order 13688 after the anti-police riots in Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Maryland, and other riots. Amid the violence, there was outcry by liberal-left activists and Democrat lawmakers about the alleged "militarization" of the police while there was practically silence about the rioters looting and torching businesses.said former police officer and attorney Joseph Fitzgerald.explained Fitzgerald.Progressives in the Democratic Party and their fellow travelers - Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Eric Holder, the NAACP and others - were angry over the so-calledwhich the Defense Department initiated during the Clinton administration in 1997. The program allows the Department of Defense to send military surplus equipment such as armored tracked vehicles, camouflage uniforms and weapons to local law enforcement agencies at no cost to the departments or to the taxpayers. The program saved money and also gave agencies the ability to deal with criminals and terrorists who use advanced weaponry especially IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and WMD (weapons of mass destruction) such as chemical, radioactive and biological weapons.The list of banned items includes armored tracked vehicles, weaponized man or unmanned aircraft and vehicles, .50-caliber rifles and ammo, and camouflage equipment. Most of the equipment -except for items such as the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles - is meant to protect responding officers and first-responders.Sheriffs - who are elected by voters as opposed to police chiefs who are appointed and controlled by politicians - using the equipment are visibly outraged, saying that the main complaints were against the armored tracked vehicles which have saved lives in crisis situations, and double as rescue vehicles. For example, the New York City Police Department uses armored military vehicles - which they call bearcats - for responding to suspected chemical, radiological and biological weapons.The Obama administration hasn't banned departments from using such equipment; it only prohibits those distributed by the Pentagon as part of the 1033 program. But many of the agencies got their vehicles free-of-charge and cannot afford to pay for replacements, which will reduce the safety of police officers and deputies.Congressman Rogers also added in a letter to Obama said former police officer Iris Aquino, one of the Latino-Americans who admits she voted for Trump.
BEIJING  President-elect Donald Trump is unapologetic about roiling diplomatic waters with his decision to speak on the phone with Taiwans leader, a breach of long-standing tradition that risks enmity from China.

The U.S. severed diplomatic ties with the self-governing island in 1979 but has maintained close unofficial relations and a commitment to support its defense.

Trumps conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen drew an irritated, although understated, response from China, as Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday that the contact was just a small trick by Taiwan that he believed would not change U.S. policy toward China, according to Hong Kongs Phoenix TV.

The one-China policy is the cornerstone of the healthy development of China-U.S. relations and we hope this political foundation will not be interfered with or damaged, Wang was quoted as saying. Chinese officials said they lodged a complaint with the U.S. and reiterated a commitment to seeking reunification with the island, which they consider a renegade province.

After the phone conversation Friday, Trump tweeted that Tsai CALLED ME. He also groused about the reaction to the call: Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call.

The U.S. shifted diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979. But the governments in Washington and Taipei have maintained close unofficial ties and deep economic and defense relations. The U.S. is required by law to provide Taiwan with weapons to maintain its defense.

Since 2009, the Obama administration has approved $14 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.

The call was the starkest example yet of how Trump has flouted diplomatic conventions since he won the Nov. 8 election. He has apparently undertaken calls with foreign leaders without guidance customarily given by the State Department, which oversees U.S. diplomacy.

President-elect Trump is just shooting from the hip, trying to take phone calls of congratulatory messages from leaders around the world without consideration for the implications, said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Over the decades, the status of Taiwan has been one of the most sensitive issues in U.S.-China relations. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory to be retaken by force, if necessary, if it seeks independence. It would regard any recognition of a Taiwanese leader as a head of state as unacceptable.

Taiwan split from the Chinese mainland in 1949. The U.S. policy acknowledges the Chinese view over sovereignty, but considers Taiwans status as unsettled.

Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Trumps conversation does not signal any change to long-standing U.S. policy on cross-strait issues.

The Taiwanese presidential office said Trump and Tsai discussed issues affecting Asia and the future of U.S. relations with Taiwan. The (Taiwanese) president is looking forward to strengthening bilateral interactions and contacts as well as setting up closer cooperative relations, the statement said.

Tsai also told Trump that she hoped the U.S. would support Taiwan in its participation in international affairs, the office said, in an apparent reference to Chinas efforts to isolate Taiwan from global institutions such as the United Nations.

Taiwans presidential office spokesman, Alex Huang, said separately that Taiwans relations with China and healthy Taiwan-U.S. relations can proceed in parallel. There is no conflict in that, he said.

Chinas foreign ministry said Beijing lodged solemn representations with the U.S. over the call.

It must be pointed out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, Geng Shuang, a ministry spokesman, said in a statement. The government of the Peoples Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing China.

China is likely to be trying to identify whether this signals any intent on the part of Trump to alter long-standing U.S. policy toward Taiwan, Glaser said.

They will hope that this is a misstep, but I think privately, they will definitely seek to educate this incoming president and ensure that he understands the sensitivity of Taiwan, she said.

Last month, Trump had a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping during which Trumps office described him as saying he believed the two would have one of the strongest relationships for both countries.

Despite Chinas muted response Saturday, concern about Trumps policy toward China is growing, said Shi Yinhong of Renmin University in Beijing, one of Chinas best-known international relations scholars.

Tsai was elected in January and took office in May. The traditional independence-leaning policies of her party have strained relations with Beijing.

The call with Trump could convince people in Taiwan that the island can establish good relations with the U.S. and encourage (Tsai) to continue to resist pressure from Beijing, Shi said.

In Beijing, a U.S. business group urged the new U.S. administration to respect the status quo.

The new administration needs to get up to speed quickly on the historical tensions and complex dynamics of the region, said James Zimmerman, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.
At the Last Chance Pub and Cider Mill in downtown Billings, customers can smell the fresh apples on press day, and owner Sam Hoffmann is preparing to expand his selection in about two months.

The citys first cider house opened Nov. 15 at 2203 Montana Ave., the former United Glass building, and serves food, fresh non-alcoholic apple juice, malted cider made in Red Lodge, a pear cider from Oregon and Red Lodge Ales beers.

Hoffmann said hes awaiting a state winery permit, which will allow him to start making true hard cider on site with apples from Montana, Michigan and other places. Because its fruit-based, cider is considered a wine, but malted cider is a blend fermented like beer and permitted under the business beer and wine license.

Part of what I hope to be is one of the guys that brings cider to Montana, Hoffmann said last week while sipping on a St. Iggys, a malted cider with apples sourced from St. Ignatius in western Montanas Mission Mountains.

Hoffmann has operated Red Lodge Ales in Carbon County for about two decades and has for years wanted to expand into the Billings market and add cider. He estimates it could be a month before he gets his permit, then another month before hes ready to add as many as four more taps of cider.

Last Chance will serve about 15,000 gallons of cider in 2017, then aim at tripling production the next year, he said.

Hoffmann, a native of the New England states, said he enjoys the cider-making culture, where people with just a few dozen fruit trees can make their own batch and share recipes. Hoffmann has an orchard of about 175 trees outside his Red Lodge home.

Last Chance also serves food prepared by chef Jason Corbridge, founder of the popular Cafe DeCamp restaurant. The pub has about 20 employees.

The hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. The phone number is 406-534-8918.

Native American shop for sale

The owners of the Native American Nations store at 207 N. Broadway in downtown Billings are selling the shop and holding sales to cut down inventory.

According to the stores website, the owners are retiring and seeking $750,000 for the business. Inventory exceeds $1 million, according to the site.

Daryl Gylten and Feenie Whalen opened Native American Nations in 2008. They sell old tools, clothing, crafts, antique guns and other decor.

 A new coffee shop, Black Dog Coffee, is coming to the Sanctuary Spa complex at 1504 N. 24th St. W. in Billings.

A sign at the strip mall indicates Black Dog will be opening next spring.

Mall celebrates success

Officials at Rimrock Mall celebrated the holidays last week, and the $15 million in improvements made by owner Starwood Retail Group since 2013.

Representatives from Chicago-based Starwood flew to Billings Thursday evening for the gathering, which also attracted dozens of mall workers, other business owners and city officials, including Mayor Tom Hanel.

Starwood bought Rimrock in 2013 and has overseen multiple big renovations, including new spaces for Herbergers and H&M, a new outdoor facade, new flooring and improvements to common areas.

During that time, the mall has completed renovations for 15 new and existing retailers.

We look forward to continuing the success weve had, mall manager Devin Hartley told the crowd.

Mall spokesman Daron Olson added that Rimrock hired many local contractors, including Collaborative Design Architects, Swank Enterprises, Thuesen Sprinkler and Landscape and Fischer Commercial Flooring.

The mall also celebrated locally owned businesses and urged shoppers to visit them Saturday. Rimrock has 14 locally owned shops.

Commons 1882 honored

Commons 1882 announced it has been named the Restaurant.com best restaurant in Billings for 2016.

The award is based on reviews at Restaurant.com, a site that evaluates eateries worldwide, and a survey, according to Commons.

Commons is at 404 N. 30th St. in downtown Billings.

Library at Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut is installing a library outside its restaurant at 2636 Belknap Ave. in Billings.

The Little Free Library, shaped like a hut, is aimed at encouraging reading for kids. Customers can take books and drop them off at their pleasure, according to a news release.

The library will open 10 a.m. Wednesday. Officials at Pizza Hut will also give books to Newman Elementary School students to encourage reading.

Haikus from the valley

GE Capital

Farewell to good company

Brought by public funds
It used to be that saving trees, reducing carbon emissions, providing clean water and clean air, safeguarding the California Environmental Quality Act, promoting the interests of the middle class, and curtailing corporate greed were the hallmarks of the Democrat political agenda and what voters implicitly expect when they vote Democrat.

There would be much to say about the state of the national political scene but this writing is only concerned with the policies pursued by our local Board of Supervisors, all of whom are professed Democrats. But let's look at their record and what they have given us over the past decade in promoting that agenda. It looks very much one by Democrats-in-name-only.

The Walt Ranch development before them is seeking approval for the clear cutting of 14,281 mature trees including special species oaks. One should note that the project is owned by prominent Democrats. When the City of Calistoga approved the clear cutting of 8,185 mature trees and approximately 1,500 more for the roads of a luxury resort spearheaded by the nephew of one of the most prominent Democrat senators, the county never once submitted a comment of concern during the Timber Harvest Plan review period.

With the Walt Ranch approval, some 30,000 trees will have been sacrificed over the past few years and more than an estimated 100,000 will fall to accommodate projects already in the pipeline. The county has yet to give any signal that its insatiable appetite for winery growth and environmental degradation is waning.

This flies in the face of the efforts of the Napa Valley Land Trust, which owing to the generosity of our citizens has saved 57,000 acres and hundreds of thousands of trees. It also flies in the face of the U.S. Forest Service report that California has lost 102 million trees during the drought - 62 million alone in 2016.

The Forest Service "with public safety as its most pressing concern" has reprioritized $43 million of taxpayer funds to enact "safety-focused forest restorations."

Once again, the county's piecemeal evaluation of development impacts allowing it to render them "less than significant" one at a time fails to assign environmental benefit value to trees independent of any project. The curve of carbon emissions due to the unfettered increase of development is rising while the one of carbon sequestration from deforestation is falling. When these two lines intersect we will have reached an environmental crisis point of no return. County policies seem to consider the public safety impacts of deforestation as a mere nuisance to development. Shouldn't Democrats be the ones calling for action?

The unfettered growth of wineries attract ever more tourists and hotels which create thousands of the lowest paying jobs filled by commuters, exacerbating traffic congestion and the rise of carbon emissions, not to mention the degradation of the collective quality of life. But even these workers are finding commuting not worth their investment in time and expense. Busing them, as the City of Calistoga attempted, was discontinued due to lack of ridership. In the meantime, providing meaningful affordable housing for this increasingly skewed economy has been rendered a pipe dream. The winners are corporations and wealthy foreign investors who keep gobbling up the small family wineries which cannot resist their lucrative offers. Big business consolidation is happening before our eyes, eliminating competition and the romance of the wine country to the detriment of the consumer.

The county's forgiveness policies towards winery permit offenders circumvents the CEQA protections because these violations are grandfathered and are thus exempt from subsequent CEQA review adding ill-gotten value to these properties which are then flipped for profit with the county's blessings. Even worse, such policies fail to insure that grape sourcing violations are not finding their way into mislabeled wines in addition to facilitating an unfair business playing field for those playing by the rules. Meantime, violators are protected on a secret list at the county. What happened to the Democrat values of fairness and transparency?

Napa is one of the counties which has refused to observe the half-mile pesticide-free drift-radius around schools as many other counties have. This, in the face of our highest cancer incidents in the state among children and the second highest among adults. Yet the county approved the Syar mining expansion, close to a hospital and several schools even though its dust generating operations contain known carcinogens. Napa County has also failed to initiate programs for the reduction of widely suspected herbicide carcinogens. Instead, they hide behind the argument that poison "safe levels" have yet to be established so as to merit policy. Cancer rates be damned.

Increasingly, the unsuspecting and uninvolved public is gaining awareness, one which eventually will express itself into the political landscape. Sadly and most probably, in irrational ways.

George Caloyannidis

Calistoga
FARGO, N.D.  When Joye Braun and her cousin first began camping in April near the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers, she thought maybe 200 or 300 people would join their fight against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Braun said she could have never predicted that the camps population would swell into the thousands and gain support around the world.

Equally hard to predict is what will happen now as both sides appear as entrenched as ever. Concerned the pipeline will encroach on sacred sites and taint drinking water on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, protesters are hunkering down for a North Dakota winter. Meanwhile, the company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, remains intent on finishing the four-state, $3.8 billion project.

Looking in from the outside are academics who study protest movements and have been following the conflict in Morton County enough to offer some informed speculation on how the drawn-out, deadlocked situation may play out.

The hard thing about the pipeline is that theres no compromise, face-saving option really on either side that I can see, said Pamela Oliver, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Its just one side has to lose.

Many observers have compared the Dakota Access protest to the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee on South Dakotas Pine Ridge Reservation. But Dana Fisher, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, said the protest at Standing Rock reminds her of the Occupy Wall Street encampment of 2011 that spread from New York to other cities.

Like Occupy, the Dakota Access protest isnt just a one-day event. Its more than a sit-in, its like a live-in, she said.

Though unlike the Occupy movement, which did not achieve its lofty goal of eliminating social and financial inequality, the protest near Standing Rock has a specific aim: blocking the pipelines proposed crossing under the Missouri River.

With such a tangible, conceivable goal, Fisher said, the protest will likely keep growing as it resonates among indigenous people and environmentalists. Social media is amplifying this message extremely effectively, she said.

Oliver said if protesters succeed in blocking the pipeline, it could inspire others to wage similar battles and throw a wrench in the whole pipeline business.

That is kind of what happened to the nuclear industry, she said. The anti-nuclear protests were so effective in the 70s and 80s that essentially nuclear plants mostly stopped being built in this country.

Easement decision

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still considering whether to grant an easement to allow the 1,172-mile pipeline to cross under the Missouri just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

There is no set timeline for the review period of the easement, Corps spokesman Mike Whetston said in an email. We cannot speculate on what the outcome of this process will be.

President Barack Obama said last month the Corps was looking at ways to reroute the pipeline. But whether his administration will act on the issue before he leaves office in January remains to be seen.

On Thursday, Dec. 1, President-elect Donald Trump said for the first time that he supports the completion of the pipeline. Still, the effect Trump could have on the projects future is unclear, said Gail Small, a Native American Studies professor at Montana State University.

Small said transfers of presidential power take time, including the process of installing Trumps appointees to lead federal agencies like the Corps. And she noted that a presidents power is constrained by such agencies, which have broad discretion in making decisions about easements and the like.

The Army Corps of Engineers is the source of power, she said. Theyre the ones that have tremendous authority right now to come up with some alternatives.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple, a pipeline proponent, has urged the Corps to issue the easement. The governors spokesman, Jeff Zent, said he does not think its feasible to reroute the pipeline, which is finished in North Dakota except for the river crossing.

Scrap DAPL?

Aside from rerouting the pipeline or building it as planned, some say a third possibility is abandoning the project altogether.

Mark Trahant, a University of North Dakota professor who blogs about native issues at TrahantReports.com, said he thinks Obama could still sign an executive order that says proper consultation with the Sioux regarding the pipeline did not occur. Such a decision would create a delay of about six months, enough time for the price of oil to drop to a point where the project doesnt make economic sense, Trahant said.

Last week, the price of oil surged above $50 per barrel, reaching a 17-month peak but still well below the $96 average of 2013-2014.

To bolster his theory, Trahant pointed to a think tanks report, released in November, that says the pipeline is at risk of becoming a stranded asset.

If oil prices remain low and Bakken oil production continues to collapse, DAPLs capacity will quickly become superfluous, the reports co-author, Clark Williams-Derry, said in a statement. The Bakken oil industry has already over-invested in infrastructure for moving oil, and the Dakota Access Pipeline could simply add to the glut.

The report came from the Cleveland-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a group aimed at reducing dependence on nonrenewable energy. The report said Energy Transfer will miss its Jan. 1 deadline to complete the pipeline, which would allow oil producers and shippers to renegotiate their contracts with the company and seek concessions, weakening the projects financial footing.

In rebuttal, Energy Transfer spokeswoman Vicki Granado said Jan. 1 is not a contractual date; rather it was the companys original date for the pipeline to be in service.

Granado said the actual contractual date for finishing the pipeline is confidential. She would only say its much later and that the company is not concerned about it affecting contracts.

Talk to people

The governor and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have made calls for protesters to vacate Corps-managed land where camping is not permitted. The governor issued his order Monday, Nov. 28, due to the dangers of harsh winter weather. And the Corps has given campers a deadline of Monday, Dec. 5, citing the weather as well as the violent confrontations between protestors and law enforcement officials.

Fisher said the smartest thing officials can do at this point is just leave the camp alone. If the police go in and try to clear it, its going to spark much more violence and problems than just letting people be, she said.

North Dakota and Corps officials have said they dont plan to forcibly remove campers from the site. But the Corps has said people who stay may be prosecuted for trespassing.

Trahant said he believes the potential for violence continues to be an issue, and he fears the situation could spiral out of control. He said he thinks Governor-elect Doug Burgum, who takes office Dec. 15, could help the situation if the first thing he does is go there and just sit down and talk to people.

Burgum declined to comment for this story, and Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault did not respond to interview requests.

Granado said Energy Transfer expects ultimately to receive the easement and after that it would take 90 to 120 days to install the pipeline 95 to 115 feet beneath the riverbed. She added that construction is nearly complete in the other three states.

Just as confident is Braun, a community organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network and a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

On Thursday, as people were sledding, building snowmen and having snowball fights in the protest camp, Braun spoke of the unprecedented nature of the protest thats brought so many tribes together for a common purpose.

We know that we will win, she said. We know that this pipeline will stop.
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday unambiguously named Pakistan for promoting terrorism and said no amount of financial assistance can help stabilise the war-ravaged nation if "support to terrorists" from the neighbouring country continued. Ghani, in his blunt remarks at the inaugural function of the 6th ministerial 'Heart of Asia conference - Istanbul Process on Afghanistan', said military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists. "The state-sponsored sanctuaries exist in Pakistan. A Taliban figure said recently if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last for more than a month," Ghani said at the two-day event here on the development of Afghanistan, which is also being attended by Pakistan's de facto foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz. The Afghan President thanked Pakistan for its pledge to donate $500 million for reconstruction of the war-ravaged nation but, directly addressing Pakistan's top diplomat, said: "I hope, Mr. Aziz, that you use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan." Ghani shared India's concern on cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan and said the world needed to fight the "menace". "Afghanistan suffered the highest number number of casualties last year. This is unacceptable. Some (countries) still provide sanctuary for terrorists." The President said he didn't want to engage in a blame game at the event in this Punjab city that was being attended by leaders from south and central Asia and several western countries. He said he wanted clarification on what is being done to "prevent the export of terror". Modi, in his address, all but named Pakistan for supporting and financing terrorism, and urged the world to act against the forces that endanger peace in the entire South Asian region. "We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks. Support for peace alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action," Modi said. "Silence and inaction against terrorism in Afghanistan and our region will only embolden terrorists and their masters...." Modi said mere action against "forces of terrorism" was not enough and the world also needed to act against "those who support, shelter and finance them". Ghani earlier appreciated India's unconditional support for the economic development of Afghanistan and said the expansion of the key Chabahar port between India, Iran and his country was very important for regional trade and connectivity. He spoke about India's assistance in the construction of Salma dam -- officially called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam -- that was inaugurated on June 4, 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Ghani in Herat province of that country. The President said the Chabahar port development project "is very important for connectivity and commerce". India and Iran signed a bilateral agreement in May 2016 to refurbish the port on the Gulf of Oman that is expected to provide an alternative route for trade between India and Afghanistan. Thanking India for further assistance of $1 billion, the Aghan President said: "An air corridor will also be soon launched and will improve trade ties. "Some 20,000 Afghan students are studying in India. These students go back and help transform and reconstruct Afghanistan." He said India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached. "There are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan. We thank India for that." (Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in) --IANS vg/sar/dg ( 560 Words) 2016-12-04-14:18:12 (IANS)
Sources here said given that Sunday, December 4, also being Guru Tegh Bahadur's Martyrdom Day, the shrine was crowded.

"Apart from difficulties in ensuring security of VVIPs and VIPs, their (Pakistan delegation's) visit to Golden Temple today would have caused inconvenience to a large number of devotees," a source said.

On Saturday, after the senior officials' meeting of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process conference on Afghanistan's security and economic development, participants visited the Golden Temple after lunch.

On Saturday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani also made the trip to the holy shrine with Modi also distributing "langar" to devotees.

The sources said that two rounds of visits to the Golden Temple by VVIPs and VIPs were organised on Saturday.

"The Pakistan delegation's request for visit to the Golden Temple today was carefully looked into," a source here said.

"Given the aforementioned factors, it was not found feasible to organise adequate security for the delegation at such a a short notice."

--IANS ab/vd

( 219 Words)

2016-12-04-23:20:12 (IANS)
"It's about time we reunite. We have been in talks and something should materialise next year," Suriya told IANS.

Suriya and Gautham had previously worked in hit Tamil films "Kaakha Kaakha" and "Vaaranam Aayiram".

A few years ago, the duo was to join hands for Tamil spy thriller "Dhruva Natchathiram". However, the project never took off.

"Dhruva Natchathiram" is finally being revived with actor Vikram, and the project is most likely to happen next year.

--IANS hp/nn/dg

( 122 Words)

2016-12-04-12:12:13 (IANS)
Salman Khan's rumoured girlfriend Iulia Vantur has opened up regarding the bond she shares with him and said she is good friends with the 'Dabangg' Khan. The Romanian beauty, who is back in the city, recently hit headlines for lending her voice to Himesh Reshammiya's latest music album 'Aap Se Mausiiquii'. During the media interaction, Iulia could not avoid questions on Salman and their bond for long. She said, "As I said, we are very good friends. More than that, what can I say?!" Talking about the possibility of love seeping into this relationship she replied, "Every single story, I think you will make too much. There's a lot of respect there and because of him I could come to India and I love this place." The 36-year-old Romanian TV presenter also talked about the 'false reports' of her discomfort with Indian culture as she has allegedly expressed during an interview with a magazine in Romania. "Honestly when I left India I cried because I didn't want to leave this land. You see, life brought me here and so I am back and I am so grateful. There are a few reports that I am not comfortable with the Indian culture, but that is not correct," she said and added, "Let me clear that I love this place and all the people I have met here and I am grateful that Himesh gave me an opportunity, about which I never thought of earlier." (ANI)
Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi has rejected former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah contention that Pakistan can't be blamed for the unrest in the Kashmir Valley, saying that state sponsored terrorism in the region has to be laid at Islamabad's doorstep. "People from Pakistan who trespass the border, provoke the youth of Kashmir, who had faced atrocities in the past, are the same culprits who promote terrorism in the country," he said. Azmi told ANI, "Pakistan is fully responsible for destroying peace in Kashmir, even though the government is unable to deliver justice to Muslims of Kashmir." Azmi, who is the president of the Maharashtra unit of the Samajwadi Party, suggested that the Instrument of Accession agreement done at the time of independence should be followed properly by the Indian and Pakistan governments and Kashmiris should get their rights. Azmi cautioned the regimes that there should not be any instance where wrong action takes place and the nation faces a negative reaction as a result. He asserted that governments need to be soft on Kashmiris and then only it can help in solving the long standing issue. Abdullah earlier in the day criticised the Centre for failing to take concrete measures to curb the unrest in Kashmir post the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani and said that it would be a "grave mistake" to always blame Pakistan and turning a blind eye to internal issues. "Simply blaming Pakistan for the present situation, then, it would mean that we don't have to do anything to prevent the unrest, which I think would be a grave mistake. We need to have talks internally, we need to solve this political crisis and until we are conscious of this reality, I don't think we can take any concrete action," Omar told reporters here. Omar's remarks came days after he reprimanded incumbent Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for the prolonged unrest in Kashmir and asked the latter to take responsibility for the same.(ANI)
Questioning Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz' presence in Amritsar for the 'Heart of Asia' conference, Congress leader Manish Tewari on Sunday took a jibe at the Centre and asked whether the former has been called to feed biriyani. "The fundamental question is what Mr Sartaj Aziz is doing in Amritsar. If this government was indeed wanting to corner Pakistan on terror and they believe that terror and talks should not go hand in hand, so have they called Mr Sartaj Aziz to Amritsar to feed him Amritsari Kulcha or biriyani?" Tewari told ANI. The Congress leader said when the ruling BJP was in opposition, it kept on saying for ten years that talks and terror can't go hand in hand. "For the last 30 months, you are seeing flip flops, U-turns and somersaults including talking about terror with Pakistan. So, therefore, there is absolutely no coherence, no consistency, no tactics to this government's strategy for Pakistan and that's why the deep state of Pakistan has been running circles around India," he added. Asserting that Pakistan has not stopped attacking India, Tewari asked, "Where is the terror stopping that this government keeps on kowtowing to the Pakistani state?" The Congress leader's assertion came a day after Aziz arrived in Amritsar for the 'Heart of Asia' conference amid speculations that he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would meet for more than the customary handshake. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had, however, earlier this week said that talks were not possible amidst continued terrorism in Pakistan, a clear reference to the latest strike on the Nagrota base. The sixth 'Heart of Asia' conference will see the participation of representatives from over 30 countries including China, United States, Russia, Iran and Pakistan to discuss peace, cooperation and economic development in Afghanistan. The main ministerial conference will be inaugurated today jointly by Prime Minister Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. (ANI)
Police said the youth was identified as Ichar Egoba (26), a resident of Nigeria.

This is the fifth arrest of Nigerian nationals in last two months in the state.

The person is an inhabitant of Nigerian state of Lagos, came to Bangladesh from Turkey on November 10 last with tourist visa. His visa of Bangladesh remains valid till January 12 next.

According to report, Egoba entered into Indian village from Bangladesh and when villagers chased him, he took shelter in a house. He was beaten up by the mob and handed over to BSF.

Police is still clueless about his entry into India having visa of Bangladesh. UNI BB AKM 1146

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-1050756.Xml
A Parliamentary Panel has recommended the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers (Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals) to set up a mechanism to monitor all environmental concerns in coordination with all stakeholders. The Committee in its latest report has strongly recommended that the Department should also review the existing environmental safeguards in all projects under its ambit and make amends speedily wherever necessary. The Panel has observed that one of greatest concern arising out of chemical plants and industries was the pollution and degradation that it causes to the surrounding environment. The Committee was distressed to note that still there was so much wanting in the areas of proper effluent treatment plants, preservation of ground water and ecological health. The Committee noted that the model developed in Maharashtra in which wherever a treatment plant in Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation was to be developed, a part of infrastructure like road, electricity, water and transport, etc would be done by the Government and the cost would be taken care of by the industry. It was possible in chemical clusters too. The States concerned should be involved in all these aspects so that there can be a lasting solution. The Committee has suggested that the Department should seriously study this model and convince other states to follow on these lines. The Panel noted that since the initial cost for common effluent treatment plants were so high and the private companies were often not ready to foot that bill in one go, it may be necessary for the Government to come out with the investments for common effluent treatment plants and later on collect the money from the industries. Common effluent treatment plants are an essential component of any chemical/petrochemical project and the Government should ensure that the required funds are made available. Meanwhile, the Government in its reply has said that the chemical industry was an important constituent of the growing Indian economy and it was the mainstay of industrial and agriculture development of the country, providing several building blocks and raw materials for a number of industries, including textile, paper, paint, soap and detergent, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals etc. The Industries, particularly small industries, due to their limited size and scale of operation do not find it economically viable to install elaborate pollution control equipment. Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) are considered as one of the viable solution to achieve end-of-pipe treatment for effective wastewater treatment from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and thereby, reduce the number of discharge points for better enforcement. There are 28 CETPs in various states including Andhra Pradesh, Kranataka, Gujarat, and Maharashtra catering to the need of Chemical clusters. The financial support for the construction of CETPs is available under various schemes of central government including Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MOEF &CC) for all the states in the country. The CETPs are regularly monitored by state pollution control boards concerned to check their compliance. The Department has been taking up the issues related to chemical sector with MOEF & CC in the past, based on environmental concerns raised by various Industry Associations/Stakeholders. MOEF &CC is the Nodal Ministry for Environmental standards and their compliance in the country under the Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986.UNI NY CJ RJ 1145 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1050737.Xml
Hours after the State Board of School Education (BOSE) examinations ended in Kashmir valley, yet another school building was gutted under mysterious circumstances, official sources said here today. They said fire broke out in a government High School building at Sangadnad, Larnoo, Kokernag in Anantnag district last night. However, before the locals and fire tenders rushed from different parts of the district to control the leaping flames, the building was damaged. Police has registered a case and started investigation, they said. Fire gutted the school building, hours after the last paper of 12th class ended. The BOSE went ahead and conducted 10th and 12th class examinations, despite opposition by mainstream parties, separatists and students, who were demanding postponement of examinations till March next year. More than 30 schools were gutted in the valley, where all educational institutions remained closed due to the strike called by separatists since July 9, a day after Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Burhan Wani and two other militants were killed in an encounter in Anantnag. Killing of Burhan evoked massive protests across the valley, during which about 90 persons, mostly youth, were killed and several thousands injured in security force and police action. However, for the past three weeks, educational institutions are functioning during weekends after separatists announced relaxation in the strike.UNI BAS RJ 1235 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-1050780.Xml
In a no-holds-barred-attack, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani today spurned the offer of 500 million dollar made by Pakistan and accused it of providing sponsored "sanctuaries" to terrorists on its soil. On the other hand, he accepted India's assistance of one billion dollars, saying that the offer was transparent with no strings attached to it. Addressing the 6th Heart of Asia Conference here, the Afghan President gave mouthful to Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, leaving no place for its Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's advisor on foreign policy Sartaj Aziz to hide his head. "We thank Pakistan for their pledges of USD 500 million assistance for reconstruction of Afghanistan. I hope that you use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan," Mr Ghani said, rejecting the offer. "No amount of money can assist us, if there is support to terrorists by Pakistan," he said, adding that Military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists.More UNI MK CJ RJ 1300 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-1050809.Xml